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6q7d8q | Why does listening to your favorite song over and over eventually make you hate it? | Music is art. And one of the things that make art so relevant and great is the element of surprise. Everyone likes a little surprise in their music. So the more predictable (or memorized), the less you can experience the joy of this element of surprise. | 9d6738be-9926-4589-b2f8-a2c25d837adf |
6osnwk | Why are humans attracted to the foreign? | Biologically, animals are attracted to members outside their clan to increase their gene diversity. It decreases the odds that your children would be born with 2 recessive genes for any trait. If humans didn't keep records or strong family ties, and you just met the cute girl down the street that looks similar to you, how would you be sure she wasn't your second cousin? | dc48bb84-c093-4d8c-9cf9-e780d1fbd9bc |
3c9c4m | Pressurized staircase in hotel? | It means that fan pumps air into the stairwell. This is a fire evacuation safety measure, so that if you open the door from your burning corridor into the stairwell, the positive air pressure will push the smoke back allowing you to escape and close the door. It means that holding the door open will cause people's lives to be lost, and the sign is supposed to be telling you not to do that. | 1d66975a-a750-41a3-bd49-347407fd8089 |
1dhuhk | So how do you actually "live off the interest" if you come across a large sum of money or win the lottery? | > Do you just hire a financial advisor or go to an investment bank and assume your tons of money will grow steadily over time?
Most people would do this, yes. | f0427a57-ede3-48bd-8614-ab34c350b502 |
2997jj | How coding differs in asia (using characters and reading top-down | Programming languages are usually not localized. That is, someone writing code in Java will write the same words in the same direction no matter what human language they may speak.
Even computing languages developed in Asia (like Ruby) typically follow Western conventions of characters and word orientation. | cf7c157a-a156-4d14-a506-6f1556625210 |
5kzsyp | Why are a lot of people scared of dolls/mannequins, or other humanoid-shaped things? | For dolls/mannequins, it is called the uncanny valley. Basically, everything that tries to emulate a human being will have its flaws look monstrous to some people. | 4e5997a9-b5e3-4e65-a0a0-d8a5e74ba38c |
3ru5ty | Why does a headache disappear after like 3 hours of sleep but it doesn't when you are 3 hours awake? | Headaches have a myriad of different causes. Some are related to the food you've eaten, or something you have had to drink.
Some headaches are caused due to constriction of blood vessels which can cause a headache to get more acute when walking around due to an elevated blood pressure.
When you sleep, your body relaxes and your blood pressure is lessened which will cause some headaches to lessen.
If a headache is caused by dehydration, the body will attempt to alleviate the defecit by drawing water from tissues that store it which can occur at a faster rate when the body is at rest. | 56c7945d-daaa-42eb-9fc9-0c89f34bbd36 |
4g0e82 | Why do engineers use I-beams when the triangle is the strongest shape. | I-beams are intended to span between columns, so they specifically need to be optimised to handle *bending*. When a beam (any beam) is loaded, it bends in the middle, and its internal stress varies between max tension at the bottom and max compression at the top. It turns out that the most efficient way of handling that is to have essentially all the steel at the top and bottom, and reduce the webbing (the bit in between) to the minimum necessary to hold it together. If the webbing is overstressed, it gives a little and transfers the stress to the top or bottom anyway. | 70ffcbf7-c55e-40ca-be65-63d86434c7ed |
8b5072 | How can an odor be contained? | An odor is a series of particles dispersed in the air that land in your nose and dissolve on your epithelium in your nose, which then signals the brain about what just dissolved on it, which is what we perceive as smells.
So, anything that can contain particles dispersed in air can contain an odor. It would have to be an airtight, imoermwable container. | fe72c747-db79-4095-be2f-9a1a1b3bc77d |
znix7 | Lots of ads these days about America's cell phone networks/wireless internet. What's the best one now? Tomorrow? Next year? | I personally like the info provided via Consumer Reports. I'm not sure they can provide the forward-looking info you want, but they do a decent job of ranking each provider within key cities and talking about throughput.
They also provide info such as buying guides for free, but you'll have to pay to see some of the detailed info. | 29c64a77-1077-42e2-9353-f33683ccdf44 |
3ceyr4 | Why do many pictures from the black and white era look high definition? | Because they're analog, and not taken by a crappy cell phone camera. Actual, real, photographic film is as high a definition as it gets. | bdf85c16-063a-4ad8-bc22-db0e8095fff4 |
208nev | How does laser eye surgery work? | Laser eye surgery cuts a small flap of your cornea to start. Then, ultraviolet light is used to reshape the inner surface of the cornea, correcting the curvature. The result allows the image to be correctly focused on the retina.
[Souce](_URL_0_) | 4108c9a0-a58d-40b6-a52d-0b3d9ca950e6 |
1yvgjm | How do homeless people survive snowy winters? | In many areas, homeless shelters and other charitable organizations open more beds in the winter time. Some may "fly south." Any form of shelter, even unheated, can provide relief from winter weather; many will squat in abandoned buildings. Also, just because a person is homeless doesn't mean they are without heavy clothing or well-made sleeping bags, many of which are designed for use in sub-zero conditions.
Truthfully, snowy winters are easier to survive than low-precipitation winters, because snow itself can serve as insulation from winter weather. | 79e0b542-f8e2-4766-a0f2-e1e04b3c60fd |
208aq6 | why do you get nightmares when you're feet are uncovered? | This sounds very much like confirmation bias. Unless you can provide some evidence that this phenomena exists, it would be hard to explain it. | 18f07296-af38-4077-a5d1-3defbdd77989 |
2eeptn | how long would it take to breed a almost truly intelligent animal? | Actually a lot of dogs are smarter than wolves.
But when we breed animals we're usually not aiming for intelligence. Smarter things are cool and all but they're smart - they need intellectual stimulation, they break shit and mess around and don't listen to you and manipulate you because they're smart and it's beneficial.
We have dumb lazy couch potato dogs and smart dogs who need extensive training not to screw around. | ca205a54-1a3a-4c91-80ad-ee7b9ac57208 |
j4na6 | Please explain Major League Baseball trades, waivers, free agency, arbitration, etc. LI5 | **Trades**- Usually fairly simple, I give you Player X and you give me Player Y. However, there are cases where a really good player is traded for prospects, or young players who could potentially develop into superstar players (but can often times be hit or miss). Sometimes, salaries come into play. If Player X makes $5 million over the course of a season, Team 1 can agree to pay the rest of that salary, or ask Team 2 to pay the remainder. This is usually negotiated, depending on the amount.
**Waivers**- (This is a bit complicated; I'll try my best) After July 31, all players whose teams want to trade them must do what is called "clearing waivers." When players are "put" on waivers, it means that teams have a chance to "claim" them, or try and trade for them. But there's an order to this claiming process, determined by record, with the team with the worst record getting the first chance to put out a claim on a player. When a team "claims" a player, it means that they have a period of time in which to negotiate with the player's team about trading for him. A few things can happen: The player's team can "withdraw" the player from waivers if they don't wish to trade with the team that made the claim. If this happens, players can no longer be placed back on waivers at all, and thus must remain with their team for the remainder of the season. An alternative is that the player that is claimed is simply given to the other team, but that team will have to pay the rest of his salary. If a player manages to "clear waivers," it means no team put out a claim for him to try and trade for him. His team is then free to trade him to whatever team they want. Players usually choose new teams to play for during the off-season.
The reason the July 31 non-waiver deadline is so big is because it can be difficult for players to clear waivers. If Team 1 wants to trade Player A to get a better player, Team 2 (a rival to Team 1) might put out a waiver claim that'll force Team 1 to withdraw the claim and hold onto the player, thus not be able to get a better player.
**Free Agency**- Usually after a few years of playing baseball, you get the chance to play with any team you want, assuming they want you to play for them, for any amount of money. Before that, you have to go through **arbitration**, where your salary must fit within a predetermined scale, based on your performance. So players who play very well get the same X amount of money, while so-so players get the same Y amount. These are usually are one-year contracts, but don't allow players to sign with any team they want, only the team they played for last year.
The significance of free agency and trade talk has to do with whether players are in the final year of their contracts. If your team has a good player but the team is having a bad season, or can't pay a lot of money to players, then it's better to trade that player to another team with a better record in return for prospects in order to do better in the future.
Does that cover everything you wanted to know? | b42f76de-de67-4ace-810f-acaf6fefe596 |
4hhcfo | What does it mean to be a "4th Alarm Fire"? | In general, these are multi-alarms... 1 though 5. You are correct in that they are an increasing level of manpower and equipment as the level increases. How much per level would vary by the city involved. There is no fixed set of people or equipment per level, but you will see more specialized equipment and more senior personnel at each level. | 0e0fed9d-0290-4f26-a935-347b3705967c |
3ezl80 | Why did the ruins of Rome and Greece become "ruins"? | Long term exposure to the elements with no one repairing the structure and in some cases people actually breaking up and taking stone away for building materials. | 39a631fe-ec2e-42f9-aa55-81362537c4ed |
1t8tao | What is Fantasy Football and how does it work? | It's a (seconardy) game that piggybacks off of the actual NFL games.
A bunch of people get together, and "draft" their prefered players, from anywhere in the league. When the real teams play, the 'drafted' players points are tallied, like how many yards did they run, how many touchdowns did that player make or throw. Those tallies are weighted, so that touchdown catches are worth more than running yards, then the weighted points of various football actions are added together and a score results.
Compare scores to the other fantasy participants, and wallah you have a fantasy football game. | 21b30f0b-5097-47aa-8164-1167576f62f4 |
6y3eqi | What is that strange feeling of numbness we get when we wake up in the middle of the night? | Yer probably describin' the physical consequences of *sleep paralysis.*
Yarr! Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained:
1. [ELI5: Sleep Paralysis ](_URL_6_)
1. [ELI5: Sleep paralysis and why it happens. ](_URL_5_)
1. [ELI5: Sleep Paralysis ](_URL_7_)
1. [ELI5: Sleep paralysis? ](_URL_2_)
1. [ELI5: How does sleep paralysis work and why does it happen? ](_URL_4_)
1. [ELI5: Sleep paralysis ](_URL_0_)
1. [ELI5: What happens during sleep paralysis? ](_URL_1_)
1. [ELI5: What does Sleep paralysis feel like? What happens during it? ](_URL_3_) | d3f231dd-4fd9-4f2d-ad19-acb554e2983f |
57ywtb | why all the big leaks, even from 2016, look like they have been typed on a typewriter? Surely in this day and age, there must be more modern font than a typewriter. | It's because they use a monospace font. That means every letter takes up the same amount of space (instead of "l" taking up less room than "W"). The emails were not sent in that font. The text was extracted and styled with that font. | 7a9042d5-ece3-43a7-a431-36bcd1192891 |
10xh2c | How do blind people dream? | In the case of people who are born blind, they just dream as they see the world normally. So they just dream in terms of sounds, touch, and smells. How people dream is based on the maximum sight they had, for example if someone has bad eyesight or goes blind later in life, but they did have normal eyesight at some point, their dreams will be in normal eyesight. | b30bced9-e079-446e-93aa-e5449f271af7 |
3ndm64 | How the Skarp Razor works, when they aren't actually burning the hair? | The general consensus is that it's faked, and the video uses a nichrome wire to try to fake it. Here's an article about it on a website that I read that has some stuff about it, especially in the comment section _URL_0_ | 2a838fc0-c078-4769-9018-4b0ef34426ae |
5q1k5q | why do we usually say "ow" when we hurt ourselves? | Short answer is both social conditioning (we grew up hearing other people saying it, so we mimic it) as well as vocalizations actually helping to reduce pain. Studies have shown that verbal expressions, especially swearing, actually reduce pain. | 081427d4-dfa4-458d-8d25-c93846992db7 |
wymwy | What is a Sociopath? | When a non-doctor calls a person a sociopath, what they generally mean is that the person in question has no empathy. What *this* means is that the way they respond to the emotional states of those around them is messed up, or non-existent.
By this definition if Bob is a sociopath, then seeing Laura in pain, or sad, or grieving will either make Bob feel good, or it won't make Bob feel anything at all.
Now, if a doctor were to say that Jim was a sociopath, this would be a bit different. Medically speaking, there are a whole host of various criteria necessary to call someone a sociopath. Strictly speaking, they wouldn't be called one; the correct name for the disorder is AntiSocial Personality Disorder.
Someone with ASPD is likely to be manipulative, unconcerned with the feelings of others, uncaring of social rules and norms, unable to maintain long-term relationships, prone to blaming others for their own failings, are likely to become violent more quickly for things which don't warrant it.
It's a really hard condition to summarise, but in a few words, sociopaths are people who never stopped being a child, emotionally.
Seriously, kids are horrible monsters who only get away with it because they generally grow out of being horrible monsters while they're still cute. | ed53cc6b-454d-4eac-a486-68ccd06aa94d |
6rpl6v | Would a cell phone work in space? | The main problem would be heat. Cell phones passively cool themselves via the air, but there's a distinct lack of air in space, so despite the near 0C temperatures in space, without a way to get rid of heat (apart from blackbody radiation), the phone would overheat.
If you could cool it, then it should function. | 3a6728f9-7ecf-45d8-a2ab-68fdf0562b36 |
2excoa | What would the process be for Ukraine to join Nato and how likely is it at this point? | Interesting question here. I am currently living in the Republic of Georgia, and I can tell you that for a country to join NATO, the process is quite extensive.
First, they spend years of sending NATO verification officers to the country. These people inspect everything dealing with any sort of human rights. Prisons, orphanages, hospitals, elections, etc. They also inspect the military and their training.
After years of this, they then vote whether or not to offer the NATO Membership Application Plan to the country... often referred to as MAP.
This is a step closer, but means even more scrutiny under NATO officials. They do the same as before, but I believe they write it all up into some sort of report which is ultimately presented to the NATO members. The NATO members then vote on whether or not to accept the country.
The main reason Georgia has not been accepted is due to the fact that Russia occupies Georgian territory in Ossetia and Abkhazia. This means that if NATO accepts Georgia, they will be expected to help Georgia push the Russians out.
Putin recognizes this fact, and that is why he annexed Crimea and is attempting to occupy more territory in Ukraine. Keep in mind, he vowed never to allow a NATO country to border Russia, and he considers the collapse of the USSR as the greatest tragedy of the 20th century. Obviously he doesn't give a damn about the holocaust and WWII. But that's a whole another subject.
I hope this answer helped, even if it is not from a Ukrainian point of view.
Edit: My first gold! YAY! | 9e2313dd-6363-490b-88c2-04be3c1411e4 |
3i6d3x | The current stock market situation and crash. | [This is a long overdue correction, IMO. If you look at a chart over decades rather than the last week or month or year, you will see nothing out of the ordinary. Click "max" and look at that chart. You will see that the stock market is doing quite well, thank you.](_URL_0_{"range":"max","allowChartStacking":true}) | a8c0e7ad-c496-41bf-8a74-a6e48032e330 |
1r6l9k | Why isn't it possible to construct an angle trisector? | [The full proof](_URL_0_) is pretty complicated, but it really boils down to the fact that just an unmarked straightedge and compass can't "solve" the equation necessary to produce a trisection of an angle.
Use a *marked* straightedge, and you can do it. | c0549c77-6b56-401d-989d-5ad7cae20464 |
5bblwm | Why do we remember real life experiences so much better than we remember dreams? | Dreams are a side-effect of your brain sorting through memories. Some of that 'bleeds out' and we remember that (or not) as dreams.
They're not something that's meant to be remembered. | c470292e-f23d-41e4-b8a8-71090afb36cc |
1r0hbg | How come all the satellites around the earth don't collide? | its really very simple the majority don't collide because they never cross paths. There are not a lot of satellites for the amount of space they take up and for two to collide they would have to cross the same point at the same time which is very hard to do. More likely is that a piece of debris is on a collision course or passes close enough to cause concern. In that scenario most satellites have small Thrusters and/or whats called a Control moment gyroscope to control attitude which allows them to be maneuvered out of a collision course, assuming you were able to detect the debris in the first place.
for orbits think of it like a circular path around the earth (more likely an oval) when you are in orbit you are basically moving fast enough that as gravity tries to pull you down you miss the earth and keep falling and the faster you are going around the earth the larger your "circular path" (orbit) is. Also many satellites especially for communication are in geosynchronous orbit which means that every time the earth completes an rotation the satellite completes an orbit. two satellites in geosynchronous orbit on the same orbital inclination could never collide because they would be going the same speed. | 8f3ab2d6-bb6f-4143-97be-dfd9821667e6 |
3c4k32 | Is light produced from a light bulb the same as the light produced by the sun? | Yes. Actually its extremely similar in that both emit a continuous spectrum that is called [black body radiation](_URL_0_) as contrasted to eg. LED lights that only produce spikes at certain wavelengths. | 492640ba-cb52-4eff-b466-d87383a4b595 |
3gmurx | What is cardio? What is actually happening as I get better at running? | Increased blood volume, stronger muscles (that are also more efficient and durable), and slightly reshaped bones are three of the things that you get from training that make you better at cardio. | 4edc8ef6-2349-4afc-8d9c-bd5e80795670 |
5g3thc | How did climate change, a natural, scientific issue, become a political issue? Furthermore, how does acceptance of it support the liberal agenda and go against the conservative agenda? | The fact of climate change is a scientific issue. *What should be done* about climate change automatically becomes a political issue.
The Liberal/Conservative divide generally comes about due to the different ideas about the role of the Federal government in dictating people's behavior. The US as a country was set up as a true union of States with their own individual governments. The Federal government was set up with a specific set of responsibilities and powers, and it was later clarified in the Tenth Amendment that those powers not specifically deligated to the Federal government are reserved to the States or People. In other words the Fed is capable of doing what the Constitution says it can do *and nothing more*.
Conservatives generally pay a lot of attention to this structure and figure that nowhere in the Constitution does it say "Earth, fire, wind, water, heart! By your powers combined, the Federal Government is Captain Planet!" Dealing with the threat of climate change is clearly reserved to the States or People so any climate-justified regulation, grants, etc. on the Federal level is a bad thing.
Liberals on the other hand tend to be much more group-oriented and concerned about collective action, and climate change responses are really only effective if everyone acts together. The Federal government has its fingers in everyone's pie so it is an obvious one-stop-shop for instituting climate change plans. They are less concerned about following the specific allocation of powers and figure the legitimacy of the need (and a dose of "Heart!") justifies the Federal government becoming Captain Planet regardless. | a50ebcc4-f267-4f59-a687-141f514120e3 |
1ywnvf | Why does my stomach growl more in class than when Im home all day if im starving at both places? | Your stomach can sense the stomachs of other people and has to show its dominance. So it makes loud growling noises to show that you are the alpha stomach and you are not to be messed with.
Also, your stomach will growl more when you are out on a date in a quite movie theater as a sort of mating call. Its a primal instinct. | 0b96102d-8f2b-4276-9f65-2a20a511791e |
4qc3zs | Why do adults and teens have differently shaped knee caps? | Hi, there. I thought maybe I could chime in here, as I know a thing or two about the subject. Knee caps do not change shape with age.
Source: I am an adult and I know how bones work. | ec3f9bb7-ecc9-441c-8636-c5b5c1872503 |
4d99rl | Why do drums hold 55 gallons? | A standard drum is actually designed to hold 200 litres (a nice round number) with a little air space on top. That works out to about 55 gallons. | 1b3e2ff5-183e-4e5b-80cb-cf847ee834f1 |
2ufsy2 | Why is a smart and dumb friendship duo of two people always portrayed on TV? | At least in TV land, usually the "dumb" person is the audience stand in. They ask questions the audience night want to know the answers to which gives the smart person a reason to explain what they're talking about in a way that TV viewing audiences can understand (see Bones, Big Bang Theory, Fringe, Eureka as just a few examples off the top of my head). It's useful, but can be a particularly annoying trope when the subject is not really that hard to understand for anybody with a tenth grade education. | 18bb340d-3a63-4f26-90ad-750025753a47 |
1n68af | Why is flexibility attractive in women? | nope its all about the sex, for me its just the idea of what it means is on the table for us to be able to do. I may be able to try new positions with a more flexible partner. Is it a huge deal? no, but its enough to get a few thoughts rushing through my head. | 08d0e19e-81e6-44ac-943b-dd0969a89aea |
2ggs6r | Why is the US tax code so exploitable? | What do you mean exploitable?
Do you mean how are people able to get away with tax fraud? Because it is, for the most part, a self-reporting system. The IRS gets lambasted for its budget, but it is responsible for checking the tax returns of 300M+ people, and countless corporations, trusts, and estates every year. They simply don't have resources to check everything.
Do you mean why are there so many small tax breaks that certain people can take advantage of? That's because making money is not simple. There are hundreds of different ways to make money, and we as a society have decided we don't want to treat them equally for various reasons.
Take a person who makes $100,000 per year. He has income tax on that money. What if he's a gambler and loses lots of money? Should he be able to deduct his gambling losses? Probably not. But what if he makes money? Should he be taxed on that income when he can't take a deduction? So we solve that problem by saying gambling income is taxed, but you can deduct gambling losses up to the amount of wins you had.
The short of it is the IRS can't simply say that if you make money, we tax it. We demand a progressive system, and that requires a complicated set of rules to determine exactly how people need to pay. Is it perfect? Heavens no. But it basically does what it is designed to do. | b9681b5f-b3a6-4945-ad0a-17892ef29325 |
831y87 | Why does medicine taken under the tongue enter the blood stream faster? | Under the tongue, there are a large number of blood vessels/capillaries. There, the drugs can enter your bloodstream without going through your digestive system. | 65a2d1cd-df7c-4d76-a3fe-74718cb81f2d |
1i5opq | The important differences between republican and democrat? | Wow, no replies yet. This is like walking into the lair of the beast - *any* assessment about what each party is about will attract contempt, nuances, polar conflicts... So let the shtstorm begin. I will consider any replies and edit my response based entirely on how valid and relevant I feel the responses are.
Republicans generally prefer:
* That the government avoids getting involved with how businesses buy and sell things
* The government is a minimum size
* A powerful military
* Restricted immigration
* Individual responsibility, including the right to self-defense and suffering the consequences of circumstances/actions
* Minimal taxes
Democrats generally prefer:
* A focus on helping the lower class, social support programs, healthcare
* Adapting the laws based on society's changes, needs and preferences
* A liberal, tolerant and less traditional approach to laws, including gay rights, abortion, family structure, religion
* A smaller military
* Government size and tax that supports the extra social support programs
While this is the general public message, Republicans and Democrats vary greatly in execution. For example, Democrats have caused the growth of military, and Republicans have more often affected tax increases. Understanding these differences and "picking sides" is not something that should happen in an ELI5 - hope this gets you started, but do your own research!
Also, I am heavily biased. | d1e6cfaf-1548-40d8-88f5-6109b1f7a8fa |
33kd16 | Why to muscles start to shake when they are under exertion? | When your brain sends the signal to the muscles of the arm to lift it, it also sends out a ton of signals telling the muscles to relax. If it didn't, your muscle would contract so hard, so fast, that it could snap your bones out of their sockets. So, ideally, the minimum number of muscle cells required to do the job will be used. This is also more efficient, in terms of energy consumption.
The skeletal muscle cells in your arm are long when relaxed, and when an electrical current from your nervous system is applied to a cell, it contracts. That's why muscles always pull, never push. As it contracts, it pulls on the next cell in the chain, which is also contracting and pulling on the next cell in its chain, and so on down the line until it connects to the bone. This moves the bone, hopefully. But when the bone doesn't move because it is supporting a very heavy weight, some of your muscle cells break. Chains snap and other cells take on more of the load. This can cause some shaking.
A lot of that shaking, though, is caused by the fact that your body is trying to use only the bare minimum of muscle cells required for the task. Aside from the big muscle doing all the heavy lifting, you need to have a lot of smaller muscles controlling the weight as you lift it. These muscles are smaller and weaker, and the body is trying to use them as little as possible. So, they are constantly tensing and relaxing as the weight moves and they correct for slight movements of the bar in one direction and then the other. This is what causes most of the shaking. The stabilizer muscles are the first to go in a lift. That's why someone can help you lift a weight with only two fingers that you can't lift by yourself. They're doing the stabilization for you, which keeps you from shaking, which gives you confidence that you are lifting it, which helps you lift it. | 4d62d18f-9102-4d99-b421-0f9f720cec79 |
50s7gy | why is 42°C concidered a fatal temperature for humans, are components overheating like in a computer? | Components heating like in a computer is a good analogy... there are many things going wrong in your body at this temperature but one of the key things is your body is full of complicated biological molecules called _enzymes_ which control all the chemical reactions that keep us alive. Enzymes are made out of protein and above a certain temperature they start to change so that they no longer work. We can see proteins changing with temperature when we're heating meat in a pan and it changes smell and colour. We're literally starting to cook inside at these temperatures. | f88df86c-0a9c-4cff-99f7-9f01a66e03e5 |
jif5w | Sponsors | Sometimes, sponsors don't just give you money. Sometimes they give you things. For example, Slash, Guns n Roses' guitarist is known for playing only Gibson guitars. Gibson sponsor Slash. He doesn't need to buy guitars because Gibson give them to him for free, and he is promoting Gibson because Slash is a famous guitarist.
People then go "Oh, Slash plays Gibson! Because Slash is an awesome guitarist, and I want to be as awesome as he is, I will buy a Gibson guitar."
Every kind of advertising is basically a sponsor, because they are helping you do what you want to do and what they ask in return is that you put a banner up behind the band, or put a sticker on your bike.
The more important you are, or the bigger the event is, the more money they will be ready to pay. | cdaa888a-17a8-4e71-8f9b-29ff660b8207 |
3a469n | What is a homeowners association and why can't they give you orders on what your house/garden should look like? | HOAs are typically started by a developer who owns a big group of properties they're selling off. Essentially, when anyone buys a house in their development, they agree to join and abide by the HOA as a part of their purchase contract. Once a certain number of homes are sold, the developer typically turns the HOA over to the directors, who are generally home owners in the area.
The purpose from the developer's viewpoint is to prevent people who have recently bought into a community from doing anything annoying or stupid that will make the remainder of the homes more difficult to sell. Home owners tend to like them because it prevents their neighbors from doing anything annoying or stupid that will bring down their property value.
They are controversial because they are not a government body, can be undemocratic, occasionally enable abuse by the directors, and basically levy a second property tax. | b7625ac5-6bed-4888-b161-25379fba97c0 |
595tt3 | How do snipers work in pairs? | sniper scout teams work in pairs. a spotter and a shooter. the shooter's role is to focus on the target and making the shot. the spotter's role is to provide a broader field of view, determine windage, elevation, calculate distance to field markers, provide wide view intel, as well as covering the shooter. | 5422cad9-5bf5-4ad9-9165-272077e0a9b6 |
23555t | Why do cats push on you with their paws before they go to sleep on you? | Calls back to their hayday of "kneading" on their mothers teats to get milk out of them.
It means they considering you their mother/protector, and they love you a lot. | dfe233d3-a6f4-4da5-b37b-ae83e01a05b9 |
23awyr | What happens when you're knocked out/become unconscious? | What you experience, or physiologically?
In terms of experience, I've passed out twice from an injection-induced vasovagal syncope. I'm not afraid of needles, they just make me pass out for some damn-fool reason. Anyhow, both times it was like a jump-cut in a movie. I'm really, REALLY light-headed, and then all of a sudden I'm lying on the ground with a nurse asking if I'm okay and saying I've been out for 30 seconds or so. It's actually kind of a cool experience, but I don't recommend seeking it out because of the possibility of head injuries due to falls. | 8b76d3b9-df2d-40de-b7b8-209116582b89 |
68hlrf | Why do we get addicted to things? | mainly due to positive association and receptors. When you enjoy something your brain produces dopamine, seratonin, oxytocin, and endorphines which is basically the chemicals responsible for happiness. So when you enjoy something your brain remembers it and decides that this is a good thing, obviously it would want to do that good thing again and so you do. | 9d1e2b80-0ed1-48bb-a6d5-1f6188b46388 |
1ybklz | Why do we hate "bandwagoners"? | People don't like to feel like they've lost a claim to something they once felt defined them. They feel like people who didn't get into their thing at an earlier point do not understand it in the way that they do, and that they only joined because it was popular.
In short, they feel threatened about losing a part of themselves to the mainstream. | a30397ed-51f2-4ea2-b9f1-6ddb1a86054d |
18epu8 | Can we put something completely static in space? | It turns out that there is no such thing as being *absolutely* still; you can only be still relative to some other object. So you can be perfectly still relative to whatever object you please, but it's impossible to be "objectively" still. | 6342738c-b514-4af3-b57a-334ee28b3544 |
2e9frp | What is the white stream seen coming from the back of airplanes? | There are two or three kinds of contrails.
One kind is from wingtip vortices (I think /u/ThatsPower's father was talking about these). At the tip of any wing, the high pressure air underneath swirls around to the low pressure region above, and as the plain flies along this leaves a (sometimes pretty intense) tubular vortex behind it. The pressure at the center of a vortex is lower than the surrounding air, so if the plane is flying through moist air that's just on the edge of cloud formation, the water vapor in that low-pressure region condenses out into fog and you get a pair of contrails coming off the wingtips. In some cases, [even the normal low-pressure area over the wing is enough to produce condensation](_URL_2_). [Here's a nice photo](_URL_1_) showing wingtip vortices as well as the far-field vortex wake of an airliner. Here's [a kind of crazy shot](_URL_0_) showing a bunch of low-pressure regions made visible around a transsonic jet by condensation.
Another kind is engine exhaust. Jet exhaust has a bunch of water vapor in it (burning a hydrocarbon fuel produces CO2 and water), and if the temperature/humidity is right, this can condense out into water droplets or ice crystals. This is what /u/barc0de is talking about.
ISTR there's a third phenomenon where the airplane can cause nucleation of visible vapor if it flies through saturated air, but I think that's a rare case. | 2a961f9c-44ba-4229-b4b6-6292d1e095af |
3r4sii | Whats going on when my URL bar sais about:blank? | When a browser sees "about:blank" that tells it to display a blank page.
Sometimes when bad coding or weird hiccups happen, your browser will open a new window, but fail to understand what's supposed to go in it, so it defaults to about:blank. | 55eb9d6f-e0b2-4ea0-9e89-4375275b05b1 |
67m8rf | Why Cassini needs to crash into Saturn to avoid contaminating a moon? | Huygens probe is clean, Cassini is not. It's pretty much as simple as that, but there's also that Titan is significantly less inhabitable than Enceladus so if something was hitchhiking it would most likely die. | df04d694-c769-4081-87a7-e9524c13625a |
6gagih | how do police enforce speed limits with aircraft? | There are lines painted on the highway at known intervals i.e. 1 mile apart. Use a stopwatch and bingo, you're busted. | 75d0a516-6a54-430b-b305-48e29287a17a |
1qete2 | If I chill a (crappy) glass on the freezer then take it out and immediately pour boiling water in it, it will crack and possibly shatter. What exactly is going on? | Part of the glass gets hot, and before it can conduct that heat to the rest of the material, the rest of the material is cold. When things heat up, they expand, so one part of the glass is expanding while the cold part remains contracted. This results in thermal stresses causing the glass to break. If you let it heat up gradually over time, the glass would heat at a much more uniform temperature and thus there would be lower thermal stresses. | ca52cd6d-9c06-4c57-b2b0-57c2709b6a98 |
1o8an9 | Canada has a number of military procurement issues with arms manufacturers in the western world, largely having to do with cost. Why won't we consider buying arms from the eastern world? | Western (especially US) military stuff is the best, and it's not even close, like an iPhone compared to Zack Morris giant cellphone. Military hardware made in the east is crap, really crap, it's geared more towards low cost 3rd world nations that don't care if stuff breaks or backfires or even hits it's target or can be fixed etc. Crap, awful. Want replacement parts? Lol
And if you get into a conflict with one if those nations, well you're fucked right? Good luck getting any more. Buy from your friends.
Also Canada has to get items that will work with NATO, it's militarily alliance, eastern stuff isn't compatible (and NATO nations would have a shit fit for a lot of reasons). It's simply not practically possible | 2bbdbd3b-0d92-4b36-96bb-e841f826549a |
6ff2zy | What essentially is the difference between public schools and charter schools, and what is the broad argument against charter schools in many communities? | A public school is a school that is funded with taxpayer (public) dollars and must follow all of the rules and regulations in place by the government.
A charter school is run privately but is also funded with taxpayer dollars. They don't need to follow all of the same rules. Essentially a private company is deciding what to teach your kids, and not the public who funds the school.
A public school generally will provide a more secular and standardized education, while a charter school can (but not necessarily will) push some biased agenda. It's a major issue because young minds are impressionable, and the ability to promote an agenda to children in school has a huge potential to cause problems. | bf1bda80-2a43-4fe4-8075-a13544ff10b1 |
7z2fyu | How do insect and bug sprays kill insects but don't harm us | > How do insect and bug sprays kill insects but don't harm us
Most insecticides target specific aspects of the insect nervous system which are different from those of humans and mammals in general. These neurotoxins have various different types so getting into the details can be quite complex, but the general idea is that insects are sufficiently different for specialized substances to be toxic to them and not really for humans. | 7280f747-7586-4106-8aba-374f0e0f7cd3 |
8xbgpr | Why are all of my dishes dry after running the dishwasher, except my Tupperware? | Heat. Ceramic and metal items get and stay hot enough in the dry cycle for the water to evaporate. | 41744b4c-8d87-496d-8505-031cc59666ec |
3bfd8q | Why is the last game of a baseball series called the "rubber match"? | For starters, it's only a rubber match if each team has won a game in the 3-game series-- meaning, the winner of the rubber match wins the series (by taking 2 of 3). | 8bd84340-4de1-4041-bc50-fec5177da5d4 |
lerz1 | How Corporations Work | A business isn't a corporation because it goes public.
Let's say that I sell computer repair services. I can hire 4 people to help me out, but if one of them massively messes up and exposes personal data/blows up a house, I could lose all of my possessions in the ensuing lawsuit.
Corporations are a way for us to create separate business entities so that our personal lives aren't put at risk when we do business.
Stock is just a way to sell part of your business's ownership - if I sell 49% of the stock, I still control the business but I'll have a giant mound of cash to invest in my business. If my business grows, my investor's stock is worth more, so they're happy as well.
But let's say that there's no majority owner - that 5 different people own 20% of the stock. Now the owners could run the thing themselves, but this would be complicated given that a 3/5 majority would be required for all decisions. So, they'll likely create a "board of directors" that has rules and procedures for their power, and appoint a CEO that will make the central decisions unless they want to force him or her out.
Does that make sense? | 220f2890-9501-435c-a5fe-da58016cc8ea |
6q6t6q | Why does throwing up hurt? | I've always found my abdominal muscles hurt more when puking. As you get older, you're not supposed to throw up unless you really need to get something out of your system. Generally, the GI tract is a one way ticket to your butt. Everything about the musculature and nervous system is suppose to ensure a nice easy transit through your whole system. Chew food up nice and tiny, you swallow, peristaltic motion brings this newly ingested food to the stomach, where it chills until it's time to move into the intestines, nutrients get extracted, moisture gets extracted, until you have a bunch of poop in your colon that's ready to be expelled, hopefully into a toilet and not your pants. Generally, a one way system.
When stuff has to come out of your stomach, it needs to go back up a one way street. It's needs to go back up in a hurry, you can't just have a bunch of vomit hanging out in your esophagus. To accomplish that, your body needs to use a bunch of muscles in a way they're not really meant to be used. And it's a violent series of muscle contractions to accomplish that, so you generally feel sore and bad because it is a taxing thing for your body to do. | 988c36b3-73c3-4bf4-9eaf-90b01d11879d |
1dunhz | How does a tax haven country benefit from the rich storing their money there? | You put the money into a bank in that tax haven.
Banks, when they look after your money, don't just leave it sitting in the safe doing nothing. They invest it! They might do this by lending it to other customers (for a fee), or by investing in the stock market or the currency exchange market. But that money is busy earring the bank money.
(I don't know the rules in Singapore, but in some tax havens - the Cayman Islands, for example, tax is very low for money earned offshore. But money earned in the tax haven *is* taxed, albeit not at a massive rate - but the money the bank makes probably *will* be taxed.) | 552c62a1-cc0f-48fb-8cfb-c331626c3784 |
5tce0y | Why does driving at 50km/h feel like standing still after you've been driving at high speeds? | You don't perceive linear velocity, you perceive angular velocity.
Think about it like the Trench Run in Star Wars. If you're flying at 1000 km/h on the surface, a wide open space, things don't look like they are moving very fast. You get inside the trench doing 1000 km/h and it looks like you're going very fast.
Things travelling across large angles of your field of vision is how you perceive speed. | 6a4fff10-c7fc-4dbe-8f13-8f02c741aec4 |
1j9go0 | why can we hear our own voice in our head when we "think".7 | Imagine our brain takes all human vocal samples we hear and puts them in sound "Jars", and attaches a sticker with a picture of the human that is speaking on that jar. Whenever you imagine what a person's voice would sound like, your brain opens that jar and you hear his vocal samples. Imagine Morgan Freeman's face, now, his voice saying: *" I just don't think I can continue to live in a place that embraces and nurtures apathy as if it was virtue."*. Suddenly by the end of that sentence you'll hear his voice in your head, even if you said "**I** just don't think" - it wasn't you speaking to yourself, it was Morgan Freeman speaking to you about himself.
When you speak to yourself, you imagine you speaking to yourself, literally. That is why your brain opens the jar with your face on it and you hear your own voice. | 72237482-a4b1-45ac-8614-5edd0a4cc443 |
86dy5h | Why isnit that it's difficult to retain your balance if you close your eyes? | Balance is accomplished by a few things working together. You have your ears, your eye fluid, and your brain (mainly the way it interprets what you see). It’s the same way you can tell if you’re standing up, staring at a wall or the ceiling.
Basically seeing helps you orient yourself. Cut that off and then the line between looking forward and looking 20 degrees to the left starts to blur and it’s harder for your brain to triangulate how you head is oriented and which way is straight and level.
You can prove this pretty easily by sitting in a chair, closing your eyes, standing up, and trying to move around. Your head will lock up in where it thinks “straight” is. | d901846d-274f-464d-81ad-b46a07675210 |
1xatuh | How do states have time to pass silly bills when there are far more pressing issues at hand? | Writing a bill can be done by anyone with the interest in doing it. Many bills are written by companies or organizations, they just find one state senator to sponsor it. Voting on a bill hardly takes any time at all.
What takes a long time is finding compromise. With the really difficult and important issues, nobody can agree on the solution, so state legislatures spend most of their time arguing about how to compromise. | efbfb77e-1016-432d-b401-accdcaf912bd |
2ftvv8 | How come people die of Cholera and Dysentery from drinking dirty water but people with scat fetishes seem alright? | So, let's take as a situation a small village where there are 1000 people. All of 1000 of them poop in and all 1000 of them drink from the same water source. In that situation if even one 1 of them gets sick, then all 1000 of them could drink the infected water and get sick all at once. Whereas if they are doing scat things individually with one another, then if 1 gets sick, then only 1 other person will get sick. So the chances are getting sick in a sewage situation is very high, whereas in a one-on-one situation you're fine unless you have the bad luck literally to be doing it with the one sick person. That said, it's probably still pretty risky. | c45c9cc7-fd67-4c83-b1d3-7c9cdb215efb |
8cna9g | What happens when corporations buy back their own stocks? Why is this done? | The primary purpose of a stock buyback is to boost the earning per share and thus boost stock price for those who still hold shares.
If a company had $100 profit and 100 shares, then EPS is $1. If company buys back 20 shares, then EPS increases to $1.25. Presuming a constant multiple of 20x, the stock should increase from $20/sh. to $25/sh. Also, with fewer shares outstanding, the company can raise the dividend by splitting the pool of money among fewer shares.
In some cases, share buybacks might also be done to counteract share dilution from stock grants and options being exercised by employees — one of the reasons for Apple’s buyback in recent years, along with it being a way to return shareholder equity via use of their cash reserves. | 275aa74f-7124-4282-b9c7-0cd0b1687794 |
2x7h0n | Why do women adopt their husband's last name upon marriage? | Because, traditionally, marriage was a transfer of property. The bride's father transferred ownership of the bride to her new husband. Hence the giving away of the bride by the father that still occurs in many modern ceremonies. | 06d35b67-139c-491b-8b14-6c4ca1b536ba |
17aj9z | What is phantom limb pain, and how do people feel it? | There are two strips of brain cells that run from ear to ear across the top of your head (The sensory-motor cortex). One strip is used to control all your movement in your body the other registers sensation all over your body. We can actually map out a person's body on these strips. When a person loses a limb, the parts of these strips (the neurons/brain cells) that used to control and feel the sensation for that limb eventually get re-purposed by nearby areas. So if you lose your left hand, the neurons that used to feel the sensations on the hand start feeling sensations of the forearm, bicep, and even face. However, sometimes the brain forgets the limb is missing and mistakes the firing of the neurons in what used to be the hand area for a tickle or itch on the hand when in fact the sensation was actually on the bicep or face. The sensation of gripping with a phantom hand works much the same way in the motor strip. | 2f08e9df-aef3-40c9-9614-4ad73db531c0 |
4xcx6v | Why Is it possible to watch sick stuff on porn but when you get to try it IRL its suddently not so appealing? | Why is it possible to enjoy a movie like John Wick, were he relentlessly kills dozens of people, but when you see it in real life it's sickening and traumatizing? | 62348cc3-ca99-4ba2-8b0f-63df31aa5b3e |
1rmmca | Why do I have to worry about an SSD in a personal computer losing space over time, but I don't have to worry about that problem on my cell phone or ipod? | You don't have to worry about any of that. The SSD will be replaced by the time it dies. It takes 10 years of copying 30GB of data, daily, to a SSD to kill it.
Cellphones and iPods do use flash memory as well, so it's likely, they would also have the same effect, but again, they'll be in a trash heap far before the drive is useless. | 0259fde9-2920-4bf7-bdbc-459e5800a857 |
1w7ut8 | Why is Venezuela suffering from blackouts and violence? | Ok, I... I think I can explain it. But not in an ELI5 manner, so bear with me for a moment, please.
Now, Venezuela has been suffering from a lack of infrastructures since around the 80's.
Just to give you an idea, the biggest highway in the capital was built during the 50's, and most prisons are at least 30 or 40 years old, if not more.
The electric grid and the hydroelectric plants suffer from a similar issue. They can barely function to provide electricity to such large parts of the country, since they were built without the huge population grow in mind and weren't really improved upon that much neither by the current government nor by the older ones.
This, coupled with the fact that Venezuela occasionally suffers from droughts causes blackouts to be a very common thing.
Now, the violence. That's one harder to explain and I'mma dip a bit into some controversial territory (as the cause, and even the very existence of this violence is a matter of dispute between the current government and its opponents).
Venezuela has an incredibly large amount of poverty, which coupled with another part of the same infrastructure problem causes trouble. For example, [these Favela-like slums called Barrios or Cerros] (_URL_0_).
Most of this poor population is also in many cases illiterate, and as such there's not a large amount of jobs they could aspire for (I mean, there's not a sufficiently large amount of jobs, period). Which moves many of them into delinquency.
On the other hand, the Venezuelan police force (and the military) are highly ineffective at combating this delinquency, being underpaid and in many cases under-equipped to face criminals.
So, in short, the high percentage of delinquency of the country is caused by an ineffectual police force, lack of available jobs and an incredibly large amount of the population living in poverty.
There's also many more, deeper, issues at hand. Like the high levels of corruption and even the causes of this poverty in the first place. But we would be getting much deeper into controversy and political discussion, and ELI5 is not really the place for it.
Hope this helps. | 945d9dd4-ea4d-438b-93c5-0a61df8a8280 |
3vrpfb | How come buses do not have seatbelts? | The bus driver, as the operator of a motor vehicle, is required by most states' automotive laws to wear a seatbelt.
The reason for it is physics. Have you ever seen a bus and sedan collision? The result is a pancaked sedan and barely scratched bus. An occupied bus has *far* more mass than a four-door car, meaning much of the impact can be mitigated. When a collision happens, the force exerted by the car onto a bus is not great enough to be a life-threatening issue.
Think if a bowling ball collided with a baseball. The baseball would shoot forward while the bowling ball would barely budge. It's the same thing happening here. | 1637ba34-606a-4bf1-8553-a568933dbc1f |
3ve1ee | If DNA is the blueprint for creating enzymes that synthesize DNA, how did DNA first come about? | Miller and urey did an experiment some 50 years ago. They took basic chemicals and put it in a special flask that simulated prehistoric conditions such as lightning and volcanic acitivty.
Macromolecules like DNA, RNA, and fats formed.
Probably one of the coolest experiments ever in my opinio | 83ce1f1d-d287-4858-8bcf-4c68b3a756ef |
2j5xcj | Why do we need to go to Mars? | Because having every human being in existence living on one easily destroyed rock is incredibly short sighted. We need to start moving off of earth if we want to survive and evolve as a species. Plus it would be indescribably awesome to know that a member of my species is standing on another planet more than 33 million miles away. It just boggles my mind that a little more than a century ago humans were mostly stuck in the ground, and now we're capable of colonizing a completely new world. | b3b90216-ba62-443c-ba2a-668093820c0f |
2owmcs | The symbolism behind Bioshocks Andrew Ryan | As a place to start - You should familiarize yourself with Andrew Ryan's namesake... Ayn Rand.
Andrew Ryan is pretty much Ayn Rand's philosophy's given flesh... and then everything goes horribly wrong. | e827cf5a-349a-4739-98ce-18f058c3b7a1 |
2qzh2j | How can people be sure of a message sent in morse code? What if you missed a blink to write it down or only noticed after a while? | Believe it or not (according to what I've read), it's not that hard to pick up once you're trained to do it. In WW2, morse operators were often able to recognize and distinguish between the morse code signals of different senders.
It becomes no different than any language. Occasionally, when we speak or write, we misspell a word or drop a word or mix something up, but we are still able to completely understand what is being said and written. Morse (once you have learned that "language") is no different. | 3a9777d5-0e50-4506-8b65-8d2101e73c4d |
47icel | How are the people investigating Hillary right now not part of the "establishment" that would want Hillary to win? | The only people who want Hillary Clinton to win are Democrats. Republicans have every interest in spoiling her candidacy as it would be a shocking scandal that would hurt the democrats at large in the presidential race.
[CNN is reporting that the Republicans are claiming credit for the Benghazi hearings as a political move against the Democrats](_URL_0_). The Republican establishment wants her gone, and they represent about half of the Washington establishment. The Washington establishment is not one group, but two groups who keep each others' influence in check through their endless political wars. The Republicans would love to see Sanders win because the blow to the Democratic establishment would make Trump less of an embarrassment to them, and because they could play it against the whole party. | a8a0a4b1-cc46-44d3-8518-e45c6bba8d66 |
35mf5k | Why do babies cry? Wouldn't this be an adaptive nightmare for early humans who had to deal with predators? | Babies are cared for in the group. A group of humans is going to be loud anyway, so having a baby cry doesn't particularly add to that loudness. And very few predators would attack a group of armed humans. The crying is a good signal however that this baby needs to be attended to (and is in fact ridiculously annoying to people so we can't ignore it) and it is also a good way to help find a child should they ever get lost. Might it draw predators near in that situation? Yes, definitely. But a child without a group is pretty much dead for anyway. Better to run the small risk of being caught be a predator with the chance that someone might find you VS staying quiet, lowering the risk of predators catching you, and then starving to death. | 78c21d5e-7877-4c1e-bdd7-bbe3bcdfeb1b |
2r40xj | If forensics try to match a bullet to a barrell based on markings. Why not record the barrell before sale and index the markings? | Matching a bullet to a gun by barrel marks borders on impossible. Constant changes to cleanliness, heat stress, wear and tear..... even variables in ammunition quality.... in a court of law, the best a forensics person could say is the bullet is consistent with the gun type, but could never with 100 percent certainty say that x bullet came out of y gun. | 46fd0ead-fc89-4efe-8578-6374949c1ebb |
3qpfj3 | What does Bill Clinton balancing the budget mean? | Balancing the budget means the government spent less than they took in. Clinton raised taxes, cut spending, and had huge revenue from the dot com boom.
The US still had a deficit, which is why foreign debt could increase.
If you make $50K a year and spend $60K, then you have $10K debt. That $10K is the deficit. The next year, you make $50K and spend $48K. Your budget for that year is balanced since you took in more than you spent, but you still have the $10K deficit from the previous year.
Foreign debt is just 'how much of the deficit do I owe to foreigners", so that portion can increase or decrease while keeping the total deficit the same.
Year 1 you borrowed $10K from your neighbor. No foreign debt. You then borrow $5K from a foreigner and pay your neighbor. Now you owe $5K to your neighbor and $5K to the foreigner. Foreign debt increased but you still owe a total of $10K the same as when you started. | 1d930b1e-8e4e-4ee7-a409-577b7e555a8a |
3n0d7m | Why can't towns create their own internet networks? | They can. Its just expensive, and requires a town budget spending that needs to be approved.
The term is municipal network. | 59291adb-8bbf-4445-ab2b-dc3aa5a96e16 |
451rb9 | people with crosses on their heads today? | Today is Ash Wednesday.
It marks the beginning of Lent in Christian religions (in particular, Catholicism). It symbolizes the start of the trials of Christ in the desert prior to his crucifixion; where he was being tempted by Satan. Traditionally, the ashes are made from burning the previous year's palm leaves from Palm Sunday.
Source: Was raised Catholic.
Edit: Fixed a comma splice XP | b3e07bba-d293-4f33-a11e-cd526b1a5772 |
6nmqms | Why are there "Terms of Service" of websites? What do they do and don't do? What happens if you go to a website with no TOS? | TOS are quasi-legal contracts between you and the website. Most of them are filled with legalese that lets the website do anything and takes away any legal rights you might have had (but not always), and these sorts of TOSs are not always legally enforceable in their entirety.
Sometimes TOS spell out how you are to behave in the community, but again these are merely CYA so they can ban virtually anyone for whatever they think is misbehavior.
If you go to a website that does not have a TOS and/or a McDonald's that also does not have a TOS you merely retain all your normal legal rights.
TOS only exist because it's 'easy' to make everyone click the agree button on a website, and because people will do it. You don't see TOS in a lot of business because it's awkward to have everyone who walks into your store sign a waiver - but if the business is sufficiently dangerous they will still have you sign one (which like a TOS is also not always legally enforceable) | f51836ea-aca2-494e-8b10-8bad2bfaed02 |
319vj3 | how do people who speak Mandarin spell out their written language to someone over the phone? | Like i want to say my last name Yang.
I would say 'my last name is yang, the one with a tree in front of it' 杨
And its a very common last name. Most people would know how to spell it. | 3e884d41-44bc-43f0-ab48-4046eceb4ede |
2bylhu | Why can I keep butter at room temperature for days at a time, but not cream, when butter is made from cream? | The butter you're leaving on the counter is salted butter, which is therefore preserved. If you did that with unsalted butter, it'll spoil. You can prevent that if you store your butter in a [french butter dish](_URL_0_). It's an extremely simple device, The lid holds the butter in the cup. It's butter, it'll stick in there. The basin has just a little bit of water in it. When you place the lid on the basin, the water creates an air tight seal around the cup. It'll keep your butter fresh for a month. | 166fb158-703c-493e-93da-47a2105e43c4 |
4b8kbr | When reading comments, why is it that sometimes you can see the amount of points a comment has and other times it looks like this [~]? | Subreddits can set where you can't see the number of upvotes or downvotes so you won't upvote because everyone else does. | 7fa5815d-2616-4f86-bb87-e2aa65d6a6d4 |
248w68 | what does #mbps up #mbps down exactly mean? | It measures how quickly you're able to transfer data. "Down" speed is incoming data (ie: watching a YouTube video), "up" speed is outgoing data (ie: uploading a video to your own channel). For example, downloading a 5-gigabyte file at 25 megabits per second will take 1637 seconds, which is about 28 minutes.
Unfortunately, "mbps" is kind of ambiguous: it could refer to mega*bits* or mega*bytes* per second (since a byte is 8 bits, a megabyte is 8 megabits).
If someone is being technical "Mb" is a megabit and "MB" is a megabyte... but you should be cautious, since a lot of people are sloppy about that.
When in doubt, it's usually megabits.
edit: fix units | 2f8b2543-3925-4599-b925-d1532853e696 |
7fsj61 | What are the mechanics of throwing? Why do we point our non-throwing arm at the target then drop it as we move our other arm forward? | This boils down to generating as much force as possible.
Think about how something like a trebuchet works -- there's a heavy counterweight that swings down, and this creates a ton of rotational force.
Your non-throwing arm is doing the same thing. You point it out, then swing it back through your shoulders, generating extra force in your throw. The weight and momentum of that arm helps to propel the throwing arm forwards. | d6c0b67f-29e1-490b-a785-8c3752ba1d4e |
286cez | How can the same dose of a drug be OTC and RX at the same time? | Bureaucracy and regulatory capture. Generic preparations of OTC drugs still have to pass FDA scrutiny. In this case Miralax, the brand name did all the work (or maybe had lunch with the right people) to get FDA approval for OTC sales before the generic manufacturer did.
For a period of time the brand name manufacturer can end up being able to sell the product OTC before any generic manufacturer can. | ae62801e-9d51-4aef-b07d-9b632e73e757 |
1stujo | Purchasing Debt | If the company who owns the debt knows you're involved in trying to purchase your own debt, they know that you're willing to pay some money. They only sell debt when they're convinced that it's unlikely they'll see any of that money they're owed, and your interest in buying that debt would prove that's not the case.
Even if they didn't care about that, they won't sell individual debts. That would be like creating a store that sells individual m & m's: way too much work for what they would get for selling an individual debt. Rolling Jubilee purchased a couple million dollars of debt, and that's just a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the debt that's out there. | c3faa2a8-62f2-4613-89bf-79d1cf7b5f4e |
470b5q | What is the symbolic fear represented by dead young girls in the movies (e.g. The Ring) | Because children are innocent, loved and protected while adults can be monsters.
Having a young girl who we see as innocent (white dress come on...) murdering people is out of the realms of our reality and hence shit's fucked.
Like when you see an young girl, you'll be like awwww. Then when her head starts to form, you're like awww shit. Where as an adult stood in front of you doing nothing, you're already on guard.
Having an adult ghost is just the norm, "meh some people are more scarier than that" mentality. | fde0db3b-0a38-43ec-81fb-70760b28633d |
5a9j6c | How do we charge our phones wirelessly? | Simply put it's induction charging, the specific process I'm not going to explain in too much detail but an analogy I physicist once told me as a good way of explaining of the process which might make it clearer for you.
Think of a battery with an electrical circuit as a track filled with ball bearings that can't get out of the track (the phone or device being charged) but can move freely along it if you push them through it. Now you take a strong magnet and hold it near to the track but not touching it (wirelessly) you can drag the ball bearing (electrons) along the track (the wire inside the device).
Now remember that any electrical circuit will cause a magnetic field as part of it's properties and you can imagine how lots of magnets dragging the ball bearings would work.
This is pretty much what happens as there is a coil of wire inside the device and another inside the charging surface, when they are aligned correctly the charger causes the electrons in the device to be moved along. This process has the useful effect of charging the electrons in the device without them being in contact and therefore recharges your phone (albeit more slowly than if you just plugged it in).
This is also why Inductive charging hasn't taken off as much due to consumer demand for mobile telephones that offer quick charging times or devices like electronic toothbrushes which typically don't require super fast recharge times because after the morning/evening rush it can have all day to recharge.
_URL_0_ - Electromangnetic induction article which explains some other uses for the same basic process.
_URL_1_ - Inductive charging article | bcdeedeb-d4b1-4a7c-bb59-62671d059cb6 |
4hoz8s | why does time seem to move quicker when I'm occupied? | The prevailing theory is that, when a brain is occupied with a task, then it has to spread its resources, leaving little to spend focused on the passing of time. However, if nothing in particular is occupying our conscious brain, it takes more notice of the time ticking by. The funny thing is, this slower vision is thought to be the more accurate perception of reality. It isn't about danger vs safety. It's about how much of our brain power is devoted to the passing of time, and how much to other things. | 0b28aea3-20fd-491b-b66a-2511d1457420 |
25xwbn | How does a group like the Illuminati , who were originally a group of free thinkers from the 1700's now be accused of trying to take over the world? | I apologize for the length, but you've opened up a can of worms with this question.
Describing the historical Illuminati as just "a group of free thinkers" is a bit misleading. The order was essentially geared towards a strict regime of moral education, which involved writing monthly confessionals (the "quibus licet" reports) and spying on other members, as well as using the order's influences to get the supposedly morally superior initiates influential positions in order to *slowly* reform society to a utopian state where everyone would be so rational that any form of government would no longer be necessary. Adam Weishaupt, the founder, was heavily influenced by the writings of Antoine Court de Gébelin and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who were both really big on ideas like primitivism and the noble savage. At the same time, the order was also extremely deceptive, using a variety of myths (such as claiming to be descendants of the Knights Templar) to attract members and it also had a very radical required reading list. As members advanced in the order, they were expected to read scandalous literature like d'Holbach's *Christianity Unveiled*.
Until the Bavarian government published *Einige Originalschriften des Illuminatenordens* and *Nachtrag von Weitern Originalschriften* in 1787, two large collections of confiscated order documents and really the main source of what we know about the order, the only real information on the Illuminati came from disgruntled defectors, especially the juridical deposits of Joseph Utzschneider and two of his colleagues, Cosandey and Grünberg. Utzschneider had defected in early 1783 after someone tried to coerce him to steal letters from the Duchess Marie Anne of Saxony, the former electress of Bavaria and an opponent of Hapsburg acquisition of Bavaria. To simplify an incredibly complex affair: Joseph II, the Holy Roman Emperor, wanted Bavaria; the Prince-Elector of Bavaria, Karl Theodor, wanted to trade off Bavaria; and Frederick the Great did not want Joseph II to get Bavaria. Joseph II had tried to take advantage of a succession dispute in 1777, when Karl Theodor had become the heir of Bavaria despite not really wanting it (he was already the Elector of the Palatinate), to achieve his goals but ended up losing a war against Frederick the Great instead. However, Joseph II had a new plan in 1783, which a majority within the Munich branch of the Illuminati supported, and Marie Anne had written to Frederick the Great to help put a stop to it. The letters Utzschneider were asked to steal were from Frederick the Great. So there was a clear political element in the suppression, and it's not surprising that the juridical deposit left by Utzschneider et al. says stuff like:
> They also boast that they are in possession of the secret of opening and reclosing letters without the circumstance being perceived.
and
> The end sanctifies the means. The welfare of the Order will be a justification for calumnies, poisonings, assassinations, perjuries, treasons, rebellions; in short, for all that the prejudices of men lead them to call crimes.
as well as
> They made us give answers in writing to the following questions: How would it be possible to devise one single system of morals and one common Government for all Europe, and what means should be employed to effectuate it?
The first two are complete crock, of course, but I imagine that the third quote is a misinterpretation (if it did happen). In *The Genesis of German Conservatism*, Klaus Epstein mentions that the equally incorrect idea that the superiors in the order had the "power of life and death" over their subordinates was very widespread. It did not help that the authorities found a recipe for poison during a search of Xavier Zwack's house in 1786. In addition, the suppression of the Illuminati was a comparatively limited affair. Even though there were edicts in Mainz and Bonn (coupled with an edict issued by Joseph II that tried to bring freemasonry closer under imperial control), Bavaria was the only territory I'm aware of where members were actually arrested. Johann Bode would, with the support of the ruling dukes of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg and Saxe-Weimar, continue to direct the order from either Weimar or Gotha (not entirely sure which, unfortunately) until its demise in either 1787 or 1788, but he would also help establish the *Philadelphe* circle while visiting Paris in 1787 as well as the *Deutsche Freimaurerbund* in 1790, which was for all intents and purposes an extension of the Illuminati. So conspiracy theorists had plenty to work with, even though Bode effectively purged all radical elements out of the Illuminati and seems to mainly have been interested in masonic reform.
The *Originalschriften*, which would be joined by the third volume *Die Neuesten Arbeiten des Spartacus und Philo in dem Illuminatenorden* in 1793 (consisting of documents stolen by a defector), the juridical deposits, and other documents were all used by Augustin Barruel to support the idea that the French Revolution had been engineered by the Illuminati in his 1797 *Memoires Illustrating the History of Jacobinism*. John Robison, a scottish professor, published *Proofs of a Conspiracy* the same year, which makes essentially the same argument as Barruel. To simplify a bit, Robison and Barruel both saw the Illuminati as anti-Christian attempts to destroy the natural order of things born out of the radical elements of the French Enlightenment. Their books were incredibly influential and pretty much delineated the conspiratorial interpretation of the Illuminati, later authors have reinterpreted this depending on their anxieties but the core is the same. Nesta Webster tacked on an anti-semitic element into the whole affair and saw the history of the Illuminati as beginning before 1776, the John Birch Society saw Weishaupt as the originator of the Communist Conspiracy, and so on. The idea of a "world domination" oriented Illuminati may, if you'll forgive me for speculating, have come during the Cold War period.
**tl;dr The Illuminati wanted Austrian acquisition of Bavaria. Bavarian loyalists defected and gave exaggerated testimony to demonize the order. House searches and confiscated documents seemed to support these claims, plus the continued existence of the Illuminati in Northern Germany was seen as evidence that they were still up to no good (despite it essentially being a masonic reform movement at this point). Robison and Barruel spun all of this into conspiratorial narratives about the french revolution, which later authors have interpreted depending on their own views.**
Sources:
* Neugebauer-Wölk, Monika. "Illuminaten" in *The Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism*, ed. Wouter Hanegraff. Brill, 2006.
* Israel, Jonathan. "Chapter 31: Aufklärung and Secret Societies" in *Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights 1750-1790*. Oxford University Press, 2011.
* Epstein, Klaus. *The Genesis of German Conservatism*. Princeton University Press, 1966.
* McIntosh, Christopher. *The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason*. SUNY, 2011.
The excerpts from the juridical deposit are taken from Augustin Barruel's *Memoirs*, but I don't know the exact page number or volume. The whole depositcan be read [here](_URL_0_), but the article is not as good as some of the author's later writing.
**EDIT:** Rewrote the concluding paragraph.
**EDIT #2:** To my critics, this is about as simple as you can get without vastly distorting the historical record. But I agree that it was a bad decision to not include a tl;dr, so I've rectified that.
**EDIT #3:** Thanks for the gold, kind strangers! I'll be sure to put in a good word for you when I return to JIDF headquarters later to collect my paycheck (and yes, they do pay me by the word.) | a1c3cfdf-40c1-4e26-99dd-29a8ca838992 |
4otfyi | How a company can trademark a single word and prevent the word being used in anything? | You're a little confused about how trademark works.
Trademarks protect the look and branding of a specific product or class of products. The protection they grant is limited in scope. Sky TV can't keep me from brewing a beer and calling it Sky Pale Ale. However, if I were to use their logo on the label, or something that looked very similar to it, then they would have a case.
However, you can sue anyone for anything. Doesn't mean you'll win. In order for a company to prevail in a trademark lawsuit, they typically have to show that there exists either the likelihood of brand confusion (ie: a reasonable consumer believes the same company just happens to make TV shows and beer), or that the use of the trademarked term by another party devalues the trademark.
In reality, the practical application of trademark law means that many factors are taken into consideration: are the two parties selling product or competing in the same market? Are they selling a similar product (Suzuki motorcycles vs. Suzuki Japanese Grill)? Is the branding of the defendant physically or materially similar to that of the plaintiff ? How common is the term in question (a unique name like "Incrediways" is liable to have much more protection than "Cloud", "Sky", or "Earth")?
Generally, common English words are the hardest to protect in trademark, because they have a broader application beyond a brand name. | a4407686-8c1b-4a28-8e59-9cee38eda0f4 |
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