Split (3)

train · 273k rows

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National Conventions	[ "A long time ago, before modern communications, parties still needed to figure out who among them would be the one person from that party running for President that year. Generally it was decided by a few powerful people in a \"smoke filled room\" that had almost no input from the outside world.\n\nSo eventually, i...
What would happen if we were more transparent with our national security plans?	[ "If we say, \"Russia can have the Ukraine and one of the little Baltic countries before we're mad enough to send over an army\" that's an invitation to an adversary to commit mischief.\n\nIt's like going to a negotiation and saying \"I'll pay $12.32\", you disclose your position without probing to find your adversa...
Why don't animals pull their muscles when exerting themselves?	[ "IamA veterinarian. Animals over exert themselves all the time. My favorite example is the guy who came to see me for lameness in his 10yr old dog. He was a college student visiting home for the holidays and, the day before I saw him, decided to take the elderly, homebody Huskie for a 10 mile run. He's lucky she wa...
Do we sleep for only psychological reasons?	[ "[There are more reasons for it. See Fatal Familial Insomnia - a rare disease in which the patient eventually dies because they can't sleep.](_URL_0_) \n\nIt seems that the exact reason we need to sleep isn't fully understood, but it's pretty clear that there are serious consequences of sleep deprivation - like wei...
Why does an e-reader screen flicker so badly on each refresh?	[ "There are two reasons for this. The pixels of an e-reader is based on the physical movement of the pigments to the back or the front of the screen. These pigments can get stuck just like an old etch & sketch. To prevent this the e-reader will flicker the screen to get the pigments unstuck.\n\nThe other reason is t...
Why some drugs make us feel drowsy/sleepy and why some don't?	[ "Think of your nervous system as a light with a dimmer switch, Certain drugs are capable of increasing the brightness. Some drugs turn it down.\n\nIn the case of the nervous system glutamate is a chemical in our bodies that turns up the brightness making nerves more \"excitable\" while GABA is a chemical in our bod...
Does your stomach stop telling you that you are hungry based on the weight of food you have eaten, the volume of it or something else?	[ "The cue to stop eating is a combination of several factors. \n\n1) Blood sugar reaching a certain level. Your blood sugar starts going up fairly quickly when you start to eat. Once you get to some minimal levels that is one signal that you have eaten enough. \n\n2) Volume. Your stomach knows how full it is and it ...
Why do we need surround sound, when we only have 2 ears? Alternatively: how do I know a sound is coming from the front or back from me?	[ "You seem to understand that the ears can localize sounds based on the slight delay it takes to get to the near ear and the far ear. In cases where there is no delay - something in front or behind you - there are other mechanisms. The shape of your ear filters out different frequencies of sound differently, and it ...
How does the Reddit Enhancement Suite (RES) work?	[ "Works in the same way as greasemonkey scripts; RES is javascript that alters the html returned from the server." ]
Why USA cant seem to adopt the model of national health service present in every other western country?	[ "The main thing is that Americans tend to have a fundamentally different relationship with our government than most other western nations. Most other nations tend to view their governments as positive forces that are there to help take care of society. Americans tend to view government as something inherently ineff...
Just saw this and can't get my head around it: "When you are moving away from a person, their perception of time's effect on you is slower." Anyone care to explain?	[ "It's like what happens when you hear a car pass by. You know the sound that it makes, it goes a bit like \"heeeeeeee-yooooooou\" the \"he\" part being when it's coming at you, and the \"you\" part when it's moving away from you? The sound you hear is speeded up when it's coming at you, resulting in the \"he\" (hig...
Why don't women catcall men?	[ "Women are not encouraged to express their sexuality in the same way as men in our culture. Women actually having lots of sex or otherwise finding too many men attractive is frowned upon (the term \"slut shaming\" is used to describe this)." ]
I have O-Negative blood, I can donate to anyone in the world, but only another O-Negative can donate to me in emergency. Why?	[ "Your blood is special because it lacks any of the common markers which would make a body unused to them react with force from the immune system. The downside is that your body is accustomed to blood without any of these markers, and will identify blood with any of them as foreign and react accordingly.", "Blood...
How do they determine the suggested speed for curves on roads?	[ "There’s a lot of physics involved but the boiled down way is that when you’re moving around a circle your car wants to get pushed out. The friction of the road stops some of this, and the bank of the road stops some more. Engineers determine how fast you can go without losing traction, the. Have a safety factor (t...
Bitcoin mining?	[ "Like. You. Are. Five.\n\nThere are lots of different kinds of money, but pretty much all of them have somebody in charge. Maybe it's a bank or a government or a company, but there's somebody that everyone else has to go to if they want to use the money.\n\nSome guy in Japan was thinking \"I wonder if you coul...
What are the differences in different types of RAM?	[ "RAM has two qualities you should look for, clock speed and size. The size is given as some GB. You should go for 4 or 8 now, mainly because it cheap. More is never worse, but to much won't help you. The other is clock speed, it's given in Hz and 1333 or 1600 are common ones (often they won't write the Hz). This te...
Why do people invest in gold and silver?	[ "Personally, I do it to diversify. Gold and silver have held value throughout time, but who knows what will happen to various markets?\n\n & nbsp;\nI know that in the past, people flocked to it to hedge against inflation. So if inflation is at 10% that means your money is losing value every year, so you bought gold...
Finite and non-finite clauses and verbs.	[ "Clause\n\nBasically the smallest grammatical unit. If it can stand alone as a sentence, it is an independent clause. If it cannot stand alone as a sentence, it is a dependent clause.\n\nThe kid shut the door. Is an independent clause and sentence.\n\nAfter he entered the house Is a dependent clause.\n\nWe ...
why do new airplanes still have ashtrays in the bathroom?	[ "If someone violates the no smoking rule you want to ensure they have a good place to put out the cigarette. If they put it in the trash can and a fire starts at 38,000 feet then everyone is dead\n\n[CNN did an article about this earlier this year(warning autoplay)](_URL_0_) and it is required by law that US airpl...
What is anxiety? Is there actually something going on in the brain or body during high levels of anxiety or is just some fabricated excuse for people to be wimps?	[ "> Is it actually a real thing?\n\nYup. \n\n > Is the mind and body having something happen to it during an \"anxiety attack\"? \n\nIf you've seen someone having a panic attack, you would notice them sweating, shaking, out of breath, and they can feel their heart beating as well as struggling to breath and choking...
How come solid state drives (SSDs) are mostly only available at storage spaces of 64, 128, 256gb and hard drives are available at more "rounded" spaces like 150, 500, 600gb, etc.?	[ "Let's say you have a swimming pool and you want to fill it with candy. How many pieces of candy fit? Maybe it's 1,000,000 pieces.\n\nYou decide that you want to fit as many pieces of candy into the pool as possible without making the pool bigger, so you make the candy smaller (to your five-year-old self a piece ...
How do smartphones that run multi-core cpus stay cool with such a compact design and zero airflow?	[ "Most smartphone CPUs are ARM based, which are designed to run cool and use a small amount of energy.\n\nPer Mhz, those ARM cpus will provide less computational than an x86 CPU of the same speed. But the power consumption and heat generation will be much lower.", "Mine freaking doesn't. Ten minutes of 3g'ing and...
How are EULAs legal in the United States if you can't return the software after you've "purchased" it?	[ "I'm gonna answer this in a way that you don't want to hear, but its really the correct answer as of now:\n\nEULAs are problematic for the courts. There have not really been enough cases or strong decisions in either way to make it clear what the precedent or legality of them are and what is and isn't legal.\n\nCo...
Once a cyst or abcess is removed from the body, if left alone do they continue to grow?	[ "If put in the appropriate solution. Otherwise no, it doesn't have the access to energy necessary for the cells to do anything, the cells making it up will die." ]
Why does pain linger?	[ "Depends on your pain tolerance as well. Somebody with a higher pain tolerance doesn't mean they feel less pain, it means they need more pain before it starts to affect them. If you have a low pain tolerance you will feel an injury a lot longer cause it will affect you. Higher pain tolerance will feel it less becau...
Why are some people more prone to get motion sickness compared to others?	[ "I can answer why this happens, but not severity. \n\nSo motion sickness happens when a particular set of circumstances arise. Lets first say that it requires mixed signals going to your brain to interpret. These signals happen when your brain is trying to understand what is happening. So for example, your on a boa...
how & what happened to the Lehman Brothers?	[ "OK. So Lehman's was overly leveraged, meaning that when people gave them money, they could use that money as collateral on a loan to borrow more money. That borrowed money would then be invested. They are able to earn more profits doing this even after paying the interest on the loan. The problem is that you n...
how Empire building nations historically justified what they were doing and why they were right or wrong?	[ "It's all about the money. Colonies are where the money is, and money is all the justification anyone has ever needed to exploit untapped resources and perhaps exploit a few locals too.\n\nAmerican schools still teach a version of American history that depicts early American colonists as fleeing the tyrannies of Eu...
What caused the switch from doctors doing home visits to the modern doctors office?	[ "If you keep the doctor in one place, he can spend more of his valuable time actually seeing patients rather than driving between potentially distant patient houses. Having patients drive to the doctor means the doctor gets to see more patients.\n\nSome countries (like France) still do paid doctor housecalls, but t...
why won't YouTube fix the issue of saving the video quality even though it's the number one complaint they get?	[ "You mean when you start a new video? It's becomes HD every time I enter full screen.", "YouTube Help Forum Top Contributor here. I don't know what you mean by \"saving the video quality\", but whatever it is -- no, it's not the \"number one complaint\".\n\nIf you're uploading gaming videos, then I suspect that y...
Why do movies look like soap operas on my MIL’s giant HD TV?	[ "There is an adjustment for reducing judder, varies by brand name, that causes what you describe. Needs to be turned off." ]
Polynesian people look very different from East Asian people, yet are hypothesized to have expanded out of East Asia only a few thousand years ago. How have the come to look so strikingly different, so quickly?	[ "Polynesians are thought to be descended from Taiwanese aborigines or Formosan people of Taiwan, which are a different ethnic group from the Han Chinese which mostly populate Taiwan today.", "Imagine you have an island with 5 brown haired people and 5 blond haired people. They decide to go voyaging to find a new ...
Is there a limit to the largest nuclear bomb mankind can create? If so, why?	[ "The only limits we know of are cost and that a bomb will blow itself up before all the nuclear material can be used.", "_URL_0_ \n\nThis is the Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear bomb ever created. The bomb was that large and delivered that large a payload that they had to detonate it as far north as they could and...
What is the historical significane of coal in your stocking?	[ "Its a Sicilian tradition.\n\nIt began with the legend of La Befana. Two of the Wise Men stopped at the home of La Befana to ask for directions on the night of Jesus' birth. They invited her to join them in going to see baby Jesus, but she refused. A while later, one of the shepherds asked for directions, and again...
Why sometimes when I lie on my bed and breathe in I feel sharp pain at my left lung preventing me from breathing in fully?	[ "That is a very good question. I have the same problem", "I'm an RN, wife, mom and a grandmother---it's most likely gas pains. Seriously. If the pain doesn't resolve within a few days and is constant, see a doctor.", "Seriously, please go ask a doctor. The internet, especially ELI5, is not the place to find m...
What does it mean if a person has a low centre of gravity?	[ "Ok, so your mass is spread all over your body, pretty unevenly because of your limbs and different body parts. But from a physics standpoint, you still have a center of mass (like the middle of a balanced scale, or the middle of a horizontal seesaw). Center of gravity is the same thing since gravity is pulling on ...
How do (online) scalpers get their tickets before everyone else, when everyone else seems to be struggling?	[ "There are computer programs that will automatically buy the tickets quicker than any human can. The scalpers use these.", "In short, ticket retailers contract with scalpers such that they buy a block of tickets to every show at the venue no matter what, sort of like a big block of season tickets. Scalpers make b...
What can high-profile law firms do to win cases that smaller law firms can't?	[ "Larger top-tier/Magic Circle law firms pay their employed solicitors very well, and they're very large organisations. This gives it three main advantages. \n\nFirst, they have more people that they can put on the project (which achieves certain economies of scale/cost). \n\nSecond, the people they have are likely ...
How do mutual fund fees work?	[ "Your broker might charge you a fee to put money in or take it out of the fund, although a lot of the major brokers that offer their own funds (e.g. Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard) offer many free funds. Then the fund has an \"expense ratio\"--you pay this percentage of your total investment every year. Think of it as ...
How do we know if Syria has handed over ALL their chemical weapons?	[ "It's likely that any agreement that is made that requires them to give up their weapons would require them to allow very thorough investigations, and it's not easy to hide chemical weapons facilities like that, especially with satellites that could be tracking things." ]
Why would IS want to blow up Mecca's Grand Mosque?	[ "From discussions with friends and reading random things about the situation, what I gather is that they are intending to bring about the apocalypse. Basically, and this is from my limited understanding of the situation, there are prophecies that say that the temple will fall before the end of days and a new one b...
Why do we as humans always have trouble lying without giving it away in some form of body language?	[ "I'm not sure that it's true the people always give away their lies with some sort of bodily signal, but you're right that there are often signs. There are a few reasons for this. \n\nOne is simply that lying is cognitively more difficult than telling the truth. Think about it this way, which is easier: reading f...
Does the body absorb every calorie? If I overeat like crazy will some of it just 'flow through' me or will it all be stored?	[ "Some calories remain in partially digested food that exits your body in stool. But not enough to counterbalance the energy equation. If you overeat a lot, most of it will be stored in adipose tissue. The human body is very good at banking up energy reserves for a rainy day.", "No, your body only absorbs someth...
Why do I feel bad after masturbating?	[ "It's a shift in chemicals, and I think it is heavily dependent on what kind of stimuli you were using as an aid. During an orgasm, a lot of different hormones and neurotransmitters get released into the brain such as serotonin, dopamine, noradrenaline, etc. Many of these chemicals actually do a really efficient jo...
Can someone explain what FEMA camps are, and why people are so afraid of them?	[ "Many people are afraid that FEMA may eventually lock up people just for disagreeing with the government, ala political prisoners or dissidents.", "FEMA concemtration camps are a conspiracy theory about how the federal government is going to round up anyone they don't like and put them in concentration camps. Whe...
Auditing the Federal Reserve	[ "> Don't we already get transcripts 5 years later?\n\nMore than that. The fed is audited: internally, by the GAO, and by an outside firm, usually ~annually.\n\nOn top of that, the head of the Fed reports directly to Congress bi-annually.\n\nYou can access those here:\n_URL_0_\n\nThe transcripts are just things like...
What's the whole issue with Hobby Lobby?	[ "The Justices held that under the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) that certain for-profit corporations were able to hold religious beliefs and could apply to be exempt from providing select contraceptive coverage mandated in the ACA (Obamacare). The Democrats/Left have built a narrative around the dec...
Why is gambling illegal? (in america)	[ "The reason its not legal in most states is the assumption that it attracts crime and other undesirable elements to the area. While casinos and other forms of gambling are very profitable for those running it, and the state that taxes it, all that money is coming out of the pockets of average people, increasing th...
How is masochism possible when pain isn't supposed to be pleasing, but warning us?	[ "Hi there.\n\nTo put it simply, we cant control pain itself but we can control how we respond to it. Thats a physical reason.\n\nPsychologically, you cant really make many broad generalizations about masochists, or anyone really. Some masochists endure because it reminds them they are alive and helps them to focu...
Why do I feel like I have to have my brain and mind be constantly stimulated throughout the day, from when I wake up until I go to bed?	[ "ELI5: If you feel the quest for knowledge so bad. Why don't you work it out for yourself?" ]
How do pathologists tolerate the odor of decomposition?	[ "People can get used to pretty much anything. I'm a medic and smell decomposition frequently. It stinks, but I'll take that over C.diff any day.", "First they try to minimize exposure to decomposition. Recent corpses are refrigerated and will only be in the beginning stages of decomposition. Old corpses will be...
Why are people allowed to be racist towards their own race?	[ "Most people are not self-hating, so when you say something about your own race, it's much more likely to be construed either as a joke, or as a constructive criticism. Saying something about another race will sound much less like constructive criticism.\n\n\"We Chinese have a bad reputation for being boorish touri...
Why do we sweat, even when not being physically active, at 30ºC?	[ "your body temp is 37° because it's permanently cooled down. you're burning sugar in your cells continuously, increasing your body temperature.\nunfortunately your organs are very sensitive to overheating, so your body must make sure that your temp doesn't raise (except for fever).\n\nimagine a running engine in a ...
Why are eggs/biscuits/pancakes considered to be breakfast food, and not normally eaten during other meals?	[ "All of those things are eaten at any time of the day.\n\nEggs are present in damn near everything. It's true that in western cultures a fried or scrambled egg is traditionally reserved for the first meal of the day, but in other cuisines eggs are featured players in all sorts of meals. Poached eggs, for example, a...
What happens when the US government proves a monopoly or oligopoly exists? How is the law enforced?	[ "Contrary to popular belief, monopolies and oligopolies are not illegal.\n\nWhat is illegal is using monopoly powers in specifically described ways to stifle competition. For example, selling goods at less than cost to drive a competitor out of business is illegal, as is colluding with other companies to fix price...
Like most people, I do not suffer from OCD. So why do I experience compulsions?	[ "One of my best friends has very severe OCD and I asked him once what the difference is. He says that everybody has obsessions and everybody has compulsions, but most people's obsessions and compulsions are separate. You have a preferred light switch and you are compelled to use it, but you do not obsess over the s...
What are the historical reasons for which english cuisine is usually regarded as "bad" whereas french cuisine is usually regarded as "good"? (at least i think this is how we see it in the US...	[ "They were culturally different. Also under Napoleonic rule, France controlled almost all of continental Europe (but obviously not Britain) which allowed French chefs to experiment with ingredients from all around the continent. \n\n\nThe short answer is simply that French chefs had the ingredients available and th...
How do third party vendors on Amazon, Newegg, Best Buy, etc get their inventory?	[ "They typically buy direct from the manufacturer. Most products will provide discounts if purchased in bulk. And if you don't have a storefront you have much lower operational expenses and can reduce prices even lower.\n\nWith their size they can reduce their margins to make their profits on volume." ]
Why do different languages have different names for different countries?	[ "The main sources are:\n\n1. Language change: in year N, I call Country X \"X\" and you also call Country X \"X\", but 1000 years later our descendants speak languages that have moved in different directions. A simple example is how \"Roma\", spelled with an e in English but pronounced the same way, became a one...
Why are humans "human-sized"?	[ "Evolution isn't conscious, intelligent design. It doesn't strive to make the perfect organism that just the right height and size - whatever species manage to have viable offspring is an evolutionary success, and some end up better than others, thrive in their enviroment and breed more. The average human is the si...
Why does the word for 'mum/mother' sound so similar across nearly all languages?	[ "Äiti, haha, nënë, walida, unitsi, pia, hooyo...\n\nYour premise (\"nearly all languages\") is obviously false.\n\nRelated languages, however, are likely to share some words - especially words that would be very old. English is related to a lot of languages through the Proto-Indo-European root language, from whic...
How do fruit flies "magically" appear?	[ "Fun fact: \"Back in the day\" people used to think that animals \"magically appeared\"; this concept was known as [spontaneous generation](_URL_0_). It was commonly thought that if a pile of dirty clothes was left laying around for too long it would spawn rats.", "They lay microscopic eggs on the skin of fruits ...
what are the silica gels they put in new clothes and why are they telling me not to put it in my mouth?	[ "It dries stuff out. It is apparently an irritant but I don't see anything super dangerous in the [Material Safety Data Sheet](_URL_0_). It will not be pleasant though." ]
Why does eating a lemon make your teeth hurt?	[ "Lemon juice is moderately acidic, and if your teeth have metal fillings that can set up an electric circuit. Biting aluminum foil does the same thing, but I don't advise doing either of those things." ]
How come the third rail on subway systems doesn't short circuit when it gets wet?	[ "1. Water on the rail itself doesn't short circuit, as the rail is more conductive than the water.\n\n2. The water doesn't bridge between the third rail and a suitable ground. It might drip off, but it won't form a continuous path like a wire very easily.\n\n3. Water is an awful conductor, so outside of very high v...
How exactly does a transformator transform energy to a lower voltage?	[ "Do you mean a transformer? The EMF induced in the secondary coil is proportional to the rate of change of magnetic flux through the coil. More loops means a higher magnetic field (and therefore flux) inside the secondary coil. Less coils means less flux and therefore less induced EMF.\n\nSo in a step-down transfor...
Why is it legal for a police officer to lie to me about the law ?	[ "An example would be a police officer telling a person that filming them is illegal.", "The justification here is that this allows the police officer to trick the suspect into telling the truth. However, there is evidence that this does not actually happen. In many cases where the police have utilized deception a...
Seriously, how do cell phones work?!	[ "First of all it's not instant. It's something like one twentieth of a second from the time you speak until the other person hears you, and it depends on how far away you are from each other. It takes time to transmit information, so no kind of communication is instantaneous.\n\nStep by step here is a basic overvie...
Why is it sometimes a popular connotation to assume that attractive people are less intelligent than others?	[ "2 Primary reasons:\n\nAnecdotal evidence, people thinking instances of it and generalizing.\n\nCompensation thinking... people seem to have an unfounded belief that strengths come with weaknesses. If someone's attractive, they must be stupid...or the opposite, if someone is smart they must be socially inept. The i...
Why are American movies called by their literal names in other countries?	[ "Maybe the word \"Anchorman\" doesn't exist in those languages? That would be the only reason I can think of", "Because anchormam isn't a word in other languages" ]
why, if at all, is Putin a bad guy?	[ "Vladimir Putin has made Russia less democratic--he and his party intimidate political opponents and are suspected of several assassinations, and he has skirted around the term limits set by the Russian constitution by exchanging positions with Medvedev.\n\nOn the international scene, he has behaved very aggressive...
Should ELI5 temporarily hide comment scores? We want your feedback.	[ "I would be in favour of not implementing this.\n\nFor the most part, I see posts upvoted when they are correct and give interesting additional information, and downvoted when they are spam or wrong. There are a few cases where this doesn't happen, but I would say that it is more advantageous for a poster to be abl...
the Ohm rating on guitar amplifiers and why it's important...	[ "Imagine two bicycles, side by side. The first bike has the brakes stuck on. You can pedal it and move it, but it takes a lot of effort to do so.\n\nThen you hop onto the second bike. You expect it to be the same as the first bike, so you put a lot of power into pedalling. However, because this bike's resistance is...
why do some people's abs appear bloated or rounded?	[ "Growth hormone.\n\nBodybuilders take them to get bigger but it doesn't just make muscles bigger. Organs grow too so their guts is basically pushing outwards behind the abs. Some will eventually need surgery because their insides tries to come out from their belly button.", "Body type, steroid use, size of abdomi...
How traffic lights work?	[ "In most cases they use a metal sensor in the ground that's under your car when you stop at a red light, that is connected to the streetlights to let them know there is a car there. At four way intersections as soon as you get on top of this sensor it tells the light that your way of traffic is the next to receive ...
why we sometimes yell or make obnoxious noises when we stretch	[ "Everyone else in this thread is being mean, the reason we do it I would imagine is the same reason people moan during sex. That stretch feels fucking awesome" ]
How do microtomes work? How can a blade be physicslly manipulated to cut a slide a few micrometres or nanometres thick?	[ "The below freezing temperatures and frozen substrate that the tissue is embedded in helps considerably to keep things together. The problem arises when you have tissue that contains a high amount of fat. The fat doesn't freeze at the same temperature, and makes cutting thin slices more difficult." ]
What is a random walk?	[ "Industrial Engineer here:\n\nI'm going to be talking about measurements of say the length of a part. You know your part should be 12 inches long. We IEs have tools to measure that this number remains, on average, 12 inches. One of our most powerful tools is the [Estimate Weight Moving Average(EWMA)](_URL_0_) contr...
How does the pump at the gas station know when to turn off when your gas tank is full?	[ "If you look down the nozzle of a gas pump, you'd find there is a smaller tube, about the size of a straw, within the main tube. Gasoline goes through the main tube, the smaller one allows air to escape from the tank as it's displaced by the gasoline being pumped in. When liquid reaches this tube, it triggers the s...
If boiling water kills all the bacteria, where do the dead bacteria go?	[ "Nowhere. They stay in the water. The only difference is that if they're dead they pass right through you, whereas if they're alive, they're more inclined to infect you with whatever.", "In the sense that the material that made up the bacteria is still in the pot, yes, it's full of bodies. The same argument would...
How can water from the Gulf of Mexico keep Norway from being covered in ice and snow?	[ "The warm water from the gulf of mexico gets carried up towards Norway and pulls the temperature up. The air gets heated by the ground and water. When the water is warm enough to keep ice from forming then you get that effect. One thing you'd immediately think is how doesn't the water cool by then? Its due to the s...
Why is the history of math so separated from math itself in education? Wouldn't it be more interesting if this weren't the case?	[ "Because it doesn't teach you math. \n\nFlip it around. Imagine you are studying literature but before you can get to the actual writing you have to spend 20 percent of the class on linguistics. Imagine you are studying medicine but spend part of the class learning the mechancs about how an mri works. Imagine takin...
How the illegal 'Hawala System' works for laundering money?	[ "Hawala as Underground Banking\nThe very features that make hawala an attractive avenue for legitimate patrons, also make it attractive for illegitimate uses. Thus, hawala is frequently referred to as underground banking. This is because money launderers and terrorists also take advantage of this system to transfer...
What actually happens after a single use of LSD? I've heard some of the details but I'm looking for more unbiased answers. I want to try it but not sure if it's worth it in the long run.	[ "LSD alters your reality. Hence, you will \"see\" sounds, such as music. You will \"smell\" sights, such as the blue of a rock. This doesn't sound realistic outside of tripping, but it is your reality on the drug.\n\nI used LSD in my youth, probably around a dozen times. It is essential that you not do it alone, a...
Why does smoking a cigarette feel so much better after sex or a big meal than it does normally?	[ "Troll answer: You are 5. You shouldn't be smoking.", "Endorphins. After sex or eating a big meal your body releases them to make you feel good. Morphine is based on Endorphins, to give you some reference, its a very powerful feel good drug, and your body makes it naturally and releases it when you feel extreme p...
Why are some foods like eggs or pancakes considered breakfast foods in the US?	[ "You can feed your family whatever you want whenever you want. When I was a kid we did \"breakfast for dinner\" about once a week. Usually bacon, eggs, and biscuits.", "The traditional \"American breakfast,\" which is to say a hearty meal of eggs, meat, pancakes or waffles, and cereal (or any combination thereo...
Why are nerdiness and eyeglasses synonymous with one another? Is there a tangible link between intelligence and bad eyesight?	[ "The connection is the other way around, glasses, especially very thick framed one, tend to make you the target of bullying, as they are an easy target to ridicule and you are very helpless without them, making them ideal to steal and mock you with. \n(They also symbolise a flaw in your, your non-perfect eyesight,...
How did the moon get there?	[ "The favored explanation for the formation of the moon is the \"giant impact hypothesis\", which posits that during the early formation of the solar system (about 4-4.5 billion years ago), a Mars-sized object called Theia formed at earth's L4/L5 lagrange points (same distance as Earth from the sun, but located 60 d...
What does a virus or bacteria gain from making its host sick?	[ "Bacteria and viruses don't necessarily want their host sick, or even dead. Complications happen when the virus is in an organism it's not supposed to be in, and that organism isn't equipped to handle the virus. Rats carried the plague and were doing just fine, but when they jumped shipped and infected humans, they...
Nearly every time you're going to download something, you're told your download will start in a few seconds, or alternately you can click a link to start it instantly. What's the purpose of this?	[ "It is convenient to have one computer drive the website, and another be just for downloading files, so it isn't unusual for the web server to hand off control to the file server.\n\nHowever, a lot of older browsers, and browsers with certain security settings are unable to execute the handoff properly, so a link i...
How is it safe and/or Legal for cops to drive while using the laptop in their patrol car but texting and driving is illegal?	[ "Few laws are absolute & many of them have specific exemptions. On duty police officers are allowed to ignore many traffic laws in the line of duty - speeding, running red lights, etc. - this is just another one.\n\nIt's assumed that police are professional drivers & have received proper training as to when it...
What happens when my memory is jogged?	[ "The brain is a pattern-matching computer. You see letters and words, for example, and your brain turns them into sounds and ideas. You see faces, and your brain turns them into identities. Every pattern you recognize connects to some memory, and encountering the pattern causes you to recall that memory.\n\nThe mem...
NAT and Port Forwarding	[ "They are two different things, but they are related. When you use NAT, all devices behind the NAT device will appear as a single IP address. The outside world sees it as one thing.\n\nSo, for someone outside trying to communicate with something behind the NAT device, it has no way of communicating specifically wit...
How does my brain start paying attention to someone moments before they say something unusual?	[ "you have sorta short term memory for words, have you ever ran into situation where somebody asks HAVE YOU BEEN LISTENING! and you werent, yet can say what they said.", "Your brain doesn't actually know a second or two before; you are hearing it the whole time, but your conscious \"awareness\" is only just catchi...
Why does a hot shower make my skin dry?	[ "Moisture evaporates very readily from the skin, but a certain amount of moisture is retained by skin oils (technically called sebum) and a hot shower can wash away these oils. Skin moisturizer can replace them. I personally use Vaseline skin lotion, but only for the palms of my hands, the rest of my skin does OK...
Why is "bury" pronounced as if theres an "a" in in it? Like "berry".	[ "Regional dialects.\n\nIn my region the U is pronounced and we say \"Burr-ee\" I've also heard \"Be-urr-ee\"", "There was a lot of variation in how it was pronounced in Middle English based on regional accent, and at the time, English spelling wasn't fixed, so you sometimes saw it spelled with an i, e, and y ins...
Why is the sound of someone snoring so annoying when we're trying to sleep?	[ "I imagine it's at least partly because the sound is irregular. Traffic, air conditioners, and rain are very rhythmic. Predictable sensory input is input that our brain ignores, which is why you only smell things for a short period of time. Snoring is jerky and hard to predict so you never adjust.\n\nI could also b...
G20 Hamburg summit, what it is, and why are people protesting it?	[ "The G20 is an organization of the 20 most powerful world leaders. They get together to talk about the issues that face the globe, touching on things from trade, to military action, to global climate change. \n\nProtestors are protesting for various reasons. \n\n- Some are angry that the US backed out of the Par...
Why is it that some parents children look extremley alike, and other parents children don't even look related?	[ "recessive genes my friend. My dad is 5'9\", white, green eyes and brown hair, my mom is 5'5\", black, hazel eyes and \"burgundy\" hair. I am 6'1\" white blonde hair blue eyes. My D-grandma had a bunch of brothers over 6 foot and my M-grandma has blonde hair and blue eyes. Family portraits look hilarious, white guy...
why does the site of a shot, such as flu or TDAP, hurt for hours after? It's not even a large needle.	[ "The needle isn't the issue, the liquid injected into your muscle capsule is. It can be a matter of some pressure or discomfort, bruising and the like, or it can be a localized reaction to the substances being injected, sometimes an immune response. \n\nIf someone stuck you with a needle and injected nothing, it wo...

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