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How does this phone holder for your car not break your phone? | There are two electronics components that are sensitive to magnets: cathode ray tube (CRT) screens and hard drives. Your phone does not have either of those- it has an LED or LCD screen instead of a CRT and uses flash memory instead of a hard drive. With credit cards, the magnetic strip will get messed up with a strong magnet, but the chip that more places are switching to using (and pretty much everyone outside the US has fully switched to) will not be impacted by a magnet. The magnet on the case probably isn't strong enough to mess up the credit cards, especially with the metal plate between the cards and the magnet, but I'd probably avoid it just to be safe. |
How do computers convert binary into instructions? | This is the task of the CPUs control logic. All these transistors that make registers, busses, adders and the other fuctions of the CPU is controlled by single bit control signals. So you may have hundreds of these signals in a core. The control logic is a block that converts the instructions you feed the processor into these control signals. There is also a counter per instruction so that one instruction can take multiple cycles. The control logic can be made in different ways. The simplest way to think of it is as a read only memory which takes the instruction in as address input and outputs the data at that memory location as the control signals. However this is inefficient so they usually have ways to reduce the space requirements of this logic and end up with an FPGA or something similar. If you want to know more I recommend a youtube series by Ben Eater where he builds a very simple CPU using simple logic components. |
What's the deal with "laces in"? | It's from the movie 'Ace Ventura: Pet Detective' where a shamed former kicker who missed a game-winning field goal placed the blame on the star-QB/kick-holder because he didn't rotate the ball to be 'laces out' (facing away from the kicker). The idea is that kicking the laced area may affect the trajectory/path/rotation/distance of a kick because it isn't as smooth as the rest of the ball. The preferred area for a place kicker to kick the ball is on the smooth portion of the football. |
Why does our atmosphere appear blue from earth in sunlight, but when earth is viewed from space also in sunlight, it's clear/invisible? | The sky appears blue from inside our atmosphere because the light refracts (bounces around). The blue part of the light bounces around more, so that's what we see. From the outside however, we're seeing the light that is reflected, not refracted. It is a subtle difference, but basically it doesn't bounce around and therefore we see clearly. |
What is integral spin/half-integral spin and what's the difference | It's integer, not integral. It just means that all fermions have a spins that are fractions like 1/2, and all bosons have a spin that's a single integer, like 0 or 1. Spin is an intrinsic property of particles that measures their angular momentum. It's not exactly like the spin we think of on a macro scale, like a spinning ball, but it's easy to think about them similarly. |
Why didn't the U.S. include the release of prisoners in the new nuclear deal with Iran | Because that would have given leverage to Iran. By taking more prisoners and negotiating for their release too, they could have tried to extract more favorable terms in other parts of the agreement. By not including prisoner release as part of the negotiations, the U.S. removed that potential negotiating card for them to play, forcing them to negotiate only on nuclear research and sanctions and nothing else. |
Why does cold water feel way more FREEZING than it actually is when I'm chewing minty gum? | The receptors that sense cold are partially activated by chemicals in the mint, and respond as though they're feeling a chill... when you hit them with something cold as well - they get a double whammy and it feels absolutely freezing. |
Who do most of our "traditional" Christmas songs, images and TV/movies come from the 1940s to the 1960s? | Here's my opinion on this, I have no expertise in it though. By the way, this idea is directly plagiarized from [xkcd](_URL_1_). [Baby Boomers](_URL_0_) grew up with those things and there are currently a lot of Baby Boomers. Also , if you look at the current age and buying power of Baby Boomer's, they are really the perfect target demographic if you're trying to decide what music to play during Christmas shopping time at Macy's to get people in a nostalgic, warm-and-fuzzy, Christmas shopping mood. |
Ethanol in Fuel - What is it? Why is it added? Is it good/bad and why so? | E10 is a blend of gas/alcohol made from biomass (corn, usually). Most modern cars are just fine running it. E85 is a different beast, however - the concentration of ethanol is much higher (as is the octane rating), making engine management / fuel system changes necessary (usually engines require higher flow injectors/pump to run E85). The higher the concentration of alcohol, the worse mileage you'll get, but it's usually offset by being lower price per gallon. If you have a turbocharged car, an E85 tune can really be a godsend since its high octane rating means it will be less likely to pre detonate under higher compression. |
How does Humble Bundle make money when they have discounts that cost them hundreds of dollars each sale, and only make a percentage of the discounted sale? | It helps a lot that they aren't selling a physical product. Really cuts down on the cost per unit. No materials, no production cost. Just licensing and server costs (bandwidth). So to say that it's 'costing hundreds' isn't accurate, they're almost certainly not dropping the price below cost, even though to us consumers, it seems like a crazy discount. |
Why do the hurricanes "curve" when they get close to Florida instead of just continuing straight? | Air currents 'push' the hurricane one way or another, in my comment below you will see a pretty interesting site. |
What is the difference between top 1% owning 1% of the nation's income vs bottom 1% owning 1% of nation's income | The reality is that the top 1% owns far more than 1% of the nation's wealth, hence what makes them the top 1%. If they owned the same as the bottom 1% then they would be in the same class as the bottom 1%. There would be no differentiating between the groups. How would you know anyone is relegated to whatever group/ class in which they are classified? Ergo, they wouldn't be the top 1%. No one would, nor would anyone be the bottom 1%. You are using terms used to describe population groups in a capitalist society in a hypothetical socialist situation. |
What the hell are flies so attracted to? | Typically honey, but I've heard of a few people getting a few with vinegar. |
How do cancerous cells affect and make the surrounding cells cancerous as well? | A cancerous cell can produce exosomes, little packages of cancer proteins, DNA and RNA, these exosomes float around the body through lymph and blood vessels and they are be accidentally swallowed by healthy cells elsewhere in the body. And these cancerous proteins/functional RNA can possibly shut down the tumour inhibiting proteins in the healthy cell, making them more likely to turn malignant. Another way for cancer to propagate is by having cancer cells from the original tumour can break off, they float into the lymph vessels, travel to another part of the body and establish a satellite cancer tumour elsewhere. That's how cancer metastasize. ED to incorporate current science. |
Why isn't there significant talk about forming a third party in the US during this current political climate? | One of the most robust conclusions of the literature on political science is that a winner take all voting system (like the US') will lead to the consolidation of political parties into two. Pretend there are two parties, L and R which are left and right wing respectively. I then start a new party named LoC (which is left of center). A left of center voter who finds me the most agreeable of the three parties will likely not vote for me if they think things out, though. If he and other people like him vote for my party, it would mean that left wing support has been split between my party and L, leaving R with a majority share of the vote. Him voting for the party that he most agreed with led to the party he disagrees with the most winning. TL,DR: The US' election system makes it virtually impossible for a third party to emerge and certain that in the long run there will only be two parties. |
Why doesn't the U.S. get rid of the penny? | People are very reluctant to accept and generally dislike change. |
How do neurons "know" things? As in, "this memory is stored in this neuron." | This is something that we don't know. We know that each memory has a particular network of neurons that is used when you remember it, but we aren't sure how that network stores things exactly. The brain recognizes the pattern of the network and you remember whatever is stored by it (or the other way around, you remember and then the brain recognizes the pattern). We can image this with fMRI and such but that doesn't tell us how. There was even an experiment where the researchers found a single neuron that fired in response to a picture of a celebrity (Jennifer Aniston, I think). The how boils down to neurotransmitters being released but, yet again, we're not sure how that results in a something like a memory. There is also the Orch OR theory that says that consciousness and the like results from quantum interactions within the microtubules of individual neurons, but I don't really understand it past that basic explanation. |
If sand is eroded rock, why does melting rock give you lava, but melting sand give you glass. | Geologist here! Let me see if I can help: Rock is made of of many different minerals like quartz, calcium carbonate, mica, biotite, feldspar, and many many others. Glass and sand are both composed of the same mineral - quartz (SiO2 or silica dioxide), though commercial glass has additives to color it or help make it stronger. Volcanic lava can have many different minerals in it. Sometimes the lava is made up of mostly quartz and if it cools really fast it becomes the rock known as obsidian. So, if you follow the rock cycle, the lava cools to obsidian, gets eroded to quartz sand, then gets cemented into sandstone with time and pressure. That rock may eventually be subducted back into the earth's crust and re-melted. It can then be ejected from a volcano or other hot spot to create a new rock! What type of rock will again depend on the minerals present. |
How do companies like Turbo Tax and H & R Block that do tax returns for you make it's profit since people only use their services once a year? | Actually a lot of people file their taxes 4 times a year. Anyone working a 1099 job and any business that surpasses a certain minimum revenue level |
Fisher v. University of Texas | Hate to be a bitch, but... /r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1gz0cd/eli5_the_scotus_ruling_in_fisher_v_university_of/ Is that the one? I can ELI5 following a link if you want :) but it would just be "click that link and eat your dinner!!!" |
what's the difference between ram air parachutes and the round ones? | Greater chance of breaking a leg on landing w/ a round parachute due to less control of rate of descent. |
Why do ballpoint pens become unusable even though their see-through cartridges are shown with full ink? | If the ink can't flow, it doesn't matter how much there is. Ball point pens can become damaged, or clogged with crap far before they run out of ink. |
How are Apple Pay, Samsung pay, Google wallet different? | Samsung pay can use magnetic secure transmission, to basically send the information to the magnetic reader on almost all card readers wheras apple pay and google wallet use nfc to process payments The added capability of samsung allow it to truthfully make claims that it is accepted in more places |
Why is it that alcohol does not have to have the ingredients or nutritional facts printed on the bottle? | It all depends on whether something is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA, part of the Department of Health and Human Services) or the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB, part of the Treasury Department.) Only FDA-controlled items are required to have nutrition labels. For TTB beverages, it's voluntary. There have been efforts to standardize this, but nothing's ever come of it. The historical reason for this split is simple: Alcohol has always been an important source of government revenue, much more so than food. Distilled spirits (aka hard liquor), wine, and malt beverages (aka beer and malt liquor) are all under TTB control. This creates some peculiar exceptions. Gluten-free "beer" made with something besides malted barley is an FDA-controlled beverage with a nutrition label. Hard cider is just as alcoholic as beer, but it's not malted, so needs a label. (For some purposes, it's apparently treated as wine.) |
Is it possible to "crush" water? What would happen? | If you increase pressure on water, you will eventually get ice. There are 15 known types of ice, depending on the pressure and temperature. |
Why do mammals like humans and dogs tilt their heads when confused? | They do not do it because they are confused, per se. Tilting their head gives them a different angle on the sound and helps them figure out more accurately where the sound is coming from, or to understand more accurately what the sound actually is. It's just a way for them to get additional information about the sound. This can also be a learned behavior in dogs, because humans think it is cute and give them affection when they do it, so they may learn to exaggerate the behavior over time. edit: my response is talking specifically about dogs. Humans may also do this for similar reasons, as other commenters have noted. |
What makes Ouija boards move and why do so many people believe it's spirits when it seems almost impossible that it is? | If people are touching the piece you move around, one of them is doing it. If spirits were communicating with them they wouldn’t need to touch it. |
Why can't deep web/dark web websites be closed? | They are operated by individuals hosting servers in various countries. And first, you need to find the server/website then find the person hosting/paying for it. It will usually be in some remote country with little jurisdiction. Now, they have to produce a court order in that country. TL;DR; It is a huge pain in the butt; Unless they have to, they don't bother with it. |
Enamel protection products claim “once enamel is gone, it’s gone forever”. How true is this and if so, how do you explain enamel restoring toothpaste? | My dentist explained to me that teeth will calcify and decalcify over time. A fluoride rinse or toothpaste can aid in this process, but if you have deep cavities and the enamel is beginning to form that sticky *tar* like consistency, that probably isn't going to recalcify sufficiently. In essence they determine that by probing with a pick and trouble spots are generally flagged as "watches" so they can be routinely checked every six months assuming you keep up with your bi-annuals. But you should still use fluoride toothpaste/rinse, there's still plenty of benefit but its not going to heal a cavity that needs to be filled by a dentist. Another thing to consider is your vitamin D levels which may lead to cavities if you are deficient. |
If I didn't know something was illegal, how could I get in trouble for it? | Not knowing the law is not, in itself, a defense. This is a pretty important legal principle, important enough to [have its own Latin phrase](_URL_0_). I'm not quite sure what you're asking, since there's no particular reason you *wouldn't* get in trouble for it. |
how do countries introduce new currencies | First they print a whole bunch of new currency and distribute it to banks. Then they establish an exchange rate, and set a deadline after which the old currency can no longer be used or exchanged. |
How do they know which eggs don't have baby chicks in them, when they take eggs to sell?? | None of them do, because the hens are not allowed access to roosters, so they don't mate, and none of the eggs are fertilized. |
How do the Death Stars move? | It depends on what level of canon you are looking for. If you accept the Gaming books, the Death Star Technical Companion (at least one of them, I believe there were several) lists it as having both Ion drives and a series of 123 hyper-drive field generators (Chapter two, Technical Specifications). Given that the reactor was deep inside, we could well have been seeing the ports the Ion drives used, and never realized it. In most space vehicles that we see, the source of the propulsion is visible as it's close to where it's being emitted, and we see the burning / glow / whatever -- In the Death Star, the Reactor was deep inside. I believe the Ion output ports were inside that trench along the middle. |
Why do certain people faint or feel weak at the sight of blood. | A fear of blood can trigger the vasovagal response, which dramatically lowers blood pressure. No one really knows exactly why that happens, but there's speculation that it might be a way of reducing bleeding when wounded. It never used to happen to me, but last time I cut myself with a kitchen knife while cooking, I felt woozy and had to sit down so I wouldn't fall over. It was very weird. _URL_0_ |
What is the link in hebrew between the alphabet and numericals values and what does it mean for us? | The Hebrew language uses letters to represent numbers, as well as using letters to form words. The meaning is contextual, but as a consequence any word could be interpreted as a number as well. This structure combined with the religious writings in Hebrew means that mentally ill people with an obsession with religion and a mathematic streak can become fixated on looking for numeric patterns in religious texts written in Hebrew. With so much material to work with practically any number can be obtained to justify the convoluted justifications formed through their mental illness. What does it mean for us? Nothing, crazy people are still crazy even if they do math with prose. |
How come when it is very windy outside, the water in the toilet bowl seems to be moving? | When air moves over something it creates low pressure, the faster it moves, the lower the pressure will get. Those pipes that stick up out of the roof are attached to the drainage system of the house so when you flush or run the tub, sink, washing machine, etc... the water will be able to go down the pipes and not be stuck like when you hold your finger on the top of a straw and lift it out of the drink. When wind blows over the house, it will create a lower pressure in the drain pipes and the water in the toilet will be pulled in/down just a little bit, and when the wind slows down the pressure goes back to normal and the water will come back up just a little. This can make the water appear to be sloshing or making itty-bitty waves/ripples as it goes up and down. |
why couldn't the next Presidential candidate just promise to abolish some of the far reaching NSA programs? | They could. The thing is, campaign promises are unenforceable. Obama promised to end the Afghanistan war, close Gitmo, protect whistleblowers and have a transparent administration. |
Why so much hate towards Russians? | Due to the rivalry between the US and Russia (which then extends to the west and Russia), Politicians from the west have focused on the negatives of Russia to drag its name down. The media repeats and excgarates these views because it sells well to the brainwashes public. Russia isn't as horrible a place as it's made out to be. |
How did it come to be that the United States is mainly controlled by only 2 political parties? | [CGP Grey has made a really good video on the subject](_URL_0_) |
If all the land on Earth started as one mass (Pangea) and is slowly moving further away, won't there be a point where it all comes back together again? | It could. Rodinia was a supercontinent that broke up and then came back together eventually as Pangaea. It is hard to predict continental movement with precision though. _URL_0_ Pangaea Ultima is a possible future supercontinent. |
How can insects fall from proportionally insane heights and suffer no damage? | Put simply, if you make something twice as big, it weighs EIGHT TIMES as much. If you go in the other direction (making something half as big), then it weighs 1/8 what it did before. So you can see that something that's REALLY small will weigh almost nothing. Also, for really small things like insects, air acts like it's pretty thick. All those legs and body pieces slow them down, sort of like a parachute. Insects don't weigh much, and the air slows them down quite a bit. That's why humans fall like a rock and insects sort of don't. EDIT: More infos, gathered up from the comments. They say falling doesn't kill you--its the sudden stop at the end. While ants top out at about 4mph in freefall (and humans go on to 125mph or more), what really saves their bacon is being so light. Since they weigh so little, there's a lot less of them that has to be slowed down when their little anty body hits the ground. |
whats wrong with raising chickens with the use of antibiotics? | When people are stating 'animals raised with antibiotics' it's not saying that antibiotics are given when the animal is sick, which is how medicine is usually doled out, it means the animal is given antibiotics regularly regardless of their health. Which sorta works as a preventative measure, but the problem is that it creates an evolutionary pressure for antibiotic-resistant bacteria strains, which are bad for us should we ingest contaminated meats. |
Will I hit a baseball farther if the pitcher initially throws the ball faster? | Yes, you understand correctly. It's easier to hit a home run if the pitcher throws a fastball. _URL_0_ |
How does a pill prescribed to you know exactly what to do in your body? | Pills don't know anything. Your take medicine and your body will absorb it. It may be absorbed into the blood and travel all around your body. If you take a pain reliever, it is not targeting your headache but is dispersed through the whole body. The only noticeable change is that the pain goes away in the place that hurt. Researchers do not always know exactly how a drug works, either. They may use observation and trial & error to come up with a result in drug research, often in addition to previous experiences/research based on scientific methods. |
How do people edit gifs/video or things in motion? | Yes you have to edit every single frame. Its usually done with adobe after effect or Sony Vegas. There are plenty tutorials around the web if you are interested in that yourself. |
Why does thoroughly washing frequently not prevent acne? | Acne can also be caused by diet, and sometimes washing too frequently can irritate your skin and make breakouts worse. |
if flying a fighter jet in another country's airspace is considered hostile, then how do landlocked countries send their fighters outside of their borders? | They ask other countries' permission to fly over their territory. It's only considered hostile to fly fighter jets in another country's airspace **without** permission. |
How do television/film sets avoid revealing the forth wall via reflective props? | By limiting the number of reflective props, and picking the right angles to film from. It's really as simple as that. Think of it like how you are able to drive your car without hitting buildings -- you're trained in it, and you do it every day. |
Why are some people more likely to have sleep paralysis, while others never have it or have only experienced it once? | Everyone or, at least, most people are capable of having sleep paralysis. Its nothing special as far as chemical imbalance go or something in genes or dealing with immune (it's been noted to be a common occurrence in narcoleptic people). But experiencing that transition from physically awake to mentally awake can vary from person to person and age. Most children will experience it more commonly than adults due growing and experiencing the world, in general, while sleeping. That's how you get a laundry list of childhood fears relating the darkness, nighttime and sleep. |
Why do many people in western countries have dash cams? | Police are few and far between. If you get in an accident with someone, you might wait for 30-45 minutes before a cop shows up. Many people who get in accidents just drive away and the victim of the accident is left on the side of the road with their thumb up their ass and no proof of what happened or who did it. So... Dashboard cameras... |
I live in the US. Why should I vote? | Even if you don't feel like your vote for president matters much, there are way more things on your ballot than president: state government stuff, county government, city government, the local school board, various levies for parks and roads and such. Every vote counts in many of these, and they arguably have a bigger, more immediate, effect on your life than the choice of president. Most of these aren't as straightforward red vs blue affairs either. |
Do animals have beauty standards? For example, would a randy male goat ever look at a really ugly, old female goat and think "nah"? Or would they just screw literally anything of the same species and opposite gender? | It depends a bit on the species but often animals are picky about whom they mate with. Male animals are usually more brightly colored than females and this is most likely because it attracts a mate's attention which shows there is some level of visual attractiveness involved. |
Why is Spotify on my computer basically premium with ads, but mobile is a crippled, shuffle-only mess? | The free Spotify serves two purposes: 1) Being a "demo" of what full Spotify is to try to get people to go premium and 2) Still make money with people who don't want to pay, through ads. The paying system is a lot more profitable, that's why there are ads asking you to go premium. Now when making the free version they faced a dilemma: If the system is too good people won't want to go premium, but if it's too bad people won't like it at all and the ones who would stay free will migrate to other services. So they probably concluded the current scheme is the best one, people get to try it freely on PC (with ads, because many will stay free forever), but if they want the full mobile experience too (the focus of the service) they have to go premium. But just to get a taste of how mobile works they can play playlists, but in shuffle. It's a question of balance. |
McDonald's employees! Why is the ice cream machine always down? | Sometimes it's out of ice cream and we just say it's down. Sometimes the whole store is out of ice cream and we say it's down. Sometimes the machine is broken and we say it's down. Sometimes it's overheated and we say it's down. Sometimes we don't feel like serving ice cream so we say it's down. |
How do spiders make the strands of web that go horizontally from tree to tree, that hit you in about the face when your hiking? | They float them. I assume you are not asking about the spinneret glands which produce the spider silk. Biologists have examined these and described there physical shape in detail. The exact biochemical process probably is still a mystery. But to get the strands across what are vast spaces to spiders the strands are so light they float. Some spiders produce them while young and float around with the breeze which helps them disperse. but to get back to the ones which you encounter while hiking the spiders wait for a favorable breeze and float a strand. The silk is sticky. It will attach. |
How does my electric toothbrush charge without any metallic contacts? | Magnetic induction. The charger creates an oscillating magnetic field (it quickly switches back and forth pointing one way and then the other) and this interacts with metal inside the toothbrush to create an electric current which charges the toothbrush. It works because the magnetic field can penetrate the plastic (which you can see for yourself by playing with strong magnets through objects) and the effect that changing magnetic fields has on metal is the basis for the vast majority of our electrical production, this is just on a smaller scale. |
Why are mid-90s shows like Friends available in high definition, while shows from the same time period (and same network) like Frasier only in standard definition? | It depends on the media used to record the show - traditional film can be rescanned at higher resolution, magnetic media maybe, maybe not. It also depends on how much money the studios think they will make by re-releasing. |
How does stress physically change our body especially our digestive system. | Your viewpoint would imply that you believe the mind is somehow entirely separate from the body. This isn't the case, though. The mind is a product of the brain; minds are what our brains "do" (well, part of it). When your mind is experiencing stress, it's literally a physical condition in your brain; usually the release of things like stress hormone (cortisol). Prolonged periods of having things like cortisol elevated in your body are bad for you, physically. |
why doesn't California raise water prices? | They've tried, but [the Constitution of California prohibits raising water prices above cost](_URL_0_). |
Can the US government target Americans in drone killings, and is there evidence they have done so before? | [Anwar al-Awlaki](_URL_0_) was American born and killed by a Predator drone strike in Yemen. One side is arguing that it is illegal to kill an American citizen without a trial. The other side is arguing that he is an enemy of the state and has forfeited his right to judicial protection by taking up arms against the United States. In Rand Paul's case his filibuster was to get the administration to state concretely that American citizens within the United States have full protection of the law which the administration has come out and stated that they do and drone strikes within the United States are illegal. |
How come you get tired of eating the same dinner more than two days in a row but you can eat the same breakfast for years on end? | Back when the U.S. military was developing MREs, they were trying to figure out how to get troops to eat the same handful of meals over several weeks. They realized everyone loved heavily spiced food at first, but got burnt out on it quickly. Meanwhile, they had no problem eating bland foods day after day. Since breakfast foods tend to be bland, it's easier to eat the same thing over and over again than if you had the meals you normally eat for dinner, which are usually flavorful, every night. |
Why didn't the British just send troops into the Boston and Philadephia harbors and squash the American Revolution in it's main cities? | Several reasons - 1 - It was horrendously expensive. Like... really expensive. The Americas are a long long way from England and the passage was not easy. Shipping any amount of troops would be a serious feat of logistics. 2 - It was not their highest priority. We Americans like to think that our Revolution was a big deal. We forget that while we were doing our thing England was battling France, Spain and everybody else off and on. If England focused all of its might on quashing the Americans then perhaps France would snipe out other colonies or even attack England directly! 3 - It wouldn't have fixed the problem. They did take Boston, and Philadelphia, AND New York. That didn't stop the Americans. We just kept fighting in (as we put it) a good old fashioned "Indian war". The British had to quash American resistance completely, taking major cities didn't do that. |
Why Americans think they won the War of 1812? | I agree with the other comments that most Americans don't know which countries participated in the War of 1812, much less who "won" it. While it is true that our capital was sacked and burned, the capital was only 12 years old at the time, and so the major effect of the sack was not economic or political -- but symbolic and administrative (more serious than the burning of the White House or Capitol was the burning of the Library of Congress, which was not possible to replace). But *at the time* the major reason why Americans thought they won the war was that the war concluded with the Americans decisively winning its major battle -- the Battle of New Orleans. Granted, this battle occurred after (and in ignorance of) the peace treaty ending the war, but it propelled the American general, Andrew Jackson, into the White House, which had a profound effect on American politics thereafter. |
Let's say I'm watching a 24fps movie on my 60Hz computer monitor. How does the framerate of the movie match up with the refresh rate of the monitor? | Don't quote me on this, but I think that it works like this; The monitor refreshes a complete display 60 times in every second, the movie shows a new image 24 times in every second. Imagine that you have a friend standing outside your window with a flip-book and he was flipping the pages 24 times every second, and you were able to close and open the curtains 60 times a second. The two aren't linked and work independantly, so it doesn't matter that they run at differing speeds. Besides, at those sort of speeds, you would barely even notice (if at all) a dropped frame here or there. |
ELI5: Why do big companies, who have a multitude of resources at their disposal, buy out smaller companies, especially apps like "Summlly" which Yahoo bought for $30M, instead of just making it algorithm themselves? | 1. Coming up with algorithms as nice as the ones Summly came up with is not easy. If Yahoo started tomorrow it might take a team of 12 people a year to come close to replicating it - and with the wrong choice of 12 people they might easily fail. Buying a company with an existing working product is much less risky than trying to duplicate it. 2. Often the company wants to hire the people, more than the product itself. Perhaps Yahoo has bigger plans and they need people with the specific talent and expertise who were able to come up with Summly, to help with something bigger and more ambitious. 3. Sometimes it's more strategic - they don't want their competitors to have that company, they'd rather own it than compete against it. |
How can games companies sell unfinished games and in some cases games that are unplayable (Activision)? | Simply answer, because consumers keep buying them. Longer answer, due to the new and easier channels of distribution, mainly pre-order, digital downloads, etc. games can be bought way before any serious reviews by game critics or consumers alike have been established. So by the time the problems of a game are known, the majority of sales have already been made. Coupled with promises of updates and fixes, many consumers stick around or even buy the game later when it's fixed. This way game companies get both, the money from early buyers who purchase the game without knowing it's quality as well as patient gamers who wait until the game is fixed. Since this behavior doesn't seem to damage the long-term reputation of the company it remains a viable business model. |
LD50 values and its relation to humans. | No, it wouldn't necessarily translate exactly, but it does for many common substances. > For example if a substance has an LD50 of 190mg/kg in a rat, assuming you have an average rat (weighing about 500g) and a human of 77kg (170lbs), how would you go about that? The LD50 here is expressed as mg (of substance) per kg (of body weight). So assuming the rates are the same, it's still 190 mg/kg in humans, but that's a larger dose because humans are bigger. |
How can restaurants accurately calculate calories per dish or item? | It's not accurate. They're allowed a rather generous deviation from what is the actual amount of calories. For example, applies might be five calories per ten ounces on average, and if you give apples as a side and most apples you sell are considered 15 ounces, you only have 7.5 calories. But that's just an average. There's been several instances where people complain because the variance can be so high, you can have a dish say it's only 450 calories but be closer to 600. |
Why are vision problems so common in humans? | humans need glasses to see fine detail, like letters. in a hunter gatherer sense, 99% of peoples vision is probably sufficient. i suspect there are plenty of animals that would want glasses if they were intelligent enough to know they were missing out on something. but since most land animals have a highly developed sense of smell compared to humans, they probably dont care. |
If all of the cells in our bodies are replaced within a matter of years, how are tattoos permanent? | Imagine a bucket filled with ping pong balls. That's your skin. The ping pong balls are your skin cells. Now imagine filling the bucket with some water. That's the tattoo ink. You can replace any or all of those balls, and they might take some water with them, but that water is pretty much going to stay in the bucket. |
Why we don’t generate electricity from sound waves while electricity is needed to produce a sound wave ? | We do generate electricity from sound waves. That's how a microphone works. The problem is that sound isn't powerful enough to create a enough electricity to be useful for anything other than capturing an audio signal. Even with sophisticated microphones we need to amplify the signal a lot to make it useful again. |
How does air conditioning work? Car and house the same, or different? | Air condition works by exploiting how high and low pressure changes the temperature. [They use a compressor to create a high pressure on one side and a low pressure on the other.](_URL_0_) The high pressure side will increase in temperature, so it will give off heat, this side is outside your car/house/fridge. When it then moves to the low pressure side it expands which lowers the temperature and it will absorb heat. That side in inside your car/house/fridge. It's really just a device to move heat from one place to another. It moved the heat from inside to the outside. |
the legalization of marijuana in Colorado. | According to [this article](_URL_0_) people 21 years of age can purchase it from specially regulated retail stores, and adults can grow up to 6 plants for personal use. Public use and driving under the influence is still illegal. |
With modern technology, why don't people get paid and billed electronically by the second or minute instead of monthly? | The technology isn't really there, or at least hasn't been developed. If you've ever worked in IT, you'd understand how hard it is to integrate different systems and make them talk to each other. Such a system would have to built from the ground up and would include real time capturing of hours worked, real time transfer of money to the bank, real time availability of the money on your credit card. That wouldn't be cheap. Then, every company and bank would have to adopt those systems. If your bank doesn't use it, it wouldn't matter if your company does or not. |
Why is it when you bend a plastic item it turns a whitish color? | The white color is the result of [crazing](_URL_1_), the formation of tiny cracks/voids in the material as you bend it past the limit it can survive without damage. The crack surfaces scatter light in all directions, which is what makes them that opaque white. |
If the computer runs on electricity, why isn't the hard-drive wiped when you turn it off? | Magnets. Basically, hard drives sorta look like a record player inside. There's a disk that spins, and a head that can move to various tracks on the disk, reading or writing. The way it works is, if you've ever rubbed a nail on a magnet, you'll notice the nail itself gets magnetic. The disks in a hard drive are coated with a magnetic substance, and the heads have tiny electromagnets in them, which put lasting magnetic imprints onto the disk surface, which last even if the power is turned off. |
How do bank ATMs read handwritten checks? | You're writing the amount in numbers and in letters on the check. It could mix up 100 with 700, but if he sees "Seven Hundred Dollars", there's no way it could not guess which one is the right one. I worked in a bank for a short time and among other things I had to verify scanned checks for which the software had trouble to identify the signature (generally I could confirm it was the wife's or husband's signature), so your hidden little man theory isn't entirely dumb! |
How do we know the world is round and not flat? | If you're in the northern hemisphere, and you point your camera at the northern night sky with a long exposure, you can capture stars "spinning" around the north pole. Here's a good example: _URL_0_ In the southern hemisphere, you can see the same phenomenon pointing your camera south. The only way this makes sense is if the world is a ball. |
why do so many lottery winners go broke within a year? | Fifty percent of lottery tickets are bought by the lowest thirty percent income earners. When these types of people win, they often have no idea how to handle money, or that money can make money just by existing. So, after a couple of years of spending extravagantly, loaning money to friends and family that will never pay it back, and poor investments, they find themselves right where they started. |
How come sometimes I'm able to sit down and work for hours on end, and other times I can barely look at work at all? | I'd like to know this too. Sometimes I can work all day and get way ahead on my projects, come home, make a good dinner and work on home projects until bed and do it all again the next day. Other times I need to drag myself out of bed, stare at my computer screen and force myself to do what absolutely needs to get done and try desperately to not think of ways to cut corners, come home and stare at the wall, lay awake unable to sleep |
This quote from xkcd: "There will come a day when I'm either an ancestor to all living humans or to none of them" | There is a site, _URL_9_, that does an ELI5 for each xkcd strip. This particular strip is explained here: _URL_9_/wiki/index.php/1545:_Strengths_and_Weaknesses Your question isn't answered directly in the Wiki, but it does contain a link to the MCA (Most Common Ancestor) wiki article, here: _URL_11_ |
How can people like George Soros "bet" on a crash? What mechanisms would allow them to make a profit on a bet like that? | In this case, Soros is performing more of a synthetic short using options. He purchased "put" options on the SPY index, which represents the S & P 500 index. A put gives you the right to sell a holding to a buyer at a set price for a certain period of time. For instance, the S & P is at 1842 right now. You can buy a June 1800 put right now for $4.86. An option represents 100 shares of the index, so that's $486.00 per option If the S & P drops to, say, 1750 between now and June (a BIG move, granted), that same option would be worth $50.00, so your investment would be worth $5,000.00 . Alternately, if the S & P stays above 1750 through the third Friday in June, your options would expire worthless. Index options represent VERY high risk/reward ratios. If you are right, you can get a tremendous return. If you are wrong, your money's gone... |
I'm having a hard time understanding a single line of a legal document I have, I'll buy gold to whoever gives me a thorough explanation | It's the following month. The quarter closes out March 31 at close of business, and payment must be postmarked or in the inbox by the last business day in April. Same deal for July, October, and January. |
In the 1985 movie "Clue," what is Mrs. Peacock's secret for which she is being blackmailed? | She's accepting bribes to influence her senator husband's votes. |
Why are many manual laborers who spend 8 hours or more a day lifting, pushing, and pulling heavy objects not in incredible shape from doing so after many months or years? | I'd say diet is the biggest factor here. A lot of those labourers/construction workers are strong as fuck but eat like shit. They'd look a lot more jacked with a healthier diet. |
Why does unplugging plugging back in a router solve most problems? | 1. As you use a router (or any digital device, really) errors slowly accumulate. Turning it "off and on again" clears the temporary memory and the errors, allowing it to function faster. 2. You will probably have background programs which are using internet, and they will not always reconnect immediately when the router is restarted. This will free up bandwidth. 3. Some ISPs slow down your connection if you do certain things, such as torrenting or using proxies. Resetting your connection changes some information about your network, such as IPv4 addresses, preventing some of the methods they use from slowing the connection. |
How do those NES light guns (Duck Hunt) work? | The gun has a light sensor in it. When you squeeze the trigger, the TV screen turns black and white boxes appear where the ducks were for one frame (about .04 seconds). It's so fast that we don't really notice that the screen flickered. The gun with the light sensor in it is just looking for a flash of white that lasts about .04 seconds as well. If the gun is aimed at the duck then the white square that flashes will provide enough light to set off the light sensor in the gun and register it as a hit. To be a little more specific, the screen actually turns black for two frames, once for each duck, and puts only one white box on the screen at a time. This allows the system to determine whether you hit the first duck or the second. |
Why do you see the red/green/blue lines when you move your eyes back and forth while looking at a video from a projector? | Those different color lines make the picture. When you look without moving your head, the lines blend together to make all the different colors. These lines are projected one after another. The eyes have this thing called "persistence of vision." That is, if they see a bit of light, the eyes seem to keep seeing it for a short time; that's how the eye blends the projected colors together. A projected picture changes the image more rapidly than the eye can follow the individual changes, so you don't see individual bits of image, but a moving image. If you look at an image made up of individual bursts of color, that depends on you just looking at it, and instead move your head or eyes side to side, then your eyes don't see the different lines on top of one another, blending together, but next or near to one another... suddenly you see the parts that make up the image. |
Are we lighter during the night due to centripetal force from orbit? | It would be the opposite if there is any fluctuations as at night the gravitational pull of the sun is also pulling you toward the earth while during the day the sun would be pulling you away from the earth ever so slightly. There is some fluctuation but it is less than 1%. |
Why do cast iron skillets make food taste better? | IMHO it has nothing to do with the oil in the pan. I have my grandmother's skillet [probably 50+ years old.] I clean it with sea salt. I think it has to do with heat dispersal; that the iron transmits the heat more evenly than other materials. The food cooks evenly. |
Why can't we just use MAC addreses instead of the IP addreses? | A MAC address is unique identifier, but it doesn't tell you anything about *where* a device is. IP addresses are structured, routers can infer from the address which way it needs to send the message to get it towards its destination, without needing a giant database of individual addresses. Think of it like something sent in the mail. The name identifies who the recipient is, but it doesn't help the sorting office get the mail to where it needs to go. They don't know that person, but they do know where their city is, so they send it there. And when it gets to that city, their sorting office knows where the street is. |
How is it possible that you can order something on ebay for $3 without shipping payments? | Usually it's coming from China. The Chinese government subsidizes parcels moving out of the country if its for the purpose if ecommerce, which makes international postal rates for Chinese sellers ridiculously low. |
Radiation affecting us | Getting hit with radiation is like having lots of tiny bullets shot into you. They pummel the molecules in your cells, sometimes breaking them into pieces. Now, some molecules in your cells can be repaired or replaced. And if a cell is too damaged, it's programmed to just commit suicide before it can go rogue. However, sometimes, if DNA is damaged by radiation in just the right places, the cell won't commit suicide, and it will instead go cancerous and replicate endlessly. |
Why can't ISPs (that can increase) just increase their internet speeds? Wouldn't it earn them money in the long-run? | Because they don't need to care about their customer's satisfaction when they have monopolies. |
Why do money-wiring services exist when you can just email money for free? | email doesn't happen out of thin air. you have to have a device. if you're poor you are unlikely to have a device. much of the money-wiring market is poor people transferring their wages home (often a foreign country.) when home *is* a foreign country there are regulations around how cash can be transferred (and I doubt that emailing money is allowed without some compliance infrastructure on the platform.) |
Why does the human eye have to focus on certain things at once and blur out the surroudings? | The cells in your eye that are capable of clear vision are concentrated in a circle about one *millimeter* across. Most of your eye just can't see things sharply. |
How come upon walking into a room with a bad smell, at first it smells really bad, but after a few minutes, you can’t smell it anymore? | Your brain simply gets used to the sensation. When you first walk in, its like "oh damn, it smells bad here" but after a while it just blocks the "bad smell signal out". Kind of like it saying "does it still smell bad? Yeah. Oh ok. Still smelling bad? Yeah. Ok nevermind then". It does that to protect you from sensory overload. |
Why in the U.S. are we not told the upfront cost of medical care so that we can shop around like we can when making any other purchase. | In a word: greed. The U.S. Health care system is a for-profit business. One tactic for maximizing profits is to obscure the true costs so as to stifle competition. Another tactic is to use fear to make a sale. What's more important than your health? To be fair, though, it's becoming more and more common, especially with specialists, to get estimates for procedures to be performed. "Shopping around" is accomplished through second opinions in these cases. |
why do governments hire Private Military Contractors | They are already ex-military most of the time plus Govt doesn't get the "official responsibility" for any mishaps. Google Raymond Davis Pakistan for an example. There must be hundreds other as well but seemed to illustrate how well entrenched these practices are |
How do these giant EVE battles I always see on the front page work? | Arranged battles do happen. Some times they are sponsored events and sometimes its territory war. If a corp is holding a system and another corp wants to take it battles like this can ensue. Resource wars and rare asteroid belts see this on a smaller scale all the time. |
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