Split (2)

train · 226k rows

question stringlengths 3 301	answer stringlengths 9 26.1k	context list
what is the euler-mascheroni constant?	Here are two nifty facts about numbers: * As n goes to infinity, the sum 1/1 + 1/2 + 1/3 + ... + 1/n goes to infinity as well, but slowly. For example, at n = 100 this sum is still only about 5.1774, but it will eventually get larger and larger without bound. * As n goes to infinity, the natural logarithm of n goes to...	[ "The Euler–Mascheroni constant is a recurring constant in number theory. The Belgian mathematician Charles Jean de la Vallée-Poussin proved in 1898 that when taking any positive integer n and dividing it by each positive integer m less than n, the average fraction by which the quotient n/m falls short of the next i...
how is light both a particle and energy? and does light have a quantifiable mass? if so, how?	Saying light is a particle just means it's detected in discrete amounts. You'll never detect a single photon spread out. You can't have half a photon. Light "is energy" in the sense you can associate some amount of energy to the particle. The same is true for mass. On a more fundamental level, energy is associated wi...	[ "According to quantum theory, light may be considered not only to be as an electro-magnetic wave but also as a \"stream\" of particles called photons which travel with \"c\", the vacuum speed of light. These particles should not be considered to be classical billiard balls, but as quantum mechanical particles descr...
What is the first historically recorded lie? Do we have any historical documents that are "pre-deception"?	This sounds like one of those theories, like the breakdown of the bicameral mind, that is fascinating but bonkers. Where did you come across this argument? It's not one I've ever seen before, unless it is related to the bicameral mind theory. /r/AskAnthropologists may be able to give more information about the nature ...	[ "Professor Adrian Lister of the UK's Natural History Museum has said that \"some people have suggested\" that there may also have been a second 'fraudster' seeking to use outrageous fraud in the hope of anonymously exposing the original frauds. This was a theory first proposed by Miles Russell. He has explained tha...
what dictates which region of the body becomes paralyzed?	Nerves are like roadways. Small roads that connect up to big highways. If you sever a highway, you lose all the roads that it connects to. Your nerves bundle together as they grow in number and eventually that bundle links up to the spinal cord. The nerves have a few pathways to follow, but generally they either cross ...	[ "Disorders of muscles from another body system can bring about irregularities such as: impairment of ocular motion and control, respiratory dysfunction, and bladder malfunction. Complete paralysis, paresis, or ataxia may be caused by primary muscular dysfunctions of infectious or toxic origin; however, the primary ...
why does the water around the bahamas on satellite maps look discolored or light?	There are huge areas which are very shallow, 1-3 feet. So you are seeing the white sand under the water.	[ "For very shallow clear water there is a good chance the bottom may be seen. For example, in the Bahamas, the water is quite clear and only a few metres deep, resulting in an apparent high turbidity because the bottom reflects a lot of the band 1 light. For areas with consistently high turbidity signals, particular...
why do some meats tend to taste better when they are not cooked completely?	Meat loses a lot of fat and moisture when cooked, both of which are huge contributors to a meats flavor. Less cooked = less of these things lost = more flavor	[ "Taste and texture are self-reported to be important factors in food choice, although this may not accurately reflect consumer behavior. Consumers describe meat as \"chewy\", \"tender\", and \"rich\". In the United Kingdom, meat is traditionally considered to taste good. People experience the taste and texture of m...
How has the balance of power between states and federal government in the US evolved since 1776?	You're right on the trend, but the federal government's power comes in tremendous bursts and sometimes at great cost. Originally, the states agreed to the Articles of Confederation where they retained an enormous amount of power. This caused a lot of problems for the federal government. These issues came to a fore d...	[ "Before the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, the United States government was organized and ran under the Articles of Confederation. With the Articles of Confederation, Congress was a unicameral body, meaning it was a single house. During the Constitutional Convention, the most lengthy debate was over how to ...
why are tight rings so much harder to take off than they are to put on?	Lots of wrong answers here. It’s because of your skin and the shape of your joints. Putting on a ring you are basically pulling your skin tight against your fingertip and pushing it up over the cleft of the joint. It can’t go very far so it doesn’t form folds easily. Pulling off a ring your basically pulling on a lot ...	[ "Juggling rings are easier to juggle than clubs, but harder than balls due to size and throwing mechanics. Because of rings' impressive appearance for their level of difficulty, they remain a popular juggling item.\n", "There are conflicting perspectives regarding the security of tension settings. Many jewelers c...
How open were Greek plays to the public?	The trouble is that we have no idea how Greek comedy was received by its immediate audience, except that we are sometimes told which one won the prize for that year. We simply do not know whether the audience "got" the jokes - if we even know what the jokes were. The text of eleven Old Comedy plays survives; audience r...	[ "Athens became the great city of Greek theatre. Theatrical performances lasted eight consecutive hours and were performed as part of a competition in which a jury proclaimed a winner. While the decor of the provisional theatres was very simple, the permanent theatrical venues of ancient Athens eventually became mor...
Why was Aristotle so important to medieval Christian monks even though he wasn't a Christian himself?	The Middle Ages was--broadly speaking--an age of deference to authority. This is why, in addition to the Bible, the four Doctors of the Church were held in such high esteem, and were relied upon so heavily in matters of dogmatic interpretation, particularly in the earlier medieval period, before the twelfth century ren...	[ "He influenced Islamic thought during the Middle Ages, as well as Christian theology, especially the Neoplatonism of the Early Church and the scholastic tradition of the Catholic Church. Aristotle was revered among medieval Muslim scholars as \"The First Teacher\" and among medieval Christians like Thomas Aquinas a...
What made the US so uniquely successful at fighting a war on two fronts during WWII?	The US homeland was never seriously threatened, so the US could plan where and when to attack. Germany was fully occupied on the Russian front, and sending an invasion fleet across the Atlantic was never an option for the Germans. The Japanese came somewhat closer, but the Pacific coast lacks harbors and is relatively ...	[ "The United States was able to mobilize quickly, eventually becoming the dominant military power in most theaters of the war (excepting only eastern Europe), and the industrial might of the U.S. economy became a major factor in the Allies' mobilization of resources. Strategic and tactical lessons learned by the U.S...
What made the Panzer VI Tiger tank so dominate in WWII?	The Tiger was mostly a problem for Allied tanks because it was 2-3 times as heavy as most of them. However, even when the Tiger just hit the battlefield, the Allies already had weapons that could defeat them. The first ever Tiger to be knocked out was destroyed by a humble 6-pdr gun from a fairly long range. Bigger gun...	[ "Like all German tanks, the Tiger II had a petrol engine; in this case the same 700 PS (690 hp, 515 kW) V-12 Maybach HL 230 P30 which powered the much lighter Panther and Tiger I tanks. The Tiger II was under-powered, like many other heavy tanks of World War II, and consumed a lot of fuel, which was in short supply...
When exactly did "Germany" become independent of the Franks?	The question already starts with a wrong premises. The Franks in a certain sense became the Germans. Franks were a Germanic people, speaking a Germanic language which developed to later become the German language(s). A lot of people seem to think Charlemagne was some kind of early French king. He was not. Karl, which i...	[ "The Franks emerged in the southern Netherlands (Salian Franks) and central Germany (Ripuarian Franks), and later descended into Gaul. The name of their kingdom survives in that of France. Although they ruled the Gallo-Romans for nearly 300 years, their language, Frankish, became extinct in most of France and was r...
Were the ancient texts of Greece really lost to Dark Age and Medieval Europe?	It is not so much that they weren't known of at all. At least the big names, like Plato and Aristotle were widely known by reputation, and read through a handful of translations (particularly Boethius's translations of Aristotle's organon and Calcidius's translation of Plato's Timaeus) in at least some periods. It is m...	[ "During the Middle Ages, ancient Greek literature was largely forgotten in Western Europe. The medieval writer Roger Bacon wrote that \"there are not four men in Latin Christendom who are acquainted with the Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic grammars.\" It was not until the Renaissance that Greek writings were rediscovered...
Why do the strong and weak fundamental forces have a limited range?	The strong force range is based on the amount of energy needed to isolate a particle with a bare strong/colour charge. Specifically, the strong force - unlike the other forces - gets stronger with distance. The potential energy stored in a bare colour charge therefore also increases with distance. Eventually, you will...	[ "The weak force is due to the exchange of the heavy W and Z bosons. Its most familiar effect is beta decay (of neutrons in atomic nuclei) and the associated radioactivity. The word \"weak\" derives from the fact that the field strength is some 10 times less than that of the strong force. Still, it is stronger than ...
How is whipping your head around rapidly to dry off your hair not really bad for your brain?	Well, it's certainly not good for your brain. Fortunately, there is a layer of fluid protecting your brain from your skull called the CSF (cerebrospinal fluid) that absorbs impacts and prevents your brain from getting damaged. Regardless, not recommended!	[ "Human hair follicles are very sensitive to the effects of radiation therapy administered to the head, most commonly used to treat cancerous growths within the brain. Hair shedding may start as soon as two weeks after the first dose of radiation and will continue for a couple of weeks. Hair follicles typically ente...
how do american football broadcasts have the imaginary first-down line be over the field, but not over the players?	They use the field like a big green screen. Anything that isn't the same color as the field doesn't get drawn on.	[ "The style has been called \"tight on the spiral\", a reference to the frequently-used slow-motion shot of the spinning football as it travels from the quarterback's hand to the receiver. This shot usually consists of showing the quarterback throwing the football, then the camera zooming in to focus on the spinning...
Ancien Regime in the French Revolution	This sounds like the sort of question that would require several lectures to answer properly. I’ll do my best to simplify somewhat (but apologize in advance for any long-windedness). Your question can be broken into three parts: I. What was the Ancien Régime? The Ancien Régime (or Old Regime) is a term used to d...	[ "The Ancien Régime (French for \"old regime\") was the political and social system of the Kingdom of France from about 1450 until the French Revolution that started in 1789. The Ancien Régime was ruled by the late Valois and Bourbon dynasties. Much of the medieval political centralization of France had been lost in...
. how does a knife cut through stuff	Every material has some amount of stress it can absorb before it gives way. Knives create a lot of stress by taking the force you apply and putting it in a very small surface area.	[ "The basic method involves repeatedly striking the spine of the knife to force the middle of the blade into the wood. The tip is then struck, to continue forcing the blade deeper, until a split is achieved.\n", "Knife cuttings are fashioned by putting several layers of paper on a relatively soft foundation consis...
what is the sense of jeans with button fly	On the upside, there is a zero percent chance of catching the flesh of the penis in a zipper.	[ "A fly is a covering over an opening join concealing the mechanism, such as a zipper, velcro or buttons, used to join the opening. In trousers, this is most commonly an opening covering the groin, which makes the pants easier to put on or take off. The opening also allows men to urinate without lowering their trous...
How was Ned Kelly viewed outside of Australia? In particular in Ireland, the UK, and the USA.	It isn't conclusive evidence of anything, but the NYT archives returns exactly one hit for "Ned Kelly" between 1879 and 1885. The title of that article is "WHAT SMALL BOYS READ; CHOICE TALES OF INDIANS AND PIRATES." Searches against "Edward Kelly" are more difficult, as it was a popular name, but again, I didn't see...	[ "Ned Kelly is a 2003 Australian historical drama film based on Robert Drewe's 1991 novel \"Our Sunshine\". Directed by Gregor Jordan, the film's adapted screenplay was written by John Michael McDonagh. The film dramatises the life of Ned Kelly, a legendary bushranger and outlaw who was active mostly in Victoria, th...
What did religious observance look like among Reformation-era Protestants?	Oh wow, first up thanks for asking this question. I don't often see questions here that fall so squarely in my wheelhouse. Second, there is quite a lot of diversity in the time period you mention. Not only that, there were several traditions that started to diverge pretty early on. Scottish Calvinists did things a bi...	[ "The Reformation made the veneration of saints illegal and removed almost all evidence of saints and shrines from churches, although Catholicism continued as a minority religion. The period created only one Catholic saint, the convert and martyr John Ogilvie (1569–1615).\n", "The Reformation abolished in all Prot...
First Prehistoric cultures of the Middle East and Near East?	As you say the Near East^1 was the home of the world's earliest civilisations.^2 Not coincidentally, it was also the home of the world's earliest farming societies. And before that, again not-coincidentally, it was home to some of the most successful foraging societies in the prehistoric world. Basically, the common t...	[ "In the Middle East, cultures identified as Neolithic began appearing in the 10th millennium BC. Early development occurred in the Levant (e.g., Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and Pre-Pottery Neolithic B) and from there spread eastwards and westwards. Neolithic cultures are also attested in southeastern Anatolia and north...
what actually happens when you set youtube to "4k" then play it full-screen on a 1080 display?	It gets downscaled from 4K to 1080p. This doesn't mean that the video will look identical to the 1080p version though. It's still possible for the downscaled 4K version to appear better quality than the 1080p version (or vice versa). That's because videos are encoded and heavily compressed before distribution online....	[ "On December 25, 2013, YouTube added a \"2160p 4K\" option to its videoplayer. Previously, a visitor had to select the \"original\" setting in the video quality menu to watch a video in 4K resolution. With the new setting, YouTube users can much more easily identify and play 4K videos.\n", "In comparison to 4K UH...
countries and debts. is this even real?	Governments create debt by selling "bonds." These can be bought by anybody, but it's usually businesses and banks and investment funds. There's usually no such thing as mutual debut. If I borrow a tenner from you, and you borrow a tenner from me, then effectively I have paid you back. In practical terms, this sort ...	[ "This is a list of countries by external debt, which is the total public and private debt owed to nonresidents repayable in internationally accepted currencies, goods or services, where the public debt is the money or credit owed by any level of government, from central to local, and the private debt the money or c...
Why did the Romans experience difficulties handling the Hunnic mounter archers when they had previously encountered similar military techniques from the Parthians?	The Parthians entered the scene near the hight of Roman Power. The Huns towards the final collapse of the Western Empire. Parthia had a very limited frontier with with the Eastern Provinces, the Huns operated over the huge Rhine / Danube frontier. There is also what is probably a historical prejudice that the Part...	[ "The Parthian horse-archers unleashed a volley of arrows at the Romans, who held their position and hid behind their shields. The Romans fought back by firing volleys of javelins at the Parthians, eventually Ventidius commanded his men into a close order formation and to charge down the hill towards their enemies w...
why dont alchohol pills exist?	Alcohol is ethanol. Ethanol is a liquid. It really can't be condensed anymore than Everclear. You would have to swallow 44 one mL gel caps to equal one shot of Everclear	[ "However, drugs sometimes falsely represented by sellers as LSD in the 1970s were actually PCP, amphetamine, or other drugs that have quite different, and often unfavorable, effects from LSD, causing unwitting users to incorrectly attribute a \"bad trip\" to LSD. There are now many research chemicals (DOB 2C-I, DOC...
BC, AD and BCE, CE	I use them interchangeably. Usually, I will use BCE, CE when I am writing an academic paper, due to the religion-neutral nature of it (and because as a practicing Christian, I am wary of anti-Christian bias in academia that I am aware of via stories from friends, though it has not yet affected me in a way I have perce...	[ "The history of the ancient Near East begins with the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BC, though the date it ends varies. The term covers the Bronze Age and the Iron Age in the region, until either the conquest by the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BC, that by Macedonian Empire in the 4th century BC, or t...
why is 1 meter is exactly this long, 1 gram is this much, 1 degree is this much of temperature (kelvin,celsius)?	These days a meter is so many wavelengths of something, and the gram (well, actually, the kilogram) is based on an artifact. But originally, it was based on water. A gram was the weight of one cubic centimeter of water, and a meter was originally 1/10,000,000th of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator. A l...	[ "In science and engineering, degrees Celsius and kelvins are often used simultaneously in the same article, where absolute temperatures are given in degrees Celsius, but temperature intervals are given in kelvins. E.g. \"its measured value was with an uncertainty of 60 µK\".\n", "The zero of the Celsius temperatu...
How do parasites evolve complex life cycles?	It didn't. It evolved them at different times. They are not useless in isolation. For example, the ability to latch onto human skin gives you a reproductive advantage because of dispersal (just like plant seeds that can travel with wind, like dandelion). The ability to penetrate skin gives you better access to nutrie...	[ "Parasitic life cycles involve the exploitation of at least one host. Parasites that infect a single species are said to have direct life-cycles. For example, the hookworm species \"Necator americanus\". Parasites that infect more than one host are said to have a complex or indirect life-cycle. For example, the Mal...
why do women have to go to the gynecologist, but men do not have to go to a 'penis doctor'?	There is an equivalent, a urologist.	[ "In terms of medical issues with regard to lesbian sexual practices, the sexual identification of women who consult a medical professional is usually not sought nor volunteered, due to the misconceptions and assumptions about sexuality and the hesitancy of some women in disclosing their accurate sexual histories ev...
how does hezbollah relate to islam/islamism?	I won't speak to their origins, as I'm not exactly sure how they got started. But, they are a Shiite political party and they have a military wing. Literally, "Hezbollah" means party of God	[ "Hezbollah is a Shia Islamic organization in Lebanon. Scholars differ as to when Hezbollah came to be a distinct entity. Various sources list the official formation of the group as early as 1982 whereas Diaz and Newman maintain that Hezbollah remained an amalgamation of various violent Shi'a extremists until as lat...
How did Southern Whites find employment if slave labor was so cheap?	Slave labor wasn't inherently cheap, and slaves were large capital investments. Very few white southerners owned slaves. So the premise is flawed. However, many farms, particularly in the Appalachian mountains and in the northern range of slavery, didn't have slaves. Slavery was heavily concentrated on the coastal pla...	[ "Much of the character and condition of Poor Whites is rooted in the institution of slavery. A review of the historical literature on this subject is available here. Rather than provide wealth as it had for the Southern elite, in stark contrast, slavery considerably hindered progress of whites who did not own slave...
how does a bomb/missile/torpedo "know" to detonate upon impact?	Let me dispel one myth first. Most bombs don't detonate upon impact. The reason being is that at impact usually isn't the time the bomb needs to detonate to have the desired effect. A great example of this is a nuclear weapon; it designed to detonate 1-5 miles (depending on the weapon yield) up in the atmosphere as ...	[ "Both premature explosion types could result from the magnetic influence exploder. If a torpedo was still turning to get on course or had not stabilized its depth when the warhead armed, the exploder could see a magnetic field change and detonate. As the warhead approached the target, it could sense a change due to...
Were there any contacts or interest in Britsh America (Or the new world in general) by any Ottomans during the mid to late 1600s and 1700s?	Not really, no. The Ottomans were more interested in expanding their influence in the Indian Ocean basin against the increasing Portuguese presence than they were in seeking out a role in the Americas—the potential of which was unknown at the time, and required them to sail through a strait (Gibraltar) controlled by th...	[ "The formal beginning of Anglo-Ottoman relations dates back to correspondence between Elizabeth I and the Ottoman Sultan Murad III which led in May 1580 to an agreement between the two rulers that English merchants could pass safely through Ottoman-controlled seas and port in the eastern Mediterranean and the Barba...
reconciling vilification of the nuremberg defense with the value of following orders in the military	I'm not a lawyer, nor a historian, so perhaps someone could give an answer that's better than mine--someone correct me if I'm wrong here. The Nuremberg defense is crap because, although soldiers are trained to just follow orders without questioning them, the orders were so heinous that any reasonable person should...	[ "Thus, under Nuremberg Principle IV, \"defense of superior orders\" is not a defense for war crimes, although it might be a mitigating factor that could influence a sentencing authority to lessen the penalty. Nuremberg Principle IV states:\n", "The Nuremberg principles are a set of guidelines for determining what...
what happened to occupy wall st.?	This is an extremely difficult question to explain in simple terms. You could say "Winter" and that would be true. You could say "government crackdown" and that would also be true. You could also say "poor organization", "poor execution", or even "it was never meant to be permanent" and all of those answers would ...	[ "On December 6, 2011, Occupy Our Homes, an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street, said it was embarking on a \"National Day of Action\" to protest the mistreatment of homeowners by big banks, who they say made billions of dollars off of the housing bubble by offering predatory loans and indulging in practices that took ad...
Is it theoretically possible to get a matter - anti-matter reaction going and use it to produce power?	Theoretically, yes. The annihilation of a matter-antimatter pair produces significant energy. The first problem is containment. We need to store the antimatter somewhere where it can't interact with matter, but in such a way that we can easily extract the desired amount of antimatter to feed into the reaction. Presuma...	[ "In theory, it should be possible to destroy matter and convert all of the rest-energy associated with matter into heat and light (which would of course have the same mass), but none of the theoretically known methods are practical. One way to convert all the energy within matter into usable energy is to annihilate...
what happens to pixels when an image gets stretched?	If you stretch an image that means you make it cover more pixels. So it remaps the original picture to a larger set of pixels. So a color value that was on a couple of pixels is now been moved to a larger set of pixels which makes it look stretched/smeared	[ "Anamorphic (warped) stretch transform is a physics-based mathematical operation that reduces the signal bandwidth without proportionally increasing the size of the signal, thus providing space-bandwidth product compression. Its digital implementation emulates the physical effect by a non-uniform allocation of pixe...
what’s the difference between nadh, fadh and atp?	Not quite. All three provide energy but are not 'made of it' themselves. NADH and FADH are molecules that are easy to oxidise and reduce again, so 'carry' the H- a proton- to different areas of the chemical reactions in your cells to be used as drivers of the proton gradients that create ATP. ATP similiarly, is broken ...	[ "The two NADH produced can provide energy for the formation of 5 ATP (cytosolic NADH provides 2.5 ATP with the malate-aspartate shuttle in human liver cell), a net production of two high-energy phosphate bond for the urea cycle. However, if gluconeogenesis is underway in the cytosol, the latter reducing equivalent ...
What level of literacy was there in Europe during the Middle Ages? How did a person become literate?	In the Middle Ages literacy meant being able to read and write Latin, at least to some degree. The main way to achieve this was entire religious orders, often a monastery though there were other schools, such as of secular canons. Generally you would begin by memorizing the psalms, and the daily rounds of prayers to ...	[ "By the 13th century, northern and central Italy had become the most literate society in the world. More than one-third of the male population could read in the vernacular (an unprecedented rate since the decline of the Western Roman Empire), as could a small but significant proportion of women.\n", "The rate of ...
can someone explain the humor behind the volkswagen lemon ad from the 1950's and what's so revolutionary about it?	Your Wikipedia quote explains it pretty clearly. The revolutionary aspect of the ad in question was that it coined the term "lemon" for a substandard car. The humor came from the fact that the car shown had only a minor cosmetic flaw.	[ "In the popular market, Opel and Volkswagen are most well known. Opel was a bicycle company that started making cars in 1899; General Motors bought it out in 1929, but the Nazi government took control, and GM wrote off its entire investment. In 1948, GM returned and restored the Opel brand. Volkswagen is dominant i...
Why does heat excite atoms?	Well, 'heat' is really all forms of energy in the matter. (Usually subdivided into translational kinetic energy, rotational/vibrational kinetic energy and the electronic energy, although others exist) At 'ordinary' (below a few hundred C) temperatures and with most substances, the electronic states aren't involved thou...	[ "Heating generates a separation of charge in the atoms or molecules of certain materials. All pyroelectric materials are also piezoelectric. The atomic or molecular properties of heat and pressure response are closely related.\n", "Atoms trapped in optical or magnetic traps are cooled as the trap depth is decreas...
the government just put interest rates at zero or close to zero. what does that mean? does that mean someone can get a car loan at zero percent interest?	It means banks can get loans from the federal treasury at near zero percent, which in turn means that banks will lower their interest rates on home loans, auto loans, business loans, personal credit, all sorts of things. This is one of the powers the government has to stimulate the economy and encourage people to buy...	[ "BULLET::::- Understating interest rates by exploiting loophole in the Truth in Lending Act of 1968 which allows auto makers to classify \"Finance Charges,\" i.e. interest, as part of the \"Amount Financed,\" thus reducing or even eliminating finance charges to create \"zero percent\" loans.\n", "For example, if ...
What would wine have tasted like in Elizabethan London?	The English traditionally got their wine from Gascony; but when they lost Gascony at the end of the 100 years' war, the claret trade was disrupted, and they mostly shifted to importing Spanish wine (especially sherry). Whether they were primarily importing Spanish or French wine was mainly an afterthought of English fo...	[ "To many in the 1st century BC, Caecuban was the best of all wines, smoother than Falernian wine, fuller than Alban wine, strong and intoxicating. It was a white wine which turned fire-coloured as it aged. Dioscorides describes it as \"glykys\" \"sweet\". Athenaeus describes it as overpowering and strong, maturing ...
how can people have memories after they've been legally dead for minutes?	Legally dead isn't necessarily the same as actually dead. Neurons don't go away when the brain is unconscious. Does the data on your hard drive disappear when the computer turns off? The brain / computer parallel is tortured at best, anyway. Two fundamentally different machines.	[ "The story takes place five decades from now, when brain scanners have been perfected to the point that the government can retrieve up to five years' worth of memories from people's minds — even if they are dead. The investigators of the National Research Institute of Police Science's 9th Forensics Laboratory must ...
can the global internet storage ever be capped?	It doesn't really work that way. The Internet really is just a whole bunch of computers connected by switches and routers owned by all sorts of people/corporations. The big companies just have bigger, faster, and way more expensive hardware. As long as they can keep buying hard drives and servers to put them into and ...	[ "Another challenge is the storage of this bulk data. Depending on the application, there could be high data acquisition requirements, which in turn lead to high storage requirements. Currently the Internet is already responsible for 5% of the total energy generated, and a \"daunting challenge to power\" IoT devices...
By what means were care packages and rations delivered to Allied prisoners held in German POW camps?	Germany signed the 1929 Geneva convention and allowed the International Red Cross to deliver rations to their Prisoners of War, provided these prisoners were from a nation that also signed that Geneva Convention. Since the Soviet Union did not sign, the Germans did not allow ...	[ "A few hundred parcels were received in spring 1943 having been forwarded from detainees in Oflag V-B which was located at Biberach an der Riß and Ilag VII in Laufen. The deportees having been treated as POW's received a generous supply of parcels and knowing conditions in the islands, used the German post service ...
With weather radars, what causes the "green bubble" effect at night?	Its called [anomalous propagation.](_URL_0_) It happens because of the temperature inversion created by night time cooling.	[ "The Doppler Radar Detected Storms information was presented in a very useful format, because each storm was given an identifier that could be looked up by scrolling down to a grid giving more specific details: i.e. speed, direction of travel, intensity, hail potential, build-up tops, lateral size, etc. Many servic...
why does the us allow someone with no prior political experience to run for president?	Why should it be disallowed? The whole point is that anyone the people choose to represent them can represent there. There are some minimum qualifications, such as age and citizenship, but the people are the ones who decide, it allows anyone whom the people feel should lead them to do so.	[ "Because American representatives are generally residents of the constituency which they represent, it is much less common for aspiring politicians to select safe seats to represent. In fact, an aspiring politician may instead want to prove oneself by winning a swing seat and thus show they have the capability of w...
If an electron in a hydrogen atom lost enough momentum, could it collapse into the proton?	There is a decay mode by which an electron is captured by the nucleus, here is the wiki page on it: [Electron Capture](_URL_0_)	[ "Robert Oppenheimer argued strongly against the proton being the negative-energy electron solution to Dirac's equation. He asserted that if it were, the hydrogen atom would rapidly self-destruct. Persuaded by Oppenheimer's argument, Dirac published a paper in 1931 that predicted the existence of an as-yet-unobserve...
what is the difference between bananas and plantains?	When people say "banana" and when people say "plantain," they are talking about different things. The sweet "dessert bananas" - that type which is commonly consumed in the US - is what a “banana” is for most of the people. All the rest that are different from the fruit referred to as "plantains.” **Although there i...	[ "The term \"plantain\" is loosely applied to any banana cultivar that is usually cooked before it is eaten. However, there is no botanical distinction between bananas and plantains. Cooking is also a matter of custom, rather than necessity, for many bananas. In fact, ripe plantains can be eaten raw since their star...
why do toilets overflow when they're clogged?	Because the water that would normally go into the bowl from the tank/reservoir has nowhere to go. Same thing that would happen if you clogged your kitchen sink and turned on the faucet.	[ "Toilets without cisterns are often flushed through a simple flush valve or \"Flushometer\" connected directly to the water supply. These are designed to rapidly discharge a limited volume of water when the lever or button is pressed then released.\n", "Partial clogging is particularly insidious, as it is usually...
why do tornado warnings sound so creepy?	I think it's to make sure the voice is clear and understandable. Also, I think it's only creepy because we associate it with... well... severe weather.	[ "A \"tornado warning\" means there is immediate danger for the warned area and immediate surrounding locations – if not from the relatively narrow tornado itself, from the severe thunderstorm producing (or likely to produce) it. Those in the path of such a storm are urged to take cover immediately, as it is a life-...
why do our brain get tired of eating certain foods after a few bites even though we enjoy what we're eating?	Physiologist here, who has spent well over a decade of studying the neurophysiology of a sensory system (auditory). Think of it this way: Your senses have evolved to help you survive (detect food sources, see predators, etc). We tend to think that our senses are there to continually provide us information about ...	[ "BULLET::::- Not eating causes one form of unhealthy snacking. Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch claim in their book \"Intuitive Eating\" that the symptoms of starvation occur when the absence of eating is extended longer than a period of three to six hours. When the body undergoes a period of starvation, metabolism d...
how does youtube "partnership" work?	incentive for continued periodic creation of good original material	[ "In May 2007, YouTube launched its Partner Program (YPP), a system based on AdSense which allows the uploader of the video to share the revenue produced by advertising on the site. YouTube typically takes 45 percent of the advertising revenue from videos in the Partner Program, with 55 percent going to the uploader...
how are those "combined faces" posts made?	Asked right here, TODAY. _URL_0_	[ "For a spotface, material is removed from a surface to make it flat and smooth, usually for a fastener or a bearing. Spotfacing is usually required on workpieces that are forged or cast. A tool referred to as a counterbore is typically used to cut the spotface, although an endmill may also be used. Only enough mate...
When was the biggest leap in human longevity (average life expectancy) and why?	So there is a difference between average life expectancy and maximum life span. life expectancy factors in all humans in a given population and time and finds their average age at death. So things like higher infant mortality rate, predatory animals, dangerous or unsanitary environments, etc make this number much lowe...	[ "BULLET::::- Elevating longevity. Due to advances in public health, nutrition management and medical advances, life expectancy vaulted during the 20th century. For example, in the United States, life expectancy at birth in 1900 was 47. Today, life expectancy at birth in the United States is 78.\n", "The longest l...
how does vr (virtual reality) work?	That's a pretty broad question. Could you clarify? From the hardware point of view, VR requires a head mounted display (HMD) which is basically an oversized pair of ski goggles with specially made lenses and two screens or a screen divided into two halves. When the screens are big enough, the lenses are designed prope...	[ "Virtual Reality (VR) is a computer-generated simulation which allows for interactive experience, it fully recreates the environment for which the simulation that is ran. Augmented Reality (AR) may be considered a form of virtual reality and is a way of interacting with the real world through a simulation. The obje...
why is printing from mobile devices so limited?	Printers are the Satan of everyday IT infrastructure. Every manufacturer slips in some proprietary BS that only works with their specific driver, then that driver doesn't make it into Android or iOS versions because they can't afford to have half a gig of just printer drivers. Even on PC you usually have to install the...	[ "The advances made by technology in print also impact anyone using cell phones, laptops, and personal digital organizers. From novels being delivered via a cell phone, the ability to text message and send letters via e-mail clients, to having entire libraries stored on PDAs, print is being influenced by devices.\n"...
does psychopath understand he is different?	They can; you can watch interviews with psychopaths where they talk about the experience. Some have even written books. Often they are told they are different when they are too young to figure it out. Many prefer not to advertise because of the negative stigma associated with the term.	[ "Psychopaths also have a markedly distorted sense of the potential consequences of their actions, not only for others, but also for themselves. They do not, for example, deeply recognize the risk of being caught, disbelieved or injured as a result of their behaviour.\n", "Psychopathy is a personality disorder par...
Can a laser push on an object without melting it from the heat?	This depends on both the strength of the laser, and the reflectivity of the object. An object that is a perfect mirror will not heat up at all regardless of the strength of the laser, while a black body (100% absorption) will heat up until the incoming laser energy and outgoing black-body radiation balance out. Note t...	[ "Laser surface heating is similar to non-contact hot plate welding in that mirrors are placed between components to create a molten surface layer. The exposure duration is usually between 2-10 s. Then the mirror is retracted and the components are pressed together to form a joint. Process parameters for laser surfa...
Help: Battle of the bulge	Try checking your local public/university library for resources.	[ "The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Counteroffensive, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II, and took place from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945. It was launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in eastern Belgium, northeas...
when a product says that it detoxes, what exactly is it detoxing you of?	The only thing that detox products are removing from you is your hard earned money. What detoxes your body is your liver and your kidneys and the only thing you can do to help those things work is to drink the proper amount of water.	[ "Detoxification or detox formally refers to the physiological or medical removal of toxic substances from a living organism. Thus this term \"social media detox\" carries this connotation that social media is negative to the individual and thus he/she needs to stay away from it for a period of time to recover. \n",...
how can companies blatantly rip off other companies, including their entire design and business model without getting into legal trouble?	Fashion is difficult to impossible to copyright. The labels are far easier to copyright/trademark then the fashion design and this is why most clothing companies choose to focus on their brand. Thus there is no legal problem with duplicating another companies style.	[ "\"The problem with mature companies is that the very commercial success of their products increases their dependency on them. Making radical changes in the product's capabilities, underlying architecture or associated business models could cannibalize sales or lead to costly realignments of strategy and business i...
what is computer vision, and how does it work?	To further elaborate on your specific question regarding background separation: The method used for this is called background subtraction, and works (in its most simple form) by looking at which pixels change between some frames in the video and those who don't. Stuff which doesn't change is likely to be the background...	[ "Computer vision is a field that includes methods for acquiring, processing, analyzing, and understanding images and high-dimensional data from the real world to produce numerical or symbolic information, e.g., in the forms of decisions. Computer vision has many applications already in use today such as facial reco...
why did we construct our days the way we did? with sunlight starting at 5 or 6 am instead of making it so your day truly starts at 12am or 1?	You don't want a date/time to be ambiguous. If the day changed at sunrise, then 6:23AM Tuesday might not be 24 hours before 6:23AM Wednesday as the time of sunrise varies through the year. Noon was the first time defined, because it has an unambiguous, accurate, definition that doesn't change with the season. The ti...	[ "... the Barbarians showed us the place where the sun goes to rest. For it was the case that in these parts the nights were very short, in some places two, in others three hours long, so that the sun rose again a short time after it had set.\n", "Ancient civilizations adjusted daily schedules to the sun more flex...
how is 2019 the end of the decade and not the end of the year 2020?	The reason that your example doesn't work is because you've counted 11 years: 1. 2010 2. 2011 3. 2012 4. 2013 5. 2014 6. 2015 7. 2016 8. 2017 9. 2018 10. 2019 11. 2020 So there's definitely 11 years there, rather than 10. Because years are ordinal numbers rather than cardinal. But actually, the decade is supposed to...	[ "The world is in the third millennium. The 21st century is the century of the Christian Era or Common Era in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. It began on 1 January 2001 and will end 31 December 2100. The 2010s, or \"The Tens\", decade runs from 1 January 2010, to 31 December 2019.\n", "The twentieth season...
Are ancient Chinese characters still legible for the average Chinese person today? If not, how did they evolve into the characters that are used in modern China?	Yes, sometimes, kinda, not really is the answer. You must first understand that there are two main strains of Chinese writing currently in use, Traditional and Simplified Chinese. Traditional is used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and communities that are derivative thereof (usually the older Chinatowns and South Asian Ch...	[ "Ancient Chinese characters are considered by many to be an independent invention because there is no evidence of contact between ancient China and the literate civilizations of the Near East, and because of the distinct differences between the Mesopotamian and Chinese approaches to logography and phonetic represen...
What is the impact of pavement on flooding?	This is a really complicated question because there are so many factors. City planning generally factors in rainfall and builds in storm sewers/ditches/etc. to avoid flooding so in many ways, it can be argued that pavements can reduce flooding in urban areas as a result. How much drainage you have built in, the elevati...	[ "Surface runoff, when water runs off impervious surfaces, such as non-porous concrete, can cause severe soil erosion and flooding. Urban runoff tends to pick up gasoline, motor oil, heavy metals, trash and other pollutants from sidewalks, roadways and parking lots. Without attenuation, the impervious cover in a typ...
why is it acceptable to litter cigarette butts around the world?	It is not acceptable. I think the major issue comes down to lack of available receptacles. I see people using those ashtrays outside of a bar and such, but if you are faced with throwing a potential fire hazard into a trash can, you're probably better off throwing it on the ground.	[ "Proper disposal of cigarette butts is promoted as both an environmental and health issue. It is estimated 4.5 trillion cigarette butts become litter every year. While cigarette smoking in the United States has decreased, cigarette butt litter remains the most littered item in the United States and globally. The ov...
When did the term "terrorism" start to only encompass acts that are politically or ideologically motivated, rather than just the act of causing terror?	In order to study the sticky wicket that is terrorism, the first thing one must understand is that even scholars don't have a singular, unified definition of what terrorism actually is. The closest and most commonly accepted (or at least used as a framework for other definitions) is [Alex P. Schmid's revised definiti...	[ "The term \"terrorism\" comes from French , from , \"great fear\", \"dread\", related to the Latin verb , \"to frighten\". The was a panic and state of emergency in Rome in response to the approach of warriors of the Cimbri tribe in 105 BCE. The French National Convention declared in September 1793 that \"terror is...
How do you solve this "General Relativity-ized" version of the twin paradox?	It depends on the details of the motion. [This page](_URL_0_) does a calculation for one possibility, starting about a third of the way down in the paragraph beginning > The results of this and the previous section can be used to clarify the so-called twins paradox. The author considers the situation in which you h...	[ "The twin paradox is a thought experiment involving identical twins, one of whom makes a journey into space in a high-speed rocket, returning home to find that the twin who remained on Earth has aged more. This result appears puzzling because each twin observes the other twin as moving, and so at first glance, it w...
Did the Mongols have spies in England?	I can't answer this claim directly, but it is fairly certain that the Mongols sent scouts to check the defenses of at least the Holy Roman Empire and Italy just after the Mongol invasions of Hungary and Poland in 1241-42, to plan for the next planned invasion that never occured. This wasn't under Ghengis Khan though, b...	[ "Spies were also prevalent in the Greek and Roman empires. During the 13th and 14th centuries, the Mongols relied heavily on espionage in their conquests in Asia and Europe. Feudal Japan often used ninjas to gather intelligence.\n", "The Mongols carefully scouted out and spied on their enemies in advance of any i...
how is burning wood different from rotting wood in terms of their carbon footprints?	I think the main difference between these processes is where the carbon ends up. In a rotting process the carbon is recycled back into the environment without going into the atmosphere. Some CO2 is released by the microorganisms into the air, but a lot of the carbon is converted into carbs, proteins, etc. In combusti...	[ "Wood ash is the residue powder left after the combustion of wood, such as burning wood in a home fireplace or an industrial power plant. It is used traditionally by gardeners as a good source of potash.\n", "Although wood is a form of biomass, the term usually refers to other natural plant material that can be b...
What was it like when there was cocaine in Coca-cola?	I answered this in depth a while back, [here](_URL_0_)'s that post. If you want the short and sweet, drinking something with a little coca leaf has no narcotic effect. You would neither get high, nor addicted. It is also worth remembering that it never contained cocaine, it contained coca leaf, it's not the same thing....	[ "Long after the syrup had ceased to contain any significant amount of cocaine, in the southeastern U.S., \"dope\" remained a common colloquialism for Coca-Cola, and \"dope-wagons\" were trucks that transported it. The traditional shape of the bottle resembles the seed-pod of the coca bush, memorializing the cocaine...
how many mosquitos would it take to drain the human body of the blood needed to live?	The human body contains about 5 liters of blood. A mosquito on average will suck five millionths (0.000005) of a liter of blood. So dividing, it would take 5/0.000005 = 1,000,000 mosquitos to drain all five liters from the human body. However, a loss of over 40% (about two liters), if untreated with a blood transfusio...	[ "For example, once ingested by a mosquito, malaria parasites must undergo development within the mosquito before they are infectious to humans. The time required for development in the mosquito ranges from 10 to 28 days, depending on the parasite species and the temperature. This is the extrinsic incubation period ...
In Europe, the Middle-east, Asia, and the Americas civilizations rose with empires, golden ages, and slow,steady technological/governmental progress. Why and when was African/Native Australian civilization (minus Egypt) advancement stagnated compared to these other regions?	There've been so many comprehensive posts on this topic I don't even know where to begin. You'll probably enjoy these ones by /u/commustar: [Why did civilization develop in southern Mesoamerica but not equatorial Africa?](_URL_5_) [How were Central and Southern African civilizations during the Ancient Era?](_URL_0_...	[ "Europe's success in this period stands in contrast to other regions. For example, one of the most advanced civilizations of the Middle Ages was China. It had developed an advanced monetary economy by 1000 CE. China had a free peasantry who were no longer subsistence farmers, and could sell their produce and active...
how can people on shows such as "extreme couponing" on tlc end up with a negative total price?	Some stores allow one to use coupons to reduce the price of something below zero. However, this show is mostly fake, and not replicatable in real life. Stores often bend the rules (stacking more than the number of coupons allowed, doubling higher priced coupons, the multiple transactions besides the "per day" limits, ...	[ "TLC's \"Extreme Couponing\" is a show about shoppers who make extensive and focused use of coupons to save money while accumulating large quantities of goods. It was previewed in December 2010; after surpassing network expectations with more than 2 million viewers, it received a series order and began regular airi...
newbie reddit user doesn't know where to start?	Go back to lurking. its not safe here.	[ "BULLET::::- To start the search, a user would ask the local agent to begin to gossip about the search string. (We're assuming that agents either start with a known list of peers, or retrieve this information from some kind of a shared store.)\n", "\"Do You Know Where You're Coming From\" is the lead single from ...
Are there any interactions or states that are not 100% deterministic? In other words, does randomness exist?	Yes. Lots of quantum processes (for example, radioactive decay) are not deterministic.	[ "In \"classical physics,\" experiments of chance, such as coin-tossing and dice-throwing, are deterministic, in the sense that, perfect knowledge of the initial conditions would render outcomes perfectly predictable. The ‘randomness’ stems from ignorance of physical information in the initial toss or throw. In diam...
right now i'm watching the live stream of earth from the iss and i want to know why we don't see any stars in the part that's slightly towards space.	stars are very dim, and the lighting on the ISS is very bright. Cameras don't have near the dynamic range that our eyes do, so they have to either choose to focus on the dim stuff, or dial themselves back so they can see the bright stuff. Because they're assuming we want to look at the ISS, they've set the brightness...	[ "The ISS is visible to the naked eye as a slow-moving, bright white dot because of reflected sunlight, and can be seen in the hours after sunset and before sunrise, when the station remains sunlit but the ground and sky are dark. The ISS takes about 10 minutes to pass from one horizon to another, and will only be v...
why does facebook change its ui at all?	The thing to keep in mind is that usually, changes to Facebook don't turn people off forever. They complain, and they might even stop using it for a time, but they come back. In fact, when a change is made and people complain about it, usually they're defending the "old" system that they hated when it launched, too. ...	[ "In September 2008, Facebook permanently moved its users to what they termed the \"New Facebook\" or Facebook 3.0. This version contained several different features and a complete layout redesign. Between July and September, users had been given the option to use the new Facebook in place of the original design, or...
Where do phosphodiester bonds occur?	Lots of questions here: 1. Phosphodiester bonds happen in a lot of places, including to amino acids that have a hydroxyl group (e.g. serine). They are also how you get the 'phospho' in 'phospholipids' that make up biological membranes. 2. They are inter-nucleotide bonds, they connect the 5' and 3' carbons of two nucle...	[ "Phosphodiester bonds are central to all life on Earth as they make up the backbone of the strands of nucleic acid. In DNA and RNA, the phosphodiester bond is the linkage between the 3' carbon atom of one sugar molecule and the 5' carbon atom of another, deoxyribose in DNA and ribose in RNA. Strong covalent bonds f...
How are atoms "empty"? Chemistry	I don't think I entirely understand your reasoning for why there would be anything inside an atom. Think of it this way: You have the nucleus and a statistical distribution of negative charge in a cloud around that. At any given time, the electrons are somewhere and the nucleus is somewhere, and all these particles hav...	[ "The term \"empty product\" is most often used in the above sense when discussing arithmetic operations. However, the term is sometimes employed when discussing set-theoretic intersections, categorical products, and products in computer programming; these are discussed below.\n", "The empty product on numbers and...
when there are so many episodes of a show like say seinfeld or friends, why do i always see the same episodes on cable?	Not every episode of a show makes it to syndication. I remember thinking I'd seen every ST:TNG, but then when I plowed through the series on Netflix, I saw a few episodes for the first time. It was obvious why they weren't played in syndication for socio-political reasons, but they also weren't very good compared to th...	[ "Although episodes included most of the above segments, the arrangement of the segments was often interchanged. The show often featured guest stars. Sometimes, the guest had a prominent spot in the program, at other times the guest would pop in for short \"quickies\" (one- or two-line jokes) interspersed throughout...
how do humidifiers work and why is the vapor not hot?	It is water mist. Usually you just run water through an atomizer to make it into tiny particles. You can do basically the same with a fan and a bowl of water. The fancier ones run it through a compressor thing to make it look more misty, but it is just water	[ "An impeller humidifier (cool mist humidifier) uses a rotating disc to fling water at a diffuser, which breaks the water into fine droplets that float into the air. The water supply must be kept scrupulously clean, or there is a risk of spreading bacteria or mold into the air.\n", "A vaporizer (steam humidifier, ...
how do we scientifically explain the “spiritual high” or “burning in the bosom” that religious people feel?	Humans are social creatures, and rhythmic, emotionally charged rituals illicit a response that encourages social bonding. Under the right circumstances, you can get the same feeling on the dance floor, at a rock concert, or from a drum circle.	[ "The interface between religion, spirituality, and health is an extraordinarily rich area for scientific investigation. For many, a concern with the sacred or transcendent goes to the heart of what it means to be human. Health professionals are beginning to appreciate the possibility that spiritual commitment may h...
temperature - in the shade vs in the sun?	The air temperature isn't a lot different in the sun vs. the shade. But you'll feel a lot hotter (and things will be hotter) in the direct sunlight because they are getting that radiant energy from the sun. In the shade, it's only heated by reflected/ambient light and conduction from the air.	[ "The Sun closely approximates a black-body radiator. The effective temperature, defined by the total radiative power per square unit, is about 5780 K. The color temperature of sunlight above the atmosphere is about 5900 K.\n", "Western and eastern sun can provide warmth and lighting, but are vulnerable to overhea...
why shouldn't i reheat food more than once?	Bacteria grows best in a certain temperature which is sometimes called the [danger zone](_URL_0_). So if you start heating your food that has X number of bacteria and it goes through the "danger zone" they will multiply as fast as they can. Now, if you take that earlier reheated food it will have much more bacteria...	[ "Because food cooked in a slow cooker stays warm for a long time after it is switched off, people can use the slow cookers to take food elsewhere to eat without reheating. Some slow cookers have lids that seal to prevent their contents from spilling during transport.\n", "While it is prohibited in most instances ...
why is easier to balance things like plates or trays on my left hand, even though my dominant hand is my right?	Basically what the below posters said. I play a variety of sports, and although I am left handed, I prefer to catch almost any object in any sport (or anything you throw at me in everyday life, like a lighter) with my right hand. I always attributed this to the fact that I played a fair bit of baseball growing up, and ...	[ "Because most people are right-handed, most everyday items are mass-produced for ease of use with the right hand. Tools, game equipment, musical instruments and other items must be specially ordered for left-handed use, if they are even produced and are usually more expensive than their right-handed counterparts.\n...
Was El Cid considered a national hero during his lifetime?	Spaniard here, hoping to shed some light on the heroic part (and apologies for my English, not firs language): We have a written account of the Cid's life in the form of an epic poem, the Cantar de Mio Cid, which also happens to be the very first literary work in the Spanish language. The consensus is that it started ...	[ "The figure of El Cid has been the source for many literary works, beginning with the Cantar del Mio Cid, an epic poem from the 12th century which gives a partly-fictionalized account of his life. This poem, along with similar later works such as the Mocedades de Rodrigo, contributed to portray El Cid as a chivalri...
why do older emulated games still occasionally slow down when rendering too many sprites, even though it's running on hardware thousands of times faster than what it was programmed on originally?	A lot of old games are hard-coded to expect a certain processor speed. The old console had so many updates per second and the software is using that timer to control the speed of the game. When that software is emulated that causes a problem - modern processors are a hundred times faster and will update (and play) th...	[ "In general, VDM and similar technologies do not satisfactorily run most older DOS games on today's computers. Emulation is only provided for the most basic peripherals, often implemented incompletely. For example, sound emulation in NTVDM is very limited. NT-family versions of Windows only update the real screen a...
why do burgers have this little white piece at the bottom of the bun?	That comes from an imperfection in the baking process. When you bake a burger bun, you typically place it flat on a metal pan. Oftentimes a little moisture will escape the dough during baking and get stuck between the bun and the pan. As the oven heats up, the moisture turns to steam and gets trapped as small steam bub...	[ "The cooked bun has a crunchy, thin dough, almost cracker like. When bitten into, meat juices pour out. Due to the way that the bun is wrapped, the green scallions are at the center of the bun with the meat wrapped around them, instead of at the bottom.\n", "The burger is prepared by putting cheese between two pa...
object-oriented ontology	Object-oriented means you should treat anything in your program as an Object. Before you understand that, you should be aware why this is important. Let's assume you are the CEO of a big company, with hundreds of employee's. How do you assign work for each employee? You don't have the time, for each thing the company...	[ "Object-oriented ontology is often viewed as a subset of speculative realism, a contemporary school of thought that criticizes the post-Kantian reduction of philosophical enquiry to a correlation between thought and being, such that the reality of anything outside of this correlation is unknowable. Object-oriented ...
Why didn't Emperor Hirohito commit suicide following the Japanese surrender?	Why would he have done that? Edit: Let me be clear, there is no reason for a Japanese Emperor who lost a war to kill himself. There is no reason for a lord who lost a war to kill himself either. (I'm sorry for the somehow aggressive answer, I hit save a bit too fast.)	[ "On August 12, the Emperor informed the imperial family of his decision to surrender. One of his uncles, Prince Asaka, then asked whether the war would be continued if the \"kokutai\" could not be preserved. Hirohito simply replied, \"Of course.\" As the Allied terms seemed to leave intact the principle of the pres...
how is the thickness of borders between states/provinces and countries measured?	They don't have a thickness at all. It's a line, therefore an object with one dimension. The border can be marked just with a single white line on a road.	[ "The borders of provinces have often been inspired, or even determined, by historical or present political borders; the same is often true of diocesan borders within a province. The following are some examples:\n", "Some walls formally mark the border between one population and another. A border wall is construct...
how does the combination of a mp3 player and earphones create sound from a digital file?	The file is taken from memory and streamed through a chip called a "codec" that decodes the file from mp3 format (which is a special method of storing the data efficiently) and converts it to a format that can be fed to another chip called a "DAC" (short for digital to analog converter) that converts the signal from di...	[ "The MP3 music file is streamed to the network music player in digital format, commonly in the original MP3 format. Therefore, the audio details of the MP3 music are sent wirelessly in the home to the network music player as it is stored on the computer and without loss.\n", "An MP3 music player is included in th...
Did the end of slavery in the U.S. spur the development of mechanized farming equipment, or was it the other way around? Or both? Or neither?	What article was this? Do you have a citation? I don't have a specific answer for you, but I study something related, so allow me to ruminate on the topic for a moment. Plus, it's late and I've been drinking. With regards to slavery and agriculture, it was never a necessity in the north. There, farmers practiced bas...	[ "The invention of machines during the industrial revolution, which gradually replaced manual labor, and the consecutive abolitions of slave ownership in many liberalized countries, caused a great decline in the demand for slave labor. Many of the pirate markets closed, and prices fell severely for captives.\n", "...
if our pupils dilate when we see someone we like, wouldn't we notice a change in brightness?	Well, not really. Your vision is focused on them, and your brain is verrrrrry good at screening out things it's not interested in.	[ "If, in examining a man's pupillary reflex, we obtain a relatively constant contraction of the iris, this is possible only because the individual, so to speak, surrenders his eye to us and completely foregoes the usual act of seeing, i.e. the visual prehension of some environmental feature. Of course, it is true th...

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