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ELI5: Why only somethings work on touch screens, and others don't, fingers but not fabric? | This might have been answered in a ELI5 about touchscreens but I didn't really see an explanation about what works and what doesn't. | Most touchscreens work using something called capacitive sensing. Basically, the touchscreen uses a conductor to detect when something is nearby. The human body is also a conductor, and therefore it can interfere with the electrical field of the touchscreen. The screen uses this to detect how a human is interacting with it. Fabric does not conduct electricity, so it doesn't interfere with the electric field. | 25 | 38 |
ELI5: What happens between muscles getting bigger, and muscles that don't bulk but get very strong and dense? What's the difference? | That's not exactly how it works. But strength is affected by several factors; one of which is muscle mass. So a bigger muscle sill be a stronger muscle. However, you also get stronger through neurological adaptation, which basically means your nervous system learns how to utilize more muscle fibers, and exactly how to move in order to apply the most force. That dense, hard look isn't so much a result of training methods as much as body composition. When you get really lean, your muscles will look more solid, whereas if uou have more bodyfat, you'll look softer. | 18 | 52 |
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If white blood cells are constantly dying and being replenished, how do new ones “know” what antibodies to produce? | How does that “memory” work?
This comes from a friend asking whether the protection from a COVID-19 vaccine would be diluted somehow by a blood transfusion from an unvaccinated person. | When a T- or B-cell is activated by it's associated antigen, it proliferates, and those daughter cells differentiate into effector cells (helper, cytotoxic, regulatory for T's, plasma cells for B's) and memory cells. When the immune response is complete, the memory cells go dormant in your lymph nodes. If they are presented with a previous antigen and reactivated, they proliferate, and differentiate back into those same effector cells. | 15 | 16 |
ELI5: Why does applying more heat help with inflammation? (Eg heat packs, hot water bottles) | Inflammation is characterised by 5 signs - redness, swelling, pain, high local temperature and dysfunction. Big part responsible for these is the "pooling" of blood at the inflamatory site. Because of the high pressure of the blood inside capillaries it is forced outside their walls and into the surrounding tissue.
Now, for the first 24 hours it is wrong apllying heat, you should instead apply cold compresses, because heat expands the capillaries and makes it easier for thinga to get out. If 24 hours have passed, and enough outside liquid is pooled, it exercises pressure on the blood vessels and shrinks them, that's when heat can help get them expanded, so they can start collecting that external liquid. | 30 | 25 |
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do we know how chameleons "see" Things with two independent eyes? Is it integrated? Side by side? | To understand the way they "see" things, you can re-frame what you think eyes "do."
Eyes take what is in the world and translate it into something the brain can understand. Chameleons probably perceive the world just as the world is--their brain makes a map of what is 'out there' based on the light that falls on their eyes.
By the way, you own eyes do the same thing. You don't see the "input" to your eyes. You see the map of the world that your brain makes from the input. For example, you don't "see" your nose, even though it takes up a bunch of visual space in each of your eyes' visual input. (Close one eye and look for your nose to check!)
You also don't see details in the world except for a tiny fraction of your vision (the "fovea" in the center of your visual field). Want to check: hold your hand out at arms length and look at your fingernail and without moving your eyes, try and describe any detail on one of your other fingernails. You will likely discover that you can't. You cant even see details a few inches from what you are looking at. Whenever you look at something, you are looking with your fovea. Everything else outside of the fovea is "blurry" and much less colored. You mind fills in the blanks and you end up perceiving the world as clear an detailed. | 223 | 367 |
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ELI5: Why has my town installed dual traffic lights at a busy roundabout, I thought the point of a roundabout was to keep traffic flowing and replace traffic lights. | Roundabouts work very well when the traffic on both roads is approximately equal. Vehicles turning off one street create gaps in the traffic to let vehicles from the side street on, allowing an even use of the intersection.
But if one road dominates with only through traffic, then side street traffic has no opportunity to get onto the roundabout. So occasionally they need to put stoplights on the through street, to allow cross-street traffic onto the roundabout and clear. | 16 | 16 |
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ELI5: How much time has to pass before discovering and studying an old civilization/settlement/etc is considered Archaeology? | For example, studying Egyptian pyramids and ruins is Archaeology, but studying a mid 20th century warzone is not. At what point can we consider the study of an event, Archaeology? | Archaeology is the study of history through artifacts. If people don't actually remember what happened there, requiring other ways of studying it, then I'd say we have archaeology. Paleo-archaeology would be the study of ancient (whatever that means) history. | 20 | 90 |
Pauli Exclusion Principle (My head has exploded.) | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f9wcSLs8ZQ
Skip to 34:20 and watch for a little bit. Could someone explain this a little bit better?
Also, at 35:50 where he picks up the diamond and begins to rub it. How is every electron in the universe communicating with those in the diamond?
In layman terms or use analogies please, I'm still trying to wrap my head around this. | So in order to understand the part about communicating with every electron in the universe you need to understand that electrons aren't actually points, they are described by a wave function. One thing that this wave function tells us about the electron is the probability that the electron is located at any given point in all space.
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle makes this a bit easier to understand. Consider we have an electron sitting on a table with some momentum p. If we try to measure the position of the electron on the table we find that it will look kind of like it has been squished into a disk on the table. If we cool down the electron this disk will get bigger. If you give the electron 0 momentum, then the disk will be infinitely large.
Basically any given particle has a probability that it can be found anywhere in space, although that probability gets really really really small as you move away. In most cases this interaction is very week, but in some cases, such as nano-particles the distance is small enough that electrons in nearby atoms will be forced to occupy different energy levels giving rise to very distinct energy levels within the material. | 24 | 84 |
Does corresponding author matter? | Trying to settle a debate in the lab. A PhD student recently submitted a paper (lead author), and a postdoc in the lab was surprised that our PI got corresponding author. They felt it undermined the PhD student. Does this really matter? The PhD might not stay in academia so I guess it's safer but it is her work | The PI is almost always the corresponding author in many fields. If it is that PhD's work, they should be first author and that is their credit. Corresponding author with student affiliations is a bit difficult at they change in a few years, so PI as corresponding author is common. | 130 | 48 |
ELI5: What does Russia have to gain from taking over Crimea? | I understand Russia's only warm water port is located there, and about half the population are essentially Russian, but what do Russia and Putin have to truly gain from taking over Crimea? It seems like there's a lot more to lose than gain. | Crimea was a 19th century strategic necessity for Russia. It provided Russia with an effective navy in the Black and Mediterranean seas when those waterways were critical to Russia's economy and Russia faced European powers that might have tried to strangle its economy during wartime.
Crimea today is a feint designed to allow Russia to test the resistance of Europe and America to its imperial intentions in Ukraine. Most Russians consider Ukraine a part of Russia. The very seat of the ancient Rus people, for whom the whole country is named, is in Kiyev. Russian Maximum Leader Putin famously told President Bush that "Ukraine isn't even a nation". Ukraine has some of the most fruitful farmlands in Europe. The Ukrainian capacity for agriculture was a major point of Hitler's desires to destroy the Soviet Union - with Ukraine under German control, the Third Reich would have had food security and not be reliant on other countries for sustenance.
Russia clearly sees Ukraine in the same light. Russia + Ukraine is a much more powerful force than Russia - Ukraine. In fact, Russia - Ukraine may not even be able to sustain itself as a significant power, becoming more akin to a France or a UK - requiring alliances and collective action to really make a difference in world affairs.
Russia has played a long game in Ukraine since the breakup of the USSR. It has worked assiduously behind the scenes to keep Ukraine from doing the two things it thinks would irretrievably sever the Ukrainians from the Russians: Joining NATO, and joining the European Union. So far, Russia's interest in keeping Ukraine out of those entities has outweighed the desire of the Europeans and the Americans to get Ukraine into them. Everyone knows that either step would force a serious confrontation with Russia, and nobody is sure if Russia would blink and back down, or suicidally drag everyone down into the abyss rather than relinquish dreams of being a global superpower.
So buckle up, kiddies. This is one of the Big Ones. History is being made right now. | 108 | 51 |
If viruses aren't alive, what do scientists mean when they say the coronavirus can live on surfaces for hours? | Scientific papers will typically say “viable” rather than alive. What they mean is that the virus is still capable of infecting cells.
Think of a virus as a key, but a key made out of ice that is melting, at some point it will not be able to open the lock, then it is no longer viable. | 58 | 15 |
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ELI5: Manual settings on a DSLR camera | I have no idea what any of it does. | There are 4 basic settings, if you put everything (camera and lens) into manual mode, assuming no flash:
* ISO: How sensitive the sensor will be to light. Low ISO (like 100 or even lower) is not very sensitive (you need a lot of light to take the picture), but is the best quality. High ISO (like 1600 or even higher) is very sensitive (you can take pictures even if it is kind of dark) but is usually pretty noisy.
* Aperture: How much light is the lens going to let in all at once? Lower numbers (like 4.0 or lower) let in more light, but things that are not exactly in focus will be blurry. Higher numbers (like 16 or higher) let in ~~more~~ less light, but more things will be in focus.
* Shutter speed: How long is the shutter going to be open for? If the shutter is only open for 1/100th of a second or less, then less light will be let into the camera, but you will be able to "stop motion" more easily. If the shutter is open for a long time (1/30th of a second or more), then more light will be let into the camera, but moving objects will be blurry, and you may even need a tripod to keep the camera steady enough to take a good picture.
* Focus: If your lens is set to manual focus, then you will have to turn the focus ring to determine what depth the camera is focusing on. On some higher quality lenses there will be a depth chart on the lens itself giving you a rough idea of the focus distance.
If you want to take pictures in manual mode, you will have to balance the first three items depending on what kind of picture you want to take.
EDIT: Silly typo. Thanks thebluehawk. | 21 | 36 |
CMV: If a rule or law is being broken, and no one is negatively affected by it, there should be no attempt to stop it. | If I am not negatively affecting someone else, why should I be stopped from doing something? The thing that happened to me that triggered this CMV is as follows:
I've been giving my friend a ride to work, dropping him off then picking him up. I arrived a few minutes early, and pulled into one of 5 available handicap spots, which I am legally aloud to park in due to muscular dystrophy. I thought that since there are multiple spots available, I wouldn't be depriving someone else that would need it. Before my friend came outside, the factory's security guard approached my car and told me I can't park there. I had my blue placard perfectly visible, yet because I never had to stand up in front of him, he went so far as to tell me that I'm not handicapped (to be fair, you wouldn't think I was unless you saw me stand or walk). I wasn't depriving anyone of that spot, and I wasn't parked illegally either, yet I was still forced to move under threats of being arrested/detained while my car was towed.
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> *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!* | 1: Everyone's perception of "no one being affected" is different. A law is in place for a reason. If you don't think it should be a law, work to get it removed.
2: that example isn't right for your CMV because that security guard is a moron. | 38 | 25 |
CMV: White collar dress codes have no practical purpose other than to separate them from blue collar workers. | Blue collar workers wearing protective gear makes sense. You don't need any special suit to make a spreadsheet. Some of the common arguments I've seen to contradict this go along the lines of: studies show that wearing a suit makes people more productive. But it seems that these studies were only done in western nations, as I doubt putting a Saudi Arabian white collar worker in a suit would make them work better. The other most common argument I see is that, in client facing jobs, wearing a suit and tie gives off a sense of professionalism. But if you went back just a few years, having a woman work with clients would be "unprofessional." It can be true, but that doesn't make it any less classist, or sexist. It seems that these codes are only there for classism, to separate the blue collar from the white.
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EDIT: 3 days later, so many responses, thnks everyone | The dress codes also serve to separate white collar workers from people who aren't workers: e.g. customers, delivery personnel, and other people who may be in the building but not involved with work. If white collar workers had no dress code, it could be hard to tell them apart from customers, which would be problematic in cases where somebody is trying to find a worker among a large mixed group of people. | 1,249 | 2,367 |
What is the responsibility of a psychologist when someone shares suicidal thoughts with him? | Is it defined by the law, or by the psychologist ethiquette? Mostly in EU, but of course, any answers are welcomed. | Psychologists follow the Code of Ethics (2007). Failing to do so can have you banned from practicing. A client expressing suicidal thoughts is actually quite common, and is something that can be worked through. The only time a psychologist is required to break confidentiality and potentially get the police involved is if there seems to be an obvious or immediate threat toward the client's safety. For example, if they expressed they had been stockpiling medication to overdose or had a direct plan on how to complete suicide. | 33 | 17 |
[Economics] Is 'New Keynesian' economics actually Keynesian? | I ask because Post-Keynesian economists claim New Keynesians aren't Keynesian at all. | Modern New Keynesian models derive from multiple sources, some harkening back to Keynes in the 1930s, but most emerging out of the work of the 1970s. To fix ideas, let's use Woodford's and Gali's books as prototypes.
The basic building blocks of a standard three-equation New Keynesian model are:
1. Milton Friedman's permanent income hypothesis, as interpreted in Robert Hall's intertemporal optimizing consumer. This part is Monetarist, almost chapter and verse. (Friedman 1957, Hall 1978 JPE, 1988 JPE)
2. A model of firms' pricing decisions that combines elements of imperfect competition, forward-looking behavior, and price stickiness. This part is largely "Keynesian," though most writers accept some form of sluggish nominal adjustment. It is the key piece that differentiates New Keynesian models from their New Classical and RBC cousins. (Dixit-Stiglitz 1977, Taylor 1977, Calvo 1983, Rotemberg 1982). [Later edit: imperfect competition is *the fundamental thing* that separates NK macro from New Classical macro. Sluggish price adjustment is *the fundamental thing* that separates NK macro from RBC macro. More comments on request.]
3. A monetary rule that focuses exclusively on interest-rate adjustment and focuses on feedback rules. This part is truly "Keynesian" in multiple senses. (Taylor 1993)
4. A focus on rules over discretion, which is largely a holdover from New Classical thought. (Friedman 1968, Kydland-Prescott 1977, Barro-Gordon 1983)
5. Rational expectations, largely taken from the New Classicals. (Lucas 1972, Lucas 1975)
6. The key macroeconomic mismatch being deviations of the interest rate from its natural rate. This part harkens all the way back to Wicksell.
7. Macroeconomic fluctuations as emanating from both "real" and "nominal" sources. Half of this part emerges from the real business cycle literature; the other half from the nascent New Keynesian literature of the late 1970s and early 1980s. (Kydland-Prescott 1982 (real), Taylor 1980 (nominal))
One could certainly call New Keynesian macroeconomics "New Wicksellean macroeconomics" without much loss of substance. Similarly, about two-thirds of New Keynesian economics is monetarist (the consumption block is all Friedman, the Phillips Curve is half Friedman, and the Taylor Rule is half Friedman).
However, New Keynesian economics is "Keynesian" in the sense that it recognizes the importance of coordination failure, price stickiness, real rigidities, and other imperfections that can lead output to deviate from full-employment equilibrium. It is *not* Keynesian in that NK economics does not have a role for *permanent* deviations of output from full-employment equilibrium (though the adjustment process can take time). It is not Keynesian in that NK economics requires inflexible wages and/or prices to generate welfare-relevant business cycles, while Keynes believed that there could be welfare-relevant business cycles even in a situation of fully flexible wages and prices.
Nontechnical readings:
1. DeLong, "The Triumph of Monetarism," JEP 2000.
2. Woodford, "Revolution and Evolution in Twentieth-Century Macroeconomics," 1999.
3. Woodford, *Interest and Prices,* 2003, chapter 1. He spends a bit too much time distancing himself from New Classical and Real Business Cycle theories, but the history of thought in his introduction is useful. | 15 | 16 |
ELI5:How can I avoid sounding like a total prick when I tell people they've been fooled by hoaxes etc. | Empathy is the way to go, as/u/cleftscout mentionned, don't be *that guy* who likes to prove people wrong. Don't be antagonistic, don't preach. Empathise, get on the same level with them. "Oh yeah, the onion is awesome, they have a lot more satire at URL.com"
Moving a bit further from your exact question, into general sceptical territory. Sociological studies have shown that if someone holds a strong belief (whether it's "homeopathy is medicine", "There is only one God and Muhammed is his prophet", or "Dave Mathews band rocks"), they're likely to get entrenched in their views and reject any arguments or evidence to the contrary.
We humans are very good at motivated reasoning, that is finding evidence to support our pre-established views. And it takes a lot of work to be a good sceptic, that is finding the evidence and basing your opinion on that evidence. Our brains are still wired in caveman mode.
So the best way to change someone's mind is not to blurt out facts, it's not to prove someone wrong, it's certainly not making fun of them or their beliefs. The best way is to very slowly gnaw away at the edges. Find some common ground with the person and over months and years, show them neat things that may slightly contradict one of their beliefs, but not too much. Send them a link to a cool article, a neat science podcast, etc. | 59 | 143 |
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What role does homosexuality have in human evolution | Why didn't the genes that lead to homosexual development die off very quickly in the evolutionary development of our species?
The fact that people are still born homosexual, despite what I'm guessing to be years of evolutionary push back, leads me to believe that homosexuality plays a necessary (or at least interesting) role in our societal structures or ????
*Also, please refrain from making this an LGBTQ debate* | It's important to remember that the idea of a 'homosexual person' is a relatively recent, extremely social construct - even though homosexual behaviour is very natural (and as has been said, has been seen a lot in the animal kingdom) the idea of exclusive homosexual pair bonding or similar is not at all common - most likely, if our ancestors (say, great great great etc uncle fred) engaged in homosexual behaviour, he would likely also engage in heterosexual behaviour opportunistically - you can see what this might have been like by studying our closest living relatives, bonobos , who engage in a lot of homosexual activity (but still mate in a heterosexual manner).
Culturally the idea that a person can be 'a homosexual' rather than just participating in homosexual acts is very new - except for the last 200 years or so 'homosexual' as a concept didn't really exist, particularly not as applied to women - it's important not to look at evolutionary history with sociology goggles on. | 42 | 48 |
How do PIs choose PhD students? | Just curious as to how PIs pick their students? Assuming that all applicants have good academic background and the lab's has more than sufficient funds, what is it that determines one student gets selected over the other? What qualities or red flags do PIs look out for when deciding to accept or reject students?
How do PIs tell if one student has potential or not (assuming both cases of having worked together before and having never worked together before)?
Also, would a PI rather keep a bright student that is not neccesarily the most hardworking, or a hardworking student that isn't as bright?
Just out of curiosity! | Were they first in line to make it clear that they want to join the lab?
Are they interested in a project that needs more hands? Or one that already has enough people on it?
Do they ask the right kinds of questions?
Do they come across as being coachable? Are they enthusiastic about the prospect of the work? Are they likable?
Does it seem like they'll be a good lab citizen and contribute favorably to the lab culture?
If they did rotations in other labs, what did the other PIs think of them?
If they rotated through the lab, or even just hung out with the current lab members, what do the current lab members think of them?
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>Also, would a PI rather keep a bright student that is not neccesarily the most hardworking, or a hardworking student that isn't as bright?
They'd rather keep the one that produces significant publishable results in a timely manner with as little hand-holding as possible. | 98 | 88 |
ELI5: How do colourblindness correction sunglasses work? | I saw a video on Facebook today of sunglasses that allow colourblind people to see the full colour spectrum. I'm assuming that this is obviously doesn't work with black-white colourblindness, but how would it effect the most popular colourblindness disorders? I thought that this had to do with the inability to see certain colours, like red and green looking the same for example. I don't understand how looking through a specific substance could fix this? | If you take the most common case, which is red to green colour blindness, The persons red and green photopigments have more overlap than normal, making them unable to see certain colors. Colour blind glasses work in a way to alleviate this by creating a specialized lens that filters out specific colors.
You can use these filters to target specific photopigments so you can affect what wavelengths (or colours) the person can see depending on what colours they are struggling with. Just because a person is colour blind doesn't mean that the colour they can't see is completely invisible to them, they just need some fine tuning which means blocking out the overlapping wavelegnths to enhance the less common ones. | 40 | 96 |
ELI5 why are people so against automation in factories if it makes things safer and produces more goods? is it just that people are losing jobs? but there are different jobs that open up. | Often there are different jobs, but not the same amount.
Picture a factory with 10 workers. They replaces those 10 people with a machine. The new jobs that will open up will be machine maintenance, which is 1, maybe 2 roles?
Potentially the machine does so well that it's started to increase the workload. So now the company might need an extra person when the goods come in and one when the goods go out.
So you created 4 roles, which still leaves 6 people out of work. | 108 | 64 |
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Non-economist social scientists - What part of your discipline is not understood well among economists? How might an economist benefit from further study in your discipline? | sociology could perhaps inform economists relating to the workings of capitalism in general, and it's conception of "free"-market, specifically:
- the relations of political power influenced by/influencing the economic sphere, and it's consequences towards effective and real citizenship;
- the role varied social inequalities play in a so-called meritocracy;
- the understanding of globalization as an arena where different global versions compete, rather than an inevitable process or state that has been achieved;
- the role of the State (as economic regulator) in different geographical areas of the world-system - central, semi-peripheral or peripheral - and it's consequences over time;
- the social conditioning of taste, and it's implications in the definition and reproduction of class;
- or the irrational aspects of individual decision in the supposed all-rational marketplace. | 23 | 28 |
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CMV: Horoscopes are useless. | I have always been confused as to how people can believe that your future can be predicted and your personality can be dictated by the date of your birth and the constellations in outer space corresponding to it.
Horoscopes are like fortune cookies. They choose a handful of general statements, reword them, then they're handed out to everyone, and I don't think believing in that makes sense.
I understand that there are people who know it isn't true, but like it because it's fun in some way. I am referring to people who actually read their daily horoscopes and make it a conscious part of their day. How?? Why??
I am of course open to changing my view on the subject, I just need some justification.
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> *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!* | Well...
Due to the vague nature of the horoscope, the reader can interpret whatever they want into it. "Times are good to make a change" "Be thoughtful of those around you" "Look out for troubles, but you can overcome them". For people who are uncertain and indecisive, a horoscope can be used to justify taking the action that they wanted to, but didn't dare to do without input. Or conversely, it can be used as justification to *not* do what they were afraid to do.
Incidentally, the Barnum effect (also known as the Forer effect or the personal validation fallacy) is the tendency in humans to believe that a personality analysis purporting to be about them specifically is correct. Psychologist Bertram Forer (1914–2000) showed the same profile, culled from horoscopes, to a number of students, telling them it had been based on a personality test they had taken. It included statements such as:
>You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage.
The students rated how well it applied to them personally on a scale of 1 to 5; the average score was 4.26.
| 10 | 15 |
Degree but no opportunity for a PhD position | Hi everyone,
I graduated earlier this year. At the beginning I wasn't really worrying about my career. i've always known I'd like to stay in academia and continue into a PhD program. Fast forward 6 months: I still haven't found a PhD position (I applied for one, but ultimately I didn't fit the lab and position), am struggling to find a job (I have some freelance gigs, but they are not enough to really cover my expenses) and generally feel really lost. So many of my friends immediately got a PhD position after graduating from their master's (at the same uni) and I'm here looking at job ads, but so far nothing has come up.
What makes it even harder is that my degree is in the humanities. During my master's I've focused on my grades and my job at uni, because my goal was to secure a PhD position. The result of this is that I don't have experience with anything not directly related to my degree. My degree, however, isn't particularly what you would call 'useful in real life'. Add Covid to this and there you are. No job and basically no way of getting out of this situation atm. I have applied for tons of jobs (you dont need a degree for) but I'm basically overqualified for most of them and have received more rejections than I can count. I know I can't go on like this forever, but I also know that my situation won't change in the near future.
I'm not sure why I'm typing this up really. Did anyone have similar experiences after graduating? Is there anything I can do aside from waiting? It's just really exhausting and I'm pretty desperate since I would like to get started with my career but it seems everything's just working against that. | Maybe have a chat with a job coaching agency, get a professional second pair of eyes? There'll surely be some specialized in jobs for graduates (it's a well-known general issue that people coming out of academia don't realize how many generalizable skills they have and what industry could be looking for, and not).
(Also, silver lining that may be helpful to you - a lot of people are absolutely miserable in academia, and if you had the kind of privilege that would predict having a good time you wouldn't be in this situation. Maybe you end if finding a good PhD position, and if so great, but I'd still seriously look at what's out there in all-of-not-academia, even if - maybe especially if - you always assumed you'd go the academic route.) | 12 | 16 |
Why does Water evaporate at all when not boiling? | The temperature of a substance as we describe it is more or less an average of the energy in all the molecules polled within a region.
Particles at the surface of water are actually at equilibrium with the air, with water from the air adding to the surface and some water on the surface being bumped free into the air.
Through collisions an individual molecule can get enough energy to break away no problem even if the average temperature it too low.
Because air is typically very unsaturated with water and dry, the equilibrium involves much more water escaping than returning. As temperature rises so does the "forward" rate of the equilibrium (where forward is evaporation and backwards is condensation).
The Arrhenius equation can be used to model the rate of evaporation using an activation energy to represent how energetic a molecule must be to escape, the temperature, and a constant to refer to the substance in question (water).
Edit: Surprised nobody called me out on "temperature of a temperature". | 33 | 30 |
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ELI5: How do video games save the position of many objects? | In a game like Fallout 4 or Skyrim, you can rearrange furniture, create stacks of objects, or set off a bomb that scatters debris everywhere. When you save and reload, everything is in the exact spot you left it. How does the game manage to save and keep track of everything's location in such a large landscape? | The game saves the coordinates and orientation of each item in a relatively small area (like a city in skyrim) and does this for all areas. Interiors like houses are separate areas.
The state of the items are only loaded when you are in that area, it doesn't load the whole world at once.
If you haven't visited an area before, the state won't be saved as nothing has changed.
It's worth noting the game saves the areas as you leave them in temporary saves that get written out to your game save when you actually perform a save. | 29 | 49 |
ELI5: How come we can see a source of light extremely far away when the source only illuminates the area much closer to it? | For example, I'm sitting on my front porch which overlooks the town. Miles away I can see streetlights, signs, etc. How does the source project light to my location, yet doesn't illuminate my location?
Holy moly friends, thanks for the awards and stuff. I didn't think this question would spark so much interest, lol. I am thoroughly grateful for all your replies. | Absorption and scattering.
Unless your location is a perfect white, some of the light hitting it will be absorbed, reducing its intensity.
Then, unless your location is a perfect mirror perfectly angled to redirect the light to your eye, the light is scattered in every direction, further reducing its intensity.
The light *is* still illuminating your location, and if you could somehow turn off all the other lights illuminating your location, turn around to look away from the last distant street light, wait a while for your eyes to adjust, and then start flipping that streetlight on and off you should be able to see a difference (depending on just how far away the streetlight is).
But in the real world, turning off all other sources of light isn't really possible, most of the time. | 3,855 | 11,190 |
ELI5: Why are lakes rich in nitrates? | If it’s due to hills, how are the nitrates moved from the hill to the lakes? | Lakes are a natural collection point for water, and anything that the water happens to wash over during its journey. Rain gets into the ground and dissolves nitrates into itself, then washes into streams which wind up in lakes. | 39 | 73 |
[Skyrim] Why do shopkeepers hate quality enchantments? | Why do shopkeepers give you less money for your enchanted goods, the higher your enchantment level is? | Risk and demand versus reward.
Sure the adventurer might want to sell the vendor a +9 Ogre Slaying Knife (+9 versus Trolls) but that's such a single purpose item, very few shoppers are going to want that.
It's the sort of thing that could be advertised across the realms... 'Jack the Smith in Wheretown has the perfect ogre weapon !' And cause all kinds of ruckus for the town (maybe the troll king has a problem with ogres and mutinies) and draw one or two heroes from far and wide... but how long will he really want to keep it in stock due to the former reason?
Not to mention laying out a large investment on a weapon that's going to sit in a display case as a curiosity until then... | 42 | 43 |
How are multiple signals passed over wires (phone lines, fiber optics, etc...) without interference? | I was thinking about the old days especially when most communication was over the phone lines which I know to be multiple individual strands of wire spanning thousands of miles with various interconnections. But, if my neighbor and I are making a phone call at the same time, how do the lines keep those 2 signals entirely separate when its on the same line for at least a part of the transmission? | There are three basic ways. Either you send the signals at different times and then reassemble at the receiver (time division multiplexing), or you send different frequencies or colors (frequency division multiplexing) and separate at the receiver, or you encode the different signals digitally such that they all appear like noise to each other but you can descramble them at the receiver (code division multiplexing). The latter is very common in cell phones. | 34 | 31 |
What does the pineal gland do? | I have been reading some pretty amazing stuff about this small gland in the center of the brain. I have read that it can release serotonin, DMT and some other pretty serious chemicals. I have also read that it can process light, almost like an eye in the center of the brain. I am trying to sort out fact from fiction. | The main role that we know of for the pineal gland is to regulate circadian rhythms. . The pineal gland mainly releases melatonin, which is derived from serotonin but also releases other chemicals involved in your sleep-wake cycle.
Evolutionarily, the pineal gland is a quite ancient structure and in many animals, the pineal gland is connected to a third eye and has photoreceptive cells. As you can imagine, a gland that regulates sleep and waking would find it very useful to know when it's light or dark outside. While human pineal glands also have photoreceptive cells, their position in the middle of our skulls renders them more a vestigial artifact than functional.
In human beings, the pineal gland is believed to be involved in regulation of sleep-wake cycles, but we also have several other parts of the brain that are involved in that so the pineal gland has somewhat fallen to the wayside in terms of functionality here. | 18 | 40 |
ELI5 Why is it bad for young kids to weightlift? | Why do medical professionals advise against intense strength training for little kids? | Muscle development that outpaces normal activities for a child can have detrimental effects on bone growth. It can cause stress in areas while the bones are still calcifying, resulting in a multitude of different issues including: bone deformities, contractures, etc. | 27 | 21 |
ELI5:What makes certain wine unbelievably expensive? |
So like, why do some wines, made in recent years, sell for over $10,000 but wines made from vineyards just down the road, which experienced near identical weather conditions, sell for less than $50.
Is it entirely down to the manufacturing process, and if it is, how can the price gap be so wide? Or is it more down to the name a vineyard has.
If anyone actually has any experience working in a vineyard and can explain the process better than wikipedia, that'd be swell.
| The price gap is supply and demand, for certain prestigious brands.
So first of all, wine comes from grapes; and grape quality is dependent on many factors. Weather of course, but also soil, water, light, heat, and grower skill/decisions. AND of course, the actual grape vine.
Old vines produce less fruit - thus, smaller production, BUT generally more concentrated and intense. Younger vines produce more fruit, but you have to prune them - the amount of pruning affects the concentration and quality of the juice you get. If your options are 'n' cases of wine at $60/case (wholesale) or 'n/3' cases at $120, you're probably going to prune sparingly to get as much juice and wine as possible, without creating garbage. On the other hand, if you can make truly great wine and have a name for yourself, then the options are 'n/3' cases at $1000, or 'n' cases at $1000 - for a year or two, and then the price per case drops down to $100 because nobody trusts you anymore.
Then you factor in the slope of your land and composition of the soil (acidity, water retention or runoff), the light, the use of pesticides, mulch, etc..
So now you have some amount of good-quality grapes. How do you make wine? Do you make wine that's going to mature over 10-50 years, or wine that's going to be drinkable about the time it hits the market, late next year (like about 90% of the wine sold)? The former leads to more expensive wine, and is harder to sell - BUT if done well, can establish you over time as a top-notch winemaker. Or drive you into bankruptcy even sooner.
So this pretty much determines the pricing for most wines between $8 and $80. Above that, things get...complicated.
If you're in Bordeaux for instance, your vinyard is likely ranked by the government. Your wine has to meet certain standards of quality and composition, and much of it is historical. There are, for instance, only five first-growth houses, and only one of them was not defined as such in 1855. (Chateau Mouton-Rothschild, which got promoted in 1973). If you're one off those, or one of a limited few others who have a similar cachet, you can pretty much name your price. The thing is, most of their wine is sold on futures at auction, so basically it's "as much as someone is willing to pay." | 265 | 504 |
ELI5: In the world of video games, how do "engines" (Unreal, Unity, etc.) actually work? | I have a friend who works in video game design, and I am very into video games myself, but I have 0 idea how the coding of games actually works. I understand that publishers work with studios who use engines, but how do engines themselves actually work? is it through coding language, something more complicated, or something simpler? | Engines like those typically have the foundation in their code to already do what you need them to do such as terrain formation, models for bodies, water, objects, movement, etc. instead of having to start from scratch and code all those different parts yourself, you just use the engines’ framework to build your game from those assets instead | 24 | 19 |
Allowed electron orbits seem odd and purely a mathematical construction. Are they just theory but reality gives more laxitude to where an electron might be? | In A Brief History of Time, Hawkins explains the allowed orbits by saying only integer multiples of an electron's wavelength are allowed, otherwise after a certain number of orbits the electron's wave will destructivley interfere and the e- will disappear and you restrict your solution-space to discrete allowed orbits.
Does this mean we limit ourselves further to electron energies that have wavelengths longer than or equal to their orbital circumference so they can intefere? If the wavelength is shorter than the circumference would we not have a band of orbits which will never destructivley interfere and hence not limit ourselves to the simpler situation of discrete energy levels for the e-?
Also, as a mathematician, if space around the e- is compact these allowed orbits (to me) represent the limit points of allowed orbits and that in the real world you would have a band of 'effectively' allowed orbits which would be stable for long periods of time without ever collapsing into the nucleus or flying out into space.
The band might be small, but a band of any size at all would give an uncountabley infinite number of possible orbits in the physical world, hence when you come to describe the e- in the world of quantum mechanics you can't use the simplification of discrete energy levels which will messes up their representation when expressed as vectors. | If you're a mathematician, I'd recommend reading more rigorous sources than A Brief History of Time.
Electron orbitals are the stationary solutions of the time-independent Schrodinger equation.
The electron having negative total energy (where "zero" energy is defined by a particle at r = infinity, with zero kinetic energy) imposes boundary conditions which lead to a discrete spectrum of bound states.
The modulus-squared of the stationary solutions gives the probability density for where you'd find the electron in space if you measured its position. | 98 | 84 |
With sunglasses on, one of my computer monitors is almost unaffected, only slightly darker, and the other one turns entirely black. What about monitors or sunglasses makes them react differently? | Most monitors have a polarization layer on the screen that helps to greatly reduce any glare on the monitor. The effect is that light emitted by the screen itself is also polarized in a certain direction. If you then pass this light through another polarizer, such as polarized sunglasses, then depending on the orientation it may cause the light to be blocked (almost) completely.
The reason the other monitor doesn't have this effect is either because it has no polarization layer or because the direction of its polarization lines up with that of the sunglasses.
You can play with this by rotating your sunglasses (or the monitor, but that's less practical). If both the sunglasses and monitor have a polarization filter, then depending on their respective orientation the light from the monitor will be blocked or let through or anything in between. | 27 | 15 |
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ELI5: What is the actual difference between different blood groups? | Proteins on the surface of the blood cells. There are loads, but for the "normal" blood groups you think of, there are three different ones that are important: A, B, and one called "rhesus D".
If your blood has A proteins on the cell surface, your blood is type A. If B, type B. If it has both, type AB, and if it has neither, type O.
Separate to this, if your blood has the Rhesus D protein on its surface, you're a positive (+) blood group, and if it doesn't then you're a negative (-) blood group. | 47 | 30 |
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[StarGate] Why does the 7th chevron need to be explicitly entered? | As far as I understand, the 7th chevron-the origin-never changes. And even if it does, it's not up to traveler to change it. The variables are only the target coordinations, but the origin is constant. It basically has zero entropy. Why doesn't the gate calculate it internally? What's the purpose of entering it manually? Has there ever been a case, where a gate was activated with different glyph than its origin? | Once they discovered 8 and 9 chevron addresses, this becomes clearer. The origin chevron is used to initiate the dialing. If the origin chevron is the 7th chevron, the gate knows you're dialing a gate in the Milky Way. Otherwise, you would be dialing a gate much farther away, and would require much more power. | 49 | 70 |
How to read difficult philosophy books? | I'd like to delve deeper into philosophy, but as I read recommended text, I begin to get frustrated by how mentally taxing it is to comprehend. Often times I will get discouraged and stop reading. Given this, what kind of approach should lower level readers take when trying to understand philosophy? | I began by reading books that cover many philosophies by way of overviews and then you get a feeling for where your inclination lies. Your ability to focus on what you naturally relate to will make it more accessible. Plus you obtain a synthesis of different teachings. | 25 | 38 |
Is there a reason for Spinoza to define God as an infinite substance? | I've read through the first part of Spinoza's Ethics, where he presents his ontological argument and his ideas about the nature of God, and understood the gust of it. However, I noticed that Spinoza takes that definition of God kind of for granted and doesn't provide much arguments for it. So, does he give any arguments for that definition of God elsewhere or does he just takes it for granted and goes on from there? | The identification of God as substance, absolutely infinite, etc., so as to satisfy the demands of the ontological and cosmological arguments, is the typical way of identifying God in the tradition of natural theology. So in that regard, Spinoza presumably doesn't see that there's anything noteworthy on this point that needs defense. | 27 | 29 |
ELI5:Why is the 4.0 GPA scale used? | It seems like the 4.0 GPA scale isn't exactly reflective of a students academic ability.
For example, let's say 90-100 = A+ = 4.0 and 85-89 = A = 3.9.
Student A gets 100 in 4 courses and 89 in 1 course, resulting in a GPA of 3.98.
Student B gets 90 in 5 courses, and ends up with a GPA of 4.0.
I don't know about you, but to me Student A has a better academic achievement than Student B, but their GPAs say otherwise. So why is this scale used? | >For example, let's say 90-100 = A+ = 4.0 and 85-89 = A = 3.9.
I've never seen that scale before. I've always seen something more like:
97-100 = A+ = 4.33
94-96 = A = 4.0
90-93 = A- = 3.67
87-89 = B+ = 3.33
etc.
Thus Student A has a GPA of 4.08, and Student B has a GPA of 3.67.
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Could there combinations of elements we have not yet discovered that are harder than diamonds? | There are materials harder than diamonds, but most of those are quite specific combinations of elements which are difficult to create or maintain outside a lab. Industrial grade diamonds are cheap and easy to make, so diamonds will remain the go-to material for industrial needs. | 82 | 236 |
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I am a firefighter with a fluid dynamics question. When splitting a single 4" diameter supply line to two separate supply lines, why would I get more water from splitting to one section of 4" and one section of 3", as opposed to two sections of 4"? | So were were practicing filling tankers (trucks that carry 3,000 gallons of water each), and noticed something interesting. I will explain our setup. So we had a 10' length of 4" supply line coming off of a hydrant w/ ~60 psi of pressure. There was a manifold on the end of that section of 4" that splits it into two supply lines. Our initial setup was to run 50' of 4" off of one side and 50' of 3" off of the other. When filling two tankers simultaneously we noticed that both tankers were filling rather predictably. The one with the 4" was filling faster and the one with the 3" was filling at about half that rate.
When we had the materials necessary, I "upgraded" the 50' of 3" to another 50' section of 4". Now we have two 50' sections of 4" coming off of the manifold. This is where the confusing bit happened. When I would hook up and fill two tankers simultaneously, one of the tankers would get almost all of the water, and the other would get nearly nothing, until the first line was shut down. No one has been able to explain this to me. There are two essentially identical supply lines coming off of the manifold, why would one be favored so heavily. And why would the 3" line allow more water flow when partnered with the 4"?
[Sketch of setup](https://i.imgur.com/c9BCvUs.png) | I design multiple path processes every day. We've got a rule of thumb that anything less than five psi of pressure drop in the entire system can only be single path because below that point minor differences can cause massive maldistribution of the flow to the point that one of the passes can run dry... Sounds to me like this is happening in your system. You've reduced the total system pressure drop to the point that the water just flows easily down a single path without enough back pressure to force it down the other path that's available. Flow control valves on each pass solve the problem as do individual pass booster pumps if they're adjustable so you can balance them out... But basically you've just reached the practical maximum flow for your hoses without additional equipment. | 37 | 39 |
CMV:The relative progressiveness and acceptance that most diasporic Judaism supports is the result of historical marginalization, not fundamental differences from other Abrahamic religions. | I write this as a Jew, a fairly observant one. I love that Judaism, particularly diaspora Judaism, supports acceptance and tolerance. However, I believe that these good qualities are the result of historic marginalization, not fundamental differences in doctrine compared to other Abrahamic religions.
While it is absolutely true that Jewish religious texts support charity and kindness, so do the texts of Christianity and Islam. It can also be seen that in the instances where a Jewish kingdom or majority society has been established, these principals of kindness are often ignored. This can be seen as far back as the Hasmonean Dynasty(founded by the Maccabees). The Maccabees did not rebel to create religious freedom. They rebeled to impose Judaism on those in the kingdom. You see similar trends in many states that are dominated by Christians and Muslims. That is to say, in nations with a heavy majority of any Abrahamic religion, features of religious doctrines that call for charity and acceptance are often ignored.
Rather, I propose that the acceptance that much of mainstream diasporic Judaism promotes is the result of historic marginalization and discrimination suffered until the mid twentieth century. | Can you elaborate on what you mean by “acceptance and tolerance?” Do you have any evidence that Jews are actually more accepting than Christians? It sounds like you might be comparing progressive Jews with average or conservative Christians. | 10 | 32 |
CMV: Police misconduct settlements should be garnished from the offending officer’s salary and pension | I argued this once before, I’ll argue it again. In addition to supporting stripping police of liability protections and enabling them to be directly sued for misconduct, I believe any settlement should be garnished from the offending officer’s salary and pension. I also support taking the settlement out of the police department’s budget. Even if that is financially catastrophic for the cops and their families, and forces the department to lay people off.
If I fuck up on the job, I lose my job and have to face potential financial consequences. I was rear ended by a commercial vehicle. The guy who hit me probably lost his job and the settlement to come will see a spike in the company’s liability insurance premiums.
I believe the best way to enact change is to hit cops here it hurts: their pay, healthcare, and family security. So if a lawsuit finds cops guilty of police misconduct, their pension should be frozen and paid out of that. Anything left over should be garnished from the offending officer(s) paycheck. Even if it is financially devastating to them and their families. Everyone else in society has to face the music for their mistakes. Police are not special, and should not only be more vulnerable to getting sued into oblivion, there should be legal standards for how much a garnishment should be, meaning department cannot settle for something low.
The police have long made this an “us versus the public” issue, so be it. They can pay up, even if it means their family loses their home, goes hungry, or loses medical care. If you fuck up as a cop, I want to not sting, but burn and take a good while to heal. | We need to recognize that there are difference situations that can occur, that need to be treated differently. The current situation is broken, but removing all protections for the officers involved is a knee-jerk overreaction. What we need to do is ensure those whose rights are violated, or otherwise get injured by law enforcement are properly compensated. We also need to ensure bad cops are held to account, while protecting good cops from vexatious litigation, or being bankrupted for reasonable decisions made in the heat of the moment.
To outline the possible situations:
* Police Officer violates clearly established law and training - In this case, the officer should be personally liable, and the law enforcement agency should be on the hook for liability after the assets of the officer are depleted. This way the officer pays a big financial penalty, but the recovery of the victim isn't limited to what the officer has.
* The next case is where the police agency trained its officers improperly, leading to a violation of clearly established law. In this case, its the agency that should be held accountable.
* Then there is a case where the law wasn't clear, but a court rules that a right was violated, despite an officer acting in good faith. This is currently subject to qualified immunity, which should continue to be the case for officers, but the agency should still be required to compensate the person whose rights were violated. Also, to the extent qualified immunity is retained, it needs to pass a sanity test. There may be no case on point saying an officer can't steal your money during an arrest, there should be no need for one. Not only should there be no immunity, its acting in bad faith, and the officer should be on the hook personally.
* Finally, if someone is injured, or their property is collateral damage as a result of police activity, the agency should be on the hook for compensation. If a criminal set it all in motion, the agency can try to get their money back from the criminal, but should pay up front for the collateral damage.
We need to accept that law enforcement is challenging, and that good officers, acting in good faith, can make mistakes. They shouldn't be crucified for this, but the victims should still be compensated, and the best way to do that is to have the agency cover it. | 14 | 41 |
ELI5: Why are freckles or 'beauty marks' next to eye and on upper lip so common compared to others? | If you were to sample all people you would probably find that moles occur in equal amounts all over the body. Ones around the eyes and mouth are considered pretty, so people with them are overrepresented in art and media | 61 | 172 |
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ELI5:Why are major keys in music associated with a "happy" sound and minor keys associated with a "sad" sound in our brains? | A large part of it is cultural reinforcement, major and minor are very rough generalisations of what sounds happy or sad.
It's not fully understood but is thought the different intervals between notes react to the way the brain understands speech. Over our history our brains developed to recognise certain inflections in a voice's pitch as meaning the phrase is happy or sad.
A way of speaking where the pitch of your voice varies less is considered sad, your voice seems less energetic. In a minor chord the 2nd note is closer to the first than in a major cord. So your brain just sort of conflates the closer together frequencies to mean sadness.
It's not very accurate, since it's a clash of 2 fairly arbitrary things, there are many sad songs in major keys and happy songs in minor keys, but confirmation bias seems to override those. | 32 | 99 |
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Why is chickenpox more dangerous for adults than for children? | Simply put, the ability of cell-mediated immunity to resist intracellular pathogens decreases with age, so become more susceptible to new viral infection and reactivation of latent infections (like Varicella-Zoster virus AKA Chicken Pox/Shingles).
With age, thymic tissue is replaced with adipose tissue so ability to produce new, mature T cells in the thymus is eventually lost.
Therefore, a decreased ability of helper T cells to proliferate in response to antigens. So, antigen exposure produces fewer helper T cells, therefore less stimulation of B cells and effector T cells (so both antibody-mediated immunity and cell-mediated immunity response to antigens decrease)
Also, primary and secondary antibody responses decrease (decline is most evident after age 60).
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[General] Why do spaceships have wings? | 1. Some spaceships are designed so as to also allow for atmospheric operations. Even if it's just takeoff and landing, wings are useful.
2. Aesthetics. Like it or not, these are important.
3. If maneuvering thrusters are on the wings, away from the center of mass, they are able to apply more torque for the same energy, giving you a more agile craft for little extra cost.
4. Some systems are useful to have removed from the main portion of the ship. Engines and some weapons systems put out immense amounts of heat, so separation is helpful. Additionally, if engines are on the wings, a hit to one will leave the others operational, whereas having a central cluster of engines could see them failing all at once. | 38 | 15 |
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ELI5: Why are the Yen and Euro considered safe havens? | Whenever there's panic in the market these days, the Euro and the Yen tend to strengthen and the opinion by the analysts on TV is that it's because of a 'flight to safety'.
But with both central banks wanting a weaker currency to stoke inflation, why would buying the Euro and Yen be considered safe at all? | Say you are an Indian business man, you probably keep some money in Indian Rupees since you still do need to pay your workers and buy stuff like food, but the Indian Rupee is not a particularly stable currency so you would be smart to put your excess money into a more stable currency. The US dollar is the most popular choice, but generally 4 other currencies are also used as they are also considered to be extremely stable. They are the Euro, Yuan, Yen and Pound. To massively oversimplify the more of these currencies you have the more stable your assets are.
So when the dollar is weakening people will move some of their money to a place that isn't weakening, or is weakening more slowly. Usually most of the issues are relatively short term and these moves are as well, but with a little bit of luck you may even make money. | 39 | 85 |
How do you test the immune response integrity of a cell without killing destroying it? | Immune response is typically a coordinated and regulated response of lots of different cells. You wouldn't be able to see the whole response in just one cell, nor would that be clinically useful information if you could. | 181 | 802 |
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ELI5: why does diamond conduct heat better than graphite? | Heat in solids is primarily transferred by atoms vibrating the atoms around them. Diamond is significantly closer packed than graphite so an atom vibrating has more of an influence on the atoms around it and therefore heat transfers faster. | 505 | 575 |
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ELI5:Why some accents are loved while others are frowned upon? | Is some logical reason behind it, which makes the accent likeable. | It can be influenced by your own language and experience, but in general there's two contributing factors.
First is our expectation: "Frrench is ze lang-wajj of r-r-ro-MANCE!", for example. So if we're a bit romantic at heart a French accent may make us have a positive response. This has been influenced by the media too - certain languages and ways of speaking are often associated with villains in movies, for example; others are often associated with nurturing characters (Mary Poppins). And some are unfortunately tied to more redneck or primitive feelings (Disney Goofy's "Gawrsh!" and "Hyuck!", for example) versus the sophistication of a Cary Grant or Hugh Grant.
But a big part of it is some languages have a cadence and flow in them that is less guttural and harsh than others. Compare the "lilt" of an Irish person's speech against the guttural harshness of a German one or the abrupt jarring of a heavy Cockney accent. We're inclined to prefer the former due to its smoothness and flow. | 37 | 101 |
[Neon Genesis Evangelion] The Angels wanted to start Third Impact, Gendo wanted to start third impact, SEELE wanted to start third impact...why are they all fighting to stop each other when they all knowingly fight to accomplish the same thing? | Because the Third Impact could be controlled to an extent, each resulting in a different version.
The Angels wanted Instrumentality to be rid of the humans, since they were supposed to inherit the earth instead of humanity. This is what the humans were trying to stop, since the Angels would use the resulting mass of what was once humanity and assimilate it to bring back Adam. It would be an Adam/Lilith hybrid, but Adam dominant. It would have most likely destroyed its Lilith half if that happened. Only angels would remain.
Seele intended for Instrumentality to only be for their own council members, so they could all unite into a single super being. Rather than forming a sea of LCL, Seele wished to be merged inside an Evangelion unit with its own S² Engine, after destroying the Spear of Longinus. By placing their own souls within the body of a godlike being, and destroying the only weapon that can harm the body, they would effectively create an immortal God with a human soul which would represent the pinnacle of human existence, and live through all of eternity. Basically they wanted to somehow be in control of the world and all of humanity, even though instrumentality is supposed to remove any semblance of individuality when it happens. It would be an Adam/Lilith hybrid, but Lilith dominant. Only the super being would remain, probably indifferent to the presence of Angels since it overpowers them.
Gendo wanted Instrumentality to be with his deceased wife Yui again. This is what actually ends up happening briefly in the ending when all the human souls are collected into the black moon by Lilith. But when Shinji rejects it all the souls are redispersed since instrumentality has to contain all of the souls. It ended up being an Adam/Lilith hybrid, but Lilith dominant and then Adam was destroyed upon Shinji's rejection, leaving only Lilith. All the angels die as a result. Only humanity remains. End of Evangelion.
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ELI5: Why do traffic lights cost so much money? | From the Washington State DOT:
"It costs the taxpayer $250,000 to $500,000 to purchase and install a traffic signal. Electric bills and routine maintenance amount to about $8,000 a year."
Thats a ton of money. Or is it? | The cost includes paying people to examine the area to survey the area, design a plan, purchase the parts, and hire a crew to do the actual installation. The crew will have to dig up existing street to install the detection coils, dig holes for the poles to support the lights, and then repave and clean up everything once it's installed. Each intersection is slightly different, so while there may be some reuse from existing intersections, a lot of work still has to go in to a new installation. | 16 | 28 |
ELI5: How and why is Flash Player apparently such a security risk to users? | Everything I google and read keeps bringing up that it is full of security risks and holes, but nothing explains why. How does using this thing put my computer or information at risk? | Secure languages provide separation of code (the bit that does things) and data (the bits which have things done). They provide things like bounds checking (is the data being written bigger than the space you are writing to? is the address you are writing to part of the variable you think it is, or is it part of something else?) and strict type checking (is it the same fundamental type of thing?).
Flash doesn't have these things. And, it appears to depend on being 'mutable' -being able to construct new code, and then point to it and say "run this" which is a hugely flexible thing to do, but very hard to do securely.
Flash is written to be 'helpful' so its written to provide services which look like 'display this picture' but the same logic can be doing things in the background, the user isn't always able to know. So, it can do things you don't know are happening.
Flash is significantly less constrained than other things, in what it can do to your computer. It runs inside some tools which are not 'sandboxed' -that is are not confined to a kind of virtualized substate, where they cannot write outside of areas which are tightly controlled.
Flash can access your network. So it can set up to download extra code, including cracking code, which exploits other weaknesses in your host, and then allows it to be abused by other non-flash systems.
If you combine all of this, you have something which is very compelling for some people to use, because its so flexible, but that flexibility is the root cause of its massive insecurity. It should be removed, and people should move to using more secure frameworks to support 'actionscript' tasks like the sandboxed javascript environments built into the browser.
There is very little flash does which couldn't be done by something else. | 17 | 25 |
[Chemistry] If Hydrogen bonds to Chlorine, is there any way this can be ionic? | I know HCl is covalently bonded but is there the possibility it can be ionically bonded? | Every bond can be described as having some degree of covalent and ionic character. That 1.7 difference in electronegativity cutoff is just something we tell freshman students because they need something to memorize and regurgitate on exams. The greater the difference in electronegativity, the greater the percentage of ionic character in the bond.
HCl has a large degree of covalency to its interaction, but there is a significant amount of ionic character in there, too.
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I have come to the conclusion that pursuing a intimate relationship for myself would be selfish and immoral. Please CMV. | **EDIT 3:** There are sooo many replies to the original post and to threads. Going back and forth to check context and read original replies a lot of my orangereds are falling through the cracks. If you post and I don't reply within an hour, and you really wanted a reply, feel free to PM me. I'm trying my best, but I am also hearing a lot of repeating arguments. **Please try to read the thread and see if your point as been made already**, that would really make this less tedious and reduce my inbox!
**Original Post:**
I think it is important to know at the top of this description that I've never been in a romantic relationship of any kind. I have been plagued with various illnesses which affect my outward appearance and have made me, and continue to make me, unattractive.
That, however, is not the issue at hand.
Last August I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. With medication and vitamin supplements we can slow the progress of the disease, but there is no medication-- nor any medication on the horizon-- that can heal the damage, or truly halt the course of the disease.
I could go my whole life without ever being disabled in anyway, but then again, I could be crippled or worse pretty much at any time in my future.
In this way, I believe willfully entering an intimate relationship with someone else would be offloading a colossal and unfair responsibility upon that person to take care of me in such an outcome. It is one thing when an accident occurs unexpectedly and one partner must take care of another-- but to know that accident is considerably more likely than just random accidents and to put someone in that position is horribly selfish and morally wrong.
This is all besides the point that I doubt I would be appealing to anyone at any point. My many sicknesses leave me small, frail, pale and discolored. But should any of these things change, or someone happen to find me appealing, I believe it is morally correct to decline.
**EDIT:** I keep hearing the same non-argument to this, which is that I am somehow making someone else's decisions for them. As I have said repeatedly, a relationship is two consenting adults who each make a choice to enter into the relationship. My choice to foster and enter into the relationship is the one I am viewing as immoral. If you want to participate in this conversation, you should be presenting me with reasons why that choice isn't immoral, not reasons why **I have no right to make that decision in opposition to someone else's desire to be with me**. That is describing a non-consensual relationship.
**EDIT 2:** 88 comments and 8 upvotes. Upvotes aren't about agreeing or disagreeing, they are about making valid/interesting conversations visible. I think we can agree this is a valid/interesting conversation, and I still haven't heard a convincing argument so I'd like some more exposure. | 1) You are a person and you dont cease to be a person because of a disease.
2) MS is bad but its not a death sentence and you can still live your life if you take medication and if you slow the progression long enough you may see a cure in the near future (stem cells and new medications are being perfected every day)
3) It isn't purely your responsibility to enter a relationship. Its a consideration that both people have to make.
If you are honest about the situation and give the other person enough information so they know what they are getting into, then you aren't being selfish at all. You are being fair and opened and they would not be taken advantage of by you.
In every relationship one person dies. By your logic that would make every relationship selfish because one person will eventually leave the other behind.
Relationships aren't about the end result. They are about the equation before the result. | 27 | 76 |
ELI5: why do you feel nauseous or sick after staying up too long? | During sleep, our bodies replenish a lot of key substances which are necessary for the normal function. This is regulated by the 'circadian clock' which is just a fancy word for our bodies' sleep/wake clock.
When there's sleep deprivation, we have an absence of these key substances being replenished, and that in itself can cause some of these symptoms like nausea/headaches.
Alongside this, it creates stress on the body, and that activates our 'fight vs. flight' response. One of the effects of this response being activated is also having feelings of sickness/nausea.
It's a lot more complicated than that because there are so many things that work together, but this is the very basic gist of it. | 36 | 50 |
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Will NSF let me use student funds for summer salary during a no cost extension? | I won't be able to use all the remaining funds on my CAREER award before it expires in 1.25 years, so I'll need to request a no cost extension. The problem is that most of my remaining funds are for grad student support, but it's not nearly enough to hire a new student. Are they likely to let me use the remaining money for my own summer salary during the no cost extension instead? | Yes. The NSF doesn’t track (or care) how you spend your grant funds as long as it is more or less on the work you proposed to do. This isn’t something you even have to request approval for. You can just do it.
Edit: You need to request the NCTE. You do not need to request the use of the funds for summer salary instead of grad students. | 49 | 61 |
ELI5: In U.S. political debate, what does "globalist" or "globalism" mean? | This is a term that's been in the news a lot lately, but I'm not sure what it's supposed to mean. Usually it's placed in opposition to "nationalism" and "nationalists," but it seems to be more than just "the opposite of nationalism." | Globalisation is the phenomenon where increasing free trade and ease of international travel makes the economy less and less local. It is based on the theory (it's essentially proven to be true) that tax-free borders benefit both countries and is true of every two-country combination. It's problem is that some individuals in both countries lose their jobs, as people in the other country are either better or cheaper at it.
For example Costa Rica is better at Banana Farming than America, but America is better at building computers than Costa Rica. This means American Banana farmers lose their jobs to Costa Rica, but America gets all the Costa Rican Computer manufacturing jobs. | 23 | 31 |
ELI5: How does your eyesight get worse? | Worsened eyesight from aging is caused by the lens in our eye drying as we age and losing the flexibility it needs to help us focus
EDIT: To add to this top comment, others have added that in specific fibers that help adjust the lens begin to stiffen and fluid within the lens begins to crystalize
EDIT2: The lens is a small structure behind your pupil, not the cornea, the thin layer that covers the front of our eyeball
EDIT3: Genetics! The answer to your question is probably genetics | 2,365 | 8,517 |
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ELI5: Why do people tend to pace around when talking on the phone? | When you talk in person to someone, your brain connects elements such as the tone of their voice, their word choice, their expressions and their gestures all together. You essentially get visual feedback from the person you are talking to. You can see them, hear them, touch them and our brain understands that the person we are talking to is right here next to us,
However, when you are talking on the phone, the physical feedback you normally get is not there. So your brain tries to understand what is happening. Because it cannot really explain it, the brain transforms those emotional responses we normally get when talking to someone in person, to physical ones. That's why you get the urge to get up and stroll around the house when you are having a long conversation on the phone. Your brain is confused and because it cannot form an emotional connection to the person you are talking to, it fires up a physical response making you want to move around. | 154 | 101 |
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ELI5:The process of turning milk into bones | My understanding is that milk (and other dairy) contains calcium which our bones need, but the body can't use it without D3 which it creates by going out in the sun.
When you drink milk does the calcium build up in your system waiting for you to get some D3? Or does D3 sit in your system waiting for calcium?
What happens between the calcium and D3 to turn it into bones? | Milk doesn't actually help build bones. As
u/yellowyeti14 mentioned, milk actually hurts bone growth.
The idea that milk improves bone growth was a very successful marketing ploy that sounds feasible because it has a reasonable amount of calcium and calcium is useful for bone growth. This however isn't the whole story.
The whole story is that the lactose and casein in milk are acid forming once digested, and since calcium is a base, most of the calcium bonds to the formed acid and is neutralized. Additionally, there is usually more acid formed than calcium consumed, so your body actually starts pulling calcium away from its bones to neutralize excess acid.
If you want to build strong bones, eat green leafy vegetables. | 138 | 261 |
CMV: The law code should be no more complex than what can be taught to children. | The reason for this comes down to this simple explanation: **You can't play the game if you don't know the rules.** If you try, the rules become "do whatever you want, and don't talk to authorities". By the time you are an adult, you are expected to play the game.
I don't believe it's any coincidence that the countries with the most laws have the [highest per-capita prison population](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/uk/06/prisons/html/nn2page1.stm). In the US, we [literally don't even know *how many*](https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2015/06/06/how-many-federal-laws-are-there-again-n2009184) laws we have. For this reason, a study and book by Harvey Silverglate estimates the average American citizen unknowingly commits about [3 felonies per day](https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229).
There are many downsides to a system this complex.
* It makes *everyone* into yet-uncaught criminals. I think most people try to be good people, but it's not enough to keep you out of prison. In order to stay out of prison, you also have to lie (or at least not talk) about what you do, and you must also perform your actions in concealment.
* It breeds corruption in the population. Why try to follow rules when they are absurdly complex and you don't understand them? Why not break a rule you know about when you've already broken 10 that you don't know about?
* It breeds corruption in law enforcement. If a law enforcement officer wants to put a person in jail, all they have to do is follow them around and wait for them to break a law which the law enforcement officer knows about and the yet-uncaught criminal does not. In theory this allows them to use their power for good (like catching Al Capone on tax evasion). But there are plenty of instances of otherwise innocent people being locked up on technicality.
* It makes law enforcement's job harder. The first thing a lawyer will tell you is don't talk to police. The reason for this is you could accidentally incriminate yourself, even in a failure of articulation. Police require cooperation from the public in order to enforce laws. But an individual puts themselves in great danger by cooperating.
* Laws *must* be selectively enforced. There is no way to enforce them all without even knowing what they are. This creates an entirely separate set of rules all on it's own. i.e. "I can get away with this because the police don't care about it, I can't get away with that because law enforcement happens to be 'cracking down' on that right now."
There are many ways we can reduce complexity in the system, and things which I think most people agree on. For one, we can say "If there is no victim, there is no crime." Also, "a perpetrator of a crime cannot be the victim of the same crime", so a crime against yourself is not a crime. We can also say that all laws have an expiration date. So if you want the law to remain after 7 years (just for example), then it has to be renewed. This gets rid of many old and unneeded laws. Or we could also just scrap the whole law code and start over "ten commandments" style. These are not the limitations or even necessarily the methods themselves which we could use to reduce the number of laws. These just serve as examples.
So, CMV, how is it possible for a person to be a law abiding citizen in such a system? Or how is it not possible to simplify the law code? Or how do the benefits of such a complex system outweigh it's consequences on society? Or how are the consequences I've outlined wrong?
EDIT: My view has changed in one way - Many (but not all) of the profession-specific regulations do not need to be known by people who do not work in that field. There is no great need for an 18 year old to know all the intricacies of medical malpractice, but they should know that they aren't allowed to practice medicine yet and that doctors have rules. I still think many of these regulations can be done away with, but I can certainly see why new adults don't need to know the specifics of them. For this reason I'm going to go through the comments and award deltas to everyone who made a compelling argument about profession-specific regulations (it's a lot of people).
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> *This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please* ***[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)****! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | Laws aren't necessarily complex so much as they are incredibly specific, which is an important distinction to make. We arguably started with a very simple system of law, but the diversity of the human experience coupled with our desire for the law to give out reasonable justice requires us to get specific with how things are legally defined.
For example, if we had the flat law of "Do not kill other people." That's great. No one would disagree, and it's easy to understand. But, then life happens, and we start having issues. John kills Timothy, which should be an open-and-shut case. However, in looking at the specific details of the case, Timothy was trying to kill John, so John was acting in self-defense. Alright, let's modify the law to make it a bit more complicated, but not too hard: "Do not kill other people, except in self-defense." Okay, now we have Sally and Annie. Sally killed ten people, and Annie killed one person. Do we give them the same punishment, or do we need to punish Sally worse than Annie to ensure appropriate justice is being delegated for the victims? Now the law becomes "Do not kill other people, except in self-defense. Also, you have to serve 10 more years in prison for every extra murder."
Here's where things get fun: Annie claims she was acting in self-defense because the ten-year-old she killed was giving her a threatening look. Hmm, well, what is self-defense? Our law currently mentions it, but doesn't define it. Okay..."Do not kill other people, except in self-defense where self-defense is defined as an action taken by a reasonable person to protect their life. Also, you have to serve 10 more years in prison for every extra murder." Well, what's a reasonable person? Fine..."Do not kill other people, except in self-defense where self-defense is defined as an action taken by a reasonable person to protect their life and where a reasonable person is defined as someone with typical skills, knowledge, and mental capacities. Also, you have to serve 10 more years in prison for every extra murder." And, we can keep going on and on from here until we get to where we are at right now.
I don't think anyone would deny the system has some degree of redundancy and bloat, but it's certainly not the case that we decided to make it complex by design. It's simply that the law is designed to regulate society, and in order to allow a complex society, we must allow for complex regulation of it. | 416 | 909 |
How do some things get absorbed through lung gas exchange (Nicotine) but others don't? (Tar) | I'm essentially wondering how lung gas exchange works for substances other than air. Obviously anything besides air is going to be bad for the lungs but how? Does it leave a film like buildup? Is it permanent? How does vaping compare to regular air? | The chemicals in the tar are not very soluble in water (blood) and they tend to interact with each other more than water making it difficult to separate tar leading to a build up. The immune system has to remove the tar, which leads to inflammation and cell proliferation and long term it can facilitate the growth of tumors. Vaping has no tar, but it does have oils that can build up in a similar way. Long term effects of vaping are still largely unknown, its likely better than smoking but still far from healthy and possibly even more addictive. | 502 | 918 |
[Dune] Why are the members house Harkonnen such assholes? | Basically the title. I do not remember if an explanation was ever given. Were they just evil for the sake of providing an enemy for the plot, or were they motivated by something where they thought they were doing the right thing? | The Bene Gesserit had been intentionally cultivating these attributes for years. The Atredies house was bred to have all that was noble and pure; the Harkonnen to have all that was ignoble and devious. Combining the two branches was their ultimate aim, to reconcile these two human divisions with the birth of the Kwisatz Haderach. | 80 | 90 |
Very very very very basic question. | Considering the covid-19 pandemic, why is "Total number of cases in a country (ranked)" a more quoted statistic than "unit number of cases in a country (ranked)"? Is the latter tougher to interpret for the common man or is it more difficult to compute? Or is there some other reason? | Three issues here: one political, one educational, and one is somewhat of a statistical problem.
1) especially in US media, they want sensationalized stories and titles. "Most cases in the world" is a powerful and simple statement.
2) education: the per capita case count is slightly trickier to understand, and doesn't fit neatly into a headline
3) The more interesting statistical issue is around small sample sizes and confounding variables. The highest number of covid deaths per capita so far have been: Czechia, San Marino, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montengro, North Macedonia, Moldova, and Belgium. Many of these countries are small (small sample size) or remarkably different from the US in composition (i.e primarily urban). They are also less well known countries that have less influence over pop culture. Due to their small size, a high death rate doesn't necessarily lead to many deaths. San Marino for example has the 1st or 2nd highest covid death rate in the world (depending on source) with about 80 covid deaths. It's not sufficient to be an interesting study around the spread and missed prevention opportunities.
Some argue the ideal metric would be death rate among G20 (highly developed) countries. In that case, it's Belgium. They got hit very hard by covid, and it's because Belgium is particularly urban and an international center of politics, trade, and culture. And that's true, Belgium is not rural like the center of the US, it's more comparable to New York, New Jersey, or Massachusetts, all of which have had a **higher** death rate than Belgium (despite the US as a whole have a lower death rate). Unfortunately, these metrics around how to normalize and how to subdivide areas end up in almost circular arguments, primarily driven by people looking to point fingers at which government did the worst job protecting their people. If the media gets to pick the metric, they just keep the metric simple and use it to point at the US Federal Govt, and that's not unreasonable.
Edit: also let's not forget when Trump tried arguing on 60 minutes about normalized metrics that has now turned into a popular meme, but he argued for deaths / cases, and not deaths / population. The first one is a measure of healthcare quality and availability of testing, while the 2nd is a measure of how much a country was impacted by covid. Either way, Trump chose the metric simply because it made the US look better. | 17 | 16 |
Why did Germany produce so many philosophers? | I haven't delved into philosophy much yet, but from my layman's view it appears as if Germany produce a massively disproportional amount of philosophers. Germany produced Weber, Kant, Hegel, Nitezsche, and Heidegger, and I'm sure quite a few more I don't know about.
What was it about Germany that produced so many brilliant minds, especially in or near the twentieth century? Should we emulate what they did so well?
Also, I don't intend to be obtuse here, but does the quality that gave Germany so many intelligent thinkers also made Germany the only country that Hitler could have risen in? It seems astounding that a nation which consistently produces the most intelligent thinkers in the world is also one which succumbs to the greatest evil. | Germany, ~~England~~Britain, and France - and to a lesser extent, Italy - were the three biggest economically developed language zones (Germany and Italy not being "countries" until late in the game) from the early modern period on. This meant they were able to afford to produce the most intellectuals, and to this day in most academic fields English, French, and German are the most useful European languages to read, and hence also to write in.
With Germany specifically there's also the fact that the Prussian state was the first to introduce compulsory elementary schooling as well as the one to invent the modern research university, which inaugurated a form of patronage that allowed the existence of academic philosophers who only needed to justify themselves to other academic philosophers. This allowed philosophy to become much more abstract and, for the internal community of philosophers themselves, more prestigious and hence influential. | 50 | 39 |
ELI5: Why do some companies file bankruptcy but keep operating, while others dont? | They always say in the news that a company filed for chapter x bankruptcy, but what do they mean? | The act of filing bankruptcy serves many purposes, including protection from debtors. The "default position" is that the company is going under, but then the argument goes that if you can get it back and running then you can return _something more than zero_ to those who are owed money by said organization. So...thats better than going under to all parties (employees, lenders, suppliers, etc...). So...as long as you can demonstrate that you're fucked and that without bankruptcy relief you'd cease to exist then you can get bankruptcy.
The ones that don't continue to operate are the ones where there is no clear path out of bankruptcy. For example, if the company filing bankruptcy had no customers then it would seem unlikely that a restructuring of debt would result in a healthy company capable of returning at least something to lenders or suppliers, or one that could pay its employees. | 188 | 541 |
ELI5: In Chess, why are Female players rated lower than their Male counterparts for the same rank? | Chess rankings use a system called the Elo rating system. Your rating is a mathematical value that represents how much more likely you're going to beat another player *in the same rating group*. The number itself is fairly arbitrary.
The system starts with every player joining at a specific rating, and then it gets adjusted based on wins and losses. The adjustments are zero-sum. However many points you win, the other player loses. That means if you took the average point value of everyone in the league, it would be equal to that starting point.
The more players in the league, the more points there are to spread up and down. This means that more players there are, the higher the high end is going to be. So if the male league has more competitors, its highest ranked players will have a higher rating than the top players in the womens league, but the actual value of the number is meaningless outside of the league. | 75 | 36 |
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CMV: I don't really like any of the presidential candidates, so there's no point of me voting in the presidential election. | I don't plan on voting in the US presidential elections in November. I've never voted before, but only due to age. As it stands, I don't really like any of the presidential candidates. Trump is obviously horrendous. I don't like Cruz based on his socially (and some fiscal) conservative ideals, and I don't trust him at all based on his interviews. He seems to use religion to pander to the masses of conservatives. Hillary is untrustworthy as well imo. I guess she's a good politician, but I don't necessarily trust her or agree with her most of the time. Bernie is a cool guy, but I don't think he's a strong enough leader/politician to be president, nor do I necessarily agree with his ideas -- they're a bit too socialist (and unrealistic, imo). I guess I could always vote for a third-party candidate, but
1) I don't know enough about them to be able to say I'd want them as a president (that's my bad though. I guess I could always learn more about them.)
But the main reason is that
2) It's pointless considering the fact that **third party candidates don't win**. I know if everyone thought like that it'd be dangerous to the political system, but based on political history, let's be honest -- at this point, they would never win anyways.
In conversations about the abysmal state of politics and how none of the candidates are really that great, I've mentioned to two different groups of friends that I might just refrain from voting, and they both flipped out on me. They told me it's my civic duty to vote, I should just vote for the least of the four evils, it's a disservice to myself and others if I don't participate, etc.
I'm just like, why should I lend my vote to a person that I don't truly feel would make a good president? By not participating, I'm saying I don't support any of these candidates. Besides, I feel like local elections are the ones that truly make a difference.
CMV, yall.
(Also I don't really want to argue about any of the candidates and their abilities/stances/pros/cons. This is more about not voting than not liking candidates).
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> *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!* | So one of the things that happens by showing up is you start to help data aggregation.
For example, young parents are low turnout voters, so politicians do little to appeal to them. Elderly are high turnout, politicians pander to them like crazy. Notice how all the social security reform ideas wont touch current retirees, but aforementioned parents.
People respond to incentives, and the incentive most politicians respond to is getting elected or reelected. That means they do things to appeal to voters. Non-voters just don't matter as far as they're concerned. | 55 | 21 |
If I ingest a toxic substance, why shouldn't I induce vomiting? Wouldn't having my stomach pumped have the same effect? | some toxic substances, for example corrosive substances, may have damaging effects as it comes back up through your throat and mouth. for substances like these, having a tube put into your stomach to remove the contents is better because it prevents this damage to your esophagus and oral cavity. | 27 | 17 |
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ELI5: What makes us emotionaly numb when we are depressed? | And how does it come back? | Emotional numbness is one of the key markers in the first step of diagnosing things like major depression, but also PTSD and depersonalization disorders and they sometimes have different causes.
With depression, it's often heavily influenced by the imbalance of chemicals in your body and brain like serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine, and oxytocin to name a few. These levels become so low that you lose the pleasure and excitement reactions to things that usually make you happy and instead, you don't feel anything. That's why you're usually asked the 'have you lost interest in things that you usually enjoy doing' when being seen for mental health. There are a ton of ways to help yourself and get professional help to work through depression and treat it until you're symptom free, so don't give up.
In cases of PTSD and the like, it's more commonly a coping mechanism. The feelings from the associated trauma and its triggers are so intense that your brain decides that it's in its best interest to not address that feeling in order to survive. This isn't a bad thing! Often at the time the initial trauma occured, if your brain has triggered this kind of dissociation, it was a necessary coping mechanism to protect you and your mental health. If you are still experiencing symptoms of PTSD once the trauma is over, therapy is important to help teach your brain that it's okay to use other, more appropriate ways to deal with day to day emotions.
As for your question about how it comes back, that depends on the cause. You can certainly do some things yourself to try to jump start your happy chemicals, like doing light cardio every day for a few weeks, getting enough sunlight, taking a multivitamin- all things that are essential to helping you maintain a healthy cycle of production for these chemicals.
If you are still struggling after a few weeks of this OR experiencing worsening symptoms like panic attacks, severe lethargy, hostility, having suicidal thoughts, get in to see your doctor. Our brain and our genetic make up is entirely unique, so sometimes we will have trouble balancing our chemicals. To expound, because of that uniqueness, it will likely take a few or even more than a few different tries to find the right medication for you. Not only do they all act a little different, but there are many different classifications of these medications that specialize in specific chemicals and receptors in your brain, so an SSRI which mainly deals with serotonin reuptake will not perform the same function as an SNRI which mainly deals with norepinephrine reuptake, to only mention a few catergories. The most effective treatment in most cases is therapy and medication when needed.
Hope this helped. | 39 | 32 |
Mathematics in computer science | Hi guys,
I'm currently taking a computer science degree and math major on the side. I was planning to do M.L. but I found out I disliked statistics so I was wondering what other fields of computer science, mathematics is useful in. | Theoretical computer science is very literally the mathematical theory of computer science, and sometimes considered as its own branch of math! There are many very active areas within TCS including algorithms, complexity theory, coding theory, combinatorial optimization, learning theory, programming language theory, etc.
Many branches of math find applications in different areas of TCS. For example category theory has been used in programming languages, linear algebra and graph theory find uses almost everywhere in TCS. | 25 | 20 |
ELI5: The differences among astrophysics, astronomy and cosmology | Cosmology is the study of the cosmos itself (e.g. the expansion of space, the Big Bang, relativity), and astrophysics is the study of the objects in the cosmos (e.g. how stars work and galaxies form). There's a lot of overlap; for example, the astrophysical problem of how galaxies can rotate so fast without tearing apart introduces the cosmological problem of what dark matter is and how it got here.
Modern astronomy might as well be called "observational astrophysics"; it's about looking at what things in space are doing and figuring out why. An astronomer will generally concern himself with finding data that can test astrophysical/cosmological theories and hypotheses. | 14 | 41 |
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ELI5: How don’t we see huge satellite shaped shadows cast on the earth? Wouldn’t satellites be between the sun and the earth meaning that they’d cast a shadow on us? | Two things,
- Satellites are very very small compared to celestial objects like the Earth, or even the Moon
- Light has a property called diffraction (made possible because light behaves like a wave). What this means is that light waves tend to bend inwards around the edges of objects
So when satellites come between the Sun and the Earth, their small size and diffraction of light means that their shadow is cast for only a short distance, thus not reaching the Earth's surface | 48 | 30 |
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ELI5: What does the thalamo-cortical complex do? | A glance at the Wikipedia article suggests to me that you might have better luck finding someone qualified to answer this in like, /r/askscience or something along those lines.
Also, obvious homework is obvious. | 12 | 28 |
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ELI5:What really happens when we unfocus our eyes ? | Like when you stare at something at everything is just blurry | Your eye has muscles that adjust the shape of the lens. This changes the focal point, optimally so that the light coming from part of an object converges on part of the retina, the image is 'in focus.' These muscles can essentially focus automatically, but you can control them. So if you are relaxing those muscles, they aren't focusing the light from a single point onto a single spot on your retina. You get a smear. | 37 | 102 |
What is the healthcare system like in countries like America, Canada, Sweeden, Denmark, Austrailia, etc? And how does ObamaCare compare? | Living in America, our healthcare system is (from what I've read about) is vastly different from other countries (in the sense where it is strictly a ploy for money). Can somebody explain the similarities/differences? Why can't America have more affordable healthcare, especially when other countries have more affordable healthcare and delegate less money towards healthcare? What is ObamaCare aiming to do, and is it similar to the healthcare system of other countries? | Denmark has a public health care system. We pay through our taxes and everyone can use ambulances, hospitals and doctors without paying anything but taxes.
Everyone is entitled to help, not only the rich. | 55 | 126 |
ELI5: Why does a call center keep making me repeat the same information every time I get transferred? | I call: give phone, name, secret password... transferred, first thing I have to do is give phone, name, secret password... rinse, repeat. Don't that have a computer/system that will save me the frustration? | They have to verify that you are who you are in order to give you access or information about your account. Who knows where you're actually getting transferred to. Could be down the hall or across the country. It's safer to verify your information every time than to just assume and possibly give out personal information to a random person. | 26 | 56 |
ELI5: If mitochondria are small even through microscopes, how do we know how they work?? How do we "know" how body cells function?? | Much of what we know about cells comes from a) direct observation under electron microscopy and b) knock-out mutations/disease in people and animal subjects. Some structures we can see under electron microscopes, and we have a saying in physiology of “form follows function.” Basically, the way something looks can inform what it does. So we look at mitochondria and see the double membranes, and then we make hypotheses. What’s the double membrane for? Is it for energy production? (It is—it’s for the electron transport chain)
Then we look at what happens if there are no mitochondria at all. What happens to the cells? If they don’t have mitochondria, they don’t seem to make any energy, and they die. Some people have mitochondrial disorders, too, and what happens in their bodies can inform us of what the purpose of the structure is. Finally, animal experiments where genes are artificially silenced or enhanced can prove or disprove our hypotheses.
Biochemistry can be frustrating because we don’t normally see exactly what is going on. We have to use surrogates sometimes to make a theory about what is happening, and—when it comes to physiology—sometimes when something goes wrong, we can try to find what is missing and determine the function from there. | 34 | 40 |
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ELI5: Why is all the hair on my body black, but my beard has a lot of ginger in it? | Hair color comes from the pigment melanin, which also plays a role in skin and eye color. Melanin comes in different types, which in hair can produce brown or black color (eumelanin) or varieties of "red" colors (pheomelanin).
The types and amounts of melanin produced have a basis in genetics, which is why hair color can be inherited. But you do not have a single hair color, because not every hair follicle on your body produces exactly the same mix of melanin. So it's possible, and quite common, for hair on different parts of your body to be slightly different in color, and even for different hairs on the same part of your body to not be exactly the same.
Plus, it will change over the course of your life; for exmple, many people start out with quite light hair, only to have it get darker as they grow older. And, of course, as you reach into old age your hair starts going grey (the cells which produce the melanin are no longer replenished, meaning no more pigment).
If you look closely at an area that has a lot of hair, close together -- like the top of your head -- you'll probably be able to see the variations pretty easily. Although from a distance it may all look "black", up closer you'd see some hairs that are darker, some that are lighter, some that are a bit more reddish, etc.
Your beard is no different from any other part of your body, in that sense, and variation is to be expected. There may also be some genetic factors which make it more likely for beard hair to have more pheomelanin, but no-one is quite sure yet. | 22 | 99 |
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ELI5: How does lowering the volume on a device actually work? | Simple version:
You turn a knob, and a coil is wound/unwound which increases the resistance of the electrical current by increasing the distance it has to travel through the coil. This resistance drops the power(volts&amps) which causes less energy to be transferred to the speaker.
The same process happens in a digital device, but it's instead controlled by a digital potentiometer, which regulates the current that passes through it, instead of a mechanical coil. | 45 | 68 |
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ELI5: what does a shark “feel” from magnetic fields that allows them to navigate by it. | I recently read an article about a shark using the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate great distances across the world’s oceans.
I’ve always been curious about this. Does the magnetic field give them a physical sensation or tingling in their brain or is it more of driving a subconscious instinct?
I guess the same would apply to a bird or a butterfly or any other creature that uses magnetic fields to navigate. | What do you feel when you're sensing light or sound? It would probably be similar for a shark and the magnetic field.
It's probably impossible to tell what an animal senses with a sense we don't (really) have. But just by examining our other senses, we can get a glimpse of how senses that we don't have might feel. | 16 | 19 |
ELI5: How do manufactures simply add vitamins to products? How are the vitamins produced? | There are several ways in which vitamins are made. Some, like Vitamin E, can be extracted from vegetable oils while Vitamin D from fish liver oil. Vitamin C is produced in the lab and is nature identical. A 3rd form of production is by using genetically altered bacteria. Vitamins obtained this way include B12.
Some manufacturers add vitamins to products for a multitude of reasons. For example, white bread lacks some vitamins present in whole wheat bread so these vitamins may be added to white bread. Margarine lacks the Vitamin D of butter so most kinds of margarine are enriched with this vitamin | 20 | 32 |
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CMV: 3rd wave feminists should just abandon the name and join the egalitarians. | Third wave feminism is just too open and all-inclusive a movement and therefore so different from Second wave feminism that it's basically egalitarianism by another name. So just switch to egalitarianism and be honest about what you support.
By switching to egalitarianism third wavers will automatically distance themselves from batshit crazy radical factions like femen, amazons, political lesbians, Christian feminists, born-women only feminists etc, and the rigidness of the second wave feminists who simply can't cope with how the world is different the last twenty-five years or so.
This will benefit both third wavers and egalitarians, as their philosophies are almost identical, and together they can register as a pure minded lobby that has definite registered numbers and actual political power, instead of having to cling to middle aged second wavers who have either gone out of sync with today's problems and goals by aging, or have grown too old to be incorruptible as representatives. This will draw support by other factions who have been shunned by radical feminists in the past, such as trans people and the LGBT movement in general.
**edit 01** Please people, I mentioned THIRD WAVE FEMINISTS only, not all feminists. I did so for a reason: Only Third Wave Feminists support fighting for equal rights for all. Second wave feminists don't. First wave feminists don't. Other factions don't. Only Third Wavers. So please keep that in mind next time you mention what other factions of feminism ask for.
**edit 02** God dammit, I'm not saying feminists are inferior to another group, I respect feminism and I think it still has a lot to offer, **but,** that third wave feminism has crossed waters. It's no longer simply feminism. It's equal rights for all, not just women, therefore it's not feminism anymore. It's a trans movement that simply refuses to acknowledge that it has transcended to a divergent but equally beneficial cause. Let go of the old conceptions, and acknowledge what you really are: you are egalitarians.
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> *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!* | The difference is that by using the word 'feminist', you're not just saying that you want a fair and just society, you are making a statement regarding the policies you feel that need to be instituted to make it so.
You are saying 'One set of things that needs to be done for this to be an egalitarian society is that the position of women in general needs to be bolstered'
Presumably not all egalitarians believe this, so the two terms aren't synonymous. Those egalitarians who believe that the position of women needs to be bolstered, can actually make this clear by calling themselves feminists. | 191 | 386 |
ELI5 | Why do most people have middle name, where did it originate from, and what are their purposes? | Middle names typically originate in the upper classes of societies, and are useful for demonstrating ancestry, fealty or devotion. It can also be a superstitious thing. Back then, they were a political tool similar to surname. If you had a well-reputed ancestor, you may give your child that ancestor's name as a middle name, which could indicate to other people that your child is descended from a great person, or if you're the magical-thinking type, bestow your child with the protection of that ancestor. You could also choose the name of a saint, to bestow the protection of that saint or demonstrate your allegiance to the dominant religion.
As tends to happen, the lower classes gradually started imitating the upper classes, adding middle names to their children because upper class people did it, rather than because there was any political use to doing it. Note though that in some cultures, middle names were something commoners started doing for magical protection even without imitating the upper classes. | 19 | 19 |
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ELI5: What does an investment banker do? | I am not in any way trying to make points about Wall Street, I'm just interested in what investment banking is and how things actually work. | If you want to sell your house, you may decide to hire a mortgage broker to help you figure out how much your house is worth on the market and then show your house to potential buyers. If you want to buy a house, you may decide to hire a mortgage broker to show you different houses based on what you want and can afford. Instead of houses, an investment banker helps *companies* buy or get a acquired by other companies.
Most investment bankers spend 80-120 hours a week staring at Excel to model out what the financials of the combined company would look like (that's seriously the industry standard hours; most people quit within a year or two). At the highest levels, however, it's basically a sales job. The managing director knows a lot of people in his specific industry, what companies are worth in that industry based on financial metrics he's memorized over the years, and basically helps arrange buyers and sellers. If the deal goes through, the banker gets a small cut of the transaction. | 27 | 88 |
ELI5: why are dog breeds so drastically different between themselves (size, body shape, etc) while cats look basically the same in size and shape between breeds? | I'm not saying a sphynx cat looks the same as a maine coon but you can clearly see they're the same species, but it's not the same case with an Italian greyhound and a saint bernard | Dogs have been heavily selected and bred for different tasks and then later for appearance.
Cats have pretty much been kept for their natural instinctive hunting ability, so haven't been selected into such diverse forms, and have not been as extensively bred for appearance. | 22 | 27 |
CMV: Cinderella (1950) is far more progressive than people give it credit for | This is actually my topic for my college essay so I’d really appreciate some feedback on this!
I watched the original Cinderella in full for the first time yesterday (scene where the sisters ripped off Cinderella’s dress scared little me too much lol). For years I’d heard people talk about how 50s it is with its sexism and stereotypes and how it’s not a great role model film for kids. And while I don’t necessarily disagree with those claims, after watching it for myself I have to say it’s far more progressive than people give it credit for.
1. Cinderella is actually a pretty great character. People go in about how she’s a generic Disney princess and kind of a ditz but is she really? I mean she’s got a work ethic on par with Tiana from
Princess and the frog. Even more impressive, she manages to take the constant abuse and manipulation she gets from her family like a champ. She still manages to find joy in life and continues to have hope that her situation will get better. Even better she’s not bitter and mean because of the abuse, she’s super nice and caring to the mice and other animals she’s friends with (you could even say she takes care of them the way she wishes her family did her). That takes real strength and I think that needs to ge recognized.
1.5. Also, why is Cinderella’s main motivation (or one of them at least) in the movie going to the ball and dressing up a bad thing? She’s been locked up inside of a house being forced to be a servant for years and the one night she has the opportunity to actually be a teenage girl and have fun seen as a weak motivation? All she wants to do is have one night of partying and fun (not specifically trying to meet a man or fall in love might I add) and people are mad about that? Also Cinderella is also interested in fashion and dancing and other “girly” things like the stepsisters. The difference being that she isn’t obsessed to the point of becoming an entitled, materialistic asshole about it (and squandering your family’s wealth in the process).
2. The female characters in this are great. I explained Cinderella already but honestly the Evil stepmother is one of the best and smartest Disney villains of all time. No exploitation needed
3. With this, pretty much all of the leads are women. Surprisingly, this movie actually passes the Bechdel test (which I know isn’t a perfect system but still) with flying colors. Unlike a lot of other movies that are seen to have strong female leads (all three of the original Star Wars movies and the prequels for that matter).
4. You can make the argument that Cinderella didn’t technically do anything to earn her fairy godmother visit, but isn’t the whole idea of the fairy godmother that she comes when people really need her and are on their last legs? Cinderella has been working tirelessly for her entire life with no thanks and the one opportunity she finally gets to have fun is ruined. So, the fairy godmother shows up as a result of this. You can see this as a direct cause and effect relationship, she did eventually earn her prince and her ball. And at the end of the day, this is a story of women helping women overcome hardship. Really the only men that helped her get the prince were the male mice and the dog lol.
5. Speaking of which, the prince is far more of a ditz than Cinderella ever was. You could even call him a himbo with how adorably clueless he is for most of the movie.
6. The king is actually pretty great as well. True he’s an emotionally and mentally unstable man child who’s always threatening to kill his #2, but when you look at his actual behavior and motivations in the movie they’re actually pretty unique compared to other Disney kings. Like compare him to the kings from sleeping beauty. Unlike them he wants grandchildren not because he needs an heir but because he just likes kids and wants his family to grow. Also unlike the other kings, he didn’t do an arranged marriage for his son at birth and instead literally let his son choose any girl in the land, regardless of wealth or class. Even poor servants and pesants (like Cinderella) stood a chance.
7. The one line that’s brought up a lot when talking about the sexism and stereotypes in this movies is “leave the sewing to the women”, which I agree is a painfully 50s line. But like, at the end of the day the mice are still all making a pretty pink dress, regardless of gender. There’s even a scene during that song where the male mice are helping with the sewing. The suspenseful chase scene in that song are two male mice stealing some ribbon and a necklace
So what are we left with; a movie made up almost entirely of fully developed female characters in leading roles who don’t rely on men to fix all of their problems. A main character who is emotionally strong and hardworking, but also interested in “girly” things. Male characters who’s motivations and personalities challenge masculine expectations and stereotypes. All for people to call this movie sexist and old fashioned?
Edit: spelling
Edit 2: I’m now realizing that Attack of the Clones actually does just barely pass the Bechdel test | One of the counterarguments you should consider tackling in your essay is that Cinderella’s path to happiness and “freedom” consists in being chosen by a man - and while she is in fact virtuous, it is her beauty which wins her this opportunity. It may be that the film makes her outwardly beautiful in order to reflect her inner beauty, but fitting into the glass slipper is a test of her physical delicateness, not of her moral worth. Do you have a way to counter this argument?
I very much recommend you read the Hans Christian Andersen version of the fairytale that the film is based on, if you haven’t already. It is a 19th century version of an older folktale, so in a lot of ways the morality of the film is quite Victorian rather than 1950s. | 21 | 32 |
Eli5: How does hormonal acne work? | What hormones are involved? How does that affect your skin? | Some changes in hormone levels, caused by stress, or natural changes in your body, can increase the amount of oil (sebum) your skin produces. This oil exits through tiny holes in your face, your pores. That oil is thick, and because the holes are tiny these holes can get clogged, creating pimples or acne. | 11 | 22 |
CMV: No one "deserves" respect based upon a position of authority or power | So I just finished listening to my art teacher childishly scream at our class that he deserves to be respected. When class started, my teacher scolded one kid (who is a troublemaker) for sitting on a desk; he didn't seem too upset at that point. Later in the class, as he began to introduce our next assignment, people we're still chatting as he began to talk. He stopped introducing the assignment and went on a tirade about how he as a teacher deserves to be respected because of what he had to go through to get that job.
I do not believe that anyone inherently deserves respect, no matter who you are. You can't demand someone to respect you, you have to earn their respect. CMV
Edit: I read the comments and I agree with most of them. I think when my teacher complained about us not respecting him I think he was referring to basic respect, and I misinterpreted his definition of respect. I still believe that a deeper kind of respect must be earned, but all people should have a sort of "baseline respect"
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> *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 just 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!* | The sacrifices and effort needed to become a teacher warrant a significant amount of respect. If the students fail to recognise this just because that sacrifice and effort wasn't performed in front of them, they're simply short-sighted and inconsiderate. | 44 | 55 |
[Star Wars] If Grand Admiral Thrawn were to scrutinize Earth's arts… what would happen? | If Grand Admiral Thrawn were to scrutinize Earth's arts… what would he find about us?
Given "similar" technology, how would he exploits the flaws and how easy would he be able to invade and conquer Earth? | He'd see the wide variety of art forms, both within and between cultures, and realize that a "divide and conquer" approach would work: find the group most willing to work with the Empire, give them aid, and then tell the other peoples "you can get this too, or be conquered by the people we're helping; your choice." | 335 | 265 |
What causes all living things to die of old age? | What exactly causes any living thing to cease living simply from old age? Why can't cells perpetually replace themselves and continue to grow and live? | Once the germline is established an organism begins to die, due to the loss of cellular quality control. After you have offspring, you are no longer important (evolutionarily speaking).
Your genome is also limited in the number of times it is copied, due to sequences known as telomeres. These get shorter and shorter with subsequent divisions and the grnome will begin to deteriorate after further replication. Telomerase is an enzyme which repairs these regions but it is not expressed after a certain stage of embryonic development.
Both of these processes are often reactivated in cancer cells, allowing them to grow out of control. | 68 | 164 |
[General Fantasy] Why is every cure from a plant that is found only in one place and that place is always a dangerous hard to get place surrounded by monsters? | Why isn't it ever in a field of butterflies and bunnies? | There's tons of common accessible plants that cure lots of things. Every witch and herbalist knows about them. That health potion collecting dust in the bottom of your pack is probably made from them.
But the bards don't sing about that and there's not a buff warrior fighting to get them, so you forgot they exist. | 80 | 55 |
Interview at R1 university but research credentials are not extravagant | Background: I am currently tenure track at a teaching university with ungodly course / service loads. My goal is to do research and I have gotten an interview at a nearby university, which is highly focused on research. However, my publications and funding are very nill. I only published one paper in my PhD (a "current state of the art" review paper), and most of my other publications were internal reports at the company I worked for, not peer reviewed, and very dry, non-academic quality. However, I have technical skills and super powers which is what probably got me the interview. I was wondering if anyone could give me tips that might help me out, or has been on a search committee at an R1 or similar. My plan for the presentation is as follows:
~~Background on myself~~
~~Teaching, classes developed, course loads / pedagogy~~
~~Past technical projects (non published :( , but I have physical show and tell)~~
~~Current research focus and plan, and what I am working on~~
~~Current grants submitted~~
~~Future grants I am planning on submitting~~
Big question is whether to talk about my Ph.D. (nothing really came of it but it was neat), and what I need to be successful at the R1 (students, lab, start up funds, faculty interested in xyz ).
Anything else I should include or mention?
**Edit:** Ok obviously glad I posted this. FYI im in Electrical Eng. So my PhD didnt really go anywhere (finished 2 years ago), so I guess I will present what I am working on now. Unfortunately I dont have a lot of results yet. It is an idea in progress. It would mostly be a technical talk about the idea, and how I am going to accomplish it. How about this
* Background on Tech (5 min)
* Proposal ( 15 minutes )
* Strategy to accomplish it w/current work done ( 15 minute )
* Funding sources identified ( 1 - 2 slides )
* Broader impacts (plus: undergrad research, incorporate Ph.D. work, etc.)
* Research spin off ideas ( other things I can work on once this work is done )
* Beg for mercy and to be pulled out of my current hell hole ( 1 - 2 slides )
* Advanced Groveling Techniques ( 1 - 2 Slides )
Ok maybe not the last two.
**Edit 2** Per your advice, I emailed the search committee. The contact said include: "your research philosophy, your teaching philosophy, and show that you are going to write research proposals and state the research potential agencies" | One of the most important things we consider is the future research of a candidate. What intellectual contribution you will make during your CAREER? What are the funding agencies and specific programs you will target? What are the broader impacts of your research? How will you integrate our students into your research plan? Will you collaborate with other faculty in the department? These are some of the important questions that should be answered during your talk. | 12 | 21 |
Eli5: why are submarines cigar shaped but jets pointy? | Both water and air are fluids but jets and missiles are pointy whereas submarines and torpedoes are cigar shaped. Why is that?
Edit: Grammar
Edit2: why is pointy better for supersonic? Why is round better for subsonic? | Air is a compressible gas whereas water is usually a non compressible fluid. The air density vs water density is also very different. With those two variables the dynamics at each medium are widely different, and hence you have the hydrodynamics and the aerodynamics.
Making a submarine very pointy creates a weak structure that will not be able to whitstand the compression deep under the sea, and it will also make the submarine hard to steer because of its relatively slow speed (compared to airplanes).
An airplane with a cigar shape is actually possible (as long as it has wings) and those type of designs are used for slower and bigger cargo planes. High speed jets require a geometry that allows them to break the sound barrier more easliy, and thats the main reason for the pointy geometry. Air is usually considered uncompressible at subsonic speeds, once the speed of sound is reached, the air resistance becomes exponentially more "thick" and the calculations for the aerodynamics start considering air as a compressible fluid. A plane can be made to be good at subsonic speed or good at supersonic speed, but not the two at the same time. Pointy geometry is good at supersonic speed. | 43 | 26 |
How do animals get their "hard wired" instincts in the first place? | Science teacher here: This is best explained by evolutionary theory. Hard wired behavioral instincts are those most likely to be selected on by natural selection. If a behavior is innate, meaning it is not something the animal learns, but rather something the animal does because it is specifically coded in the genes, then the behaviors that do not benefit the animal for its environment will be selected out. Those beneficial behaviors will pass genes on to the offspring.
If you are asking how is it behaviors are coded through DNA, then its a little bit more difficult to explain. Because DNA is incredibly complex, the genes that code for specific behaviors can be difficult to decipher. However, behavior is really just an extension of a complex interactions of proteins. The simplest kinds of behaviors, like those demonstrated by bacteria are the the easiest to consider. Bacteria that demonstrate a tendency toward or away from light can extend a evolutionary advantage under certain conditions. For example, avoiding UV light as Neil De Grasse Tyson explains in the most recent episode of Cosmos. This is a behavior that is hard wired and is simply a complex protein interaction that causes the bacteria to avoid UV light. Behaviors have gotten more complex, but if they are the innate kind, then they are just part of a line of increasingly complex protein interactions going on inside the animal, dictated by DNA that has been selected on by natural selection.
| 11 | 25 |
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I want to teach at a liberal arts college. How much does prestige of grad school matter? | I'm getting my PhD in chemistry, and I hope to become a professor at a liberal arts college. I have been accepted to three schools. One is top tier, one is mid tier, and one is bottom tier. (All three are RU/VH.) I'm having a hard time with the decision, and I need some insight.
- I want to be close to family:
Bottom tier school is 30 minutes away. It's in my home state. I would be happy to teach at some of the schools in my home state.
- Research is not the most important thing in my life:
I am not a workaholic. I will not stay awake thinking about my work until the wee hours in the morning. The top tier school is a pressure cooker, and I'm more likely to have mental health issues if I go there. Mid tier is slightly more laid back, but it's still grad school. 5th year grad students at the bottom tier school said that 40-50 hours a week is the norm. It is a very relaxed department.
- I want to like the research at least a little:
Top school is amazing. Everything is awesome. Funding and resources are not even a little bit of an issue.
Mid school has cool stuff happening. I would be happy doing that work.
Bottom tier school has only one professor I would want to work for, and even that research wasn't that exciting to me.
**tl;dr** I would go to a bottom tier school if I could be guaranteed the job I want at a liberal arts college. Leaving my family makes me sad, but I feel I may have no choice for the sake of my career.
Any words of wisdom?
**Edit:** I chose the top tier school. It was the right decision. | Like any tenure-track position, jobs at teaching-focused liberal arts schools are fiercely competitive. You seem to be under the impression that you can lowball grad school and slide into a teaching position. That isn't going to happen: if you can't publish, you won't get a job. So, you need to be thinking very seriously about what your publishing prospects look like at the mid- and bottom-tier programs. If you lack resources or talented advisors at either school, it's not an option.
You will also need teaching experience in grad school, so consider which schools would allow you to TA and (ideally) be the instructor of record of a course at some point. | 33 | 16 |
Subsets and Splits