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Why don't we pronounce the name of a country like the natives do? | We don't speak the same language they do! The English name is often simply different from the native name. The idea that things should be rendered precisely as in the language of origin is very modern. When people were more internationally oriented and less particular about the country they were from, it used to be the norm for names to be anglicized, especially if they have a direct English equivalent. For example, "Pyotr" is a Russian given name, but we always speak of "Peter the Great" in English, because "Pyotr" is just the Russian rendition of "Peter". It's the same name. "Germany" is an English term derived from the Latin regional name "Germania;" "Deutschland" is a term that originated in the German language. However, until a few centuries ago, "Dutch" was a term commonly used for Germans (derived from "Deutsch"), until it came to be exclusively associated with people from the Netherlands, who asserted a separate identity from the Germans. |
Why are we so worried about a plane that has gone missing? Couldn't it be assumed that it's in the ocean as no one on that flight has spoken out? | It's a fairly new plane and they have no idea why it went down. If it was a design flaw it could happen again. If they don't know what the design flaw is, how can we be sure that in the next planes we start building the same flaw isn't there? Or if it was the pilot's fault for whatever reason, knowing why and investigating how it happened can prevent it from happening again. Until they find the plane, every guess has just as much credibility as the next and nothing will change. |
The recent changes to US healthcare and the changes happening in the near future | **What happens under the Affordable Care Act:** *if you already get health insurance through your job*: Your children can stay on your health plan until they turn 26. Other than that, nothing else changes. *if you don't get insurance through your job*: You are required to have health insurance one way or another. No ifs, ands, or buts. If you're close to the poverty line, you can get on Medicaid. Otherwise, the government will give you money to buy health insurance. The government is in the process of setting up a public health insurance markets for people to choose insurers, as well as regulations that prevent insurance companies from gouging you. Insurance companies will be required to offer one-price insurance (i.e., all people aged 50 have to be offered the same price) and cannot impose lifetime coverage limits or consider pre-existing conditions. *if you're a senior citizen and already on Medicare*: Nothing changes. *if you're already on Medicaid*: Nothing changes. |
Why does rain make the internet slow? | Depends on type of connection the wifi uses, if it is through cable to wifi then the signal will be okay, if the wifi is connected through antenna the connection will get worse because the rain is blocking the signal from travelling from the signal emmiter which causes data loss along the way, so the data needs to be sent again. |
Why are "normal" bodily functions we all do such taboo topics or exceedingly gross when it's someone else's? | It happened through evolution. A lot of germs or viruses can be transmitted through poop or blood or snot and many other things. If they are your own, you do not run much risk since you already have those germs/viruses within you. But from someone else's: that's like playing the lottery. I say it happened through evolution because people who were grossed out by someone else's bodily fluids had less chances of being infected in the rare case these communicated diseases. With time the people who were grossed out had more chances of survival than those who didn't and this became a somewhat common human trait. Now there's the special case of a SO. There again natural selection made you consider your SO's bodily fluids almost as safe as your own, otherwise we would never dare to reproduce. Sexual attraction will trump being grossed out. |
The DNA being patented case in the USA. | Basically they discover what a certain part of a gene does, and so they "patent" that part of the gene so anyone who wants to work on a cure or research has to pay that company royalties. |
The controversy with Gabby Douglas' hair. | It's not pulled back tight enough, it looks like it was haphazardly thrown together. It's not really a controversy so much as people just paying too much attention to a women's looks yet again. :\ It's something people with more experience with black hair (read: black people, esp. black women and mothers) and are thus those that are calling it out more readily. |
why does the show "Power Rangers" still have monsters that look like rubber costumes? | Young children are not especially critical of shitty special effects. |
Why are certain types of plastic non-recyclable? | In addition to economics, there are two main types of polymers. [Thermosets](_URL_1_) are irreversibly cured: once they are formed they can't be re-formed. While these can't be recycled into new plastics, they may be re-purposed for other uses once their primary useful lifespan ends. What makes these materials unable to be re-used is that the polymer chains have a high degree of cross-linking. That is, instead of a jumble of individual chains (like a bowl of spaghetti) the chains are bonded to each other to varying degrees (like net or fence). [Thermoplastics](_URL_0_), on the other hand, generally lack this cross-linking which makes them easier to re-work and form into new plastics. |
why is water able to evaporated below the boiling point? I was always taught 212F (100C) was when water could turn into a gas. | From your answers, it seems like you're looking for [vapor pressure](_URL_2_). When a liquid and gas phase exist together they will form an equilibrium where part of the liquid evaporates until it makes up a certain amount of partial pressure. [For water](_URL_2_) you see at 30°C its vapor pressure is 0.0419 atm. This means around 4% of the total air pressure is created by evaporated water. When the vapor pressure reaches 1 atm, bubbles of 100% water can be formed inside te liquid and the water starts boiling. **ELI5 recap:** there is always some evaporation at the surface, but only the boiling temperature new surfaces (bubbles) can be formed inside the liquid. Also, note that humidity percentages are expressed in terms of vapor pressure. At 40% humidity, that doesn't mean 40% of the air is water, but that means that the partial pressure of water is 40% of its maximal vapor pressure. |
Why do we get headaches? | There are many things that factor into headaches, and there are different types of them. Dehydration can be a contributing factor. The most common type of headache is a "tension" headache. These are muscular in nature,( yes we have muscles in our faces/scalp) several muscles also attach to the back of our head (neck and back muscles) these are responsible for actions such as turning our head side to side, flexion and extension of the neck, raising our shoulders, etc. When these muscles become very tense, they can result in tension headache. Often stress is involved. Source; I have been a licensed massage therapist since 2009, and have relieved many headaches by working on the muscles of the neck. |
How does patient zero get a sexually transmitted disease? | Check out the Radiolab podcast "Patient Zero". It is a history of HIV and is one of my favorite podcasts by them. _URL_1_ |
Considering they are related to Wolves. When a Dog is playing fetch, what does it think it is doing? | It simulates hunting prey. That's why dogs like squeaky toys, they sound like injured animals. |
If I have to poo but hold it, when the sensation goes away (and it doesn't come back) what happens to my poo!? Does my body absorb some waste? | It's sits in your intestine, being compressed by the new shit piling up. If you hold it too long you'll get constipated. |
Why do we instinctively seem to hit machines / devices that aren't functioning properly? Where did this come from? | It's called "Percussive maintenance" and it's related to the old mechanical and analogue systems that used to drive machines where if they got stuck sometimes a sharp jolt to the machine could cause the stuck pieces to jump into their proper places. |
why is there not an app or website for voting? | It's a horrible idea. A virus, a hack or a DDOS attack could destroy the integrity of the whole system. Many people are against even using electronic voting machines because they leave no paper trail, doing it online is a no go. ...and it would be nearly impossible to keep it anonymous which is a *critical* part of the system. |
Why are campaign funds correlated with winning an election? Why don't people just vote for who is the best person for the country? | Because marketing is everything. If you don't know somebody exists, how do you vote for them? |
Why do those "pan-tilt" photos make things look like models? | I'll try and actually explain this as easily as possible. The quickest reason for this miniature illusion is depth-of-field, which is the blurry background or foreground effect you see in photography when an object is in sharp focus. Depth-of-field is usually not achieved in photographs that are taken in landscape or super wide because there is not an object close to the lens for the camera to focus on, and there is no reason for the background to be very blurry. When we take a landscape shot, like the second image you provided, and make the statue in sharp focus, and blur the background and foreground, the illusion of it being miniature is created because that effect is achieved normally on objects where the camera is very close to the object in focus. This, combined with increasing the saturation of the image, makes it seem like these landscapes are miniature toy models. |
Why is chloroform not used as a sleeping medication? | Because chloroformed sleep is a sedated, unnatural state of unconsciousness. The compound depresses the central nervous system and too much can easily kill a person. |
who decided that vulgar language was vulgar? | This is a bit like asking who decided what is polite and what is kind and what is mean - they are bound to culture, context and they ebb and flow with social norms. While we can talk about how and why words get put on lists that the MPAA uses in ratings, or that are OK or not OK on broadcast televition, it's nearly impossible to pinpoint the evolution of the meaning of a word, or the change in its interpretation within a culture. |
Why are modern day toys and electronics so flimsy compared to, say 15 years ago? | Consumers would rather pay less and buy devices more often. If there was more profit to be found by charging more and being durable, that's what you would see. The obsolescence curve for many technologies is also getting faster, so manufacturers can more safely assume their product will have a shorter life anyway. |
Imagine we wanted to nuke Russia at midnight tonight. What military movements would need to be made, how many people would have to sign off on it, etc? | The exact processes are kept pretty secret, but you'd be surprised how simple the process would be. The President can order the strike. The Secretary of Defense confirms the identity of the President and passes the order down the chain to the leg of the triad that will be conducting the attack. We have three methods of nuclear strike capabilities, referred to as the nuclear triad. That would be ICBM's, Nuclear attack submarines, and nuclear bombers. Both the missiles and the subs have a range of about 8,000 miles, and will impact minutes after launch. They are always ready to launch, and we always have both options aimed and within striking distance of Russia. If the order was given at 12:00 am, it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that we could strike Russia by 12:30 am, with multiple warheads if necessary. |
Why does time move at the speed it does? | How would you know the difference if it ran at any other speed? It would still be "normal" to you. |
Why are objects in the mirror closer than they appear? | Because the mirror is convex, it collects light from a larger field of view than a flat mirror would. This is good at letting you see more road, at the expense of depth perception. |
What is the difference between Computer Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering and Electrical Engineering? | Computer engineering- Computer hardware Computer Science- Computer programming Electrical engineering- Everything having to do with electrical current (a little overlap with computer engineering) |
Why are most television shows made to censor curse words and other possible offensive vocabulary, but are allowed to show the visual representation of things along the same lines as the omitted/edited speech? | because children who don't always necessarily understand whats going on under the covers it could go over their heads and they wont realize it was a rude scene but if its swearing or talking about sexual subjects it the kids will definitely realize what the shows trying to convey. |
Why is it assumed to be liquid water on Mars as opposed to some other liquid. | It's not assumed, it's known. They used a spectrometer to analyse the chemical composition of the liquid in the channels. |
Who are the Oath Keepers and what do they do? | The Oathkeepers are a group that is supposed to consist of people who take an oath to defend the Constitution as part of their work---so soldiers, some other government workers, police, and the like. The organization asks its members to swear that they will never follow an unconstitutional order, meant as insurance against potentially tyrannical government action. They are considered to be a fairly conservative organization. Many accuse them of tending toward conspiracy theories and reactionary views. |
Why does pee foam when it hits the ground outside. | Foamy urine can be caused by rapid urination. At times, when you delay going to the washroom, large amounts of urine gets collected in the bladder. Also, proteinuria or presence of significant amounts of protein in the urine, is one of the most common cause of foamy urine. |
How do 501c4 non-profits work and how do they threaten democracy? | They don't in and of themselves. A 501c4 is a tax exempt organization that is allowed to use their money to influence public opinion which includes influencing elections. So people can donate money to the 501c4 and that organization can then spend money to influence the election via TV ads, etc. Some people feel that too much money is being put into these organizations by wealthy people and companies which means that certain people/viewpoints can afford to have more influence. |
base 10 numbering system | Base 10 is what we mostly use. We count individual things until there are ten of them, then we start counting how many sets of ten. Number 11 means (1) Set of ten with (1) individuals. Number 42 means (4) sets of ten with (2) individuals. Number 236 means (2) sets of hundred, (3) sets of ten, and (6) individuals. Base 4 is when we count individuals until there are four of them. If you have eleven things, you count the first four, then the second four, and you have 3 individuals left. So you write "23" to indicate (2) sets of four and (3) individuals. In base 4, with twenty-one things, you would write "111" to indicate (1) set of sixteen (four fours) (1) set of four and (1) individual. In the same way that you read a whole word, rather than individual letters, our brain wants to read an amount rather than the numerals used to indicate the amount. |
Why was a country as small as Germany so effective in WW2? | It was a combination of good strategy, good industrialization, and that they embraced new technology early on, so they could build up a strong force of tanks and combat aircraft even before they went to war. |
Why do the desktop computers (Dell Optiplex 9010) that I get on at my university run so fast and smooth while the 6-month-old netbook laptop I use runs so slowly? | A base model (which is what I assume your school has) Optiplex 9010 has much better specs than your average netbook. It's actually a very good computer for school/office work, I'm surprised your school has computers that nice. The processor that it has (i3-3220) was only released about six months ago and is very much "high-end" for non-computationally intensive applications. So, like other people said, school computers have less bloatware, but you should also keep in mind that the school computers are just as old as your netbook, and a $700 desktop computer that was released at the same time as your netbook will *always* outperform the netbook. edit: by the way, my school computers have pentium 4's, and I have to sit around for about ten minutes every time I need to do an intensive simulation, whereas your school computers would take about a minute to do the same thing, so you should feel pretty lucky |
How do they determine which song hits number 1? | It's the song with the most revenue in that week. They look at sales online, downloads and in stores. |
How are portable powerbanks able to stuff 30,000mAh worth of energy into such a small body as compared to a 28A portable car battery? | You can't compare Lithium-polymere accumulators and the Lead-ones currently used in cars. In your car you need a battery that has no problems with pumping out high currents (your starter can require up to 100A for a start.) but you seldom need a long lasting battery since most of the time your engine should be running while in the car. (At least thats what cars were built for). The LiPo in your powerbank will give you 1-2 A max current but has a higher charge capacity in relation to size. Also your Lipo Powerbank supplies only 5 V Voltage and your car 12V. So at 12V 28Ah your car battery supplies 12V*28Ah=336Wh power, your Powerbank 5V*30Ah=150Wh. The car battery actually is supplying double the power of the powerbank. |
how can the Hollywood studios acquire so many cars from the 20s - 70s period? | Car clubs. They baby their cars and would like nothing more than to have them on a movie set. |
Why do pain killers like tylenol or paracetamol make flu shots less effective? | Paracetamol works by stopping your body from making chemicals that naturally increase blood flow by dilating blood vessels. When you get a big bruise that's swollen, these drugs reduce the blood flow in that area, which helps reduce swelling. If you've gotten a flu shot after taking a bunch of drugs like this, there's less blood flow at the site of the injection. The contents of the shot can't as easily get into your blood stream. We do the same thing if you need to get an injection of a numbing drug -- except we use another blood vessel constrictor, epinephrine, which stops the numbing drug from spreading farther than we want. |
What is the purpose of a five-star military rank? | Those ranks exist so that during wartime a single supreme commander can be appointed in a given operational area. This simplifies the chain of command by making it totally clear who is the senior officer. Remember that in a large operational setting (like a theater of war) there may be a large number of very senior flag (general/admiral) officers, potentially from multiple countries. Advancing one to a rank outside the normal system of progression makes him officially the most senior officer in the room, whether or not he has the highest peacetime rank or longest time in grade. These positions aren't used in peacetime because they are unnecessary. In peacetime it is relatively rare for there to be serious confusion about chain of command, and if there is it can be worked out through the bureaucracy. |
What Is Visual Snow, Why Does It Exist & Does Every Human Have It? | It’s considered as a disease, or at least as a symptom of a disease (Lyme disease, for example), so no, everyone does not have it. It happens when a part of you cerebral cortex goes into overdrive, causing your ocular nerves to misinterpret information. As for what it is, you can picture it as the visual noise on a broken TV. |
Why insulin is so important. | Insulin is a hormone which regulates sugar (glucose) levels in the bloodstream. With another hormone called glucagon, it keeps sugar levels in the bloodstream at a nearly constant level by breaking down or building up glycogen stored in the liver or sometimes fat or protein stored elsewhere. Having glucose in the bloodstream is important because cells use it to generate energy. In a process called cellular respiration, they use the energy in the sugar to make a substance called ATP, which is used to preform many functions around the cell which require energy. Insulin also functions in diabetes, which is probably what you were looking for, but I don't know very much about that. |
How does phantom limb syndrome work? | Your nervous system has been sending singles to your brain about how your limbs feel since before your were born. Right now, reach down and touch your pinky toe without looking at it. You can do this because your pinky toe is constantly sending signals to your brain with "status updates". Now if your pinky toe was suddenly cut off, there is still a long network that takes signals form your pinky toe to your brain. These pathways have been in constant use your entire life. They are use to sending signals to your brain, and your brain is use to 99/99% of the time receiving the exact same signals. So even though your toe is not there, sometimes you brain forgets it is not there. As odd as that sounds, it happens. The normal feeling is that you have a toe there. The new feeling is no toe. Sometimes your brain forgets there is a new feeling. |
What happens to ants that a separated from their colony? | If the distance is close enough, they will be able to find their way by scattering to scout and tracking each other via the pheromones they lay on their path. However, 5km might be a little long for them; I think after first scrambling away for a little while, some of them will get lost in their own trail and go around in circles till they die of starvation/exhaustion. If there are ants not originally from the same colony but of the same species in the vicinity, they may however assimilate themselves with the new ants and join their colony. Really sad, lost stragglers will just well, instinctually do what life heeds them to do, they will live alone and forage alone henceforth - their future is bleak and dim, and they will eventually die to the elements, but alas what else can they do when a human wills their separation from their brothers? Cruel, *cruel* life. |
Why is every planet spherical? | Planets form spheres because of the gravity emitted by their own mass. In space, any mass in space that exceeds about 6x10^20kg, or about 1/10,000 the mass of Earth, will compress itself into a sphere because its gravity pulls all of the mass in. Ideally, this leads to a shape where all the mass is equally distant to the center, or, a sphere. |
Why is plastic surgery for hands so ineffectve? We see many ageing celebrities with young-looking faces, but their hands always give away their true age. There's surely a market for it, so what's holding it back? | You ever notice how people with a lot of work done on their faces can't be very expressive because their faces don't move as much? Now imagine the mobility in your hands is that limited. People are willing to sacrifice some ability to move their faces (which everyone will see and notice) more than dexterity in their hands. |
What is Cop Baiting? | It's when you do something in order to provoke a cop into doing something. The most common topical example would be to harass a cop with insults while filming them until they respond inappropriately. You then share the last half of the video where the cop acted inappropriately. |
How fast is the fastest computer? | The fastest computer in the world is the Sunway TaihuLight, which can do over 93,000,000,000,000,000 floating point calculations per second. This means that you'd need around 71,000 Xbox Ones working together to match it. > Like say I wanted to download a movie, what kind of wait time am I looking at? Downloading a movie is about the speed of the network connection, not the speed of the computer. The fastest computer in the world wouldn't download a movie any faster than a 10-year-old cellphone on an average internet connection. |
Why do most people enjoy potatoes but don't like other vegetables? | Though botanically classified as vegetables, potatoes are nutritionally classified as starchy foods that differ greatly in taste and texture from the traditional leafy green vegetables such as lettuce, spinach, and kayle. |
From where does Earth get energy to rotate around itself and revolve around the Sun? | Earth is falling towards the sun, for the same reason that you'd fall to the ground if you jumped - gravity! Why doesn't it hit the sun though? Well, orbits are just when you move sideways fast enough to miss the object you're falling towards. That's we use the term free fall... in space, you're always falling, you just keep missing what you fall towards. It got that from when it was formed. And since there's no air to slow it down, it just keeps going. Rotation is the same way. It started so long ago, but nothing had made it stop. Orbits do eventually decay, though! And spins slow down to where the day and year are the same length. The Moon is already there, that's why the same side always faces us. No worries, it takes so long to happen that you don't need to worry about it in your life. |
What is RAID (Computer Terms) and how would I use it? | You can have multiple hard disks act as a special type of single hard disk. There are different ways this can be utilized which have different benefits. One of the benefits is redundancy (e.g. if one or sometimes even more than one disk breaks there are others with the information still). The other is increased speed (e.g. you can have two disks which alternate each write operation or you can have them work independently which allows two tasks to be done at once). |
Why do some people choose not to be organ donors? | Some are too lazy to register or check the box. Some find it unacceptable due to their religion. Some don't like contemplating the thought of their mortality. Some don't like the thought of their body being separated and used for spare parts. |
Why is desertion a serious crime? | I would say that it is a *bit* obsolete, but originally, this is due to morale and discipline. When your army is charged, you don't want them to flee. When you are losing, you don't want them to run, or turn on you. If someone is allowed to just disagree, and leave, discipline breaks down in the ranks as everyone realizes they can do the same thing. War is hell. |
How do lips still sync up in slow motion music videos? | One way to do this is to film people moving at normal speed, but the music they're lip syncing to is sped up. That way when they slow the video down and play the song at normal speed, the song is playing normally, the lips still match as long as they sped it up the right amount in the original recording. |
How exactly does Morse Code work and how was it developed? | It was developed at a time where we could not transmit speech yet. A simple "current on or off" is easier to transmit. But how do you convert messages into "on/off" patterns? You invent a pattern for every letter. The sender sends them via pressing a key, and the receiver has a speaker making a sound when the key is pressed by the sender. Examples: * "e" is a single short signal. * "t" is a single long signal * "a" is a short signal, followed by a long signal * "s" is short-short-short * "o" is long-long-long Between each letter you have to leave some break to make clear that a letter is done (otherwise "a" looks like "et"). "SOS" is "short-short-short----long-long-long-----short-short-short", for example. The translation between letters and sequences is arbitrary. Samuel Morse used short sequences for frequent letters (like e and t) and longer sequences for less common letters (like Q: long-long-short-long), that makes transmissions faster. |
If energy cannot be created or destroyed, what happens to the energy and matter that gets sucked into black holes? | Black holes do not violate these conservation laws. Think of a penny that you drop into an ocean. For any practical purposes, that penny is gone, but that doesn't mean it just disappeared, it's still somewhere deep in that ocean. Black holes don't destroy energy, they just "trap" it, if that makes sense. |
Why does resetting a router sometimes increase connection? | A router is a small single purpose computer, with a CPU, and memory. It runs a simple operating system, called "firmware". This little computer only helps you talk to the internet. It gets information from the internet, and passes it to your PC, laptop, or Playstation. Then it takes information from your PC or Playstation, and passes it back out to the internet. Like any computer, it can get overloaded, or confused, and need a reset. When you unplug it and plug it back in, you are rebooting it, just like you have to reboot Windows sometimes. > (unplugging, waiting 2-3 minutes, replugging back in) increases my connection speed. Why? Rebooting it clears out its memory and lets it start fresh. Routers do not have all that much memory, and sometimes after a few days or weeks it gets full and needs to be cleared and reset. |
On a cold day after baking, will leaving the oven door open warm my house any more than leaving it closed? | At the end of the day, the same amount of energy would be released into your household. Opening or closing the door will just allow the release of heat to happen faster or slower. With the door closed, the only effective way for the oven to lose the heat is to just radiate it out. There is a small vent that will allow for some convection currents to carry heat out. If you open the door, you are allowing for more convection currents to dissipate the heat into the room, as well as the normal thermal radiation. So if you open the door, the room will heat up faster, but it won't last as long. If you close the door, the room will heat up slower, but it will heat it up over a longer period of time. |
Why were the passengers on 9/11 hijacked flights able to call their loved ones on cell phones in the air before the crashes, but my modern cell phone loses all service pretty much instantly after takeoff. | I believe the passengers were using those clunky old airplane phones in the seat backs. You'd just slide your credit card through and get a few minutes of not-especially-great service. |
Why do we make the sound "Ow!" when we get hurt as opposed to any other noise? | Because that's what we observed our surroundings do when we were babies. It's culture. Like how many cultures have different ways to articulate animal sounds. |
Why do we spend so much money on capital punishment rather than just shooting those on death row? | The expense doesn't really come from the method of execution. It's the overhead of all the appeals. |
How do we know we aren't in a simulation? What is the science behind the studies and how do we know that science isn't just programming? | This isn't a theory that is currently testable by science; it's more a philosophical issue than a scientific one. As humans, all our perceptions are filtered through our senses as nerves. Per the [Brain in a Vat](_URL_0_) scenario, we have no objective way of proving that our sensory input is 'real'. As such, science has no real way of attacking the "Universe is a Simulation" problem, as any tests we run would, by definition, have to obey the rules of the simulation (aka the laws of physics). If I were designing a simulation and didn't want the AIs I put in it to be able to know its a simulation, I simply wouldn't give them access to the source code. |
Why does the sounds made by kid's toys slow down when the batteries start getting low? | In simple terms, most circuits that make sound or play back digitally recorded sounds use a timing circuit (like an oscillator) to send out the sound waves at a constant rate. More expensive toys will use crystal-based oscillators and low-battery cutoff circuits to keep things from getting funky as the power level drops. Cheaper toys use a few cheap components (like an RC circuit) to perform the timing. These cheap circuits will keep running as battery level drops - even to the point where the clock slows down and the digital samples start playing back even slower. Some musicians actually do this to cheap keyboards and kids toys on purpose to make funky sounds. It's called [circuit bending](_URL_0_) and it's a lot of fun. |
Why do fans always have controls that go: off, 3, 2, 1 instead of off, 1, 2, 3? | because when you turn on a electric motor, you want it on it's max setting as having it on it's lowest setting may not be enough power to start the fan so then it will burnout. |
Why do mobile phone companies cap data on a monthly basis, but I have unlimited Internet access through my cable provider? | To prevent complete saturation of the cellular bandwidth, and to persuade you to pay them ridiculous quantities of money for more bandwidth allocation. |
What is a realistic way to get rid of the drug cartels in Mexico? | I am sure I won't be the first person to suggest this, but legalization seems like the only answer to me. Legalization would make drug prices plummet, and create of flood of legitimate businesses into the market. This cuts off their money, and thus their power. |
How are presidential polls considered to be representative of public opinion when I've never met someone who has actually sat through a phone interview for one? | Your typical professionally-conducted presidential poll talks to around 1000 people; in the presidential election season, there might be two dozen major polls conducted in a month for two years. That's roughly ~576,000 (=24 x 24 x 1000) people polled per presidential election, or about 1 person in 600. And by the way, I am one of those people. (I did a phone poll during the '12 election) |
Why are people so against wind farms? | Apart from the wildlife issues (which I think get over-stated a bit) and the fact that a lot of people don't like looking at them, the real problem is the pay-off time (when they've generated enough power to cover their cost) is often longer than the service life of the hardware and the energy cost to produce them is huge. |
Why do we feel the weird banging in our body when listening to loud live music | Sound is pressure waves moving through the air that vibrate your eardrums. Your ribcage doesn't have much that is solid behind it to stop it vibrating to large, low frquency pressure waves. |
Why a humidifier doesn't use as much energy as an electric kettle? | A kettle's job is to boil a whole lot of water very fast. A humidifer's job is basically boil a small amounts of water slowly. The amount of energy used to boil 1L of water in a kettle dry is the same as the amount used by a humidifer to use up 1L, however a kettle will use all that energy in like a minute, whereas the humidifier will take hours. So working it out as energy / hour (which is what we call "power") the kettle use much more. |
How do bare-knuckle boxers not/rarely break their own fists? | Bare knuckles boxers don't hit as hard as ones with gloves. It may seem counter-intuitive, but a fighter with gloves is actually far more dangerous than a fighter without them. The fighter with gloves can launch full-force attacks that create a huge impact wave in their target. In contrast, the fighter without gloves will break their hands long before they break the opponent's bones. That's why sports such as MMA and rugby tend not to have concussion issues but sports such as boxing and American football do - the padding allows you to deliver far more force (and do far more damage). Note that true 'bare knuckles' boxing is extremely rare not due to breaking bones but due to tearing skin. In an athletic competition, you'd put tape on their hands to prevent it from turning into a bloodfest. |
Why do old broken bones and injuries hurt when there are extreme highs or lows in the weather. | Weather is caused by pressure differences. Like when you see on the weather channel the (H) and (L) converging. [here](_URL_0_) you can see a great visualization of that. All our joints have fluid in them (Like oiling your gears) and we're used to the fluid expanding and contracting normally under different atmospheric pressures, but after an injury it changes the way we feel that fluid, and when the pressure changes suddenly it changes the pressure inside our bodies as well. That's why my grandma's magic knee can predict the weather. Not because she used to run in the rain like she says. |
How come people who are crossing Europe illegally are considered migrants and not illegal immigrants? | Well a migrant is just somebody who travels, could be an immigrant or an emigrant. As for the North African and Middle Eastern immigrants, they're refugees of a war zone so referring to them as "illegal immigrants" creates a certain stereotype which they don't deserve. |
With so much advancement in communications. Why are we still not able to find the missing flight Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370? | It appears to have crashed in the ocean. We know where it was at the last ATC contact but a plane can move a pretty significant distance between contacts and, after it hits the water, all bets are off. Planes are big but the ocean is much much bigger. There are a huge number of technologies available but it's still a needle in a haystack problem. The aircraft has several beacons and locators to help searchers but some may not have survived whatever event caused the problem in the first place. Even if you knew the exact position, down to the foot, of the last transmission, the aircraft could be miles away by the time it stopped when you combine possible glide, breakup, sinking, and currents. |
Why do tickets dispensed by arcade machines always seem to arrange themselves into neat piles? | One of the ways tickets can come from the factory is in accordion-folded stacks. (The other is on spools.) After they're fed out of the machine, the tend to fold back the way they were. |
Why don't we, instead of filling tires with air, just make them out of solid rubber? | Solid rubber weighs way too much. Edit: they are experimenting with airless tires though. Imagine a hollow honeycomb in a circle. I think they're plastic. I've looked into this, and will post a link as soon as I find it. Edit edit: [Link]( _URL_0_) this is some pretty cool stuff. I last looked into it a few years ago and there wasn't much info on it except the military was testing it. The pictures I saw then, the outer surface was hexagonal too, and it was said to be a really bumpy ride. |
What would happen to a plane that was flying within the Earths atmosphere but suddenly began to experience no force of gravity? | well let's suppose that can happen. who would happen. plane's going at some 500 mph relative to ground at altitude of 30,000ft. God turns off gravity in the entire universe. first thing that'd happen. all the passengers would freak out. next thing that'd happen, the plane would start gaining altitude fast. not just because of lift, but because the plane was traveling at 500mph on a vector tangent to the Earth ground. the only thing that was keeping it at a constant 30,000 feet is gravity. so as the plane still has the engines on, its still accelerating further and faster away from the ground. after a while, air itself gets thinner and starts drifting into space, because gravity is what holds the air to the ground. all of that isn't as important as what happens to the Sun. without gravity, there's nothing to hold the Sun together. it explodes and within 8 minutes, you're toast. |
how does circumcision not count as illegal genital mutilation? | Simply because it's a socially accepted act that is rooted in religion with Western cultures. If the act were not Westernized, it would be considered mutilation. |
How is Stephen Colbert a character? What is different between Stephen Colbert and "Stephen Colbert"? | Stephen Colbert played a character by the same name on his Comedy Central show "The Colbert Report". The fictional Colbert was a parody of the kind of personality-driven opinion shows common on nighttime cable news networks. While that was a very popular character that was appropriate for his cable show, it wouldn't be appropriate for a host of a major network late night talk show. So, what you're seeing there is Stephen Colbert, the comedian, and not the character he previously played of the same name. |
Why do black tattoos turn blue eventually? | Cheap ink and Sun Exposure. Not all black inks fade to blue. My grandfather's 35yr old tattoo is still black, mind you it's blurry due to 30 years of aging. |
How can the Department of Homeland Security actually run out of money? (since the House just failed to extend funding) A | Congress doesn't budget for departments to build reserves like that, so when they stop cutting checks that's all she wrote |
Why do we feel like time has passed after sleeping but not after being given general anesthetic? | I had my first experience with general anesthesia this year and felt the same. Waking from a nap or a night's sleep, there a sense of time having passed. After general anesthesia there's just a blank with no sense of duration. |
I I work in the medical field one of my jobs is to encapsulate exposed wires with epoxy and then hit it with ultraviolate rays to cure it. I am curious, How does light cause the substance to go from liquid to solid, and why is it conductive when it is liquid, and nonconductive when it is solid? | The UV light causes a polymerization within the epoxy. The epoxy is composed of a bunch of small single molecules, called monomers, that are floating around more or less freely. However, when exposed to UV light, they are given energy that gets used in bonding the monomers together into big molecules of repeating units, called polymers. This process causes a dramatic change in the atomic structure of the substance, solidifying it and altering its electrochemical properties. Think of the monomers like a bunch of unconnected chain links floating around. What the UV light does is come in and bond the links together forming a solid chain (the polymer). I sadly don't have the background to explain the change in the electrical conductivity, but suffice to say a different atomic structure will drastically change how electrons can move through it. |
How does Grooveshark play whatever song you want for free while Pandora requires you to listen to radio stations with mandatory commercials? | Pandora operates completely legitimately, while Grooveshark technically does not. Grooveshark has been involved in the occasional lawsuit, and more will likely come. Its more a matter of the fact that Grooveshark has remained more under the radar, and with so many different sources of what may be called copyright infringement on the internet, it takes massive popularity for one roll into the spotlight enough so that it is targeted specifically by the RIAA or whoever else may be involved. |
The purpose of the painted spiral on the front of an aircraft engine. | It visualizes the speed at which the turbine spins, since the turbine blades move so fast that you can't distinguish between a slowly idling engine and one which has full power. The spiral can be distinguished even at high speed, since it changes only a little bit each revolution. This is mainly useful for reasons of safety, but [apparently it also deters birds.](_URL_0_) |
Why does pouring beer into a glass of ice make it go flat? | CO2 bubbles usually don't form just at random in the middle of a fluid. Instead, they need to form in cavitation points, which are basically tiny nicks in the surface of something which change the properties of the carbonic acid form of CO2 enough that it turns back into a gas. This is why you usually see a stream of bubbles coming out of one or two places at the bottom of your beer glass. Those streams are above cavitation points. Adding ice increases the total surface area the beer is touching, and thus increases the number of cavitation points available. In addition, ice can crack and become rougher than glass, creating a ton more cavitation points than you would get on the surface of a glass. |
What are CETA and TTIP, and why are some countries so opposed to it? | [This](_URL_0_) is actually a really good article about why people are scared of it. Add on top of that. all the negotiations have been behind closed doors, so our fearless leaders are going to push things that a lot of people are dead against down over their heads. Thus the pushback. Some of us consider ISDS a crime against humanity. So what's good about it? Well, trade is going to be easier. But also mobility. Right now, as a European, you're a second-rank citizen if you want to get a job in the US and vice versa. So NAFTA allows Canadians to just grab a job if they want. A German or an Ethiopean end up on the second tier. This would change, and Europeans and Americans would find it easier to get job permits for the other respective countries. And both governments are very protective when it comes to trade. This would open up trade and make it easier for a dutch manufacturer to sell to the US market. All depending on what they actually agree to. |
the numbers in the periodic table of elements | It depends on which numbers you are referring to. They all deal with the chemical and physical properties of the element. The most common are: Atomic Number (the number of protons): which essentially defines the element. For example, an oxygen atom is only oxygen if it has 8 protons. Atomic Mass (the average weight of an atom of this substance): which says how much the element ways assuming you have the normal distribution of isotopes. Anything else? |
Why do governments not put extra taxes on sugar, salt and fat to make the population healthier? | Take a look at how New York City's ban on large sodas went. Soda lobbies fought it. People didn't like it, they felt that the government was impeding on their freedom to consume how they deem fit. |
What is the significance of prime numbers in encryption? Why are we trying to find bigger ones? | Mainly because we have no good method of prime factorization with computers, and the complexity of the problem scales exponentially in trying to find bigger primes. RSA for example mainly relies on multiplying two relatively large primes together. You could theoretically decrypt it if you could find the prime factorization of the very large number used to encrypt it. But that is task still to complex for the world's best supercomputers. Currently the biggest primes are found via mathematical tricks, such as the famous 2^n - 1, which will for quite a few values of n, spit out a prime number. |
how does sexual attraction mature with age? | There's a few factors. One, you associate your own age with familiarity, and people tend to be attracted to people they have things in common with. That's why many couples tend to look somewhat similar in at least a few aspects (weight, age, skin color, clothing, height, etc). Sometimes personal preference will override this. Fascination with opposites is relatively common, as well as social pressures such as seeing dating younger people as a sign of virility. Or dating older people as a sign of maturity. To add: it's not really chemical except in the sense that our behavior is ultimately chemical in nature. |
How is it that the Monty Hall problem and the gambler's fallacy don't contradict each other? | The key to the Monty Hall problem is that the door that's removed from play is *never* the door with the prize and *never* the door you initially chose. So if you choose a door at random, you initially have a 1/3 chance of being right and a 2/3 chance of being wrong. One of the doors you didn't choose is then removed from play; if the prize is behind one of those two doors, you now know that it *must* be behind the remaining door. Hence the 2/3 chance if you change your guess. The gambler's fallacy only applies to independent events. The Monty Hall problem is two dependent events. |
Why are there 360 degrees? | 360 is a really great number that can be divided by 2,3,4,5,6,8,9,10,12,15,18,20,24,30,36,40,45,60,72,90,120 & 180. 400 is only evenly divisible by 2,4,5,8,10,16,20,25,40,50,80,100 & 200. |
How do animals become domesticated and why are some not able to be domesticated? | Nobody has mentioned the difference between animals that pretty much domesticate themselves (cats) and animals which are purposely domesticated by us humans for specific tasks and reasons. Most people that have studied it have come to the conclusion that cats weren't really "domesticated" but rather they domesticated themselves and formed kind of a symbiotic relationship with humans While other pets like dogs also have formed a somewhat symbiotic relationship with humans, they were more-or-less "forced" into it in the beginning stages because they were generally larger, stronger, and more useful than cats so we sought them out and began to domesticate and selectively breed them. Selective breeding and all that didn't really happen with cats until much later and then it is almost purely for appearance reasons. Correct me if I am wrong about this though anyone! |
Why do European forests seem to have less underbrush than forests in the Eastern U.S.? | Im no expert but I believe its because they've been left alone to grow longer, when trees get bigger it cuts off sunlight to the floor, over time you get a lot less smaller plants in the underbrush due to that and maybe the bigger trees using up more nutrients. I recall reading that in USA it used to be possible to ride a horse through the forests easily because there was much less underbrush to deal with. Then practically all the forests were cleared at some point and in most places once they get big enough loggers come through and do it again. Also most forests in USA arent entirely natural, certain varities of trees are planted for certain purposes and it's never with the goal of recreating a naturally occuring forest environment. Could be wrong or lacking info but that's my understanding of it. |
what consequences if any are there from streaming tv shows on your computer? | Hardware like your monitor and the CPU have to be working, and those can only work for very roughly 50 000 hours. Your ISP might bill you if you go over your cap if you go over your cap... and have a cap to go over to begin with. Were you thinking there was something special going on here? |
If/Once the Cuban Embargo is lifted, what will change? | It will be easier people in the US to visit Cuba, acquire Cuban goods and do business in Cuba. Vice-versa for people in Cuba dealing with the US. |
After a recent deed, someone told "that was mighty white of ya". What does that phrase mean? | Their intended meaning: that you did something nice that they appreciate. The actual meaning: black people are incapable of goodness or decency. |
Why do the majority of living things, like animals, insects, and bugs, require oxygen to survive? | Living cells need Oxygen to react with the food we eat to get energy - It's basically the same thing as burning, but much less ''violent'', and produces the same waste (Co2). Oxygen is used for this due to how easily it reacts, but it's possible to use other gasses as well. There are lots of bacteria that do not need oxygen, even some that can get poisoned by it. However, all anaerobic (Does not need oxygen) life is pretty much microscopical. The biggest thing not using Oxygen was found a few years ago: _URL_0_ |
Explain 4k vs 1080p and other TV display resolutions to me | There are two things to consider (well, more, but two that I will go into): resolution, and pixel size. All "1080p" screens will be 1,920 pixels wide and 1,080 pixels tall. However, you can have a 1080p screen that is pretty small (I think that smartphones are approaching this) or you can have a 1080p screen that is 50+ inches across the diagonal. The way that is accomplished is with the pixel size (pixel "pitch" is what this is called). A smartphone will have some of the closest packed pixels out of any screen, while a computer monitor is more moderate, and a TV typically has the largest pixels. For reference, a "4k" screen is 3,840 pixels wide and 2,160 tall. Note that 4k is named for its horizontal measurement, while 1080p is named for its vertical measurement, as is 720p, 480p, 360p, etc. |
Who/what is the "Chair" of the Senate, and who tells him/her what to do? | The [president pro tempore of the senate](_URL_0_), meaning president for a time, is the second highest ranking Senator and a senator who serves as something like acting senate president in absence of the Vice President. The position was created in the Constitution (Article I Section 3): > The Senate shall choose their other Officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States. In practice, the president pro tempore frequently delegates the day to day operations of presiding over the senate to more junior members of his party to provide them practice with the parliamentary process, and senators address whomever is filling the role with the honorary titles. The woman conferring with the Senator presiding over the senate is possibly to be the [Senate's Parliamentarian](_URL_1_), who is their senior adviser on Senate rules and proceedings. |
Why do the sounds of letters in the alphabet differ from the sounds of these letters in words? | English has a huge variety of sounds, but we are representing them with a fairly limited alphabet. So many letters end up representing multiple sounds. For instance, most accents have 24 consonant sounds and somewhere around 20 vowel sounds, but the alphabet only has 21 consonant letters and 5 vowel letters. Since there aren't enough letters to go around, some sounds need to share letters (especially for the vowels). |
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