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how are movies like the Parent Trap made when one actor plays multiple roles and their faces are seen together in the same shot? | One way of doing it is to shoot the scene twice without moving the camera. The first time, they shoot the scene when the actor plays the first role, the second time the second role. These two versions of the scene are then blended over each other. Another version uses blue-screen in which one of the takes (or both) are shot in front of a blue canvas (or green), which is then replaced by a real background. In these cases, the actor never touches the other character because it's, well, impossible. There is, however, techniques that allow this. One way is to compose the picture in a way that cuts the arm (usually around the elbow), and another actor is touching the character. The blend-over scene fades out the fact that there's just a "magic hand" there. |
Why do healthier versions of a food items cost much more than the unhealthy versions? | The comments here are all good but miss one point; 'healthier' foods generally do not have very long shelf lives thus increasing the likelihood of waste for the store. To balance this, they increase the price. This is just one factor, the others have already been mentioned. |
How do insects function brain wise, they're so small. How do they know how to do anything. | Think of a very basic program. It's like they have several subroutines going: Function See() Function Hear() Function Feel() Function ReactToStimuli() Function FleeAwayFromThreat() Function FindAndProcureFood() Function Procreate() It does not take a lot of cells in a brain to do these things. |
Why do we sometimes flinch in our sleep? | If im reading the question right and you are talking about that jerk right before you fall asleep. The theory behind it is that it's a basic instinct that we learned when were we less evolved than we are now. It was for when we slept in trees and we felt a falling motion we would be jerked awake to try and grab a branch to catch ourselves before we hit the ground and got hurt. And from the studies I saw this has even been recorded in infants you can watch lunge their arms/hands out as if they are reaching to catch themselves. So when we fall asleep our brain thinks we are literally falling so we get a basic instinct that kicks in to help us even though its just a false positive. Edit damn autocorrect |
What is the difference between fuel grades at gas station pumps? What do the more expensive ones provide? | Higher grades of gas have a higher octane rating, which is important because octane is less volatile than cetane (which means it won't ignite when compressed more). High compression engines or forced induction (which both usually mean higher performance engines) require higher octane ratings to prevent the fuel igniting earlier in the cycle than it's supposed to ignite. For engines with lower compression, there's essentially no difference (and paying the higher price is a waste of money). |
Why are news headlines in the present tense and not past? | It's all about conveying the sense of immediacy and urgency. When you read a headline it conveys the feeling that this is fresh news. |
The Federal Reserve has kept interest rates low for several years to stimulate economic growth during the Recession. What benefits are there to them raising the rates ever if low rates strengthen the markets? | Raising rates can prevent a boom or bubble, where previously cheap interest rates would allow people to borrow money cheaply on high risk speculation. |
Why does no other animal have their own language like humans? | Some do, mostly whales and dolphins are thought to have some of the most complex languages other than humans. Bottlenosed Dolphins for example, have been shown to have "name clicks," sounds other dolphins use to get their attention. Human researchers have reproduced these sounds and can still get the same dolphins attention. |
When a baby is getting its first teeth, you're supposed to give them something to chew on to dull down the pain. How come when a teenager is growing in their wisdom teeth, they don't feel it until they start to disrupt the other teeth? | Don’t quote me on this, but you could flick a baby’s wrist and it would most likely hurt. A lot of stuff with them is due to their lack of pain tolerance. They simply can’t handle being uncomfortable. But that may not be completely right. |
Putting down animals in zoo | Did you read the rest of the article? They explained exactly why they did it. They didn't have the money to relocate the animals, and the new animals they were getting would have killed the old animals -- euthanasia makes a little more sense than a zoo snuff show. It's more important to look at the population of the species as a whole than any one individual animal -- with regards to the species as a whole, the zoo was doing exactly what it should. |
Why is international calling so much more expensive than domestic calling? | There is something called as Termination fees for each country. So telco's dont charge you for calling any one, they charge you for terminating the call with other network. since each country has its termination fees, when AT & T call gets through to say vodafone in UK and ends there. vodafone charges at & t for terminting callin their network. thats basic call rate Another thing to consider is the carrying capacity when you do pan atlantic call, its routed through number of nodes of communication, each node reproducing the call, for local its low, however for international its higher so it takes lot of power consumption for completing the call. and next thing is operator profits ( sometime more than anything else in this list) so these three makes international calls expensive.. |
Why sunglasses makes someone looking more charismatic/elegant/cool? | Since not had any responses, a few reasons I would rationalise it down to: * Positive association - it's used in a lot of films/movies/books as a way of signalling that someone is cool. As a result it's now associated with coolness * Psychologically it might add a bit of 'mystery' to the person - you don't know where they are looking, you can't 'read' them as easily (a huge amount of our emotions are shown through our eyes) * At a basic level it can just hide tired/saggy eyes, thus lifting the face and making it look better |
Why are virus websites such as "_URL_0_" allowed to have commercials on television, knowing well they are dangerous? | Because we have free speech, and they word their ads carefully to avoid making any directly false statements. TV channels could choose to refuse to air the ads, but unless there was a financial reason for them to do so, they won't. Basically, the law is that companies have a free speech right to advertise. The government can then stop them from continuing to advertise if and only if their ads contain material false statements. Even if nobody ever should buy the advertised product, unless they explicitly lie about it, they have the free speech right to advertise it. |
Why can't we make batteries that hold dozens of small batteries, then make high amperage chargers to charge them in seconds? | Batteries are made up of smaller batteries or cells. The problem is regardless how you make a battery, you need to deal with heat when charging a battery. The only way to overcome the problem is to spread the cells out further apart so what you have is a very large, low capacity battery. It's better to have a very dense small battery that takes longer to charge. |
The Alabama Senate Election | Alabama has been a deeply red state (republican) for the last 25 years, and it showed no sign of changing. So by all accounts, it looked like the election between Roy Moore(R) and Doug Jones(D) was all but a formality. Until the news broke that Roy Moore had a unhealthy fascination with girls on the younger side. (Think 14-18) and was at one point banned from a local mall, that had warned the local security to keep Moore away from the cheerleaders. Since this happened during the height of the #MeToo movement, it got tons of attention in the media. and Doug Jones started surging in the polls. In the end, it was close election, but Doug Jones (D) managed to squeeze out a win, in a state, that he has really no business winning, had any other republican candidate faced him he wouldn't have had a chance. |
How come when I poop my legs go numb, but I can sit at a desk or in a chair for hours with no problem? | I'm not sure, but maybe you could carry out a control experiment by pooping at your desk. EDIT: Like, maybe the descending poop compresses a nerve. I was being (partly) serious, guys! |
What causes some people to be more tolerant to extremely cold or hot temperatures? | Some of it also has to do with what you are used to. Here's an anecdote... I am from the frozen part of the northern midwest. In the winter, it rarely gets above 15 degrees F, and wind chills are often below zero. I lived in this area for 13 years before I went to college in the mid-south (Kentucky). During the first January I was down there, there was a light dusting of snow - not even measurable by our northern standards - and the temperature dipped down to about 35 degrees. I walked to class that morning in shorts and a sweatshirt because the warmth, to me, was glorious. I got about a hundred crazy-stares of people wearing snow pants, heavy coats, gloves, stocking caps, boots... all kinds of stuff. It truly wasn't cold to me at all. Caveat: I was slightly overweight in college, though I know plenty of people around here (living back in my hometown) that break out the spring/summer clothes the moment it hits 40 degrees. |
Why can't you tickle yourself successfully? | A "tickle" is a pain response which is created by the brain when the nerve sensors receive unexpected stimulation, and it is generally impossible for you to do something unexpected to yourself, and thus normally you can't tickle yourself. |
Why don't girls go bald? | Testosterone is the culprit which makes men go bald. One anti-baldness drug (Propecia) acts by decreasing the amount of available testosterone. Since women have less testosterone they don't go bald as often. |
with skyscrapers being built so high, is the air inside them pressurized? And what happens if a window is broken? | No the air is not pressurized, some of those windows even open. You have to go significantly higher than the worlds tallest building to have pressure be an issue. Its not even an issue on most mountains. Cold is a lot more of an issue. But no they are fine. |
Why does current culture/ideas differ so much compared to a 100 years ago? Was it also like this in the past, say when you compare 1500 AD and 1600 AD? | From 1500 to 1600, you have a pretty thorough revolution of agriculture in Europe as the first contact with the Americas was less than a decade before the start of the century; there was never a tomato in Italy or a potato in Ireland before this time period. The Renaissance was at its most transformative. This lead to the beginnings of the scientific method. It also transformed music in Europe, laying the groundwork for everything you think of as classical music. And I'm leaving out a LOT of Renaissance. [This is a world map from 1500](_URL_0_). [This is one from 1570](_URL_1_). Change happens all the time. Measuring which changes end up being more important tends to take a long time. |
Why does urinating feel different when you are sick? | For a multitude of reasons, among them: + When sick your system is generating different chemicals from the immunologic system fight, which generate different contents, pH and even smell for your pee, the different contents and pH can irritate the urethra and be painful + Your sensibility usually is higher due to the disease, so you can not only feel more intensively the urine pass, but also the above mentioned irritation + Your urination frequency messes up due to the sickness and you end up going to the bathroom at unusual (for your normal daily routine) times, which can also feel different |
Cricket. As an American, I'm so confused by it. | Cricket explained by an American _URL_0_ "And then you get drunk. Which is the conclusion to just about every other British activity I know of." |
Why are they called "Checks?" | As in a cheque? There have been suggestions that the word chek comes from ancient Pahlavi language which was used in the Achaemenid Empire in Persia. It may have spread from there to Arabic where saqq means a promise to pay a certain amount of money for delivered goods. (_URL_0_ ) |
Explain Quantum Entanglement to me like I'm 5. | When you flip a coin, you know that whenever you see a heads come up, the bottom of the coin is tails. Similarly, when you see a tails come up, the bottom of the coin is heads. Similar to how you know the two sides of a coin have opposite faces showing, physicists can make two particles that have opposite properties (such as spin). We refer to these pairs of particles as "entangled" - they aren't free to take on any value they'd like to. Just like the bottom of a coin can't be tails if the top is, the spin of one particle can't be clockwise if the other particle is spinning that way too. |
We've had photorealistic CGI in movies since the early 1990s ("Jurassic Park," etc). Why don't we have photorealistic video games yet? | Video games have to render the image in real-time, since your input determines what the next frame has to look like. A movie, by contrast, can take as long as it needs to get the image quality up to photorealistic levels, taking hours for a single frame, because they only have to render everything once. |
When you feel like your heart is skipping a beat, is it really skipping a beat? | I've been tested for this, and in my case it is that one heartbeat happens sooner than it normally would, and then the next heartbeat happens when it normally would in regard to the first of the three heartbeats, leaving more space between the second and third heartbeats, giving me that fluttery feeling in my chest. |
What is is that makes Buddhism a religion? | > Then, why is it a religion Religions don't need to be a Judeo-Christian style monotheism. Through history most weren't. > and why different from Taoism or other "related" philosophies/religions? It's related. There's a lot of overlaps in ideas in the same way there's a lot of overlaps between a lot of the more commonly considered Western religions. |
How do trains pull so many cars? What is the limit to the amount of weight they can pull? | The locomotive is large, and is pretty much all engine and fuel. Of course there's a limit, but you can increase that by adding more locomotives. This [Wikipedia article](_URL_0_) describes the record for the longest and heaviest train ever; eight locomotives pulling a train of 682 cars. It was four and a half miles long and weighed nearly 110,000 short tons. |
How to Buy Groceries Properly | > How do you separate what goes in the fridge/freezer Seriously? |
Is there a correlation between a full moon moon and odd behavior? | My girlfriend works as a midwife and says the same thing. She hates working night shifts on a full moon, "because it is madness". I don't believe it actually makes a difference, there is no scientific proof. Although I'm aware that these old wives tales, and a lot of folklore regarding full moons does stem from odd behaviour at these times. |
Why is it that when i get 8-9 hours of sleep i wake up tired but when i get 3-4 hours i wake up energized? | When we sleep our brain goes through a cycle of activity. This cycle will vary between 80 - 120 minutes and may repeat 4 or 5 times during the night. The "deepest" part of this cycle is called REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. This is the state usually associated with dreaming. We will enter REM sleep various times throughout the night, each time lasting longer than the last. If you wake up during REM sleep, you may feel more groggy than if you woke up in an earlier stage of the sleep cycle. If you don't have a regular sleeping schedule then your body may not regulate these cycles and you might wake up in the middle of one and feel "worse". Where if you wake up after 3-4 hours of sleep you may be waking up during a more natural part of the cycle. |
Why can't we put metal objects in the microwave, yet the inside is made of metal, including the metal mesh on the inside of the door. Is the metal coated with some special paint that makes it ok to be exposed to microwaves? | Electrical engineer, the answer is simple. The metal box is a conductive plane, preventing potential differences from accumulating. They discharge naturally and rapidlly The frequency of the microwaves are set up to create a standing wave in the microwave. This standing wave is caused because the electrically conductive box is the right size to do so. If a metal object is in the microwave and shaped so that there exists a potential due to standing waves that cannot be discharges over the metal, it will likely amplify until it arcs. So, what causes this potential and thus arc? 1. Two bits of metal which are close but not in contact. Take two strips of aluminium foil, bend in zig zags and place close, but not touching in a microwave, they should go off nicely. 2. Sharp points in close proximity with a long conductive distance between them. Fork tines are good for this. A screwed up bit of foil also works. And if you want to watch something cool, try a CD, that goes off like a firework due to #1. |
Can 2 or 3 people have the exact same voice? | Close enough to cause confusion, anyway. When I was in high school, this happened more than once: SFX: Phone rings My Dad: Hello? (pause) My Dad: I think you must want PossibilityJones. Just a moment. PossibilityJones! Phone! Me: Hello? My Girlfriend: Stop it! You're just screwing with me! I know it's you all along! |
How are the songs on the radio encoded into radio frequencies? | If it is analog radio there are two ways AM and FM. In both cases you have a carrier wave at the frequency you set your radio to. The carrier wave has higher frequency then the sound. The sound you can hear is < 20,000 hz and the carrier wave is in the 1,000,000 hz range AM (amplitude modulation) changes the amplitude of the carrier wave with the amplitude of the sound ie a multiplication of the signals. FM (frequency modulation) is more complex and you change the frequency of the carrier wave with the amplitude of the sound and keep the same amplitude. You can see an [animation] (_URL_0_) on the wikipage of how it looks. And if the question is for digital radio then the answer is more advances because the song is encoded like a mp3 on a computer and then transmitted digitalt on like hos WiFi works (not the same but similar). |
Why do Americans consider Barack Obama to be black when he is actually mixed? | By American convention, a person is black if they have basically any black ancestry. And more importantly, Barrack Obama self-identifies as black. |
why animals like pandas can eat just one plant and don't have any lack of nutrients | They do have a lack of nutrition that's why they sleep 90% of the time, Its why they have to eat almost a ton of bamboo a day to survive, They don't have enough energy for sex which is part of the reason they are going extinct. |
Explain me voltage, electricity and current like I'm literally 5 | Electricity is the build up of electrons. Current is the movement of electrons. Voltage is how hard the current is being pushed. Amperage is how many electrons are being pushed. |
Why do movies use a green background to film with CGI and not other colors? | Green is generally the farthest colour from human skin tone, being the opposite of red, so when it comes to removing it you avoid issues with holes in the person. Also modern digital cameras devote twice as many pixels to green as for blue or red, so they're a lot more sensitive to the green spectrum. |
Difference between a key change and mode change in music. | From what I understand all the modes retain the same base note. So if you know enough about whatever mode they are playing in you can figure out what note they keep ending with or going back to. When you change the key the base note is different. For example the difference between C major and C mixolydian is that in the latter the 7th note goes down a half-step. They both have the same base note (C), but the scales are different. |
Why can't electric cars charge themselves like combustion engines can charge it's own battery? | Because the combustion engine uses the combustion to charge the battery via a generator (alternator in a car). The electric car uses the battery to run the car. So using a battery to charge a battery is both pointless and will result in a net loss of energy due to heat. Also, electric cars do charge themselves when you use the breaks or are coasting downhill in cruise control and it's slowing you down by applying a generator to the drive shaft (?) causing resistance while generating electricity |
How does Shampoo and Body Wash work so effectively when it only stays on our body for a few seconds before getting washed off? | If I understood correctly, you are basically asking how soap works. Soap/shampoo/body wash has molecules that can interact with both the water and the fat/dirt you want to remove. These molecules have a polar portion, which binds them to water, and an apolar portion, which makes them able to interact with organic matter (fat, dirt, basically what you want to remove when using soap). So in a way, soap allows the organic matter (dirt) to become "soluble" in water. You're not really destroying the dirt molecules per se, as much as allowing them to be washed away and go down the drain. |
What is mitochondrial DNA and what it tells about human evolution | You live in a house, but you have some extra room. So you let your friend come over and live in a room in your house. He has his own stuff for his room but uses your kitchen, bathroom, washer/dryer. In exchange he pays for your power bill. This is a symbiotic relationship, you help each other. Mitochondria are the remnants of a once fully independent species of bacteria that fused with larger bacteria and formed a symbiotic relations (this occured over hundreds of millions of years). The mitochondria, when they first moved into the cells of our ancestor bacteria brought some of their own stuff, one of which was it's own DNA, which is still found in them today. Mitochondrial DNA don't mutate as much or as fast as regular DNA, and they are only passed on from your mom (they were present in her egg cells when it fused with the sperm). So now we have a really good marker for tracing differences between broader cultural and ethnic groups. |
Why does squinting improve my eyesight when I don't have glasses on? | Glasses bend the incoming light to focus it appropriately to the back of your eye. When you squint, you're doing the exact same thing, but very imprecisely. It bends the light just enough to help you get by in a pinch. |
If two half-asian, half-caucasian people have a baby, is there a small chance only the caucasian genes are passed on? | Mathematically yes. Statistically no. That would require: - that each parent had EXACTLY half of its genes from each origin, which is a very small chance. - that they have EXACTLY complimentary halves (every gene that was asian in one parent would have to be caucasian in the other parent), which is again a very small chance. - that the chromosomes all crossed over at exactly the right place to switch it out, which it another very small chance. |
Why does our electoral system have "super delegates" who don't have to cast votes matching the popular vote of their district? | It's not really "our electoral system", it's the Democrats' nomination process that has it. Technically, those people don't have to cast votes based on anything, but the majority are almost certainly going to vote for whoever ends up winning the vote-based delegates. It came up in 2008 - a lot of superdelegates came out to support Clinton early on, and ended up switching their votes to Obama after it was clear he had won the popular process. It'd be political suicide for the party to swing the vote away from the primary results. As to why it exists, the cynical reason is that candidates do a lot of work to try to convince these superdelegates to come out in support of them early on in the process, and they don't want to lose that feeling of importance. |
How does the body make blisters? | heat damage increases capilary permeability and plasma (the liquid that supports blood cells) "leaks" under a thin skin layer, getting trapped under it. |
Why do we hear about so many soldiers in the present day wars in Iraq and Afghanistan returning with PTSD, yet it seemed to be nonexistent in those returning from WWII? | Back then it was called shell shock. Damn sure happened frequently but just not as discussed much like most mental illnesses |
Why can't Palau, Marshall Islands, and Micronesia provide for themselves and not be in Free Association with the United States? | Ever since WWII ended, there has been a strong decolonization movement throughout the world, and many countries are either granting their overseas possessions independence, or giving them full status as an integrated part of the nation. Many of these places want independence, but aren't equipped to take on all of its responsibilities. Many of them take intermediate steps first, like a free association, before they are ready to break free entirely. |
how do birds mate, and why can we still eat an egg? | The chicken eggs in the grocery store have never come in contact with a rooster. They are unfertilized eggs. |
Why is a bra just called a bra when it covers two things, but a pair of panties is called a pair when it only covers one thing? | We don't call them a pair of shirts either. Panties came from pants, and pants originally came from hosiery, which came as two separate pieces. We kept the "pair" nomenclature even after we starting joining the two leg pieces together in the middle. |
- Why is it that Peter Pan is portrayed so much by women in plays and new reboots of the story? | It's much easier to make a woman look like a 14 year old boy than it is to find a man that looks like a 14 year old boy. |
What would happen if every single American with student loan debt simultaneously defaulted on it? | The banks would be bailed out by the government, who insured the loans. Taxpayers, including those newly-graduated and working debtors, would have to make up the losses in higher taxes. Deadbeats would lose their credit rating, and have to pay exorbitant interest rates for years to come. Student loans would become prohibitively expensive and fewer of the next generation would be able to attend college. The job market cannot find adequately-trained Americans and seeks visas to hire foreign guest workers. |
What causes the need to pee? | It's been a while since I've studied it so I can't elaborate too much. Basically after we reach about 200mL of urine our bladder stretches too much and we feel the need to pee. I was taught that every 50~100 mL of urine will re-trigger this feeling until your bladder can't stretch enough and is forced to contract which causes you to pee. The nerves are called the pelvic splanchnic nerves which is part of the inferior hypogastric plexus. _URL_0_ Source: Working on my masters in exercise physiology Edit: If you want to read about [the plexus](_URL_1_) or the [Splanchnic nerves](_URL_2_) |
When you burn your tounge, why does it feel like a different texture? | The answer is in the question. Burning skin damages it. If it's damaged, it's going to be a different texture until it heals. Also, your tongue has nerve endings just like the rest of you. The tongue itself can feel things. When burned, those nerves aren't working properly any more. So your tongue will feel different to the rest of your mouth, and your mouth will feel differently to your tongue. |
What is the purpose of the "Do not eat" packets often found in packaging? What would happen if it was to be consumed? | it is there to absorb moisture and keep the thing its packed with dry. it is non toxic but may irritate your digestive tract.. btw its silica gel _URL_0_ |
Why can reading glasses be purchased over the counter, but glasses for nearsightedness cost hundreds of dollars? | As I understand it, "reading glasses" are basically wearable magnifying lenses at various strengths. Glasses for nearsightedness (or farsightedness) are far more than that - in essence, they need to be carefully shaped to reverse the abnormalities of your natural lenses and eyeball. This is a somewhat complicated calculation, and the cost of the glasses reflects the complexity of creating your custom lenses. The charge for an eye exam is completely separate from the cost of a new pair of glasses. |
how are ETFs priced? | Each share of the ETF owns very specific fractional shares of the other stocks. If we have an ETF that is 0.01 shares of AMZN, GOOG, and AAPL per ETF share then it should be priced at 0.01*(1715.97+1152.26+188.84) or $30.57 per share. If you were a market maker and you owned a large number of shares of this ETF, you could turn them into the underlying assets. If you have 1 million ETF shares you could trade them for 10,000 shares of AMZN, GOOG, and AAPL which you could then sell for their listed prices. You could also take 10,000 shares of each and turn them into 1 million shares of the ETF If the price of the ETF diverges from the price of what it contains then this creates an arbitrage opportunity(free money) where you can buy the stocks cheap in one form and sell them for a profit in another. The automated traders are quick to take this chance for free money so the price of an ETF is usually pretty close to the price of the assets that make up each share of it(the net asset value, or NAV) |
How does "declaring war" on a country work? And how does a country know who is attacking them? Couldn't the US go bomb a country and say another country did it? | Much like declaring a thumb war, the country just goes "We declare war!" Often this would be conveyed by diplomats, but broadcasting it can be one way to find out. Also, bombs and gunshots that are directed toward one's country is a significant clue. Sometimes it may be difficult to know that war was started against a country. For example, Russia sent military forces and equipment into Crimea when invading Ukraine and denied it publicly. Sattelite photos and monitoring from other countries figured out what was going on, but it can be very difficult to figure out who the guys with guns and no uniforms are working for. |
How do muscles get stronger as you workout? | In a couple of different ways, actually. First and foremost they get stronger with lots of exercise because they get better at recruiting more fibers and contracting harder, which is mainly due to the training effect on your central nervous system. Secondly the muscles themselves get little micro tears in them as you lift weights. When these little tears heal back your body heals them back bigger and stronger than they were before. |
how are chip cards more secure than swipe cards? | The chips generate a rolling code and would be imposible to predict or duplicate. So suffice it to say that you cannot spoof the card. So unless you actually steal the card (easy to identify and report) you are out of luck. so any retailer that uses a chip is effectively immune from credit card fraud or atleast bogus claims of fraud. |
Why are rainbows always curved? | Rainbows are actually circular, however, ol' earth gets in the way. But there's more to it, too. The sun's light has travelled so far that it's coming basically straight at us, there are droplets of water in the air that splits the light apart into colors, and bounces them back towards you. However, there's only a certain area where the water can be where it's perfect for this. The real reason, however, is because water droplets are round. So since when they're at a certain distance with light coming in at a certain angle, any droplets in that circle will project those colors to your eyes. |
Why does it feel warmer when it's snowing outside, compared to it just being cold without snow? | Bunch of wrong answers here... Snowfall implies negative degrees celcius (otherwise it would rain). As the temperature drops below zero, the humidity in the air quickly drops aswell. Dry air is much easier to shield yourself against than humid air. This is why 1 degree celsius above zero is such an awful temperature. You get all the cold with the humidity. |
What are “non-free” packages in Linux? | Used in debian-style repositories and others, the non-free section refers to packages that do not have source code published under a "free" license. Such packages/software are distributed free of charge, but the source code is not available and/or users are not allowed to modify and create derivates of the code. |
Why does my nasal sinuses clog up once I lay down to rest? | Nasal sinuses are essentially holes inside your skull that clog up with mucus (snot) when you have a cold. Each of these sinuses have an opening in them which allows the mucus to drain from the sinuses into your nasal cavity (inside of your nose). Most of the sinuses have their drainage openings on the bottom of the sinus so when your head is upright the mucus can drain into your nose pretty easily via gravity. This means that when you are lying down, they tend not to drain so well and clog up. |
Why do we have a bracketed tax system, and why don't we use flat tax rates for everyone? | As ELI5 as was explained to me: A flat tax, like 11%, would be a larger share of a low earning citizen than a high earning citizen. A person earning $100 would be more affected by paying $11 dollars than a person earning $100,000 would be paying $11,000. |
How Bi-Planes are able to time/shoot their guns without the bullets hitting the propellers. | While all of the responses so far are good (the wiki link explains quite well in-depth, with illustrations), I'd like to try making this as ELI5/TL;DR as I can: The pilot's trigger is not really the same as a trigger on a handgun - it does not make the weapon fire. Instead, it works more like a safety - when pressed down the safety is off. The trigger is attached to the propeller - the propeller will pull the trigger each time it is in a position where the bullet will miss. |
How do babies learn languages so quickly? | Not like they have much else to do, poopin' don't take too much time. |
If every company that has moved "hq" overseas suddenly had to pay the taxes owed to the US gov't, what would happen? | The better question is: why should we tax worldwide profits of corporations anyway? The taxes that they are avoiding by moving overseas are **taxes on profit (edit: typo) made outside of the US**. We are alone in doing this, since every other country in the world only taxes corporate profit made within their borders. It doesn't make sense, and it puts American companies at a disadvantage internationally. |
How exactly is data transferred wirelessly? Bluetooth, Radio, Satellite, NFC, Wi-Fi, Li-Fi etc? | Imagine the hose in your garden. Its connected to a faucet. If you open and close it fast enough and in a pattern, water comes out of the other end also in a pattern. Now, devices have recievers and transmitters. These know how to "read" and "write" patterns respectively. We can now set this up so that certain patterns can mean certain symbols. A collection of symbols can ultimately form an email, a message on facebook, and more complex streams like pictures and videos. in real life, these devices turn on and off at tremendous speeds, and as a general rule, the faster you can turn on and off, the more information you can send in a single time frame. |
What it means to cut someone off | Basically it is when another driver passes your car, but gets into your lane without leaving reasonable space between your front bumper and their back bumper. This can be, and often is, accompanied by the offending driver immediately reducing speed to compensate for sliding in between cars recklessly, creating the potential for you rear-ending them. |
Is there a reason that some devices (like a remote) have their batteries installed in opposite directions, as opposed to a flashlight which does not? | When you put batteries in *series* (i.e. stacked up end-to-end), their voltages add together but the current stays the same. When you put batteries in *parallel* the voltage stays the same, but the currents add together. Installing the batteries in opposite directions is a way of putting them in series without having to have a really long thin stack of batteries. The top of one battery connects to the bottom of the next, and so on. |
How does carbon dating work if all of the atoms being tested were originally created in stars? | That's because the Carbon-14 was not made during the big bang, or even when our sun and the earth were formed. Carbon-14 is constantly being created by decay of Nitrogen-14 in our atmosphere. When something is carbon dated, it's dating the carbon that was created during the lifetime of that organism. Radiocarbon dating is really only useful for organic material, and only to about 50,000-60,000 years ago, due to the half-life of Carbon-14. |
Why are certain animals (e.g. dogs, cats) domesticated more commonly than other animals (e.g. deer, raccoons, etc)? | Dogs and cats are better suited for the tasks we give them. There is not a lot that a deer can do that something else we have tamed could do more efficiently. Although reindeer are used in extremely cold environments that would not be good for horses. |
Why, when I have a headache - If I bend over or bend down, the headache becomes instantly much more painful until I stand up straight again | Increased pain when you bend over or press on the area is symptomatic of a sinus-related problem, possibly a sinus infection. |
Why do University computers get a 200+Mbps connection while my laptop only gets 10mbps. | Gigabit speeds are pretty much restricted to *wired* connections. Shared wireless isn't up to the task. |
so why do companies make mail-in rebates? | People who are attracted by the rebate price and buy it, but never mail it in. |
Why do people keep buying EA games if they know they will have to 'pay-to-play'? | Because EA games is the biggest player in the gaming industry and they make a lot of games. Remember that Reddit is a forum for people who have a problem. You don't hear the people who are happy because they are either downvoted to hell or too busy having fun to engage with those who are unhappy. EA is making an unbelievable amount of money off of these games, otherwise they wouldn't make them. A few people pissing and moaning on Reddit isn't going to stop them if the profits keep coming in. |
Why are razor cartridges so expensive? | 1. People pay that much for them 2. Once you buy the handle, since each has it's own interface, the choice to swap razors includes more costs than just the difference in blade prices. 3. The major razor companies pay stores enough to ensure that only a few brands will fill the shelves. 4. Go check out Dorco Razors or old-style double edged razor blades, for much less expensive options. |
The enormous salaries of professional athletes. When did this madness start? Is it a result of owners, players, or consumers? | Let me ask you this, what would you rather be done with the money? If the sport is making enormous sums of money, based on the efforts of the players, would you rather the money just go to the CEOs of the sports team? If you look at professional athlete's salary as a percentage of what the team makes, as oppose to how many dollars they get, it puts it in a much better perspective. |
What's it called when you have a memory of hearing something while looking at another source? | It's called associative memory. Any time you're remembering things, there's a whole lot of other potential activations than what you recall. Sometimes the connections are strong enough to pull a peripheral memory into full recall. |
Why does it hurt if I drink through the nose? | We didn't evolve to drink through our noses like for example elephants. We evolved to drink through our mouths. We smell and breath through our nose. Water getting in our noses implies to our body that we might be underwater and getting water inside us, so we might be in danger of drowning. So the unpleasant feeling of water in our nose acts like a warning and motivation like "avoid this happening, get out of these conditions", instinctively directing us away from the danger of drowning. |
Why are stocks worth anything? (particularly ones that don't pay dividend) | As a shareholder you are a part owner of the company and are entitled to what an owner would be entitled to(profits from the company). In the short term the company may not have profits, or wants to grow the business so the Board of Directors(elected by the Shareholders)decides to reinvest the profits instead. In the long term, the goal whether you're .00001% owner or 100% owner is to grow the company to a degree that you can pocket the profit. Also the shares themselves change value. As late as 2001 you could Apple shares for under 15 bucks. By 2011 they were over 400 dollars a share. A 40,000 dollar investment back then would make you a millionaire just in the value of the shares not to mention the 17,000 plus a year you'd be collecting in dividends. They've since done a stock split so their share price is much lower, but you'd have more of them. |
Why isn't all internet data encrypted? | Encryption adds overhead, notably CPU time in encrypting/decrypting the payload and the accompanying latency of doing so. The vast majority of traffic gains no benefits from being encrypted, so it would be a waste of time and resources. |
What is with the fighting culture in hockey? | Your question's a little vague. If you're asking why do people like watching people fight in hockey, it's because it's entertaining in the same way that mixed martial arts cage fighting events and boxing are entertaining. People get a kick out of people kicking the shit out of each other, even if that's not the prime purpose of the sport. If you're asking why there's fighting at all in hockey, it's because it's a violent sport that requires strength and endurance to play at the professional level and is extremely competitive and makes players' blood run hot. If you're gonna play and win, one of your team's weapons is intimidation, and one of your own team members beating the hell out of some member of the other team is one way to either put them in their place or let them know you're not gonna be pushovers yourselves. |
had a shower thought...why do the drawings you put in fogged glass stay there even after a session of defogging and into the reformed glass? | The oils on your finger stick to the glass and less water vapor will stick to the oily sections of the glass when you re-fog it. |
[NSFW]Does the Quran really say this? If not, how is it being interpreted by ISIS? | I don't have an answer for you, but the New Testament does not, in any way, condone what happened in the Crusades. That was a scenario where a bunch of people thought they were doing good by attempting to recapture the holy land, then found Bible verses to "make it okay" |
What makes computer hacking difficult, and not something a computer itself does? | Well in some cases, it does. But that's another story. Consider what computers do: very simple tasks, *very* fast. They don't (usually) screw up. Now hacking consists, fundamentally, of finding cases where people told the computer to do the wrong thing. At a very basic level, this is a deviation from expected behavior, which makes it...unpredictable. Computers suck at it because it's a *difficult* problem that can't easily be broken down into simple problems. Or in a nutshell, it is very hard to predict the unpredictable. |
Why do some biscuits take longer to completely soak if completely covered by liquids instead of slowly dunked? | When you dunk the biscuit, the tea replaces the air inside the biscuit. The air has to be able to escape the biscuit for this to happen. This is easy if part of the biscuit is still dry, because the surface is porous. But when you completely dunk the biscuit the porous surface is covered by tea, which resists the passage of air. Try putting a handkerchief up top your lips and blowing through it. Then try it with a sopping wet handkerchief, and you'll see the difference. |
What is a Jehovah's witness? What's that all about? | They are an offshoot of Christianity, but they believe things that clearly set them apart from Christianity including but not limited to not believing that Jesus is God, they believe Jehovah is the only correct name for God, and only 144,000 will go to heaven to be with God while any others who were "saved" will live on a better earth (but their idea of what makes someone "saved" is a bit different than "mainstream" Christianity). There are other differences as well, like the whole no blood transfusions thing, but these are some of the differences that significantly set it apart. Edited for grammar and whatnot |
How do us humans know how to have sex? | If nothing else, experimentation with sticking one thing into another and having it feel good. A penis and a vagina are located in the same general region and probably wouldn't be difficult to figure out that one fits the other pretty well. No contact with any other human being would likely also come with no stigmas attached to such experimentation. |
Why, if I live in Jackson, MS, my Amazon package went from South Carolina to North Carolina (the opposite direction). | Not if it had to have it's own truck to do so. Most of the carriers use a "star and connector" model for delivery. For a long time, every fedex package that left it's "region" was routed through TN because this simplified logistics and made economic sense. Increased volume has allowed for more local replications of this model, but...the same principle is used. It's better to have full trucks and planes then empty ones even if it means transporting a given package the long way. |
Why don't cars sound like the explosions in their engines? | Because cars have a longer exhaust pipe, which may be wrapped in insulation (near the headers) and the engine is usually kept in an engine compartment that's often insulated as well. Finally the exhaust pipes are connected to a muffler and catalytic convertor. All of that helps suppress the sound of the engine. A car with a cut exhaust is plenty loud. |
Why are Pit Bulls a more dangerous and unpredictable dog compared to other breeds? | They're not. Unfortunately, a fairly large majority of pitbulls are located in lower-class, poverty stricken urban cities/neighborhoods. This could be because they have a large build compared to other breeds. But, because these dogs are usually trained to "protect" and "intimidate," it's just a case of classical conditioning. A pitbull pup is no more dangerous or unpredictable than a golden retriever pup. It's just a case of bad circumstance. |
Why aren't we doing anything about the colossal amount of trash in the pacific ocean? | Because it isn't what people think. The Pacific gyre is filled with plastic, it's a huge problem, but the plastic is millions of tiny pieces suspended in the water. To 'do something' you'd have to filter billions of gallons of water without killing every living thing in it and then find some way to remove the plastic accumulation from the local biomass without again killing everything. |
Why does smoking cigarettes make my hangover seem a thousand times worse? | You need water and salt to replace what you lost metabolizing alcohol, instead you put nicotine in your system, further dehydrating you and causing your metabolism to kick in to high gear again. Eat some bacon, drink a gallon of water. |
Why gas stations promote that their gas is ethanol free. | We as humans figured out a way to turn corn into a fuel-additive. It's cheaper but our current internal-combustion engines aren't really built to effectively utilize it. Like you're five... You freakin' love some mac 'n' cheese and can eat it all day, every day, for every meal, and be fine. Mac 'n' cheese is a bit expensive so Mom finds a way to mix in some 2% milk and not use as much cheese so she can save a few pennies. Only, your stomach isn't used to 2% milk, so you occasionally have cramps. And the milk doesn't provide as much nutrition so you require just a little bit more of it. EDIT: To angle this towards your original question: They're saying that their gas is better for your engine and not "corned down" with ethanol (which may damage your engine and not produce as much energy). |
Why would the U.S. or its companies sell military technology it currently uses to other countries allies or potential adversaries? | It is actually against the law for the US or companies of the US to sell a WHOLE range of things without very special permission, and for some countries, the answer is often no--like China--and always no for some - North Korea. This is why espionage and spying on technology is such a high stakes activity. Like here: _URL_0_ We also do not share everything, as a rule. Nobody else has the stealth bomber (some of these things are just so complicated and expensive, a nation couldn't build one) and in the meantime, the US continues to invent the next model even as the current model is getting launched. The US doesn't sell to unstable countries and usually what they get is something we've already left behind and can easily take out. |
when resetting electronics such as a wireless router, why does the amount of time matter with regards to unplugging the device? | Most electronic devices have circuits built into them that "level out" the electrical current coming into it, to prevent the device from malfunctioning if there is a power surge or a sudden drop in mains voltage. That circuit has some electrical elements called capacitors in it. (capacitors are basically tiny batteries) Those capacitors can keep a device running for a few seconds (or more), even if the power is unplugged. This is where the wait time comes in when unplugging: You have to wait for the capacitors to discharge, or you haven't really done anything by unplugging. Very low power devices (or devices which can enter a "low power" state) can run for significant periods of time (several minutes) on leftover capacitor charge. |
Why does a single repeating drip of water drive us crazy when a small trickle of water does not? | A trickle is a constant noise and is easy to cancel out. A drip is catching your attention every 5 seconds (with a 5 second drip frequency) because there is silence in between the drips. This makes it hard to focus on anything else which is more and more frustrating for each drip. |
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