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1t8w43 | Where do Syrians get their weapons? And why do they still get them? | Many of the weapons spread throughout Africa and the Middle East are remnants of the collapse of the U.S.S.R. There were so many spread throughout the region that when it fell many of the weapons ended up on the black market etc. That is one reason you see so many with AK's. That and AK's are one of the most reliable weapons. They were built with more mechanical tolerance so they do not jam as easy etc. | 8f30aee1-69b8-4760-a8ff-fcc599106fca |
2m7fer | Why do Energy Drinks only come in cans while water only comes in bottles, yet pop/soda can go either way? | Having worked in the Soda industry, I remember asking once why Soda bottles expired a lot quicker than soda in cans, and it's due to the plastic deteriorating due to the acid in the beverages. There are a few Energy drinks that come in the plastic bottles, NOS comes to mind, however I'm willing to wager that the gut rot we get from the stronger energy drinks works very much the same on the plastic bottles. By putting them in the metal cans it would essentially help increase the shelf life of the product. | 7312240b-59d7-4dba-8e5a-86d5d2206eb6 |
6umv1n | Explain to me the fourth dimension | You might enjoy these previous posts on the topic:
_URL_0_
_URL_1_ | 858794e9-a4a0-48ee-b4ed-b8ed86c0b419 |
2t3ien | Why does it seem that anywhere you go these days , there is background music playing (gas stations , malls , airplanes) ? | It's mostly a subconscious thing. There is some evidence to suggest that the tempo of the music playing will affect customers behavior.
Slow music in a store might cause some customers to slow down and look around, and possibly even buy more.
Fast music in a restaurant might cause diners to eat faster so that the table will be ready sooner.
Holiday music might put the customer in a better mood, it might not though. | ea10ebf5-197f-4a45-bc77-f9ebbf76d9ef |
62z9ta | How are sanctuary cities a thing. Why is it not aganist the law to harbour an illegal | It is the federal government's job to enforce immigration law. The states don't need to help out in any way legally speaking. A "sanctuary city" is a city which has an official policy of not helping the federal government, but not obstructing them.
If it was illegal to let an illegal alien exist within your city then the federal government would be able to impose duties on state law enforcement, a big legal overreach. | 90cc3bb0-7297-4a08-a124-360bae0a1657 |
5zfpuy | Why are front yard fences generally shorter than back yard fences? | Fences are built for many reasons. Back yard fences are often for privacy and/or protection. Front yard fences are often for decoration and property delineation. Also, many communities have restrictions on the height of front yard fences. | 8ec2960e-608e-4435-873f-1b815d4581b6 |
1cx5do | How does washing your hands kill germs? | Generally it doesn't, it just moves the germs away. Kinda like washing mud off your hands doesn't destroy the mud, just moves it elsewere.
That's with regular soap. Do not use antibacterial soap. Or antibacterial anything for that matter. Getting rid of germs seems logical (after all, that's what causes diseases), but doing that messes up your immune system, causes allergies and other health problems. That doesn't mean you should start living like a caveman though, find the balance.
source: med school | 1bf384fb-4682-403a-88f1-3563a19373ac |
3blu0b | What is exactly social security? | You work, you pay SS. The taxes you pay go to someone else who is receiving SS. When you retire you will be paid by others who currently work. The amount you get paid receiving SS is influenced by the amount of taxes you contributed.
SS is facing issues but the worst case scenario (ignoring total economic collapse) is you receive 60-80% what a person would have today.
SS you will likely receive less than you pay in (inflation adjusted) if you work a full life time. Medicare is the opposite and most beneficaries receive $2 to $3 for every $1 contributed which will likely be a larger issue than SS funding. | 02524709-2c4a-41b0-a016-d4e25d08de72 |
4zhzfy | When humans die our bodies rot. When insects die they just dry up. Why? | Their insides rot. But their 'skeleton' is on the outside, and just like humans, it's the hardest part and resists breaking down the longest. | e3e51857-bf56-4820-8589-75a825d95bab |
5ffq78 | Why is there so much Leprosy in India? | First we must consider that India seems to be the origin point of the evolution of leprosy about 2500 years ago. The amount of cases is always highest I around a disease's point of origin. In general, infectious diseases tend to do very well in the warm climate of the tropics. See how malaria remains largely confined to the warm swampy areas?
The answer mentioned by /u/arm4da is demonstrably false. Pre-colonial India and China together formed the world's richest region region at the time, with very high cultural sophistication. Yet Leprosy has been high I'm India even in those days. It was termed 'Maha-rog' or 'the Great disease'. Lepers were alienated from Indian society as a form of quarantine. This indicates that Indians were clearly aware of the contagious nature of the disease.
Finally, leprosy is a slow disease, taking up to 20 years after infection for symptoms to manifest. It is difficult to detect when a person is infectious.
Taking these together, you can see that while there are relatively few cases of leprosy in the world compared to say TB, or malaria, they mostly concentrated around its point of origin in India. | d981e4c3-e389-4884-bb7a-446add96e8c9 |
1tw4le | Why is it that our body doesn't prevent us from biting our own tongue? | It tries to. Haven't you ever, mid-bite, had that sudden "Uh oh, danger!" feeling - but then it's too late, the deed is done before you could stop it? | 78323c7b-4124-4315-ac5e-5a894abb826b |
3pb1pm | Why do my feet feel sweaty when they get cold? | The feeling of cold and the feeling of pressure, combined, confuses your nerves with the feeling of wet. If you were to step onto a coin in after stumbling awake in the middle of the night, you would at first mistake it for stepping in a wet spot. | 0f488d69-7a48-420c-ba39-aceee2cf32e7 |
8pqkc4 | Why do containers that had egg in them bubble and froth so much, even when just rinsed? | Egg whites contain a lot of liquid protein, which forms a thin and strong layer, a temporary membrane that fills with air to make a bubble. | 691ec802-3bfe-47e0-ae39-14333607c6b1 |
44nhjo | If someone is using a computer to launch DDoS attacks or do other things on the internet, is it possible to see this activity with a program like Fiddler? | So I assume you have a computer which you think is participating in a DDoS, and want to load something on that computer to confirm or not. You have the right idea, but I don't think Fiddler is the best tool. For Fiddler to see traffic, the originating application, or attack program has to be configured to flow traffic through Fiddler, and I would think attack programs wouldn't be so configured.
What you really want is Wireshark, which is a network sniffing application. It will passively observe all traffic in and out of the machine. Unfortunately, you will need to be knowledgeable and older than 5 to interpret the output as it is fairly complicated.
For something easier, I would recommend running a boot time virus scan which would find most problems. | 998126be-9ce9-44b5-9bb5-16ed9a401fda |
6ycolh | Why is it so difficult to swallow when you look up, or tilt your head backwards? | Because tilting your head back opens your airway and they can't both be open at the same time. | 0a5ffdfc-6578-4b9a-90c1-65c83cdbfdbd |
2pdxrr | Why are there so many seagulls in the local shopping center parking lot even though I'm nowhere near close to the ocean or a large body of water. | Seagull is a common or informal name for many different types birds that are located pretty much everywhere across the planet. The gulls you are seeing are probably ring-billed gulls. They do like to nest near water, but since they can eat pretty much anything, they are commonly found near easy to find food sources. | 63b6fb91-0a55-41a6-81c7-fa8e70a9fb24 |
1j2kcf | How do Governments pay back trillions worth of debts? | We are perpetually paying off old debt while creating new debt.
Debt is basically the total money the US government owes to people who hold government bonds. These government bonds set out a repayment schedule, and the US has never missed a payment since the revolution making it one of the safest investments on earth. If you buy a $5,000 2 year bond, it means you pay the government $5,000 and over the next 2 years they will pay you back $5,000 plus interest.
Bonds are important, they help balance "risk" by being very very safe. In a risky world economy, lots of people want to buy bonds and that means the US has no problem finding buyers without raising interest rates. So government debt does "go away" but it is replaced by new debt at the same time. Even in the 90s when the debt was "going down" we were still creating new debt, just not as fast as we were paying off old debt. | 158c4fef-9290-42f4-88d2-6c4daaa805da |
3jyrkd | Why do people from SA Asia and Singapore use "LA" in nearly every sentence? What does it means? | Singlish (and Manglish) is a mixture of local languages with English and used in informal situations. It's most likely from the Malay suffix *-lah* which makes a verb into a command so it's the imperative.
So, if you go out with people and get your food but the waiter has to get the food of the other people you're with, somebody might say "eat lah" meaning that you should start eating.
You can also use it if you're impatient. Like, your girlfriend / boyfriend is taking forever in the bath so you'd say "hurry up lah"
It's also used to give more impact to your statements. Like, a short negative response can be followed by *-lah* indicating that you are really serious with your response. Not that you are serious as in it's a serious situation but that you seriously want to give a negative response. Like, "I really don't know where your wallet is" "don't know lah".
It can also be used to strengthen positive things like encouraging your friend in a hard situation. Like, "don't worry lah! It's gonna be fine"
Or to curse at people. "Go and die lah!"
The thing with Singlish is that it's a really informal language. It's a sign of being educated if you can fluently switch between proper English and Singlish. So, if you speak Singlish, you are probably in a sort of informal situation so it gets a lot of use since you are more likely to use informal speech in such situations. | 6cb0d686-da59-4a0c-bc6c-ca36a2df52a4 |
24cjev | How come back in the 50s and 60s it was safe for parents to let their kids go off and play all day, but as the years progressed that changed? | It's always just as safe. The difference is that parents now are more paranoid. | e135a183-662b-4380-b7bf-da2c53e6cbd0 |
3et591 | How do zero calorie energy drinks work? | > Is is just that there are chemicals in it that inhibit the neurotransmitters that make you feel tired, or something else along those lines?
Yeah, pretty much. Stimulants like Caffeine work by basically telling your brain "you are awake" or blocking the signals that say "you are tired" (the exact mechanism depends on the stimulant) as opposed to actually giving you energy. | 8a1cfc42-31e4-4a69-99c2-a871db4bc724 |
51idvr | A lot of history books talk about the banning of atmospheric tests of thermonuclear weapons in the 60's. Where do they test them now and how is it safer? | When they are tested underground there is very little dust kicked up into the atmosphere. When the Soviet Union tested the largest thermonuclear device ever the physicist in charge deliberately did not make it as powerful as possible because the effects would be too wide spread and long lasting. | 63cd579e-d9a1-4149-b413-01d87b81fb96 |
44wyh5 | why do some bottles of alcohol have flow regulators/fun stoppers/plastic thingy at the tip of the bottle? And some don't? | ITT: People who think the OP is asking about those add-on pour spouts that bartenders use. We are talking about the plastic filter/screen thingy that is *inside* the top of the bottle, *underneath* the original cap, already installed when you buy the bottle from the store.
To answer the question, they are usually only included on bottles of liquor that is used for pouring shots and mixed drinks in a haphazard fashion from a plastic bottle in order to minimize glugging and overpouring. | d0f87a78-2c0c-4bf5-9dd4-3a3f58a55c64 |
3ugrlz | If a heart is stopped (cardiac arrest), how can a shot of adrenaline sometimes work? | If the heart is stopped, you're not going to start it again. A lot of people think that drugs or a defibrillator will start a stopped heart, it won't happen.
Epinephrine will cause a slowed heart to speed up as well as increase your breathing rate. It does this by blocking the pancreas' ability to produce insulin (this increases your blood sugar) and increases the available fat for use as energy around your cells. Together this causes a huge surge of energy.
Epinephrine causes smooth muscle to relax, but at the same time contract with more force. So your airway will open, and your heart and arteries will contract with a greater force. All of this basically speeds up the amount of sugar and oxygen that gets to your tissues, reversing the causes of shock.
Edit: not sure why I'm getting a few downvotes. I'm a paramedic and kinda know a few things about the question asked. | 8cf566e0-72ba-4b37-bfba-93c163cd56d9 |
5udodi | Why Most Rappers Have the Urge to Say Their Name in Their Music? | Educated guess here but in hip-hop it's very common to feature other artists on a track so it helps the artist gain exposure and let's the listener know who's verse or was when they like it. Also worth mentioning that alot of artists (Kanye and travis scott particularly) don't put the feature artists name on the track.
I'm also sure it has something to do with rap music becoming less unique so rappers feel the need to remind us who they are because so many others bite flows/rhyme schemes | 8e7fe554-2659-4a2b-9b86-df9b8aa24adf |
6trols | what technology exists to help us shoot down and protect ourselves from nuclear missiles, and how effective is it? | There are three (known) systems in place by the US. One ship based, that sits near a potential launch site, trying to knock it down as it boosts up, and two land based ones that attempt to intercept the missile later in its flight.
None are considered reliable. If anything actually shoots down a missile in a real world scenario, it would be considered a lucky shot.
edit:
I should point out the defense that is FAR more effective that is in existence and many possess the capability to do. You nuke the F!@# out of your enemy in a massive, targeted first strike on them **before** they can launch any of their missile, and which would likely prevent them from doing so, which also prevents even the chance that you would have to use unreliable defenses, because they ain't shooting nothing back. This was actually a major, and horrifying, tactic both the US and Russia came up with during the cold war, often called a "decapitation strike". Both sides considered this the optimal strategy, and both sides luckily backed down from it | b30696bc-28d6-4c36-993b-e9e7a72cecc2 |
53j0ya | Why can't a network host a debate including third party candidates? | Cant get the big guys to play unless forced. I'm sorry but I dont see any of the third party candidates with the type of organizational skills I expect to see from a presidential hopeful. And they've known for nearly a year that this could be a big year for a third party candidate. | 7432d56b-f9d1-4ab4-978c-f50cd4a079b3 |
83bugm | What does it mean when the ingredients of a food product say “natural flavors” ? | If you grow fungis and other microbilogic stuff in a lab you can get all kinds of flavours. Its a missleading term. Technically it is all natural but it doesnt mean the flavour in your orange juice is from oranges... | 363312d8-dffb-460f-9a89-723fc071a82a |
3bm63w | Why are circuit lines sometimes squiggly? | It is so that every lane takes the same time as the others. They are squiggly because those memory components have a shorter distance than others and to have them all run at the same speed, so to get them to run at the same speed as one thats farther away it has to run a larger distance that is equal to the others. | a250607d-f8c0-4d87-93df-33051c7f5d9b |
1kw9g8 | From an actual 5 year old; what makes water stick to surfaces? | Polarity. The water molecule is unbalanced, and has an attractive field on the molecular level. This very weak magnetism allows it to cling to things. The reason it clings is the same reason why surface tension exists: water likes to cling to other polar molecules. This means that it likes to cling to itself, as well as other materials that are made from polar molecules. The cup is made of polar molecules, which is why water is mildly attracted to the cup. | 74859f9f-2743-4112-baf4-142e819d4ef0 |
45v0vk | Why are There So Many Lost Episodes of KaBlam? | Most of the last season, 4, was un-aired when the show was cancelled. Some episodes were televised as parts of specials and some were not shown due to copy write or standards issues.
My unreliable source is the wikipedia article (I didn't know about the topic personally): _URL_0_! | ce6f5535-e6c6-4bd0-97d2-e089387d1c27 |
3fpx8f | Do copper sleeves and braces for your body really work? If so, how? | They absolutely don't work at all. But wait, there's more! Ok sadly there isn't, it's just basically a scam, there's no evidence this stuff does anything. | 715bc71b-1a21-4323-8312-4aed7c8aa653 |
2paqjw | theres so many types of toothpaste that supposedly do different things, but they all have the same one active ingredient. | There are indeed inactive ingredients that have different benefits, but almost none are significant. The best toothpastes have fluoride, xylitol, no sodium lauryl sulfate. Tom's clean & gentle is a good one, so is Biotene (expensive), or Spry/Squigle with fluoride. -dental hygienist. | b25b4b0f-41fd-4252-8173-13d63fc8ccf4 |
1txbc1 | What the difference(s) between a pub, a bar, and tavern? | Bars are typically geared toward alcohol, a pub is geared towards food and alcohol, and a tavern normally is a pub with rooms to rent for nights. I could be wrong, but that's what I grew up thinking :) | 9bc4242b-834f-4531-a7c3-c8ce9ac48468 |
240zze | why do we gag when we smell or see something gross? | A wise man once told me, "You know what the difference is between smelling shit and eating shit? Parts per million." | 9242977a-704c-40f9-bac8-49b2cc19dde2 |
2hmgez | Why is my cat obsessed with me after taking a shower? | This is an educated guess, but most likely because you have a different smell. Cats have a great sense of smell and identifies other by it, they "know" you because they know your smell and after a shower you are a new "human" that they need to befriend.
This is also a reason why if you have two cats and one is taken to vet the other will sometimes hiss at it when you come home, because smell tells it that a "new" cat has come in to their territory. | e85ba0c8-1bc6-4a59-96cf-f6125e94a35c |
5slhqv | In these sanctuary cities, Why are the Mayor and city council not being charged with aiding and abetting a criminal, and harboring a fugitive? | They aren't actually breaking any laws or (legally speaking) aiding and abetting anyone.
They're just refusing to do the Federal Government's job for them. It's not up to individual local governments to enforce federal law and they can't be forced to if they don't want to.
If they were actively preventing federal officials from entering their cities that would be a different story, but that's not what they are doing. | 0efaf8eb-9d8f-4cdf-beb8-fe930540cdd6 |
25cx19 | Before gunpowder weaponry, how were any naval battles fought? | A few diffrent ways. I'd recommend /r/askhistorians for a more complete explanation.
There's a few things that were done:
1. ramming other boats, either to breach their hull and to sink them, or to send over troops for boarding actions.
2. Archers stationed on deck firing arrows, either regular ones of fire arrows to kill the enemy crew or set their ship alight.
3. Mounted heavy weapons like catapults or ballista's that would fire a vareity of projectiles to damage the enemy ship or set it on fire.
anything involving giant parabolic mirrors probably isn't true. | 2761ed9b-19d3-4963-a2b6-ec8e3a8c2eb1 |
23gtgb | The differences and pros/cons between leasing a car and buying it (with monthly payments). | You should do some math when you're deciding between the two (along with what anyone4apint said).
Determine how much money you will have paid out at the end of the loan (finance option). Let's say it was a $23k car and you paid out $26k after interest.
Find out what value your vehicle should have after 5 years (it helps if you are looking at a model that has been around for awhile. See what a 5 year old model is worth today at a site like _URL_0_).
Let's say your car after 5 years (this is all assuming you'd finance for 60 months) is worth $14k. So at the end of 5 years, you've paid out 26k and have 14k to show for it (lost 12k, to depreciation and interest, basically).
Now, most leases don't last for 60 months, but take whatever your lease payment is and then multiply that by 60 (and add any $ that you put down at the beginning of the lease).
Does that exceed $12k? (it probably will).
Now, that alone will pretty much always show that financing is better when it comes to money out of your pocket, but on the other hand, leasing a car means you'll usually always have a newer car (you'd likely lease something new after 3 years), you're paying a bit less on maintenance (but maybe more on insurance since dealers will require a higher level of insurance compared to state minimums).
Is the difference in the money from the first example worth more to you than the convenience of a lease?
I've leased cars in the past (Mini Cooper) and currently finance a car (Dodge Dart Aero). I think I did the right one in both cases (Mini Coopers are notoriously expensive to maintain so you are generally paying extra for a maintenance contract if you decide to keep the car at the end of the lease). Leases are very convenient if you're okay with always having a car payment and you have no interest in keeping a car for more than 3 years or so. | 6df95a21-b970-4101-acee-721d04b52b9a |
1mvyaz | Internet infrastructure. | Inside your computer is something called a NIC (Network Interface Card). It has two main jobs - send data, and receive data.
Hook it up to another computer via an Ethernet cable and you have a simple network. Your computer's send is hooked up to the other's receive and vice-versa.
What if you want another computer? You add something called a Switch. All three computers now plug into the switch, rather than each other. The switch's job is to take data from one computer's "send" wire and send it to another computer's "receive" wire. To do this, it remembers the MAC Address of each NIC connected to it. (Every NIC has a unique MAC address set at the time of manufacture).
So now we have a basic network. Your neighbour John has done the same thing, and he now has his own network. You want to connect them together. Your Switch isn't going to want to have to remember every MAC address of every NIC being connected to and disconnected from every network, so...
Enter the Router. The Router does what it says on the tin - it routes traffic across networks. A router is like a computer with more than one NIC. (In fact, you can use an actual PC with two NICs as a router). One NIC will connect to the switch on your network, the other will connect to the switch in your neighbour's network.
The router will be set up with something called a "routing table" which is just information about the networks, now using IP (Internet Protocol) addresses rather than hardware MAC addresses, and where they are located - ie. Which NIC do I use to get traffic to John's network? (IP Addresses are structured for larger networks that NICs - ie. given a 'subnet mask', the router can work out which network an IP Address belongs to. So Routers tend to think in terms of networks, whereas switches tend to think in terms of Devices).
So when you send data to one of your neighbours computers, your computer will know that it's on a different network and will send it to the Router to deal with. Your computer doesn't know anything about John's network or how exactly to get there, and it doesn't need to. It just knows that the Router will take care of it. The router will look at the destination address, and send the packet to John's switch to be relayed to the destination.
Keep adding switches, routers, computers and other devices and the network gets bigger and bigger. As is the case with the internet. Also, the networks might not be directly connected together - data might have to travel across more than one subsection of the network to reach its destination.
Also, in a network the size of the internet, every router won't know about every other router on the network - it will only know about what it's connected to. To get data all the way across the internet, each router only needs to figure out the next 'hop' until the data gets to it's destination. You can see this happening by opening up a command prompt and typing:
tracert _URL_1_
That will show you the 'route' to the internet to get to _URL_1_. (Mine took 11 hops). Each entry in that list is a router. You'll probably find that the first one or two belong to your ISP.
The other thing is that routes can take different paths depending on many factors, such as if a segment of the network goes down, the routers can intelligently find alternate routes around the problem.
If the destination simply can't be reached, for example if [some old woman cuts the underground cable connecting America to other parts of the world](_URL_0_), the packets of data will just bounce around different routers until it times out. | 9f69b9bf-b08b-4bb8-8cc0-5f22c716c874 |
1bilgu | How that tugboat from the front page could pull the ship 10 times it's own size | Tug Boats are basically motors with a ship built around them. One big floating motor designed to move ships. | d71a6be7-1527-4f60-91a7-6b936d753efe |
7g720z | How does muscle enable us to lift heavier things? | Muscles are made of fibres which contract to make a certain action. For example, a bicep curl. The more muscle, the more fibres. The more fibres you have contracting together, the more force you create. More force allows you to lift more. | d81ceb64-ba90-44cc-99c7-846ebb2edb25 |
261qan | Looking beyond energy independence. How do we (practically) replace the other crude oil derivatives? e.g. asphalt, lubricants, and other hydrocarbon-derived chemicals. | Algae are a candidate for creating hydrocarbons, as well as yeast. With genetic-modification of small organisms being developed and used, it's possible to create microorganisms that can turn sugars into hydrocarbons.
_URL_0_ | 35cda7b2-a7d6-4d86-85b9-be40f0bb24fc |
3pws85 | Relationship between India and Pakistan | India and Pakistan used to be a part of the British empire.
When Pakistan and India got independence in 47, The British messed up the division of Kashmir, just like the messed up the middle east after World War 1(thus the current mess there). During the partition, Kashmir's ruler wanted his own state, but his people wanted to join Pakistan. Pakistan, looking at India invading the states which were originally not theirs, Pakistan tried to do the same with Kashmir, and invaded Kashmir along with help from the local supporters, and the King of Kashmir asked India for help, thus starting a war between India and Pakistan. During this time, Muslims from India and Hindus from Pakistan we're immigrating to their new countries, Many atrocities were committed by hardliners from both sides, resulting in a total of 1 million people being killed by each other, on top of the war. The war ended in 49, with a front established as a virtual border, and a cease fire agreement was signed.
Fast forward to 1965, where skirmishes in the Rann of Kutch took place between India and Pakistan. By this time Field Marshal Ayub Khan was the head of state of Pakistan, Pakistan had allied with both the United States and China, while India tilted toward the Soviet Union.
The foreign minister of Pakistan, Bhutto was a maoist communist who pressured Ayub to do something to liberate Kashmir. Eventually, Pakistan decided to support Kashmiri Guerillas (and still does) against the Indian occupation. The foreign minister was totally bonkers, and expected the army to invade Kashmir, whileist holding the line against India. (During this time Pakistan's army had 1/4th the manpower and equipment India had) without taking the local tirbal kashmiris into confidence, resulting in the failure of Operation Gibraltar, which the Foreign minister had proposed.
War was declared and eventually a stalemate, With Pakistan holding the line, and achieving air superiority over the India.
Fast forward to 1971, Foreign minister is now the Prime minister, goes bonkers again and is unfair to the Bengalis of East Pakistan, in fear of loosing the election to them (East Pakistan had much more population than West Pakistan). India decides to support the Bengali population, starting millitias and invading East Pakistan. The Pakistani Army was surrounded, so they surrendered and Bangladesh was made.
Fast forward to 1999, both countries have Nukes and are willing to blow each other up at a moments notice.
Pervez Musharraf, a Pakistani General who took over Pakistan form a civil government which had bought it on the brink of Bankruptcy and failure of the state. Kargil is a strategic position, high in the hills of the Himalayas. In the harsh winters, India abandons it's high ground bunkers and heads back to it's lower ground bunkers, Pakistan sent it's troops to secure those bunkers from India in the winter, Pakistan clearly has the advantage with the enemy out of Kargil, right?
Wrong. India pressures the US government, who then pressures the Pakistani Civil government on pulling out of Kargil. The government then went bonkers, and turned a Military victory into a political defeat, with most of the Pakistani casualties being suffered while they were pulling back.
Why the war for Kashmir you ask? It's natural resources and most of all, it's water glaciers. India and Pakistan both have huge populations, and less water. Most of Pakistans rivers originate in Kashmir, with India building Dams in the summer, causing a drought in central Pakistan, and thus failure of crops, and then opening the rivers at full speed in the winters to simulate flash floods, once again causing the failure of crops. (The bulk of Pakistan's economy is based on Agriculture)
However, it's not all hatred. Their people share the same language and culture, to an extent.
Pakistan sent humanitarian aids in military transports to India when an earthquake hit India, and India did the same during an earthquake in Pakistan. Infact, before British rule, the Muslims and Hindus got along well, and lived together for centuries! (once again to an extent). Muslims and Hindus even revolted side by side against the British when they tried to force the Indian soldiers to use Muskets, which required handling fat from Cows (which pissed off the Hindus) and Pork fat (which pissed off the Muslims)
This is a very sensitive topic, and this is as neutral as I could become on this. | c1ca24f5-aa95-4e1d-b91e-2feb2d97bb03 |
394o4r | Why do school buses have to always stop before railroads on open up to doors to listen? If the gates are up, it should be clear. | Because the gates do not always work, not all rail crossings have gates, and the gates do not always deploy long enough before a train passes for larger slower vehicles to get across should they have some kind of mechanical trouble.
This requirement is also for more than school buses. It is required of all buses (school or public), and it is required of all trucks hauling hazardous materials. | 60df23d1-cc7a-43d6-a34c-0cca9b33c676 |
2ygv5b | Why is there a country called Turkey and an animal called turkey when the two have nothing to do with each other? Is there any relationship between the two, or is it just coincidence? | The bird was named after the region. In the 15th century or so traders started to bring Guinea Fowl from eastern Africa to Turkey where they were then exported to Europe. The birds became known as Turkey-hens. When colonists went to North America they thought the Turkey looked similar and so it too was called Turkey.
The birds' introduction to other countries by trade is apparent in its many names. In Turkish, the name translates to Indian (as in where Delhi is, not Native American). Same with French (the word went from coq d'Inde (chicken of India) to its modern shortened form, dinde). In Malay, it's known as a Dutch Chicken and in Portuguese its name means Peru bird.
Edit - Thanks for the all the additions and corrections. And this is a list of *place origins* by language, not the actual word used. I know Kozhikode isn't the word for turkey in Dutch; that's the city the bird was named after.
The list of place origins ascribed to the turkey by language:
* English/Hindi- Turkey
* Georgian/Turkish/Hebrew/French/Armenian/Polish/Russian - India (unclear whether this means subcontinent India or West Indies)
* Arabic - Rome
* Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal) - Peru
* Norse/Dutch/Swedish/Lithuanian - Kozhikode (a city in India)
* Greek/Scottish Gaelic - France
* Vietnamese - the West (translates to "Western Chicken")
Edit 2: /u/luke_in_the_sky wrote up a similar summary for the Guinea pig [here](_URL_0_). And thanks for the gold anonymous redditor! | fc1bec3b-fda7-48e6-971f-aca30f9cba06 |
27p1t3 | Why do most Christian groups/people align themselves with the Republican party in the USA when the core beliefs of the religion seem to contradict those of the party? | While gay marriage and abortion are the wedge issues of today, this alliance predates both being big deals. I mean, gay marriage wasn't even on the table two decades ago.
For a long time during the Cold War, Republicans liked to cast Democrats as near-communists, and themselves as the bulwark against those atheist commies. This started building ties in people's minds between party affiliation and religious affiliation, but the big thing that drove southern Christians to the Republican party was desegregation. A Democratic president signed the Civil Rights Act, and the (overwhelmingly evangelical Christian) southerners fled the party in response.
All the social issues that followed were adopted to energize this bloc in the party and keep them showing up to vote reliably.
Edit: As a followup, Catholics were, at one time, reliable Democratic voters, not finding much common cause with evangelical protestants. They were social justice and labor rights voters. The anti-abortion and now anti-birth control platforms have been used to draw the more conservative of this group into the Christian Right, too. | ef9e6789-7662-478f-9ba7-8bfb67dacbba |
42hu9o | Do certain characters take up more digital memory space? | A set of rules for representing characters as data is called a **character encoding**, and there exist a number of different ones, so there isn't one unique answer to this question. Some examples:
* The oldest encoding in common use is called ASCII, which takes 7 bits per character. One byte = 8 bits, so ASCII fits in one byte per character. ASCII can encode simple English text, but cannot handle accent marks or other non-English characters in European Latin scripts, much less scripts from outside Western Europe.
* There are several 8-bit encodings that extend ASCII with extra characters. For example, [ISO 8859-1](_URL_1_), which was designed for Western European languages; it's also one byte per character, but you can't write any character outside the 200+ that it supports.
* There are a number of old "multi-byte," variable length encodings that were designed for Asian languages like Chinese, Japanese and Korean. These support ASCII plus one specific language. Since there are so many Chinese characters, one byte per character isn't enough for these. Usually they use a *variable length* system where some characters take more bytes to encode than others.
* The modern solution is [Unicode](_URL_0_), which is a shared character set that covers as many languages as practical, plus a family of different encodings. The two most common Unicode encodings both use a variable length system:
* UTF-8: characters take 1, 2, 3 or 4 bytes. ASCII characters fit in one byte; most non-ASCII alphabets fit in two bytes; common Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters fit in three bytes; very unusual characters (e.g., hieroglyphs) take 4 bytes.
* UTF-16: characters take 2 or 4 bytes. ASCII, alphabetic and common CJK characters take 2 bytes; very unusual ones take 4 bytes.
So there isn't a single answer to your question. In UTF-8 "a" takes one byte, "á" takes two and "人" takes three, but in UTF-16 all three take two bytes. UTF-8 is more common, I'd say, though. | 97781fb0-2dd8-4407-aaa1-02641769afaa |
84yvpy | Why do people chop wood? | It is so that the wood fits into fireplaces, cooking stoves, and so that it is easier to stack in a controlled manner. You do not want a burning log to roll out of a fire so you want to give it at least one flat side. | 2efe808d-6369-4db0-8d88-3111a20042f6 |
20gwmb | Why do they remake classic/awesome movies and ruin them? Why don't they take lousy movies and remake them into something good? | It's considered too risky. If a production company has a choice between remaking a classic movie that did well or remaking a crappy movie that did poorly, they're going to go with the classic movie because it comes with guaranteed brand recognition. They don't care whether or not the movie turns out to be good, they only want to hype it up enough to get people into the theaters; that's where they make the majority of their money.
It's the unfortunate result of an art form that's mostly controlled by people who aren't artists. | 20bc161e-79d4-434e-97ba-cca7301d006c |
4pj6gq | Why do we make simple noises / repetitions automatically when talking to babies or small animals, such as cooing/saying hello? | Baby talk is easier for a baby to understand because it is slow, exaggerated, and uses high tones. Even before the infant can actually understand words, baby talk can teach things like turn-taking in conversation, rhythm and tones in sentences (like how your voice raises in pitch when you're asking a question), and the sounds used in your language. Slightly older babies will also notice that adults don't use baby talk with each other or older children, so they can use those sounds as a cue that you're talking to them.
We do this to pets because we tend to cognitively interpret pets as babies or small children.
Baby talk exists in the majority of human cultures, but not all of them, so there's a learned component to it. However, because it has many characteristics that appeal to infants, infants respond to it more strongly than normal speech, so it's strongly reinforced. | 6d1d77e1-57f5-472d-bba5-3a22596afc0d |
3v7nft | It seems that whenever there's a mass shooting, a SWAT team arrives at the scene almost immediately. What are SWAT teams doing when there's no situation for them to be at? | Looks like it varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but it seems that they patrol like normal officers, but their gear may be kept in a special truck so they can travel directly to the scene at the same time as their equipment.
_URL_0_ | 2bb256ff-83c0-4b8e-979f-164ee0edb571 |
6j42tf | Why it is metres per second per second instead of metres per second? | 10 m/s^2 is an acceleration, not a movement, it means that for every second, it moves 10 meters per second faster.
10 m = length
10 m/s = speed
10 m/s^2 = acceleration | 3964149f-9b16-4280-8e9b-e23c6f037d0f |
1elf63 | What is the advantage for China to buy up other countries debts? Also, how does it work? | Everyone here is missing it. China is buying loads of US debt for a very important reason: exchange rate.
Compare the exchange rates of the reminbi (often referred to as RMB, but the official abbreviation is CNY) to the dollar and the Euro:
_URL_0_
You can see clearly that China has controlled the exchange rate with the USD very tightly, but let the EUR rate float. In 2006 the Bush administration negotiated a deal to let the rate float, and then the Obama administration scored another deal in 2010. This is very important to China; because, keeping the RMB cheap against the dollar helps keep Chinese manufactured good cheap, which in turn is what keeping their economy thundering along at 8% growth. Conversely, the US would like the RMB to grow stronger against the USD so that Chinese goods aren't so much cheaper than American goods, and the US can have a hope of manufacturing things. (of course, if the RMB appreciates too quickly, suddenly the market experiences a shock of skyrocketing prices, and consumption drops, killing both economies.)
This effect isn't achieved just by magical thinking. The way China does this is that they "print" loads and loads of RMB and buy USD-denominated securities with them, in particular, US Treasury Bonds. In essence, the Chinese government is creating an artificial demand for dollars and excess supply of RMB, keeping the dollar strong against their own currency.
Of course, there's a catch. The USD is the world's reserve currency. There are (depending on how you choose to count) roughly 15 trillion dollars in cash-like form out in the wild. So, manipulating that big a thing takes some serious weight. Which means China has to buy a LOT of dollars (roughly 1.1 trillion to date). Because they are buying so much, supply and demand dictates that the asset price should rise, which, in the world of bonds, means that the return on the bonds becomes very low. In effect, this means that in order to keep their economy going, the Chinese are constantly lending the US money at dirt cheap rates so the Americans can, eventually, send it back in the form of revenues for Chinese manufacturers. Simultaneously, China and the US are getting deeply locked together economically, even as uncomfortable as they are with each other politically.
---
With regards to buying debt buying "nothing:" There's an old aphorism: "If you owe a million dollars, the bank owns you. If you owe a billion dollars, you own the bank." A debt is an asset. If the bank loans me money to buy a car, it is not in the hope that I will default on the loan and they will repossess the car (which would, on its best day, only barely mitigate their losses). The want 3-6 years of debt service payments. By loaning the money out at 6.9% interest (or whatever rate they sold it at) they have created a revenue stream, and this goes on their books as such. And it's good business for both sides: for me, by buying the car, I am able to work and do other economic activity I otherwise couldn't, thus solving the chicken-and-egg problem of needing a car for work, but needing work for a car; and for the bank, because they take an asset that does nothing (cash) and turn it into a source of income. Of course, the real banking system takes this a step further: A bank can borrow from the Federal Reserve at a rock star interest rate, let's say 0.01% for the sake of the argument. But if they then lend that money at 6.9%, they are turning 6.89% profit on an asset they don't even "own!" Which is why it often makes sense for the federal government to take on debt: if they get money at near-zero interest, spend on activities that grow the economy (like say, building tanks or roads) and the economy grows at 3%, increasing their tax revenues accordingly, then it was a smart investment to take out that original debt. Anyhow, coming back to the original comment: buying a debt is buying a revenue stream, so debt is definitely an asset - to the debt holder. | 77308560-6152-4623-8e46-6453ca47c4ad |
zj40v | how the stock market and investing works. | Okay. Say you have lemonade stand. You built it, you buy the lemons and the sugar and the cups, and any profit left after doing those things is all yours. You're the sole owner.
Now, your lemonade is fucking delicious and the stand is doing really well. You'd like to open another one and hire some helpers to run it for you. You could wait until you pile up enough profit, though that might take a long time. You could go to the bank and ask them to lend you money, but banks are pretty stingy about who they'll lend money to and they'll want you to pay it back with interest.
Or, you could go to your rich buddy Frank and say, hey, you know me, you know how awesome my lemonade is, how about you give me the money to build a new stand and I'll split the profits with you even-steven? Franks says sure.
Congratulations, Frank has just invested in your company. He became a co-owner of the company, giving you the money in the hope that he'll eventually get back even more money in profits as your company grows. **That's investing, and it comes in two basic varieties: Buying something in the hope that it will be worth more in the future, or lending someone money and having them pay you back with interest.**
Back to the lemonade stand. Actually, it's not a lemonade stand anymore --- it's like a whole chain of stands, that are providing lemonade to 20 different beaches and 4 pools, and they're all doing super well and making money. But you and Frank, you've got bigger plans. You don't want to just build a stand here, a stand there. You want to be the biggest lemonade company in the state. Maybe the country. But for that, you're going to need a lot of money, millions, probably.
Now you could try and find another, much, much richer Frank-type guy to invest in you. But if he's giving you millions of dollars, he's probably going to want a lot of say in how to run the company, and you and Frank don't want that, you think you're doing a pretty good job all by yourselves. Plus, there aren't that many super-rich guys out there who can just hand out millions like that; finding one and persuading him how awesome your company is might be a pain in the ass. Whereas you know tons and tons of not so rich people who love your lemonade and would be happy to own a chunk of your company.
So how about this: Instead of dividing the ownership of Lemonade Co. into two pieces like you did with you and Frank, how about you divide it up into 20,000 pieces? You and Frank can each own 5,000 pieces, and the remaining 10,000 you can sell in small batches to anyone who wants one, for like $100 bucks a piece. Each piece represents a small share in the ownership of Lemonade Co. **Congratulations: You have created stock.**
That's all owning a share of stock is --- it's owning a small piece of a company. Now with Lemonade Co., by selling 10,000 shares you've gotten $1,000,000 in cash that you can use to invest in the business. And here's the best part: Since you have 5,000 shares, your ownership of the company is worth $500,000.
Also, since you and Frank together each own way more of the company than any of the other investors, the two of you still get to call the shots in figuring out how to run the company. You can decide to take any profits the company makes and divide them up among the shareholders -- this is called "paying a dividend." Or, you can take those profits and use them to keep on expanding the company.
A stock exchange is just a place where people go to buy and sell their shares in various companies. The used to be actual, physical places with a bunch of dudes running around taking orders for stock down in notebooks and a big notice board somewhere listing the price people were offering for shares in various stocks. If you wanted to buy a stock, you had to go down to the exchange, find someone who wanted to sell that stock, and see what price he wanted for his shares.
If a company does something awesome -- say Lemonade Co. invents a new raspberry flavor that's super popular --- then the price people want for a share will rise, because Lemonade Co.'s profits will be up. If something happens that's bad for a company --- a hurricane in Florida wipes out a bunch of citrus farms, meaning lemon prices will increase --- then the price of the shares will go down, because people think Lemonade Co. won't be making as much money.
It didn't take very long before some smart bastard figured out that if you bought a stock, hung on to it until something awesome happened and the price went up, and then sold it to another investor, you could make money immediately on the rise in a stock's price without waiting around for the company itself to collect its profits and redistribute them to its shareholders. People who do this --- who buy and sell shares in the hope of making money off the changes in the share price, and not because the company itself is growing, are called traders. Investors want to buy a stock and hold it for a while; traders buy and sell tons of times per day. Traders are pretty necessary for the stock market to function well, though, because it's only when they exist that you can be sure you'll always find a buyer when you want to sell any stock you might have, or vice versa.
And that's pretty much how the stock market works, on an ELI5 level. There's lots more to it than that, of course. Also, I should be clear --- the **stock market** is only the first type of investing, buying something in the hopes it will be worth more in the future. (There's other things you can buy besides stocks for this reason --- like Beanie Babies or Picassos or gold bars.) The second primary type of investing --- lending people money and having them pay you back with interest --- is called **the bond market**. On the whole, investing in stocks is considered riskier than investing in bonds, because there's lots of ways for a company to go wrong and stop being profitable, whereas with bonds you can pick who to lend money to and, if you're cautious, make sure to only lend to people you're 99.9999% sure will pay you back. But with bonds you're only ever going to get the 1% or 3% or 5% interest you agreed on when you bought the bond, whereas if you invest in a company that turns out to be the next Microsoft or Google your stock can be worth 10 times more than what you paid for it in a few year's time. | 44ef0537-619f-4e74-bdfa-3458c3f9f23e |
2qs1s3 | Do the flags on the presidential limo or other state cars serve a purpose? | It means the passenger carries rank in person rather than rank in position for the country whose flag the car flies.
In practice, that usually means the head of state, chief of government, secretary of state/foreign minister, and some ambassadors.
Immunity is subject to a bunch of different agreements between countries, but rank in person generally carries with it personal inviolability | ddc7fd12-969c-4270-a0ed-1a37a0e66aa8 |
2ehn8b | Why do we instinctively breathe using the top half of our torso when using the abdomen is apparently healthier? | It's not actually 'wrong'. You 'use' the top half of your torso because it makes space for your lungs to expand.
'Using' your abdomen means that you are consciously focusing your breathing movements on your diaphragm, which is what actually draws your lungs in and out for you to breathe. This can be healthier because it can compress your lungs more, allowing you to push out more CO2 by emptying out your lungs more and therefore slightly increase the concentration of O2.
Using the top half of your torso is intuitive because it allows you to intake more air if necessary (by expanding your chest, giving room for your lungs to expand), such as when exercising.
Your body prioritizes air intake in that situation over a marginal increase in O2/decrease in CO2, because the gas ratios won't matter if you can't actually exchange the gases fast enough. It's intuitive because your body can't switch between reflexive behaviors. | 91f241ad-8c22-4219-b0cd-bdfacefca04d |
41n3oz | How do holocaust deniers back up their views when there is so much physical evidence, including eyewitnesses still alive, that it occurred? | Keep in mind; this is coming from a jew
There are very few people who deny the holocaust completely. The thing that people doubt is the scale at which it happened, and that it was specifically targeted towards jews. They don't trust the official reports, because there's no reason they couldn't have been collectively over-exaggerated to an extreme degree (which to be fair, has happened at many points in history).
Holocaust denial isnt looking away from picture evidence with their fingers in their ears, its more a systematic distrust of government data which might or might not be propaganda.
I just want to clarify, I do not agree with this in the slightest. I have family that was killed in the holocaust, I have heard some of the stories first hand. But I also think people's arguments should at least be represented correctly | 07a2afd1-2f33-4feb-8543-dec96a4a3f45 |
3h5e4a | the difference between a scientist and an engineer | In general, a scientist tries to push the boundaries of our understanding of things. The engineer puts our understanding of things into practice.
As an example, a chemist might try to figure out why two substances react the way they do, while a chemical engineer will try to figure out a way to make a given substance. | 90a93767-e84b-40b1-ac3e-51ec9a0fa21d |
2qkaoh | Why are prostate examinations done by digital penetration of the anus? Doesn't it seem archaic in the 21st century? | Believe it or not, the index finger is an extremely sensitive tool in ascertaining the size, shape, nodularity, and "sponginess" of a prostate. Physicians are specifically trained to do this.
Plus, it is fairly harmless (other than the trepidation of the patient) to insert a finger into the rectum to examine/feel the prostate. Other diagnostic modalities (scopes, radiological imaging, etc...) have much more risk of damage, take longer to do, take longer to get results, and are much more expensive.
The exam only takes about a minute (usually much less). Just take a deep breath and think about something else. It's really not that big a deal. Wait until you need a colonoscopy. LOL | 4c693c07-e03b-4303-8497-9c0f79f956fb |
1x8y3c | Why do we listen to songs that depress us when we're upset? Even though we KNOW it only makes things worse? | Does it make things worse? It's genuine psychiatric advice that sometimes you just need to feel shitty. Recognizing you're down and experience it is part of being mentally healthy, if you're always running away from unhappiness you're like to become mentally unwell. | 5868a39d-14c4-4a6f-ad3b-55fa53446709 |
26x0rv | Why don't McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, etc. do deliveries in the US? | No one would tip the driver.
You work for McDonalds, you pay for your own gas/car maintenance. You walk up with a few kids meals and fries which are guaranteed to taste kinda old and soggy, this isn't a whole pizza with special delivery bag that keeps it warm, it isn't a whole meal from a Chinese restaurant, it's greasy, small portioned, tiny pickle in the middle of a sloppily ketchuped bun. You hand it over and they pay with a fiver.
Oh, yeah, they expect change. And you're running around town with no tip on low cost items that don't even cover gas. How long before you quit and deliver for Dominoes? | 8a41b01e-a0e6-4ac8-a361-3d563c7ea19d |
6x8qad | Why does staring at the sun make me sneeze? | Because you have a photic sneeze reflex, which about 20-30% of people have. The mechanism of action is not well understood. It's possible that wires get crossed in your brain, and that the stimulus of bright light makes your brain think there's something in your nose. | 2a900f92-0145-43bc-8d74-ac0a0908685d |
6zgml5 | Why do grownups throw up less than children? | Children are dirty. They don't wash their hands, they're constantly around a bunch of other children that don't wash their hands, they put things in their mouths and generally do everything you're not supposed to do if you want to avoid sickness.
They also have developing immune systems that haven't developed antibodies to common illnesses. | d1f17b79-92c8-4006-a676-bb0ba0eb2115 |
1b1h9r | What are brackets, with reference to basketball? | bracket is used to describe certain types of tournaments, not just basketball. It is the chart that lists who is playing whom, and who the winners will play. It can be filled out with predictions of who will beat whom in advance (for entertainment purposes only) or it may be filled out as the tournament progresses with the actual winners filled in.
tl;dr it is a chart of who plays whom. | df105d81-678e-4e14-ace7-e06d0540765d |
1idn0m | What happens to someone's money if they get put into an asylum or diagnosed with a serious mental illness? | If someone is found to be legally incomponent, a guardian, usually a family member, is appointed to look after their affairs. | 706d43cf-d502-42a4-9ebc-dc6af7fb11c9 |
2vni2j | Why certain checks expire. | All checks expire. It forces people to be prompt about cashing checks. Otherwise, every company could have thousands of dollars of uncashed checks floating around, meaning they have to keep tons of extra money in their checking account just in case.
True, most wage workers aren't going to forget to cash a check, but it's certainly possible for a check to fall through the cracks somewhere, get lost, etc.
If you do lose a check for 91 days, you are still entitled to the money - you just need to tell the company that you lost the check and need ti reissued. They might be cranky with you, but they will cut a new check. | caf72db3-c8f1-4284-998b-6ce2b89443e2 |
8nnmxa | Why phones can have 8 cores and sometimes more but even most high end computers half only 4 cores. | Even sub $200 processors like the i5-8400 now have 6 cores while AMD offers desktop chips with 16 cores/32 threads (on the server side you have Intel offering 28 cores with 56 threads) so part of the answer is that you simply don't know what is in desktop computers these days.
Then there is the fact that while phone processors might advertise 8 cores that doesn't mean 8 *equal* cores. A big reason for having multiple cores on phone processors is not for speed but for energy efficiency. Only the core(s) needed for a specific task are powered on while the others are asleep. This leads to specialization with only a few cores being strong general purpose ones like you might expect.
Finally there is the issue of what is practical. More cores means more heat and more cost to build. On the desktop there are usually limits on how much of that power can actually be used - most games for example show very little improvement beyond 4 cores (in fact 2 cores with 4 threads is actually the sweet spot right now before you start seeing large performance losses).
While more cores are useful for some productivity tasks (like encoding video) many desktop users aren't taking advantage of that so a chips single thread performance has a much bigger impact on how 'fast' their computer is. This is reflected in processors like Intel's budget i3 line which boasts some extremely respectable single threaded performance but tops out at 4 cores, giving it the maximum bang for the buck for most average users. | 0ed53e72-2caa-4ff8-a4fa-8e2fb681e8a0 |
2l6g9k | Why does mixing lights result in a different color than mixing paint? | Mixing light together is simple addition. Adding red light to green light gives you yellow light, add in blue and get white light.
Paint, on the other hand, is about absorption and reflection. Yellow paint absorbs blue light, and reflects red and green. Red paint absorbs green and blue light, and reflects red. Mix them together and you get a paint that absorbs blue light, absorbs half of green light and reflects the other half, and reflects red: orange paint. | c6a9ffd4-df03-4fb2-892a-488a46039409 |
5yaz2t | Why is it quieter to pee on the side of the toilet bowl than it is to pee directly on the toilet water | Sound waves are literally just movements of the particles that make up a medium (usually air for humans).
Situation 1: Your liquid stream hits the solid porcelain side of the bowl. There is nowhere for the force of it to go except to spread out in roughly all directions, and it barely "slices" through the air along the edge of the porcelain it's hitting, displacing air perpendicularly as it does so, and thus not moving many air particles hard enough to move other particles to cause one of those air particles to eventually hit your eardrum.
& nbsp;
Situation 2: Your liquid stream hits the liquid surface of the water, and the force of it carries it into the water, along with a lot of air that it pulls along with it. As that air bubbles back toward the surface, it either A) reaches the surface quickly and "pops" (similar to a bubble of CO*_2_* popping at the surface of a glass of soda) OR B) hits back into the stream of liquid still coming down, which causes even more turbulence and the splitting/joining of lots of bubbles until it's a small patch of water that's almost acting like it's boiling. All of that air and water moving around displaces a *lot* more air as opposed to Situation 1, so more air particles eventually bump into your eardrum and *voila*, louder sound. | 5544dcf2-6bd1-47a3-85a0-8d003e44f406 |
33m5yd | Why do people still fall for pyramid schemes or MLM's? | the true answer is that they are blinded by greed. look for example at all the people who gave money to bernie madoff. Years before he was 'outed' by his son, a reporter at Barron's, a major financial paper, wrote an article questioning madoffs returns ("Those returns have been so consistent that some on the Street have begun speculating that Madoff's market-making operation subsidizes and smooths his hedge-fund returns."). Anyone who was interested could have found it. There were also other warning signs, such as big firms that would not invest with him. Yet very wealthy people, presumably with money managers, all ignored these signs. Why? Simple greed, for the most part.
[barrons article from 2001](_URL_0_) - he was arrested in 2008.
[another link if that's paywalled, although this might be too.](_URL_1_) | d704e6f6-8dfe-4a4f-bb74-ec096eb24dee |
433o09 | Please explain the current situation in the Middle East simply. | Various peoples have been fighting in that area for thousands of years. After WW2 the area was partitioned up without regard to the local's heritage and things got worse. Add lots of oil money to the equation and it's explosive. | cb663702-b60f-4e8c-abb4-a2b83eebef99 |
5zore3 | The calculation which dictates the universe is 73% dark energy 23% dark matter 4% ordinary matter. | We can see galaxies and (with the Hubble telescope) see the speed at which they rotate. We can also calculate how much the stars in those galaxies mass. The problem is, that much matter, spinning at those speeds, would fly apart. Even adding in planets, dust, and black holes, there still isn't enough matter in galaxies to hold them together. Not even nearly enough. There shouldn't even be galaxies anymore, just scattered stars. But there *are* still galaxies, so *something* we can't see must hold them together.
The leading contender for that *something* is matter that doesn't interact with normal matter or energy but does create gravity like normal matter. We call that hypothetical *something* dark matter, and we're trying to figure out what it is.
From observing the movements of galaxies and the apparent mass they contain, we can approximate how much gravity would hold them together, and that gives us the amount of dark matter.
Dark energy comes from a different observation about the universe. There is a type of supernova called 1A, which is an exploding white dwarf star. Since white dwarfs explode at a certain mass, the explosions are always about the same, and each 1A supernova is pretty much the same brightness and color spectrum as the next.
Since they're the same brightness, we can calculate how far away they are by how faint they appear. Since they're the same color, we can calculate how fast they're moving away from us - the faster a star moves away from us, the redder it appears- we call that its *redshift*. (Although, regardless of the speed or direction its source is moving, light always moves at the same speed, movement toward us compresses the light's wavelength, making the light appear bluer, while movement away stretches that wavelength, making it appear redder.)
If the universe started all together and then moved apart at a constant rate, then we would expect the redshift - how fast it's moving away - to be the same for nearby galaxies as well as distant ones. But fainter (more distant) 1A supernovae aren't red enough. Since we're seeing those distant ones as they were when the universe was very young, that tells us the universe was expanding at a slower rate back then. And the further back in time we look, the slower expansion was at that time.
So the universe's expansion has been speeding up. But *something* must be speeding it up. What? Nothing we can detect. Since speeding up as we know it is always caused by energy, we call this undetectable something dark energy.
Calculating how much the expansion has accelerated, and how much energy it would take to do that to all those galaxies, gives us an approximation of the amount of dark energy.
**TLDR: We get the amount of dark matter from how much extra gravity it would take to keep galaxies from flying apart. We get the amount of dark energy from how much energy it would take to accelerate the expansion of the universe at the rate we see it happening.** | 107ecf27-3a03-44d1-9f09-9ff2ca8fc42a |
6qxpxs | Why does it matter how much water is needed to produce a kg of meat? Doesn't it all go back into the water cycle again? | Sure, it does, but 'the water cycle' doesn't just revolve around Bob's Cattle farm. The fact that Bob's water eventually makes its way back to the sea doesn't mean Bob's neighbor is going to get an equivalent amount of rain, or that the people downstream from Bob are going to drink cattle pee.
We may not be reducing the amount of water *on the entire earth* but you can still exhaust local supply of potable water, and there's not necessarily a 1 to 1 replacement 'strategy' in place by nature.
Local drinkable water may rely on expensive technologies to create (desalination) or exhaustible local sources (aquifers) and the like. You can definitely exhaust these without removing all the water from the water cycle. | dc0977b9-1790-4269-8e22-6d6c977606ef |
4jgsaf | The whole "registered Republican, Democrat or Independent" thing. | When you register to vote, you can choose which political party you want to be affiliated with. Those lists are sent to the party organizations so they can contact you, and in some states they qualify you to vote in the primary elections for those parties. It's mostly just a convenient time to sign up for party membership, since you're already thinking about the voting system.
Republican and Democrat aren't the only choices, they're just the only choices that matter. You can register with the Green Party or the American Communist Party or any other party that exists in your state (or not register with any party), but other parties aren't ever going to win a presidential election in the current system, so anyone that's not registered Democratic or Republican gets reported as an independent in the media. | 5a7c7168-6265-450d-933e-2cc7eafd95a5 |
3czm94 | why is it when you get stabbed by a pencil it leaves a blue mark forever? | You might wanna check it, because if it is there after more than a couple of weeks it means that there is probably something stuck beneath your skin.
It isnt dangerous by itself most of the time, but after some time it will be really hard to get out if you have to. | af86ab81-f2db-4a7b-8819-71e5026b8530 |
8n2ycz | How breast and bra sizes work | Heed my warning friend! I currently have 5 bras in my bureau. 1 is a 42B, 1 is a 36C, 1 is a 40D, 1 is a 42C, and for shits and giggles 1 is a 38DD. All of these fit me, all are comfortable, and all are different brands. Bra sizing is fucked. I can't just go to a store, find my 'allegedly' correct size, buy it, and expect it to fit. Don't buy your lady a bra. Instead, get a gift certificate to a lingerie boutique (a nice one, not some trashy place, ya derp), give it to your lady, and eyebrows wiggling with a charming smile ask her to go shopping together on an adventure. Panties. Sploosh. Win. | a1300363-c1d2-4c05-83a8-19b9cb506f55 |
3nfjrw | What would happen if the bombing of the Afghan hospital is in fact a war crime? Who would be punished, and how? | I'm thinking a lot of speeches, angry rants, and strongly worded emails and memos....and not much else, sadly. | 2a7a68ec-a2ba-4888-841d-af8d1015efa9 |
2yfa83 | Why are some insects like cockroaches and ants afraid of humans while others like flies and moths are not? | Because you're anthropomorphising them? It's not bravery, you're just thinking about their behaviour in human terms :)
**Cockroach:** I'm nocturnal and only come out of my burrow at night. If I can see light it means someone's dug my burrow up so I better escape and hide. **Human interpretation:** Coward!
**Ants:** If some large animal is moving around I'm going to go all crazy and run around biting things TO PROTECT THE QUEEN. **Human interpretation:** Berserker.
**Flies:** I'm active during the day and I can react so fast I can easily get out of the way of something trying to eat me. **Human interpretation:** Brave!
**Moths:** I'm camouflaged, if I don't move they can't see me. **Human interpretation:** Brave!
(Edit: Added a smiley as people are reading it in a negative tone) | e8c6bdba-1132-4570-8526-6433b9f6713f |
7i30vn | Why do tea bags say ‘Do Not Microwave’? | Because you are doing it wrong!
You are supposed to put tea into boiling water all at once, not slowly heat it up with the water. It does taste different that way.
EDIT: To be clear, you don't put tea in water while it is still boiling, you bring the water to a boil, let it cool a bit, then put it in. | 9334e13e-e0ce-4df1-81fd-537f09fc1060 |
70nqcg | Does the Surface Tension of Water change (increase/decrease), as the surface area changes? | No but the ratio of the effects of surface area can change as the volume increases.
Temperature does affect surface tension. Surface tension is a result of molecules of water forming stronger bonds with other water molecules than with air. Therefore, breaking the surface of the water requires breaking some of those bonds. The bonds between water molecules are weaker when the water molecules move around really fast and spend less time bonded - as in hot water. Once water is boiling, all of the heat energy goes to breaking the water bonds and the surface tension is zero. | ece6f70d-12d3-481c-999e-9574b0fa5c8e |
3xakaj | How are tracking numbers created and how long will it be until UPS, FedEx and USPS run out? | Tracking numbers are randomized numbers and letters, typically in a HexDec system that allows for 16 character numbers, and are typically like in UPS's case, 18 characters long following the 2 character preamble.. This equates to a combination that is as follows:
18^18 = DAMN! or 39,346,408,075,296,537,575,424. That alone give you so many different numbers, that it is impossible to run out of tracking numbers.
For USPS, they use a 20 digit Number system with the first 4 numbers predesignated.
so 4 + 10^18 = 1000000000000000004. That is exactly 1 Sextillion combinations.
Tl;DR; we can track everything.
edit for the UPS snob at the bottom. | 138e14a8-566d-4796-b064-fdab19a06ce0 |
4cjjnr | Does Space Smell Like Anything? | apparently space *does* have a distinctive smell, it has been described as being similar to seared steak, hot metal, and welding fumes.
> It is hard to describe this smell; it is definitely not the olfactory equivalent to describing the palette sensations of some new food as "tastes like chicken." The best description I can come up with is metallic; a rather pleasant sweet metallic sensation. It reminded me of my college summers where I labored for many hours with an arc welding torch repairing heavy equipment for a small logging outfit. It reminded me of pleasant sweet smelling welding fumes. That is the smell of space.
[here](_URL_0_) is an article where some astronauts discuss the phenomenon | 104f7962-954a-44c1-a9d7-15c4ead0276f |
30nxli | Why does a candle make smoke when blown out but not when it's lit? | The smoke you see is the vaporized wax that is the actual fuel of the candle's flame. | 00d7978b-5c42-4941-b5f3-604ee9058f9f |
5hs0gg | How does magnetic shielding work? | A property of magnetism is that it can bend electric fields. So, magnetic shield is used to bend electric fields in such a way that they are largely contained, instead of allowed to propagate freely and potentially cause interference. | f4f471b2-80da-4cfd-a901-31254ad8cb8c |
p8o87 | the shower water is sometimes too hot and sometimes never hot enough. I don't share a hot water heater. Why is the temperature inconsistent? | if you're only using one handle to dial in the temp you may just have variations due to pressure. in my experience, the higher the water pressure, the more the cold water. since both cold water and hot water are combining in the shower head, the cold might be displacing the hot. if you reduce the pressure (don't put it on "full blast") you may get more hot water /at least, that's been the case for me. | 6bf5f2ef-5465-48f3-b397-43e123b01ee5 |
3ehpcq | What happens to your body when you get winded? | You know how walking uphill is harder than walking downhill? Or, how it's more difficult to stretch a spring, and it snaps back to place on its own? For the same reasons, inhaling is more difficult than exhaling. Not so difficult that it requires a lot of effort, but a part of the equation is that empty lungs is your breathing cycles neutral mode.
The larger part of the equation is you need to understand what happens when you hold your breath. You know the burning feeling that is telling you to breathe? It's not as much that your body is oxygen-starved, but that it is desperate to expel the carbon dioxide accumulating in your lungs.
People get winded because a sudden jolt to the body empties the lungs very quickly. It's a spooky feeling because you stop breathing, but you don't feel like you are suffocating (no oxygen in your lungs means that carbon dioxide isn't building-up). To begin the breathing cycle again, you need to inhale forcefully because your diaphram (the muscles that make your lungs inflate and deflate) is quite content to sit empty. Your normal inhale isn't enough. A person recognizes they aren't breathing, get alarmed, and it's only when they gasp, or start to panic and suck-in hard, that the cycles starts again. It's confusing and jarring. | 42c09277-a794-4cf9-a2b2-ed253c416af4 |
1kkj9m | Why couldn't I rob a bank, serve my jail time, then just have all the money to spend? | Judges always file a restitution order. Which means you are required to pay back what you stole. | 9b3bae63-cb6a-4d61-ad8c-a94f454590d9 |
24c1ua | Why do we shelter kids from what the real world is like instead of teaching them the reality of it? | Because life in reality is extremely complicated. Children's ability to comprehend the world around them is something that develops gradually as they age. So we simplify things greatly at first and gradually expose the child to the real world more and more as they become more capable of understanding it. | dea78f85-59d6-45eb-9c8c-fbadc06e055d |
2rmyhi | What's the difference between semiotics and structuralism? | Easy version: Semiotics is the study of signs and signifiers. Structuralism is a critical framework built on a particular theory of semiotics. | 42aebf15-a157-43eb-8b6e-c36c9a84e7a4 |
784a4d | Why isn't a dimensionless number negligible in a calculation if it theoretically has no physical properties | The numbers don't have to have a physical correspondence to nevertheless reflect physical reality.
Pi is not negligible, it's a derived ratio. It's required to make the math work. It represents a relationship between certain quantities. That's the whole point of these constants - they were determined based on relationships we understand, and using them is fundamental to making the numbers some out correctly. | ff5b16c5-5d2a-413f-9af8-fddba639afa1 |
5a0dif | Why is it sometimes easier to remember a word in one's second language? | As someone bilingual, I'd say that sometimes some words more accurately represent what you're trying to say in one language than the other. More accurate! | b5f3869f-20c3-4d5b-bece-ef6b0065226a |
31l8ff | Why does a video on YouTube take so much longer to load than a porn video that's 4 times as long? | The porn company knows you're not gonna last the extra 5 seconds it takes a video to load. | 13bc0706-fa1d-4464-bcc8-fa947d16eb7c |
3zxbqm | What's causing the global markets to drop so rapidly? | directly? people wanting to sell their assets
and reasons for that are plenty: economical situation, evaluation of different assets, wars, trust and many other different things | 0686c3c4-4820-4897-b933-a13df61c5395 |
3t0tqv | Why dogs thump their feet when they enjoy getting scratched. | it's an involuntary reaction. Kinda like your own patellar reflex (as in when you get tapped on the knee and your leg kicks.
It's called the scratch reflex, when something irritates the skin in that area the dog just tries to scratch it. The thought is that it developed as a way to help counter insects and other irritation.
Fun fact, vets actually use it to diagnose nerve issues, just like your doctor will see if your leg kicks. | b1f5e054-7148-4319-a3f4-5e2c06fb56b5 |
5kr43x | When a scammer gives me the account number to transfer funds, why can't we just notify the police and have them arrested? | Aside from the fact that you have no proof (unless you record all your phone calls, which is a whole set of legal rules in and of itself), they are often in other countries. You're asking for international law enforcement cooperation (often between countries with little framework for such cooperation) on no solid evidence for a crime that any fool can commit. | 391f9b51-b760-48b4-8294-d1093435d7a7 |
6mj0qv | Why are there so many sub genres of music that are never heard of or talked about? | Everything ever has way more depth than you would expect. There's enthusiasts for everything that can talk for hours about a small aspect that you never gave a second thought to. Like favorite text editor, wine vintage, or metallurgic composition of a knife. | ea235f6e-2112-4dea-842f-674b8b51227d |
1pee3i | According to people who blame the Jews for killing Jesus--why do they even think that Jesus' death was a bad thing? | Because it's an easy justification for being mean to the Jews, which was "in vogue" for about two millennia.
Anyway, it isn't really that they *killed* Jesus, it's that they rejected his teachings. As you may or may not know, Jesus was targeted by a group of Jewish religious leaders for spreading what they considered blasphemy, and they turned him over to Pontius Pilate who decided to execute him (they told him Jesus was plotting against Rome, which was total bullshit).
The big issue that some Christians have with that is the "considering Jesus's teachings blasphemy" part. If you believe that Christ is the Messiah and Son of God, someone else calling Christ's teachings blasphemy is blasphemous itself, in a weird circular way. | 1e3c95a2-923b-49eb-b2c6-adb78679e96f |
14h4wl | If Girl Scout Cookies were created as a fundraising tool why are they only sold in a really small window of time each year? | If its only available in short supply/period of time, you get to jack up the price, making it very cost effective. | d46d77d9-70ae-4f30-bd74-ba48ca06636c |
8wjrga | How often has obesity genetical factors, and how easy it it to battle it? | Genetics determine where you store fat and have some say in how prone you are to compulsive eating, but ultimately the base metabolic rates are about the same for each person.
If you eat less than you burn, you'll lose weight. Genetics cannot defy basic thermodynamics.
Consider that the obesity rates have skyrocketed in the last few decades. If it was genetic that would imply that a "fat gene" appeared and spread through the entire population in just a single generation, which isn't possible. | e7094090-e009-49da-8c88-0a4b4c1c572a |
44020h | How does the "one country, two systems" method of goverance work between Hong Kong and China? Are citizens of Hong Kong also technically citizens of China? | People from Hong Kong are not just "technically" citizens of China--Hong Kong is now considered an integral part of the territory of China. However, the Chinese government has committed to granting Hong Kong autonomy for at least fifty years, meaning that the local government has more power than other local governments and Hong Kong does not have to follow the strict economic laws the other parts of the country do. | a3a5c5bc-e930-45ba-8031-0100041669fb |
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