Split (3)

train · 273k rows

title stringlengths 0 299	text list
What exactly is a game engine?	[ "So, at five years old you discover that you're really good at drawing and you have an idea for a new cartoon. Unfortunately, being five, you aren't very good at animation. You want your characters to run, jump, throw a ball, but it never comes out right. What are you to do? Do you want to spend years practicing th...
Why cant you see stars in pictures taken from the moon, but you can see stars in pictures taken from earth.	[ "Because the Moon is too bright. If you just try to take a normal picture of the sky from Earth, you probably wouldn't see any stars either. The picture from Earth where you see stars are usually long exposure photos, captured in a very dark location. If you try to take a similar picture from the Moon, you'll also ...
If it is true that male humans have better sense of smell, how is this possible?	[ "Do you have a source? Every resource I have ever read says the opposite - that women have a much better sense of smell than men. It is even suggested that during ovulation that women's sense of smell increases significantly.\n\n_URL_0_" ]
How can a corporation like Activision-Blizzard think King Digital (maker of Candy Crush) is worth 5.9 BILLION dollars?	[ "King Digital has about 315 million (common) shares outstanding, and earned a little north of $1.75 per share these past 12 months that puts a very rough estimate of their annual earnings at $550 million.\n\nWhen one company buys another, the price can usually be ballparked as some multiple of the company's proven ...
When a person with photographic memory reads a book, is it like they have a video recorder in their head and records the whole thing then later goes through the memory to actually read the book, or as soon as they look at a page, they automatically read all the words on it?	[ "To date, there is no empirical evidence to suggest that photographic memories are real. That is not to say people with photographic memories don't exist - just nobody with a photographic memory has come forward and allowed themselves to be tested to validate such a claim. \n\nThe closest thing to a photographic me...
Why are the states of matter quantized? i.e. there are 4 distinct states of matter that are not arbitrarily defined.	[ "The difference between water boiling and hot water is where the energy goes. states of matter are defined by what kind of bonds break. \n\nHeat up water. Start a fire to add a quantity of heat to the water. Sometimes,that energy will raise the temperature of the water and sometimes it will go to turn the water int...
If gay marriage is made legal (which is a good thing) what arguments would one use to keep polygamy illegal?	[ "It makes an absolute mess of family law.\n\nRight now, a marriage is between two people & a child has, at most, two parents. What happens to the children in a 3-marriage if A divorces B & C because B is abusive? Obviously, we would want to minimize B's custody rights but that would unfairly penalize C. What a...
Hall efect	[ "A magnetic field causes the paths of charged particles to curve. If you have an electric current flowing in a conductor, perpendicular to a magnetic field, the paths of the charge carries are deflected to one edge of the conductor. Since there is more charge on one edge than the other, there is now a voltage betwe...
Why did the Japanese "let the emperor still be emperor" ?	[ "I think it's kind of like how the Queen is still the Queen, but Parliament actually runs the country.", "A lot of the other replies are telling you about why the Allies did not depose the emperor when they invaded. But I don't think this answers your question. Your question is asking why the Japanese people repe...
What does alcohol consumption feels like?	[ "It burns against your throat and down into your belly. Then it kinda fizzles into a warm happy feeling that spreads through your body. The effects on your brain can be completely unnoticed initially, but continued drinking exacerbates them. For me I smile more, talk more, and become more relaxed. If I get drunk I ...
Why do people shit themselves with fear?	[ "Most animals have a natural aversion to fecal matter. As such, it can be an effective escape/survival strategy to shit yourself and hope that a predator smells/sees it and leaves you alone. It can be hardwired into the \"flight\" part of fight/flight as it's a pretty good deterant/distraction.", "When your \"fig...
Why is it easier to "see" things in your mind, rather than "touch" or "smell"?	[ "Note: I'm not a neuroscientist.\n\nIt is possible that the modern human brain has more dedicated visual processing over the other senses which my allow for \"visual thought\" to be predominant. I've also heard it said that the sense of smell is a better trigger for memories than any of the other senses. \n\nAlso, ...
What is the advantage of spending more money to buy an unlocked phone?	[ "The only advantages are that you can choose any provider and you can get a prepaid plan. If you text/ring a lot, it's better to not get an unlocked phone and just get a contract.", "You aren't necessarily spending more money. You are spending for the cost of the phone up front rather than over 12/18/24 months...
How is it that you can have some or all of a brain hemisphere removed and maintain motor function on that side, yet a stroke can cause lifelong paralysis?	[ "The short answer is that the brain is fucking weird.\n\nThe long answer is that the muscles are controlled in clumps spread through the brain.\n\nBut those clumps are mostly together.\n\nThat's why a stroke will often hit only certain muscles, if it's a small one, the blood to certain bits of the brain was cut off...
What's the dark spot you see when you poke your eye in certain ways? It's almost like a movie cue mark.	[ "I think that's from messing with eye pressure. You probably shouldn't do that." ]
Why do teeth occasionally hurt when you eat something sweet?	[ "I get the same thing. Dentist didn't really have an explanation, but said it wasn't cavities.", "I am in the dental field and this is common. I would say go for a routine check up that includes cavity detecting X-rays. This is to rule out if you do have cavities or not. Most insurance companies cover your clea...
Waking up suddenly at 4:30AM feeling full of energy vs falling back asleep for another 30mins and waking up feeling like you could use another 6Hrs.	[ "One possible reason is that we have sleep cycles (~90 mins) that dictate how we feel when we wake up.\n\nIf you wake up at the end of one, you feel good.\n\nToo early or too late while you’re in deep sleep, and you feel horrible.\n\nGoing back to sleep after waking can slip you back into your cycle, and you end up...
What are the cons of electric cars?	[ "1. Cost. A Chevy Volt, for example, costs 41,000 US dollars. A Ford Focus EV costs about the same. That's sginificantly more than a similar-sized gas car.\n\n2. Range. You can't drive as far on a fully-charged battery as you can on a full tank of gas. On a Chevy Volt, you're only going 40 miles on a fully-ch...
How difficult would it be to intentionally build an immunity to a lethal poison, a la The Princess Bride?	[ "There isn't a blanket answer to this. Some poisons you simply cannot develop an immunity to, and they will end you no matter how hard you try. If you were curious, the practice itself is named Mithridatism." ]
How do non-partisan entities maintain nonpartisanship? Don't presidents, chairs, board members, justices have internal biases?	[ "Level headed people are able to see when they have a bias about something and view the opposing side and their own without their bias and determine a course of action based on that. It is similar to a woman saying she would not have an abortion but at the same time not wanting to make that choice for another woman...
what is the significance of Einstein's elevator thought experiences?	[ "Imagine you are in a closed room, no doors or windows, and no communication outside. (this is the elevator). Now imagine you are in this room, floating in space, in zero gravity. You can throw a ball, float around, etc. There is no gravity and no movement, so liquids float in the air, you are weightless.\n\nNow im...
Why is writing a paper check totally free for both parties while any kind of electronic transfer has fees?	[ "While I agree with the previous poster, as someone who works in Banking/Finance/Investments I can tell you the real reason is:\n\nChecks bounce. Bounced checks have huge fees which means money for banks (they were $25 to $50 almost 20 years ago!)\n\nElectronic transfers remove the potential for bounced checks I.e...
How does a vending machine recognize a dollar as opposed to a dollar sized piece of paper?	[ "They take a picture. Your piece of paper doesn't look like a dollar bill.\n\nThey read the fine patterns. Your piece of paper that you tried to commit counterfeitting does have the fine patterns that a real dollar bill has, because your printer isn't capable of printing the fine lines. Take a magnifying gla...
What is happening to someone physiologically when we get our "second wind" of energy?	[ "Our bodied realize they are under undo stress so they release adrenalin. The release of adrenalin makes us feel better and more energetic.", "Your body has a base level of energy. If you compare it to a battery, your body makes sure that you never go below, say, 60%. Then you get hungry and feel the need to \"re...
Why are boobs attractive?	[ "This is more of a shower thought that I had a few months ago, but everyone loves boobs. Gay, straight, male, female, so there has to be some basis in biology. My hypothesis is that everyone loves titties because they're babies primary biological food source and therefore breasts are associated with feeding time, c...
Why is SD memory and flash storage and such always sold with capacities that are double the next lowest capacity?	[ "A popular answer here is sure to be \"because binary,\" but it's more complicated than that.\n\nWith flash memory you are building each individual cell of storage, which likely contains either one or two bits (Flash can store two bits in a single cell by using 4 different values in that cell, since it's fundamenta...
How did "ZZzZZzzz" come to represent sleep and how did it become so common?	[ "Someone thought it was a good onomatopoeia for the sound of snoring and it stuck.", "The onomatapoeia theory is, as far as I'm aware, correct stemming from 1852. It's first published use was from Henry Thoreau who referenced the sound of sleeping locusts when he first wrote \"…the dry-z-ing of the locusts is hea...
how does the military keep on getting hacked?	[ "The kind of hacking that is being done is not the ordinary wire fraud hacking. The US military is being hacked by professionals in other countries who have a similar budget, both for cyberdefense and cyberwarfare. \n\nWe hack into their systems as much as they do ours (like all of the projects that Snowden so help...
What is the bends?	[ "When you go underwater to a deep level, the increase in pressure forces nitrogen gas into your blood, just like increased pressure can force CO_2 into pop/soda. When you come up too quickly, the drop in pressure decreases the solubility of the nitrogen, and it comes out of solution and forms gas bubbles in the vas...
Why do videos from the 80's-90's always look like someone smudged grease on the camera lens?	[ "Video quality has improved since then. And so has playback quality.\nWith an older video there is less information there. The older video has information for a smaller number of lines of pixels. So when you play it on a new screen, the screen can display many more pixels than it is getting information for. So you...
SETI is the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, but is anyone searching for "dumb" life?	[ "As /u/ANewMachine615 has said, yes we are looking for \"dumb\" life.\n\nHowever, it's much harder.\n\nLet's say you lived on Planet X and discovered this planet, Earth. You wouldn't be able to simply look and see if there's life. You're too far away. Really, the only way to positively identify life is to observe i...
what even is Ebola and what are it's effects?	[ "Ebola virus disease (EVD), formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, is a severe, often fatal illness in humans.\nEVD outbreaks have a case fatality rate of up to 90%.\nEVD outbreaks occur primarily in remote villages in Central and West Africa, near tropical rainforests.\nThe virus is transmitted to people from...
Why has there been a vinyl resurgence in the music industry?	[ "You can get them cheap. They have a slightly different sound quality, and many people enjoy that difference. Album art is pretty great in and of itself. You can roll a joint on an album cover, but you can't on digital music. People like actually having physical items. They have a cool factor that dates back more t...
Quaternions and Octonions	[ "If you are familiar with ~~imaginary~~ complex numbers that would be a great start. Imaginary numbers are used to keep track of an angle. You have the real and imaginary part. \n\n_URL_2_\n\nSo as you can see to get the angle you take the inverse tangent of the imaginary part over the real part. This has many usef...
Why do we make that "hurr-durr" voice when mockingly impersonating someone? Why does that voice signify stupidity?	[ "It sounds like someone with a mental disability, like Down's syndrome. They are seen as stupid, so its a natural voice to use to convey stupidness", "That particular voice, usually accompanied with a contorted face and hand motions like you're ineffectively trying to stab yourself are stereotypical symptoms of m...
How is this man able to hold on to this chopper for that long?	[ "That's very little acceleration on top of 9.8 m/s^2 of Earth gravity. Downwash probably adds a little more effort. Still, it isn't much more physically demanding than holding on to a stationary bar. Mind that it's pretty easy to hang even from a single hand. With two hands it's a piece of cake. You don't have to p...
Why do car wheels sometimes appear to be spinning very slow, or backwards?	[ "Our eyes can only interpret and update what is going on at a certain speed. Wheels can be turning very fast.\n\nImagine your eyes are capable of 'updating' to your brain what is going on every 1/20th of a second. Now imagine you are looking at a special clock where the big hand is at 12:00 exactly. If the hand rot...
What is the difference between a republic and a democracy? Which one is the U.S.?	[ "A republic means a small group of people are chosen so that they can make the governing decisions of a country.\n\nA democracy means that the people vote on the governing decisions of the country.\n\nThe United States is a democratic republic. The people vote to choose the small group that will make the governing ...
What does contemporary military jet fighting look like?	[ "It mostly involves a lot of talking.\n\nThe problem with locking on to enemies 30-40km away is that you can't see them. Therefore you have to be absolutely sure that whatever you're shooting at is really the enemy. This is especially true in modern guerilla/assymetrical/highly mobile war - if you are never sure wh...
How does calling an african-american "black" make you a racist?	[ "I don't think it does at all. People call me 'white' and not an American. So why would it be racist to call someone 'black' instead of African American?", "You have to understand what the culture of the whole society of the USA was like in the 1850s, the 1930s, the 1950s and the 1970s to understand why such a us...
why Obama is criticized for going golfing?	[ "It's part of the partisan bickering that comes with a two party system. If the President is a member of your party and takes a break, he's been working really hard and deserves it. If he's a member of the opposition, he's a lazy bum.", "Just like how Democrats and news agencies criticized GW Bush for spending ...
what is epigenetics and how does it differ from evolution?	[ "Epigenetics refers to heritable information that not encoded in the basepairs of your DNA (sequence of As, Ts, Cs, and Gs).\n\nEpigenetics works through a few different mechanisms, not all of which are completely understood, but include DNA methylation, histone placement and modification, and, for some organisms...
Why does anyone attend for-profit colleges like ITT Tech when anyone can attend community college?	[ "People just plain get duped. The see the ads, and it all looks legit enough. You go into the sales meeting, and the representatives are trained to do literally whatever it takes to convince people to sign on for attending the schools. It's not until it's too late that they realize how worthless the degree is af...
Why is it that in the USA you will most likely always have a criminal record if you have been accused of a crime, even if you were never convicted or were later found to be wrongfully convicted?	[ "Having something on your record isn't the same as being guilty. The record would simply say you were charged but found not guilty, in the same way an officer would still make a note that he gave you a verbal warning even if he didn't write you an actual ticket. It's just a record of your interaction with the justi...
How does "RNG"/Random work in Video games?	[ "Pseudo-random number generators use an algorithm to generate a number. The algorithm starts with a \"seed\" value to create the number. Then it crunches through the algorithm (essentially a formula). \n \nSince it is an algorithm, if the seed is the same, the result is the same. So systems will try to pick ...
Bandwidth. What exactly is it and how does it work?	[ "Bandwidth originally is from transmission techniques that use bands of frequencies (eg: radio waves). Each station gets a range of frequencies to use (called a band) and is allowed to fill up that band with their broadcast transmission.\n\nWith clever technologies, you can send multiple different broadcasts withi...
how come the rings of Saturn orbit on a flat plane around the planet, as opposed to evenly spread out?	[ "Same reason why the planets are in a relatively horizontal plane around the sun.\n\nAngular momentum is conserved, so as orbiting materials collide, they eventually settle into a disk.\n\nWhat conservation of angular momentum means, is that the total sum of each particles momentum, must but equal to their ending m...
How do people who went through transsexual procedures change their voice?	[ "Basically it's hormones. Women who transition to men will notice a bigger change in their voice when they start taking male hormones. But, men who transition after they've gone through puberty won't be able to change as much because the physical changes the voice box goes through at that time are hard to undo.", ...
Why are college textbooks so expensive when other non-fiction authors - ie Noam Chomsky - release books on similar topics for substantially less?	[ "The simple answer is, of course, because they can. Students are required to buy their books, so they can charge whatever they want for them.\n\nTo elaborate on some other points:\n\n* Noam Chomsky's books probably don't have massive problem sets and accompanying solutions -- those take a lot of time to come up ...
When cloning an animal (let's say a dog), how much of that cloned animal is exactly the same as the original animal?	[ "Essentially, a clone of an animal is the same thing as an identical twin. 100% match genetically, but everything else is a wildcard. \n\nAnything that is directly genetically controlled will be the same, such eye or fur color. \n\nAnything that is affected by environment, habits, temperament, coat quality, size, h...
Please explain this joke, I'm having a hard time	[ "It sounds like an anti-joke. The standard setup is inverted and that is the cause of the humor. The bartender sees the joke coming and want's nooo trouble in his place. \n\nI don't think it's funny, but we've all got different tastes in that regard.", "I've heard the punchline as, \"What is this, some kind of jo...
What happens in a factory to cause chocolates such as Kitkats to be made without the Wafer inside?	[ "Usually that would be some issue in timing, and given how fast the line moves for something mass market like candy, a little \"off\" timing can create some real problems. In the case of Kit Kat, it's probably usually an issue of the wafer bouncing out of, or missing the mould, which then just gets filled with choc...
NES games could be up to 1MB in total size, but Final Fantasy II for Android is 170MB. What is the additional 169MB?	[ "MIDI music resembling actual instruments as opposed to a simple chiptune and far more detailed graphics for the most part. It may not sound like much, but remember that 170 MB is but a small fraction of what a CD can hold; but a small drop in modern technology." ]
Why do extremely big things seem to move slower and extremely small things seem to move faster?(Realtive to human hight etc.)	[ "If something extremely big moved without it looking slow it'd have to have close to supernatural strength.\n\nTake a human that has 3 times our height, and everything in proportions. That'd mean it has about 27 times our mass. Not if he moves on the same rate as we do, it'd take 27 time as much energy as is, but t...
Why do we need discipline?	[ "Discipline is what keeps you going when you run out of motivation for a task.\n\nImagine you're climbing a mountain. You have more motivation than people just sitting in front of the TV because you want to drive out and climb that mountain! You get to the base of the trail, get all your gear, and pump yourself up ...
If you went back 10 years with an iphone 6 and handed it to a high-tech corporation to dissect. Could they use it to increase the rate of technology?	[ "It would very likely be a mixture. The UI and design could be picked up on easily enough\n\nThe actual manufacturing of the phone in large quantities would be difficult. Especially for things like the screen resolution.\n\nEven with the tech example the high res screen would costs tons if it were even possible to ...
How come some phones/cars can supercharge like 40% of the battery in minutes, but the remaining of the battery takes hours to fully charge?	[ "Think of it like a balloon you are trying to blow up. You can start huffing and puffing with great abandon as the balloon isn't going to pop. but when it gets to certain size you start to worry, You want the balloon bigger but you worry it might go bang. So you have to slow your puffing down.", "Typically, th...
What is the "revolving door" in politics?	[ "When you work in government agencies, you build up contacts within those agencies. Then, when you leave, you get hired - for fairly substantial salaries - to lobby your former colleagues on behalf of people who have business with that agency.\n\nThe questionable part about this arises because you know that's yo...
I have seen some of the recent North Korean propaganda about the USA. How much of what we know about the terrible things going on in NK can be confirmed, and are we subject to lies/propaganda about what it's like there?	[ "There is a book called Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick which was written with input from six people who defected from North Korea. The are very candid about what living conditions were like there and what they were told about China, Russia and the US.", "Yeah, I highly recommend...
Why does lemon juice "cook" fish when making ceviche?	[ "It doesn't actually cook the fish. The acid just denatures the proteins in fish meat in a similar process to cooking. It won't, for instance, kill pathogens in the fish.", "Proteins are very long chains of a type of molecule called amino acid, hundreds or thousands of them. These chains tangle in a more or less ...
How do they match a single fingerprint against all the millions of fingerprints in the fingerprint database?	[ "There's different ways a computer can do image comparison. One way is basically break down a fingerprint onto something like [grid paper](_URL_1_) with x,y positions.\n\nThen my fingerprint will say something like: Black at (4,5), Black at (4,6), White at (4,7), Black at (4,8) etc. hundreds or thousands of times. ...
Why were popular songs of the 50's so short (2 min) in comparison to popular songs of today (4-5 min)?	[ "Up until the early 60s the most singles were distributed on 10\" 78rpm records which could, at most, hold about 3 minutes of audio per side." ]
Could quantum entanglement be used for long distant instant communications/High bandwidth data transfer?	[ "> From what I understand, once you entangle two (or more?) quantum bits a change in one bit's state will immediately affect the state of the other.\n\nThis is the main reason most people misunderstand the entanglement. Changes to one particle does not affect the other once they are split up.\n\nEntangled particles...
Histogram on my camera screen	[ "A histogram is simply a graph of the amount of colour in the image. So for example if your lens cap is on, the graph will have one side with a very high rating and the rest with a low rating. If your shooting the sun the opposite will be true as the sun will over power the camera making the whole picture white and...
Does a YouTube video with a static image use the same amount of data as a normal YouTube video?	[ "No. A static image will be compressed a lot more by the video editing software. There are fewer keyframes for the software to deal with and make pixels for, so it's a lot \"simpler\" for the software to shrink the video down. \n\nTo see this for yourself, you can use a youtube video downloader and download a music...
Why are most batteries 1.5v or multiples of 1.5v?	[ "The reason for this is chemistry. A single cell of a alkaline battery (i.e. your \"normal\" battery) has a voltage of about 1.5V (when full). This voltage does not change if the battery becomes bigger or smaller. If you want to have a higher voltage, a battery is made by connecting more than one cell in series (yo...
How do we know so much about the different stages of a star's life if they last for such a long time?	[ "We can examine the life stages of a human without having to watch one in particular for its entire life.\n\nSimilarly with stars, we see them at all different stages of their lives. We see the transitional states so we know in what order they occur." ]
Difference between "buffering" and "loading"	[ "Just technicalities. Buffering is partially loading something for streaming. Loading is loading the entire thing", "Buffering is really just pre-loading.. It's basically just loading something before someone is actually going to see the information.\n\nAs a picture loads, you see the picture start to appear on...
Since the US president is the commander in chief of the armed forced, how does the US constitution prevent him from planning a coup and ordering the military to do something potentially unconstitutional?	[ "The Oath taken by all military personnel is to support and defend the Constitution. Training is given reminding servicemembers (especially commissioned officers) that they should not obey an unlawful or unconstitutional order.", "A military officer is not required to follow an illegal order. For instance, an ...
The universe is expanding, but where is the center of the expansion? is that the point in which the big bang happened? And where are we relatively to it?	[ "Every point is expanding away from every other point. There's no \"center of the expansion\".\n\nImagine an infinitely large rubber sheet, with a 1\" grid drawn on it.\n\nNow stretch out the rubber sheet so that the grid lines are 2\" apart instead, everywhere. Is there a \"center\" to this stretching? Every po...
Isn't the CBC reporting on Jian Ghomeshi a conflict of interest?	[ "It is a conflict of interest.\n\nNews organizations have conflicts of interest all the time, but that doesn't mean they stop reporting news.\n\nJournalism ethics says so long as you disclose the conflict, so people can judge if you are being biased, you are covered.", "The criminal investigation of the allegatio...
How would acquiring (for lack of a better word) temperatures below absolute zero be used to provide obscenely large amounts of energy?	[ "In a normal system (ie. one with a positive temperature), adding energy results in an increase in \"entropy\" - the tiny bits and pieces (atoms, etc) that make up the system move around more.\n\nIn a system with [negative temperature](_URL_0_), the bits and pieces that make up the system already have as much entro...
Where do files go once they're deleted? I just don't accept that they disappear...	[ "Imagine your hard drive as a giant wall, like the Great Wall of China. \n\nNow imagine that your files are painted on this wall (Images, text, music notes). \n\nWhen you delete a file, your computer finds the spot on the wall where that file was painted, and marks that section of the wall as \"free\". It doesn't...
Toll Roads	[ "Most roads are funded by taxes. Everyone pays for them whether they use it or not. Some, though, are too expensive to build and maintain. Or, they are used by lots of people from outside the area, so it is unfair to tax only the local citizens. Or, sometimes a private company will build a road they think they can ...
How we can say the earth is tilted on it's axis, when it's a sphere?	[ "The tilt is the angle between earths rotational axis and the orbital axis (the plane of the orbit around the sun). [Like this](_URL_0_)", "What is meant by \"tilted\" is that the earth's axis of rotation is not perpendicular to the plane of its rotation around the sun." ]
Are the traditional measures of horsepower & torque in an internal combustion engine really applicable and/or comparable when considering EVs (i.e. Tesla)? Why or why not?	[ "Yes, Power and torque are still actual measurements of the capabilities of the vehicle." ]
how the hell did line dancing to "aches breaky heart" become a Mexican party tradition?	[ "I have no idea but you should repost this to /r/TIL as \n\n > TIL line dancing to \"achey breaky heart\" is a Mexican party tradition.", "They think it's fun to dance to. It's super simple and anyone can get into it I've seen kids rock out along. Also, you have to understand they don't dance to achey breaky hear...
The hullabaloo over The Hobbit being filmed at 48 FPS, and why a lot of people consider that a bad thing?	[ "Explaining it from your frame of reference: most computer monitors function at 60hz, or 60 frames per second. Games render discrete frames over time, and when 60 frames are played back it looks smooth. When the framerate drops to 30 or so everything starts to look choppy.\n\nFilm on the other hand functions at 2...
Why does everyone hate comic sans?	[ "This should explain it both entertainingly and fiveyearoldishly.\n\n_URL_0_", "I think it probably stems from the fact it looks like something a five year old would use, unprofessional and such. Beyond that I think it's just something that's \"cool\" to hate, like Nickleback.", "The typical answer is that Comi...
How a Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT) works.	[ "Have you ever ridden a bicycle with multiple front and rear gears? The difference between the size of the gears, or ratio, helps balance how much work you do with how fast you go.\n\nOn a 10-speed bike, you have only 2 gears in the front and 5 in the back with a chain connecting them. With a CVT, you have two co...
What causes "asparagus pee" and how does it happen so fast after eating it?	[ "Short answer is that asparagus contains a natural chemical aptly named asparagusic acid. This acid is broken down by the body into sulfur-containing compounds. Those sulfur compounds smell. This is the same reason rotten eggs smell. And once made, the breakdown products end up in your urine. Because they are highl...
When someone is given the death penalty, why are they on death row for so long?	[ "There's an appeals process that has to be followed, and that can take years because the courts are really very busy. Then there's the fact that issuing stays of execution is a very easy, low-cost way for governors to earn brownie points with more liberal constituencies who understand how many innocent men have dan...
Why do some injuries hurt when partially submerged and then feel better fully submerged in water?	[ "If the injury is to a weight-bearing part of your body, the extra weightlessness of being in water can relieve it.\n\nIt’s also why older people do a lot of exercise in pools, it’s less impact on your body" ]
Why is mental illness still taboo?	[ "I think there are many factors that go into why mental illness is treated as a taboo. \n\nMedia portrayal is probably the biggest problem. In the past, those of us with mental illnesses are shown as psychopaths bent on murder or torture. If that's not the case, we are simply insane folks that can't care for oursel...
how many more satellites can we launch into space before we run out of room and are there any viable methods for clearing out space to fit more?	[ "Others here are right, space is infinite.\n\nExcept that there's only one geostationary orbit, and there's only room for ~3600 active satellites there (the current closest two satellites there are 1/10th of a degree apart), otherwise their radios might interfere with each other.", "One complication the answers s...
Why is 1 meter 1 meter?	[ "There have been a few basis for the definition of the meter. One of the earlier methods was tying the definition as a fraction of the lenght of the line between the north pole, passing through Paris, to the equator. \n\nAnother method that came about was the lenght of a \"prototype meter\", a physical artifac...
how the University of Phoenix works.	[ "My friend's cousin who I met a couple times was doing an MBA at the University of Phoenix. She didn't think her grades were reflective of her effort; she would work hard and be surprised by how low the mark was, and sometimes hand in crap and be surprised by how high the mark was. Then she handed in a blank paper ...
Force Touch on the new iPhone and other phones that have it. What are the real benefits or features?	[ "Force Touch on the MacBooks acts like a right click. 3D Touch on the new iPhones adds a 3^rd option, users can now tap, tap+hold, and deep press. So for app icons, a deep press will bring up shortcuts; so for camera, instead of opening the app and switching to video, you just deep press the icon and slide your fin...
how do Dan Aykroyd and Eddy Murphy make Mortimer and Randolph go broke at the end of Trading Places.. how did they get rich?	[ "Short selling.\n\nAt the beginning of the trading day, the Dukes have a fake, unreleased forecast report saying that there will be a shortage of oranges, and therefore the price of frozen concentrated orange juice (FCOJ) will go up.\n\nThe Dukes' goal is to buy as much FCOJ as they can before the report is release...
Are Black LED's a thing, and if so how do they work?	[ "No - there is no light source capable of producing \"black light\" as black is defined as the absence of light." ]
Why is quantum physics so often mentioned in philosophy and so-called "enlightenment" texts?	[ "One of the main points of overlap between philosophy and quantum physics concerns whether or not there is true randomness-not just events that are beyond our current predictive ability but things that just truly cannot be pinned down or explained beyond \"random.\" \n\nIf those truly random events exist, that's (...
the concept of financial aid and student loans for university students?	[ "Or do you want the rationale? Here, you'd have to go into an explanation of progressivism in politics. The general idea behind subsidizing education like this seems to be that in the long run-- not in individual cases, but in a much longer time frame-- this will make the country stronger, more economically product...
Why is it so much easier for the brain to be depressed than positive?	[ "It is personal, not everyone is that way. Those of us who are just have to learn to live with it (with or without medical assistance as necessary).\n\nThe ELI5 story is that your brain handles certain chemicals that work in the brain in ways that prevent you from feeling 'normal'" ]
What is RedPill and BluePill philosophy and what's their main differences? (No bias please)	[ "In the movie \"The Matrix\" the protagonist is offered two pills. If he takes the red pill he will wake up from the computer simulation he has unknowingly been living in while if he takes the blue pill he will forget he was ever told it was a simulation.\n\nSo, a group of people take the red pill as symbol for the...
Why does rock music and classical music fit together so well?	[ "All western music is based on the same music theory of melodies and harmonies created from the major and minor scales and the different modes of them. But rock, (especially metal) has closer ties with classical than, say, R & B because some of the more unusual modes and scales are shared by both. Rock guitarists l...
Why are we taller than our ancestors?	[ "Better nutrition is a good start. Compare the average height in South Korea (5'8 1/2\") with the average height in North Korea (5'5\").\n\nAnd that's after just half a century of malnutrition.\n\nNot sure about the rest, but the importance if better nutrition cannot be overstated here.\n\nI can imagine there's bee...
How does flea medication for pets work?	[ "Almost all modern flea meds are insect neurotoxins that effect receptors that mammals do not have. \n\nIt depends on the treatment but imidacloprid (Advantage), indoxacarb (Activyl) and Fipronil (Frontline, pet Armor, others) are dispersed over the body by natural skin oils and muscle movements. This can take 24-4...
Photography, Exposure and such	[ "OH OH I CAN PLAY THIS ONE! (I am actually really excited about this, haha.)\n\nBack in the days of film photography, the way film and photo paper work is by exposing light-sensitive chemicals (separately on film or on paper) to light. Here, I'll refer to film, which is a plastic strip coated with those chemicals. ...
What gives the federal government the right to ban marijuana? And why can states violate that? [Serious]	[ "The Commerce Clause of the Constitution gives Congress the authority to regulate items that have a high probability of being trafficked across state borders. \n\nStates that have chosen to legalize marijuana are simply choosing not to enforce federal marijuana laws and have gotten rid of most of their own criminal...
Why did Britain and France declared war on Germany over the invasion of Poland, but not the USSR?	[ "Although the English and French were not on the best terms with the Soviet Union, the Soviets had not been acting aggressively for the last few years, unlike the Germans. Before the Polish invasion, the Germans broke the Treaty of Versailles, militarized the Rhineland, annexed Austria, invade the Sudetenland (a G...

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