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2ddz6q | How do we forget? | First let's look at how we remember things, then we'll work backwards.
Remember in class when you were asked to make a "brain storm" where you would draw a circle and write something in it? Then as you came up with more ideas you'd draw more circles, and you would connect them with lines? Memories kind of work the same way, but instead of ideas, these circles are filled with details.
So what would a brain storm for "dog" look like? Well your brainstorm would have bubbles for things like "four legs", "fur" , "tail", etc with lines connecting them. But every time you saw another dog, you would thicken these connecting lines a little bit. The thicker these lines, the stronger the memory of what a dog is. The circles in this brainstorm represent groups of neurons, each group working to represent a different detail, and the lines are the connections between these groups of neurons.
Forgetting is kind of this process in reverse, the longer you go without experiencing this memory, the thinner these lines get over time. Eventually these lines disappear entirely, and the memory is "forgotten". | b52a3646-7235-479c-8d55-7082319a2776 |
3glb2n | Why is haggling something that just doesn't happen any more? | Market efficiency in action.
Used to be if I wanted to buy something, I didn't have a lot of choices. There were no supermarkets or shopping malls, and I was pretty much stuck with wherever I was willing to walk to. If a seller was charging more than I wanted to pay, I couldn't just go somewhere else.
Luckily, the seller was stuck with me too. If they wanted to make a sale, they might not be able to count on a bunch of other people walking through the door. The only real alternative either of us had for getting a better price was to argue about it.
In addition, a lot of sellers were selling goods they made themselves, which gave them some flexibility. If you are selling something for $10 and paid $8 wholesale, you rarely will sell it for less than that. But if you paid $1 for materials and put an hour of your time into it, you still might want to sell it for $10, but selling it for $5 isn't losing money. | d7a7196c-66a8-426d-b145-87522a0c9d57 |
5ic3nx | Why are computer and calculator number pads in the opposite order of phone keypads? | The original calculator had a 1x9 column of number buttons for each digit, with 1 at the bottom and 9 at the top. To make an 8 digit calculator you had 8 "5" keys in a row.
When calculator people figured you could use one "5" key if you did numbers in order with a "0" key, they folded the 1x9 up into a 3x3 grid with a "0" (and often a ".") below it.
At that time, phone dials were rotary. Bell did a huge experiment with both formats, but only a very small fraction of society had ever used a calculator (math was done with pencils at the time). They decided on the 3x4 grid with "1 2 3" at the top because that was the pad that most people used most quickly/correctly.
Then calculators became digital, and cheap, and it was noticed that these two big systems were different. Alas, neither could agree to change. | 2cf45403-b615-4e7f-8e4b-8bea3345a61d |
5w7j1b | Why are autopsies almost always definitive? How come they can give answers when biopsies and other medical procedures can't? | Sometimes, trying to cure a living person is like working on a car while it's still running. There are a lot of limits to what can be done without being too invasive. When the car is turned off (or the person is dead) you can delve endlessly into researching the engine, taking things apart and so on without being limited to what you can do without risk. | 3089cffd-588e-412e-b537-737b66cf0647 |
22bed9 | Why do some people get incredibly grumpy when they are hungry? | It could be an effect of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). Take a look at this list of symptoms on the wiki page:
_URL_0_ | e580cabd-91b2-4bf8-bf9e-f5ffb1c6973b |
2gkttx | When was the 'first' Monday? | As pointed out there is some vagary in your question, but I'm going to go with "some time around the first century AD". This is when the Romans started to switch from the 8 day week to 7 day a week, and moved from using simple letters to denote days of the week to using celestial bodies. This is when the second day of the week was named after the moon (Monday = Moon's Day), so this seems to be the first traces of our specific version of Mondays. | 64978fab-9c96-44f7-abd8-388edc31628c |
228wjg | What should an adult do if they are being assaulted by a minor? | Flee or defend themselves.
You can defend yourself against anyone, minor or not. | 044bd877-ea6f-4e12-9755-5fa34129c5cb |
2pmvt1 | What makes the F-14 so loved and the F-35 so hated? | F-14 takes you on a highway to the danger zone F-35 will not. | 13a0a282-6815-41f0-8256-cb6b871ccbb8 |
6ol6vt | why do we feel energized after shower? | Hot showers relaxes muscles and releases oxytocin -which eases stress-. Cold showers, on the other hand, put the brain on an alert state, thus "waking" or "energizing" -as you said- the body.
I believe you refer to the latter.
EDIT: As mentioned by u/Weaponomics, cold showers also stimulate blood flow. | 5b5087cc-acdf-4bfd-8ab6-f3a86ab0abc6 |
1kkv5j | How does an Etch-a-sketch work? | The inside of an etch-a-sketch is filled with a very fine powder that clings to the transparent screen at the front, the 2 knobs direct a small stylus to scrape the powder off of the screen, allowing you to draw. By shaking it, you redistribute the powder and fully coat the front of the screen again. | 6d3227df-206e-4631-89c0-1d4a9f60335c |
11m716 | Who is the USA fighting and why? | > I'm still confused on who we are fighting.
You're not the only one. I'd bet that a good 1/3rd of the people in the US Congress aren't clear on this question either.
As with many things, there's the theory and then there's the reality.
In theory...
We're only supposed to be actively fighting the people who did 9/11. That's primarily [al Qaeda](_URL_4_), a small terrorist group that was headed up by two major people: Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. As you probably know, we (the USA) killed Osama bin Laden on May 2nd, 2011. al-Zawahiri remains alive and we think he's in charge of whatever little tattered remains of al Qaeda are left.
Secondarily we are also, in theory, fighting the [Taliban.](_URL_3_) The Taliban are Islamic fundamentalists and the de facto rulers of [the mountainous region along the border between north-west Afghanistan and Pakistan.](_URL_0_) It's actually unclear how much support the Taliban gave to al Qaeda. The two of them got along with each other, but it's hard to be certain how much they cooperated with each other or shared their plans. We basically went after the Taliban because they ruled the area where al Qaeda was. See _URL_5_
In reality...
The situation as of 2012 is that we're basically flying drone aircraft all over the aforementioned mountainous region on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. And shooting hellfire missiles at pretty much whoever we feel like, regardless if we have any real evidence they're terrorists or not. See _URL_2_ There have been a few particularly stupid fuck-ups... we've attacked weddings three or four times, killing about 40-50 people each time, including plenty of women and children. This policy of indiscriminate drone "warfare" ("slaughter of innocent civillians") started under Dubya, but Obama has continued it and even expanded it some. There are no good people in our government when it comes to this policy. Everyone who endorses it is evil. Also, they lie about it endlessly. They claim they're only killing terrorists, but the evidence is greatly against them.
Lastly: We're not really a big militarily presence in Iraq any more. But for about seven years (starting in about mid 2003, ending in about 2010) we invaded them for... well, for no reason at all actually. Dubya and his lying, scumbag cast of Neoconservative warmongers spewed pretty much continuous lies about how al Qaeda was in Iraq and Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11. In reality Saddam and Iraq never had anything to do with 9/11, [and everyone with half a brain knew at the time that it was total bullshit.](_URL_1_) But about 99% of the people in DC in 2003 were cowards and/or evil and so they supported the Iraq war anyway. And yes, I'm including both Dems and Repubs in that - there were several very prominent Democrats who supported invading Iraq.
So basically, the invasion of Iraq was predicated on on the basis of Iraq having something to do with 9/11, but that was never true. It was blatant lies. But most of the people in America are just that fucking stupid, they swallowed the whole thing hook line a sinker. You were only about 5 in 2003, so you may not remember it. But I remember it vividly... it got just a wee bit Nazi in this country in the wake of 9/11. People were looking for anyone, anywhere to kill in revenge for 9/11, and they didn't seem to care who it was. It was a sad and disheartening time to be an American with a brain. (And frankly... people haven't seemed to have gotten much smarter since. We're still pretty goddamn stupid about this stuff, in general.) | 30572e6c-6d01-47a4-9edd-96c6861a18f0 |
1p3b80 | Didn't we know there was water on Mars? | The Martian "ice" caps are actually frozen CO2, not H2O. The Curiosity rover has found H2O on Mars. | 08e4ac45-9f9a-4894-a7b7-15bcd1f31263 |
6cxgic | Why couldn't artists 500+ years ago achieve the same level of detail as artists today? | I heard it had a lot to do with the invention / discovery of the camera obscura.
This helped people understand perspective / proportions / etc better.
Here's a quick article I found about it - but there are a ton of others, videos, books, etc that talk about it in more depth.
_URL_0_ | d190efe8-eefb-429b-a076-2bdf93647b35 |
5d68js | What makes some humans generally considered more attractive than others? | It is just a tool of evolution. We are programmed to seek out optimal mates for reproducing, and we can dicern more than just physical attributes from looks. Just over 200 years ago, being obese to morbidly obese was considered very attractive, because it meant their family was wealthy and could afford to eat enough to make them fat, which was an uncommon thing at the time. It isnt even a conscious effort, our subconscious breaks down the subtle meanings and gives us either positive or negative feedback.
These days, when someone is obese or morbidly obese (this coming from a former obese man and student of Philosophy, so dont get too offended), it no longer means they are incredibly wealthy, so we do not find it attractive. On the contrary, it typically (not always) shows that they lack discipline, have difficulty setting long term goals, and struggle controlling their impulses, all traits that would effect a partner negativley when trying to reproduce and raise offspring.
The mind is a fascinating thing. | 1c819d40-871f-4f4e-8690-27a92212cd69 |
41j0m6 | Can a piece of toilet paper absorb the same amount of water after a cycle of wet-dry-wet? | Probably not. Toilet paper is designed to break up in water. I would expect the gaps in the fibers, the gaps that hold the water, would collapse as it soaks, leaving less volume for water retention after drying out. | fee07506-74ad-487a-af61-27250bfcc50a |
3nooq0 | What is the Safe Harbour agreement and how does today's ruling affect users of Facebook, etc? | Put simply, Safe Harbour in this context relates to an agreement between the EU and the USA that US companies can store EU citizens' data in the USA. Although not exclusively aimed at internet companies, they are the ones most affected because they're most likely to have users worldwide but data processing exclusively or largely in the USA.
The ruling today from the ECJ overturns the Safe Harbour concept, and says that it is now unlawful for any company to transfer data about individuals out of the EU, without that individual's explicit permission. This is likely to have a major impact on companies such as Facebook, Google, Amazon, and many others, which rely on having their global data synchronised.
Initially there will be little change for Facebook users (companies will be given a grace period to update their systems to make them compliant with the law). It's likely that in the future, Facebook and many other sites will require EU citizens to confirm that they consent to have their data sent to the USA for processing. If they won't consent to that, then they will have either a very limited functionality or maybe won't be able to use the site at all. | 711d4c52-c3f2-4e6d-a0f0-a3f73cf2c818 |
2b5vn8 | Why is it when I'm working on a programming problem, or something with numbers, when I get up and do something else away from the computer for awhile, it comes to much easier when I get back? | I'm certainly no voice on the matter, but I'd venture to say in those cases that tunnel vision is the issue. Taking a breather if you're tunneling is usually the best way to stop tunneling and get back on track. Could be completely wrong though. | 99bbcb25-5772-4204-8ec0-c6fc54bb3bc9 |
1ncnoo | Marx's Theory of the Class Struggle | Throughout history there have been two groups of people : the Haves and the Have-nots. Whether it be within feudalism or capitalism, these groups will always be in conflict because one group (capitalists) control the means of production while the other (proletariat) have to sell their labor to survive. This conflict continues and shapes society until the Have-nots create a dictatorship of the proletariat and we have a classless society.
"Your mother is so classless she could be a Marxist utopía! " | b58c5615-b135-4158-96f6-b7df9f235b7d |
35kx5c | why can I sing reasonably well in my choirboy voice but horribly out of tune in my man voice. | All I can think of is that singing in falsetto is utilizing another vocal cords than what causes the deep voice. Since they are muscles, maybe you have not trained your normal voice to sing, while the falsetto one has been chilling there, ready to sing.
Trust me, I took singing lessons for 3 years. | a3d09bcd-6613-47ac-aa61-0a6f7750ad6b |
5ql0z0 | why water completely damages a cell phone when submerged. | Electronic circuits are designed to only allow electricity to pass through certain parts at certain times. That's how your phone works.
It's a set of boolean functions (1 or 0/true or false). Electricity passes through chip, and it makes a decision such as "and/or". If it's 'and', it sends the signal one way, and if it's 'or', it sends it another way. After it does that, this step is repeated through other logic gates that have other functions that aren't and/or (not/or or any of the many other variants).
Once you submerge it into water, it doesn't follow this designed 'trail', and the phone short-circuits. Because water is conductive, the electrical signals go wherever they can, and electronics can't handle that.
To make something of a comparison; It's the same reason you get in a line when you're shopping. Imagine if all the customers just threw all their items onto the counter at the same time and talked over each other. The cashier wouldn't know what to do. That's what the submersion is. | 096410ac-174c-471e-87f1-00f8bf2dc18c |
79nhv0 | Why does coffee taste so differently after smoking? | Here you can find some interesting points. To sum it up, a tobacco really can change the taste receptors
_URL_0_ | 72d26566-24f3-413a-9ac1-513a305e779d |
3wh2yx | How can people argue for mandatory drug testing to receive government benefits? Doesnt this violate the constitution through self incrimination? Doesnt testing for BAC when pulled over also do this? | You are not legally entitled to most government benefits; you must be eligible. If not using illegal drugs is a condition for eligibility, then you can be required to prove that to obtain the benefits. That's not unconstitutional, because you're not being compelled to do anything--it is your choice to seek the benefit of the program.
Mandatory tests for intoxication without any suspicion are highly questionable, but that's a very different situation. Going about your lawful business and being required to submit to a test is not the same thing as applying for a benefit and having to submit to a test to prove eligibility. | 710f0bb4-84e4-4ff6-bb9a-6993535efced |
1gf3xh | the beef between G-Unit and Murder Inc. | Basically Ja-Rule (murder inc.) and 50-Cent (G-Unit) took slight jabs at each other, Ja-Rule calling 50 jealous because of the respect Ja has in the hood. 50 and Ja then dissed each other in a couple of songs back to back thus causing each others' groups to beef. Eminem and 50 were real close friends and Eminem talks about how he almost got involved with the beef in his song "Toy Soldiers". He didn't get involved until Ja-Rule said in a song "Em, you claim your mother's a crack head, and Kim (his wife at the time) is a known slut, so what's Hailie (his daughter) gonna be when she grows up?" And nobody talks shit about Em's daughter so Em got involved and verbally tore Ja a new asshole with his song "Nail in the Coffin" and also "Hailie's Revenge". | 33417115-8cb5-4cb3-ad5e-be955b5d1db8 |
1uvnn9 | why do computer hackers get a longer/harsher sentence than a murderer would? | Because governments are afraid of hackers. Murderers only kill people. Hackers can kill banks, defense systems, nuclear plants, expose politician's dirty secrets etc. | 3c9381ea-0c3d-42bb-88eb-091a5ec2bdce |
1sy4y5 | Since China landed on the moon I've heard talk of helium-3 mining. What are the practical applications of helium-3 and why would we need to go to the Moon to get it? | Helium-3 is used in fusion research, neutron detection, cryogenics, and medical imaging according to wikipedia.
Helum-3 is one neutron short of being normal Helium-4. Helium-3 fusion is attractive for a few reasons. First, there are no radioactive byproducts. Also it can lead to direct electrical production as opposed to using fusion to generate steam to drive a generator turbine. So it's theoretically more efficient.
Neutron detection is important for detecting radioative materials like plutonium. He3 gets colder than He4, to within a few tenths of absolute zero. If you inhale it it shows up in an MRI and can be used to image the air ways and lung passages.
The reason you need to go to the moon to get it is that it's even more rare than regular helium. Helium is light enough to escape Earth's atmosphere and float off into space. He-3 is even lighter. | 2725359b-5e1c-419f-a8f3-2c7cf71ab64f |
1tlr5m | In regards to firearms | A lot of differences between weapons are in areas that don't feature so much in games. For example the cost, the weight, the distribution of the weight, whether or not the ammo is the same as for other weapons, the weight of the ammo, how easy it is to take apart and clean, how often it requires cleaning, etc.
Even on areas which are shown in game stats (accuracy, damage) there's more or less variation than shown in games. In accuracy there's all sorts of differences between weapons that appear identical (bolt-action rifle users are always harping on about accuracy). Meanwhile, in terms of damage, in the real-world there's a lot less variation than in games, as almost any bullet (maybe not .22 rimfire) is capable of ending someone. | c9c5303b-721a-431e-9050-de6a824b5169 |
547242 | The different .txt file encodings (ANSI vs Unicode vs Unicode big endian vs UTF-8) | A text file is basically a series of bytes - numbers from 0 to 255 - and we want to interpret that as a series of characters. Let's start with a simple one-byte-per-character plan. Pretty much everyone agrees how to assign 0 to 127 to common characters like A-Z and 0-9, that's called ASCII. Various countries came up with their own ways to use 128-255 for extra characters that their language needed. ANSI generally refers to the "Western Europe" one of these mappings.
Unicode is an attempt to clear up the many incompatible one-byte encodings by giving every character a number that everyone agrees with. Mostly these are two-byte codes, 0 to 65535, though some very obscure characters are given higher numbers. "Unicode" as a text file format usually means using two bytes for each character. That's a simple way of storing these longer codes, and you just need to decide which order the two bytes for a character should stored in - this is called big-endian vs little-endian.
The main drawback is that you're using twice as much space as necessary for simple English text - almost half of the bytes will be zero because most of the numbers you're storing are under 255. UTF-8 is a way to represent the full range of Unicode characters while being backwards-compatible with ASCII. The ASCII characters 0-127 are stored as one byte just as before, and the numbers from 128-255 are used to represent higher characters. Some characters fit in two bytes, but some take three bytes. UTF-8 is more-or-less the default choice for the Internet. | dcbe5a08-22fd-481f-9d14-3ed842053943 |
1kwe3h | What would happen to a dead body in space? | It would dry out over time as the liquid boils out of it and, if left in direct sun light long enough, could probably gets some nasty burns. | 4949a4d3-39ea-472b-ab10-e5ea2c843bdd |
3gjxb1 | Why do only women wear makeup? | For a variety of reasons, through history, due to biological, cultural, economic and other factors, beauty and sexuality became of larger emphasis for women than for men and so products were made to supposedly enhance one's beauty.
Men however do wear makeup. Not as much but many men do. | 726fcb17-1a4b-41c8-b412-222550169f5f |
6g3vfi | How exactly does fat exit my body after a workout? | Fat (triglyceride) is made up of Oxygen, Hydrogen and Carbon. When 'burned', the fat is combined with Oxygen from the atmosphere to create CO2, which you exhale. About 85% of the weight you lose is exhaled as CO2.
The remaining ~15% is turned into water, which you expel in your urine. | 167303f7-48fa-49aa-b87c-ca7215d258cf |
6cova4 | Why are 7 and 13 considered lucky and unlucky respectively? | this is a cultural thing and if you travel to various parts of the world you'll find the same does not hold true for them. for instance, Chinese and Japanese consider 4 to be unlucky and not 13. The reason for that specifically, is because some of the pronunciations of 4 are similar or the same as their word for death.
13 may be considered unlucky for many reasons but a common belief is because of the christian religions "last supper" where jesus and his 12 disciples ate... judas, the one that betrayed jesus, was the 13th person to sit at the table.
7 on the other hand may be a rule of 5s type thing... i.e. people looking for certain patterns will eventually see them in just about everything. I also suspect christian religion has something to do with it though... I've heard many times how 6 (specifically 666) is supposed to be the number of the devil and so 7 which is above six, would be the number of god. | aa81bcf0-1e42-4d3c-aa9a-5a2841fcdde8 |
6r7mgz | Is it even possible to change a U.S Supreme Court ruling? | Is it possible to *change* the ruling? No. The ruling is a single event, in the past - it can't be changed.
But the decision can be overriden in a number of ways.
1) Most common - lawmakers in Congress look at the Supreme Court ruling and figure out a way to do what they want to do without violating the Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court
2) The Supreme Court decides it was wrong in the past and issues a new opinion overturning the previous decision
3) Least common - A Constitutional amendment can be passed to make it clear that issue X does or does not violate the Constitution | 45336e1b-305a-4b94-810d-490336ca20c1 |
4s9wcc | Why do individuals vomit after a concussion? | Did you know that there is a part of the brain that controls vomitting? See: _URL_0_
When the brain encounters a physical shock, it is possible that this part of the brain becomes triggered. Once that happens, nausea may occur, which sometimes leads to vomitting. Because of the triggering, the brain might be trying to eject (a non-existant) toxin from the stomach. | f6675c0e-e47e-4f67-be49-a849a2320595 |
7h3xuj | What causes an apple to have more than 1 stalk? | Photoshop or a bamboozler.
You're actually seeing the top and bottom of the Apple, it's basically an Apple with a growth problem. Op just added a stem to the butt. | a06f31a9-5eff-4522-9342-4a9da83b9a47 |
6zmd1f | Why isn't there dry human food with all the needed essentials like there is for pets? | Because we don't want it. There is no demand for it and we prefer a varied diet.
There is [soylent](_URL_0_) which is a smoothie type thing which is essentially all you need to eat. It claims to have all the nutrients, fats, calories and whatnot a human needs to be able to survive on it alone. It exists, but it isn't exactly revolutionizing the way humans eat. | 870d3efa-376e-42cd-a2b8-fbf630673629 |
2iao2r | Why is my doctor visit almost double the price when I use my copay and bill it to my insurance? | Insurance companies only pay a fraction of the billed price so it needs to be marked up. | a0337b3c-8dae-404b-b82a-7ab748b2c951 |
3bqsv7 | Why do christians focus so much on the homosexuality part of leviticus but nothing else; i.e. shell fish, tattoos, not shaving... | Christian here. The simple answer is because its an easy one to pick on and christians don't really understand the references to homosexuality that are made in the bible. (TLDR;)
First of all, this is not an all encompassing truth. As with extremists of other topics, it is always the outspoken and somewhat crazy ones that are heard.
Second, the reference to Leviticus does not apply to Christians today. It was part of the Law of Moses and that law was fulfilled by Jesus when he died on the cross. Anyone who claims this is condemning homosexuality is absolutely correct, but it would be like saying that beheading is a form of capital punishment used in the United States. It used to be true, but no longer is.
Now the meat of it. There are 3 references in the New Testament that could be interpreted as condemning homosexuality. Romans 1:26–27, 1 Corinthians 6:9–10, and 1 Timothy 1:8–11.
Romans 1:26–27 - "26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error."
I don't think these verses need any explaining if they are taken as is. But reading them as is, is taking them out of context. In Romans 1, Paul is introducing himself to the church in Rome and giving a summary of how things used to be. If you continue reading into Romans 2 (pretend that there is no chapter divider there) and it is plain to see that these things are no longer the case. "You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things." - Romans 2:1
1 Corinthians 6:9–10 - "9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men[a] 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."
Again, without the context of the rest of the chapter (at least) this looks really bad. But the very next verse reads, "11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." The sanctification that this is referencing is explained in more detail in Hebrews 10:12, "12 But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God". The context with this verse to in talking to Christians. It makes no distinction as to if they are homosexual or not.
1 Timothy 1:8–11 - "8 We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. 9 We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, 10 for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine 11 that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me."
This one actually doesn't need much more context to understand the intent. It is saying that the Old Testament law applies to those types of people. What did we learn earlier? The Old Testament law does not apply to Christians today and that Christians were made righteous by Jesus' sacrifice. So if you are not a Christian then, yes, you will be judged according to that law. But chances are, if you are not a Christian, you don't care. Therefore, a Christian pointing out a non-christian's "sins" is absolutely useless.
I'm sure I made this as clear as mud but the gist of it is that the bible does not teach that a Christian has any right or responsibility to point out the "flaws" in other people. There is nothing in the bible that states that a homosexual cannot be a Christian and maintain their sexual preference. Just like there is nothing in the bible that states that a fat guy can't be a Christian (remember fellow Christians, gluttony is also a sin according to the Old Testament law).
I want to make it clear that I am a Christian and I am happy to see that my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ can now get married to a partner of their choice. I'd be happy to answer any questions in the comments. | 03f5910a-55fa-4f50-a0ed-dd9fa02a2fb5 |
3st9h9 | Why and how are surgical instruments so often left inside patients? | This is not as frequent an occurrence as is usually made out to be. But it does happen once in a while when there is too much chaos in the OR or when there is a systematic failure in the steps taken.
There are many safety check employed to prevent such incidents.
All the instruments and pads that go into a surgery are numbered. At the conclusion of a surgery before closure all the hardware and all the pads are counted by the scrub nurse. In addition to this she is expected to keep in her mind the numbers of instruments handled. And when the dirty instruments are sent to the cleaning area the surgical tech also counts them. It is a rule in surgery, nothing leaves or enters an area until it is counted. In case there is a discrepancy the patient is subjected to an x ray and the instrument is retrieved.
Sometimes a second x ray is routinely taken to see if there is any bleeding at the surgery site. If there are instruments left inside they will light up and the surgeon can retrieve it.
The most dangerous are not instuments but broken instruments. Like tips of needles and tips of wires and tips of scalpels. This is where the surgeon's attention to detail comes to play. They by habit are trained to notice everything and be critical about everything. If they notice anything suspicious then they will re measure it and retrieve the lost piece. This is one reason of kind of obsessive personality that we associate surgeons with. They can be very anal retentive and douchey because that makes it safer for the patient.
The third is ornaments. Surgeons before stepping into OR take off all rings, bracelets, earrings and ask the nurses to do the same. Anyone who can get too close to a patient's open cavity should exercise this. Some are very strict and douchey about it. Some not so and they run the risk of the nurse dropping false eyelashes into the abdominal cavity when she moved for a closer look.
The insides of a human are very different from what we have been led to believe through color coded pictures. Everything looks the same and structures are flimsy tiny and covered in a layer of blood. The job of knowing what to cut and how to cut and when to cut and where to cut can be overwhelming. That is why these guys study and practice their art all their life and they are paid big bucks. It indeed is a difficult job | e8f8ef7c-839a-49bc-8726-3c01e4a1173c |
3nowqb | Why has the fasces symbol, which is often associated with fascism, been incorporated by so many official offices and institutions in the United States? | You've got it backwards. The fasces was a symbol of power which the fascists adopted later, just like how the swastika was a symbols before it was adopted by the Nazis.
It was a symbol of government power going back to the Roman empire, and the founding fathers, who attempted to emulate Rome, adopted it themselves. Mussolini did the same thing, but it was 200 years after the founding of America. | 15358ad9-7b66-4a91-80b8-1ab25852999a |
3raa32 | Prior to radios, satellite imagery, and other military technology, how did opposing armies locate eachother for battle? | So, when you think of things like this, you're probably thinking of something like in the movies, where a few guys are moving through the woods or jungle or wherever and can hide their tracks.
That's not an army.
An army is *thousands* of people. A scout can find traces of 4,000 people walking somewhere -- either from just the massive amounts of tracks left, or the fact that someone will notice thousands of people on their way to somewhere, and one of those people will tell you about it. | 77e554ac-b2e3-4d5d-abd6-18f0ed5a7100 |
7dytgy | What is the feeling of semi-weakness people sometimes get when they are cold? | At cold temperatures, oxygen is more tightly bound to the hemoglobin in blood and does not release as easily. This slower rate of release leads to a lower amount of oxygen available to your muscles, making contraction more difficult.
Also when we are cold, blood is conserved around our vital organs to ensure our body continues to function, but this part may not be relevant. | 2bc2a506-2e57-4629-9966-50f1d73f65ca |
7t34sa | If Tupac is dead, who receives the royalties when someone listens to his music? And same for other deceased artists | Tupac's estate was managed by his mother until she died a few years ago. Control of the estate then passed on to a a trustee that his mother appointed before her death. His mother and now the trustee was the beneficiary of all financial gains from his estate as well as empowered to make legal decisions regarding copyrights, release of previously unreleased music...etc.
Most artists have similar situations in place. Many artists and musicians continue to make millions of dollars a year even decades after their deaths, and they usually have wills that provided instructions for how to manage their estates. For those who die with no will, a court usually grants control of the estate to the next-of-kin, or may divide it up between close relatives if there's a dispute, although disputes can drag on for years. | 8cbaf0ec-621b-4b2d-8226-8761afec179c |
6calex | [BIOLOGY] Why does it hurt when theres air passing through you? Flatulence meaning.. | Excessive gas literally causes your intestines to bloat and stretch. Most of the pain comes from the muscular contractions of your intestines trying to squeeze air instead of digested food which results in cramping pains. A good fart should make things feel better :) | 340e80e9-a987-4328-8996-a7157e1e849a |
2rofgp | If attorneys have a monopoly on the practice of law, why are they so unwilling to help average citizens? | If no one was injured (mentally, physically, or monetarily) then there is no case, so that means that you aren't looking to hire legal representation. No chance of pro bono or conditional work from the firm.
What you were looking for in those cases was legal advice. Legal advice is never free from a law firm. It is one of the services that the firm offers, and unless the firm agrees to take you on as a client ($$$) they are not going to waste their time or get involved in the situation.
Additionally, I've heard that there can be legal repercussions for a firm that gives out bad advice to clients, so no law firm is going to take that risk without payment. | 64d73ad6-14fc-4cae-b403-88aae36b2c8d |
3vlj6g | What determines a person's sexuality? | The matter is heavily debated and there's no concise answer to it yet.
Genetics is a promising possibility, but is confounded by the aforementioned factors involving twins and sexual mismatch.
There are a large number of interesting sex-related interactions that occur before and shortly after birth. For example, the Westemarck Effect makes you immune to finding people you grew up close to sexually attractive (it's why, generally, you don't think family members are sexy.) This prevents inbreeding and leads to more fit children.
As for before birth, recent studies have indicated the possibility that female mothers "feminize" males because their immune system attacks the non-matching male fetus. This was proposed to explain why later male children are more likely to be feminine or gay.
There are other, less formal correlations being investigated, such as that between being abused sexually when young and having pedophilic tendencies.
At the heart of it is simply that we don't know. We know for certain that biology plays a very large part, but there's very little certainty that any one mechanism accounts for an individual's sexuality entirely.
On a genetic level nothing is as cut-and-dry as "you have gene therefore you'll be this way or that way" because that ignores a large number of regulatory mechanisms your cells have to control gene expression past just the code itself.
It's highly unlikely the answer to this question will be simple in the foreseeable future. | bbdae0bf-4b3c-4389-930b-f1469e9874b4 |
4pn917 | Why drug treatment seems to be so popular in US for various psychological disorders ? | Because it makes people money, and it's the answer people want to hear. Most people don't want to be told that dealing with certain problems is going to take an immense amount of work and time, that things are not going to immediately be better.
Of course, there are a great deal of disorders than can only be effectively treated with medicine, but those are not the most common. | cb5ada04-bf03-480c-98db-650772f710fe |
2aay9i | How is the ratio between different currencies calculated? | Short answer - the market.
The exchange rate is decided by people buying and selling currency. So the market thinks that 1 Euro is = to $1.25. Therefore that's what the rate is. | e5427a57-4cf6-444b-bad5-6d3ddd3e5901 |
5nnlsu | When a meteorite strikes a planet and leaves a crater, why is there a big hole but no meteorite in it? | When it hits the planet, there is so much energy it literally explodes. That's why there's a crater and nothing bigger than meteorite gravel left behind.
Think about tossing a snowball at a wall. | 4836adc6-5c6b-43fd-8b21-da4e3768db31 |
nske2 | what the deal is with Hugo Chavez? | I don't want to start a debate but Booyahhayoob's little recounting leaves rather a lot to be desired. While this isn't comprehensive, here are a few of the major issues that have occurred with the Chavez regime:
1) Food shortages. In 2003, Chavez imposed price controls on food. As is predictable by basic economic theory, these led to shortages as food was hoarded, smuggled out of the country to be sold elsewhere, or simply not grown to avoid taking a loss. In recent years the Chavez government has seized farms and food warehouses, arrested people for exporting food, and ordered farmers to meet minimum production quotas. Government-seized and -run farms have had massive amounts of waste and inefficiency, leaving food to rot as cronies without any agricultural experience were put in charge of the nation's food supply.
2) Suppression of free speech. Opposition media have repeatedly been [fined, shut down, and attacked](_URL_0_) for criticizing the regime.
3) Increasing crime. The murder rate has more than doubled under the Chavez regime. Kidnappings have become commonplace (for an idea of this see the movie 'Secuestro Express'). Drug trafficking is on the rise.
All this does not even take into account the widespread corruption, the decline in the Venezuelan oil industry, or the [crazy statements](_URL_1_) Chavez makes on the world stage. | ea72709d-bea0-4a8f-afda-49bd5c128566 |
2f1vsl | Why is what's going on in Ukraine right now not already considered war? | It's not a war because Russia hasn't formally declared war on the entire country and has only moved units into the eastern portion currently being contested. If they insert unmarked units there, it's not war because they still officially deny that the units are theirs, meaning that they're supporting the rebels by proxy.
Ukraine, NATO, and most external observers know that they're Russian, but even Russia doesn't want a formal declaration of war.
It's what the new kids call a 'low intensity conflict'. This is different from full-scale conventional warfare in that they are restrained from using their full capabilities for political reasons, and their operational area does not include the entire country or engaging its national forces.
Granted, this particular conflict is going to be a lot hotter than what are normally considered 'low intensity', but it looks as though Russia doesn't want to commit to rolling over the Ukrainians with their considerable amount of available forces. | 5f0b663b-2289-4d65-ade5-28638630ad75 |
1rxeap | "It is the sense of being watched that constrains social action" (Mirzoeff 1999, 2009:45). | What do you not understand/need help elaborating on?
There are a number of social psychology experiments you could reference here. There's also an entire literature on whether lab experimentation is generalizable to the population, given the influence of the lab itself- ie. people likely act differently when they're either not in a natural surrounding, or are being watched. Self control is higher when individuals are in a social context than when they're by themselves, etc.
There was an article posted recently (I believe in /r/TwoXChromosomes, but that could be wrong) that talked about how often women subconsciously adjust themselves- either their hair, clothing, facial expression, etc. in public. This could also tie in. | a363488d-5567-4d1f-ac54-57f26d44a40c |
3ui1fu | Who is the USA so in debt to? | This article explains it:
_URL_0_
Most of the debt is owned by a domestic organization called "social security". I'm assuming you Americans know what that is. Some sort of social safety net provider?
Anyway bottom line is US debt is denominated in USD and the federal reserve can print unlimited quantities of that so you are never in danger of defaulting on your debt.
Other countries have their external debt denominated in foreign currencies which they can't print themselves so they get into trouble because of that. But America doesn't have that problem. | a8d9a985-ba53-49bc-8bf7-ed8d3a4a1627 |
5r4ygj | Why do NCAA basketball rules differ so much from NBA rules? E.g., different 3pt distance, different free throw rules, different time format | The NCAA is unofficially a minor league player development system for the NBA, but the people running it, don't work for the NBA, and don't particularly care about developing NBA Talent. There's a degree of inertia here, in that college basketball has been around a really long time(longer than the NBA) with their own set of rules, and don't feel the need to change them just because that's what the NBA is doing. You see the same thing with the various rule differences between College Football and the NFL. | 33ca46e4-99d8-4bdb-9968-7228b33e6a5d |
1um171 | Why do man made satellites, such as the ISS, appear bright like stars when they pass overhead even though they have no signifigant light source? | If you ever look at the ISS sighting times for your city, you will notice they are always early morning or late evening - never the middle of the night. This is because the sky has to be dark to see it, but the spacecraft must still be in view of the sun to reflect its light.
When you watch the ISS go by what often happens is that it appears over the horizon, travels in an arc for a few minutes and then just dissapears, this is because the station has crossed the terminator - it has passed into the shadow of the earth.
_URL_0_ | 952bbe4b-b997-4b86-b1d7-75fbeb51266d |
2gdkru | Can black holes bend light from planets so we are actually seeing them in the wrong place? | This is an occurrence known as gravitational lensing and isn't specific to black holes, but any object with significant mass. Objects whose light is bent do then appear in the "wrong" place. We can even see objects (stars, galaxies) that would've been otherwise obstructed (blocked) from vision if lensing didn't occur. | 0b0858e1-e336-4adf-86d6-e154b300c6a7 |
2u2h57 | Why does tomato ketchup taste nothing like tomatoes | Ketchup contains a lot of sugar and vinegar, both of which will mask the flavor of a tomato, not to mention also mask the flavor of the food you use it on. There's usually plenty of sodium in ketchup as well, which will overwhelm your tastebuds, hiding the tomato flavor even further. | 4367f44b-2621-4af9-9684-97a3b7deca24 |
41zn87 | Why do organized crime groups(especially well-known ones, such as Mafias etc.) still exist and thrive? Why are they not being taken down? | They are being taken down, these groups are far less prevalent and forward than they used to be.
That being said, in order to take one down law enforcement has to nab the leadership and charge them with a crime that will stick them behind bars for years--decades ideally. That is very hard since the brains of the operation generally do not participate in the crime directly, nor do they stand on the street corner talking about it. This sort of thing usually requires getting someone in the group to talk to law enforcement, wear a wire, steal and turn over any paper records, etc. It can take years sometimes.
A lot of the low-level 'enforcer' positions and sometimes even middle-management roles ARE caught frequently, but those positions are just "rehired/promoted" in any sufficiently large organization and the 'work' continues until the leadership is all taken apart. Often the guys who *do* get taken in are turned as part of a plea deal to help take down the top end. many do remain loyal, but when a deal is struck that is often the crack law enforcement needs to start building a strategy.
Edit: a really well established and run operation may continue to operate even if leadership is behind bars, the boss(es) may issue orders from behind bars, or may leave instructions or a contingency plan that will continue to be followed by the remaining group. It is really hard to *completely* dismantle some of the stronger, well-run groups. | d6564136-3599-46e9-a8c8-8c8174dde230 |
1oc69h | Why is the current generation waiting for the baby boomers to die out? | They're the ones running the world. They have all the jobs, all the money, run all the businesses & control the government. The younger generations, even into their 30s and 40s, are left with a world run by their parents that they can't change. | b9d7999c-b0ae-4fa0-bd0a-032b169a4a2f |
2t7e4v | Why don't highlighter colors exist on anything digital? | Highlighter colors are a type of [blacklight-reactive ink](_URL_0_). They reflect light like normal, but they *also* absorb ultraviolet light and re-remit it at a visible wavelength. That means that the ink appears brighter than it should given the level of ambient light, making it look like it's glowing.
Computer monitors are already glowing, so you can't really have this type of phenomenon with a lit screen. | bcd15d27-6ede-49e3-8d6b-270a16b21c2d |
230xfq | Germans eat raw pork, almost nobody gets sick | I believe that prosciutto is also raw pork that has been carefully prepared and aged. In the case of Mett,
> Unless pre-packaged, the German Hackfleischverordnung ("minced meat directive") permits mett to be sold only on the day of production.
That is likely to keep it safe to eat, and it may be subject to more rigorous testing standards as well. | 57cad554-e645-4ba6-9cd7-79551e10f677 |
jyg3a | Zeitgest | Spirit of the times. A zeitgeist is a collection of generalizations regarding a specific era of time and place so we can intelligently speak about different sociological trends. For example, the zeitgeist of post-9-11 was very patriotic and fearful, so that affected many of our laws, foreign policy, and how individuals treat outsiders. In the 60s, the zeitgeist was that of optimism and change. People felt that they could change the world. 80s was a bit more materialistic, and 90s was a bit nihilistic, etc.
It's kinda like the mood of an era. It not only colors the structure of the society, but also in that society's culture. Fight Club (and the Matrix), for example, could only have come out of the Zeitgeist of the 90s. | eceb1a4b-1ab4-4e8c-bd37-3b8aa90431ae |
67n3k6 | My brother just came in and took me to say silk 5 times and spell it. Then he asked me what do cows drink and I responded "milk" even though it is water. Why did I say this? | In addition to what /r/katembers says, you're not actually wrong.
Calves drink milk.
Calves are baby cows.
Therefore cows drink milk.
So feel free to go right back in there, whack your dumb brother on the side of his fool head, and pronounce this truth to demonstrate your accuracy. | da32053e-147d-4425-a5bf-a09fbf8e53fa |
493z3m | Russia's political system and it's democratic system. | In some ways Russia has a good democracy. The president is limited to two sequential terms (although the president can run again after a break). Theoretically there are three branches of power (judicial, executive, and the duma), and the constitution gives the right for multiple parties to operate.
In reality, Putin has been president for most of the time since 1998 (?correct?) and has "swapped" positions with his prime minister medveyev to get around the presidential terms limits.
Also any real opposition parties are harassed or jailed out of existence. They are denied official funding, any locals who fund them also get harassed, and if they take foreign funding then they are "obvious traitors". There are several accepted and tolerated parties but these are all loyal to Putin and the kremlin.
So it has most of the trappings and features of a modern democracy, but since no real opposition is allowed to grow, it is functionaly an oligarchy.
It is worth mentioning that Putin's approval rating is really high. He doesn't always need to do very much to rig elections (except in big cities like Moscow). In regional areas his level of support is something western leaders could only dream of. Of course, since he doesn't allow anyone to speak against him... that partially explains that! | 2851ea0b-df9c-4d6e-a5b6-f36c6679c2a8 |
o95gy | Why metal is forbidden from the microwave. | Not really an expert on this, but basically the way microwaves work is they send a lot of microwaves (duh) across the heating chamber. This makes the particles of items inside move a lot faster and therefore raise the temperature of the item. This works fine for foods etc, but for metals accelerating the particles means creating electricity. All that electricity cannot be contained inside the metal (since it is a conductor, which means it only passes the current along). This causes the electricity to escape in form of sparks. I don't think I need to explain to you why sparks flying freely inside an electronic device can be dangerous ;)
Hope I made it clear enough? | 9c565e41-ddf6-4d02-b739-b374e1e1872d |
8ic2rt | How does a hose work with an attachment? How does it not explode off? Does the water pressure stop? | > Does the water pressure stop?
Pressure is static, it doesn't change. When allowed the escape the water will constantly flow out but when stopped it doesn't continually build up. Normal water pressure is about 40-45 psi. | 1f451b4c-610a-47e6-953f-840645c5f8a3 |
5ruasj | How much saliva does a human produce each day, and what is it made out of? | Daily salivary output. There is much debate about the amount of saliva that is produced in a healthy person perday; estimates range from 0.75 to 1.5 litres per day while it is generally accepted that during sleep the amount drops to nearly zero.
Human saliva comprises 99.5% mostly water, plus electrolytes, mucus, white blood cells, epithelial cells (which can be used to extract DNA), glycoproteins, enzymes (such as amylase and lipase), antimicrobial agents such as secretory IgA and lysozyme.
_URL_0_
Seriously, you couldn't just do one quick Google search? | 0c9b8612-89b7-4a91-8596-2d9f7a8d72c2 |
j2i7u | Can someone explain the fall of the Soviet Union (like I am five)? | Leonid Brezhnev died in 1982, after almost two decades in power as the General Secretary of the Communist Party (de facto leader of the USSR). He was senile and barely functioned in his last years.
With his death, an era ended in Soviet history that later came to be called *zastoy*, or "stagnation". It was a time of relative economic prosperity, relatively little repression, but an extreme sense of loss of purpose. The idea of building an ideal (Communist, i.e. classless and prosperous) society at some point in the future seemed to have lost the last of its credibility, as the Soviet system disintegrated into dreary self-serving bureaucracy, with the nepotist Party elite at the top. The war in Afghanistan deepened the moral crisis.
Brezhnev was succeeded by two equally old and ailing leaders, Andropov and then Chernenko. Both died early into their second year in office.
Mikhail Gorbachev was appointed General Secretary in 1985. He was much younger (54 at the time) and seemed like a welcome change.
He was indeed eager to revitalise the Soviet system, mostly its economy. By 1986, he became convinced that a major political reform was also necessary. This is how the concept of _perestroika_ ("rebuilding" or "redesigning") was born. Its purpose was a more democratic version of Socialism. The second of Gorbachev's famous concepts, *glasnost* (a word used to describe the "openness" of some proceedings to the public), was introduced in 1988, bringing an unprecedented degree of free speech.
What followed was basically a runaway reaction. While Gorbachev wanted a new and better Soviet Union, a critical mass of people wanted to get rid of the Communist system altogether. In Russia, there was a surge of popular interest in the West as well as in the pre-revolutionary Empire; in other republics of USSR, nationalist movements quickly gained in popularity; most markedly, the secessionist movements in the Baltics and the ethnic conflict between Armenians and Azeris over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.
In the meantime, the economic situation became markedly worse than in the previous decade; there were shortages of all but the most basic food, ratio cards, long queues, etc. This added to the discontent.
Against this background emerged Boris Yeltsin, a former Party functionary who called for much more radical reforms than Gorbachev's, and stopped *just* short of expressing anti-Communist views. Gorbachev was rather disliked for his long-windedness and inefficiency by that time, and Yeltsin, as a kind of antithesis, rallied massive support.
The entire Communist system now seemed on the verge of collapse, as revolutions swept across Eastern Europe, Gorbachev deciding not to interfere. As a last-ditch effort, Gorbachev proposed a new Union Treaty (to replace the 1922 one that had established the USSR), effectively "rebooting" the country as a much more decentralised and democratic entity with a market-socialist economy. In the meantime, Yeltsin had been elected as the president of Russia (in case this is confusing: "USSR" vs. "Russia" ~= "UK" vs. "England"), effectively creating a dual-government situation on most of the Soviet territory.
On 19 August 1991, one day before the new treaty was due to be signed, a group of hard-liners (calling themselves the Emergency State Committee or _URL_0_.P.) staged a coup in Moscow, arresting Gorbachev at his summer house in Foros, Crimea. Yeltsin declared the _URL_0_.P. illegal and rallied hundreds of thousands of his supporters to the defence of the Russian government building. They were sieged by tanks and troops for two nights; the _URL_0_.P. did not dare to commit and cause a bloodbath so only three young men on Yeltsin's side were killed in minor skirmishes. On August 21, the _URL_0_.P. gave up and went to Foros to negotiate with Gorbachev, who had them arrested.
This was seen as Yeltsin's definitive victory and the end of Communism; Gorbachev was left as the head of a state most people perceived as non-existent. In December 1991, Yeltsin signed an accord with the presidents of Ukraine and Belarus formalising the dissolution of the USSR. Whether the three had any legal authority to abolish the Soviet Union is still debated; that is to say, they did not have that authority under the existing law, but nobody cared. Most if not all Soviet republics had already proclaimed independence at that point. Gorbachev resigned on 25 December 1991 and the USSR officially ceased to exist the following day.
TL;DR: Communism had become a hollowed-out shell; along came Gorbachev and opened a Pandora's box. | 2f534bc3-b690-4f05-841e-8a3ab5097fc3 |
5wmyvf | What is the true purpose of "Tag a friend who ..." spam-posts on facebook? | Generating range, e.g., exposure. Getting a brands' name 'out there'. Every view, every click, every page loaded is, at its base level, an interaction with a brand, or product and a potential customer.
Any page, be it a standalone website, a facebook page, a blog or whatever kind of means a company decides to use to promote a product, is 'counted' by said customer interactions. This is usually called the 'range' said medium can generate.
An example from Twitter would be someone with 10 followers, writing a tweet. Let's assume that all 10 followers each have 10 followers of their own and all 10 retweet this one tweet. This means, with one tweet, the tweet is seen by (10x10) 100 possible customers.
Now imagine a tweet written by someone who has 1000 followers, each with 100 followers. If only half of those followers retweet this single tweet, we're already at (500x100) 50.000 possible customers being exposed to the companys' product. Thus the range in the latter example is way higher, than in the former.
This range is valuable in terms of what a marketing company, or similar, is willing (or has to) pay for their commercial to appear on said medium. That also is the reason why, in comparison, a print ad is much cheaper, than a tv ad - their range is hugely different.
So, to come to a stop, all these 'tag a friend that...' sites try to enhance their own range, be it to gain a better position to sell their own products, *or* to have better 'arguments' when dealing with other marketing companies that want to place ads on their site. | 9b678667-acfe-4dec-950e-da1ec0fa617c |
5677br | Why is pressure measured in inches? | It's measured in inches of mercury (inHg).
Pressure used to be measured compared to how much pressure an inch of mercury in a glass column exerted. Or the other way round, how much a certain pressure moved the mercury. Simply, you have a container of mercury with a tube standing in it. Air pressure pressing down on the pool of mercury forces it up the tube. How far up the tube it goes tells you the pressure in inches of mercury.
Otherwise, it can be measured in psi (pounds per square inch) which is just the imperial version of the metric newtons per square metre. Literally how much force is applied to the area you're measuring. | 8b004f7a-b32d-41ae-be75-8186779db8af |
3gs5kb | Why don't game AIs use self-learning behavior like they do with robotics simulations? | Genetic algorithms (not Markov chains) are not without their problems, but I think you fundamentally miss the point of game AI here. It's not supposed to be good at it's job. It's supposed to be believable. You want the guards to act like real human guards, for example. I can tell you pretty categorically that the easiest way to do that is to programme them. Genetic algorithms might lead you to an *effective* solution, but would it look natural or believable? Would it be enjoyable to play against? Probably not. | a358d257-fdf3-4322-a96d-83fa12d47c9f |
2va3yc | Do really small creatures have self-awareness? | Awareness is an emergent property of the complexity of our brain. Only brains that are able to reach a certain level of complexity are able to create awareness. Only in a couple of species awareness has been proven, and all in a limited way when compared to humans.
In some way, the behavior of insects is more comparable to a robot than to a human. Basic input/output, although the behavior of most insects is far more complex than that of robots. You can think of the complexity of behavior as a spectrum, with the simplest single cell organisms on one side and humans and other large animals on the other side. As a kind of general rule: the tinier a species is, the less room there is for brains/neural networks, the less complex it behavior can be. Awareness only exists on the very far end of the spectrum. | 13df76af-7f64-4e14-b7ff-fc1ece20d4bf |
41j2k2 | The ridiculously high and growing suicide rate in Japan. | Suicide rates among males have always been high in Japan.
The culture praises both a collectivist mentality to supporting the group, plus a strong sense of personal honor. When a man supposes that his utility to the group is less than his contribution (due to age, infirmary, failure or circumstances beyond his control) and/or his honor has been compromised in a way that it can not be recovered, suicide is considered a way to recover that honor or cease to be a burden. | 7ce6c449-a4d6-4ba7-ba81-de6014e3777a |
8beryt | Why doesn’t stereo volume stop at a point before distortion occurs in stock speakers? Conversely, why don’t stock speakers hold up to the capability of their stereo counterparts? | Manufacturers often make more variety of speaker than head unit, so low quality speakers are often paired with more powerful head units. They want to keep the overall system inexpensive, but they're not able to get a cheaper head unit. | 09074c10-d3cb-4bc9-821d-2844df140393 |
2b4672 | Why do my eyes water when I do a really satisfying wee? | A great piss can beat an ejaculation in my honest opinion. You know that piss that you have been holding onto since breaking the piss seal 56 minutes earlier at the train station. And in that 56 minutes those last minute traveller beers have mutated into an agonising need to evacuate your bladder only exacerbated by the constant rocking of the carriage. When you arrive at your destination, a quick sprint is followed by a godly piss lasting what seems like hours, you can only breath a sigh of relief as this orgasmic piss escapes... thats what I live for | fbfe181f-5be9-4dd7-aff8-7f4ab7f2bc21 |
4uhlv8 | Why do we sneeze sometimes as a response to pain? | The nerves in your face are very close together and sometimes a signal on one can cause an adjacent one to fire.
Same reason some people sneeze in bright light. | 2be8a572-342a-467f-b195-c534bbb65d23 |
mtyb2 | Dimples on a golf ball, how do they work? | When a fluid (such as air) flows around an spherical object like a ping pong ball, it creates a lot of drag. This is due to a boundary layer of slower moving air really close to the surface of the ball. A ping pong ball will have have a smooth boundary layer. Eventually this layer seperates from the ball. A smooth layer "peels" off the ball quite early, creating a big wake of turbulent air, think of a wake behind a boat. The dimples on the golf ball force the boundary layer to transition from being laminar to turbulent. This increases the speed of a the air moving in the layer, so it's able to stick to the ball for longer, and peel off the ball later. This creates a thinner wake, which creates less drag.
This image sums it up pretty well:
_URL_0_
A similar effect would be achieved by roughening the ball at the very front that's flying through the air. As long as the little peaks created by the roughness exceed the height of this tiny boundary layer, it'll force it to go turblent, and will therefore fly further. But then there's no way to guarantee that this little patch of roughness will be at the very front of the ball, so it's much easier to put dimples over the entire ball to ensure that no matter what, the boundary layer will go turbulent. | 7793ba25-519f-4b19-9547-3129d05ebaac |
1nmvej | pointers in C or C++ and how to use them successfully | A pointer is a package of ( if you want to think about it in the most technical way ) a 4/8 byte integer (depends on if you compile a 32bit or 64bit binary) with some address in the memory of the system, and a size. The size specifies how large in bytes the thing it points to is, or the size in bytes of each element in the array it points to. (Although the system has no idea if what it really points to is that size or whether it's an array or not, so it's up to you to keep track of these details. Follow coding conventions and it's not that hard.)
To really understand pointers you need to understand what I said about it being an address in memory - you need to remember that when I run a program there's a bunch of RAM put aside for that program and it's organized sequentially. Every byte in the RAM has a unique address.
You also need to keep in mind that everything in the program is put into the RAM. When I declare char x; a single byte of RAM is allocated for x. Whenever I later call x the system will reference its index to figure out "Oh, right, I put x at this address, and since x is of type char I know it takes up 1 byte."
So if I say printf("%c", x); later the system knows to go to x's address and pull 1 byte to get x.
When you declare a pointer you're taking a more direct control of what's happening - when I say char* ptr I'm essentially saying "Listen, I know what I'm doing, I'll do the memory management myself!" When you declare a character point there is no memory set aside for a character.
So let's say that I'm now doing this:
...
int varInt = 10;
int* varIntPtr = & varInt;
What has actually happened? (Remember that the & operator means 'give me the address of this element')
Well the computer allocates 4 bytes (Let's assume, it's usually correct) for the integer varInt, figures out what 10 is when expressed as a 4 byte integer, and copies that into the 4 bytes allocated for varInt.
The computer then allocates 4 bytes for the integer point varIntPtr, figures out what the address of varInt is, and puts the value of that address into the 4 bytes allocated to varIntPtr.
So what have we really done so far? Well, not a whole let. Let's move on:
*varIntPtr = 7;
cout < < varInt;
So what will be output? If you thought 10, you thought wrong. I set varIntPtr to the address of varInt, and (remember that the * operator means 'follow this address' - it will take the value that comes after it and go to that location in memory) set the value stored at that address to be 7. This overwrites the original 10 we put in there.
So what's this all actually useful for? All we did was make a new name for varInt and gained nothing, right? Well actually, yeah, that is right, but only in this case. There are times when that ability is indispensable.
You've likely already learned about functions: if I have someFunction( int x ) that, as you can see, takes an integer I can define someFunction like this:
void someFunction( int x ){ x = x + 10; }
So I can just go:
int x = 10;
someFunction( x );
and now x = 20, right? Well no. The way scope works in C/C++ is that when you pass a variable by its name like that the function will make a copy of that variable for its own use - there will be new memory allocated and a new x that only exists inside someFunction.
Usually if we want to change x in some way with a function we'd just have the function copy x, do what it needs to, then use a return statement to get the changed version and make that the new value of x:
int someFunction( int x ) { return x + 10; }
x = someFunction( x );
but what if I want to do something to 3 different integers? You can only return a single variable! The easiest way here is to do this:
void someFunction( int* x, int* y, int* z ){ *x = 1; *y = 2; *z = 3; }
and then when I call someFunction on 3 integer pointers I know they'll be 1, 2 and 3 respectively because the function changed what's physically stored in memory, not a copy.
There are also much more advanced things that you'd probably find hard to understand now, or at least to understand the use of. You can actually make pointers that point to a function rather than a variable, for example.
You've probably already been using pointers actually - in C/C++ there's no difference whatsoever between an array and a pointer. When I say
int[10] x;
what happens is that the system allocates 4 bytes * 10 = 40 bytes to an integer pointer named x. The [ ] are actually an operator called the index operator - whatever number you put in the brackets will be used to scan through memory.
If integers are 4 bytes long on your system the system will interpret x[3] to mean "Take the address of X and move 4 bytes along it 3 times" This is why arrays start at 0 - because x[0] means start at the beginning of the array, and don't shift at all.
The system doesn't remember, though, that you declared x as having 10 elements. In C/C++ it's totally OK for you to say
int[10] x;
x[15] = 50;
the system will actually write the integer value 50 into the memory location 15 * 4 bytes after the address of x. This is a very bad idea, though, because we have no idea what is supposed to be at that point in memory - it may be that memory is allocated to a different variable we've made, it could be that it's not allocated to us at all and the operating system will crash our program for violating memory. (That's a segmentation fault if you've seen any of those kill a program of yours yet.)
Even if it appears to be fine you can't trust it is - you need to make sure for yourself that you know how much space is allocated and to keep inside it. | 89312382-3e3e-4b16-9de3-6fd9c2a1ed60 |
3ht6hd | Why does video compression make red so pixelated? | This can be an effect of "Chroma subsampling": _URL_0_
In ELI5, more compression is done to the color parts of images/video than to the black-and-white parts of it. This saves a lot of space but is not _that_ noticable to us usually. | 7165c956-4c25-47f1-a0a4-0232947c2815 |
3qrczv | Why is Republican leadership voting to approve Obama's budget? | There are several parts to the Bipartisan Budget Agreement.
* It eases spending caps for FY 2016 and FY 2017. That includes defense spending which is huge for defense hawk Republicans.
* It takes the possibility of going beyond the debt limit/extraordinary measures off the table which provides stability in the marketplace. This is beneficial to Republicans who understand what would happen if there market meltdown if the U.S. credit is downgraded again.
* It "Cleans the barn" for Speaker Ryan. That is to say it gives Speaker Ryan a relatively clean slate to start working on bigger spending cuts and mandatory spending reforms with the Freedom Caucus. So "establishment" types are helping Ryan start on stronger footing.
* And on top of all of that, the spending cap increases are offset elsewhere in the bill. That includes mandatory reforms in Medicare, Social Security, and Social Security Disability Insurance. | 356528c0-016b-4276-be3d-64b3d601b55a |
49rjvv | Can ice get old? If so, how long does it take and what happens to it? | Ummm glaciers? Pretty sure those are like upwards of 100000+ years old and are still palatable | dbc5bf91-0b71-44fa-a41a-09c2edb90ca4 |
125qtx | Why are there "runts" of, for instance, a litter of puppies? | They were just born smaller then the rest, and when it comes to feeding time they get pushed to the side by the bigger puppies. Why it happens is just genetics, they got the short straw and ended up a little smaller, aka they are the Runt of the litter. | e3fac7d4-0ef4-40a1-88a8-fac3dba2e749 |
6ehoi8 | Why is it commonly assumed that water is a prerequisite for (extraterrestrial) life? | Basically, we haven't seen any exceptions to the rule "life needs water," so we aren't making any guesses about what kinds of "other life" might arise.
To put it another way, it's totally possible that there are rock monsters living on some far-off planet that don't need water and don't look like any other life that we know of. But even if we looked at that planet... how would we even know what we were looking at and how would we know to classify it as "life?"
Instead, we work with the information we know, and we pay special attention to the planets with liquid water. On those planets, we at least know there's a chance. | f8cc8a7c-beea-4c17-8cc7-bf77a3d65168 |
33pqoi | How does Flonase work? | Flonase is fluticasone, a corticosteroid. Basically it's a synthetic derivative from a class of chemical naturally occurring in your body which function to regulate immune response, among other things. When you have a stuffy nose due to allergies is because your immune system is over-reacting to the allergen. Fluticasone acts on immune cells etc to reduce their activity (anti-inflammatory / immunosuppressant).
For example, the excess fluid is often caused by substances released by immune cells that cause your nose blood vessels to become leaky, so fluid can get out and clog up your nose. | 770be6d7-3018-4ece-935f-c616e3d7c345 |
3z2olc | When did Westward expatiation put an end to the "Wild West"? | The U.S. census officially declared the western frontier to be closed in 1890. Thus, the year 1890 is traditionally considered to mark the end of the "Wild West". | d6b0090c-f3c1-4748-a260-f3e46bcda6c8 |
6nqanf | Why aren't there any well known businesses that existed before the industrial era? | [There are a few](_URL_0_), but most companies from that era just didn't last into the modern age.
A few breweries and textile operations have been around for hundreds of years, but all the plague doctors and sail-riggers are out of business. | d608bf29-ad7f-409b-bce1-02e02ef36675 |
2sfqbo | when I go to delete or move a file open in another program why doesn't Windows tell me which program I should close? | Because it's simply not the default behaviour of the OS. The phrase you're looking for is "which process has a handle to this file" - there are a number of utilities, such as Process Explorer by Sysinternals, that can illuminate handles for you | 961b1a37-905b-4bee-b18d-78c16bbf7f4a |
6989ir | Why do some people call muslims moslems? | I think it's just a language thing. That first syllable in "Muslim" is a sound that you won't really find in the English language. Some say Moslem, some say Mooslim, when it's really right down the middle. Muslim.
Source: Brown person who speaks brown person languages that contains sounds problematic for English-only speakers. | bce179bb-ab39-49d2-9b30-58ab9b8626ef |
5dxf0l | How does an Anti Virus know whats a Virus and what isnt? | It typically has two layers of defense.
The first is the actual signature database. It's a bunch of "wanted" posters, a catalogue of *known* malware.
The second layer is searching for suspicious activity. Executables that run themselves automatically, request access to key systems and otherwise do shady stuff are going to be tagged as suspicious, and possibly relayed to the antivirus's producers for analysis. | aee02d2e-6fb7-471f-b24d-990d64bb8aab |
6eql55 | Does the numerical order of dimensions matter? Does time need to be, explicitly, the 4th dimension? | Not really. The first three, length, width, and depth were accepted as "dimensions" after René Descartes described how to find something's location. But as theoretical mathematics provided new things that counted as "dimensions," they just tacked it onto the list. | 62cd830b-ae87-4740-8f14-3533c3cdb917 |
3zfiiv | Why does Obamacare get so much bad press? | The Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) is not the same thing as universal healthcare. It has a lot of issues, but it has also solved a lot of problems. There is definitely room for reform, but I don't condemn it, nor do I think all liberals feel one way or the other on it. | a01d9f4e-6d33-47f3-bf77-f38d32e1354a |
5na1e1 | Steganography | You can hide any data in an image file. Of course, the amount of data you can hide is limited. At some point, you will visibly affect the image file, so the data won't be "hidden" any more.
But if you hid a virus or other malicious code, I don't see how you could get it to execute. (Unless someone extracted it from the image file and deliberately ran it.) | 59355a47-d445-468f-a688-ddc423ed2c9f |
6moeal | Why do race cars omit airbags in their cars? | The purpose of an airbag is to keep your head from slamming against the dashboard and causing an injury. It is necessary because the seatbelts we use do not fully prevent your body from flailing about.
Race car drivers are fully secured with a system of harnesses and don't move as violently during an accident. An airbag would not provide any additional safety.
I'm not an expert, so I'm not exactly sure how it could be more dangerous. Perhaps it would prevent safety officials from getting the driver out of a wrecked car. | 4546351b-4f48-463d-ab9b-776eed7463b5 |
39o6fq | Why is identifying as another gender ok but identifying as another race crazy? | Duplicate of other posts
_URL_1_
_URL_2_
_URL_0_
_URL_3_ | 437bbcdc-f09b-48e4-b5c5-fee39eba4d07 |
66bplf | What is International Monetary Fund ? What are their objectives ? | Since the early 70's the IMF has existed as a bank of last resort for troubled economies.
A hallmark of dysfunctional countries is that they develop foreign borrowing based economies, which means that in order to function those countries need to continue borrowing money from foreigners to help finance a government deficit.
But foreign borrowing is not a sustainable economic model. At some point the money needs to be paid back, which requires even more foreign borrowing and that feeds into a cycle that eventually ends when foreigners lose confidence in a government's ability to pay the money back. Once that happens, the economy collapses back to its pre-foreign borrowing state, which in many cases is to a sort of pre-industrial, agricultural based economy that is too small to support its current population - leading to starvation.
Good examples of economies like this are North Korea in the early to mid 90s, Greece from the late 2000's to the present, and Venezuela from the present to the foreseeable future. And the North Korean collapse in the early 90's is a model scenario for what happens if no one steps in and bails the government out. If you're unfamiliar with that, roughly 20ish% of the population starved to death and most of the country's infrastructure and industrial capacity was destroyed. Even after 25 years, the North Korean economy has still not returned to where it was pre-collapse and very little of that is due to the sanctions on it since it only ever traded with China and Russia to begin with and neither of those countries has restricted trade to it.
The IMF exists to step in and serve a source of foreign loans while imposing conditions that are designed to reduce the country's dependency upon foreign money. Because the country receiving IMF loans is being weened off foreign money, its going to go through a period during which it experiences a severe economic depression and it usually comes out worse off than it went in. This typically makes IMF loans unpopular with the people of the country receiving them.
But the basic idea is that the country is overall better off taking the IMF loans because the alternative is, again, a North Korea-esq collapse in which a decent percentage of the country's population just starves to death and all of the country's infrastructure rots away. | 449da869-6bf8-4558-b189-e9b2862946c6 |
2an3b6 | Why do some dogs not eat over their bowl? | It has to do with the "fitness" of the dog. i.e., an alpha dog would not do this. This is because in the wild, the stronger dog will have taken a bigger part in the hunting of the food, simultaneously less threatened overall, while the less fit dogs in the pack will likely obtain the "scraps" of meat and retreat to eat it without fear of losing it.
It's instinct and evolution, really.
_URL_0_ | 958c9dff-5827-4c21-9e36-0e4ad7e2ca08 |
nm2lb | Stem Cells. What they are and the controversy about them? | This has been asked many times, but I think having someone actually answer you personally causes you to get more out of the response.
Overview of DNA/RNA: Every cell in your body (not including your sperm or egg) have the same DNA. DNA is like a giant (and I mean giant) library. Individual units of DNA are called nucleotides (A,T,C,G) which act in segments of 3. Your cellular machinery reads these segments and produces mRNA (messenger RNA) in a process know as transcription. Then this RNA is sent to a ribosome which turns the mRNA into a protein in a process known as translation. This is called the central dogma (replication is also included in this).
Development: These expressed proteins (which were made from DNA) can repress and activate DNA in itself and other cells around it, so in effect, can cause other cells around it to choose a cell pathway. Each cell starts as a stem cell and then, given these chemical signals, differentiates into something else. Initially the stem cell is totipotent (can become anything) it gets slightly differentiated and becomes pleuripotent (can become a few things). Eventually they become liver cells, heart cells, muscle, skin etc depending on the chemical signals they receive from the cells around them. Eventually these cells form really complex structures like the brain, nervous system, and body plan (body plan is regulated by hox genes).
Importance/controversy: A stem cell can form any organ theoretically, so they have a spectacular clinical application. The controversy around them comes from the mindset (not necessarily incorrect) that stem cells are living human beings (egg merged with sperm) and should have rights just like any other human being. It really depends on when you believe life begins. Embryonic stem cells are totipotent (can form anything) and are easily attained in vitro (in a test tube) when sperm and egg are merged to form a zygote (tiny baby). So the controversy mainly stems from a religious aspect (when does the soul or life force enter the body?). A huge issue with not pursuing further research is that other countries will be far advanced in medical practices, and US citizens will start going over seas for new medical procedures that we could perform here and give American doctors, nurses, and researchers jobs. | 393f9b6e-0565-49ec-a999-b222a7086c2e |
2e1eys | Why is it some people have huge bulging veins on their arms and others can never achieve that even working out their forearms. | it has almost nothing to do with musculature and everything to do with bodyfat. if you have fat covering your veins, you'll never see them. the people you're observing are almost definitely leaner than you are.
of course, it's not a hard and fast rule and some lean people won't be very vascular, but it applies (anecdotally speaking, at least) more than 95% of the time.
source: have been working out for 4 years always with an emphasis on science and using practical applications of that science, (most 'excercise science' studies were performed by and on people who know next to nothing about working out), know a hell of a lot more about fitness/working out than most people | 8b6743c5-f86d-4d59-ad8c-c49aa5d89536 |
3d8ozr | How high and far could you jump on Pluto? | Gravity on Pluto is about 1/15 of gravity on Earth, or about half of the Moon's gravity. If we assume you can put the same energy into your jump as you can on Earth, you'll leave the ground at the same speed and jump 15 times higher than you can on Earth. You're also in the air for 15 times longer, so if you also take off with the same horizontal speed as you can manage on Earth, you'll jump 15 times further. I suspect that with enough practice (and really good running spikes) you'd actually be able to run a bit faster on Pluto because you could put more of the energy from each stride into forward motion and less into upwards movement. | c8391482-0af5-4d31-a789-1e61f494e3f1 |
4tix7a | What would really happen if everyone tried to empty their bank accounts all at once? | It's called a bank run. Without intervention from a central government or reserve bank, the bank will go bust, and most people will lose their money.
Most countries use a system called fractional reserve banking. Under this system banks only have to hold a fraction of their deposits in reserve, say for example 10%. They lend the rest out to make money. They are counting on only needing this amount of money day to day. Typically, all of the banks customers won't want their money all at once. If more is withdrawn (usually this happens in extreme circumstances, a banking crisis for example) everyone's accounts are frozen, and the country's reserve bank can step in to guarantee the rest, as the lender of last resort, depending on the jurisdiction.
Khan Academy did a good explanation on this. ~~I'll link to it when I have time~~
E: _URL_1_
This happened most recently with the Northern Rock bank in the UK in 2007. They needed the Bank of England to lend it money so they could give their customers their money.
E: _URL_0_ | a82cb6bc-3e0c-4800-905f-f10f21fb87bf |
6byog5 | Why was/is there no special prosecutor for the top secret emails or Flynn unmasking or Clinton foundation? | There have been no credible issues with the Clinton Foundation. It's routinely one of the top rated charities in the world and publishes audited financial statements.
_URL_0_
_URL_1_ | 5c1070ac-303f-4929-9191-c5c4f9db0fa9 |
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