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How long could the infrastructure (gas, water, power, internet) run on auto-pilot in a developed country, and what factors would influence it?
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Discovery did an interesting show called "Life After Humans" that discussed this in the event all humans just disappearedThe lynch pin would be power plants. Once the electricity goes down, everything goes down, gas pumps, municipal water plants, natural gas storage facilities, oil pipelines, etc power plants or any large industrial plant doesn't really have an auto-pilot. Operators have to constantly check this, drain that, oil this, fill that. For example, If everyone at the plant turned into mindless walking undead, the computer system would operate the facility until a random lube oil filter plugged, the computer would sense the low oil pressure and "trip" the turbine. Then everything would go to a fail safe position and the whole plant would be down, thus the grid would go down. I would say without human intervention the power would be out in less than 24 hoursI read the title and straight away knew this was about zombies.
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Why did Vietnam invade Cambodia in 1978?
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At the time the Khmer Rouge dominated Cambodia and we're led by the ever insane Pol Pot. Pol Pot killed anywhere from a quarter to nearly half of his people in a brutal genocide. Not only that but he also feared the Vietnamese were attempting to dominate Indochina, so he began raiding into Vietnam and massacred their people too. Eventually Vietnam got sick of his fuckery and invaded back, winning the war and occupying Cambodia for a decade
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Why do fingers hurt, when they warm up after being cold?
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It's because it's a low level Frostbite. Basically it is quite close to a burn. but because of the low temperature your nervous system is not very active in the first phase. to quote the wikipedia articcle that is pretty good on the subject "At or below 0 °C , blood vessels close to the skin start to constrict, and blood is shunted away from the extremities [ ] The same response may also be a result of exposure to high winds. This constriction helps to preserve core body temperature. In extreme cold, or when the body is exposed to cold for long periods, this protective strategy can reduce blood flow in some areas of the body to dangerously low levels. This lack of blood leads to the eventual freezing and death of skin tissue in the affected areas. Of the four degrees of frostbite, each has varying degrees of pain." And when the warn blood comes back it reheats everything and you feel the big difference in temperature as harmful. you can makes it go faster and therefor be less painful with warm water, or simply rubbing your hands. In general you'll get quite easily a frostnip and you should avoid letting it get too bad. You may explore the subject further if you want : _URL_0_
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How does the price of gold and petroleum fluctuate in market?
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The way a market works is that there's a list of people who want to buy or sell, called the *order book*, along with the amounts and prices they want to buy or sell at. All the prices for the pending buy orders will be below the prices for the pending sell orders, because if they weren't the compatible orders would get paired up and executed. When a new order comes in, it gets compared with the best order on the other side of the book, and if they're compatible, they get matched up and the seller sells their stuff to the buyer. The price that you see listed is the last price that a trade happened at. The price goes up when a bunch of new people want to buy that good: they start to eat up the lower sell prices and need to offer higher and higher amounts in order to get anyone to sell them some. Similarly, the price goes down when a bunch of new people want to sell it, because they need to accept lower and lower amounts in order to sell to anyone.
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Why do puppies tilt their heads so much at like everything?
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A dogs ears are symmetrical, which means that while hearing sounds left or right is easy, up or down is more difficult. A humans ear by contrast has a lot of curvatures that bounce sounds around and give us the ability to locate sounds coming from any direction that a dog can't. When they cock their head to the side what they are doing is turning an up-down sound into a left-right sound.Turning the head sideways for both humans and animals puts the ears on different horizontal planes. This causes sound to enter the ears at different times and at different angles allowing more differentiation between the sounds being heard.I think that shifting there head side to side allows them to try and hear better. Alot like you turning your head to someone who won't speak up. Edit:Words
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What's the difference between animal fur and animal skin?
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Ultimately, there is no real ethical difference between using an animal skin and using animal fur. They both involve killing an animal and skinning it. The major argument I know of is that cowhide - the major animal skin used for fashion, which is converted into leather and suede - is more acceptable because cows are already slaughtered for their meat, so it's less cruel to also use their skins. Most animals that are killed for fur are not mainstream sources of meat, like rabbit or mink . As such, fur is often framed as more harmful than leather. But really they're pretty much the same, and there are other "exotic" animal skins that are harvested from animals that are not food animals either .
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Why does a PC take so long to boot? Or at least a windows operating system. IT takes So long from button press to desktop arrival. Especially in today's ever-increasing speedy technology.
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There are a lot of factors that contribute to startup time * Speed/quality of the drive - SSD provides a huge advantage here* Amount of shit in your startup - the more windows has to do when it starts up, the longer it takes* Memory/CPU - lesser importance, but having a good CPU/RAM helps Usually I find that long startups have more to do with what is being run *at* startup. I use CCleaner to manage the startup list because its easy and I've used it for ages. You can probably take your pick of any number of startup process managers. My laptop's startup consists of a few windows processes and the antivirus. No adobe, no java, none of that. From cold shutdown to Chrome in about 30 seconds. My desktop takes about a minute now, mostly due to me having a bunch of VPN/FTP/Server stuff installed on it that spins up when I turn it on. All SSD, good amount of RAM, good CPUs, no spyware/adware/computer cleaning 'tools' etc.Explained for a five year old: Your computer is bad, and you should feel bad.
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"Nestlé wants to own all the water!" What's really going on?
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Nestle has purchased land rights to several water sources in Africa and denied access to the communities that previously relied on them. At one point the CEO of Nestle said water wasn't a [basic human right]
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how do small caves get explored ?
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In theory any place you can get inn you could also get out off as the hole is the same size. In practice though there is a reason why cave exploration is considered one of the most dangerous hobbies.> Is there someone who just goes in as first That is the idea. Some crazy person jams themselves into a crack and sees if they can go through or not. Maybe they find another opening or they need to back themselves out. It is dangerous and sometimes they die. One plus is they don't need to be buried
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Why do things make us high?
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The chemicals in the drugs bond with receptors in the brain the way a key fits into a lock, causing the fun effects
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Why are there so many programming languages and what do they do.
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Each programming language is like a tool. Some languages are very similar, and others are pretty different. . Programming languages are all tools used to accomplish the task of building something, creating behavior, or fixing problems. Learning the core concepts of one language generally serves you quite well in learning another. Almost all modern languages have the same basic concepts at their core, and learning these concepts is the most critical step in learning any programming languages. Once you have the basics down it's much easier to move from one language to another. If you want to get into programming, find something you want to build, mod or improve and see what language people use for it. For example, Java for Minecraft or C# for a 3d game or PHP for a web application perhaps. Interest in building something will serve you more than just picking a language and trying to learn it at random!
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Why does 100% acetone nail polish remover feel cold to the touch?
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Acetone has a low boiling point so it evaporates easily. When things evaporate they require energy, and they acquire this energy by making whatever surface it used to be on colder. This is also how sweat cools you down.
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How does open sourcing .NET help Microsoft?
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1. Microsoft has by far the best tools for .NET. Those tools are free for individual users, open source developers, and academics, but rather expensive for businesses. The cheapest version is $500 a copy. The expensive version is $13,000. 2. If people write Android apps in Java or iOS apps in Objective-C, they have to rewrite everything to get the apps to run on Windows and Windows Phone. Open sourcing .NET makes it more likely that people will write apps using the first-class language of Windows devices, which makes it easier for people writing apps to get their apps into Microsoft's ecosystem too. 3. Microsoft was giving out .NET for free anyway. They weren't making any money off of that, just the Windows licenses they were selling because of it. By open sourcing it, they're not essentially getting free development and testing work from the community.
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How does the cold weather rob a car battery of its charge?
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Chemical reactions typically slow as the temperature decreases. Cold weather, therefore, hampers a battery's ability to produce electricity. I have a hybrid car and I've noticed my mileage decrease in cold weather. It also decreases in hot weather when I use the air conditioning.
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How do piezoelectric sensors convert sound waves into an electric charge?
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As sound waves vibrate the body of a wooden instrument, the wood gives off a *tiny* electromagnetic charge as the crystalline structures of the wood bend. These tiny electromagnetic changes cause a tiny magnetic plate in the sensor to move, by being attracted to or repelled by the electromagnetic forces. This tiny plate is attached to a non-magnetic charged diaphragm, whose subsequent movement causes a change in capacitance between it and a fixed charged plate. From then on in the signal path, piezoelectric transducers work in exactly the same way as a capacitor microphone . But unlike a condenser mic, the initial vibration being picked up is electromagnetic, not acoustic.
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Why do many R-rated movies only show quick flashes of nudity?
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Film rating and classification groups take into account the duration of nudity when establishing an appropriate rating for a movie. Extended nudity may result in a higher film rating classification . Thus the nudity is presented relatively briefly as to keep the rating R or below. Movie studios are very concerned about getting films rated NC-17 because it is very hard to make money when a film receives this rating. This is partly due to restrictions on advertising for NC-17 films, but also because many theaters and retail outlets will refuse to show and sell NC-17 movies. Note that brief non-sexual depictions of nudity can appear in films rated as low as PG, but most films depicting explicit nudity are unlikely to receive ratings lower than PG-13 and in most cases will be rated R.
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What are the economics for television networks/shows aimed at kids?
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> How does a company like Nickelodeon make money Have you seen the amount of toy commercials they broadcast? Due to the enormous amounts of kids watching, they make lots of money of them. Kids will see a commercial, then want what is in it. Kids are very good at pressuring parents into buying stuff and kids are very impressionable. In addition to that, most programs like that can be easily sold to other broadcasters in the entire world. Nick has channels all over the globe, kids in Japan watch spongebob, in Australia, Germany etc etc. Voice-overs are not that expensive and the channels just buy they rights to broadcast in their area . So in short: Lots of commerials, lots of kids results in lots of money to make shows.
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Neither Cheddar Cheese or Butter is naturally Yellow. (In fact they're both white.) Why and when did they start adding food dye?
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Grass fed butter is yellow, actually. Grass fed milk has a yellowish tint, too. Cheese made with high quality grass fed milk has an orange tint. Annatto was added to cheddar as both a flavoring and a colorant so that inferior cheese could replicate the color of grass fed milk when using cheaper milk. This started in the 16th century or there about. It stuck around as traditionWhile some cheese is dyed, some cheese is naturally colored by proteins and organic compounds. Cheese is only white as long as the fat membrane and protein structures stay in place and held together, if that gets washed away or broken down you can have other compunds in the food that reflect light, changing the colorButter actually is naturally yellow if it is properly grass fed cattle. As is cheese to an extent. In addition Annatto is added to Cheddar cheese to add flavor to it and it also acts as a natural dye.I make my own butter regularly and its always come out a medium to light yellow, and I certainly don't add any dye. Try it for yourself, bust out your mom's stand mixer, pop the whisk on, and pour some heavy cream in there and get to whisking. A while later you'll have unstrained butter in the bowl. Then you just strain it and then squeeze the remains in a cheese cloth. It'll be yellow, no color needed. I just use whatever the cheapest cream is at the store, I don't go for all that organic, free range, massaged every day bs, so I'd imagine the cows it came from are probably fed a mix of feed and vegetation they find in the fields.Dairy products can naturally be tinted yellow depending on factors like the animals diet. Coloring the product is a much easier way to ensure consistency. Consumers looooove consistency.
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Why are red, green and blue the primary light colours; but cyan, yellow and magenta are primary paint and ink colours?
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Red + Green + Blue = White light. None of them = black With printing you are using white paper. Which means you don't need to make white. I.E. most modern printers can't actually print white unless it is specialized to be able to do so. Cyan, yellow, magenta, and black are used to do subtractive coloring, where you subtract from the light background.
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Why can i open Reddit despite having the wrong date on my computer?
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Websites get a certificate that proves that they are who they say they are. Basically there's a trusted authority who gives a code to the rightful owner of a website. This way if you try to go to YouTube and someone hijacks your signal then they can't pretend to be YouTube and steal your login info or send you erroneous data . When you go to the site you ask the site for its certificate. It will send you back the information that shows that it's legit and your computer checks things out. If the date on the certificate is too far in the past or is in the future then your computer freaks out and tells you there's something wrong; someone is trying to hijack your internet connection. As for Reddit, it doesn't use this protection by default. If you look at the full address for Reddit it's _URL_2_ as opposed to, say, _URL_1_. Note that Reddit uses the prefix http, while YouTube uses https, as do most other major websites. The "s" is what signifies that you will demand a certificate. If you're in Chrome then you will also notice that there's a little green padlock at the left side of the address bar for the other sites you mentioned, while Reddit does not have this. On YouTube you can click that and look at the "connection" tab of the window that pops up then you will see "The identity of this website has been verified by Google Internet Authority G2." If you want to connect to Reddit using this same protection then you have a couple of options. One option is to use the URL _URL_3_. You can also read about the recent implementation of https in [this] recent blog post. However, in your case this will likely just cause Reddit to be added to the list of sites your computer won't let you visit.
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Does drinking cold water hydrate your body more then warmer water
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I don't think warming the cold water takes a significant amount of extra energy to "dehydrate" you at all. However, a simple law of diffusion is that substances with more kinetic energy will flow and diffuse faster than those with less kinetic energy. Think of it like cold syrup vs hot syrup; obviously the hot is more "runny" and thus will be more readily absorbed. However, this effect is much less pronounced with ordinary water. In addition, the vast majority of the water you uptake occurs in the intestines, and by the time it reaches this point, it is warmed to body temperature, making the initial temperature Pretty much irrelevant.
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Why does being scared open up super congested noses?
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Being Scared activates our fight-flight response. With the sympathetic nervous system activated it triggers the release of adrenaline. This induces vasoconstriction of the blood vessels in the nose, throat, and paranasal sinuses, which results in reduced inflammation and mucus formation in these areas. Like taking decongestants. The pharmacological application for this for chronic allergy sufferers are epishots, decongestants and the likes. Like many medications this should be taken in moderation as we also have a condition called **epinephrine overdose** "worsened breathing trouble, sudden numbness or weakness on one side of the body, slurred speech, problems with vision or balance, or dangerously high blood pressure. **TLDR:**Your body gets an epinephrine shot when scared. Epinephrine shots are its equivalent at the pharmacy. You may OD on this.
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Why do electronic items (like headphones or laptops) slowly lose their charge when they're not being used?
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These devices are always "waiting" for the cue to turn on and be used, so they never really "power off" completely. Your laptop is waiting for the lid to open or the power button to get pressed, and your headphones are just waiting for a signal, so a tiny bit of power is getting used 100% of the time .
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In the first and second generation Pokemon games, why do players have to save the game whenever they switch boxes?
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Basically, it's because of the way the data was stored; it was easy or easier to have each box stored in its own hunk of data of the same size, then to copy the box data into the "current box" save location when switching boxes, which is what is edited by the present play. So, to switch boxes from box X to box Y, it saved the "current box" state to the proper "box X" save location, then loaded the data in "box Y" into the "current box" location. In later games, saving wasn't required because they changed the way saved boxes worked; in Gen III, for example, the boxes were lumped into one large pokemon list and the "current box" save location was abolished , and the game manipulated the long list directly without going through the "current box" intermediary. [This page explains Gen II in greater detail], but may be hard to understand without a bit of computer science or data structure know-how.
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How does water sitting at room temperature (or colder) evaporate?
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Not all molecules of water in a container have the same energy. The distribution of energy in substances typically looks like [this] . Molecules at the higher end of the distribution have sufficient energy to escape the water and form water vapour. You can see that as you increase temperature, you get more molecules in the more energetic region of the distribution - so evaporation will be faster.
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Why does it feel so good to put my feet up after a long day of work?
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it's because your feet swell a little bit due to gravity causing blood/fluid to pool, so putting your feet up lets them drain, reversing the swelling.
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Why is it easier to carry a dead man than the same man alive?
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The opposite is true, a living person can actively hold on to you and situate themselves to make it easier for you to carry. A dead person offers you no aid. I suppose if the living person didn't WISH to be carried then a struggling alive person would be more difficult than a dead person.
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How do two tablespoons of pure caffeine kill you? o_O
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Too much caffeine over-stimulates the nervous system, which leads to an irregular heart beat or cardiac arrest. Your heart gets too excited and forgets how to do its job.
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In regards to all the talk of Universal Basic Income and Robots taking our jobs. How would the government continue to gather taxes from citizens?
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Simple, taxing corporations and producers.Though there would possibly be a "purchase" tax as wellThese are two different issues. One is on the side of government expenditures. The other is on the income side. Robots have to be manufactured. They have to be bought. Companies buy them to make money. Corporations pay a corporate income tax. They pay dividends to stockholders. Stockholders pay income taxes on dividends. - Tax rates vary significantly. Individuals pay a graduated income tax. Low wage earners pay less. Corporations pay taxes on profits not on revenue. It is not how much money they take in. They pay taxes only on the pure profit. Then they pay dividends. Almost all dividends are qualified dividends taxed at a very low rate. Governments can adjust these taxes to assure enough income for expenditures. There is a lot of talk about a universal basic income. Mostly it does not happen. A government running a deficit would quickly slash the payout on a universal basic income in order to fund basic aid such as supplements to buy foodWe are still quite far from this situation. However the systems are already in place. The cooperation and owners of these cooperation still pay tax. In most of the world the government would get more tax from a factory with a hundred very high paid workers then from a factory with thousands of low paid workers as the low payed workers would be in a low tax bracket. In addition there is value added tax that is a tax on any companies on the value they add to the product they handle. If we do reach higher efficiency then the tax levels in most countries would still stay roughly the same or even increase. However it would go from more of the taxes being collected from citizens to more of the taxes being collected from the companies and investors.
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Why do our voices sound so odd/weird to us when we hear it?
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When you talk, you're not just hearing your voice through the air. The vibrations in your throat, which is what makes your voice, travel through your neck, into your ears. Since vibrations spread out and slow down as they pass through the solids of your body, the sound lowers in pitch, so we hear our voices as deeper than they sound to others.When i used to hear myself recorded i sounded weird and hated it, but after taking a Spanish class where we had to record ourselves and listen back to correct our pronunciation, I no longer sound weird to myself. Also, I hear my voice the same as when recorded now, but it's a mental correction my brain is making to synthesize what I have memorized as the sound of my voice with what I hear "in person."You hear your own voice through two means, vibrations in the air which are warped by your face and/or is echoing off something, and the vibrations in your throat carrying to the ear. Only by listening to a recording you have the setup where its like listening to others.
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During hostage crises, why don't police just use sleeping gas to knock the perpetrators (and hostages) out?
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The Russians [tried that once]. The gas resulted in killing over a hundred of the hostages. There's a reason why there is a high-priced doctor to administer and monitor the use of anesthetics during medical procedures--because it requires precise amounts to avoid overdosing, otherwise it winds up suppressing the body's respiration until it stops breathing.Because generic "sleeping gas" isn't a real thing. Anesthesia has to be carefully applied by a professional in a controlled environment and tailored to the individual's body mass and metabolism, because the amount needed to render someone unconscious is very close to the amount needed to kill them. Any attempt to create and use some sort of universal "sleeping gas" would almost certainly wind up as a "death gas" instead, killing criminals and hostages alikeThere three main problems with that. One is that the hostages might not wake back up. The other is that the perpetrators might not go to sleep before groggily shooting most of the hostages in head. And the third is that the whole building might explode.I'm not an expert on the subject. In fact I know little about it. But i do know that making people go to sleep is a complicated and dangerous procedure. Which is why Anesthesiologists get paid so much. I imagine it's just too stupid and dangerous to risk trying to gas a big group of people.
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How do guitar amps amplify the sound?
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A transistor! To answer the follow-up question of "okay and what the hell is a transistor" . A transistor is a lil\' electronics part made of silicon. Silicon has some funny properties: it's a semiconductor, and different stuff can influence how well it carries electricity. So a transistor has 3 connections on it: an in, an out, and a signal, positioned in-between the two. A strong current goes into the "in", but nothing comes out until any current goes to the signal connection. So what they do is hook the "out" to the amp's speaker. Then when you strum the guitar string, that's connected to the "signal" and causes the signal current to wobble. This means the "out" juice starts to flow, and wobbles in the same way . but much stronger, since the "in" was a strong current. This makes the speaker vibrate in the same pattern your guitar string didThe pickups on the guitar act like small microphones, converting the vibrations of the strings into tiny electrical signals. Those signals, which represent the guitar sounds, travel down the cable to the amplifier. Inside the amplifier the signals get, well, amplified. Transistors increase the size of those signals using various methods. Basically, the small signals are used to control the flow of larger currents, which become stronger copies of the original signals. These signals are ultimately fed to the loudspeakers, where they’re converted back to sound. The signals are actually fed into a coil in the speaker assembly that serves as an electrically driven solenoid that moves a paper cone back and forth in a pattern that replicated the original signal. But ya’ gotta turn it up to 11 to get the most out of it ..:)
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What would it take for American and British English to actually be considered separate languages?
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A certain percentage of the vernacular must be distinct and not mutually intelligible between the 2 languages', "I can't answer that, but I can say that's not going to happen. The reason languages evolved down separate paths in the past is because groups of people were isolated from one another. These days, all English speakers, as well as those who speak it as a second language, are connected through television, movies and the Internet . That also applies to regional accents and dialects throughout America, the UK etc.
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Why and how is it that when we continually spin around for a while, we develop the "dizziness feeling" after?
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Your ears contain the vestibular system which is basically semicircular tunnels filled with a liquid with hairlike receptors on the walls of these tunnels. Those hairs notice the resistance of the liquid due to its inertia when you move your head/body, and signal to the brain accordingly. When you spin yourself for a while the liquid starts to move/spin in the same way you moved. If you then suddenly stop spinning, the liquid continues to spin which activates the receptors and that signal gets interpreted as movement. Because the sense of balance is strongly linked with visual input the brain has a problem: The visual says you are not moving but this is in conflict with your vestibular system that says you are indeed moving. So the brain tries to make things right again by mashing both together, like making your vision seem as if you were turning your head while you are actually just looking straight ahead and making standing up still very difficult. This conflict also may make you feel sick to the point of throwing up because your body knows this isn't right and maybe a poison you ingested is causing this problem .
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How do we control our bladder?
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There are two muscles called urethral sphincters that control the release of urine from the bladder, similar to those in the anus. The internal sphincter is involuntarily controlled by the body and the external sphincter is voluntary controlled.
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What actually happens when we "die of old age"?
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That's a euphemism. There's always some underlying cause, but it's a cause that's associated with old age
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What is the difference between irony and poetic justice?
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Irony has been mangled so badly you can't really get it wrong as the definitions these days include what would be considered wrong use In a nutshell though irony is something that has the opposite effect as intended. Example I'm in a car accident and my airbag deploys and breaks my neck killing me. A thing designed to save me from injury or death kills me. Poetic justice would be say someone who likes to pick on stray cats then goes on safari and is eaten by a lion. EDIT to expand, poetic justice has an element of being a "fitting" or coincidentally appropriate circumstance but doesn't necessarily contain any opposite effect. If said cat torturer had purchased lion repellent lotion that actually attracted lions it would be both ironic and poetic. also don't confuse literary irony which is basically the reader knowing things the characters don't
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Why do your eyes tear up when laying on your side?
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I'm going to guess that because your tears are reabsorbed from the inner corner, when you're laying on your side gravity pulls the tears to the outer corner and they accumulate.Your eyes tear up when laying on your side? Wtf?', "Mine have done this for as long as I can remember. I thought it was a family thing because I've only heard my siblings and Gma complain about it.
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Why do websites and videos that are loading slow appear to play or load right after you click the refresh button
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The website is loading into a buffer, and won't be displayed until it's fully loaded when you click refresh or back it dumps the buffer to the screen before wiping it
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Why do you see individual pixels in small droplets of water on an LED screen?
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The droplets form a kind of lens which magnifies the screen under them, showing the colored segments which make up the pixels of the screen.
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How do companies like walmart clearly breach contracts and then are able to hold up the court process for years to bankrupt the person who is suing them
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[They're not supposed to be able to]. > Also why do we not have laws in place like most other developed countries where the losing party in a lawsuit pays for the other sides legal fees as well? Because what ends up happening is people with legitimate complaints choose not to sue because the risk is too high. I might have a legitimate claim against Walmart for $8,000, but if losing might cost me $45,000 I won't bring the claim. Result: Walmart gets away with it. Besides, if a lawsuit is really bogus you can counter sue for court costs anyway.
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Why do we tend to get headaches while reading in a moving vehicle?
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You get sensory information from your eyes but you also get them from your inner ears - that's where you also get a sense of balance and movement. When the input from your eyes doesn't match up to the inner ear . Normally this kind of non-matching input only happens when you are sick so your body kind of gets confused.
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The school voucher system in America that the GOP is pushing for
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Parents of school-age children would have a choice between sending their kids to public school, or getting a "voucher" that they could use towards the tuition of a private school or religious school. It's controversial for a few reasons: -Many people worry that a voucher system would lead the better public school students to go to private schools, leaving public schools with the kids the private schools don't want - poor kids, kids with discipline problems, non-English speakers, learning disabled kids, and special needs kids. -Many people object to the fact that a voucher system would result in large-scale taxpayer funding of religious schools, and would give the Catholic church and other religious groups control over the education of millions of children.
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Why does a lighter not explode when lit?
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There are two things at play: First: The butane which burns is pressurized inside the lighter, it is expelled at such a rate that it only mixes with enough oxygen that it can ignite a few milometers above the nozzle. Second: There is not enough oxygen inside the lighter for combustion to occur inside. Think about it like this, if you have a spray bottle and fill it with gasoline, then spray a fine mist of gasoline into the air near a flame, that small cloud will ignite in a fireball. However; if you have a sealed container filled to the brim with gasoline, and somehow get a spark to go off in that container, the gasoline will not ignite. Gasoline requires like 100 parts of air for every 1.5 parts of gasoline before it will ignite. Butane is roughly the same. Here is a wiki on flammability limits: _URL_0_There is no oxygen in the fuel reservoir. The fuel is kept in a liquid state by pressure. When you open the valve some of the pressure is released — allowing the liquid to turn into a gas. This forces some of the gas out through the valve where it mixes with oxygen and becomes flammable. Other types of lighters, like the Zippo, use a wick system that operates similarly to an oil lampEverything needs Oxygen to burn. The fuel in the lighter will not ignite without being exposed to it. The relatively small amount being let out through the small valve is the only fuel allowed to ignite.
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Why do so many people support Bernie Sanders? What makes him different from all those presidents that said one thing before they were elected and did the opposite when they were elected?
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Look, it's simple. He makes the best-tasting chicken for the money, no one can argue with that", 'Sanders is a real, honest-to-God socialist, the only one in Congress who openly admits it . As such, many liberals see him as a "legit" guy in a sea of people who talk the talk but don't walk the walk. Would he actually turn out to be more honest if he were to somehow become President one day? Impossible to say without it happening He doesn't have a lot of power in the Senate given that he's too liberal even for many Democrats, so how "honest" he's been in that position I can't say. But he keeps getting reelected, so his constituents must like him. ', "He continually puts his money where his mouth is on the senate floor. Look up some of his speeches, his voting record, and the bills he's sponsored. He seems to be the real deal, and his constituents love him. He's the only independent in the senate and he's very proud of it. If he runs in a national election he'll probably just get shut down and drowned out but if he can get a decent following an some funding there will at least be some interesting debates about policy and the nature of governance.
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Will there be any sort of energy deficit caused by the Solar Eclipse next week?
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Technically yes, as blocking the sun will inevitably block some solar cells and the theoretical power they would have produced. However the duration of the eclipse in any given location, the relatively small amount of reliance on solar power, and the high variability of solar power in the first place will make this irrelevant.
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Tony Abbott's political views and why his video got banned.
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His vid is back up. He posted a vid outlining what a brilliant job he's doing following through with his election promises. The vid was flagged by a lot of viewers for containing deceptive claims and it, and his account, were autobanned by Youtube. YT has since reinstated both the vid and his account. Basically Tony Abbott is a liar. He admits that he's a liar and lies for political support. Since becoming PM he's banned the release of a lot of government information that previous governments have automatically released for the good of the democratic process. His claims have been that it's not in the public's interests to know the actual information and that he can be trusted to release what it needs to know, which is pretty much nothing. He's commanded the politicians in his party to limit what information they give out to the press. All we have on a lot of his claims are his words since we can't check the actual government information for ourselves. A lot of people are angry over this. He has the dubious honour of being the Australian Prime Minister to have the quickest loss of popularity in Australia's history. Opinion polls only about a month or two after the September Federal Election showed that if another election was held he's most likely lose. As for what he's like politically. Science is a scam. Refugees are illegal immigrants. Keeps claiming that Indonesia backs all of his boat people policies even though they are openly saying that's not true and caused a diplomatic incident.Because Rupert Murdoch does not own youtube .. yet[In his own words] - informative and entertaining.
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Why the most common amount of lives is 3 in video games?
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Old games were often arcade ports. One quarter would get you your initial 3 lives while each extra life after was generally one quarter. The idea being if your initial start up was just one life and you die early on you'd leave the game for a less frustrating one. But if you're a skilled player giving you too many starting lives would be bad business. So somewhere along the line they reasoned 3 was enough to get you hooked and make some progress that you'd drop another quarter in the machine to continue the game since you're too far to back out now or immersed and enjoying the game to continue investing. The trick is balancing difficulty. You want to keep the player playing your game but not make it so easy they never need to drop another quarter. So you get 3 to learn the basics and decide hopefully that you like the game while simultaneously making enough progress in those 3 lives to not walk away from the machine but not have so many free lives that you play the game without feeding it a steady drip of quarters. As time progressed and arcades died out the 3 life rule was pretty much the standard or norm for arcade style games and persisted into home gaming.
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Why is Greenpeace so vehemently against nuclear power?
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Because it uses potentially dangerous materials and because it obviates the need for more "preferred" forms of power like solar and wind. The problem is, of course, nuclear power is one of the cleanest and safest forms of power that exist. Even if you take into account the number of accidents and deaths from nuclear power accidents, you would have nowhere near the number of incidences as you do with other sorts of power. Plus the waste, while dangerous, is very manageable and if we really wanted could be stored quite safely. It's a lot like drinking water made from pee. You can do it, but the thought of it makes you sick.Greenpeace's anti nuclear stance is rooted in the organisations history. The organisation originally formed from group of anti nuclear testing protesters in the late 60's, giving it a decidedly anti nuclear stance from the start. This was then amplified when US public opinion began to turn against nuclear power due to the 3 Mile incident in 1979, as this lead many people to join environmental groups. In late 79, Greenpeace went from being just a North American group to becoming Greenpeace International, and Greenpeace International then gained another mass of anti nuclear members in the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. With a large mass of it's members firmly anti nuclear from it's very inception, and the [echo chamber effect] ensuring any dissenting voices are drowned out, you have the stage set for modern day Greenpeace, standing tall with anti nuclear power as one of the untouchable tenets of the organisation. No matter what damage the stance is causing to the environment.
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Why is seafood safe to eat raw (ex: sushi, sashimi) while chicken and other farm animal produce can harm us when raw?
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Seafood can harm you too, it can have parasites. People do eat raw chicken, in Japan it's eaten like beef tartare. I imagine it's mostly about probabilities and how that food type is raised/cleaned/prepared in that country. Plus cultural history, hard to tell people they can't eat something their ancestors have been eating forever.
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What happens to our bodies when we faint?
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There are a lot of reasons people faint. If you get hit hard enough, your brain may knock against the inside your skull and may shut down as a defense mechanism. You may have low blood pressure, which will caused oxygen supply to lower to the brain. Your brain responds by shutting down. You may be hyperventiliating, which also interferes with oxygen to the brain. What your brain does, is basically knocks you out so that you will become horizontal. This will make it easier for your heart to pump oxygen to the brain. Fainting is, in this respect, a survival reflex. As for what it's like, it sucks. I get vasovagal syncope from time to time, though now I know what triggers it and how to combat them directly so it doesn't happen anymore. I have no perception of the passing out. When I wake up, it's like everything is fuzzy and slow and REALLY far away. I am totally disoriented. The first time it happened to me, I was on the toilet. I was going through some weight loss, and had overdone it at the gym for a week and didn't eat enough. I was at like 1800 calories and really should have been eating more like 2800 or more. So, on the toilet. Got dizzy. Got a stomache ache. Woke up TOTALLY FREAKING OUT AND THINKING I WAS GONNA DIE. Horrible! But, I saw a doctor, it happened again, and we talked about what was going on and how to prevent it.
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How can we tell the chemical compositions of far off planets, stars and other cosmic bodies simply by looking at them?
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When you shine a light through a gas or bounce it off an object, certain wavelengths are absorbed. By analyzing the spectrum of light coming from an object, we can match it against known spectrums from Hydrogen, Helium, Argon, etc, etc to figure out what it's made of. It's sort of like listening to a song and being able to pick out the different instruments because they make different sounds even though they're all blended together in a song.
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What is an RSS feed and how does one make use of it?
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RSS is a type of webpage that makes a very brief summary of each Blog or News article put up by the Website owner. RSS Readers will check this summary every now and then to see if it changed, and will download the little summary, sort of like an Email. It can also be used to automate downloads, such as torrenting your favorite show the minute it's uploaded, if the site has such an option. RSS is largely unused these days, as it's just too bothersome. You'd be better off just using Google Reader if you want to combine your web browsing into a single site. Far easier.
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Can there be a law that prevent a bias/discrimination in the way criminal and victim are treated in our justice system based on their genders? Like a “No Gender Courtroom/reporting”?
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This would be really practically difficult. What about in a case where the gender is really relevant to the crime, or will become obvious through evidence- like medical evidence for a sexual assault could be instantly telling .In a criminal trial in an adversarial system, the point is to question the evidence. Trials are full of specifics. What about where the defendant needs to testify? If witnessess/lawyers accidentally let slip 'he/she' 'his/her' etc is that grounds for a mistrial? What about gender- indicative but not absolute stuff? I would be surprised if in a case involving 30 workers of an oil rig, the judge would be able to imagine them 50/50 male/female. Also, gender is relevant for determining sentencing, if not guilt. Quite often the relative vulnerabilities or stregnths of the parties is taken into account. Some of the time this can involve gender, as with physical crimes especially it assumes one can have a slight advantage- this affects what a 'reasonable' decision is, and how much 'harm' can be seen to be inflicted, and how abuses of power happen. Also, sex discrimination would become unlitigable completely.
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Why do many people in Russia (as seen in dashcam footage) cross streets on such a dangerous way?
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The short answer is that Russians don't give a fuck. The slightly less short answer is that it's a byproduct of having an extremely huge and dispersed country. Crossing the road dangerously is just one of the countless ways that Russia breaks the social mold that other, mainly Western countries have established. Since Russia is so huge, there is very much undeveloped space throughout the country. This not only causes the towns and cities to be physically dispersed from one another, but also gives the people a mentality that feels disjointed from major law enforcement and rules. I don't know how to back it up with figures, but there is also much less law enforcement per capita as a result of this. Generally people dont give a fuck and do what they want because they get away with it. Edit: its also, as mentioned above, confirmation bias. Youll see crazy shit from Russia because people won't post about the normal shit.
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Why are the words "how come" used to ask why?
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It is a shortened form of "**how** did that **come** about?" Just like when you ask *what's up*, you mean "what is up with you?"
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Why are the atmospheres in Doha/Dubai always hazy and no clouds?
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It's all about dryness. Clouds are caused by moisture, which this area usually lacks. The haze is caused by particles of dust in the air: the ground is so dry, bits of sand and dry dirt are blown into the air. Smoke adds to it.
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When someone "smacks" some kind of electronics device, what happens inside of them that sometimes makes them start working again?
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Lots of chips have tens to hundreds of little pins that have to be soldered to the board. Any flexing can cause one or more of those pins to break loose. Now sometimes this won't cause it to stop working if pressure is still keeping the pin and the pad in contact. But sometimes, it doesn't, and when you hit the device, it can put them back into contact. This isn't the only situation, but probably the most probable. Also, when you hear of people baking electronics in the oven to fix it, it's to reflow the solder. That basically just means ALL the solder on the board re-melts, then hardens again with new clean connections, potentially fixing broken joints.
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Why whistleblowing is dangerous to the whistleblower and in some cases illegal?
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> Also, why has there been so much more unified and consistent support for Edward Snowden than there was for say Bradley Manning? Snowden blew the whistle on a specific scheme/pattern of conduct about which he had personal knowledge. While the information was classified to some extent, it potentially effects every U.S. citizen. In short, his whistleblowing implicated a due process concern of national reach and importance. Manning, in my opinion, didn't blow a whistle at all. He indiscriminantly dumped hundreds of thousands of classified documents regarding matters in which he had no personal knowledge. The difference, in short, is discretion. Snowden had personal involvement/knowledge regarding the NSA's practices. He came to the moral decision that the public had a right to know what he knew. Manning, on the other hand, had no real idea what he was handing over. Nor did he have the experience, knowledge, or qualification to determine whether his disclosures would hurt or harm the United States or its citizens. Setting aside the analysis, their narratives are quite different. Snowden was a civilian government contractor, whose work unexpectedly made him privy to information that outraged him as a private citizen. This is sympathetic, and his response was admirable. Manning was a member of the military, whose position quite foreseeably gave him access to sensitive information, which he eagerly handed over to a foreign millionaire who he frankly didn't personally know, all due to his vague sentiment that governments should operate with more transparency. However laudable Manning's intention, his narrative looks a lot, lot worse.
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Why do newer versions of GCC not work with code for previous releases ?
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Hmm could you give some example of what type of incompatible you're seeing? Only thing I can think of is c++ abi incompatibility between versions, but that can be sorted by recompiling all libraries with the newer version of gcc
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Pat Tillman, I feel like I'm missing something
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While you are getting the gist of it there are a few things you seem to be missing. It wasn't just that the U.S. Army tried to cover up his death, its that the military and the Bush administration attempted to use him as a poster child for the Iraq War in order to drum-up support and recruits after his death. He was awarded numerous medals for events that did not occur, and politicians who never met him were praising his service despite the fact that he was only a Specialist. There was also the issue that some of his personal effects were destroyed shortly after his death; mostly to cover-up evidence of his death by friendly fire, but also to hide his personal views on the war which he may have written in his journal. People who were close to him stated that he became disillusioned with the war shortly after being deployed overseas, which was counter to the narrative of him being in favor of the war that people were trying to create. Tillman was also an atheist. This is likely the reason that you see him so often on reddit, as r/atheism really likes him. But for a lot of atheist Americans, Tillman is a role-model; not just because he is an atheist, but because he was also a very humble, open-minded, and intelligent person. He also does not fit the mold that some Christians in the United States have of atheists as arrogant and intolerant elitists. He really was a good man and a great American. There was a recent documentary on his life called [**The Tillman Story**]; should you be interested in learning more about him I highly recommend watching it. Edit: Fixed his rank", 'He was an atheist, and at his funeral John McCain had the audacity to say "He's with god now", to which his brother vocally objected. He stands as the poster boy for Atheists in Foxholes, because he was good-looking, charismatic, and genuinely a good person.
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Why does the space shuttle roll after launch?
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**Edit: yes, I'm slightly dyslexic** During launch the space shuttle is trying to reach orbit. This requires going up and ~~West~~ East, but mostly ~~West~~ East. Space is not very far away , so the hard part of reaching orbit is not so much getting up as dealing with the falling back down. The space shuttle deals with this by going sideways fast enough that it misses the Earth as it falls back down. You can think of orbit as falling towards the earth but going sideways fast enough that you miss it on the way back down, keep falling, keep moving sideways, keep missing, repeat. For that to work, you have to go really, really fast, which isn't so much a problem in space, but is a big problem when you're still climbing through the atmosphere because while going through space at 17000 miles per hour is no problem, going through air anywhere near that speed can cause a lot of problems. When the space shuttle first launches, it's trying to gain altitude and speed. The airflow causes a lot of mechanical stress, so it rolls to put the fuel tank up. That way the tank eats most of the wear and tear while protecting the orbiter, which is far more delicate and contains even more delicate humans in it. Also, we should probably start saying "did" rather than "does" in regards to the space shuttle.To keep the astronauts under positive g while headed up to orbit. The shuttle doesn't go just straight up, it curves out over the Atlantic. When they make the transition from up to over, they roll the shuttle on its back so the crew doesn't black out from g-loc.
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Why are education and health services so expensive in the US?
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Public education is only paid by the state until high school ends. University, college, or trade school are paid for by the student. They cost about as much as a new car per year . Health insurance exists, but not everyone has it. Insurance itself is expensive. Also, insurance doesn't cover ALL health costs - they usually have an amount you have to pay before the insurance begins to pay, and also an upper limit to how much they will cover. A lengthy, complicated-to-treat illness, like cancer, can bankrupt a person even if she has insurance. Most Americans get their insurance through their job, so if you lose your job, you also lose your health insurance.
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Why do really long exposure photos weigh more MB? Shouldn't every pixel have the same amount of information regardless of how many seconds it was exposed?
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The jpeg format we store photos in is designed to store a good photograph efficiently. A good photo has large areas of smooth, even gradients, and Jpeg does a great job of *compressing* these to take up less space. A long exposure photo will have more random 'roughness' in the picture. It will be much more *noisy*, with small, random changes in individual pixels. Jpeg is not designed for this, so it takes more space to store the noise.
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Why haven't we been back to the moon if we've already been? Why haven't we been back since then?
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It's really expensive, and not incredibly valuable scientifically to send humans to the moon. You are far better off spending those dollars on probes sent to other planets and moons in the solar system. The only justification for sending humans to the moon is to 1.) Prove you can do it, and 2.) One up the Soviet Union.
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How would your programme in a quantum computer?
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That depends on the quantum computer model. If it's a **gate based** model, then there will have to be a low-level assembly language that tells you what gates to apply when and to what qubits, when to perform measurements. Those gate based models are still super far away, though, so it's hard to tell how they'll eventually be programmed. On the other hand, quantum annealers such as the DWAVE device are already available. While there is controversy about how much quantum is in them, they do produce results and can be programmed. . These devices solve optimization problems by interpreting the problem as a special case of the so-called Ising Spin glass. Basically, you have a physical system whose quantum ground state encodes the solution to your problem. "Programming" such a device means setting the parameters of the physical problem. DWAVE gives you C++ and Python bindings to connect to their quantum annealer device and it's almost as simple as stating "dwave_connection.solve_problem".
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where do rivers start?
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Technically, in the sky. Rainfall hits the ground in geographically delineate areas called 'catchment basins'. Basically these areas are divided by high ridges. All the rain falling on one side of a ridge may run down to the east, and all the rain falling on the other side to the west, for example. This rainfall follows countless small channels, streams and oversurface flows, until enough of it converges into a big enough channel to be defined as a 'headwater', which is the start of a river, usually high up in the hills or mountains. From there the river will flow downhill towards the ocean. Most headwaters are narrow, steep, and fast flowing by comparison with the same river down by the ocean, where they usually grow placid and meandering on the lowlands.It varies. The source can be a glacier or small streams on a mountain that come together to form the river.
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Why is Politics not a compulsory course from high school through college?
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A "politics" course sounds a lot like government indoctrination. In high school we already have courses that cover the branches of government, how elections work, etc. How much further do you think it should go?', "The better question is why aren't financial classes mandatory. Too many financial illiterate adults in society.
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how do you install something on a hard drive that has nothing to install it onto (eg operating system onto a blank hard drive)?
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Computers have tiny computers inside them Caledonia the BIOS. It has just enough smarts to let you move files from some storage device onto the hard drive', "A computer doesn't have to be booted from a hard drive. They can also boot from a disc, or even a flash drive. The media it boots from contains coding to write itself directly to the hard drive, either formatting the drive or creating a new partition.
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What is a choke hold?
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Respiratory and vascular chokeholds restrict blood flow to the brain, depriving it of oxygen. In turn, somebody being "choked out" loses consciousness. If the brain is deprived of oxygen for prolonged periods, serious brain damage can occur. Chokeholds are used in a variety of martial arts. Either as a self-defence mechanism, or used in competitive sports to win a matchIt depends on the type of choke. The most common/recognizable is the "rear naked choke" . You cut off blood flow to the brain causing unconsciousness.
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Why is self-harm such a relief?
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Sometimes the physical pain blocks out the mental painPain releases chemicals in your brain that make you feel betterThe feeling of having control over something when you have control over nothing can make some feel relieved from the mental pressure of feeling like every things uncontrollable.It *may* have to do with the body's ability to release endogenous opioids when exposed to extreme pain .
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what we can expect IF Romney was elected.
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None really. Most people don't realize that our government is a little more skewed than originally designed. The vast majority of things people blame on the president are a result of Congress making poor/no decisions.
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Why do I find myself bouncing my leg up and down when on a chair??
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Shaking one's leg up and down while sitting is incredibly common. It doesn't have to be your leg, some people want to fidget with something in their hands, but in general it comes off as a nervous habit. I believe it has to do with energy that is pent up and not being used. I 've found that if I am truly tired or exhausted, I don't ever do it, but if I 've been inside all day, or sitting at a desk, I'll constantly "fidgeting" with my legs or hands, or now that I think of it, my face. I use my jaw muscles to rock from side to side in an almost imperceptible motion, often to the beat of a song in my head.
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Why are the Greek and Roman Gods, legends and myths so similar
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They are the same stories. The Romans adopted the Greek gods and myths because Greece was the most prestigious culture in the northern med.Basically the Romans ripped off the Greeks' gods. The Roman Pantheon was originally different, presumably, but sometime when Greece was integrated into the Roman Empire the Romans decided to appropriate Greek mythology for themselves.
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During exercise, why is is better to breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth?
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I don't think there's a consensus that in through the nose, out through the mouth is the best way to breathe while exercising. Breathing in through your nose has some advantages. It warms and moistens the air before it gets to your lungs and your nose hairs also filter out some of the crap in the air. Breathing out through your nose doesn't really do anything for you other than help not make your mouth as dry. Breathing through your mouth has the obvious advantage of allowing you to get more air with each breath. Most sites I've seen actually recommend breathing in through your mouth to get the most oxygen. Some sites recommended breathing in through your nose in special circumstances. Specifically, people with asthma may find it easier to breath through their noses and you might want to breath through your nose if you're running in cold weather so you can warm the air up. You can still exhale through your mouth because it allows you to exhale faster and the air is leaving your body so it doesn't matter if it's warmed or filtered.
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Why are Teslas super fast off the line and yet at a certain point a non-electric super car will catch up to it?
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It's pretty simple, they have instant full torque at any RPM , however, they are not powerful motors, at least not as powerful as a Lambo, meaning their horsepower isn't enough, plus, Tesla's are damn heavy, over 1000lb heavier.
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Are AP's (Assistant Principals) at my school really allowed to search me whenever they feel?
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No, they can't search you whenever they feel like. But they can search you if they have a reasonable suspicion you are carrying contraband. > Although the underlying command of the Fourth Amendment is always that searches and seizures be reasonable, what is reasonable depends on the context within which a search takes place. *New Jersey v. T. L. O.*, 469 U.S. 325, 337 . In the context of a school, school officials have a huge responsibility to keep you safe and watch over you. Of course, you do have a reasonable expectation of privacy in your belongings, but because of the special responsibility of school officials, they don't need a warrant or probable cause to search you. > The school setting also requires some modification of the level of suspicion of illicit activity needed to justify a search. Ordinarily, a search -- even one that may permissibly be carried out without a warrant -- must be based upon "probable cause" to believe that a violation of the law has occurred. However, "probable cause" is not an irreducible requirement of a valid search. The fundamental command of the Fourth Amendment is that searches and seizures be reasonable, and although "both the concept of probable cause and the requirement of a warrant bear on the reasonableness of a search, . . . in certain limited circumstances neither is required." *Id.* at 340 . Thus, if there is reasonable suspicion you're doing something wrong, they can do a reasonable search.I think because you're on school, aka state, property then can. Well police can. I would be suspicious if a principle could. When in doubt always say no
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Why is there a split second between feeling an impact (eg, stubbing your toe) and feeling the pain?
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The time it takes for the feelings to reach your brain and your brain to process that as "painful"Physical sensations like pain travel from nerve endings to the brain via electrical signals within the nervous system. The transmission of these signals, while very fast, is not instantaneousNerve impulses do not travel at the speed of light like electricity. You will feel a smack to the face sooner than a stubbed toe because of a shorter nerve pathway.
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why many malls are closing across us?
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Because no one goes to them anymore. Why would we? We can get the best stuff online and not have to deal with a damn mall.
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How can Hooters hire strictly female servers without getting into some kind of legal trouble concerning discrimination?
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There's a provision in the law which says > Notwithstanding any other provision it shall not be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to hire and employ employees on the basis of his religion, sex, or national origin in those certain instances where religion, sex, or national origin is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of that particular business or enterprise ) This means that you're free to use sex discrimination, if your business model *requires* people of a certain sex. The business model of Hooters is "boobs selling you chicken wings"; people without boobs can't do that.I believe hooters isn't legally a restaurant, and instead is taxed and zoned as an entertainment establishment that is licensed to provide food. Thus rather then being legally bound to hire servers without discriminating by gender or whatever they can hire people who fit the 'role'. Its the same reason Disney world doesn't have to hire dudes to play the princess' and strip clubs don't have to have male dancers.They settled a class action lawsuit in 1997 for near 4 million over it, and got sued again in 2009 for the same thing, and settled for an undisclosed amount. I think you can basically get free money by applying there as a guy. What they should be doing is hiring dudes and making them wear the trademark orange hotpants and huge cleavage tiny shirts the ladies wear to shame the guys into going the fuck away.
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I grew up thinking that turning off your engine for a short stop only uses more fuel. How are the current start-stop functions a good idea if this is true?
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This is still true. Cars with automatic start-stop function won't stop again if the last start was not long enough ago.
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Why isn't the insurance industry lobbying heavily to stop climate change?
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First a brief review about how the insurance industry works: * If I'm an insurance company, and you are purchasing property insurance from me, then I need to calculate how much I'm going to charge you for this insurance.* This calculation involves certain variables, but it basically boils down to this: How likely is it that you will file a claim?* If it is very likely, then I will charge a lot for the insurance policy. If it is very unlikely, then I will charge very little for the insurance policy.* For example, if you live in the desert away from water and want to buy flood insurance, I would not charge you very much. If you live on the beach and want to buy flood insurance, I would charge a lot. How does climate change factor into this? Well, the people at the insurance company are very smart. They study something called actuarial science and work very hard to figure out how to offer the best price for their policies and still make profit for the insurance company. If climate change is causing an increase in the number of storms to hit the east coast, then that will factor into the calculations. In other words, climate change will cause your insurance premiums to go up, it will not cause the insurance companies to go bankrupt unless they fail to predict the change. So, there is no need to lobby the government to do something about CO2 emissions or environmental pollution it would just be a waste of their money. The insurance companies are going to be profitable no matter what, as long as they can do a good enough job of predicting what is coming.NPR reported yesterday on the fact that many insurance agencies are, in fact, doing just this.
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Why are houses in older communities so spaced out in age, compared to newer neighborhoods?(US)
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Most neighborhoods built after the 1950s, ie subdivisions in the suburbs, are built all at once. Meaning they will all be built within a year of each other and use 1-5 building plans. Homes built in cities or on privately owned lots outside the city limits that are not a part of a subdivision are built as the owner wants them built so can vary decades from the homes around them. So yes, it is because people buy and build their homes independently rather than through a planned neighborhood. And that is not a thing of the past. You still build independently when you are not buying through a subdivisionMany older neighborhoods started out with much larger lots for each house. As time went on the lots were divided up and newer houses built on the new, smaller lots.
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If every other human was immediately killed, how long would it take for me to lose electricity, water, internet, cell signal etc.
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Electricity cell and internet very quickly. Electrical plants require a lot of human intervention to function and many have failsafes that will automatically shut them down. So days, and electricity takes the internet and cell phones down with it. Water depends on location. Water pressure comes from a large water tank and until the tank runs dry or a pipe breaks you will have water. It won't be potable for long though, without chemical additives algae will start to grow in the tanks. Food will last for years. You will be able to keep scavenging canned goods and dried survival gear from outdoors stores for a long time before you need to learn how to hunt, dress game and grow vegetables on your own.
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What is stopping any one from dropping another A bomb?
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The knowledge that if they do, an A-bomb will be dropped on them. It's called MAD and it's actually kind of worked so far. When many of the world's largest countries can fire within a few minutes, there's no guarantee that the person who orders a nuke won't be nuked themselves before they can get to safety.Mutually assured destruction. The crude A-bombs we used at the end of WWII are a thousand times less powerful than some of our modern nukes. If any nation escalates to using nukes, they risk every other nation with nukes retaliating to stop them. There is no "winning" a nuclear conflict.Besides from the fact that there hasn't really been a valid reason, there has been many different treaties involved attempting to disarm the world of atomic weapons and the act of launching a nuke even for testing now a days will cause massive amounts of diplomatic back heading in all directions.
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why are ad videos shown without problem on my phone but when the video starts the internet becomes slow?
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Because ads are cached, because they are smaller and loaded more frequently than videos. Moreover, they doesn't come from the targeted site but from an API that is [probably geographically closer to you than the site server].
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why does being upset mentally cause physical symptoms of sickness?
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Mental upset causes your body to release stress hormone. Prolonged presence of stress hormone triggers shut down of digestive functions which causes the diarrhoea, loss of appetite, inappropriate reaction to certain foods, ect. It also alters brain functions which can cause headaches, brain fog, ect. The immune system also has reduced functioning making you prone to infection, which may result in additional symptoms later on. There's also the effect it has on the heart and muscles, changes in blood pressure, ect. These can cause you to feel dizzy, light headed, chest pain, muscle tightening, muscle soreness, ect.
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Why is there such a lack of the color blue in nature?
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Simply put:It's quite expensive, biologically speaking. This will probably get removed for not being specific enough or something, but that sums it up.Are all the oceans, and the entire sky not included in this nature you speak of?Part of the explanation\xa0for this is how most plants convert sunlight into energy for growth. This process, called photosynthesis , involves plants using chlorophyll molecules and chemically converting the light energy, carbon dioxide, and water to create sugars. A\xa0chlorophyll molecule absorbs the violet-blue and red-orange areas of the light’s\xa0visual spectrum, but not the green wavelengths. When we look at these plants, we see the color green because that is the part of the visible spectrum being reflected back, whereas blue and red are being absorbedBecause the color blue for most animals is achieved through a system of nano structures that "trap" other colors, rather than just being a pigment. In plants, there's a pigment called [anthocyanin] that can be reddish, purplish, or bluish depending on pHHave you seen peacocks? butterflies ? Flowers ?
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Why insane persons cannot be executed via capital punishment when the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) prohibits discrimination?
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That's a hell of a cross-connection! The ADA prohibits _situational_ discrimination. It is not a thing that says "you can't treat people differently". So..thats part of it. There are five titled areas of the ADA, each covering these specific circumstances. The application of criminal justice isn't one of them. Even further, the ADA requires reasonable accomodation, and I know of no case where a person who is sufficiently insane to get off on the "insanity plea" could be "reasonably accommodated". Further, the law you are citing isn't about insane persons per se . It's about being in a state of mind at the time of the crime where you can reasonably be held accountable for your actions - where you understood the repercussion/consequences of what you were doing etc. Insanity is then very strong evidence for that, but the law is not "if you are a person who has mental illness you cannot be executed".You probably need to read the ADA of 1990 -- it has major provisions for telecoms, employment, public entities, and public accommodations -- there's no subsection that covers insanity and execution. Basically, the ADA covers treating people differently in daily life. Capitol trials are not daily life.
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How do gas turbine engines work?
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All internal combustion engines work on a very simple principle. Suck, squeeze, bang, blow. Turbine engines suck in air, squeeze it between spinning blades, ignite fuel, and then blow it out of the back. The spinning blades compress the air between stationary blades. When air is compressed, it gets hot. With enough compression, you can get the air hot enough to ignite fuel. When the fuel ignites, the heat causes the gasses to expand quickly. Those expanding gasses are sent through more blades in the back that keep everything spinning . Jet airplanes use the actual exhaust gasses to create the thrust. Helicopters, tanks, power generators, etc instead use the spinning shaft of the engine itself to do whatever work needs to be done.
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What is this whole trend about bashing game developers for "unfinished games"?
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Traditionally, this is for console games . Basically, console games nearly always enter a pre-order phase well in advance of release. This is to give the developers more money, so they can give you more content than you would have normally gotten had you been one of the unfortunates who actually wait until the game is released. This model seems fine. It's money you likely were going to spend anyway, and you're going to get something extra for getting in on the action early and giving a boost to the developer. However, more and more games are being released in an unfinished state because of pressure by the publisher to release by a specific date. Probably the most infamous of these is Assassin's Creed Unity. This had serious problems [Like when your face doesn't even show up]. Basically, pre-ordering is rewarding publishers who put out unfinished product.
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What is an RPG (role-playing game)?
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No, Call of Duty isn't seen as a role playing game. The big reason is because those playing a role playing game have at least some decision making in the direction the game takes even if it has a predefined end point. In Call of Duty you just have separate missions to take part in and the games are basically on rails. So from that a RPG is a game in which the player has at least some decision making abilities in how the game plays out. This can be through a branching storyline, skills, etc that can be worked on and increased, a sense that you're living the character's life, etc. They don't all have to be part of a game to make it a role playing game, but the first one, the decision making, is a pretty big one.Going off what panzerkampfwagen said, a role-playing game 30 years ago was something like Dungeons & Dragons, a game where you built a character and participated in role-playing and adventuring in the comfort of your own home, sitting around a table with your buddies. Video-games that are called RPGs are based on the mechanics of these original table-top games, and therefore share the same name, even if character creation is not always the main focus.RPGs tend to have a level-up element, where characters gain experience points throughout the game and upon leveling up, you can assign stat/attribute points and/or unlock new abilities. Even though games like Pokemon don't have branching storylines that are based on your characters' actions, you have the RPG element in leveling up pokemons, learning new attacks, and evolutions.
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How does a choke on a carburetor work, and why is it necessary?
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A carburetor is a calibrated device that delivers a set amount of fuel per unit of air passing through it. Cold engines need a richer mix to start up. The choke closes to block some of the air from entering the engine to richen the mix and allow the engine to startYour carburetor mixes fuel with air to form a vapor that is detonated in the cylinder. If your mix is too lean, you might not get enough power, or it might not detonate at all. If your mix is too rich, it can waste fuel, not detonate cleanly, or not detonate at all. When an engine is cold, it is harder to get the vapor form in colder air. The choke temporarily enriches the mix by restricting air intake , which makes it easier to form the necessary vapor. Once the engine heats up, the mix is restored. Some carburetors use a different mechanism for this than restricting the air intake. Technically they don't choke anything, but they are usually still called a choke, or sometimes an enricherSimple explanation: closing the air hole makes more suction on the fuel hole. Causing engine to rev and suck even more fuel. This makes everything heat up a bit and allowing it to run better once you let it have its air again
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What are the legal/tax differences between civil unions and marriage?
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Some states have civil unions that are marriages in all but name; others have differences that vary by state, and still others have limited domestic partner benefits/protections. The main constant is that - because of DOMA - all federal taxes are assessed as a non-married couple. You can live in a state where your civil union gives you state taxes like any married couple, but the federal government still treats you like two unaffiliated individuals.There are 1,138 federal rights granted to 'married' couples which are explicitly denied to same sex couples as the federal government does not recognize anything other than one man/one woman under DOMA. [Source]
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Why do critic reviews and fan reviews tend to differ so greatly in media such as TV, movies, and games?
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Because they're reviewing different things. It's basically the difference between a professional and a layperson. This *is* simplified, but you can apply it to, say, cars. A regular person will see a car and go "Wow, that thing's so sleek and shiny and goes fast!" and a professional mechanic will say "That car has junk components and will be in the shop half the time." Likewise you may think a car is an ugly rust-bucket but a mechanic will tell you that the same car is 20+ years old, never needed any mechanical repairs and is still going strong. It's the same for movies. Regular viewers will look at very superficial things. Fans might pay more attention to, well, fanservice. *Critics* will look for the more *artistic* components of a movie. And these can be completely present, or completely *lacking* from a successful blockbusterCritics are generally more educated about their topic, have seen many, many more of them, often know the people involved in creating it personally, and have a financial interest in the industry as a whole, and accordingly treat the experience differently from fans. But the single biggest reason is that fans only go to see media that interest them and comment about those that give them a strong reaction, whereas critics are tasked with reviewing whatever comes out. So the fan reviews are typically going to be those which are strongly positive or negative because the people in the middle just shrug and move on.
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If Android is just an OS on the Hardware that is my phone, how is it possible to 'brick' it?
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In your PC, you have two operating systems; the one you are familiar with and work with every day , and then there is the BIOS. The BIOS handles computing before your main OS loads. It shows the boot screen and tells you if a hard drive is unplugged or something. If you want to load a different OS from a different disk, or want to wipe your drive and install a new OS, your BIOS will let you do that. Smartphones have a BIOS as well, however, many of them are programmed to only load the Android OS as specified from the manufactorer or service provider . To load custom versions of Android, we need to overwrite the phone's BIOS so we remove that restriction. When overwriting the phone's BIOS, if something happens , then it may get bricked. So, essentially, if you screw up updating the part of your phone that tells it how to boot up, then it might not boot up again.
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Why does it feel faster traveling home then traveling to a certain location?
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I'm from Long Island NY. A month ago I went to visit my friend at American University . The ride there felt pretty long. The ride back didn't seem nearly as time consuming. I think it's because on the way there I didn't know any of the places we were passing. On the way back I would see something and think, "Oh we're getting closer". So it feels longer because you don't have any point of reference which makes you think "We 've been driving for hours and I don't know where we are so we very well COULD have to keep driving for another long period of time."
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Why do movie studios opt for CGI when it seems like practical affects would be cheaper, easier for actors to work with, and preferred by audiences?
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Because CGI generally does look better the reason alot of people think practical effects are better is because we only notice bad CGIPractical effects are generally not cheaper. At least not in modernity. They are also very difficult on the actors. You are looking at hours of time applying the practical and hours of time removing it every day of filming. Some things could take up to 4 hours each side. On top of 6-10 hours of filming that is an insane amount of time. And also the modern methods that look best are a mix. You use practical and CGI together.
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Why does acupuncture work?
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There is no sound evidence suggesting that acupuncture works for anything other than as a placeboBecause when the needles are removed, you no longer have hundreds of tiny swords stabbing you all over your naked body, which tends to feel pretty nice. I joke, I joke.
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How come we can multiply by zero, but we can't divide by it?
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It helps to think about what division actually means. If I write, say, 6 ÷ 3 = 2, what do I mean by that? Well, I mean that, if you multiply 2 by 3, you'll get 6. In other words, 6 ÷ 3 represents "the number that, when multiplied by 3, gives you 6". Obviously there is only one such number. But with zero, you run into trouble. Zero times anything is still zero, so if I write something like 6 ÷ 0 there is no number that does the job. And if I write 0 ÷ 0, *every* number does the job. Multiplying by zero "forgets" information about what you multiplied by, and thus cannot be undone by division.Division by zero in the usual sense is undefined. Dividing 0 objects into any nonzero number of objects doesn't make sense. However, some sense can be made of division by zero in the context of limits and the extended real line. Then division by zero can be viewed as infinity, either signed or unsigned.
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