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2eft5d | What does it mean as Paul Halmos says in his Naive Set Theory that "nothing contains everything" | It simply means that there's no set that contains every possible element, and that we can't arbitrarily define any set we want.
Set theory defines objects called "sets", which are simply collections of elements. For a given set, every possible element either is or isn't in this set. So given a set and an element, we can ask whether the element is contained in the set.
How do we define sets? Well, we can define X = "The set of all positive integers". So 1, 2 and 3 are members of that set, but -1, 1/2, "cat" and "air" aren't. We can take a set X and derive a new set from it. For example, we can say Y = "every number in X that is divisible by 3", and we get that set that contains 3, 6, 9 and so on. Sets can also be members of another set: for example, we can define X to be a set that contains the set {1,2} (that is, X contains one element, which is the set that contains 1 & 2).
The question is, can we arbitrarily define any set we want? The answer is no, because that causes a paradox.
"Nothing contains everything" says that we can't define a set that contains everything. That is, a set X such that for every element E, E is a member of X. The proof is similar to Russell's Paradox: we define a new set Y to be "every element in X that doesn't contain itself". Is Y a member of X? If it is, then it means that Y doesn't contains itself. But according to the definition of Y, it means that Y does contain itself - we got ourselves a contradiction. So that means Y isn't a member of X - which contradicts the assumption that X is a set that contains everything. | d485fe76-9a27-49f4-8a5c-43f7a279ed37 |
3t7cpz | Why can't you "uncook" something? | Most of what your asking is covering the difference between a physical change and a chemical change. :
_URL_2_
_URL_1_
In short a physical change would be melting ice or cutting up a stick of butter. It's different in form but essentially the same.
Chemical changes alter the chemical composition of something so it's no longer what it was.
Cooking often involves chemical changes . other times it's just physical. Pasta can be dried out again and re cooked but a steak cannot be made raw again due to the protien structure. This page shows you the changes that happen when you cook it
_URL_0_ | fe8725e3-59ab-499f-9959-8547f3c97179 |
5ck500 | Why do Americans always cheer when they hear their hometown/state? | Psychological tribalism. You associate with a group, so attention paid to that group can be seen as attention paid to you. You may not have strong association with your city/state, but what about your local/favorite sports team? If a comedian did a set on the same day a local team was playing, wouldn't he immediately get a positive reaction by positively acknowledging that team? Doing so breaks the ice and makes the audience more receptive to his jokes | 9c7613b6-90d8-4e29-a687-02d6eb257c58 |
5itgry | Why does building a robot like the mars rover cost so much money? | Are you talking about the Curiosity rover that is said to have cost $2.5 billion?
If so, some clarification might be warranted.
NASA spread the $2.5 billion figure over eight years. The money spent went into salaries of engineers, programmers, managers, and independent contractors in over twenty states across the country. And even some from out of country.
Things like the cost of rocket to launch it to Mars are included in that total, too, which accounts for nearly a fifth of the amount alone.
If you you just divide the total cost by the number of years NASA has saved for it, you come out with about $312 million per year. This works about to approximately 1.8% of NASA’s yearly budget. That’s about $1 per year for every American.
When put into context of the federal budget, it's actually quite cheap. | 376714b5-ae3c-4fae-86e3-d863c657771f |
2aavzl | How does ticket scalping work? | You buy the tickets when they're available, and then you sell them to desperate people for a higher price than you bought them. It's a generally scummy thing to do because you're just jacking up the price for no reason. | 3b234168-9520-4345-97d4-ed989761728b |
366os1 | What is antimatter? | Just like matter is made of particles, antimatter is made of (surprise) antiparticles. Antiparticles have the same properties as their "normal" counterparts, but they have opposite charge. The antiparticle of the electron is the positron, the antiparticle of the proton is the antiproton, and the antiparticle of the neutron is the neutron itself, because its charge is 0.
Antiprotons and positrons can combine to form atoms and molecules just like regular ones, but for example they react differently to electromagnetic fields and some scientists are pondering over the question of "does antimatter fall up or down?".
We can create antimatter, because when a high energy photon travels through space, for example, it has a chance of splitting up into a pair of particles: one particles and its antiparticle. We can even create a positronium atom, which is an electron orbiting a positron. The only problem is, all of these things annihilate when they come in contact with matter and since matter is very common, especially in a particle accelerator (in which is litterally everywhere), antimatter we can create only survives a tiny fraction of a second.
EDIT: Thanks to everyone that kindly made me notice the neutron isn't its antiparticle. It was something I thought and was told but I did never do enough research to confirm it. I apologize. | 944698dd-da05-440b-a2ca-da52ac49ec1c |
1yh2mw | What's the difference between Meth and Adderall? | [Aderall](_URL_0_) is a mix of different types of amphetamine salts and methamphetamine is another type of amphetamine (not present in Aderall).
There is a difference in their chemical structure and how fast they work. What's in Aderall works a *lot* slower than methamphetamine which has a way of fastly working its way past the blood-brain barrier (the fluids in your brain isn't directly connected to your blood system so "stuff" that needs to get in has to past this "barrier"). | a01bf7bc-a932-4519-80db-012b41ab211f |
3pbpw7 | Why can't we use physical tests to detect mental illness? | We don't understand the brain nearly as well as we understand the circulatory system, though for some mental illnesses we are starting to be able to detect them with brain imaging technology. For instance, Schizophrenia.
_URL_0_ | 2d784c9b-36e1-4a9a-a0d9-c3d7d25a9ac5 |
4rmfvd | What makes the japanese market so different from the western one? Why japan has all these special edition albums, games, mangas, electronics, gadgets that are never released elsewhere? | High import taxes force them to produce their own version for domestic market only. Plus, despite their efforts, they're fairly English illiterate so internationalized marketing doesn't work quite well there and needs to be localized heavily. Being a cultural galapagos also means they have unique tastes and demands unlike the western world which is more or less homogenized either being America-centric or Euro-centric. | 15ae6046-b079-4567-96ce-2bfcfd42dd7c |
6hwpo3 | What makes debts you owe be removed / halved in what you originally owe from Debt Collectors? | Often times the original company you owe the money to, sells the debt for less than the original and writes it off as a business loss. For some businesses this is a better choice then spending money trying to collect the debt from you. The company that buys it will try and get you to pay them more than what they paid for it, but that is often less than the original debt.
Other times, if the company doesn't active try to collect the debt for a certain period of time, the debt is cancelled. You no longer owe the money to the company. However, be careful, because the federal government considers cancelled debt as income and will tax you on it. | 10838cbf-56cf-42aa-8487-e1e812bca488 |
2dhiml | What are trust funds and how do they work? | Basically money that someone invests for some specific purpose or persons.
A rich dude will create a trust for his 3 kids, or a scholarship fund, or charity or something... the trust will then have rules on how it may be invested, and how much will be paid out, when and to who.
Many trust funds are set up to avoid taxes, and put money in limbo basically. If you just gave your daughter $50 million, the taxes are higher than if you made a trust and it paid her an allowance.
For many trusts one of the ideas is to pay out the earnings, or a portion of them, without ever depleting the trust so that it continues on indefinitely benefiting people or some charity for a long time. | 522228b4-3e50-46bd-884c-5f5c8d31a61c |
1jns18 | Why do certain "noises" (i.e., a fingernail scratching a chalkboard) irritate us so much? | Certain sounds at particular frequencies are very unpleasant to the human ear, the sound of that falls into that range. However it isn't something that effects all humans the same, some tolerate the sound more so than others or are not bothered by it at all. I fall into the category of not being bothered by it at all, the sound of folding paper however, that drives me mad. | 927ba386-915f-40a4-b18a-dec91d185493 |
2h925j | What would happen if the US Government payed off all its debt? | We would accrue new debt as we continue to borrow money to fund large scale efforts, unless the magical source of money that allowed us to pay off all our debt also funded that.
Nations aren't in debt because they can't pay their bills (at least, not always), they're in debt because it is useful to get a large sum of money now and be able to pay it off gradually, as opposed to taking a huge chunk of money out of the budget all at once. I need a car, but I also like to eat and have a place to live and drive my car to and from, so I take out a loan, rather than sinking all my money into the car, and then pay the loan back gradually while I eat and own a house. | b06c4af5-21c8-4dec-b2f1-5b249c27dcc8 |
1p29xx | What does it mean to verify permissions in a UNIX system and, if you are a grandma on a Mac, do you need to repair them? | Each file and folder in a UNIX system has a list of permissions, which are a list of rules describing "who is allowed to do what to this file".
For example, Bobby can read, modify, or delete a particular file but Charlie can only read it (won't be allowed to modify or delete it) and Danny can't even read the file.
Repairing permissions on a Mac tells the computer to scan through every file and folder looking for any odd permission settings. For example, if no users are allowed to read a file then that's strange (you'd expect at LEAST one user to be able to or else the file is useless). Or, if a file says that Frankie is allowed to edit the file but there is no users named Frankie, and so on. | 6703ab0c-859b-4e30-ab1d-6402a33e2e4c |
3heiq4 | What is the purpose of electric motion detecting hand towel dispensers in public restrooms when we have cheap, mechanical, spring loaded dispensers which have no circuitry and always work? | It's a hygiene thing too, I think. It means you don't have to touch the handle on the towel dispenser, which might conceivably be contaminated with someone else's fecal matter. | 696f4ba3-98cb-428a-a6e9-a3ba440a8edd |
4390pq | Why are programs allowed to use 100% CPU ? | We bought the CPU to be used, not to sit idle. If one program wants all of the CPU and no other programs want any, why would the program that wants it not be given it?
The CPU doesn't have inertia. If someone else comes along and asks for CPU, it can be taken away from the first process in a tiny fraction of a second. | a3eef269-505b-46e2-a3e6-2f3c20b5c0a5 |
6vbahv | why do bombs and missiles explode in the air above their target? Instead of hitting the ground/target and exploding? | In an impact detonation (bomb that explodes when it hits something), that "something" absorbs most of the force of the impact. If it is the ground, a majority of that force is transferred into the ground and some of it is reflected back up into the air (think of a ball bouncing off the ground, it bounces back in the air at a very similar angle that it impacted the ground). For harder targets where you want to concentrate the force in a smaller area, this is the technique you want to use.
In an air burst bomb (using either a timed fuse or a radar proximity fuse) the shockwave travels toward the ground, is reflected by the ground, similarly to the ball theory and meets with more shockwave. The meeting of this ground reflected shockwave and the Air shockwave change the direction of travel of both and causes them to run parallel with the ground. This amplifies and shockwave and pushes it outward, away from the central point of detonation with more force.
Fragmentation damage is an effect in both cases. In impact detonation the frag is reflected upward and out from the ground (since it impacted the ground first) and is slowed somewhat by the contact with the ground. This is the desired effect for harder targets. In an air burst the frag pattern is directed toward the ground with more force (initially) and then pushed outward by the outward directed shockwave. This is more desired for softer targets (vehicles, radars, personnel).
Alternatively in a delay burst, the weapon impacts first and then a set time delay is executed prior to fuse actuation. This allows the velocity of the weapon to penetrate harder targets so that it may detonate inside the target. This is useful for concrete, buildings (sometimes depending on construction), armored targets (depending on the weapon), tunnels or bunkers.
There are caveats to each of these situations. | 248999d2-b6c2-4ad1-b86a-eedc772d0266 |
4rzbia | Is there an "absolute hot", the hottest temperature possible, or can temperature be infinitely hotter? | This is just conjecture, but as I understand, heat is a measure of the speed at which electrons are orbiting the nucleus of a given atom.
0 kelvin and this orbit stops entirely.
I hypothesize that, since as you dump more and more energy into these electrons they move faster, they'd eventually begin to approach the speed of light and it becomes more and more ineffective to apply more energy. When the speed of the electrons is *c*, it will take infinite energy to make them move any faster. And there's you hard limit on temperature.
As far a what temperature this would be in degrees, there's probably some conversion for an electrons feet per second to degrees fahrenheit. | 3b7b56de-200c-4c33-a27d-437f5e9a32c0 |
64e3sz | Besides cannabis, are there any objects that naturally contain THC? | Almost all living multicellular organisms produce THC as a part of the regulation of the metabolism. THC receptors are also present in all of these organisms. Species as different as the simple nematode and the mighty redwood tree all have THC receptors, and produce THC as part of their normal metabolic cycle. This is why organisms can benefit from THC therapy. Because they already have THC receptors, and the THC provided in addition to their existing levels can have thereputic effects. | 38c7eb2b-e8f6-43cb-90f2-581b99116d4e |
1s5tcf | Why do people puke when they over-exert themselves? | It's a derivative of the flight-or-fight response. When you are exercising your sympathetic nervous system starts to take over the same if you were really scared. This makes sense from an evolutionary stand point, any time you would have been running you would have been in danger. The sympathetic system diverts energy away from your digestive system and towards your muscles and heart. You don't want a full belly with a stalled digestive system when you're fleeing from a jaguar so you toss your lunch and that allows you to run faster. Since it's the same system that is in control when you exercise, you get the same response. | 3c9803e1-6ced-4059-b270-1848334d4b1a |
4cklal | The Russian military's current capabilities | In terms of what? They are (arguably) the second most powerful nation on earth. WAY behind the US of course but still significantly powerful.
The real trouble is that they are fully geared up to fight wars of 40 years ago.. They have lots of tanks, aircraft and ships but not much by way of stealth abilities (more than other nations, but nothing like the US).
If you want a more detailed list, check out this website _URL_0_
But none of that includes nuclear abilities. Russia has missiles that can hit any place on the globe. Russia has subs that carry nuclear ICBMs and can be launched from anywhere on the globe. Once a nation gets to that point, it really does not matter what their other military abilities are. They have the power to destroy the world if they want, so we don't engage in open warfare with them. | d50be10a-5fdf-4ba5-950e-7e0fb023f06a |
2p8ejo | How do G force suits work? | The compress the body in an attempt to keep the blood from leaving your head, which is what causes blackouts at high Gs. | e2b07564-f286-4349-b110-6b355628f8c6 |
6ptsv2 | How does fostering kids work? | You sign up. Social services does some routine investigations to qualify or disqualify you. Then then place a child with you...and you get a monthly stipend of $600-800/mo plus some amount of foodstamps to feed the kid.
Theres a caseworker assigned to you that has waaay too many foster kids to pay proper attention to each case. When theres a complaint or problem they respond and evaluate whether there is an actionable issue or not.
Abuse happens sure. BUT most foster parents take good care of the kids they foster. Most kids in foster care are a lot better off than they would be in group homes. Like anything you hear more about the failures and flaws than the success stories. | ee18cafb-fe8c-4d95-91c9-005f05cdf798 |
ytorp | The different "grades" of gas, and how much it really matters. | In one part of how a car engine works, a piston squeezes a mixture of gasoline and air, then a spark plug sets it on fire at a precise time.
But squeezing that mixture makes it hot, and sometimes it can make it *so* hot that it catches fire before the right time. This can push the engine backward, hurts your gas mileage, and wears out the engine too soon. It's called knocking, or engine knock. It's most common in sports cars, where, to get a little bit more power when the engine is working right, it's designed to squeeze the gasoline-air mixture more tightly than other engines do.
Now, gasoline is made up mainly of two kinds of stuff: hexane and octane. Fuels with more octane can get squeezed into less space, at higher temperatures, before they catch fire. So if you have a car with a **high compression ratio** (that means a car that squeezes the gasoline-air mixture more than usual), you need to use a high-octane gasoline, or else your engine might knock, which could hurt the engine.
If you don't have a car with a high compression ratio, you probably don't need to worry about engine knock: your engine doesn't squeeze hard enough for the difference to be important. So you can use lower-octane gasoline. | 0beafd47-e001-404d-8134-d5aa1ccb59f7 |
2pdht3 | Why did they need to close the airspace over Sydney because of the current hostage situation? | It happens all the time during critical incidents. Usually the goal is to keep media aircraft back so they do not interfere with law enforcement operations. | 0a4c6975-1e44-4938-9b1e-b23cd99c8a3d |
6z2c28 | What are the potential health risks to humans of pervasive plastic contamination? | Plastic filaments and particles can interact with receptors on the outside of cells, and can freely enter cells by moving through the fatty cell membrane to disrupt processes inside the cell. The downstream effects are poorly understood, and could be anything from nothing, to interfering with hormone cycles and metabolism, to causing cell death, or to affecting DNA replication and repair, depending on the type and size of the plastic particle. Here's an NIH article on how they (and other substances like drugs) can affect your hormones (endocrine system): _URL_0_ | f1edfe7e-dcc1-43a0-9ae4-1a3df3e23f1b |
1jt5kr | Why is stock only traded 6hrs/day, 30hrs/week? | In general, limited hours help the market remain stable. | 3a380882-3156-4f74-a937-c68e220636b5 |
32ib0o | do workout supplements (such as pre-workout that claims to increase the ability of your blood to deliver oxygen to muscles) actually work, and if so what actually happens to your body? | Somewhat. They work by increasing levels of nitric oxide in the body, which regulates blood pressure by relaxing the blood vessels. You can't supplement nitric oxide directly, but two amino acids, L-arginine and L-citrulline, cause the body to produce it. While L-arginine is a popular product, it is poorly absorbed by the body, so L-citrulline is the better choice of the two. | 50c4e20c-8863-4747-b143-3ebb843365ab |
3sysqk | What causes stains to become permanent? | Color compounds are usually fairly large molecules, and the fabrics in your clothes are made of even larger polymer chains. Big molecules like this can interact [non-covalently](_URL_0_) (so no chemical bonds, just atoms sticking to each other through Van der Waals forces, charge groups, and other weak forces). Non-covalent interactions can add up to be pretty strong, but also are reversible. Detergent in particular is very good and inserting itself between the molecules and removing their attraction for each other. But the longer you let the staining molecules sit around and the hotter you get them, the better the chances are that the colored compounds covalently bond them to the fabric. At that point, there isn't anything that can break the bond that wouldn't also break the bonds of the fabric in general. | f5b0c5ce-32da-4174-b1c1-6461c855953e |
90xp4f | If sound is typically vibration travelling through air, how can I hear someone through a wall. | Wall vibrates too, but less than air, then transers the vibrations to air around you
Edit: grammar | e59c0139-8425-4bf8-9847-6b4df43c1199 |
6rlj23 | Why does the Violin (or any of it's kind) sounds so compressed when played inside a car, and sounds normal when played in any room? | Most instruments, really anything that makes sound will be like that, even clapping your hands. It's all about acoustics, basically how the sound bounces off the walls and back to you. An orchestra sounds gorgeous in a large and well-designed room because the sound bounces off the walls again and again, surrounding you and lingering in an echo. In a smaller room with "softer" walls, the sound is cut off quicker because you're not hearing it from much other than the source. Try clapping and yelling in a car or a band practice room at a school vs a really big room, especially with stone walls, and listen for the same difference. | bb13e8fc-3cd3-416f-bb2e-cadc589a806d |
3b63w8 | What was building 7? Why do conspiracy theorists use it as an example? what is the "real explanation" behind its collapse? What do the theorists think happened? | The World Trade Center was a complex of seven buildings. The twin towers were 1 WTC and 2 WTC. Four other buildings were on the same block, and 7 WTC was across the street.
While only the twin towers were struck by planes, their collapse caused substantial, irreperable damage to all the other buildings part of the WTC, and other neighboring buildings as well. 3 WTC immediately collapsed from the twin towers essentially falling on it. Same thing happened to a church across the street. Debris that struck 7 WTC didn't cause it to collapse immediately, but started fires that weakened the building, causing it to collapse later that day.
Conspiracy theorists think that, because the building was across the street from the WTC and its collapse wasn't *directly* caused by the collapse of the twin towers, that its collapse must have been a controlled demolition. They add to this that the building had offices of the SEC and Secret Service, theorizing that someone wanted to set back investigations into potential financial wrongdoing. | 5a9b0489-db78-4b52-9658-17014c889845 |
5e58ey | How come my face becomes numb after eating a persimmon? | This is not typical. Is it possible you are allergic? | 5514ea94-9566-451e-805c-74ef16f7e9c9 |
3zh2y4 | Why does bacon sometimes get that green shimmer? | Are you talking the same [shimmering color sometimes seen on roast beef?](_URL_0_) | d57dbca1-f513-4234-929b-7b85c90e8f99 |
4jtrxr | Why do we pronounce "colonel" as "curnel/kernal?" | The same reason we in Britain pronounce "Lieutenant" as "Leftenant". That's the way the word was said when we stole it off the French. | c0ddc24e-3201-4b2c-a2b4-ec51c0720f20 |
ucc6w | Karl Marx's Manifesto | The communist manifesto was a short pamphlet authored by Marx and his colleague Friedrich Engels. It briefly summarized key concepts of communism, outlined the differences between communism and socialism, and pointed out the flaws with contemporary capitalist societies.
The most important ideas put forth by the manifesto were the concepts of the proletariat (working class) struggling against the bourgeois (ruling class), and this struggle would most likely result in socialist revolution, and eventually communist revolution. The pamphlet also put forth a list of ideological "demands", in essence, suggestions for how societies could adapt more communist and socialist policy.
While the communist manifesto has earned a reputation as Marx's most prolific document, it was by no means his most exhaustive and those seeking further education on the ideals of communism and socialism should read his other works. | 9a423e8a-04f3-456b-af50-fa5c1e4ed18c |
2rz6mx | Why is it that people from the United States call themselves American when they aren't the only country located on the north and south continents? | Seriously? Nobody knows?
**For historical reasons**. The same way British people still call themselves English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish despite living in a single country for ages.
United States declared its independence in 1776 as 13 independent *American States* (the name used) and passed the constitution in 1787. At that time there was British land to the north instead of Canada and Spanish land to the south and west instead of Mexico. Mexico won its independence in [1821](_URL_2_) but they spoke Spanish and their "native" land was not "America" but "Mexico". Canada has been a whole bunch of British colonies and unorganized territories until 1870s when [Canadian Confederation was created](_URL_1_). And here are the historical roots for the name of [Canada](_URL_0_). You have to understand that the colonies worked as extension of the country. France in the colonial age for example consisted of the original country in Europe and Algeria and Morocco in North Africa. If you went to Canada you were still in Britain (British Empire) and the local name for the region was just like moving from Essex to Lancastershire. Similarly Spain - you can call the land what you want but the name of the *country* over there is still "Spain".
At the same time the colonists in New England and other British colonies in America were thinking about the idea of being somewhat separate for a couple of decades. The American revolution really started somewhere around 1750s or 1760s and only culminated in 1776 and through that time one of the most important notions was that while they might refer to "Rights of Englishmen" (because of legal traditions) they did not consider themselves as "British" but "American".
So by the time people started really thinking that it is weird that citizens of a *country* in just one of the American continents are calling themselves "American" it became part of the habit and language. By the way it really happened with the turn of the XIX and XX century when there was no more free territory (the wild west) to go to and the distinction between the North and the South ( which was fairly obivious either before the war and for a couple of decades into the reconstruction) vanished.
It is only now that there are plenty of countries on both continents that it seems to be a weird thing. | 862f38ad-dbcd-49da-9384-80c45557806e |
10lmph | How do babies learn to talk? What process does their brain go through? | There are different perspectives and competing theories on this, and each has it's own level of detail. Here's what I think, but it's probably not the accepted version, and it's not really ELi5!
The brain is a **pattern matcher**. It goes through data and isolates *similarities* from differences to create saved patterns. These patterns are used to identify what things are and to create further patterns. Patterns start simple, but eventually become complex chains of "commonalities", and ideas, memories and the words of language.
First, the baby has sensations of sound amongst silence. Initially, all the sensations of sound are meaningless, but the baby learns to distinguish when there is sound versus when there is not.
Then the baby learns to differentiate different types, or characteristics of sounds - high, low, loud, soft, pure tones, harsh tones, staccato sounds, rising sounds, falling sounds - perhaps thousands or more characterisics.
And then baby "associates" (creates larger *united* patterns) those characterisics of sounds with *previous or concurrent or resulting events*: Such as: with *feelings*, firstly just pain or pleasure and later feelings such as surprise, fear, happiness, comfort, joy, indifference, important, unimportant etc. Such as: with *visual* objects/events, you, people, a moving chair, a dog etc. Such as: *smell and taste* events etc. And alot more.
At some point, the gabble of speech has been differentiated from all non-speech sounds, as being human made, as being producable by the baby, as having an effect on people's actions.
This is further differentiated into smaller units of similarity - angry speech, comforting speech, loving speech, fearful speech.
At this stage, a mum can say "I love you I love you I love you!" or "googoogaagaa buby wuby" *in the same voice/tone* and the baby will understand the *meaning* and implication of the tones to be the same, even if the individual words are still meaningless.
Eventually, patterns are found in phrases and sound shapes and sllyables, in other people's voices and in the babies own produced sounds and results of those sounds. The baby isolates individual words and their meanings.
I believe there is a stage now where the baby understands what words and sentences mean by listening only - but can't yet physically produce the right sounds to speak back. I've heard that some parents, at this stage, teach the baby hand-sign language (!) to communicate, until he/she can speak!
When speech is being produced, you'll notice all the funny "mistakes" the kid makes in grammar and pronunciation as he/she tries to put new ideas together for the first time. Some of these "mistakes" may make a lot of logical sense according to the *underlying* patterns the kid has already aquired - and often it is the illogical customs and inconsistent exceptions of English that's the problem!
**TLDR:** Spoken Words are but leaves on a Tree with twigs and branches, and trunks and roots, that go down deep. | 6273b20e-b20d-41bd-a1e8-b762f3540157 |
2o8jk8 | Why am I "Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law", but only found "not guilty" and not "innocent"? | You (and your lawyer) are under no obligation to prove your innocence, nor your "not-guilty mess." The onus (burden) is on the prosecution to prove that you are guilty, and your job is to refute their accusations and show, if possible, that they can't be true.
That's what presumption of innocence means. If nobody shows that you're guilty, then there's no reason to believe guilt; you're "not guilty." The prosecution has to prove you are guilty well enough that you can't poke holes in their accusations, otherwise we default to our presumption. | 95c480a8-257e-4c03-8e4d-03ef2f92b543 |
699qsq | Why is reading good for the brain? | I can think of two important reasons. First reading and comprehension increases vocabulary and your understanding of language. Second is what you learn from the material. Even fiction can train your brain to make connections or think in ways that you hadn't before. | 588772ab-9884-49f5-9c9f-f5d46dbcbd07 |
1ldo2v | What is revisionist history and why is it bad? | Revisionist history is when somebody has an idea he or she wants to support and then goes back and reinterprets historical events to create that support, sometimes interpreting events to mean the opposite of what an objective analysis would conclude. | 71fe4512-7217-4fea-9f6e-675632cdde75 |
2o6j0m | Why do we call Earths moon "The Moon", when every other moon in the solar system have their own separate name? | We started calling it the moon before we had discovered what a moon really was, or that other planets had their own moons. | ed5b4b84-f332-4bda-a5d4-cd59a61b32be |
1sbxl2 | Why do countries have different voltage for appliances ? | First, I believe you mistyped and meant 120/240v in the US.
There is a trade-off between voltage and power lost due to resistance. Very few things in your house use even 120v, so why so much voltage?
First you need to know some simple concepts about electricity. For a certain amount of power running through a wire, you can increase the current by decreasing the voltage and vice vera, according to this formula:
Power= Voltage * Current
So if I have a cable with 120v at 2 amps of current, and another line with 240v at 1 amp, those two cables are carrying the same amount of electricity. It's like two streams, one is twice as wide as the other, but the thinner one is twice as fast.
So why choose one over the other? This brings us to our last electrical concept: The power lost to heat from the resistance of the wire we use is based on the CURRENT only. The more current, the more energy lost to heat caused by the resistance of the conductor.
Now the reason we use high-power lines is clear, transporting electricity at high voltages and stepping the voltage down close to where it is used is more efficient.
In the end the precise voltages you use are arbitrary, as Mr. JelloTree said, but once you commit, you can bet a power network isn't going to want to change, as there are massive economies of scale in keeping components standard. | 0d7accd4-9dbe-4eae-bc24-387e86e79dad |
3x6zjt | Why and how is the middle east in such chaos in the past decades? | There are a lot of different reasons and a lot of different factors for the state of basically anything. You can't really boil it down to one thing, but it's worth trying I guess. History and all its political, cultural, geographical, and economic factors play a role in the way things are today.
I'm not a MENA history scholar or anything, but I'm fairly well-read because I like it and my BA involved a lot of classes on Islam and the Middle East. I'll just put down a couple bullets point with things I think you should look at:
* The break-up of the Ottoman Empire demolished government systems that held much of the region together. For centuries, the Ottoman Empire was the main political body holding most Arab countries together. Life certainly wasn't perfect for religious and ethnic non-Turks during this time, but there was a unified governing system, some autonomy on the local level, and relative stability. After WWI, the Allies, particularly Britain and France divided the Empire's territories among themselves and did away with the previous governing structures.
* Britain and France divided the Middle East into made-up states that paid no attention to ethnic or religious boundaries. Honestly, no one knows what would have happened otherwise, but a lot of countries (Iraq and Syria are perfect examples) don't have the ethnic/religious unity that they have in a lot of European nation-states.
* Decolonization in the 2nd half of the 20th Century left weak, illiberal, and corrupt states with little legitimacy.
* During the Cold War, the US and its allies and the USSR and its allies flooded the region with weapons and play allowed kinds of political games to exert influence. Popular movements and dictators tried all sorts of ideologies - secular-authoritarian-pan-Arab dictators came to power.
* In the 1970s and 1980s, Islamism as a modern political ideology jumped onto the scene in Shia Iran and found its Sunni manifestations in different movements (like the Muslim brotherhood) in most Arab countries. So the scene's been set for brutal authoritarian, but secular dictators versus Islamist movements, both violent and not-so.
* Israel... There's a lot to write about, lots of competing narratives, but you cannot displace hundreds of thousands of people, implement an entirely new form of government, and not destabilize the region. Add Arab-nationalism and Muslim identity politics, and it's a big issue everywhere.
* The 2003 invasion of Iraq basically opened the can of worms we're seeing now in Iraq and Syria.
Sorry my explanations got shorter and shorter. I'm a bit tired of typing. *A Peace to End All Peace* is a great account of the break up of the Ottoman Empire and how much outside meddling contributed to the destabilization of the Middle East. William Easterly has a great chapter about it in his book called *White Man's Burden* as well. Vali Nasr writes a lot of cool things about the region. James L. Gelvin as well. I'm mentioning the authors because you can find accessible interviews and stuff on Youtube. | 9e4e8df2-ec6f-4a8f-ab9f-cb431f7df43d |
49zs5l | Why is it my jaw (below the ear) hurts after I blow up a balloon that's tough to inflate? | The eustachian tube is what is hurting; it was stretched by the air pressure used to inflate the balloon, and is sore.
The reason it feels like it is coming from your jaw below the ear, is a phenomenon called *referred pain*. The same nerve branch that brings pain signals to your brain from your jaw, there, is the same branch that brings pain signals from your eustachian tube. The eustachian tube is so rarely in pain that the brain never learned to differentiate between the two sources, and so interprets pain from it, as being pain from your jaw instead.
Referred pain happens often, usually in cases of sinus pain, toothaches, and abdominal pain. It can also happen in heart attacks, where the person experiencing the heart attack feels pain in their left arm instead of their chest. | 551580d3-e8f3-453f-9699-8b6ba4c9eead |
32zvm8 | How are people identified by their dental records? | Everyone's teeth and jaws are different, like everyone has a different fingerprint. And dental work like fillings, caps, etc, and their placement make dental structures even more unique.
I have taken college courses in basic forensic techniques, but I'm not a forensic scientist, so I can't tell you *exactly* how someone is identified using this method. I believe it involves matching their jaws and teeth to the most recent dental x-rays available.
In your story, I would imagine that they have records of who was on the train, and who survived. This narrows down the list of people that could possibly be left. Even if only a partial match was possible using dental records, they'd have a relatively small number of records to check against and no one else's teeth in that small group of possible people would match. It would take a ridiculous sample size for there to be the possibility of two close matches. | e2a275d8-34c0-4f71-ad2c-fe96416db0c6 |
4d7l6t | How did Seth Bling manage this code injection in Super Mario World? | Start with: Computers are (to oversimplify) really complicated calculators. This also goes for video game consoles (and their emulators)
Video games (like all programs) are ultimately really complicated calculations.
In order to reduce the load on a computer's ability to perform the "calculations" (aka reduce lag when playing the game and save space on whatever storage media the game is on), corners are cut in the amount of space for calculations.
You can think of thi
s as limiting each l
ine of a paragraph t
o 20 characters.
Any overflow from one line juts down to the line that follows it.
Playing the video game by performing very specific and well-timed actions can cause a value (an object's identifier in the code, the time registered by the game at that specific point of time, the vertical and horizontal location of a very specific object on a screen, etc.) to be copied or forced into the next line. **This is code injection**.
Every program will have its own tolerance for code injection. Seth Bling (and those like him) enjoy finding and exploiting the possible outcomes of code injection. | 5bba90ef-bf2e-4e10-b145-6dd10ad94655 |
1xmd16 | Why is it Creationists disbelieve in evolution? More so, is there something in the bible that disputes evolution? Could God not have "created" evolution? | If one believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible, then there's really no room for evolution.
It is certainly possible to believe in evolution and God, if you don't take a literal view of Genesis.
The theory of evolution involves random mutations that were beneficial and therefore bred true in offspring. Someone who believes in a higher power may see the hand of God where traditional science sees chance. | 43ef7a01-dc91-41dc-ab53-4b8a5216a174 |
3sekb6 | Why are the republican/democrat debates called debates? There's hardly any debating going on. | They're mostly called debates to lend some gravitas to the situation.
What they are these days, however, is joint press conferences.
It would be nice to have actual debates, but that would require politicians who are willing and able to think on their feet, and argue in defense of a position, rather than requiring an army of writers to create pre-prepared statements for them to memorize.
There aren't many who are willing or able to do that. | 64b377fa-a458-44d4-8179-ef927debf0e3 |
11kmxb | How come I'm not related to people that have the same last name as me? | Last names didn't always exist. So when they did start existing, sometimes unrelated people chose the same last name. (It's also been long enough since the development of last names that you might be related really far back.) | 733a2de6-1575-45de-8f60-f20596c78070 |
8r8h7k | If you melt a penny or rip up a dollar, are you combating inflation, since that cash is no longer in circulation? or is inflation less straightforward? | Yes, you are combatting inflation, but the amount of new currency that is added to the economy everyday is so massive that unless you were to orchestrate a huge money burn, you couldn’t make any sort of difference | 9ba650e2-d957-42f3-98ef-ed813edc73e2 |
2s1ja6 | I've read that quantum computers can easily break all our current security protocols. How do they do this? | Quantum computers are good at following several "paths" to a solution at once, essentially doing calculations in parallel rather than sequentially. One of the applications for this quantum superposition simultaneous search power is finding prime numbers, which is normally super difficult: if you want to find out if 277 is a prime number, you need to divide by *every* other number less than it and see if any of them go through. If I picked a number with 30 digits, it would take your computer *years* to determine whether it's prime or not.
And the difficulty of performing a prime factorization of a number is the fundamental key to the security of every modern cryptosystem. If quantum computers can efficiently factorize a prime number, then all of our most sophisticated coding mechanisms are out the window.
For an explanation of *why* prime numbers are important in cryptography, check out [my comment running through an example of RSA encryption and decryption](_URL_0_). | a03dfbdf-2425-4c22-9a3b-e0e0bc9b1ee4 |
161gle | Why is it called the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" when it's not a democracy or a republic? | Your mum wants to get you to eat some food you don't like, so instead of just calling it cabbage, she calls it delicious super tasty munchy fun time. But the cabbage is severe famine and human rights violations. | 65ce2e8f-99ae-47d0-85af-e0eb0c483b24 |
523j6d | The most popular coding languages and their uses. | Well, to begin, there are what is known as "interpreted" languages and then there are "Compiled" languages. Most scripting engines, like PHP or CSS use what is known as an "interpreted language." C, C#, C++ and other languages that the end user never really sees the source code for are called "compiled" languages. There are languages such as Python which could be either, depending on how you write and use Python. Basically, when a developer writes code they write it in a language they can understand. The programming language itself has definitions for what all of that code means, and when the computer Interprets code it basically just reads one line at a time and breaks the code into "machine code" that is, quite literally, the literal translation of what the developer wrote to something that activates the correct buses and instructions inside the CPU. Interpreting code means that the variables in the code are replaced with their corresponding values "just-in-time" before the interpreter reads them. That means that a simple script containing code is read and converted to machine code each time it is executed. By comparison, when we Compile software we are essentially taking all of those human-readable lines of code and reading them ahead of time with our compiler. Because we don't know specific variables for each time the scripts will be executed, the compiler uses placeholders and logic to create a single binary (or executable) that contains all of the machine code and libraries required to run ANY instance of that software.
So to answer your question, from my limited experience so far...
C# - Desktop / productivity / enterprise applications
C++ - Resource intensive desktop / enterprise applications.
Python - Light scripting / desktop productivity / IoT projects.
Java - Pissing off your colleagues.
PHP - Server side scripting and dynamic HTML web-servers.
HTML - Creating beautiful web pages.
XML - Creating beautiful documents using HTML syntax.
Jscript - Light client side scripting to make responsive HTML.
JQuery - Medium-duty client side scripting to make responsive HTML and complex web applications.
Angular & node - Server side scripting based on the Javascript client-side language. | 01e1edce-2c0b-4e4e-a88c-8d1489d6b636 |
12mreh | How does a computer screen work? | Your monitor has a grid of tiny little boxes called pixels (short for picture element). Each one of these can be controlled independently to display a certain color and brightness. Your computer figures out how to draw your screen by filling in each pixel and sending that information to the monitor. It does this usually around 60 times each second, so for instance, if you move your mouse, each time the screen gets re-painted, the mouse pointer is just the tiniest bit further along its path, creating an illusion of movement. | 67f71fdc-288b-4e59-932f-37324b649c1f |
13n2pp | Why is the Euro more valuable than the American Dollar? | It doesn't really matter if one number is bigger than the other number. What matters is how many Euros you get and how much stuff you can buy with a Euro. So if I have 3 Euros, but it costs me 3 Euros to buy some candy, then I have no more Euros left! But if I have $2 and it only costs $1 to buy some candy then I have a dollar left over! So even though the Euro is a bigger number, what really matters is how much stuff you can buy with that amount.
So we now know two things: How much can I buy with a euro vs how much can I buy with a USD. And we know how many dollars it costs to buy a euro.
So if I can buy a piece of candy for 3 euros or $1, and I can $2 for one Euro, then I'm much better off selling my Euros to buy dollars because that way I'll be able to get a LOT more candy.
Very smart people who run banks and businesses are aware of this, and so they trade euros for dollars all the time to the extent that the amount of stuff you can buy with euros vs the amount of stuff you can buy with dollars is in proportion to how many euros you can buy per dollar.
In the perfect world, this means that you can't just trade dollars for euros and therefore buy more stuff. But sometimes people have other reasons for buying dollars instead of euros or vice versa (e.g. if they think that one country is going to be unable to do any work then that makes the banks nervous and so they don't want that countries money).
If people have a strong reason to prefer one currency over the other that is not related to how much candy that currency can buy, then that currency is considered to be overvalued.
If a currency is significantly overvalued, it means that people are knowingly giving themselves a bad deal because they are nervous about the future of the undervalued currency.
Not quite ELI5 link here: _URL_0_ | 72ba612c-aafc-4f76-8aad-10b053167a0a |
1zih5r | How come the suit (pants, shirt, jacket, tie) became the norm for formal dressing everywhere and not something else? | After the French Revolution western men (including American men) rapidly abandoned the frilly flamboyant fashion characteristic of the Rococo era and adapted a much more conservative fashion of England. The modern suit was developed in the 19th century by an Englishman named [Beau Brummell](_URL_0_). He wore well tailored jacket, white shirt with neckcloth that eventually became a standard tie or bowtie, and fitted pants. The Great Britain also became the most powerful nation in the 19th and early 20th century, thus influenced formal attires around the world. | 57f0b802-bb21-462b-ba6c-13719fdc9053 |
11uxa3 | Student Loan Default and its consequences? | What to expect:
1. Your credit will drop like a rock. Don't expect to see it above 530 for at least 6 years, even with aggressive credit building.
2. They will call you constantly. If they can't reach you, they will call your references, until they find a way to get in touch with you. Keep in mind that it is illegal for them to say anything about your loans except to say that they are looking for you, and then only if you listed them as a reference. If you find they are contacting people they were not given permission to contact or are giving them extra information, you or the inconvenienced party can sue for damages. If the debtor decides to give up on the debt and sell it to another collector, the new collector will also make aggressive attempts to collect. Expect 5-8 month cycles of this. You will probably want to google 'Fair Debt Collection Practices Act' for your own protection.
3. You might find specific jobs might reneg on hiring you. Certain employers will look for credit scores and refuse to hire someone in default. This is because they do not like dealing with Wage Garnishings, which is a likely outcome of your situation. You will want to find out what the laws are in your state regarding Wage Garnishings as some states don't garnish for Student Loans.
4. There are certain conditions under which student loans can get discharged. If you are disabled or become disabled, filing bankruptcy with an undue hardship exception, will declare to the judge that you want him to rule on whether the student loans create an undue financial hardship. If he agrees, the loans will be discharged. It is very difficult to get one of these. There are also exceptions that depend on other conditions such as whether or not you are going to teach or be part of a Civic Service (firefighters, police, peace corps).
5. Assuming Obama gets re-elected and succeeds in student loan reform, the laws for your situation will change soon (6-18 months) in your favor.
If you should wish to fight, [this](_URL_0_) is a great resource. I wish you the best of luck. | 5196898c-6f9f-4477-9b36-fade8a0f1248 |
26ed3t | Why do many companies nowadays see tattoos as being "unprofessional"? | Because in much of modern history the people with tattoos have been people very often associated with unsavory organizations, crime, and violence. I think you can understand why companies wishing to present a professional and safe environment would shy away from hiring those with tattoos. That general attitude has been passed down, even though it may not be as applicable nowadays as it was in the past, since many people with tattoos are in no way associated with violence or crime. | 61081b50-22c5-4d03-bc3d-f4d66dd3876e |
716icg | Sleep deprivation - If you have a sleepless night and then proceed to get the recommended 7.5 hours of sleep the following days, for how long will you be in a sleep deprivation? | We just talked about this in my psychology class today. There's a case study about this guy who, as a high school student, wanted to break the record of longest number of days without sleep (which was 11 days at the time). He made it 12 days, probably with some "micro sleeps" here and there. He suffered all kinds of side effects, from headaches to irritability to hallucinations and more. When he finished, he slept about 12 hours a night for three or four nights and was right back to normal with no lasting effects and was able to go back to a regular sleep schedule. So really the idea of your body having to catch up isn't completely accurate. Your body just needs sleep in general to function properly and consolidate memories/repair itself. If you have one sleepless night you'll probably have a rough day, but if you get the recommended amount of sleep the following night you should be right back on track. | 1bddee8b-da4b-453a-b3bb-40ff0ae098a2 |
6vk4z5 | Gabriel's horn, having trouble visualizing it. | Well, you could just consider it being made of lego blocks instead. Each block with length of 1 along x-axis, first one that covers the entire horn from x=1 to x=2 would have side length of 2 * 1. Basically, you're approximating upwards, so that lego is bigger than it needs to be near x=2 but that's fine. So lego block has length 1, and two other dimensions are 2 * 1, so it has volume of 4
Next lego block from x = 2 to x = 3 would have to have side length of 2 * 1/2, so total volume 4 * 1/4 = 1.
Next lego, side length 2 * 1/3, so 4 * 1/9. The next one, 4 * 1/16.
So basically, our lego blocks have volumes 4 * 1/x^2
So volume of Gabriels horn has to be smaller than the lego blocks that contain it, which form neat series 4 * (1 + 1/4 + 1/9 + 1/16 + ...). Sum of inverses of squares is finite, so maybe that helps?(Sum of inverses of squares is pi^2 / 6) | 90209f2e-c616-44da-95c6-45054e2ecce4 |
1qsnfn | Why is cheese such a big deal to the French? | Back before refrigeration, food either went bad or had to be preserved somehow. Meat and milk would quickly go bad. France is known for its sauces as a way to cover up the rancid meat. Cheese was a way to preserve milk so it wouldn't spoil as quickly. | 293aa36c-a61a-4f62-bea5-50a9f8a554dd |
2duxkx | instead of fighting green energy, why don't coal and gas companies invest in it? | The current energy companies have every motivation to get in on "green energy ". There are just a few problems: It is more expensive to produce than traditional fossil fuels, or only effective in a few areas or times, or doesn't have the necessary capacity.
Often the only reason we see green energy is because of government subsidies. From the traditional energy companies' standpoint this is just passing a law to take money from people and give it to their competitors. As they see it they have a superior product; more powerful, more flexible, more reliable, and less expensive. If "Big Oil" could make or buy solar panels (for example) and provide electricity to their customers at a lower cost than digging up oil then they would; however greedy and sadistic you want to paint them, at least trust that they wouldn't throw money away.
Many big energy companies are accused of buying up green energy concepts and squashing them, never to be seen again. The companies want in on the next big thing early, but what they find is an inferior product that doesn't stand on its own without government intervention. They retain the tech but keep selling what the market wants: The least expensive solution. That is oil, for now. | 70695480-df27-4aa2-b3d8-34b84c92cfa6 |
4ja0qg | What exactly is sous-vide? Isn't it just boiling the food? | Here's how it works. You wrap your food in plastic and put it in a water bath set to a precise temperature. It turns out that for protein foods, it's not how long they cook that determines how done they are, but the maximum temperature reached. So sous-vide lets you control precisely whether a steak is rare, medium, or wherever *exactly* you want it.
If you want a medium rare steak, put it in water at 130F. After an hour or so that temperature will be reached all through the steak, but you can leave it in for another hour if you want and it barely changes. This makes it very flexible for cooking when you aren't quite sure when you will be serving dinner. | a8cfcc3c-1426-4825-a909-ffed479f935e |
7o28dt | How did translations of the first languages go about? | Do you mean how do peoples who speak different languages learn each other's language?
This can be done in much in the same way as the fundamentals of language are taught: lots of ad hoc sign language. You could start with the basics such as "My name is X. What is your name?" and progress to pointing at objects and giving their names. The grammatical rules can be picked up by noticing how words are ordered and how they change in various contexts, such as when referring to one object or many (singular versus plural).
EDIT: grammar | b58847b0-41eb-4166-ad1c-4eb3e5a6e068 |
3k9n3i | Why are some medications race-based? | There's sufficient genetic difference between various human races to create different reactions to certain drugs, or increase the possibility of certain reactions in certain races.
An example of one such difference is a genetic switch in some Asians that floors them completely when they have one drink because their metabolism very rapidly turns the alcohol they ingest into acetaldehyde, which is poisonous when in larger doses and gives them wicked hangovers.
Some drugs are metabolized or take effect in different ways as programmed by race-specific genetics, and that can lead to bad side-effects such as cancer or a drug that just doesn't work at all. | 09c3faf4-85e5-4388-b859-ab15fc389805 |
78v9ux | How does Publix (a grocery chain in the SE United States) make a profit when they offer so many buy one-get one (BOGO) deals? | The store doesn't fund those sales - the manufacturer does. The manufacturer then uses this marketing expense as a tax write-off.
Source: used to work in the industry. | 601e8e59-f807-4354-bb85-82b270c8c30d |
4vw43k | Why do many large companies lease their office/retail space instead of owning it? | There are a couple of reasons I can think of.
1. A lease is nearly a 100% write off as it is an expense. If a company gets a loan on the building only the interest would be a write off.
2. Buying a building with cash locks in a lot of capital to a single asset. Capital that could be used for other ways of increasing productivity.
3. Selling a building can be a long drawn out process depending on the market. So if a business decided to move they would have a difficult time scheduling that when compared to a lease where they know when the lease is up and can plan accordingly. | 5b08b4a2-0f08-48ac-9b47-5ddf354da0f2 |
320za4 | If another Winter frost hits and kills all the newly sprung animals and flowers, would they simply procreate and bloom again when it gets warmer, or would everything be dead until next Spring? | They would continue procreating when the weather warmed up for good. One frost doesn't wipe out every organism out there. If one event was capable of destroying everything none of us would be here.
Relax! Spring is coming for good, hopefully soon, and all the new plants and animals will come along with it. | a7345a36-be70-4732-be5b-2af1777ae498 |
10ah16 | If Muhammad was "just" a prophet, then why do Muslims treat his persona at a level above what modern Christians treat Jesus Christ? | You have an important misconception in your question. Jesus IS seen as God in mainstream Christianity. All mainstream Christian groups are trinitarian and agree on this point. This is core Christian doctrine.
There are only a very small number of fringe churches that are nontrinitarian, (such as the Mormons) and these are generally not considered Christian by mainstream Christianity despite their self identifying as such. Denying the divinity of Jesus = not Christian, at least as far as mainstream Christianity is concerned.
Jesus is seen as a prophet in Islam (which, like Judaism, is nontrinitarian.)
As to the fervour, I don't think it is down to the religions per se but rather cultural and external factors: the level of modernity in a society, the Enlightenment in Europe, and the acceptance of secularism in most traditionally Christian countries.
People used be executed for blasphemy in Christian countries all the time; you have no doubt heard of the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem Witch Trials, while the last person to be executed in Britain for blasphemy was as recent as the end of the seventeenth century.
In fact, if you look at the entire history of the two religions, Christianity is almost certainly far less tolerant of people having different beliefs. Islam by contrast has historically tolerated Christians and Jews and afforded them the right to worship (although notably NOT the Baha'i, who are seen as an Islamic heresy.)
TL;DR, it is because Islamic *countries* are more conservative rather than anything specifically to do with the religion. | a5acb4ad-2e91-4416-8150-679ecabb3fe1 |
29gmu0 | Why do we clap for celebration? | The truth is ... we did not evolve from apes. We evolved from Sea Lions. | 92a5c2d7-82b5-4484-9f39-ed0f674f7d4e |
1r7keo | How do you "get" depression? Do things that make life miserable alter the chemicals in our brains, are certain people more likely to be depressed? | There's a difference between regular depression and clinical depression. Everybody gets regular depression when something depressing happens.
Clinical depression is a completely different animal. It's not "oh my dog died and I'm depressed." If you are clinically depressed, it last weeks, months, even years if not treated. It causes aches and pains. It affects your life in an adverse way. You gain weight, lose your job, etc. you contemplate suicide. And above all, it happens for *no reason whatsoever.* there is no single event you can tie your depression to.
As far as how an episode starts. There is usually a trigger. Something minor or innocuous that on another day wouldn't bother you at all. But once it happens, your mind goes into overdrive. You relentlessly over analyze and second guess everything you've ever done. Over and over. You relive your most embarrassing moments and find embarrassing things about other moments too. It's sort of like one of those "oh god. Why?" Rage comic moments except it lasts for weeks and *you can't turn it off.*
Then there's the medication, which all sucks because it never makes you feel normal just "not depressed." Lexapro made me stop giving a shit about everything, including cleaning my apartment, paying my bills on time, oh and also I couldn't have an orgasm. Paxil made me way too anxious and then I got really sick after going off of it.
Now, it is possible that something could cause clinical depression. In my case it was because I was a Jehovah's Witness and it was extremely bad for my mental condition. But at the time I was a true believer and wouldn't even consider that was the cause. But I did meet the criteria medically for clinical depression. Ever since I left, I haven't needed a single pill. So I guess one cause of it could be an underlying issue the person is unwilling to address or admit it's effect. | bcab26c8-9819-4293-87cd-f25b4f92984e |
372qo6 | How can people function on only a few hours of sleep? | Polyphasic sleep is supposedly one way - I tried it a couple of times, but I suck at sleeping during the day, so it never worked out for me.
Check out the various patterns at the Wikipedia page: _URL_0_ ... I would LOVE to get the Uberman pattern going, if it actually works - look at the remark about the Dymaxion pattern, the author couldn't actually test it because his wife wouldn't let him.
As for myself, I don't sleep that much, typically between 5 and 6 hours a day. It seems to work out fine, I found that it actually helps avoiding caffeine. It may give you a boost, but long-term, it brings you down. I go several days without drinking any soda at all. If you currently have a habit, you need to shake it - that means zero caffeine for at least 7 days (it will suck during the first 24-48 hours, you'll get headaches).
One or twice a week, I typically crash and have to sleep for a few hours during the day, usually on a weekend.
It should also be mentioned that most sleep experts agree that cutting down the amount of sleep per day has a negative impact on your health. | 00ef8ff5-6b18-4b63-a25a-fc3244f024d7 |
1p9v4y | How did calendars developed thousands of years ago such as the Julian calendar keep track of time so efficiently? | Actually, they didn't get it quite right, to the point where they had to eliminate about 10 days in the fall, about 500 years ago, to correct the accumulating error.
Side note: I had an astronomy profession in college (where I learned about this) who also taught history. One of her favorite exam questions was, "What notable event occurred on Oct 12, 1523 ?" (not sure of the exact date). This was a day that never existed. | b52a7033-76b4-4030-ba66-5854ba0205bd |
2kso9a | Why is general anaesthesia so common for wisdom teeth removal, if it isn't necessary? | It varies from patient to patient. But the general rule is to try and avoid exposure to general anesthesia for ~~unnecessary~~ procedures *that do not really need GA*. It is advised to remove wisdom teeth one at a time under local anesthesia (several weeks to months apart) instead of removing them all at once which requires the patient to go under general anesthesia. Unless there are some factors that suggest removing them all at once. Like 4 badly impacted wisdom teeth (quite unlikely).
EDIT: phrasing.
EDIT 2: When I mentioned/hinted that 4 wisdom teeth removal might require general anesthesia, I did not say that it cannot be done under a local one. It really depends on the patient, how badly the teeth are impacted (depth, angle; they have grades of impaction @dental diagnostic criteria) and dental centers preference (or school of thought). | 93ff7c5c-34c0-4e4e-9863-21d4f01361e6 |
3gg9dx | Most of my money is a number in a bank database. What is there to stop a bank artificially inflating someone's number? | It is not just 1 number, it's the sum of a transaction history that is cross-referenced to the various accounts that put money in or took it out of your account. If you just made one number bigger, the whole thing wouldn't balance and that would be picked up by the auditors/accountants. | f49d326d-089b-4164-b561-d75bc39d05f6 |
6iidt3 | How can people with Down's Syndrome donate blood | Red blood cells do not have a nucleus, and therefore no DNA. Assuming that there is not a separate mutation/issue that impacts RBC production, their red blood cells would be normal. Not sure about other blood products. | c2c71ed3-9f68-4904-9d34-229edd32c9ee |
3contg | How does the Federal Government have jurisdiction on First Nation land? | Major Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. § 1153): The Major Crimes Act (enacted following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1883 Ex Parte Crow Dog decision) provides for federal criminal jurisdiction over seven major crimes when committed by Indians in Indian country. Over time, the original seven offenses have been increased to sixteen offenses currently.
Indian reservations are not their own countries (like Mexico) and operate under the US Bureau of Indian Affairs
TLDR; It depends on the crime being commited whether or not this falls under Tribal or Federal or State jurisdictions | 710ecc19-33cf-4ce8-989a-ba98805d42c7 |
1zzkkc | Why is Morrissey so popular amongst Latinos? | Latino here, In my opinion Morrissey's style of singing is very similar to Mariachi style, including song lyrics and such. Having grown up with maricahi music, listening to Morrissey just feels very similar. | 43d98497-fc88-468b-afa1-c827ccaa5293 |
2wskoq | What do physicists mean when they say space is curved? | Because spacetime behaves like it's curved by the presence of mass and energy. What does curvature mean? Let's say we have two points and we draw a straight line between them. Now let's say we want to increase the length of the line while keeping the endpoints fixed. How do we do that? We curve it so that it's no longer straight. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, so to increase the distance, we make the line no longer straight.
If you have two points in empty space, there is some distance between them. Now put the same two points near a black hole, and you'll measure the distance between the points to be larger. The way physicists interpret this is that the space in between the two points near the black hole is curved (there is a larger distance between the two fixed points).
> Why would an empty space have any shape at all either flat or curved?
A completely empty universe would just have the Minkowski metric of Special Relativity, which is globally flat. | fbfb5ee3-d51e-419e-bad6-2678dd0d9818 |
rtxs2 | Why did a law need to be passed telling federal employees that they couldn't participate in insider trading? | This is how I understand it. Can someone please fill in the details or correct me on this?
Part of the reason is because, technically, a lot of what they were doing wasn't "insider" trading. Typically, insider trading happens (e.g.) when you work for a company or are someway involved in a company and you happen to know that your company did something good, so you and your buddies buy up a bunch of stock in advance of that public knowledge. There are other ways, but basically it's when you or someone you know has knowledge "inside" of a company.
There's plenty of that that went on in Congress as well, and still will. But what was happening was that Congress itself was the "insider". It knew it was about to pass a law that, say, hurt companies X, Y, and Z. So they took that knowledge and sold their shares or "shorted" them to make a profit off this knowledge.
Technically, this didn't have anything to do with having "inside knowledge" of a company's performance, financials, etc, so it was legal. It's still wrong, though, because it gives lawmakers a financial incentive to make laws one way or another that benefit them financially. | 04f42843-7f20-4f23-86ca-24129e44fada |
5rx6og | Why do problems and stresses that don't seem like a big deal during the day suddenly seem life threatening and world ending when you wake up at 2:30 AM? | I'm not sure what 'stresses' you are taking about, but I'm going to take a guess at what you mean and work from there.
You are at your most vulnerable when you are asleep. You are effectively unconscious and many of your senses are non-responsive or at least sort of 'muted' as it were. This means that when you wake up at 2:30 in the morning because you heard a bump downstairs, or a loud howl of wind, your mind goes into overdrive because the 'threat' could be quite a lot closer due to your unconscious state. You need to be ready for a fight just in case. Your brain isn't perfect and it can sometimes relay that fear to other, non threatening but still stressful situations. | 24a5d382-b77f-4a4b-b3b7-bd04575594e3 |
64zatv | Why do we just "click" with some people? | Because our personalities relate in some manner. I figured this out by looking into it and wondering my friends were my friends. It really just came down to being weird, funny, spontaneous, talkitive and stuff like that. My brain just likes these people and gets a 'high' off of them. Sorta like a drug | 2c25043b-c587-43a9-9d53-a738e8348190 |
5rkg1u | How are mathematicians and astronomers able to predict solar and lunar eclipses thousands of years in advance? | Because it's simply a math problem involving physics equations.
Consider a math problem from your school text book where there are a pair of train tracks leading from Chicago to St. Louis which is 250 miles away. A train leave Chicago at noon going at 50 mph while at the same time a train leaves St. Louis traveling at 75 mph. Where along the route would you need to be waiting to watch the trains cross each others path (an *eclipse*) and at what time would that happen?
Solving such a problem isn't too hard, and since the planets follow a predictable path with a predictable speed too (as dictated by [Newton](_URL_0_)) you can solve for them too if you gather all the numbers about where they are and how fast they orbit. | 8a733e05-e6ee-4adf-9e3b-57029caa72de |
6c8jjo | Why do people's voices get super deep/groggy in the mornings? | I looked this up because I was curious. Basically it's gunk (phlegm?) that builds up in your throat overnight from your horizontal position, then goes away once you're upright. | 9e76e9cb-6108-430d-9d62-a7326cbff452 |
2qhooq | If every blood donation is screened for HIV, why is it dangerous to let a group with a higher rate of HIV donate blood? | Window period of HIV testing: this is the time between when you acquire HIV and when an HIV test becomes positive. If you donate blood between those two time points, that unit of blood may transmit HIV.
Imperfect testing: the tests used to screen the blood supply for communicable diseases are very good, but not perfect. A population with a higher rate of infection with a disease has a higher rate of false negative test results. Using medical terminology, I am referring to the dependence of negative predictive value on pre-test probability for a test with a given sensitivity. | 9750ec84-c8fc-447a-9452-adebcc170ef1 |
785taf | Why do we crave the cold side of the pillow? | I can only speak from my experiences, but I'm much more comfy when my ears are cold. A warm pillow makes my ears too warm. So I flip the pillow and it feels more pleasant against my ears and keeps them cool. | 251b1856-8fd2-44b8-a363-2035266f65c2 |
2hhvfy | What is actually going on inside your body when you "get the wind knocked out of you"? | Your solar plexus is a bundle of nerves. If you are hit there, the nerves are shocked for a while, and cause your diaphragm to be paralyzed. This keeps you from breathing. | 25c0f747-4135-442c-8189-857905803ac5 |
25239x | Audio vacuum tubes | Hey, one I can answer!
First off, the "information" that enters a tube is not audio, it is just an electrical signal.
The internal components of a vacuum tube are the cathode, anode, grid, and heating element. The small signal (~mv) that needs to be amplified enters the tube via the grid, which rests between the cathode and anode which are both coated with a material that encourages electron flow. The anode is positively charged with a much higher voltage than the grid, while the cathode is negatively charged. As the small signal hits the grid it creates a fluctuation in the large flow of electrons between the cathode and anode, thus amplifying the signal. The heating element is used to promote the flow of electrons, while keeping the components in a vacuum both promotes electron flow and reduces component wear to to oxidation.
Source: I build guitar amps.
tl;dr Small signal modulates big signal. | cafad586-71f4-44e8-94e4-88a33059dc90 |
x9fs1 | What if any economic impact will the Large Hadron Collider have on mankind? | It's impossible to know, but you might be surprised. Some quick examples:
1. The Internet as we know it today was the result of the work of Tim Berners-Lee, an employee of CERN, the operator of the LHC. He coupled the Internet, the largest node of which was then at CERN, with the concept of HyperText (which allows you to "mark up" and therefore create a webpage with formatting, links, etc). CERN was later the host of the world's first modern website.
2. Abstract concepts to us, like relativity, have surprising uses. As it happens, relativity is crucial to the operation of GPS, which wouldn't be accurately able to locate a device on Earth using timing signals from space without it.
3. Technology driven for one purpose can often be redirected for another. By building the LHC we've had to solve some incredibly challenging problems, the first to spring to mind being that it produces about a petabyte of data per second, which needs to be assessed and stored in real-time. That's a pants-on-head stupid amount of data, and I can't think of any such challenge that we've ever had to overcome before, and it's an interesting way of foreseeing some of the challenges we're almost certainly going to face with the growth of the Internet. | 27b56257-60a8-4b99-859b-dbd0ad889c9a |
1ygw0h | Why are Jews so made fun of? | [Here is a "Simple to Remember" explanation of the six main reasons why](_URL_0_), written by folks who have a lot of experience with this question. | ada420c3-7c47-4362-bad8-f8b5363b29b9 |
2e60x2 | How can Libertarians oppose the militarization of police forces yet ardently support the 2nd Amendment? | There is absolutely nothing at all hypocritical about the position. The difference is that police are agents of the state whose word and direction represent the will of the state. The more militarized a police force the more the state is able to control the populace. There is also NO Constitutional provision protecting the right of agents of the state to carry a firearm.
An individual, by contrast, is not an agent of the state. They are a private individual citizen with a protected Constitutional right to protect their liberty, property, and family from force whether it be from another private individual or the unjust actions of the state. | ec5468fe-1235-4ad3-be0b-9e76addcfa3b |
3joi8z | Why don't they package soda and beer the same? Like why do we have 30 racks of beer and not soda? | There *ARE* 30 packs of soda. Walmart sells them. [Here's a link for 30 cans of Diet Mt Dew](_URL_0_) If you want to see other examples you can google 30 pack of soda, thats how I found that link. | 09a178b8-2db3-49ca-9bbe-7a7644236eb5 |
1me3sf | Why is it so hard for smokers to stop smoking? | There is a lot of ritual involved in smoking and a lot of nostolgia for most people that goes beyond the physical addiction.
Many people have their work tied in mentally to cigarette breaks. The stress is the stress of that ritual being disrupted. For a smoker the smoke break is like waiting for Christmas and Christmas comes every two hours. Take that away and it becomes hard to tolerate previously tolerable things.
There is also a sort of fraternity among smokers that you loose. Many people met lots of friend over bumming, giving away cigarettes to others. Smoke breakers usually move in crowds, whether in work or in bars and it is a social network that can get you laid or advance your career (if your boss smokes, if a hot friend of a friend smokes, you get new ways too talk to them.)
Smoking is like a little present you get every day with all sorts of great memories and people attached to it. It's not just raw addiction to the drug that makes people miserable, it is loosing the habit itself.
At least for me anyway. For chain smokers it is probably different or people who can still light up when ever it is probably different. | eda0b109-d8b3-4969-8983-ec31f880e1be |
5fez62 | Why is it that I visit websites and Facebook/Google automatically know that and give me targeted ads? | When you visit websites that link to pages of interest, they send your pseudo identity and your interest profile to central ad servers. When you visit another page that has an ad spot for a remarketing ad, they pull your identity and interest profile and select those ads that are best matched to you. Your pseudoidentity is an id number that's generated and kept on your browser as a cookie. | 5d190e4d-97be-420a-9e15-33406c3538b5 |
916140 | Why do flies keep on landing on the same spot after scaring them away | Because they have very limited mental capacity. They are like a very primitive computer programm.
Find food source. Avoid fast moving thing on collision course. Breed.
They can't process that there is an entity that doesn't want them to come to a certain spot. | 41913632-bceb-402e-93f6-238261c21b1b |
4tq596 | Was there ever a "wood age"?What do we know about wooden(and other perishable) tools? | No, there was never a point in human history where we could use wooden tools but not stone tools.
The "stone age" is just a term used to describe when we used tools that were naturally occurring.
We used fire hardened spears and flint knapped with stone.
Edit- Flint knapping not flint mapping. | a29a5c8a-3db9-4992-af57-09f904c8dd57 |
304srn | The ongoing mental imagery debate. | here we go i will post what i think and say it is true, and then someone will post why what i post is wrong and then you will have the correct answer :)
one side says we use the same pathways in the brain when imagining something as we do when we actually see it.
the other side says no that is not true, we use the memory networks in our brain to remember what things look like. | 8ae75c91-39a5-4afe-9d8d-84481a469261 |
5u8dv5 | Why are death row inmates housed separately? | People care less about obeying rules when they are about to die. At this point what do they have to lose? Did Jerry over in cell D12 make a rude comment about your mother? Maybe Jerry should get stabbed 12 times with a sharpened tooth brush. What are the guards going to do about it? Kill you? lol! | 14dd509b-cf72-408d-b8fb-d713a94cb949 |
641ecb | Not so long ago thieves were mutilated for their crimes, today they can easily get off with a warning or probation. What lead to this? | Rule of law and civilization happened.
In the old days it wasn't just that violent punishments were more common, it was that violence itself was much more common than it is today.
Despite all the wars happening around the world, if you lived in the last hundred years you were less likely to die a violent death than at any other time in history.
This affects all parts of society. Not too long ago in the most civilized parts of the world it was common and normal to witness violent spectacles far worse than anything ISIS does today. Taking your kids to the town square to witness a man being gruesomely tutored to death for something that we wouldn't even consider a crime today was not out od the ordinary in medieval Europe.
Violence was much more common in those days.
What happened was that eventually the rulers managed to achieve a monopoly on violence. The process was quite bloody and violent at times but the end result meant that there was a lot less violence to go around.
Basically the government ended up saying "The only one who can kill and maim and torture and imprison people is me".
This has reduced overall violence quite a lot and let to the rise of something called a "culture of law" vs "culture of honor".
The more towards a culture of law a society is oriented the less emphasis there is on upholding personal honor as a means of keeping yourself safe. Violence goes down and even the violence committed by the state decreases.
You get fewer police shootings and draconian punishments at the price of need to cede all your rights to commit violence to the state.
The state has to defend its monopoly on violence, when that fails pockets of society end up creating their own means of keeping themselves safe.
America is far more oriented towards the honor side than for example some countries in Europe and inside the US you have a divide between place like New England and the South. You also have pockets in big cities where the people have stopped believing in the rules of law and that the police is there to help them and started to protect themselves by being violent and showing the world that they are not to be messed with.
You don't want that.
Meanwhile if you compare the damage done by thieves and robbers in places that appear to be lax on crime and value attempts at rehabilitation over vengeance, you will find that harsh punishments don't really do much to help.
Extreme punishments like hacking a thief's hand of or whipping someone in public for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person are not making society safe, they instead correlated with extremely unsafe conditions. | 5159fec1-0f1f-46e1-9269-589a486f542e |
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