query_id
stringlengths 3
6
| question
stringlengths 1
299
| goldenAnswer
stringlengths 3
35k
| doc_id
stringlengths 36
36
|
|---|---|---|---|
2lg0t8 | Why do some British singers like Amy Winehouse sound American when they sing but others like Lily Allen still sound British? | I think it has to do with their singing style. Many singers seem to lose their accent because a lot of what we hear as an accent is dependent on intonation and the way vowels are pronounced. When you sing, intonation is more determined by melody than by language, and vowels tend to be elongated. The means by which we evaluate someone's accent aren't as obvious, so they end up sounding more "neutral."
With Lily Allen specifically, in the couple of songs I've heard, she seems to cram a lot of words into one verse. This could make her singing sound more like speech than you might hear with other singers. I suspect part of it is also a deliberate attempt to keep her accent when she sings. | ab23877b-b889-4d82-ad65-7a7ae25c2102 |
3rwm8x | The whole DEFCON system. How many steps are there and their meaning. Along with what action is taken at each. | Here are the 5 DEFCON levels, followed by their historical precedent
* [5] **Normal peacetime readiness**; General "baseline" level during times of peace
* [4] **Increased intelligence-gathering and security measures** Sporadically throughout Cold War, War on Terror
* [3] **Armed forces readiness increased above normal levels; Air Force ready to mobilize in 15 minutes** Post-9/11 Attacks (2001), Yom Kippur War (1973), Operation Paul Bunyan (1976), Post-Four Power Talks (1960)
* [2] **High readiness; armed forces ready to deploy in six hours** Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)
* [1] **Maximum readiness; all forces ready for combat**; nuclear war imminent or likely -No historical precedent
Edit: Formatting
Source: _URL_0_
Note: Different branches can be issued different DEFCON levels, and as the numbers get lower the situation gets more serious. A DEFCON 1 would certainly apply in an apocalypse situation. | 1a0a493e-f45d-4de7-a1ec-7c4b1a7d4030 |
34inqc | When a movie star signs up for a big budget movie how/when does he/she get paid? | Talent agent here... they get paid multiple times in various ways. There's the lump sum upfront guaranteed money (ie We'll pay you $10M dollars to do this film), royalties (plus 2% of box office sales, TV broadcoasts and DVD sales), and bonuses/incentives (plus another $1M if you do a publicity tour in Europe, with another $500k if we do $25M in box office sales there), plus numerous other ways depending on the particular movie. The timing of how each of those is paid out (1 giant check vs regular payments) is completely negotiable, and varies from deal to deal based on what the actor prefers... some need money asap, some want scheduled payments to make taxes/finances easier to manage. Even who gets to hold the money before it's paid is negotiable (is it put in escrow, or does the studio get to hang onto it?). There's no one answer unfortunately... every last bit varies every single time. | 276e413b-e120-4cf5-82a2-ca8a9cc4e203 |
1uqb62 | How much will the radiation from the Fukushima meltdown really affect North America? | Since we're not exactly sure how much was released, and the leak is ongoing, it's hard to say for certain. That being said, not much - the Pacific is *big*, and releases of larger amounts of radiation have happened in the past (Chernobyl was several times worse than Fukushima). | 9186f8d7-c8e8-49fc-9871-b3952c12f5d0 |
3m9nfw | What is happening on a cellular level that causes insulin resistance? | There are receptors on each cell that are responsible for pulling insulin into the cell from the blood. Those receptors stop working or work inefficiently which causes insulin resistance.
When the cell is exposed to lots of sugar, all the time, it becomes less sensitive and less efficient at moving insulin into the cell.
It's hard to ELI5 without going into hormones and other factors, but the jist is when the cell is constantly bathed in sugar it messes up the transport of insulin into the cell. | 7d7339b7-9a2a-4fbc-b41b-91b9b0dfd1a8 |
6ui30d | Why is it generally harder to sleep when "trying"? | You're right in saying that overthinking and anxiety interfere with falling asleep. When you "try" to sleep, are you also worrying in the back of your mind that it won't work or that it will be harder to sleep, as you stated? This sounds like anxiety, which could explain why "trying" to sleep keeps you from actually sleeping.
In addition, for patients who have a lot of difficulty sleeping, we often find that they have a habit of thinking too much or worrying while lying in bed. This has the effect of associating lying in bed with worrying instead of sleeping, which will interfere with your sleep every time you lie down in bed. The solution to this is to undo those associations.
Source: I work with patients with sleep problems as a part of earning my PhD in Clinical Psychology. | 8a6c942f-60bb-4db1-9ccf-33b3e00632ef |
44jign | Why can't the United Nations overthrow North Korean's dictatorship and rehabilitate the ~25 million people with government funds? | To start, the UN has no authority to do that. the only binding resolutions that come from the UN are from the Security Council, of which China is a permanent member with veto authority. Since China doesn't want a failed state on its border, they will veto any action to intervene.
Second, who's going to lead it? The UN has no military, and Peacekeepers come from the active militaries of other nations. Very few people would be interested in getting involved in a massive ground war in Asia.
Third, who's going to pay for it? We generally discourage pillaging these days, so you can't raid North Korea for the funding and I doubt the U.S., NATO, Russia, or South Korea want to do that.
Fourth, what happens when North Korea goes all out and nukes the invaders? Or decides to shell Seoul with conventional artillery, turning it to rubble? The world would have to rebuild two countries.
Intervening in North Korea is simply not feasible. It'll be a big enough disaster if the regime collapses on its own, let alone through forced occupation. | 5abc733a-d8a4-4693-b880-a5af9c77cad3 |
1nf7dj | Why a Catholic priest would find molesting a child somehow less offensive to the church than intercourse with a woman. What exactly is the logic here? | The whole "pedophile priest" thing isn't really about the Catholic faith. It's more to do with the sickest of pedophiles and their ways of attracting young boys. Really sick pedophiles like to get involved with things like churches, little league sports, and the Boy Scouts because it puts them around young boys and makes someone they can trust, and a lot of these people are the last you would expect to do such things.
Of course, the Catholic Church is kind of an exception given their covering up of it, but at the core it has nothing to do with Catholicism. In fact, a lot of real Priests actually like the fact that the media has opened up the scandal so that it riles people up about it by putting it in the open, so they can hopefully get rid of the problem. | 9940f70f-c0f4-4301-977a-f145d048f6cd |
1dzo27 | Why do rings make your skin green? | Rings generally do this because because of a chemical reaction between the metal on the ring, and substances on your hands (oil, acid).
The reason it happens with some rings and not others is due to the type of metal the ring is made from/plated in. Silver is very common in rings, and readily oxidizes when it comes into contact with acids on your skin. The products of this oxidation reaction then rub off, and are left behind on your skin, [here](_URL_0_) is a good example of oxidized silver! Copper is the metal that when oxidized, causes a green coloration. In some cities, some buildings have roofs made from copper, [here](_URL_1_) you can see the green oxidized copper, and the brown clear (non-oxidized) patch of copper at the front of the roof. The same thing is happening with your ring, (e.g. the brown colour changing to green) just on a smaller scale! Other metals, like gold, are far more stable and don't oxidize as easily, so they don't leave a mark. | fc7fda0b-6596-460c-a814-3509a02a6a8c |
258z2d | Why is blue such a prominent colour in Italian sports kits when there is no blue on the flag? | As far as I know it was because it was the colour used to represent the royal family and the colour in the coat of arms. | a234b7fc-a425-43d4-8bf4-25e8404ebd0f |
2324eg | Why does food taste different when sick? | The taste of a lot of foods is influenced to various degrees by smell. So if your nose is clogged from being ill, your food will taste different. | 333d916b-393d-4d80-8499-4915764d11c5 |
navl3 | Why can't I curl my pinkie finger (little finger) without curling my ring finger too? | Mostly because you're used to it. If you trained on bending your pinky without bending your ring finger, eventually, you'd be able to do it. | 586fe3dd-38dd-4313-8c59-903b22c8fa74 |
32i9wj | how come when I (a male) shave a portion of my legs, it becomes irritated when a female shaves their legs it's smooth and there is no irritation? | You might be using a dull razor or not enough lubrication (soap or shaving cream). Women can get irritation from shaving. Have you ever seen a woman shave her legs? If not then how do you know they don't get irritation? | 83923597-07d4-481f-925c-4662915a0968 |
5hdt9r | How do anti-shoplifting towers at the entrance of stores work? | What you're referring to is what's called an RF system, short for Radio Frequency. Things that the store want to protect will contain a small disposable electronic device called an RF tag that will activate when it gets in range of a radio signal at a specific frequency. This frequency is produced by either one of the towers or a hidden device in the door.
Basically, the initial radio signal creates an electric current in the tag which powers its electronics, thus activating it. By activating, it begins transmitting its own radio frequency, which is picked up by the tower(s). Whenever the tower detects that frequency, it activates the alarm sound.
The RF tag can be either deactivated (for later reactivation) or destroyed at the checkout. That's what the cashier is doing when they rub the item on the odd looking pad at their counter. | b614bd82-0601-4d75-a73a-e714c669708d |
1vvw1s | Why do some companies put coupons on their products that give the customer say for example an automatic $2 off? Why not make the price $2 cheaper? | Finding a coupon for a discount makes you feel like you're getting a deal. If the price were simply lower, you wouldn't notice the difference. Consumers are more likely to spend money when they know they are saving money. | 7a921c2b-5169-4464-8867-47889e5af77f |
6fvsh3 | When Yellowstone is called a supervolcano, what do they mean? | > What part of Yellowstone is the acutal supervolcano?
[Nearly all of it](_URL_1_)
Yellowstone is a gigantic caldera. That's when a bubble of magma forms under the surface of the earth. It's too wide to actually form a volcano and instead forms a [peak around the edges](_URL_0_)
It's about 1,500 square miles of land.
There's no way to tell exactly how accurate the death and doom stories are, but it's a sure thing that it will be a global event and will reshape civilization as we know it. | bda740d4-c4ac-4f00-a84f-4ebae9a15529 |
z3q4d | Why don't bugs bleed red when they explode on my windshield? | Bugs don't have blood. Bugs have hemolymph. Hemolymph serves as both blood and the other fluid that surrounds cells in our bodies. The color difference comes from the molecule that binds to oxygen. Blood contains hemoglobin, an iron-based protein that binds to oxygen. Hemolymph contains hemocyanin, which is copper-based. When we bleed large arthropods like [horseshoe crabs](_URL_0_) we can see that hemocyanin gives the the hemolymph a blue, not a red color. Not as noticeable when you squash bugs because other tissues are mixed in with the hemolymph. | 24af0e3d-abdc-476a-8c9e-476ff462a3e8 |
15arqd | Why doesn't the US update their paper money to a more secure format? | > Since the superdollars were first detected about a decade ago, the regime has been pocketing an estimated $15 million to $25 million a year from them. (Other estimates are much higher — up to several hundred million dollars’ worth.) That sounds like a lot of money, but compared to the $1 trillion in cash circulating in the great ocean of commerce, a few hundred million is chump change. Although costly for small-business owners who unknowingly accept a bunch of forgeries, counterfeits probably won’t bring about a crisis of faith in our paper money anytime soon.
This paragraph answers your question. | 05741b81-868b-4c71-9f1a-8322d42fea6e |
26oyqz | Why is it that I can hold my breath for like 30-45 seconds in a pool but in the shower I can't last five seconds while washing my face beforebi have to gasp for breath? | This is likely related to something called the [mammalian diving reflex](_URL_0_). When cold water contacts your face, your heart rate immediately slows by 10-25%, and the blood vessels to your extremities begin to close off. This reduces the oxygen being consumed by your body, and leaves more available for your vital organs and brain. | 15cadb09-9841-4ede-a63c-843892186760 |
448527 | If airplane cabins are airtight and pressurized, why do my ears pop when the airplane ascends/descends? | The cabin is not perfectly airtight, it has vents. As the plane climbs, the pressure is allowed to fall naturally until around 8,000 ft (varies per plane) after which air is forced in to keep the pressure up at the 8,000 ft equivalent. There's always fresh air coming in, it's not fully recirculated (as I've heard some say): if the plane was airtight, we'd run out of oxygen before we got to our destination. | 3f4aa3fb-9dd6-45a2-a750-b261867f555b |
69wrow | Why do schools adopt a zero-tolerance policy and what do these policies generally dictate? | Zero tolerance policies are there for the convenience of dishing out discipline & avoiding complaints about unequal punishment being dealt out. For example, a zero tolerance policy about fighting means that when you break up a fight, both people are automatically guilty and punished. The teacher doesn't have to figure out what's really going on & can get back to teaching. The school can't get accused to going easy on a popular kid or somebody whose parents are important in the community and having double standards.
At least that's the idea behind them. Whether they actually work & improve the learning environment is up to debate. Just remember that you only ever hear about them when something goes horribly wrong & it becomes newsworthy. | c82e9a46-d6b6-4d5e-aa01-202cc222fac9 |
5s1sfh | How can America spend $600 billion a year on their military, 54% of their federal spending, while other large countries spend a 10th of that? | "How?" Because the US priorities military spending.
Why can other spend less, this becomes a somewhat circular question. And it's because the US spends so much. The US vastly subsidizes its allies militaries. Basically the US military is super bad ass, so others don't need to spend as much and can do other things with their money instead.
On the US's enemies, it's similarly true-- the US military is so powerful, you can't ever hope to compete, so why bother? Spend that money elsewhere.
In the end, essentially the US having an insane military is subsidizing keeping everyone else peaceful and sane and not building giant expensive militaries, that's great for everyone. It's a system that works. Perfect? Oh probably not, but the world is quite damn peaceful for a long time. | a6abcfa8-932a-4f74-a635-4dd7592938f2 |
1ir66g | If dogs and other animals do not have to brush their teeth daily, why do humans? | Hi, first, animals don't eat candie, they don't drink cofee, don't smoke, ... And they only live a few years while we can live up to 100 years old. Sorry for my english ;) | cf96baee-f2e7-4c39-b73a-a7af17a9c9ea |
363z9y | How are restaurants able to keep soda carbonated and ready to serve? | They don't. Inside the soda machine are containers of syrup and a tank of compressed CO2. The two are mixed together at the time the drink is dispensed. On a small/home scale, you can look at a SodaStream system to see how it works. | 4175eda9-7e5a-496e-92d8-1e2fc849ec03 |
21vkny | What is the Multiverse and why do we think it exists? | In mathematics and physics, you can ask questions with mathematical equations or series of equations and proofs. Generally, without getting too far into it, when quantum physicists specifically address this question, the math sometimes suggests that multiple universe exist.
It takes some imagining if you don't understand such advanced mathematics. But generally speaking, equations tell us something about our universe, even simple ones like 1+1=2. These very clever and thorough physicists are trying to tell something bigger than that. And sometimes the math tells us that multiple universes must exist using the logic and math we understand. | f090d80b-1eaa-4a0c-addb-c4bc370680f6 |
2d2v93 | Why is it that sitcoms and other television shows can show people abusing alcohol, but advertisements can not show people drinking? | Portraying alcohol abuse as normal in entertainment is not obviously less harmful than doing so in advertisements, but advertisements are not as strongly protected as noncommercial speech under the current court's interpretation of the First Amendment. | 701de2f2-ada0-4cf6-b23a-213728bdb130 |
1ue5yp | Today Earth is closer to the sun than any other time in it's orbit. Why are we not more significantly affected by this? | At its closest the Earth is about 147 million km from the Sun. At the furthest 152 million km from the Sun. That's barely anything. | e551eda9-8b8e-457a-a809-2214496b8ef0 |
1rx9zk | Why does AIDS keep getting cured like once a week? | There's lots of things that may kill/destroy a virus. The trick is finding something that doesn't also kill/destroy *you*. | 05b56ec3-e9a8-4f89-b777-7c3f42b5663e |
1va8kf | If there was nothing, how was there a "Big Bang"? | Lots of theories out there, but the simplest and most correct answer is that no one has a clue what may or may not have existed before the big bang. | 326d05d3-1536-49aa-b0cd-206a40c6f935 |
14hn6t | How we measure the measurements themselves | First keep in mind that units are arbitrary - they don't have any impact on the results of experiments. Units are just a way to put a number to "that far" or "this long" or "this much."
With that being said, units:
-The second is defined by to be 1/the frequency of the light emitted by a particular process in cesium-133.
-The meter is defined to be the distance that light travels in 1/299,792,458 of a second.
-The kilogram is weird, in that it's defined to be the mass of a hunk of stuff called the International Prototype of the Kilogram (IPK). This is actually slightly problematic because the IPK is losing a small amount of mass over time.
Units have gone through lots of evolution over time. For example, the second used to be defined in terms of the Earth's orbit. And a long time ago, people used very awkward units like the cubit, which is defined to be the distance between the elbow and the tip of the middle finger. Obviously that's not a very good unit system because it varies from person to person. | 9ffbbf1d-f957-48d1-ac5d-a54062aa68f1 |
1x6amx | Why are American politicans/judges/ect allowed to accept financial contributions (for example campaign donations) in exchange for their support (or the opposite) of issues/laws/judgements? What is the legal justification for this when bribery is illegal? | There can be no *quid pro quo,* per se, attached to a campaign contribution. Otherwise, that would indeed be illegal. (wink, wink). The party line, and they're sticking to it, is that you contribute to support those you feel share your ideology and/or viewpoint in the *hopes* (wink, wink) that he or she will vote or rule accordingly, with no guarantees. However, the pragmatic fact of the matter is, the likelihood of having your personal interests served increase proportionally with the size of your contribution (whether you're a wealthy individual or a multinational corporation). | 38e94e0f-635c-4b1d-ba6a-bcb701abd5d6 |
2lr782 | "No approved therapeutic claims" on ads. | Their claim hasn't been verified in any scientific way. If I gave 10000 people a sugar pill and 1000 of them lost weight I could legally claim that the pill helps with weight loss. It wouldn't make the claim true, and the results might not be repeated in a larger sample population. The disclaimer would keep people from winning lawsuits against me when they don't get the results they hoped for. | 96d31991-4772-4bd5-8e3f-0a871bf227a9 |
8vn0dl | Why is the 'highest quality' of audio cables gold plated when silver is a more conductive material? | Gold is more corrosion-resistant. Silver is very quick to tarnish, particularly if people touch it. | eeeb570d-18f2-412d-9785-c11463edd88e |
4xidfo | How do they distribute newspapers so fast and efficiently? | Once the newspaper is ready for print, several things happen. The paper is printed, packaged and loaded onto trucks. The trucks drive the packages to large consumers (shopping malls, some hotels, airports and railway stations and other delivery points where there is a large amount sold each day) and to all the pickup points where the paperboy fetches his packages.
The delivery from the last pickup point to your front door is done by one delivery man (or woman, no reason to be picky here) who gets paid to either walk, bicycle or drive around and deliver the newspapers.
I used to do walking and driving districts more than a decade ago, while I was a student. The general idea is that the paper delivery happens around 3 in the morning, and the customer expect to have their newspaper at the very latest at 6. That means that I have about three hours to deliver the newspapers. It goes without saying that the amount of newspapers differs a lot depending on the type of district. Rural distribution by car can be as little as 100 subscribers, while car distribution in a villa suburb can be up at about 700 subscribers. A walking district, stairways and elevators taken into account, can be everywhere between 150 and 400 subscribers. It all depends on what you can actually manage and be done with in time.
The distribution company is obviously a costly beast for the newspaper with a lot of vehicle and a lot of paid staff, so it goes without saying that they try to make money by doing more of the very same thing. That means that if you go to a local newspaper distribution company and ask them if they are willing to distribute your advertising flyer for your new shopping mall, they will. The same goes for a newspaper from a neighboring city, the national financial papers, the weeklies, the technological news, the larger unions weekly papers, comics and a lot of other specialized subject papers that get delivered as a morning paper.
We had, when I did this, a palette of 58 or so news papers from all over the country, but it was always the two locals, the two from the capital, the two competing financial, the tech industry paper and the weekly tabloid aimed at housewives that were there in every district, but all of the rest of them were offered as a morning paper for subscribers and would have been delivered by the distribution company that was owned by one of the local news papers.
If you want to deliver your local paper in another city, you have to find a business arrangement with a distribution company and once that is done you will have to consider if you want to print it locally (with news instead of olds) or if you would rather print it yourself in the early evening before and send it by truck all over the country and have the customers there constantly complain that they get told of things they saw on tv the evening before. The paper I worked for had a printing facility as well, printing all of the papers they delivered, no matter if it was local or national. | 86edb5d1-95c7-4a09-8044-a445bf811037 |
2zruav | How do governments prevent terrorist attacks without violating the privacy of its citizens | They don't. They could, but that would be counterproductive for them. | 0140fbb3-388d-4f99-b2c5-e3b4149e46d2 |
38x6ep | What changes (if any) occur to the circulatory system when someone becomes an amputee? | At first, your blood pressure would increase, as the heart is working just was hard to push less blood a shorter distance.
But your circulatory system has a feedback system that monitors both how much blood is needed, and what pressure it is at. It would eventually recognize the you were getting plenty of blood, and could lower the blood pressure by dilating arteries. | 200d6489-69ff-4ef5-b518-78bbcdaaa63d |
1nvp83 | Why do lawyers defend obvious murderers and criminals? | > Why do lawyers defend obvious murderers and criminals?
Because you cannot have a fair legal system that is based on "obvious" guilt. Guilt must be *demonstrated* via *evidence*, not assumed via something as subjective as "it's obvious".
> Why might a lawyer defend someone where the case is totally against them
Because everyone deserves to have someone competent in the law act in their defense. Otherwise, innocent people who *appear* to be guilty but aren't would be screwed.
> Why would you want a criminal back on the streets?
They're not a criminal until they're actually convicted. | 15434a1c-9735-408e-a160-18cf01bb9cc9 |
57f5hg | Why aren't clothing sizes universal? | A small part of the problem is "vanity sizing" where retailers will size their clothes slightly larger than others so people feel better about themselves and therefore the clothes. You then tend to get into sizing wars with retailers trying to outsize each other, meaning sizes drift over time. This tends to be worse in women's clothes because they often have non-measurement based sizing.
This is only one tiny contribution to the problem. | 3eb56091-c6aa-4ad7-a923-f05b79bbf8f8 |
3c6hr0 | how stoked people get for getting US citizenship | To address your ELI5 question, it sounds like you come from a developed country that is not currently war torn. Many people are proud to become US Citizens because it means freedom from oppression whether it be economic, political, religious or otherwise. If you come from a developed country, you are only going to notice the things, like your example on buying a phone and warranties, as a consumer that are better.
There are hundreds of thousands of people in recent history who have escaped war and been granted citizenship in the US as refugees. See Hmong Sudanese, Somalian, former Yugoslavians etc.
Many Latin American countries have extremely high violence rates and no jobs, so to become a US citizen after living in one of these countries means safety and an income.
Many of your points seem to not come from experience but a summary of other people's interpretations or opinion on things presented to them by entertainment media.
There are 50 states that can differ (economically, sociologically, culturally) just as much as the members of the EU.
Education? Where are most of these located? _URL_1_
Right now I'd rather be poor in America and highly taxed than wealthy in Greece with a 60 Euro daily limit at the ATM and the fear of not knowing what next is to come.
Not sure what your scale is on measuring healthcare, infant mortality rate is a commonly used measurement, I see no problem there.
How about top hospitals in the world? _URL_0_
I'm not saying there isn't a lot that is broken that needs to be fixed but the US is 315 million people, Canada is 35 million. The population of California is larger than the population of Canada. It is easier to apply laws/regulations, such as healthcare on a smaller population that is less diverse. The health care system was broken on a national level but many individual states had progressive programs to provide healthcare to the poor.
The US fosters development, research, innovation and change, being a US citizen makes you a part of that. The "frontier" still exists today so a man with no education can still work hard and make enough to obtain liberty and the pursuit of happiness a lot easier than a majority of people in the world.
ELI5: Grow up poor in Honduras/Sudan/Somalia then become a US Citizen and compare your chances to obtain inalienable human rights and maintain them.
PS My fiance is English, I'm American, she has her oath ceremony to become a US Citizen in a month. If she were to summarize why she is proud to soon become an American it would be "opportunity", as in the "Land of". She has about 25 plus other reasons in case you would like to hear the perspective of a citizen of an EU member state. | aef2d6a4-e3c3-4740-b7c6-9b22af92dfac |
oiav3 | Color | It is a little inaccurate to say that the color of an object is dependent on the color being reflected. The thing to grasp is that the color of an object is what is left over after all the other colors have been absorbed. It's a subtle distinction that is important to note. There are two ways an object can interact with the light that it does not absorb; it can reflect it, or it can retransmit it. Things that are transparent or translucent will do a little bit of both. Reflection or retransmission is independent of absorption. As an example, something that is blue under white light will appear black under red light. And it will appear black regardless of whether it is transparent or opaque - regardless of whether it reflects or retransmits whatever it does not absorb - because it has absorbed all the frequencies that you gave it.
For a slightly more in depth answer, see [_URL_0_](_URL_0_). | ba6000d8-a0eb-4a14-b938-1181b388e9b0 |
4hh7qo | What causes that bubble/cloud around fighter jets when they are traveling at extremely high speeds? | It's probably a [vapor cone](_URL_0_). Basically, when a jet goes faster than the speed of sound, it creates areas of extremely high and low air pressure around the jet.
Some of these low pressure areas lower the pressure so much that the water condenses out of the air. | 7638d8ba-2fdb-407a-b87b-244a9a9535a1 |
5wkv7a | Civil rights vs Civil liberties | The very easy way to think of it is that Civil Rights refer to the idea of all people having equal treatment, especially being free from discrimination based on factors like race, sex, etc. Civil Liberties are those freedoms protected explicitly by law. First amendment rights, etc. There's some overlap, obviously. | deca502c-06c4-450e-b0de-7a16637f7499 |
5ak8zc | Why is there a scandal in South Korea right now? What happened? | It was discovered that the president of South Korea has been getting advice from a "psychic" claiming to be able to channel the spirit of her dead mother, and that not only has the president been giving federal money to this woman, but that this "psychic" has been behind pretty much every decision they've made while in office.
The general public are not pleased with this. | 4be2c934-10ad-4510-a16f-10f1f972d84b |
3tr5r9 | What does "70mm" mean in film, and why are people excited about it? | "70mm" means that the film on which the image was collected and later projected is itself is 70mm wide. Think of older cameras that used 35mm film as a standard, but up this to 70mm and apply it to cinema.
The reason 70mm film gets people excited is that the film allows for greater image resolution. Larger format films spread the image over a wider area, which allows for more detail to be collected by the pigments (or silver, for black and white) in the film. This gives a better final image. This is why lots of portrait studios used to use large format cameras since they generally give better images for the same film stock, and smaller size and subsequent "movability" was not necessary. If memory serves, 70mm can give films a really wide aspect ratio without loss of image quality. This allows you to do really epic film-making in a style along the lines of Lawrence of Arabia, Ben-Hur and the like. | 38e63eac-ad1b-4316-8ffc-37bdd125e0ba |
5yq1ri | Why is the Great Barrier Reef bleaching, what does that mean, and what impact does that have on global biodiversity?? | Imagine coral as a landlord - it owns property (its structure), inside which small organisms cohabit. It provides them with some chemicals required for photosynthesis and a nice place to live, it in turn provides the coral a source of energy. These microorganisms are what make corals different colours.
When ocean conditions alter (principally heat stress), the organisms abandon the coral. Since they provide 90% of its energy, the coral dies. Imagine if your mitochondira couldn't tolerate your body anymore - you'd die almost instantly from the lack of ATP production, no matter what you did. Other factors affect the microrganisms inside them like chemicals, water clarity etc, but heat stress is the singular biggest killer.
It will have catastrophic effects on biodiversity - one of the principal reasons water in tropical (i/e reef) locations looks so beautiful and clear is that its actually kind of dead - heavily lacking in plankton. Coral reefs function as oases of sorts, providing a vibrant basis for an ecosystem which massively increases local biodiversity. Without them, almost every species adapted for reef life will either become severely engaged or go extinct. This will likely have knock on effects up and down the food chain (remaining fish heavily overhunted, jellyfish take over those oceans (if you're lucky)). Biodiversity on land will likely suffer a knock on negative effect, as the primarily poorer communities surrounding many of the worlds reefs can no longer rely on fishing to substain themselves and must increasingly use land based resources.
There is some hope from a biodiversity perspective though. Some corals have been found that occupy tidal pools. Given the dramatically reduced volume of these pools, they undergo wide thermal swings over the course of each day, without ill effect. It might be possible to either modify existing coral, or transplant adapted coral and replenish the reef. | eb32c53a-5c6d-4732-9c17-4da80866e3ae |
10i74s | Why is the national debt a problem? | It isn't a problem, and the U.S. never plans to ever pay it off.
There are some arguments over whether the U.S. government debt is too large or not. But the world market seems to think it is just fine. The government is able to sell treasury bonds right now at very low interest rates, which should tell you that most investors are not worried about the level of U.S. government debt.
Many, many people just don't "get" what the national debt is -- it's very different from any other kind of debt, because it is our main currency reserve. I'll rephrase that in bold to get your attention: **U.S. government debt is very different from household debt: it is never meant to be paid off, because it is our currency reserve.**
That is to say, the U.S. national debt is the source of nearly all dollars in the world.
"Huh?"
Dollars are a fractional reserve fiat currency anchored by national debt.
Most dollars in the world are created by being lent out by banks. Most banks work by starting with a stash of dollars. They lend out dollars against that "reserve". They're allowed to lend out a large fraction of them, so they only actually have about 1/5 as much actual money on hand as the value of all their accounts. But what do people do with the dollars that get lent out? They generally put them into a bank. Once those dollars go back into a bank, they serve as reserves and the banks can lend out even more money! So if a bank starts with some money ("reserves") it can magick into existence about 4x that much money, by lending against their reserves. [i.e. they multiply their original stake by a factor of about 5].
We use that effect to create *all* the dollars in the world.
The whole system works because someone, somewhere, has something of value against which to lend out the first dollars. That someone is the Federal Reserve, which is a group of banks called (duh) "Federal Reserve Banks". The main form of currency reserve they hold is U.S. treasury bonds -- in other words, U.S. government debt.
The way the U.S. "prints money" is to sell U.S. treasury bonds to Federal Reserve Banks. In other words, the U.S. government asks those special banks for a loan. The Federal Reserve can make that loan, because for every $1 of government debt they accept, they can make about $5 in loans. If they give 1 of those 5 dollars to the Federal government to spend, they have 4 left over, against which they can make loans to other banks or people.
Now, the Federal Reserve does hold other things of value as reserve (in addition to U.S. treasury bonds), but most of their reserve is U.S. government debt. Everything is hunky-dory as long as the economy grows at a rate that is close to the interest rate on the U.S. government debt -- then, when it's time to pay the interest on the debt, the government just issues a few more treasury bills, and the total money supply grows to match the growth in the economy. (That is a good thing - you want enough money in the economy to keep everything running, and if the economy grows but the money supply doesn't, all kinds of Hell break loose).
If the U.S. government started paying off its debt, as almost happened under Clinton, the whole U.S. monetary system would need to be reworked. As it is now, for every dollar of government debt that gets paid off, some money (about $5 in my example) disappears from the world at large. Poof. If the whole debt were ever paid off, there would be almost no dollars left in the world at all.
**tl;dr: well, you asked. Go read it anyway.** | 16693a42-c5f8-4c05-9e71-ad941016b712 |
5lvp4t | Why did early pistol and musket designs have such unergonomic looking grips? | Ergonomics as a science hadn't been invented yet, and guns were mostly handcrafted pieces, so each gunsmith was kind of just doing his own thing.
Ergonomics also isn't all that important when you have a gun with no sights and you're only expected to fire a couple rounds a minute at most. | e9f7f1ef-8281-43b7-8b03-95ed662f0fda |
vg4pk | How come using better sports equipments isn't considered cheating? | It is considered cheating.
There are very strict regulations about what can and cannot be used, and what types of modifications can be made to equipment.
So, for example, baseball bats have to be made a certain way. If you make them out of a different material, or make them shaped different, or anything else that would give you an advantage, it's considered cheating. | 81edea78-74cd-4f35-aafb-2bfdf2454a1f |
3rq7k8 | Why does is Cyanide so toxic if its just Carbon and Nitrogen? | The atoms that make it don't matter in this case. What matters is the shape of the molecule they make together, and how that mixes with other shapes in the human body. Imagine that some molecules are locks, and others are keys. There is one particular lock that is necessary for your cells to produce energy, which you need to survive. When the one molecule that is shaped right fits that lock, it allows the cell to produce energy. Then it comes out, and you can do it again. Cyanide is like a mis-cut key. It fits in the lock, but doesn't produce energy. Worse, it gets stuck, and won't come out. When this happens to enough of the locks, you no longer produce enough energy. That means your muscles stop working, which stops your lungs, heart, etc. | 66983509-4219-4c86-9ad0-51e7b16ec567 |
4de3ms | Why do professors continuously write exams with extremely low averages and then curve, rather than write easier exams? | if they set the bar too low, they wouldn't get a representative sample of what the class understands.
For example: if you're in calculus class, and the test only has "what is 2+2?" on it, then obviously everyone will pass. Which tells the professor nothing. If, however, there is a wide sampling of problems of varying difficulty, the professor and his staff can accurately gauge where the students are having trouble.
Effectively, this is one of those areas where failure is probably more significant than success - having the entire class fail on one chapter tells the professor that he or she maybe didn't do a good job explaining, or the TAs need to spend more time on that area. They wouldn't know this if the tests were so easy that everyone would pass.
To say nothing of the fact that people need to be challenged in order to grow. | ef90e2e3-3231-49ec-a321-c3123815dfcc |
2b47qm | Why doesn't reddit have an official iPhone app? | We already have lots of apps that work fine, like alien blue etc. Reddit doesn't need to make an official one. | a03ba5c6-5048-49fa-b171-c1d28c44a749 |
kfn4h | Why people talk to babies/dogs/cute things in a high pitched voice? | Lower pitched noises tend to represent anger and instill fear(Christian Bale as Batman), while higher pitched tones tend to feel happy or nice (Owl City).
If you subscribe to evolutionary psychology, generally predatory animals like dogs will have low pitched growls while harmless animals like birds will have higher pitched noises. I'm not sure when or the evolutionary reason why this came to be, but I think that's where it stems from. | 7632881d-d30f-44c4-b451-29de36c82b54 |
913kp8 | Why proteins are shown in scientific papers as bunch of tangled wires and arrows, and not like some kind of chemical element or something similar? | Proteins are molecules that compared to water, are insanely big. Proteins have 4 kind of structures. The primary structure is just the chain of the basic bricks (amino acids) that build up the protein. Secondary structure is how that chain bends itself into different shapes. Tertiary structure is the how different parts with different secondary structures bend to give the protein it's 3D structure. Quaternary structure (which not all proteins have) is how different sub-parts of a protein (i.e. separate molecules) assemble .
In papers arrows and coils show what kind of secondary structure (leaflet or spiral) that part of the protein has and also gives an overview of it's tertiary structure.
If you were to write down a protein as a chemical formula or molecule name, it would make an insanely long and un-understandable word that would help the reader. On the other hand, the model you see in papers gives a quick overlook of the protein structure and size, and sometimes more for those used to looking at those models ! | cf09f0ea-0dce-46d4-9ec2-994e77240171 |
6baj5m | Rocket "Launch Windows" | "Launch window" may be set by multiple conditions. More mundane being a condition to shut off nearby naval and air traffic, which needs to be coordinated with appropriate authorities.
The interesting part of this (and usually the one people are referring to) are relative positions of Earth (or launch site) and target of the mission.
All planets, moons and satellites are always moving, and they are moving at different speeds, so they move relative to each other. Therefore there are times when trip with the same target will take less resources and times when it will take more resources to complete (fuel, time, etc).
Extreme example of this were Voyager probes ([diagram of Voyager 2 path](_URL_0_)), which flew by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. It could obviously take such path only when they were positioned ideally.
If a mission is launched "outside of launch window", it means that the conditions are not ideal and it would need more fuel to fly where needed. But the margins are fuzzy, launching a mission to Mars few days after optimal date means a bit more fuel is needed, but launching it few months later increases the amount of fuel (therefore weight and size of the rocket) drastically. By calculating how much (and how fast) your rocket can lift, you determine the time limits applicable to your concrete mission. | bed00155-8280-41a5-a7e1-671a95a816e9 |
rd5g0 | 'The Troubles' between Northern Ireland's Nationalists and Unionists. | In the 1600s England and Scotland sent over protestants to live in Ireland to help control it. As they were from Britain they wouldn't rebel against English rulers. They were sent mainly to Ulster a province in the north of the island. This had been the most "Irish" part of Ireland and England couldn't control it. The settlers were given land that was taken from the people who lived there. This was the known as the "Plantation of Ulster."
England gradually brought the whole of Ireland under its control and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was formed in 1801. However, many Irish people still opposed the English ruling them and there have been a number of rebellions since the plantation.
Ulster, since the plantation, has had a large number of people in support of British rule. These people are "loyal to the crown" and are known as unionists. They are generally descendants of the Scottish and English settlers and are mostly Protestant. The descendants of the Irish natives have traditionally been opposed to British rule and and known as Nationalists. The majority of them are Roman Catholic. The more hard-line Unionists and Nationalists are known as Loyalists and Republicans respectively.
After a group of nationalists rebelled at Easter in 1916 (the Easter Rising) the way the rebels were dealt with by the British general made the population of Ireland sympathetic to the rebels and oppose the British even more. In 1921 Ireland was separated from Britain to rule itself. All apart from the six North-Eastern counties. These remained under British rule as there were a large number of unionists in these counties.
These 6 counties are the country Northern Ireland. They were ruled by a Protestant government and the country was very sectarian towards Catholics; Protestants were favoured for housing and jobs and the election borders were set up to ensure that Unionists got more seats in government. (Search for "gerrymandering") Unionists often had more than one vote each as well.
In the late 1960s the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) was set up to call for an end to sectarianism towards Catholics. They organised protest marches to raise awareness for their cause. In an early march to Derry they were attacked by the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the protestant police force of Northern Ireland after William Craig, the Northern Ireland Home Affairs Minister chose to ban civil rights marches.
The violence escalated from there with the British government sending in the army to try to control the population. The army was originally welcomed by the nationalists as a neutral peace-keeping force but opinions changed after the army, in an attempt to catch militant republicans, imprisoned many Catholics without trial using out-of-date information. The nationalists turned on the British army and republicans started to attack any person or company they believed to be working in the British interests.
There were many attacks carried out from both republicans and loyalists on high profile figures as well as many ordinary civilians, purely because of their religion.
It has only been since the political movement in the late 1990s that the violence has gone down and Northern Ireland is mostly stable now. However there are still some people that carry out attacks but these are rare. As this goes against the will of the majority and most militant organisations have called ceasefires these people are known as dissidents.
The reason this applies to Old Firm games is because historically native, protestant/Presbyterian Scots have supported Glasgow Rangers and Irish, Catholic immigrants to Scotland have supported Glasgow Celtic. Therefore there has been a lot of sectarianism around these games mainly between opposing supporters.
**TL;DR: British protestants settled on Irish Catholics' lands and started to rule them. This continued until a civil rights movement in the 1960/1970s. The civil rights marches (comprising mostly of Catholics) were attacked by protestants (including the police). From this, violence escalated and the British army was brought in to deal with it. The violence continued until a political solution around the turn of the century.**
**Glasgow has similar sectarianism between native Presbyterian Scots and settled Catholic Irish-Scots which has rubbed off on to the two main football clubs there** | 7ebea2bd-25d7-40fe-b429-3a852183d96d |
579b8b | The Kathy Shelton Rape Case | Kathy was brutally raped when she was 12 years old.
Hillary Clinton was a lawyer in Arkansas. The defendant in the case asked for a female lawyer, the judge asked Clinton to be the public defender for this lawyer.
Clinton reluctantly took the case and fought aggressively for the client and got a one year sentence and not for child rape.
Many years later, in an interview Hillary Clinton laughed at some aspects of the case.
Years later after hearing about the recording Kathy went public about how she was subjected to psychological reviews, could not bare children was traumatized from the questions by the defendants.
Two years later the shield laws were enacted which prevented the kind of questioning of rape victims like Clinton's defense team had done.
The controversy is 1) she laughed at the case 2) she or the defense team went overboard in questioning the victim.
Source._URL_0_ | bbf0040b-5d5d-4b73-a2b6-342cc3c143ab |
21o8lf | How do teams of developers work simultaneously on one project without messing each other up? | Cooperation and tools. A Code Management or Code Versioning system allows multiple developers to work on the same source code modules. Primitive ones allow a developer to "lock" a source code file, preventing others from making changes to it until they've finished. More sophisticated ones allow multiple developers to makes changes to modules and then analyze what changed and apply only the changes to the "real" copy. When conflicts arise (for example, developers made two different changes to the same line) the second coder to try to check in is warned about the conflict and needs to correct it before the build will work. | 9c74dcc8-1a2d-442d-829a-8b5079f7e457 |
3ay07z | Older PC's used to have a "Turbo" button on them. What did it actually do? | It was there to make the computer slower.
The original Intel 8088 CPU had a fixed clock speed of 4.77MHz. Many applications (mainly games) used this for timing. When faster CPUs came out, these games would run too quickly and were unplayable.
CPU manufacturers solved this problem by allowing you to revert back to 4.77MHz. However, instead of having a "slow down" button, they labeled the button "turbo" (because it sounds better).
Edit: my wording might have been a bit confusing. Enabling "turbo" mode would set the CPU to its proper clock speed, and this was the default setting when you booted the computer. Pressing it would "disable" turbo mode by slowing the CPU to 4.77MHz. This was done instead of labeling the button "slow down" and having it off by default. | e7574dd8-abee-454b-b05b-e090df0fe894 |
4n8rvz | Why is the OJ case iconic? | Well, it was a huge deal at the time. The coverage was unprecedented, and in fact it is credited as being the first "reality" TV - from the white bronco chase, throughout the court coverage. | b209d124-7318-48cb-b30f-12152cafaee4 |
1bqesw | Why pink is treated and named like it is such a distinctive color | It's just a cultural artifact - we have a single word for "light red."
Not all languages have words for the same colors. Russian has separate, basic color words for "light blue" and "dark blue" (goluboy and siniy respectively). Hungarian has two different categories of "red" (piros and vörös) that aren't subsets of each other like, say, scarlet is a subset of red in English. Homeric Greek used the same "color" words to describe the sky and bronze, or the sea and wine, or honey and fresh leaves in spring - using color-like descriptions in a way that is different from what we think of it now.
The Russian example was even used as the [basis of a study](_URL_0_) to see that our language shapes our perception of these things. People may not qualify pink as "light red" because they simply never *have* thought about it that way. | 90f436ab-04d0-4ab7-a3bf-5c726e0dc2db |
8lnybs | How did the medical community determine daily vitamin intake recommendations? | A vitamin is an organic molecule that the human body has 'forgotten' how to synthesise: over many generations it was always present in the diet, so there was no need to produce it, and those pathways fell into disuse and finally stopped working. Minerals, meanwhile, are a way for the body to get the elements it needs, like iron and calcium - no organisms can synthesise those.
Nowadays we do have access to a much more diverse diet, but that means that it's possible to accidentally not eat any foods that contain a certain vitamin or mineral. The medical community can work out a safe figure for how much you need by a simple method: how little do you have to be getting, for being given some of that vitamin to make you healthier?
Many vitamins and minerals have an absolutely vast range of dosage levels between "gets healthier when given more of it" and "gets sicker when given more of it" - when you're overdosing on a given vitamin. So they just pick a value based on the best knowledge available.
Yes, most people are not at any risk of getting too little (or too much) of any vitamin in their normal diet. It's something to look into at particular points in life (pregnancy, childhood, old age), or if you have an unusual diet (vegans, for instance). | eb50b1a2-8ce2-40fa-9cf8-71f6429ffcb5 |
3s8r9s | Why did games from around decade ago have videos that played if you were idle in the menus? | They acted as a screen saver. Old CRT televisions would have an image burned into the screen if it displayed the same thing for a long time ([like this](_URL_0_)). The video just stopped the same image for displaying for too long.
These days, image burning isn't really a problem with LED and plasma screens. | 20c20f52-7794-4341-ab8b-430d43455fe3 |
3jclu5 | Why are computer processors produced in a vinyl size disc form? | The silicon needed for the processors is produced as a huge cylinder, which is then sliced into these thin discs, called wafers. It's cylinder shaped because of a process called [Czolchralski process](_URL_0_). | 0b5ce7d5-b661-4d8d-bfd5-b3603bf08460 |
5quj61 | What is the difference between Chrome & Chromium, and who owns Chromium? | Chrome is a browser created by Google.
Chromium is an open source browser based on Chrome.
Chrome OS is an operating system made by Google, where the Chrome browser is the primary user interface. It is designed for lightweight devices that are primarily used to access the internet.
Chromium OS is an open source version of Chrome.
Chromebook as a laptop sold by Google with the Chrome OS preinstalled. | 918e10aa-7d84-46d6-aac1-49deb8b02fd2 |
6b2h20 | What makes some whiskey/bourbon/scotch "smooth" and others "harsh?" Price is not the answer I'm looking for. There are affordable examples of each that are smooth, and others in the same price range that are harsh. Food science based answers would be the most helpful. | The taste can be influenced well before aging by the shape and height of the destillery and the destillation temperature. Different alcohols have sometimes very slightly different evaporation points and they carry different aromas. With a high destillery you can more easily adjust for a favorable mix since some non-favorable alcohols and aromas fall down again before reaching the cooling spiral.
Since English isn't my first language you might want to look at the explanation in r/scotch:
_URL_0_ | 44266043-3517-46f2-869a-509bb1c6051b |
2mm3pa | Why do gas prices change daily, but nearly all other consumer products have a fixed price? | Consumer products don't have a fixed price. Rather, they don't have a fixed cost, but retailers usually mark them up high enough that the profit buffer is still there no matter how much the cost fluctuates. There's also the theory of the "menu cost" which holds that retailers incur some cost to actually change their prices, so they prefer to change them as infrequently as possible. Over time, consumer prices do change, usually going up owing to inflation. | bc51ae65-ce83-4708-8ced-4de8705641bf |
6l5rft | What is a Home Loan Repayment? | Your home loan repayment is intially calculated on principal and interest.
Example: So if you're home loan is 250,000 - over a 30 years period the repayment will be 1500 a month.
Of the 1500, 500 will be interest and 1000 will be principal which is the amount you're reducing the loan by.
Most banks calculate interest daily and charge it monthly which is why it's better to dump as much as you can into the loan so your monthly calculation will be less interest and more principal.
Then... Check with your back again, some banks divide a weekly repayment by getting your monthly and dividing by 4 instead of 4.33.. this will mean that you'll actually get a couple extra payments a year. Confused?
Example: Dividing by 4 means that your repayment will be every Tuesday, some months have 5 Tuesdays.
Dividing by 4.33 means that they are calculating the repayment to happen on certain dates of the month, not days.
For the curious - fortnightly payments also work to reduce the loan quicker if the bank divided by 2 instead of 2.16.
Hope this helps. | e0105717-3042-4896-8cf1-889efb414b51 |
3pa968 | Theoretically, what (if any) is the lower limit of density for solid objects? In other words, how not-dense could a solid object get? | To answer that, you would have to decide when to stop calling something a solid. [Aerogel](_URL_0_) is hardly there at all. It's a solid, but probably only just. | a2606746-d8e1-4fe3-a12e-837e1f7434c9 |
y4j18 | Arduino. What is it? What do you do with it? | I'll assume you know what a microcontroller is & why people would want to use them.
Arduino is a standardized platform for deploying microcontrollers in hobbyist applications. Where a bare uC chip needs to get wired into a custom circuit & use fancy hardware to program it, the Arduino is a standard board. The Arduino has a simple interface for programming it form a PC, it has standard interfaces for controlling external hardware & reading external input.
Since it's a standard platform, there's a lot of off-the-shelf expansion boards & free schematics for building things.
While you'd never use an Arduino for high-volume commercial production (random check showed a small Arduino board costs about $30 while the bare chip on it is under $3, going under $1.50 in lots of 100), it simplifies things for the little guys that want to make a few dozen devices, or the guy who wants to do a one-off project in his garage. On top of that, you get a giant community of people that are doing similar things on identical hardware, proving a great support structure. | 1b72dde0-d799-40ff-8525-ab481720d223 |
5d3q7x | Why does the DMV care how much I spend to buy a car from a relative? | Because the DMV is responsible for collecting taxes on the sale of a car from the buyer. Cars are one of those special items that are taxed even when bought used. Your relationship to the seller is irrelevant. | 4615340b-b6eb-45c4-b0d4-5640908f9ad9 |
7z66ty | Why does water dry out our hands? | Your skin has a layer of oils which it uses for waterproofing, making it more difficult for water to escape your tissues.
However, it's not invincible, so enough washing (particularly with soap, or hot water) can strip this layer. This allows water to escape from your tissues to the air more readily, drying it out, until your body has a chance to replenish the coating. | d9340159-182e-43fb-a012-dbcb0f5c40ff |
7e2amt | How does it feel falling through a cloud while skydiving? Is it safe to perform such a feat? | As a pilot, I can advise that as a rule of thumb, clouds have turbulence. Not always bad turbulence, but I feel lik skydiving through them is asking. It some rough bumps. Just a WAG. | 8824440e-d74b-4c50-964a-ad88f34b3ca9 |
5tw6bp | what causes the leaves to get caught in a gust of wind and form a mini tornado of sorts for a moment or two? | Vortexes are common in turbulent flows, like you get with air of differing temperatures. For instance as warm air rises from the surface it may pass through cooler air above it, pushing it out of the way. So you have a rising low density column with heavier density air flowing around it, potentially giving you a rising rotating column.
The only thing the leaves are doing is traveling in the moving air, and thereby making its motion visible. | aafa747a-e461-4b0e-83fa-21d262b62bb7 |
5iy1qw | Does taking a double dosage of something have the same effect as taking it twice a day? If so or if not, how? | They'll have different effects.
When you ingest something, the amount in your blood increases fairly quickly as it gets digested, then begins falling off as your liver/kidneys filter it out. But that filtering is sort of a proportional thing. Like, your liver will remove 15% of whats in your system every hour, say. So 15% in the first hour, 15% of the remaining 85% the second, etc.
So when you ingest more often in smaller doses, it means the amount in your system stays in a narrower range. Doubling up once a day means a lot right after you drink it, and almost none by the time you're due for more. | 1c27a466-b978-4780-a5f0-62ff6acd7ec0 |
8objk6 | If the hottest man-made temperature ever is 5,500,000,000,000C in the CERN, how come the lab and everything sorrounding it didn't melt down? | Think about the difference between the filament of a light bulb being at about 2550 Celsius vs your entire house being that temperature. Obviously that is the difference between business as usual and your entire house burning, melting, and exploding at the same time.
That very high temperature at CERN was in a very small area for a very brief period of time. The total amount of energy was fairly small, just very concentrated at that instant. | 2942ae3b-a72d-4139-b1db-f30204161c59 |
2vqlqa | How do the citizens from countries like Canada and USA get the connections to join groups like ISIS or even the Peshmerga? | Through social media and "connections" that are met at gatherings, such as mosques.
NOTE: This is not to say that all mosques are recruiting grounds for ISIS but it has happen. | 2fd21e8d-4ce3-42d7-a5c6-620d74fdd56b |
1djz0f | Japan's transition from the Empire we fought in WWII to the friendly, efficient, stable (video game/anime factory) they're known for today? | The US also kept intact the Imperial Monarchy. Being vital to the Japanese culture and ethos, the Allies allowed for a constitutional monarchy ( which was arguably in place after the Meiji era anyways).
By having a peaceful occupation and rebuilding, along with respecting the Japanese culture, they became our Ally.
We increased their economy 3x after WWII. Additionally, their governmental system wasn't much different after post-war Japan. Having given them an economic boost, they went about their way.
Also, since Japan is extremely honorific and collectivist, they took it well. | fb0931e6-66c6-48d5-8d8b-7361d5d66970 |
25f8hr | Why is Brazil's crime rate so high, and where did these trends begin? | I beg to disagree with the other answers. The wealth gap is but a small part of the equation. Plus, OP is asking about crime and not only street violence. Tax evasion, corruption by politicians, extortion, they are all crimes. They are committed by wealthy people, and a lot. And still, a lot of the most violent crimes are committed by low middle class. Sure, a piss-poor guy with a .38 can rob passengers in a bus or your mobile phone, or a motorcycle stopped at a traffic light. But things like bank robberies and other crimes are done by wealthier and often educated (school-wise) people.
In ELI5 fashion (and trying to not write an essay, so ask for clarification if you want), there are two big reasons for crime rates in Brazil: 1) impunity; 2) culture and (lack of) education.
The most important is impunity. And it's widespread. It's not only the police force, which greatly lacks in numbers. It's also the judiciary and the judicial system, which takes 10 years to judge a crime. It's the legal system, which lets a person arrested 15 times for bank robbery to respond in liberty for the 16th bank robbery because the trials for the other 15 robberies are still going. And it's also "popular" impunity. Brazilians know the politicians who are corrupt and what they did yet do nothing about it. While in Europe politicians would be forced to step down, in Brazil they laugh and brush it aside, and the people does nothing about it.
As for the education bit, people are brought up without any values whatsoever. I've seen parents teach their children to trick others. I've seen parents teach their children to steal from other children, because "if they weren't smart enough to look after their stuff they didn't deserve to keep it". I'm talking 6 or 7 year olds. There is no value seen in "doing the right thing" just for the sake of it, and if you do, you're seen as an idiot. On top of that, parents have no authority over their children. They can't say no to anything, and they are not respected. Children are not raised learning the importance to respect others and to respect the elders etc. They are raised with the mentality that life is a free for all and you gotta go after and take something if you want it. Then people are surprised when at 15 they are either robbing and stealing or cheating and scamming, and at 25 (if they haven't been killed in crime yet) they graduate as bank robbers or politicians.
Again, let's not use the wealth and being poor excuse. That's hiding the real problems. Many people around the world are poor and not criminals. Most poor people in Brazil are not criminals. Many rich people in Brazil are criminals. I'm talking high education level, University level. The level of fraud and corruption inside the public Universities is just appalling, for example. And they are both the intellectual and the wealthy elite of the country. Rotten in crime. In my humble opinion, it's idiotic to blame wealth distribution for the crime rates.
Where did the trends begin would take yet another post, so I'll leave that for later if there is still interest. | 7bd00b00-a2a3-4d3f-bc47-d606eb409593 |
403b26 | Why is it that 4G internet on my phone feels insanely slow, almost useless sometimes, but years ago, back when 4G and LTE didn't exist, 3G on my Blackberry felt fine? | It's because websites have put more content into their pages. If you tried to use your old 3G again, it would be painfully slow.
Even though our computers are getting faster, the actual time taken to run our software is the same across the years. We keep building heavier software. | 8ceddbfb-c5b1-43a2-8ce5-ae30f74e1139 |
4yg9kx | why do car engines vibrate more when in park? | When your engine runs, it doesn't deliver nice constant power. It's a series of captured explosions delivering sudden bursts of power, followed by a lag until the next burst. This is more noticeable when the engine is running really slowly, since the explosions are further apart. Also, the weight and resistance of the drivetrain helps to smooth out the explosions and make power delivery feel more smooth, but when the transmission is in neutral this extra weight and drag isn't present to help smooth things out. Finally, engines are tuned to run best at a certain RPM, when they are running significantly faster or slower than this RPM, they can run more roughly. | 0a2c9891-0af6-4c58-bdf5-4c8be458fa34 |
3774vl | Why is it that television shows from Britain seem to appear different than American tv shows? | Couple things would give it a different look. First, they use PAL rather than NTSC. Pal uses 25 fps while ntsc uses 30 so pal will look more cinematic while ntsc will look more fluid. Also color encoding differences between pal and ntsc.
When we in the U.S. watch a Britcom or other material produced in the UK, there will be some kind of conversion that takes place. The difference you see is mostly because of the conversion process.
The above refers to analog signals. Digital signals typically look more consistent between US and UK. Take a show like The Graham Norton show. It looks like it's produced in the US. The colors are on, no frame rate adjustment... All good.
Btw the frame rate (25 vs 30) is due to the in-country electrical system. In the U.S., our AC runs at 60Hz. While in the UK, they run at 50Hz. So the frame rate is a multiplier of the AC cycles.
If you're looking for less subtle differences, they spell things differently. So you'll see honor spelled honour; color spelled colour; and other spelling variances. | c5d23eec-bcc1-4e54-84a4-bc69a8103afc |
6krofg | Why did using AM radio for music fall out of favour? | AM sound quality isn't great, but it travels longer distances. FM sounds better, but doesn't travel far.
This is probably not an official stance, but I think AM - being sports and news talk primarily - has a smaller audience appeal, so reaching farther audiences is better for them as it expands their potential listener base; FM - being music - has wider audience appeal, but is typically tailored for a particular taste, and what genre makes good money in one market may not make as much money in another market, so it benefits FM stations to have a more concentrated market they can focus on. | be98ed73-9863-4077-b3c8-f67892b36fb8 |
2f7tvj | Why do I get a weird tingly sensation in the bridge of my nose when something is less than a foot in front of my face? | I know exactly what you're talking about. I get this too, though don't know much about it either. The feeling will linger on the tip of my nose for up to a minute after the person or thing leaves that threshold. | a3c57014-5313-4ecb-9abf-7e1357f8fdfe |
5p94qk | Why are "month end" sales so important to companies? | My take: we tend to procrastinate.
If monthly target is 20 widgets, logic would state to sell 5 a week. Problem is, we bask in the month end hang over and drag our ass in week one, then struggle to make up for lost time in weeks 2 and 3. This leads to a balls out race into insanity in week 4. But don't sweat it, week 1 is around the corner and things will slow down again.
Source: am in sales | 418e3c83-38cc-4295-a994-1addd627e17d |
n9v1o | As a broke, 24-year-old pizza delivery guy what can we as citizens do to help fight against internet censorship? | Honestly I question whether this belongs in ELI5. There really isn't a way to explain what the problem is without 'bias' or 'blatant speculation'. | fb17efb5-58c9-4839-8d6c-cc0a9384ae70 |
5a7kzh | What is really happening when you snap mentally? | Define "snap". It can mean a lot of different things. Like snapping from stress where you just can't take it or snapping as in waking up one day and killing 10 people? | 9e9a0ef4-2106-40e4-acff-6ed28e7801e8 |
4ro0l8 | Why do free range eggs have harder shells than the "conventional" kind? | Free range chickens have a more varied diet which contains more minerals. Or in short, because they eat bugs. | 7b1c7319-9b34-43bb-bf02-1d2c1ddc8ebc |
2yonxg | How it is possible that before 2. world war only men worked and still earned enough for whole family when today we have whole families (mom, dad, child) working and barely survive? | People don't realize that our "quality of life" is significantly better than during that era.
Even 20 years ago, we didn't pay for cell phone, internet, cable. Cut that out? That's $200 a month minimum.
Even 20-30 years ago, a lot of people had 1 or 2 pairs of shoes. 2 sets of clothes (daily clothes, church clothes). When you grew out of them, your younger sibling or relative go the clothes. Hell naw did you throw them away or give them to good will.
Everybody has a computer, tablet, electronics and gets new ones every couple of years. If you lived in a modest apartment, had 3 sets of clothes, no electronics, made your own food - your cost of living would decrease probably by 1/2.
Despite people complaining about the inequalities of the rich and the middle/poor, life in a 1st world country is much better. | 3aa9ea10-e890-40d2-bc0b-d6972e24cd27 |
2eelfg | Why are some people attached to a particular sleeping position? | I would also like to know why I always end up sleeping on my stomach with my arms by my head, even though my arms fall aslep every time I do this. My scumbag sleeping brain never learns... | 0c483100-c5f1-435a-b092-10e45bf9b6fd |
7c78et | why is it that fire normally burns orange? Why isn’t it blue, green, or purple? | The color of a flame depends on what is burning and how hot it is. Most flames come from burning carbon based fuel (wood, wax, etc) and these things burn orange/red/yellow. The higher the temperature the whiter the flame. Other chemical substances simply burn different colors than carbon. This has to do with the amount of energy given off as something burns. | 6ba521f7-f9bb-4cf6-a108-6b0a74ef034f |
27wrnf | Why were futurist so optimistic about the year 2000? | Futurists of the 20th century merely used the year 2000 as a distant, exotic-sounding future year. Their optimism was based on projecting their economic system (capitalism or communism) into the future in order to demonstrate that the troubles of their time are temporary and that perseverance will lead to a greater good.
The last time all the digits changed in the Gregorian calendar (999-1000 CE) few people understood Arabic numerals. So 2000 being so tantalizingly close to their time attracted the imagination.
Many others felt the world would end either by supernatural force or our own hubris. Making it to/through 2000 was something many saw as an achievement. | e4e740c9-82c7-4dc6-94a2-3ca9e2a3d579 |
4k9w8s | What is the advantage of being young when it comes to gymnastics? | Because the rules don't allow them to compete internationally below 16. Younger girls gymnasts can complete more difficult maneuvers than adults, performance peaks at 16 to 18 because 16 is the cut off. It's not bullshit, a large part of women's gymnastics events involves spinning the body (more spins=more difficulty=more points).
During puberty, women grow and develop in ways that mean more of their mass is further from their center of gravity. That means the same push by a gymnast results in fewer rotations for an adult than a smaller, less developed teen, so they get a lower difficulty multiplier and a lower score.
But here's the words from [Daniela Silivas a Romanian Gymnast](_URL_1_):
> You should know that I competed better at the age of 13 than at 17. I felt much better, physical and mentally.
And [a gymnastics coach](_URL_0_):
> When they're younger -- before they even hit 13 -- they hit their peak, especially top-level gymnasts | 1de56602-d23d-4c07-a08c-928bbb778e45 |
1gfsvs | How did plants appear on land when all life started in the ocean? | Just as with animals plants grew in shallower and shallower water... then at the edge of the water... then on the land. A gradual 'evolution' from aquatic to terrestrial. | ef0e2fd7-6194-4bf5-946c-830100d02547 |
njghd | Human blood lust | entertainment. also, probably forbidden fruit. The idea of blowing shit up with big guns is attractive because you probably can't do it IRL | 5d3a493c-4017-4856-af62-cfbdff211865 |
2lr1id | When a singer is performing during a concert and they have an earpiece, what are they listening to? | It's an in-ear monitor. It helps the singer keep in tune by blocking out external noise and playing back the band audio through the earpiece so the singer can hear themselves in relation to the rest of the band.
Without such monitors, it's actually very difficult for singers to sing in tune because the sound of the band gets drowned out by everyone in the audience and most people can't sing with absolute pitch (i.e. sing the correct frequency/pitch without a reference point).
As an alternative to (or in combination with) in-ear monitors, there often speakers set up on stage that are pointed directly toward the singer/band members that perform a similar function.
In-ear monitors are also sometimes used to secretly provide instructions or other messages to performers.
Edit: It's also worth noting that, in some cases, the audio played back through the in-ear monitor is a pre-recorded version of the song (e.g. from an album). Each band member and/or dancer can then match their live performance to the track played in their ear. This has the added benefit of maintaining consistency (e.g. in tempo and pitch) across performances. This approach also keeps the singer in tune, so long as the band instruments are tuned correctly. | 2748421e-4347-4614-902a-ba0c02eb46d1 |
1xcz1g | Why computer viruses associated so strongly with internet porn? | I'm not sure about this, but I also guess that if you are watching porn, you are more likely to download pictures (which are suitable to be malicious) videos, Java plugins (I heard there is a lot of security flaws inside the Java virtual machine) and even new codecs for watching those videos etc... All that content can hold malicious code to attack your computer I guess. | 8a9cde59-b2e3-46e7-b52d-eb22714b0c3c |
5mfs66 | The proper use of commas. And other grammar that is used in everyday business language. | [Grammar Girl](_URL_2_) is a good resource for learning grammar rules. In a professional setting, you'll probably need to use commas to separate items in a list (I think we'll need to get Janine in Accounting, Kevin in Legal, and TJ in HR involved in this), to join two clauses using and/but/or (I emailed Kevin about the Jones account, but haven't heard back), after a name in a multi-recipient email or IM conversation (TJ, can you look into this issue?), or following an "if" clause (If Janine can get that account up-to-date by Friday, we can move forward with the Jones upgrade).
And [Strunk & White](_URL_1_) is generally considered the classic English language style manual. It's a fairly quick read, and has a lot of good advice, particularly about not being too wordy, which is essential in a professional environment.
Also, [The Oatmeal](_URL_0_) has a nice comic on semicolon usage. | e7ffd7ba-9882-4099-8cac-29c5862ee1d2 |
6h0bmu | Why are electronic language translators so bad at their jobs? | Let's take a simple German sentence:
* Knopf fest drücken.
This has a particular grammatical structure: "Knopf" is a noun, "fest" is an adverb, and "drücken" is the infinitive form of a verb. This construction is used to give instructions: the equivalent construction in English is infinitive-noun-adverb, so we know what the correct word order needs to be.
So we start with the verb, "drücken". If we look it up in a dictionary, we find the following possible translations:
* to push
* to press
* to hug
* to pinch
* to tap
That's just the most common translations -- there are more besides. But which one is correct will depend on the context. So let's move on to the noun, to see what thing or person is being acted on -- "Knopf". It could be:
* button
* knob
* stud
* switch
None of those are things that can be hugged, so we can strike that from our list of possible verbs. Those are also things that aren't normally pinched. Note, though, that we are using our own real-world knowledge to help us here: computers don't have real-world knowledge; they only have data that we have programmed into them.
The adverb "fest" has many, many translations:
* definitely
* hard
* firmly
* strongly
* tightly
* permanently
* securely
* solidly
...and so on.
If you don't know any German at all, you're probably looking at three lists of words and trying to calculate the number of possible combinations, and which ones make sense and which don't (for example, "Tap switch permanently" is obviously meaningless), but computers don't have even that level of intuition.
The best online translators have access to lots and lots of already translated texts -- called a "corpus" -- which they can search through and find possible matches. It's a complicated business, though.
A human, though, knowing that he is translating a sign for a panic button for bank clerks, would immediately come up with the most likely translation, "Push button firmly." | 45481a5a-86f5-42e4-99f1-a346d019bb6c |
267fyb | Why does the sun seem to burn hotter in the morning (ca. 10:00) than in the afternoon (ca. 17:00)? | 1000 is only 2 hours off of noon. 1700 is 5 hours off if noon. The morning equivalent of 1700 would be 0700. | e4b76097-d9f8-4fd2-9774-68dc2d2f570a |
5txd65 | How is time an illusion | People like to think this, and *deep thinkers* come up with this on their own all the time, but time is actually a part of the universe, that exists with or without people. It is relative, but it definitely exists and has been mathematically proven over and over | 195d9340-09ac-43a9-a668-509c62a027dc |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.