Split (3)

train · 273k rows

title stringlengths 0 299	text list
Why do cable companies give such wide and inconvenient timeslots for doing housecalls?	[ "lets say that the tech has 8 trips to make. they don't know how long each appt will take. some could take 10 min. others could take an hour. so they give you a range. but 8-5 is rather unreasonable. i usually see 8-12 or 1-5. you can ask them to call you before they get there. some will, some won't..." ]
How does the National Security Council differ from other federal agencies?	[ "The NSC is just a group of people, with other government jobs, to whom the President turns for national security advice and recommendations. They read the analysis (facts) written by experts and help the President evaluate public opinion and political factors (not facts)." ]
What are transcendental equations	[ "Transcendental equations usually lack analytical solutions. But a simple way to solve them numerically is to plot both sides of the equation and look where the lines intersect.\n\nFor example\n\n* tan (x) = e^x\n\nYou cannot solve this analytically, but plot both functions (see link) and you'll see that solutions ...
federal debt: why some people think it doesn't matter, and some do	[ "First part of answering the question is to understand what federal debt or \"Sovereign Debt\" is.\n_____ \nSovereign Debt in the USA is created (mainly) through the use of Treasury Bills or \"T-Bills\". These are sold by the government to business, banks and individuals. \n\nWhen you buy a T-Bill you pay the ...
Why do we capitalise all words except conjunctions and some prepositions in titles?	[ "Convention, at heart.\n\nIt used to be that writers capitalized all letters. Then, some time passed, and they capitalized only nouns and beginnings of sentences. Then, more time passed, and they started capitalizing only proper nouns. \n\nIt's gotten to the point that we only capitalize more meaningful words in g...
Why does toothpaste clean headlights so well?	[ "Toothpaste is an abrasive. \n \nIf you imagine starting with a plank of rough wood, and wanted it to be really smooth, you'd start with really rough sandpaper. That would scrape out lots of (relatively) deep grooves in the wood. You'd now have something with a rough finish, and would repeat that with finer and f...
in World War 2, to go home did you have to become disabled and would you get paid straight away?	[ "There were a number of qualifications needed to be sent home from the front during World War II as a discharged serviceman or woman - \n\n1.) Contracting an illness that required long term recovery\n2.) Amputations\n3.) Wounds that interfered with stamina, agility, dexterity\n4.) Loss of sight in at least one eye\...
Why are crickets so hard to find?	[ "It’s hard to pinpoint in on sounds that are loud enough to create an echo. Things like a smoke detector that beep, leave you clueless because it echos and the sound bounces all over and also it’s short. The beep only goes on for a few moments and then it stops. Sounds that are constant like for example a hissing s...
How does machine learning work? Do computers experience cognitive dissonance where they have to weigh two conflicting ideas?	[ "There's a bunch of variations, but a lot of them look like this:\n\nThe computer is given four things:\n\n1. A bunch of pre-defined inputs that look like what it has to do (whether it's a medical diagnosis, the screen of an Atari game, or a Go board)\n2. A program that processes the inputs\n3. A bunch of knobs it ...
Why does my dog choose so carefully where he pees?	[ "Dogs actually communicate by peeing certain ways or places. If he pees on a place which had already been peed on, he is kinda respondibg the message by the previous dog. Also they can mark their terrotories or leave a message for other dogs." ]
why do news channels consider Twitter a reliable, relevant, and serious source for different things?	[ "Newspaper reporter here. Proof: _URL_0_ \n\nJournalists use Twitter as a place for information the same way we talk to people as sources. There are a lot of people on Twitter who do and say newsworthy things. Barack Obama, Pope Francis, tons of politicians, scientists and business people all have Twitter accounts....
Why are mice associated with cheese?	[ "Most mice prefer to feed on grains and nuts rather than cheese, but when they're hungry, they'll eat whatever they can find that is edible. Cheese tends to smell very strongly, especially when not refrigerated, and that makes it easier to find by mice, so when they're hungry, they'll go for whatever's easiest to f...
How do speakers of tonal languages convey different degrees of emotion?	[ "From experience (speaking Mandarin).\nBefore we start, let me try to explain a small bit about how the language works, since it's quite different from English. What most people call words in Mandarin, those single syllabic things with tones, apart from some very commonly used ones, are almost never used alone. The...
Why is self-plagiarism an issue in academics?	[ "SOURCE: I am a college professor and published academic.\n\nSeveral people have already said \"you're not doing the work\" to which OP is responding, \"I did the work earlier and isn't the point just to be competent anyway?\"\n\nWell, yes and no.\n\nThe fact is, if you asked ten educators the purpose of education,...
How does investment work? Why should I buy shares in a company?	[ "Say you have a lot of money. Let's say $2 million. That's about as much as an average productive American worker might make in their lifetime. What do you do with that money? You could spend it, but that's kind of a waste. That money could support you for the rest of your life, without you having to work. So let's...
How do football pools work	[ "In the simplest form, you have a 10x10 grid of squares. Along one axis, you have a team name & each column gets the numbers 0-9. Along the other you have the other team's name & the rows are labeled 0-9.\n\nWhen you buy into a pool, you buy a square ($1 per square is common for friendly pools) and put your n...
Lobbying vs Bribery	[ "Lobbying is convincing an elected official to vote or act in a way that is beneficial to your interests.\n\nBribery is giving money for personal use to an elected official to vote or act in a way that is beneficial to your interests.", "Lobbying is a blanket term for any and all efforts to get a politician to ch...
The Second Postulate of Special Relativity.	[ "The second postulate of special relativity is 'the speed of light in a vacuum is a constant, regardless of the frame from which it is measured'. That's really all there is to it...if you have a physical situation and you measure the speed of light in a vacuum, you'll get c.\n\n > Also, its application in the ques...
How are things sticky?	[ "Adhesives and other sticky substances contain protein molecules that bond with the molecules of the surface they are spread upon by entering the pores and spaces of the material. Therefore, smooth surfaces such as glass are hard to attach to because there aren't any pores for molecules to enter.", "Well, things ...
Twitter Valuation	[ "It's an estimated value of the worth of the company. For instance, if BigAdvertisingFirm buys up Twitter, they instantly have access to all those millions of users." ]
How does honey never expire?	[ "Its acidity, the lack of water, and the presence of hydrogen peroxide are the factors that cause honey to be so incredibly shelf-stable for pretty much eternity. \n\nHere's some reading on it:\n\n_URL_0_", "Perfect! I just watched this video a couple weeks ago and now I get to pass on information!\n\n[HONEY VID...
What physically determines the way your voice sounds?	[ "The allele pairs in your genes which influence the way your body is formed including vocal cords and throat shape size etc.\n\nUnfortunately I do not have scientific proof to back anything up someone else will have a more professional answer but here is what I found.\n\n_URL_0_" ]
What happens to people who are insomniacs, and why do they struggle so much to fall asleep?	[ "For one thing, there might be an underlying medical condition going on -- imagine trying to sleep well with chronic pain that's always happening. Or if you have an anxiety problem. Those things don't go away when you're trying to sleep.\n\nPeople might also have poor sleep hygiene. This means keeping some good, co...
If cigarettes contain things like arsenic, butane, cadmium, ammonia, and formaldehyde, how can people smoke then everyday for years without dying within the first few weeks?	[ "There is no such thing as lethal or safe substances. There are only lethal and safe doses. Water can be toxic if you drink enough of it.", "\"The dose makes the poison\" - Paracelsus\n\nThis is condensed from - \"All things are poison and nothing is without poison; only the dose makes a thing not a poison.\"", ...
How exactly radiation affect human body?	[ "Energetic neutrons, and gamma rays and x-rays (both forms of light), go blasting off and strike molecules in your cells. This has the effect of physically breaking them apart, a la the neutron, or breaking covalent bonds as the rays do. Enough of this can just kill your cell outright. But if you just get the occas...
Why is flossing considered more important than brushing?	[ "I'm not a dentist, but from what I've been told by my dentist, flossing reduces bleeding gums more than brushing. Bleeding gums are actually quite a problem, aside from being gross, because they add stress to the heart. So bleeding gums can actually contribute negatively, and sometimes severely, to the health of y...
- Why taking long showers or brushing your teeth with the faucet open waste water?	[ "The source of your clean water and the location where your wastewater ends up are rarely the same. Water treatment plants can recapture SOME wastewater, but the rest is lost, dumped into the sea (where we don't get drinking water from) or downstream for the very reason that we don't want sewage in our water suppl...
How are KFC's 11 secret herbs and spices still a secret?	[ "It's not worth it. At this point, KFC could probably publish the exact recipe on the walls of their restaurants and it wouldn't make a difference. No one is going to create a chain restaurant to make the exact same thing that another chain restaurant does with no changes at all. If someone wanted to make money ...
How come educational channels like history and discovery do not show educational things anymore?	[ "Educational shows no longer draw enough viewers to pay the bills for the upkeep of the channel.", "Because so many people learn about history from Reddit instead." ]
How CDs/DVDs Store and Read Data, and Why a Scratch Can Ruin Everything	[ "CDs and DVDs are types of optical discs. The CD/DVD is covered with a large number of little holes, called pits. A tightly focused laser shines onto the surface of the CD, and depending on whether it hits a pit or a flat part, the intensity changes. A sensor reads that intensity change, and translates it into...
what did ancient humans do with umbilical cords during birth?	[ "The umbilical cord is connected to the placenta, the interface between the fetal and maternal bloodstreams, which is given the folksy name 'afterbirth' -- because the woman ejects it shortly after the birth, within the hour. Thing weighs about a pound too. Isn't giving birth beautiful?\n\nOnce that's out, the baby...
Why do we use fresh water for our sewage?	[ "It's easier and cheaper to have a single delivery system to all buildings than it is to develop and install a second identical system for non-potable water delivery.\n\nYou're also avoiding the inevitable mishaps when people confuse the two.", "Because when indoor plumbing was first developed, we thought there w...
I broke up with my GF yesterday, it was my own decision because the relationship was at a point we both were unsatisfied. Why do I want her back, even though my brain says it's better this way? (It lasted over 4 years)	[ "Sorry to hear that. Going through a break up is hard.\nFirstly, and its been mentioned is that love is a form of drug. I believe, going from memory its oxytocin but i may be wrong. Simply put, your body does get a 'high' from your partner and breaking up leads to 'withdrawal', unfortunately. There a lot of variabl...
Why do many email services charge per email address/account, while most Instant Messengers let you have unlimited users?	[ "You want to charge a company as much as that company is willing to pay for a certain service, and this is usually directly proportional to how big that company is, and a great way to measure corporate size is how employee count, and a company usually has one email account per employee plus a few extra emails for d...
What happens after someone escapes prision	[ "The person who escaped tends to spend most of the time trying to get further from the prison while the police try and find them and then put them back in.", "The escapee is going to be on foot for at least a while, and they're probably in their prison uniform. Usually, the escape is discovered pretty quickly, an...
Why can't we build a giant heat proof bulldozer to put out forest fires?	[ "The bulldozer would run into tress and quickly be unable to move.\n\nCertainly they can mow down small trees but large trees are very hard to topple (consider the force of wind they must resist and you get a sense of it)." ]
Why can't I become the President of the United States (I was born in Canada)?	[ "The founders were nervous that a foreign power would attempt to control the country by getting one of their own elected president. Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers:\n\n > Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most dead...
How do tempered glass screen protectors stop phone glass from breaking (cracking)?	[ "It's kinda like how sidewalks and asphalt work. You've got this outside barrier that breaks first, which provides enough resistance to stop a deeper or more severe break from happening.\nMost breaks are spiderweb fractures, a small part of the screen is damaged and it just keeps getting worse. Well, by using a scr...
How does the rule of 3 work?	[ "[You're going to have to be more specific.](_URL_0_)", "The comedy rule of three is paraphrased as follows:\n\nIn any given list, the first two items are ordinary, and the third is 'wacky.'\n\nTake [Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking.](_URL_1_) Arson and Murder follow a pattern, but Jaywalking breaks that pattern. Th...
Was there any form of birth control used at brothels in pre-moderrn times? How did women prevent getting pregnant?	[ "There have been known herbs that can be used to induce abortions - such as Pennyroyal, that would be mixed with wine / tea.", "iirc Roman prostitutes used sponges drenched in vinegar. Put it in before intercourse and it kills off the sperm.", "There's an [/r/AskHistorians post](_URL_0_) with some excellent in-...
Does the shape of the Pentagon actually help the U.S. military?	[ "The design of it was to maximize office space while minimizing travel time on foot from one side to the other. The theory was for better reaction times and message delivery.", "The Primary feature of the Pentagon is that no two points in the building are more than 7 minutes apart on foot. When it was built this ...
If I'm thinking in english, what were thoughts like before we developed language?	[ "Here is a quote from Hellen Keller recalling what her thought processes were like before she was introduced to language. Sure, it's not exactly what you're looking for, but I think it provides some insight. [The World I Live In by Hellen Keller, Page 37](_URL_0_)\n\n > Before my teacher came to me, I did not k...
What is the Eastern philosophical concept of Wu?	[ "The short version is that it's the concept of everything being interconnected and interdependent. This, in turn, is supposed to help people be more aware of how their actions affect others, because other people's actions affect them as well. \n\nA similar concept is the \"butterfly effect\", where a tiny change le...
How are instincts inherited to the following generation and is it possible to modificate and/ or create them?	[ "As far as I know, no one truly understands how instincts work. It is one thing to have a reflex, but there are complex behaviors (such as baby sea turtles crawling towards the ocean) are much tougher to explain. \n\nThere was a recent neuroscience paper that came out that may help. Basically, they fear conditione...
Why was 911 selected as the number to dial in case of emergency?	[ "They wanted a short, easy to remember number, but also one that was not as likely to be accidentally dialed. It also needed to be fast to dial during the era of rotary phones when the system was first designed. So a 3 digit number starting with 9 and then using the fastest to dial numbers of 1 was chosen." ]
How do selective hiring companies not get sued?	[ "Because their business model is built around having females. It's like how Hooters can hire only attractive women because they're technically hiring models who just happen to waitress, and being attractive is a job qualification for being a model. Or how a man can't claim discrimination that a strip club won't hir...
Flashing a Verizon Phone to get Prepaid Unlimited 3G.	[ "It is stealing a paid service, one way or another, likely by cloning one paid phone." ]
Tourettes	[ "I have Tourette's. First off - curse words are a very small minority. Most tics are physical. It's kind of like an itch, or a compulsion. It's like a heat in my joints that gets worse and worse until I give in. Being distracted helps a lot and it is much worse when I'm stressed or hyper,etc. \n\nI do have so...
Why is there urgency for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates and why do recent jobs numbers prevent it?	[ "[EDIT] tl;dr - Urgency to raise rates comes from the financial industry which stands to make money from higher rates. Job numbers prevent that by speaking directly to the legislative mandate of The Federal Reserve not the personal interests of bankers.\n\nFirst of all, low and high are relative terms so when we s...
why does the quick-E-mart on the corner sell copper scrubbers with the drug paraphernalia?	[ "Copper scrubbers are an essential part of a homemade crack pipe.\n\nYou buy one of those little roses in a glass tube, take the ends off, toss the rose, shove a little copper scrubber in, insert crack, and light.", "You take the scrubber and cut a piece and put t in the little glass rose (crack pipe) so you can ...
Why do we get shakey?	[ "Electrolytes. Salt, magnesium, and the such... Like an engine will shudder on Empty with no fuel." ]
How do they manage to find precise recordings to make those composite/mash-up videos, of hundreds of clips of a person speaking certain words, to make them sing a song, etc?	[ "I've actually also wondered the same thing and I think I have an answer. I don't know this for certain but I imagine that what the people do is find several speeches by the figure they are using and then find the transcripts of the speeches. This is not normally very difficult particularly for public figures such ...
Why are we more attracted to a person when they're tan?	[ "Are we? This seems much more like a personal preference than a universal truth. I searched for your question and found an answer [here](_URL_0_)." ]
What is happening in Turkey?	[ "A lot. Maybe a bit of a non specific question that." ]
Why do we have accents?	[ "Speech and how it's learned is basically the longest running game of telephone. Things get passed down and eventually someone hears something slightly wrong and says it slightly wrong or with different emphasis. It keeps going for generations and impacts the population. \n\nSince populations of people (Southern, T...
Why can blank CD's hold the same length of music at different bitrates?	[ "> why can a CD that can hold 80 minutes of 320 kbps not otherwise hold 200 minutes of 128 kbps?\n\n\nBecause CD audio doesn't have a bitrate the way MP3s do. It's raw, uncompressed audio (essentially the same as a .wav file on your computer). So both the 128 kbps mp3 and the 320 kbps mp3 will be uncompressed and...
Why is the presence of complex organic molecules discovered on Comet 67P and other objects not enough evidence to definitively say that life exists beyond Earth?	[ "Complex organic molecules can form and exist without life. By complex, we are talking simple amino acids, nitrogenous bases, super-simple polycarbons. These are not the same as the long polymers you would get from carbon-based life.", "Complex organic molecules are a precursor to life, but not life in themselves...
In video editing, what's the difference between Drop-Frame timecode, and Non-Drop-Frame timecode?	[ "In non-drop-frame, there are exactly 30 frames in every second of footage, i.e., the timecode endings for every second go\n\n :00, :01, :02, ... :29.\n\nYou should only use non-drop-frame timecodes if your footage is 30.000 frames per second.\n\nIn drop-frame, the first second of every minute not divisible by ten...
Why is there is demand for high frames per second in video games, but it's ok for movies to stick to 24 fps? Is there a visible difference between the two mediums?	[ "Movie motion isn't designed to feel completely real, it has a bigger than life dreamlike feel that comes from the motion blur that occurs at 24 frames per second. Most games on the other hand are trying to be immersive and give you the feeling of being there and that requires the motion to be smoother. \n\nWhile ...
What does it mean: "underwriting a security" in regards to banking and finance?	[ "When corporation wants to raise money from the financial markets they contact an investment bank to issue a security (e.g. a stock or a bond). For example, if ACME corp wants to raise $1B of capital through a bond offering they will call up an investment bank or a group of investment banks (called a syndicate) and...
How fast are things moving in the human body?	[ "it varies depending on what part of \"everything\" you're talking about.\n\nThe main things, though, are the impulses fired from the brain down through the nervous system, which take some fraction of a millisecond, and the time it takes for your muscles to move your hand, which depends on the strength of your musc...
Can ship execute swift maneuvers in space if it has a lot of power? Or will it always move slowly?	[ "More power can easily translate to faster maneuverability. Modern spaceships use small thrusters placed around the exterior of the ship to turn. When a thruster is facing anywhere other than directly towards or away from the center of mass, activating it will change the direction that the object is facing. You mig...
How are we able to make an emergency call on a cellphone with no service or provider?	[ "I studied a little bit of this in college, and the other answers I'm seeing may not be what you're looking for.\n\nYour phone, sim card or no, is talking to all the towers around you all the time if its able to. Usually the conversation is something along the lines of:\n\n* Cell Phone: \"Hi Tower!\"\n* Tower: \"Ar...
Considering various backgrounds and experience differentiation, how would an Equal Wages - Gender Wage Gap law work?	[ "The wages of every employee is publicly posted in the workplace. Everyone knows what everyone else makes.\n\nThe rest will sort itself out." ]
Why and when exactly was the death penalty reinstated in the US after being abolished in 1972? Is it really because "murder rates soared" following its abolition, as some claim?	[ "The death penalty wasn't abolished in 1972. Instead, the Supreme Court ruled that certain specific inconsistent applications of the death penalty violated the \"cruel and unusual punishment\" portion of the constitution. So the states voluntarily suspended the death penalty while they worked to bring their pol...
What happens if I use a top loader washing detergent in a front loader machine?	[ "I did this by accident once a year or two ago and a giant meteor crashed into Russia.", "Please do not try this, it could have devastating effects on us all", "detergent is detergent, it's like saying \"i drink water in a bowl intead of a glass !\"", "Use a little less and do an extra rinse if needed." ]
How do scientists know there are x unknown animal species if they weren't discovered yet?	[ "If I recall from ecology, basically what happens is that you can chart how many new species have been found each year (adjusted for how many people/man-hours were spent actively looking), and the resulting graph shows a gentle curve and leveling off over time - indicating a point in the future where it's flat (mea...
How do we remember tastes?	[ "Our sense of taste is closely related with the sense of smell, so much in fact, that if you have stuffed nose, things will start tasting bland.\n\nHaven't heard about link with memory. Do you mean this [article](_URL_0_)? If so, it explains that we have preference for things from our childhood because they didn't ...
What's the difference between the Islamic State and the Taliban?	[ "The answer is both yes and no. Both groups have religiously influenced ideologies that are fused with cultural/ethnic group identities.\n\nThe Taliban are ethnically [Pashtun](_URL_1_), a tribe that predates modern states but that currently exists in Afghanistan. From the beginning, they were outwardly quite relig...
How come on the show "Drugs Inc." they can interview a drug dealer without him getting arrested (when he clearly admits to his crimes)	[ "Saying you've committed a crime at some point isn't enough evidence to convict you of a crime. He could just say in court that he was saying it for entertainment, or fun, or was joking, or any of a million things.", "A confession is evidence, but not proof a crime was committed. A sworn statement to the police...
How did they send people into space in the early days of space exploration without computers and GPS technology?	[ "Well, there were computers, though they were far more primitive. Often, this meant trajectories had to be calculated by hand.\n\nNavigation was another matter. Though GPS didn't exist, ground stations could locate space probes based on radio signals, similar to Gps. Otherwise astronauts had to use a sextant to nav...
How people make a living off investing	[ "1. They don't make steady income off investments... it's an irregular earning pattern. They may have a great day and make thousands or they may have a bad day and lose thousands.\n\n2. Options are contracts to buy or sell stock at a certain price on a certain day in the future. They go up and down in value dependi...
Why does counting sheep help you go to sleep?	[ "It is more a cliche about counting sheep being boring and tiring than actually being an effective sleep aid." ]
If diet coke has 0 calories and 0 sugar, why is it still unhealthy?	[ "Because the citric acid in soft drinks deteriorates your teeth, and messes up your bodies natural acidity. As well as the sugar replacement Aspertame, which tricks not only your taste buds but your body into thinking it's real sugar, causing unnecessary insulin to be produced. Research is still inconclusive on how...
Are there cultures where marriage doesn't exist?	[ "I'm hoping somebody will name one for you but my money is on \"no\" — see e.g. _URL_1_ — mainly because marriage can appear in [so many different forms](_URL_0_)." ]
Why aren't there hedge funds for middle class / poor people?	[ "Hedge funds can only accept a certain number of customers by law, so they will generally only take wealthy people. A lot of them have minimum buy ins.", "Because clients require time and effort. Each client requires a certain amount of personal attention - at the least, a phone call once in a while. An investor ...
. In the big picture what will raising the age to buy a gun from 18 to 21 really accomplish?	[ "To be perfectly honest, young people are dumb, impulsive & have a poor understanding of the consequences of their actions. The general principle behind gun control is to make it harder for impulsive people to get their hands on guns - if something is illegal to purchase and now costs 3x what it did when it was ...
Why do Kenyans consistently outperform other nationalities in long distance running?	[ "One thing to keep in mind is that the Kenyans who are winning are doing just a few minutes better than the top runners from other countries - it's not as though Kenyans are significantly faster.\n\nBut there are a lot of reasons they're good at marathons (Ethiopians too).\n\nFor one, Kenya is a relatively poor cou...
How are naked four-legged mountain goats successfully able to traverse mountainous cliffs, while two-legged humans require climbing gear?	[ "Well, they're not naked (they have hair) and they've got four feet instead of two... which is a help, not a hindrance.\n\nThey also have uniquely designed hooves to help them balance and climb over rough terrain, and they're far more dexterous than we are. They're also acclimated to the habitat.", "You've alread...
Why aren't we able to mark SMS's as unread?	[ "That would actually be very easy. All you need is a button that does the opposite of the function that marks the message as read.\n\nI could try seeing if I can modify an open source messenger to mark the messages as unread.\n\nOne thing you have to think about though is how the unread property is stored: a develo...
ELI5: Why are internet entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos of Amazon or Evan Spiegel so much richer than major real estate developers?	[ "One of the key things to remember is to exclude this bias for \"internet entrepreneurs\" and think of the businesses behind it.\n\nBezos (Amazon) operates a world wide insanely effective and complicated logistics company, perhaps the best in the world! They get tons of stuff from A to B, everywhere in the world,...
How do laser guided missiles work?	[ "The laser illuminates the target with a frequency of light not typically abundant in ambient light. The missile has sensors to detect this frequency and thus can look for the bright spot, adjusting its fins to aim for it.", "The missile has a camera in the front and a computer inside. The computers instruction i...
How does lost money affect our economy?	[ "The power of the dollar will increase, in what is essentially deflation. The quantity of goods and services produced hasn't changed, but the number of dollars circulating to purchase those goods and services has decreased. This means that each dollar will get you a greater quantity of goods and services.\n\nWhile ...
how does scraping scissors/blade along a ribbon make it curl?	[ "When you run a blade along a ribbon, you are using force to stretch the polymers beyond their elastic limit causing permanent deformation. (Think of pulling a spring too far, and it doesn't go back to it's original state.) This causes one side of the ribbon to be longer than the other. The shorter side appears to ...
What does it mean when someone "jailbreaks" a phone?	[ "Jailbreaking is just gaining \"root\" access to the phone, giving you control over ALL files.\n\nOnce you have that, you can do a bunch of things. You can remove programs like the Blockbuster app, or you can go further by replacing the entire interface with another one, like CyanogenMod or whatever you happen to ...
how is music and movies digitally remastered?	[ "Older movies (pre-2002) were almost all on 35mm. 35mm when scanned has a max resolution around that of 4K. Plus, they also use Photoshop like programs to correct scratches and other imperfections, as well as the color, they might remaster the audio as well. \n \n[Here is how they did it with Jaws.](_URL_0_)", ...
Why Ecuador gave Snowden travel pass and now says it was a mistake?	[ "Most likely because the US government is putting pressure on them in the terms of trade restrictions" ]
How long after birth do eyeballs grow, if at all?	[ "> The vertical measure, generally less than the horizontal distance, is about 24 mm among adults, at birth about 16–17 millimeters (about 0.65 inch). The eyeball grows rapidly, increasing to 22.5–23 mm (approx. 0.89 in) by three years of age. By age 13, the eye attains its full size. The typical adult eye has an a...
Why did silent films exist? Don't microphones pre-date the video camera?	[ "Films were recorded on - you guessed it - film, which predates modern microphones. While the technology to record and replay sounds did predate film, you weren't able to record them from multiple sources and on editable media. The most you could do was record music and play it on a record player along with the f...
How do painkillers know which part of my body is in pain?	[ "They don't - they inhibit pain receptors everywhere. You only feel the pain relief in places where the pain receptors were firing, i.e. places that had pain.", "Painkillers come in several varieties. These have very specific methods of functioning. \n\nFirst, we have things like Advil, typically known as Ibup...
Why do video games rely on mega high resolution textures to appear more realistic, when a DVD movie can look far more realistic with a resolution of only 720x480?	[ "Professional video game environment artist here\n\n1.) Movies are recorded from a fixed camera angle for each shot. This means that 4000 pixels on screen are always 4000 pixels, regardless of how many objects you have in a shot or how close up you get to them.\n\n2.) Video games are interactive 3d worlds that ...
Why is it that a temperature like 80°F seems really hot at the beginning of the Summer, but cool by the end?	[ "\"Homeostasis : The ability of the body or a cell to seek and maintain a condition of equilibrium or stability within its internal environment when dealing with external changes\"\n\n\nIn the summer your body gets used to temperatures 90F+; The way it gets used to these temperatures is that your body tries to ke...
If I wake-up, have breakfast, and try to go back to sleep, my body resists by giving me fatigue, slight pain and an increased heart rate. Why does this happen?	[ "Increased heart rate, sudden (little)burst of energy and wakefullness is normal. You just ate and you are starting the digestion process so your stomach needs more blood (Increased heart rate) for the cells to produces acids and do their stuff.\n\nNow fatigue and slight pain? I'm no expert but I don't think it's u...
Why don't fish freeze when the water above does?	[ "The ice above forms an insulative barrier to keep in the heat from the Earth below and in a bizarre twist the water below the ice is actually slightly above freezing. Some fish, being cold blooded creatures adapt to this situation.", "Antarctic icefish (Channichthyidae) are a family of fish that are unique becau...
Why you need to put cold water/anything cold on a burn.	[ "Your body is a piece of meat that is being cooked and you need to stop it from cooking.", "Well for one it absorbs the heat from the burn, and then numbs it so it doesn't hurt as much.", "Just so you know, you shouldn't put \"cold\" anything on a burn. It should be \"cool.\" Cold shocks the skin and makes it...
How do snipers account for wind and gravity on long-range shots?	[ "Lots and lots of practise in differing conditions. Long shots require elevation to compensate for the drop due to gravity, also you need fire at where they will be and not where they are now.", "Computers. \nSpecifically Ballistic Trajectory Computers.\n\n[Chris Kyle talks about the shot on an interview with...
Why Do Some Sites Require Credit Card CCV Numbers, and Others (like Amazon) Do Not?	[ "The CVV2 number isn't required to charge the card, but it reduces the risk of fraud. If the transaction is fraudulent, the merchant might end up having to pay fees or fines to their payment processor, so merchants have an incentive to check CVV2s. But if they don't want to and are willing to risk more chargeback...
How does a torrent ever get seeders if it can't be downloaded when it has 0 seeders?	[ "The person that starts the torrent is the first seeder.", "You can still finish a Torrent with zero seeders. So long as all the leechers have all the separate pieces of the file, they can Voltron it up and complete the torrent.", "The first person that uploads the torrent is the first seeder. However, if tha...
If 12 years of war has cost us 6 trillion dollars, what have we GAINED financially? Is there a net gain or loss?	[ "I am unable to provide a solid explanation on the 12 year war that you are referring to but, maybe I can provide a typical ELI5 explanation on war and whats the main benefit of it.\n\nWar is considered as a financial injection to a country that is one of the leading ones on the world. Why? Because every contry tha...
What is actually occurring in the brain during a seizure?	[ "ELI5: As a person with epilepsy since October 23, 2001, and in the interest of keeping within the guidelines of ELI5, I can tell you you won't like the answer. To simply answer your question, the brain is randomly firing off electrical impulses throughout the brain. These impulses are triggering all the different ...

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.