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Why doesn't Unit 731 ever get recognized when discussing the horrors of World War II?
[ "Unfortunately events like this aren't talked about as much as they should be because very few people in the West knew about them at the time, because we never really put any forces into China.\n\nPlus the world was focused on the Nazi Horror because of the Nuremberg Trials being televised, and the Final Solution d...
Why do bubbles form in a cup of water when left untouched?
[ "Water at lower temperature is able to hold more dissolved gases compared to water at higher temperature. When you let a cup of tap water sit out, it warms up, and the dissolved gases come out of solution and form bubbles." ]
I have had a stuttering problem for as long as I can remember. When I talk with people it is extremely apparent, but when I talk out loud with myself, I have no problem at all. Why does this happen?
[ "You have anxiety about talking to other people.", "You either have anxiety issues, or your brain is trying to get words out faster then your mouth can follow", "Stuttering isn't a vocal problem, like when a sore throat makes your voice raspy. It's a brain problem, and surprisingly common. In most sufferers i...
Why do people cut themselves?
[ "A couple of reasons:\n\n1. Inflicting pain *can* trigger a release of endorphins, which are basically \"feel-good\" chemicals in your brain. So, given that many cutters are experiencing psychological issues, this can be one way of getting endorphins that are otherwise not being produced or absorbed properly.\n\n2....
How did they crack codes in WWII?
[ "Here is a video on the enigma machine 158,962,555,217,826,360,000 - Numberphile: _URL_1_\n\nAnd here is a video on how it was cracked \n\nFlaw in the Enigma Code - Numberphile: _URL_0_\n\nThe flaw in the machine was that it could not equal itself. The British built a machine that could exploit this flaw and work ...
Why does my chest and arms severely hurt every time i sneeze?
[ "\"The common causes of the occurrence of arm pain after sneezing are related to the spine. This is because sneezing creates a temporary pressure on the spine. In certain cases, this pressure can weaken or damage the vertebrae to some extent, thereby irritating the surrounding nerves that are connected with the res...
What is a hash-table?
[ "A hash table is a data structure that stores data. It's a good compromise between speed-of-access and memory usage.\n\nLet's pretend that you're 5 years old and you have a bunch of friends. You want to make sure that you say \"happy birthday\" to each of your friends on their birthday.\n\nWhat you have is a bunc...
what role does a director actually play in creating a movie and what are the signs of a poorly directed movie?
[ "The Director of a film (or a play, or a television show episode) is the person responsible for the creative vision of the piece. They create a concept from the script (which may or may not be something concretely found in the script, it may be metaphorical or tangential) and from the concept lead the design and pr...
What does the phrase ''Check your Privilege'' mean?
[ "It's been a bit of a sarcastic remark a lot because there are some people accused of overusing it and using it as a substitute for an actual rebuttal, but:\n\nThe idea is simply that if you're a Christian in the USA you never need to worry about getting an odd glare or outright hate from others when you wear a cro...
How do batteries mess up from excessive charging?
[ "It depends on the chemistry. But it's probably Li-Ion that's relevant for you. That's what's being used in phones, tablets and laptops.\n\nLi-Ion doesn't like extremes. They don't like to be charged or discharged too much. The more charged or discharged they are, and the longer they are that, the more worn or dama...
How can speed trap cameras prove you were speeding?
[ "Look for markings across the road. The time it takes you to get from the first mark to the second mark reveals your speed." ]
How are companies able to determine that electronic proofs of purchase are legitimate when receiving warranty repair requests?
[ "Unless the vendor allows cross reference (which they usually don't), not much. \n\nThat said, faking an electronic proof of purchase to get a benefit of economic value has a name: fraud." ]
If RAM (in typical computers) is memory used for temporary storage and is the fastest form of processor-storage transfer, what is Video RAM for?
[ "Same thing but for the graphics processor instead of the normal one. There are two primary processors in a computer, the GPU and the CPU. One is for graphics and one is for data, speaking simply.", "Your assumption is incorrect. RAM is a very middle-of-the-road type of memory in terms of speed - it's only fast c...
What will happen when my student loan rates double?
[ "A student loan works the same any other regular loan, except in many places in NA, some governments are opting to make student loans excempt from bankruptcy. \n\nYou take a loan, which is a large sum of money to pay your education. When your education is done, you have to pay back all the money you borrowed, plus ...
If electricity is made from mostly fossil fuels, how is it considered a clean energy source? (e.g. Electric cars)
[ "Three main reasons. First, you can get electricity from things like nuclear power, wind, hydroelectric, and solar power. It might come from fossil fuel or it might not.\n\nSecond, converting fuel into energy with low emissions is performed better with more specialized equipment. A coal power plant can scrub exhaus...
how does recycling work
[ "There are many different ways that companies use recycling in daily operations. \n\nPaper\n\nPaper is very often recycled by means of mashing it into a pulp like consistency and reforming more paper. This can be used in anything from grocery bags to pages in a book. \n\n & nbsp;\n\nGlass\n\nSimilarly to paper glas...
Corecursion on functional languages.
[ "The concepts of data and codata comes from F-algebras and F-coalgebras in category theory. Phil Wadler has an excellent tutorial on them aimed at computer scientists: [Recursive Types for Free!](_URL_0_)\n\nLet's work with two data types: Nat and CoNat.\n\nNat are the natural numbers. They are: \n\n O\n S O\...
Schrodinger's cat continued
[ "[is it that time of the week again?](_URL_0_ \"yep, it certainly is\")", "The thought experiment is meant to illustrate the absurdity of quantum physics on a macro (everyday) scale. \n\nWhat it is is that the life or death of a cat depends on 2 states of a particle. For simplicity's sake, lets call it \"heads\" ...
How do companies know your credit card is valid without charging them? (For free-trials and what-not)
[ "It's possible to \"pre-authorize\" a charge, which is done when you place an order that won't be shipped immediately. So they can effectively ask the card issuer \"if I were to ask for $1 from this card, would you say yes?\" without then charging the card." ]
Why are the people commenting on youtube are such troll and rude in general in comparison to other sites?
[ "Part of it is that Youtube is such a massive site used by people of all ages and maturity levels, and part of it is the way Youtube sorts comments - the ones that get the most responses are ballooned to the top. So while on reddit, for example, troll comments are downvoted until they're at the bottom of the list a...
Explain Second Life LI5
[ "It's a game with no goal. You go on and your character can make things, sell things, buy things, explore, interact with other people's characters, basically whatever you feel like doing if you can figure out how to do it." ]
why is red wine recommended with beef? What does it add that say water or soft drinks don't?
[ "It's a flavor pairing. Take a great steak, pepper it, and the flavors of that steak will be complimented by an earthy, peppery, hot Zin. As you're chewing the steak, take a sip of wine, and the flavors in the wine will work with the flavors in the steak, and both things will taste better. \n\nEver paired any other...
Does wearing glasses make your eyes 'lazy' or 'dependent on glasses', and worsen eyesight over time?
[ "Nope, that would be completely impossible. What happens is that as people age, eyesight diminishes. for most of us, this is not an amount that will cause problems ever. But for people with vision problems it gets much worse, and so they need to get better glasses as they age.", "Wearing glasses doesn't worsen vi...
What are those white spots on your fingernails and what causes them?
[ "I've had those all my life. I've heard everything from too much calcium (I drink a LOT of milk) to not enough vitamin E. Googling it reveals that it's the result to trauma to the fingernail. Maybe we have fragile fingernails.\n\nFor the first time in a long time, I don't have any of those spots. I kinda miss t...
What is Broadband Accessibility Act of 2017?
[ "> What is Broadband Accessibility Act of 2017?\n\nBasically? It's a $45 million bribe being paid to AT & T and Comcast to get them to stop blocking EPB expansion in Tennessee. EPB is an electric power cooperative in Tennessee that started offering gigabit internet service to customers in Chattanooga, but has subs...
How does a battery know when to stop charging?
[ "Batteries themselves are \"dumb\" things, they would not know when to stop charging. \n\nIt's the job of the charger to constantly check how well the battery is charged and stop sending electricity to the battery once it's full. \n\nBasically, let's take as an example a simple AA battery, which has written on it 1...
Dark Energy?
[ "This is difficult to put in pure ELI5 terms, but I can try and make it as simple as possible.\n\nDark energy is the name for a force that is driving the acceleration of the universe. The universe, you see, is growing in a way. Space itself if expanding, which is a strange notion to get your head around. What is im...
what is today XKCD (_URL_0_) comic supposed to be?
[ "There is a neat little site useful for the more obscure posts:\n\n_URL_0_", "It's a garden. You can add and remove lights, reposition them, change their orientation and the breadth of the beam and also its color. After some time, stuff will grow." ]
Why is the U.S. presidential primary election schedule staggered over 5-6 months?
[ "If all states voted on the same day, that would ensure that the candidates would be campaigning in only the largest states.\n\nBy spreading it out, more people have an opportunity to see and hear the candidates and (more to the point of the schedule), there's more opportunity for fundraising for the candidates.", ...
Where does all the water come from to create huge waterfalls toward the top of a mountain?
[ "From the same place all fresh water comes from, the water cycle. Water from the ocean evaporates into the atmosphere, forms clouds, and travels in weather patterns. Mountains, being the tall obstacles they are, catch a lot of that moisture and it is deposited as snow. When the weather warms up, the snow melts and ...
Why do Japanese, Chinese, and Korean music have english lines in them?
[ "For the same reason Avril Lavigne recorded a song [partly in Japanese](_URL_1_), and Madonna recorded songs with hebrew or spanish in them. Or Goldfinger recording the german version of 99 Red Balloons instead of the English one [for a verse](_URL_2_), even though he doesn't speak German at all. Or how Falco would...
why diet soda is bad for you
[ "Some people think, that artificial sweeteners are bad for you. However no one has yet presented a scientific study that would show that these additives are toxic or in any way harmful. \n\nAs personal opinion: I think that normal soda will damage your health quicker, due to very high sugar content (IIRC it's 8 te...
How is sweetness measured?
[ "Sweetness is measured relative to sucrose. So a solution of Sucrose is 1.0, another solution with the same concentration of fructose is about 1.7. \n\nThe scoville heat scale is also based on a taste test. _URL_0_" ]
At Will Employment
[ "Your professors must have misspoken or were misunderstood. \n\nThe prof was right that you can fire someone for having blue eyes, because blue eyes are not a protected class. His second example makes no sense. You can fire a black guy for being a con artist, because being a con artist is not a protected class. You...
How they control the Curiosity rover?
[ "Correct. They come up with a bundle of commands which the Rover will execute in the Martian day. The team figures out the commands in the Martian night. (iirc). The Rover executes the commands and reports back as it does, with another team keeping an eye on things. If the Rover looks like it might run into trouble...
Can animals have other sexualities outside of heterosexuality?
[ "Homosexuality has been observed in some species of penguins. In the context of these penguins, it's theorized that gay couples increase the number of parent caretaker penguins, but do not increase the number of child penguins that require care - gay parents can adopt orphaned children penguins.", "Oh very much s...
How does my rear view mirror work when I use the tilt lever to manage the effect of the bright lights of the cars behind me?
[ "This alters the angle of the mirror so it does not reflect back into your eyes. What remains is the image reflected off the glass - the same effect that you might get from a store window reflection" ]
Why is there neurological damage if our brain stops receiving oxygen?
[ "Neurons need a lot of energy to maintain their function. This energy comes partly from oxidation of glucose, a process that requires oxygen. So no oxygen = > no energy production = > certain processes stop and induce cell-death" ]
Lets say we find life on other planets. How would this effect us on planet Earth?
[ "Other answers in this thread are saying things like \"not much,\" but I disagree with this opinion. Alot would be affected. \n\nFirst and foremost, religion would be in a huge cluster fuck. Some religions would re-interpret their religious documents to explain the aliens, while other religions would outright deny ...
How are damages caused by disasters calculated and reported? How accurate should I expect them to be?
[ "I have done damage calculations for FEMA for flooding in two scenarios:\n\nWhile a flooding event is going on, we take live data from water gauges, run them through models, estimate the size of flood waters, then calculate the number of structures (data quality varies) that intersect with the estimated flood exten...
Why do certain cases like Caylee Anthony, Trayvon Martin, and Amanda Todd get national attention when these things happen all the time?
[ "The key is having a factor that elevates the prominence. \n\nCaylee Anthony - All the damming evidence that showed how she didn't appear to care about the fact her daughter was missing. This convinced the public she was guilty and captivated viewers to watch as she faced what they thought was impending justice.\n\...
Why hasn't 'natural selection' weeded out all the animals that think it's safe to cross the road?
[ "We've had road crossings for about 110 years now, and only a lot of them with a meaningful amount of traffic for maybe 50. Even today the majority of a given species lives mostly away from roads.\n\n100 years isn't nearly enough for evolution never-mind 50, and even if it were there's plenty of the species not fac...
The difference between Lucifer, The Devil, Satan, Mephistopheles, and Beelzebub
[ "Satan = the Devil. The Adversary -- the one who opposes God.\n\nMephistopheles is a familiar spirit sent by the Devil to serve the magician Faust to corrupt him, according to folklore that was used as the basis of a play by Marlowe and a play by Goethe.\n\nBeelzebub is a corruption of the name of an ancient god of...
What is making the pop sound when a balloon pops?
[ "Right on the second attempt.\n\nThe sudden release of pressure causes a pressure wave to spread out from the event, which we hear as a bang." ]
How is a Grand Jury able to indict someone other than the defendant to whom they're assigned? (Planned Parenthood lawsuit)
[ "In many states, a grand jury has considerable powers. They aren't just a tool for the prosecutor to get an indictment, they are tools of the state for the purposes of justice. Sometimes, justice means indicting someone other than who the prosecutor wants you to indict.", "The grand jury isn't \"assigned\" a defe...
Wouldn't the carbon footprint of shipping used goods to be recycled largely offset the benefits of recycling?
[ "It would probably depend on what the goal is. The benefit from recycling paper is you need to cut down fewer trees. The goal of recycling aluminum cans is to save on mining more aluminum. The other goal of both is also the main goal of recycling k-cups: keeping them out of landfills. \n\nCarbon footprints are a se...
Why does sleeping medication sometimes knock me out cold and other times have no noticeable effect?
[ "At times not ELI5 but here it goes:\n\nMultiple factors... and you must keep in mind that these can vary a lot between person to person.\n\n\"Pharmacokinetics\" - what the body does to the drug.\n\n- Degree of absorption of the drug from your gut into your blood stream can vary due to a multitide of factors (food,...
Why do the numbers on a microwave seem to bounce around whenever I'm chewing?
[ "This has to do with how the display works. Typically the lights in the display flash 50 or 60 times a second. Different parts of the display update at different times. So when your head is still it looks like a solid image, but when vibrations go through your head when you are chewing something crunchy or making a...
What is the Dow Jones and NASDAQ and how are they effected day to day?
[ "The NASDAQ is a stock exchange. That is publicly listed companies trade their stock on the NASDAQ. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA or Dow or Dow 30) is a stock index, that is, a way of measuring how well a basket of certain stocks are performing. In the case of the DJIA this basket consists of 30 large pu...
The technical feats/methods used in "Handle" robot from Boston Dynamics
[ "There is a computer in the \"torso\". It has precise motion sensors that measure acceleration. Software in the computer has a model of physics that predicts the outcome of continuing the current state. Based on input controls, the user says they want to continue the current behavior, or do something new like \"...
How does birth control remain effective during the 7-day placebo period?
[ "The pill has already done its job, you don't need to take those. The reason those placebo pills are there is so you don't mess up your pill schedule. If they just tell you \"Only take 21 pills, then rest 7 days\", they increase the chance that you forget when you are supposed to go back to taking the pill. Has it ...
What compelled the Japanese to to declare war on the US and attack Pearl Harbor?
[ "There are a few ways to look at the start of the war, but I'll give you the Economic answer: In the early and mid 30's the Japanese engaged in several aggressive actions in what is today eastern China. This annoyed the US to a fair degree, and as a result the US started instituting trade bans for specific raw mate...
the story of the soviet union
[ "This is one of my favorite topics, because it allows me to expand on a couple points.\n\nThe first is exactly how bad things were in Tsarist Russia. Russia was one of the last honest to god Feudal societies on Earth. They had actually progressed past this earlier, but then reverted. The Serfs were considered liter...
Are more police shootings happening or are we just hearing about them more?
[ "I'd say it's combination of the two. Most cops (in America) are severely under trained, under immense pressure from quotas that their department issues and are undeniably racist. Couple all that with social media and boom.", "Politifact says generally, yes, they're higher, but we don't have super perfect statist...
How does a CPU understand and execute machine code when it has never done something similar before?
[ "It doesn't _understand_ it per se, any more than a ball 'understands' it should roll down hill. It is just a (complicated) set up to generate certain outputs given certain inputs. Here's a really good mechanical illustration of how a CPU adds numbers:\n\n_URL_1_\n\nTo take it to the next level, someone build a CPU...
Why do people think it is so bad when machines or robots take over human jobs?
[ "Because it's hard for the person who has lost their job to think of the bigger picture and the overall effect on the economy when they had such a big thing happen to them. It doesn't matter if their jeans are $24.99 instead of $29.99 when they can't afford to buy jeans at all.\n\nIt's also much easier for people i...
Why are 2 batteries generally inserted the opposite way to each other?
[ "Battery configuration is meant to create a closed circuit. Them being reverse each other is simply for ease of manufacturing. \n\nIt's easier to connect the negative to the positive right next to each other, and vice versa, than to take the negatives, and then span the length of the battery to create the circuit. ...
Why are shots injected in the upper arm?
[ "Such shots are intramuscular, meaning they go inside a muscle. Muscles have lots of blood vessels, so the medicine is picked up fairly quickly and spread to the rest of the body. The upper arm has a nice big muscle which is easy to get at. Another big muscle is the butt, which is where most of the shots in my c...
Why do your fingers become swollen after going from a cold area to a warm area?
[ "When you're cold, your blood vessels become thinner, particularly in your extremities (hands and feet). This is to stop you losing so much heat to the environment through them. \n\nIf you get warm again, your blood vessels dilate to supply oxygen back to your tissues (and help you stay cool). Sometimes you'll get ...
Why do unreleased cars get tested with the black wrap all over them?
[ "The manufacturer doesn't want their competitors or their customers to know exactly what they are developing until the product is actually released. It takes years to develop a product like a new car. If Chrysler were to know how the 2021 Corvette was designed they might borrow from that to make their own sports ca...
Why isn't there a lens that shifts the spectrum from infrared to visible?
[ "A lens uses refraction to bend light, typically to focus it. That mechanism doesn't change the wavelength.\n\nNow there is such a thing as nonlinear optics. Your typical green laser pointer uses this to double the frequency from infrared to green. But it isn't very efficient and needs high power. You can't simply ...
How is a person not disturbed by their snoring?
[ "I imagine it becomes something they are used to and/or background noise. It's the same for people who leave the TV on while they sleep. The TV may be loud but they've gotten used to the noise so it doesn't bother/wake them.", "And even weirder. I am sometimes woken by my snoring but only in public settings like ...
How is it possible for a CNN Tech Analyst to think changing s's to dollar sign will help you if your password is 'password'?
[ "Well, it is an improvement. By how much is hard to say. Pa$$word isn't in any dictionary and probably not in the top 10 words of every brute force attack. So at least it will take the attacker a few milliseconds more to break in. But my guess is that Pa$$word with this little variation is still in many lists and w...
Why do batteries lose their recharging ability over time?
[ "Batteries are compact galvanic cells. They work by compartmentalizing a chemical reaction, in which one of the compounds is oxidized (loses electrons) and the other is reduced (gains electrons, I know it's counter-intuitive). Galvanic cells separate these two reactions so that the electrons that the oxidized compo...
When a user is given a public key, how is it that data encrypted by it cannot undergo the opposite operation to decrypt.
[ "[Simple paint explanation](_URL_0_) followed by the numbers explanation. This is the example I was able to actually grasp what was going on, rather than just explain without understanding.", "Think about a square root. Squaring most numbers is fairly easy and can be done on pencil and paper by most adults. Now a...
How did the number of soldiers under Nazi Germany not deplete in just a couple of years after having invaded so many countries so rapidly?
[ "At first it was Germany who was the one inflicting massive casualties on their enemies. It wasn't until later in the war that Germany started to lose massive amounts of their soldiers. For instance, the loss of the 6th Army at Stalingrad and the loss of the Afrika Korps didn't occur until 1943. \n\nEdit - check...
Why does my mouse hand get cold when I'm on the computer for too long?
[ "I too get this. Well you're not alone at least. I hope someone can answer soon.", "If you rest your arm on the desk surface, as virtually everyone does, the pressure of the desk surface on your forearm may be restricting blood flow. Not only will that cause your hand to get cold, it may also reduce sensitivity ...
How does c-4 detonation work?
[ "C-4 is an engineered explosive, specifically made to be insensitive to shock. You want soldiers to carry it around in case they need it, and if a stray bullet could cause someone's backpack to explode - there would be less volunteers to carry it around.\n\nThe key is to create a highly concentrated shockwave. A ...
Can someone explain to me how a computer processor works....like i'm five? [ELI5]
[ "Logic gates are the main tool used for dealing with binary, there's a handful of them:\n\n* Not gates, which take in a 0 or 1 and output the opposite\n* And gates, which take in 2 numbers, and output 1 if the inputs are both 1, other wise it outputs 0\n* Or gates, which take in 2 number and output 1 if either of t...
How does a musical artist like Adam Levine totally dominate a tribute performance with one day of preparation?
[ "Others pointed out that this wasn't done with a single day of prep. \n\nThat said part of being a professional musician is the ability to very quickly learn a song and perform it. If you work the grind, you'll do gigs with different bands and set lists that change week to week or night to night. Professional music...
What is the point of those wooden honey-dipper things?
[ "A former boss at a fancy restaurant I worked at once told me that the point is to be able to drizzle honey on things consistently and evenly, where as other tools like spoons would leave big drops here, little drops there. Makes the presentation better, I guess.", "There's nothing wrong with using a spoon, but t...
Can someone explain how the Command Module from Saturn 5 managed to "blast off" from the moon?
[ "You kind of got it right but the Command Module never went to the moon, that was the job of the [Lunar Module](_URL_0_). So the Command Module waited in orbit while the Lunar Module went down.\n\nAnd the Lunar Module had it's own fuel and rockets (according to wikipedia 18000 lbs/8200 kg for landing on the moon an...
What are apples made out of?
[ "> Apples contain dietary fibre in their skins and core. About 10% of an apple is made up of carbohydrate and 4% of an apple is made up from a variety of vitamins and minerals. The rest of the apple, more than 80%, is water.\n\n[source](_URL_0_)" ]
Why does putting receipt paper over a debit card make it work when it wouldn't scan otherwise?
[ "Oh boy, I can try to explain it to an adult but even that is somewhat difficult, a five year old is a lot harder. Magnetic strips contain information that is stored in small magnetized particles which the card reader detects. These particles are put into specific sections of the strip where the card reader look...
The Beaver
[ "It was thought that STD's were transmitted through pubic hair contact.\n\nSo prostitutes would shave it all off.\n\nThis was thought to look unnatural, so they often wore a small wig down there called a Merkin. \n\nIt was often made of Beaver hair as it was thought to feel natural.", "word history is a weird th...
why do doctors ask you not to eat 12 hours before surgery/blood test?
[ "The reason to not eat before surgery is to reduce the chances of you vomiting during the surgery (the trauma of surgery/reaction to the anesthesia can cause vomiting) and thus reduce the chances of you drowning in your own vomit, or just making it harder to do the surgery because they are preventing you drowning i...
Why does your handwriting significantly increase in neatness and legibility after you copy from your old, messy notes?
[ "Because who the hell wants to copy notes for the 3rd time?" ]
I woke up 5 minutes before my alarm and decided to close my eyes. Fell back asleep for what seemed like an hour but only a minute had passed. Why did it feel like so long?
[ "Forgive me for this is on mobile. \n\nThe short answer is we don't know. The long answer is we have some interesting evidence that points towards a reason for the phenomenon but not a cause. I'm going to explain a study done at the University of Lethbridge that might shed some light on the subject. \n\nOne of the ...
How do chip-embedded credit cards offer more security when in fact they seem more inconvenient?
[ "The data on a magnetic strip is just stored there passively. If you copy the magnetic data, there's no way for the data to \"know\" that it has been copied and put on another plastic card.\n\nOn a card with a chip, the chip contains electronic circuitry that performs cryptographic calculations when it is read, whi...
How toys like Hot Wheels and Micro Machines are painted
[ "Taking a shot in the dark here, but many things are painted in a process called \"Electrostatic Painting\" where the object, in this case a Hot Wheel car that is metal is given a small charge, much like how a magnet is created, and then paint in a powder form is sprayed all around it and is attracted electromagnet...
What prevents me from setting myself up as a small ISP for my own benefit?
[ "Well, you could either purchase some of Sky's bandwidth from them, which is the easiest way, or you could install a connection to the nearest hub yourself. For a few million dollars, minimum. I don't know what country you are in, but generally the major Telecom companies own the internet backbone that you are tr...
Why is the Nvidia Quadro FX series so expensive if they perform so poorly?
[ "The Quadro series is not optimized or even built for gaming - its optimized for rendering, graphics design, etc. Quadro drivers aren't built for gaming, so there are none of the gaming-specific optimizations for it.\n\n > Workstation graphics cards are clocked slower for better stability & power consumption and ...
How can some people intuitively tell when a website/news article is bogus while others cannot?
[ "Two things: \n\n1) **Confirmation bias.** Confirmation bias is the tendency to believe things that reinforce your existing beliefs. This makes it harder for people to recognize something as fake if it is in line with their beliefs. So if you already think Hillary Clinton is evil and malicious, a fake news article ...
How does the hawk-eye technology work ?
[ "Hawk-eye is just one of several systems that organizations are using to do things like assist refereeing. It's likely several (more than 2 I imagine) cameras synchronized on a computer that runs a relatively simple computer vision algorithm to identify the ball from live feeds. If the cameras are synchronized prop...
Why do they hire "analyzers" / "hosts" that never played the sport that they are "analyzing" / hosting?
[ "Astronauts know how to fly the ship, and know a little bit of the math to get them to the moon. \n\nThe physicists know the math of orbital mechanics like you know the alphabet, but only know how to fly the ship a little bit. \n\nAthletes (astronauts) are amazing at their sport, but aren't probably the best at b...
How does an "En Passante" work in chess?
[ "Basically, pawns have one special move (to help speed the game along): they can move two spaces instead of one the first time they move off of their original position. This was a change made very early in the history of European chess.\n\n*However*, you aren't allowed to use this special move to avoid being captur...
what is known about the recent youtube algorithm changes?
[ "Google has claimed they have not changed anything but have setup a Google form for people to provide feedback if they had experienced any problems such as being unsubscribed from a channel ect.\n\n*I am new to Reddit, i hope this is the correct response/format. Remove if necessary, thanks!", "There is discussion...
Why is it acceptable for beef to be pink in the center, but not poultry or pork?
[ "If handled properly during processing, beef and fish carry minimal risk of containing pathogens. Damn near all of the US poultry population is infected with salmonella (especially by the time it makes it through a processing plant). Meanwhile pork can have all kinds of nasties, considering the way pigs live and ...
What causes you to feel like you're being watched? And how does your body know when someone is watching you?
[ "Probably important to clarify that your body doesn't ALWAYS know when someone's watching you, it just feels that way sometimes, and sometimes that feeling is right.\n\nPart of your detection process is something in your peripheral vision, or perhaps a subconscious change in the sounds that you're hearing. Out of t...
Why do men get bald as they age? And what does it have to do with growing beard early?
[ "The hairs on the top of the head are structurally different from the ones on the side. When you start to get older, your hair follicles become more sensitive to DHT, a type of testosterone.\n\n\n\nThe increased sensitivity to DHT affects the hair follicles with the certain protein makeup on the top of the head, e...
How do cats purr and why do they pad at soft surfaces before lying down?
[ "Lots of animals paw at the ground - often times it's to check for rocks or other things that would make the animal uncomfortable. With movable blankets, pillows and so on, the action translates well to fluffing the surface for comfort.\n\nAs for purring... last I checked there was no answer - they still aren't en...
Why are cold symptoms heightened when you first wake up?
[ "The stuffy nose you get when you wake up without a cold is caused by the increased level of histamine your body produces to wake you up in the morning. With a cold, this is usually worse because there is already histamine from your cold. Think of it this way, antihistamines like Benadryl make you sleepy because th...
Why are human babies so incapable and defenseless?
[ "The birth canal can really only be so wide (jokes notwithstanding). The baby is born while the head can still pass through the birth canal. This leaves us birthing at a less developed stage than most mammals, which means our babies are more helpless. I'd a trade of that allows for a big head relative to the res...
How and when did USA get involved in the middle east? Who started it all?
[ "The Middle East, has always been an area of interest for the West ever since we discovered that oil is a very profitable source of energy - over 120 years ago.\n\nIn fact, the reason we call it the middle east is because it used to be literally towards the middle and the east of the map of the British Empire.\n\nS...
How do the HSBC key authenticators work?
[ "Key authenticators usually work in a similar way. There is a clock and a secret, unique algorithm in the key generator, with the algorithm known to the verifying party. The algorithm will take the input time, round it to the nearest 30 seconds or so, and run it through the algorithm. The algorithm generates from t...
If Evolution is random, why don't creatures have more random, useless (but non-detrimental) features?
[ "**On the randomness of evolution**\n\nWhile the mutations are random, natural selection isn't.\n\nSuppose you have lots of randomly sized pebbles. If you drop them through a filter containing lots of holes exactly 1cm in size then you'll end up with a set of pebbles that are 1cm in size or smaller (those that went...
Please ELI5: Why do peoples' nipples get hard when they're cold?
[ "It's a mix of two things: 1) contraction of the muscle layers under the skin, similar the goose bumps, and 2) an extremity is cold, so you body increases blood flow it keep it warm. For obvious reasons, nipples have historically (evolutionarily) been on the \"important to keep warm\" list, for reasons that shoul...
What is SQL
[ "It's a language for querying databases. It stands for Structured Query Language. There are a number of variants, depending on which database product you'd like to talk to." ]
Root causes of "Kashmir conflict" and who is the owner of the region, Pakistan or India?
[ "So when the British were leaving India and had plans to divide it on religious lines, Kashmir had a Muslim majority and bordered Pakistan, so Pakistan felt it should be theirs. After all, Pakistan was intended to be the Muslim majority areas of India. The ruler of Kashmir decided to join India to have their guaran...
What's the thing with rappers and the "illuminati"?
[ "There is nothing with rappers and the Illuminati.\n\nIt is just stupid idiots trying to make themselves sound more important or more menacing than they really are. Like when some of the call themselves mafia or mafioso. They just want to portray themselves as tough when in actuality they are just dirtbags." ]