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3rhq5q | Why do the sounds of letters in the alphabet differ from the sounds of these letters in words? | English has a huge variety of sounds, but we are representing them with a fairly limited alphabet. So many letters end up representing multiple sounds.
For instance, most accents have 24 consonant sounds and somewhere around 20 vowel sounds, but the alphabet only has 21 consonant letters and 5 vowel letters. Since there aren't enough letters to go around, some sounds need to share letters (especially for the vowels). | a13405e9-db88-424e-9191-f0b833d3e522 |
1x4rb5 | Where do creationists say the flood water drained to? | It's in the atmosphere now. Prior to the flood it had never rained.
Edit: I inferred this from the Bible. It is my interpretation. | 0ae78de7-dabe-4ac5-a1d0-79547c8a837b |
8cuywg | How can investigators find incriminating e-mails? | Well, first of all, people are not as keen on deleting email as you may think. Personally, I have every single one of mine since 1997.
And, really, not everyone is comfortable enough around technology to understand that an email that is moved to the trash folder will stay there for a while before being deleted.
Added to that, the server that stores the incoming mail might be set up to retain deleted email for a while. Because it's easier to restore email a client deleted if it's actually stored away somewhere for a short while.
Some government agencies and some companies that find this to be useful have a mail system parallel to the one the users have access to, where incoming email is stored indefinitely. (just to name one example. I live in Sweden. Tax funded entities are forced by law to store all documents going on and out for a pretty long time. This includes email. If they have received it or sent it, they are forced by law to have a copy. That copy is also available at the request of any member of the public.) To ensure that there is always a paper trail that can be followed later.
There is also a chance that previously deleted email are available on a computer that the user logged on to once in the past, because that is kind of how Windows handles user profiles.
Added to that, a file on a computer is not necessarily gone just because it is deleted. If can be partially gone. Or hard to distinguish from garbage. Or possible to restore because the physical hard drive retains "hints" of data that has been on it, that can be checked with special equipment later, in an attempt to find something that was once there.
A server for email is one of the most important pieces of equipment the company has. Without it, they will have loss of income and be totally drained on their productivity. The email server is so dan important that it's well backed up. One way or another, the data is often stored in more than one facility. Or backed up onto magnetic tape. Or any other scheme that ensures that even if the server is literally on fire, at the very least the data is still there and can be restored.
Backing up data to tape is a time-consuming business, so to make it happen in the first place the backup system often has a computer that stores the backup mid-way to the tape machine. By looking at that computer, you can get a lot of hints on what has been on the master system in the past.
Often you need to use a lot of tapes, so the tapes are handled by a robot that automatically switches tapes. And since tapes are a physical media, it makes sense to even out the wear and tear of the physical tapes. In other words, parts of a backup that is a month old might sit on a tape in the robot that the robot has deemed unfit, and marked for replacement. It will never be overwritten again, because the robot rightfully believes that the tape is giving up.
That is the ways I can think of right now to find email at a specific organisation. But, you know. Email always has a sender and a recipient. Chances are that it was outbound. Or came in from the outside. This means that you can do this exact audit again at a totally different organisation and perhaps get a better result. | 60f5140e-2919-4a9a-9e04-3d2b3421c4a7 |
3zprj8 | Why do planes disappear in the Bermuda Triangle? | The area actually has no special power to make planes disappear. However, it is prone to storms, and there are wide stretches with no place to land, so from time to time a small plane is lost with no witnesses. | 38d9b0c8-52d3-4d2c-b281-cc8f609312ad |
6iticf | How do people move giraffes from one location to another? | In a crate on a truck. [Like this](_URL_0_ ) There was a recent incident in the news where a giraffe was killed when its head hit an overpass, but that sort of incident isn't the accepted standard of care in most facilities. | 968053f1-d0dd-4803-bf71-d5989b1e07e5 |
33eiq1 | What would happen if you filled up a tire with a liquid, say water, instead of air but to the same psi? | It would be much bumpier ride as water doesn't compress like air does. It might also cause the tire to explode if you hit a bump for the same reason.
Edit: It would also make your car quite a bit heavier. So you would have slower acceleration and longer stopping distance. | 23101a96-3bac-4c4a-a56e-558550eac74b |
2vurby | What do babies dream about? | I have a 12-month-old baby who can say about 10 identifiable words now - meaning they might not sound like the word to someone else, but she says them consistently so I know what she means when she says them.
Anyway, I turned on the TV and there was a picture of the ocean, which she had never seen before. It had rolling white waves crashing on a beach. She lit up and said, "Milk!"
So yeah. I think she dreams of oceans of milk. | 132438a8-a14c-4dbe-b0f8-42242286df93 |
56c7jk | how do water and sun benefit flowers after they've already been cut from where they grew? | Cut plants don't die immediately -- they're not like animals that need circulating blood to transfer oxygen around constantly.
One main purpose of roots is to carry water from the earth up to the leaves -- there's no heart pumping, the water moves through capillary action, which can happen at any point along the plant's veins -- so if you cut off a stem and put it in water, it will still draw water up to the leaves and petals as if it were roots at the bottom end.
As long as the leaves are still getting water through the stem and can [respire](_URL_0_) they can still perform photosynthesis, so sitting in the sun still helps the plant live.
Being cut off, though, means that not all plant biology keeps acting normally, which is why cut flowers eventually die off. Some plants, like a pothos, can grow new root systems from a cut stem, which is a way the plant reproduces. Growing from cuttings is pretty common; it's because it's part of the plant's survival mechanism that they can grow that way. | adc4095d-ae42-4099-9f86-3086bb3852de |
80fhlz | How can sulfur hexafluoride stay in someone’s lungs, but co2 doesn’t even though they are both more dense than air? | I hope another commenter corrects if I'm mistaken, but I would think that Sulfur hexafluoride CAN stay in your lungs, but doesn't automatically stay there like it's stuck. It takes more effort to get it out because it's very heavy, but I've seen videos of people inhaling it so clearly they're able to get it out too, maybe with some extra effort.
It's also way heavier than CO2. Sulphur hexafluoride is gonna be Sulphur and six Flourines. I'm too lazy to look up the weight of that but it is a hell of a lot heavier than a carbon and two oxygens. | d18c6920-b104-44d9-afd2-8fabd21ec5f8 |
1sgez0 | I am near sighted, how come when I look through a scope, or binoculars, without corrective lens', everything is not crystal clear? | Any scope you look through will have a focus adjuster. You can adjust the scope so that your sight will be focused on any specific point. This action will also correct for any vision issues you may have (though if someone with different vision uses the scope after you to look at the same point, they will have to change the focus.) | de952608-109b-4bee-962a-b017bd6f0797 |
5yw11s | Why does meat change colour when it's cooked? | That's the [Maillard reaction](_URL_0_). [This thread](_URL_1_) might help. | 077aef45-3582-4848-9f65-08755f84b698 |
4jgjae | Why do we sometimes blank out and stare off into space? | Psych doctoral student here.
Unfortunately there isn't a whole lot of understanding around the mechanism of action of daydreaming (which I assume is what you're asking?). But when it comes to the brain, we SUCK at multitasking (we like to believe we can do it, but the brain cannot do two things simultaneously, it just very rapidly switches between actions). Think about reading a book; have you ever found yourself a page or two in without remembering what you read? Or maybe you were on autopilot when driving and can't remember how you got somewhere? It's basically the same thing, our subconscious thoughts came to a conscious level and we got distracted by them. It takes a lot of mental willpower to focus on a single task, and if we're bored, tired, stressed, etc... That's difficult to do. The previous mental states are also associated with lowered levels of excitatory neurotransmitters such as dopamine and norepinephrine so the brain becomes sluggish and stops focusing on tasks that require engaging the prefrontal cortex (executive functioning).
TL;DR: We can't multitask well and we need "excited" chemicals to help us focus. | 1a6d4457-85c1-4df4-a068-3e6f98a09d05 |
343cg5 | Why isn't the for-profit business model of hospitals in the US under more fire than the healthcare system? | Even "nonprofit" hospitals are generally out to make a profit, or at least break even. The parent organization needs to be financially stable. | 290b874b-20c8-41bf-886b-ed4e7968b167 |
7i688l | What exactly is a watershed and how does it work? For instance, we live in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed area. I have attempted to read on the subject, and consider myself a smart gal, but this just confuses me all day. | Pick a spot on the ground. Imagine that a raindrop falls on that spot. Imagine that it doesn't soak in, but it runs downhill. Which way will it go? Trace its path. Eventually, it will flow into a stream. That stream will flow into a bigger stream, which will flow into a river, which may flow into a bigger river, and so on, which will eventually reach the sea. The last river will have a name; let's say it's the Mississippi. That means your original spot was part of the Mississippi watershed. Sometimes large watersheds are divided into smaller watersheds named after the various rivers that flow into it; for example, the Mississippi watershed may be divided into the Ohio watershed, the Missouri watershed, and so on. | 9d09e697-c0a6-4181-bc82-0ea467db2f43 |
3r3gto | Why does the order in which you mix things together matter? | as a person who cooks for living, in your case you just hasnt mixed things enough in first case. Adding dry to wet makes mixing easier and faster as opposed way creates dry clumps, that require extra mixing. thats why dry to wet is preferred cause it makes things easier and faster. | d7bebbe7-9a83-4293-82fc-d570911422d9 |
32859i | How do shows like DragonBall Z Abridged and Yugioh Abridged stay on Youtube without being copyright claimed? | They're works of parody. As such, if the creators were sued and fought back, they'd probably win under 'fair use,' which allows limited use of copyrighted material for things like commentary, criticism, reviewing, and parody. | 09689117-25ac-4fd3-963a-51285edbe60b |
71p5vw | what kind of applications won't benefit from increased multi-thread performance? | One reason is if the application is primarily I/O bound. Adding more threads won't make your hard drive any faster. | 4db5345f-b4f8-453d-a63d-302f37b19c83 |
1flxwf | What is going on with Apple and the price fixing trial with the DoJ? | Here you go, this guy did a great job explaining it: _URL_0_ | 65ff140f-85a7-4898-a277-5d780025bf7f |
5010vi | How do people change their identity? eg. get new social security numbers fake deaths etc. | > Fake deaths
That's easy, get someone to think a dead body is yours or disappear for a few years and someone will have you declared dead. Common examples are place a similar sex/gender/aged dead body in your car and set it on fire. If no one is suspicious they won't go through getting a DNA test, or if it's burned enough they might not be able to. Disappearing is even easier, just get-up walk out the door and never come back, don't use your credit cards, phone anything that can be traced back to you. There are several cases of people disappearing and turning up years after they are declared dead.
> Change their identity
That's really hard. You would have to steal someone else's identity. Common methods where using someone's social security number that was about your age and dead. Forging or getting copies of that persons birth certificate or ID to generate real actual ID's. So you would take a birth certificate for John Doe and a NY state ID for John Doe that had your picture on it, and use that to get a new ID for John Doe in California.
The problem is that because there are a lot of crimes you can commit with a faked identity there are a lot of things in place to stop that. Now there are computers that will list who is dead by Social Security numbers and cross checks for people getting new IDs and stuff. | b645bbe8-cc6c-43fb-ae46-60d44f570b19 |
1h07tl | The IRA, The Real IRA, and why they exist. | Basically. British occupation. We wanted independence. Best we got was a divided Ireland. 26 counties in the Republic of Ireland. 6 in Northern Ireland. Depending on the year, There are many different forms of the IRA. From Wikipedia.
Earlier organisations
Society of United Irishmen (1791–1804)
Young Ireland (1839–1849)
Irish Republican Brotherhood (1858–1922)
Fenian Brotherhood (1858–1867)
Clan na Gael (1867–1922)
Easter Rising
Irish Citizen Army (1913–1947)
Irish Volunteers (1913–1919)
Cumann na mBan (1914–present)
Irish War of Independence
Irish Republican Army (Army of the Irish Republic) (1919–1922) recognised by the First Dáil as the legitimate army of the Irish Republic
Irish Civil War
Anti-treaty Irish Republican Army (1922–1969) the anti-treaty IRA which fought and lost the civil war and which thereafter refused to recognise either the Irish Free State or Northern Ireland
Later organisations
Saor Uladh (1950s) • Saor Éire (1967–1975)
Provisional IRA (1969–present) which broke from the OIRA in 1969 over the latter's failing to protect Catholic communities in Northern Ireland.
Official IRA (1969–present) the remainder of the IRA after the 1969 split with the Provisionals; led by Cathal Goulding and primarily Marxist in its political orientation. It is now inactive in the military sense, while its political wing, Official Sinn Féin, became the Workers' Party of Ireland.
Irish National Liberation Army (1974–present)
Irish People's Liberation Organisation (1986–1992)
Continuity IRA (1986–present) broke from the PIRA in 1986 because the latter ended its policy on abstentionism (thus recognising the authority of the Republic of Ireland).
Real IRA (1997–present) a 1997 breakaway from the PIRA consisting of members opposed to the peace process.
Óglaigh na hÉireann (Real IRA splinter group) (2006–present)
If you are really interested, Watch the Liam Neeson film Michael Collins. He was Director for Intelligence, helped bring the British to their knees. Later incarnations are/were less than noble. | 02bc7dca-bf5c-4d5a-b6a3-8fd37f990834 |
6yq7rt | How does a Medical Examiner determine the Cause of Death? | Mostly by autopsy. Cutting the body open, looking for anything that looks wrong. Looking at the heart for signs of a clot, lungs for blockage etc. Blood tests are also taken to test for anything unusual like heart attack signs ( enzyme) or drink/ drugs.
Everybody dies for the same reason, the heart stops, medical examiners job is to find out why it stops.
Some trauma is easy to see, (loss of leg caused blood loss enough to stop heart) all to the tiny details as tiny bit of water in lungs or small damage to heart.
If a person has a existing medical condition this will be explored and either ruled out or ruled in as the cause.
(Hope that was 5 enough)
Edit, missing word | 2bd3fd3f-3080-4ba4-b30e-08dd02caac4a |
7icd38 | Why Do we tend to panic more when running from a scary situation than walking from it? | I think you may have your causality backward.
You run because when you can't control your panic, and you walk when you can. If the walking increase your panic, you would already be running. | 6df02721-03f8-4264-87d1-94b01b1a429f |
725fy6 | Why are bugs so good at getting in the house, but so bad at getting out? | If there are a lot of bugs outside only one has to find its way inside for you to notice. If there is one bug inside that bug specifically has to find its way outside for you to notice. | e7a14dd3-ecd9-46e5-94bd-97d465702b44 |
3fc6ad | If I fell through a cloud would I come out soaked or 'misted'? | Neither, when a cloud is on the ground it's fog. When you walk in the fog you don't get that wet. If you fall into a rain cloud you get wet, or a snow cloud you get snow on you, but a non-precipitating cloud won't get you that wet. | 42e704b7-8255-4c8d-bc0a-d7927cb52569 |
3zny36 | California is getting very significant rain for the next days. Where I live(southern California), most of it goes to canals and straight into the pacific ocean, With that amount of water basically being wasted; why hasn't there been a system put in place to catch all of this run off?? | There is. Scattered throughout the hills are a series of dams that turn the rivers -- nature's own water gathering system -- into man-made lakes.
Nearer the shore, the water is so spread out -- and the terrain so lacking in natural basins -- that it's just not cost-effective to build artificial lakes to gather and store it. (If water were worth as much as gold, that calculation would change.) | 50923893-f9a9-430f-bef0-57ad8a51f0e4 |
6pb5yl | what is it about the structure of vegetables that makes them so nutritious yet contain relatively few calories? | We cannot digest cellulose. That is the physical structural component of plants. Because we cannot digest it we cannot get nutritional value from it. We call it dietary fiber and it passes through our bodies mostly intact. We are able to digest other components of plants and so get many vitamins and such from them, but the sugars that make up their cellulose are locked away from us.
This is perhaps the greatest proof that we are omnivores and not herbivores. | 20f1e45b-54e9-498b-958a-65c44f085f64 |
jqbeb | Why Time Warner Cable customers can't access HBO Go (when Time Warner owns HBO)? | Time Warner owns HBO, but Time Warner [no longer owns](_URL_0_) Time Warner Cable.
HBO GO is offered free to cable providers who carry HBO. The main problem is that cable providers have to develop systems to authenticate customers and make sure they subscribe to HBO. Then they have to create links to HBO GOs site such that only HBO subscribers are allowed in.
Until your ISP/Cable provider has such systems in place (tested and verified by HBO), HBO GO will not be available to you.
IIRC, wholesale HBO costs around $8 or $9 per subscriber. | 04afe71e-f9a1-44de-ad54-6f5dcb75f8ad |
88r62s | If there is lead in solder are solder joints dangerous to touch? | No, it is not toxic to touch solid lead. Lead poisoning results from **ingestion**, **inhalation** or **dermal contact** (e.g. if you were working with organic lead compounds that were easily absorbed through the skin). | c133da93-2169-4dcd-b0b2-4007e1ee3286 |
41ll4d | How do cops detain and handcuff somebody with one arm? | They either:
* cuff their hand to their belt
* get a belly chain
* if they appear to be of little threat, let them go uncuffed | 4fde817b-22a1-4e7a-b94e-e2ea9df34a2c |
4zus5f | With all the breakthroughts we've seen in cell phone and car batteries why hasn't the household batteries like AA, AAA, D's life been extended as well? | They use different chemistries. Your standard batteries are alkaline cells. They aren't that dangerous in the sense that they don't explode but because of that they are less energy dense. Most modern phones and electric cars use lithium ion cells. These are way more energy dense but have the tendency to become very hot or even explode when over discharged, punctured or short circuited. This isn't a problem because the devices they are used in have circuitry that closely monitors the battery and shuts off the device when something goes wrong. Lithium ion batteries are also more expensive than standard lithium batteries. Standard gas cars use a lead acid battery to start the motor and keep the lights on. While lead acid batteries are powerful they are also very heavy and big.
TL:DR different batteries have different trade offs | ed273e3f-a184-47fb-932d-a9fc80357bd7 |
289bqd | Why are people Shy or not shy? | It's just a difference if how you approach situations.
I've often been called shy when I'm first introduced to someone, but the thing most people fail to realize is that the reason I'm not more..."out there" is because I don't really speak unless I have something to say. Unless I'm continuing a conversation previous to the introduction, I will wait until more convenient time to join in the new conversation.
I'm not shy; I just don't want to be in your face. It annoys me when people do it to me, so why would I do it to you? | df2f9062-6eae-4b00-9b89-013a6e33f230 |
6e7j6p | Ulster loyalism | They are basically people of the protestant faith who want to remain part of the UK as opposed to those of the catholic faith who want to be part of a united Ireland. | 8e05faa4-5fc0-453c-89be-be6b45506743 |
sv83v | How does the "neutral" wire work in cars? | In the car, you're dealing with DC, in the house it's AC. The wavy voltage you get in AC is the difference between the "live" and "neutral" lines, but importantly, neutral is not ground. It's usually relatively close, though. The earth line is the emergency exit for power when it's all gone wrong, and is very handy when you're dealing with quite a lot of power - the sort that gives shocks and causes damage to people if it's all going wrong. The power in your house can do that, and the power in your car doesn't. There's 2 exceptions - the starter motor and HID headlights, but for accessories - the radio and the radar detector, you're safe. It's only 12 volts and not a lot of current.
So, the power comes in from the red wire, the one you put the fuse on, and it goes out via the black wire, to the body of the car. The car body is connected to the negative terminal on the battery, so any bare metal on a car will work for the negative wire to make your circuit. | 335dd351-053d-4a0d-8828-c5aecd5b7834 |
36a9at | Since energy can never be created nor destroyed, but only be transfered - then where did it come from in the first place? | Answer:
Absolutely, Positively no one knows, or even has the foggiest idea, if you did you would win every science prize till the end of time. we are pretty confidant the big bang created OUR universe, but that's a very small piece of the _URL_0_ would be like if you fed a goldfish and the gold fish wondered where the food came from. | 6ccd8161-e361-41d5-9660-51cca99a02f1 |
3238tu | what's the difference in the technology between a pair of beats ear buds and a pair from gas station? | BeatsByDre spends millions on advertisement, that is about it. Beats is much more about image and a fashion statement than sound quality. I'm not saying Beats are terrible, just that you will get much better sound for your money with other brands. | 57d319c3-b25f-4903-a17c-f0958938c6bf |
3nqubc | What exactly happens when you get that heart wrenching feeling in your chest, like when that Semi truck almost ran me off the road today | [Adrenaline baby](_URL_0_)
> Adrenaline is a hormone produced by the adrenal glands during high stress or exciting situations. This powerful hormone is part of the human body's acute stress response system, also called the "fight or flight" response. It works by stimulating the heart rate, contracting blood vessels, and dilating air passages, all of which work to increase blood flow to the muscles and oxygen to the lungs. Additionally, it is used as a medical treatment for some potentially life-threatening conditions including anaphylactic shock. In the US, the medical community largely refers to this hormone as epinephrine, although the two terms may be used interchangeably.
> The adrenal glands are found directly above the kidneys in the human body, and are roughly 3 inches (7.62 cm) in length. Adrenaline is one of several hormones produced by these glands. Along with norepinephrine and dopamine, it is a catecholamine, which is a group of hormones released in response to stress. These three hormones react with various body tissues, preparing the body to react physically to the stress causing situation. | 615fd943-b336-4f16-89c6-30b01666354a |
2xuhn1 | What is the deal with reddit and Wonderwall? | Today is going to be the day that someone'll spell it out for you
Right now you probably realize that I'm not gonna be that dude | 8679c485-89f7-4a45-b95c-b14016a50627 |
5wnkfu | What happens to an unborn baby that is going to have a nut allergy (or any other type of allergy) when the mother consumes nuts? | It doesn't hurt the child because the mother is processing the food for the child. You mostly want to avoid things that get into the blood or can be passed through the placenta to the baby and have a harmful impact (such as alcohol). Studies have actually shown that mothers who eat nuts during pregnancy have children who are less likely to be allergic to nuts. | ff0c2a98-9a4f-4d6a-9f87-a6ed25d8fdf6 |
4ehakn | What would it take to bring back the automobile industry in the United States? As in, the ending of outsourcing jobs overseas for vehicles. | US workers would have to be cost competitive with machines and foreign workers.
That's really the long and short of it. | eb8d8ba1-d662-4752-9750-142bb6636156 |
3vg2g2 | When an actor drops weight (like Chris Hemsworth, from "Thor" to "In the Heart of the Sea"), where does all the muscle go? | Most of the time it is lighting and camera tricks that make them look as big as they do. Now that doesn't mean they don't have to put on size when playing certain roles it just means they don't put on as much as what it seems.
As for your question, the body uses the muscle for energy same as fat in someone losing fat weight. Scientifically it is breathed out after it makes the entire chemical breakdown.
_URL_0_ | 524be2ff-aadf-42e9-be72-592c8dde9f09 |
2ax3k3 | How does a computer ACTUALLY work? Like, how does it transfer, read, and display data and things. | Lets dive right into the magical land of data.
Whats the symbol for five? 5. Whats the symbol for ten? 10. But wait, isn't that the symbol for one and zero? Right, so in our numbering system, when we get to the number ten, we write the symbol for one and zero. There is no symbol for ten, we simply recycle the ones we already have. Because of this, we call our numbering system "base-ten", or "decimal".
"Ones and zeros","true and false", and "on or off" are all terms you have probably heard before. What these all are referring to is a *different* kind of numbering system. For our decimal system, we write a '10' when we get to ten, but for binary, we write a '10' when we get to two. There is no symbol for two in binary, exactly how there is no symbol for ten in decimal. "On" or "off" simply refers to '1' or '0' in binary.
Just to make sure that makes sense (as its super important):
01 = one;
10 = two;
11 = three;
Make sense? Cool (if not google "binary").
Ok, now for something completely different, but related.
Theres something in computer theory called a "logic gate". It's a device. It has two inputs, and one output. The only input it accepts is "on" or "off", and the output is the same, "on" or "off". You might see the relation to binary.
A logic gates output is based on its input. An example of a logic gate is a "AND" gate. When both of the inputs are on, the output is on. Otherwise, the output is off.
You still with me? Don't worry, the cool stuff is coming soon.
Another logic gate is the "NOT" gate. The NOT gate has one input. If the input is off, the output is on, and vice versa. The output is *not* the input. Get it?
Now, if we put the input of a NOT gate on the output of an AND gate, we get a NAND gate. Creative, I know. We nerds don't get out much. Anyways, try to figure out what the output would be for all the four different possible combinations of the two inputs for the NAND gate.
[Anyways, heres what a NAND gate looks like drawn.](_URL_0_)
Now, you have probably heard of computer memory right? [**ta da!**](_URL_3_)
It's not going to make total sense at first, but that diagram shows a memory-holder-thingamajig. Look at it for a while and try to figure out what it does. Basically it holds a "bit" of memory. You could say that a bit is like one digit of a binary number. You line a bunch of these in a row, and you can start holding numbers.
But what do you *do* with those numbers?
This is where it gets cool. You do math with those numbers. This next device is called an "[*adder*](_URL_2_)".
The gate on top is called an XOR gate, its output is on if only one of its inputs is on. If there both on or off, then the output is off.
Now, make it a [little more complex](_URL_1_) and you can add multiple bits at the same time, by linking the last ones "Cout" to the next ones "Cin".
Cool, now we have a basic calculator. How can we turn this up to 11 and make a computer?
Code.
Now, you know what data is, and so code is easy to explain. Its just data. Thats all it is. Really.
The reason why its different then other data though, is because the CPU interprets it as *instructions.*
If we wanted to do math for example, and we got to decide the instruction definitions we could use a system like;
00000001 = *add* a number to another number;
00000010 = *subtract* a number from another number;
With this, we can set what logic gates are being used based on data.
Now, real quick, memory is organized on a computer by something called memory addresses, basically they just allow the CPU to ask for memory at a specific location.
Generally speaking the addresses are sized by "bytes" which is just another word for "eight bits". So if we wanted to access memory location five or whatever we could store that as '00000101'.
Lets go back and add some more to our table;
00000011 = move this data into some location;
Cool, now we can say something like:
"add the number at location #5 in memory to the other number at location #7 in memory."
By breaking it down into:
(add) (memory address #5) (memory address #7)
Which is really just
00000001 00000101 00000111
Pretty sweet right?
But hold on, how does the CPU know where to get its instructions?
On the cpu, Theres a tiny amount of memory, it does various things, such as hold something called the "instruction pointer". The instruction pointer holds the address of the next instruction, and increments itself after every instruction. So basically, the cpu reads the instruction pointer, fetches the next instruction, does it, adds one to the instruction pointer, and then goes back to step one.
But what happens when it runs out of instructions?
Lets go back to our table. Last time, I promise:
00000100 = set instruction pointer to address
Basically, all this instruction does is set the instruction pointer to a number. You ever wonder what an infinite loop is on a computer? Thats what happens when an instruction pointer is set to instructions that keep telling the instruction pointer to set itself to that same set of instructions.
Thats computers in a nutshell.
**tl;dr** I need to get laid. | 89bb355e-b822-4c80-b8dc-0048588e178e |
5nhtj8 | Why do doctors and dentists seem want to get patients out of the recovery room and home so quickly after a surgery? | Hospitals are not a place where you want to stay but need to stay. You're surrounded by sick people and the bacteria there are much more dangerous and immune than outside of hospitals.
You want to get out of there as soon as possible. Sure it sucks to puke at home, but doing so at a hospital is of no advantage to you, since it's nothing a doctor can or needs to help you with.
An unnecessarily long stay also causes extra financial and time costs and takes up space that people in actual need could use. | 73a399c8-b70c-4189-a5e0-54f9e539c95f |
90qshs | Why do people often lie for seemingly no reason at all? | This is difficult to answer with fact, and is more based in personal experience and observation. People with philosophy major/minors would be better suited to describe the more complex parts of the human for this one. However here is my 2 cents.
As someone who is a compulsive liar it stemmed from childhood. Often I would get in far more trouble for telling the truth then I would for lying. Both long-run and immediate. Like many habits lying produces dopamine, causing me to feel rewarded for lying. However, guilt usually follows after. It's hard to break this habit as it makes me feel safe and incontrol of the situation while very rarely resulting in a bad outcome.
Another part stems from our flight or fight response. Lying is the flight response kicking in. Humans are very much animals when it comes to our instincts - we don't want to put ourselves in the way of harm. We view social situations in a lot of the same ways as we view danger and will act differently depending on the level of stress. Lying is a sense of control and lets us not be vulnerable. | 5009ebf9-df8b-4bee-a1de-2c367ea81f38 |
2sum4r | what are the meanings behind the " & co.", "unlimited", "limited" "incorporated" etc. additions to different company names? | Some countries, and some states within countries, have requirements about naming companies which may require them to state the type of entity the company is.
This is a holdover from a time when corporations (joint stock, limited liability companies) had to be chartered for a specific purpose. They were not supposed to do anything outside of that chartered purpose. That's where the use of "Limited", or the abbreviation "Ltd" arose.
Today in most parts of the world corporations are not limited. They are typically organized with a charter that says they can engage in any activity their directors and shareholders decide they want to engage in.
These entities are usually identified as "Corporation", or "Incorporated", or the abbreviations "Corp" or "Inc".
There are a few other things you might see:
"LLC" - a Limited Liability Company, which works almost exactly like a corporation but has some different taxation rules.
"LLP" - a Limited Liability Partnership, which are common for things like legal and medical practices, and provide some insulation between the partners for the other partner's liabilities.
"Partners" or "Partnership" - a company owned by two or more people who jointly share the liabilities of the entity.
" & Co" - Means "and company" (but in this case the word "company" is used like "we've got company over for dinner" not "that business is a company") usually indicates a family-owned or sole proprietor doing business with associates who don't share liability. Same with " & Sons" or " & Daughters", etc.
Different countries often have different names and abbreviations for joint stock limited liability corporations. Examples:
aG or GmbH: Germany
Cia: Brazil
Cie, SA: France
plc: UK | b45b06c6-59c5-4624-bb4e-1d156f542b37 |
71v85x | How are those giant prize winning vegetables, like the 150lb zucchini, grown? | they are purpose bred to be that large because competitions for large veggies exist.
Vegetables dont have a very long lifespan, so if you are mindful, you can breed specific traits in plants pretty quickly. Those zucchini and the popular giant pumpkins have been selectively bred together for a few decades to be just really big over every other trait (like edibility)
And this is being done by more than one person, you can buy seeds from plants that are going to grow giant versions of the vegetable, and start breeding them yourself, but since its such a niche thing, just like niche dog breeds, its a small market.
pumpkin and zucchini and other vine-type squash plants are actually really easy to control the breeding because of the way their flowers are shaped, They have these really deep trumpet flowers that only open in the morning, so you just wait for the flower, pollinate by hand the flowers of plants you want to cross breed, snip off the flowers of ones you don't want, and then carefully tape up the flower you want to create your new vegetable with your crossbred seeds, so that bugs don't bring other pollen and pollinate with a plant you didn't intend. | 2ff61b21-305b-4854-97d4-1ed2f56d3cf9 |
69u6st | Why are Late Night Talk Shows so popular in America? | It's actually quite diminished and low in its popularity compared to the past. Big time down.
In an effort to get more viewers though their marketing teams heavily utilize stuff like YouTube and the digital space to blast out content and stuff to attempt to get people to tune in. If your online a lot you see this, so it seems far more "popular" than it really is. The good, people are watching this digital best of content. The bad, they seriously still aren't tuneing in... because why watch live when you can just see the best of it the next morning easier?
Tl;dr. Ratings are way down, their marketing teams fool you into thinking otherwise. | b5c7ef58-4eb0-4471-b557-e30f9e5a4218 |
6piu1h | How can dentists tell if you haven't been flossing? | One word: [Plaque!](_URL_0_)
This is a sort of biofilm (scale) that has been building up around your teeth's enamel. It's usually yellowish & brownish type of tartar. The wiki link I just gave you up there will explain it WAY better than I do. | 02703ddb-3241-41d5-9cd2-7bb237406722 |
umu2y | Can't remember what it's called | This is [the bandwagon fallacy](_URL_0_) in which someone holds an idea to be true/valid because a majority(sometimes perceived majority)of people feel the same way.
Also, the idea that global warming *causes* tornadoes and other natural disasters is [the false cause fallacy](_URL_1_) in which one claims there is a *causal link* between variable A -- > B. | afa2d1e7-4953-4c1d-9469-9b8daa6896dd |
31jl58 | Other than making room for other patients, why don't dentists fix everything in one appointment? | You may try to find a different dentist. Mine, for example, will try to only schedule an appointment if she can preform two procedures during one appointment. Like cleaning and an exam, or a filling and x-rays, or some such like that. | aabef43b-75b8-42ed-a365-3dda6c1853cd |
1ddiio | Why does the law never go after rappers who constantly talk about the illegal drugs they do in their songs? | > I am the Walrus
-John Lennon.
Not proof that John Lennon is actually a Walrus. | 14d788a2-13ee-4360-b948-d78f0eb828b9 |
6h673u | Why do the fastest runners tend to be black? | A couple of speculative answers, in addition to /u/MrAloha808's point.
"Black" and "White" aren't really groups, as there's as much variation between as there is within. Nonetheless people with black skin outnumber people with white skin, so their best runners are recruited from a larger population.
Also, if you're using international athletics as a measure of running prowess, it's worth mentioning that many black athletes are from countries with higher extremes of poverty, meaning less access to other sports, such as sailing, polo and counter strike. | 494a8229-4d13-417b-ba77-766353918204 |
2e28xe | Hostels. How they work and how they differ from hotels. Also why they are so popular in Europe? | They are very cheap hotels, usually with multiple beds in the same room.
The are popular in Europe, because combined with Europe's well developed mass transit system, it makes for a cheap and flexible way to travel. Hostels typically exist in city centers where regular rooms are very expensive.
In the US, without the same sort of mass transit, this sort of travel requires a car. With a car, you can sleep in it, stay at a campground, or simply drive to a cheaper hotel outside of the city, making hostels less useful. | aa724f50-c8f9-4fa7-9d8f-27c6ec127637 |
6ygqjc | why do snakes slither instead of inching like a worm? | Because their physiology (body make-up) is completely different. Worms are invertebrates, meaning they don't possess a single bone in their body. Snakes are reptiles (belonging to the vertebrates). That means there are numerous evolutionary steps between them. IIRC, snakes do stretch their bodies a little but because of their spine, they have limitations on how much they can expand or shrink. | e220603c-84e3-4f5f-89f6-c4db23191a72 |
1qp8n1 | For the theologians, how is the good and mercy of God visible in major disasters like the typhoon that kills thousands? | The Bible explains this in the Book of Job. It is great literature. It is one of the few books of the Bible written in verse and one of the few where God actually speaks. And God is pissed off.
Basically, God and Satan are considering Job, a good guy Greg. And Satan bets God that if some disasters befall Job he'll turn into a Scumbag Steve. God accepts the challenge and Satan does a number on Job. Livestock, servants, children all dead; Job gets physically sick. Job's friends are all convinced that Job did something wrong to deserve it, but he didn't. Nothing was his fault. After all of this, Job never curses God. All Job does is complain -- a lot. Finally, after pages and pages of bitching, God is tired of hearing it and speaks out of a whirlwind and says, "“Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins now like a man, I will question you, and you shall answer Me." Then, God goes on for pages and pages in the most scathing cross-examination in history. The most insightful part, however, is when God tells Job this:
“The wings of the ostrich wave proudly,
But are her wings and pinions like the kindly stork’s?
For she leaves her eggs on the ground,
And warms them in the dust;
She forgets that a foot may crush them,
Or that a wild beast may break them.
She treats her young harshly, as though they were not hers;
Her labor is in vain, without concern,
Because God deprived her of wisdom,
And did not endow her with understanding.
When she lifts herself on high,
She scorns the horse and its rider."
So, the answer to OP's question, according to the Book of Job, is that bad things happen within the realm of God's mercy because there must be evil for there to be good, and evil exists as a way to enhance/test/demonstrate/make possible our goodness; and that we can never understand it better than this because God has deprived us of the necessary wisdom, for possession of that wisdom would make us the equivalent of God and we are not, by design. | 2d6c9638-10cf-4f18-9104-4d7d16049453 |
51oy8u | Why do male testicles sometimes retract up into the abdomen? | Testicles need to be kept at *exactly* the right temperature to make healthy sperm. Unfortunately, that temperature is colder than your body's natural temperature and is too specific to regulate normally. Thus, the balls moved out of your body to keep away from your heat, but they can be moved closer or further away depending on their needs.
As for the "Men were once women" thing, in the womb, boys develop ovaries first before they are converted into testacles and moved down. There's actually a genetic mutation which delays that transformation until *puberty,* meaning for about the first 12 years of your life, you look like a prepubescent girl in every way. | 06071dfd-4774-40d9-8614-79f35363e138 |
2z2dap | I see flies and moths in my house all the time. Why don't I see a whole lot of dead insect bodies everywhere? | Spiders.
The house spiders that you share your space with are eating them, and the left over bits are broken down reasonably quickly by bacteria or chemical reactions and they turn to dust. | 4821bbcd-2db5-4ca0-b750-1c9156a4c4bb |
37iix6 | How do the authorities have dental records to identify people? | The government does not have this information. If authorities believe that a missing person may be person X, they can request their dentist for the dental records, but until that request is made, the government doesn't have them. | 45b9cc0e-6f81-4536-bb0d-e2f830f2adff |
1sexlt | Why intervention is Libya considered a failure despite successfully saving human lives and toppling a brutal dictatorship? | Critics point to the emergence of a largely lawless Libya which is in the control of various militias. This had led to the state becoming a prime breeding ground for radical groups to base themselves out of as well as create a hub for the international trafficking of weapons. | 57502e71-ab57-4895-930a-8cf9225a69f0 |
2cxbnr | Why do I get motion sickness when I read in a car? | Your body tells your brain that you're moving. (Because of bumps, turns an such) But your brain tells you're still and reading a book. That makes you feel bad. | a10e55bc-b0cc-4e43-aa9f-b94934dd0ce3 |
491ewb | WHy is it that if i smoke while i have a bad cough i stop coughing for a good 5-10 minutes? | tobacco cigs have chemicals in them that numb your throat, cannabis cigs don't have the chemicals that numb your throat. | 885010a7-81d5-4570-8f1c-bffce487f0d5 |
3tjtk3 | If shadows are the absence of light, why do you get different coloured shadows with different light sources? | A shadow is generally not the total absence of light. It is simply an area where there is less light because a light source has been blocked by something opaque. | b474b718-66e3-4659-97f0-33c3948d84c8 |
1cx1v2 | What is the difference between cabbage and lettuce? | The main difference between the two is that they are from different plant families. Cabbage is a leafy vegetable, from the 'Brassicacea' family, whereas Lettuce is from the 'Asteraceae' family. The difference can also be seen in nutritional values within each of them. Most lettuce types have less calories and more vitamin A and potassium than cabbage. Alternately, Cabbage has a lot more vitamin C and fibre than that of lettuce.
The differences are minute, but they are there. | c7cb85b3-1025-4b8e-9737-4dc3d80c7cf6 |
18iaqo | I'm having a lot of trouble wrapping my mind around the concept of 'Cinematic Excess' | (Disclaimer: I'm not a film major) My understanding from listening to friends is basically as follows:
When you go to the movies, you *need* a certain level of detail to understand it (e.g.: you need a main character, or a plot, and the scenes have to be shown in the right order).
But there are other details that you *don't* need to see (e.g.: the trees blowing in the breeze).
Now, while you don't *need* to see the trees or the rest of the garden, it *does* provide a richer, more engaging experience.
Another method might be to have an image/sound that gets repeated over and over again throughout the movie. You don't *need* to see it more than once, but the repetition can be a clever technique.
Or perhaps the scene switches from colour to black-and-white. Again, the colour palette makes no difference to the actual story, but it helps weave a compelling narrative.
Even the music soundtrack can be 'excess'. Often it has nothing to do with the story, but it still builds an emotional atmosphere that sucks you in. | 30ef6a4d-ca3a-44dc-9d41-9db98be6b568 |
395b42 | Being sued for money when you have none | First step is the court awards a judgment against you that says you owe the money. It's good for 20 years and will show up on your credit report. What happens next is up to the creditor. If you have a bank account they can file a garnishment and take it. If you have a job they can garnish your wages (federal and state law limit this at 0 to 25% depending on the laws of your state. These filings cost the creditor money that the court usually let's them collect from you, but only if you have something to take.
Because the judgement is good for 20 years, often it just goes into a box. Every few years they'll pull your credit report to see if you have money yet. Then they can file things.
Finally even after 20 years they can renew a judgment for another 20. Again, this costs them money they can recover from you, but only if you have it to take.
So what happens is going to depend on who they think you are and how much money you owe. If it's alot of money - you file bankruptcy and that's the end of it.
Source- I'm a bill collector and i sue people | 8420927e-17aa-4371-a427-a8bdc2d687fc |
27ctns | how can small cellphone carriers (metropcs, criket, etc...) charge less for the "same" service? | It's because they rent the towers they use from the majors and do not have contractual subsidies for phone contracts that drive up costs. They also are not accountable for maintenance of the hardware and towers which keeps the costs lower. | c4b8eba1-8201-44b6-b608-def6fcc1d06e |
1yoob4 | What's happening when I make that thunder noise inside my head? | What you hear is the sound of thee [tensor tympani muscle](_URL_0_) vibrating in response to being voluntarily tensed. | 2f3ec969-6049-4088-b0d2-ab0a87ac773f |
48coo6 | How is the VR experience of a phone with an attachment like Galaxy S7 different from that of Occulus Rift? | There are several different aspects to this as of right now (early 2016) which may change in the future. The first is that phones don't have nearly as much processing power or storage space as a gaming PC, this means games are often short or re-use the same content throughout the game. Graphics are often simple and use low resolution textures, they also have poor batteries and can get hot quickly.
Secondly you then also have the screens used in these phones, the Oculus Rift can update the screen 90 times a second vs a phones 60. This many not sound like much but it makes a huge difference. Specifically the GearVR only displays an image for a fraction of a frame to avoid blur, so the higher the screens refresh rate = less noticeable flicker (think back to the days of old CRT tv's)
Lastly is cost, the target market for GearVR is more of a casual audience so the headset of often of lower quality in design and will have less features so that the manufacturers can sell it at a specific price point, the biggest drawback right now with the current generation of GearVR headsets is that there is no positional tracking. With an Oculus Rift or Vive the displays inside the headsets have been specifically made for VR, the optics have been paired perfectly to the displays and the whole unit is of much higher quality.
Please note that this answer is only applicable to current generation devices (Gear VR, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, etc.), VR is probably the fastest introduction of a completely brand new technology I've ever seen so the landscape and direction VR takes will change very quickly and without warning, for all we know in a year things could be vastly different.
A new generation of virtual reality headsets may very well be totally self contained and wireless, meaning you do not need a PC or a phone and that the 'computer' for the device is in the headset itself. This is, at present the most likely way vr will advance and become it's own medium and this would offer a middle-ground between 'GearVR' mobile Vr and PC vr. | 070087df-1529-49c0-994a-0717a7b894ca |
6hy7b9 | How does a U.S. Destroyer, a vessel equiped with advanced technological systems, that is supposed to engage in tactical naval warfare, collide with a cargo ship? | Massive and systemic watch-keeping failure on the part of the Naval Vessel's crew. Heads are going to roll here. Court-martials, possibly criminal-negligence charges. There is no excuse for this. None.
Navy Ships have multiple people in the pilot house, lookouts all over the ship, people in CIC monitoring surface contacts. State of the art computer processors crunching enough data to take down 10's of targets at mach speeds. Able to scan the environment with different radar systems.
The Cargo ship had the right of way :
> *Collision Regulations Rule 15: When two power-driven vessels are crossing, the vessel which has the other on the starboard side must give way and avoid crossing ahead of her.*
Navy ships also are required to have other vessels standoff outside their respective exclusion zones, to avoid [shit like this](_URL_0_) happening.
It's a complete breakdown of every single navigational procedure. | 4a0b7ecd-e942-4ab9-a4fd-8fa862f55a51 |
1zbo9c | Why sometimes when I sleep, in my dreams I try to get out of bed but my body refuse move, and gets harder to breathe but felt so real? | When you sleep your body turns off its motors so you don't act out your dreams. But sometimes your eyes wake up before the rest of your body has restarted its motors, so you cannot move, all you can do is stare ahead. Your dreams may continue at this point, though they will warp to adhere to the environment your eyes are looking at. It is normal to experience hallucinations at this point. It can be terrifying, particularly because you can't move, can't speak, and are stuck watching what might be horrifying hallucinations. If you fall back asleep after this you may have another, and another. In my experience, the terror grows with each episode; and with each episode, you may be left feeling more drained, making you terrified to go back to sleep, but so tired that you cannot help it.
Some people feel tightness in their chest like a great weight is resting upon them. You may hear what is going on around you, but those sounds may be warped in terrible ways (an alarm clock sound warped to sound like a screeching demon; music warped so that it sounds like it is underwater and out of tune).
The upside to these episodes is that they can lead to lucid dreaming, where you'll be entirely conscious of your dreams and be able to control each aspect. I had these episodes every day for a long time and during that time it taught me how to lucid dream, to where now it is just a normal part of my dreaming.
If you want to escape an episode try wiggling your toes and fingers. It can provide rapid relief. To prevent them, try sleeping on your back or covering your eyes when you sleep. You may still experience them when you eyes are covered, but they are forgettable with no visually distressing aspect.
You may find that these occur with much greater frequency during turbulent times in your life, times of great stress or trauma. | 1bf7df46-868f-4faf-9e4b-22fd507b41b2 |
4jkh4g | Why do we clap our hands as an act of cheering? | There's no real reason really. We could have chosen any gesture to represent cheering such as snapping fingers or stomping feet.
However, clapping makes a lot of noise, doesn't require another surface nearby, and takes barely any technique to be effective. Some people just started doing it, and it caught on because there wasn't a need for something different. | a750ca18-de1e-4952-855c-f23fbd72e04e |
6c1ok9 | why does the human body need O2 in oder to get rid of Carbon? Why cant it just release the carbon as a gas or something? | The body doesn't just take an O2 and stick a carbon onto it. The body has a very complicated set of chemical reactions, called the [Krebs cycle](_URL_0_), that it uses for energy. The Krebs cycle is how your cells turn your food into usable energy to do stuff and stay alive. It takes your food nutrients, like carbs and protein, and breaks them down to recharge a chemical called adenosine triphosphate (ATP). ATP is a little messenger molecule that carries energy from place to place inside your cells. When it runs out of energy it has to be recharged by another run through the Krebs cycle.
One of the steps in the Krebs cycle requires oxygen. This is why you need to breathe in oxygen to live. And in addition to ATP, there are two byproducts of the cycle: carbon dioxide, and water. You get rid of the CO2 by exhaling it. | b9c296c8-6743-410d-ab3c-d1ee04699d48 |
3rdolu | Global Investment Banking | An investment bank is a financial institution that advises clients - mainly corporations - how to raise finance. Unlike retail banks, they do not hold deposits and so they aren't your regular high street bank (although many banks do both functions, which the European Union is looking to ring fence in the EU).
Investment bankers will be approached by a company that is looking to raise finance, which can be done through various ways. They are most commonly achieved through 'going public' (having an Initial Public Offering (IPO) for your shares for people to buy, instead of being a privately held company) or through bond issues (issuing corporate debt for clients to buy). The investment bank will facilitate these processes in order to allow clients to buy up whatever the corporation is offering. Sometimes the issue will be too big that it has to separated between separate investment banks, which is called syndication.
This is the very crux of investment banking in a very simplified manner. It also covers other aspects - such as mergers & acquisitions (M & A) - but that isn't so important.
As to 'global', then it really depends on where you are reading this from. If you are looking at programmes offered as graduate jobs, then the 'global' part may mean an emphasis aside from a specific market (i.e. 'domestic' investment banking, EMEA investment banking, etc.). In today's day and age, most financial markets are truly global and only in certain instances will you have territorial designations (asset managers may state their specialism as 'US Equities', for example).
Hope this helps! If I haven't explain it well, just ask. | 921970cb-9d09-4dc2-9fbb-db6b289c7bb1 |
3a799k | Why do different foods of the same mass have different amounts of calories? | Your body isn't converting all the mass of a burger into energy lol.
Only some of the energy bound up in food is utilized by your body, and **none** of it comes from converting mass into energy. Your body takes chemical potential energy from bonds between atoms in your food and (after generally storing that energy in different chemical bonds) utilizes it to drive all the processes that keep you alive. Much of the actual mass of the food is used as raw material to make structures your body needs like new cells etc. Some of that material is used wholesale because your body can't produce it on its own (like vitamins). Any mass your body can't use generally leaves the body with other waste.
Some food has more, and more energetic, bonds that your body is capable of converting into energy than others. | ab8cf29f-7cf3-407c-9319-181960e61315 |
8gz4mk | How did the word 'radio' get mixed up in so maybe nuclear-related terms, "radioisotope", "radioactive", "radiologist". Does this imply some direct connection between electromagnetic waves and alpha/beta/gamma rays? | It is the other way around. Radiation or radio comes from the energy going radially out from the source. We use "radio" as a shorthand for electromagnetic radiation under 300GHz but there are lots of different radiation in addition to electromagnetic radiation. Gamma radiation is by the way also electromagnetic but in the 100EHz range. So there is a direct connection between radios and gamma rays and other forms of radiation. | 3e30f0a9-24cc-4b9c-95b5-33b30adf1643 |
6uoxm3 | Why is hand sanitizer bad for the environment, but washing hands with soap is not? | It's not about the environment, it's about artificially selecting for tougher and tougher germs. It's evolution in action.
*And alcohol-based hand sanitizers are not the problem!* Alcohol kills germs just fine. Chlorine bleach, if you use a product based on that to sanitize your kitchen counter, kills germs just fine. Washing your hands with ordinary soap and water removes dirt--and a sufficient level of germs--just fine.
What's *NOT* fine are products with "anti-bacterial" additives like Triclosan. Such products *DON'T* kill all the germs when used...they only kill the weakest germs. The tougher germs survive, with their competition reduced, so they can multiply more. The tougher germs become a big problem "down the line" when the antibiotics we use to save people from infections become useless because of all the tougher germs we've helped to create.
Use the three products I mentioned earlier: alcohol-based hand sanitizers, chlorine bleach-based cleansers, and ordinary soap for hand washing. That's all you need to be using. | 1c5868be-f8b2-477f-b44b-7285f44bdc9f |
5ypsio | Why is your throat so much more sore in the morning than any other time when you have a cold? | Because you've been lying down and not swallowing, the extra thick mucus your nose is producing during your cold has been dripping down your throat all night and irritating the crap out of it.
During the day you swallow, drink, and eat which helps clear the mucus out. You're probably also blowing your nose instead of just letting it drip down your throat. | 747fccba-4d21-4262-bdaa-00c4f61dd6f8 |
3khgvy | How does alcohol by volume work? | Depends on the volume. Two 5.2% abv beers at 12 fl oz a piece. Would equal one 10.4% ABV 12 fl oz beer. The volume is very important. | 6bdfa86b-3533-466f-8105-1d80b29900b1 |
3nc44q | How do companies discover that they've been hacked? | If a good hacker didn't leave a footprint then the company wouldn't know about the leak, and you would never hear about the company having a leak.
The Sony hack wasn't noticed by Sony. It was the hacker group that publicly exposed the hack. | a4c4a609-34fe-469f-941e-26283aa1b2ff |
3ipmkc | How come not everybody sees the same colours when looking at Benhams Disk? [Repost] | You can't look at Benham's disk on a monitor and know what color you "would" see on the real thing, ironically enough for almost the exact same reason we see color there in the first place.
With a real-world disk, we see colors because some of our eye's receptors fire faster or linger longer than others - So a rapid white/black transition favors whatever receptors send the strongest signal back to the brain. Think of it like a poll - "Hey red, what do you see?" "Umm, something, I guess..." "Blue? What about you?" "Yeah, something bluish" "Green?" "YES, oh wow, yes, dude, you have to see this, so greenly awesome, hey can we stop at Taco Bell later?".
Going back to monitors, you can't (necessarily) see the right color because it will depend less on your eye and more on which color of subpixels in your monitor has the longest retain time - Frequently red, for LCDs. | c0080f2f-106b-4c1a-82db-478386472cf4 |
2bs7cg | why does my body decide that post shower, after I'm all nice and clean, is an excellent time to take a shit? | I know what you're talking about, but I think its a false equivalency. We don't really give much thought or complain during the day when we need to take a shit. But after showers, we put more significance into our shit urges, because we just showered, and remember them. There really isn't a correlation I don't think. | d9431d13-403b-4998-8528-e13f74a67e00 |
6f8vpq | What exactly does the UK mean by "killing encryption"? | All information transmitted over the Internet could be decrypted at government request. Things like private Facebook groups, stored email, online transactions, that C4 you bought from a Tor store, you know, stuff terrorists might do.
It's government trying to harm everyone, not just the very unfortunate very few that happen to be injured in terrorist attacks. | 3d8e15dd-4704-4a80-a7da-eb3f2492c43f |
13v5k3 | how does quartz work in watches/clocks? | The quartz itself is sliced into a very thin tuning fork shape, and is then connected to an oscillator circuit, which takes power from the battery, and starts (and keeps) the quartz vibrating.
The miniature quartz tuning fork vibrates at exactly 32,768 times per second (32,768 Hertz). Because of the nature of quartz, these vibration emit their own weak, but just as exact, electric pulses.
These electric pulses are then used as the basis of the timing of the watch.
32,768 may seem like a strange number to work with. However, computers (often used in these watches) work more easily with powers of 2, and [2^(15) is 32,768](_URL_0_)! | 8c42a1b5-b996-41d5-a576-ed794b600c2b |
1rcooe | Why do metals at room temperature feel colder to the touch than other materials? | Your body isn't feeling temperature it is feeling the amount of heat leaving your body. There is a subtle distinction here.
You have 3 variables, the amount of heat the metal can pull away from your body (heat capacity). The amount of heat the metal can store (heat capacity * density, keep in mind metals are heavy). The speed at which the metal can pull away this heat. (thermal conductivity). A material which does not conduct heat well will feel warm, because your hand heats up the surface and the heat stays at the surface. This is why plastics feel warmer then metal.
Metal has a lot of density, a lot of capacity to store heat, and a very good conductivity meaning it can pull the heat out of your body and into the metal very well and it can store a lot of heat. This is also why different metals feel different temperatures at room temperature.
Not explaining the science:
Metal pulls heat out of your body faster then plastic. | 772a8e80-7a19-42df-a319-518244cd433a |
7ug5so | Why do non-English speaking countries have so much English on their packaging and marketing? | English-speaking countries are so economically powerful, mainly through influence of the United States, that most countries include English on their products so that tourists or international customers can read them.
Interestingly the dominance of English in international business is so great that if someone is going to learn a second language in order to do business overseas it will almost certainly be English. The result is that English is an expected common skill which only reinforces its dominance. For example someone from Germany doing business with someone from France will likely result in them speaking to each other in English, as the German probably doesn't know French and the Frenchman probably doesn't know German, but both likely understand English to some extent.
So when a company is considering what to put on their package to make it accessible to non-native speakers it will almost always be English. | c1fc1548-0c7a-4bc2-ab6b-cbdf4c8e506a |
3d42io | If it's harder to hear as altitude increases (Example: On a plane), does playing music through headphones louder than you normally would so you can hear it better damage your ears as much as playing music that loud when you can hear fine? | if your thinking specifically on a plane, it is pressurised to 1800 - 2400 metres which although Alpine sort of levels I would think it wouldn't be enough to change noticeably. I know what you mean though about playing loud, I have always attributed it to the constant plane noise which you get used to but is surprisingly loud along with all the other distractions. For example this weekend I had a hard time following a movie on a plane, which is perhaps due to the small screen size, poorer quality and background stimuli?
I think it would be reasonable to assume that playing your iPod very loud in your ears will be enough to damage them the same as on the ground as the same dBs go through your ears although i doubt in flight entertainment systems go that high because of this?
On the top of Everest though I wouldn't even guess | 319da175-fabe-466e-ac5b-064e218c7f66 |
1xh8fz | Why is it that whenever I'm nervous, I always tend to need to take a piss/dump? | I have no idea, but whenever I enter a library or a bookstore I immediately need to go and I love books. | b533438d-769f-4d56-aa79-431e2681cfc3 |
4rufta | Why do most porn sites not use HTTPS? | If you were to submit your credit card information on the internet, the information needs to go from your computer to the server. What hackers can do is to "sniff" the traffic, and decode the information that is sent, consequently getting your credit card information.
What HTTPS does is encrypt the information on the computer, send it, and then decrypt it on the server. So even if hackers get a hold of the traffic, they have no way of decrypting it. This is awesome, but requires a little bit of extra cost (development and encryption certificate).
Note that this does nothing in protecting your identity. Your IP address is still sent as is. Most porn sites are simply view-only, so users are not actually submitting any private information, therefore, no need to implement HTTPS (SSL). However, most paid sites where you have to pay for membership, I would imagine do have HTTPS protocol installed. | daac1573-1d26-4370-8115-1feaedbeecc5 |
2dqttd | If various species naturally went extinct even without human influence in the past, why is it still important that species are going extinct? Is it not just nature taking its course? | Regions in which humans have developed habitats saw a massive increase in the rate at which megafauna (i.e. large animals) started going extinct. This is WAY higher than what ecologists refer to as the background rate of extinction (the rate at which species went extinct before human influence, with a few special exceptions). Mass extinctions that don't open up very many new niches (fancy word for "somewhere new species can evolve"), such as the ones that we are causing, only hurt biodiversity, and imbalance ecosystems. And whether you realize it or not, we rely very heavily on the things mother nature does for us in order to get by. | f34c849b-1fec-4c4b-9d2a-114e310b1d5b |
6m867k | Why are valve amps so much more powerful and louder than solid state amps with the same wattage? | Valve amps produce a subjectively pleasing sound when they are driven past their "clean" limits. Among other reasons, they tend to distort (and generally reach limits) in a more gradual way than solid state amps.
So first off, you're intentionally exceeding the limits whereas you're staying within the limits of a solid state amp and using some separate function to create the "overdrive" or "distortion" you're looking for (if you want any at all). A 50 watt tube amp is pushed to, or beyond, 50 watts just to get a pleasing overdrive sound. A 50 watt solid state amp is always kept below, say, 45 watts to avoid its less-desirable overdrive sound.
Secondly, the tube amp creates distortion sooner due to its "less perfect" operation, for a number of reasons. This results in a "clean" power rating that occurs earlier and below the absolute limits of the amplifier.
With a solid state amp capable of outputting 8 volts into an 8 ohm speaker, that creates 1 amp of current and 8 watts of power. But the "clean" sine wave contains less energy, in the 6ish volt average range, because a natural "clean" sine wave sound is not maximum power all the time, it's a smooth shape. Distorting the hell out of the signal, outputting a square wave, and therefore driving max power all the time time, can push output to that 8 watt physical limit.
But a tube amp which can output 8 watts without distortion could perhaps keep pushing to 10 volts and 11ish watts... just not cleanly. The limit of its undistorted operation came way before the absolute physical limits of its operation. So when you do overdrive it and push the maximum physical limits, the power is higher than you might expect from its rated output. Again, this is because its rated "clean" output is created by a number of limitations other than absolute power supply/peak output limitations. | 7895afe3-efee-4df3-b2c6-792710f6153a |
521u24 | Why do some seniors have a hard time learning basic computer skills even though it seems very intuitive to most people? | Take a field you're inexperienced in. Let's say baseball.
A professional baseball player says, "Swing the bat like this." And he shows you how.
So you do the same. But then you mess up on the next swing. You forgot all his talking points/mechanical error/missed something he said.
So in the end you couldn't swing the bat very well.
Then you ask, "Why swing the bat in the first place? I don't even like baseball." So you put the bat down.
This is what it is like for seniors. It doesn't matter as much to them, and they didn't grow up into computers and iPhones and such. | a789337a-6876-4b1c-ab30-297b44c94202 |
7s6mja | Why is there a little wall in the gas container of a lighter? | A longer, thinner cylinder is stronger than a shorter, fatter one. Alas, the short, fat shape is more desirable in a lighter. The result is that a long, thin cylinder is folded in half to get the desired strength in the desired shape. | 40bc9a38-8232-4d85-8bc9-2f5ba102cb04 |
5zgkfd | How inheritances work and why people covet them so much? | How they work: Relatives leave you money in their will and when they die you inherit that money
Why they're coveted: Free money | 04ebf8e3-b5a7-43c1-940a-e6fa199a40d8 |
4ew249 | In our dreams/nightmares, what in the brain is writing the events that are happening? | In psychology, there are several different perspectives on dreams, and there is still no clear answer as to why they happen and what their purpose is.
Freud believed that they were a window into the subconscious. This idea has merit but places too much inherent meaning on dreams.
A more popular and modern theory is the activation-synthesis theory. Basically, this theory suggests that while you're sleeping, there's an electrical frenzy going on in your brain while you process the day's memories, compare them to other memories, file them away, reinforce important information, etc.
Basically, your brain is doing a whole bunch of maintenance work while you're sleeping.
And the prefrontal cortex - the area of the brain that generates consciousness while you're awake - has no immediate job while you're sleeping, so it picks up on random bits and pieces of information and ties them together into random storylines. Some say this is your prefrontal cortex "warming up" for another day of processing reality, and some say this is just a side effect of the way the human brain is set up.
In accordance with this theory, dreams can sometimes be subconscious messages - as a particularly strong idea in your brain is much more likely to manifest in dreams. On the flipside, dreams are also often totally random and meaningless. | 7ab61ebb-433d-46d7-9a8b-e22ce2317a5d |
8l5wk5 | How does the nonprofit tobacco control organization known as Truth Initiative have a revenue of more then $957 million? | Oh, the tobacco industry pays for them to advertise against tobacco. Ironic
In the 1950s, there were the first studies coming out that stated tobacco is quite bad for your health. Over the next half century, this fact became more widely known and the first lawsuits against tobacco companies came up. In the 1990s, this climaxed, the vast majority of states sued the tobacco industry, claiming their suppression of the health risks of tobacco if they knew about it or negligence to research a product if they didn't costed the states lots of money in public medical care bills.
This resulted in a little something called the Master Settlement Agreement, which resulted in many things, including that the states medical bills being paid by the tobacco companies and the tobacco industry would fund a non-profit to combat smoking, particularly youth smoking.
This organization is known as the Truth Initiative. All in all, the tobacco companies were forced to pay 200 billion for 25 years after the lawsuit, and more for longer.
900 million is their assets, not revenue. They still make a good amount off this lawsuit though. | 98214d15-fa3b-48e8-82d9-52b8e209c5a4 |
465hgz | What makes you so sleepy after a heavy meal? | It's all about blood flow; blood, after a heavy meal, is directed towards the stomach to help aid the process of digestion. In this, blood is taken away from the parts of your body that make it "feel awake." | 3d45036c-ceb8-465c-b1cf-48241e9613ee |
8q0mcv | Why do guitars have 6 strings? Wouldn't it be better if they had 5 because we have 5 fingers? | It has nothing to do with number of Fingers, you can use different methods of strumming and picking that are way more efficient than assigning one string to each finger. Its more a matter of Sound, the more strings you have, the higher the amount of notes when you play a chord.
Or since you thought about picking it seemed: the more strings on a Guitar the broader the range of notes you can use in a Melody | e57e57b9-4392-45d6-9d3c-47a708dddbb0 |
66e31b | why we can't see the streak of the Milky Way the way in cameras capture it? | Light pollution.
If there's too much ambient light in the atmosphere, the stars aren't as easily seen.
When people take those awesome shots of the milky way, they're either in *very* isolated places, the picture was edited to make the stars more visible, or both.
I live in a very rural area, and on a clear night I can still only *just barely* make out the milky way. | 850599f3-79b5-4754-b048-90a8627dc24b |
2y4zel | how is the common cold still a thing? | For one, the cold virus mutates constantly. To come up with any sort of cure/vaccine would require a lot more work than it would for other diseases. Considering that the cold is rarely a deadly or debilitating disease, the amount of research that would be needed to eradicate it would be a huge waste of money. | 10fd0a70-7b46-4043-9291-9fc756e240b5 |
1yhlwi | What is happening in Venezuela? | I already answered this on an AMA Request
> I am a protester living in Margarita Island, Venezuela. Although I have not been involved in so much in the protest because I'm 13 years old and my parents don't let me protest because of the dangerous situations, I will kindly answer your questions. If you want someone with more experience on the protests I'll make my best to contact anyone of the guys that have been for more that 4 days straight without sleep protesting on the streets.
> * What is the current situation?
> Right now there are protest in almost every city of Venezuela. Yesterday, there were more that 40,000 protesters in one of the major plazas of Caracas. The protesters are mostly university students and middle class people. National Guards are trying to suppress the protest by violent ways, while the protesters are trying to keep it a peaceful and bullet-free protest.
> * What sparked the protests?
> Every Venezuelan had been living awfully for the past years so that was really igniting the flame but the final spark was caused because the students were protesting against the violence the February 12th, which is the International Youth Day and a National guard killed a University student. That was the spark that made all the students from all around Venezuela (and not just students, every kinds of people) go to the streets and protest.
> * Is there violence? (and if so how extreme)
> The protesters were trying to keep it peaceful and some radical oppositionists were being violent, but in the past 3-2 days, violence from both sides has increased. The people are getting angrier and more violent which is causing them to burn cars, throw rocks at police officers, burn the streets etc. The past 2 days, there's been a lot of tanks on the streets. [This Instagram page](_URL_0_) is osting pictures about the destruction happening here. The National Guards have thrown Gas Bombs to the protesters. You might want to notice that the only way to hear about this is by actually seeing it, since the Government is banning every news about what's happening in Venezuela and the only news report is the Government-owned TV channels. Luckily not many people in Venezuela know what Reddit is, so this will probably not get found by the Government.
> * Are we likely to see the government being overthrown?
> Honestly, I don't know. Why? Because Venezuela is a country where the majority is the low-class, poor people and the only ones that are protesting is the middle-class. The only way that we overthrow the Government is that the low-class people are willing to go kill the Guards and fight a violent revolution against the Government. This is not going anywhere as a pacific revolution.
> * Is there anything you'd like to say to the world?
> Yes. Help spread the word. Help by telling everyone about this. Maybe they can ban news channels but they cannot ban our words, they cannot ban the social media. Post about this on Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, everything. I will thank you very much if you do this.
> **Someone made a really great video about this** _URL_1_ | d40a5857-a8fd-402f-968d-37542eb44a51 |
1kogu0 | How do collision prevention systems on cars work? | Usually, there is an IR range finder, which attempts to find how far from the nearest forward object you are. The car takes this distance, runs a calculation based on the current velocity (and maybe more variables, like road wetness, if you can be bothered) to determine the minimum stopping distance. The system will do this kind of math quite frequently (probably several dozen times a second), in order to determine if the object in front of you is actually getting closer (eg: not the bumper of the car in front of you, who is safely ahead of you and travelling at a matched pace, or relatively close velocity).
Should it be determined that the distance between you and the object is falling fast enough (eg: it is a stationary wall, or someone slamming their brakes), if the minimum stopping distance at your current conditions is within X% of the distance of the object, then your car will attempt to stop automatically. | 78882fdf-4831-4468-910a-67f366c0aa73 |
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