query stringlengths 20 300 | positive listlengths 1 1 | negative listlengths 1 1 |
|---|---|---|
Does a microwave kill every living thing in it? | [
"Microwaves work by rapidly changing the orientation of polarized molecules(particularly water) to break h-bonds and create kinetic energy. They are known to break down more complex molecules such as vitamins, but it is unknown whether it is heat or microwaves that denature these molecules. In short, yes it should ... | [
"When cells divide they make pretty much exact copies of themselves. Introduce radiation to the equation and the copying process goes screwy and the new cell is different. Rinse and repeat over and over and you end up with body cells which are completely different in shape size and function to what they were origin... |
How probable is it to get a computer error due to quantum effects? | [
"[Shot noise](_URL_0_) is the noise in an electronic circuit caused by the discrete nature of individual electrons. This must be taken into account in low current applications. Gamma rays can cause random errors in computer memory. High Rel systems will be designed for these errors to be corrected. I am an EE, not ... | [
"> TL;DR If you looked at some point and moment in/after the heat death, could you reverse the clock and reconstruct the universe as it was before? Or, is the heat death a kind of point of no return for information? You could theoretically do this, but you would have to know literally every piece of information in ... |
Why did Athens have democracy when the other ancient Greek city states did not? Was it a success? | [
"Plenty of other city states had democracies. They arose both independently and because of Athenian intervention. Corcyra is a great example of this. Thucydides writes about the conflict between the aristocrats and the democrats on that island; it is his standard for \"stasis\" - that is civil war (book 3 I think).... | [
"A smaller population may require the same type (police, fire, etc) services but at a much smaller scale. Mayberry only needed two cops, Atlanta needs thousands. The cost is greatly different. Other infrastructure are scaled accordingly."
] |
If placed up to our chin in water, could we still die of dehydration? | [
"you would actually die of dehydration quicker. when you are surrounded by water, your body believes it needs more water than it actually does. The Guiness Book of World Records used to have a record for longest shower, but will no longer accept this as a record and issues a statement warning against trying for thi... | [
"First you must consider the caliber of the weapon. Second, the type of bullet (JHP, FMJ, etc.). Then the size of the target. Small caliber handgun plus large target means that many of the bullets can go through soft tissue and either end there or ricochet inside but with less kinetic energy. It's not as easy as th... |
Where does charge come from? | [
"Charge is a property of particles that comes from the invariance of physics under certain transformations in \"non-physical\" spaces, called gauge transformations. For example electric charge is due to the Lagrangian of electromagnetic interaction being invariant under a U(1) gauge transformation, which basically ... | [
"Just imagine the electrons in a cable as little balls pushing each other trough a pipe. That means the pipe is always full and If you flick the lightswitch it just needs the distance of one electron to be moved to start the lightbulb"
] |
Where did the heart shape come from? The human heart doesn't really look like that. | [
"/u/TheYottleInTheBottle has addressed this question before: * [How did the ♥, come to be identified with love, and represent a heart?](_URL_0_)"
] | [
"Your asking essentially the chicken or the egg. Example, Did you stomach evolove first and create your brain and extremites to feed it. Or did your brain grow your stomach to power it. Har to say, as without something to feed the stomach, we would have no stomch. Without the brain to run everything, we wouldn't ha... |
How do you get footage of deep sea wildlife without scaring them away? | [
"Believe it or not many underwater animals do not immediately flee when you're close to them. Some of those pictures are taken from father away with some level of high quality zoom, just like above water. (Went diving in caymans. Can confirm you can essentially swim up to and touch many underwater creatures. But d... | [
"Most of the time the people who go to these places are either already successful or some kind of athlete. The majority of the people you are talking about already have a lot of money to finance these trips. The alternative is usually some kind of athlete like the ones you see on YouTube doing extreme sports (base ... |
How does increasing torque increases traction? | [
"You're right! If a car has more power, thus more torque at a given RPM, then the only thing that will give it more traction is the design of the tire tread or an increase of the weight of the car. So, if a car is driving on a slippery road (say uphill), a less powerful car will not tend to slip more than a more po... | [
"First of all, if you're downloading from two different sources and one of the servers has more outgoing bandwidth than the other, that may determine the outcome. However, if both remote servers are able to send you the file as fast as possible, what you're observing is totally real and it has to do with the TCP/IP... |
A bank profits from lendning out money at a higher interest rate than it borrows it. Where does the money come from that sustains this difference? | [
"400k is paid to their employees and investors. who in turn spend that money to buy the things produced by the people that borrowed the money to fund their business/life's work. any money stashed under the proverbial mattress is expected to be inconsequential to the scale of the overall economy."
] | [
"When a movie is popular, they increase the supply of it. A movie theater can choose to devote 4 screens to it, instead of 1. This allows them to make as much money off of the movie as its popularity will allow. You can't do this as easily with plays, music concerts, and other things that are performed live, for ob... |
Can you fire someone for having cancer? | [
"If you actually say it like that, then hell no. But if the person with cancer is missing work without calling in, staring off in extreme pain instead of working, or depressing customers to the point that they leave, you can fire them for that. Although they have a decent chance of winning a lawsuit against you if ... | [
"[At-Will Employment](_URL_0_) An employee who believes they were terminated unlawfully (be it a violation of public policy doctrine or a federal statute) would file an investigation."
] |
Why don't we know how life started? | [
"In addition to the other good answers already here, there's also the fact that not only do we not know how life *did* originate, we don't yet have any idea how it *could have* originated. We know that commonplace chemical reactions can create simple molecules called *amino acids.* These are found in nature all the... | [
"Yep! By using pulsars as beacons. Each pulsar has a very particular spin period, no two are exactly the same and we know them to very precise values. We know accurate distances to relatively few of them, but enough that by identifying the positions of these pulsars on the sky, we could accurately determine our 3D ... |
How far away from the nucleus does 100% of the electron cloud extend? | [
"The long-distance behavior of the radial wavefunctions for atomic orbitals is exponential decay. So there is no distance after which they go to zero."
] | [
"A complete copy of you DNA is in the nucleus of each of you cells. There is a few exception like red blod cell that lack a nucleus and sex cells that have half the number of chromosomes."
] |
Why carnivores like lions, crocodiles, sharks, etc, can eat raw meat and not get sick, yet we do. | [
"They do get sick. And they die all the time. They also have no hospital to go to. But most of these animals kill their prey and immediately eat it, so the food is fresh and bacteria/carrion hasn't gotten on it yet. Not the case if we're talking about buying meat in a store where the animal was killed days ago or m... | [
"Imagine an apple. Large and juicy, full of flavour and nutrients growing on the branch. Think of it ripening, at some point it's at it's perfect levels of sweetness, crunch, and juiciness. Delicious right? Same with a rare steak. If you let it go too long, it loses the flavour. Loses the moisture content, loses... |
Why do diplomats have immunity from the laws of the country they are in? | [
"_URL_0_ I am sure you were looking for a summary, but this could explain much better."
] | [
"They don't. It's a marketing ~~lie~~ gimmick. I used to work for a company that did a similar thing by mail. New customers were supposed to sign up by a certain time for special rates but as a specific matter of policy we'd give those rates to *anyone* who mailed back the special offer."
] |
Why do presidents and CEOs typically resign after a controversy instead of staying or being fired? Like for a example a while back the president of a university resigned after hate symbols appeared around the campus why didn’t he stay? | [
"So the reason for the departure is that it allows the institution to blame them and move on. The university can say \"It was the president's fault, we will move forward and improve\", even though it's possible they do nothing afterwards it gives the appearance of action. The reason why they usually aren't fired is... | [
"If you ask for 1 pen, it costs you two dollars. If you ask for 100 000 pens, they will only cost you one dollar each. I prefer selling you 100 000 pens at half price, than selling you 1 at full price and have 99 999 sitting around doing nothing. In a similar way, if you ask for a small amount of money, you pay a b... |
Historians, if you can change how history is taught in public schools what would it be? | [
"I would love to get rid of \"american exceptionalism\", or in broader terms, do away with the idea of good guys and bad guys. Very rarely were the good guys (read-the ones writing the story) as good as they are made out to be and the bad guys were generally not just evil for its own sake. There are many many diffe... | [
"Hi readers! Since questions like these often attract anecdotal answers, just a quick reminder: you are in /r/AskHistorians, so do ensure that answers are comprehensive and informative, and based on solid source material. Personal anecdotes or other casual chitchat/speculation/opinion are not accepted as answers he... |
What is going on chemically when I get that feeling of guilt? (If I don't buy something after getting a free sample or not tipping) | [
"I feel that guilt is a direct result of empathy in most cases. Damage to the frontal cortex impairs empathy, and psychopaths exhibit the same lack of empathy as those with frontal cortex damage. So, whatever is going on chemically when you feel guilt is likely going on in the frontal cortex. _URL_3_"
] | [
"High coercivity vs. low coercivity. You're never going to need to re-write the information on the magnetic stripe of your credit card, so its stripe has high coercivity. That means it took a lot of energy to produce, but will take a lot of energy to erase. Hotel keys need to be re-written almost daily, so their st... |
Which touch receptor encodes for the sensation of "wetness"? | [
"Feeling wetness is a combination of the work of mechanoreceptors, cutaneous receptors, and thermoreceptors. Thermoreceptors feel temperature, cutaneous receptors feel texture, and mechanoreceptors feel pressure. Anything that feels cold and smooth may feel wet. You're more likely to feel wetness if the temperature... | [
"I think it would be all about heat transfer/ heat capacity. Water can hold a lot of heat (it's thermal capacity is high), and water would conduct heat better to your body than just warm cloth."
] |
Why are Vitamins added to soy milk/almond milk? | [
"Yes they would be considered supplements because they're 'supplementing' what isn't in the food naturally.Meats/milk/eggs generally have more vit. D and B vitamins. YES there are added benefits to added vitamins. Ex. Vit. D is necessary for calcium regulation, B vitamins play a major role in biochemical pathways. ... | [
"You're looking at it backwards. If they didn't include the disclaimers you mention, they would have to meet the FDA's standards, like real medications must. They hope to sell you something without having to go through the rigor and expense of FDA certification."
] |
Why is (gravitational, electric, molecular etc.) potential energy always negative? | [
"Convenience. Potential energy is always defined relatively, because only differences in potential energy actually matter. Most of the time the most convenient place to set the potential energy to zero is \"at infinity\", meaning in the limit as the respective elements are taken infinitely far apart. For attractive... | [
"Look at the sign of the [Hall conductivity](_URL_0_). For the experimental setup, it's easiest to look at the picture in the \"theory\" section of that wiki page. The voltage that you measure will have opposite sign for n versus p type doping."
] |
Why are The Trouble of Northern Ireland not classed as a civil war? | [
"It is considered as a civil war by modern standards despite the British government trying to class it in the 80s as terrorist activities."
] | [
"The kindly old man Dalai Lama is a much better PR face than Tamil Tiger suicide bombers. The fact that Tibet is fighting global economic power China instead of an island nation many people couldn't find on a map helps visibility too."
] |
The Tarantino Universe | [
"There are subtle clues that hint that all of Tarantino's movies take place in the same universe (note: he has confirmed this). Vincent Vega (Pulp Fiction) and Mr. Blonde (Reservoir Dogs) are brothers. Mr. White (Reservoir Dogs) has a history with Alabama (True Romance). Donny Donowitz (Inglorious Basterds) is the ... | [
"Because then we would also have to add * Communism/socialism/Marxism * The speed of light * Black holes * How computers work * Monty Hall problem"
] |
Why does the sun seem to burn hotter in the morning (ca. 10:00) than in the afternoon (ca. 17:00)? | [
"1000 is only 2 hours off of noon. 1700 is 5 hours off if noon. The morning equivalent of 1700 would be 0700."
] | [
"All sleep is not the same. A good nights sleep contains several cycles between different stages of sleep. Some of these stages of sleep are deeper than others. After a good nights sleep, you have been right through the sleep cycles, and you are in a light phase of sleep. This is the best way to wake up. When you h... |
How does Google Maps know about traffic in specific locations? | [
"It is fairly accurate. Your phone knows where you are (thanks to GPS) and can extrapolate how fast you are moving between GPS pings (if you travel about 5,000 feet in a minute, you are going about 60 mph). Since there are a great number of phones all transmitting this information back to Google, Google has a good ... | [
"They don't, which is one reason that you can't actually buy a driverless car yet: They only work in optimal conditions."
] |
Why are CPU speeds measured in Gigahertz (GHz) and RAM in Megahertz (MHz) when they are usually similar? | [
"It was mostly marketing. In the days when CPUs started achieving GHz speeds, the “GHz” portion was heavily, heavily advertised as being ultra crazy fast! Look we don’t even measure it like those other puny CPUs! When GHz speeds came out, the CPU market was a fierce advertising space. RAM on the other side took fa... | [
"The original SI unit was called the \"Grave\" (pronounced as \"grav\" as in, the first syllable of the word \"gravity\"). This was defined in 1793 in France by scientist Antoine Lavoisier as the weight of ~~0.1~~ 0.001 cubic meters of water at 0 degrees Celsius. However, the word \" Grave\" sounded too much like... |
....how do stud finders work? | [
"While there are newer technologies, stud finders mostly come in two broad varieties: magnetic, and electronic. An electronic stud finder makes use of electric fields, and the fact that materials with different density have different capacitance and permittivity. By measuring this, they can find places where the de... | [
"They don't. Except in the rare circumstance where a projectile with a steel core causes a spark bullets don't make things catch fire."
] |
Would the type of songs played on an MP3 player create a non-negligible difference in battery life over the course of a charge? | [
"in terms of processing it won't make much of a difference if at all. but in terms of driving the headphones, it would maybe make a tiny difference. if you listen to an audiobook it will likely use less power than listening to metal. In audio books there are many pauses. during these pauses the the headphone driver... | [
"They're designed to put out a large amount of power for a short time -- enough to start your car engine, which is heavy. But the designers assume they'll be constantly recharged thereafter (by the car's alternator or generator)."
] |
What is the cognitive science behind the idea that not expressing/bottling up emotions will lead to undesirable effects? | [
"The concept you are referring to is catharsis, and depending on your school of thought it either works or it doesn't. Freudians believe it helps stabilize your mood, but behaviourists would probably agree that it would make it worse (I am of the second opinion). Here is a study I found on the topic which reinforce... | [
"Cats and dogs have been selectively bred to be good companions. Most animals find being petted extremely stressful and many would lash out if you tried. But those are poor traits for pets so we try to breed them out. There's an old Russian experiment with a fox farm that demonstrates this very nicely. At the farm ... |
Why does a baloon explode into many pieces when it is punctured with something sharp, but not do so when the bottom opening is opened? | [
"It's about the amount of strain that is on the point where you create the puncture. If you take a needle and poke a balloon right by the knot, where the pressure is lowest; it won't explode it will just leak. If you create a puncture in the side of the balloon where the stress is very high from all sides, the ener... | [
"Space isn't expanding like a balloon into the air around it - it's expanding like the *surface* of the balloon. The surface of a balloon expands without needing more \"balloon\" to expand into - we call this stretching. Space expands in a similar way, only in more dimensions than the two of a balloon's surface."
] |
Why is it hard for some people to give compliments, when they almost always are responded to positively? | [
"For people with fragile self-esteem or low self-confidence, showing admiration for someone can make you feel vulnerable. There is the basic hurdle of knowing how to say something complimentary without sounding creepy or awkward. Even if you're not socially awkward, though, there is still the risk of rejection, tha... | [
"When you talk normally, you're generating the words, tone, and rhythm from your head before you open your mouth; when it's time to read, you have to look at the words manually and recite them one at a time, and you may not be able to anticipate how the entire sentence or line is supposed to sound. If you get a cha... |
Why adults change their voice talking to children? | [
"I “think” it’s simply to be less intimidating. We are big and scary to kids. Especially kids that don’t know us really well. I’ve noticed people do it a lot more to my son when it’s people that don’t see him often. The softer higher pitched voice is closer to that of other children and makes him more comfortable."... | [
"It's the association of a new toy/item that we get from it. You're unlikely to associate that action with anything else in any case. It's like how some people associate a biker bell as to get out of the way."
] |
Would a quadcopter function on Mars? | [
"Gravity on Mars is only 38% of what it is on Earth as well, so the entire difference of the atmosphere wouldn't have to be made up with the blade size."
] | [
"It depends on altitude, space weather, and on board power requirements. This explains it better than I could: _URL_1_"
] |
Why are we more tiered when waking up than going to sleep? | [
"Do you use an alarm clock that changes frequently? The body goes through natural cycles when sleeping such that you drift in and out of deep sleep a few times each night. If you interrupt one of these cycles, you will wake up feeling very tired because your brain basically has to rewire itself by breaking down the... | [
"Dude, I typically experience the opposite, usually you're wiped out before making the trip back, and energized and active on the way there."
] |
if you'd gone to southern Britain in 460 and asked people "is this still part of the roman empire?" would most of them have said "yes" or "no"? | [
"My answer would be \"probably yes\". According to Gildas, the Britons sent an appeal for help to Aetius around 450 A.D.: \"the barbarians drive us to the sea, the sea drives us to the barbarians, between these two means of death we are either killed or drowned\" While this admittedly doesn't tell us whether they... | [
"Side question, but definitely related: Were whipping boys used outside of the English court? Also, when did the idea of using a whipping boy fall out of favor?"
] |
How did the first STD's originate? | [
"The fact people are born virgins doesn't matter, it's what happens after they have sex. Probably the first STD was transmitted by some other means AND could be transferred sexually. If there were 1000 strains of a virus and one could be transmitted two ways instead of one, that strain would have an advantage. Even... | [
"A couple of archived threads contain a lot of good information. From February 2014, [this one here](_URL_6_) has a top-level comment about medieval Europe and a lot of further information in the comments below. And then [this one](_URL_5_) covers Rome, South American cultures, China, Japan, ancient Greece, and anc... |
Any good books on history of Poland? | [
"Hi there, those interested in recommending things to OP! While you might have a title to share, this is still a thread on AskHistorians, and we still want the replies here to be to an /r/AskHistorians standard - presumably OP would have asked at /r/history or /r/askreddit if they wanted non-specialist opinion. So ... | [
"Is there a specific region and time period you are interested in? If not, your question would break our \"poll type\" question rule."
] |
Does the total eclipse affect animal behavior? If so, what does it change? | [
"On a local level, absolutely. The light dims, the area cools down. Animals either think it's night again, or otherwise get horribly confused. At our site, all the grasshoppers, crickets, and other insects went quiet about 20 minutes prior to totality, and later came back."
] | [
"Mythbusters did a segment on it, and they found that eye-black coupled with shade from a hat brim made a noticeable difference against glare. Sorry, on phone and I don't know exactly which episode."
] |
Why do we have different words that mean the same thing and same words that mean different things? | [
"Because language development is a long complicated history of languages merging and mixing, and meanings changing and evolving. It's important to remember to that languages were not made by a single person sitting down and deciding what every word that will ever be is"
] | [
"commercialism. if you were happy with your old stuff, you wouldn't need to buy new stuff. all the designers and manufacturers come out with new looking stuff and market the old stuff as ugly and new stuff as pretty in order to make money. our tastes are hugely influenced by others."
] |
Game theory. And what are some real life examples of putting it to use ? | [
"Any time you've held off on buying something because you know it's on sale elsewhere (or that it will be on sale next week), that's game theory right there. Just as one example."
] | [
"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... |
Who was Anwar al-Awlaki | [
"Anwar al-Awlaki was an American (Who was also a citizen of the country 'Yemen') muslim cleric (holy man), who was said to be a nasty man who told other nasty men to kill people. America did not like him because he told other people to kill people, so they wanted to kill him before he could hurt other people. So a ... | [
"In September 1964 Bertrand Russell published Sixteen Questions on the Kennedy Assassination. I'm sure there were some earlier instances but that's one example from less than a year after. _URL_0_"
] |
Why do some things melt, and some things only burn? | [
"Here are some articles that you might find usefull. Basically in order to melt the solid must have a chemical structure such that adding heat won't break down any chemical bonds through oxidation or other decomposition. [Burn, Char, Melt](_URL_0_) [Wood does not melt](_URL_1_)"
] | [
"1) Crude oil is not one substance. It is a mixture of a ton of different products that need to be extracted through various processes: [_URL_0_](_URL_0_) & #x200B; 2) Plastics are extremely versatile and a ton of different processes can be used to get different products from what is technically the same plastic. ... |
Are intense workouts essentially wasted if you aren't increasing calories? What happens to muscles if you don't increase? | [
"You'll get somewhat stronger and fitter. Your body will absorb fat to gain the extra caloric requirements. Your muscles won't grow much *larger* physically, but they'll improve in performance up to a point. Although, if you're doing ketogenic, you're probably not going to be able to maintain an intense workout reg... | [
"There is a hormone in insects called Juvenile Hormone (JH) that controls metamorphosis. Basically, every time the larva molts, its body checks to see how much JH there is. While JH is high, it will stay immature and keep eating and growing as a larva. When JH levels suddenly drop, that is a signal that the caterpi... |
Why is Taiwan compelled to use "Chinese Taipei" as their national sporting team name? | [
"Taiwan is not officially recognised as independent by most countries. China claims Taiwan is part of China, and they will refuse to have diplomatic relations with any country which recognises Taiwan. Since China is the bigger and more powerful of the two, most countries choose them over Taiwan. It's further compli... | [
"I've been out of academia for a bit so I don't know how much weight this still has, but when I was in my Anthropology courses we learned about Tibetan polyandry. Basically, Tibetan inheritance rules dictated that each married son got a portion of the family's estate. As such, if each son married a different wife t... |
Marxist View of History Explanation | [
"So, \"Marxist\" is a complicated adjective, because it can mean either \"pertaining to Marx\" or \"pertaining to political parties influenced by Marx\" or \"pertaining to schools of scholarship influenced by Marx.\" What's worse, which qualities seem terrifyingly *Marxist* changes over time. There was a point wher... | [
"You are asking for the history of fairy tales, this is a question for historians. Try r/askhistorians"
] |
Is gravitational time dilation near a black hole due to some intrinsic property of being deep in its gravity well or due to the relativistic speeds needed to maintain orbit around it, or both? | [
"There is a time dilation effect simply because of the geometry of spacetime (\"the intrinsic property of being deep in its gravity well\" as you put it). Even two observers who maintain constant angular and radial coordinates have different time coordinates. If the observers are also orbiting the black hole, then ... | [
"> Is it true that stars orbit the galactic center at the same speed, regardless of their distance from it? Yes, or pretty close to that. Remember, too, this is speed, not angular speed. > Is this still thought to be an effect of dark matter? Yes. > How would dark matter need to be dispersed to create the resul... |
Why does it seem like (in western culture at least) that we define the far eastern empires far more often by their dynasties than western empires? | [
"I’d add that I think this is far from black and white. I’ve seen the dynastic imperial terms associated with China applied in a European context, e.g. the Angevin Empire, referring to the lands ruled under the early Angevin kings, a polity made up of separate entities (England, Normandy, Gascony, Maine, etc) or th... | [
"hi! additional input is welcome, but FYI, you may be interested in a few similar posts * [How did China come to be 90% Han Chinese?](_URL_3_) * [Why is such a high proportion of China Han? How has ethnicity developed in China over its history?](_URL_0_) * [How did the Han come to dominate China? To what extent was... |
So apparently TIL that the primitive(and stubbornly so) logographic ways of the Chinese language is what held them back. Any merit? | [
"Counter example: Japanese writing uses Chinese characters extensively but Japan was still able to adopt Western technology and science and industrialize extremely quickly. Chinese characters are actually fairly easy to create or to adapt for the phonetic representation of foreign words. There are much better expl... | [
"hi! you may be interested in these recent posts * [In the Netflix series \"Marco Polo,\" Marco Polo, a Venetian, has a relatively easy time communicating with people in the Mongol court. Would actual western traders be able to communicate effectively without translators? If so, how?](_URL_0_) * [In Netflix's Marco... |
What does it mean for a food to have 'anti-inflammatory' properties? | [
"It means that the food contains chemicals that can help to reduce inflammation. It will not make you harder to set on fire."
] | [
"$1 in 1950 would buy a lot more then than it does today. $1 in 1950 adjusted for inflation to 2016 is the amount of stuff that $1 in 1950 would buy today. for example. if a ford car costs $1000 in 1950 and $20000 today. we can say that $1000 in 1950 adjusted for inflation is equal to $20000 today. of course, the ... |
All colours are made from CMYK, right? Can you produce any SCENT similarly to producing any colour? | [
"First, some slight pedantry. Strictly speaking, CMY is a *subtractive* system. RGB is the correct way to think of colour, really, even though mixing lights is a little less intuitive than mixing paints. (A cyan paint reflects B and G; a yellow paint reflects G and R; mix them together, and you get a paint that onl... | [
"Retailers used a small machine with two rollers that made a carbon copy of your details and those of the retailer on a triplicate carbon copy slip. That is the reason your credit card still has raised lettering in the front. You got one copy, the retailer kept one and the other copy was submitted to the bank for c... |
Since we can teach monkeys, gorillas etc. sign language why can't we teach them to ask questions? Or is it possible to teach them that other beings can know more than they currently know? | [
"They don't seem to have the cognitive capacity to ask questions. Many linguists don't agree that Koko learned sign language, or that she used it or understood it the way humans understand language. Even if you think that what she was doing was similar to how humans use language, her use of syntax the size of her v... | [
"AlphaGo uses something called machine learning, which is essentially a way of classifying objects based on the classification of past objects that we give the computer. In this case the objects being classified are the states of the board. So we tell AlphaGo what the good and bad moves of past games were, and Alph... |
What causes that weird feeling in your jaw before you throw up? | [
"Dunno about a weird feeling but I definitely get 'wet mouth' before a spew. Quite a handy little early warning."
] | [
"I'm only speculating but it could be Pavlovian response. You've probably heard of Pavlov's dog where the scientist would ring a bell and then give the dog some food, repeat, repeat, repeat. Eventually the dog would associate the bell with food and begin salivating at the sound of the bell, whether there was any fo... |
Why are automatic cars considered slower and less powerful than a manual one? | [
"A manual gearbox gives you full control over the engines power. You can downshift from 5th to 3rd if you need some quick passing power. An automatic transmission does it all for you when the software tells it to. Manual cars are not more powerful, but you can get all of the performance out of them."
] | [
"Same reasons some some consider pink, purple and pastels to be \"girly\" colors. Or why traditionally men wore pants and women dresses, men have short hair and women long. Archaic gender norms."
] |
How do scientists distinguish one species to another? | [
"A lot of different ways. Before DNA it was based on things like reproductive structures and methods, physical traits, geographical location, and stuff like that. But now DNA sequencing seems to be the way to go, an example of this is with fungal species"
] | [
"Not all museum records are as good as you might hope. Detailing everything in a museum collection can be quite hard. And then keeping the records and catalogs up to date is a continuous effort. Things get mislabled or misplaced all the time. If you have a giant collection you might only look at an artifact once ev... |
Did poor Roman ever work alongside slaves? | [
"Well in the late roman era after the crisis of the century, there started to be a narrowing distinction between slave farmers and tenant farmers (colonii), especially since Diocletian ordered their jobs to be hereditary and prevented them from leaving the land. I remember reading in some of the books, that by the... | [
"There is a good deal of room for fresh responses to this question. But I briefly summarised the main controversies [in an earlier thread here](_URL_0_). The short answer is that we have no certainties about this at all, only a lot of supposition and a certain amount of reasonable deduction. Even the discovery of f... |
How does a laser thermometer figure out temperature? | [
"The laser is just for aiming. The measurement is done by focusing the infrared light emitted by the object to be measured onto a device which changes resistance with change in temperature. The resistance is measured and it has been calibrated to convert resistance to temperature."
] | [
"It uses a modified decision tree. Basically, every question can be answered with true or false. The combination of all those trues and falses gives a unique answer that is preprogrammed into the database. If it fails, it tries to learn the sequence of trues and falses and gives it the correct answer (You can tell ... |
Is it possible for everyone to make money off the stock market? | [
"Yes, it's possible for everyone to make money in the stock market and, no, it's not a zero-sum game. If I invest in a startup with a great idea that makes money it doesn't preclude anyone else's investments from earning a return."
] | [
"Imagine you have 100 doors, and there is a prize behind one. You pick one door and then 98 others are opened. The prize is either behind your door, or the other one that is unopened. Should you switch? Absolutely, because you had a 1/100 shot of guessing right with your first pick, and a 99/100 chance if you swit... |
If I'm driving at 100 miles an hour and I hit a car in the back that's going 70 miles an hour, will the impact be the same as when I'm driving 30 miles an hour and hitting a car in the back that's standing still? | [
"The collision itself will have the same energy and effects, but obviously in the first scenario you now have a wreck that is still moving at 70+ mph. Because kinetic energy is equal to mv²/2, the amount of energy at the beginning of the first scenario is about sixteen times higher than the energy in the second, so... | [
"If the other piano was moving towards you, then to hear a perfect 5th, you'd need to hear the note G4 (middle C is C4). The frequency of C4 ~ 261.63 Hz, and the frequency of G4 ~ 392.00 Hz, and the Doppler equation for sound is: f*_2_* = (c*_s_* * f*_1_*) / (c*_s_* - v) * f*_1_* is the frequency of the sound when ... |
What's the difference between a "language" and a "dialect"? | [
"[This thread on /r/linguistics would interest you.](_URL_0_) Officially, a dialect becomes an independent language when speakers can no longer understand each other (ie, they lose \"mutual intelligibility\"), but in practice, it's usually a political decision."
] | [
"I usually explain it to my friends using phones: & nbsp; Switch - You can call anyone in your area code but can't get anyone outside of your area code. & nbsp; Router - You can call people in your area code(switch), but anything not in your area code is forwarded from the switch to the router. The Router can for... |
even if we could terraform Mars, wouldn't its lack of magnetic field mean cosmic radiation would continually bombard whatever is living on the surface? | [
"Radiation doesn't just blast the surface with cancer rays, it also whisks away the atmosphere. Mar's atmosphere is very thin and complex life that we have on Earth cannot survive (it is called the Armstrong Limit)."
] | [
"It can be done a number of ways. Chemical thrusters work just fine, especially small thrusters spinning up a big station. If you have two counterrotating sections, they can be driven by electric motors of any sort. Flywheels could also work, but it seems needlessly complex compared to simple exterior thrusters. If... |
Why do we name Tropical Storms and hurricanes? | [
"Makes them easier to identify since they move around and there can be two more or less active at the same time. Most of these named storms/hurricanes you never hear about on the general news. They have a already made up [list of names](_URL_0_). They get reused eventually unless the name gets retired (like Katrin... | [
"This is a very common question. You can use search to find [all the other really good answers](_URL_0_ ). This is instant, and faster than ust typing in your question every time. It's a way of cheating elections. Read the others, and then ask a more specific question."
] |
What did the natives call the Amazon before it was renamed? | [
"I'm afraid I can't provide specifics as to the names given to the Amazon River prior to Western settlement, but it's important to point out that the Amazon river is 4000 miles long and basically bifurcates a continent. Many native tribes lived and continue to live near it all of who did not have contact with the r... | [
"Follow up question how do you even say Vijayanagara? I heard some Englishmen say it vagina-gara. How do you pronounce it properly?"
] |
Why is it frowned upon to dislike reading, but perfectly fine to dislike other equally important subjects like math | [
"Math isn't something that is used in everyday life to the same extent that reading is. Yes, math is extremely important, but on a day to day basis you don't use much more than simple addition, subtraction, or multiplication. You don't typically going around using trig, calculus, or alegbra. Reading is something we... | [
"If you ask for 1 pen, it costs you two dollars. If you ask for 100 000 pens, they will only cost you one dollar each. I prefer selling you 100 000 pens at half price, than selling you 1 at full price and have 99 999 sitting around doing nothing. In a similar way, if you ask for a small amount of money, you pay a b... |
silly math regarding supermassive black holes and average density. | [
"> Now, this conflicts with things I've heard, that the average densities of supermassive black holes are in fact very light, some even lower than water. I thought this was totally wrong at first, but then I [ran the numbers myself in wolfram alpha](_URL_0_) and got a density drastically lower than water. Things I ... | [
"Every object's gravity is stronger the closer you are to it. Until you get close to its event horizon, a BH's gravity is almost the same as that of ay other object with the same mass."
] |
Is it still solicitation for sex if I ask a hooker to make me a sandwich for what ever she charges then we both consent to have sex afterwards? | [
"I am fairly sure this is how a lot of escort services work without getting into too much trouble. You pay for the \"date\" and if sex happens, well that's between two consenting adults! I think you may need an actual lawyer to answer this question as it is probably incredibly complex and would vary based on states... | [
"someone earlier on ELI5 asked why Snoop Dogg could talk about smoking weed and not get arrested, and this is similar. It's just not worth police time chasing down minor offenses that they see on TV. Especially when they have no way to prove what they saw on TV was real"
] |
Aristotle died in 322 BC, one year after the death of Alexander the Great. What were his thoughts on his former pupil's domination of the known world? | [
"Follow up question: how did the death of Alexander affect Aristotle?"
] | [
"Aside from the Walter diary, one of the most harrowing accounts of 1812 is *Sergeant Bourgogne - with Napoleon's Imperial Guard in the Russian campaign and on the retreat from Moscow 1812 - 13* by Adrien Bourgogne who typified the Imperial Guard's hard fighting grumblers. *A Soldier for Napoleon The Campaigns of L... |
Which number is greater, the number of pebble stones on earth or the number of stars in our galaxy? | [
"A pebble has minimum size 2mm so 1,000 of them would stretch 2 meters so a two meter cube of them would contain a billion of them. There are 200-400 billion stars in the galaxy according to Wikipedia so that would be the same as about 200-400 cubes of these pebbles. I would think that you could make many, many mor... | [
"The number of possible ways to order a deck of N cards grows like N!. The growth of N! is used to explicitly compute the entropy of simple systems in statistical mechanics. If the Taylor Series of a function is to converge at the value x, then f^([N])(x)x^(N) cannot grow faster than N!. Factorial growth is a facto... |
[Physics] Why does refrigerating food make it last longer? | [
"This is a biology question. Bacteria and all the other life forms use enzymes to break down food into fundamental ingredients. These enzymes work only in a specific temperature range, for example 10 degrees above and below the room temperature. When food is stored in the refrigerator where temperatures are much lo... | [
"1. We gauge time by memorable events. The older we get the less memorable events occur. 2. The amount of time passed relative to one’s age varies. For a 5-year-old, one year is 20% of their entire life. For a 50-year-old, however, one year is only 2% of their life. 3. Our biological clock slows as we age."
] |
What stopped the Ottomans from expanding into Iran? | [
"It was really the Safavids who halted their advance. They did at numerous times try to advance many times but the Safavids often used scortch earth tactics. Often rendering what territory the Ottomans as fleeting useless."
] | [
"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 /... |
Short selling. How can you make money betting against a stock? | [
"If I told you I was going out of town and could pick up something you wanted, I could ask for the money up front. We both know what it's worth now. However, when I actually get there, the price has dropped, and I just pocket the difference."
] | [
"While common sense says \"No\", newton's third law and all that, Mythbusters have actually proven that it DOES work due to some clever physics. Its similar to how old ships used to sail against the wind and all that."
] |
How glow-in-the-dark objects work | [
"The paint has a chemical that kind of acts like a battery. It absorbs light while the light is on, very much like a battery absorbs the electricity when it is plugged it. When the light is turned off, it still glows with the energy that it absorbed."
] | [
"1) The RTG is pretty simple actually. It is basically a small amount of radioactive material that is so radioactive that it is constantly decaying. That decay generates heat... which the RTG converts into electricity... and a shit load of excess heat. 2) Yes 3) It is contained in multiple layers of material that a... |
The mystery behind the Bermuda triangle | [
"there isn't one. Its mythology. It's one of the busiest shipping regions in the world, and sometimes ships/planes/etc run into distress or are lost. This became embellished into the idea that the disappearances there are statistically unusual. And that became further embellished into ideas like UFOs, Atlantis, or ... | [
"Smarter Every Day covered [this phenomenon](_URL_0_). Basically, the stream of honey has to get out of its own way when it comes to into contact with the bottom, so it naturally starts going around in a circle."
] |
Why is mercury harmful for us? | [
"1. Inhibits DNA repairing 2. Alters the ability of cell membranes to select what materials pass through them. 3. Alters enzyme activity 4. Interferes in the transmission of nervous impulses to the body 5. May induce the immune system to attack itself 6. Interferes in the function of endocrine glands 7. Kills good... | [
"Propaganda from the govt in the past so they could get the people on their side and a lot of it people still believe"
] |
If I were to be free falling infinitely, what would kill me first? | [
"Nothing about the falling would affect you in any way. Assuming you can breath just fine the next thing to kill you will be **dehydration**. You can go a few months without food, you can't go more than a week without water."
] | [
"Nice work, you've discovered Olbers' Paradox :) This was a much-discussed problem in antiquity. _URL_0_ Take a read of the wiki page, it's very good at explaining. And ask away if there is more you want to know."
] |
if the speed of sound is the speed at which a wave propogates thru a substance, how can a shockwave travel faster than the speed of sound? | [
"Basically a shock wave isn’t exactly a ‘wave’ per se, its a disturbance that happens due to travelling faster than the speed of sound (for the substance). When you travel faster than the speed of sound, the air in front of you gets squashed(compressibility effects) since it can’t move out of your way fast enough. ... | [
"Quantum tunneling is when an object does not have enough energy to surmount an energy barrier but is able to still pass through. Escaping over an energy barrier is when an object gains enough energy to go over the energy barrier. They are very different. Escaping over an energy barrier is effectively instantaneous... |
How did "saute an onion" become the first step in so many dishes? | [
"You may be interested in also trying /r/askculinary. Though, to be honest, I do not know how good of a resource they are."
] | [
"Typical, just after posting this I found out that one can easily make lye at home from ashes: _URL_0_ Anyhow, I guess we didn't know about lye all the time and soap has been around for ages, so the question still stands :)"
] |
Why do some things burn and others melt | [
"The difference has to do with the arrangements of what the 'things' are made of. Melting is a **physical** change, in which the molecules rearrange the order or place where they physically are; burning is a **chemical** change where the molecules are able to break away from the restraints that hold them together."... | [
"They all have a slightly different composition, the temperature and amount of oil also differs depending of the location of the kernel in the pan. The pan doesn’t distribute heat evenly."
] |
How do they know who certain demographics vote for in elections? | [
"Exit polls. People stand outside polling places and ask people questions after they vote. They get demographic information, as well as information like who they voted for, what their main issues are, and so on. Voters can decline to participate but the exit polls seem to be pretty accurate nonetheless."
] | [
"The Wall Street Journal says they're done by phone. In the early years, they had some volunteers who took surveys by mail, but now it's done with random cold calling. Apparently the methodology is rather good, the sample size is just lacking. [Source](_URL_0_)"
] |
How did Great Britain dominate the world? | [
"> off the coast Once Wales and Scotland were under control, England had no contested dry borders, which meant they could invest their entire military budget in their navy. They pretty much had no choice unless they wanted to fight purely defensive wars. You can't win a war by pure defense. Since they're a fairly ... | [
"This is a broad question do you have a specific time period or place in mind?"
] |
Another question from a 7 year old: "What is skin made of?" | [
"Let me answer that question with a Magic schoolbus episode: [link](_URL_0_)"
] | [
"Assuming she was Protestant: What interactions did she have with English soldiers? Were family members involved in helping either side? What did they do? How was participation viewed? How did her perception change after Bloody Sunday? Was she ever \"taxed\" by the Provos? Did she have Catholic friends and how did ... |
Why is it that my son gets free milk for lunch at school, but my daughter, who is lactose intolerant, has to pay for water? | [
"Depends on how your kids' school lunch program is subsidized. Can you give your daughter a canteen or water bottle? It's cheaper and less wasteful than buying bottled water every day."
] | [
"Cities/states want different income brackets in their city. So the local government will give grants to developers to develop for certain income classes. Like it's not just a welfare thing for poor people. Like a city would say \"we need some middle class people in this city\" but they know property prices are su... |
Why does food taste better when you're really hungry? | [
"A lot of taste actually comes from smell, and when you're hungry your sense of smell improves. It's not apex predator levels of smelling, but try walking past a fast food joint or even through a supermarket when you haven't eaten for a while. That and increased salivation will make any food you eat better."
] | [
"The Theory of relativity. The same reason time seems to pass In a blink when you're enjoying a night with friends, yet seems to last an eternity during the last 10 minutes of work."
] |
Why would I go to college? What majors are safe to get into? | [
"College makes it much easier to be successful. It's not a guarantee, but it's a very good step in the right direction. This site has some statistics about what happens on AVERAGE for graduates: _URL_0_ The right degree gets you a ticket into much higher-paying professional jobs. If you're looking for financial sec... | [
"Statistics! If you pick a proper group of a small size, and analyze them, you can logically and mathematically extrapolate to a larger population. That extrapolation is an estimate, but if the group is properly chosen and the math done correctly, it's a very accurate estimate."
] |
How large does a piece of land have to be before it is no longer considered an island? | [
"Somewhat arbitrarily, the cutoff is between Greenland in Australia."
] | [
"Hi there -- while we've approved this question, we would like to remind potential respondents of our [current events](_URL_0_) (AKA \"20-year\") rule -- it's fine to discuss events through 1997 (inclusive) and their effects, but not events after 1997. Thanks!"
] |
How can we lose airplanes? Can't a satellite or a few towers take some pictures of the sky and scan them in order to find the airplane? | [
"If it drops off radar, it's off radar. No \"backup\" radar is going to help. Satellites don't monitor every piece of ground every second. They are either orbiting the Earth in periods of about 90 minutes, or they're geostationary and taking pictures only so often (and at much higher scales). You can use satellites... | [
"Some subsurface activity has weakened or removed part of the underground. An example might be water dissolving soluble stone, like limestone, leaving a void. Material above that void is going to want to collapse into the void under the influence of gravity. They may search for people/material in a sinkhole, but t... |
How does the map app on my ipod (which has no cell phone function) track my course when it is not connected to wifi? It accurately tracks down to a few meters. | [
"The magic behind is that you don't need to connect to a Wi-Fi network to get the metadata like SSID. Google tracks every Wi-Fi router that doesn't have \"[_nomap](_URL_0_)\" at the end of it's SSID. Your's, mine, everyone's. They build a database of what SSID is where based on the related IP address. And while you... | [
"> I was wondering what the process behind the measurement was and what sorts of instruments are used? [Ion trap mass measurements](_URL_0_). Ionized atoms are trapped using electric and magnetic fields, and the frequency of their gyromotion around the magnetic field lines is measured. Frequencies can be measured e... |
In WW2, did Heer officer cadets got sent into battle before being promoted to actual officers? | [
"In the Wehrmacht and other Prussian-influenced military organizations such as the Finnish armed forces, officers first spend some time in an officer training school, and then do a \"residency\" among troops as a Fänrich/Oberfänrich, acting with the rank of a mid-level NCO but doing the work of an officer, typicall... | [
"I assume you are talking about Obama's executive order. It allows for immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally when they were children to secure protection from deportation if they are between the ages of 16 and 30 at the moment, in the military or school, and free of criminal offenses. They will also be allowed... |
How do they build things in water? | [
"There are numerous and various combinations of different construction methods depending on the structure required. Sometimes a coffer dam is built enable nearly dry construction, other times piles are drilled to reach bedrock, sometimes structures are built on land and moved to the water area for placement and som... | [
"If you're referring to the effect you see on hot days, that's a mirage. The sun heats up the road, so air down low is hotter than air above. The speed light waves travel through air depends on temperature, so this gradual difference means the light curves as one side of the wave gets ahead of the other. So light f... |
Why is asthma medication considered doping? | [
"Asthma medication for people that don't have asthma supposedly gives them better cardiovascular performance and lets their lungs breathe better. Doesn't make a difference in my experience though."
] | [
"This does not quite fit the bill of \"rival country\" but in 1989, a self described \"ecoterrorist group\" known only as \"The Breeders\" took credit for the recent infestation of California by medflies, which began destroying crops. Opinion is divided today as to whether it was a real attack, an out of control pr... |
I found several copies of Der Adler and other German publishings from the 1930's - 1940's era. Is there much value in them? | [
"[According to the German wiki](_URL_1_), Der Adler was an air-force propaganda magazine published between 1939 and 1944 with a total of 146 numbers. They are not overly common and apparently, according to the [German Central Magazine Database](_URL_0_), there was a reprint in 1977. So don't be surprised if you fin... | [
"In 1838, the US Navy commissioned 150 [Elgin \"Cutlass\" Pistols](_URL_0_) for the South Sea Expedition. More info [here](_URL_1_) If your uncle had 2 of those, they would be quite valuable."
] |
Can two suns collide and become one big sun? | [
"Yep! It doesn't happen all that often, but we know for sure that it does because we see really hot stars in clusters and know that based on their heat they should have died a while ago, but since they're still burning we have to assume that they were formed by stellar collisions (Holmes once said that once we elim... | [
"There's a guy I always see whenever the \"three sisters\" system is mentioned who claims it is utter bullshit. He says they might have planted the plants mixed together, but the idea that they would actually grow on each other is nonsense..the beans would stifle the corn or be shaded by it, the wind would blow the... |
What would happen if I touched absolute zero? | [
"You'd get freezer burn. The heat in your finger would try to flow into the absolute zero object and this would cool your finger below the temperature cells work well at. No different than touching liquid air of any other really cold thing."
] | [
"The other guy was close: it's called supercooling and you can read about it on [Wikipedia](_URL_0_) or here's a good [video explaining supercooling](_URL_1_)."
] |
What "Babylon" means in Rastafari culture? | [
"For Rastafari the Bible is one of their central books (it is an Abrahamic religion after all). In short they see [Haile Selassie](_URL_0_) as the new Messiah. Babylon in biblical terms was always a place of sin. Remeber the story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11) and in Revelation 17 is it called the great [Babyl... | [
"The graph cites a broken link to the US Census Bureau. A few minutes of digging led me to [this table](_URL_0_). As you can see, the only number for 400 BCE is from Biraben, whose numbers are higher than the McEvedy and Jones numbers the table depended on before. Biraben numbers often are the upper limit, but acco... |
How do passports survive fiery plane crashes | [
"The aircraft broke up as it descended, scattering contents everywhere which fell to the ground at their own much slower pace, eventually reaching the ground after the remainder of the mass of the aircraft had already slammed into the ground. It would be no different than just tossing them off of a building onto th... | [
"Why: Because this is a failure mode the engineers specifically design for. How: They had to burn off all the fuel and land on fumes, and land with the nose up as long as possible, and still most of the wheel ended up decorating about a mile or two of the tarmac."
] |
so today I learned that the last b-52 was produced in 1962 but how are they still operational? | [
"two words: preventive maintenance. you run through a series of checks on a regular basis and if something seems off or on the verge of breaking, you repair/replace it."
] | [
"Greetings everyone. In the few minutes this sub has been up, it's attracting sub-standard responses. Just a reminder of a few of the rules: * no responses covering events/conditions post-1994, per this sub's \"20-year rule\" prohibiting discussion of current events * no anecdotes * no speculation OP: your question... |
How did the library of Alexandria compare to libraries today? Would it still be considered large by today's standards? | [
"Not -really- all that big by today's standards but we don't know exactly how big it was. I've seen numbers from 50,000 to 400,000 scrolls of unknown length. A modern library, even of modest size has 400,000 books. I work for a top 50 University's library and we have about 1.2 Million. \"Big\" collections are freq... | [
"I've deleted this post. \"Throughout history\" questions, as stated in our rules, [are too broad for this subreddit](/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules#wiki_no_.22in_your_era.22_or_.22throughout_history.22_questions). Moreover you're obviously trying to make a point about the way this subreddit is run which makes me doub... |
The ruling that just happened regarding Fanduel and Draftkings | [
"The New York Attorney General declared it as gambling and doesn't want the two sites taking bets from New York residents. The site has always been a mix of gambling and fantasy. Here's the full article _URL_0_"
] | [
"No, it won’t KILL such sites, because the majority of users are not in an affected. country. However, I’m curious how the people in those countries will be affected."
] |
How were the number of atoms in a mole determined? | [
"First, a bit if history. Avogadro had made the idea of a mole as you described (12 grams of carbon in carbon 12), but he didn't actually create the constant of 6.02x10^23. What's important is that moles have been around. Michael Faraday worked in the 1830s on electrolysis, and he had been able to calculate the ele... | [
"Go to a new area of Australia (or wherever). Comb one acre very carefully, cataloging every species. Figure out how many new species there are. Do this in a few different places, figure out about how many new species there are in general, and extrapolate."
] |
To what extent did JRR Tolkien base The Hobbit and The Ring Trilogy on Larry Niven's Ringworld? | [
"First, this urban legend should be put to rest. J.R.R. Tolkien did not write \"The Lord of the Rings\". First, the proper title is *The Red Book of Westmarch*. The section you are referring to is called \"Of the War of the Ring and the Return of the King\". He simply translated it. Just because the race of Hobbit... | [
"In your case of Halo 4, the \"Halo\" name and franchise is owned by Microsoft. And that's why you don't see a lot of awesome games ported more often - it's usually that they're owned by the company that also owns the platform. Other examples include Sony owning Ratchet and Clank, Killzone, and Crash Bandicoot. Nin... |
How are the warnings on asphalt/gravel trucks valid? | [
"> I don't understand how this would make you not liable It doesn't. The *law* makes them not liable, and the sign is just a reminder of that. Though I should definitely clarify that what the signs are referring to, and what the law covers, is **road debris thrown up by the truck's tires**. They are absolutely resp... | [
"Round here (Telford, UK) the local one stores salt for de-icing roads in winter. There's another one around which has a riding school in it."
] |
When and why did cutting grass become a common practice? | [
"A popular question! And what's more, one that gives me deja-vu! [Here's my answer from a month ago.](_URL_0_) :)"
] | [
"Just as a follow-up question - with this sort of topic, is it possible to give a really solid answer if there is no source that says \"there is no evidence of this?\" This isn't my field at all, so I'm really curious about how this sort of question is answered. Is a better response one that examines where such a s... |
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