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5jvlev | How are urls created, and also how are they made so they dont match another url? | each url (not including the sub directory) links to exactly one ip address (as determined by your dns server, different people using different dns, may be directed to different ips). this ip address determines the webserver which will serve the webpage.
[server].[domain].[top level domain]/(optional)[sub directory]
default server is usually www. although the domain host can choose to have others for specific pages within the same domain such as, _URL_2_, _URL_0_, _URL_1_, etc etc.
domain is domain, such as reddit, google, microsoft, etc.
top level domain. .com = commercial site, org means non profit, net means network, but don't have to follow these guidelines. some specalized ones such as .edu .gov .cn .ru etc are reserved for educational entities, us government, china, russia, etc.
sub directories are just directories inside the webserver. most webpages front page are served on the root directory | 4c8a315d-fefe-4db4-88ce-b71062dae7da |
17u9mg | Why do some people feel more comfortable in the city, while others are more at home in the country? | preference.... I am not aware of any specific cause.
The human brain rebels against monotony and sameness so that might have something to do with it. | 756c7b89-7f26-40f8-87d4-4a59a8034e3d |
2rhga7 | What is the difference between a Thesis/dissertation and a journal article? | Thesis/Dissertation is a compilation of a scientific study or studies conducted by a Masters or PhD student. In order to complete their degree these students must follow the thesis guidelines set up by their department. A thesis is usually long, ~100 pages or more. A masters thesis in the USA/Canada takes 2-3 years. A PhD takes about 4-5 years. Some programs require additional university courses to be taken in order to complete the degree, some do not. A PhD student is supposed to make a novel contribution to their field. In a STEM field a student will ask a question based on an observation, and then design an experiment to test that hypothesis. This is done under the supervision of a professor who guides the student through their studies making sure that their question meets a number of required criteria by both the department, the university, and good science. A student might ask a broad based question or very a fined tuned one, this depends on their field of study and their supervisors goals. Some supervisors are very involved in their students work, others are not. Some require students to conduct experiments within the exact field that the supervisor is studying, others don't mind if you take a broader approach and branch out into other relevant areas of study.
A journal article like a mini thesis, same steps (observation, hypothesis, testing, results, conclusion) - except anyone can publish a journal article. An undergraduate student all the way to a tenured professor. A journal article might be anywhere between a couple of pages long to about 30. They are not usually longer than this but it depends on the journal one is trying to publish in. A journal article is submitted to a journal with a relevant field. It is given to an editor and a couple of reviewers - these reviewer are typically individuals who have earned their Ph.D within that field. They review the article and make suggestions for how to improve it (either the content, the methods, the analysis, or the conclusions). If the journal likes the article they will publish it. After this peer-review process anyone can access the findings providing they have access to the journal itself. This process can take months to years depending on the turn-over rate of the journal itself.
For example, my friend got their masters in primatology. He applied to graduate school, was accepted, and began to research a question that was relevant to his supervisors field of study (vocalizations in primates). He designed an observational experiment on a group of wild primates (that his supervisor worked with), and defended this design in front of a committee. It was a approve and so he was given the ok to travel to a tropical country and conduct his observational experiment on this group of wild primates. Eight months later and he had finished collecting his data. He returned home, analyzed his data using fancy statistics and then compiled his findings into a thesis. His thesis consisted of an introduction to the topic, his hypotheses, methods, results, and then conclusions. He defended his work in front of his committee again and passed. How he has his Masters degree but is working towards publishing his findings. In order to do so, he is turning his 100+ page thesis into two publications based on two different hypotheses that he asked in his thesis. His publications will be of similar format to his thesis (introduction, hypotheses, methods, results, discussion and then conclusion). He will be subjected to more scrutiny as he moves through the publication process. If he is patient he will turn his thesis into two publications in relevant journals within his field. His supervisor also gets to put their name on his journal articles because they help fund and guide him through his research. This is part of the collaborative process of science, and why you might see many names on a published article. | 84588c45-9042-4872-8436-5ff90a749b57 |
1z8d41 | Is there any risk in snooping around the darknet? | By definition, you can't.
The darknets are networks that are no longer accessible to the public Internet. Cut off physically by changes in the network.
If we are talking about the Deep Web, probably not. A lot of the Deep Web is really standard stuff, like one time dynamic pages for buying plane tickets. As well, with the Deep Web you can't get a result unless you know precisely what you're asking for [querying] or have the authentication required [login walls]. As a result, it isn't quite browseable in the same sense, with brief views given to us in the course of our standard use.
If we are talking the Underweb, like Tor, maybe. There's lots of rather trivial things on there, pirated movies and games, and then there's the illegal stuff. If you aren't actively looking for the illegal stuff, then no. Chances are you're in the clear. If you are though, then the authorities might want to talk to you if they can unmask your identity -- Tor is known to have FBI-operated nodes for the distinct purpose of identifying criminal traffic. | d64c1baa-a61d-4bce-87b0-69bd279ad053 |
4a506h | Why did it take so long for FTC to accuse Vemma of creating a pyramid scheme? | Many pyramid schemes masquerade as legitimate MLMs. The structure is identical, so just because it has that kind of structure isn't enough for the government to file charges. They need *evidence* that something illegal is happening. | 51a81356-ab30-4ea6-ab9e-94fd9450c93c |
39hqdp | Why does it feel normal to sit back down in your chair, but if you sit in someone else's it feels warm? Why can't we feel our own butt warms? | When you sit in a chair it will change to the temperature of your body. So you wouldn't know the difference because the temperatures would get to the same degree as you currently are. Other people's body may be at a higher temperature at the time so you will notice the difference as the chair would be as warm as the person was. | 8c86f2bf-e040-4a9f-a225-c173e723d99c |
1pjgpv | How do Blimps work? | Blimps will have a second gas bag in the envelope that can be filled with air, this increases the density of the helium making the blimp heavier. Helium can also be vented if the blimp needs to descend rapidly.
Blimps can also have variable pitch engines that can be pointed up or down - some blimps are slightly heavier than air and need constant engine thrust to maintain altitude | 5c9f89a6-d464-4d13-97e9-792d71fe1cc6 |
41bkun | If money or politics were no object, how would we best protect the power grid from a solar storm, EMP or attack? | > No matter how remote the possibility, any chance is too high to leave it unprotected.
Really? What about a chance smaller than the chance humanity just gets wiped out outright?
But to answer your question, burying it underground would protect against just about any currently available form of attack - except you said *zero* risk so we'd have to protect against every possible form of attack, even the ones we don't know about yet, which is impossible.
Solar storms, at least, are pretty easy, you just don't run long uninterrupted power lines. Simply putting breakers along the lines would probably do the job of stopping induced current. | a24e24f1-9be5-48d0-ab97-888da64c8d42 |
1z6tio | Why are people able to get your IP from your Skype name but not from other things? | If you've got a direct connection to someone (through a client like Skype), they can see the IP address you're using. Other things like Facebook aren't a direct connection between users; both people access the server to see what's been posted to it.
It's a question of who has access to the information. If I ran a message board, I could allow administrators to see the IP addresses of everyone posting. Or I could publish those next to a post if I wanted to. The people with whom you're speaking are advising you avoid direct connections with people who might want to do your system harm. | e0fae1cb-1bfe-44ff-a3ae-862b51d853f4 |
1iwyjw | How and when did the world universally agree to use the same basis for time (24 hours, each of 60 minutes, etc) | The use of a 24 hour clock relates back to the Ancient Egyptians (and relates to why there are 60 minutes in an hour).
Thanks to documented evidence of the Egyptians' use of sundials, most historians credit them with being the first civilization to divide the day into smaller parts. The first sundials were simply stakes placed in the ground that indicated time by the length and direction of the resulting shadow. As early as 1500 B.C., the Egyptians had developed a more advanced sundial. A T-shaped bar placed in the ground, this instrument was calibrated to divide the interval between sunrise and sunset into 12 parts. This division reflected Egypt's use of the duodecimal system--the importance of the number 12 is typically attributed either to the fact that it equals the number of lunar cycles in a year or the number of finger joints on each hand (three in each of the four fingers, excluding the thumb), making it possible to count to 12 with the thumb. The next-generation sundial likely formed the first representation of what we now call the hour. Although the hours within a given day were approximately equal, their lengths varied during the year, with summer hours being much longer than winter hours.
Officially, it was at the International Meridian Conference (October 1884, Washington DC) that Lewis M. Rutherfurd proposed:
*"That this universal day is to be a mean solar day; is to begin for all the world at the moment of mean midnight of the initial meridian, coinciding with the beginning of the civil day and date of that meridian; and is to be counted from zero up to twenty-four hours."*
The conference adopted the resolution and that's why we have a 24 hour clock.
But the issue of why we have 60 minutes in an hour has a foggier answer. Although it is unknown why 60 was chosen, it is notably convenient for expressing fractions, since 60 is the smallest number divisible by the first six counting numbers as well as by 10, 12, 15, 20 and 30.
So that is why our system of time consists of 24 hours, each of which are made up of 60 minutes.
(EDIT: Citations)
[Scientific American](_URL_0_)
[Wiki Article](_URL_1_) | 94a679c5-f5d2-4914-b935-2bf2909c77b0 |
3lcu8n | Why don't politicians get charged with libel when many of them knowingly lie or misrepresent facts? | For a start, lying isn't necessarily libellous. You can say all sorts of untruths without defaming anyone.
Second...if you sued a politician for lying, just thing of the exposure you'd be giving their arguments? Money couldn't buy that sort of airtime (well, OK, in the US it probably can).
Third - some countries like the UK specifically exclude party manifestos from breach-of-promise rules. IIRC in the UK this came as a result of someone doing what you suggested.
So - apart from not working, being counterproductive and they'd just move the goalposts anyway, no reason at all! | 135ef50a-66a8-4220-9dc5-292d8c91c751 |
1kl75w | How does the network know where my mobile phone is? | Your cell phone connects to the local tower and identifies itself uniquely. Calls directed to your number go through that tower to you. | af2f867b-9ae9-4daa-9855-7c36cd7ebf41 |
1q6evm | How come heat seeking missiles don't go straight to the sun? | Older versions of the AIM-9 Sidewinder did routinely lock on to the Sun or clouds, sending them ballistic. Newer versions have corrected this by adding optical filters to the sensor to only allow certain bands of infrared energy into the sensor for detection. This same system is used to help defeat flare countermeasures. | 39a439fb-1e8a-4e0f-979e-73fd3a5b9c71 |
2h0be5 | Why don't countries apart from the US have manned moon landings? | I think the US sent a man to the moon more for national pride than for any practical purpose. JFK declared America's intent to complete this mission in order to send a message to the Soviets and the world that the US was a superior nation.
Today, it's less about pride and more about science. It makes no sense to send manned flights, because unmanned flights are cheaper and more versatile, and can do things that humans can't, like stay there for long periods without food. | b2dad25f-87cf-48b9-958c-0f8705d9051e |
7d9b3p | why our eyes create pink visual stains after we look at strong light? | There are multiple ways that our eyes adapt to different light conditions. One of the ways this automatically occurs is due to the way the light receptors in the back of the eye work.
In each light receptor cells are molecules called retinal (with an A, not retinol), which are the ones that react with light and eventually cause a signal to be sent to your brain. The act of being hit with a photon of light and activating the signal makes the retinal molecule inactive, and it needs to be reactivated by an enzyme before it can work again.
In intense light, all the retinal molecules quickly become inactivated, and very few are available to pick up new light signals. When you return to dark conditions, it takes a while for the retinal molecules to become reactivated, which is why you are somewhat blind for a while until your eyes adjust.
The second reason you see stains is because of the way your brain processes visual signals. It quickly adjusts to different light conditions as the new "normal" and picks up contrasting signals as if there is something there, even though it's just the absence of light. When you look at a strong light, then away, it looks like there is a dark spot of the same shape until your brain figures out the new "normal". | 71766662-8ca4-4347-9d78-58ae381a603c |
6bahs1 | How do people hack into an intranet and why do we need anti-virus systems in an intranet? | There are a lot of ways someone might "hack into an intranet" but a simple way to understand why something might get through the barriers surrounding an intranet is to consider USB thumb drives. A virus on a thumb drive might easily be introduced within the network even with the strongest of barriers between the internet and intranet. | 86621d9a-ae2e-4bd7-9d0f-6746d9707f7d |
ou3ro | Why do both of these images exist? | They're both dishonest.
The first image takes the national-debt as a fixed amount -- probably the debt held by the public if I place the number correctly -- and says "this is how much all presidents in history before Obama borrowed." That's blatently false; we have borrowed a good deal more than that but we've paid down a good chunk of it with high tax rates, particularly after WWII.
It then compares that value to the FORECAST increase in the national debt caused by all US policies (Obama's or otherwise) during Obama's term. Some of those forecasts are based on worst-case-scenario numbers and many of them are the result of policies put into place by the Bush, Clinton, and Reagan administrations.
So the first image compares apples to motor-oil, really.
The second is also dishonest. It portrays the percentage increase in debt under each president. So if (and I'm making these numbers up) Clinton ended his term with $5 Trillion in debt and Bush increased it by 115% that would mean that Bush increased the debt by $5.75 Trillion, bringing the total to $10.75 Trillion. Obama could then increase that by 16%, which would be $1.72 Trillion. Clearly the use of percentages makes the difference between Bush and Obama's debt increases seem much bigger than it really is.
Furthermore, note that the Obama figure does not consider the future of his Presidency but it does compare him to the full terms of other Presidents. It would be more honest to portray it as an average value per year.
Of course, all of those ignore the fact that the economic realities facing Clinton (boom times) and Obama (neigh-on-depression) dramatically influenced the debt. | 0f0b8c13-e90b-4049-844e-382757df539c |
3e79ug | When property prices in NYC are as crazy as they are, how come there's so much social housing in prime areas? Can the occupants buy their homes at a discount? How does a person become eligible for social housing in uptown Manhattan/downtown Brooklyn? | Laws on the books from the Great Depression era were set up to protect renters from huge rent increases. Many folks were renting apartments (think of the 1950's TV shows like the Honeymooners and I Love Lucy) and laws were put in place to protect the 'poor' and working class voting majority from the 'rich' property owners.
Now you have 'rent controlled' and 'rent stabilized' apartments, mostly in Manhattan and Brooklyn that cost say, $300 or $1000 respectively, per month while the similar units on the open market can cost 10-20x the price.
Note that these units and the 'rights' to super cheap rents are inherited and make up 20% or more of the total housing stock. Folks who pay $300 a month for 2-bedroom apartment in SoHo may use this as their 2nd apartment and really live outside the city but get to keep an apartment that costs much less than monthly automobile parking. This under-utilized housing has the effect of increasing the demand for the 80% or so of the housing that is available to the average person and serves to increase prices further.
The whole system should really be phased out as it is an anachronism from nearly a century ago, but it's tough taking back benefits from folks who have come to believe that it is their family inheritance. | 2fe690eb-f8d6-460d-b2cf-6371c217e9af |
5nluom | Why are final seasons/episodes of shows often done/received poorly? | Last seasons are often bad because the show has run out of ideas, their ratings are falling, so they have to try something new to breath new life into the show. When it works, you keep watching, when it doesn't, you get a bad last season.
It also has a lot to do with the cast. Ashton Kutcher and Topher Grace were the two most important characters to *That 70s Show*, without them it was greatly diminished.
Last episodes are tricky because expectations are high, and often differ between the fans. If you liked Tracy (the mother) but didn't like Robin, a mid-season episode of *HIMYM* the features Robin wouldn't bother you so much. But a season finale where Robin lives happily ever after and Tracy gets screwed, no so much.
Plus, the creators are on the spot to be creative. A lot of shows end with a "and the all lived happily ever after, the end." That's ok for some shows, but a lot of creators was something more, especially for shows like *Dexter* and *Breaking Bad*, where happily ever after doesn't fit. That means taking risks, and often, the risks don't pan out.
Finally, getting that perfect, tie up all the loose ends in a completely satisfying and appropriate end is really hard. I think that was the deal with the much maligned ending of *The Sopranos*, there was no perfect way to wrap it up, so the creators left it up in the air. | 36bcea05-a303-49e1-8b6d-872e0810ef3f |
ou3mv | Explain how recording onto the old vinyl records works. | Why should the vocals be different from the instrumental music? Vocals are made up of sound waves just the same. You are drawing a distinction which is physically meaningless. | 0ca1bf71-b587-4677-bb2c-03d27108776f |
7bb8qc | I am trying to understand why the sun sets at different times all along the west coast of the US. Sunset was at 4:53 PM today in San Diego, 5:05 PM in San Francisco, and 4:43 PM in Seattle. I am baffled: why is SF the latest but it's in the middle of California? | San Francisco is at 122.4194° W
San Diego is at 117.1611° W, so, way east of SF.
Seattle is at 122.3321° W (about the same as SF) but also much farther north where winter days are shorter. | 721d84e3-6854-48f4-8711-df116a10c352 |
k8oeu | What is Maoism? Why is Chairman Mao considered a great leader when he caused a lot of deaths? | My family is Chinese and my parents grew up during this period and almost everyone in my family and relatives dislikes him for what he had done.
My parents are pretty outspoken about their dislike for him (after all, they're Americans now) and my relatives are still in China but they don't really praise him either. From what my parents told me - they dislike him because my relatives way back when were relatively wealthy, but it is because they had a lot of land and they worked hard on that land, but when Mao came into power, they took his land my relatives had worked hard on and gave it to other people who may not know how to work the land properly and therefore my grandparents and parents grew up in poverty. They had rations for everything from even flour and salt and obviously meat and vegetables, and were hungry all the time, and both my parents had a ton of siblings, so growing up during that period wasn't the easiest. I think they only had dumplings for like Chinese New Year or something, and normally they'd just eat stuff like millet porridge and Sorghum noodles. When they were children they ahd to go to the country and work in the fields before they could go to school. Also, in schools they had to salute chairman mao and basically idolize him - it almost reminds me of Hitler and North Korea in a way.
So I guess my point is that there are chinese people who dislike him out there. | 34998b00-db81-42e4-bf94-07aa608e8580 |
5hjcf9 | Why is there a northern and southern accent in the United States? | There isn't *a* southern accent and *a* northern accent. There's a Boston accent, a couple different New York City accents, a Chicago accent that is similar to much of the Midwest, Minnesota has a distinct accent, Kentucky isn't quite the same as Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina sound a bit different from each other, East Texas sounds different than West Texas, and let's not forget the millions of Texans whose accents are influenced by the prevalence of the Spanish language in their area. Maine is different than Maryland, Baltimore has a distinct sound among Marylanders, and I'm still leaving many US accents out.
People are just different. The reason the different accents exist is the exact same reason different languages exist. When one community is isolated from another for long periods of time, slight changes start to creep into speech patterns. Remember electronically recorded and instantly broadcast speech is a new phenomenon in world history. Even dictionaries are only a couple hundred years old.
People are just different, and sometimes when you put hundreds or thousands of miles between two groups with no means of instant communication, they'll come up with different ideas for doing things. | 4e3e433e-d4d1-408a-b35b-df416c7c5160 |
3cai10 | Why do antidepressant often have depression as a side-effect? | Anti-depressants are a guessing game as far as prescribing them. You're messing with the brain my friend. There's no telling exactly how they'll affect one particular person and how they feel.
Having used them, it's hard to tell exactly what feels different sometimes. You think a strange thought that you've never thought before and wonder if it's just you or the drug. Or feel a certain way and can't tell if you actually feel that way, or if the drug makes you feel that way. Crazy stuff. | 27630402-0ee3-4cff-a8a5-52c81c66d0b4 |
45vnwr | Why does it always come down to "drink lots of fluids" when you tell the doc you gave the flu? | There's no cure for influenza once you're sick. It's a self-limiting and mild infection that your immune system will fight off, all you have to do is keep your body working long enough for it to do so. That means sleep and fluids. | 2161cb1b-3360-4446-a7b8-2374772578a4 |
7eqrci | What's a cellular automaton ? | For starters, it's not really an essential part of understanding computing. The idea came about as more of an entertaining thing to do with computers. At best, they're a footnote in the history of computing.
Take a grid. Each cell of that grid can either have a thing in it or not. Now, given some rule based on the neighboring cells, you can decide if that cell has a thing in it for the next generation.
The original example was [Conway's Game of Life](_URL_0_), the rule were fairly simple:
1. A live cell with 1 or 0 live neighbors dies of loneliness.
2. A live cell with 2 or 3 live neighbors is happy and survives.
3. A live cell with more than 3 live neighbors dies of overcrowding
4. A dead cell with exactly 3 live neighbors gets colonized with new life.
With these 4 simple rules, it turns out that surprisingly complex patterns can arise. There's a virtually limitless number of different rule sets you can come up with, all of which have different patterns of behavior. | d8c6de8c-0f2f-4a1f-a4d6-39223386abf3 |
1h7yfy | How a "double bounce" or "super bounce" on a trampoline works | Fred is going to double bounce George. As George comes down from a jump, Fred jumps in and lands right next to George. Their combined weight and momentum stretch the trampoline tighter than it would with just one of them. At the bottom, Fred hops off to the side, however the trampoline is still stretched very tight. That extra tension propels George higher than he would be able to have gone on his own. | 8db455f1-467b-427d-bd43-738297d2f94d |
1m5rm7 | What does 10th Cousin, once removed mean? | First cousins have the same grandparents. Second cousins have the same great-grandparents. Third cousins have the same great-great-grandparents. And so on.
So 10th cousins have the same great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents.
"Once removed" means that you're of different generations. For example, if Joe is my first cousin, once removed, that means Joe's grandfather is my great-grandfather. Another way to think about it is that if someone is my Nth cousin once removed, then they're Nth cousins with one of my parents. Likewise, an Nth cousin twice removed would be Nth cousins with my grandparents.
[Wikipedia has some graphs to help visualize it](_URL_0_) | 6a3c139a-5e78-4922-8ce2-56fb89ded458 |
31p5vz | Why do Jehovah Witnesses not celebrate Holidays? | exJW here. We avoided Easter because we celebrate the last supper in form of The Memorial, instead of Jesus' resurrection.
As for the rest of the main holidays, we avoided Christmas due to its roots in paganism, Halloween due to its association with the occult, and birthdays because King Herod had John the Baptist beheaded for his birthday. Also, pagan roots. | 5ff810a9-b112-4d2b-8bcd-92b3a73d5493 |
7l4lz7 | Dietary Effect on Inflammation | For one I imagine you're losing weight, which will help.
Could also be improving your microbiota, our microbiota (particularly in the gut) isn't very well understood but it's been show in research it can affect you physically and mentally(depression, anxiety etc.)
_URL_0_
Your diet is also likely decreasing your cortisol, caffeine and sugar are major contributors to that,
_URL_1_
The biggest reason is likely that you're just being more aware and self conscious of what you eat and how you treat your body. | 3e6f7ed2-c43e-41c8-869e-eda516749c42 |
2hru12 | Why do people work more hours today than we did in the 50s and 60s? What has happened to cause this? | I think it includes factors like the erosion of the middle class, stagnation in wage growth, predatory lending and insufficient welfare. I think people are over committed to debt, being paid less in real terms and are scared of losing their jobs partly due to the way the unemployed get treated.
Anybody who blames women entering the workforce are missing the point. | 6cbf476e-1828-4299-bad3-a144ace80e45 |
2pmako | Is North Korea a credible threat to the the US? Aren't these the same guys we mock mercilessly? | North Korea is not a credible threat to the US. There are a bunch of US military stationed in South Korea who could be in danger if war broke out there. NK has a large but generally poorly equipped and trained army. They could potentially cause a decent sized mess in South Korea in the early days of a war, but they would be pretty quickly defeated. The NK military does not have any reasonable power projection ability. They've got some missiles, but likely nothing capable of reaching the US, and certainly nothing with that sort of range that has been well tested and could be considered reliable. Any overt military action against the US would pretty much be suicide for the NK government.
I guess they could create more mischief via their "cyberwarfare division" or whatever they call their hacker teams. But it's pretty unlikely that they could cause serious problems that way. | a212d4c5-669d-4150-a04c-80da4014f371 |
239h9n | If computers have to follow direct commands, how can it choose things at random? | Computers usually *can't* choose things at random. Instead, they have algorithms that can generate [psuedo-random numbers](_URL_0_). This often involves seeding the number generator with various "random" factors, such as mouse movements, the current time, and/or the contents of the computer's memory, which are all unlikely to be the same the next time a "random" number is needed.
Although, with [special hardware](_URL_1_), more-truly-random numbers can be generated.
**Edit:** Also, I don't see what this has to do with living things making choices. Your choices are decidedly *not* random. If they were random, they wouldn't be choices. You don't do the mental equivalent of flipping a coin or rolling a die every time you decide something. Rather, you weigh the pros and cons, and reach an informed decision. | ca1f620a-c67c-4b2f-9721-c9dd0819a937 |
4yxp1g | Why do people say ouch even when something doesnt hurt. | It's a learned response. Different languages have different words for "ouch". You expect something to hurt so you go through the learned response. | 7e842f03-07ed-4826-b837-91d3a3ad8d1a |
3c7bsz | Why don't bands release instrumental tracks alongside their regular albums? | In most cases there just isn't enough demand to justify an instrumental release alongside the standard album. In the rare cases that it does happen there's usually a proven demand for it, either that band or the genre as a whole do well with just instrumental releases. | 9cc05a17-2d44-4f1e-94dd-171c8f7daf1d |
384omx | Why can we digest salad (Leaves etc.) but not grass? | Most of grass is made of cellulose and human digestive system is not equipped to extract energy from it. Unlike cows. Some parts of grasses can be eaten, like grains, where the glucose is stored.
Leafs have less celluloce and the sugars are stored in a form more suitable for humans. | d129a381-ad2d-47bc-9e19-48808204a0b7 |
1rdwzo | What did they do before eye-glasses? What if people had horrible vision? | They were said to be blind or have clouded vision. In some societies they were taken care of or depending on their vision could be mostly self sufficient. In others they were killed or left to die for being weak. | 477ae222-2558-4948-966d-73b4774ef9e2 |
67rgqm | What makes a CD an EP and not an LP or album? | EP and LP are terms that originated with the technology of vinyl records.
An LP is a 12" vinyl record which when played at 33-1/3 rpm gave you ~22 minutes per side -- they were able to stretch that a little bit but not too much.
A 'single' was a 7" vinyl record with a bigger hole in the middle (it was developed by a different company who originally wanted to sell a different player) which when played at 45 rpm gave you a single song on each side of 3-5 minutes (later stretched when singles got longer).
An 'EP' was in the middle. The format varied but often it was a 7" record but played at 33-1/3 RPM instead of 45 RPM so you could fit perhaps 10 minutes on each side.
In the industry, the format ceased to matter after a while, an EP became synonymous with a 3-6 song release. Whenever a group is inspired enough to write more than a single and its B-side but not inspired enough to write a full album they could release something in the middle and call it an EP. | 91708ebc-ccf1-4f00-a1d5-cc421b0a0938 |
6qi35d | Why are Camillia Bowles and Kate Middleton Duchesses and not Princesses? | It's slightly complex. This is close, if I think, but maybe not exactly right.
There are basically two kinds of princes: A Prince of the United Kingdom is an honor granted by the sovereign to her sons and grandsons (and now, great-grandsons). They are addressed by their first names, and a 'the.' "The Prince William," "the Prince Charles."
Separately, there is the title of Prince of Wales, a peerage customarily held by the heir to the throne, as it is now. The holder is addressed as _____, Prince of ______. "Charles, Prince of Wales."
To make it more confusing, royal family members are often given other titles, usually named as Dukes when they get married.
The wife of a peer is may use the feminine version of her husband's title: the wife of the Duke of Somesuch is the Duchess of Somesuch, the wife of the Prince of Wales is the Princess of Wales. That does not extend to the wife of a Prince of the United Kingdom, since that's not a peerage, and the title is linked to their name, only. The wife of the Prince Billybob is "the Princess Billybob."
Accordingly, Diana was both "Diana, Princess of Wales" and "the Princess Charles," and used the former. Camilla is, actually, also Camilla, Princess of Wales, and "the Princess Charles," but chooses not to use describe herself as a princess, because it's so strongly associated with Diana. Since her husband is also the Duke of Cornwall, she calls herself the Duchess of Cornwall.
Prince William is *not* the Prince of Wales, he's only the Prince William. Kate would have to be "the Princess William" to use that title, which isn't favored. But he is the Duke of Cambridge, so she is the Duchess of Cambridge. When the Queen dies, and Charles becomes King, William will become the Prince of Wales, and then she will be Catherine, Princess of Wales. | 1d32122f-5dbf-45d9-b393-9386d4fef731 |
718og5 | Does cooling a sealed bottle/can of soda and then letting it come back to room temperature cause it to lose carbonation? | No.
The sealed bottle or can is much closer to an enclosed system than an open container - it can stay very well carbonated for months. It would be a reasonable simplification to say that the carbonation hasn't changed at all.
However, there is another property that is important, Solubility. When you open up the can, the drink itself will lose carbonation due to relatively low levels of CO2 compared to the container it was stored in as time goes on. When the drink is colder, CO2 (and other gases) are more soluble. So, as the temperature increases, there is less dissolved CO2, which likely causes the impression that the drink was less carbonated to begin with. | 98b970f9-dd34-42b9-81bf-561bd55ea4fe |
6ab8jh | How do dressmakers/tailors make garments bigger or take them out? | Clothes are made from several pieces seamed together. Seams are usually created by folding the edges of the pieces over in a complicated way and sewed over. The way the pieces are folded on the edges depeond on what kind of seam you want to create (hold firmly / have a little flexibility / comfort on the inside / plethora of other parameters ... ).
When taylor makes the clothes bigger he cuts the thread and undoes the seam. then he refolds it a bit differently. There is almost always a bit more cloth in the seam than is necessery so the taylor can fold the seam in such way that the clothes would be bigger. If there is not enough material the taylor can put a wedge of material in between the pieces. So at first there was cloth - seam - cloth, now there would be cloth - seam - added material - seam - cloth. | 9011f0eb-893c-4b67-953d-79964620a9d9 |
1o5v7r | When, why and how did Monday through Friday become a classic work week, with weekends Saturday and Sunday? | Unions pushed for a standard 40 hour work week with 2 days off. | 0c892d65-95b3-481a-968a-d1cb0a40239f |
1w3f6a | Farting during physical activities | This is not a normal physiological state. You may have some abnormal intestinal flora which cause more gas, and the effect is potentially pronounced by the greater rate of metabolism your body experiences after physical exertion. You should consult a family doctor or gastroenterologist regarding these symptoms, however. | a0ae3910-a8b3-4e1a-b125-2877b8713a2a |
6j60fs | Other then the large influx of cash from the IPO (I get that reason), what are other reasons a company would want to go public? | I'll use Uber as an example and make up numbers.
Two guys start a company. The company really catches on, but it is expensive to grow and they really aren't making much or any profit. The two guys own this company that they could sell for $1 billion, but they live on $100K/year salaries. $100K might seem like good money, but a person might want to live larger than that if they own a company worth $1 billion.
If they do an IPO, they can sell 90% of the company for $900 million, that's $450 million each. Awesome, now they can live large because they have converted most of their ownership of the company to cash. Spending $20 million/year is a lot larger lifestyle than $100K/year.
So, a year or two later the investors who own 90% of the company decide to get rid of the original guys. Oh, it sucks for them to be out of a job, but they still have their $450 million each AND their 10% of this growing company. Don't feel too bad about the guy who lost his job. | 734e7d4c-42ec-4380-a008-90863264f555 |
1lezac | - Why do motorcycles only have manual transmission motors? | Motorcycles with automatic transmissions exist. Perhaps you don't see as many as you live in a society where people who ride motorcycles are the sort who want power and control, or are cost-conscious, both of which manual transmissions have an advantage.
Also, there isn't anything about a standard motor which makes it 'manual' or 'automatic', the transmission is a separate piece which transmits motor power into the system which drives the wheels. | 322f0bbf-7249-4279-a43d-e74b974edbef |
8qrjmh | Why scientists can date the age of Earth, but not the Egyptian pyramids or the Sphinx? | Radiometric dating works by comparing the ratio of isotopes in an object now to a known reference ratio at the object's inception. Each element has a different useful range of applicability based on the half-life of the decaying isotope, with increasing error and eventually uselessness outside that range. C14, for example, is only useful out to about 60,000 years. In the case of dating the Earth, it was actually the Uranium -- > Lead decay which was used to determine the age, based on the content of these isotopes in the oldest known zircon minerals in rocks found in Australia and Canada.
As far as the Egyptian artifacts go, carbon dating only really works on objects which contain(ed) organic material. Dating the stone used in the construction of the pyramids and the Sphinx would of course tell you how old the rock is, but not when these objects were constructed. | d34016d3-6ff7-4590-8088-90c953598cbf |
42aonq | Is there any biological significance to "dating your mother"? | Not sure, but one could surmise there is an evolutionary aspect. "I know my mother was able to support and rear a child so a woman similar to her would have a higher likelihood of doing the same". | 70bb63e1-a9a9-4c62-8c6a-bc354cec1c16 |
5csx7b | Whats that feeling when you're about to fall asleep that everyrhing feels small and heavy? | Could you be describing [Alice in Wonderland syndrome](_URL_1_)? I used to get this pretty often when I was a kid. Not sure if this is what you're describing but a "fucked up" feeling when on the brink of falling asleep meets the criteria.
The exact cause isn't known. Basically it's a disturbance in perceptions, such as perception of time, proprioception (your sense of where your body is in space), sound (to me, very quiet sounds seemed horribly loud in a sinister way), size, and distance. The state can apparently be triggered by migraines, lack of sleep, the Epstein-Barr virus (the virus that causes infectious mononucleosis), something else, or nothing identifiable.
People have discussed similar experiences on here before, at length [\(first\)](_URL_0_) [\(second)](_URL_2_). | ae4cc898-bae2-4b6b-bc87-d678dd045d67 |
2p5cm1 | Why do we sometimes remember dreams days or even weeks later? | That's probably a case of confabulation, where your brain makes plausible sounding lies to fill in a memory gap. The tricky part about confabulation is that you can only notice this when other people point out contradictory facts. | 4d6ab927-77d6-41cc-a5c6-c4329c137a2a |
6wz2ut | How did Lani Sarem and Handbook for Mortals "game" the NYT Bestseller list? | Usually the author or publisher buys the copies. The trick used to be that the NYTimes (or other list makers) don't record every sale to create the best seller lists, rather they sampled certain bookstores and it wasn't too hard to figure out which ones were the sampled ones and then buy lots of copies of a certain book at just the sampled bookstores.
Today, there are services that do a better job (and book sales are much lower) so a reasonable marketing budget is enough to buy enough books to make a best seller, especially in a less popular catagory.
Think of it this way, if a publisher or author wanted to spend $100,000 on marketing, would they be better off spending all $100,000 on ads for a new book, or spend $50,000 buying the book (then give the copies to the fan club in a few years) and $50,000 on ads for the now NY Times best seller? | 3f36aad5-6881-4a95-ae15-186fb7cab93f |
2gg0p1 | why is the Scottish independence referendum positioned as neck and neck in the polls, whereas the bookmakers odds suggest the opposite? | I expect that the odds are down to a significant number of people betting the outcome will be 'No'. Odds aren't just calculated by looking at what will *probably* happen, but also by the amount of money already taken in by people betting. If the odds were, say, both even (which is what the polls suggest), and a disproportionate number of people bet on 'no', then if 'no' is the outcome, the bookmaker will lose out significantly. By stacking these odds, they can encourage people to bet the other way. | 12b60c21-32e8-4abc-930b-43781e5cbd6e |
465iny | Is there a difference legal or otherwise between "sponsoring" a politician or bill vs a bribe? | Sponsoring legislation is the term for when a member of Congress introduces a bill, it has nothing to do with money, bribery or corruption. | e11cba47-4601-47e0-bb04-074ffc4b6c0e |
3fbtmp | What exactly IS Citizen's United, and why is it bad? | Citizens United itself is a nonprofit organization that helps conservative candidates win elections. That's not important. What is important is that when Citizens United tried to broadcast an anti Hillary video before the Democratic primary, they were told they weren't allowed. This started the Supreme Court case Citizens United v. The Federal Election Commission. It ruled that *prohibiting* organizations from "broadcasting electioneering [which is working actively for a candidate or party] communications within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary " is unconstitutional. Many people think that this gives those organizations more power and control in DC than the average person does. | 06a297e2-6aac-46f1-adbc-5ec85f2f5c0b |
6o44x0 | How do all those many different anti-virus companies, even fairly obscure ones, have such huge but mostly similar databases of virus footprints? Do they get them from some common source? | Unfortunately I have never been able to remember the correct name, but there is an agreement to share virus information between "legitimate" anti malware companies. The exact definition of what defines a legitimate company, and how quickly to share the files has been debated a lot so I used to just refer to it as the quango whilst I was working for one of them.
But also it is really easy to find new malware, just hang out on file sharing sites and look for the latest movie or tv show, or "cracked" software, and there is a good chance that the majority of the results you will find are actually just malware. | 141b6716-7762-421c-8a60-a28d9e0afebd |
3qczyl | zombies (computing) | Zombies are DEAD processes. They can not be 'kill' (You cannot kill the DEAD). All processes eventually die, and when they do they become zombies. They consume almost no resources, which is to be expected because they are dead! The reason for zombies is so the zombie's parent (process) can retrieve the zombie's exit status and resource usage statistics. The parent signals the operating system that it no longer needs the zombie by using one of the wait() system calls.
From _URL_0_ | 4d116360-c8d8-46bd-aba8-b4a54c464639 |
1t5nt2 | Humble bundles.. and how it works from the game developers' perspective. Also.. how much does each dev get from a bundle? | Not sure about the first question, but the amount the developers get is determined by the buyers themselves. When you buy a bundle from the site you can choose how to split the money between all the developers, the charities and the humble bundle site. | baeafd05-f767-4bda-af0a-cd88ee522f33 |
zoxa9 | Why is it that on most fans, the switch is ordered as off, high, medium, and low? | When you turn the fan on, the motor that powers the fan is running at max speed. When you turn the fan to medium or low, the motor is slowed down. Running the fan at the maximum speed of the motor is more efficient and the fan will last longer since the motor does not have to adjust to the increased power flow as you go from low to high.
There is not a lot of strain on the motor when you turn the fan on, as the current flows without any limitation, and when you turn the power off, the fan stops on it's own with no adjustment of the speed of the motor. When you turn the speed of the fan down, the loss of current slows the fan down. Again, no strain on the motor. | 09105b1b-2c7f-4aaa-a0c6-1e0b1ddd5ca4 |
3mwik5 | Why does the Black Lives Matter movement not protest black on black violence in Chicago? | Because the purpose of the movement is to bring attention to the high ratio of black victims of police brutality. Black victims of police violence are often overlooked and their stories disappear. The movement is geared toward bringing this issue to light and helping to end it. Not every organization can work on every issue. | 1aeb3d98-3348-4943-b058-f3d2fa2e8232 |
4ld8x9 | Why do east Asian adult actresses seem as if they don't enjoy the act in adult movies? | This is primarily a Japanese thing rather than an Asia-wide thing. Making and distributing porn is technically illegal in Korea and China, but the stuff that does exist typically doesn't have the rapey feel to nearly the same degree (and they certainly don't make as high-pitched noises). Thai and Flip porn seems to be semi-amateur and based out of sleezy prostitution markets, which leads to it looking (and probably actually being) exploitative.
Japanese courtship is typically based on one person being the aggressor and the other being submissive, and of course porn exaggerates that dynamic (although, not as much as you might think). Even if a woman likes a man, they are expected to play hard-to-get and make the man lead them through the courtship. As such, compared to western or even other Asian cultures, Japanese women are very subtle and non-reactive to men 'making moves'. For example, many Japanese have the stereotype that Korean women are very, very aggressive in courtship, whereas most westerners would probably have the opposite stereotype and think Koreans are still a bit behind the times.
That said, Japan has a very high rate of virginity and sexual frustration, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was positively correlated with rape fantasies.
tl;dr Mostly just cultural, but probably some fetishism mixed in. | cec6a7d8-f7fd-4a65-8719-8754371ac0ed |
57dik0 | The Horseshoe Theory. | It is the theory that the further you go to the left or right, the more similar the practices go.
Look at Nazi Germany vs Soviet Russia.
There is a lot of debate as to whether they were truly opposing forces. The Nazis began as National Socialists, the USSR was Communist, both were associated with the left wing in their founding.
And in practice they had many similarities. They killed or jailed political dissidents, they took away freedoms, forced military service, killed millions of their own citizens, annexed neighbouring regions, etc.
Even though we see Nazis as right wing fascists and Soviets as left wing communists, their functionality was very similar.
This is the horseshoe theory, that when you reach the extremes the practices become similar. | 12ddcce9-df7e-4cc9-8757-5fbb95b63b36 |
6l7v4k | Why are manholes located in the middle of the road? | It's best for city planning for them to run directly under the roads. After all, closer to the sidewalks, and you run into domestic gas lines, internet/phone cables, and maybe buried power lines.
Sewers are very spacious, large pipes. It makes sense to put them under a wide, uninterrupted path with no other cables under it.
Edit: this is all in the context that manholes are the access points to sewer lines. | 7a1ab36b-2f0a-47ae-ac55-3847d4cf4232 |
8hkrwt | Why didn't people see "the dress" in the original colors of the photograph? | The lighting had a lot to do with it. Our perception of colors are based not only on the actual color of the object itself, but also on the object's visual environment (e.g adjacent colors and lighting). The dress in question appeared back-lit in the photo, so instead of merely perceiving the actual colors a lot of us automatically (and erroneously) color-corrected and subconsciously assumed that the colors were in deep shadow. | 761566da-9379-49fb-9759-d80569ba7c90 |
60g4jf | What happens with excess electricity from a generator? | If there really was excess electricity because the motor speed was too high, the voltage would rise. Voltage fluctuation is acceptable within certain limits, but past a certain point it could damage the devices attached to it. Generators you can buy have regulators to prevent this from happening - see [here] (_URL_0_) for an explanation with diagrams. Short version: a control circuit sends a DC voltage to a rotor coil, which actively slows the motor down as needed to maintain the correct voltage. | fbe6d682-3bc1-43f4-bffc-b74185e1cff6 |
1qrl0d | What do the numbers in your blood pressure mean? | There are two measurments of blood pressure. Systolic is a measure of blood pressure when your heart actually beats and pumps blood. Diastolic is the blood pressure between each individual pump. They are measured in units of mm Hg. This unit of measurement is basically saying "if mercury in a tube were under this much pressure, how high would it go?" Higher means more pressure. They aren't particularly correlated with each other, but as you can imagine, systolic blood pressure is always higher than diastolic.
EDIT: I thought I read some reports of near-equivalent systolic and diastolic blood pressure, but I haven't been able to find them, so I'll take it that systolic blood pressure never comes especially close to diastolic levels. | f458ee71-36bd-415b-9b4b-dc0b25d56184 |
8o9x7t | The difference between CAR and TCR therapies. | Both CAR and TCR therapies are use T cells for treatment of cancers directed against specific targets known as antigens.
The difference, from what I've seen are:
CAR (chimeric antigens receptor) are usually used against antigens expressed on the surface of the cancer cell. The CAR itself is not a naturally occurring receptor, but man-made by combining parts of different naturally occurring proteins (hence it being called chimeric.)
TCR (T cell receptor) therapies are generally used to treat antigens that are expressed inside the cell and not in it's surface. TCR are receptors that naturally occur on T cells, the difference being these TCR are specific to a certain antigen. The TCR binds to a structure on the surface of the cell known as the MHC which samples the inside of the cells. When the "sample" contains the antigen they are specific to, they react.
Source: work in this field. | 043ce4f4-2b6b-4c63-8337-139dc3c7dc22 |
43ahmf | Motion Sickness caused by Virtual Reality | Motion sickness happens when one of your senses perceives movement but the others don't. For example, when you're in the cabin of a boat, your inner ear senses that the boat is rocking, but your vision doesn't corroborate. In your case, your vision is perceiving motion when you are wearing the VR headset, but your inner ear and sensory nerves aren't.
In other words, you are getting motion sick *because* you are stationary. | 60dd1daa-d514-48a2-b39f-247cc39ec636 |
8s1y8p | why so many banks have the name "First National Bank of ..." in the title. | A national bank has a national charter, as opposed to a state charter. Hence there are lots of first national banks of ( name your state, city, county, etc.). | afa5c5cc-3aec-45c7-a43e-b96e4a643374 |
356s7x | If California is so dry, why is so much food grown there? Why not just grow it elsewhere? | Dry climates tend to have very rich soil because little rain leeches nutrients from the soil (but they need irrigation to make the soil productive).
California also has a very mild climate that features a very long growing season allowing a large of variety of agricultural products to be grown (many are quite valuable because they can't be grown in other productive farm regions). | 75ac4f20-78c9-4624-95b9-78f853487935 |
3nphtk | Reason for genital mutilation in several African nations | FGM is carried out for cultural, religious and social reasons within families and communities. For example, it is often considered a necessary part of raising a girl properly, and as a way to prepare her for adulthood and marriage. FGM is often motivated by the belief that it is beneficial for the girl or woman. Many communities believe it will reduce a woman's libido and discourage sexual activity before marriage. FGM has many long-term consequences including abnormal periods, abdominal pain, infertility, psychological damage etc. FGM is mostly carried out on young girls sometime between infancy and age 15. FGM is illegal in the UK and considered a violation of the her human rights. | effc4ff5-07b2-415f-bc03-50405bc76ae6 |
2d7h6w | Why do my eyes water every time I yawn? | The tear film has three layers. The bottom layer is called mucin and acts very much like a glue to keep the tears from simply rolling off your eyes. The middle layer is the aqueous and is mostly salt water. The outermost layer is the lipid and is oily. The lipid oil keeps the tears from immediately evaporating.
The tear fluids are created in small glands around your eyes and flow down tiny channels.
You also have a tear drainage system called the punctum. You have one punctum in each upper and lower eyelid near the nose. These drain into the nasal cavity.
In a healthy eye, tear fluids are constantly being produced, taken down channels to the eyes, lubricate and wash the eyes, and then drained out the punctum.
When you yawn, you stretch the glands, channels, and punctum. Closing the punctum cause an overflow of tears, which will then roll down your cheeks. Squeezing the channels can squirt out all the fluid to the eyes, like too much mustard on a hot dog. Closing your eyes tightly can squeeze the tears already on the eye. This combination can produce tears when you yawn. | 2913bcf7-ecef-46b1-94eb-86a638cb5b0b |
4rhd82 | what would happen if man had two Y-chromosomes instead of XY? | Y chromosomes are tiny, they have very few genes on them, mostly a couple proteins the testicles need.
Woman have two X chromosomes, but each cell only uses one in every cell one X chromosome forms what's called a barr body, its basically inactivated and put aside not used for anything that cell does. Which one is inactivated will be different from cell to cell, but each cell only uses one.
Its mainly hormones that drive how masculine or feminine someone develops and there are cases of XY people being born with an insensitivity to testosterone in rare cases even having fully normal female genitals externally (don't have working ovaries or womb though).
Basically two Y chromosomes would be fatal, wouldn't have a large number of genes and they would never make it to being born.
Fortunately its *extremely* unlikely for that to happen, because one chromosome comes from each parent and a fertile mother is probably not going to have a Y chromosome. Which means you'd need two separate mistakes to happen, the mother's egg would have to contain no X chromosome, and the father's sperm would have to have two copies of the Y chromosome. Not impossible though, people have been born with three or four or five X chromosomes, or XXYY or XXXXY or in some case just one X and nothing else.
But basically any child that makes it to being born needs to have at least one X. YY just doesn't have enough of the genetic information needed to live. | eb262252-8bfd-4e8a-98cf-37a703971d00 |
49bbht | How can some groups argue Nationalized Military "protects us, makes our lives, better, allows us to be "free", etc" while also arguing nationalized medicine is a disaster? | Just because one good has a clear case for being provisioned by the government doesn't mean that's true of all goods.
You're basically saying you have to believe that all goods and services should be privatized or believe that all have to be publicly provided.
People against public healthcare believe that managing healthcare through the state is less efficient than allowing private actors to handle it while pretty much everyone everywhere agrees that the state should maintain a monopoly on the use of violence, which means that things like police and the military should be state run rather than private outfits. | ecbc37df-4f70-4b10-b6ca-bca76ed24618 |
2ww248 | Is "High Mileage" or "Synthetic" motor oil actually worth it? Or is it just BS | Sure, if you happen to have the needs that the oil is designed to address. High Mileage oil is designed to deal with seals and bearing clearances that are generally wider than originally designed. Synthetic oil is a lubricant that was formulated not simply by purifying crude oil, but by a chemist selectively building the molecules they want through various processes. With lubricating oil made from purified petroleum, you can only make it into a more refined version of what's already there, while with synthetic oil, you can make molecules that weren't there to begin with. Often, synthetic oil is made from petroleum oil.
Is it worth buying either of these? That all depends on your particular application. I put synthetic oil in my cars that I drive hard, but I don't put it in my lawnmower. In my old jeep that leaks oil, I don't bother because it's just an old Jeep engine. In my Mustang GT, I do run synthetic. | 7edb113d-c8d8-42ae-af3e-05f7d04d76db |
3y8ptm | Why are minorities overrepresented in commercials? | If it was only majority members being portrayed, the minorities would see what's being advertised as being mainly for majority members and would be less likely to spend money with that company. So showing minorities in the ads is to assure minorities that they are welcomed to be part of the culture being portrayed (say, buying a new Toyota or eating at Applebee's). Minorities feel underrepresented in general, and when they see themselves in a commercial, they feel represented and like they're welcomed or belong.. That's powerful. On the other hand, the majority group automatically feels welcomed no matter who is portrayed and isn't significantly put off by seeing minorities portrayed. | cfe5fae7-0905-4b1a-a608-28882ba249fd |
5uu7yf | Why are Arizona Iced Tea drinks allowed to place a price on its product? | Why *wouldn't* they be allowed? There's no law forbidding the printing of a suggested price on a product. In fact, lots of companies do it, including many different brands of potato chips, [like these](_URL_0_).
Generally, the company that produces the food item will only sell their product to retailer who sign a contract agreeing to sell it no higher than the printed price. | 5de85abe-53b3-4e36-bddd-83b722178bb7 |
3ytr5w | Why are windshield wipers sold as singles not pairs? Do people often replace them one at a time? | Not every car has the same size blade for each side.
For example, my Ford Focus uses a 22 inch driver and 19 inch passenger.
My Nissan Versa uses a 26 inch driver and a 16 inch passenger.
You should replace all wipers each season or two depending on quality.
Also, buying the most expensive blade isn't the best. A properly clean windshield has more at play with water visibility than the most expensive wiper and a dirty window. | 0d50657d-4e6c-4a91-b29f-21331514ff83 |
5gc47p | Why aren't high rise office fires more common/unsurvivable? | They used to, then builders got wise to it. Now we build high rises out of concrete and glass, which don't catch on fire. We restrict how much flammable material is used on the floors of high rises and don't allow anything flammable at all in the stairwells (that's why the stairs are pretty much always barren concrete with metal railings), which makes it more difficult for the fires to spread between floors. | 792cd125-0906-4d89-b9e2-7217e3eb0c23 |
633aha | How Does milk make people grow taller | Milk does not increase your growth potential, but this belief is probably so prevalent because milk is a very nutritious food. If a child is malnourished, they will have stunted growth, and you can clearly see this in impoverished countries. So milk itself doesn't make you taller, but having adequate nutrition does. Milk is just one way to get that nutrition. | afe3c3bb-5367-40a5-b3ba-6b02021cdaa2 |
2mmxgw | In a dark room, why can I see something better when I look just to the side of it, instead of directly at it? | As you probably know, your eyes have rods and cones that receive light. The cones pick up color, but the rods are highly light sensitive (and don't see color). Your cones are bunched in the middle of your eye (opposite your pupils) while the rods are lining around the cones. Long story short: you are looking at this object with your rod rather than your cones. | 2c1a82b4-6d4d-432a-9e7d-3d7a18e715c3 |
6dqu02 | ; Why is it, that when we don't eat for a long period of time, we feel sick and repulsed by food but eating is what makes us feel better? | Not sure if I can explain this properly but here goes. Not eating for a long time can cause stomach acids and digestive juices to build up . Juices like bile in excess cause some mild nausea , this maybe what you experienced when you tried not to gag. But as soon as you eat , these juices get put to work digesting and gets used up. So no more nausea or we don't feel sick.. hope this helps. | 3e5e42d7-176c-442b-8b72-993d5bdee44d |
za3dq | how Ipods work and play music | First off, iPods don't produce the songs out of no where and it doesn't 'remember' to play them. You put the songs on there yourself and then later on you tell it which one to play.
The main part of an iPod is the hard drive which works just like your computer's does in the sense that you choose what you want to play/open and it will do it. Each individual song that you see inside of iTunes on your computer is it's own unique file located somewhere on your computer and when you sync all of that music to your iPod, it is actually moving each individual file over. Each of these files contains its own 'metadata' so that you can see the name/artist/album on your iPod and recognise and choose the right song to play.
I think that should pretty much answer what you asked. If what you really meant was how do hard drives work (as in how do they store so much data on such a small device) then I'll leave that open to someone else! | dca76dd9-24d2-4656-9d39-da580c177a88 |
42ede0 | Why do military planes like the AC-130 have their wings attached at the top of the fuselage, whereas most other civilian planes have their wings attached near the bottom? | Few key reasons:
High wing aircraft are easier for ground support vehicles to maneuver around, and engine clearance over the ground is greater making their overall fuselage profile closer to the ground and hence easier to load/unload.
Also, greater engine-ground clearance mean less chance of debris being ingested by engines which is of particular importance since military aircraft tend to operate out of unfinished/rough runway surfaces far more often than civilian craft | fd76fdff-2702-4efb-acbe-df2cf8f3b6b8 |
4az07s | Why does the government tax income much more heavily than spending? | Because the economy runs on spending not on earning. So we want to reward spending and encourage it.
There is no reason for the government to encourage earning more money. People want to do that already. | ad76d907-8b10-478a-8090-3ff598438bd6 |
75vtlm | How can wrist-scan age tests determine your age? | Since the auto moderator won't allow an efficient answer here's a slightly longer one.
They can't. Wrist scans are discredited everywhere. You can't tell the difference between a 17 year old and an 18 year old via a wrist scan. You can't even tell a 15 year old or a 19 year old.
You can determine whether the bones have finished growing, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, being 18 or not is only loosely correlated with that actually happening.
We all knew people who were done growing at 14 and people who were still doing it at 19 so this shouldn't be a huge suprise.
There are doctors who will insist they can do this for money, but they are lying, as at FIFA.
FIFA doesn't care though. They care about the appearance of a fair competition so false positives are fine by them. | 5895c8ef-9ee4-4972-bdc4-90e2846bf43a |
1zljle | Why don't we use counties as congressional districts? | Because many states have a lot more counties than congressional districts, especially in the East. Illinois has about 100 counties, and 18 congressional districts. | 716736d3-ea94-4cfd-a5a7-8203d56f615e |
3wmbo2 | Why do "forever storms" seem to exist in some planets like Jupiter (And now Stars)? How do they stay "forever" and not die? | They're not forever. Jupiter's storm is losing it's energy and will die out eventually. I think it's been overdue for almost a decade, but I'll let someone else find the literature on it. | 5862fa28-3260-49cd-867e-cc3c81eba652 |
39gxtv | How does rust harbor tetanus? | And it's not the rust *per se* that necessarily harbors the tetanus. Tetanus is in the dirt. When you impale or puncture yourself on something dirty, you are sticking the dirt particles into your flesh into a place where air can't get to it. Tetanus is caused by *Clostridium tetani*, a spore-forming bacterium that likes to grow in wet, nutrient-rich, unoxygenated enviroments, like in closed-off flesh-wounds. The spores get shoved all up in there -- > they germinate -- > they multiply -- > then they make tetanus toxin -- > then lockjaw. | 6b73f16c-33a4-48cd-a96e-2121a79596de |
7fir1o | How do products and services my wife searches for on her devices become targeted ads on mine moments or days later? | I agree with /u/KapteeniJ regarding Facebook, they’ve developed proprietary tech to connect your social graph to their advertising, which gets really fuzzy and creepy. To make it worse, they are Nielsen’s partner for demographic measurement across major websites across the web. That means Nielsen gets to ask them who you are (generally) without traditional Nielsen panels, surveys or tv boxes. Facebook has a hand in the huge advertising marketplace beyond what anyone usually thinks about.
The main thing you’re getting at is called re-targeting, where an advertiser (chasing you with a product around the web) is paying somebody to add you to a target because you visited their website or product page once. The next time you visit a site where they can bid on you (this is called programmatic advertising) they might do so if their buying parameters value you high enough to place the winning bid on that site. Programmatic is another beast of a topic I could go into another time.
I missed the removed part of your question, but In your case since your wife was viewing those products, it’s a misfire. There are multiple ways that advertisers identify you (it’s really third-party ad tech and data platforms that are identifying you):
- **Cookies**: cookies allow any web server you connect with to drop information in your browser, such as an ID, and access or update it every time you reconnect to them. When you’re on a site there are tons of web servers involved, including the site itself, their CDN (serving videos and images) and external partners like ad servers. The trend amongst browsers (desktop and mobile) is to block all third-party cookies, so for the most part the website’s ad tech and data partners can’t track you with cookies unless you explicitly allow it. Still worth confirming your settings. Blocking all cookies (including first-party) can have adverse effects on web convenience like staying logged in, and read on, because avoiding cookies alone won’t stop it
- **Resettable Device Identifier for Advertisers**: your Android phone, Android tv (including amazon firetv), chromecast, iOS device, Apple TV, Roku, Xbox, all have device identifiers that can be shared with advertisers, but you can choose to stop this with the Limit Ad Tracking setting. Google it for your platform. You can also allow ad tracking but reset your ID (like wiping your history) at any time. _Can’t guarantee that all platforms I mentioned allow you to Reset ID and Limit Ad Tracking_
- **Publisher identifiers**: let’s say you’re reading news while signed into the Washington Post, on an account you and your wife share, or watching tv on Hulu with a shared account, your account can be used in an anonymous capacity as an identifier to find you again later. Advertisers won’t ever have this ID, which is where the ad tech and data platforms come in. If you happen to visit sites connected to the same ad tech network (almost everyone is connected to Google’s AdExchange or some other major ad networks) you can be connected by the ad network via a combination of your anonymous publisher ID and another ID listed here. _p.s. Hulu and WaPo were random, I don’t know if they leverage this type of ad tech._
- **IP Address**: this one’s obvious. It usually isn’t a primary Identifier because an office would become a re-targeting nightmare, but it can be used by various platforms along with other info to connect dots.
- **Device fingerprinting**: A master combination of your user agent string(os, device, browser), ip, device resolution, browser extensions, browser capabilities, etc, etc. this is probably leveraged by some major platforms and vendors, like Google and Facebook, there’s very little we can do to combat it.
Ultimately, online advertising (and avoidance) is a game of whack-a-mole. Ad blockers especially are just an arms race. I’m not necessarily saying it’s doom and gloom though. When an ad is shown there’s truly very little personally identifiable information available to advertisers, publishers, or the vendors in between. It may feel creepy but we know it’s often ineffective, which is just a waste of the advertiser’s money.
There’s a lot more that can be said, unfortunately it’s hard to avoid this because you rarely know what sites are employing what ad tech vendors. Ghostery is an extension you can use to see some of that, and maybe add vendors to your ad blocker manually.
Source: Working in the ad tech industry for 6+ years (unfortunately).
Can provide better source material if anyone’s interested. | c9f66ef0-fc4f-45e3-a59d-46ce29368e2e |
73l25s | How does walking long distances help raise fund? | It's an organized publicity event for the charity. Each person who will be walking gets sponsors to agree to donate $X to the charity for each mile that they walk. Walking is done - is a great social event, and the donations are made by those who agreed to sponsor a walker.
For walks done around town, individual amounts raised might be small - a few friends and family giving $25 or $50 dollars each.
The Make A Wish walks that I have seen are a bit different. There is a minimum each walker must raise in order to participate ($5000 or more - if I remember correctly), but these are big trail hikes, and participants meals and hotel rooms for the event are covered. | d815c7fe-9e4f-427b-ade7-04082d4022be |
3ggs5k | what is zoroastrianism? | It is an ancient religion that shared many elements with the later Jewish/Christian/Muslim religions. It has its origin and was practiced in the past in what is today Iran.
Today there are few Zoroastrians or Mazdayasna as they call themselves left. Less than 200,000 by some counts. | 1ca9edc4-d525-490a-a571-d32353b01728 |
5ovbsl | How is it that cannabis has so many different 'strains' which change the appearance and other characteristics of a particular plant? Do other plants share similar significant genetic variations? | Cannabis have been cultivated for many different uses over the years which have resulted in a lot of genetic variation. This is not unusual with cultivated plants. Take for instance the mustard plant which not only is prominent in the spices section in the grocery store but also consists of about half the vegetable isle with variants such as the cauliflower, broccoli, turnip, cabbage, canola, etc. | cdee7f53-30cb-4b9a-8239-cf1d6fd24d50 |
5zr0ks | How can $25 provide someone clean water for life? | It might not be the case with water, but sometimes when you see charities being like "$5 can feed kids in Africa for 10 years", what you're actually paying for is shipping fees to transport goods that have already been allocated to African children, but aren't at the desired destination.
The world produces more than enough food to feed everyone on earth, but the problem is the food isn't reaching where it needs to be. | 2d1b568d-5c99-4cf6-93c0-2d7ff121d10b |
8g0hd2 | Why in Boxing/MMA, does the timer disappear in the last 10 seconds. | That's because the clock on screen is not the "official" clock. There is a timekeeper on-site that is tracking the actual time left in a round. The one on screen is more of a close guess.
By hiding the timer in the last 10 seconds, it prevents people from going "Hey you ended the round too early!" Or some other controversy because the officials will be the ones to call the end of the round as it should be. | 92d60b8d-eeb8-4d72-9803-5c31884a1b1a |
6m27r1 | How does resistance of an earbud affect the quality of the sound (eg: 32 ohm vs 150 ohm) | Essentially, when audio is played through a speaker, an analogue signal is sent to the speaker which causes the wire attached to a membrane to gain a magnetic charge and oscillate due to being very close to a permanent magnet.
The higher the impedance rating of the speaker, the more voltage is required to drive the coil. If more voltage is required, you're able to fine tune the signal much better - changes in voltage have a smaller effect. However, this is all at the expense of volume - a high impedance speaker will be unable to produce the same volume as a low impedance speaker driven with the same power.
High impedance speakers are typically used to make up for the tiny imperfections in an amplifier circuit caused by signal crosstalk or other induction issues. Most DAC/AMPs are shielded to minimise this, however there's always some issues that creep in, therefore you're able to account for them with a higher impedance output.
However, because higher impedance speakers are more difficult to drive, they don't have the same high frequency response as the lower impedance speakers. Ultimately it's a balance issue that the user must choose - higher frequency range and louder volume vs better accuracy (for lack of a better word) at a lower volume. | e062e838-1d62-42bf-abdf-2799644156d6 |
334ult | Why is immigration such a hot button topic in UK politics at the moment? What effects are immigration having on the economy right now? | Mostly, it's a non-issue. However, trying to remove freedom of movement is an effective way for parties to appeal to their more authoritarian supporters. | c091ffd2-abc8-4240-8b9d-a68b42d09f03 |
58to4j | What is the meaning of "rareness" in meat and why are "rarer" meats preferred? | Ah Grasshopper. I was once like you. Raised by savages who thought all meat had to be cooked to a degree of dry grayness to be edible.
Now, in my time of Enlightenment, I eat my steak medium rare. My counsel to you is to take this gradually. Move from well done to medium, then keep stepping down the scale of doneness until you reach a level of juiciness, texture and flavor that you like. Then go one step further just in case.
Enjoy the journey young one. | 1224ac51-dc8f-4258-8347-fa9f6029452d |
34us6c | What happens when we crack our bones? | so between your bones, like the knuckles in your hands, there is fluid. In the fluid there are bubbles. When you crack your knuckles, you're hearing those bubbles popping. | f93293f4-904b-4b72-af60-19cc1dbfcb7d |
28t0gu | Why is my dog ecstatic to see me when I come home after going out for a couple of hours? | Dogs do not like being alone. [In the wild wolves tend to live in packs of 5-11,](_URL_0_) so it is not normal for one of them to be alone for that long. They get lonely. Also, this trait was selected for when breading. A dog that is ecstatic to see you after a brief separation is more likely to do what you want. -hunting, tracking that kind of thing- | 428d4b6d-22fc-4c35-b3df-0850d9704506 |
2am5g8 | Why is opening many restaurants in a short amount of time bad? | Most restaurants, and businesses generally, will fail within a couple years. You need to be prepared financially for the entire investment to disappear. | 6c73f967-d1e1-48b5-b035-c10404807ba6 |
6o9vsd | Why are teachers paid so little? | For the most part, teachers are 'public servants'. They work for the local governmental department of education....rather than working for a business.
A business usually gets money by selling a product or a service. If they sell a lot (or sell for a lot) then they might have lots of money to pay their employees a higher amount.
But a government department gets it's money from the government's budget....and most governments are always looking for ways to cut costs and/or divert money here or there. Unfortunately, many of them don't put a very high priority on education, and thus the school boards don't have a lot of money to pay their teachers with.
That being said, from what I can tell, in most places teachers are paid an average or above average salary. Especially once they have a few years experience.
The problem, in most cases, is that teaching can be a very demanding and difficult job that might demand a higher salary, if it were in the private sector. | ca491312-6861-4c32-a712-42f94116320b |
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