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25fvb5 | In traffic, why do cyclists by default have to use the road instead of the sidewalk? Aren't motor vehicles and cyclists a bigger danger to each other than cyclists and pedestrians would be? | Bicycles and cars are supposed to follow the same rules, and both drivers and riders are responsible for maintaining situational awareness. This is intended to create a predictable flow.
As others have mentioned, while there are notions about how best to walk on a sidewalk, there aren't really any rules or regulations. A bike coming up behind a car can make a fairly accurate assumption about what the car is going to do next based on signals used by the car and/or the lane the car is in. Sidewalks are pure chaos. | d6c3c0ec-d26a-47cd-aaa3-58e514bd3d59 |
26pqsq | How is using someone else's Wi-fi not considered stealing? | It is; it probably falls under theft of services. | 454cb9b9-a9e6-4dbd-ad45-373a89ae0b3a |
3ax14x | Do dogs have bonds within their families? | Yes. Most social organisms do. There is something called the Hamilton rule which was the first quantitative description of a phenomenon called kin selection; meaning that an organisms will risk its life (and/or ability to reproduce) to save the life (and/or the ability to reproduce) of those who are closely related. The more closely related the organism that needs saving is, the less likely the organism in question will risk its own safety and ability to propagate its own genes to save another organism. The rule is represented by the following equation:
rB > C
"r" being the relatedness of the actor to the receiver of the altruistic action (a parent would be 0.5 for example)
"B" being the reproductive benefit to the receiving party
"C" being the cost to the altruistic actor
So if the risk is less than the benefit to the recipient times the proportion of shared genes (relatedness) the organism (such as the dog in your example) will put forth more risk in order to preserve those who are more closely related to them, than others who are not. | aa14acdc-20b7-4842-9435-e1b48cedffcb |
3ge7gp | Why is it that before an orgasm you have a feeling willingness to do anything, but as soon as the orgasm passes you come to your "senses" (NSFW) | According to some studies about human psychology, our disgust response is literally reduced the hornier you are. Which makes sense. Sex isnt really the most hygienic thing in the world haha. But once you're done, your disgust feelings return to normal. | faf872b2-430a-4228-8772-a5b7599f2c31 |
za4xt | Was Bill Clinton impeached? | Yes he was impeached for perjury (lying under oath) and obstruction of justice.
Impeachment refers to any official being accused of illegal activity. So while impeached he was not removed from office.
Richard Nixon was also impeached though he resigned before the trial. | 1a10386f-de8b-4e85-a51f-310a6e1126e8 |
3y6juo | How do we sense that something is cold? Can we sense particle speed of objects? | Temperature difference between two objects causes a bit of a flux between the two. So if object A is cold and object B is warm, the particles in object B are at a relatively higher energy state than A, and this energy gets transferred to A. And two things happen once this occurs: object A gains energy, that is gets hotter, whereas object B loses energy, that is gets colder or in other words gets less hot.
We sense cold by quantifying this change in energy, which would be decrease in energy for something that is cold. This quantification is done with elements/objects that show a uniform and standardized expansion or shrinkage. Like mercury.
As for how we detect temperature by hand, well there are nerve endings all over skin called free nerve endings. Some of these function as thermoceptors and detect temperature changes in a particular temperature group. A shift in temperature changes the firing rate of the nerve cells. The change in rate is detected by your brain and perceived as cold (if firing rate increases) or hot (if it decreases). | 83bd6856-8d52-4225-adea-43c6902c4e97 |
4recz6 | How is NASA able to download data from from satellite like Hubble telescope and Juno? | There are antennas on Juno that send out the information and giant dishes in different parts of the world that can pick it up no matter what side of Earth is facing Juno. It takes about 48 minutes for the signal to make if from Juno to Earth at the speed of light. | 28719fc2-0928-4f3e-b260-e4e8586a9f9b |
5srn1x | Why does digital data have to be stored on a physical medium? | There is no such thing as "the digital space".
Everything persistent is physical. Everything.
The only non-physical things are signals such as radio or microwaves, but they too require amplification and boosting which again would require more hardware. | 1b50ba1c-cdd6-4b15-9999-3b38f7280491 |
3slsg3 | Why aren't escalators activated by touch/motion to save on energy costs? | Because keeping the steps moving at a given speed for most of the day is cheaper and has less wear on the inner workings than constantly starting and stopping. | 07cbc16f-4dbd-4c75-aad1-a22336fbe9ae |
1xpmp3 | Why is the first episode of a series always called "Pilot"? Why not giving it a real title even though it serves as a pilot? | Most pilots do have a title, or at least a working title. But the word pilot is used as an adjective meaning "done as an experiment or test before introducing something more widely." It's importance to the series is in getting its foot in the door so to speak. | dec3f81d-2d1f-42ea-8dad-2520acbdfe70 |
nhi9k | why big tech companies aren't using their lobbyists to stop SOPA. | I remember hearing on a podcast the idea that since many of these companies are quite new, they haven't had the time to lobby and make the connections the more established companies those in the RIAA/MPAA have formed. | dfb954da-9ff3-4b00-bc06-579f31c231ec |
mgeim | why laptop charging cords have two parts. | The specifics of mains power differ greatly depending on where you are, so power bricks are usually made to handle a wide range of input voltages and frequencies (usually 100-240V at 50-60 Hz). This is because economies of scale make it less costly to make a whole lot of one slightly more expensive part that's much more flexible vs. a bunch of slightly different ones for a single region.
Since different countries (and even different parts of the same country, e.g. Japan) have different connectors to go with the different voltages and frequencies, the AC end of the cord is removable so that only the cheapest part needs to be changed for different regions.
As a bonus, this means you can take your laptop to most countries and need only a cheap AC cord to do it instead of a whole adapter or voltage converter. | c50996c4-4b3d-4d12-a636-79f87ab3295b |
2l0sp5 | What is cyberpunk? | It's a sub genre of science fiction that's mostly characterized as a dystopian future with:
Very little nature/natural resources
World owned mostly by corporations rather than countries or government
Heavy use cybernetic augmentation like implants and limb replacements
Large gap between the slums/poor and the wealthy/corporate level guys
Heavy use of the Internet as a kind of cyberspace that can be utilized by almost everyone, anywhere
Gothic/futuristic architecture
More often than not, there's also themes of addiction, poverty, uprising, rebellion and people running in and out of the shadows and corporate networks.
Over time it's become a little more streamlined, but I personally prefer the retro, clunky tech, Blade Runner-esque style of cyberpunk (which is a good movie to start with if you want sort of an introduction to the genre)
There are some classic novels like Snow Crash and Nueromancer that are kinda at the root of the genre and you've also got Shadowrun, which is a great cyberpunk franchise that mixes traditional fantasy with sci-fi themes. I highly recommend the game Shadowrun: Returns for anyone who really wants a crash course. | d3668043-f9f6-4b1b-aaa8-4b4baf756891 |
395yxv | How can we be certain that there isn't another 'Earth' on the opposite side of the sun, always out of view of our telescopes? | Its gravity would have an effect on our planet, the other planets in the system, and even(on a very small scale) the sun, as well as all the comets and asteroids constantly cutting through our solar system. As we have not observed any such gravitic effects(and we'd notice, because it would screw up trajectories for interplanetary probes and tracking asteroids, as well as screwing up the math for why the planets were acting the way they did), we conclude there is no such body. | 1dcb2c8e-6308-48d2-bf98-ed27781c9fa7 |
91hl6l | What is the log likelihood function and how is it different from probability? | Probability is chance some random or hard to predict event will occur. Usually, we can't compute probabilities exactly, so we create a model. We say getting heads on a coin flip is a 50-50 probability, even though when we analyze the actual physics, the chances aren't exactly 50%. Probabilities can be distributed linearly, like on a die, where each result is equally probable. Or they can have more complex distributions, like how when rolling two dice, 7 is more likely than 12 or 2.
Often the relationship between the model and the data is less clear than with coins or dice. With a die roll, you just count up the sides, divide, and call it good. With something more complicated, like the chances for rain, you have to look at the data and try to guess which model works best.
The likelihood is a tool that helps you come up with the best model. More precisely, for a given model, it allows you to find the parameters that best fit your data. All models have one or more parameters. A linear model has a min and a max, you could try to simulate a die roll with a random number from 2 to 4, but that would be less accurate. Similarly, the parameters for a normal distribution is mean and standard deviation, if you don't have a good value for those, your model won't be of much use.
Likelihood takes those parameters along with the model to create a likelihood function, and the maximum of that function is where the parameters best fit the model. In practice, likelihood functions have a lot of exponential terms that can be hard to work with. The natural log function is monotonic, which means that the max of (x) will be the same as the max of ln(f(x)). That allows us to use log likelihood, where we take the log of all the terms, and simplify the calculation. | e0608c01-836a-4bc9-a980-184117e768d2 |
72kil4 | As a baseball player, I have met many people that write with their left hand but throw with their right. However, I have never met someone that writes with their right hand and throws with their left. Why is this? | From my experience as tennis/volleyball player: left handed players sometimes play sports as if they're right handed because they were tought so at a very young age. Most of the time it's because teachers just start with the assumption that everyone is right handed, and the young kids just copy it without realising they could/should mirror it.
This doesn't happen the other way around for right handed people. | 5461b9e1-4121-476c-a877-3fc2011f42b7 |
6pj79z | How do natural fields exist? (More specifically, ones found in the middle of forests.) | It's part of ecological succession. Environments are constantly changing. It's a system that is complicated by an almost infinite amount of factors and conditions. Usually a glade represents an area that recently changed so that it could no longer support the other surrounding plants. This could be because of poor soil, a forest fire, aggressive feeders, disease, strong wind or snow. When an area is cleared, pioneer plants take over. This will include some trees, but it will take awhile for them to grow tall enough to be more permanent fixtures. Eventually, enough trees will grow so that canopy cover is achieved. At that point, the trees might have grown so dense that they block too much sun and the soil becomes poor. This will cause some trees to die. Shade tolerant plants will start to make a significant appearance once the trees' population dynamics even out around their carrying capacity. After the shade plants, more plants will arise, each changing the former glade in some way that allows more species to grow and some to die back. Eventually, climax community is reached or another dramatic change happens that causes a significant portions of plants to die. | 81ae1071-651a-4cab-93d7-daf2861108c9 |
8yzyjj | why do drills spin? | There are really two things that are going on with a drill bit.
Firstly, if you look at the tip of the bit, you'll feel that at the end are two sharp cutting faces. It's the constant movement of these cutting faces that removes the material in the first place - each revolution results in those cutting faces taking a little bit more material off.
This material then lies at the bottom of the hole, and would quickly clog the bit if it wasn't removed, and that's the second thing - the spiral up the shaft of the bit serves to remove the sawdust/swarf and take it out of the hole.
If you hammer a nail in, the material has nowhere to go - what happens is that the material around the nail gets squashed a bit. This means that a nail hole will often close up once you've removed a nail, because the compressed material can relax a bit. With a drilled hole, because you've actually taken the material out, the hole won't close up. | c06b55f1-98d9-4c56-ad39-55296559ac51 |
170jeh | Explain "syntax and implementation" in regards to learning programming languages. | Syntax is the rules of the language.
If I understood the vocabulary of English, but not the syntax, I might say something like "explaining syntax, I am trying: to". Even though I've put the words in the wrong order, and used the wrong punctuation, you can work out what I mean - but if you put the words in the wrong order and use the wrong punctuation in a programming language, the computer won't know what you mean, and your program won't compile.
Just because a sentence is syntactically correct, it doesn't mean that it's right. Consider the sentence "I rode to work on my fridge today; the temperature was very happy and I was red, pink and useful." That sentence is syntactically correct. I've put verbs where there should be verbs, nouns where there should be nouns, and adjectives where there should be adjectives. My punctuation is all correct. But the sentence makes no sense. If this was a programming language, the compiler would compile it, and you'd be able to run it, but it's pretty sure that it wouldn't do what you wanted when you run it. Your implementation is wrong.
Once you get the syntax and the implementation correct, then your program will compile, and, once compiled, do what you want when you run it. | 8401e4aa-98ec-4fa1-ad96-9cdafe8d9cf5 |
6o1s0p | Who owns a lot of the undeveloped land? Can someone just go off into the mountains, build a home off the grid with no repercussions? | All land (in the US) is owned by someone. Most of the undeveloped land like you described is owned by the government.
Interestingly most of this land the government will sell you for dirt cheap. So you could purchase it and live off the grid, but that is a very hard way to live. | 99893e08-236a-451d-ba02-9fe4e88385d3 |
r25ln | The Trayvon Martin shooting. Was out of the loop for a day or two. | Trayvon Martin was a 17 year-old black male who lived with his mother in Miami, but was visiting his father in Sanford, Florida. On the way back to his father's girlfriend's house in a gated community on 2/26/12, a white, neighborhood watch captain named George Zimmerman saw Martin and was suspicious of him. He called 911 to report seeing this "suspicious" man, and when Martin went to run away from Zimmerman, George chased him down and shot him. On the recently released 911 calls, you can distinctly hear Martin screaming for help before being shot.
The Sanford police department has yet to arrest Zimmerman. They claimed his record was "squeaky clean," despite having been charged with resisting arrest in a previous incident. Martin was found to have been unarmed and had no record. The incident has caused an outcry in the community and the nation, with accusations of incompetence and/or corruption at the Sanford police department, and accusations of both Zimmerman and the police department having a racial bias in the incident. | 84f9d5d5-685f-4d0d-9e0b-f1516a2131d7 |
4l356v | Why does someone stricken with Alzheimer's forget names and memories, but retain math skills and advanced vocabulary? | They don't actually necessarily keep all of those. Vocabulary is *very* frequently affected by Alzheimer's, to the point that it can be part of the testing or a warning sign. | 44ee7ef5-9a10-4187-b29f-8c42e7b6acbe |
3ctooh | If you have to have yogurt to make yogurt from "scratch", how does it form originally? | leave milk out and let it naturally grow bacteria. Hope you have the right kind of non toxic bacteria. | 2ad0837d-609e-40ea-8a02-a38420610e77 |
j6qaq | Copyright / "Fair use" - how does it work? | "Fair use" isn't something that is clearly defined. It is something that is determined in court if you are sued for copyright infringement. Only a qualified attorney could give you advice as to whether something could be considered "fair use," and even then, the final decision is up to the courts of law in the U.S.
There are four factors that go into the consideration of whether use is fair:
1. Purpose and character—is it commercial use or nonprofit, educational use?
2. The nature of the copyrighted work.
3. How much of the copyrighted work you're using.
4. The effect of your use of the work on its market value (or potential market value).
From the US Copyright Office:
> The distinction between fair use and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined. There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission. Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission.
source: _URL_0_ | 2cdbe596-804e-4218-813c-bb77184cc8c0 |
3dwkul | What is this gray liquid coming out of my blender and how does it get there? | The seal around the drive shaft which powers the blades inside the blender is not completely water proof. Liquid from inside the blender gets into the bearings and seals area where there is also lubricant and this liquid then slowly leaks out through the bottom onto the base. | 80fefa0f-cf26-4c60-ae60-8d131fffda32 |
45umf1 | Since a compass is a magnet, why do compasses always point towards magnetic north, but not a typical household ceramic magnet? | The needle is long and floats on a bearing. Put your ceramic magnet so the North and South poles are parallel to the ground. Float it on water somehow and wait. It will orient itself with the magnetic field in your vicinity.
Compasses orient with the magnetic field. One end points to the North magnetic pole, the other towards the South magnetic pole. Unless you are near Magnet Cove Arkansas. | dbb38210-84ef-45b4-959a-c4467e76ba80 |
6pgyqg | Why do publishers have to pay royalties to voice actors when re releasing a game those VAs performed in? | Because it's in their contract.
A voice actor does voice acting in return for money. The terms of this are specified in the specific contract they sign.
Contracts may be set up so that the voice actor forfeits all rights to their performance, or retains some rights, and they may be paid all at once, or per sale, or a combination of the two
Even more specialized and complicated scenarios may be specified by the contract
This is somewhat similar to how some screen actors are paid flat fees, and other royalties, and others a mix. Sometimes different actors in the same movie are paid different ways! | 5b2dee19-4c5d-4895-a311-adc96de854c3 |
291w4b | why do we sometimes wake up accidentally when our bodies are still obviously tired? | It's more important to be able to respond to threats than to get a good night's sleep, and while modern life may be safe, this was not always the case. | 4ad963a1-e1bc-4303-8229-ce24582c080e |
4hhatr | Is dust able to stack up, let's say, 1 cm (0.39 inches) and how long would it take? | Yes it can, and it depends entirely on the speed of dust production. Cotton flocking factory? Probably minutes. Intel clean room? Most likely never. | 85035c88-dc0a-4517-8292-09a694b06a22 |
5kbzcz | What happens behind the scenes when a person is clubbed and blacks out? | Movies and TV show this pretty unrealistically. It's a lot easier to kill a person with a head blow than to just knock them out. This is especially true of hitting the back of their head, where the section of brain matter that controls a lot of autonomic systems happens to sit.
Unconsciousness is usually caused when your brain stops receiving enough blood to operate(often by the brain swelling from an impact, think of it like a bruise that lifts up, that presses on your brain and cuts off blood flow.) Obviously, that's not a good thing. Blood is food and your brain needs it.
Even when people are classically 'knocked out' they usually have a pretty severe concussion and have to be kept under observation for days or weeks following such a blow as it is considered head trauma, and severe head trauma if the person was knocked out for more than 10-20 minutes. Starving your brain for blood can cause long-term damage after a very short time. Boxers usually develop a lot of these problems due to this, including memory loss, confusion, fatigue, ect.
Now, that being said... there is an odd nerve near the jaw that can be hit which causes a stun knockout. You see this in boxing occasionally, but the knockout from those hits usually only lasts a few seconds, not hours like they have in movies, and the hit has to hit the jaw, not the head.
(I do a lot of weird research for writing) | 417157ce-63e1-4164-b941-10959beda1b0 |
n5cqr | What do modern spies do? | OK, first, take whatever picture is in your mind, and make it about 50x more boring. | 49bedd17-c167-4a5b-a786-9eaff26e4f7f |
2yizt0 | Why do dogs suck at hide-and-seek when they have a super sensitive olfactory sense? | Remember that their noses are so sensitive that to them, the whole house is saturated with the smell of everything. Imagine trying to find one hidden bottle of perfume in the perfume department at macy's - it's just too much sensory input to be accurate in all those "smells" - (not saying you stink or anything . . . but to the dog, you probaby do . . . just kiddin') | 286e12b0-f2a1-41b5-9eac-c95231435a03 |
25pdf7 | If I renounce my U.S citizenship where would i be deported to? | You cannot revoke your citizenship while inside the country. The first step would be to leave.
Assuming you were just visiting somewhere and then renounced your citizenship, that country may still be able to deport you back to the USA, just as a noncitizen. This would make some things like travel and work very difficult. | 046ea314-14d1-4af4-9976-9afb3d4d9e9d |
6wvz5t | U.S internet costs a lot due to lack of competition. Why aren't many competitors in the U.S opposed to places like Korea? | You have the cause and effect backwards here. It is expensive to be an internet provider because you have to physically run the lines and run the servers. In countries like South Korea the distance that you have to run things is short because the country is small. They also have a large percentage of the infrastructure built by their government.
In the US the infrastructure is built by the company, and the country is huge so they have to run long distances. That means very few companies are able to spend the money to compete. | 52baf6de-10c6-48c9-ac84-9b180d98a64d |
671872 | Why do some Internet Service packages come with data caps? | Because they can get away with it. The cost for the Internet infrastructure that the company needs to provide are for peak loads, not total load. It is much cheaper for them to provide several TB of data a month for a customer that only uses it between 3 and 5 AM local time than it cost to get a few GB to someone who uses it at the absolute peak demand time (early evening more or less). This is because they already are paying the fixed costs on the cables and servers needed to provide internet anyway and the data is really cheap, however maintaining decent speeds at peak demand times require more servers and better/more cables increasing fixed costs. The actual variable cost of providing Internet service is ~$.02/GB. If there was a technological rather than a business reason for it they would charge more for using data when demand is peaking.
Also while speeds slow when there is high demand the protocols built into the Internet can handle it and just slow down everyone so the servers can handle the load. | 11f4a8f4-d4e9-4d87-91a5-36a1bf865638 |
6jx0v1 | why are almost all the animals afraid of rain ? | SOME animals can stand extreme heat, SOME animals can stand extreme cold, MOST are in the middle.
Being out in the rain means their fur will get soaked, and if it gets soaked it doesn't work to keep them warm any more. This is why we humans do not wear fur coats in the rain, we wore oilskins and now we wear smooth synthetic raincoats. Fur just gets wet and then it transmits the cold outside temperature straight to the skin. | ffaaa7e0-6aac-483c-b379-0da5cf25221d |
3i0c0x | Why does crickets chirp at night? | They try to hide from their most common predators by staying quiet during daytime. And then come out during the night to attract a mate when it's too dark for birds to hunt. | f7a64c32-e6c5-4d0e-99cc-b55b508462c0 |
49l3ec | If we re-built voyager today, but with the advancement of technology we posses. How much more could we learn, if anything? | You'll need to be more specific.
Best guess is you're refering to Voyager the space probe, or the Rutan Voyager aircraft, [but it could be a few things](_URL_0_). | 63507bbb-d5cf-4304-bc9b-902f2426e057 |
1xwkaq | Why would a British Candy bar have different nutrition facts when sold in the USA on the exact same bar? | 1: they aren't the same bar, just because they're called the same thing.
2: different regulatory requirements for what needs to be listed and how accurate it needs to be. Maybe the US doesn't require decimal places but the UK does and so they round for the US? | 5d3624b6-0046-4b0e-98d0-ceaac801fb64 |
538ijm | Why can Red Bull still advertise that it "gives you wings" and not get sued for false advertising? | The legal doctrine is called "Puffery". If a claim is so absurd (like giving you wings) or un-verifiable (like X's best burger) that a reasonable person would not consider it to be an objective statement of fact, then it's not false advertising.
_URL_0_ | e5c01d21-8323-4235-a5ff-d4e434d12a2c |
1ho54u | Why do people experience déjà vu? | If I remember correctly, it's a cognitive short circuit - so to speak. The brain working diligently, transferring visual and auditory stimulus to the subconscious for processing, when a few bits of data slated for 'real time' end up getting tagged as 'past memories'.
When the data comes full circle and is processed by the conscious mind, the tags come up as expected, real time - real time - real time then all the sudden, past memories - real time - real time.
The brain, being the powerful processing machine that it is, instantly recognizes the abnormality and in turn, tells the face to quickly form a dumb expression and instructs the neck to slowly turn the head around so the mouth can effectively project the words 'Well that was weird' to anyone near by. | e58596aa-b892-4d1d-b3d8-173a1ac19393 |
1k5wud | Newbie reddit user doesn't know where to start? | Go back to lurking. its not safe here. | 2941935a-485d-4a4a-a3ba-aa6cc4eb13ba |
248vit | What is Net Neutrality and why does it matter to me? | As it stands, now, you've paid for internet access and you're able to connect to anyone you want. Would you like that to continue?
The companies trying to end net neutrality want a setup where they're able to limit connections to those that they've approved (presumably, based on contracts worth lots and lots of money).
Suppose Comcast wants you to buy their movie streaming service? Easy, just throttle all traffic to Netflix, Hulu, or any other competitor, and you'll notice that those other services *just don't work*.
Suppose Apple wants you to stop using Google Maps? Easy, just strike a deal with Verizon so that any mobile connection to GMaps is "iffy" at best.
These deals can work at both ends. Maybe you'll need to pay an extra $5 a month to use Reddit, since that's not part of the basic subscription plan.
Some proposals would allow companies to throttle any connection they don't like; others would allow them to block the connections outright. At the end of the day, though, those amount to the same thing: companies want the ability to control your internet connection, because that control is worth a lot of money to them. | 5609dab2-7c83-46c6-ad0b-a2128b9858f0 |
2ehlf7 | What is that loud vibration noise I hear when I open my car window on the freeway? | Have you ever blown across the top of an empty beer bottle? Enclosed space, air blowing across the opening. Notice how the bigger it is, the lower the note? Now, imagine a beer bottle shaped like the inside of a car. That open window is like the spout of the bottle, and the wind like a giant mouth blowing across. The vibrations are lower in frequency, feeling more like a throbbing pulse than a sound.
If you crack a window on the other side, it'll go away. or open the sunroof. or open a second window on the same side. But, one window open, it'll make an awful sound! | 1f6afd08-9389-470c-b5c7-513c77c51c7b |
6enbp2 | You're not suppose to use Band-aids/coverings for a scarless and well healed tattoo. So why are they used for every other cut, scrape, or puncture for extended periods of time? | For tattoos, the needle only goes a certain distance into your skin so it's not a full puncture. On top of this, the idea of a tattoo is to have the ink stay in your skin; if you cover it or use medicated ointment, you'll pull up the ink and ruin the tattoo in general.
Since cuts, scrapes and punctures are wounds that you'd otherwise like to go away, using a bandaid to cover it is to prevent outside debris from entering the wound, seal the wound and to help speed up the healing process. You also use medicated ointments to help keep the wound closed and speed along the healing process and reduce scarring. It's actually one of the things discovered about vaseline and how neosporin got started. | 3c9c7a9a-345c-47cd-81ac-d5f7b688d21d |
1mnb4d | Why when it is sunny out do you close one eye instead of closing both eyes equal amounts? | This might be poor etiquette, but I'm going to direct you to [this *extremely informative* response to this exact question](_URL_0_) from AskScience.
The tl;dr version (quoted from the comment I linked above):
> Your brain is processing just fine. It's more that a certain level of stimulation for the trigeminal nerve triggers the sensation of pain. Opening your other eye (or stimulating other parts of the trigeminal nerve) puts you over the threshold. This sensation of pain would have some evolutionary advantages (but, as always, difficult to link this to evolution in any non-speculative way).
> This is an odd phenomenon, because your pain pathways aren't themselves light sensitive (no photopigments), and the light-sensitive pathways aren't themselves pain-causing (if they were, there would be different results for retinitis pigmentosa blind people, the lady with pituitary adenoma shouldn't be photophobic, and the color-to-pain relationship would match the color-to-light-sensitivity relationship). So, the pathways must be linked somehow. Based on available data, it appears that intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells detect light, and (somehow) convey this information to pain pathways neurons. This communication happens somewhere in your eye, not back in your brain.
But seriously, go read the actual response, because it's super informative. | 5744e803-25a2-4dc0-af59-1669ab579681 |
2uz4f2 | Why do Jewish people make up just 2% of the US population, yet they are very dominant in many industries (i.e. banking, Hollywood, corporate, etc.)? | Connections, hard work and a cultural importance of a good education. | 563cdb8c-dc8c-4674-8e61-52207ef042a8 |
rz94l | what is the process of translation (microbiology) | Translation is a very complex process.. anyway let me give you an outline
Its like Lock and Key.. each set of 3 nucleotide corresponds to particular ammio acids..sometimes more that one type corresponds to particular ammio acid
So ribosome starts to read your mRNA strand and accordinly you will get ammio acids attached one by one untill you reach an set of nucleotide which corresponds to no particlar ammio acid..
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Okay sorry I cant explain like 5 any more..I dont know how much detail you want..better try [/r/askscience](/r/askscienc) or [/r/biology](/r/biology) | f01333d2-8c35-431a-9ad6-15cf7aad81d1 |
pgb3t | Reddit points, or why there are no posts with like 200,000, 500,000, or more upvotes | [Because of the 1% rule](_URL_0_)
Simply put, only 1% of the community creates content, 9% modifies or edits, and the rest just lurk (hence the term "Reddit Lurkers"). This is compounded by
1. You don't need to upvote to view content
2. You need to take an extra step to upvote (creating an account/logging in)
3. People are just lazy | f4b5963e-97f2-4dc8-9adb-c16e38f0dc1a |
3sl2t0 | Why don't they run political debates like competitive debating, with rules and a panel of judges who deduct points for logical fallacies, factual errors, etc? | Because the candidates would not agree to that. They're not obligated to debate at all, they do so because they think it's an opportunity to show the voters how great they are. No candidate would agree to such a strict format. | 87c15370-b4e0-4b6b-bdc4-e01778e8f624 |
2w11ba | Why does nearly every frozen food require the oven to be preheated at 400 Fahrenheit? What is it about 400 degrees that's such a sweet spot? | The hotter the oven, the faster it transfers heat into the food. Water requires a large amount of energy to melt, and a huge amount of energy to change its temperature regardless of what state it's in.
A cool oven won't melt the food fast enough to avoid drying out or overcooking the outside. A hotter oven will dump more heat into the outer layer of food, melting it faster, but the inside will probably still be frozen because the heat is still going into melting the interior, which stays its melting point until it's completely melted. This results in an overcooked exterior with an icy interior, whereupon the diner will likely curse the manufacturer for providing poor food and/or poor cooking directions. The suggested cooking temperature will likely result in adequate cooking in a wide variety of ovens, some of which might be improperly set up (rack position vs. heating elements), out of calibration, or otherwise less than ideal. | 2fd3cd1f-8ecc-4b5e-9550-0783ba44a52d |
27qcaw | When my house phone calls or answers a call, I get huge lag spikes on my computer? | Do you have a cordless phone? Is your computer using a wifi connection? Some (mostly older) cordless phones operate on the 2.4 gHz band, which is also what wifi b/g and some wifi n networks operate on. Therefore, any communication through the phone will interfere with the wifi signal. If you are using a cordless home phone, check the markings on the base station and handsets. It should have the wireless band printed on one of them.
EDIT: It's worth noting that wifi a, n (when in 5.8 gHz mode), and ac should be unaffected by phones operating in the 2.4 gHz band. Also, to solve the problem, replace it with a phone system that advertises "DECT 6.0," which operates on the 1.9 gHz band and does not interfere with wifi networks. | 76a8add1-d9f9-4065-88e6-98d7ce3cd38f |
lz58c | suggestion for the mods: Please add a current events section to the sidebar. | Interesting idea. But also remember: the first answer to a question isn't always the right answer. But reddit voting tends to push one answer to the top, and then it tends to stay, even if it's wrong. It's good to have a little turnover. | 078ec3da-145c-46b8-9c47-51c9ee994516 |
2c8lc2 | Why do flies always land on my monitor? | Confirmation bias. They may well land on your light bulb. But you're not staring at your light bulb for hours and hours on end, so you wouldn't notice it as much. | 63f290b9-e6f0-4c1f-ad54-394d725d9858 |
152ekh | I don't understand the federal assualt weapons ban expiring and now possibly being re-introduced. What did it do? What was then allowed after it expired? If it's brought back, what then? | The ban put some superficial limits on new weapons purchases, such as placement of grips, folding stock, extended magazines, etc. Essentially weapons that were "souped up" and/or gave a more dangerous appearance. If you already owned weaponry that met the "assault weapon" definition prior to the ban going in to effect you were allowed to keep it. The ban expired after 10(?) years.
If a new ban is put in place it will likely have more effective language, since the original assault weapons ban did very little, other than drive up the prices of existing assault weapons. | 8cc3f4df-86cc-4e15-919d-20fb44a8c0b6 |
49913j | Is it possible to have a solar panels system on a roof of a house and be fully energy self-sufficient? | Absolutely. In some states you can even sell power back to the electric company for tax credits. | 0de6c353-1996-4eda-bf6c-087bfbd951be |
2o8djz | If sounds passing through an object cause it to vibrate is it possible to create sounds such as the chirping of birds just by vibrating an object at the right speed or frequency? | Yes. That is how speakers work. You induce them to vibrate in JUST the right way to produce the exact sound you want. You can turn any object into a speaker, but speakers are specially designed to not distort sound. If you try to turn a glass cup into a speaker, you will have distortions due to the natural frequencies of that glass.
Every sound can be broken up into a bunch of individual sine waves at different frequencies (tones) and amplitudes (volumes), including a bird chirping. | 5d7e0f15-afdb-48c1-b216-fbd895b16e03 |
226tox | How do Fast Food Restaurants like KFC keep their recipes a secret, if they're distributed worldwide? | They don't make everything from scratch in each restaurant. Things are made in a factory and shipped to the stores, similar to how you'd buy a box of Mac and Cheese. Inside they have a packet of "cheese" powder. You make Mac and Cheese at home when you open the box and follow the instructions, but that doesn't mean that you know what's in the powder. | f010e2a9-4607-403d-ad89-165e335b035f |
8cifsx | Why do shoelaces lose their ability to stay tied up over time? | The same parts of the lace always are in the knot so they get worn smooth by the action of tying and movement while beinng worn. The smooth parts don't grip each other as well. | fa61fa07-c519-4f49-a81c-f92340c2db20 |
1ukwx7 | Why is buying things in bulk cheaper? | From a purely economic stand point, there are two types of costs: Fixed and Variable. Fixed is say your rent, or start up costs, so for example to buy a teddy bear factory costs 100 dollars, while variable costs for example are a teddy bears costing 4 dollars per bear to produce. So in order to make one bear your total cost is 104, for two bears its 108 because the factory always costs 100, for three bears it costs 112, and so on (assuming it has an unlimited production capacity). Now while for each additional bear you produce your total cost increases, but if you look at the total cost per bear (average total cost), it drops. So while one bear costs you 104, two bears costs 54, and so on. This is called economies of scale, and this is the main reason buying in bulk results in a lower cost, although other factors do contribute: shipping, packaging etc. | b0bccb45-093b-4ca0-a901-611f3913fa5d |
8c9js0 | Are gatorade-like sport drinks actually effective as it seems they are? If so, how do they contribute to the athlete? | In endurance sports, like triathlon, the race basically comes down to an eating contest. When you're really fit and have built the endurance, the upper limit for your endurance speed becomes how much energy the body can expend. It's very normal to see top level athletes expend 1000+ calories per hour. It's entirely possible to burn all the sugar in your bloodstream inside of 40 minutes.
In endurance sports, something like 75% of the expended energy come from the consumption of body fat. Pro triathletes can lose as much as 14 lbs during an Ironman distance race, roughly 7 lbs of water, and 7 lbs of body fat. The other 25% of the energy comes from consumed foods & drinks.
The consumption of fat is powered by sugar in your body. If you don't consume enough sugar during the race, your body runs out of "ignition" fuel and you are forced to used a slower method of burning fat in your body. In the real world, this is normally known as "bonking". SO, a racer must consume as much fuel as possible while moving as fast as possible. This is difficult to do, and is truly the difference between the amateurs and the pros. Most amatuers digestive system will almost completely stop during a race, while pros can digest several hundred calories per hour.
Gatorade is particularly favored because it's composition allows for fast absorption across the upper intestine and stomach, faster than water alone. Thus it not only improves hydration but also fueling. it is the preferred hydration drink for these racers. Powerade was used a few years back and it was despised by the racers for causing GI issues under race conditions. Some racers mix their own, and everyone has their own race fueling scheme.
FYI, this concept gets really complex really quick, and I'm sure there are some super knowledgeable folks here who can better define the mechanisms I'm describing. | 0f9448f2-b925-4d27-94c4-62075e3a06cd |
692wsh | Why do our bodies not feel sexually aroused anymore once we have an orgasm? | Because your body needs to worry about other things too, like eating and sleeping. If an organism was always feeling randy, he'd waste all his energy getting his groove on, and he'd be putting his health at risk.
So instead, we've evolved so that once the prime directive of breeding is handled, that impulse is mitigated a bit, and we go back to worrying about food, shelter, and all those other good things. And once those are handled, we can start feeling frisky again. | deea8ab0-2f9b-480d-8095-c5dac2c97ef2 |
395azx | Why do small dogs start to "swim" if you hold them above water? | He's warming up for the eventual possibility that you are going to drop him in water.
Why else are you holding him over the water anyways. | 879448b2-dca7-437c-afc1-5f9bece11b1a |
2n64tq | Why does the government permit lethal habits like alcoholism and sometimes drug addiction? | The government has no power to prevent alcoholism or drug addiction. They can make these things illegal, but anti-alcohol/drug laws have been shown to be ineffective. Prohibition didn't work and created a great deal of violent well-funded gangs and corruption.
Today lots of drugs are illegal, but people still use illegal drugs if they choose to. | 074efbef-d296-4283-9dd5-d08a9ca42903 |
3simu8 | If the human mouth has so much bacteria that a bite is almost guaranteed to get infected, why do we want to put a fresh cut in our mouths? | From what i'm aware of, the bacteria in our own bodies is safe for our body, so it wouldn't matter whether it got inside our own body. The reason we put the cut in our mouths is because it's an instinctual action because saliva has healing properties. Same reason why animals like dogs lick wounds. | 7c0d7169-b9d5-4fc9-a72a-9ee3b1c13162 |
6yr5tq | How do large sea animals leap so high out of water? | When you and I jump straight up, we can push ourselves upwards over the span of a few feet if we crouch down first. When a whale or a dolphin jumps, they can start off deep and get a "running start" towards the surface to build up speed. Humans can do this too, but only horizontally, which is why the world record long jump is almost 30 horizontal feet, while the records for standing and running vertical jumps are less than 8 feet. | 4c50e0b6-8f93-4f8b-9b06-3225e28b56d6 |
6t97kx | How it is possible that we haven't ran out of possible melodies in music? | The total number of possible melodies is finite, so we could theoretically run out of melodies, but it's a very big number.
Define how long a sequence of intervals needs to be to be called a "melody". Let's say seven intervals, making the song eight notes long. There are twelve intervals, so 7^12 = 13.8 billion possible songs. However, this assumes every note has the same duration, which they haven't. Let's say you use four different note durations in your song, the number of possible songs is 40 digits long. | c179ae9f-c8fd-4145-81e8-5a5bd13a5474 |
tyhfw | The reasoning behind the United States choosing to not ratify the Kyoto Protocol. | At the time, the US position was that since certain developing countries such as China and India weren't being asked to sacrifice more that the US shouldn't have to sacrifice either. | ed51ca78-9296-4742-8070-ee41c966e315 |
25os4r | What are the rational arguments that would convince average Americans that giving ISPs the right to control internet traffic is a good idea? | The best arguments I've heard is that if they're allowed to charge certain sites (say Netflix) more then they'll be able to use the money to build out extra capacity to handle Netflix's traffic. Which is in theory good...
But that's not how it would work in practice. There's no incentive for them not to just pocket Netflix's money and slow everyone else down a bit to give Netflix more bandwidth. | 5905ebcb-e27c-48c9-af14-74b3d7a68465 |
1s1t8k | Why commercial breaks have more volume than the shows on tv? | By law, in the US at least, TV stations and cable networks are required to play commercials at the 'same average volume' as the programs they accompany.
The Commercial Advertisement Loudenss Mitigation (CALM) Act was passed by Congress early in the decade and the rule has been enforceable by the FCC since 2012.
The FCC's [Loud Commercial Information and Enforcement page.](_URL_0_) | ef14fb78-e127-4674-8ed7-790888afbe30 |
33m7yp | Why can't the weather be predicted with 100% accuracy? | Greetings from your friendly neighborhood meteorologist:
The short answer is chaos. The weather is physics, and the only way you can perfectly predict physical outcomes is if you can be sure of practically everything going INTO them. For example, the rise and set of the sun every day. We know what dictates that, and we know that it's not changing hardly at all. So, simple math means we can tell exactly when it'll come up tomorrow.
The weather, though, is affected by a lot more stuff. It's affected by a certain hot spot on the ground, or a volcano erupting, or a jet taking a certain path through the sky. Most of those things have tiny tiny impacts, but they add up, and then that changes the weather a few seconds from now, which changes the weather a few seconds after THAT, and so on.
Too many of the things that drive the weather are unpredictable (how many cars will drive on this bridge today), so the weather itself is unpredictable more than a couple of days in advance. | 81d1bd5f-eddc-404f-aeb0-e08322711d02 |
4a56mn | why does the Republican Party want less government intervention economically but more government intervention socially (and the opposite for Democrats)? Why isn't there a consistent "more government" party? | The Republican Party does not, categorically, want more social intervention--it is host to both libertarians and social conservatives, whose views widely differ. Some Democrats, for their part, advocate for some reduced forms of intervention as well (such as decriminalization of marijuana), but the party also has a conservative faction. Your view of the parties is a bit too simplistic. | 3edf4f70-b678-4a14-888f-23efd4ac7c1c |
27lz0j | What causes an Ovarian Cyst? | There's a large number of things that can cause a cyst, which are, simply put, an abnormal sack of fluid that collects and grows. Most ovarian cysts are benign, but they can also arise as a secondary effect from other conditions such as endometriosis. Cysts can also occur from menstruation where the follicle containing the ovum (the immature egg) fails to rupture and instead remains swollen on the ovary.
An ovarian cyst is a growth...its difficult to pin down what exactly caused it without more information. And even then it could still be something as vague as a genetic predisposition to them. | 57d10629-ada1-43a1-972f-f416e8ebdb89 |
1lbihe | Why does grated cheese taste so much better than whole lumps? | some people like their cheeses in pieces. Personal preferences | b345061b-0917-40a4-af4e-616bdcd2e32d |
6ks4et | Can someone explain the differences in tropes and style in romance ( novels, shows, etc.) through different time periods. | I'm gonna go on a limb here and try to explain part of it. If you look at the beginning of theatre then the Greeks divided it into two categories. They had comedies and tragedies. The comedies were funny and light while the tragedies had sad endings where everything goes to shit, like Oedipus (marries his mum, pokes out his eyes and kills his kids). This is pretty much the recipe until Christianity takes a foothold. Then you have the addition of religious stories, like Jesus being crucified and so forth. When the Enlightenment age comes around and especially in the 1800s art is used a lot for social criticism. Until then painting the wrong picture or doing the wrong play could get you executed by the King. Now artists have a way to criticise poor aspects in society. Much of it is still grim and tragic, but you have a freer concept. After WWII is probably where I think we see the rise of happy endings come more and more. People wanted something positive due to the miseries of the last 30-40 years and they are given it. The fact that capitalism has taken a big hold of especially movies now then you need to push movies that sell. The love thing you mention is simple, it works and people aren't fed up of it yet. That's why it still runs. | e2854069-5f00-4ab9-b704-63740a602bfc |
6y62sb | How differences in how we fall asleep affect the quality of said sleep? | The short answer is the circadian rhythm. When you feel tired is not only determined by how long you have been awake but also by the time of day. Humans have been sleeping at night for a long time, so your brain will usually pick up on clues from the environment, such as darkness, and tell you to go to sleep.
So you have two factors playing together: A sort of internal clock, and light-dark cycles. If your sleep habits cause a mismatch between the two (e.g. go to sleep at 5 am regularly when you are tired but it is already getting bright outside) you will generally have lower quality sleep. Perhaps you have seen blue light filter apps for phones before. They are meant to filter out blue light in the evening which our brain associates with daylight, supposedly helping you fall asleep more easily if you spend time in front of a screen before going to bed.
If you keep animals in complete darkness their sleep cycles will eventually "desynchronize" with the normal day-night cycle because their internal clock is not exactly tuned to it. However, they will still sleep well because there is no light to tell them that it is actually during the day outside. | e9460aa4-7bb3-42c8-b54d-9d2d51be8ff3 |
73wuk9 | Why can't people who have had cancer in the past donate blood? | Some cancers (like leukemia) go into remission. Other cancers (like melanoma) don’t go into remission; patients are considered “NED” meaning no evidence of disease. Doctors don’t see any cancer but it could, in theory, still be present. Cancers like melanoma can travel through the vascular (blood) system, so cancer patients cannot donate.
My son was diagnosed with melanoma when he was 3. It’s super rare in kids, and unlike adult melanomas it’s due to genetics rather than sun exposure. Protect your skin, and see a dermatologist regularly! | bbe05007-250f-41ab-8115-057d73025bc0 |
23ejze | please ELI5 ... why is the headrest part of most car's seats designed to be so angled forward? | Headrests aren't there to rest your head against, but to protect you from whiplash or worse if you're in an accident. When a car decelerates VERY quickly (like in a head-on collision) and you are wearing your seat belt, then your arms and upper torso will fly forward very quickly. The three-point seat belt keeps you from flying through the windshield or splattering over the dashboard, but after it catches you, your body snaps backward very quickly. The quickest part to snap backwards is your head. Your body from the shoulders down is caught by the seat itself, but without the "headrest", your head would snap backwards over the seat while the rest of your body stays put. This would be really bad for obvious reasons. The headrest is angled forward so that when your head slams back against it at 60 mph, the headrest compressess, and your head stops when it is more or less over top of your shoulders. | 6f1a4701-0a28-4cd6-9420-e9806dd60dc6 |
3s8wng | Where does the color in food go once we consume it? | Remember when you played with play dough as a kid. If you mixed all the colors up you just end up with a big brown lump? | 9a67c701-9b64-428a-a019-833effd1ee51 |
1uq0ra | Why are the Israelis and Palestinians in a conflict? | Century? Thousands of years. They trace the fight all the way back to Genesis. God promises Israel to Abraham and Sarah's* descendants. Abraham and his wife are in their 90s. She can't have kids so she tells him to sleep with one of her servants. He does and they have a kid, Ishmael. God says, "No, dummy, I said with your wife." He has a kid, Isaac, with his 95 year old wife.
Abraham's inheritance is Israel. Muslims say Ishmael is the heir. Jews/Christians say Isaac is the rightful heir. They've been fighting over who God gave Israel to for thousands of years. Every Israeli/Palestinian conflict boils down to this.
For the conflict in the last hundred years, it goes back to when the Ottoman Empire was broken up and Israel was created again out of nowhere. The Jews had been driven out of Israel at one point, and outsiders gave it back to them. This pissed off lots of Arabs, who are still mad. | 2c0e39c0-0da8-477f-b95f-3718c84535d8 |
716qbq | Why do some fruits have pits or seeds with cyanide in them? | To discourage animals able to digest the seed (rather than just pooping it out) from eating the seed.
In this way it is more likely to have the offspring survive, and thus reproduce themselves. | 7f12170b-91da-4d73-abff-5169d3fe0eb6 |
3sse4h | Why do cops put white towels on the shoulders of saved victims in crimes scenes on the movies? | I don't know about white towels, but ambulances have foil heat blankets that are used to treat hypothermia and are also used for shock. One of the symptoms of shock is cold, clammy skin, so presumably these blankets, which can trap body heat, help with that. | 65527077-aa08-4254-8459-d53a3979900a |
27u44m | How does one get from observing the present universe to deciding how things must have happened in the past and how things are going to happen in the future? | I'm guessing you mean Big Bang. There are two big pieces of evidence to support that theory.
We look at a galaxy that is some distance away and we see it going away from us. Then we look at a galaxy that is twice the distance, going twice as fast. Then we look at other galaxies and we see that they have the same pattern - almost all are flying away from us and the farther they are, the faster they fly away.
Either we are the centre of expansion of all galaxies, or the space is expanding uniformly everywhere (kind of like inflating a balloon with galaxies scattered across its surface). The latter seems like a better answer. If the Universe is expanding, then it used to be small.
----
When we look with our eyes, we see only rainbow of colours. When we look at the night sky, we just see bright dots between nothingness. However, there are devices that see light beyond violet and below red. When we attach them to a telescope and point it at the nothingness, we see it glow. It glows uniformly and in all directions and it's called Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation.
The best explanation is that the Universe used to be very small and hot and bright and as it expanded, the light got dimmer and stretched beyond visible colours into microwaves. | c3ddc43c-27ce-4be9-b148-d22bf6524548 |
3q130z | Why do night vision cameras cast a shadow? | Many night vision cameras use an infrared lamp to illuminate the scene being recorded. You can't see that light, but the camera can. Hth. | 74f1ff4e-7687-4be8-82ae-10644abd543a |
1waagp | Why is it that the hair on our head grows without a limit, while the rest of the hair on our bodies only grows to a certain length? | Because your head hair does grow to a limit. It's just a longer limit than the hair elsewhere | bf4f3c60-a964-4e6d-af5a-c49ea4ced628 |
34rdx3 | East/West Berlin divide still visible from space due to different lightbulbs | East Berlin uses sodium vapor lamps for street lighting that look yellowish, West Berlin uses mercury vapor lamps, and those produce blue-ish white light. Both are commonly used for street lighting. Sodium is more efficient, mercury produces a better light spectrum. | b6fa9329-66ae-45c8-a5bf-15e16448dd5a |
3ew0vf | How to calculators randomly generate numbers? | computers and calculators, assumin no input, cannot generte random nunbers. what the do is invoke an algorithm (a series more specifically) that generates what appears to be a uniform and random series for all purposes. wait long enough and the patter eventully emerges, be it a million digit long. | 9eb3e190-8049-42a1-a4f1-c7630a45aed4 |
35rv1k | Why do news channels care so much about who breaks the story now? Doesn't the internet make everything break at the same time? | You want people to watch your channel instead of your competition. If you have a reputation for only getting the story after everyone else, people will be less likely to watch your channel. Sure, the fastest way is to get the info online, but the majority of people who watch news channels do so because they don't want to have to track down the information themselves, but have a news channel do it for them. | 40b2dd0d-c20a-4078-90b4-2bd5de7d93f6 |
5nwswp | Why does toast bread keep all the cheese in while normal bread lets the cheese ooze out? | I understand your question.
In lots of places in Europe, they have their usual bread, which most of North America would see as fancy bakery bread. It's either a sourdough, a fluffy white loaf or a dark rye. What they call "toast bread" looks what a North American would think of as regular bread. A pre-sliced loaf that comes wrapped up in a plastic bag.
Toast bread has a denser structure than the white bread you are used to. Therefore the air pockets are smaller and the cheese can't sink through them. Plus with the denser structure, it can hold the melted cheese better. | 3830d213-fd04-4185-a8d0-7657e91f13f9 |
2yw8az | How is it legal for to pay someone for sex as long as you film it and call it porn, but prostitution is illegal? | Check [this](_URL_0_) out. Basically, "the distinction is that, at least in theory, porn stars are paid to act and prostitutes are paid for sex." Sex is a part of a porn star's 'role' - you could argue that they're being paid to act, not to have sex specifically, and therefore they're protected under the First Amendment. | b4a61f9c-1721-46ee-b96d-19eabeeef986 |
2pj5cv | Filing for Bankruptcy | I'd head over to /r/personalfinance
This is a complicated topic that would be poorly answered in ELI5. | cf1128bd-6385-4a7b-b3b1-3898f9ee5b99 |
1mkybw | How did the Tupac hologram work ? | firstly, it wasnt really a "hologram" as we would think of in a science fiction movie or something like that.
it is an illusion technique called "pepper's ghost." the wiki entry is pretty good on it:
_URL_0_ | 3ee7bd16-3724-434c-9f97-57a774d5582e |
1bsry0 | Why are ancient ruins underground? | Not all of them are. Plenty of ancient ruins are above ground.
That said, the simply answer is detritus builds up. In old forests you are walking on layers and layers of decomposing leaves. Every year new layers of leaves, wood, mulch and other detritus are added while at the same timethe lower layers slowly decompose into compost and eventually earth. At the same time new life grows on top. In some forests that layer can be meters thick.
It's not living material that constantly adds to the surface of the earth. Over the millenia, erosion can wear tall sharp mountain peaks into soft rounded cliffs. That's tons and tons of hard rock worn down into sand to be spread on the wind.
In some places like the sahara, structures can disappear under the wind born sand in a matter of months if not cared for.
Eventually all is rendered to dust on the wind. That which is not worn down will be buried long before that. | d6ae30da-b12b-4913-b960-1ffc6030406e |
1fgwky | Why do pictures of far away galaxies appear so crisp and beautiful but recent images of an asteroid near earth is grainy and of poor quality | The difference is like:
* Asteroid...looking at a golf ball, at night, located across the street from you.
* Galaxy...looking at a spot light, at night, pointed at you from a block away. | 5bfed6e0-7dc8-4429-9d10-163b410bfb4e |
5vgmtu | How gangs work | Super long response:
I had a friend in school that was assigned to my community college through a gang rehabilitation program from east LA.
Once you are charged and associated with a specific gang, you can not be in the same vicinity as any other known parolee of the same gang. The gang culture is a really a large (violent) family, brotherhood and neighborhood/community. Telling a parolee that they can't be associated with anyone in the same gang generally means that they can't go home; they have to leave their entire family (father, uncles, brothers, cousins, friends).
They just got out of prison, never had a job other than selling drugs, no money, no where to go; yet it is incredibly hard to break this cycle without completely isolating them from any affiliations.
That was a huge insight for me becoming friends with this guy. He had been in jail for most of his life and was only 20 years old. He had tattoos covering his body head to toe but was genuinely a teddy bear. He kept his room the cleanest in the entire dorm, military corners when making his bed, shaved his head daily with a razor, was the only person on campus with an ironing board.
He was from east LA and there were a few different ways to distinguish his gang other than colors. They were known as being "classic gangsters" with direct ties to the Mexican mafia, so the gang members had more classic subtle ways to display themselves. They drove classic old school cars (certain make, I don't remember) around the block that would display their affiants and had artwork of skeletons with fedoras, they often had skeleton tattoos.
He originally went to jail in a famous raid that happened in his neighborhood about 15 years ago now. The police came with armored vehicles and took in as many people as possible. He ran away originally and while he was fleeing he had his foot ran over by a vehicle and was subsequently apprehended. His foot never healed properly and he eventually had a skeleton outline drawn over most of his body, including the broken bones on his foot.
He was in for a few years for that and got out at around 15, was free for a few years and then got caught up stealing a car, one high speed chase in the interstate later and he is back in jail for the second time before 18. He spend 3-4 more years in jail and then that is where our stories met.
Like I said he was a skeptical looking character, I would probably have never talked to him if I didn't live down the hall from him, but he taught me an incredible amount about life (and how crazy it is). He was taking sign language for a foreign language (because he had already learned a lot in jail) and at the end of the semester for his final he had to act out a song of his choice as a translator. I suggest he did a simple song to keep it easy and gave him "Rocky Racoon" by the Beatles (personal fave) and it was incredibly heart warming (and a hilarious moment) to see the look on his classmates and instructors faces when they saw this "skeptical character" in a different light.
I haven't seen or heard from him in 4 years and I am almost certain he is living in LA again, he was involved with Homeboy Industries and wore shirts like "nothing stops a bullet faster than a job" so I hope he is doing okay today. | 6cd7c4cc-cc54-41ed-b559-700670a96990 |
1zzjro | Pluto's Orbit | Pluto isn't actually an oddball. Most dwarf planets have highly eliptical, angled orbits. [see this side-view image of the solar system with several dwarf planets and kuiper belt objects highlighted](_URL_0_) | 9b45617e-b4ff-4950-bb5b-65133b445135 |
634z88 | We see meteor showers around the same time every year.I would assume they would come at different dates as we rotate around the sun. How are they predictable? | They occur when Earth passes through a large collection of space rocks. Since we go around the Sun on a round path that repeats every year, we know we are going to be back in that spot on about the same date. | cc5680e3-bfd5-46dc-b1f9-cfe1afa742f8 |
4l6hfy | How come that sugar has such an intensive taste but does not smell at all. | Your tongue has sensors for very specifc things: salts (to make sure you get enough salt in your body), sugars (because they are energy rich), bitter compounds (this is really a bunch of similarly shaped big molecules, many poisons are here and that is why the tongue tastes them. Anything not poisonous but still bitter is structurally similar), certain acids (your body benefits from somw citric acid among other things), and lastly, glutamates (msg, glutamic acid, and a host of other compounds found in cooked meat.)
None of these 5 flavors rely on smell, usually because their presence would be very hard to detect most of the time (you can smell salt next to the ocean, but you probably cant smell the small amount of natural salt in fresh meat, and yet you need to taste salt because you need to eat salt). because these flavors are hard or impossible to smell, they are detected by the tongue. Most other things you taste in your nose, because they have a strong enough smell that your nose, which is already good at detecting lots of different things, can do the job, and its efficient to only do the job one place.
There are a few exceptions here: "spicy" isn't a taste, but a sensation. Spicy compounds (usually capsacin in peppers, but there are others such as what makes horseradish spicy) trick temperature receptors into thinking they are hot, and similarly menthol (found in mint) tricks temperature receptors into thinking they are cold.
When you sniff things the smell comes in the front of your nose but when you taste it, the smell portion of taste enters through the back, in your throat. That is why if your nose is only a little stuffed up you might not be able to smell something but you might still be able to taste it.
Salt receptors block out bitter and amp up sugar, which is why a moderate amount of salt makes literally everything taste better.
One last note is about fats: fats have a nose taste but no tongue taste, BUT fats can make it easier for other tastes to be tasted, both on the tongue and in the nose. This means fat improves flavor, but doesnt really taste good all on its own. | f6c632ca-fe91-40c8-a523-86468c66de08 |
63aw4u | Why is US point-of-sale processing so haphazard? | First, not all Debit Cards work as Credit Cards. If there isn't a Visa/MasterCard logo on the card, chances are pretty high it is only a Debit cards. Debit cards typically have a PIN number associated with them that has to be entered in order for the transaction to be approved. This acts as a security feature to keep unauthorized users from making purchases. Debit card transactions usually cannot be disputed, as the person who made the charge entered the PIN number, thus Ok'ing the Purchase.
Credit-Debit cards are typically backed by the processor's fraud protection. Meaning you can contest a fraudulent charge, and it can potentially be reversed should the card issuer find it to in fact be an unauthorized charge.
The reason you have to sign a credit card receipt is that your signature on the receipt plainly states "you accept the charge, and promise to pay it back." Think of it as the merchant "giving you credit for your word," Visa/MasterCard/AMEX/Discover will pay the bill now, and you'll pay them back later.
Some merchants don't require a signature (so long as the amount to being charge doesn't exceed a certain dollar amount) to speed up service, and because the likelihood of a charge being contested is low. There are a variety of other reasons too. It is totally up to the merchant what dollar amount that is, but usually it's around $25 or so dollars in the US.
**Edit:** I should also add that Banks are charged a fee when you make debit card purchase. When you choose to run the card as a Credit Card, the merchant pays the fee.
The biggest reason that some places require a signature, and others don't, is because larger organizations can negotiate the credit card fees they pay. The big guys don't require a signature on smaller purchases because they process so many transactions that the fee they pay in the event of a charge back is minimal. | 7eb65d2e-7e47-482b-847d-6b8309a243ff |
7qlugc | If you built a house several miles away from anyone else, is anyone (or any government department) obligated to provide you with electrical access? | It kind of depends on how they are regulated.
Here in Sweden, for example, the power companies operate under concessions. One of the concession rules is that the power company must connect a new customer *who is willing to pay the actual cost*.
That means, basically, that they are legally forced to give you a reasonable cost proposal. And there is a government agency you can complain to if you feel that they were exaggerating the costs.
But if you are unwilling to pay, they have to do no more for you. | 668deab6-b79b-4731-8656-a9969c7451c8 |
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