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1qwwxm | Why does water taste different after sitting for a few days? | Bacteria and other microbes are everywhere all the time, and they need water to grow. So what you're tasting is a melange of those microbes and the waste they produce as they grow. They've been floating through the air or transferred by some other means (e.g., your mouth and hands), or may have been in the water from the beginning. At any rate, water helps them live and multiply. A nice glass of fresh water left exposed to ample oxygen at room temperature makes for a nice little incubator for all manner of microscopic critters. | 842ef8e8-7377-4484-b882-3a1505f7d120 |
49b510 | What is a Soliton, in regards to physics? | They are specific shapes of waves that can travel very far without dispersing like regular waves. Solitons exist in many different mediums of wave, e.g. water waves in canal or light pulses in optical fiber. | 8c43671c-ff19-443c-a40f-26b52c716ecc |
1s8oy0 | is Nelson Mandela a terrorist or a hero? | He certainly engaged in activities that would be considered terrorism if anybody did the same thing to a western power. And he was technically still on the US terrorist watchlist until 2008. But by doing these things he probably saved more people from death, torture, and other hardships than if he had done nothing. | aff594e0-e5c4-4cf2-b079-a36f2132d8e3 |
2gria3 | Why does feeling lonely make you want to spend more time alone? | Its an evolutionary trait. When we're feeling lonely, we experience a heightened sensitivity to danger and threats in a social context.
The reaction that makes us want to spend extended time alone is called "preventative rejection", and in theory is protecting us from further rejection and negative interactions with others.
This allows us to minimize the damage from any negative interactions that might have caused the loneliness to begin with, but in the long term leads to potentially self-defeating feelings of hostility, fault finding, and self blame (as seen in almost every other comment on your post!)
EDIT: grammar
EDIT 2: WOW! Thank you beautiful strangers for the gold - I'm glad that my response was helpful to so many; I've received a ton of messages asking further questions, please feel free to keep it up! | e79a417c-d12e-48e0-807a-977da4f2a0f1 |
2ltki7 | why can't we reproduce the contitions or environment to make truffles? | We can. Wikipedia says that people began to notice that truffles grew under certain trees and cultivation was common in France.
_URL_0_ | 232a46aa-f9e4-4392-af23-0a493bcae067 |
8bxk24 | How does Computer Vision work? | The basic recognition algorithm that's typically used nowadays is something you can do by hand (slowly). The following is a bit simplified but it'll give you the gist.
First, I give you a grid representing the pixel values numerically. Let's say it's 256x256 pixels, and make it black and white for ease of use. Let's make white be 1.0 and black be -1.0, and shades of gray are in the middle of those.
You slide a little window (say, a 5x5 pixel window) over the grid, with a particular "step" (like moving over 2 pixels each step). You typically slide it left to right and top to bottom, but you could do it any way. You could have a lot of friends over and everyone does a little part, to get things done faster.
Your window is associated with a 5x5 grid of numbers. (These numbers are initially random! But as the algorithm progresses they start to move towards numbers that are useful for particular tasks, like recognizing edges at particular angles.) At each step, you multiply each number in the grid with the value of the pixel that's underneath it, then you add the results and put them in another grid. Eventually you get a whole new grid, where each square represents the sum of the products for each corresponding window position.
(You actually do this with several different little 5x5 windows with different numbers in each, and stack the resulting grids, so that the result is actually a 3-dimensional rather than 2-dimensional grid. The different windows end up recognizing different aspects of the picture, like this one finds vertical edges and that one edges at 45%. But I'm going to gloss over that for this description to keep it ELI5.)
Anyway, you have your new grid. Now you do this process AGAIN, now on your new grid, with a new little window with a new set of numbers. (Often you also have some intermediate steps, like making new, smaller grids by averaging or taking the maximum of small regions of numbers, or taking all negative numbers and replacing them with zeroes. But again I'll gloss over those.) Each time you do this the things you can find get more complicated: your initial stages are typically just finding things like "45% edge!" or "bright region!", later stages might find "circle!" or "stripes!", very late stages might find "wheel!" or "dog!". By the end, you might have just a tiny grid, like 8x8. You then typically do a few more matrix multiplications, and normalize the results to sum to 1.0, and then interpret the results as the *probability* that the image belongs to one of several classes (say, "human", "dog", "car", "sign", "none of the above").
Anyway, you do this algorithm for every picture, and then compare the result to what the picture actually was of. When you start out you'll typically be wrong, because you're starting with totally random numbers! So then you do another algorithm that uses calculus to adjust each number according to how much it contributed to you being wrong. A number that was really important to your wrong decision gets changed a lot, a number that didn't really contribute to your error doesn't change much. If you keep doing this on enough pictures, and the pictures are sufficiently varied and representative of the real-world task you want to do, you eventually get more reasonable numbers and thus more reasonable results! The end. | 823213c1-324c-4464-a5e5-894324d331d0 |
5ai52g | ELI5: Why does it take 1 seconds for debit card companies to take money out of my account but 5 days or more for them to refund it? | The same question, almost word for word has been posted before.
Top answer from that post
> Purchase:
> 1. The customer buys something. The merchant's bank checks with the customer's bank to make sure the customer has funds in their account, and the customer's bank puts a hold on the account in the amount- this hold is called the authorization. **This is what makes it appear as if the charge hits your card right away**
2. The merchant's bank has to settle the transaction. This costs money, so it's usually done in batches by the payment processor. They settle at least once a day.
3. The settlement takes up to 72 hours to process. Once the funds are sent from the customer's bank to the merchant's bank, the settlement appears on the customer's account, the funds are withdrawn, and the authorization is cancelled.
4. The merchant's bank updates the merchant's account to show that the funds have been received. This can take up to 24 hours.
4. It's been 1-5 days, and everyone has their money now. The transaction is complete.
> For a refund, the process is the same, but done in reverse:
> 1. The customer requests a refund. The merchant's bank requests a refund transaction from the bank. The bank checks with the merchant's bank to make sure they have the funds, and puts a hold on the amount.
> 2. The customer's bank has to settle the transaction. This costs money, so it's usually done in batches by the payment processor. They settle at least once a day.
3. The settlement takes up to 72 hours to process. Once the funds are sent from the merchant's bank to the customer's bank, the settlement appears on the merchant's bank's account, the funds are withdrawn, and the authorization is cancelled.
4. The customer's bank updates the customer's account to show that the funds have been received. This can take up to 24 hours.
4. It's been 1-5 days, and everyone has their money now. The refund is complete.
> This is the way the credit system is designed. Charges are "instant" because of authorizations. The authorization is a courtesy to show you how much you owe in pending transactions and help prevent you from overdrawing the account. It always takes time for the receiver of the payment to get the money - the Merchant gives you the stuff when they get the authorization, but don't get the money for several days. When you get a refund, the flow is reversed.
> It's not a conspiracy to squeeze extra interest out of your payment, it basically just has to be this way so the credit system works inside the existing regulations and systems in place for bank-to-bank account transfers.
_URL_0_ | 93a49d54-8a9a-4b41-9472-78e126cbe56a |
k0hog | Why do videos run better than video games on computer? | Lets say you get hired to do a job. This job involves taking papers and holding it up for people to see. Sometimes you get tasks where you're given a stack of papers with stuff on them and you just hold one up, then the next, then the next, etc. Fairly easy.
Now lets say you get a task where you have to draw the contents of the paper before holding it up. It's going to take you a lot longer to process the task right?
That's basically whats going on with a video that's pre-rendered, versus something like a video game that has to render each frame (page) individually. | 62bcad78-de07-4ac8-98e7-41fd0628dd90 |
jvg2f | The ending to the movie "Source Code" | It does not make sense, but the plot is not that important.
(spoilers, venting, feel free to skip to the bullet points at the end)
Plot, assuming that the movie is set in our future: The military can scan your brain after you have died, and collect the last 8 minutes of your experiences. These experiences can then be re-lived by another person, but this other person needs to undergo dangerous invasive procedures first. This is why they are done to a critically wounded soldier, because he's expendable and the scientists doing these experimental procedures wanted more unknowns, more of a challenge.
Of course, the recorded experience couldn't possibly be anything outside from what the dead person's senses took in, so it should be much like looking at a movie, where you are allowed to focus on whatever piece of the screen you wish, but you can't see what's going on behind you, or behind the seat in front of you, or in another room, or behind the inner ceiling panels in another room...
However, since this is possible, as well as other forms of interaction with the environment, what the re-liver experiences is either a dream filled in by his own or his borrowed sub-conscious, or it is a computer simulation. Either way any new information outside the one-track brain-movie is not real. Initially I was expecting him to go through all the passengers brain-tapes, gathering clues in a twist on the old whodunit. A multisocial journey to be sure. I was especially looking forward to him being the woman and seeing the previous him flirting with she-him.
I also had an expected explanation for why the traveller is unaware of what's going on - the borrowing pushes out his own consciousness when he goes in, and the borrowed story leaves ghosting when he comes out, making it less of a 12 monkeys experience but still pleasantly mindalteringly non-linear.
Instead they don't want to tell him, because they reason that if he knows what's going on and that there's a lot of lifes at stake, then he won't spend all his energy on trying to understand what's going on. They eventually tell him anyway which unfortunately means that he starts to do what they wanted him to do all along.
Eventually he solves all their problems, defeats the bad guy, saves lots of lives, and just wants it all to be over. Some of the military want him to do more work, some want to help him die. He eventually gets the latter, but when he dies the brain-movie does not finish, it just goes on, and as such he is back alive in the real world, only a few days earlier. As said, it does not make sense.
Plot, assuming that it is a fantastical movie, possbily with unicorns: If the voodoo high-priests of the military own a dead mans brain then they can send people back in time to relive the last 8 minutes of that dead person's life in whatever way they want. If the present living body of the travelling person is killed while his spirit is in the past dead mans body, it will stay there. The incantations and potions necessary to create a traveller are kind of a drag so instead of freeing their traveller or letting him take over the dead mans body, they prefer to keep him around in case they need him again. This is understandable since either time travel or spirit possession by itself would make them impossibly powerful compared to those who live bound by the rules of physics. A woman is too soft hearted for such world-conquering however so she kills him into the past dead mans body. In return he won't tell anyone about what just happened so that she won't lose her job. It's nothing to cause a fuss about anyway since they probably won't just do it to some other soldier, because time travel and spirit possession is *so last season*.
**Moral of the story:**
* If you are a soldier, don't waste time questioning orders. It may seem confusing and frightning, but the sooner you get on board with the plan the sooner the world will be saved.
* The military have secret super advanced technologies which scares you and you don't really understand and they can't tell you about but in the end they are saving the world.
* The military, having conquered time and space itself, limits their use of this power to local events of no moral ambiguity.
* Soldier up, do your job, then heaven waits for you.
* Women are too sentimental to do their job correctly.
* Many variations on this theme: If you are in love with someone, and you are hot, and the person you love dies... then it's ok if someone else goes back in time and takes over your love's body, and with hindsight prevents the death of your love, and then while wearing your spouse's body like a flesh suit the visitor plucks the fruit of your loins. | 562f321f-7ac2-4abf-a177-d918a527dccb |
41bo31 | If lenses are round, why are photos square? | actually, squares are rectangles, but thats not important.
First rule, you cant reasonably make a square lens. Its all easier round.
Ok, so now do you make a round film? round digital sensor? round pictures? round picture frames?
No its clear the end result will be a rectangle, and in the case of film, you would have to LOSE resolution to make a circular image on a strip of paper.
SO they let the film define the shape that is captured. | 42eea998-53d1-4b90-ad71-648a3a7f8679 |
313a6i | How do women use the john while wearing dresses, especially the long flowing variety? | There are generally ~~two~~ three ways.
1. If it's just a skirt or if the dress is easy enough to take off, you can just pull it down like you would with your pants. This is usually not a good idea in public restrooms, because it will result in having your skirt/dress pool on the likely very filthy floor. The main benefit is that it usually doen't wrinkle your clothes.
2. The more popular option is to just gather your skirts up around your waist while you do your business. To avoid dipping anything in the toilet by accident, it is recommended to pull all the material to the front where you can easily keep it accounted for. If the skirt is light enough, you can even twist it up and tuck it under your shirt (or to the neck of your shirt is the skirt is long enogh). The downside here is that your skirt/dress will likely wrinkle.
3. If you don't want to let your clothes touch the floor and if your skirts are so long and full or heavy that they can not be easily gathered up, you can just get undressed and hang up your clothes on the hook that is usually provided for a purse in public restrooms for the ladies. The downsides of this technique are the uncomfortable feeling of being naked in a public area and the difficulty of performing this maneuver successfully in the limited space without touching anything icky.
Hope this helps! If you are interested in trying it, I recommend getting some practice first in the safety and comfort of your own home. | 3eab9a7b-1a1b-4976-843d-02cfa528cd95 |
3xit6s | Why are higher values of money made with paper rather than coins, if coin money lasts longer? | Paper is cheaper to make and people don't like carrying coins around. In the US the Sacajawea dollar was tried for awhile a few years ago but never caught on because most people still preferred paper bills. | 3185c4f1-c367-4b45-83cb-cbe36cd37866 |
3dudni | What's actually happening when we laugh so hard it hurts? | You're causing a hypoxic (low oxygen) state in your diaphragm and other accessory respiratory muscles. Source: I'm a paramedic student. | 82b679ac-641e-4612-8042-ec431b58d499 |
42ae6h | Why does paper money have serial numbers but coins do not? | Serial numbers are an anti-counterfeiting measure.
The US government is not seriously concerned about people counterfeiting coins because of the difficulty and extremely low reward for the risk. | a2dc9ba5-3139-46b2-b743-b5d03e88beea |
3vj8t4 | What is that "hot blooded" feeling you get when you feel aggravated? | Your pulse and blood-pressure rise to prepare yourself for a fight. That means more blood gets pumped into your head and face, too. Since blood is warm, you feel hotter. | f702b028-be6c-4a44-a76c-7e6cfd90af92 |
1d4wc3 | Robotics/Computers | Robotics are based on three main components: controller, sensors and actuators. Sensors are something like our senses: the robot "senses" the environment with sensors, such as microphones, gyroscopes, proximity sensors and so on. Actuators are things that enable something: an electrical motor, a hydraulic pump and so on. For example, a small hydraulic cylinder could be used to change the angle of a robotic arm.
Now, controllers are the chips and computer programs that make the magic happen. The controllers read data from the sensors, calculate appropriate actions and then tell the actuators to do the actions.
Let's take an example: a vacuuming robot. It has infrared sensors that scan the proximity in front of the robot. If the sensor sees a wall right in front of the robot, it will notify the controller chip. Now, the controller chip gets a warning that the robot is about to hit a wall. It will tell the wheel motors to decelerate. The sensors keep notifying the controller about the approaching wall, and when the wall is really close, it will give a near-collision warning. Now, the controller will handle the case differently: it tells the wheel motors to stop completely. An accelerator sensor wakes up, and when the robot is finally standing still, it notifies the controller. Now, the controller checks if there's room to turn, and if there is, it will tell the wheel motors to make a turn to the left.
This is very basic stuff in robotics. There's of course a lot more going on, and in human-like robotics, it gets really complicated. | 4c986997-2dea-49e3-bfaf-97683b322bb3 |
2ksz14 | What does pain feel like? | Wow, thinking about it, this is a very loaded question. It's difficult to explain pain to someone that can't feel it.
I imagine you've suffered some emotional pain at some point in your life. If I had to describe how physical pain compares to that, I'd say it's fairly different yet somehow similar. Personally, I think emotional pain can be much more severe. Most injuries tend to heal after a while, so it's usually temporary. Emotional pain can leave scars for life.
I've had my fair share of broken or fractured bones, flesh injuries and some other minor issues. I've been lucky enough to not have lasting damage from any of these. A broken arm doesn't keep me awake at night, but a bad breakup or the death of a loved one definitely does.
I'm not sure what else I can say about this, but if you have any other more specific questions I'd be happy to answer.
Also, you should consider doing an AMA, I'm sure Reddit would love to pick your brain about some of your experiences. | 9103ac75-e83b-492d-9159-c97c70b02814 |
j2tz9 | Can someone explain ancient Greek city-states to me like I'm five? | They were closer to cities today than countries. Perhaps the best modern analogue would be modern city-states (or just very small mostly metropolitan states) or semi-independent territories...Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc. A small population, but with a strong national identity.
These were the first state-like entities; a city is physically small enough to make bureaucratic, even democratic civil administration possible in an era of no telecommunication.
The importance of Greece is quite significant in Western culture today, but, I wouldn't say that most of the rest of the world had any idea of Greece's existence. Just look at Greek maps of the period and you'll see they also believed they were in their own little Mediterranean world as well. Even if they had some really rough maps of areas like the coast of the Indian Ocean, it doesn't mean anyone living there knew who they were. Even most Greeks at the time wouldn't have known what their region of the world looked like on a map at all. | 66185c5b-54bd-4d7a-893b-cb5f9e52fc9c |
439q7u | How to understand camera lens F numbers | A 12 gauge shotgun is a larger barrel than a 20 gauge shotgun.
A 6 gauge ear stud is bigger than a 14 gauge ear stud
A F/2.8 aperture is bigger than a F/5.6 aperture.
If you think of photography like filling a bucket with water (light), then the aperture is how wide your hose is, and your shutter speed is how long you turn the tap on for. Wide hose only needs the tap turned for a short time to fill the bucket, narrow hose needs the tap turned on for longer to fill the bucket to the same amount. | 794add15-d47e-4420-837d-3c56ca8d51de |
8bqb2o | what causes the White Cliffs of Dover, and other white cliffs to be white? | The cliffs are made out of chalk. The same stuff you use to write on blackboards.
The cliffs are the result of lots of little organism dying in that place a long time ago. | 311b2c7b-749d-4648-9571-cd28005eb612 |
7tyhec | why the US military can't deploy military police officers in areas of the country with little police presence or cities that can barely afford a functioning police force like Detroit? | The US military is not allowed to operate on US soil save in the event of invasion or fighting those of treasonous disent (civil war). It is one of the protections that prevent the President from becoming a dictator. | 3b0726bf-136c-4e8c-bdf8-f5d2048eb9b1 |
51t7ct | Why do waves in the ocean look frozen when you look at them from an airplane? | They are continuously moving, but with nothing nearby as a reference point and at a great distance, it is hard to tell.
It's like how a plane in the sky looks like It's going real slow, when it's actually going like 600 mph. | 12a4fe44-07cb-45d7-9cd2-f7b4f4d0904a |
nhj92 | how does file compression work? As in .zip, .rar, etc. | To give a really simple example....
Say you want to compress a text file that contains:
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
Originally that file is 20 characters long. You can compress it by doing this instead:
"Ax20"
You've now reduced it to 4 characters with no loss of information.
In reality, compression works similarly to this, it looks for patterns that can de described in a shorter way. For example it may take less space to say the word "and" appears at certain locations than to actually list the word again and again. | cee0a16a-2e9c-4967-a843-d027491c8f0f |
na9zf | Volleyball offenses, specifically 4-2 and 6-2 | Hokey doke. No visual aids, but I'll see what I can do.
The numbers in 4-2 and 6-2 refer to how many hitters and setters you have, respectively. 4-2 has 4 hitters and 2 setters, 6-2 has 6 hitters and 2 setters. But there's only 6 people on the v-ball court.
Firstly, I'll ignore the whole idea of people having to start in the correct, 'legal' spots then switch to where they're playing. That's a different thing. Also the fact that only people actually lined up in the front row can hit.
The basic difference between the 4-2 and the 6-2 is where the setter is in the lineup. In both offenses, you've got 2 setters, and they'll be opposite each other in the lineup (1 and 4, 2 and 5, etc).
In a 4-2, once the play starts, the setter who is in the front row moves to the setter's position (front right). This means that the middle and outside in the front are your hitters, and the guy or gal standing front right is your setter.
In 6-2, once the play start, the setter who is in the *back* row runs to the front right position. This means you have 3 hitters - your outside, your middle, and your swing. Your swing is most likely your setter in the *front* row. This way, when they're in the front row (and legal to jump and hit in front o' the 10-foot line) they can hit. When they're in the back row, they run up and set.
Downside? You've got 1 less person in the back row to field the ball.
Other options - you can do sort of a combo of both, but this gets confusing. Basically, you have all 3 back-row folks ready to receive the serve. If your back-row setter is the one who receives the serve, well, then you're playin' 4-2. If someone else receives the serve and your back-row setter can get in position, then you're playing 6-2. Confusion here comes from a) setters having to decide who's playing it, and b) setter who's in the back-row lineup needing to remember they can't hit. | 73031320-0575-409b-9659-00d271b04473 |
1ivymm | Supernovae, Neutron stars, and black holes. | * **Supernova**: when a massive star blows up, initiated by the sudden (takes less than a second) collapse of it's core. The collapse of the core is initiated when the pressure from nuclear fusion can no longer hold up against the immense gravity pushing in. There are generally two types, Ia and II.
* **Neutron Star**: a super-massive and super-dense star where all the space between the the neutrons and electrons of the atoms of the star has been eliminated. In other words, the atoms have been crushed so there is virtually no space between the neutrons and electrons. A teaspoon of neutron star would weight millions and millions of pounds.
* **Black holes**: when a super-massive star's core collapses all the way down to a singularity, an infinitely dense and infinitely small point. Bends space-time so much that not even light can escape it's gravitational pull. If you get close enough (called the event-horizon), you will never be able to escape the black hole's pull. | 9a7a17dc-516a-45f3-a919-95c94cabb35d |
4jhczs | Why would a three degree increase in the average global temperatures have such a devastating effect on sea levels? | It doesn't take much to upset a balance. For example, if in the past the ice caps grew during the winter and melted during the summer at about equal rates, the water levels would not be affected. But increasing the temperature just a few degrees would mean that now every years the ice caps are melting more than they are growing. So over the years they are slowly melting away and the sea level will rise.
It's also a bit of a viscous cycle. The white snow reflects light back out in to space, meaning that light wont heat up the Earth. But if the temperature gets a bit higher, there will be less snow, so now the light will hit the Earth and be absorbed, contributing to the heat. Which will cause there to be even less snow, which causes even more light to hit the Earth and so on. | cf7768d3-1239-40e4-be7d-e83c68170997 |
7f84l9 | Why does flushing the toilet make the water in the shower hotter? | Toilets use cold water to refill their tanks. Flushing causes the tank to refill. Showers mix cold and hot water to get the temperature you want. Cold water is diverted to the toilet leaving only/mostly hot water.
More modern plumbing systems don’t have this issue, but its prevalent in older houses. | 4431f1a9-2fb2-4b4a-bcfb-b62260631e1a |
6e6u1j | Why do we make cars that easily go way faster than the speed limit? | Well, all countries have different rules, the same goes for speed limits!
The best example is Germany, they are known to have roads with NO speedlimit, meaning you can go as fast as your car (and your bravery) will take you!.
That also explains why there are many sports cars in that country too.
How about other countries with speed limits?, well to be honest. People who buy such cars just do it because....well they can!
Think of it as a show of status rather than practicality.
Its like why people buy virtual clothes or cosmetics. Theres no advantage to getting them, the only difference is that you are now seen as a richer person! | 2e380922-2e9d-40b1-a988-f4ce2917e9df |
5rde8p | Why do we get dopamine releases from completing a hard video game level or accomplishing a feat, but not from solving a math question? | I actually get a huge rush from solving a math problem...
You get the dopamine rush from doing things you like, partially. If you don't like something, you won't get the rush. Something like flappy bird is easy for most people to enjoy, so you get the rush. | f2a10321-5418-48e6-8806-53e859dc1ddd |
3y6rpr | Why are babies attracted to cartoons and not regular television shows (non-cartoons)? | I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the soft shapes and simpler designs. That's why shows like blues clues are the way they are. I don't really know but I hope that helps. | 8d638e3f-880f-4370-8f8f-194f83cc3f4d |
2imo48 | Is fire just a chain reaction between the molecules? | Molecules aren't igniting. Something burning is a chemical reaction where the molecules of the burned substance are increasing rapidly in kinetic energy (their movement is increasing). The "chain reaction" depends on the energy of the activation of the reaction and the amount of substance that is able to undergo said reaction. So, the fire is a release of energy from the reaction. -hope this helps, it was a rather confusing question. | 3606d6fd-89a7-4d28-9320-fad8e5e012b8 |
687q45 | the situation in Kashmir? | Alright, let's go back a bit. This is the really short version, since there's tons of nuance to this subject that you easily can--and many have--write a book about.
During the 19th and early 20th century, what we know know of as India and Pakistan were ruled by the British. There was no seperation between India and Pakistan, but rather both were considered--together--to be 'British India', or the British Raj. After World War II, when the British decided to withdraw from India and grant it independence, it was decided that British India would be divided into 2 states: India, and Pakistan. India would be a Hindu state, and Pakistan a Muslim one, and all of the component parts of British India would get to decide which one they joined.
In most areas this wasn't too difficult: most areas were either majority Muslim or majority Hindu, and joined Pakistan or India accordingly. However, Kashmir--one of the larger component states of British India--was split on which it should join, with some saying that Kashmire should be its own country too. In 1947, this escalated into war, with Pakistan and India each invading and taking a portion of Kashmir (1/3 to Pakistan, 2/3 to India), while claiming to own the entire thing, and denouncing the other as illegal occupiers. India and Pakistan have fought multiple wars over the issue.
The conflict has continued since then. | 1c3cd110-3207-4216-a424-c0f29096c33e |
6bdach | Why are you not supposed to use cruise control while pulling heavy trailers? | Say you get a speed wobble. You need to come off the throttle immediately and slow down to recover. Your cruise control obviously doesn't know a speed wobble started and staying on the throttle will make the wobble worse.
Same thing can happen in slippery conditions. Cruise control can make the car slide more if your traction control doesn't intervene. | e1d9f9c2-6100-485d-a6eb-36e9e6df7896 |
2c8v11 | How do they build those rickety rope bridges? I can't wrap my brain around it... | Generally you take a thin rope that's a lot longer than the gap, secure one end and take the other end the long way, down through the valley or whatever. You pull it tight and secure it, then you can use that rope to pull across a bigger, heavier and stronger rope, and do that as many times as you need until you've got enough strength to carry workers who build the thing out into a full bridge. Yes, this does mean hanging from a few ropes over an abyss while building the bridge.
Sometimes people even take the first string across with a kite. | 594ad1f8-8a45-461e-b8aa-4f1c7336384a |
3ye8wk | Why does a mobil's GPS need mobile data and data connection to work? | Your phone doesn't need a mobile connection to receive GPS signals. As you rightly suggested, these are constantly transmitted from orbiting satellites, and no internet connection is necessary to receive that data.
However your phone does need an internet connection to download the maps which it uses to display where you are -- although some mapping apps do have the ability to pre-download data for specific areas so that they'll work without online connectivity. However to store detailed maps of the entire planet would require far more memory than even the largest SD card available, so phones generally simply download just enough of the immediate area to be displayed at any given time. | 221f61b2-60a5-4dfa-a66c-07ede68dbf4d |
1mwt2f | What is the evolutionary purpose of pine cones? | The pine cone contains seeds, when it's wet the cone "scales" tighten up and close, and when it's dry they open. This means that when seeds get blown out it's drier, which means they travel further. The cone itself is just the bag for the seeds, it's not useful itself after the seeds are gone. | 9199b295-a643-481b-875e-c390a72088ee |
2is73j | Why can you just tag the base to get a runner out at first in baseball but it seems like you need to tag the runner himself all other times? | It's an issue of "forced" or not. If the runner has an alternative destination then you have to tag them, if they do not...you can tag the base. In the case of a runner stealing from first to second, the runner could return to first base if they decided to do so, so...you must touch them. When the player has just hit the ball, they _must_ go to first base, so...you can just touch the base. For an advanced (!) example, if there is a runner on first and someone hits the ball, the runner on first can be made "out" by just touching second base, because the runner on second can't go back to first base because it's occupied by the person who just hit the ball. | 302c5522-e418-4075-8755-74cc67d290da |
1p77l3 | What the difference is between The District of Columbia and a regular state in The US. | In the United States there are levels of government. Federal Government, State Government, County (not important in some states), City/Town etc. Each state government has a lot of latitude in passing laws as they see fit, essentially free of Federal interference, as long as their laws abide by the Constitution and certain other laws. The people in states elect members of Congress who serve in the Senate and in the House of Representatives.
DC lacks a state government, and the city government is subservient to the Federal Government. The Constitution provides for DC to be ruled directly by Congress and the Federal Government (Article I, Section 8). Various methods delegated the task in the past, including the appointed position of governor, and a Board of Commissioners. In recent decades, the elected office of Mayor was put in place and an elected City Council was created, which writes and votes on laws, but all laws they pass still require the OK of Congress to go into effect (This is known as Home Rule).
The residents of DC also do not have voting members of Congress. There are no Senators for DC. There is a member of the House of Representatives who is a non-voting member. Until recently, DC residents couldn't vote for President, but this was changed and DC now has electoral votes which equal what they would get *if* a state, but can't be more than the smallest state (This is from the 23rd Amendment). | 08200fd0-7d3f-4283-9bed-b2a167cc4757 |
j2ozz | Can someone explain Venture Capital funding like I'm five? | 1. With smaller VCs the money may come from an individual that runs the fund with a fortune they've amassed from some other business, but in most cases it will come from "limited partners", these are the VC's investors. These will be organizations like pension funds who treat VCs as the "high risk" part of their investment portfolio.
2. Depends. They will own part of your company, and while they do you're tied to them. They may sell that part as part of a subsequent investment to another investor, or to the public after you IPO. Otherwise, you're stuck with them until you sell the company.
3. They are:
* Angel round - this is typically less than $1M, and the investor will typically be a wealthy individual who likes your business for some reason. VCs occasionally do investments like this, in which case its referred to as a "seed" round. At this point your company will be valued at less than $5M.
* A round - this is typically $1M-$6M, and will be from a VC. At this stage your company will typically be valued between $5M and $20M.
* B round - This is typically greater than $6M and less than $20M.
After that C, D, E rounds all kind of blur together. The reality is that since the founders dilute (own less of the company) after each round, if you're doing a D round or later, something is probably wrong.
*disclaimer* These numbers are based on my personal experience as an entrepreneur, a VC may be able to provide more accurate answers. There really aren't any formal definitions of these things that I'm aware of. | 4e02a699-a590-4819-baf5-86a77fd813f3 |
59g04q | Why is using "I have black friend(s)" not a valid rebuttal to being called racist? | Having one black friend doesn't mean a person likes all black people, that one black friend could just be the exception to the rule. It'd be kind of like a man saying "I'm not sexist I have a wife" and then saying something like "a woman's place is only in the home". | 556c2abe-b80c-40c1-b171-d81edad81b56 |
6kdrto | How do trees die? Do they have a life span and die from "old age", or do they only die when they become infected with a fungus/infested with termites/etc.? | They die like anything else. Sure they can die of the causes you mentioned. Even if none of those happen to the tree, over time cells become less able to reproduce identical copies of themselves. Due to this, the tree will not be able to keep growing or replace its current cells, so it will die. Trees don’t need to replace their cells that often, so they can live a long time. | b7dada4c-8fc6-45c4-aed5-cab217062558 |
1nikdv | When the leader of the country calls the leader of another country, how does it work? | In the Case of the USA and Russia they have a dedicated connection for diplomatic communications. In general, though, communication is done via the respective ambassadors in each country. Acting as a representative of a state is what makes the ambassador the ambassador after all.
Various means of sending information to and from embassies are used depending on the sensitivity of the message and the infrastructure available to the countries in questions. | d1e20c5b-dc54-40c4-85f0-1c9748d5ee9a |
5uzkzl | Why land masses who are somewhat close to Antarctica such as New Zealand don't get cold? | New Zealand is somewhat close to Antarctica in roughly the same way as Paris is somewhat close to the Arctic, and has a broadly similar climate. | 74c90bfa-0363-4fef-8160-5df48d820916 |
ze65y | The whole thing about DRM and Ubisoft. | Ubisoft is notorious for the DRM (Digital Rights Management) in the games they make. The most frequent example of it is the requirement to be connect to the internet at all times while you play. So if you wanted to play for example single player Assassins Creed but where offline no dice.
The reason for the DRM was to stop pirates, you cant play the game without connecting online and if they detect a pirated copy they would just close the game. Problem solved! Piracy stopped!
Expect pirates just disable that bit of code, allowing them to play offline. The result is piracy continues, and in fact the pirates get the best version of the game because they can play it offline while your paying customers are stuck with the online always requirement.
Ubisoft has recently announced that they will stop using the always connected method of DRM for future games. | a39f97c9-270b-425a-b795-1c56270e38bc |
3j52i3 | How does a medicine, like one to help quit smoking, develop into side effects like suicidal thoughts? | Because it changes the chemical composition of your body, specifically your brain chemistry.
Think of it like this: Medicine A works by causing your brain to produce lots of chemical A. Chemical A being present in your system helps to curb your desire to smoke, which is great. But chemical A does lots of things besides that... maybe it regulates your heart rate in some way, maybe it affects your mood, maybe it affects your memory. One of those many side effects could increase suicidal thoughts. | a4cc5a8c-222f-40c5-b5e6-62d1c5bbb499 |
1alrwq | What is communism? | Communism is a moneyless, stateless, & classless envisioning of society. Under communism there is no "private property" as there is today. Instead communists believe in a form of "personal property" that is determined by use of an object (as opposed to abstract ownership).
For instance: a house. If you eat, sleep, and just generally live in a house it is yours. You own it because you use it. That is your personal property. A house becomes private property when you no longer live in it, but still maintain ownership over it and charge others for the right to use it (in other words, renting property).
Communism rejects the concept of private property and it's effects on society, the economy, and production. They support common ownership of the means of production (anything that is used to produce a commodity) and of natural resources.
**tl;dr** Communism is a stateless, moneyless, and classless. No private property. Common ownership of the means of production.
I highly encourage you and anyone else to post their questions in/r/communism101 and any critiques to /r/DebateCommunism | c45ceaa6-97d1-4c11-a788-b2c6279ec4f9 |
8znrl2 | Why does hot air seem difficult to breathe? | Hot air is less dense than cold air so there is actually less oxygen present in it for your lungs to pass into your bloodstream | 573fa864-66fd-441e-846e-8ce50b5ad714 |
8kvzog | Squatters rights | Think of it the other way around: you have an agreement with someone to rent a house, it's an under the table deal so you don't really have a lease, just the guys word. You live there for two months, and the guy decides he wants you out. So he calls the cops and days that you're squatting.
Cops show up, and since it's obvious that someone has been living there for a while, they tell the landlord it's a civil issue and to deal with it in court. Then you have an opportunity to prove that you do indeed have the right to be there.
Squatters rights protect tenants from landlords trying to kick people out without following proper procedures. | cf1ab74c-5811-49ad-8705-cf4794d859f0 |
2ihrvv | How does the website _URL_0_ predict gas prices? | Future fuel prices are based on todays crude oil prices, so lets say on monday, a company buys enough crude oil to generate 100 gallons of fuel for $50, that they sell for $1 per gallon. They get a delivery every monday, wed, fri. On Wed's delivery, their price has risen to $52 for 100 gallons, so when they are legally able to* they raise their price to $1.04**
*I believe, in the U.S. there are laws in place that prevent them from raising the price in "existing stock" based on a new price. So if they can't buy a metric crapton real cheap, and then raise the price when they are still using that gase if the price skyrockets
**My initial cost, for them, was 50 cents per gallon, that they were getting double for, at $1, so when their price rose to .52, they doubled their price from that, to $1.04 | cf7f587d-6317-4361-82ed-cfb078553f5d |
ns1ku | Can you please give me a couple sentences about each of the potential presidential candidates? | I'll keep this down to the six really relevant candidates: Bachmann, Paul, Gingrich, Perry, Huntsman, and Romney. Gary Johnson will not be a factor and Rick Santorum is fading fast.
That being said,
> Ron Paul
You may know him as the darling of the internet and Reddit in particular. A vehement libertarian, Paul generally advocates for positions encouraging the least possible involvement of the government, and of its interaction with foreign actors.
> Michelle Bachmann
A figurehead for the Tea Party. Has been running a campaign generally seen as appealing to populism; extremely socially and economically neoconservative. Aside from attacking Obama on Libya and Israel, has not really focused on foreign policy.
> Newt Gingrich
A longtime politician and former Speaker of the House. Very, very skilled at the "game" of American politics and has cemented himself as a kingmaker and leader of conservatives in the past twenty years. Lots of personal baggage. Economically and socially conservative, but less so than Bachmann. A longtime neoconservative foreign policy advocate, but has not made it an issue of his campaign.
> Mitt Romney
Former Governor of Massachusetts and founder of the consulting firm Bain & Co. Relatively speaking, a moderate in most circumstances. Calculating and cold personality, but currently widely considered the front-runner.
> Jon Huntsman
Former Governor of Utah and US Ambassador to China under the Obama Administration. This former job title will speak to his political positions; he is without question the most centrist of the field. Seen as articulate, intelligent, but somewhat meek. Publicly admits belief in evolution and climate change. Often looks exasperated at debates after hearing particularly stupid remarks.
> Rick Perry
Essentially George W. Bush, I wish I could give you a more serious answer | 1b2af249-3239-4f14-b877-cfbb0dc77590 |
3e7evh | If rotten smells (dead animals, rotting meat, etc) come from the bacteria that eat the rotting material, where do those bacteria come from and why can't we smell them all the time? | Poop comes from our bodies but we don't smell like poop all the time.
Those bacteria are **everywhere**, but we're not smelling the bacteria. We're smelling the things those bacteria give off when they eat. Of course, the bacteria are always eating and dividing, but we only pick up the smell when the bacteria find a huge treasure trove of food (like a rotting body) to eat and turn into other stuff like more bacteria (and the chemicals we smell). | 6c5dd31a-9187-4308-95fb-12271a1d9d69 |
3ct2ok | Why does sand harden when water touches it? | Mostly because water likes to stick to things (and itself). Sand is a bunch of tiny rocks all sitting in a pile. When you pour water onto sand, the water gets into all the little cracks between the grains. Water, as I said above, likes to stick to itself moreso than than the air that used to be between those grains. As such, the water-infused sand sticks together more and, from a human's perspective, hardens. | 9b8f13fe-a9c9-4d62-9693-032b23e17e2e |
38qjjl | When I charge my phone through the USB port on my computer, does it charge slower than it would through a wall charger? | The answer is, alas, "maybe".
If your PC was build before 2012, and your phone uses a 2A charger, then yes. Even if neither of these is true, then it still might be "yes".
The USB standard for peripheral devices specifies that power consumption can't exceed 100mA without negotiating a higher transfer rate over the protocol.
The USB charging port standard supported up to 7.5W (1500mA @ 5V). This standard was intended for when the port was used only for charging, and so generally wouldn't be used by a USB port on a computer.
In 2012, the charging standard was enhanced to include a mechanism for negotiating power transfer of 10W (2000mA @ 5V).
Theoretically, the standard also supports a 60W charging protocol, but the USB 2 connector is incapable of supporting this.
If your device does power negotiation over the USB peripheral protocol, and the PC was built to support the new enhanced charging standard, then you might get 10W over the connector.
Otherwise, your charging will be slower over PC USB. | 9072a58c-1ee7-4f9a-9233-7d98e78a6344 |
qayx7 | How social security contributes to national debt | Social Security was doing great. In fact, it was doing SO great that as the Baby Boomers entered the workforce, it took in WAY more than it needed. However in a rare event, Congress was smart and realized "Yeah, but we're going to be needing this money when all these folks retire." So they decided to save it up in a **Social Security Trust Fund**.
However, just like you don't keep your money in a mason jar, the SSTF invested it just like everyone else does with their excess money. They invest it in what is considered the safest investment in the world. US Government Debt.
So fast forward to the present day and there's no actual MONEY in the SSTF. Just Treasury Bills. Congress owes the SSTF a **SHIT TON** of money and now they need it because the Baby Boomers are retiring. Problem: Now Congress is broke too. So now WTF do we do?
> So could you cut it and reduce the debt?
Well you COULD. But then you have tell over 100 MILLION Americans that they have paid tens of thousands of dollars into it for their entire lives and now they're going to get absolutely nothing back.
> But if people pay into social security, then wouldn't cutting it just be cutting the money that they paid into it originally?
But that money is gone. It has either gone to pay benefits for people that are currently retired, or was "borrowed" by Congress to pay for the General Budget.
Social Security isn't the problem. SS is viable in the near future and viable in the long term with only major tweaks (IIRC, either a 20% cut in benefits, a 2% increase in FICA taxes, or a combination of the two and SS is solvent for a very long time).
It's **Medicare** that's hosed. | 330c0e45-6511-4a1e-a496-ba9e076ecb0c |
6euulf | Why is water in drawings portrayed as blue even though most rivers and lakes do not look blue? | Large bodies of water like rivers, lakes, and oceans really are blue.
Pure water with nothing else in it is transparent. But large bodies of water are not remotely pure. (They may be clean and potable, but they're not "pure".)
You know how a bottle of maple syrup looks dark brown, but a small drop of it looks very light brown, almost transparent?
Large bodies of water are the same. Take a small cup of it and it looks transparent. But look at a large volume of it and you're seeing through millions of gallons of it, and the tiny tint to the water makes it overall appear a light, medium or even dark blue.
The main reason water is blue is because some of the particles in water absorb red light, so what's left is blue. But some lakes are also colored by algae. Finally, while not a primary factor, reflecting the blue color of the sky is sometimes part of what contributes to water appearing blue. | 512d29e1-ddee-4836-a3c4-517d3a3f8365 |
42n2ns | What exactly is the difference between Arab and Persian? | I mean, this is kind of like asking "what's the difference between French and German?" Well, a lot.
Arabs speak Arabic, Persians speak Farsi
Arabs are principally from modern day Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Oman, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia while Persians come from modern day Iran.
Persia existed as a unified polity before Islam and practiced, for the most part, a distinct, dominant faith (Zoroastrianism).
There are countless tiny minutia that distinguish Arabic and Persian culture as well. I'm not familiar enough with either culture to really get into that kind of stuff though. | e6a62798-4996-4a1d-9e66-787ec04f1cde |
58h2bv | why pens appear 'bendy' | Believe it or not, like a camera, our brain has a "frame rate" or amount of information we can take in per second and process. It's about 15 f/s. (Side note: any motion slower than that doesn't really seem smooth to us.)
Since our minds take in information in this finite way, filling in spaces as it needs to for the perception of motion, we can get fooled by motion blur, like a pencil wiggling, if it's at certain speeds. That's why when you're doing the trick, you need to get it just right: too slow, and it looks stiff, too fast, and it's the same as a fan blade spinning.
There's also something to be said for the fact that to do the trick, you need to keep the middle in the same place. This makes it seem like there's a point at which the pencil bends, a point of reference for our eyes.
Hope that helped | 6da70036-5e1b-4c5c-9eb5-eb9700d9dcd7 |
1nolt2 | When watching a game/fight how do they and who is in charge of switching from camera to camera for the best shot. | Former TV News station employee here. Your local station doesn't have any control of the game being aired. The network itself (NBC, ESPN, CBS, etc...) has their own crew at the game. Each camera is routed into a main control room, where there is a crew of people controlling what makes it on air. You have your audio techs, who control the sound, your graphics guys, who are creating the on air graphics you see, you have your team responsible for quickly grabbing footage to be used for instant replays, etc.
As for your question, each camera comes into it's own monitor on a giant wall of TVs, think the Architect's room in the Matrix Revolutions, it is kind of like that. Each TV has a corresponding number. The director is watching all screens, calling out which camera to take on air. The Technical Director is in charge of pulling up the cameras, he does this by sitting at a [giant board](_URL_0_).
That feed is then fed back to all the local stations or cable companies, depending on the area.
Hope that was easy to understand, there are a lot of moving parts. | 21264074-088d-4224-a06f-6b49f23b5a33 |
7gs0ws | What is "blue light" and why does filtering it on my phone help protect my eyes? | The most important thing about filtering blue light from your electronic devices is that blue light keeps you awake at night. Light signals your body to stop the production of melatonin and destroy the melatonin in your body, and blue light is the most effective at causing this. Melatonin signals the rest of your body to sleep and gives you that sleepy feeling. Filtering out the blue from your phone screen and computer monitor helps prevent sleep disorders because it helps prevent those devices from falsely signaling your body to stop producing melatonin. | 69ccc46b-5190-4bb0-a396-9afb3b04174b |
3o1g26 | Why is the tenth month called October? Did it used to be the eighth of something? | Yep. In the Roman calendar, the year started in spring -- that is, with March. They had ten months, and then just said "aw, fuck winter, it's not worth months."
That didn't last, so two more months were added at the end of the (Roman) year -- January and February. | 83a38cf4-7983-4703-858b-6a0d9aede7ff |
2ged2s | why do root beer floats foam when you put the soda on the ice cream? | The ice cream has a very rough surface and is cold. The level of dissolved carbon dioxide in the soda is a function of temperature; the colder the liquid, the less carbon dioxide it can hold. The cold temperature of the ice cream causes the soda to cool, forcing carbon dioxide to come out of solution and form bubbles.
However, the carbon dioxide needs a place to start forming a bubble. The rough surface of the ice cream serves as points for the bubbles to start forming (these are known as condensation nuclei). When that many bubbles form in a liquid, it takes on a frothy, foamy texture/appearance; hence, root beer floats are foamy. | a8e9afa9-4b26-458a-aecc-c96ffddad5bd |
4okyxh | How did a piece of leather sharpen an olde timey razor when leather is softer than steel? | The purpose of the leather isn't to "sharpen" it's to "hone".
In the first stage of getting dull the tip of the razor will bend. The leather strop is used to 'push' the tip back into the right alignment without removing any material. This process is called "honing", you should do it a lot, which is why you don't acutally want to use something hard that will remove material (you'd actually wear out the knife from loss of material).
If the knife becomes very dull then you start to do actual damage to the edge, and then you need to remove material to make a new edge. That process is called "sharpening". | c3f0d33a-0242-4d94-8de0-1ca2cb4e7d1b |
74knza | When a gun is fired in fully automatic mode, is the recoil pattern predictable or random? | I've fired exactly two automatic rifles in my life, I was young and didn't know the type of one, the other was some hands on historical thing and I was allowed to shoot a tommy gun filled with blanks down range, but it was pretty "predictable" both times, every shot gives recoil, so as long as the shots are consistent, the recoil will be.
Unless, however, you mean travel caused by recoil. In which case that completely depends on your ability to control the weapon, the amount of recoil can definitely make a difference, but generally if you know how to handle it you can control it to a surprising degree. Though you'll always have travel with automatic rifles. | acfd62b8-83a5-4003-821c-bb1359072ca1 |
2gxz1h | What gives art its value? | We give art its value.
Its primary value is in what the art says. In 1917, an art museum was running a promotion in which they advertised that they would accept any form of art in their museum. Duchamp challenged this notion by submitting a urinal, signing it, and submitting it as a piece. The museum tried to protest against it, but Duchamp maintained that it was 'art', as there was no other criteria by which they defined art.
It's now classified under 'Dadaism', which basically means that nonsense can be in itself an art form. Humans have a tendency to assign meaning to things even if they are nonsensical, which is what the art form draws on.
The art in itself doesn't have to make sense, but we can pull meaning from it simply from the context in which it is being displayed.
That's why people who go to museums try to stare at the art until they can figure out what it means to them; it draws on the context of the situation (i.e being displayed in a building specifically designed to display things of explicit and implicit meaning) to provide its value.
'Conventional' art like paintings of people or places also carry meaning, but in a different way; it's about the presentation, perspective, or detail involved in a specific scene. 'Abstract' art bases its meaning on drawing your attention to things you might not have considered, which is why it's harder for most people to understand. | c608a91f-fbba-48a5-9975-d51512098cf6 |
6zxki9 | What do doctors do with unnecessary body parts like an appendix? | Biohazard waste (removed body parts and those disposable tools that come in contact with your blood, for instance) are destroyed in a way that is designed to make sure that no living cells could remain, such as dissolving in chemicals or burning to ash in an incinerator.
I would like to point out that body parts that are removed are not necessarily unnecessary- even the appendix, the archetypical useless organ, is currently thought to provide some function (providing a safe store of positive bacteria to re-populate the intestines after something like diarrhea flushes them out) | 740becb1-163a-4859-a106-5484f677cd35 |
5mczfo | How can there be any hope of stabilizing CO2 emissions if they are still steadily increasing? | First of all, let's make sure we all understand what we mean by stabilising CO2 emissions. Because of the long residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere, the figure that actually affects the climate is not annual CO2 emissions but *cumulative* CO2 emissions. This means that the problem is going to get increasingly worse until our emissions reach *zero* - simply stabilising them at some nonzero value is not enough.
It seems fairly inevitable that we will be able to eventually achieve a constant atmospheric concentration of CO2, the questions are (1) when and (2) at what concentration. Whilst CO2 emissions have been accelerating fairly constantly for the better part of a century now, there are signs that this is slowing and that CO2 emissions may be about to plateau. It is too early to be sure of this, but I think there is an increasing amount of optimism that the nightmare business-as-usual scenarios (such as the IPCC's RCP-8.5 prediction) might be overly pessimistic and that an emission pathway like RCP-4.5 or RCP-6.0 will be more realistic.
This is still a problem though, because all of these pathways still result in warming that would be regarded as very dangerous, certainly in excess of the 2 degree (and the "ambitious" 1.5 degree) target set at the Paris Climate Conference. Indeed, in order for these targets to be remotely possible, global emissions would have to be zero at some point in the second half of the 21st Century, and would then have to become *negative*.
Does that sound unlikely? Yes, and I don't think there are many people who seriously believe that we are going to achieve the targets set at Paris. *However*, whilst this means that we are probably going to undergo some very harmful changes in climate, it is not the same thing as predicting run-away climate change. Whilst it is important to be aware of risks like the Clathrate-Gun Hypothesis (run-away climate change induced by the melting of methane clathrates in oceans) or the shutting down of the Gulf Stream or AMOC, it is not currently thought that this is likely. | 5a768c51-9333-4a3c-8ce9-c3b093e71081 |
33s1ul | How come we can increase our muscle mass but not our bone density? | We can increase our bone density. If it happens too much, it would result in osteopetrosis. Nutrition affects the bone density as well as other factors. Calcium helps bones grow stronger, which means denser. | 680382d0-16ad-4110-8120-f1201c9021b8 |
j9sqy | How Mirrors Work | Your eyes work by noticing light. The sun seems bright because you are noticing a LOT of light from it. Colours are because your eyes can also notice the difference between different kinds of light.
A mirror has a special surface that makes light bounce off it, so when you look at a mirror, you're really noticing the light that has hit the mirror and bounced off it. This light has kept the colours and arrangements from what it had before it bounced of the mirror, so what you see is like what you would have seen if you were looking out from the mirror itself. | a1118fc2-1011-4567-8380-f3a6333b6ddd |
5iejfb | As Christmas is around the corner, can someone please explain why Jehovah's Witnesses don't celebrate it? | Jehovah's Witnesses don't celebrate Christmas because of a few reasons:
Jesus commanded to commemorate his death and not his birth.
Early apostles and disciples didn't celebrate Christmas.
There is no proof Jesus was born on December 25th.
They believe Christmas isn't approved by God as it is rooted in pagan customs.
That last point is fairly true. Christians basically appropriated pagan customs and put a thin veneer of Christianity over preexisting festivals. The Yule Log is for the deity Yule of course, and offerings of milk and cookies to Santa are extremely similar to offerings to hearth gods; don't you think it is weird Santa comes down chimneys? Christmas basically is unrelated to Christ other than an example of Christianity's forceful extermination of rival religious and cultural traditions. | 7e95952c-295a-4649-b989-641c2df25e5e |
zdfox | How did dinosaurs become oil? | They didn't. It comes from small marine animals and other life that lived before the dinosaurs. When they decomposed mostly carbon and hydrogen was left over, as the oxygen was removed over time the left over remains were covered by layers of sediment. As they got deeper in he earth, around 3048 metres, or 10,000 feet, pressure and heat turned the materials to the hydrocarbons that create crude oil and gases. The amount of pressure determines which type of hydrocarbons are produced.
It's bad for the earth because when they are burned, they create gases that go up into the atmosphere and stay there. Too much of them causes the heat from the sun to be magnified. | ef30df6a-4dbd-40dd-b8d9-9824c1bf2133 |
3pycmo | As I repeat a task, I get better and better at performing it. However, with enough repetitions, I'll suddenly lose the ability to perform well for a brief period of time. What is this phenomenon and why does it happen? | As a musician, my own 2 cents is that becoming tired has a lot to do with it. Take learning a new song, for instance. When I first start out, I suck. Then I practice and get a little better. Practice a lot, and I get pretty good. But there is definitely a point where practicing too much does the opposite. I become fatigued, over-think it, get sloppy. Then, if I leave it alone for a while, I can play it very well when I start fresh. Too much learning or practicing isn't necessarily a good thing. Perhaps. But then, I'm a musician, so I'm probably high. | 2e8bd118-f979-4ac9-8021-7489665cface |
262et4 | 3D Printers. How do they work? What's used for "ink?" | They do work. It's kinda like a really precise hot glue gun. They use plastic that's melted down and then put in the shape that a computer tells it. | 97faa4f7-b89b-4b2e-be1b-05ba13f5147a |
3urnu0 | Why are there no international laws prohibiting excessive forms of capital punishment (stoning, crucifixion) | Because countries have to agree to it just like war laws and the Geneva convention.
Why would a country that stones people to death agree to a law that says not to do so? | abece40d-a3ed-49e5-b6f8-21b804622e17 |
2y8rs9 | how do precision induction cook tops work? | Induction cooktops work by generating a powerful oscillating magnetic field that vibrates the molecules in the pot sitting on top, which in turn causes the metal the pot is made out of to heat up. Since they operate on pure magnetism, the pot or pan used has to be made out of a magnetic material - cast iron, steel, or stainless steel. As such an induction cooktop has little to no effect on nonmagnetic materials, even metal ones. Aluminium cookware, jewelry, etc. won't be appreciably heated. No part of the cooktop itself operates by getting hot, though the glass surface will pick up some heat back from the pot that's being heated while touching it.
Fancier models may have temperature sensors built in that face upwards at the pot and can gauge its temperature for more precise cooking control. The sensors detect infrared light radiated by the heated pot, and therefore can only judge the temperature of the pot itself and not its contents.
It's also worth a mention that you can really, *really* authoritatively erase a floppy disk or credit card by leaving it on top of a running induction cooktop... | 6bfc3926-cdba-4363-af86-c6abe88720ad |
7u1gz6 | What happens to your vocal cords when you sing falsetto? | It's simplest to just show an animation:
[Here's your vocal cords singing normally](_URL_1_)
[Here's your vocal cords singing falsetto](_URL_0_) | ad1139c7-cb53-47e1-96c3-34881e9fa77c |
2432lh | how does healing an injury work? | It's a very complex process. In the case of bleeding, it goes something like so:
1. You get an injury, your skin cells are loaded with stuff that that causes a bunch of responses in your body, pretty much crying out "Emergency!" to everything in the vicinity. Neurons also do stuff, but that's not directly related.
1. Platelets (one part of your blood, they're not cells, just big proteins) sense some of this shit and they unfurl, latching onto parts of the injury. With enough platelets around, they create a really thick mesh, which red blood cells get stuck in. This causes the scab.
1. Another thing that senses the mess that your skin cells caused are white blood cells, particularly phagocytes. These are one type of white blood cell, it specializes in nomming shit that might mess you up, like bacteria. It's also good at getting to where it needs to be, it's really squishy, like an octopus, and can fit in between cells. The phagocytes start squeezing around cells, hunting for contaminants that might have gotten in through the wound. These build up and cause inflammation, swelling and pus buildup.
1. Then your body starts putting in more blood vessels, essentially hardening the infrastructure for emergency response. A whole menagerie of stem cells (ones related to the kind that caused all the controversy a while back) start moving in in droves. They get produced from. . . I'm not really sure where. and move to the wound and lay down collagen and then move into place.
1. Then, my favorite cell, the fibroblast, which is much like a muscle cell, but it can move anywhere, sets up, connects the wound, and contracts. Pulling the wound as closed as best it can (which, according to Wikipedia is quite a lot, 40-80%). For some reason this is so fucking cool to me. Your body builds its own muscles to close an injury.
1. When they move into place, the stem cells do what they're really good at, creating structures. A lot of them turn into skin cells, while others finish up the blood vessels.
1. Then other stuff recovers, the brand new skin cells harden up, and the extra capillaries go and explode, shit gets back to normal. But the whole process isn't perfect, so there're bound to be some flaws and wierdness to the scar, hair follicles for example end up all sorts of screwed up, but hopefully nothing that'll be dangerous.
Also, know that this was taken from a presentation I did for a Biology class 2.5-ish years ago, and by refreshing my memory by looking through [the Wikipedia article](_URL_0_), which is vastly more detailed than my little 15-minute writeup. I might have gotten some stuff here horribly, extremely wrong, and if someone can prove it, please do. I find this stuff to be awesome and I hate being wrong. | 6f91d04b-225a-4785-be22-92dca7666bc2 |
5x6dzb | How do banks know if a check has already been deposited? | The bank that has to pay the check (the bank where the drafter's checking account is) usually has software to notice duplicate checks. Once a check is used once to withdraw money from the account the check info is saved and if the same check is used again it should be flagged.
Say you use Check #1023 to pay me $100. Once the check is processed, it will be marked on your account that check #1023 for $100 was processed. If another Check #1023 for $100 comes through, it will get flagged.
The problem is when someone uses remote deposit and then cashes the physical check before the drawee bank can process it. I think there are some services out there that are attempting to communicate among banks when a check is cashed to prevent this, but they're expensive right now so not many places use them. There can also be an issue if the person takes the paper check to a check cashing place that's not a bank since that place will pay cash before the check has a chance to process.
While you can get away with depositing checks twice like that in the short term, the double charge will show up on the drafter's bank statement and it will be pretty obvious who did it. The threat of getting caught after the fact is also why most people don't copy your account number and routing number from the bottom of a check (which are in plain sight) and then use that information to commit wire fraud. | cdd81790-a51a-45fe-ba64-6e55c1da31bd |
50tz0l | Do animals that utilize camouflage prove they're self aware? | Usually when we use the term "self aware" we mean consciously aware of, and having the ability to reflect, on our self -- in particular our mind. However, no such self-reflection is actually needed for camouflage necessarily, as it can a subconscious reaction, honed in millenia of evolution's trial and error (have the gene mix "try" false, and you die). Some animal's camouflage isn't even real-time adaptive, so it would work without any thinking at all -- look at mimicry and mimesis, like a butterfly taking on the color of the trees in an area.
So, do e.g. chameleons tell their body to change color? Googling various research on this, the word seems to be still out on that -- maybe a biologist with more knowledge can chime in! | 1436e729-90cf-48ba-ace4-65d72164e34a |
2auwgm | how do I recognize an object? | I don't know weather this could be explained fully at the moment. It's to do with rather complex processes and interactions between different parts of your brain.
First your visual cortex puts together a picture of what you see. It turns all the signals from your eye and optic nerve into a picture.
The second step is when your brain associates that picture with something it knows, sort of like looking it up in a giant catalouge.
Weirdly, it's a bit better in this case to examine what happens when this goes wrong. The man who mistook his wife for a hatstand is an interesting read, and deals with (in part) Visual agnosia. That's when your brain cannot recognise what it sees. Tends to happen after a brain injury or stroke etc.
If you have visual agnosia, your eyes see a car. Your visual cortex flashes up a picture of a car, but the part of your brain that recognises all those lines and colours as a car doesn't return anything, or returns the incorrect thing. You still have an idea of what a car is, you might even know how it works, or recognise that they come in different colours etc. but your brain cannot connect what you see with what you know.
Hope this helps, it's been a while since I studied psychology! | d411b405-a3a6-4708-abdb-1d5bf336e510 |
2teexq | How do scientists know that they've found 90% of near earth asteroids? | This is an estimate based on the number, density, and size distribution of the observable objects. Given that they have found X number of asteroids of different sizes, and that there are so many within a certain area of space, and that number is much less in other areas of space, they can estimate about how many they think might be yet unobserved.
Edit : sorry, jut read second question - by tracking an objects speed and direction, they can math out about where it's path will take it, and check that against our own location. | 521078d6-7ca7-4ac2-b387-014d0443b5a9 |
43uyt4 | How can multiple people watch the same online video at once? | While the video is being played back it's read into a server computer's memory chips temporarily. From there it can easily be read many times per second to serve multiple users. If huge numbers are playing it, multiple servers are used. | 7d3c55d9-742c-4f1e-b462-9e5a50335a88 |
1bl2ab | How will transmedia culture affect future careers? | Career paths are almost never meaningfully affected by the introduction of technology.
For instance, the structure of the animation industry has stayed basically the same after the introduction of computers. People do months of horrible unpaid work and years of horrible badly paid work in the hopes that they will be one of the few who graduates to less horrible decently paid work. The only difference is that now everyone's holding a mouse in their hand while they work. | 212ec006-8fd8-4611-abba-e201cb2301e4 |
91yxdw | Why did the Soviet government change their opinion on Shostakovich after the 5th Symphony? | Shostakovich fell out of favor with the Soviet government because his works were at odds with their notion of how classical music should sound. The Bolshevik authorities wanted artists to create works that could easily be appreciated by the masses, and Shostakovich wasn't doing that. His work was dissonant and not especially tuneful, and he was accused of "formalism."
The 5th Symphony is more traditional. It's tonal. It has tunes you can hum. It was more like the kind of music the authorities expected composers to create - supposedly easier for people to appreciate and enjoy. This gave the appearance of his having acquiesced to their demands, and he was returned to their good graces. | 1fb9642f-1c61-4996-b3af-8f8bdae9ac15 |
34314l | Why do printers STILL suck? | Printers are the interaction between the digital world and the physical world. Sometimes the physical world of ink and paper doesn't work and you have to intervene. Usually more expensive printers ($150+) work very nicely and have no problems with jams and wifi.
On that note about ink however, that's just the companies trying to get more money out of you. | 6848eebb-3329-4946-89f2-fb19e43c8eab |
82jvmk | How do phones and cell-towers deal with the Doppler effect? | It doesn't matter
The Radio waves are moving at 3x10^8 m/s, thats 300,000,000 m/s. If you travel towards a cell tower at Mach 10 you'll be moving 3,430 m/s and change the wavelength by 3,430/300,000,000 or 0.0011%. You're not traveling anywhere close to Mach 10 so the impact is truly insignificant | 05ef1d7c-c95d-47fc-b40c-1139d50e31d1 |
43u6t7 | The difference between deductive reasoning and making inferences? | Nothing. Deductive logic involves starting with a set of premises/axioms/assumptions and then, using logical *rules of inference* deriving a conclusion from those starting points such that, if those premises are true, the conclusion is necessarily true. | db70a1d7-91d5-4ad5-9590-83cd40512c73 |
3j1ecs | Why does the shower change temperatures if you flush the toilet while the shower is running? | Because the temperature of your water is set by mixing hot water and cold water. The toilate and shower often share the same source of cold water, flushing the toilet means there's less cold water available to the shower.
So the nice mix that you had so carefully created, is all of a sudden has way to little cold in it, so the resulting product is way to hot. | 93e0583a-4f4d-49b8-ab55-67a897b0b436 |
37l6m7 | Would creating a matrix disprove the theory that we could be living in one? | If anything it would add more credibility to the theory, as it proves that a lifelike universe is possible.
And no, the new matrix citizens can create a simulation of their own matrix. Surely it won't be an exact simulation of their own universe, but neither can ours be (as that would require the computer simulating itself).
Computationally, it's no harder to simulate the atomic movement of a bunch of rocks than to simulate the movements of a computer. At the atomic scale, the distinction kind-off disappears. | cce2e3ee-4181-4654-a0cd-b824ac076487 |
2qfj57 | Is it true that going to the hospital for major problems in the US is expensive as hell? Why? | Health care in the US is a business, and not a basic right, so it tries to make as much money as it can. | 329f3a78-f346-46f2-bb79-e637a0f2bfde |
6co5wn | What makes a great conductor great? and conversely what sets them apart from a random high school band teacher? | It's important to keep in mind that a conductor is nearly always the leader of the orchestra, too. So for weeks and months before you see him/her waving a baton around, they were in charge of auditioning band members, selecting the music, organizing rehearsals, making artistic changes or interpretations to the piece as it goes, and directing each section and musician. So there was a hell of a lot of behind-the-scenes work that we don't always think of.
As far as actual performance, a good conductor is giving a dozen instructions at once. Speed, volume, and style are all communicated by single movements. Are his beats large, waving motions, full of drama? I'll bet there'll be horns blaring long, sonorous notes. Are they short, tight, precise movements, close to his chest? You're almost definitely going to be hearing soft, short staccato notes. Is he facing the trombones, pushing one hand down while conducting with his other hand? He's asking them to play softer - maybe the acoustics in this room aren't what they're used to, and they're overpowering the rest of the band more than expected. There are a million little adjustments that will go on in any given performance, and a good conductor can make them on the fly in very clear ways.
And of course, all of that body language goes to the audience too. When you see that person swinging their arms in big, wide arcs, you'll get excited, even as the music begins to swell. And when you see them sweep their arms in, you'll lean in, straining to hear the soft parts of the music. The conductor is a visual cue to you to tell you what your ears can expect. | 244b597e-fbbe-4b2c-85ee-69898c6704a9 |
27daox | How the FIFA world rankings work. | The basic logic of these calculations is simple: any team that does well in world football wins points which enable it to climb the world ranking.
A team’s total number of points over a four-year period is determined by adding:
· the average number of points gained from matches during the past 12 months;
and
· the average number of points gained from matches older than 12 months (depreciates yearly).
Calculation of points for a single match
The number of points that can be won in a match depends on the following factors:
• Was the match won or drawn? (M)
• How important was the match (ranging from a friendly match to a FIFA World Cup™ match)? (I)
• How strong was the opposing team in terms of ranking position and the confederation to which they belong? (T and C)
These factors are brought together in the following formula to ascertain the total number of points (P).
P = M x I x T x C
The following criteria apply to the calculation of points:
M: Points for match result
Teams gain 3 points for a victory, 1 point for a draw and 0 points for a defeat. In a penalty shoot-out, the winning team gains 2 points and the losing team gains 1 point.
I: Importance of the match
Friendly match (including small competitions): I = 1.0
FIFA World Cup™ qualifier or confederation-level qualifier: I = 2.5
Confederation-level final competition or FIFA Confederations Cup: I = 3.0
FIFA World Cup™ final competition: I = 4.0
T: Strength of opposing team
The strength of the opponents is based on the formula: 200 – the ranking position of the opponents
As an exception to this formula, the team at the top of the ranking is always assigned the value 200 and the teams ranked 150th and below are assigned a minimum value of 50. The ranking position is taken from the opponents’ ranking in the most recently published FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking.
C: Strength of confederation
When calculating matches between teams from different confederations, the mean value of the confederations to which the two competing teams belong is used. The strength of a confederation is calculated on the basis of the number of victories by that confederation at the last three FIFA World Cup™ competitions.
Their values are as follows:
UEFA/CONMEBOL 1.00
CONCACAF 0.88
AFC/CAF 0.86
OFC 0.85
TL;DR - FIFA points depend on who you play, in what competition over the course of four years, more points=higher ranking | 308d8b2c-9d48-4503-9188-2f245ab36730 |
19dabc | Why does poop, urine, sweat, etc. smell bad? | Many animals have evolved to not like the smell of poop because poop is not nutritious and is full of bacteria. The animals who didn't think poop smelled bad probably died from the bacteria. The animals who developed by mutation receptors in their noses that recognized toxins in poop avoided the poop and lived. These animals had more offspring and thereby passed these receptors onto their offspring. | e9c01eb0-f7fc-41a5-ad50-003d2922f31e |
2mzepn | It is generally common knowledge that psychics are scams, my question is how do they still make enough money to keep their business going? | (1) Not everyone accepts the idea that they're scams.
(2) Even some people who accept that they're scams find it fun. | 20bf85ef-fe75-4664-96c5-5d8fb8568d28 |
2px28n | Sometimes when I click on an imgur link, it sends me to an unrelated image. Why is this? | If you're clicking on an old imgur link, it could be that the original image has timed out. I believe imgur holds onto images for 6 months from the last time someone linked to it and then recycles the code.
For example, lets take [this image](_URL_0_) on the front page of imgur right now. It's coded **bDk9o2A**. If 6 months passes, and no one uses that link, they'll delete the picture and throw that code back in to be reassigned to some other picture that might be uploaded later. | 8b25efb3-61f1-4440-8b06-fba12d2561b2 |
21i6g5 | What is McDonaldisation? | Mcdonaldisation according to the author George Ritzer, who invented the term in his book, is characterized by 4 different "factors".
Efficiency – the optimal method for accomplishing a task. In this context, Ritzer has a very specific meaning of "efficiency". In the example of McDonald's customers, it is the fastest way to get from being hungry to being full. Efficiency in McDonaldization means that every aspect of the organization is geared toward the minimization of time.
Calculability – objective should be quantifiable (e.g., sales) rather than subjective (e.g., taste). McDonaldization developed the notion that quantity equals quality, and that a large amount of product delivered to the customer in a short amount of time is the same as a high quality product. This allows people to quantify how much they're getting versus how much they’re paying. Organizations want consumers to believe that they are getting a large amount of product for not a lot of money. Workers in these organizations are judged by how fast they are instead of the quality of work they do.
Predictability – standardized and uniform services. "Predictability" means that no matter where a person goes, they will receive the same service and receive the same product every time when interacting with the McDonaldized organization. This also applies to the workers in those organizations. Their tasks are highly repetitive, highly routine, and predictable.
Control – standardized and uniform employees, replacement of human by non-human technologies.
With these four principles of the fast food industry, a strategy which is rational within a narrow scope can lead to outcomes that are harmful or irrational. As these processes spread to other parts of society, modern society’s new social and cultural characteristics are created. For example, as McDonald’s enters a country and consumer patterns are unified, cultural hybridization occurs. Basically what it means is to create a homonymous society, where everyone gets the same service and the same products. Eg. McDonalds gets all their potatoes from a single farm, so that they'll ensure that the potatoes _always_ taste the same no matter where you are. Another example could be McUniversities, which features modularized (standardised) curricula, delivering degrees in a fast-track pick-and-mix fashion to satisfy all tastes. The diminished quality of these products can only be disguised by extensive advertising which constantly repackages them to look new.
Quoted partially from Wikipedia ;-)
_URL_0_ | de92d2bd-2e51-4ca2-a0ab-9af94a104735 |
1r4irz | Why does a sniper need a spotter, when both of them are using scopes to look at the target? And how does the spotter know the wind speed if there are no moving objects like trees or a flag? | They're both using devices that give them that information.
A spotter is used because while a sniper is certainly capable of gathering all that information and calculating it, having someone to feed him/her numbers speeds up the calculation of a long shot significantly.
That's especially important if lives are contingent on the sniper taking down a target quickly.
As for wind speed, etc., an electronic anemometer has been available for almost 2 decades now.
A spotter gets to position this and other devices and convey the data to the sniper in a single package. And the spotter isn't in the same place, so assuming good communication, you have a much wider "field of vision" based on the spotter's reports.
Wind speed, direction, presence of glass, movement, possible civilians nearby, etc. are all concerns for a sniper. A spotter alleviates many of those concerns and allows the sniper to focus on accuracy. | 94af114b-c6e8-4171-b304-3661b6349ec1 |
31vqye | Why there is so much hate to Comcast? | They have a near monopoly position on an 'essential' service. Their 'near-monopoly' is due to the way the US telecom/internet industry is structured. They lobby to keep it that way. They also abuse their position to maximize profits at the cost of customer well-being/satisfaction.
This works because (a lot/most) customers really have no where else to go and require the service to 'function' in modern society. | 2fc94bdc-e3f0-42e4-bec6-df6b3897633e |
5rabfb | How does distillation work? | In order to distillation to work properly, you need two different liquids mixed together - one very common distillation is water + alcohol. Now water becomes gas at 100°C, but alcohol has a lower boiling point around 78°C. This means that if you heat the mixture to, say, 85°C, all the alcohol in it will become gas while the water will remain liquid, separating the two substances.
Normally a proper distillation equipment has a tube on top of it which redirects the gasified substance into a cold compartment, where it cools down and becomes liquid once again. So at this point you have two separated liquids: in the example this would be the newly-condensed alcohol and the water remaining from the original mixture. | 7b1b4a20-8a50-4c53-ae19-526839ac7c34 |
48v4pr | How's the calculator industry doing since the rise of the cell phone? | Just fine. Most high schools still use the same TI graphing calculator I used 25 years ago and charge a shit load for them. Also, using a smartphone for rigorous calculation sucks. | c558e89c-f822-4310-a319-3309fb82b09d |
8llulv | why do dvds look so much better and crisp on CRT TVs then on HD flat screen TVs. | The difference will be almost all down to HD flat screen TVs being bigger than CRT TVs. Tell us the size of the TVs you are comparing. Blowing up an image to a larger size will make it look more blurry and reveal other imperfections. If you could make a fair, side-by-side test with a CRT and an LCD panel of the same size you'd find the results very close. | 49772d9d-22fe-458c-9680-f7224d9eebee |
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