Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
In Africa's history what is largest unification it has had?	[ "I think you mean continent not country. Anyhow, Africa has never had any Empire that has covered the most parts of the continent before the European Colonies. [Here is a map that shows African empires in time](_URL_0_)." ]	[ "Can you explain a little more what you're seeking? The Louisiana or Gadsden Purchases, for example, were giant chunks." ]
Why are outside temps of 95+ uncomfortably hot even though that’s so close to our internal body temps?	[ "Our body creates heat, so to maintain our internal body temperature we need to vent heat into the air. This is easy to do if the air is cooler than our body temperature, but when it's the same as our body temperature there's nowhere for that excess heat to go." ]	[ "Look at it like a phone and charger. If you put a load of energy into the phone (more than it's rated for), it'll do serious damage almost immediately. If you use an underrated charger, it'll put only a little energy in, but the phone will use more than it's getting and eventually die. Heat is just a form of ener...
A professional and unbiased opinion on the medical relevance of the use of hemp oil in the treatment of certain cancers	[ "As far as I know, there are no peer-reviewed studies indicating that cannabis in its natural form is effective at treating cancer. There is some evidence that it halts tumour growth and stuff like that, but there is also evidence in the other direction as well." ]	[ "> So, are aviation-grade biofuels possible? Is it feasible/possible to have a jet engine capable of running on 100% biofuel? Absolutely. It's a huge focus in engineering R & D by all the major aircraft/engine manufacturers. [You can read about it here.](_URL_0_) There have been many commercial flights that used a ...
Why does catnip affect cats as it does? And are there other instances of this kind of reaction/mild addiction to specific plants in the animal world?	[ "There is no evidence that catnip has a drug-like effect, ie it does not bind to receptors in the brain or inside the body and unlike drugs it does not need to be absorbed to have any effect. So describing it as a 'high' is probably inaccurate, its generally described as 'olfactory stimulation' in the literature. T...	[ "Please use the search function. _URL_11_ _URL_12_ _URL_13_ _URL_11_ _URL_12_ _URL_11_ _URL_12_ _URL_13_ _URL_12_ _URL_13_ _URL_13_ TL;DR: Why is a bad question with no good answer. We can't tell entirely with other animals, because we can't directly communicate though anecdotally, many seem to." ]
If you suddenly eat a lot more than you normally do in one meal, does your body process the extra calories normally?	[ "your body actually increases metabolic activity when you eat more. [Here is a book that mentions a study about this](_URL_3_) It starts on the bottom of page 18. I hope that I linked correctly!" ]	[ "Multiple requests from the same type of place (several car dealerships, several mortgage brokers, etc.) within a short time are combined to count as one inquiry, so go ahead and shop around. Part of your credit score is how much debt you have. If you are trying to take out a lot of new debt, then you will probably...
Does every human’s intestinal track essentially mirror everyone else’s?	[ "It may look like a big ball of rope on TV, because it probably is a big ball of rope being filmed, but there is actually a structure to the intestines and connective structures hold it in mostly the same place. There are mutations with everything, no two humans are the same if you get detailed enough, but the conc...	[ "Different things you eat have different densities. Dense things, like when you have a protein heavy diet, tend to sink. Less dense things, like vegetables with lots of fiber float. Also, depending on how fast it moves through you, different quantities of water are extracted in your intestines." ]
Ancient Greece has the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Roman Empire has the Aeneid. Is there a similar "creation myth" for the Byzantine/Muslim empire?	[ "The Byzantine Empire was the Roman Empire. But if you reallly wanted to stretch things, you could say it was the myth around Constantine. But thats a real stretch." ]	[ "For centuries, the area that we know today as the Middle East was controlled by the Ottoman Empire, which was based in Turkey. During WWI, the Ottoman Empire fought on the side of the Germans. To hurt the Ottomans, the Allies, especially Britain, encouraged the Arabs to revolt and gain their independence. When WWI...
How did Hitler convince Germany to go along with genocide?	[ "It wasnt a single large action it was a serious of smaller actions that on their own fostered no opposition. First it would be something innocuous like having Jews register with the government. Then something a little farther but not necessarily frighting like forcing Jews to wear a star signifying that they where...	[ "In the 1832 Supreme Court case Worcester v. Georgia, Chief Justice John Marshall, in the majority opinion, ruled that the Cherokee nation was its own distinct community and not subject to the laws of a particular state. How, Andrew Jackson chose not to enforce that ruling, thus paving the way for the Trail of Tear...
Encryption or hashes	[ "Forget about the salt. It's not important to understand the basics. I hope you're familiar with the concept of functions (if not I can try another way). Let's say you have a function, f > f(x) = y We say that f is a 'one way function' if given f and x it is easy to find y, but given f and y it is hard to ...	[ "Would ninjas (I know their actual existence is disputed) or Arabic assassins(hassashin?) not travel in units or otherwise meet the requirements drawn out in the OP? Sorry if this is an irrelevant comment." ]
How does the electric field wave resulting from Maxwell's wave equation for it hang together with the 'regular' electric field resulting from Coulomb's law?	[ "The amplitude of a spherical wave coming from a point source in 3 dimensions is proportional to 1/r rather than 1/r^(2). But anyway the electrostatic field of a stationary point charge and a plane/spherical electromagnetic wave in free space are all solutions to Maxwell’s equations under physically different condi...	[ "You've more or less answered your own question. The form 0.5 c x^2 is obtained by integrating the expression y = c x. And \"y = c x\" expresses that one variable (y) is proportional to the other (x). Two variables being proportional to eachother is rather common, so the relation y = c x appears often and by extens...
Prions and prion disease; how can a protein be infectious?	[ "Ok, here we go. This is my first ELI5, so I hope it helps. Feel free to critique anything. Think of DNA as a recipe. You have all kinds of recipes: cakes, pies, fruitcake. For the rest of this example, we will use cake recipes. There are set instructions, but you can also tweak them a little (strawberry cake, van...	[ "> Can exposing inert matter to intense radiation cause it to become radioactive in turn? Yes, but this is a very weak effect. It only matters in particle accelerators, inside nuclear reactors and in the explosions of nuclear weapons. Some types of radiation can transform nuclei to something else (split them, add...
Can wind patterns cancel each other out?	[ "First off, that's a pretty cool website, I'll have to mess around with it. Second, air flows are compressible, so there can be a temporary stagnation point (mass and momentum flow into a region, resulting in an accumulation of matter, and raise in pressure). However, I am not exactly sure if this is the case here....	[ "Legs would be blown into the windshield. [Here] (_URL_0_) is a youtube video showing exactly what would happen." ]
Why do our necks hurt all day after we sleep in an odd position, but the rest of our bodies can be in any position as we sleep and they do not get long lasting cramps?	[ "Your neck is the most flexible part or your spinal column which is the boney part surrounding your spinal cord which is the nerves which report sensation and allow movement. Wait till you get older and have shoulders which have been injured in the past and scream bloody murder if you fall asleep in the wrong posi...	[ "Simply put for the same reason drinking water when you're not thirsty isn't as refreshing as when you're REALLY thirsty. Anticipating the bodies' needs doesn't trigger the same reward responses in the brain as fulfilling a need that is already present. Your muscles don't NEED to stretch right now, so you can't ant...
Why do people make ginger bread men and houses? It just seems weird to make a little house with candy for the holidays. How did this start?	[ "Gingerbread Men and houses came from 16th century Germany, and is also based off a folk tale. EDIT: [Original Gingerbread story](_URL_0_) Sorry for garbage page quality." ]	[ "How do you mean? Manufacturers give MAC addresses out to hardware they make, and unless told otherwise somehow the hardware identifies itself as such for the purposes of moving data over physical wires or through wireless signals between two devices. It's how you know a machine is one machine and not another. Do y...
What, in a psychological sense, is a fetish? Is it a completely learned association or is there any kind of pre-disposition?	[ "Let's define fetish. In a sexual sense, the popular conception is an arousal reaction to a certain stimulus. We quickly come across blurry lines--is a reaction to, say, feet, a fetish, but a reaction to breasts is not? Are we referring to fetish as a matter of degree of the reaction?" ]	[ "Here's a superb answer on another thread, which itself links to some more in-depth things: _URL_0_ {EDIT} this is from the user u/chocolatepot ! Thanks. Further, I can recommend no livelier or more informative book than \"Sex and Suits,\" by Anne Hollander, written in the 90s. It's a great inquiry into the 200ish-...
Why are Russians cosmonauts and not astronauts?	[ "Because when the Russians were coming up with a name, they chose \"universe explorer\" while the USA chose \"star explorer\"" ]	[ "[This question](_URL_0_) in the FAQ probably explains this sufficiently. Although actually the planets are very similar, if you consider them as two separate groups." ]
What happens to (small) bugs during rain?	[ "It totally depends on the bug! -[Bees can sense when rain is coming and just stay sheltered.](_URL_2_) -[Mosquitoes are just small enough to largely avoid raindrops.](_URL_0_) If they are hit by a drop, they just fall to the ground and shake it off. -Rain beetles [have actually specifically evolved around rain.](_...	[ "because they dont understand glass. on their way in they just follow their noses, which leads right through the opening. but on their way out they might not have that smell to guide them, they're just heading to the light, and they have no way to know that one bright section is open and another is covered in glass...
If you wear gloves and a mask, can you still transmit a flu?	[ "Influenza is described as being transmitted by droplets. Small single center studies have shown that the flu virus can be aerosolized and be detected by PCR, but cannot be detected by culture. In addition, studies have not shown a superiority of N95 masks over simple masks in transmission of the 'flu in healthcare...	[ "The movie was [Days of Thunder](_URL_0_) and he was talking about [Slipstreaming or Drafting](_URL_1_). As to your question, this depends on * The velocity of the cars * Geometry of both cars * Atmosphere status (temperature, rain, snow ... although they have very little effect at higher speeds) On the street it's...
Why do humans have morbid curiosity?	[ "I think it's for the same reason we have a curiosity for science and etc. We enjoy the unknown, and well, what's more unknown to us than life and death itself" ]	[ "I think it is hardwired into us. [Tommy Edison](_URL_0_) explains it better." ]
Why do some countries find tipping offensive?	[ "Their service personnel are paid a living wage. Tipping is not only uncustomary because of that, but also construed as a sign you don't care about their culture and also may insinuate to them that you don't think they earn very much/that you're much more wealthy than they are. Both things can easily be perceived a...	[ "\"Just about everyone here\" Where is \"here\" for you? It sounds like your question's premise is based on a small sample set based on personal observation. Before your question is addressed, you should be making sure the premise is valid..." ]
Why are South-East Asia and the Indian subcontinent so densely populated?	[ "Here are two previous threads that are related to your question [Why do China and India have such large populations?](_URL_0_) [From a historical perspective, what is the reason for the relatively high populations of India and China, compared to places like Europe and South America, for example? Were the Indians...	[ "Humans can use boats to get around and bring animals, birds can fly there and poop out seeds, other seeds can be carried by winds" ]
Why do contacts require a prescription verification?	[ "It is because you have to be fitted for the contacts. The doctor has to make sure they fit right. If they don't fit, the contacts might be blurry, they might come out easily, or they might tear/injure your eye. _URL_0_" ]	[ "Marketing and tracking. I bought \"TRON: Evolution\" when it first came out, thinking it was a single player with the option of networking. Nope. You have to either have or create a Microsoft \"LIVE\" account and log on to that in order to play a game that is locally installed. They track everything, and sell it t...
why do Photographers who take ages like Mr McFadyen to get the perfect shot, don't just use a videocamera?	[ "Still photos can be much higher resolution since the camera doesn't have to process 24 FPS or anything. The shutter speed is also much more customizable. The lower shutter speed required for video creates motion blur between frames. This can be desired in video but the sharpness of a still frame with a fast shutt...	[ "The process you seem to be missing is... well, it's your actual question. Sometimes, it takes longer to write. You don't always have the same level of inspiration, you don't always have the same level of motivation, and every writer has to occasionally fight with writer's block." ]
the most useful college major and why.	[ "One that you enjoy and one that you are passionate about. Your major will influence your career, but I doubt they'll align perfectly." ]	[ "Audio engineer- using \"natural sound\" AKA \"wild sound\" from the set is pretty uncommon. We spend many hours adding sound and ADR (dialog replacement) in a sound studio. TL;DR All the sound you hear is not from where the scene was shot." ]
Shouldn't vaccines weaken our immune system?	[ "Vaccines are a way of tricking your body into developing its own defenses against a disease before you are infected with the disease itself. In the long run, they don't weaken your immune system's ability to respond to a disease; they strengthen it. I like to think of it like two armies fighting each other: the di...	[ "Because small pox is one specific virus, whereas the words \"cold\" and \"flu\" actually refer to a wide variety of different diseases that all have very similar symptoms. Furthermore, they mutate very quickly. It's sort of like people saying that they're looking for the \"cure for cancer\" - that's similarly misl...
What causes my green eyes to vary in color throughout the day?	[ "Your eye color doesn't really change, it's how we perceive it that changes. Now here are some factors that changes the color of your eye: the angle, type of light, and whether your eyes are dilated or not. When you look at an object at different angles it changes color, best example is like the color of a lake vs...	[ "The device isn't manufactured to the strict tolerances needed to maintain the same rate, because there's no reason to do so. So anything from the charge in your battery, to the heat of the environment, can introduce some 'wiggle room' into the mechanism. Since it would take extra expense to eliminate this, and sin...
What's the frequency range of photons?	[ "Yes the entire EM spectrum consists of photons of different wavelengths. There is no known upper or lower limit to the wavelength of a photon (other, perhaps, than the Planck length, depending on how the photon is measured, and the size of the universe, respectively)." ]	[ "You are experiencing a sound phosphene. A phosphene is the perception of light without a light stimulus, e.g. if you close your eye lids and touch an eye, you can \"see\" your finger because it's activating photoreceptors by pressure. I just checked pubmed and the internet and not much is known about sound phosphe...
Why is it that the swimmers in the middle lanes always seem to do better than those on the outside lanes?	[ "Swimmer here: You are placed in lanes via prelim race times. So if you swim the fastest prelim time, then you are the highest seed, and get put in the middle lane (4). The fastest swimmers are put in the middle lanes due to the wake a swimmer produces when they swim. The middle of the pool will have the least wake...	[ "There is a specific set of chromosomes known as sex chromosomes which genetically determine the sex of individuals. In humans, males have an X and a Y sex chromosome while females have two X chromosomes. Sperm and egg are created through a process called meiosis. During meiosis, the DNA of the parent is split in ...
Do babies feel pain during birth?	[ "I found this study in a quick bit of googling: _URL_0_ This indicates that the pathways for pain form between the 23rd and 30th weeks. However, it mentions that there are no studies showing whether these pathways are functional before birth. The study is from 2005, so that might have changed, but at that point at ...	[ "Probably the first time they got their naughty bits snagged on a thorny bush." ]
If I dropped a pillow from 14,000 feet, what would the impact be like?	[ "The impact wouldn't be bad at all. I'd happily stand under it. BUT... it's weather dependent. If the pillow dropped through storm or snow clouds there's a fair chance it would absorb a lot of water and freeze, in which case it would come down like a massive hailstone and possibly punch a hole through a car roof." ...	[ "When the material comes through the atmosphere the body compresses the air in front of it which heats up to very high temperatures (contrary to popular belief friction is not significant). At these high presure and temperature conditions the material melts and reacts with atmospheric oxigen. It desintegrates." ]
If someone gets a blood transfusion, wouldn’t they have a mishmash of genetic material appear in a DNA test?	[ "Many DNA tests do not require blood. Red blood cells do not contain DNA, but precursor cells to red blood cells and white blood cells do contain DNA. I would expect there to be an issue. A recent blood transfusion is a question that would be asked if the DNA test requires blood." ]	[ "The short explanation is that these things circulate in an inactivated form. When an injury happens, tissue plasminogen activator and other substances start activating a bunch of reactions that causes the fibrin to cross link. And recruit fibroblasts to the area." ]
Friday Free-for-All \| November 09, 2018	[ "I just wanted to apologize for my comments complaining about everything being deleted (which were also deleted). I hadn't realized how strictly moderated the sub was, and learned later that I was coming across as a jackass. This is a great sub, and the mods do a great job. Keep it up. :)" ]	[ "Hi there, I've approved this question but you may want to reword it so the question is actually in the title. Most of our flaired users have alerts set up that search titles for keywords, that one isn't going to get you anywhere unfortunately :-)." ]
The USA economy from an economists point of view?	[ "It's really really hard to explain this without getting political. It's not as though there's a clear cut economic strategy that all economists universally agree upon and we just can't implement it. Some things probably need to happen, but there is a huge argument over those things . We need to control spending....	[ "Could you be more specific? This is an extremely broad question that would take forty hours and several textbooks to properly explain." ]
When a star is forming does it reach a critical temperature and 'turn on' or is there a smoother transition from protostar to star?	[ "The fusion process is dominated by quantum tunnelling effects. That is, the Coulomb barrier is too high for most particles to classically penetrate it at the rate required for stars as we know them to exist. Particles instead tunnel through the barrier and get close enough for the nuclear force to take over and ...	[ "Crashing huge chucks of ice into Mars was also part of the terraforming recipe in Kim Stanley Robinsons Mars trilogy. It has occured to me that adjusting the orbit of a comet to crash it into a planet could be easier than doing the same thing with an asteroid. If a number of large flat mirrors could be put into so...
Why do our bodies subconciously respond to music with, for example, foot stomping or head bobbing?	[ "Because I believe the mind has an instinctual reaction to tempo and patterns. You know when you hear someone shut off a car alarm or a phone alarm and for a few seconds after you hear it ringing in your head?" ]	[ "There is a ton of debate on it. One perspective is that it is just a way to manipulate people into playing into your suggestion because it is expected in front of a crowd. Basically, if you ask random person to do X in front of 10,000 people...he will probably do it. Another perspective is that it's a little deepe...
How come one power strip with 12 plugs is okay, but linking two power strips that each have 6 plugs is dangerous?	[ "Because plugging the second 6-plug into the first means the entirety of the second 6-plug's power is being fed through a single outlet of the first 6-plug strip. This can easily overload the output and cause a fire." ]	[ "While eating them over 20 days or in 1 day will be the same net amount of caloric/sugar intake, spreading it out allows your blood sugar levels to be more consistent. eating a bag of candy at once will spike your blood sugar - this is bad! If you are diabetic, this is REALLY BAD and can lead to a number of health ...
Why don't we refer to Germany as Deutchsland?	[ "Because we aren't german. Germania was the latin name for that area." ]	[ "Aha, an excuse to use my great-grandfather's joke. The 1900s were known as the Aughts, so you'd say, Aught-Six, Aught-Eight. When 1910 rolled around, people such as my ggf, said Aught-Ten. Edits: \"Teens\" is probably the best name, and the decade appears to not even have a proper name, or colorful nickname, like ...
How concerned was the Ming dynasty that the Mongols would invade China, either to support the Yuan Dynasty or simply to reinstate Mongol rule over China?	[ "After the Ming retook China, the Yuan dynasty retreated to Mongolia and formed the Northern Yuan dynasty. Northern Yuan and Ming did fight on and off, and the need to defend the northern border from Mongol incursions prompted the Ming to rebuild the Great Wall (most sections of the Wall standing today were built i...	[ "Mandarin, Cantonese and the other closely-related Sino-Tibetan languages all have tone, meaning each syllable has a pitch that's mainly independent from the pitches in other syllables. Korean has syllable codas, that is, syllables can end with a consonant. Japanese only allows the \"n\" sound at the ends of syllab...
Where does the tradition of giving gold, silver and bronze medals to the top three competitors originate from?	[ "They are in descending order of value throughout the ages. That said, it wasn't until 1904 that they were officially the medals for the Olympics (wikipedia). Why? Probably because they are pretty and make for a nice, permanent display of victory." ]	[ "The oldest condominium (i.e. territory with a shared sovereignity or territory with several sovereignities) I know about is Andora : basically, a country ruled by two foreign princes (one spanish cardinal, one french count/king/president) for the last 7 centuries. There are others, like an island between France an...
Why is it socially expected of adults to describe sexual organs with euphemisms when around children?	[ "It goes back to the old idea of morality that really became popular in the United States, and the fact that many people grew up with religious parents who didn't like to discuss sex and so when they grow up they don't like to discuss sex and so on . Its a cultural thing, in some countries it is taboo to discuss vi...	[ "I would love it if this subreddit was more heavily moderated. All those joke replies, the \"lol now -pffft- lil timmy you're a bit - pffffffft - young to be asking that! HAHAHA\" are very frustrating and just clutter the real answers. I don't care that they're up voted, they are useless and should be removed." ]
Do individual moving charges create a magnetic field?	[ "An individual moving charge does produce a magnetic field. For a point charge moving arbitrarily, the potentials and fields are given [here](_URL_0_)." ]	[ "Not sure what you mean, but if the idea is to charge in parallel and then discharge in series, that is pretty easy to do with spark gaps. It is called 'Marx generator' _URL_0_ You can also look for it on youtube." ]
Why does moving air feel colder than stationary air, even if I'm not really sweating?	[ "Moving air isn't just about sweat and evaporation. It's about heat transfer through the air. You're hotter than the air around you. So you give off body heat and warm up the air around you. Hot air rises, but not very quickly. So you're constantly surrounded by a bubble of warmer air. A fan or wind blows this bubb...	[ "Particals spread out over time (thats why if I sprayed something in one corner, not everyone would smell it at the same time) so over a longer period, the particals move further and further away from the point of origin, and the particals spread thinner and thinner, to the point that you dont notice it anymore." ]
What are the advantages of using a Bullpup-Style rifle over a conventional one?	[ "Bullpup rifles provide barrel length of longer rifles(M-16), but overall length closer to carbines (M-4). The barrel length helps increase bullet energy and long range accuracy, while the shorter overall length makes it more manageable, especially in close-quarter fighting." ]	[ "CommissarAJ has it, but just to add Majority governments through parliament effectively prevent the grid lock that America has right now in Congress. The difficult part of parliamentary politics to understand is how powerful the Prime Minister is...technically he is just one vote of 308 seats...but informally he i...
A video was posted on /r/videos about Che Guevara's personal beliefs and history but it got a lot of dislikes on youtube. Is there any validity to what the video is saying?	[ "I didn't watch the video, but this question sounds awfully similar to one asked recently, which was thoroughly answered by /u/ainrialai: [Was it the truth behind the critical controversy surrounding Che Guevara? Was Che a murderer, a homophobe, and racist who needs to be viewed much more critically?](_URL_0_) and....	[ "There is something similar called the nocebo effect: if you believe something will make you ill, it will. This is what is seen in people that get a rash from being near a Wi-Fi router - whether it's turned on or not. It's not the Wi-Fi signal that's causing the rash, it's the belief. Whether the same is true for...
AskHistorians - How do you study history academically?	[ "I suppose the answer to that question varies by individual, but I never think of my reading in terms of retaining detail. If I need to look something up, I can do that in my notes, in the books on my shelf, or online. What I do think about is reverse engineering. What information from this book is likely to be use...	[ "Hi there, the mod team has already had to remove several responses in this thread because we do not allow [personal anecdotes](_URL_3_). While they're sometimes quite interesting, they're unverifiable, impossible to cross-reference, and not of much use without more context. [This comment](_URL_3_) explains the rea...
Do atoms have a solid, well-defined "shell" that they are encased in? Or do they simply only exist as far out as their electrons orbit them?	[ "There is no sharp boundary (or well-defined shell) of an atom. It is not correct to think of them as tiny marbles or something like that. The atomic size or radius is defined by an electron \"cloud\". The clouds size is determined by probabilities of finding an electron at that location. Because of the uncertainty...	[ "When you turn on a switch, you don't need to wait for the electron at the switch to get to the lightbulb for the light to come on. There are electrons hanging out all throughout the circuit. Individual electrons move slowly, but all of them are moving, and when you turn on a switch the electron movement propagates...
What was the public opinion of JFK just before his assassination?	[ "> What was the public opinion of JFK just before his assassination? [According to Gallup](_URL_1_), the average approval rating for his presidency, from 1961-1963, was 70.1%, though his low of 56% was in September 1963, shortly before his assassination. [And here's a graph.](_URL_0_) Sorry, I can't speak to your o...	[ "Is this a homework question? It says in our [rules](_URL_0_): 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...
What does it mean when somebody says something along the lines of - "It's great, I can write it off"	[ "It means that the income you used to buy that item does not count towards your taxable income. Imagine a hypothetical world where tax rates are a flat 10%, and you earn $50,000 a year. That would normally be $5,000 in tax. Now let's say that you are self-employed, and you buy a small van for use in your business, ...	[ "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...
What happens when an electron comes into direct and complete contact with a proton?	[ "It depends on the energy at which it comes into contact. If it's very low energy then they just form hydrogen, if it's very high energy then it blasts the proton apart (there are experiments where they do this to measure the proton's structure), and in between they scatter off each other. There's also electron cap...	[ "Object B has to be some kind of entity that can hold electric charge, it only works with particular things. Rubbing a metal rod with a shaggy carpet works well. What's happening is the movement is shedding electrons off the carpet and they are collecting on the rod. You have to make sure that the rod is not gounde...
Why we need to spend so much money on tv cable when we already see ads on tv?	[ "A long time ago, people who are now 80+ years old, took a vote in November to have free TV with ads, or paid TV without ads. They voted the latter. Now through some loopholes, the paid TV services are allowed to sell airtime to advertisers at the customer's expense." ]	[ "It puts the brand/product in your head. So if you find yourself thinking, \"what kind of chips should I buy?\", then lots of people's thoughts will go directly to Doritos, especially if they just saw a memorable Doritos commercial." ]
What happens psychologically when groups of people who live and work in close proximity all experience the "today feels like it should be Friday but it is only Thursday" effect at the same time?	[ "It's probably related to how busy the week was. Busy = time flies. So as a group you typically would all be equally busy or not, but that can vary of course." ]	[ "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 Do Military Operations Get Named?	[ "I think I read somewhere it's a random generator. After all, if you're job is to think of cool names about \"the death ray fired at the sun\" you as a human may inadvertently reveal details of the project subconsciously, like Operation Ray-Ban, Operation Icarus, Operation SPF3000, Operation Lantern Archon. Etc... ...	[ "Thank you for your submission! Unfortunately, your submission has been removed for the following reason(s): You can find the basic answer with a google / wiki search. Please start there and come back with a more specific question. If you disagree with this decision, please send a [message to the moderators.](_URL...
What exactly is happening when I'm extremely sleey on the couch and not nearly as sleepy after I almost immediately move to the bed?	[ "Your body has no way of knowing that you are going straight back to bed when you move sleeping locales. This means that it interprets any increase in activity as most likely a long term thing because in most cases it is true (i.e you must have gotten out of bed because you saw a lion in the corner of your living r...	[ "Your brain is wired to save you calories. This was an evolutionary advantage for the majority of human history, when food was scarce. Sitting for 15 minutes unscrewing 3 screws with a butter knife is more calorie-efficient than making a laborious trek up and down some stairs so you can unscrew those same screws in...
Why do you (in terms of physics) want to slide your top hand down when you are swinging an axe?	[ "When you lift up the axe, you want your hand near the metal head, in order to lift it easier. When you swing, the force of your muscles is [amplified](_URL_1_) by the length of the axe handle, and you want to maximize that by holding the axe from the end of the handle. It's the opposite of a lever effect; the long...	[ "Think of a surface as something that has a lot of peaks and valleys. Sandpaper generally wears away the peaks and doesn't hit the valley, so the surface gets more level. Typically, you'll go from a rough grit to a fine grit. Finer grit sandpapers wear away the peaks from the scratches of the rougher grits." ]
What happens when I start to loose eyesight? Do my eyes start seeing in lower resolution? Or are they just unable to focus?	[ "Actually there are a lot of reasons, but I'll focus on why we lose the ability to see things up close as we age. Our eyes converge about 3 -4 cm when we bring our eyes together to focus on an object at about 10 to 14 inches away from our eyes. As we age the muscles in our eyes, the ciliary body, that controls the ...	[ "The studios keep master copies, which are actually pretty high-quality. The low-quality problem on older movies is from the poorer transmission and distribution standards of back then. Film reels and cable broadcasting are low-quality, film movie cameras aren't. They go back to the studio, and render the master co...
What, really, is the best material for ballistic armor sheets/plating?	[ "To define something as \"best\" the desired criteria must be defined. For example an apple is better than a grape when the criteria is maximum size. Likewise a grape is better than an apple when the criteria is minimum size. So your question is as follows... > What, really, is the best material for ballistic armo...	[ "This is my field of research. My group in graduate school loaded ultra-short SWNTs (US-tubes) with [Gadolinium ions for MRI contrast enhancement](_URL_0_), with [AtCl for alpha therapy of cancer](_URL_3_), with [molecular iodine for CT enhancement](_URL_2_), and with [cisplatin for anti-cancer drug...
Does marijuana actually make you hungry or is it all in your head?	[ "Cannabis interferes with the signal that tells your brain you have been fed. So if you eat before smoking you will not get the munchies. If you smoke before eating the signal never gets received that you have been fed even if you eat, even if you eat lots." ]	[ "Go watch the movie Supersize Me and report back your findings." ]
why do so many people have problems with their mechanics?	[ "When you're in a situation needing repair, you're stuck between a rock and a hard place. You can't go to work. The shady mechanic knows this and is able to get extra revenue from a captive customer. Most people don't like being bent over for $100/hr for a repair job. Especially when it suddenly becomes a $1000 o...	[ "\"Just about everyone here\" Where is \"here\" for you? It sounds like your question's premise is based on a small sample set based on personal observation. Before your question is addressed, you should be making sure the premise is valid..." ]
Why does in private browsing let you view more articles on a website that restricts you to a certain amount of free articles per month when you've gone past the limit of free articles?	[ "Before I answer this, let’s first answer the question how websites know you’ve read a certain amount of articles in the first place. They do this through a method called caching. In simple terms, it is somewhat of a temporary storage in your computer so when you visit the website again, you don’t have to request e...	[ "in short, no, the pattern will not change. Observing in this sense doesn't actually mean observing. When people say the electrons are being \"observed,\" they really mean that they are being \"measured.\" By passing them through the slit, you are essentially measuring their position - you know that they are in the...
Best History Podcasts?	[ "I routinely listen to [Stuff you missed in history class](_URL_1_). As the name would imply, they tend to go over interesting but more obscure people, places, and events in history but it's always entertaining. A few recent topics include: * The Crown Prince Sado of Korea * The Sinking of the S.S. Artic * The Lio...	[ "Is there a specific region and time period you are interested in? If not, your question would break our \"poll type\" question rule." ]
Why do limbs have to be amputated if diabetes becomes worse/bad?	[ "From the NHS site on amputation: Diabetes is a lifelong condition that causes a person's blood sugar level to become too high. If you have diabetes, high blood sugar levels can damage your nerves (peripheral neuropathy) and blood vessels – particularly those in your feet. Nerve damage can reduce the sensation in y...	[ "Either they want it for themselves or they have a black market buyer. In general, they'd get caught if they tried to sell it to someone legitimate. Selling it to a specific person is far less dangerous." ]
why it takes so long for humans to gain lean muscle mass.	[ "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...	[ "You can't just build complex molecules out of atoms as if you're fitting legos together. Certain configurations of atoms are unstable and are very difficult to create, or break apart immediately after you create them. It's as if you were trying to build a lego house, and you could never have just 1,2, or 3 walls u...
Does the phrase "Some viruses target specific cells in the body." mean that when viruses infect the body they completely ignore all other groups of cells or do they infect them equally and only flourish in those cells that favour their growth?	[ "The outside of cells and virus cells are covered in chemicals. Different cells are covered in different chemicals. Specific chemicals stick to other specific chemicals. Other chemicals don't do anything. It can help to think of it like many different colors of velcro. Blue velcro only sticks to blue velcro, it doe...	[ "Cell towers do in fact transmit the same information to every cellphone in range. However, the data is encrypted, so that only the correct phone can understand the information meant for that particular phone. Each phone gets a time slot where the data sent is for that phone, and each phone gets a time slot where ...
Volume past 50% on almost every car stereo, home stereo, TV, or computer speaker is uncomfortably loud but every cell phone's ear speaker needs to be above 50% just for me to understand the other person. 100% cell volume is only moderately loud. Why is this?	[ "Very simple. Sound is waves. Bigger the speaker, bigger the waves louder the sound. Phones have tiny speakers. TV’s and Cars have multiple ones and they are rather big compared to a phone" ]	[ "It's kind of similar how the rest of your body ages-slower movements and less strength. Pitch possibly may be reduced as your body ages, as well as the quality in all. Throughout puberty ages in males, the larynx tends to grow larger. They have a bit of a bigger change than a woman's larynx, making the pitch of a ...
Why isn't it simple to make voting machines secure with good, function UI?	[ "It could be done, at some cost. Alas, voting machines are bought by government agencies that are usually required to buy from the lowest bidder. Since these agencies are not staffed by people who can assess security, the most competitive company will spend $0 on security and suffer no penalty for their decision. T...	[ "The models used in those programs are much more complex, for one. Second, the algorithms used to render those scenes are much more complex. They take into account things like reflecting light and such. The more reflections you take into account, the more processing has to be done... exponentially." ]
Why does a dog cock its head to the side when confused?	[ "I believe it is because it is easier for an animal with ears on each side of its head to localize sounds in a horizontal plane. If there is some mysterious sound they are trying to learn more about, it's hard for them to know how high/low it is without changing the orientation of their head." ]	[ "To establish dominance. The females select their mate based on the dance moves. Once a mate is selected: the female wards off the other ones, with paralyzing glares if possible, but violent combat if necessary. The males, usually stronger than the competing females, do not usually interject in this ritual but rais...
Why do you sweat so much when you take a nap but not at all when you get a full nights sleep?	[ "Maybe it's because it's warmer during the day what with all the sunlight. Also, naps are usually taken after a hot meal, which makes you hotter." ]	[ "Two social psychological concepts come to mind here. State dependent memory encoding and Erickson Arousal theory of learning. State dependent learning states that what ever state of mind you are in during encoding is the state of mind where recall would be optimal. Erickson arousal theory states that learning is m...
Why do many humans enjoy spicy food even though the sensation is similar to that of burning?	[ "Short answer: consumption of capsicum (spicy foods) release endorphins. Like your five: eating spicy foods makes your mouth do a dance that makes you happy in your brain." ]	[ "In short, Neuroplasticity. Pain and pleasure are both literally \"just in your mind\". By that, I mean that what our minds interpret as pain or pleasure is dictated by the firing of certain neurons in our brains. The pain and pleasure areas lie fairly closely together in the brain. Neurons from one \"area\" can gr...
Why are humans so much less likely to bear multiple children than certain other mammals?	[ "All species have a typical \"litter size\" for when they successfully breed. It depends greatly on the amount of care the offspring require (this includes the energy put into the eggs). There is a trade-off between how many offspring you can make and the quality of those offspring [(Source)](_URL_4_) For example, ...	[ "You know when iTunes, Facebook or your phone updates and how you know it's the same program as before but things have changed slightly and you are kind of lost. Well that's what it would be like going from animals to humans with the errors being death instead of frustration." ]
Why do some churches have designations like "Church of Christ" or "Bible Church"? Don't all Christian Churches incorporate Jesus and the Bible?	[ "They're not descriptive terms, they're nominative terms. That is to say that it's not a \"church of Christ\", it's a branch of [The Church of Christ](_URL_0_) - a denomination of Christianity. It's like saying \"Catholic Church\" (literally meaning \"universal\") or \"Episcopal Church\" (literally means someth...	[ "Chrome is a browser created by Google. Chromium is an open source browser based on Chrome. Chrome OS is an operating system made by Google, where the Chrome browser is the primary user interface. It is designed for lightweight devices that are primarily used to access the internet. Chromium OS is an open source ve...
If skin can grow to merge with objects, wouldn't it be possible to have prosthesis sockets that attach directly to the bone?	[ "The UK series 'Bionic Vet' features a cat which has a prosthesis installed which I believe is the type of thing you are wondering. It is embedded in bone and extends past the skin and using a special coating the animals skin was encouraged to seal around the protruding part forming a barrier to infections. This pr...	[ "u/ToxiClay is correct and there is a [really good episode of Radiolab](_URL_0_) that tells her story, including interviews with the patient and her doctor. They also go a bit into the answer to your question. Worth a listen." ]
How long did it take dinosaurs to go fully extinct?	[ "For a large number of them, just a matter of minutes or hours depending on location. When the meteor hit the earth, it threw debris high enough that on reentry it turned into burning rain. This lit the world on fire, and the soot added to the dust in the air. The ones that didn't get killed in the initial event li...	[ "Like many things in history, this is the subject of interpretation. Many dynasties in history have had a similar destiny, being puppets and legitimizers of true rulers. However, the Abbasids didn't give up so easily. Caliph an-Nāṣir made a final attempt to restore the Caliphate to its original power: the Ayyubids ...
Why do subreddits need mods? Isn't the point of reddit that content is either voted up or down by all the users?	[ "Often times a subreddit has rules that go against what the average user will vote on. Before a subreddit hits \"eternal september\" (a point at which there are too many new users each day for the existing users to train how to behave), it could absolutely exist without moderation. But for a subreddit like ELI5, wh...	[ "As a chef, we add salt, butter, and really it's just those two ingredients which make everything taste better. Plus we get things fresh that morning and keep ingredients in a much more controlled environment than your fridge." ]
Why did Ohio gain population so rapidly between 1800 and 1840?	[ "I'm only familiar with the [Connecticut Western Reserve](_URL_0_) (which includes Cleveland) as that's where I hail from, but maybe it'll answer your question to an extent for at least the particular region. The Western Reserve was a large chunk of Northeast Ohio, owned by Connecticut in the 1700's. Right before t...	[ "Back then people still needed jobs, now they dont and can practice harder for longer. And science helps by showing then methods on improving motions. You cam find cool videos on youtube" ]
Do plant seeds need oxygen to stay viable?	[ "Yes, plants require oxygen. Their cells have mitochondria to produce ATP from complex carbon molecules just like all other eukaryotic cells. Mitochondria require molecular oxygen to function. It's true that plant chloroplasts produce oxygen as a byproduct, but plants have no mechanism to transfer this oxygen from ...	[ "The value of a company and whether investors want to be involved is not based on current earnings or profitability, but instead on what they think it will eventually be worth. Companies called Venture Capitalist specialize in providing seed money to these companies while they are just starting out. This money kee...
How do fish/whales/dolphins/any aquatic life drink?	[ "Mostly they don't. Marine mammals get a lot of their water from their food. They tend to live on meat, because blood and body fluids are a lot less salty than seawater. Water is also produced as a byproduct of metabolism. When nutrient molecules are broken down to release energy, the largest byproducts are CO2 an...	[ "Here is a link to help. They basically have a tube that is separate from their throat, so they do not choke [click here](_URL_0_)" ]
Does anyone know of an English historian by the name 'Mr. Thompson' who can be placed in British India (c. 1860)?	[ "I'm not a historian, however this part seems suspect. Why would an English military commander refer to the Indian rebellion (or the Sepoy Mutiny, Sepoy Rebellion, Great Revolt, etc, take your pick) as an uprising of freedom? It reads rather like an anti-British propaganda piece. > were not part of the 1857 **upri...	[ "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_...
Why do dogs paws smell like Fritos?	[ "It's kind of like how a person's feet smell bad after they've been wearing shoes all day. When that person sweats, the bacteria that's attracted to their sweat lets off a chip or cheese like odor. Dogs sweat through the pads of their paws, so that same type of bacteria is attracted to that sweat, making the paws s...	[ "Evolutionary adaptation and natural selection. You ever spent your entire life wandering around rocky fields? It would make sense that the animals with the harder covering for their feet would suffer less infections and then be less likely to die off." ]
Is there a drug which simulates sexual orgasm?	[ "[Heroin](_URL_0_) is almost identical in its effects on the brain to an orgasm." ]	[ "You did right to start searching but use pubmed or NIH in your search criteria: _URL_1_ _URL_0_ these are peer reviewed research articles and meta-analyses of those articles/studies. You're asking for something that likely isn't in human trials or at least the longitudinal nature of your question can't be answere...
Why are Cigarettes and Booze legal when it's been proven both can be as or more dangerous than marijuana?	[ "Yarr, ye forgot yer searchin' duties, for ['twas asked by those what came before ye!](_URL_0_)" ]	[ "Because the people who benefit the most from lobbying are also the people who write the rules. The lobbyists don't offer bribes, they offer campaign contributions. Then the the politician they bought who inexplicably pushes to legalize storing nuclear waste in orphanages will by some strange coincidence end up get...
Is molecular movement really random?	[ "The motion of atoms in many situations can be described classically, in which case it is indeed deterministic. However, it may still be chaotic, meaning a small difference in initial conditions will cause a very different result as time goes on, making it impractical to predict the precise paths of a large numbe...	[ "The device isn't manufactured to the strict tolerances needed to maintain the same rate, because there's no reason to do so. So anything from the charge in your battery, to the heat of the environment, can introduce some 'wiggle room' into the mechanism. Since it would take extra expense to eliminate this, and sin...
Man Made Earthquakes: Problem or Prophylactic?	[ "Sort of how hawaiis volcano is not particularly dangerous as it constantly and very gradually errupts. Good question, i would love a geologist to point out all the unidentified variables etc" ]	[ "It's not been 'proven' to be a hoax because the guy hasn't let anyone see the thing in detail. His larger demonstration suffered from the same basic measurement-methodology flaws as his smaller-scale one, so they didn't add anything." ]
Why do online ads make so much less money than ads on tv?	[ "There are different rates for views of ads on the internet compared to ads on tv. Also, ads on TV can't really be blocked, so people are more likely to see the ad on tv rather than on the web, so advertisers will pay more." ]	[ "Cable broadcasts are one-way communication which just means copying a single data stream and sending it down a bunch of wires. Internet communication is two-way communication with each exchange being unique to the user. An analogy would be using a megaphone to give a message to 10,000 people, vs. holding an indivi...
By observing a radioactive atom, is there any way of knowing whether it will decay soon or in a million years' time?	[ "Radioactive decay is purely random. That means it is not just random in the way a coin toss is random: If we would know exactly the velocity, angular momentum, mass and some other properties of the coin in the air we could predict the outcome but since we do not know these properties with enough precision we say ...	[ "A \"half-life\" is how long, on average, it takes for something to halve. For example, if a medication is absorbed at random by your body, it may have a halflife. If you take 100mg of something and it has a halflife of 1 hour, then an hour later you would expect to have 50mg left in your system. Then an hour after...
what is a whistleblower and why do they get in trouble with the government if they're exposing the corruption in the government	[ "In general, a whistleblower exposes publicly some failure or corruption or illegal activity of an organization. In companies and most cases in federal organizations, it's illegal to retaliate against someone who does this, especially if they reported something illegal to the authorities. In the specific case of E...	[ "Imagine you were wring a shopping list, and halfway though writing it I rip it from you hands and give to to your partner to go shopping with. They wont have the full list of things you want, and there might even be a item at the end that doesn't make any sense (What is a \"cerea\"?). When you save a video game, t...
Why do we blackout when we drink a lot of alcohol?	[ "The alcohol inhibits the creation of new memories as far as I understand. That is, once you reach a certain toxicity level. So its not that you can't access the memories... They just don't exist." ]	[ "Gravitational time dilation happens near any object, no matter how big or small or how heavy or light. However, the strength of the effect depends on the strength of the force of gravity. Outside a star, the effect is relatively small. But when you turn that star into a black hole, it becomes much more dense and c...
With recent news of Vine shutting down.. what costs go into keeping a platform like Vine or Blab going? The app is already there, if its not profitable quit wasting more money developing/growing it, but just leave as is and let the users still be able to make content, why COMPLETELY shutdown?	[ "Maintaining an app isnt really expensive but with an app as big as vine with millions of videos you would need one heck of a server and that costs a lot of money and if the ads or whatever they use arent generating profit then its just not a good buisness move to keep the app alive so they kill it" ]	[ "I don't know for certain, but think about it: Plants are sedentary. They find a particular kind of environment that suits them well and, for the most part, stay in one place for their whole lives. They don't need to develop systems that allow for locomotion. They don't need to develop complex tissues and organs th...
How the hyperloop works.	[ "As I understand it, it's a big tube that maintains a low air pressure in order to decrease air resistance/friction (remember, air is a substance so it pushes back on anything moving through it) which is one of the biggest hurdles in making something go fast. The train is made primarily of aluminium which is lightw...	[ "[Richard Feynman](_URL_1_) ELI5's it pretty well in about 2 mins. Alan Alda had a contest and this [8 min video](_URL_0_) won." ]
Why do the instructions on pasta call for you to measure out water?	[ "The less water you use the sooner it will boil and the less energy you use maintaining the boil. However too little water and you end up steaming the pasta or even burn the pasta and that is not what you want. So the right amount of water is just so that the pasta starts to appear over the water just as it is done...	[ "California has really strict laws. The exact wording is just to comply with a particular labeling law required by the state. And since it makes sense to give the same products to California that you give to the rest of the US, it's common for many products to have the warning printed on the label. Realistically, t...
Why does the media never (or very rarely) report suicides?	[ "Suicides are kept out of media because it has been shown that suicide rates tend to spike after highly publicized suicides. This is called the [Werther effect.](_URL_0_)" ]	[ "_URL_2_ columnist William Saletan waded into this issue several years ago with similar questions to yours. Here's an article posted AFTER his initial article and several followups, all of which can be reached via links within the article. It's an interesting journey with commentary from psychologists, statistician...
I'm a soldier in the Roman legion circa 100AD. I just got myself killed in battle. How would word get to my family? Was there any formal system in place to handle casualties?	[ "/u/Celebreth did a really in depth answer to this question here: _URL_0_" ]	[ "If they successfully faked their death, doesn't that mean no one would know?" ]
How does Facebook gets income if they offer their website and all of its contents for free?	[ "Facebook users aren't their customers; the users are the product. Facebook's customers are advertising agencies and gaming companies." ]	[ "[This video explains quite well how it works online, specifically Youtube](_URL_0_) TL;DW: Youtube only sends information about changes between frames of a video. Since there is usually very little difference between 2 frames the server can just say \"ehhh take what you had last time, shift this part a tiny bit th...
Why do marines put their sunglases into their necks?	[ "What is meant by \"into their necks\"?, because what I'm picturing can't be right." ]	[ "well, there are pictures of truck drivers that have taken sun for only one side of the face. its a bit of a difference between sides of the face. _URL_0_ there is a bunch of other examples around. use sunscreen." ]
What has Tony Abbott done that has made him so disliked by most Australians?	[ "John Oliver's show \"Last Week Tonight\" did a pretty good job of showing some example." ]	[ "Immigration will deny someone entry if they are entering on a tourist visa and it looks like they aren't going to leave. For example, if you come into the US, and say you'll be here two weeks, and have no credit cards and about $35 in your pockets, it's a pretty good indication that you're not really hear for tour...
Why is Cyanoform ((NC)3CH) so hard to synthesize/isolate?	[ "Cyanoform has no salts. The tricyanomethyl anion has salts. The reason cyanoform isn't particularly stable is that the corresponding anion (the conjugate base) is highly stabilized through the strong pi-electron withdrawing effects of the three cyano groups on the central carbon. The net effect is to make the lone...	[ "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...
"From the king of all greeks but not the Spartans" with love: Alexander the Great; what was the purpose?	[ "The gift was to Athens, as a form of requital for what the Athenians had suffered during the Persian Wars (that is, the razing of the city by Xerxes in 480 BC). The reason why Alexander specified that the gift was from all the Greeks except the Spartans was that all the Greeks except the Spartans had submitted to ...	[ "How would we know what an \"average citizen\" thought? Every text we have is produced by the elite class. Whether people lost friends or family is impossible to know in the specifics. We do know that military disaster did not affect the political careers of the generals involved. Rosenstein in Imperatores Victi ...
Why do older PC games require to put Disc 2 on your PC while playing?	[ "Because older games would not fit on a single disc, and when you installed games you didn't install everything, some stuff remained on discs - both for performance's sake, and as an extra drm-like measure. When you are asked to put disc 2, its because you finished part of the game contained on disc 1, and it needs...	[ "Because books were very expensive in the 18th and 19th centuries and the price of a book was out of the budget for the vast majority of people. Lending libraries existed, but you had to pay for them, too, and many could not afford it. Newspapers were inexpensive enough, and the print small enough, that more people...
With what language did Isabel and Ferdinand communicate?	[ "Aragon's court language was castilian as well. At the time Aragon was a confederation of several Kingdoms ruled by a single king (Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, Sardinia, Sicily and Naples): Catalan was spoken in Valencia and Catalonia only." ]	[ "EDIT: Removed a large chunk of my answer. Thanks, shlin28, for correcting my knowlege on the status of Roman N. Africa prior to the Muslim expansion. Around 1100, a tribal confederation known as the Bani Hilal- numbering some 200,000 men, women and children in all- moved from the Arabian Peninsula to Egyptian an...
Why does the Korean War get much less attention in history and modern culture than other wars?	[ "A couple issues: * The war technically never ended - the cease fire occurred as the two sides were at roughly the same borders the war started at, and so there was no decisive victory or defeat to remember it by * The war was overshadowed by World War 2 which had ended just 5 years earlier and it wasn't as drawn o...	[ "One thing to point out is the terrain. Iraq is in the populous parts of the country pretty flat, with a semi good road network across the country making it easy to move people around, and larger cities and towns to organize around. Afghanistan is some of the most inhospitable terrain on earth. With little nation...
If camera lenses are circular, why do are pictures come out as a rectangle?	[ "Lenses are round because they're easier to manufacture that way and it means they can be rotated to for zoom without that affecting how the lens works. ~~It's also easier to make a shutter that works in a circle.~~ This just gets the light in and focuses it. The light falls onto a light sensitive detector or film ...	[ "It's not really an answer to your question, but a related thought... I think I look like a \"normal\" though not particularly attractive guy when I look at myself in the mirror. However, in one room of the house I'm currently living in, there are 2 adjacent walls with mirrors meeting at a 90 degree angle, and look...

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