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2ndcad | why do I have the urge to go to the bathroom when I get nervous before an exam/big event? | I could be wrong but I believe it has to do with Stress levels and adrenaline releases. believe it or not Humans are actually getting that flight or fight response to things it wasn't necessarily intended for. We don't have to run from a pack of Wolves or Bear like our evolutionary ancestors but now we're getting it for school related exam stress, or football games, or stuck in traffic. even though we aren't really in any physical danger. Now where the urge to pee comes in I believe is because when you're stressing about an upcoming exam/event your brain signals for you to deal with this now before the event. because in actuality adrenaline can make you suppress those urges, when you're running/fighting for your life adrenaline can turn off the feeling of temperature, bodily function urges like peeing or hunger. because your need to escape or survive is more important than peeing. It's possibly a unique new trait to the types stress we're dealing with now. the foresight we have to a high stress situation lets our body prepare by signaling you to remove waste before the event will happen. Another contributor can be the feeling of nervousness, since you're coming closer and closer to the event your brain's ability to focus might not be so good, it can no longer suppress those urges since you're thinking about 100 things at once, add on top of that the possibility that you've been suppressing or oblivious to the urge for who knows how long because you've been focusing on studying, practicing etc. to notice you need to go | 2cc8cd9c-5145-4f93-a038-a1fdf62fc658 |
1xab05 | How to calculate Hamming Code | adapted from wikipedia
1. Number the bits starting from 1: bit 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.
2. Your parity bits are the ones in position 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc
4. All other bit positions are data bits.
5. Each data bit is included in a unique set of 2 or more parity bits, as determined by the binary form of its bit position.
Let's see if the data bit in 37th position is correct. 37 in binary is 100101, so the 37th bit has parity bits at 32, 4, and 1.
If the first bit is 0, 4th bit is 0, 32nd bit is 0, then you'd expect the 37th bit to be 0 (for even parity). If the 37th bit is 1 then you know it's an error and you can correct it.
Same thing for the 103040203th bit. You find all it's parity bits and if they display an odd number of 1s then 103040203 needs to be 1 for even parity. If the parity bits show an even number of 1s then 103040203 needs to be a 0 for even parity. | 1171ac96-2db1-43d8-a9d1-05473a3c44bc |
1uhrc7 | How Pirate bay can be so openly public and not be shut down. | They keep getting shut down. When they are shut down, they start the website back up again in a different country.
They've been in a lot of countries now. | d15d7bf5-fc91-4796-86c1-afaaf1a897d0 |
jtmjq | What does "frozen assets" mean? | Imagine you have a big stack of quarters and toys split between piggy banks and toy shelves in each of your friends houses. You want to trade them all for a dirt bike, but mum says no. She tells all your friends to not let you into their rooms.
In your example, the quarters are Millions, the toys are military equipment and instead of a dirt bike, you want to equip an army to massacre people and/or steal your country's wealth for personal gain. | 1c39f2be-46c6-400f-a464-4eec7877f6c3 |
1uluyh | In movie scenes where a kidnapper asks for ransom money, why do they ask for non sequential bills? (Extra Credit: What are "Marked Bills"?) | Because marked money can be tracked, sequential bills can be tracked.
In the case of the Lindbergh baby they wrote down the serial numbers of the bills and used them to track down the kidnapper/killer.
So lets say you kidnap someone and they pay the ransom. They keep an eye out for the bills they marked and notice them at a McDonalds, a Walmart and a Carwash. They know the area you've been in and now they can narrow it down to people who have been at these three locations in a specific time frame. | f4bb7e1e-13a3-4cfa-98f1-bbe24680055c |
3q76um | Why do we still change clocks to Daylight Saving Time (DST) and back, when apparently, most people hate it? If most of us prefer a single time throughout the year - what are the obstacles to making this happen? | > Nobody goes around saying "Yay! I get to change my clocks! This is the best day since spring!" But that doesn't mean that most people hate it.
Pretty much everybody says that when you get that extra hour to sleep. | 148d88b5-4816-4801-86e2-d71f53442548 |
4559fn | How can a modern ship sail into a known storm/hurricane? | Not a sea captain, but at least two things here:
The ships today have been built to handle huge storms, so they are able to go through them without too many issues that would compromise seaworthiness of the ship. But these storms are also so large usually that it isn't as feasible for a slow ship to get around a storm as it might be for an airplane.
Money is the second thing. It will cost the cargo steamship line money from losing time if they do navigate around the storm. It could add an extra day or so to their schedule which delays everything after. The more delays you have, the fewer trips you can make with the ship, the less cargo you can charge for. I would imagine a cruise line would also avoid refunding money at any cost. They have to order food for a week and can't afford for it to just sit around in port while they wait out a storm. They'd be motivated to get people out on their cruise even if it means everyone is miserable. | 963b3a59-e298-4ea1-a99a-9ce3c7312193 |
6k461a | Why is there a difference between girl bikes and guy bikes? | In the early part of the bicycle, women sill wore dresses and the lowering of the top frame bar was to allow the wearing of a dress. | affe77ed-5b02-4b3a-9ae2-6e450deb7117 |
8brhgi | What is happening in our muscles when we feel the urge to exercise? | Personally, it's stress that causes that irritability/restlessness. Cortisol keeps your body in a continued mode of being alert and ready to fight/run. Exercise lowers cortisol levels, eliminating stress and causes your body to relax the tension it has built up. Stress usually means that your body doesn't feel comfortable with your current situation, unsure if you are safe and/or are able to relax. Unfamiliar situations, sudden life changes, daunting work, sleep deprivation, and poor diet can increase stress levels. Exercise lowers stress levels and promotes relaxation.
(Exercise lowers circulating cortisol levels)
[Source](_URL_0_) | b89523df-a3db-4aed-8908-d33265eca95e |
1ims8o | Why was "Smells Like Teen Spirit" considered such a revolutionary song? And what's so special about Kurt Cobain? | Nirvana gets a lot of the credit for starting the "grunge" movement. What makes smells like teen spirit so different is it's grunge sound and lyrical content. This was the first mainstream song to sort of glorify angsty, awkward teenagers and give them a coherent voice. It probably rings less with you because so much music has been heavily influenced by it. As far as his legacy is concerned, as one of the pillars of grunge music he has had a major impact on the last 20 or so years of rock music, most specifically alt/college rock. | 695c928c-9632-474e-8d9f-162baf09fd95 |
69ud7i | What is the significance of the recent French presidential election? | Over the last couple years, we have seen a populist trend among voters. People are voting for stricter immigration restrictions, dissolving the EU, adopting a nationalistic approach to governing, among other decision-making policies that would be consistent with the alt-right conservatives in America, or the pro-Brexit voters in the UK.
There was a lot of interest in the French election, since there was a lot of ideological shift in that particular nation among the citizens. This election would determine if the recent trend of alt-right politics was gaining momentum, or if it was starting to recede.
Considering the substantial margin of Macron's victory, this election signifies that the conservative upswing in the last couple years is receding. This is good news for those in the United States hoping that the 2018 election carries on this receding popularity of alt-right ideologue, and allows the Democrats to gain enough seats to regain a majority in the House.
It also removes a potentially helpful collaborator for Trump and Russia in a very influential European nation. Under Macron, France isn't going to be so easy to bend to Trump's and Putin's whims.
It is also good news for people in the UK who initially opposed the Brexit decision. Macron is strongly in favor of maintaining the European Union, and will help ensure it remains together (and make efforts to improve upon it) so that if the UK makes another vote to return to the EU, it'll still be there and still be worth returning to. | ff1f4f83-b7b4-4555-993c-5901ed420250 |
47wvps | Langrange's Theorem | I'm most equipped to give you a proof, so I'll do that; if you want anything else, please say something.
Suppose we've got a finite group G and a subgroup of G that we'll call H. Lagrange's Theorem says that |H| divides |G| and the number of left cosets is |G| / |H|. We'll prove it in a few steps:
& nbsp;
1) For any subgroup H, a left coset of H has the same size as H.
2) For the rest of the proof, assume H isn't just G or {1}; if it is, the theorem holds anyway.
3) The cosets of H are all disjoint.
4) Every element of G is a member of some coset of H.
5) |G| = the sum of the sizes of all cosets.
6) |G| = k|H|, where k is the number of left cosets.
First, if you're not familiar with a (left) coset, here's the definition. We've got this subgroup H, and we take some element of G (call it g), and we multiply every element of H by g and denote that gH.
So gH = { gh such that g is in G, h is in H }.
& nbsp;
1) gH can't be bigger than H, so we just need to see that H isn't bigger than gH. We made gH by taking every element of H and multiplying it by g; if H *is* bigger than gH, it must be because two distinct elements h1 and h2 gave us gh1 = gh2. But we can cancel to get h1 = h2, which is a contradiction. This means that that can't happen, and gH and H must be the same size.
& nbsp;
2) Pretty self-explanatory; |G| and |{1}| both divide |G|. If H = G, then there's only one left coset-- the whole group! As we saw in (1), |gG| = |G|, so they must be the same.
& nbsp;
3) To see why they're disjoint, assume that they aren't; this implies there's some element x which is a member of both aH and bH for some distinct elements a, b in G. We know aH and bH only contain elements of the form ah and bh, so we can write x = ah1 = bh2.
Now, a = bh2h1^-1. We can take any element ah in aH and rewrite it as bh2h1^-1 h, so aH is a subset of bH; we can do the same thing with b = ah1h2^-1 to see that bH is a subset of aH too. This means that any two left cosets of H are either identical or disjoint.
& nbsp;
4) Every element g in G is a member of some coset of H. H contains 1, so gH contains g * 1 = g.
& nbsp;
5) |G| = the sum of the sizes of all of the cosets. As we saw in (4) and (3), each element g in G is a member of exactly one coset. Thus, to get the total number of elements, we can just sum the sizes of each coset.
& nbsp;
6) Because all the cosets have the same size as H (and therefore as each other), we can rewrite the sum from (5) as |G| = k|H| where k is the number of cosets, and we can see that |H| divides |G|.
Qed.
& nbsp;
Lagrange's theorem is useful because it lets you deduce properties of a group from just its size. For example, what can we now deduce about groups with prime order?
Source: Dummit and Foote sections 3.1 and 3.2; abstract algebra student | 861c3f6b-75c1-4013-a27c-88a1d5fe848c |
sbspk | Why can't you point lasers at a plane? | To be accurate, you *can* do it. You also *should* get arrested if you do. A laser could possibly blind a pilot. Even if the blindness is not permanent, having a blind person in charge of an airplane is an extreme safety hazard to the people on the plane and to the people on the ground.
Don't do it. Not even once. It isn't funny, and it should result in you going to jail if you do it. | 848cabbe-da46-4e01-b733-d005ddfa32ef |
s1n9k | The WAR statistic people talk about in baseball. | WAR stands for Wins above replacement. It's basically the amount of wins a certain player is valued at above a player of the same position at the AAA level.
_URL_0_ | e0fd487e-9ce5-4dcf-8c55-017f45cc06b1 |
7cpbtz | How are people able to fast for long periods at a time yet stay healthy? | Fasting can be a pretty flexible term, especially when used in a religious context. The people who “fast for 365 days” are eliminating a specific thing, like red meat or bread, for a specific duration, and many of them rotate that “thing” every week or month. So they say they’re fasting, but really they are going without bread for one month, then without soda for a month, then without red meat for a month, etc. This demonstrates personal determination and commitment, but it’s hardly going without food altogether. | 9dde0021-55f0-4542-8e8a-4745fe1731a3 |
1ltbne | Why is gmail (or most email service) free? | It allows google to collect a shit ton of data about you & charge more for advertising directed at you online.
If you are not the customer you are the product | 80137cf8-33d7-4f37-a2d6-b0982e0fc1f4 |
23gyu5 | What are the defining differences between streets, roads, avenues, boulevards, etc.? What dictates how it is designated? | **A boulevard is two lanes in each direction with a median of trees or greenery running the length of it.**
**An avenue is often two lanes in each direction and in a nicer part of the area.**
**A street can be any number of lanes in each direction, but is generally associated with a town or city or suburb.**
**A road is getting a little more rural, generally one lane in each direction, but not necessarily.** | d27623f6-2a60-4739-ab97-d3975575fc9d |
708m8f | Why is the majority of the human population right hand and right eye dominant? | So there is definitely a tendency towards right handedness in people, but I would also point out that right now, there is social pressure on that as well: many left-handed children born in the 90s were forced to acclimate to right-handedness. When I was in preschool, I had to wear a sock on my left hand all day every day to force me to use my right hand.
Right-handedness has been found in our early human ancestors (about 2 million years ago) but not in our chimp relatives, which means that there is probably an effect of evolution on hand preference.
A gene variant was discovered in 2014 that appears to increase your odds of being left-handed. So while the science isn't settled, I would say that right-handed is the default and somewhere along human evolution, a series of small gene mutations, makes people favor their other hand. | 799f869a-f6a4-45a5-940d-f6391ff87e4b |
oi5zc | - Magnet links? | I didn't quite understand from the explanations in the other posts. So I did some digging myself.
From what I can tell, a regular link is a URL that an internet browser knows what to do with.
These "magnet links" look like they're special URL links but specifically for torrent clients (like uTorrent, Bitlord, etc.). Instead of starting with "http://...", it starts with "magnet:?..."
The different pieces in it means stuff to the software that knows how to cut it up and use the different pieces. Just like an internet browser would.
With a magnet link, instead of downloading a .torrent file and opening that file in your torrent client, you just go to your torrent client and "point" it at the magnet link. From there, the downloading should work the same way.
I noticed some slight differences with the magnet link behaviour in Bitlord (my torrent client). If I download the torrent file first, I can then pick which files inside that torrent to download and which not to download. If I use the magnet link, I don't have that choice, it just downloads everything inside that torrent package. | ceee6e82-8ec7-4d89-9172-3f4cd29c48b9 |
6iiug5 | Why is it we pass out from standing too long with our knees locked, but not when we are lying down? | Locking your knees causes issues with blood flow which in turn causes you to pass out.
You don't lock your knees when you're laying down so it doesn't really apply. | e7b0fb4d-4856-45bb-89a7-4d170c4a4756 |
qfbsr | - What are both sides of this birth control debate and Congress? I've only heard the Rush Limbaugh stuff so I'm confused and would like as unbiased an explanation as possible | So Obama thought that religious affiliated institutions should provide healthcare through their insurance companies to their employees.
These religious institutions didn't think they should have to provide healthcare options that provided birth control because they morally object to birth control.
Republicans jumped on and said that forcing these organization to provide birth control violated their 1st Amendment rights.
Congress called a bunch of people to testify before a committee about the matter.
The committee refused to let any women testify, but heard from a number of priests and rabbis.
Limbaugh then called one of the women meant to testify a slut for wanting birth control.
Democrats have argued that if you let employers opt out of insurance options on "moral" grounds, then employers could essentially opt out of providing any sort of insurance. | f39b516a-e683-4068-9e1c-6a40ac40c330 |
3h77lb | Why do police in America not seem to carry or use much non-lethal weaponry? | They do carry non-lethal weaponry.
But have you considered that when that non-lethal option is used, it's not really newsworthy? Can you imagine a front page reddit post that says "Officer uses taser to stop suspect, who is sent to jail without injury. Officer goes home and has spaghetti with his family"?
You're only hearing about things when they go horribly wrong, not the hundreds of times a day when they go right. | ddb68de3-c8f5-44e8-9fc6-87c1d34a40ca |
4k3brc | What is the purpose of Information Technology Infrastructure Library(ITIL)? | At its most basic level, ITIL is really a set of best practices for IT Service Management - without a methodical approach, Service Management can be something that's done on a fairly ad-hoc basis without any specific direction to it.
Although ITIL doesn't seek to specifically set in stone how things should be done, as a framework it provides a useful toolset to build a company's IT Service Management organisation and practices on. | c7a5aa44-fe12-4d89-a0fa-ef54b549c803 |
1oyurp | Why is it when people see an incredibly cute baby one of the reactions is to 'eat' the baby? Or bite at it? | _URL_0_
Take a read of the article above.
To put it basically it is because the smell of the baby activates the same receptors of the brain as smelling nice food. | 2f431aef-b26f-421d-8c07-0569dc55d8c6 |
632r5o | luxury tax and sales tax are different things? | Sales tax is applied to everything. But on top of that the government can also impose extra taxes on certain products. So for a "luxury tax" that means that the government needs more money and taxes certain products a little more with the justification that if you can afford those products, then an extra 0.5% or so isn't going to make a difference to you. | df38b3ce-3239-422e-9397-6213eb7579a8 |
w5e71 | Why is most of society monogamous? | In the way olden days, if you went around having sex with anyone, you'd have no idea who actually fathered the child. Cultural norms grew around the realization that if you were monogamous, you could safely assume the identity of each parent. This is critical to the natural human family nucleus.
We don't see this more in nature, likely because we have more sophisticated social structures. The extremely long time a mother has to nurse and raise a child (10-12 years) before it can be self-sufficient, necessitates a more prolonged and focused effort.
Its a very complicated question. You could probably take several different angles, from evolutionary advantages, to social structures. | c92b9c82-0def-4c26-94c5-ba0b68ea78b0 |
yg6eb | Why Internet connections are fastest in South Korea? | > People in the United States basically invented the Internet.
[people working at CERN in Europe basically invented the internet](_URL_0_) | 8f8dcddf-0d12-47eb-8cc4-776b59df13c3 |
3i6vxm | What is happening with he Chinese stock market and what effect will it have on people ? | Normal correction. [It's been wildly overvalued for a while.](_URL_1_) China's been red-lining their economy for a while, trying to get ahead of their demographic issues, so it's not really a surprise.
Now, what does it *mean*? Well, a lot of money just went poof, and part of their bubble was driven by margin lending (stocks bought with borrowed money), so that's double poof.
The good news is, most Chinese don't invest heavily in the markets, so it doesn't really hit the average citizen the way the big crash here hit us. Still, a lot of money coming out of the economy will have some ripples. It's going to impact the countries that export to China, somewhat. Probably going to slow the growth of their industry a bit.
Edit: I am aware that the Chinese markets are invested in heavily by individuals. My point is that the vast majority of individuals in China do not invest at all. So the money lost is not spread broadly across the country.
**ELI5 EDIT**:
People are telling me this is too complicated. Here it is simple.
Q: WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN CHINA!??!?! A: China's stock market has gone INSANE in the last year, more than doubling. Lot of that was driven by people buying stocks with loaned money (on margin). The US stopped doing this after it kicked off the Great Depression. China is now learning the same lesson. Their market is still up more than 50% from this time last year, even though it's almost lost half it's value this month. They're also showing a lot of crappy economic indicators. This is way scarier than the stock thing, but will play out slowly.
Q: Then why is the US market also tanking? A: The US stock market has been steadily increasing for a LONG time. Too long. It's been overdue for what is known as a "correction", which is a drop of between 10% and 20% of the market value. [People have been expecting a correction for a while.](_URL_0_)
Q: Are we going to die? A: Yes. But not from this. Probably from a heart attack. Totally the most common. | a86ecd94-b4f3-4bc0-ab66-3b2b95478861 |
tydl2 | Radical Reconstruction. | Radical Reconstruction was the radical republicans' plans to reintegrate the south into the union. It's terms were much more strict (50% of the population in each confederate state would have to pledge allegiance to the union) and it aimed for complete social reform as well. | c435c38e-0415-4f0b-a047-66b7a8fed99e |
19lp1o | In school, when I have to read something out loud, I always concentrate on the reading instead of the content of the text. When I've finished reading, I can't remember a single word I've just read. What's happening in my brain when I'm reading? | I think it's because you concentrate on the reading not the content. You answered it yourself | fb521c12-815f-4c33-add3-e8b9f45ff07d |
lomu8 | Marx's Labor Theory of Value | Essentially Marx said that the value of a commodity is equal to the labour that went into it, including the labour that built the tools used to make the item, or the buildings that housed the workers etc.
It's contrasted by Adam Smith's labour theory of value, which says that a commodity is worth whatever labour somebody is willing to perform in exchange for the item.
In essence, Smith says it's worth what people are willing to pay, and Marx says it's worth what was paid to make it. | 289d64b6-8c8f-4456-a9ea-7d6a75f6e9b4 |
2cs7w1 | Why are many SE Asian countries mainly Muslim, when they were colonised by European countries? | Those countries had Muslims well before Europeans arrived. Before the Europeans spread all over the world and gobbled up all the land they could take, merchants and sailors from the Middle East had already spread out to distant regions in Eurasia. | 653f9459-2357-4b30-ab08-b9ddd55d5f1e |
1py4j5 | how the US are allowed to kill civilians with drones. | It's not really a question of being allowed or not. There's no authority above the nation state that can step in and lay down the law - all that exists are states and deliberative bodies composed of states (ie, the UN) . If a state is powerful enough to do something without the rest of the world finding it a worthwhile risk to intervene to stop it, then that's that.
And that's what's happening. Nobody is going to risk annoying the US too much over this. And it's useful for countries like Russia and China, who will almost certainly use this same precedent in the future to blow up people they want to get rid of too. | 7bdd870b-142c-4d52-9d86-6ee0966c5478 |
7umo34 | What happens when you're "clenching" your brain/head? | > Is there a name for this phenomenon
Isometric muscle contraction is what is being performed, and the result which you seem to be interested in is a temporary increase in blood pressure and drop in blood oxygenation.
> what is your head actually doing?
The muscles in the head and neck are building tension without actually contracting, and presumably the breath is being held or restricted. This consumes oxygen from the blood and can increase blood pressure in the short term.
> Is it bad for you?
It isn't *great* but it is unlikely to be harmful if done in moderation with a healthy person. A similar result could be achieved by holding your breath until you feel dizzy which is basically impairing brain function from hypoxia. If you want my advice I would suggest not developing a recreational habit of impairing brain function. | a692c141-78d9-4f9e-a7e2-b5e2ec6bb2ce |
5yq63o | How do sea shells form? And what enables them to grow in size? | They are formed by the excretions of the animals inside. Snails and such, not the crabs or other things that live in emptied shells. | d68c82b0-cd36-47ef-ab51-74bd46868234 |
3l4t6a | Why do people use 0-60 mph to benchmark the acceleration of cars? | Because the actual benchmark is 0-100 km/h, which get's rounded down to 60 mph. 0-100 is a nice round number, and since everyone except the US uses the metric system that's the standard. So the significance is that 60 miles is about 100 km. | 14d7d05b-ebeb-404a-823e-8121cd6d3f77 |
7ka9l9 | What's the difference between Space Opera and Sci Fi? | Science fiction is any work of fiction set in the future that deals with technology more advanced than our own.
Space opera is a particular type of sci-fi that doesn't really care much about the specifics of the science and technology as much as it deals with grand narratives about galactic empires and grand heros.
Star Wars is a great example of space opera. It has spaceships and robots and all that jazz but the story is really about good v. evil rather than the effects of that technology on society. You could tell the same story set in medieval/high fantasy world without really changing much.
In contrast, look at something like *Ghost in the Shell* (just to pick a 2017 movie). The technology is central to the plot and you can't tell the story without it. | 38790e21-f427-4196-b04c-006761d349bb |
1uococ | When should I use recirculated air vs. fresh air in my car? | Recirculating air will heat it faster, so yes. You should also recirculate your air when you are in a dirty area (lots of smoke, etc). | 719abfc7-940b-4e6a-9af8-a820788be840 |
17c3i5 | Are there any major nutritional differences between brown and white eggs? | There is no nutritional difference, but markets can charge more for brown eggs because uninformed consumers think that they are healthier. I have had people say this to me. Then I show them the eggs that my sister raises, all different colours. "So, is the blue or the pink egg the *healthier* one?" I'll ask.
Brown eggs are laid by breeds of chickens with darker [earlobes](_URL_2_). These darker chickens are larger and cost more to feed -
> He said the main reason the white-shelled eggs are more popular in the U.S. is that the chickens who lay them are smaller, eat less feed, and are therefore more cost efficient as egg producers.
As mentioned, eggs are naturally many different [colours](_URL_0_), but industrial production and breed standardization has eliminated this variety, and consumers have been conditioned to believe that white is the natural state.
The modern industrial egg-production process destroys the natural membrane that protects eggs from bacteria. This is why eggs sold in North America are [refrigerated](_URL_1_), whereas in Europe they are not.
Buy free-range eggs, you'll never go back to regular ones. | 93d72ae2-ed85-47c5-8822-509b00d43daa |
j3nqo | Can someone explain how tilt shift photography works like I've just learned to tie my own shoelaces | To answer your first question (how do you make this effect)
1. Get a picture of a large event where you can see for a long distance within the frame of the picture. See how in the picture you posted you can see many cars close up and also many cars far away? That's a good picture to start with!
2. Without going into too much technical detail, using a photo editor program you blur just the top and bottom of the picture using a gradient. This means that the top and bottom of the picture will be most blurry and as you get to the center the picture gets less blurry.
Congratulations, you just made a tilt-shift picture!
Now, why does it make things look miniature?
Well, this has to do with how your eyes look at small objects. Let's do a little experiment. Get three little toys and put them on your desk, so that one toy is in front, one toy is in back about 6 inches away, and the last toy is even further back, about another 6 inches away. Now get down towards desk level and close one eye and focus the other eye on the middle toy.
You should notice that when you're focusing on the middle toy the toy in front and the toy in back are blurry. This is because the way your eyes and most camera lenses work, when you're looking at things relatively close to you (less than about 1-3 feet away), the lens in your eye that helps you focus can only focus on a narrow strip at the distance you are focusing. So when you are focusing on the middle toy, only the things that are that toy's distance away from your eye will be in focus, and everything else in front of and behind the toy will be blurry. This is called **narrow depth of field**, meaning that when you are focusing on something close to you, you can only focus on a **narrow** strip at the certain **depth** (aka distance from your eye) of the object you're looking at in your **field** of view.
So how does this tie into tilt-shift pictures? Well basically all these pictures are just mimicking what your eye does when it is looking at small objects close up. The cars closest to the camera (the ones at the bottom of the picture), and the cars farthest from the camera (the ones at the top of the picture), are made blurry because they are in front of or behind the depth at which the camera is "focusing" (remember in real life that the camera took a picture of real, life-sized objects from very far away so it was basically able to focus on everything all at once). But, once you treat the picture with the blurring effects, then your brain perceives the picture as if it was taken by a camera up close to toy-sized objects!
I hope that explanation helped! | 8e3caf18-6021-4b3e-a31b-7521674d3b63 |
2dr5l7 | What is happening to New York City? | Well a lot of small businesses that have been here for decades are being driven out by corporations and upscale businesses due to rising rents and taxes. Many of these businesses give NYC it's unique flavor that you can't find anywhere else. For New Yorkers like myself it hits home hard seeing stuff like this happen.
This is just one example; the city truly is changing as more and more immigrants and transplants move here there are less and less native families living here and and more and more of them leaving to places like NJ, LI, Florida, etc.
I'm sorry it this wasn't comprehensive enough but this is my perspective of the situation.
Despite this, I still think people are overreacting when they say NY is changing and it'll never be the same. Every city changes, for better or for worse but I'm glad to say NYC isn't going anywhere and it will continue to be the capital of the world for decades to come. I love my hometown and I have much pride for it. | 5e5c0c1e-f72d-4444-8c1f-4bc9a8311ff1 |
5sprm2 | Why do violinist always play the instrument on their chin? | The left hand of the violin player is the one playing the notes and it has to be free to move up and down the neck as required, not clutching the instrument.
The strings seen in cross-section form an arced shape, not flat like a guitar. The bow has to be able to "attack" through a range of angles so that it touches one or sometimes two strings and not all of them. The length of the note sounded depends on the back and forth movement of the bow. It wouldn't be possible to move the bow through all these positions if the violin was in front of the body. Held as it is above the left arm and supported by the chin and shoulder, there is nothing to impede the range of movement of the bow. | 3e4e8673-f347-4897-a6ad-feca9cd2ab26 |
61an43 | How does a satellites stay positioned on a geostationary orbital target that is not on the equator? | Geostationary orbits are only above the equator. Geosynchronous orbits are at the same distance but not necessarily in the plane of the equator.
Communications satellites are not necessarily geostationary or geosynchronous; if there are enough of them all at different orbits then they can cover most of the earth. | 92ec0826-bf53-451a-968e-55f6119e12d4 |
6odi7s | How does doing a "small o" with your mouth produce cooler air while opening up your mouth while "hah-ing" produces warmer air | [It is called the Venturi Effect. Fluids, when constricted-air is a fluid in this discussion-speed up when constricted. That makes things go relatively faster. Fast moving air pulls heat away, making the small o feel cooler](_URL_0_) | 5ed262ff-15de-41b8-977d-4f22dcc87578 |
559zd6 | Both sides of the Syrian civil war and what each side's goals. | There's probably at least 4, maybe 5 sides. So this isn't going to be easy.
Since you're five, we'll explain it like this: You hate going to school because there's a kid in the class (Bashar Al-Assad) who's always been the biggest and meanest bully, telling everyone what to do, and taking your lunch money whenever he wants. He's got a big brother (Russia) who's had a lot of experience bullying and teaches him how to do it and gives him knives and weapons and things to stay on top. Now, some of the other kids in the class (rebels) have gotten tired of this bully, and have seen other classes in the school where the bullies have been beaten up and taken out (Lybia, Egypt, Iraq, etc.). They are inspired by this and look to the other older kid that they think helped out those classes and who doesn't see himself as a bully, but more as a bodyguard (U.S.) except that he also expects a cut of the lunch money in return for his protection. This bodyguard has a little brother in a different class in the same grade (Israel) that's always hanging around and making threats and even hurting kids in the class then crying to his older brother when anyone fights back. Nobody in the grade likes this little brother and never does anything with him, but they're all scared of him and his older brother gives him A LOT of money to help keep him from getting beat up. One time, way back, they all tried to gang up and jump him, but he beat the crap out of them and then the older brother and cousins and all sorts of older kids showed up and nobody really messes with him anymore, except for the occasional spitball. But Israel just retaliates by putting his books and coat and backpack on his neighbors desks until he just of gets to claim them as his own.
Now, these two older bullies (Russia and the U.S.) really don't like each other, but they don't dare just show up to class and start a fight, because then the other will show up as well and the fight could be really bad. So, they just teach the younger kids in the class to fight and give them stuff to hurt each other.
The thing is, the first bully in the class (Al-Assad), he really doesn't like the other younger brother in the other class (Israel), and he used to help other kids in the class try and hurt Israel, then pretend he wasn't helping. Those kids (ISIS) ended up being really bad troublemakers and things got out of hand and they ended up getting mixed up in a gang that didn't like anyone else in the class, or grade, or school, or world. These kids got really scary and totally devoted to their gang and are glad to hurt anyone they can to prove their gang is the toughest. This gang was already involved in some of the other classes that got rid of their bullies so they felt like they could do anything. Their cousins (Al-Qaeda) once kicked the older bodyguard guy really hard right in the people-makers and everyone thought that was really cool until the older bodyguard guy showed up with his cousins and made life really miserable for that gang and all their families and pretty much the whole school. Despite this, the gang (ISIS) is still around and trying to prove they're tougher than the older kids and they have rich cousins (Saudi Arabia & Turkey) that kind of help them without pissing off the older bullies and so ISIS is the third side and they are causing a lot of problems. The cousins, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, both say they're friends with the bodyguard/bully and give him cool stuff (Saudi Arabia) and act like they want to hang with the bodyguards cousins (Turkey - NATO/EU), but they still give money to the gang. And give gang members as well.
The fourth and fifth sides are small groups of nerds in the class (Kurds and Yazidis) who don't really fit in and and the ISIS gang and class bully (Al-Assad) both really like to pick on. The ISIS gang gets help from their cousins in Turkey because Turkey hates nerds. The nerds trying to help fight ISIS as much as they can but they're poor and homeless and don't belong to the right religion and don't really have any lunch money to share with the older bully/bodyguards so they're kind of left to themselves to deal with getting kicked around and once in a while they try and get a kick in on ISIS because girl nerds are way cool.
Anyway, one day the teacher didn't show up (France, about 70 years ago) and never came back. One bully after another ran the class making everyone miserable up through the current bully. Today though, the rebels decided they had enough and started a fight because they've got a bodyguard even though the bully has a bodyguard. Things were going bad for both of them but then the gang saw their opportunity and joined the fight against them both and against the nerds and now things are really bad. Desks are flying and lunch boxes are being thrown and everyone in the class is getting hurt and no one can stop the fight because everyone has a grudge and the older bullies don't like each other and it would be bad to back down now.
Meanwhile, the bodyguard's little brother just took another desk in his classroom. | 21386743-eb09-4cb4-9360-9add0b09d2f1 |
y99so | What is the point of harvesting "likes" on Facebook if you are not directly promoting a business? | ALY5: It's the same reason that people try to get karma on Reddit, lad. They want recognition. They want to feel agreed with. | 2e23eeac-449b-4768-ad6b-495f8f56983f |
8cyo4x | Why does it hurt more to get an IV put in your hand than in the crook of your arm? | The hand has more nerve endings (sensors) because you need to feel what you're doing with your hand while doing complex tasks (typing for example).
The high density of "useful" nerves to sense touch, temperature, etc, also comes with a lot of nerves that detect pain. Arguably this serves a purpose, allowing you to detect/avoid injury while using your hands. But evolution isn't perfect, and many things that aren't clearly helpful occur as "side effects" of helpful adaptations. | 5a34429f-7946-449f-bfe8-baa14e79c4cb |
5fl7mo | Why do some people with special needs have such similar facial features? | Because people who have the same problem generally have the same cause for that problem.
Take, for instance, Down's Syndrome. It's caused by having 3 copies of the 21st chromosome instead of just two. Every single person with Down's has this problem, and every single person with this problem has Down's. Along with varying degrees of mental retardation (some people with Down's are just as functional as someone without, others aren't), having trisomy 21 causes the facial features distinctive of the disorder because that's how genes work. If you break the program in the same way, you will get similar results. | 023cc219-4e3f-43a5-b833-067ba0f39a22 |
5q06oh | How do poems translated from one language to another still rhyme? | The translated form is altered in order to rhyme, almost always. Usually the translator is also a poet who understands the original poet's style, so they'll try to keep the meaning and meter (if necessary) as close as possible to the original, while finding rhyming words that fit.
EDIT: Here's an example from Charles Baudelaire, from *Benediction*
**Original French (rhyming):**
Car il ne sera fait que de pure lumière,
Puisée au foyer saint des rayons primitifs,
Et dont les yeux mortels, dans leur splendeur entière,
Ne sont que des miroirs obscurcis et plaintifs!
**More literal (non-rhyming) translation:**
For that crown will be made of nothing but pure light
Drawn from the holy source of primal rays,
Whereof our mortal eyes, in their fullest brightness,
Are no more than tarnished, mournful mirrors!
**Rhyming translation:**
Because it will be only made of light,
Drawn from the hearth of the essential rays,
To which our mortal eyes, when burning bright,
Are but the tarnished mirrors that they glaze.
You can see that word order and word choices have been fiddled a bit in that last example to make things rhyme. But it mostly keeps the effect of the original, if the translator knows their stuff. | 0cef8187-c3bd-48e1-8d81-c673194243ac |
76kn6r | Can people have smaller than average organs and what does it mean? | If you made it this long with little to no problems, I wouldn't worry about it.
Best thing to do is talk to your doctor about it. She would probably feel bad if she knew what she said made you uncomfortable and she didn't know/therefore couldn't explain things for you so you could feel better.
I'm almost 36 and was 7 weeks early at 4lb 5oz. I have a medically documented legit thick skull. Lol. A host of other problems too, but family genetics are to blame. | 6c494d9e-d428-4c8e-8058-6c409bec8481 |
5u869s | why is it that flies seem to appear out of thin air so quickly (even indoors) when rotten things or feces are nearby? | Fun fact, up until recently in modern history people simply believed that things like garbage and feces spontaneously generated life because like you said, it seems like there are no flies, then trash and boom, hella flies.
The truth is a little more boring and gross, it's simply that flies and maggots are all around you all the time, and they just congregate quickly. Since they have a fairly short life cycle and make tons of babies, it only takes a few days for a handful of flies to become a swarm. | 1bfe00c7-30d6-491d-8ec6-f6be5f9d94f0 |
5v1uyd | What are fair split screens? | If you're going to ask about a current Reddit post, [it's helpful to include a link to it in the question](_URL_0_).
Split screen video games are where you have multiple players, each with their own view on half the screen. Think playing Golden Eye/Halo on a single system.
One of the problems you run into here is that the other player can look at your screen to see where you are, making it impossible to sneak up on somebody who is "cheating".
A "fair" split screen is one that somehow prevents this.
The method used in the post I presume you're talking about involves using a 3D TV and giving each player special glasses. One player only sees the "left eye" image and the other only sees the "right eye" image. When it works right, this means two people are looking at the same TV, playing the same game & seeing completely different images. | fe622b95-47d8-48fd-aed1-e84383d5bbda |
20v5fx | What are mirrors made of? How does it get that reflection quality? | They used to be glass that had electroplated silver on one side and then black paint on top of that. And they also used to be really well polished metal. Now a days it is usually much cheaper aluminum on glass. | 5b20ab7a-d901-454c-9af1-acd6ad9d3e7d |
29mtnf | I'm far sighted. Are there reverse-blurred images that would appear clear to me? | So you want something like this [shortsightedness optical illusion](_URL_0_). but for farsightedness. | b86f9256-ea5e-40e3-8d64-f98da5ede9c7 |
2e43x7 | Why stage 4 cancer is "uncurable" | At stage 4, the cancer has spread throughout the body to multiple locations distant from the original tumor. It's considered uncurable at that point because it's not feasible, or really even possible to any degree of certainty, to remove all the tumors. At that point, the odds are pretty good you've not only got the tumors they can find, there are any number that are too small to be detected yet. The best you can do is chemo and/or radiation and hope for some degree of remission - but since it's already spread throughout the body, someday it IS going to come back and there's not much current medical technology can do about it. | 75f14838-7c2e-4dfc-a450-80468127e346 |
3nwr20 | Why don't console developers re-release older consoles? | Because almost nobody buys them. The market for any electronic device drops through the floor as soon as a newer version comes out. | 33db6f9a-7343-4df1-8202-4004e4f2dc86 |
231y6q | Why does the US government bail out General Motors every time they go under? | > every time they go under
You mean once? | 40e05b56-7809-401a-ba89-d3bb0fd3eb0a |
24xr68 | Reasonable Force Laws in the UK | Basically it boils down to this:
> The prosecution must adduce sufficient evidence to satisfy a jury beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant was either:
> not acting to defend himself/herself or another; or
not acting to defend property; or not acting to prevent a crime or to apprehend an offender; or if he was so acting, the force used was excessive. | f111dbcf-03e7-4d57-8547-12c7310f72ef |
79kc30 | Are US Congressional members actually exempt from insider trading laws? Is this okay? | Yes, and define "okay".
Insider trading is a broad statute that basically(attempts to) prevents people from trading on material knowledge the general public doesn't have. Due to the broad policy implications of being in congress a given congressmen almost always has some sort of inside information. Be that something specific like "acme is going to get the contract for XYZ" to something broad like "this tax bill probably won't pass". What that means is basically any trade any given member of congress makes could theoretically have been done with nonpublic material information. So to realistically prevent people from potentially being caught up in insider trading investigations congressmen would need to be completely removed from the management of their own money. This already happens with key insiders of private institutions through systematic sales of their company stock. The kicker is those programs are just for that given stock while congresspeople would need all investments(yes even purchases of government bonds) controlled. So the only real solution is to have anyone who is a member of congress forfeit all of their assets in to a blind trust like presidents(up until the most recent one) have typically done. | 1d0b8a4d-0e23-4ecd-b754-e136a0ca0c08 |
4csnhy | What happens if Hillary Clinton is charged with an offence by the FBI, how would this affect the Presidential race and would she be allowed to continue? | Legally speaking, it would have no impact. Nor would a conviction, or even being in jail. Article 2 of the US Constitution lays out the requirements for being elected president, and none of these factors enter into it.
In fact, not having an indictment would be a terrible, terrible requirement. Imagine if the day before the election, the leading candidate was barred because their political enemies managed a trumped up indictment. | ee38536c-c44c-4855-bc30-47f67b41bff2 |
4abjmw | Why do children seemingly enjoy being tickled but grow to hate it as adults? | Plenty of adults like being tickled and plenty of kids hate being tickled. People often laugh involuntarily when they're tickled; this is a defense mechanism to signify submissiveness. People will often panic quite a bit because they don't like feeling vulnerable; this is because being tickled activates the part of your brain responsible for fight or flight. I remember being tickled by an older friend when I was little and I was laughing but telling her to stop. Likewise, in an episode of Family Guy, Lois laughs when Peter tickles her but then breaks his nose with a frying pan to get him to stop.
A child may like it because they're more carefree and it's more of a playful thing to them. Remember, even if the kid is laughing, it doesn't mean they're okay with being tickled. An adult may feel helpless or vulnerable and may not like experiencing those feelings, but most often, they hate it because they were tickled a lot as kids.
If you're a kid who loves being tickled then you'll probably grow up to be an adult who loves being tickled by his/her SO. Likewise, if you hate it, you'll probably hate it when you're older. | 0f51a81e-7b25-41b7-b110-1f0604b14308 |
3ja9jk | Why is liquor supposedly better the longer it is aged? | Not all liquor and wine improve with age. Many are designed to open immediately.
With whiskey, for example, the process of making whiskey involves aging for years in a barrel. The alcohol will cause chemical reactions with the wood of the barrel, which gives it it's iconic "whiskey" flavor and its caramel-brown color. Most whiskey must be ages for 2-3 years before it can even be called whiskey, but many whiskeys are aged for 15-20+ years.
With wine, your average consumer wine will turn brown and lose flavor if not opened for years. It is not meant to be aged. Good wine that has lots of tannins, like a Bordeaux wine, is aged and the tannins soften over a long time. | 29d0d98a-f2bf-4435-8c82-74dd910fb0e9 |
8vxfrm | Carbon-14 half-life and why it's only useful for dating organic materials less than 50,000 years old? | I think you're confused as to what a half life is. A half life is how long it takes for half of the material (in this case the radioactive carbon-14 isotope) to decay. I've never heard of a full life.
For example, take 100g of Carbon-14. After ~5,700 years (it's half life) you'll have 50g of Carbon-14. Now take another ~5,700 years and that 50g will be cut in half to 25g. Then in half to 12.5g. Repeat.
We say it's only good for about 50,000 years because after that point there's too little of the isotope left for us to reliably measure. You'd need to pick something with a longer half life to reliably date farther back. | e321fabb-97c8-428c-ba7a-c0da3a7366b3 |
60oe4x | why do we cringe with certain sounds (nails on the chalkboard, etc.) | why do mods cringe when people refuse to search the archive? | 28b316d0-de92-4cb0-ad9b-93f757d2398e |
3nb3ax | . Why is IPhone so popular? The new 6s has 2gigs of ram the same as my old Galaxy 4 and half as much as my note 5. | Like every Apple product, it is user friendly. It is really hard to screw anything up on it, and it is designed to be intuitive. How it is marketed has something to do with it too. (and their planned obsolescence helps keep them making money) | 7fdf3998-fdb8-4a6e-820e-abfeaea8487d |
6ybzxz | Why to they have traffic reports on TV? How does it benefit only people watching at home? | People may be leaving the house soon, or they are waiting on somebody to arrive.
And I suppose its because people watching the news want to see the traffic. If every time they had a traffic report everybody changed the station, they would stop running traffic reports. | d7b162af-cbdb-496f-ac92-abad35617355 |
5ea0ud | When a city loses power (like in a lot of movies), why aren't all the lights going off at the same time? | They call it a power grid for a reason, it is an actual grid. The main power lines come in from the power plant, which are then routed to different areas, then routed to smaller areas in each area, and so on and so forth until it reaches the end user. Think of it as an upside down tree. Trunk is the main line, branches are the end. Depending on what systems and safety protocols are in place, each grid may be on a little longer or shorter than others. Movies may exaggerate this somewhat but yes, it can happen like that. | d31ec900-d9d6-4bc0-9861-40ae1e585148 |
50vjy1 | How do countries export electricity? | > Do they connect power lines to other countries?
Pretty much - yes | a26a4ae0-4c75-4523-89db-7418ecd73613 |
4ty6l5 | How long would it take to accelerate to the speed of light in space so that the crew wouldn't suffer any negative effects from accelerating too quickly. | You can't accelerate to the speed of light, and still have the crew made of matter. So let's presume you meant 99% of the speed of light.
People deal well with 1g, 9.8m/s^2 of acceleration, and can stand 1.5g for a pretty long time. But to allow for safe sleep and digestion, 1g should probably be your limit. After a year you're a .76c, and you can get to .99c in a little over 18 months. | 6c6fe1e3-071c-4239-a875-71c8904f3c99 |
2lk60s | What does the US government do with the millions of dollars worth of bitcoins they seize from online black markets? | The last time they seized a bunch from Silk Road, they [sold it in an auction](_URL_0_), like with other seized property. They sold it in 3,000-coin chunks.
As for newer stuff, I *think* [this is the FBI's wallet number](_URL_1_) so you can see they still have over 144,000 Bitcoin. | 12fa3423-0849-478b-abc5-38298939b4fe |
542m6q | What is it that makes someone a naturally talented singer vs. someone that sounds like nails on a chalkboard? | I work in music production (not my main occupation, but it's the one I am best at). I play stringed instruments, and I can't sing to save my life but I specialise in vocal production.
In short... You can not be trained to be a great singer if you have nothing to begin with. Every single great singer I have worked with have had a natural ability. You can always tell them apart, because they can sing new material presented to them without having to practice or dissect it. They have an innate sense of melody and feel. When they are then given training on top of it... Boom.
Singing is not about staying on pitch. You can teach a monkey to sing a scale correctly. Singing is how you treat the grey areas in between notes.
Think of the end guitar solo in November Rain. You could play that melody on a piano but it wouldn't sound anywhere near as engaging. Every note would be bang on, whereas the guitar playing it has a lot of flirting with pitch and time to make it sound more human.
And it's the same with a singer. Everyone can tell (whether they know it or not) if a singer connects to a melody, or simply just reciting the notes they have practiced.
Now to the point... To sing like a singer, or play guitar like a guitarist, you have to not think about it. So if you have had to learn to sing, you will always be thinking about what you're doing. And that automatically stops you from expressing the emotion behind it.
And as hard as it is to hear for some... You either have it, or you don't. | f8d70511-4e47-4cee-be16-d060d8c61a95 |
1134ui | Why does handwriting differ? | Out of personal experience, I remember when I first was learning to write, my teacher had a certain look to her handwriting I admired. So, I mimicked her until I picked up the handwriting. So to answer your question, it depends. If you like the font/style of the educator, chances are you'll mimick their handwriting. You may see a font in a book and want to just write your "t"s like that. | f03314e9-3a75-4f7d-85b4-b490d8873184 |
14clzz | "Era of Bad Feelings" | The Era of Good Feelings was a period of American history (early 1800s) that fell between major conflicts, expectations were high, the major political parties cooperated and people got along.
The Era of Bad Feelings is just a cloy way of saying now is a time of conflict, lowered expectations and partisan bickering. | 35ce2946-9790-4bc2-97a6-5e28699b0687 |
1ejw78 | Why is it that pretty much everyone enjoys music? | I used to work on an assembly line and we were allowed to have small radios on our benches while we worked. My supervisor was a really cranky old lady that just never seemed happy about anything. I was working near her desk one night (we rotated benches often) and to as not to offend her (and because I have a very eclectic taste in music) I asked her what kind of music she liked in order to find something that she would enjoy. Her response was "I never listen to music, I don't really like it".
After that she just seemed less...human. That quite possibly explained why she never seemed happy, I mean how can you go through life without music...it's just not right. | b9deb212-812d-4bca-95a0-869301753f1e |
7wtg89 | how does your digestive system get liquids separated to your kidneys? | It doesnt't really. The digestive system mostly absorbs everything it can from the food into the bloodstream (nutrients, water, etc.) and the rest of it (fiber, some water stercobilin from bile, etc.) comes out as poop. The kidney then takes the blood and removes the things you don't really need in it (some water and electrolytes, waste products, etc.)
Capsaicin, the substance responsible for the spiciness of pepper, is mostly absorbed into the blood, but most of it is broken down in the liver, so its concentration in the urine will not be enough to make it burn when you pee. The small amount that's left in the poop is more concentrated, which gives you the ring of fire. This applies both to spicy food and pepper vodka. | d31a4088-6f02-464b-8c4f-ff21b2421ad8 |
2ue0oc | Why are certain organs associated with certain feelings? For example, why do people think love comes from the heart? | In Shakespearean time the liver was where courage lied. If your liver did not receive enough blood you would have a pale liver. hence "lily liverd" | 8e51bed1-195b-41f5-a700-00c07d65fd84 |
2fbu1n | Why don't/can't governments just illegalize smoking? | The tobacco lobby is very powerful, smoking is a huge economic industry, tons of people like smoking, lots of people object to the government acting as a nanny and regulating our well being, and prohibition has a poor track record.
It's a losing proposition for just about the entire country. | a733b1e0-ae61-4e1b-b8f8-7d33572ee246 |
21551u | What is happening in the brain when someone has an "Aha!" moment? | One cell in your brain makes a path to another one, and voila you have a scenario that you reference for the rest of your life, unless you dont use it often, then it deteriorates. I don't remember all the specific terms cuz its early in the morning. But i suppose that IS what I'd tell a five year old | 1e56b836-813f-4372-b643-a2de2925d852 |
s2n1c | Street Sweepers | Without them, major roads would be covered with dust and ground up asphalt and tire particles, not to mention litter. Sweeping streets also reduces pollutants that end up in groundwater when it rains. | 11359625-cde5-42de-a04b-072bb7e0c05c |
43o4nd | Why is the unit of measure placed before the value for currencies? | It's not always. Cents or other symbols denoting fractions-of-a-currency often are placed after the number (example: 59¢ compared to $1.59). And euro symbols are often seen after the number in signage in some countries and sometimes even in the middle (e.g. 1€59.)
But for financial transactions it's usually up front as a matter of convenience for the observer, particularly in longer numbers such as international transactions that might be in separate currencies. You immediately know what currency the potentially long number is, and when it's a separated currency such as dollars-and-cents or pounds-and-pence, the symbol up front for the bigger of the two splits coming first immediately lets you know the magnitude of the number. | 061c4270-4ff3-4b7a-a7bd-48e893215473 |
7oo3up | How do they get the bubbles inside the soda? | The bubbles are carbon dioxide which is soluble in water. The main method they get the CO2 into the soda is a two step process.
The first step is chilling the soda by running it through a chiller. This is necessary because CO2 (and gases in general) can stay dissolved in cold liquids much better and warmer ones.
The second step is passing it through a carbonator which is essentially a small pipe that injects the CO2 into the soda.
Both of these processes happen "in line" meaning they happen more or less in the pipe as the soda is going from whatever tank its being held in on its way to the filler to put it in a can or bottle. Both the chiller and the carbonator are devices in that pipe. | f77840a9-7338-40d1-b405-70130946f7a4 |
4qay7p | If I use a credit card and only buy 10$ of something, but my "minimum amount due" at the end of a payment period is 35$, do I pay just the 10$ or 35$? | You read the invoice, and figure out why it's 25 dollars more. Was there a fraudulent charge ? Than you call their fraud department. Was there a 25 dollar fee added on ? Was it legitimate ? Then you pay the 35. | 874316e0-f01c-4c54-8a40-20eba6c060e9 |
45mq5i | Why did I have to throw away the lid from my water bottle going into a stadium in Hamburg? | Removing the lid hampers the bottles ability to be used for other nefarious-type uses. It's hard to throw water bottles at the field/other team/your brother-in-law if most of the liquid and subsequent weight is removed while tossed.
Also, removing the cap puts shame on the bottle which might make it think twice before launching itself at unsuspecting stadium goers. | b2e3b58a-87e3-4cfc-b7d1-5f97433be647 |
k8nb6 | How does the 'scene' community work? Where
is the motivation? Where does the money come from? | > How is it that you can get TV shows moments after they're done airing, without paying a cent?
People recording TV through an input on their computer, encoding it in real-time with good CPUs, and immediately uploading it when the show's finished.
> Who is getting paid for all this hard work- it can't be all just for fun?
Fun and competition. They compete to see who can do it the fastest and upload the most, because they like it. They also get access to the stuff their competitors upload, but these days it's about fun, they'd get access to that stuff anyway.
> How about games or movies?
With games there's even more competition, because you have to crack the anti-piracy measure. People are motivated by the challenge, and compete to see who can crack the protection first.
> Where does the money come from?
What money? The money to pay for the FTP servers? They just put them together at home or pay a company for an ordinary dedicated server, the way people do for websites or videogame servers every day. None of the pirates are getting paid, if that's what you mean.
And because this is usually the question asked next...
> How can they release it before the release date?
Record labels send hundreds of albums out to reviewers in the months before release. Usually it's these that get leaked. Sometimes it's leaked by engineers or other studio employees, and sometimes it's even leaked by band members.
Movie studios send out 'screener' copies to reviewers too. During Oscar voting, studios send screener copies of all their best movies to every member the Academy (5,835 members). These people, or their friends and kids, leak copies online.
Videogames are often sent to stores weeks before the store is allowed to sell them. They're liked by an employee who has access to a copy. Other times the game is again, sent to reviewers.
Books are scanned and processed with optical character recognition software to become ebooks, and those are uploaded. | a2c1d9e8-f716-4150-bec8-8bf62e2ce7f1 |
2fg8bk | As someone not from the US, what exactly are sororities and fraternities at university? | Reddit is probably not the place to get an unbiased opinion on Frats and Sororities...
/u/glendon24 eplained the entrance system pretty well. You have to pay what usually amounts to a large amount of money. This money is called Dues. The frat/ sorority uses the dues that you pay to fund social events, philanthropy and maintenance.
Frats can provide lots of advantages in the business world which is the main reason people join them. Most fraternities have Alumni Association which will help Fraternity members find jobs. It also keeps track of what companies different alumni work at so if you are getting ready to apply someplace you could potentially have an immediate connection to that company that you might not have. I would assume Sororities work pretty much the same way.
You are essentially paying to gain a social edge and a national support group. Not to mention that most people enjoy socializing with their Frats so it is enjoyable as well.
Edit: A lot of people raise some good points. I think the most important point raised is that any "social edge or national support group" gained from Frats and Sororities has an expiration date. If you take advantage of what is offered while you are in school (study groups with other frat members, being active in the community around you, potential connections at business for internships that can be made possible through your frat alumni, and using your alumni connections to get your foot in the door for interviews at businesses that interest you/ further your career) THEN Frats and Sororities can be a huge leg up for a kid in college or about to graduate from college.
For each year you remove yourself from college, what frat you were in starts to matter less and less and you current experience matters more and more. BUT a Frat can help you get that all important post college experience IF you use it to bolster your resume.
Sure you can use it to party and have fun, but you are wasting its potential. If you Frat doesn't offer that kind of support then maybe you need to reevaluate why you are spending so much money on something so you can party at the time in your life that could easily determine your future. | dbf37894-0613-44aa-9751-6b00859a2888 |
6hp2ox | Could a President-Vice President couple pardon each other? Could the President pardon the VP, then pardon resign allowing the VP to pardon the President? | There is no reason a President cannot pardon the VP or vice-versa. Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 and was pardoned by his previous VP (now sitting president) Gerald Ford.
This pardon does not prevent the impeachment process which could remove the previous VP (now sitting President) from Office. | 791bb14e-fca6-4aae-ad1f-9246c57fbdf2 |
45jvul | Audio Interface | It's a box that connects to your computer to allow recording of more than one thing at once, for instance a whole band, and playing back through more than one speaker.
It has higher quality sound than a computer has built in and often has other features such as effects and controls for the inputs. | a29eda6f-0290-44d5-a789-580ac4c3053f |
1xak4c | How is there wifi on buses (ie. megabus) and not on airplanes? | There is WiFi on many planes. The reason there wasn't for a ling time after buses got it is for safety concerns. | 0efb99f7-5a41-43f4-a2d7-7580d1c32880 |
3nju49 | I googled Iran in the 1970s and none of the women wore burqas. Why has that changed? | Because they had a revolution in 1979, which led to the establishment of an Islamic republic & restrictions on the rights and freedoms of women. | 11118fed-8ae9-4b60-9c85-1c78dba7bcc2 |
736yhr | How does our immune system differentiate between good and bad bacteria? | You'd need a PhD in immunology to get any rigorous answer.
One overly broad way to answer "how does our immune system differentiate" is simply: it doesn't.
If you raised a primary immune response to every bacterial cell you'd be in big trouble. Gut bacteria have evolved with us to either work to our benefit (mutualism) or to work without harming us (commensalism). There is usually very little benefit in killing a human for bacteria, but often a very high reward in behaving. Most pathogens evolve, over time, to be less pathogenic for that reason.
A second possible answer is that our immune system doesn't need to differentiate because the good bacteria do it for us. The "good" bacteria not only evolved to be harmless/helpful to us, but they also evolved to be very efficient within us. Their efficiency is so high that they use up resources faster than invasive bacteria can. This competition depends upon the bacteria having evolved with humans for a long time, which often means it evolved low pathogenicity.
A third answer is that the immune system modulates its response by area of the body. Pathogens in the gut trigger a weak immune response. Anything foreign in the blood, though, triggers a strong response. Immunologically this can work as simply as lowering the concentration of T or B cells. In a more complicated way, the cells that are present may be immature (this can be true even within the body, for example in the liver).
The human cells in your body are outnumbered 10:1 by bacteria. You can't live without them, and they can't live without us. | 1f5bd758-32d2-41b6-a58b-9349b1c89f6d |
74yrg2 | Why is our current world map, the Mercator Map, not to scale? It represents the US as gigantic is reference to South America and Africa. In reality both of continents dwarf the US in size. | There is no way to accurately project a spherical surface onto a two-dimensional map. Something has to be inaccurate, size, shape, distance, and or direction.
The advantage of the Mercator projection is that it preserves direction, which is useful for navigation. It is also rectangular, so it better utilizes the space on a rectangular map.
There are [several other](_URL_0_) map projections, all with their strengths and weaknesses. | 1c323745-04fa-4dc1-9cb6-0c633daacca3 |
2p37dz | If jury decisions have to be unanimous, why aren't there way more hung juries? | [Not all juries need to be unanimous](_URL_0_).
I believe that some courts don't allow juries to return hung until a certain amount of time has passed, in order to encourage discussion. | 79a1c15f-dbef-48d7-b809-996fae493b52 |
6o1009 | How animals like Octopus are discovered to get "bored" | "Bored" is a human term, and it's associated with a set of negative behaviors. The "cure for boredom" in humans is additional interaction.
When an octopus is in a closed area, after a while they start to take on some of these same behaviors, and they stop when they have more interaction. Thus the term "bored" gets applied by the humans observing them.
In nature, they probably just go a little farther to explore an area beyond their normal area. Just like humans who decide to explore frontiers. We're applying human emotional state labels to their observed state because it makes good predictions. | a6064c2e-073b-48b3-b790-6e3f2a55a3e3 |
88luy5 | How do airplanes take off? | They use their engines to push them down the runway faster and faster, until the amount of wind passing under their wings is enough to lift them into the air. | e8f5226d-d3c4-4dc3-ba4b-b12c5538d3af |
87r2b6 | Pleading the 5th Amendment | The 5th Amendment exists primarily because a prosecutor can almost always trick or browbeat any admission they choose out of a suspect.
People have trouble understanding this because they've never been placed in such a situation. They think "oh, I'd never say something incriminating because I was guilty". But it happens all the time to intelligent and discerning people.
Even simple mistakes can hurt you. Imagine I asked you where you were on the evening of December 3, 2016. You probably don't remember off-hand. But I keep hammering at you for an answer. Eventually, you 'remember' that you were at your grandmother's house. But then I pull out some surveillance that shows you buying some beer at a convenience store near your grandmother's house. Now I have evidence you're liar. You *weren't* at your grandmother's house - you were at a convenience store. The fact that neither place you at the scene of the murder doesn't matter - you're a liar who can't be trusted.
The power of the state to manipulate your own words against you is so potent that, in the absence of the 5th Amendment, you're effectively relying on prosecutors to be perfectly honest and above-board. They can easily send you to jail despite your innocence, but they don't - despite all the incentives for them being aligned in the hang-em-high direction. This is an unreasonable amount of power to place in the hands of prosecutors. | 8d0a891e-caf8-4d3d-a544-c8bbc85a5914 |
37o4mz | why aren't laughs different in the same way languages and accents are? | They absolutely are. It might be harder to detect because, well, it's a semi-involuntary sound, but there are, in fact, different "laughter" dialect.
Another point is tat laughter hardly ever needs translation, so... | 8c0e73a1-a816-4b7a-b6dd-b110bbb16eaa |
6b6h64 | How much of a connection is there between being good at basic math and mastering algebra, calculus? | Engineer here.
It's still a large gap from High School maths to Math analysis / Calculus. College Algebra is more accessible (the initial parts, then it gets hard as the rest).
From my experience. To pass with good grades you need to study a bit BUT solving A LOT of exercises. Maths in college are a mix between understanding and remembering what you should do.
*You have to know what to do immediately:* That a major difference between College math and HS. You don't have a lot of time to think about how are you going to solve that problem or pre-testing on how you will solve that. You need to have that type of exercises burnt into your head. That requires a lot of exercise solving, even if you don't understand all the steps.
Of course you can try to understand it all. But most of the cases you have other things to study for / projects to deliver, etc.
I don't think it's a bad thing. You will forget about those exercises in the next semester but the essential part will still remain. Also forcing to solving exercises separates the Lazy students from the hard-working ones.
College is about hard-working. The intelligence parts it's not as relevant as it was in during HS.
> How much of a connection is there between being good at basic math and mastering algebra, calculus?
Keep in mind after you "Master" something you still need to train everyday. | 52085762-92b4-4a55-be71-1a799d34fbf1 |
3syibn | What made militant Islam what it is today? | I think it's similar to the "Know Nothing" party in the US that developed. It's a counter movement to enlightenment, to be proud to be ignorant, because knowledge is frightening to long standing thoughts about the way the world works, such as religion.
Couple that with some seriously barbaric text in the Koran that calls for the killing, subjugation, and forced conversion of non-believers, and you have a recipe for disaster.
Here's one example:
> Quran 9:29 "Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture - [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled." | 37adc457-44e1-41c5-9e55-34e3243ca000 |
60kxfb | Why do most diseases seem to originate from China or India? | Well, it doesn't seem that way to begin with...so, how to ans that? | 117c83b3-e1d6-4660-b4e1-2460e282a12c |
626x98 | how does dust form? And what generates the biggest amount of dust? | A lot of people will tell you it's mostly dead skin cells, but that's obviously not the majority of dust. You can easily verify this by leaving stuff in a non climate controlled storage unit for a year and coming back to find a layer of dust. Dust is mostly just particles of dirt and whatever else that is light enough to be picked up by wind. | 9870d697-69ed-4b9c-94fd-972b74b86825 |
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