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4hhip4 | What actually caused the Great Depression? | A lot of things:
* In the 1920's low food prices supported by WWI price floors caused a mass wave of farm foreclosures.
* The crash of 1929 shook confidence for lenders (though the stock market recovered briefly before plunging again).
* The Fed constrained liquidity rather than easing borrowing, so the economy experienced widespread deflation and a loss of demand.
* A few bank failures led to runs on more and more banks, paralyzing the financial sector. | 3e30a74a-83b0-46fc-be33-e6f2dbfdb5d1 |
1drv2a | Why is it ok to advertise alcohol on television, but not tobacco? | Tobacco receives a lot of government oversight because its use, *as intended*, without any overuse or abuse, is *absolutely known* to cause any number of long-term health issues.
Alcohol can also be dangerous, but moderate, responsible use has no long-lasting health effects, and it takes legitimate *abuse* of alcohol before it becomes a risk factor for health issues.
**TL;DR: Cigarettes, used "responsibly" as intended, will kill you. A drink or two a day will not.** | d2e1c39c-f3b0-4ba3-9539-f83d4fef881e |
5pyt7o | How does the strength of a currency work? | The exact numbers aren't really that important. Just because you can trade $1 for 114 yen doesn't mean that the dollar is stronger or weaker on its own. You need to look at the ratio over time. If five years ago you could trade $1 for 50 yen, then the dollar is now stronger or the yen is now weaker, because you need more yen to equal 1 dollar.
So what makes the value of a dollar change, or get stronger or weaker. Like everything else you've ever bought, the answer is supply and demand. If the dollar is in higher demand, either because more people want to do business with the US or because people want to travel to the US, then the "price" of the dollar, measured in yen, will go up. The reverse can be true too.
If the supply of dollars has been increasing, due to inflation, then the price goes down, because it's easier to find someone willing to trade dollars for your yen. This is the dollar getting weaker. | 2e0ae5a6-b051-49e9-b160-37cdfdb75934 |
1zf9ka | What does Russia (and other countries) gains from being part of the G8? | G8 is basically a meeting of the most important industrial Nations to get together talk strategie make deals... So everyone benefits who is part of. But as far as I know it is less formal than the G20. | e9739b76-3774-46c0-9749-225c7b8e390c |
4dz6gs | the importance of landing a rocket on a barge | You can launch it again without having to build a new one, or clean salt water residue out of it. It reduces the cost of going to space by a lot. | 886d4083-93d1-4fc0-bb37-403702e709f5 |
24n4dz | Why do we get dizzy when we spin around? | Your orientation in space is detected by fluid and calcium deposit movements in your inner ear. When you spin around and then stop, the fluid and stuff in your inner ear keep moving for a little while. (like how water in a cup keeps moving after you stopped stirring it).
So your inner ear is telling your brain that you're still moving.
Your eyes are telling your brain that you're standing still.
Your brain is getting two conflicting inputs and it goes 'lol wut' and you get dizzy and sick. | fa99b72c-9edd-4624-84c4-53d29e97bf8c |
1cqcuu | Planets that are gas giants. | Gas giants keep their form the same way rocky planets do: gravity. But unlike Earth with its separate air and ocean, there are no concise borders between gas and liquid, or liquid and solid on gas planets.
If you were to travel into a gas giant, you would notice gas in the atmosphere gradually thicken as you travel inward. This is due to atmospheric pressure (basically the weight of the gases above you) increasing.
At some depth, the atmospheric pressure is so high, and gas is so thick and condensed, that it is no longer gas, it is liquid. At an even lower depth, the liquid is so condensed that it becomes something resembling a solid. Not solid like a rock, solid like an extremely thick pudding that you can't drive your spaceship through.
But sorry to say you can't even define the surface of a gas giant, let alone land on it! | 3f793df3-70db-4b76-af94-e56226905cda |
2zt1dr | Why do people try to time pictures instead of taking a video and capturing the parts they want? | Pictures will typically have a higher image quality than frames of a video would have. Videos will often use the fact that we can't distinguish detail as much in a video as we can in a still. | 099250a7-822a-4cea-8ec6-caf3f358c717 |
372kgh | Why are places such as dentists' offices and banks only open when most of their customers are at work? | Dentists: Because they're in demand enough to make *you* come to *their* preferred hours. If the US for some reason suddenly got 100 million more dentists (that couldn't swap jobs), you can probably expect more flexible hours.
Banks: Joe Schmoe depositing and withdrawing his rent aren't how banks make money. Most of their income (from average citizens) is going to be home loans or other huge purchases with interest. They just put up with you until you decide to purchase a home, and at that point you've been with such-and-such bank for 20 years so the decision is to go with who you know. People applying for mortgages are willing to go during normal work hours.
(Their other source of income is using your money sitting around to make more money, but that's automated and doesn't need any employees at a branch.) | f90fa2fe-d01e-4bc9-b25f-bdb26f31945d |
4p8q4v | How do space ships, which are not so much larger than cars, preserve/contain the fuel needed to travel countless AU away, and preserve/contain the electrical power needed to snap images and send them back to Earth? | [slate](_URL_0_) has a pretty good article on this, in regards to voyager-1.
the tl;dr is that it doesn't move like a car at all. it doesn't need to keep its engines running - it's propelled by its own inertia, which it got from us launching it and the gravity assist that slingshotted it around jupiter and saturn. keep in mind, it's not facing a whole lot of friction, so there isn't anything to really slow it down. the only thing it's really using its hydrazine propellant for is making adjustments in its course.
as for running its instruments, it's got a lump of plutonium in its generator which lets off heat naturally as it decays, and that heat is converted into electricity which gives it the power it needs. | 4804796b-4912-402e-86b6-112bb3345d7a |
6q3smi | Why does the congress pass a bill on the condition that the Senate has to fail it? Why not fail it in congress itself? | You're likely taking about the Senate passing a bill on the condition that the House would fail it. Congress is actually a term that can describe either, or both, of those sections.
Anyways, it doesn't make a lot of sense. My understanding of why somebody would even *consider* this is Senate rules require bills to pass under certain conditions to be easy or possible to pass at all. The repeal of Obamacare has hit a major roadblock because after *failing* a senate vote, it will need to undergo more scrutiny and need a bigger majority to be considered in the future. So the Senate **really** wanted to pass **something** to keep the process "alive".
It is not unusual that the House would disapprove of a bill that the Senate approves. It's not unusual for the Senate to pass a bill *knowing* the House will make major changes or disapprove it-- the nature of the two halves of Congress working together is they send bills back-and-forth for changes and collaboration as they try to agree on a final version.
But the idea of passing a bill that you *want* to fail because you *know* it isn't any good or is not finished without the other half of Congress making **major** changes is arguably, bad (or terrible) policymaking. It shows senators trying to avoid their own responsibilities to make (good) laws themselves. It's also an effort to shift the blame for the failure of laws onto the other half of Congress, since they're the ones officially saying no. It's not working too well these days though, as many people are aware that the Senate has no idea what they're doing with this healthcare stuff. | 26fca38f-ac42-4851-ad1f-cf8eed1f308f |
1z123c | Why is did mike trout sign a deal for 1 million dollars in 2014 if he is arguably the best MLB player? | He's a pre-arbitration player, meaning he has less than 3 years in the league. Pre-arbitration players don't get to shop around to different teams, they just take what their team gives them (minimum $400,000) or they don't play.
Having said that, $1M is the most any pre-arbitration player has ever earned, so it's actually an impressive feat. | c23c55da-91da-4bce-a7ca-ff508f86f0e4 |
4a8qz0 | How does radium store light? | Radium can only really be said to "store" light in a very roundabout way. Like all heavy elements, it was formed in the vast stellar explosion of a supernova; that's where the energy came from that is now being emitted as light.
Radium is a radioactive element - it gives off radiation. This radiation can hit a substance called a phosphor (zinc sulphide, with a small amount of another metal like silver) and give energy to an electron. When the electron drops back down again, it gives off that energy as light.
But radium-based glow in the dark paints don't take in light if you leave them in the sun. The energy that lets you see the watch dial comes from another star, long dead. | 289453c2-4482-42b1-b6cd-6e78f83abd36 |
3gh20l | Aside from the NSA spying, which we've all known or at least suspected for many years, how has Obama messed up? | Disenchanted former Obama supporter here.
* His failure to punish any of the illegal shenanigans that crashed the economy
* His failure to punish any of the illegal shenanigans that occurred in the previous administration, especially with regard to torture
* When it comes to civil liberties, it's not an exaggeration to say he's the worst president ever. Even worse than Bush, because at least Bush didn't claim the right to kill Americans [because he says so](_URL_0_). He's used the espionage act (more than all of his predecessors combined) to silence whisteblowers.
* He drove the democratic party off a cliff in order to pass a healthcare law which was a huge giveaway to insurance companies. In doing so, he guaranteed that he could not get any of his other legislative priority accomplished
* It's hard to remember now, but early on in his administration, he was pretty cold on gay rights. I mean, Rick Warren(!) was invited to his first inaugural, which caused a pretty nasty backlash.
* His failure to close Guantanamo.
* His failure to get us out of Afghanistan. | 5ace59b3-9617-4616-a13a-2cf4e900358d |
8du9bq | why it takes longer to search my windows computer for a file than to google something. | Indexing. Google has a huge, highly optimised database designed for the sole purpose of searching quickly. Even with indexing switched on, your computer doesn't have anywhere near as good a system.
Speed. Your query to Google is dealt with by an extremely fast computer - many times as powerful as your home PC.
Caching. Chances are that whatever you're searching, other people are also searching too. As a result Google has these results ready even faster. Your PC doesn't need to do this with search results, so searches from scratch each time. | 724d657b-b298-45b1-b9da-a33d261978f9 |
45swbf | How a diet of grass, hay, bugs and other things in a pasture can turn cows into huge animals made of protein, fat, and make rich milk. | plant cells have a bunch of protein. but it's not digestable by humans. cows eat 25 pounds of hay a day. and they chew that 25 pounds over and over. and then swallow it and digest it in their stomach. then throw it up and chew it again and again. then swallow and digest it for the 2nd time...then 3rd..then 4th.
and that's what they do all the waking hours of the day. | 0e5db3dc-84a4-4164-89e3-7a9ef093e95e |
2htgt1 | "Prevent radiator boil-over, turn off air conditioner." How does that help when driving up a mountain pass? | If your radiator is already close to boiling over, leaving the A/C on will cause the engine to do more work and generate more heat and push it over the edge.
Just because it doesn't affect *your* vehicle doesn't mean it's not a problem for many others. | dda8d9cc-6985-443d-90f8-c41c9d36f7d1 |
2jjbsi | When someone sues the government and wins, do tax payer dollars go towards the settlement? Do we pay for the actions of idiotic federal employees? | Yes. Why *shouldn't* taxpayers have to cover it? They voted for the government officials whose job it was to keep the government from doing things it could get sued over. | d56cf3e0-d02b-45f7-8777-f54fa7f999aa |
2fuuzw | What is the process involved in joining the EU? | The prospective state has to meet economic and social benchmarks. If the state has trouble meeting them the EU will help if the state seems serious. After the state meets the benchmarks the state hold a referendum to see if domestic audience wants to join the EU. EU votes to let state in. BTW, anything EU is a horrible ELI5 question because it is a bureaucratic nightmare. | 8358e373-955e-47d2-b24f-7a4673ff896e |
2q0fhq | Why do the mouths of wild animals (bear, wolves, lions, etc.) smell so bad in comparison to humans? | cause they don't floss and brush their teeth. that bit of tendon that come from the racoon a week ago is still stuck between his teeth. same like when you eat beef stew and that one sliver of meat just got between your teeth. except you use a toothpick or floss or brush it out. | b49b383a-381d-4410-b8d4-610ebdce10b8 |
6mffhf | Baseball defensive positioning | I'm not certain of the exact reason that 9 was settled on as the team size (especially given that cricket, which it's descended from, is 11 players per team), but if we work off of the fact that it *is* 9 per team, the preset positions simply follow along.
Pitcher and catcher are obvious, as you said, so that leaves 7 other players to cover the entire rest of the park. Of course, you need three players in the infield to cover each of the three bases. That leaves 4 players to account for. The outfield is pretty big, so it would be really difficult for only 1 or 2 players to cover it effectively, but 3 can manage it fairly well, leaving only a single player to find a position for.
The outfield being further away from home plate means that on average an outfielder is going to have more time to get from their starting position to where the ball is than an infielder would. The 3 outfield players are generally able to get to every ball that's possible to get to, and the addition of a fourth player there would be statistically unlikely to reach an appreciable number of balls that wouldn't be reached otherwise. Meanwhile, with only 3 infield players, each covering a base, there are left two gaping holes (between 1st and 2nd and between 2nd and 3rd) for the batter to aim at. If you put the final player in the infield you can cover 1st, 3rd, and those big gaps (second baseman covers 1st-to-2nd, shortstop covers 2nd-to-3rd), leaving only a single gap to aim at: second base itself, which is even partially covered by the pitcher being directly between it and the batter.
Edit: It's also something that isn't absolutely 100% set in stone. Some teams/managers consider [switching up their defensive arrangement in certain circumstances.](_URL_0_) It's just that the 4-man infield, 3-man outfield arrangement is the most versatile to best cover the vast majority of scenarios. | fae72094-4dd6-40ba-9e22-55b294c1c1a5 |
1v7962 | Why do peoples voices go really high pitched or really deep when videos of them are sped up or slowed down? | Sound waves traveling at different speeds produce different pitches.
Sorry, that's all I got | e9327f9e-b6cd-4f84-b23f-48d8323481e1 |
1isrti | Gravity and Depth. | Acceleration due to gravity is given by mass divided by radius squared times G, the gravitational constant.
Rearranging gives: M = 0.5 * 9.8 m/s/s * (68500000 m ) * (68500000 m) * 10^13 / 6.67.
Final answer is about 3.45 * 10^28 kg for 50%, 4.48 * 10^28 kg for 0.65%. | d8661dec-7e0c-45bd-906e-6943d45ad9aa |
92u5dq | Why is Hispanic/Latino treated as a race in the media and elsewhere? | Race is largely a social construct in the country that defines it. In the US, people from Latin America and Mexico are seen to share enough biological, social, and physical characteristics to be considered a 'race'.
It's important to understand that while racial categories include an element of biology, they are not solely based on biological characteristics. Countries like South Africa have very different categories of racial groups than the US, and different ways of determining who falls into said groups. | 064e1a5f-e69f-42a2-a577-6eda9e2678cb |
5ccdyq | Why are the search results when googling an unknown phone number so terrible? | I actually think google intentionally obfuscates results. Back in the day, googling phone numbers worked *awesome*. It was one of the first "best answer" things at the top of the page.
Quite suddenly it stopped working. | 34e1d282-3b93-4f03-8497-8a0f83a28c1d |
1jkufa | What exactly is Neuro-linguistic Programming? | think of it like a system to "fake it til you make it" and changing how you frame your thoughts. people try to deride it as pseudo-science, but it does actually work on some levels. feeling down about something? stand up straight and speak assertively, youll feel better, things like that. one of the things i took away from it is the change of thought processes. namely switching from "i cant do that" to "i cant do that *right now*." one stops you from finding solutions, while the other opens up your creative processes
read "unlimited power" by tony robbins. a life changing book if you actually put the stuff in there into practice (you may even quit smoking and biting your nails like i did!) | 9487d534-fbc5-4ae7-a77e-cd2bd530c095 |
1ckhra | What is Obama's reasoning behind drones, and why can't the US just pull its troops out of the Middle East? What will happen? | Drones are typically used to target militant commanders in the hard to access tribal regions of Pakistan. They allow the US to conduct recon in the area for longer periods without the risk of losing a pilot. Drones have also been used in Yemen to target the growing influence of Al-Qaeda in the Arab peninsula.
The US troop influence in the region is propping up friendly Middle Eastern governments. The sudden removal of these troops would likely create a power vacuum in which a variety of factions would seek to challenge the weak US backed governments. If these governments fall you would see the rise of a variety of governments that could threaten the stability of the region for a variety of reasons. The destabilization of the region would have economic consequences for the Western world. | d8c0863a-49d3-4570-a60b-79c6e9dcf5a9 |
zjxx7 | why does a car battery die if you leave your head lights on over night, but it can last no problem driving 12 hours straight/through the night with the head lights on and music playing? | Because you have an alternator that powers the systems while the car is running.
When the car is off, it's draining the battery. | 65b9b85f-b994-4ffe-8668-f1ad8fbdc45e |
6ectgo | How does "the shot" (birth control) last so long? | If you want to look at metabolism and excretion of any drug, check out the pharmacokinetics section.
From the article, I'd guess
* Because it binds well to proteins in blood plasma, it's harder for the kidneys to filter out the drug (proteins don't enter the filtrate in the nephron [the filtering unit of the kidney])
* Intramuscular (into the muscle) and subcutaneous (injected just under the skin) route avoid enterohepatic recirculation, where the drug is constantly run through the liver, with only a fraction of the drug entering the main bloodstream with each pass. I would guess this is why the oral half life is a matter of hours.
* The drug also has a higher affinity for its cellular receptor than natural progesterone, which means that it stays in the cell, regulating DNA expression for longer than progesterone.
There's probably way more to this that's above my head though.
Source: Biomedical Sciences student that's forgotten his Pharmacology module already. | 64e90738-62c3-4a98-8d0c-6404f25c34b0 |
2x4aue | How do we know Dinosaurs weren't purple with yellow polka dots? | Pigments have been found in some fossilised dinosaur feathers, so we know the colour of a couple of birdlike dinosaurs.
The rest is speculation, based on the reasoning "if lizards are green and brown now, then they probably were then". | 3b869708-08e4-40cf-998b-b18f33028bc5 |
6smsrk | Why does most commercial airplanes are white painted and not a non-natural color ocurring in the sky (clouds)? | Largely its for thermal protection. White reflects more of the sun, keeping the aircraft cooler sitting on the tarmac.
(So why not leave the aircraft unpainted metal like American used to in the 80s?) Airplanes fly high enough you are marginally more exposed to radiation from the sun. Having a coat of paint protects against that.
Also, lighter colours make it easier to see stress fractures or leaking fluids. | 23405309-896d-4632-9695-a698b426b3f4 |
4tv6nq | How does anticipation alter my perception of the passing of time? | Your perception of time comes after the time has past. If the whole way to a location you are constantly checking how much longer is left, you will remember a lot of the wait. On the way back, your thoughts are else where and you don't have as many memories of the ride. | 561651ab-0d3f-4578-92d7-c69bd0e7f031 |
8jsbzh | Why is the Australian dollar so weak against the British pound? | No, the Aussie dollar is pretty strong against the pound, currently sitting at 55 pence.
It is always a mistake to compare currencies absolute values, as these are a result of history. The difference in this case is because Australia switched to decimal currency back in 1966, and with currency being more valuable back then, they chose to make the new dollar equal to 10 shillings, or half the previous non-decimal currency, the Australian Pound. England changed to decimal currency in 1971, and retained the name 'pound' for their currency - which meant that they started with their decimal pound equal to 20 shillings.
With ups and downs since then the relative values of the Australian dollar and the English Pound hasn't really changed. | 7b499eb9-e213-42c3-9aec-1fcb6cb49658 |
35i3e1 | Instead of using voltage converters, why can't battery manufacturers create batteries to tailor the device? (or why is there no 5v battery but 1.2, 1.5, 9, 12, etc) | The voltage a battery produces depends on the chemicals involved. A zinc/copper cell, for example, produces 1.1V. Doesn't matter how big or small it is, that's the voltage that you get when you make a liquid cell with those chemicals. A larger zinc/copper battery can generate more current than a smaller one, but the voltage is the same.
You can make batteries of different voltages by layering cells. Two zinc/copper cells wired in series makes a 2.2V battery, three make a 3.3V battery, four make 4.4V, and so on. You're stuck with increments of 1.1V, though, unless you change what chemicals you're using, in which case you'll be stuck with increments of a different voltage.
So, in general, we are limited to certain battery voltages because of the availability of materials. The engineers might want a 4V battery, but if zinc/copper is the most cost-effective material to use, they adjust and work with 4.4V or 3.3V or whatever instead. | bc231513-d223-4c67-bdf1-fe13015cc34d |
3rqcsk | Why does it feel different to heat my home to 74 degrees than to cool my home to 74 degrees? | There is a big difference, and that is the temperature of your surroundings - walls, floor, furniture etc. The air may be 74degrees, but the surroundings may be colder or hotter.
Why that matters is due to mechanisms of heat transfer. There are two ways how heat does transfer:
1. by conductivity - when objects touch, or heat flows from one part of the object to another
2. by heat radiation ([black-body radiation](_URL_0_)) - by emitting electromagnetic waves, which are in the temperatures we are talking about somewhere in infra-red
Your feel of temperature is basically amount of heat you lose vs the amount of heat you gain.
You can lose heat by conductivity - you are in touch with air, floor (or some furniture), by radiation (you glow in infra-red, the fact, that you give away this energy means that your skin gets colder) and by other means (mainly sweat - evaporation of water also takes great amount of energy).
You gain heat also by conductivity and by absorbing EM radiation - most significantly, from sun. But if you are in shade (inside), you must remember that all the furniture and walls etc also "shine" - in infra-red. The amount of energy that your surroundings radiate is determined by their temperature. So if the surroundings are colder, you get less heat from them.
Therefore, the air inside of your house can be 74 degrees, but it does feel different depending on the temperature of your surroundings, because the amount of heat you gain from them is determined by their temperature. | 976b8509-b163-4fca-9a65-5e693d323b2f |
5ouw2l | Why do humans get the same flu? Don't our bodies make an antivirus? | "The flu" is just a very broad term for the actual Flu Virus. There are many strains of it and it is very very good At evolving and changing itself. We have flu shots which are essentially a flu vaccine for whatever flu strains they think are going to be the biggest danger that flu season. As time goes on the virus changes and we see different flu vaccines. | 549a90d2-8ff0-47db-ae09-1f2bbec9d55f |
4rr3bn | How do build updates work? | When you write software, you write a program in human readable text (*source code*). That text is fed into a program (*compiler*) that turns it into an executable that a computer can actually run.
Large software projects can have hundreds, if not thousands of source files worked on by a large number of people. [For example, here's the public version of Reddit's source](_URL_0_). Every time you collect *all* those parts and compile them, it's called a "build".
Periodically, you decide a build is worth releasing - maybe it has new features or fixes some critical bugs. That build then (hopefully) gets a bunch of testing to make sure that nothing else broke. If everyone's satisfied that it works right (or at least better than the previously released build), it get pushed out.
If you're talking about software with multiple parts - like a game that has clients and servers - the two parts are often kept in sync with each other. The back-end server might require clients to be running the new build in order to connect. It could be because there's some sort of major change in the communication protocol or critical new features **or** it could just be the company's decision to make sure everyone's running the same version of the software to avoid cheating or redundant bug reports.
There's no real generalization for the changes you're going to see between builds. It could be something as little as fixing a typo in some message or as major as a complete rewrite of everything from the ground up. | 49782ad6-6afe-4370-aebf-9362faf1dcc9 |
1mw51i | How fast does new fat form after you've eaten a big meal? | I'll answer your original question...
12-24 hours and you'll have stored the excess calories as fat. Depending on the source of those calories (sugars are processed fast, then things like complex carbs and protein take longer with fat taking the longest to digest) the amount of time it take for your body to break down the nutrients differs. If you consume enough calories to gain weight (which would be impressive in one meal. It takes 3500 excess calories to gain 1 lb) you'll see the weight gain on the scale by the same time the next day.
I can go into more depth later if you would like.
Source- double majored in Exercise Science and Nutrition for undergrad and am working on my masters in nutrition right now. I should actually be reading now...
Edit-since this post is at the top here are some helpful nutrition links.
[Nutrition Data website](_URL_0_)
[Journal of the International Society on Sports Nutrition](_URL_2_)
[AMA with Gary Taubes on sugar](_URL_1_) | bd92f563-e13f-49c2-833f-81624086f3ce |
3rxx12 | How does charging a phone for too long make the battery life significantly shorter? | In modern phones, it doesn't. They have smart systems that stop charging at 100% and let the battery drop some before charging again. It keeps the battery from being damaged. But phone batteries do like to be "exercised" and discharged down to 20 or 30% and recharged from there. | b9060564-58d7-4795-a95e-611e7edf1f4a |
11hpg9 | Who actually "owns" hospitals | Depends on the country.
In the US, it could be the gov't, non profit organizations, or for profit companies. I know no reason why Disney couldn't own a hospital, and I would bet they have several clinics and other medical centers on their properties and cruise ships.
How about others:
- Government: the Federal US gov't owns some threw the military (the VA), some are state / local gov's owned through either though state universities or outright.
- Non Profits: the catholic church owns hospitals in nearly every state. Other religious groups run some. Then there are Universities that run them and associate them with their medical schools, and some our just independent foundations.
- For profit: HCA is the largest for private hospital operator running over 150 hospitals and surgery centers in the US and UK. It's a public company traded on the NYSE.
*edit - didn't see this part:
> run it like they want?
Within reason and certain rules. If Disney wanted to run it as a theme park, charge 10x the normal cost, have doctors wear mouse ears, and include rides in the lobby, there's no reason why not.
- On the price side, as I understand it, if they take medicare, get gov't funds, or for certain other reasons, the gov't can cap the cost of certain procedures.
- There are other requirements for sanitation, employee certification, privacy, procedural methods, etc... that a organization has to follow. Kinda like running a restaurant, if you run it, you have to follow these rules and we'll come in all the time to check. One of the most well know, is that they can't turn someone away who's in an emergency situation due to cost. If you're in labor when you get to a hospital in the US, they have to deliver your baby. They can transfer you after you deliver, but they have to let you in. Likewise, if you've been shot, they can't legally send you back on the streets w/o stabilizing you and ensuring you have adequate care. Adequate care doesn't mean the back ally either. | 3c1a588c-4aa0-444e-9ef2-e7e10e528261 |
2rkun0 | Exponential functions | /r/homeworkhelp would beuch better suited to help you out here. | 12bc8567-ee0e-4f3f-84df-539dadd7523f |
60vx6l | Why do we feel weak when we haven't eaten? | Once your body kicks into starvation mode (which varies in onset time per individual - for super skinny/low caloric intake folks it can be as low as 8 hours, but on average its around 12-16), a lot of hormonal changes start. Your liver and muscles start consuming glycogen (sugar) stores, and then start metabolizing fats and proteins.
Your body starts to get really conservative in how it expends its energy - without an epinephrine (adrenaline) kick, it won't really commit to most actions, resulting in that "weak" feeling.
tl;dr - you're low on gas, and your body doesn't wanna spend what it has left. | b75ed0fa-a278-4ffd-a706-6f7a93f4e318 |
5ezjrm | If protein is what builds muscle, why do we need to eat at a caloric surplus? | Your body can convert proteins into glucose. If you are in a caloric deficit, then this will be going on. Proteins turned into glucose is protein that cannot be used for muscle. Having a caloric surplus ensures that you do not have a caloric deficit, so very little of the protein gets turned into glucose, so it can be used for other bodily functions, like repairing and building muscle tissue.
[This article](_URL_0_) talks about a study that tested this. Two groups in rough shape (ie fat) put on a 40% caloric deficit. One group on high protein diet, the other on a normal diet. The high protein group put on ~2.5lbs of muscle while losing 10.5 lbs of fat. | 06ec0372-4339-47bc-8b0b-0a9d519d8fa0 |
30kcqy | What's a "Basic Bitch"? | Mainstream; kind of the opposite of a hipster. The typical Basic Bitch is the Ugg and yoga pant wearing girl in her 20s with a Starbucks coffee. | 351752e6-daf8-4611-8dbc-506c9123023c |
1ko0kf | - If intelligent life visited Earth, how would we communicate if we assume the scenario that they spoke another language? | Math! It doesn't matter what you speak (or if you even speak) as intelligent beings one must understand that if you have one thing, and then you have another thing, you must have 2 things. And since we would have the common base line, we can derive everything else.
Now they probably wouldn't have numbers like we do, you wouldn't be able to show them 1+1=2 because 1, 2, = and + probably do not exist in their language at all. But you could on a sheet of paper, write out that equation, then grab objects that are similar (pennies, for instance) and place them out. 1 penny under 1, 1 penny under the other 1, and then move them both under the two. A few more examples (3 groups of pennies plus 2 groups of pennies is 5 groups to represent multiplication, etc) and you start to lay the groundwork for all arithmetic. Assuming the aliens were keeping up (or more likely, teaching us to communicate with them) eventually we would have a lot of concepts in common. Think Close Encounters of the 3rd kind, but using math instead.
This is, of course, assuming a few things that really can't be assumed. 1. we assume that the visitors can interact with us physically in some way (they can see light, they can touch and feel, they can hear, etc) This may not be the case.
2. They conceptualize mathematics as we do. See, it should go without saying that one thing plus one thing is 2 things, but a different set of rules may govern the universe that the visitors come from (i.e. they might view one thing, plus one thing, as new thing. A system where every single number is it's own entity.)
3. They are willing to cooperate with us and learn with us. However, there lies the possibility that advance intelligent life would be far more advanced than us, like the gap between humans and sea cucumbers. You wouldn't waste your time trying to teach a sea cucumber to read and write... Hopefully understanding mathematics will lead the visitors to acknowledge that we are capable of learning (unless, as hinted at, their understanding of mathematics outpaces ours by such a margin that we can't actually comprehend what they are trying to tell us)
But yeah. Mathematical. | 7b52ce73-aa4f-4297-9f4e-33c6f853c1cb |
29d7q0 | Waves | Waves are the movement of water due to the oscillation of water molecules. It can be by the frictional drag of wind over the water's surface, moment via earthquakes, or the displacement of water by things like boats. Generally if displaces by a boat we call them wakes, but they are still forms of waves.
Waves are pulled down and are dissipated as they crash into other water molecules. It is just that the wind is very strong and can impart a vast amount of kinetic energy to the water. | 76ea7744-2200-40fe-85b8-f5fc61f4f6e8 |
5cgqbl | When someone tells you to see "a doctor," how do you know which kind? | Typically, you'll go to your main doctor, who is a General Practitioner. They're the general "doctor," who have a wide knowledge of many medical things.
If that doctor sees something wrong, they might refer you to a specialist. Specialists are doctors, too, but they have a *very* deep knowledge of a fairly limited field.
So if someone says "go see a doctor" about, say, losing vision in one eye coupled with migraines... You'll see your GP, who will probably refer you to a neurologist (nerve doctor), and possibly an ophthalmologist (eye doctor). The eye doctor may determine that there's nothing wrong with your eye, which the neurologist will read about and then determine that you need more testing, at which point you might end up with an oncologist (cancer doctor).
In the medical field, everyone knows their limits and knows how to send you to someone who can help you further. Or they're supposed to, anyway. | 54e3128a-4b4c-4c45-930a-9013639fbb1e |
3luvnr | How does the Volkswagen exhaust gas scam work? | From what I have read (I have a 2013 Golf TDI), VW knowingly added in a defeat device to their diesel vehicles to turn on the clean filtering system for the exhaust when monitoring equipment was hooked up to the cars. When the testing equipment is not hooked up, the cars give off emissions that are WAY above the legal limit. Some initial estimates are that the emissions are 10-40x the legal limits when the filters aren't running.
The reason they did this, from what I understand, is that the cars are actually FAR less efficient when they are filtering properly, making their EPA fuel economy estimates completely bogus and giving people no reason to purchase a diesel vehicle in the first place.
I bought mine because it was supposedly a super low emissions vehicle that had great fuel economy (42 hwy, 33 city IRL). Turns out this was a big lie and now I'm stuck with a car that no one will want and will no longer have good fuel economy once I get this issue fixed.
Sucks. | 1390f69d-958f-4d1e-85a1-f0d11a5783c3 |
5ebkg1 | Why does being lazy feel so good? shouldn't we naturally feel better working? | Being lazy means we're spending fewer calories. Which is good for an animal which may not get to eat. If you were that hungry, you naturally wouldn't be lazy. | 216a544f-a01d-44e1-8687-44d6ea10c683 |
1kl2mz | - Why aren't all of the months in numerical sequence from most to least? | I'm not sure about this 100%, but this is how I understand it:
Originally, there were ten months. January and February were originally a monthless period because no crops would grow. This is why September - December are named the way they are (Sept = 7, Oct = 8, etc). So, February was the "last" month created, and therefore has the least amount of days, and the whole leap day thing.
Apart from that, the length of days in each month alternates from 31 to 30, with the exception of July and August which both have 31. Legend has it that Augustus Caesar refused to lend his name to a month that had fewer days than that of Julius Caesar's, forcing calendar makers to break the sequence. | 0b737a02-7a51-434b-a23b-8d750dc4c238 |
26obip | Why does putting a wooden spoon over a boiling pot prevent the water from spilling over? | It breaks the surface tension of the water before it spills over the edges. | 008593b4-7f18-459d-9f3f-b5f881df3670 |
86nbwy | Water Loss due to Agriculture? | You're right and wrong.
The water used in agriculture (growing that almond for instance) is not destroyed. Almost nothing we do destroys water permanently. The water participates in the plant's transpiration cycle, is used to build parts of the plant, and is released as water vapor into the atmosphere, where it eventually goes and rains on someone (since I live in Seattle, probably me). Or for the water incorporated into the plant's tissues, digestion, rotting, or even burning, will release it. So it all comes back.
That's where you're wrong.
However, you are right that water can be moved from very useful locations and states, to less useful locations and states. Water in a reservoir in southern California is very, very useful, because lots of very dry cities and agricultural counties desire it. Water raining on me in Seattle is a lot less useful, because we have more than enough. Water in the ocean is the same.
So it is definitely possible to overuse water in local areas, thereby moving it from places you want it, to places you don't. | 965a8034-8cb8-4692-9a08-19d396e6e7b6 |
270ai2 | What causes economic inflation? | Demand causes inflation.
People want things. Since there is a fixed amount of things, the price for those things goes up. This rising of prices is called "inflation".
A low amount of inflation (1-3%) is considered "normal and healthy" for an economic, indicating growth of demand that is controlled. | 3c041926-69d5-4fb8-88ef-67fff0a35802 |
1ebckx | Why do strangers want to follow me on Twitter? | They don't have an interest in following you, they're either ways of getting you to go to some site (like the latter group) or they're people who follow you in hopes you'll follow them so they can up their number of followers... for some reason this is valuable to people. | 67347f13-fb9f-435c-867e-d39e6148f479 |
1w6hq2 | Why do I get drunk easier at home? | In the study of mind altering drugs, there is the idea that the effect of a drug is affected by the "set and setting". This means that people taking the same drug in different social situations (setting) and under moods or with different expectations (set) would feel different effects or different levels of effects.
So when you are drinking with friends, you are more likely to be in a social situation and to be happy, so the euphoric effect of the alcohol (which is generally not associated with "drunkness") would be felt more strongly, also the social and upbeat setting would distract you from and counteract the depressive effects of alcohol (i.e. you are just as drunk, but would not be paying enough attention to notice). But when you are drinking alone, you are more likely to be in a more subdued mood, so the depressive effects of the alcohol would be felt more strongly. Also when you are at home, there is nothing to distract you from the depressive effects of alcohol, so you would notice your drunkenness immediately. | 98c63785-8e6d-4d9e-8545-c594e534004a |
pos1n | How dog show judging works! | There's nothing really the home viewer can watch for, unless they are experts of a certain class of dog.
Basically, each breed of dog were bred to perform a certain function which separates the different breeds into classes.(Herding dogs, toy, sporting, etc). Each judge looks for certain standards defined by the breed type or the class type. These can be very superficial (i.e. eye color and shape, to fur color etc) as well as the physical shape of the dog, including paw size, tail length, ear shape etc.
These standards are derived from the parent clubs of the breeds.
Edit: So, for example, lets say we have the toy class. We're looking at a Shih Tzu and a Pomeranian. The Shih Tzu may win out over the Pom because the Tzu's ear shape was more inline with the standards for it's own breed than the Pom's ears with its standards. That's just one example. | dc8095fe-026f-4292-8ccb-adbc48255e5f |
1dytae | How is it at all possible that a criminal could sue if they get hurt in the process of trying to steal/commit crime? | The frequency in which is happens is highly overstated, and even when a lawsuit is successful, it is usually overturned on appeal. Criminals actually seeing a dime from a lawsuit like this is very rare.
I can think of two situations where the criminal might have a case:
* A non-criminal could have hurt in the same way - if you slipped and fell on a wet spot while just walking along, it doesn't make a difference if you were carrying a bunch of shoplifted loot
* Reckless disregard for human life - after being robbed, the property owner intentionally loosened the skylight, hoping the next thief would fall | dfa8c204-de5b-416c-8d12-db1b49424fc5 |
2sukbo | Why does diarrhea need to come out RIGHT F*CKIN' NOW, but regular poo is cool to chill for a lil bit? | Because you only get the urge to poop when the feces pushes on the internal anal sphincter. Most of the time, feces is stored in the descending portion of the large intestine, far away from the sphincter, but every once in a while, intestine muscles will push the feces into the rectum where it will push against the sphincter and you get an urge to poop. However, if you hold it and don't poop, the intestine muscles pushes the feces back into the colon, and that urge to poop passes.
However, with watery diarrhea, it pools right into the rectum, where it produces a continuous poop signal (your body think your colon is *completely full* and freaks out). | 6678f8ae-18c2-4279-b330-96ecb7e34490 |
5kz8fm | How do atomic clocks work and why is their time considered the most accurate? | Clocks work by performing some timekeeping process (advancing the hands, changing the numbers, etc.) in a way that is linked to some physical process. For a sundial the relative motion of the sun across the sky moves the shadow to track time, for a grandfather clock a moving pendulum causes the hands to move, for a wristwatch it's usually a wound spring making the hands move. For all of these methods there are errors that can occur. The pendulum and spring experience friction for example, which can change the time it takes for them to move the hand one "tick" or they could just be tuned slightly wrong so that they tick every 1.0001 seconds instead of every second. Sundials don't work at night and change with the season.
Atomic clocks work with the same idea, take a physical process and match it up to a changing number to represent passing time. In the case of the atomic clock what happens is we take atoms (often cesium or rubidium) and excite them with a laser and then measure how many atoms are excited. We tune the frequency of the beam to excite the maximum number of atoms meaning it is as close as possible to the perfect frequency for the atomic process we're trying to measure. For cesium, this frequency is defined to be 9,192,631,770/second and is the way we define the second in modern physics. We then use a circuit that can be tuned to the frequency of the laser and measure the output of the circuit by counting how many times it changes and these are our "ticks". Once the number we expect (9,192,631,770 for cesium) has been reached a second has passed and so on.
These clocks are both accurate and precise. Accurate means they make very few/very small errors. Because the physical processes and our measurements depend mostly on physical constants the errors that are made are both rare and tiny. Many atomic clocks have errors of around one second every 30 million years. Precise means that the clock differentiates on a very small scale. Because the clock "ticks" about 10 billion times each second it can give and measure times to one 10-billionth of a second. In other words, the atomic clock gives you the right time because it makes small mistakes and gives you the exact time because it is measuring something on a very small timescale. | 01d631d5-2583-448a-a0b1-5202f5b83b49 |
7jrk8k | this may belong in an NFL subreddit, but: In the NFL, why do kickers for a field goal have a hard time getting it 50 60 yards when they routinely kick more than 70 80 yards for kickoffs? | On kickoffs, they're kicking off of a tee, they're not being rushed by the opposing team, and they're only trying to keep the ball within the sidelines.
For a field goal attempt, their run-up to the ball is only three or four strides because otherwise the kick will be blocked, the ball itself is being stood up on its end and held by hand, and the kicker is trying to kick it between the uprights. | 9233777a-cb23-4b1b-bb72-46cc08593fa9 |
2kkwzk | How do bank stress tests work? | Basically, they take the bank's account/spreadsheet info and run some simulations - stuff like "what if 10% of your customers default on loan payments?".
These simulations are able to show whether the bank can cope with a mini-crisis, or whether they should have more money reserved for a mini-crisis. | bd92966d-8613-4207-af3b-df7f5e6706eb |
4jdyz3 | Why is it common for bears to be hit by trains? | Oh there is a simple explanation for this. Bears are the king of their land. They grow up being able to fight and kill anything in there area. Think about. Ever try to fight a bear? You will lose. It is a matter of pride to defeat any foe before them. Eventually some mature veteran fighting bears will run out of victims. Thus they find the train as the ultimate competition and try to fight the trains in there land. | 2de2a790-fc97-4c7c-a602-7c5836c2af58 |
63dk4i | what is Modernism and what is Postmodernism | You've opened a whole can of worms with this question, as there are lots of different possible answers, and Modernism and Postmodernism overlap and interact to the extent that some people question whether Postmodernism is a thing.
Modernism, starting off at the turn of the 20th century, is art and creativity aiming to elevate its medium in a deliberate, challenging and innovative way. It was a break from the conceit found throughout creative endevour (Romanticism, for instance) that art was directly representative of the world, and it doubled down on focussing on the techniques inate to whatever media was used to its own dramatic effect. I'd say James Joyce is the typical Modernist author, as his work not only focuses on the narrative, but also on construction and, importantly, deconstruction of literary technique.
Postmodernism is arguably an evolution of this, became more common after the second world war and is a really slippery fish. The long and the short of Postmodernism is that it is an extreme form of Modernism, with the self-knowing challenges to structural and cultural convention becoming reflexive and sometimes even recursive. In many cases, such as with BS Johnson, Kurt Vonnegut, Paul Auster, the narrative is structured in such a way that it is "aware" of itself, often directly addressing the reader (which is known as "breaking the fourth wall"). The fact that the work of art is artificial and constructed becomes fundamental to its own structure, presentation and meaning. A good (if exceedingly pretentious) example of this is Synecdoche New York, which is about constructed worlds being created from constructed worlds to avoid honest interaction with reality. Similarly, Kurt Vonnegut used the artificiality of narrative as a framework for discussing the more painful, poignant and hilarious aspects of his take on the world.
In short, I think I'd say that from a literary perspective, Modernism is artists challenging their art to create something new, and Postmodernism is taking this challenge to its logical extreme, where the art is structured to almost regard itself.
I'm not 100% sure if I've succeeded in explaining this well. Others might well find it easier to explain than me - I'm approaching it here from mainly a literary perspective as that's how I learned it (Eng Lit degree). | ef92de8c-a9ee-466a-9f19-b6df697dfb2c |
5gtap7 | Why does the urge to pee increases the closer you come to your home? | It’s psychological. Compare it with craving a cigarette. You want it more if you see a person smoking, hear the word “smoking”, or get a random association with the act (a trigger). Getting closer to home makes you think about peeing, which increases the urge. | c8264b93-c9cb-41d0-925d-edd65da00765 |
1vtjcd | If my parents had sex to conceive me 3 hours earlier than they did, would I have then been born 3 hours earlier? | There's more of a chance of you not being you than anything else. | 16113fc2-6329-45b4-a94c-1cb8c098ac33 |
31oke7 | The Great Filter | It's an answer to the Fermi paradox, which asks the question why we haven't seen vast colonization if life had developed on other planets. The great filter theorizes that there may be some kind of barrier preventing species from transcending their own civilizations and colonizing other worlds, such as resource depletion or some sort of catastrophe that regularly occurs for civilizations that ends up destroying them.
It's an interesting concept, but there's no strong evidence either way, and the Fermi paradox is based on a number of assumptions that frankly don't have to be true in any shape or form. | dca94b60-00c5-4fe8-b798-f75dd573e5d3 |
15lavk | Can someone explain grade deflation/inflation? | The other post did a good job of explaining *what*, now the question is *why*. Some of this is simply like monetary inflation- grades creep up slowly over time as students, professors and administrators come to accept a "new normal."
In some cases, a administration might pressure a professor to make his grading easier (i.e.- give a higher percentage of his class As or Bs as opposed to Cs and Fs) because students were complaining. In the United States, college admissions are a consumer culture, and the customer is always right. An entitled student can be a nightmare for an administrator, and might leave, (GASP!) taking their tuition dollars with them.
Professors might feel pressure from students (and even parents) because "Little Johnny's never gotten a B before!" It may be easier to start inflating grades than it is to deal with that shitstorm at the end of each semester.
Professors without tenure may feel the need to increase grades to keep students happy and become popular with them as a means of trying to preserve their job. A professor who drives admissions or keeps students enrolled is a valuable resource.
Incidentally, this may not entail making the course material any easier, but rather just adjusting the grading. If two courses cover the exact same material, have the same tests, the same homework... But one gives out 4 As and one gives out 10 As, then the second one has grade inflation. Not an easier class in terms of content, but easier in terms of result.
This is mostly prevalent in the social sciences where there aren't hard and fast answers. It's less likely in math where a professor can directly say "this answer is wrong." Even in those disciplines though it happens by professors simply changing the cutoff points for grades. | 3debc14e-8a7a-472b-89d2-1d24612fa276 |
29cmrv | What is Guantanamo Bay, and why is it bad? | When people refer to Guantanamo Bay, they are referring to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, located in Cuba, that is controlled by the United States. The camp is used to hold enemy combatants who are said to be a danger to the United States.
A large number of people are angered by the existence of this camp as its detainees are often held without charges, are not generally arrested where the US has judicial authority, and are not granted a jury trial in front of their peers, but face a military tribunal, if they even reach a trial. The fact that some detained at the camp are Americans makes the camp even more controversial. | 5ba95294-b363-414f-b005-09a832ca9da2 |
1ovvhz | why do some rap artists have 'skit' tracks on their cd's? | So everybody knows that Paul Rosenberg has Slim's back | c99ecc18-d68b-402c-b333-a103ddc49b80 |
60cfcd | How can companies in China or otherwise offer free shipping on purchases, yet it costs me over $30 to ship internationally? | China's shipping company China Post is highly subsidized by their government, and is not competed with. China Post and USPS have a deal with ebay that makes this even cheaper.
For more insight check out [this Quora thread.](_URL_0_) | 0711038c-cb86-4f5f-8018-fc91ab7bf0c4 |
4v03yi | Why does global warming cause the sea levels to rise, if water takes up more space as ice anyway? | Two factors. One, ice on land is melting, and that water runs downhill into the ocean.
Two, and more important, while ice takes up more space than an equivalent amount of water, warmer water takes up more space (expands) than cooler water. The contribution of ice in the ocean 'shrinking' as it becomes water, is far less than what would be needed to offset the expansion of the liquid ocean itself as it warms. | 3a48cd79-1658-4c99-b1ed-a65c6e03912e |
6k8n9y | What happens that causes the "shock" feeling when you eat something sweet after not eating for a while (assuming this happens to everyone)? | Not sure exactly what you're referring to--is the shock feeling kind of like a sudden sick feeling? This can happen due to lack of protein; it happens to my brother often when he has a lot of carbs for breakfast (pancakes, cereal, etc) but no big source of protein. He's usually fine for a while, but the next time he eats, he starts feeling strange and shaky, and the feeling doesn't go away until he gets a decent bit of protein in him (a big spoonful of peanut butter works nicely). I think it has to do with the body's expectation of certain nutrients at all times of eating.
If the shock feeling is something else... no idea, sorry. | d2edfad5-9cae-44a1-aef4-7c4269083abc |
4zhfi2 | What's the difference between the ("th-uh") and the ("thee")? | There is no meaning difference. They are both the same word. It is just different pronunciations. Most of the time "thee" is going to be used before a vowel sound and "thuh" otherwise ("thee" egg, "thuh" boat).
People also use the "thee" pronunciation before non-vowel sounds to indicate emphasis on the fact that it is a definite article ("He is *"thee"* best" to emphasize that there is only one) | 38039edd-839a-4618-880a-aaf718b2a4f3 |
8clakw | Why do old people get disturbed by loud sounds when, in fact, they have much weaker hearing capacity? | When hearing loss due to old age starts it is usually high pitched receptors that fail first. So it is harder for them to hear normal speech but they can still hear lower frequencies. So a loud noise that has a deep resonance can still be irritating. Imagine listening to a top of the line surround sound system where all the tweeters are broken. It just doesn't sound right. | 2851af4c-1b86-4691-9dde-2995b7a166fd |
1ssq8m | Why is it when I have a cold or flu, I sometimes feel really cold and start shivering violently, even though when I feel my skin I'm warm? | This is a side effect of fever. Your body temperature is above normal, but your brain wants you running hot in order to help kill the infection, so encourages you to seek warmth. This is on top of the fact that because of your increased body temperature, surrounding air feels that much colder compared to your skin temperature.
There are many fever-reducing medications available OTC like ibuprofen and acetaminophen | 76c83c70-b6fc-494e-83f8-8bd40fe7995e |
24hhxd | How does Darcy Oake's do these (magical) illusions? | Sleight of hand and misdirection.
He has you focus on the feather and the fire, while his other hand reaches into his jacket and pulls out a dove. He's got four doves, a little other bird, and an egg there. In his right sleeve, he has a collapsible wire cage that can expand quickly when you pull on the top of it. He makes it appear while the flames trick you for an instant and hide the movement.
Every time he makes something come out of "nowhere", you'll notice he does something with one hand, while the other reaches into his clothing to pull out the appearing animal/item.
The second bird in the cage is likely a fake plastic one, btw, which is why he quickly hands it off to his assistant.
The black lining in the back of the cage where all four doves are hides a hidden compartment where the woman is hiding. When he tilts it towards the viewers, you can see a dividing horizontal line where the back wall is; the cage is actually half as deep as you are lead to believe, so the woman can hide behind it, under the sheet. | 068c87c9-a416-4180-a38c-4eb1030b8663 |
2zoghr | What is actually going on when you hit your funny bone? | You're hitting the ulnar nerve, which is a big honkin' nerve that runs down your arm. Most of the time, it is cushioned beneath lots of fat and muscles, but at the elbow joint, it is exposed and relatively close to the surface of your skin. As such, it is vulnerable to impact which makes your arm feel all tingly as the impact causes it to fire off impulses. | 6817186e-65f5-4f11-86db-58ae1489ca0d |
vwhjd | . Why are moths attracted to light? | *Artificial light is a recent arrival on the night scene. Until recently, the only night-lights were the moon and the stars. Being at optical infinity, their rays are parallel, which makes them ideal compasses. Insects are known to use celestial objects to steer accurately in a straight line. The insect nervous system is adept at setting up a temporary rule of thumb such as, “Steer a course such that the light rays hit your eye at an angle of 30°.” Since insects have compound eyes, this will amount to favoring a particular ommatidium (individual optical tube radiating out from the center of the compound eye). However, the light compass relies critically on the celestial object being at optical infinity. If it is not, the rays are not parallel but diverge like the spokes of a wheel. A nervous system using a 30° rule of thumb to a candle, as though it were the moon, will steer its moth, in a neat logarithmic spiral, into the flame. It is still, on average, a good rule of thumb. We do not notice the hundreds of moths who are silently and effectively steering by the moon or a bright star or even the lights of a distant city. We see only moths hurling themselves at our lights, and we ask the wrong question. Why are all these moths committing suicide? Instead, we should ask why they have nervous systems that steer by maintaining an automatic fixed angle to light rays, a tactic that we only notice on the occasions when it goes wrong. When the question is rephrased, the mystery evaporates* - Richard Dawkins | 515a0401-2f72-4ad4-b817-3d71d75c94d9 |
1duik5 | what is quantum internet and why is it so important? | Ok, I've been reading some comments that are just plain wrong or overly complicated, so I'll try my best to ELI5 Internet, encryption and quantum physics and one spot.
Imagine you want to send a very important letter to your friend Bob, only he may read it, but you don't really trust your mailman, or the post office at your town, neither the central post thing in your state, much less the post office at Bob's town and you never really liked Bob's mailman.
But Bob is your friend of a long time and you have this special code that only you and Bob can read and write in, so you type the letter in that code and send it to Bob. The thing is, the evil mail man has been trying to read your letters to Bob for a while and after many trial and error he now can read it! You and Bob have no idea you are being eavesdropped.
A quantum internet, would be like putting a seal on your crate to Bob (because on quantum internet you're not sending letters anymore, you're sending crates, it's that much faster), it would be completely impossible to read the letter to Bob without breaking the seal, so, if someone were to read it Bob would know and maybe Bob can even think that the letter might have been changed by one of the readers.
A letter with a broken seal is considered by Bob as wrong, tainted, invalid and can be discarded on arrival. | 9540abdc-5a75-4dd4-a778-f8f928412253 |
6ejgd4 | How is the White House over 200 years old but still able to keep up with modern security standards? | It has been updated and renovated on several occasions since it was last burnt by the British. | ae493f95-28be-4f3a-9591-79fed8b9b11d |
jwqlg | Right-hand or Left-hand dominance | Probably the simplest (accurate, but not complete) explanation for a 5-year-old is that when you're a baby you figure out how to do something with one hand, and so you keep doing that thing with that hand instead of trying with the other. Then when it comes to doing more things, you're just more used to using that hand so you keep doing so. Some things require both hands (and your 'not-writing' hand will be fine at doing them) but for things that take just one hand you just keep using the hand that's had more practice. | c0ed4cc9-ca10-4b7a-9eb1-12c0656d9852 |
3ehqjo | Why can you download entire YouTube videos by copying/paste the URL into a website but not do the same with Netflix? | Netflix has protections in place to prevent this, since its content is 100% copyrighted. YouTube, on the other hand, is not always such sensitive material and therefore doesn't have as much security against downloading its content. | cdd061c0-80fb-4f0f-9a5d-e6be42e4935e |
5vgwab | Why do tears come out while yawning when we are really tired? | When we open our mouths to yawn, the muscles around our eyes put pressure on our tear ducts; when the yawn is particularly wide, the pressure is great enough that our facial muscles literally 'squeeze' tears out of the ducts. | 5dd4b7f0-20a7-4a00-9511-c1879997fad1 |
4ljbft | If Almonds contain all of the essential Amino Acids to form complete proteins, why are they considered incomplete protein sources? | Technically yes you could eat 1000 calories worth of almonds to reach your essential amino acid requirement across the board. However it is much more reasonable to combine almonds with a grain which is higher in methionine and leucine, this is called complementary protein intake. So when they are talking about a complete protein they are limiting it to a certain amount of such a protein and it's ability to meet the necessary requirements. With animal protein (complete proteins) it is very easy to reach the needed amount of the 9 essential amino acids but using the equivalent amount of almonds would not be possible. This is why they stress for vegetarians to pair complementary proteins to fulfill their essential amino acid requirements. However as mentioned theoretically since almonds do contain all 9 essentials in varying amounts it would be possible to consume a great deal of almonds to fulfill that need but not really necessary when certain grains are available to complement. | af166dc3-80ed-46ef-964b-086decb8657e |
260f53 | ELI: Why are sales taxes only enforced when shopping stores and online? | You are.
You are supposed to write the person a receipt, which they then show while registering the vehicle, and then pay the tax there in order to have ownership transferred to them. | 0b9a3cc6-854d-4311-8735-c03d2bb73496 |
4nfeiw | Is burning fecal waste beneficial in one way or another such as generating power to using the ashes as fertilizer? | One of best things about burning the waste is that you've reduced it's volume, so it's easier to transport and store, and it's probably safer than it was before burning. Regarding other benefits, if the waste is dry enough you can generate power from burning it (otherwise it's wasted for evaporating the water) and I'm not sure if the ashes are viable as a fertilizer at all, and generally ash from burning waste is rather undesirable (at least in my country) and just stored at landfills. Though I doubt fecal waste is just burned here, because it's most likely better to use the waste for generating biogas, basically you stockpile the dung in favorable conditions, initiate fermentation and get methane. This time I know that what's left of the waste is indeed usable as a fertillizer. | 6e16450d-e8c2-4b9e-b68c-0bf79d0ee3e6 |
wfy6i | If Flash Storage is so useful, why do we still use Hard Drives? | USB flash drives average $1 per gigabyte. Magnetic hard drives average 5.3 cents per gigabyte. Additionally, a magnetic hard drive is typically 2-4 times as fast as a USB flash drive, or even faster. USB flash drives also have write limitations; there are only so many times you can write to them.
If we're talking *solid state* hard drives, then those are faster than magnetic hard drives, and they cost about 81 cents a megabyte -- cheaper than USB flash, but much more expensive than magnetic. Those *do* require a power source, though.
So basically, flash storage is tougher and more resistant to water and dirt, but it's much slower and much more expensive. | 750b50ae-307a-47be-a2ef-ddbe2b3d43a5 |
3gcd2n | What are the pros and cons of mp4, webm and HTML5 video formats? When to use one over the other? | None of them are video formats.
MP4 and WebM aren't video formats, they're "container" formats. A container is just like a box you toss multiple kinds of data into to keep them all in one place -- kind of like a zip or rar file. When you have a video file, you usually have the video stream, audio stream, chapter index, subtitles, maybe menus, maybe *multiple* video/audio/subtitles. They're all in different formats -- the subtitles can be plaintext or transparencies, the video might be MPEG-2 or AVC, the audio might be MP3 or AC3. To wrap them up together in one file, synchronise timing between them, properly interleave the audio and video so the file is accessed linearly, etc you put them inside a container -- and that container is MP4, or MKV, or AVI, or MOV. But the container tells you nothing about what type, format, or quality of video data is inside. You can take the streams out of an AVI container and put them in a WebM one in under a second without touching the actual video data.
HTML5 isn't a video format either. HTML is a markup language used to write webpages; in HTML version 5, they added support for ` < video > ` tags. HTML5 video is just video linked in these tags and rendered directly by the browser, as opposed to the older system of using Flash applets to display video. HTML5 says absolutely nothing about the video or container formats used.
Examples of video formats: MPEG-2 Part 2 (used on DVD and TV), MPEG-4 Part 10 (used on Blu-ray, YouTube, and some TV channels), MPEG-H Part 2 (the new format starting to appear everywhere, used for 4K and 8K TV), Theora, VP8, and VP9 (used by Imgur, Gfycat, etc), DNXHD (used for editing).
Examples of container formats: AVI, MKV, MP4, MOV, WebM.
There are a few reasons for varying video formats: some get higher quality at given bitrates (a 10Mb/s HEVC video is a lot better than a 10 Mb/s MPEG-2 Part 2 video), some are better-suited for editing (ProRes and DNxHD store complete frames, most other formats do not), some have widely-available hardware decoders (your phone probably has an H264 decoder in it but not an H265 decoder, so the former will be a lot smoother and lighter on your battery even though the latter is a better format), etc. But the container is mostly irrelevant, you can't make any decision based on container. | 60f28787-5fdf-4f3d-b5cf-4797d76c0598 |
1na44x | EIL5: What's the real difference between AA, AAA, 9v, D, etc. batteries? And why did Dildos/Vibrators take only C's for so long? | AA, AAA, C, and D batteries are all 1.5 volts. But they differ considerably in the amount of current and time they can produce. A bigger battery can produce more power over time.
A 9V battery is just that - 9 volts. But it has a lower current throughput.
As for why a vibrator takes a C battery I can only conjecture that it is a very power-hungry device so needs the largest practicable battery. And because the device has a width limitation (because of the nature of the environment in which it is required to operate) the maximum diameter acceptable is probably that of a C battery but not a D. | d86ad24f-3590-48a2-b900-43b5a37f54a0 |
2l2on1 | What really happens when people die of "old age" or "natural causes" ? | what happens is the family and doctors agree it is not worth determining what the actual cause of death was.
actual cause is often heart failure, but frankly could be almost anything that isn't blatantly obvious from an external inspection.
edit: stroke is another common cause. may actually be even more common that heart attack for "old age" deaths, as it can hit suddenly with less obvious symptoms. | 9fa78183-5ef7-44c8-9ac8-bfe15225016e |
325oya | - what is the "nails on a chalkboard" sensation? | We don't exactly know, but there are some good ideas on it.
The most prevalent theories say that the sounds which cause this reaction (nails on a chalkboard, fork on a plate, ect) do so for reasons related to evolutionary biology. Specifically, the sound has strong similarities to some warning calls given by certain primates. It's possible that we still are unnerved by this because our ancestors had similar warning calls, or perhaps some predators made a sound like it.
There are also some theories that relate the intensity of the sound to the shape of our ears. it's possible the frequency is affected by ear canal shapes and that frequency increases when the sound goes through your ears, to the point of being very painful or unnerving compared to other noises.
I personally find the sound extremely irritating and unnerving, but not painful, so the former theory seems more likely to me. We really just don't know for sure yet. | 3a0dbd0d-1b39-43d0-b85e-81de57548e15 |
2051vp | Why why when Russia invade a country all the people from america stand up shouting for violation of right of Sovereignty and why when the US do the same American people show a lot of support ? | Let me explain it to you:
The US is the bestest most amazing country ever in the history of the universe. We were singled out by god to be mankind's only hope, a shining example of awesomeness that every other country on Earth envies and wishes they could be like. Therefore, anything we ever do is by definition perfect. That's why we can criticize other countries for behavior that we engage in ourselves: when we do it, it's right because we're awesome, but when other countries do it, it's wrong because they suck. | 71a82490-98e3-4b46-8b2e-1fb4656630d1 |
25rygm | Why it is more common for men to go bald | It's the male hormone testosterone that does that and since women don't have that much of it men goes bald and women don't. The less hair you've got the more testosterone you have in your body.
Bald men usually have higher levels of testosterone than in women. | 251b6eb3-b5d2-4ca6-ad16-922745bb2fe7 |
10zaxp | the theory that cutting taxes on the rich increases overall tax revenue | Imagine if the govt taxed everyone's income at 100%. Although the rate is very high, the tax revenue they'd get from it would be $0. This is because when people don't get to keep any of their earnings, they won't bother to work. So we can see that in this situation a "tax cut" would certainly increase tax revenue.
Alternatively, however, if you tax income at 0%, the govt will also receive $0 in revenue, obviously. Anyone can now see that there is a "curve" which shows the amount of tax revenue generated at each rate. This is called the [Laffer Curve](_URL_0_) It's impossible to tell what the curve looks like, but we can see that at some places on the curve, tax revenue would increase at lower rates.
It's up for debate where the "optimal" place is on the curve, but that's the theory behind these cuts. | d554e84a-0594-4307-900c-922a96473b1a |
2mr2l2 | How would you go about making metal tools from scratch? Assume you're stranded on an island and can only use what nature has given you. | you should watch this video, this guy decided he was going to make a toaster from scratch.
_URL_0_ | 35ce785b-0270-4756-9dff-bb2e0fa6c922 |
8y5426 | What’s bad about dystopia if everyone lives in the society truly think and feel they are happy? | If they are *truly* happy, I'm not sure it can be a dystopia. If it's enforced/artificial happiness, then you're encroaching on people's free feelings. | b4739c77-5fb9-4070-b77a-78c64199d094 |
27j6wo | Why do some men find it attractive when women swallow semen? | Matters of opinion are not for ELI5. Try /r/askreddit | c05c02b3-5f26-4011-b888-ecd083ffee9a |
73jan2 | Why can't we make cheese from human breast milk? | There’s no reason we can’t make human milk cheese in theory. A quick googling shows a bunch of stories about it and even a recipe.
The main reasons we don’t encounter it normally are two fold. First is the hygiene angle. There are a number of diseases that can be passed in breast milk. The second is supply. A woman can only produce so much breast milk and a hungry baby can drink a surprising abound of it | 072875f4-b748-4c3d-bcef-65920219397a |
20czov | Why didn't evolution decide our teeth can only be maintained through dental chemicals and treatment? | During most of human history, we ate almost no sugars at all (hunter gatherer societies have very few sources of carbohydrates, i.e. complex sugars). It is carbohydrates and sugars that feed the bacteria that cases tooth decay (the bacteria converts sugar to acids, which dissolve the calcium in the enamel), and stone age people rarely ate enough sugars for this to become a problem.
What stone age societies actually have a problem with is constantly chewing tough meats and roots causing teeth to wear away and fall out. And that's why adults grow wisdom teeth, to replace those fallen teeth. | 124838c1-4ecd-4594-9bf1-55015b9cfcfd |
35h0do | Why can I switch between running programs instantly on quite old PCs whereas on smartphones, even the most modern ones, it always takes several seconds? | There's something wrong with your phone if going from an app to another takes multiple seconds.
It is true however that mobile oses freeze the apps that are not active to save power.
And phone apps are often fullscreen only because the screens are so small. If you actually need to multitask on the go, carry a laptop. | 1d79c75d-30db-4301-b806-6845cdc4b49e |
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