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39qbbb | Used car pricing. | 1. people highball their car because potential buyers will haggle down the price. that is a near guarantee, so they list the car higher.
2. people wildly overestimate the value of their car. it might have 200k+ miles and there might be a crack in the manifold... but it drives like a dream!
3. dealerships generally price used cars higher
4. people don't understand used car pricing. not just #2, they might have had work done on the car recently or there are aftermarket parts that they are including in the price of the car when in reality none of that matters. | 80eeff3d-73cb-4645-92bb-6d88292d077b |
40i31k | why do girls or guys put naked pictures of themselves on the internet ? | 1. Attention/validation/excitement;
2. It's just a normal picture to them and the fact they are naked isn't an issue for them;
3. They were paid at some point, but has been distributed by others freely;
4. It was never meant for public dissemination but some asshole decided to put it out there; | 1ea65531-8ac2-4b0c-861c-e37e99d7a301 |
1ihlwx | What is quantitive easing? | One of the jobs of the Federal Reserve it to help set monetary policy for the United States. One of the main ways it does this is by setting the Federal Fund Rate. This is an interest rate that banks pay each other for interbank loans, but more importantly, almost all other interests rates (home loans, credit cards, etc) , directly or indirectly, are related to this rate. The lower the interest rates, the easier it is to get a loan, which makes expansion (personal or business) easier, which generally increases growth. When the economy is going along good, the Fed raises interest rates, which slows things down a bit, and when it's going poorly it drops interest rates to give things a boost. What it's attempting to do is avoid boom/bust cycles (which obviously it can't eliminate given we are still recovering from a giant economic bubble bursting), and provide steady continuous long term growth. In the wake of the housing bubble collapse, the Fed dropped interest rates from around 5.25% to it's current rate of 0.1%. That's literally almost nothing, and it means that the Fed can't continue to use decreases in interest rates to spurn on the economy. Given that the unemployment rate is still very high, and in general the economy is on unstable ground, this is a bit scary. Basically the main nob that the Fed uses to push the economy into action got dialed to 11, and that's still not working.
That led the Fed to adopt an additional policy called Quantitative Easing (QE). Basically the central bank purchases very large amounts of public bonds. Bonds are traditionally a safe place to store you money, with low by reliable returns on investment. By buying up large amounts of these bonds, they are denying people and companies from being able to have access to that safe place. If you don't invest in anything (just keep a pile of cash sitting around) then the value decreases over time because of inflation. So basically the Fed is forcing people to invest in some other project (like expanding business ventures) if they want a decent return on their investment. This, coupled with historically low loan rates, means it's very good time to invest in those sorts of projects, which should increase their frequency, which should give the economy a kick in the pants. | d34944b5-c06d-4852-8f36-e051b3a81803 |
1vipv9 | How Does Stephen Hawking's Chair Work? | Hawking suffers from motor neuron disease, and over time, he's become more and more paralysed. Early on in the disease's progression, his students were able to understand him (with some effort), but as his disease progressed he's needed other solutions. In the mid-80's he had a tracheotomy, and lost his ability to talk verbally completely, which is when he switched to using a device with a single button that allowed him to spell our words. Some of the first text-to-speech software was installed on his chair, and because that voice has become tied to him, he's left it even though it sounds quite robotic and there's better sounding solutions these days.
His disease has progressed to the point where he can no use his hand to control the button, and now uses a system that operates off his cheek muscles.
_URL_0_ | 24436861-908e-4a49-962a-38999ff5ba40 |
392yy2 | Why is it that when you drink cranberry juice it creates a sort of texture in your mouth, but other juices do not? | Some drinks/foods (namely cranberry juice and red wine) have something inside them called Tannins. Tannins bind with the proteins in your saliva on your tongue and cheeks, changing (temporarily and very little) the surface of your mouth by taking away some of the natural coating that is normally there. | a0a72e68-147d-4d4b-a634-db1cdf9b3abb |
91z1ra | Why are farmers struggling financially when there are more people than ever before to feed, people eat more on average than ever before, we know more about the science of agriculture than ever before, and there is more advanced machinery for planting / harvesting than ever before? | Automation is eliminating most of the simple jobs for farmers. A typical farm machine does the work of 40 laborers. So now being a farmer means you need a ton of money to operate a fleet of expensive machines. | e83fccd6-2329-4e85-8036-715f6d80ea54 |
1v2brd | Why do men start balding sooner and at a much faster rate than women? | A product of testosterone called [DHT](_URL_0_) is toxic to hair follicles on the head. | 9e89c35c-26ea-4c99-9a9a-36d69b847c8b |
2of0h7 | Why do judges and lawyers in the UK still wear those ridiculous wigs in court? | Why do priests wear their collars backwards? Why do businessmen wear a strip of fabric around their necks that have no function? Why do chefs wear that puffy hat (when any hat would work)? I think labeling something as "ridiculous is a bit subjective | 03d5d7fc-b9cc-4596-b565-75b42b91d95b |
62zddw | How do animal eggs get their nutrients? | The yolk contains the nutrients needed for the animal to grow. Think of the yolk as the place a of the egg. The fetus is attached by an umbilical cord to the yolk. By the time the animal is fully grown, the yolk nutrients have been used up. | fa0de048-1478-4868-badd-ef72f13fb60e |
nvb61 | How does a compiler work and what language is a compiler written in? | A compiler is basically just a translator. It turns one language into another one, just like a hypothetical machine that could translate English into Japanese. The output of a compiler (the language it translates to) is typically the computer's machine code.
Compilers usually have a few pieces.
* The lexer. This turns sequences of characters into tokens. For instance, the lexer may see this as input: "w", "h", "i", "l", "e", and return as output TOKEN_WHILE, a simple value that indicates the keyword "while" was seen.
* The parser. This turns sequences of tokens into a more abstract representation of the language. For example, you might have this code: "while(1) { }", which the lexer would turn into TOKEN_WHILE, TOKEN_LEFT_PAREN, TOKEN_CONSTANT, TOKEN_RIGHT_PAREN, TOKEN_LEFT_BRACE, TOKEN_RIGHT_BRACE. The parser would then be able to turn that into a data structure that indicates the programmer requested a while loop. This data structure is usually an abstract syntax tree.
* The code generator. This component reads through the abstract syntax tree, and generates machine code. It may also do compiler optimizations.
Compilers can be written in any language. They can even be written in the same language which they compile for (e.g. a C++ compiler could be written in C++). | b55abe19-6e7d-4afa-9237-ee8e26e2dc4a |
65e1jt | What happens to people who were previously charged with illegal possession of marijuana after a new law legalizes it? | It depends on the exact nature of the new law. All else being equal, they may still be convicted, or if already convicted may still be imprisoned, because they broke the law *as it stood at the time*.
However, recognising that this is kind of silly where a law is introduced that basically says "welp, we shouldn't have had that other law in the first place", legislatures may put provisions in the law that cause pending prosecutions to be dropped, and may even automatically commute the sentences of people already convicted. This, though, is by no means guaranteed.
All of that actually applies to *anything* that becomes legal after having previously been legal, not just possession of cannabis. | 4582af02-b81a-45ba-968d-d673aba690b0 |
1pyyou | The reason behind Colorado county secession vote today | Many states have tensions between urban areas, which tend to be more liberal, and rural areas, which tend to be more conservative. In Colorado, which in recent years has trended liberal, legalized pot, banned high-capacity magazines, etc, the rural conservatives are particularly distraught.
Of course, it's rather superficial. To secede from a state you need approval of that state and the federal government, and that is not going to happen. Basically they are just having a pointless ballot referendum on how annoyed they are at being on the losing side of various elections. | db0f34ec-3671-4d50-b674-9d0cd866cc2a |
76nfe1 | How do tape recorders adjust for the differences in spool sizes? | The speed of the tape isn't controlled by the speed that the reels turn, it's the other way around.
Part of the tape path, usually just after the heads, is a cylindrical drive called the [capstan](_URL_0_), and a pinch roller to hold the tape against the capstan.
The capstan turns at a constant speed and *that* is what determines how fast the tape moves. The feed reel and the take-up reel turn at whatever speed it takes to feed/take up the tape at the speed determined by the capstan. | 62cb7f68-ea2b-4eb3-a338-c6085ca5f8e8 |
27cmeo | How substances like gasoline are able to store so much energy | Hydrocarbon chains (like gasoline) are made of carbon and hydrogen. When these substances undergo combustion, the carbon atoms bond with external oxygen to form CO2, and the hydrogen atoms bond with external oxygen to form H2O. Every time a complex molecule (hydrocarbon chain) becomes a simpler molecule, energy is released -- the CO2 and H2O molecules are at a lower energy state.
Petroleum is only able to form under considerable heat and pressure. So, in a sense, burning gasoline is kind of like releasing all that pent up heat and pressure that the petroleum underwent while it was below ground. | 8159ca62-75dc-4291-be8d-1a9d7fe883c3 |
3hrlmk | If teachers have to spend so much money out of pocket on school supplies for class why don't they just stop? | Teachers are kind of strange in that they care about the children under their charge and also care about their jobs. Kind of crazy I know | fc229532-add8-4f11-8f4e-693c2b65305b |
31hh83 | Why do I have two bars of WiFi signal when I lie on my left side, but when I lie flat on my back I loose my Wifi altogether? Surely a few centimetres shouldn't make a difference? | Wifi signal can act like waves in a pool. Up and down all over the place, but sometimes there is a dead spot where the waves bouncing off the walls cancel each other out. Try moving the router, or even just changing the angle of the antenna. | fb67f717-2d55-4343-a65d-bab44fa89cd5 |
1pqevg | why are YouTube videos not available to My country (u.s) | Copyright issues. One company might have copyright laws registered in the US, but not in, say, Russia. So Youtube might block that video in the US because the company can sue them for hosting the video in the US, but won't in other countries. | 782469a0-b369-45c1-8c75-b7f5e36d9840 |
1uyn5v | What sound properties do different musical instruments have different from each other? | This has a lot to do with overtones and resonance.
Resonance is pretty self-explanatory: how well something (in the case an instrument) resonates throughout a room or building due to the sound waves bouncing and amplifying for a short period of time.
Overtones are what make a sound "thick." When an instrument plays a note, there is a dominant pitch that registers. However, there is also normally other pitches that "surround" that pitch to make it sound fuller. Think of a male falsetto note, or Pavarotti hitting that same note. One is thin without many overtones, and one is huge and thick.
If you play a note around a middle C on a piano and on a trumpet and a well-trained tenor sings the same note, none of these three things will sound the same as you have mentioned. This is because the piano has a fairly thin sound (less overtones), the trumpet uses its brass make-up to increase resonance and overtones, and a tenor would use his entire chest and nasal cavity to resonate the sound a fill an opera house. This applies for all musical instruments with some louder, thinner-sounding, thicker-sounding, irritating, warm and colorful etc..
This isn't a conclusive answer to your question but it is a little knowledge that I know and I hope it's helpful. | 324006f3-b89f-4dd2-9466-03852be3c9c9 |
3nthlk | Why don't more satellites get damaged from space debris? | While there is a lot of trash around, space is huuuuuge. And the chances of something beeing hit are pretty small. This map shows you all the sattelites in earth orbit _URL_0_ and just look at how much space there is inbetween them. | 5deabc62-df4f-4b64-a707-55068585ccd4 |
3uexc7 | Why don't humans (and other organisms) evolve into perfect beings? | All evolution does is adapt you to survive and reproduce in your surroundings. If thats the end goal, humans pretty much are perfect | 5ca355fe-ffab-4015-b202-9bb88dca25ce |
7sp9e0 | what is thread-concurrency? | Thread concurrency is when multiple threads are running at the same time. Idk if the same principles apply for software and hardware, but at least in software, concurrency introduces problems that normally wouldn't exist.
Let's take the example of ATMs that digitally records how much money my bank account has. Now let's say I access my bank account from two different ATM's at the same time, and make a withdrawal from both.
I have 3000 dollars in my bank account initially, and I make two withdrawals of 300 dollars simultaneously. Let's take a look at what happens normally (if I had made two withdrawals consecutively instead of simultaneously) and what happens when concurrency happens.
Normally:
1: ATM queries my account, and sees I have 3000 dollars
2: ATM sees I make withdrawal of 300, subtracts 300 from my total
3: It stores my new value as 2700
4: ATM queries my account again, and sees I want to withdraw another 300
5: It subtracts another 300
6: It now stores my account as 2400 dollars
With concurrency, now two ATM's are simultaneously accessing my banking information. Based on the OS implementation, we do not know when the threads switch, which means we do not know when ATM1 queries, when ATM2 queries, when ATM1 does the withdrawal, etc etc relative to each other. What could happen is:
1: ATM1 completes everything,
2: ATM2 completes everything.
Which gives the correct outcome anyways. But that is rare. What could happen is:
1: ATM1 could query that I have 3000 dollars, and does the subtraction
2: ATM2 queries my bank account, and sees I still have 3000 dollars, because ATM1 hasn't had a chance to update my balance yet
3: ATM1 updates my balance to be 2700
4: ATM2, given that it read 3000 as my balance, also reaches 2700 as my final balance, and writes it to my bank balance
5: My bank balance is now 2700, even though I withdrew 600 dollars
These kind of errors are thread-concurrency errors | 9b5de567-e126-4329-bd6a-6fbba3f681a3 |
1xy2k2 | If the minimum wage is increased, won't employers, corporations, the 1%, etc... just increase prices to give themselves the same financial advantages they have now, thereby wiping out the gains for the minimum wage earner? | You know what won't go up?
That $6000 debt on your credit card. The $13000 you have left on your car loan. The $200,000 you have on your mortgage. | 1b271495-cb45-45d5-88fe-0524e25a08d4 |
5iq28c | Why does direct deposit take upwards of two weeks to activate yet opening a credit account can take 20 minutes at a store? | Assuming we're talking about direct deposit of a paycheck, it's likely your job that is causing the delay and not the bank. Businesses have to have their payroll and financial booking in order before they can pay you. They might not be able to handle financial changes on short notice for a variety of reasons. If they aren't able to do it within a week, then they have to push it to the next week since you probably only get paid (at most) once a week. | cf3fe49f-c843-4a97-9ba2-333fc0689cef |
5pede9 | Are Brooklyn, Staten Island, Queens, Bronx and Manhattan considered different cities? And what considers them boroughs? | They're all part of New York City, though they were once separate and individual cities. As for what considers them “boroughs,” that's the colloquial name for the counties which now bear those names. Queens and the Bronx are the same in both cases, but Manhattan is New York county, Staten Island is Richmond county, and Brooklyn is Kings county. I refer you to Wikipedia for more. | 1edc41a2-8223-4d8e-91ec-4d55d6a783d4 |
5gzzs0 | Why do animals like deer, kangaroos and such seem to vaporize when hit by a fast moving car? | Vaporize? They don't. You can clearly see the bodies after contact.
However, the blood is expelled as a loosely compacted liquid which, as liquids do at high velocity, disperses as a mist.
Some of the internal organs would go with that, too, as they are very squishy, and squishy things hit by something large and moving fast tend to break into small bits -- especially when compressed quickly by the collapsing bone structure.
As for being sent flying... In the first video, the animal falls under either the front or the wheel of the vehicle. In the second, it definitely goes flying.
Compare that to [this video of a deer](_URL_0_) -- hoping it's the one I remember because I can't see videos at work. Should be a deer sent flying as it is hit by the front of the vehicle. | 427435e1-30bb-4fbc-8784-9371dbb9b146 |
3idscr | Why does it feel colder when you get wet? | when water evaporates off your skin, the water takes some energy from its surroundings (meaning you) in order to change from a liquid to a gas. This is also why sweating makes you cooler. The evaporation of any water, sweat or otherwise, cools you down. | 6fcb75ea-d481-4d72-b93a-a5fca77d9952 |
239map | How do swype keyboard work and how are they so accurate? | You start on one letter. The computer takes a list of words that start with that letter. You swype to the next letter -the computer eliminates all words that don't have that letter next. You swype to the third letter and it eliminates more words and so on until you have only the word you swyped in. However, your input gets 'fuzzed' a little by fat fingers usually, so the computer is actually taking the group of letters around where your fingers are and creating several concurrent lists using the fuzzy inputs of each position your finger travels to. When you are done swyping it will present to the user the word that most closely matches the positions your finger traveled across, with other options shown that are either similar to the word you swyped in (essentially doing the same as a spell-checker) or presenting words that you could have typed if your fingers were a little bit inaccurate in their movements. | ee887db9-b4b5-4c0f-8d6d-5aebe458e24e |
17545h | the meaning behind this quote: "Karachi is like Gotham City.. except we have no Batman.. and our Joker lives in London" | Karachi (largest city in Pakistan) is currently experiencing some large problems; both in crime, and politically. This is in part due to [Altaf Hussain](_URL_0_) who is the founder and leader of the [Muttahida Quami Movement](_URL_1_) - a political party in pakistan based in the city of Karachi. The problems surrounding the party are complicated, but politics in Pakistan is often dangerous business involving murder and corruption. A large part of the Muttahida Quami Movement and the leader himself (Altaf Hussain) live in the UK due to fear of personal safety.
**TL;DR**: Karachi is politically and criminally chaotic much like Gotham, except there is no one to help (someone like Batman) and the leader of the group of people causing these problems (the Joker) lives in London. | daecd9d1-fccd-44aa-8389-3c65e36a0666 |
3t0ubo | Why is it that Russians are never (or barely ever) referred to as Asians, even though Russia is technically part of the continent Asia? | Most Russians live in what is considered by most maps to be Europe. However, far more importantly than that, most Russians are ethnic Slavs and are far, far more culturally connected to Europe than any Asian culture. | 45e427f5-fd18-4f42-890d-84ec6342624f |
2legf4 | What would happen if a civilian took the laws in their own hands (Catching criminals, helping the police etc.). Are there any legal restricitions against doing this, like Batman does? | Canadian lawyer here.
This depends massively on the jurisdiction you are in. In Canada, anyone is allowed to arrest someone they find committing an indictable offence (comparable to a felony), but there are certain restrictions. For example, if I'm going to arrest someone, I have to directly find them committing the crime. A cop can arrest someone if they have reasonable grounds to believe the person committed the offence; the cop doesn't have to catch the guy red-handed.
The big problem with what Batman does (in my jurisdiction) is that most of his ass-kicking isn't arresting people, it's just ass-kicking. Or, to use the language of the criminal law, "assault causing bodily harm".
The two main reasons that police will dissuade citizens from catching criminals on their own are that (1) you're likely to get yourself shot or stabbed eventually, and (2) there's a chance you could somehow screw up a chain of evidence or deprive the arrested person of their rights, which could mean that the prosecution can't succeed. | 17bd396c-a661-4271-a05f-d0a979231364 |
2witzr | Back in the old days of Minecraft Modding, why did we need to delete the "META-INF" folder to avoid a black screen? | Meta-Inf is an address book of sorts. Minecraft will attempt to index everything in that address book. When modding old-school style, we replace files in the minecraft.jar itself. That will lead to some disrepancies in the addresses and whatnot. Minecraft then crashes cause it can't find what it expects. By deleting Meta-Inf, you effectively just tell it not to double check addresses, and everything runs as it should | e549da96-18f8-428b-bd47-98282599bbf1 |
1xvdls | What is tenure, how do professors get it, and why can't it be taken away when they abuse their power over students? | This may help:
_URL_0_
A professor certainly can be fired for cause. | 5e1f180c-06ce-4c94-b6d9-6c925b614cc3 |
2iu0ab | What is the "life expectancy" of the human civilisation? | That's way too complicated to possibly predict, and as far as we know, there's likely not anything we could do to ourselves (nuclear warfare, anthropogenic climate change, etc.) that would wipe us out completely, even if it would be catastrophic. Some humans somewhere would somehow limp to survival. Although we do know that at some point, increasing solar radiation will make the Earth uninhabitable, but that's like a billion years from now (literally) so it's nothing to worry about for now. I would say it's extremely likely there will still be humans in 10,000 years. Will the year 12014 look as good as the year 2014? Who knows. It depends on whether or not we get our act together and tackle all the problems that are easily solvable if we stop being a bunch of dumbasses. It's seriously not that hard to completely dismantle all nuclear weapons, institute 100% clean and renewable energy worldwide, end hunger and extreme poverty. But for the life of us, the people in power can't seem to get it done.
But humans won't die out that soon. Global agricultural-industrial-information capitalist civilization may die if we don't solve these problems, but humans themselves ain't going anywhere, even if we (I should say THEY) have to revert to primitive agriculture or even hunting and gathering. | 4b60f835-578e-4daa-bdef-1ec4095f3318 |
6fbd26 | My sister and I are the youngest of seven, four years separating her and I. She and I have five distinct birthmarks all in the same places and similar shapes, however none of our other siblings have these birthmarks. Why is this? | its about DNA...you have some common genes with other siblings that you just don't notice.
the birthmarks are just more noticable, especially if they are in nearly the same places.
the other siblings probably got those genes as recessive genes means those birthmarks didn't show up for them | 864fa6f9-b8e0-4e10-9f41-8285d1823306 |
5ea8qt | Why do airlines ask you to turn off/airplane mode your phone during a flight when? Does it actually affect the flight? | I'm a pilot. While usually cell phones don't affect our instrumentation (anymore, this wasn't always the case), I can definitely tell if someone in first class (or in the cockpit haha) has their phone on because as soon as we get low enough for them to have service, I will hear a bunch of clicks in my headset if they get a message or something. It's mildly distracting but nothing else. I know that doesn't really answer your question | 14b1ca3a-89de-4c46-ae36-45e846afd69a |
1mcqdk | Why does it take so long for new video game consoles to be produced? | Consoles are typically sold at a loss to encourage people to buy them. This increases the install base, and developers want to target the largest audiences possible to maximize sales. Developers have to pay a licensing fee to the console manufacturers to release a game on their platform. So the reason it takes a while between generations is because the manufacturers need to make back their loss on sales and production time and then wait to turn their profits on the games sold. | e19661bb-0f25-4e20-b3df-dea5d1978293 |
39hpld | what's the difference between torque and brake horse power? | Torque and HP are related by an equation:
HP = torque * RPMs / 5252
Torque is the amount of twisting force available at that moment at the wheel. HP is the amount of energy the engine is able to produce, and they are in a fixed relationship with each other.
When people argue about torque vs. horsepower for cars, it's usually because they don't understand that the two things are linked. For acceleration from a low speed, an engine which develops a lot of Torque at low RPMS will also be generating more power at that RPM. Given that you're usually making some sort of trade-off in any situation, those engines tend to generate less torque as their RPMs increase and therefore less power. Engines with their peak HP at high RPMs generally have trouble accelerating at low speeds because the RPM of the engine is necessarily low as it's attached to the wheels. | 1481d122-fd06-4268-a261-bac490a2afed |
6pb4qm | Does the heat index (or wind chill) objectively effect the human body? | Before I answer your question, I want to address your 99 vs. 100 degrees C example. Water will evaporate, very quickly, at 99 degrees C. It just won't quite reach boiling (assuming normal atmospheric pressure). Now, what causes the heat index is temperature *and* humidity. The amount of moisture already in the air. We cool ourselves off by sweating. The sweat evaporates from our hot skin, and as it evaporates it carries some of that heat with it, cooling down our bodies. However, the more humid the air the harder it is for sweat to evaporate. The air is already full of droplets of water, so there's no room for our sweat to move into the air. Because of this our excess heat can't be carried away, and we start to overheat more easily than if it was the same temperature without the humidity. Our internal heat rises more quickly because our coolant system can't function properly. With windchill, the moving air carries away heat from the surface of our skin, causing our bodies to lose it more quickly, thus lowering our body temperature.
As an aside, this is why "dry heat" is so dangerous. Because there's virtually no moisture in the air, our sweat evaporates very quickly and we have an easier time of maintaining a healthy body temperature. However, it's still hot and we're sweating so much that you're rapidly losing water, with can very quickly lead to dehydration. | fc5841aa-35e3-4e65-8635-557d247cf7d6 |
5yzf58 | where do birthmarks come from? | There are two types of birthmarks.
Pigmented birthmarks result from when there is an excess of skin pigment cells, the cells that give your skin colour, in one place. Examples of these would include moles, café au lait spots, and Mongolian spots.
Vascular birthmarks are from an increased amount of blood vessels in a given location. These are red, such as salmon patches and port-wine stains.
It is still unknown why birthmarks form.
Here are a few examples of birthmarks, I'm sure there are many more types, but these are some of the more common ones.
[Café au lait spot](_URL_2_)
NSFW?[Mongolian spot](_URL_3_)
[Salmon patch](_URL_0_)
[Port-wine stain](_URL_1_) (Prominent patch on his head)
_URL_4_
Edit; nsfw
Edit: redux; more info | a7bcedde-fd3a-42df-a05b-f3bb743d854d |
18t2b7 | Why do modern TVs seem to increase the framerate of video, even when to footage is decades old? | Modern televisions have a setting that is usually turned on by default that causes this effect. The way it does it is by looking at two frames in the image, seeing what the differences are, and "guessing" what another frame between the two would look like if it was there when the show was recorded. The TV then creates this extra frame, and gives the appearance of the TV show or film being recorded at 48-60 FPS. | 41f377fc-8932-4e22-8dcc-2f4a84a08df4 |
30vviv | Short Film Industry. How do short films make money? How much do the directors/producers/actors earn on average? | They generally don't unless you win an award.
They're usually funded by art grants or private investors as a proof of concept for the director and/or crew's talents. | 046c290c-7871-4ba4-946e-8a6dcd798a14 |
3we54b | I read somewhere it's impossible to overdose on melatonin. But, what would happen if I consumed an entire bottle at one time? | I was laying in bed sleeping when I woke up adrenaline pumping fully alert. I couldn't move, I was paralyzed. My body didn't do the "feels like I have a million pound weight" deal, just didn't do crap.
Standing over me was a demon dressed in a white dress. I've heard stories of the white light, etc. I thought this was the end. I must have died in my sleep. It seemed like 30 seconds. I was scared shitless.
Reality was it was 2 seconds. I had sleep paralysis. The huge dosage of melatonin I took made it where I still had the chemical that paralyzes you so you don't act out dreams in me when I woke up.
Melatonin is a hormone, not a drug, so overdosing is different.
But I'll be damned if I ever take too much ever again. | d0a78fd0-1a24-4fde-ae3b-811d50f16fad |
3441sz | Why do I see the same length of my body in the mirror no matter how far I am from the mirror? | What do you mean by "length of my body"? Do you mean you see yourself as the same height? You see yourself as the same height because you are still the same height. looking in a mirror is like looking at a person on the other side of a piece of glass, standing as far from the glass as you. Since they're still the same height, they'll still appear to be the same height. | db377650-031b-4342-bafd-a76ca629cd24 |
69axge | What are the differences between mechanical keyboard switches? | Mechanical switches differ not only in actuation force, but also in the profile of that force. A switch might be designed to require a high force to begin moving, but then it lightens up. Or it can be made to get heavier as you push it. They can also differ in how much force it takes to keep them depressed, and with how much force they come up with. The design of the actuation in that article effects all of these. | 6b3457a0-e318-4c49-ad7d-dfe204cdcae3 |
6kkjjf | the speed of light through different materials. | That's an error a lot of people make. Light itself doesn't slow down, it only appear to slow down. Light isn't bouncing around inside the material, because it that would be the case, then light would be scarttered in all direction when exiting the material and there would be a randomness in the apparent speed of light depending on how many time each photon bounced. And it isn't being slow down like a person through deep mud because atoms are mostly empty space, so most photon woudn't be affected by the material.
The answer is that when light enter a material it will lose energy to the atoms. Those atoms will absorb some of that energy and will remit light themself. All those smaller wave will create a sort of interference with the initial wave and the net total of all those wave will create a wave travelling slowler than the speed of light, even if all the individual wave travel at the speed of light. It's a bit like adding a bunch of vectors together. | 3cfa17af-2b40-4a41-a55c-86538855be3a |
3ldcfm | Why are we circumcised? | From what I understand, it was a religious reason to Jewish folks, but it became more mainstream when John Kellogg(as in the cereal company) recommended it to prevent masturbation. I may be wrong, but that's what I understand of the subject. | cf17cff3-c0a4-46a4-98c6-7c6c08935c4d |
1ablab | What is the difference between techno and electronic? | Techno originates from the 80s in Detroit. It sounds dark, industrial, and sometimes depressing. A good example is Prodigy - Breathe: _URL_1_
Electronic is a catch-all term for all music that uses electronic instruments.
"Electronica" is not a genre. It is a marketing buzzword from the 90s when electronic music became more mainstream.
You can find more information here: _URL_0_ | 4acb0423-6b51-4001-a0b8-59a0a3dee64a |
85e9r9 | Why are so many universities selective with admissions if more students means more revenue? | Imagine you have a movie theater that seats 200 people. There's a popular movie coming out. Would you sell 800 tickets to the show? I mean, that'e more revenue, right?
Well, yeah, but you can't handle that many people. So, capacity and infrastructure are part of it.
Another part is that limiting the number of students helps them maintain the cachet as an in-demand school. You can be pickier, take the most promising students, and keep a reputation for being a quality institution. | 9e73d9d5-0713-4625-a7e8-f787a0adede0 |
31cwgb | If residential solar is such a good investment, how come 95% percent of homes don't have it yet? | Probably because it takes 10 - 20 years until you have your costs cut and start to make profits since solar panels aren't cheap at all. Here in germany the goverment was support solar panel companies but have since cut those supports. | a854afae-7429-4d4d-8e28-a82672d958b4 |
5lbvyv | Why do so many airline pilots have alcohol problems? | Poor pay, irregular hours, spending time away from family, stressful environment and lack of rest to name a few. | 5f8fb296-2af9-48ee-ace3-b2ec80bc1e27 |
3wk3or | Why did some animals become mainstream pets? | They were the easiest to tame and domesticate. Also, some had actual uses beyond "companion". | 8e7482cd-0cb0-40bd-bfad-dfa511697628 |
38wvix | Why is it so incredibly difficult to hold in a bowel movement? | The anus is an involuntary scphincter. When you try to hold in your poops you are controlling muscles around the anus but not the anus itself. Once there is enough internal pressure the anus will relax and there is nothing you can do about it. | 770cadd9-391e-45b0-82ab-ced52a6fb0ad |
l2t0f | How big is an atom? | Let's try with size comparisons.
For reference, the average measures I'll use are as follows: the diameter of a grain of sand is 0.2 millimetres, the diameter of an atom (electron cloud around the nucleus) is about 200 picometres, and the diameter of the nucleus alone is 10 femtometres.
Now for the comparison:
If a grain of sand was the size of planet earth (that's a 65,000,000,000x magnification) then the diameter of an atom would be 40 feet (about the length of a school bus) and the nucleus would be smaller than this -- > • < --
The nucleus is where all the neutrons and protons are. The rest of the atom size is made of the electron cloud orbiting around the nucleus. In other words, mostly emptiness. | 116eeb9b-0849-416e-828d-68d4d0443f52 |
60t61m | Why (or how) do certain mobile apps and programs make phones heat up and drain battery so quickly? And how does fixing a certain string of code fix that? | Most of the time, most parts of your phone aren't being used, or aren't being used fully.
- The GPS chip is switched off when you're not using location services
- The cellular data chip goes into a lower power mode when you're not sending/receiving data
- Even the processor isn't used very much when the app is just waiting for user input, and can be slowed down
However, all of these rely on the app telling the operating system (correctly, of course) what services they're using, and when they've finished with them. So a bug can result in the operating system leaving some hardware switched on, or in a higher power mode, even when it's not needed, because the app hasn't told the operating system it's not using that piece of hardware any more. | f02c6698-8b95-4979-89d0-2f2bca89529e |
4bx057 | How does ADHD affect the brain? | You know the story of the ant and the grasshopper? The ant works hard, plans for the future, prepares and stores food for winter. Grasshopper fucks around all summer, procrastinates, does whatever he wants and when winter comes he's caught off guard and underprepared.
Well, in the brain of an ADHD person, the ant is having a nap and the grasshopper is running the show. They have difficulty with executive function (future planning, seeing how decisions will impact them later, foreseeing consequences, benefits of delayed gratification and things of this nature.) Basically the part of the brain that tells you "that's a bad idea" or "you shouldn't do that" or "you should be doing..." is under active. This is why stimulants are used to treat ADHD. They give the ant part of the brain a jolt and help him rein in the grasshopper. | aa9b2b1f-f009-4830-bbf9-9792d50cca6f |
28ap9p | Why are almonds cheaper in milk form? | > Doesn't it take way more almonds to make a half gallon of milk then 6oz of raw almonds?
Not "way more", no. Depending on the recipe, I've seen something like 6oz - 8oz of almonds for half a gallon of almond milk. And keep in mind that you don't need almonds in great condition. If you're buying almonds to eat, you probably want them to be whole and unbroken, and that's going to command a slightly higher price. But for almond milk, the appearance doesn't matter, since they're going to be ground up anyway. | 239099df-3f9d-42f9-8a27-c3be5d868e47 |
1w2bb0 | When I pee, am I peeing out the water I drank recently, or the water I drank yesterday to make room for the new water? | When you drink water, it eventually becomes part of your blood. Your kidney regulates your blood pressure by drawing out water from the blood, which gets excreted as urine. So it's not really possible to differentiate water you drank now from water you drank earlier or even water your body produced. | 8f12e91f-2527-491a-bbe4-a46cb66e8659 |
70ihla | Human babies are a luxury? | Our large brains mean we have to be expelled from the body before we grow too large to fit through the birth canal, so as a result we have to do a lot of our growing outside the body.
Our brains are also the reason why we have and can use weapons to prevent being eaten by a lion. | ffea7ab0-078f-4c5a-a3c8-0ee979cd572c |
6q24xd | Seeing all of these Harambe & Deez Nuts votes in the presidental elections, What would happen if one of them actually got the majority of the votes? | If the person behind the name *was* eligible, then he or she could get the job. In the last election in the UK, Lord Buckethead stood against Prime Minister Theresa May in her constituency: if he had one, she would have lost the PM job (since the PM has to be a MP), and he would have become an MP. | 3dde05a7-4cb2-4389-84df-7c0c603546f3 |
1lpylt | How can movies shot in the 1980s and 1990s be released on HD platforms such as Bluray? | Yes, the original 35 mm film had much higher resolution than Blu-ray.
Remember, they were meant to be shown on a huge cinema size screen... if you put up a Blu-ray movie on a 20 meter wide screen it wouldn't look nice. | e5b305e0-127f-4136-936d-2523ebae4b95 |
2qw7jp | Before electronic currency, how did central banks, e.g the Fed, pay for the production of legal tender (bills/coins)? | Electronic bookkeeping was not the first time balances were written down rather than represented with physical objects. Did you think that when I deposited $50 in a bank in 1950, that exact $50 bill was kept in the vault until I asked for it back? No, they took the bill, added it to their stash, and added 50 to the number next to my name. Did you think that, to give my son money for college in 1970, I would have to literally drive across the country with $1000 in a suitcase and hand it to the Bursar? You do know that checks predate electronics, right?
All the Fed had to do back in the day was take the materials that were to be used to print the money, and pay for them with a debit on their account, and a credit on their supplier's account. Same with the laborers. Tim Berners-Lee did a lot of great things, but he didn't invent writing down numbers. | 36270253-af7c-43b2-9b64-2d021c641c02 |
5p96gf | How do planes land safely on seemingly not safe days? | Airplanes are much heavier than cars, so they slip less. It's the same reason a heavier car won't slide off the highway as easily as a smaller car. Plus, the runways are very long and very straight, so they're designed to have lots of room for stopping (and the engines usually will reverse thrust to slow down the plane anyway; cars don't typically go into reverse suddenly when they are driving along a highway and want to stop! Cars just brake normally, which is why they keep skidding when the wheels stop turning but still slide.) | 9a3d73f8-942b-492f-ae18-bc7df8cb38c2 |
29yi3s | If I go back a couple of hundred generations I would have more direct ancestors than there were people alive on the planet: How is this possible? | Incest \o/
edit: to clarify: At some point multiple of these positions in your tree of origin are occupied by the same person. | 6ff14334-bcf2-4af4-8fe5-81a79d73b634 |
4c8wpa | Why do toe nails typically have fungus while fingernails usually don't? | Toenails often are confined in a dark, warm, moist environment — inside your shoes — where fungi can thrive.
Toes usually have less blood flow than do fingers, making it harder for your body's immune system to detect and stop infection. | 7a236e13-26f9-4974-88be-778785ff98e4 |
6yo4u2 | How are tyres attached to wheels? | In car tires, there's a steel wire that's on the edge of the rubber tire. This wire is forced over the lip of the car wheel when mounting the tire. Then tension of the wire combined with friction of the rubber and air pressure seals(mostly) the tire to the wheel.
In some off-road wheels, a securing ring of bolts is used called a beadlock. | d80abebc-6bfe-4393-83e6-85503f30c3cc |
6xcjqa | why do you always get a distinct feeling/smell/ thing when you get struck in the nose or face? | I don't think the exact cause is known, but shocks to the brain - which could come through a blow to your face - can produce these odd (metallic?) taste sensations. They're common in concussions. Presumably a taste center in the brain is being knocked and playing up. You should get any potential concussion checked out in case there's a serious injury. | 5d1e1517-3027-40b1-b279-e306e05d08ea |
3gd3le | If insects use the moon to navigate at night, how do they navigate when it is a new moon, or any other phase in which the moon is only out for a short time at night? | The main theory is that they just use the moon as a landmark to help them fly in straight lines... But that there are other cues they use to navigate.
Apparently this is too short for ELI5... It's like if you were using the morning sun to help you walk in a straight line. Even if the day becomes cloudy, there are other things you can use to try to move straight. | c66bca47-f2d3-486c-8c7c-c5916769dc29 |
66stpe | Why do Americans use 'mom' and not mum also change other words? | For the same reason you don't use Ye Old English like you read in Shakespeare's plays, or even the most obscure English from way before that.
Language change, and that's fleek, it's lit, it's groovy, and it's far out, man. | b98e3f49-8cb3-4885-af25-596f4fc10efa |
22bq4d | Why do I sometimes 'hear' my heart beat through my ear when I lay my ear on a pillow? | You are hearing your pulse as it travels through your ear.
The pillow blocks out most external sound, and you laying at rest causes you to focus on certain things. | b2016a71-7db2-4be1-9e9f-b01d71bee051 |
21df3g | Why when I press on my skin it leaves a white spot for a couple of seconds? | You have tiny blood vessels near the surface of your skin (capillaries). When you push on your skin you force blood out of them. When you release it takes a fraction of a second for the blood to return. | 85073067-844a-437d-80c9-513f51e4d866 |
8uamta | Why do big companies fear their workers unionizing? | Lets say you work for a company and you feel like you deserve a raise. You walk into your boss's office and you say, "Pay me more or I quit". Your boss can let you quit - it is easy to replace a single worker after all.
Now, lets say that you get _everyone_ in the company to walk into your boss's office and say, "Pay us more or we quit". Your boss isn't so quick to let that happen - if everyone quits, then the company can't do any of its business. They are going be much more likely to listen to why you all deserve that raise.
That is the ultimate benefit of unions - a single worker has virtually no power to ask a company for anything and is easy to deny, but a _group_ of workers has much more value to the company and, as a collective, will be taken much more seriously.
Now, naturally, your boss knows all of this and doesn't want you to have this kind of power. They are going to do everything in their power to keep this from happening because unions don't benefit the company, only the worker. | 2daf5a45-bc20-4ac9-a57d-259a3da58cd9 |
5vsyvc | When animals are pregnant and then give birth, does the mother understand what is happening? | Before you answer this question you have to answer "What do animals understand?". There is limited evidence that animals have the same self-awareness that humans do.
_URL_0_
Skip to about 5 minutes for an explanation on the explanatory gap and the 'theory of mind'. | fac40b25-3864-4c85-8a89-d94e221002e9 |
41g4nj | Why aren't people electrocuted during a flash flood/storm? | Being electrocuted in the water isn't easy. I know you get told a lot about not taking a bath during a lightning storm. But chances are even if you did, nothing would happen. There are still thigns taller than you, still a whole lot of places for electricity to conduct more readily, and a lot of space between you and the lightning even in a close strike.
Its not that dangerous to be honest. But in certain circumstances, specific ones, it can really hurt or kill you.
When you have a flood, its highly unlikely for all the worst things to happen at the same time in any given place. | 4e174046-d43d-48a3-ac87-5adc152beeaf |
2mvmvj | If electrons and protons are oppositely charged, why aren't they attracted to each other in the nucleus of the atom? | Electron degeneracy pressure and the pauli exclusion principle. The force of this is greater than the electromgnetic force.
Two fermions cant occupy the same quantum state, unless gravity overcomes this as in a nuetron star.
ELI5
eseentially the force attracting protons and electrons is weaker than one that is keeping them apart. Think of it like an airplane- how can it fly if gravity is attracting it. Well the force of lift is overcoming the force of gravity. No different with electrons and protons. | 3a007e3d-4f04-48ca-82bf-91e175e9f5f4 |
3i117i | Why does it feel like HD movies are more HD than real life? | Processing.
At least, that's my assumption, as a photographer.
I can take a picture and on the review screen on my camera, it looks pretty close (like 99% accurate) to what I actually see.
Then I pop it in to lightroom, blast the shit out of the contrast, knock down the shadows and raise the saturation a little bit and then magically the shitty, average looking flowers outside my apartment look like the best fucking flowers ever.
edit:
okay fuck it, it's my friday and I have nothing better to do than spend a ton of time editing the same photo over and over so I'm gonna go shoot a flower outside my apartment and then type up what I mean better
edit again:
alright boys and girls here we go!
Here's the base picture I took of some mediocre flower or whatever:
_URL_0_
Here's Lightroom's "auto" settings. Increased exposure and contrast, messed with the levels a bit: _URL_3_
Here's what it looks like with saturation cranked way the fuck out: _URL_4_
Exposure turned down, "vibrance" turned up: _URL_1_
Same image as before, "blacks" channel cranked all the way down, contrast raised leaving only mid-tones and highlights: _URL_2_
As we can see, the same base image has a lot of information in it and the exact same image file as a base can be modified in all sorts of ways to manipulate them. I feel like the "auto" looks the best and probably makes the best point as to why stuff looks a little more "realistic" or "high-definition" than it should -- minor tweaks can take something from being totally mediocre and make it look a bit better. In the "auto" edited photo, colors are a little more colorful, darks are a little darker, lights are a little lighter and most notably the leaf inside the flower itself a lot more saturated. This process can likely be applied to digital video pretty easily as well (I don't know though, can a videographer chime in?) to make regular, hum-drum footage get that extra little "pop".
EDIT AGAIN:
Oh and this isn't HDR. HDR stands for High Dynamic range, usually used in static photos with the sky and something else present in the image. Usually you take 3 to 5 exposures and stitch them together so each element in the image is perfectly exposed. This is just simple editing of a single image. | b1685a24-9648-4702-a938-982bf4edab32 |
1tb511 | Ponzi Schemes | Jill has 2 dollars. Jack tells Jill if she gives him the 2 dollars, he'll be able to give her 3 dollars back later. Jack does so and makes sure Jill tells all her friends what a wonderful deal Jack is offering.
One of Jill's friends now wants to lend money to Jack. Jack takes this money and waits for another one of Jill's friends to lend him some money. With the second friend's money, Jack is able to pay back the first friend with the higher return while pocketing some for himself. Now the first friend will tell his own friends what a wonderful deal this is. As more people lend Jack money, he is able to pay back the people whom he borrowed from earlier, pocketing a bit each time.
The problem is that this money doesn't just appear out of nowhere. The only money coming into the system is the money from Jack's lenders. Meanwhile, money is going out through higher pay outs to earlier lenders and money that Jack has been pocketing and spending. Eventually, there won't be anyone left to lend their money to Jack. Earlier lenders now want their money with interest back. Suddenly, there is more money going out of the system than into it. Eventually, Jack decides to just disappear with what is left, leaving a lot of his later lenders with nothing. | ab6839ff-36d5-438b-817d-b6c3890e0151 |
3fzws5 | How do simple traffic stops/calls escalate to deadly force for police officers/offenders so frequently? | The thing is that its not frequent. They dont report the millions of traffic stops that operate smoothly. They find the one or two that escalated and report the crap out of it until people start to believe that cops are killing black people for no reason or drug dealers are gunning down cops on the regular.
& nbsp;
Situations escalate when either a criminal doesnt want to go to jail and he's armed, or the suspect and officer fail to communicate properly, someone gets scared and someone gets shot. | 5bce30ca-f723-4c8a-b50d-759a94121bd5 |
7ru9jz | What is the source of heat for the Earths core? | > What is the source of heat for the Earths core?
A small portion is residual heat from the initial collapse of material into the gravity well of Earth, but the majority at this point is from radioactive decay of heavy elements in the core. | be57dc9a-d63c-49be-8757-10ec11f3e011 |
2hlvqn | Why iOS update is 75MB but requires 1.5GB to install? | Because that 75 MB contains 3kb of changes to make to this 1MB file, and 2kb of changes to make to this 2MB file, etc etc. when it installs, it has to load the original file, duplicate it, apply the changes, and then return the file to its original place and delete the original.
So why don't they just do this one file at a time, instead of doing them all at once? I am guessing this has to do with safety. If you do it one file at a time and the process gets interrupted, you can end up with a half-applied update and completely bricked phone. OTOH, if you store all the modified files until the last second, there is a much smaller chance of the process being interrupted at a crucial point, and he phone can more easily fall back to its previous functional state. | da90c268-1bb6-4ed0-b503-223ed73a7f75 |
33b3km | Why does the combination of a fedora/trilby, graphic tee, and shorts make my skin crawl? | You've probably gotten such a negative/weird view of these people from Reddit so when you finally saw one you had a pre-determined opinion. | 2c98a23b-5203-4ed0-a7a1-4074324eaaf8 |
3rq54k | Muscular tone. Why do muscles get harder? How? Why do they get 'soft' faster than they get hard. What's the difference with muscular mass? | The fibers aren't really getting "tougher" they are getting larger. Muscle fibers are composed of smaller structures called myofilaments (primarily actin and myosin). It is the creation of more myofilaments which causes muscle growth or what we in science call hypertrophy.
When you exercise, you damage the protein in the muscle. This sends signals for your body rebuild. If given the right materials, you're body will repair itself and then add a little more...growing larger than before.
When you lose what you refer to as muscle tone. It is really just the muscle fibers getting smaller. We call this atrophy. Essentially, you lose what you don't use. This is where the phrase "use it or lose it" holds true.
It is much, much more complex than this. However, this is my ELI5 version. If you have any other questions ask away.
source: master's student in kinesiology: emphasis in exercise physiology | 00d4afef-4278-4670-8bdb-1be28f3ac283 |
5zjkd9 | How does head lice start? | Head lice is a great example of how infection can spread.
It doesn't spontaneously happen. Someone carries it, and passes it on.
You and your family are lice free. Your 2 kids go to school, one in daycare, one in kindergarten.
The kindergarten and daycare are also lice free.
Your kid goes to the museum and plays dress up with other kids they've never met before. One child who tries on the roman centurion helmet before your child has lice.
Your child now has lice. Playing with your second kid at home, they pass it on to them. Both your children go to school and pass it on to kids they play with. Each of those kids passes it on to their siblings.
One of those kids goes to Disney Land and tries on a bunch of Mickey hats, passing it on to the next child that tries on the hat.
The process starts again.
Rapid control and elimination is the solution. The faster you get an infectious disease or parasite under control, the less it can spread.
Some species of pubic lice have been all but eliminated in parts of the western world due to the popularity of trimming or removing pubic hair. Without a habitat, the species died.
If it became fashionable to shave your children's heads until they were teenagers, head lice would see a similar species collapse. | a9a47b74-9a44-4836-8943-7d46e9d44f72 |
8b5ybn | What is a Caveat? | The most common usage of the word is used as a warning. An example would be "You should update your computer firmware with the caveat that if you do it in the wrong order you could brick your system." | a1af312c-fa90-42ae-a8a6-d0180409ec58 |
8etlq3 | In regards to colleges/universities, how does "tenure" protect someone from being fired? | I'm far from an expert, but I believe it's essentially an employment term that acknowledges an advanced academic skill set and offers permanent employment to retain access to those skills even if they're not currently required or aren't meeting any desired output criteria.
I think it effectively protects you against being made redundant and adds a lot of red tape, rather than actually making it so that you literally *cannot* be fired.
I'm sure if a tenured professor committed some act of gross misconduct or breached their employment terms in some significant way they'd end up just as fired as anyone else, right? | d10d0e8d-144c-4a81-811c-d3c45308d0c7 |
mfe86 | Will the number of atheists increase as time goes on?
How would a society where atheists are the largest group behave? | > How would a society where atheists are the largest group behave?
Like Norway. | 7414575c-806d-4103-bf2a-3bfe3b989d75 |
517n3a | Kneeling during/sitting in national anthem disrespect to armed forces? | It's only disrespecting the armed forces in a super roundabout way. In the US, we stand to pay respect to the flag, which represents the US. If you're in uniform (military) you also salute. Maybe other professions as well, like police and firefighters, but I don't know for sure. Our military fights for the US, and in some cases comes home covered by that same flag. I don't consider it as disrespecting our armed forces personally. I just think he's a dickhead. I don't think ANYONE is super proud of America right now, what with the candidates we've chosen for ourselves, but the courtesy is to stand and remove any headgear.
Personally speaking, there's lots of things I think are atrocious about America, but that's why we need to strive always to make America better. I still manage to stand on my feet when the anthem is played, because America is imperfect, but I work to make it more so.
Essentially, the dude acted like a teenager getting punished, acting out because he didn't like a situation. | 024b9c6a-c48d-42a2-8291-1d516887ca6f |
5rhf1e | How can companies own the rights or patent a chemical? | A government must exist that creates laws that say such ownership is legal, then it's sold to that company from the government.
Some things are not legal as property in some countries so a patent is different in every single country and a patent in one country does not transfer legally to be a patent in another country. | 83ffdfe3-c528-47df-b77b-c69a4f9bbe96 |
42w7c8 | At what age did the voice in my head begin? | we don't know. Ask a psychologist or a child development expert. | 32850c61-52da-4836-9371-9a84156c7b7f |
1abl3u | Volcanoes and SuperVolcanoes. What exactly is a volcano and why does it erupt? | The Earth, in the middle, is mostly iron and other dense elements. Gravity pulls them together with such force that they're super hot --- so hot that they melt, and become "magma". Floating around on top of all this melted metal and rock is a crust which has cooled off enough to solidify.
The crust is not one solid piece, though, it has cracks. As the Earth spins on its axis and orbits the sun, the motion of that creates currents and flows in the magma, and it makes the chunks of crust move, too, rubbing up against each other in some spots and pulling apart in others. (This is what causes earthquakes.)
In the parts of the earth where two chunks of crusts are pushing up against each other, mountains are created. Sometimes, in and among those mountains, there can be little cracks which go all the way to the surface and allow magma to leak out from inside the earth.
Did you ever pop a zit? When you have a zit, you got a little resevoir of pus trapped under your skin, and if you apply pressure in just the right way you can force that reservoir to empty through a hole in that surface (a pore, in your skin). **A volcano is an Earth zit.** Sometimes when the chunks of crust shift in the right way, they apply pressure along the crack and magma comes shooting out.
Here's where the planet Earth is not so much like your face, though. Unlike the pus in your zit, the magma in the earth's crust is burning at thousands of degrees Fahrenheit and giving off a stream of poisonous gas generated by the vaporized rock and metal as it cools. When a volcano pops, not only does the magma itself come out, but it can send a huge wave of poisonous gases rolling out over the landscape for miles. If a volcano is under enough pressure, it can also take a big chunk of the mountain with it when it blows, instantly burning any trees or dirt that had built up on it and turning them to ash, and spewing layers of ash and rock out over the landscape for miles around. This, famously, is what happened to the Roman town of Pompeii -- a nearby volcano erupted and over the course of a day or two the town was buried in a 15 ft deep layer of ash. (Most of the people had suffocated already in the poison gas wave.)
Pompeii was just a regular-sized volcano, though. We have evidence from prehistoric times of volcano eruptions that were much larger than that --- they're much rarer, but also much more powerful, and these are called supervolcanos. It's believed that the Yellowstone area could be the center of such a supervolcano, but if it is the last time it went off was hundreds of thousands of years ago. A supervolcano eruption could bury a lot more than one or two towns in ash --- more like half a state.
But even that wouldn't be the worst consequence. See, in addition to the chunks of ash that are big enough to float back to earth over the course of hours or days, volcanos eruptions create tons of ash particles so tiny they can float about almost indefinitely, and be propelled by winds high into the atmosphere. They can stay up there for upwards of a year, and if the volcano is big enough and throws up enough ash, the volume of it in the upper atmosphere absorbs so much sunlight it affects the weather here on earth. A big volcano --- not a supervolcano, just a pretty big one --- erupted in Indonesia in the 1880s. They called that year "the year without a summer." It affected the whole world --- in New England it was still snowing in June. Farmers couldn't grow a lot of their crops. Many people went hungry.
If a super volcano went off, the same thing could happen again. If it was big enough, hundreds of millions might starve to death. It would be very similar to what killed the dinosaurs --- it was a comet hitting the earth in their case and not a volcano, but the problem was mostly the same --- a cloud of ash hovering in the atmosphere and dropping the temperatures enough to kill off tons of plants and animals all over the world.
Edit: typos | cbc2d5a8-0eeb-483b-8aec-ccf733a07347 |
63mhoh | how do you make a Haiku? | A Haiku is a poem written in a 3 line format. It doesn't need to rhyme, or have rhythm or anything like that. It literally only needs to follow the pattern of syllables per line 5 7 5.
This is a haiku.
This line has more syllables.
Than the first and last.
...is a Haiku. | 2ea766d1-7802-444f-8ddf-2a434377a070 |
22z27t | why do some countries (such as the U.K.) drive on the opposite side of the road as the U.S.? When the car was invented, why was no standard created? | Driving on the side of the road was decided way before the invention of the car.
If I remember correctly the UK drives on the left because when everybody had swords and road around in horse and carriages they would ride on the left so they could joust with their favoured right hand should they need too. Over time this just became the norm and it stuck. No reason to change it. | 53911c98-1321-4e15-9e7a-c4eb0d4378fc |
wri1c | ELI(foreign)5: Why is Boy Scouts of America such a big deal? | The Boy Scouts is like an after-school club that kids can join. A lot of boys are in the Boy Scouts - it's very popular. They do fun things, like learn how to light fires, and tie knots, and navigate. They work on projects which, when they finish them, they get a [badge](_URL_0_), which they can sew to the vest of their Boy Scout uniform. When they get old enough, they can do a very big, difficult project to become an [Eagle Scout](_URL_2_), which can help them get into college easier.
Currently, the Boy Scouts are in the news for [denying gays membership](_URL_1_).
Edit: Wording. | e729da5d-0673-453a-8a46-7066238ca802 |
21c3j8 | Why is it so difficult for US Government workers to be terminated? | It is a way to reduce corruption and political favoritism. Most federal workers have what is called "civil service" protections, which means they have to be hired in an open, competitive process, and can only be fired for good reason. Important employment decisions (like hiring, firing, promotion, suspension, etc.) can be reviewed by a special group called the "Merit Systems Protection Board". Before the civil service system was introduced, it was common for incoming presidents and their cabinet members to fire most of the people from the previous administration, and replace them with their friends and political allies, regardless of whether those friends and political allies were qualified for the job. Congress put the civil service in place to make sure that the vast majority of lower level government workers were hired, fired and paid according to skills, abilities and performance, rather than political loyalty. There is a certain amount of tradeoff, because it takes a bit longer to get rid of someone who is doing a bad job. But it's certainly not impossible to fire a government worker doing a bad job -- it just has to be documented over time, with plenty of warnings to improve (or the misconduct has to be very serious). | 8ddcbf3c-aa64-4d1a-a36e-489c6c18fe7b |
3d0dcd | Morning wood, and if a similar phenomenon occurs in women | There are a few theories about why this happens but scientists aren't exactly sure the cause of morning wood. Women will also get clitoral erections in the morning but they're not as noticeable. | 14d89352-5cc5-49d5-b9ef-7b754b5fed66 |
y7zt2 | The USPS suffered a $5.3 billion loss in the most recent quarter of this year, is there a possibility that the Postal Service could go out of business? What happens then? | If the USPS gets in too bad of a financial situation, the US government will have to reabsorb it; there are way too many things the government needs it for to just let it go out of business. | 824630da-38a8-492c-9424-71b5b5cc2094 |
2s2edf | Why can't the UN's blue helmets intervene with force when the situation calls for it? | This is actually my debate topic for this month! Technically, they can, it just has to follow the 3 principles of peacekeeping. They must [1] have the consent of the host country (the country where they will have troops on the ground) [2] Impartiality in their dealings (not in execution), to protect the civilians without furthering the conflict and [3] Non-Use of Force Except in Self Defense or Defense of the Mandate, So they can only use force if they are being threatened, the civilians are directly being threatened currently, or the U.N. Security Council authorizes offensive actions (which had only happened in the democratic republic of Congo, but lead to the M23 rebel group being disarmed in 18 months, whereas the peacekeepers had been on the ground for many years before that with out the authorization of offensive action) | 54d181cb-7f0d-4f22-abca-c6f0916ac950 |
86b9u2 | Why do toddlers like to see their own reflections so much? | "It looks like me, but I'm right here, it moves the same as me too, I must observe the specimen." | 4a1c3165-5f04-4127-8e08-91a5ba004db0 |
2it0ls | What will happen if a skinny guy lifts lots of weights without eating a ton? | He'll get leaner and stronger, but not much bigger and not as much stronger as he would were he to eat more. | 9ae75ec8-3839-420f-80e9-3434e6e82d0e |
4pe7nt | How is sound digitally stored? | You're actually pretty close to the truth for some forms of sound storage.
Sound is recorded with a microphone, basically just creates an electrical signal that responds to different levels of air pressure. You can record those air pressures, and you record the sound. Analog recording, could say, connect the microphone with its electrical changes related to air pressure to a little arm that would go up and down with the air pressure, to engrave a track in wax cylinder or similar reasonably soft object. Then to play it back, you use the little arm to regulate the electrical power sent to speaker, which moves back and forth pushing air to recreate those pressure changes.
For a computer, you set it up so that you can record a measurement of the pressure enough times every second, that when you recreate those pressures with a speaker it sounds like the same sound. And storing data this way will basically give you .wav file. Its also how the data is stored on a CD.
However you're also right about storing sound as a collection of pitches with volume. That's for example how an MP3 does it. You take all that data and you do a bit of math to it called a Fourier transform. (Interestingly this transform is also used as part of jpeg image format). The Fourier transform isn't any type of compression in itself, its a very general piece of math used everywhere in science. It lets you take all this data you gathered of sound pressure over time, and change the way you look at it. Now what you have is a collection of sound frequencies and how loudly they're represented, and if you add them all up you get the original signal recreated exactly as well as you first measured it. Now if you want to save space in making an mp3 file, you can use this new way of looking at the information you measured, and drop pieces of it. Frequencies above and below human hearing? gone. Anything else people can't hear the difference between? Kill it with fire. How aggressive you are depends on the bit rate. But it is definitely very common to store sound on a computer as collection of intensities at a series of frequencies.
You had a pretty good guess. | d83e2c1e-e60d-4e63-80ca-6ecf79edcf44 |
13wvb2 | How come when you take a picture of your computer screen on a cell phone/digital camera all the pixels show up? | Well the reason is simple. When you see a monitor it is actually projecting more than one image at any given time. This is how we create motion. Without getting into to much detail you can push your mouse and the little arrow will move around. So what is actually happening here is multiple images are being displayed and thus you have movement! So when you take a picture you are only grabbing one frame of the screen. With a fancy camera you can take a long exposure shot by adjusting the shutter speed function and will have a more rich looking image of your screen. | a316e9e2-7173-4295-8699-6c5783a9a796 |
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