Split (3)

train · 273k rows

title stringlengths 0 299	text list
Why so much hate towards Russians?	[ "Due to the rivalry between the US and Russia (which then extends to the west and Russia), Politicians from the west have focused on the negatives of Russia to drag its name down. The media repeats and excgarates these views because it sells well to the brainwashes public.\n\nRussia isn't as horrible a place as it'...
Why doesn't the US school system slowly implement Metric teachings into school so that eventually it can be the main system?	[ "I thought all schools taught metric at some point?\n\nI remember learning it. I use it professionally so maybe I'm misremembering but I'm pretty sure exactly this happens.\n\nMetric is slowly gaining ground. I can't see a day when speed limits get posted in km/h but already many items are set in metric.\n\nAlso a ...
How is dead vs alive identified in organisms?	[ "Viruses are not considered living organisms because the lack the ability to reproduce on their own. They must use the machinery of the host's cell to reproduce. Also they aren't composed of cells that can divide and proliferate. Viruses do not have a metabolism, they do not grow, they produce no waste products,...
How did it come to be that the United States is mainly controlled by only 2 political parties?	[ "[CGP Grey has made a really good video on the subject](_URL_0_)", "It really dates back to the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists. I wouldn't call these political parties in modern terms, but they set the foundation for what we see today. As time went on, and the democratic movement gained weight under Andrew ...
How lottery cards are made?	[ "The non playing areas are all the same and made by standard off-set printing methods. A special printer based on the same technology as ink jet printers selects numbers at random from a computer bank and prints them on the playing area, along with the unique bar code. Then off-set printing is used to cover the n...
If all the land on Earth started as one mass (Pangea) and is slowly moving further away, won't there be a point where it all comes back together again?	[ "It could.\n\nRodinia was a supercontinent that broke up and then came back together eventually as Pangaea.\n\nIt is hard to predict continental movement with precision though. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nPangaea Ultima is a possible future supercontinent.", "Yes, but your post seems to indicate that it started as Pangea. It ...
How can insects fall from proportionally insane heights and suffer no damage?	[ "Put simply, if you make something twice as big, it weighs EIGHT TIMES as much. If you go in the other direction (making something half as big), then it weighs 1/8 what it did before. So you can see that something that's REALLY small will weigh almost nothing. \n\nAlso, for really small things like insects, air act...
whats wrong with raising chickens with the use of antibiotics?	[ "When people are stating 'animals raised with antibiotics' it's not saying that antibiotics are given when the animal is sick, which is how medicine is usually doled out, it means the animal is given antibiotics regularly regardless of their health.\n\nWhich sorta works as a preventative measure, but the problem is...
Will I hit a baseball farther if the pitcher initially throws the ball faster?	[ "Yes, you understand correctly. It's easier to hit a home run if the pitcher throws a fastball.\n\n_URL_0_", "Yes, for example when you throw a ball against a wall, the speed at which it bounces back is based on the initial speed, and your baseball bat is basically the wall.", "Yes, baseball bats (aluminum or w...
How does a pill prescribed to you know exactly what to do in your body?	[ "Pills don't know anything. Your take medicine and your body will absorb it. It may be absorbed into the blood and travel all around your body. If you take a pain reliever, it is not targeting your headache but is dispersed through the whole body. The only noticeable change is that the pain goes away in the place t...
How do people edit gifs/video or things in motion?	[ "Yes you have to edit every single frame. Its usually done with adobe after effect or Sony Vegas. There are plenty tutorials around the web if you are interested in that yourself.", "Animated Gifs are old technology, so they are much simpler than the more complex html5 video. Html and flash video (or any video) u...
Why does thoroughly washing frequently not prevent acne?	[ "Acne can also be caused by diet, and sometimes washing too frequently can irritate your skin and make breakouts worse.", "You can't really wash under the surface of the skin now can you?", "Spots & Acne can be caused or exacerbated by a pretty wide array of things. Hormonal imbalance, bacteria, tiredness, st...
if flying a fighter jet in another country's airspace is considered hostile, then how do landlocked countries send their fighters outside of their borders?	[ "They ask other countries' permission to fly over their territory. It's only considered hostile to fly fighter jets in another country's airspace without permission.", "Generally they don't. [Almost every landlocked country is very poor](_URL_0_), and those that aren't have professed neutrality in world affai...
The NSA's PRISM Program	[ "One of the great challenges of the 21st century is figuring out how our old laws and constitutional rights apply to digital age technology. New technologies are not exactly analogous to anything that was around when the constitution was written, so it's unclear what's meant to be protected and prohibited. If I'm i...
How do television/film sets avoid revealing the forth wall via reflective props?	[ "By limiting the number of reflective props, and picking the right angles to film from.\n\nIt's really as simple as that. Think of it like how you are able to drive your car without hitting buildings -- you're trained in it, and you do it every day.", "What kind of props? When filming the actor in a mirror, you j...
How does recording sound/changing volume work?	[ "Sound waves are tiny compressions/decompressions of air happening really really fast. If you put your head in front of a fan, or a huge speaker, you can actually feel these in your face. Microphones are a way to convert these waves into electrical signals and speakers can convert the signals into waves.\n\nMicroph...
Why are some people more likely to have sleep paralysis, while others never have it or have only experienced it once?	[ "Everyone or, at least, most people are capable of having sleep paralysis. Its nothing special as far as chemical imbalance go or something in genes or dealing with immune (it's been noted to be a common occurrence in narcoleptic people). But experiencing that transition from physically awake to mentally awake can ...
Why do many people in western countries have dash cams?	[ "Police are few and far between. If you get in an accident with someone, you might wait for 30-45 minutes before a cop shows up. Many people who get in accidents just drive away and the victim of the accident is left on the side of the road with their thumb up their ass and no proof of what happened or who did it. ...
How are there so many massage parlours in one area?	[ "First of all, those places are legal in Toronto. Their biggest worry is zoning laws. Zoning may have pushed them to your neighbourhood and not others. \n \nYou see a lot of massage parlours in your neighbourhood. That may not be the same everywhere. These parlours may be servicing a larger territory tha...
I live in the US. Why should I vote?	[ "Even if you don't feel like your vote for president matters much, there are way more things on your ballot than president: state government stuff, county government, city government, the local school board, various levies for parks and roads and such. Every vote counts in many of these, and they arguably have a bi...
Do animals have beauty standards? For example, would a randy male goat ever look at a really ugly, old female goat and think "nah"? Or would they just screw literally anything of the same species and opposite gender?	[ "It depends a bit on the species but often animals are picky about whom they mate with. Male animals are usually more brightly colored than females and this is most likely because it attracts a mate's attention which shows there is some level of visual attractiveness involved.", "A lot of the time, it's the othe...
Why is Spotify on my computer basically premium with ads, but mobile is a crippled, shuffle-only mess?	[ "The free Spotify serves two purposes: 1) Being a \"demo\" of what full Spotify is to try to get people to go premium and 2) Still make money with people who don't want to pay, through ads. The paying system is a lot more profitable, that's why there are ads asking you to go premium.\n\nNow when making the free ver...
Why do our faces looks different in different mirrors and different cameras and which image is the real one on people's eyes?	[ "It's not so much that we look different in mirrors vs cameras, more that when we know we're seeing ourselves (in a mirror, or when taking a selfie with a front-facing camera) we subconsciously hold ourselves and our faces differently so we look \"better\".\n\nWhen someone takes a photo of us and we can't see our...
McDonald's employees! Why is the ice cream machine always down?	[ "Sometimes it's out of ice cream and we just say it's down. Sometimes the whole store is out of ice cream and we say it's down. Sometimes the machine is broken and we say it's down. Sometimes it's overheated and we say it's down. Sometimes we don't feel like serving ice cream so we say it's down.", "The ones I've...
How do spiders make the strands of web that go horizontally from tree to tree, that hit you in about the face when your hiking?	[ "They float them. I assume you are not asking about the spinneret glands which produce the spider silk. Biologists have examined these and described there physical shape in detail. The exact biochemical process probably is still a mystery.\n\nBut to get the strands across what are vast spaces to spiders the strand...
How does my electric toothbrush charge without any metallic contacts?	[ "Magnetic induction. The charger creates an oscillating magnetic field (it quickly switches back and forth pointing one way and then the other) and this interacts with metal inside the toothbrush to create an electric current which charges the toothbrush.\n\nIt works because the magnetic field can penetrate the pla...
Why are mid-90s shows like Friends available in high definition, while shows from the same time period (and same network) like Frasier only in standard definition?	[ "It depends on the media used to record the show - traditional film can be rescanned at higher resolution, magnetic media maybe, maybe not. It also depends on how much money the studios think they will make by re-releasing.", "It entirely depends on how the show was originally shot. Friends, the Star Trek shows, ...
How does stress physically change our body especially our digestive system.	[ "Your viewpoint would imply that you believe the mind is somehow entirely separate from the body. This isn't the case, though. The mind is a product of the brain; minds are what our brains \"do\" (well, part of it). \n\nWhen your mind is experiencing stress, it's literally a physical condition in your brain; usuall...
why doesn't California raise water prices?	[ "They've tried, but [the Constitution of California prohibits raising water prices above cost](_URL_0_).", "Water prices by city shows that ca has fairly low water prices, so it really makes no sense: _URL_1_" ]
The Binding of Issac, Time Gate Controversy	[ "The Binding of Isaac got a total remake a year ago. It used to be a very popular flash game and the creator, Edmund McMillen, handed it over to Nicalis to remake it in a new engine. When the remake released, lots of hype was built up over all the \"secrets\" the developers hid in the game, and everyone was excited...
Why does the clock appear to stop for one second when you stare directly at it?	[ "Do you mean when you quickly shift your vision to it? This is related to saccadic masking. \"Saccadic\" comes from rapid eye motion.\n\nWhen you quickly move your eyes, your visual processing is \"blocked\". This also comes with a temporal perception element. When your eye motion stops as you look at the clock, th...
Can the US government target Americans in drone killings, and is there evidence they have done so before?	[ "[Anwar al-Awlaki](_URL_0_) was American born and killed by a Predator drone strike in Yemen. One side is arguing that it is illegal to kill an American citizen without a trial. The other side is arguing that he is an enemy of the state and has forfeited his right to judicial protection by taking up arms against ...
How are interest rates for savings accounts determined? Why mine seems like it's the lowest in history ?	[ "I believe it has to do with the rate which the Fed lends to the banks, and the rate the Fed sets for banks to lend to each other. Since interest rates are so low right now (to encourage borrowing), the banks aren't making as much profit on loan interest rates to give attractive interest rates of savings accounts. ...
What is soap?	[ "Soap is a chemical that has two ends. One of those ends is attracted to the dirt on your hands or in your clothes. The other end is attracted to water. So, when you put soap on your hands, one end burrows into the dirt while the other ends washes it away with the water from the faucet.", "Soap is any block of so...
How come you get tired of eating the same dinner more than two days in a row but you can eat the same breakfast for years on end?	[ "Back when the U.S. military was developing MREs, they were trying to figure out how to get troops to eat the same handful of meals over several weeks. They realized everyone loved heavily spiced food at first, but got burnt out on it quickly. Meanwhile, they had no problem eating bland foods day after day. Since ...
What causes the air to move slower under a planes wing?	[ "The short answer. It doesn't. It moves at the same speed. What creates flight is relative densities of the air above and below an airplanes wing. The curve shape of the top of the wing pushed air out of the way while the flat shape underneath allows air to flow underneath. This creates more density underneath than...
Why didn't the British just send troops into the Boston and Philadephia harbors and squash the American Revolution in it's main cities?	[ "Several reasons -\n\n1 - It was horrendously expensive. Like... really expensive. The Americas are a long long way from England and the passage was not easy. Shipping any amount of troops would be a serious feat of logistics.\n\n2 - It was not their highest priority. We Americans like to think that our Revolut...
Why Americans think they won the War of 1812?	[ "The Americans think that they won because they accomplished the majority their objectives by the end of the war. You seem to be under the impression that the Americans entered the war in order to eventually annex Canada, which isn't really true. Some of the western territories in the US did want to annex Canadian ...
Let's say I'm watching a 24fps movie on my 60Hz computer monitor. How does the framerate of the movie match up with the refresh rate of the monitor?	[ "Don't quote me on this, but I think that it works like this;\n\nThe monitor refreshes a complete display 60 times in every second, the movie shows a new image 24 times in every second. Imagine that you have a friend standing outside your window with a flip-book and he was flipping the pages 24 times every second, ...
ELI5: Why do big companies, who have a multitude of resources at their disposal, buy out smaller companies, especially apps like "Summlly" which Yahoo bought for $30M, instead of just making it algorithm themselves?	[ "1. Coming up with algorithms as nice as the ones Summly came up with is not easy. If Yahoo started tomorrow it might take a team of 12 people a year to come close to replicating it - and with the wrong choice of 12 people they might easily fail. Buying a company with an existing working product is much less risky ...
Why are some eggs brown and some white?	[ "Good question. Now, let me ask you a question: If you had a baby, what color would it be?\n\nI'm not a magician. I don't know your ethnicity. But I can safely assume that your kid is going to have a skin tone similar to your own (interracial unions aside for the moment).\n\nWhite eggs come from white chickens and ...
How can games companies sell unfinished games and in some cases games that are unplayable (Activision)?	[ "Simply answer, because consumers keep buying them.\n\nLonger answer, due to the new and easier channels of distribution, mainly pre-order, digital downloads, etc. games can be bought way before any serious reviews by game critics or consumers alike have been established.\n\nSo by the time the problems of a game ar...
LD50 values and its relation to humans.	[ "No, it wouldn't necessarily translate exactly, but it does for many common substances.\n\n > For example if a substance has an LD50 of 190mg/kg in a rat, assuming you have an average rat (weighing about 500g) and a human of 77kg (170lbs), how would you go about that?\n\nThe LD50 here is expressed as mg (of substa...
How can restaurants accurately calculate calories per dish or item?	[ "It's not accurate. They're allowed a rather generous deviation from what is the actual amount of calories. For example, applies might be five calories per ten ounces on average, and if you give apples as a side and most apples you sell are considered 15 ounces, you only have 7.5 calories. But that's just an averag...
Why are vision problems so common in humans?	[ "humans need glasses to see fine detail, like letters. in a hunter gatherer sense, 99% of peoples vision is probably sufficient. i suspect there are plenty of animals that would want glasses if they were intelligent enough to know they were missing out on something. but since most land animals have a highly deve...
If all of the cells in our bodies are replaced within a matter of years, how are tattoos permanent?	[ "Imagine a bucket filled with ping pong balls. That's your skin. The ping pong balls are your skin cells. Now imagine filling the bucket with some water. That's the tattoo ink. You can replace any or all of those balls, and they might take some water with them, but that water is pretty much going to stay in the bu...
Why we don’t generate electricity from sound waves while electricity is needed to produce a sound wave ?	[ "We do generate electricity from sound waves. That's how a microphone works. The problem is that sound isn't powerful enough to create a enough electricity to be useful for anything other than capturing an audio signal. Even with sophisticated microphones we need to amplify the signal a lot to make it useful again....
How does basic stock exchange work and how would one get started?	[ "You buy a stock that's priced at $1.50 a unit, you buy 10 shares for $15\n\nThe next day it goes up to $4 a unit because there was a successful merger, they released a new product that everyone likes, etc. and you sell your 10 stocks for $40 giving you a $25 profit which you then use to buy other stocks priced low...
How does air conditioning work? Car and house the same, or different?	[ "Air condition works by exploiting how high and low pressure changes the temperature. [They use a compressor to create a high pressure on one side and a low pressure on the other.](_URL_0_) The high pressure side will increase in temperature, so it will give off heat, this side is outside your car/house/fridge. Whe...
the legalization of marijuana in Colorado.	[ "According to [this article](_URL_0_) people 21 years of age can purchase it from specially regulated retail stores, and adults can grow up to 6 plants for personal use. Public use and driving under the influence is still illegal.", "If I am not from Colorado could I still buy pot there?", "Does anyone have a g...
How did we figure out that burning rocks would make metal?	[ "Metal working is way past caveman times. \n\nWe figured out fire, and we figured out how to make hot fire (which we needed to make strong pottery, which we needed for storage because we figured out agriculture which, incidentally, meant we needed to figure out writing). \n\nA lot of this is, necessarily, specu...
With modern technology, why don't people get paid and billed electronically by the second or minute instead of monthly?	[ "The technology isn't really there, or at least hasn't been developed. If you've ever worked in IT, you'd understand how hard it is to integrate different systems and make them talk to each other. Such a system would have to built from the ground up and would include real time capturing of hours worked, real time...
Why is it when you bend a plastic item it turns a whitish color?	[ "OK, quick intro to deformation of solids:\n\nThere are two types of deformation, elastic deformation and plastic deformation. \n\nWhen you put a small force on something, it will deform a little bit. When you let go, it will spring back to exactly where it was. This is elastic deformation. Think about the ...
If the computer runs on electricity, why isn't the hard-drive wiped when you turn it off?	[ "Magnets.\n\nBasically, hard drives sorta look like a record player inside. There's a disk that spins, and a head that can move to various tracks on the disk, reading or writing. \n\nThe way it works is, if you've ever rubbed a nail on a magnet, you'll notice the nail itself gets magnetic. The disks in a hard drive...
Why when nervous does our mouth become dry ?	[ "ELI5 version of the actual science:\n\nYour body has two overarching \"modes\" of existence - rest, and fight or flight (FoF). During rest, you allocate energy towards things like eating and digestion, sleep, and general day-to-day being alive. \n\nWhen in an acutely stressful situation, you go I to overdrive. The...
How do bank ATMs read handwritten checks?	[ "You're writing the amount in numbers and in letters on the check.\n\nIt could mix up 100 with 700, but if he sees \"Seven Hundred Dollars\", there's no way it could not guess which one is the right one.\n\nI worked in a bank for a short time and among other things I had to verify scanned checks for which the softw...
How do we know the world is round and not flat?	[ "If you're in the northern hemisphere, and you point your camera at the northern night sky with a long exposure, you can capture stars \"spinning\" around the north pole. Here's a good example:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nIn the southern hemisphere, you can see the same phenomenon pointing your camera south. The only way this ma...
why do so many lottery winners go broke within a year?	[ "A few years ago /u/blakeclass wrote a [response to a thread](_URL_0_) that stared off:\n\n > Congratulations! You just won millions of dollars in the lottery! That's great.\n\n > Now you're fucked.\n\n > No really.\n\n > You are.\n\n > You're fucked.\n\nIgnoring the non-monetary things that can happen, the exampl...
How come sometimes I'm able to sit down and work for hours on end, and other times I can barely look at work at all?	[ "It's due to levels of neurotransmitters in your brain changing due to large variety of physiological, environmental, and emotional factors. There are likely a lot of neurotransmitters in play that have a huge impact on motivation, but currently the most well-known is one called \"Dopamine\". \n\nPeople who have di...
This quote from xkcd: "There will come a day when I'm either an ancestor to all living humans or to none of them"	[ "Think, ^(1)/_2_ of you came from your mom, ^(1)/_4_ of you from your gramma, etc. until ^(1)/_32768_ of you came from someone from centuries ago.\n\nNow, that ^(1)/_2_ of you that's your mom is also in all your siblings, and that ^(1)/_4_ of you that came from your gramma is in all your siblings and co...
How can people like George Soros "bet" on a crash? What mechanisms would allow them to make a profit on a bet like that?	[ "One can make money on a failing business by 'shorting' stocks, for example. \n\nHere's an example using a single company: \nI, for whatever reason, suspect that the value of coke's stocks will drop. At the moment it's at $20 per share. \n\nI 'borrow' 5 shares from my stock-broker, and sell them on the stock market...
I'm having a hard time understanding a single line of a legal document I have, I'll buy gold to whoever gives me a thorough explanation	[ "It's the following month. The quarter closes out March 31 at close of business, and payment must be postmarked or in the inbox by the last business day in April.\n\nSame deal for July, October, and January." ]
In the 1985 movie "Clue," what is Mrs. Peacock's secret for which she is being blackmailed?	[ "She's accepting bribes to influence her senator husband's votes.", "She is the wife of a senator. She and her husband took bribes for his vote.\n\nThey don't really explain if she was bribed and she convinced her husband how to vote or if he knew about the bribe." ]
What does Neosporin do to my cut?	[ "Neosporin works as an antibiotic and also claims that it speeds the healing process. A couple studies in the past have shown that Neosporin does not have any increased efficacy in wound healing than a basic petroleum jelly. So pretty much it just protects the wound from any outside bacteria by placing a gel 'shiel...
Why are many manual laborers who spend 8 hours or more a day lifting, pushing, and pulling heavy objects not in incredible shape from doing so after many months or years?	[ "I'd say diet is the biggest factor here. A lot of those labourers/construction workers are strong as fuck but eat like shit. They'd look a lot more jacked with a healthier diet.", "A lot of them are. However, the balanced workout you get from doing manual labor often doesn't show as strongly as a very focused t...
Why does VLC for iOS have to remove codecs like AC-3, but the desktop version doesn't have to?	[ "Because of software patents. They can host the desktop version somewhere that doesn't recognise them (eg, Europe), whereas due to the closed nature of the iOS ecosystem, they can't do that for that release." ]
Is vacuum cold?	[ "A vacuum cleaner sucks up air. In doing so, it lowers the pressure or, in other words, makes air less dense. Less dense air feels cold because it is colder.\n\nThe opposite of this effect is a bicycle pump, which compresses air. Pump a bicycle pump enough times and it gets hot, because it it compressing air, so ma...
Why does unplugging plugging back in a router solve most problems?	[ "1. As you use a router (or any digital device, really) errors slowly accumulate. Turning it \"off and on again\" clears the temporary memory and the errors, allowing it to function faster.\n\n2. You will probably have background programs which are using internet, and they will not always reconnect immediately when...
Why do we feel embarrassed when we're the only one in a group of people who laughs at something?	[ "I suppose for the same reason doing anything out of the ordinary is naturally embarrassing, even if it's being recognized for a great honor.\n\nThough it shouldn't be because that implies you made a connection that nobody else made." ]
- What is the difference between racism and anti-semitism?	[ "Anti-Semitism is seen as a form of racism.\n\nRacism is being prejudiced towards someone because of their race, or against a whole race in general. Ie. not letting a kid play on the baseball team because he's black.\n\nAnti-Semitism is being prejudiced towards someone because they are Jewish, or being against Jews...
How do those NES light guns (Duck Hunt) work?	[ "The gun has a light sensor in it. When you squeeze the trigger, the TV screen turns black and white boxes appear where the ducks were for one frame (about .04 seconds). It's so fast that we don't really notice that the screen flickered. The gun with the light sensor in it is just looking for a flash of white that ...
Why do you see the red/green/blue lines when you move your eyes back and forth while looking at a video from a projector?	[ "Those different color lines make the picture. When you look without moving your head, the lines blend together to make all the different colors. These lines are projected one after another. The eyes have this thing called \"persistence of vision.\" That is, if they see a bit of light, the eyes seem to keep seeing ...
Are we lighter during the night due to centripetal force from orbit?	[ "It would be the opposite if there is any fluctuations as at night the gravitational pull of the sun is also pulling you toward the earth while during the day the sun would be pulling you away from the earth ever so slightly. \n\nThere is some fluctuation but it is less than 1%.", "> Are we lighter during the ni...
Why do cast iron skillets make food taste better?	[ "IMHO it has nothing to do with the oil in the pan. \n\nI have my grandmother's skillet [probably 50+ years old.] I clean it with sea salt.\n\nI think it has to do with heat dispersal; that the iron transmits the heat more evenly than other materials. The food cooks evenly.", "They are very heavy and retain a ...
How does increasing the interest rate to 17% in Russia and selling of their foreign-exchange help the Russian Ruble exchange rate ?	[ "Selling their Euros, etc. to buy rubles means that rubles will become scarcer and the price should rise.\n\nRaising the interest rate means that instead of cashing in and taking your money to Sweden, you will invest in mother Russia to take advantage of the higher interest. \n\nThe first one apparently is working ...
What are spectator drags	[ "Bring your car to a track and race against some other schmuck who brought their car to the track.\n\nInterestingly, while the name implies that they are drag races, they're typically on closed tracks rather than in straight lines." ]
How does communism work in places like China and North Korea?	[ "These places are not communist. None of the places that had a communist party in charge actually were communist in anyway. They also shifted the goal posts and then decided that they were socialist, even though they doing that required a total revision of Marx's ideas regarding socialism/communism/revolution. A...
Why water level in ice water lowers when the ice melts	[ "If you look at the level of liquid water in a glass it actually won't move much at all. You can try it with a glass water with a few ice cubes in it and a marker.\n\nThe fact that the liquid water level doesn't go up or down seems strange. After all, before the ice melts there is solid ice sticking out the top. ...
What would happen if your home country started a conflict with a country you're visiting or living in?	[ "You can probably expect some hostility, perhaps outright violence. Never know, you could be taken captive as an enemy of whatever country you're in." ]
Why do body parts fall asleep and why does it hurt?	[ "When you pinch off the blood stream to a certain body part. The cells need oxygen and other stuff all the time. If you disconnect the blood flow for too long, it feels numb.", "It's due to the compression of the nerves (the blood supply is maintained by collateral flow)" ]
Why can't we just use MAC addreses instead of the IP addreses?	[ "A MAC address is unique identifier, but it doesn't tell you anything about where a device is. IP addresses are structured, routers can infer from the address which way it needs to send the message to get it towards its destination, without needing a giant database of individual addresses.\n\nThink of it like som...
How is it possible that you can order something on ebay for $3 without shipping payments?	[ "Usually it's coming from China. The Chinese government subsidizes parcels moving out of the country if its for the purpose if ecommerce, which makes international postal rates for Chinese sellers ridiculously low.", "Generally these listing are coming from sellers that buy cheap items wholesale and then get an a...
Radiation affecting us	[ "Getting hit with radiation is like having lots of tiny bullets shot into you. They pummel the molecules in your cells, sometimes breaking them into pieces. Now, some molecules in your cells can be repaired or replaced. And if a cell is too damaged, it's programmed to just commit suicide before it can go rogue. ...
Why can't ISPs (that can increase) just increase their internet speeds? Wouldn't it earn them money in the long-run?	[ "Because they don't need to care about their customer's satisfaction when they have monopolies.", "To increase their speeds they'd have to replace their cabling, which is very expensive. People will still pay for internet and in America they basically have monopolies in a lot of places (some places they just have...
Why do money-wiring services exist when you can just email money for free?	[ "email doesn't happen out of thin air. you have to have a device.\n\nif you're poor you are unlikely to have a device.\n\nmuch of the money-wiring market is poor people transferring their wages home (often a foreign country.)\n\nwhen home is a foreign country there are regulations around how cash can be transferr...
What exactly is globalization and what does unequal globalism stand for?	[ "Globalization is the increasing tendency to move business from one country to some other country where it's cheaper to do then bring the products back to the first country. This improves corporate profits when done right - and may make some products and services viable when they were not cost-efficient before.\n\n...
Why does the human eye have to focus on certain things at once and blur out the surroudings?	[ "The cells in your eye that are capable of clear vision are concentrated in a circle about one millimeter across. Most of your eye just can't see things sharply.", "Are you referring to the blur where, when you look through a windshield the baubles on your dashboard double and become indistinct, and when you lo...
If the US is technically on the Metric system, why are we not teaching it exclusively in schools?	[ "Because a lot of things in the US are based on the Imperial system and won't be changing anytime soon. Being familiar with the Imperial system is a necessary skill in a lot of blue collar, manufacturing/industrial jobs where the expensive heavy machinery was designed with Imperial units. Of course, a 1\" nail coul...
How come upon walking into a room with a bad smell, at first it smells really bad, but after a few minutes, you can’t smell it anymore?	[ "Our brains are hard wired to really only pay attention to new information. We are bombarded with a ton of stimulus at any given moment, but most of it isn't all that useful. For example, you probably didn't feel the chair you were sitting on or the shirt you were wearing until I mentioned it just now, right? Th...
Why in the U.S. are we not told the upfront cost of medical care so that we can shop around like we can when making any other purchase.	[ "In a word: greed. The U.S. Health care system is a for-profit business.\n\nOne tactic for maximizing profits is to obscure the true costs so as to stifle competition.\n\nAnother tactic is to use fear to make a sale. What's more important than your health?\n\nTo be fair, though, it's becoming more and more common, ...
why do governments hire Private Military Contractors	[ "They are already ex-military most of the time plus Govt doesn't get the \"official responsibility\" for any mishaps. Google Raymond Davis Pakistan for an example. There must be hundreds other as well but seemed to illustrate how well entrenched these practices are", "There are a number of reasons. \nOne of which...
How do these giant EVE battles I always see on the front page work?	[ "Arranged battles do happen. Some times they are sponsored events and sometimes its territory war. If a corp is holding a system and another corp wants to take it battles like this can ensue. Resource wars and rare asteroid belts see this on a smaller scale all the time." ]
What is that sound that start every concert and always give me chills	[ "That's the band/orchestra tuning up. [ Typically the concertmaster signals an oboe to play an A and that's what's used as the baseline for people to tune.](_URL_0_)", "Oh, that's the orchestra tuning up. Naturally they want to make sure that they're all in tune, so they keep playing A above middle C so everyone...
Why does Steam have to update constantly?	[ "There is a rule in the software development world: software in use will need to be modified.\n\nSteam is big and performs a lot of functions both for us gamers and for the vendors and many of this functions involve critical assets like money or personal informations and it performs them over the Internet which is ...
Why 8 fl. oz. of water, frozen does not weigh equal 8 fl. oz. of liquid water (minus weigh of container)	[ "If you take 8 fluid ounces of water and weigh it, it should be 0.52 pounds.\n\nIf you freeze that 8 fluid ounces of water and weigh it again, it should be 0.52 pounds.\n\nThe volume will change because at normal pressure, because water expands when it freezes.\n\n\"ounces\" are sometimes weight, and sometimes vo...
why does Argentina have a lot of Nazi artifacts? What's the relationship between the two countries	[ "Argentina was one of the destinations for Nazis being smuggled out of Europe in the closing days and aftermath of World War II. Nicknamed [ratlines](_URL_0_) and identified collectively as [Operation ODESSA](_URL_1_) by the Allies, many different organizations and outfits existed to help Germans who should have be...
Under the new rules recently passed, what information can be sold and who exactly may purchase it. Is it a giant free for all like people are making it out to be?	[ "Basically, nothing has changed. The bill passed shot down a not yet enacted rule that was going to require ISPs to get your consent before being able to sell metrics information- basically, anything that google or facebook already sells to advertisers, other ISPs already could sell, and will continue to be able t...
When the US passes a law about something like Net Neutrality or commercialization of space how does that become accepted international law?	[ "Well, first, neither of the two examples you've specified are laws. \n\nNet Neutrality is a regulatory opinion, applying a section of the Communications Act of 1934 to Internet service. The US was late to the net neutrality game. The European Union passed a net neutrality law in the spring of 2014, after several E...
Why do we have two of some organs (e.g. lungs, kidneys, etc.) but not of others (e.g. liver, pancreas, etc.)?	[ "Surface area. Our body is constantly filtering via the kidneys and exchanging gas via the lungs. Having twice the amount of alveoli and twice the amount of nephrons helps our body keep up with the amount of absorption, secretion, and exchange necessary to maintain homeostasis. You can technically live without one ...
How come there are fireplaces in the woods? Why not tear them down when tearing the house down?	[ "The fireplace is immune to both rot and fire. So if either of those destroyed the rest of the house the fireplace will still be there.", "Based on what it sounds like, you are probably seeing the remnants of structures that are much older than you might think. I say this because if a house were demolished every ...

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