question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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why do humans have such small irises compared to other animals? | There are a few ideas, one being the "cooperative eye hypothesis" which suggests that it is easier to follow another's gaze when communicating. We communicate a lot through our eye gaze, and it's easier to distinguish different communicative attempts from one another with the white part (sclera) present. Another idea... | [
"Goats have horizontal, slit-shaped pupils. Because goats' irises are usually pale, their contrasting pupils are much more noticeable than in animals such as cattle, deer, most horses and many sheep, whose similarly horizontal pupils blend into a dark iris and sclera.\n",
"The molluscs have the widest variety of ... |
would it be legal at all for godaddy to be specifically exempt from the sopa legislation? if not... how was that clause worked in? | When you make the law, you can make anything you want legal. GoDaddy will probably just become a branch of the government, the one that controls domain name.
It's not like there was something governing what power the state should have over the citizen or how it should behave.
Maybe we should have something like that... | [
"It was one of several similar bills in U.S. state legislatures allowing individuals to refuse service based on religion, with some bills specifically protecting religious disapproval of same-sex marriage. It was widely reported as targeting LGBT people, although Arizona law provides no protection against discrimin... |
when software updates say they've optimised it to run faster, what exactly did they do and why didn't they do it before? | Let's say you have an old PC game. The game is written to run on Windows 2000, but it still works on Windows 7. Sort of.
Well that company might re-release the game *Optimized for Windows 7*.
They physically re-work the code of the program so it works better with the current system.
____
Other programs may have al... | [
"Upgrades of software introduce the risk that the new version (or patch) will contain a bug, causing the program to malfunction in some way or not to function at all. For example, in October 2005, a glitch in a software upgrade caused trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange to shut down for most of the day. Similar hav... |
when a large company (typically oil & tobacco) has "lobbyists in washington" how does that actually affect the passing of legislation? | You know how when you want a family portrait *painted* you go to that person with the little cart in your local shopping mall, who has been there since before you were born, and you give that person a commission fee and they paint you a stunning portrait of your family?
A lobbyist is the same thing. They do something ... | [
"Lobbying in the US and in the UK is regulated to stop the worst abuses which can develop into corruption. In the United States the Internal Revenue Service makes a clear distinction between lobbying and advocacy. Proposed solutions to the influence of lobbyists within the UK have been discussed by MPs and non-gove... |
Non-American scholars of US History: What inspired you start? | I'm not completely US-oriented since I'm interested in the 19th century in general and not just the US, but I did take a lot of classes on US history and I was always fascinated by how much the US considered themselves special, from the puritans' concept of "city on a hill" to Manifest Destiny.
Also, I like how you ca... | [
"The Glory and the Dream: A Narrative History of America, 1932-1972 is a 1,400-page social history by William Manchester, first published in 1974. Sometimes sold as two volumes, it describes the history of the United States between 1932 and 1972. \"The Glory and the Dream\" was listed as a \"New York Times\" bestse... |
What would happen to a single photon going through a prism? | Describing the statistics of photons passing through a prism, as though a classical electromagnetic wave were passing through it, and where this classical EM wave determines the photon statistics is a perfectly legitimate way to go. The quantum operators for the electric and magnetic field actually obey Maxwell's equat... | [
"If a single photon is emitted into the entry port of the apparatus at the lower-left corner, it immediately encounters a beam-splitter. Because of the equal probabilities for transmission or reflection the photon will either continue straight ahead, be reflected by the mirror at the lower-right corner, and be dete... |
why are white paints always bluish in color? | There are lots of colors of white. It sounds like you are looking at "cool whites," but there are also "warm whites" which use yellow or other warm colors as a slight tint. | [
"The appearance of white line indicates that there is an onset of failure of the corresponding material. This phenomenon is known as \"stress whitening\". This is more common in amorphous materials, and also in some brittle polymers like PS, PMMA and Polycarbonate. The white colour is because of the light scatterin... |
why it is hard to think about death deeply? | Imagination doesn’t actually ever create truly new things. It takes bits and pieces of experiences that you’ve had and uses those to construct what you’re imagining.
If you want to test this, try imagining a colour you’ve never seen.
Thinking deeply about death falls into the realm of trying to imagine something you’... | [
"On the other hand, death and thoughts of death can serve as a way of empowering the self, not as threats. Researchers, Cooper \"et al.\" (2011) explored TMHM in terms of empowerment, specifically using BSEs under two conditions; when death thoughts were prompted, and when thoughts of death were non-conscious. Acco... |
genome vs. gene expression | Your genome is all the DNA that defines how your body operates. It's the same in all the cells in your body (except for sperm/egg cells - they have half your genome).
Gene expression defines what kind of cell each one is. So a skin cell and a muscle cell have different gene expression patterns.
Gene expression regula... | [
"Gene expression is the process by which information from a gene is used in the synthesis of a functional gene product. These products are often proteins, but in non-protein coding genes such as transfer RNA (tRNA) or small nuclear RNA (snRNA) genes, the product is a functional RNA.\n",
"The genome is the entire ... |
Let's just say that the LHC had a place that you could open up and get inside the collider. What would happen if particles were accelerated to maximum speed and you stepped in front of them? | [Nothing good](_URL_0_). A single beam in the LHC is about 100 times as powerful as the beam that Bugorski encountered. Even if the beam struck somewhere other than your head, the local nerves would probably be permanently damaged. | [
"In 2013, the LHC collided protons with lead ions for the LHC's first physics beams of 2013. The experiment was conducted by counter-rotating beams of \"protons\" and \"lead ions\", and begun with centred orbits with different revolution frequencies, and then separately ramped to the accelerator's maximum collision... |
What would be the biggest boat I could build if I was a king or a rich person around 1000 CE in western Europe? | It's hard to say with confidence how big of a boat *could* have been built at that time. A lot depends on the design and the resources said king could have pulled together. At the time a large cog would be about 50 or 60 feet in length, and carry maybe up to 150 tons. Supposedly, there were some legendary viking longsh... | [
"Examples of clinker-built boats directly descended from those of the early medieval period are seen in the traditional round-bottomed Thames skiffs, and the larger (originally) cargo-carrying Norfolk wherries of England.\n",
"The boat was an important means of transport in the lake regions of prehistoric Finland... |
For how long has October/Halloween/All Hallows' Eve been associated with spooky, mystical forces and the dead? | The simple answer to your second question is yes, the modern Halloween associations with supernatural entities reflects 'a mindset from an earlier age' when these things were 'thought to be real and lurking in the dark corners of the world at any time of the year'. It also appears that the end of October/beginning of N... | [
"The live events were based on specific paranormal themes, the two most common themes being Halloween and the summer solstice which are reputedly the two most paranormally active periods of the calendar. Some themes are based on well known historical figures such as Dick Turpin, William Shakespeare, Jack the Ripper... |
why is it that certain weapons, like poisonous gasses, are banned from use in warfare by the geneva convention, yet countries and governments can still use them against their own population, such as tear gas to control riots? | Geneva convention is largely a gentlemen agreement. No one wants their soldiers getting gassed or having to patch up wounds from hollow points. Its easier to just say no one gets chemical weapons and fight with conventional weapons, then it is to say "there are no rules" and everyone have them. Its already illegal for ... | [
"Syria is a party to the 1925 Geneva Gas protocol, which bans the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices. The use of chemical weapons is also prohibited as a matter of customary international humanitarian law, or the laws of war. The prohibition on t... |
Why do humans make similar facial expressions in response to similar situations? Nature, or nurture? | I would say the basic facial expression are a product of nature and cite the work of [Paul Ekman](_URL_0_).
BTW, the TV show Lie to Me was inspired by his work on facial expressions and lying. However, the early work on basic human emotions and facial expressions pre-dated the lying work.
| [
"People intuitively mimic facial expressions; it is a fundamental part of healthy functioning. Similarities across cultures in regards to nonverbal communication has prompted the debate that it is in fact a universal language. It can be argued that emotional regulation plays a key role in the ability to emit the co... |
whats the difference between christianity and orthodox christianity? | The meaning of "Orthodox" in the Christian teaching is to denote a kind of Christianity that, according to the speaker, is close to the early Christian beliefs. This means that many different branches of Christianity are likely to regard themselves as orthodox, even if they are at odds with each other regarding theolog... | [
"The Orthodox believe themselves to be the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, that is, the true Church established by Jesus Christ and placed into the care of the apostles. As almost all other Christian groups are in indirect schism with the Orthodox Church, mostly as a result of the Great Schism with the Cath... |
how is it not entrapment when the fbi provides you the means to commit a crime? | FBI > "I hear you're looking for explosives, here you go"
vs
FBI > "Hey, you should blow up this airport. Here are some explosives you could use" | [
"In criminal law, entrapment is a practice whereby a law enforcement agent or agent of the state induces a person to commit a criminal offense that the person would have otherwise been unlikely or unwilling to commit. It \"is the conception and planning of an offense by an officer or agent, and the procurement of i... |
- what does a 3200 rpm stall converter mean, and why do i want it in my modified muscle car? | If you have to ask you don't need one. | [
"The stator element of the torque converter has two blade positions, controlled by the driver via the accelerator pedal to offer a 'passing gear' and extra response at any speed from heavy throttle application. In normal driving the stator blades are arranged at 'cruise' angle which offers improved efficiency and r... |
how did articles in the roman languages come about? | Actually, Ancient Greek did have articles: it had definite articles, but not indefinite articles. This is why some sticklers for correct grammar insist that you cannot say "the hoi polloi", because that translates as "the the people".
Ancient Greek's definite articles were derived from the demonstrative pronouns of an... | [
"Articles are found in many Indo-European languages, Semitic languages (only the definite article), and Polynesian languages, but are formally absent from many of the world's major languages, such as Chinese, Korean, Turkish, Indonesian, Japanese, Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, Tamil the majority of Slavic (incl. Russian) a... |
the weird lettering and symbols that are meant to “help” us pronounce words. | What else would you use? It is defined in the International Phonetic Alphabet. You need a system that complex to describe how word are pronounced.
I would agree that is is not useful for most people as you need to understand it. But if you study languages and look at it you can start to learn it. A simple usage is to ... | [
"One way to remember the letters is to sound them out phonetically (i.e., \"SOH-CAH-TOA\", which is pronounced 'so-ka-toe-uh' ). Another method is to expand the letters into a sentence, such as \"Some Old Hippie Caught Another Hippie Trippin' On Acid\".\n",
"Some signs are spelled to convey the aura of another la... |
How do plants change the pH of the soil? | The assertion that Microstegium varieties raise soil pH by altering local nitrogen content is asserted by [Ehrenfeld](_URL_1_):
> Soils directly beneath each of the two exotics had higher pH values and higher nitrification rates and often had higher net N mineralization rates than did soils beneath adjacent patches o... | [
"Soil pH is considered a master variable in soils as it affects many chemical processes. It specifically affects plant nutrient availability by controlling the chemical forms of the different nutrients and influencing the chemical reactions they undergo. The optimum pH range for most plants is between 5.5 and 7.5; ... |
What decade is this painting portraying? | Based on the automobiles I would say the 20s/30s. | [
"The painting was originally displayed in an exhibit that featured modern and contemporary art. The painting was exhibited at the Miami Art Fair in January 2007, and created a worldwide controversy that was covered by ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and Fox television networks, as well as \"The International Herald Tribune\", ... |
Do you expend more energy running on a treadmill or a non-moving flat surface? | If you look at the surfaces providing the normal force to hold the runner up against gravity, they are both moving in a circular fashion. Earth is rotating and the treadmill belt is rotating. If you stand still on either, you will expend no energy and stay in the same position on the surface as that surface rotates. Th... | [
"In terms of energy efficiency on flat surfaces, wheeled robots are the most efficient. This is because an ideal rolling (but not slipping) wheel loses no energy. A wheel rolling at a given velocity needs no input to maintain its motion. This is in contrast to legged robots which suffer an impact with the ground at... |
if congress passes a bill that has a 'watered down' version of net neutrality, can't obama simply veto it? | Sure, but it goes back to Congress after he vetoes it, and if over two thirds of both the House and Senate (voting separately) vote in favor of the bill, they can override the presidential veto. | [
"Sanders opposes the repeal of net neutrality in the United States, as voted by FCC commissioners in a 3-2 vote on December 14, 2017 — his statement on the issue from his U.S. Senate website on the same day as the vote, partly reads: \"The FCC's vote to end net neutrality is an egregious attack on our democracy. Wi... |
what was the point of ww1? was anything significant achieved? | [Just listen to this - trust me](_URL_0_) | [
"The First World War was a turning point in Western attitudes to war. At the 1919 Peace of Paris—where the leaders of France, Britain, and the United States, led by Georges Clemenceau, David Lloyd George, and Woodrow Wilson respectively, met to decide the future of Europe—Wilson proposed his famous Fourteen Points ... |
Could we workout for longer if we inhaled pure oxygen during the process | Inhaling pure oxygen would theoretically increase the rate at which your body could produce energy. However this is dependant on there not being any metabolic bottlenecks that exist so that the extra oxygen delivered to the muscle tissue is utilised in generating ATP. Your breathing rate will be relatively unaffected a... | [
"Supplemental oxygen is recommended in those with low oxygen levels at rest (a partial pressure of oxygen less than 50–55 mmHg or oxygen saturations of less than 88%). In this group of people, it decreases the risk of heart failure and death if used 15 hours per day and may improve people's ability to exercise. In ... |
why is the media not referring to the lax shooting suspect as a 'terrorist'? | There is no evidence he was a terrorist, was involved in terrorism, had connections to terrorist organizations, or was doing this act for terror purposes. This was just a crazy/suicidal guy with a gun shooting people, though its currently thought he had "anti-govt" views, but not terrorism. | [
"Speaking on June 19 at a press conference in Baltimore, FBI Director James Comey said, while his agency was investigating the shooting as a \"hate crime\", he did not consider it an \"act of terrorism\", citing the lack of political motivation for the suspect's actions. He said, \"Terrorism is act of violence done... |
Are electricity and magnetism related in a similar way that space and time are related? | > Are electricity and magnetism related in a similar way that space and time are related?
There is at least one relationship that I think it would benefit you to understand. Energy and momentum are related in a similar way that space and time are related, as are electricity and magnetism.
In ordinary three dimensio... | [
"As a consequence of Einstein's theory of special relativity, electricity and magnetism are fundamentally interlinked. Both magnetism lacking electricity, and electricity without magnetism, are inconsistent with special relativity, due to such effects as length contraction, time dilation, and the fact that the magn... |
How much, if at all, does the moon's gravity effect satellite's orbits? | Yes, the moon's gravity exerts influence on satellites. This is especially important for geostationary satellites where very small alterations in their orbits could make them no longer geostationary.
> moon's gravity variable
Unfortunately is isn't that simple. The distance between the moon and the satellite is co... | [
"Lunar mascons alter the local gravity above and around them sufficiently that low and uncorrected satellite orbits around the Moon are unstable on a timescale of months or years. The small perturbations in the orbits accumulate and eventually distort the orbit enough that the satellite impacts the surface.\n",
"... |
why do so many games have a "start" screen where you have to push a button before they decide to start a several minute loading process? (i'm looking at you, battlefield 4) | The primary reason is going to be player input. Let's say you omit that start screen, and just begin loading. All of a sudden, the player is sitting there, as you say, for minutes at a time, before anything happens. Is the game working right? did I do something wrong? is it frozen?
By forcing a player to hit start, it... | [
"The buttons on the game system and controllers are large to accommodate small children's less developed manual dexterity. The default controller consists of an analog stick, four colored buttons, a large enter button, a button (dubbed the \"Learning Zone\" button) that immediately takes the player to a minigame se... |
why is it that most corporate jobs don't have unions? | When I worked for Boeing, there was an attempt by some to unionize the engineers. It was voted down. Most of the engineers preferred having raises based on performance rather than flat increase across the board. | [
"Unlike other political organizations, labor unions do not directly participate in elections, although they may campaign for parties and politicians supporting their positions. Labour unionization is a way for workers to maintain unity and preserve their rights. Often, major corporations antagonize the principle of... |
During WW2, were there any jews who actively collaborated with the Nazis to hunt down other jews? | Ok, first off, it is important to understand that this is an extremely touchy and controversial subject even within academia today.
The short answer is that there were indeed Jews who collaborated with the Nazis though most of it was part of the perfidy with which the Nazis ran their system of genocide, basically acti... | [
"Between March and October 1943 the group, led by former auto mechanic and Willem Briedé, was responsible for tracking down Jews in hiding and arresting them. The group arrested and \"delivered\" to the Nazi authorities 8,000-9,000 Jews. Most of them were deported to Westerbork concentration camp and later shipped ... |
lagrange points for a planet with two moons | It would depend a lot on the relative sizes and positions of the bodies. Taking the solar system as an example: Jupiter has fairly large concentrations of asteroids at some it's lagrange points, because it and the sun are much more massive than anything nearby which would disrupt the system. By contrast, Earth doesn't ... | [
"The only two stable Lagrange points are and . Langrange points are stable if the mass of the larger body is at least 25 times the mass of the secondary body.. The Earth is over 81 times the mass of the Moon. The L5 Society was founded to promote settlement by building space stations at these points in the Earth Mo... |
why hasn't microsoft word made times new roman the universal font? | Fonts with serifs (the little embellishments on the end) are great in printed materials, but are harder to read on a computer screen. It's why most of the Internet uses sans-serif fonts, like Arial or Helvetica, and why Word switched the default font from Times New Roman (a Serif font) to Calibri (a sans-serif font) in... | [
"\"The Times\" stayed with Times New Roman for 40 years, but new production techniques and the format change from broadsheet to tabloid in 2004 have caused it to switch typeface five times from 1972 to 2007. However, all the new fonts have been variants of the original New Roman typeface. Once released for commerci... |
if calories are the measure of how much energy there is in food - how can things be 0 calorie? | ok, so essentially calories are the value attributed to the amount of simple and complex sugars that a material has inside of it. Wether that's carbohydrates, fats or protein calories are the estimated value of how much energy that food stores in it.
Calorie free, or extremely low-calorie foods use substitute ingredie... | [
"The calorie equals the amount of thermal energy necessary to raise the temperature of one gram of water by 1 Celsius degree, from a temperature of 14.5 degrees Celsius, at a pressure of 1 atm. For thermochemistry a calorie of 4.184 J is used, but other calories have also been defined, such as the International Ste... |
How was the production of coins organised in ancient Greece / Rome (or even after)? How did rulers ensure the people who made coins didn't steal them? | The production of coins within Republican Rome was under the direction of the *tresviri monetales*. They are referred to by Pomponius (*Digest*) as the *triumviri monetales aeris argenti auri flatores* which is basically 'the three men for casting and striking of bronze, silver, and gold.' The position of *monetales* w... | [
"The production of coins is accomplished through the use of either a die for minting coins by hammering or, in modern times, milling or, mostly in prehistoric times and also in Asia, a mould for casting the desired object. Artistic medals and plaquettes have mostly been produced by lost wax casting.\n",
"Ancient ... |
why does germany have such a strong influence over the eu? | Germany is the EU's strongest economy and has the largest population. Why wouldn't they have a strong influence? | [
"Germany has played a leading role in the European Union since its inception and has maintained a strong alliance with France since the end of World War II. The alliance was especially close in the late 1980s and early 1990s under the leadership of Christian Democrat Helmut Kohl and Socialist François Mitterrand. G... |
Can anyone explain how someone can be an asymptomatic carrier of disease? | There are actually four ways that you can be asymptomatic:
1. Early in the infection you can start shedding virus before you start showing symptoms. That might be true for everyone. I've heard estimates for perhaps 24 hours before symptom onset.
2. You might have such mild symptoms and not recognise you have COVID-19.... | [
"Asymptomatic carriers can be categorized by their current disease state. When an individual transmits pathogens immediately following infection but prior to developing symptoms, they are known as an incubatory carrier. Humans are also capable of spreading disease following a period of illness. Typically thinking t... |
Why do a lot of little kids have freckles, but not that many adults? | Two theories about the prominence of freckles in children are as follows:
1. Freckles, being triggered by exposure to sunlight, are more common due to more frequent exposure to the sun and outdoors play, coupled with less care for sunscreen.
2. Freckles, being clusters of melanin, are more easily visible through th... | [
"Freckles are predominantly found on the face, although they may appear on any skin exposed to the sun, such as arms or shoulders. Heavily distributed concentrations of melanin may cause freckles to multiply and cover an entire area of skin, such as the face. Freckles are rare on infants, and more commonly found on... |
what is r/circlejerk? | It is a subreddit where they mock the rest of reddit. The more time you spend on Reddit the funnier /r/circlejerk becomes | [
"A circle jerk is a sexual practice in which a group of men or boys form a circle and masturbate themselves or each other. In the metaphorical sense, the term is used to refer to self-congratulatory behavior or discussion among a group of people, usually in reference to a \"boring or time-wasting meeting or other e... |
How well did the the late Roman(Byzantine) emperors know their history? | The Byzantines were always relatively interested in antiquity, and especially in Rome. They never "forgot" that they were, however theoretically/distantly, part of the Roman empire. I can't say for certain how much Constantine XI was interested in this, since he probably had more pressing concerns than ancient history.... | [
"The \"Historia\", an expansion and extension of Paul the Deacon's eighth-century \"Historia Romana\", contains a list of Byzantine emperors until the then-living Basil II and Constantine VIII (d. 1028) and another of empresses from Fausta to the wife of Michael IV.\n",
"While Byzantine historians were mostly dep... |
Can cancer cells potentially mutate to virulent forms? | [Yes, cancer can become virulent(potential NSFW GORE)](_URL_0_), and it is the main reason Tasmanian devils are endangered. | [
"As with other immortalized cell lines, H1299 cells can divide indefinitely. These cells have a homozygous partial deletion of the TP53 gene and as a result, do not express the tumor suppressor p53 protein which in part accounts for their proliferative propensity. These cells have also been reported to secrete the ... |
why aren't we sexually attracted to our siblings or parents? | [Westermarck effect](_URL_0_) - we're not attracted to thoe we grew up with. | [
"Innate sexual aversion between siblings forms due to close association in childhood, in what is known as the Westermarck effect. Children who grow up together do not normally develop sexual attraction, even if they are unrelated, and conversely, siblings who were separated at a young age may develop sexual attract... |
Did Nazi Germany get any tourism? If so, what countries visited? Were people who would be otherwise gassed (Jews, Blacks, homosexuals, etc) allowed there? Were they allowed to leave? | Having written on the topic of forreign tourism before, I'll reproduce that here as it may be of interest, although more can always be said.
Nazi-era Germany wasn't necessarily destination number one for foreigners looking to travel abroad, but that isn't to say it wasn't seeing any visitors, and during the 1930s, Ger... | [
"The history of tourism in Germany goes back to cities and landscapes being visited for education and recreation. From the late 18th century onwards, cities like Dresden, Munich, Weimar and Berlin were major stops on a European Grand tour.\n",
"Life in the Weimar Republic was marked by massive hyperinflation, cri... |
How did some species (i.e, humans) come to require proteins that they could not produce themselves? | I think what you meant to ask is why some species have come to lose the ability to synthesize certain amino acids - not proteins. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. In the process of digestion, any protein that you consume are actually decomposed into the amino acid building blocks, which are then absorbe... | [
"Ingested proteins are usually broken up into single amino acids or dipeptides in the small intestine, and then absorbed. They can then be joined to make new proteins. Intermediate products of glycolysis, the citric acid cycle, and the pentose phosphate pathway can be used to make all twenty amino acids, and most b... |
What was the relationship between knight and horse? | I don't have an answer to knights of the medieval period in particular but the training and relationship between horse and trooper in the Napoleonic Wars and beyond is essentially that first and foremost that it was a primary mode of transport and fighting platform. In a sort of quid pro quo scenario, a trooper that lo... | [
"Knight was a far more successful, and certainly regular, one-day player for England. In one-day cricket, this backing away in fact helped him score a lot of runs and became something of a hallmark. This same strength/weakness was mirrored in Michael Bevan – one of Knight's contemporaries.\n",
"The elite horseman... |
swift, apple´s new programming language | It was just announced. This is the first that anyone outside of Apple's heard of it. Ask again in a week or a month if you want to get some unbiased opinions on how good it really is.
Ultimately, it can only help so much. Programming complex programs is complex. No matter how much easier it becomes to express the comp... | [
"Swift is an open source programming language with first-class functions for iOS and macOS development, created by Apple and introduced at Apple's developer conference Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2014.\n",
"Swift is a general-purpose, multi-paradigm, compiled programming language developed by App... |
how are large games abled to be rendered? | Generally there are a few methods:
* Intelligent clipping. You only draw the polygons that might be visible.
* Variable Level of Detail. As objects become more distant, they get drawn more simply. A building might be very intricate up close, but at a distance might be rendered as just a single rectangle.
* Fog. ... | [
"Rendering games at 4K resolution is achieved through various rendering techniques and hardware features; PlayStation technical chief Mark Cerny explained that Sony could not \"brute force\" 4K without compromising form factor and cost, so the console was designed to support \"streamlined rendering techniques\" usi... |
Why didn't every independent medieval ruler declare himself a king? | One does not just become a king. In almost all circumstances a higher power created kings. In the older kingdoms that trace back to antiquity that 'higher power' is often claimed to be descent from a god or the ancestral founders of a people. Just assuming the title of king back then was the equivalent of an American c... | [
"In the early medieval period, with its many competing kingdoms within the modern boundaries of Scotland, kingship was not inherited in a direct line from the previous king. A candidate for kingship usually needed to be a member of a particular dynasty and to claim descent from a particular ancestor. Kingship could... |
why aren’t more major electronics companies making video game consoles? | The cost is way too high for the profits available. You have to invest huge sums in games and then make profit from selling hardware at very low margins. It's more a question of why anybody is still making consoles. | [
"The differences between consoles create additional challenges and opportunities for game developers, as the console manufacturers (e.g. Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony) may provide extra incentives, support and marketing for console exclusive games. To aid development of games for consoles, manufacturers often create ga... |
why is the ability to ride a bike something you can't lose once you gain it | If you learn to ride a bicycle with reversed steering, you can no longer ride a bike with normal steering until you learn again. The Backwards Brain Bicycle - Smarter Every Day _URL_0_ From /u/MrPennywhistle I believe. | [
"An abstract illustration of human capability is a bicycle. A bicycle itself is a resource—a mode of transportation. If the person who owns a bicycle is unable to ride it (due to a lack of balance or knowledge), the bicycle is useless to her or him as transportation and loses its functioning. If a person owns a bic... |
Was there ever any protest or opposition to mandatory military service in ancient Greece and Rome? | Nothing as dramatic as burning draft cards. Anyway, those people wouldn't have histories that survive. We do get a couple hints though.
I'm assuming you aren't referring to mutinies - these are often not objections to service in general, but rather a way of bullying the state into giving the soldiers a better deal.
... | [
"At least in the Archaic Period, the fragmentary nature of Ancient Greece, with many competing city-states, increased the frequency of conflict, but conversely limited the scale of warfare. Unable to maintain professional armies, the city-states relied on their own citizens to fight. This inevitably reduced the pot... |
Will the first Quantum computer disrupt worldwide encryption and security? | It's going to be a long slow process from first proof-of-concept prototypes (which we've seen), to prototypes that work reliably, to prototypes that have an actually useful capacity, to demonstrations of breaking weak crypto as another proof-of-concept, then finally something usable in a lab, then the NSA getting one a... | [
"Developments in quantum computing over the past decade and the optimistic prospects for real quantum computers within 20 years have begun to threaten the basic cryptography that secures the internet. A relatively small quantum computer capable of processing only ten thousand of bits of information would easily bre... |
why does some scientists/countries still want to go on the moon ? | The moon is the closest large object to earth in space, so going to the moon allows us to develop and test a lot of technology related to landing on and moving around on solid, non-earth objects. Mars would be better to colonize for several reasons (atmosphere, temperature, soil, similar hours in a day, etc.), but we d... | [
"The National Space Society (NSS), a private nonprofit, regards a return to the Moon as a high priority for the US space program, in order to develop the body of scientific knowledge of the Moon, particularly in regards to its potential for the creation of new industries, in order to provide further funding for fur... |
why do subreddits need mods to control posts? doesn't the voting system show what people actually want, whether it's shitty or not? | If you have someone being abusive and harassing, simply down voting won't remove it from existing. | [
"Ballot design and polling place architecture often denies the disabled the possibility to cast a vote in secret. In many democracies disabled persons may vote by appointing another person who is allowed to join them in the voting booth and fill the ballot in their name. This does not assure secrecy of the ballot.\... |
why do royal families of defunct monarchies still exist? | Even if they came with no money or lands, titles can still give you an edge. | [
"Only legitimate descendants of the reigning monarch and the reigning monarch's siblings and their legitimate descendants can be in line to the throne. The King's elder sister, Princess Astrid and her descendants, along with descendants of the King's deceased eldest sister, Princess Ragnhild, are excluded from the ... |
We saw that bionic eyes can be a success. Could we make them better? | > Could we modify such a bionic eye so that a person could see beyond the visible spectrum (..., radio, IR, UV, X-ray, Gamma, ...)?
Yes. Current high quality CMOS sensors in cameras already do this. They need filters and coatings to keep them seeing the visible spectrum instead of IR and UV.
As far as X-Ray and Gam... | [
"BULLET::::- Scientists at California's Stanford University invent a working bionic eye powered only by focused light. Though currently a prototype, the device could eventually restore the sight of millions of people suffering from eye diseases such as macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa. (BBC)\n",
"Var... |
how come space probes that travel to distant planets not collide with the smaller objects in space? | Asteroid belts are nothing like in the movies. They are mostly empty space. Chances of getting hit are incredibly small.
It's like spreading millions of ants across a Sahara desert and stepping on one. | [
"Every planetary probe was placed into its escape trajectory by a multistage rocket, the last stage of which ends up on nearly the same trajectory as the probe it launched. Because these stages cannot be actively guided, their trajectories are now different from the probes they launched (the probes were guided with... |
why can you feel capsaicin irritating your mouth, stomach, and butt but don't seem to feel anything when it's passing through your intestines? | Oh I've felt it. You try some good peppers or other high scovile oily food and you feel it working it's way through. It's not the same sensation, but you know it's there.
As for why you feel it less sit is because capsaicin triggers pain receptors and your main gut just doesn't have many pain receptors. Why would it?... | [
"Amtolmetin guacil stimulates capsaicin receptors present on gastrointestinal walls, because of presence of vanillic moiety and also releases NO which is gastro protective. It also inhibits prostaglandin synthesis and cyclooxygenase (COX).\n",
"By preventing the drug from dissolving into the stomach, enteric coat... |
Tuesday Trivia | Treasure Hunters | Here is one of my favorite stories.
In the 19th century a man named Heinrich Schliemann (1822-1890) decided to try to use the Iliad, which he had loved since he was a little boy, to find the location of Troy. Until then it was unclear if it was real or purely mythological. Schliemann, however, was convinced it was rea... | [
"The Story of the Treasure Seekers is a novel by E. Nesbit. First published in 1899, it tells the story of Dora, Oswald, Dicky, Alice, Noel, and Horace Octavius (H. O.) Bastable, and their attempts to assist their widowed father and recover the fortunes of their family; its sequels are \"The Wouldbegoods\" (1901) a... |
What really was Bushido? | Not to discourage other answers but /u/bigbluepanda and /u/ParallelPain discuss Bushido in these answers from the FAQ
_URL_1_
_URL_0_
| [
"Bushido is a young silent Japanese swordsman, who is made an Honorary Titan by his American counterpart to fend off an incursion by the Brotherhood of Evil, which is preparing to mount an assault on young heroes. In the events of \"Calling All Titans,\" he is defeated and captured, and ultimately flash-frozen by P... |
Why are far away galaxies redshifted, when they aren't actually traveling away from us, there's just more space there than there was before? Does light lose energy traveling through a vacuum? | Yes, the light loses energy by being stretched as the Universe expands while it travels. | [
"Around 1930, Edwin Hubble discovered that light from remote galaxies was redshifted; the more remote, the more shifted. This was quickly interpreted as meaning galaxies were receding from earth. If earth is not in some special, privileged, central position in the universe, then it would mean all galaxies are movin... |
How much, if any, correspondence occurred between opposing leaders during wartime? Is there more correspondence nowadays, or has it decreased over time? | The first thing I thought of when I read your question was the ['Willy-Nicky Telegrams'](_URL_0_), an increasingly desperate series of telegrams exchanged between cousins (hence the familiar way they address each other) Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicolas II in the last days of July 1914 as Europe was dragged towards wa... | [
"The effect of the outbreak of war was immediately felt by Chi-Stelle, in so far as all participating nations began to transmit the majority of their messages in codes and cyphers. Thus the evaluation of the contents of messages was made more difficult, although the organisation of Allied air forces, as such, that ... |
Who was history's first recorded gay right's activist, in times of homophobia? | It depends on what you define as an "activist."
Keep in mind that homosexuality as a category of identification really dates back to the late nineteenth century, when sexologists began to classify and medicalize homosexuality. This is also when the first real "movement" for homosexual rights was launched. The movement... | [
"As a result of the publicity, from 1962 through 1964 Wicker was one of the most visible homosexuals in New York. He spoke to countless church groups and college classes and, in 1964, became the first openly gay person to appear on East Coast television with a January 31 appearance on \"The Les Crane Show\". Wicker... |
how can a distiller like jack daniel's meet doubled demand within one year when their product takes 4 years to age? | Jack Daniels complies with "straight bourbon" classification, which requires a minimum of two years in barrels. It's a blended whiskey, meaning that some of it may be older, and that blend can be varied. The company doesn't go in to exact details about blends and aging. | [
"BULLET::::- In late 2006, Gibraltar lawmakers passed the \"\"Children and Young Persons (Alcohol, Tobacco and Gaming) Act 2006\"\", which raised the minimum purchase age from 16 to 18 years. But the new law made an exception: minors aged 16 or 17 can purchase and consume on premises beer, wine or cider under 15% A... |
What's the longest single cell in the world? | Informal estimates place the dorsal root ganglion of the blue whale at ~25 m on average.
If we include prehistoric animals, though, this figure would not be the largest by a long stretch. The recurrent laryngeal nerve, which does a loop down the length of the neck all the way to the heart (only a fraction of total len... | [
"HAP1 cells are a cell line used for biomedical and genetic research. They are near haploid, having one copy of almost every chromosome and are smaller than the average human cell, growing to about 11 micrometers in diameter. HAP1 cells are derived from a line of cancerous cells, which means they are able to divide... |
why old tech is being shown in new movies | Because most people can't identify models in simple passing.
If someone pays for the rights to feature their latest and greatest, the studio would use it, but otherwise it's just a prop phone with the model being completely unimportant. | [
"New Media Technology. If students prefer to go into filmmaking, this academy offers the best opportunities. The New Media Technology academy helps students build their knowledge of technology. They are afforded hands-on experience with equipment usually found inside a film studio. This academy also provides intern... |
bosons, do they facilitate all matter and how? | > I was under the impression that energy is made matter through Bosons or something at that level.
This is not really a correct statement. It sounds like you're referring to force carrier particles, which are bosons (a boson is anything with integer spin). There are a number of force carrier particles in the Standard... | [
"In the conceptual model of fundamental interactions, matter consists of fermions, which carry properties called charges and spin ± (intrinsic angular momentum ±, where ħ is the reduced Planck constant). They attract or repel each other by exchanging bosons.\n",
"BULLET::::- Quarks and leptons (including electron... |
What will happen when we run out of accessible stocks of rare-earth elements? | Earth-bound rare earths will be around for a long time. This is why investing in [Planetary Resources](_URL_1_) might not pay off for a while, for example:
[Japan finds major rare earth deposits](_URL_3_)
> JAPAN has found a large deposit of rare earth minerals in its Pacific seabed, enough to supply its hi-tech in... | [
"Another recently developed source of rare earths is electronic waste and other wastes that have significant rare-earth components. New advances in recycling technology have made extraction of rare earths from these materials more feasible, and recycling plants are currently operating in Japan, where there is an es... |
do nutrients in food change when heated/frozen, and if so, how? | Yes and no. Freezing won't change anything about the nutritional value of food, but cooking will.
There are many molecules that the human body cannot easily digest, and therefor cannot extract nutrients from. Cooking food can help to break those down into digestible molecules, and allows people to get a greater nutri... | [
"The USDA has conducted extensive studies on the percentage losses of various nutrients from different food types and cooking methods. Some vitamins may become more \"bio-available\" – that is, usable by the body – when foods are cooked. The table below shows whether various vitamins are susceptible to loss from he... |
why do many companies nowadays see tattoos as being "unprofessional"? | Because in much of modern history the people with tattoos have been people very often associated with unsavory organizations, crime, and violence. I think you can understand why companies wishing to present a professional and safe environment would shy away from hiring those with tattoos. That general attitude has been... | [
"Parsons has expressed in articles a strong loathing for tattoos. In the 1990s, he wrote a story called \"The Tattooed Jungle\", suggesting that tattoos were symptomatic of the decline of the working class. In a 2012 article for \"GQ\" magazine, Parsons lamented the fact that in the last 20 years in Britain, tattoo... |
what purpose do continents serve apart from broad classification? | There is not one but a few different models for the continets. Some of them are just for classification. Some are used to differentiate what is one landmass and what is another. I thing the most common models used are the geopolitical and historic political one. These differentiate between what you could roughly call ... | [
"To a large extent, major continental regions are mental constructs created by considering an efficient way to define large areas of the continents. For the most part, the images of the world are derived as much from academic studies, the media, or from personal experience of global exploration. They are a matter o... |
Where did energy originate from? | [This video is about pretty much exactly what you are asking for, watch it!](_URL_0_) | [
"The word \"energy\" derives from the , which possibly appears for the first time in the work of Aristotle in the 4th century BC. In contrast to the modern definition, energeia was a qualitative philosophical concept, broad enough to include ideas such as happiness and pleasure.\n",
"In physics, energy is the qua... |
why are united states parents much more strict with the sexual life of their children compared to european parents? | The main reason is because of the religious background of the United States. | [
"In America, not only do U.S. students receive sex education within school or religious programs, but they are also educated by their parents. American parents are less prone to influencing their children's actual sexual experiences than they are simply telling their children what they should \"not\" do. They promo... |
how have beauty standards changed so much throughout the years? wouldn't what humans find attractive be genetically ingrained into our heads and not really allow standards to change over time? | A lot of the things we find attractive are not physical attributes but does have different physical manifestations depending on technology and culture. For instance we are attracted to wealth. Previously wealthy people were fat and sat indoor all day as opposed to poor people who were skinny, fit and dark as they worke... | [
"Beauty standards are rooted in cultural norms crafted by societies and media over centuries. Globally, it is argued that the predominance of white women featured in movies and advertising leads to a Eurocentric concept of beauty, breeding cultures that assign inferiority to women of color. Thus, societies and cult... |
What happened to the French, Belgian and Dutch colonies when their European owners were conquered by Nazi Germany during WW2? | I can answer in some detail where the Dutch colonies are concerned.
& nbsp;
The Dutch had 3 major overseas holdings: the Antilles, Suriname and Indonesia.
& nbsp;
The Dutch colonies in the West Indies became vulnerable after the Germans occupied the Netherlands in May 1940. The Antilles produced oil and Suriname... | [
"During World War II, Belgium was once again occupied by Germany. The Third Reich enacted laws to protect and encourage the Dutch language in Belgium and, generally, to propagate ill-feelings between Flemings and Francophones, e.g. by setting free only Flemish prisoners-of-war (see Flamenpolitik). The Nazis had no ... |
what is passion and where does it come from? (passion for subjects or jobs.) how can it be created? | This is a good question. Comparable to "how do you knew when you've met the one?" You just know. | [
"Since passion can be a type of motivation in hobbies then assessing intrinsic motivation is appropriate. Intrinsic motivation helps define these types of passion. Passion naturally helps the needs or desires that motivate a person to some particular action or behavior. Certain abilities and hobbies can be develope... |
Why don't dead leaves smell bad like other decaying organic matter? | It actually takes quite a while for leaves to decay - assuming the leaf was detached from the tree in the fall due to 'normal' circumstances. So, think a regular autumn leaf, not a bunch of leaves that fell off when a branch broke.
Deciduous trees will actually begin pulling nutrients out of their leaves during the a... | [
"Dead plants or animals, material derived from animal tissues (such as skin cast off during moulting etc) gradually lose their form, due to both physical processes and the action of decomposers, including grazers, bacteria and fungi. Decomposition, the process through which organic matter is decomposed, takes place... |
are you able to move your hand forward whilest traveling at the speed of light? | You can't travel at the speed of light. So any question asking "what would happen if you could travel at the speed of light" is like asking "what does physics say would happen in a situation that physics says can't possibly happen" | [
"This formula shows that the work expended accelerating an object from rest approaches infinity as the velocity approaches the speed of light. Thus it is impossible to accelerate an object across this boundary.\n",
"In the mid-1980s HKB model experiments, subjects were asked to wave one finger on each hand in two... |
Since the Earth is getting more mass in the neighborhood of 100 tons a day, will the gravitational pull be strong enough to pull the moon into it? | 100 tons compared to the mass of the earth (~6x10^24 kg) is barely a rounding error.
It would take approximately 1.8 x 10^14 years to increase the mass of the earth by 1/1000 of it's current mass at that accumulation rate. The universe is only about 13.75 x 10^9 years old. So the Earth's mass isn't changing much per... | [
"The acceleration due to gravity on the surface of the Moon is about 1.625 m/s, about 16.6% that on Earth's surface or 0.166 . Over the entire surface, the variation in gravitational acceleration is about 0.0253 m/s (1.6% of the acceleration due to gravity). Because weight is directly dependent upon gravitational a... |
how vinyl record players can play not only the pitch but also other details of some sound | Different instruments produce different shapes of sound wave. [Here](_URL_0_) are a few examples.
These are stored on vinyl by physically making the edge of the groove into the shape of the sound wave that the instrument makes. | [
"There is a theory that vinyl records can audibly represent higher frequencies than compact discs, though most of this is noise and not relevant to human hearing. According to Red Book specifications, the compact disc has a frequency response of 20 Hz up to 22,050 Hz, and most CD players measure flat within a fract... |
how and by whom are generation groups (x,y,z etc.) determined? | Marketers, mainly. Most of the time, you get a steady drip-drip-drip of people being born every year; there's about as many 7 year olds as 5 year olds or 9 year olds or whatever.
But the World Wars, particularly WWII, fucked that up: All over the world, the young people who would normally be getting married and havin... | [
"A generation is defined as \"a cohort of people born within a similar span of time (15 years at the upper end) who share a comparable age and life stage and who were shaped by a particular span of time (events, trends, and developments).\" Generational segmentation refers to the process of dividing and analyzing a... |
What originally defined the human size/mass? Why are most of us 1.5-1.9m tall instead of 0.5m or 20m tall? | Evolution is an optimising process, it's always making tradeoffs between competing criteria to find the highest fitness for the environment. There are advantages to being bigger, as well as disadvantages. On the simplest level, if you're bigger you can win more fights, but you need more food. So maybe you want to be as... | [
"The sizes with which humans tend to be most familiar are body dimensions (measures of anthropometry), which include measures such as human height, and human body weight. These measures can, in the aggregate, allow the generation of commercially useful distributions of products that accommodate expected body sizes,... |
what is "fair trade" and why should i care that my coffee is labelled as such? | Originally, fair trade was about a group of people that came together and said that they would pay the farmers that grew coffee a "fair" price. They wanted to do this in order to help them make more money, so that we weren't just using (exploiting) them. A lot of coffee comes from the poorest parts of the world, even t... | [
"According to the World Fair Trade Organization and the other three major Fair Trade organizations (Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International, Network of European Worldshops and European Fair Trade Association), the definition of fair trade is \"a trading partnership, based on dialogue, transparency and respe... |
how do cpu temperatures drop so rapidly? | The temperature sensor you're reading is most likely part of the silicon die, and inside a particular CPU core(which is very small, so it doesn't have much thermal mass). As the silicon in a CPU has the same atomic structure as diamond, it has a very high thermal conductivity, so when heat stops being generated in this... | [
"Intel claims that the smaller die of Ivy Bridge and the related increase in thermal density is expected to result in higher temperatures when the CPU is overclocked; Intel also stated that this is as expected and will likely not improve in future revisions.\n",
"In modern processors from manufacturer such as Int... |
Is rain water pure H2O, or does it pick up other elements from the air on the way down? If not, why? | No, rain water is not pure. For starters, it has to have a "cloud condensation neuclei," basically a particle on which water forms. When the cloud becomes dense enough, rain begins to fall. The rain will react with various gasses and particulates on the way down, including hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide, creating ... | [
"When SO is emitted as an air pollutant, it forms sulfuric acid through reactions with water in the atmosphere. Once the acid is completely dissociated in water the pH can drop to 4.3 or lower causing damage to both man-made and natural systems. According to the EPA, acid rain is a broad term referring to a mixture... |
paradox? | Don't post just to complain.
Also, you're using "paradox" incorrectly. | [
"A paradox is a statement that, despite apparently valid reasoning from true premises, leads to an apparently-self-contradictory or logically unacceptable conclusion. A paradox involves contradictory-yet-interrelated elements that exist simultaneously and persist over time.\n",
"In literature, the paradox is an a... |
why are so many americans hooked on opiate pain pills? | First of all, most synthetic opiates are extremely addictive. For reasons I cannot explain, doctors in the USA still tend to prescribe these rather than the less addictive kinds of opiates (tramadol for instance). In Europe, prescriptions for these kinds of opiates are very tightly controlled - not many european doctor... | [
"poemAs we have all seen, opioids are a prime contributor to our addiction and overdose crisis. In 2015, nearly two-thirds of drug overdoses were linked to opioids like Percocet, OxyContin, heroin, and fentanyl. [...] Americans consume more opioids than any other country in the world. In fact, in 2015, the amount o... |
What made the United Nations significantly different from the League of Nations? | One of the larger differences is that the League of Nations had no teeth, it had no military force of its own to physically put down an aggressor. The League of Nations provided that if an aggressor would not stop it could use military force but it having no force if it's own made it an empty threat.
A nation would ha... | [
"The principal forerunner of the United Nations was the League of Nations. It was created at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, and emerged from the advocacy of Woodrow Wilson and other idealists during World War I. The Covenant of the League of Nations was included in the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, and the Lea... |
humanism | See /r/humanism
> Humanism is a democratic and ethical life stance, which affirms that human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives. It stands for the building of a more humane society through an ethic based on human and other natural values in the spirit of reason and ... | [
"Humanism is a philosophical and ethical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively, and generally prefers critical thinking and evidence (rationalism and empiricism) over acceptance of dogma or superstition. The meaning of the term \"humanism\" has fluctuated accordi... |
Is it possible to melt snow (or whatever) with sound? | I was the guy who made that comment on the other post. While technically you could input enough energy to melt snow, the amount of energy contained in sound is very small.
Assuming you have 1 g of snow at 0 C, the amount of energy needed to melt that is 334 Joules. The sound from an entire orchestra only amounts to 1 ... | [
"BULLET::::- Snowmaking was successfully tested for the first time by inventors Wayne Pierce, Art Hunt and Dave Richey at Milford, Connecticut, operating on the principle of blowing water droplets through freezing air to create snow.\n",
"All of these designs had numerous problems. In cold snow, ice would freeze ... |
Why do plants go "limp" after you pick them? | Plants use turgor pressure to maintain the rigidity of structures. When you pick the plants they lose pressure because they lose water. When they lose turgor pressure, they wilt. | [
"This is due to the ability of the plant's leaves to streamline and flex as the flow passes them thus lowering the resistance to flow. High velocity flows will cause some vegetation (such as grasses and forbs) to lay flat, where a lower velocity of flow through the same vegetation will not.\n",
"Weed pulling in g... |
how is monster energy allowed to claim some of their drinks contain zero calories, yet there's 4g of carbs per can? | The FDA allows numbers on Nutrition Labels to be rounded to the nearest whole number. If those 4g of carbs amount to less than half a calorie per serving, then the manufacturer is going to take advantage of the situation and put 0.
& nbsp;
As for the erythritol, the regulatory definition of what counts for the pu... | [
"The caffeine content of most Monster Energy drinks is approximately 10 mg/oz (33.81 mg/100ml), or 160 mg for a 16 oz can. The packaging usually contains a warning label advising consumers against drinking more than 48 oz per day (16 oz per day in Australia). The drinks are not recommended for pregnant women or peo... |
With the recent horrifying earthquake that hit Japan, I'm curious: With today's technology and know-how, how difficult is it to predict an earthquake? | Prediction of catastrophic failures is basically impossible. Scientists have been making progress in being able to measure tectonic pressures in earthquake hotspots, but it is still just an indicator and not a full blown predictive theory. | [
"Twenty percent of the world's earthquakes are centered on Japan. The Japanese have been developing systems for early warning of earthquakes. For people of the city of Sendai who were testing the new earthquake warning system, they received a warning of the earthquake from the Meteorological Agency 16 seconds befor... |
why does cannabis make people sleepy after the high wears off? | CBN is a degradation product of THC and other cannabinoids. It is highly sedative.
There is also the issue of flooding the endocannabinoid system (which regulates our hormonal functioning and a number of other systems) with exogenous cannabinoids producing a temporary down-regulation.
If you don't want to get tire... | [
"The feeling of increased appetite following the use of cannabis has been documented for hundreds of years, and is known colloquially as \"the munchies\" in the English-speaking world. Clinical studies and survey data have found that cannabis increases food enjoyment and interest in food. A 2015 study suggests that... |
Are most living organisms today considered to be more complex than those, say, 70 million years ago? | No. First off complexity is a very hard thing to measure. Are ants more complex than non-hive insects? But most importantly most life on Earth (by any measure, number, mass, etc.) is single celled. So most life on Earth is just as complex as it was.
Now there may be a slight increase on some "average complexity" (assu... | [
"In this hypothesis, the apparent trend towards more complex organisms is an illusion resulting from concentrating on the small number of large, very complex organisms that inhabit the right-hand tail of the complexity distribution and ignoring simpler and much more common organisms. This passive model emphasizes t... |
AskHistorians uses a 20-year rule to consider something to be "history." Is this a common rule among historians, or is it just a pragmatic measure to moderate this community? If so, how do scholars decide when something can be called "history"? | There's not a hard and fast rule among universities or historians in general to consider events beyond a certain number of years "history" vs. "current events." One only has to look at ~~Mao~~ Zhou Enlai's (probably apocryphal) comments on the effects of the French Revolution being too recent to analyze to see an examp... | [
"[A]s a student of history I believe that those who govern today must ask ourselves how we will be judged 10, 20 or 50 years from now. Our applications of law must stand the test of time, because, over the passage of time, what we find tolerable today may be condemned in the permanent pages of history tomorrow.\n",... |
why do toddlers prefer to run everywhere instead on walking? it doesn't matter if it's indoor/outdoor or what distance. the first option is to run to get from point a to point b. | They have the energy and impulse control isn't developed in their brains yet. Won't happen til closer to 4. That's why kids have to be taught o walk safely places in preschool and kindergarten. | [
"Backward running is a less natural motion, but can be accomplished with some speed with practice. It is better to start out backward walking (also called retropedaling), which is relatively easy, and speed up. Like normal running, running up and down hills backwards will add an additional degree of difficulty.\n",... |
Why is it that a SSD (Solid State Drive) will eventually decrease in performance after a long period of time, but RAM doesn't? | Two differences that contributes to write speed degradation:
1) DRAM stores data as a charge in a capacitor. NAND flash used SSDs stores the data as a charge in a floating gate. In DRAM, the charges simply flow through the transistor into the capacitor. In NAND flash, writing requires tunneling electrons into the floa... | [
"SSDs based on NAND Flash will slowly leak charge over time if left for long periods without power. This causes worn-out drives (that have exceeded their endurance rating) to start losing data typically after one year (if stored at 30 °C) to two years (at 25 °C) in storage; for new drives it takes longer. Therefore... |
if atoms are over 99% empty space, how is it possible to create structures like spaceships that contain air and are airtight themselves while being surrounded by a vacuum?` | Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained:
1. [ELI5: I know that even though atoms are mostly empty space, we can't walk through walls because of electric fields, but if they're mostly empty, why isn't everything practically invisible? ](_URL_5_)
1. [ELI5: If atoms are 99% empty space, and everything ... | [
"Although not currently practical, it may be possible to construct a rigid, lighter-than-air structure which, rather than being inflated with air, is at a vacuum relative to the surrounding air. This would allow the object to float above the ground without any heat or special lifting gas, but the structural challen... |
Is there any historical documentation of the Viking Blood Eagle execution? | More could be pried out of someone, but you might like to start with ['What are the chances the Vikings actually used the "Blood Eagle"? (previous highly rated answer has been deleted and other posts just link to the deleted answer)'](_URL_0_) by /u/mikedash .
This is not to discourage discussion. More questions, dat... | [
"The blood-eagle ritual-killing rite appears in just two instances in Norse literature, plus oblique references some have interpreted as referring to the same ritual. The primary versions share certain commonalities: the victims are both noblemen (Halfdan Haaleg or \"Long-leg\" was a prince; Ælla of Northumbria a k... |
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