Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
What the hell symphony conductors actually do.	[ "They are mainly there to ensure everyone stays coordinated. When you have dozens of musicians, even skilled ones, they can drift off time a bit. In addition they can emphasize certain instruments at different times to have them play louder/softer. In the sense of an interview show, Colbert can't really shake the h...	[ "To piggyback on your question: were executioners generally people who enjoyed killing or displayed sociopathic tendencies? Did the general publics perception of executioners line up with the reality? What experiences did someone need to get the role of executioner?" ]
Why do our bodies take a while to become fully functional when we first wake up?	[ "Because the brain wakes up in stages and not all at once. Those stages progress essentially from the back of the brain to the front. The areas in the back are the basics and the ones closer to the front are more complex. That's why we're at first able to stumble around and sort of see things, then maybe mumble a f...	[ "Imagine you're trying to find a coffee shop in a city. If you've been there recently, it should be pretty easy to find. If it's been 10 years since you've been to the coffee shop or the city, it might take you a LONG time to find. It also might take long to find if you've been to other, similar coffee shops in the...
Did the pre-columbian Mayans or the aztecs have any idea who lived in the parts of America outside of their influence?	[ "Absolutely yes. Nahautl people/Aztecs were relative late-comers to central Mexico and maintained oral history of the lands from which they migrated. They also had a class of long-distance merchants, called pochteca, who traded and traveled south into Central America ([Van Turenhout 100–2](_URL_0_)). [Casas Gran...	[ "You're going to need to narrow down your time frame here, keep in mind you're asking about a time frame of 1000 years over a very, very large area of land with vastly different cultures. You'll be more likely to receive an answer if you narrow the question down to a more specific time." ]
At what age do you begin using "logic"?	[ "This is not my area of expertise, but... It probably depends how you define \"logic\". Humans (and many other animals) are certainly born with the ability to recongise patterns (such as stacking rings in order of size, which you describe), but this may not be what the textbook means by 'logic'. They may be refer...	[ "All logarithms are multiples of each other anyway since > log_b_(x) = log_a_(x)/log_a_(b) So the choice of base is arbitrary. Base-10 was likely chosen because of historical reasons. The decibel was first used to measure signal loss along telegraph lines, and it was first defined by Bell Labs in the 1920s. ...
Every planet is round, so why does earth have HUGE, DEEP dents full of water?	[ "If you scale the Earth down to the size of a billiard ball, it will still actually be smoother than a billiard ball. There's under 20km altitude change between the peak of Everest and deepest part of the Mariana trench. That's about 0.15% of the Earth's diameter. Which is next to nothing, really. EDIT: Spelling" ]	[ "This is called the [Cheerios Effect](_URL_1_). I find this amusing. Basically, when something is floating in a liquid, a [meniscus](_URL_0_) forms around it. (In the case of the bubbles, it's a concave meniscus.) Since the bubbles float, they want to be at the highest point achievable on the surface of the liquid,...
Why have Monarchies historically been such a common form of government?	[ "[This section of the FAQ](_URL_0_) might be helpful." ]	[ "This is a broad question do you have a specific time period or place in mind?" ]
Do beverages chill/heat at a constant rate?	[ "Heat transfer depends on the difference between the two temperatures, so a hot object placed in the cold will cool down faster at first and slower later after its temperature has dropped part of the way. (Things like airflow or mixing the drink can have huge effects by pulling heated/cooled air away from the objec...	[ "Could this question be answered by spraying Never Wet on the surface if a cup? If so, I will go perform this experiment in my garage with a plastic cup, coated with the Never Wet product, and fill it with ice water, placing that cup next to an untreated cup with the same amount of ice and water and see which cups ...
In your era of expertise, when was a battle considered "lost"?	[ "Honestly? Usually about the time the pirate ran out the colors and began closing for a lot of people. It just wasn't worth the fight. Most merchant ships didn't have enough men or cannon to put up a fight, so the minute you realized it was a pirate and he had more speed on you. It was time to give up and pray for ...	[ "Anytime a time-saving technology is introduced and becomes wide-spread, it resets people's expectations for how long the associated task takes. So it's not really that people lose the ability to focus, but they lose the patience for things that take longer. It used to take a long time to prepare meals, but the mic...
On a subatomic level, what stops two objects made of the same exact material from joining and forming a bigger object? What force is there that repels the two objects?	[ "Metals, that do not have an oxide layer on them (usually cut or made in a vacuum) will actually stick together and \"form a bigger object\". It's called cold welding. Some materials lend themselves to this more than others. Metals due to their crystalline structure are good for it, but metals on Earth almost alw...	[ "I think you are asking, more or less, if there are \"anti-colours\" which can cancel the effects of adding one colour to another. For paints/play-doh (im assuming you mix the pay-doh so well it acts like mixing paint) when you mix two colours together you are merely changing the light which is observed/reflected. ...
Insider trading is illegal. If someone comes to you, completely unsolicited and divulges nonpublic information that spell disaster for a company, would you be at fault if you were to try and exit the company at that point in time?	[ "Are you talking about leaving the company's employment? Perfectly legal. Selling the company's stock? Illegal. If you want to dodge the train, you have to also tell all of the other people sitting on the tracks with you. Just jumping aside and letting all of those other innocent people to get hit by a train whi...	[ "I was audited 3 years in a row due to no fault of my own. I filed my taxes and received my refund. 3 years later I got a letter saying I owed 1600 in back taxes from 3 years before. I checked the letter, brought my w-2's and 1099 and 1098's to the irs in Maitland Fl. They went over everything and found that my emp...
Why do episodes of animated shows take so long to make?	[ "Keep in mind that we're talking about an assembly line here. It might take 9-10 months from the time somebody first starts talking about an episode until it airs but that doesn't mean that everyone involved is spending that whole time working on a single episode. In many of the stages of production, you'll have pe...	[ "They have to make sure it's in stock (add some time to get it, if not), check with your doctor, check for interactions, and check with however many insurance companies, then count, double, and triple-count the pills, all while doing this with other customers." ]
Can someone explain Anarchism to me? LI5	[ "Anarchism is an Ideology in which people are against any form of domination. That is social domination in which some classes are wealthier than others, political domination in which a person or group of people are leaders of an entity, and cultural domination in which our ethics and morals are influenced by the ru...	[ "Imagine a water pipe. If you're the only person using it you get full pressure. The more connections to that pipe the weaker the pressure." ]
Why songs do Clips ?	[ "Many reasons: This is America, from Childish Gambino, for example; the music video compliments the message of the song a whole lot. Without it, IMO, the song would lose a lot of its meaning and wouldn't be close to as impactful as it is. So, it's an useful tool to SHOW a message rather than just tell Music \\(and ...	[ "To make it cheaper. Simply put we don't pay anywhere near enough to pay for the shows we watch" ]
What exactly makes an electron negative and a proton positive and why are they seen as complete opposites? How do this relate to antimatter?	[ "We just call them positive and negative, but we could also say the electron has positive charge or it has Charge A vs Charge B. The only reason we say positive and negative is because it fits well in our mathematical models of potential energies and force." ]	[ "The photon, but imagining two charged objects or two magnetic dipoles constantly shooting photons back and forth between each other isn't an accurate way to imagine electromagnetism. The whole \"particle exchange\" thing isn't literal, it's a way to do calculations." ]
Does the existence of advanced computational websites like wolframalpha prove that all mathematics is ultimately reducible to logic?	[ "Your question makes no sense. First, there's nothing all that advanced about what Wolfram Alpha does. Second, logic can certainly be applied to mathematics and is indeed a subset of the field of math but saying 'all mathematics is ultimately reducible to logic' is a nonsensical statement on its face. What exactly ...	[ "When you take any medication, someone has to have calculated how long the drug lasts at each dosage level. They have determined the correct dose for each body weight. They know how that medication is affected by other drugs, including how the duration or decay rate changes. To do these types of calculations, scien...
The main differences between Catholic, Protestant,and Presbyterian versions of Christianity	[ "Catholic: Closed-source, cloud based, shared hosting environment. Registration required. Expensive up-front licensing agreement, but discounts available for charitable gifts, charitable acts and confessions. Governed by iron-clad EULA. Dedicated 24-7 customer support. Help files are extensive, but patches are ...	[ "Pharmaceutically? Nothing. There are VERY strict guidelines in place, all drugs have to be exactly the same in make up. Psychologically? A lot. Say you pay £0.45 for a pack of generic paracetamol, psychologically this WILL NOT work as well* as £4 pack of panadol. (Exactly the same active ingredients, excuse the br...
Why is cultural/social liberalism described as being "progressive"?	[ "The values of liberalism in the sense of Western enlightenment philosophy tend to by their nature be more receptive or urge towards change (reform, progressivenes) by emphasizing core principles such as free exchange of ideas, equality, development of the unique individual and so on. Embracing liberalism will (in...	[ "[This post of mine](_URL_0_) answers a similar question (\"what does it mean for time to expand?\" or \"if time is relative, how do we know the age of the universe?\"). I strongly encourage you to read through it and the links therein for all the details. The short answer is that it is possible to unambiguously ta...
When jumpstarting your car, why do you connect the black cable to the engine block instead of the black/negative terminal?	[ "Sparks near the battery can cause hydrogen fires. Sparks near the engine block are much safer. That said, modern batteries are sealed and pretty safe, but safer is always better." ]	[ "Some fruits, when ripening, produce ethylene. Ethylene has a bunch of function in plants, including ripening. So you're using a banana to release ethylene to speed up the ripening of the rest. Not sure the \"dark\" part is relevant, and not all plants are sensitive to ethylene though." ]
Why do the heads of bald people go shiny, but other hairless parts of the body close to the bone like knuckles and elbows not go shiny?	[ "I suspect it has to do with it being tight on the skull. Everywhere else had squishy muscles under it." ]	[ "This may not be practical in the conventional sense, but it's important in the characterization world. The photoelectric effect is key to a measurement technique called x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), where we can identify the atoms at the very surface of a material by shining an X-ray beam at them. The hi...
How does my body "burn" calories to make food into energy?	[ "I'm not up on the exact biochemistry (it's been almost 15 years since I took high school bio), but basically you start out with a fat, carbohydrate or protein molecule, which are big chains of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms with a lot of energy in their chemical bonds. The body has various chemical processes fo...	[ "Your eyes work by constantly producing chemicals that is broken down by light. By measuring how much chemicals is in your vision cells you can find out how much light they receive. When it is light there is very little chemicals present and when it is dark there is lots of chemicals. However it takes your cells ab...
If we ever get to do brain transplants, what would happen? Would the person with the new brain have the new brain old memories, or would all memories be forgotten?	[ "IF it were ever possible, and that is a big if, you, and every conscious aspect of you, would be transported with your brain. Your mind is the product of the pink squish stuff between your ears. Move the squishy stuff around, and the mind follows. Now, there would be some things that would probably not be tran...	[ "One word: Repetition. You know all those song lyrics because you listened to the songs thousands of times. Names are easily forgotten because in our own minds, names are not nearly as important as the idea behind them. You often forget names quickly because you instead incorporate the idea of the person (who t...
How are rain chances calculated?	[ "Its a historical comparison. The weather man says \"50% chance of rain\" he means \"half the time the conditions (temp, humidity, etc) are like this, it rains\"." ]	[ "I have exactly what you need: _URL_0_ That website is truly awesome if you are interested in such things. You can even take into account different weather etc. It's by Standford and is considered accurate." ]
Why do spiders curl up upon death?	[ "They're not made of muscle like you or me, they're basically a fluid filled bladder functioning by contracting and releasing fluid into various chambers. Upon death they can no longer do this so their body contracts. At least that's what I was once told, citation needed." ]	[ "The general consensus is [attention and approval seeking](_URL_4_) or [medical issues](_URL_1_). In [domesticated animals](_URL_2_), the approval seeking is generally from the owner. Because we see this in wild animals as well, it can't just be a human-approval mechanism. The attention seeking can be extended to t...
Why is it after a long time of viewing pornography you start looking for more and more hardcore porn as the old more soft-core videos dont satisfy you anymore?	[ "Its called Desensitization! You've seen it and done the business. The next time it just isnt interesting anymore. (As an extreme example here) Its the same reason why nobody gives a shit about terrorist attacks or school shootings or whatever: it happens once and its a big shock, it happens every other week and it...	[ "Because of how the mechanics of the crack work. The stress in a material is related to the radius of corners, that is, rounded corners, like the bottom of the letter U, have less stress than sharp corners, like a V. Sharp corners are actually referred to in mechanical engineering as \"stress raisers\". And what's ...
Why do some songs 'grow' on you?	[ "Our brains actually hard-wire music with long-term memory. Hence listening to a song from your past can potentially evoke vivid memories. For instance, try playing a song (that you have no opinion of) when you're happy. Over time you will actually associate this happiness to the song itself, and enjoy listening to...	[ "Take a picture of a cloud, then wait a couple minutes and take another picture of the same cloud. You think it will look the same, after all it doesn't look like its changing as you stare at it. But you will find that there is a noticeable difference between the 2 photos. It's just such a gradual and constant chan...
How did Pangaea break up?	[ "The other half of the equation is [subduction](_URL_0_)." ]	[ "Yes, it seems to do so every so often (on a geologic time scale) and we may be due for one in the next... ohh.. 10k-100k years. _URL_0_ That article doesn't seem too worried about it, and given how long it takes to happen they seem fairly confident that we'd be able to respond." ]
Why do some thoughts processes differ between man and woman? Is it outside influence or is the brain different wired per gender?	[ "First, an important note: two random men or women can differ as much or more from each other in terms of thought processes than they do from a random person of the opposite sex, so we can't necessarily use those broad difference trends to make generalizations about individuals. That said, to the extent those broad...	[ "There two factors, environmental and genetic. First Genetic: Taller people tend to live shorter lives, _URL_5_ _URL_2_ _URL_1_ People who consume more calories live shorter lives _URL_4_ _URL_3_ _URL_0_ So men are on average taller, eat more, \"burn more\". So this is just pure physics a bigger body ages faster a...
How is NASA so sure that they an determine the atmospheric composition of 7 planets 40 light years away. How accurate is what they're doing?	[ "When they do this, they take the light emanating from these planets and diffract them to look at the spectrum. Different molecules have very specific absorbances in the EM spectrum, so they use that to determine what molecules are located there. While there is always error attached to data like this, it is pretty ...	[ "It's a radome to cover the AN/APS-15 search radar, first fitted to an experimental model designated XPBM-3E then rolled out to production models starting with the PBM-3C (from Squadron/Signal's PBM Mariner in Action). The most common installation of APS-15, also known as H2X (and \"Mickey\" due to some early ins...
can an SD card be too big/powerful for a computer?	[ "SD cards are divided by their capacity into several classes: SDSC, SDHC, and SDXC. They are further divided by speed (only on SDHC and SDXC): UHS-I, II, and III. It's not much gating system as it is generation gap. SDSC (standard capacity) is the second generation of SD cards, which supports up to 4GB capacity. SD...	[ "It has nothing to do with the file. It depends on whether or not the program says it's done with the file. Your word processor says \"hey I'm using this file\" for as long as it's open; apparently, your media player says it's done as soon as the song is loaded." ]
After the Civil War, what's the closest the US ever got to armed insurrection/revolt?	[ "Surprised no one mentioned the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898 in North Carolina. It's the only recognized [coup d'etat in US history](_URL_0_). After conservatives lost the local election, Whites in Wilmington took up arms and ousted the newly elected government. The government they put into place quickly set up...	[ "A woman named Frances Wright did something like what you are asking in 1824. In Memphis, TN she bought two thousand acres of land from Andrew Jackson and would buy slaves. On this land she set up a co-operative labor system where they could basically work off their price of purchase and then they would be set free...
How are movies at churches filmed?	[ "Plenty of churches are liberal enough to not go ape-shit over \"OMG HARRY IS A WIZARD SATAN\" and be OK with fantasy. As long as the production company makes a sufficient donation to the church, agrees to clean up & agrees to not defile the particularly sacred places (eg - the altar), they can usually find a churc...	[ "as far as I understand it, it's because there is no actual proof that they are doing drugs. it's a production to show drugs, made to be as realistic as possible. think about it this way... star wars is proof that hyperspace travel is possible because it's a video proof as such." ]
Given the way radio waves decay in intensity over long distances, how are we able to reliably receive data from distant spacecraft like the Voyager probe?	[ "On the earth end the communication is done with very large, highly directional radio dishes (essentially radio telescopes), for example, the [Deep Space Network](_URL_4_). The high directivity of the antennas lets you receive more signal while at the same time ignoring most of the background noise. There isn't rea...	[ "Simpler explanation: I write you a letter that says \"This letter was sent from < my address > on < date > and < time > . Please send me a letter back as soon as you get this, with the exact time and date you received this. You follow the instruction and send the second letter back to me. When I get your letter, I...
Why Google+ has so much fewer users than Facebook.	[ "There's a concept called the \"network effect\". Basically, the more people you have using something, the more useful it becomes. To be dead simple, people use Facebook because their friends are on Facebook. Google+ didn't offer enough of a benefit to get people to move over en masse and without enough people move...	[ "My guess? When you're dealing with a lot of makeup, prosthesis, special effects its easier to hide flaws. You can see acne under makeup in high def, you couldn't really see that back in the day. Just a guess." ]
Why can someone as young as 20 have liver failure, yet often you can see people older than 40 that drink to excess daily with a working liver?	[ "One of the liver's main functions is to be the detoxifying organ for the body. For this reason it is the organ most likely to suffer injury due to an ingested toxin (such as alcohol). The liver has evolved to have a remarkable ability to recover from an injury. A person who drinks alcohol to excess is damaging the...	[ "Both of the assumptions in this question are somewhat misleading -- alcohol existed in the pre-Columbian Americas, and alcohol was never used to replace water. You may be interested in these previous questions: [\"How did people (esp. European townsmen) get fresh water in the Middle Ages?](_URL_3_) - answer by /u/...
Do oral probiotics work?	[ "I'd recommend changing your question to: Do probiotics work for xxxxxxx. We have quite a bit of literature that supplementation with a variety of species improves survival of premature infants with necrotizing enterocolitis. If you're asking, will probiotics help my chronic belly pain from my irritable bowel synd...	[ "They generally have a ton of caffeine and other things that are real, actual stimulants. Many also have a bunch of sugar that, at least in the short term, will pep you up. However, from personal experience, they usually taste like crap and are way more expensive/mg of caffeine than most other sources like coffee."...
In terms of evolution, why are peacocks' tails so big?	[ "a large tail would be a trait of a healthy bird, which in turn drives the success of the species." ]	[ "You mean the Animal Planet one? Hype and marketing. Then it became a euphemism for menstruation (I'll fill you in if you want, but it's gross sex stuff...) and took on a life of its own." ]
How does a universal health care system, such as in Canada, work?	[ "Certified Canadian here. Our taxes pay for hospital care. In the event that you get into an accident, get sick, or you're having a baby, it's all free. To get prescriptions you need private healthcare or to pay out of pocket. Same goes for dental." ]	[ "This question has been asked and answered already: _URL_4_ _URL_6_ _URL_5_ _URL_3_ _URL_1_ _URL_0_ _URL_2_ If you have any questions that aren't addressed in those links, feel free to clarify." ]
How come Pandas have their black and white pigmentation while Polar Bears and Brown Bears developed pigmentation that help them camouflage?	[ "Mostly because Pandas never really needed to blend in to survive. They don't really have any predators and they don't hunt for their food. If they had something to hide from, then the least robust pandas would survive and generations down the line, they would not be as patchy and more closely resemble their surrou...	[ "UPDATE! A colleague with superior google skills figured it out. It's caused by many nocturnal species of birds that tend to migrate southward behind cold fronts. Their nocturnal migration appears around radar locations as a circular formation with radars that are behind a cold front showing larger, darker formatio...
Why do I feel nauseous after staying up late?	[ "Ah, they joy of all-nighters. Part of that ill feeling is due to your body's circadian rhythm being thrown off. The circadian rhythm is what lets your body know when to say, \"hey, go to sleep,\" \"wake up!\" And \"Dinner time!\" When you stay up all night, you start ignoring these instructions, and your body sta...	[ "Our brains didn't evolve with cars in mind. They evolved with, like, being hunted by a jaguar (or whatever) in mind. So your brain doesn't know what to do with a car. It thinks hey, we're sitting, our body's not really doing anything physical, there's very little activity or stimulus... this seems like a good time...
When staining wood, why can the rags you use spontaneously combust?	[ "You need three things for a fire. Flammable material, Oxygen, heat Wood stain is very flammable. Particularly NC (nitrocellulose). Adding cloth to it thins out the flammable material which means more oxygen molecules come into contact with the flammable molecules. It's like having a brick of wax which would never ...	[ "What exactly do you mean by \"harness fire\"? Regarding the fire that didn't go out, I believe you are referring to the fire the Vestal Virgins were charged with keeping aflame. The Vestal Virgins were priestesses of the goddess of the hearth, and were chosen around 12 years old or younger and made 30 year vows of...
How did people wake up to work before the invention of alarm clocks?	[ "In the UK, we had a [knocker-up](_URL_0_) , who was a guy with a big stick and would tap on your bedroom window when it was time to get up. No idea who woke him up though." ]	[ "Fantastic question--inspiration on the Piccadilly Line? Pure spitballing, but I wonder if people had ways of seeing themselves that were cheaper than mirrors. With the right light conditions, it would be easy to have a shallow basin of water that would create a reflection." ]
If someone didn't know how old they were, is there a way to find out? If so, how accurate can we get?	[ "> In adults, the most accurate indicators of age are the pubic symphysis of the pubic bone, the auricular surface of the ilium, and the sternal end of the fourth rib. In addition, the general condition of the skeleton, such as presence of arthritis, lipping of the vertebral bodies or osteoporosis can be used for g...	[ "Nielsen does this, they tell you how on [their website](_URL_0_), but basically they just randomly select people and track everything they do by asking them to write down everything and walk around the streets with microphones to record whatever people are listening to. They aggregate the data and produce the rati...
What was the island of Lerne in Roman Britain?	[ "I believe you or the author has made a mistake in the spelling. The all-mighty Hornblower et al. Oxford Classical Dictionary doesn't have an entry on 'Lerne', and a [Pleiades](_URL_0_) (an online database for ancient place names) search does not yield anything. There's an area better known as 'Lerna' in Argos, Gre...	[ "There are lots of ways for animals to traverse the earth, not to be trite. Addressing your specific example, this wiki. _URL_1_ Indonesia was at one time linked to the rest of the islands in that part of the world, when sea levels were lower due to so much water being bound up in polar glaciers. When the glaciers...
Why don't humans have a "mating season"?	[ "I don't know if there is any actual evidence to support this, but many archaeologist have hypothesized that in the past many human groups did have a \"mating season\". For example, some archaeologists have suggested that during the Neolithic period Stonehenge was used as a gathering place for this purpose. Anyho...	[ "Hi OP, this is a cultural question, so it would greatly assist anyone considering answering if you could specify which culture you're asking about. For example, the name of a cultural group / country / geographic region, plus a rough time period. Otherwise, this question is simply too broad, as it encompasses almo...
How can a flying insect move effortlessly inside a moving vehicle while not touching any surface?	[ "The air inside the vehicle is moving as fast as the vehicle itself, otherwise you'd be feeling 90kph winds while driving down the highway with your windows closed. The air also moves the insect at the same speed." ]	[ "Your car acts as a [Helmhotz resonator](_URL_1_), just like when you blow in a bottle, but the frequency is obviously much lower because a car is much larger than a wine bottle. You can also look [here](_URL_0_) for more comments." ]
How does the money the US government prints get to people?	[ "They distribute it to banks, so when you get paid (let's say your employer deposits your pay electronically) and you withdraw some of it in cash, sometimes that's brand-new money they're handing you." ]	[ "Through fiber optic cables underground, above ground, or at the bottom of the oceans." ]
What is outside of our universe?	[ "To the best of our knowledge it's not so much that there's nothing outside our universe as it is that there is no outside. > I have also been told there are other universes. There are some highly speculative extensions to our currently well tested models that suggest the existence of things that could be descri...	[ "There was a Nobel laureate in physics on Dr Karl's show a few weeks back who pointed out that you're really talking about expanding spacetime, just just space. That being so, he said, you can view it as expanding into the future." ]
why are children asked which foot they kick with?	[ "Because most people do have a dominant foot. If you want someone to play on the left side of the field, people with a strong and controlled left foot have a big advantage for passing towards the centre of the field, particularly a cross from the corner in towards the goal. A right-footed player will have to run ro...	[ "It's called the [Monty Hall problem](_URL_0_). Ultimately, what it comes down is that, from the start of the experiment/gameshow, there was only a 1 in 3 chance that you chose the door with the prize behind it, so if you repeat the experiment a thousand times over, the prize would be behind the other door two th...
The American liqueur 'Southern Comfort' is said to have "won the gold medal" at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. What was the competition, and what were its most prominent competitors?	[ "Related question: Jack Daniel's makes a similar claim yet the only source cited seems to be a collectible bottle of whisky they sold, is this whole 1904 World's Fair liquor competition an urban legend?" ]	[ "Related question: were there age limits for the competitors?" ]
In The Stranger, a white Frenchman kills an Algerian Arab. He is punished to the full extent of the law. Is this a realistic in French Algeria?	[ "Wasn't one of the major themes of the novel was that he was getting punished to the full extent of the law not because he killed the man, but because he didn't express any remorse for doing so?" ]	[ "Alabama has been a deeply red state (republican) for the last 25 years, and it showed no sign of changing. So by all accounts, it looked like the election between Roy Moore(R) and Doug Jones(D) was all but a formality. Until the news broke that Roy Moore had a unhealthy fascination with girls on the younger side. ...
By what mechanism do fitness trackers monitor sleep patterns?	[ "Fitness trackers generally just use an accelerometer to detect motion in your sleep. Basically it detects how much you move at night. Stuff like a fit bit advertise they do it, but are generally considered pretty inaccurate and poor representations of sleep tracking, compared to more scientific and accurate equip...	[ "You may be interested in some of the earlier answers and journal papers linked in this recent thread (there's one anthropological paper that's particularly interesting re. chronotypes): (_URL_1_) by u/whattthefat and myself. u/sunagainstgold on how [muezzins and medieval monks woke up](_URL_0_) There are also a...
Why does it take so long to repopulate endangered species? I'm 31 and and have learned since 2nd grade that certain animals are endagered. 25 years later, they still are. Why does it take so long to breed them or any other endagered animal for that matter? Why can't we just clone them?	[ "Some are endangered because of things like habitat destruction and overhunting. Simply breeding more isn't sufficient, the causes of their decline have to be addressed, if it is even physically possible to do so. Beyond that, breeding can be a difficult prospect, not all animals breed readily or successfully in b...	[ "Here are a couple threads on the subject of thorium reactors: * [Why aren't we using thorium reactors now?](_URL_1_) * [Why don't we have Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors? ](_URL_5_) * [Why are we not using Thorium Reactors yet?](_URL_3_) * [I've heard all about the positives of thorium nuclear energy, but does an...
How are Firemen able to detect where and what started a fire in so many cases?	[ "Fires don't burn everything equal, you can look in a room and see if the fire looks like it came into that room through the door or a wall or if that is where the fire started, once you know what room looks like it spread from you can try and figure out what around that room would start a fire and narrow it down t...	[ "It's all training. They're trained by sighted people, and they'll do what they're trained to do whether or not the person they're guiding is blind. They know to stop before crossing the street because they've gone through a long training process that taught them that's what they're supposed to do when they come to...
How did the US become the most powerful country in the world despite being one of the youngest ?	[ "We lucked out on natural resources and the ability to expand basically unlimited. Also with a vast majority of the world greatly injured economically after WWII it allowed America to basically be the world’s manufacturing engine for 20 years giving us a massive leg up on technology and wealth" ]	[ "We know what tools and supplies are used to do that, and some of them you can easily identify in spy satellite photos. Coupled with radiological readings from the area, because we know how to enrich uranium, we know what it looks like when someone doing it. Some times, intelligence services have discovered shipmen...
Why does the tip of my nose get prickly the instant before I sneeze?	[ "Sneezing is a reflex that occurs when the sensory nerves inside your nasal cavity sense a foreign object, or irritation. These sensory nerves dont just stop in the nasal cavity, but continue onwards to innervate your nose. So when they get a stimuli, some of that stimulation could be misinterpreted by the brain as...	[ "One theory is that the head of the penis evolved it's shape to \"scoop\" out sperm. That way while attempting to procreate we remove the sperm of our competitors while depositing our own. Following ejaculation we become sensitive to stop us from continuing to thrust and scooping our own sperm out." ]
What kind of Mace would a Byzantine cataphract use?	[ "Certainly. The maces used by the Byzantine Kataphractoi were generally known as the bardoukion (\"sledgehammer\") or the matzoukion (\"mace\"), although other more obscure names were also used. These maces are mentioned in several primary sources, notably, the Taktika of Leo VI and the *Praecepta Militaria...	[ "This question is quite a popular one and has been discussed in the past. You may check the following responses that have been provided previously: [These responses](_URL_0_) by u/Valkine and u/Rittermeister refer to the cooperation of troops, including spearmen and missile troops. [This thread](_URL_3_) discusses ...
I have heard that samurai armor is glazed red or yellow on the inside because when light reflects off of the glaze it gives the wearer a demonic appearance. Is this true?	[ "I just checked my Turnbull and he just says it's laquered those colours, so you probably misremembered. In anyways, yes some individuals or groups of warriors did laquer their armor red (usually it's black/brown) or more rarely gold/yellow. This definitely made these warriors stand out on the battlefield, and in t...	[ "Your signal is known as the Zn K-edge. I'm assuming your Zn is part of some sort of crystal lattice. Essentially, for every orbital there's an X-ray absorption edge. K edges for s orbitals, L edges for p orbitals, M edges for d orbitals, and so on. So you can knock out any electron. However, at this particular pho...
What happens after solid oxygen cube is dipped into a glass of water?	[ "No, you are not right. It's the opposite. Heat transfer always occurs from the region of high temperature to the region of lower temperature. So if you put a cold solid into a warmer liquid (whether it's an ice cube into your beer, you heathen, or a block of solid frozen oxygen into a container of water), then th...	[ "> I'm not asking if this is even close to a favorable reaction, but could it in theory be possible on a small scale? What do you mean by \"possible\"? If you want to talk about \"possible\" but not \"favourable\" reactions, you must understand that the stability and reactivity of every chemical bond is a statistic...
What is a toroidal inductor and how is it used?	[ "A toroidal inductor is basically a donut with wire wound up around it. When there is current in the wire, it sets up a magnetic field inside the donut. There is a nice little law of electromagnetism called Lenz's law that basically says that magnetic fields resist change. So if there is a glitch in the current, th...	[ "_URL_0_ The wikipedia article is excellent and better than any of the answers in here so far. If you have specific parts you don't understand, ask away and I can help explain them to you." ]
If we are all star dust and all of the atoms in my body are from supernovas then does that mean I have always existed and atoms that already existed were just clumped together during birth to make "me"?	[ "We're just a self-aware assembly of molecules riding this awesome wave called consciousness before we crash back into the ocean of the universe." ]	[ "Imagine you are made of genetic soup. Some people have ingredients that just don't go well together and make the soup taste bad. But that's ok, because when you have a kid, we just take some of my soup and some of my wife's soup and pour it in together. So even though my soup has some bad ingredients, her ingredie...
How does _URL_0_ work?	[ "Basically, yeah. It takes an amount of data of a known size and sends it to you. It then calculates how long that took and determines your speed. Then it sends data back to their servers and uses that to calculate your upload speed." ]	[ "Instead of connecting to a website directly, TOR creates a path with several proxies between you and the website you visit. A proxy is a computer that acts as a relay point. It asks the information for you then gives it to you. So let's say a path is built with only two proxies: Your computer < -- > Proxy A < -- >...
Why do paper cuts hurt so bad?	[ "Essentially, you are activating pain receptors. since the cut is not deep enough to draw blood, the cut stays open to the air which causes more pain. There's also a theory [from a biology class I just took] that on particularly painful paper cuts you could actually be slicing some of these pain receptors. From wi...	[ "Here's [one possible explanation](_URL_0_) from a guy who won an Ig Nobel prize for his research: > “It turns out the sound waves associated with primate warning cries, particularly chimpanzee warning cries, are remarkably similar in appearance to the aversive, middle frequency sound waves produced by fingernails...
Why do some people get motion sickness from shaky-cam movies and first person shooting games when our heads move around in a similar manner?	[ "When watching a shaky movie or FPS, there is a disconnect between what your eyes are telling your brain is going on and what your inner ear is saying. Your eyes register motion, but your inner ear registers that your head is stationary, the dissonance is associated with feeling dizzy or nauseous." ]	[ "IRL car races, you have to earn your spot in the starting grid through qualifying. Since there are no qualifying in video games, you tend to start at the back. Haven't played a racing game in a while (outside of Mario Kart, but even that was a while ago), but IIRC you do move up in the grid based on your performan...
How do we know Jupiter, Neptune, etc. aren't solid planets?	[ "We can calculate their mass using orbital mechanics and gravity, and calculate their volume from the size of the planet. From there, we know an average density and can calculate how that density increases with depth and pressure. Taken all together, we can get a fairly accurate idea of what the gas giants are comp...	[ "The plumes recently reported on Europa by NASA offer a golden opportunity for investigations based on this notion. Plume around Enceladus were identified and examined by Cassini about 3 years ago, and the presence of salt was confirmed. Even more interesting: hydrothermal silica was identified, a litteral \"smoki...
why do your pupils dilate when you take Psychedelic drugs?	[ "depends on the drugs or your definition of psychedelic. if you mean sensory hallucinations (drugs known as hallucinogens) then its because they generally act as stimulants (another word for drugs that overclock your brain) and since your eyes are now processing more light back at the cerebral end and your heart ra...	[ "Passenger-Side mirrors are often convex, in order to provide a larger field of view. The convexity also, however, shrinks the objects seen in it. Basically, if you are bending a mirror such that it shows more real-estate, then anything in that real-estate is going to become a smaller part of the whole." ]
If Graham's number is so large we can not imagine it then how can it be used for calculations?	[ "We can calculate with it only to the extent that we have devised notation for expressing that number. If you understand how it 'works', I assume you've seen this notation. So, in a way, we can 'write it down', but only because Graham's number has this specific form. Let's instead say you wanted to write down some ...	[ "You know how authors write long stories using letters and words and the rules of grammar and writing? Its just like that. With enough knowledge of how to read (math), these kinds of explanations make sense. Dont feel bad that you cant read it. Its just like if you tried to read a story in a language you dont know....
Why do the advertisements before videos play perfectly fine while the actual video buffers/bad quality/refuses to play?	[ "The ads fit in a single buffer and are supplied from the ad server. Everyone gets the same 20 ads in an area, so the local server cache always has them loaded." ]	[ "There are a few things that may be happening. * The browser renders what data it has received, even if it isn't the complete page, in the brief instant before the screen clears to begin showing the next page. (Even if it's the same page.) * For subsequent page loads, some data may be cached on your machine and doe...
Why do movie effects cost so much?	[ "To make a movie of a thing, you just point a movie camera at it and shoot. Say it's cars driving across a bridge. You start the camera. It takes 24 frames per second. You stop the camera. You're pretty much done. You have a minute's footage of cars on a bridge. 1,440 frames. Now you need a giant robot destroying ...	[ "Supply and demand. I know this is a simplistic answer, and I'm not trying to be flippant, but that really is the answer." ]
How do people become homeless in developed countries?	[ "You miss rent for a month or two. You miss it because you got laid off or sacked. You might have an addiction or have a mental health issue. In really developed countries like the UK there is suppose to be a social security safety net. Unfortunately many generations of Conservative and right-leaning Labour governm...	[ "I saw a segment in a Louis Theroux documentary about a guy who makes a living 'mining' gold on/in the sidewalks of NYC. He'd dig in the cracks of the sidewalk and find little bits of gold, diamonds and other precious metals/stones that had been dropped over the years and ground into the dirt. Apparently he made a ...
Why do elderly people have 'that smell'?	[ "There's [a chemical change in human body odor during old age](_URL_0_), which increases the production of a chemical called [2-Nonenal](_URL_1_). Humans actually smell different at all ages, though especially when they're very old, and [people are fairly good at determining the age of somebody just by how they sme...	[ "First, the accumulation of commensal bacteria such as S. epidermidis is manageable by using mild soap and water, making the use of antibiotics overkill. Second, the irresponsible use of antibiotics is dangerous in that antibiotic resistance can arise. Antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria are much more danger...
why is it, that after you have experienced waves in the ocean, or swinging in a hammock, you still feel that sensation?	[ "I'm not 100% knowledgeable on the matter, but I believe it has to do with your brain trying to adjust to the sensation so that it becomes normal too you. When you're back on the land after hours, your brain is still in that mode so when you're still or laying in bed you can really feel it. I believe it's part of g...	[ "[This figure should help explain it.](_URL_0_) A shows 4 waves each with different frequencies and C shows what you get when you combine those waves together. (Ignore B and D). A combination of different sound waves creates a single wave with a unique pattern. So instead of a speaker moving in and out by same amou...
Why isn’t Braille just raised letters? Wouldn’t it make more sense if it was?	[ "Not for reading it quickly. It's designed so that each letter is distinctive by touch - Braille readers don't have to feel each letter individually, they can just run their fingers over a row and read it all at once. Another thing is, for someone who's born blind, they might never have learned what \"normal\" lett...	[ "Tiny scratches or holes are punched in the disc by a CD/DVD/Blu-Ray Burner. When the CD/DVD/Blu-Ray is read, a Red(CD/DVD) or Blue(Blu-Ray) laser is used to detect the holes and scratches so they can be read as binary code." ]
Why is rubber "grippy"?	[ "rubber's surface is very porous, making for a high coefficient of friction (aka it sticks to things) combine this with high flexibility meaning its surface is able to 'touch' many parts of the other object (aka the difference between how a soft pillow bends around your head vs a table that sits flat) and you have ...	[ "Before DNA science was practical in criminal cases, the only evidence left on a gun would have been fingerprints, which gangsters (both real and fictional) would prevent either by wearing gloves or covering the handle of guns with fingerprint-resistant tape. If there were no fingerprints on the gun, then the only...
Why is it that whilst cellular technology is steadily improving, nightclub security (in loud venues) is still using radios with a relatively crappy transmission in comparison?	[ "Radios in general are used in places like security, police, firefighters, emt's, because they're more reliable than cellular technology. They're reliable because they require far less infrastructure to operate. No towers or the power to operate towers, no satellites, no cables. Each radio is it's own system relian...	[ "For at least a couple of reasons: * The crew would be buttoned up inside the armored citadel of a cruiser or other ship during an action -- when you're flinging shells back and forth, the safest place to be is indoors. The railings aren't useful when no one's on deck. * The blast effect from the ship's guns coul...
what would happen if you never cut the umbilical cord?	[ "The uterus will eventually expel the placenta during birth. The umbilical cord and placenta will eventually rot and fall off. This is what happens to the remnants of the cord that is left on the baby's belly (they don't trim the cord right to the belly button)." ]	[ "I remember a post on r/wtf where a guy used skin from his foreskin to put on a burn on his finger or something when he was a child. Lo and behold, when he reached puberty the finger grew pubes. That answer your question? Edit:clarification" ]
How long would it take to cook a piece of meat that weighs X grams to an internal temperature of Y in an oven preheated to temperature Z?	[ "There's a problem with your dataset. I'll explain, and then you can decide if you would like to rephrase, or add more data. When you say 'to cook any given piece of meat', you have to give dimensions. Surface area is a factor. Because a thick 10 oz steak, with its reduced surface area, has less effective [thermal ...	[ "IP address: * Rough location * ISP User agent string: * Operating system * Browser Cookies: * Identify you and your activity from previous visits JavaScript: * Screen size * Single Threaded CPU speed * Local computer time AJAX via JavaScript: * Any information available via JSONP enabled API on oth...
How Can small animals fall from higher heights than larger animals and survive?	[ "A smaller animal, all other things being equal, has more surface area relative to its volume. More surface area is more area that has to push air out of the way as you fall. This results in a counter force, as you push on the air, the air pushes on you. The result is you hit a top speed (in an atmosphere) called ...	[ "Part of the presence of pain is its purpose. Your nervous system continues to remind your brain the pain you've experienced so you know to protect it. For us, that means going to a doctor for a broken finger. But in nature, that means \"I need to guard this finger until it heals, or else I may die. If I try to ...
Why do dentists put a lead vest over your chest during an x-ray, but not anything over your head to protect your brain?	[ "Because they're taking an x-ray of your teeth, which are inside your head. There's no way to put any sort of lead covering inside your skull between your teeth and your brain." ]	[ "Depends on what level the study is at. Look at people who regularly eat lots of red meat and bacon, and compare it to people who don't If there is a difference in cancer rates between the two groups, something is causing a higher rate of cancer. Maybe work place exposure, food, lifestyle etc. Then take genetically...
When I listen to a song, I can easily tell the difference between vocals and guitar, even though the frequency of their sounds overlap. Why is this?	[ "The frequency of a sound only tells you what the note is (C, D, E and so on) but sound waves have other elements to them. The timbre of a sound (what makes you tell the difference between a human voice, a guitar, a piano and a howling wind) it's not so much affected by the frequency as it is by spectrum and envelo...	[ "Put simply, your brain just gets used to filtering out certain continuous stimuli. It's the same reason you don't feel the shirt on your back unless you think about it or the stimulus changes (e.g., when you move). Our brains do a phenomenal job at filtering out unnecessary information." ]
How many animals are required to re-establish a viable population?	[ "The answer to this will vary depending on the population, but a general rule of thumb in conservation biology is called the 50/500 rule. 50 members are needed in a population to prevent significant fitness loss due to inbreeding. However, this number is only useful in the short term and is not evolutionary viable,...	[ "If you are looking at it from an emissions or energy standpoint then yes. [This](_URL_0_) Peta site is a good source of info, such as \"It takes more than 11 times as much fossil fuel to make one calorie from animal protein as it does to make one calorie from plant protein.\" Interesting information on burger prod...
Help me ID this replica?	[ "It looks like what is usually called a 'Dane Axe' or 'Bearded Axe', which is a kind of battle-axe common throughout northern Europe in the early medieval period. I think the specific design with a flat top (a 'Petersen type C', if I've got my terminology right) was most popular around the eighth to tenth century; ...	[ "What will the roadster look like after 1000 years of direct exposure to the sun?" ]
The symbolism behind Bioshocks Andrew Ryan	[ "As a place to start - You should familiarize yourself with Andrew Ryan's namesake... Ayn Rand. Andrew Ryan is pretty much Ayn Rand's philosophy's given flesh... and then everything goes horribly wrong." ]	[ "Does this mean he would be in thrall to the rich since they would be the ones with the leftovers?" ]
How does digital banking work? What stops banks from creating $$?	[ "Every transaction is tracked at both ends. Your paycheck is recorded both by the bank you have your account at and the company's bank. Every single bank account is subject to this type of regulation; the transactions must add up at the end of the day. Any deviation is a red flag for the bank to be audited by t...	[ "Think of a rare baseball card. If there's only 10 of them in existence, then everyone would want them and they would be willing to trade hundreds of chocolate bars for it. Now think if they printed 990 more of that rare baseball card. Now everyone has one, and no one is willing to trade a chocolate bar for it." ]
What is the difference between antizionism, antisemitism and antijudaism?	[ "> I know they are all against Jews, but why? this isn't even correct. Anti-zionism is opposition to the creation or continuation to the modern state of Israel. Anti-semitism is hatred of people of Jewish descent. Anti-judaism (I've not really seen this term used) would be opposition to the religion of Judaism. ...	[ "...that sounds like a fake passport, or at least one that's extremely old and shouldn't be used anymore... Israel complies with the ICAO regulations regarding passports, or ISO/IEC 7810... which means an Israeli passport should look almost the exact same as your passport. For example, [this is an Israeli passp...
How did we see photos from space when everything was still analog and we didn't physically have the film? If the probe never returned to Earth, how were we able to see images from the surface of Mars back in the 70's?	[ "we used television cameras with vidicon tubes. These let it turn the optical data into electronic pictures, and let us turn those pictures into a digital bitstream, which was sent to earth. edit: fixed typos" ]	[ "Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: How did we figure out how many protons each element has? ](_URL_0_) 1. [ELI5: How did scientists figure out how many protons are in an atom? Or, even, what an atom is made of? ](_URL_1_)" ]
To what degree was Bismarck's pursuit of colonies in the 1880's a deviation from previous policy?	[ "It was a pretty massive deviation. Germany didn't have any colonies up to this point and didn't seem at all interested in obtaining any. After the Franco-Prussian War for example the French tried to offer the Germans colonies in Indochina as part of the piece deal, but were summarily rejected by Bismarck. The deci...	[ "Hi, I've approved the post, but just a note to you and potential respondents: this subreddit has a 20-year rule against discussing current events, so any answers will have to cut off at 1997. If you're looking for answers that can include 1998-2012, do consider x-posting elsewhere, eg. a foreign affairs sub like /...
Why does NAFTA need renegotiation?	[ "One of the parties is unhappy with the present terms, and all three parties want to suggest changes." ]	[ "I believe it has to do the the [CRTC](_URL_0_) and how they regulate what is broadcast in Canada. I don't really know what's going on, it seems to be a very convoluted situation. Google CRTC+Netflix for lots of related articles." ]
ELI4: "curled up" dimensions?	[ "Imagine that you lived on a cylinder, and you could move up and down along the cylinder, or around it. Then imagine that the radius of the cylinder gets smaller and smaller, until you don't even notice that it's curved anymore, all you notice is the ability to move up and down along the length and it just seems on...	[ "Simply the universe did not start as a single point in space. Also remember space isnt always going to be linear like you and I perceive it. space an easily fold back towards itself just like mass can distort space." ]
Why can’t we sleep with our eyes open?	[ "It's completely possible. You've never had kids, have you?" ]	[ "Probably just because you haven't practised doing it one way but do practice the other way because you do it out of habit. I've never really thought can do it both ways without a problem, and if you tried for about a week you probably would be able to as well. I think this because I remember what it was like learn...
How did Americans go about procuring slaves in the first place?	[ "Actually, you're not far off with the butterfly net hypothesis. Here's how it usually went in broad terms: 1) European traders showed up with manufactured goods that Africans wanted/needed. In exchange, the Europeans wanted slaves. 2) Because there was an economic incentive to do so, various tribes/groups of Afric...	[ "They make an agreement with a salesman for the local distributor. Usually they pick whoever will make them the better deal." ]
How do we get Traffic Estimated Times?	[ "The next time you're on a highway, look for pairs of embedded inductive loops in the roadbed. By measuring how long it takes a vehicle to pass between the two loops an accurate measurement of vehicle speed can be calculated. Since we know the distance to the next exit and the velocity of vehicles passing through, ...	[ "Thee same way airplanes do. They have a probe with a hole in the front of it. Air is forced into it by the movement of the helicopter or plane that pressure is read as airspeed" ]
Is there a size threshold at which quantum physics replaces Newtonian physics?	[ "This is exactly the wrong way to think about it. Everything behaves quantumly, it is just that Newtonian physics happens to be a good approximation on scales we are used to. A better question is when does Newtonian theory start to become a good approximation. There is no hard answer to that." ]	[ "If you detect which slit the electron goes through, you collapse the wavefunction so that its position is defined at that point, so no wavefunction 'goes through' the other slit and there's nothing to interfere with. Instead, you see a simple ballistic pattern, without interference. To say that another way, measur...
How are pharmaceuticals made - does Prozac or, say, Acetaminophen start as a plant somewhere?	[ "Many pharmaceutical agents actually _are_ naturally found in plants, but high demands basically prohibits extracting from natural sources as a viable option. They're usually made chemically or biochemically - but the starting material may very well be from plants (albeit in the form of very different compound). Ta...	[ "I would assume that its based off a variety of factors starting off with the cost of research and the estimate rate of return expected. The companies will want a quick return on their investment balanced off what people/insurance would be willing to pay and the expected prescription rate. So a common illness would...
How people sell movie scripts and who decides if it's a big budget movie?	[ "I can tell you one thing for sure--make sure your formatting is up to par with the genre you're writing. What are some that you've written so far? Who you pitch to might depend from there." ]	[ "YouTube changed how they pay youtubers to be based on how frequently they upload and the length of their videos. Let's plays, and other game play videos can be very long and don't take much time to make. Not saying they're bad, but these videos are so perfect in the eyes of YouTube they get paid more than basicall...
Why did the later Roman Empire (and Byzantine Empire) have such chronic troop shortages?	[ "Do you have any particular manpower crises in mind that you'd like explained? The late Roman/Byzantine era is a thousand years long, there's no single generalization that can explain every crisis in a satisfactory way. I'd be glad to help answer questions for the middle Byzantine period." ]	[ "Attacking Lee's army while he was retreating was much better than allowing him to return to his defensive positions in Virginia. An army retreating through enemy territory is much more vulnerable than an army stationed in defensive positions in its own territory. And if the casualties had continued to be equal, th...
How can an "entry level position" for a job require 1+ years of experience?	[ "Entry level doesn't always mean for entry into the field, but can mean entry into the company. So that position might be the bottom level position for that particular company and therefore might require some sort of experience." ]	[ "Because they would get sued. The legal system isn't like some kind of beep-boop robot that overlooks totally obvious loopholes. Any company that claimed \"No, we were really advertising the endorsement of Bill Gates, plumber, from Bumfuck, Nebraska.\" would get laughed out of court. As /u/Snewzie pointed out with ...
How are 360 degree videos filmed and made? How is this possible?	[ "They 've got something like this _URL_0_ It has a lot of cameras on it, capturing every angle. Then, the video is processed so that you can turn your phone and change the angle." ]	[ "This had just popped up on the front page a few days ago, take a look at the explanation by [Sean Carroll](_URL_0_). He answers the question very basically there, though if you watch the entire lecture he goes into further detail." ]
due to the 2.5bn minecraft acquisition, how do notch or sellers of businesses in general receive these enormous amounts of money	[ "Generally they get a combination of cash and stock. So Notch and co likely got some large amount of money directly put into their bank accounts and then also received some number of Microsoft shares. This is a pretty common way to do things and it means that Notch and co can stick with Microsoft if they think its...	[ "YouTube changed how they pay youtubers to be based on how frequently they upload and the length of their videos. Let's plays, and other game play videos can be very long and don't take much time to make. Not saying they're bad, but these videos are so perfect in the eyes of YouTube they get paid more than basicall...
Why does Jupiter look black / invisible from this picture?	[ "That picture is taken from the shadow of Jupiter. You're seeing the \"night\" side of Jupiter, except for a tiny curve of \"twilight\" Jupiter." ]	[ "When the atmosphere between you and the light source is heating up or cooling down it will create some \"swirls\" (Hot roads in summer). When the light is far enough away those disturbances can cause all of the light to be reflected off and you cant see it." ]
Potentially, could one walk on the Pacific Garbage Patch?	[ "Not at all.Unless you were a Jesus Bug (family Gerridae, a.k.a Water Striders) It is a thin, watery mix of mostly tiny particles and a few chunks. About ten to forty percent is free-floating fishing nets. Much of it is microplastics, one observer compared to \"pepper in your soup\". The mental image of a floating ...	[ "You could, but you wouldn't be able to take advantage of all the [gravity assists](_URL_0_) that spacecraft headed out of the solar system (like the Voyager and Pioneer crafts) usually take advantage of. It's much slower, since you don't have any velocity in that direction to start with." ]

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