query_id
stringlengths 3
6
| question
stringlengths 1
299
| goldenAnswer
stringlengths 3
35k
| doc_id
stringlengths 36
36
|
|---|---|---|---|
6jlq7i | how can DNA tests be used to show what your ancestry is? | We don't have exactly the same DNA -- everyone has some mutations in various parts of the genome.
Say you measure the DNA of 10 people from Thailand and their genome looks like this:
ACGTGCCCATCGCGATCG
Then you measure the DNA of 10 people from Italy and their genome looks like this:
AGGTCCCCATCGCGTTCG (three mutations in that string, which is a lot in such a short space, but bear with me).
Then obviously if you get another sequence that looks like the one above you're more likely to have someone who's Italian than Thai.
On the other hand you might measure someone with a sequence that looks like this:
AGGTCCCCATCACGATCG (one variant that differs from either, one Thai variant, two Italian variants).
This person might be from a totally different place (maybe somewhere closer to Italy since there are two Italian variants and only one Thai), or might be a mixture of Italian and Thai, or might be a mixture of Italian and something else, and so on.
Most of the time you don't usually say a single mutation corresponds to a single group, but different groups have different allele frequencies. Properly determining one's ancestry requires considering the clustering of these alleles and taking allele frequencies into account in the different populations.
It you have enough reference sequences from enough locations you'll become able to map a person's genome to their genetic ancestry. | 2eef8f41-224f-4829-9059-848902bdc99f |
4gj5tn | Stadium disasters | It's worth pointing out that when you hear 'stampede' people think of Mufasa dying trampled in the Lion King. This is overwhelmingly *not* what happens.
What usually happens in these cases is more appropriately referred to as a crowd crush. Something causes a large number of people to try to exit at once, or form into close quarters.
In many of these cases the people at the front are stuck or jammed, but they don't know that at the back and they keep walking forward. At more than 8 people in a square meter, crowds actually function more akin to liquids. This force of people walking and pushing, even falling, can be devastating when added together. Those who fall do not get up. People at the front exhale and the pressure is too strong to inhale again. They die standing in place.
As for it being traumatic? Imagine being in a living, screaming, gasping wall of flesh. You can't move. Your feet may not even be on the ground. If you can move, you're trapped in a seething mass of people trying to stay vertical. Completely powerless. That hits very close to some primal fears.
For larger disasters involving crowd crush look into the Station night club fire (do *not* watch the video) or the Mina disaster last year. Last I heard the death toll for this Mina disaster was around 2000, and it happens every few years there to a lesser extent.
Crowd management is serious fucking business. A lot of older venues have really bad designs that lead to stuff like this. More modern places have been updated. | 69dc37d2-a8e8-4ab3-a021-2e9328801ca6 |
3o97sa | Why is the symbol of the heart so different from what the actual organ looks like? | The symbol developed in the Middle Ages, when it was very rare to obtain permission to dissect a body; knowledge of anatomy was quite rare. What's more, there were few drawings available, so that most people with any knowledge of anatomy relied on written descriptions of what the organ looked like.
The earliest known depictions of a symbolic heart look like pine cones, which is how hearts were described in anatomical texts. Artists copied the symbol from each other, but without being able to reference a photograph or detailed drawing of a heart, the symbol took on a life of its own--artists made changes here and there, which others took over, until the symbol was quite unlike a pine cone nor an actual heart.
Eventually the symbol became standardized in more-or-less its current form, as on playing cards and the like. Once that form was understood as *the* heart form, that was a basic reference point for anyone using the symbol, and it did not change much after that.
It is only very recently, within the past three or four centuries, that an artist would be able to know what an actual heart looks like. And even then, they might not want to--because in art, the symbolic representation can be more important than a realistic one. | 3998993c-3732-401f-85b7-97862208cfe9 |
1ro32y | "Quantum Cheshire Cats" | They didn't discover a method of tearing things apart, they are observing a phenomenon they don't have a proper explanation for yet, as with many things in quantum mechanics.
Keep in mind that I am by no means an expert.
There is a fundamental property true for all quantum objects, in that you cannot determine one partner of a pair of complimentary properties with 100% precision. The more precisely you try to determine one, the less precisely you can determine the other one in a single measurement. This is called the uncertainty principle. Thus I am a little bit sceptical about their method of attempting to measure multiple parameters at the same time.
What they are doing here as it seems, is measure the location of a photon at the left side, where they have a 100% chance to travel to, but are able to detect just the polarization at the right side in a separate measurement, where the chance of them to travel to is 0%. Taking measurements here though causes a disturbance in the system, changing the path the photons take, and changing its location (it's no longer 100% on the left side), thus explaining why they could measure just the polarization at the right side now.
Then, they try to measure both properties at the same time, with lower precision and with lower influence on the system as they say, but get the same outcome, the location being 100% on the left side, and the polarization being on the right side, which seems a bit paradox.
I feel this is ultimately a problem of the measurement influencing a system. To observe it, we have to disturb it. | cc674820-33f1-40db-989e-d46f7da82cd1 |
1nkh8a | Why is Polygamy Illegal? | It makes taxes, inheritance, divorce, and lots of other things very complicated. | 5a4cba19-d59c-4e08-bb85-1988ca4c0812 |
3suv0x | I've learned today that some bugs and flies sees the world in slow motion. How does that work? | What we see isn't produced by our eyes but by how our brain interprets what our eyes see. For insects to see in slow motion just means that their brains process information from their eyes much faster than ours do. Also calling it "slow" motion is completely arbitrary as that is just a comparison to what we are used to. To the insect that is just normal vision | 9976d23a-41a9-40ce-823d-916ed849e8e8 |
3fpgi7 | How is Microsoft making money from Windows 10 if they are giving it away for free? | 1. They collect data on you by default for targeted advertising.
2. They have a lot of services that default or redirect to Bing, which they get ad revenue from.
3. Much of their business comes from corporations using their products, not individual users. Indeed, Enterprise builds are not covered by the same upgrade deal as Win 7/8.1 Home and Professional. | 68d081f2-e1d8-4e17-b75e-779002805a97 |
5xg3bg | What goes into starting an airline company? | Firstly you need a planes the smallest and most popular Boeing is the 737, it will set you back £70,748,963.76 per unit though you could get a lower price for bulk buying, to note if you buy them just after a terror attack they will be cheaper. It is what RyanAir did just after 9/11 attacks. Note a 737 can only do 60,000 flights, due to pressure fatigue making the plane more unstable the more it flies.
Then you need someone to fly a plane a experineced captain goes for around £75,000 a year with the second pilot being around £50,000 a year, you need two second piolts for longhaul flights too.
You also need people to tend the passangers, these are much cheaper with the wage being closer to £16,000 (Ryanair). You can also save money and have the cabin crew work the front desk before you get on the plane, when you show your ticket. You can also task these people to clean the plane after they land.
You will also need mechanics, you could contract this out or keep it in house, if you keep it in house you will be looking at £30,000 a year wage per mechanic and more for a more specialist.
Wendover productions on youtube has some good vidoes on this. | 1026a747-cafa-4420-90c8-2fe9fb6e6d78 |
ke765 | The different types of alcohol (chemistry, not beverages) | Ethyl alcohol is ethanol. It has the chemical formula H₃C-CH₂OH (two carbons). This is what you find in alcoholic beverages.
Methanol has one carbon instead, with the formula H₃COH. This is what's dangerous in moonshine - methanol is much more toxic than ethanol because its metabolic products are formaldehyde and formic acid, the latter inhibits cellular respiration - so even though you have oxygen in the body, your cells can't use them because one of the enzymes in the pathway is blocked. Ethanol, on the other than, is metabolized into acetaldehyde (which is still bad, but neither aldehydes stick around for too long) and acetic acid (what's found in vinegar), which is far less toxic. | 31594518-d867-4d2d-84a8-445ff13689e5 |
88kfcb | why does a bathtub of water eventually get colder than the room | It doesn't. Our sensation of heat is not the same thing as temperature. Easy example: tile floors feel colder than rugs. In reality they're the same temperature. Our sensation of heat is because tile floor more readily absorbs our body heat than does a rug. The sensation of losing our body heat quickly is what we interpret as cold, despite the floors being the same temperature.
Grab a piece of metal vs fabric and the same thing happens. Metal conducts heat better, and we notice that as metal feeling cold as it steals our heat. | 44adb788-fb2f-47da-8b5a-2003c49195ee |
3n5iuq | What's up with merchandise at stores that have a certain price on the packaging itself? | I worked at a store that was similar to Dollar General, a lot of the stuff we got in would have that printed on it, but we sold it for less. It's just how some manufacturer's package the product.
I believe more often than not, those came from places where the store had its own manufacturer, and then we would get it as overstock. So they assumed it would be sold in whatever store they supply, and know that store's selling point for the product. | d9bb2346-8dcf-405c-b646-ffd2b4d6be79 |
36mcan | Why is everyone so obsessed over Nikola Tesla? What could he have really done? | What do you mean by "could"? He did plenty things, like inventing AC power and the induction motor, among a [long list of other things](_URL_0_).
People generally like him because they view him as an underdog who wasn't given all the recognition he deserved, especially given his battle with Edison, in which Edison acted like a complete dick.
Some people also like his more oddball ideas that weren't realized, such as large scale wireless power transmission. This wouldn't have worked anyway, because it's enormously inefficient and would pretty much fry all the electronics around it. Such experiments were a lot more practical back when the main concerns were light bulbs and motors. | ae9d25c8-1c5a-43d1-9aae-c203143f1e1b |
823c8d | If matter can’t be destroyed, what happens to an object when it is vaporized? | A vapor is still matter. So are the people who were "vaporized" in the atomic blasts in Japan; they were simply broken down into much smaller component parts, probably gas, ashes and dust.
However, before they were vaporized, some of those poor people blocked the initial gamma ray burst and some part of the heat and debris of the blast, leaving a "shadow" of slightly less damage to the walls and sidewalks where they were at the time of the blast. Again, not very much matter conversion and no matter destruction.
The atomic bombs themselves, of course, very much do work on the principle of converting matter into energy, which is about as close to the "destruction" of matter as we can get. About 700 miligrams of the Hiroshima bomb was converted into energy. That may not sound like much but the tragic results speak for themselves. | f7fef925-5b87-48f8-9069-50b2b9a6346d |
8dtzlq | How can it be that every lock in the world is different and there are not two of the same? Or isn't this the case? | It isn't the case.
It would be theoretical possible to have every lock in the world be different by making them all a different size and shape but it would be highly impractical.
Most locks operate with a series of different pins and lengths \- your standard household lock would have somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 different possible combinations, which means that once they have cycled through their possible combinations they will start to repeat.
But this number is still high enough that it makes the chances of somebody being able to randomly find another lock that matches a key they already have to be small enough to be essentially negligible. A lot of lock manufacturers will further extend the odds by separating batches into different distribution areas \- so they will sell unique locks only in each individual city. | bb68e937-3f94-4850-93f5-74f3450efcf3 |
koqve | Technique | At its primitive sense, technique for me implies that someone does something with a certain way. Now the differentiation between good technique, and bad technique, is how well they achieve their end. Technique should be automatic, incorporating itself into almost a subconscious behavior. It improves the way we function and makes it streamline. To better that technique is to "raise the standard". | 98f2307d-b2b0-45a7-adba-d5fcb1a2bd46 |
35bwgv | how does catnip work and would it work on other animals.? | Works just like any other drug. Changing how long or how many neutral transmitters are left in the cleft to bind to the receptor neuron.
As long as an animal has similar receptors to the ones a cat has it should effect them also.
See _URL_0_
Some humans smoke it. | 313da9d5-0a4e-4393-8381-fb3ef7f4776f |
2anzhj | How come Germany get to keep the 3 world cups from when they were West Germany? Surely when East and West united it became a brand new country? | Officially the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) ceased to exist, and it's territory was ceded to the Federal Republic of Germany. The current German state is technically the same one as west Germany, just with more territory than it used to have. Same as how the USA did not become a new country when Texas joined. | 980b10a0-85d0-4f58-83bb-5a964652bae9 |
16uqq9 | What is the photoelectric effect? | Imagine for moment that electrons responded to sound instead of to light.
An electron will jump to higher energy levels in response to a sound of a specific pitch. Even if the sound is quiet it will still respond and jump to the higher energy level. However, even if the sound is very loud, if it is the wrong pitch, the electron will not jump to the higher energy level.
Now, instead of sound, the electrons are jumping to higher energy levels based on light frequencies. Even a bright light will do no good, if it is the wrong color, but if it is the right color, even if it is very dim, it will kick the electrons to the higher energy level.
Disclaimer: This is only meant to be framework with which to try and decipher the text. | 70621532-bc3a-4fa9-8538-a2fc4b0dad8c |
63ngv1 | What is the Anthropocene, why is it important that it be recognizes as a real event, and why would anybody be opposed to such a thing? | According to [Wikipedia](_URL_0_), it is "a proposed epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact on the Earth's geology and ecosystems". Epochs are portions of the history of Earth on a geologic timescale, "longer than an age but shorter than a period*."
**For example, "Jurrasic" is a period spanning about 56 million years; epochs are something like 1/3 that time span.*
---
The Anthropocene is not yet an officially-recognized span of time by most agencies, mainly because it deals with human impacts on climate change, which is a politically-controversial subject these days.
So, recognizing the Anthropocene means recognizing that yes, humans have had an impact on climate change; and the beginning of that epoch is the start of it. Some people aren't ready for that, it seems. | a2e26e0d-8172-4b7d-a212-f30bd3df3cc2 |
2bceem | ...the immigration crisis. How can people be protesting kids? Why can't these children be adopted? | These kids have parents. If someone adopted a child with parents that want them it's called kidnapping... | f498b1fb-86ed-41b3-abad-c970e6e6d771 |
1ob4lz | How did European's become light skinned? | Your skin has something called melanin which gives the skin its dark or light colour. More melanin means darker colour and less means lighter colour. The goal of melanin is to protect from UV radiation. Since there's less UV exposure up north, skin needs to produce less melanin and the people from there are thus lighter skinned. | 82bd8f1c-3288-4317-bef3-9f1163c9abbe |
1k9cgw | Why do small private colleges without large staff, facilities or research departments have such high tuition? Where does that money go? | Because small private schools lack state-funding, lack large, research oriented programs that draw in grant money, and lack major athletic programs to draw in revenue. These reasons (and others, I'm sure) make it so that if small schools want to keep the lights on, they have to charge more in tuition. It is not, in fact, done to line the pockets of administrators.
Source: I've attended both types of schools. | eb42b804-45f0-4125-bde4-2e8f7b750b9e |
150sjv | What are charter schools and why are they so controversial? | Charter Schools are publicly funded schools often ran by independent groups and may or may not be part of existing school districts. They are often given more leeway in terms of deciding rules and curriculum than other public schools.
The controversy is that they are publicly funded which means funding for a charter school student is diverted from the traditional public school to the charter school they are now at. The worry is that this will result in public schools being even more underfunded. Some will respond that they now have one less student to pay for, but public schools lose the benefits of Economies of Scale. Whereas they may have had the funding for a part time Occupational Therapist with X number of kids, of a few of those kids go to a Charter School, neither can afford and gain benefit from an Occupational Therapist.
Most laws set charter schools up so they are not allowed to discriminate who they allow in. This often sets up heartbreaking scenarios in places where public schools are so poor and whether your child can receive a good education comes down, literally, to a lottery to see if they can get into a local charter. However the other problem is they can often end up very self-selected. Charter schools in failing districts end up filled only by children whose parents care enough to get them out of the existing schools. Which leaves the existing schools with more problem students and less money to deal with them.
Other controversies surround exactly how independent charter schools should be allowed to be. What happens when you get a charter school that wants to teach Intelligent Design? Abstinence only sex-ed? What do you if the school starts taking measures that result in de facto discrimination? If it's so successful, why not bypass allowing Charters and take the political red tape of of EXISTING public schools?
On the other hand letting charter schools operate with less bureaucracy has allowed them to flourish in many places where public schools are failing. Maybe some will be left behind, but isn't giving SOME students a chance better than giving NO students a chance?
It's not a simple subject. | 73495394-fc05-477c-b5b1-e7379deffef2 |
2jwufu | The "internet" to someone from the 1950s | Basically just go over the history of computers so that each step is easy enough to imagine from the last:
You know adding machines? Well we've made them better. Much better. Instead of being mechanically constructed to do sums or other things with numbers we enter with some buttons we've extended them to be able to do all that calculating from instructions written on 'punch cards'. The punch cards specify what numbers to work on and how. This way we can, without needing a human to press all the buttons or work it all out, get this computer to perform complex calculations. It can count up all the numbers fed into it by the punch cards or get the ratio of how many of the values are above or below 5 or something, etc. Basically we replaced the buttons on the adding machine for pre-made punch cards that let you do the same thing without needing a human to push all the buttons. By putting census data or something on the punch cards we can feed it data and cards quickly without a human punching it all in manually.
Next we started advancing it further - instead of punch cards we made electricity the 'card'. Just like in a radio a current is used to make the speakers vibrate differently - and thus make noise - we can use a current to signify data or instructions to the computer. Varying voltage is used rather than holes in cards. This lets us feed things into the computer much faster.
Additionally we found ways to store the data without the cards. It's possible to make extremely small 'marks' on special-made disks. It's almost like grammophone records. We mark these disks and can read them back with a very small head.
This lets us store data and instruction sets on these disks which are far smaller than punch-cards and can be fed in more quickly.
We then took these so-called 'drives' and integrated them into the computer directly so we didn't have to load every instruction set or data set in disk by disk. Now you could save commonly-used instruction sets to the computer and the computer had a mechanism added so you could just ask it to load these programs from the drive. This meant we no longer needed to load the new instruction set every time we wanted to do different things; an operator could switch what it was doing quickly.
Next we made typewriter like 'keyboards' for the computers that let us start interacting with the computer. Special instruction sets were made to react to things we typed into it. If I typed in 'echo 5 + 5' the special instruction set would get the computer to add 5 and 5, then put the result on the monitor. (The monitor being like a TV that the computer can control to produce images for us.)
In time these computers were connected to the phone networks. Now computers could place calls to one another and exchange data using the phone network. This let us share things between computers. People started making centralized centres of knowledge for all sorts of things and we could ask our computer to call them to see this data on our own computer.
Eventually the phone-line system was replaced with a dedicated cable network just for computer to talk to one another. | b377b549-101f-4141-9e58-eb0597b138b0 |
5bhnl7 | Proxy War | You really hate your next-door neighbour James, but you work for him and you can't afford to just up and leave. Instead, you get your friend Bob to go over and occupy James's friend Tom's time, so James can't spend time with Tom. Repeat until James has no friends. | 6146d400-7cdb-4d0b-b857-d4f5890a3931 |
5i6bci | Why does the USA have CIA,NSA,FBI? | FBI is internal, CIA is external, and NSA is oriented more toward signals intelligence than spies. Each has their own role but conceptually there is a lot of overlap and sharing of resources. | c403e7ce-3ae9-4ecf-b125-11553b094651 |
oax1x | Why does the Nintendo Zapper not work with modern televisions? | The Zapper was very precisely timed to the screens (the refresh rate, specifically). It looked for the screen to be drawn at a certain exact moment, and used that data to tell if you had, for example, hit the duck or not.
Today's plasma and LCD televisions have different refresh rates/timing, and are in fact less responsive (they have greater "latency") than the CRT TVs of the past. Since the timing isn't the same, the Zapper can't detect successful shots. | b1ff174b-acfb-496a-b3fe-aeb93cac2b64 |
8xweyy | What are the curving lines that appear in digital photos of computer screens? | [Moiré pattern](_URL_0_). It's what happens when the grid of pixels that create image on the screen and the grid of pixels that capture the image in the camera don't perfectly align, which is almost always because they only align at four angles (0°, 90°, 180°, 270°) and are not aligned at every angle in-between. | 18c4eb66-a03a-4241-9164-27283d9fc018 |
2zabqw | In grade school we are taught that we can either use 3.14 or 22/7 as pi. But 22 divided by 7 is actually 3.1428(etc), not 3.1415(etc). Why are these used interchangeably? | 22/7 is the closest rational estimate of pi that we have which uses simple numbers in fractional form. This makes it useful to young students who have trouble with decimal representation or with multiplying numbers with several digits.
For the purposes of grade school calculations, it's a close enough approximation that it usually won't make a difference - a few tenths at most - and is useful until students are more comfortable multiplying longer decimal numbers. | 37aedbbb-6eaa-4acf-9177-19877ddfade1 |
o0cqa | how actors who only work in bit parts, make a living | How they make a living? Working in restaurants | b3c00c20-e4c6-4bcb-8e20-32bc38177fa2 |
ugtxs | Google and all it's add ons. | If you have a Google account, all you have to do is go to _URL_0_ and you can check out Google docs for yourself. Just click the red create button in the upper left and create a new document. Just like Word, you can write some stuff in there, format it, etc.
Unlike Word, though, the document is stored in your Google account on the web, not on your hard disk. This means you never need to "send" the document to anyone else. All you have to do is give them permission to see it (click "Share" in the upper right and add whoever you want to share it with). Once they have permission, all they need is the link to open it. Then, you both can edit it at the same time...it's cool, you can see their cursor and they can see yours, and you can watch each other change it at the same time.
You can create presentations, spreadsheets, pretty much all the same kinds of documents you can with MS Office. And you never need to worry about saving, or losing your hard drive, or sending it to others. Just give whoever you want to see it permission to view or edit it, and send them the link. This is particularly useful when you want a lot of people to all work on the same document at the same time.
For instance, at work I often have a situation where I send out a document for lots of people to comment on. In the old days, this was a headache. I had to email it to everyone, and then they would all comment on their copy and send it back to me, then I had to open all the copies and manually merge them all into the same copy, then delete all the others. Or, you could send it to one person, have that person comment it, send it back to you, then you send it to the next person, etc.
With a Google doc, everyone is looking at and editing the same copy at the same time.
The thing to realize about a Chromebook is that it's a machine that is intended only to be used for working in the cloud. You can't really install applications directly on it (it doesn't have a hard drive), you can only browse the web. However, with things like Google docs keeping all your documents on the web, there's no reason this is limiting. If you want to install games or other applications that are not available through a browser, though, that won't work on a Chromebook.
However, if what you want to do is in the browser, there are many advantages to a Chromebook. For one, you never have to update or install anything. You never have to back up data, because there is no data. It's all in the cloud, and it's all already backed up. It's faster to do everything on a Chromebook because there's no huge, heavy OS running that has to manage all sorts of applications, and it's cheaper than a laptop, too. At the end of the day, though, it is a different thing than a laptop, so you have to decide...if you get a laptop and only do things you could have done with a Chromebook, you'll waste a lot of time, money, and effort dealing with it for a slower experience. If you get a Chromebook and want to install some application locally, though, you can only do that on a laptop. | 76616c5a-d4b9-4be8-b900-920ac3e596da |
25rr57 | What happens when I put a magnet up to a computer monitor, or television screen. | A CRT display is based on firing a beam of electrons at a coated surface that lights up when hit by electrons. The display is controlled using an electromagnet to deflect the beam, so that the right bits light up to make the desired image. Moving another magnet close to the display messes up this control system.
Newer display technologies like LCDs shouldn't be affected this way though, as they don't rely on controlling the magnetic field. | 757b9490-5472-4901-bd02-fb30d8426862 |
4fm4we | How forums detect whether you're still online or not? | They tag you as "online" when you visit a page of theirs. After that, you're "online" for a certain period of time (say, 10 minutes).
If you haven't done anything on the site for that time, you're tagged "offline". Otherwise, your "online" timer restarts. | d66f36eb-ec76-4c82-84d8-f1716ddc8706 |
18r5n6 | Why do your emotions come in 'waves' after something very emotional occurs? | most emotions come from chemicals in the brain such as dopamine, oxytocin, adrenalin, serotonin, etc. When your brain starts to release these chemicals, it doesn't happen all at once. It begins to secrete them as if opening a valve. The flow starts slow until you get enough of the chemicals and your brain is filled with what it needs. So it feels like a wave because it starts slow and builds up until you're full. | 8f4b6f3a-0edd-4e7f-b06e-58d261604f0e |
5lirl7 | Why does 100 degree F water feel hotter then 100 degree F weather | When you put your hand in 100 degree F air the air around your hand starts cooling down. However only the immediate air around your hand. Air is a good thermal insulator which means that it will not transfer heat from the surrounding air to the air in contact with your skin very fast. The molecules are too far apart and do not crash into each other that often. However water is a good thermal conductor so the water in proximity of your hand will try to equalize the temperature much faster. You might have experienced similar things with metals that feels cold or hot to touch and you can not heat or cool them down at any pace, however a ceramic mug will not feel that extreme and will quickly be fine to touch on the outside. | 124e6b75-ee66-4c42-8d8c-195683b6120c |
27unwy | Why do we have historical evidence that Julius Caesar existed but none about Jesus Christ? | Because Caesar was actually important back then, unlike Jesus. | e3fdfd24-07c1-4241-9a89-64bf579fdeab |
5xrw05 | - Objectification of women? | Objectification is the act of conceptually reducing someone to an object, a thing or tool based on their physical features or what they're capable of being used for, and otherwise disregarding their independence.
A good reference to it i like is a line from Reggie Watts' song "Fuck Shit Stack"
> I like women, I like women, / I like the concept of a woman. / I like to take that concept and reduce it to an object, / I like to take those objects and put em in my videos. / Have them shake they jiggly bits so they looks like hoes.
Here and in the next verse, he satires the oft used practice in music videos to hire a bunch of busty, attractive women and use them for their sex appeal to increase make viewership.
So it seems like using someone's physical features is automatically, And the only form of, objectification, right?
Not quite. For one it does not have to be a real person for it to be objectification. In a sense, having any person real or fictional be used solely as a tool for someone else's benefit would similarly be objectifying. An example is the Trope known as woman in the refrigerator, where a fictional woman's sole role is to be killed off or brutalized in order to provide some sort of drive to The Narrative of a male character.
And as well, using one's own body is not objectifying. To many people, it is the loss of someone's agency that defines whether something is objectifying or not. Someone who themself chooses to use their own traits be they physical or otherwise, would not be inherently objectifying to themselves. However to others, doing so in a way consistent with the objectification of people within their group, be that by gender race ethnicity or otherwise, it's can be seen as perpetuating the objectification of that group. | dc42bac0-8524-421b-9a84-a4abaaf5ff18 |
5w673a | ; Why is Jesus on a cross the symbol for the religion and used against demons? | Jesus on the cross is dying for our sins, to absolve and protect all the rest of us. He protects us from our own "demons," that is, our sinful nature.
Remember, being crucified didn't destroy Jesus. He was resurrected shortly thereafter. It was merely an ordeal he went through on our behalf.
I think I've got this right. Perhaps a better theologian can correct me on the nuances. | 99b29c66-30db-4818-b789-3019605263d8 |
18o6pb | Why do sunsets/sunrises turn pink and orange, but those colors aren't present with the sun is actually up? | White light is every color of light combined.
When you see a rainbow, what you're seeing is the different waves of light separated.
At sunset/sunrises, sun light isn't aimed directly at you. It hits the atmosphere and bends to where you are. So instead of seeing an intense white light, you'll see shades of colors.
And before you ask why you never see green sunsets, it's because it's in the middle of the spectrum of visible light. (You'll see blue/yellow/purple/red more often than not.) | e364a565-f35d-41ce-b3fd-a2a90e69d51d |
2f7xou | Why does every elevator have a "door close" button if almost none of these buttons actually work? | They work fine when the fire key is turned. | 70e04658-79f4-4763-82d6-c879f9a2628a |
5dm62f | Movies used to show people dialing numbers like 555-1212. Why couldn't film producers secure ordinary phone numbers from the phone companies by buying them outright? | They can, and have. But why pay money when you don't have to? Also, they might not have that number forever, so whoever gets it after them will still get harassed. No point. | e715411f-e3c4-48ab-b36b-d5a9b3ac23eb |
1f6ru1 | Why can Netflix stream at 2.0 MB/s, but Steam can't get above 500 KB/s? | I think you are confusing megabytes (MB) and megabits (Mb). Does your ISP offer you 4 MB/s or 4 Mb/s? Megabits are far more commonly used when ISPs tell you your speed. A 4 Mb/s speed is roughly 500 KB/s (kilobytes) per second) so that sounds about right and your Netflix is probably able to utilize near the full connection as they pick the best quality you can handle so long as you have use HD checked. | fa0f018a-4111-437a-af36-c50c7e6d136f |
1yxdvm | Can a commercial aircraft, like a Boeing 747, do a looping? | They can't loop in the nice circular sense. They don't have enough thrust to make it over the loop even if they start at max speed. However, if you're careful, you can get far enough over than, when you stall out, you're past vertical and can "flop" over to complete the loop in a rather ungrateful manner. You are extremely likely to over speed when pulling back to level.
A barrel roll is no problem. 707s have done it at least twice for publicity. | c65a9d90-d5b2-4240-8c9d-b8d99a7e57b6 |
6ocd0b | Why do people snort coke? Does coke get in the bloodstream through your lungs? | Nope, it enters through your sinuses. Your sinus cavity has all kinds of membranes that the drugs can enter your bloodstream through, and the effect is pretty quick. The only really quicker ways are smoking or injecting, which both require some equipment and preparation - snorting is quick and easy. Eating or drinking is much slower, as the substance has to process through your digestive tract a bit before it starts getting absorbed. | 5e2da8cf-f445-4069-81ac-e91085ab3978 |
7qxy92 | Why is it that certain weapons, like poisonous gasses, are banned from use in warfare by the Geneva convention, yet countries and governments can still use them against their own population, such as tear gas to control riots? | Geneva convention is largely a gentlemen agreement. No one wants their soldiers getting gassed or having to patch up wounds from hollow points. Its easier to just say no one gets chemical weapons and fight with conventional weapons, then it is to say "there are no rules" and everyone have them. Its already illegal for citizens to use tear gas on cops, so there is no objective reason to outlaw it for law enforcement.
The question of its something is humane or not doesnt really tend to stand in the way of most governments. | 6f1a5975-e66e-49f5-80c0-19540243f447 |
36wvbl | Why can't I buy health insurance whenever I want (in the US)? What is a "qualifying life event?" | If you could buy insurance whenever you wanted, then no one would have insurance until they were sick. Why would you? if you can buy insurance whenever, just wait until the doctor says that you have the serious disease, or until your kid is in the ambulance, and buy the insurance then. You save the money you have spent on insurance from all those months that you weren't sick, and still get coverage.
Of course, the problem with that is it would make insurance impossible. No one would get it until they needed it, which would mean it would either be so expensive no one could afford it, or that no one would offer it.
In the absence of something like single payer healthcare---or some other, non-insurance based system---there's really very little alternative. The idea of the qualifying life events, which include things like having a kid, or getting a new job, or getting married, plus the "open seasons" is to force people to assess their risks and then get insurance that suits them, without either locking them in to one insurance forever, or letting them freeride in a way that destroys the system entirely. | 0368bbc8-68df-4536-ae94-2c15efe6c48c |
5myhuc | How do we create saliva in our mouths and where does it come from? | I don't have any reference materials, so I can't to much detail, but nobody else answered yet, so I'll do a summary.
Saliva is a combo of mostly water and proteins with a little bit of dissolved salts. It comes from salivary glands that are placed in several places around your mouth. Mostly under the tongue. A gland is basically a pocket. The cells that make up the pocket are specialized to make the proteins and release them through their cell walls into the pocket. They also have gates that let them bleed a little bit of water that comes from the cells who absorbed it from your blood. The salts mostly just followed the water.
Hopefully a more detailed answer will come along for you later if you're still interested. | ea89f1f0-ed2e-4884-8edb-8db1ce8aac11 |
1qnhfi | Why do we have a tax bracket system as opposed to a continuous sliding scale? | Probably just to simplify things. Imagine being an employer or personal accountant, having to count how much taxes someone pays. Brackets lets them estimate their income, choose a clearly defined bracket, and see how much income tax is. On a sliding scale, they will need to know their exact income for the year, and probably have to do some math too, since a sliding scale would probably have the tax as a function of their income, not just a discrete number. And then, what if their income changes throughout the year? "Oh you got a raise, 'grats. Now I have to do your taxes from scratch" or "Shit, he's working over time. Now I have to recount how much to deduct from his paycheque".
And it doesn't even change all that much. Since tax is paid as a percentage, going from a bracket to a sliding scale would make only a tiny change in someone's income tax | 0d387ca7-437b-4131-bfb1-69f7e97e855d |
6zqf6b | Why do standardized tests each have unique and seemingly arbitrary score ranges? (e.g. SAT 400-1600, ACT 1 to 36, LSAT 120-180, MCAT 472 to 528, USMLE Step 1 1-300) | The short answer is that it is arbitrary.
The longer answer is that the scoring systems reflect the priorities of the test makers.
Many test creators intentionally set the lowest score far above 0 to make it more obvious that they are interval scales, not ratio scales. In other words, a score of 900 on the SAT is not "twice as high" as 450 because for something to be double, triple, 1.5x, 0.5x, or any other multiplier you need to be counting from 0, not 400.
A lot of tests set the average score to be close to a nice, round number. For instance, SAT standardizes so that 1000 is about average, 500 is about average on MCAT, and 150 is about average on LSAT. The actual average varies from test to test, but they're designed so that it's easy for a test taker to see where they stand.
ACT, on the other hand, uses 36 because it factors nicely into the number of questions on each section of the test. Multiplying the percent right by 36 gives you a clean-looking number without repeating decimals.
USMLE doesn't disclose how they do their scoring, so I really don't know why they picked 1-300. | c758b0aa-4dd5-4af5-9a8a-8f2479601818 |
6tgpag | If Flash and Java plugins are going to be removed from Firefox and Chrome, why can't they make "good" versions of the plugins that will still work? | The problem isn't with the plug-ins but rather security issues with the core languages of Flash and Java. Mozilla (which makes Firefox) and Google (which makes Chrome) feel that there aren't ways to make safe use of those languages for web-based services through your browser. | 3397dc51-8e85-43db-8343-59bde02f083f |
92wp0n | Why is it that humans have a lot more distinct feature where you can tell one apart from another, but animals almost always look the same? | Three things: There’s a phenomenon where people have a hard time telling people of a race different than their own apart, because their brain hasn’t practiced seeing those types of faces. I would assume this is also the case with animals. Basically, we’re good at identifying human features because we see them a lot, but we don’t have practice with other animals.
Second, the human brain is wired from birth to recognize human faces. Newborns will stare at vaguely face-shaped things. This implies that we have an instinctive recognition of human faces.
Third, not all animals have the same diversity as we do across a small population. Most squirrels, fish, raccoons, etc. in an area look the same because they’re not as genetically diverse as people. | 5b21187a-ba1e-43fb-a6c6-96d5a374e613 |
5hxnxr | Why do we move our whole body around while playing a video game as if we are in the game? | Your brain consists of neurons that are connected to one another, and these connections strengthen over time through repetition.
In your whole lifetime you've learned that the way to evade an object flying at your head is to move certain muscles. So when some neurons send a signal "there's something flying at my head" the nerves that move these muscles get an automatic signal. | c3ae1b6b-586a-4722-b721-f7f54aefe9e5 |
2u9y3v | How Car Lighters Work | At the basic level, wires that don't conduct electricity well generate heat as they resist the flow of it. When you plug a cigarette lighter into your car's port, the electricity does just this: generates heat on a wire. Once it glows red, it is hot enough to light a cigarette if touched to it. | 929bd2ad-2113-473b-b480-710574f3861e |
3a5rth | The body can self heal wounds and broken bones etc. Why not regrow limbs after amputation? | It is theoretically possible, as some species of lizards con do it. However, evolution drove us towards scar tissue, which serves to seal the wound from infection long before the limb could regrow. | 1616db16-4ac7-4600-8098-315c58775864 |
6mm8ey | How do spacecrafts such as Juno send data back to earth? | Via radio waves. NASA and other space agencies have huge antennae arrays that can pickup the very weak signals that are being sent by the probes. | 43e93e35-b0c2-44e9-9b07-48df8442034b |
jpju6 | Please ELI5: why too much salt is bad for you. | Basically too much salt can increase your blood pressure (bad) as your body has limited ability to remove it.
The reason salt increases your blood pressure is due to a concept called homeostasis.
Say you have two water tanks with a pipe in between them with the level equal.. if you add water to one, half that water will go into the other and the levels would be equal again.. this is homeostasis.
Homeostasis also applies to the concentration of liquids. If you added salt to one of these tanks (A LOT), water would go to the tank you added salt to, to correct the concentration.. in this case the salt concentration pressure (oncotic) must over come the pressure of the fluids (hydrostatic pressure) to see a change.
So if you add salt into your body, you increase the concentration of electrolytes, therefore more water is retained to correct that concentration..
and increased volume = increased pressure.. think about a balloon, as you fill it up with more and more air the pressure increases till it explodes!
= increased blood pressure.
Tried to keep it LI5 as possible .. first time not sure if that's a good job :P | 4139047c-1e3b-4abb-8442-ed8284200279 |
6qugqv | How does Sensodyne toothpaste work? | Essentially, your teeth get sensitive when the dentine within the tooth is exposed. On a microscopic level, the dentine has these little tubes that pass on impulses to the pulp, which is the nerve on the tooth.
So when you get a cold ice cream on it, it will transmit the signal straight to the pulp, giving you that jumpy sensation. Normal teeth don't have this problem because it has enamel on it but enamel can break down for various reasons i.e acid or wear of teeth.
Sensodyne works by blocking those tubes in the dentine with a compound in the paste, thus reducing the impulses sent back to the pulp. This makes your tooth less sensitive. | e20c11b6-6d18-4796-85fe-f33140004327 |
910vm0 | How do they determine the caloric value of different foods? | Originally they used a [bomb calorimeter](_URL_1_) but now it is just calculated using the [Atwater system](_URL_0_) from the percentages of individual components.
i.e.
if we know the energy in a single gram of protein, fat, carbohydrate, fibre, or sugar then we just need to know how many grams of each is in a piece of food and add them up. | 0a4a9c44-6b4e-4d95-abd2-6d1c0c69defa |
5rrv9a | Why is Oman such a 'quiet' nation despite being right in the middle of chaos? | I should begin with the disclaimer that I'm not an expert in the subject. That being said, I do have a very strong interest in geopolitics and can hopefully provide a half-decent answer until someone better educated comes along. Of the top of my head, I can think of three potential reasons for why Oman is relatively stable compared to other Middle Eastern countries.
First, most Muslim states (in the Middle East and elsewhere) are either predominately Shia or Sunni. Oman is the one exception to this, as it is primarily Ibadi. As such, it has largely stayed out of Shia-Sunni conflicts.
Second, it has a relatively diverse economy, which means that it is more stable than if it was solely based on oil. You can also see this is the UAE (particularly in Dubai) and other areas of MENA with a diversified economy.
Third, I think that your original premise is based on a flawed assumption. You said that it's in the middle of chaos, but it isn't. Oman borders 3 other states: KSA, Yemen, and the UAE. Of these, Yemen is the only one that is currently undergoing significant strife. Compared to other parts of the Arab world (Somalia, Palestine, Iraq), the Gulf States (with the exception of Iraq) are relatively stable and prosperous. | 61bf522e-1b8e-4be0-a84a-a9aa600f297b |
1b7tjh | If diamond is the hardest substance, and you can only cut it with other diamonds, how were diamonds originally acquired? | Diamond is very hard, which means it is very resistant to scratching. It has a very low toughness though, which is the resistance to impact.
["Somewhat related to hardness is another mechanical property toughness, which is a material's ability to resist breakage from forceful impact. The toughness of natural diamond has been measured as 7.5–10 MPa·m1/2."](_URL_0_)
This means that you can 'cut' diamonds by fracturing them, instead of grinding and sawing through them.
---
To answer your question, diamonds are embedded in different types of rock and soil. Diamond may be very hard, but the material surrounding it is not as hard. Diamonds are not found as large slabs, but as tiny stones. | f9083fec-49a6-4603-ab0d-adb12f48c477 |
5f56gy | Why did TV and computer screens used to flicker in videos, and now they don't? | CRTs work by scanning a electron beam left to right 15 to 100 thousand times a second while scanning top to bottom at 50 to 120 (numbers are approximate) times per second. That fills the screen, but the beam only hits one spot at a time. The phosphors glow brightly at first but start to fade quickly. By the time a spot is scanned again its intensity had faded significantly. If the video camera and the monitor are running at the same frame rate, the result is pretty good, but if they are running at different rates you see flicker.
LCDs can also have flicker, but not as bad as CRTs. Plasmas have very little flicker on camera.
Source: am a broadcast TV engineer who has to deal with flicker. | a7073654-3cbf-41df-8296-5d43c6882e79 |
1hxzlf | Drag. The origin, history and culture of men dressing up as women. | I don't know if this is the origin, but it's certainly part of the history:
In ye olden tymes (going back to Shakespeare and far earlier), it was unlawful (or at least very very frowned upon) for women to act on stage. Boys were frequently used to portray women, and some actors even found a rich niche acting in female roles.
At least, this was true in Europe. I can't speak for Asian theater. | 8369527a-758b-4a5a-92f7-0e692b4c7efa |
1a4tot | Why is the Great Gatsby considered to be the pinnacle of American Literature? | your question is a bit flawed because all art is subjective, so what you may think to be a rather dull book can be considered to be a masterpiece by a lot of other people (myself included). And it's for the latter reason that books like The Great Gatsby attain status as a "classic"; because enough people agree that it's important enough to study and preserve for future generations; your teachers included.
Now why "The Great Gatsby" in particular? It's actually an awesome book to show the depth that literature can have. It's told from a first-person POV, but the POV character isn't necessarily the main character of the book (There's an argument that I've had with my friends whether Carraway or Gatsby is the main character. I say it's the latter but I digress). It's an extremely accurate portrayal of a seminal period in American history, mainly because it was written during that time period. All that extravagance you read in the book actually happened and serves as a stark contrast to the Great Depression which would hit a few years later. Also important to note is that F. Scott Fitzgerald himself could be seen as a parable for Gatsby. He wasn't as poor as Gatsby, but he lived a lifestyle comparable to that in the '20's and had his own personal demons to wrestle with (mainly his rampant alcoholism). In addition, "The Great Gatsby" is a fantastic book to study symbolism. The green light represents a goal Gatsby strives for, but will never have, the eyes of TJ Eckleberg symbolize the growing commercialism of America, and of course, there's the commentary on the divide between "old" money and "new" money. Finally, and like I said this is subjective, but many people consider the book to be beautifully written. The last lines "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past" is just beautiful IMO.
In short, there are lot of factors that have probably lead your teachers to proclaiming it "the greatest work of American literature". A lot of people would agree with them but remember, there's no such thing; it's merely an opinion, but one hammered into cultural conciousness through repitition and reputation. I enjoy "Mice of Men" as well, but Steinbeck is a much different writer than Fitzgerald so it'd really be like comparing apples and oranges.
TL;DR: Art is subjective, but a lot of people like The Great Gatsby. I listed reasons why this may be, but remember, they're just opinions and you're allowed to have your own. | 85fa2af2-3072-44dc-ba57-7e21ca97c48b |
1erfsm | What, exactly, is poo made of? | I'll tackle the Fiber question and I can punch it out with how tired I am.
Basically we cannot digest fiber; so what happens is it is a long polysaccharides chain that scrapes the side of your intestines as it passes and this stimulates your bowels to release a mucus. This mucus helps lubricate the feces as well as keep it from drying out. The fiber also helps hold the feces in a solid chunk. | 45ae321c-ad28-4aec-a4e8-b4bd952c1deb |
1k0sqk | the current terrorist threat that is causing the US to shut down embassies in the Middle East | A conversation was allegedly intercepted between two top level members of AQAP (Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) speaking in very general terms about a terrorist attack in the very near future. Given what happened at Bengazi last September, the Obama administation is using an abundance of caution because the last thing they need is more dead American ambassadors on their hands. | b35afc44-2de7-4dcf-b11e-1fdc5d957110 |
8ylex3 | Examples of tax deduction and exemption | tax deduction is something you paid taxes on when you got it, but can remove it from your taxes at the end of the year. Most business expenses count, so if your office bought a table then you spent earned money (usually taxable) on that table, but since it was a business expense you can deduct the cost of that table from your taxes, so that earned money isn't taxed.
Tax exemption is when you don't pay taxes on it in the first place. Not for profit charities, and churches are tax exempt, and none of their earnings get taxed in the first place.
So a deduction is something that should get taxed but gets removed because of how it is used, and an exemption is not supposed to be taxed in the first place | cbe820ff-a4ee-4f61-bd32-e2e30ff3f1c4 |
26km4y | Why don't any larger animals have compound/multiple eyes like bugs do? | Depth perception, visual acuity, and distance. Compound eyes don't fair very well on any of those factors, all of which are far more favorable than having a large cone of view, especially in light of possessing other senses (namely hearing and scent) and ocular muscles. | 84abe611-39e9-4391-a0db-4feb4ac92891 |
1zjq0l | In the Imperial Measurement System, why are "pounds" abbreviated as "lbs."? | [_URL_0_](_URL_0_)
Just use the search function next time? | 8e774855-607c-4c33-b2af-958c8640cac3 |
1iw05s | Why is it that you cannot fix a flat tire if the hole is on the side? | The tread surface of a tire is much more rigid because that's the part of the tire designed to make contact with the road. The sidewall is much more flexible because it is designed to adapt to changes in tire pressure without bursting. Sealing the tread is easy because the patch will remain relatively still, but a patch in the sidewall will be the weak point for a flexible and high-pressure surface. | 8207d83d-654b-44f1-861f-c88beafc9645 |
6zwgrw | Why does pouring water on grease fire increase the amount of flames? | Grease is an oil, it's a liquid at burning temperatures.
Oil and water don't mix, so when you squirt water on grease you get balls of water in oil and vice versa. The balls of water in oil are a big problem. The oil is over 212˚F (100˚C) so the water boils into steam. The steam expands, spreading the oil into a big, thin sheet, before it pops. Now you have a big, thin sheet of burning oil and the pop sends it flying through the air. Super-bad. | 7c343b96-89d3-471d-8430-026baaca2aa1 |
4qcejd | how Americans are okay with insanity they call insurance companies | There is. Pretty much everyone hates the insurance companies. But half of us don't think that any of the proposed alternatives would actually be any better.
Also, for the majority of Americans the healthcare system is actually quite good, despite what you see on reddit. Quality care is available without significant delay, and the billing/insurance process, while completely absurd and a huge pain to deal with, doesn't actually cost what reddit seems to think it does. Regardless of what the bill may say, nobody is actually paying half a million dollars for a sprained ankle. Or an emergency brain surgery. | e750b6da-2d8b-4eac-b89c-218e8c3640d3 |
lfk6y | Why does electricity conduct better through different materials? | In a metal the electrons 'float' in a sea around the nuclei, they are not bound to a specific atom. In wood each electron is mostly bound to a specific nuclei. The flow of electricity depends on how free the electrons are to move around. | 8c70b67d-3e56-4ac6-b874-6b5a90066b69 |
7hxt2k | Why is it advised to cut down on salt when one is bodybuilding? | Someone can feel free to correct me, but I believe this is due to the osmosis of the water in our body. With too much salt, the water in your body will retain more making you look bloated. Potassium helps this, because then you will have more potassium for the sodium potassium pump. So the salt or sodium will be removed from the body | bd1345ef-6ecf-48f2-8057-e91a40a94cc5 |
1g8s7q | How are acids named? (Chemistry) | It's a combination of systematic naming and what's always been done.
If it's an organic acid, that is, it has a carboxylic acid group in it attached to some number of other carbon groups, it is named based on the IUPAC naming scheme, for which wikipedia is probably your best explanation. Examples of organic acids you might know are ethanoic acid aka acetic acid aka vinegar, or butanoic acid which is present and lends its distinctive smell to both vomit and parmesan cheese.
As for mineral acids, they're generally called something which makes some sense based on what they're made of, but there isn't a general rule. HNO3 is Nitric Acid, and it's formed from a Nitrate group and a hydrogen, and HClO2 is chlorous acid as it's formed from a chlorate group. Then you go and get hydrochloric acid, HCl, with just breaks the pattern altogether. | b9bdf48a-24d6-460b-bbdc-8f834c46a5f5 |
1r7zq7 | Rhythmic modes in Medieval music | I could be mistaken, as I'm not overly familiar with older forms of music theory, but I thought medieval rhythmic modes were just the first (known) attempt in history to denote rhythm *in the written form*. Prior to the advent of medieval rhythmic modes sheet music contained pitch information, but the rhythm of any particular piece would have to be learned by observing another person play the piece. Modern sheet music conveys similar information to a player, although through different methods, most notably with the use of beamed notes and time signatures. If my impression of medieval rhythmic modes is mistaken please advise me, as I'm always interested in an opportunity to learn more music theory.
If you're looking for an explanation of how to *read* medieval rhythmic modes I'm sorry I can't be of more help... but with the exception of historical research I'm not too sure why it would be useful to learn how to read medieval rhythmic modes in the first place. Modern sheet music is more than adequate, and the vast majority of work from that time has been transcribed to modern sheet music. | e3a28846-2539-4398-bf23-4abfaf0218e3 |
3p2u9s | How did 'John/Jane Doe' become the generic name for an unidentifiable person? | In English law before the 19th century, there was a lot of emphasis placed on very technical matters. This often led to the real issue not nicely fitting in a standard lawsuit form. For instance, if you had a dispute with someone about who owned a piece of land, you couldn't really sue them directly to argue that (too unwieldly). Instead, you would pretend like you had leased the land to a friend, who would then sue them as though they were a trespasser. That way, you wouldn't have to deal with the technical parts of the formal challenge-a-title claims.
Over time, people stopped having *real* people for these fake leases; they would make up a fake person who they had given a fake lease, and who would sue another fake person which the real defendant had given a different fake lease to. The plaintiff's fake person was called John Doe; the defendant's was Richard Roe. It was a legal fiction to get around stupidly technical rules.
Those rules have since been changed to put more emphasis on what happened and less emphasis on technicalities, but the names stuck as placeholders in legal actions (this is why it's *Roe* v. Wade: the plaintiff wanted to be anonymous, and so they used a placeholder name). And from there, it developed into a more general placeholder. | 6fae78b4-b2bc-4775-9938-a8a440c70531 |
4mncjf | When upside down, how are you still able to swallow. | Peristalsis.
That is the name for the contraction of myscles that forces food along its path. It is what allows you to eat upside down and what allows astronauts to eat in 0 g.
Incidently, not all animals have it. Birds dont, which is why they tip their head up when swallowimg and why we can't take birds into space. | efcfd7e6-c6fa-454f-b249-33670af23838 |
7e27ky | How does "Whataboutism" differ from giving context to information? | "Whataboutism" was a technique first used by the Soviet government and press in order to deflect criticism by America of the USSR's human rights record. Whenever an article appeared in an American newspaper of, for example, Stalin's purges, the Soviet press responded with a critique of racial segregation in the US. This happened so regularly, that it almost became a running gag that whatever America said, Russia replied: "And you are lynching Negros."
The point is that while it was certainly true that the US had serious problems with rampant institutionalised racism in some quarters, this had nothing to do with Stalin killing untold numbers of people who disagreed with him. As the old adage has it: "Two wrongs don't make a right."
"Whataboutism" is, at its core, an attempt to *change the subject*. Far from "giving context", it changes the subject to a different person (or country). There's no attempt to debunk the original criticism.
For example, if Harry is accused of shoplifting, he can't defend himself by saying that Tom is a terrorist. Whether Tom is or isn't a terrorist is totally irrelevant to Harry's alleged shoplifting.
But sometimes saying "what about...?" is legitimate. It's only legitimate if it *actually* addresses the topic at hand, for example:
Mary: "I heard the political party you support wants to ban sports. What's that all about?"
Helen: "What about the party you support with its campaign to arm toddlers? Why aren't you talking about that?"
Here, Helen doesn't want to talk about the sports ban, so she tries to change the subject to guns for babies.
Mary: "I am a safe driver."
Helen: "What about all those tickets you got for speeding and DUI?"
Here, Helen is still talking about Mary's driving, but is simply calling into question her claim to be a safe driver by citing instances where she was caught driving dangerously. | a1d9a878-32c8-49c2-b2aa-f0a7b75e6871 |
1e97g5 | How do ad networks work? | Ad networks generally have agreements with a lot of popular websites. The ad network pays the sites to place their ads, and vendors pay the ad networks to display their ads in those spots.
When / if you click on one of those ads it brings you to the vendor's website. The ad network tracks where you saw the ad, when you clicked on it, and where you went. If you actually purchase a product after that, it is called a "conversion".
Ad networks often use a "pay per click" business model as well, where the vendor will pay the ad network for every ad click. In other words, they are paying the ad network just to get people to click on the ads... thereby visiting the vendor's site. More traffic to the site means more chances for sales to be made. | ffd3efbb-c226-47ae-bf8f-7baa318ea90d |
1lchfc | What determines if you are burning fat, muscles or calories? | I assume you meant
> What determines if you are burning fat, protein, or carbohydrates?
It is dependent on a number of factors, the type of exertion does not matter. Running or weight lifting alone do not determine which energy source your body uses. As I think you meant to say, there are three energy reservoirs our body can use: fat, protein and carbohydrates. Generally speaking you have three states, resting, moderate and heavy. Resting is sitting on the couch or sleeping. Moderate is walking up the stairs, hiking, lifting weights. Heavy is sprinting, marathon running and such. For a average person, your body burns carbohydrates the vast majority of the time, and almost never protein, regardless of your activity level. There is always some small level of fat being burned as well. At a moderate level, you burn a higher percentage of fat than at rest or at a high activity level, but because you burn more calories overall at a high activity level, you don't burn more fat at a moderate level. This is why those fat burning zones are actually BS. An average person will burn through their carbohydrate sources fairly quickly, so the body will switch over to fat burning. Fat has a higher energy density than carbohydrates, that's why we store a lot of fat and very little sugar. Athletes have been shown to almost instantly switch to fat burning during activity. Your body will burn protein only if you are starving.
TL/DR; Your activity level and duration determine what your body is using for energy | 7423a817-aad2-45bd-868e-503a45a3578e |
3j09zg | Why are you ordered to register as sex offender if you are peeing in public? There is no sexual matter involved in peeing. | There is no sexual component in peeing, no. But there is a sexual component in purposely showing your genitals to other members of the public.
The thing is, it can be very hard to gauge the motive someone had when they were peeing in public. Were they genuinely desperate and couldn't wait, or are they peeing there because they are pretty much getting off on having any sort of excuse for getting their dicks out in public? Some jurisdictions take a very cautious approach and make all people caught peeing in public register. | eec245ac-4db3-42c3-97a3-27e0ab20953c |
3xeylv | Why do you bite your tongue, cheek or lip while chewing? | We use our tongue and cheek to position and rotate the food between our teeth. When we push a piece of food the wrong way or overestimate the amount of force needed to position the food, we bite ourselves. Chewing wouldn't work so well if we were just chomping up and down letting the food fall where it may! | 52766dec-d9ed-4fd6-b91a-0804e9c560df |
4mtmtz | Why do doctors offices that know they're going to busy only keep one available doctor in office? Why are the others just having a day off? | So a lot of this will vary based on where you are and what type of "doctor's office" you are talking about. But in general doctor's offices (and some other businesses like cable companies) will schedule very tightly to attempt to see as many people as possible. Yes, this means longer wait times for the consumer like waiting an hour for a doctor or getting a vague "we'll be to your house between 9am and 4pm. But it also means that the doctor is constantly seeing people and not just sitting around waiting for the next appointment. A lot of this is because you never know if its going to be a simple 5 minute checkup or an hour long complex issue where they need to run multiple tests. If they didn't overbook, that means they'd have to schedule EVERY appointment to be a long one, even knowing that most won't be. Meaning the doctor sees WAY less patients throughout the day.
If they were to change it like that, you'd see a large increase in costs (they are still going to want to get paid, so if they are seeing less people they need to make more per person) and most importantly you'd see a huge delay in how quickly you get service. Instead of calling in sick and them being able to squeeze you in that day or the next, they'd be saying they still have 1 spot open late next week. Or when your cable goes out, they'll be able to send you a tech three weeks from now. It just wouldn't work.
As to how many doctors to have available, depending on where you are there is a good chance that there isn't just extra doctors on hand they could schedule for that day. So if one is gone for whatever reason (Doctors need time off too you know) the others just have to be shorthanded and work through it until they get back. If its a larger area where thats not the issue, then its usually just like a restaurant. They try to schedule as best they can for what they forecast the day to be, but sometimes its busier than they expected it to be. The more unannounced walk-ins there are, the longer wait times will be. | 45d6a1f7-5f4f-47ff-aae8-a8e0ad895583 |
y85uw | How did we develop all this advanced technology in less than 300 years when it took us hundreds of thousands just to learn how to farm? | The major catalyst was the industrial revolution in the late 18th and early 19th century.
Political stability and the ability to efficiently produce food were contributing causes to the industrial revolution happening. | ad205d96-95d1-4ac8-a8e3-4e2ed3982e00 |
t5uub | Why do planes need to be pressurized? | At high altitudes the atmospheric pressure is very low - there's less air than there is down at the surface. If the plane wasn't pressurized there wouldn't be enough air to breathe. | 04f646f9-92fb-4c57-949b-967767929506 |
4594l3 | Why Do Movies Shot 30 Years Ago Look “Old” When Played Now? | Technology in camera equipment has come a long way. Lenses have gotten better. Lighting has gotten better. The art of film has been perfected over the years. But I think the main factor of this "old" look has to do with post production. Back in the 70s and 80s they didn't have the computer power to color correct films like they can today. Every frame of today's films are finely tuned to be color balanced. So in other words, back then, what you filmed was pretty close to what you wound up with. While today the difference between the raw footage and the final result is very different. All that post production processing makes a huge difference.
(I work for a post production VFX house so I get to see this in action) | 31e976f8-6880-4bbf-a289-e9f4883cef60 |
492lh7 | If permanent colonies were built on the Moon, how would someone born there be effected on Earth due to the differences in gravity? | The moon *does* have gravity. It's a lot lower than Earth's, but it's still there - a lot more than the microgravity experienced on the ISS.
All we can really do is theorise, but the likelihood is that if someone grew up/lived a long time in lower gravity, coming down to Earth would be pretty traumatic. Your bones and muscles would absolutely not be used to this kind of strain. Everything would seem very, very heavy (including yourself). You'd likely have trouble walking under your own power, and if you fell down you'd be a lot more likely to break a bone.
There are definitely *advantages* to growing up/living in lower gravity, but we're not really built to experience much higher gravity than what our body ends up accustomed to.
It's basically the same as if us Earthlings go to a planet with 6 times the gravity. It'd be hellish. | c1d3e9ad-ae0d-4651-9d78-deff7eae0a13 |
4gpb23 | Self driving cars become common. Who is responsible for crashes and accidents? | It is impossible to answer this question. The laws / terms of insurance have not been written yet. Like so many things, they probably won't be written until the first accidents start happening. | 69fd9002-a027-46bd-94ba-aa646e5a40ba |
5fwclh | why does water taste so sweet after vomiting? | I'd say there are a couple of reasons.
Firstly, the water washes away the acid residue left over in your mouth by your stomach fluids, causing relief of the burning sensation and that might be perceived as sweet.
Also your body is most likely craving water due to the sudden onset of dehydration that was probably caused by you expelling all that liquid, and we all know how sweet water can taste when you're dehydrated.
As for sweating, i believe it's caused by the stress on your upper body's muscles due to heaving, when your body needs to get rid of something asap, most of the muscles on your chest and back are used to heave and push it out, that stress produces heat, and in order to cool down your body produces sweat. | a1454b23-7a30-4c56-834c-5cc013f6ac3e |
8s6a2p | What is the actual purpose of having a United States Space Force? | I think the idea is to split the responsibility for space off of the Air Force, much like how NASA was split off for civilian aerospace work. The Air Force actually spends more on space operations than NASA (moreso if you include agencies like the NRO). Putting that as it's own organization would, in theory, let them focus on the core mission better.
Not really sure I agree with it, since most of the best ideas come from the cross-pollination of different fields, and trying to silo space completely will, I think, be more harmful than helpful. | ce72ff1c-8f29-423f-b52d-fde5365681e6 |
542vfy | Why baseball stadiums are different sizes | Tradition. And more than any sport, baseball is a slave to tradition.
When professional baseball was in its infancy, there were no dedicated stadiums. Teams would play wherever they could find the space, usually somewhere used primarily for something else. The Yankees, for example, used to play on polo grounds.
This lead to every park being a little different, depending on space. When teams started building dedicated stadiums, there were no standards, and every facility was build how each team wanted. By the time the league was organized enough for standards, there were a bunch of parks with a bunch of different sizes, and no one wanted rebuild theirs. | 6ea1f3bd-242b-4f89-aa3b-64068e2a6942 |
4ymisb | Why does your skin heal faster at night than during the day? May it be for cuts, wounds, spots, acne etc... | Because your body's resources aren't dedicated to moving you around, talking, seeing, etc. Also because you're not moving around, touching your injuries and generally making things worse. | 6d6b3367-ea70-4e94-8f41-d0e99aaff906 |
8mt15c | What causes blood to seep out of cuts and scrapes? | For blood to come out of a wound, some kind of blood vessel must be damaged. If the cut or scrape is very small, then these blood vessels were likely capillaries. | a6fff24a-7654-48d5-aae3-1f83f950df55 |
36qb4r | - What are undersea cables, and how do they work? | Undersea cables (aka submarine cables) are made up of bundles of fiber optic cables running along the ocean floor that connect different parts of the world (e.g. North America and Europe) to exchange data/internet communications and telephone conversations.
The first submarine cable was laid all the way back in the 1850s and was used for sending telegrams. Obviously, the cable was not made out of Fiber Optics then, but we use optics now because it allows us to carry massive amounts of information on a single strand of glass (or plastic) fiber over long distances using laser light.
These cables exist pretty much everywhere. Here are a couple of maps showing where some of the cables are located:
[ONE](_URL_1_)
[TWO](_URL_0_) | b278107a-8498-4985-8f19-143fd748ee8d |
6krc4w | I was always told not to put a fridge or AC on an extension cord. Why? | Refrigerators and AC units have a much higher peak power draw than most household appliances. An extension cord that isn't rated to handle that kind of draw could overheat and short, or cause a fire. | 95885412-2ac3-4272-b746-563783344329 |
8brtwo | How are humans able to talk and hear their voice inside their head? | Something to do with the brain neurons (maybe associated with the limbic system and hypothalamus) that ultimately leads to consciousness. Consciousness is still a mystery unsolved -- no one really knows what it is, how to accurately define it etc. But that voice inside the head operating while you carry out other automatic or semi-automatic functions (plus all your other emotions, thoughts, experiences and more) are part of your consciousness. | 4c809d76-0cb0-476d-8e46-be04187118a1 |
25ti87 | in the USA, when does a dad (or mum) in full time employment see their children? | You work 9-5 in a lot of jobs, meaning that you see your kids in the morning and evening. | d6802532-558d-449e-9d82-c70df4444626 |
2gl9vs | Why does it hurt significantly more standing on a 10 min bus ride, over walking for 20 minutes when commuting? | Standing tends to strain the same muscles over a long period of time. Walking spreads the load over several sets of muscles, so that while you're technically expending more energy no one set of muscles have to bear the load for the entire period. | 9a48fd5c-ed00-4a3f-9845-61ae4034786b |
z8zc2 | How do TOR/.onion sites make you completely anonymous, even to the government/FBI? | **Note: Tor is a bit more advanced than just proxying.**
Tor works like this:
* There is a big, public list of trusted friends. **These friends know how to talk to each other in private**
* You send a message to one of these trusted friends (call him Friend1) that contains a key.
* You send a second message in a locked box. The box can only be opened using the key you gave to Friend1, preventing others from seeing the message. The message tells Friend1 to forward all new messages to a second friend, Friend2. So we have You - > Friend1 - > Friend2
* You send a third message to Friend1. The locked box contains a new key. This key is forwarded to Friend2. **Friend2 has no way of knowing that you are the original sender**
* You send a fourth message to Friend1. This message is kind of weird; the locked box contains a *second locked box* which Friend1 cannot open. **Friend1 will no longer have any idea what you are sending**. He forwards this box to Friend2.
* Friend2 opens the box with his key and sees a message. This message tells him to forward all new messages to _URL_0_. Now we have You - > Friend1 - > Friend2 - > CP
Note: This *layering* of boxes is where Tor gets its onion logo
Ok, so this is how we pull everything together:
* We have a request for Cat Photos that we do not want to be linked to us in any way
* Put our request for Cat Photos in box2. Box2 can only be opened by Friend2
* Put box2 in box1. Box1 can only be opened by Friend1
* Send box1 to Friend1. Friend1 opens it to find box2. **Friend1 knows that you are talking to Friend2** but **has no idea what you two are talking about** because he can't open box2.
* Friend1 sends box2 to Friend2. Friend2 finds the request for Cat Photos. **Friend2 knows the request is for Cat Photos** but **has no idea who made the request** because he only sees it coming from Friend1
* Friend2 gets the Cat Photos and then sends them back to Friend1 **in a locked box using key2**.
* Friend1 sees the box but cannot open it. Friend1 sends the box to you in a second locked box using key1.
* You receive the box in a box. You have both key1 and key2 so you can open both of them and look at your Cat Photos.
Success! Friend1 has no idea what you wanted, Friend2 has no idea who you are, you have your Cat Photos, and the government thinks Friend2 is the one looking at the photos.
This chain can **grow to any length** and the only way that an outside observer (e.g. The Government) can determine it was you asking for the Cat Photos is if they manage to convince every trusted friend in your chain to give up their communication logs. | 28110a78-7230-448f-9de3-fa48bdcc2bc0 |
5e072u | - Can things like light waves or radio waves become radioactive? | Light and radio waves are both kinds of radiation. Specifically, they are both non-ionizing EM radiation. What "non-ionizing" means is basically that they won't come barging in and jack up your DNA. X-rays and gamma rays on the other hand are ionizing EM radiation, and definitely will smack your DNA upside its head.
So no, sending a radio signal from an irradiated area won't change it into dangerous ionizing radiation, because that's just not how the EM spectrum works.
Sending radio waves from a spaceship travelling very, *very* fast could make your radio a weapon, but at that point your ship is already a doomsday device so it isn't a big deal. | 0120792c-148b-4ee4-9076-372f13f3b309 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.