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<\|im_start\|>user I think time zones should be eliminated and that the whole earth should use one central time. CMV. In the past all cities used their own time. So even cities that were quite near to each other could keep time that differed by 10 minutes for example. Starting from the 19th century, we began to use time zones. (Mainly to make it less confusing to travel with trains. The world got smaller.) The next logical step, I think, is using the same centralised time for the whole world. The internet has made the world very small. We can travel to the other side of the world in a day. Having time zones in the modern times is just confusing. Having a centralised time for the whole earth wasn't logistically possible in the past, but it is now. Yes, it's perhaps a bit weird at first to wake up for work in the "morning" at 17:00, but after a few months I'm sure this feeling will fade. The advantages are greater than the disadvantages. Or are they not? Change my view.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant A large number of mental models and systems are based on a common experience with time. Everyone wakes up at the same time and goes to bed at the same time. Jobs are 9-5. Prime-time TV is 5-9. Hours of operations for most buildings are the same. If you get rid of time zones, then this order is shattered. Every single city across every nation would have different workplaces deciding when work would start and end. Schools would have different start and end times. This would cause a lot of confusion for locals. If you are traveling then you will be completely and utterly lost. Let's say you travel from NYC to LA. Now you will be unable to figure out when shops close, work starts, rush hour is expected, etc. without looking up each one individually. This also skims over the massive costs in switching over to a new system.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Why did humans develop the Instinctive Drowning Response? It seems extremely ineffective. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about: A drowning victim remains vertical in the water, has their arms extended to the sides alternately moving up and pressing down, their mouth alternates between above and below the surface of the water, and they can't move their legs or call for help. [Video of Instinctive Drowning Response](http://captainrande.com/post/8178254793/video-of-instinctive-drowning-response-by-mario) I can't think of a situation in which this would help a drowning person survive (except when trained professional rescuers are present). It seems like it would be a lot more effective for humans to lie on their backs and float or something. So, why would this strange, seemingly ineffective instinct develop?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant It may help you to remember that seemingly complex instincts or behaviors may not be selected for in their entirety as a single unified trait. More importantly, it's important to consider the fact that natural selection most often works as selection against deleterious traits rather than progressing toward seemingly long-term evolutionary goals (in this case, a hypothetically advantageous response to drowning). The big question, in other words, is why this response has not been selected against.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user [Star Wars]How did the Galactic Republic manage to fund such a fast military build up? And also how was it feasible to maintain such a massive military? I mean between losing such large tax paying corporations to the seperatists, and constant warfare that would affect trade for several decades. It seems difficult to maintain a economy under these conditions.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant The initial buildup of manpower and hardware was conducted over a period of at least a decade by a third party contractor outside of Republic space. This Grand Army of the Republic was built in secret, creating the illusion of spectacularly rapid militarization when this military asset was finally revealed and deployed. Securing such a deal before the economic blow of the substantial tax losses would be eminently feasible; the corruption prevalent in the Republic at this time would also allow it to be done in secret. After the Supreme Chancellor received Emergency Powers from Sen. Binks, he was in a strong legal position to secure defense taxes from planets which had remained (often coerced) within the Republic's fold.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Do we lose memories, or only the ability to access them? For example, I can't recall what I did on a particular day one month ago. Is that information no longer available in the brain, or is it still hidden away in there? When looking at people such as 'rain man', and others with a similar condition, they're able to recall nearly everything they read, the weather on any given day in the past, what they had for dinner June 3rd, 1983, etc. Do we all have that information somewhere inside of us? Do I know what I've eaten every single day of my life, but I'm just unable to recall it?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant This question hinges on some hotly debated topics in memory research that try to define how and where memory representations are stored in the brain. There is no good, definite, or agreed upon answer to this at the present time. However, the simple answer to your question is that a loss of memory is usually a loss in ability to access that memory. I'll give you a scenario that is easy to relate to first, and then mention some published research. You are going to the grocery store, and you have five different item to buy that a friend, parent, or significant other asked you to pick up, and don't have a list or any way to contact them. If you remember the first three items perfectly, but don't quite remember the last two, do you give up and go home? You would most definitely walk around the store, hoping something would cue your memory and you would be able to buy what you need. You memory of the 'forgotten' items was not immediately accessible by free recall, but would be accessible with better cues. Events at the time of test/recall/recollection are very important in determining whether you will be able to produce a certain piece of information. There is a ton of research in this area. An interesting paper by Malthup (1995) that used a 'false fame' procedure created by Larry Jacoby. This procedure involves asking participants to read/pay attention to a list of made-up, non famous names. Then after some time (a day, a week etc.) bring those same people back into the lab and test them on a new list of names that contains some names from the previous list, some new nonfamous names, and some names of famous people. Then participants are asked to rate the fame of the names presented. Names that were studied from the previous session, although they are fictitious and not associated with any level of fame, are consistently rated as being more famous than fictitious names presented for the first time at test. Older individuals are reliably shown to be worse at this task (i.e. rate studied names as famous more often) than younger individuals. Malthup manipulated this task by specifically telling participants the three options for names they will see (i.e. famous name, new nonfamous names, and old nonfamous names). In this context older adults performed as well as younger adults. This is just one example of how memory for certain events can be thought of as 'lost' because they are simply inaccessible at the moment, or need to be probed, cued, accessed in a different way.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Why is water so difficult for 3d animation?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Water presents a number of challenges. First off, since it's a liquid it can move in a huge variety of ways, which means it's difficult to simulate well, and the more accurate you want to get, the more computational time it's probably going to take. If you're simulating something where the water is constantly moving (a river, or waves on a shore), that's a lot of work to be doing if you want it to look really good. A common method of doing this is having the computer represent the water as a whole bunch of spheres that collide with each other and with the surrounding geometry. This determines where the water is going, and then graphics shaders render it to look like a continuous liquid rather than separate spheres. The more spheres you add, the more fine grained and realistic your water moves, but the more you increase the computational requirements. Second, water is mostly transparent, but not entirely. So for it to look good, you want to be able to see through it, but not have it be completely clear. If there's enough water, it eventually absorbs a significant amount of light, and not equally across all wavelengths. So you have to try to get that right. Also if you're looking into the water from above it, you get refraction, and if the surface of the water is moving and/or has waves/ripples/etc. then that's even more complicated. Third, while being transparent, water is also reflective. So there's another layer of complication, and again it gets even crazier if the surface of the water is in motion. Now, a lot of this stuff can actually be simulated pretty realistically, and we've figured out ways to make it look good. But the better of a job you want to do, the more work the computer needs to do, and if you're playing a game there's only so much processing time that the computer can spend on water for each frame. So a lot of times various tricks/shortcuts/etc. are used to make something that looks good enough that we'll accept it as water, even though it's not a particularly accurate simulation.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user CMV: The "credit reporting" industry is a complete scam I've been thinking about this off and on for years. The "credit score" industry: * Has a proprietary formula for calculating credit scores * Obtains your personal financial information without your consent * Is prone to errors in your personal information * Is prone to hacking * Will charge you extra money for a subscription so you get "more accurate" data * Will deduct points from your score for paying off loans or closing credit card accounts A good "credit score" is required to get decent rates from banks or lenders. How is this industry allowed to exist? How did they get permission to obtain all of my financial information? Why can they seemingly deduct or add points to my credit score for whatever they feel like? Why is there no standardization for their proprietary formulas or regulation for their security protocols? Everything about this feels wrong and has felt wrong for the last 10 years I've been aware of these companies. edit: why does reddit formatting not work?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Well, to start off, they do have your consent. When you sign up for a credit card, loan, apartment, etc. there is a little provision in the contract that says they will be sharing your information with credit monitoring agencies. Now, we can argue whether or not this is _fair_ given the way the market works and how you don't have many options where this clause isn't included, but you still agreed to it when you signed the paperwork. The idea of a "credit score" isn't a bad one. Lenders need to know how big a lending risk you are before they decide whether or not they want to lend you any money (or at what interest rate they should give you). To determine that, they need to know you _history_ with other lenders. If you have a habit of not paying anyone back (on time or at all) then you are a bigger lending risk than someone who has never missed a payment a day in their lives. It is _fair_ that a person with good borrowing history get better rates and higher loan amounts than someone with a poor history. Since there are so many lenders out there, you need someone to aggregate this information - it is too big a burden to ask every lender to maintain the records of _every other_ lender out there. It is also worth nothing that the "score" itself isn't all that meaningful - it is a distillation of all the information the agencies have into a number that is understandable to you as a consumer. People who actually _use_ this information don't go by the score - they go by the history of transactions you have with other lenders and use the individual transactions to assess your risk level. The "formula" is meaningless in the world of real lending. Now, there is a real discussion to be had about the security measures that should be in place to protect this data, both because of the Equifax hack and the general level of credit fraud in this country. However, this is a discussion about how to make the industry more secure, not about its value to the lending industry as a whole.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user [iron sky] how does every single space capable country on earth manage to create their own combat spacecraft without the US noticing it i mean its really easy to follow a rocket liftoff, and there are only four countries in the planet with their own rocket capabilities (the US, russia, china and india) so how does every single country manage to put enough resources in orbit to create the entire international space fleet<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant The European Space Agency provides launch capabilities to 22 countries (using a launch site in French Guiana), and Japan, Isreal, Iran, and North Korea also all have orbital launch capabilities. The UK had launch abilities in the past, and there are numerous private organizations now getting into the field, with the potential to launch outside of any direct government involvement. In the world of Iron Sky, alongside the United States re-investing heavily in the space industry for its return to the moon and combat spacecraft program; many other countries followed suit with their own heavy investments into domestic space programs. Their combat spacecraft were launched under the guise of scientific programs and manned space stations - basically the same way the US did it.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Why do leftovers taste different than freshly cooked food?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Foods as they heat and cool change structurally and chemically. They continue to break down over time. Things that are higher in acidity more quickly. Sometimes this is a good thing, as flavors meld and sugars are released (its why spaghetti is always better the second day).<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user It seems like a common perception that sociology doesn't produce theoretical "advancements" in comparison to economics. Is this view unfounded? What would be your best examples against it? To clarify: economists can often point to applicable models typically accepted as "true" by the majority of the profession, such as comparative advantage or the Solow-Swann growth model. The assumptions of these models are typically rigorously stated and then often reviewed and updated, such as the discarding of the Harrod-Domar model or "old Keynesianism". The sophistication of these models increases over time, seen in the behavioral revolution or the incorporation of information-asymmetry. However, it seems that in comparison sociological theory tends to be more decentralized and "textual", and sociologists aren't as amenable towards theoretical generalization. As a result, there isn't an identifiable 'research program', and sociological or social-theoretic models don't receive the same process of innovation and updating as they do in economics. Is this a misconception? Can you point to a robust model, an 'impressive' or 'counterintuitive' result or theoretical innovation in the past few decades? Also to be clear, I don't have any prejudices towards these fields and think that sociologists and anthropologists still do great work, I was just a bit curious<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant One recent advancement is the idea of neighborhood effects—the idea that effects of the neighborhood independent of the family and the region, and just moving people across the city could have important effect on life outcomes. It is most famously associated with people like Robert Sampson (lots of other have also worked on neighborhood effects). Economists like Raj Chetty have recently imported this insight to economics. The recently deceased Devah Prager initiated the trend of “audit surveys”, where a researcher might submit similar resumes to several jobs, varying the resume only slightly. Changing the name from a “white” name to a “black” name, for example. Or changing the club from a gay rights club to something less politically relevant. Or changing male to female. Or indicating a criminal record. All of this has done a good job of showing in new ways how, even in our modern job market, even in modern liberal cities, inequality can be reproduced. These sort of labor market experiments have also become mildly popular in labor economics because they’re experiments even grad students without a grant can do. And for a more classic example, we have Boudieu and Distinction . Even among Gary Becker’s protégés in economics who wanted to make the economics of everything still treat humans preferences as mostly black boxes—people have their ranked preferences and that’s that. See for example Becker and Stigler’s paper * De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum. Bourdieu, and his students, have tried to look at what goes into what he calls “taste” (which is essentially equivalent in many ways to the economists’ “taste”), particularly how different classes have different tastes and tastes both reflect and maintain the social hierarchy. Another great book about this is the earlier Learning to Labour*, which is an ethnographic study of “why working class lads get working class jobs”. How even promising working class students may be pushed towards working class jobs by culture, against utility maximizing economic explanations (economics can explain how really it’s “utility” for these people not to go to university, but it’s certainly not the obvious explanation). This sort of thing led Bourdieu to argue that there’s cultural capital (what you know) and social capital (who you know) that are as important to socio-economic outcomes as economic capital.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user What happens in the brain when a deaf (from birth) person reads? I was thinking about how when I read silently to myself, I "hear" the words I'm reading in my head. When I read the word "window" I "hear" it, know what it is, and continue on. I don't "see" in my mind's eye a picture of a window unless I need to (e.g. to solve a puzzle I might picture various kinds of windows). Then I wondered, for someone who has never heard the the pronunciation of the word or know what it sounds like, what happens when they read the word "window"? Do they picture it in their mind's eye or does something else entirely different take place?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant I'd like to add a follow up question. I recall hearing that deaf schizophrenics experience sign hallucinations rather than voices in their heads. Would this be in the same relative area as to what would be happening here with deaf people reading?<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user [General] If you combine the DNA of two different species to create a race of super monsters, how do you classify it taxonomically? I'm cloning a race of tarantula/grizzly bear hybrids as a funny joke and to reign terror upon my enemies, but I don't know how to classify it when I publish my findings. They're morphologically more similar to grizzlies, but have about .003% more tarantula DNA (as well as a little sea cucumber "filler" DNA). What should I do?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant It's not really necessary to classify your new organism unless you plan to create a large, stable, breeding population or if you plan to patent the genome. For now just calling them transgenic grizzlies (Ursos arctos) is sufficient. If your creations are able to interbreed with each other, produce viable offspring, and manage to establish a population in the wild, then you might start thinking about taxonomy.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5:how would I calculate the rain flow into a water tank off a given corrugated iron roof structure? Say I had a four square metre roof and the given average rain fall (say it was 1000 mm annually)? I'm building a water tank system for an off the grid property- just for occasional use, so a 1000 litre tank. I want to get the optimum results without massive wastage or shortfall so some ideas would help. Thanks in advance.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Even if you can say you'll get a consistent 1000mm per year, your figures will only be vague and will vary. Rain doesn't often fall vertically, and your roof may or may not be flat. If your local winds tend to blow rain towards the east, and you're collecting rain off a roof that slopes away from that direction, you won't collect much rain. If we simplify it by looking at a completely flat roof with vertical rain falling on it, we can just treat it as a volume, that is we just multiply the area by the depth of water we get - so 4m^2 * 1000mm = 4m^3, which is 4000 litres over a year.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: What's the difference between a Senior Vice President and a Vice President of a company? Are their duties completely different? Why the difference in the titles? I notice, like at General Motors, there's a lot of both.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Strongly depends on the company. In some companies, it's an executive position. In others-- especially client-facing ones such as banks, consultancies, and marketing agencies, VP can be a popular title for most mid-career positions. This started out as a way to make clients feel that they were interfacing with someone important, but it's since then drifted into non-client-facing roles at those companies due to title inflation. Mid-level (not even managerial) corporate employees at investment banks, for example, tend to be VPs. Their bosses are SVPs. In other companies, they would be managers, directors, or maybe VPs.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: What is Heisenberg's uncertainty principle in layman's terms? EDIT: Past the basics i.e. "The more we know about something's speed, the less we know about its location."<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant In the simplest terms, anything we do to try and detect the location of a particle will change its speed. In the same way, anything we do to try and measure its speed will change its location. It's a matter of measurement and sensing sciences, which we cannot (at least yet) surmount. Heisenberg's theory is that it is impossible to know both at once.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user CMV: Presidents and members of their administration should not be invited to the WHCA dinner Presidents dating back to Calvin Coolidge have traditionally been invited to the annual WHCA dinner, a charity event with awards for journalistic excellence and typically featuring a comedy roast of politicians and members of the press as well as a skit or stand-up performance by the President. The event serves as a moment to celebrate the work of the press corps and also as a fundraiser for journalism scholarships. I believe that the current level of friction and distrust between the press and Trump highlights a problem with the WHCA: they have generally enjoyed congenial relationships with past presidential administrations, and their comparatively rough treatment by the Trump administration strikes them as unnecessarily hostile. My attitude is that I don't want the press corps to expect a collegial relationship with the administration. I want the press to investigate the president and administration constantly, ask them tough questions, and essentially police them. The relationship between the WHCA and the administration should be at least somewhat adversarial. It can be polite, or openly hostile, or anything in between, but the two sides should not be buddies. Therefore, an annual event which encourages them to behave like buddies is a bad idea, and ought to be changed. I think the WHCA should formally un-invite Trump and his administration from this year's dinner, and should not invite them (or any future presidents or administration officials) to future dinners. They should continue to hold the dinner, invite comedians, roast each other and the politicians they cover, raise money, and have fun. But I want them to build that fun, collegial relationship with each other and not with the administration. To clarify, I am not saying that making this change (on its own) would fix anything between the president and the press. I think it's just a small thing that would help to ensure that the press maintains healthy expectations about its relationship with the administration. > This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please *[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules). If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* *[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)*! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to *[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview). Happy CMVing!*<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant One of the great positive aspects of the WHCA dinner, traditionally, is that it has been a reminder that the press and the government, while not on the "same team", kind of are. Its a chance for the people involved to sit down, have some laughs, and remind themselves and each other that any adverse relationship is strictly business. When you cut the White House out of the event, it goes from being a fun, well-intentioned roast to being a bash session. There is no way that you can have a positive working relationship between two groups when one of them holds a publicly televised event for the express purpose of shitting on the other one.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Why do coffee makers suggest you start with cold water? If the machine makes it hot in the end, whats the purpose of using cold water? Specifically is there any scientific reason that using cold water could the way the coffee turns out in the end?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Hot water is more likely to pick up minerals from your pipes. It will have a higher metal concentration than cold water, so cold water is "cleaner". Not sure how it impacts the taste of coffee but it is fully reasonable that it could, they are just recommending cleaner water.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5:The structure of songs - verse, chorus, bridge, breakdown etc.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant This is an interesting question, let me give it a shot. Verse: This a part of the song where the lyrics are unique generally take the place of the melody, but not necessarily. The other instruments usually play the theme or something generally simpler so that the lyrics can more easily be heard. Chorus: This is part of the song that is repeated at least once. It can be lyrical or in an instrumental, it could be the theme or the main riff of the song that appears a lot, this definition is used primarily in Blues and Jazz. Bridge: This is a lead into another part, and can either be instrumental, lyrical, or both. Often goes in between the verse and the chorus, or a solo and the chorus/verse. Breakdown: This is a part of the song where everything is a lot simpler. The guitars/bass usually play a driving riff on one or two notes, and the drums play a simple driving rhythm. Most songs have a verse-chorus structure, which is more or less intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-chorus-outro. Bridges can be introduced before the chorus, and are often called pre-choruses if they have lyrics, or after the solo or the intro. Many bands also add solos in between choruses and verses or may do verse-verse-chorus or something. But that's the general structure.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Particle entanglement says distance between particles is irrelevant for one to affect the other instantaneously. What if the particles are a light year apart? Does that mean the speed of light really isn’t the universal speed limit?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant It's arguable if "one particle affects the other", since entanglement can't be used to send information faster than light. In the back of Griffith's QM book, he says it's analogous to a planet passing in front of a star. The planet's shadow moves faster than light, but it's irrelevant since no information is transmitted.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5 why is directly looking at a solar eclipse bad for your eyes?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Your eyes adjust to the total light in your field of view, not the brightness of any particular object in your field of view. So during an eclipse, there's less total light, however any visible portion of the sun is just as bright as it is usually, which is bright enough to physically damage your eyes. Thus, your iris will accomodate by expanding, allowing even more light than usual in, when the light is already intense enough to cause harm normally.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Question about atheism and moral realism I've been thinking about how there might be a double standard with atheists who are also moral realists. They reject all arguments trying to prove the existence of God, including the "feelings argument". i.e. the argument that says that through prayer, meditation, etc one can "feel" the presence of God(s) and therefore God(s) must exist, but this argument is rejected for being "queer" and/or through a demonstration to prove that these "special feelings" are merely emotional experiences, but when it comes to the atheists who accept robust moral realism, there is a sudden reversal, i.e. the feelings regarding ethical issues are "special" and reveal to us mind-independent moral facts. Are these "feelings" actually different enough to show that the two arguments are not equivalent, or is there indeed a double standard here?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant There's an interesting question in the vicinity here about what exactly religious-experiences are and what exactly ethical-intuitions are. If religious experiences are intuitions, then there's a kind of double-standard charge available. Maybe some religious-experiences are indeed intuitions. But they differ from ethical intuitions in a few ways. For one thing, moral realists can appeal to ethical intuitions that seem to be very difficult to doubt, e.g. that worlds are better when they contain more happiness, that it would be wrong to kill every sentient being in the world, and so on. But it's obviously easy for many people to doubt that God exists. For another, ethical intuitions are normative, but the intuition that God exists is descriptive. It's not easy to say where we would acquire normative knowledge if not through intuition, but that sort of argument isn't as easily available about descriptive knowledge. Someone might say, though, that God is alleged to be non-physical, and we acquire knowledge of the non-physical through intuition. But as /u/Samskii and /u/GFYsexyfatman note, part of any debate is considering the evidence for the opposing side. Moral-realist atheists are free to grant that intuitions are prima-facie evidence, and many of them do indeed grant this. (I do, for example.) They can simply argue, however, that there are rebutting or undercutting defeaters for theistic intuitions. The undercutting defeaters, if they exist, could be attempted debunking-explanations of theistic intuitions, although those might prove too much vis-a-vis moral realism. Better would be to argue that descriptive intuitions tend to be less reliable, as far as we know, than ethical intuitions. At the very least, someone could throw into doubt various particular theisms, even if there's widespread intuitive agreement that some kind of deity exists. But here, as noted before, there seems to be less intuitive agreement about that (especially among experts) than there is that, e.g., lying is prima-facie wrong. The rebutting defeaters, if they exist, would be the background-improbability of various gods, and in addition, in some cases, evidence (e.g.) of the existence of gratuitous evil, which is arguably incompatible with at-least classical or Anselmian theism.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Why is the average height of humans increasing over time? Napoleon, who was known for his short stature, was average height in his day. During the American Revolution, the average male height was 5'6. Does this mean that taller people are "fitter" to survive?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Increased access to nutrition and healthcare has lowered rates of stunted growth in children. Global development has limited famine and lowered disease loading that draws on energy that would otherwise go to growth.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Why do we and other animals get so excited for food, but not so much for water, even though thirst is a more immediate concern?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Food generally requires more effort to get than water. Generally, you have a known water source, but you have to hunt or gather for food. If you don't have a water source, then that does become the immediate concern, but you can get some amount of water from food too. Thirst can get desperate and will kill you faster than hunger, but water is still either available or not. Food is still more complicated to acquire.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: What is the so called Axis of Evil and why does it trouble astronomers?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Basically there is an underlying assumption that our universe should look essentially the same from any location, and that there's nothing special about where we are in it. The Axis of Evil is an anomaly in the background radiation of the observable universe, which appears to line up oddly with our position. If that were true, it would seem to suggest at least the possibility that the earlier statement is flawed, and raise quite a few questions about why our position is 'special.' However, there's definitely not strong agreement that this is actually the case, it has been suggested it could be coincidence, noise in how the data is processed, less significant than believed, or simply an error, among other ideas.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user I think I should go around telling a lot of the people in CMV that they have great views that don't need to be changed, CMV. I was just reading the rules and I noticed that responding to OP is limited to challenges to the view and clarifications on what is being said. I am bothered that I can't support their views directly and encourage them to feel good about their naturally formed opinions.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Consider the possibilities for each OP you encounter. Possibility #1: The OP is posting in this forum specifically because they want their view challenged. They are either secure enough in their view that they aren't actually worried about said challenges, or they genuinely want to have their view changed. Thus, they won't particularly enjoy having you reassure them about their existing view. Possibility #2: The OP is here fishing for compliments, or with intent to troll, or is otherwise violating the spirit of the subforum. They might like getting your support, but do you really want to encourage people to do precisely what this sub isn't about? If you really want to let someone know you like what they have to say, just send them a personal message.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5:How do music apps like Shazam work?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant music can be converted into a digital data format that describes (in a format that can be understood by a computer) the sound that the music is made of. this usually involves sampling the music at a very high frequency rate (for example, 192,000 times per second) and recording the amplitude and frequency of the sound wave at each time instant sampled. this digitized data can be used to do computing on the recorded music. one form of computing on the recorded music is playback. this is what you're most familiar with. its the basic function of an iPod or any kind of digital music player. another form of computing on recorded music is analysis. this is what Shazam is doing. I don't know the exact algorithm that Shazam is using but is is highly likely that the program produces a kind of "summary" of the recorded music (sometimes by producing a histogram, or some other kind of meta-data). then it searches through a database of known "summaries" until it finds a match. there is a high likelihood that the match of the two summaries indicates a match of the complete song.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Eli5 Why can't we have transparent metal? I'm guessing that the crystalline structure scatters the light. Polymers are semi crystalline and also scatter light, but we have amorphous polymers that are transparent. Why can't we have something similar with metals?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Metals are full of free electrons which have electric fields that reflect the incoming photons/electromagnetic radiation. So metals are not transparent to light for the same reason they are conductive to electricity and heat.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user How can a material remain radioactive after it has been exposed to radiation? I was watching TV today and the topic of the Fukushima nuclear accident was brought up on the news and the reporter had mentioned "radioactive water" which got that way from exposure to radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant. I just wanted to know how a substance, such as water, can remain radioactive just because it was exposed to either alpha/beta/gamma radiation. What is the mechanism that makes this work? For example, if I expose a glass of water to a bunch of xrays or gamma rays, why is that water no longer safe to drink? How does radiation stay within the substance?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant It's important to recognize the difference between radiation, and radioactive material. Radiation is the particles and waves which are emitted, which can be ionizing or non-ionizing. Radioactive materials are atoms which are unstable and emit radiation. Some types of radiation can cause other materials to be radioactive. But in the case of Fukushima, the water itself is not what is radioactive. The water came into contact with the melted core material. The melted core material IS radioactive. Some of the melted core material dissolves in the water, and now the water carries the melted core material with it. So the water itself is clean, but it has dissolved radioactive materials and particles with it. If you were to use ion-exchange and other types of filtration to separate the radiaoctive particles from the water, the water would come out clean and virtually non-radioactive.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user CMV: The government should stop recognizing ALL marriages. I really see no benefits in governmen recognition of marriages. First, the benefits: no more fights about what marriage is. If you want to get married by your church - you still can. If you want to marry your homosexual partner in a civil ceremony - you can. Government does not care. Instant equality. Second, this would cut down on bureaucracy. No marriage - no messy divorces. Instant efficiency. Now to address some anticipated counter points: The inheritance/hospital visitation issues can be handled though contracts (government can even make it much easier to get/sign those forms.) If you could take time to sign up for the marriage licence, you can just as easily sign some contract papers. As for the tax benefits: why should married people get tax deductions? Sounds pretty unfair to me. If we, as a society want to encourage child rearing - we can do so directly by giving tax breaks to people who have and rare children, not indirectly through marriage. CMV.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant > The inheritance/hospital visitation issues can be handled though contracts (government can even make it much easier to get/sign those forms.) If you could take time to sign up for the marriage licence, you can just as easily sign some contract papers. That's what marriage is. It's a kind of contract that include a bunch of specific rights. Giving people those rights is still marriage, whether you call it that by name or not. It's like saying "We're not going to give out sandwiches anymore. Instead, we will be serving meat, vegetables and condiments between two slices of bread". It's the same thing. You're just saying we should change the name, but there's really no benefit. Marriage has been a legal institution as long if not longer than it's been a religious ones. Why should the state arbitrarily decide to start calling marriage something else? > Second, this would cut down on bureaucracy. No marriage - no messy divorces. Instant efficiency. If you're going on to keep civil unions, you're going to also have to deal with the dissolution of those unions. No efficiency gain here.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: The ratings of engine oil, i.e. 5w10, 5w30, etc.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant These oils with 2 numbers, like 5W-30 are called "multiweight" oils and protect the engine under a wide range of operating temperatures. This rating indicates the engine oil thickness when cold (the first number) and when hot, at an engine's normal operating temperature (the second number). The higher the number, the thicker the oil. Thin oil flows better, but does not protect the engine as well as thick oil, under heavy loads. So we want an oil that is thin when cold, so it flows into all the tight spots in an engine on a cold day start up, to lubricate the engine better. But we also want an oil that behaves like a thicker oil when its hot, to protect the oil under heavy operating loads. These multi-weight oils provide such a wide range of operation. Engines are usually designed to use a specific thickness of oil. So look to the owners manual to see the type of oil suitable for your car.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user I believe that punishment should be based on the action taken alone, and the consequences should have absolutely no bearing on it. CMV. First and foremost, my apologies if this is a repost- it seems like a somewhat obvious CMV candidate. I could find no post like it though, so please delete this and redirect me if this view has been expressed before. It is hard to significantly expand on the view as presented in the title; I believe simply that, in accordance with any account of punishment I am familiar with, it is both more productive and fairer to disregard the consequences of the action. For example, I believe that the penalty for causing death by drunken driving should be the same as that for simply being caught drunkenly driving. Whether that is achieved by raising the latter or lessening the former is a difficult problem to consider, but a separate one. The aforementioned consequence of my position is the main reason why I would like to have my view changed; it is uncomfortable to have to defend the position that someone who recklessly causes the death of a child should receive what many would consider no more than a slap on the wrist. I have yet to be convinced, however, that the driver in such a case is any more deserving of punishment than a driver who makes it home without incident at the same level of intoxication. So please, my good redditors, CMV.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant This idea gets a little bit messy in practice, because luck and circumstances play a role in virtually all actions. In your drunk driving example, how would you punish someone who intends to drive drunk but passes out before they start the car? Or what about someone who intends to drive drunk, but then is offered a ride by a good samaritan? Are they as bad as the person who managed to drive drunk? If not, it seems like you are giving them the benefit of the doubt due to consequences outside of their control, which goes against your guiding principle. If we knew with certainty that they were going to drive drunk before they got lucky, should we still punish them? We generally stick to consequences rather than intent and potential consequences because there's such a massive disparity in action and consequences based on events outside of our control.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Why is learning Economics good for daily life?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant I'd say the average person benefits most from a decent understanding of economics because we live in a democracy, and it's important, to the furthest extent, people be informed on the people and polices they vote on and the implications thereof, and since many campaigns and policies are economic in nature, it makes sense for people to research and have a decent economics foundation.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5:How can Wim Hof raise his blood pH through the use of a breathing technique, directly influencing the immune system? ^<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant I have no idea who/what Wim Hof is, but breathing absolutely influences your blood pH. When carbon dioxide is in your blood, it is converted to H+ (protons) and HCO3 (bicarbonate), which are both dissolved in your blood. H+ (protons) is what determines pH (more H+=lower pH, less H+=higher pH). When the bicarbonate reaches your lungs, it is converted back into CO2, which can be exhaled. Therefore, if you increase your breathing rate (hyperventilate), you will blow off more CO2, which will decrease the amount of HCO3 and H+ in your blood, which will increase your blood pH. If you decrease your breathing rate (hypoventilate), you will retain CO2, which will increase the amount of HCO3 and H+ in your blood, and decrease your blood pH. This is a well documented phenomenon in diseases that involve acidosis (decreased blood pH). One of the best examples of this is Diabetic Ketoacidosis, in which the low insulin levels result in a low blood pH. One of the classic clinical presentations of Diabetic Ketoacidosis is hyperventillation, because the body is trying to blow off extra CO2 in order to raise the blood pH.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Could someone explain why gravity doesnt fit in with other areas of physics for a unified field theory? Thank you for thinking about answering my question!<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant There are four fundamental forces that we know of. Three of them appear to be 'quantized'. This means that they come in discrete packets. In other words, there is a single "unit" of light energy (plank's constant) that is fundamental and indivisible. This is analogous to zooming in on light and finding out that it's pixelated¹. Gravity, on the other hand, resists quantization. Quantized gravity equations go haywire and give you infinities. This is analogous to zooming in on gravity and finding out that it's continuous. Different people have different intuitions about whether the universe is pixelated or continuous at the small scale, but it can't be both: our continuous model of gravity doesn't work with our pixelated model of light (& the other forces) on scales where there is a lot of energy in a small space (e.g. black holes). ¹ Pixelated in terms of how much energy it carries, not in terms of its literal position. Position still seems continuous, which is directly related to why gravity is continuous. See below.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user CMV: Attendance should not count towards the final grade in a college course. When I was in high school, it was continuously stressed that the individual had no cap on their freedom in college, for lack of a better explanation. I was told time and time again that students were able to eat in class, or sleep, or play on their laptop, but I am now in my senior year and have realized more than ever that these things are not true in the least. Professors care more than it appears. I personally find it disrespectful to attend class and not give the professor the undivided attention they deserve, and if you don’t believe me, let me know how they react when you spend class time playing on your phone and then wonder into their office at the end of the semester in search of extra credit. Although I believe professors deserve undivided attention from the students during class time, I do not believe that students should be required to attend class and forced to watch their grade suffer with each absence. First and foremost, if a student is able to regularly miss classes and still pass the course, they are either qualified to move on given their knowledge in the subject, or the professor should step their game up, as the content is obviously too easy. Furthermore, college students know better than anyone that life is not a walk in the park; everyone has their own shit to deal with, and sometimes it really is inconvenient to attend class. College students pay tens of thousands of dollars each school year, why should they not be allowed to skip a class or two if they want? Some professors I have had in the past have given two free skips, where the attendance grade is not lowered until the third skip. If a student misses a class where there was a quiz or an important announcement made and they have no “legitimate” excuse, it’s completely on them and they should be given no special treatment. Besides, depending on total enrollment price, each class missed could be a couple hundred dollars down the drain. But maybe i’m wrong. CMV.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant One thing that "having a college degree" implies is that a person is "disciplined" enough to set a goal and follow through on it. In college, unlike high school, nobody is forcing you to go to school. Nobody is forcing you to go to class. Therefore, your ability to attend class indicates how disciplined you are. And this is something employers want to know. Can you follow instructions and be where you're supposed to be even if you don't feel like it? If a college professor makes attendance part of his final grade, it's because he believes having the discipline to attend all the classes is an important element of the students' development, and employers think so as well.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5:Why is Judge an elected position? So in my state (California) we elect judges in the same way as all politicians. Unlike politicians, they don't campaign. I had to spend a fairly significant amount of time searching to find anything about them. This seems like a dumb way to choose judges given that many people might just choose randomly or vote for the cooler sounding name. Why is it done this way? And why do they not campaign like other politicians running for office do?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Perhaps not the answer you're looking for, but electing judges (and a few other legal professions, such as district attorney) is an almost uniquely American habit. Much of the rest of the world (certainly that which is based on the British legal system) performs judicial appointments via the legislature or executive, or from within the judiciary itself. Seems to be working out fine for us so far.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: What actually happens when a program stops responding? Why does it sometime crash and other times continue working?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Let's start off with your operating system. That's going to be Windows, etc. That's your overseer within the computer, and it communicates and interfaces between you and the other applications inside the computer. Normally, the operating system (OS) is freely communicating between you and the programs, but sometimes, this communication breaks down, which is to say the program isn't responding to the OS's requests. This can be because of a bug in the program, or because the program is busy doing its thing and doesn't bother to respond to the OS. Sometimes, the program just needs a little time to catch up, and when it gets finished with its current task, it reestablishes communication with the OS and the program continues working. Sometimes, however, the program gets caught up in its own thing and runs around in circles over and over again. The program isn't going to respond. Occasionally, but not always, the program may trigger a break command, which says that if that line of code is reached, terminate, because the program has found its way in Bad Place (TM) and won't be getting out. That's when the program crashes; the program has triggered its own self-destruct sequence. But sometimes, the program just sits there and waits forever. You might tell the OS to try to close the program. If the program still doesn't respond, you can force the program to terminate, which is to basically have the OS take a gun to the program and execute it (in the sense of taking it out back and disposing of it).<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user How does Parthenogenesis work? Given that the average person like me usually thinks of reproduction as taking the sperm and the egg, I struggle to understand how you can create something without fertilisation. Can anyone explain?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant There are three major types of parthenogenesis to consider (at least in insects): * 1) Haploid parthenogenesis: Quite common for ants, bees, and wasps. In this particular case, we have a diploid (2n) female who produces haploid (n) gametes. If the eggs are fertilized by a spermatozoa (n), the resulting offspring will be diploid females. However, if the eggs are unfertilized, only haploid males will be produced. This is known as the halpodiploid condition, in which fertilized eggs only produce females and unfertilized eggs only produce males. * 2) Automictic parthenogenesis: In this case we have a diploid female (XX) who undergoes the early stages of meiosis to produce a secondary oocyte and several polar bodies. The oocyte will then fuse with one of the polar bodies, thus restoring the diploid condition. * 3) Apomictic parthenogenesis: In this case, the oocytes do not undergo meiosis, so there is no reduction of chromosome number and they remain diploid. The egg then develops as it normally would.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Why does fertilizer explode?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Most fertilizers contain ammonium nitrate. Ammonium nitrate is an oxidizer that reacts with other combustible materials. Normally it's fairly safe to have around at normal temperatures. But when it's heated up to higher temperatures, or exposed to a hot fire, a run-away chain reaction can occur with ammonium nitrate to cause a violent explosion. It's often used for improvised explosive devices, and for accelerating the reaction of other explosives, such as in some forms of dynamite.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: How microwaves work, such that my leftover gravy boils on my plate while my lump of cold mashed potatoes stays cold? Eating leftovers, obviously.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Microwaves are at the right frequency to cause water molecules to vibrate, increasing the temperature of the food. Gravy contains more water than mashed potatoes, which are relatively dry, so gravy heats up much faster.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Why do we feel weak (as in not being able to lift a heavy object) when we are laughing a lot?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Someone may be able to correct me on this, but a good ELI5 would be that our core muscles (Abs and such) play a major role in keeping us upright and maintaining posture, and are even more active when we are also lifting something heavy. When we are laughing uncontrollably a lot of that core muscle activity is now involved in the act of laughing and not maintaining posture, to the point where in particularly intense laughter we might end up doubled over on the floor.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user [Avatar] Why is it that some Benders don't need to move to Bend?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Bending is all about the manipulation of the flow of chi within the body and using it to affect the outside world and the element(s). The various bending arts and styles help to focus the chi into doing specific things, depending on the movements of the body. Some particularly powerful benders, however, have such control of their chi, either from a lifetime of training or just winning the genetic lottery, that they can focus and manipulate their chi with the most minimal of movements. And in rare cases, no movements at all. Of course it's still easier for them to bend using the proper forms and stances than to do without them. Think of bending stances and moves as sort of physical/spiritual mnemonic devices, those little tricks you learn to help you remember more complicated things; like singing the alphabet or using a phrase to remember the order of the colours of the rainbow. Most people use them a lot starting out but eventually don't need them as much. Some people never stop using them. And some lucky people just have good memories and don't ever need to use any.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: In felines crouching to pounce, why do they "wiggle" rather than being completely still? I've seen many a cat, when preparing to pounce on something (a toy, a cricket, spider, or other bug, or big cats vs. prey), "wiggle in preparation" - [seen here](http://fat.gfycat.com/MeekPracticalBlackbird.gif) (from the recent [front page /r/gifs post](http://www.reddit.com/r/gifs/comments/2ecy9l/about_to_pounce/)). While there are [plenty of answers to what is the cat doing](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=why+do+cats+wiggle+their+butts) when performing this behavior, but I've not been able to find out what benefit this serves, versus being completely still and stealthy? I would think that the vision systems in prey, being extremely sensitive to and optimized for detecting motion, would tend to make this a "negative" for the feline about to attack, rather than a benefit. I'd love to hear from an animal scientist or someone else "in the know", rather than wild guesses, since I'm pretty good at those already. Thanks!<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant The goal is to make sure they have stable footing and good balance. If you're about to push back on a patch of ground very hard to make a relatively long distance leap, it's pretty important to make sure it won't give way first. It's important to remember that most animals don't have sight as their primary sense; humans are pretty visually focused compared to most of the animal kingdom. Even for those with relatively crisp vision, the cat is ideally not pouncing from within its field of view.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: irrational coefficients Pi and e Im an engineering student, and at times when Pi or e appear in formulas it makes no sense why is it there for first, and then how did it even originate. Okay, I know how the Pi was created. But sometimes I dont understand when in formulas it appears, when there is no apparent connection to circles. ( Could be underlying physics rules though) And the second one is natural number e 2.7.. how in the world was it created and how did someone think its going to be important for.. again.. so many formulas and equations. I use it all the time, but when I think about it. It hardly makes sense<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Without knowing the specific formulas, it would be impossible to answer why they involve pi or e. Sometimes it even baffles scientists and mathematicians. But, e, that's easy to answer. Imagine a bank that returns 100% of your investment at the end of the year. You put in $1 in at the beginning you get $2 out. Let's take that same bank and compound the interest bi-annually. Instead of getting 100% at the end, you get 50% of your investment 6 months in, then 50% of that at the end. You put in $1 in the beginning and get $2.25 out (1 * 1.5 * 1.5) Three times a year you'd get $2.37. (1 * 4/3 * 4/3 * 4/3) n times a year can be calculated by the formula (1 + 1/n)^n As n approaches infinity, your return approaches an irrational number, approximately 2.7182... and given the label e. e is the amount of money you'd get back each year from a bank that nets 100% return and compounds your interest continually.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Why do some medicine need to be taken on a full stomach/with food where as for others it doesn't make a difference??<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant There's generally two reasons why a drug might be recommended to be taken with food. One is just that taking with food can help lessen nausea, which is a side effect of many drugs. The other is that some drugs/formulations are dissolved or absorbed more readily during active digestion. Digestion delays stomach emptying, which can give a drug preparation more time to be fully dissolved before being passed to the intestines. Digestion also stimulates the release of stomach acids, bile, and enzymes, any of which may help with dissolving certain drug formulations. Note that many drugs are specifically recommended to be taken on an empty stomach as well because any of these effects could be negative as well as positive, depending on the exact chemical nature of the drug. In a lot of cases there's actually competing effects, so the best practices have to be established by extensive study and may ultimately recommend, for example, taking a drug with a low-fat meal, etc.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Is Logic a priori? I working on a master degree Thesis on philosophy of Mathematics and I am trying to demonstrate that Logic Is not a Priori. Can you share with me some of your thoughts and some papers on the argument?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Standardly it’s understood that logic is the tool we use to do a priori reasoning. I.e. when we are reasoning a priori we are doing logic. That being said if you tell us more about your intuitions about logic and mathematics not being a priori we might be able to help some more.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELIF how the square root function of a calculator works.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant There are methods (called algorithms) to do it. The most famous algorithm was known even to Babylonians (and it's very similar to the method Newton invented). Imagine you want to find out the square root of 3. 1. Pick a random number (near to the value you expect). Call it x0. (I choose x0 = 1) 2. Then, find the average between x0 and 3/x0, that's 2 ( = (1 + 3/1)/2). Call your result x1. (x1 = 2) 3. Do the average between x1 and 3/x1. Call the result x2. Continue until you're satisfied with the result. (x2 = 1.75, x3 = (x2+3/x2)/2 = 1.723, x4 = (x3 + 3/x3)/2, etc). The Square root of 3 is something like 1.7320.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Why are radio frequencies split into radio waves and microwaves? I'm doing a project for school on radio frequency and how it is used for communication. However, it has been extremely hard to find any information on why it is split into radio waves and microwaves.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Both radio waves and microwaves are examples of electromagnetic radiation. The split into various categories is somewhat arbitrary. In reality, there's a continuous spectrum of EM radiation and there are no real "hard breaks" between different parts of the spectrum. We group parts of the spectrum together with a specific name because of specific applications. It's worth noting that radio waves and microwaves are quite close together in the EM spectrum. Depending on who you ask, they may even overlap. But it's all a matter of definition, there is no hard rule.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Why has RESTful become the accepted way to handle data rather than stateful? In typical web programming / app development, it’s coming for the backend to be mostly RESTful. But why is that the case? It seems that WebSocket based (or something similarly stateful) should have become an accepted use by now, but I don’t see it the proliferation. I get that there’s a cost to keeping a WebSocket alive, but it must be very small, no? With something more WS based, your web / mobile app can instantly request the data it needs and get back only that. Apps (web and mobile) are increasing dependent on state - in fact a core React hook is called useState. So I’m curious why more isn’t being done to promote stateful backend interfaces. Thanks.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant REST for example is great when it comes to scalability, because if you do it right, you have no dependencies between your service instances (i.e. all the state you need to handle the request is part of the request), so you can just chuck in new servers without having to worry about a central bottleneck.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user If we were all completely rational beings with unlimited time to learn and research things, would we all arrive at the same set of beliefs and views?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant You want to look at the debate over epistemic uniqueness/permissivism. That's about (roughly) whether a single body of evidence could support multiple conclusions. Roger White's 2005 paper is the contemporary starting point, Tom Kelly has some good work on this as does Miriam Schoenfield.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user [Star Trek] What's the advantage of using a rifle-style phaser over a handgun-style phaser? Looking into the phasers shown in TNG and other series, it seems like there's not much of an advantage to the rifle-style. Handheld, handgun-style phasers can be set powerful enough to completely disintegrate someone. Phasers don't have recoil so the second handhold isn't really for that. I don't recall anyone running out of "ammo" so the extra size isn't for that either, so far as I'm aware. I don't know of any special/extra features that rifles have over the handguns. They're heavier I'm sure, and are probably harder to handle and turn with. The only advantage I can see if that they have better aiming down the sights, but if you have a weapon with unlimited ammo that can harmlessly stun an enemy no matter where they're shot, I don't see exceptional aim as being that useful. So what's up with the rifles?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Phaser rifles use a different targeting computer that can track multiple simultaneous fast moving targets at greater range. They are also more effective against armored or shielded opponents and small craft. The rifle can fire in beam and pulse modes and for longer periods on a single charge - and can accept an easily replaced plasma battery. Handheld phasers are good for close work and in tight conditions, but they haven't got the stopping power to disable a Klingon, Nausican, Breen, or Borg without killing them. The paperwork for unintended disintegration takes forever.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Does hypnosis work? Is it a real thing? Or is it just a magic trick? And if it works, how so? Can one get hypnotized by watching videos?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Suggestion works to some degree - for example, it has been successfully used as a mild alternative to analgesia, in dentistry for example. It is in no way comparable to what is popularly shown in media (e.g. against your own will; making you think you are a chicken, things of that sort)<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user I've heard people describe how they became sick when they ate meat after a long time being a vegetarian. Does one's digestive system actually change from eating a vegetarian diet, and can then eating meat actually make one ill? Or is it more of a psychosomatic response to eating meat? I'm curious as I would assume that the body wouldn't reject a kind of food that it had adapted to consuming simply because it wasn't "used to" it anymore.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant This occurs due to our bodies changing bacterial flora. our digestuve tract is filled with bacteria which are help to digest and breakdown food. When we change it diets for a long enough time the bacteria composition in our guts also changes. Thus when they would go back to eating meat it would cause digestive discomfort due to the lack of bacteria to assist in digesting meat. However, there is also a good chance that some of the discomfort might be psychological.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user [Star Trek] Why are surface to space planetary defenses not used? Homeworlds have been attacked repeatedly, yet homeworlds seem to be remarkably lightly defended. Even the Dominion only had orbital defenses around Cardassia Prime. Legions of soldiers on the ground, but no surface to space weapon emplacements. Earth is nearly entirely undefended as well. Earth has been repeatedly attacked. Attacks on Earth should almost be expected at this point, yet Earth still has no defenses to speak of. Going purely from memory, Earth has been attacked by the Xindi, by the Borg (at least twice), by a Whale Probe, and by the Breen. The Xindi were building a planet-killer. Earth was attacked by the prototype, scaled down version, and then the full scale version was defeated only moments before firing. Later on, Earth was attacked by the Whale Probe in one timeline, and Nero's ship in the other timeline. Both were planet-killers. Yet in both cases, these ships were able to enter orbit entirely unopposed. Has no one installed surface to space weapons? Shield generators and phaser banks located on the surface could tap into the entire planet's power grid. A homeworld, such as Earth, generates far more power than a starship. Probably more power than a whole fleet of starships. All of that power could be diverted to immense shield generators and phaser banks. Equipment on a starship has to be small and light enough to be portable. It has to fit on a ship. Planetary defense installations do not have those limitations. There is no limit as to how big, heavy, and powerful these weapons can be. Or at very least, what about surface to space torpedo launchers? Tens of thousands of torpedoes could be fired, enough to rapidly overwhelm and destroy any attacker nearby. Why are homeworlds so lightly defended even when homeworlds are attacked on a regular basis?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant The first reason is resources. It takes a massive amount of power and facilities to protect an entire planet with a shield of any notable strength. Doing so for even one planet would be a massive undertaking and would not ensure its safety from attack. The second reason is that a planet with a shield and/or surface weapons is a huge sitting military target. Star Trek ships can target, fire, and maneuver at FTL speeds. A planet can't actually move, maneuver a better firing solution, or even safely fire from all areas within its airspace. So while planetary weapons would more or less invite ships to shoot at the planet (causing massive amounts of destruction once any applicable shields fail) it doesn't actually give them a very good opportunity to fire back to defend themselves. Sure, you could flood the entire sky with torpedoes, but your target can also just fly away from them, or fly back around at such an angle the shots start crashing into things you're trying to defend. Weapon stations mounted to the surface of the planet don't even have to be hit directly to be rendered useless or explode either. A ship can just attack the general area until the ground becomes unstable enough to topple the facilities. The third reason is that no one wants that kind of building in their back yard. It might sound silly when you're talking about the safety of the entire planet, but people are rarely interested in living next to a power plant, let alone a photon torpedo array carrying enough firepower to reduce the planet itself to space dust. The people of Earth in particular are pretty happy to have their lovely forests and happy little federation cities instead. The fourth reason is that if someone surprises you the shield won't be able to be raised quickly enough to actually prevent them from knocking it out. Planetary shield generators and other defenses aren't difficult to locate and map during peace time and a shield can't be maintained 24/7 because it will trap everyone on the planet. All it takes are a few seconds to drop a cloak and toss everything you have at a ground target. Heck, depending on the construction you might be able to just use a shuttle craft or planted explosives to knock one out.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Are there enough resources on earth to get ALL population out of poverty and hunger? Would it be possible to have a scenario where all population on earth is middle class with all basic needs satisfied based on our current natural resources? Could the current wealth be distributed evenly to get all poor people out of poverty in a hypothetical situation? My question doesn't directly refers to political or economic systems (e.g. socialism/communism). It is more trying to realize weather the earth and our total current wealth can provide enough sustainable resources to give all of earth habitants a decent life.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant There are enough resources to get everyone clothed, sheltered, fed, and to a reasonable standard of living. But poverty is a different question. Poverty is not a set line that is the same for every society. Poverty is a line that shifts based on what the expected standard of living in a given society is and as such there will always be poverty so long as we are in a world where people have different degrees of wealth. As you improve the standard of living the line of poverty simply shifts higher.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: How can SEARS declare bankruptcy and only plan to shut down only a part 142 of its 700 current stores. Shouldn't they shut down all stores and let the court decide how can they sell of inventory and pay off the companies they owe ?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant There are two primary types of corporate bankruptcy. Chapter 7 bankruptcy is basicially saying "We're fucked, were selling off everything we own, and we're only paying what we can to people we owe money to and closing up". Chapter 11 is a reorganization plan, stating "we're fucked, you're not getting as much as we owe you, but give us a chance to pay down what we can while we figure out a way to survive". The courts will reorganize the debt, eliminating some of it, and the company remains in business.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user [Magic School Bus] How does Miss Frizzle get the permission to take children on such crazy field trips? Like, how in God's name did she get the okay to take her students into other countries, shrinking them into the size of insects, going into the human body and into out space, MULTIPLE TIMES for both of the latter 2? What is wrong with the school or district she's employed at that they're totally fine with all of this?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant What the school administration doesn't know can't hurt them. The Bus is the personal property of Miss Frizzle. Parental Permission slips are not used, and no one is going to believe the kids anyway.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: How did people get fountains to work in medieval times?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Gravity, water and air pressure, and an understanding of fluid mechanics (especially siphoning). If you have a body of water (a little pool, for example), and a very narrow tube leading from the bottom of the body of water to a position that is higher than it, the pressure from the pool will force the water up the tube (so long as there is no air in the tube; this is called siphoning). So you begin the siphoning process manually (sucking the air out of the tube), then install the tube into the fountain. So long as the pool of water never goes empty, you never have to restart the siphoning. It'll just keep going forever.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user I've heard we share 99% of our DNA with chimps but only 50% of our DNA with siblings. Please explain.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant When talking about chimps, we're talking about genes encoding for specific proteins (or all the other things that DNA does) being in the same place on the same chromosomes. Since you and your siblings are (presumably) both human, you have 100% of your DNA in common in that sense (unless one of you has some genetic malformation/mistake due to other factors). What the 50% figure means is that the specific variations for genes (like hair or eye color) has a 50/50 chance of being different from your siblings depending on what version you got from each parent. The gene types and positions on your chromosomes are the same, just what version you get is different.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user [DragonBall] Are the human Z Warriors just irrelevant? Saiyans -> Oozaru form,Zenkai boosts,unrivaled fighting spirit,Saiyan Human offspring are said to have more potential than full blooded ones,anything else I'm missing??? Namekians -> Regeneration,stretchy limbs,can sustain themselves with only water,asexual reproduction,certain ones can create Dragon Balls,and can fuse with each other without the need of the dance or earrings. Androids -> Unlimited stamina,that's all I know that is special to this group. Frost Demons -> With a few of them being prodigies,I'm not sure what is special to them other than they're probably really hard to kill considering Freeza was sliced up by his own attack,and was still clinging on after the explosion of Namek. Sooo...what do Humans bring to the table?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Humans have technique. Humans came up with: - Kamehameha, which seems to be consistently more powerful than equivalent energy blasts in the series - Solar Flare, which consistently wins fights - Sensing Energy, something that was thought to be impossible without a scouter by the Freeza organization. - Kienzan, which allowed someone like Krillin to actually injure Freeza. - Mafuba, which came up again in the DB Super. - Shin Kikoho: which allowed Tien to briefly match Imperfect Cell The list goes on. Earthicans are consistently some of the most creative fighters in the universe. They lack the raw power to compete with Saiyans, but human creativity combined with Saiyan brute force has made Goku, Vegeta and the rest far more powerful than they would have been without their time on earth. The only species with better technique are the Yardrat with their instant transmission, and the Kais with techniques like Kaio-Ken and Spirit Bomb.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Name change after wedding I recently got married, and I'm planning on taking my husband's surname legally, possibly with hyphenation. However I'm not sure what to do for work as I've published quite a few papers under my maiden name... BUT the maiden name is a very common name so my husband's unique surname would actually make me and my work easier to find. Also considering hyphenation, but our names sound kind of weird hyphenated.. maybe I'd get used to it though? I guess I'm just wondering what other married folks in academia have done. I realise a lot keep their maiden name legally and professionally, but I like the idea of having a family name. EDIT: I know I CAN keep publishing under my maiden name and that was my first thought, my question is more whether it could benefit me to take on a more unique surname given that there are dozens of academics with my current first & last name. My husband has suggested just keeping my maiden name for work, but I wanted the perspectives of others who've been in the same boat. Also should have been clearer in my initial post, I don't want to drop my maiden name immediately. If I take his name at all for work, I would hyphenate/double name for at least a while to maintain a connection to my older works.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant You could publish under a hyphenated name to maintain continuity between your older publications and your newer ones. And then legally change to your partner’s name for license, ss card, and all other everyday aspects of life.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Why isn't there toothpaste that's "Whitening" & "Enamel protection" & "3-in-1 plaque defence" etc. Is there actually a big difference between them all?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant So, whitening toothpaste and to a much greater extent the professional whitening treatments are pretty hard on your enamel and can damage the teeth the roots, which is the exact opposite of the enamel protection. Think of the enamel protection as something like putting polyurethane on a table and the whitening is like scrubbing it or even sanding it. Those two things don't really work together.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user I've heard it said that Eastern Philosophy, particularly Confucianism, is different in respect to the individual than that of most Western philosophy. Can someone explain this?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant One example that may explain what is meant by individualism of the west vs east could be in how ethical theories are expressed. Take which virtues are focused by, say, Plato and Aristotle, and then that of Confucius and Mencius. Plato focuses on virtues that involve oneself, such as courage or temperance, while Confucius would talk of virtue as involving others, such as filial piety or reciprocity.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user CMV: There Should Be Trade Schools For Every Major And Employers And Graduate Schools Should Take Them Seriously I honestly think college is a waste of time for several people including myself. Let's just say that one wants to be a mathematician so they major in math. Wouldn't it make sense for them to take only math classes and focus only on math instead of taking irrelevant courses. Remember their only goal is to be a mathematician it's not to be well rounded or intellectually stimulated. Yet most graduate level mathematics programs require a bachelor's degree( the overwhelming majority of whom require general education requirements). I believe for every single field there should be a trade school. The thing that irritates me about being an engineering student is that I have to take general education requirements that are not directed related to the field I want to go in. I would like for there to be a trade school specifically for the type of engineering I will do and attend that trade school only taking courses relevant to my subject area. For example, if I am 18 years old and I want to be a chemical engineer then I could go to a trade school specifically for chemical engineering and only study that subject.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant General education curricula are meant to make the student a more well-rounded individual. A basic understanding of a wide range of subjects that are not major specific not only make you a smarter, more educated person in general (the whole goal of universities), they also build invaluable soft skills like effective writing and critical thinking. Viewpoints like this are a product of our current attitude to higher education. We treat degrees like they are only job qualifications, and we act as though college were a path to a piece of paper that says you may work in this field. We don't really seem to be interested in the academic experience, the exploration of subjects we may consider impractical, the study of different topics, however briefly, that we may never have given a thought to if they were not compulsory. What we often don't realize is that those "pointless" classes are helping us to build a solid foundation on which to build a comprehensive and enriched education in whatever we choose to specialize in. Your gen. 'eds are not a waste of time -- approach them inquisitively and with an involved attitude and enjoy them. At the very least, you'll be more well-rounded, and you may even change your goals completely.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: How do we know the calorie content of food when not everything that burns is digestible? Like cellulose, it produces a lot of energy when burnt, but gives you zero energy if you eat it because humans cant digest it.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Calories are just a measurement of energy, like joules. Just because the human body can't digest and use some of those calories doesn't mean they don't exist. Calorie counts on food nutrition labels tell you the total number of calories in that food, but they don't tell you how many of those calories you'll actually digest. For example, the more processed a food is, the more calories our bodies are capable of absorbing (the processing did some of the digestion work for us). The health of your digestive system also plays a major role in how many calories your body gets from eating a food. If two people ate the exact same bag of chips, one of those people would probably absorb a few more calories from the chips than the other person, but neither would get as many as are on the label.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Why does only a pinch of salt make so many meals so much better?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Short version : Sodium draws out flavours, creating a stronger, bolder taste. Finishing salt (used after cooking) can provide a good contrast that makes accompanying flavours more pronounced. Ever try salted chocolate?<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user CMV: Ethnic/Racial diversity for its own sake is unnecessary. CONTEXT: America. I work at a small company with 10 full-time employees. I am one of 3 men, and the other 7 employees are women. All of us are white (one of the men, our CEO, is half-Asian). On our website and our other online listings wherein we have pictures of our team, we've received multiple comments and outreach demanding "more women of color" or "more ethnic diversity" in our staff. I think that that's complete bullshit. OPINION: Ethnic and Racial diversity in business for the sake of having some "people of color" is unnecessary, petty, and could even be considered racist. We shouldn't have to hire anyone based on their skin color or ethnic background because you think we're "too white." We hire people based on their skills, their ability to fit into our culture, and their personalities only. Whether or not they're white has no bearing on their hiring status. Some people in my company have gone so far as to specifically target the local university's minority groups with recruitment materials and internship openings, just to appease these online demands, and I think that's wrong. Excluding white people from even applying for certain positions is the definition of racism. Everyone should have equal opportunity to apply, interview and work with us regardless of their race. If it turns out that a new hire is white, it's because he or she had the best skill, best fits into the company culture, and has the best personality. If there was a company which was completely owned and run by black people for instance, I wouldn't demand for them to hire more white people because "it's too black," That sounds ridiculous, right? That's more than ridiculous, it's racist. Just the same, demanding that we hire more non-white people because we're "too white" is ridiculous and racist. EDIT: Our company culture, into which candidates for any position must fit: HEART. Hear (listen to your team and your customers) Enthusiasm (energy, excitement) Attitude (positivity, optimism) Relax and have fun (casual, comfortable) Tenacity (strong belief in yourself and the company's products).<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant You may be hiring people on merit in perfectly good faith, but unconscious bias is a very real thing, especially when "fitting in with the culture" is one of the criteria. Music critics played the exact same piece of music by the same women wearing different outfits gave consistently higher marks to the woman wearing a concert gown. Have you tried hiring completely blind?<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user [Wall-E] Why was the Axiom still sending out EVE units to look for plant life, if the AI had been explicitly told to give up? It's pretty obvious throughout the film that all the ship's essential functions are completely controlled by AI. The human captain is basically vestigial, he has no real power and no clue what's going on. Otto controls everything. Throughout the opening scenes, we see no evidence that humans crew members are in any way involved in the scouting missions, sending out rockets with EVE units to go look for plant life on Earth. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure the captain is the only human crew member we see in the entire film. If the process is all controlled by AI, why didn't Otto put a stop to it centuries ago?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant His orders were to look for plant life. On the other hand, his orders were to not return to Earth regardless of the results. Part of the satire in the movie was the idea of doing things 'just because'.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user What is the easiest (most "basic" structured) language on Earth?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant From a linguistic perspective, all languages are supposed to be equally complex and difficult to learn. One language only becomes harder to learn based on what languages a person has already learned, but primary language acquisition is the same regardless of which language is being learned. In the hypothetical situation of communicating with an alien species, it would be most important to find a language that used similar structure and sounds to the alien language. Edit: It can be more difficult to learn one language as a second language versus a different language, but this is all relative to what one's first language is. It would probably be easier for a French speaker to learn another romance language than it would be for a French speaker to learn Chinese. However, the ease of learning a second language does not mean that that language is intrinsically more difficult to learn than any other language. As far as primary language acquisition goes, all languages are equally easy to learn. All languages are equally complex because a higher complexity in one aspect of a language will often be met with more simplicity in another aspect of the language. People were talking about certain languages containing more conjugation than others. It is characteristic of a synthetic language to have more conjugations that add prefixes, suffixes, and affixes to a word. This makes each word more complicated, but it simplifies the structure of phrases. A lot more is said with each word. In analytical languages, there are far less prefixes, suffixes, and affixes. This simplifies the structure of each word, but it makes the structure of each phrase more complex. More words will be required in an analytical language to say the same thing than would be required in a synthetic language to construct the same phrase, but each word in the analytical language should be simpler than the words used in the synthetic language. In this way, the complexity of every language evens out. There are obviously a plethora of other ways that languages can seem simpler or more complex, but this is just one example. Linguists believe that complexity tends to be approximately the same throughout all languages.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Why are narrower tires better in the snow? Why would narrow tires that provide less contact with the ground be better than wider tires? Wouldn’t wider tires provide more contact with the ground?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Narrower tires means that cars weight is distributed to a smaller area of tire contacting the ground. So with weight staying the same and area decreasing, you are increasing the amount of pressure exerted on the ground in a given area. Also instead of just plowing through snow/ice with your tires, a thinner wheeler cuts through it instead of just pushing it.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Why can't we recycle the stuff that's sent to landfill?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant There are two reasons, both of which are applicable in many cases: 1) Things that are mixed together are more expensive to take apart. Aluminum cans are easy to recycle because they are almost pure aluminum. There is aluminum in food packaging, but it's bonded to paper, plastic, and other non-aluminum things in a way that's hard to undo. 2) Some things are not very valuable, and the energy that would be needed to process them costs more than the output of the process could be sold for (even when the cost of the landfill is included).<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Why are we not supposed to rapidly turn lights on and off?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant A lot of lights have a lifetime dependent on the cycle time. For example an incandescent light bulb have a tiny wire that heats up every time you turn the light on and produce light. But heating the wire also makes it expand which puts pressure on it which over time can cause cracks to widen and eventually go all the way though the wire and it will snap. So you only have a limited number of times you can switch on the light before it stops working. It is not true with all types of lights and electronics. You get incandescent lights which is designed for a high cycle count and modern LED lights often have no limits on cycle time. The lifetime and cycle count of a light bulb is often listed separately.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: How do dogs communicate with each other?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Body language mostly, like many animals on this planet. Some of the stuff is obvious and we all recognize: bearing teeth and ears back is aggression, wagging tails and "bowing" (head down, butt up) is happy or playful, while exposing the belly is a sign of submission, and a tail between the legs is a sign of fear. There are other things that are less obvious-licking the face/mouth is a sign of submission to the leader. Staring is a sign of distrust, while "ignoring" is a sign of trust (no need to watch you, they know you won't hurt them). Smelling eachother's butts is more of a greeting than communication. Barks/growls/whimpers/howls communicate as well, but those are almost always associated with body language.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5:What is the difference between a Shia muslim and a Sunni muslim?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Both Sunni and Shia Muslims share the most fundamental Islamic beliefs and articles of faith. The differences between these two main sub-groups within Islam initially stemmed not from spiritual differences, but political ones. Over the centuries, however, these political differences have spawned a number of varying practices and positions which have come to carry a spiritual significance. The division between Shia and Sunni dates back to the death of the Prophet Muhammad, and the question of who was to take over the leadership of the Muslim nation. Sunni Muslims agree with the position taken by many of the Prophet's companions, that the new leader should be elected from among those capable of the job. This is what was done, and the Prophet Muhammad's close friend and advisor, Abu Bakr, became the first Caliph of the Islamic nation. The word "Sunni" in Arabic comes from a word meaning "one who follows the traditions of the Prophet." On the other hand, some Muslims share the belief that leadership should have stayed within the Prophet's own family, among those specifically appointed by him, or among Imams appointed by God Himself. The Shia Muslims believe that following the Prophet Muhammad's death, leadership should have passed directly to his cousin/son-in-law, Ali bin Abu Talib. Throughout history, Shia Muslims have not recognized the authority of elected Muslim leaders, choosing instead to follow a line of Imams which they believe have been appointed by the Prophet Muhammad or God Himself. The word "Shia" in Arabic means a group or supportive party of people. The commonly-known term is shortened from the historical "Shia-t-Ali," or "the Party of Ali." They are also known as followers of "Ahl-al-Bayt" or "People of the Household" (of the Prophet). Sunni Muslims make up the majority (85%) of Muslims all over the world. Significant populations of Shia Muslims can be found in Iran and Iraq, and large minority communities in Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, and Lebanon. From this initial question of political leadership, some aspects of spiritual life have been affected and now differ between the two groups of Muslims. It is important to remember that despite these differences in opinion and practice, Shia and Sunni Muslims share the main articles of Islamic belief and are considered by most to be brethren in faith. In fact, most Muslims do not distinguish themselves by claiming membership in any particular group, but prefer to call themselves simply, "Muslims." Shia Muslims believe that the Imam is sinless by nature, and that his authority is infallible as it comes directly from God. Therefore, Shia Muslims often venerate the Imams as saints and perform pilgrimages to their tombs and shrines in the hopes of divine intercession. Sunni Muslims counter that there is no basis in Islam for a hereditary privileged class of spiritual leaders, and certainly no basis for the veneration or intercession of saints. Sunni Muslims contend that leadership of the community is not a birthright, but a trust that is earned and which may be given or taken away by the people themselves. Shia Muslims also feel animosity towards some of the companions of the Prophet Muhammad, based on their positions and actions during the early years of discord about leadership in the community. Many of these companions (Abu Bakr, Umar ibn Al Khattab, Aisha, etc.) have narrated traditions about the Prophet's life and spiritual practice. Shia Muslims reject these traditions (hadith) and do not base any of their religious practices on the testimony of these individuals. This naturally gives rise to some differences in religious practice between the two groups. These differences touch all detailed aspects of religious life: prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, etc.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: The monty hall problem<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Count the success rate for the two different options: 3 doors, prize is behind door #3 Option 1: Never Change Pick door 1 - lose Pick door 2 - lose Pick door 3 - win total success: 1/3 Option 2: Always Change (keep in mind they always open the door not containing the prize) Pick door 1, 2 is shown, switch to 3 - win Pick door 2, 1 is shown, switch to 3 - win Pick door 3, 1 or 2 is shown, switch to the other - lose total success: 2/3 Edit: Fixed odds for option 2<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Why aren't there more eye colors? Why are human eye colors so limited (when compared to the rainbow spectrum). Have we just selected for those colors or does it have to do with the actual composition of the eye?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Eye color pigments only vary from light brown to black. No green or blue pigments contribute to eye color. The variations you see in blue, green and hazel eyes are produced through not only a lack of dark pigmentation in the stroma but also the presence of Tyndall scattering, Rayleigh scattering and selective light absorption of certain biological molecules like hemoglobin - all this results in blue light being reflected more than red light. Kind of a cool optical trick. With blue eyes, the iris is pigmented and the stroma lacks pigmentation. Green eyes result from similar pigmentation in the iris but some light brown pigments in the stroma. Hazel eyes result from significant brown pigmentation in the iris’ anterior border layer and light brown pigments in the stroma. Brown eyes contain larger amounts of pigmentation (melanin) in the stroma. A lack of pigmentation in both the stroma and iris, Albinism, produces red or violet eye colors. In summation, eye color is limited because humans only have brown pigmentation. Diversity results from the brown pigmentation range (amber to black), various distributions of pigments between the stroma and iris and Tyndall scattering in the stroma. Eye color is a polygenic trait. At least six genes are known to contribute to eye color phenotypes through at least 41 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). However, the model is incomplete, because it is not yet 100% predictive.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Why does 50% volume on video and music players not sound half as loud as 100% volume? Usually if a video is too loud, 75% sounds almost the same as 100% and only at around 30% there is a noticeable difference in volume.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Human hearing is complex. For something to be perceived as twice as loud, it needs to be 10 dB louder, which is 10x power. But to be 4x louder, it's 20 dB louder which is 100 times as much power. So it really depends how the player has implemented it's volume slider. If it does it linearly, i.e if you have it at 50% it just multiplies the audio signal by 0.5, then it's be way to sensitive at one end and not enough at the other. So the volume slider should probably be linear in dB.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Why is the unemployment rate in European countries, such as UK and Germany, still so low? It currently stands at 3.9% for UK and 3.5% for Germany which seems very low considering the COVID-19 impacts.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Germany has a program called "Kurzarbeit" (short work). The way this works is that the employee receives reduced hours and the State pays 60% of the lost wages. So an employee put on 50% time would receive 80% of their typical wage. This program gives a number of benefits. * Germany doesn't have at-will employment. Firing workers is more difficult than in the US. Alternatively, getting one's company to be part of the Kurzarbeit program is quite easy. * There's no benefit to the company to lay off an employee; the company can just put them at 0 time, and the State will pay them 60% of the wage. Then, when the company is able to rev up, they can ease that person back up to 100%. * There's no downside to the employee. The employee remains in all the normal programs (healthcare, paying into pension, etc.) while still drawing a paycheck. In fact, many employees loved working a fraction of the time while receiving most of their monthly paycheck. Germany also had a larger per capita bailout program than the US did.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user What kind of damage would a collapsing space elevator do to earth? In a few anime a falling space elevator has a potential to destroy the planet but what kind of damage would it really do if the elevator was 60,000 miles high?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant A space elevator consists of three parts: the terminus up at geosynchronous orbit (or a little higher), the car that moves up and down, and the cable. The terminus wouldn't fall. It's essentially just like a satellite that orbits freely. The car that moves up and down would most likely mostly disintegrate on entering the atmosphere, in much the same way that the Space Shuttle Columbia did. In terms of effect, you can probably compare it to the meteorite that landed in Russia a while back. I think the largest risk is going to be from supersonic whiplash from the cable, which would be under tension. How that behaves depends on where it breaks.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: What makes a country a third world vs a first? Are there second world countries? ^<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant First Understand this The term "First World" refers to so called developed, capitalist, industrial countries, roughly, a bloc of countries aligned with the United States after World War II, with more or less common political and economic interests: North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia. "Second World" refers to the former communist-socialist, industrial states, (formerly the Eastern bloc, the territory and sphere of influence of the Union of Soviet Socialists Republic) today: Russia, Eastern Europe (e.g., Poland) and some of the Turk States (e.g., Kazakhstan) as well as China. "Third World" are all the other countries, today often used to roughly describe the developing countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. The term Third World includes as well capitalist (e.g., Venezuela) and communist (e.g., North Korea) countries, as very rich (e.g., Saudi Arabia) and very poor (e.g., Mali) countries. These things makes a country third world Despite everevolving definitions, the concept of the third world serves to identify countries that suffer from high infant mortality, low economic development, high levels of poverty, low utilization of natural resources, and heavy dependence on industrialized nations. These are the developing and technologically less advanced nations of Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Latin America. Third world nations tend to have economies dependent on the developed countries and are generally characterized as poor with unstable governments and having high rates of population growth, illiteracy, and disease. A key factor is the lack of a middle class — with impoverished millions in a vast lower economic class and a very small elite upper class controlling the country's wealth and resources. Most third world nations also have a very large foreign debt<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Is bone damaged or strengthened by repeated blunt impacts? Example: If I whacked my elbow/forearm up against a solid object once a day for 20 years, would the underlying bone become stronger to compensate for the impacts or would it be left in a weaker more fragile state? This is mentioned in martial arts movies frequently. Masters have trained punching trees/iron in order to develop "Iron Fists", which supposedly would be more deadly.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant laminar bone readjusts its structure in such as way as to be strongest along the direction of the force most often applied. This is why weight bearing exercise is important for long bones to calcify and strengthen longitudinally. I dont know if hitting your elbow off a wall every day is enough to cause this restructuring, and you would have to consider the soft tissue changes also - which could vary from a thickening and strengthening , to chronic inflammation, calcification or rupture if you over exerted and injured yourself.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user If a pool is on a ship and the ship is in rough waters, how do the waves in the pool mimic the waves that are hitting the ship if at all?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant The size and frequency of waves on the ocean are determined mostly by wind speed and fetch (how long the waves are exposed to the wind in the same direction). The size and speed of waves in the pool would be determined by the depth of the pool. the size by the amount of the ships pitch (or roll as the case may be). The most likely scenario is that the ships pitching will not be aligned at all with the available frequencies for a standing wave of the pool shape/depth. As the ship pitched, from the perspective of the water in the pool, the walls and floor moved up and then back down, causing a sloshing. Yes this would (to a small extent) dampen the pitch and roll of the ship. The speed of the wave across the pool will be much faster than the time between pitches of the ship Since the frequencies will be quite different, each large sloshing wave will bounce back and forth slowly decreasing in amplitude until the next sloshing event. Depending on the height of the pool walls above the water line, for a given (constant) pitch of the ship, a certain amount of water will slosh out onto the deck and then the remainder will slosh back and forth at the speed of the wave based on pool depth until the next pitch and it starts again.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user [Star Trek] Why are the main hulls of federation ships saucer shape?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant The shape of ships in Star Trek have a lot to do with keeping the warp field stable and efficient and the specific shape of ships for any given species depends on the sort of warp technology that species has. For the Federation that shape was a saucer but as their warp drives got faster they changed into ovals and arrowheads.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Euclidean vs non-Euclidean geometry<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Euclidean geometry is mathematical model that tries to capture your intuition about what would happen if you took a piece of paper that was big enough, put it on a flat surface, and started drawing circles, lines and points on it. Non-Euclidean geometry differs from this because it doesn't assume a flat surface. That's the ELI5 intuition about it anyway. Historically, how we arrived at non-Euclidean geometry was quite different story. Euclid did work with geometry around 2500 years ago, and he made five postulates that, if they were true, would be enough to talk about geometry. For example, one of them posited that if you had two points, you could draw line through those 2 points. There were 5 such postulates, but the fifth one was problematic. It basically said, if you had a line, and a point not on that line, you could draw exactly one line through that point, so that the two lines were parallel. This is called Parallel Postulate. The problem with it was, people thought it was unnecessary. It took over 2000 years of mathematical research to finally prove that Parallel Postulate was indeed needed. So what mathematicians did? Because Parallel Postulate was needed, they decided to try what happens if you don't use it. These geometries are then called non-Euclidean, because they don't use all 5 postulates by Euclid. So what happens is, you might have no parallel lines at all, or you might have way more options of parallel lines than in standard geometry. And as it turns out, you can represent these oddities simply by non-flat surface. Sphere is the standard example of a non-Euclidean geometry where there are no parallel lines; Every line meets. In this geometry, "Lines" are great circles around the sphere. One of the things that gets mentioned often is that angle sum of a triangle is not 180 degrees. You can use globe as an example: You can start at North Pole, go to the Equator, turn 90 degrees, travel one quarter of the globe, turn another 90 degrees, then travel back to North Pole, and now you have another 90 degrees left to turn. This means our triangle has angle sum of 270 degrees.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5 What is the simple chemistry behind soaps, how is it polar and non polar at the same time? Why does the formation of soap allow it to pick up different items?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant soap molecules are relatively long molecules. The arrangement of the atoms (and their electrons) leads to one end being somewhat charged (polar) and the other end non-polar. Water is polar, so the polar end of the soap tends to "stick" to water, while the other end tends to stick non-polar things like grease. When you rinse with water, the water pulls the soap with the attached greasy thing down the drain<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Why is it easier for two people to lift twice the weight together, than half individually?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant There are two different issues with lifting a heavy object: force and torque. Often with a large box, apply a force equal to the weight of the box isn't hard, but applying a torque that will keep the entire box in your hands (instead of allowing the box to tumble away from you) is harder. With one person applying a torque on each side, this issue disappears.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user [DC] [Swamp Thing] How are the Parliaments operated? Are they only organic or are there concepts like rocks?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant They are elementals, or in some cases something else uplifted into beings that are at least partially elemental. Not all concepts have a Parliament, though all Parliaments control some concept. There is, in fact, a Parliament of Stones. They control The Melt, an elemental force representing all earth and stone on Earth. The known Parliaments are: * The Parliament of Trees (controlling plant life through The Green) * The Parliament of Stones, mentioned above * The Parliament of Flames, whose domain is unnamed * The Parliament of Decay, covering The Black, also known as The Rot. Death is their domain. * The Parliament of Limbs, controlling The Red, or all animal life. * The Parliament of Waves, controlling the Clear, or The Blue, governing all aquatic life and oceanic elements * The Parliament of Vapors, controlling the White, under control of air elementals * The Parliament of Worlds, which is unique in that its members are all planets where life evolved and thrived. * There's also a newly formed Parliament of Gears, which appears to be the governing force over ideas and progress * Now that we've mentioned the Parliament of Gears, it's worth mentioning a conceptually similar group shown only in New 52: Future's End, called The Rithm, governing metal and technological elementals * Microscopic life - bacteria, amoebas, and the like - have the Divided * Fungus has The Gray, which is notable for us knowing for a fact that it does not have a Parliament associated with it<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Why are manhole covers not in the middle of a lane so car tires don't run over them?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Transportation engineer here. Usually the sewer systems under the road are much larger than you would think. Usually 10-30 ft wide. If you think of a cut-away of this underground sewer (essentially looking at it as though it's a really large pipe so you are thinking of It as a circle in cut-away view), it makes most sense to put the manhole at the top most part of the sewer (top of the circle). Now, roads get re-surfaced all the time. Curbs and lanes change due to the needs of traffic. That sewer system most likely has been there for a long time if there has always been a road there. Even in new construction, there was probably an older sewer system in place for many years. Cost wise, no way are they going to go with the hassle of relocating a manhole when they can just level it as best the can. Sometimes the contractor does a bad job with this and you get your pothole-like manholes. But relocating means a lot more engineering and subsurface work. It would be nice to do, but it's usually just not in the budget for that type of jobs. Other times during new construction, the contractor putting in the sewer and the contractor putting in the road just miss their mark slightly. Most of the time, they're given basic plan sets with only their part on it. And usually it's different contractors for different aspects. Hope this helps.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: What is happening when i stare at the same spot(usually in an already dark place) and all remaining light slowly fades?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Eyes use 2 types of receptors, one type for brightness and one type for colors (there are three distinct subtypes for colors funfact: theres a mutation where people have 4 types of color receptors - tetrachromatism) These receptors only work for a few milliseconds before the chemicals, participating in the chemical reactions that create what we call 'seeing' wear off'. They basically need to be 're-fuelled' very often. Thats why our eyeballs are allways vibrating at around 50hz - so that the same signal doesn't hit the same receptors all the time. Birds for instance don't have that - that's why they do these distinct ad hoc head movements by the way. So, long story short: Staring at the same spot causes this 'fatigue' in your brightness and color receptors. Thats why staring at a bright light and then at a white wall will leave a dark spot. And staring ata red dot and then a whit wall leaves a yellow+blue dot - red is fatigue but blue and yellow still transport signals to your brain. fun fact 2: in space the eye vibrations are stronger and faster - leading to higher view resolution.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Can your immune system create resistance against bacterial infections the same way it does viral? Say you got a bacterial chest infection and was prescribed antibiotics to treat it. Would your immune system create some kind of resistance to it if you were to come in contact with someone else who had the same infection after you'd recovered?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Got a masters degree in Biochemistry, applying to medical school currently Yes your immune system would create “resistance”. The way this is accomplished is by the immune system’s utilization of cells called B lymphocytes. These are “memory” cells that remember an antigen (a chemical marker that is specific to the bacteria behind the infection). The next time your body sees this bacteria, and it’s corresponding antigen, such as being in contact with someone else who currently has the infection, your immune response is much more robust as this is a secondary immune response and the body has already fought it. There are subtle differences in how our immune system handles viruses vs bacteria but for a layman’s understanding this antigen recognition pathway is the same for both. This at it’s core is what a vaccine is. Giving you antigens in a safe manner, thus preparing your immune cells for a significantly faster/stronger response when you’re exposed to the real thing.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user What exactly makes a tumor inoperable? I have a friend who has been fighting a glioblastoma. He was recently told by his doctors that the tumor has doubled in size to 2 inches and is inoperable, and that likely has up to 2 months to live. What exactly makes a tumor inoperable? And in a situation like this, why wouldn't you attempt the long shot at operating?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Proximity to essential anatomy. Tumors can invade and surround essential parts of the body. This particularly true of tumors within delicate areas like the brain. This is where the expertise of the oncologist and surgeons comes in. They assess each individual case and weigh the post-operative quality of life, and potential for relapse. Also, glioblastoma's are particularly invasive, and resection might cause further spread.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Who/how do horoscopes get put together each day? I have a horoscope app, everyday they come out with new and different horoscopes. Most of the time they are very specific. How do they come up with ths stuff?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant This is known as the Forer Effect. Other names are Barnum Statements and Cold Readings. So what are they? Basically, statements which are worded in a way that make you believe that they apply to you. If you were to be given horoscope paragraphs without context (zodiac sign, month) then you would assume that the statements are just as accurate. The story you will find on Wikipedia is that a psychologist named Forer once gave a personality test to his students and asked them to rate how well they thought it applied to themselves. He gave them all the exact same paragraph and they rated it highly. The eventual conclusion is that you lend credibility to the horoscope by assuming that the horoscope provider is of a good authority, and it is bolstered by you wanting to believe in the horoscopes. To answer your question directly - now that you know how these horoscopes work, you can see that it is easy enough to construct enough horoscopes and randomize them over a period of time and assign them to various signs.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Why are so many types of toothpaste advertised as “whitening” toothpastes? Shouldn’t every type of toothpaste be cleaning and whitening your teeth regardless of the type?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant "Whitening' toothpastes typically contain stronger abrasives and substances with the specific aim of attacking hard-to-break-down stains and changing color through chemical action. This is in addition to the contents of usual tooth paste, which is mostly concerned with breaking down plaque, minimizing decay, and freshening breath. This can certainly lead to an improvement of appearance, but not necessarily to the same scale if you've got significant coloring.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Why does South Africa do so much genetic sequencing of COVID viruses in comparison to other countries?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant When the AIDS epidemic struck Africa, several countries (South Africa being one of them) took that opportunity to put a substantial amount of funding into research and prevention, causing them to eventually (now) actually be a prominent force in the field of epidemiology.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5:why was the world able to come together and ban leaded gasoline and CFCs, but refuses to do much of anything about greenhouse emmisons?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Two main reasons: First, the effect of greenhouse gas emissions occurs on a longer timescale and with much less clarity on exactly what and where will be effected. Second, the things that produce greenhouse gasses are much more central to the global economy than leaded gasoline or CFCs.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user What's "real" programming in a day to day job like? I'm going to assume it's VERY different from the scope of school assignment programming but how different is it? What's an average "project" and how long do they take and what makes it so much harder/more complex than a school assignment would be?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant School assignments usually come very well specified. They tell you EXACTLY what your code is supposed to do in all cases. In the industry, a lot of times we get assignments that are at least a bit underspecified. Say you're tasked with implementing a new feature. In a well-structured organization, a UX team gives you UI mockups and a PM has refined the ticket enough to include most of the obvious use cases, but it's usually not bulletproof. Part of your job involves figuring out all of the little details. There's also the architecture of the whole codebase to consider. There might be some "quick and easy" way to hack together some new feature, but if it's violating the architecture then that's no good. You often have to do things in a slightly more verbose way that respects abstraction boundaries. And if you're working on a serious product that you hope to sell worldwide, there are all sorts of extra layers you have to work with. You can't just throw text on the screen, you have to get translations made for every language you support. You can't just throw components on the screen, you have to make sure it works on all screen sizes, and that it's properly structured and tagged so that it works with screen readers, oh and also make sure you're not using color as the only indicator of something. You can't just throw data in a database, you have to think about security. You might have to make the application behave differently in different regions due to legal issues. In short, you're almost never doing these little well-specified tricky algorithm things, you're doing things that are much simpler logically, but having to navigate the architecture of a large codebase.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user CMV: The liberal arts are an essential component of a complete college education I think that at least in the United States, the intense focus on production and materialism has elevated STEM careers to the highest echelon of desirability for people entering the workforce after receiving their degree. I don't think thing moving in this direction is adversarial to the liberal arts, however it does seem to me that students in higher education are slowly forgetting why they are important. I think Marx had it right when he said that capitalism sucks the life out of you, although I don't think that's the entirety of the picture. I think life sucks the life out of you, and an essential aspect of becoming a functional member of any society is figuring out what it is that compels you to face the day, especially when you're at your lowest. This is the role of the liberal arts, in my opinion. Everyone needs values to structure their lives and give them hope for the future, and exploring the liberal arts allows you to precisely define your values. As a sidenote, I think that young people especially are really suffering due to their intense focus on STEM to the exclusion of all else. It's been my experience that most of my more STEM inclined friends and acquaintances suffer from a tragic lack of direction, with their only definitive motivations being stable income and always being told that this is what they are "supposed" to do. This perception is probably biased due to the fact I attend a university renowned for its STEM education and career outcomes, but I'm relatively confident this attitude exists in varying degrees of severity at most large universities in the US. It's my belief that if you like stories, music or even just the abstract concept of art, then there's some meaning for you to find in the liberal arts. I don't think its anyone's responsibility to sift through thousands of years of esoteric texts if they don't want to, but I think most people would really benefit from reading that book their friend recommended to them or taking a philosophy class for their flex class one quarter because why not. It's also essential that students come to these classes assuming there's something useful for them to learn, because I know too many people who resent having to take even a single English class and only do the bare minimum to scrape by. Is is not ought, and you are lesser for neglecting your chances to find ought or denying it when you find it, and in my opinion, it does students a disservice to release them into the world without imbuing them with a sense of purpose, or at least trying to. CMV Edit: There have been some great responses in this thread, both for and against my position. I can't really say I've been swayed, but I think the discussion has been really productive and it's been valuable to hear from people who fundamentally disagree with the value I perceive in liberal arts. At this point though, a lot of the posts I'm seeing are very passionately and personally worded, and I think the discussion has shifted from the value of liberal arts in college to what purpose colleges serve and should serve. I think that conversation is really important to have and I'd value a chance to have my view changed on that issue too, so I'll try to post something about that this weekend. _____ > This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please *[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules). If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* *[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)*! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to *[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview). Happy CMVing!*<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant About 2 years worth of liberal arts classes are required for any degree though? Even math and physics degrees require all the same breadth requirements as an English degree and the vast majority of that is courses that are liberal art disciplines. In fact you only have to take 1 or 2 classes for both math and science if you’re getting a liberal arts degree, so the liberal arts people are actually less educated in STEM stuff than STEM people are educated in liberal arts stuff.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user [Star Wars] Why was the flaw with the Death Star so weak? There was a video I watched a while back that explained the significance of Luke turning off his targeting computer. Shortly before he went in Garven Dreis, one of the most veteran fighter pilots in the Rebel fleet made an approach on the thermal exhaust port and did everything right with his targeting computer on and still missed the shot. The perfect man with the perfect opportunity took his shot and whiffed; which is why Luke had to be the one to trust in the force and let it guide him to landing the shot on the thermal exhaust port. However this begs the question if the thermal exhaust port was this purposely planted weakness in the Death Star intended by it's designer to be a kill switch why couldn't even a veteran pilot nail the shot? I know he can't just make it a big unguarded vulnerability and just hope nobody notices but if the weakness was only exploitable by a Jedi he didn't even know would be there why not make it just a little more doable?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Making it more doable would increase the likelihood that the flaw would be discovered, and then easily corrected. It had to be almost impossible, or it would be found and made totally impossible.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Patents vs. copyrights vs. trademarks vs. servicemarks What's the difference between them, and why are all of them necessary as distinct concepts? I'm from the US, if there's any significant variation between countries.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Patents: You invent something new that no one else has invented and in exchange for releasing the technical details about how the invention works to the public you get exclusive right granted to you by the state to disallow would be competitors from stealing your exact idea and selling it as their own invention. Copyright: Simply put it is "a right to control the copying" of various works; a way for an author/creator of books, music, photographs, architectural drawings, etc. to prevent the plagiarism of their works. In most countries obtaining copyright status for any work is automatic and assumed, however while registration isn't needed to exercise copyright in all countries, in jurisdictions where the laws provide for registration, it serves as prima facie evidence of a valid copyright. Any author/producer can release their works under a wide array of various copyright licenses, including so called "copy-left" licenses which allow people to copy said material without asking permission so long as they attribute credit to the original creator. Trademark: A name, word, phrase, logo, symbol, design, image, or a combination of these elements that identify a business or legal entity. Infringement of trademark means that someone is taking the logo/symbol, etc. of another business and using it without permission. Servicemarks: Same as a trademark but for identifying services instead of products.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: How can communities where polygamy is common, have a large enough quantity of females when the the boy to girl ratio is around 1:1 ? I have mostly Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints and Muslim communities in my head but i know that there are plenty more that have polygamy as a part of their culture/tradition.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant These communities typically fall into one of two categories: 1) Males tend to have higher death rates than females, likely due to active armed conflict with another group 2) Most males, for one reason or another, are socially ostracized and kicked out at a young age, leaving more women than men remaining in the community.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Why do we "Weigh" things in kg,g,and mg, if grams are units of mass? If I've got some powder on a scale and it reads 40mg, is it actually calculating the weight and then dividing it by 9.8 to tell me the total mass of the powder on the scale?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant > Why do we "Weigh" things in kg,g,and mg, if grams are units of mass? We measure mass by exploiting Newton's 2nd law: F=ma. The acceleration due to earth's gravity at its surface is about 9.8 m/s^2, so we can measure an object's mass by measuring the force gravity exerts on it and then dividing by 9.8 m/s^2 (using F=ma --> m = F/a). If you know the force on earth's surface (ie weight) then you know the mass, and vice-versa. > If I've got some powder on a scale and it reads 40mg, is it actually calculating the weight and then dividing it by 9.8 to tell me the total mass of the powder on the scale? Yes.<\|im_end\|>

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