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2m16ga | How come human infants are so helpless, compared to other mammal offsprings? | One of the current theories is that it was evolutionarily favorable for human offspring to be born earlier in their cognitive development compared with other mammals so that their head would be small enough for a natural birth. Instead of the brain growing larger during pregnancy and the baby being born with more cognitive abilities, the smaller undeveloped head allowed the baby to be delivered, and then the rest of the development occurred outside the womb.
Another reason is that human's can be born helpless and still survive till maturity is that humans, for the most part, don't have to worry about predators or the elements. If other mammals were born as dependent as humans are they would never survive. | 966fd525-afc0-4438-83be-2034ec0cfee7 |
16yygj | Explain how percentiles work? | "Per cent" means out of 100.
Suppose you have 100 apples, and you rank them from most fresh to most rotten. The freshest apples would be the top 10 percent (the top 10 out of 100), and the most rotten would be the bottom 10 percent (the bottom 10 out of 100). | 337d4bac-a95e-4c9f-a453-df1d73317339 |
39auej | linear, quadratic and exponential time | Talking about something like big O notation?
It sounds like you are describing time complexity - the amount of time needed to complete a task increasing as the size of the task increases. Some tasks "scale" better than others.
Linear time: if the task becomes twice as big, it takes (about) twice as long to do. Cleaning two rooms takes about twice as long as cleaning one room. The time required for cleaning a room is linear.
Quadratic time: if the task becomes twice as big, it takes (about) four times (2 squared) as long to do. Task becomes 3 times as large now requires 3^2 = 9 times as long to finish. 4 times as large now takes 4^2 = 16 times as long to finish.
Exponential time: Task is twice as large requires M^2 times as long. Three times as large requires M^3, four times as large now takes M^4. M is just some number - it is not important compared to the exponent.
_URL_0_
In this image you see the different amount of time increasing as the task increases. Linear time is the n line. Quadratic time is the n^2 line. Exponential time is 2^n line. | addb571f-157b-462c-b292-57266e64eed9 |
60yunc | The process that got the number "65 million", when it comes to dinosaur extinction, and why the process can be trusted. | The underlying science is based on dating various layers of rock found around the earth. (see [this wiki](_URL_0_))
Basically, scientists uses various methods to determine ranges for layers of rock that they find around the earth. These are then cross compared to come up with a basic timeline of large scale geographic events in earth's history.
For the dinosaur extinction, basically the fossil record in layers older than 65 million years (but post emergence of the dinosaurs) shows dinosaurs. Then there's a thin layer that has a lot of material that you'd expect to find in the event of a large meteor strike, and then there's no more dinosaurs above that layer (except for birds.) | 810de2dd-9611-4eae-8e94-e290b9b022d0 |
3ajhpi | The Watergate scandal and why it brought down a president. | There were offices in the Watergate complex in Washington DC. One of those offices was used by the Democratic party in the 1972 election. People working for people who worked for Nixon's Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) broke into that office but were caught.
Subsequently there was a coverup to attempt to hide the link. That coverup included improper suggestions from the President that the CIA interfere with the FBI's investigation.
In the end the House of Representatives Judicial Committee voted to send Articles of Impeachment against President Nixon to the full House for consideration. The articles were based on abuses of power and interference with the legal system. They were virtually guaranteed to pass in the full House, and Nixon was informed that he did not have enough allies in the Senate to win the trial that would follow the articles being voted out of the House. Rather than fight the trial and lose, Nixon elected to resign. | 69cbc87a-60eb-4771-902b-6a98ca7f4fa1 |
5qt6eh | Historically, what happens to people of country X who live in country Y, when X and Y go to war? | Usually most civilians try to vacate. War is not always an overnight start, and people with a strong survival instinct try to book it. Otherwise they could have thier lives leveraged as a negotiation tactic, put in internment camps, or just plain be casualties of hate crimes. Thats just scratching the surface of what can go bad, without even looking into the regulr atrocities of war. The safest place to be of countries X and Y are at war is to find country Z to hang out in until its resolved. Going home to country X you could be treated as a spy, and you could get the same suspicion by staying in country Y. Being in an area about to erupt in a war when you are from the country about to attack is just dangerous. | fb28f03a-ac1a-4767-a9e0-05fd820c4714 |
1px4v7 | I'm 26 and I have my University's insurance plan. If I have a heart attack or a sudden emergency, do I just call 911? Where will I be taken and who will pay for it? | Because your post isn't asking a simplified conceptual explanation, but rather for an answer, its been removed.
You should try /r/answers, /r/askreddit or even one of the more specialized answers subreddits like /r/askhistorians, /r/askscience or others too numerous and varied to mention.
Rest assured this doesn't make your question *bad*, it just makes it more appropriate for another subreddit. Good luck! | 82be8b3c-1b24-46f3-b5da-ddfa9df3a900 |
3ocj4u | Why do we want to survive? | This question is sort of breaking into the realm of philosophy, but from the standpoint of natural selection, organisms with a natural impetus to survive are more likely to survive, reproduce, and pass those traits onto their offspring.
It's just as true for humans as it is for any other living thing. | 04ed438f-b38c-4c8c-8f9c-607c6439a15e |
6ld22w | How do coroners identify a body during an autopsy? | If police series are relatively accurate, there are a few ways this can happen.
1) The body has some sort of identification on them (drivers license, passport,...)
2) Using specific body traits, like dental records, fingerprints, DNA, traceable implants,... But these require them being in a database.
3) Someone recognised the victim (if I'm not mistaken a positive identification from a family member is often required)
4) Comparing a picture of the victims face with a database (missing persons, people with criminal records,...) | d1685301-a153-4a28-8910-d115de8c07f8 |
1y2gk4 | Why are pushups so much harder than they seem? | I'm assuming it is because you are pushing most of your weight against gravity. | 4c8362a4-e262-4401-97a4-785697c5b7bd |
5s1cxo | In games like Fallout and Skyrim ; why does fast travel always work outside but not once I go inside a building? | To prevent you from going into a dungeon, completing the quest objective, and fast travelling out of there. It means you have to complete the dungeon before leaving.
Add to that the fact that all the game checks for is a flag on the cell/module that says it's indoors, and you also can't travel from Breezehome to Dragonsreach without schlepping all the way up there on foot. | 14526c04-e00d-4ae5-9b59-7176735fddfb |
3epka0 | Why is subtraction so much more difficult than addition? | **Psychologically, we are "programmed" to accumulate rather than divest. As such, we start with accumulating and then learn to take away. Algorithmically, i.e., arithmetically, there is no difference.** | cd610f3c-c133-4fbf-a2c5-f529bd2613bb |
47su5r | How does your tongue heal automatically after it gets burnt from hot food? | Heals automatically...it takes me 2-3 days for my tounge to stop hurting when it gets burned | 4df0a370-2d94-4d9e-aacc-96a54a916fda |
2w47qq | How comes games for consoles lack mod support that their pc versions have? | Modding a game generally goes against the policies that developers have to agree to to get their games on the console. Making a game moddable generally opens up possibilities for exploits that enable piracy and unwanted use of the system.
On top of that, games for consoles are very streamlined and made to be perfect on that system. They have to be like this since consoles lack the raw power of a PC. They need to cut corners, compress, optimize in order to run right. If you add in all of these mods that aren't made to run perfectly on one console, you're going to end up with a very sluggish and broken game very quickly. | 18720239-801d-4d20-97c8-e2dd9785415f |
3ahzgo | Why didn't coffee evolve the same way as tea, with everyone using little one-use bags of grinds just like tea? | Yes, it is a taste issue, but coffee bags do exist. They're just not as good as other methods of coffee making, although they are better than instant. | 451d137e-7852-4c4b-af67-7c4db73515d4 |
o4gdx | Can charge from lightning rods be converted to usable electricity, and if so why don't we do it (that I've heard of)? | The main problem with lightning is that it happens so quickly. A bolt of lightning can strike and transfer all of its energy in mere fractions of a second... and then it's over.
We currently don't have any technology that can effectively capture that kind of power (without damage) in that short amount of time. Each bolt carries with it enough energy to power a single 100-watt light bulb for about 6 hours.
Additionally, lightning is too sporadic and infrequent to provide a reliable source of power. | ad852839-f13b-4594-aabd-1e2adcb81f55 |
4v0sd1 | Flossing | Teeth have bacteria on them. The bacteria produce a film on the teeth (sometimes called plaque). The film itself is acidic so can damage teeth. This is what brushing removes.
Over time this film becomes hard (sometimes called tartar) and it can't be removed by brushing. It take 24-72 hours for this hardening to happen, so it's a good idea to floss once a day. Once it has hardened, your dentist needs to use metal tools and a polisher to carefully remove it.
There are little (2-3mm) pockets at the gum line where your tooth enters the gum. The tartar can also develop along the base of the teeth, inside these pockets. As the tarter gets thicker it can irritate the gums and cause the gum to separate from the teeth. Initially this just makes the pockets a bit bigger (4-6mm), but this means the teeth are more difficult to clean, but also that parts of the tooth that aren't covered with enamel are exposed to the film.
What flossing does is remove the film from the pockets before it can harden into tartar. Brushing doesn't do this and it's important for the long-term health of your teeth.
Generally brushing is more important when you're young. Baby teeth have quite thin enamel, and we aren't really worried about the gum pockets. When you're older the enamel is generally thicker (this depends a bit on the person), but you need the gums to stay healthy if you want to keep your teeth for 70 years.
Damage to enamel isn't reversible, but this isn't the complete picture. There is another layer called dentin, which isn't as hard, but which [can regrow](_URL_1_).
The larger gum pockets can also heal. If the tartar is removed, and kept away by regular flossing, the gum can reattach and the pockets can shrink (going from 6mm to 3mm in 6 months is possible, but it depends on the person).
[Here's a video about how to floss](_URL_0_). If your dentist hasn't talked to you about this, ask. Some dentists forget who they've told and get tired of repeating themselves. (I'll assume that's what it is and not that your dentists seen poor flossing as a way to make more money in the future.) | f5005f39-2af6-4b80-8a83-c99f03aefa09 |
6p9rfu | Why is it illegal to feed or provide necessities to the homeless in certain areas/states/cities? | It's not like it's against the law to give your leftovers to a beggar when you leave a restaurant. What's illegal is setting up a large-scale food distribution scheme and going around feeding dozens/hundreds of people **without getting food service permits**. Once you start feeding large numbers of people, you're expected to have the same licences and sanitation standards as a restaurant. | 9ad4d422-6c01-48c0-8f15-24f5457edde6 |
7k2y7o | Why do people learn differently, i.e, by hearing, by visual, and by touching? | They don't. It's just an old myth.
> There have been systematic studies of the effectiveness of learning styles that have consistently found either no evidence or very weak evidence to support the hypothesis that matching or “meshing” material in the appropriate format to an individual’s learning style is selectively more effective for educational attainment. Students will improve if they think about how they learn but not because material is matched to their supposed learning style.
_URL_0_ | 62c60a03-3d55-4fd6-8d2c-ed226c3c54cd |
32t33n | When you get tan/sunburnt, why do you mainly peel on your shoulders and rarely your legs? | Because your shoulders are more aimed towards the sun than your legs, which are kind of at an angle, and soak up a greater proportion of UV rays.
If you laid on your back all day facing the sun, your legs and chest would then burn a lot more than your shoulders would.
Imagine pointing a torch straight down at the ground, and then pointing it in front of you. Right under you is your shoulders, your legs are off in front of you, and the torch is acting as the sun. It's a lot brighter when it's not spread out more. | 4fc2c48e-f0f8-4b1b-8039-c9a0f5856832 |
14zufq | Christmas. How did it originate and how did it come to be what it is today? | Many cultures have 'winter solstice' festivals in and around the 25th of December. This was because days were short and dark, as little as 5 hours between sun rise and sun set in some northern Scandinavian capitals (Oslo etc)
So the cheer themselves up around the time of the shortest say they would get together, have a party, exchange gifts, etc.
Later Christianity became the dominant religion and pagan festivals could no longer be tolerated, so a story was created about the birth of Christ. (even though there is major dispute over this date)
However many of the trappings of the pagan festivals can still be seen. Evergreen tree to remember even in deep winter plants can survive. Mistletoe and holly to ward of spirits. And so on.
Each of the main countries that had these festivals (Gemany, Denmark, the UK, Norway, etc.) had a 'character' to go along with them, Saint Nicholas, sinterklaas, Father Christmas, and so on.
When immigrants went to the US there needed to be someway of amalgamating these disparate elements. So gradually over time, the elements of 'German Christmas' 'British Christmas' and so on all blended together into the modern day incarnation, and Santa Claus was born to play the character in this new version. Shoes filled with candy were replaced with stockings over the fire place, candles mounted on ever green trees were replaced with the far more sensible electric lights.
You can actually still see elements of the old characters in Santa Claus, both because of the name (Santa Claus is very close to Sinterklauss) and also because if you call him 'St. Nick' or 'Father Christmas' people know who you are talking about despite these figures being different and pre-dating him.
Eventually the US became the dominant cultural force and exported its version of Christmas back to Europe. | 49b91460-c45a-4397-94f2-424fe9f7be1f |
1gpn9n | How does the processor know what to do with input and code? | > How does the machine even know what to do with programming code?
Inside the Central Processing Unit are millions of transistors.
These transistors are grouped together to build logic gates - simple electric circuits that can do things with binary 1s and 0s, like determine if Bit 1 AND Bit 2 are both set to 1, for example.
These logic gates are grouped together to do useful things. For example, with a couple of dozen of these, you can add two binary numbers together.
Further logic gates are set to look for specific binary codes that represent specific instructions. Then, if they see the code which represents "add", for example, they trigger the circuit that adds numbers into action.
All of these sections are tied together by a clock that makes sure one action happens, then the next, then the next. | ef103905-ef61-4ba9-a9d5-3d69e9ac564f |
2whlc3 | Why does my car have a spare tire, but not a spare battery? | Your spare battery would go dead as well. You can't have a spare car battery sitting in a car for years without it dying while a spare tire will last a long time without compromise | 360d7eff-14b4-4dad-8a0f-5df67bd21e3e |
3e15ah | ;Why is it so easy to doze off during the day after(or at) work or class,but downright impossible at night? | Probably because you have the variation your PER1 gene expression (part of the gene group that controls circadian rhythm) that makes you a night owl rather than early bird / day lark.
In prehistoric times, you would have been the one of the people watching over the village at night, keeping your family safe from predators.
Unfortunately modern society was set up by a bunch of prudes that thought nocturnal activity was inherently wrong, and so the 9-5 working day became enshrined as the normal/healthy time to be awake and alert. | 83f33876-5470-4fe0-a244-4fabbc3a8278 |
5zqoxg | How does first past the post voting work, and what other voting methods are there? | The basic idea of FPTP voting is that each person gets to cast a single vote and whomever gets the most votes wins. This is often referred to as the _plurality_ of votes, as the candidate does not have to get the _majority_ of votes cast, just the most.
The flaw in this system is that, if you support a less popular candidate, your vote can often lead to your _least_ preferred option winning. Lets say we have three parties - Yellow, Purple and Orange. You are an Orange supporter, which is a more extreme version of the Yellow party; you like the Yellow guy, but you don't think he goes far enough. You flat out hate the Purple guy.
Election day comes and you cast your Orange party vote. The votes are tallied and Orange got 20% of the vote, Yellow got 35% and Purple got 45% - Purple wins. But wait - you say - that isn't fair! All of the Orange party people would prefer Yellow, so Yellow should have won 55% to 45%. Sadly, FPTP voting says that isn't the way it works. This is often called the spoiler effect - we have seen it happen many times in US voting (Bush/Clinton, Bush/Gore).
Now, next election, you vote strategically and vote Yellow. You don't like him as much as Orange, but he's better than Purple. This is what happens in FPTP voting - you often end up with just two parties due to strategic voting which makes it very hard for 3rd parties to gain traction.
Now, there are other systems that help to combat this. Things like single transferable vote or instant run off voting allow you to rank candidates and, if your 1st choice doesn't win your vote is transferred to your second choice (and so on). This lets you actually vote for your first choice with the knowledge that even if they don't win, you'll still get your prefered candidate from whomever is left. | a40861c5-14df-46ae-b67d-aca31be155bb |
27k2iv | Reddit, where do streams and torrents come from? | Streams come from a respective central source like youtube or the website involved in the streaming, IE there is a central source hosting the material
Torrents are a different story. Torrents are decentralized controlled by the peers who are sharing them. Websites like the pirate bay are middle men who give you access to the links that give you the correct "address" to download on the peer network for the file you want. As the torrent is initially downloaded in pieces the people downloading it make those pieces available to the rest of the network and then the original centralized download from an initial source slowly becomes decentralized over the network to the point where multiple people have copies that they are sharing to other users. It requires an initial person to make the torrent file and make it available on the network, but after a few hours of availability other people download it and make it available under the same file handle which decentralizes where the file is actually coming from.
Why is because people like getting stuff. | f5b0a63d-e274-4413-9ccb-9592d1d56234 |
5u7uh6 | How does it work when someone wins a new home from a television show? | They will probably end up having to sell the home. Since they didn't pay for the home, and instead received it as a gift, the home is considered income. If the home is worth 250k dollars(average price of a home in the US), then they owe taxes on all of that which is about 57k dollars for a married couple, before deductions and other income is taken into account. If they pay the taxes, they will be on the hook for all bills associated with home going forward(property tax, insurance, maintenance, utilities etc) | f997dc35-9097-42b3-972e-ca02a638be38 |
12ov5h | Why aren't half dollar and dollar coins in greater circulation in the US, and why don't we have larger coin denominations in general (i.e. a $2 coin)? | No one I know likes to carry around coins, especially 20 dollars worth of larger dollar-sized coins. Bills are lighter and take up less space. | 19078c60-28fe-40a2-beb4-b79f9455715c |
495gpc | Why do prisms split apart the different colors of light, but lenses don't? | Lenses do too.
The phenomenon is called chromatic aberration. Good lenses, like camera lenses, have corrective doublet elements glued to them to compensate for the effect. If you have high index eyeglasses, you can see the effect by looking at a thick black line on white paper. It will be blue on one side and red on the other. | 2ebc50e0-8399-454e-bcf4-814e090058ab |
1k60z5 | Why Should I Inhale and Exhale at Certain Points While Doing Abdominal Exercises? | Some ab exercises tend to force are in or out of your lungs, so it is important to find the right point in the exercise to breath, so your diaphragm and your other muscles aren't fighting each other. Also, breathing at the same point in the exercise make it easier to maintain proper form...this is true for all exercise, but especially true for ab work. | 9f1f569f-b37c-46fd-995e-9ddc1e73c1d9 |
1lubbj | Why is charging foreign customers up to twice as much for a product, like apple an wacom do, legal and not discrimination? | In the case of market segmentation, which is what you are actually asking about, a company has chosen to charge more to foreign markets. They likely did this based on projected or actual import and shipping costs, local laws, taxes, tariffs, currency values, or simply that they felt like it.
It is not "discrimination" as you put it, because this type of discrimination is not unlawful. They are simply choosing to charge a different amount to everyone within your market.
Discrimination is the act of choosing one over another. Despite the word being thrown around as though it's a "bad" thing, it has a simple and logical meaning.
Unless you could make a case that this company is charging you more for a product simply because of your race or color or religious affiliation or sexual preferences, then they are doing nothing illegal at least in the USA.
If you happen to live in a nation where these things are not subject anti-discrimination laws, then it's possible they may even decide to charge you more because you're a minority or because you are gay.
Though I suspect doing this would not make this company many friends. | c78b798d-3622-4e7a-b5af-249de81b1f24 |
5coq67 | How does my car radio can display the song that it's currently being broadcasting. | It uses the [Radio Data System (RDS)](_URL_0_). Basically the data is intermixed with the other data on the signal, but the radio knows how to read it and display it to you. | 585eb417-8bea-402e-b225-f81268206697 |
2emrir | What does defragging your hard drive actually do? | So when you delete something from your hard drive, really all you've done is removed a pointer in the computer that tells it "hey there is something here."
Subsequently, when new files are added, it sees that space as available, and writes into it.
Sometimes, the space being written into does not match the space of what is being written. For instance, you delete a 1kb file, and are creating a 2 mb file. So the system writes 1kb to that spot. Then it writes the remaining in other spots.
This slows the read time down as now the computer has to look in several different places to put together this one file.
Defragging says "ok, look at the files I have, and arrange them so they're all together in one piece as much as possible" | fbee0b33-e58d-434a-a7d6-6f5aaffd6555 |
5rjhkf | Why would a drug dealer mix a powerful opioid and deadly drug (fentanyl) with heroin, rather than a weaker substance, knowing that it could negatively impact future business? | Because it's extremely addictive and powerful so will give the impression that their product is much better value.
If you find a heroin dealer selling the same amount at about the same price, and it seems much stronger, of course that's what people will keep going back to.
As if heroin wasn't already strong and addictive enough as it is. | 4bcccbeb-fa98-4dfb-a5d0-ea959ad5ec58 |
2hl1hn | Why does the word 'unisex' mean both sexes? | From what I read from Oxford, it's not "uni" meaning "one," it's uni as short for universal (or united). | 0384d758-ec92-4f72-bd51-9cba4856697c |
14sc3d | How does a car engine (or any engine) works, and what is the difference between a turbo charger and a super charger? | Turbochargers and superchargers are basically the same thing: air compressors. In a turbocharger, the compressor impeller is spun using exhaust gasses that are being pushed out of the engine. In a supercharger, the compressor is spun using a belt and pulley mounted on the front of the engine.
The idea behind these two is that to work correctly, an engine needs to maintain a ratio of air to fuel (gasoline, diesel, etc). It's easy to put more fuel in an engine cylinder, but not nearly as easy to put air in there unless it's compressed. The more air that an engine can put in the cylinder, the more fuel you can add (while maintaining your air/fuel ratio), and the bigger your explosion resulting in more power the engine can make. A wise man once told me, "There is no replacement for displacement [meaning larger engine cylinders] except manifold pressure [meaning compressed intake air from a turbocharger or supercharger]." | 86f722fa-8617-4828-bb73-7c68b9e5fd0d |
1ziv52 | How exactly does patient zero for the flu contract the disease? Is it an outside source or a mutation? | I think what you are asking is how flues and other contagious diseases originate? Well, the origin of illnesses can be divided into two major categories: heirloom and zoonotic. The former are diseases "handed down" by our primate ancestors which we inherited as we evolved. The latter are diseases that we "caught" from our close proximity to other animals, accounting for aproximately 70% of all human disease. The common flu for example, is zoonotic, we did not initially have this disease as a species, but rather we contracted it from close contact with bird species over time. The cause of the common flu, influenza, was a bird disease, and highly mutative - it changes characteristics often. Here's how it likely first transmitted to humans:
Humans started agricultural society and began having close contact with each other, and the attraction of peridomestic animals like birds and rats occurred due to high density of food. Humans have greater contact with birds all of sudden, as well as influenza - a bird disease. During all this time of contact, the disease is mutating into many different varieties, eventually one is able to be transmitted to a human as well as cause him illness. It has reached the animal-to-human transmission level. However, it is not yet human-to-human transmissible, so a epidemic does not occur. Over time, many of these animal-to-human jumps are made, until eventually a mutant variant emerges with characteristics that allow it to be human-human transmissible! Given a high enough population density, an epidemic emerges.
In conclusion, there were probably many "patient zeros" who had animal-human transmissible varieties of the disease, and maybe a few with human-human. But at some point, there was one who was able to spread the disease to a high population density, say a person who is sick and sneezes all over food in a market vs. someone who gets sick and dies alone in the forest. The former can be considered "patient zero" - where the epidemic started. In answer to your question, it is both from an outside source and a mutation. | 1478e950-59d3-4b56-a0d5-8db0fbae8f00 |
20vctc | Why didn't our taste buds evolve to make healthy foods taste good? | fatty foods are high in calories. you need ALOT of calories to survive. you need relatively few vitamins to survive. | 73dcef5c-7a43-471a-b1b0-94eaba188a9e |
6qhg7e | Why is the shower curtain rod in hotels bowed out? | Because shower curtains tend to get pulled inward when you're taking a shower thanks to the hot air inside the shower rising and creating a zone of reduced pressure. To keep the curtain from getting annoyingly close, the rod is bowed outward. | 709f918e-efdb-494f-beb6-bb5c5bf63d9f |
3z96jc | Why does citrus taste so bad after brushing my teeth? | You tongue can detect different tastes. It detects salty, sweet, sour, bitter and umami.
When you brush your teeth, the toothpaste becomes foamy. The foam is made by a chemical called sodium lauryl sulphate (SLS). SLS makes lots of foam and bubbles that make your teeth feel clean.
SLS makes your sweet taste buds stop working so well. SLS also destroys fats that block your bitter taste buds. SLS hides the sweetness of orange juice and makes it taste bitterer. That's why it tastes horrible after brushing your teeth.
SLS is in most toothpastes. | d62e9892-a005-490f-a6c9-abff28229599 |
1go6my | why is a guitar never in tune? | Different strings sound different even if they're perfectly in tune, which may be contributing to the "out of tune-ness." The timbre (way it sounds) doesn't match between strings even if the pitch is the exact same.
Other complications can arise when you're fretting, because even if the strings are set to the correct tuning when open, they can be off when you actually fret the notes. If you're curious, get an electric tuner, tune an open string, and then check how in-tune each fret is; in most cases, they'll be slightly off. This happens because the neck isn't perfectly aligned. If it's really bad, a luthier can fix this for you.
You can also get things slightly out of tune by fretting too hard or too soft. You can get a wider range of pitch than you'd expect simply by pressing down harder on the fret, which lots of guitarists use as a vibrato technique.
A well-made and well-maintained guitar in the hands of a competent player should be "perfectly" in tune, or at least tuned well enough that anyone with normal ears can't pick up on it. | f268792f-ade3-42e9-bd16-f93f06be75df |
1nz4yq | With a nuke, how is it possible that so much energy can come out of something that small? | Nuclear weapons mostly work on the principle of fission. A heavy element (like Uranium 235, which contains 143 neutrons and 29 protons, and is unstable) is forced to lose some of it's subatomic particles and become different types of atoms.
Atoms are made up of three types of subatomic particles, protons (positive charge), neutrons (no charge/negligable) and electrons (negative charge but generally minescule and general have to equal protons in number). These three types of atoms are held together by one of the four Fundimental Forces of the universe: the Strong Atomic force. Because fission is ripping apart atoms, the energy of the Strong force is partially where the energy from nuclear fission comes from. As well as other forms of matter, such as gamma waves, which are deadly to humans.
In a simplistic way: Imagine you've got a big bag of potato chips (or crisps if you're UK/irish). That is a whole atom. You tear the bag open, and potato chips fly across the room, some shattering into smaller chips. The energy is the force required to split open the bag and results in the movement of the atoms, or chips, across a space with a lot of momentum (which translates to heat, light, and radiation in nuclear weapons).
This may help: _URL_0_
Note that Nuclear Fusion (creating new elements by forcing light elements together) is also used for nuclear weapons (hydrogen bomb) but they were not the nukes dropped in the only combat Nuclear Bombing (Hiroshima and Nagasaki). | b36b43f3-90c7-40eb-b32a-45647c8ef643 |
1rbtmm | Why does a beer explode when I slam a glass bottle on top of another bottle? | Well, all the air inside forms bubbles, which move to the edge of the bottle then float upwards. When you hit the bottle with a another, it vibrates the glass, and the pressure pushes all the bubbles towards the middle. Because so many are pushed together they are forced both up and down, but obviously there's glass at the bottom, so the only way is up. | 7a2f14f1-a893-4c85-bc5a-2e0c288067dc |
3zyire | How come dogs shiver even though when you cuddle with them, they're super warm? | My parents' poodle has had the shakes before -- the vet said it was because he was really anxious and stressed out. This happened while my parents were on vacation and I was dog-sitting.
My friend had a dog - I think a terrier - and when he got older, he started to shake/tremble whenever he was sitting (hind legs down, front legs propping him up). The vet told the family it was just old age (maybe because of his breed?) & nothing to worry about. | 126e6a99-1406-409f-8cec-e69bd8a9e30b |
k08j7 | The difference between Rap and Hip-Hop | Hip-hop is a culture that encompasses a lot more things than just music. Break-dancers, graffiti artists, beat-boxers, and DJs are all a part of hip-hop culture. So are rappers.
In recent times, however, people have started to distinguish hip-hop music by saying that some of it is rap, and some of it is hip-hop. This can be confusing since people still rap in what is called hip-hop, and all rap is a small part of a wider hip-hop culture!
It's hard to put an exact rule on how people differentiate between rap and hip-hop music, but, rap is typically all about attitude, whereas hip-hop is about "flow". For example, Gucci Mane raps in "Icy":
*I'm icy, I'm icy, I'm icy, I'm icy, I'm icy, I'm icy, I'm icy, I'm icy*
*All these girls excited*
*Oo ya know they like it*
*I'm so icy, so icy*
*Girl don't try to fight it*
*All yo friends invited*
*I'm so icy, so icy*
*I got so many rocks, on my chain and watch*
*I know I'm da shit, my chain hang down to my dick*
*I know I'm da bomb, just look at my charms*
See how Gucci Mane goes for very simple rhymes and structure? That's because what he's *really* concerned with is **attitude**; specifically, the attitude that he is "da shit" and "da bomb". Most artists that make rap music are just trying to outdo one another's attitudes.
Now, take a look at Danger Doom's "ATHF (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)":
*It stank like a septic tank full of big poo*
*He mostly only turned into a frank or an igloo*
*Switch your view to the brother with the fried dreads*
*Not to be confused with the incense selling thai heads*
*His name rhymes with Mike Hock*
*You could call him livewire eyesockets, Frylock*
*Able to shoot electricity through his eyeballs*
*And blast all through your single-sided brick and drywall*
See how DOOM comes up with fun rhymes like "Big poo/igloo", "eyeballs/drywall", yet, at the same time, never mentions his personal accomplishments? That's because all he's concerned about is **flow**. | 82e73f31-b752-4c42-a343-f4d3dfa68b09 |
2q6mlh | Why don't we have cones at high concentrations throughout our whole retina, not just the fovea? | Because evolution isn't out to make a perfect biological machine. Only make a biological machine that works for the pressures put against it right now.
It it figuratively the kid who doesn't want to be in school doing just barely enough work to get that D and pass the class. | cf6bc1cb-0654-4a46-9c3e-71e6b6731d1c |
3p5ej9 | Why doesn't the FBI (or any criminal investigative service) immediately shut down any illegal streaming service (or pirating) upon finding it? | Most of the time these sites originate outside of the US, therefore outside their jurisdictional area. | 37ead674-bc13-4b5d-b301-3f1fb23c7c2f |
2e5wld | Why do zits seemingly only appear on your face or upper torso? | Acne more often affects skin with a greater number of oil glands (also known as sebaceous glands); these areas include the face, the upper part of the chest, and the back. You have much more sebaceous glands on your face than on the rest of your body. Hope that helps! | a293cfa1-c205-4b01-9b59-795de96d1ff7 |
1748sz | Why does the US have a rule that no President can do more than two terms? | In most parts of the world, when there is a power transfer from one leader to another (or from one party to another), it's a risky time. There are often coups or power-grabs or even civil wars. In the U.S., the transition of power has always been peaceful (with the partial exception of Lincoln), and we really would like to keep it that way.
People in positions of power often find ways to hold onto that power (like forging relationships, crafting laws that favor them in subtle ways, or even just relying on the inertia of voters). This is why senators are and governors frequently keep their jobs until they retire or seek an even higher office. But as the public face of the country, the president's role is unique. Without a tradition or rule that limits presidents, it would probably be normal for presidents to remain in power for decades, often ending mid-term with the president's death or incapacity. This would make power transfers less common, more jarring, and more risky. By having a specific law (and before that, an honored tradition) of a 2-term limitation, everyone knows that a president can only do good or harm for eight years. It lowers the stakes, and lowers the turmoil, which is good for the stability of a democracy. | 56b0c0b2-7437-40f8-8ef6-9a0c1f16e13d |
410uv3 | How did we figure out what each of our organs do? | Medic/med student here. For a long time, we used autopsies. But those can only do so much when the subject is dead. We also used animals. By removing an organ or part of one and observing the changes, we could deduce its probable function. One such experiment was performed by removing the pancreas of a dog. The researchers noted that his urine now attracted flies because of the high sugar content. Thus, the pancreas were inferred to have something to do with sugar. It's now known they actually produce insulin. Another way is by studying disease courses. When a person has a diseased organ, they can look at the changes compared to a healthy person.
There are also more ...unsavory ways. For example, in WWII, there was a place called unit 731 outside of pingfang, China. It did vivisections (a live autopsy, so to speak) conducted temperature studies, infected people with diseases, and tried experimental cures. After the war, the man who ran it, lt. General shiro ishii was pardoned by the allies in exchange for all of his research. This is a quick recollection of a very long and at times sordid history but let me know if I can answer more. | 18b8e132-9f9f-4d16-b934-90a175331f3b |
5t155i | Why do things physically hurt more when we are cold? | Your body is filed with thermoreceptors to detect the temperature. You have 2 main thermoreceptors for cold: regular cold thermoreceptors and extreme cold thermoreceptors. The second one, extreme cold, sends pain signals to your brain. So when it's cold and something hurts you, your brain is getting 2 different pain signals that compound with each other | fdb6dab3-b345-4c43-ac15-d5db442d6bd4 |
4l86k6 | How does this phone holder for your car not break your phone? | There are two electronics components that are sensitive to magnets: cathode ray tube (CRT) screens and hard drives. Your phone does not have either of those- it has an LED or LCD screen instead of a CRT and uses flash memory instead of a hard drive.
With credit cards, the magnetic strip will get messed up with a strong magnet, but the chip that more places are switching to using (and pretty much everyone outside the US has fully switched to) will not be impacted by a magnet. The magnet on the case probably isn't strong enough to mess up the credit cards, especially with the metal plate between the cards and the magnet, but I'd probably avoid it just to be safe. | b17357ab-0fff-4b64-bd21-09549ff919a4 |
6yv0bo | How do computers convert binary into instructions? | This is the task of the CPUs control logic. All these transistors that make registers, busses, adders and the other fuctions of the CPU is controlled by single bit control signals. So you may have hundreds of these signals in a core. The control logic is a block that converts the instructions you feed the processor into these control signals. There is also a counter per instruction so that one instruction can take multiple cycles. The control logic can be made in different ways. The simplest way to think of it is as a read only memory which takes the instruction in as address input and outputs the data at that memory location as the control signals. However this is inefficient so they usually have ways to reduce the space requirements of this logic and end up with an FPGA or something similar. If you want to know more I recommend a youtube series by Ben Eater where he builds a very simple CPU using simple logic components. | 736b4990-9da8-4d41-a52c-b229c1690eff |
2nrtmk | Why is it racist to make decisions based on race when it can be a good predictor of outcome/behavior? | I knew some white people who had foster kids and their son got taken away for child molestation. So maybe you shouldn't go with the white babysitter guy. | f6100724-3368-4879-859a-5550465bab01 |
40g51j | What's the deal with "laces in"? | It's from the movie 'Ace Ventura: Pet Detective' where a shamed former kicker who missed a game-winning field goal placed the blame on the star-QB/kick-holder because he didn't rotate the ball to be 'laces out' (facing away from the kicker).
The idea is that kicking the laced area may affect the trajectory/path/rotation/distance of a kick because it isn't as smooth as the rest of the ball. The preferred area for a place kicker to kick the ball is on the smooth portion of the football. | 7e20b4d3-ab72-4853-a8e8-8d13a47c9a8d |
1z81w3 | Why does our atmosphere appear blue from earth in sunlight, but when earth is viewed from space also in sunlight, it's clear/invisible? | The sky appears blue from inside our atmosphere because the light refracts (bounces around). The blue part of the light bounces around more, so that's what we see.
From the outside however, we're seeing the light that is reflected, not refracted. It is a subtle difference, but basically it doesn't bounce around and therefore we see clearly. | 6134c981-b4fa-4038-9245-7ea90e4ad752 |
8721k3 | What is integral spin/half-integral spin and what's the difference | Integer, not integral.
You've probably heard of angular momentum; it's the rotational version of the momentum you encounter I'm everyday life. In classical physics, this is based on the fact that different parts of an object are moving in different ways. Imagine a carousel. At any time, two points on opposite sides are moving in opposite directions.
This doesn't work for fundamental particles, because they are essentially points -- they don't have different parts in different places. Instead, their angular momentum is defined differently, and for most particles, has a part that's a fundamental part of it, just like electric charge.
This fundamental part of angular momentum is called spin, and it can be one of two things: an integer (a positive, negative, or zero whole number), or a half integer (something-point-five).
This defines the difference between bosons and fermions. Fermions, with half-integer spin, are subject to the exclusion principle. No two of them can be in the same state, in the same system. This is why atoms have a limited number of electrons in one shell: there are only a few distinct states an electron can occupy.
Bosons with integer spin, on the other hand, can share states. You can totally have a soup of photons, gluons, etc. that all occupy the same state in the same system.
Hope this helps. You might get a better explanation in /r/AskPhysics | 131ffd2c-b4c8-4133-a468-92a5bd822648 |
85hkrx | Why do women moan/scream during sex? | It’s a release. A letting go. Just like crying or laughing or any other release of an emotion. It’s possible but not usual to silently laugh or cry, just like it’s possible but not usual to be silent during orgasm. | 24c55db3-62bc-495e-8528-f8e118933fed |
3imit5 | Why didn't the U.S. include the release of prisoners in the new nuclear deal with Iran | Because that would have given leverage to Iran. By taking more prisoners and negotiating for their release too, they could have tried to extract more favorable terms in other parts of the agreement.
By not including prisoner release as part of the negotiations, the U.S. removed that potential negotiating card for them to play, forcing them to negotiate only on nuclear research and sanctions and nothing else. | 81b8ed0e-8aa7-4834-aa5c-bad1f9fea776 |
38shvw | Why does cold water feel way more FREEZING than it actually is when I'm chewing minty gum? | The receptors that sense cold are partially activated by chemicals in the mint, and respond as though they're feeling a chill... when you hit them with something cold as well - they get a double whammy and it feels absolutely freezing. | 00d6834b-1812-499c-897f-bc03eeddf794 |
2eyac0 | The downsides of working out while drunk | - If we count the "hold-my-beer idiot risks" as bad decisions leading to injury, being drunk also affects your muscle coordination which may result in injuring yourself even when you're doing your normal exercise routine.
- Alcohol is a diuretic which means it makes you pee out more water and electrolytes, causing dehydration (leading to hangovers). Exercise also causes dehydration. Combined, it means you will wear out much faster since your muscles won't have enough water or electrolytes. Sure you can hydrate yourself but you will have to hydrate even more than you usually do.
- If alcohol didn't have it's nasty side effects, it would be a very effective painkiller. This means that when you're exercising, you could be overexerting yourself because you don't feel the normal pain response. This could offset how much you actually gain from your workout or lead to injury. | 387a48e5-ae71-411f-9d46-37cb92c43783 |
1sa25q | Who do most of our "traditional" Christmas songs, images and TV/movies come from the 1940s to the 1960s? | Here's my opinion on this, I have no expertise in it though. By the way, this idea is directly plagiarized from [xkcd](_URL_1_).
[Baby Boomers](_URL_0_) grew up with those things and there are currently a lot of Baby Boomers. Also , if you look at the current age and buying power of Baby Boomer's, they are really the perfect target demographic if you're trying to decide what music to play during Christmas shopping time at Macy's to get people in a nostalgic, warm-and-fuzzy, Christmas shopping mood. | ed6666a1-2c2d-4eb4-9160-aa5647970f0d |
26ssmj | Ethanol in Fuel - What is it? Why is it added? Is it good/bad and why so? | E10 is a blend of gas/alcohol made from biomass (corn, usually). Most modern cars are just fine running it. E85 is a different beast, however - the concentration of ethanol is much higher (as is the octane rating), making engine management / fuel system changes necessary (usually engines require higher flow injectors/pump to run E85). The higher the concentration of alcohol, the worse mileage you'll get, but it's usually offset by being lower price per gallon.
If you have a turbocharged car, an E85 tune can really be a godsend since its high octane rating means it will be less likely to pre detonate under higher compression. | 449a51e9-22c7-4671-a088-a4ce9b23bd00 |
76jxsv | How does Humble Bundle make money when they have discounts that cost them hundreds of dollars each sale, and only make a percentage of the discounted sale? | It helps a lot that they aren't selling a physical product. Really cuts down on the cost per unit. No materials, no production cost. Just licensing and server costs (bandwidth).
So to say that it's 'costing hundreds' isn't accurate, they're almost certainly not dropping the price below cost, even though to us consumers, it seems like a crazy discount. | 864197d1-f28f-4e06-bd55-426908b88d46 |
6ynzkj | Why do the hurricanes "curve" when they get close to Florida instead of just continuing straight? | Air currents 'push' the hurricane one way or another, in my comment below you will see a pretty interesting site. | 104ec825-0a5a-4d37-a1d1-260567b2faa4 |
88kb4x | What is the difference between top 1% owning 1% of the nation's income vs bottom 1% owning 1% of nation's income | The reality is that the top 1% owns far more than 1% of the nation's wealth, hence what makes them the top 1%. If they owned the same as the bottom 1% then they would be in the same class as the bottom 1%. There would be no differentiating between the groups. How would you know anyone is relegated to whatever group/ class in which they are classified? Ergo, they wouldn't be the top 1%. No one would, nor would anyone be the bottom 1%. You are using terms used to describe population groups in a capitalist society in a hypothetical socialist situation. | c04968f7-6d4f-48d1-abb5-7fe69ac3ef29 |
1r5m0e | The origin & evolution of Black, Asian & European "races" | That is a loaded question with a multitude of heavy answers, but I will just give you a small brief to tide you over. The common consensuses in the study of human origins is that the modern human came from Africa. The reason for the varied skin tones, bone structure, and genetic dispositions is due to adapting to new environments when modern humans started to explore and settle in new lands. For example: The "European (White?) race" typically depicted as fair skinned, long noses, and light hair; adapted this way to accommodate the cold weather, high elevations, and general northern hemispheric conditions. Over thousands of years in northern lands with significantly less sun, melanin (the things that gives pigment to our skin) production started to decrease to allow the suns rays to penetrate the skin and stimulate the production of vitamin D. Where as in Africa, exposure to the sun is extreme and the large amounts of melanin in the skin provides a natural sunscreen to overexposure to Ultra Violet radiation. It is adaptive mutations like these that changed the relative appearance and genetic differences in pockets of human settlements. Now as for the term race...This is a combination of so many things, far too many to get into...Like you said, it's more of a social construct rather than one from a scientific standpoint. Long story short, the dominance of a particular region of humans allows that group to assert their views more aggressively. The deliberate categorization and segregation of humanity by dominate groups creates an environment in favor of said groups. As history and the human need for attention have shown us, we will act out against each other just to be kings of the playground.
I wish we could all just sit nicely and drink our juice boxes together! | c4a23c0c-ad80-404a-b343-1ba4203acfb5 |
2jgzgd | What the hell are flies so attracted to? | Typically honey, but I've heard of a few people getting a few with vinegar. | f608094b-cb17-4475-8677-66ff174fbdad |
3arn6d | "66% of black people are on welfare and are the majority of the welfare receivers" | I don't know where the quote is from. Its source may provide some insights on whether you should trust whoever said it.
According to the link you provided, assuming it's accurate, nearly 40% of welfare recipients are black. This is less than half, so it does not match up with the quote's assertion that they are the majority of welfare recipients. Perhaps it could mean the amount of dollars received through welfare, but the stats you provided don't provide that information.
As for the 66% statistic, that also doesn't match up with the data you provided. The numbers you provided suggest that 39.8% of 11.4 million recipients are black. Multiply those together and you get 4.5 million people. I looked up the total population of black Americans and it seems to be around 40 million. Multiply that by 66% and that comes out to about 26 million. 26 million is a lot larger than 4.5 million. Therefore, based on the statistics you provided, along with a figure I found on America's black population, the percentage of black people on welfare is nowhere near 66%. | 821c83c8-f989-429c-a127-e1ae33f39ffb |
2u4x6r | How do cancerous cells affect and make the surrounding cells cancerous as well? | A cancerous cell can produce exosomes, little packages of cancer proteins, DNA and RNA, these exosomes float around the body through lymph and blood vessels and they are be accidentally swallowed by healthy cells elsewhere in the body. And these cancerous proteins/functional RNA can possibly shut down the tumour inhibiting proteins in the healthy cell, making them more likely to turn malignant.
Another way for cancer to propagate is by having cancer cells from the original tumour can break off, they float into the lymph vessels, travel to another part of the body and establish a satellite cancer tumour elsewhere. That's how cancer metastasize.
ED to incorporate current science. | 24c6bea1-c7e8-43ca-95e9-130897220918 |
3n0jpc | How do medications know to target specific parts of the body? | It doesn't know at all. Medicines are designed to bind to specific cells. They are distributed throughout the body in the bloodstream but only affect the areas they are designed to. | 5691e233-fba0-4aef-81b8-435540789f7a |
6607ua | why do camera lenses need so many elements? Why can't they just bend the light with one piece of glass? | All the lenses allow it to be adjusted to zoom in and out, as well as focus at a specific distance | 42a188f6-d7fd-4285-93a1-6165c9303085 |
6bdl6l | Why isn't there significant talk about forming a third party in the US during this current political climate? | One of the most robust conclusions of the literature on political science is that a winner take all voting system (like the US') will lead to the consolidation of political parties into two.
Pretend there are two parties, L and R which are left and right wing respectively. I then start a new party named LoC (which is left of center).
A left of center voter who finds me the most agreeable of the three parties will likely not vote for me if they think things out, though. If he and other people like him vote for my party, it would mean that left wing support has been split between my party and L, leaving R with a majority share of the vote.
Him voting for the party that he most agreed with led to the party he disagrees with the most winning.
TL,DR: The US' election system makes it virtually impossible for a third party to emerge and certain that in the long run there will only be two parties. | eb6d585f-8edb-42e7-aab9-05ed0806d7de |
2w1xfh | Why doesn't the U.S. get rid of the penny? | People are very reluctant to accept and generally dislike change. | fd16bd80-e560-4672-8065-2d8509587b57 |
74olp3 | What causes a drop of water on a phone screen to magnify the text underneath? | Light is refracted when it travels from one medium to another. The light from the screen is refracted (spread out) by the water droplet and therefore appears bigger to your eyes.
More information on how light acts here: _URL_0_ | 5e7834f5-ec26-4953-bc1c-6e0e2c656ebe |
58f0p5 | How do neurons "know" things? As in, "this memory is stored in this neuron." | This is something that we don't know. We know that each memory has a particular network of neurons that is used when you remember it, but we aren't sure how that network stores things exactly. The brain recognizes the pattern of the network and you remember whatever is stored by it (or the other way around, you remember and then the brain recognizes the pattern). We can image this with fMRI and such but that doesn't tell us how. There was even an experiment where the researchers found a single neuron that fired in response to a picture of a celebrity (Jennifer Aniston, I think). The how boils down to neurotransmitters being released but, yet again, we're not sure how that results in a something like a memory. There is also the Orch OR theory that says that consciousness and the like results from quantum interactions within the microtubules of individual neurons, but I don't really understand it past that basic explanation. | 481eabea-94db-41fc-819c-76c5e60721bd |
4mdq1k | If sand is eroded rock, why does melting rock give you lava, but melting sand give you glass. | Geologist here! Let me see if I can help: Rock is made of of many different minerals like quartz, calcium carbonate, mica, biotite, feldspar, and many many others. Glass and sand are both composed of the same mineral - quartz (SiO2 or silica dioxide), though commercial glass has additives to color it or help make it stronger. Volcanic lava can have many different minerals in it. Sometimes the lava is made up of mostly quartz and if it cools really fast it becomes the rock known as obsidian. So, if you follow the rock cycle, the lava cools to obsidian, gets eroded to quartz sand, then gets cemented into sandstone with time and pressure. That rock may eventually be subducted back into the earth's crust and re-melted. It can then be ejected from a volcano or other hot spot to create a new rock! What type of rock will again depend on the minerals present. | dcddb3e3-259f-4b45-84a1-045255422fcb |
1dgjto | Why galaxies are such perfect spirals, and brighter in the middle? | To expand on what /u/xitssammi wrote:
"Perfect" isn't the right word to use. Sure, some galaxies look like spirals (there are actually other forms they can take, too, like an ellipse), but they are *far* from perfect.
The maths is *somewhat* analogous to a traffic-jam, in a weird way. An individual car can move from the 'beginning', to the 'end', and eventually 'out' of the traffic jam, but if you were to look at it from above, everything looks still, and the jam itself doesn't appear to move.
In a galaxy, rocks and gas and dust are *constantly* moving in and out of the arms of the spiral. Close up, it would like like a royal mess. But the gravity is strong enough that it can keep a 'general shape' to it, and so when we look at pictures from many light years away, it appears to be a nice, tidy spiral. | 279588d2-eef5-49d6-b2e3-43a16fb04860 |
5t4pzl | How do companies like Turbo Tax and H & R Block that do tax returns for you make it's profit since people only use their services once a year? | Actually a lot of people file their taxes 4 times a year. Anyone working a 1099 job and any business that surpasses a certain minimum revenue level | 3f2b8cc8-1852-4995-8a0d-bee6e21a9a5d |
1gzbcp | Fisher v. University of Texas | Hate to be a bitch, but...
/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1gz0cd/eli5_the_scotus_ruling_in_fisher_v_university_of/
Is that the one? I can ELI5 following a link if you want :) but it would just be "click that link and eat your dinner!!!" | b143b02b-262a-4685-8720-de35cfe7d747 |
6kjhbv | what's the difference between ram air parachutes and the round ones? | You can maneuver a ram air parachute. Ram airs are for stunts and for people who want control after the chute opens. You can traverse a lot of lateral distance if you want. Basically "fly" the chute. Experienced jumpers could jump at high altitude from far away and land on a pinpiont that is miles away from the point of opening. Great for covert military ops when you want to surprise whoever is on the ground. The disadvantage is that the ram air is MUCH less stable in flight. It requires constant maneuvering and effort to stay on target. They are less safe. There is a possibility that a novice could lose control of the chute.
Round chutes pretty much drop straight down upon release, have little control, and travel wherever the wind decides to take you. The great advantage to a round chute is that they are very stable and much more safe for a novice jumper, such as paratroopers in WW2 that had little if any time to practice jumping. Round chutes are also great for dead-weight cargo drops and slowing decents of spacecraft or aircraft on short runways. | cc92a6be-6c77-4a63-bb03-1029dfc47b60 |
1qkjy0 | Why are international students a financial benefit to the school they're going to? | For local students, a large part is paid for by the government, which generally comes with a large number of strings attached. The government will generally offer money, loans, land, tax breaks etc but in exchange might limit the fees charged, or require universities to accept certain students etc. This means that some courses might cause the university to make a loss.
Foreign students are generally not paid for by the government, so they can charge what ever a student is willing to pay. So a university can look at how much it will cost to offer a course, possibly add a mark up and tell the international students that is the fee. If the students are unable to pay it, the university doesn't accept them. | dfc98034-1943-4af1-95ca-d5973df3ddf8 |
2bnbty | Why can't LA desalinize ocean water to curb the effects of drought? | Energy consumption. It takes a massive amount of energy for desalination.
It's getting cheaper all the time, and we're getting better at it and producing more energy, but it's still usually more expensive than alternatives.
It's also cheaper to conserve than desalinate. And the state can make money through fines!
[More reading!] (_URL_0_) | dfdd29e6-cd39-4d3b-8770-18885327217c |
1x20o0 | Why do ballpoint pens become unusable even though their see-through cartridges are shown with full ink? | If the ink can't flow, it doesn't matter how much there is. Ball point pens can become damaged, or clogged with crap far before they run out of ink. | ffd513f9-4c0b-4249-97c0-963b2e10e77a |
4576bx | How are Apple Pay, Samsung pay, Google wallet different? | > Aren't they all NFC?
Samsung bought a company called LoopPay so Samsung Pay is NFC or MST (magnetic secure transmission, basically faking a magnetic stripe).
> If so, why aren't all of them accepted everywhere?
Because NFC is currently still accepted at only a minority of places in the United States.
> Seems like most machines have that capability.
In absolute terms, at this point, a majority probably do have the capability, but it's not actually turned on at many places.
> Can businesses block one kind but not another?
They can either block all NFC payments or none at all, but they can't block only *some* NFC payments. They can also just not have the terminal accessible to the customer, which pretty definitively blocks everything.
Backing up though:
> How are Apple Pay, Samsung pay, Google wallet different?
Samsung Pay and Android Pay work exactly like Apple Pay except that Samsung Pay also has MST. Google Wallet was replaced by Android Pay (and the name reused, again), but worked in a different way. With Apple Pay (and later Samsung/Android Pay, but to keep it simple I'll just refer to Apple Pay here), your issuing bank must be signed up for the service. When you add a card to your device the issuer generates a token, which looks like a normal card number but is used only for Apple Pay. When you pay, your device sends the token (plus other stuff for security that I'm skipping) to the merchant who sends it to their processor who sends it to the issuer who maps it back to your real account. Note that Apple is *not* part of the transaction and doesn't know what you're buying. The old Google Wallet (confusingly also grandfathered in for Android Pay) worked in a different manner. You stored your actual card number directly with Google, who issued you a virtual prepaid MasterCard. All transactions in the store were then charged to this MasterCard and Google then charged your real card. Every transaction was thus two transaction with information about every purchase going directly to Google, an advertising company. | d72e31be-fee5-4d86-8d7b-31361a7af7e4 |
5o4skm | Why is it that alcohol does not have to have the ingredients or nutritional facts printed on the bottle? | It all depends on whether something is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA, part of the Department of Health and Human Services) or the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB, part of the Treasury Department.) Only FDA-controlled items are required to have nutrition labels. For TTB beverages, it's voluntary. There have been efforts to standardize this, but nothing's ever come of it. The historical reason for this split is simple: Alcohol has always been an important source of government revenue, much more so than food.
Distilled spirits (aka hard liquor), wine, and malt beverages (aka beer and malt liquor) are all under TTB control. This creates some peculiar exceptions. Gluten-free "beer" made with something besides malted barley is an FDA-controlled beverage with a nutrition label. Hard cider is just as alcoholic as beer, but it's not malted, so needs a label. (For some purposes, it's apparently treated as wine.) | b0073d27-168b-4a59-a7c9-62f59954119f |
18rc8n | Is it possible to "crush" water? What would happen? | If you increase pressure on water, you will eventually get ice. There are 15 known types of ice, depending on the pressure and temperature. | 509d9171-0439-444b-8e75-1f1997799d40 |
3vh008 | Why do mammals like humans and dogs tilt their heads when confused? | They do not do it because they are confused, per se. Tilting their head gives them a different angle on the sound and helps them figure out more accurately where the sound is coming from, or to understand more accurately what the sound actually is. It's just a way for them to get additional information about the sound.
This can also be a learned behavior in dogs, because humans think it is cute and give them affection when they do it, so they may learn to exaggerate the behavior over time.
edit: my response is talking specifically about dogs. Humans may also do this for similar reasons, as other commenters have noted. | 6bd9cbd0-8908-466b-ab63-3483ad1d0f72 |
q6hlq | SQL Injection | In naive code, you'd generate an SQL statement by writing something like:
sql = "SELECT * FROM products WHERE code = '" + product_code + "';"
If product_code is set to ABC123, that code would generate an SQL statement that looks like:
SELECT * FROM products WHERE code = 'ABC123';
If the product code came from user input, then the user could enter something like the following:
'; UPDATE products SET price = 0.01; SELECT '
Then the code would generate the following SQL statement:
SELECT * FROM products WHERE code = '''; UPDATE products SET price = 0.01; SELECT ''
This allows the user to bypass your application code and set the price on all the products in your system. | dbda5edd-ae9c-44ba-9644-672e6339f2ae |
6gol1v | What makes Ouija boards move and why do so many people believe it's spirits when it seems almost impossible that it is? | If people are touching the piece you move around, one of them is doing it. If spirits were communicating with them they wouldn’t need to touch it. | d538eaf4-1d18-4991-aeba-ed3f53bd7f9f |
5r9el0 | If military service in the US could be represented in hourly wages, how much would the different ranks be paid? | There's absolutely no way to calculate this.
Everyone in the military works a different amount of hours. Some will put in 24 hours in one day while others maybe do literally nothing and still get paid for it.
Some start at 4 in the morning. Some start at 4 in the afternoon.
Going on deployment means working 24 hrs a day every day. You're given "days off" that can easily be canceled for whatever reason. Remember, bad guys don't stop shooting at you during your "day off".
The reason I'm mentioning all of this is because you CAN'T calculate a $/hr ratio because hours are never ever set.
Pay grades are what we use. [These are public record](_URL_0_) and can be viewed by anyone. Pay grade determines how much you make every month, regardless of hours put in. It's like a salary and it's calculated by your rank and by your time in the service.
Officers make more than warrant officers.
Warrants make more than NCOs/enlisted.
If you want to know how much someone makes, take their monthly pay times 12 and then divide by 8760 (hours in a year). That's how much they make an hour every day.
Edit: Before I got out (I only stayed in for 11 years) I was offered my E6. Had I taken it, I would have been making $4.77/hr every hour of every day of the year ($41,760/yr).
Edit: Hey guys! How does this work?
\*Gives full explanation\*
Cool! Thanks! Have a down vote!
Edit 2: Glad that grumpy people are gone and the level headed people are here. I appreciate just being above 0. :P | 704d4761-970c-48f7-89d8-49ee28014373 |
2bj1mf | Why can't deep web/dark web websites be closed? | They are operated by individuals hosting servers in various countries. And first, you need to find the server/website then find the person hosting/paying for it. It will usually be in some remote country with little jurisdiction. Now, they have to produce a court order in that country.
TL;DR; It is a huge pain in the butt; Unless they have to, they don't bother with it. | 2fd7cfc7-b29b-4cc5-9f5b-56c18d8acba9 |
8180ce | Enamel protection products claim “once enamel is gone, it’s gone forever”. How true is this and if so, how do you explain enamel restoring toothpaste? | My dentist explained to me that teeth will calcify and decalcify over time. A fluoride rinse or toothpaste can aid in this process, but if you have deep cavities and the enamel is beginning to form that sticky *tar* like consistency, that probably isn't going to recalcify sufficiently. In essence they determine that by probing with a pick and trouble spots are generally flagged as "watches" so they can be routinely checked every six months assuming you keep up with your bi-annuals.
But you should still use fluoride toothpaste/rinse, there's still plenty of benefit but its not going to heal a cavity that needs to be filled by a dentist. Another thing to consider is your vitamin D levels which may lead to cavities if you are deficient. | 75a9bc53-b4e6-4b83-94d7-9ff3006bb357 |
3f94wq | If I didn't know something was illegal, how could I get in trouble for it? | Not knowing the law is not, in itself, a defense. This is a pretty important legal principle, important enough to [have its own Latin phrase](_URL_0_). I'm not quite sure what you're asking, since there's no particular reason you *wouldn't* get in trouble for it. | 9d76c784-dc99-4c63-b342-627f90b7d840 |
411lru | how do countries introduce new currencies | First they print a whole bunch of new currency and distribute it to banks. Then they establish an exchange rate, and set a deadline after which the old currency can no longer be used or exchanged. | ff86d649-94a6-4c35-8bba-64c320476ce3 |
1pczwx | When it rains really heavily, how come ants don't "drown". How about when it floods? | Ants burrow up to one foot deep in the ground, and no matter how hard the rain is, they will remain safe. However, in floods where the ground stays moist for days on end, they will die. However, like demonstrated after heavy rain and floods in Pakistan, bugs will take to the trees and higher ground | b65ca779-00b2-4aeb-add2-fe1500785f75 |
1zjdi7 | How do they know which eggs don't have baby chicks in them, when they take eggs to sell?? | None of them do, because the hens are not allowed access to roosters, so they don't mate, and none of the eggs are fertilized. | 3a512e91-fb5b-4cd3-bebb-cc385467b63b |
34vjwy | How do the Death Stars move? | It depends on what level of canon you are looking for.
If you accept the Gaming books, the Death Star Technical Companion (at least one of them, I believe there were several) lists it as having both Ion drives and a series of 123 hyper-drive field generators (Chapter two, Technical Specifications).
Given that the reactor was deep inside, we could well have been seeing the ports the Ion drives used, and never realized it. In most space vehicles that we see, the source of the propulsion is visible as it's close to where it's being emitted, and we see the burning / glow / whatever -- In the Death Star, the Reactor was deep inside. I believe the Ion output ports were inside that trench along the middle. | c4909525-ce5e-4cff-aa3d-73709b778e66 |
46myrj | Why do certain people faint or feel weak at the sight of blood. | A fear of blood can trigger the vasovagal response, which dramatically lowers blood pressure. No one really knows exactly why that happens, but there's speculation that it might be a way of reducing bleeding when wounded.
It never used to happen to me, but last time I cut myself with a kitchen knife while cooking, I felt woozy and had to sit down so I wouldn't fall over. It was very weird.
_URL_0_ | 13139124-9318-45c1-b7d3-f4563092b48d |
6a68vj | What is the link in hebrew between the alphabet and numericals values and what does it mean for us? | The Hebrew language uses letters to represent numbers, as well as using letters to form words. The meaning is contextual, but as a consequence any word could be interpreted as a number as well.
This structure combined with the religious writings in Hebrew means that mentally ill people with an obsession with religion and a mathematic streak can become fixated on looking for numeric patterns in religious texts written in Hebrew. With so much material to work with practically any number can be obtained to justify the convoluted justifications formed through their mental illness.
What does it mean for us? Nothing, crazy people are still crazy even if they do math with prose. | 0fb96411-20cf-4216-b1d1-b9e9f02b8a9b |
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