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2f784s | Why is the USA the richest nation when it has over 17 trillion USD in debt | The debt of a government is nothing like the debt of an individual, and functions in importantly different ways. Debt, properly managed, is good.
The simplest example is bonds. Bonds are certificates issued by a government that read "Buy me for $1,000 and redeem me for $1,050 in 10 years." When you buy that bond, the government puts down that it got $1,000 but owes $1,050, putting it $50 in debt. But it's a good debt, because over the course of that 10 years, they can spend that $1,000 on projects that will generate far far more than $1,050 in revenue or productivity. They'll happily pay you back after 10 years and both of you will have profited from the loan. And because the US government is rated as having excellent credit, they can afford to give you a very slim margin of profit on those bonds (all investments have a risk-reward balance). The government is able to find profit in things that private business cannot, because government profits come from the overall productivity of the country and not directly from the project itself; the government can spend $5M building a public school or public hospital, and while the schools and hospitals themselves never become profitable, they increase lifespans and education which increases productivity and output which means more money which means more tax which ultimately results in revenue to pay the value of the bonds.
It's like the debt you incur when you take on student loans at a medical school: you're in debt, but it's silly to call it a bad financial decision.
Additionally, the majority of US debt is owed *to the US*. Some of the biggest buyers of bonds are US pension funds. Pension funds invest in bonds rather than letting the money sit in bank accounts because it means the money slowly grows while remaining almost as safe as it would be in an FDIC-insured bank. So being in debt to yourself isn't really a problem. If your family has $10M in wealth and you borrow $1M from your brother, the family's wealth hasn't changed. | f4e59c1e-63de-496e-8a68-889a17d022c2 |
8hlvfg | Why does mental illness seem more common today? | Because gradually people are becoming more open and accepting of discussing mental illness, so it seems more common when the general population assess their own mental state in a more open minded manner. It has always been this common, but people didn't talk about it. | 914bbc9b-119c-4802-b6f9-c63f378c0fcd |
18gyar | Some terms about sustainble development. | > Ecological footprint
How large an area you need to give humans a certain level of comfort, and still allowing the earth to regenerate. It's measured by the amount of land required to make everything you consume, as well as handling the waste. We currently use about 1.5 times the area of the world, so the earth isn't fully recuperating.
> Ecosystems services
The jobs nature does for us. This include things like taking care of waste, cleaning water, crop pollination.
> Resilience
How much an ecosystem can handle. Some systems are fragile and will quickly die if the temperature changes, or a fire happens. Some will handle mostly anything.
> Planetary boundaries
The limits to what the earth can handle. A set of limits for temperature, acidity, bio-diversity loss, etc.
> Tipping point
One the world reach this point changes will happen fast. The points are of course defined by the planetary boundaries.
> Feedback effect
It get's hot, so we end up with more desert. In the desert nothing grows, so we end up less CO2 eating vegetation. There are lots of feedback effects, both good and bad (some stabilizes things decreasing the effects of change, some increase them).
> Rebound effect
When we get get better technology, we start using it more. This is the rebound effect. E.g. we get a new motor with 5% better fuel efficiency. But since they save money on fuel, people drive more. So the reduction in fuel use is only 2%. Then we have a 60% rebound effect
> Backfire effect
If the rebound effects are higher than 100% (the fuel efficiency goes up, but so does the fuel use) you have a backfire effect.
> Biodiversity
The diversity of lifeforms in an area (or even in a species). It's a high diversity is a sign of a healthy system. | d483c1c2-df66-47ff-a5c6-b86e5d473160 |
82sslt | How can blockchain technology ensure diamond authenticity / no child labour use in a product? | A blockchain is really just a way of people creating a secure series of notes about things. It can track the history of the source of a product and ownership but that chain of ownership is meaningless if the original claim about something being "good" was made in bad faith or can't be trusted.
If you can trust Friendly Diamond Mines to make a good/safe product, the blockchain would let you make sure a specific diamond could uniquely be traced back to their original claim. This doesn't mean the original claim is valid, nor does this *actually* tie into the authenticity of any single diamond (eg - they could sell/lose the real diamond off the blockchain and start calling some other stone the same thing). | 8cfed096-2abe-47ac-978d-3bd797b59ebc |
5xtpzj | Are humans inherently built to form a two pyramid social hierarchy (less people at the top, less resources at the bottom), or is it just a consequence of historical events? | I think it's just human nature, once the most powerful people in a group don't know everyone in the group personally anymore, it becomes easier to fuck them over for their own benefit. Bands (very small groups) tend to be more collectivist, with perhaps a "big man" leading, but as the group gets larger into tribes which could be several small groups tied together of hundreds of people and then chiefdoms which could be thousands of people across large areas, finally culminating in large modern states of millions, with massive inequality and a chosen few directing from the top. All this is my understanding of groups from the writings of Jared Diamond. We can see our own self-interest more easily when the guy were stealing from is just a number rather than your wife's brother. | 4ed72e1d-70af-4605-ae5f-2feccdaeb0e2 |
3jhj7b | $19 trillion deficit in federal budget. | The federal deficit is the difference between the amount of money the government receives and and the amount it spends. In 2015, that is $583 billion dollars; and it is projected to be $474 billion dollars in 2016.
$19 trillion is much closer to the US National Debt, which is currently about $18.3 trillion dollars. The National Debt is the total of all the outstanding financial obligations of the federal government (how much they owe, in total, to people and other countries).
There have been various attempts to propose legislation and even constitutional amendments to force a balanced budget, but none have succeeded. Republicans and Democrats both agree that the debt needs to be capped or lessened -- with Republicans generally favoring a balanced budget with exceptions for military spending, and Democrats favoring setting limits on the national debt based on GDP (how much money the country brings in). It's a subtle difference.
The only time the US has had an budget surplus since Nixon was during Bill Clinton's term. The largest budget deficits in the nation's history were during George W. Bush's term.
Among economists, there's actually a debate on whether or not a deficit budget or large debt are bad, noting that the considerations of a state are different than a person or household. The state makes it's own currency and it's individuals operating within the state's domain use it - a much different situation. | 3a89320e-6077-4583-a7e2-bde4eb013e76 |
91zhq9 | What happens if you are morbidly obese (1000 pounds) and starve yourself? | There was a study where a man who was morbidly obese took supplements and didn't eat for a very long time. He eventually got skinny, then died in his 40s.
Moral being proper diet and exercise is the better route | 03268a02-c367-4217-8b46-7b95d8d1a687 |
6jswvu | How does newly minted currency enter circulation? | They send them to banks and major companies, banks stop giving out old currency (if it's going out of circulation), over time, the new currency will be passed about so much that it's just part of the system | 7b975fdb-3f46-413e-aa2e-b0edd90f5a9d |
3bd5y4 | What happens to Greece now that the bailout extension has been denied? | The party currently in power promised end the austerity measured imposed on it by the EU, and it promised it would no leave the euro.
It will have to break one of those promises. Note that Greece has always had the option to honor the existing deal, and get additional bailout money. They current gov't doesn't want to, because they feel that honoring validates it, and it breaks the main promise they used to get elected. | ae37fe20-350a-413f-940f-1cb4d0d6cb4e |
76x0hk | How does a dam decrease water flow downstream if it does not take away any water? | The decrease of water flow isn't the problem.
The problem is that it's not a consistent flow anymore.[Here](_URL_0_) you can read about it. | 38eb62cd-12b9-424f-ab4d-9d021527b72f |
2gyf5g | How do poor people *legally* immigrate to the United States? | [This image goes into some detail about it](_URL_0_)
Essentially if you don't have family here, and you're not skilled it's essentially impossible to become a citizen, barring something like being granted refugee status. | 98f162f5-6f41-4f24-a769-65130b5c95dd |
5dyj6t | Why must we have to wake up so early for school when it can easily be moved later in the day so we get more sleep? | Mostly buses. But more importantly, there are a lot of "latchkey kids" whose parents work multiple jobs, or who have single parent families, or both. If the parents leave work to pick up their kids from school, or stay home to babysit them, the family wouldn't have enough money to eat. Even very stable families with enough income benefit from having someone available to care for the kids.
So older students are made available to care for their younger siblings. They have to start school early enough that they can be done with their school day and either walk their siblings home or be waiting at home for them.
The issue with buses would be easy enough to deal with just be putting the high school students later than elementary school, letting the younger kids go first. Unfortunately, that would hurt a lot of families that need the older kids out of school sooner. | 77d39a3c-b4d6-46d5-85e4-4e1e3a541abe |
77slmf | Why do more serious wounds, like surgery wounds have drainage durring the healing process? | It is a deep wound. This is not the same as most wounds we get which are surface wounds without a push, non penetrating wounds. Of course we can imagine many accidental wounds which are penetrating, or non accidental such as being stuck with a shiv multiple times. But the majority of accidental wounds are skin punctures.
There is a healing process. At first their is a very deep cut which disrupts all manner of things such as the normal drainage of fluid from an area. There is a normal drainage, very low pressure, which gets fluid away from tissue. The normal pattern is: arterial pressure, oxygenated blood coming from the heart, highest pressure, venous drainage system, blood returning to the heart, much lower pressure, lymphatic system, almost no pressure, interstitial fluid, this will drain to cells which will pump it back into the venous system, may drain from muscles and other tissues to cells which specialize in pumping.
This is all disrupted by the wound. So surgeons leave a drain in place. The living cells start to organize and repair. They remove dead cell structures and start to knit together. They form adhesions and scar tissue. But this is more than a few days after surgery. Before that the drain helps. Surgeons can actually have the equivalent of an IV, it is not an IV because the flow is not into a vein, into the wound or into the dressing. A sterile flow of fluid helps keep away wound infections. | 3d266109-9ee9-4e8b-9ac5-df7a4368b5b9 |
5ek7kj | Why is the male crotch's color a little different from the rest of the body? | Male genitalia - and the pubic area in general - have a higher concentration of the pigment melanin than the rest of the body. This accounts for a darker color. | f05de9f9-f67d-4a36-a6a4-b738d774a5f9 |
1q7u99 | How is it No purchase necessary on those boxes you must open to win? | Generally, there is a mail-in or online method to enter the contest, sweepstakes, or giveaway. Read the fine print on the box, and there is usually a brief description of how to enter without a purchase. If it's not there, sometimes they put it inside the box (making it hard to enter without a purchase), or just have the information on their website or available via a telephone number. Usually they make the rules for non-purchase entry very convoluted or difficult, with very specific instructions (such as hand-printing your name and address on a 3x5 index card with a first-class stamp, or sending them a Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope (which means you end up paying double postage). | 3ce48b2b-7da7-415e-8ba5-9c5b44f18050 |
6j7dox | When and why did they switch from making planes covered with canvas, to making an all metal plane? | Around 1900, the Hall–Héroult process allowed for cheap production of aluminum and the development of Al-Cu alloys made all-metal airframes possible. The high-strength Duralumin alloys (Al-Cu), what we now call the 2000-series aluminum, were developed in 1909, and got improved until Alcoa came out with the 2024-T3 alloy (T3 being the heat treatment) in 1931, which we still use a lot of today.
Wood worked well for the lightweight, underpowered aircraft of the day with the box-girder frame construction, and wire-truss, strut-supported wing. Where metal really shined was in the monocoque fuselage and fully cantilevered wing. In the older fabric skin planes, the fabric didn't take much of the load, so it added weight without adding strength. In the monocoque planes, the skin provides most of the stiffness. The cantilevered wing got rid of the cables and struts that provided strength to the old aircraft, but required a very strong main spar. So, as planes got bigger engines, and carried more payload, aluminum provided a lighter, stronger solution.
Experimentation with all-metal aircraft started in World War I, with Junkers being one of the leading pioneers with their J1 and later F.13. However, the control surfaces on many aircraft continued to be fabric covered right into World War II. | c466c8c0-228f-4a4d-adc9-1e26a74bb14b |
3nptv8 | how can BP pay a ~$20bn USD fine if their annual profit is only ~$4 bn USD? | The simple answer is that BP has $32 Billion in cash and short term investments on hand to pay off the $20 Billion it owes.
Also possible that BP will pay some fraction of the total amount it owes each quarter or each year for the next decade or two. | a7a8fa24-4708-4bdf-a7b8-0c7a8913c284 |
1pgswr | Why does Soda cost so much less than water? | Does it? I get water out of my tap for about 700 gallons for a dollar.
Bottled water is more expensive because it's been found that people are willing to pay that much for convenience, but water itself is quite cheap in the US at least. | ed141f58-5574-4654-a977-dd763d8ab788 |
53gajl | How much more light we will get if the moon is coated in mirror-like surfaces ? | About eight times as much.
The reflectivity of astronomical bodies is called albedo. An albedo of 0 means the object reflects no light, and 1 means it reflects all light.
The moon's albedo is 0.12, meaning it reflects about one eighth of the light that hits it. | a6ca7929-0cac-4c31-847d-7362c1de997c |
3ig2ze | why is it that sometimes in the city I live in I see pigeons with toes missing or just swollen knobs for feet quite frequently? | Pigeons in cities are in contact with a lot of dirt and bacteria from litter and such. As a result they often succumb to infections which rot their feet _URL_0_
They can also get their feet tangled in things like fishing lines, cutting off the circulation and damaging their feet | 33087e82-13e8-4118-ae8c-5c019b7d6b5f |
8ecwvv | Do people of a darker skin complexion attract more sunlight and because of that are hotter outside in the sun? | Technically, yes. Melanin is the pigment that gives people a darker complexion, and therefore absorbs more heat. This might seem counterintuitive, but ultimately, the heat is not the damaging factor here, UV is. Melanin helps to dissipate UV radiation, thereby helping prevent skin cancers. Its production is stimulated by the UV radiation from the sun. So yeah, if you get darker you do get hotter, but you're protected better from the more dangerous UV radiation. | 4699d738-1373-443f-9911-ea39b53b2d9d |
1aqu24 | Why doesn't Cypress export its oil to "keep their heads above water" | Cyrpus didn't seize money, the EU suggested they do that and they voted not to do it.
They don't have oil to export, at least not yet.
> Even if they dont have the technology or infrastructure, it seems that you could leverage a loan based on future oil sales.
This is exactly what's being proposed, but like in most cases if you're desperate to sell you're more likely to be getting a bad deal. They are afraid of giving up long term future economic strength for what amounts to a handful of billion dollars today. | 6ae87a02-e13b-4d4f-a5c0-a0204aafa81b |
2smbeo | If a human traveled at the speed of light, would they die instantly? If so how fast can a body like a human or animal travel before they get destroyed? | Nothing made of matter can travel at light speed. Full stop.
However, we could conceivably get close with no issues, so long as you didn't accelerate too quickly for the human body to survive.
Edit: or run into anything, but given that space is quite empty... | 2a0726a7-d9b3-4f06-ba60-e715ec36da9d |
4fhrzf | how a penis can get erect, maintain proper circulation without increasing the blood pressure appreciably in the rest of the circulatory system? | The arteries leading into the penis dilate, resulting in an increased profusion of blood. The veins leading out of the penis are constricted by muscular action, restricting the ability of the blood to flow back out of the system into the body at large. This also explains in part how a priapism can be dangerous, as you can get oxygen-starved tissues. | ee567cbc-faf9-46a4-ba01-24c180efcb5f |
1hclg0 | Why does the United States military have bases in other countries but other countries don't have bases in the United States? What are the odds of another country putting a base in the US? | A lot of countries host bases for other countries. There are a few advantages to this.
First - Base leases usually come with money. Most countries like to have money come in.
Second - Base leases usually come with favors or otherwise improve relationships between the countries. Want to influence a powerful country? Hosting one of their bases is a good way to do it.
Third - Bases provide defense. Maybe the local warlords don't think much of podunksylvania. But they might take you more seriously if you host some major foreign forces.
The US doesn't host much in the way of foreign forces because none of those things are terribly important to them. The US pretty much exclusively plays the role of patron rather than client. The US does host some small numbers of foreign forces, but only for the purposes of training. The US would probably not be happy hosting any of the countries with global aspirations, because they are exactly the countries they would be the most concerned about attacking the US. | 7475c0e9-13b9-4435-b71a-1d6bed56cf23 |
1iismn | Why does commercial real estate stay vacant when they could just lower the price of rent? | Commercial real estate often deals with long-term leases - 5 years rather than the 6-12mo leases you see with residential. There is often a significant amount of work that will be done, often by the land lord, customizing the space for the needs of a new client.
Also, in business, you seldom want to deal with the customer that insists on the cheapest price. They're generally entitled pains in the ass that start expecting every last thing for free. Not to mention that a business that's got a problem with a few hundred dollars per month in rent doesn't appear to be on sound footing - no property owner wants to have a tenant go out of business half way through a 5 year lease, leaving the property owner to clean up all the mess. | 71d01163-cbe0-4173-b957-8c2ebdf561e7 |
1lfpuo | Why isn't solar power the most used source for electricity? | Because it's the least dense form of energy available to us. You can only get about 150 watts per square meter out of sunlight. That's barely enough to run a lightbulb. Solar power is plentiful and free, but *very* paltry unless you want to spend billions to pave over whole states with PV arrays. | 14938c5f-2450-4094-a721-47fa8498564b |
1oib4d | Why does "End Now" rarely work? | "End now" is basically the same thing as trying to close the program by clicking the "X" in the top corner. It's the operating system sending a message to the program that says "hey, stop what you're doing please."
If the program's already frozen, that means it's not taking any commands. It's caught in some sort of issue where it doesn't know what to do. So, sending it a command saying "hey, close down" doesn't get followed because it's not responding correctly anyway.
When you go into Task Manager and say "end process," it's a command to the operating system. It basically says "take away whatever memory's being allocated to this program," and the program has no choice but to die.
It's like... if a kid is painting on the wall, and you tell him to stop, he may or may not. He's already ignoring what you're telling him to do, so it's not likely that he'll listen.
If you take away the paint, though, he doesn't really have a choice. | 60292ab6-8910-4ac1-8900-ba568a4fb12f |
1a7qf9 | Why does CISPA keep coming back? | It only takes a single Congressperson to introduce a bill. There's no reason to believe that CISPA is going to go anywhere, but there's no way to stop one of the 425 members of the House of Representatives from introducing it. | cff88d2d-f062-438e-ac5a-db001dbc02a7 |
363x7w | Controls in the cockpit of a commercial flight | i suggest you read this pdf _URL_0_
and read this little guide
_URL_1_
but basically, you have the throttle, which controls thrust of engines, which accelerates your plane.
rudder pedals (feet) move the rudder, which makes your airplane go left or right in a horizontal plane.
then you have elevators, which are controlled by pulling the stick/control wheel or pushing it. this moves the plane up and down in the vertical plane.
you also have the ailerons, which are controlled by spinning the wheel CCW or CW. this rolls the airplane.
everything else can be stuff like, turning on the engines, turning on the hydraulics (which move the flight controls), turning on the electricity, moving the landing gear up and down, turning on lights, etc etc etc
and wait until there is an ELI10 or 15 to ask this question | bdd97e6b-e70c-4c03-99ee-14ba7e421a89 |
7l3z77 | How do you reverse engineer the ingredients of a chemical formula? | Well, you can use a gas chromatograph to measure the different elements and ions in the mystery substance. That's not totally enough information, so then you'd have to look at how those "lego blocks" might be arranged in a stable molecule. Sometimes there are a couple of possibilities. When you get it down to a list of possibilities you can define specific tests to measure A vs B and then C vs D and then A vs C to boil it down to an answer. | 06005f18-55dc-4c54-9f10-98be4f13eb1b |
3hb21l | Why are we adverse to rats? | Where there are people, there are rats. Where there is waste, there are more rats.
While rats are fairly clean animals, they are often seen searching through waste for either food, or a place to live. As a result people often associate them with filth. After the Plague (fleas on rats leading to the deaths of so many) the association between Rats, Death & Disease strengthened.
Here are two good books on the subject of rats, how we view them, and how we are key in their presence among us: [Rats](_URL_0_) by Robert Sullivan, & [Rats, Lice and History](_URL_1_) by Hans Zinsser. | acdb80ff-da11-4e8e-a697-c0e2f480249c |
3yh2zp | Can documentary and news personnel be held responsible for not disclosing information to the government about the illegal things they report on? I.E. Drugs Inc., Vice News. | No. There are journalistic protections thanks to the First Amendment to the Constitution. This gives a freedom of the press that protects them more than ordinary citizens when doing their job. | 74a91301-bf31-4f38-82c6-b272555313e6 |
42w4hp | Why does the giant ice cube in my cocktail melt at a nonuniform rate? | The ice probably has air in it, even if it is pockets smaller than a bubble and therefore hard to see. | 94c2603d-fc43-4e9b-a840-fae7aa5f0e8c |
5n5o8e | If espresso is essentially concentrated coffee why is it less acidic? | The resulting liquid has much less time to absorb any acidity from the grounds. Since you are sending pressurized steam through the grounds instead of just letting hot water drip through them, it results in a less acidic brew | 09687966-df5a-4c0d-af59-ca690fa461d7 |
8fa5le | If a bedroom has a 60 watt lightbulb and one of the walls is a full-length mirror, does the reflection become like a 2nd 60 watt bulb? | No the light of the lamp goes in all directions
The reflection on the mirror is just a fraction of the light from the original light source | 05b5411f-194c-4437-8bd0-09426eabd380 |
5hauzp | why do the progressive states keep middle/southern america around? | There does not exist any sort of way to "ditch" states. We even fought a civil war, at great cost of life, to prevent it from happening.
The only way to make it possible for a state to leave the union would be to pass a constitutional amendment, which would require (among other things) 75% of the states to agree to it. And trust me, that's just not going to happen.
Also:
> Coastal states and cities drive the economy and support the barren expanses of the south and rural america
Those "barren" expanses provide almost all of the country's food. | 66d86e30-d09f-4db0-a325-6e93c7a8d0e5 |
7zjlq1 | How does stainless steel remove smell of garlic off your hands? | The volatile compounds that cause the smell in garlic, onions, etc. are sulfur-based. Most stainless steel in kitchens contains chromium. The chromium oxide attracts the sulfur molecule and draws it off of your skin | 874d4de8-32ee-448f-808d-f5268923a37c |
2fto58 | ELI5: Why does Windows let me in instantly if I enter my password correctly, but take anywhere from ten seconds to a full minute to recognize when I type it incorrectly? | This is actually done on purpose. The computer knows right away that the password is wrong, but it forces a waiting period before allowing you to try again to prevent someone from being able to sit at your computer and rapidy test dozens of different passwords to try to brute-force their way into your account. | 0ad7c2b2-8cf8-4345-b94d-56a7863b351d |
1qhsrr | Why does the 5th amendment say that people can't be a witness against themselves in a court of law? | > Was there a history of asking defendants to testify against themselves?
Not so much "asking" as "torturing into confessing." I'll try to dig up an old law review article about it, but that clause was largely created in response to what has been seen as coercive attempts to force people to testify against themselves. | 9dc99353-dd52-418b-bc44-0e4d4b60868b |
3zs7kk | How can hardcore Christians be against both birth control AND abortion when preaching abstinence doesn't work? | Because how well the policy works doesn't matter to them. Abortion is a sin, contraception is a sin so the only available birth control option without being a sinner is abstinence. The fact that this policy causes a lot of pain and suffering, creates generations of perpetually poor people and that abstinence education doesn't work simply does not matter, because the purpose isn't effective policy, the purpose is to make people not sin. | ffc9f22b-f9b2-42ce-8c63-da984316c17a |
5gsfjj | Why is radioactive waste such a massive problem? Why can't we just shoot it into space? | Because there is a lot of waste, space travel is expensive and if a rocket fails you get showered in radioactive waste.
Maybe once we have a space elevator installed that would be a viable option. | 773912d5-7c27-4220-ad86-c8b998f66465 |
4h1p96 | What is so special about kobe beef, and why european or american herds can't produce it? | Just like there are different breeds of dogs, there are different breeds of cows. Kobe beef comes from a Wagyu cow. European or American farms can't produce it because Kobe beef comes from Kobe. If it doesn't come from Kobe, it's not Kobe beef. Same thing applies to Champagne. Champagne is a region in France. Sparkling wine from other regions is simply called "sparkling wine". Also similar is Scotch. If it's not from Scotland, it can't be called scotch. Other places produce the exact same thing, but they call it whiskey or bourbon.
American and European farms DO produce beef from Wagyu cows. But they can't call it Kobe beef because it's not from Kobe, so they call it Wagyu beef.
Wagyu cows are known for high amount of marbling on the meat. | 21815d3c-24f1-43fa-b662-baeaf4feacb4 |
2lne7y | Can foreign corporations and individuals spend money in US elections (PACs/advertising)? | Strictly speaking, no, they're not allowed to. However, there's the potential for foreign money to be funneled through a shell corporation organized in the US to a nonprofit, which would mask the source of the money.
The courts have basically said that that's consistent with provisions which disallow non-citizens from other form forms of political participation - voting, holding office, etc. | e0f1bdc2-9524-4050-989e-c46cda8b2012 |
61pucl | Why do credit card companies that offer those "5% cash back" deals that require users to activate a different category each quarter need to be so secretive/mysterious what the future categories are? | The idea of those promotions is to get you to put more money on your credit card - you're supposed to think "Ooh, I can save money on *x*, but I'd better buy it now!"
If they announce those promotions in advance, it encourages you to put off purchases instead, which is the opposite effect of what they want. | 4db37db7-2074-4245-bd27-c602fd5efb7a |
segjl | Explain to me what reverse racism is, LI5 | Racism is preferential treatment based on race, typically by a majority against a minority.
Reverse racism is preferential treatment based on race, by a majority against *in favor* of a minority, to avoid the appearance of regular racism.
For example, let's say two people are up for a promition, a white guy with 10 years experience, top rated performance reviews and several industry certifications, and a black guy with 2 years of experience and average performance reviews, and missing key certifications. The company is currently being sued for discrimination in an unrelated case, so they promote the black guy to give the appearance of being more inclusive. In this case the white guy would be a victim of reverse discrimination, and may have grounds for legal action. | 5b14a8ee-a931-4fdc-ae30-e3837fd24773 |
3lmazd | How did we go about laying all of the underwater cables for the internet? Are they laying on the ocean floors or are they floating in the water? | Giant spools are laid doing using boats starting from each end point and meeting at some specified destination.
The cables are dug a few feet under the sand.
Here's a good Gif showing how it's done.
_URL_0_ | 552c74ac-beec-4a28-8df3-995398d2f9de |
7h0moe | How does a “power nap” give you more energy than waking up slightly later? | I think a lot of people forgot the ELI5 here. I'll try my best to make this understandable:
When you go to sleep you go through different stages of sleep. The first ones clean out your brain a tad bit, making you have less of the hormones (emotion regulants) which makes you sleepy. The next stage makes you fall In a deeper sleep, where you get more of these sleep hormones. If you're awoken in this part, you'll likely fall asleep a couple of seconds after waking up, like if you fall down from your bed in the middle of the night and you go back up into your bed and forgets about it. If you sleep for an entire cycle, your brain will have gotten in and out of these cycles a couple of times, and It will have cleaned up all the trash which isn't cleaned away during day time. If you just take 30 minute naps, you will not be in the second state, and you will feel less tired. It's important to sleep through the entire sleep cycle, as your brain needs cleaning. You usually wake up naturally after a cycle, but you can wake up earlier and still feel good as new if you use sun light to make the sleep go faster (try sleeping in a totally dark room and then right next to a window, and not put an alarm)
So in short: power naps removes what makes you tired, but doesn't make you well rested! | 7370d181-e24c-4888-b37e-f6649d4583cc |
1ty7fy | Why do some churches only believe in the King James Version of The Bible? | Many churches want to ignore the fact that you'll end up with errors when you translate things from ancient languages, because they want to claim that the Bible has no errors in it. The problem is that most modern English Bible translations will openly tell you about translation errors; there are little footnotes, where the editors note that people disagree about what the sentence really says.
The King James Version is one of a very few modern English translations that *don't* do this. So if you want to tell a story of an error-free Bible, you pretty much have to use it. | e1e31634-1d35-4740-ba4c-175c0f546b46 |
3yui0s | Why does a small dome light drain a huge car battery over night, yet a couple of AAAs can power a significantly more powerful, non-LED headlamp for days? | A car starter motor takes a lot of power. It has to turn over the engine enough times to cycle every piston and try to start each spark plug firing properly.
You can leave a light on in your car for a day or two, but it'll drain the battery down too much to have enough power to turn the engine over.
Plus you have to remember that cars use old incandescent bulbs, and that's many times the power requirement of an LED. Plus think how big an area a car light can illuminate. | c8b17df9-dcc8-402c-a4e1-962488e97aef |
8psh9y | Why are the EU trying to remove memes? And how will they go about enforcing this? | EU is not trying to remove memes. EU is trying to implement a copyright law that will have a variety of effects, some you may find good and some you may find bad, and in addition, strictly speaking the proposal wouldn't allow to share memes.
I am not aware on the details of the proposal but basically, a "pro" point would be to prevent people from broadcasting content from somebody else as one's own, and to prevent people from illegally diffusing a full movie on YouTube (you may find that it's not a good point, but it's anyhow, that's the motive of the proposal).
A bad point would be that free sharing of information could become more difficult. Automatic filters would be in charge on spotting the content targeted by this law and may misinterpret open source stuff (software, documents, etc) and put people releasing these open source stuff in trouble. Collaborative work could also face some issues. Memes could fall into this scope: if there's a meme with some frames from a TV series, it may be targeted.
People tend to speak more about memes because that's a funny angle to talk about the problem and that's likely to make people click the link and find out more, but actually the biggest issue is open source and collaborative contents, which is what people who are standing against this law proposal are trying to protect. | 7049e1b2-99c5-4260-85cd-c2861110ae58 |
4v65fr | How is it that we can drink a lot of liquid and still be dehydrated? | You have this hormone called anti diuretic hormone (ADH) that binds to a certain part of your nephrons in your kidneys. ADH enables your kidneys to reabsorb more water (a small but important percentage) as opposed to keeping it filtered and headed toward the bladder. Those beverages block ADH and that extra water is not absorbed thus you are peeing more and are more likely to be dehydrated. | a31f2312-ea89-4b03-9dec-d733883f30e9 |
7tvo4h | How do elevator systems determine which elevator to send when there are multiple that are equidistant away? | The scheduler will find all elevators that are idle or moving in the proper direction already. From there, it will score them for which one should go.
The score is going to be mostly distance based, but it could also be programmed to favour an elevator in motion. It may also factor in some sort of 'wear and tear' factor so that elevators tend to do the same amount of work.
Programmers wouldn't really handle a 'tie' scenario. Instead, the easiest way to do this is to just iterate through the list, holding an elevator and comparing it. If you find one that is lower score, you hold onto that one as you continue through the list. There's no specific handling for a tie, it just works because you're not checking for less than or equals, just less than. | 4da48628-6563-48ea-bb75-20d3df8c9c7d |
xn9t8 | Why can hunters kill bucks freely but require a permit to shoot does? | Well, I'm not sure you can hunt anything without a permit, but let's put that aside.
They don't release (as many) permits for female deer, as they are critical in breeding, and it's a 1 to 1 relationship. ie: for every 1 new dear, it needs it's own mom. A buck can mate with many does, so if there are fewer bucks the population won't suffer; the bucks that make it through hunting season are swimming in elk ass.
It goes back to K vs R strategies for populations; but that's kind of above a 5 year old's head..
Edit: I swear this thread was empty when I posted. :/ | 9c082057-69b7-4a18-8006-db43fbe1fb03 |
lpiin | Following on from the blood type question, please ELI5 whether there's any truth to the theory that different blood types should eat different foods. | No.
Food you ingest is broken down to components way before it comes into contact with your bloodstream. Even then, blood (the liquid part of it - blood plasma) only carries it to target cells and the antibodies on the red blood cells (that are responsible for blood types) have nothing to do with food components such as glucose molecules (sugars that your body uses to generate energy). Those molecules are in your blood just for the ride - to be caught by cells that need energy. This is the case with all those components.
So as long as you eat a normal sized dish of balanced diet and aren't full vegan (even vegans can live off of 100% plant-substance for a few years before the diminishing supply of B12, iron and some other minerals/vitamins starts causing problems) you WILL be healthy regardless of your blood type.
Source: 1,3 years of med school (in Estonia) | 671a0810-d967-4119-a845-d796c3bb94f7 |
5ps431 | How does having a higher than normal blood-alcohol content level impact what kind of medical care a person gets when they have a serious injury or medical emergency? | Alcohol is technically a poison, and has a lot of different effects depending on time of exposure. Immediate alcohol poisoning is one issue, long term alcohol abuse has others.
Some immediate effects are:
- thinned blood: Your blood flows more easily and will clot slower. Doctors will therefore be more cautious with surgery
- increased liver and kidney demand: Your body tries to dilute and process alcohol (a poison) to negate its effects on the body. This is why you pee a lot and also why you should not take tylenol or simple painkillers with drinking. Tylenol also puts pressure on your liver and kidney to process. Too much pressure will cause serious damage to both organs.
I'm sure there are other, especially relating to the heart, but those are probably the two most common. | 31336a63-5bc1-4f98-983e-6d2a9667848c |
3nydlk | Why is it that most if not all torrents for major games are no longer on popular torrent websites after only a few months of release? | Honestly, your not looking hard enough. A quick search on TPB turned up what your friend was looking for. For brand new games they need to be cracked first. That usually happens pretty quick. But once a developer sees it up their going to find a way to bring it down. Or set up a nice honey pot. Not all developers are like this. Not all developers even care their game is going to be pirated. Most have accepted the fact that if someone wants it, their gonna get it. Plus heavy DRM is hurtful to your actual customers in different ways. | 16f5fbf9-1d12-4a49-8471-b3adc79edac8 |
7mdhw2 | Why does hydrogen peroxide make your skin itchy? | Hydrogen peroxide is quite a reactive molecule, commonly used as a disinfectant in low concentrations for cuts as it kills bacteria. It is also a really good bleaching agent. Unfortunately, hydrogen peroxide will also react with skin, especially in higher concentrations and can cause unwanted reactions.
When these unwanted reactions occur, your body will initiate a response to repair the damage, which has a side effect of itchiness at the site of exposure. | 23b9ed09-01c9-4c82-9991-a6134d0cd16b |
38k0o8 | Why people get happy when there is water on another planet, isn't it possible that aliens could live without water? | We can divide up all possible life into two categories: life that needs water, and life that does not need water.
We know the first group exists, because we, and all other life on earth, are part of that group. The existence of the second group is pure speculation. So while no one denies the possibility of the second group, it makes a whole lot of sense to focus on looking for the type that we know CAN exist. | 3e42c0ec-64e5-44e2-b716-7ce31bc3fc21 |
2cpcfq | How does radiation work? What is it that kills you? | Think of it as a machine gun shooting through you. The bullets are so small they go through the cell membrane and rip your DNA apart. | 86a0a37d-3628-485e-ba15-30f674b31b45 |
86ndfe | Why does a dehydrated brain cause a headache? | Your body is filled with veins and arteries, including your brain. These veins and arteries can get wider or thinner depending on what’s going on (cold/hot, too much/too little water). If you have WAY too little water, the veins and arteries shrink so much that your brain shrinks, and tugs on your skull.
Source: google why dehydration headache, website medicalnewstoday | bddc3fd4-4142-4238-a749-3fa0f5193079 |
2p49js | why does store bought child cut turkey taste so different from thanksgiving turkey? | Deli meats are made by taking the meat and mashing it up, adding spices and squeezing it into a tube shape.
So the meat texture is going to be quite a bit different then cutting it right off the bird. And the flavour largely comes from the spices and cooking technique...not the meat itself.
_URL_0_
_URL_1_ | 7b8ac98b-3c31-4b49-95a6-a7dadb49a1bc |
16m0cd | Why is it that food has to be refrigerated to keep it from germs, but if our body catches a cold it gets germs? | When our bodies get cold, our immune systems get weaker. So cold viruses have a better chance of infecting us (especially when everyone around you is sick). As for food, bacteria tends to breed best between 40-140°F (5-60°C). So it's best to keep food below 40°F | 1c32ed82-21ca-4ca6-a65d-6e71d8625fd4 |
4jlezy | What is going on in Nevada primaries and why are people so mad? | Basing this on an article in the Washington Post _URL_0_
Nevada seems to commit some delegates in February and some in May. Hillary Clinton won more delegates in the February process, but Bernie Sanders gained a lot of support since February and actually ended up with more support than Hillary for the May process. Some yelling and apparent shady behavior later, and Hillary ended up with more delegate in the May process as well.
Some more detail: Bernie supporters thought the rules for committing the May delegates needed some tuning up to avoid gaming by the pro-Hillary bosses, with fights over rule changes going right up into the weekend. The end result is that the new Bernie rules didn't get passed. Videos show what appears to be some pretty shameful abuse of Robert's Rules of Order. Also a bunch of Bernie delegates didn't get to be pledged because of apparent procedural issues (that some Bernie supporters claim are shenanigans).
The upshot is that Hillary gets something like 4 delegates that could have been Bernie delegates. Hillary appears to have gotten more votes nationally than Bernie, and her national delegate lead is in the ~250+ range, but still. If both of those are based on the kind of dirty dirt displayed here, how do we know that's really true? | ee04948b-c934-42e9-ba70-8bd36b8788c5 |
3lt8ws | Why American healthcare is so obscenely expensive. | TLDR: Health care economics are weird and it doesn't work like just another business. However, the USA is ideologically committed to treating it like just another business, which causes a lot of problems.
Consider that when you go to the grocery store, if beef is too expensive, maybe you'll buy chicken. If you really want to be smart you can shop around for the best deals. Or get a freezer and buy your meat in bulk. And you can keep trying different strategies every week, it won't bankrupt you.
Yay, the free market works! Customers, just acting in their own self-interest, will influence what the shops do, so they provide better goods.
Now consider, when you go to the hospital, if living is too expensive, maybe you'll buy... not-living? No, you won't, you'll take living. Shopping around is really hard because... you're sick. If you don't fix this soon, you won't even have an income. You can't buy in bulk or choose what kind of health care you're going to consume or when. You have skin cancer? Suddenly you're a *very interested* skin cancer treatment buyer. You don't have the expertise to evaluate treatment options, and you can't even learn from mistakes. It's not like you can try different cancer treatments every week and see what happens. Finally, many treatment interventions are super expensive, but you're going to get it anyway. If you have the foresight (and the spare cash every month) hopefully you purchased insurance.
Health care customers are unusually disempowered, relative to the providers. Unless they band together, they aren't going to get a good deal. The free market still could have a role, but it's not so simple this time.
Even that wouldn't be so bad, but our societies have also agreed that we're not going to abandon people who are acutely ill and can't pay, so we end up covering the costs of people without foresight or spare income anyway, by raising our own costs! It's perverse, because then poor people avoid going to the doctor until their issues are acute (and super expensive to treat)!
Anyway, for all the above reasons, most developed countries developed national healthcare systems in the 20th century. Health care got really good in the 20th century, but it also got really expensive, so most nations reacted accordingly. (Most systems preserve the patient's role in directing their own treatment and selecting their own doctor, however.) Most health care providers resisted these changes but the public was for it, so they adapted.
Not the USA though! The USA has, due to a peculiar religion of anti-socialism, been unable to adopt these policies.
The USA is also exceptionally weird for two more reasons:
The USA has a tradition of employer-provided health insurance. So (a) that doesn't even cover everybody (b) people with pre-existing conditions are a burden to their employer, and before Obamacare that meant they just couldn't get a job. Want to get your insurance privately instead? You can try, but in the USA, individuals buying health insurance typically get screwed over when they try to collect; they don't have enough negotiating power.
And even if you're lucky enough to have insurance, that causes a new problem. Most insurance systems are set up so that they pay for whatever your health care provider recommends for your treatment. The patient's incentive to reduce costs goes away (indeed, they often have no idea what the costs even are). Now it's your health care provider trying to drive the costs up to infinity and your insurer trying to drive them to zero. A national healthcare system can (...sometimes) control those costs. But the USA is relying on pure capitalism, and furthermore has the most technological innovation. So it has a complex patchwork of billing systems, each trying to pass the costs off to someone else. Many doctors employ a professional just to figure out their billing. So the USA has, for instance, a lot of extra-expensive MRI machines, and uses them more often than most other countries, regardless of patient need. And then it employs an army of professionals to shunt costs to whoever can pay the most.
Obamacare is changing the game a bit, but the rest of the world still looks at the USA and shakes their head. | 9668b161-ac2d-4d53-b822-be12b19b118c |
kxv1h | How understanding some basic psychology and realizing the subconscious reasons behind your thoughts influences what you think | Probably depends on the person.
For some people, recognizing that you are embedded within physics and biology, that you have the psychological drives that you do because your ancestors were selected by evolution accordingly, can apparently be a real hit to the self-esteem. All your perceptions and thoughts are governed not by objective reality per se, but by survivability and reproductive success.
On the other hand — it's also the case that no matter what "weird" facts science comes up with (including psychology, human evolution, etc.), "it all adds up to normality" as Greg Egan puts it. The fact that you have a scientific, evolutionary explanation for why you love your partner, and what biochemical processes in your brain encode the fact of loving your partner, does not change the fact that you *do* love your partner, that you want to go on loving your partner, etc. | 6e764885-7126-4792-941e-919148c8decc |
3o6lrx | Why doesn't our body circulate blood throughout our bodies when we get cold in the same way as when we are doing physical activity of some sort? Wouldn't it help keep our fingers and toes safe from frostbite and things like that? | The body reacts to keep the most blood and body heat in your core and vital organs. If you lose a finger to frostbite you still live. If a vital organ shuts down you don't. | 266f278b-b32b-4a8b-b1ff-0b45f0f8cd7b |
1x519o | How did we receive images captured by The Voyager I? | Radio waves. It sends it by a transmitter and then very big receivers pick it up. | a4682f66-70f5-47d9-ba33-c257e0765e8d |
4fbfkw | In regards to weight loss, why is it better to mix resistance training with cardio instead of only doing cardio? | In regards to weightloss gym is grams, what you eat is kilos.
If you want to loose weight, eat properly.
I do gym 6 times a week, and my proper weight loss didn't start until i get a proper healthy diet.
Chicken
Fish
Eggs
Meat
Vegestables.
Water
No or little salt.
Clean spices.
No oils or sauces.
I went down 37kgs so far after i stopped fooling myself into just doing weightlifting 1 hour 5 days a week, and started taking what i put in more serious.
Not so fond of the word diet anyways, but i couldnt think of the right english word.
Its not like a "eat until you loose enough weight then go back to McDonalds" diet, but "what you should eat for rest of life" diet.
And have some cheat meals once every few weeks to kickstart your metabolism again. Because it will adjust to what you put in.
And in regards to lifting weights will increase weightloss, yes to a certain degree.
You will burn more calories because you will gain more muscles.
Muscles needs "fuel" to run, the more you have, the more fuel is needed.
But also remember that muscles weigh more then fat, so the weight loss itself will not be that massive unless you are 90% bodyfat and are more or less without any musclemass. | 497479dd-4f86-4f24-873a-434214399581 |
5ukzgx | Considering that the translation of a certain language does not exist yet, where and how do the translators get their knowledge without anything to base from? | There are a few ways.
There are rosetta stones, something written down that contains the same text in more than one language. Using the clues and indicators here they can deconstruct the way the language works and begin to translate.
If there is a person that speaks the language. For example if I met a French person, despite not speaking french, if they point at a cow and say 'Vache' I could infer that they mean cow. If they point at one cow and say 'un vache' I can infer that's one cow vs 'deux vaches'
Then there are people that are raised with multiple languages or learned them later, they are obviously an ideal source of information.
Languages tend not to stand alone, they can be grouped into 'families' like local accents they develop over time, so if you can grasp the root of them you can sometimes decipher bits and pieces and work from there.
A single one of each of these isn't probably going to get you an entire understanding but multiples of them together should. | f9a06408-f18f-4153-9eee-6869bcde8740 |
8nbekm | What would happen if an adult injected themselves with fetal blood? | What is this question even?
If the blood type were compatible, nothing would happen unless the adult needed a blood transfusion. In that case it would help.
If the blood type is incompatible, it will reject, and *bad things* happen.
Please don't harvest or try to harvest fetal or infant blood. They need it more than you do. | fa9a06a8-6f0e-440f-a819-637dbb0b9732 |
1liyjd | What is the point of the hymen? | In females, much of the reproductive system is formed from structures called the Mullerian ducts. Males have these ducts during development, but they eventually atrophy (waste away). As a result, males don't have a great example of an equivalent structure. In females, the Mullerian ducts are used to form the uterine tubes, uterus, cervix, and part of the vagina (i.e. lots of important reproductive parts). The hymen is essentially just a leftover feature from the development of the Mullerian ducts. In other words, it's just a common byproduct of the other stuff in the area being formed. To the best of my knowledge, it doesn't serve much of a purpose. | 37c1442d-4f9b-4e4f-adad-b9a80c05607a |
6400n3 | How blood is tested to identify the owner, given there are 7 billion potentials. | You don't really use it to identify the owner, unless you already have their DNA on file. You would generally use it to compare one set of blood to another (ie, blood left at a crime scene compared to your suspects to find out whos blood it is) | 1e59b8bf-2024-4ef2-88da-4596e84e4b5d |
7il345 | Can you domesticate bats? And if not, why? | Given enough time, you could probably domesticate most animals. However, it might require centuries, or even longer.
There are many features that can make a species suitable for domestication, but the most important one is being *useful*. Domestication takes a tremendous amount of effort, typically not the sort of effort you want to spend just to wind up with an exotic pet.
The only species to be domesticated in modern times is the Russian red fox. The program started in the 1950's as a science experiment, used a particularly well-suited species, and today there are a few hundred animals running around with little value besides high maintenance pets.
Bats are not nearly as well suited as foxes, and probably have less potential to be useful. | e310d12b-36e4-4ac3-9827-0d106e9f5d35 |
8f5g4y | Is there a good reason why we need to wear socks with shoes? | Reduce friction. Absorb sweat. Keep insides of shoes cleaner, fresher. Adjust fit of loose shoes.
I've searched tha seven seas fer an answer. Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained:
1. [ELI5: why do we wear socks with closed shoes? ](_URL_2_) ^(_5 comments_)
1. [ELI5: Why does putting socks, which cover around 5% of my body, make me feel significantly warmer? ](_URL_1_) ^(_ > 100 comments_)
1. [Why do we wear socks? ](_URL_0_) ^(_8 comments_) | 3f36de93-3f5f-44c3-b4c0-bb6898261018 |
919wrz | why is a ceiling fan virtually silent, but not box fans/stand up fans? | It's speed. Box fans are smaller so you want them to go faster.
When I turn my ceiling fan on top speed, I hear it. | 104fca59-1913-4828-b6b7-a3a6d8726cce |
2awuop | Why is it that some primetime shows have 20 episodes per season, whereas others only have 10 episodes, or two 8-episode "half seasons"? | Because different shows have different scheduling needs and different paces at which they want to put the story out there.
It's usually the network's decision. | 5cd9d109-57a0-46ed-8d5b-6fbcd4bb49a4 |
39g6nl | How does weather forecasting work, and how do meteorologists predict the weather days and weeks in advance with such a high degree of accuracy? | It's called "modeling".
Using a network of [weather stations](_URL_0_)(click any region on the map, the black dots and town names are where weather stations are) around the world, meteorologists can analyze wind speed, direction, temperature, barometric pressure, humidity (at a minimum, other things like rainfall, lightning strikes, and cloud cover may also be recorded) to form an accurate picture of the current state of the weather, and how it's changing over time.
From there, it's just a matter of using a computer model to look at the current state, the past state, and predict how it will be advancing in the future.
When they're breaking it down by the hour, they're looking at the model and reporting what is expected to happen. If a rain storm is moving at 10mph west, modeled to continue that path, and you're 50 miles away to the west, it's safe to assume that you'll be seeing rain in about 5 hours.
There are multiple "models" that compete. Some predict certain weather types with higher accuracy, some work in certain regions with higher accuracy, which is why you'll sometimes see reports showing the predictions of different models (especially for big events like blizzards and hurricanes).
TL;DR: Computer programs called models, using data collected from weather stations placed around the world, refined with years and years of data to be as accurate as possible. | 968a03f3-500f-4170-b009-6473fac7b383 |
4ne5cy | Why are there species-specific names for groups of animals? Murder, pack, gaggle, court, etc. | Because Victorian biologists decided there should be. And there's an awful lot of stuff we do that originated in the Victorian era.
Edit: And no, more recently discovered species don't have group names like that. | 56572577-eeb2-4ccb-a708-2f1db36e156d |
4qcu55 | How have we been able to artificially make some fruit seedless while others not (grapes vs. cherries, for instance)? | A farmer grows 10 apples trees. When the Apple stork arrives and drops off the baby apples, the farmer finds that one tree is growing apples without seeds. The farmer shoots the stork, and using its dead lifeless beak, grafts the right parts of the tree for use in planting more apple trees. These end up having less seeds/no seeds as well. The apple storks go out of business and turn to stripping and crack.
TL;DR you need a naturally occurring version without seeds first | 4126d765-0e7b-4743-9ce2-f5a01816e598 |
4n9m45 | If listening to music at high volumes is bad for your ears, why are headphone / PC amplifiers such a big deal? | Headphone amplifiers are not merely just for increasing the volume. There are different specification for each headphones namely impedance (ohms) this value means it is harder to drive (or just harder to power).
If you put a 600 ohm headphone on a soundcard/headphone amplifier that could only power a 300 ohm headphone, the volume that will come out of the headphone can be adequate but the volume knob will be up almost tonits maximum. Thus somewhat distorting the sound to increase volume.
The sweet spot for volume to get the full quality of recording is at 50%. | e94071dc-907c-4048-b7c7-abd2dc15485d |
62chlr | How can migratory birds cover such great distances, over such short periods of time? My friend said there are birds that can fly for 8 days straight. How do they do that with no sleep? | Birds and other animals for that matter don't sleep exactly the same as humans do. Birds for example sleep sitting all the time. A human sitting on a branch would fall down the second he started sleeping. Most animals sleep standing on all fours. Dolphins sleep while swimming. And migratory birds sleep while flying. Or sailing in most cases. Their brains do not shut down all the way so parts of it sleep while the rest is awake. | 095ac70f-1519-4f1a-be95-e82894f8c56d |
4b73ck | why haven't consoles offered the option for multi-monitor gaming? Hardware limitations? | Less hardware limitations, more interest limitations.
Like any device, consoles are going to be developed to meet the needs / wishes of most of the target market. And most of the people playing consoles do not care for multi-monitor gaming. Half of the advantage of a console is that you can easily plug it into your tv (a device nearly everybody has anyway) and there you go, you are ready to game. Multi-monitor gaming already takes a slightly more complicated set-up, more TVs and so on, and most people just aren't interested in it.
And, as with any device you are making, you are going to aim for the least amount of costs when producing, and putting in extra hardware/software that most of your target market won't use will only make your device more expensive without really leading to more sales. | de3aeb68-e4b8-4ef1-8fa5-cc31ed39f71b |
6b0933 | Why do only mediocre bands participate in Eurovision? | Because it's not relevant. It's not a measure of quality. It's not a prize that's respected in the music industry. It's just television entertainment. | 8dea2fb8-f5f7-454e-a5ac-8a8fc2f19782 |
3yekzk | Why do cats love small cramped spaces like boxes or under the bed? | They love to watch others while being in a safe place themselves. Sitting in a box is the perfect place to watch people without fearing an ambush yourself.
People often mention "cat chess", i.e. several cats that keep repositioning themselves so they can watch the others while being as hidden as possible themselves. | d1354d2c-f6b6-4373-b871-803ade2fc41f |
3wkrl2 | How did people translate languages accurately when they didn't understand a word the other person was saying? | If you have a living person who speaks the other language, you can work together to figure out each other's language, especially if you know anything about linguistics. It might take some time, but you can work it out with another person.
If there's no living speaker then you need some kind of reference that let's you place words in context. You've probably heard of the Rosetta Stone. Before we discovered the Rosetta Stone we didn't know much about Demotic script or Egyptian Hieroglyphics. The Rosetta Stone is a tablet with the same document written in Greek, Demotic script, and Egyptian Hieroglyphics. We did know Greek, so we were able to figure out the other 2 thanks to that reference. That was a HUUUUUUGE development for linguistics and opened up a ton of understanding. So you don't always have a reference like the RS, but the point is you need some kind of reference. Often just archaeological artifacts.
edit: Demotic script, not Sanskrit. Also simplified some of the importance of the RS. | b5d259d8-1a65-4655-8666-70f7f762aab6 |
3mulei | why do our stomachs growl? | The "growling" (borborgymi) is due to your stomach muscles contracting in order to mix, crush, and propel digested food. Usually you won't be able to hear the sound because it is masked by the food being digested. However, a few hours after you eat, your digestive tract will contract in order to push any remaining food or bacteria down the digestive tract and say "Hey, I'm ready for more food" (hunger) . This will repeat every few hours until you eat again. | 48b57003-a905-4d45-b7ea-b2d29770bbad |
4mcga6 | Race, Breed, Subspecies: what are the differences? | Races only have small physical differences that aren't really reflected in the genetic makeup. It's very possible for there to be more genetic variation between two Germans than between a German and a Kenyan, but the two Germans are still of the same race just because of their skin color.
Subspecies have more significant differences that are actually reflected in the genetic makeup, but they're still close enough that they can breed with the larger species as a whole, though typically their offspring aren't as fertile or viable as when they breed within their subspecies. The line between subspecies and species is pretty blurry as there are animals that we consider separate species than can also breed like lions and tigers.
Breeds refer to differences that were selected artificially like dog, cats and horse breeds. | f21bf10a-8f6e-4a9a-9db5-91dfcd4b7078 |
74nyj5 | When you're about to fall or spill something what is that feeling in your belly? | It does have to do with adrenaline!
When you become anxious or afraid, your body's stress hormones (including adrenaline) move blood from one place to another. Your digestive system needs blood to make it work. But if you're in danger, you don't need your digestive system to work as hard any more. The blood is sent to your brain, your nerves, and your muscles so that you can act faster.
The warmth you feel comes from this movement of blood.
When you're done dealing with the stressful situation, the blood goes back to where it belongs. Sometimes, people who stay stressed will lose weight because their body forgets to digest food and keeps blood flowing to other places for too long. | e6f80084-eaf4-4fec-bb5b-f9aa0c7fe69b |
32avr3 | How do they come up with the names for medicine? | a lot of the time they are shortened versions of their very long and complex chemical names.
for ex, Ibuprofen from **isobutylphenylpropanoic acid** (i bu phen pro) | 85ceb9a4-0a01-4320-b61b-4ef03e6b89d5 |
682svv | Isn't threatening to revealembarrasing videos of people for money extortion? How are people not prosecuted for it? | It is indeed extortion and illegal. Many people end up going to jail for it. For example, [Autumn Jackson](_URL_0_) was sent to prison for trying to extort Bill Cosby. | d776beec-783e-4cbe-bfa9-89cdb39676c8 |
3gi30d | Why do flies come back to me after I try to swat them and miss? Doesn't it register into their fight or flight response? | They can't really comprehend that you're actively targeting them. The most they deal with outside of humans are animal tails swinging in their general direction.
Flies don't understand hatred, they are beautiful, shit-eating beings like that. | 85a0dee3-0177-4f20-b68d-3c0bcfdef7cc |
1olv74 | How did weed strains become increasingly more potent since the 70s? | Ever notice how friggin' gigantic some strawberries are? It's because of selective breeding. Take the biggest strawberry from a bunch of strawberries, pollinate it with the second-largest, and then plant its seeds, and hopefully the gene that caused it to be massive will be hereditary and be passed on to at least one of its offspring. Now take the biggest strawberry from that group, plant its seeds, and repeat until you have those fist-sized strawberries you can get from some grocery stores.
Weed is the same idea, just apply it to the THCA content in mj leaves. Plant, identify, replant, identify, replant, identify, and so on. | 61b73271-d8d9-4926-9540-df11014017a6 |
3n81xh | Why does 'republican' mean something completely different in Europe compared to what it means in the US? | Because it is the name of the other major party of the US, so the political ideology and goals of that party greatly define what republican means in the US. In Europe on the other hand there are still a lot of monarchies (UK, Sweden, Netherlands, Denmark, Spain) so republican is more understood as the opposite of monarchist. | 357e9cdd-2d44-4531-b716-b36d701ad6bb |
5dav3u | How can things like plastic be clear(transparent)? | Funny you mention stretching because this actually a way you can make a polymer (a very long molecule with easily 1000000 or more atoms), which forms a plastic, not transparent.
Basically what happens is this: in an unclear plastic the light gets refracted inside the plastic. You can actually still see light come out at the other end, so light still passes through, it just comes out in all kinds of directions giving the property of it being unclear. The reason this is the case because of the alignment of the polymer molecules. When they are neatly crystallized they sort of form an internal mirror system which causes the light to scatter everywhere.
Now in a polymer where the molecules are aligned kind of randomly, for example in plastic bottles or bags, this internal mirror system doesn't happen. So light does not (or not as much) get refracted and scattered, but just passes through. This causes the plastic to be clear.
When you actually stretch some polymers (try this with a clear plastic bag, or if you can get it some parafilm) you can actually see the plastic change from clear to unclear. This happens (amongst other reasons) because when you stretch the plastic you are actually aligning the molecules of the polymer. This causes the internal mirror system I talked about earlier.
Hope this helps, I took a lot of shortcuts and didn't explain everything 100% correctly but this is the gist of it. | 2f17739f-5cc8-4326-9e5b-f6c2efd154f0 |
5hf2q5 | When I was a kid, why was channel 3 the chosen AUX/input for most game systems or VHS players? | Most devices that used RF adapters (what you used to plug your NES into your TV's antenna/cable jack) actually had switches on them to select between channel 3 or 4. See: _URL_0_
Most media markets did not have something broadcasting on *both* channel 3 and channel 4 because the frequencies that carried those particular channels were more likely to interfere with each other over the air (In my area, we had broadcast affiliates on channels 2, 4, and 5, but nothing on channel 3). Channel 1 was off-limits to US broadcasters, but it wasn't an option for AUX devices either because all but the earliest TVs couldn't even tune to it (it basically didn't exist).
So, choosing Ch3 (or Ch4) for RF adapters was mainly a convenience, although, as you say, even if your area did have something on both 3 and 4, it would not limit your ability to use an AUX device on those channels when you wanted to. | 0d1d6f53-4394-4d9f-a635-5ba0d754d4bf |
2ky5hp | How do single-file games work? | It finds things inside it. .dat is a database file type, it's pretty much just a glorified folder. | 0f9b3cfc-3720-4bd6-a37d-178ec5e857d2 |
6v6hog | Why are chairs slightly incurved instead of the other way around ? | Some busses and trains in sweden actually have chairs that make you sit with a straight back, but i think It's cause people find those types of chairs more comfortable | f2e23949-81b2-4dec-be64-077808ec74f5 |
4wn03c | Who become in charge if something happens to PM? | People here are saying things about Parliament voting on the Prime Minister, which may be the case in other countries, but in the UK, it's a matter of demonstrating the "confidence" of the Commons – basically having enough votes to win any vote on your premiership, but without actually doing so in most cases, since any inter-election change of Prime Minister is likely to be in a Commons with the same composition, so the question of maintaining confidence is a fait accompli.
The person who actually goes to the Queen and gets asked to form a government is decided by the party in power. For the Conservatives, there's an internal ballot of the MPs in the Commons to whittle down the candidates to two, who then get put to a party-wide popular vote. In the case of Labour, there's an immediate (comparatively) party-wide popular vote. Where there's a vacancy in government of the Prime Minister and not just an impending resignation (in which case the old PM would stay on until a successor emerged), a Labour cabinet would appoint an interim Leader/PM until the election could take place and I presume a Tory cabinet would do the same, but I couldn't find anything in its constitution about a vacancy in government.
There's an interesting constitutional point raised here. In Britain, there's no such thing as a line of automatic succession to the premiership and there can't be. A central constitutional rule is that the Queen has the unrestricted right to appoint the Prime Minister. In practice, she has no choice at all, but the rule still exists, and an automatic succession would contradict that. Indeed, there was no Deputy Prime Minister until World War II, when Clement Attlee was appointed to keep the country ticking over while Winston Churchill focused on the war, and even now it's an entirely informal appointment, with DPM not being a cabinet post and requiring another, concurrent appointment for a ministerial salary and a seat at cabinet. One of the reasons for this is that before it was absolutely necessary for it to exist, the existence of a DPM could have been seen as infringing on the Queen's right to choose the PM, so it wasn't done. So there you go; this has been a long post, I know, but hopefully interesting. | 82ff294b-bcfe-4a87-84ae-720ef2282efa |
3xulby | Why is that when someone spots me benching even if they just touch the bar with their finger tips, it all of a sudden feels like they are helping me lift a bunch of the weight even though in reality they are maybe supporting a pound? | If you are able to hold the bar stationary, that means at that moment you're using exactly enough force to hold (but not lift) that amount of weight. Any more upward force on the bar at all and it will go up. It seems like a big difference because it's going from "not moving" to "moving". | ef99b756-ada0-4ae8-8937-66e561745f2b |
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