Split (3)

train · 273k rows

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Why cant we fly fighter jets in space and travel far out quickly and back.	[ "Fighter jets are air breathing. There is no air in space.\n\nFor the same reason, there's no sonic boom in space either.", "No. Planes are dependent on the atmosphere to provide lift via air pressure as the wing moves through the air, and to supply the engines with a constant flow of oxygen to be able to burn th...
American Redditors, how does insuring a car work in the states?	[ "> -age of driver -the amount of years you have been driving -no claims bonus (amount of years driving without an accident claim) -whether they the driver has a full licence or a provisional (learning) license\n\nIt's pretty much the same thing here, what differences are you talking about?", "What you mentioned...
What techniques do crisis teams use to prevent potential suicides?	[ "Last time I called a suicide hotline the woman didn't even talk, stuff like 'yeah that sounds pretty rough', not very helpful.", "It depends a LOT on the specific person and situation, but it might involve things like:\n\n- De-escalating and diffusing some of the really strong emotions or thought processes drivi...
Why is the alphabet ordered the way it is? What's the reasoning behind the sequence?	[ "I don't know the reason for the order, but I do have very [cool table.](_URL_0_) Look at I,J and U,V,W. They used to be one single letter and this is also the reason why they are packed together. The reason for the order of the other letters is probably pretty subjective. They had 22 characters and wanted them in ...
How is Kepler using "solar radiation pressure" to stabilize it's self?	[ "Light has pressure. A solar panel array, besides absorbing light to generate electricity, will also absorb momentum. It is not much. But if the array is in the sun 24/7 for months then the thrust is continuous. It will build up. If it were a mirror array then the momentum imparted would be twice simple absorption ...
What is the process of supplying more cellular data to a customer on the provider's side? To companies like AT & T and Verizon have an unlimited supply of data to give?	[ "it's not a matter of there being a finite data limit. that's not what caps are enabled. they are enabled for 2 reasons. $ and performance. \n\nwith a cap, you can convince customers to pay for higher tier of data for basically the same service. verizon isn't doing anything more for you if you have 4 or 8 gb a mont...
Weird moon in the sky?	[ "That is a phenomenon called earthshine, it's caused by light reflecting off the earth onto the moon", "A more interesting fact is when their is a full moon you can see a visbile \"rainbow\" extended in a full circle around the moon :)" ]
How come dumpsters always seem to have the same smell even though they all have different combinations of trash in them?	[ "usualy the smell isnt the actual trash its the fungus and bacteria feasting on the remains... kinda like how most dead things smell roughly the same given the same temperature and climate. \nthe more pungent smells that smells roughly the same is the gases released from the organisms breaking down the different it...
how do those Optimum/spectrum or other cable company internet hot spots work in large cities?	[ "Companies like Comcast have the Wifi system in their modems/routers set up to be a hotspot. When I had comcast at home, I could see two access points from my Comcast-owned router. My own SSID and \"Comcast\". Anyone who came over could latch on to the \"Comcast\" SSID if they wanted to pay for it or if they had...
What are the chances you would get in trouble if an armed robber entered you're house as you sleep, and ended up getting killed by a booby trap you set up?	[ "Excellent.\n\nBooby traps are illegal everywhere in the US. You would very likely be charged with murder.", "Your* and the authorities could potentially charge you with premeditated murder because you set the traps with the intent to kill someone, regardless of whether it was a specific person or a random strang...
Why are there crushed stones alongside rail tracks ? what is there use and what will happen if they are not there ?	[ "The crushed stones are called track ballast on which the sleepers (ties) are laid. The sleepers bear a lot of weight, the ballast helps them bear the weight. They also allow water to drain through and also prevents creepers and weeds from growing on the ground beneath the tracks. They hold the ties in place which...
How does turning the volume up or down on speakers actually work?	[ "Actual engineer who worked on audio circuits here.\n\nAudio (sounds) is caused by differences in air pressure, we call that sound waves (imagine waves in a pond).\n\nWhen a speaker receives voltage, the diafragm of the speaker moves according to that voltage.\nThe amplitude of the speaker movement is controlled by...
Why do voices get higher pitched when songs are sped up?	[ "Sound is a pressure wave that pushes and pulls your eardrum. The faster the wave, the higher the pitch. Sound is lazily sped up by compressing the waves. There is a way to speed up sound that doesn't change pitch, but it involves some post-processing." ]
Why is self-help stuff so popular in the US?	[ "The US is vastly larger, so anything you've got in the UK, we probably have five times as much of here, including kooky self-help people. I've never heard of the three people you mention, but I don't doubt that they make money off of vulnerable people. There may also be a tacit cultural aspect to this, too - I h...
Why is there all this controversy about the drugs used for executions when something as basic as a morphine overdose can cause painless death?	[ "Because overdoses rarely cause peaceful deaths. For example, morphine causes death by suppressing your ability to breathe, if you were conscious you'd be fully aware of suffocating to death and react appropriately. That's why drugs used for executions tend to be ones that will render you unconscious first (or th...
When my dog gets into something that makes him sick, does he realize what made him sick, as it would for a human? If not, do they have any mechanism to learning what type of things are bad for them?	[ "dogs are much much worse at realizing correlation over time. They're just not super smart, so if they eat something and get sick 5 hours later how are they supposed to know what caused it? \n\nIf a dog eats something, and immediately gets sick, it knows not to eat that anymore." ]
Why in most text editors font sizes increase by 24, 36, 48, 60, 72	[ "Those fonts translate to commonly used printer measures in the days before word processors. \n\nBack when manual typesetting was the process required to build newsletters, they wanted a consistent size so they could more easily structure larger headlines into a standard \"broadsheet\" format. You wanted the total...
what is the metric system and what is the imperial system? what are the differences? compare/contrast. thanks	[ "Here is some information on the modern metric system (SI) also called The International System of Units.\n\nWhy is the metric system easier than Imperial, and USC? Or any other measurement structure. The most frequently given answers include:\n\n1…Because metric is simple and consistent. There is only one meter an...
Why are eyelids swollen after waking up from crying the night before, and why it affects individuals differently?	[ "Ok im gonna try to explain this the best way possible. Your tears are made of water, mucin, lipids, lysozyme, lactoferrin, lipocalin, lacritin, immunoglobulins, glucose, urea, sodium, and potassium. The effect of the potassium are long term (thats why you can tell kids have been crying) so it will usually make yo...
Ethics and morals - what's the difference?	[ "One talks about the other.\n\nMorals are the rules you follow to do good instead of bad things.\n\nEthics philosphizes about wich morals you should follow.\n\nIE: a moral is \"Don't kill it's bad M'kay?\"\n\nEthics says: \"Killing is bad because you're harming someone, causing grief and pain etc.\"", "Ethics com...
If the US Post Office is funded by the government, why do they charge us to ship something from them?	[ "The Post Office is a government agency only in the sense that the government owns it and it's protected against failure because it's a critical service that we can't afford to let fail (or at least has been historically if not now), but in most respects it is run like a private company. \nThe US Government pays f...
In WWII, why did the Americans use inferior Sherman tanks?	[ "So here's the thing - The Sherman was not really that inferior. This is a myth based on a misinterpretation of history.\n\nIt was a strong tank, with a reasonable gun and was easy to produce and maintain. Its gun was a little under-powered against late war German tanks but those tanks were rare, and the Sherman'...
what happens when you throw something in the trash vs the recycle bin?	[ "Garbage is typically sorted at a processing plant before being dumped into a landfill or incinerated (burned). They use conveyer belts and magnets to collect the metallic items. The garbage is actually magnetized to assist with the collection by magnets. \n\nRecycling is a bit different. Beer bottles are actually ...
If a country somehow launched a nuke at the moon for whatever reason, is it a crime and would any other country do anything about it?	[ "it would be a breach of several treaties. nuclear ordinance are no allowed in space. everyone would be pissed", "It would be very expensive and pointless. All it would do is make that country look stupid and irrational in the world arena. That country would defiantly be investigated being they are a country with...
Why do cats feel like they're entitled to everything?	[ "They don't. Cats don't have the capacity for the emotion of entitlement. We project that concept onto them.\n\nPartially because cats are nowhere near as facially expressive as humans or dogs. Cats generally don't look 'happy' or 'sad', they just....always have the same facial expression. Humans associate a stoic ...
What does the close button on the elevator even do?	[ "Several uses:\n\n1) It gives the people something to do, this keeps them less angry.\n\n2) When the elevator is in \"manual\" mode (or \"firefighter\" mode) it does what the buttons command. The open button only opens the door as long as it is held in and the close button closes when it is held it. Like the wind...
What's the purpose of Eliminating the EPA?	[ "This is political; there will some bias in my answer. I'll keep it to a minimum.\n\nThe people who are trying to eliminate the EPA feel as though government regulation is strangling business. They feel as though eliminating the EPA will allow businesses to engage in cost-cutting, profit-creating measures.\n\nOther...
What ramifications should we expect from Detroit's bankruptcy?	[ "Detroit will have a harder time getting a loan, but they might be able to start to operate somewhat again." ]
Is a space station similar to Elysium even possible?	[ "While theoretically possible, it would take basically all of our resources and only the wealthy could live there (hey, just like the movie!). \nThere are lots of engineering and physics ideas in the past about this, see the Wikipedia 'space habitat' article. \nHaving it smaller in size would help because it would ...
The division between North and South Vietnam	[ "1. The two states were created in 1954 after the French lost to Vietnamese forces during Vietnam's war for independence, previously they'd been a French colony.\n\n2. Diem's regime was unbearable, and that's why the Viet Cong existed. The VC were a militant group trying to overthrow the South Vietnamese government...
Why does the number '256' seem so significant in video games?	[ "Because binary. In 8-bit (like pac man) the most values those bits can hold is 256 (0-255). \n\nCheck this link for a better explanation. _URL_0_", "Actually you often find 255 is the max number - because 0 is a potential one of the 256 values.", "A byte is the most simple form of meaningful data storage in a ...
Races	[ "Genetic drift mainly in the case of humans. Asides from better resistance to sun exposure for sub-Saharan African (and their descendants) and a possible link between fair skin and increased vitamin D production, there is very little in the way of advantages one race of humans has over another race.\nIn reality we'...
Why does fracking cause earthquakes?	[ "Stresses are built up in the earths crust by plate tectonics but everything is held together by large masses of rock that make up most of the crust. Earthquakes occur when the stress gets high enough that the rock fractures and the fault moves. \n\nHydraulic fracking fractures those rock formations to release gas ...
Why are AAA games increasingly removing local multiplayer (split screen) game types?	[ "Along with the answer about selling multiple copies, it also requires more resources out of the machine to run a split screen game. The CPU needs to process the movements and actions of twice the characters, and the GPU has to render 2 separate screens. this ups the load on hardware, and typically a hit has to t...
Why does more bandwidth cost more money when it is all just electricity over the exact same wires?	[ "Data capacity. That electricity you mention is carrying encoded information, and depending on the material and protocol used, is capable of transmitting _x_ amount of data at a given time. Imagine you rent out part of your residence. If you were to rent two of the bedrooms and a living room, wouldn't you want m...
Why cold water is not evaporating when it is poured into a hot pan?	[ "the pan evaporates a small amount of water , creating an air cushion between the pan and the cold water. the cushion eventually goes away, and more water evaporates, creating another cushion. you can see the smaller droplets eventually disappear in the video. the larger bubble of water simply traps more air and...
How someone just opens a bank account overseas?	[ "You pick up the phone and call a bank in Berne or Grand Cayman or, indeed, wherever the heck you want.\n\nThere is, generally speaking, no citizenship or residence requirement related to banking. Just as you can pick up the phone and order a pizza from a pizza parlor in Florence — though you might not like the d...
Why can't we just overstretch muscles to build muscle mass?	[ "You can continually stretch the muscle but that lengthens it. Strong muscles are short and dense, and require years of training in order to build them this way." ]
why does ice freeze hard but ice cream freeze soft?	[ "If you let ice cream melt and refreeze you'll find that it gets very hard. Ice cream is soft because it's frozen foam. Ice cream is churned as it is frozen, and the churning whips the liquid into a foam that has a soft texture when frozen.", "Two different materials ice cream is not frozen water there are fats...
Last names	[ "Charlemagne is a relatively common last name in France. Haiti was previously a French colony. As such, there will be a connection to a French person with the last name of Charlemagne somewhere in your family's history. They might be an ancestor, or the name might have come from a French slave-owner during the colo...
How does it make sense for companies to make you send in rebates for often small amounts?	[ "Advertising the rebate is a kind of sale, many people will get the product that otherwise would not because of said sale. But a large percentage of these people will forget to send in the rebate and so do not actually benefit from the sale. This really does give them enough profit to cover the handling of the reba...
The "V" shape is a popular configuration for 6 and 8 cyl engines, but not for 4cyl engines. How come?	[ "Inline engines are easier and cheaper to produce than V engines. But, larger inline engines such as 6's and 8' are too relatively large, so manufacturers opt for a V engine to save space. An inline 4 can easily fit in most automobile engine compartments, so they opt for the cheaper to produce inline 4 over a more ...
What's the difference between a "Boy Band" and other bands that consist of all males?	[ "A 'boy band' is a constructed musical group where the members are chosen primarily for their attractiveness to teenage girls.\n\nNone of the bands you mention is a 'boy band'. However, the Beatles are the prototype for boy bands. While not themselves a boy band, boy bands are constructed with the idea of explo...
Does "catching up" on our sleep actually do anything to help us?	[ "So this is called your 'Sleep Debt' and you can't catch up with it all at once. So sleeping all day won't 'pay it back' but slowly adding more sleep, like an extra 15 min to 1 hour will.", "Sleep is one of the most important things for ones health. The more you deprive your body of sleep on regular basis the wor...
How does the human circulatory system maintain effective and efficient productivity while in space and under vastly contrasting gravity conditions relative to the astronaut's planet of origin; Earth.	[ "Poorly. Typically we experience gravity pulling down on our blood, meaning the muscles of our legs act to push blood back up into our torso and there are valves which usually prevent back flow. In space people tend to have higher than normal blood pressure in their upper body and this is feared to result in issues...
Why can't we regrow teeth like a shark? After we lose our baby teeth and grow in our permanent teeth; how come we can't regrow a new tooth or set if we get one knocked out???	[ "We simply didn't evolve like that. Our body is only programmed to have two sets of teeth. Sharks basically have teeth that continually grow out of their gums while human teeth grow out of the bones in our jaw.", "Great question! We have thecodont teeth, that means that our teeth are extensions of bone, rooted in...
Why do my eyes get all bloodshot when my allergies flair up?	[ "Causes the activation of allergenic mediated mast cells which subsequently release histamine into the body, which THEN causes vasodialiation or expansion of the blood vessels, causing a perceivable \"redness\" in the eyes and elsewhere" ]
As a US citizen filing tax returns, why does the Federal form allow me to contribute to political parties instead of contributing to reduce the national debt?	[ "You can contribute additional money on your tax return by either: claiming higher income than you actually have; or failing to claim deductions to which you are entitled. Your effective tax rate goes up. Also, the Treasury department [does accept gifts that go directly to the debt](_URL_0_).\n\nAlso, there is no c...
- School Funding in America.	[ "Schools are funded based on property taxes paid in that school's district. The higher the property values, the more taxes paid into the system, the more money the schools get. Schools also receive government money based on the number of students enrolled at the beginning of the year. \n\nTa-da!", "Schools are g...
A bankrupt local landmark "wrote down" $40 million in bonds to $100k, why do bondholders allow this?	[ "Because either they accept 1/400th or they get nothing, and generally nothing is worse.\n\nThey aren't happy about it though.\n\nAny organization that did something like this would not be selling bonds at low interest rates in the future, it's why greek bonds cost greece FAR more now in interest, because it's more...
why are some people are consumed by emotions while other people don't even seem to have any at all	[ "Social conditioning is the primary factor in displaying emotions. There are some mental disorders that can limit the emotions you feel, or make them overwhelming but most do not suffer from these and simply fall into the natural variance of how they feel emotions.", "It's the kind of training we went through. Th...
Why do shadows blur around the edges?	[ "If the light source isn't an infinitesimal point, then around the edges of the shadow are spots where only part of the light source is visible. For example, the sun appears about half a degree wide from earth, so a shadow from the sun cast 10 feet will have a blurry area about 1 inch wide between the totally sh...
What is the difference between coke zero, diet coke and the new coke zero sugar	[ "Coca-Cola is trying hard to make a diet drink that matches the taste of the regular Coke. \n\nDiet Coke was their first attempt in the 1980s. It was noticeably different than regular Coke. They later tried to make regular Coke taste like Diet Coke, which was a [total disaster](_URL_0_) for them.\n\nCoke Zero is a ...
How do shows end up on illegal websites hours after first airing on TV?	[ "Record the show, upload it to the website. Am I missing something here?", "Tuning cards with hard drives can give you a video file, then you can just upload it to these illegal sites." ]
How did we arrive at the common structure for today's popular music? (e.g. Verse, chorus, verse chorus, bridge, chorus)	[ "hopefully someone else can give a better answer, but a large of part of pop music in the US (assuming you live here) is based off Americana music like swing, blues, country and jazz. Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Bridge-Chorus is pretty much how blues songs go, and in the 50s when pop and rock were the same thing, bl...
Why do some people believe ADHD doesn't exist?	[ "A big part of it is overdiagnosis. But it's an issue with all mental health problems, a lot of people just can't understand that mental health disorders are very real problems even though it's an \"invisible\" illness. As someone else mentioned, it's also a problem when people use ADHD as a descriptor outside of...
Do toddlers do wrong things (steal, hit, etc.) because they know it's bad or because they didn't know?	[ "Your friend is touting a moral philosophy called moral absolutism, which states that there are inviolable moral rules that exist regardless of culture or personal experience. The example is flawed however because toddlers do not understand what they're doing is wrong. They might understand that what they do gets t...
How does the use of cocaine cause necrosis?	[ "You are talking about cocaine induced midline destructive lesion. It's not fully understood, but it seems that cocaine causes your immune system to attack your own body. _URL_1_\n\n\nAlso, 70% of the cocaine in the US is contaminated with levamisole, which causes inflammation of the blood vessels and skin necrosis...
What happened to the H1N1 virus?	[ "Influenza viruses tend to come and go in waves during flu season. The H1N1 strain mostly died out after the 2009 pandemic, although since then there have been several small outbreak in other countries.", "Actually, H1N1 has now become a seasonal flu, and is still circulating in 2014, although it as not as preval...
Why are some youtube videos not allowed to be viewed on mobiles?	[ "Because the owner of the video does not get paid for mobile views, so, most of them choose to forbid mobile viewing." ]
The top post on Reddit	[ "Everybody upvoted to see the hit marker and just didn't take it off", "/r/montageparodies has a lot of CSS customization. Go to the subreddit and upvote something. You'll get a hitmarker that pops up for a bit.\n\nEveryone just wanted to see it in action and upvoted.\n\nThe hitmarker is your basic dank for parod...
In detail, how do sperm actually come in contact with the egg in a woman?	[ "Semen have little tails that they whip back and forth madly to swim through the fluid in the vagina and cervix. The man just shoots them in the general direction of the egg and the little buggers will seek it out on their own." ]
Can someone explain why you sometimes break out in sweat before you have explosive diarrhea?	[ "It's due to a vasovagal response. The Vagus nerve can be stimulated during a bowel movement when you strain. Bearing down can cause the veins in the legs to dilate causing a sudden drop in blood pressure triggering your vagus nerve. Severe attacks can cause fainting. Unless you faint, vasovagal responses or at...
EL5 - Why Megaupload was seized?	[ "They were stupid. Allegedly, they knew they had copyrighted material that was being shared with their service. The important part of this is that if they knew about it, but didn't take all of the required actions when notified of it, they no longer qualified for the \"safe harbor\" provision which prevents compa...
Why does being overweight seem to increase your chances of getting just about every single disease?	[ "Without getting into the specific details of each of those diseases, fatty tissue (adipose tissue) is not just an energy warehouse. Adipose tissue has a lot of properties that have widespread effects. Your liver has to work overtime to deal with all of the extra fat that is circulating in your system. Circulati...
why I shouldn't feel bad about causality.	[ "[Compatibilism.](_URL_1_) \n\nBeing aware that the mental process called volition is embedded in the causal mesh of the universe (of course it is, how could it not be?) doesn't mean that you are some mindless puppet that has choices forced upon you. The notion of being \"impinged upon\" in this way is based on a n...
First Fundamental Theorem of Calculus	[ "Derivative and integral are inverses; that means that the derivative of an integral is the original function. Why do you think that couldn't be true?", "I think what you're looking for is some geometric intuition. Wikipedia has a good section on this:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThere's also a proof on that page which is not ...
Why, after 113 years, has nobody made another everlasting lightbulb like the one at the fire department in California?	[ "Three reasons to start with. That bulb was a fluke. You can make a bulb like that pretty easy, just by using a thicker, more durable filament, but that puts out more heat and less light and is very energy inefficient, and why would a manufacturer produce a thing they can only sell once?", "You can get long-las...
Why does a chicken have to extend its head out to walk with each step?	[ "Humans have [eye stabilization](_URL_0_); you can look at something and keep it in your visual focus even if you move your head around - your eye muscles keep your eyes fixed on a target, compensating for the movement of your head.\n\nBirds don't have that, their eyes are mostly fixed, and they have to keep their ...
Why does the choking on brushing/cleaning my tongue seem to be worse at the morning?	[ "By the morning it has been a few hours since something was down your throat." ]
If I have take in less caffeine, will it last the same amount of time but make me feel less as energetic or will it make me feel just as energetic for a shorter amount of time?	[ "Consuming a smaller dose of caffeine will both make you feel less energetic and decrease the caffeine's effective duration.\n\nThe amount of caffeine in the body (and effect of the caffeine) is measured in half-lives, meaning the amount of time it takes for your body to metabolize or remove half of the remaining c...
Why does my space heater dry out the air? Where do the water molecules go?	[ "You understand that warm air can hold more water vapor than cold air, right?\n\nSo if you warm up the air, the amount of 'space' for water increases, and so your skin and mucus membranes lose more water to the air as it seeks equilibrium." ]
Why are elderly people more likely to fall for scams? ("You've won the lottery of monaco, congrats!" Etc.)	[ "A couple of factors. Elderly people often come from times where scams like this weren't as popular. There were still scams then, as all history, but in vastly different ways that didn't utilize modern technology. \nMy 85 year old grandma used to think she had to connect to AOL before opening a Word document, so wh...
I've heard of MRI techniques to identify if a person is telling the truth - with 99.9% accuracy. How do these work? And why aren't they mandatory for serious/violent offenses?	[ "[Even the company that makes them only thinks they're about 90% accurate right now.](_URL_0_)\n\nPolygraphs have always had admissibility problems in court. It's going to take much more than 90% confidence to adopt them -- if you can get past the possible 5th Amendment issues they bring up.", "Also, no matter ho...
Is it true that smoke from incense and candles is more harmful than cigarette smoke?	[ "The health effects of smoke from incense and candles is still being studied, ranging from some studies saying they post no threat to others saying they pose a significant health hazard. \n\nHere's a snopes summary with a number of references an quotes: _URL_0_" ]
How and why birds move their heads in perfectly smooth and almost mechanical motions.	[ "Birds have very precise muscles in their necks because they cannot move their eyes like we do when we want to look at different things in our field of view. They would have to move their necks to point their head and eyes at something else.\n\nTheir heads have [extremely smooth stabilized movement](_URL_0_) becaus...
What is the Three Body Problem in physics and what is it’s significance?	[ "We'll use the classic Earth-Moon-Sun orbit example but work our way up to 3 bodies\n\nOne body is trivial. Here's the Earth, its the point of reference, nothing interesting happens\n\nTwo body is well defined. Here's the moon orbiting the Earth(really the center of mass between them). You can plot out the orbit...
Library Ebooks	[ "They are free, but they expire after a few weeks." ]
Why after getting an excessive amount of sleep (10-12 hours) do i wake up physically sore and lethargic?	[ "I'll admit I don't know about you beyond sore but everyone has a sleep cycle that our body tries to adhere to. When you sleep longer than your sleep cycle another begins and so your body doesn't want to be awake until that cycle has completed." ]
If the icing part of "RICE" recovery is no longer considered good, why do athletes still take ice baths?	[ "Ice is still good if you want to have a functional body part that isn't incredibly painful. If you can't walk or lie down because your knee or back is highly inflamed and very painful, it doesn't really matter if theoretically it could heal a little bit faster because you'll probably just re-injure it out of frus...
If black is the color that absorbs the most energy, why green is used by nature?	[ "Because photosynthesis isn't just about absorbing energy, it's about harnessing it, and for that black pigment would actually do more harm than good. \n\nThe various proteins and enzymes involved in photosynthesis are very fragile, and can only handle so much energy at once. Black pigment would result in too muc...
Do cats purr on purpose?	[ "Absolutely they can control it. They can vibrate the hyoid bone in their throat just like we can. If you purr at a cat, they will often respond in the same way that if you meow in an upward question style, they will rub against you. No one knows why they purr but it definitely is related to contentment and they of...
What power to influence policy does the UK's shadow cabinet actually have?	[ "Shadow cabinet can't directly affect government policy so it's the latter.\n\nHowever as members of Parliament they can vote on acts and issues put before the house.\n\nThe government can be defeated on an issue if enough MPS vote against them. This is why any party likes to have a majority so that they can push ...
how much of an effect will the religious freedom act in Indiana actually have on people's lives?	[ "I think it will have a negligible impact on the short term daily lives of Hoosiers because for every shop that uses this law to discriminate there will be plenty of others that will be more than willing to serve everybody. Where I see a huge impact will be long term. Companies will reconsider relocating here, so...
How does gas gets build up on your intestines?	[ "It's produced inside you, largely through digestive processes by microorganisms in your digestive tract. Basically, you've got a fermentation vat in your guts.", "The bacteria in your body breaks down the food you eat into other components. By products of breaking down the food you eat include3s carbon dioxide, ...
Why are there still so many homosexuals if the majority of homosexuals don't reproduce to pass on their genes? Shouldn't natural selection and evolution be curbing this from happening? (Note: I am in no way criticizing homosexuality or evolution, as I am a firm believer and supporter of both)	[ "Keep in mind that there may be non-genetic factors that result in homosexuality, which, to a certain extent, nullify the idea of natural selection curbing homosexuality. That said, there's a pretty fair argument for homosexuality being linked to genetics.\n\nThat said, you're right in pointing out that homosexuali...
How do Chess sites detect cheaters?	[ "Most cant do it well. Its hard to tell between a computer player and a human player, humans react more to the momentum of a position than computers do. Still, high level players are not going to be easy to tell from computers.", "I've actually been involved in doing this, so I can speak with some authority. The...
What is Meta Learning?	[ "_URL_0_\n\nBasically meta learning involves becoming aware of and controlling how/what you learn." ]
What is "TCP Limit" and "UDP limit" in Advanced Tomato Router Settings	[ "They limit the maximum number of open TCP connections and UDP ports. So they limit how many different network actions router allows a client to do at the same time.\n\nIt is one of the many ways to do quality of service prioritizing. Normal user usually doesnt need it or want it enabled. Bandwith limiting is usual...
Why do really, really old (like medieval, renaissance, etc. time period) pictures/sculptures show that the men had really small penises, even though they were adults? (Possibly-NSFW)	[ "They were copying the style of Classical Greek sculptors. The Greeks considered large genitals to be unsightly, and so they tended to sculpt small ones.", "Penises have not always been the primary symbol of masculinity: during the Renaissance, for example, men's hands were the symbol of strength and manliness (l...
Why do Canadians call the last letter in the alphabet "zed" while americans call it "zee"?	[ "Canadians call it zed because the English call it zed, and the English call it zed because in Old French it's zede, from the Greet zeta.\n\nAmericans were the ones who changed it to zee. Mostly just evolution over time, and then Webster made it linguistic canon by declaring it to be so.", "I've dated women from ...
Was the fashion faux pas of wearing white after Labor Day ever real? Or is that just a movie thing? If it was real, why was that a thing?	[ "Wearing white in the summer makes sense. Desert peoples have known for thousands of years that white clothing seems to keep you a little bit cooler than other colors. But wearing white only during the summer? While no one is completely sure exactly when or why this fashion rule came into effect, our best guess is ...
From what I understand, the point of the filibuster is essentially to talk a bill to death. How/why is this legal and why don't they put a time limit on how long people can talk in congress?	[ "Any governing body, from a student council to the UN has procedural rules they agree to follow. In the case of the US Senate, they have decided not to have time limits, and to require 60 votes to end debate. It is legal because the Senate gets to make its own rules, and nobody has bothered to change them.", "C...
Is there any health incentive to using artificial sweetener?	[ "artificial sweeteners are 0 calories, so if you're trying to lose weight i guess.", "If you're diabetic, you might want to have something that tastes sweet that won't require an injection." ]
what Bernie Sanders means when he says this "The only way we deal with the major issues facing our country [redacted for space, check comments] -- is when ordinary people put massive pressure on the Congress."	[ "Honestly, write a letter to your Congressperson and keep an eye on their vote record. If every person in the country did that (let's talk hypothetically here), then we could say that every member of Congress understands what their constituents want them to do. \n\nIf they're accountable for this knowledge, they'...
Why are cargo ships only using high-powered hoses to stop somali pirates?	[ "Biggest problem is that while there's nobody preventing you from having a gun onboard in open sea, in 99% of countries, you won't be allowed to dock with firearms onboard. Legal firearm ownership is not a given in most countries", "They do have snipers on board now. In fact they have teams from PMC's (Private...
How come continuing to eat a spicy food keeps the spice at bay until I stop eating it?	[ "Your saliva and the movement of your mouth is keeping the capsaicin (spicy stuff) from staying anywhere for more than a second. Once you stop eating, it has a chance to stimulate your nerves and start making your mucous membranes cry.", "Spicy foods usually contain capsaicin, a waxy chemical in chilis that make...
How large corporations recover once they have been infected by ransom ware.	[ "Any corporation with a competent IT department does regular system-wide backups on a daily basis. They also have a disaster recovery plan that allows them to stand up new instances of their critical systems on short notice.\n\nAnd sometimes, they just pay the ransom. They routinely put thousands of dollars worth...
What happens when a person such as myself, who's MAYBE worth $18,000 on a good day, gets sued for $10 million?	[ "You retain an attorney and defend against the lawsuit. If you cannot afford an attorney, one may be willing to help you for free--there are legal aid societies dedicated to this, and American Bar Association asks all lawyers to donate some of their time each year. Defendants in highly publicized cases often receiv...
why aren't the big companies sharing their self-driving car data to achieve autonomous cars?	[ "Why would google share their technology? Everyone wants to be the first/best in the market because that is how they will make money. There is no reason google would share their technology with a competitor.", "Well, firstly the software isn't the same, the companies would need to do some giant adjustments to mak...

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