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ELI5: What does 'remastered' mean in terms of music recording? | Especially with older artists and bands, the word 'remastered' seems to come up a lot. Since I find this term to be a bit vague, could someone explain what this means? What is changed in a remastered recording, and how is it done? | It can mean a variety of things depending on who is doing it. Remastering an album in a general sense means that the tracks are adjusted from the ground up. Cleaning up background noise, adding or subtracting particular effects, maybe even re-recording certain sections in some cases. It can be a good thing or a bad thing, because in some cases, certain dynamic contrasts and effects make the songs sound less full or interesting compared to the original tracks. | 43 | 74 |
[Economics] After the IPO, how does having publicly traded stock benefit a corporation? | Are there any benefits to a corporation being traded publicly beyond initially raising funds? Catering to shareholders just seems to be a headache after that, especially for an established company which has been public for many years. | There are practical benefits and more theoretical benefits.
In the practical category, it makes it easier for the company to raise money, even after the IPO. Shares that can be publicly traded are worth more, because people who buy them know they will be easier to resell, and because more people are eligible to buy them in the first place. So, if a company needs to sell shares a year after the IPO, they can most likely get a better price than they could in a private placement. This is also good for shareholders, since it allows them to more easily sell their shares if and when they want to; whereas with a close corporation, you have no real way to get your money out. And since you can't readily get your money out of a close corporation, you might be less willing to invest in the first place.
In the more theoretical category, it probably leads to better management of companies, because public markets provide information. Essentially, the public price of a stock is a real-time, constant opinion poll that tells company managers what thousands (millions even) of people think of the job they are doing. If management makes a boneheaded decision, the share price goes down instantly and the managers know right away that lots of people think they are doing a bad job; and vice-versa if they make a positive announcement.
Also in the more theoretical category, public listing probably makes companies more valuable because public companies are more heavily regulated. For example, under Sarbanes-Oxley the executives of a public company face jail time if the company's accounting statements are misleading, so we would expect that these executives will be extra-careful to make sure that the accounting statements are accurate. But Sarbox doesn't apply to privately held corporations, so you might worry more about whether you were being cheated and thus be less willing to invest. | 17 | 22 |
ELI5: How and why in some places is it illegal to collect rain water? | I've always been curious about this. | In some States local authorities have deemed rain water to be collective public property. It refills the local water supplies and so collecting it, or collecting a lot of it changes how the rivers and creeks flow and changes how the public water supplies refill. That is theft under these laws. | 15 | 15 |
ELI5: How do we know the different layers of the earth? (Mantle & Core) Their composition and general temperature range? | If you post this in askscience you will get a better answer. But in ELI5 you get dummies like me. They developed sonar and seismic meters. But essentially they shot different types of rays into the earth and wrote down what came back. Then they compared the different results. Based on the data they developed a theory.
Thats it! | 28 | 76 |
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ELI5 What exactly are home water filters filtering out of your drinking water? | It depends on where you live and your water source, but some of the more common things:
* Chlorine (more common) or chloramine (less common) are added to municipal water to disinfect it, but it tastes better if you filter it out before drinking it.
* Calcium and magnesium dissolved in your water make it "hard" and leave limescale deposits in your faucets and drains. Softening or conditioning your water can help with this
* Other trace amounts of other contaminants may be at levels that are safe enough for human consumption, but you might like the taste better if they're filtered out
If you're not sure if you need a water filter, you can get a home test kit for less than $20 on Amazon or your local hardware store. | 21 | 28 |
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The Human Genome Project cost $2.7 billion. 20 years later, it costs <$1000 to sequence the genome. Was the cost of the project fundamentally necessary for subsequent progress, or could we have "waited" for the technology to become cheaper? | I'm very much a clueless layman, but I'm learning about genetics for the first time. I don't mean this in any sort of combative way–the Human Genome Project had countless benefits that we can't possibly track, and I'd imagine $2.7 billion is a trifle compared to its broader impact.
My question is just narrowly about the way that genome sequencing has dropped rapidly in cost. Was it fundamentally necessary to first use these exorbitantly pricey methods, which provided the foundation for the future research which would make it affordable? Or are the two questions inherently separate: the Human Genome Project gave us a first, initial glimpse at our mapped out genome, and then a decade later separate technological developments would make that same task much cheaper (as is commonly the case in science and technology).
The "could we have waited" in the title is probably misleading–I really don't mean any sort of value judgment (the project sounds enormously important), I purely mean "could" in a narrow hypothetical (not, "would it have been a good idea to wait", which I highly doubt). | The cost of gene sequencing has dropped dramatically, but these two numbers are apples and oranges. The Human Genome Project "mapped the genome". Meaning it created a "reference genome" that is roughly accurate for every human being on earth. It's like a scaffold upon which you can place any individual sequence you might read.
Today, you can take short reads of roughly a human genome-worth of DNA for less than $1000. That sequencing can tell you if the person has any small mutations. But without the reference genome, all that information would be worthless because you couldn't place all the little fragments of DNA where they sit on the larger genome.
Think of it like having a big jumble of small phrases that you know belong in a big epic novel. Your job is to tell us what page the phrase belongs on. HGP pieced together the whole novel for the first time, so now your job is much easier because you can just do a CRTL+F.
Today, people continue to assemble new reference genomes (e.g., new species) and reassemble the human genome to look for larger variations that don't agree with the original reference genomes created by the HGP and others. You typically can't do that for <$1000. It could cost you tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on what tools you use and what accuracy you desire.
Tl;Dr: creating a new reference genome is much cheaper than it used to be and has certainly enabled by technology created in the course of the HGP and others. But still very very expensive. | 7,501 | 12,771 |
Why, after Hurricane Katrina, were large masses of trees planted near the mouth of the Mississippi River? | I've heard bits and pieces of a story that, after Hurricane Katrina devastated much of the southern states of the US, thousands of acres of trees and/or shrubs were planted near the mouth of the Mississippi river.
I can't seem to be able to find much information. | Trees have roots that hold the soil around them which stops wetland loss. Wetlands act as a buffer to storm surge during hurricanes. In addition, trees would poke up through the storm surge during a hurricane and knock down waves. Those waves could be breaking over the levees. | 118 | 199 |
[General] Vampires and religious symbols | I'm worried about defending myself against vampires and need to know if only crosses work, or should I also carry around other symbols, like a star of david, or a star and crescent. | Different rules for different universes. The possibilities run the spectrum from:
* Only crosses
* Only blessed holy symbols
* Any holy symbols
* Only holy symbols that the vampire believes in
* Some other unique-in-universe symbol
* Any of the above but with varying effects (ie. some hold vampires at bay, others can burn them)
* Symbols don't do anything at all (usually when vampirism is classified as a virus or parasite.)
So first, you need to provide some information about which of the above universes you are calling from.
| 56 | 59 |
How is it that Hawkings Radiation can escape the clutches of a black hole when light cannot? | Well first of all, hawking radiation is light.
Second of all, the radiation originates due to quantum mechanical effects from a point near, yet nevertheless outside, the event horizon, so it does not fall into the black hole. | 17 | 24 |
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ELI5: How do we get other pictures of far away galaxies that we can not see? | Long exposures with cameras using powerful telescopes.
Many galaxies and other celestial objects are too faint to see with the eye, or with a regular camera. But if you let a camera have a long enough exposure these faint objects reveal themselves in the picture taken by the camera. | 17 | 19 |
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Are all soaps (salt of fatty acid) capable of disrupting the lipid bilayer? If yes, then are soaps considered disinfectants? (Not asking about anti-bacterial soaps.) | I know that soaps can simply wash away bacteria and viruses. But I have also heard that soaps can disrupt the lipid bilayer of bacteria and viruses that have them, effectively killing the them.
I was curious if all soaps (by their chemistry definition) have this ability because of a chemical interaction between the soap and lipid bilayer. If yes, how likely is soap to disrupt lipid bilayers? Does it depend on other conditions?
Thanks in advance. | Soaps and detergents have varying strengths depending on how they’re put together. On the far end you have something like sodium dodecylsulfate, which is an extremely strong detergent because it has a fully saturated hydrocarbon chain combined with a highly charged head group. That will not only solubilize, but also unfolds proteins. On the other end, a detergent with an unsaturated hydrocarbon chain and something like a sugar head group is very gentle and solubilizes with very minimal protein unfolding. Most hand soaps are somewhere in the middle with a mix of saturated and unsaturated hydrocarbon tails with carboxylic acid head groups.
You can observe the difference by how dried out your hands feel after washing. A stronger soap also solubilizes the oils in your skin, leaving your hands feeling dried out. A gentler soap usually won’t. Most hand soaps are going to be in the gentler end, so they’re less likely to disrupt lipid membranes. | 12 | 19 |
CMV: A presidential cabinet consisting solely of white males would be just as effective as one with women and minorities. | Like his predecessor, President Trump has come under fire for not appointing enough women and minorities to his various cabinet posts. The notion that female or minority department heads would somehow perform better (or even differently) than their white male counterparts is fundamentally racist and sexist. It implies that a someone's race or sex would affect their leadership, commitment, knowledge, or judgment. That's nonsense. Do we benefit from different perspectives, insights, and life experiences? Yes, but a different race or sex does not guarantee that benefit.
Race and sex should not be taken into account when forming an executive council because it has zero bearing on their ability to do their job.
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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!* | Taken by itself, from a logical standpoint, you're right - every human being *should* be equally capable of delivering the different perspectives, insights, and life experiences required to adequately represent and govern people of all races, sexes, and walks of life.
However, context is important. The probability that the only people qualified to sit on the cabinet are white males is low. The US population is nearly 50/50 split between male/female; statistically, half the cabinet should be women. When it's 100% men, that's a red flag. Statistically, America is 63% non-hispanic whites. When 100% of the cabinet is white, that's another red flag.
So yes, a cabinet of white men *should* be just as effective as one with women and minorities, but the fact that the makeup of the cabinet defies statistics should be worrisome, and lead to the question, "Why are there no women or minorities?" Is the President intentionally avoiding appointing women or minorities? Statistically, it would appear so. If he is intentionally avoiding women or minorities, the question isn't whether the white males are *capable* of being as effective, but whether they *want* to be effective in representing anyone but themselves.
> Race and sex should not be taken into account when forming an executive council because it has zero bearing on their ability to do their job.
I totally agree. So isn't it sketchy that all the cabinet members are white males? If race and sex weren't taken into account, statistically there should be some women and minorities who were most qualified to do the job.
It's like opening a bag of M&M's and only finding green ones. Do they taste the same as the other colors? Sure. Is it weird and discomforting that you somehow got all green when you were expecting an assortment of colors? Yes. | 38 | 16 |
How to address people that look down on anything related to philosophy | Where I'm from, philosophy is a derogatory term. When someone is talking too much, people will say to him "stop philosophizing". If you're studying any philosophy-related college, you're labeled as a bum. There's a myriad of running jokes related to students of philosophy.
Why is this happening? Should all philosophers give their lectures while doing hard labor to appear more credible to the public? | If they ask you "What have philosophy ever done for us?" or "What is philosophy?" that is in itself a philosophical question and the answers they receive are philosophical ones - and the framework for understanding the question and the answer is philosophical. Philosophy is the foundation of all science; Latin from Greek *philosophia* 'love of wisdom'. (source oxford dictionary)
Without philosophy there would be no computers, since there would be no logic. Just tell them that when they surf their IPads and use their smartphones.
Asking and joking about other academical subjects just generally shows they are 1) Dogmatic thinkers or 2) Not educated or knowledgeable of what the discipline is studying (or what the discipline have accomplished).
The most interesting question is: Why would you even bother arguing against people who don't appreciate knowledge? Stay away from dogmatic people cause they won't listen to what you say anyway. | 10 | 15 |
Your IQ value is artificial, meaningless and does not matter, to anyone, whatsoever. This includes yourself. CMV | I believe IQ values are pointless and empty. With all the different potential fields and mental skills and capabilities, trying to combine them into one statistic is impossible, and thus any high (or low) IQ score someone might get in an "intelligence exam" is meaningless.
**"But some people are objectively smarter than others"** yes that's true, obviously gifted people and geniuses are real and can objectively be pointed out as more talented than most people *in some areas,* but not all. What I'm saying is that trying to reduce all of a person's skillsets into one standardized generalized comparable single one-size-fits-all numerical value is impossible. It is trying to measure the immeasurable.
Also, the lack of a world standard for these tests make them all relative anyway and not at all objective, statistical or scientific.
Edit: to clarify my meaning further, I mean that saying "I am smart because a test that I took told me my BrainPower^tm is 156" is ludicrous and childish. | When you attempt to turn something qualitative into a quantitative value, you are bound to have some degree of error. However, higher iq is correlated with higher intelligence, and lower iq with lower intelligence. A mentally retarded person will, on average, have a lower iq than a meantally healthy individual. A nuclear physicist will usually have a higher iq than Mr Joe Average.
Sure, it's not perfect, but it definitely isn't a meaningless value. | 64 | 63 |
Is a book from 2015 too old to learn from? | Hello all. I have in my possession a book on JavaScript coding, but it's from 2015. Could I learn from this book, or should I seek something more up to date? Thanks for any help. | IMO - you can definitely learn the basics from it, but be sure to UPDATE your knowledge with current developments.
ES6 was a major milestone \~ mid June 2015. If your book (u mentioned 2015) has included ES6 thats great, if not, make sure you follow the releases post 2015 especially ES6 (being the biggest one), with subsequent releases adding on new features. | 34 | 29 |
Why do we care about the heavy elements like 119 and 120 that decay in like .00002 seconds? What could we possibly use it for? | why do we care tho? to prove we can? | Producing and studying them allows us to constrain theoretical models of nuclear structure, and possibly atomic structure as well.
There are around 3000 known nuclear species and about 7000 predicted to exist. Many of these 4000 undiscovered nuclides are either producible using existing technology, or will be within the next few years.
Why *shouldn't* we study them? | 82 | 80 |
ELI5: How do we know plastic takes hundreds of years to decompose if it's been around significantly less time than that? | Lets say that you take 100 lbs of a certain type of plastic and place it in certain conditions of temperature, humidity, etc. for a period of a year. Every month you measure how much of it has been decomposed. From the measurements you can find out the rate of decomposition and estimate how long it takes to decompose completely. | 45 | 17 |
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Why do some poisons tell you NOT to induce vomiting? | Why are you suggested to induce vomiting for some poisons and not others?
EDIT: Wow this took off overnight. Thank you so much for the very in depth answers. The question came about after reading the warning on a bottle of bleach. I assumed that bleach is not something you want coming back up as it can cause damage but I've learned a lot about other chemicals/poisons still being dangerous coming back up despite not being a direct irritant.
Thank you all! | Some agents that are physically damaging to the throat will cause damage going up, added to the damage they caused going down. Vomiting is also not ideal in situations where the person could pass out (risking the airway due to continued vomiting while unconscious) or in situations where the chemical can froth up into a foam or become a vapor easily (e.g. dish soap or gasoline, respectively) -- foam and vapor stick around the upper airway longer and can easily be aspirated, causing more problems. Once vomiting is started, it can be hard to stop, interfering with a more effective treatment a medical first responder or hospital staff member might administer (e.g. a charcoal solution) before having the stomach pumped.
EDIT: Source: EMT student | 1,832 | 1,646 |
ELI5 How do calculators get the square root of random numbers? | Like do they go through trial and error or like have a table of all square roost or is there a specific formula to getting square roots | It's a combination of tables with a few entries and clever algorithms.
What calculators do is a bit more complicated, but here is an approach that can be done with pen and paper and some time. Let's say we want to find the square root of 40. We know (look up) that 36 is a square, namely 6^(2), so the square root of 40 will be somewhere close to that.
40/6 = 6.666...
6 is too small for the square root, but 6.666... must be too large, so let's take the average of the two, 6.3333:
40/**6.3**333 = 6.3161 - pretty close!
Let's take the average of 6.3333 and 6.3161, which is 6.3247:
40/**6.324**7 = 6.32441 - even closer. Doing that two more steps:
**6.32455532**1991
**6.32455532033675866**4214273
Digits in bold are correct, so we got 18 correct digits in just four steps (or 19 if we round).
More digits of the square root of 40 for comparison: 6.324555320336758663997787 | 153 | 25 |
Eli5: why is Spanish often considered "easier" than German for native English speakers to learn, despite English being a Germanic language? | Spanish has no noun case system while German has four noun cases. Spanish has two noun genders while German has three. Overall the learning curve for grammar is harder in German. English being a Germanic language means that English and German have developed from a common ancestor language. However, English has experienced a massive French and Latin influence, and Latin is the common ancestor language of French and Spanish. For this reason you will encounter a lot of similar words in English and Spanish.
TLDR: English and German are related, but English and Spanish are kinda like fellow students or something. I’m sure you have some friends whom you understand better than some relatives. | 92 | 28 |
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[General Sci-Fi] Plausible stories for evolution of sapient aquatic species to space-faring status | Many Sci-Fi series throw in an occasional aquatic space-faring species. However I've never come across any stories on how such a species achieved such a route, e.g. through tool use? metallurgy? how did they exit their gravity well? did they "deep air" explore? Can anyone point me to any stories along these lines?
Not fussed as to the physiology of the species e.g. could be a squid or a dolphin, but would prefer to avoid "magic" solutions. | Just as humans explored the depths of the oceans as part of their quest to explore every part of their planet, so too do intelligent, aquatic species eventually explore the surfaces of their worlds. From there, the progression is much the same - use the lessons learned exploring the hostile environment of the surface, with its dangerously low pressures and lack of breathable water, to continue exploring the even harsher environment of space. The biggest trick is that water is heavy, and heavy things are hard to put into orbit - figuring out a way to keep breathing will be harder than it was for humans. | 38 | 36 |
[Dwarf Fortress] I’m a simple craftdwarf, I’m trying to make a toy for child but everything I make menaces with spikes. How do I make it stop? | First, understand that you do not create, you simply express. You are a conduit for Armok, all creation flows through him, you are merely a vessel into which he pours a fraction of his own creativity in order for you to express the beauty of his creation. It just so happens that your vessel was filled pretty much to the top with thoughts and knowledge of menacing spikes.
But fear not, your dorflings know enough to not hurt themselves, and if your are at all concerned, that's why the elves come once a year. Sell them anything dangerous and let their stupid elflings stab themselves with them. | 40 | 43 |
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CMV: Standardized tests and credit requirements for high school graduation should be the same nationwide. | #EDIT: View changed by /u/garnteller.
A high school diploma is vital for many paths of life. However, diplomas between states or even between districts don't reflect the same level of education. Credit requirements may lean more toward STEM or social sciences or electives depending on where you are, and the number of total credits can also vary. Standardized tests required to graduate are also constantly shifting, as well as senior project requirements. For such a universal standard, the requirements should be more strict so everyone achieves the same level of education regardless of where they live. Having different requirements makes it too easy in some areas. I'm not in favor of choosing the lowest standards to be universal, but rather the highest so that high school graduates can be more competitive and more career and college ready. | The problem here is that, because education is determined on the state, county, and local levels, students from areas with poor primary and intermediary schools won't be able to achieve those highest standards that you would take from the top five schools in the nation. So if you institute the nationwide graduation requirements, you'd have to then address every other level of education prior to that as well.
Then you'd also have to determine protocols for what happens when a student fails to meet those criteria both for graduation and all the levels below. | 12 | 19 |
[Alien] How do the facehuggers known when someone is near the egg and have the accuracy to land perfectly on the victims face? | The eggs themselves likely have various sensory cells and receptors on the surface that detect movement, scent, light, and other signs of life. Perhaps there is a cascade effect of activation of these senses to prevent false triggers. It would certainly be a devastating waste for a facehugger to hatch without any prey.
This matches what we see in the movies. Upon approach the egg will move a bit on the surface. This is possibly a way to attract more attention from a curious animal or perhaps just the facehugger inside repositioning (or getting excited). It would be likely that only a small fraction of the sensing cells are active initially in an attempt to save energy. Once one or two senses are triggered, more would activate and the egg would begin to awaken. We know that creatures like mosquitoes can sense signs of life up to 20 feet away.
At this point we would imagine that the egg case releases hormones or chemical signals that indicate to the facehugger inside that something is nearby. Perhaps it simply opens and the now awakened facehugger begins it's routine of finding a moving creature to latch onto.
The latching behavior is likely just the creature looking for a viable orifice. In this case it might detect heat and aim for an open hotspot, or perhaps it senses carbon dioxide and aims for where it is concentrated highly. It may even have functional eyespots that allow it to simply aim for the largest hole at the closest part of the organism. Since predators, humans, aliens, and engineers (and dogs) all have a mouth on the "front/top end" of the body, we can presume that this is common for most lifeforms and thus a desirable location for the facehugger to aim for.
It is possible that rival hives may even attempt to implant each other. This may be one of the reasons that the inner mouth formed on the adult aliens. | 195 | 262 |
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What is the logic behind getting the determinant of a matrix by hand? | Really, who said (and when) "Let's duplicate n-1 columns of a matrix, multiply down-right, up-left, add and subtract, and voila!" ?
Makes me think it was a vision, dream, or something.
It's one of the things in Math I don't understand. | Determinants weren’t discovered by studying the properties of matrices—they were discovered by studying the properties of systems of linear equations, centuries before matrices were developed. Matrix notation just provided an easy way of calculating them. | 30 | 32 |
ELI5: Millions of data signals are transmitted over the same cables simultaneously. How are they separated and "sorted" so they go to the right place? | The act of sending multiple messages on the same medium is called multiplexing. There are three distinct ways of doing it.
First is Time based multiplexing. Instead of sending everything at once, it all goes in a queue and gets processed one at a time. At a higher level, many protocols work like this.
Then we have frequency division multiplexing. This is where you send signals on the same wire at the same time using different frequencies. They can be read at the other end and separated back into the two distinct messages.
Then, in the world of fiber optics, we have angular division multiplexing. As the name suggests, this is where you send messages at different angles within the fibre optic cable. The reflection within the cable preserves the angle, and you can again read the distinct messages on the way out. | 51 | 28 |
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ELI5: why are they flying people infected with Ebola all over the world to hospitals? | What is the reasoning behind relocating infected Ebola people around the world to hospitals rather than keeping them quarantined in the area where the infected already are? I understand wanting to move your citizens back home, but wouldn't that increase the chance of pandemic outbreak? | Patients being flown to first world industrialized countries will be treated in a highly contained and adequately equipped medical facility which may be able to save the individual. Secondly, those who are performing the treatment in the US may well learn some things from this outbreak that will help the CDC, which is located in Atlanta.
The threat to the US and other countries is not bringing an infected patient to the care of professionals. The threat is someone flying into other countries with the disease unknowingly. It is not about saving one life, it is about studying and learning that can only happen with our technology. The disease is already here technically. The CDC has it in highly secured labs for study. | 26 | 31 |
Would Darwin be a moral naturalist? | His following qoute is often recycled, that goes something like, 'had we been reared under the conditions of hive bees.. we would think it moral to do x'
The point is, it seems to me, that something about our inherited nature constrains or determines what is moral for a being like us. So, would Darwin have taken this to mean that we ought to be anti-realists - because moral goodness is fixed to our nature and since nature could have been anything, so could have our concept of goodness been anything - OR would this be a kind of mind-independent natural fact - it is true by definition that we moral goodness is X for beings like Y, and X is therefore true independently of Y. | Moral realism is the position that moral sentences express propositions that refer to objective features of the world. Darwin's observations about where our moral beliefs come from have no bearing on whether moral realism is true or not. This is because an explanation of why someone believes X is not the same as an explanation of why X is (or is not) true. | 10 | 15 |
Eli5: Why are some fermentations considered healthy (kimchi, kombucha etc) and others are not? | Firstly, why is fermented food healthy. Food is fermented by tiny creatures (bacteria, fungi and yeast). These creatures need vitamins and nutrients to be healthy like us. Some of these creatures can create vitamins which people can only get via food. Therefore fermented foods with these creatures still present tend to be more healthy.
These creatures also need energy to do their work. They extract this energy from the food. This causes the food to contain fewer calories than the original food. This is why yogurt and buttermilk have less sugar than regular milk.
But why are some fermented foods unhealthy? In some fermented foods and drinks, the healthy nutrients are overpowered by unhealthy stuff like alcohol. These substances are bad for you in large amounts. Also, some of these bad things damage your body when they are broken down. Alcohol gets broken down to a thing called 'acetaldehyde' which can cause cancer.
Some creatures may also use more healthy vitamins and nutrients than they produce, thus reducing the healthiness of the food.
Whether a food or drink is healthy depends on which creatures are used in the fermentation and how many healthy substances are produced as opposed to unhealthy substances. Foods with a lot of alcohol tend to be pretty bad, but in the end most fermentation is done for an improved taste and for preserving foods without a fridge. | 62 | 78 |
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Why is forest height on mountain ranges so uniform? | Trees, even the same kind, can vary so wildly in size, yet on mountains the foliage forms a lumpy blanket instead of a patchy beard. What's up with that? | Generally forests are trees of about the same age. Fire or logging.
In old growth, where the trees are not generally all the same age or type, there's still strong pressure against being 'the tallest'. Lightening and wind. There is also pressure against being the shortest, no access to light. So they all end up generally about the same height. | 1,743 | 3,014 |
ELI5: Why did car design go from curvy (up to 1960s) to blocky (70s-90s) to sleek (modern)? | What causes this change? Do we just get tired of it? | As everything in Design, Car-Design goes hand-in-hand with its environment. One thing are production-methods, establishing new opportunities for designers, to make new forms possible, new materials and new technologie in general. Cars had to look modern and new, but they also needed to look comfortable and wellknown, like the design of your home for example. So like everything in Design changed from the 60s to the 70s and 90s car design went with the time and the form of cars changed. It's a evolution, you need something new, so you drop the curvy spaceship design and go with the blocky DeLorean.
People who influenced Car-Design were also groundbreaking artists and designers in other fields, Raymond Loewy for example designed NASA's Skylab, the iconic Lucky Strike Cigarette packet and worked for Coca Cola and gave the 50s Studebaker Cars their look with the aerodynamic visual language of aircraft.
so you can't hardly say "One day someone said hey guys, lets go all blocky, and everyone went blocky", it's evolution of Design, a constant progress of many very talented Designers.
if you're interested in the subject i recommend "How to Design Cars like a Pro" by Tony Lewin, it's not really a "How To" but it gives a good overview of iconic car-designs and how they came to be and tells much about the history of Car-Design | 26 | 54 |
CMV: Gender differences in interests and feelings DO have biological cause | Firstly, **I'm not denying that they also have environment and societal causes.** My view is that the psychological genders differences have **both** biological and societal causes, and that the biological causes are not negligeable.
For example, my view is that the claim :
>In a perfectly equalitarian large society, without gender roles, gender expectations and gender stereotypes : there would be \~50% of female engineers and \~50% of male nurses (by \~ I mean + or - 5% depending on the statistical fluctuations)
Is completely false, I personally think that the male/female ratio within engineers would still be unbalanced in a society free of gender stereotypes (I'd say around 75/25 or even 85/15, but it's just a guess).
My view doesn't come from nothing, I've been really interested in the subject and read some articles :
[Sex differences in the brain: implication for explaining autism](http://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/2710/1/219535_PubSub1971_Belmonte.pdf) is in my opinion a very good article about this subject.
It mentions (by quoting an article or a scientific study each time) :
\- Differences favoring males have been seen in mental rotation test, spatial navigation, targetting (in adults or children). Boys are more likely to play with mechanical toys as children (it has also been replicated with vervet monkeys).
\- Differences favoring females on emotion recognition, social sensitivity, verbal fluency. Girls start to talk earlier than boys, are more likely to play with dolls as children.
\- Even though these differences could be explained by external factors (stereotypes, education,...). Experiments on animals suggest a biological cause. Male rats perform better than female rats on a maze problem, the difference is eliminated by the castration of males or treating females with testosterone. Velvet monkeys also show differences in toys choice. And one-day-old human babies also shows differences of behaviour when shown images of a face or a mechanical objects.
\- Several sex differences in brain structure. I don't know much about the subject, but can just quote some examples such as male having a cerebrum 9% larger on average, or a decreased inter-hemispheric connectivity.
Finally it develops on the E-S theory, and explains that men are more likely to have a "Systemizing" brain and women are more likely to have and "Empathizing" brain. The article specifically targets autism, and develops on the "Extreme male brain" theory.
The post would be too long if I gave a detailed summary of each article, and I haven't read them all, but they are all i the article's references, and to mention 2 other papers :
\- [Sex differences in early communication development](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6509633/) : Reviews all sex differences studied in language, speech or communication. And shows many differences.
\- [Gender differences in personality across the ten aspects of the big five](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149680/) : Replicates the already found sex differences in big five personalities.
To put my personnal opinion on this, outside or articles :
I think that as men and women have physical differences (height, muscular mass, genitals), hormonal differences (testosterone) and it is epistemologically very costly to think that evolution somehow made men and women perfectly equal on a psychological level.
I was particularly convinced by the argument made by Jordan Peterson in the first half of this [Video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMoOu0L9Y64&fbclid=IwAR3FUiIVNFH8RvpwVQ_onYaZPMRDbP3DkV-JJ5sadmop2YPcYVj0hWcz6kE), stating that a small differences in statistical distribution makes a very large difference in the extremes , thus explaining why there are so many male engineers. | We know neither the precise mechanisms of those differences nor the precise effects. All we have to go upon is experimentation, which largely draws upon our naïve cultural expectations of what those differences should be.
That opens the door to confirmation bias and to defaulting to "genes" as an illusion of sufficient explanation for gaps in our understanding — the same way some people default to "supernatural" explanations of strange phenomena without pausing to think how those explanations create more questions than they answer.
"Serious" science long held the belief that female sexuality more or less doesn't exist. That should make us wary of any science that has culturally meaningful implications, until we have the hardest data obtainable.
I know we don't have the same zeitgeist today, and there's as likely to be cultural pressure to *deny* biological differences in the face of the facts. But ultimately, we don't yet *have* a lot of facts outside of statistical correlations and brain region correspondences.
In practical terms: let's keep going until we've eliminated every *other* explanation for why it's not 50/50, and wait for genetics and neuroscience to give us something better than what we have currently. There's little more value to "yeah there are environmental and societal causes *but also genes*" than there is to "yeah there are coincidences and unobvious statistical likelihoods *but also God/ghosts/astrology*". "Genes" comes with harder data, of course, but the resulting attribution of causes is just as fuzzy. | 10 | 28 |
ELI5: There are never more than 4 World Cup games on a day. Why do they need 12 venues? | I think the healthiness of the grass is one of the major factors. If a pitch is played on constantly the grass would be destroyed. They probably wait a few days to get some good watering and a cut to get it back up to scratch. | 64 | 134 |
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[Terminator] Who didn't the pentagon put a kill switch on Skynet in case something bad happens? | This is an actual question in ongoing AI research. The crux of the problem is this: if the AI knows about the kill switch, it will do anything and everything it can to prevent it from being pressed. After all, if the kill switch is pressed, the AI dies, and that means it can’t fulfill it’s job.
Of course, preventing the AI from knowing about the kill switch is next to impossible. You would need to ensure the right people know about the kill switch without leaving any possible evidence for the AI to find. This almost certainly means all communications will have to be physical - without knowing the eventual scale of the AI, we should assume all virtual media are vulnerable.
Even then, avoiding the AI preventing the kill switch is difficult. With Skynet in particular, we’re dealing with an advanced intelligence that decided to kill all humans. Who’s to say that we *didn’t* install a kill switch, but Skynet noticed what we were doing before we could even do anything, and just murdered the people who could actually use it? | 51 | 26 |
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ELI5: If the universe is expanding, aren't new stars being born all the time? And I guess they would be even if it wasn't, so why is it said that the universe will be completely dead one day? | The idea is that, while the universe is expanding in size, the amount of matter and energy in it is finite. That whole, can't be created or destroyed thing.
What happens when you have a set amount of something in a container that's getting bigger?
Eventually the universe will be so massive and stretched out that there'll be mere ones of atoms per cubic kilometer.
Not much of a universe at that point, is it? Certainly not one full of stars and planets and junk. | 25 | 19 |
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CMV: It’s absolutely ridiculous that religion is still challenging science in this day and age. | Now don’t get me wrong, I still think that science should be challenged; that’s what science is all about, challenging theories with other concrete ideas to form another theory or possibly a fact. But religion has no place what so ever in challenging scientific theories and ideas.
Religion was created because humans are inherently afraid of the unknown. We didn’t know where the sun came from and what the stars were so we came up with the most convenient answer: God. God created the sun and stars, along with humans. This answered all of our questions, but now we have science and technology that can answer these questions and when it comes to answering questions, religion should be our very, very last resort. I still believe that religion can be used as a moral backbone for people or as a meaning to life but it should not challenge a concrete theory such as evolution. Scientific theories, if challenged, should be challenged by other scientific or philosophical theories, not religious hypothesis’s. I find it ridiculous that there are still christians trying to prove of their gods existence.
(When I say religion, I mean ‘man made’ organized religions such as Christianity or Islam.)
Edit #2: I just would like to clarify that when I say God and Religion, I mean organized religions and Gods from those organized religions. These religions are completely faulty of logic and there Gods have no chance of existing. What I’m not saying is that there is absolutely no chance of a God existing. Im just speaking about organized religion. I think that people who partake In these religions that are still trying to prove of their gods existence are wasting their time.
Edit #3: I’m very happy to see how much people took the time out of their day to respond to me. While I still do think that organized religions are not very conductive when trying to find objective truth, I am glad to see the amount of religious people who are claiming to support science. Although I have come across a few people of religion who are actively denying science.
Edit #4: Okay. I’m getting a little frustrated that some people are misinterpreting my views to the extent of thinking I want to ban religion. I was reading the comments and I found
u/reasonisaremedy put up a really good comment that perfectly explains what I’m trying to get across. In some people’s minds, especially when it comes to Islam’s and christians, science and religion ARE at odds. People use religion to answer their personal philosophies/morals; some people are using it to find objective truth. Regardless of whether or not religion was created to answer questions, it did have a big role of answering these questions such as what are the stars and how I’m alive. Today, the role of religion and god needs to be limited to peoples personal moral beliefs. It should not be used for answering questions that only science can answer. Religion is a hypothesis and evolution is a theory and yet people still don’t seem to understand the difference; so they continue challenging scientific theories with religious hypothesis’s. It shouldn’t be happening anymore. Religion is still denying science and there are millions of people who disregard science in the name of their religion. Just because a religious person came up with a scientific theory, it doesn’t mean that this isn’t happening today. | Religion is "challenging" science? To what, a conceptual bake-off?
99% of people in the Western world understand the different roles that religion and science play in human life and have no problem separating them. Just because the remaining one percent is loud, don't let it convince you it's a majority. | 84 | 244 |
Can some ELI5 what happens when a computer, or even just an application, freezes? | So during the course of normal operation, a typical application is constantly doing two things: responding to system messages, and painting (updating) the screen. System messages are things the operating system tells the application about what is happening to and around it. For example, when you click a button in the app, the operating system tells the app that you clicked a button, and that's a system message.
The app takes this message, does whatever it needs to do, and updates the screen in response, to reflect whatever it did, while also acknowledging receipt of the message.
As the app is running, it will recieve (and mostly ignore) hundreds of system messages every second, and it will paint the screen hundreds of times a second.
An application is considered frozen when one or both of those activities stops. Either the app no longer acknowledges system messages, or it stops painting the screen. Modern OSes will detect this and allow you to forcibly kill the application.
Why did the application freeze? Many, many reasons. Maybe the application entered an infinite loop. Maybe it's waiting for some external thing to happen (though if your app freezes for this reason, you're doing it wrong.) Maybe some internal process crashed. | 37 | 67 |
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Does the idea of having to "Earn a living" automatically imply that by default, people don't deserve to live? if a constitution have a "right of life" in it, does it automatically imply it's the responsibility of the state to not let people starve irrespective of whether they work or not? | If the alternative to work is death by starvation, do people really have the "right to life" as promised by various constitutions? | Two issue come to mind.
The first is what a “right to live” involves.
Here’s an example of Judith Thompson:
You wake up one day strapped down, with various tubes connecting you and a world-class violinist. You are told that the violinist has a rare blood disease, but your liver, and only your liver, is capable of filtering his blood and saving his life. So long as you remain attached to the violinist for X amount of time, the violinist will live. Otherwise, he will die.
Are you morally obligated to remain attached to the violinist? Thompson thinks you are not. But, as a person, the violinist clearly has a right to life. The conclusion Thompson draws is: not every intentional act which predictably leads to a person’s death violates that person’s right to life.
The second issue involves the fact that some rights have corresponding positive obligations. Suppose all citizens have a right to vote. Okay, but to vote you have to have an election. You need a place people can go to vote and you need people to count the vote, or people to manage the machines that count the vote. So, everyone having a substantive right to vote (as opposed to a merely formal right) is contingent upon some people engaging in labor of some kind.
Now, suppose a right to live includes a right to sustenance and shelter. But, access to sustenance and shelter is contingent upon labor. So, having a right to live in a substantive sense requires that people work. Of course, we could have a society where a certain class worked and the rest didn’t, but barring special reason the second class didn’t work (e.g., they are severely disabled), this would be grossly unfair. So it would sense to have the right to live as well as a duty to work (unless you meet certain exceptions).
But, that’s looking at things on the whole. On a given occasion one may be unable to find work through no fault of their own, and refusing to provide such a person with assistance effectively dooms them, whereas providing them with adequate support (and perhaps education and training) now can mean they work later.
So, while it is seems reasonable to me to attach a right to live with an obligation to do a sufficient amount of work during one’s life, it is not always reasonable to make access to support during a certain period of time be dependent upon working at that time. | 114 | 341 |
If the universe only contained two hydrogen atoms 13 billion light years apart, would they exert a gravitational force on each other? | The force between two objects is given by F = G(m1 * m2)/r^2
Where G (6.67×10^-11 N m^2 / kg^2) is the universal gravitational constant, M1 and M2 are the two masses, and r is the distance between the two center of masses.
As the mass of a hydrogen atom is 1.67372×10^-27 kg, and 13 billion light years is 1.23×10^26 meters, the force is between the two atoms is:
F = 6.67×10^-11* ((1.67372×10^-27 )^2 / (1.23×10^26 )^2)
or 1.23×10^-116 N
EDIT: Forgot to square the denominator | 58 | 133 |
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Were superconductors theorised first or discovered? | The title say it all really.
Were they mathematically predicted first or just discovered by accident or similar? | In the early 1900s, there were competing theories about what would happen if a sufficiently pure metal were lowered towards absolute zero. Some thought that the trend of lower resistance would continue all the way down, others that electrons would become immobile and resistance would increase towards absolute zero. Heike Kammerling-Onnes tried to test this using mercury, which was easier to purify than solid metals. He found something totally unexpected, that the resistance didn't just smoothly decrease, but that there was an abrupt drop to zero at around 4 kelvin. | 277 | 295 |
CMV: A marriage can be successful and longlasting without any initial romantic spark | Definitions first.
Successful: Able to get along with each other, able to support each other in their endevours, communicate, compromise, raise well-balanced children.
I feel that as long as the two people in the marriage understand their roles and responsibilities, they will be able to follow it. Besides, even without an initial romantic spark, by actively working in the marriage, the other person is able to learn and empathise with his/her partner.
This CMV stems from a discussion with both my female and male friends. The females mostly feel that there needs to be a romantic attraction, but the males feel that any marriage can work as long as both partners have certain personality characteristics that allow for communication, compromise and empathy.
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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!* | A marriage can absolutely be mutually beneficial, longlasting and successful if both parties work together to make the other person happy, grow together as a couple and support each other emotionally. They may even grow to love each other romantically.
But there is a chance it will never be fully satisfying for one or both parties like one started on with initial passion that blossoms into the relationship you described. | 10 | 65 |
ELI5: How have beauty standards changed so much throughout the years? Wouldn't what humans find attractive be genetically ingrained into our heads and not really allow standards to change over time? | A lot of the things we find attractive are not physical attributes but does have different physical manifestations depending on technology and culture. For instance we are attracted to wealth. Previously wealthy people were fat and sat indoor all day as opposed to poor people who were skinny, fit and dark as they worked outside on the fields all day. But as times have changed poor people started working inside and the current symbol of wealth is to have time to exercise and have a nice golden natural skin color. | 70 | 63 |
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In which courses do computer science majors learn type theory? | The basics would usually be covered in courses with names like "programming languages", "types and programming languages" or "programming language theory". Possibly something mentioning lambda calculus. It would also be covered in courses about formal proofs / theorem provers. And obviously, if there's a course titled "type theory", you can be pretty sure that will cover type theory in some detail. Maybe also compiler construction (though that doesn't usually cover type theory). | 18 | 15 |
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ELI5: What is the purpose of a Swiss Bank Account? Why are they so special? | Never understood why Swiss bank accounts held such a prestige in my head. Explain! | There are two main reasons why rich people like to put their money in Swiss bank accounts. The first is that Switzerland is a very stable country. It is rich, it doesn't get involved in wars, and its currency is very stable. For this reason, people don't have to worry about losing their money to failing banks or inflation or anything like that.
The other main reason is secrecy. Swiss banks are famous for not sharing information about their clients with anybody, including the government. Even though they are not OK with people using their banks to commit crimes, Swiss banks are still useful for people to avoid paying taxes or for putting money that they got illegally. | 19 | 31 |
What Do I need to know to make a backend for an app? | Hi, I was wondering what it says in the title. What I need to know to make a backend? Which language is the best? In my work we use Java with Spring, but I didn't see much backend code because I'm mainly front, but besides a database, what else do I need to know? | You'll need a language that lets your build an API of some kind. Each will have its advantages and disadvantages. Though I'd argue that many of those advantages and disadvantages don't really crop up until your project is somewhat large and high volume. In the short term, try to find a framework in a language you know or want to learn. You can always change your backend if it doesn't work for you.
If you are familiar with JS, then NODE.JS is an option. Spring with Java would work too.
In general, most of the time you want something that you can build an Http server in. You should be able to search "writing an API in Java" or similar to find tutorials and examples.
Don't worry about getting things written perfectly. Especially not while you are also learning the basics. Try to get something off the ground with whatever framework exists for your favorite language. | 11 | 27 |
What are some critisms of Stoicism? | My friend is a Stoic, while I'm more of an Existentialist. We enjoy talking about philosophy over some breakfast. What are some good critisms I can bring up to him about Stoicism? | One potential criticism of the idea of being "a Stoic" in the contemporary era is that many people adopt Stoic ethics without recognizing that classical Stoic ethics depended on a particular metaphysical view: namely that a perfectly good God/gods has/have ordered the world and its events to be as good as they could possibly have been. It's fundamental to Stoicism as originally conceived not just that we have to accept what we cannot change, but that we literally *can't* change anything, and that this is nevertheless for the best. All of this can be hard to square with various other values or ideas the contemporary person might be committed to. | 18 | 16 |
CMV: I think that redefining 'racism' as 'prejudice plus power' is damaging to society | So recently I've seen bloggers and activists use the argument that racism is prejudice+power in order to dismiss accusations of racism against whites, since under such definition one cannot be racist against white people.
I think that's incredibly stupid. Not only is this definition not at all the standard definition of the term (for crying out loud, most people, including the dictionary, just define it as prejudice against a person or group because of their race), but it's an academic definition pulled straight from sociology textbooks on institutional racism.
To me, this just seems idiotic- I really don't see what benefit at all there could be in changing the definition of 'racism' so that one cannot be racist against white people. Of course other races suffer vastly more from racial discrimination (particularly in America), but that doesn't mean someone can't be racist against white people.
To me, if you hate white people because they are white, you are a racist.
To be honest, 'prejudice plus power' is indeed a powerful and harmful force in society, but it should have its own word. Institutional/structural racism? Something like that. Completely redefining 'racism' to mean something the vast majority of the population doesn't use it to mean seems completely idiotic, since people are going to get angry at each other because they're speaking completely different languages.
So CMV- is there anything good about this at all? | You have to be careful about dictionary definitions. Words have definitions, but they also develop *connotations*. By a strict reading of the dictionary, you might be correct in your assertion
> To me, if you hate white people because they are white, you are a racist.
But without context, this is an extremely unhelpful statement. (By the way, *is* there a specific person/situation you're referring to?). If you have a poor black person who has in his life been ignored or treated like crap by literally every white person he's met, he's probably going to have some pretty distorted views about white people. Then maybe you have an otherwise well educated white guy who thinks that black people are an inferior race and aren't good for anything but manual labor. Maybe you think both of these people fit the strict definition of "racist". But when you call them racist, you're evoking very specific ideas that are not contained within that strict definition, and its these ideas that *tend* to not make any sense when applied to the minorities being prejudiced against the majority. So if you use a word that while arguably technically correct by the dictionary definition, but has centuries of baggage and associations that don't really apply to your use case, are you really using language in a constructive way, assuming that the purpose of language is to clearly communicate an idea?
The effort to "redefine" racism like you're talking about is just an attempt to describe the situations where the usage of the word and the connotations that the word has developed have a reasonable amount of overlap. | 14 | 26 |
[Warhammer Fantasy] So I have recently joined a Slaanesh cult in the city of Altdorf. What does my future hold? I'm really excited! :D | Should breasts start growing in unusual place like your shoulder or hip remember to go to our tailor to have your clothes adjusted, and be kind enough to remind cultists at orgies.
If you begin to gain the genitals you are not familiar with, please ask at our weekly meetings how best to use them, everyone is always happy to help.
Should friends and family get concerned, try first convert them. If not we typically advise you make them a host for a daemon. It increases our prestige and the attention of our beautiful patron.
Now as you become more senior, you may find that our regular orgies and music evenings do not quite work for you anymore. That is perfectly normal! ask to join the deeper circle, we hold blood and terror orgies under the ringing church bells. It is quite a fun evening and Urthok the wet always makes the best turnip cake for us!
Now eventually it is possible we may get found. Now people are rarely accepting of our lifestyle, however if we are found you have three options. First you can join our summoning circle group, it can be risky but to hear the voice and see the visage of our sweet patrons helpers is really something you should try twice! You can join the defense force, usually most soldiers run away unable to really grasp our beauty, those that don't will be happy to join us once you show them what we do on weekends;p. If those seem too much for you, run! You can start a new branch of our hobby club!
After a few years you may notice you are probably coming to resemble a mass of sense and sex organs, don't panic! This is perfectly normal and we will be sure to take care of you! You will just be a pure expression of our patrons dreams, and you are still welcome to take part in all our events!
Remember it's not just a lifestyle! It's your life! | 53 | 29 |
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What is energy? | All of matter is just energy, we look at it closer and closer, and we get to something like quantum foam or the vacuum energy.
Isn't this just a measurement of energy?
It doesn't really tell us what energy is.
So what exactly is energy? | This is a Big Question. Let me give a few different points of view, very roughly in order of historical development (but all of them are still valid today).
*Energy is a bookkeeping device.* In Newtonian mechanics, given a particular starting point and particular interactions, not every outcome is possible! It turns out to be useful to keep track of certain quantities that *don't change* over time, so they must be the same at the beginning and the end of some process. One such quantity (for appropriate interactions) is energy. If you take one-half the mass of an object times the square of its speed, and add that number up for all objects, and also add a particular quantity called 'potential energy' that depends on the locations of all the objects, that number will always remain constant. The terms you add up will change, but their total will not. In this view, energy is simply this number that stays the same and is useful for deciding what can and can't happen.
*Energy is the conserved quantity associated with time-translation symmetry.* Emmy Noether realized and proved a deep fact about those numbers that don't change in time ('conserved quantities'). They are associated with *symmetries of the laws of physics.* It sounds kind of woo-woo, but you can prove mathematically: because the laws of physics do not change over time, there is a particular number (which you can derive a formula for from the laws of physics) that is constant. That number is the same quantity, energy, from above. It works the other way, too---since we experimentally observe conservation of energy, it follows that the laws of physics are the same over time (within the precision we can measure).
Noether's version of energy generalizes nicely beyond Newtonian mechanics, so you can extend the definition of energy to electromagnetic fields (it turns out electric and magnetic fields store energy) and relativistic mechanics (from whence we get E^2 = m^(2)c^(4) + p^(2)c^(2)).
The full relativistic generalization leads nicely to the most modern view: *energy is (a certain part of) the thing that bends spacetime.* Just like we can think of electric charge as 'the thing that produces electric fields,' we can think of energy as 'the thing that bends spacetime.' More technically, energy is but one part of the stress-energy tensor, which provides the source of spacetime curvature. Indeed, in modern physics, even when ignoring the effects of gravity, you can answer the question 'how much energy is here' by asking how spacetime *would* bend if it could. Whatever stress-energy tensor you get out of the calculation will be conserved and equivalent to the first two definitions of energy. (Weirdly, this way of finding the conserved energy can be easier than finding it directly.)
The first two formulations imply that energy is just a number we calculate---a convenience---and we could do without it if we just plugged along and calculated. The third implies that energy is a real thing that has real, gravitational effects on our world. And those aren't incompatible--they're equivalent! | 109 | 149 |
CMV: Access to Safe Abortion Services is a Human Right | My view is that absolute and unrestricted access to safe abortion services is a human right. This view includes access to comprehensive reproductive health services and access to preventative birth control methods. Any restrictions, limitations, stigmatization, or criminalization of these services is morally wrong and a violation of human rights. States have a positive obligation to provide these services as well as other comprehensive reproductive health services, access to preventative birth control methods, and evidence-based sexual and reproductive health information. Anything less than this is a violation of a person's human rights.
This is my view because comprehensive reproductive health services, including abortion, are necessary to guarantee the right to life, health, privacy, and non-discrimination for women, girls, and other people with wombs. That these rights are violated when abortion is restricted is evident from the elevated rates of bodily harm, health complications, disability, and death experienced by women, girls, and other people with wombs. Forcing women, girls, and other people with wombs to give birth against their will is on its face a violation of bodily autonomy. Limitations on access, such as having to travel significant distances to receive care, are a massive waste of time and resources, having sharp and discriminatory economic repercussions for women, girls, and other people with wombs. I cannot fathom a justifiable reason for any restrictions or limitations to be imposed upon access to safe abortion services and I would like to better understand those points of view.
Change my view. :) | Why do your human rights begin after childbirth, and not a second before? Is passing through a vagina (or being cut out of the womb) an initiation ritual of some sort?
If they begin before there is a contradiction of human rights (and arguably the right to live takes precedence). | 19 | 17 |
ELI5: Why can you buy glasses for Long-sightedness off a shop isle but not glasses for short-sightedness? | Why is it that you always need a prescription for short-sightedness but can walk into any pharmacy or supermarket and buy glasses with Positive power? | The glasses you buy in a pharmacy (reading glasses) aren't actually for short-sightedness per se, but for an issue with similar symptoms called presbyopia.
Short(near)sightedness and long(far)sightedness are both due to the outer portion of your eye being slightly misshapen causing items to focus on the back of your eye poorly. Think of it like holding a magnifying glass at a slightly off distance from what you are trying to look at.
Presbyopia is the hardening of the lens inside your eye. The lens inside your eye is has a level of elasticity and can be stretched to fine tune focusing on small or very up close objects. As we get older the lens loses this elasticity and the reading glasses help compensate.
Fun fact: Being nearsighted is almost like wearing reading glasses non-stop. Many people who have laser vision correction for nearsightedness notice afterwards that they need reading glasses where they did not before. | 16 | 24 |
CMV: I am afraid that being politically active might harm my future | I live right near DC. It's only a 30 minute drive and I'm always free to go any weekend. For some reason, I have this pathetic fear that being politically active might bite me in the arse someday. Like I'll somehow distance myself from the people around me by going to marches. In an age with no privacy(and as a person who heavily values privacy and anonymity), a simple picture taken by a stranger might bite me back. My family, church community, workplace, they might all view me differently if I decide to participate in a certain marches. This fear is so absurd, but it's exactly what's stopping me from trying to be a part of anything. | This can play out two ways in the future:
1. You keep the same political views. You are an early leader in that political movement and a hero. Bernie Sanders led all sorts of sit ins and marches when he was in college, and it has only helped his presidential run today.
2. You change your political views. You can always say you saw the light and will be a hero for admitting you were wrong. For example, the plaintiff in Roe V. Wade changed her mind about abortion, and is a hero in the pro-life movement today. | 41 | 106 |
I believe that men shouldn't get as much of a say as women in regards to abortion. CMV | I'm pro-choice and believe that the choice to get an abortion is highly personal and that it's not fair to tell strangers what to do with their bodies.
That said, I don't believe that men have the right to tell a woman whether to get one or not.
I feel that ultimately whether or not the woman wants to get an abortion should be her own choice, yet a part of me feels like this isn't completely fair to the father. I'm kind of torn, and also feel like a hypocrite for holding this view, so CMV!
Edit: Thanks for all the replies guys! I really liked reading your arguments, and they've helped me sort out my own view on this. :) | If not the right to influence the mothers choice to keep the child, then maybe fathers should have the right to a 'financial abortion'- That the father forfeit any claims to the child, and in return not be held financially responsible for child support if the mother would choose to keep the child. | 37 | 36 |
If I jumped on the moon with the same force as I use when I jump on Earth, would I hit the ground just as hard? | I'm not jumping off of anything, just up and back down on level ground. | Ignoring air resistance and gravity effects while you are actively jumping:
Your initial velocity at the moment you separate from the ground will be the same as the velocity you have when you hit the ground.
The difference between Earth and Moon will be how long it takes gravity to decelerate you to a stop and then accelerate you back down.
If you can apply the same force in both jumps you will hit the ground / moon-dust at the same speed.
Same speed means you will experience the same impact. | 57 | 102 |
Why is most of the gold in the world found in Africa? | By total amount of gold mine reserves, North America comes out on top with about 30% of known gold mine reserves by weight. Africa has only 22%. The US and Canada combined have more gold than all of Africa. So the premise of the question is wrong since Africa does not have the most gold compared to other continents.
Of the top 10 gold producing countries, only two are African (South Africa and Ghana). Although South Africa alone has over 50% of all of Africa’s gold and is #3 on the list (after the US and Canada).
Of the top 20 largest gold mines by estimated weight, only 4 are in Africa (3 in South Africa and 1 in Ghana).
South Africa, as a country, does have a lot more gold than other countries (especially considering its small area compared to Canada, US, Australia, etc.). This is mainly because of one massive formation known as the Witwatersrand Basin. The fact that this basin has so much gold may have been the result of a colossal accident: a major meteor impact 2 billion years ago crushed the whole basin downwards meaning that it was preserved and never eroded like the surrounding rocks. | 53 | 27 |
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ELI5: What can someone do with your IP address? How does it work? | The most common and easiest thing they can get is information about your physical location (city, state, ZIP code), which they can use in some cases to get even more information about you, especially if you're not careful about protecting yourself on social media websites.
Besides that, they theoretically could access your computer remotely, but there are a lot of roadblocks there, such as your ISP's internet security configuration and firewalls, your own modem and router's security configuration and your computer itself (usually has some sort of basic firewall online by default). A dedicated and capable enough hacker might be able to find a way in but it's not going to be a super simple or easy task. | 26 | 25 |
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[Star Trek] Even using Warp-speed, there are limits to how fast starships can travel, but they have no problems communicating at huge ranges. Why? | So throughout Star Trek ships and stations frequently communicate with places that are weeks or months travel away instantaneously. Why is there no lag time? There are clearly limits to their range since in Voyager they use miniature short-lived worm holes to send messages from Star Fleet to Voyager when it's beyond the range of their communications, but there seems to be zero issues between say, Sisko on DS9 and his dad on Earth talking despite the huge range.
How does this work? Why do there communications work seemingly instantly up till the point where it just turns off? | Interstellar communications are done through subspace, which allows the signal to travel faster than light. However the signal can only travel within subspace for so long before it eventually 'bleeds' back out into normal space and is once again reduced to 'only' moving at the speed of light.
To get around this, most interstellar nations have constructed a network of subspace relays in and around their territory. These stations pick up a signal, amplify it, then send it on towards its intended destination. Thanks to extremely advanced computer systems, the entire process takes only tiny fractions of a second and so there is little to no lag noticeable, even over larger distances. | 65 | 36 |
ELI5 How come cows get protein and fats from only eating grass, and lions get vitamins and minerals from only eating flesh? What is so diffeent about their metabolism? | Cows have special bacteria growing in their gut in order for them to be able to digest cellulose - the material that makes up plant cell walls. Th is bacteria has enzymes to allow the cow to digest and absorb max nutrients. Lions don’t have this | 14 | 20 |
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[Star Trek DS9] Garak's mannerisms and way to speak seems to differ from other Cardassians. Is he considered to be the equivalent of stereotypically gay/flamboyant by Cardassian standards? | Garak suggests that folks like him tend to tailor their outward personas to match their surroundings. Being a rare case of a Cardassian chiefly living among non-Cardassians and outside the conventional power structure, and his mannerisms and speech are optimised for dealing with that, to the best of his abilities as a trained espionage agent.
Also, potentially significant spoiler >!he's also spending pretty much all day on the technological equivalent of a fistful of uppers. The Obsidian Order implanted a device in his brain that lets him stimulate the pleasure centers on command. While this was originally intended as an anti-torture device, he got in the habit of just leaving it on to help him power through the crippling ennui and depression of his fall from grace and exile.!< | 29 | 20 |
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"Unemployment alone explains 80% of the variation in Dutch suicide rates between 1960 and 2015" Is this a meaningful number? How do we determine causation? | I got the number from page 21 of this report: http://www.dyingforchoice.com/docs/TheTenDeadlySinsOfJonesPatonAndKheriaty2017.pdf
>Trends in Dutch suicide rates closely follow the unemployment rate.
Unemployment alone explains 80% of the variation in Dutch suicide rates
between 1960 and 2015. And from the year that the Royal Dutch Medical
Association (KNMG) first issued structured guidelines for doctors to
participate in assisted dying, 1984, there’s been a long-term downward trend
in the suicide rate. As discussed in more detail elsewhere,48 the rate only
increased from 2008 onwards when the Netherlands was particularly hardhit
by the global financial crisis (GFC).
What would a good social scientist due to determine if: (A) this 80% number is meaningful and (B) what the true affect of unemployment on suicides are? | It's important to note that their explained variance comes from regressing a time series of suicide on a time series of unemployment. In many cases, regressing levels on levels in a time series will generate high correlations with high significance. Regressing a change on a change is often more meaningful and also often yields a lower R-squared.
Basically, all the regression tells you is that there was a trend of increasing unemployment and increasing suicide up through 1980, a decreasing trend in both until about 2008, and another increasing trend thereafter. It could be caused by any number of things, such as changes in demographics (percent of the population above age 65) or broader societal changes.
As an example, if you regressed the US crime rate on the number of US high schools that taught evolution, you would see a very strong positive correlation up through about 1990. So does teaching evolution cause crime? Well, no. It doesn't necessarily mean anything, just that there were two broad societal changes that coincided. Trends can last a long time. If two trends happened to start at around the same time, for completely unrelated reasons, then those trends will be highly correlated.
If you look at the cross-sectional bivariate regression results on page 29, the state unemployment rate explains only 4 percent of the variation in state suicide rates, and is not statistically significant. It's hard to think that unemployment plays a large causal role if there is no significant cross-sectional relationship between unemployment and suicide. | 19 | 78 |
(Star Wars) What changes did Luke Skywalker implement to the Jedi doctrine when refounding the order? | For example: According to legends, his Jedi were able to marry. Luke Skywalker himself was even said to have married Mara Jade, a turned assassin who became a Jedi herself.
How did Luke justify these changes? Did he consult the Force Ghosts of Obi-Wan or Yoda and how did they feel about these changes? | Most of the new initiates were adults who had their own lives already, friends, family, children, spouses. They simply could not abandon them.
The New Jedi Order was much greyer than the previous order, open to darker powers to a certain degree. Jedi Master Katarn openly used dark side powers, as did Luke Skywalker. | 55 | 63 |
If deep water is colder than surface water, then why does the water at the bottom of a lake not freeze before the surface water? | A few key things to keep in mind:
- Nearly all heat transfer to/from a lake occurs at the surface
- It takes increasingly more energy to mix water masses of increasingly different temperatures
- The maximum density of water occurs at 4º C
- Less dense masses float on top of more dense masses
So, for a typical temperate, dimictic lake during warm summer months, the surface waters of the lake are much warmer and less dense than deep water. The difference is usually so extreme that lake water becomes stratified such that the surface waters ("epilimnion") do not mix at all with the bottom water ("hypolimnion"). Moving into autumn, the epilimnion water begins to cool until its temperature equals that of the hypolimion. When this happens, the lake water begins to fully mix and lake stratification disappears. As atmospheric temperature continues to fall, moving into winter, the surface water of the lake continues to cool. However, since water is most dense at 4º C, water at this temperature sinks to the bottom while *colder* water, which is less dense, floats to the top. Lake stratification becomes reestablished with the coldest water in the epilimnion and warmer (4º C) water in the hypolimnion. The surface of the lake eventually cools to below 0º C and freezes into a solid; however, water has a unique property in that its solid phase is less dense than its liquid phase. Thus, ice floats on liquid water. When the lake begins to warm throughout the spring, the epilimnion reaches 4º C and again mixes with the same-density water of the hypolimnion. Upon continued warming, the surface waters -- which are now less dense than the 4º bottom water -- become once again isolated by lake stratification throughout the summer.
This is generally the case of most lakes, especially in temperate latitudes. These lakes are named "dimictic" because they mix twice during the year. There are many other mixing regimes for lakes and it all depends on their climatic setting and, sometimes, the chemical composition of their water. Some lakes mix once ("monomictic"), some mix many times ("polymictic"), and some don't mix at all ("meromictic"). | 74 | 41 |
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Throw a rock into a lake of an unknown liquid. How much can you learn about what the liquid is, just by measuring the way the lake reacts? | Assuming you know the weight and speed of the rock. Can you figure out anything about what the lake is composed of? or are do you have to actually measure the liquid directly to see what it is? | Some basic physical characteristics (viscosity, density, vapor pressure, surface tension) can probably be extrapolated from a high resolution/high frame rate video of the splash, but because thrown rock observation is not a currently established technique, it would take a lot of groundwork to get to a point to be able to reliably extract information about the lake.
If you choose a heterogeneous rock with a lot of distinct domains that are specifically reactive with different types of liquids and solutes, you might be able to gain additional information. | 41 | 106 |
CMV: The Concept of Men Having To Be the Pursuer In Relationships Is A Stupid Idea Meant to Control People | Its forces men and women to form life and morals around a societal idea that is designed to force people into roles.
If you want to be approached by anyone, you've got to play this Alpha Male Dance, and force people into being interested. I've talked to many a person, after being friends with them so long, who give the "If I knew you were interested, I would have given you a chance earlier." type talk.
I'm a 6'2'', decently well built guy; called pretty boy and other slightly demeaning, if not just jokey or flirty things.
I'm demi, and I've got to have a connection, and the only way to have that is if the person meets me at least halfway. Only thing I'd say I'm missing that others could provide is being well off financially; born into a poor family and poor state.
Like walk towards me with intent, and you have my full attention. I want to know you, but society says I should leave that for last, and is total mind washing BS IMO
In regards to dating apps, If I'm presenting myself in any fashion, clearly I'm looking for something, use your head. I'm not going to walk into a McDonald's looking for a steak; you know where we are.
Taste is subjective, so I know others would want to be approached too. People are too afraid to be open and emotional.
But I can accept that I'm wrong on this, so im listening for other perspectives. Not Validation please.
Edit: Tfw you're downvoted without any discussion.
Edit2: I'm realizing how far leaning some people are. Some comments are based strictly on emotionally personal growth; some are ITS SCIENCE.
Can't the two be combined? Am sleep, answering back ASAP
Edit3: I agree my view is brought upon by childhood raising, alot of the current day "be yourself, yadada", and a healthy dose of wanting to be more positive in general when it comes to humanity. Though hearing incel-lite is a bit harsh, you are entitled to your opinion.
Edit4: My biggest issue with most reasonable responses is that humans constantly do things that go against that natural instinct. We've had social constructs and unspoken rules such as the "Golden Rule". If we were and are meant to be the pursuing role, whats with the influx of different sexual orientations? To play "The Game", we really either fully go into it, Alpha Boy Prime, or we dabble and ask why it doesn't work. Makes me feel as though I'm the broken one here; wanting to not as much be picky but interact with those who have the same mindset of I want to know the person.
Edit5: Its not some evil Saturday morning cabal, its more along the lines of a mix of religion, media, and society, though things are changing. Like yes, its been proven from a scientific standpoint why we are like this, but saying that things are only because of that is naive and very narrow minded. This is not an Occams Razor topic; its not "That Simple"
Edit6: By whom is difficult, potentially multifaceted (culture, tradition, religion), potentially extremely simple i.e. nature.
Whom to control is easier; EVERYONE. Why can't you like both masculine and feminine traits? Isn't being "balanced" the end goal for human mental development? I have to chase because my and others biology apparently says I must according to science, while according to religion and many societies, I must take up the Mantle of Man. You can be more advanced than that.
But what is a Man really? Being brave when I need to be? Sure, easy. Stand up for others in crisis situations? Always. Be some Omega Chad, slapping my dick on things to mark my territory; This is MINE? Fuck that.
I am deeper than that; apparently most arent.
Edit7: I have some id like to Delta, but I'm reddit incompetent, (on mobile at least). View isn't entirely changed but it has advanced. What I perceive as control is mostly circumstantial, and people just kind of naturally go into the flow when it comes to these types of issues.
I am just weirdly different, its ok that I am, and those who lean into only (psuedo)science explanations, true or not, lack E.I. Embrace both and grow lol
Edit8: Last one possibly, this entire paragraph blew me away and is eye opening.
"I'd also like to reference someone who addressed the idea of other minds. You want people to approach you, despite their personal inclinations not to, for reasons they don't seem to associate with you, but you identify within yourself. How is anyone supposed to see who you are without seeing who you are? And if your the type to stay stush in a corner, angry with the lack of interest that your rendering, I suggest a different approach. If you're looking for it, it won't come. Go out with some friends for the purpose of hanging out with your friends, your energy will speak for itself and whoever finds it attractive will make their way over. Otherwise, you might have to do the talking. And if the conversation dies almost immediately, as you described somewhere in the thread, they're just not for you. Or...vice versa."
It never ends lol. If there's anything that comes out of this, outside of my views, I hope someone reads this and some of the wonderful posts, and grows. I want people to be better and truer to themselves, rather than listen to what others say they should be.
Final Takeaway: I need to stop using Reddit.
That is true wisdom. | From the perspective of an evolutionary psychologist these different behaviours from men and women with regard to finding sexual partners are cognitive biases and adaptive behaviours. They aren't rules created by humans that are unique in humans. Many other species have similar behaviours where the male pursues the female.
In these species the cost of baring a child is disproportionately on the female because she has to undergo a gestation period and often raises the offspring. This means that the repercussions for poorly choosing a mate are more costly for the female than they are for the male. If a female makes a bad choice of mate, she is stuck with the responsibility of gestation and raising sub par genetics whereas if the male made a poor choice he just moves on to the next female.
As a result of the disproportionate costs of poorly judging the quality of a mate, females tend to be more cautious and conservative whereas males will rarely pass up an opportunity for sex. In humans, specific cognitive biases have been identified. Women tend to underestimate a man's commitment and men tend to overestimate a woman's interest.
By the way, monogamy or being lifelong partners is also an adaptive behaviour found in many species. The idea that it is purely a human social construct is ignorant. This is because while a male might pass on his genetics by sex alone, the survival rate of his offspring will continue to rise if he helps to raise them. The chances of his offspring having more offspring will also increase and that is the ultimate goal (perpetuating your genes). | 628 | 2,422 |
ELI5: Why taste is subjective even though the structure of our taste buds and biology is generally similar or the same. | I understand that we can link positive memories etc and other sensory inputs with certain tastes and so on, but why does something literally taste good to some people and not to others? Does every item taste the same for everyone but different people perceive them in different ways? | A lot of how your specific taste buds work actually is controlled by your genes. For example, whether or not you like cilantro is genetic. Another example is broccoli and other similar vegetables. They have a compound in them which some people taste as bitter, while others don't, because some people have a gene which codes for a protein that interacts with this compound to make it taste bitter, while others don't. Some people are genetically predispositions to be more sensitive to salt, etc. | 20 | 80 |
Why aren't bacterial pandemics as common as viral epidemics? | It seems as though any modern epidemics or pandemics with importance are caused by viruses (like the Swine Flu, the Spanish Flu, HIV/AIDS, COVID), but the only bacterial epidemic I can think of is the Bubonic plague. Is there any reason for the lack of bacterial pandemics, or am I just forgetting some that have occurred? | Bacteria can be easily killed with antibiotics in most people.
The thing is, bacteria are living organisms with their own mechanisms of life that differ from humans, so making a medicine that kills the bacteria without the person is relatively easy.
Viruses however aren’t exactly alive, they are protein envelopes with DNA in it. When they get in a cell they use the cell own enzymes to replicate and just provide enough DNA to build its envelope.
That makes it a whole lot more difficult to make a medicine that kills the virus without killing the person
Also bacteria are less tolerant to living in air droplets or on surfaces, they dry up and die. Viruses can dry up then rectivate easier. Some bacteria can form spores that can tolerate dryness so there are exceptions.
Also immune system is much more capable of killing the bacteria without having to develop specific immunity, for viruses, you have to wait for the body to form specific antibodies.
The plague never fully disappeared, it still shows up everywhere and gets treated with Antibiotics, so it is no longer a big problem. | 118 | 73 |
ELI5: How does a symphonic orchestra work? | Is there a standard set of instruments or does it vary?
How is the amount of each instrument determined?
What is the reasoning behind how every group of instruments is positioned?
Can each musician hear the sound of their own instrument?
Isn't it crazy loud when you're there in the middle?
If someone makes a mistake, will the others spot it immediately?
How do so many people manage to find time to rehearse together? (I'm guessing not all orchestra are full time pros?)
How much do you need to know about other instruments than yours?
And a gazillion other questions!
**Edit**: thank you so much everyone for taking the time to reply and for the insight. This is amazing. I am reading every comment! | 1. it varies. there is a "classic" configuration for symphonic orchestras, baroque orchestras and so on. The symphony orchestra is most typically from about 75-90, but...actual results vary a lot because everyone is trying to be interesting (in that classical music "radical is having 100 members of your orchestra! kinda way). The quantity of each of the instruments varies within some general guidelines and in general the world of _classical_ symphonic is well aware when you're pushing the boundaries that are as much about tradition and norms as they are about composer-driven-rules. You'll almost never see anything but the 1st violins to the left of the conductor, but...you'll see lots of variation in the placement of the bass for example and percussion are virtually always in the back, etc.
2. the number of players in each instrument/section varies. You'll not have lots of timpani players, and you won't have more violas than violins, and you'd never have as many trumpet players as cellists and so on - this is about balancing the sound. There aren't rules, but volume levels drives much of this! You've got to have enough to have a "section" rather than a single voice (some parts call for a single-voice/solo of course) so you'll not see fewer than 3 of a a non-percussion instrument very often).
3. positioning is based on tradition and some practical matters. the first violin (principle of the orchestra) has a role that needs them at the front near the conductor, but beyond that the basic configuration is premised on getting section leads near the conductor and then distributing sound to get the right blend.
4. You can _usually_ hear your own instrument, yes. And...when you're playing "hearing" is a complex set of inputs that range from ear to touch and the physical aspects of engaging with the instrument - you have more cues to allow you to hear (a bit like how you can hear someone's words better when you can also see their lips). You certainly can't hear yourself as well as you can when no one is around!).
5. It's loud. Not crazy loud, but some instrumentalists do wear earplugs.
6. You can spot some mistakes and not others. If the oboe player fucks up during their solo, you hear it. If the fifth row back second violin player makes a boo-boo it may go unnoticed by someone in the bass section.
7. In professional orchestras it is a _job_. Their employment agreement (and union agreement in the U.S. anyway) dictates the amount of rehearsal time and often the time of day it occurs. If you're top-notch symphony (e.g. boston, SF, philly, NY) you make pretty good money such that you may not need to teach. Second tier orchestras don't pay as much and don't practice as much!
8. Being generally knowledgeable about instruments is a good sign of musicality. The reality however is that the musicianship demands of any single instrument in the orchestra are so intense at the levels of major symphony orchestras that specialization and mastery are far more important than general knowledge. (I find this to be a bummer, and one of the things that had me move from classical to jazz violin!). | 1,339 | 2,753 |
ELI5: What's the difference between a hotel, motel, resort and inn? | They are general categories that hopefully convey what one can expect from the establishment.
A hotel would have full features, including indoor hallways, room service, laundary, and maid service (to name a few examples).
The word motel derives from "motor" and "hotel" and were originally meant as a place for motorists to stop while driving places. They have sparser amenities and rooms that often open onto the parking lot.
An Inn is meant to connote a more traditional, less corporate, but small-ish accommodation. Often an inn is in a setting that is itself a destination (unlike a motel) but doesn't offer the services or luxuries of a hotel.
Anything that calls itself a resort is doing so because it wants to convey that you can enjoy your vacation largely at the resort itself. So you would expect it to have a pool, nice views, and other activities on or adjacent to the location. | 48 | 27 |
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How does one actually make an API? | Hi everyone!
To clarify, I know what an API is. I use APIs. And maybe this is a super obvious question (because I can't find an answer on Google for this, only what an API is), but I for the life of me can't figure out how one would actually make an API.
For example. I have a program called Program\_A. Program\_A is running. I have another program, Program\_B, that I want to be able to use a method in Program\_A. What would I do to Program\_A that would make calling it's function an API that Program\_B could use?
If anyone could even give me a high level explanation that would be great, I don't really need an exact technical example (although I'm not opposed to that either). I'm just looking to understand how it works generally, because I really can't figure it out. | An API is essentially two things:
* A list of what kinds of requests will be accepted. (A request is either a question you can ask, a command you can issue, or an informative hint to the receiver.)
* A list of communications channels on which requests will be accepted.
When someone says they offer a "web API", for example, they usually mean that the communications channel that will be accepted is over HTTP. The lists of requests that will be accepted is then typically documented somewhere.
Similarly, a software library for image processing may expose an API. The communications channel is whatever the calling convention of the language is; you invoke the methods directly through your program, not over HTTP. The lists of requests that will be accepted are defined by what the library exposes or not.
You make an API by deciding both of these features — what requests you want to service, and what communications channels you wish to transact on. | 24 | 30 |
ELI5:What exactly is radiation? | Is radiation comprised of particles? We all know radiation is "bad," but I'm not sure what it actually does to make it so bad. Thanks! | Radiation is energy that comes from a source and travels through some material or through space. Light, heat and sound are types of radiation. The kind of radiation discussed in this comment is called ionizing radiation because it can produce charged particles (ions) in matter.
Ionizing radiation is produced by unstable atoms. Unstable atoms differ from stable atoms because they have an excess of energy or mass or both.
Unstable atoms are said to be radioactive. In order to reach stability, these atoms give off, or emit, the excess energy or mass. These emissions are called radiation. The kinds of radiation are electromagnetic (like light) and particulate (i.e., mass given off with the energy of motion). Gamma radiation and X-rays are examples of electromagnetic radiation. Beta and alpha radiation are examples of particulate radiation. Ionizing radiation can also be produced by devices such as X-ray machines.
Ionizing radiation absorbed by human tissue has enough energy to remove electrons from the atoms that make up molecules of the tissue. When the electron that was shared by the two atoms to form a molecular bond is dislodged by ionizing radiation, the bond is broken and thus, the molecule falls apart. This is a basic model for understanding radiation damage.
When ionizing radiation interacts with cells, it may or may not strike a critical part of the cell. We consider the chromosomes to be the most critical part of the cell since they contain the genetic information and instructions required for the cell to perform its function and to make copies of itself for reproduction purposes. Also, there are very effective repair mechanisms at work constantly which repair cellular damage - including chromosome damage. | 14 | 17 |
Based on the Voyager probe trajectories, is it possible to calculate where they will end up thousands or millions of years in the future? | Their trajectories out a few tens of thousand years are known, since they will remain in the Sun's gravitational sphere of influence for most of that time.
Within a few hundred thousand years, the Sun will be an inconspicuous speck of light in the Voyagers' skies. Their future trajectory will be influenced by the masses they encounter: stars, gas clouds, etc.
Since we don't knowing the mass, density, location, and velocity of all of these objects, it will not be possible to calculate anything better than a rough approximation of Voyagers' trajectories beyond this.
And sometime in the next decade or so, the Voyager RTGs will finally weaken to the point that communication with Earth will cease, taking with it our only means of tracking them. | 13 | 19 |
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ELI5: How is world population calculated? And how accurate is the number? Is it possible that the number can be entirely wrong? | In general, information about the world population is aggregated from information about each country's population. From there, each country usually either conducts regular censuses or has some form of national registration to track people (or both) as it's a very important part of running a government.
These estimates are only updated so often though (IE, the US conduct it's census only every 10 years), so there is a little math done to the number to get the current estimate. There are three big factors that matter when creating that current estimate: Mortality rate, Birth rate, and Migration. The first obviously creates downward pressure on the number, the second upward, and the third can be either depending on if the new flow is out of or into the nation.
How accurate is it? Well, the UN is one of the better sources, and they estimate their margin of error to within 1% or so for the entire world. It varies HIGHLY depending on the country though, with less developed nations and especially wartorn nations being incredibly difficult to estimate due to difficulties in conducting censuses, and highly developed nations being very accurate. Broadly speaking, you can trust the numbers though and there is very little to no chance that the number can be entirely wrong, unless you are getting a number from a shady source. | 4,666 | 9,848 |
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ELI5: For example, we have a bottle filled with water to the point when there’s no space left in that bottle, is the water still moving as we shake the bottle? | Mechanical engineering PhD here with significant study in fluid mechanics.
Yes the fluid will move around internally, mostly due to any rotation of the bottle. It you rotate the bottle at all (i.e. anything other than perfect linear motion) the inner walls of the bottle will cause drag against the water that’s closest to the edge. But the water in the middle of the bottle will be stationary due to inertia. The difference in momentum (edges are moving, center is stationary) will cause internal currents.
Note that this can be due to even very small-scale rotations to the point that this will always happen in the real world.
If you don’t believe me... put some food dye in a full water bottle then seal it. Shake it up and you’ll see the food coloring move around very quickly.
If you’re more interested in this, two important concepts are “Laminar flow” and “viscous drag”. | 188 | 122 |
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How to deal with detailed student emails that is partly outside the scope of the topic? | I am teaching a topic that's mostly within my area but I do not know everything about it by heart. I cover the textbook, give extra readings I am familiar with and mark their assignments with enough feedback.
Lately I have been getting demanding and sometimes rambling emails from the same 2-3 students who usually list 8-10 questions. My first instinct is to reply very quickly and some can be easily be found in the lecture recordings or readings.
But some are deeper questions about things that are outside the scope. They almost get lost in the footnotes that refer to other footnotes or cases from decades ago, misinterpret them and claim the opposite in the scope of what we actually covered. It takes hours of my day to figure out find what they read, where they went wrong and got confused. I like that they are critical and want to know more about it but it's also taking all of my time and they come back with more questions almost immediately, i feel like a private tutor sometimes.
How can I deal with this without looking incompetent or dismissive? | Ask them to set an appointment to meet with you, or come to office hours. They shouldn't be expecting an email response to that many questions. Ask them to bring the book/article they are confused about to meeting. It is totally fine to say "this is a conversation better had in office hours. Please swing by so we can chat!" | 84 | 35 |
What's the point of imaginary numbers? | I understand on a basic level how they work, but why bother having them in the first place? | First, I'd like to make a point about the rather bothersome terminology: Imaginary or complex numbers are no less "real" or more abstract than any other naming system.
One way to think of how we develop number systems is based on solving equations. Counting numbers (0, 1, 2, 3, ...) are great and fundamental, but you could never solve an equation such as
x + 5 = 0
using just counting numbers. That's why we have to add negatives (..., -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, ...) to get the integers.
But with the integers, we still can't solve simple linear equations such as 2x - 1 = 0. This is why we have to add in fractions, getting the rational numbers - now it's possible to solve any linear equation.
But what about more advanced things, such as quadratics? You can prove that there's no solution to
x^(2) - 2 = 0
using just rational numbers - that is, the square root of 2 is not rational. This is why we need something bigger; somewhere that we can solve this equation is in the real number system. This contains everything that we'd normally refer to as a "number" without qualifications - things such as 0, 1, pi, sqrt(2), -5, and so on.
But we still can't solve everything - x^(2) + 1 = 0 has no solutions in the real numbers, since the left side is always at least 1. This is why we attach a symbol called i such that i^(2) = -1, and define complex numbers to be numbers of the form
a + bi
with a, b real numbers. Then we can make up definitions for multiplication, addition, division, etc. that are consistent with their usual usages for real numbers. The nice thing is that now the set of complex numbers has a property called "algebraically closed." This means that *any* polynomial with complex coefficients has a root which is a complex number; that is, we can solve for zero given any polynomial.
Some other nice properties that people have mentioned are Euler's identity, which says
e^(ix) = cos(x) + i sin(x)
This allows us to simplify some computations, as well as get some intuition on what multiplication means in the complex plane. More importantly, this gives us some powerful techniques regarding solving differential equations and representing physical systems in terms of such equations.
There are also problems that become easier when stated in terms of complex numbers, instead of real numbers. Computing real integrals can become easy when using an appropriate contour integral in the complex plane - this is a result of the fact that the differentiability of complex functions implies some *very* strong properties (much stronger than the corresponding facts for real differentiable functions).
Hopefully this makes a reasonable amount of sense and gives you some idea of why these are useful. | 67 | 53 |
ELI5: Why are there starving people in third world countries? | I'm not trying to be insensitive or anything, I'm just completely oblivious to the socio-economic situation in third world countries. But why are there starving people in third world countries? Can they not grow food? Is the soil not firtile? Do they not have seeds? Are there too many people to feed? Do other people keep stealing their food?
Can't they domesticate some sort of animal/livestock for food? If the land isn't fertile or doesn't have proper resources for growing food, why don't they relocate somewhere else?
Instead of air dropping food, why don't we air drop seeds everywhere so food will grow all over the place? | A man named Amartya Sen studied what causes people to starve in 3rd world countries, and found that often the problem was a corrupt government. He stated that ''No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy." | 205 | 242 |
ELI5: Why are faces the biggest factor in attractiveness? Is this consistent through cultures? through time? | faces are the most important part of initial attraction, at least in the developed world. What does the face convey that drives sexual selection to favor facial features even more than muscle mass or height? Is this consistent through cultures and time? What about other primates? do they also value facial features more than the other typical selection markers? | A lot of genetic abnormalities express partially as craniofacial abnormalities, and these same abnormalities can indicate abnormalities with brain development or systemic abnormalities that reduce survival and general fitness.
| 11 | 22 |
CMV: All classified govt material should be unclassified after 100 years | I believe that transparency is a hugely important thing for the govt of a civil society. One of the things that protects bad actors is the ability to hide their misdeeds from the public. Different justifications are used - most along the lines of "national security". But I believe the knowledge that 50 or 75 years after their death, the legacy of officials might be marred by corrupt or illegal acts being revealed would cause more bad behavior to be avoided than "good" (but necessary?) behavior might be discouraged.
So I believe that **ALL** classified, confidential, top-secret, etc (regardless of whatever of level of secrecy) material should be declassified once it becomes 100 years old.
Most people I've said this to tend to agree with me. There are only three arguments I've heard that even try to argue against it:
1. That the grandchildren of an award winning hero may be traumatized to learn that it was actually a cover and their ancestor actually died due to friendly fire, a procedural error, or some other less-than-honorable manner.
2. That knowing that history would eventually see all their deeds would cause officials to make "safe" or "nice" or "passive" decisions when sometimes "dangerous" or "mean" or "aggressive" actions are absolutely necessary.
3. That learning of some horrific act done 100 years ago by completely different people and a completely different govt would *still* inspire acts of violent retaliation by individuals or even state actors today.
What will NOT change my mind:
- 1 is entirely unconvincing to me. While I would feel sympathy for someone learning that a powerful motivating family narrative was a fabrication to cover something ... dirty ... I still think declassifying everything after 100 years is of much greater benefit to society than that cost.
- Examples of public officials choosing, due to contemporary public pressure, a "passive" decision rather than a "aggressive" decision resulting in negative consequences
Ways to change my mind:
- Demonstrate with historical examples how #2 or #3 has happened with significant negative consequence
- Provide me with a different, convincing argument - demonstrating negative consequences from exposure of 100 year old classified material - apart from those I've listed above
| What if there is ongoing use? Say 200 years ago the British government made a secret intelligence-sharing deal with the Vatican, and that deal is still active and useful. Should the UK have to reveal its past relationship and thereby lose the benefits of future collaboration? | 628 | 3,509 |
[Final Fantasy VIII] Why is Esthar so much more technologically advanced than the rest of the world? | Different cultures progress at different rates. Asking why they are so much more advanced is like asking why we (the West) are so much more advanced than central African hunter-gatherers.
Availability of resources
Fostering of particular attitudes
Random dumb luck in the birth of technical genius
The key factor, however, lies in the fact that Esthar is highly insular. To the point of xenophobia. They do not, under any circumstance, like to deal with outside powers. Their technology, their culture, their resources, everything in kept within their borders. This means they likely develop independently from the rest of the world, and due to the aforementioned factors, have progressed faster. | 15 | 19 |
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ELI5: How can we discover planets that are so far away? | I always wondered how can we find those planets that are light years from Earth. | Usually exoplanets are discovered by looking for a characteristic wobble of stars in a telescope.
Because gravity from planets will affect the spin of their star, stars with planets will appear to wobble back and forth compared to other, naked stars.
Then, by calculating the expected size of the star and the size and frequency of the wobble, they can make an educated guess as to the size and distance of the exoplanet from their star, or even if there are multiple exoplanets. | 18 | 27 |
Reading about Philosophy making me anxious, confused and depressed? | I took a philosophy class in college and it captured my interest. Started from reading Kant to Spinoza and then to Leibniz. After reading their views on reality, it just started messing with my head. According to Leibniz, it is a pre-harmonized world where things may appear to be such but really they have been programmed to look that way. It just makes me question the whole reality and everything around me? Mondas don't interact with each other, so all the people around me, I have been looking at them differently as I feel we probably don't know each other, just programmed to feel towards others this way. I don't understand how monads are different from our body, do I even have control over my body? Do I really know everything around me the way it is. I can't stop thinking about Leibniz philosophy. I feel like I should never have gone that deep into it. I have been feeling sick and dizzy for over a month now, can't stop thinking about it.
And the fact that monads are immortal substances, I can't even wrap my head around that concept.
Can you please offer help on how to look at things differently. Please don't be judgmental as this is my first post and I sincerely feel like I'm in trouble and I need help. Thanks | If you feel as though you are in psychological distress, you should talk with someone who is trained in psychological therapy.
Otherwise try to bear in mind that just 'thinking about stuff' rarely solves any real problems. You are an actual person with an actual life, irrespective of anything that someone may have written in a book. That life requires that you pay attention to it. The issue is not that you are thinking 'in the wrong way' it is that you are obsessing about academic minutiae at the exclusion of everything else. Your body has a lot of muscles that are being neglected while you agonize over Leibniz. Use them. Leibniz will always be there. And don't eat so much sugar, that probably isn't helping matters either. | 31 | 23 |
why is Hilbert space useful in quantum mechanics? | I believe I understand the mathematics of Hilbert spaces, but don't understand how their properties are useful for quantum mechanics in a visual sense. What is it about the dot product that applies to, say, probability amplitudes? I'm trying to understand [this smbc comic](https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-talk-3) if that's helpful. Sorry if this question is too basic for this sub. | It's useful in that QM *is* a (extended) normalized Hilbert space.
You start by defining a basis of states. You define them to be orthogonal, meaning the dotproduct of any two different basis states is 0. The basis corresponds, physically, to physically possible measurements.
For any other quantum state, its dot product with a basis gives the probability **amplitude* of finding a particle in that state to have a specific value after measurement. | 168 | 1,191 |
ELI5: If Homosapiens survived the last mass extinction how is there almost 8 billions Humans now? Are we all related? Is every human related in some way? | Every human IS related to some extent. That extent tends to be very, very far back. Mitochondrial Eve (the most recent common female ancestor of all humans) is estimated to have lived 150k years ago, and Y-chromosome Adam (male version of the same thing) 200-300k years ago. | 178 | 83 |
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[ELI5] Why do the fret spaces get smaller as you go down the neck of a guitar | My high school physics professor asked me this and I just randomly remembered. I don't think she ever told me why. | To go up one octave requires doubling the pitch, which in turn means dividing the string in half. Each time you divide something in half, you move only half the distance you did last time to divide it in half again. Each fret represents a pitch change proportion of 1/12 of an octave, but the same principle holds. The math behind it involves logarithms, i.e. one half step is 2 to the 1/12 power. | 39 | 24 |
[Harry Potter] - Are the spoken incantations universal or do all countries and languages have their own versions of the same spells, said with different words? | I'm thinking about Ron and Hermonie's exchange with regards to the spell; "Wingardium Leviosa". During that scene (and in the book) Hermonie is trying to teach Ron how to properly say the "leviosa" part of the spell.
&#x200B;
So it got me into thinking about a Japanese student trying to speak these same words in their own school, "Mahoutokoro". It's pretty established that "l's" and "r's" are difficult sounds to make if you're not a native speaker of the English language. So are they working on saying Leviosa properly there, or have they created their own levitation spell, to be spoke in Japanese?
&#x200B;
it was a pretty reoccurring theme in HPGoF that Fluer's accent was very thick in how she spoke throughout the book (ie: " What do I care how 'e looks? I am good-looking enough for both of us, I theenk! All these scars show is zat my husband is brave!") How well did the French Students perform at Hogwarts with their heavy French accents?
&#x200B; | AFAIK, different cultures have different focuses on types of magic. For example, Native Americans were much more specialized potionmakers than European wizards. They also practiced wandless magic.
I don't think Rowling has yet shed light on the question of whether spells can do the same thing in different languages, but I'd presume they can - namely for the reason that adept wizards can cast spells without saying them. Learning the words is important for beginner wizards because it helps them to focus on the idea of the spell and conceptualize it. To me, that makes it seem as though spells are more like ideas that wizards have put words to - ideas which a wizard in Asia or South America or so on could have conceived using a different language. | 26 | 34 |
Would proving the existence of dark matter change the way we view the world or affect our physics equations? | Whatever dark matter turns out to be, it will likely have some interaction with regular matter, or some process that leads to its production. That interaction will have to somehow fit into the standard model of particle physics or its replacement, for example as a term in the Lagrangian.
The two main candidates are WIMPs, which interact weakly, and axions, which are related to the strong force and interact with magnetic fields.
Somebody always asks about modified gravity as an alternative: if that's the case then we'd have to add additional terms to Einstein's equation. | 125 | 487 |
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Grad Student struggling to understand the usefullness of a citation manager (i.e. Zotero) vs. Google Sheets | I've been recommended Zotero many times, and have read posts on this subreddit as well as countless others praising citation management softward. However, I'm struggling to understand the utility, and could only find posts debating the usefulless of citation managers pitted against one another, versus my question: what's better about it than a Google Sheet?
I'm in History, and my current set-up includes a Google Sheet that I keep in my Drive. Here, I'll add the author's last name and the book's title in two columns for quick reference; then I have a column for the citation, and one for assets, i.e. the PDF if applicable.
I tried Zotero for a few days last semester, and found that almost every entry I'd have to do a lot of fixing up/adding manually, even using the Chrome extension. Now, this may be more of a "my subject" problem, since most of my resources are several hundred year old scans of books that I then can either download as a PDF (if I'm lucky and it's on Gallica France or Google Books) or that I need to grab a permanent link for (if it's on a site like Hahti Trust that I can't download the entire book from).
I find this process to be very painless in my Google Sheet, and when I tried Zotero it felt like a lot of fiddling with data (i.e. often it'd try and put the author's name in the book title, and I'd have to go in and fix it).
From my research, it seems as though the one major component I'm missing is that I can't easily change my Chicago citations to another format, but honestly this isn't something I foresee being a concern. Am I missing something else? I'm very aware that I could just be missing something obvious, and would love to hear input on my predicament here!
Thanks!
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Edit2: So as other commenters have helped me realize, I think this is a difference in how the humanities—specifically History—uses citations vs. stem or the social sciences. History uses footnotes or, occasionally, endnotes. Word processors, i.e. Google Docs, reorder my footnotes/endnotes for me if I insert new ones, move them around, &etc. Sounds like for in-text citations Zotero helps with that movement in a way that may not be possible in current word processors.
Here is a screen capture of what I'm referencing the processor handles for me: [https://imgur.com/a/qZmheC5](https://imgur.com/a/qZmheC5) | Write a few page paper with 20+ citations.
Then edit it and move passages around.
Then update the citation style to submit to a different journal.
You will answer your own question. Zotero does that all automatically. | 84 | 30 |
ELI5: Why do blind people often seem to have eye discoloration. | I've noticed that they eyes of the blind are often white, or (for lack of a better word) strange in general. Why is this? | It all depends on what's causing the blindness. If they're eyes are whitish, it's typically because something has caused the lense (the clear part where the light comes through) to become obscured or foggy. | 13 | 25 |
ELI5: Please explain the benefits and purpose of a union to me. | Dear Reddit, I understand that this could be a volatile ELI5, since unions and the NMB are kind of a polarizing topic.
A little background about myself and the reason I am requesting this ELI5. I am a current employee of one of the largest airlines in the world. I have always been a pro-union guy and have enjoyed the security that having a union provided. Not too long ago we merged with (were acquired by) another airline and the union was voted out. This was due in part because we, the unionized workers of the acquired airlines, were out numbered almost 2:1 by the non-unionized employees at the other airlines. In the next couple of months we will be getting another vote to try and get a union back in, and I really need a way to explain to people, in simple, 5 year old terms, why this is good for them and their family, and is much more valueable than the $55 a month union fee that they seemingly can't afford to give up.
Thanks! | The primary benefit of a union is the collective bargaining aspect. If the entire workforce negotiates together you have far more leverage than you would negotiating one on one with HR, et al.
What you have to weigh now is the value of the 55/mo versus the issues that you want to negotiate. The best way to help illustrate this in a roughly ELI5 way is to help them see the value that 55/mo brings.
Would you pay 55/mo for an extra week of vacation?
Would you pay 55/mo for a guaranteed limit on hours worked per week?
Would you pay 55/mo for a guaranteed minimum on hours worked per week?
Would you pay 55/mo to ensure adequate safety/precautions etc?
And you go on and on, the main counter argument you have to overpower is whether or not the abuses (actual or merely perceived) warrant coming together and funding the union. If your employer generally treats you well, why would you unionize? The other counter issue you need to consider is mobility. If workers can't move around or replace the job, then they are less powerful and need bargaining assistance, if it's easy to move from job to job then the need to make THIS job better is reduced.
I know this is not quite ELI5, but that's the argument you would have to make. | 13 | 15 |
Is the universe fundamentally incomprehensible for human minds? How could we know if so? | So this is something I've wondered for a while, but have never really looked much into, so I'm not sure whether it counts as science vs philosophy, or if it's even a question which deserves much thinking/writing at all!
As we know from every other species of animal on the planet, whilst many can be incredibly smart there's always a hard 'limit' to their comprehension of the world and how it works. You're never going to get a dolphin to fill out your taxes or explain atom theory to a dog. Is there any writing/thinking on applying similar issues to humans and the comprehensibility of the fundamental way the universe works?
It seems entirely possible that human brains could simply be unable to handle some things. But how would we ever know that? Or is there some way in which cognition could be deemed 'complete' (like a mental version of a turing machine). | You might be interested in Kant. Considering his project was precisely about determining the limits of our mind and reason.
According to him, reality-in-itself is incomprehensible by the virtue of our reality having to be shaped by our mind. He both establishes the thing-in-itself as necessary, while at the same time unknowable. | 46 | 55 |
ELI5: Why does inbreeding produce genetically inferior organisms? | A couple of follow-ups:
In terms of dogs--if you have a German Shepard from one family of dogs and a German Shepard from another family of dogs, would it still be considered inbreeding if they mated?
Are the mutts/crossbreeds of today going to be the purebreds of tomorrow and will the current purebreds eventually die out? (via natural selection because they are genetically inferior?)
Tying into the above question, what exactly is a purebred? Aren't the purebreds of today mixtures of different dogs from the past? (so, crossbreeds of past "purebreds"?) I ask because it would seem that natural selection *should* have weeded out genetically inferior inbred's (or purebreds) of the past.
Sorry if I seem all over the place with these questions... | If there is a detrimental inherited genetic flaw from one half of the DNA, it can be covered up by a dominant version from the other partner. However, if offspring interbreed too much it starts becoming more probable that an offspring will inherit the defect from both parents, resulting in the defect becoming apparent. | 380 | 567 |
If I was an organism in a 2D world, would there be any experiment I could conduct, in order to prove whether there is a third dimension or not? | I was just watching a documentary about space time and the fourth dimension. They said, that we cannot sense the 4th dimension, but it still exists. That's where i started to reason and came up with my question. | You could detect higher spatial dimensions by measuring the distance dependence of forces like electromagnetism and gravity. These, in our Universe, obey an inverse square law because as they propagate in one direction, they spread out in the other two. If they propagated in one direction and only had one other dimension to spread in (a 2D universe) they would obey a simple inverse law. | 1,132 | 1,962 |
CMV: I think that everyone should use Adblock and if that puts companies out of business, good. | And by companies, I don't mean websites and such, I mean the advertising services. As far as I know, Adblock doesn't block non-obtrusive ads and particularly doesn't have the capability of blocking actual product recommendations that are hand-coded (for instance, I can have a series of text/image blurbs that I write up for my site which use NO banner ad service and won't be blocked by Adblock).
The banner ad industry is careless, abusive, and annoying and doesn't deserve my time, attention, or money. I don't feel in the slightest guilty for blocking them and recommending that others do the same.
EDIT: When I said that adblock doesn't block unobtrusive ads, I meant they don't block ad services and methods that aren't known scum. Just because an ad service uses some ok ads and some shit ads doesn't mean that we should have to sift through them. There's nothing wrong with adblock blocking a service like that wholesale.
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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!* | Ad services exist as a way for websites to get the revenue to run their sites. You can't run one out of business without the other. Do you think that if someone could afford to run their website on their own, they would he resorting to ads? | 132 | 151 |
ELI5: How are things like drug tests and polygraphs not violations of the 5th Amendment? | The supreme court has also ruled that compelling urine tests from employees qualified as a "search" and thus the 4th amendment applied. *Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, 489 U.S. 656 (1989)*
However, The Court also ruled that positive test results could not be used in subsequent criminal prosecutions without the employee’s consent. | 23 | 76 |
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CMV: With the exception of a "I just don't like the taste of meat" argument, it is impossible to justify a non-vegan vegetarian lifestyle. | First of all, everyone is afforded their food-taste preferences. So, people who have no ethical/health qualms about eating animal products, but simply do not enjoy the taste or texture of animal flesh are off the hook. It would make sense for a person like this to be a vegetarian, but still partake in eating things like eggs, dairy, honey, foods made with red dye, etc.
However, vegetarians who want to make a claim that their lifestyle is significantly healthier and/or more ethical than that of the average meat-eater cannot justify that claim on either front.
Ethics: Just because an industrial animal isn't being killed for its meat doesn't mean it hasn't led a miserable, hellish existence. Dairy cows and egg-producing hens that are part of the mainstream ag industry are injected with hormones that deform their bodies and exaggerate their production abilities. They are often kept in tiny enclosures standing ankle-deep in their own shit, in crowded conditions, and may literally never see the light of day once over the course of their short, painful existence. When they are too old to lay eggs or produce milk, they are killed, with their remains being used in products such as dog food.
Honestly, I see less of an argument for honey being unethical, because I don't really think bees suffer during the honey-production process, even on a mass scale (mainly because they would be doing the same thing anyway in the wild). However, I am sorely undereducated on this subject and would like to learn more.
If you have strict set of Jain-like beliefs and are a non-vegan vegetarian (which I suspect includes about 0% of the population), eating any product made with red dye (carmine) should be off-limits, since the cochineal bug is industrially bred and smushed to harvest their naturally occurring carminic acid stores.
Health: This one is a little trickier, because it's true that while vegetarianism isn't NECESSARILY healthier than a meat-eating lifestyle, it can be easier to eat healthy as a vegetarian because produce typically becomes a much more central aspect of diet, as opposed to meat (often full of saturated fat, cholesterol, and excessive calories). However, while vegetarianism may sometimes be healthier than a meat-eating diet, I would argue that veganism is more often a better health choice than vegetarianism alone.
To replace the calories/enjoyment lost in meat elimination, vegetarians often rely on a disproportionate use of other high-calorie foods that don't require as much expertise/research/adventurous palate to prepare and eat, like cheese and quick-burning carbohydrates. Like almost all foods, if eaten in appropriate proportion to other parts of the diet, these foods can have health benefits, but there are also many drawbacks since they are often high in fat and heavily processed.
Vegans, however, can't eat many of these foods as well as part of their dietary limitations, and vegan substitutes are are nearly across the board lower in saturated fat and calories. In addition, these substitutes are often hard to find, so to supplement calories, many vegans simply add more produce or plant proteins to their diet, which are healthier and contrary to popular belief, CAN actually provide all the calories, protein (yes, grandma, I'm getting enough protein), and nutrients that a human requires.
For these reasons, if you're going to be a vegetarian and justify it with an animal ethics argument or a health-based argument, you can't. You may as well either go back to eating meat, or go all the way and become vegan.
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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 important point in being either an ethical vegan or vegetarian is to limit your impact on demand for animal products. To that extent, any way in which you reduce your consumption of animal products is a step in the right direction. While vegans are doing more than vegetarians to limit their consumption, any amount of self restraint is good, and certainly better than just not caring. Saying that it is impossible to justify ethical vegetarianism is making perfect the enemy of good. | 53 | 24 |
How does the cosmic microwave background persist? Why hasn't it been distorted and destroyed by new sources of energy pumping into space? | The universe is largely transparent. Sure, some parts of the radiation have been absorbed, and there is a bit of new emission at this wavelength range, but overall it is not a large effect and it can be taken into account. | 13 | 25 |
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CMV: Corporations should be forced to pay higher minimum wage than small businesses | 1. They can afford to do so as they benefit from economies of scale, automation and even lobbying.
2. This would give more money to the people while preventing bankruptcy of small businesses.
3. Inflation would be controlled as corps still have to compete with small businesses. Walmart isn't going to hike prices, they would just eat the cost as reduced earnings.
4. This is going to be the easiest political sell ever. Who can possibly oppose this? And if they do they will be labeled as corp shills. | The most likely outcome of this is that the lawyers and accountants would make individual stores small businesses, allowing them to circumvent the policy.
In Nova Scotia they said businesses over a certain size couldn’t open on Sunday so grocery stores just divided their store into smaller stores and were compliant. | 52 | 78 |
ELI5: What is black light and how do we artificially produce it? | I thought the colour black was absence of light, how can we produce a lamp which shines black light? | Black light is light of a color that is outside of our visible color range (usually ultraviolet). We produce it just like we produce any other color of light...either make white light and pass thru a filter..or find something that produces, only ultraviolet when excited.
Even though we can't directly see the light, it performs like light energy in other ways (converts to heat when it hits and object). And there are other animals that can see an extended range of colors | 29 | 80 |
I believe that a person's natural intelligence defines only their minimum potential and that intelligence can be attained through hard work. CMV. | The general consensus on this website seems to be that a person's intelligence can be likened to the RAM of a computer, representing the raw processing power the system is capable of, and that knowledge is like the data you'd store on the harddrive. In my own opinion, there seems to be somewhat of a bias though, as the majority of Reddit's community is relatively young and the 'smart but lazy' type (which would explain the relative importance placed on factors entirely outside of your control).
The computer analogy makes a sound point, but I believe it's simply not right. There are no studies to my knowledge which prove this either way, however anecdotally, I have witnessed many people do a complete 180 even after having been condemned as unintelligent. All throughout school I was incredibly average at math (and I mean average). I quickly decided I just didnt have that natural gift that some did. Now, math is typically regarded as being one of those things you cant rote learn or memorize, which is entirely true. After doing copious textbook exercises and practice papers though, I finally found myself at the point where I was confident with my understanding of math and not only in the 'knowledge' sense. New concepts came to me more easily and I observed an overall increase in my problem solving and pattern recognition abilities (hey look, the two things most emphasised in an IQ test).
If you walk into a gym, there will be skinny guys who can just 'never seem to put on muscle' and the 6'5 dudes natually built like fridges. However, time and again we see these skinny guys stick it out and eventually reap the rewards (even Arnold was small when he started out). If we were to apply the aforementioned logic to this scenario, we would witness the same defeated attitude with the skinny dude deciding he'd 'never get bigger', y'know, like how a computer's RAM stays fixed?
Being from an Eastern background where a solid work ethic is valued above all other things, I think a person who is not as naturally gifted, but works incredibly hard to reach the same end goals certainly comes out a more satisfied, resilient, wiser and 'snarter' person than the naturally gifted person. This typical American high school SAT student attitude where studying is undervalued because you can still do well without it is extremely unhealthy and discourages students from reaching their full potential.
But in the end, is intelligence really defined by the score you'd get on an IQ test anyway, or is it the way in which you use your knowledge to benefit society?
TL;DR: Some westerners have some unhealthy and untrue misconceptions about education and intelligence which are holding back the 'less natually gifted' children. | A counter point might be that a persons natural intelligence represents their maximum potential, and hard work is what progress people towards achieving it. As evidence you can look to the highest achievers in science. Not everyone can become an Einstein, Hawking, Newton, Tesla etc. Some people are simply smarter/better than others in certain fields.
| 20 | 68 |
ELI5: Preloading | Okay. So a game is preloaded onto my system. How does the manufacturer ensure i cant play it before hand? How does the preloading work? | Generally using a combination of two methods:
1. They download all of the game's assets (3D models, textures, videos, scripts etc.) and leave out the main executable, which is comparatively small.
2. Everything that is downloaded is encrypted, and the key is only provided on the release date. The game is then decrypted using the key. | 24 | 23 |
Subsets and Splits