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1zebde | Why are movie tickets so expensive? | If that were the case, they would do it. The prices are pretty carefully figured out to maximize profit. If they cut the price they wouldn't get enough people to cover the lower per-ticket price, and if they raised it they wouldn't get enough extra to cover the lost people.
Note that this balance point is different for different theaters, that's why ticket prices vary. | 7b87e147-1b90-42f8-9dda-9aac9485d68e |
711zpt | When you look in a mirror why is left and right reversed, but not up and down? | It isn't left-right reversed. It is front-back reversed.
It *seems* like left and right flip because in order for you to normally turn yourself around, you rotate to one side or the other 180 degrees.
If you were a being that normally faced the other direction by rolling yourself forward or backward 180 degrees, mirrors would appear to flip your up and down. | de484440-f167-4c79-a507-fe5ca40c0070 |
21vtez | If i cut a human in half using a sword at the speed of light will i kill him instantly? | [Everything within roughly a mile of you and your target would be leveled, and a firestorm would engulf the surrounding area. Where you stood would now be a sizable crater.](_URL_0_) | d00c044b-233a-4dd1-bd3c-dfa749a7d8dc |
3pwhwm | Why are men better spacial thinkers? | Hunting and warring require spacial thinking more than raising children and collecting berries. | 22f30570-2dce-4030-82cf-9e744ba70deb |
3gj06v | Why do cops always get paid administrative leave after abusing their power instead of being fired? | Paid administrative leave isn't their punishment. It's just a tool to allow an investigation to commence without them potentially interfering in that investigation, or even possibly making things worse for themselves or for the organization by their continued actions. It's basically, "Stay out of the way until we figure out what the actual facts are."
*After* the internal investigation, they may be punished (including being fired) depending on what was discovered. | cd857def-2f33-40ed-8b68-6d83d8042750 |
13vznw | Why does my voice sound different (and awful) when it's recorded and I hear it replayed? | When you normally hear your own voice you are hearing two distinct things. First, you hear the normal sound waves coming through the air, into your ear just like everyone else. Second, you are hearing the bone conduction. This is the vibration that your voice causes in your bones that gets transferred to your inner ear. The combination of these two is what you think of as your own voice. Other people only hear the first part.
It sounds so awful to you because it sounds kind of like your voice, but slightly off. The familiar thing that is changed just a little is more disconcerting than a completely different voice. | a9ae3e5b-a7c7-428e-a2f6-045e7f3820b2 |
2pzbxe | How can entropy be reversed? | The traditional answer is ["There is insufficient data for a meaningful answer."](_URL_1_)
However, simply put: at this point it does not appear to be something we can do *universally*. Entropy is simply the universe's tendency to "settle out" with time; everything gradually settles into low-energy states where they can "jostle" the most. Open a bottle of perfume, and the perfume evaporates, eventually spreading evenly through the room - that's entropy; just thanks to the random bouncing and wobbling of the molecules that make up the perfume and the air, it will diffuse.
We can cause things to adopt less entropic states by expending energy, but some of the expended energy is lost. Think of it like building sand castles; we can take diffuse, entropic sand and bind it into form, but doing so is work - hot and sweaty work, to be specific; we lose energy to heat.
This is one potential way by which the universe "dies" - it's called [heat death](_URL_0_), where the energy of the universe is too diffuse to do work, and everything simply settles to an entropic minimum. However, as that article mentions, it may not actually happen; we don't have sufficient data to say. Mind you, if it *does* happen, it won't be for googols of years. | 672aa38c-0a24-4985-8381-6f0f9688ed3b |
337f74 | Why does the tap water at another persons house taste different than the water in your own house, even though it comes from the same source? | Not always, maybe from different wells, or different water treatment plants. Maybe different type of plumbing in their house.
PEX vs copper pipes? | acc57a71-f844-4b7d-8539-7626a0323dc6 |
53ntxd | Why Does Adding CO2 To Water Change Its Taste? | When CO2 dissolves in water, part of it actually undergoes an acid-base reaction with the water. That reaction creates a small amount of carbonic acid (H2CO3). Being an acid, it makes the water taste mildly sour. The taste also can vary depending on the origin of the water as well as the process of carbonation. | f1e5b32c-2340-4532-bf38-cb2473a213e5 |
7quu01 | How do writing credits work on TV shows? | It's the main people in the making of the show that get the "big credits" so the staring actors, director, editor, producer etc.
Anyone else is just seen as regular crew members and easily be replaced, it's these bigger names that make the show what it is. | 5fc0d720-9691-4d3b-a9a8-82421fddcf3b |
3ici54 | when someone finds treasure, do they get to keep it? | It's a big, fat it depends.
Typically if you find something, you have an obligation to try to return it to its owner. Only after you do that and wait long enough does the property become legally yours.
However, there are laws governing salvage and abandoned property that apply. If I go through the effort to recover something from 200 feet underwater, you can't just swoop in and take it because it was yours.
Finally, many gov'ts have asserted that treasures are protected historical artifacts, and will try to claim them on that basis. | b176f4d2-cfac-4fd1-abbf-aeb9905e414d |
2bqh3d | How much damage does a beer, or 2, or 3, etc do to your physical health? | In moderation? Unless you have an alcohol triggered medical issue it's gonna do damn near nil to your overall health. | 7448a8b2-b3d4-4203-9083-07a308f075bd |
2gp5m2 | Why isn't there any war on japan. Are they simply peaceful? | There are still attacks on Japan. In 1997, there was a terrorist attack on the Tokyo subway, which used Sarin Gas. The gas is a deadly nerve agent (a chemical that damages the nervous system), and is manufactured only for use as a chemical weapon. Also, Japan, after the end of World War II, became a new country, with the old, military-run government removed. Because if it's violent past, the peacemakers decided that Japan would not have an active military, and that Japan could not declare war on anybody. Therefore Japan has had 70 years of peace since the end of WWII. However, Japan does have a self-defense force, which is essentially an military, but one which can only be used if Japan is attacked.
Japan also has other problems, like it is feuding with China over some islands that they both claim belong to them.
While Japan hasn't been involved in any wars recently, it still faces threats and violence, but it doesn't make the news that often, because it is usually not as 'newsworthy' as other stories, like ISIS and Ebola in Africa. | 06084207-30b1-4e68-9d41-859a91902ea7 |
31ib6w | In very remote places (e.g. 50km from your nearest neighbor, 2 hour drive to the nearest small village) in places like Canada, Scandinavia, Alaska, etc, what jobs do people do to sustain themselves? | In Australia they are generally cattle stations, large areas of grazing country breeding cattle for export. In dry areas, there can easily be 50 km between station homesteads. | 140e3920-4ac3-468a-a7de-adb3df9e8165 |
48csm2 | Where did "Lets dispel with this notion once and for all that 'x' doesn't know what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's doing." come from? | From a Republican primary debate where Marco Rubio repeated the sentence four times, almost unaltered. | d0b3995d-3376-4cca-9c2f-9dc6035a30ef |
34sufv | Why are the tips of our fingernails white? | I'm sure you've heard about [tape over frosted glass](_URL_0_) trick right? Your nail is actually rough on the underside, especially with bits of dead skin still attached. The part of your nail that didn't grow out is firmly "adhered" to the nailbed so it appears translucent because the hydration provided by the nailbed smooths the rough underside like the tape smooths the rough side of frosted glass. If your nails are better hydrated then they dry out slower so sometimes they might still be transparent immediately after growing out (the same way the tip of your hair tend to be drier than the root). | e4386829-284f-48f5-8f61-80368ee589ae |
188qkl | how do blind people know where to find the little Braille signs? | They don't know where to find them, they just check the most obvious locations, you may notice that the signs are at natural level in a natural location and not hidden. | 19589590-d4d1-4c63-a9eb-f1830296992f |
47a5qb | How the "Mass Effect" concept works | It's a made up hand-wavey sci-fi excuse to not think too hard about how your video game spaceship gets from place to place.
There is no scientific explanation. | 081be7a7-20bf-4d43-b5eb-354a63b08e0a |
7btp9m | What did Aristotle mean when he said man was a "political animal"? | Aristotle constructs man as a fundamentally political animal as opposed to other philosophers like Hobbes or Locke who construct man as individuals who just happen to enter into a society for individual benefit. Aristotle was a realist, and since the only men who exist purely alone were either "beasts or gods", it makes no sense to construct society as a conglomeration of fundamental individuals. Like bees, we exist *only* as part of a broader social structure.
What makes us more political than bees is what Aristotle calls ορισμος, translated as "definition." Humans can understand and, more importantly, describe to each other abstract concepts through the use of definition and language. This allows us to discuss things like ethics and debate the purpose/nature of our societies, something that bees cannot do. They are more akin to robots.
There's *a lot* more to this, my thesis on the topic was 100 pages long, but that's a condensed two-paragraph explanation. | 44eb37dc-9050-4c98-9951-0f4c0ae5a6a4 |
5i562h | Why was Muammar Gaddafi such a bad person? | Mostly the standard dictator spiel - took power in a coup (albiet overthrowing a monarch rather than a democracy), ruled undemocratically, suppressed any opposition. He distinguished himself by his particular attention to cultivating his cult of personality.
He was a particular villain in the West because he identified as a socialist, opposed the US, and aligned himself with the USSR during the Cold War. The most prominent incident that brought him scorn was when he ordered the [bombing of an American airliner in 1988](_URL_0_).
He was basically a classic dictator who was particularly antagonistic towards the US. | a7297581-54f5-4501-a2a3-372427416d1d |
2l56c6 | Why does cancer cause so much pain, and which types are the most painful? | My guess would be Liver or Kidney cancer would be the most painful do to the fact that you could not take pain meds. If the meds dont get filtered out correctly they can not be proscribed. | dc6223bf-aa5e-4500-9287-8acd4f448859 |
5vmhc6 | With what technology do scientists find new planets and explore deep space? | We are not actually observing the planets themselves, they are too far away for our telescopes.
What we are observing is how bright the stars are. If a star gets dimmer every now and then, at the same interval, again and again and again, then obviously something is passing in front of it at regular intervals. | b7e8d860-319f-4d31-b9a0-c7fc3b34f659 |
67651o | How are traffic light timings decided? Is there a kind of formula for determining timings? | The short answer is yes. For individual signals or small networks, the timing can be figured by hand, but for larger networks, civil/traffic engineers use models and even purpose built computer software to link every light in a massive network together to try to prevent jams and keep traffic flowing. Contrary to what feels right, the longer a "cycle" (green yellow red green) is, the more efficient an intersection tends to be. | 0d1302ba-96dc-4a90-a7cf-21bcb27640d9 |
yv95v | things that glow in the dark | First, let's think of [Newton's cradle](_URL_2_), consisting entirely of two balls. One ball falls, transfer that energy to a second ball, which rises. It eventually falls too, and transfer that energy back to the first ball. The key concept here is that energy is conserved.
What happens when you shine light on a material? There is a phenomenon called [fluorescence](_URL_0_). Basically, a photon (i.e. a "ball" in the Newton's cradle) hits an electron (i.e., the other "ball"), and transfers all that energy to that electron. This electron is now excited - when it eventually relaxes (i.e. the "ball" falls), it will emit a photon. So basically light comes, excites electron, electron relaxes, light is emitted.
There is a related phenomenon called [phosphorescence](_URL_1_). It's almost the same as fluorescence - however, the electron stays excited for a _long_ time. In our Newton's cradle analogy, it's like when someone catches the second ball after it has received that energy, and holds it there. So we wait, say, 30 minutes, before we release that ball, and the energy transfer continues as described before. This is what happens with glow in the dark materials - light comes in, excites an electron, but the electron gets trapped in the excited state. It takes them a long time - over minutes or hours - before they relax and emit light. This is why, when you turn off the light, the glow in the dark material glows. It's also the reason the glow fades over time unless you "recharge" it.
There are actually many different colours of glow in the dark material, and it depends on the type of "activator" used. Copper is used for the green colour, and it's most common because it's long lasting.
Edit: Formatting. | fc37dcd2-4c59-4dd0-ad31-7cf295bec623 |
4d8g7r | Why does plastic get hot when you bend it really fast? | Essentially: Hot means heat. Heat is energy. The energy comes from forcing mechanical energy (bending it) into the plastic itself. | 77a50ebe-be03-4b80-ba85-6c83dbb502a4 |
406qp0 | How is it that something physical happens in your dream and then you wake up and can still feel the sensation? | You don't ever directly experience sensation (the activation of the nerves in your hand, in this case), you only experience *perception* — the mental state *caused* by sensation. But the brain can also generate false perceptions. That is, it can experience mental states usually experienced in response to sensation, even without the sensation. Dreaming is the most common condition under which this occurs, but hallucinogenic drugs or mental illness can also cause it. | 1214f105-5089-47cf-9b26-12063e1ef903 |
2swg1c | Site security certificates | It's probably not your tablet. If it's happening on every site that's https, it means your clock is probably wrong. If it's happening on only some sites, it probably means your Internet connection is messed up.
Your tablet came with a list of authorities that it trusts. You can mess with it, but the default set is pretty safe. Websites get one of those agencies to sign a certificate verifying their identity. These signatures are done in such a way that they're basically impossible to hack- without access to the secret key of one of the certificate agencies, it's almost impossible to forge one.
The certificates get issued for a certain amount of time. When you go to the website, before you establish the secure connection, your Kindle attempts to check the signature on the certificate against the list of trusted certificate authorities. If the certificate isn't signed by someone trusted or if the certificate isn't valid for another reason (for example, it's expired), it throws up the warning. | 81463189-0bf8-4030-9283-07aedff865d5 |
wnela | Avogadro's number | ## What does it do?
Suppose you want about one million individual grains of rice. Counting them would be silly. So what do you do? You figure out how much a million grains of rice would *weight*! Then, you just pour on sacks of rice until your measuring scale shows the correct weight.
Now, suppose you wanted to do the same thing, but with lentils or beans or dried blueberries. One million of any of those kinds will be a different weight, and a different number. In fact, you might make a big table telling people how much "a million" of lots of different kinds of tiny things weigh.
In chemistry, instead of rice/lentils/blueberries you're measuring atoms. And instead of "One Million", you use a funny large number called "Avogadro's Constant".
## Why is it such a funny number?
No big reason. It's just that out units for length/mass/time etc. often don't turn out to be nice neat numbers when we're discovering new things.
Remember that they couldn't actually count individual atoms, so they couldn't get the weight of "one atom" and multiply. Instead, they figured out a way to accurately estimate how many atoms of were inside certain volumes of gas. In other words, they tried to find ways to tie it to things like "liters" and "grams".
Unfortunately those nice numbers (like "one liter" or "one gram") don't match up to a neat powers-of-ten number of molecules/atoms. Oh well. | 7f3862f0-a730-4746-a222-487e26a3c2cf |
6398rw | On a given construction site, why are there usually 4 people standing around doing nothing or watching someone work, for every 1 person actually working? | The people that you see standing around doing nothing on a site 'doing nothing' are all working. Let's pretend that the crew is fixing an underground pipe, and name the crew members and their jobs.
Normally a survey crew marks out where the pipeline is, and where other utilities should be.
Now for the working crew...
First you have the equipment operator, the guy sitting in the excavator. He moves most of the soil, and is responsible for hitting the gas/sewage lines.
Next you have a crew of several people with shovels to do delicate soil removal, and other general labor. They take shifts spending time in the hole. Space is very limited for both personal and equipment. Have you ever spent 10 hours digging a hole, or managing a 8" angle grinder for weeks straight? It is exhausting, they have to perform this hard manual labor for weeks on end in the raw weather. They need their rest.
The hole that is being dug is a dangerous confined space area. The sides can collapse, or oxygen levels can be lower then normal. A safety officer should be on hand to monitor the soil conditions and quality of the air. He is to protect the lives of the crew, and makes sure that this construction project never makes it to the 5-o'clock news.
Pipefitters are tasked with removing the damaged section of pipe, and installing a new pipe section. There can be lot of prep work and rigging involved to remove and install these heavy pipe sections.
If this worksite is on an active road, a crew is needed for traffic management.
Each trade can have their own foreman, or their can be a single supervisor for the entire construction crew.
This work site can have various inspectors for each trade, inspectors for the local city, reps for other utilities, and civil engineers can all appear on this site. These workers do all the paperwork, record keeping, and assume the liability for this job.
Even though there are a dozen or more people on site, only three have shovels. Everyone is working hard at their own speciality. At any instant there are more people employed to ensure the smooth workflow of the repair and protect the lives of everyone involved, then getting sweaty and getting their hands dirty. They are all working. | 8e689064-33c0-4778-9888-7fa88ec059ff |
86pp6h | Redditors, what's the difference of Best, Top, and Hot? | "Top" has the most up votes.
"Best" takes into account the ratio of up to down votes, how quickly they get the votes, etc.
"Hot" are those which are getting votes and responses regardless of if it is highly voted overall. "Hot" would tend to include highly controversial comments which the former options may not. | 20b611f2-1fe1-4d2f-a8f3-c4d0f6381641 |
7ayzsk | How do they plan and simulate fireworks? | I can speak to how it's done by professional display companies. Specialized software such as [Finale](_URL_0_) allows you to set your firing positions or create a rendering of the structure you're shooting from. The software has a wide variety of preloaded fireworks and effects, and you can basically drag-and-drop them. Well it's a bit more complicated than that, but that's it in a nutshell. It also does its rendering much like other pre-viz software so you can get a basic idea of how the show will look.
Scroll to the bottom of the page I linked to for a series of how-to videos.
The show is laid out in a "timeline", and you can set cues within this timeline which determine what goes off and when. This is also where music can be imported and cues can be timed based on that. | 8e6f01f5-6cbb-4d71-8614-e162d065e652 |
21lava | What would happen immediately if i were to hold something that was incredibly radioactive | You'd end up like this guy: _URL_0_
> Over the next nine days Slotin suffered an "agonizing sequence of radiation-induced traumas" including severe diarrhea, reduced urine output, swollen hands, erythema, "massive blisters on his hands and forearms", intestinal paralysis, gangrene and ultimately "a total disintegration of bodily functions" | b35b07da-f296-478e-92fb-7899fcf7fb0e |
psuda | Scientific Theory vs. layman's idea of theory. | Scientific concept of a theory: "Based on our testing and observations we believe this is the way things generally work."
Layman's concept of a theory: "All that science and you guys only have a *guess*?" | 5173b22b-3279-4fc1-b88c-186cc8f8e5f3 |
7bvkj6 | Is there any way to solve a cubic equation in the same way you can solve a quadratic equation using the quadratic formula? Basically, is there any 1 formula that can solve a cubic equation. | There is a [general cubic formula](_URL_0_), it's just difficult to memorize. | f1ac2358-f975-4d14-88fa-80ba8038a380 |
1u383k | What is the strange tingly feeling I get when I consciously relax or 'reverse-flex' my legs? | I can also do this but have never been able to describe it and thought I was alone. I can seem to do it with my entire body. | 471e6def-c1fa-4285-87c4-13642a5d9146 |
64a1bc | What keeps other countries from "bringing the war" to US soil? | "Force projection", or being able to attack targets a long way from your own country, is not easy.
If you want to attack by air military aircraft don't tend to have very long range, especially fighters. The options are to have a conveniently located airbase, have an aircraft carrier, or run a complicated air-to-air refuelling operation. Most countries can't do any of those. Oh, and you also have to get past the US Air Force.
If you want to attack with missiles, most missiles don't have long enough range, and the ones that do are considered reserved for nukes and ALSO not many countries have them. You don't want the USA thinking you're launching a nuke when you aren't.
If you want to attack by sea, you need a warship or a submarine capable of crossing oceans and operating for a long time. It's yet another thing a lot of countries don't have - such warships are more expensive and harder to make than a ship that just stays close to your own shoreline. Oh, and you also have to get past the US Navy.
And if you want to attack by land, you've got to be Canada or Mexico. Most countries aren't Canada or Mexico. | 139b617f-ea7c-4b94-9458-1caaca929888 |
21bec9 | why is it that destroying things makes me feel better when I'm angry? | When you build up anxiety and anger, adrenaline is released.
Adrenaline causes a "fight-or-flight" response in your body. This is a mechanism that usually requires *intense muscular effort*. This is rooted for survival: for example - if you were being chased by a bear, your body will release adrenalin. Your blood vessels will dilate, your heart will beat faster and pump more blood, your pain tolerance will increase and your situational awareness will expand.
Following a fight-of-flight response, endorphins are released. These endorphins *feel good*, they regulate stress, calm you down. They make you feel 'high'.
So.. when you get angry, you go primal. You go "fight-or-flight", take it out on the wall, feel no pain, and then get a natural high.
Some people are psychologically addicted to these natural highs, which could help explain why some folks maintain abusive relationships. Other 'addicts' have better control over their emotions and get their high with extreme sports such as skydiving or free climbing. | 49679631-8319-4dd6-8437-51272532561b |
2j5lz3 | The differences between cow's milk, soy milk, and almond milk. | Well almond milk is blended almonds in water and soy milk is blended soy beans in water.
I'm not too familiar with cow's milk but I assume it is blended cow and water | 7ec76fe5-00a5-4c11-9589-9cc39ab47f83 |
11asx7 | Why can't you drink rainfall? | Living as I do in the rural western U.S., I was initially astonished at your question. For people going "off-grid" in my region, collecting rainwater in cisterns, for household use and not just gardening, can be a viable choice, and I know plenty of people who do it.
So, I'll have to answer your question with two others. "Says who?" and "Where are you?"
Those questions being asked, I'd be inclined to say that rainwater *is* safe to drink, as long as 1) you aren't living downwind from horrible sources of atmospheric pollution, and 2) you take reasonable steps to ensure the water isn't being made dirty by whatever you are collecting it with. | 5f4e3648-2743-4cb6-95dd-66eed542fecb |
6kj0hf | Why do some movies and games come out later in certain parts of the world than others? | If you're talking about theatrical releases, sometimes, even if theater owners are pretty sure a movie is going to be a hit, they like to wait until it is in fact a hit so they can use it in their advertising: "The Number 1 movie in America" etc. It also helps to build up buzz.
This is why there used to be "road shows," where a movie would open in one city—usually a big city like New York—first, then another city, then another, so nationally syndicated critics could praise it up and down and get people's appetites good and whetted by the time in opened in the rest of the country.
As for Blurays and web DLs, the same marketing psychology may be at work.
Piracy must not be taking *that* big a bite, because the "let it out a little at a time" approach still seems popular.
Also, because of big price differentials (e.g., movies on DVD and Bluray are usually a *lot* more expensive in Japan, because they can be) companies want to release it in the expensive countries first, so people there can get their fill before the disc is released in the low-price countries, where the temptation to pirate into the higher priced countries is greater. | f091a102-315c-4b0c-b2ff-c71e2187de89 |
6t35v8 | Why does turning the batteries (in a remote control for instance) provide a little bit more energy? | The battery contacts get corroded by a thin film of oxide, and moving the battery scrapes the oxide clear or moves to a spot with less oxide. | fae3dfc3-bb0b-4382-804a-b659ea12bdf3 |
2adgi8 | We can see an ant. If there were some giant, big enough that made us look like ants compared to it, that giant couldn't see the ants we see. Is there anything that ants can see that we can't? | The giant probably could see the ants if it bent over, if the eyes are of similar construction they should have similar resolution.
A human eye scaled down to ant size wouldn't have greater resolution, that's limited by the number of photoreceptor cells and how well the eyes focuses.
Ants themselves have fairly poor vision (as do most insects) and rely mostly on scent for pathfinding and hunting. | c8a30408-bb31-4d50-bea8-8a990693e932 |
5t4hn7 | why is a tomato considered a fruit? | Any plant that has seeds is a fruit. “Vegetable” is strictly a culinary term, to distinguish sweet fruits like cherries from savory fruits like tomatoes. | 4df3f315-770c-4100-b5d3-5cf607d63877 |
506k61 | why are are Americans so precious over their right to bear arms? | American here. I don't own a gun, but in this world, I plan to eventually get a handgun for self defense.
Here's something about Americans. We *hate* getting shit taken from us. Why did we secede from the British Empire in the late 1700s? Because they took our money and resources and didn't give us adequate representation in Parliament. Why did we have a Civil War in the 1860's? Because the South didn't want to lose their slaves. Sadly we have a way of life that depends on our stuff. One of those things is guns. Some of us want guns just to shoot up buildings and kill people, but most of us want to use guns to defend ourselves against these lunatics if a situation gets to that point. I wouldn't say I'm pro-guns, but in reference to that theatre siege not too long ago, I genuinely believe that a lot of carnage could've been avoided if someone in there had a gun. Not all of it, but a lot. But the problem is that it's pretty easy to get a gun if you can't get one legally.
In essence, it all boils down to politics nowadays. I have never faced a situation in my life that could've been solved with guns (i.e. hostage situation), but I personally want to avoid this from happening in the first place. | 7fabc45c-d7e4-468b-869a-39625edd2d29 |
18vmfp | Why isn't Latin spoken anymore? | This is covered in detail in [this thread](_URL_0_) from /r/AskHistorians. [This answer](_URL_0_c84utax) by /u/dangerbird2 is accurate and yet simple enough for ELI5:
> It is important to recognize that for most of its history, the Latin language existed in two primary registers, the Classical Latin used in Roman politics, literature, and law, and the Vulgar Latin spoken in daily life. Vulgar Latin never died out, it simply evolved into the modern Romance languages around the years 600 to 800. Although Classical Latin sees very little use today, the literary register of Latin based off Classical Latin survived for a very long time, evolving independently of the Romance languages. In Western Europe, during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, "Classical" Latin remained the primary language of literature, philosophy, the court, and the church. Even after authors like Chaucer and Dante popularized the use of vernacular languages in the late middle ages, and after the Protestant Reformation supported the abandonment of Latin as the liturgical language in their denominations, Latin remained the primary language of diplomacy until the seventeenth century, and of academia until the late nineteenth century. And of course, Church Latin remained the liturgical language of Roman Catholicism until the Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965, which allowed the use of vernacular in mass. | fd34dbfa-7f66-4a69-a268-f1c9af990a27 |
24sycp | Why does a hovering helicopter rotate with the Earth? | When starting off on the ground the helicopter already has inertia, going around the center of the Earth. After lifting off, that inertia can't magically go away since that's a violation of conservation of momentum.
This is also true with rockets. NASA prefers to launch rockets in the direction of the planet's rotation, since it can use the planets spinning momentum to get into orbit for slightly less fuel. If you launch a rocket into orbit going the opposite direction of earth's rotation, it costs more fuel.
- - -
EDIT: Wow, most of the other explanations offered here are terrible. No, this has nothing to do with air. This effect would happen with a rocket powered vessel lifting off of the moon's surface too. Clearly atmospheres aren't required for this.
Here's another way to explain conservation of momentum: Imagine Earth isn't round, but instead is a flat disc shaped world. Now imagine a train is moving at 60 kph across the surface, and on top of the train is a helicopter. As soon as the helicopter lifts off of the train, it will continue to move at 60 kps with the train because the momentum/energy put in the helicopter by the train's motion won't go away. The energy the moving train put into it cannot be destroyed (conservation of energy demands you can't create nor destroy energy). To suggest the helicopter is stationary relative to the ground as soon as it stop touching the train implies energy can be destroyed. Now replace the train with the ground of a round rotating Earth… same exact thing. | e0557064-75d7-484b-bf20-60c6c7265058 |
4klipd | Why do Television News Programs get locations completely wrong on maps so often? | In the past you had a newspaper once per day. The journalists supplied the stories, editors checked them for editorial issues, content checkers (that's a job, not some feature of your word processor) would fact check them and when the newspaper went to the printer it was checked and double checked.
Then some people in the publishing company (news paper or TV or internet) went from "If we get rid of the content checkers who don't generate any contents anyway, we can save ourselves money on that." and the content checking was then done by people who were supposed to do editorial checks. And then the editorial checks got cut down because the stories coming from the journalists were good enough.
So, nobody is checking the content before publishing, nobody is checking the facts before publishing. And that is how you end up with embarrassing mistakes like Brussels ending up in over Paris. | 87688ebc-6bb7-4ffa-8c47-e23ce36057e7 |
3djr3w | how does sound travel on the ISS | The air inside the ISS (the medium through which sound inside travels through) is travelling right along with them and isn't accelerating. It's no different from how you're able to talk normally on a plane despite going ~2/3 the speed of sound. Or why when you toss a ball up in a vehicle it doesn't fly to the back. | 696b0082-ad55-4b87-889a-e89cf077c3f3 |
2xmnmf | How come a lot of styles 50 or so years ago dated very well, yet a lot of styles from only 20 or 30 years ago seem to have aged horribly? | Actually, that seems to be the standard cycle. From my experience.
In the 70s retro-style/fashion from the 30s was "in".
Today, it's from the 60s.
In the 70s and 80s, 60s style/fashion just looked ridiculous.
Give it 20 or 30 years, and we'll be reliving the 90s. Get your flannel shirts ready! | 99cb90fa-48ce-4aa8-8361-f51db21ac84f |
1jtfjg | How did the Soviets make their submarines quieter than American submarines? | Perhaps I'm missing something, but Soviet subs were pretty much always noisier than US ones if you compare like with like. The latest Red Navy ones were usually about as stealthy as the previous generation of USN boats. Unless you're comparing diesel electric subs with nuclear ones, which isn't really a valid comparison.
What specifically do you mean? Do you have specific comparisons as examples? | 82acea3b-62f8-4701-a8b5-496a9742fd0d |
4a9jto | USA involvment in Syria/Turkey/Russia | Turkey is part of NATO, which US is also part of. Russia, supports Assad in Syria. Somewhere in between Syria and Turkey there are some rebels that might be part of ISIS(Its actually more complicated as far as i know there are 6 different fractions fighting). Russia help Syria, and Turkey doesnt like it, and since Turkey is part of NATO other members of NATO sort of helping it.. That is ELI5. the real thing is more complicated. | 4d387d03-aac1-4ccd-bcbe-7f12baf49aee |
1i8req | The difference between RAM and hard drive memory. | The hard drive isn't memory, it's *storage*. So, if we use the analogy of a computer as an office: the hard drive is the filing cabinet. The operating system is the secretary. The desktop is the memory and the person reading and modifying the files that come across his desk is the processor (CPU).
So the secretary will pull copies of files from the filing cabinet and place the files on the processor's desk (loading files into memory). The processor will ask the secretary for a file, and if it is on the desk the secretary hands it to him, he reads it, he makes changes to it. He hands it back to the secretary to place on the desk. Or he may have the secretary put a copy of it back in the filing cabinet, too (saving the file to the hard disk). Anything on the desk, the secretary can hand to him quickly. Anything in the filing cabinet, the secretary needs more time to retrieve it.
Everything in the filing cabinet is pretty safe. Everything on the desktop is could disappear if it gets blown off the desk by a strong wind (this is my analogy for the computer losing power). Got it? | 8f8d1f8d-4be6-4f99-a6be-b7b9f2375eb1 |
ogrsi | Why can i vividly remember something from 10 years ago but cant remember what I ate a week ago? | Our brain has two places where memories are stored - one is temporary and another is permanent. So everyday things like the food you eat, dress you wear,etc. are stored in the temporary compartment. Other things that happen during the day - like you getting your first car,etc. too are stored in this unit. When you sleep at night, our brain sifts through the temporary folder and finds out things that are important and need to go to the permanent folder. So the food you eat is trivial, but your first car is important and gets into the permanent compartment. | acc7c32d-92a4-43c4-bef9-f13093cad85c |
23tf9u | Why do objects turn bright red when very hot? | All objects emit some radiation, as objects get hotter, the frequency of the radiation gets higher. Objects that are around room temperature emit radiation that has a lower frequency than we can see. As the objects get hotter, the frequency goes up until we can see it as red, then yellow, all the way up to blue.
This might lead you to think that eventually really hot objects will emit only ultraviolet radiation that we can't see. However, objects don't emit just one frequency of radiation, they emit an entire range. The strongest frequency might be red, purple, or in the ultraviolet range, but there are always other frequencies emitted, most below the strongest frequency. So even if the strongest frequency is above our visible range, frequencies in our visible range are still emitted, so an object will never "disappear" because it's too hot. | 39f250e1-bdbe-4c36-8c4b-0bdb974fd0a0 |
1ncpxi | How is it that approaching rain has a smell? What is it that we're smelling an hour before a storm arrives? | My old organic chemistry professor explained the smell of rain coming in class once. It's also on his [website](_URL_0_):
> People often think that they can smell rain coming before it actually starts to rain. Strange, as we would be in rough shape if we actually could smell water as it makes up most of our bodies (imagine being able to smell your saliva!).
> There is a simple explination [sic] that seems strange at first. Organic compounds are much more soluble in wet air than dry and the world is full of molds that produce organic compounds with aromas. Typically gust of moist air preceed [sic] the onset of a rain storm and this wet air brings with it the smell of the molds.
TL;DR Rain-a-comin' = more humidity. Chemicals we can smell are dissolved in the water in the air, such as molds. More humidity, therefore more smelly chemicals. Hence, rain smell! | 049e8fc2-fdf1-4e76-bfc2-6aaa4197474b |
1dv16g | How does a person that never drinks untreated water not become ill after swimming in a lake or ocean? | You are absolutely right to think that we ought to pick up diseases. The reason we don't is because the authorities go to great lengths to ensure that the water we swim in is kept relatively free of nasty stuff.
It's [not recommended](_URL_0_) to swim in water which is not properly managed and monitored. | cbb002cd-fe94-43c2-b194-a23bf6045eb1 |
1ohrfn | What is so appealing about Doctor Who? | I hated the first couple random episodes I watched. Totally didn't get it or the people who like it.
Yet now I'm a great fan. I got sucked into that universe immediately after watching the 2005 first episode with Rose and the ninth doctor. It may have been a more accessible entry point because the doctor, the companion and I were new together or simply because that doctor was not so campy and over the top.
Dr Who can be very weird and hard to get into, but it is also a 'Hotel California' state of mind that you can never really leave. Dr Who fans are Dr Who fans forever.
The main thing I love is that the superhero is a doctor who helps people and other creatures feel better and we all win when nobody dies. Yeah. It soothes my inner three year old. | d299f497-399b-4fa2-b5fd-4c0995c70021 |
7q23lx | Why does some tap water have so many small air bubbles that it looks like its actually white? | I think OP asks the milky white type of water that takes some time to clear up.
That's caused by the pressure in the main pipes. Water needs pressure so it can travel from the reservoir to your home. Increasing pressure makes air more soluble and it mixes in easily. Once it is near your faucet, the water loses pressure and the dissolved air separates, leading to super small bubbles that create a milky white appearance as these bubbles also disperse light (similar to fog effects). | d67dc454-adb9-4a1f-a2dc-b4e6f517db79 |
693kcy | Why does Kim Jung Un wear a western suit? | They don't really see suits as "innately western," they also use architecture designs from the west and even the Android operating system (though heavily modified). Because it works fine.
There's also evidence he himself isn't anti-west, seeing as how he went to school in Switzerland, loves US basketball to the point of inviting Dennis Rodman. It's an act put on for his peeps, and the messages largely target the leadership & political ideas of the west anyway, not really their products or stuff. | 63966c8d-d9bf-41de-a020-ac5716d28fb7 |
1kwcmr | 3D that doesn't require glasses, like the Nintendo 3DS | It works because the LCD screen on a 3DS is not your conventional LCD. It uses a technique that basically splits the images sent to each eye based on the angle the eye is to the display. You know those funky strips that changes the picture when you move it? (also super fun to scratch and make those sounds) It's a similar effect, only your brain interprets the result as 3D even though it isn't in the sense of everyday objects that you can hold. | 4335a067-9e54-4d02-a88b-2b791ef9d490 |
3tjira | What is the difference between momentum and inertia? | Inertia is an objects resistance to changes in motion. For instance, a heavier object is harder to push around so it has more inertia. Inertia does not change with speed (unless you consider einstein's theories, which can be ignored in daily life) so a certain object always has the same amount of inertia, which means it will always take the same amount of force to accelerate.
Momentum is the total amount of motion of all the parts of the object. Specifically it's the velocity of an object times its mass, in other words, the amount of motion times the amount of stuff. An object with a lot of momentum can push a lot of objects out of the way before it stops, while an object with less momentum can only push a few things out of the way before it stops. (an object with a lot of mass counts as many objects with smaller mass, because it can be thought of as a lot of lighter objects glued together).
A faster object can push more on things (more momentum), but it still takes the same force to change its speed (inertia does not depend on speed). | cdc85c51-db5b-4c45-8cee-f28cc3cfd29d |
72zo4s | Why are mobile games so shallow and bad compared to even the much older PC/console games? | How many of those old console and pc games were free?
Mobile games generally are simply thinly veiled skinner boxes. Get you hooked on shallow expectation-reward cycle and tease you with micro transactions. There is no incentive to make them GOOD, no incentive to make them a story based game to play for hours on end.
There are some fun ones out there but they're being made for a new market with different "play patterns", they are built to suit many short bursts of play time and built to encourage micro transactions to support an otherwise free game. | 7d446801-dc82-4f53-a6e3-2aab4ecb09a1 |
34h1zp | How was google earth created/made, and how how did google complete it so quickly? | It was funded by the CIA and made using satellite imagery, aerial photography and GIS, or geographic information systems. This project had access to all the images already taken and just compiled them into a single globe. Also if you are asking about street view, Google is an international company and has street view cars all over the world. Look [here](_URL_1_) and [also here](_URL_0_) | c8f1183a-6549-4eb4-89f8-1d02fe7040fc |
2r43ln | Why do our tastes change over time? | Very likely our tastes change for the same reason everything else about us changes: We grow, we have new experiences, we learn new things. Most of the cells in our bodies are less than seven years old, and our brains rewire pathways every time you learn something new or have an emotional experience. So there is every reason to think that your tastes will change over time.
*Example: You eat chocolate covered marischino cherries because they taste amazing; but one night you eat an entire box of them, get sick, and violently throw up, leaving the taste of marischino and bile in your mouth. After that, cherries (especially marischinos) just don't seem as good as they used to.* | a27aefdd-98be-419d-ba5b-e8dec8b77607 |
2a0sl5 | Why is calling Obama a socialist considered an insult? What's so wrong about that type of government anyways? | During the Cold War, the "enemy" of the United States (as well as most of the wealthy world) were all self-proclaimed socialist nations (The USSR and China being the largest). The word "socialism" has come to represent all the things US Americans prefer about their way of life to that of those countries: freedom, democracy and capitalism. So to call someone a socialist is often to associate them with the brutish Communist societies of the Cold War.
Objectively, Obama is not a socialist. Socialism is any social system where the means of production (ie, all the things presently owned by employers like machines and tools as well as land) are "socially" rather than privately owned and controlled. Obama is more accurately described as a Social Democrat, someone whose ideal society is quite capitalist but with a government who often intervenes to improve efficiency and fairness. | 45c4681a-3ff7-4348-a755-035b492dae41 |
1yz4fz | What happens to a spider after it gets sucked up the vacuum cleaner? | Already answered this one, then you deleted and posted again? Original answer:"Suffocation in the dust I suppose but if it survives the thrill ride of the vacuum hose then I would guess a death by starvation." | a18356bd-e1d5-428e-8b21-097553c5fc70 |
1n4opn | Why do I get irritable when I'm hungry? | Because the animal inside you activates and you engage in "Predator" mode, doing everything in order to secure food and guarantee the survival of your species. | f4961f7d-d4f3-4d59-a71a-23fe460764bd |
1z8sa7 | Why do we squint to focus on things far away? | Our vision basically comes from light passing through the pupil and focusing on the retina, which is the back of the eye. So when you squint, you are changing the shape of your eye and decreasing the amount of light that will enter your pupil. The limited amount of rays make it more likely that they will become more easily focused. (This is a pretty simplified explanation.) | c89cb341-dd33-4e27-8de1-6b169f3b1209 |
1uf0wg | How death works and why it can"t be undone | ICU doctor here.
True death is when the brain is dead. When we test for death, we are looking for brain activity. The ability to cough, gag, breath, etc. When there is a question if somebody is dead, we do a perfusion scan that checks to see if the brain is receiving blood. True death or brain death cannot be reversed.
Cardiac "death" occurs all the time and is reversible. When the heart stops, we use medicines, chest compression and artificial breathing to try to protect the other organs. When the heart stops, damage to the other organs quickly occurs because those organs are not receiving blood, oxygen, and glucose. Often we reverse cardiac death through life support mechanisms only to realize that the patient is actually brain death. In contrast to the current case in the news, most families understand this and want their dead loved one disconnected from the artificial support. | bb5de944-9240-4144-a2bf-dc5a5f75009a |
31b3oy | Why deep 'cones/holes' are created in the centre of a whirlpool | While the other comment makes sense I think this is more ELI5.
Remember the centripetal force from highschool physics? The rotation of the water causes the water to want to move more to the outside, causing a water deficit in the center.
You probably remember from highschool that in order to keep something in a circle spinning you need to keep it pulled towards the center with a Force equal to mV^2/R. In the spinning water this force is absent. (Almost absent, the other water molecules on the outside will push it inwards a bit, which is why the vortex has a finite size, but then you start complicating things too much for ELI5) | a978a75e-64e9-4009-8b41-b35ac49030e8 |
4xvrvn | How come people might stutter when they talk, but you don't stutter when you sing a song? | Music therapist here. It's the same reason why people with traumatic brain injuries who loose all ability to speak can sometimes still sing.
The speech center of the brain is located in a very small part of the left hemisphere. When we are speaking, that part of the brain lights up. But music is associated with many parts of the brain, in the left and right hemisphere. Essentially, more of your brain is working.
I'd advise everyone to check out the story of Congresswoman Gabby Gifford who lost her ability to speak after a gunshot to the head. Over the course of many months, and work with a speech pathologist and a music therapist, she regained her ability to speak through singing. Now the opposite side of her brain lights up when she speaks. #musictherapytransplant | d31e9123-4b1e-4a85-9ec6-2407b2f6fdd7 |
3e73b0 | Why do Crypto-currencies need to be 'mined'. Why can't they just be created in a certain amount and then bought and sold at a set rate? | The "mining" is really running the brains of the encryption itself. Without miners, their is no computing power to protect the currency or make it work.
That really was the novelty of bitcoin. An independent economy where helping the currency run paid you in the currency itself. | c03ec436-376e-418f-909d-530f45467955 |
7cq833 | How is a single-machine software license recognized when it's being used on that machine? Is it registry-tied or IP-address-tied? | It depends. You can do it to Windows key or a GUID which is a bit more complex. You can tie it to an IP address, but that's generally not a good idea because IP addresses are not necessarily fixed.
Its better to tie it to physical attributes. This is called hardware binding. For example, your MAC address can't (usually) be changed. But what if you had to swap out your network card. So use HDD serial # or CPU serial #. Modern hardware binding uses a combination of several physical components of your PC... so long as only a few of them change during an upgrade it won't invalidate your license.
Or there could be a physical crypto device like a USB key that is attached. Or there could be a crypto file somewhere hidden on your PC.
Lots of ways to do it. | 8b766ec6-ba76-402d-9f58-7c20a86f00ea |
5thcrs | If someone was brought up without being told about sex, would they still know what to do? | Everyone else failed to consider that all the teenagers getting pregnant today are also exposed to huge amounts of sex in the media and their daily lives. If a straight male and female were completely isolated from any mention of sex, then they were introduced to to each other after puberty, it would take some trial and error, and it might take a long time, but they could eventually end up with a kid. The guy would quickly discover that his penis gave him pleasure when he messed around with it. The girl, through cleaning or scratching, would figure out that her vagina gave her pleasure. If they spent enough time together, they could feasibly begin to share these experiences beginning with a form of mutual masturbation. As they fumbled around with each other's parts, and became more familiar with what made each of them aroused, then pregnancy is a possibility even without penetration. It would only take a small epiphany to move to direct penetration.
There is a movie called the [Blue Lagoon](_URL_0_) that covers something like this, though it doesn't go too into detail about the steps that the couple crossed to discover penetrative sex. | a2385c33-e36e-4734-b8e0-b1c2dab96b92 |
2y6mas | Why do windshield wipers push the water to the drivers side? | The wiper is vertical when it reaches the driver's side, getting more water off than the passenger side. | 246de181-35c2-49ac-ac61-79cc07d7eaf9 |
6ifkfw | Why can't we provide internet by using the same technology that broadcasts television shows? | The TV setup has two BIG perks the internet doesn't.
* It's a one-way connection.
* The messages are being broadcast to no one in particular with little concern about privacy.
Your internet is bi-directional AND intended to be a connection that's potentially private for just you. This results in a **TON** of extra overhead in routing data, encrypting it on a per-user basis, etc.
For wireless TV broadcasts, the antenna at the TV station has no ability to listen *at all*, and there's no system in place to distinguish unique users (like there is for cell phones). | e52fd7ad-5dd8-4846-a933-959b91814e41 |
5hkjub | How does molecular mechanics work? | Molecular mechanics uses the fundamental forces of physics to describe physical properties of molecules and biological systems.
This field is usually used in conjection with computational chemistry techniques since the mathematical construct is complicated and tedious.
In my use of molecular mechanics I used guassview Chem draw and other software to predict spectroscopy analysis.
In an ELI5 way this could be used to predict what color you would get off you mixed blue and red paint before you actually mixed the paint. If the software says purple and i observe purple I can say with confidence that my software predicted my mixture.
Now if i mixed 2 chemicals together to make a product that I assume will be created using chemistry intuition and obtained the Mass Spectrometry, Infared spectroscopy data and noticed that my software had the same results i could say that my product is what I think it is. This is just one elementary use of molecular mechanics. | f877cef8-1631-4b03-aa23-a9f5a9537323 |
jiwxs | how the reddit frontpage is determined | Here's an attempt at a LI5 answer which says more than "most upvotes in littlest time."
Imagine a racetrack for horses that goes on forever in one direction. The start of the track is labeled "Jan 1, 1970 12:00am" and there are equally spaced notches labeled "Jan 1, 1970 12:01am", "Jan 1, 1970 12:02am", and so on.
When you submit a post, a horse representative is dropped onto the racetrack at the time of submission. If I submit a post now, it will be dropped at the marker reading "Aug 15, 2011 1:02am."
Now hopefully, my horse will start running! Every time my post gets an upvote, it gets a little burst of energy and moves forward. Every time my post gets a downvote, it trips up and loses some distance. If it doesn't get much attention, it'll stay around the marker of the time it was submitted. But if it gets lots of upvotes, it will start to race faster and faster, even past the horses that are being dropped onto the track upstream for newer posts!
**The front page of r/all is a top 25 list of the horses currently winning this race.** The front page of a given subreddit is the top 25 list of the horses *from that subreddit* currently in the lead.
Even the very best submissions will stop getting upvotes after a while, so the horse will start to slow down and eventually come to a stop. Even if it ran out way in front of the other horses, newer horses will have the advantage of being dropped further along the racetrack, so even if my post got a whole ton of upvotes in its lifetime, it won't stay in the top 25 for much longer than a couple hours.
To make up for this, there's also the "top all time" option, which lists the horses who traveled the longest distance, so the time they were submitted plays no role anymore. | c03db5ed-4178-479a-94d7-47e81aa52f14 |
2p83xf | Explain how full immersion while living in another country is the fastest way to learn another language? | That's how you learned English and you were fluent in a few years. | c10ddc97-38e8-4e7b-b6a6-d79f110fad16 |
1c0kln | How do fossils of an action or event get made? | It's fossilized sap. It's basically tree blood, and it flows pretty quickly, and in some cases is almost like water. The insects drown in the stuff while fighting, and the sap hardens over the years.
This might be morbid for a 5 year old, but it would be like having a bunch of concrete dumped on you. The concrete would preserve exactly how you were as it all fell on you, and you would die trapped in the concrete.
Same thing happened here. | 68434a58-bd4a-42e8-85da-d94068959b52 |
7xjlmh | Why is it that you sometimes get the sensation of falling when you're about to fall asleep? | That is a phenomenon called the "[Hypnic Jerk,](_URL_0_)" and it's very common. Scientists don't really know the cause but it may be attributed to anxiety, caffeine or stress. (I know I get it more when I am overtired). They also happen after you fall asleep, but you don't notice it. As you grow older, they become less frequent. | 42c84fa8-e24c-43e7-b0d7-8d5a8aeb663e |
31v9j4 | Why is Russia's cyberattack against the White House not a bigger story? | The scope of the breach was very limited. To our knowledge, it was limited to essentially the President's schedule and agenda. There was no classified information and the breach did not extend to more secured parts of the system. | b9c4c59d-a99c-42a2-abcd-119d5e9cd5cf |
8qs0z1 | How are some physical traits able to skip through a generation? | You have two copies of each gene, one set from your father, one from your mother. Each copy is called an _allele_. Alleles can be recessive or dominant. If you have one dominant allele from one parent and one recessive from the other, the dominant allele will be expressed. Only if you have two recessive alleles will that version of the gene be expressed.
So, it's easy for some traits to skip a generation if they're recessive, since there are more ways for a dominant allele to take effect.
Let's say you have the a recessive big nose gene. The dominant allele is N and the recessive one is n.
Mother - N, father - N = NN, a small nose
Mother - N, father - N = Nn, a small nose
Mother - n, father - N = nN, a small nose
Mother - n, father - n = nn, big nose | 603c6c5c-2fc9-4702-b961-7cc4a2e6611d |
4562qf | Why the LAPD cooperated so much with OJ during his chase? | In a fantasy world, we'd imagine that LAPD would call the local military base, and have a fighter plane or attack helicopter fly out and disable the bronco with a missile, bomb or some gun. Maybe have a sniper ahead on the road, shoot the driver or engine block with a large bullet. Maybe have an officer in an armored car drive into the bronco, somehow disable it and a bunch of officers swarm it in some kind of shoot out.
Problem is, OJ was armed, in a car with someone, and the streets and overpasses were filled with lots of bystanders and gawkers. He was being followed in the air by multiple news helicopters, police helicopters, a convoy of police cars, etc.
He can't escape, just let the situation calm down, he has to stop eventually. There is no immediate threat, let it go play itself out.
Much like the stand off in Oregon, they just let it peacefully fizzle out, and arrested everyone, with only 1 person dead. Compare that to the mess that occurred in Waco, TX with the branch davidians, or the Weavers. | 2cb202c0-7081-4d7f-abea-d68fbec3d768 |
91bo3e | Why does it cost money to get a domain? And why does the price change for every company and domain ending I use? | The registry fee the ISPs pay is small yet many are greedy and figure most people are stupid or desperate to get the name they want so charge lots more for it. | 4f08e02c-7946-48f8-9c84-56d212c57497 |
42q07r | Why do big computers have fans but little ones don't? | A fan in phone would make it too fat. So it uses a heat sink instead. When it reaches maximum temp it then bottlenecks itself til working temps ate resumed.. | c6ff47f9-cbe6-40ae-ba10-7ba84622babb |
1vyedz | Why do military and police forces often side with the corrupt governments when the people rise up against oppression? | Here's the thing:
The government pays their bills. It provides a certain quality of life that is, more or less, guaranteed. Everything is set in place, there are people to handle the ins-and-outs of governing, etc.
Post-rebellion, *none of those things exist right away*. It takes time for everything to stabilize, and if it happens to stabilize in the 'wrong way,' you end up worse then where you started (e.g. the turbulence in post-revolution Egypt).
The Military/Police know this. They know that there is no guarantee that what the revolutionaries would bring would be better than what exists now.
'Make things better' sounds easy on paper. In practice its a convoluted and painful process that involves lots of people going from a semi-organized revolutionary force into what needs to be an extremely organized government. Once again, look at Egypt - nothing happened quite to plan, and its only recently stabilized - it remains to be seen if the government executes in a way that actually ends up bringing long-term stability. | 94c021e1-4f01-43fd-b1b9-a4edde16c449 |
2bmiqp | Why do foods that are bad for you taste better than things that are healthy? | We've evolved to feel rewarded for certain chemicals and compounds because they are vital for our survival. However, in modern society, we can get them in abundance. Our bodies haven't evolved a way to say 'hey wait, that's way too much of a good thing.' So we over-consume and the excess has deleterious effects on our health. | 243ba28b-fa60-4294-8de7-aada6eb339ef |
1jnlao | How does a company such as hooters get away with hiring only large-breasted waitresses? How is this not an ongoing discrimination lawsuit? | In employment discrimination law in the United States, employers are generally allowed to consider characteristics that would otherwise be discriminatory if they are bona fide occupational qualifications (BFOQ).
Female employees are required to sign that they "acknowledge and affirm" the following:
My job duties require I wear the designated Hooters Girl uniform.
My job duties require that I interact with and entertain the customers.
The Hooters concept is based on female sex appeal and the work environment is one in which joking and entertaining conversations are commonplace.
I do not find my job duties, uniform requirements, or work environment to be offensive, intimidating, hostile, or unwelcome.
[Source] (_URL_0_) | d678f9d5-5a2b-4d3d-b914-20b8128843e0 |
1njqot | what is the alternative to a two-party system? | A multi-party system.
For an example, look at Canada.
We have several parties, in fact as long as you are willing to pay for it, you can start your own party based on any political belief. We have the Conservatice party, the Liberal Party, the Blocques de Quebecquois, New Democratic Party (NDP), Green Party, etc. We even have things such as the Marxist-Leninist Party.
Currently we have 5 parties sharing the House of Commons (HoC, Our version of Congress). In the lead with a majority government (more than 50% of the seats) is the Conservative Party, followed by the NDP, followed by Liberals, then the Blocques, and finally with a single seat (their first seat in the HoC) is the Green Party.
It may seem weird, but essentially it works like this, for an area, my personal area is Cambridge, it's in Ontario, there are Members of Parliament (MPs), and you vote them in, instead of voting for the President/Prime Minister you vote for who you want to be the MP for your region. Ours is Gary Goodyear (Conservative). And what happens is the head of the party whose party has the most seats (the most MPs) in the HoC, becomes the Prime Minister and is more or less the director of the HoC.
As to how things get passed, the Prime Minister will bring up a bill/law/whatever that is proposed, the leader of the party with the second most seats is the official opposition, and it acts like a debate until they agree, or until one side wins in a vote by convincing the other members to support them.
This would be the most easily accepted alternative, because it doesn't change that much from the USA's current system, it just allows greater differentiation. | cb1b0156-f958-4117-8582-f09865e0362f |
1pkwom | Why do I (and others) talk to themselves? | Conversing with one's self has long been a common practice amongst humans. It puts our minds at ease when things like taxes, bills, work and life's other discrepancies get us down. Often times, we like to converse with ourselves in order to play out a scenario in our head before an event whether it be huge or insignificant (e.g. talking to that girl we like, asking for a promotion, finding a way to get out of talking to that annoying gas station clerk, etc.). Consequentially, talking to ourselves becomes almost a necessity as a fail safe. If we didn't talk to ourselves in order to play out an event in our heads we would not articulate nearly as well as we do. As for the stress factor, we become our own catalyst and buffer for events in our lives. It allows us to give reassurance to ourselves when others aren't there to talk to our comfort us. It is a natural human action, yet we view it sometimes as crazy because of a common stereotype of the homeless man at the bus stop. We laugh when we see someone talking to themselves because it is in fact a comical sight. However, we all do it…hopefully while no one is looking though. | fb561a78-5e1e-457c-86a4-4c0ca46f6f1c |
1xgtnk | Why is it after all my ex has put me through, one conversation can undo a ton of work I've made in getting over them? | I cannot emphasize this enough: The human brain is basically six pounds of fatty Jello. The fact that it is sometimes capable of mathematics and rhetoric does not make it rationally designed; natural selection favors survival and reproduction over logic and happiness.
Bio: Strong pair bonding makes sense for animals like humans, which reach maturity slowly and need lots of care when young. Strong interpersonal emotions would tend to favor long-term relationships, increasing the odds that an infant will survive to adulthood and reproduce.
Psych/neuro: Neurons that fire together wire together, and don't break up easily. A serious relationship creates emotionally powerful associations and circuits in the brain. The decision to end a relationship doesn't get rid of them on its own. Sometimes they fade over time, but sometimes they only seem to get worse. The good news is that the talking cure works. When thoughts don't go away on their own, talking them over with trusted friends and/or professionals can at least help get them out of the obsessive loop and into the real world. | 9755857a-797c-433a-adb3-380444c20ef7 |
2bwrtn | Why does my stereo measure volume starting in the negative decibels? | "Decibel" or dB isn't a unit of _URL_0_'s a way of measuring things with large ranges relative to some arbitrary value. dBFS is the measurement for digital signals, and 0dB is the maximum. dB V is the measurement for analog voltages, dB SPL is the measurement for sound pressure level in air. All are different and mean different things.
And you have to consider what it's measuring. Is that the amp gain? The signal going through it? It's all relative.
0dB *SPL* is the threshold for human hearing. 0dB V is moderately low signal. 0dB FS is the highest possible digital signal without distortion. | 1a2728c4-cf85-4298-9eb4-981a1ceef646 |
6um6di | How does Apple know whether or not a charging cable is "certified"? | There s a chip inside the lightning cable that tells the phone that its a legitimate chip approved by apple, if the phone doesn't see this, then its not legit. Yes it can be hacked, thats how some knockoff cables from China were introduced. | dfbc7af4-086f-4435-88f0-8e3ab85cf35d |
2juiko | How come it's harder for countries in South America and Africa to modernize as compared North American, European, and Asian countries? | South America wasn't founded on wanting freedom, it was colonized to extract resources and enrich its colonizers.
Then there's foreign interventions in South America. Here's a [map](_URL_0_) of US interventions.
Then there's home-grown problems like class divisions. | a400f6f3-dc8f-4ec2-b0c7-6491de998945 |
1qxtpa | Why are most popular websites created by Americans? | English, plus the largest portion of internet traffic is American, so anyone who can appeal to the American market will find it easier to make a popular website. | 315d3a04-cec2-4da7-a530-dc387a364886 |
2a0pa1 | Is there a reason why my leg bounces all the time when I'm sitting down, and I hardly ever notice? | Its a way your body copes with blood pooling in your lower extremities owing to gravity. As you are involuntarily shaking your leg, the major veins that are embedded in your leg are being squeezed by the surrounding musculature and this facilitates blood to flow upwards. | e7f57a65-f438-46a7-8082-b733bb3ae748 |
1n672r | How does outside/fast lane of a motorway get congested to the point traffic is at a standstill? | The scene.
Nobody wants to drive in the slow lanes because they're full of lorries (UK here)so they're traveling at 60. So the next lane in gets full of cars doing just a bit more than the lorries maybe 65 to 70. So you've only got the fast lane to overtake in.
Car doing 70 overtakes long line of cars in the middle doing 65 and every body sticking to the fast lane at 75+ back up behind them.
Even worse when you get a lorrie doing 60 overtaking one doing 58, takes forever for them to get past and all the cars doing 65 are now in the fast lane. | 99b6efb5-068e-44a1-9219-e3d41186d6e9 |
3dg001 | When people drink alcohol, cravings for and use of cigarettes is increased greatly. Is there a scientific basis for this, or is it purely habitual? | Alcohol is a depressent, nicotine is a stimulant, the two go very well together.
Alcohol also lowers inhibition and impairs judgement, meaning you are more likely to give into a craving, and less likely to care about the implications of doing so (stinky breath, cancer, ugly looks from non smokers).
Mixing things that slow you down, with things that speed you up, is seen in a lot of situations.
At a certain level, smoking while drinking is a very light version of speedballing heroin with cocaine. | 5a18a881-55ac-4c11-afeb-0d8a4c915c19 |
3ep5op | Why do wheels (noticed in car tires) seem to be moving backwards when they're rotating really quickly? | Repost removed. Please remember to search before posting. [I did this one for you.](_URL_0_) | 59a12437-f4f0-4d0e-8f7f-21bab9afb61b |
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