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How exactly do designer babies work? | [
"DNA is a series of molecules strung together, somewhat like how letters are strung together to form words. With those words you can write a screenplay. Eventually the screenplay is turned into a movie. If you don't like part of the screenplay, you can take those words out and put different words in it's place. If that's too hard, you might look at a different screenplay and never make the first one into a movie.\n\nHere, AGTC are the letters, words are a string of nucleotides that are the instructions to form a protein, a whole sequence of DNA is a screenplay, and a person is the resulting movie.\n\nWhat people would like to be able to do is switch out a couple of words, so instead of a brunette you get a blond, or you get a tall person, or whatever. That is beyond our technology now, so instead they're looking at fertilized eggs (like would be used for in-vitro) and trying to figure out which ones are blond and which ones are brunette, so the parents can pick which eggs are implanted. \n\nIt's still very imprecise.",
"I can go more in depth if asked, but considering it's like a 5 year old. Imagine your DNA as 4 letters, A, G, T, and C. There are millions of these in strands. These letters make every aspect of the child, eye colour, hair colour, whether they will be strong or have good musical talents.\n\nThey can be changed when the egg is fertilized to change things about the child's appearance, health, talents and such."
] |
Is picking and eating the contents of your nostril genetic? Also, is there a reason "we" do this? | [
"I suspect this behavior is quite common, and that it's similar to when animals lick to groom themselves. Eating boogers could provide information as to whether one is sick, or perhaps help avoid leaving that information for predators.",
"My psychology teacher would always use nose picking as an example of behavior, but she would never really give us a reason as to why. I am not an expert bit I would imagine that the fact it is salty, and it clears your airway is a fairly good reason as to why, though I am sure there is more to it than that. I will be interested to see other responses, I do know however that it is nothing to be ashamed of, sometimes there is just stuff that you can't always get just by blowing your nose.",
"Ten bucks says the Smales kid picks his nose.\n\nI got ten more that says he eats it!"
] |
How can Penn Jillette and Kevin Smith lose more than 1 pound a day if most advice is that only 1-2 lbs a week can be safely lost? | [
"Not a physician here but I think one variable to consider into the equation is the amount of weight to lose until you reach your \"healthy\" weight. If you're 300 pounds and do even just a small change to your lifestyle you can easily crush that 2 pounds per week (been there done that). Also, this amount of fat lost (presumably its fat) is proportionally much smaller than for a person half that weight.",
"They have enough money to hire professional trainers and diet planners and also see a doctor to make sure they are being safe.\n\nPenn actually wrote a book about how he did it. He basically ate nothing but plain ass potatoes. And he also says if you take medical advice from a Las Vegas Magician you are a idiot. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nHere's a video of him discussing it. \n\nAlso if you are already fat you can lose weight faster. Can't remember where it was but I read humans can survive surprisingly long on just their body fat if they receive the vitamins and other nutrients they need through other means.",
"Maximum safe weight loss per week is calculated at a percentage of your body weight. It's like 2-3% per week or something (don't quote me on the exact percent), so for a 150lb woman trying to be 130, 1-2 lb/week is accurate. For a 400lb guy, it's more like 5-10 lb/week.\n\nAlso people with money can take more drastic measures and pay doctors to monitor their health and tailor their eating regimen accordingly."
] |
Why does the last half of a tank of gas never last as long as the first half? | [
"Most car's I've had don't accurately measure the \"true\" last half. The level sender measures depth only, but the shape of the tank changes. Also I've noticed that if you check the manual for the tank capacity and the amount required for a fill, you can't fit that much. Even when the dash computer in my last two cars indicated 0 miles left to go I always seemed to have 1.5 to 2 gallons left based on the amount it too to fill the tank subtracted from the total capacity.",
"I've noticed in my car that the gas gauge is deliberately conservative. It stays on Full until the tank is about 80%, and hits empty while the tank still has about 10%. Which, is actually kind of nice - stays on Full a long time, and gets me to put in gas before I run out.",
"It lies to you after the first 2/3 of the tank, telling you that there is less than there really is so that you are less likely to run out of gas if you postpone going to the gas station."
] |
how do photos of scenery from r/earthporn and photos from r/spaceporn get these amazing photos that look different from what we see with the naked eye. | [
"Very long exposures allow you to have a very small aperture. The smaller the aperture, the more the depth of field. Long depth of field allows objects near and far from the camera to be in focus at the same time. A deep focus field is one of the things that makes some of these landscape photos fantastic.",
"For the example you gave, exposure is how long the sensor gets exposed to light. The more light, the brighter the dark areas. You don't want to do a long exposure in daylight (without a good ND filter) as it will be basically a white picture. \n \nI'm sure there are on Android as well, but if you have an iPhone, there are apps that allow you to adjust the exposure/shutter speed. \n \n[Here's a normal example of dealing with your subject in the shadows](_URL_0_). \n \nSince it's exposed for longer, it picks up more movement, allowing the ability to take pictures like [this](_URL_1_) and [this](_URL_2_)."
] |
How do we know we 'discovered a new species' when it might just be a deformed reject? | [
"Deformed rejects are rare. Fossils are rare. The chances of getting both at once are practically zero. Also, dinosaurs didn't have humans to take care of them if they were deformed, so the deformed ones didn't tend to last long.",
"Survival is hard, and severely deformed animals don't survive long out of infancy. You two headed T-rex would have been the size of a chicken, and would have had juvenile features."
] |
Why don't college football games aired on TV ever show the marching band? | [
"Because the halftime shows have a greater appeal (and advertising/sponsorship revenue) than the marching band, which appeals to fewer people."
] |
what can the president go to jail for? | [
"The President of the United States of America is in general immune from both criminal prosecution and civil lawsuits, although there are limits to that immunity and some unresolved legal questions.\n\nHowever, the President may be \"impeached\" by Congress. This is a way for Congress to remove the President from office. It's similar to a trial in some ways, but held by Congress (the legislative branch) as opposed to by the courts (the judicial branch). Once removed from office, the ex-President would no longer have immunity from prosecution for crimes they committed while President.",
"He could, but as president he can pardon himself. It sounds like a huge conflict of interest, but the constitution clearly states the president \"shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.\" So he can still be removed from official capacity, but he would not serve any punishment."
] |
Why do our face or ear turns red when we are embarrassed? | [
"I'm not sure anybody knows for certain, but I've heard that it's essentially an involuntary reflex to show submission.\n\nWhen your face turns red, it's essentially showing \"I'm vulnerable, so please don't hurt me\". But I'm not totally sure."
] |
How do submarines go underwater and come back up? | [
"They are designed to be buoyant (lighter than the weight of the water they displace, up to a certain depth), and they pump in seawater to internal ballast tanks to increase their weight until they start to sink. To rise, they pump the ballast water back out again.",
"Former submariner here.\n\nEveryone here is on the right track. The boat is buoyant while the ballast tanks are empty (dry) so it floats. When we go to dive, we open valves to allow the air to escape (letting water in). The Diving Officer visually verifies they open when they are supposed to. The ballast tanks fill up and we're negatively buoyant....we sink....or dive.\n\nSo, when we're a little but under water, we 'trim' the boat. We adjust water here and there to get close to neutrally buoyant and level while all control surfaces are neutral. It's a fun trick to play on the midwatch when they are trimming the boat. Get some people to go aft and now it's heavier there. They trim the boat and then you go about your normal day. They have to trim it again. :) Not much else to do down there.\n\nEdit: Full disclosure, I worked back aft so there are people who can tell you a lot more about it, but that's the basics.\n\nEdit 2: The comment about subs being buoyant is technically incorrect. It totally depends on if the ballast tanks are dry or wet."
] |
Is sound physical or chemical? | [
"Sound is energy converted into vibration through air. Technically the physical stimulation of air hitting your eardrum. Therefore, it's a physical thing. All chemicals are physical, but not all physical things are chemical. \nBut here's my question(s):\n1. Why would *sound* of all things be chemical?\n2. In what world are chemicals not physical?\n\nTL;DR - Sounds are energy.",
"While it's traveling through the air between the source and your ear, it's physical. Once the bones in your ear translate it to nervous impulses for your brain to read, it's chemical.\n\nExample: Someone drops a fork in the kitchen, so energy is released as sound. Waves are pushed through the air in all directions and the ones that hit your ear wobble your eardrum. That moves the bones in your ear which is read by your aural nerve. \n\nThe message in your aural nerve is passed from cell to cell as a series of chemical reactions all the way to the part of your brain that interprets sound. That part of your brain communicates with other parts of your brain for memory and pattern matching (using chemicals) to identify the sound of a fork hitting tiles."
] |
Combustible vs. Flammable liquids | [
"Combustible will burn, but you must ignite it with an open flame. Flammable (inflammable is actually more correct) can be ignited by a tiny spark."
] |
how to computers go from 1's and 0's to logic? | [
"You know wires can conduct electricity. To make logic gates you need 1 extra component: a way to interrupt the signal traveling through a wire that also runs on electricity.\n\nLet's say you have 2 wires. One wire has a current constantly running through it. The other wire is your input. Sometimes a current runs through the input and sometimes it's dead. \n\nIt would be great if you had a contraption that (when powered with a current) would interrupt the current running through another wire. Using this magical device, you could attach it to the 'always on' wire and use the input wire as the input to the contraption. Using the 'always on' wire as your output, you now have a NOT gate. When the input signal is off, the output will be on. When the input turns on, it will block the 'always on' signal and the output will turn off.\n\nA NOR (NOT OR) gate is also pretty easy to imagine. In case you don't know, a NOR gate transmits a signal when both inputs are off. If one, the other or both inputs are on, no signal is transmitted. To build this gate you use an 'always on' wire and attach two contraptions to the wire. You then connect your inputs to the two contraptions. As long as both inputs are off, the 'always on' signal will be preserved. If either (or both) inputs turn on, the signal will be interrupted. \n\nSo out here in the real world we have a number of these 'contraptions': NMOS/PMOS transistors, vaccume tubes and redstone torches to name a few. These gates (and others) can be combined to build complex computing components.",
"There's a piece of technology called a transistor. The invention of small transistors was basically the advent of the modern computing age.\n\nDepending on the type of transistor (there are two) turning on a wire either lets a current through or blocks it. Using two transistors and two wires connected to them (and a power source) you can construct basic AND and OR gates, which form the basis of basically all of computing."
] |
How does an entire country block individual websites? | [
"Simple. The internet is connected by wires. A country can control all the incoming and outgoing wires from their country. With the networking equipment connected to those wires, they can say \"don't allow any data to be sent to or from _URL_0_\".",
"You go to the ISP that delivers internet service to the people of your nation, and demand that they block access to certain websites or else face imprisonment or worse. \n\nIt's amazing the things you can do when you have all the guys with guns."
] |
why are we bombing the islamic state with aircrafts and not sending any troops on the ground? | [
"Dead soldiers make for bad PR.\n\nAlso, locals often will often blame the western devils them for their shitty situation, increasing the risk of a civil insurgency in any regained territory.",
"**Military**\n\nThey can shoot our troops with AK-47's. \n\nThey don't really have anything that can shoot down our planes.\n\nYou need troops when you have something you want to protect or when you want to destroy SOME things in the city block but not others. When you just want to destroy something, planes and bombs work better.\n\n**Political**\n\nNo one likes leaders who get their sons killed.",
"Air Campaigns against ISIS are relatively risk free. They don't really have the capability to fight back against a jet.",
"The thing about boots on the ground is they occasionally get stuck in quicksand. Or, one might say, a quagmire. \n\nAlso, it's a lot easier for our troops to get shot when they're actually *there*, rather than miles and miles and miles away. \n\nIt's almost *entirely* a political reason, really. Public opinion right now really hates the idea.\n\nIt's a lot more complicated than that, really. A military solution *in general* isn't going to work against something like the Islamic State. Likely it'll just leave a power vacuum that'll create Islamic State II. You know. like the one that created the current one. And since you'd have to put those boots in a lot of countries that don't want your boots there, and other countries where *other* countries don't want your boots, it's a huge, huge mess. But that's more than an ELI5 explanation.",
"America (and Allies) have tried a couple of times to clean up the Middle East with \"boots on the ground\" (e.g. Persian Gulf in the late 80's, Gulf War 1990's, Afghanistan 2001-2014, Iraq 2003-2011). It didn't work then, its not going to work now. Unfortunately, to make matters worse, in this current case you aren't fighting a country with distinct borders. You are fighting a bunch of people spread out over many different countries, some of which aren't even in the Middle East. \n\nIts a never ending quagmire of really bad people running the place...you put boots on the ground to get rid of them, as soon as the boots leave they get replaced by something far more nasty. [This political cartoon sums up the last 15 years](_URL_2_)...Like a [hydra](_URL_3_), you cut off one head and two more pop up. Look at this article from the 80's - we loved [Osama Bin Ladin](_URL_0_) because he was getting those Soviet communists out of Afghanistan. Who thought that supplying him with weapons and guns would eventually result in him using them against us?! Well thats just how the last 30+ years in the Middle East have gone...at the expense of the lives of millions of innocent locals and people abroad.\n\nThe strategies that we have been using in the Middle East for the past 30+ years just aren't working...for us, or for the local people. We can't just expect that *this* time it will be different. \n\nThere should be two rules:\n\n* [Never get involved in a land war in Asia](_URL_1_) \n\n* Never put troops in the Middle East",
"We've tried that a bunch of times, but it turns out that sometimes the bad guys dress up as average civilians in order to blend in, and it can be really hard to tell the difference between a civilian and a terrorist. Plus they really prefer not to get into big open battles against our soldiers. Instead they would rather sneak around and bury bombs and landmines all over the place.",
"So we don't risk the lives of soldiers getting involved in a war that really isn't our business. ISIL has not yet committed atrocities against the United States, as in 9/11 where Al-Qaeda did."
] |
How is a person's IQ measured? | [
"IQ test scores are normalized, that is ranked on a normal distribution with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15 or 16. Mean is average, while standard deviation is basically a measure of how spread out the values are in a distribution.\n\nYour IQ score tells you where in this population you lie. The news story you linked to is low on details. Here is a better one:\n\n > Alexis Martin, of Queen Creek, has an IQ higher than 99.9% of other 3-year-olds.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nShe took an IQ test for small children and scored in excess of 160, comparing that to Einstein's IQ(if he had taken one) is wrong. Most such kids regress to lower IQs by the time they reach adulthood.\n\nIQ tests such as raven matrices don't require introduction to difficult concepts or for that matter any sort of education."
] |
Why do people say "an historical..." instead of "a historical...?" | [
"The rule with \"h\" is that, if the \"h\" is silent (Such as in hour), you use \"an\" (ie 'an hour') but if the \"h\" isn't (Such as in hippopotamus), you use \"a\" ('ie a hippo').\n\nHistorical is kinda a weird one because it's kinda silent, especially depending on your accent (Another example of a word like this is \"herb\", where some accents pronounce the h, but others don't) but not as obviously silent as \"hour\". Neither \"an historical\" and \"a historical\" sound quite right, so some people just use \"an historical\" because it sounds slightly better. I've definitely heard \"a historical\" though."
] |
Why is it that heat helps abdominal pains, and sore and knotted muscles but it doesn't help with headaches? | [
"Headaches are not muscle related. Heat, a lot of times helps muscles to contract/relax. Many times, headaches are caused by dehydration, an issue that applying heat would not help at all."
] |
Does water have a taste? If so, what does it taste like? How could you describe it t someone with ageusia (A.K.A. loss of the sense of taste) | [
"Water doesn't have a taste, or I guess I should say, we can't detect the taste of water. I think there are some animals who can.\n\nWhen people describe the taste of water, they are typically describing the taste of things dissolved in the water, mostly minerals.",
"Water itself doesn't have a taste. The taste comes from salts or other minerals that are present in the water.",
"It depends on where you're getting it from. I grew up near a mine, so the water tasted coppery with a healthy dose of arsenic and lead tossed in there. Then I moved, and the water tasted very chlorinated. It really depends on how your water is treated in the facilities.",
"It's not so much that water doesn't have a taste, but rather that humans lack the taste receptors that correspond to water. Every chemical that we can taste has a specific chemoreceptor--that receptor will work for that chemical and that chemical only."
] |
Why are "bad words" considered bad? | [
"Because in society certain rules are applied in order to keep some sense of peace and routine within the singular culture. this includes things like art, social gatherings, languages, laws...etc anything that makes up a society's culture is bound by the taboos an mores of the construct of that particular society. \n\nAs with all culture and society, evolution and change occur within the population and thus new words are made to describe new situations or older words change meaning to mean something else. \n\nUltimately in today's world \"bad words\" are considered bad because they evoke malicious or taboo thoughts into the society. It's nothing more than society trying to control language to control behavior."
] |
when we spin around in circles, why does it look like we're going much quicker than we actually are? | [
"Because all forms of rotation are slow at the center and fast at the edge. Your body is at the center, but your eyes see the edge."
] |
What does the Islamic State want? | [
"They want the world to submit to Islam and have their chief as the caliph. Unfortunately, many ISIS fighters are now begging for jail time in their home country because it is not the life they were promised."
] |
What happens if a sports team suffers so many injuries they can't field a team? | [
"What sport? Different sports have different rules regarding the same issue.",
"Most large professional sports teams, at least in the US, would just bring in some players from AAA, minor league, etc."
] |
Why it is impossible (or is it?) to describe colors and what that says about language and ourselves. | [
"Language, as in purposely formed sounds coming out of your mouth, is really only useful because of its ability to draw forth memories and combine them in the listener's head. \n\nSounds that you hear only have meaning because your brain connects them to things that has already experienced. Your brain can modify those memories, twist them, break them up, combine them to make things that you haven't yet seen/heard/etc. but it's all still grounded in what you already know.\n\nI would imagine that for someone who's always been blind, their mind just hasn't gained a useful context for which to form thoughts about color around. \n\nEven if they know some of the words you're using (like warm), their brain has never made any connection between those words and colors, because their brain has never perceived colors. You might as well be speaking an unknown foreign language.",
"The concept you're butting into is called qualia. Check it out on wikipedia or whatever and go from there if you're interested. Daniel Dennet has some philosophy of mind articles and books aimed at a lay audience that go more deeply into it.\n\nAlso go ahead and check out the essay called \"What Is It Like to Be a Bat?\" which is basically about this.\n\nAnyway, short simple answer is that yes, there appear to be some things that cannot be known or expressed except by experiencing them. These things appear to make up the subjective experience of consciousness; what it's like to \"be you.\" Some cognitive scientists and philosophers disagree with this, or believe that while qualia may exist, it's not an adequate or useful concept.",
"Taste fits the bill too.\n\nIt is much harder to accurately show another person what you mean when you want to point out a specific detail in taste or color. We can draw shapes with our hand in the air, it is more \"obvious\" how they are composed (lines, curves, circles, squares, dotted lines, etc). But how do you convey taste? We have no way to directly compose a taste and share it.",
"[Vsauce: Is your red the same as my red?](_URL_0_)"
] |
How to understand Mathematics if i'm scared of it. | [
"Trust me when I say that anyone can do maths. And I mean ANYONE. You could probably get the crazy lady with a cloudy eye down the street to solve complex calculus, given enough time.\n\nNo-body is 'naturally good at maths'. Maths simply takes time to learn, no matter how talented you are, the best mathematicians are the ones who practise. Similar to a language, you learn the basics, build and expand. The best way to learn maths would be to get a maths book or online course aimed at your target level, learn the methods to solve certain equation types, and practise them over and over.\n\nTruth be told, with maths you don't have to understand what you are doing, you simply have to look at a problem, notice any patterns, and work through it logically with what you have learned, and keep adding to your knowledge as you go.\n\nYou do not NEED to understand maths...You simply need to know what to do and when. Do you think a computer understands what it's working out? Granted it's helpful to really understand it (especially if you're studying maths at degree), but not required to be a successful mathematician.\n\nAlso, There is no reason to calculate fast in maths. Speed is not the objective, achieving the correct outcome is. Also, don't get 'maths' confused with arithmetic, my lecturer doesn't know his times tables past 3, yet can solve mind boggling equations.",
"The math you learn for a degree in computer science or mathematics is very different from the math you learn in your primary and secondary schools. It's more about finding and describing patterns than it is about finding the right answer (after all, once you know how to find the answer, you can have a computer do it for you). So relax and take a deep breath. It doesn't matter if you didn't do too well in calculus because you get a chance to start over. The [graphs](_URL_1_) you look at are networks of connected things, not drawings describing a curve. You'll spend time talking about [formal logic](_URL_0_), not trying to solve an equation.",
"start with the simple things you already know, practice them. And keep building up from there. \n\n\nAnd if you're looking into a career in computers & solving problems you shouldn't be scared of failing and making mistakes. It's 90% of what i do, trial and error is a valid way of doing things. The important thing is to find your mistakes afterwards. Don't just throw your calculation away and start over, look over it, figure out where it went wrong and correct your mistakes. In my opinion this is the most important skill you'll ever learn. If you're able to find your own mistakes and correct them you'll be able to do anything. It won't be as fast as you'd like it to be, but it will help you learn and understand. And after doing something wrong a few times you'll stop doing it wrong, maybe you'll find new ways to do things wrong but if you keep correcting yourself you will eventually end up doing things right. \n\n\nAnd i wouldn't worry too much about discrete mathematics, it's not that important. Most of the time the computer will take care of that for you. It's a different story if you need it for an exame.",
"Successfully and rapidly calculating things is the mathematical skill least valuable for humans to have this day and age (seeing as no matter how good you are a computer will be better). \n\nLearning how to do calculations (and being tested on your ability to do them) is a good educational tool for teaching people the fundamentals of many mathematics toolsets. However, thinking about how to apply these toolsets creatively to abstract problems and to use them to think about problems in new ways is often the exciting part of math, not doing the leg work."
] |
Why does music sound louder when I'm drinking alcohol compared to when I'm sober? | [
"Very briefly: alcohol interacts with your neurons in a way that inhibits glutamate secretion. Glutamate is a neurotransmitter that binds to excitatory receptors. So, that's why you've most likely heard that alcohol is a depressant; because it inhibits excitatory transmissions in your neurons. \n\nNow, it roughly affects all your brain, so your cochlea, which is an structure deep inside your ear which modulates the loudness of sounds, is uncapable of succesfully regulating the transformation of acoustic waves into electrical impulses, so they come out louder than they should. Those electrical impulses then travel to the brain's cortex and give you that auditory sensation. You might also notice that music isn't as clear as when you're sober, and it's basically because of the same phenomenom.\n\nFeel free to ask anything if I didn't explain myself very clearly. It's on Guyton's medical physiology textbook, if you'd like to give it a read."
] |
The OJ Simpson Trial. | [
"\"If the glove doesn't fit...\" let this guy get away with it.\n\nA good lawyer and terrible police work will get a man out of a lot."
] |
Why we use chip readers. | [
"The magnetic stripes on the back of payment cards are easy to read and easy to program, making them extremely easy to clone. An attacker only needs about 2 seconds with your card to read the data off the mag stripe, which can then be programmed on to a card of theirs and they can make payments with your (cloned) card.\n\nChip and PIN introduces a few new factors. Not only is it extremely difficult to clone a chip, but you also need a PIN code to authorise the transaction. It makes it a hell of a lot harder for an attacker to fraudulently clone cards, and as long as the majority of banks issue chip cards and the majority of merchants have chip and PIN readers, fraud levels go down. \n\nEDIT: Never even considered that OP could be in the US, and apparently there is no PIN associated with chip payments in the US. The same thing stands about it being harder to clone though.",
"The magnetic stripe on the back of your card is 50 year old technology which means it contains no encryption at all. You may have heard about all the companies getting hacked in the news:. Target, Lord & Taylor, Home Depot, and Wendy's amongst others. Companies you swipe your card at keep your number in their files. When they get hacked, thieves then use that card number to buy stuff online, or program it into a different card magstripe and use that to swipe. When the card is a chip card, the chip is encrypted, and they can't clone that, so the card doesn't work.",
"The chip is a much more secure form of identification of the card. You probably are not old enough to remember Reel to reel tapes, or even cassettes, or 8 tracks. All of these had magnetic information encoded on them in analog from to play recorded music.\n\nCredit cards which are swiped also have magnetic information recorded on them to identify the card. This technology is older and less secure. Perhaps a reel to reel tape recorder could be used to encode a card. There certainly are card encoders around which can reproduce yours.\n\nBut the chips have been designed to be more difficult to copy.",
"When you swipe, you send your credit card number. But the chip doesn't.\n\nThe chip is a tiny lil' computer. It creates *one time use* credit card numbers every time it's used. The computer at the bank/credit card processor knows the possible numbers that the chip could spit out.\n\nSince your actual credit card number is never transmitted, nobody can get it by snooping. And if they snoop one of those one-time-use numbers, and try and use it, the bank can go \"hey, this code's already used, bad, no, denied, get outta here scammy guy.\"",
"Here are a few answers from Citi Bank.\n\n > Your Chip Card will provide greater Peace of Mind when you travel by making it easier and more convenient to use your card for purchases at international merchants. It will also provide greater protection against fraud whether you use your card here or abroad to make purchases at merchants that use chip terminals to accept your payment. Many countries and merchants outside the U.S. have already adopted this technology, which has become the global standard. Approximately 1.5B Chip Cards have been issued globally, and there are 22MM point-of-sale chip terminals. By 2015, Chip Cards will be standard in the U.S. as well, and we expect to continue to see more merchants in the U.S. adopt this technology over time.\n\n > Traditional magnetic stripe cards require a signature for security purposes. A Chip Card adds an additional layer of sophisticated fraud protection through an embedded microchip that turns cardmember information into a unique code when used at a chip-enabled terminal that is difficult to duplicate or copy. This type of card has been around for more than a decade and is safe to use; it is already standard practice in more than 80 countries worldwide.",
"Much more secure: \n \n* Your personal details aren't sent. \n* Your card doesn't leave your hand/sight (mainly at restaurants, though hardly American ones have upgraded because they don't want to pay more the mobile readers, and it makes tipping much more awkward, places like Chili's do use that Ziosk machine though on all tables, but hardly any are the newer chip kind). \n* Uses a 1-time codes during every transaction to prevent cloning.",
"The strip which you swipe has all the numbers needed to make your transaction lined up and ready to go. So any potential thief can use a special scanner to quickly grab a snapshot of it. Once they have the info, they can charge your account for their transaction.\n\nThe chip however has your numbers in a big tumbler, and the only way to get the numbers in the correct order is to stop the tumbling, and let the numbers settle into slots at the bottom which only accept the correct ball. It takes time for it to all settle, and the only thing that can turn the tumbler off is the chip scanner. When you pull it out, the balls shoot back in the tumbler and are constantly mixed again. So if someone wants your info, they would need to physically get your card and read the front or use the chip in a chip reader.\n\nAt the cost of a little convenience, your data is safer.",
"Don't worry, you guys are only decade behind on payment methods so you'll be getting tap soon"
] |
What are water stains made of and how do they form? | [
"liquid water contains dissolved minerals. once the water evaporates, the minerals stay. that's what you see."
] |
how do pilots eject at speeds ⩾ Mach 1 | [
"If you're asking how they get out of the plane when they are going so fast, the bottom of the ejector seat has a rocket that launches the pilot out of the aircraft."
] |
Why am I able to crinkle up aluminum foil without immediately burning my hand after it's been in the oven for an extended period of time? | [
"It cools off extremely fast since its so thin. \n \n_URL_0_",
"Aluminum foil has limited mass and density, so the amount of heat it can hold and transfer to you is also limited.",
"I'm more interested as to why your hand has been in the oven for an extended period."
] |
How does St Jude hospital continue to operate while remaining free to patients and families? | [
"Heavy donations of not only money, but time from the workers. Alk of the research they do they share freely with anyone who it could help, so people gladly donate."
] |
When will the new US healthcare plan, the Affordable Care Act, start? | [
"It doesn't have a single start date. Some parts took effect the same year it passed, some didn't start until this year, some don't take effect until 2014."
] |
The current state of the 2012 election race | [
"As far as the Republican primary polls go:\n\nPerry (29.9%) is in the lead, despite being a complete idiot. This goes for most of the other candidates, too.\n\nRomney (19.4%) is in second place.\n\nPalin (11.3%) is in third place, despite not running.\n\nRon Paul (8.8%) is far back, because he has had a few reasonable ideas, and Republicans can't let a slip-up like that slide.\n\nMichele Bachmann (7.1%) is losing considerably. Most experts attribute this to the fact that she is a crazybitch.\n\n[Source](_URL_0_)",
"The republicans haven't chosen a candidate yet. The primary/caucus season will start in early 2012. \n\nThe democrats will presumably nominate Obama/Biden again. \n\nWhat's your question?",
"Here are the straw poll results for this year (averaged together)\n\n\nFinish\tPotential candidate\tPercentage\n\n1\tRon Paul\t19.74%\n\n2\tMitt Romney\t14.27%\n\n3\tMichele Bachmann\t8.08%\n\n4\tHerman Cain\t7.82%\n\n5\tNewt Gingrich\t5.72%\n\n6\tTim Pawlenty\t5.36%\n\n7\tMike Huckabee\t5.02%\n\n8\tRick Perry\t4.77%\n\n9\tSarah Palin\t3.97%\n\n10\tMitch Daniels\t3.71%\n\n11\tThad McCotter\t3.07%\n\n12\tRick Santorum\t2.86%\n\n13\tDonald Trump\t2.43%\n\n14\tJon Huntsman, Jr.\t2.31%\n\n15\tChris Christie\t1.4%\n\n16\tGary Johnson\t0.88%\n\n17\tRudy Giuliani\t0.43%\n\n18\tJim DeMint\t0.34%\n\n19\tPaul Ryan\t0.27%\n\n20\tBuddy Roemer\t0.24%\n\n21\tHaley Barbour\t0.20%\n\n21\tMike Pence\t0.20%\n\n21\tTed Turner\t0.20%\n\n21\tJoe Wilson\t0.20%\n\n25\tJohn Thune\t0.13%\n\nJust so we're being fair, Rick Perry wasn't even in the race until recently and these are the straw pools since January.\n\n\nI'll leave my opinion out of this answer.\n\nEDIT: Sorry, forgot [source.](_URL_1_)"
] |
what is a horoscope? | [
"Like it was already mentioned, it is about how the constellations of astronomical bodies (stars, planets...) at our birth influence our life and personalities (e.g. it is said that people with the starsign(?) Leo (or lion) are rather bullish. \n\nAstrology (The study of how the position of celestial bodies influence our life) is a pseudoscience. There is no proof that there are actual effects on our lives. \n\nHowever a lot of people believe in this same as with religion (I don't want to start a debate now but it is belief that makes people follow a religion not scientific proof). \n\nThe \"trick\" with horoscopes is that they are generally written very unspecific specific (confusing I know). This means they write general things which makes it appear to you that (at least a part of) the horoscope is true to you. \n\nSo maybe you read you will have a challenge at work which you will overcome with your innovation. This is very nonspecific but it is highly likely that a lot of people will think after they read this: \"Oh yeah that really happened like it was written.\"",
"People believe that (this is in no way intended to be offensive) based on the Earth's position in the solar system on their birthday, it can determine the type of person they will be, or the fate that they will take. In other words, if I'm born in say, October, I am closer to certain constellations and galactic bodies than someone in May. Or vice versa, they are closer to other celestial bodies. Very little scientific evidence backs it up, but it is a strongly studied and developed culture. Hope this helped a little bit with the astrology side!"
] |
Why TV shows and movies can get the rights to show certain video games, but never the actual sounds/ music. | [
"A lot of music, especially, is licensed from someone else for the game. So if they're showing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, they have permission to show the video game. If they want to play the music (\"When Worlds Collide\" - Powerman 5000), then they have to get permission from Powerman 5000 or their agent/record label to play that music."
] |
Why is there one section of the audience at Obama's State of the Union that never stands up or applauds when everyone else does? | [
"There are three groups in the chamber:\n\nThe democrats - they will rise in support of anything the president says, that they agree with (which is pretty much all of it)\n\nThe republicans - they will rise once or twice when Obama is talking about something they agree with\n\nThe supreme court - they will not rise for most of the speech, so as to remain impartial towards anything that could come before the court.",
"Every time I caught a glimpse of Boehner's face during the SOTU, he seemed to be shaking his head, all flustered like he made a big mistake by inviting Obama over.",
"The opposition party (in this case Republicans) will rarely stand to support anything the POTUS says regarding policy or successes. They will stand to support veterans, and not much else. It was the same under Bush, so it's not a surprise.",
"They're Republicans. They aren't supposed to demonstrate solidarity with their opposition.",
"Can someone please ELI5 what the hell is even going on?\n\n What is the address about? What's the point? Why?\n\n I haven't watched it and really don't plan on it, I just don't care about it that much. \n\n But I am curious why it's such a big deal."
] |
The difference between Top and Best comments on Reddit. | [
"There's a lot of statistical math behind it but basically:\n\nTop just means the posts that have the highest karma score are at the top. If a post has 100 up and 50 down, basically it has 50 points and will be near the top. However, posts near the top have more visibility, and so they get more votes up and down. If most of the votes are still up, it will get a higher and higher karma score and remain near the top of the Top list. Maybe that post with 100/50 later has 1000/600. Notice that there are more up AND down votes, not everyone agrees that this is a good post.\n\nBest treats the votes like a statistical measurement. There is some more complex math going on, but basically the formula looks for posts that are getting MOSTLY upvotes and gives them better standing on the page than posts that get lots of upvotes and lots of downvotes. So a post that has a score of 20/2 looks better than the 100/50 because almost everyone who sees it agrees that it's good. Only 2 people out of 22 (9%) thought it was bad, but 50 of the 150 (33%) thought the other one was bad. As more people vote on a post, the formula gets a better picture of whether the post is actually good vs. if it just has a lot of votes. This allows a very relevant and straightforward comment that everyone will agree is useful but only had 10 votes to start to creep up on a pun comment that happened right after the post that has 100 votes."
] |
When & how do we develop our sense of humour? | [
"Your sense of humor is particular to the way your mind works, and has a lot to do with how you were socialized."
] |
Lately, I've been getting crank calls where, whether I pick up or not, the caller hangs up immediately leaving no message or insistance that I call someone else or anything. What is the purpose of telemarketing like that? | [
"One reason an organization or entity would do that is to identify what numbers are \"live\". Suppose you are setting up a robo-calling operation and want to call everyone in Texas with your message. You can look up the area codes easily but if you called a random number the chances are it isn't valid. All you would get is some \"This call cannot be completed as dialed\" message.\n\nSo to prepare this organization would set up an auto-dialer to call every possible combination of numbers and see which ones connect. If they hear the tones from the calls that cannot connect they remove the number from their list, but if it connects to anything they hang up immediately. After they have culled the list they will start calling with a message.",
"Others have answered so let me tell you that showing images is disabled by default in many email clients for a similar reason. What you are getting in an email is actually not a picture but a link which also contains your own email address. If you open a spam email and download the pictures then the website knows your email is legit and they can sell it.",
"One of two things are going on. The company calling you deals with collating personal data to sell to marketing companies. They are verifying your number is legitimate before they sell it on. \n\n\n\n\n\n\nAlternatively it's the cold callers themselves. When outbound dialling there is a good chance the person you are calling is out of the house so the company dials multiple numbers per agent dial to fish for an customer. It may send out 5 different calls and the first to answer is routed to the agent, they may keep the line ringing and if someone picks up that call will be routed to agent 2. If there is no other agent available the call drops.",
"One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that a lot of telemarketing companies have computers making the calls and only connect them to a person at their end if someone picks up.\n\nIf they don't have someone available at the moment you answer the phone the computer will either drop the call or, worse, stay connected, leaving you talking to nobody.",
"Robocallers autodial numbers in anticipation of having an agent free by the time the caller answers. If the math isn't working out, and no agents are free, just hang up the call.\n\nAnnoying, but you don't know who to blame, so cost-free to the originator.\n\nKeeping their agents busy is the priority, not your convenience."
] |
If North Korea actually launches a nuclear capable missle, and it gets shot down over the pacific, what impact will the nuclear waste have on the sea life, and could the tides spread radiation to populated shorelines? | [
"Nuclear capable doesn't mean it has a nuclear warhead. It just means it CAN carry a nuclear warhead. \n\nIf they actually fired a nuclear warhead at anything the rest of the world would wipe them out.",
"There are about 3 parts per billion of uranium in sea water. A cubic kilometre of sea water is a billion tonnes, so contains about 3 thousand tonnes of uranium.\n\nSo dropping a few kilograms more into the sea will make no difference at all"
] |
Why do so many big corporations attempt to look like small companies? | [
"The usual belief is that big corporations are just after profit, because they're too big to have genuine concern for all their customers throughout the entire corporate chain.\n\nBy trying to look smaller they look more relateable, they look like people not faceless corporate drones."
] |
Impedance Rating for headphones | [
"Not really, as long as the headphone impedance rating is within the permitted range for whatever will be driving them. The frequency response and efficiency are the important parameters (along with things like price, weight, and how they feel/fit on your head). \n \nThe impedance can tell something about how efficient the headphones are (how well they turn the electrical signal into sound), but they don't tell everything so it's better to look at direct efficiency metrics instead. And generally efficiency just isn't that important anyway, unless you are looking to drive big studio-quality headphones with a portable device. \n \nIf your device is meant to drive 4 ohm headphones (max) and you plug in 32 ohm headphones, you risk not being able to drive them to reasonable volumes without overdriving your device to where it distorts, and will somewhat compromise the frequency response of the headphones. It could also reduce your battery life. But if your headphones are within a factor of 2x of what your output is rated at, you probably will be fine.",
"Not particularly. Some with higher impedance ratings might have a problem being powered on some old shitty devices, but it's really not that relevant today.\n\nI've used about a dozen pairs of headphones on my iPhone just fine, from the stock earbuds to $400 AKGs and Sennheisers."
] |
How does a ground detector work on an ungrounded system? | [
"The electronic type superimposes a signal with reference to ground on the phase conductors, and measures how much signal current flows. \n\nThe panel meter style creates a high impedance path to ground and measures the current flow. If no ground faults exist it will be zero. As ground faults occur, the current value goes up and so the insulation measurement goes down.\n\nThe indicating light style is a Wye connected light system that creates a connection to earth at the Wye point. A ground fault on a phase will short out a lamp cause it to go out, and cause the other lamps to brighten as they experience Line voltage not Phase voltage.",
"It sounds like you might be talking about an RCD or RCCB (Residual current device, or Residual Current Circuit Breaker - same thing). These work by comparing the current flow on the live (hot) and neutral wires. \n\nIn theory the current flowing in those wires should be more or less the same. \n\nIf there's a ground fault, that by definition means that there is some current flowing somewhere other than through the neutral connection, there will therefore be an imbalance between the current flow in live and neutral, and it's that that trips the breaker. It doesn't actually need to monitor a ground to know this."
] |
WTF is going on in Chicago?! | [
"> gang-related, drug-related\n\nThese two. The city is highly de facto segregated by income (and often race as well) with poverty concentrated in particular parts of the city generally on the West and South sides. Gang violence has become endemic in these areas and others generally because gangs offer a way to make money and have social standing for young people bereft of other opportunities.",
"> I've seen the news about shootings happening at an incredible rate in Chicago\n\nSo often you don't even notice anymore. Another day, another tragedy. I remember when the news reported the first day in decades the city didn't have a single murder for 24 hours. NEWS WORTHY!\n\n > Are these shootings typically gang-related, drug-related, mass shootings by crazy people (like Columbine). What the heck is happening out there?\n\nIt's usually drug/gang related. The south side and the west side are astonishingly bad. Which shooting are you talking about? The last one I heard of was a Baptist church in a black neighborhood got shot up after they invited a white supremacist to join them for their service. The outcome isn't even surprising anymore (Chicago is known for it's white supremacists in Mt. Greenwood, and their Nazis).\n\nIf it were a crazy person, it might actually make a headline. I don't mean to be cynical, but people get murdered here, and it's just another story told somewhere in the stream of news stories - politics, something about the schools, something cute, murder, weather...",
"The news doing a poor job reporting actual current events? Damn saw that coming. But yeah I'd like to know what's up as well. \nSome links I found on the topic. \n_URL_1_ \n_URL_0_ \nSeems mostly random but who really knows."
] |
Why can pizza delivery drivers have light up signs on their cars, but my after market lights are considered a 'distraction'? | [
"There are strict requirements around how the signs can be set up. Your lights don't meet the requirements set forth in the applicable laws regulating vehicle lighting."
] |
Why is there a groove on the remote control? | [
"Hold the remote, the groove is for your middle finger."
] |
Can someone help my wrap my brain around a double and triple agent? Is there such thing as a quadruple agent? | [
"A double agent is someone who is undercover with one group, while secretly reporting to the group they're against. If you've ever seen the Departed, Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon are both double agents. One works for the mafia and spies on the cops, and the other works for the cops and spies on the mafia, both by pretending to be with the group they're spying on. If you've heard the term \"mole\", that's basically the same thing. An enemy agent disguised as a friendly one. \n\nSpies on A for B, A doesn't know about it.\n\nA triple agent is like the same thing, but one level further. Because this is complicated, let's use the example of Professor Snape from the Harry Potter books because it's the only triple agent I can think of right now. He's a professor at Hogwarts, but he's also a double-agent for Voldemort, going to meetings and planning evil shit. He's also secretly spying on Voldemort for Dumbledore, where his true allegiance lies. So he's spying on the people who told him to spy on the people he's in with. Dumbledore knows he's a triple agent, but Voldemort only thinks he's a double agent.\n\nSpies on A for B, but is secretly spying on B for A too.\n\nAFAIK, there's no such thing as a quadruple agent. That would mean both parties are aware the person is a double agent. Maybe it's possible, but I don't see how it would work without being totally stupid.\n\nSpies on A for B, but is secretly spying on B for A, and is also secretly spying on A for B about the spying on B for A. I'm confused now, too.",
"An agent works for country A.\n\nA double agent claims to work for country A, but really works for country B stealing information from country A.\n\nA triple agent tells country B that they only pretend to work for country A when in fact they are actually working for country A and giving country B fake info \"stolen\" from country A.\n\nAnything more than this would be ridiculous, and while not impossible, would be pretty unlikely.",
"It's all interesting espionage stuff, but I think that after a few layers it's just a guy playing both sides to get the best outcome"
] |
What is the point of filibustering? | [
"In general, it's not a way to get your agenda across, it's a way to block a vote or speech from someone you disagree with.\n\nIf the schedule says \"You have until midnight tonight to vote on this, or it goes in the trash\" you can stand up at 7pm and just start talking and refuse to give up the podium until 12:01am in which case it's too late to vote, and the measure is dismissed. \n\n(Over-simplified, but it's ELI5)",
"In the US senate, you don't actually need to fillibuster, just the threat of a fillibuster is enough to deter unfavorable bills from coming to a vote. It can be really useful for the minority party to block highly partisan laws that don't appeal to even centrist senators that don't belong to the major party, simply because the majority controlls the senate 51 to 49. By requring 60 votes to avoid a fillibuster, it makes the majority party appeal to the center and moderate their bill, to try to draw at least a few centrist senators from the other side to break with party lines if they feel it would be good for their consituency.\n\nAs for why this is useful, there are lots of things the senate and each senator wants to or needs to accomplish, having the system bogged down by laws that have zero chance of passing isn't good for anybody. Bills without a supermajority either get killed or get seriously revamped. The consequene is constant partisan gridlock.",
"Nothing gets passed in the US Senate until 51 senators vote for it. However, there are lots of 'choke points' before it comes to a vote where one senator can say \"no\" and it takes 60 senators to override that one guy... that's a filibuster. There are others, but we'll focus on this.\n\nThere are three reasons to filibusterer:\n\n1) the bill under consideration is bad, but has wide bipartisan support... so the filibuster happens to draw attention to it and hopefully turn the American voters against it. This is the traditional \"talking filibuster,\" like Rand Paul's filibuster of a military bill because he was against war drones being used for law enforcement in America. In this case, the filibuster will eventually end, and the measure will pass, but voters become aware of the issue... and in many cases donate money to the politician who did it.\n\n2) the bill under consideration is OK, and has enough votes to pass, and the minority party is mostly OK with it, but they want to extract some concessions first. This is a delicate balance, because plenty of Senators will vote **YES** to agree to a **final** vote, but then vote **NO** on the final vote. Some horse trading occurs to get Senators to break the filibuster (usually Democrats in red states or Republicans in blue states), then the final vote happens. If a Senator voted to break a filibuster then voted against the final bill, you can bet he got something in return.\n\n3) the bill under consideration is OK, but the minority party REALLY DOESN'T WANT IT TO PASS OR EVEN BE VOTED ON. No matter what. Sometimes they do that because the bill itself is an intentional poison pill by the majority party to embarrass the minority party... the bill sounds good to voters so the minority is afraid to vote NO on it, so they vote NO to even allow a vote. Other times its intentional by the minority party to embarrass the majority party and tell voters the majority party cant govern."
] |
How does extreme couponing work? | [
"a lot of time and patience. my wife coupons (although I wouldn't call her extreme) she spends about 4 hrs a week on it. she only does CVS and RiteAid, but we have walked out of both with 3-4 bags of shaving products, feminine products, medicines, and sometimes cokes/2liters for cents on the dollar. Southern Savers is the site she uses that breaks all of it down and tells you exactly what coupon and exactly what product you will need to buy to get the best deals. really you have to dedicate yourself to it. research stores coupon policies and be ready to argue and defend your coupons at register. you end up with a lot of stuff for cheap, and some of the stuff you may not even need but it completes the deal, we donate those things since we are paying 10-50 cents an item anyway",
"Also, a lot of what you see on TV is fake or fraud. Stores will play along for the publicity, and a lot of antiquated point-of-sale systems will only match the first couple of digits of the barcode for a coupon to work. So $2.00 off a $10.00 family size works for $2.00 off a $2.00 trial size.",
"It requires a solid foundation of coupons for printer ink. Once this is established, you can go very far.",
"It isn't just the coupons. They are very adept at combining multiple offers at once. My wife is one of these. They follows certain websites like Krazy Coupon Lady. Com which help to identify the best offers available at each store. They highlight those offers where a store has something on sale (sometimes at ridiculous low price), and matches that offer with a coupon you should have clipped in the Sunday paper two weeks earlier. They often help you find other coupons you can add on top. To top it all off, some stores have frequent buyer programs where you get $$ for buying any product in the store. Add it all up and it is no unusual for you to get more money back (to spend at that store another day) than you spent. My wife brags frequently about some of the things she gets for free or money back. Interestingly, we donate most of it too a local shelter (it's usually things like shavers, soap, lotion, shampoo, etc). It takes a lot of time but the krazycouponlady site at least makes it easier as long as your willing to put the time in to clip/print coupons.",
"I used to do this. I was even on the cover of a magazine with a photo of my \"stockpile\". \n\nBasically I would look at the ads as soon as they came out, figure out what would be extremely cheap or free after coupons (usually doubled or tripled, depending on the store), and then go online and order those coupons in multiples. \n\nI also got 10 copies of every Sunday circular and would staple the multiples of the coupons together and organize them in baseball card sleeve pages in a 3 ring binder. Then I could just lay the binder on the kiddie seat of the cart while I went around the store looking for deals.\n\nSometimes the best deals were found with coupons that were hanging right on the items. I'll give you an example. We used to have a store here that would triple a .50 coupon at certain times of the month. You would get the full value of the tripled coupon even if the item didn't cost that much. So if I had an item that cost .99, I would get $1.50 off of it and could use that credit on other items. Once Jello pudding (the dry in boxes kind) was on sale 3/$1.20. There were .55/3 coupons hanging on them. At this store, they would triple a .55 coupon as if it were .50, so we got $1.50 off of every $1.20/3 purchase. We purchased an entire cart full of Jello and got a lot of other stuff with the extra credit. The cashiers lined up and cheered us on, it was quite a party atmosphere when it happened.\n\nSo anyway, a brief example but there you go. I got to a point where I didn't consider it worth it anymore and stopped.\n\nI think the best part was that we didn't have to pay anything for Cottonelle toilet paper for something like 5 years. ;)",
"Basic Principle is: 50% off combined with $2.00 off on a $4.00 item = Free\nOr some people even find ways to get the stores to PAY YOU \nfor the most part companies have figured out things like \"not valid with other coupons\" or any condition which prevents this from happening.\n\nBasically, extreme couponing is the art of finding and combining coupons that enables you to buy ridiculous cheap or even free stuff.\n\nSidenote: Many extreme couponers don't actually need/want the product, they just want the deal.",
"Its really not like what you probably think. They are getting only a few different items total, in just ridiculously large amounts of each item. A shopping trip for a normal person probably has 20-30 different items. The people from these shows are getting 4-5 items, and 20-30 of them.",
"Do you have to use the coupon for the same product or do you just get money off the entire bill for anything?"
] |
Why does .5 round up? | [
"because 0,1,2,3,4 round down. 5,6,7,8,9 round up.\n\nwhat else you gonna do? it's 1/2 up 1/2 down. makes perfect sense.",
"It illustrate it a little more, X.00000000... to X.499999999... round down, and X.500000... to X.9999999... round up. It's .4999999999... (.5) for both that way. The 5/.5 is the cutoff point bc it provides the even split between place values."
] |
Can somebody explain computer specs to me, and what to look for when purchasing a new machine? | [
"I'm going to assume that you're planning on building a PC. You can buy pre-built if you want, but be aware that if you do, you're spending 30-50% of your money on a shiny \"Alienware\" or \"HP\" label or whatever, not on parts. Build it yourself, it's not hard, and there's a billion guides on how to do it.\n\n**CPU:** CPU's are far too complicated to understand how they perform just from a stat sheet unless you're an expert. Go to a [benchmarking site](_URL_0_), find whatever processor is highest on the \"high-end\" CPU chart that you can afford, and go with that. Don't skimp on your CPU, because the other parts of your computer are replaceable. I'd recommend spending at least a fifth of your budget on a CPU. If it's more than $200 and it's on that list, it's more than fine for modern games.\n\n**Motherboard:** The motherboard connects all your parts together. What's important is that it fits your CPU and that it's reliable. Your CPU's specs will have a \"socket\" listed, like \"Socket LGA 1150.\" Make sure the motherboard is the right socket. For reliability, read reviews.\n\n**RAM:** More GB is more better. It has to be the right type to fit your motherboard and processor. For example, \"DDR3 1600\" is a type of RAM. Technically, a higher number is better, so DDR3 1866 is faster than DDR3 1600, but it's not that big of a difference. You definitely don't need more than 8 GB of RAM, so I'd just get one 8 GB stick or two 4 GB sticks and be done with it. It's really cheap and easy to replace/upgrade if you feel like you need more later.\n\n**Video card:** Like the CPU, the video card is extremely important and extremely complicated. They're replaceable, but if you're doing gaming, very important. Plan to spend a good amount here, too. Like the CPU, look at a [benchmarking site](_URL_1_) and choose a price you can deal with. If a video card is more than $150-200 and high on that list, again, good enough for modern games, though you may not be able to max the settings.\n\n**Hard drive:** It's just a hard drive. Make sure it's 7200 RPM, has SATA 6 Gb/s, (don't worry what they mean, just make sure it has it) and has enough storage space. Most people are okay with 500 GB of space, but it's not too expensive to go up to 1-2 TB.\n\n**Power supply**: It supplies power to your computer, surprisingly. It needs to have enough watts. 850W is more than enough unless you go absolutely crazy. It's hard to tell exactly, but you probably only need 650W, if you only have one video card, hard drive, etc.\n\n**DVD drive:** They're cheap, don't forget to get one because you need it to install Windows. They need to be able to read a DVD.\n\n**Case:** Make sure it fits your motherboard. There will be something in your motherboard specs like \"ATX full\" or \"ATX mini\" or whatever. That's the form factor. Don't buy a case that has the wrong form factor, because your stuff won't fit. If you have space, get a \"full tower\" sized case, because it's really annoying when stuff is all cramped while you're building your PC, and the airflow is better. You will also need fans, so check what size the fan \"ports\" are. Lots of cases come with a PSU and/or fans included, which is convenient.",
"> and was always impressed by people who could tell the functionality of a computer simply by looking through its specifications.\n\nI don't really know how else you'd determine how good a computer is without touching it.\n\nAnd in response to your question, what do you plan on doing with it? If you just check email and watch youtube/netflix, then you really don't need a high-end computer, but if you're gaming, video editing and other stuff like that you'll need a good computer."
] |
Is it ok to "waste" electricity in the winter in most circumstances? | [
"Some of it certainly turns into heat and does warm your house, but for most appliances the effects would likely be barely noticeable if that. And as you note, efficiency is also a concern. Relatively speaking, by and large you'll spend more money to heat your house with equipment not designed for the purposes of heating. \n\nSo, yes, there's some marginal heat output, but for the most part it probably isn't going to make a big overall difference, and even when it does, you're probably paying a premium for the amount of increase."
] |
Why is finding water on Mars such a big deal to the general public? | [
"Because a scientifically-illiterate mass media took a report of modest scientific interest and sexed it up. \n\nNASA kinda egged the deception on by holding a press conference to announce the findings like it was some major, Earth-shaking thing. And I'm *sure* the fact that they're announcing this in the same week that the NASA-boosting film The Martian opens is TOTALLY a coincidence...\n\nThe liquid water flows they have found evidence for are:\n\n--Very small.\n\n--Very short-lived and seasonal.\n\n--Possible only because the water has a very high concentration of perchlorates, which makes them toxic to life as we know it."
] |
What does Power of Attorney mean and what does it stand for? | [
"A Power of Attorney is a document that a person signs giving another person the legal authority to make decisions for her. This is often done by elderly people who foresee that for health/dementia/alzheimers etc reasons won't be able to make decisions for themselves about, for example, healthcare, finances etc.\n\nThe power of attorney can be as restrictive or as expansive as she chooses. For example: PoA over finances only, PoA over medical decisions only, Conditional PoA: \"if I am brain dead then my son has PoA over medical decisions including pulling life support\".\n\nTHIS MUST BE DRAFTED BY AN EXPERIENCED LAWYER and the person who she gives the PoA to has to be someone she knows very well, with a proven track record of looking out after her and who she trusts with her finances, health, everything.\n\nsource: lawyer (who is giving general information, NOT legal advice because I don't know what jurisdiction you are in and don't know your mother's circumstances)"
] |
Why does sleep does sleep depravation make you stupid? | [
"> I lose the ability to write grammatically correct sentences. \n\n > Why does sleep does sleep...\n\nI see what you did there.",
"This is strange. \n\nI find that when I am sleep deprived I am more alert, awake, and can think faster."
] |
What's the logical theory behind lock down procedures in public buildings? | [
"They want to control access to areas of the building because ti is easy to end the situation. If everyone is locked in classrooms, the shooter cannot get into them, and they are a lot less people running around so the police can find the person who is causing the issue.",
"Locking down prevents the intruder from having easy targets, protects individuals behind locked doors, and saves law enforcement from having to deal with panicked crowds obscuring the intruder.",
"Also, it's a handy way to scare the hell out of children and reinforce their reliance on the state for protection. Just had a domestic violence-related murder-suicide in my town. Husband shoots wife, takes off in his car, shoots himself a few blocks away. They locked down an elementary school nearby anyway, even though the only two people involved were already dead by the time they gave the lockdown order, and none of the action took place within two blocks of the school."
] |
Why do we only learn out multiplications up to 12? | [
"I can't speak for the rest of the world, but in Britain multiplication tables up to 12 used to be taught because pre-decimalisation, our currency was divided into shillings each of which had twelve pennies. Being able to multiply in units of (up to) twelve was therefore an essential life skill -- you simply wouldn't have been able to properly know the cost of items in shops without that ability.\n\nSince the pound was decimalised in 1971 it's no longer been required, however I suspect British schools still teach multiplication tables up to twelve simply because they always have done.",
"In the UK, up until 1971, money was counted in pounds, shillings and pence, with twelve pennies to the shilling. ~~Metric~~ Imperial measurement uses twelve inches to the foot. For a long time, the twelve times table was a pretty useful thing to know (and arguably still is), but few things have ever been counted in groups of fifteen.",
"It's fairly arbitrary, but we stop at twelve (and when I was in school, at ten) mostly because there's a repeatable process at thirteen (or eleven) and above that works better than outright massive memorization, which is a painful process for most people. \n\nFiguring out 13 x 13 is four one-digit operations (1x1, 1x3, 3x1 and 3x3), adding some zeroes at the end, and then adding the result together. That easier for people to do when needed than to memorize the other 9,831 remaining two-digit number multiples that can occur, or even the other 56 raw number pairs that would take you up to the complete set of 15x15.",
"12 ? We learn them up to 10 in France. Maybe because we use an entirely metric system meaning we don't need to know multiplications that are over 10.",
"Any larger multiplications can be broken down into smaller constituent parts.\n\n_The kicker is that ideally the students should also be taught how to do this._"
] |
Why are there 4 bases in DNA? | [
"It just so happened that those particular 4 chemicals fit together in a way that strings of pairs of them can form a double helix that protects the information stored by their order.",
"Using four bases is a compromise between content fidelity and the amount of information you can store; with only two units (like machine code/binary), it would require significantly more media to store the same content (as you would need a longer total code length to represent the same content), and with more units, there is greater chance of content distortion from imprecise coding or erroneous splicing. \n\nFour bases is simply the most efficient way of storing the genetic code. Sort of like how oxidative respiration evolved.",
"The 4 bases were established extremely early in the origin of life. Life didn't evolve into having those 4 bases, as far as we know it pretty much started that way. It was more chance than anything, and because it's so integral to how all the information that makes up an organism is stored, it's not really something that evolution can modify very easily, if at all."
] |
What exactly happens when a voice cracks? | [
"There are numerous muscles in one's voice box that control the pitch and tone of one's voice. While you can consciously alter the tone and pitch of your voice, you don't have conscious control over this musculature. Voice cracks occur when the brain hasn't learned to correctly modulate these muscles to produce a consistent tone. This mostly occurs to adolescent boys with rapidly changing vocal structures. Another case where the voice may crack is during extreme emotion, when there is extra tension due to a stressful reaction.",
"Your throat has muscles. These grow in puberty, and it takes time for them to adjust to the change.\n\nWhen sick, these folds are inflamed or otherwise not fully functional. When the brain tries to operate them, they spasm and cause a \"crack\"."
] |
If the "we only use a certain percentage of our brain" myth has been debunked, how come we can't do things like autistic savants? | [
"When I was a kid, I picked up some human calculator tricks, and got pretty good at it. It is about 25% talent, 25% knowing some tricks, and 50% practice, practice, practice. \n\nIf you have a condition like autism with OCD tendencies, and those tendencies lead you to practice math tricks all the time, you are going to get pretty good at it.\n\nAnd if your condition leads to cognitive deficiencies in other areas that make you appear \"stupid\", your math ability is going to seem even more impressive.",
"As I understand it, it had to do with artificial limitations our brains place on our thought processes. \n\nWe would have serious difficulty surviving in the past if we were constantly calculating math, for example, instead of focusing on more immediate dangers and problems.\n\nCertain disorders remove these limitations, allowing for the brain to complete extremely complex tasks, but with the downside being am ability to focus on things others consider important (including social interaction).\n\nI don't have a link, but studies have been done (there was a video of one of the tests) where a particular logic center of the brain is shocked into paralysis and the subject gains savant-like abilities, which disappear after a short duration, when that part reboots itself."
] |
why is passing out a concern for pilots and not climbers at high altitudes? | [
"Pilots don't require oxygen unless they are flying at an altitude of at least 14000 ft. Most mountains are not 14000 ft above sea level. Climbers who climb the tallest mountains in the world do require supplemental oxygen once they reach a certain altitude.",
"In a plane, you can gain altitude fairly quickly, which means your body doesent have time to acclimatise to the lack of oxygen . Mountain climbing is a much slower accent, so your body gets more used to it. Mountain climbers often carry oxygen if they are at heights where hypoxia is a concern.",
"Because they climb a lot slower than a plane. \n\nWhen a climber becomes aware of the problem he has a chance to correct it.\n\nBy the time the pilot finds out, he's already pretty high up (and thus needs longer / too long to get back down again)"
] |
What is a W-4? | [
"Essentially, the government requires that your employer collect your income tax on your wages and send that to the government. \n\nIn order to do that, your employer needs some way to estimate how much you'll pay in taxes. To do **that**, they need information from you about how much you expect to pay in taxes. \n\nSo you tell your employer if you're married or single, and if you have certain allowances that would be subtracted from your taxable income. (like having kids) You can tell your employer to withhold extra money, if you have special circumstances or if you're working two jobs. Your employer then uses that information to estimate your income taxes, and withholds those funds from your paycheck."
] |
Why does mint or peppermint flavour make water taste colder? | [
"It activates the wrong neurons (the ones that detect a loss of heat, AKA cold) by lowering their activation threshold. When the cold water touches your tongue, it makes the oversensitive neurons react and flood your brain with incorrect cold signals."
] |
Why do actors often have very dilated pupils while filming? | [
"They're not looking into light, they're looking into a relatively dark area, while being lit. You can actually see that in the picture you posted."
] |
Why don't humans produce the enzyme required to digest cellulose? | [
"Because we instead produce the enzymes and have a digestive system capable of digesting meat. The critters that can eat cellulose generally are full herbivores and can't do that, because their digestive systems are entirely geared around digesting cellulose.",
"We do however these bacteria are located in the caecum area of the intestines. Through evolution with humans needing to digest less cellulose the caecum has reduced in size however it is still there. Herbivores will have a very large caecum and longer intestines as cellulose is much harder to break down thus a longer intestine allows for more time to digest before you shit it out."
] |
Why is it a social convention for females to have long hair and males short? | [
"Long hair on women has always been fashionable, with short styles really only becoming acceptable in the 1920s. \n\nMen's styles have changed pretty drastically across cultures and time periods. In ancient Judaic culture, long hair on men was attractive and suggested power, health, and riches; whereas being bald was very unattractive and calling someone a \"baldhead\" was an insult (see, Absalom, Samson, Elisha). However, in the New Testament Paul says that a man having long hair was \"shameful,\" ditto women with short or shaved hair (tidbit: Jesus is actually described as having short hair. So definitely not the blue-eyed white dude with flowing locks that is so often portrayed in Christian media). \n\nAncient Roman men liked short hair, while Ancient Greeks liked to grow their fros. \n\nFor much of Imperial China's and Japan's histories, long hair was required for men at the royal court. \n\nIn the Cherokee language, calling a man long-haired was a way to call him handsome, and men of many other tribes wore long styles. Maori and Aboriginals also typically had long hair. \n\nIn Europe, from medieval times up through the 19th century, long hair was typically worn by the upper classes, while serfs and peasant men kept their hair shorter. In the more modern wars, soldiers were required to keep their hair short to stop the spread of lice. It appears that this fashion really took root after WW1 and has stuck around. Which makes sense, long hair is a pain in the ass to care for. \n\nLong hair on men now is seen more as a counter-cultural thing rather than a sign of wealth or class (think about it: Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, your weird white neighbor who thinks he can pull off dreadlocks-- not guys you want to hire as an accountant) which might explain why it hasn't come back in vogue.",
"I heard women grow their hair long as a symbol of fertility. Long hair indicates a long period of good health. \r\rIt's kinda like saying \"look I've been healthy enough to keep up these glorious locks for the last 3 years. Im healthy enough to carry your babies\""
] |
Why is water 'harder than concrete' if you fall into it from a great height? | [
"It is not harder, but at high enought speed the effect is the same. You die.\n\nImagine for example what happens when you slowly soak your hand in water, there is no resistance. Slap the water and you will feel the impact. Slap it hard enought and you will feel pain.\n\nThis happens because when you go slow the water mollecules have enought time to get out of your way. The faster you go the harder you will have to push to make them move faster. Go fast enought and they will really resist it so hard they will feel like a solid to you.\n\nConsider that what kills you is not the fall but the sudden stop at the end. Ig you go slow the water will resist you enought to gently stop you but if you go fast enought it will stop you suddently.",
"It isn't, it is a saying, as it might as well be concrete, especially if you don't hit it correctly on impact at great speed. It is known that there is a 98% mortality rate on 250 foot + attempts into non-aerated water, 150 foot on land. \nIt's all about slowing down slowly in this instance, sudden stops kill."
] |
What is Raspberry Pi? | [
"It's essentially just a very small computer running a version on linux, the reason its incredibly popular/amazing is mostly the size and what you can do with a full computer that can fit in the palm of your hand. It has all the ports that any desktop computer/laptop uses on a daily basis.",
"I'd love to see this answered. From what I've googled, it seems really easy to duplicate. Why's Raspberry Pi special? Is it powerful?"
] |
Is magic and wizardry theoretically possible? | [
"I think what people are driving at is that \"magic\" is based on your perspective. Invisibilty was once considered magic but now through science we have created structures that are invisible to particular wavelengths of light.\n\nAn iPhone would be considered magical to a culture of humans who do not know what electricity is.\n\nI would say that anything is possible with science given enough time and effort. Therefore things that you see in Harry Potter, like flying brooms, or pictures that move on their own, may be seen in one form or another enabled by science and technology.",
"No. \n\nWe can do some pretty cool stuff with technology, and this will no doubt continue to improve in future. But 'real magic' is not even a *tiny bit* possible according to what we know about science today.",
"Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\n\n-Arthur C Clarke",
"We can't rule it out. Sure, everything we know about science and the way the world works says that you can't break the laws of physics, but what if we're wrong? \n\nIt could be that the world is set up to all follow natural laws, except if someone says \"abrakadabra\" while wearing a horse's head and waving a wand soaked in the blood of a blessed lamb's head, then they can do magic. \n\nNo matter how much evidence we get for physical laws being true, there is still that chance that something outside of those laws makes magic possible, and there's no way to put a probability on that. \n\nBut probably not.",
"It really depends on the type of magic. Traditional elemental based magic is not really possible because you'd have to manipulate physics in ways that are not possible or would counter certain laws of physics.\n\nMagic based on technological things may be possible in the future depending on what it is. Its more a question of time. For example, showing someone a functioning computer from even 1-200 years ago would seem like magic them.\n\nMagic like teleportation/time travel/invisibility/medical healing are theoretically possible with technology and the right manipulation of physics.",
"As soon as we understand how something works, we would no longer call it magic. Being able to fly, and to conjure up images of people thousands of miles away, would have been considered magic at one point."
] |
Why do comedians repeat phrases of their jokes/stories every so often while performing on stage? | [
"If the audience is busy laughing, a good comedian will repeat the sentence they were busy laughing at so the audience has a chance to refocus and not miss the end of that sentence or the beginning of the enxy.\n\nI've seen some bad comedians that just can't read their audience and they keep going through their routine firing off jokes and when everyone laughs, the next joke falls flat because half the people in the audience didn't even get a chance to hear the preamble.\n\nAdditionally, repetition can be a rhetorical tool to drive a particular point or create interest or simply to entertain. Or they could be used to repeating themselves for any of the reasons already mentioned even if the specific instance of them repeating themselves actually doesn't fit the criteria but they are just used to doing it anyway.",
"It is known as a callback.\n\nA callback will:\n\n* make a routine some more thematic and less a collection of unrelated jokes\n* build rapport with the audience by creating a sense of familiarity\n* give the audience a pleasing \"I see what you did there\" feeling when they see how later jokes tied by to earlier ones"
] |
What would happen if I hooked myself up to a blood pack? | [
"It would enter in to your bloodstream as long as the blood pack was higher up than your body (above you). This is due to the higher pressure in the pack as opposed to your circulation.\n\nYou would be adding red blood cells and liquid to your system. The red blood cells would stay in your circulation and increase your Hemoglobin levels. The excess liquid would be sensed by your kidneys immidately (very similar to if you drink a lot of water in a short period of time) and would increase your urine production so that blood pressure was kept equal. In other words you'd keep the cells but quickly dispose of the excess liquid through pee (assuming you weren't dehydrated to start with and in need of the water).",
"Yes the blood would go in. Cyclists and other athletes do this sometimes to cheat in competitions because it gives the body more haemoglobin and therefore more oxygen to the cells."
] |
For electric trains, why does the friction from the part on top of the train that contacts the power cables not cause the cables to wear out and need frequent replacement? | [
"The friction does wear metal but contacts on the train's antennas are made of a softer metal and this is the one that wears out. The pads as easily replaceable.",
"The [pantograph](_URL_1_) contacts are made of graphite, which is very soft and doesn't significantly wear out the [caternaries](_URL_0_)."
] |
Why is age so important with stringed instruments like the bass and violin? | [
"With the more expensive instruments, they let the wood rest for up to 30 years before even making the instrument. Because the wood keeps on stretching and bulging(changing shape) after it is de-rooted. If you would make an instrument from \"fresh\" wood, it would lose the quality of the sound overtime. But yes I agree It's also the reputation of the makers. or a unique sound a certain instrument can have that is never found again later on.",
"It is the reputation/quality of the luthiers (people that make fine stringed instruments) at the time as well as the wood and other materials."
] |
How we know that some animal's see or hear differently to humans? | [
"You can train animals to find food based on sight and then use that to administer eye tests. For example you can train a dog to find food at the image with horizontal stripes and not at the image with vertical stripes. And then you do a series of tests with different images of stripes where you vary the width of the stripes and the color of the stripes. If the dog first goes to the wrong image then it is likely because it can not see the difference between them.",
"* we can dissect their eyes and ears and see how they work\n* we can try to train them to select a treat under different colored boxes...if they can tell the difference between the colors, they can learn the trick, if they can't, they can't"
] |
Why do planes at major airports sometimes take off in the opposite direction than they usually do? | [
"They take off into the wind. If the wind shifts, they take off the other direction.",
"Its easier to takeoff into the wind, less fuel needed as the plane can take off at lower speeds. For 1 takeoff its an extremely small gain but all over the world combined this saves billions of $ in fuel and a substansial amount of CO2"
] |
Why does Valium act as a stimulant for some people instead of a tranquilizer? | [
"Some are so crippled by anxiety that they can only \"let loose\" when their nerves have been suppressed and smoothed out by anxiolytics."
] |
Why don't police officers have some type of malpractice insurance like healthcare practitioners do? | [
"Most local governments do have insurance policies for this sort of thing, which is why they are the targets of lawsuits, not the individual officers. I suppose a few high profile lawsuits directed at the officers themselves might change this."
] |
How could police be overruled by Scientologists once let alone 161 times as mentioned on TIL? | [
"Scientology has a shitload of money and a shitload of lawyers and basically runs Clearwater, FL like a company town.",
"I have been a resident of Clearwater for over 15 years, and while the Scientologists are creepy as all hell, for the most part they stay out of your way. They are like ants, they work non stop, and barely communicate with non scientologists. Where it get dangerous is when they try to get into local politics to make things easier for themselves by passing local laws and statutes that favor them.",
"There's a lot of really, really bad answers in this ELI5.\n\nThe police weren't \"overruled\" by Scientologists. 911 was dialed, the organization apologized and explained it was an accident, and, with no evidence to the contrary, the police left. That's just what happens if someone accidentally dials 911. I'm not telling you to actually do it but, if you feel compelled to dial the number then hang up, you can expect to receive a phone call back from the police almost immediately asking if you need help. Apologize, explain it was an accident, then go about your life.\n\nThere's nothing nefarious here. \n\nEDIT: I'm getting a lot of replies telling me they've dialed 911 and an officer was sent out to their house. That's fine. However they get in touch with you, my point was simply that once they do and you explain to them you dialed 911 on accident, the interaction basically comes to an end. You're not \"overruling\" police. There's just been no crime committed so no need for further police activity. \n\nEDIT #2: I'm also getting a lot of replies about the number of mistaken 911 calls. The Fort Harrison Hotel isn't a private residence. It's an international hotel/religious headquarters. They make a lot of calls, especially international calls. \"9\" is commonly used to dial out of a business phone system and \"011\" a common international code. They make a lot of \"9011\" calls.",
"The Germans are already one step ahead of us. [Link](_URL_0_)",
"Well let's look at this logically. Why would the people inside the treatment center even call 911? We can sit here and say Scientology is evil, but are they really torturing people to the point where they would have to be called 161 times? If they were going to torture them, wouldn't they at least disconnect the phone or something?\n\nAlso I believe the calls were simply a case of a dial-then-hang-up and nobody gave anything information.\n\nOne of the posts in that thread gives probably the most realistic answer: That the people staying there were from out of the country and accidentally dialed 9 (to dial out) then the country code (011) and that this somehow connected them to 911.\n\nAt which point when the police arrived, the people there could have just said this and eventually the cops would be like \"oh yeah sorry guys. no problem\". It's worth noting that while the police were \"denied entry\", they could have spoken with someone via the front desk that went like \"oh yeah, I messed up\"\n\nIt's not perfect but I would love to hear a second opinion on this",
"a 911 call such as 911 hang ups, 911 calls with no one on the other end, and or no information does not allow police to make entry into a premise with just that information alone.",
"The same way the dude in the lobby of Nakatomi convinced Sgt Al Powel that terrorists weren't in control of 30 or so hostages on the 30th floor.",
"> \"Police respond to each call only to be told most of the time by Scientology security guards that the call was a mistake.\"\n\nNothing here about the police being \"overruled\" by Scientologists...\n\n > \"Police are not allowed to check individual rooms where the calls originated.\"\n\nLooks like there is a law/policy that prevented them from checking, not Scientology.\n\nSource: [The newspaper article that the wikipedia article that the TIL post links to.](_URL_1_)\n\nMoral?: **Wikipedia is great, but if you read something that seems absurd: follow the citation.**",
"You technically - at least - can't. Granted the reports are accurate, the cops didn't enter because they must have been convinced there was truly no emergency. If they beleive there is an emergency - they are allowed to enter basically anywhere to address the emergency. There are factors and limitations on what they can do in different circumstances, but if a 911 call said someone was in trouble at X address, the cops show up and a 3rd party tries to bar them entry - they're allowed to enter regardless.\n\nIn the United States, that is...",
"How about this - You can believe in whatever you like but there will be no special accommodations for those beliefs at all. Not in law, not at work, not anywhere.\n\nAbsolutely sick of this bollocks.",
"Scientology..... Did anyone really believe it? I mean..... Hour could anyone really buy in..... It's like knowingly joining a pyramid scam...."
] |
Why is it that after a night of drinking, I can't sleep past 7:30 usually, however the norm seems to be that others "sleep it off"? | [
"With any kind of drug, after the drug leaves your system, for a period of time, you experience an effect that is essentially opposite of what the drug caused (I want to say this is called the Paradox Effect, but I think I would be wrong. This is really bugging me.) With alcohol, a depressant that dulls your senses, the effect is that it makes you extra sensitive to stimulation (such as light and sound), your brain works harder, etc. You might recognize this as classic hangover symptoms, and it affects your sleep. A slight sound might wake you, and your overactive brain keeps you from falling asleep. This effect occurs with any type of drug leaving your system, although the symptoms are different-usually the opposite of what the drug does.\n\nOn top of that, alcohol fucks with your sleep patterns. You cannot enter into as deep of a sleep, and the sleep you get is not as restful. Some people say \"Alcohol makes me sleep better\", but in reality, while it might help them fall asleep faster, their sleep is not nearly as good.\n\nI have the same reaction when I drink. I wake up at the ass-crack of dawn with a hangover and can't fall asleep. It is one of the reasons why I stopped drinking (that, and I hate the taste)\n\nEDIT: Forgot to add... dehydration as well. Drinking dehydrates the fuck out of you, and that makes all these symptoms worse.",
"Feels. I wake up super early then can't get back to sleep. Next time when you get up try to sit in the shower for a bit, make some food and take some multivitamins + fish oil then put some calming music on and go back to sleep for another 2-3 hours. Personally the music helps me take my mind off trying to go over every detail of the night before hoping I didn't do any stupid shit.",
"I had this but I heard from a friend that you wake up so early because your dehydrated. Drink a pint of water before you go to sleep and you'll sleep right through works for me anyway",
"Dehydration is a thing - i always sleep with some water next to my bed so if I wake up hungover I can chug some and try to go back to sleep.\n\nAnother thing that could have an affect is the amount of caffeine being consumed while you go out. I don't know what your drink of choice is, but too many energy drink + vodkas, rum + cokes, etc can really jack you up. \n\nI used to wake up early every time, but then I stopped drinking red bulls at 1 am. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize the correlation.",
"The cells in your brain talk to each other using electrical signals and by releasing chemicals. The chemicals that a cell releases can either cause other cells around it get excited and start sending more electrical signals (excitatory neurotransmitters like Glutamate), or less excited causing their electrical activity to decrease (inhibitory neurotransmitters like GABA). Alcohol does a lot of different things to your brain, but the reason people get sluggish while drinking is that alcohol pretends to be one of the chemicals that decrease electrical activity (specifically GABA). After a night of drinking, your brain cells are less sensitive these inhibitory chemicals and there is less of them in your brain, so as the alcohol clears from your brain your brain cells start to get more active causing you to wake up.",
"Alcohol acts by disrupting your GABA receptors amongst other neuro trqnsmitters. Gaba in particular is responsible for basicallysane though, its what typically tells you that a building is high and you shoukdnt jump off it. When its disruoted, you get \"hokd my beer\" moments. Its also responsible for telling you when to wake up. As its depressed, your mind doesnt know when to wake up snd thus takes any cue as a reason to be awake. It gets harder to go to sleep once GABA returns to the system, and is also what leads to those existential crisis hangovers.",
"After a night of drinking I can't sleep for shit. I might fall asleep/pass out for a while but I'll wake back up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep.\n\nI like beer... good beer. But I'll limit myself to three or four and nothing after 7:00 PM. By the time I go to bed around 10:00 most of the alcohol has worn off allowing me sleep rather soundly.",
"How much do you drink? There is a difference between drinking 8 units of alcohol and going home at 1 am, and drinking 20 units of alcohol going home at 5 am.",
"I don't now about you but after a night of heavy drinking i usually get home at 7:30 and then sleep for a whole day"
] |
How is it normally cold at a higher elevation (on top of mountains), even though you are closer to the sun? | [
"The sun is over 93 million miles away, going up a few hundred feet is pretty much no closer.",
"Thinner athmosphere.\n\nThe perfect gas law dictates that **PV = RTN** \n\nP = Pressure\n\nV = Volume\n\nR = A constant not really related to this ELi5, but it basically acts as a unit converter.\n\nN = The number of moles of the gas in question\n\nT = Temprature. \n\n.\n\nIf we arrange for temperature we find that **T = PV/RN.**\n\nnow, when you go to higher altitude there will soon be more air under you than above. the less air there is above you the lower air pressure will exist around you at that height. Instead of 1 ATM pushing on you you'll only experience maybe 0.9ATM. \n\nIf we decrease the pressure, what happens with our equation? well, P goes down, and as such T must also go down. the temperature drops with given altitude because pressure decreases with given altitude and if all other variables are more or less constant then the only logical result is that temperature will drop."
] |
How can China copy so many products like cars , cellphones etc. without getting in trouble/infringing patents? | [
"Its not \"China\" as in the government officially doing it. It is individuals doing it with the government turning a blind eye to it. Since a connection to the government can't be proved to a level that would allow any World Trade Commission action, about all people can do is demand action from the government & listen to their bullshit response.",
"Sorry but this turned out longer than i anticipated and i still think it's too simple but here goes.\n\nI've been living in Beijing for going on 8 years now and I think I have as much of a grasp of the situation as is possible for a human to comprehend.\n\nThe bulk of Chinese workers, regardless of position, do a poor quality job, and have a hard time putting in any serious effort. The base quality to complete most jobs for Chinese is what many other nationalities of people would call passable but shit. \n\nNow this problem is i'm sure going away in time as an educated and wealthier middle-class is growing but the bulk of workers come from a poor upbringing with nobody around to show good work ethic and quality work performance.\n\nThis leads naturally to an inept bureaucracy that spends most of its time not getting shit done. There are laws about copyright and intellectual property no doubt but then there's nobody enforcing anything.\n\nAs an example lets say Jimmy Wang gets a job in whatever department is tasked with doing something about this sort of issue. He didn't send in a CV and interview for the job, nor did he study related courses in University, nor did he have any sort of passion or dream for this form of work. Rather he was hired because he is the son-in-law of some lady married to a minor government guy in charge of some neighbourhood in Beijing. \n\nAlso many workers here don't have the idea that by working hard and improving skills and having pride in your craft will lead to bigger and better positions so they don't try; the connections (GuanXi) lead up the ladder.\n\nCops don't give tickets; painters are sloppy fucks; electricians don't even bring tools; the government guys do not even attempt to stop any counterfeit sales other than the super rare publicity stunt.",
"All patent disputes, in China, go to Chinese courts. Chances of the Chinese courts ruling against their own manufacturing companies is very slim. It's usually as simple as the courts saying \"that's not a BMW X5, it says pj345p29 on the back.\" The other company can threaten China buy not trading with them, however trading with China is very lucrative.\n\nI'm in import/exports and do a lot of business with China",
"They change 'Honda' to 'Hongda' and so on. If a company ever raises an issue there isn't really a lot that can be done about it as the Chinese government steps in and says that there is no case."
] |
Why is the camera recording quality noticeably worse when the same broadcast is reporting news outside of North America or Europe? | [
"Not every country has the necessary electronic and technological infrastructure to transmit and receive the crisp video and audio that's most easily found in such countries as you named.",
"Europe uses a video standard called PAL. North America uses NTSC; the conversion between the two is what causes the picture quality differences.",
"Conversion to and from PAL/NTSC, as well as compression used to transmit live footage across the globe."
] |
Why are some people "morning people" and some "evening people"? | [
"Because your body needs to produces various enzymes, hormones, neurotransmitters, etc. throughout the day in order to keep you functioning. The timing of their production is pretty important as many of these processes can interfere with each other, or are only needed at certain times like when you are eating, waking up, going to sleep, etc. \n\nThese processes occur on a roughly 24 hour schedule, which we call the circadian rhythm. However, this being a biological system, nothing is ever precise. This cycle is regulated by the production of certain molecules, and their production is controlled by certain genes. Some people have mutations in those genes that give variations in the production of these regulatory molecules, which in turn produce variations in the circadian rhythm that they control. Therefore you get people who might have a 22-hour circadian cycle for example or a 27 hour one. However because our calendar day is still 24 hours, these people are thrown out of sync with the world around them and have internal schedules of activity that can make them morning or evening people. \n\nThese things are further screwed up by the fact that many people nowadays have weird shift-work schedules which throws their sleep schedule even more off. On top of that, the circadian regulation is itself controlled to a great degree by your exposure to light (thats how your body knows to wake up in the morning). However with the constant degree of illumination many of us live with 24 hours a day (streetlights, night-lights, etc.) our internal clocks are getting even more confused these days. \n\nCredentials: BSc in biochemistry, MSc in biology."
] |
What exactly is management consulting? | [
"In short you're correct: a management consultancy does spend a lot of time investigating a company, then makes a number of recommendations to senior staff on how to improve their business.\n\nNot all management consultants are equal. The senior consultants and partners spend a lot of time with senior members of the company with which they're working, discussing performance and strategies.\n\nMid-level consultants tend to hold interviews with mid-level managers to understand the company and recognise problems. They may also supervise a team of junior consultants.\n\nThe junior consultants spend a lot of time typing up notes, fiddling with PowerPoint slides and ordering dinner because they're having to work very late.\n\nDepending on ability, performance and luck it takes about 5 years and an MBA to move from junior to senior."
] |
What is a prefecture? | [
"In modern Japan a prefecture is an administrative district that is similar to a state or province in other countries.",
"Hong Kong is a good example of a literal prefecture. It is part of China, but is allowed it's own set of laws and rules, making it like a city-state."
] |
Why do you rarely come across dollar bills with rips in them even though they are really easy to rip? | [
"When banks come across damaged bills, of any denomination, they send them back to the federal reserve, which takes them out of circulation and replaces it with a new bill."
] |
The Byford Dolphin explosive decompression accident. | [
"There is a practice called saturation diving where commercial divers working at great depth, usually on oil drilling installations, stay at the pressure of their seafloor work site for weeks at a time since decompressing safely from those depths takes > 12 hours, which would be hugely inefficient if you had to do it to come back from work every day. The way they do this is by living in a system of pressurized chambers in the hull of a ship anchored above the work site and \"commuting\" to work in a diving bell, essentially a pressurized chamber that detaches from the ship and opens up at the work site, where its pressure matches that of the surrounding water.\n\nThe Byford Dolphin accident happened when saturation divers working at 9 atm of pressure (so the work site on the seafloor, the diving bell, and the pressurized living chambers on the ship were all at 9 atm) were returning in the diving bell from the work site to the pressurized chambers in the ship after a day of work. To go from the diving bell to the ship, the hatches of the diving bell and pressurized ship chamber were lined up and clamped together by two shallow divers working on the outside. The hatches were then opened, connecting the diving bell to the chambers on the ship and allowing the divers to pass through.\n\nTo detach the bell, the hatches between the diving bell and the chambers would first be closed and sealed, and the shallow divers on the outside would then release the clamps and separate the diving bell. During the accident, however, one of the shallow divers released his clamps while the hatches were still open. This broke the connection between the bell and the chambers, effectively turning the chamber hatch where the bell used to be connected into a giant pressure-relief valve. The 9 atm air inside the chamber exploded out of the hatch, instantly depressurizing to 1 atm. This rapid decompression immediately killed all four divers inside the chamber. One diver was exiting the diving bell when this occurred and was therefore located just inside the hatch, where the pressure gradient was extremely high. That is, for a fraction of a second, his lower body might have been at ~1 atm while his upper body was at ~9 atm. The escaping air also sucked him out of the inward-opening hatch, which was itself being sucked shut and slammed closed on him as he was halfway through. This caused him to simultaneously tear in two from being sucked out while trapped in the hatch and explode violently from decompression. This reportedly launched some bits of him as far as 30 ft away, which is the gory detail that makes this story famous. The diver that released the clamps was killed by the force of the air exploding out of the hatch (not decompression, since he was outside the pressurized system), so no one knows why he did it. He was probably just confused and thought the hatches had been closed.\n\nI realize this is very long, and perhaps not explained as concisely as it could be. Do ask if you have any questions!"
] |
Why can US citizens be fined for having an untidy lawn? | [
"The local government doesn't want people not taking care of their lawn and letting it get overgrown, likely lowering property values for the surrounding houses/community.",
"The answer I use is the same answer I use when anyone ever asks why a law is a law. It's something I once saw on reddit, and helps make a lot of sense out of the legal system.\n\n*Laws are not rigid, hyper-logical consistent algorithms, but instead a way of codifying public opinion.*\n\nLaws are built on and changed by public opinion. As we see with gay marriage becoming legal. As we see with marijuana. As we see with a million other laws.\n\nSometimes laws become unreasonable, or always were, and the public opinion forces lawmakers to change them. \n\nHere, having wanting to have your neighbors have a tidy lawn is a public opinion. People don't want the values of *their* homes go down because they have a lazy neighbor."
] |
- From my 4 year-old: "Why don't numbers end?" | [
"Think of the biggest number you can imagine. Now add 1 to it. You can do this forever. So, the numbers never end.",
"The problem is more \"why can we not count to the end of the numbers?\" and the reason is that we can always keep counting so we can never get there. So (talking to a 4 year old) the numbers may or may not end, but we can never get there by counting.",
"If they did end, what would the end look like? It might help if you explain that they don't 'start' either.",
"Numbers aren't things that exist. They are ideas that we made to explain different numbers of things. For example, if you have an idea of how many lollypops you want to eat, then, without numbers you'd just be saying \"I want to have lollypops.\" and nobody would understand how many. \n \nThe reason that numbers don't end is simply because it's not in their nature *to* end. They don't have to. If I have a pile of ten million lollypops, and someone adds one to the pile, then saying \"There are 10 million lollpops here\" wouldn't be correct, and we'd be lying, because there are 10,000,001. \n\nEspecially with the idea of time, telling the truth is very important as it allows us to meet at certain times, and do much more. Imagine if a friend said \"I'll meet you later.\" - It's completely useless information without a set number!"
] |
How does a bone regenerate when you break it? | [
"It's not that it regenerates. But rather that the cells in your body builds new bones between the existing break and they all fuse together.\n\nThe downfall is... this is enormously taxing on the body to do, and its extremely limited. It also can cause problems as well because its not always on point when growing new bone in the break. It could not make enough causing fragile bones, or it could make too much causing bone spurs.\n\nBut back more to your question. The cells in your body are capable of identifying what part of your body is missing... this could be skin, muscle, and even bone. Given certain conditions, the cells in your body are able to rebuild or transform into those missing parts. The downfall again, is that it is incredibly taxing on the body. And if need be your body will at times decide its better not to rebuild or replace."
] |
Thai food spice levels. | [
"They generally add more Thai chilles to hotter dishes. \n\nFun fact: you can ask for your dishes to be Thai hot at most Thai restaurants, and they will serve it to you as hot as if you were from Thailand. I always do this because spicy foods have little effect on me, but be warned ahead of time that this is *not* for the faint of heart. In Thai hot dishes, you can see the extra chilles floating in your curry."
] |
How is regular motor oil different than synthetic expensive stuff. Is it really worth it to spend extra money buying more expensive motor oil? | [
"Former mechanic here. \n\nIs it a good buy? Yes and no. It depends on the car. \n\nEasiest ways to explain this is to think of jar of golf balls. These will represent the synthetic oil, and a jar of tennis balls mix with rubber bouncing balls which will represent the standard oil. These will both represent the molecular structure of both oils. \n\nVisualize the jars and now dump them out. \n\nThe golf balls will flow out freely and smoothly due to the fact that they are engineered identically. Every brand golf ball is designed exactly the same. It always will be the same size, exactly the same shape, and the exactly same amount of dimples to be perfectly aerodynamic. \n\nThe jar with the tennis balls & bouncy balls will flow slow and chunky. They will clump together. It will get stuck and you'll have to shake it out. \n\nThe tennis balls and bouncy balls while they'll look close to same shape. They'll have Suttle differences. Neither will be an exact replica of another. Kinda like snow flakes. Think of the tennis balls fuzz you'll never find the exact same tennis ball anywhere. \n\nHence the difference in the two oils. The engineered synthetic oil will cover smoother and faster. Where the standard oil will cover the same parts but it will tend stick together and clump up. The dirtier it gets it eventually will give that nice thick engine sludge. \n\nHow/when to use. \n\nIf your car/truck is new or under 50,000 miles it highly recommend. It will give you optimum performance and a longer running life of your engine. The trick is you always will have to use synthetic oil from then on for maximum effect. \n\nIf your car is 50k to 100k And you haven't used synthetic oil prior you can go with a semi synthetic. It's a blend of synthetic and standard. To keep performance and early breakdown. \n\nIf your car is 100k and over and never used synthetic. then don't bother. By this time your car has begun it's breakdown of its seals. (Gaskets) and the this is the benefit of standard oil. \n\nRemember that clumping I mention earlier. Here is the benefit. Your seals/gaskets are like a sponge they have tiny holes and cracks (from not using synthetic oil or not keeping proper maintenance) where they begin to leak. The standard oil will clump together and plug the minor holes. Letting only the smaller molecules to get through. So your vehicle will still leak but not as much as if you added synthetic oil. Synthetic will find these holes & cracks, and it will not clump. It will just pour through. Causing more leakage. \n\n\nAs for the types of oils as in 10w40 10w,30 ,5w30, 5w20. W stands for winter not weight. Basically means the colder it get the lower number is what u want. It allows the oil to get from the bottom of the oil pan to the top of the engine the fastest. For better lubrication and protection. \n\nAlways check owners manual for recommend oil. Also should be on your oil cap. However you can use a lower number than the cap says never higher.\n\n Us in Minnesota will tend to use a lower number due to our bullshit horrible ridiculous fucking winter temps\n\nSorry for grammar like I said was mechanic not an English major.\n\n\n\nTldr. New car use it, high milage car dont."
] |
5: Why in Britain do they use the metric system yet they use MPH for speed measurements? | [
"We began moving to the metric system around 40-50 years ago. When I was a child, shops still used to show weights in imperial - but a European directive that shops need to sell in metric really sped up the transition.\n\nThere are a couple of things which we still use imperial measurements for though. They are distances/speeds on roads (because it would be too difficult to change), and measuring the volume of our beer (because there would be a huge backlash if they tried to stop us selling and buying pints!)",
"The metric vs imperial muddle really goes deeper than that - we buy beer in supermarkets in millilitres and litres, but beer in pubs in pints. However we buy vodka, whisky etc in millitres/litres in both pubs and supermarkets. We measure the weight of ourselves in pounds and stone but the weight of food in the supermarket - these days - in grams and kilos. We decide if we want an 8oz rump steak or a 16oz rump steak in a restaurant, while in a shop the packet will be only marked with the weight in grams. Children are taught to measure small distances in centimeters and millimeters, while on the school playing fields their PE teacher explains football and rugby distances in yards. \n\nThe plan *was* eventually to move us fully to metrication (such as Australia and Canada achieved) but a Conservative government came to power half way through the process and stopped it. There was no strong political will on either left or right to continue with legally mandated metrication and it pressed ahead at a slower and slower speed until formally abandoned in the mid 2000s - though some legislation is on the books which prevents certain types of independent traders from using imperial only (they now have, unlike when the heavy-handed legislation was first conceived, the right to use both side-by-side.)\n\nTL;DR - An uncompleted metrication process has led to us to adopt it for some things and not for others, and convention has developed about which system to use where and for what.",
"See, we never quite accepted the metric system in the UK. Yes, it's officially what we use but most people still think in miles and feet and inches in day to day life. We've very much gone for a mix and match approach with metric vs imperial.",
"Because the road distances are still measured in miles.\n\nAnd that is still the case because replacing signs is expensive.",
"I was born in 1995. I much prefer using Metric. I dont even know how long a mile actually is. A km is easy im 1000m, ten lengths of 100m sprint track, I can visualise it easily. I use metric for a height and weight too, but other people dont, but only really those who are either: old, uneducated, or just used to it from their parents, which are likley one of the above, and definitely old.",
"We can buy beer in pints in pubs but bottles in shops are in ml, except some are 568ml as that's a pint and that's how we like it goddamit!\n\n\nWe buy diesel and petrol in litres but compare miles per gallon. My car holds 60 litres and does 44mpg. \n\nA handful if roadsigns are in metres, most yards and miles.\n\nFood is in grams but I still ask for and get a pound of bacon. Lots of food is sold in 454g units or portions thereof\n\nMy tape measure has cm and inches. I use both depending on my mood,and will subconsciously mix and match (the wood needs to be 32inches by 18 cm for example)\n\nCurrency is decimal but we use pounds and 100ths of the pound\n\nI can do the maths of 454g is a pound and 568ml is a pint in my head all the time\n\nWe Brits are weird but I wouldn't change a thing",
"Academia uses metric, which is really the main reason we're considered a 'metric' country. We're taught mass and lengths in metric units, but on the roads we use imperial (except petrol is by the litre, yet for some reason we still use miles per gallon), personal measurements tend to be imperial (feet/inches and stone) and food & drink is mixed (steaks are ounces, beer and milk pints, recipes usually grams and ml, pretty much everything else metric).",
"It's incorrect to say we use the Metric system. We use metric for a lot of things but we also use imperial a lot. In the 90's the government finally passed a law that said everyone had to sell food and drink in metric measurements, although some exceptions were allowed. Oddly, petrol is sold in liters, and has been for a long time, but fuel efficiency is given in MPG which makes working out the cost of driving complicated.\n\nIf you're interested in this issue, /r/metric is a good sub",
"The worst measurement in the UK is \"stone\" for weight. So outdated. I weight 8.5 stone. That is just dumb. No one else uses it. I'd say that should be the first one fixed.",
"Why are inches used as a measurement for penis size, even where there is a metric system in place?"
] |
How do we know what elements and chemical reactions exist inside of the Sun, the planets, and other celestial bodies? | [
"I'll keep this short. Essentially, chemical and nuclear reactions release light, however, its not all the same generic white light. Every reaction has a light signature or spectrum that is often very specific to that reaction, i.e. a certain wavelength of light. For example, if you pass electricity through hydrogen and watch it fluoresce, the wavelength of the resulting light is one of four EXACT varieties, 410.1nm, 434 nm, etc. See those wavelengths in a sun? Lots of hydrogen. See 569.7nm (orange/yellow), then you've got oxygen."
] |
How is a company able to force an employee to retire? | [
"\"Retire willingly, and we'll give you a generous severance package. Refuse, and we'll fire you and you'll get nothing.\"",
"\"Retire or we'll fire you\"\n\nRetiring is considered a better way to go out because that sounds like your own choice. Getting fired is always negative.",
"You say \"If you show up, we won't let you in. And we won't pay you any more.\""
] |
What is/what causes that annoying thumping sort of sound that occurs when only one window is opened while driving on the freeway? | [
"This is something called [Resonance](_URL_0_). It works the same way as a whistle, or a flute. It takes many other forms including electrical, light, and mechanical.\n\n\nIn this case the wind rushes in through the window and the cabin builds up pressure. Once the pressure reaches a maximum, the air starts rushing out again, deflecting the incoming air, until the pressure reaches a minimum. Then the whole thing starts over. It so happens that the rushing in and rushing out each take a certain amount of time and happen several times a second.\n\n\nThis is just sound like any other but it's a very low frequency. It is loud, though... loud enough to be annoying and even painful to some people.",
"As air passes over the car you get a laminar flow, which is a smooth flow of air. By opening the window you introduce turbulence in the flow, the sound you hear and feel is turbulence creating a rythmic high and low pressure zone.\n\n\nYou can help minimize it by opening another window so that the pressure doesn't build up.",
"Pressure. A seal is created similarly to a wet glass on a table. Air is controlled within an area, when the seal is overcome by pressure, you get that very annoying sound that sometimes hurts the ears."
] |
Why do we often feel tired after low-energy activities such as sitting on a plane? | [
"Well, that particular example inflicts quite a bit of stress, both emotional (lines and such, even assuming you aren't afraid of heights), and biological (altitude change, uncomfortable seats and restricted ability to move, persistent noise, and the like). Driving is another good example, again emotional stresses (if you're not occasionally getting mad while driving, you're probably not paying attention), and physical (restrained seat with limited ability to shift positions, sustained effort and concentration).",
"I would imagine that during a plane ride that you are drinking fewer fluids that you would normally. Also, planes have very dry air and you will lose a lot of hydration by being on them. Also, they took away your water at security and it costs $4 inside security. So, you're probably dehydrated which causes people to feel tired. \n \nIn the case of other sedentary activities, your metabolism has slowed and your body isn't converting a lot of food into energy. Once you get going into something physical your body will respond - just a matter of getting over the inertia of inactivity.",
"I would add that a lot of low-level activities force you to hold tension in your body for hours, without a break. You may not be moving much, but your body is anything but relaxed."
] |
Why is there a physical pain in your chest when you experience emotional pain i.e. heartbreak? | [
"Emotional stress induced things like muscle tightness, increased heart rate, abnormal stomach activity. There is also an empathy phenomenon that has been observed in mice where pain sensitivity increases when observing someone else who is in pain, so normal sensations of pain are amplified."
] |
How close was America to launching a nuclear attack over the Cuban Missile Crisis? | [
"Our understanding of how close were were has changed a lot since the time of the crisis. It's a fascinating topic and one that I think should be taught much more thoroughly in history. Here are some things to consider:\n\n1. at the time of the crisis the U.S. was blockading Cuba in the hopes of keeping nuclear weapons they believed were in transport to Cuba via ship of even more weapons than were already thought to be on the island. So, at this moment we were considering options and one of them was invasion. \n\n2. The question of the hour was whether a non-nuclear invasion would result in nuclear war and it was thought that Russian protocols for utilization of nuclear weapons operated more or less like ours - the president hits the button. So...it was a gamble, but the prevailing wisdom was that there were non-nuclear military options on the table and that both parties could engage in military conflict without the use of nuclear weapons. \n\nSo...contemporary to the events the crisis (and this is very ELI5) it was believed that were we to invade cuba - and we were very, very, very close to doing so (hours) - that we had only escalated on the path toward a nuclear encounter, not that we'd ensured one.\n\n3. Subsequently in the 90s in documents and in meetings in Cuba with Castro it was revelead that _field commanders_ had tactical nuclear weapons capable of reaching florida and that they had authorization to use them in the event of invasion and that - according to Castro - absolutely would have if invasion had occurred. \n\nSo...with newer information available after the end of the cold war (can we still say it ended, or did it just lull!) it became apparent that the U.S. strategy to escalate, but shy of nuclear engagement, would have actually resulted in ... nuclear war and the very likely destruction of the world as we know it.\n\nSo..this history would suggest that the U.S. was close as we can be assured that we would have retaliated with nuclear weapons had they been launched against Florida.",
"Very, very, very close. Apparently Kennedy at the time thought the odds of escalating to a shooting war between the US and USSR - which due to tensions had very high odds of going nuclear - were between 1 in 3 and 1 in 2.\n\nYou probably know the US initiated what was for all intents and purposes a blockade of Cuba, called a quarantine for legal purposes (as a blockade is an act of war). During this, a US destroyer *USS Beale* tracked a Soviet *Foxtrot*-class submarine, B-59 in the area. They dropped signaling charges at it not intending to cause damage, just to make them surface.\n\n*Beale* didn't know that B-59 carried a nuclear torpedo. It later came out that the Soviet captain ordered the torpedo armed and would have fired, but Soviet policy required unanimous agreement of the captain, the XO, and the political officer, and the XO did not agree. Had *Beale* been nuked, that would almost certainly have resulted in a chain of retaliatory strikes.\n\nThe US planned an air strike and invasion of Cuba to take place for the third week of the crisis, if it hadn't been de-escalated by backdoor diplomacy. The local Soviet commander on Cuba had authority to use several tactical nuclear weapons without approval from higher Soviet command. Castro allegedly would have supported their use. This, again, almost certainly would have led to nuclear war.",
"It really depends on how you frame the question.\n\nIf you were asking how close was the US to *intentionally* and *knowingly* launching a nuclear attack, the answer is simple: they wanted to avoid that outcome at any cost. Thus the answer in this case is that they were not very close at all.\n\nIf you question is how close did US actions come to *unintentionally* starting a nuclear war, the answer is *very*.",
"Not as close as the Russians were. Russian missiles could be launched by a senior officer without instructions from Moscow. American did not know this at the time."
] |
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