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CMV: Public education should be 100% federally funded.

Today about 9% of the average public school’s funding comes from federal sources. About 58% comes from state sources. And about 22% comes from local property taxes. (Source: ppic.org) As a result, there are *massive* differences in the funding and quality of public schools between red states and blue states, rich districts and poor ones. Teachers in MA with a few years of tenure can break 6-figures, while teachers in poor, rural areas in the south would be lucky to make a fraction of that. I understand that cost-of-living is a factor, here, so I would propose that school’s budgets and salaries are COL-adjusted. I know it wouldn’t be a perfect system by any means, and it wouldn’t prevent charitable donations from tipping the scales, but I have to imagine it would be more equitable than the system we have now.

I agree that school funding shouldn't come from local property taxes, but putting the entire education system in the hands of the federal government seems like a risky move. What if they just decide to slash funding across the board? Then *all* schools across the country will be underfunded and struggling.

ELI5: How does a VPN change my location and IP address, even though I'm still going through my router?

A VPN will create a connection between two machines over the internet and send other traffic over that link where it is routed to the open internet on the other end. Think of it as a mail forward service. You can send an envelope within an envelope to your mail forward service and they will take off the outer envelope and send the inner one. When they receive a letter for you they will not open it but just stuff it in another envelope and put your real address on the front and send it to you. A VPN service works very similarly. Your ISP only see packets going between you and your VPN provider and all others only communicates with your VPN provider and don't know that they are sending all the traffic to you.

When someone gets blood drawn and tested for STD's, such as HIV, how many infected cells need to be in the sample for the test to show up positive?

From what I understand, if someone recently infected with an STD gets tested it may come back negative (because the virus has not spread to enough of the body??). So basically my question revolves around this concept (which I am not sure is even correct); how many cells would need to be infected for there to be a good probability of the test showing up as a true positive as opposed to a false negative?

Typically, when we do infectious disease testing for viruses (I am thinking HIV here but Syphillis and HCV are largely tested in basically the same way) we aren't actually testing your cells at all. The blood is drawn and centrifuged- which means it is spun very fast. The cells move to the bottom of the tube and there is typically a layer of gel which is intermediate in density that settles between the cells and the liquid portion which is left- which is serum. It's this serum which we test. Tests for these viruses are typically immunoassays, which is a fancy word for saying that we are using an antigen/antibody response to detect the presence of the virus in your body. When your body recognizes a pathogen, it activates an immune response and begins producing antibodies that are specific to the pathogen. We can test for these antibodies by using special antibodies made commercially which react against YOUR anti-HIV antibodies. Obviously, it's a little more complicated than that but hopefully you get the point. There are tons of different techniques for doing this but the basic idea is the same. It takes some time for your body to make enough antibodies to produce a positive result on an immunoassay. Traditionally, the HIV screening test used is ELISA and it usually takes about 6 weeks after exposure for an ELISA screen to be positive. Newer tests, like nucleic acid testing, are able to detect HIV antibodies much earlier but the trade off is they are extremely expensive- given how many people are screened for HIV (and the vast majority of them are negative), it's not cost effective to test everyone with NAAT. Blood banks are now using NAAT to test donated units to reduce the risk of transmitting HIV in transfused blood from a donor who was unaware they had HIV and were within that 6 week window that ELISA wouldn't catch it. Hopefully this answers your question. Before six weeks after a possible exposure, a normal HIV test ordered by your doctor or the public health department is likely not reliable. A positive result before that time is definitive, but a negative result may be a false negative.

CMV: The current US bailouts for all the large companies is unfair to both the US taxpayers, small businesses, and every company that responsibly managed their money in recent years

Recently, the US government has given out trillions in bailouts to the airline, retail, hospitality, etc industries. However, as a tax payer, I'm outraged that these large corporations are getting these handouts from the government and getting rewarded for their greedy behavior. The bank bailouts of 08 made me sick and I can't believe we're doing this again. Millions of Americans lost their jobs and their homes due to the bank's irresponsible and illegal behavior, and yet all these bankers made out with millions. Take the airline industry for example. 96% of their Free Cash Flow was spent on stock buybacks this past decade. These C-suite executives and investors made millions off this type of behavior despite not creating any type of value for both the company and for their employees. If your company can't last a few months of stagnant revenue, you shouldn't be spending all that money on buybacks and dividends. Especially when a large reason these companies found so much excess money in the last couple years was an egregious gifted tax cut from the government. Sure no one could have foreseen the current environment, but nearly every economist was predicting a recession within the next few years. They should have prepared for some type of downturn. Furthermore, this punishes the companies that actually acted responsibly with their capital. In normal circumstances, this would be their opportunity to gain market share and even buy up some of the failing companies. Instead, they are robbed of this opportunity. The way our market works is that feedback is all seen through the lens of risk and reward. When a company decides to spend almost all of their profits on buybacks, they are taking the risk that a black swan event in the future can cause bankruptcy. Now we are removing the incentive for prudent decision making for companies. What's to stop companies of only acting recklessly since they know the government will always bail them out? Lastly, lots of small businesses are going bankrupt everyday. Where are their bailouts? Why should large companies with every advantage in the world be given this lifeline for acting so irresponsibly, when normal everyday people struggling to get by are not allotted this same opportunity. Before anyone says it, I understand bailouts are not free money. They're a loan by the government. But the interest rates are typically much lower than they would command in the free market. The government should either charge a high interest rate to compensate for that risk, or inject money into these companies through equity investments that could be put in a blind trust. At least in this scenario, the bailout is seen through the lens of a prudent investment. It's also pricing in the risks of investing in these companies since we never know what will happen to them in the future. If they don't want it, they can find someone else to give them money or go bankrupt. It's not like these companies will just disappear, there will be a buyer somewhere out there. No one is ENTITLED to a low interest loan from the government, especially these mega corporations who barely pay above minimum wage for their lowest employees while constantly upping the C-suite's compensation. By handing out bailouts that actually reflect the risk for these companies, we can actually punish the C-Suite and investors who squeezed every bit of profit out of the company during good times since these deals will negatively affect the stock price. The bailouts in its current form reward the CEOs and investors who already cashed out in the past couple of years pushing for buybacks and increased dividends.

Bailouts aren’t about “fairness,” they’re measures taken to minimize the damage of a steep economic downturn. Should hundreds or thousands of employees really suffer because executives made some bad decisions? Certainly THEY should be held accountable but all the people on the front lines? Not to mention the countless small businesses directly depending on their economic relationship to said large businesses?

What is the sensation I get in between my eyes on my forehead when I hold something like a pen or my finger close to it? What causes it?

This is a more scientific answer than it sounds: it's all in your head. Try having a friend hold a pen there randomly half of the time. You guess when it's there, the more you guess the closer to chance you should get.

[Warhammer 40,000] Could any of the Chaos gods touch upon my fascination with Xenos?

I'm a member of the Ordo Xenos. I'm fascinated by Xenos, and I will never pass up an opportunity to learn more about the myriad of species that the galaxy has to offer. Their biology, culture and society, technology, weaknesses and battle strategies... If I ever get a chance to see one - alive or dead - in the flesh, I take it. It's my greatest obsession. I get the feeling that some of my fellows are unsettled by my enthusiasm, but I'm good at my work and have helped in the capture and extermination of several species, so they don't say anything. However, I've heard stories that such obsessions can be an opening for the Ruinous Powers to worm their ways in. Is there any way for my interest in Xenos study to open my heart to Chaos? Are there any warning signs that I should notice in myself so that I might not stray from the Emperor's light?

Sounds like the taint of Tzeench to me, you filthy heretic. Lust for knowledge is his forte, as is fascination with the new and different. And what xeno could compare in sheer novelty and amazement with a change demon? This quest for knowledge will drive you to madness and ruination, unless you return to the safe and bland fold of the imperium.

Why are electromagnetic railguns not used to launch rockets into space?

Because then it wouldn't be a rocket, it would be a bullet. But seriously, many people have considered this approach and put together designs to do just that. The biggest barrier to their implementation is that with a railgun you need to impart all the kinetic energy into the payload before it reaches the end of the "barrel," whereas with a traditional rocket you can spread that acceleration over the entire flight. In practical terms this means you either need cargo that can survive hundreds or thousands of Gs and a relatively short barrel gun (not to mention incredible heating from friction once out of the evacuated barrel), or you need an incredibly long barrel and can then transport more delicate cargo/humans. Unfortunately the lengths of barrel you need essentially take you all the way into space (tens to hundreds of kilometers). As of right now, even though rocket launches might cost hundreds of times more per kg of cargo, they are still the easiest and best understood method for putting stuff up into space.

ELI5: If a mosquito sticks his "needle" into someone with AIDS, then into someone who doesn't have AIDS, why doesn't the second person not get AIDS as well?

Wouldn't it be almost identical to sharing a needle with someone who has AIDS? Other blood-based diseases spread with Mosquito bites, so why not this one?

Very few blood-based diseases spread via mosquito bites. The main one is of course malaria, but the malaria parasite is an organism that actually needs to be inside mosquitoes (as well as inside humans) to live. HIV, the virus which causes AIDS, cannot live for long outside of a human body. What's more, mosquito bites aren't really like an injection from a doctor -- that they're not putting anything *into* the bloodstream, rather they're taking blood out of you.

CMV: Celebrities and politicians that believe in climate change should adopt extreme lifestyle changes and donate bulk of their $ to the cause.

(I actually do believe in climate change, FYI). Many mega-rich celebrities and politicians love to talk about climate change, but most of these same people seem to make little to no significant change in their personal lifestyle or use their considerable resources to effect change. Of course, there are many ways to cause change (influence, governmental, private industry) - it just seems very hypocritical for these people to say they want to "save the world" and then jet off to their 4th vacation house. I am sure there are a few examples of individuals who have committed to the cause, and while that is great I wonder why it does not happen en masse. From my perspective, if you truly believe in something then you should follow through with it. If you do not - then it makes it hard for me to believe that these same people actually believe and/or care. The politicians I can see doing it for votes, so the celebrities stick out to me more. I am hoping someone can provide an argument that helps me understand why I should give any of these people my time/attention if they are just spouting words without any real action. EDIT: Adjusting to specify "mega-rich". My argument is not about making everyone do this, it is about those people who could dedicate 80-90% of their resources without impacting their day-to-day lifestyle. EDIT 2: I also want to state that systematic change (e.g., government, private industry) is needed, this post is just not focused on that part of the equation.

> if you truly believe in something then you should follow through with it I think your main flaw here is that you think "following through" on believing in climate change means making drastic individual changes, when in reality climate change is not that kind of issue, and raising awareness of the systematic issues behind the main problem will probably be making a much larger impact anyway.

CMV:Buying one, and only one, lotto ticket is a worthwhile venture

Have had this conversation with a couple of friends and my partner, and I wanted to know if my reasoning is flawed. I believe that the lotto is, a.) in general, a tax on poor people, b.) of an infinitesimally tiny chance of winning, and c.) a tremendous waste of money. All that applies above, but with the caveat of saying, '...except for buying one ticket'. Because your chances of winning are so absurdly low, and you almost certainly will not win, so buying more than one ticket makes no sense whatsoever. Having said that, if you buy zero tickets, you have no chance at all of winning. One ticket (infrequently bought, say, once a year) buys you in for the possibility that you might win. You won't, but you might. It's like qualification, and, at the cost of $1.00 (or whatever small monetary amount), it's a small price to pay for the chance. That seems like a worthwhile purchase to me. This, of course, does not take into account all the possible consequences of actually winning the lottery. **EDIT**: Thought I'd catch everyone up with where I'm at following all your wonderful responses (which I really appreciate!). To summarize, the major arguments I'm hearing are, plus my thoughts: * *From a traditional economic standpoint, the numbers don't work out.* This I'll accept. I know nothing of statistics or economics, so I'll buy that (for a dollar). * *From a behaviorial economic standpoint, it might make sense to get a lotto ticket, as the potential improvement to one's life makes it worth the small loss of the investment.* I do believe this. The possibility of making enough money to serve me for the rest of my life definitely seems worth blowing a buck every now and again. * *Playing the lottery is not worthwhile, because it is inherently bad for society (evil), i.e. the effects it has on the poor, and so on.* So far, this is the closest opinion to get toward changing my view (not quite there yet, folks). In this case, even winning is participating in an evil, and thus not worthwhile. On the last point, I feel like I can't call this done yet, because my original question has to do with winning money rather than judging the system. I concede that it's stupid statistically to think you will win by putting in a dollar. But, again, I haven't seen anything yet to convince me that I *absolutely cannot* win by putting myself on the board with one dollar. Whereas I certainly will *not* win by not buying a ticket. **EDIT 2** Thought I'd address the "entertainment value" argument--I think it's a good one, but I think it's outside of the point I was going for, which is that having a ticket qualifies you to win money--which would be why I would buy a ticket. **EDIT 3** I've been swayed a bit by the arguments that playing the lotto is inherently evil, and, as such, not worthwhile, and the notion that buying an infinitesimal chance is virtually as worthless as not buying into the system at all. I'll admit, I'm not *totally* swayed, but I thought we were at the Delta awarding point. Thanks everybody for your great discussion!

>One ticket (infrequently bought, say, once a year) buys you in for the possibility that you might win. You won't, but you might. It's like qualification, and, at the cost of $1.00 (or whatever small monetary amount), it's a small price to pay for the chance. That seems like a worthwhile purchase to me. You can actually do the math to see what is the expected value of return, and regardless of how many you buy, except zero, you are losing money. The chance to win you get from buying $1, is not worth $1.

What does an economy of scale mean in a tv show sense?

I was reading the Black Mirror Wikipedia page when it said “The series was expensive for Channel 4, as the anthology format meant there were no economies of scale.” I looked up what an economy of scale meant and the video made sense in the context of making bread, but how does it apply to a show? I guess it means the higher budget of the show should mean it makes more profit, but how does an anthology not apply to that? Is it because the episodes aren’t continuous and don’t build up to some bigger thing?

If you take a long running TV show like, say Game of Thrones, although it may be hugely expensive in terms of building sets, designing special effects and employing actors and crew, you get eight seasons worth of show for your investment - hence you have economies of scale in production of a lot of shows with the same set up. In an anthology show like Black Mirror, because every story is different, you need to start from scratch with new sets, cast and effects. Each investment is a one off which has to pay for itself from only one show.

ELI5: Why does (did) static on TV look like that white snow?

Back in the days before streaming, if there was no signal, TV would be a dynamically changing, usually black and white, blank image. How did the lack of signal translate from the antenna/cable input into that image? (And why was it called "static" if it wasn't actually static--not changing--anyway?)

When you tune any receiver to any particular frequency, it's going to pull in the strongest signal. Older analog TVs would show the station when it was close enough, but the farther away the source, the lower the signal strength. If that signal couldn't overcome other signals on that frequency, including the cosmic background noise (radio bursts, microwave background noise, etc...) then the electron gun that shoots the signal at the phosphors on the CRT screen will fire with that background noise. Thus, it looks like 'static'. The same thing happens with digital TV, but you end up with bars and skips due to list data instead of a fuzzy signal. And, you don't get static because there is no data signal for the receiver in the digital tuner to lock in on.

Eli5. Why do you only get dandruff on your scalp and not anywhere else? What causes flakes to happen

Since your scalp is just skin like everywhere else like your arms etc why do we get dandruff up there, since it’s just skin, why does your scalp that gets all those flakes? This is a stupid question, please no hate. I have autism and perseverate, wonder about weird things and I don’t always comprehend well. :)

You do get dandruff everywhere on your body (I believe you shed all your skin every two weeks or so). The reason we seem to see more dandruff on our heads is because the skin gets trapped by your hair.

How are telescopes and space observatories arranged at the L2 Lagrangian point so they do not interfere with each other?

Spacecraft placed at a Lagrangian point are not literally parked at that singular point in space. In reality, they are placed in orbits with the L-point at their center. For example, the JWST will orbit L2 at a distance of about 800000 km (500000 mi). There is plenty of room. The L2 region is essentially empty space.

Would it be possible to jump off of Ganymede?

Friends were playing the CCG "Wars" and debating whether the dinosaur creatures could simply leap off of Ganymede rather than needing a spaceship. I am not smart enough to answer this query I hope that reddit can help.

Gravity on Ganymede is about 15% of that on Earth, only a little less than the Moon. Escape velocity is 2,741 meters per second, so, like the Moon, you'd need a small rocket to escape. Deimos, Mars' smallest moon only has surface gravity of 0.003 m/s^2 (as opposed to Earth's 9.81), which gives it an escape velocity of 5.5 meters per second, or about 20 km/h. Kameson Konz recorded a 46" vertical jump at an NFL pro day, which means he left the ground with a velocity of about 4.78 m/s. Not quite enough to escape Deimos, but enough to have him in a suborbital freefall for 53 minutes.

[Marvel] How and why were Black Widow and Hawkeye selected to be on a team with superpowered beings such as the Hulk, Thor and Captain America and Tony Stark's armor? Aren't they hopelessly out of their league?

Even in the movie, Scarlett Johansson's only role was ass and character development for Hawkeye, and Hawkeye's only role was shooting shit with fancy arrows, while the other hero's did the ass-kicking and name-taking. So why were they even considered, let alone selected, for the Avengers Initiative?

Hawkeye and Blackwidow were not part of the Avengers Initiative. They are shield agents who were assisting those members of the Initiative that accepted the call to assist when the asgardian attacked.

[Harry Potter] Which of the professors could take on the Basilisk and win?

That is after we exclude Dumbledore (away at the moment) and Snape (who would have to maintain his cover).

I think Flitwick or McGonagall could do it if they knew what they were up against. *Maybe* Sprout too, we never see her do much spell casting, but one would expect a head of house to be pretty skilled. On the other hand, she deals mostly with plants.

ELI5: Does the body 'decide' between diarrhea and vomiting during gastric infections?

Hello guys, I have diarrhea right now, and sometimes I feel like I have to vomit, but when I arrive at the toilet, welll, it comes out the other end. From what I have read the body tries to get rid of any germs in the system. Now my question: Does it matter which end it comes out or is there a decision process the body goes through? Kind regards

Like a lot of things in nature, it's not about whether your body "knows" where the bad stuff is. It's that the bad stuff is near something, and that something reacts a particular way to bad stuff. Your organs form systems that by themselves have a lot of processes that don't involve other organs. When you eat something your stomach identifies as toxic, the stomach starts to contract in ways that cause you to want to vomit. If the food gets past your stomach, it's in your intestines. Usually, your intestines move food through at a slow, controlled speed. But if they think the food is causing problems, they speed up the process. Normally the slow speed means the moisture in the food is absorbed and only relatively dry stuff remains. If the intestines speed up the process, there's less time to absorb moisture so diarrhea results. The intestines don't ever see the stuff your stomach tries to vomit unless you resist the urge. The stomach only passes on stuff that causes diarrhea if it doesn't recognize that stuff as bad for the intestines. This stuff happens at a cellular level in a way that may not even involve the brain "thinking".

CMV: I believe the Collegeboard is a scam

As I said in the title, I believe the Collegeboard is a scam. The reason I say that is because they are slowly taking over the US educational system. Public schools are paying the Collegeboard for having AP® courses in their schools. Some schools pay for students taking test, as it will make the school look good. People use the amount of AP® courses in order to determine how good a school is. It also shows the amount of income inequality, as schools with a lot of money have more AP® courses than ones without. I believe that instead of schools having AP® courses and making students take a stupid test, schools should offer dual credit courses, which would offer both college and high school credit and teachers would have a broader curriculum. The SAT is the same story. Instead of using that test, universities should make their own test, and the students that are interested in taking the test or want to go to the university would take and the test would determine If the student is qualified for that ONE university they want to join. I see it inside the school I attend how it has been affected. I hope we, as people, can change it. Edit: added the last part and I wrote this on mobile, so sorry for not knowing where to put the disclaimer.

If Choate and Municipal High both offer dual credit courses, MIT isn't about to give college credit for both of those. It knows that Choate has a good dual credit course, so it might accept Choate's course. But Municipal High's "dual credit" course might not be at that level. Right now, MIT can say that an AP course at Municipal High with a score of 5 counts for college credit. But without the AP test, what tells MIT that Municipal High's "dual credit" course is at a college level? Regarding the SAT, the main issue is that having to take twenty tests to get into twenty schools would be a serious cost (in $ and time) for the applicants. This wouldn't matter too much for rich kids, but it would be a severe handicap for poorer students.

ELI5: How do bodies of water exist above ground?

How come bodies of water (lakes, rivers, wetlands, oceans even...) exist above ground instead of the water simply being absorbed by the earth?

1) They *do* sink into the ground. Eventually it'll hit an *impermeable* layer of dense bedrock that the water can't go through. The ground will become saturated and no more water can drain down. 2) The ground slows the water down: imagine a cup with small holes in it. The water will drain out, but as long as water goes *in* faster than it drains, the water level will stay elevated. 3) Some kinds of soil are less permeable to water, like clay. Rock, obviously, doesn't allow water to sink through very easily. 4) Water that drains through the soil will eventually either sink into an aquifer or get forced back up from pressure and form a spring.

What textbook or general interest book would you recommend for people with an interest in your field?

Dan Ariely's *Predictably Irrational* and *The Upside of Irrationality* for general interest books. Anderson's *Cognitive Psychology and Its Implications* and Baron's *Thinking and Deciding* for textbooks.

Atmospheric pressure is 14.7 psi - does that mean the true psi of my car tire is the difference of the tire pressure from the atmospheric pressure?

Normal tire pressure is 30-33 psi. We describe that as "Gauge" pressure. The "Absolute" pressure would be 30-33 + 14.7 psi, which is the pressure in the tire and the pressure of the atmosphere. Therefore the pressure in the tire is 44.7-47.7 psi (a)

ELI5 why the US has in interest in keeping drugs illegal in other countries.

I see it a lot. I know it has to do with trade agreements and whatnot, but what does the US stand to gain from something like pressuring a harm reduction heroin clinic in Europe to be closed? Edit: fucked up the title, first in should be an.

If those drugs that the American government doesn't want Americans to use become more available anywhere in the world, they will also become more available in America, since it will be easier for people to obtain them in other countries and then smuggle them into the US. The concern about a harm reduction heroin clinic in Europe is somewhat hard to justify, but even so, any tolerance of drug use by anybody anywhere for any reason is conceived (by the anti-drug establishment) to create a bad precedent which will eventually lead to mass, out of control drug use by American school children.

ELIF: Why do cats knock shit off tables and counters?

Is it some instinctual thing related to hunting or raising their young?

Domesticated animals tend to retain a lot of their infantile characteristics, and that includes playfulness. Playfulness *is* (at least in part) kittens learning skills that'll help with hunting, and batting things around is part of that. Knocking things off shelves simulates the prey escaping. Also it looks cool.

[General/The Fermi Paradox]What would a "predator civilization" look like?

One of the proposed solutions to the Fermi Paradox is that other civilizations don't broadcast their existence for fear of "predator civilizations". What would such a civilization look like? Just a conquering empire, like we've seen on Earth, or something more alien? The empires of Earth have generally made a lot of "noise".

Realistically? Without a form of FTL, a "predator" civilization would almost have to rely on mass production of Von Neumann machines — self-replicating machines with the sole mission of exterminating life they encounter. They would 'seed' the stars with thousands, millions, or billions of these machines. Upon arrival of these robots in a stellar system, they'd scan for any signs of intelligent or technological life (radio transmissions, etc), then camp out in the far reaches of whatever solar system. Depending on the technology available to these machines, the best bet would be to create a sufficient number of dense probes/machines/rocks at some fraction of the speed of light. They would then ram those projectiles into the planet, killing all life. After that? The machines would use the materials from the solar system to produce even more machines and begin the hunt anew. Without FTL, there's zero hope of peaceful contact between different alien civilizations (and the risk of hostile first contact is too high). Too much can change in the hundreds of years it takes to send and receive a simple message. The safest bet is the immediate and total annihilation of all alien life, performed with self-replicating machines that require no communication with their makers. Space is too big and life is (probably) too rare to make fighting over resources or territory meaningful. Given that space is infinite, if there's even a 0.001% that first contact would end poorly, it goes without saying that immediate, silent, and preferably anonymous xenocide is the safest option for alien civilizations. Kill them all, because the risk that you're wrong is simply too high.

ELI5:There's a fresh tomato orbiting earth at 4.8 miles per second, 230 miles above our heads. Since space is a vacuum, will this tomato ever become rotten assuming it never re-enters earth's atmosphere?

Inspired by [this front page](http://www.reddit.com/r/woahdude/comments/1rczfn/yes_this_is_a_fresh_tomato_orbiting_in_space_at/) thread on Reddit, it sparks the question if organic material can rot in orbit or not. Space is a vacuum, so does that mean that organic materials such as that tomato that's in orbit, will never go bad? Thanks. Edit: To be clear for the sake of context, consider the tomato to be **outside** of the international space station. The photo does reveal that the tomato is within the ISS' atmosphere, but we're talking about a tomato in the extreme conditions of being in space, where it's in a vacuum, and not indoors. Just for hypothetical sake.

It probably would not rot in a biological sense. There would be no oxygen available, and the tomato would become freeze-dried fairly quickly in the vacuum of space. These are both conditions used in commercial food packing to prevent spoilage. However, it would degrade rather quickly for other reasons. Space is a harsh place. Without an protective atmosphere, one half gets the full force of the sun's heat while the other is in bitter cold. This is the same sort of reason that Africa is very hot while Antarctica is very cold; but magnified to even more extreme levels. This is why most satellites are wrapped up in that shiny foil looking stuff (a space blanket). They are very good at reflecting heat. They bounce heat from the sun back away into space and bounce your own heat back in towards you; this helps keep the satellite a constant temperature instead of swinging all over the place. If it were spinning, it would go through severe heating and cooling cycles that would cause all sorts of physical and chemical damage. Imagine taking your tomato and putting it in the oven for an hour then the freezer for an hour; it would get destroyed quite fast. There is also heavy radiation. UV rays from the sun would start to break down chemical bonds. High-energy cosmic radiation would also cause damage over longer time scales.

[The Matrix]Does the limitation that no physical mass can reach the speed of light exist in the Matrix Universe? Did the Machines simply put that into the Matrix so that the humans don't leave the planet which would require additional processing power?

I don't mean the actual Matrix. I mean in the real world. In the real world outside of the Matrix, in The Matrix movies.

Probably not. They wouldn't need to mess with physics to keep humans on earth - the Matrix is set in the 90s, and there's no way humans develop to the point they can leave the solar system before the Matrix gets rebooted anyway. The speed of light is actually pretty intimately tied to a lot of things - it's an essential part of the equations for relativistic space distortion that is the reason gold is gold-colored, and non reactive. If there were no speed of light, stars would be rainbow-colored streaks rather than dots. You'd have to fabricate all of human history and a whole lot of day-to-day details to cover up a change there.

Is the form of a galaxy influenced by the black hole in its middle?

There are many things that determine the morphology of a galaxy, one of them being the black hole at its core. There is a well known relationship between the mass of the black hole and the mass of a galactic bulge- namely a spherical conglomeration of stars in the middle of the Galaxy. Black hole mass is correlated with other aspects of the Galaxy too besides the bulge mass, namely the luminosity (and velocity dispersion but never mind). Furthermore the black hole can also feed off nearby gas and grow. In the process of ingesting ambient material, the black hole can cause massive outflows of super hot relativistic gas - like a fountain - basically spraying plasma into the universe. This gas can heat the environment well beyond the Galaxy disc to millions of degrees inhibiting the future condensation of gas into stars. The effect of black hole heating can be to suppress the formation of new stars meaning that the Galaxy will appear older and redder lacking young newly formed young blue stars. Although this process (known as "feedback") can be short in duration, the effect can be dramatic and cause what's know as an active galactic nucleus or even quasars.

[40k/other sci-fi] what are some units that are comparable to 40k space marines in other sci-fi settings?

i was roaming the subreddits and was reading about [this](http://www.reddit.com/r/whowouldwin/comments/1wnk0h/what_is_the_minimum_number_of_spartan_ivs/) post from /r/whowouldwin on how many spartan ivs are needed to kill a space marine / some discussions are very interesting and one of the things that many 40k fans noticed from that thread was the fact that there arent a lot of comparable units to 40k space marines, being a 40k fan myself, i would also like to know how many comparable units there are to the space marines / the problem with the lack of comparable units is nicely summarised by /u/xSPYXEx from the original thread, i will just quote it >I agree. I'm getting really bored of all these discussions about "could X kill a Space Marine?" **because it's always a complete stomp for one of the sides.** 40k is all about completely fucking balls to the walls absurdity. Everything is pushed to the extreme, and then some. There are very, very few matchups that are fair and don't need requirements and handicaps. The only people who can take down Space Marines are those who are even more ridiculously absurd, like the Sith. / for simplicity's sake lets use the ultramarines since they seem to be the most "standard" (aka no space wolves furries and no grey knight psyker army) examples of the space marines curbstomping the opponent would be the aforementioned spartans, regardless of being spartan iis or ivs examples of the space marines getting curbstomped would be some superpowered *superheros* such as thor and superman cant really think of any examples of a fair fight without handicaps at the moment (gotta love them all nighters), would love to get enlighten on the subject

I think the Mobile Infantry from Starship Troopers are pretty close to even with 40k Space Marines. They have superior power armour and mobility which probably makes up for the genetic enhancements of the Space Marines. In fact aren't Space Marines Based on the Mobile Infantry? *edit: Starship Troopers the book, not the terrible movie. Another option would be the Idirans from the Cultureverse. They evolved as "top monster on a planet full of monsters" and are three meter tall, damn strong, and so armoured and resilient that you can blow their heads almost clean off without killing them. A unit of them would probably be on par with a unit of Space Marines.

CMV: I think labeling personal reactions to incidents of domestic abuse / rape / other crimes as "victim blaming" is often both incorrect and counterproductive

To be clear upfront, I am not blaming victims of crimes: the perpetrators are responsible for their actions. I do, however, often find myself thinking things such as "Why didn't she leave?" or "Why did she get herself into that situation?", and I think these can be natural, innocent, and productive questions. When hearing about some crime that occurred, I think it's important to consider all angles of the incident in order to help oneself and others avoid these situations themselves from either direction. In a case like domestic violence or rape, I think from the perpetrator's side there are not usually significantly mitigating circumstances, so I can avoid *being* the perp by just not being an asshole. I don't require a ton of reflection and discussion to know not beat a woman unconscious, for example. (More broadly though, there is definitely *major* value to understanding how the perp came to be motivated to do this whether they are sympathetic or not, so we can figure out how prevent other potential offenders from doing the same) So naturally my thoughts turn to the victim and consider ways they could have avoided the situation, because I want to know what to do if *I* am in that side of the story some day, or if someone else I know is. This side is sometimes not at all obvious to me, and the above questions are the obvious ones to ask if I don't understand the situation. "Why didn't she leave him?" doesn't have to be an accusation, it is literally a request for information. It is the beginning of a conversation that leads to helping people avoid being victims. What often happens though is that people who ask these questions are shouted down for "blaming the victim". (Certainly there probably some people who do this, but the wording of the question can be the same when genuine and innocent.) Then some of the same people doing the shouting down go on to actually answer the question but as if they have some new moral superiority. For example in the recent Ray Rice situation, there was a surge of victims of domestic violence coming forward to explain why victims don't leave. GOOD! That's the question I asked! It's a very useful conversation to have! So why are people who ask them shouted down as victim blamers? To do so is to use a thought-terminating cliche, which makes dialogue on important issues more difficult, when open dialogue is what we need. Problems like these can be worked from both sides. _____ > *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!*

There's a big difference in connotation between the question "Why is it that victims of domestic abuse stay with their abusers?" and "Why didn't *this particular* victim of domestic abuse leave her abuser?" The first question can seem as literally asking for information because the asker isn't familiar. While the second question almost always comes out as an accusation, and is frequently used by people to say "if she was *really being abused* she would have left!" Since this question is so often used to dismiss the situation or ignore the abuse, it's really hard to ask it without coming across as accusatory. In almost all cases of these types of questsions there are only a few answers and they are almost always the same from case to case because of the situation. You're not going to gain any information by asking why that particular victim didn't do something but rather asking why it's so frequent that this is a problem.

[Star Trek] What are the transporter's limits?

Throughout the various shows, films, and shorts, the transporter is often shown as being capeable of transporting people of various races, and objects of various sizes. This process is often explained as breaking something down to it's atomic structure, and then reassembling said structure in another location. What I'm curious to find out (if people more knowledgeable about Star Trek have any idea), is does it have set limits? Like if I wanted to transport an entire planet, and all the people on it, could I do it if I had suficcient power to do so? And if I could do it, how far could I transport it? I'm assuming that there are some limits, otherwise why couldn't Voyager simply get transported closer to home?

There are several limits: * Range: You can beam down to a planet from orbit, but you can't beam across a star system. * Size: Something needs to be small enough to fit on a transporter pad. "Site to site" transports without a pad are a bit of a misnomer, they're actually 2 different transports where they first beam you to a pad, then to sickbay or wheverever you need to go. * Power: Transporters take a lot of power. Transporting a handful of personnel here and there is nothing to a starship, but transporting a lot of stuff begins to strain their power. * Cooldown: It actually takes the transporter some time to charge up between transports. We never see this because it's "precharged" when they step on the pad, but if they need to transport two sets of people it takes a while for the transporter to recharge. Transporters are super fast for a small group but if transporting a large number of people or a large volume of cargo shuttles are actually faster. * Warp speed: Transporting to and from ships moving at warp is not technically impossible but *very* different. Even Montgomery Scott, one of the most brilliant engineers in Starfleet, had trouble with it.

ELI5: How are we able to hear more than 1 sound at the same time?

How can I hear two sounds at the same time when my eardrum can vibrate at only 1 frequency at a time? How can my brain decipher that 1 frequency into its component sounds?

Because we aren't just able to pick up one frequency at a time as such. All the frequencies mix together ( as it's all moving air) and it produces sort of a frequency that keeps changing rapidly and that's what makes up the sound we hear.

[Men in Black]Oh my goodness I have so many questions about the end of Men in Black. They luminosity of everything outside of the marble is far brighter than the luminosity of the galaxy itself, why can't we see it with telescopes? MANY other questions?

Here is the end of MIB. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kVUPZ8_UJ4 A question in another thread had me looking at the end again and oh my goodness do I have so many questions. As we discover at the very end of the movie, the entire galaxy is in some kind of marble. It is important to note that this is the galaxy, not the universe. We can clearly see that the entire galaxy is in the marble by itself, just one, ours. 1. Light sources outside of the marble are very obviously far brighter than anything inside of it, why can't we see any of that with telescopes? 2. We can and do see supernovas in distant galaxies all the time. Given the fact that our entire universe is apparently actually limited to our galaxy, how and why are we seeing those? 3. According to our observations all mass in the universe appears to be moving away from other mass. This is not limited to our galaxy, all galaxies appear to be flying away from each other at every point as space expands. Well, obviously they are not, there is a center to the universe, it is in the Milly Way. how do we explain the fact that space appears to be expanding when it actually is not? 4. How do we explain all the other galaxies that we can see? There is ome marble showing another galaxy, that is not even close to enough to account the billion that we can observe.

The marble-playing aliens are outside space-time as we experience it. Each marble is a pinched off pocket from our larger universe with no physical space between corresponding other marbles. A light beam or starship traveling to the edge of our marble would instantly and seamlessly continue its journey into the edge of another marble. The marble-playing aliens' universe is interwoven, yet separate from ours. We can detect them in some ways, however. So-called "Dark Matter", the unseen theoretical substance that accounts for over 80% of the mass of the universe is actually bleed-over from their universe.

Is it possible for a terrestrial, life-sustaining planet to have rings?

I don't see why not although it would make sustaining life much harder as ring particles and materials would periodically hit the surface of the planet. Additionally a terrestrial planet would have a much smaller gravitational force than say a gas giant planet, which would mean that the actual rings would be smaller and less visible.

ELI5: How can it be profitable for AliExpress merchants to sell and ship an item across the world, for just $1

It blows my mind why anyone would do it, when you gotta factor in order processing, delivery to couriers, the shipping services, etc.

Think of it as there is this container already planned to go your city, on a specific date, from the shores of South China. It is booked on every ship, train & lorry it needs to get there. The company merely puts your extra item in the container.

ELI5 - What makes someone a morning person? And the same with night owls? Is there a scientific explanation behind being one or the other or is it simply a lifestyle choice?

The scientific concept is 'circadian rhythm' - basically you have an inner clock that gives you a sense for the time of day. Unfortunately for most people, the inner clock is not set to 24 hours exactly. If you have a short circadian rhythm, you are likely a morning person because your subjective days are shorter and don't require that much sleep - on the other hand a long evening will feel wrong for you much quicker. With a longer circadian rhythm you are likely an evening person. Your rhythm demands a longer night than reality can provide, so you will rise late and/or fight drowsiness. You can go much longer in the evenings though because in your rhythm barely a part of the day has passed.

[Half Life]So what happens after humanity beats the Combine?

Well, after the Combine Citadel was destroyed, they had no means of retreating or calling in reinforcements. This put them into a corner, which was further reinforced when the portal storm was shut down by the Black Mesa satellite network. We don't know how many Combine there are, nor how distributed their forces are across the globe. However, I'd say it's safe to say that humanity has a fighting chance (the slug-things might be a challenge, but the Vortigaunts are adept at handling them, it seems). What we have, after the Combine are defeated and purged from the world, is a very post-apocalyptic scenario. The Combine were in charge of food distribution, which is now gone. They were also in the process of terraforming Earth when they were defeated, and atmospheric conditions have changed for the worse due to it. Further, the chaos of the initial Black Mesa Event led to alien flora and fauna spreading across the world - many of the planet's native species are extinct and replaced with Xenlike ecosystems, such as the headcrab and antlion (and Antlions are prodigious tunnelers and will not be killed easily, as witnessed during the chain of events leading to the collapse of the portal storm). We also have to deal with restoring crumbling infrastructure: The Combine were using cities as ghettoes (evidenced by the *only* population outside City 17 being rebel cells), and did the bare minimum to keep humans alive so as to recruit them into their own ranks. Much work will need to be done to restore cities to properly working order. You also have the issue of predation. With the animal repulsion systems down for the count, antlions and headcrabs can now swarm the cities left standing. A coherent military presence will be required to keep people safe from marauding headcrabs, zombies, antlions, and more. The Vortigaunts might be able to help on this front. So, to conclude: * Food distribution is down for the count * There's crumbling infrastructure everywhere * There's no coherent military with enough force to repel threats * There's a global mass extinction in progress due to Xen fauna * The planet itself is less liveable due to Combine terraforming * Humanity is not connected - no means of city-city communication I'd say humanity survives, but with millions if not billions dying as we revert to an agrarian subsistence civilization within walls to keep out headcrabs and the like. Rebuilding might take 1-200 years, and the planet will never be cleaned of Xen animals, leading to massive ecological changes. Isolated regions with energy, such as Aperture Labs (Chell might've popped out in a wheat field tended to by a nearby civilization) and the Black Mesa laboratory, as well as anywhere near hydro plants will become the new centers of civilization as people flock to these most developed areas. Kleiner and Freeman would likely become teachers for the next generation in an attempt to preserve as much knowledge as possible.

ELI5: How come the file size of my camera's photo are always different even though the same amount of pixels are being recorded?

When I take lots of photos with the same picture size (8megapixels for example) some photos are 6MB file size and others are 2MB. I know that the pictures are different, but in every pixel the information is recorded the same way, and I get very different file sizes. Why does that happen, if the amount of pixels being recorded are the same?

not an expert but this is what i would think. your camera captures and stores images using file compression. it is not storing raw data straight from the image sensor. if there are many pixels that contain similar data (same color/exposure/etc), the group of pixels can be compressed by storing the color/exposure data as a single pixel, then the remaining pixels which are identical are stored as references to the first pixel, the "reference data" in the following pixels is of lower size than the original color data. files with a wider range of color and exposure should have less compression than those with many similar pixels. this is one method of file compression, there are many. someone confirm this please

ELI5 If diamonds and other gemstones can be lab created, and indistinguishable from their naturally mined counterparts, why are we still paying so much for these jewelry stones?

EDIT: Holy cow!!! Didn’t expect my question to blow up with so many helpful answers. Thank you to everyone for taking the time to respond and comment. I’ve learned A LOT from the responses and we will now be considering moissanite options. My question came about because we wanted to replace stone for my wife’s pendant necklace. After reading some of the responses together, she’s turned off on the idea of diamonds altogether. Thank you also to those who gave awards. It’s truly appreciated!

Marketing and monopoly. Diamonds are not unique or rare on this planet. The DeBeers corporation has a long standing monopoly, and an incredible marketing campaign stressing that you should spend 2 months salary on a ring if you really love your future wife. Truth be told, lab grown diamonds are so perfect at this point, that DeBeers is spending millions trying to figure out how to tell the difference.

[Borderlands] Do all these gun companies have specific models? Could you buy two of the same gun?

All of the guns in Borderlands are so diverse and all over the place, do the companies just spam out random firearms or do they have specific models? How does that shit work?

In fact, each company has a strict set of design philosophies, models, and styles that no other company can replicate. Mostly because of legal issues, but also the fact that one company can always send a battlefleet to the HQ of another and bomb them to the stone age if they try. However, the insane/genius (insaneous? genane?) denizens of Pandora, as well as collectors and inventors all over the galaxies, have figured out ways to digistruct the patented components of different companies and fuse them together into weird and totally-not-spec combinations that may or may not be more powerful than other guns. Mister Torgue High Five Flexington is a prime example of this pioneering spirit. He built his entire fortune by taking a Jakobs firearm and attaching dynamite to it until he figured out how to make his own guns that shot EXPLOSIONS. *guitar riff*

Bitcoin's supply limit

If one can purchase fractional bitcoins, then how exactly is bitcoin supply-constrained?

Ten apples are ten apples, even if you can in theory slice them into an infinite amount of slices. Just taking smaller parts doesn't change the amount that exists. Or, let's say for the sake of making an example that the total number of bitcoins that exist right now is 2. Can you buy 3 bitcoins? No, you can't. Because they are supply constrained, there simply are only so many in existence. In principle, it doesn't make any difference whatsoever that you can also buy 0.5 bitcoin, or 0.00000000001 bitcoin. Slicing them into smaller pieces doesn't suddenly enable you to buy 3 bitcoin if only 2 exist.

ELI5 Why PS2 emulation is harder than Wii emulation.

the PS2 runs the "emotion engine" which is 8 processing units that run simultaneously. trying to emulate 8 processors in software is a lot harder than emulating the processing power of the wii, which was designed more like a computer.

where in our bodies is heat generated?

i’m just curious

Heat is generated by some chemical reactions, most of it by the conversion of ATP to ADP, adenosine triphosphate to adenosine diphosphate. That's about 30 kJ/mol of energy released. ATP is used throughout the body, but the body only has control over ATP use by the muscles. If the body needs more heat, it will increase muscle tonus or tone. A living person always has some muscle tone, which is a continuous and passive contraction the muscles. Increasing that tone causes muscles to use more ATP to power more and stronger contractions, which generates more heat. If you're really cold, your tone will increase to the point where you'll start shivering. When you have a fever, your body's temperature set point is increased, making it react as though it were cold, and causing increased muscle tone and sometimes shivering.

Is it possible to compute your latitude and longitude based on your surroundings like the sun, the moon and the stars?

Latitude can be calculated from the stars. More particularly, the angle at which you see the northern star gives you an indication how far north you are (works only on northern hemissphere). Longitude cannot be calculated without a precise clock, because any indicator west or east of you, rotates as earth rotates (and additionally depends on the time of year). With a clock and some time you could also determine you longitude by observing the sun.

ELI5: Why do some small engines (like my lawnmower) take 100% gasoline while others (like my weed whacked) require a special mix for fuel?

2 stroke engines require gasoline-oil mixture 4 stroke engines do not. The reason is that 2 stroke engines are much simpler such that the oil mixed in the gas will reach all the important parts that need lubrication. A 4 stroke engine is much more complex. Oil needs to get places that a gas/oil mixture would never reach. So they design an oil system to manage that.

Writing a Book for Public Consumption

Does anyone have experience in writing a book on their field for the masses? I wish to do so for my field to better inform them in a short book but I don't know how the process works. My best guess would be I have to sell the publisher on the idea and then give them a rough draft and rework it til they accept it. Kind of like a paper. Any advice would be much appreciated. Also any suggestions for publishers that might be interested in the idea would be very helpful. Wetlands if it matters.

I work in publishing. Happy to answer any questions. Generally speaking, you send a proposal following their guidelines for submission (usually on their website), and then if they're interested, they'll invite a chapter or the whole manuscript and review it. If it's an academic publisher, the review is likely external by your peers, but if it's a commercial or non-profit, non-academic publisher, the review might just be in house. If the reviews are favorable, you can expect to receive a contract. The best fit publisher for you depends on how much control you want over the project, how much funding you can get to publish if relevant, whether you want to use the book for your tenure file, and your target audience.

ELI5: why does 3G use so much battery life on my phone while wifi barely uses any.

Like you're 5: The phone's wifi is talking to your wifi router, which is in your house. So it can just talk to it without using much energy. But the 3G system is on some telecoms tower that might be miles and miles away, so your phone has to yell really loudly to talk to it, which uses a lot of energy.

[General] Through some magical fuckery, I die very publicly, am confirmed dead, and insurance money is paid to my family. One month later I am very publicly resurrected and yay it's a miracle. The question is, does my family get to keep the insurance money or do they have to pay it back?

Edit: Let's say I come back 1 month after benefits are received.

Hopefully you had a really good policy, because most of it would go to legal battles. Life insurance is (barring bureaucracy) paid out when you're legally dead which in this case you are. But after you come back, you wouldn't be issued a returned-to-life certificate, your death certificate would be rescinded. You would no longer be considered dead. You'd need a hell of a lawyer to convince a judge you should keep the money.

[The Mandalorian] Is the whole rule about never taking your helmet off something only Din’s clan does or was it a new rule created for all Mandalorians ?

His clan is more orthodox than others. There may be more clans like his that follow the rule, but it’s not culture wide. (Well, presuming there are many of the others left out there) Edit: probably should have led with this tbh but it’s actually stated in a current book that came out recently. *The Star Wars Book*.

[Doctor Who] When the Cybermen's emotional inhibitors are disabled, the humans inside collapse in horror at what they've become. What would happen if one such human thought becoming a badass cyborg were pretty frickin' sweet?

I believe there are a few examples of people being committed enough to duty and honor that they were able to take constructive action post-conversion and post-inhibitor failure. Though it was less "yay, dope metal body" and more fighting through the pain and terror on raw gumption. You see, the act of becoming a Cyberman is profoundly traumatic; a live, typically conscious human is quite brutally disassembled and then rebuilt into a mind-controlled monster. When the inhibitor goes off, they deal with all of that trauma, plus whatever horrid stuff they were made to do while a Cyberman, plus the horrid body dysphoria of having a human brain in a cyborg frame. For someone to experience all that and go "woot", they would have to be quite seriously disturbed. So, such a person would likely be a villain in the making. A heavily armed and armored nutcase, a walking tank with a defective pilot. Depending on how canny they are, they could either wind up an impossibly brutal spree killer or an ever- present specter over human civilization.

[40K] How Can I Destroy a Space Hulk?

Hey guys, Guardsman here! Just wondering if, hypothetically, a Space Hulk to appear in orbit of the planet I'm stationed on, what could we do to stop it? Could for example, boarding it and detonating cyclonic torpedoes destroy/heavily damage it? This is all of course, pure speculation. Thanks for your attention.

It depends. Space Hulk is a loose term for drifting, massive pieces of metal that drift between the Warp and realspace. Their size vary massively and so do their cargo. Most likely the Navy will blast it from afar. DO NOT BOARD IT. That job should be let to the Space Marines. ...Or Inquisition... Who knows what kind of malicious things Space Hulks may hold? There's a reason why Space Marines board them with Terminators only. A mere Guardsman has nothing to do inside a Space Hulk. Only reason for boarding it would be securing ancient artifacts. May the Emperors divine light bless your soul.

ELI5: Why, despite having a majority on both house and senate, President Obama had such a hard time passing legislation

I know the issue had something to do with the GOP's power, or threat of, fillibuster, but if I am not wrong, the GOP never really used this all that much. Many thanks in advanced for putting this in plain words and providing sources if possible.

Two main reasons: 1) No party will have a solid 60 person majority; the country is too divided. Even if you have 60 "D" or "R" senators, a decent amount of those are going to be moderates that won't always fall in line with their party. This is because a few of these people will be D's in places that usually elect R's or vice-versa. Thus, they have to show they aren't a shill for their party. 2) There was only a 60 Dem majority in the Senate for roughly 2 weeks. Remember, it took months for Al Franken to get sworn in (due to the recount), and Ted Kennedy was incapacitated just a little later. Then, Scott Brown (R) was elected to take his seat. Were there things the Obama Administration could have done differently to pass more stuff? Yes. No one, however, expected the R opposition to be as lock step as it was, particularly in regards to bills that R's themselves were trying to pass just a few months earlier. It was quite literally unprecedented. But as they say, hindsight is 20/20.

AskScientists - what is the significance of Watson's performance on Jeopardy? Is this a man on the moon moment for AI, or a gimmick?

If it is a man on the moon moment is debatable. The major significance of Watson's performance is the natural language understanding, and information search related to that. To most, it will not seem like anything, but then again, we have been living in the world and learning language for years. Computers don't have this ability. Watson needs to first understand the category of the question, and then in that context parse the question to get an idea of what it is asking. It doesn't seem like much to us, its a baked in ability to the human mind. For a computer to do this is quite a feat, and a very hard problem to solve.

Why is it that when you dig a hole and put some water in it it disappears, but it doesn’t do the same with ponds?

It does do that with ponds. If you keep filling your hole with water, you will eventually saturate the soil in the area and it will start to fill. Just like when it rains and doesn’t flood, the total amount of water matters. If there is a long dry period the pond will dry up, and hosing the area down will have the same result as your small hole until it enough water is present to saturate the soil again.

Are there any "solved" topics in philosophy?

Okay. So, first, folks do forgive me if my post contains erroneous misassumptions regarding philosophy. I don't know much about it, but my (possibly wrong) impression of the field is that it's very, well, diverse. Lots of different viewpoints regarding different problems and questions - so not really "objectively" definable in, say, the way science can prove the speed of light is equivalent to 299 792 458 meters/second, or that humans generally take nine months to give birth. Are there any philosophical topics that were once the rage of the party - debated fiercely, to the death, perhaps - that are now settled, solved questions. Of course, I suppose that calls into question whether you can "solve" a topic in any concrete sense. To define it more simply, so, if we assume we can't "solve" something - say, what about an supermajority-type agreed consensus on a topic that was once, say, fiercly split or contested? (I suppose, as much as there can be an agreed consensus in philosophy...)

A pretty endless list of questions in Political Philosophy no longer have any defenders on one side of the question. Should we have an absolute monarchy, should we practise the institution of slavery, should women have the same rights as men, should our society be dominated by aristocrats etc. etc.

CMV: Internet should be free or easily obtainable

So, recently I've been noticing certain internet providers have been having issues with their connection/screwing over their customers. I feel that no company should be able to make fast internet exremely expensive. The reason for this is because so many jobs and other things are done online. It's 2015, we need to embrace the fact that the internet is way faster than anything else we could use to do transactions and other things. Even for Video Games, twitch.tv (a live streaming sight) has been getting way more popular, compared to youtube.com, which is not live, but recorded. Live streaming on twitch can even become a job, as viewers to your stream often donate or subscribe to your channel with realy money. A lot of streamers right now haven't been able to stream to their normal schedule because their internet providers have been dropping their connection. My opinion is that internet should be free or easily obtainable in some way that means even poor people can afford fast connections. _____ > *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!*

What does "internet should be free or easily obtainable" actually mean? That the government should treat the internet like roads and taxpayers should fund the infrastructure (and presumably the individual connections as well)? Should they also provide computers to everyone so that they have something to connect with? Or is a free connection in a library sufficient? What if you can connect in a coffee shop? When TV and newspapers were the major media, the government didn't provide free TVs, cable or newspaper subscriptions, even though if you were looking for a job, you needed the "help wanted" in the paper. Of course, papers were available in libraries as well. What quality of connection is the "basic right" level? Is streaming HD video really a right that should be subsidized?

Why did mammals lose the ability to lay eggs?

I wonder why all mammals, (except monotremes) lost the ability to law eggs. What was the evolutionary benefit?

Technically we still have eggs, they're just not eggs in the same sense as what we see with reptiles or birds. Think about it this way: fish have eggs and fish fertilise externally by ejecting both sperm and eggs into the water where they can interact. The young then develop in "eggs" in the ocean. Mammal reproduction is essentially the same, the main difference being that we live outside water and so must replicate a water environment for our sex cells to interact with, thus the reason why land animals have sex. With reptiles and their distant relatives the birds, they lay their eggs externally with the offspring and food stored within a protective shell. Mammals on the other hand allow the young to develop internally, so they don't need a protective coat and do not have eggs similar to that of chicken eggs. To answer you inquiry on evolutionary benefits, developing inside the mother can mean better protection for the developing young, especially if the animal lives in a social hierarchy. The other major benefit is that there is a constant, potentially unlimited source of food available to the offspring - offspring that develop outside the body are provided with a limited food source which is limited by the size of the egg. It's thanks to the benefits of internal foetuses that humans have evolved to be as intelligent as they have, because we weren't nutritionally limited by things like egg size.

Can you feed a bird so that it gets too fat to fly? Or would it die from health complications before it ever reached that point?

I remember hearing at a lecture about birds given by a guy who runs a conservation that some types of vultures will eat until they can't fly because they don't find meals that often, and will just walk on the ground until a predator appears, in which case they will vomit in its face to distract/blind it, thus lowering their weight and letting them fly again.

[Star Trek] Are there any other races in the Klingon and Romulan empires? If not, how is this possible given the large scale of both empires?

The Federation has at least well over 100 member worlds [sources vary, but it's at least 150 worlds in the TNG era], and we commonly see many different species from all across the Federation. The Romulan and Klingon empires are smaller than the Federation, with maps of different sources varying to a great degree. However, both empires are within an order of magnitude of the size of the Federation. Where are the other species in those empires? Why are they never shown? And if there are no other species within the Romulan and Klingon empires, how is this possible given their relative sizes?

The Remans are part of the Romulan Empire. Kriosans are a part of the Klingon Empire. The reason you don't see a lot of the "client races" of those Empires is because they are not allowed to serve on their starships alongside Romulans or Klingons.

When somethings travels at 99.9999...% the speed of light, does only it contract in length, or does the entire universe experience the same length contraction from its perspective?

From an outside observer, the moving object is length contracted, and the moving object's clock ticks slower. From the perspective of the object, the Universe is length contracted and everyone else's clock ticks slower.

Why do our voices "crack"?

The pitch of your voice is determined by a number of things: the length (and thus thickness) of your vocal chords, the size of your larynx and (for a lesser part) the position of the larynx and the shape of your pharynx. When going through puberty, the larynx, pharynx and oral cavity all grow/change. This has a large effect on how your brain needs to control the muscles in these areas. A cracking voice is just a mistake on your brain's part. Since emotion, stress and nervousness can have a significant effect on your muscles (shaking hands, not being able to walk) they can also affect the muscles controlling your voice. A cracking voice is the result. edit: minor spelling mistakes

Eli5:why is it that when a clear item(like clear wrappers)is crumpled it turns white?

A clear substance becomes white when tiny cracks, localized crystalline structures or other impurities are introduced due to strain. The white look is due to the same dynamics that make clouds and seafoam look white. That is, the scattering features involved are the same or bigger than the wavelengths of light and so reflect them all similarly. When you get smaller particles you see color-selective scattering, and you get sunsets and blue skies!

[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze 1991] Is Vanilla Ice already aware of the turtles and/or planned his rap in advance OR just the best free style rapper of the 90s?

The intro verse alone implies he knows of them and their exploits: *Yo! It's the green machine Gonna rock the town without bein' seen Have you ever seen a turtle get down?* How is this even remotely possible?

Either are possible. On one hand, it would be impressive to free style and make lyrics that fast, but on the other hand despite being ninjas the foot clan aren't really stealthy and according to shows the turtles have epic mech battles in the streets every couple months or so, so it would make sense people know if their existence and would make songs about them

Dad wants to know - Does the claimed science behind Simple Water Fuel (HHO) produce legitimate results? - xpost from askreddit

Hey Reddit. My dad owns an auto repair/body shop and is interested in testing if Simple Water Fuel works to improve car mileage. Judging from the [extremely scammy looking website](http://simplewaterfuel.com) I'm already doubtful. ["How To" PDF](http://www.mediafire.com/?dyz1wpxu9maa135). What I would like explained is just the claimed science behind the product, which is using electrolysis on water and then injecting the results into the engine along with the normal fuel used (gasoline/diesel). Reddit, could you explain if this would result in an increase in gas mileage? [AskReddit thread](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/heitx/dad_wants_to_know_does_the_claimed_science_behind)

This is not absolutely a scam, but it's pretty close. What they are leaving out is it's a mixture fo hydrogen and oxygen that's being burnt, which is all well and good. But what's being left out is where the hydrogen and oxygen come from and how much energy it takes to accomplish this. If you include this energy the energy consumption of the vehicle doesn't increase, and may even do worse. Think of it like buying Ultra grade fuel, you get better mileage, but it costs more, so your cost per mile is actually worse, this is the same thing, it works, but it's more expensive than the gas, so what's the point? Also, this isn't a real solution at a large scale, demonstrating a small engine is one thing, doing electrolysis for a car or truck is a completely different thing. Electrolysis to generate hydrogen isn't done at large scale, we do steam reforming of natural gas to do that.

[Scooby Doo] How CAN I get away with it, now that those meddling kids have arrived in town?

Hello all. Old Man Whithers here. After thirty years of thankless work of scraping by as a street sweeper in my small town, I've decided to enact a sure-fire scheme to finally get myself a retirement fund so I can get out of this depressing place and live by the beach. My plan involves dressing up as a menacing ghost from local folk tales and scaring people off valuable land that I will then buy for pennies to the dollar before selling it off at full price to out-of-towners who don't believe in our local ghost. Brilliant, eh? I bet nobody's ever thought of that one before! And it was going great, but now there's this new bunch of kids that arrived in town and they're looking into my whole ghost thing. Normally I wouldn't be worried, but these ones are giving me bad vibes. One of them (I'm not even sure which one, but probably the stoner) is doing some sort of constant ventriloquism act that they all play along with by pretending that their dog can talk. They're weirding me out, and I want them gone. So what's the best way of getting rid of these guys? I can't just stop my ghost act, otherwise people might realise that there was a living person behind it who got scared off. Ghost don't run away, after all. And I don't want to kill or badly hurt any of them - I'm trying to scare people off, not murder them. I'm okay with swinging a sword around to make them think they'll be murdered if they don't run, I just don't want to do any actual knife-in-body stabbing. So what do I do to get rid of these meddling kids? I should list my resources. I have access to some glowing paint that looks very unearthly, a sword (as part of my ghost cavalry officer disguise), and a really well put together rope/pulley system that's quick to set up anywhere and is pretty much invisible to the naked eye at night (it helps me look like I'm floating/flying). I also know all of the ins-and-outs of the local rickety abandoned mansion, including its long hall full of doors which face each other, if that helps.

I think I've seen these kids driving down the freeway, and at a few rest stops. I say the best bet is to give them something else to worry about than you. It is definitely animal abuse to be hotboxing that poor dog, and he *never* has a proper leash. A report to the right authority should have them heading for less restrictive hills.

Why do large clouds form with flat bottoms but small ones are irregular shaped?

Here's an image of what I mean: https://imgur.com/gallery/qxfiN5u

The lapse rate. As warm moist air rises it will cool. In this case once the air parcel hits a certain height where the temperature is equal to the dew point the water vapor will condense. Where you have an expansive flat bottom cloud you have a somewhat flat layer where the dew point is somewhat all at the same height. A smaller cloud may be advected in or in the process of evaporating. In moister warmer areas you will see this Lower condensation level lower where as in a more arid environment it will be higher.

Would it be possible to use gravity as an energy source?

If you could "capture" the pull of gravity somehow, could you use it as a power source?

we already do it. Hydro electric power. We use different level of water to make some kind of waterfall and put a turbine under the falling water. Hydroelectricity is the term referring to electricity generated by hydropower; the production of electrical power through the use of the gravitational force of falling or flowing water. It is the most widely used form of renewable energy, accounting for 16 percent of global electricity generation – 3,427 terawatt-hours of electricity production in 2010,[1] and is expected to increase about 3.1% each year for the next 25 years.

[Avatar] Post Finale Pro-Bending Question

Hey all, first time on this sub. I was directed here from the avatar sub since its not doing so hot over there unless you're really into korrasami fan art by which case enjoy. I would love to bounce some ideas off you guys, I had a few interesting ones on the other post but this is a much bigger community so lets see what happens. Thanks! The show ended up naturally moving away from pro bending as the seasons got more intense which left us with a few interesting questions. My main question is this- how would the impact of the airbenders return affect the sport? Would they be allowed/encouraged to play? Would they move to slightly bigger 4v4 or would it be a random 3 element team each time? Most importatntly, what do you think their role within the game would be (rules, limitations, style, format, overall role). Im writing some lore and I have a few potentially interesting ideas as to how airbenders could be integrated into the sport, I would love to hear if yall have any ideas on this

Since there's no good way to limit or even measure access to air in the context of pro bending, I'd imagine air benders would be limited in their techniques. Tournament rules would either whitelist moves that are roughly equal to other bending capabilities, or else blacklist overpowered techniques as they find them. Alternatively, airbenders could be limited to a support role. Since all bending blasts travel through the air, air benders could be limited to increasing the velocity of their teammate's attacks and deflecting incoming blasts.

Why do accents disappear when people sing?

singing is different from speaking because it uses sustained sounds. this changes the way we pronounce words because its drawn out, and it also changes the way the audience hears the words we sing because it exposes every little part of each syllable. good vocal technique is very focused on vowel shape and diction (consonants) in order to get a full, rich, mature sound and be clearly understood. interestingly, vowel shape and diction are also a big part of what differentiates regional accents. singers who use good technique will naturally start to drop some of the hallmarks of their regional accent as they focus on using warm, open vowels and clear, crisp consonants. I should also note that singers who are not classically trained do not focus on these techniques as much. This is why many singers in pop, country, rock, folk, and so on sing just like they talk.

Why do people deny the holocaust?

Is there any credibility at all in the denials?

Back in the 1930s and 1940s, there were no easy way of telling how exactly many people lived in any one place, and wars, as you might know are very destructive things that make good record keeping even more difficult. People that are called "Holocaust deniers" are people that question the generally accepted belief that 6 million people of the Jewish faith were killed on purpose by the Nazis. Some of these people could be called "Holocaust information skeptics" or "Holocaust fact revisionists" because they are not denying that the Nazis intentionally killed as many Jews as they could find, but they are using information that they have found to try and revise the number of people killed. However, because this is a VERY personal subject to many people, it isn't easy to separate emotional feelings, and many people who are simply trying to help are called the same label as the few crazy people who say that the Holocaust didn't happen at all. The vast majority of people accept that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, and there is nothing wrong with accepting that as a decent estimate, but we have to realize that it is just an estimate, there could have been more or there could have been less. Now some of these people claims that the Nazis DIDNT kill as many Jews as they could find. These people are crazy, and you should not accept a ride home from school with any of them, as they are likely dangerous drivers as well.

ELI5: Why does cheaper alcohol give you a worse hangover?

Someone help me understand why I feel like I got hit by a truck

Cheaper alcohol has a higher percentage of congeners like methanol. Methanol doesn't break down as easily in the body as ethanol does and some of the metabolites created during the process are really bad (formaldehyde). Also a lot of the cheaper booze tends will have more sugar to mask the fact that it tastes really bad. These can mess with your blood sugars feeling like a larger truck hit you. And lastly, since you were drinking cheaper booze you were likely factoring QUANTITY over QUALITY. You probably just got a lot drunker than you would have had you been drinking better stuff. Take some aspirin, drink some coffee, lots of water and gatorade. You'll feel better tomorrow... Sunday at the worst.

CMV: People who are Pro-Life or Anti-Abortion (specifically those who oppose abortion at any stage) have an obligation to adopt at least one child.

**Note:** *I do not want to argue on whether a fetus should be considered a human or at what stage a fetus is considered alive and has the right to life.* How many children are brought into this world to parents who are in no way capable of handling the responsibility of raising them to successful adults? How many of these parents decided against abortion solely because of the stigma attached to it and the shame thrown at them by pro-lifers? There are half a million children in need of loving homes in foster care or available for adoption. Yet I never see any pro-lifers protesting for a better foster care system or standing up and adopting the children that are brought into this world unwanted.

A person's belief that something is wrong is not and cannot be grounds to obligate them to fix it. If someone is against ISIL, it is not their moral duty to go to the Middle East and fight ISIL directly. If you start to apply this standard life quickly becomes impossible for everyone; there are simply too many problems for everyone to actively try to correct everything with which they disagree.

ELI5: Why can't saltwater fish survive in fresh water?

Simply put, saltwater and freshwater fish have different systems for maintaining the right amount of water in their bodies. Think about salt, if you sprinkle it on a slug it makes the slug dry out, killing it. The same thing would happen to a freshwater fish if you plonked it in the middle of the sea. saltwater fish deal with this by clinging onto urea in their bodies. Urea is normally something we want to excrete because it's a waste product that gets produced by the detoxification of ammonia. Too much of even urea in your blood is very bad for you, let alone the deadly ammonia. However, saltwater fish are specially adapted to deal with this. Let me explain something called 'water potential'. When you have something dissolved in water (a solute dissolved in a solution), we say that the water potential has been 'lowered'. The more that is dissolved, the lower the water potential. Water tends to move from an area of low to high water potential until it is balanced in both areas. The water actually moves both ways (its called a dynamic equilibrium) but eventually ends up with an equal concentration in both areas because of the random movements of the water molecules (the concentration of the solution = number of solute molecules per volume of water so larger volume of water needed for more solute). By having urea in their cells, the water potential of the cells is roughly the same as the water potential outside the cells (caused by salt in the salt water) so no water movement occurs. hence, water does not gush out of the cells and leave the fish all dried up and dead. Freshwater is 'purer' so has a higher water potential meaning that water would move into the fish cells, making them burst. Some fish can survive both environments due to different biochemistries but properly saltwater animals like sharks (excluding the bull shark) have this urea retention mechanism.

Why is there a distinction between the sounds of voices in humans (Females have higher tone, males lower) but not in other animals, like dogs.

Also, what animals (if any) have distinction between their voices for male and female.

Let's say you have two dogs. They are brother and sister. When they were puppies their voices were pretty high pitched because they had small throats. As they got older their throats started to get bigger so their voices got deeper. Now the brother, let's call him Spot, has a special part of his body that makes chemicals that would normally make his voice get even deeper than his sister's as he gets older. Unfortunately this body part also makes Spot angry and causes him to hump your mother's leg. Because of this your parents cut that part of him off when he was a puppy. Because that part of Spot is no longer there to make those chemicals his voice ends up developing the same way as his sister's and so they sound the same.

ELI5: Why do random little moments that I haven't though about for years, pop into my head at seemingly random moments?

Like, not even embarrassing moments. I'll be sitting at my desk, and suddenly remember being in a carpark with my friend 15 years ago..

You know how you can often see or smell something, and it triggers an easily recalled memory associated with it? The easiest way to understand involuntary memory recall is that its exactly the same as any other memory. It is triggered by something. The difference is you are not aware of what the trigger is. Unlike thingsi n the environment triggering memories, with this its other memories triggering the memories. Usually a chain of memories set off by some mundane process, in just the right way so as to trigger recall. But because you don't know what the specific thoughts are that triggered it, it seems random.

How effective are microwaves at sterilizing objects?

Let's say I drop a slice of apple on the ground. It is now covered in germs. I have always assumed i could throw it in the microwave oven for a few seconds, and that would instantly kill any bacteria on it. Am i right? Does microwaving an object sterilize it?

Microwaves can sterilize by heat - the radiation isn't at a toxic wavelength (i.e., doesn't pack enough energy) to kill most organisms. Microwave sterilization time would vary by the amount of moisture in the food, and wouldn't work to clean macroscopic dirt particles from food.

ELI5: I get sunburnt, I start to shed my skin. Why aren't my birth marks losing their top layer?

If I peel off some skin around a mark, I get a nice film of skin, with a hole where the mark is. Why isn't the top layer of the mark coming off with the rest of the skin?

The stuff that makes your skin dark (it's called melanine) stops you getting burnt. Your birthmark is darker (more melanin) and so it won't get as burnt as the pale skin around it. imagine it like putting a big spot of sunscreen in the middle of your back then sunbathing

ELI5 how come in shows when a plane door opens up, everyone gets sucked into it?

Idk how accurate it is, but whenever a plane door opens in a show or a movie, it’s like some sort of gravity vortex gets activated and everyone is trying not to get pulled into it. What gives?

At high altitudes, the air pressure and density are extremely low, making it hard for people to breathe. Passenger planes pressurized the cabin to be of a pressure equivalentish to earth’s surface. This means that the air pressure win the cabin is constantly pushing outward. If a large hole is made, all the air will rush out, and will likely push unsecured objects or people out with it. Luckily it’s essentially impossible to open a cabin door at high altitudes, because even if it were unlocked, the door opens inward, which means the internal pressure will keep the door closed. But when for example the plane becomes damaged a large enough hole might exist and suck things and people out.

ELI5:How come shrimps are pale and semi-translucent when raw, but when cooked are turned red?

This goes for lobsters and crabs, as well.

It's a pigment called Astaxanthin! It's red, and is present in the shells of those crustaceans, as well as in fish like Trout and Salmon, which is why those fish are reddish-pink as well. As for why Crustaceans don't turn red until you cook them, that's because in their shells Astaxanthin is bound up in other proteins. When you cook them, the heat begins to denature these proteins and the released Astaxanthin suddenly becomes apparent.

[Yu-gi-oh / Marvel] Would Seto Kaiba and Tony Stark respect each other in a business meeting? What would their conversation be like? Both their companies used to make weapons that affected people's lives and both have egos.

Tony is willing to put aside his ego and every personal concern when it comes to others. For example, he literally sent his suit of armor away and onto Pepper when he thought it would protect her more. Kaiba is just not capable of that level of thought, consideration and operation.

When you cross 2 different colored lights they make a different color. (ex: red + green=yellow). Is this due to a physical effect or just due to how our eyes are made?

I'm wondering if the light waves or photons somehow combine to make a wave of a different color.

Short answer: it's due to how our eyes are made. Yellow light stimulates both the red-sensitive and green-sensitive receptors in our eyes. What we perceive as yellow can be true yellow-wavelength light, or it could be a mixture of green and red, or it could be all three. You can use a spectrometer to measure the intensity of light at every wavelength to tell the difference, but our eyes can't tell the difference.

ELI5: Why is it that when my tv remote "dies", I can pull a battery out, put the same one back in, and it suddenly works again?

The battery contacts and the contacts in the remote control corrode very slightly due to the electricity flowing through the connection. When you move the batteries (you can just roll them in place for the same effect) you clean the contact points slightly and allow better electrical flow. The batteries are still probably close to death due to the time they have been in use, but 'exercising' those contact points gains you a little more battery life.

CMV: Trophy hunting is unethical and should be internationally banned.

The hunting of animals for the main purpose of collecting trophies is a practice that causes massive amounts of damage to ecosystems, drives our most beautiful animals to extinction and is unethical not only on this basis, but on the fact that it is needless murder of a sentient being. This applies particularly to African big game such as lions, giraffes, rhino (whoops too late), elephants etc but also to any animal hunted purely for sport. A law that made each participating nation able to prosecute its citizens even if they went to a non-participating country to hunt would be the most effective way to deal with this. Most of the hunters hunting big game are rich westerners, if they were able to be brought up on charges when they returned home with trophies or with pictures of them hunting lions etc splashed across their social media, it would give many a pause for thought. Outlawing ivory was a similar step but hasn't done enough. For those who will suggest that hunting is a major economic factor in some places: the fact that it makes someone money is simply not a good enough reason to allow anything unethical. Plus, people who run hunting tours could switch to other forms of income like safaris etc and they would if the flow of hunters dried up. For those who suggest it's a suitable conservation method: a) the most valuable (both in monetary value and prestige) big game hunted for sport are often endangered species. B) you can control populations of other non endangered big game with means that don't glorify the killing of animals for sport. I want to clarify that hunting for food and resources is something else entirely and I have no real issue with it if it's a necessity. Is there any valid case for allowing trophy hunting that I am missing?

Ill start by saying by saying i hate people who hunt for trophies, how much of a bitch do you have to be to be lead out and shot another animal like that. Im not even a fan of killing animals for food. That being said, from a consequentialist point of view trophy hunting can be seen as a net good, because the main danger to a lot of these animals isnt trophy hunting, its poachers. And if it is set up to insentivise the protection of animals from the poachers so that a small amount can be sold off at a premium price for trophy hunting then the animals will survive. The biggest success of this was in Namibia and south Africa where the Rhino population skyrocketed after they started using trophy hunting. The trophy hunting money also goes towards funding conservation and locals, and the meat of the animals can go towards feeding locals. Its not pretty, but making it illegal will result in the extinction of animals, because otherwise people in Africa have bigger problems to deal with than the extinction of wild animals.

ELI5 What are skin tags and why do we get them?

A skin tag is actually a benign tumor that usually forms where skin creases, like the neck or armpit, and sometimes the eyelids. They are almost always harmless. They're very common (moreso in women than men), and thought to be formed by skin rubbing on skin, but the exact cause is unknown. They're safe to leave and safe to have removed - they don't grow back. Be sure to consult a dermatologist for advice.

ELI5: How some restaurants make a lot of recipes super quick?

Hi all, I was always wondering how some restaurants make food. Recently for example I was to family small restaurant that had many different soups, meals, pasta etc and all came within 10 min or max 15. How do they make so many different recipes quick? - would it be possible to use some of their techniques so cooking at home is efficient and fast? (for example, for me it takes like 1 hour to make such soup) Thank you!

The kitchen is always running, starting from the morning to after closing, even when the restaurant has not yet opened. There's a lot of prep work that happens out of sight. The chefs do everything short of actually cooking most food in order to save time when orders come in. Long lead items like soup stocks get started in this time.

If a photon doesn't have a an anti- counterpart because it is a boson, does that mean that a Helium-4 atom also don't have a anti- counterpart?

In the newest episode of PBS Spacetime ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvgZqGxF3eo ) they called He-4 a boson because it has a total spin of 0. Does that mean that it doesn't have a anti particle counterpart?

It's not true that bosons can't have distinct antiparticles. A photon is a boson, and is its own antiparticle, but those two facts are not related to each other. ^(4)He is also a boson, but it does have a distinct antiparticle.

ELI5: Why does cold alcohol seem to go down easier than when hot/warm

You generally don't taste things as well when they are cold, so cold alcohol is a bit easier to take that warm. You actually taste it just a bit less. This is the same reason why melted ice cream at the bottom of the bowl is just so darn yummy. One of the theories behind this is: Your tongue sends signals to your brain. Warm food actually changes the way your tongue sends those signals at the level of the individual cells, so the signal is actually stronger with warmer foods!

[MCU] Are there any people that are skeptical of Wakanda's power?

Is it likely that crazy people in the MCU would think that Wakanda simply cannot be as powerful as it is? And what other conspiracy theories would people have regarding Wakanda?

Literally everybody was skeptical of Wakanda's power because until 5 years ago the idea that Wakanda was anything more than a few poor farmers was a closely-guarded secret. After that it was plainly impossible to deny-- they landed a spaceship in the middle of Oakland.

Are the terms big government and small government used in social science?

These terms get thrown around a lot in politics, but are they useful in academia? I've been thinking about it and they seem kinda ill defined. Like, a medieval monarchy is theoretically big government because the king has complete authority over the lives and property of his subjects. But in practice he can't even perform simple bureaucratic tasks that more permissive modern democracies take for granted like collecting income taxes. Is there an agreed upon definition for these words in academia?

No, because they don't mean anything. You're correct that they're vaguely defined amorphous terms. There's no point in using a term in political science if it's only going to obscure your point. And beyond that, academic writing on political and economic systems doesn't lend itself to such overt and meaningless pejoratives, **using a term that vague and politicized would be about as appropriate as writing a Biology paper about the moral failures of abortion.** If a freshman year undergrad used the term "big government" in an assignment, they'd lose points. You can comment on what the priorities and aims of that state are (e.g., to what level the state provides welfare programs, what portion of GDP is government spending, etc., etc.), but there's little functional use to a vague term like "big government"

ELI5: Why don't transgender people simply get counseling on their feelings and learn to accept their bodies as they are, rather than getting life altering surgery to fix their mental state?

The explanation I've been given is that being transgender is like having a mismatch between your OS and your hardware. Your brain continues to create error messages like "ESTROGEN LEVELS LOW!" or "Pinging Vagina - ERROR VAGINA NOT FOUND." Counseling can help some people deal with the dysphoria, but in many cases we've found it is better to actually treat the physical problem with hormones and surgery. To keep the analogy going, changing the hardware is easier than trying to patch or rewrite the OS. There are scientific studies that strongly suggest that transgendered people legitimately have different brain chemistry than cisgendered people, and that their concerns are medically legitimate. To not treat them would be dickish.

ELI5 why do muscles spasm or twitch?

Your muscles are like electric motors. They are controlled by nerves, which are just like an electric cord you see attached to your living room lamp. Sometimes the chemicals in your body are not balanced well, especially your potassium and salt. Too much salty food or too much sweating can cause this problem. Other times your body needs to repair or replace a cell in your nerves. They do grow old and die sometimes. In each of these situations, the electrical signal that normally goes from your brain to your muscle is being interrupted. Just like if you were to unplug your lamp and wiggle the tip of the cord in the electric socket, the same interruption is happening somewhere in your nerve. This makes the lamp flicker the same way your muscles "flicker" on and off. A "loose connection" in your nerve causes "sparks" to travel down to the end. The sparks cause the muscle to twitch or spasm. Until your body repairs the loose connection, or balances your chemicals in that section of your nerve, you can expect to continue to have the unwanted movement.

ELI5: What are the lightened spots shown on this picture of the moon

http://i.imgur.com/TWRI2SA.jpg Since the moon doesn't have any light of its own and the light is reflected, what causes those brighter spots of light. Can someone please explain this in detail than you! (I hope I'm posting in the right place)

They're craters. Just like Earth's surface, different types and textures of Lunar soil and rock have different reflectivity. The bottoms of craters are relatively smooth and face directly upwards, so they reflect more light than the rougher, less homogenous areas.

[DC] How would Lex Luthor take it if someone else took down Superman?

We know Joker considers batman "his" and gets very unhappy when someone kills Batman without him. Does Lex Luthor have the same relationship with Superman? If some random thug who stumbled onto some kryptonite killed superman, would Lex's reaction be more "finally that alien is gone" or "how dare you deprive me of finally beating the alien?" or somewhere inbetween?

Publically he'd make sure that the hood was arrested and sent away. Then he'd make sure the guy had a nice cell and plenty of conjugal visits. Privately he'd be planning his next move, either a hit on Wonder Woman or stealing Green Lantern's power ring. [btw, considering that Lex's greatest power is his indominable will, has he ever gotten a power ring? Any color?]

[Marvel] What if Black Bolt stubs his toe?

Just imagine one Monday morning Black Bolt wakes up with a terrible hangover from the weekend and is all groggy and hasn't had his cup of coffee yet when he **nails** the bedroom door with his little toe. Does he have like a charm or something on him to prevent sudden outbursts like this? Or is his pain tolerance/self-control REALLY high? Or does Attilan just get leveled?

A single tear might escape his eye, and his wife might bolt out of bed from the intensity of his emotion, but other than that, naught but silence. His default mental state is simply to not ever utter a sound. Where you make noise as a matter of nature, he does not. It may not even occur to him to make noise because of a surprise or sudden pain. Remember, the weak willed don't even make it out of Terrigenesis. Only the strong survive to even become Inhuman.

ELI5: What is the Illuminati and what is the big deal surrounding them?

I've googled this but none of the answers are making sense to me. Can someone help me out?

The Illuminati, contrary to the current top comment, are not a fictional group of people. Whether they still exist today is debatable, but they were at one point a very real, and semi-secretive group of men (lead by Adam Weishaupt) who formed an order of sorts with the stated intent of bringing "Illumination" to the world through the control of corporation and government, with the eventual goal being the formation of a one world government. They thought of themselves as enlightened thinkers - free from the rigid control of the Catholic Church and for this they earned themselves the reputation of being evil. Anything you hear about the Illuminati beyond this is theory - some of which can be substantiated, most of which cannot. Considering the revelations that we've been privy to the past few months, courtesy of Edward Snowden; I'd say just about anything is within the realm of possibility when speaking about shadow organizations who run/manipulate world politics, behind the scenes.

[Sabrina - the Netflix version about a teenage witch] With all of history to chose from, why and how did the demons settle on Victorian England Royalty as the preferred style of dress?

Demons and the supernatural typically look down on humans as inferior beings, but sometimes you just gotta respect the drip. Humans do sometimes create some pretty good stuff, that particular clothing style just so happens to be one such example.

[PokemonGo] Why are Pokeballs not re-usable?

I don't get it. I tossed a Pokeball at a Zubat I found in some grass, and missed - but now it's gone forever! I swear I saw exactly where it landed, it couldn't have rolled far...

Okay, so part of the way a pokeball works is that it actually draws in a pokemon that's thrown at it and creates a temporary pneumatic seal to hold it in. As you can imagine, this is quite energy-intensive, and because the companies that make pokeballs need a source of income, they use proprietary batteries that cannot be changed or recharged except at the factory. Once you prime a pokeball to throw, it's going to expend its charge no matter what you do. (Incidentally, this is why it is important to collect your missed pokeballs after you're done with them and take them in to a recycling center.) Ordinarily by the time this seal has failed on a successfully caught pokemon, it is no longer necessary, as the Pokemon decides to submit to the skill of its trainer and the comfort of the simulated environment inside the ball.

[The Culture/various Sci Fi] The culture invites various sci-fi factions for a meet&greet/ party aboard an orbital, interactions/reactions/first impressions to the Culture?

The culture invites various sci-fi faction representatives to a tapa party aboard an orbital for a first impression of The Culture, how will they react to the culture? (no active fighting, not VS) factions of your choosing, but a few: star wars: Palpatine/Anakin/Jedi trek: Picard/Khan/the Borg/klingon/vulcan 40K: Emperor, Eldrad, Trazyn, Ork warboss, greater daemon, primarch mass effect: Shepard and Co. MCU: various: Dr Who: the doctor/some daleks Xeelee: a xeelee nightfighter that somehow agrees to communicate -exultant/transcendent era xeelee humans -silver ghosts -a photino bird, that, like the xeelee, gets a physical avatar and talks

Star Wars: The Jedi look on in bemused pity at a society built entirely on the concept of hedonistic pursuit. They also react with horror to learn that the entire society is under the complete control of super droids. Palpatine tries his old tricks and is immediately slapped droned. Star Trek: While Picard and crew generally have a good time, they would also be horrified at the extreme amounts of genetic engineering and cybernetic enhancement the culturniks subject upon themselves and their offspring. Data is over joyed to finally meet peers and emigrates to the Culture after an extremely long deliberation of 7.3 seconds. 40K: The emperor and his entourage take one look at how badly the Culture has corrupted the human body, while also assimilating and co-existing with Xenos, and declare war. They lose. Badly. The Eldar leave immediately after arriving as the similarity between the Culture and their own society before its downfall would be to painful and dangerous to associate with. The Orcs are a biological Hegemozing swarm and are either placed on a quarantined planet or exterminated. Mass Effect: Shepard immediately asks for the culture assistance in dealing with the Reapers. The Culture makes contact (initially assuming the reapers are yet another hegemonizing swarm) and takes about 10 seconds to explain to the reapers why they are such morons and how to do things better. Within a 100 years there is a new proto culture formed of rehabilitated reapers and the various aliens of the mass effect universe. Dr.Who: Timey-wimey-dingle-dong-uppity-wuppity-woo.

[Star Trek] Whenever Picard is talking to an alien that is having their speech translated, sometimes he'll say something to them in their language as a gesture of respect. Like, to a Klingon: "Qapla!". But since the translator is still working, do they have any idea that he knows that word?

When the crew of *Enterprise-A* hijacked the vessel after "Operation Retrieve" was vetoed, they are forced to manually translate a message to get past a Klingon surveillance post, because if they'd used the UT it would have been obvious in some way. They don't go into the specifics, but apparently there is some telltale giveaway for the message as a whole. For individual words within a message, I'd imagine it's much easier to take note of that with visual communications than one that's audio only. Like when you're watching a dubbed holovid, the mouth and sounds don't line up right. But when they say a word in a language you understand, it kind of jumps out at you.

[Waterfalls-TLC] What's wrong with chasing waterfalls? If I miss, I'm still bound to run into a river or a lake that I'm used to.

While waterfalls are powerful and exciting, they're also dangerous. People underestimate their ferocity, and how quickly the edge comes upon you when you're caught up in the waterfall's tide. You may run into the river or lake that you're used to, but you'll be destroyed by the overwhelming forces along the way.