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7gnswu | what is the process of going into shock? | Paramedic student here. When we speak of “shock” we are talking about inadequate tissue perfusion- basically, for whatever reason, oxygenated blood is not reaching the patients tissues. There are 5 major types of shock-
hypovolemic (loss of blood volume, ie, the patient is bleeding out)
cardiogenic (there is an issue with the mechanical activity of the heart pumping blood to the body),
neurogenic (there is an issue with either the brain controlling the heart, or the electrical system in the heart itself)
anaphylactic (life threatening allergic reactions, or other adrenal issues affecting perfusion)
septic (massive systemic infections)
In pre-hospital care (when you call for a paramedic), we can manage some of these. For hypovolemic, we can give you IV fluids to replace lost blood volume, but we have to balance that with making sure theres still enough actual blood there to carry oxygen to the tissues. For septic, we give fluids as well, but in the hopes of diluting the blood- theres very little we can do in the field to actually combat septic shock. For anaphylactic shock, we can give medications to mitigate and lessen to bodies reaction to what ever triggered the event. For neurogenic shock, we try to control heart rate and BP, without letting the system crash. For cardiogenic, we try to get you to the hospital as fast as we can, cause there’s not much we can do for you in the field.
Another issue with shock is that there’s 3 levels of shock- compensated, decompensated, and irreversible. Compensated shock is the early stage, where the patient is sweaty, pale, and has a rapid heart rate. This is the stage that is easiest to manage. Signs/symptoms can include agitation or anxiety, fast heart rate (tachycardia), fast breathing (tachypnea), nausea and/or vomiting, and a weak or thready pulse. Decompensated shock is the mid stage, where the patient becomes mentally altered (seems intoxicated, or passes out entirely), has no pulses in the extremities (but still has a carotid pulse), labored or odd breathing, and a falling blood pressure. This is the shock stage that we throw everything we have at, in order to keep the patient alive so we can get them to a doc. The last stage, irreversible shock, is just that, irreversible. If you hit that point, you’re gonna die. Medics and doctors will do everything they can, but at that point, it’s a losing battle. Patients in this stage have lost the carotid pulse, they’ll have very shallow and irregular breathing, very low blood pressure (hypotension), and they’ll be unconscious.
Our ultimate goal, regardless of the type or level of shock, is to get you to a hospital, or ‘definitive care’ as we call it. Medics, despite all the tools, techniques, and meds at our disposal, are bandaids. We can stabilize, but it takes a doctor to fix the problem. So if you call 911, and the medic says you need to see a doc, go see one. Ideally, the medic will take you, but not every fire service does their own patient transports. | 89f601b7-0b2e-4c8b-84bf-3b73653c6a97 |
20w01p | Why do some brands prefer "price upon request" in magazines/advertisements instead of just telling the current price? | There are various reasons. One of the most common is that the manufacturer prohibits wholesalers and retailers from advertising prices openly to avoid price-fixing and price wars. | 5212f5d5-eb1b-4aab-ba28-8c325126bcca |
62eko1 | Why is it easier to lift living beings of say, 20kgs, than an object of 20kgs? | I'm going to speculate that you're talking about the difference between lifting, say, a four year old child and a heavy box filled with books.
Where you can grasp the object has a lot to do with it. You get a better hold on a child under the arms for the initial lift than you typically do with a giant box. Your arms can also be closer to your body where you have more leverage and strength, whereas with a large box they are farther away and more spread apart so the box doesn't topple.
Some living creatures that are heavy are also likely to help with the lift somewhat. A four year old about to be lifted will do things like wrap their hands around your neck, which distributes their weight across your body more evenly and secures them to you. Conversely, if you tried to lift a wriggling 20kg dog that was fighting the lift the whole time, you would likely drop it.
I would add that motivation is also probably a big mental factor in these lifts. If you're lifting up a four year old child, there's probably a good reason -- to comfort them, or to make them happy in some way. Lifting a box of books just doesn't bring the same sort of joy or urgency. | 955d6bae-933b-4f9b-bb7b-4cf6c0d5865c |
3ajqj4 | Dinosaurs and Paleontology: How much is actual science, how much pseudoscience and speculation? Is it all just theoretical or are there undeniable truths? | First, they have found a lot of fossils:
> In terms of the number of individual fossils there are probably countless billions. Most large Natural History Museums will have a collection of several million. However, as you probably know there will be multiple specimens for most species. For example we have lots of different fossils of T. rex, these even have names like 'Sue' and 'Jane'. The number of different kinds of fossils (species) is much less, I think the figure is a few hundred thousand. In reality there were probably many more species in the whole history of life, but many of these never left a single fossil and others have yet to be dug up! - _URL_0_
As for the rest, I think that the answer you are looking for is better sought in /r/askscience than it is here. You want the details, not just the short version, which, for almost all of these questions is going to be some variation on the following: There is some uncertainty, and conclusions are often carefully couched because of course, it could well be that an animal with flat teeth somehow ate meat, or that an animal that seemed to run quickly was actually sedentary. But, the conclusions are made as in any other scientific field---you look at what you know about reality, compare it to what you have, and eliminate the things that can't be true. | 6584a888-f6cf-4ff5-8be6-e1c398fac9b7 |
5qc48k | How effective was the Great Wall of China at keeping Mongolians out of China? | The wall served two main purposes: stopping raids and providing warning of attacks. It wasn't really meant to hold back a large invading army.
It was pretty easy for nomads to raid Chinese farming villages in the north with just a few men. The wall was someone effective in deterring that because it's hard to destroy a wall with a very small force and it only takes a couple people on a wall to fight you off.
When it came to large invasions, the wall's main purpose was to provide warning and maybe slow invaders. In fact, the wall has signal towers all along it so that a warning could be sent to wherever it needed to go. The wall was too big to man with a large, permanent force that could repel an invading army, but an invading army would still either have to spend time getting through the wall or around the wall. While they were doing that, the warning signal would be making its way to the capital and/or army.
[This](_URL_0_) thread from /r/askhistorians goes into some pretty good detail. | 7f47b5cd-7e49-4d6a-a090-5667c25a1b55 |
28wkjd | What is the difference to my body if I eat 5000 calories one day and zero the next vs 2500 for two days? | It has been suggested that the human metabolism has evolved two modes of operation, activated by calorie intake. The first is *grow mode* where plentiful nutrients are flung about the body and as suggested the body replenishes itself. The second is *repair mode.* Activated by a lack of calories, the body scavenges nutrients left behind from *grow mode,* such as from build-up on the walls of arteries. This may be a response to the failure of the hunt, when protein and calories are scarce but vitamins and minerals are still available from more plentiful vegetation.
Modern humans in developed countries may be at risk of remaining in grow mode throughout their lives and never entering repair/scavenge mode, and then die of blockages caused by years of nutrient build up. | 8871e043-8629-4390-b327-98ec753df4bf |
1xd1lu | How is NSA software undetectable? | A properly designed root kit installs before the OS loads, so it controls everything the OS can see. It can perfectly disguise itself because it can block any information the OS might use to detect it. | 436ea016-b353-4a7e-9760-93be529d2d38 |
1vwiuv | Why aren't professional body builders who take steroids arrested? | To be arrested on any kind of a drug charge requires possession or buying/selling. The fact of having taken an illegal drug is not something a person can be arrested for. | 62325936-458c-496c-ae5f-e29500698548 |
mawd7 | The New Internet Laws | I don't know it in detail enough to write an entire explanation but from what I know they laws were written REALLY badly(Which at this point should not be a surprise) and as so broad that under them if say user43985734 submitted a copyrighted video to youtube, youtube would be the ones responsible for it. aka copyright lawyers could sue youtube and any other file sharing platform out of business. | d3efa19b-37e1-489a-bb64-4440814f298b |
5mc3je | How Do Hand Warmers Work? | I'll try again.
Pure powdered iron when it is oxidized or "rusts" releases heat. Yup, rusting releases heat it's just we never notice because it's the surface area of things like a car bumper are relatively small and the rust occurs slowly over time.
Hand warmers are physically small but since the iron is very finely powdered the total surface area of all that iron dust is huge. So you have a lot of the "rusting" or oxidation of iron occurring and that releases heat which is noticeable. | d4481d4c-aa0d-4a32-b54c-98e0a76e0d99 |
1evdhe | Did NASA disprove or set back global warming? | First of all, an article can link back to any trustworthy source it wants, but it doesn't mean that the article is using that source correctly. It seem to me that the article is trying to say that since CO2 is reflective, it must be cooling off the earth. Is CO2 reflective? Yes. Does it cool off the earth? Heck to the no. Sure CO2 reflects some of the heat coming to the earth, but you have to think about the heat coming from the earth.
**This is the ELI5 part**: Think of CO2 as a giant blanket. It'll keep some of the heat on the outside, but it will also keep a lot of the heat on the inside. When heat tries to escape the earth, it hits this blanket and keeps the Earth warm. The problem is that CO2 keeps in more heat than it reflects back into space. | 63770d96-9a99-4532-90e0-a5787aa73290 |
1w7bw5 | What makes it so that people with epilepsy cant look at rapidly flashing colors on a screen? | Rapidly flashing lights cause a sort of "short circuit" in the brain, this produces a seizure. Its usually much faster rates than a flashing screen, but neurologists do tests with flashing lights to measure your tolerance to them in a sleep study. I know this since I've had epilepsy since I was 15 (now 23) and am relatively well controlled on anti-seizure medications. Hope this answers your question. Pm me if you have more. :) | e779789d-233e-4289-9e4a-e4a9045c262d |
209tva | Why does meningitis always seem to kill people who are college aged and otherwise healthy? | Bacterial meningitis is *extremely* deadly, able to kill in less than a day, often under 3 days. You often hear of it in college students simply because they are more exposed to the infection, as bacterial meningitis is usually transferred through saliva. Any age group can contract and die from it. | bce6eaa9-fd42-4978-ac95-5c50a311484d |
2a3ulw | If I were to write the address of where I wanted to send a letter in the "from" area, and my address in the "to" area without a stamp, where would the letter go? | Nowhere at all. The post man would pick it up, write "No stamp" on it, and put it back. Or, he might not even write anything. He would just leave it. If you did put a stamp on it, it would go to your local post office, be filed, and then sent right back with the next day's mail. | 41c890b0-bad8-4ac4-ae4e-60cea8a0d986 |
2im3x3 | Why are some of the things that the horoscope says about some signs so accurate? | They're designed that way. I'll give you a horoscope right now, you ready?
You have a great need for other people to like and admire you.
You have a tendency to be critical of yourself.
You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage.
While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them.
Your sexual adjustment has presented problems for you.
Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside.
At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing.
You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations.
You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof.
You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others.
At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved.
Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic.
Security is one of your major goals in life.
That sounds pretty accurate doesn't it? Am I a psychic?
Of course not, the above was a horoscope used in an experiment conducted in 1948 by Bertram Forer, where he gave a large number of subjects horoscopes, and asked them how accurate it was. Every single person said that the horoscope they recieved was very accurate. Then it was revealed that every subject was given exactly the same horoscope (the one above). This test has been repeated and confirmed many times, and the psychological phenomon that causes the belief is called the "Forer effect". | ca8af252-4ccc-49e6-99ef-f81bfd98b7b4 |
81g0o3 | Why is China still a developing country despite it's massive economy? | Because most of its citizens are still poor, subsistence farmers or low skilled factory workers, etc. The economy is massive but their population is ALSO massive. Their per capita GDP is about 1/7 that of the U.S. | df5f81f1-f8bf-40d4-931e-d41e6dc9e481 |
2j7xk4 | After big plane crashes, do all pilots in the world learn from them? | Yes.
In the specific case of the Air France crash, many airlines and training organisations have included "upset recovery" training, either in their initial training, or in the regular training which pilots have to do.
In more general terms, crashes are investigated by the national accident investigation authority (NTSB in the USA, AAIB in the UK, etc). They publish a report into every accident and major incident. These reports are freely available, and airlines have safety officers who will regularly review them and see if there are lessons that can be learnt that affect that particular airline.
Additionally, these investigation authorities can also include in their reports something called a "recommendation", which is exactly what it sounds like. They can be addressed to a particular body - for example, they might recommend to a national authority that a change be made to the national laws surrounding aviation, or they may suggest to an aircraft manufacturer that the procedures used in a particular type of aircraft need to be changed, or they made suggest to an airline that the airline's procedures need to change. (In the case of an airline, they can also suggest this to the national authority that oversees that airline. Unlike the investigation authority, the national authority - the FAA in the USA, the CAA in the UK, etc - can mandate that airlines make changes.) Recommendations don't have to be followed - but where they are not followed, there will be a detailed explanation of why they were not followed. | 52c99aff-050f-4ed1-9a3c-32a323a71012 |
2ouppz | How American Politics works. | Large corporations send lobbyists to bribe people in Congress and the Senate to present and vote for bills that will be profitable to them. Politcians tell their base what they want to hear in order to get elected and then just continue to pander to corporate interests, because it's very profitable for them. All the while they have the media present "issues" for people to get worked up about and generate a whole circus stage show of "left" vs "right" and create the illusion of partisanship, but behind closed doors, the money is all coming from the same corporations into the pockets of both parties. So, these bills get passed and that's how a bill becomes a law. | 2f752a5e-0340-45b1-b962-1772c058aef5 |
5th694 | how self driving Tesla cars navigate so well? | A lot of expensive and advanced computing systems which include multiple cameras, ultra sonic scanners, radars and a butt load of processing power.
_URL_0_ explains it best. | acebd80d-0e26-4fc4-8d85-7059c5bd0fca |
5n2v50 | why is plastic a good insulator? | In that specific case, it's because plastic film is non-porous. That is, it's a solid membrane that doesn't let air through. Fabric on the other hand has all these tiny holes in it between the threads (unless is is very thick, very dense, and very tightly woven) that can let air through. | fa00ecf0-cdef-4441-bb04-d736f9118059 |
2lza05 | What exactly do economists do to "Seasonally Adjust" unemployment figures | It's pretty chill, iirc.
Step 1: Data
You want the average unemployment each year for 10 years or so, and the average unemployment during the test season for each of those.
Step 2: Ratios
In each year, figure out how much bigger or smaller it is than usual during the season. Like, if it's 1.1-1.3 times the unemployment rate for the year. Then average those to make a 10-year seasonal adjustment rate.
Step 3: Division
Divide the actual rate right now by the average seasonal adjustment ratio you made above. At this point, you're done for that data point. You have the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate. But it's boring on it's own, so..
Step 4: Comparison
Do the same for the previous seasons, going back 6 months. Feel free to vary what you define as a 'season', too - smaller seasons give more accurate results but take more work.
Step 5: Profit
Now you can see what the unemployment rate is really doing, adjusted for seasonal variables! Well, not perfectly precisely, because there's always factors that only influence the rate once, but better than just taking the rate. | d9277420-a729-4fb4-a951-2be942ed7f67 |
2tp5nw | Why is there such a high concentration of religious conservatives in the South in the US? | The northern states were mostly farm colonies, and the southern states were mostly exploitation colonies. Those kind of places in the world tend to be poorer, slave colonies that tend to not have had a strong secular system set up, so you get a larger amount of church control over things due to lack of qualified leadership. Lack of secular systems and education, lead to an overall decrease in the education and knowledge base of the people, which can be more conducive to religious/fundamentalist groups.
For example, part of New England, Argentina, and other places were farm colonies. People went there to establish institutions and become farmers and permanently live there. So although church is important, fundamental craziness was kept in check.
Places like Mississippi, El Salvador, etc, were exploitation colonies, where rich nobility invested in heavy labor cash crops, slavery, and wanted to get their money and go home. They had no interest in permanent institutions so they could get their money and go home. People are kept in line with religion and other methods, but people are kept poor and uneducated and even when the colonists leave, there's no permanent institutions to run a functioning secular government, and when you have poor, uneducated, people without a functional government, churches do well in these areas.
Fast forward a few hundred years, and you still see the ramifications of farm vs. exploitation colonies, and you'll see areas of more powerful religious fundamentalism vs. more secularized areas where people tried to make a new world for themselves.
Look around the Western Hemisphere and the history of places in South and North America where there was exploitation vs. farm communities, and you'll see pretty much a corresponding level of fundamentalist religion vs. more liberal church participation in the current era. | 85dee1ca-36dc-4322-843c-e32d810a511a |
1kqeha | What is Socialism? And why do people think America is coming to that? | It's maybe worth saying in addition to the responses you've had, that *nobody* at all, outside the US, thinks that America is going socialist.
That some Americans think they are, is pretty funny and the result of what Europeans, in various languages, used to call propaganda. Of course there's no such thing as propaganda in the States. That would be ridiculous. | 14edffb8-a44a-44a0-bdbb-6b15e41bb878 |
6t3dbs | Why couldn't Verizon's network handle simultaneous voice and data until relatively recently? | That was a limitation of their non-LTE technology. CDMA is a different technology than GSM (the radios work different) and I think CDMA was more voice optimized. Their 3G technology was unable to handle things simultaneously - likely since data browsing wasn't as big of a priority - GSM has wider adoption and their implementation included that capability (CDMA being US only didn't care it seems). When Verizon started to go for 4G before everyone else, they made sure their implementation included that since it was now something that they could market and since consumers demanded it. AT & T as very particular in pointing out this difference as smartphones became more mainstream.
It's important to remember that each company had different priorities when building their networks. Smartphones were not as big as they were today so less priority was placed on them. | f464e5d0-00d3-4b96-b86a-ad7f5d016bd5 |
ygr6p | What is the difference between the titles Great Britain, England and the United Kingdom and is it proper to refer to someone as English or British? | England is, well, England; Great Britain includes England, Scotland and Wales; the United Kingdom includes England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. | 4d391c54-113f-4812-8405-1574f379bc94 |
45a5my | Hindu deities, how are there so many versions of the same gods? | So, let's talk about you. You're a person, probably a student somewhere. No matter where you are or what you're doing, you're always you.
But! You're not always the same you. When you're at home with your parents you act one way. When you're at school in class, you act another way. When you're hanging out with friends you act a third way. You're still, well, *you* in all these situations, but your parents, your teachers, and your friends all have a different understanding of who *you* are based on how you act around them.
In this, *you* are the main entity, and the person that your parents know, your teachers know, and your friends know are all different manifestations of you.
Now, scale this up to the level of Gods. There is the same divine essence, but depending on the context it may have different forms or titles. From its own point of view, it is unchanging. From the point of view of its worshippers, it might be quite different depending on the context.
And to go one step further... *everything* could be considered a manifestation of this one divine essence, just interpreting itself from different points of view in different contexts. | 141f8dc0-1738-4a16-ab8c-0cf3bb165437 |
1x29oa | Why did Bill Clinton remain in office after being impeached? | Impeachment just means that Clinton was officially accused of misconduct. It does not mean that he was actually found guilty of such misconduct.
Remember, in the US, the House of Representatives determines if the President should be put on trial. If the House of Representatives determines that this is the case, the President is considered to have been impeached. After that, the Senate listens to a trial and determine if the President is guilty. Clinton was never actually found guilty by the Senate, so no punishment was carried out by them. | a5de8e20-585a-4340-9a87-83865a649917 |
1upqk2 | When I plug my headphones into the microphone port, why does it work? | Headphones and microphones are remarkably similar in design. The headphone's speaker diaphragm moves in response to sound and this drives a current which moves through the cable. This is also how basic microphones are designed. | c51a0058-01ca-48e0-b8fc-a6d18873bfaf |
2gcsjx | What exactly is Nihilism? | In general it is the belief that there is no inherent purpose or value in existence. | 75f2eaa8-43f7-4bbb-987f-9e765ae555bc |
72jryv | I have to empty my 5 gallon dehumidifier in the basement every day. Where is all that water coming from? And if I didn't have a dehumidifier where would it all go? | The water your dehumidifier produces is actually drawn from the air around it. The air contains water vapor that moves into the air from the earth around the walls and floor of your basement. Concrete absorbs water fairly easily. The water moves through it and eventually evaporates into the air on the other side.
Your dehumidifier uses a cold coil of metal that attracts the water vapor in the air to condense onto it (Similar to how a cold glass of water gets wet on the outside of the glass on a warm humid day). As the condensation builds up, it drips down into the catch basin.
If you did not have a humidifier, the water vapor would remain in the air (resulting in higher humidity), and would likely condense over time onto other items in your basement. The dampness would promote the growth of mildew and mold (both things which like to grow in damp areas) and over time become a health hazard, not to mention also possibly damaging anything stored in your basement.
As an aside... Most dehumidifiers have an outlet that you can attach a hose too. I have a hose attached to mine, which then run to the basement drain. Assuming you have a basement drain, this might be a good way to avoid having to empty your dehumidifier bucket every day. | 721b99f7-775a-4f7b-a887-d044845d5833 |
37oipv | What was/is so special about the Vitruvian Man? | It connects the "natural" with an idea of "math and science". This is significant as it represents a key concept in the renaissance - we begin to see a connection between the fabricated world of math and science and its ability to describe and model the real world. | ea8451e8-6a70-4fbd-8f60-3771df069369 |
10jful | Why don't you wake up sleepwalker? | A lot of people believe if you wake them up, they'll have a heart attack or something else horrible. These claims are overstated. A normal healthy person is very unlikely to have anything bad happen to them.
It will probably confuse or disorient them. Depending on how they react, they might try to defend themselves and fight you or they might injure themselves before they're aware of what they're doing. The best case scenario is probably to guide them back to bed. | 780e48ff-d9f9-41a2-af9b-c091fa09be6c |
4icdw3 | Upgrading PC and I don't understand what parts my motherboard can handle. I've never built a PC before and I don't understand a lot of the terms | You need to shop for a socket AM2 Cpu and DDR 2 ram. I wouldn't spend too much on a video card because you are most likely going to be bottlenecked by whatever Cpu you use. | ab20c68a-8e2f-4668-b907-1375b6daf917 |
5pqyf6 | What can the military do if the president attempts a hostile takeover? | How would the president conduct a hostile takeover without the military? Also a takeover of what? | 54b9a244-f9fc-4c12-aab9-6b5d379571ec |
41eyo0 | Why are jokes against women considered "sexism" or "misogyny" but jokes against men considered funny and "feminism"? | Largely for the same reason that people think it's funny to ridicule the president or rich bankers but may get a bad taste in their mouth if your jokes mock homeless people. Or more generally, why *good* satire punches upwards, mocks those with power and privilege, rather than than going after those without.
But most of the examples you mention aren't really jokes, they're not just attempts at being funny for the sake of being funny. They're (sarcastic or snarky) social commentary. They're part of a debate. They try to make a point about gender equality. They're responses to things that happened, to ways in which men react to discussions of feminism or accusations of sexism. They're not just intended as jokes.
What point would a "female tears" mug make? Would it just be a joke for the sake of being funny, or would it present some kind of social commentary, make some sort of political point? Or would it just be lashing out, because your feelings were hurt by the "Male Tears" mug? | 0a2a1d89-a96e-4329-b42a-644e848e8e94 |
2aylkk | How does one get college scholarships and how do they work? | There are multiple kinds of scholarships.
Many scholarships are applied for. If you google "scholarship search" it will pop up several tools that will help you locate scholarships that you may qualify for. These require you to fill out applications and say why you deserve the scholarship, but they can be quite helpful.
Some scholarships are automatically awarded, either because of need or merit. If you are in financial need, scholarships are sometimes offered. If you have incredibly good grades and test scores, some schools may offer you a scholarship as a way to entice you to go there. | d964ad69-6214-4dfc-90ef-30a5a6556592 |
3c25w1 | Why does checking your credit score lower it? | Merely checking your score for personal reasons does **not** lower it. That's what's known as a "soft" check and it harmless.
When your score is checked for *purposes of lending you money*, that's a "hard" check and counts against you. The logic is that if you're asking lots of people for loans in a short period of time, you might have some upcoming financial problems that make your a poor credit risk.
Let's say you've got a friend that wants to borrow $20. It's not that big of a deal so you'll probably lend him the money. If you find out that he's been going around asking everyone he knows if he can borrow money, it's going be suspicious and a reasonable person might wonder if they'll get their money back. | 266f9c11-baad-4db6-841a-d98906125e5e |
2k9z0v | As a man, why does all sexual desire disappear after an orgasm? It's almost to the point where I think sex is disgusting for a while (NSFW) | It's called a [refractory period](_URL_1_) and it can last anywhere from minutes to days, during which a man cannot achieve erection, arousal or orgasm.
Biochemically, sexual arousal increases the hormones oxytocin and dopamine. Oxytocin is known as the "love hormone" in that it seems to promote prosocial feelings, increases levels of trust, bonding, empathy and so forth. Oxytocin, in other words, counteracts feelings of suspicion, aversion, disgust, mistrust, behavioral control, fear, anxiety, lowering a number of common social inhibitions and perhaps enabling orgasm to occur.
> Trust is increased by oxytocin.[51][52][53] Disclosure of emotional events is a sign of trust in humans. When recounting a negative event, humans who receive intranasal oxytocin share more emotional details and stories with more emotional significance.[52] Humans also find faces more trustworthy after receiving intranasal oxytocin. In a study, participants who received intranasal oxytocin viewed photographs of human faces with neutral expressions and found them to be more trustworthy than those who did not receive oxytocin.[51] This may be because oxytocin reduces the fear of social betrayal in humans.[54] Even after experiencing social alienation by being excluded from a conversation, humans who received oxytocin scored higher in trust on the Revised NEO Personality Inventory.
> In a risky investment game, experimental subjects given nasally administered oxytocin displayed "the highest level of trust" twice as often as the control group. Subjects who were told they were interacting with a computer showed no such reaction, leading to the conclusion that oxytocin was not merely affecting risk aversion.
> Some researchers have argued oxytocin has a general enhancing effect on all social emotions, since intranasal administration of oxytocin also increases envy and Schadenfreude.
Dopamine is involved in feelings of pleasure and in the brain's reward circuitry. Dopamine is one of the main hormones associated with sexual arousal.
After orgasm, the hormone [prolactin](_URL_0_) is released. Primarily known for its role in stimulating lactation, prolactin also inhibits dopamine, and this is thought to be responsible for the refractory period.
> The amount of prolactin can be an indicator for the amount of sexual satisfaction and relaxation. Unusually high amounts are suspected to be responsible for impotence and loss of libido (see hyperprolactinemia symptoms).
That's the biochemistry. In layman's terms, hypothetically, you could describe sexual arousal and orgasm as a complex interplay of inhibitions and excitations. In order to be turned on, your brain has to inhibit a number of "normal" social functions: suspicion, aversion, fear, mistrust, disgust, shame, etc. In order to achieve orgasm (isn't it that a great phrase, to "achieve" orgasm? it's like winning a ribbon), you have to completely surrender control of your body for a few seconds. An orgasm is almost like a kind of seizure, which would be terrifying if your brain hadn't made you feel like you were so "into it." Imagine how frankly disturbing it might feel to have an orgasm if you *weren't* turned on. It's like your body goes crazy. Anyway, once the orgasm is completed, obviously it's a good idea to get some of those "caution" emotions back. Caution, diffidence, propriety, dignity, self-control, suspicion, shame, disgust, even paranoia. The hormones inhibiting your normal social reserve are themselves inhibited, and suddenly you have a weird feeling like "what the hell am I doing?"
It's sort of similar to being drunk and doing something stupid, and then waking up in the morning going "Oh my god lord jesus what have I done?"
**TL;DR - sex is a profoundly weird biological act, and we can only get through it because our hormones inhibit our normal sense of guarded suspicion. Effectively, our brains make us "high" on sex. Then, right after orgasm, we go back to our normal state of mind and find ourselves feeling "what the hell?" In men this effect is often stronger than in women, and in any case the male refractory period tends to make sex briefly impossible.** | a2a72af0-286e-4aee-af3b-42c194ae3961 |
kp5p8 | what black heads are made of, and why some people get them more than others | Your skin has millions of glands on its surface that secrete an oily wax known as sebum. This is completely natural, and serves a natural lubricant for your skin to prevent chafing and dryness. Many plants have a similar waxy coating on their leaves, which helps prevent dehydration as well.
These glands can sometimes get clogged with an excess of sebum. The propensity or chance of this happening is not actually related to hygiene, as some people believe. It's just a genetic disposition - some people have oilier skin than others. They are more likely to experience blackheads. The reason they are black is that they usually clog hair follicles, and the hair root reflects light irregularly to make them seem black.
If you've ever removed blackheads using a Biore strip or something, you'll see that they're yellowish in color. | 4ddc5349-5e9b-4773-aeef-105f02a36a51 |
22fm6q | Why are train tracks covered in stones? | Not all are. A great deal are, but there are some areas where it's dirt, and other where it's cement.
But it's because stone offer the most support.
Dirt can get washed away as mud after a torrential downpour, stones don't do that as often. You even still see trains have trouble with areas that have a lot of dirt around the tracks, as the tracks get washed out. | daad5629-ae9d-494c-aae6-1c14dd8cff09 |
3c39qt | ISIS seems to be growing every passing day, but it seems like no nation is obviously taking them seriously, why is that? | We are not in an era of televised war. There's nobody on the ground filming western nations deploying troops because that's not how ISIS is being engaged.
There's no warning for the press to get some great action shots of a drone strike, which is how the US primarily is fighting ISIS. Nobody wants a ground war after "Mission Accomplished." This is not a fight that can dominate the airwaves in the same way as previous wars; instead we *hear* about Drone Strike success days after they happen.
The real media coverage is coming from terrorist attacks conducted by ISIS. I assure you they are being taken seriously, but nobody has engaged in a ground war with them. | e9b014a7-8ff1-4dd9-8d3d-fcc9d8fa576b |
6z4i6p | How exactly do we know what human-based climate change is a major reason for heavier storm seasons, and not the planet heating up naturally? | That is a pretty meaningless question. If you had to load up a shelf with 50 pounds of rocks and 50 pounds of jellybeans and then the shelf broke because it could only handle 75 pounds how can you be sure if it was the rocks or jellybeans that broke it? You can't, that doesn't mean anything.
There is natural heating of the air and water and there is unnatural heating and both together make a certain amount of energy available to storms. The more energy available the bigger and harder they can hit things. You can't separate out that "some of that energy is human caused and some is natural, which did it?" because both things add up to do it. | fa4f2423-f74a-4d7c-896e-b3ca8cd60443 |
3971le | What would happen to the body if it is continually electrocuted, like the guy from "Taken?" | The arc in that movie went through his legs. If the ground was wet and he didn't have rubber soled shoes on it would likely go through one leg into the ground and into the other leg to the ground wire or simply to the ground if it was a better path.
If he had rubber soled shoes on it would move up one leg through his hips to the other leg and out the ground wire.
In either case the arc would likely avoid his vital organs (namely lungs/heart/nervous system controlling those systems). If the arc was weak enough he would likely not be harmed enough to die. If the arc was weak the bolts in his legs would heat up and burn him there, but unless the current was strong enough it wouldn't burn the skin itself for some time. Assuming it's strong enough, most likely he'd be burned by the arc until such point that the burns were life-threatening and at that point he would die from shock.
If the arc went to his abdomen it could cause his muscles there to lock up and make breathing difficult or impossible and he may then suffocate. Another possibility would be the convulsions caused by the electricity causing muscle contractions to cause his head to bang into the chair or a wall and be may die of blunt force trauma.
So how long he would live depends on a number of factors. Most probably he would continue to feel some amount of pain until he went into shock or became unconscious.
However, the draw of a short circuit like that would likely blow a fuse or trip a breaker before too long. Although if I recall it was some sort of ghetto third world set-up so who knows. | 655ed375-2489-423c-97b8-09894ce62cf5 |
3m5rmn | The difference between glass and crystal | [This](_URL_1_) is probably better than trying to explain it. From [here](_URL_0_)
> The difference between crystalline silica and silica glass is shown in these simplified two-dimensional projections. It is readily apparent that much of the ordered arrangement of crystalline silica is lost in the glassy form. But the glass retains enough Si–O bonds to form a hard, rigid material. | ce72e182-7e8b-43af-a804-5a6a62c1573e |
2aehom | Why is the tech market considered a bubble and what are the precursors to when it is likely to pop? | Some people think the tech sector is a bubble because many companies are trading or being bought for a very large multiplier of what they are currently earnings. People are forecasting very large earnings in the future for these firms even if they aren't making much money right now.
If it really is a bubble who can know when it's going to pop? If it was easy to figure out then it would already be popping. | 263ca162-3f6c-40a2-82a2-b17c17051112 |
7tzm86 | Why does cheese go hard when you melt it then let it go cold? | When you heat the cheese up past a certain point, moisture is released, which when it cools down, makes it harder as it is more dense. Water in cheese makes it softer. | 67f28873-32d5-4cbf-b785-afa1493218f2 |
8l68wd | Why was Spelling a Core subject in Elementary school but no longer in Middle and High school? | Spelling never really gets any harder. Vocabulary just expands. It would be like having addition class. | fe268fb1-7e7a-49a1-bb9e-2b230d4113fc |
116edo | why some people are more susceptible to bug bites than others. | IMO as someone who gets attacked by Mosquitos... It might have something to do with the way your body releases Carbon dioxide and your blood...
Mosquitos are drawn to Co2 so if your body breathes out a higher concentration of it, those monsters are more attracted to you. Even while walking next to someone I get bit more often. | a33b97a6-50f1-420d-a344-88020eba7e30 |
4mb0oa | How does a toilet actually flush from water being added to the bowl? | [Toilet Crossview](_URL_0_) for reference.
As water is added to the bowl, it rises up the pipe following that blue line. When enough water is added, it overflows the other side and gravity takes over. That water overflowing creates a chain of negative pressure and the remaining water/contents of the bowl are basically sucked out through the pipe.
Edit: [Video of the process in action](_URL_1_). When the video mentions the siphon created in the back/pipe of the toilet, it's the negative pressure I was referring to. | 1190abf3-1ce5-46de-9a60-5f3588a3612d |
1udopf | How can North Korea treat it's people in such horrible conditions without the UN or another country intervening? | Credit /u/Ferredog:
* **UN:** The UN only matters by way of the Security Council. One of the main members of the UNSC is China. China doesn't want America gaining a larger foothold in Asia, nor refugees at its doorstep. Individual members of the UN very rarely like it when one member is given free reign to enter a country with which it has interests (France going in to Mali had almost zero consequences for any members of the UNSC hence why the UN didn't complain). For the rest of the UN, they don't like it when other countries attack countries which are dealing with their own problems (questions of sovereignty). North Korea's prisoners count as North Korea's citizens therefore they are North Korea's problems (at least that's what some of the more atrocious governments of the world want).
* **South Korea:** an unspoken desire in South Korea is not to reunify. You'll never hear an official say it to the press but the reason South Korea doesn't want to reunify is because reunification with North Korea will annihilate the South's economy as East Germany's reunification did to West Germany (and West Germany was a lot richer than South Korea and North Korea is basically 3rd World). This is quite shocking for non-Koreans to hear but it is remarkably common for Koreans to voice in private, especially the younger generation who have little connection to what transpires in North Korea.
* **Intervention for morality:** The question of intervention for a moral basis in international politics is highly debatable/subjective. World War 2 began for the West due to Hitler's breach of sovereignty and Pearl Harbor, not due to their atrocities. Former Yugoslavia is debatable if it was internal (genocide within Yugoslavia) or external (genocidal war between the newly formed nations). The external, like the first Gulf War, is much more clear-cut in terms of interventionism. The Rwandan genocide was a disaster for the UN in terms of interventionism and disgusting considering how France hijacked the intervention to further their own political desires and rearm the genocidaries.
* **Good intentions, bad consequences:** Obvious reason, nuke and war in Korea. If the West were coming for North Korea, the Kim dynasty would have nothing to lose and no reason not to set off the nuke. Also, it's possible that eradicating the leadership could make the country unstable, especially if no-one were willing/able to occupy the country after the war (China wouldn't allow US, South Korea wouldn't allow China). An unstable country with nukes is bad which is why Pakistan gets so much padding despite being a mess of a country.
**Source:** Masters in International Relations; Dissertation on the UN and moral necessity in Interventionism; North Korea are my neighbors.
Edit: Grammar and changed "exists" to "matters" | 879c8fdb-6ae9-40f9-8cb2-4debbb13d512 |
5r6r13 | Why hasn't David Miscavige (and the rest of Scientology for that matter) been investigated by the police yet? | Scientology in the past have made it a point to go after people personally if they don't get what they want. (google how they got their tax exemption status). They even tried to infiltrate law enforcement (operation show white). This hasn't stopped the FBI though.
However, since they are classed as a religious group, a lot of their actions are viewed as 'religious practices'. Not to mention that everyone 'volunteers' to undergo these actions.
Like his wife took the fall for Ron L Hubbard, every scientology member will take the fall for Miscavige. | 225be912-3209-4d3b-9ec1-43470c7c166a |
4fwmaq | What determines the color of the meat of a fish? | This is covered in good extent in book called Modernist Cuisine. I recommend to read that.
Meat and fish are red/dark usually for the same reason blood is red. Its the oxygen carrying molecules that make it red. Now this means that from the color of the meat you can see what is the purpose of those muscles in the animal. The muscles used continuously for long times need to work aerobically and thus require the oxygen carrying molecules which make them dark meat. The muscles that are needed only for short strong burst of operation can work anaerobically and are thus white.
Case of chicken: Chicken leg meats are dark because chickens walk around all day. The chicken breasts are white meat because chicken only fly short bursts up to a branch. As comparison, duck breast is very dark meat because ducks need to fly long distances.
Salmon is red because they are adapted to swim up a river for laying their eggs. This requires long high power excercise.
White fish are mostly white meat because 99.9% of time they swim with only idle speed and very low power. For this swimming they use only small part of the muscle which is dark meat. You can see that dark meat in middle of a fillet next to the skin. The rest is white muscle which is used for only for short burst of extreme power needed to avoid the predator trying to catch the fish.
Edit: fixed some typos | a5196804-fefc-4cc2-918d-5fea2788bf64 |
90p69g | Why can't you be born with dark skin colour if your parents are white (and vice versa)? | Skin color is genetic, like hair or eye color. If your parents aren't coded for it they can't pass it on to you. | e7db5772-c7fe-435f-a5bb-dd5922bf198b |
1e10xl | Timbre, or how I know the difference between the sound of a piano and the sound of a violin | Ordinary musical sounds are actually quite complex. We think of a trumpet as playing one note at a time. But it really plays one "fundamental tone" (the lowest) with many "overtones" due to the way that it resonates. This gives a trumpet much of its distinctive sound...its "timbre". The overtones are multiples of the fundamental frequency, but different instruments make different overtones.
You can electronically recreate a trumpet note by combining a fundamental sound with the right set of overtones. You then just add them together and you get a trumpet-like sound. Or mix together a fundamental and a different set of overtones and you get a flute.
But there's more to a trumpet sound to that. It also has a distinctive way that the sound starts (the "attack") and trails off (the "decay"). If you can change how rapidly the trumpet note (fundamental plus overtones) go from zero to full amplitude and then back again, you can fake that, too. | fe8cf900-881e-4bd7-89c2-266c79713c7b |
5vlpon | Is it just a coincidence that 'Who', 'What', 'When', 'Where', and 'Why' all start with 'Wh' or is there a reason? | There is a reason. Specifically the grammar of PIE (the earliest ancestor language of modern English that we have a fair working knowledge of) marked interrogatives (words like who, what, when etc) with a prefix that sounded like 'kw'. (I'm no linguist, but I suppose this is kind of like the way English marks questions with a rising final intonation).
As PIE morphed into English (via German) the 'kw' prefix became 'hw'. Say both sounds together and notice how similar they are to actually say. Over time the order of the hw got swapped around, and the pronunciation simplified to 'w' in most cases and 'h' in a few words eg. 'how'.
Interestingly, PIE also developed along parallel lines into other languages like Latin. And in Latin, interrogatives mostly all start with the letter 'q', another obvious descendant from the 'kw' sound. (For example English 'what' and Latin 'quod'). | 3825bbeb-28b2-432a-acc1-ce9ec8a637ba |
23hcwm | Why can't the world have one currency? | There is no reason we couldn't, it wouldn't even be hard to implement if we got 100% buy in from all countries.
The problem is that having your own currency is awesome. You can manipulate it to control inflation, interest rates, and other economic factors. You are somewhat detached from other countries, so their economic troubles don't necessarily become yours (Example - Germany and Greece).
Given the benefits of having your own currency (along with a certain amount of national pride) it is unlikely we will have a global currency for the foreseeable future. | 6a6a2ccc-960d-4a30-a058-57bdc466494f |
23mb0s | shaped charges. I read a little about it but I just don't understand them | An explosion is basically a shockwave. For a uniform, round explosive, the wave is more or less spherical.
However, you can change the shape of the shockwave by changing the shape and material of the explosive. Just like light, shockwaves move slower through some materials. By creating a lens shape using a different material, the wave can be bent and focused in the same way a glass lens will bend light. The material used to make the lens can be anything, but is usually either air or an explosive with a different shockwave velocity. | 2cd43b03-2768-438a-83c7-20fa6f449176 |
6b7hv3 | My nearest major city has a road grid that is *slightly* angled off East West. Is there a practical reason for this? | From what I can tell of the [article on the "Hoddle Grid"](_URL_0_), it's not a continuation of the original infrastructure, which has a different angle meant to match with the Yarra River.
That same article implies that the *slightly* off angle of the rest of the city is aligned with what magnetic north used to be, 8 degrees off true north. But that's not really cited so I don't know if it's definitive or just a guess. | 39884550-d020-46ac-adfc-284c7bf03a90 |
6grykr | As a German with not much knowledge about the US, please explain why Florida is so often made fun of/spoken badly about | There are laws in Florida that arrests are a matter of public record so they end up in the newspaper. Every state and country has idiots doing stupid things but in Florida if they get arrested it goes in the newspaper for everyone to see. This makes it seem like these things happen way more often in Florida when really its just about reporting. | 7477fc03-52f6-465b-9e3a-4142a00221f8 |
23hcdw | [NSFW] Is there a biological reason why every girl I see is way more attractive when I haven't masturbated in a long time? | Quick, this 5 year old needs an explanation. | 41e11dd2-cbcf-482f-999b-7da5ac240e83 |
3y1ypm | How are torrent-hosting sites simply not shut down for copyright violations? | Generally because there is nothing hosted on a torrent site. The street equivalent is knowing a guy that can get access to anything. You walk up to him and say, I want some weed. He tells you to go into that red door. Someone else wants to buy booze. He tells them to go into that blue door. Cops come up and try to arrest him for selling drugs. They search him but he has nothing on him. They have to let him go because he doesn't have anything on him and knowing were to get certain drugs is not a crime.
Also most hosting sites are not not hosted on American soil so they can tell the DMCA to fuck right off. | 1d944047-099e-45c1-87cf-04d21c77c2e5 |
4i2zy0 | How can cord cutting not build a case for companies to fight net neutrality or raise prices in general? | The cable cutting movement is a tiny portion of total customers. As long as the vast majority are maintaining their combination package, the small number that purchase only one or the other are no big deal.
What I find funny is the number of so called "cable cutters" are using the same provider for internet that would have used if they also got TV. The same "evil corporation" (or whatever their reasoning may be) is getting paid, just not as much. | a8e88c7f-071c-4ead-a666-a58fc231e213 |
14vv7j | . How do news organizations benefit from being biased? | Being partisan can build them a loyal following. People like having their preconceived notions affirmed. Going to a news source where they have their notions affirmed over and over can gain them very loyal watchers.
Plus, it allows advertisers to to very specifically target their advertisements. Go to Fox News and see how many people you see selling Gold type investments and compare it to how much you see them on more general TV. | ac9b53ba-7049-49d8-9163-b18fa9365404 |
5uglr6 | why cant NG (naso-gastric) or similar be used as a weight loss option? | NG tubes come with complications. They are not meant to be long term solutions, and would also seriously impact quality of life (walking around with a tube out your nose isn't something most people would agree to).
More permanent options, such as tubes that go straight through the abdominal wall into the gut, are easier to hide. But they also come with their own set of complications and require surgery for placement, along with all the risks that surgery entails.
But the bottom line is that none of those target the heart of the addiction. Food is something that people become addicted to because it is delicious, and can become an emotional crutch. No tube can stop a person from craving the feeling of food, and it won't even stop a determined person from eating. Until emotional and psychological issues are dealt with, feeding tubes will do nothing to prevent addiction. | 66ffe179-a07d-41a0-a42d-15f6fea78f6c |
4x3zuk | If a sizable spacecraft was hovering over earth, would we be able to see it? | You can spot satellites and the ISS from the ground already.
They look like shooting stars, but you can see them. | 9ae84136-5915-4f9a-8022-2048daa31670 |
2pvrf3 | How come sometimes when I blow my nose, and there's a lot of snot, I can't get it out no matter how hard I blow? | You have hairs in your nose that detect when dust and other particles enter and makes you sneeze , the mucas dryes and attaches to them like an anchor | 72731caa-7758-4121-a87a-1e889f073698 |
1vlkw2 | Why does a hearing a recording of my voice sound different to me then when I hear myself talk? | We hear sounds as vibrations hitting our ear drums. When we hear most sounds, these vibrations travel through the air and into the ear canal. Our own voices also vibrate through our bodies, creating a slightly lower pitch.
When you hear a recording of your voice you are missing this extra level of vibration that lowers the sound, so your voice sounds higher than what you are used to.
Source: _URL_0_ | f50bca61-8578-42f2-a16d-964baa8e10b3 |
6tb8tz | How did the asterisk end up being used for correcting an incorrectly spelled word? | I think that relates to their use as footnotes. An asterisk* after a word refers to a passage at the bottom of the page which has clarification or extra information regarding the word.
I think that with the advent of instant messaging, the method gained popularity as a corrective footnote. The first asterisk of the pair is obviously missing because you can't plan for typos in advance.
---
^(*which, FYI, comes from Latin "aster" which means star) | 275e5c1d-e246-411b-9687-a1708037dbc7 |
3rqdz9 | What methods of timekeeping were used before the hour became widely accepted? | In the New Testament, the Roman "watches" were used for night time measurements. They were generally three of our hours long, so the first watch was from 6 PM, then 9 PM, Midnight, and 3 AM to 6 AM.
Early Jews divided the night into three watches of four of our hours each.
But the Romans also divided the day into twelve hours, as (more or less) do we.
Perhaps someone with knowledge of ancient China would have a different division of time. | aff3463d-2ede-4e3e-924b-7bf89b14a0a3 |
34433q | considering recent events, what gives the mayor of Baltimore the power to impose a curfew? | The riots impose an immediate threat to civilians, and thus to ensure public safety a mandatory curfew can be set in motion. As long as it does not interfere with emergencies or work, there is 0 issues with it, and it doesn't. Think of it as a smaller scale version of night time curfews during WWII. | 18809fd2-2355-440d-a9fe-135e04f49879 |
thlqt | what the JPMorgan "London whale" did to lose 2 billion dollars | This is pretty complicated, but the most basic ideas to understand here are **derivatives** and **leverage**. These are not too hard to understand, but they can't be explained in one paragraph.
We'll start with derivatives. The simplest kind of derivative is what's called a **futures contract**, which is a promise to buy or sell some amount of something at an agreed price at an agreed future date. This may sound a bit complex, but in fact, it's really simple, and one of the older kinds of future contracts are agricultural ones, which can be paraphrased similar to this: "Today I agree to sell one metric ton of wheat on August 15 for $50."
Now, here are two possible users of derivative contracts on wheat:
* The wheat farmer, before growing season starts, needs to plan how much wheat to grow. Growing more wheat involves more labor, and if he grows too much he will lose money. He could check how much wheat is selling for today, but the scary thing about that is that if he decides based on today's price, but then by harvest time the price of wheat has gone down, he loses.
* The baker uses wheat to bake cakes. Suppose that the season after harvest is the season when most people get married, so because of all of the wedding parties there is a big demand for cakes. People place the orders for the cakes several months before the weddings, and pay ahead of time. Since the baker has to bake the cakes just before the weddings, the thing that really scares the baker is that the price of wheat might go up a lot between now and then; if it goes up too much she might not even be able to buy all the wheat she needs!
So the way these two problems get solved is this: the farmer and the baker agree that on the week before the weddings happen, the baker will buy a specific amount of the farmer's wheat at a specific price that they agree on today. Now the farmer is no longer scared that the price of wheat will crash, because the baker is going to buy it at the preset price anyway; likewise, the baker isn't scared that the price of wheat will go up, because the farmer has promised to sell at the prest price.
Now things get more complicated:
* The farmer and the baker can make a different agreement that is equally useful to them: instead of a promise to buy or sell at that price, what they can do is use something called *cash settlement*. For example, if by the time wedding week comes around the price of wheat has gone up, the farmer can pay the price difference to the baker; now the farmer can just sell to whoever he wants at the higher price, and the baker can use the money that the farmer paid her to buy from whoever at the higher price.
* Because of this, future contracts are like betting. The farmer is scared that wheat prices will go down, which would cause him a business loss, so he makes a bet that they *will* go down; if they do go down, his business loses money, but since his bet makes money it balances out. The baker is the opposite case: since she would lose money if wheat prices go up, she makes a bet that they will go up to protect herself.
* The farmer and the baker need to feel confident that the other one can't break their promise. The way this is done is that each of them makes a cash deposit with somebody neutral (say, the banker) to demonstrate that they're serious. This deposit is called the **margin**. On the day that the contract is due, the banker compares the price of wheat with the price that the farmer and baker agreed, and makes the appropriate cash payments.
* The example I've given you is futures contracts on the price of wheat, but a futures contract can be written on the price of *anything*; stock prices, bond prices, interest rates, frozen orange juice, the weather in January, petroleum, etc.
* Not all derivatives contracts are futures; there are other kinds, but I won't go into them.
Now, with all that behind us, we can actually explain how a bank can lose two billion on one trade. Basically, futures contracts and other derivatives allow you to make really huge bets without investing a lot of money.
Suppose that the stock of the Acme Gadget Company is currently selling for $50 a share. Now suppose you have $50,000 to invest. You can do two things:
1. You could buy 1,000 shares of Acme. To do this, you have to pay the full price: $50 x 1,000 = $50,000.
2. You could buy a three-month futures contract on the price of Acme. To do this, you don't have to pay the full price; you just have to make the margin deposit that we discussed above. If the required margin is 10% of the price, this means that with a $50,000 deposit you can buy a futures contract for 10,000 shares.
Now see what happens if Acme's price goes up by 10%, to $55:
1. If you bought the 1,000 shares directly, you can sell them for $55,000, for a gain of 10%. Good job.
2. However, if you got a contract on 10,000 shares with a $50,000 deposit, you now have $100,000. You doubled your money!
And now consider what happens if the price drops by 10%, to $45:
1. If you bought the 1,000 shares, you lost $5,000 dollars, and are now at $45,000. Not good, but hey, you still have 90% of your money!
2. If you got the futures contract, however, you just lost all of your $50,000. Bye bye.
So using derivatives instead of investing directly amplifies your gains and losses. This is called **leverage**. This is why JPMorgan can lose two billion on a bad trade—they use a lot of derivatives in order to maximize their gains, but when things go bad, they lose a *lot* of money.
Now, this explanation skips a lot of detail, because JPMorgan didn't lose that money on a stock futures contract; they lost it on some sort of complicated strategy that uses other kinds of derivatives on something else that's not stocks. And I don't actually understand those details that well myself, to tell you the truth. But whatever they are, it's really just more applications of the same two concepts: derivatives and leverage. | de0c61a9-d724-46c4-a29f-e2428aacd883 |
2bzxzi | Why do most dogs seem to love beer? | My dog isn't picky. She likes anything even vaguely edible, including paper. I've also known dogs that would eat dirt and rocks, so beer really isn't that weird in comparison. | 9ea63560-1664-4302-85c9-00485dac0b8c |
2b0k71 | How does your brain change from when you are a kid to when you are an adult? | Physically the brain is almost done growing by like age three or so. The brain only gets slightly bigger afterwards. However as you getting older, the brain develops. This means when learning the brain makes new electrical paths. For example, when a toddler is learning to fine tune their motor skills, the electrical impulse initially does not go as in depth to the areas of the brain responsible for moving limbs. This is why a child may be clumsy but as the child grows the electrical impulse will start to enter the region in more depth, or makes a different path that is faster.
If damage is done to brain early enough in development, then the brain will adapt due to neural plasticity. Neural plasticity basically means that the areas responsible for certain activities would slightly re-organize itself so that responsibilities of the damaged area will still be possible. This isn't instant and it requires time and therapy to relearn anything lost.(Like showing the brain that it was important enough to make room for the skill.)
The older you get, the harder it is to recover from brain damage because as the brain develops, it basically starts to set in and it is harder to re-organize everything. (Think of jello with fruit, its harder to move the fruits around the more set the jello is). I don't know exactly what you mean by "strength" but child brains are very good at recovering. Adult brains do neural plasticity as well but it is as effective, so some damage will be permanent and recovery is a-lot longer. I saw a documentary on a girl who had to get one side of her brain removed because her seizures where becoming very serious. With therapy, she can now do everything a normal person can do. | 5319dfcf-475b-47e0-838f-bc976b7b77cd |
2t6z5e | What makes Cuban cigars so sought after? Can they not be grown on another Caribbean country? | It's partly that the soil and climate in Cuba are pretty well unique. Sure tobacco grows everywhere, but exactly where it grows affects it, just like any other crop.
It's partly the specific varieties and cultivars of tobacco we're talking about. The tobacco grown from Cuban seed is still among the most prized in the world.
It's partly the skill of the growers, agers, blenders, and rollers of the tobacco, all of whose skills contribute to the overall quality and flavor of the cigar.
All of that said, there are other places in the world where cigar tobacco can be grown with wonderful results. Some of them are even in the US, but a lot of them are in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, etc.
There are also tobaccos grown in those places that were raised from Cuban seeds. I don't know if they were smuggled out or exported more legitimately, but Cuban-seed tobacco is a real thing from a lot of places.
Frankly, a lot of the growers, agers, blenders, and rollers left Cuba when the old tobacco plantations were nationalized. They've gone to Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, among other places, and they've trained further generations of workers.
Today, you can get really excellent cigars from all over the place. My current favorite is a Honduran cigar, but I've enjoyed Nicaraguans, Dominicans, and even a Cuban or two over the years. | 353b24e2-0899-4697-adc5-522b8380815a |
4cy5nl | How can you watch a video while you are still downloading it? | Essentially a torrent is just downloading your file in lots of little fragments from other computers. If your torrenter is set up to request and download these fragments in order, assemble them, and then you play them almost immediately after that, then it does give the impression you're watching it as it's being downloaded. i.e. It downloads the first minute, plays it while it's downloading the second minute, and so on. Of course this is limited on you downloading faster than you can watch, but that's essentially how it all works. | 5cc2383c-a6fe-4eef-b79e-06ca984a9110 |
22c2bo | Why does IT not have apprenticeship programs? | There are. Germany introduced IT apprenticeship in 1997. | 0e7a8170-616c-42aa-b97a-86a1c938a8a1 |
36lb93 | Why is incest such a common trope in porn? | It's taboo (which makes it exciting), it's something that could arise out of a real life situation (theoretically it could happen to anyone, even you!), and it strikes the chord of "when sex was still new and exciting" (even if the actors aren't pretending to be underage, there's usually a younger inexperienced character). Even if you're icked out by actual incest, it's kind of the holy trifecta of arousal. | b87f700b-885a-4092-bc55-eb20f1aee012 |
2q1wko | Why do some salon style shampoos and conditioners have a warning that products purchased from anywhere other than salons could be counterfeited? | The salons get to put a large markup on those products and dont want you buying them elsewhere | 91117cb7-86ad-4cdb-92a4-03d96973de12 |
2rloh1 | How are game engines built? | Game engines are more tools that make it easier for a person to put a game together without worrying about the bare basics of rendering or physics in order to get it to work.
> why can't they be improved instead of having to build whole new ones?
Most of the time they are improved instead of building new ones, but the new iteration of the engine is such a huge improvement over the old one, or has had to change the way that the engine functions so drastically that it might as well be new, and the version number goes from MadeUpEngine 2.5 to MadeUpEngine 3 instead of 2.6. Sometimes the new versions are built from scratch, that usually happens when integration with a new technology or some new way of optimizing things would require changing the very way that the game engine works, and is just far more trouble to try to add in than to just build a new one.
> What kind of experience do people have so that they know how to do things like that?
You need to know a great deal of GUI programming, 3D and 2D graphics integration and optimization, and generally just have a solid understanding of how to make games in general work best, since the performance of a game made in your engine is limited by how efficient your engine is. It sounds a lot simpler than it is. Trust me, I've tried. | ead40b2f-a45a-4bbf-a57f-a0d2d8fa7e47 |
1t4r0g | How did punch cards work? Specifically, what is the reading mechanism? | There are eighty columns on a card. Each column can be punched with a single hole, in a location that designates a number 0 through 9. Each column can also be punched with two holes whose locations designate a letter of the alphabet. Modern punch machines (70's modern) both read and punch. They read by shining light at the card that passes through mechanism. The light shines through the punch holes and hits matrix of photo electric cells. If you were working on a critical job you typed in your data, or code to punch the cards and then stick them back in the hopper and type it again and the machine would detect errors if it found them.
Punch cards could be used for data entry or for writing code. It was a sad day when you dropped your cards. A sad day indeed.
If I had a nickel for every card I used in the 70's I'd be extremely wealthy today. | 9a7e023f-771b-4450-be34-469749e12ac6 |
3kn7oa | Why are the Turks and Kurds currently in conflict? | The Kurds are an ethnic minority that live in Kurdistan (parts of Turkey, Iran and Iraq). Turkey does not recognize this minority and does not grant them many rights. Also, there is a long history of massacres against the Kurds.
The Kurds have formed separatist groups with the goal to become independent from Turkey. The main rebel group is the PKK which is recognized as a terrorist organization by Turkey and the NATO (not by EU). They mainly operate out of Iraq and launch attacks against Turkey. | 98c50783-8bb4-4c0e-9ded-48fa463aef63 |
lmr12 | why other sects of Christianity generally do not like Catholics. | At one point in time, the Catholic Church was the *only* church...in fact, the word catholic means "universal".
Every major branch of Christianity at some point in time broke away from the Catholics. Not only did they disagree on religion, but it lead to centuries of war in Europe, with one king trying to change the religion of his country, and the next trying to change it back. This has led to some hard feelings that endure today.
Check out the Reformation and the Counter Reformation for more info. | c5ba70fe-c43f-4bd4-8800-aafd065b4fc3 |
5lpb81 | What is "Shepard's Tone" | There are two notes on top of one another. They're both the same note, such as both being a C note, but one is one octave above the other and has a much higher pitch. If you play a scale using notes like these, CDEFGABC with a much higher pitched CDEFGABC playing at the same time, the highest C of the first scale is the same sound as the lowest C of the second scale. So if you play it twice in a row, the low notes will sound like they're just continuing and becoming the high notes.
From there, your brain takes over. Your brain is really good at making guesses and filling in for information it doesn't have, and one of the ways it does that is by recognizing patterns and completing them. When it hears this scale, it makes the assumption that it keeps going up forever and tells your ears that's what they're hearing. It doesn't matter that the highest note isn't getting any higher, because your brain has a range of sound it really likes and is already focusing in on the lower notes again, assuming that those high notes are continuing in the pattern it predicted.
Try this: listen to a Shepard's Tone (they're all over youtube), and halfway through, take out your headphones or mute your computer for a second. When you turn the sound back on, that tone will have seemingly "reset" and sound lower again. That's because your brain is starting over with the pattern it's interpreting, and it always wants to start with that specific middle range of sound it likes. | 52306b42-f8cf-4704-a691-2da909eae96e |
49v4e1 | Why are dogs affraid of vacuums? | Like people, all dogs personalities are not the same. I have three dogs of varying size (55, 75 & 100 lbs). My bulldog is not scared of thunder or guns, but is afraid of the vacuum & fireworks. My mutt is afraid of absolutely everything (he will stop breathing when it is thundering outside.. he's a weirdo). And my Pit/Whippet mix is not afraid of a damn thing on this earth; if anything she is just curious about it all. She won't bark at the vacuum, she'll follow it around and sniff it. When it's thundering outside, she likes to go out & play while looking at the sky.
However, I think a major reason dogs tend not to like the vacuum is because it makes a terrible noise, makes motions that seem unfamiliar & does not smell like it is alive (but acts like it). | 55784186-f7ff-4381-80b6-5161a4e8e26d |
5xg5jl | Why do we so often have music stuck in our heads? | I don't know the actual science behind it but I know music is meant to get stuck in your head. It makes it more popular and catchy tunes and beats are often most popular. Plus, the human mind enjoys music it finds predictable and easy to listen to, which is exactly what gets stuck in your head. | cebe280e-5438-437a-aa5b-bc77e0c7cbd5 |
30w2hh | [NSFW maybe] how come when you tickle yourself you don't feel anything but when you masturbate its pleasurable? | When you are tickled your body thinks it's being attacked, thats why you can't tickle yourself (cause what person attacks his/herself?) | f4e5beff-9f8d-4d51-9790-772b4873b115 |
1v612n | Why can public schools, funded by the government, limit the rights of its students? | It's a legal concept called [in loco parentis](_URL_0_). The school is legally acting in place of your parent while you're a student, and as such are allowed to act in your best interest as they see fit. There are some legal restrictions on this in the interest of upholding civil rights with regard to discrimination, abuse, and things of that nature, but generally speaking the school can legally act exactly as a parent would to enforce the greater good and safety of its students and the educational environment. | 770d829c-6a87-427f-867d-c97d9c0daa1e |
2ihew1 | This whole idea of "we make the car, then ship it to independent dealers to charge whatever they want" seems kind of silly. Make the car, ship it to your brand's retail stores, and sell it. Done. What's the deal? | Rather than just legislative reasons there are many reasons why car manufacturers wouldn't want to own the dealerships. It's the same reasons why Apple is about the only laptop & smartphone manufacturer which sells direct and why very few manufacturers in general do it. I'm not very familiar with Tesla, but I can talk with a lot more authority on Apple** which also sells directly, unlike most other smartphone & laptop manufacturers.
In short, it's very complicated and expensive. Buying/renting all that retail space is very pricey; not to mention the massive amounts of extra staff you would need to take on. For example, according to [Apple's annual report](_URL_0_), 42,800 of its 80,300 staff are retail employees i.e. 53% of all of Apple's employees. That's not just a lot of wages, but a lot of training hours, a lot of hiring work, a lot more work for HR in general, a lot more work for your finance team getting everyone's pay out correctly etc. The potential for lawsuits also jumps by several orders of magnitude when Joe Public is able to walk onto your premises.
But surely the increased take would make up for it? Well not always. Building out such a large retail business is very risky compared to selling to dealerships (as the dealership is effectively taking on all of the risk). Many large, well known brands have tried and failed to build their own retail stores. Go see any of Microsoft's stores if your don't believe me.
Investing a large amount of capital in retail does not look good on a company's balance sheet either. One of the ways investors judge a company's performance is called "return on capital employed" i.e how much profit you make for every $ of capital you use. If you have a retail strategy, your profits would go up, but your profit per $ invested would go down. This makes your stock a worse investment for shareholders, meaning your stock price drops and your CEO gets fired.
So the question really should be why do Tesla and Apple have their own retail stores at all? The answer is that so much of the value of Tesla and Apple is the brand and so ensuring customers get a top quality experience is vital to being able to charge high prices and generate the type of profit margins Apple is famous for.
** I work as an industry analyst covering the smartphone market. If you've ever read a "what the experts think about phone x" piece or comment in press, there's a not insignificant chance I'm quoted. | 7eccc214-8e8a-47db-bfbd-bd21740bd7e7 |
109618 | what live streams are | They play games live, they have webcam and or screen cam and play. Simple. its LIVE. | b5f62b6f-bdce-4cae-8d4e-0a2c74932073 |
1mqaz6 | Javascript objects basics | Objects are things which have properties and do stuff. They are described by a "class". You can think of a specific car as an object, and the diagram of the car as the car "class". From that diagram you can create many different "instances" or individual creations out of the car class.
The car, being an object normally has both properties, and methods. These can be thought of as descriptions of your object (properties) and stuff your object can do (methods).
So a property might be "Weight" which would have the value of a ton, or whatever cars way, or "horsepower" which would be some other number, or "color" which might be orange because hey, why not? These are all properties. Your car diagram (the Class) will describe things like horsepower or color, but individual customers can get their car in different colors. The Color "property" can be different depending on which specific car object you're talking about.
Besides properties, objects also have methods. These are descriptions of how the object interacts with the world. For example, there might be a method "Accelerate" which increases the cars speed, or "BurstIntoFlames" which might do what it says. The methods might change some of the objects properties as well. So after acclerating, the "speed" property will be different, and after "BurstIntoFlames" the car might now be black.
Objects are useful because you don't really need to know how cars handle Bursting into flames, just knowing that's one of the things a car can do is enough, you just tell the car to do that, it figures out how it's done internally, and you know when you check back the car object will have burst into flames.
Let me know if that all makes sense and if there's something more specific you're looking for. | 43121355-d559-4956-83d4-694aec917560 |
1plu58 | How Memory Is Stored In the Brain And Subsequently Retrieved | Not an answer: But someone once told me a memory is only a memory of the last time you remembered it. So it may be very different from the main event. That's why it "fades". | 85360e0b-9822-47c3-95df-d63231e38bb8 |
4c8jhw | What is happening inside my console when a game is loading? | Loading from the hard drive to the RAM.
In a computer (including consoles), the processors, the GPU and CPU, need to have quick access to the data, and hard drives are far too slow to provide this, even new SSDs are still too slow. So what was the solution to this? RAM, or Random Access Memory. RAM is very very fast, providing the data needed, but they need the data loaded into them first, hence the loading process. Some other processes may occur in preparation, maybe some decompression, but mainly the hard drive is what slows it down.
In the last few years though, SSDs, or Solid State Drives, have started to become relevant, and these are good because they are fast, allowing quick access of data. Loading times are basically non existent on them.
Loaded data is then reworked by the CPU and GPU to display those characters on the screen, assigning each pixel a different color every time the frame changes. | 91bfcd8f-31d1-4781-a0c0-73a58dd6ca9d |
3h9jis | Is it possible for new types of sailor's knots to be "discovered"? Or have the common ones been around for hundreds of years? | The common ones have been around for ages. They are the most efficient and easiest to tie.
There're four main types of knots: Bend - ties two lines together; Hitch - ties a line to another object; Loop - creates a loop in the rope; and stopper knots, which basically just make the line thicker.
The most efficient form of each of these knots has been known for a long long time (Reef knot, clove hitch, bowline, figure-eight, respectively). There's other, more complicated ones for more specialized tasks, but these four are easiest to tie, have been around longest, and are the most often used.
Knots used outside of sailing, that have specialized tasks can be considered newer. For example the [Prusik knot](_URL_0_) was "invented" in the 20^th century.
TL:DR: New knots can and have been invented recently, but the most often used, best knots have been around forever. | 4b6cd353-0365-45be-ac94-fa5efeef1429 |
4gt92r | While digital video is stored as separate frames, how is sound stored digitally? | An analog audio signal is represented as a wave, looking like [this](_URL_0_). If you want to represent this in digital, you just go along this wave and mark the amplitude (the height) of the wave at regular intervals. The result is a long list of numbers, each of them called a "sample". If these intervals are short enough and you use large enough numbers for the samples, you can recreate the analogue waveform close to 100% using the digital signal. Audio CDs for example use 44,100 samples per second with 16bit numbers, which is in most cases far more than sufficient for our ears. | e2e3c2a1-edc7-432e-85b6-9b5fb50e7636 |
1mlfc5 | Why didn't Gandalf use his powerful Eagle friends to transport the fellowship to mordor? Or even use them to take thorin oakenshield's group to the misty mountain? It would have saved many lives including Boromir. | They would have been seen and killed before they got there. Hobbits on foot were the better choice because they could sneak in unnoticed past hordes of orcs. | 437a5cc8-c3be-4745-bddf-f6c539b4a7c6 |
262qbx | Whats the big deal about quantum computers. Whats the difference compared to normal computers? | There are problems a full-fledged quantum computer could solve in a reasonable amount of time that we don't think a classical computer could solve in any reasonable amount of time. One such problem is integer factorization – the best known algorithms for classical computers would take absurd amounts of time to run for large numbers, whereas we have algorithms for quantum computers that could factor those integers quickly, if only we had a quantum computer to run them on.
Theoretically, we can come up with arbitrarily powerful models of computation. What makes the "classical" set of models interesting is that they correspond to actual machines that we can build using our knowledge of science. We strongly suspect that, given our knowledge of quantum mechanics, it is also possible to build useful quantum computers. We just haven't managed to engineer a working model yet. | 18237bad-1ca5-462c-a3cf-06c3c6214890 |
3dqryi | What is happening when we are "emotionally exhausted"? | Get married and you will find out.
Jokes aside.
Emotions are thoughts and feelings that require your body to provide energy to do.
if you're having a lot of those, they drain energy and make a person tired.
Example might be a wife with a sick husband, she has to look after the kids, go to hospital everyday, cook meals run the house and she is terrified her husband is going to die soon.
The emotional stuff the wife is dealing with costs energy, when energy levels are low its because she is emotionally drained | ced4170c-e8c1-47e6-afbe-82decd2765f3 |
32p9if | How do presidents get up to speed on issues? | The President has not just a staff of secretaries but they have appoint a group called the "Cabinet" whose job it is to be an expert on various things. If he wanted more information about small business he could go to Penny Pritzker (Department of Commerce) and ask her to compile a report. | 512606f5-8569-46d3-b992-b2560c67b42f |
3cds5h | Why do people get 'the munchies'? | [link to article](_URL_0_)
THC is a factor as someone else mentioned, but for different reason. According to the article, the effects of THC (what gets you high) enhances your senses, allowing you to taste and smell food more accurately. In rats, it was found that THC fits into the brain's olfactory bulb; the resulting heightening in senses essentially makes it more desirable to us apparently moreso than feelings hungry.
Additionally, you're more attracted to the smells and tastes. When sober, the rats were interested in and drawn toward the food oils at first, but they ended up getting used to the smell (they call it olfactory habituation). When dosed with THC, they kept their interest and continued eating the food for much longer.
Interestingly enough, when fasted for a day, rats were found to have released more natural cannabinoids (we have them as well) than usual, again resulting in heightened senses.
TL;DR: your Olfactory Lobe (senses) pairs well with the THC, and enhances your senses including taste and smell. The heightened effects make the food more desirable. And, as opposed to being sober, your Olfactory Bulb keeps you interested in the smells and tastes for longer which keeps you from getting bored of the taste. | 45212502-5779-491e-b010-1c2c03850e6b |
koicu | Why FTL implies backward time travel | it is a sci-fi show cliche for one thing... in theory, the faster you go, the slower time goes for you and it approaches zero as you get closer to the speed of light. So, based on that logic, if you go faster than the speed of light, you go into negative time. Supposedly, matter can't go faster than the speed of light and the energy required to even get close is huge. | 2238c23d-ac31-49fa-a6ab-e170d5501773 |
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