query stringlengths 8 249 | answer stringlengths 45 7.8k |
|---|---|
Aside from advertising, how do political parties spend their donation money? | They hold special events that can be either public or restricted to donors. They also have to pay for their staff, travel, reserving venues for public appearances, etc. |
The European Exchange Rate Mechanism, or EMR. | The ERM was a semi-fixed rate exchange rate system , in which the currencies of Europe were pegged to a central rate. For example, Sterling was allowed to be ±6% of the value of the Deutsche Mark. The ERM was started in 1979, but as with everything, we were late to the party and joined in 1990. Straight away, we had to... |
FDR's "New Deal" | TL;DR verison: The "New Deal" was the government trying to help get the country's economy out of a major depression. When FDR took office, the economy had crashed years ago, and still had not recovered. The previous president had a "hands off" economic policy that said government should stay out of the economy as much ... |
How is it possible that the particle accelerator at CERN can resist 2 billion celsius? | It's not a gallon of some liquid at that temperature. It's a few particles at that temperature. They are charged particles and so they can be kept from contacting the sides of the vacuum chamber by electromagnetic fields. |
How does imposing a 20% tax on Mexican imports, WHICH will be paid BY American Citizens, make Mexico pay for the wall? | It's not a direct form of taking payment from Mexico. However a steep tarrif like that will strongly urge buisness to move out of Mexico , and cause Mexico to lose a lot of revenue from exports to the US. Either way, the end goal of financially punishing Mexico is achieved.Europe put huge tariffs on farm produce from A... |
How do people live a life of adventure and extreme activity? | They A) can finance that sort of trip B) don't have commitments that attach them to a specific area C) value experiences more than material possessions D) aren't afraid to take those risks |
Why does 9 - 5 = 4 (read more) | If you have 9 apples, but remove 5, you're left with 4. But if you have 5 apples, and want to have 9 apples, you need to add 4 apples, namely apple #6, #7, #8, and #9 you don't need to add apple #5, you already have it.no one has mentioned this yet, but but when counting from 5 to 9 on the number line, 5 is your metaph... |
Why does smacking an unresponsive remote control make it work? | Your remote control may have what's called an *intermittent contact* where some of the metal bits may no longer touch each other well enough to transmit electricity. Smacking it can make them touch better, making the circuitry work.In the case of a remote, you 've probably got a poor connection between the batteries an... |
If the United States is experiencing a national health crisis, why don't we subsidize gyms? | Giving gyms money does not guarantee people will use gyms. If fat people wanted to exercise, there are free ways to do that ', "Playing the devil's advocate here. How would we ensure people would regularly use said gyms? |
Do planes make a shadow, and if they do, where on the ground is it? | They do make shadows. The shadows move very fast though. I live near an airport and every now and then it lines up perfectly where a plane flying gets between me and the sun, and for the briefest moment all the sunlight is blocked from coming into my apartment. If you blinked, youd miss it. But its really neat when it ... |
Does turning your volume up on your headphones use up more battery on your phone? | Yes. The headphone drivers are powered by the headphone output of the phone. This has a tiny amplifier that runs off the phone battery. As the volume is increased, more power is sent to the drivers, which means the headphone amplifier is drawing more power from the battery. Worth mentioning, compared to the screen and ... |
When we get hunger pangs, is it only because there is no food in our stomach or because we need energy and nutrients? | Basically, your stomach has "sensors" that let your brain know it's full of food. However, our stomachs evolved to eat simple proteins and vegetation, which are very light in calories and high in nutrition. The calorie-and-carb-dense food that we eat in the modern day provides many times our caloric need, but not even ... |
How does using Bluetooth improve location accuracy? | It adds another data source to the location information. Already current versions use not just GPS but also cellphone towers, and Wifi networks to be able to better locate you. The hope is that BT will add a similar enhancement in accuracyThe main place that Bluetooth will help improve accuracy is indoors. GPS is fairl... |
Why can it snow when it's 33 degrees, but it's rain at 29 degrees? | When we measure air temperature for official weather readings it is taken pretty much near ground level, and in the shade. The temperature in the air above the surface can be warmer than the surface temperature and melt the snow as it comes through when the temps are slightly under freezing. Similarly, when the tempera... |
Why are people so fascinated with murder, gore, and other generally unwanted extremes of humanity? | Alan Watts said something about Romans having access to all kinds of pleasure and how when pleasure becomes normal the only thing that's left is violence. They had the circus -watching lions eat slaves; we have violent everything. |
Why do humans gamble? | Two separate factors. First, betting is a major evolutionary factor for mankind. In the wold, we'd live on the edge of starvation, risking our lives to expend all the energy to find, track, chase, and kill prey animals. That's a pretty massive bet on its own, though it is at least somewhat skill based. Second, humans a... |
Can you win a lawsuit without fighting it? | If you don't appear, the plaintiff will ask the judge to enter a default judgment. Normally the judge agrees to that because he assumes that the facts are more-or-less as the plaintiff has stated them, but it's possible for the judge to decide that the plaintiff simply has no plausible legal claim. The judge is not *re... |
How is it possible to catch a ball without ever looking at your hands? | We actually have more than 5 senses. One of the other senses is [proprioception.] You can feel where your body parts are without looking at them.Bend your elbow. Close your eyes and tell me if your elbow is bent. You can't see it, but your body does have sensors that let's your brain know where your body is in space. Y... |
If McDonalds food is fresh off the farm then frozen like they claim, why is it still SO bad for you? | Just because it's "natural" doesn't mean it's "healthy". It's still full of fat and calories and low on vitamins and other nutrition.> Everyone knows McDonalds is bad for you. False. McDonald's isn't particular bad for you. It doesn't make for well balanced meal, being high fat, sodium and calories, but nutritionally, ... |
Why is it that most of the educational videos we see in school seem to be those really old school ones from the 80s and 90s? | All I can say is that when I was in school back in the 70's, all the films we saw were from the 1960's! And not the fun 60's but the buzz cut, yes sir/no sir, non-colorized 60's. You'd think that the 'net would make it easy for schools to show newer material. |
When Apple says iPhone X has a "neural engine" what does this actually mean? | It's a bunch of marketing speak to make it sound mind-blowingly good. They used a neural network for facial recognition. Neural networks are extremely complicated mathematical functions that aim to emulate how a human brain works. It takes tonnes of input which allows for the neural network to perform extremely fast an... |
Why is the speed of light the same regardless of what's creating the light? | Mathematically, the speed of light **has** to be constant. This comes from [Maxwell's Equations], which govern how electric and magnetic fields behave. In non super mathy terms, this is what they mean. 1. Strength of an electric field depends on the charge nearby. 2. A magnet always has a north and south pole. 3. An el... |
Why does it seem that black cars are more reflective than white cars? | Think about looking at your reflection in a window. If it's dark inside of the window, it's pretty easy to see your reflection because most of the light coming to your from the glass is from the reflection. If someone turns on the light, or it's bright behind the window, most of the light is coming through the glass fr... |
Why does moving your hair hurt after having a hat on for a while. | Could be wrong. But I believe it might be the follicles being forced into an awkward position and getting used to that. So when you take the helmet off and try to rearrange them they resist to the change resulting in nerves being poked saying "we're trying to get used to this"Likely wrong, but that's what I believeDoes... |
Why do soft cookies get hard, and hard cookies get soft after a period of time? | Soft ones dry out; hard ones absorb moisture from the air. Believe it or not, this precise question was central to a lawsuit over taxes. In the UK, as I understand it, biscuits are taxed at one rate and cakes at another, lower rate. By showing that Jaffa Cakes get harder rather than softer over time, the case was made ... |
How do game developers set up servers all around the world? | Yes, having been working at a Game Service Provider, it is best to have the game server as close as possible to those who would use it so the latency our ping is as low as possible. This ensures the gamer has the best response time in game, experiences no lag, and the server can offer the best performance in game. Ther... |
Can we have multiple internets or is it like the highlander and there can be only one, and why? | We have many internets. The Comcast network is different from the FIOS network, and so forth. The networks have connections so that it seems like one big network, but that's all a simplification for users. |
What is the difference between a sting and entrapment? | Entrapment is when they get you to do something "You wouldn't do anyway." Like if they leave a car where you can steal it, and you choose to steal it, and they arrest you for stealing the car, that is a sting. If they tell you that you can have the car, *go ahead, Im giving it to you*, then you drive away and they arre... |
UK Energy - Is it possible to re-nationalize the UK's energy supply and what would the implications be? | What would be the aim of re-nationalising it ? Its going to cost a hell of a lot of money and there is an awful lot more needed to upgrade the infrastructure over the coming years like the recently announced new nuclear station. The energy industry is split in to two parts - retail and wholesale. Retail buy from the wh... |
Why are things sometimes clearer in peripheral vision? | Vision is made possible by two types of photoreceptor cells in your eyes: rods and cones. For the purposes of your question, the heart of which is being able to see things in low-light better with your peripheral vision, the main difference is that rods are much more sensitive to light than cones are. There are, of cou... |
Why does Imgur regularly contain posts with 10,000+ upvotes while Reddit rarely gets above 5,000 even though it has a much smaller community? | The vote counts on reddit aren't real. I think they're fudged to make for better a better /top. As the amount of people here grows, so does the amount of votes a story is going to receive. So without some adjustment, /top would heavily depend on the size of reddit's userbase, and little on the actual quality. |
How social security numbers are created for a person upon birth | It used to be entirely sequential by SSN offices. The office would have the first [3 digits assigned], so everyone assigned a number in that region would have the same first 3 digits. The next two digits often were often used for more specific zip codes, but this varied by offices. The final 4 used to be assigned based... |
Why do bugs that breed and nest in certain types of trees colonize houses made of a different material? | Firstly, most houses are made of wood, which means they're fair game for colonising. For other materials, they just need something they can mould. Plaster's much easier to chew and reshape than wood is. You also have the advantage that you're near a source of food and a source of warmth . |
How does wind actually work | Basically, air is moving so it displaces other air in a sequence. Like a ball hitting a ball, opposite and opposite reaction to movement |
Why are there so many nice cars in places like Dubai? | Neither. There is a **lot** of money in Dubai. It's an oil-rich town. They're the real deals, and they're not discounted. It's just a town with a lot of incredibly rich people.Wealth distribution in Duabi is not the same as in most western nations. In addition, the vast majority of the population of Dubai are not "ethn... |
When planes fly low, why is it harder to detect them? | The Earth is round. So the land and even the ocean curves away from you. This is obvious if you are out at sea and looking at another ship. If it is far away you can not see its waterline. And if it is really far away you can only see the masts as the rest of the boat is bellow the horizon. This also applies to radars ... |
Why do our teeth “hurt” after eating something cold? | First of all, you shouldn't feel pain with cold. If you do, you should see a dentist. Your tooth has pulp which contains the blood supply and the nerves. When tooth pulp is inflamed due to disease, usually cavities, it becomes hypersensitive and the cold can trigger a strong pain response. It also doesn't help that whe... |
Is there a mathematical link between the pitch of a musical note and it's duration? | Yes, there is. A pure tone must extend *infinitely* in the time domain. In other words, it must be a true sine function, which never ends. If you want a sound that is very sharp in the time domain , you have to add a lot of frequencies together. To get between the time and frequency domains, you do a Fourier transform.... |
When you have a stuffed nose, why is it that one nostril is always blocked/more blocked | Importantly, the blockage is not "stuff" that's clogging up the nostril; it's the lining of the nose swelling up and closing off the airway. There are two important facts to know about blocked noses: 1. There's something called the "nasal cycle" that occurs normally, where the mucus membrane in your nostrils swells sli... |
Why does bacteria grow faster at certain temperature? | All bacteria have certain temperatures that their enzymes, or proteins in their bodies which process nutrients and other things perform at the maximum rate. As the environment temperature increases, enzyme action increases until it reaches a high enough temperature that enzymes denature, meaning that their substrate ar... |
If a teenager is sentenced to prison, what will they do once their out? | They offer GED courses and even college courses while you are in prison. They could actually leave prison with several college degrees if they are serving 10-15 years. And there are 3 purposes for a prison. 1) Punishment for wrong doing. 2) removing a threat from society. 3) Rehabilitation.Some prisons have GED, and ev... |
How is Verizon and Comcasts speed throttling no t illegal? | You signed an agreement about limitations and their liberties with the serviceThe service you are paying for clearly states "up-to" a certain speed. |
Why are online casinos and online poker rooms illegal in the USA, yet paid sports fantasy leagues are legal? | The honest answer? Because republicans snuck the legislation in at the last minute, tacking it on as a rider to a port security bill. _URL_0_ The bigger theory is Sheldon Adelson saw online gaming as a huge threat to Vegas and so he was giving the republicans a shitload of ~~bribes~~ campaign contributions and expected... |
Why haven't human populations who have lived in areas without clean water evolved to be able to drink it safely, while other animals have? | It's simple: they haven't. Those animals *do* get sick from it. They are infected with parasites, they often die young to preventable disease, they are very often sick.Humans have evolved to be able to either clean the water of move to where clean water is.Here's a picture of my trip to Ghana several years ago: [Link] ... |
When my ears ring, what am I actually hearing? | We have 2 types of hair cells in our ear. One is in the inner ear's liquid, and the other is in the "outer" ear touching the air. Now only the hair cells that are touching the air directly are capable of producing vibrations. Our ear isn't always perfect, so sometimes the sensitivity of the hair cells is amplified and ... |
Why modems had to make noise | A modem is a MODulator/DEModulator. It took the digital signal from the computer and turned it into an audio signal for the analog phone network. The audio and static sound generated the electrical impulses on the phone line. On the receiving end, those analog electrical impulses were converted back into a digital sign... |
How are currency conversion rates calculated? | It's a market. So if I want to buy 100 euros for 115 us dollars, I can put in a buy order, if someone else feels this is a fair price, they will buy the dollars off of me. Mabye there is someone who really needs us dollars, and they would be willing to buy 110 us dollars for 100 euros because they want to buy something... |
How can Louisiana try someone for the same crime three times? | He was convicted twice, but each time the conviction was reversed due to errors. When a conviction is reversed, double jeopardy is not usually implicated and the defendant may be tried again. |
How astronomers can see events that happened over hundreds of thousands or more years in a brief span | It's not that they can watch a process that happens that slowly, but they can see various stages of it happening in many different places, and build models that explain what's happening. If you sit on a park bench you won't be able to watch a single person grow old, but you'll be able to see some babies, some teenagers... |
Is C, the speed of light in a vacuum, anything more than a theoretical, mathematical maximum? | Early measurements of the speed of light did indeed have this problem. But as measurements have become more accurate, scientists have found ways around it. Since the 1850s, scientists have measured the speed of light using the magnetic permeability and electric permittivity of free space - a method which gave more accu... |
why does gold of the same amount of karats look different colors? | The carat unit is the level of purity of the gold. If it's less than pure gold then the gold has been mixed with other metals. The various other metals create variation of colors. |
Why does a string of ribbon or paper curl up when I scratch scissors along it? | One side of the material gets stretched and elongates slightly, the side not in contact with the scissors is relatively unaffected. The difference in length between the two sides causes the ribbon/paper/hair/whatever to curl, kind of like heating one side of a sheet of metal. |
When looking at used car ads, I see many claims of "highway miles." Is prolonged use at high RPMs better for the car than short stop-and-go use? Why? | Engines are designed to work optimally at running temperature and a certain RPM. If you run it on lower speed and lower temperatures it will not get efficient combustion and start making sot and tar instead of clean exhaust products. You might notice the exhaust getting black if the car have just started or have been i... |
Why is heat dissipation such a problem for scientists and engineers? | The real problem isn't heat dissipation, it's the *cost* of heat dissipation. We know how to effectively dissipate heat. Liquid and cryo-cooling both work extremely well. But they are expensive.Heat can not be turned into electricity. A heat difference can. Think about heat like water. You can build a dam to produce po... |
Why is bankruptcy protection for student loans bad for students and the economy? | It's not. It's bad for the holders of the loans. The holders of the loans are the government, and those who have legislative influence in the matter, therefore the current regulations will continue. As far as the money-will-dry-up argument Right now I think the default rate is something like 13%-14% it would undoubtedl... |
Why is it such a common dream sensation to 'fall' right before you wake up? | As monkeys we slept in trees to stay away from predators. When we slept in trees we would sometimes fall. Our bodies adapted to this by recognizing the early signs of falling and jerked ourselves back to consciousness. The reason we do it now is some sort of echo of a time beforeI hit the bottom one time, but in my dre... |
Why do beverages taste best when chilled. | The same drink, served hot and cold, will taste slightly different, due to taste and smell operating a little differently with compounds at different temperatures, and due to actual compounds in the drink behaving differently. As a simple example, in a cup of coffee, many of the more subtle tastes are present and obvio... |
How can we sing or use musical instruments to a rhythmic beat accurately ? | Can you pick up the beat the instant you hear the music? No, you just listen to it and predict when the next beat is. Kind of like how you catch things, you predict what will happen and act accordingly. |
How did salt water become salty? Why is there so much more salt water than fresh water? | Salt in the ocean comes from rocks on land. The rain that falls on the land contains some dissolved carbon dioxide from the surrounding air. This causes the rainwater to be slightly acidic due to carbonic acid . As the rain erodes the rock, acids in the rainwater break down the rock. This process creates ions, or elect... |
How is TV static from the big bang? | Most of the TV static is from the amplifier itself; only ~1% of that is cosmic background radiation. CBR is spread across a pretty wide band, 0.3 GHz to 630 GHz, which broadcast TV is within that band. It's also really quiet, which is why almost all the static is local electrical noise. |
How did AutoCAD become the industry standard for drafting when it is horrendously buggy and prone to crashing? | I used the Autocad 13 version in the early 2000s at school. It does not matter how buggy it is if it is the only program available, or the program that managed to get into the school. It was one of the first digital drafting programs to gain any kind of success, and they cut a lot of price deals to get into schools mea... |
Why do construction workers block off all of the lanes except one, and do no work to the roads? | They leave a lane open so they don't have to completely close the road. And they will be doing work you just only remember the times when you don't see it. It's an actual psychological thing where you thing somethings happening and then only remember the times when that's supported even if they're very rare. |
What happens at a molecular level when an object's colour fades due to sun exposure? | The radiation from the nuclear blast which you humans call your sun separates the pigments of the fabric by knocking away the bonds between the various elementsSun rays can destroy molecules; you know, the tiny things everything is made of. Everthing that has a color has it because of the molecules it is made of. So if... |
How do polders create more land? | You build a large water-resistant wall around the area, and then you use pumps to remove the water. As a draining help, if the local tides are really huge you can open floodgates in your walls when the local tide is lower than in your polder. |
Why don't gas stations just raise the price of gas 1/10th of a cent to make it an even number? | The same reason everything in stores is 3.99 instead of $4.00 - psychology. Your brain sees 3 instead of 4 and it seems smaller, even though it's literally 0.25% different. With gas, 2.99 9/10 seems cheaper than 3.00, so you're more likely to buy. |
If cold fusion was developed, would oil-based economies like Saudi Arabia collapse? | Saudi Arabia and other countries that have a heavy reliance on oil as an export have been building up their monetary reserves and investing it in other markets because of the concern that eventually the world will move on from oil. Would it collapse the oil industry not completely and not immediatelyit would hurt their... |
Why does Japan have such an affinity for baseball? | Baseball has been popular in Japan since the late nineteenth century. It certainly was not something first introduced only after World War II. Since the 1920s there's been regular baseball championship games among Japanese middle schools and universities. Babe Ruth visited Japan in the 1930s to great acclaim. Even duri... |
What do soccer fans get out of throwing flares on the field? | 1. Throwing flares are just an aggressive show of support for their team. 2. There are tens of thousands of fans to be completely checked properly so as a result some people will still get away with it. You might want to read this as well:_URL_0_ This should help :D |
why does yellow seem brighter than other colors? | You have 4 basic types of light receptors in your eyes. Rods, Red Cones, Blue Cones and Green Cones. The Rods are used for night vision and edge detection, and the Cones detect the color they are named for. Different cones have different sensitivities, and the Green Cones are most sensitive, followed by Red, followed b... |
How is it that my Cholula Hot Sauce (or any condiment, for that matter) has zero calories per serving? | The serving size for hot sauce is probably very small, a quarter teaspoon or so. It there's less than 5 calories in the amount of a serving, the FDA allows it to be rounded down to zero.Calories come from the three macronutirents: fat, protien and carbohydrates. Not everything used in food contains those things. |
Why do guys get random boners throughout the day | There are three types if erections. Some are sexual, some occur during periods of nervous tension. There’s a mysterious third kind, that no one really understands. It happens when your schlong decides to take matters into its own hands. [No Reason Boner] |
Hydrogen bombs, what are they and why are they dangerous? | Hydrogen bombs harness the power of nuclear fusion by compressing a core made of hydrogen isotopes using a fission powered explosion. You know the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Times that by 1000 for your average hydrogen nuke. |
How is the speed limit enforced by a camera? | The "camera" is actually a laser that pings off of typically the plate on your vehicle. The time that it takes the laser to return to the camera determines distance, so it pulses a few times and compares the distances over the time that the measurements are taken to derive the speed. rate = distance x timer=d*tThere is... |
why does stubing your toe hurt more than it seems? | You have more nerve endings in your hands and feet because those are the places that interact with objects and the world, so when you whack your toe on something you feel it more than you would if you whacked your knee or your heel. That's what I've always been told, but I'm not an anatomy person so if anyone knows bet... |
How is water wasted? | The water coming out of your shower is filtered, cleaned and treated water. It takes energy and resources to filter and treat the water you use, and letting a lot of it go down the drain unused means that more energy and resources will have to be spent to replace the *treated* water. In most places, the water that goes... |
Everything has Sodium Laureth Sulfate in it. What's the real difference between hand soap, shampoo and body wash? | Sodium laureth sulfate is what is called a wetting agent. Together with various chemical compounds that break surface tension and make emulsions, it becomes very effective at making the soap bubbles and lather. The thing about hair and skin is that it is hydrophobic, so water can't really rinse off dirt and grime as ea... |
Why is it such a huge deal that scientists have taken a picture of molecular bonds? | Science involves taking data and building conceptual models to explain its behavior and to predict future events. Our models suggested how they would look, but now we can directly see it. In analogy we flipped to the back of the book and checked our answers, and they were right!Not only is this taking pictures of bonds... |
Why did some low scoring applicants who were white get admitted to UT while Abigail Fisher didn't? | Because grades and scores aren't the only thing college's looked at. If that were the case a computer could do it. Essays, tone, extra curriculurs, clubs, volunteer work, activism, skills etc are all looked at. Homegirl just wasn't good enough and now she's playing the race card |
Why is the sun orange at dusk and yellow during the day? | First of all, if you look directly at the sun during the day , you'll see it's white, or very pale yellow, but not the yellow of a child's drawing. Gases and dust particles in the atmosphere scatter the shorter wavelengths of light coming from the sun, and this is what makes the sky appear blue. At dusk, the sun is at ... |
How does Terahertz Radiation work? | It works just like any other form of radiation, like microwaves or radio waves, just a different frequency/wavelength. The issue with treahertz is that there aren't any cost effective technologies to use the band as optics aren't sensitive enough and electronics aren't fast enough. It's very power-intensive to generate... |
difference between a virus, a bacteria and a parasite | A bacteria is a living organism with basic structures and can reproduce on its own and carry out functions as either a single unit or a group of cells. A virus is a nonliving cell that's essentially a mass of DNA surrounded by what is called a capsid--Basically their only function is to hijack a cell and make copies of... |
Why do manufacturers still make plugs that hog up the whole power strip? | Because customers have not sufficiently demonstrated to these manufacturers that this is an undesired design. Manufacturing a product which sells successfully is likely to continue indefinitely until the market changes. Preemptive product improvements will be tailored around expected future uses of the product, not per... |
Why do our joints crack? | [Source] When you pull the bones of a joint apart you are increasing the size of the space that the joint fluid is in, but since the fluid doesn't readily expand this results in very low pressure and a cavity is formed. It is actually the formation of this cavity that makes the sound. > “It’s a little bit like forming ... |
What exactly is happening when you do that pull back reload thing with a shotgun? | I assume you're talking about pumping a pump shotgun. You are manually loading a shell into the chamber. The shells are stored in a tube which sits below the barrel and on which the pump handle is attached. This is done because shotgun shells are plastic, so will deform if stored in a magazine for a long period of time... |
How to play music on many devices simultaneously? | Dunno if this is the right place for your post, but what I would do is have a smartphone for each speaker. You can make a website or simple app that will play an audio file at, say, 12:45 PM. If you aren't that tech savvy just have everyone set it as an alarm to play through the speakers. |
Why does music "motivate" people sometimes, but not always? | Rhythm like a basic beat can give you a goal of trying to keep up with it You start to notice that your steps are out of sync, and you internally say "this wont do" and try and match pace. Still takes will power but a good tune can help a lot |
Why do shows like "The Wonder Years" make me feel nostalgic even though they took place decades before I was born? | The wonder years is about suburban life, being a kid, and dealing with parents and girls. Not so much living in the 60s. Most of the things in there are universal issues young boys face and don't matter what decades ether are from.Our culture looks back to them time fondly. Subconsciously we know the references and hav... |
is swearing non pacifist? | Depends on your definition of "violence" so really you're both right in a way. If you don't consider swearing, whether it be at someone or just as emphasis, to be violence then you can tell anyone who says you're not a pacifist to go fuck themselves. Not that you would, because you're a pacifist. ^^^^It'saterriblejokei... |
What the hell is wrong with gluten? | Basically you can't have wheat without gluten. Celiac disease and gluten allergies are definitely part of the reason for gluten-free foods. There also seems to be a fad to eat less wheat/gluten. Wheat-free donuts, cupcakes and pasta exists just fyi Edit: I just saw the dumbest thing. Rice Krispies promoted their "brown... |
How were special effects in cinema done in the 80's 0/90's ? | Makeup, animatronics, models, hand-editing the film, lots of things depending on what movie and what effect. |
Why and how do lights flicker when faulty, and how does Hollywood recreate faulty lights for shows | This is caused by a [preheater] which doesn't function properly. When the lamp is ready to start up it sends a jolt, which starts the preheater. This jolt also lights up the gass in the light, after this the preheater kicks in and the light turns on properly. When the preheater is broken, you only see the flickr. And s... |
Why does water from a tap is whiter the stronger the stream is ? | The faucet has an aerator which mixes air into the water as it comes out. This is done to make it splash less and use less total water. When the stream is stronger, more air gets mixed in, and the bubbles make it look frothy and white. |
If a ballistic missile were to hit the island of Oahu in Hawaii, how much damage would be done? Would it wipe out the whole island? | You can play with [Nukemap] to see the effects of a bomb detonating over Oahu. The amount of damage depends on the size of the warhead. Something small like what North Korea has tested would only damage a small area of the island, but something in the Megaton range would give most people on the island 3rd degree burns,... |
What's the craic with Lucid Dreaming? | Lucid dreaming is when you are having a dream and you are aware that it is a dream, this means that you have a certain amount of influence on what happens/where you go and the people you encounter. Benefits include; the control you can develop, especially if you suffer from night terrors/nightmares or just dreams you d... |
How does a search engine "search"? | Google's computers spend all day "crawling" the web: starting from a specific set of pages, they grab data from the page and then follow links from that page to reach new pages. It's like a giant tree with billions of branches, the root of which is all but unknown. The result is a huge set of data structures containing... |
How has UCONN's NCAA Women's Basketball team managed to win 104 straight wins? | - Their coach has a reputation as someone who is very good at getting players to perform well, in addition to recruiting. - The WNBA has a higher minimum age than the NBA, so if a team gets great players, it can keep them for all 4 years, reducing the odds of having an off year. - Women's basketball has more scholarshi... |
What is the difference between a hive mind and a group of individuals working together? | A Hive Mind is a single entity in control of the actual minds of their subjects, forcing them to act even if they find the process painful and gruelling. Individuals working together is because they're just that: Individuals. They have the ability to think freely and against the work, and can oppose anybody or anything... |
How does the government (or whomever is in charge of money) know how much physical currency is out there? Money can get forever lost or brought over to another country. | For the reasons you have suggested, they don't really know. They know how much they've printed and how much they've taken back and destroyed but they have no way of knowing the exact amount circulating. |
Why is it cheaper to buy a new razor than a package of blades? | People are more likely to buy extra blades for the handle they already have, than buy a new razor altogether. Manufacturers practically want to give away handles because it means you'll likely buy their replacement head, even though they charge more. Quirk of human psychology that manufacturers took advantage of when s... |
My dog can't catch my cold. What prevents most pathogens from being able to infect multiple species? | Pathogens tend to evolve in parallel with their hosts, so a cold virus adapted by evolution to infect dogs is very unlikely to infect a human. It would be even less likely if it were adapted to infect reptiles or insects. HOWEVER, some pathogens can and do jump the species barrier. Avian influenza, for example, origina... |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.