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283vk7 | Why is communism bad? | Everyone gets everything equal in a communist society. Except those at the top who are usually corrupt and get lots. Also nobody is motivated to do anything since the outcome is the same. Its not bad in theory as we all want equality, however it fails when actually applied because of human nature. We need to be motivated and rewarded for our work. But its not really a "bad thing", just one way of running things which doesn't work so well. | abe8c0e8-da3d-4abe-936e-eae7a5036840 |
1uz8hz | How does aspirin, ibuprofen, and acetaminophen work? How does it know where the pain is? (Example: Headache; Back pain; Leg pain; etc.) | Aspirin and Ibuprofen belong to a group of drugs calls NSAIDs and with regards to pain, decrease pain by inhibiting COX enzymes. The COX enzyme increases inflammation (and therefore pain). Acetaminophen, whilst not being an NSAID is postulated to work in a similar fashion.
The drugs don't know where to work and are transported through the blood stream all over the body. Where ever the COX enzyme is, the drugs will act on it (hence side effects). In areas of inflammation, certain COX enzymes are higher in number. | 22e8e72b-701a-4cd7-9c04-5a35243fcfd5 |
7ru44i | What makes an MR layout car more likely to oversteer? | Think less about the weight transfer, and more about where the weight is in relation to the tires. On rear-engined cars the engine weight is out past the rear tires, and so when the cornering car decelerates, the side force of the engine weight is applied to the rear tires alone, which increases their slip angle, too (this decreases available traction.) When you decelerate, think of that as a backwards force acting on the center of gravity. But the car is also rotating, and that rotation is carrying the mass of the engine outside of the line the center of gravity is tracing, and trying to rotate the car further. And the further it steps out, the greater the force it creates trying to rotate the car, which increases slip angle, which decreases available traction, and I think you can see that viscous circle. Rotation increasing, traction decreasing, rotation force increasing. That is your snap oversteer.
A good practical way to visual this is to put a pencil on the desk in front of you, pointed directly away from you. If you flick the pencil on the eraser, it moves straight away from you. If you turn the pencil slightly to one side, but still flick directly away from you, the more the pencil is angled, the more of your flick that goes into rotating the pencil and less into moving it away from you. The force of that rear engine is your flick. If it's inline with the direction of travel, no big deal. That's not so true when the car has rotated to a tail-out attitude. If you apply the flick further up the pencil, the initial rotation decreases the further forward you apply the force. | 45cdc2a7-4cb4-423e-8cc6-f7aaa96147c3 |
1yr0jg | Why Are AMEX cards not allowed to be used as much as Visa and Mastercard? | Well I have a business and the fee isn't really the problem if I'm being honest; business owners will say it's the fees... but it's bullshit. That extra percent isn't going to kill most businesses.
The real reason? Chargebacks. AMEX will process them for virtually any reason. You bought a laptop from me and thought the blue color would be lighter? Bam... refund, keep the item. Unless you habitually chargeback, and even then AMEX will let you do it a whole lot, you'll get a refund for any reason.
Accepting AMEX means I risk giving away every item sold with AMEX. The good majority of AMEX holders also have some sort of Visa/Mastercard, usually a debit card at least. So the couple sales I'd lose is negotiable, most just go "I'll pay with another card". | 0dd9ca25-ceea-46c0-bc3a-d85b1407a388 |
7mw981 | why we sell gas by the volume but not mass, unlike in avionics and auto racing? | Planes and race cars care about how much weight they're moving around as it has a significant impact on performance. A plane needs more power to get more weight off the ground so extra mass is a problem for it if you happen to fuel it on a cold day
Passenger cars don't care as much about added mass, and people know they have a 10 or 12 or 15 gallon fuel tank, not a 64, 96, or 128 pound fuel tank. We generally measure liquids by volume not mass, you can see this with baking instructions too
We also don't meticulously temperature control gasoline. Put it in a big underground tank and it'll stay around the same temperature all year long. Even if it does go through temperature swings, it doesn't change in density that much. At 0C gasoline is 1.8% denser than at 15C, and at 30C it is 2% less dense than at 15C, that's not a huge swing | 2a1d3295-3508-4071-a8bd-7fb888bcc9dd |
5hm6ed | How and why do things get preserved in amber? | Amber is basically tree sap. Bug or animals chilling out near tress have some of it fall on them or they step in it and get stuck. The amber surrounds them and keeps them there.
As far as getting preserved they are kept away from reactants, i think oxygen is the big one, which stops them from decaying or being broken down over great periods of time. Its like a can of food. It lasts forever becuase they are sealed up from everything outside. | a7b4e38e-077c-444a-86a6-601bd65a35a8 |
39i3wn | Tone curves in digital photography/photoshop. | There are different [color tones](_URL_0_) (I don't know if this is the right term since I am German, but anyway, that's not important). This picture, although it might not be scientifically totally correct, really helps to understand the tones: The different tones are red, blue, green, yellow, purple, and so on. Tones can differ in brightness: Colors more in the middle of this circle are brighter, but have the same tone as colors more on the outside in the same position.
When you change the tone, you turn this circle slightly: blue turns purple, purple turns pink, pink turns red, and so on, of course it also works in the different direction. Note that for example in Photoshop the tone is a number between -180 and 180, with 0 as default. That's the amount of degrees you turn the circle (+ or - means clockwise or counterclockwise), which makes sense, since 360 degrees is a whole circle. 0 wouldn't change the tone at all, 180 (or -180) turns a picture into its negative (since 180 degrees are exactly one helf circle).
Usually you don't want to change the tone much, since it would turn colors odd, like humans green or the sky red.
Edit: Wait, did I explain something wrong? I might have confused some terms while translating them... :( | fa37cb58-13ea-4496-960d-6c5165b511a0 |
2x4pf0 | Why can I barely hear a siren when I'm driving and it's right behind me but they always wake me up in the middle of the night from far away? | Probably because in your car there's engine noise, road noise, and music, while at night it's quiet. Could that be it? | a45123e5-200f-4ac5-9ac7-28dc7688cf49 |
1uvmvn | How is medicine developed? Basically how do we know which compounds will help with a certain disease/condition? | There are several ways to go about making a new drug.
1) The easiest is to take an existing drug and change it slightly. This is how whole classes of drugs exist. If you know the chemical structure of a drug that already works, you can experiment with changing it and seeing what happens. This is how we get newer "designer drugs" where existing chemicals were expertly altered to either enhance potency or diminish side effects.
2) Another way is straight trial and error. Pharm companies have huge rooms of stock chemicals and compounds and whole divisions of scientists who, once they get a stable animal or laboratory model of a disease, will just start taking drugs off the shelf and seeing if any of it works. This is how many on the treatments for HIV/AIDS were discovered. If something works, we then try and figure out why. Often we don't know, there are a lot of drugs we use commonly with "mechanism of action: unknown."
3) A newer, but costly method, is advanced computer modeling. We now have limited capability to computer simulate the action and structure of enzymes in the human body (often the target for drug action) and knowing this we can simulate what chemical compounds in theory would block or enhance these enzymes. This is working backwards, instead of working with an existing known compound, we first figure out what would work in theory, then go invent the compound.]
4)Sometimes we start out making a drug for one thing, and find out an unintended effect that means we can use it for something else. Pfizer didn't make viagra for boners. It was testing classes of vasodilators for Anginal chest pain. Turns out, viagra and the like are shitty at relieving chest pain, but the test subjects wanted more because of all the great bonners they were getting in the trials.
Side effects are established all along the way. Drugs go through extensive animal testing first to determine metabolism and toxicities. Then they go through human trials in 4 phases. Phase I is the drug is given to healthy volunteers in first very small amounts then larger. Blood and urine are measured to asses for metabolism, drug levels, and any side effects here are noted. Phase II is the drug is given to a small amount of people with the actual disease to establish minimal effetive doses and possible treatment regimens. Is 5mg enough, 10mg? Maybe better to give in the AM or PM? Once a day or twice? Then Phase III trials are larger, multicenter studies where the drug is given to a large population (several thousand) with the disease and also tested along side a placebo, the point is to prove the drug works better than nothing. As with phase I, any side effects are noted*.
Phase IV is aftermarket surveillance. New drugs on the market are closely watched for side effects not reported in other phases. Even if a blood pressure med is tested on 10,000 people in phase III, it will be prescribed to millions of people for a lot longer time, a large population that cannot be adequately studied with a small group of testers.
*Its also common to put down anything symptom or sick wise that occurs to the patient in trials as a "Side effect". This is why those lists are impossible long and always have stuff like headache and nausea. Testing a new drug for 6 months? Have a random headache in that 6 months? Well can't tell if the drug caused it or not so its gonna be reported as a side effect. That's a hard part of new drugs is figuring out what are the real common side effects and more importantly, the super rare but super dangerous side effects (google Stevens-Johnson syndrome if you dare). | 2946512f-cbe6-4406-a3c2-7b6f91f97159 |
1phwka | how could major body changes evolve in small steps? | Your point hinges on the fact that the intermediaries are detrimental, and that is inherently false. Your argument is common, though usually the eye is used as an example.
Every step in between non-existence of the organ and the fully functional version we have today had some use, or did not provide a major disadvantage. Evolution is all about survival and reproduction - if a parent survives, it can pass mutations to its children. A frilly lizard born without legs will probably not reproduce, and will die; a frilly lizard born with an extra frilly frill may consume extra energy to sustain its extra frilly frill, but if it is a strong frilly lizard, the extra frilly frill is not enough to stop it from surviving. Eventually, extra frilly frill may indicate a strong frilly lizard - all the weak frilly lizards with extra frilly frills died because they couldn't compensate for the extra energy the extra frilly frill consumes.
As for your examples:
Lungs - I'm not exactly sure, to be honest, though I'm sure someone who studies this for a living would know. Calling /u/Unidan
Wings - A small raptor was born with extra skin flaps in its "armpits". It didn't affect the raptor's ability to survive and reproduce, so it got passed on. Eventually, the trait gets more and more accentuated, until the flaps catch enough air to slow down freefalls (they can jump off of higher places without getting hurt). From there, gliding; after that, flight.
Water to Air - Take a look at amphibians
Cells to Egg - I don't think I'm qualified enough for a good response on this one either
Egg to Birth, Meat - Same. These are all questions that would deserve their own post in /r/askscience. | dd6d6a68-13ca-4a36-96c3-c065e343b65f |
5ehfw4 | The tax system (in broad terms) and why do we have to pay taxes on property we own, like houses or inheritances. | You have taxes to fund the government and the various services and programs it provides. Property tax is commonly used to fund schools. Inheritance is not a tax on property you own, you did not own it your family member did. It is a tax on the ownership of that property changing hands. The purpose of this is to limit the massive accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few families over generations. Something that can and will happen given enough time. | 4566a373-1138-4494-8c39-4e325ff3ebac |
3d93sp | What is a pentaquark? | A pentaquark is a combination of 5 quarks (or multiple quarks and antiquarks, but they still add up to 5).
Quarks are subatomic particles smaller than the electron, and make up protons, neutrons, and other larger particles, called Hadrons. Quarks cannot exist alone, and must "partner" up in groups of 2 or 3. When quarks form particles in groups of 2, they're called mesons, and when they're formed by 3 quarks they're called baryons (like the proton and neutron). A pentaquark is significant because it shows that quarks can combine in ways that have never been observed.
On a fundamental level, quarks, hadrons, and leptons (electrons, muons, taus) make up all visible matter, and this discovery helps us to learn more about how ordinary matter is made. | 7f1a106d-781e-4a43-bf09-281e2b15556f |
4stlfc | biologically speaking, what is laughter? Is there some kind of chemical involved? If you can get past the animated facial expressions and the breathing, is there a way to objectively measure how hard someone is laughing? | Not sure about the second part of the question, but here's a good response from a previous thread:
> Laughter is thought to have first evolved as a response to fear. After encountering something potentially threatening and then discovering that it was harmless, early humans would laugh as a means of reassuring others. | a42dc69e-58dc-4e00-84d3-72f4251cbce2 |
8whrob | How did those guys get stuck in the cave in Thailand in the first place? | Ok, so the group has traveled into that cave system a few times in the past. Decided to go again this time round. Usually it's safe to visit before the rainy season arrives but unfortunately a rainstorm came early and flooded the entrance of the cave, trapping the group inside. More rain, more water, so the group had to move deeper into the cave to find higher ground or risk drowning. | 38c8584b-6f00-4d44-9d71-e09e4522f5f5 |
1httdr | Why the US prefers NASCAR to Formula One | NASCAR drivers work insanely hard to appear like "one of the guys" to their fans. In reality, they kind of are. Most drivers work their way up from driving go-karts on local tracks (again, full of NASCAR fans) to small stock cars to the big time if they're good enough.
The cars themselves are made up to look close to normal off the street "stock" cars, even though everyone really knows they haven't been stock for decades now.
In short, American racing fans identify more with stock car racing than F1. Of course there are Indy fans here, but NASCAR did a much better job of growing its fan base in the 90s. The Indy split didn't help their cause. | f4adbe18-3589-476b-a8ff-4f91e515e928 |
1xdl9o | Why is it that if theres a parking spot with snow, its a lot easier for cars to go in than to go out? Shouldnt it be the same? | You have inertia going in. Plus, the wheels compress the snow as they go over it. It often turns to ice when this happens, forming a ridge of ice the car has to bump over to get going again. Ice has almost zero friction so you can be stuck with each wheel in a little cup barely 1/2 inch or 1 cm deep. Hence the commercial about carrying a bit of cat litter with you to throw under the tires when that happens. | d81b556d-2630-4f97-89ed-4b39cf4f4b5d |
1qnr9a | Is my green the same as your green? | Everyone is going to say nobody knows, which is true. But just to break it down a bit...
You really need to define "see." When you think about what your brain is visualizing when you look at the screen, there are essentially two steps: the light hitting your eyes, and then your brain interpreting the light. Strictly speaking, if you define the light hitting one's eyes as "seeing," then (as far as I know) we do all see the *same* color. If we got an eye transplant, we should perceive the same exact colors; which makes sense, because we are interpreting the same wavelengths of light.
However, if you define "seeing" as being what your brain interprets the wavelengths as, then there's no way of knowing. The only real test would be if we could isolate the portion of the brain responsible for doing those interpretations, and transplanting/modifying those. My guess would be that we *don't* see the same colors, because everyone's brains could develop differently; and even if they do, there's always the possibility for mutation.
You could use this same analysis for all five senses. When you hear an instrument, does it sound the same to everyone else? Is "hearing" when the sound waves hit your eardrums or when they go to the brain? Is taste when the chemicals hit your tongue or when they go to the brain? Same process for each. | 0df81485-2fba-4fcb-a2da-c344b051361b |
303hy7 | If everyone knows California is due for "the big one" earthquake along the San Andreas fault. Why do people seem to not care? | Because in California, nobody gives a fuck about shit | 7b1f91ae-eedc-4eec-aebc-10765eccc61b |
4535s8 | How do bankers actually make our economy better? | Essentially, the entire role of the banking industry is to collect money from people with it, and distribute it out to enterprising people that need money.
If done correctly, everyone, the saver, the bank, and the entrepreneur profits from the venture. Everything financial that you mentioned, from the stock market to the hedge funds, exist just to find new ways to make money for those three groups.
No, the system isn't perfect, and is rife with abuses, but without it there'd be no long haul trucking, new construction, or new businesses, just to name a few. Without a doubt, the ability to move around large sums of money is a cornerstone of the world economy.
An example: Think of the economy like a vehicle. The savers are the gas tank. They have lots of money (gas), but don't really have anything to do with it. The engine on the other hand, wants to move the vehicle forward, but lacks the fuel to do so. In come the banks, like a fuel pump system, moving and managing the flow of gas, timing things properly so that the vehicle can continue to move forward. | 13dda84b-db97-4705-84d4-27d1b0b00590 |
65hb6g | How come when I'm drunk two eyes are screwed up but closing one eye allows me to see just fine? | Being inebriated impairs your depth perception, the coordination of both eyes working in unison. | ae34afce-44f9-40b8-aa7d-e718ba3fea83 |
4jkhlv | Why are there no national/state 911 apps (in the US)? | There has been. E911 system has been specced for years. But not all dispatch centers have upgrade their systems. The FCC has a timeframe at 2020 for full completion.
And to add, even if the dispatcher got the address, cops wouldn't be there to help her. It'd take 5-10 minutes average in cities. In random lake or something expect more than 15-30 | f0f46ce6-726a-41e5-9c76-ef5491002b80 |
1ku6zr | What prevents some one from changing monetary numbers in a banks computers to get rich. | Do you mean what stops a hacker from entering the bank's records from outside and altering them? Or what stops a bank's employees from altering the records from inside. THe answer to the first is some excellent security. Basicly the inner workings are never accessible even through the banks website. What you are seeing is merely a copy or false face of the actual records. So in the case of a mismatch the bank defaults to the back end copy that can never be altered.
In the case of an internal employee the answer is internal controls. It normally takes 2 people to do just about any significant action so you would have to get someone else in on it. Then all actions are tracked and reviewed, so you WOULD get caught, and the penalties are severe. | 3a10f388-a5b0-44e2-9e44-de160e9e6469 |
2a06sy | What happens in your brain when you take psychedelics? | For the past year, I've been following people's descriptions of what they experience when taking psychedelics and attempting to correlate it to my understanding of how the brain works (after a degree in neuroscience). First, you must recognize that the way you construct the present world in your brain is via concepts. For example, when you see something, your brain uses what you see (points, lines, curves, colors, etc.) to derive the concept of what you're looking at. **simply put: psychedelics disrupt the brain's ability to formulate concepts.** In this manner, vision is affected on a processing-level and concepts come into perception in a way that is inaccurate. Hence, they appear as hallucinations.
This is also true of thoughts; when people begin thinking of things, those concepts which they are attempting to bring into conscious perception also arrive distorted. Such concepts include notions regarding the self, including the fact of having a physical form. For this reason, people on hallucinogens can experience a transcendence and feel that they have left their body.
**Essentially, the brain has trouble bringing accurate facts together while still trying to make sense of things.**
With psychotherapy, this concept distortion can be taken advantage of, such as with the use of psilocybin which you alluded to. When a concept (neuronal ensemble) is activated robustly enough, it can become more easily manipulated (plastic). Given that the brain in the psychedellically-intoxicated state has trouble forming accurate (typical) concepts, a person's notion of self can be modified into something different. With the proper contextual setting, it can be possible to channel the thoughts used to derive a concept and thereby redefine simple concepts to abstract notions of oneself.
Given that psychedelics effect the ability to form concepts, if an overdose occurs, it can be anticipated that a person's ability to form concepts can be permanently effected. Such an individual would appear, in many ways, autistic (non-savant); unable to determine the appropriate way to act, categorize things, or make decisions.
I wish I could give you cold hard facts but I cannot (most of this information is based on my theory of how psychedelic function) but if you're interested in the technical details of what is going on in the brain, I'm happy to elaborate. | 74962a2a-a58e-46cf-a4c7-3e6234ffc4bc |
2samg5 | Are paper toilet seat covers (aka ass gaskets) really more sanitary than naked seats or just another example of humans being wasteful? | Chances are, there's nothing particularly hazardous on the seat itself regardless. A toilet seat is not a hospitable place for bacteria to hang out.
If anything, they're a peace-of-mind device. | 13a99bb9-4ea7-495b-ba53-3d35fbe5898b |
8uck6j | How exactly do hacks work in online gaming? | Most hacks involve either finding where an app stores data, and modifying that data, or decoding how an app communicates with a server and spoofing that communication.
Unless the game is played with zero input from the player, then it is impossible to stop hacks, but you can make them harder to do, through the wonders of encryption. (This will also, generally, slow down communication between game and server)
The most secure option is to have the game app just stream data from the server, and store none locally, but for many games, especially real time games, this requires far too much bandwidth. | 6f5ab3f6-a0eb-4fe4-81d8-3a302ca899b4 |
4de3wp | why do pictures taken with very good cameras show so much detail that we can't see on our own. | Imagine you have a grid that is 10 boxes high, and 10 boxes wide. In total there are 100 boxes. If you were to try and draw a perfectly round object, it would be difficult. There would be jagged edges.
So you take each box, and divide it into 10 boxes high by 10 boxes wide... each single original box is now 100 boxes. This means you have 100 X 100 or 10,000 total boxes. Now you try to draw a circle, and it doesn't look half shabby...
Our eyes have a certain number of "boxes" we can resolve too, depending on how far we are from something. Some camera are able to capture more light than our eyes, and can map that light to a grid of EXTREMELY small boxes. They capture so much detail that you can zoom into one box or region of the picture, and it is still enough "definition" to be considered "3d resolution" by our eyes. | e0f8c8a1-9925-4a04-b995-4e48fcef5039 |
1dxu4j | If we can have 5" 1080p displays why can't we have 20" 8k displays? | No one has demanded such a thing (i.e. mobile devices with this resolution), since 8k content is more of a novelty, "this is the future" thing right now, while 1080p is the mainstream standard.
~~It'd be 10", btw - as the screen is measured diagonally and it's "4 times bigger" as in 4 1080p screens arranged in a rectangle. It'd be perfectly possible to make a 8K 10" tablet by that logic.~~ was thinking about 4K. | f7f96bf6-2475-4318-987d-3a6417c76a72 |
mphap | LUCA: A giant supra-organism that broke into three and created all life on earth? | LUCA stands for *Last Universal Common Ancestor*.
As far as scientists can tell, all life on Earth is related. Distantly related, but related. You're relatives with single-celled bacteria -- if you could go back far enough in the family tree, you could find an organism that both you and the bacteria descended from.
When two living things are related, they have certain things in common. If you find something two living things have in common, you can feel pretty sure that they're related somehow, and whatever their common ancestor is probably also had that trait.
So scientists looked at all kinds of different living things on Earth and looked to see what they had in common. In particular, they looked to see what kinds of proteins they all had. It turns out they were able to find a nice chunk of stuff they all have in common. These proteins are in you, in amoebas, in algae, in *E. Coli*, in redwood trees, in mantis shrimp, in vampire bats, in mosquitoes, in Galapagos penguins -- in every single living thing.
So they figure that the last ancestor that everything has in common had all these proteins. So then, to figure out something about that ancestor -- LUCA -- they looked to see what those proteins do, and used that to guess what LUCA was like.
Their guess is that LUCA was made up of cells, like all life today does, but in a kind of really primitive way. It was able to get energy out of different kinds of chemicals. It was able to reproduce itself, but not in the controlled way that living things today can with DNA -- it used a simpler kind of chemical called RNA to encode its genes, which works but not as precisely.
Because of how simple and crude LUCA was, their guess is that all the cells had to share everything to survive. Since they were all working together, in a sense you could say that all the LUCA cells on the planet were essentially one organism, since they weren't competing against each other.
Eventually, of course, LUCA evolved. It didn't "break into three" exactly -- pieces of it just evolved separately and became the ancestors of the three main kinds of living things we have today: bacteria, archaea (which are kind of like bacteria, but different enough that we know they evolved separately from bacteria), and *eukaryotes* (everything else -- plants, animals, fungi, et cetera). | 4dedde7d-4f3e-41fb-8fa0-1f02f921709c |
2z0phh | Why are some defenses not allowed in court? | When someone says "That's not a legal defense" they're not saying it's not allowed, they're saying that the defense won't absolve you under the law. "I was running late" isn't a legal defense for speeding, but that doesn't mean you can't try it. It just won't work. | 38c09890-1184-4a61-ad62-6d77c561592b |
2crjin | Why can't we clone endangered species to rejuvenate their population? | As /u/FixBayonetsLads said, it wouldn't produce diversity. Lack of diversity means the population would die out much more easily.
There's also more risk for genetic mutation, i.e., Dolly the Sheep (link at the bottom). Dolly was the first mammal cloned from an adult cell, however, her telomeres (sort of caps on the ends of a chromosome that control aging) where much shorter that normal, causing her to age more rapidly and die young. If this couldn't be corrected, animals would have less time to breed and repopulate.
_URL_0_ | f1251a92-7b34-4b29-89cf-b931b5c4e548 |
5sawal | How / When did SCOTUS judges become so partisan to predict a decision on the basis of party appointment rather than on the merits of each case? | They're really not as partisan as people make it seem. However, they are human. The constitution and laws have a lot of ambiguity to them. People are going to interpret certain things differently-
> If Supreme Court Judges are as partisan as everyone else they shouldn't be given lifetime appointments.
The founders thought the opposite. The idea is that if you have a lifetime appointment, you don't need to make partisan votes in order to get re-elected. You can tell your party to fuck off, if you disagree. If you have the ability to be replaced, you don't have that freedom.
And what's to stop Congress from just replacing a conservative judge with a new conservative judge? Not much. That's basically how Congress gets elected now, and they are far more partisan.
> When non-SCOTUS judges are elected, how possibly can they remain impartial?
The short answer is they aren't. Ideally, they do the best they can, and you try to make sure you vet them heavily before allowing them onto the court. There's no magic way to find someone who isn't political. The job is inherently political.
The check/balance on this is that if it gets bad enough, judges can be impeached. Also, both parties in congress has a lot of power in screening(or making new laws), so that tends to moderate judges quite a bit (and worst case scenario, if congress screws up, voters can vote them out). If voters don't vote them out, the founders figured that means it doesn't bother them that much.
But just to emphasize, for the most part, even though they tend to vote on "party lines" (and keep in mind, the big cases in the news tend to be ones where there is a split- there are many that are unanimous), generally speaking, they do have a coherent ideology , even if you don't agree with it.
edit:
In addition, precedent matters a lot. If Scotus decides "x is legal", it's incredibly hard to over turn that-they almost never reverse themselves. They're very very away that if you say "x is legal" and it benefits one party today, it might be the other way in the future, and they've put themselves in a box. That is a huge check on their power.
To give a recent example, a big part of the recent ruling by Judge Robart putting a stay on the immigration ban- relied on the decision to prevent Obama's immigration changes a few years ago. It really can come back to bite you in the ass, and the Judges are not so partisan as to not be blatantly inconsistent (for the most part) | 1cc71427-c2e4-4ddd-a25e-1a59d4efe1d5 |
5dkvrw | How does Impulse = deltaP if Pf = Pi | The bullet changes momentum, as does the block.
The bullet changes it's momentum by
ΔP = (230-350)5x10^-3 =-0.6 kgm/s
The block changes it's momentum by ΔP = (1.20-0)500x10^-3 = 0.6 kgm/s
Total change in momentum of the _entire system_ is zero (momentum is conserved). However, the bullet "gives" some of its momentum to the block, which is the impulse. | cb8f7040-8e7d-4b98-a814-8b7537a23092 |
57879x | What's the affordable care act? | Please search. [This fine explanation](_URL_0_ ) has over 4000 upvotes.
It is working, in the sense that some uninsured people have insurance. It has also had many unintended consequences, mostly that plans which people liked were cancelled and many people have seen their health plans cut coverage to avoid "Cadillac Plan" taxes. | b28027df-f5a4-4ad0-9933-6103037e75b7 |
5pg5dp | Why was president Andrew Johnson impeached? | Politics
He was elected as a unity pro union democrat VP for Lincoln then Lincoln was killed.
He was pro south and didn't care about punishing the south or
upholding the rights of freed african-americans like the republican congress wanted.
He was impeached for violating an unconstitutional law the prevented him from forcing Lincoln's cabinet secretaries to resigning. It was a trap. He just survived not being convicted by 1 senate vote, which may have involved bribery on both sides. | de5388de-1770-413b-beed-9aea103e54cd |
2h6aar | If a person has lung or stomach cancer, why can't the affected organ simply be removed? | Doctor do remove those organs sometimes as part of cancer treatment. There are serious side effects, but it's worth it to not die of cancer.
However, a malignant cancer will eventually spread through the blood or lymph vessels and infect other organs. At that point, removing the lung or stomach won't eliminate the cancer, since it has seeded itself all over the body. | f373897f-5da0-4bc9-a2b5-ff19821dbaab |
16x78p | Roe vs. Wade | the only thing you really need to know about roe v wade is that it granted the right to an abortion as a fundamental right | 385d6bdc-3a20-4640-aed7-8a5171e68c4a |
7umnun | Why do brittle things, like lead on the tip of my mechanical pencil, seem stronger when shorter? | Comes down to leverage, a longer piece means you can apply force further away from the breaking point, thus multiplying the force applied. | 5adf38ad-1d0f-4478-9f65-2a9975e21751 |
2m29h4 | how do phone card codes work? I know you punch in a number to call, but how does it bypass your phone carrier so you don't get charged by them too? | You dial a toll free number first to connect to the company that issued the card, then you type in the code and phone number to tell them who you are and who you want to call. | e2e9b40f-3d53-484a-95e2-5f89314e8ad0 |
1ray7h | What is the difference between delusions and hallucinations? | A hallucination is a sensory thing. You can see, hear, feel or I suppose taste something that's not actually there or the direct result of a stimulus on a sense organ like the eyes, ears, etc.
A delusion is a belief that clearly disconnects with reality. If I think that the KGB has tapped my phone because I see people in red jackets regularly that'd be a delusion.
One can be aware their hallucinations are not real, and therefore are not deluded. One can be deluded without having a direct sensory issue like hearing voices. | e1d43025-63a8-4f4e-8d0c-ccb50391a6ae |
2773li | Do the rubber "bristles" on certain toothbrushes actually have a positive effect on teeth cleanliness? | Those are not intended to get your teeth clean, but to stimulate your gums. | e03505d2-33fd-4506-a638-352f10891dfb |
2gp81q | Why does pressing in a X with your fingernail make a Mosquito bite stop itching? | I thought I was the only one that did this | b382eaa7-aa08-4063-b2f8-131eb55dbf60 |
5fiv21 | Is "sleep debt" a real thing? | Yes and no.
Yes, if you sleep too little, you'll feel bad and incur various bad effects on your body and mind, and and an increased amount of sleep later can be necessary to get back to your full capabilities.
No, this "debt" is not quantifiable and computable objectively in numbers. It's not the same for everyone, people have different sleep requirements, and they change (at 20 you can tolerate a sleep deficit much better than at 40). Also, the effects are not linear, not completely reversible, and not continuous - getting only half the necessary sleep is more than twice as bad as getting only 3/4, a bad sleep deficit can do permanent damage even if you sleep enough later, and the bad effects may be unnoticeable for some time until they cause a sudden complete breakdown.
As an extreme example, if you don't sleep at all, to the best of our medical knowledge, you will die within weeks. | 6edb603d-284c-44e9-9c3f-5329362935c9 |
87nfly | How do impartiality laws work and are things like Twitter moment subject to them? | Laws vary hugely by country. What country are you asking about? | eaa71ca8-1cc7-4792-b3ab-6409b2b7684d |
4v0oqh | The United States immigration process | Getting a Visa gets you into the country. There are different forms of visas, depending on why you actually came (work, student, travel, etc.). All must be maintained, and can be rescinded for bad behavior. Once your Visa expires, you're forced to leave.
Once you have been in the country for 5-10 years (depending on what your Visa is), you are eligible to file for lawful permanent residency (LPR), which is what the green card is. At that point, you can live and work in the US without penalty, but you don't have the privileges of citizens. 5 years after you get LPR, you are eligible to become a citizen.
It should be noted that the hard part is getting LPR; once you have LPR, you're essentially set so long as you don't do something worthy of deportation. Going from LPR to citizenship isn't particularly difficult. | 5eae0705-7248-4c6f-9e6a-acb0081f07dc |
8epwh1 | Why is it easier to remember the items on a few short lists than it is to remember the items on one long list? | Mostly because of chunking: which is a mnemonic device (in simpler words, a way of remembering things easier). Chunking basically means that you remember things placed in groups (‘chunked’ together) better then when it’s one larger thing. | fd79a61e-9270-4412-8bb0-ffd54e282426 |
2tdmmj | why can't we breed up animals for the sole purpose of using bits of them for our own use? ie we breed cows just to eat them why can't we breed elephants just for their tusks and other things, or whales for their meat and other things | Why can't we breed pandas? Why don't they procreate?
Because some animals have a very hard time procreating in captivity. No matter how much "breeders" try to recreate their natural habitats, these pandas still feel constricted and aren't in the mood to procreate.
For domestication in general, there are half a dozen generally accepted criteria that a species needs to fill for us to consider that said species actually can be domesticated. It includes things like docility, diverse diets, rapid maturity, social structures... | ca4ab09a-5e1f-4f5d-b36a-fe328584e955 |
6cpbx2 | when to use past vs. passed. | Past when you are talking about time. Passed when you are talking about objective or distance.
e.g. "It is *past* my bedtime!"
e.g. "I *passed* the test!"
e.g. "You just *passed* the exit." | 85343c03-305b-4681-bcdc-1998cc4a3e22 |
6vod0h | How do people solve murders? | Yeah they also use your post and search history on websites like this and Google. Don't do it man just watch forensic files and first 48 | 4a24ad99-252f-4a04-8f53-870161499e95 |
5h3mal | How do you die in a wildfire if you know it's coming? | Fires can move fast.
Like, *really* fast. 60-70mph is not uncommon.
A very big fire essentially creates its own weather. With hurricane force winds whipping it into a massive firestorm. Fires can also "jump" large sections of land riding on the wind. If you aren't careful or if a fire suddenly shifts directions you could very quickly find yourself surrounded. | 478481a1-6849-44c7-9087-4c7d00c0f1d6 |
1jxzpa | What's SRS and why does everyone hate them? | /r/shitredditsays
Because people see them as manipulating votes on subs they link to, acting aggressive and confrontational, and constantly railing against reddit despite being (obviously) part of it. Also, because, frankly, most redditors don't care one bit about what they have to say. | ab9cb25e-b7e4-4dcd-93a2-c77c822874e9 |
70y0mt | Can you hear your own voice internally or externally more loudly? Why? | Your own voice in your head (and body) is louder that your own voice that you hear externally. This is known to anyone that has ever heard thier own voice in a recording.
However you hear your voice when you speak or sing is NOT how others hear it. There are lots of acoustical dynamics going on when you hear your voice such as resonance, depth, and sympathetic vibrations that no one hears except you.
2nd part: I don't know what you mean.. | bb8afca5-0382-4401-a3f3-d4be928487df |
2lpgpt | Why does an MRI scan have no effect on the iron in your body? | Because the iron in your body isn't actually iron as such, the iron atoms are bound with other atoms in molecules, which changes their properties. Same thing as with hydrogen. Flammable on its own, not flammable when bound with oxygen (i.e. H2O, water). Iron on its own is magnetic, iron bound in molecules is not. | 7d8a4baf-df9a-4782-a21f-c6d7c687d1b9 |
3ijnr7 | how do people in Vancouver afford 1-3 million dollar houses that would sell for half the price anywhere else in Canada ? | Basically, you don't.
Only people who make more than 60k a year live in Vancouver proper. Everyone else lives in the suburbs, like Burnaby or New Westminster. Middle class people who make 50k-80k before taxes can rent a multi-bedroom place in these areas or even a small house. People who make less than that just spend most of their income on rent and have room mates, with 2-3 couples sharing a house. | 73685535-ab74-454e-81d8-850fc53e41f6 |
6ozh1v | Could a woman take testosterone supplements while pregnant to increase the chances of the child being a boy? | No. Sex is not a hormonal issue, it's a genetic one. Your sex is determined based upon whether the sperm cell that fertilized your mother's egg had an X or a Y chromosome. No amount of testosterone will change that. | 82a7de0f-8c20-4d90-94f2-06ab044a1e42 |
3q42n5 | How do insects have such strong grip? | Because insects have a proportional larger surface area than volume, where volume equates to weight and surface area is proportional to muscles which equates to more strength. Also insects have "hooks" in their legs that allows them to stick to rough surfaces. | 626d8746-3d0e-48c6-8009-5bf92f790fd2 |
1xirsb | Why the microwave has to be closed to start working? | Very little would happen if you operated a microwave with an open door. Microwaves are notoriously hard to get into the food that you're trying to cook, which is why most microwave ovens have a rotating tray, to try and align the food with as many microwave paths as possible. If the door were open, the energy would dissipate almost immediately. On Mythbusters, they once tried to make a microwave "gun" with the magnetrons from three microwave ovens, but were unsuccessful, even with that amount of overkill.
Sticking your hand into an operating oven, though, is a different matter, so better safe than sorry. | 88041f3a-d977-4168-a0a3-430299cd3dd2 |
324yiz | Why does the United States have more prisoners per capita than any other country? | While this is an extremely complicated question,the most significant contributing factors are "the war on drugs", mandatory minimum sentences, and three strikes laws. These function to incarcerate people for what would otherwise be considered less serious offences. | d4ad8102-9a76-4c15-9c55-5d2f7023c5a5 |
265rns | Why is the VA (Veteran's Administration) so dysfunctional and inefficient? What are the reasons for the current scandals over patient care? | A large part of the problem is a delay in transitioning to a computer-based system, coupled with a massive number of veterans.
There are currently over 20 million veterans. For each of these, the VA needs to keep complete records regarding past service, medical issues, financial options, disability... And those are all kept in paper copies. Here's a good picture of about 0.2% of the records: _URL_0_
The military has only recently transitioned to a computer-based record system for active duty members, so the VA's system will be faster for future veterans. In the meantime, in order to transition to a computer-based system, all of those 20 million records will need to be scanned in and digitized by (already overworked) VA employees.
As for the current scandals, most of the VA hospitals are over-worked as well, resulting in long wait times. Certain people made the decision to hide the unsatisfactory wait times from the official reports. Extremely long wait times for medical care are viewed as unacceptable, especially for veterans, which has caused the huge uproar. (As an aside, one thing the military has taught me is to never hide anything from the chain of command. The highest person with the secret gets in the most trouble. If nothing else, hiding an issue will ensure it never gets fixed.) | bb0f975a-c0a5-470d-97af-cbf431215c74 |
70ts32 | How can drug companies put instructions and warnings on the back of their tablet packaging (like ibuprofen and aspirin) for how many someone should take at a time/within 24 hours etc. when everybody has a different body weight/size? | If a medication isn't fat soluble, then your body weight will have little effect on how it's absorbed. Particularly with painkillers, they're concerned with liver and kidney damage - and the liver and kidneys don't vary much in size. | 7314d218-e7d0-4882-ae4c-983b301c511d |
2b08ej | Why isn't Edward Snowden protected under the Whistleblower Protection Programs? | * First, the government says, he did not expose the kinds of actions covered by whistle-blower protections — illegal conduct, fraud, waste or abuse.
* Other officials have argued that the programs revealed by Snowden are illegal or unconstitutional. For now, they are presumptively legal, given the assent of members of Congress and the special court known as FISA that oversees intelligence operations.
But suppose Snowden’s supporters are right, and what he exposed was illegal conduct after all.
* Then he would face a second problem: The Federal Whistle-blower Protection Act protects the public disclosure of “a violation of any law, rule, or regulation” only “if such disclosure is not specifically prohibited by law.”
In other words, Snowden could claim whistle-blower protection only if he took his concerns to the NSA’s inspector general or to a member of one of the congressional intelligence committees with the proper security clearances.
_URL_0_ | e9a408d4-9c37-4458-9846-de40d2592ff1 |
93925u | What exactly causes the "seeing stars" effect when you blow your nose too hard? | When you sneeze, your facial muscles tense up, putting pressure on your eyes. This increased pressure causes the sensing cells on your retina to misfire, causing what your perceive as spots of light. You get the same effect by just pressing on your eyes with your fingers | 69df0889-2c43-4939-a877-0b39798c3bb9 |
7kdby2 | Why does a li-ion/lipo battery explode when shorted out? | The lithium atoms can crystallise and form a chain, that chain can short circuit the poles and it is this short circuit which can cause a fire. - _URL_0_ | dc819e1b-776c-439a-ab6a-c235fbaeef72 |
1315le | why is genital skin always darker than normal skin? | Copied from askscience:
> The expression of Androgen receptors is greater in melanocytes located in the areolas and genital area. Thus, Androgen stimulation promotes the synthesis of melanin and pigmentation in these areas.
This is a relevant paper: _URL_0_
> There are other hormonal stimuli that promote melanogenesis and their excessive activity causes excessive genital pigmentation (e.g Addison's disease causes excessive synthesis of POMC/MSH).
**ELI5 translation:** The chemicals that turn you into adult also make you darker. The skin at your genitals reacts more from those chemicals. We evolved this way likely to protect the areas more from harmful sunlight radiation. | 6fe1342c-b4b8-48e1-8f0a-ac65c9eb8f90 |
3ezdef | Why don't we rebuild ancient structures to there former glory rather then leave them as they are? | Partly it's because we're not 100% sure what their former glory was, and are worried that if we were to rebuild them that we'd get it wrong and thus ruin an important part of human history. | fecf7bb4-64cb-449f-af92-69644e507332 |
6yx9v6 | Why can you feel nauseous when you wear polarized sunglasses? | Visual information goes to part of your brain that also gets balance information (brainstem gets visual and vestibular inputs). But 'polarized' glasses alter the incoming visual information, so any conflict or differences between these inputs (visual and vestibular sensory conflict) gets percieved as nausea (or any number of other vague, uncomfortable sensations: dizziness, vomiting, etc). | 92ba074e-1533-48a2-a7a1-80f5d7cd7ac8 |
3w7nd5 | Why is it "Ladies and Gentlemen" and "Boys and Girls"? Is there a reason for the order and the difference in order when addressing different ages? | They're called frozen binomials; like how we say "pots and pans" not "pans and pots".
It has to do with syllables (smallest to largest), complexity of the word, and what just rolls off the tongue easiest.
Some argue a gender bias, but for every "man and woman" binomial there is an "aunt and uncle"; for every "boys and girls" there is a "mum and dad". | 89096d61-49b7-40c8-a85f-675e1e723138 |
660adh | Why does light have speed? Why isn't it instantaneous? | The speed of light is the speed of causality. It is the fastest speed by which any event can affect anything else in the universe. It is also the defining property of the universe that gives rise to time.
Let me explain.
Imagine a clock. This clock is made by holding two perfect mirrors exactly parallel to each other and bouncing a photon between the two. Every time a photon hits mirror A, one tick has happened. This is our photon clock, and it is a perfect measure of time.
Now, let's say the photon bounces up and down and you can move the clock left and right at any speed you want. Even light speed.
Now, let's take for granted that light moves **ONLY** at light speed. I'll explain why we can do this in a second, but for now, just accept that.
If we move the clock, the photon now has to move diagonally to bounce between the mirrors. The photon's absolute speed must be equal to C, the speed of light. This, we could imagine as the hypotenuse of a right triangle. But, in order for the hypotenuse to be C, the X and Y velocities must satisfy X^2 + Y^2 = C^2 (the Pythagorean theorem). Thus, in order for C to be the speed of light while X is not 0, Y must be less than C.
This means it takes longer for the clock to tick. The faster you go, the bigger X gets, meaning the smaller Y must be and the slower time goes. This is Einstein's Relativity.
I bet you can see where this is going.
If X = C, then Y *must* equal 0 or X^2 + Y^2 =/= C^2. In layman's terms, anything going the speed of light *cannot* experience time.
So, if you were the photon, your trip would be instantaneous. You own clock would never tick.
But, for us, we are the product of light-speed particles moving back and forth and interacting with each other. We are a ticking photon clock. Time is an emergent property of this.
Now, consider what would happen if light was faster or slower. Our own perception of time, which is entirely dependent on the speed of light, would accelerate or decelerate by the same amount. If light was 2x as fast, we'd think 2x as fast and our clocks would tick 2x as fast... which means we'd see it cover 2x the distance it would per *old* clock tick, but our *new* clock ticks are 2x as fast. 2/2 = 1. No matter how fast light goes, we, by definition, must see it go *exactly that fast*, or else we don't experience *any* time at all.
It is also for this reason that light speed is constant to every observer. If you go faster, your clock slows down by an amount that keeps your perception of the speed of light constant. | cdc5e477-ed8f-44bb-950b-ca57a22e8d7c |
6yyysh | How did societies enforce the law before police were a thing? | There were always enforcers, members of the tribe that enforced the rules, they just didn't have job titles. | 8b80560b-0e78-4145-8ebf-3363b16d05fb |
5i6dex | What's the difference between a President and a Prime Minister. What's the difference between a Congress and a Parliament? | The difference between them is who chooses the leader of government.
In a presidential system, the people elect both the members of the legislature (congress) and the president independently, and the president is the head of the government.
In a parliamentary system, people elect the members of the legislature (parliament), then the members of parliament choose the prime minister, who is the head of the government. Many countries with parliamentary systems also have a directly elected president who serves as head of state (they meet with foreign diplomats, for example), but they don't have as much power as the president in a presidential system, like this US.
The Prime Minister in a parliamentary system is like taking the Speaker of the House in the US and giving them a lot of the president's duties. | 87382e0f-af8b-4739-8a3a-cc21e89a12a4 |
1991h0 | Taiwan and China's relationship in the past and now. | Taiwan used to be a small native-held island, in China's sphere of influence but not considered very important. In the 17th century or so, Chinese colonists started showing up. When Japan gained control over the island in 1895, a majority of its inhabitants were (Han) Chinese. After World War II, Japan gave the island to the Republic of China.
The Republic of China was the Chinese government formed in about 1912. They lost a war against the People's Republic of China (the current government of mainland China), and now rule only the island of Taiwan.
Both governments claim that they *should* own both Taiwan and mainland China. This used to be a huge diplomatic issue, but it has mostly calmed down; both sides have made it clear they don't want to attack the other. There's still some tension, especially since China has prevented Taiwan from being recognized as a country in most international affairs. | 9c08a7d4-877a-452a-b39f-576ca0164815 |
2uxxa5 | do we lose our imagination or do we suppress it as we get older ? | Neither, really. Some people maintain very active imaginations for much of their lives.
However consider *why* a child has a need for a greater scope of imagination. Much of their world is still a mystery to them. They might know that something works a certain way, but they don't know how. So perhaps that little light in the refrigerator is indeed turned on by a tiny and very fast moving elf. Maybe that shadow in the dark hallway is really a monster. Maybe the old guy next door is Santa Claus in disguise the rest of the year.
Children have active imaginations because it helps them to come to grips with the world around them. As you get older and you come to understand the 'reality' behind your environment, the things you imagined as a kid become nonsense and are discarded. | cfb4ccd0-5a85-4bf5-a528-d2113d910779 |
2x2qr3 | Why are clothes hangers not shaped like human shoulders? | They are designed to be in the shape of human shoulders.
From the Wikipedia page on clothes hangers;
> A clothes hanger, coat hanger, or coathanger, is a device in the shape of:
> * **Human shoulders** designed to facilitate the hanging of a coat, jacket, sweater, shirt, blouse or dress in a manner that prevents wrinkles, with a lower bar for the hanging of trousers or skirts. | b62a3df9-d96f-4596-9508-53e8c2800217 |
3fymrm | Why are we so concerned with wealth inequality/disparity in the US? | I think that for most people, just knowing someone in an office earns millions of dollars a year while they work just as hard to scrape by with $30K a year irks them. Very few people are happy in the knowledge that they have it better than their grandparents did while watching the ridiculous wealth and privilege that's glorified on tv, movies, tabloids, etc. That, and too many people are not happy with what they have - commercialism and consumerism are bred into us from day one in the US. We're constantly told that we 'deserve' a new car, that our life will better with a bigger tv, etc. It's brainwashing. You hear it every day, and it works. We want more.
In terms of politics, it has to do with the idea that money buys influence. Elected officials are supposedly there to represent ALL Americans, but when the same 1% of the country represents such a large portion of your campaign funds, who are you more likely to please once elected? The millions of people who may or may not have voted for you or were too lazy to pay attention to the election at all - or the people who gave you an assload of money to get elected? The same for lobbyists. If you or I want something changed, we make phone calls, write letters, maybe start a petition. Will the official ever even hear our pleas? Will a few phone calls or letters matter? Now imagine if a few CEOs of major corporations want something done. Their wealth can buy the services of any of the nearly 12,000 lobbyists in the US. Last year, they spent $3.24 BILLION to influence policy. I know for a fact I didn't contribute any of that $3.24 BILLION dollars directly, so they aren't going to be representing my wishes. | 853c1a3f-62a9-4766-821f-2c2a8db3a1e3 |
6k4qdh | How do astronomers calculate when and where an eclipse will occur, and how total it will be? | The earth, the sun, and the moon all have very predictable orbits. The earth is slightly tilted and the orbit of the moon around the earth is also slightly tilted which means the moon crosses the plane between the earth and the sun every once in a while.
The earth takes 365 days to orbit the sun, the moon takes 27 days to orbit the earth, that means the moon passes between the earth and sun 13-14 times a year. Because the orbit of the moon is tilted it doesn't always cross in front of the sun, sometimes it crosses a bit to the left or a bit to the right, we only get a solar eclipses when it passes down the middle
All of these orbits are very consistent and predictable. The ancients knew when solar eclipses would be over 2000 years ago. Having computers just lets us spit out the eclipse schedule for the next millennia in an hour, but the math has always been known | 69679bc3-4ac6-4bd9-a1c1-c98400217b79 |
4kg4lh | US army/navy/air force numbering systems | It's all sequential. It starts at 1 and goes to 2, 3, 4, 5 etc... When the U.S. goes to war it expands the number of units activated to fill up every number sequentially. When the U.S. leaves a war or downscales then it gets rid of most of its units except the ones with historic or glorious lineage. That's why units like the 101st Airborne are still around. | 82766994-2c68-4bca-93c0-fe8e954ee5d7 |
195fu4 | Why are colossal (eg. Godzilla) things depicted as moving so slowly? | As things get larger they may appear to move slower, but that is just because they are far away. Godzilla would be walking much faster than an insect could fly, but not in comparison to its size. If it was matching speed to size it would probably be breaking the sound barrier. | 29514959-3927-48ed-880b-cc4ec3deb1c3 |
7qt8ih | How much of a given generation’s Social Security benefits are paid by succeeding generations in the US? | it's a continuously revolving system. money in, money out. the working generation pays for the retiree's. problem is...in recent decades, there's more retirees than workers and the trend is going to be even more retirees than workers.
social security is not an investment vehicle. it's a wealth redistribution from young to old. | fd6c4da1-63fc-496e-9b6c-045f8d39e996 |
1cxha2 | The difference between a wireless access point and a network switch | Think of a network switch as a telephone operator. When you pick up a telephone, and call a number, the telephone operator will connect you to the number you want to call.
A wireless access point is like the base on your wireless phone that is connected to the phone switch. It allows your wireless phone to make calls. When you use your wireless phone, it connects to the base, in which the base is connected to the telephone network.
--
TL;DR: A network switch will relay data between two computers connected on the switch. A wireless access point connects a wireless device to the network it's connected to. | e529d3f0-45eb-41ac-b1be-a3e1abdb84e4 |
412zke | what is going on when you feel a tickle on your skin like a tiny bug is moving on you but your closest examinations reveal nothing is there. | There are very tiny nerve receptors in your skin if two or more of them are stimulated at the same time you get this sensation, sometimes the bug moved before you saw it, sometimes it can be dust or other debris, sometimes it can be a phantom response. For more on the nerves in your skin - _URL_0_ | 957a274d-df8b-456e-9e22-e9e61c104c01 |
8qo2nl | Why does the connection strength between a phone and a wifi router fluxuate, even when neither are being touched? | Your connection strength isn't just determined by the strength of the signal between you and your phone, it is also impacted by the noise in the environment
While the signal strength may remain constant, if the noise increases because of a leaky microwave or increased WiFi traffic from your neighbor's router then the signal to noise ratio drops and you router may need to send messages slower to ensure that they get through to your phone | 5f68dd81-c7b0-48b7-ba6b-68c54d6d0d85 |
6laweu | Why do British judges wear big, curly, white wigs? | Short answer: Tradition.
Longer answer: because the look established a standard appearance for the various types of official (barristers have one particular wig/robe set, different levels of courts have different appearances, and up until relatively recently judges had in some cases 5 sets of robes/wigs for different events). This has a lot of benefits, not the least of which arises when judges generally didn't bathe regularly. Even without that, it makes clear at a distance who is important, but at the same time grants them a degree of anonymity outside the court room. It also reduces bias in trial induced by the appearance of one barrister or another. That's essentially the main argument for maintaining them.
But the longer term history is simply because something similar was fashionable in the 17th and 18th centuries (and earlier, though multicoloured before the death of Charles II), so it's what everyone at the time wore. When it started to become unfashionable (into the 18th century) it became a rule, presumably because older lawyers and judges didn't want to give up the practice. Even today it's still a rule, and even today lots of people in commonwealth systems don't want to give up the practice or don't want to give it up everywhere.
Courts in the US until the 1840's or 50's basically had the same style of dress, but then Chief Justice Marshall got rid of the idea. Even to present day states have various formal dress codes, not necessarily with the horse hair wig, but robes/sashes/etc. that are all legacies of some past court dress.
I suppose the closest to correct but less useful answer is that it clings to life because unlike the US there's no single person in the Commonwealth who can say 'we're not doing it anymore', because one of them would have done so in the last 150 years or so, and once it's gone no one is likely to bring it back. The UK has a professional body that decides this, and the various countries and sub national entities (provinces/states/territories) that all adopted the same style only bother to change when someone really kicks up a fuss over it. The US though, the chief justice of the United States pretty much sets the standard for US federal courts, and if s/he says it's gone, it's gone, and every lower tier that may not be directly set by the chief justice will follow along. | f7b0aef1-ef06-4f02-84b2-3542632259d1 |
3a87l2 | What is "Right to Work" and why do so may people think it's a ripoff? | It's the label that anti-union forces have placed on legislation which prohibits workers from being forced to join a union at a business where a union exists.
The argument for "right to work" is that people should be able to decide whether to join the union, and their employment shouldn't be contingent on a worker being "forced" to pay a percentage of his paycheck to the union.
The other side, though, is that unions only are effective when they have sufficient bargaining power with the employer. If the workers won't follow union instructions regarding strikes and the like, the company has little incentive to capitulate to union demands for pay increases, better benefits, etc. Additionally, there's the freerider problem. In most union shops, the union negotiates for all workers, and the results of the union's negotiation (regarding conditions of work, benefits, etc.) are enjoyed by all. But if that's the case, there's no incentive to pay to be in the union-- they get the benefits without the costs. Union membership dwindles, and the union runs out of funds to complete its mission-- it withers on the vine.
So even though "right to work" is posed as some sort of employee benefit or freedom, its goal is to suffocate the strength of unions. You can decide whether that's a good or bad thing. | 68068000-5fe0-4908-bec2-0135c873e27f |
ms7hd | Whats the difference between 4G and 3G? And is there a 2G or just a G? | The different "G"'s are just different 'generations' of the wireless data technology used by cell phone network operators. They set certain standards that must be used by phone manufacturers, specify assumptions that manufacturers can make, etc. Telecomm companies build their networks to support a certain generation, which provides phones with access to transmit data at the rates specified by that standard. For example, all the major telecom companies have 3G networks, so phones that support 3G can transmit/receive data at 3G speeds. Some telecom's are starting to implement 4G, which is one of the newest standards, which is actually called 4G LTE. To keep it simple, none of the US companies have actually implemented completely true-to-form 4G LTE networks, although Verizon's is closest. T-Mobile markets 4G, but it's really just a souped up version of 3G which is faster.
The LATEST network standard is 4G LTE+, which has very fast theoretical speeds, but the sheer cost of upgrading the infrastructure to the telecom's means it will be awhile before we see those speeds in our day-to-day.
Also, there is 2G. It's what you see a lot of phones using as a 'fall back' if they have no 3G/4G coverage, since 2G coverage is pretty widespread. It's an old network type and is pretty slow. There was a 'G' network before that, but it's called something else, which I forget. Wikipedia would have more info if you're curious. | 24d0f2b2-e2ab-4bf8-a74b-ddfa7c97be18 |
1jn74r | What harm does having a large debt do? | We have to pay interest on our debt. So having a huge debt means we have to pay a lot of interest, which means we either have less money to spend on things we want/need or have to borrow even more money. | 7161e3ca-eac0-473f-bc4b-acae126f4d71 |
48g70l | Why do we have to buy domain names from companies instead of just claiming it ourselves for free? | Back in the day, before everyone and his uncle wanted a domain name, before the world wide web, before google, you *could* just ask for a domain name and get it for free. Who did you ask? The National Science Foundation, of all things.
When domains started getting more popular, the National Science Foundation got tired of doing it, and farmed the process out to anyone who wanted to be a "domain registrar."
Turns out it's quite a bit of work. | ee1f5906-0e68-4701-b984-dbf5818c483d |
1immph | What is the Standard Model? Why does it matter? | The Standard Model is our current best theory of particle physics. It contains all the particles and all the forces necessary to explain everyday life.
There are six quarks and six leptons that make up pretty much everything we usually refer to as "matter." Then there are the four fundamental forces that govern every single interaction in the entire universe (that we know of so far), and the gauge bosons (or force carriers) for each of those forces.
It matters because it pretty much explains all of physics. There are a few exceptions. For example, the Standard Model doesn't really say much about gravity. There exists a theorized gauge boson for gravity, called the graviton, in the Standard Model, but it's never been seen experimentally. | e5837bb8-b934-482a-893f-cedff6e812cb |
1fz6dd | Why is rainwater not salty? | As you almost said in your question, the act of evaporation involves the water molecules getting enough energy so that the water can take its gasous form.
The key part here is "water molecules". When water evaporates, nothing else gets "picked up" with it. Each molecule is always by definition pure H2O.
Once up in the atmosphere this water vapour condenses again and forms clouds. Now that it has a tangible form (i.e. it's become liquid again), other things that are in the atmosphere can dissolve in it once more. This will usually be other gases such as carbon dioxide.
Finally, when the condensed water vapour joins into drops large enough to fall due to gravity, we get rain. As the rain descends it might pass through dust and other solid pollutants, some of which will also dissolve into the rain. So by the time a raindrop lands back on earth it's unlikely to be pure H2O, even though that's how it started out when it first evaporated.
You'll notice that salt is not mentioned in this description. Salt molecules remain most definitely solid at the sort of temperatures you encounter at the surface of the earth (common salt, NaCl melts at 800°C/1500°F) and therefore when the water evaporates they get left behind.
Incidentally this fact is one of the primary means by which salt is "harvested" -- seawater is poured into large containers and the water allowed to evaporate. The compounds left behind consist of various salts but primarily NaCl. | 7624d541-2bf2-476c-8770-3c5da39edb50 |
6aobus | What is the difference between investors and shareholders? | In a publicly traded company, anyone can buy shares. They are thus investing in the company. Their say in how the company is actually run is limited. Usually virtually the only say they have is in the election of the Board of Directors.
Investors in a privately held company sometimes invest in return for shares, but that isn't the only possible model. They may simply own a percentage of the company. In rare cases, they don't own any part of the company, but invest in return for something else, such as a fixed return on their investment or rights to use some asset of the company.
Private investors, if they are large investors, often have a substantial say in the running of the company. They can demand a seat on the Board (and often do). | 5cb89af0-aa02-4fda-a9c8-4cba071f384c |
3v4bln | How much progression do we have into time travel possibilities? | All the advancements in modern physics have progressed us away from the possibility of time travel.
Since Einstein's work on relativity, we've found more and more evidence indicating that nothing can go faster than the speed of light, and this severely limits theoretical avenues for the discovery of time travel.
Of course we might have it all wrong (we've been wrong before) but we'd need an epic revolution in physics to get the possibility of time travel back on the table, and that's not the sort of thing you can count on. | e1759c92-e8da-4220-b5fc-d0153a7a2e8a |
1k3jwm | Everyone says that if Pakistan and India go to war, there will be global consequences. What are they? | Both have nuclear weapons and would probably use them if faced with an existential threat such as actually losing a conventional war to their deadly enemy.
The rest of the world has an interest in avoiding a nuclear war, wouldn't you say? | 5bb9394a-8e16-4e06-a139-9c807cfafaa6 |
2n5f2t | How come I can get really tired reading a book or watching tv, but when I try to go to sleep immediately after I toss and turn for hours before finally falling asleep? | If you're like me, it's because your mind races. Reading or watching TV means something is effectively doing a lot of the "thinking" for you. You can start to doze and still have the thoughts be fed to you. When thinking in bed, some thoughts lead to more and it just spirals out of control.
Funny thing is, when you're in bed and can't sleep and your mom texts you to take out the trash. Sleeping is almost instantaneous. | 34c507a5-5050-48b5-9af8-9bd2d452ca83 |
zb655 | Why is saffron so expensive? | Saffron comes from the stigmas of a flower called the purple crocus. There's only a few stigmas in each flower. So it takes a lot of flowers and a lot of hard labor to harvest and prepare even a small amount of saffron. I think it's cheaper if you buy saffron threads instead of in ground powder form, though. | 4c7da23b-d912-4c7e-abd1-3de1c516284a |
27il9a | Why is it that we sometimes remember seemingly insignificant things we don't try to remember. ex: when I was 6 I specifically remember tying my shoe on my birthday, but I don't remember anything else. What's the trigger? | They're called flash memories, it's when something significant happened to you ( or at least you perceived it as important ). It's the same as "that one time I accidentally shit myself before school in sixth grade and had to wipe it off and wear that same pair of underwear at school that day". The memory may not even be significant, it may have just triggered enhanced brain activity causing the brain to believe that this event is important. | c9bd5c88-8d20-4359-8984-74939761c045 |
1lurm1 | when skydiving, is the gravity of the earth's core pulling me down or the air molecules I am in contact with? | Everything attracts everything. However, the heavier the object, the more force it will exert on you. Imagine all the weight of the air above you when jumping (pulling you up); that weight is negligible compared to the weight of the earth + the air beneath you (pulling you down).
Side note: the distance is also very important. If you double the distance, the force is divided by 4. This is why you wouldn't fall off the moon if you stood on it and the earth passed by overhead. But this isn't important while you are still in the atmosphere. | dc5e9705-0cd1-4807-8153-a10372786414 |
5fqjim | What is Net Neutrality? Why does it matter? Or why should i care? | Net neutrality is the philosophy that all content on a network should be treated equally. That is, an Internet service provider shouldn't prioritize network traffic based on where it's coming from, where it's going, what kind of content (video, music, etc) it is, and other things in that vein.
Net neutrality is important because, years ago, an ISP decided to restrict the traffic from torrents on their line. If it's legal to do this, then service providers could arbitrarily slow your access to certain sites for pretty much any reason. For example, imagine if Reddit erupted in hostility against Verizon Wireless, and VZW responded by making all Reddit traffic on their network move at a snail pace.
There are other implications of net neutrality involving the way Internet access is priced. At any rate, it's important if you believe that the Internet functions best as a group of people who are able to share information without fear of having their connections restricted. You can relate it to free speech in that, if you pay for an Internet connection, you should be able to do whatever you want with it as long as you're not breaking the law or infringing on the rights of others. | 6785c27e-9e01-4c21-9e11-6c91f7653a57 |
4bty1p | How do internet companies that offer large amounts of data storage turn a profit? | Ever since GMail, companies have found that this model can work. The thing is that huge capacities are a powerful selling point (it instantly made GMail the top free mail brand in what was a crowded market) but most people don't use much of that capacity. I have had my gmail account since 2006, sending and getting mail actively all that time, and use 370 MB (2%) now.
Note that these services usually go aggressively after misusers of their service. Anyone who has tried to run some sort of a remote storage system over GMail has found themselves banned in a hurry. So as long as you keep out those users who will use up 100% of their storage, you're left with legitimate users who use 2-5% or so, not that expensive to provide for, and since they're legitimately using the service, potentially a good source of profit (ads usually). | 30a5a351-3df1-4c78-84f9-4f36e844663b |
7lql0y | How does the screen of your car know the name of the current playing song when you are just listening to the radio? | It's called RBDS. They just send the data along with the regular signal. Your radio gets the extra info and it tells you what song is playing.
Edit: a word | 99c24fc3-775f-453b-b1b4-1f46c7b78ad6 |
1lkugs | Why I feel a "difference" between shows like The Wire, Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad VS shows like Leverage, Babylon 5 and Burn Notice. | Others have mentioned elements but there's another that started, largely, with the Sopranos and was perfected by The Wire.
American television in the past has always been about the advertising. Content was dictated by who was choosing to advertise during that timeslot, censored because an advertiser complained, the story adapted to have mini-cliffhangers built around the commercial breaks, and everything self-contained within the single episode of the show with it all returning to the status quo by the end. The last part, specifically, is because they want anyone to be able to tune into an episode of a show and begin watching. It doesn't matter if it's the seventh episode of season six, you can still watch, because more watching means more money.
What began largely with HBO and the Sopranos was a huge shift away from all of these elements. The writers became free to make TV that wasn't constrained by what their advertisers might find "puts off viewers." They were able to make a show where cliffhangers were a natural part of the story being told, not just a 3-minute piece of tension crowbarred in to stop someone changing channels during the break. They also completely divorced themselves from the status quo ideal. Any episode could see a major character die. Long and complex plotlines could take multiple episodes, even seasons to resolve. Especially with the Wire, this thick continuity allowed for such huge payoffs for the dedicated viewer, whilst alienating someone who missed even a single episode, but with the rise of the internet and the ability to view any episode at any time you want (Netflix, piracy etc), that's stopped being an issue.
Group A shows have taken this and run with it. You tune in to a late episode of Game of Thrones without seeing an episode before, you're not going to have a single *fucking clue* what is going on. Fifteen years ago that wouldn't have been imaginable. On many stations where advertising is still the ruler, that's still unacceptable, often stations with demographics that aren't so likely to be using online streaming to catch up. Things have to be approachable for everyone, the storyline must be kept manageable in bite-size chunks for new viewers. Group B ensues.
Thankfully there are channels that have advertisers but have realised what's happening and are competing by putting advertiser needs, the status quo, and "mandatory cliffhangers" far behind the needs of the story being told.
To have it put far more eloquently, David Simon (yes, writer of the Wire) did an introduction to the book The Wire: Truth Be Told where he touches on this exact topic, and I know he did an online reading of it for some website, but due to my workplace's firewall I can't find it right now. I'll see if I can dig it up when I get home. | e80693ab-fadb-4864-92a5-3e9d255086b3 |
3e7q9y | The Planned Parenthood Fetal Organ Donation Program | Yes, the fetal tissue is harvested after abortion only with the mother's consent. If the mother does not consent, the tissue is destroyed in the same way all medical waste is destroyed. The tissue can come from any sort of abortion, whether that is a fetus that is not viable, one that threatens the life of the mother or simply a child that the mother does not want. I do believe it needs to be a surgical abortion and the mother needs to be along a certain amount of weeks, but please don't quote me on that. I've tried to find a source for that, but it is sadly very hard to find anything in terms of sensible information out there right now with all the conservative lying and fear mongering.
As long as the tissue is well enough intact, it can be donated to companies that do medical research. PP is not allowed to sell fetal tissue, however the companies that receive said tissues can make donations to PP. Usually there is an agreement to donate enough to cover the cost of handling and transportation. | 041dd3df-aaa3-440c-b04b-6a57111e4e0e |
8lfm4d | Why so many Native American tribes seem to own casinos | Gambling is illegal in a lot of the United States, but on Native American Reservations, they don't have to follow those rules as much. So casinos get built because they don't have many laws to say no casinos | cde4f805-4ec9-440c-a7ea-81aa2d9ee048 |
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