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3amlyc | Amazon free shipping. Pay $1 more to meet the free shipping minimum, or pay $10 for shipping because you're short $1 of the free shipping minimum. It seems like Amazon is eating the $9 either way, why not just charge $1 for shipping to simplify things? | You forget the margins on the items you are buying. We don't know what their profit margins are.
And their algorithms may not be accurate or fudge things - they may eat it on some stuff and not eat it on others.
The whole "add on item" is a relatively new thing to keep people like me from gaming the system.
My wife forgot to cancel Prime and now I'm having a field day with it. We were ahead by May - although, that meant buying just about *everything* from Amazon; which means some Amazon analyst may be laughing at my ignorance.
tl;dr: You can't just look at shipping costs to see if you're really ahead.
Are you buying stuff for the sake of hitting the minimum for "free" shipping? They just got you.
[EDIT] and some of Amazon's prices suck so I buy locally even though I DO have Prime.
Gotta shop. | 2d24392c-3623-4a2b-b4da-7bb66acd7d70 |
3mn0zb | How did the turmoil in Syria and the surrounding countries develop? | Starting in 2011 there were protests against **the Assad regime** demanding greater political rights/end to corruption. Eventually the regime responded violently.
In turn, some of the protesters formed their own forces to fight back against the regime -- **the Free Syrian Army.**
Partly separately, **the Kurds** (an ethnic group spanning multiple countries in the Middle East who have some of their own civil society and military forces) in the country had long wanted greater autonomy or outright independence, and many of them also shared opposition to the Assad regime, and so they joined in.
For complicated regional political reasons, **Hezbollah,** an Iranian-backed Lebanese/multinational Shi'ite militia/political party/quasi-state also backed the regime.
In the summer of 2014 **ISIS**, originally an off-shoot of Al-Qaeda, started seizing territory in Iraq. They proclaimed a caliphate and quickly insisted that they viewed the borders between Iraq and Syria to be meaningless, arguing that it was purely a Western creation and that they were destined/charged by God to incorporate "The Levant" (ME countries on the Mediterranean) into their caliphate, and so they entered the fray fighting against the regime and trying to control their own territory.
They were actually not the first radical Islamists to the party, having come in after **Jabhat-al-Nusra,** which is basically Al-Qaeda, who were fighting the regime for similar reasons.
Before there was significant Islamist involvement, the picture from **the US** perspective was relatively straightforward: we considered Assad to be a dictator and the question was only "how much?" and "how?" to help the rebels.
After the entry of radical Islamist forces though, things became really complicated because we had enemies on both sides. What to do about this is an open question, but the current administration's position is "Fight ISIS first; Assad must be ousted in the long run."
In this mission, they have been joined by a coalition including **Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States** who are there in significant measure because of worry about growing Shi'ite/Iranian influence in a failed state.
**Turkey** also officially supports the coalition, albeit *very* reluctantly because of longstanding worry about their own very large Kurdish minority getting a little too excited about the idea of independence. Some have even accused the current Turkish ruling party of tacitly or actively supporting ISIS under the table.
**The Russians** support Assad because he has long been a regional ally and because Putin likes to troll the US. | 2b934f0e-bd88-44c3-adcd-2c773898589f |
1g5w9b | What did early Humans do on an average day? | Life wasn't "nasty, brutish and short". According to the latest research, hunter/gather societies had massive amounts of free time. If you go back to just the Medieval era, the so-called "peasants" could hardly be persuaded to work (for money) for more than an hour or two a day, because they met all their own needs via their own hands (farming, housing, etc.). I don't have references to hand as I'm on my mobile.
Out tech-heavy life--and our capitalistic, corporate-driven lifestyle--isn't easy by any stretch, since we spend 8 to 10 hours (1/3 of our precious life) working for someone else for money to pay for all these nifty pointless gadgets. Life was simple in the distant past: eat, sleep, sex, storytelling, exploring, just "being". (This is a pet peeve of mine: that this technological life is "better"... It all depends on your definition of "better". :-) | 11c6d543-82af-4a0c-9b5c-5ba503295aba |
1j6djg | The difference between 4x4 and All-Wheel-Drive | Main difference is AWD is "always on" whereas 4x4 is a selector that can be turned on or off. 4x4 locks a differential so all 4 wheels travel at the same speed, and is best suited for low speeds on rugged/slippery terrain, and not higher "normal" driving speeds. AWD systems are more complex and can work in tandem with ABS systems to reduce wheel spin, and can be used in higher speeds (like Rally cars, for example). | de753ec7-7103-4c40-a39a-f608b8479886 |
21oyfe | Why do I get chest freezes instead of brain freezes? | Brain Freeze is a referred pain, from the esophagus. There are a few places in your body that this happens, where the pain occurs in one place and is felt elsewhere. In this case the pain in your esophagus caused by something cold is felt in your brain.
If you get chest/back/esophagus freeze, it's your body simply not referring the pain. It doesn't mean your defective, as far as I'm concerned it's your body working correctly. You're feeling the pain where it is occurring.
I get esophagus freeze instead of brain freeze too. I think I might actually prefer getting a brain freeze, because sometimes it becomes difficult to breathe! | 413cd979-11c0-44c6-bfb1-d5ed696c3883 |
29vdcx | What happens to a landfill when it's full? | TYL the highest mountains in florida are landfills. | 275c814b-8c31-4e97-877e-d3519d0709e9 |
vmsm5 | The Indian Caste Hierarchy | In what year or when exactly indian caste system began is not known till now.Now imagine a neatly organized society where each section of society has a job to do and each and every member of this society has to do that job.fast forward a few centuries and the people born in castes which control money,religion,land take control of most of the resources and start discrimination against people born in lower castes,these ranged from denying them water from wells where higher born took water to not touching them.Now the basic flaw of this system was that if you are born in a lower caste which takes out garbage ,you have to do that and there was no way out of this system,no chance of "promotion" or better pay or better living condition.And people born in higher caste made sure that the laws of each caste doing its job is tightly followed as it made their life much comfortable.Again fast forward and the british enter India and take full advantage of this system,making their job of "divide and rule" much _URL_1_ modern India caste is still an _URL_0_ is being used for vote bank,killing each other and getting jobs/admissions easily. | f0be781c-35b6-42d2-8e72-5fdc09f57b2f |
zuavb | How Does a Neon Light Work? | Say for a moment you're an atom. An atom who has alllll sorts of electrons easily available on it's uppermost layer of electron shells. Why, a noble gas to be specific, the most charmed of the element classes. We'll call you "Neon"
So, you, Neon is having a -bitchin'- time in it's lowest energy state, just chilling and having a great time with life.
BUT THEN! An electron smacks into the Neon. A stray electron from the wrong side of town. One of Neons electrons, one of the ones on the outer layer, make like a domestic cat and absorb it, puffing up an energy level to keep the energy. (Cats do that, right?)
So now Neon has an excited electron waaaaay to many layers away from it's core, whizzing about merrily at the speed of light. As we all well know, it is a social faux pas to have an electron in such an excited state and Neon has a party to get to.
So this excited electron is pulled back into the Neon, but it has to lose energy to do that. To that end, the electron emits a wavelength of light to bleed off some energy as it returns to its normal state.
Do this a couple million times in an enclosed glass tube and you get a Neon light. | 21609092-3b64-4254-bd8d-804d77099a5e |
2uao3r | What is the simplest way you can explain left vs right when it comes to politics? | **Economically**
*Left wing*: taxation is (relatively) higher, but pays for more services, eg, hospitals, roads, police. Includes more state-owned businesses. This allows the rich to be charged more for the services the country provides than the poor.
*Right wing*: taxation is lower, but services like healthcare, roads and so on are paid for at point-of-use, eg health insurance, road tolls. This means people only pay for the services they use.
**Socially**
*Left*: (generally) more progressive policies on gender, marriage, etc
*Right*: (generally) more protection of traditional standpoints.
Right wing can be associated with more individual freedoms, but looser business regulation, whereas the left wing tries to stop monopolies by restricting businesses.
I have tried to keep this as neutrally-phrased as possible: if anyone sees any major mess-ups, do say. | ed251022-cbe9-44c0-85b5-02df0ec0209b |
62thrz | How has the US managed to mono crop for so long? | It used to be a lot more important to rotate crops before artificial fertilizers and mechanized farming. The reason for crop rotation is that most crops pull nitrogen from the soil without replacing it, but a few crops pull it from the air and put it back in the soil. Leaving fields to lie fallow is also important, because that lets the leftover organics from previous seasons decompose and get processed by worms and other bugs, which puts even more good stuff back in. | f4bbc5ad-7ec5-4f40-82c6-7089e39e9caf |
49881y | Why do police Tasers have cameras on them but not their guns? | Police officer and Taser Instructor here:
Taser (the company) has a monopoly on Conducted Electrical Weapons. So any CEW you see an officer use is made by Taser. They offer cameras for thier devices (at an extra cost).
There is no monopoly on what guns police departments use. They are issued many, many brands and models. Some officers must provide thier own guns.
Gun cameras alsob make guns heavier, harder to wield, and harder to holster (you need an expensive, custom holster).
Taser cameras can be small because they just run off the battery of the device itself. A gun camera needs it's own power supply. | ac36c80e-7fb6-4c20-9423-a9fc391d8da6 |
3szbn4 | Why are people so politically charged? | Mostly because our lives are directly impacted by who our government officials are. In America we vote to have Laws passed, therefore everyone who votes whether they are for Or against this law they are all entitled their opinion. Some political views such as abortion are extremely heated, and both sides do have valid arguments that's why there hasn't been a final law written on this subject. Hope that helped a little I'm sure there will be better answers but that's my best shot at the moment.
Edit: Also to hit the point on racial issues. Sometimes when people openly say racist things some people have the urge to give them their own opinion as well. If you are going to post something offensive and it happen to be taken racially. I feel like most people try to give that person a point of view that will perhaps make them not feel so hateful. The wrong way to handle this is to just let that person get you angry and fall in their trap. | 3bdabba4-e12c-49a7-9735-798633d138dd |
5zrpz6 | Volkswagen's Fraudulent Emission Case | Hopefully I can explain it, I got one of the cars too.
First, emission standards, EPA wrote them, said they have to run their cars through a test to check the emissions, write a report saying the car passed, and then the EPA allowed them to be sold. As part of this, the EPA had the manufacturer prove that when the emissions components work, the car passes emissions, and when they break the check engine light turns on.
In any internal combustion engine boosting the pressures and temperatures in the engine results in improved performance and mileage, that's why people put turbos on their cars and why sports cars need high test. Only in a diesel, you can do it without high test, so on a diesel they can go way higher, and get way better efficiency with a turbo. The down side is that when you do it to the level that a diesel does it, it makes NOx, a regulated emission gas that needs to be limited. VW's plan was to connect the exhaust to the intake to reduce the oxygen and reduce temperatures, so it usually didn't have bad emissions. For a variety of reasons, VW's plan didn't work and they installed the valve, but didn't use it.
Eventually VW decided to just cheat on the test, they wrote special code with the intention of cheating on the test, and put it on the car Then ran the EPA test, and wrote a report saying that it passed the test when they knew that it didn't because it wasn't running the software map it did on the street, and that once on the road they knew it would fail, even if it was driven onto the dyno and the test re-run by a regular Joe, it would still fail.
Turns out there is in fact a law that says a car manufacturer can be fined $37,500 per car for attempting to deceive the EPA, writing software that fakes test results counts. That's what the lawsuit is over.
The fact that they failed emissions is a minor technicality, it's a big lawsuit because it's a fraud case. If it turned out they accidently had bad emissions this would not be as bad of an issue. It's similar to lying on your taxes vs making a mistake, make a mistake and the IRS asks for the difference, and maybe a fine for being late, flat out lie and you end up in jail. VW flat out lied.
It's also important to note, that none of these cars failed state emissions tests because of this, the EPA certification is leveraged by the states to prove that the check engine light is a valid way of checking emissions, and they basically all use that method, none of the states with a tailpipe test have something sensitive enough to pick up the problems. Since the check engine light only checks that the car isn't broken, you pass the emissions test because your car isn't broken, even though it fails the actual emissions. | b76d4406-9a3a-448f-92c0-c61c18af3734 |
3u08lk | Why do many languages have different letters from each other, but numbers are written is the same way everywhere? | Actually, numbers [aren't written the same everywhere](_URL_0_).
There are other variants in use across the world, too. | f3e227cc-48e9-4495-8c89-111b43196d18 |
1ryl2t | Nerve Impulse Transmition | What exactly do you want to know? Here's the overall process:
Something excites a nerve and it sends an electric signal down the cell. There, the electric signal triggers certain chemicals to be released at the end of the nerve. The chemical goes and triggers another impluse in the next nerve (Action Potential), and it just sort of goes down a row of nerves. | 53b31278-1018-4756-8dad-fb052071c376 |
2022om | The Nordic Model in prostitution criminalization. | I looked wikipedia map but i live in Finland (it's a nordic country) and prostitution is legal as long as you are 18 or over and not a victim of sex trafficking
I'm not sure how it works because i haven't done that but as far as i know prostitutes meet their customers at their own home, and they advertise on internet.
Sex workers also have their own union | 142d001e-c0b9-4e1f-943f-83cc89e2bc6b |
3gwt9i | How Do Fish, Dolphins, Sharks and other Aquatic Creatures sleep? | Disclaimer: I'm not 100% sure on this
I read somewhere that they kind of switch between the right and left side of the brain, the alternation gives each side time to rest without actually sleeping. | 2e7dcbeb-7317-48dd-9e9c-675f9753c2fe |
1xw1cv | What would happen if the US dug itself out of debt? | There have been a lot of questions about the US debt so try the search if you want more information about it, I'll focus on the "what if".
In general, debt isn't bad. Money from debt is spent on infrastructure and facilities which grow the economy overall, if the growth is larger than the debt acquired, then the country is ahead and all is good.
Extending from this, without debt the US would not be able to grow its economy as quickly or efficiently as other nations, it would need to wait until they collected enough taxes to afford the infrastructure they wanted to build. On a personal level this is bad if you'd like a new bridge, highway, school, aircraft carrier, etc.
Internationally, countries holding US debt have a vested interest in the US economy doing well. This wouldn't be a factor if nobody owned any US debt. And of course countries would be investing their money elsewhere (the US doesn't borrow money like you do, it sells bonds to investors) so other stable economies will likely be able to benefit. | c48897f1-ea0c-49ef-9d76-35b2292680e2 |
1riqpu | If you were to put a person in a tub of room temperature water, and raised it a few degrees at a time, could you kill them without discomfort? | What comes to mind is the boiled frog experiment. The basic "idea" behind it is that if you put a frog in a pot of water and slowly raise the temperature, it'll die before jumping out. This is a widespread myth but it's untrue. It's likely based on experiments done in the mid 1800's, where scientists found out that a frog that had its brain removed wouldn't jump out of a slowly heated pot of water. Emphasis on the *removed brain* part. Regular, mentally intact frogs would jump out, of course. So, no. Eventually the heat would start damaging your cells and your nerves would tell you, *"This is TOO HOT, you need to get out of here."* | 092c0c99-1bbd-412a-978e-afbaa3d8f00a |
2cujo2 | How are messages sent through wires? | You speak into a receiver. In the receiver is a magnetic cone attached to a metal loop. In an old phone the metal loop is attached to a wire that travels to a operating board that connects your line to the person you are trying to reach.
When you speak, the magnetic cone vibrates with the sound. The magnet moving back and forth causes an alternating current that oscillates to the sound received. This current travels along the line to a speaker (wire loop and magnetic cone) that transform the electrical signal back to sound. I'm not sure, but I think the regular phone lines are still analog.
If it is digital (through computer, cordless phone, cell phone), there is a step that changes analog to digital using thresholding. Then the signal travels to an antenna attached to a digital to analog converter. If the signal travels through air (like cell phones) the signal also gets modulated (like radio signals) so it will not cause interference. | 2613a533-2627-4d6b-8e91-4630dfcdee55 |
1635tb | - what makes it possible to hoist 2 ton cannon up a cliff using a "block and tackle"? | A block and tackle multiplies your force because you pull a lot on the rope and the weight moves only a little bit. If you had one loop a the top and bottom then you would pull the rope 10 feet and the weight would move 5 feet but would only require half the force. If you had 10 loops on both end then you would move the rope 10 feet but the weight would only move 1 foot, but would feel 1/10th as heavy. If you use enough loops then you can reduce the force required to the point where a single person can lift it. They just have to pull a lot more than if there was no pulley. | 6719e42a-8748-4e3a-b69c-21368b2aca32 |
44pynx | Why do some beards have spots and is there a way to avoid them before growing out a beard for the first time? | Beards have spots because those are places you do not grow facial hair. This is determined by genetics and if you have them there is no way to avoid them or to make the beard grow more thickly. You simply will be unable to grow a beard that looks normal/proper. | b971ab72-2e2e-4d0c-bf8d-2e3a12c27be2 |
1swstp | What's the difference between Shia vs. Sunni Islam? | After Muhammad died the Muslims had to choose a new caliph (leader). The first few were chosen without controversy. The fourth caliph, Ali, was assassinated in 661 which split the Muslims.
Shiites (aka Shia) emphasized blood descent in choosing the caliph. They thought Ali's grandchildren should be caliph. Sunnis thought the caliph should be chosen through consensus. Today,they make up a large majority of Muslims.
Other than the fact that they recognize different caliphs as the true one, they don't really have major differences. | a681ee28-6d9d-4a15-8b96-9a60451940fd |
7nijzo | How can the universe expand into something if the universe is considered everything? | > Why is it expanding?
As far as we can tell it's always been expanding, and nothing is stopping it from continuing. In fact, our latest observations suggest it's picking up speed. Due to what? We have no idea: that's "dark energy". Figure that out, and there is almost certainly a Nobel Prize waiting for you.
> What is there to expand into?
If the universe is infinite, nothing. If the universe is finite, we can't know. The observable universe is definitely smaller than the universe, so if there is an edge out there, we have no way of observing or reaching it, ever. I know neither or these possibilities are very gratifying, but there it is. | a676fb40-94a9-4846-8e4e-11b60793658a |
698pal | Why does Pepsi lose it's fizz/carbonation so much faster than Coke? | Because the carbonation is different. Less CO2 dissolved in Pepsi than in Coke. The bottle size can play a role too, usually big bottles are less carbonated. | 50d2ca48-06c5-4ae1-8685-e48499c87127 |
wro3j | File Compression | Consider these two lines:
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
"the letter 'A' repeated 50 times"
The second line is a compressed version of the first line. Rather than just writing out all the data, I described a *pattern* in the data, and it turns out that description was shorter. That's how you can compress things without losing any information. | 03815c27-eba1-4ddf-9342-84f159036f34 |
1wyiri | Why do certain vehicles like a Toyota Tacoma have unreal resell value, while others such as a Ranger are deemed useless at a comparable age? | It's believed that at 200k miles, the Toyota will still be going strong, while the Ford will be scrap. I don't have any statistics to back this up, but I've seen several Toyotas live through several generations of Fords and Chevys. | 619610ee-3246-4ce7-a6a4-8f0d5a02d81d |
4jfbjs | Why do you need to “come out”? | It's all about expectations.
Most people are straight, so most people expect you to be straight. This expectation provides a framework for interacting with you.
For example, if you're a teenage guy, and your friend is a (straight) teenage guy, he might talk about some hot girl in class, and expect you to find her attractive, too, and may try to convince you, if you don't share the same opinion.
Or your grandmother might be trying to play matchmaker between you and a friend's granddaughter, because she thinks you might like her and wants to see you happy.
Or maybe there's a girl in your class who's interested in you, and keeps dropping hints that you should ask her out.
If you're gay, you won't meet these expectations, and may feel like you're disappointing people.
If you come out as gay, however, then everyone you tell can alter this set of expectations (if they take it well). Your buddy won't bother trying to convince you that she's attractive, your grandmother won't try to set you up with girls, and the girl won't take your rejection personally.
Basically, saying, "I'm gay," is just a shortcut to altering all of these expectations. It also serves as a buffer for shock, so your parent/friends/whatever can have their reaction *before* finding out the person you've been dating is actually a guy. | 34ba44d1-ab31-411d-b81f-b5cf6fd5ab46 |
5pvvb6 | Why do people go for coffee/tea/a drink as a way of meeting each other for a chat? | It's an open, public place, and it's something fairly non-committal. If you sit down for a full meal, you're there for probably the better part of an hour. If you grab a coffee, you can chat for as long or short as you like depending on what's going on. It's also pretty cheap, only spending a few bucks for a drink rather than maybe $20 or more for a full meal. Timing is also more flexible. You can grab a drink whenever, but going for a meal at something like 3:00 in the afternoon is a bit odd. | f5c26385-4fe7-4ed3-81f5-72a166d04a26 |
47f89u | Why do only 5-10 people answer questions or provide discussion in a classroom? | Some people don't know the answer. Some people are shy. Some people are scared of being seen as a nerd. | 88e9c284-ec39-41d3-8450-4648c48fafaa |
3e77g0 | Why did Forbes estimate 50 Cent's worth to be $155 million when his lawyer says that he is worth no more then $4.4 million? | Forbes wants to publish articles about impressive people, so they have a motive to push the number higher.
The lawyer has a motive to protect his client's funds, so they have a motive to push the number lower.
Proper answer is somewhere in the middle. Wealth can be pretty complicated once you move past simple assets. | 6f6f4208-9f9f-4619-b092-58df542f1833 |
6ljjwl | Before there was cameras or forensic science, how was it possible to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt? | The key word is "reasonable." You can always come up with increasingly unlikely scenarios for a situation but they have to reasonably fit the evidence. For example, if six separate people all say they saw me kill Billy Bob, my clothes were soaked in blood, and the knife that was used to kill him was engraved with my name then it is reasonable to assume that I did indeed kill Billy Bob. You can come up with alternate scenarios (the witnesses were bribed, the blood came from a pig I was butchering earlier, the knife was stolen at an earlier date) but unless those alternate scenarios are backed up by facts (all six witnesses were found with $10,000, I'm a butcher, I reported the knife stolen six months ago) they aren't considered to be "reasonable." The doubt has to be evidence based, not suppositional. | 41132337-4ca8-4515-ad19-cd50578583bf |
34u327 | The accent from the 1940s/50s that no one seems to use anymore | It's the Transatlantic accent; an artificial accent used by broadcasters meant to sound equally acceptable to Americans and British: _URL_0_ | bac638d7-7d5b-4579-9f8e-3e455bffd27b |
6o6ecv | How can people who work M-F 9-5, accomplish anything? | We do a lot on our lunch breaks. Also, in most major cities there are a lot of offices open late at least one day out of the week. Real estate agents work well into the evening and the post office is open on weekends. Plus so much can be done online these days, you can pretty much accomplish anything at any time. | 9e087d26-750b-4eaa-b2ec-af64c388c832 |
3s24g4 | How are daily fantasy leagues NOT considered a form of gambling? | Gambling or not is irrelevant.
The law says fantasy games are allowed and poker isn't. The law also says that betting on horses is legal subject to a separate law, and betting on horses is certainly gambling.
People can debate you on your comparison up there, but it really doesn't matter. the law says poker is illegal and fantasy is legal. | 045dfa45-9e68-4943-98ce-330626cea8fe |
35op4f | Why do words sometimes seem like they're spelled wrong when I think about it for too long? | Gestaltzerfall, which is basically a more pedantic way to explain when you stare at the particular character, or words in this case (as the term was originally referring only to this phenomenon occuring with japanese kanji characters), and a part of your brain whose job is to store the visual information wears out and does not function very effectively. Your brain is tired of seeing the same set of characters to the point where it refuses to recognize it anymore | 88cd392f-43c6-4e2c-8230-762b906d90a6 |
3577lq | Why do I have to close unrelated apps/programs when installing an app/program update on my Mac and/or PC? | Internet browsers can often use plugins from other software/suites e.g. Microsoft Word/office. If the browser is open during the update (i.e. the plug-in is busy) then this might cause a failure to update microsoft office completely, as it also needs to update the plugins. | 75616c8d-681a-47b5-986d-af42173f3f00 |
1xil0r | the gender wage gap, and if it's a "Myth" or not. | It's real. Women get paid less than men for the same work (on average).
The "myth" part that has caused recent attention is that the figure 0.77 $ for women per $1 for men has been used a lot and it turns out it's not accurate because it wasn't controlled properly for hours. Women also work (on average) fewer hours. When you adjust for hours the gap is smaller but still exists. | 6809935c-56e8-4f95-bf82-011d5c5b2e62 |
6fwbo1 | Why has the global temperature spiked so dramatically in the last 10-20 years even though that's the timespan we've become aware of global warming and started trying to combat it? | Guess what happened before 20 years ago? Rampant pollution while being oblivious. "Just exhaust it, planet Earth will pick up the slack and balance out" was the mentality back then. | 82d39833-a4f9-4fbf-8b28-86319143187c |
1hdtxn | Whenever there is a race, why do the cars sitting all the way in the back still have to finish first? | There's a qualifying round before the main race where the racers try to set the fastest time. They are lined up in order of their qualifying time. | 680d8eac-3338-4e09-8a77-6c56c8dfe000 |
28wr8x | Why are Honda Civics so popular in the car modding community? | because they are popular generally. the car is incredibly reliable, the availability of parts is high - both scrap and off-the-shelf. If you're going to start making parts for a car-mod community you're already dealing with a subset of car owners, you don't want to make your market even smaller by picking an uncommon car. | c78066a4-d4b8-4df2-8ea6-18cced1cfb22 |
19frzm | Why is February only 28 days long? | Because a long time ago a group of people we will call Romans decided they needed to know how long between planting seasons. They made a calendar. On this calendar, they counted out ten months. To be fair to each of the months, they made them all equal of 30 days.
That made a 300 day year, which even a five year old knows is too short. The Romans got around this by not counting the sucky days of winter. The best part of this system was that you didn't have to take just one snow day in the winter, the entire winter was a snow day. The other good thing was that the year started on the first day of Spring. What better way to have a NYE party?
Eventually, some hard-working bureaucrat figured out that the year was a lot closer to 400 days than 300 and finally settled on 355 days for a year. Why 355? Because the Romans thought even numbers were unlucky and no one wanted an unlucky month. In order to make the 355 days of a year, he changed some months to 29 days and others to 31. That still meant that one month would have to have an even number.
Rather than add a day to a 29 day month, he figured he would shorten a new month he created. February got selected to be the last month of the year and the shortest month of the year. I am happy with that. I would have been happier if he decided February was only two weeks and added a few more days to June, but what can you do? | b19caad6-37f6-4dd8-9f5a-e2383b48c9bf |
jl0jb | A hangover, and why it can't be "cured"? | A hangover follows a night of heavy drinking. When you wake up the next day, you may feel like poopoo. This feeling is usually caused by a headache, fatigue (tiredness) and nausea (sickness at the stomach accompanied with vomiting).
**Headache:**
======
Alcohol dehydrates (removes water from) your body by causing your body to produce more peepee. This causes a drop in fluids in your brain which means your brain *shrinks*. Normally your brain is chilling snugly in your skull and you feel no discomfort. When you have a hangover, your brain no longer fits nicely in your skull. Imagine your brain rattling around - ouch! This is the main reason for your headache.
**Fatigue:**
=====
Alcohol is a poison to humans and drinking it harms your body. Your liver is your body's alcohol doctor, so alcohol is sent to him to be dealt with. Unfortunately, your liver also controls the levels of sugar in your blood and everybody knows Dr. Liver is terrible at multitasking. Every time he deals with alcohol he forgets about the sugar levels and they drop. Because your brain runs on sugar, this lack of fuel can cause fatigue, weakness and sensitivity to light and sound.
**Nausea:**
=====
Nausea comes from the way alcohol affects your stomach lining. Also, since alcohol is a poison, your body naturally wants to get rid of it. If it is in your stomach already, the only way to go is up and out.
**Cures:**
=====
The best cure for a hangover is to prevent it. I'm not going to lecture you and tell you *you shouldn't be drinking so much at the age of five* so I'll skip to other remedies. Drinking a lot of water before you sleep should prevent dehydration and dilute your stomach. If you wait till the next morning to re-hydrate, you'll already feel like poopoo! Eating a greasy meal in the morning can settle your stomach.
If by cure you mean a way to never have a hangover, you're out of luck. Unless you are the 25-30% of drinkers who do not get hangovers. | 17d95c4e-a8a6-4c10-97f3-d730e1f1c809 |
1xylnu | The arguments against GMO's | Diet in America has been going through fads in the past decades. The argument against GMOs is as much social and emotional as it is scientific. Most people don't read scientific journals, so their understanding of the issue comes from less objective or reliable sources. | b13e09f0-7574-46e0-812d-2cd8a54be3a3 |
2k53k7 | Why are most skyscrapers gray or blue and not other colors? | Well, skyscrapers are covered by glass on the outside. Glass is light, resistant and allows you to have great views. If the sky is blue, the building will look blue. If the sky is cloudy then it will look gray. Look at a skyscraper when the sunset is happening and it will reflect a different color.
Also there are other color of glasses like golden, blue or smoked or tainted to filter the sun light. ;) | bd20d877-6891-4fef-b117-275e1740cc94 |
1pkgxd | Why is debating another person so appealing? | Debating forces you to examine your own thoughts more closely. It challenges your mind. It's like sports, only better because it's your brain, not your muscle that wins or loses. | 732771cf-4537-4d01-b681-8778f9f017ac |
2n7lc7 | Where does Europe end? | Europe's Eastern border is usually drawn at the Ural River, the Ural Mountains, the Caucasus Mountains, the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.
Turkey is in both Europe and Asia - the western bank of the Bosphorus is in Europe, and the eastern bank is in Asia.
Western Russia is usually seen as being in Europe; again, the Ural Mountains in Russia generally mark the border with Asia. | d8ac8434-aa89-474a-854b-2cdc57632e62 |
7rqc48 | How do our bodies acclimate to hot/cold temperatures? | Our brains have a "thermostat" (this is one of the jobs of the hypothalamus) to maintain a constant body temperature. It controls heating/cooling functions like sweating, shivering, and keeping blood circulation closer to our core to conserve heat or circulating it to our extremities to cool off by dissipating heat. As other posters have mentioned, humans can generate some heat by increasing metabolism in specialized fat cells (brown adipose tissue), but it is not the main way we adult humans regulate our body temperature (part of the reason the paper u/Salted_One linked to is a big deal is that we didn't know adult humans used that mechanism until recently – we thought it was just lots of non-human animals and human infants).
This thermostat's set point can be changed. It's most obvious when you have a fever and shiver even though your temperature is high. | e3b6fdc4-4240-42a7-a689-8cd8b6acec77 |
36tm1e | Torrenting | Whether you are seeding or leeching, you do have to provide an IP address. You are communicating with someone over the internet, after all; you have to know where to send things, and when you send things, they have a return address.
You can be tracked either leeching or seeding, depending on who's doing the tracking (torrent-hunters can seed in the hopes that leechers will swarm to them). One way to get around this is to use a Virtual Private Network - whoever's looking for torrenters will find the VPN's IP address, not yours. | 52ff80a6-3b11-4ab1-9e92-53ee0c32c991 |
2gq012 | How does anesthesia work in the body and why is it sometimes fatal? | Most anesthesia in modern medicine is actually a combination of sedation (making you sleepy or putting you to sleep) and analgesia (relieving your pain), because most patients want to be asleep and pain-free during their surgery or procedure. Some may include a third group of medications, paralytics (make your skeletal muscles stop moving entirely), since it is often necessary for patients to be entirely still during surgical procedures, which even in a completely sedated patient usually requires paralysis. Patients who are paralyzed must be sedated (it would NOT be fun to be in a body that is paralyzed but totally awake and aware of what is happening, and capable of feeling pain).
Sedatives mostly work on GABA receptors in the brain. Activation of these receptors leads to inhibition of neurotransmission in the brain, via a series of ion channels causing less action potentials to be fired. Common sedatives include propofol and the benzodiazepines, both of which have specific binding sites on the GABA receptor.
Analgesics are a more varied group of medications. The ones used in anesthesia are usually intravenous opioids or synthetic opioid equivalents. Opioids bind to specific opioid receptors in the nervous system and other tissues, which stimulates a complex (_URL_0_) series of interweaving neural pathways involving the midbrain and cerebrum, causing decreased perception of pain in most people. We can pinpoint several of the tracts, receptors, and molecules involved in this process. The human perception of pain, though, is a much more complicated and difficult problem, as pain tolerance varies greatly, is sometimes modifiable by extrinsic factors, or can be complicated by tolerance or dependance. The most common opioids are fentanyl, hydromorphone, and morphine.
The dangers of anesthesia are all caused by the complex and sometimes unintended effects of the medications given. One logical complication of the sedative medications is that you eventually stop breathing, leading to hypoxic cardiac arrest (this is why you need to be intubated or have another form of airway management during deep sedation - it is also likely the cause of Michael Jackson's death, who overdosed on propofol, the most common sedative in modern anesthesia). Unfortunately, intubation is a procedure which also has risks - chipping a tooth, damaging the vocal cords, or, much worse, accidentally putting the tube in the esophagus instead of the trachea and thus effectively stopping you from breathing. Then, once the tube is in, you need to breath for the patient using a ventilator, which effectively blows a certain amount of air into the tube every few seconds. But make sure you don't screw up the ventilator settings - too much air or too much pressure can pop a hole in the lung, or too much oxygen or not enough oxygen can kill you, or breathing too quickly or not quickly enough can have all sorts of effects on your blood's pH and change how all the proteins in your blood work. You can see how all of this can build on itself, where each desired result yields another complication that must be accounted for. And we haven't even begun to discuss the surgeon on the other side of the curtain making the patient bleed all over the floor, or the fact that propofol (the most common sedative) also has a nasty habit of dropping a patient's blood pressure. All medications have unique side effects, and all medications have a risk of allergic reaction on administration. | 2562fda3-9474-4913-a227-a3ad87d6f91b |
5r6p6y | What's the difference between an LP, EP, single, etc. when talking about collections of music? | A single is generally one track.
An EP (Extended Play) is longer than a single, but shorter than an album. Usually once the runtime exceeds about 25 minutes, or four tracks, it becomes, technically at least, an album or LP (Long Play).
The difference between Album and LP generally is accepted to be that an Album means anything, CD, tape, vinyl, whereas LP usually means vinyl. | bac75ef2-1a97-4f27-b815-772a26faf09a |
1oeuc4 | How was the first computer program made if there was no program to make it in? | In the beginning, there was only the computer's language, we call it machine language and it's made purely of 0 and 1. On or off to be exact, since the computer users were setting switches to write a program. That was the first generation language (also known as 1GL).
But it was frustrating so with further technology development came the assembly language. It was actually some kind of exact translation of the machine language, but more programmer-friendly because you can actually read it. That was the second generation language (aka 2GL).
Assembly was still frustrating because it was you talking directly to the computer: you couldn't understand what the code does from a functional point of view. The computer barely made an effort to translate assembly code in machine code.
So with even more technology development came more advanced languages among which some are still in use today: for instance, Fortran, COBOL, and C. They didn't translate well into machine code and new software was developed for that purpose: compilers, and linkers. The computer had to put a lot more work to translate Fortran or COBOL or C code into machine code. On the pro side, people could read the code and have at least a basic understanding of what it did. Those languages are part of the third generation (aka 3GL). | a5bbde12-f272-45f0-bc96-3bd93d30e7f9 |
4p32gl | How do fetishes work? | There is no certainty that the dog peeing on you had *anything* to do with your fetish. I've had the unfortunate luck to be peed on by several pets as a child (Dog, Cat, and Hamster - the cat was the worst, if you're wondering), but I don't have a urine fetish.
The actual process of fetish-forming isn't exactly clear to science, mostly because it's one of those weird things that is hard to accurately study in a scientific way - there are so many variables to control that it borders on impossible. That said, there are a couple theories.
> **1. The brain-overlap theory.** The areas of your noodle that control your sexual body parts and impulses are located alongside areas that control other appendages and emotions, studies show. (The brain region that manages your genitalia is nestled against the region that manages your feet.) These adjacent brain regions can engage in crosstalk, or overlapping activity, shows research from V.S. Ramachandran, Ph.D., of the University of California, San Diego. And crosstalk between the foot and genital regions may explain why foot fetishes (and other infatuations with non-sexual body parts) are so common, Ramachandran suggests.
> **2. The Pavlovian theory.** Researchers in the 1960s showed a group of men images of naked women alongside images of boots, Lehmiller says. Eventually, the men became aroused by the images of boots all by themselves. This boot study suggests your brain is capable of forming sexual associations around random objects even if no arousal impulse was there to begin with, Lehmiller explains. So if you’re exposed to something repeatedly during times when you’re sexually aroused, your brain might come to link that object with sexual desire. “There’s also some research showing people with higher sex drives are more likely to have uncommon sex interests,” Lehmiller adds. Why? A super-charged sex drive leads to arousal in situations where sex with a partner isn’t possible. And because there’s no one around to get busy with, super randy people may unwittingly redirect their sexual energy toward whatever’s in the immediate vicinity, Lehmiller adds.
> **3. The gross-out theory.** “When you’re in a high state of sexual arousal, your disgust impulse weakens,” Lehmiller says. And so the things you’d normally find repulsive (feet, spit, feces) may not seem gross. “It’s almost like a heightened state of arousal changes your perception of the world,” Lehmiller adds. “And that changed perception might lead you to incorporate different things into your sexual acts.” If you enjoy that new source of sexual stimulation, you may want to repeat whatever it is, he explains.
> **4. The pain theory.** Research has shown sexual pleasure and pain involve the release of many of the same brain chemicals and neurotransmitters, such as endorphins and serotonin. These chemical ties may help form connections for some people that lead to an enjoyment of pain during sex. (This chemical commonality may also explain “runner’s high” and other euphoric sensations tied to physically painful sensations.)
Explanation 3 is most related to your case. Note that it doesn't mention childhood experience or trauma as being part of the process. Just like your inhibitions are lowered when you're drunk, they are also lowered when you're getting freaky. Everyone likes different things, and it might just be that you have a thing for urine - no significant childhood event necessary. It's nothing to be ashamed of or have to explain away. It's just a part of who you are.
[Source for quote](_URL_0_) | 1a842ac0-f728-46f8-8d6e-7657574e3ed3 |
4iez2j | How do Super Smash Bros professional competitions work? | You can check out r/smashbros for more information on tournaments and overall smash bros. news.
They're typically conducted with stocks instead of time, with pools to skim out the top players, then into a double elimination bracket. Most tournaments keep the sets as best of 3 games to win the set until the top 16 or 32 players are left, where it goes to best of 5.
If you want to see a tournament today, Dreamhack Austin has top eight of Super Smash Bros. Melee on later today at _URL_0_ I think. Not sure when it starts.
Edit: on now. | a5cc3437-b6a1-4d99-88d3-41878eb20a64 |
51tjl1 | How can large companies like Costco, Nordstrom, Sephora, etc. afford to have such generous return policies? | The more generous the return policy, the more likely people are to impulse buy.
While some take advantage of return policies often, most don't. Therefore you have net gain for the company. | 7a2f4cd5-dd8e-4b31-bccb-18cde75d506e |
nz2ww | How to use Reddit properly | Different subreddits operate by different rules. What it acceptable in one subreddit (r/ < somename > ) will probably not work in another.
So lurk for a while in the subreddit of your interest and you might get the feeling for what goes and what doesn't. | 6d0e3181-cea1-42c2-bd5f-45e548347ef7 |
23651d | Why I can't hear the American accents from movies and TV series, but can clearly hear it in real life. | Not sure what you mean, there are various American accents as well that are portrayed in movies. A guy from Texas isn't going to speak the same way as a guy from New York, and a guy from New York doesn't speak the same way as a guy from California. These accents are solidified in plenty of movies. | f5afe2b2-9ac0-4401-bb6e-7144a8c79710 |
2yg5fc | Why do the windows in airplanes never line up with the seats? | I imagine they did once, on one version of the plane but each airline will have their own seating configuration and also as safety rules change and maintenance work take place over the years the seats probably shift about. Just guessing tho. It is quite infuriating! | 614ff8d9-7987-4104-87db-3274a7e10c9e |
7dhtht | how do businesses get paid in China? Does the government take all the money they receive? | AFAIK their economy works like Capitalism but their government/laws run like Communism. Their system has evolved. I apologise if I am wrong. | d59f5173-7d3f-418c-94c3-740a5ff98ca2 |
2o74li | Why do cigarettes need to contain so many dangerous chemicals if it is the nicotine that keeps you buying them? | Seems that a lot of people here have missed the main point.
Cigarettes go out pretty easily. They add one chemical to keep it burning despite windy conditions, one to keep it from burning too quickly, another to keep it burning consistently and another to make sure that they don't burst into flames outright.
To the best of my knowledge, anyway.
Edit: terrible spelling | 10393fb6-e33e-45c6-bc92-625b8980beed |
23efbr | Why doesn't the surface of a pool of paint dry or crust up? | The solvent has to 'migrate' through the paint to escape into the air.
The surface can't dry til the solvent is practically all gone.
(Once it's mostly dry, the migration slows and the inside does
take longer to get completely dry.) | 771e0a8f-0827-4154-bf89-4cdb15d317cf |
1xjco2 | why have some famous people of Jewish ancestry anglicized their last names ( john Stewart, bob Dylan, Natalie portman, etc.)? | Many performers are concerned that if they seem too ethnic, they run the risk of being discriminated against and not getting some parts. Particularly when you're trying to break into showbusiness, it's important to take any good part you can get. Nowadays, discrimination is probably less of an issue than it was in the past, but for some people, it's not worth taking any chances. | a7a708ad-a265-4882-b5be-43047fdafc7f |
1xs6te | How some states can handle 1 ft+ of snow, while others will close roads, cancel work, etc. | Realistically, I would say there are five reasons.
1) Preparation: Cold weather climates put salt on the roads in advance of cold, wet weather like snow. This melts the first layer of snow, preventing it from forming an ice layer under the snow as the temperature drops.
2) Response: Cold weather places generally have a fleet of snowplows available and on standby. Chicago has about 300 full-time plows and another 400 trucks that can be fitted with plows for major storms. In addition, plows and other trucks will spread salt on major roads throughout the storm, and if the temperature is very low (too cold for salt), they will use sand instead to keep traction as high as possible. Wamer climates just don't prepare for this and generally don't have equipment available for this effort.
3) Climate: Warm weather places often have "freezing rain" to begin a snow storm. This lays down a sheet of ice under the snow, making it very slick. This is a bit of a cop out most of the time, but it is true in some cases.
4) Cars: In really snowy places like Montreal or Edmonton, almost everyone switches to snow tires in the winter, which doubles your traction on the ice and snow (especially with sand) and even improves handling on dry pavement in extreme cold (softer rubber). Many people in the south don't even have all-season tires and have summer tires on all the time. This, combined with a higher use of rear-drive cars makes for poor handling.
5) Drivers: In snowy weather, everyone knows how to handle themselves in snowy climates. People in the south really are pretty bad drivers on snow. I've been in Atlanta in a snow storm in conditions that I didn't find too bad (I'm from a cold place). And there were wrecked cars everywhere... It's not just the conditions. | 1aa5de36-51fb-495e-877c-3df40f311248 |
3qcwoc | . A popular blogger wrote, "if you factor in all of the costs and the externalities of private cars and translate them into the working hours it takes to pay for them, driving a car turns out to be slower than walking." If this true? | It's certainly *possible*, it would be almost impossible to say with certainty if it was true.
I've seen models that put the social costs of a gallon of gas at $15 and I've seen ones that put it at $300. Trying to come up with a good number means tracking a bunch of costs that are really diffuse, difficult to quantify, and which don't necessarily track in a nice linear way.
Even if you just look at CO2 emissions, it would be possible to look at this problem in a way that's 100% consistent with the best available science and conclude that the costs are anywhere from essentially nothing to essentially "infinity" depending on the assumptions built into your model.
Where someone is driving is also going to matter a hell of a lot too. A rancher in Montana who's driving 100 miles at 70 mph once a month to get groceries is both moving far faster and racking up far fewer social costs than someone who's covering 100 miles a month at 10mph in New York taxi cabs. | 318c7198-0d62-420f-9bf7-94719f90c2c9 |
4uh6uw | What happens to light particles when you point 2 lasers at each other? | Light can have two natures: the wave-like nature and the particle-like nature. If you consider light on "small" scales then you need to consider light as individual particles, or quanta, called photons.
Unlike other common particles, such as electrons, protons, neutrons and others, which are called fermions, photons are considered bosons. The nature of fermions and bosons is quite complex, but the main principle is how differently they behave due to a fundamental rule in quantum physics called the Pauli exclusion principle. It states that no two fermions may be in the same quantum state. This means that there cannot be, for example, 5 fermions in the same point of space at the same time (which easily understable - you can't fall through the Earth you are standing on).
However Pauli exclusion principle says nothing about bosons, which means that there is no restriction how many photons there can be in a single point. So in short, individual photons do not interact with each other in any way.
At very high energy densities there might be an indirect interaction, through electron and antielectron(positron) pairs, but that's quantum field theory, so I'm not exactly sure. | e3c419de-1a27-4659-97a9-7b7206d6baec |
1qih4h | Why don't they give brain scans to detect mental illnesses? | If it was possible to diagnose mental problems that way, that would be a good idea. But most problems are caused by things too subtle to be seen on an MRI. Hormones, for instance, or other chemical imbalances. | 4359e05f-bc41-401e-95e4-bd23b30a2d03 |
33ad18 | Does the president or other heads of state have to clear customs the same way normal people do when visiting a country? | No, as high-ranking officials of another government, they're covered by special diplomatic rules that allow them to dispense with that sort of stuff. | bde27fac-7d72-4cc4-adce-d5ab9b82d47a |
5sc92d | When selling stock in the US, why is there such a capital gains taxation disparity between short-term and long-term holdings? | day trading is akin to income, you do it with a hope of actively earning money.
long term holdings are considered passive investments.
commissions are not the govts concern. Promoting safe and responsible investing is beneficial for investors and companies, which is the govts concern. | 046fe5c5-7421-4caf-a873-c08340b5436a |
6sbbgd | why humans can grow adult teeth, and knee caps, as well as repair broken/fractured bones, but can't regrow them if they get removed? | Both teeth and knee caps are things that we are born with. Specifically, if you didn't know, we are actually born with all our adult teeth. When they "grow" in they're actually just shifting out from their little storage zones in our skulls - there are plenty of kinda spooky pics on google showing both baby and adult teeth in xrays/skulls (RIP) of kids.
Basically, the simple ELI5 answer is that the various parts of our bodies have the instructions for growing them stored in their genes. So our fingers know how to grow more finger-meat, our leg bones know how to grow more leg-bone, etc. But if the entire thing is removed, then the instructions are gone. So our body can't figure out how to grow it back. | 22cdf7b5-e1c4-409e-9050-545fcd557c51 |
7dynou | Why do we get those weird wrinkles/lines on our faces or body after sleeping? | The skin was pressed against a fold or wrinkle of fabric which created a lump, which in turn caused a temporary indentation in your skin. This happens after sleeping because you don't move for a long time, but could just as easily occur while awake if you didn't move. | c113fcfd-359a-442b-b9bf-7255b34237cf |
1p0oiu | How did Western European countries end up colonizing the world, instead of some other civilization? | Short answer. Geography
Long answer. Go watch guns, germs & steel
The basic premise is that because of Europeans ability to grow a large variety of low effort high calorie foods in their temperate climate they gained an advantage over other civilizations | 229caa33-2234-4be7-8110-27be84573f5a |
4cw6r7 | How do the balance sheet and income statement work together | Assets - Liabilities = Capital + Income - Expense. In your example above this would create a balanced entry. | cfa14781-0c8e-406a-a8f3-ff6aeca0459c |
2dc7hi | Why do we grunt when we push/lift/pull heavy objects? | * Because our core instinctively tenses up to support our lower back, and air is squished out of us
* Grunting actually tenses up your core more, forming a symbiotic grunt-squish relationship.
* To assert our dominance over a heavy inanimate object to anyone within earshot. | 85ab372a-0a22-42f0-b87c-bf57f1e77675 |
3lu16d | What do internet service providers actually have to pay for when supplying you internet? | There are a lot more costs than you imagine.
First of, laying down the infrastructure is not really a once-in-a-lifetime cost. The initial investment is the highest yes, but over time, there will also be general maintenance costs and costs due to damage.
Then as for personnel, an organisation like that will have more than just technical support staff. There is going to be a technical support team (usually two tiers). Then there will be a separate division for business, one for sales, one for billing, one for customer relations (and sometimes others as well). All of those teams need supervisors. Then there is internal IT personnel, maintenance and cleaning staff, marketing and advertising staff, human resources staff, payroll staff, accounting staff, a whole bunch of managers to make thing run smoothly (supposedly), a board of directors and a CEO.
Then you get costs related to the rent and upkeep of the buildings they have where all their staff works. Costs related to maintaining internal IT structures and upgrading those when necessary. (very important if there is a help desk, cause the people who man the phones can't do shit without their computers). Of course, a company like this will also have a fleet of maintenance vans, so there is costs in that as well, in terms of gas, insurance and upkeep.
Then there are going to be marketing and advertising costs. As in, the costs they make to get commercials on TV/on the radio/in magazines.
Plus costs of any potential expansions. Even if they don't expand, they often do do research into it (to see if it is an interesting market for them to enter or not) which can also have additional costs.
This is just a really rough overview of the kind of costs a big company is going to have (and I am probably leaving out loads). A lot of those costs might not look directly related to getting internet to your home, but they are still going to be vital for the running of the business and therefore cannot be discounted. | 6dc80288-a136-4e47-8b26-a4ead8681817 |
36zozn | Whats stopping billionaires from starting up there own micro-nations to act as tax havens? | The fact that there is no land, anywhere on Earth, that isn't claimed by another country or reserved by international treaty.
So, really, the only way to start a country is by force of arms. | 5947cb62-8fc5-4cef-a17e-94e6aff83179 |
6zhtc5 | What causes ingrown hairs? (Specifically on the scalp) | A bump on your head with hair trapped in happens when the sharp edges of the hair grow downwards or sideways back cutting into the skin of the hair follicle.
A hair can be ingrown in two different broad categories. You may have ingrown hair that grows straight out of the hair follicle then it curls back growing sideways piercing the skin of scalp also known as extrafollicular penetration. The other second way you develop ingrown hair is by the hair growing underneath trapped in the skin or what is known as transfollicular penetration. | b192e20f-4dbc-4661-9b18-5ea95d051fa3 |
8he7vr | Why does grease on my hands take so much more effect to take off compared to say getting some on my legs | Pure speculation, but I imagine it’s because the deep grooves and wrinkles in your palms trap and maintain grease more easily than your smoother, less tough skin in say your thigh or calf area. | 769ed401-de3d-4ac4-b650-98f2e1070f11 |
2ejhfc | What is a Solid State Drive (SSD), and why should I use it on my computer? | SSDs are getting cheaper per GB and getting larger. I use a 256GB SSD because I don't need to store all that much data at one time. I'm not a pack-rat like some.
An SSD is a hard drive with no moving parts. This cuts out the slowest part of the read/write operations on conventional hard drives which is moving the read/write head to the correct part of the disk.
It's effectively just a much faster, if currently lower-capacity, means of storing data in bulk.
You can set up a small SSD to just hold the OS so it can boot much faster, or you can put everything on it as I do.
There are also some setups in which a conventional hard disk is used for most storage but data accessed the most is cached in an SSD. | d9e194cc-2045-41e7-9b29-7bed36c5ebc9 |
2npmge | Why do I become suddenly weak when I laugh? | Most likely because when you are genuinely laughing, you're relaxed. You are also exhaling a lot of air which means your body isn't quite getting the oxygen it needs.
Edit: A word | 3db0c561-788d-4eff-a862-4f7d479fd1bf |
48p5ip | Why does does AM radio sound infinitely worse than FM? | AM has one big flaw, the audio signal is coded into the signal strength (or amplitude - > the A in AM). The signal strength changes just like the audio signal, that makes it very easy to receive the signal. You can almost plug a Antenna into a speaker and it works. It's a very simple and intuitive, you take the signal strength of a audio signal and send it as the signal strength of an electromagnetic wave.
But there's lots of things in the world that can change the signal strength, all things that happen with waves: reflection, refraction, dispersion, interference. But there's more very easy things like a truck driving through, or just moving away from the sender will make the signal weaker. All those things have horrible effects on AM Radio. Because that truck that just drove by your window affects the signal in a way that gets translated to sound.
To solve this problem FM Radio doesn't use the signal strength to transmit the audio signal it uses the frequency. In simple words if the audio signal becomes louder (goes up), the frequency goes up. And unlike the Amplitude there's not many effects that change the frequency of a electromagnetic wave. There's the doppler effect, but as long as you don't move around or at a almost constant speed that's not a big problem.
Let's say a truck drives between sender and receiver, it blocks parts of the signal and your receive a weaker signal. With AM you can hear that change, because the signal strength gets translated into speaker movement. With FM you can't hear that change because the Frequency isn't affected by the amplitude change. | be997ac2-0f89-4305-85fd-420ed973622e |
5kz4jh | Why does grunting, groaning or generally making little noises when you are in pain help the pain level go down? | your brain can only take a certain amount of input, and can only focus on so much at a time. By vocalizing, you're focusing your brainpower on an output and a feeling other than the massive pain input that your brain wants to focus on.
Another method that's been proven to work are things like virtual reality sims where someone can explore a complex area and focus on that experience. | 1ae2e941-634a-4720-8f5e-f908d34b4bfa |
64ipop | Why do different drugs have different dosages? | Because they have different effectiveness. Like booze / alcoholic drink for example.
Beers in average has **3-10 %** alcohol content while Vodka has around **40%**. When drinking a bottle of beer, you won't get drunk as much as if you drink a bottle of vodka. *CMIIW.* | 1870dd54-06af-4afc-92b3-3b7c58471d8a |
2xlbzs | How does the draft work in NASCAR? And how come they can sling shot around another car? | When a car goes very fast, the air in front of the car is compresed and the air behind the car get stretched out. The high pressure air in front of the car pushes the car back. The low pressure air behind the car also pulls the car back. My fancy diagram: ++ [ < --] --
When a second car is following the first car the air between the cars is "medium pressure" so it doesn't slow down either car as much as normal. Diagram: ++ [ < --] med [ < --] --
While both cars benefit, the second car does get more of a benefit than the first car. So with both cars going the same speed, if the first car is using 100% engine power, the rear car only has to use say 95% engine power. When the driver of the second car wants to, he can use the full engine power to go just a little bit faster than the lead car. Once the second car is going faster, he can dart out from behind the lead car, now all drafting advantages are lost and the second car is going a little faster and can "slingshot" around the lead car. | 29acec24-7da4-4bcc-aa04-655eda0ec9e7 |
4fqp5o | what will happen if a number of infants are isolated? | FWIW, the Nazis tried this to discover the "original" language of humans. Obviously no reasonable entity would try this for ethical reasons.
The speed at which they would develop a language, if they did, is also very important. There have been several cases of feral, non-speaking children who could learn to function in society to various degrees, though could never master language since they didn't learn it at the appropriate stage of development.
Another random point (none of which are answering the question, my apologies) is that the human brain is naturally equipped to understand and use speech, though there is no such innate skill in regards to reading. The ability for these children to understand writing systems (much less create their own) would be significantly harder than speech (beyond the use of pictograms, that is). | 7f67bf68-8e03-471b-87f2-b4f6fa0f1a6a |
2g8d1v | Affidavit of Truth | It's bullshit that a far-right Christian Identity guy came up with. It will not work to prevent your getting a ticket. If you refuse to recognize the authority of the government, they will just throw you in jail (assuming you commit crimes). | d0878f56-ebca-41bb-97b1-a61b35f800a6 |
3bkbwo | Why were most of the more well-known fighting styles (i.e Kung Fu, Karate, Judo, Aikido, Muay Thai, Sambo, Tae Kwon Do) all from Asia? Were there many styles of fighting that Europeans developed? | Boxing, wrestling, fencing, and jousting are examples of western martial arts that are very well known.
In the 1800s, when Europe had increased trade with Asia, the Asian styles became popular in the West because they were more exotic.
There are many more less well-known [Historic European Martial Arts](_URL_0_) that are currently going through a bit of a revival. | 3889e1ea-d5da-43b5-8db5-c12e8f8ff31e |
3pnsp4 | How do labs figure out how many calories are in food? | Not positive, but I always thought they burned it and measures the heat given off by it. Calories are a unit of energy, which would be converted to thermal energy when burned, so I assume there is some correlation there | 7d055974-420e-4f5c-9cf7-e1e8695c1956 |
277lcc | Confederate heritage | It is, and it isn't. The confederates were strongly opposed to the emerging "tyranny" of the federal government and what they saw as the trouncing of individual state's rights by the federal government. The reason it still rings true today is that state's rights are still a big issue for the right and there is some admiration for those in the past who stood up strongly to the federal governments encroachment on what they regard as constitutional freedoms and state self-determination.
Now...I think it's a bit revisionist to NOT believe that the states rights issue was - at the time - entirely bound to the slavery issue. Here's a relevant quote from confederate declaration in south carolina:
"These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.
We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection. "
Needless to say, in the original texts there wasn't a well articulated distinction between states rights and states-rights-for-slaves. There is strong reference to constitution and it's laws about property and states rights and one can imagine in this time period that these were more salient than they are today.
I believe what we're seeing is a (continued) disenfranchisement of people in the south - the states of the old confederacy are basically screwed in our society (class, education, social mobility..you name it). I believe this has led to a bit of a revisionist version of the confederate story that de-emphasizes the role of slavery in the confederacy in exchange for a spotlight on the tyranny of the federal government and "non-slave states" as a partial explanation for what is a demonstrable difference between the quality of life between the regions. Needless to say this is full of gross generalizations and I've already gone way beyond ELI5 I think! Happy to discuss more details as the discussion unfolds! | b7503880-8c81-4c8f-84aa-33eb54e8f0cf |
6m480b | Why did the Greeks not just climb Mount Olympus to see what was up? | Imagine you are a Greek. You ignore the warnings from the priests telling you how the gods will strike you down, and decide to climb the 10,00 foot mountain anyways. Well, once you get to a certain point, the air thins out. It becomes cold, even downright freezing, and all of the trees have vanished. At that point, you would probably turn back, taking it as a sign that you shouldn't be there. Even if you didn't, with no climbing equipment, and no trails set up, you would likely fall to your death, get stuck and starve, or just succumb to the elements. | d818d087-742f-4ed4-a6ca-c4fefecf82ee |
6clazt | Without meaning to be disrespectful. What stops someone with social interaction conditions (such as Asperger's and other such ASD'S) from emulating what is considered normal human interaction, even though it may be foreign or unnatural to them? (Or alternatively is it possible, just unusual). | Conditions like Asperger's, or mental health issues like bi-polar disorder, or conditions like borderline personality disorder affect a person's perception of, understanding of, and interaction with, the reality around them. These conditions have biological bases which strongly affect how the person reacts to those around them.
Asking someone who has any of these or other related conditions to emulate what is considered normal social action within their society is like asking a hearing-impaired person to emulate excellent hearing, or a person with very poor eyesight to emulate perfect sight.
The penalties for acting outside the norm are very high. If these folks could "emulate" behaviors that would make them fit in, most of them would. | 1beb45ab-c07e-420f-8556-dcd70aeb87b9 |
5iaacy | can you be tracked online if using prepaid cell phone sim cards? How? Is this a truly secure anonymous internet? | SIM cards on their own cannot be tracked but once inserted in a phone it can be tracked through the SIM's serial number and the phone's IMEI number. These details are automatically sent to the nearest network tower.
GSM phones can be located using the signal information pretty accurately without even GPS.
Each phone has a unique IMEI number so you'll have to use new phone for each SIM for complete anonymity.
To answer the second part of your question- it is very hard to get complete anonymity online though using VPN's or the Tor browser help you in that to a large extent.
Please ask if you need any further clarification | e3f0dd30-e249-4091-97b8-28968aaf74f5 |
5k7h1c | How were the 32bit Windows 2000 Advanced Server and Datacenter Server OSes able to support more than 4 GB RAM? | I don't know the innards of those survive Windows versions but I know how it's usually done, because I've designed and built hardware with 16 and 32 bit CPUs that support way more memory than their address bus allows.
The problem is that the CPU needs a way to say which byte of memory to read, and on a 32 bit CPU that is limited to 2\^32 addresses which is 4GB.
The answer to this is to use paging, which is where a chunk of the address space can be pointed at any one of a large number of other blobs (pages) of memory outside that 4GB range. The CPU specifies which of these extra chunks it should be pointed at by setting a specific page 'number' in a given register.
As far as the programme is concerned it is reading the same address within its 4GB range as before, but what it actually sees will depend on the paging register.
I assume the Windows versions you mention were built specifically to support a software paging technique. | 33b6dba6-1cbf-4fa7-9f80-5154797a17e2 |
1fazkv | what is actually happening to an app on my phone when I update it? Does the file get deleted and then the entire new app downloaded? | An app is made up of dozens of individual code files that each accomplish one part of the larger task. When the developer makes changes to the app, not all of those files will have changed.
When it's packaged for an update, only those changed files included, so it's only them that are downloaded by your phone and merged back into the app. This is why the initial download of the app tends to be much larger than the size of each update. | 453b44ee-a923-4390-8451-0cf17c04707c |
2pxyii | Why is customer support always so bad? | A lot of the problem boils down to the fact that customer service reps are treated like shit by everyone they interact with.
Customers only call is when they are already unhappy. Even before the menus and waiting, the customer is in a bad mood, and will take out all of their frustration on the first person that answers. A friend of mine was doing billing support for a company, and she took an hour long call where a customer constantly berated her for being a "racist bitch" because she couldn't refund him for something he bought. Hanging up or escalating the call to a supervisor would have lost her her job.
Management tends to hate call centers. They are a huge cost to the bottom line, customers hate them, and no better system exists to help customers. Upper management does everything in their power to make call center work suck. Shitty pay, zero tolerance policies, outdated and worthless software, constant upsells, etc... | 8fc8a7da-b12e-4b2b-b69a-e0533557a22e |
5ze9d5 | Why are heavier elements found together in the same location? | When the Earth was much hotter, and everything was much more liquid, things could flow a lot easier. Just like putting oil in water, these molten metals and minerals will tend to separate out due to their different densities. They then cool and solidify, and billions of years later humans find them in clusters. Elements/compounds with similar densities may be found close together for this reason.
Other compounds might also be characteristically found together because one is a reaction product of the other, or they are both products of the same reaction, which occur naturally in nature. An example would be oil and natural gas.
Geology and planetary science isn't my speciality though, so there are likely more complex factors at play than just these. | 5084ff3b-a4ef-4043-b9ac-4a80e7850308 |
1k4ha0 | How is blowing on food supposed to cool it down? | The technical term is "forced convection." Basically, you are pushing comparatively cool air over your food, absorbing some of its heat. The warmed air is continuously being pushed away by cooler air, so the process can continue. This cools it down much faster than just leaving it alone ("free convection"). | 3c8d95ff-f81c-48c4-a834-5b09c724238e |
6j7c12 | Why are 99% of ads which are supposed to be funny so unfunny? Surely multi-billion dollar companies could afford comedic ad writers? | They get group tested to hell and back, scrutinized backwards and forwards to eliminate any possible offense, to fit specific demographics, to fit in allotted time,etc.
Small companies generally do better at this, as they just go with the initial idea (saw a Bigfoot themed ad for a mattress protector that was funnier than the video it was before) | 56acd7d4-8df9-4e42-82c6-6dacb837c0ea |
1jw3gy | How Google can make so much money of ads and how they have more money than the brands they advertise combined | The awesome thing about advertising with google is that you can target your ads so precisely. Let's say I google: Chocolate Protein. Ok, there are probably HUNDREDS of companies that sell protein. Maybe only a few of them advertise with google. Google will give me every result for chocolate protein ON THE INTERNET(that's a lot) but, those few companies that advertise will be there on the side and at the top. That's what they pay big money for. Now imagine all those keywords people put into google: gym, lifting, weights, protein, whey, reps, sets, creatine, casein, pre-workout, shaker cup, supplement, i could go on and on and on, just for gym stuff alone! As an advertiser you can pick out what words you want to associate with your product, and that's what makes google so special. It also doesn't hurt that it's the biggest search engine out there.
Now, how do they follow you? By using the same keywords you search for. If you search for spark-plugs one day, and oil the next, and a new battery the next, google can probably single you out as someone fixing their car, and advertise car parts specifically to you. | dcaacf2e-9a93-4e2f-84b0-6433c975b05a |
2ekhe4 | How can rockstars like Keith Richards and Ozzy Osbourne do so many hard drugs and consume so much alcohol over their lifetimes, yet still live into old age? | You have picked two people who are MASSIVE statistical outliers. Even science is fairly confused by their survival. I believe they were studying Mr. Richards to understand how he's still breathing. | 64e95f7c-9e8d-4f92-a60a-584542eb0532 |
6ge7cp | How are humans the only species to have a higher consciousness? | You are assuming a lot of things about consciousness . First by saying "higher" you assume that it's not binary. Secondly you assume that other animals isn't as conscious as you, even though I'm pretty sure a cat is more "present" than you, and I think a cat have a larger understanding of the "now" than people do. So to answer your question you have to define consciousness, and then you realize that the only way to define it is by using it . | 133f8173-b079-4fb0-9205-59c4c2da4bdc |
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