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ELI5: Why is it such a huge deal that scientists have taken a picture of molecular bonds? | [See this imgur thread](http://imgur.com/gallery/c55TpKl). I'm aware that it's never been done before, but why is this ***so exciting*** to so many scientists/science fans? where does this ability lead us in practical terms, and what else needs to be achieved to get there? | Science involves taking data and building conceptual models to explain its behavior and to predict future events. Our models suggested how they would look, but now we can directly see it. In analogy we flipped to the back of the book and checked our answers, and they were right! | 20 | 15 |
Does having a CS degree mean nothing for a frontend developer? | I am currently a CS student and will graduate soon. I realized that I am indeed interested in frontend developing rather than being a backend developer.
I know having a CS degree must not hurt me, but does it mean nothing if I decided to work as a frontend / full stack developer? As I found that even a graduate from bootcamp can be a frontend developer and the employers may want to hire them because their salary can be cheaper. Frontend developing also normally requires less tech skills than backend developing, which mean you are easily to be replaced because the working experience doesn't really let you grasp with more skills.
I've heard that it is kind of a waste for a CS graduate to work as a frontend developer and I am really struggled right now because even though I like frontend developing, I still need to make sure that my career is still having a bright and stable future. | A computer science bachelor's may include coursework in the psychology of user interactions, color theory, and other MMI topics that directly improve even technologically basic frontend work.
But even though frontend development is _seen_ as less technologically sophisticated, that's often not the case. If more people with CS knowledge had been involved at the beginning, JavaScript wouldn't be such a dumpster fire (though it's improving). And there are plenty of frontend developers who will unknowingly introduce n^2 or 2^n behavior in the UI. Just knowing what _not_ to do is valuable. | 28 | 15 |
ELI5:Paying a copay instead of full deductible. | 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 | Your policy will tell you when the copay applies, and when the deductible applies. You need to check there, as almost every policy is different.
With that said, typically things like normal visits (annual physicals, OB/GYN visits, etc.) only require the copay, while unscheduled emergency count against your deductible. | 12 | 24 |
ELI5: the problem with Monsanto and its rise to becoming such a prominent monopoly. | Farmers like to plant crops year after year and like to fight off the insects that attack their crops. Crops normally produce seeds that can be used to grow crops next year.
Monsanto sells special seeds that can be activated to be resistant to insects. All you have to do is buy new seeds every years since these crops do not produce useful seeds. You also have to buy the chemical to activate the seeds.
It is much more complicated than that, but the idea is that once they have you as a customer you can never leave. Every time you try to leave, they pull you back again.
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ELI5: Why does diabetes increase your risk of just about everything? | Because it affects your blood flow, and proper blood flow is the key to maintaining your health aagainst viruses/infections and healing injuries. When your blood sugar becomes high, it is much harder for blood to travel around in your body. This is why the most delicate (eyes) and furthest away (feet + hands) parts are affected the most. For non-diabetics this is also true, but non-diabetics will rarely have a blood sugar high enough to cause damage. But diabetics cannot automatically control their sugar as well, and with years and years of very high sugar levels, damage slowly takes place. | 14 | 39 |
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What is the difference between an accent and a dialect? |
On a surface level, an accent is purely differences in pronunciation, while a dialect includes differences in grammar and vocabulary.
In practice, much like the definition of species, the differences between accent, dialect, and language are just a matter of degree; i.e. accents are less different from each other than dialects are. It's a judgment call made by linguists and consensus, and whichever label is most useful to better understanding language. | 52 | 17 |
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ELI5: What is the purpose of the tiny little hole on airplane windows? | What is the point of [this](http://i.imgur.com/EP3WSBq.jpg) hole in the planes' windows? I am aware that this does not actually go through to the outside of the plane... | Pressurized commercial aircraft have two or more layers of air-tight lexan to keep the aircraft pressurized, and have an additional layer on the inside to protect the lexan from damage. As the aircraft changes pressure, the small hole allows air to vent in and out for pressure equalization between the layers of window. The hole is between the outer layer and the aircraft cabin, but is not connected to the air outside the aircraft.
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ELI5: why are semi truck engines diesel, while passenger cars' are gasoline? Why are there no gasoline big rigs? | Diesel engines are also a lot more tolerant of extreme conditions such as running non-stop and idling for extended amounts of time. Gasoline engines tend to overheat when idling for a longer-than-reasonable amount of time, and a constant duty-cycle causes them to wear faster. A diesel engine can last 500,000 - 1,000,000 miles if properly cared for. Most gasoline engines are lucky to achieve half that. | 22 | 36 |
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[Star wars] Why doesn't the Empire force Kamino to make clones for them for free? | The war against the separatists ended, Palpatine saw the clones are good troops, able to hold their own against pre66 Jedis, and are able to be easily commanded by batch orders, the only problem seems to be that they are really expensive as says admiral Tarkin "why should the empire pay for an army when conscription is free" BUT why not just force Kamino? They built a deathstar, they were willing to destroy planets so i doubt forced labor/enslavement is above them.
Obviously have Kamino under the surveillance of Vader or some Inquisitors or a lot of high ranking officers so that the Kaminoans don't try to rig the clones with an order 66 equivalent against the empire, but otherwise why not do it? Palpatine has a whole galaxy to take resources from and send to Kamino if the problem wasn't the money itself | Palpatine had made effective use of an army with a built in backdoor that enabled them to turn on their masters without question or hesitation. He may have been concerned that forcing the Kaminoans to build an army against their will could have resulted in troops he could never rely on 100% due to other secret, backdoor orders. | 548 | 407 |
Question about a professor withholding an exam | I have a question regarding my professor and how I should approach talking to the dean. My professor has demonstrated favoritism and also violated FERPA. He won't let us students look at our exam without saying "I was lenient so if you want to go over your grade, I will start deducting points and you'll likely leave my office with a worse grade than you walked in with."
Most of us got exactly a 65%. I know this because he pulled up Blackboard in class with all of our names and systems exam grades while in class. I talked to other students and all of us were annoyed and thought it was wrong and it wasn't until today that I remembered that students have a right to privacy concerning academics.
When he had the grades up, he said we could go over the grades on his computer, at the front of the class. I was one of the three students who felt comfortable enough to basically go stand at the front of the class as he pointed out to me, while everyone was in class just starring, all the things I did wrong. I don't really care but I know this tactic deferred other students from approaching him about their grades. However, when he did this he was switching between windows on the computer between the rubric and the exam that I submitted so quickly, I couldn't actually gather what in the world I missed. I asked if it could be sent to me and that is when he said if he did he would deduct the points.
He showed favoritism because myself and another girl went to see him for questions on our semester-long project, and when he finally showed up to office hours, basically told us to Google for any help that we needed. I later heard from another student (and the professor himself) that the professor spent two hours on the phone with him helping him rebuild his database over Thanksgiving break. It's nice that he cared about that student enough to help but it was a slap in the face to the girl and I who took the time to attend office hours (which he was an hour late for) and be told to use google.
I plan on talking to the dean Monday. I am going to let him know that at an institution that values fairness alongside education, that this professor does not value either. He violated FERPA and I want to use that as leverage to have a different professor grade mine and my classmates' assignments through the semester. These were a handful of examples but he has been unfair throughout the whole semester. we are all on the verge of failing despite being otherwise good students and I think that having another professor, while labor intensive, grade our papers would be more preferred than me filing a FERPA complaint with the Department of Education.
Any advice on how to ask for this or how to actually get my graded exams back? **TL;DR Professor was a turd and won't let us see why basically the entire class was awarded a 65% without threatening to deduct more points. Is this against some teacher law, act, or code of ethics?** | When you meet with the department chair or the dean, stick to the facts. Don't bring up the favoritism incident, don't bring up university "values," just say lay out what your professor did and why you believe it violates FERPA and/or school policy. If you can, recruit a classmate to back up your account.
Your concern with your grade is a separate issue. Just proving a FERPA violation occurred doesn't entitle you to a better grade. You will need to inquire about the specific grievance procedure and be prepared to meet whatever (likely high) standard is required. This is typically difficult; absent human error or a significant deviation from the syllabus, you're generally left with proving bad faith, and this is generally difficult to do. | 67 | 35 |
ELI5: Why small businesses are considered "good" | I always hear about small businesses on the news and whatnot and they always say how we should put money into small businesses and support them. I've heard various reasons why they are good/important but I'd like a concise answer. | Keeping money flowing is what creates a good economy and the most direct way of doing that is by making sure the money you are giving out doesn't get stockpiled in some giant vault or sent out the country.
If you spend $100 at a local butcher that money is probably going to get spent elsewhere in the area. Your butcher will go buy bread from the baker, who'll go buy milk from the farmer who pays his employees who buy meat at the butcher and so on. The money doesn't leave and the constant exchange is what keeps everything ticking.
If you are that baker or butcher you are more likely to spend that $100 if you feel that the economy is flowing freely enough for someone else to come in and hand over their $100 to you.
Like the current economic downturn. It's not really because suddenly a bunch of money has vanished. It's just that people and business' aren't sure if the money they pay out is going to get replaced any time soon, so there is a tendency to hold on to it. Which makes the problem worse. Which is why in times like this the Government steps in and injects a massive amount of money into the system to try and get it moving again, in the hopes that once it's all flowing freely we can take that money back without harming the system too much.
(The flaw is we expect that flow of money to get faster and faster every year, but that is unsustainable. Eventually we reach a point where we think we are *too* free with our money and we slow down but we do it quicker than the system can react, it gets shocked and it crashes. The .com bubble was like that. Slowly over time more and more money was being pumped in. It got easier and easier to get investors and eventually business started relying on this easy money and were completely unprepared when that cash dried up.)
If however you spend that $100 at Wal-Mart it goes into the till and gets siphoned off to their big single bank account somewhere else. They pay their employees who are local obviously, but they likely put a lot of that money back into Wal-Mart.
Another problem is Wal-Mart are far more capable and far more likely of out-sourcing to other countries. Not just hoarding money inside the same country but shipping it out and greasing the gears of some other economy, from which it might never come back.
As Deadcellplus mentioned though the downside is cost. Wal-Mart can buy a million times the amount of mince your local butcher can at once and that means they get it cheaper per pound and they pass that saving on to you.
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'Course it's all a bit of a phenomena because we don't have any real sense of control over it at a local level. You might be hyper-local in your spending but if your butcher takes your money and pays his VISA bill with it instead of using it locally.. all your hard work is pretty much done for. It can only really be measured at scale and it's not universal, Even in depressed economies you get pockets of 'boom', little bits that somehow thrive in the conditions. | 24 | 27 |
Eli5: How can a plants roots survive in a cup of water (root cuttings, propagation), when the same plant planted in soil can be drown if you over water it? | Overwatering your plants kill them (mainly) for two reasons: lack of oxygen and/or root rot. It's also important to mention that plants breath (absorve oxygen) through both their leaves and their roots, since they aren't very good moving the oxygen through out their bodies: they breath through "pores" and the oxygen only serves nearby cells.
Water (usually) doesn't contain as many bacteria, fungi or small animals (nematodes) as soil does. Fungi loves moist soil, if the soil is damp it will multiply and cause root rot, killing your plant.
Not only that, all those little animals and fungi also use oxygen and will compete with your plant for it. Damp soil means more animals and also less oxygen pockets. Plants breath easier in soil but in water there's not so much competition for the available oxygen, so the plant does not die, it grows more roots to take better advantage of the situation. | 155 | 262 |
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[Star Trek] Why do most Federation ships have a neck? | The Star Trek Federation ship has an iconic look. A saucer, a long thin neck, a core, and two huge engines. I am not a professional engineer, but the neck connecting the saucer to the core seems like it would be a structural weak point. Especially when newer designs (Voyager) and some of the earliest designs (the First Enterprise) do NOT have this feature, AND when you also consider that no other civilization seems to have copied this design.
So why would the Federation build their ships this way? | The hulls of most starships are reinforced with force fields called structural integrity fields. While its engines are running, no part of a ship is a structural weak point. The typical shape of a federation or Klingon ship is designed for optimal warp geometry. To put it another way it's "aerodynamic" for the fabric of space-time. | 48 | 28 |
Why don’t vaccines carry over genetically? | Just curious with everything going on why vaccines don’t essentially pass down to our children genetically if we’ve been immunised. Is it purely because we didn’t genetically start with that or purely down to the synthetic (well atleast not made naturally by the body) nature of the vaccinations? | 1) Vaccines do not alter your genetic information, i.e. those in the form of RNA (the new ones, because up until today they were protein based) do not integrate into the genome.
2) even if RNA vaccines could integrate into the DNA, you still wouldn't pass them on because vaccinations are injected into somatic cells, not into germ cells (inside testicules or oocytes, for instance...nobody would want that tbh). To pass genetic information on you need to alter the DNA of germ cells. | 12 | 19 |
[MCU/Age of Ultron] Tony Stark mentions how Ultron keeps taking to the human form despite its inefficiency; if not a reference to something, what IS an efficient physical form for an A.I. to take? | Whatever optimizes the form of locomotion relative to the mass and can also contain his intelligence. Likely it would be some sort of small orb with multiple legs, like a very large insect.
Since Ultron can occupy multiple bodies at once, he could have a variety of forms, each with a particular specialty. Large bulldozer-types for moving earth/demolishing buildings, streamlined jet aircraft for transcontinental/inter-solar travel, pocket-sized infiltration units, humanoid bodies to utilize human tools, etc.
He complains about humans having no imagination and then ends up making thousands of identical clones of himself. | 137 | 90 |
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ELI5: Why do some near death experiences cause PTSD and some cause other people to live their best lives after. | Resiliency. There's the notion of "window of tolerance" in psychology. For someone with a large window of tolerance and good support, getting a ton of stress/fear and overwhelming the system for a short while can make them stronger, if they get back to their tolerance level soon after. Anti-fragility is another label.
However, those with a crappy childhood (ie, many Adverse Childhood Experiences), the window of tolerance is small, self regulation is harder, and being thrown into a completely overwhelmed state is beyond their ability to get back to regulation. One theory is the overwhelm is stored in the body and dissociated from, but we're still understanding this.
The first example is like testing steel and not bending it. The second is actually bending it so the steel is fundamentally weakened.
What's unfortunate is that those with crappy childhoods usually get less support than those who have "good enough" childhoods, for a number of reasons. The Western culture also has more emphasis on roughing it out alone. | 34 | 22 |
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ELI5: What constitutes a draw in chess? Why does it seem as though a draw happens when it looks like a normal game going on? | There are several situations where a draw may occur, and while it may seem like a "normal" game is going on to the average person, a trained eye would identify them pretty easily usually:
* One player requests a draw and it is accepted. This may happen if both players want to play it safe and secure half of a point, or if a forced draw will foreseeably happen in the future.
* The same configuration of pieces comes up for 3 turns (a turn being both White and Black getting to move) ~~in a row~~. (Thank you /u/BallsAndAHalf for the correction)
* No pieces are taken for a whole 50 turns **[and no pawn is moved, corrected as pointed out below]**. This is usually not tracked unless it becomes painfully obvious that nothing is happening anymore or if one of the players may get desperate and try to draw out the game until 50 turns have passed.
* One player is caught in a situation where he cannot legitimately move any pieces, but is also not in check. When this happens, it usually comes to the dismay of the other side, as they would likely have a huge advantage over the opponent and got sloppy enough to let this situation happen.
* Checkmate cannot be achieved. This may happen if neither player owns any extra pieces in addition of the below combinations:
King,
King + Knight,
King + 2 Knights,
King + Bishop.
Contrary to what some may believe, King + Knight + Bishop is enough to checkmate, albeit only a skilled or trained player will accomplish this, since it will take ~30+ moves and making the wrong move at certain points will push you over the 50 move draw limit.
Edit: Added another piece of info
Edit2: Corrections | 31 | 26 |
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How come there is such huge wealth inequality even in competitive markets? | Jeff Bezos has a net worth of $166.4 billion. The CEO of McDonald's in the US earns 3000x what the median McDonald's worker earns. But both Amazon and McDonald's operate in a competitive market. The neoclassical doctrine on both perfect and imperfect competition states that economic profit is incompatible with competition (so in the case of monopolistic competition as in these examples, new competitors join the market until economic profit is down to zero). But both Amazon and McDonald's are subject to monopolistic competition and yet here we are. Obviously you could say that these huge incomes are just the salaries of the CEOs, not profit. But paying your CEO such a huge amount is not a true cost of doing business, the fact that these companies are able to do so flies in the face of the neoclassical view of competition that competing firms are only just able to stay in business. Exactly how reliable the "1% own 50% of the world's wealth" claim is aside, it's very telling. How are we supposed to reconcile this with the neoclassical doctrine on competition? | The modern neoclassical view is not that all firms are, in fact, perfectly competitive. While the firms you named have competition they do indeed (likely) have pricing power as a source of profitability.
Another thing that’s important is that economic profits being zero doesn’t imply that accounting profits are zero. Economic profit includes opportunity costs: If many firms are profitable, “zero profits” just implies the equalization of accounting profits across markets/industries, not zero accounting profits in every industry per se.
Finally, even in perfect competition, some firms can make profits in partial equilibrium if they enjoy a cost advantage over others. (Eg when you have upward sloping supply curves, some firm is making variable profit!) | 69 | 89 |
Are there any philosophers that write about the perceived conflict between a seemingly random universe and our causal and determinant perceived reality? | This is a bit specific to a train of thought I've been nursing for a while so I might not be explaining it well enough for a third party. So I'll elaborate if you don't mind. I apologize for my BS background too.
PRESUMPTION: that the universe's smallest structure, quantum interaction, is the 'original' \(genesis definition\) and 'fundamental' \(starting building block\) aspect of reality.
OBSERVATION 1: Human experience and knowledge arises from classical interaction and obeys rules of determinism; cause leads to effect.
OBSERVATION 2: Quantum interaction is potentially [non\-determinant](https://physicsworld.com/a/quantum-mechanics-trumps-nonlocal-causality/) and [non\-local](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_nonlocality), but like general thermodynamics obeys stochastic models.
Question: How does one make sense of a completely probablistic/possibilistic 'fundamental' coexisting and laying the framework of a precise reality that is determinant?
I'll give a shout out to a fellow redditor on this sub who pointed me in the direction of Leibniz and his theory of Monadology. But its a bit dated \(1600s\) and relies heavily on a presumption in antithesis of mine.
I really appreciate your time! | Not sure how specific you are looking for but Wilfrid Sellars' "Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man" seems close enough.
If you're cool with swapping out quantum phenomena for the *thing-in-itself*, then Immanuel Kant's *Critique of Pure Reason*. | 16 | 32 |
Why are things measured in half lifes in science? Why not just use the whole amount of timethat something is expected to exist for?
| I don't see the point of a half life. Why not measure in a full life?
If 100 atoms of X have a half life of 4 years, why not just say they have a life cycle of 8 years instead?
I feel like I must be missing some sort of reasoning for this. Can anyone explain it? | The most intuitive way to think of the half-life is to consider an initial sample of N atoms. After one half-life, the amount of atoms left is half of what it was: N/2. After two half-lives, the amount of atoms left is half of what it was at the beginning of the second half-life: N/4. After three half-lives, we have N/8 left, and so on.
Radioactive decays are exponential, meaning that the amount left follows an exponential function of time: N(t) = N(0) exp(-t/T). As time goes on, the amount that is left exponentially decays towards zero, but (in the mathematical model) never reaches zero.
Your previous understanding of the half-life assumed that the decays were linear. | 65 | 21 |
How do companies determine the ROI on advertising on Hulu, TV commercials, twitch.tv, youtube, etc? | Like, if there's a papa johns commercial, how does papa johns know how effective their advertisement was? | Big companies with big advertising budgets often have a number of Key Performance Indicators that they try to reach. Not every advertising dollar must bring in two dollars of sales in return. Exposure and brand recognition can be important to a company, for the long time health of the brand. As such, the relative cheapness of broad online marketing (usually paid for in CPM, cost per thousand views) makes it a good fit.
No ROI may be calculated, instead the marketing team will track how much exposure their ad received (and perhaps supplemental stats like how many facebook likes or how many twitter shares the advertisement received) to determine if it was effective or not. | 14 | 23 |
CMV: I will never use any math in the future besides basic multiplication, division, and properties. | I am in 8th grade Geometry and often find myself dosing off and asking myself when I will use any of this in the future. Just recently we learned how to find the area of sectors in circles and I couldn't think of a single way I could use this in the future. Math is my least favorite subject even though I'm quite a good student. Part of the reason is that I get bored so easily, and I think this could be prevented if someone could tell me how I will use this in the future.
I have brought this up to my parents before and so far what I have noticed is that the only use multiplication, division, and occasionally slightly more complex problems that you can easily Google | 1. Math is not always so straight forward. In the adult world, a lot of math comes from coming up with the problems *and* the solutions yourself. You have an overall goal and you need to figure out how to solve it. But for that to happen you will eventually utilize a lot of math, whether it's algebra, advanced geometry, calculus, etc.
2. Most jobs require some degree of math. Every science degree requires a lot of math. Computer science too. Doctor? Math. Electrician? Math. Chemist? Math.
3. A lot of your math classes are teaching you how to think critically. In other words, they're testing to see if you're too dumb to use your brain logic. Even the jobs that don't need complex math, like business, need to weed the dummies out somehow! | 42 | 16 |
What happens to a photon after it has been seen by our eyes? | Our eyes "see a photon" through the response created in our visual system by the absorption of that photon (or more realistically a stream of such photons) by the biological dyes in our eyes. Since the photon is absorbed, its energy is transferred to the molecules that constitute those biological dyes, and the initial photon ceases to exist. | 42 | 74 |
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Does listening to audio with one ear or watching something with one eye have an effect on how the information is processed/remembered? | Both visual and audio information is immediately crossed on secondary neurons in the brain. In the brain stem for hearing, and in the optic chiasm for vision. So immediately the information is spread to both cerebral hemispheres, and shouldn’t be processed any different with one-sided input than both.
There are portions of the brain, however, that relate to specific visual fields. These neurons would be repurposed in an individual with vision loss.
For someone with one-sided hearing loss, they would lose the ability to determine location of sounds, since the brain uses the minuscule time difference between the sound arriving in each ear to determine location.
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Are there any universities in Asia that compete with Harvard, Oxford, MIT, etc, for engineering? | Looking for some lengthly answers hopefully. Thanks! | MIT is regarded as the world's best engineering school. Stanford is pretty close and then there are some R1 state universities (Berkeley, Michigan, Illinois, Georgia Tech, etc.) before it starts declining from there. Most people would rank American universities for 9 out of the top 10 engineering schools in the world (and possibly all 10).
Harvard and Oxford both *teach* engineering, but they're not particularly well-regarded.
In terms of Asian universities, it's a mixed bag.
In American universities - at least at level we're talking about - emphasis is placed on understanding the material over rote learning. Professors don't want you to just repeat their words back to them - they want you to be able to creatively apply what you've learned. In contrast, most Asian education is very much by rote. Innovation and creativity are discouraged in favor of simply regurgitating exactly what the professor said.
However, if you've got enough students (which you do with billions of people) and you stack all the best ones in a very small number of designated 'elite' schools, you'll end up with exceptional student bodies - the kind of students where you can hand them a library card, walk away and they'll be able to master the material even without your help.
But there's not much value add to that sort of educational approach. You start with exceptional students and you're going to graduate some exceptional students. However, those students would have likely been better served by a different approach.
You also end up losing what might be termed the 'misfit toys' - the people who have exceptional talents shackled to various limitations (autism spectrum would probably be the most obvious one, but there are all sorts of other problems students can have that conceal their brilliance in a purely rote learning structure).
So:
Are there any universities in Asia that compete with MIT? No - because there are no universities *anywhere* that compete with MIT (note: there are universities that are better in specific niches than MIT, but MIT is probably in the top 3 for any niche you care to name).
Are there any universities in Asia that compete with other elite American universities? Singapore is probably your best bet here. It's not up to the elite U.S. state universities, but it's pretty close. But even in Singapore, the output of the universities tends to overstate the quality of the university because the students they're admitting are so strong. | 27 | 25 |
ELI5 how are gps ETA’s calculated? Does every traffic light get the same amount of time? Do left turns get the same amount of time as right turns? | Navigation software that's internet-based such as Google Maps on a phone and some newer nav units in cars base their calculations on how long previous drivers using such a device have needed to travel along a certain stretch of road, so their information is very up-to-date.
Offline GPS units that don't have an internet connection such as standalone nav units and older systems in cars just do a rough approximation based on what type of road it is. So they may figure that 1 mile on the highway takes on average 1 minute, 1 mile in the city takes say 4 minutes and so on. That's why they're a lot less accurate, and why some of them give you the same estimate at 3am as during rush hour, which is obviously not realistic. | 159 | 159 |
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Why do dogs enjoy fetching things? | is there some biological reason that they get pleasure from bringing a tennis ball back only to go chase it down for long periods of time? | Many breeds of dog have been selected for use as hunting dogs. In these dogs there may be a genetic component that gives them a tendency or disposition such that they will probably enjoy 'fetch'.
More generally, though, they like fetch because when you play humans do interesting things. Usually the human makes congratulatory noises and scratches their head, as well as yelling encouragement to get the ball and to bring it back. | 632 | 577 |
How could I motivate myself to study philosophy without taking a class? | I find that I am much more motivated to study philosophy when I am taking a class for it and have a paper due or have to prepare for a debate. I will give a couple of examples.
When I was working on a final paper for my moral psychology class, I found that I learned a lot more than when I was merely reading the philosophers to understand them. I think the reason was that I had to respond to their arguments in detail given the tools I had at hand rather than just think about whether they were ultimately correct. The process was one of the most enjoyable parts of my college experience.
Again, when I was preparing for a debate over whether or not we have free will for another class, I found myself going into more depth in the arguments than I otherwise would. I worked out a systematic defense of free will drawing on a variety of authors, rather than simply contemplating whether or not the initial arguments were good in the abstract. Again, this was very enjoyable.
So, I'm wondering if there is some way to have these sorts of experiences without taking a philosophy class. I think the problem is that normally, when I study philosophy by myself, I get stuck on flaws that the initial arguments seem to have rather than simply taking the problems for granted and going into more detail on the arguments, because I'm trying to figure out what is ultimately true rather than simply make a plausible argument that I can defend against criticisms. If I had some kind of motivation that was external to the issue itself, like I had when there was a paper or a debate to prepare for, then I think I would learn a lot more philosophy. | Get a syllabus for a class and follow it. That way you can still get the material without the responsibility that a class will have. Write a couple papers over some of the material in the class, and ask one of the professors in the department if they would mind taking a look at it to see if you understood the material. | 12 | 20 |
How is water able to evaporate if it is below the boiling temperature? | The temperature of an object just relates to the *average* kinetic energy of its molecules. Some molecules have higher energy than the average and some molecules have lower energy than the average. Think of closing your eyes and giving little pushes to a child swinging on a swing at random moments in time. Sometimes, your push is at the right time so that is goes in the same direction as the swinging motion, thus adding to it and making the child gain energy and swing higher. Sometimes, your push will be at the wrong time and oppose the motion, causing the child to lose energy and swing lower. But if your pushes are truly random, there will be an equal amount of helpful pushes and hurtful pushes, so that on average, the child will have a constant energy/swing height over time. Randomness causes the individual energy values (i.e. the peak kinetic energy of the swinging child from one minute to the next) to be distributed widely about an average value. In a material, molecules are constantly colliding into each other randomly and exchanging momentum. Just like the case of randomly pushing the child on the swing, this causes the molecules of an object in thermal equilibrium to have a broad distribution of energies about an average value. Some of the molecules in a liquid get enough energy after a collision (like you pushing the swinging child at the exactly right moment) to break free of the chemical bonds that were holding it in the liquid and zip off into the air, thereby evaporating. | 18 | 18 |
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How do scientists schedule time with the JWST Telescope? | I’m assuming it’s an appointment thing, but I’m just curious if anyone knows how the process works? | Astronomer here. Almost all telescopes (JWST included) have a peer reviewed proposal process. We write proposals for using the telescope, explaining what scientific goals we have, how it impacts the rest of astronomy, why we really need JWST, and how it extends work we have already done. These are scrutinized by specialized panels of other astronomers and ranked in order of their merit. In most cases even if your proposal is good, you may not get time because the telescope is oversubscribed. The regular peer review process takes place about 6 months in advance and only once or twice a year. A small fraction of the time is kept as director's discretionary time, which is used for urgent new observations (e g. A new, unexpected supernova nearby). The director sends out the urgent proposal to senior astronomers in the field to do a quick peer review and decides on whether to grant the time. | 49 | 35 |
ELI5: Why is it so hard to port programs to a different instruction set? | As I understand it, a program compiled for x86 for example can only run on x86. But if a compiler was ported to ARM, why can't the program just be compiled for ARM? Is there more to it than that? And if there isn't, why does it take so long for companies and projects to port their programs to a new platform? Isn't it just as easy as compiling, which in the worst case could take a couple of hours? | This mostly depends on if the program was originally written with portability in mind. There are plenty of assumptions to make and shortcuts to take if you only target a single architecture.
Modern programming languages eliminate a lot of this, but for anything in the C-family, making assumptions about something as simple as endianess is very common.
Different architectures may also have completely different performance profiles, meaning stuff that's fast on one architecture is slow on another and vice versa. This means you have to figure these differences out and do alternative implementations if performance is necessary for your program to function properly (think games). | 30 | 30 |
CMV: A life with religion is more meaningful and fulfilling than one without. | I'm an atheist. Lately, I've been thinking about what it means to be human, and live life. I've come to the conclusion that a life without the idea of a higher power, and a greater meaning, is ultimately emptier, and less fulfilling in a sense.
Without the idea of a god, or some sort of higher power, we are just coincidences of the development of the universe. Although we can give ourselves the illusion of meaning by developing relationships and keeping ourselves busy, we are no more than atoms and molecules that are the result of pure coincidence.
There's more to the thought than that, but perhaps someone can shed a little more light on the matter. CMV.
Edit: I'm really thrilled with all of the responses I've gotten. This entire concept is extremely hard for me to wrap my head around, to be honest.
I need more time to think about it, but I think I may have been convinced that one can (and even with god, has to) create their own meaning behind life. However, I think I'm unconvinced that a life without god can be more fulfilling. It's actually pretty hard to understand even my own thoughts about the matter...
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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!* | Have you considered what it would be like if you were God? With no yet higher creator above Him, one would presume that His life is empty and unfulfilling.
So God must somehow give Himself meaning, and the usual story is that He did this by creating the universe. If creativity is sufficient to have meaning and fulfillment in life, then you could do it for yourself. Creativity, learning, understanding, and solving problems can't be any less meaningful than the meaning God supposedly made when doing the same thing on a different scale. | 27 | 18 |
CMV: The main reason that artists generally aren't paid as well as STEM positions is because artists produce something that is readily available in nature | This is sort of a weird view of mine but it makes sense to me. This discussion is about artists in general, but to make things simpler I'll focus mostly on one of the classic forms of art - paintings. I am referring specifically to visual forms of art though.
First, some context. I see this discussion all the time on Reddit. Artists vs. STEM, the "STEM circlejerk", etc. One of the most common arguments I see is - "Imagine how much the world would suck if we didn't have art". Generally, this is a response to the idea that STEM fields produce something practical which therefore has value. Art fields do not produce something practical, but something that is valuable purely for its aesthetic qualities. The second is a lot more subjective when determining something's actual value (i.e. the value of a car is a lot easier to see than the value of a painting, particularly a painting you may not like). Therefore, people who defend the value of artists commonly argue that living in a world without art would be absolutely miserable, and therefore art has value.
I don't think this argument holds up. Art has value because it is something that people enjoy looking at. Generally speaking we consider a "good" piece of art to be one that is beautiful, and a "bad" piece of art to be one that is ugly. So the inherent feature of art that makes it valuable is its beauty. In other words, if you make ugly art, no one is going to consider it valuable.
However, art is absolutely not the only source of beauty in the world. There is beauty in nature literally everywhere you look. Look at a waterfall, or a flower, or a tree, or a colorful bird, or an interesting rock formation, or the ocean, etc. The list is endless! There is **so** much beauty in nature everywhere you look, and the best part is that it's all free. Going outside costs nothing.
So when people say "Imagine a world without art", I do imagine it.... and it doesn't sound all that bad. Sure, there are pieces of art that are pretty. But if I want to see something pretty, I can just go outside. Now, I'll admit that it isn't quite that simple for a lot of people. If you live in the middle of a big city, seeing nature might be difficult. However, I think that the number of people who have absolutely no access to nature whatsoever is very small. For these people, I will concede that art fills a void that they are unable to experience otherwise. But most people, especially in America, can go outside to see nature if they really want to.
I also think it's very telling how prevalent nature is in art. Paintings of flowers, trees, landscapes, etc. are all extremely common in works of art. But, if you'll pardon my language, why the hell would I want to look at a painting of a flower instead of just going outside and looking at a flower itself?
So the way I see it, art is just another "flavor" of beauty. And it's a flavor that costs a lot more and is much harder to access. Sure, maybe it's your preferred flavor. Maybe you really do think that a painting of a flower is prettier than a flower itself. But here is the difference, and this is the crux of my argument. If you prefer looking at paintings to looking at nature, you are not gaining anything new. You are only gaining some better version of something you already had.
If you compare this to the things produced in STEM fields, it's quite obvious that STEM fields produce things you would not have had otherwise. Cars and smartphones don't grow on trees. Beauty literally does.
So since artists produce beauty, they're having to "compete" with nature. And that's hard to do. Nature provides us with a free, diverse, healthy, readily available source of beauty. So for artists to even compete, a person has to **reeeeeeeeally** like a piece of artwork before they'll spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on it. And that isn't going to happen very often for a person.
So in summary, artists are paid less because they produce something that is already produced everywhere for free. It might be slightly better (in some peoples' opinions) than what is produced naturally, but it also costs significantly more, and is much less diverse (i.e. a walk through the park changes every time; a painting stays the same every time you look at it).
So it makes a ton of sense why artists are paid less! CMV
EDIT1: I am referring specifically to forms of visual art, such as paintings, sculptures, etc. Music and other art forms don't factor into my view here.
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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!* | The next time you walk into a grocery store and walk down the aisles, really take a look at everything on the shelves. Even at things like rat poison. There's going to be one thing in common: *all* of it will have art on it. *All* of it will have come from someone putting in their artistic labor for the benefit of that brand. Name brand companies will charge more for their product and have much better logos, graphics, type-setting, etc. Their products are perceived to be better, and their choice in graphic marketing is a huge part of that.
None of that is available in nature. It does, though, have a massive impact on the corporate structure of our society. If you want to be successful in any kind of business, branding is going to need to be included. That includes hiring artists of varying caliber to complete that for you. Your profits are contingent on the skill of the artist you hire. The worth of art, at that point, is the worth that it would bring to your company. Which can, in a lot of cases, be quantified in a practical way.
tl;dr: Art has practical purpose, even in a production-based, capitalist society. There are artists who successfully break into "commercial" art with a wide range of mediums and earn salaries equivalent to and exceeding STEM fields. Those who don't don't fail necessarily because of the purpose or presence of beauty in art, but because they failed at applying their art to commercial purposes. | 20 | 23 |
ELI5: Why do modern graphing calculators have such a terrible resolution? | Some of the graphing calculator models have basically remained unchanged for decades. This has two benefits:
1) it's all standardized so regardless of how old the calculator is, all the calculators of that model number will have the same features and functions and same sort of style/interface which makes it a lot easier to share calculators and teach groups of students how to use a graphing calculator.
2) Each calculator model is intentionally limited in its functionality. Even though the capability exists to make very powerful graphing calculators with amazing high-resolution 3D graphics and powerful mathematical functions without a significant increase in price, schools want students to be purposefully limited to certain functions found on specific calculator models. The primary reason for this is that it makes sure everyone is on the same page and that no student has an unfair advantage or the ability to use the calculator to 'cheat' and perform advanced functions/calculations that the school wants students to learn how to do manually.
Edit: by the way, there are other more advanced graphing calculators out there that have color displays and higher resolution displays, it's just that the most popular models (the ones that schools usually require students to use) contain only the basic functionality and low-resolution monochrome display that has been around for ages. | 85 | 191 |
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ELI5: Why are wires generally preferred over ACH when transferring larger amounts of money? | Title.
Noticed transfers of over $30k+ generally are done over wires and ACH isn't accepted, why so? | ACH (actually EFTS specifically as wire can be done through an Automated Clearing House too) requires just routing and account number, and in a legal sense is recognized as similar to a personal check.
Wire transfers require two numbers from the bank that aren't easily-accessed public knowledge that you can find on anyone's checkbook, and only a sender can authorize money moving unlike EFTS where the receiver can also make money move like with automatic bill payment. In this sense it's treated more like a cashier's check.
If they use FedWire, that money can be moved in the same business day (or even instantly) also, which is pretty handy. Not sure if FedACH is set up the same way, but FedWire is served by a datacenter with on-site backup, with another "hot" backup a few hundred miles away with *its* own backup of the backup, and a third "warm" backup facility. Even though the process is very quick. This provides a lot of integrity and failsafe to those big amounts of money. | 12 | 18 |
[Comics] When it comes to punching power, shouldn't speed/quickness trump strength? | I've been reading over this today, and I have seen some discussions stating the Flash should be up there for punching power -- but realistically, wouldn't big, slow characters not pack as much of a punch as fast ones? How would super strength relate to super speed with punching power?
I'm not a scientist at all, but I'm thinking we're going with Force = Mass x Acceleration, and possibly Energy = Mass x Velocity (squarter) as the gauge for punching power.
When I think about it, there seems to be three factors in punching power as it relates to these equations:
a) Speed of the punch -- Since it's velocity (squared), the speed of the arm/fist upon impact will have a greater effect on the force of the punch than the strength. This would give the likes of Flash, Superman, Spider-Man, Quicksilver, Thor, Hulk an advantage here, as they all have super-human speed.
b) the material/durability of the person throwing the punch -- This would affect the impact of the punch on the person throwing the punch, ie, whether their hand turns to jelly upon impact. This would help Superman, Hulk, Thor, Collosus, etc., as they could withstand the impact. Also, their bodies (I assume) are denser and harder than a human, so there wouldn't be as much "give" lessening the punch, which would make it stronger. Guys like Quicksilver are relatively human, as is Flash, when it comes to their actual physical prowess and makeup; even Spider-Man isn't as durable as the big guys, and his body is soft flesh, so the punch wouldn't pack as much force.
c) Finally, strength. This somewhat overlaps point B. I think this has an effect in that it allows the person to be able to brace their arms and muscles to absorb the impact, which would increase the mass and therefore force of the puncher.
The problem is, it seems to make sense that a person's strength would affect how hard they punch, I just can't wrap my head around why, completely. I think a good analogy is a hydraulic press -- if one is designed to life 20 tons, it's still not going to hurt you if you're standing above it and it starts to slowly rise and "hit" you on its way up. It wouldn't even feel like a punch. So here's something that can "lift" 20 tons, but which would have a very weak "punch."
Can someone help explain to me why a super-strong hero would pack more of a punch than a super-fast one?
**EDIT: Corrected equations** | I think the best way to think about strength in this case is density of muscles. So a super-strong person has more muscle density, and as we all know, force is equal to mass times acceleration.
A super fast person can accelerate much quicker, but has much less mass, while a super strong person has much more mass, but accelerates slower.
To compare, we would need to know the acceleration and mass of both people | 27 | 44 |
ELI5:Why do eastern countries (e.g Philippines, Japan) focus on discipline, honor and excellent grades more than western countries (e.g America, Canada?) | Because western countries focus more on creativity, individual achievement and social development? Many eastern schools produce children who can recite facts but not know how to use them. Many western schools have kids who are great at creative thinking but can't participate in a formal setting. Neither is strictly superior to the other. | 12 | 18 |
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ELI5: why do images of things on a microscopic level not have color? | You are probably referring to electron microscope images which are taken with electron bombardment rather that visible light; indeed some of the structures may be too small to image with visible light because the wavelength is too large. Under such circumstances there is no color in the resulting image because color has no meaning. | 21 | 16 |
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ELI5 How does my iPhone Face ID still recognize me even after I grew a beard and wear sunglasses? How does it know I’m not an imposter in disguise? | the ai measures the distances between features of your face e.g nose width, distances between brows, your brow ridges, forehead length, chin length all relative to other features. sunglasses and beard wont change any of that. try prosthetic makeup. | 17 | 20 |
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CMV: I believe children can be told about sex from the get go. | I don't think there is anything wrong with children knowing what sex is at any age, even if they are too young to fully grasp it. Obviously I'm not saying that children should be exposed to sexual situations, I'm just saying that they can know: what sex is; that their parents have sex; that gay sex exists; and that sex is where babies come from, and that that doesn't rob them of their innocence or damage their perceptions in anyway (assuming the information being shared is accurate).
I was raised this way and grew up knowing what sex was in the same way that I knew what pooping was. I never felt especially weird about sex and was bored in sex-ed because I knew it already. Those are the only differences i could perceive in my approach to sex in comparison to my peers and I think suddenly springing the knowledge of sex on a kid is far more likely to manifest a weird relationship to it.
Edit: I am assuming this argument from a secular perspective, Ie; assuming consensual sex isnt immoral in and of itself. | Do you mean that they should be told a plain but broad version when asked or that you should make a point of telling them as early as they can understand it?
The former makes sense to me, in order to, as you say, prevent it from becoming weird or shameful, but the latter doesn't, because there's no reason to have a child think about the mechanics of something that will only become relevant to them in years, they have enough to worry about that's actually immediately pertinent to their lives. | 147 | 616 |
What is the difference between generalizations, stereotypes, and racist statements? What, exactly, makes a statement racist? | Is a racist statement a particular type of untrue generalization based on physical characteristics? | - **generalization**: you assume that all black men like hiphop, or that all Asians are good at math, that all Christians are fundamentalists, or that all gay men speak with an effeminate accent. [you subconsciously ascribe a certain trait to a whole group of people]
- **stereotype**: You subconsciously create a composite image, (or a group of traits) to a group of people. For example: The rich, Hassidic jew with the big nose and Jewish accent. The fat Southern American who votes republican and "what would jesus do?" bumper sticker.
- **Prejudice**: conscious feelings of distrust, antipathy or loathing towards a person, based on stereotypes and generalizations of the group that person belongs to. For example: you see a guy with visible tattoos on the street, and you think he's probably violent, a gang member or an ex-con. Note that at this "stage", you don't act on those feelings yet. You just *feel* them.
- **Discrimination**: When you act on your generalization, and commit an act or enforce an (unfair) rule aimed at a specific group. For example: Refusing to shake hands with a black person, yelling racist slurs when a Mexican cuts you off in traffic, or the laws that prevent gays from serving in the military.
So basically, racism is a process that starts out as a subconscious idea in your head, and *may or may not* lead to overt, conscious racist behaviour. Most countries (with anti hate crime legislation) draw the line at overt discrimination. | 25 | 17 |
ELI5: How does a laxative work? | It depend on which type of laxative. There are osmotic, stimulant, lubricant and bulk agent laxatives.
Osmotic work by forcing water to stay inside the intestine. It also attract water from the surrounding tissues, therefore increasing the water content. Adding water increase the volume of the stool triggering a reflex. When nerves in the intestine sense that it's almost full, it trigger the need to go to the toilet.
Bulk agent have a similar mechanism of action but, it use dietary fibers. Since we can't digest these fibers, they pass through our digestive system unchanged. They also absorb water which increase their volume. Adding more volume trigger the same mechanism described earlier.
Stimulant laxatives are irritating to the intestinal walls. The intestine react by increasing its peristaltism as a way to get rid of the irritating agent as fast as possible. Peristaltism is the mechanism by which muscles along our digestive tract force food (and stool) down the tube until the undigested remnants are pushed through the anus.
Lubricant laxatives act by coating the intestinal walls with an oily substance. Since it's oily, it's also slippery making it easier for the stool to go down the tube. | 118 | 167 |
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ELI5: Why do people get allergies? | Why do people get allergies even with 21 years for the first time like me.
And is there already a cure with a high success rate? | One analogy for the immune system could be like the role of the police within a city. Just as a city is made up of many individual people, houses, and industries, our bodies are made up of many individual cells that work together to make us alive. Just like in our modern cities, the vast majority of citizens are good but there's always the shadowy threat of bad guys lurking out there. The police have many difficult but essential tasks including:
To work out who is good and who is bad (surveillance)
To actively hunt down the bad guys (enforcement)
To always be prepared to rapidly mobilise a decisive response when something really serious happens (counter-terrorism)
Each task requires a different approach. One branch of the immune system responds immediately to crimes in a simplistic fashion when they happen, like a security guard. Later on, a second branch shows up to crime scenes, collects evidence and creates a criminal profile, like a detective. Another branch monitors traffic in streets (or the blood vessels) for individuals who match these profiles, like a traffic cop. Yet another branch carefully scans the outside of each house to determine if there is suspicious activity occurring within, like the FBI.
We know a lot about the "how" of your question, but the "why" is much less clear. What can be said is that allergies tend to be associated with a branch that acts like a warning siren. For some reason the detectives wrongly create a profile of a suspected criminal (Mr Peanut B. Sandwich) and send it to this alarm system which lies dormant until a match is made on the profile. When a match is made the response is very rapid and aggressive -- loud sirens go off all over the city and everyone starts to panic like there's some kind of terrorist attack. All available defense personnel are mobilised and start roaming the city. In the confusion, vital systems struggle. Traffic in the streets grinds to a halt (blood doesn't flow very well around the body) and the city stops functioning properly.
Now, it turns out this is a false alarm -- we all know Mr P. B. Sandwich is innocent. But the police have no way of knowing this and continue to freak out and make you sick whenever he is detected. Why do we have this alarm system in the first place? Hard to say. One theory is that it was developed to deal with parasitic worms, compared to the individual police they are gigantic monsters like Godzilla. Another is that it helps to protect from poisons (bee venom) by provoking a huge reaction against a dire threat, like chemical or biological terrorist attack.
You ask about a cure. One method of treatment that succeeds in some people is *desensitisation*. Medical personnel introduce the barest trace of Mr P. B. Sandwich into the body, say just a single hair from his head. This is identified but there's so little evidence of his presence that the reaction is small -- at most it might set off a couple of car alarms. When detectives investigate they find that no crime was committed. Exposing the body to tiny peanut fragments is repeated every couple of weeks and eventually the detectives start to put 2 and 2 together and realise that maybe Mr P. B. Sandwich has been falsely accused. With enough time larger and larger doses of peanut can be introduced without creating a huge panic (the medical word for this "panic" is anaphylaxis). | 221 | 212 |
CMV: Video lists, video explanations, and long form informative media in general are inferior to concise written versions where applicable. | Many people confuse length of media with quantity of content. There are many videos listing things, or explaining a list of things, or explaining a thing that take several, or tens of minutes to cover what could could be read as a summary in under a minute, or as an article in still, significantly less time.
[This is the most recent example](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYcHnrWy3rQ)
There are 10 mistakes people make. Lets accept this. My problems with this video come from a number of sources.
1. I read faster than people talk. I can read the entire transcript in significantly less time than the video. The video slows down my consumption dramatically.
2. The video is not indexed, nor is a list presented, and so I have to spend the entire 11 minutes finding out what the ten things are, when a list or article could be read or skimmed in a fraction of the time.
3. The format of this is a straight 'piece to camera', and uses no visual elements. This makes seeking through difficult, and makes no use of the medias unique points.
4. The majority of people will find such videos by searching when looking for specific information, and the video takes a long time to consume before it can be judged helpful or not. Articles and lists can be evaluated significantly faster.
I mention when applicable, as there are times when the interactive visual nature of a video is superior to an article, but often this is not the case. The majority of these videos are created, then shared around as if they are an effective means of disseminating information when a actual write-up would be much more effective. | Different people learn and absorb information differently.
You are a reader, which is fine. Lots of people are readers. But many people are not. Other people find that they can absorb information much better and more effectively when listening to someone talk about it, than they can while reading.
For those people, a video, even if its just effectively reading something, can be more efficient in terms of information absorption and recall. | 12 | 18 |
ELI5: Why do we usually put hills or foliage on roundabouts, obscuring the view of other vehicles? | it just seems so much safer to have a flat roundabout so you can clearly see vehicles.
idk if its just a UK thing but it seems like most roundabouts have a manmade hill or tons of big trees | To clearly mark the boundaries of the roundabout. Imagine if it's dark, or you're impaired, and all you see in front of you is flat open space. One might be tempted to cross straight through a roundabout as if it were a normal 4-way intersection, endangering any vehicles likewise inside the roundabout.
Plus, your attention should be focused immediately to your left (or right if you're in the UK) as that's the flow of traffic you'll be entering. You shouldn't be concerned with who is directly opposite you in an roundabout because you won't encounter their vehicle while merging into the intersection (unless they blow straight through like a 4-way intersection [which might happen if the middle is flat and unmarked]) | 48 | 28 |
ELI5: Why does a simple app such as iHeartRadio need access to my photos and call information? | I figured I'd get the app in case I ever wanted to listen to proper radio on my phone but it says it needs access to so many different things. I'd understand needing wifi info, maybe even location info, but why does it need to access my photos and my call info? My photos have nothing to do with them. | We have a detailed explanation of the Android permissions we need and why we need them on our help site which you can find here: iHeartRadio.com/AndroidPermissions. (Mods, hope linking to the answer is okay). | 61 | 34 |
CMV:I Believe The Prosperity, Cohesiveness and Generous Spirit of Canadians is Because They Are Simply Americans Without the Enormous Costs Involved In Fighting the Cold War | I love Canada and Canadians. I believe they manage to address their diversity, their health care, their economy and their education smartly and efficiently. I think they are brave and conscientious and when needed they have served militarily with distinction and honor. We share many of the same heritage and lineage. I have often wondered why the Canadians seem to do so much better with the long term big picture. I believe now the difference was the enormous costs associated with the Cold War. Not just economic costs but the focus of our research and scientific endeavors. So my view is that the current state of Canada and Canadians is America less the costs of the Cold War. Change my view! | I think that you need to reach much further back in history to find the roots of Canada's identity. We didn't fight a war to cut ourselves off from Britain. We continued to aspire to be more like Britain and were always somewhat subordinate to Britian... look at the BNA, we didnt even really have control over our own country until after the second world war and well into the cold war. | 21 | 28 |
ELI5: In Quantum Physics how can simply observing something change the way it reacts? | I am not good with specifics but I have seen documentaries that comment how particles can move or do something different depending on if they are observed or not, how can that possibly influence them? | A quantum object can exist in a superposition of states. Any INTERACTION with the object can collapse it to one or the other state.
Note, the word interaction is extremely important. Many people think *observation* collapses the wavefunction, but that's not the case. It's *interaction*. Of course, you can't really observe a quantum object without interacting with it, but you can DEFINITELY interact with an object without "observing" it. | 14 | 24 |
CMV: Workplace cafeterias should not make a profit. | I'm not very knowledgeable about the topic, but worked in a hospital cafeteria in high school. The food they served to staff and guests was (and still is) extremely overpriced, and they always made moves to cut staff hours in favor of profit - even when those extra staff members were helpful. Don't companies already make enough money from other areas? I feel they should charge lower prices for food rather than making money from employees and guests.
I may be convinced of the argument for making enough money for shipping supplies, paying cafeteria workers, etc. Even then, it seems those expenses could come from other areas instead of from the company's own staff. In my experience, however, most workplaces try to make a profit from selling their food, not just pay necessary expenses. CMV Reddit!
Edit: Thanks everyone for your replies! I'll try to respond to you all as soon as I can.
Edit2: Sorry for poor wording. I didn't mean to say say food should be free for employees in the post, just at a reduced price to not make a profit. Then, if food prices truly needed to be high to keep the cafeteria budget neutral, maybe it would be possible to pull profit from other areas in order to provide employees with lower priced food. These were my original thoughts, hope that's more clear now. Thanks for the great discussion. | In large corporate enterprises each division or group usually had their own budget. The people who run those are typically rewarded in bonuses for the profits they make and staying under budget.
Also, these cafeterias are offered as a time saver IMO. It's like paying more to get something today locally than order.
So the employees can eat sooner and enjoy a longer lunch basically. It's not like they are forced to eat there.
You must also consider if it's owned and operated by said company too. Many times they hire another company. And that one is there to make a profit.
It's something I've been watching due to being in IT. Where we're looked down upon as a cost and not a profit generators. | 435 | 1,668 |
If I cut a rope into 4 pieces and braid them together, how much stronger will the resulting rope be in relation to it's original specs? | I understand there will be a lot of 'depends', but in general, will it be 4 times as strong? Just a little stronger? Weaker because of the twists?
In the original rope, a knot will introduce a significant weak point knocking off, say, 40% of strength. In the resulting 4 strand rope, will the same knot reduce it's strength by a similar amount, or would it's effects be different? Say the resulting rope is only twice as strong, will the weakness introduced by the knot also have a calculable ratio?
(By braid them together, i mean laying the lengths side by side and braiding them into a rope approximately 1/4 of the original length, not braiding/splicing it back into a rope of similar original length/thickness)
*Edit:* So it seems that getting 4x or even more strength isn't outlandish, mostly due to distributing the weakness over 4 ropes, so you would get > than 4x the strength of the 'actual' rope strength, as opposed to getting 4x the stated rope strength. (if a 100lb rope has weaker and stronger points, cutting and braiding it will distribute those strengths and weaknesses instead of the entire length being vulnerable to the weakest point (say, 90 lbs) After that, you have to take the braid/twist/material into account and calculate an appropriate reduction in strength into account, which could be nominal, or significant. | What type of braid? Can you ensure that the strands don't twist when you braid them?
You're right that there are a lot of "depends." If the braid is not twisted, then best-case, each strand supports an equal load, so you'd expect your new rope to be 4X stronger than the old rope. However, if you introduce any uneven load distribution when you make the braid, then the allowable load would be knocked down by some percentage. This depends on the material, diameter, twist, and construction type of the rope. For instance, with a 1" diameter, 12-strand, nylon rope, 5 twists (rotations of an individual strand) per meter results in a 20% knockdown as compared to full strength.
The questions you're asking are all very specific to the type, size, and style of rope...sorry. | 65 | 217 |
ELI5: Single payer healthcare | With all this talk about healthcare in the US I'd like to understand what the single payer model actually is. Thanks! | Currently, there are a bunch of different private insurance companies who provide health insurance -- BlueCross/BlueShield, Cigna, Humana, Kaiser Permamente, and so on. We get these private insurance plans either through our employer, paying premiums through paycheck withholding, or by buying an individual plan. In addition to these private insurance plans, there are also government run plans like Medicare and Medicaid.
In a single payer system, there is one insurance provider -- the government. Instead of paying premiums to the various companies, we'd pay a healthcare tax. Instead of doctors and hospitals having to deal with all these different insurance companies, and all the different plans they offer, there would be one SINGLE PAYER who pays all the claims. So the doctor is no longer submitting a bill to Cigna and getting $100 reimbursed, and $120 from BlueCross, and $75 from Medicare, and having to make sure claims are coded just-so based on each payers' requirements in order to get the reimbursement and so on. It's all the same requirements, all the same payouts.
In theory, the efficiencies from reducing overhead on billing through this streamlining, along with the lack of profit margins of private companies, and the larger negotiating power of a single payer, mean that the costs could be the same or reduced and yet cover everybody.
There are those who will counter with the "government is never as efficient as private business" but if you've ever dealt with health insurance companies, you know there are as bureaucratic as they come, and that they are not capitalistic businesses in the sense that they have to fight for our business -- typically our employer makes the choice and our options are take it or leave it, so they have no accountability to us as customers. | 95 | 84 |
ELI5: What do the 'H's, 'N's, and numbers mean in bird/swine flu viruses? Eg; H1N1, H7N9, etc... | H and N stand for the names of two proteins on the surface of virus cells (Hemagglutinin and Neuraminidase). What they do is not particularly important, except that they have to be on the surface of every flu virus for it to survive, and antibodies are able to target them. Different versions of the different surface proteins mean new antibodies are needed, so a new vaccine is necessary for viruses with different versions of the surface proteins. So vaccines generally work for a specific H/N combination.
TL;DR: Surface proteins on the flu that are important for antibody targeting.
Edit: spelling. | 126 | 317 |
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CMV: I believe women have fully equal rights to men in modern western society | >then you are talking about something completely different and should word it accordingly.
This distinction is particular to you. Most people fairly think of "equal rights" as meaning something more than equal under the law. Many people who argue for "equal rights" are attempting to address implicit, unexamined societal bias that harms women (and pretty much other groups). In the civil rights area, there is a distinction between de jure and de facto discrimination. Everyone recognizes this, and legislation like the Civil Rights Acts of 1964/1968, Americans with Disabilities Act, and Housing Discrimination Act, are premised on the idea that discrimination isn't always open, notorious, and by the black letter of the law.
Second of all, there are plenty legal hurdles that are particular to women. Women in the United States have unique obligations when it comes to parenthood, and they are one of the only group of women in the world who does not have paid maternity leave. They are uniquely impacted by access to abortion, and by other restrictions placed on birth control.
Laws may be written with gender-neutral language, but the way they are enforced and legislated is steeped in bias. | 91 | 138 |
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ELI5: Linux's 'configure', 'make', 'make install' | I just finished up installing ruby on a CentOS system and I can't for the life of me understand why I had to do these three steps. I googled around and it seems that this is the build system that all linux applications use. How does it work? And why execute three steps, why not just do 'make install'?
(I'm a java developer so I have very limited linux knowledge) | The real explanation is that 'configure' is a script that looks through your system, finds out where libraries, compiler(s) and everything else are, what special circumstances apply to your machine, etc., and writes a Makefile based on that. make, in turn, tells the compiler to perform the actual compilation as per instructions in the Makefile that were generated, and 'make install' just places the generated program in a standard folder and does associated installation steps (such as copies documentation or icons where needed).
ELI5 explanation would be, imagine you are at your friend's house and want to bake a cake and treat your friend to it. You know how to bake a cake but you can't immediately start to do it. First you will go to the kitchen, check if it has all the necessary ingredients and equipment. You'll see if it's a gas oven or an electric oven, you'll also check for some ingredients like nuts that make the cake better but that you can still work without if they aren't present. That's the 'configure' step.
Then you actually get to work making the cake. You use the ingredients that you previously found and the kitchen you familiarized yourself with. This is the longest part in the process, of course. That's exactly like the 'make' step.
Finally, your cake is ready, but you probably don't want to eat it right there in the kitchen while it's still inside the baking pan. You can do it, but it's not polite and not so easy. Instead, you'll set the cake on a nice big plate, bring it to the table, and before you invite everyone to eat you'll also take care of niceties like having some napkins on the table. Now everyone can enjoy the cake like they're supposed to, and that's what 'make install' corresponds to. | 35 | 44 |
[The Thing] How long would it take for animal cells to reproduce to a pound? | I'm working on a The Thing game, and I was gonna have a biologist mention that a sample of Thing tissue has grown an abnormal amount since being brought back from Outpost 31. I was gonna say that it grew half a pound in four hours, but I didn't think that was actually abnormal. I then switched to a full pound, but still don't feel like it's good enough. The Thing has incredible cellular growth. What would be an abnormal(but small) amount of mass that could be gained in four hours? | Depends on how much mass you started with and how abnormally fast a growth rate you want. Under proper conditions, E. coli can make around a lb of biomass in half a day from a tiny bit of cells. And e. coli doubles every 20-30 minutes, while human cells take much much longer, doubling maybe a couple times a day. So a lb in 4 hours is within the bounds of biological limits depending on how much you start with, but wildly fast for human tissue. But that's assuming every cell has all the nutrients it wants in optimum conditions, while a chunk of tissue in a petri dish, even if it's sitting in a pool of prime nutrients, would grow much slower (e. coli growing of agar in a petri dish might grow only a couple grams). So a lb of growth would be a wild amount of growth, or maybe reasonable, depending on exact conditions and what you define as 'abnormal'. | 10 | 20 |
ELI5: Why is a repetitive sound "annoying", but an irregular one isn't? | Like how most people can sleep to music, with the TV on, or around people talking, but cannot if there's an alarm beeping or a clock ticking. | Neural /sensory adaptation. That is, your sensory neurons will actually stop firing after exposure to a prolonged, constant stimulus
For example, when something is touching your skin for the first time, say, a new watch on your wrist, all your sensory nerves are firing. Neural adaptation is the process of your body getting used to the watch on your wrist and eventually no longer firing sensory neurons to let you know there's something there.
Which is why you feel like your wrist is 'naked' when you don't wear a watch after a while of wearing one constantly. The stimulus has changed and the neurons are now firing at a different frequency they are used to.
Not all sensory neurons adapt, and some (phasic) adapt fadter than others (tonic).
Changes to the intensity of a stimulus (volume, pressure, light) will throw the balance again and cause you to notice the stimulus
There's a really cool thing about the feeling you get when you're sleeping and you feel like you're falling that's to do with it too | 13 | 17 |
ELI5: How does sending troops help prevent the spread of ebola? | The military has medical professionals. As well they can help organize and distribute necessary aid, and are capable of mobilizing (relatively) quickly on a large scale to construct and supply treatment facilities. | 19 | 17 |
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authorship- is this normal? | I’m a data analyst in academia (bs in stats), so I get opportunities to help on manuscripts and earn authorship. A senior PI and student (MD) were working on a project together and asked for my assistance performing the analyses. For context, the study was basically just taking survey data someone else already collected and analyzing it. I guided them through/performed the analyses.
Shortly after this the student graduated, started a residency and completely ghosted us. The student had started a draft of the manuscript, but had only gotten through the introduction. I took complete control over the project and in the process changed some of our analysis methodology. I proceeded to write the entire manuscript (didn’t end up using any of the intro the student wrote) with the analyses and visualizations that I generated.
As I was in the weeds of taking control of the project, the senior PI said she was making me co-first author. I was fine with this as I have never been first author before. Now after finishing the paper, I asked if my name can be listed first (still co-first author with the student) rather than second. The PI acknowledged that I carried this study, but says she isn’t sure it’s appropriate since the student conceptualized the study and “attempted” the analyses, even if their work wasn’t utilized. Since the student didn’t collect the data, they pretty much just decided what the outcome variable would be (which I evolved over time). The student has been copied on all communication for the last 6 months and has not reached out once.
To me it seems crazy for someone to be granted first authorship after completely abandoning a project, especially since most of their work wasn’t included anyway. As we are co first-authors, i’m not asking the student to give this up, I just wish to be listed first. Is this at all justified? | The problem is that the other person did a certain amount of work under the assumption of gaining a first authorship. Unless they specifically give up that position it can turn into a lot of drama should they want to fight for that spot.
An unfortunate reality is that a lot of research remains unpublished because the original first author stops working on it and doesn't want to give up the spot either. | 19 | 18 |
[X Men Days of Future Past] How did the Sentinels take over the entire North American Continent without being stopped? | I know Sentinels are good at what they do but there are too many way OPed mutants and heroes to allow this I feel. On top of this the Celestials want to foster the mutant population so the sentinels are a threat and would conceivably be wiped out. My final point would be that Dr. Doom would never allow anybody other than himself to kill the Fantastic Four, But give me your reasoning. | I will try to tackle this point by point.
1. Sentinels have bee shown to be incredibly efficient and adaptive. Master Mold constructs sentinels of varying sizes some of which can reassemble after being destroyed. Some are built for the sole purpose of hunting a particular mutant, such as nonmetallic ones to hunt Magneto. All of this, coupled with the death of Charles Xavier early on in the DoFP meant that there wasn't a well organized response mounted by mutants and the adaptive and powerful sentinels were able to take over. All other heroes would similarly be unable to tackle such a massive threat without the aid of the X-Men and their expertise in fighting Sentinels for so many years.
2. Celestials don't do jack. If they cared, they would be intervening all the time and they don't. They set up their little experiments, mess with out genetic code and step back and watch us run like rats through a maze. Assuming they are multiversal, the demise of one experiment in one universe would not likely warrant their intervention.
3. Doom would not be able to prevent the FF from being killed. He is incredibly powerful, but again, the Sentinels would overwhelm him. Perhaps he escaped to a pocket dimension and was planning a return, but he isn't omnipotent. Unless the FF killed Doom in this reality before the events of DoFP took place. Remember that in just about every universe we have seen in the multiverse, aside from Earth-616, Reed Richards ends up being evil/crazy. Maybe he was already on his downward spiral and killed Doom, and then fell victim to the Sentinels. | 16 | 29 |
How to Read Philosophy | I was wondering about how to go about reading philosophy. I remember /u/wokeupabug saying that reading philosophy in a very slow and laborious manner is the way to go and I would like to do that. If /u/wokeupabug could possibly answer, I was wondering how you go about reading texts in a laborious way? Also how do you guys in general go about reading in this laborious manner?
I want to master the text and be able to recall the content of the text. If I read a philosophy text and then just forget what it said, it looks like I just wasted my time, so I want to avoid that.
Edit: Also I forgot to add that I specifically want to know how to read a philosophy book. This question is not focused on philosophy articles or essays. But your guys answers are still very helpful. Thank you. | You'll have to find out what method works for you, and also to ramp up or ramp down the laboriousness depending on the time/energy you want to invest in it and how difficult you're finding the text to synthesize spontaneously.
But in general, start by pausing after every paragraph or few paragraphs (it depends how dense the text is) to reflect and take a note on paper or in a word file describing in one line what the text just did. Then, when you've done this for a chapter or so, go back and synthesize your line notes into chunks; like, lines 1-4 define terminology, 5-12 give a preliminary statement of the argument, etc. And as you build up more notes, you'll want to continue to synthesize line notes into chunks, chunks into super-chunks, and so forth, as applicable.
When you're done the whole book, you want to be able to zoom in or zoom out your details, in the sense of being able ideally to describe in one sentence what the book does, or being able to analyze that one sentence into, e.g., the three steps the book uses to do this one thing, or be able to analyze each of those three steps into their four chunks, and so on all the way down to the details of your line notes. This will require different versions of notes and tables that look like different versions of tables of contents. But if you've synthesized the contents of the book in this way, it should stay in your memory, especially after you do this several times and train your mind to think this way.
If you're spending more time/energy, it's also helpful to reread the sections of the text more casually, either as a first pass prior to reading laboriously and taking notes, and/or as a second pass after you've digested your notes. | 29 | 21 |
CMV: Graduation ceremonies should only be held for High School and College | Over the past couple of weeks I have attended or seen pictures for family member graduation ceremonies for kindergarten, 6th grade, 8th grade, and my daughter's high school graduation. I'm not talking about a simple gathering, I mean full out cap and gown, commencement speaches, hours long, etc full on graduation ceremonies.
I feel that celebrating all these minor milestones in the exact same way as the final goal completely diminishes that walk across the stage for the student when they earn their diploma or degree.
Change my view | Having graduation ceremonies for completing certain levels of schooling rewards children for doing so, when the alternative is that children are never really rewarded with a ceremony like this until they complete high school. Having a graduation ceremony after, say, middle school can show students that their education is important as the completion of certain stages of it results in a celebratory graduation ceremony. | 16 | 72 |
What is the logical basis behind the multiverse theory? In other words, what does the multiverse theory attempt to prove or answer? | It is intended to explain some of the weird effects of quantum mechanics, most famously, the results of double-slit experiment. In the quantum version of this experiment, a single photon of light was sent at two slits and the scientists did not observe which slit it went through. After several photons were sent through one at a time, the scientists expected to see a projection of the slits on a screen behind the slits. However, they instead saw an interference pattern, the same that appears if many photons are sent through the slits together.
Multiverse theory is one of two major proposed explanations for this. It suggests that in cases of probability such as which slit the photon travels through, the universe splits into two universes for each option. Furthermore, on very small scales such as those of single photons, the universes can interact with each other, and the photon can interfere with its counterpart in the other universe. | 1,165 | 2,939 |
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How do you compensate for poor short term memory? |
I’m trying to study for school and I scored pretty low for working memory on an assessment. Are there ways I can study that compensate for this? | Do things that are memorable. Try new things you're curious about. Consider old things in different perspectives. Whatever you're observing externally, try to also be aware that it's a reflection of how you function internally. We have a difficult time remembering things that do not teach us anything new about our internal and external environments. You can actively chase nostalgia and you can incessantly reflect on nostalgic ways to consider old things. Your mind will rest when your body is actively chasing new things to remember and your body will rest when your mind is actively finding new ways to consider what you already remember.
Also, get a healthy and sustainable, in quality and quantity, amount of sleep, nutrition, and information. | 16 | 29 |
[D&D] I'm a Archmage and a scholar and I'm cataloging obscure planes of existence, what Do I need to catalogue? | Everything. Or at least everything that you reasonably can.
Probably start with the 5 senses. What does it look like? Smell like? Feel like? Sound like? Ok, maybe not taste (unless you find some edible flora or fauna).
How did you get there? Are there certain spells or rituals you need to cast? Any special requirements for travelling to that particular plane?
Gravity, or the lack of gravity.
Does effect follow cause, or is it the other way around?
Do regular physics apply? Is movement a matter of physically moving your legs or just thinking about moving from one place to another?
Are there any inhabitants? | 16 | 22 |
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Losing motivation to finish phD | After countless job rejections from even the most entry-level/graduate positions in ANY area in industry (finance, banking, consulting, software, data science, research, etc.) as well as many rejections from postdocs (engineering, physics, math) that are closely related to my phD (theoretical physics), I am feeling really demotivated to finish this degree.
Even though I only have 5 months left till I have to hand in my thesis, I actually can't see the value of my work whatsoever. It feels cheap, it feels worthless, and I honestly don't even care about it anymore. This PhD has put me through 60+ hours of work every week, weekends, public holidays, etc. for the past 3.5 years. Being on an extremely low salary with ZERO career prospects (I live in Australia and Covid essentially killed academia here) I just feel like all this work amounts to absolutely nothing in the end.
I even got rejected from a graduate job that only asked for a bachelors degree in economics, no experience required. Sigh. I don't know what to do. Literally the only work experience is in tutoring physics and math. I didn't expect things to go this way. There were a lot of postdoc/research opportunities before covid, then it all vanished within 12 months and not even my supervisors know what to say about the whole thing, I can see in their faces how aware they are of the fact that I will have a very hard time landing a job, and that my scientific/academic career is 99% likely to be over by the end of my degree.
I honestly regret this degree, this entire profession actually. I used to be really keen on learning physics and doing research in it. Now, I just wish I had stayed in engineering while I was still in my undergraduate degree. All my friends who didn't even do well in their bachelor's of business/IT/engineering/law have good jobs now and make at least 3 times what I make in a year, and they don't have to worry about career prospects because they already have 5+ years in the industry. Me? I am just a sad loser who made a bunch of very poor choices out of "following my passion" like an idiot. And to top it all off, I decided to invest in a bunch of cryptocurrencies this year and now all of the sudden the market is crashing, effectively wiping out around 60% in potential profits that I had just a few days ago.
How can I get myself motivated to finish this thing when I can't even see the value in it? No employer sees the value in it either, so I guess it's objectively a useless qualification. | Problem 1: It sounds like you might want to check that your application materials are communicating what you *think* they are. If you're not getting interviews this can be a sign that your applications are falling short somewhere. Maybe get a trusted colleague or mentor to look over things for you. preferably someone who has sat on panels recently, not another PhD student. If you're getting systematically rejected at interview stages then you might need to dig more into how you're approaching questions etc.
Problem 2: There's no magic trick to motication. There's no silver bullet. Target your goal, and push on until it's done. Break things out into small achievable tasks and just knock them out, one by one. | 29 | 32 |
ELI5: Why aren't guitar frets evenly spaced? | Because for a string instrument, notes have a multiplicative, not an additive relationship. For example lets take a string that's tuned to an E. In order to play an E one octave higher you have to place your finger in the middle of the string, effectively cutting its length in half. To go up to the next E, you put your finger at the middle point between the last octave and the end of the string, making it effectively one quarter of the length of the full string. So, if you were to put frets to mark three octaves, it would look something like this
--------|----|--|--
As you can see, they get progressively closer, just like the frets of a guitar. The difference there is that the guitar frets don't just mark octaves but the other notes in between. | 33 | 31 |
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ELI5: How does the training differ between a regular doctor/surgeon and an army doctor/ surgeon? | It depends on what you mean. A “regular” doctor/surgeon and an army doctor/surgeon are trained the same. The difference is that that army one is in the military and is an officer upon completion of medical school. They all went to college, med school, residency, and +/- fellowship. The difference is where they did residency and fellowship. There are civilian programs and specific military programs (San Diego, San Antonio, Walter Reed, etc).
If you mean a medic and not a doctor/surgeon, they get additional training after boot camp with the goal of being able to stabilize the wounded on the battlefield to take them back to the doctor or surgeon on the local base. The doctor/surgeon on the local base will then generally perform further stabilization to transfer the patient to a designated military hospital (e.g. Germany). | 25 | 30 |
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ELI5: Are all atoms perfect? Are there imperfect atoms with defects? | Inquisitive minds wonder | What exactly do you mean by imperfect or defects?
More or less protons? Those are different elements
More or less neutrons? Those are different isotopes of the same element
More or less electrons? Those are different ions of the same element. Some are natural (as in sodium missing one electron (Na^(+)) and chlorine with one extra electron (Cl^(-)) is what makes up table salt), some not so much -- you can actually get get a negative sodium ion Na^- but that is extremely unlikely to exist in nature. | 40 | 81 |
Eli5: why does ̸̢̛̞̱͓Z̵̪͙͊̎̌ä̷̳͕̋̚l̵͉̙̓͘ͅg̴̫̠̑̈͜o̴̻͛ text look the way it does? | Some letters can be changed with accents. For example: e can be è, é, ê, ë, etc.
How do computers store letters with accents?
There are two main ways.
1. Store a copy of every letter with every accent combination. Or
2. Store the letters and accents separately.
Because there are lots of different letters and lots of different accents, it is easier for computers to store them separately. Think of letters as little Lego figures, and accents as their hats. You have a box of figures, a box of hats, and you can combine them however you like.
What happens if you put too many hats on your Lego figure? It starts to look a bit silly.
With computer text, you can take an English letter, and then add as many accents as you want to it. Some accents go at the top like É. Some go at the bottom like Ç.
Just like a tower of Lego, it is possible to keep adding accents on to letters. And that gives you the "Zalgo" effect. | 6,006 | 5,093 |
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ELI5: The difference between advertising and marketing | **Marketing** is a business role that analyzes and/or makes decisions about everything needed to bring a product to market: research, manufacturing, finance, packaging, advertising, sales…etc.
**Advertising** is one piece of marketing: communicating a product to potential consumers. | 17 | 17 |
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CMV: Abortion is taking a life, and that is ok. | Edit: thought it was obvious but it wasn’t. I am talking about human life. I’m not interested in equating a human embryo to a tree.
I see two lines that can be consistently drawn for assigning the legal status of being alive. Conception and birth. Pretty much everything in between becomes a situational moving target, and any law written drawing a line in the sand would be fairly arbitrary. Due to the natural fragility of pregnancy, it is not practical to assign rights before a certain point of development. I think it is generally agreed that after birth killing a baby is certainly murder. So in the middle we have this gray area. When the topic of abortion comes up, many people already use words which indicate they on some level recognize the fetus/zygote as a life. So I will take the position that at least semantically a pregnancy is a life.
My world view is largely based on principles of non-aggression and self ownership. So how do I think it is acceptable for someone to unilaterally end what I just described as a life?
I think no life has a right to harm any other life unless in defense. In the case of pregnancy, the zygote/fetus/living being does not have a right to harm a woman. I will qualify taking resources, dramatically changing her body etc as harm. Therefore an abortion falls into my definition of self defense.
So there it is. Feel free to help me understand a different view of either statement:
* Abortion is taking a life
* that is ok | Is the line arbitrary if we base it on science? What about the line, wherever it may be drawn, that humans rights start when the brain starts?
Doesn't seem too arbitrary, can be objectively measured with MRIs. It is late enough term to allow for most abortion but earlier enough to stop aborting things that could survive on their own. | 158 | 694 |
ELI5: Where does new water go when it enters a container that already contains some water? | While giving my daughter a bath, she asked if water sinks or floats and I wasn’t quite sure on how to answer. Where do the new water molecules end up when it joins with other water? | You can answer your daughters question through a simple experiment. Add dye to the water you will pour in then pour the coloured water into the other bottle filled with plain water. You’ll see some interesting patterns form as the water continues with the same momentum then eventually all the water will be the same colour. | 60 | 16 |
ELI5: Why does shampoo seem so much softer and well lathered after a second application? | Every now and then I will accidentally go to shampoo my hair a second time while I am showering. I can always tell because the shampoo seems to lather much thicker and feels much softer in the hair. Why??? | Shampoo, and more generally soaps, contain surfactants. Surfactants are molecules containing one end that really loves water (hydrophilic) and one end that really loves dirt/oil/grease (hydrophobic). When a surfactant finds some dirt, the hydrophobic end will bind with the dirt and then hydrophilic end will interact with the water which allows the whole molecule+dirt to be washed away.
Under circumstances where there is very little dirt, the hydrophobic ends don't have much to attach to. They also really don't want to be touched by water, so what they end up doing is grouping together in a sphere (micelle) where the hydrophobic ends are pointing inwards towards each other, and the hydrophilic ends are pointing outwards towards the water. This (along with a decrease in surface tension) is what causes a bubble to form.
So, when your hair is really dirty, the surfactants will bind with the dirt and not need to come together to form micelles. On the second wash, where there should be considerably less dirt, the surfactant will form micelles and thus form soap bubbles.
TLDR: dirt is the enemy of suds. | 1,881 | 1,339 |
ELI5: How do search engines like Google search through so much data so quickly? | Honestly, this isn't from a completely ignorant perspective when it comes to programming, so feel free to go into great detail (If you'd like!) with your explanation. | Suppose you have a very thick reference book that discusses gardening, and you wanted to find every page in the book that talks about roses. How do you do it?
Well, in the worst case, you have to go through every page in the book, read it, and see if it talks about roses. But in the best case, the book has an index in the back, which makes it easy; you find "rose" in the index, and it tells you which of the pages in the book talk about roses.
How did the book's index get made? Well, some people went through every page in the whole book and wrote down what topics are mentioned in which page. They might have used one index card for each topic; as they went through the book, when they found a page that talks about roses, they took the index card for "rose" and added that page number to it. Then at the end they wrote down the contents from all of the cards at the end of the book, and that's the index.
So making an index is slow and takes a lot of work, but after that's done, using the index is easy and fast.
Well, Google works basically just like that. Google has two parts: the "crawlers" or "robots" that visit all of the pages in the Internet and make an index of all the terms and phrases that appear in the Internet, and which pages each of them appears in. Then there's the search page that you see and use, which looks up your search terms in the index. The robots's work is slow and hard, but you don't normally see it unless you have an unpopular website that you update frequently—in which case you notice that it may take a day or a few before Google notices the changes to your website (it hasn't incorporated your latest changes into the index). | 104 | 169 |
[Mass Effect] What is the domestic Quarian economy like on the Migrant Fleet? | We know the Quarians, as a government, has access to funds used to trade with the greater intergalactic community, but what is their internal, domestic economy like within the Migrant Fleet for day to day living amongst themselves?
People need to eat, get clothes, have some entertainment and recreation. Young Quarians need at least some funds for food, lodging, and transportation when they start out on their Pilgrimage.
How does the Quarian Domestic Market work? Do they all receive a salary while living in the Migrant Fleet? Is it a fully communal society? Are there discretionary funds available for Quarians to buy personal items if they are away from the Fleet for official or personal reasons? Do they have a Quarian currency or is it all barter? | > Young Quarians need at least some funds for food, lodging, and transportation when they start out on their Pilgrimage.
I remember Tali saying that each Quarian *is given* some money and resources for their pilgrimage.
It seems to me that it's a mostly state-run economy where essentials like food would be distributed in a way to avoid some having excesses and others having too little.
There has to be some way that they acquire their personal luxury items, but we're not shown it clearly. It might even vary from ship to ship, as each ship is like a micro-nation within the fleet's Federation. | 25 | 22 |
[Alien vs Predator] What's an ideal hunt suppose to look like for the Predators? | So Predators set up a hunt, or at the very least the conditions right? So what are the musts, minimums, and stuff completely forbidden when preparing a hunting ground?
Because it seems like things very quickly got away from what the Predators were expecting. Are predators suppose to prepare to fight 2 to 1000 xenomorphs for example? Or does a Queen getting free something they need to prepare for? Are they suppose to only hunt mature Xenomorphs? Or do they just have to bag one with certain restrictions then it becomes a no holds barred purge or something? | Get on planet, hunt prey, succeed, collect trophies, get off world without (sentient, advanced) prey species knowing you were there or leaving evidence (predator weapons, tech, ships, bodies of fallen fellow yautja warriors) that show there is life among the stars.
When the hunt goes sideways (human interference, more Xenomorphs than normal etc) its still considered a hunt until all threats are eliminated and trophies collected. Its just a hunt with extra steps that could go badly. | 24 | 21 |
ELI5: If an Earthquake is an giant plate moving, why is the epicenter a single point and not the entire fault line? | First, we need to make sure we know what an earthquake is: it’s the buildup and sudden release of energy causes by two tectonic plates interacting with each other in any direction.
The boundaries between tectonic plates are not a clean, uniform “slice” like you would make in a cake. The boundaries are more like what you see if you dropped a dinner plate and it cracked in half. The edges will be random and have parts that go to one side or the other. Still, for the most part the plates interact smoothly, and areas that sit on top of them have multiple “micro quakes” on a daily basis, as the plates move. Sometimes, however, there is an interaction between the two at a point where neither side is able to move; this causes a buildup of (potential) energy. When one side finally gives way, there is a release of energy from that single, relatively small point, which is the “epicenter”. This release of energy causes shockwaves (for lack of a better term) to travel outward from the point of release, kind of like ripples in a pond; those waves are the actual earthquake | 5,635 | 9,920 |
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ELI5:How does reflection of light on mirrors act on the atomic level? | i don't actually know if it is a chem or physics question | Physics rather than chem, and it's subatomic/wave rather than atomic.
Light is a wave (or a particle, or both, but we'll stick to wave) of electromagnetic radiation which travels through a variety of media (air, vacuum, water etc.). Visible light is made up of several different wavelengths which we see as colours. The important thing here is that, as a wave, it is carrying energy.
When light hits an object, it can be pass through, be absorbed, reflect or scatter, or any combination of these.
When the light wave hits the mirror, the energy from the lightwave is absorbed by the atoms. This pushes electrons into higher energy states. This isn't a stable condition, and so the electrons release the energy. In a perfectly reflective surface, all of the absorbed energy is spat back out, perfectly mirroring the incoming energy.
Across the entire surface of the mirror, this leads to the light being absorbed and then spat back out in a way that produces a "good" reflection. | 34 | 153 |
ELI5:If two engines have the same horsepower but one has 20% more torque what is the practical difference? | 20% is just a random number. I just mean, if you have two engines of the same family and one is smaller but turbocharged and theyre both rated at the same horsepower but different amounts of torque.
Thank you.
Edit: I appreciate the responses but what I'm really asking here is what the difference between the two vehicles would be. Say we have two totally normal cars with 140 horsepower, one of the cars has 140 ft·lb of torque and the other has 165. How do these two vehicles differ in performance? | Torque = force (measured in newton meters[dimensionally equivalent to joules])
Horsepower = energy (measured in joules per second[watts])
**Horsepower tells you how much work your engine can do *over a time period*, torque tells you how much work your engine can do at *any given instant*.** That is why torque is much more important at a standstill, where wheels are static one instant but moving the next.
They are inherently related as Horsepower = Torque * Angular Speed. You can't increase torque or HP without increasing the other (while keeping RPMs constant).
Fun Fact: Trains use electric motors to get their wheels turning from a standstill because they can produce more torque than combustion engines.
| 71 | 100 |
CMV: My prejudice towards black people is useful | Let’s start with some facts, I support BLM, think there’s systematic racism against non-whites in our society, and support progressive reforms.
Ok, with that our of the way let’s get to my view.
I’m a New Yorker, living in the city for almost twenty years. Recent events have made me re-examine race and my views on them. However, after doing some soul searching, I find my prejudices rather useful.
For example, when I go to a theater, and I see a bunch of black people sitting together, I move to another section. That’s because 9 out of ten times, the group is incredibly loud and would talk during the movie.
When I see a bunch of black and brown teens, especially boys, I tend to avoid them, as my experience tells me that they’re usually obnoxious and many times would try to start fights. (I’ve actually seen it happen before)
When I’m on a darker street, or in a sketchier neighborhood, and I see a black man walk toward me, I’m instantly more cautious. That’s because the only experience I’ve had being robbed, and jumped in NY have been by black men. I don’t react this way to all black men, but I think I’ve developed this instinct almost subconsciously. To describe the type that gets me nervous, that’s be the younger black man who dress in a way that appears like they’re not at least middle class.
Now, I don’t think this applies to all of black people or even most. I have plenty of black friends, and know it’s ridiculous to apply one thing to an entire race. I also don’t think a race is superior than another race. But being from NY, I think having my instincts and prejudices have helped me avoid danger, conflicts and general hassle. I believe my views are derived from social factors rather than race.
I’m wondering if anyone can CMV that my prejudices are useful to have. To me, they’re harmless to people but helpful to me. Thanks. | The way you describe it, it might be less about race and more about attire and attitude. People dress and behave in a way that is deliberately chosen to reflect their subculture and mindset. That’s part of why you can tell some people are gay just by looking at them, because they deliberately try to indicate it. It might be helpful not to think about it as a race thing though, because it’s not their race that you’re judging. | 50 | 31 |
Can you understand this question my C++ lecturer assigned cause it’s confusing me especially the pseudo code | A chaotic, unpredictable behaviour sometime is caused by a surprisingly simple rule. Create two Boolean arrays of size 200, initialize every element of the first array as false except the element at index 100. Then implement the following steps:
Print arr
For every element in arr2
arr2[i] = (arr[i - 1] != (arr[i] || arr[i + 1]))
if arr[i – 1] or arr[i + 1] go out or range, use “false” as the value of the element Copy everything in arr2 to arr
Repeat this process 100 times, and observe the output, you may need to zoom out (ctrl + mouse scroll) and adjust window size to see the entire picture.
Note: use cout << char(219) to print a block | So with what part are you confused?
1. Create two Boolean arrays of size 200
2. initialize every element of the first array as false except the element at index 100
4. print arr
3. For all 200 elements calculate ... arr2[i] = (arr[i - 1] != (arr[i] || arr[i + 1])) if arr[i – 1] or arr[i + 1] go out or range (i.e. first and last element you need special rules)
5. Copy everything in arr2 to arr (dumb, one could just switch pointers, but whatever)
6. Repeat this process 100 times | 10 | 23 |
ELI5: Dоes everything in the univеrsе еxpand unifоrmly? | So we know that the univеrse is expanding at an incrеasing pace, and the gаlaxies are moving away from each other. My question is, does everything expаnd uniformly? For example, is the distance between me and the cоmputer in front of me expanding at the same rate as the distance between the neighboring galaxies?
And if not, then is there a certain limit where - I would assume - the grаvitational pull between two objects gets below some threshold (I would assume it would get below some level of the dark matter expansion force) that distance between them starts expanding? | >For example, is the distance between me and the cоmputer in front of me expanding at the same rate as the distance between the neighboring galaxies?
Attempting to expand, yes. Succeeding? No
The underlying fabric of space seems to be expanding very slowly. In deep space it's about 2 um/second per kilometer of distance (70 km/s/Mpc in useful distances)
This slow expansion isn't pulling that hard so within object the electromagnetic force greatly overwhelms it, and even across the width of a galaxy it's overwhelmed by the relatively weak gravity holding everything together
Expansion has a far bigger impact on the distance between galactic clusters than anything you can hold | 48 | 67 |
[Comics] Super Strength in general... should that equate to being able to jump miles at a time... | So I’m thinking about Thing, from the Fantastic Four. According to some sources, he’s strong enough to lift close to 30,000 Tons... considering he weighs only the slightest of fractions of that, he should be able to leap as far as his strength can propel his weight, right? But super leaping is something that I only see associated with Hulk...
Colossus... Juggernaut... Luke Cage
Even some DC characters that aren’t blessed with flight with their strength like Aquaman and Hourman...
Is this side effect of super strength ever explored or focused on in comics that maybe I just haven’t seen? | (Some ELI15 for you)
There are, essentially, three types of muscle fibers in those "muscles" we think about when somoene brings up 'strong': Slow Oxidative, Fast Oxidative, and Fast Glycolitic. These are categorized mostly by the type of respiration they need to produce that power (aerobic or anaerobic), how relatively quickly they contract, and finally, how prone they are to fatigue.
Most folks have simplified this to the following:
Slow-Twitch/ST (Slow Oxidative): These muscle fibres take the longest to fatigue, and are usually the slowest to contract. These are the fibres that are used most in 'marathon' type activities, where endurance is key.
Fast-Twitch I/FTI (Fast oxidative): Contract faster than SO fibers, are more prone to fatigue, and can change between aerobic or anaerobic respiration.
Fast-Twitch II/FTI (Fast Glycolitic): Contract faster than the other two fibres, are the most prone to fatigue, and only use anaerobic (also called Glycolisis) respiration to work.
But muscles aren't everything! Keep in mind that the muscles are also fighting against their own weight, and the weight of the body using them! Some superpowered individuals are, relatively speaking, much denser than similarly sized individuals. In other words, it takes a lot less power to throw an orange that weighs normally, versus one that ways two tons!
So, depending on the superpowered individual, their own mass, and many times, how and where they get their particular powers from, it can mean that even though a single individual can lift a M1 Abrams tank, they may not have the right muscle fibres, or a low enough mass, to enable a jump that's higher than an average non-powered individual.
In short, physiology and anatomy, combined with physics, will always be a limiting factor in how well a super-strong individual can actually use that strength.
As an aside, this is also why some of our strongest individuals tend to have non-human, non-standard, or mechanically (via technology, magic, psionics, gengineering, et al.) augmented physiques. There is a natural limit to what nature can accomplish all on its own, even if some very skilled, gifted, or lucky humans have near-superhuman capabilities. | 22 | 33 |
Why do moral realists hold that only one ethical system is true when math seems to accept multiple systems? | For example, mathematicians seem to treat both Euclidean and non Euclidean systems as "true" or equally valid, same for sets like integers, reals, complex etc. Do I misunderstand moral realism in thinking that this is not analogously the case in their ethical systems? A tangential question, does mathematical realism help clarify this? | > For example, mathematicians seem to treat both Euclidean and non Euclidean systems as "true" or equally valid, same for sets like integers, reals, complex etc.
Actual space is either Euclidean or non-Euclidean, but certainly not both. | 30 | 25 |
Why does Kant believe that space and time are 'intuitions' and not 'concepts'? | I'm currently making my way through the Transcendental Aesthetic in the first critique, and while I understand Kant's claims that space and time are a priori forms of intuition, I don't understand his arguments that claim that they are intuitions and not concepts.
I'm thinking perhaps the misunderstanding is arising from not fully understanding what Kant means by a concept. If anyone can shed some light on this that'd be appreciated. | Kant argues for why he thinks space and time are a priori and are originally intuitions rather than concepts in the aesthetics. See around B38 where argument for space being an a priori intuition starts.
For Kant, you can have concepts of space and time, but their "original representations" are intuitions.
For Kant, intuitions (not to be confused with colloquial use of the term; Kant's intuition has almost no relation to the ordinary sense of the word today) are representations that directly (immediately) relate to its objects. For humans, intuitions are associated with sensibility that is the ability to recieve sense matter. "Roughly" speaking, intuitions are more "raw" ("unconceptualized") representations. Concepts, on the other hand, operates from the faculty of understanding at a discursive level through our intuition i.e it doesn't directly related to its objects but relate to them through our sensible intuitions.
For Kant intuition are of particular/singular objects whereas a concept can be somewhat like a universal - it can denote some element which is possessed by multiple representations (for example, the concept "red" can be possessed by multiple colored objects). However, Kant believes concepts themselves cannot contain within itself an infinite representations; whereas intuitions can have a sort of infinity (or unboundness) in it. Kant believes space and time has this sort of infinity. As Kant argues space is singular (there is purpotedly only one space), and it can present an inifnity of spatial objects in it. Kant believes all these fit space being an intuition rather than a concept. There are similar arguments for time. | 30 | 42 |
CMV: I believe that basic firearm safety should be taught across schools in America. | In America (limiting this post to the US, since that's where I am and have knowledge of), I think that if fire arm safety was taught in schools, we would have fewer gun related accidents. I would suggest age appropriate training, (say Eddie Eagle http://eddieeagle.nra.org/ or something similar if you don't like the NRA, for younger children, all the way up to the 4 basic gun safety rules, http://www.reddit.com/r/everymanshouldknow/comments/2986mx/emsk_the_four_firearm_safety_rules/ for high schoolers, and basic knowledge i.e. the difference between a single shot, semi auto, fully auto, calibers and different types of guns, possibly even promoting high school rifle teams ). This would, I think, demystify guns, and go a long way towards educating people. Ideally, this would be a yearly thing, maybe just a day or two a school year, to refresh on the basics for safety. I would say that parents would have the right to opt their children out of it (Hoplophobia, or 'an irrational aversion to weapons, as opposed to justified apprehension about those who may wield them' or more commonly a fear of firearms, is a real thing.), though I would make it the default to go through it.
The quickest way to change my view would be to point out the unintended consequences of this. Knowledge, in my mind, is never as dangerous as ignorance. Apologies if this has been brought up before here, but the search didn't show it. I am willing to change any minor points in structure to the course (i.e. waiting until senior year for the class on the 4 basic rules instead of starting in freshman year), if given good reason, but would like to know what reasons this might not work. Thanks again.
Edit: I'm heading home and crashing out. My view has been changed more than I was expecting. I still believe that gun safety and the basis of guns is something everyone should know, however several commenters have shown how this wouldn't be as practical as I originally thought, at least for high schoolers.
For kid safety courses, I haven't found enough data to say it should be mandatory for them either. I would like to see it studied on a larger scale and more thoroughly to see if it is effective or not, and would make that a prerequisite before instituting that policy on a national scale.
Thank you everyone for your responses, even if I didn't agree with all of them. I'll check back in about 8 hours or so. Good night all.
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&gt; *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!* | It's possible to come up with hundreds of things that we might think it would be good for children to learn in school, but there is limited time in the school day to teach students, so you need to prioritize.
Teaching students about safety with a device that many will never see or use seems like a lower priority to me. Especially when there are things like learning to manage finances or car maintenance that almost everyone could use and use often in their lives.
In a case like this, it makes more sense to shift the burden onto the gun owner/user to take a safety course. | 13 | 15 |
If an entire species is inbred, how could that be determined or is it not possible unless there's a baseline of the non-inbred version of a species? | Simplifying a bit - one can count how many genes have multiple variants, and compare that to the total number of genes for the species.
Variation increases over time by random mutation, but if there is a population bottleneck or inbreeding, it's dictated simply by chance that many variants won't be carried forward.
We know that humans had a big population bottleneck because, compared to species with a similar number of genes (chimps, e.g.), a smaller proportion of our genes have multiple variants. | 42 | 40 |
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Does econometrics courses teach you anything that you couldn't gain from statistics courses? | Just as the title implies, I'm trying to figure out if there's benefit to taking econometrics courses versus standard time series analysis and regressions courses.
Ultimately, this will help drive my decision on a masters program. | It depends what you're trying to do. Econometrics courses will give you more experience in causal inference than a stats masters would. A stats masters will probably give you a bigger regression toolbox, though (I haven't seen GAM's covered much in econometrics courses, for example).
I would try to track down the syllabi and textbooks used at a few programs you're considering to see what they cover. | 43 | 51 |
Would a "government" run by an AI designed to allocate resources 100% efficiently to maximise net social utility (i.e.: a socially benevolent AI) be a desirable form of government? | \*Ignoring/disregarding the [utility monster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_monster) argument (assume it is not possible/all agents' utility follow the law of diminishing returns) | "Assuming you can maximize social welfare, should you" seems to have a pretty straightforward answer from an economics perspective. Yes.
The problem of course is that this relies on wholly unrealistic assumptions, we barely can make vague guesses about social utility functions, and one might argue that it's not possible at all to model them. | 64 | 78 |
Why isn't minimum wage tied to the consumer price index? | Or inflation? Why is minimum wage adjusted so infrequently? | Because if it was indexed, lowering it would require an active political decision, which would be politically costly. As it is, the real minimum wage can be lowered simply by doing nothing. This allows for more flexible fiscal policy. | 38 | 82 |
[Star Trek] how does Earth's post scarcity economy affect the way inherently scarce things like antiques are aquired? | for example Sisko has "the best collection of ancient African antiques you'll ever see" but how did he get them? | There's no information on the civilian economy in Star Trek, but generally in post scarcity environments you have trade favors or other things that have scarcity. Maybe his dad's gumbo is the best gumbo on Earth. Maybe his blog about being a mediocre officer in starfleet is so amazing that he can charge people to look at it. | 34 | 55 |
[Pokémon] What happens to the Pokémon in the PC when a trainer dies unexpectedly? Are they trapped forever? | What happens to orphaned Pokémon anyway in this situation? Left in wills? Donated? Released? Given to the state? | From the *National Trainer Handbook*, chapter 17, section 2:
"In the event of a trainer's injury or incapacitation (see section 3, *Blacking Out*), the trainer's Pokedex notifies the nearest Pokemon Center, which is capable of teleporting the trainer to the Center for emergency care.
"Use of this emergency system is not billed to the trainer's account, but excessive incidents may cause a safety meeting to be called on the trainer's behalf. Continued use may void the trainer's status as a legal Pokemon Trainer.
"Since its implementation, there have been no confirmed trainer deaths in the field. However, it is impossible to accurately gauge the mortality rate of illegal trainers in the field, who refuse to maintain their legal status in exchange for the many programs offered by the Pokemon Center." | 72 | 66 |
What are the disincentive effects of the Green New Deal ? Will more people substitute their private sector jobs for higher paying public sector jobs + work less additional hours for leisure ? | It’s pretty hard to determine the effects of something without a clear picture of what it is. The GND is notoriously amorphous—are you referring to AOC’s questionnaire, Sanders’s implementation, or something else? The job guarantee aspect? | 21 | 19 |
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ELI5: Why do you die almost instantly when the level of CO2 in the air is above 10%? | The red blood cells serve the purpose of transporting O2 from the lungs to where it's needed, and transporting waste CO2 from where it's produced to the lungs. The mechanism is simple: It'll grab hold of dissolved oxygen or CO2 if there is much of it, and release it when there's little. Since there's a lot of oxygen and little CO2 in the lungs, it will release bound CO2 and grab oxygen.
Now if there's a lot of CO2 in the air, instead of picking up oxygen in the lungs, many red blood cells will pick up CO2. This will massively reduce the amount of O2 you can breathe, which by itself is already dangerous. On top of that, the dissolved CO2 will make the blood acidic, which is dangerous because many functions of the body rely on the pH of the blood to be slightly basic.
On top of all that, CO2 is usually not just added to the air, it's produced by burning oxygen. So the 10% CO2 air also has only 10% oxygen, half as much as air normally has.
However, you're not going to die almost instantly. You will however quickly pass out and die if you keep breathing that air. | 17 | 18 |
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[the santa clause] Did charlie just say he wants to kill his father. | In the first one he said he plans to go into the family business | Here is the language of the clause:
>‘In putting on the suit and entering the sleigh, the wearer waives any and all rights to any previous identity, real or implied, and fully accepts the duties and responsibilities of Santa Claus in perpetuity until such time that wearer becomes unable to do so by either accident or design.’
by either accident *or design*
If Scott, at some point, decides to retire and says to Charile, "Here's the suit, go get in the sleigh," that would be by design. Charlie is Santa. | 38 | 22 |
Is there a name for the phenomena of a person assigning 2 different values to the same asset? | So I was speaking with my friend who recently just got tickets to a sporting event. I asked him what the current market price for the tickets were and he said they were hovering around the $100 / ticket point. I asked him if he there was a high enough price point where he would consider selling the tickets. He responded with "No" because he really wanted to go to this event. I then asked him if he would have been willing to buy these tickets at the market price of $100 / ticket and he also responded with "No" since he would not spend that much on these tickets.
This seems to be a somewhat of a paradoxical economic situation: my friend would clearly rather have the ticket instead of selling it for $100. On the other hand, my friend would also rather have $100 dollars rather than spend them on the tickets.
I definitely think there are be many different reasons for this situation, but I'm sort of interested in the following possible explanation: it seems that there is a "psychological inertial" when it comes to transactions where we sometimes prefer to "hang onto" the asset we currently own, even if the transaction occurs at a price point we deem as fair/favorable.
My question: is there a term/name for such a phenomena? I believe this might be something studied in Behavioral Economics and I would love to learn more about it, if at all possible. Sorry for the longwinded post, but I would love any insight or resources anyone could share :) | The specific effect you’re looking for is the endowment effect, which describes the tendency of people to assign greater value to something they already own than they would assign to the same thing if they did not own it. | 60 | 24 |
ELI5: why do some fighter aircraft have a Weapons System Officer while others don't(?) (more in comments) | This is inspired by seeing Top Gun: Maverick, where one fighter has a second person in the cockpit as a weapons system officer, while the other doesn't. Does the other aircraft only have a one-seat cockpit? | There is advantages and disadvantages of having a crew of one or two in a fighter. The goal here is to divide the work load of combat with the plane. The more work load there is the more having a WSO is important. But having a WSO also come with drawbacks since the plane need to make room for him. This can mean less fuel, more weight, etc. It also cost you more in training, you double the number of people you need for combat, etc. So usually you want only one pilot unless it's necessary.
In general, a fighter designed for air combat won't need a WSO. Most of the weapons are highly automated so the world load is usually manageable for just one pilot.
That said there is some exceptions. For example, the F-14 Tomcat was mainly an interceptor/air superiority fighter, but it had two seats. The reason was that the Tomcat main weapon was the AIM-54 Phoenix which was a long range anti-air missile that used a semi-active radar guidance. The way it work was that the Phoenix missile needed the radar of the F-14 to guide itself to the target at Beyond-visual range. This mean that the WSO had to be concentrated on the weapon during the long flight while the pilot took care of the fighter. Needing the radar of the fighter to be on is like a big blinking arrow that show to everybody where the fighter is, so that's not ideal in combat. Modern radar guided missile are usually active now, meaning they have their own radar. For that reason, the work load is lower on modern fighter and they are usually single seat.
A fighter designed more toward ground attack will tend to have a WSO. The reason is because targeting something on the ground is far harder to do than targeting something in the air. There is a lot more stuff to hide on the ground, there is a lot more possible target and it's harder to identify if it's a friend or a foe. For those reason, some weapons add enough work load that having a WSO make a big difference.
Not all ground attack weapon need the same amount of work and the latest technology simplified a lot of task too. For example the F/A-18E is the single seat variant that is mostly used for air combat, while the F/A-18F is the two seat variant that is better equipped for ground attack. But the F-35 only have one seat variants because it have a lot of technology to help the pilot. The sensors, avionics, helmet-mounted display, and the targeting equipment like the EOTS.
TLDR : It always depend on what weapons the aircraft will mainly carry. Some weapons give too much work load for a pilot alone. Rule of Thumb is Air combat need only a pilot, while ground attack need a WSO. But that's just a generic rule, it depend on the specific design of the aircraft and the technology. | 1,179 | 777 |
ELI5: Why are airplane windows never aligned with the seats? | Surely it can't be that hard to line them up, right? | The windows are aligned with the structural spars of the aircraft fuselage, and the spacing of those is determined by safety considerations and cost - rather than seat width which is a variable which can change from airline to airline | 233 | 218 |
ELI5:Why do certain cultures consistently own in certain chains and establishments? | For example: Nail salons and dry cleaners often are staffed by asian individuals and Dunkin Donuts and 711 often have Indian staff. Not trying to be offensive when asking this question. | The reasoning behind it is mostly that people's families and friends help them get established when they move to a new country. Say you have an uncle with a couple convenience stores, maybe he'll give you a job in one. After a while maybe you save some money and buy a store of your own because you have lots of experience running one now, and an uncle who can help you find a good one to buy.
A few years later you have a few stores, and your wife's cousin emigrates, so you set him up with a job managing one of your stores, and the cycle repeats. | 24 | 21 |
ELI5: The difference between GSM, CDMA, 3G, 4G, LTE, etc. | I know GSM is what ATT/T-Mobile use and CDMA is Verizon/Sprint, but that's about the extent of my knowledge. I'd actually prefer an explanation like I'm 21 and not an engineer. Thanks! | To things are needed for a cellular network:
1) How to get many people to share a piece of spectrum.
2) How to send data from cell towers to phones and vice-versa.
GSM and CDMA are two different ways to accomplish the two things. LTE is newer.
The way GSM solves (1) is by something called TDMA (time division multiple access). When you're in a phone call, you're phone is scheduled a bunch of time slots when your phone either sends or receives data. These exclusive to your phone and different from other phones in the cell so there's no interference. This way, multiple phones can talk to the cell tower (seemingly) at once (the bursts of time are super short so you don't notice them).
CDMA deals with (1) in a completely different way. It breaks up the channel into codes/signals (Code division random access). This is a little hard to explain without some math, but there's a notion called orthogonality. If two signals are orthogonal you can pull one signal out without getting interference from the other. Every user is assigned a different code/signal and these are (approximately) orthogonal to each other. This is a more advanced technique and generally thought of as advantageous since there isn't as much waste (TDMA needs little bits of extra time between users to make sure there's no overlap, for example).
The way (2) is accomplished is also very different. In fact there are many different ways it is done even within GSM or CDMA. The way data is sent along depends a lot on how good the quality of the radio signal and other factors. That's a whole other thing. But the options for GSM and CDMA differ.
3G and 4G are kind of marketing terms that come from "3rd generation" and "4th generation". They refer to families of standards, but not specific methods to accomplish (1) or (2).
LTE is a 4G standard that uses OFDM to do (1). This is kind of like TDMA but instead of time, it's in frequency. But they do some clever trickery to make it work really without needing gaps between users' frequencies.
I can explain more, if you'd like, but it gets really technical really quick. | 46 | 77 |
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