Split (2)

train · 226k rows

question stringlengths 3 301	answer stringlengths 9 26.1k	context list
why does a car not move when you leave it in gear.	If you're talking about a manual transmission, it's because, typically, the car is left in either first gear or reverse when it's parked. When you're driving in these gears, the engine turns a lot to make the wheels turn comparatively little, to get the car moving. This means it's really difficult for the wheels to mak...	[ "On some cars, starting off from rest involved using the gear change pedal like a clutch. On others, first gear could be selected but while the engine was still idling the car would not move even after the gear change pedal had been pressed and released. When the accelerator was pressed a centrifugal clutch or flui...
Can you cross breed sharks?	Can it be possible to hybridize sharks? Yes. That particular combination, no. In order to cross breed, the two species must be closely related. Even then, the offspring usually are sterile. Sharks are unlikely to breed outside their species, so it'd have to be artificially done.	[ "BULLET::::- A group of about 50 hybrids between Australian blacktip shark and the larger common blacktip shark was found by Australia's East Coast in 2012. This is the only known case of hybridization in sharks.\n", "Hybrids between the Australian blacktip shark and the common blacktip shark, comprising both F1 ...
-how do ear candles work?	By good feelings and well wishes.	[ "Many advocates of ear candles claim that the treatment originates from traditional Chinese, Egyptian, or North American medicine. The mythical city of Atlantis is also reported to be the origin of this practice.\n", "According to the US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA), ear candling is sometimes promoted wi...
why do most forms say "caucasian" as an option for white if most white people aren't even from the caucus region?	Because a German man named [Christoph Meiners](_URL_0_) decided there were two races: Caucasians, who had the people of the southern Caucuses as their archetype, and Mongoloids, who were... everyone else. Christoph was something of a racist, so the defining traits of Caucasians were things like "More beautiful because ...	[ "The use of the term \"non-white\" controversially refers to those who are not considered by the Canadian government to be Caucasian, and does open the door to ambiguity. For example, people who are Lebanese, Berber, Latin American or South Asian may consider themselves to be white, yet the federal government forci...
what are extras in movies actually talking about in the background?	I had a friend who did that kind of work in NYC. She said they would sit there trying to make the other person laugh. Check out a cafe scene next chance you get and see how many people are trying not to laugh.	[ "In filming these movies, Van used the local folks as bit actors, making some of them go in blackface. One of the actors was a local, Lee Collins, who later had a career as a choreographer on Broadway.\n", "On a film or TV set, background actors are usually referred to as \"junior artist\", \"atmosphere\", \"back...
Are there any good books or documentaries about Japan's Sengoku Jidai period?	If you've been playing Shogun, I imagine you're looking for a military history. Sadly, I'm not aware of any authoritative military histories of the sengoku era. If you're interested in the time period in general, Berry's [The Culture of Civil War in Kyoto](_URL_0_) is an excellent cultural history of the time, ex...	[ "The is a biography of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who rose to the office of \"taikō\" during the Azuchi–Momoyama period of Japanese history. The Confucian scholar (1564–1640) published the work in 1626 during the rule of the third Tokugawa shōgun Iemitsu. The work was published five times between 1626 and 1710. The comple...
what exactly happens when you trade in your phone to get credit/upgrades with your cellphone company?	They aren't stealing your personal information if thats what you're worried about. One of the first things they do is wipe it. If you're really concerned about it you can wipe it yourself beforehand. They get them repaired/cleaned up to sale condition and then sell them. Even ones that aren't typically stocked for sale...	[ "This results in an \"on/off\" or \"all or nothing\" proposition for the prepaid service providers and their clients (i.e. the account either has enough credit to use the phone, or it does not). Some operators (e.g., Orange) allow their pre-paid customers to have a small negative balance to allow short calls or tex...
how does lightning "repair" the ozone?	The high Voltage Discharge of the lightning has enough energy to Ionize some oxygen molecules which then reacts to O3 (ozone). So O2 + Energy = 2 O• - > O• + O2 = O3 Look at it as if you had magnets 2 stick together and you need energy (force) to separate them, now you can take each one and connect it to other 2 mag...	[ "Ozone is also produced by the action of sunlight on volatile organic compounds or VOCs, such as gasoline vapour present in the air of towns and cities, in a problem known as photochemical smog. The ozone formed can drift many miles before it is destroyed by further reactions.\n", "Ozone may be formed from by ele...
why does old electronics produce a high ptched noice when turned on?	The specific component is called the "flyback transformer". The whine is mentioned in this section: [_URL_1_](_URL_0_) More specifically, the high frequency alternating magnetic field makes the transformer core vibrate at whatever frequency is being made. Depending on the initial quality of the transformer, and how w...	[ "A number of users throughout the world have reported that the hinges of their Ideapad U310 notebooks were popped out and sometimes cracking sounds could be heard after half of a year or one year's normal usage. So far, Lenovo refused to acknowledge this problem and tried to charge customers for replacing the whole...
If coronavirus is spread by people coughing and sneezing how are asymptomatic people spreading it when they don't do either?	Spreading by bodily fluids such as saliva can even be passed through family if you share a drink or use the same spoon. Sometimes random coughing or sneezing (due to dust, allergies etc) without covering your mouth leaves droplets in the air or on surfaces and other people might come into contact with it especially in...	[ "Influenza spreads between humans when infected people cough or sneeze, then other people breathe in the virus or touch something with the virus on it and then touch their own face. \"Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread this way.\" Swine flu cannot be spread by pork products, since the virus is no...
does alcohol tolerance come from your body learning to metabolise it more efficiently, or your brain learning to function better whilst under the influence, or both?	Both. Alcohol is metabolized into its non-toxic (less toxic?) form by enzymes in the liver. Once your liver realizes that it is frequently encountering this thing, it starts producing more enzymes which allow it to break the substance down more quickly. Furthermore, since your brain technically doesn't want to lose ...	[ "These neuroimaging methods have found that alcohol alters the nervous system on multiple levels. This includes impairment of lower order brainstem functions and higher order functioning, such as problem solving. These methods have also shown differences in electrical brain activity and responsiveness when comparin...
the venezuelan protests right now.	Power vacuum after the death of chavez. people don't have money for food, and their money isn't worth much globally anyway. intense violence in the streets over the past year (i.e. robbery and murder). a nation raised under a nationalist/socialist identity, but that has always been politically polarized. without chavez...	[ "The 2014 Venezuelan protests began in February 2014 when hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans protested due to high levels of criminal violence, inflation, and chronic scarcity of basic goods because of policies created the Venezuelan government. The protests have lasted for several months and events are listed be...
Are there any languages that a parrot CANNOT learn to properly mimic?	Parrots certainly cannot mimic sign languages, which are just as much of a language as any other language. So that's something like 150 of the world's 7,000 languages that parrots are unable to imitate. In terms of spoken languages, it depends on two things. First, what kind of bird do you mean? There are many species...	[ "There is controversy about whether parrots are capable of using language, or merely mimic what they hear. However, some scientific studies—for example those conducted over a 30-year period by Irene Pepperberg with a grey named Alex and other parrots, covered in stories on network television on numerous occasions—h...
how would it feel like to be a spider's prey? how long would you stay alive, and would you feel pain?	You wouldn't live for all that long. First you would be caught, and wrapped up in the web. Then the spider would bite you and inject you with their venom. It would work its way through your body, melting your internal organs. You would survive until a vital organ was destroyed, or until neurotoxins stopped your heart/l...	[ "\"C. inclusum\" spiders are venomous and capable of biting humans. A bite begins with moderate pain (in contrast to a brown recluse spider's painless bite) followed by itching. Symptoms usually resolve within 7–10 days. However, the spider rarely bites (with females biting more often than wandering males), and the...
how can a corporation be considered a person in the usa (and therefore a usa citizen...?) if they move their company to a different country and do not pay taxes in the usa.	An important distinction: corporations are not considered U.S. citizens. Never before in American history has that ever even been considered. For the purpose of applications of common law and protection under the Constitution, there is a concept of "corporate personhood" in the United States. This defines corporations...	[ "Foreign owners of US corporations also benefit from the ability to have entities normally treated as flow-through instead be taxed as corporations by the IRS. In what is sometimes known as a \"domestic reverse hybrid\" strategy, a non-US corporation may set up a US holding company which elects to be treated as a c...
why do certain foods make me gassy? what the heck is going on inside me?	Bacteria that lives in your stomach feeds on the food you eat and produces gas byproducts.	[ "Most cases of stomach bloating are due to improper diet. Gas occurs because of the bacteria in the colon and is a by-product of soluble fiber digestion. Inadequate or irregular intake of fiber and water will cause a person to experience bloating or constipation. The most common natural sources of fiber include fru...
When you drink caffeine, does it act like glucose and simply give your cells more energy, or is there something more going on?	What you've read is close to the truth. Your idea about glucose is not. Very simply put the action of caffeine is supposed to feel like you have more energy, that is to say, less tired. It does not provide any meaningful calories. So how does caffeine work? Well blocking all adenosine receptors, specifically the A2A ...	[ "Caffeine and black coffee have been associated with increased energy expenditure and subsequent weight loss. Caffeine belongs to a class of compounds called methylxanthines, and is present in coffee, tea, cocoa, chocolate and some cola drinks. Caffeine induces a thermogenic effect in the body by increasing sympath...
why/how is the housing sector so important to nations economy?	A few reasons. 1. Housing wealth is a very significant fraction of total wealth. Estimates vary, but the total value of US housing held by the "household sector" (i.e. not businesses) is roughly $20 trillion, out of roughly $70 trillion total net worth. See for instance table S.3.a here: _URL_0_ 2. The percentage...	[ "Economic development is the increase in standard of living and economic health of a country, reflected in its Human Development Index. For a country to develop economically it must invest in capital goods, such as infrastructure, health care and education. Unlike consumer goods, which promote immediate wealth for ...
how that dog from two floors down can continuously bark for two hours and not lose his voice	he has seperation anxiety. i assume that he mainly does that when his owners are not at home? seperation anxiety builds up tension, so everytime he sees his owners leave the house he starts to get desperate and all the build up tension has to come out somehow. some dogs release that tension by destroying the whole hous...	[ "A dog is napping in a meadow, dreaming of being in a silent movie in which it saves a woman tied to a set of railroad tracks from being run over by a train. The opening of the song is heard faintly in the distance, coming from the open back door of a concert hall, and the dog wakes up and ventures inside. Here, Co...
how do bullets fired into the air come down fast enough to do damage?	Bullets are propelled by gases from a gunpowder charge. Once it leaves the barrel traveling up, eventually the round reaches an apex, and heads back toward gravity. It will reach terminal velocity falling back down, which is much less than muzzle velocity firing up, but still enough to do damage. Case in point, a stray...	[ "A bullet in flight is in projectile motion, meaning no other forces are acting on it except the acceleration due to gravity (and sometimes wind). When a bullet leaves the muzzle, it not only travels forward, but also begins to fall due to the influence of gravity. The downward acceleration is constant and does not...
My mother and grandmother keep saying that living in the Soviet Union was way better than it is now because during then there was alot of food with cheap prices and i hardly believe that,was it actually true or am I getting brainwashed?	Adapted from an earlier [answer](_URL_0_): You can poke around the internet and easily find graphs that claim that the average Soviet citizen had a higher caloric intake than the average American until the Soviet intake plummeted in 1991. These generally come from FAO data, but an [examination](_URL_1_) of a number ...	[ "Under these conditions, the general quality of life for Soviet consumers deteriorated. Consumers traditionally faced shortages of durable goods, but under Gorbachev, food, wearing apparel, and other basic necessities were in short supply. Fueled by the liberalized atmosphere of Gorbachev's glasnost and by the gene...
how does flavored seltzer have 0 calories per serving but 10 calories per bottle?	You're not required to disclose under 5 calories per serving per the FDA in the US - it can be rounded down to 0. As each serving is only 3.333... calories, it can be listed as no calorie. _URL_0_	[ "The energy content of a single-serving (1 g packet) of Splenda is 3.36 kcal, which is 31% of a single-serving (2.8 g packet) of granulated sugar (10.8 kcal). In the United States, it is legally labelled \"zero calories\"; U.S. FDA regulations allow this \"if the food contains less than 5 Calories per reference amo...
Why does the United States not have a parliament like the United Kingdom?	It was Parliament that had tried to tax them, in their view unjustly. The Declaratory Act had declared that Parliament could pass any Act it saw fit in regards to America. This idea of unlimited parliamentary sovereignty was anathema to Americans. They were concerned above all to ensure that their Constitution safeguar...	[ "The UK has a parliamentary government based on the Westminster system that has been emulated around the world – a legacy of the British Empire. The Parliament of the United Kingdom that meets in the Houses of Parliament has two houses: an elected House of Commons and an appointed House of Lords, and any Bill passe...
why is it difficult for us to recognize how annoying the annoying things we do are, when we're so quick to identify the annoying things other people do?	It is one of those things in life. We are all born with a million small bottles, each with a label. One is greed, one is lust, one for ambition, one for honesty. Every single trait has its own jar. Love, empathy, distrust, lying, amity, etc. each has a jar. In each jar is a bit of sand. Those who are greedy have the gr...	[ "Various reasons exist for why one finds particular stimuli annoying. Measurement of annoyance is highly subjective. As an attempt at measurement, psychological studies on annoyance often rely on their subjects' own ratings of levels of annoyance on a scale. Any kind of stimuli can cause annoyance, such as getting ...
can a programmer explain what a "delegate" is and why you should use it?	_URL_1_ gives a good explanation. basic answer: it's like a secure, typesafe version of C's function pointers. More simply put, it's an object which references a method. Here's a good example: _URL_0_ It's an easy way to pass a method you wish to invoke to a function, so the function can invoke that method without...	[ "A delegate is a form of type-safe function pointer used by the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI). Delegates specify a method to call and optionally an object to call the method on. Delegates are used, among other things, to implement callbacks and event listeners. A delegate object encapsulates a reference to a...
why does a phone without a battery break when dropped in water?	Electronics guy here. It happens because it isn't the water that breaks the phone - minerals *left behind by the water* cause short circuits which cause parts of the phone to fry the next time any voltage is applied to them. In theory an electronic device can be restored after getting dunked in water... as long...	[ "If the battery is over-filled with water and electrolyte, thermal expansion can force some of the liquid out of the battery vents onto the top of the battery. This solution can then react with the lead and other metals in the battery connector and cause corrosion.\n", "Starting batteries are of lighter weight th...
From Facebook: "Pineapples were a status symbol in 18th century England. They were so expensive that you could rent them by the night and take them to parties with you". Can I get more insight on this?	Collecting exotic plants of all kinds was quite a popular pastime for the landed gentry and aristocracy of 18th century England. By this I mean that people were devoting a great deal of time and energy to bringing back prized specimens to grow and cultivate in Britain. Such was the benefit of Britannia's increasing glo...	[ "The Pineapple is 900 years old and it is mentioned in the Domesday Book. It was frequently used by shepherds and drovers as an overnight stop. The name is derived from the pine forest that once surrounded the area, a pine apple being a local name for a pine cone. The furniture inside the pub is noteworthy. It was ...
What were the popular games during your period of expertise?	In 14th century Japan, a poetic game called linked-verse renga came into prominence among poets at court. I'm sure most people are generally familiar with haiku, a poetic form consisting of 5-7-5 morae (syllables). One of the oldest forms of Japanese poetry is called waka, which is 5-7-5-7-7. Poets developed a game c...	[ "Their best-known games are the \"Repton\" series of games, which have sold over 125,000 units in total. Other notable Superior Software games for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron include \"Overdrive\", \"Citadel\", \"Thrust\", \"Galaforce\", \"Stryker's Run\", \"Ravenskull\", \"Codename: Droid\" (sequel to \"Stryk...
how are tangle-free headphones created?	They use wide flat cable that does not really flex much along the width.	[ "Patch cords are usually produced in many different colors so as to be easily distinguishable, and are relatively short, perhaps no longer than ten meters. Types of patch cords include microphone cables, fiber optic spectroscopy cables, headphone extension cables, XLR connector, Tiny Telephone (TT) connector, RCA c...
What is the gold-colored wrapping on spacecraft and rover wiring?	_URL_0_ It's a lightweight insulator that keeps it's properties over large temperature ranges and doesn't have problems with outgassing in vacuums. Here's some on Amazon _URL_1_	[ "Multi-layer insulation used on spacecraft is usually made of polyimide coated with thin layers of aluminum. The gold-like material often seen on the outside of spacecraft is actually single aluminized polyimide, with the single layer of aluminum facing in. The yellowish-brown polyimide gives the surface its gold-l...
used oil? why is it considered bad for environment?	> It comes from the ground anyway, why can't it be just dumped out on the ground? Because it would seep into groundwater or other environmentally sensitive areas. In its natural state it is contained within its own environment.	[ "Due to its high energy density and ease of handling, oil has a unique role as a transportation fuel. There are, however, a number of possible alternatives. Among the biofuels the use of bioethanol and biodiesel is already established to some extent in some countries.\n", "Because of concerns over Peak oil, pollu...
Are the animals living in the city of Pripyat (the city that was devistated by the Cherynobil disaster) deformed from radiation?	Oh boy, my favourite topic! While the Chernobyl wildlife do have large degrees of deformities, they largely manifest in their internal organs, immune systems, and reproductive sucess-- no three-headed deer, just birds with smaller brains, fewer eggs, and fewer babies that are born alive and make it to adulthood. A lo...	[ "Studies suggest the 30km (19-mile) \"exclusion zone\" surrounding the Chernobyl disaster has become a wildlife sanctuary. Animals have reclaimed the land including species such as the Przewalski’s horse, Eurasian lynx, wild boar, grey wolf, elk, red deer, moose, brown bear, turtle, voles, mice, shrews, European ba...
how do tilt shift filters work?	Tilt-shift lenses are often used in architectural photography. Parallel lines that appear to converge due to perspective distortion can be realigned to appear parallel. Sometimes the terms 'perspective control' (PC) lens and 'tilt shift' (TS) lens are used interchangeably; perspective control lenses are often a special...	[ "Shifting allows adjusting the position of the subject in the image area without changing the camera angle; it is often used to avoid convergence of parallel lines, such as when photographing a tall building. Tilting the lens relies on the Scheimpflug principle to rotate the plane of focus away from parallel to the...
Is our sense of time affected by the rate of chemical reactions?	It is much more complicated than that, and is a very active area of research. A professor at my school, David Eagleman, studies this stuff. He's a complete badass, check him out: _URL_0_ edit: one of his famous experiments involves using magnetic energy to slow the propagation of some signals in the brain, and if...	[ "The rate of a chemical reaction is influenced by many different factors, such as temperature, pH, reactant and product concentrations and other effectors. The degree to which these factors change the reaction rate is described by the elasticity coefficient. This coefficient is defined as follows:\n", "The 'rule ...
why is a man participating in rape culture if both the man and woman were drunk and not able to give consent	I'm not sure you know what "rape culture" means... It refers more to society's treatment of rape than rape itself. But as far as why the man is many times more likely to be charged with rape, I suppose it has to do with an ingrained perception that masculinity is active, and femininity passive, so people just just mor...	[ "Some have noted gender-specific and variable standards for intoxicated consent. In a recent lawsuit against Duke university, a Duke administrator, when asked whether verbal consent need be mutual when both participants are drunk, stated, \"Assuming it is a male and female, it is the responsibility in the case of t...
Do gravitational waves add up or cancel each other out in amplitude like sound waves do when two run into each other?	_URL_0_ > Of course they can. Gravitational waves carry energy and energy curves space in a non - linear fashion. One example would be to make a spherical 1000 km in diameter shell of about 1000 of those LIGO Sept 14 events, and then at the center the gravitational waves might pile up enough to create a black hole. E...	[ "The phenomenon of interference between waves is based on this idea. When two or more waves traverse the same space, the net amplitude at each point is the sum of the amplitudes of the individual waves. In some cases, such as in noise-cancelling headphones, the summed variation has a smaller amplitude than the comp...
a catch-22 situation?	Its named after the novel by joseph heller. And coined after this specific passage where a pilot tries to get out of combat missions by being proven mentally unstable --- "You mean there's a catch?" "Sure there's a catch", Doc Daneeka replied. "Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy....	[ "A catch-22 is a paradoxical situation from which an individual cannot escape because of contradictory rules or limitations. The term was coined by Joseph Heller, who used it in his 1961 novel \"Catch-22\".\n", "Strictly speaking, a \"Catch-22\" is \"a problematic situation for which the only solution is denied b...
I heard that orbiting objects are really just constantly falling, but they are moving so fast that when they fall they never hit the earth... How true is this?	This is exactly correct. For any object moving in a circle, it must be experiencing a force called centripetal force pulling it inward toward the middle of the circle. This is necessary for it to follow the curved path. In the case of an orbiting object, the gravity is pulling the orbiting object inward the center o...	[ "At a distance relatively close to Earth (less than 3000 km), gravity is only slightly reduced. As an object orbits a body such as the Earth, gravity is still attracting objects towards the Earth and the object is accelerated downward at almost 1g. Because the objects are typically moving laterally with respect to ...
how there can all the gold ever mined only add up to three swimming pools worth	An Olympic swimming pool is 132,430 cubic feet. A standard gold bar is 44.4 cubic inches. You could fit 5,154,032 gold bars in one Olympic swimming pool. Fort Knox has 147.3 million ounces of gold. With one bar weighing 400 ounces, that pool contains 2,061,612,972 ounces of gold. 14 times the amount held in Fort Kno...	[ "Since 2006, goldfish have been observed in the lake, where they have grown to \"giant size\", behaving like an invasive species. They may have descended from former pets which owners dumped or escaped, when used as fishing bait.\n", "The second-largest gold nugget in the world was found in Ballarat in the Red Hi...
is body language cultural, genetic, inherited and/or something else?	I would say 50/50. Laugh and clap seems to ve innate actions, while some gestures (Like the "yes" movement up and down with the head VS the "no movement) are cultural. For example the military salute isn't something innate, it's social construct to express order, loyalty and discipline even in a sarcastic way. But I ...	[ "Language, in the modern view, is considered to be only a partial product of genetic memory. The fact that humans can have languages is a property of the nervous system that is present at birth, and thus phylogenetic in character. However, perception of the particular set of phonemes specific to a native language o...
why are the blades on modern energy windmills so narrow?	The design of a wind turbine blade seeks a balance between the mass of the blades and the optimal lift. The wider the blades, the more mass and drag they have, which counters any increase in lift they might afford. You want a balance between those factors. The blades on the turbine don't function like the sails of a sh...	[ "A multi-bladed windmill is a mechanical device with a piston pump. Because a piston pump has a fixed stroke, the energy demand of this type of pump is proportional to pump speed only. On the other hand, the energy supply of a wind rotor is proportional to the cube of wind speed. Because of that, a wind rotor runs ...
driving a fwd car in the snow	Hey buddy, sounds like what you're getting at is understeer and oversteer. FWD cars are more prone to understeer, and RWD cars are more prone to oversteer. [This](_URL_0_) is the best image i can find to explain it simply. You usually lose traction in a car when the driven wheels, (FWD vs RWD) are put under more loa...	[ "BULLET::::- Sleet, which behaves like a thin layer of quicksand on the road. Cars sink in it or drive across the surface and then slide over the slick individual pellets when attempting to brake. Sleet is very difficult to remove from roads. Due to its self-distributive properties and high weight relative to snow,...
when we type up an email and hit "send", how does the internet know where to correctly deliver our email? what does this process look like between two computers/email accounts?	When you hit send, your mail is delivered to the Mailserver of your mail provider. Your computer knows which one that is because it was part of your initial mail setup on your computer. Once the mail reaches 'your' Mailserver it'll look at the domain (the part behind the @ sign in the mail address) and looks up the IP...	[ "Email allows messages to be targeted at particular members of the audience by using the \"To\" and \"CC\" lines. However, some message systems do not have this option. As a result, it can be difficult to determine the intended recipient of a particular message. When messages are displayed hierarchically, it is eas...
why are snowden documents still being released, nearly two years later?	I'll let Glenn Greenwald - the Guardian Journalist whom Edward Snowden contacted together with Laura Poitras - answer that one for you: ([source](_URL_0_)) > We've been reporting continuously on huge stories without pause for 18 months, using editors, reporters, and experts from all over the world. > These document...	[ "As part of the global surveillance disclosure, the first of Snowden's documents were published on June 5, 2013, in \"The Guardian\" in an article by Greenwald. According to him, Snowden's documents exposed the \"scale of domestic surveillance under Obama\".\n", "On May 20, 2013, Snowden flew to Hong Kong, where ...
I found this symbol in Palma, Mallorca just outside the Seu Cathedral. What does it mean?	Here is some pics _URL_0_ _URL_1_	[ "The umbraculum (, \"big umbrella\", in basilicas also conopaeum) is a historic piece of the papal regalia and insignia, once used on a daily basis to provide shade for the pope (Galbreath, 27). Also known as the pavilion, in modern usage the umbraculum is a symbol of the Catholic Church and the authority of the po...
Were the Romans Really as Brutal and Cruel as we Think?	They certainly had a mentality of ''might is right'' that led to brutally cruel things. I forget the exact quote, but Caesar wrote something along the lines of ''the victor is allowed to do whatever he likes to the defeated'', which gives you an idea as to how they generally thought. Mass infanticide is not something...	[ "Although this period of Roman history is marked by the extreme violence and cruelty practiced by partisans on each side, Gratidianus suffered a particularly vicious death during the Sullan proscriptions; in the most sensational accounts, he was tortured and dismembered by Catiline at the tomb of Quintus Lutatius C...
how does music royalty work? how do the music companies keep track of how many times a song is played?	Absolute speculation and close approaches, but with Spotify and YouTube (or any streaming platform) things change because you have more tracking. When it comes to tv/radios they send a list of the songs they've played and then, whoever pays the artists, measures that channel/radio audience and then they come up with ...	[ "When a recording is broadcast (either on radio or by a background music service such as Muzak), performance rights organisations (such as the ASCAP and BMI in the US, SOCAN in Canada, or MCPS and PRS in the UK), collect a third type of royalty known as a performance royalty, which is paid to songwriters, composers...
why is censoring on facebook, twitter, reddit, or even banning products on amazon, or ebay considered an assault on "freedom of speech"?	The idea of free speech is often abused and misinterpreted. You can't say whatever you want on any social media site just like you can't walk into a store and start screaming obscenities. Facebook and Reddit and every other site owned by any company is free to limit speech in any way they see fit. Whether or not it'...	[ "Governments and private organizations may engage in censorship. Other groups or institutions may propose and petition for censorship. When an individual such as an author or other creator engages in censorship of their own works or speech, it is referred to as \"self-censorship\". It occurs in a variety of differe...
Did people in ancient and medieval times have anything comparable to hobbies?	Stitching patterns into fabric (embroidery) was something that both lower and higher class members of society participated in. this was considered more of a women's activity, however, and I don't recall any accounts of men (outside of tailors) doing this for leisure.	[ "The youth of Rome had several forms of athletic play and exercise, such as jumping, wrestling, boxing, and racing. In the countryside, pastimes for the wealthy also included fishing and hunting. The Romans also had several forms of ball playing, including one resembling handball. Dice games, board games, and gambl...
why are laptop and tablet batteries often split into several smaller cells instead of having only one large cell?	If you hook multiple cells together in series where you put positive to negative that increases the voltage but keeps the amperage the same. Three 1.5 volt AAA cells connected in series become a 4.5 volt battery with 1000 mAh. Hooking them in parallel puts their amperage together but keeps the voltage the same. Three...	[ "Small cells are low-powered cellular radio access nodes that operate in licensed and unlicensed spectrum that have a range of 10 meters to a few kilometers. They are \"small\" compared to a mobile macrocell, partly because they have a shorter range and partly because they typically handle fewer concurrent calls or...
why do people pull their windshield wipers up during a snow storm?	To prevent the wipers from becoming frozen onto the windshield glass, if ice forms due to snow melting and refreezing.	[ "A windshield wiper or windscreen wiper (British English) is a device used to remove rain, snow, ice and debris from a vehicle's front window. Almost all motor vehicles, including cars, trucks, buses, train locomotives, and watercraft with a cabin—and some aircraft—are equipped with one or more such wipers, which a...
Why didn't Asians build castles like the Europeans?	I think part of the question here might be a the distinction between a palace (non-military) and a fort. European castles often combine the two into castles, but China seems to have kept the two concepts separate. [Palaces](_URL_0_) are more about projecting soft power through opulence and cultural symbolism. Forts, ...	[ "By the 16th century, when Japanese and European cultures met, fortification in Europe had moved beyond castles and relied on innovations such as the Italian \"trace italienne\" and star forts. Forts in India present a similar case; when they were encountered by the British in the 17th century, castles in Europe ha...
What is the dominant strain of historiography in the People's Republic of China?	Primary and middle-school students have Chinese history and World history classes. Until recently, high-school students chose either an Arts or Science-based curriculum, with the Arts students continuing studying history, but I believe this has recently been made more flexible. Students also study Politics, which inclu...	[ "The Chinese government has used its public evaluations of historical, public figures as a means of communicating to the Chinese public the traits and political goals that it considers desirable and undesirable. The Chinese government has historically tended towards evaluating public figures either as villains or h...
As historians, do you ever feel burdened by your lack of knowledge certain histories?	Personally? Absolutely! When you realise the sheer, absurd depth of your field, and then realise there are untold thousands of other fields just like yours, where people could study for decades and still not know everything? You definitely feel stupid, but it's an awe-inspiring thing too. As a field, perhaps the greate...	[ "Mandel often reiterated that most people do not learn all that much from texts or from history, they learn from their own experience. They might be affected by history without knowing it. But anybody concerned with large-scale social change was almost automatically confronted with the need to place matters in broa...
what does economic freedom mean?	This question was [asked yesterday](_URL_0_). The short answer is that it doesn't mean anything, but a particular group uses the term in a particular way. They define it in their report.	[ "Economic freedom or economic liberty is the ability of people of a society to take economic actions. This is a term used in economic and policy debates as well as in the philosophy of economics. One approach to economic freedom comes from classical liberal and libertarian traditions emphasizing free markets, free ...
Were Romans broadly aware of the First or Second Triumvirates at the time they were active, or would they have sounded like conspiracy theories?	There's a great deal of misinformation that keeps appearing and disappearing on this thread. Yes, the Romans were aware of the Triumvirate, and of the agreement between Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus popularly called the "first" Triumvirate. In reality, there was only one Triumvirate, that of Octavian, Lepidus, and Anton...	[ "By 59 BC an unofficial political alliance known as the First Triumvirate was formed between Gaius Julius Caesar, Marcus Licinius Crassus, and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus to share power and influence. It was always an uncomfortable alliance given that Crassus and Pompey intensely disliked one another. In 53 BC, Crassus ...
A way to test the "frame rate" aka flicker rate of the human eye	If you have a strobe that you can tune very finely... I have seen a few science projects that utilize that part of your brain, to make water look like stunt is going up.	[ "The frequency at which flicker becomes invisible is called the flicker fusion threshold, and is dependent on the level of illumination. Generally, the frame rate of 16 frames per second (frame/s) is regarded as the lowest frequency at which continuous motion is perceived by humans. This threshold varies across dif...
How close were the Allies (specifically US) to losing WWII in Europe in terms of resources?	The allies suffered major supply problems after the invasion of Normandy and after breaking through into France and the low countries. This wasn't necessarily a problem with production so much as getting it to the necessary places. The rapid breakout that was operation Cobra stretched allied supply lines to the breakin...	[ "From 1944, as German defeat became more and more inevitable, the shape of post-war Europe assumed greater importance in Allied strategy. At the Second Quebec Conference in September 1944, the Allies agreed to partition and de-industrialize a defeated Germany so as to render her permanently unable to wage war Morge...
if windows xp is still so popular, why is microsoft abandoning it?	Because they don't make money supporting outdated software. They want people to buy the new versions.	[ "Despite extended support for Windows XP ending in 2014, many users – including some enterprises – were reluctant to move away from an operating system they viewed as a stable known quantity despite the many security and functionality improvements in subsequent releases of Windows. Windows XP's longevity was viewed...
If i was in a boat and dropped a one pound stone over the deepest part of the ocean (Mariana Trench?) What would happen to the stone as it decends?	Whether or not it would be crushed depends on the chemical makeup of the stone. The Mariana Trench is nearly 11 kilometers deep at its deepest point. That's a lot of pressure. The weight of all of the water above it would be pushing down on the stone. If it survived, it almost certainly wouldn't travel to the bottom i...	[ "With his \"Trieste\" able to reach depths of 24,000 feet, Piccard and his colleagues planned on an even greater challenge—a voyage to the bottom of the sea. On 23 January 1960, Piccard and Lt. Don Walsh reached the floor of the Mariana Trench located in the western North Pacific Ocean. The depth of the descent was...
why is it ok to draw muhammad because of a few radicals. but, it's not ok to put a cross upside down, burn the us flag, and so on?	It isn't illegal to burn a US flag. Not aware of any laws against drawing crosses upside down.	[ "On February 3, 2006 he responded to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy by publishing a drawing in the first page of \"Le Monde\" representing Muhammad using many copies of the sentence \"I may not draw Muhammad\".\n", "BULLET::::- The satirical nature of some of the drawings was not considered res...
why when someone gets the all clear that they are cancer free they still have a high chance to get it back?	Because we're never totally sure that every cancerous cell is out of your body and that another tumor won't form.	[ "Chemotherapy does not always work, and even when it is useful, it may not completely destroy the cancer. People frequently fail to understand its limitations. In one study of people who had been newly diagnosed with incurable, stage 4 cancer, more than two-thirds of people with lung cancer and more than four-fifth...
Is it possible Elizabeth Bathory was innocent?	Hopefully someone will see and be able to respond to your question shortly, but in the meantime, you may find this earlier discussion helpful: [Was Elizabeth Báthory framed?](_URL_0_)	[ "The case of Elizabeth Báthory inspired numerous stories during the 18th and 19th centuries. The most common motif of these works was that of the countess bathing in her victims' blood to retain beauty or youth. This legend appeared in print for the first time in 1729, in the Jesuit scholar László Turóczi’s \"Tragi...
Have all the Earth's crusts recycled to the mantle at some point?	It all started as molten because of the massive amount of energy released by coalescing from a gas cloud, but after that no. That's why we can find rocks as old as from when the earth first solidified in places like Australia. [Jack Hills](_URL_0_). Continental plates are less dense than oceanic plates - that's why ...	[ "Crustal recycling is a tectonic process by which surface material from the lithosphere is recycled into the mantle by subduction erosion or delamination. The subducting slabs carry volatile compounds and water into the mantle, as well as crustal material with an isotopic signature different from that of primitive ...
Can a black hole exert an electrical force?	Yes you can have [charged black holes](_URL_0_).	[ "Matter propagating in a curved spacetime is similar to the electromagnetic wave propagation in a curved space and in an in homogeneous metamaterial, as stated in the previous section. Hence a black hole can possibly be simulated using electromagnetic fields and metamaterials. In July 2009 a metamaterial structure ...
How many planets have we surveyed for signs of a Technological civilization?	We dont really have the ability to do that to any great degree at this point. The only thing i can think that we can actively do is do a spectral analysis of a planets atmosphere for artificial or life-produced chemicals. This can be done, but it is not easy. You have to be able to detect the stars light as it passes t...	[ "Proposals for \"the study of planets external to the Solar System\" include; the evaluation of the most effective means for the direct studies of exoplanets provided affirmation for the use of starshades. \"Planet Hunter\" Deep search of 65 nearby stars for Earth analogs. Mark Clampin/Goddard Space flight centre -...
Can we harvest energy from black holes?	There's the [Penrose process.](_URL_0_)	[ "BULLET::::- Perhaps a more exotic means to generate usable energy would be to feed a stellar mass into a black hole, and collect photons emitted by the accretion disc. Less exotic would be simply to capture photons already escaping from the accretion disc, reducing a black hole's angular momentum; this is known as...
Why do I see a staticy grid when I close my eyes?	I have some moderate expertise about the visual system, but I'm not an authority, so this is just my best guess based on what I know. The short answer is that, to my knowledge, we don't know precisely why this happens, though it's probably a combination of things: The first and more obvious contributor is the [visu...	[ "Eyelid fluttering artifacts of a characteristic type were previously called Kappa rhythm (or Kappa waves). It is usually seen in the prefrontal leads, that is, just over the eyes. Sometimes they are seen with mental activity. They are usually in the Theta (4–7 Hz) or Alpha (7–14 Hz) range. They were named because ...
Why does samurai armour seem so badly designed compared to medieval european armour?	It's a question of resource availability. Japan had less natural sources of iron and other suitable metals, meaning that what they had was used to make weapons. It's a contributing reason that swords were so tied to nobility in Japan: they were incredibly expensive and precious. Because of this Japanese armour was mad...	[ "By the end of the Heian period, the Japanese cuirass had arrived at the shape recognized as part of iconic samurai armor. Scales of iron and leather, bound together by silk lace, were used to construct samurai armors.\n", "In the 1500s a new type of armor started to become popular due to the advent of firearms, ...
What happened to the idea of invading another country to expand a current one? Details inside.	Wars of aggressions are internationally outlawed. From the charter of the United Nations, Article 2, §4: > All Members shall refrain (…) from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state (…) This is the original purpose of the United Nations, described in Artic...	[ "The invasion was committed by force, or by threat of force or coercion, such as that caused by fear of violence, duress, detention, psychological oppression or abuse of power, against such person or another person, or by taking advantage of a coercive environment, or the invasion was committed against a person inc...
I need help with the relationship between feudal lords and their warriors in medieval times.	Ok first things first we need to define our field a bit. The Anglo-Saxons were not by any strict definition 'feudal'. "Feudalism' as an economic/political system only properly appears in England under the Normans after the conquest in 1066. So I'm going to give you sources that point towards that. * Joseph Strayer'...	[ "Medieval militaries did not have a unified rank structure; while the feudal lords were in some ways equivalent to modern officers, they didn't have a strict hierarchy—a king was conceived of as first among equals, not a monarch as later or ancient societies understood the concept, and all nobles were theoretically...
Is there a reason why Evangelical Christians sometimes have seizures during "prayer"?	Dr. Walter Cannon ([Study here](_URL_0_)) in 1942 studied cases of "black magic deaths". Cannon noticed that in cases of victims being "cursed" they had an exceptionally strong belief that they were doomed to die. He speculated that the victims released hormones that caused a rapid and potentially fatal drop in blood p...	[ "In July, 2007, The United States Senate conducted its morning prayer services with a Hindu prayer, a historical first. During the service, three disruptors, named Ante Nedlko Pavkovic, Katherine Lynn Pavkovic and Christen Renee Sugar, from the Fundamentalist Christian activist group Operation Save America proteste...
Ohio Native Americans. Looking for resources.	Moundbuilders * [The Moundbuilders: Ancient Peoples of Eastern North America](_URL_12_) * [Gathering Hopewell: Society, Ritual, and Ritual Interaction](_URL_7_) * [The Scioto Hopewell and Their Neighbors: Bioarchaeological Documentation and Cultural Understanding](_URL_1_) * [Ohio Hopewell Community Organization](...	[ "The Great Lakes-Ohio Valley Ethnohistory Collection (GLOVE) is a unique assemblage of primary and secondary resources pertaining to the Native American occupancy of the region. It was collected by Wheeler-Voegelin in the 1950s, and was funded by the U.S. Department of Justice to prepare in depth reports concerning...
how can straight talk use the same towers as verizon and other top tier providers?	Mobile phone companies own a lot of spectrum and towers, generally more than they can use (for now, things are growing). They sell their excess capacity to other providers, such as Straight Talk to use unused portions of their mobile phone networks. It's making $0 while not in use, so they'd rather sell it then have i...	[ "Straight Talk is a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) offering both CDMA and GSM support. The CDMA service uses Verizon's or Sprint's CDMA 1xRTT wireless networks and the GSM service makes use of either T-Mobile's or AT&T's GSM networks.\n", "Xfinity Voice allows communication over the internet using VoIP, b...
why would the israelis and saudis lobby against an interim nuclear deal between the us and iran?	A similar deal was given to North Korea in the 1990s with regard to their nuclear program. Now they have multiple nuclear weapons and have spread the technology to other countries like Pakistan, which have since built some nuclear weapons of their own.	[ "Israel and Saudi Arabia expressed concern about Iran's ability to use diplomatic cover and unfrozen money from the deal to strengthen its regional position and that of its allies. Critics in Washington accused the Obama administration of having been duped by Iran and Russia into accepting a deal that was antitheti...
How close can stars get?	You have binary star systems in which each member can retain its own planets in their respective ecospheres.	[ "The nearest star to the Earth, apart from the Sun, is Proxima Centauri, which is 39.9 trillion kilometres, or 4.2 light-years. Travelling at the orbital speed of the Space Shuttle (8 kilometres per second—almost 30,000 kilometres per hour), it would take about 150,000 years to arrive. This is typical of stellar se...
Was it always a rude thing to ask about salaries? For example, would somebody in 19th century London be offended if I asked how much they made?	A lot of 18th century literature talks about money and how much a person had "settled" on them per year. Jane Austen and similar writers focused on this a lot. Jane's characters always knew how much every person made and how much they could expect to have if they married that person. I am not sure how accurately t...	[ "In the 18th century, wages in Great Britain were low because of a surplus of labour. The average monetary wage was about 50 shillings (£2.50, ) a year for a plowman, and 40 shillings (£2) a year for an ordinary unskilled worker. Ships' captains negotiated prices for transporting and feeding a passenger on the seve...
Which events led to enforcing speed limits on vehicles?	Speed limits are older than the "horseless carriage" itself; the Locomotive Act of 1861 in the UK limited steam-powered "road locomotives" (train engines designed to travel on roads instead of tracks) to a maximum speed of 10 mph. In 1865 the speed limit was lowered to 4 mph and a requirement was added for a man carryi...	[ "All speed limits for cars and motorcycles were abolished under the Road Traffic Act 1930 because 'the existing speed limit was so universally disobeyed that its maintenance brought the law into contempt'.\n", "The Locomotive Acts of the late 1800s had placed heavy restrictions of speeds of \"locomotives\". Under...
django and other web frameworks	An ELI5 would require an entire chapter to cover the basics. I'm going to assume you understand certain concepts. If the explanation is still confusing, ask, and I'll post a more detailed response. ELI20: A framework is like an operating system. It provides libraries, as well as resource management and code archit...	[ "Django ( ; stylised as django) is a Python-based free and open-source web framework, which follows the model-template-view (MTV) architectural pattern. It is maintained by the Django Software Foundation (DSF), an independent organization established as a 501(c)(3) non-profit.\n", "Django's primary goal is to eas...
the chinese market crashes	This crisis comes along with the GDP growth of China slowing down. Chinese people started to invest in the stocks because of China's central bank decision to lower rate (the idea was to keep the growth going). This created a bubble as many businesses were overvalued. Fearing huge speculation, the Chinese authorities d...	[ "By the end of December 2015 China's stock market had recovered from the shocks and had outperformed S&P for 2015, though still well below the 12 June highs. By the end of 2015 the Shanghai Composite Index was up 12.6 percent. In January 2016 the Chinese stock market experienced a steep sell-off and trading was hal...
Prior to the Industrial Revolution, was England (or the United Kingdom) ever a similarly significant internationally?	Just drawing off the top of my own head here before a proper answer comes in, England always had a strong navy after the middle ages, henry viii leaving the catholic church made England pretty significant and then holding off the Spanish armada was no mean feat.	[ "After the defeat of France in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1792–1815), the UK emerged as the principal naval and imperial power of the 19th century (with London the largest city in the world from about 1830). Unchallenged at sea, British dominance was later described as \"Pax Britannica\" (\"British Peac...
Relation b/w speed of light and gravity?	This is actually a pretty complicated question. In special relativity, for inertial frames, the speed of light is a pure global constant. In general relativity, the issue becomes more muddled, here's what Einstein said about it: > "... according to the general theory of relativity, the law of the constancy of the ...	[ "Max Born agreed with Einstein and stated both speed and direction of light change in a gravity field first published 1923 in English, 1920 in German. Born expressed the magnitude of light speed as the square root of (−\"g\"/\"g\") gravity components in general relativity to leave no doubt about his intent.\n", "...
When and why did militaries stop updating 'ceremonial' uniforms?	as a side question, are they pieces of dress uniforms that actually do tend to be updated from this diversion point or are they pretty much unchanged?	[ "After World War II the coloured, full dress uniforms were again reintroduced for ceremonial occasions by the Brigade of Guards and to a limited extent by regimental bands. Officers (and later senior non-commissioned officers) resumed wearing mess uniforms in traditional colours from about 1956 on. These are still ...
How romanticised is the 50s USA in comparison to how it actually was?	I'm not an expert on the 1950s, however, I'll take a stab at your question. To start, I think your question is framed in a dangerous way that could lead to a rather skewed representation of American history, and history in general. Describing a time period as a "good time to live", except (and this is a big modifier)...	[ "This shift is attributed to a variety of widely recognized social changes that occurred in American society in the 1960s and 1970s: changing sexual morals increased the prevalence of sexual activity outside of marriage and decreased the stigma surrounding out-of-wedlock births; American attitudes about marriage an...
can somebody explain ram for me?	Computer processors are really, really fast. Hard drives are really, really slow in comparison. If computers handled and processed data by writing and reading directly from the hard drive, computers would be extremely slow too, because the hard drive couldn't keep up with the processor's speed. RAM is there to address...	[ "RAMIS was initially developed in the mid 1960s by the company Mathematica on a consulting contract for a marketing study by a team headed by Gerald Cohen and subsequently further developed and marketed as a general purpose data management and analysis tool. In the late 1960s Cohen fell out with the management of M...
At what point in history did the average person have access to clocks?	There are a couple ways to talk about this topic. One is a straightforward survey, such that is is possible, of what I guess I'd call clock density. I'm not sure such a precise study exists, but we do know that in the 14th and 15th centuries mechanical clocks started to be more present in Europe. Certainly by the 18th ...	[ "Before the sixteenth century European mechanical clocks were not in high demand. This lack of demand was brought on by the extremely high prices and the lack of preciseness needed by the population who had to calculate when they would have to have the prayer. The use of hourglasses, water clocks, and sundials was ...
why does bacteria in our mouth become harmful to our teeth, while bacteria inside our body is usually kept in check and co-exists within us?	When bacteria in the mouth eat food they poop acid. That acid mixes with food and saliva to make 'plaque'. The plaque sticks to your teeth. The acid in the plaque dissolves the surface of your tooth (enamel), creating holes (cavities).	[ "Oral bacteria work with our immune system to keep our bodies disease free by fighting disease-producing germs that try to come in through the mouth. For example, some of these bacteria produce organic acids that kill the organisms that cause intestinal problems. Without these good bacteria, our immune systems woul...
why are juggalos so hated on reddit (and in general), when female prostitution is viewed as for the most part completely acceptable?	Juggalo != gigolo. Heck, I really have no idea whether male prostitutes even like Insane Clown Posse as a group. Anything's possible, I suppose.	[ "These feminists argue that, in most cases, prostitution is not a conscious and calculated choice. They say that most women who become prostitutes do so because they were forced or coerced by a pimp or by human trafficking, or, when it is an independent decision, it is generally the result of extreme poverty and la...
in golf/baseball/hockey, why does a follow through matter? since the ball has already made contact with the club/bat, why does it matter if the swing is continued or not?	The advice is not given out as a way of influencing the ball after it's lost contact with the bat/stick/etc. The advice is a way of mentally and physiologically improving the motion of the swing while it is still in contact. I'm not a psychologist or kinesiologist, but I would guess that mentally if you prepare and t...	[ "The detail illustration shows that when the handle is angled away from the ball both the position of contact with the ball on the ball and the part of the face of the stick making contact will be altered. The greater the bow the greater the degree of adjustment the player must make to his swing and to the hitting ...
when did female breasts become a body part of sexual nature and why?	One theory I've heard is that it is related to human's and human ancestors walking upright. Other male primates walk on all fours, are visually stimulated by the female's round posterior, and generally copulate in the doggystyle postion. But, since humans walk upright and can copulate in the missionary position, the ...	[ "Breasts, and especially nipples, are highly erogenous zones, for both men and women. Nipple and breast stimulation of women are a near-universal aspect of human sexuality, though nipples in males are not as sexualized. Humans are the only primates whose female members have permanently enlarged breasts after the on...
Was the War of the World's broadcast the first instance of an entire nation being trolled? Have there been other similar events?	Here are some precedents you may find interesting: In the 12th century, legends began to promulgate throughout Christian Europe of a figure named "Prestor John", rumored to be the ruler of a rich and powerful kingdom in "the East" (at first, legend places him somewhere in India -- specifically the Three Indies -- but ...	[ "Chance interception of high-level communication is not unknown: during the 1982 Falklands conflict, a radio ham in London had intercepted and taped a conversation between the then-Prime Minister's press secretary Sir Bernard Ingham and the Assistant Director-General of the BBC, in which the BBC was pressurised int...
why can't you get an electrical shock from the neutral	In a balanced 3 phase system, neutral should carry little to no current. Ground is actually fail safe. Ground is there in case the equipment becomes electrically charged. It will discharge to ground through the conductor, instead of you. In an unbalanced system, neutral will carry a current, and could shock you.	[ "In power transmission systems, one side of the circuit, known as the neutral, is grounded to dissipate static electricity and to reduce hazardous voltages caused by insulation failure and other electrical faults. It is possible to get a shock by only touching the \"hot\" wire, due to the person's body being capaci...
how do passwords work. specifically passwords to unlock devices such as smartphones or laptops	At a high level, typically most services (including a login to a device/computer) take what you type as a password (numbers, letters etc) and run a mathematical transformation on it called a “hash” The advantages of this are 1) you get the same “hash” output value every time for the same input (password) 2) the hash ...	[ "Smart locks allow users to grant access to a third party by means of a virtual key. This key can be sent to the recipient smartphone over standard messaging protocols such as e-mail or SMS. Once this key is received the recipient will be able to unlock the smart lock during the time previously specified by the sen...
how sports venues paid for with tax payer money maintain a monopoly on crappy, overpriced food when there are obvious alternatives?	It's not a monopoly, it's more of a convenience issue. A restaurant can charge whatever they want, and if people don't want to pay, they can leave and find another restaurant. Sports venues charge so much for food simply because they can. Yes, you can go watch a game for just the price of the ticket, and eat before/af...	[ "Tax on gambling businesses is paid by registered gambling outlets at a flat rate per each table, slot machine or bookmaker's cash desk. The Code provides both minimum and maximum rate limits (1:5 ratio), thus prohibits establishment of tax-free gambling. For example, one slot machine is taxed at 1,500–7,500 rouble...
Are reading and writing learned at the same time?	As to whether it is possible to learn to read or write without learning the opposite, I would certainly think that both are possible. I don't have attested examples to cite, but I don't see why someone born without arms would not be able to learn to read. In general, we certainly teach children to read before they lear...	[ "Reading and writing are introduced in the next stage. The oral lesson learned in previous class is the reading material to establish a relationship between speech and writing. All reading material is introduced as orally first. Writing, in the early stages, is confined to transcriptions of the structures and dialo...
why is 300 parts per million for particulate matter in the atmosphere significant enough to cause health issues?	A couple of nanograms (10^-9 grams) of botulinum (the toxin that causes botulism) can be deadly. Everything can be lethal if you have enough of it, and some things are just really, really good at disrupting your body and preventing it from doing the business of staying alive. A single molecule of carbon monoxide from ...	[ "Among these diesel emission components, particulate matter has been a serious concern for human health due to its direct and broad impact on the respiratory organs. In earlier times, health professionals associated PM10 (diameter < 10 μm) with chronic lung disease, lung cancer, influenza, asthma, and increased mor...
why does the us order the day and month of a date differently to other countries? i.e. today to me (in europe) it is the 15/01/15 not the 01/15/15. how did this slight, but significant, difference come about?	IIRC in the UK we do day - > month - > year as its the smallest in time to largest. The US does month - > day - > year as there are fewer months than there are days, and there are fewer days that there will be years.	[ "In the United States, dates are traditionally written in the \"month-day-year\" order, with neither increasing nor decreasing order of significance. This order is used in both the traditional all-numeric date (e.g., \"1/21/16\" or \"01/21/2016\") and the expanded form (e.g., \"January 21, 2016\"—usually spoken wit...
when i sometimes go to sleep with my eyes closed and not moving, i know i'm not asleep. do i get any good quality rest compared if i'm sleeping?	If you're not asleep, then you're not getting the same quality rest as if you were sleeping. Your brain may appreciate the decrease in stimulation, and your muscles the rest, but if you're not asleep, then you're not... sleeping.	[ "Another study has indicated that sleeping with the light on may protect the eyes of diabetics from retinopathy, a condition that can lead to blindness. However, the initial study is still inconclusive.\n", "Aristotle explains that during sleep there is an absence of external sensory stimulation. While sleeping w...
some jobs are unpleasant but fundamental to society (eg: janitor, bus driver). why aren't these the best paid jobs?	Because anyone can do them. They are low skill and lots of people can fill that role. Sometimes they do get better pay because the job is undesirable (I think trash collectors get paid decent, at least compared to minimum wage).	[ "It has been argued that payment-by-results whereby companies only get paid for finding people work meant that they focussed on the \"easiest\" cases among the long-term unemployed with the most \"difficult\" effectively sidelined. The term \"creaming and parking\" has been used to describe this process. The Depart...
if you have good credit, and pay your bills off every month, how do credit card companies make money off you? wouldn't they prefer customers with bad credit?	They prefer low risk, which is what a good credit score indicates, and they still make money even if you pay all your bills in full. Every time you use your card, the merchant has to pay a fee. A portion goes to the network (Visa, etc.), though the biggest share goes to the issuing bank. As long as you keep using your ...	[ "Rewards based credit card products like cash back are more beneficial to consumers who pay their credit card statement off every month. Rewards based products generally have higher Annual percentage rate. If the balance were not paid in full every month the extra interest would eclipse any rewards earned. Most con...

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