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Okay, what happened to spark the massive battle on Eve Online this time? | I believe someone forgot to pay the rent on a system and when another group came in to claim it, the original group that forgot to pay the rent started fighting them. And...yeah. It's become what it is now. |
How does the human body tell when it's thirsty? | Through a complicated systems that are connected to the kidneys (RAAS), the brain, and individual cells that are dehydrated. Cells will send signals to the brain, which then signals the kidneys to reuptake fluids. But that's as simple as I can explain it. Maybe someone else can do better. |
Why can't we create a suit or apparatus that allows us to fly like birds? | Extremely unlikely. For starters, our bodies are just too heavy. Birds evolved for flight by reducing their mass and streamlining efficiency in their systems. The term 'hollow bones' is a bit of a misnomer (they're not really hollow) but it reflects how much lighter their bones are. Their musculature is also more resilient to fatigue compared to humans, and their lungs are significantly more efficient. As humans, we're just too heavy, and such a frame would require enormous wings that would likely tear itself apart due to the necessity of a light-weight construction. Mechanical flapping would require an energy source, which would only add more weight to the contraption. Perhaps one day in the future with better construction materials, but I imagine it'd be easier to find alternative means to personal flight than a flying suit. |
How does the music industry still make the same amount of money when actual record sales are at an all time low? | They don't spend as much money on recordings. That's why the studio business is almost dead. The labels also didn't used to get a cut of touring or shows at all... now it's the norm for a "360 deal" where the label doesn't just sell records, they take over the artist's brand and take a cut of everything. Meanwhile licensing has become more lucrative. Every time you hear a song played on TV, in public, a stadium, etc, someone is getting paid. We go to more events, watch more videos and tv than ever... so that's good for the licensing business. The music industry is still growing. They just don't do it on the back of record sales. |
What is it in peoples genetic makeup that makes things like weight problems hereditary? | For the vast, vast, vast majority: nothing. Weight problems weren't "hereditary" until the last 50 years or so, and amazingly, they still aren't "hereditary" in the third world. Truly shocking. Human metabolisms don't vary by more than a few percentage points (accounting for obvious things like sex/height/etc). Everyone has that one friend who supposedly eats a ton but never gains weight, and they have that one friend who eats "omg so healthy" but looks like a blimp. These are not exceptions. People are just really, really bad at estimating how much they themselves eat, and even worse at estimating how much others eat. Thyroid issues don't make people obese, either. They usually only account for a ~5% difference if untreated and a 0~1% difference if treated. The only reason fat parents tend to have fat kids is because they instill bad eating habits and don't teach the concept of delayed gratification to their children. |
What does it mean to be transgender? | It's when a person has a mismatch between the gender of their personality (the gender that they identify themselves with) and their physical gender. It is not defined by their gender role (ie, a stay-at-home dad is not a transgender just by virtue of his daily activities), but by their emotional identity. I'd be interested to find out if there's such a thing as a transgendered heterosexual (?). Like, is there such a thing as a transgender man that identifies himself as a woman but is still attracted to women? Like a lesbian trapped in a man's body? |
What is the observer effect? Does light really know when we are observing it and change behaviour depending on it? | In physics, an "observer" is anything that interacts with a quantum object. For instance, when a photon hits your desk, the desk "observes" the photon. So the observer effect just has to do with whether anything is interacting with the photon. |
Why do suburbs in general have less crime than cities? | Suburbs were developed with housing additions specifically targeted to bring middle class families from the cities. As a result, the suburbs often have fewer poor people than the cities. And crime rates are usually a function of poverty rates. |
Why do I find spiders in my sinks and shower tub more than any other location of my house? | I can't remember where, but I read somewhere that they go to places that make them easy to spot for a potential mate. If they are confident enough that there are no threats, they will climb out of their hiding places and sit still in an open space with high contrast so that they can be easily spotted. in short, they climb into the bathtub because they are horny. |
EL5 the difference between Alzheimers and dementia. | Dementia is the generic term for "losing your mind". It can result from many causes, including trauma, oxygen deprivation, strokes, etc, as well as various diseases. Patients with Alzheimer's disease commonly present with dementia as a symptom. |
Why are our bodies warm ? | The chemical reactions that allow our cells to function are exothermic (they produce heat). Our body essentially burns sugars to produce usable energy. And "burns" isn't a metaphor: it's the same chemical reaction as lighting something on fire (it's the reason that we need to breathe oxygen), just very tightly controlled. |
why do I get "chills" all over my body when I see or hear something beautiful? Moreover, what are those chills and why aren't they just felt all the time? | Frisson is the sudden feeling of excitement. There is a subreddit for it _URL_0_ Quoted from their sidebar "Have you ever felt a sudden, passing sensation of excitement, a shudder of emotion from an epic moment of a song, or a climax of a movie? That is what is called "frisson". It has been linked to rises in dopamine levels. Feel free to discuss frisson, and post links that give you some really great vibes. :)" |
What is the white stuff on my tongue made up of and why is there such a strong correlation to how my breath smells? | I read that it is dead fungi or bacteria from food trapped in the small gaps on your tongue. I wouldnt worry about it unless you realise it getting substantially worse, it could then maybe be infection on your tongue. If it starts to hurt or stay heavily coated for over 2 weeks you may need to see a GP. Source/more info: _URL_0_ |
Why don't national flags have the name of the country displayed on them? Instead, we're stuck guessing which of the 196 countries it is. | What language would you write the name in? If you can only read English, the flags of several Asian nations would look very similiar. Same for other similiar languages. |
What happens to information and media (texts,apps,videos etc...)on your phone when they are scrolled out of sight? | They are kept in the device's RAM as you use the app, so that when you scroll back up, they are instantly available. Some apps may run out of RAM or otherwise optimize to save it, so the data will be erased from the RAM and lost, thus when you scroll back up, then it must re-load the data from the internet. |
what is the significance of the neutrino-faster-than-light discovery? | I feel I should point out that it is **extremely unlikely** that these measurements are correct. This cannot be understated. It is far, far, *far* more likely that there is an error somewhere in the experiment or the equipment, and the work being done now is to try to find that error. |
Why do many people see a white light during a near death experience? | They don't. It's purely anecdotal. A handful of people will claim that they saw a "white light", or a "tunnel with shapes at the end" or "the face of grandpa Joe" etc. And then it becomes representative of the whole experience because of the next point. [It becomes a narrative trope](_URL_0_) that writers in all forms can use as an easy way to describe their characters experiencing a near death experience, or played or laughs as that trope is subverted, etc. Which means it's then put in enough works as to enter the public conscious. But it's ultimately bogus. Anecdotal evidence is not the same thing as evidence. |
Freshman here- why wouldn’t everybody apply to as many colleges as possible? | > Freshman here- why wouldn’t everybody apply to as many colleges as possible? Time and effort. Also, application fees upwards of $100 of dollars for higher valued colleges. |
How is my nose stuffy and runny at the same time? | Deep inside your nose there is actually erectile tissue, very similar to the penis. An erection is caused when blood vessels in the penis get bigger so more blood flows into it, and the exact same thing happens with this tissue in your nose. So often when we are congested and stuffy, it isn't because snot is blocking air from coming through, it's that the inside of the nasal cavity is swollen up. But your nasal mucosa may still be producing a runny snot. I wouldn't use a penis analogy with an actual 5 year old I'd like to point out, but I figured it'd be okay here! |
How do people with insomnia get energy? | Often, copious amounts of caffeine and sugar. Also often, they don't. They go through the day like barely functional zombies. This question seems better suited for r/askreddit |
How do speakers produce multiple sounds and how does the ear perceive more than one tone? | It doesn't make more than one sound at a time. It makes a single noise. Your brain, however, is able to recognize various characteristics of the noise and separate them into individual sounds. This is something your brain does with ALL noise, not just noise from speakers. |
Why do giant pandas seem to have such terrible motor skills? | Bamboo isn't the most challenging of prey, and it isn't like anything eats pandas in the wild either. They don't have much need to be nimble. |
Where does the phrase "take it on the chin" come from? | The phrase comes from boxing, and generally denotes a direct and significant hit (most literally from an uppercut, but that's irrelevant to the use of the phrase as a general idiom). |
if someone gets a hold of my social security number, what can they do to steal my identity from that point? | Off the top of my head, this is what I would do if I wanted to steal your identity using your social security number. First I would forge a copy of your social security card. Then I would write to your state courthouse and request a copy of your birth certificate. If questioned, I would say that I lost it and my ID in a house fire, but my social security card was in a safety deposit box. The next part requires someone who looks similar enough to you to pretend to be you. That person goes to the DMV with your social security card and birth certificate, and requests a replacement license, saying that yours was stolen/lost/whatever. Now you could go apply for credit cards, take out loans, or do pretty much anything as the person whose identity was stolen. There are easier ways, for instance a lot of banking things will use social security numbers as ways of verifying identity, but my way is the most fun. |
Why haven't FIFA or the IOC been shut down for corruption? | By this logic if someone on a team cheats we should disband the team. The organizations aren't fundamentally corrupt, certain people are. |
How is there competition and price variation within the bottled water industry? | All comes down to marketing - making a real or apparent difference in the mind of the consumer between your product and your competitors. The most obvious examples are your premium ones - Perrier, Evian, Fiji, that stupid Voss crap in the glass bottle. They sell it at a premium because it's "exclusive" by way of being imported from such-and-such spring. Aside from that, some brands market themselves for specific targets - e.g. sports / gym / cycling, where you've got bottled water like Pump with a squeezy-nozzle instead of a cap. Finally, you've got distribution licensing. If you're a restaurant and you have a contract with Coca Cola as your supplier, you're only allowed to sell Coca Cola's brand(s) of bottled water (and they'll sue you if they catch you selling someone else's). |
What makes fresh food better quality than frozen food? | Freezing food causes water in the food to turn into ice crystals which are larger and can damage the food. When the food thaws, some of the ice turns to water and drains off leaving the food dehydrated. Long exposure to ice also leads to freezer burn which leaves an unpleasant taste and color to the food. Meat which has been frozen, especially delicate meats like seafood, will take on a soft, mushy consistency when frozen. The only food that I know of which does well with being frozen are peas. When picked, peas immediately begin to degrade and the sugars in them starts to turn to starch. Flash freezing immediately after picking ensures a better quality product. |
Why would the U.S. Special Forces (supposedly) bury Bin Laden's body at sea almost immediately after his death? | > If the story isn't entirely true, then what would be a probable alternative? Scuttlebutt I've read from conspiracy heads is that they don't think there was a SEAL team, but rather that bin Laden was taken out by missles or drones. This would require a fabricated sea burial, because generally you don't find the intact remains of someone who was killed by high explosives. Do I believe this? I don't care; I got rent due in a few days. edit: why am I being downvoted? I didn't say that was *what happened*. I said that is what *dumb people think* |
Why were most cities in the world founded over a century ago, except for a few planned exceptions? You don’t really see new cities appear anymore... | You have new cities appearing,but they aren’t famous now so you don’t know about them yet. Like China for example makes a lot of planned cities |
how realistic are the depictions of cell phone and computer tracking shown in spy movies? Do you really need to "keep someone talking" to have enough time to triangulate their position? Do hackers really "ping" their signal off multiple servers around the world to avoid detection? | > Do you really need to "keep someone talking" to have enough time to triangulate their position? In general, no. Even if your number is blocked/unlisted, the phone company knows where you're calling from immediately and law enforcement agencies have ready access to this information. Keeping somebody talking might have really been a thing back when phone connections were manually switched by operators, but this is no longer the case in the digital age. If you're calling from a cell phone, the phone company no longer knows *exactly* where you are, but they can get a very good idea based on which cell towers your phone is currently connected to. > Do hackers really "ping" their signal off multiple servers around the world to avoid detection? Yes! Specialized networks such as [The Tor Network](_URL_0_) bounce internet traffic to random people also using the network in order to anonymize traffic. |
Why does nothing grow in the sand at the beach? | First of all, [they do]( _URL_0_). The main reason beaches don't get a lot of plant growth is twofold: erosion and salinity. The constant battering of the waves and the tides means the sand of beaches is typically moved around a *lot*, so any plants that tried to grow in that sandy soil would find themselves uprooted simply due to the water eroding the sand away. Of course, some plants make thick root systems in order to hold together the sandy soils. So you can often find grasses growing in these wet, sandy areas. But the main problem is the salinity. Ocean water is very salty, and most land plant life is adapted to environments that are not salty. Again, some plants have ways to deal with the salinity, such as mangrove trees. |
Why is there no humor-based talk show, or any formatted program, by the right wing conservatives? The left it seems spends a lot of time laughing at the right's proclivity to lie and distort truths, while the right are simply angry about every tiny details that makes up the left. | As the good reverend Stephen Colbert once said - "Reality has a well know liberal bias". You can make fun of liberals and play up stereotypes, but if you try to make fun of the policies they advocate there is a lack of material unless you flat out make shit up. Generally reality is on the liberals side, they don't say stupid stuff that can easily be fact checked and found to be wrong. I'm not saying you can't make a jab at PETA or other far "left" groups, but the majority of liberal leaning people wouldn't associate with PETA et al. TLDR: There aren't a lot of jokes to be had, because the facts are on their side. |
Why do people say the alarm goes "off" when really it comes "on"? | The alarm is always "on" looking for a certain stimulus. When it sees that stimulus, it turns "off". |
When did time begin? | This is something that is unknowable. Our Universe's timeline started with the big bang. Outside of that we can only speculate. The theory I like to believe is that our Big Bang was actually a white hole connected via a Schwarschild wormhole to it's opposite super massive blackhole existing in another Universe. But like I said we don't really know what created our singularity. Keep in mind that Time isn't a spatial dimension. So even theories like the 11 Dimensional M-Theory are actually 10+1 dimensional universes. Anything we perceive is obviously existing inside of a 3+1 dimensional universe. Which makes me also tend to believe Simulation theory. And we exist as a subset of something much bigger. The thing is though is we always think as though there was an origin of time. Personally I believer we exist in something much large where time is irrelevant. Only OUR Universe has time. Outside of the Universe it would appear as though everything happened instantaneously. ( < -- Obviously speculation) |
Why does depression sometimes make breathing very difficult? | I see this issue a lot in some of my patients with chronic pain, anxiety, depression, chronic stress, or all of the above. I rule out all the obvious causes and can't find a clear organic cause. Great answers here, I'd like to add that the actual sensation of shortness of breath arises through an extremely complex process involving different parts of the nervous system, input from the lungs, heart, and so on. A technique that works for some patients is to divert attention from the sensation of "air hunger" (or the feeling that one is not "getting in" enough air), and use breathing exercises whereby the patient instead focuses on "emptying" the lungs of air (full, slow exhalation) between breaths. |
Why do we consume Sodium Chloride and not any other salts? | We do consume a few other types of salt, just not as much as sodium chloride. If you look at the container of salt in your kitchen, it probably says that it's "iodized salt", meaning it contains a small amount of sodium iodide or potassium iodide in addition to the sodium chloride. A lot of packaged foods also have potassium chloride, although people don't usually keep that in the kitchen. As for why? Sodium chloride tastes salty, is non-toxic, and is widely available. Many other salts lack in one or more of those three areas. |
How do parrots say sounds made by the letters B, F, M, or P without lips? | You can produce these sounds by pressing your tongue against your upper lip too, you don't *need* a set of lips to approximate it, just a way to modulate the airflow properly. Parrots can come pretty close to most human speech with their tongue, beaks, and weird respiratory system setup, but sometimes they have to use a roundabout method of making specific sounds. |
Since the Efficient Market Hypothesis is widely accepted, how is High Frequency Trading profitable/viable? | HFT *makes* EMH true, in a pretty real sense. The role of stock traders is to act on any idiosyncratic information they have, and to do so until their information content cannot be exploited any more. The essence of EMH is that in equilibrium, all information has already been acted on. Thus you only make money (relative to the market) if you have private info that you can act on. |
Why doesn't a single engine propeller plane need a second propeller to counteract the weight of the front one spinning? | Single prop planes do have a bit of torque that yaws the plane in one direction or the other. Usually, you'll make small adjustments to the rudder and ailerons (aka. trimming) to counteract it, or depending on the age of the plane, compensate for it manually. |
How is it possible that the original Super Mario Bros for NES is only 40 kilobytes? | The lower power of computers back then requried some very clever usage of storage space. Limited color palattes, no moving backgrounds, and reusing sprites in multiple locations (IE The clouds and the bushes are the same sprite in different colors). |
What's the difference between sexual assault and sexual harassment? | Well harassment tends to be verbal/communicative while assault is any sort of physical act. If he/she didn't touch you, it's harassment. If he/she did, it's assault. |
When you turn a cup/bowl of water in your hand, why does the liquid inside seem to remain still while to cup turns? | Think of the cup and water as two different objects. You are providing forces for the cup(object 1) to move, buy you are not directly involved in the moving of the water(object 2). The water is moved by a coefficient of friction from the cup. As cups are usually quick smooth, the effect of friction is very low resulting in very little movement of the water. The basis for all of this is that "an object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by another force", similarly an object at rest will stay at rest. Since the cup and water are two different objects, the water will stay at rest unless friction can provide enough force to move it. |
why is it so important to keep trauma victims awake/alert on the way to the hospital, as in how does that aid in their chances of survival? | More often then not, its easier to monitor the condition of someone whose conscious. By simply talking with the first responder we know they have a viable airway and are breathing. A comatose patient is difficult to assess, as they cannot pinpoint the location of the injury, tell the medical staff how they feel, and communicate any changes in their condition. |
Why is everything so expensive in Australia and New Zealand? | Prices are higher on nearly all islands. When you cut out the possibility of trucking and rail shipment, costs go up. While Australia and New Zealand have some natural resources, they have to import more items by plane and boat than non-island nations. Even on islands that have bridges to them, the route is typically longer because they the trucks/trains have to turn around and go back from where they came rather than continuing on to another destination. There is also something referred to as the "[Australia Tax](_URL_0_)" in which companies charge more for products that don't cost anything to ship, but they charge more for them anyway because traditional goods do actually cost more to ship. This includes things like digital products (downloadable music, software, video games). |
How does combining Playstations (or any other computer) into a "cluster" create a supercomputer? | Depends on the type of job you're running. Different types of jobs can benefit from massively parallel processors, like you'd get by combining a bunch of smaller computers into a "bigger" one. Say you had a list of 100 million numbers that you had to add up. You could do it on one processor but it would take X amount of time. So you take the numbers, split them in to 100 groups, run each of those groups on a processor, then combine the 100 results. The resulting process takes that much less time. But there are also jobs that don't parallelize very easy. If your algorithm requires the result of another algorithm, you end up waiting on the first one to complete before you can start the next one. In that case, you want faster single processors more than a bunch of possibly slower processors. |
Why do dogs react to human voices but not to speakers (phone, TV, music, radio, etc)? | I hate to admit it but we still have a landline. The phone and voicemail are inside the basement stairway. When someone level a message our dog goes to the door and waits for that person to come out of the basement door. Our old dog would howl when she heard my wife leave messages on it. |
What is a stroke, and what causes it. | A stroke is when part of your brain has no blood circulation. This causes parts of your brain to die. Strokes can be caused by blood clots or other blockages blocking off the way of the blood flow or even bleeding in the brain (blood is just pooling around the brain instead of going where it needs to go). |
How do bugs always get trapped inside ceiling light covers? | I don't have proof for this but I read it in an article about mooths. Many insects tend to confound (mix up) an artificial light source with the moon-light which they use for orientation. And once they get in the lamp-housing its hard to escape for them, just like a bee flying in your room through a tinted window and then not being able to escape it anymore. |
Why do pharmaceutical commercials always tell viewers to see their ad in a magazine? Do people seriously buy a magazine just to look at an advertisement? | It's because they can't always fit all of the legally required fine print into the commercial -- side effects, warnings, etc. Take a look at a pharmaceutical ad in a magazine sometime, and you'll find that it's probably two pages, back-to-back: Pretty drug ad on the front, and page o' text fine print on the back. And this is called "covering your ass." The advertisers don't expect people to run out and find the magazine ad, but once they've told them too, they can say, "Well, we warned you..." |
Humans produce lots of body oils. Would they be good for anything if they could be harvested? | This really should be how baby oil is made. From those especially oily babies. |
Why is it that human intelligence evolved so rapidly while other intelligent creatures like dolphins remained behind? | Human intelligence hasn't changed much (nutritional and medicinal advances may have helped some in the past century), but human knowledge has. The reason we have as much knowledge of the world as we do is our linguistic ability. Most of the knowledge an animal gains over its lifetime is lost when that animal dies because most animals have no way of communicating what they know to other animals. However, humans can convey complex ideas to each other through language so they are able to pass knowledge on from generation to generation. This way we are able to build on what we already know rather than having to start over each generation. The ability to record language (i.e., writing) also helped because then you could pass on knowledge to people you've never even met. |
The intuition behind the fundamental theorem of algebra | I think you're a little mixed up, it's not that a nth degree polynomial crosses the x axis n times, it's that the polynomial has n roots, some of which may or may not be imaginary. But then certian polynomials had roots that didn't seem to exist. For instance if you have x^2 = -1 as a root you can't really solve this because if you multiply a number by itself it should always be positive. So mathematicians started saying that the solution to this root is an imaginary number. For about 200 years this imaginary number had no real use except to factor these polynomials, that is until later mathematicians such as Cauchy came along and showed that there are ways to visualize imaginary numbers as complex numbers in a complex plane. |
What is new electronics smell? | There really isn't a single answer for this as it depends completely on the product. With that said, most likely what you are smelling is the chemicals used to clean the circuit boards and such to prepare them for use. As the item warms up you are probably also smelling any remaining flux or chemicals being cooked off. |
Why do we tune out smells? | I think it's a predatory thing, new smells means something new is arise and we should be alert. If nothing smells new, then we cool. |
Why do some gay men "sound" gay, I.E have some sort of gay accent (serious). | We are not going to remove this question-- thanks for phrasing it sensitively and for indicating that your search didn't yield the results you were looking for. To commenters: please keep it respectful here. |
Can animals tell apart reality from their dreams? | I learned from Stephen LaBerge (doctor who studies sleep and dreams at Stanford) that, from an evolution standpoint, the reason we (and animals) have a hard time remembering our dreams is so that we don't get them confused with reality. |
How do Large Bubbles Form on Potato Chips? | There is an air pocket that expands during the frying of the chip. However it does not expand enough to break the elasticity of the potato creating a bubble that solidifies when the starches cool down. |
How can I swat a fly with all my might, yet it still comes back to annoy me? | You are using the wrong technique, boy. Might will not rid you of the fly. You need speed, agility and intelligence. You don't need to crush the fly, you need to capture him. Flies are not smart, surely you can think better than him. Use your brain, not just your muscles, boy, and catch the fly. |
When is a plant considered officially dead? | I don't know that there is any official legal or technical declaration of plant death which is consistently followed. Usually individuals will consider a plant to be dead when as a whole it isn't able to recover from its current state even if some clippings may be viable. |
How come when the Reddit servers are down, they can still provide the Failure message? | The server in question is most likely the database server. When you access a page, reddit's web server needs to ask the database for the data. The database has a limited number of available connections, so if too many are currently in progress, it will refuse more connections. The web server will then get an error message from the database, and will return a simple error page to the user. |
How does anonymous hack into websites and how are they structured if they are all completely anonymous? | 'Anonymous' isn't really a single group, it's a generic identity for 'hacktivists'. Anybody can claim to belong, and people that don't claim to belong might get lumped in with them anyway. How one can crack into any website or network is a lot like asking how someone can break into a building: there's a huge collection of ways, and not all of them would work on all targets. Indeed often it's more varied in the computer security world because very often it takes a string of security breaches before the hacker gets what they're looking for. The generic answer is they exploit security flaws they find. There exist companies and freelancers that do 'whitehat' hacking on contract and tell you about the flaws they find without exploiting them as a service, but many, many companies are pretty lax about their security and never bother with security audits or the like. |
How do medical examiners/other forensic analysts determine the time frame in which a person died? | The liver cools at a fairly constant rate, as it is so well insulated within the body, so they measure the temperature of the liver and the ambient temperature of the room, and from these numbers they can estimate a time of death. This only works if it was a recent death, for longer times they have to take into account decomposition, and their estimates are far less accurate. |
One Degree of Separation for movie making | It means always making sure every scene is directly connected to the main plot line and main character. It is a way to trim extra fluff and bullshit from your movie. |
Why can't we do brain transplants like other organs? | When we transplant other organs, we mainly have to reconnect tubes (blood vessels, intestine, etc.). If we were to replace the brain, we need to reconnect the nerves which we don't know how to do on such a large scale. At least that is my current understanding. |
What causes an itch on my body? | To add on to this question, especially the nose? |
Why do most kids go through a phase in which they hate their parents? | Well it's usually around the age that they start forming their own opinions and wanting to have some control over their own lives. Of course their parents still have the majority of control and expect their children to obey their every word. I think it's definitely understandable to hate or resent somebody who has absolute power over you. |
How can Comcast can charge me a ridiculous price for 30mbs internet but at best I get 3mbs down or up? | Well I'm. Pretty sure you're paying for 30 MegaBits where as your download is MegaBytes.... The mathematics and how it's measured or how that works is still beyond me and I'd like to know how those numbers correlate and what a megabit really is |
Why do we remember some skills (e.g swimming and cycling) our whole lives? | It's called procedural memory. More specifically, it's 'muscle memory' or 'motor learning' which is a type of procedural memory. Your brain's cerebellum, in particular, is very good at encoding sequences of muscle movements into long-term memory storage. Procedural memory is very robust. Even people with dementia and amnesia often still retain procedural memories for skills like playing a musical instrument or riding a bicycle without any conscious effort. Interestingly, for people with anterograde amnesia (a condition characterized by the inability to form new memories), it's still possible for them to learn new motor skills and encode them as procedural memories. In other words, you can have someone with anterograde amnesia learn to ride a bicycle (as just an example) for the first time in their life and each day you get them to ride they will have no recollection of ever riding before, but each day they will continue to get better and better at riding the bike. |
If Blue LEDs just have been invented (nobel price '14), how come my smartphone's notification LED can shine blue since a couple of years? | The nobel price was awarded in 2014 for the discovery that happened about 20ish years ago |
Are internet and cable ads confusing on purpose? Or are cable and internet companies just bad at their jobs. | They are well thought and confusing on purpose: 1) they don't want you to be able to compare their product to the competition. 2) they try to give a sense of urgency "buy now" even the product is on the shelves for a long time. They frequently create fake sales, fooling people into believing they get a great deal. 3) they see that one fixed price has limitations. For example, a hotel that sold 50% of their occupancy. What will they do with the empty rooms? They gradually start reducing price in a way customers think they got a bargain. Same with cellphone carriers. They speak about deals, but in reality, they are all very much alike. Nobody is significantly cheaper than others. |
How are my headphones playing a "ghost station"? | A nearby AM radio station is being picked up and rectified by the TV. A simple AM receiver can be made with a junction of two dissimilar metals or a metal needle point on a crystal. I suspect the electronics in the TV are performing the rectification and the headphone cable is the antenna. |
How do interplanetary spacecraft (and in the future interstellar), protect against collisions with space debris? | They don't and they don't need to. Space is incredibly big and empty. Despite how visuals like the one on the [Asteroid Belt Wikipedia article](_URL_0_) makes it seem, the majority of the asteroids are very small and the distance between them is enormous. The odds of our probes to the outer planets hitting anything are astronomically slim and they have been flying directly through it without any collisions so far. Once you get out of the solar system into interstellar space the distances between things just becomes even larger. |
Cyclic Groups & Examples | The integers, start with 1 and keep adding or subtracting 1, you get all the integers that way. A clock, take 1 o'clock and keep adding or subtracting 1 hour... you will get all the possible times on a clock. All cyclic groups are really either clock groups or are the integers. With a 12 hour clock you can also get all the times by using 5 (then add or subtract 5), 7 (add or subtract 7), and 11 (add or subtract 11). If you a 15 hour clock you could use 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14. In general if you have an n-hour clock you can use any number g so that the fraction n/g is does not reduce. |
How is it possible for us to know if a sound comes from the top or the bottom given that we only have two ears aligned horizontally? | The shape of your ears directs sound into your ear canals difforently based on the angle it comes in at. If you change the shape of your ears with something like play dough you lose this ablilty all togeather. Other animals like dogs aren't as good st this and so tilt their heads to get a better idea of what virtical angle the sound is coming from. Here is a great video by Smarter Every Day all about it: _URL_0_ |
Why do we have morning wood, does females have something similar or not at all ? | There are many factors. 1) Your body will give you a partial erection to help prevent you from emptying your bladder while you are asleep. 2) Your body goes through cycles that raise and lower your blood pressure while you sleep. These happen numerous times during the night and each time they happen you are likely to get a partial erection. 3) Contact on your genitals by clothing or bedding while you sleep can stimulate you enough to get an erection. 4) Erotic dreams can cause you to get an erection. |
What is the difference between "Sell By", "Best By", "Use By"... etc. dates on food? | Employer must sell this item by : dd/mm/yy ; This item is best consumed if by : dd/mm/yy ; Consumer should finish (use) this item by : dd/mm/yy |
Why does the moon appear larger at the horizon? | It's believed to simply be an optical [illusion](_URL_0_). |
If we used nuclear power for everything, how long until we run out? Could we get more uranium by then? | Fissionable materials are infinite for all practical purposes. Uranium can be extracted from seawater in vast quantities because it comprises a significant portion of the Earth's crust. |
What is the big deal with the movie The Interview? | conspiracy theory: this is a viral marketing campaign and Sony Pictures itself is behind it. |
How can people survive a lighting strike but will almost certainly die at a 220v home socket. | I'd suspect "almost certainly" is quite a bit of an overstatement. I've shocked myself at least two dozen times with the current coming from my wall, and while it hurts like a bitch, i've never come close to dying. And while people *can* survive lightning strikes, I also suspect you have an overestimated view of how many people survive direct lightning strikes. It all depends on *how* you're being electrocuted; proximity, how the current flows through your body, etc. tl;dr: Your adjectives seem backwards |
Why has China devalued its currency, and what will that mean for other countries? | When your currency becomes stronger, it becomes much harder for you to export your country's goods, because your goods become more expensive for other countries. China doesn't want that because they are the biggest export nation that there is. |
Why do plastic bags make so much noise? | Well as far as i know, its because the polymers are stretched and crystalized to make the bag cheap and sturdy. This makes it more resistant to physical manipulation and when you overcome the resistance when you change the shape, the energy is released as sound. **eli5: Sound is vibrations. Crumpling a plastic bag releases vibrations into the air.** |
How they determine the length of time to wait between airing a movie in theaters, and premiering it on TV. | I say once they've felt they've squeezed as much money as they can out of dvd sales from rentals and purchases. Most likely they wait til after after a holiday event where they know they'll get alot of sales. Also, It won't go on tv unless someone wants it. If someone wants it the "industry" again get paid for licensing out the movie. |
About health insurance, what happens when you reach the age of 26? | Obamacare made it possible to keep your health insurance if you're insured under your parent's plan until you're 26 years of age (previously, I believe it was 22). After you turn 26 you will no longer have insurance unless you've obtained a plan through your own employer/institution/whatever. Let's say you had a stable career by age 24, and that employer provided you with healthcare benefits, you would no longer need to be insured under your parent's plan: you'd have your own. Basically your parents are telling you that if you want to receive healthcare when you're 26, you need to find some way to get your own insurance. Finding a job that provides good benefits is the way to do it. ETA: It's never free, though. It comes out of your paycheck. |
How the "feels like" measurement of the temperature is taken? | They take measurements of the humidity, wind speed, and temperature, then they put them into a formula and they get roughly what it will feel like. The formula and some more information about it are available [here](_URL_0_). I guess I could have copy-pasted it, but I'm too lazy. |
Why do people KEEP pressing the button in /r/button. Is it reward gratification or some other motivation | People want to push it as close to zero as possible to get the rarest color. Take heart though, you had to be registered by April 1st to press it, so eventually there won't be anyone else to press it and we'll all be disappointed at the outcome together. |
why is my earliest memory not from birth or a little after birth? | Your brain is not finished developing until further age. By the time of your birth your brain still lack the cognitive ability to store memories. It is not until further age you get some of the brain abilities that might seem obvious to you now. You should watch this video about [cognitive development among children](_URL_0_) - Its quite interesting. |
How come I get pimples everywhere except on my hands or feet? | Pimples are caused by sebaceous glands, which produce an oil-type substance to coat our hair follicles (even the barely visible ones on our foreheads and noses). The skin of our palms and soles are special. The epidermis of the rest of the body has only four layers, and also has lots of hair follicles (and thus lots of sebaceous glands). The epidermis on the palms and soles have five layers and have no hair (so no sebaceous glands at all). |
How does unemployment insurance work? | So unemployment is basically a pot of money funded by the federal and state unemployment taxes that businesses pay. The more workers a business has file for unemployment, the higher their unemployment tax rate. You don't have to contact the employer at all - the state will do that part. The rules for whether you qualify to receive unemployment benefits vary by state. You'll need to contact your local unemployment office to find out if you qualify. A voluntary quit scenario is generally harder to get approved (though certainly not impossible), so you'll want to gather any supporting documentation you had (complaints you filed about sexual harassment and theft, requests for additional time, etc.) |
What is the difference between an originalist interpretation and a "living document" interpretation when it comes to the U.S. Supreme Court? | The idea is a debate about whether the founders wrote the thing to be specific, rigid, and amendable only through the amendment process... or whether the founders wrote the thing with deliberately looser language to take shifting societal norms into account. For example, the 8th amendment prohibits "cruel and unusual" punishments but neglects to define those terms. An originalist would argue that we need to research what "cruel and unusual" meant to the founders. A proponent of living document theory would argue that "cruel and unusual" is deliberately vague so that the boundaries of cruel and unusual can shift as society progresses. |
How does doing more exercise give you more energy? | Energy the body produces isn't a "static pool" that is only filled with so much water. It's like a big reservoir with an input valve (your food) and an electricity-producing hydroelectric dam (the body process called "metabolism" that creates the energy to run your body), and discharge shoots for the exiting water (your... uh... hoo-hah and wiggly bits). When you exercise, you're tuning up that hydroelectric dam. The body is getting into a mode where it is realizing "hey I have work to do here! I better maintain my energy production facility", so it knocks the rust off of the old turbines and maybe throws some new ones in there too (i.e. starts getting into the mode of growing muscle). All that tuning and extra capacity creates more available energy during the times when you're not working out. |
Why do most US schools have children get up before the crack of dawn to go to school? | The American workday is typically 9-5, and parents need to get their children fed/clothed/etc and on the bus or dropped off and still able to get to work on time. |
What does the discovery of the knee's anterolateral ligament mean for us, and why did it take so long to confirm it's existence? | Seriously! How did we just now discover this? Wouldn't it be noticed during the countless autopsies performed? |
How do military aircraft intercept hijacked commercial planes? | Former navy, we did flight ops with helos to intercept subs and track em. Intercept is kind of a blanket term. You can "intercept" the plane or boat and guide it to a destination of your choice but that is a gentle hand approach. Imagine two bouncers at a bar standing next to you...you will prob listen if they are willing to beat your ass. This is especially true when you look at US policy for hijacked planes. Tldr: shoot that bitch down. [Source](_URL_0_) If they don't comply I am unaware of any way to take over the air craft while it's in flight. The call then is to disable it risking casualties or destroy it. Maybe some one with pilot experience can weigh in. |
Why isn't charging the mound in baseball considered assault? | It's assumption of the risk. You, by playing baseball, consent to all of the risks inherent in the game. One of those things is fighting that may happen from time to time. |
Why are we able to see shockwaves? | refraction changes in air density (aka shockwaves) act like lenses made out of air more or less the same effect can be observed over candles, only there it is hot air and not compressed air |
Why serial killers tend to be white, male, and 30's? | Statistically there are more black serial killers than whites since the 90s. They simply don't receive the kind of cultural worship a la Ted Bundy, because people and media are more inclined to just write them off as some "hoodrat" and garden-variety ghetto criminal. It is true that serial killers are predominantly male though. This is rather easily explained by culture and inherent physical superiority. Maybe there is an argument to be made for inherent psychological differences (ie more aggression or whatever) in males, but such arguments are always controversial and disputed. |
what is the meaning of true positve ,true negative ,false positive and false negative? | Imagine you are subjected to a lie detector test. You are innocent of the crime. When the examiner asks whether you committed the crime, you say “No.” But the needle jumps anyway. The examiner says, “AHA! You’re lying!” Even thought you are actually telling the truth. This is a false positive. Then they bring in the real criminal. They hook him up and ask if he committed the crime. He says, “No.” The needle doesn’t move. The examiner says, “You’re honest. That’s all we need. Have a nice day.” This was a false negative. The instrument failed to detect the lie, even though it should have. I use polygraphy as an example because it is really, really unreliable. |
How do old animated films get digitally remastered to make them HD? ie: old Disney movies. | They were always well beyond HD. Do you think the version that was sent to theaters back in the day was equivalent to SD? It was on a film reel that was even higher effective resolution than 4K for the most part. The film master is put through a scanner that saves the movie in a digital format. We have much better scanners now, and we still have the film master. You just gotta rescan it. |
Why do school teachers need a fundraiser every year for school supplies? | The taxpayer doesn't like to actually pay money for services provided. |
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