Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
Why do some things melt while others burn?	[ "Melting and burning are two different processes. Melting is a physical changes. Imagine an ice cube left out in the sun. The atoms start in an organized lattice structure, then as they heat up, they lose that structure and just do whatever they want. Burning is a chemical process. The main difference is that burni...	[ "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." ]
Why Microsoft can use Google's Chrome icon to sell merchandise and in their smear campaign?	[ "Google could sue if they wanted, but it's possible that Microsoft's use of the icon is allowed under the Fair Use Doctrine. It probably qualifies under parody. _URL_0_ If Google thinks MS has a good fair use argument, then they probably won't sue because suing cost a lot of money. It's also possible that Google wo...	[ "Depends on the country. Some countries have laws in place that ensure equal service for all providers using the same network, i.e. the network owner aren't allowed to diminish the service in any way for providers who \"rent\" their network. As for your particular example, they're both owned by the same corporation...
To what extent did the cultural propaganda help win the cold war?	[ "There's a bit of stuff about the British agency responsible for propaganda, the IRD, in [this article](_URL_0_). It doesn't really answer your question, but it does do a number of other things. It talks about how our view of the Cold War changed over time, especially with relation to historiography of the USSR, wh...	[ "Since this is a homework question, we expect a little more effort from you. What research have you done so far for your paper? What are your findings so far? Is there anything specific you have a question about?" ]
How are video game environments with vast proportions created? Does it take a painstakingly long time to code or are there any design hacks to create environments?	[ "Short answer is both. Take for example The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, this was a procedurally generated world(something like how minecraft worlds are created), and probably had some added polish after it. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was a different story, and there were more level designers and less of the world ...	[ "Ah this is one of the main questions in the entire field of psychological perception. There are multiple fields discussing it. What you are speaking of specifically are called \"Affordances\" and the field of \"ecological perception\" does quite a good job at describing what you are asking. I suggest reading about...
ELI: How does muscle growth and decay work?	[ "Your body is like anything in life that needs \"fuel\".There are 3 Macro - Nutrients. Protien/Fats/Carbohydrates. Fats and carbs are the primary \"fuel\" and the protein is the building blocks or new cells. Exercise breaks down muscle fibers which causes micro tears. These are repaired stronger and bigger to try t...	[ "Yes, or else you could add (slowly) an infinite weight on a structure or bone." ]
Does a sunrise/sunset on Mars have beautiful colors like Earth?	[ "I don't think I can scientifically quantify what a \"beautiful\" color is but you can see what some sunrises/sunsets look like by [Mars Pathfinder](_URL_0_), [Opportunity](_URL_2_), and [Curiosity](_URL_1_)." ]	[ "> I see pictures like this: _URL_0_ and long to see this sight for myself. I think those types of pictures are taken using decent cameras with high ISO settings and a long exposure time (maybe 25 seconds or more). They don't reflect what you'd see with the naked eye, unfortunately. Here's one photographer's rendit...
What is the biggest limiting factor keeping videogames from looking photorealistic?	[ "[Epic's Tim Sweeney: Lifelike Graphics Will Happen During Our Lifetimes](_URL_4_) Might be interesting for you." ]	[ "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 British shows go for 10 episodes per season, yet American shows have 15+ per season.	[ "Our shows are more likely to go for 6 episodes per series really, especially on the BBC. It's sort of the standard length for anything that isn't a quiz show or reality TV show. The answer's pretty simple: We never started making \"seasonal\" TV like America did, hence why we use the word series instead of season,...	[ "What makes a good single and what makes a good album are different things. For the radio or MP3 shuffle, a song should be less than 4 minutes and make sense on its own. For an album, the songs are supposed to be played in a certain order, and combine to tell a story. A good example is Pink Floyd's The Wall. The...
How do we know what the milky way looks like as a whole if we are inside of it?	[ "We know how far away every star is from us, and in what direction. Plug all these values into a big computer program and it will estimate the shape of the galaxy. Most of the pictures you've seen are an artist's imagining." ]	[ "> I’ve seen a lot of scientists say we can’t get through the Van Allen belts Who in particular? Were they working on the Van Allen belts, ionizing radiation in general, or biological impact of ionizing radiation? We can go through them easily, and if you don't spend days there the total dose is not a significant c...
Why does screaming help to relive pain and/or fear?	[ "IIRC it is a symptom of living in coordination with others and other species. Whimpering/screaming is sign of pain that seems to elicit sympathy or, in the case of fights, gives the other party a sense of victory, much akin to bowing your head and walking away. It's been a while since I took a behavioral biology c...	[ "TL;DR: Power. A big part of our social structure is based on one person having power over other people. Most of us either want to lead, are jealous of the leader, or understand we're not the right person to be that leader. We see this in a lot of other animals like horses and sheep. The large-and-in-charge 'st...
When a star that is three times the size of the sun collapses, it compresses until it vanishes utterly. Do we know where all that matter goes? Does the matter just disappear?	[ "We don't know where it goes, exactly, because we can't see inside the event horizon of a black hole. But we do know that it doesn't disappear, because the gravitational field is still there." ]	[ "Have you ever wondered what's inside your bouncy ball? Imagine it was too small to cut but you really, really wanted to know. What you might want to try is throwing it into something so hard that it breaks and you can see the smaller parts. Of course, if you only have another bouncy ball because that's the only th...
What is the strange "awkward eyes" looking symbol commonly found on Reddit?	[ "Well to give you a proper answer the symbol \" & #3232;\" is from the [Kannada alphabet](_URL_0_). Kannada is an Indian language. and apparently its letters make for a fun \"look of disapproval\"." ]	[ "Edit: STSCI people have [posted an explanation](_URL_4_). There's also a [youtube video](_URL_3_) which explains it around 1:45. The long and short of it is that Hubble was tracking background stars throughout those images, and its orbit around the Earth meant that the comet had noticeable parallax which cause...
What happens to diseases like Ebola when there is not an active breakout? Is there always someone carrying it, or does it cross over from an animal?	[ "They're call reservoirs. They're usually animals and usually can carry the disease (as in it can survive and reproduce in their bodies) but they don't develop symptoms. For example, bats are generally the reservoir for Ebola and rabies as well and rats infamously carried the bubonic plague." ]	[ "Xenotransfusion has been attempted in the 1600s, with mixed results, with sheep blood. Ape and chimp blood might work, as would pig blood as they all have similar Rh factors. Source: _URL_0_ Also, dog to cat transfusions can be done, bit only once as the cat will make antibodies to the blood. Also, apes, dogs, ca...
Why do cows not wink when they get flies in their eyes?	[ "I have animals.. not cattle, but I have a donkey, llama, and sheep. Mostly what I see them do when flies start to annoy them is shake their heads, but I have seen them blink too. They stomp their feet or swish a tail when they are annoying them as well. Mostly though, livestock are not bothered by the flies until ...	[ "We can, it is just it takes a lot of study and the language isn't in the same form as human language so it isn't just like learning German or Spanish and it comes with body language, scents and other non verbal cues _URL_0_" ]
Why does high blood glucose hurt your body so much?	[ "High glucose has many negative effects on the body: * It attaches itself to places it shouldn't. For example, it links proteins together like glue, which is why diabetic's have stiff, old looking skin * In order to digest the glucose, your body makes a lot of insulin. Making this insulin in excess causes proteins ...	[ "Because acceleration isn't a linear progression. Let's say you are in a space ship, and firing your thrusters for 1 second increases your speed by 1 m/s. So you do that, and you are going 1 m/s. Then you fire for another second. But, because of relativity, you are a little heavier, and you only get another 0.99999...
Is there an example of a castle being stormed by serfs or peasants and the nobles being deposed?	[ "In the [German peasants' war](_URL_0_) that happened at such a large scale, that we in Germany use the date 1525 as the traditional end of the \"Castle Age\"." ]	[ "Ahoy! I'm [Dr Richard Blakemore](_URL_1_) ([@historywomble](_URL_3_) on twitter) from the [University of Reading's History Department](_URL_4_) and I'm excited to join you on the 18th of September for an AMA about [my areas of expertise](_URL_5_) \\- the Stuart and Tudor navies, sailors in the Early Modern period,...
When you're hungry and your stomach is "growling", whats going on in your stomach/intestines? What is growling?	[ "It's called peristaltic movements. Your guts rubbing their walls like thick violin strings because they're empty." ]	[ "When radioactive stuff breaks down, it gives off energy and particles, like gamma rays and alpha / beta particles. These rays and particles can pass through a lot of materials, kinda like light through a piece of paper. Some makes it through, some keeps going. In the Geiger counter there is a tube of gas, like ne...
Leaky house. What is the equivalant sized hole in my house?	[ "Construction Administrator here.... I've witnessed a lot of these blower door tests. If you want a good overview of the process, see [here](_URL_1_). A good visualization is to take the total leakage and divide by 10 to get the area in square inches. So roughly there's a 311.4 _URL_0_. hole to fill. Say, a 31\" lo...	[ "Remember that when you're voting you need to give a preference to each party and can even decide to Vote 1 for a small party you haven't heard of before (or, if you live in the electorate of Grayndler, Meow-Ludo Disco Gamma Meow Meow because you like the name - but seriously don't do this without researching the p...
Why drones are so prevalent right now. What tech breakthrough occurred to make them so common and versatile all of a sudden?	[ "Probably the driving factor was the reduction in the price of accurate gyroscopes, which keep the drones oriented correctly." ]	[ "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 does fossilized wood 'turn to coal' in a matter of minutes?	[ "Considering the likely age of the fossils he found, the wood fragments are lignite at this stage. Lignite is plant material that has been compressed and decomposed, but not otherwise heated above 100 deg. C. So, they didn't just transform into coal, they were coal already, they just dried out as he buried it. Lik...	[ "The video shows every step. The fish, crab, and eels, have millions of years of evolution where finding holes in the bank to hide in resulted in fewer deaths from predation. So they seek the holes. They seek dark holes with the scent of prey. Humans come along. They imitate the dark holes with bamboo. They put ou...
Were there any ancient civilizations that used something other than base 10 for their mathematics?	[ "Yes. Didn't your 6th grade math classroom have posters about that? Babylonians - base 60 Mayans - base 5 and base 20 Romans - hybrid base 10 and base 5 New Guinea - base 2, base 15 Various European civilizations - hybrid base 10, base 12, base 20 (cf. English dozen, or 12; French quatre-vingt-dix-huit, \"four-...	[ "If you're new to the thread, please don't post the Mythbusters episode again. Mythbusters is entertaining but it's not history (or more specifically, it's not historical proof of anything.) The short answer is no, not that we know of. /u/davidaop, our pirate expert, and I have both answered [questions about th...
Why do many optical illusions require that you stare at a dot at the center in order to work?	[ "Many optical illusions don't require looking at one point. Those that do require an image to be stable on the retina for various reasons. In the [American flag illusion, ](_URL_1_)the colors must sit on one spot in the retina long enough to exhaust the photopigments that perceive that color. [Other illusions](_URL...	[ "How loud a noise is in one ear, relative to the other ear, allows the brain to estimate where the source of the sound is coming from. When both sounds in each ear are in sync and being received at the same volume, your brain figures that the source of this noise must be located between your two ears; the middle (o...
With the announcement of Deep Space's plans to begin mining asteroids within the next decade, is asteroid mining a feasible technology? Furthermore, could it begin our venture into colonizing outer space?	[ "The technology exists but it would be very, very expensive. I believe the most significant things we have returned to Earth (besides moon rocks) are flecks of dust from comets. There have been missions that have landed on (and even blown up) asteroids. I believe the goal of Deep Space, in addition to bringing back...	[ "Absolutely. Depending on the size and type of the star, the habitable zone can be quite large. If I remember correctly in our solar system Mars is just outside the habitable zone, and some have theorized that it used to actually be in the Sun's habitable zone. Since a stars intensity changes over time, so does the...
If water had no surface tension, would you be able to jump into it from any height and (as long as the water was deep enough) survive?	[ "No, it's not the surface tension which hurts when you hit water. Water is dense - a tonne per cubic metre, and hitting it when moving fast means you're trying to move a lot of water out of the way very quickly, which exerts considerable force on your feeble human frame. Compared to that force, surface tension is ...	[ "Hydrogen bonding! In a solid state, the average kinetic energy of water molecules is low enough that hydrogen bonding can happen. This creates a highly ordered crystalline structure with lots of space between molecules. In liquid water, however, the kinetic energies of the molecules overcome the hydrogen bonding e...
When did humans start exercising and working out for the sake of getting fit/in shape?	[ "We have extensive evidence of gym training in Ancient Greece, as described on [this](_URL_0_) previous thread. This may not be the oldest, but it is certainly a direct ancestor of modern fitness culture; our word \"gym\" comes from Greek. Edit: OP, could you clarify whether you are referring to exercise in genera...	[ "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...
In The West Wing, Jed Bartlet agonizes over which specific Bible he will use to swear in at his second inauguration. Has this historically been a notable political conundrum for US Presidents? Was it ever a conversation piece for typical voters?	[ "Follow-up question - what is the origin of \"swearing on\" a document or other sacred item? I seem to remember in the Hebrew Bible that men would swear oaths on their testicles, but that could be wrong, irrelevant, or both." ]	[ "I have taken an interest in the Pacific Campaign and the history of naval aviation and am now looking for recommended reading. On my shortlist so far: Title \| Authors ---\|--- Pacific Crucible and sequels \| Ian W. Toll Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway\| Jonathan Parshall & Anthony Tully ...
What would happen if a person plucks their eye out of their eyesocket, leaving the optical nerve attached and they hold the eye in front of their other eye. What would they see?	[ "You would see an overlapping image of your intact eye and a floating bloody eye. Similar to looking at your nose or just in front of it, the brain is capable of handling two visual inputs that don't align up perfectly." ]	[ "You seem to be describing a variant of the [ladder paradox](_URL_0_), just using a train and tunnel instead of a ladder and a garage, he he. > What does the outside observer see? The outside observer sees the front guillotine make a cut, then later after the train has passed further through the tunnel, the back g...
How Sports Betting Works	[ "This week, a sample game is \"San Francisco -4.5 NY Giants 44.5\". You can make four different bets based on that line: Bet $110 to win $100 if San Francisco beats the Giants by 5 or more points. Bet $110 to win $100 if either the Giants beat San Francisco, or the Giants lose to San Francisco by 4 points or less. ...	[ "If you don't have even a 5 year olds level of understanding then why do you want to get into it? If you are actually interested then I can explain some of it, but you won't make money, trust me." ]
What was slavery like in mainland Britain from the 17th century to 1834?	[ "The only people who attempted to keep slaves in England tended to be those who had acquired them overseas and brought them home with them. I say attempted, because slavery in England (as opposed to the colonies) had no basis in Common Law. A legal decision in the early 1700s declared that all African slaves were f...	[ "/r/askscience would be a good place to crosspost this. Humans traveled to Australia around 50,000 years ago. That's incontrovertible evidence that humans had seafaring boats by at least that time. In 2010, human artifacts were discovered on Crete and dated to around 130,000 BC, which really pushes back the launch...
Why do 8am college classes suck? Why is it so much different than 8am high school classes?	[ "Two main reasons. Most college students get less sleep than highschool students. Second college classes present information much faster." ]	[ "you actually \"deep\" sleep in ~1.5 hour cycles. if you wake up in the middle of one of those cycles you'll feel groggy. if you time it to wake at the end of those cycles, you'll feel more refreshed. in your scenario where you've slept the same amount of time, i'd guess something was disturbing your deep sleep, bu...
How do we know interplanetary distances?	[ "I'll do my best to explain as simply as possible! For stars which are relatively close we can use a method called 'Parallax', which is when the angle to a star is measured at a certain time of the year (using extremely precise astronomical equipment), then the angle is re-measured at a different time of the year. ...	[ "A long time ago in places like Greece, Rome and even before that in really, really long ago places like Sumeria, and Egypt people made up stories about the stars/planets and the pictures they thought groups of stars made. These stories were usually about beings they considered to be gods or demigods (the word demi...
Why does Hawaii and parts of Arizona not observe daylight savings like the rest of the United States?	[ "Because we are smart and choose not to screw with people's sleep and work schedules twice a year." ]	[ "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." ]
my parents were just on a cruise of the orient where their ship was required to disable wifi while in Japanese territorial water. Can anybody explain to me the logic of this?	[ "I just looked this up and it appears that Japan charges hefty fees for using internet on large ships in it's territorial waters. Some cruise lines, simply opt to not use it in Japanese waters so they don't have to pay fees. Here's a [thread](_URL_0_) on it if you're curious to know more." ]	[ "You go through a neutral 3rd country. For Europe popular choices were Switzerland (usually involving the International Red Cross for sending mail to POWs and civilian internees) and Portugal (for everything else). The British Mail service, in order to avoid appearing to colaborate with the enemy, enlisted the he...
How do car dealerships make money during "Employee pricing sales"?	[ "Not surprisingly its all BS. Not only are there at least 2 sets of numbers for the cost of every car they buy manufacturers pay them what is call \"hold back\". So after the dealer sells a car the company sends them a check for say $500. But it is unlikely the dealer is selling the car for what he paid in any even...	[ "Well some of the high end brands just destroy their leftover stock, though I know [that was an issue](_URL_0_) and some may have changed (mainly by selling them to a country they don't care about). The cheaper brands just sell it to other stores, TJ-Maxx and Marshalls basically exist for this, they buy up all the ...
How is it legal TSA offering First Class Passengers a faster airport security lane?	[ "Are you sure that is what is happening? My boss pays a yearly fee to go through security faster but he also had to go through an extensive background check and interview process to get that luxury." ]	[ "The internet is mostly run by companies who own infrastructure (like wires and shit). The institution you're talking about (assuming the FCC) gets to decide what these types of companies are allowed to do. Right now they are FORCED by the FCC to treat all traffic equally. We are worried that the FCC will change th...
Could you theoretically "push" a singularity?	[ "Two masses will feel each other's gravitational field and respond to them regardless if they are singularities or not. A black hole singularity will still feel other objects' gravitational fields and orbit them like any other celestial bodies." ]	[ "Not enough energy to. It's like lighting a match in a snow storm and expecting it to melt everything. Sure, the match is hot, but theres a lot more cold than there is hot." ]
How do people figure out the nutritional information in food?	[ "You can figure out what components are in the food through a series of chemical tests. So if you want to know how much fat is in the food, you could extract out the fat using an organic solvent, filter out the non-dissolved parts, and weigh how much each part weighs. Or if you want to know how much salt is in the ...	[ "There was a great short YouTube documentary about the company that does this for the Premier League posted in r/soccer a while back but I can't find it right now. Basically there are a bunch of guys who sit around and watch certain games on computers with special software that lets them keep track of all this stuf...
why do drug users who inject get bad legs like abscesses and sometimes have their leg cut off yet people with conditions who inject daily like diabetics don't get these problems?	[ "Hygiene and desperation. If you take a regularly injected drug, like insulin, you use a different, clean needle every time. You prepare the site of the injection with alcohol, you inject where and how the doctor told you to do so, and then you clean up any blood and bandage the wound. Drug users do none of those...	[ "Same reason spicy food is hottest after you stop eating. While doing both, your body is releasing a constant stream of endorphins that, among other things, suppress pain so that we can continue doing it. When we stop, the endorphin flow stops and the pain hits us." ]
How did early explorers find islands?	[ "Wayfinding. You can detect land by following where the birds fly from in the morning, or follow them back in the evening. You can also follow ocean “swell” to find other islands around your location. As for very remote islands with no other landmasses around, we are probably missing some information here. Ocean l...	[ "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." ]
Why do pigeons cock their head back and forth when they walk?	[ "Birds bob their heads so their vision is more stable. When a pigeon's head is \"bobbing back\", their body is moving forward. The result is that their head hangs still in the air, allowing the bird to see his surroundings clearly." ]	[ "Most games like this use a light gun (_URL_0_) with a diode which receives light from the display to sense where the gun is pointed. Essentially, when you pull the trigger the screen goes black for a moment except the areas with ducks in them, which turn white. If the diode in the gun is aimed at the white light, ...
What is the difference between normative and applied ethics?	[ "Normative ethics are the philosophies and ideas on what is acceptable behavior. Ethics are related to morals, so not everyone normative ethics systems will be the same and they are all up for discussion. Applied ethics are when ethics systems are used to choose the best path in the area in which they are being app...	[ "From our standpoint as users, nothing at all. From Reddit's standpoint, one of them means the backend computers told them \"sorry too busy\" and the other means that the backend didn't respond at all." ]
How can I increase the structural integrity (Young's Modulus) of ice? I have these cool ice cube trays but they're a bitch - always breaking the Titanics.	[ "Dip the bottom of the ice tray in warm water for a bit so that the layer between the tray and the ice cube melts. Should be a lot easier to remove from the tray, especially if the tray is silicon (I can't tell from the image if it is or not). Doesn't relate specifically to Young's Modulus, but it should solve your...	[ "Everyone 1) the Titanic itself would have a lifeboat seat for every passenger. 2) the communication between nearby ships would not have been cut off at night (in the original Titanic disaster, nearby ships did not hear the SOS because the wireless operators went to bed for the night), and all the nearby ships wou...
When Dinosaurs went extinct, how can scientist say that they evolved into birds?	[ "The extinction event that we describe as wiping out dinosaurs didn't kill everything. At the time there were dinosaurs that were markedly birdlike. Some of these survived, and have subsequently evolved into the modern form of what we call birds today. If you wanted to be technical, you can in fact say that dinosa...	[ "Sort of. As you can see in Jurassic park 3, they can find out the shape of the voice box and get an idea of the nature of their vocals. They probably couldn't work it out exactly, and a lot of Jurassic Park is sort of filled in gaps." ]
Does the president or other heads of state have to clear customs the same way normal people do when visiting a country?	[ "No, as high-ranking officials of another government, they're covered by special diplomatic rules that allow them to dispense with that sort of stuff." ]	[ "> so does he have an authority to just get $100M from the business? No. Zuckerberg has a duty to the shareholders, especially since Facebook is publicly traded. If he tried to have Facebook buy the house and put it on Facebook's books, the shareholders could file a lawsuit against him, or at a minimum have him fi...
Was there ever an animal during evolution that could breathe underwater and above water?	[ "Lungfish are alive today and they can breathe in both. You're looking at the family of Sarcopterygians, which is the group that really shows a lot of obvious transition from water to land, including lungs, and the beginnings of vertebrate limbs." ]	[ "* _URL_1_ * _URL_2_ * _URL_3_ * _URL_0_ tl;dr most whales have the ability to sleep with one half of their brain at a time." ]
A picture of my Great Grandfather. Could someone please identify the war and his rank?	[ "Let me just ask this so I know I'm sure: Is your great grandfather Italian?" ]	[ "Reminder: This is AskHistorians, not AskRandomPeopleWhoCanGoogle. If you do not have in-depth knowledge of the level expected of a historian, whether amateur or professional, do not post. Thank you." ]
Is evolution relative to lifespan?	[ "Evolution absolutely is relative to lifespan. Evolution is mathematical. Every generation has selective pressures act on it that affect which individuals are best able to survive and reproduce. The more generations in a given time frame, the more opportunities for selection. Bacteria, for example, can evolve quite...	[ "People are very bad at assessing long term risks. We haven't evolved to handle dangers and risks of long term activities. Even though we intellectually know the risks, it is hard for us to translate that intellectual knowledge into behavior, as it does not tell our instincts that it is dangerous. We instinctively ...
How do they get fruits and nuts to stay suspended in ice cream?	[ "The ice cream is constantly mixed while it is being frozen. This is also what gives ice cream its special texture, otherwise it would have become a solid block (this is what happens if you let ice cream melt and then refreeze it)." ]	[ "The secret parts of the recipe are the methods of preparation, and the amounts of each individual ingredient. All they have to declare for USDA regulations are the relative amounts of each ingredient, and certain things (\"natural flavors\") don't have to be directly specified. As far as keeping it secret inside t...
The annoying sound in my ears when i get out of the shower.	[ "> It's like there was a little, tiny flag in your ear which would wave very strongly with every move you make with your head. If it's a clicking sound and seems related to swallowing, yawning, or breathing, you may want to ask a doctor about possible [Eustachian tube](_URL_1_) problems. That's a little tube insid...	[ "You could have [tinnitus](_URL_0_). You should see a doctor if you want any further information, since asking for medical advice is not allowed in this forum." ]
How did ancient seafaring peoples of Melanesia find remote islands like Easter Island, yet miss the Americas?	[ "They probably didn't. [Sweet potatoes, a south american crop, are found in Polynesia](_URL_0_), and [chicken, an Asian bird, is found in south america](_URL_1_), both pre-contact. Also, [Polynesia DNA is found in south america](_URL_2_)." ]	[ "[Here's another response I wrote awhile back on this topic](_URL_0_) — feel free to ask follow-up questions though! Short answer: 1. they knew about the idea of atomic bombs prior to Hiroshima, 2. they got their initial information about what happened to it from American announcements, 3. they sent a survey crew t...
In ancient history, when one kingdom/group would conquer another, would the former kingdoms currency become useless like confederate money?	[ "In ancient history currency, coinage, got their value from their composition. A gold coin was still made of gold so it still had value. Yes, ideally the conquers would want to melt the coin down and reissue it featuring the conquer's head and symbols but if it was not a big enough deal to take the coin immediately...	[ "The \"how\" is pretty simple: Bill is a roofer; Ted is a chicken farmer. One day, Ted's roof was broken. Bill offered to fix it, in exchange for two chickens. This is a barter system, goods and services were exchanged for each other; Ted stays warm, and Bill gets a few meals. A week later, Bill is hungry. But he...
Why do I get goosebumps whenever I see something epic ?	[ "This is part of the \"fight or flight\" response. We evolved to react to major events by turning on all the body systems that prepare you for immediate physical activity. We didn't evolve to appreciate movie car crashes or the X-games (two things I assume are epic, you get the idea). When we see those things, your...	[ "You like the song more than you liked your dinner." ]
Why do we curse when we get hurt?	[ "Swearing has been shown to increase pain tolerance. Its been suggested that the curse triggers an emotional response which in turn activates fight or flight pathways. Further studies found that the frequency of a persons cursing in daily life effects the degree of this responce. ie, someone who uses the F word ...	[ "There are a few different answers because there are a few different psychological approaches. TheCanadianDoctor's answer is the biological approach. Using the behavioral/learning approach, I would say it was because when you learned that word, you learned it by forming a connection between the (echoic) sound and t...
Did thousands of people die trying 'food' that we now know is poisonous?	[ "Probably. And more than a few avoided food that we know is fine. Many people in Europe in the 1400s thought fruit was slightly poisonous and shouldn't be given to young children. Many people used to think tomatoes were toxic." ]	[ "A couple important things to remember: First, this is the hottest year since we've started recording them, and recent years have been similarly high. But another reason is because of how we design buildings. We design them to use air conditioning and the like. But back before AC, people had buildings designed to b...
How does Wine (the Linux application) work?	[ "An emulator emulates a whole system from the ground up. When you look at an NES emulator, it's in charge of recreating all the graphics, sounds & even simulating the CPU of the system. WINE is not an emulator because it doesn't need to be. Software on a modern OS doesn't ever do direct hardware access, it just exp...	[ "_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." ]
How exactly does computer hacking work?	[ "The aim of a lot of hacking is to exploit a weakness in a system, such as buffer overflow. Another example: ever heard of the heartbleed bug in programming? Here's a good comic that explains it: _URL_0_" ]	[ "_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." ]
What are DDOS attacks?	[ "Imagine that you are at home and you are waiting for a really important phone call from your best friend. All of a sudden, tens of thousands of people call your phone number at the same time trying to tell you something. The odds of your friend's important information getting through to you go down drastically, be...	[ "Can someone explain the difference between Dementia and Alzheimer's, please?" ]
Related with Carl Sagan's civilization scale based on the information it has, how do we know the number of bits we have access to?	[ "According to citation 15 [here](_URL_0_) (to which the original link disappeared, so I'm going off the wiki), in 2012 we had access to 2.7 zettabytes, which was a 48% yearly increase. If the trend has continued, by the end of this year we will have 28 zettabytes globally, or 224 zettabits. This would put us at 2.2...	[ "I think Neil Tyson put it best in this video. Answered this same question for me. _URL_0_ TL;DW we are made of the most abundant chemicals in the universe with carbon being the most reactive chemical known. It makes sense that other life would also have similarities to \"known\" life due to the sheer abundance of ...
If my body is already completely hydrated and I drink 16 oz of water, will I eventually pee out 16 oz of straight water (if my bladder is completely empty)?	[ "Your kidneys continuously produce urine. The rate may increase or decrease based on your volume status. 'Completely hydrated' is a term that doesn't really have any meaning. If you are in a euvolemic state, you'll hopefully be making about 125mL/hr. You also have what's called insensible fluid losses, like sweat, ...	[ "Explained very simply, think of it as a toothpaste tube. If you squeeze it, it will come out from the other end regardless of gravity. It might not drop as easily and might get stuck on the end of the tube, but it will come out nonetheless. Explained with a bit more Science, your gut actually has waves of small co...
Does Carbon-14 dating work for wooden objects submerged underwater? If so, how does it differ from testing things which are on land?	[ "Yes, C14 dating depends on accurate estimates of the C14 amounts while the object was alive, and how much might have been absorbed \\after\\ it died. Calibration of C14 dates is an active area of discussion. [_URL_1_](_URL_0_)" ]	[ "Most calculators will use the Taylor series, because it is very fast and easy to ensure a certain accuracy [example here](_URL_3_). However, this is only fast because multiplication/division have become much faster for computers than they used to be. Before, an algorithm called [CORDIC](_URL_4_) was used. Simply p...
Is there a non trivial measure on all of P(R)?	[ "There's a specific version of your question that is very well studied: Does there exist a measure on all of P(R) such that the measure of every singleton is 0 and the measure of the whole space is 1? The answer is actually independent of ZFC and furthermore assuming the existence of one is equivalent to certain la...	[ "_URL_0_ \"The Milwaukee protocol (MP), a procedure reported to prevent death after the onset of rabies symptoms, has been performed over 26 times since its inception in 2004 but has only saved one life. Overwhelming failure has lead health officials to label the protocol, a red herring.\"" ]
how does hiring union contractors for government/public work projects benefits us tax payers?(USA)	[ "Short answer: It doesn't benefit tax payers. Longer answer: Unions are powerful, therefore they have been able to legislate that government projects must hire union workers. I suppose the arguments being made are that the workmanship is better. That's debatable, but very few people making that argument would pay t...	[ "Copying a post I made on this a few months ago: > Segregation was a major headache for the State Department from post-WW2 until the passage of the Civil Rights Act. They spent a lot of time soothing ruffled feathers of African diplomats - it was quite common for them to be harassed when travelling between Washing...
Are the history books silent on the Islamic practice of "Ushr"?	[ "There is mention in history books (and academic journals) on this topic. My research interests don't extend much past the 10th century CE, and not really much into tax issues, but this came up as part of a necessary footnote regarding early Muslim/Christian relations in Egypt and might give you some resources to l...	[ "Hi - we as mods have approved this thread, because while this is a homework question, it is asking for clarification or resources, rather than the answer itself, which is fine according to [our rules](_URL_1_). This policy is further explained in this [Rules Roundtable thread](_URL_3_) and this [META Thread](_URL_...
Latin American historians: How did colonial vs. post-colonial countries view/treat mental illness?	[ "Wow, this is an absolutely fascinating topic! Just went to Jstor to scoop up something more specific to the Central American region and I managed to find one on Costa Rica's Mental Healthcare system, which incidentally dates back to the war against William Walker around 1856. It isn't surprising that the first suc...	[ "Is this a homework question? It says in our [rules](_URL_2_): Our users aren't here to do your homework for you, but they might be willing to help. Remember: AskHistorians helps those who help themselves. Don't just give us your essay/assignment topic and ask us for ideas. Do some research of your own, then come t...
Paul Tibbits personally selected the B-29 that was to be the Enola Gay atomic bomber off of the assembly line. What is the significance of this? Did every pilot chose their own plane?	[ "No. Very rarely were pilots allowed to choose their plane. The reason the Enola Gay was chosen while it was still on the assembly line was because it needed a [special bomb bay](_URL_0_) in order to accommodate a nuclear payload, and it was easier done while it was still under construction." ]	[ "Lots of airlines use the hub and spoke model. Rather than have a flight from every city to every other city, they have flights from the small cities to a few big cities, called \"hubs\". You then fly from the hub to your destination city, or perhaps to another hub, from which you fly to your destination. So let's ...
How is it possible to have a working cellphone in minecraft that can call the real world?	[ "Well, why wouldn't it? It doesn't actually \"create actual signals in a virtual world that somehow seep through into reality\". You don't really need those towers and phones and particle effects, that's just for show. Minecraft runs on a computer, and a computer can access the internet, make calls with skype, and ...	[ "We aren't really sure why, but it doesn't seem that something like that can be done. Think about it like your bladder; you can build up a need to urinate, but you cannot urinate so much that your bladder is more than empty." ]
Can I pop popcorn with a bicycle pump?	[ "How are you going to pressurize the inside of a popcorn kernel with a bicycle pump?" ]	[ "For starters the extra costs to the manufacturer and the customer are not worth it. And second saftey, they could be dangerous closing down on little children & even adults." ]
Does drinking alcohol really kill brain cells?	[ "Long term alcohol use can cause brain damage. Over the course of prolonged use the brain shrivels up similar to a raisin and can cause damage to certain regions of the brain causing various disorders. Some damage is repairable but once the damage goes too far there's no turning back. Can be quite devastating." ]	[ "We don't know the details, because it is very difficult to study because it is still an illegal drug in many places or there has not been enough time yet to legally study it." ]
Why wouldn't game developers make exact copies of good old games but with better graphics?	[ "Well thats actually something that has been happening a lot in the game industry recently. There have been quite a few remakes / remasters. This year alone we got a re-releases of the last of us, kingdom hearts 2 and 4 Halo games so it's a thing that is happening. I think though that you more asking why don't they...	[ "Imagine that someone hands you a sketchbook filled with drawings, and tells you to flip through them quickly to give the illusion of motion. That's displaying a video. Imagine that someone hands you a blank sketchbook and a pencil, and tells you to flip through the pages and draw exactly what he tells you to in re...
How did dyslexia manifest itself before the invention of written language? Or alternatively was dyslexia developed due to written language?	[ "Dyslexia is frequently addressed by psychologists and language experts as \"difficulty reading words\", but it's truly not just limited to reading written language. Often, people with dyslexia (such as myself) also have trouble distinguishing their left from their right, and, in the absence of a legitimate referen...	[ "Typically someone who is strabismic (crossed eyed) sees double early in life but the brain and visual system are incredible. They will do whatever needs to be done to insure that you see to the best of your ability. It does this in several ways. One way is suppression- your brain will only receive information from...
Mixing up pH buffers, can NaOH be used in place of ammonia? If not, will store bought ammonia work?	[ "A buffer is a solution that consists of a weak acid and its conjugate base. Its buffering capacity comes from the fact that any addition of hydronium or hydroxide will be largely consumed by the base or acid, resulting in little change in pH. A solution of distilled water and NaOH will be a terrible buffer. Not on...	[ "Obviously it depends on how it is implemented, but archaeology is always short of money, and while I understand a certain visceral reaction to The Coliseum Brought to You by Macdonalds, I don't see a real difference between this and the feudal lords, wealthy businessmen and colonial authorities that have tradition...
How do we determine light years? What does it mean, for example to be 600 light years away from earth?	[ "A light year is how far light will travel in one year. If something is 600 light years away from earth, it will take light 600 years to travel from that object back to us." ]	[ "Through exposure. Put a camera in a dark room and take a long exposure picture. They do the same thing for seeing things far away in space. The reason it takes satellites so long to get a picture is because they have been taking a long exposure shot the entire time." ]
Why is the titles of some songs, like "(Don't Fear) The Reaper", written with the first words in parentheses?	[ "It will vary by song, but this one's a fair example. Blue Oyster Cult wanted to name the song \"The Reaper\", however the song never references the reaper outside of the phrase \"don't fear the reaper\", which would make it more difficult to identify the song by title. If I say one person \"Do you know that song '...	[ "The world currently adheres to the Gregorian colander, which sets the year 1 AD at the believed birth year of Jesus Christ. (The calender does not have a 0 year, it goes from 1 BC to 1 AD) Anything before that is marked as BC or Before Christ. (Or BCE for Before the Common Era) Anything after is marked AD or Ano ...
Periods.. Other than humans very few animals have them. What are the other mammals doing differently?	[ "Basically humans aren't like most other species. In many other species the mother controls the bloodflow and nutrients to the embryo. That's why several animals can miscarry their pregnancy on demand to evade a predator. Human females do not control this nutrient exchange. Basically once an embryo attaches itself ...	[ "There's always room for discussion, but perhaps these previous topics found through the search bar will answer your inquiry. * [How did women cope with personal hygiene particularly menstruation in a Poor/Workhouse?](_URL_0_) by /u/colevintage * [Have bathrooms always be segregated by gender? If not, when did this...
what was on the other side of the planet when it was 1 super continent....	[ "When the planet was a super continent I could imagine the rest was just ocean with a few islands here and there.." ]	[ "Umm I don't think that's the story as to why we are \"different\" than animals. Many different organisms have lateralized brains. The major difference is our incredibly developed cerebral cortex, most notably the prefrontal cortex and its connections to other brain regions. _URL_0_ \"Specialization of the two hemi...
How come potatos float, but things just as heavy sink?	[ "Floating doesn't have as much to do with weight as it has to do with density. An object will sink if the weight of the object is than heavier the weight of the water it displaces! Two objects of the same size will displace the same amount of water (when completely submerged). Suppose that water would weigh 10 poun...	[ "There's a hormone called [leptin](_URL_0_) When you eat things high in fat content, they stimulate a release of leptin which stimulates the satiety response (i.e. tells your brain that you're full). Apples don't cause as strong a stimulation as chips." ]
How can people be forced by courts to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in settlements when they don't make a fraction of that in their salary?	[ "In many cases, the judgement (not settlement, confirmed by previous comment!) is not paid directly by the defendant. It is paid by an insurance company. For example, if you are sued because of an automobile accident, your auto insurance will pay any judgement. As an aside, your insurance company will probably also...	[ "Imagine a city with no streets or no road signals. Although it makes it extremely fast to get from point A to point B, you never really feel safe because everybody is driving around independantly. One day, the city proposes to build roads and signs to avoid crashes. Now although this makes you mad because you can...
Does modern psychology find any scientific validity to the notion of personality types?	[ "Personality types are mostly useful because they have some sort of predictive power. If you are personality type P (encompassing traits A, B, and C), then this might help us to predict your behavior in situation S. So they're useful inasmuch as they have predictive validity over and above their constituent traits....	[ "[Voyager 2](_URL_1_) passed by decades ago and studied it in some detail but not as its own mission. There have been a few proposed missions (see farther down on the page) designed to study the atmosphere/weather, the rings, the moons, etc. Really it just comes down to funding for planetary science and what the c...
What meteorological factors led to the flooding this week in Europe?	[ "[Here](_URL_0_) is a great explanation from a BBC meteorologist. Basically the ground was already saturated from an already rainy spring. The Jet Streams cause pressure systems to stall and just dump a ton of rain over parts of Europe. It seems to be moving west and is still dumping more water on Europe, leading t...	[ "Where I'm from it happens to a lot of older buildings made of Limestone. It's acid from rain slowly reacting with the Calcite in the Limestone. Here's a site that explains it: _URL_0_ If it's the same building materials there, then that would explain it. If not, then I have no idea." ]
Why don’t bariatric surgery patients end up starving to death in the long term?	[ "Med student here - starving usually is not the problem since there is still a hunger response, and we leave enough gut for the body to absorb what it needs. However, losing gut decreases the ability to absorb key vitamins and minerals. Therefore, there is a serious risk of undernutrution after this type of surgery...	[ "They take the person and their family and find another area in the country to work, change their name, and find them a job under that identity. All contact to their former life is cut. No person in the program who does this has ever been found. People are only found if they decide to retain some contact with peopl...
How come the electricity doesn't conduct through the person getting tased to the people supporting him during taster training?	[ "Elektricity is lazy and always takes thé shortest route back. Meaning from pin 1 of the taser to pin 2 of the taser" ]	[ "[Here is a nice explanation](_URL_0_) from r/askscience. tl;dr: From a particle perspective, we add up all of the possible paths the photon can take, and they almost all cancel out, leaving only the angle that obeys the law of reflection. From a wave perspective, the surface acts like a [diffraction grating](_URL_...
How were firstborn male twins perceived in Medieval times?	[ "These two from the faq relate to succession issues, hopefully they're helpful: [How were twins treated under feudal inheritance law?](_URL_0_) [Has the birth of twins ever complicated lines of succession?](_URL_1_)" ]	[ "As a reminder, [top-level answers](_URL_0_) in this community need to be \"comprehensive and imformative.\" Single-links to Wikipedia and unsourced opinions do not clear that bar. This question already rests on a part of history hamstrung by the fuzzy diagnostics of diseases in the past and an almost unavoidable b...
Why do accents seem to disappear when singing? i.e. why do Aussies, Brits and Kiwis all seem to have american accents when they're singing?	[ "This old ELI5 had some real answers in it: _URL_0_ What I understand is that accents are largely derived from how long you hold certain sounds when speaking, but when singing regional differences go away because we all try to hold the same sounds the same length to sing \"correctly.\"" ]	[ "I'll try an ELI5. Sound goes into the mic, sound gets amplified, sound comes out of the loudspeaker, the mic pics up that sound again from the speaker, and amplifies it again-in a loop. There is a slight delay in the electronics, and then a longer delay (speed of sound) in the time the sound goes from the speaker ...
What people mean when they say they have a fast/slow metabolism, and how that affects their diet.	[ "Metabolism is the amount of calories your body naturally burns to stay alive. This is without assistance from fitness or athletic training. Fat takes less energy to burn than muscle which is why skinnier people tend to have faster metabolisms than heavier people. This also allows them to eat more without the weigh...	[ "If you don't like spending more money than you have to, you'll only buy a car big enough for your needs. A bigger car is more expensive, and uses a lot more gasoline than a little car. You wouldn't buy a big SUV if you didn't need it. Lean muscle mass burns energy - it's expensive for our bodies to build it, and k...
Why Alternating Current is better than DC for power grid	[ "Direct Current is a constant flow of uninterupted electricity. Like water flowing through a hose, it eventually loses pressure the further the water travels. Same basic principal, but with electricity. Alternating Current uses the back/forth system to keep the electrical \"pressure\" up so that it travels farther....	[ "For the same reason we prefer drinking cold water to warm water. It makes no difference, but we prefer the taste/feel of cold water in our mouths." ]
EILI5: SOFA...please!	[ "It's a big comfortable piece of furniture that you usually sit and relax on while watching television or entertaining guests." ]	[ "[Sopanification](_URL_0_), i.e. your skin gets turned to soap. So if things get slippery in lab, it might be a good idea to wash your hands." ]
Are there any locations (mainly islands) which were uninhabited at their discovery, but which also have had significant archaeological discoveries?	[ "Some uninhabited islands with archaeological discoveries would be Pitcairn Island (refuge of the Bounty mutineers) and Henderson Island (uninhabited today). Both these islands were uninhabited when discovered by Europeans. Both had been previously occupied by Polynesians, who had disappeared prior to European di...	[ "I would go with Vatican - No damage, no war related deaths, not much changed actually. San Marino - Bombed once by mistake - on the retreat the germans an americans actually made sure not to cross into the country. Liechtenstein & Switzerland - 100 people died due to wrong targets being bombed and problems with ...
What is the science behind wind chill?	[ "the science behind the phenomena or the measure? The phenomena is that particles absorb heat, but the rate of heat exchange is proportional to the temperature difference (energy rate of transfer = temp difference * mass of thing * specific heat capacity of thing). So heat exchangers commonly run fluid through to c...	[ "The angle of your front and rear windows are much more shallow than those of the side windows. Hence water will be more likely to stick to those shallow surfaces and freeze/rain out there." ]
Why people see 'waves' of color in the dark.	[ "Because there's light, and your visual centers are doing their thing, but without enough information to make sense of it. You might enjoy this article: _URL_0_" ]	[ "I found this article about it: _URL_0_ Here's the tl;dr of it: Atoms emit photons occasionally. Our retinas occasionally pick these photons up, even if the source is inside your own body. Plus, photons can sometimes stimulate other nerves directly." ]
So Tor users are advised not to open downloaded files like PDFs or Word Docs without first turning off their internet since embedded online images would reveal where you actually downloaded it from. Are there other files one should be wary of, and for what reasons?	[ "Why is this cross posted with /r/torrents? You should never use Tor for torrenting." ]	[ "That mosque is not in Timbuktu. It is the [Great Mosque of Djenne](_URL_0_), in the city of Djenne which is about 500 km south-west of Timbuktu in Mali. Anyhow, those are wooden timbers called toron. They are used to [support scaffolding]( _URL_2_) when adobe is reapplied to the exterior of the mosque, or when r...
Why are we starting to have trouble miniaturizing current CPU designs?	[ "Imagine you have a piece of paper with printed text on it. You now want to print the same amount of text on a paper with half the area on an inkjet printer. Now repeat this for half of that area. Keep repeating. Eventually, you'll get to the point where the printer can't print the tiny letters with enough detail. ...	[ "You should look into Wright's law. It is older than Moore's law and was originally posited about the cost of airplanes, but it holds true for all technology. The long and short of it is that the cost per transistors will be halved about every 1.4 years. Here is a link to a Tom's Hardware article that gives a brief...
Why don't celebrities who are known for using drugs get busted?	[ "Talking about or being known for drug use isn't a crime. Being an addict isn't a crime. Being in possession is a crime. Talking about it isn't enough proof to arrest and convict someone." ]	[ "Imagine a needle in a haystack that is 10 kilometers wide, and there are only 10 people designated to finding said needle. It would take them an insanely long time. They might find a few of the needles in their allotted time frame, but likely not all of them. When a game is released to the public, it's the same wa...
The latter part of the periodic table	[ "> Why are the lanthanides (and actinides) down there? Because it's easier to print on a page than [this](_URL_0_). > Why are some masses in parentheses? Some large elements are really unstable and aren't observed in nature. Instead of putting a weighted average of the atomic masses of the isotopes we observe in t...	[ "For the same reason the plate your food on isn't part of dinner. It is the medium in which the reaction takes place, but not a part of the reaction its self." ]
When an electronic video camera is struck, jolted, or involved in an impact, why is there noticeable distortion?	[ "Without knowing the specifics behind this camera setup I'd say that this camera uses a mechanical rolling shutter. That is, the whole frame isn't exposed at the same time but the the frame is exposed linewise. When the camera gets jolted with enough force the exposure mechanics is unable to properly expose the cur...	[ "YouTube (and I assume other video websites) processes the uploaded videos. If you'd download a YT video, you'll find that it's not the same as the original file. If you would upload the file to a service that doesn't do any processing (such as cloud storage), then no matter how often you'd upload/download, the fil...
Why is there so much competition between credit companies?	[ "Creditkarma I know (and probably the others) have partner companies they push on their site. Credit not so great? You should start rebuilding with this Capital One card. Your credit is awesome, check out this kick ass rate offer from Capital One! They provide a service to you in exchange for providing you as a pro...	[ "Basically, so that you can identify which provider issued the card (and the CC processer can tell who verify the number with). 1. The first digit identifies the provider (AMEX (3)/Visa (4)/MC (5)/Discover (6)) 2. The next six digits ID the issuing bank (Chase/BofA/Capitol One). It usually identify what \"brand\" ...
Today I learned that my grandfather was a "technical staff sargeant" in the US Army during WW2. He served aboard Navy's USS Hope hospital ship. What might his duties have been?	[ "I will address few of your questions: Your grand father was a technical sergeant. There was no technical staff sergeant. _URL_0_ It looks like he served at least 18 months overseas (_URL_1_) and at least three years in the army (_URL_6_). He served in five different campaigns (battles) in the Pacific Theater to in...	[ "Many military bases host regular events showing off their war assets. Around here (DC Region) there's the Joint Service Open House, a weekend-long event held at Andrews AFB where just about every military land/sea/air unit you can think of is on display. It's essentially a huge airshow with military aircraft, whil...
Why do some fluorescent lights flicker on and off for a short while when switched on?	[ "A fluorescent tube is a type of electrical discharge lamp, an electrical arc has to be established between either end of the tube. In modern lights this is done electronically, which is usually a smoother less dramatic process. In older lamps, they used what was called a switch start procedure. Power would be ap...	[ "So the fish muscle you eat is gathered up into little bunches called myomeres. These run down the sides of fish in layers, and allow it to curve its body from side to side. They are distantly related to the muscles around your own torso, like your abs. You can see them best on big, whole fish fillets. Anyway, they...
The whole DotCom situation	[ "Kim DotCom is the founder and owner of the file sharing site, MegaUpload. The purpose of the site is to help share files (whether it's a photo, document, or video) that are ultimately to big to share through means of email. One can simply upload their file to this site and then send their friend(s) a link that all...	[ "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_" ]
Why isn't volume on electronics universally measured?	[ "I believe it's the quality of the speakers or the system I should say." ]	[ "It would be a legislative nightmare. Look at the United States. There are so many differing opinions and voices in a country with wildly differing needs that it becomes difficult to legislate to the benefit of everyone. On a global scale this would be outrageous. The people in Kenya need different things than Kore...
Why do some Submachine Guns (MP18, Sten, Sterling) have the magazines on the side instead of down the bottom?	[ "Follow up question: I remember reading that school boys in metal shop classes were put to work manufacturing Stens in WWII. Is there any accuracy to that at all?" ]	[ "As stated already, you always need reception, there's no way around that. To explain the lack of SIM, you need only look at the meaning of the abbreviation: Subscriber Identity Module. A SIM is not actually required to make a phone call, it's just required to identify you and associate your phone with ...

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.