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Why are companies like Walmart and Apple considered American when they are owned and operated from The British Virgin Isles, Luxembourg, etc? Also, why are their incomes shown in billions when the taxable income is millions?
Because it's an American company hiding on that island so it doesn't have to pay taxes equal to its earnings.
When you read news articles about global warming such as "The hottest year on record in 80 years!", why was it so hot 80 years ago?
This year being really hot isn't necessarily indicative of global warming, an article with that title is being sensationalist. If the running average temperature over the last 10 years was getting continuously warmer, that would be a better indication of a trend. Temperature is affected by a lot of different things so their are years that are extra hot and years that are extra cold. It becomes a (potential) problem when their are a lot more hot years than cold years in a 10, or 50, or 100 year period.
How is cape town in South Africa running out of water?
Desalinization is energy intensive, so it's quite expensive. You see it a lot in places that have little water but are on the ocean, and there's lost of money -- like the Arabian peninsula. The problem with Cape Town is that it's experiencing a drought, which is a *temporary* reduction in rainfall. Desalinization is a bad solution because it's very expensive, and then at some point the drought ends, and the people who built the desalinization plant (and still haven't made a profit yet) have to compete with -- get this -- **free water from the sky**. It is a very bad business plan to sell something that falls out of the sky for free.
Why were revolvers created to generally have 6 shots?
Ease of design, mostly. If you stack 7 circles in as close a shape possible, you get an hexagon with 2 on top, 3 in the middle, and 2 at the bottom. Use the centre as a rotating part, and you get 6 holes in a symmetrical way, without having to do weird complicated math.
Why is there a risk of a deformed child when brother and sister perfom incest?
I don't think it's necessarily incest, but rather reproducing with someone that has a similar make up as you. If you have a genetic defect and you reproduce with someone that has the defect, chances of your offspring getting it as well is very high. You want to reproduce with someone that doesn't have it so hopefully your child doesn't have it as well. It just so happens that your siblings have almost the same genetic make up as you so if your family has a defect, the chances of your offspring have it, it is very high. If your family happens to be totally defect free, I don't think reproducing with your sibling will have any adverse effect.
Why do white things turn yellow if they stay in light?
It's not that they're white, it's that they're made of a type of plastic that, after prolong exposure to light, will degrade, becoming yellowed and brittle. UV is bad for that type of plastic, so the more time it spends in direct sunlight, the more it yellows.
When dreaming, Why do we sometimes forget we are in one? How does our brain make it realistic?
In some ways, you are living in an artificial simulation created by your brain at all times. Sometimes the simulation is based on information from your senses (like when you're awake and sober) and sometimes it's not. Noticing that you are in a dream requires you to realize that the reality that you are experiencing does not make sense. Some people train themselves to check if they are dreaming by using tricks like remembering to always look at their watch twice and make sure the time is consistent. Science doesn't really know how dreaming works, however. We barely know how being awake works, for that matter.
If doctors prescribe medication, why do comercials for medication exist that are targeted toward patients?
That's all about encouraging patients to ask for the drug by name, rather than the generic version. Brand awareness 101.
why everyone fled/hated Digg once v4 was implemented?
Why I left, in a word, superusers. The way content was promoted was not even close to being democratic. This is a good read... _URL_0_ > An ordinary user might post the most important story of the day on Tuesday and get three "Diggs." But if MrBabyMan (King of the Digg Super Users) noticed the story on Friday and posted a duplicate link, it would be on the front page with 10,000 diggs in three hours
What happens in court if there is conflict between parents over homeschooling their child?
Are the parents still married? In which case, do they want to get a divorce? Because this is how you get a divorce. A married person doesn't sue his spouse if he doesn't get his way. It's impossible to say how it would go down. It really depends on a lot of circumstances: there will probably be a psychological evaluation which will have an impact on the ruling, and various state laws will have an influence as well.
If downloading packets is random, how come videos stream in a sequence?
Downloading packets only has a random latency, and probably a smaller random loss rate. The actual packets and their order isn't often randomized. The packets contain serial numbers, so they can be put back in order. Video streams aren't real-time, the player buffers up enough packets before the video starts to keep the screen busy if there is an unlucky delay or retransmission. You see this when the connection is too bad as the stream stops with the "buffering" icon.
What did Google "invent" that made their search engine so much better than earlier search engines like Yahoo?
[Page Rank](_URL_0_) which was a good process to decide which pages were important. Prior to that it was easy for a computer to find a lot of pages that had some keyword, but hard for them to tell which were useful (and this was exploited by a huge number of pages that had an enormous list of keywords hidden in white text or the header of the page). In simple terms, page rank borrows information from humans (links between pages) to determine which pages are more useful than others.
How can water/liquids in pipes and hoses go straight up and defy gravity.
You defy gravity every time you lift your arm. Your muscles can apply enough force to overcome gravity and make your arm lift. Defying gravity is really easy. As for how the water in your pipes can do it, it's because of water towers. They pump a large amount of water into the air and let it gravity feed back down into the pipes that eventually lead to your house. Your pipes are lower and much smaller than the water tower, so it pushes the water through them.
How do people who specialize in computer forensics retrieve data on a hard drive that has been formatted or magnet wiped?
Reformatting can be as simple as deleting the file system and rewriting it. That won’t delete any of the data, just remove knowledge of where it is. Secure formatting will rewrite all the bits and is not recoverable. Magnets generally aren’t strong enough to ruin a drive, those that are will do so by physically bending the case or disk. The easiest way to securely delete a drive is to encrypt it and throw out the key.
Why is it important to have buffer states?
Buffer states aren't always about marching armies. North Korea, for example, is a buffer between China and South Korea. It's not about keeping out the South Korean Army. It's about keeping out the South Korean Economy. If poor rural Chinese had rich, urban, capitalist, democratic, South Koreans just across the Yalu river - the border might not be secure. The cost to secure such a border is quite expensive (if you consider what a US/Mexico wall might cost) and China's had its "great wall" experiment. A buffer country with almost no electricity, where they kill people they don't like, is a better border solution.
Why does a humidifier (water vapor) keep my skin from getting dry while simply splashing water on my skin does not?
Your skin gets dry because it loses water to the air. Unless you keep your skin constantly wet, it will lose water to the dry air. A humidifier makes the air more moist, which makes it harder for your skin to lose water to it.
why if you try to sleep when not very tired, you stay awake way longer than if you waited until you were more tired
The answer is circadian rhythm. How are circadian rhythms related to sleep? > Circadian rhythms are important in determining human sleep patterns. The body's master clock, or SCN, controls the production of melatonin, a hormone that makes you sleepy. Since it is located just above the optic nerves, which relay information from the eyes to the brain, the SCN receives information about incoming light. When there is less light—like at night—the SCN tells the brain to make more melatonin so you get drowsy. _URL_0_ TLDR: your body operates on a 24 hour cycle. If you try and go to sleep earlier than normal you will probably have a difficult time falling asleep.
why can't heat be converted to electricity in a closed system?
Because in any closed system, entropy always increases. Assume a uniformly warm room. Turning some of the heat to electricity would now give you a warm area and a cold area, thus *decreasing* entropy (sorting things out rather than mixing them together). However, if your room includes a warm zone and a cold zone, you *certainly can* convert that difference into an electricity source, for example, powering a Stirling engine that runs a generator.
What is the point of showing the 'tropic' lines on a globe or world map?
These lines represent the northern- and southern-most points of the sun's "travel" in the skies. The sun would be overhead during one of the solstice's were you to stand on each line--the northern one in June, the southern one in December. In between these lines and the sun may appear overhead some months, north of the viewer some months, south of the viewer some months. Beyond those lines and the sun will be visible but never overhead. (The Arctic and Antarctic Circles are the 'opposites' of these, being the points beyond which the sun dissapears/is always 'up' at least part of the year). Climate tendencies usually follow these rough "lines"
Does running vs walking an equal distance use the same amount of energy?
Further to the other good comments, running is a series of small jumps \(as in both your feet are in the air\), whereas in walking you usually have one foot on the ground. So when you run you're having to repeatedly propel your entire body mass into the air \- the energy requirements are very different to walking.
What is going on with the US Secret Service
It's likely mismanagement that is causing all of the commotion combined with the Internet putting everything in front of your face every single day. I'm sure there's always been some bad eggs in any organization. Previous management may have had a better grip on keeping issues in house. Having said that, any new secret service head that steps in should be in strict following of a less than zero tolerance policy meaning that even the implication of wrong doing of agents will result in their termination up to prosecution if necessary.
Why does our perception of time disappear when we go to sleep?
Our brains stop taking in external information when we sleep. Sleep also messes with memory, so we simply don't remember much of what happened. How much we take in and remember depends on the stage of sleep. If you're sleeping well and hitting REM/deep sleep, you won't remember much. If the quality of your sleep is poor and you spend much of the night in only early stages of sleep, you'll remember more and likely be quite aware of the passage of time. The brain is still keep track of time in the sense that it is following its circadian rhythm.
Game Show questions for TV watchers
The most likely reason is that if they didn't have a question, it would be considered gambling, and they'd need a gambling license. By having a question, it's not gambling, it's a competition. I have no idea about the law in Germany, but that's true in many countries.
Why is Hunter S. Thompson cool?
Writing talent. Sociopolitical insight. Humor. Sports knowledge. The ability to make friends with almost anyone. The drug tolerance of an african elephant.
How does hydroplaning work? How can a dirtbike ride on a lake?
Liquids acts like a solid the first millisecond you touch it. That's why you can slap the surface of a container of water.
Why do humans like white noise like rain so much?
The brain likes to use its senses. In dead silence the brain goes as far as making up noises for itself to process. White noise is less crazy person, more natural feeling. Edit to add: This also tricks your mind out of *super sense* mode. A uniform noise throughout the night is predictable, easy for the brain to write off as just noise and go about it's brainy business. Dead silence with the occasional bark fest at three am will set off all kinds of fight or flight triggers.
When you visit a fancy restaurant, why are the pepper shakers so large? What does the length add?
* they are pepper grinders, not shakers...they grind up whole peppercorns to give you tasty fresh pepper * the bigger they are, the more peppercorns they can hold * the longer they are, the more easily they can reach across a table
Why aren't meteorite fragments more valuable and treasured than diamonds and other rare earth minerals?
They're ugly, they're almost impossible to distinguish from regular rocks, and they're far too rare to collect enough to sell regularly.
How are space probes from millions of miles away able to send/receive signals and HD images back to Earth, but people still have network problems on their mobile phones?
With a lot of expensive technology, [huge antennas](_URL_0_), laws to ensure lack of interference, cooperation with other countries, and the transmission rates are still glacially slow due to the enormous distance. I think New Horizons is transmitting at 1 Kb/s. **Edit:** Then there's that there are much fewer probes than there are cell phones. You'd have excellent network performance if you had a tower all for yourself.
The lighter your skin, the more prone you are to getting sunburn... considering that light colors reflect more light, and dark colors absorb more light?
Because sunburn isn't about heat: it's about UV light causing the same kind of damage that heat does to our skin. Melanin is a protein human bodies produce that protects against UV light; and is dark in color: basically, it absorbs UV (preventing it from damaging us) and some visible light (causing the darker appearance). So while dark-skinned people heat up faster in sunlight, they ~~don't~~ **take longer to** burn because UV light ~~isn't damaging~~ **causes less damage to** their skin. edit: Corrected the last sentence based on feedback from /u/darkhorse_defender and /u/mschwartz33. Thank you for the corrections. [This website](_URL_0_) says that dark skin is roughly equivalent to SPF 13 sunscreen; meaning they can be in the sun ~13 times longer without burning.
How did we determine the composition of the Earth's core?
We haven't actually "detected" the presence of iron/nickel in the core, or even measured its actual temperature. Seismology allows for measuring the core's density, as well as the inner/outer core boundary because the outer core is liquid. Assuming that the core is made of iron/nickel is basically a very safe guess based on elemental abundance in the solar system and measured density. [Here](_URL_0_) is a paper discussing that the actual calculated density of an iron/nickel core is higher than the seismologically estimated density of the core, therefore it must contain lighter elements as well. As for which elements, that's also speculatively based on elemental abundance (oxygen, silicon etc).
How and why did mead lose it's popularity?
Beer and wine from fruits can be produced in higher quantities than meads. Honey production is much more limited in volume than the crops used to make other beverages.
How/where are heavy elements created?
Stars can produce atoms up to iron, although they produce these elements very late in the life cycle. Any atoms heavier than that are produced in supernovas.
What is this thing on the bottom of all airplane windows? (Pics)
It's a hole. There are two panes of plastic separating you from the outside, creating an air pocket. With the pressure change varying so much with altitude, if the air pocket were sealed in, it would more than likely explode. The reason the pocket exists in the first place is to create an insulating cushion to minimize heat loss in the plane.
what's the fascination that people have watching videos of maggot removal, zit popping, ear dirt extraction, etc. ?
Talking completely out of my ass here, maybe it has to do with some instinctive grooming drive that we inherited from our ancestors. If you go to the zoo or watch a documentary, you can see that apes/etc. instinctively groom each other; so some people probably get a sense of pleasure from seeing such things because there's an instinctive drive (and psychological reward) to remove/pop/clean such things.
How does one country make threats to another country?
Who says they don't just call the other country and threaten them? What do you think diplomats do behind closed doors?
How can any style be considered "modern" (like modern architecture)? Wouldn't any style be considered modern during its time?
There is "modern" meaning contemporary and then "[Modernism](_URL_0_)" (or Modern) with a capital M referring to a specific artistic movement in the early to mid 1900s
How do multi-million dollar companies end up paying $0 tax?
A few ways. First thing to know is Company's only pay tax on profits, not revenue. 1. Setup headquarters in low taxing country and shift profits there. One of the big mining company's in Australia sells it's own coal to a Singapore based company they own. In Australia then pay tax on the heavily discounted rate they sold it for or possibly make a loss and pay no tax. The coal is then on sold at full rate out of the Singapore company and hey presto you've got taxed in Singapore at a lower rate. 2. There is a thing called "carried forward losses". If you make no profit in a year then you pay no tax but if you made a loss then you can use that loss in future years to offset your tax. So if a company lost $500m in a year and have taxes of $100m for the next 5 years they pay no tax.
Why is the Upvote system flawed?
One major problem is that any people don't really bother reading more than the first page or two of comments. This means they're only seeing the top-rated comments, and upvoting those. Any comments that come later never get read or ever have a chance to get upvoted, regardless of quality. You can see this effect by looking at how many points the comments in a busy thread get. It'll be something like 2500, 1000, 200, 150, 100... Furthermore, upvotes just mean that people like it. It doesn't mean the post is *right*, especially if it's a subject that most people don't understand well enough to tell if something is right or wrong. That said, there's even more potential problems with *downvotes*.
What causes me to wake up minutes before my alarm goes off, even when I've barely slept?
There is something in our body called a biological clock. If your body is used to doing some things at a certain time, be it waking up or maybe using the restroom. You will generally do these things at those times even when its pointless to do so otherwise. Since you work your body does this to help you not oversleep when its time for you to work. I hope this helps you.
Why do rockets level off horizontally rather than maintaining a vertical path?
All the other commenters are correct, but no one has linked [this classic xkcd what if](_URL_0_) that explains and illustrates the concept very well.
How does a lawyer defend his client, if there is concrete evidence that they actually committed the crime?
When there's concrete evidence that they did it, the lawyer will work for a lower punishment. They'll find whatever excuse they can to get a shorter jail time, avoid death penalty, whatever the case may be.
Am I really saving gas by turning off my car's engine at red lights?
I believe 10 seconds off will make up for the gas to start it up. However if you stop your car at every light you will wreak havoc on your starter.
How do people figure out what colors to use when coloring an old black and white photo?
"Black" and "white" are actually a ton of different shades of grey. If you know the method the picture was taken with and how it converts visible light into something that can be put onto film in greyscale, you can tell with a pretty high degree of accuracy which shade of grey corresponds to which visible light color.
How does my car radio display the station's call letters?
Via [RDS](_URL_0_). There's another signal tucked away inside the FM broadcast that can carry information like text. The station chooses what to send. This is also how radios can identify the type of music playing like 'Rock' or 'Jazz'.
Do special forces count as "boots on ground" or do they have their own separate rules?
"Boots on the ground" isn't a really helpful term since it basically means whatever the speaker wants it to mean. That said, it doesn't typically apply to special forces or "advisers" or the like. Assuming the figures in [this article](_URL_0_) are correct, the US has/had 1,000 advisers in Iraq while insisting that there weren't "boots on the ground". Clearly there are literal boots on the literal ground. But the phrase there refers to "ground troops" or the like rather than advisers or special forces. Also, we aren't enemies with Iran. There are clearly plenty of problems between our two countries, but we can still work together when it benefits both of us.
how did we as humans collectively decide on the location of the international date line?
It didn't. The date line is the opposite side of the globe to the Prime Meridian (roughly). There were multiple Prime Meridians throughout history, typlically countries with large a large navy or merchant shipping fleet would have their own. Eventually they all lost out to the current PM.
How do self-driving cars reduce accidents
> Can a self-driving car keep tabs of all the pedestrians around it too? Yes. A self-driving car also has (depending on how its implemented) a 360 degree field of vision, and has a reaction time that exceeds human reactions by an order of magnitude. A computer can begin stopping the car before you've even *noticed* the child in the road.
If a woman became president of the US, and got pregnant, would she get a maternity leave?
On the off chance a woman of child bearing age became president, which is unlikely, the VP would step in if she were incapacitated following the birth, or when she couldn't do things like flying, but as it isn't a very physical job, and the baby could always be in her office, I imagine she wouldn't take a complete maternity leave.
Why did Sarkozy call Netanyahu a liar? What did he do?
Palestine and Israel are pretty much enemies today, though they would like to share the same land. So, a lot of other countries (including France) want peace to appear there. Sarkozy probably had some verbal agreement with Netanyahu. Sarkozy put some weight on the discussions between Israel and the EU. He also helped Israel being a member of the OECD. He also asked Abbas (the head of Palestine) to remove his proposal to make Palestine part of the UN. So, I think he was fairly angry when the quartet (UN, EU, USA, Russia) asked for the restart of discussions between Palestine and Israel and Netanyahu said no to all initiatives. That's not very nice, and probably in contradiction to what he agreed with his friend Sarko.
Why was Princess Leia on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan if she was *FROM* Alderaan?
The Galactic Senate wasn't on Alderaan, she could have presumably been heading home between legislative sessions. Of course nobody in the galaxy bought that story either way, since Tatooine isn't close to either.
How can a 64gb SD card hold more data than a 32gb SD card if they are the same physical size?
We're talking about storing information, not an actual physical substance. If we're talking about something physical, like water, it would make sense that two buckets the exact same size would hold the same amount of water. However, we are talking about information, and information can be represented smaller and smaller as technology improves. How many letters can you fit on a page? if you halve the size of the letters, you have suddenly doubled the amount of letters (and thus information) you can fit on the page, without changing the size of the page. This is analogous to what we see with electronic data storage.
Why can I watch Netflix or porn online seamlessly but when I watch a video on _URL_0_ it's choppy as fuck?
ESPN has horrible video technology. They use an in house video player that hasn't been updated in some time. On the other hand, Netflix and Youtube's whole business model relies on having good video service. They spend a lot of money making sure they have a great video player.
Would you die if you injected water into your bloodstream?
Depends on how much water you injected. A small amount (a drop or so) probably won't kill you. A larger amount would cause your blood cells to rupture because the concentration of water inside and outside the cell would be different. Water would rush inside the cell and blow up the cell membrane. If you kept injecting water eventually enough cells would blow up that you'd die. Even assuming that the cells could survive blowing up, you'd still die from your cells not being able to perform certain functions which require exact salt and sugar concentrations in your blood.
How smoke detectors work
Smoke detectors are a really cool piece of technology. They contain a bit of radioactive material in them (not enough to cause any serious harm to people). This radioactive material decays every now and then, which generates alpha particles, which in turn knock electrons off the atoms in the air. This generates a tiny electrical current that propagates through the air and hits a metal plate. There is a tiny device in the smoke detector that monitors this electrical signal. When the signal changes and becomes weaker, it's because smoke went into the chamber, and the alarm is triggered.
Why do industries stay close together geographically
A lot of it is because that's where the good employees are, because that's where the jobs in that industry are. That's kind of a chicken and the egg thing, but it's there now, so it perpetuates. There are businesses that do that there, so the colleges start having curriculum around that industry, and it snowballs. Why did it start in the first place? Maybe tax incentives, maybe 1 or 2 big companies started there, maybe a college doing research. In silicon valley's case, it's because of Stanford. You can read about it on the wikipedia page: _URL_0_
Politics aside, why is pet euthanasia considered humane, while lethal injection is considered cruel and unusual? In other words, why can't we put people to sleep and then administer drugs to stop the heart?
Lethal injection is technically the most humane method of execution that we have. It's not that lethal injection in it of itself is cruel and unusual it's just that the death penalty system isn't the greatest. Lethal injections usually use 3 drug cocktails that anesthetize, relax muscles, and stop the heart. The problems with this procedure are that drugs are in short supply so sometimes untested drug combos have to be used, the doctors do not assess previous drug use (especially if it was intravenous), individuals are not monitored well while the drugs are being administered so they run under the assumption that they become fully unconscious and then die peacefully. For all intents and purpose, it's suppose to be just putting people to sleep and stopping their heart, but there are so many errors that can happen that lead to botched executions, making it cruel and unusual.
How do skulls and, specifically, brain cavities grow in humans?
The skull does not start out as one solid chunk of bone. At birth, it consists of multiple plates connected by cartilage. Infants have a soft spot, aka a fontanelle, where you can feel that bone has not fully formed and even see the baby's pulse. The plates grow larger and the cartilage is replaced by bone, which eventually fuses the plates together into one solid skull.
.. How can H & R Block afford to give away 1000$ everyday for a year?
H & R Block is valued at [over 8 billion dollars](_URL_0_). $365,000 is basically nothing on that scale.
How do people who make song mashups isolate the vocal tracks to songs?
Vocal-only tracks for many songs can be found publicly. For many songs for which vocal-only tracks aren't publicly available, producers of those mash-ups may have connections to labels/artists and can get the vocal-only audio for a track privately. I've done music composition/DJing/remixes for 20 years (as a hobby), and have found vocal-only tracks with which to create remixes. I've also taken songs just as they are - including instruments and vocals and all mixed together - and remixed them, splicing different sections together and overlaying additional instruments. I've been surprised with how well that works in some cases. You can search for "acapella version" or "acapella mix" on services like the iTunes music store or _URL_0_ & you'll find a lot of vocal-only tracks perfect for remixing. Have fun!
Why did Obama Care raise the cost of private health insurance for many middle and upper class Americans?
Insurance is pooled risk. Everyone puts in a dollar in case they need 10. The company collects 100 knowing that they will only need to pay out 3 lots of 10. Everyone is still paying a dollar so all is well. However the company knows that some people are at a higher risk than others, to protect its profits it either makes these people pay 8 dollars or simply turns them away. Obama care to my understanding removed the ability for the insurance company to turn people away, even based on history. So they were forced to take people who they know will need to claim 10 every 3 months. To cover this they had to increase everyone how was paying a dollar now has to pay 3 to cover the companies profits and the people who would normally have been turned away.
In movies and TV shows, why are streets at night always wet, like it just rained?
Because it looks better on camera. Lights reflect in the surface and it just gives it a better look on screen. The movie crews generally wet down the street before rolling.
How do power-washers only take the dirt and grime away and not the underlying paint on a car or house?
Dirt and grime are only physically stuck to the paint. Paint actually undergoes a chemical reaction and becomes chemically bonded to the underlying surface. You could remove it with a pressure washer set to high enough pressure or pointed at it for enough time just as you could sand it off. but the dirt and grime are much more loosly stuck on compared to that chemical bond, so a pressure that wouldn't take off the paint can take off the dirt.
Why is that when I drink water or soda, I feel full after a while, while with beer, there's no stopping me?
By the time you have drank enough to feel full [for me it is 3 glasses of water] you have had enough alcohol for the fun to start. Lack of inhibition is enough at that point to make you want to drink more. On top of that the ethanol being metabolized in your liver causes a sudden blood sugar drop. Drops in blood sugar encourage eating and drinking so you want even more. Plus who really wants to stop drinking? TL; DR: Beer makes you dumb n thirsty.
With ice caps melting, ocean levels rising, and higher global temperatures, this theoretically would be a perfect storm for massive rainfall. Why aren't we seeing an increase in precipitation within dry arid area's, instead of increased droughts worldwide?
Dry arid areas like north texas where we've gone from 10 years of drought to massive flooding in 6 months?
Why are Junior, the II, the III etc. only used for males? Is there a female equivalent? & if there is, why isn't it used as often?
I'd think it's because 99% of sons keep the same first and last name their whole lives. Then you can have Bill Jones, Bill Jones Jr, Bill Jones the Third, from birth onward and the name sticks. Whereas women are much more likely to change their names. Mary Smith's daughter is Mary Jenkins, her daughter is Mary Franklin, so it'd make no sense to say "Mary Jenkins Jr" when there is no Mary Jenkins Sr. Sure, daughters originally share the same last name as mom but usually not after marriage.
The supposed manifestations of 'Qi' ("Chi")
Parlor tricks. The tips of the "spears" are rounded. Line them up carefully with a meaty part of your leg and they'll hold you up with enough "comfort" and cushion to not cut into you. Line up the third with a relatively cozy spot between your chest while holding yourself up with your arms and you do the "magic". I promise that if you replaced those spears with sharpened tips, he wouldn't do the same trick. The drillbit is dull and he's the only one controlling the pressure of the drill. It helps him safely put the show on. I only watched a small bit of the video because it seems to be little more than romanticized far-east mysticism. The term "Bullshito" applies as well.
I've read that the simulation hypothesis is extremely unlikely because of something called Lorentz Invariance, but I don't know enough about physics to understand why.
I think the idea is that simulations have an absolute time (the time of the computer). Lorentz transformations transform time too so any viewpoint has it's own time. If all viewpoints are equally valid then there is no absolute time for the whole universe. Of course the simulation may take all that into account and simulate a separate progress of time for everything. Then it is weird why the simulators deal with the complexity of non-absolute time even though they could have easily avoided it
Why is wine only served in 5 oz (150 ml) portions, while other alcohol may be portioned out differently?
It's not, really. It's just that 5 oz of wine is a good measure to use to compare to a 1.5 oz shot of liquor, or 12 ounces of beer in terms of alcohol content. Of course, it's not perfect as beer and wine can vary in the amount of alcohol they have per ounce. Liquor, on the other hand, is almost always the same amount of alcohol per ounce.
How does the army work? How does one get a promotion and such?
Military promotions are not nearly as sexy as they appear on TV. If you're enlisted, you earn rank by passing formal tests, doing your job well, and earning time in rank/service. If you're an officer, you earn rank by earning time in rank/service, meeting educational goals (like getting advanced degrees), and doing your job well. You then get to be evaluated by a board, who puts you against everyone else who is up for another rank, and they decide if/when you get to be promoted. Battlefield commissions and promotions (like going from SSgt to 2dLt overnight) really don't happen anymore, because officers are required to have 4-year degrees and graduate from a commissioning program.
The OJ Simpson court case
It was an absolute circus. The only thing that compared was a Michael Jackson trial. More than a year of CNN covering it every day. Not just updates, but complete wall to wall immersion. It made the careers of several talking heads like Greta Van Susteran and Mark Fuhrman. It was one of the earliest indicators that forensic science was sloppy and driven by police rather than science. The LA crime lab made numerous mistakes that a very expensive legal team was able to raise doubts about. The case was very good proof that justice works differently for those with resources. Kato Kalin was such a stoner. The prosecutors and judge were put through the kind of background reporting typical of celebrities and and scandalized politicians. The defense lawyers were really good. Barry Scheck was my favourite at the time.
Why doesnt your soda get "shaken up" when it falls out of the vending machine?
Two reasons that both contribute: 1) The vending machine acts as a fridge, and at a colder temperature the CO2 gas requires more force to seperate from the liquid But more importantly: 2) The "drop" you see in these machines isn't as dramatic as you may think. There are [columns](_URL_0_) of each different type of drink and the bottom drink (the one next in line when the consumer selects that drink) has a 5-10cm fall to the slanted surface that brings the drink to them. The ~~kinetic energy~~ forces acting upon it during the 5-10cm fall and sliding down the slant is barely more than how much you impart when you put the drink down, so it doesn't get shaken up that much.
Pseudorandom numbers and how it is different from truly random numbers.
Pseudorandom numbers are generated by a formula. They look random at first glance, but if you know the formula, you can predict the next number with 100% accuracy. Also, if the formula is not very good, then you can detect patterns in the numbers that it generates, or determine that it might favour certain numbers over others. This is why truly random numbers are preferred for things like lotteries, because otherwise intelligent people could figure out the patterns and beat the odds.
Why do dogs have to sniff about before going for a dump?
It's an instinct from when they were hunters in the forest. If they poop near a game trail, the deer will be scared from that trail because they can sense that a predator was nearby recently, and then the wolf will lose a food source. By making sure they always poop far from game trails, they increase the likelihood they get to eat. In addition, they use poop to mark their territory, and they are checking around to make sure they aren't (or are) marking anyone elses' territory before going.
How is it possible to program a random number generator? Wouldn't it need an algorithm
The programmer provides the seed number, often choosing the time in milliseconds (a pretty random number). Encryption software uses stronger methods of randomness like asking you to move the mouse for a few seconds and pulling random data from that.
How is the position on the Earth's Surface determined by a GPS?
There is a cluster of satellites in orbit (the much cooler term is "constellation of satellites"). Each one has a very accurate clock and they continuously broadcast their current time and which satellite they are. Your GPS device receives these time signals and since it knows (a) which satellite sent which signal, (b) where each satellite is supposed to be at that exact moment in time, and (c) that times three, it can use a technique called "trilatteration" to figure out where it is. Your GPS device never sends anything out, it only receives. The satellites never send out location information, just times and IDs. We just know where they are supposed to be at given times. In the end, it's the same basic mechanism of star navigation sailors have used for centuries, except that this time we made the stars.
How can someone with type AB blood be the universal recipient for blood donations, and only eligible to donate blood to other type AB patients, yet is the universal donor for plasma?
[This image kinda sums it up](_URL_0_). The important thing in blood donation is that the plasma can't have antibodies against the antigens on the red blood cells. You either have A-antigens on your red blood cells or (you're pretty likely to have) anti-A antibodies in your plasma. B-antigens and anti-B antibodies are the same way. So because someone of type AB has neither anti-A nor anti-B antibodies in their plasma, they can accept anyone's blood cells and anyone can use their plasma. Someone of type O has neither A-antigens or B-antigens on their blood cells, so their blood cells won't react with the antibodies in anyone else's blood plasma. On the other hand, they can accept anyone else's plasma (because they don't care what antibodies they have in there) but can't donate it because theirs likely has antibodies to everything.
What is a blind and a double blind experiment in science?
Blind: The participants in the study don't know whether or not they're receiving the treatment being tested. Double-blind: Neither the participants nor the researchers know which participants received the treatment being tested (during the course of the experiment, in the case of the latter, they obviously find out after the fact who was treated and who received a placebo).
Why is The Interview receiving much more hostility than Team America:World Police?
Probably because back then north korea didn't have internet and a different "president".
why movies with good screenplays only have one or two writers, while the typical (and bad) blockbuster scripts often have up to three to four writers?
Because with more writers some movies tend to get written and rewritten, to the point that the story makes no sense anymore. An example would be [Prometheus](_URL_0_), which was passed repeatedly between two writers. Obviously a screenplay with one or two writers would be more "focused". Of course that does not always apply, but that's a pretty realistic scenario.
Why is it that some food items, when we taste them once, we continue having more and more, even if our appetite is full already?
Because things like fat, sugar, and salt are rare in nature. You are biologicaly driven to consume them in excess to create reserves. The food industry takes full advantage of these innate addictive properties.
Why can non-American actors so commonly mimic a perfect American accent, but rarely can an American actor accurately mimic a foreign accent?
In part there's a survivor bias. If you can't do an American accent, you won't land a role playing an American. So we don't get to see actors with poor American accents.
- Do bees know they are going to die if they sting you? If so how?
No. Bee stings are supposed to work against other insects, so they shred the carapaces with their barbed stings. But humans have soft and spongy skin, so the barbs get stuck inside, instead of shredding anything, and the bee accidentally rips out half it's organs trying to fly away. A single dead bee is not really that dramatic for a hive, because workers are disposable and don't lay eggs, so they never evolved to counter that one specific case, but other bees pick up on the death and go into defense mode. And as others already said, bees don't really think or learn like we do. It's propably easiest to imagine them as little robots that see things and act according to their programming. Flower? Eat! Danger? Sting!
When people say they've lost their appetite, what's happening in the brain to cause it so?
I've heard it explained in this way: if you weren't taught not to eat rotten food by your parents then you will try to at one point or another, when you smell the rotting food your body loses it's appetite so you simply have no desire to eat that rotting food anyway, therefore not getting sick/dying.
Why can't the prison system agree on a "painless" execution method, when any veterinarian in the country can painlessly put down a dog?
Part of it is, it's getting increasingly more difficult for states to get the drugs necessary. Some drug companies will not sell the drugs to states if they know it will be used in executions. If the states could get all the drugs they need for an execution, instead of having to alter the process, or use off-label drugs, it probably would be as painless as a euthanized animal. There is a reality that some people don't want the state to execute people and trying to make it difficult for the state to do so.
how can my cat crawl under a mountain of blankets on my bed and sleep comfortably for hours but I feel like I'm suffocating after just a few minutes?
The amount of oxygen a mammal needs is directly proportional to its mass, ergo your cat is way smaller than you are and needs a lot less air than you do. Basically it's just pure math, a cat that is 1/100th your size will need 1/100th the air.
Why aren't electrical outlets universal?
The infrastructure was created independently, and once it made sense to standardize it was just too expensive.
How is our sense of taste and smell connected?
> How is our sense of taste and smell connected? Most of what you think of as "taste" is actually smell. For instance, an apple and a raw potato taste almost exactly the same. If you hold your nose (which stops air flow past your olfactory nerves), you can't tell if what you're biting into is a raw potato or an apple (assuming that your eyes are closed). The only things you can actually taste are: salty, sweet, bitter, sour, and umami. All the rest is smell. > And how is it that some things smell great, like perfume or cologne, but taste awful? This is usually because the chemicals used very strongly activate the taste buds that react to bitter, which you can taste, but not smell. It's just like if someone dumped an entire salt shaker into your soup. It would smell just the same, but it would taste way too salty.
Why do my computer speakers occasionally pick up radio or (phone?) conversations?
A piece of wire can be used as a radio antenna, as a conductive material can pick up the electromagnetic radiation that makes up radio waves. Your car radio, for example, has an antenna that picks up electromagnetic waves, and the tuner in the radio isolates which frequency to isolate. From there, the received signal is amplified and played through speakers. Your computer speakers, external I'm assuming, are picking up radio waves, which are then being amplified and played through your speakers. This is due to poor shielding in your speakers. It just happens that your location and speakers are tuning in to a particular frequency consistently. Try wrapping aluminum foil around the back and sides of your speakers and around the cables connecting them/coming from your computer.
How does smell transmit? Does it radiate like sound or 'float' like gas?
Odor is carried by molecules. When you smell lemon, for example, little molecules from the lemon are making their way through the air to your nose. Now think about what happens when you smell shit...
How did the business suit become standard fashion for men in a diverse number of cultures around the world?
The fact that Europe colonised almost the entire world about 150 years ago and spread their culture all over their colonies made it happen.
why we are in a "war" right now?
The invasion of Afghanistan occurred as a direct response to 9/11. The goal was to go after the terrorist organizations that planned the attacks and find the people responsible. Iraq is a bit harder to explain. Basically, the American people were told that the dictator Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (he didn't). We invaded that country and that's pretty much that. Troop withdrawal is a very slow process, but we're already starting to see it unfold. After years of fighting, Afghanistan has been mostly cleared of the terrorists and Iraq has been ousted of their dictator. The reason the troops are still there is because it would be pointless to withdraw them immediately...by going slow, we can ensure a smooth transition for the country to go back to being on their own. Plus, in both Iraq and Afghanistan our military is training soldiers from those areas to serve and defend their country once we leave.
How do people eat and drink in space? wouldn't the food just float around and not go straight to the stomach?
Swallowing does not rely on gravity. The muscles around your esophagus (and all through your digestive tract) contract in series to squeeze food through you. This motion is called "peristalsis." As for getting the food in your mouth, that's just a matter of getting a food that clumps together pretty well, directing it to your mouth, "Here comes the airplane," and then nom. Some foods are also eaten from tubes/pouches that can be squeezed directly into the mouth.
Why can't/don't we use salt water in our toilets?
This would require running two separate water lines into your house, one containing salt water specifically for your toilets, and keeping that water separate from the rest. It would also require towns / cities / whatever to have two water reservoirs - one for salt water (for toilets exclusively) and one with fresh water for everything else. This is, obviously, impractical to solve a problem that isn't really a problem in 99% of locations.
Why do job applications ask for my ethnicity when they are apparently not going to be used in my application for equality purposes?
Companies are required to ask and keep that information so that it can be reviewed if there were ever a complaint. The company isn't required to hire to maintain any ethnic balance, but they have to show that they are not discriminating in hiring because of ethnicity. If someone complains, and there's an investigation, the investigator will compare who was actually hired and why to the pattern of the applicants. 99 white guys and 1 Hispanic on the shop floor might or might not be evidence of discriminatory hiring practices depending on who applied and their qualifications.
Why is Adele's Hello song & album, 25, released in 2015 nominated for the 2017 Grammys?
The Grammys don't use the calendar year for eligibility, instead they use October 1-September 30. Since *25* was released in November of 2015, it's part of the 2016 eligibility year (which ran from October 1, 2015 to September 30, 2016).
How do mom porcupines and hedgehogs give birth without the babies' spines causing any harm to the mother's insides?
A porcupine's quills are hair, not stiff rods. When they give birth, the quills are soft and wet. That is also why the quills can be replaced constantly.
Why did we ever start counting things in 'Dozens'? Why not in tens, or something easier to work with?
Base 12 was used in ancient Egypt. You can count to twelve on one hand, using your thumb to move on each finger joint (four fingers, each with three joints). Arguably, base 12 and base 60 make more "sense" than base 10, because you can count to 12 on the one hand and keep track of five groups of 12 with the other. Some have argued that this using 12 carried forward directly, some argue that it developed independently in lots of different places, which makes sense to me because it works really well.
If most water is absorbed in the colon, then why does thirst resolve immediately after drinking?
Yes, but it's your brain and not your colon that makes the decision of whether you feel thirsty or not. There are whole lot of times there will be a disconnect. Consider the experiments with infinite soup bowls. People will eat more when offered bigger portions, regardless of hunger, and if you covertly keep filling up their soup bowl, they will very rarely stop.
Why are written and spoken English so different?
English is the result of a linguistic mishmash of Low German dialects, Norman French, Scandinavian languages, Church Latin and Scientific Greek, and loanwords from a hundred other languages from Italian to Arabic to Swahili to Cherokee to Hindi to Japanese. As a result, it has lots of different rubrics for how letters should be pronounced inherited from its various parent languages that often contradict one another.