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46c90j | Why do certain chicken eggs come out different colors (white, brown, turquoise, etc)? | "Having a mixed flock of different coloured eggers is wonderful. Most eggs are white, the addition of browns is from a layer of porphyrin, which is from broken down hemoglobin/blood and applied as a 'paint' during the last few hours of laying. Brownyness is controlled by over a dozen genes so you often get a lot of variation in levels of 'paint' between individuals and the amount of paint can vary between seasons.
You often hear that blue eggs are from oocyanin 'a byproduct of bile' but I haven't heard much about the process involved in the deposition of these pigments into the eggshell.
Greens are brown paints over blue base shells, all pretty fun.
Forgotten though which breeds do which eggs, I am a bad biologist."-exxocet with 563 points at the time. | cb864c7c-5139-437a-ba49-bd36c37f3973 |
7ftzoq | How does Germany not have a crazy high rate of alcoholism and related crime when it has relaxed liquor laws? | People who are happy and secure generally don't drink to excess, or when they do, don't commit crimes. Germany has a strong economy, a strong social safety net, widely available substance abuse treatment, and a rather effective police and judiciary.
As various attempts at alcohol prohibition worldwide have proved, people will always get alcohol if they want it. It's a simple chemical any idiot can make at home. The way to reduce alcohol-related crime and health problems is to attack the things that cause problem drinking. Namely insecurity, anxiety, and untreated mental/psychological disorders. | d833bf00-3399-4469-985b-4f3c94392338 |
446g8h | How can a third-party candy company sell the actual name brand candy under their own third-party name? | SwedishFishCompany has capacity to make 100,000 Swedish Fish per day.
SwedishFishCompany only sells 90,000 SwedishFish per day.
SwedishFishCompany has a choice. Slow down production by 10,000 per day, or sell the extra to another company at a reduced rate.
SwedishfishComany chooses to keep it's workers employed and work at full capacity, so they sell the extra to Kelly for her to package as her own. | 1066b2be-f0e8-4739-93cf-d0874c7011fd |
jr59g | Why does America (or any country) have a fiscal deficit? | Actually it pretty much is simply to avoid inflation. Assuming you know how inflation works, look at what happened in Germany after WWI. They owed a lot of countries a lot of money, and instead of paying back that debt over many years, which most countries do, they decided to just print money in order pay back the other countries. Although they were able to pay of the other countries, neither side was better off: the Germans now had a currency that couldn't buy anything, and the other countries, who were counting on the money they got from Germany, were left with the same worthless money. This is an extreme case, but it still shows why you can't just print money to pay off debt. | e60d21b6-9624-474c-bb5c-d8d50e7f102d |
sj4pm | I want to understand Image Macros | I need somebody to ELI5 that question for me. | 51cfb516-a219-461f-92bc-5a3351e0782b |
5sdl3r | Why is it so difficult to create accurate hot-cold water controls for toilet use? | The range that you find 'ideal' is relatively narrow compared to the range of temperatures delivered by your hot and cold water pipes. Temperature sensors lag actual temperature by a noticeable amount. Hydraulic systems react to slowly to mechanical changes. Changes in temperature cause changes in pressure that can impact your hot/cold mix.
This combines to create an engineering problem where it's nearly impossible to create a stable control system for use in a consumer environment. If the temperature in the pipes shift, your system probably doesn't notice for 2-3 secs and then spends the next 6-7 sec oscillating towards a compensated value - at which point something changes again and you're back in that loop.
If you wanted to create a hot-cold water control that worked the way you want, you have to start with water that is precisely controlled for temperature/pressure so that it always delivers the same amount at the shower head. That eliminates the need for a feedback loop with temperature/pressure sensors and you'd simply be able to dial in a temperature and keep it there.
Obviously, they can do this in industry. But for your average consumer, redoing the plumbing in their house to accommodate such precision doesn't have enough value-add over simply using mechanical controls to vary the hot/cold mix manually. | f23f11b8-62fb-4865-a472-8fce7bf19cbc |
25ke9y | what is the time frame for the negative impacts of climate change if we don't change anything? | I should start off by saying that, despite how politicized climate change has become (especially in the US), it is, in actual fact, a verifiable phenomenon that we are almost certainly causing.
Going by the recently-released [US National Climate Assessment](_URL_0_), climate change has effectively already begun to occur. Going by the linked site, you and I in the Northeast US and Southeast Canada can expect flooding (Temporary or permanent), extreme weather (ranging from heat waves to torrential rain), and increased occurrence or dangerous storms such as hurricanes, tornadoes, etc. These things have already started to happen and will merely get worse if we don't do something to prevent it.
Now, I don't mean to sound alarmist, but to be quite frank we, not only as countries or people, but as a species, need to do something major about this as soon as possible, or there will be massive consequences for our own survivability and the environment.
Edit: Spelling. | 1e4d93be-24bb-468f-8d30-614de8e2dabe |
28yqxm | How come westerners are lead to believe that it's very dangerous to eat raw or pink chicken, while raw and pink chicken breast meat is a common dish in Japan, and yet the Japanese doesn't seem to get sick by it? | You have to prepare the meat properly:
_URL_0_
> You can prepare chicken in such a way that will kill off disease while leaving the flesh cold and uncooked. In Japan, this is called “toriwasa”. The idea is to cook all the of outward facing meat fibers to kill of disease that may have made contact. Since these diseases don’t penetrate into the flesh, deep frying or poaching for just a few minutes will kill off disease. | c14625a5-efa7-4240-b2c6-a1966fa8f7e3 |
2l7c2k | Why don't people seeking physician-assisted suicide just overdose on their regularly prescribed pain medication? | I think you're missing the point. Any one can kill themselves any number of ways. The only limit to the number of ways you can off yourself is your imagination. What is up for debate here is whether a person has the right to kill themselves by being assisted by a physician. A physician can give a cocktail of drugs that will make the suicide both quick and painless, while providing the oversight that makes sure both of those conditions happen. | 59e45c23-68fe-4f3c-ac73-2ad2e0ad9c01 |
3g66ta | What were the evolutionary benefits (if any) to humans enjoying certain "music" or having some sounds appeal to them. | You're assuming that the enjoyment of music is the purpose of an evolutionary advantageous skill, but it's actually probably just one (of many) applications of an evolutionary advantageous skill. The skill is *pattern recognition*. Early agriculture was made possible by our ability to recognize (seasonal) patterns. Our ability to hunt specific species is dependent upon our ability to recognize a pattern of behaviour. Our ability to learn to read and speak a language is dependent on our ability to recognize patterns. etc.
Bear in mind evolution *doesn't* fine-tune organisms and traits for specific needs and purposes, and oftentimes certain evolutionary traits are favoured because they are advantageous in specific situations but can be useless or downright ridiculous in other situations. | 142acb41-487f-4a42-825a-7ee34f745a05 |
3eooh1 | Why the OJ Simpson case was such a big deal? | It was a big deal because it was obvious that he murdered his wife and his wife's friend. Anyone who followed the trial could see that fact clearly. The fact that he was acquitted does not assuage his guilt. | 5cbd59b3-2167-4fb7-851d-0f9b030a32bb |
4drdok | Why the population of Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and China so high compared to other nataions in this world | Rice, rice, baby.
Of grains available to the pre-industrial world, rice yields the most calories per acre of land. At the same time, it is labor intensive, and requires more people to farm it.
You wind up with a staple that both supports and requires more people, and that leads to a higher population density. | 14350c5f-ddd6-432c-a303-4c651d54a0cc |
29rpp5 | Why do most people get nauseous when reading in the car? | It is generally caused by a discrepancy between the motion being reported by your inner ear and the motion observed by your eyes.
As the car moves, your inner ear is constantly aware of the movement. Whilst reading, your eyes are mostly seeing a static image, the book. The fact that the two don't add up and give similar feedback causes the brain to assume there is a problem, potentially due to something you have eaten, which can lead to it deciding that emptying your stomach is the safest option overall so as to prevent possible poisoning | 66eecb7f-b393-4ffc-befa-9041f2da37c2 |
4jnswf | Why does drinking alcohol "burn," and what makes some liquors "smoother" than others? | From Google:
Alcohol, especially in high concentrations, will irritate the oral mucosa (we don’t like saying it as much as you don’t like reading it, but it’s just the mucous membrane lining the inside of your mouth). That irritation can come across as a burning sensation, the same kind of thing that happens with capsaicin (found in varying concentrations in hot, and very hot, peppers).
Alcohol’s also a solvent, absorbing some of the moisture from that (sorry) mucosa and causing a drying sensation that can also present itself as a burning feeling. But that only covers the mouth and throat—the heat that spikes the roof of your mouth and back of your gullet as some bourbon slips down into the esophagus. What about the warm feeling that (temporarily) graces your stomach once the alcohol makes its way down? That has to do with blood vessel dilation. Alcohol, in moderation, can dilate blood vessels (and, in overconsumption, can cause those blood vessels to dilate permanently, i.e., hello spider veins). Dilated blood vessels impart a temporary feeling of warmth.
And from another ELI5:
When spirits are distilled, the liquid comes out in 3 parts, heads first, then the heart, then the tails. The heads and tails contain lots of nasty things such as fusel oils. The best spirits / top shelf producers only take a small part of the heart which contains the cleanest spirit. This means less hangover/bad shit in your body. The quality of the raw ingredients and distillation equipment/methods also contribute significantly to the end products quality.
Also, if a spirit is aged for a long time in wooden barrels, this process rounds off the harshness that may be found in unaged spirits. This also imparts some of the qualities of the wood such as vanilla flavours/woodiness. It can also however add hangover-causing congeners due to the chemical relationship between wood and alcohol. | fbe51918-5267-4919-baf3-6bf82571c5ae |
210p9a | How much advertising actually helps. If a big name company (let's say Coca Cola) was somehow forgotten by everyone overnight, how long would it take to return to its current level of success (with its current advertising budget)? | Since we're speculating here, I'd imagine it'd be between 5-10 years (given its current advertising budget).
However, with the mound of cash they're sitting on, their best course of action would be to flood every outlet with their name (spending what I'd imagine would be 10x their current budget) so that all we'd see everywhere we go is their name. In that scenario, 1-2 years. It's surprising what money can buy, even just through online advertising.
**tl;dr** Current budget: 5-10 years. Their budget is to 'keep up' the Coke name. They'd need to spend significantly more to 'recreate' their brand. | 7ebfb35e-f30a-4d40-a82c-8b79c7f15d05 |
7ismnr | does plugging my ears with earplugs do any damage to my ears? | No, soft foam earplugs can cause no damage unless you leave them in for days at a time or somehow manage to stick them in far enough to hit your eardrum. This should be next to impossible though. | e71495a6-078f-4171-9595-02d3fac1a5cb |
30s0av | Why is there so much tension over this Iran nuclear deal? | Because this is the defining moment, before the Space Jew Lizard Reptillian Illuminati Communist Marxist Soviet army invades and sets the world as the Empire of Israelistan.
But really though, lots of people believe that if Israel is not satisfied with the results, they may strike Iran, starting World War III. | 1650931b-9d71-4bb0-8050-89ef7a98338a |
51dszi | Stress-Strain Relationship | When you pull on a spring with some force *F*, its length changes by some value *x*. The spring constant *k* tells us the stiffness of the spring, so if you know the force you can get the change in length and vice versa. The equation is like this: *F = kx* .
The notion of stress and strain is this same concept with a slightly different representation. Instead of a force, you have a force per area (stress, *σ*). Instead of a change in length, you have a change in length relative to some reference length (strain, *ε*). And instead of a spring constant, you have Young's modulus, *E*. But it's the exact same idea. Imagine instead of a spring, you have a rod. If you apply a certain amount of stress by pulling on the rod, you can use Young's modulus to figure out how much it will strain. The equation looks like this: *σ = Eε* .
Things get more complicated when you consider stress and strain in more than one dimension, but it's still the same general concept. You push or pull on the material, and it deforms based on how stiff it is. It also gets more complicated when you consider plastic deformation (i.e. the material doesn't entirely go back to its original shape when the stress is removed), microstructural changes, viscoelastic materials, damage modeling, etc. | 68666dbc-093b-4d43-8d7f-310671342fb3 |
5kqhlw | why is pointing at something considered rude? | Cultural norms vary, but as I understand it, pointing at "things" isn't rude and is often necessary to communicate clearly.
However many people consider pointing at another person aggressive (accusatory) and therefore rude if the situation doesn't warrant an aggressive reaction.
It may also be considered rude if you point in response to a question or statement (without any other responds) but in those cases it's the lack of verbal response that's actually the rude action. If someone asks you a question you are expected to verbally respond in kind so silence often offensive. | 631e06d8-9fa4-4444-b020-9139a61a4628 |
45fgs9 | Why does restaurant ranch dressing taste so much better and crazily different than store-bought bottled ranch? | ranch dressing requires mayo and buttermilk. You can get the may to stay good for a long time on the shelf, but they cant put milk in there. | b3399205-eba9-4a20-8019-f98630c2f3ad |
3s2698 | Chemotherapy pronunciation | Either pronunciation is okay.
che·mo·ther·a·py
ˌkēmōˈTHerəpē,ˌkemōˈTHerəpē/Submit
noun
noun: chemotherapy
the treatment of disease by the use of chemical substances, especially the treatment of cancer by cytotoxic and other drugs. | 5f25c2ac-0272-4fb9-b461-4e7945c48545 |
1cirmh | How does a heat seeking missile work? | First attempt at ELI5. an aircraft engine and fuselage all generate heat. This radiates away from the aircraft in the Infra Red spectrum of light. Humans obviously cannot see this mostly, but IR cameras can. By using some smart tech to determine shape and the front or rear of an aircraft by interpreting an infra red picture captured by the IR camera in the nose of the missile, the missile adjusts its path to hit the source of the IR energy. Thus flares counter these missiles by blinding and seducing the missile with a large heat signature, unfortunately smart people have begun programming missiles with some brains and they can tell the different between flares and the aircraft or tank | 4e4011e3-ae36-4ace-b7d3-18f98c9e9d09 |
mot90 | to someone who doesnt live in America BlackFriday? is it really that good? | Black Friday is the way the American population "kicks off" their Holiday shopping season. Lots of stores open at Midnight and stay open all day, most if not all stores have really good sales that make staying up that late tempting. It's good in some ways if you are looking for something specific, I have a friend who got an XBOX and Kinnect bundle cheap. But some people act like lunatics and will hurt you to get what they want;like it's a free for all. It's totally something everyone should experience once in their lifetime. | 1d8bcb18-85d9-4a79-9d46-3351a9c8ac46 |
6qmwn3 | Why do some companies copyright strike Youtubers for putting their logo/product/song in their videos? | That's not how copyright works. Copyright is fundamentally the right to require people to ask permission before they do anything with your work (including listening to it). As with all these things, failure to defend this right in any particular instance harms your ability to defend it in general.
When you played that song on YouTube, two relevant things happened. Firstly the song was overlaid on the video without anyone asking permission (even though the musician has the right to be asked for permission). Secondly, you listened to the music without permission (even though the musician has the right to be asked for permission, permission that is usually asked and granted implicitly as part of you purchasing the song, or asked and granted explicitly by say a radio station formally seeking permission to broadcast a song).
Copyright law doesn't care if a particular breach is financially beneficial for the musician or not. To be honest that'd be a terrifically complex thing to judge. Imagine if the musician could sue YouTube for every video play that didn't result in a purchase of the song but couldn't sue YouTube for any video play like yours because it resulted in a sale. How would you enforce that? Or imagine if the musician couldn't sue for a particular video if it resulted in more sales than would have occurred without the video. How would you measure that? Or, imagine you make videos. What if the law said that you could use any music you liked without permission provided it generated at least 100 additional sales, but if it only generates 99 sales you can be sued into the stone age. Would that be a good system? And how accurately could you measure the sales your video generated?
Instead the law creates a much simpler system. You ask permission first. If the musician thinks your video will be good advertising or otherwise beneficial, great. After permission is given, nobody is going to argue the toss. | 405fa7eb-883e-47c0-8e7d-38d84cb47ed3 |
45a1dl | In 2008 oil was "running out" and the price of a barrel of oil sky rocketed. Fast-forward seven years and there's a surplus? | A couple things happened. First, fracking allowed access to oil that was previously economically unviable to extract. But with the high oil prices and refined techniques and equipment, it eventually became viable. With the increase in supply, the price started to drop. OPEC countries were expected to lower their supply to control the price, but they don't really trust each other to actually do so, so none of them have significantly changed their production. So with extra supply and not a similar amount of rising demand, the price has dropped significantly. It's already more expensive to use fracking now than the oil the process produces is worth, so it's expected to slow down in the future. But should the price of oil climb up again, the equipment and processes is already there to start it back up again. | 0887652a-7290-4dcd-9a8b-5e0652bf9e73 |
5oocfh | Why do people like to break rules so much? | We're humans. Time and rules aren't even supposed to exist but it does. There's a famous saying, rules were meant to be broken.. | 771a761d-dd7f-4564-86b1-a908a00fcc40 |
3905ij | Why do retailers purposely damage/break their unsold items before throw it to the garbage? Why don't they donate it instead? | Two part answer:
1. Retailers break things to discourage dumpster diving. If you knew that Best Buy was going to throw out all their electronics, you would see lines behind Best Buys to go through their trash. Obviously, people don't like it when other go through their trash.
2. Donating certain things is just counteractive. While some places like Panera do donate their unsold food, it's never to individuals, but to charities (in their case, Panera has their own foundation). Food is usually okay as it's a necessity and not a big ticket item. But if Best Buy were allowed to donate a $1500 TV to someone for no reason, that system can be abused to commit tax fraud. | 1468844a-7dbd-4bba-b336-468465b2cb86 |
10b0ll | Why does my mechanical watch say not to adjust it between 9pm and 4am? | On a lot of watches, the date pinions start engaging around 9pm and fully disengage around 4am. If you adjust the time or date during that time, you run the risk of damaging the mechanism (such as slipping a few gear teeth). | 2e45d47b-9755-4876-b01a-69d8351da1f4 |
282ysu | why does it take so many writers to write pop music? | Pop music is science not art. It requires architects, not artists. All the pieces have to come together to make it appeal to the most people. Typically, they piece together teams whose members each possess a different expertise, again much like a building is built, to make it "work." | 6a9a0683-0533-4b7b-adb5-4a1922ca0a27 |
60xwz0 | How do modders optimize games that are badly ported? | There are several ways. The easiest is probably to just twiddle with the config files until the game runs better. More complicated issues, such as framerate limits that normally can't be disabled, can sometimes be fixed by editing some parts of the game's executable file or other binary files with an hex editor.
When that isn't enough, programs can be created that attach themselves to the running game and modify, replace or intercept some parts of the program code (the machine code that runs on the CPU, not the source code). With enough time and dedication, entire frameworks with plugin systems can be created that way that can change a game in almost every imaginable way, which includes fixing porting issues.
Obviously, there are serious limits when it comes to online multiplayer games, since the more advanced methods are also used for cheating and usually result in bans when detected by the game's anti-cheat mechanism. | 19915a1f-f5b9-4272-bea4-82abab443cb8 |
3l3xnz | How does space-time dilation work? | I forget what redditor explained it this way to me, but this is the best way I can describe it:
Think of space and time being orthogonal. That is, they are set perpendicular to one another, like X and Y are on a graph. Taken together, they are space-time.
You are always moving through space-time at speed *c* (the speed of light). If you are at rest in your movement through space, then you are moving forward through time normally. The faster you go through space, the slower you go through time.
If you are moving through space at *c*, then you are not moving through time at all. A photon released from a light bulb or star does not experience any passage of time before arriving at its destination. | 89e2cf73-4d23-4122-b0ae-8907013a8748 |
1nbng7 | Why it's not possible to clone encrypted contactless smart cards? | With a smart card, you're not actually *reading* the card. You're having it do something for you using a secret key that cannot be read off it. | 90b3c329-3805-4cf2-a19a-bb2bb8ec7c17 |
1tcodv | What is it about computers that allow us to double the speed every 18 months or so. Does this occur\has this ever occured for other technologies? And if not, why not? | This is due primarily to improvements described by [Moore's Law](_URL_0_). It was originally an observation. It has now become more of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
About every 18-24 months, we can implement the same functions in a silicon integrated circuit "chip" as before but in 1/2 the silicon area. Since the circuit area is approximately related to the minimum feature size in both the X and Y directions, and Area = X times Y, this is similar to saying that ~ every 18 months the feature sizes are reduced by a factor of 0.7x. (0.7 x 0.7 = 0.49 .) In other words, a 30% improvement nets a 50% reduction in size. (Hard disc drives actually improve at an even *faster* rate.)
Key to all of this is something called "[Dennard scaling](_URL_1_)". It turns out that when you make transistors smaller, they get faster. And if you do it right, a bunch of other things get either better or stay the same. So there's a big incentive to make transistors smaller, allowing us to put more and more of them on one chip, for a lower cost per transistor. (Unfortunately, Dennard scaling has probably ended.)
If they choose to, a company can keep the chip size large, and make it do more instead. That's what high-end graphics chips tend to do. And as they have more transistors available for their circuit to use, they also make changes to their "architecture" to try to be ever more and more efficient. And of course, people are also always working on ways to do things better even if they didn't have more transistors available.
**How is this 30% improvement every 18 months accomplished?** By lots of research, experimentation and hard work by a lot of people in a lot of disciplines. Materials science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, chemistry, optics, etc. all have a role to play to overcome the obstacles that arise from trying to cram more and more transistors into smaller and smaller areas. If it was just a matter of making the transistors smaller without changing anything else, it would proceed a lot faster. But every time you make the transistors smaller, it creates a bunch of new problems that were never solved before, or weren't solved to the degree that is now necessary.
All of this kind of improvement has to happen at every process "node" or "generation", and usually a lot of experiments have to be run to find what will work and what won't. Fortunately, over the history of semiconductors a huge amount has been learned, and so we just continue to build upon that knowledge. And because the industry creates more and more powerful computers, it can USE more and more powerful computations to help in this work. | 7af1c94a-04e5-443e-8d32-339707a222d7 |
6dnbpv | Why is it an "exclamation POINT" and a "question MARK?" | It *is* [exclamation mark](_URL_1_). Depending on where you live.
And the question mark is also known as an [interrogation point](_URL_0_) although that is a less common thing to call it. | b0a745c4-014a-45ad-98b3-8b47c2284439 |
70a1jq | At what point is being a porn star different from prostitution? | For starters, it isn't completely clear that making pornography is legal in most US jurisdictions.
In the absence of a law or legal precedence explicitly saying one way or another, it is entirely possible a pornography producer could be convicted under prostitution laws. Most state courts haven't said one way or another.
That's why most of the pornography production in the US comes form a single state, California. In the 1980's, producer Harold Freeman hired actors for a movie called Caught from Behind: Part II, and those actors explicitly performed all the standard sex acts. As a result, Freeman was charged with pandering, or providing prostitutes to customers.
Freeman was convicted and eventually appealed all the way to the California Supreme Court, in the landmark *People v. Freeman 46 Cal 3d 419 (1988)*. The court ruled in Freeman's favor, saying prostitution means someone is paid to have sex primarily for the purpose of direct sexual gratification. Being paid to have sex for other purposes is not prostitution, and making a dirty movie is a valid and legal purpose.
The prosecution chose not to appeal to the federal level, so this ruling only applies to California. However, it has been used as an indirect precedent, as in *New Hampshire v. Theriault, No. 2007-601 (N.H. Sup. Ct. Dec. 4, 2008)*.
Does this mean prostitution is legal so long as I film it? Sorry, no such luck.
Just because you can manufacture some contrived explanation that would make your actions technically legal, a jury still has to buy that is what you were actually doing. If you set out to pay someone to have sex with you because you wanted someone to have sex with you, propping up your cell phone the night stand of a cheap motel isn't going to change that. | bdb6e61b-3ae5-4059-99f5-ea04f8f337b5 |
3ekscm | Why is the idea of a president "running it like a business" so controversial? | Because government is not a business. Business exists to make a profit for owners or investors, government exists (at least in the US) to protect the rights and interests of the people.
These are fundamentally different aims. If the government were to run like a business, it would not be able to fulfill its duties under the Constitution or the most basic ethical framework. | a4a2ccab-97bc-48ce-b20f-55b828c4c009 |
6b2rj4 | Why do planes shake when going through clouds? | Usually it's cumuliform (puffy) clouds that do this. While enough moisture in the air will cause clouds to form, any source of lifting will cause these clouds to fluff up. That air movement will, obviously, also effect the airplane and push it around. It's basically the same as turbulence you get in clear air.
The lifting can be thermals (heat rising from the ground), orographic lift (air pushing up rising terrain), or just convection as different air temperatures mix around (the kind of thing that drives a storm). Any movement of air will move the plane around the same way it moves the air.
Pay attention next time you fly through a thin little cloud (stratiform), there will probably be very minimal, if any, turbulence (shaking). | bf2e4360-8aed-4a75-aed8-6f80a79fd566 |
6lmi83 | Why do we find stuff "oddly satisfying?" | The human brain responds to and rewards you for identifying patterns. An example of this is music, where your brain rewards you (via dopamine and other feel-good chemicals) for predicting and identifying patterns of notes. This is why hearing familiar music is satisfying, while music you never listen to sounds like trash. You can also find patterns in paintings and other artwork. A lot of Renaissance painters implemented concepts like the Fibonaci sequence, the Golden Ratio, and symmetry because they believed these patterns were naturally pleasing to the human eye. These patterns are also frequently seen in nature, and it's believed the human brain unconsciously rewards you for identifying these patterns from nature.
The brain also rewards you for identifying breaks in patterns. Take the subreddit /r/mildlyinteresting . Why does looking at a mundane yet slightly interesting picture feel "oddly satisfying?" Because the picture shows something that ever so slightly deviates from the norm, and your brain gives you a reward for understanding that break in the norm. | 38c2a481-e7f2-45d8-b0a7-d5b6a37e10ed |
85vg68 | Sometimes when media posts photos of people that are in a coma, had a severe traumatic brain injury, or have mental impairments - you can somehow tell from their facial features. How is that possible, and what facial changes causes this? | My non-medical opinion is facial muscle tone. When we are actively thinking, processing, etc our facial muscles are subconsciously moving. If in a coma or TBI, if you are not “thinking” your expressions will not be present. Your face will be lax. | 35c77864-4605-4d56-b5ad-8a4f862adfd6 |
mq8tw | Why it takes so long for NASA to prepare one launch | cuz it's a machine going into fucking space | 8ab73070-c04f-427e-b0c7-285b164c88d2 |
3iqpsq | The different coloured circles on carton boxes or packaged snacks | Those are all the colors used to print the package. If the graphic don't come out right you can check which circle of color didn't print and replace that cartridge. | 06eb87d7-9db3-4c5b-a5a8-22220d2a4bed |
3mo4lg | Why are DNS addresses "backwards"? | I don't think this answers your question but if you think about it, street addresses are written "right to left" as well. Take Google's HQ address for example:
1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States
The top level domain in this case is the country, United States, which is at the end of the address. The state, city, street and street number all drill down towards the left. | 9ae477ba-4909-48ba-beae-40e1cfc12e5f |
40bx2w | Why do you get extremely hot right before freezing to death? | When you are cold, the blood vessels near the surface of your body constrict, reducing the amount of warm blood exposed to the cold and limiting heat loss. Your body can only keep that up for so long, and when it finally gives up, the warm blood comes rushing back to the skin, giving the illusion of being too hot. | 2f37e77f-0934-4189-ad6f-e539c3ee71f5 |
28umd5 | Why do Macs seem to run games way worse than PC even if they aren't games with crazy graphics? | I don't know if this is necessarily true. I could see this being true if a DirectX Windows games is ported to Mac using OpenGL, and the port isn't done well. What specifically have you experienced? | 58b57c6b-8106-48a6-b871-0ae5266aff72 |
601c6q | When we really have to pee, why does walking or moving lessen the need "to go" in the moment? | Needing to urinate is something which can be suppressed by the sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous system activity, or becomes more obvious when parasympathetic (rest and digest) nervous system activity predominates.
Exercising shifts the balance towards the sympathetic nervous system. | be5755f3-448c-4681-891f-093a03f296cb |
pp9rx | What exactly is Effective Demand? | There *was* no mention of a constrained market in Econ 101, because it's a complicated concept; this is why you should ignore everyone who tells you that they know what economic policies we should have because they took Econ 101.
Anyway. Suppose that I want buy a smoothie every time I go to work out. My demand for smoothies then depends not just on the price of smoothies, but the price of the *gym* as well. If the gym is too expensive, I won't go, and therefore I won't want any smoothies at all. So my *effective* demand is then 0 (I don't want any smoothies), even if my *notional* demand is very high (I would pay a lot for a smoothie if I did go). | ad19f1ab-9170-4e1a-844c-0ca5d7d51e95 |
5nr1ok | How does externally applied "fat burning" gels work? | This is just a hunch, but they just do not work. The only way to lose fat is to consume less calories than you burn through out the day. So you can eat the same but exercise more, consume less calories and don't exercise any more/less or a combination of eating less calories and exercising more. It really is that simple. Stay clear of these "miracle" creams and the like. | ff50d640-de13-4af4-9808-25ff22f016cd |
1f5rtv | Why does fresh cut grass smell so potent? | Because it's traumatized!
Grass (and many plants) release chemicals when they are cut or injured that do a few things. The compounds help speed the healing of the grass by causing them to form new cells and act kind of like an antibiotic to prevent infection.
The chemicals (called green leaf volatiles) from some plants, when combined with caterpillar saliva can attract certain predators to the plant to eat the caterpillars. A rather handy evolutionary tool!
It's interesting to note that while it smells so incredibly good, [that they contribute to ozone formation and air pollution.](_URL_0_) | e91fbe17-8ec3-437c-b6b0-c781b088a745 |
2r15cn | Why do I see a shadow on the inside of my eye when I push my finger on the outside edge of my eye? | Your finger pushes against your eye and distorts the lens that focuses light on the back of your eye. A small indentation can create a black spot where light doesn't focus, or focuses very poorly. It's similar to how you can have dark spots on the bottom of a pool by distorting the surface. | 68e361a8-c37d-4e04-8441-f04c65891ccb |
2bsrap | Why does only one nostril clog up with mucus when I'm sick? | Surprisingly, about 80% of people breathe out of one nostril at a time, alternating about every 2.5 hours. Research the nasal cycle for specifics. The one you are not using clogs when you are sick. Some research indicates that this can throw off the nasal cycle, but it hasn't been proven to my knowledge. | cfd6555e-642e-4765-80d4-508ff2978570 |
2hsw2x | Why do we feel like we know how to do something but we just can't do it? | We all have a tendency to over-simplify concepts in our minds. This is a way for us to organize and plan more efficiently whenever we want to do something.
The problem comes when we try to enact our simplified concepts without a full understanding of the details involved. We might have a decent understanding of them, or even a good understanding, but if there's even one important detail missing, it means it might not work properly.
[edit] For example, I am an amateur web programmer. There are often times when I think to myself something like "It should be very simple to make a navigation bar with drop-down menus that show up when you mouse over them." So I plan out all of the sorts of commands and elements needed. Then I start writing and come to find out that the commands don't work as I expected. So I have to go looking for explanations, examples, and the correct information. I learn quite a bit about what the commands I was using actually do, and about some commands I didn't even know of. I probably never would have come up with a good result on my own. | 3576027a-3fa4-4d5c-bd24-7e1a72e646ca |
4q04hh | What actually happens when a computer game crashes? | So, I'm not a game developer but I am a software engineer. When we write software, we build in certain traps for errors that we can handle, called exceptions. For example, if you try to load a file but it can't be found or accessed, the program might handle a FileNotFoundException. In this case, the programmer can anticipate this happening and keep the program running by asking the user for another file, try again, etc.
Now, software just does what it is told to. If there is an uncaught exception, which may have been thrown by the OS, some dependency in the software, the GPU, etc., the program has no idea what to do to continue. All it can do is tell the process running it it doesn't know what to do and quit.
As far as the running processes, these are sometimes handled gracefully by the software, sometimes handled by the OS, or sometimes are left as zombie processes, which keep running and take up your CPU and memory resources. | 4a6190a4-42a6-4ea9-8769-d3462277917a |
5880z0 | How do sharp angles on a vehicle affect a radars ability to detect it, such as the USS Zumwalt | I think a [picture is worth a thousand words](_URL_0_) in this case. I find it hard to describe what's going on without a visual aid.
With a curved surface, the radar hits and spreads out. A lot of the signal gets spread all over the place, which means there's a lot of it headed in the direction of the radar dish. There's a lot headed *away*, too, but the dish doesn't really care as long as it gets a signal reflected back at it. No matter how the plane or ship is oriented, there will always been some of the radar signal reflected back towards the dish.
With a flat surface with lots of angles, the signal is scattered pretty much in all directions. It's kept in a tighter beam of radio waves, instead of spreading out. A *lot* less makes it back to the dish. Sure, if the flat surface is perfectly perpendicular to the dish, it'll show a pretty good sized picture, but that's a big huge if. The plane or ship will never be at such a perfect angle. Even if it were, that image will only last for a fraction of a second, until the plane or ship turns ever so slightly so the reflection is pointed away again.
Also, just for what it's worth, both the ship and the B2 are covered in radar-absorbing paint to further reduce the radar cross-section by simply reflecting less radio waves *at all*.
EDIT: Made a better picture.
EDIT: u/Sythus is right and I updated to fix my mistakes. | 6c88c8b3-b18d-4549-bf94-75ad05f323bd |
1huckb | Why can't I sleep before a stressful day? | Because you are expecting something stressful. You should know though that there are different types of stress, happy stress and bad stress. Bad stress is when you know that there is a test coming up and you haven't studied. Good stress is like Christmas eve.
For instance, you stay up all night Christmas eve because you know there will be presents, you know that you are going to be excited. Your brain reacts accordingly, it gets excited too. Now when your brain is excited it has lots of chemicals flowing through it. These chemicals keep you up on Christmas eve, and they are the same chemicals that keep you up the night before your test that you haven't studied for. | 5a5fe99a-0d69-4868-939a-5e1ad6a750b8 |
1mvck3 | Open Carry Laws in California | You cannot open carry any gun in California except at shooting or hunting events, or if you specifically have a permit to carry, such as a permit to carry a concealed weapon. This is for all guns, not just handguns, as laws were recently passed to this effect. This applies to both unloaded and loaded weapons.
You can transport guns in say the trunk of a car, as long as it is not exposed to the public. You can also transport unloaded guns to/from a car. | e17b2df6-3e8d-498a-bd80-824440e608bd |
2sa5xr | Why do cameras have a maximum SD card capacity? | Digital cameras basically run an OS much like a computer. If the kernel, or BIOS, was limited to addressing a maximum size of 64 GB on a storage device, that's simply all it can see.
I should note that it doesn't mean there's anything nefarious going on, necessarily, it's just a limit of the architecture they're using. | ecf2ca13-e95f-4e8e-8277-7ade9a1e9d2e |
26yoxw | Since gender is considered fluid rather than binary, what is the point of sexual reassignment surgery and how is it considered more than cosmetic? | That's assuming that everyone holds the same beliefs about the fluidity of gender. Not everybody who wants sexual reassignment surgery believes that gender is completely fluid. Some feel more masculine than feminine or vice versa, and want their sex to represent that. Others are perfectly okay with living in the middle ground.
Personally, I'd take this question to /r/asktransgender . You'll probably get some good answers there, as it's dedicated to this type of question. | 7c1ecb16-8799-4ae0-a5bf-12665698cecf |
2160i6 | What would happen if I put a flash drive in a USB-AC power adapter? | Nothing, only certain pins in a USB port carry voltage, and in a device that doesn't require (much) power like a USB flash drive, those pins aren't connected to anything. | 9a3673d1-96be-4de7-b6a4-b3eb164d2138 |
4h5a5o | How can there be Facebook pages i.e. Netflix that have millions of likes, but their updates only get very few likes? | Personally speaking I like pages to support them but don't generally care enough to go read their page and sometimes turn off their notifications in my news feed. | 68c23e81-41cc-47a4-a6ce-43ae34d423a4 |
6r3phk | How come airlines are able to stream live satellite TV to their entertainment systems, but have trouble providing stable on-board internet access/Wifi? | Beaming TV to the plane is a one way connection. WiFi and Internet require asking for data and waiting for the requested data to arrive, then asking for more. Satellite TV is just a constant stream of data, just show what you get. Missed a packet? Too bad, pick up from the next keyframe. Don't want the data? Turn off your receiver, it'll still come to you though, you just won't decode it | 14394d9c-874a-4281-9845-88994f94a4e8 |
6330bz | Why do TV actors earn residuals upon re-airing for their performances, but recording artists don't earn a dime when their music is played on the radio? | This answer is gonna be totally unsatisfying, but its the answer
Because thats just how the business model those industries work. Yes I know, unsatisfying. Here's some details.
For actors, they are members of unions, and these unions have negotiated rates and pay like this. The unions are VERY strong and active and have been able to get fairly good deals in stuff like this, they have been around a very long time, and are a huge part of the industry and giant player.
In music, there are no such unions among the artists. It's very every man for themself. In music the artist doesn't even get paid for radio play. The songwriter and publisher get paid, not the artist. The music labels hold most of the power.
In other words, actors, through their union, secured pretty good rights and pay for residuals. Musicians being a more disperse and non-union thing, have never been able to do it, and the power (and money) really resides with their label, so they have no reason to pay them anything. | 6096c562-beb0-4db9-a8b8-1b191fe49c4d |
1a62bo | why does wind feel colder than stagnant air? | The wind or a fan doesn't actually cool anything. All it does is move air across surfaces faster. You are feeling heat leave your body faster because that heat is moving along with the flowing air. We perceive that loss of heat as "cold". | 9e37f0cc-88b9-4a4a-b781-34be0a8ba33a |
zzk2v | How do CD's work? | A CD stores information in binary. I won't go into how binary works, but the short version is simply that it used 0 and 1 to store information. A CD does this by either having a little gap or not. Each gap is 1, if there isn't one it's 0 (there is a fixed distance between them).
It's simply read by a laser. It knows when it might be a hole, and then it sends a short burst of laser. It then times the laser, to see how long until it returns. Then it calculates how far it traveled and figures out if it went into a gap or not.
When you buy a CD it's normally printed, e.g. they just stamp the pattern into the plate. If you buy a CD-R it's a little cooler. The CD-r has a layer on top that is normally opaque. When you heat it it turns translucent. It's simply heated using the laser that normally reads (but for longer, which is why it doesn't break when reading from it).
A CD-rw is even more fun. They can be rewritten! They do this by having a even more magical layer on top. If you heat it a little it turns opaque. If you heat it even more it returns to the original state when cooled. That way you can create and remove gaps at will.
A DVD is basically the same. The main difference is that the distance between the gaps are shorter. Blue-Ray is the same (blue has a shorter wave-length then red. So blue-ray uses a blue laser to read data, managing to push the gaps even closer). They can also have multiple layers. | 12b424b7-c1c2-4e1c-83e1-61dfb798d85e |
2mhrdm | Why do spins/jumps in sports continuously get more intense? | It's primarily two things:
1. Better equipment. Technology plays a larger role in these things than most people realize. Simply the fact that modern equipment is lighter, stronger, has more flex, rebound and spring allows athletes to do things that were literally impossible 20 years ago.
2. Athletes start training at a much younger age now. They are able to master many techniques sooner - including those techniques that led to that first backflip or triple McTwisty or whatever. Instead of figuring out how to do something, they learn how to do it and figure out how to improve on it. | 57f13192-b96e-4fae-8022-e4c06ae2f206 |
3aqn27 | What causes free WiFi hotspots at hotels etc to be so patchy and unreliable. | Setting up a wifi mesh is expensive, and frankly not worth the effort and cost for many small motels. Larger ones try and do cheaply.
The effective result is, small motels just put a consumer router in the lobby or manager's office, and it's range is a hundred feet from there. Large ones may have a mesh, but insufficient access points to cover the entire complex. | 711df39e-7c4f-4d40-98c1-8c7fe512a9b0 |
25nswi | why does our eyesight weaken? | A good understanding of vision loss requires a brief foray into the basic structure of the eye. Although it might be considered a clich¿, it is still useful to compare the eye to a video camera. Thus, as light enters the eye--or the camera--it travels through four main structures. By understanding this basic eye anatomy we can begin to understand the ways in which the light signal can be degraded or distorted, resulting in poor vision.
The entry point for light is the cornea, the transparent tissue in the very front of the eye that functions as the window through which all light has to pass on its way to forming a visual perception. Next, the light signal encounters the lens, which focuses it finely on the third structure of the eye: the retina. The retina is analogous to the film in the back of the camera. It is on the retina that the light is converted into a neural signal that is ultimately interpreted by the brain as an image. Finally, the optic nerve, which carries these signals to the brain, functions like a cable that connects the video camera to the television screen. The deterioration of our vision with age is invariably the result of a problem with one of these four structures.
The integrity of the corneal surface is very important for the reception of a clear image. If its surface is not smooth and intact the image will suffer, much like the image from a scratched camera. A very thin layer of tears coats the surface of the cornea. This tear surface, produced by various cells, some of which line the inner surface of the eyelid, is vital to maintaining the cornea¿s smooth surface and precise optical characteristics. Any condition that disrupts this tear film can lead to a breakdown of the cornea¿s surface and, thus, degradation of the image.With age, this smooth surface can be damaged by conditions such as blepharitis, an inflammation of the eyelids. If the inflammation is severe enough, then the cells that produce the tears can be damaged, with an attendant impact on the tears coating the cornea. In this situation an individual may experience symptoms such as the sensation of a "film" over the eye, which is usually transient and relieved with blinking. More serious symptoms can also occur, such as blurry vision, which is due to evaporation of the tears and drying out of the corneal surface. This condition can become chronic and is known as dry eyes. Treatment options for blepharitis and dry eyes depend on the cause of the inflammation of the lid surface but can include warm compresses, artificial tears, oral antibiotics and even topical immunosuppressive agents to decrease the inflammatory response leading to the degraded tears.
The lens is also subject to the aging process, and the resulting conditions--cataracts and presbyopia--will eventually affect just about everyone. When we are born our lenses are crystal clear, meaning that the image entering the eye is not degraded by any opacity. They are also very pliable, meaning that the lens can change its shape to help focus images that are very far away as well as very close. Unfortunately, as we grow older two things happen to the lens: it clouds up and it becomes less pliable. The clouding of the lens--or cataract--forces an image to travel through a distorted medium, resulting in diminished vision. Similarly, when the lens loses its pliability it also loses its ability to focus over a wide range of distances. A hardened lens becomes more fixed on distant objects and cannot focus as well on nearby objects or vice versa. This hardening often occurs in middle age, when people notice the need to hold the newspaper farther away in order to read the print, and is known as presbyopia from the Greek wordspresbus, meaning old man, and opia,meaning eye
.Fortunately, there are treatments for both these conditions. A lens that has developed a cataract can be removed surgically and replaced by an artificial one. The implanted lens is clear and allows the image to pass through the eye nondegraded. As for presbyopia, the solution is even simpler--reading glasses or bifocals.Finally, the retina and the optic nerve work in tandem and deterioration in either can lead to serious, even blinding, conditions. The retina is an extremely complex tissue that converts the light image entering the eye into a neural signal. This signal is then transmitted to the brain by extensions of the ganglion cells. It is the extensions of these cells that form the optic nerve so, in a sense, the optic nerve is an extension of the retina.
Numerous studies have shown that, in the absence of disease, there is no significant age-related deterioration in visual capacity of the retina or optic nerve. Unfortunately, age-related diseases of the retina and optic nerve are not entirely rare. Macular degeneration (loss of central retinal function) and glaucoma (damage to the optic nerve due to increased intraocular pressure) lead the list. Early detection of these diseases can often prevent or minimize the extent of vision loss, particularly as new and improved therapies become available.
In summary, as our population ages, society is not fated to having millions of people with "dim" eyes. Rather, with proper proactive ophthalmic care and an emphasis on the development of new therapies for blinding diseases we can continue to make "great vision" a reality for those past the first blush of youth. | be070eed-17b9-4535-996a-3be7097545e8 |
6s8lih | Why does the moon cause waves in the ocean but not on smaller bodies of water like lakes? | Firstly, the other responses suggesting that tides are not waves are incorrect - tides *are* waves, they just have a very long wavelength (and are not related to the smaller, wind-driven waves that we colloquially call 'waves').
To actually answer the question, it's because lakes are generally too small for the tidal effect to be significant. Tides are caused by the gradient in the gravitational field of the moon (and to a lesser extent, the sun) across the earth. Oceans are very large, with length scales of thousands of kilometres, so the difference in gravitational potential across them is large enough to form waves of significant amplitude (i.e. tides). Lakes are much smaller, so the effect is also much smaller. They're still influenced by the lunar gravitational field so they technically will have tides, they will simply be a lot smaller than oceans. Another, minor factor is because oceans have a length scale that is large enough for the coriolis effect to be significant, you can get an amplification of tides in certain regions which isn't possible in smaller bodies of water where the coriolis effect is too small (see [amphidromic points](_URL_0_) for more information). | 3e49cced-9252-4344-a3ca-3d5de44f372d |
1ewvfn | Why does the value of currencies fluctuate? | The fluctuations are a result of supply and demand for that currency. For example, let's say there's suddenly huge global demand for American widgets. Companies all over the world want to buy those American widgets to sell in their own countries.
Those foreign companies would drive up the demand for US Dollars in order to purchase the widgets, which makes US Dollars rise in value in relation to other currencies.
There are better examples and explanations as well - try using the search bar to see if you can't find any of the previous answers. | 3bb78b67-6442-4420-9f13-79110ab1bac3 |
21qb1y | If I slice the skin off my fingers, why does my fingerprint come back? Is it the same? | I don't know about the situation you're describing, but I did slice my thumb pretty badly as a child and now my lines on that thumb print don't match up, so I know you *can* damage your fingerprints, but I don't know if you completely removed them what would happen. Sorry my answer isn't helpful, I'll delete it if anyone comes along and actually answers you. | 8f1dad33-cd2e-4485-a238-5168be5f2e46 |
2axaap | Why does music seem to require so much specialized knowledge and adherence to rules for a person to create it, whereas visual art is something anyone can jump into intuitively (not master it, but at least create something potentially appealing). | A number of things:
1) Recording - the visual arts are readily recorded (the paper itself). However audio is less easily recorded. Yes, everyone has a mic on their smartphone, but its terrible. Professional level recording equipment requires expertise.
2) Generation - writing and drawing come naturally too us. While some instruments such as drums and voice come naturally too us as well, some others such as woodwinds or strings require special skill in order to play.
3) Socialization - Everyday society tells us what is and isn't beautiful, and after time we internalize that sense. This is less true for audio. Unless you grow up in a musical household, what music is and isn't any good is not pounded into your skull day in and day out.
TLDR: Not recording a cool drum beat when your parents expose you to music everyday since you are born is easier than painting a Picasso. Professionally recordings an orchestral piece when you did not know what a piccolo was until you got into college is harder than creating a drawing that is good enough to get on your parent's fridge. | b9a50c10-f55e-4cc1-9abc-be6d085e3c49 |
3r9741 | Reddit bots. What are they? How do they work? Who makes them? How do you make one? | A bot is a computer program that performers automated tasks (e.g. posting a dynamic reply to comments that match a particular format or contain certain keywords).
Bots run on a server and the bots you see posting comments on reddit are usually run independently by individual users who create the bot scripts and host them on their own servers.
There is also a Reddit AutoModerator bot that subreddit moderators can use to help automatically filter certain types of content and perform moderator operations automatically.
Bots are typically written in a scripting language like PHP or Python, but technically can be programmed in other languages like C++ or C# as well.
In order to perform operations like accessing content on reddit and posting replies, bot programmers use Reddit's [Application Programming Interface](_URL_0_) (API).
An API allows you to develop applications that interface with third-party applications or services (e.g. Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) to directly request specific content or perform certain operations that users would normally have to use a Graphical User Interface (GUI) to accomplish. | e0130cbc-75bc-49d9-b7e6-95203b0bb25b |
3gcvwv | Why do we consciously make bad/wrong decisions, even though we know the outcome will be bad? | Humans are wired to forget how a bad experience **feels**.
You get arrested, the entire experience sucks and you're miserable. The next week, you're looking at it and laughing about it.
It's the same reason people are easily trapped in toxic relationships. That terrible fight you had last week seems like it wasn't a big deal until you have it again.
It's not necessarily a bad thing though. It also allows you to forgive and keep trying even after experiencing failure.
Here's a TEDtalk on the subject:
_URL_0_ | b755d1da-c3c4-4cfb-b266-9574bc5de073 |
2q381o | Why nuclear plant computers are connected to the Internet and vulnerable to cyberattacks? | Imagine you have a computer on your house. Now you want to connect that computer to your friend 100 miles away. How do you do it?
You could lay a 100 mile cable, but do you have the permissions to dig up roads and pathways?
You would use a company whose cables were already there, and just use that network of cables to access you friends computer.
This is exactly what these power stations do - along with a large amount of other businesses. However there are ways to keep the data being transferred secure; like VPN and encryption etc but that's a little more than ELI5. | 1355d5e7-bcc5-4e25-b3e2-b3e264e891a3 |
1jqv0o | How would we think if we didn't have language? | Radiolap episode about adults without language and how they think.
_URL_0_
The interviewee's book. _URL_1_
tl;dr - we would have extreme difficulty extrapolating information or connecting ideas. This means we'd be pretty confused and surprised all the time, which means we'd be a lot more fearful, cautious, unhappy, and unproductive. | 260f12f6-b682-48f4-9c78-4af2ec1ca91c |
3nwvlw | Why does shaking a liquid mix everything together and not separate it? | It's called agitation if you were to spin it with screens finer and finer toward the outside you would then separate it,but thats only part of it the lighter material will go to the top so you could actually just stack screens one on top of another and separate elements that way | 6b8301bc-3a7a-4faa-82f0-2f24b83e9428 |
65lm7n | Why are bunnies such a huge symbol for Easter? | Jesus ate bunnies during the last supper. We let bunnies be a symbol for Easter because we feel bad for them. | 623ac256-91dd-4d9e-92a7-3d95b655e2fa |
5lzq4h | Why do wedding dresses turn yellow after a period of time? | Many white things turn yellow over time. Generally it's the result of sunlight or oxidation. White cotton generally gets its white color from being bleached and washed with fabric whiteners.
Fabric whiteners and brighteners are temporary dyes that add a slight blueish tint to the wash. Modern ones use optical brighteners _URL_0_
In the old days people used Reckitt’s Blue, which was a blue bar of soap, which was scrapped and the flakes added the wash. It coated clothes in a blue powder that made yellowish clothes look white at least until the powder fell off from wear.
Edit: minerals like iron in the water, makeup and sweat also make white clothes turn yellowish. | 045d85fa-68ee-41c5-9872-deabb0453d35 |
3cc3y3 | How come most houses have slanted roofs but most other buildings are flat? | In the old days roofing materials were not as great as they are now. Traditional materials need a good slope to shed rain properly, and even more so to shed a heavy load of snow.
Modern materials are tougher, but generally people building homes enjoy a traditional style because tradition feels cozy to many people. | 42b53208-1564-453a-aa2e-dd03854aa08e |
2wp6wx | My cat goes wild in the presence of bleach. Why is this? | Well, shit, it sounds like she's getting some kind of chemical high. I'm not a veterinarian but I suspect it's probably not good for her brain (because chemicals rarely are, and bleach is known to be toxic). I'd say keep her in a bathroom or something if you're gonna be bleaching. | 75016589-ac62-4cfb-8b63-37f38231d642 |
8653lq | How is Oxygen stored in water and how can fish extract it to breathe? | Oxygen is just dissolved in water, in the same way that you can dissolve sugar in water, or carbon dioxide in water to make a soda.
Fish gills have a huge surface area to maximize how much contact they make with the passing water. Oxygen molecules cross the membrane of the gills just like they do in our lungs, and then get carried to the rest of the body through the fish's circulation! | e539000c-b15e-462c-839d-ca24f63f62b1 |
4c8chh | Why Americans are more conservative and religious than Europeans ? | Well, I think it's just that Americans are louder and hence given more coverage. I'm from England and there are *plenty* of old conservative folk here, who hold the same opinions as white old Americans. I think, in my opinion, they're a little nicer about it and don't go out of their way to show hatred. Yep, people are very conservative here - especially in little "cathedral" towns or villages, but they're quieter. | afa60d7a-dddb-429e-a7c7-84624339b29c |
1v9ip8 | Why are Rolexes so expensive? | Although I personally don't think a Rolex is worth what they charge for it, there is quite a bit that goes into one. As a former pawn shop operator, I also quickly learned to tell a real from a fake.
ONE: Many Rolex watches have gold or platinum cases or bands. This can be tested easily to see if the band and case are really made of precious metal. However, one does have to remember that a watch could potentially have had its original band replaced with a cheap band -- that does not mean that the watch is not real.
TWO: A real Rolex band has a particular tolerance that is readily evident when you handle it. It will wrap around your wrist, but will not flex from side to side. A real Rolex band is a good sign that the watch is real.
THREE: Real Rolex watches tick many times per second, not once per second like most watches. The number of ticks per second depends on the model, but it's always more than one tick per second. The easiest fakes to spot are those that tick once per second, with the second hand jerking from second to second mark, like most watches do. A Rolex looks like the second hand is gliding along smoothly, not ticking.
FOUR: This is something that cannot be described, only learned by experience. In relation to the "ticking" mentioned above, you can put a real Rolex case to your ear (back of the case pressed up against your ear), and it makes a very distinctive fast-ticking sound that is very quiet, but perceptible if you have good hearing.
FIVE: The markings on the back of the case, which I will not go into detail about here, are very specific. If you know where they should be on the case and what they should say, you can spot a fake there instantly.
SIX: The glass (watch crystal) is squared-off, raised glass on most Rolex watches. The date magnifier is very distinctive and difficult to duplicate. Rolex specifies a certain magnitude of magnification for the date "bubble", and it's hard to duplicate. A trained observer will instantly notice that the magnification is incorrect.
SEVEN: The glass (watch crystal) is often touted as being sapphire crystal. Lots of folks will reject a Rolex because the glass seems fake. However, many old Rolex watches have a simple plexiglass crystal. Lots of Rolex watches worth tens of thousand of dollars, and rare one-of-a-kind watches, have been turned away by jewelers and pawnbrokers because they don't know that Rolex actually used cheap plexiglass way back when.
EIGHT: This one almost always calls out a suspected fake. The serial number on the back is, of course, unique to the watch. Rolex maintains the information for that serial number in their records forever. Way back when, I would definitely call them and check the serial number for its vital stats, before I plopped down $4000 for a watch. Nowadays, we can do serial number queries on the internet. I specifically recall one watch that I could tell had an ever-so-slight off-center paint on the minute hand, but on the watch the customer had, the minute hand was painted perfectly. I tried to sound as casual as I could, "Has the case ever been cracked open? Because, you know, the watch is more valuable if it has not." The customer said, "No, I bought it new, and it's never been cracked open." I showed him the printout of the watch face, with the "crooked" minute hand -- "Then how do you explain that the paint on the minute hand has suddenly been corrected?"
That was the end of that discussion. | d933f6b7-44a9-497d-a607-b32a44c997d2 |
yxvw6 | The legal battle between Apple and Google. | I think this article explains pretty well whats going on with them. The Journalist even breaks down some of the patents.
_URL_0_ | 9d265ad2-25c5-4acc-926f-710ed8ecebd6 |
5z8obs | What is the Louisiana Cajun accent | Cajun Vernacular English is the dialect of English spoken by Cajuns living in southern Louisiana and, to some extent, in eastern Texas. Cajun English is significantly influenced by Cajun French, the historical language of the Cajun people, who descended from Acadian settlers and others. It is derived from Acadian French and is on the List of dialects of the English language for North America. This differed markedly from Metropolitan or Parisian French in terms of pronunciation and vocabulary, particularly because of the long isolation of Acadians, and even more so of Cajuns, from the Francophone world.
English is now spoken by the vast majority of the Cajun population, but French influence remains strong in terms of inflection and vocabulary. Their accent is quite distinct from the General American. Cajun French is considered by many to be an endangered language, mostly used by elderly generations. But Cajun English is spoken by even the youngest Cajuns, and is considered to be part of the identity of the ethnic group. | 8ae94287-07c0-40fb-b3c7-c73dc030b920 |
6z86h4 | Why are so many health issues worse in the early morning? | It really depends on what disease you're talking about. Whether this is a muscular or joint issue or whether it's to do with your organs. And, what medicine you're taking.
In your case you suffer from asthma. The respiratory system slows down and depresses during sleep, as part of your metabolism. Your airways are already narrower and more prone to inflammation due to the disease. Depression of the respiratory system during the night makes it worse. The result is that mucuous builds up during the night. You may have also possibly had a chronic lack of oxygen during the night, aka sleep apnea.
If it was a physical ailment, such as arthritis. That can be explained through muscular and joint theory. Healthy muscles need constant movement. Often, at night one is stationary for prolonged periods of time. The stiffness you feel in the morning is a combination of two things. The muscles tightening dependent on your posture (a light version of the Contracture seen after strokes). And also, within the joint itself the fluid that lubricates the joint, changes viscosity, becoming thicker and stiffer. Movement and warming up in the morning counteracts these effects. | c55c378b-3b08-43c3-bf7a-e2969834522a |
3gsc43 | Why do all of the victims of ISIS beheadings look so calm and nonchalant? | I've read it's because they do so many mock executions and tell them that they just need to do it for pictures and videos. After ten or fifteen times of the posing, over the course of weeks or months, the captive generally looks more clam. | 2caccfc6-0871-4e3b-b0e5-158ece75ee00 |
26exfk | What is this new "Common Core" math? | First, an important thing to remember is that the Common Core is a set of standards, meaning it is up to the teacher how to reach those standards, so if you find some of the problems odd, the blame is more on the teacher.
Anyways, the purpose of common core as I understand it is to emphasize students not memorizing numbers, formulas, equations, etc. but to learn how to think critically and use basic knowledge in more complicated problems mirroring the real world. In geometry, you'd be taught the various rules, such as what are complementary angles, and then you'd need to be able to figure out more complicated real world problems.
TL;DR If I have it right, the purpose of the CC standards is to make students better critical thinkers using math. Being able to take basic math knowledge and figure out more complicated real world-like problems is the goal. | 4d34399b-82a7-449b-a479-d801e9d14e78 |
1048ny | Why is there ringing in your ears in complete silence? | there are little tiny "hairs" in your ear that are actually very sensitive cells that detect vibrations in the air that you brain interprets, thus, you can hear things.
Sometimes, these little "hairs" get flattened out, by a very loud sound or by a natural quirk in your body. The ringing you hear is the the cells straightening themselves back out slowly. Imagine them like carpet that was under some furniture that you just moved. Your brain is wired to interpret any movement from them as sound, so you get that phantom sound at a low level as they stand back up.
Edit: Children of Men was an AWESOME movie, but the whole swan's song theory (that when you have ringing in your ears you will never hear that pitch again) is a common misconception. | 6d64966e-04dd-4d12-aeea-7cb1838e41ab |
1poc1u | Why is it after a person is saved from a fire, they are wrapped in a blanket afterwards? | generally I think it is a thermal blanket which helps against shock. | 1e7beff0-63fb-48a0-8a49-e368b0e9a207 |
481wkl | Why are some sites fooled by VPN and others not? | You're *signing in* to Facebook. You've already given it all your info including your location and all your friends names. | 62b1c970-059a-46af-994b-c60aa2c07015 |
2xo0ro | How exactly does NATO work? | Article 5 is the most important, and the one you hear about day to day - an attack on one NATO country is an attack on all of them. Developed as a nuclear umbrella during the cold war, the design was to contain any Russian expansion. Article 5 has only been employed once: after 9/11, the US declared that Afghanistan had attacked them. This decision was not popular with other NATO countries.
Article 4 basically says that NATO countries can call a NATO conference to discuss any issue and, if they can all agree on something, they'll all implement it. This comes up more often than you would think, but rarely produces tangible results.
Article 3 sets ambiguous requirements that NATO countries maintain adequate armies, because they don't want countries to rely on the rest of NATO while ignoring their military. Canada is sometimes accused of violating Article 3, for example.
Article 2 states that nations in NATO have to be friends, can't employ mercantilist trade policies designed to harm a member nation, and must strive for free trade. They also need to support international NGOs in their country.
And lastly, Article 1 states that members must try to resolve disputes peacefully and maintain the role of the United Nations in bringing 'Justice' to international disputes. This is the article that lead to the NATO interventions in Kosovo and Libya and to anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden.
The role of NATO then collectively is to enforce the World Trade Order, wherein nations of people coexist peacefully with free trade and local sovereignty. Much as we trade with China in hopes that we will inspire them to change (rather than seeking regime change), NATO is empowered to promote and defend a world order that ends with all nations coexisting peacefully under international law, with universal free trade and strong international development. It gets a lot of flack, but in practice when it actually does act, it usually comes out looking like a hero. | 3a2d0412-f026-4736-96b6-9b4750a607f7 |
3pwrka | Why are typhoons named but not other natural disasters? | Hurricanes are named by the World Meteorological Organization specifically to make it easier for people to find and track news about them in order to better prepare.
Hurricanes, unlike a lot of other natural disasters, are big lumbering things. You rarely are caught off guard by them, as our ability to track them means we know about them weeks ahead of time.
The key to safety for a hurricane is to get people out of the way of them. So the easier we make it for people to consume news about them, the easier we make it for people to know they need to get out of the way. | 02de376e-0f8b-4d44-8f8f-8b1dd44961c0 |
1pe5sn | Is there any way to sort out your childhood memories to figure out which ones are yours and which ones you've incorporated into your own memory because you've heard the story so many times? | Background setting is the main distinguisher between real and constructed memories. Can't remember if it's is really a memory or you're reconstructing the scene from what someone has told you? Try to remember the details. Do you just remember your grandfather and the piano, or can you describe the room? What was he wearing? Was he holding anything other than the licorice, or did you have anything else with you like a stuffed animal? Good luck and I hope this helps. | c5e7b600-8d39-450d-973b-8c87526924d8 |
44okov | What's the deal with anchovies on pizza? I've never had them and don't understand why they're so controversial on pizza. | Anchovies have a pretty strong and unique flavor. Because of this it's kind of hard to have a moderate opinion; people either love anchovies (right here) or find them disgusting. They also have a strong odor, which adds to things. | e12087f9-e0ab-4d94-a903-acc70aa54d27 |
3r783u | Why does a stuffy nose clear up when scared or aroused? | Release of chemicals like adrenalin widen the air passages to get more air into the lungs in preparation for fight or flight. | eca52133-9bb4-45b2-a83b-b0fe155ad280 |
xkx0h | Why can I not concealed or openly carry a knife or sword? | You can't own a switchblade because it's very dangerous, carried concealed, and it's only meant to hurt people. You can buy a gun because it can be used to hurt animals. Tasty, tasty animals. | 0ba26b3a-c12c-4d1b-983f-c468fb3c7e18 |
n083z | Why do self posts take so long to load while imgur links load instantly? | Self posts are dynamic and imgur links are static. That is, self posts have to handle upvotes, loads of comments, comment upvotes, comment hierarchies (sorted variously), etc..., whereas imgur just serves you the file.
I'm not entirely sure, but I think I saw that on reddit somewhere. | 62894570-8296-4217-a069-32d0eb3b240f |
63ob4z | Why that the deeper you go in the ocean, the uglier the wildlife gets. | this is subjective, but the reason morphology is so different at deeper levels is because the environment is so drastically different from our own.
humans are predisposed to like creatures that are most similar to them and which have traits similar to them and their offspring.
fish are obviously very different from people and so that makes them seem "uglier"
at deeper depths the environment requires that creatures be physiologically very different from ones near sea level to cope with the pressure and darkness.
this drastic change in physical features from our own is what makes them look so unappealing. however there are also plenty of creatures which one might find "pretty" as some of them glow or look cute in other ways. | bb4d6a18-e5a9-4a15-8ec2-968f9d8345ce |
q9lgi | Why some nations/states/regions are more conservative/liberal than others. | it seems throughout history coastal areas tend to receive information faster, ( due to trading routes and influx of immigrants)and so the coasts tend to be more liberal than the inner states.
Also certain states have more of a "culture " that is perpetuated due to condensing of immigrants. For example the mid west has a history of dutch,swedish and german immigrants settling there, so there is more of a concentration of those cultures. . Similar to the south west US, where there have been alot of central american influx.
In the beginnings of the US, the british settled New England, alot of the west coast and alot of the South settled by the Spaniards.
then Lewis and Clark went on their expedition and alot of people in the East Coast headed out to the west coast because they had a chance to have space, their own land etc.
The South eastern coast has been influenced by the Caribbean, especially Louisiana it seems.
Culture travels with immigrants and people, the culture , traditions and ways of thinking travel to the new place as well. | c0b02148-06d0-4f3c-affc-92a94ba866eb |
2w71vc | Can "playing dead" really trick Bears? whats the reasoning behind this? Bears dont eat/kill seemingly dead things? | Playing dead is only suggested for Brown and Polar Bears and it does two things.
1 - It makes them think you're not something they would want to eat, bears aren't usually scavengers.
2 - It makes them think you're not a threat and therefore they don't want to fight you. | e102c2ea-8bf3-4df6-885b-cec9e1147631 |
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