query stringlengths 8 249 | answer stringlengths 45 7.8k |
|---|---|
What is a raspberry pi and why is it so significant? | They are very small, very cheap computers. They have very little processing power compared to more expensive devices, but they are powerful enough to run a basic desktop OS. You can use them for all sorts of things such as emulating old video games, or as a media player, a home automation controller. They also have gen... |
If iPhoto is MADE for my OS, why does it never run smoothly? | I too want to know this. Why the freezing, long load times, what is it doing that bogs it down? |
Why does your voice shake when under extreme amounts of stress or fear? | Your body kicks into the flight or fight response, giving you an adrenal boost. Your body initiates the flight or fight response whenever it senses a threat . Your body is saying "Ok, something isn't right here, I better release adrenaline to give me a temporary boost to run from or engage what is troubling me". You he... |
Why are some medicines safe during pregnancy while others are not and why do different sources disagree and what is safe and what is not? | Harmless medications cannot pass from the mothers circulation to the babies circulation OR they do pass but do not have any effect Harmful medications do pass through to the baby. From there many different harmful effects can occur, the biggest probably being deformities to the baby Scientists who create the drugs are ... |
How will we "switch" to IPv6, what changes will that require, and how will I be affected? | Right now we use **IPv4** but you propably knew that. This uses **4 bytes** and can essentially create **2^32 adresses**. Not all of which can be used in networks but that's not important. What is important is that this is **not enough**. So to resolve this we use what is called **NAT** which makes it possible to have ... |
Why do massages feel so damn good? | Massage makes us feel less stressed by decreasing a chemical associated with stress and makes us feel more euphoric by increasing the amount chemicals that are involved in pleasure. Anti-depressant medications actually work by slowing down the recycling process of these happy-inducing chemicals so that our brain can de... |
If tobacco products are so monumentally hazardous to people's health and government-funded research actively investigates how to mitigate it's use and risks, why isn't it just made illegal? | Because adults want to make decisions for themselves. There is already a large market for reselling of illegal cigarettes. Just like drug and alcohol prohibition, making tobacco illegal would put the entire market right into the palms of organized criminals. The gangs would become much more powerful as a result, since ... |
How poor people get large tax returns when they haven't earned much | There's two ways to get money back. Deductions and credits. Deductions reduce your taxable income. Credits are straight cash refunds |
Is it true that some Scandinavians are completely immune to AIDS? How? | Note: I 've tried to keep my explanation ELI5, but ultimately this is a very complex field, so I may slip at times. Links are to published journal articles, but are definitely not ELI5. Scandanavians as a population aren't immune. However, they do have a particular gene which seems to make them much less prone to infec... |
What is the Freddo curse | Freddos ate small chocolate frogs that are made of cadbury dairy milk chocolate they've always been cheap but over the years the price has increased quickly |
Why does our skin turn red when it is hit? | The body is directing blood to gather at areas of detected damage, and if you were hit hard enough it may include bleeding between the cells through ruptured capillaries. Blood flowing nearer to the surface is more visible and makes the skin more redThe capillaries in the skin that supplies the cells with blood get bro... |
Alaska is known for its prolonged days and nights, what makes this happen? | The earth is tilted on it's axis . Because of this tilt, the further north you are, you are exposed to more sunlight as it gets closer to the summer solstice and less when are closer to the winter solstice. It's hard to explain without pictures. |
Why does minced/ground meat taste so different than if it hadn't been minced/ground | Texture plays a large part in how we taste things. Would you want to drink a steak through a straw? Me neither. In addition - usually steaks are made from the leaner cuts of meat, while ground beef is ground from the harder working muscles in a cow which will tend to have more beefy flavor. And most of the flavor you’r... |
How come when holding in pee, you feel fine until you walk into your bathroom, and then it feels like your bladder is going to explode? | It's a conditioned response you 've developed. Your body knows that every time you need to pee or poo, you go to the bathroom. So now when you go into one, your body is like "Hey! That place where I pee! Let's do this!" This causes it to begin or prepare to release the built up waste and you feel like your bladder is g... |
Why doesn't NASA gets sponsors to get funds ? | It makes NASA beholden to the sponsors. If I give NASA a billion dollars to put my product on the spacesuits of their astronauts, I can say "use my money in this manner, or I'm pulling out my money" If NASA can remain functional without my sponsorship money, then maybe them refusing and me pulling out just means they d... |
Why do those balancing birds that you get at carnivals and fairs actually balance on their noses and don’t fall off | I don't think there's a special condition happening here. Its more of an optical trick. The weight of the bird is unevenly distributed towards the very tips of the wings which extend past the nose of the bird. So while the bird looks imbalanced, the weight of the materials is actually balanced 50/50 on either side of t... |
How do mobile phones vibrate? | They have a motor with the shaft connected to one side of a weight. This makes it wiggle when the shaft turns as it is unbalancedA small weight on a motor spins around inside. The quickly shifting weight causes the vibration_URL_0_same principle as game pads and "other" devicesPut a wet blanket balled up in one side of... |
when people read text, do they "hear" it in their minds? | In this case in particular, it would have to do with accents and word play. Although I do sound out the words in my head as you described, I ***don't*** put accents on it. I use my own so the joke makes no sense to me. I am also terrible at accents, so I wouldn't know what was trying to be said.Yes. It's called [subvoc... |
How come it snows metal on Venus? | Hey man! I made a quick [video] to answer your question! If you don't want to watch it, here's a summary of what the video covers: - It's very hot on venus, the plains can reach a very hot 480°C which makes all the metal in the atmosphere vaporize! - The vaporized metals then rise up in the air, and cool off around the... |
How does chap stick work? | The skin on your lips moves a lot, and if it dries, it loses flexibility and can crack open. In order to prevent this, the easiest way is to stop the skin from drying. By applying a layer of grease which repels water, you trap the humidity inside the upper layer of skin, and it doesn't dry out. And yes, you could do th... |
Relativistic Physics Vs. Quantum Physics? | Quantum physics describes what happens on a level that's so small, nothing is continuous anymore. Energy is carried in "packets" called photons, and conventional physics breaks down. Now, to say "relativistic physics" is a little meaningless, since the concept of relativity always exists. But the traditional term for "... |
Why do I get more sick in the winter vs the summer? | Because during the wintertime, you tend to stay indoors more, and come into contact with people up close rather than outside, when it's summertime. The increased opportunity/frequency for contact gives rise to bacterial and viral spread.First of all, "cold weather weakens the immune system" is a myth. According to rese... |
How does someone born without a birth cirtificate or Social Security number obtain identification later in life? | People are not born with Social Security Numbers. Parents usually apply for them quickly, because they need one to claim the child as a dependent on their tax return--but it's wholly optional. Whether it's the parents applying or the person themselves as an adult, they need to provide sufficient proof of identity and i... |
When did sticking up your middle finger at someone become a disrespectful thing to do and why is it so disrespectful? | The middle finger as an insulting gesture has existed since ancient Greece and Rome. Socrates wrote of it, as did Diogenes. If you showed a Roman Centurion your "digitus impudicus," he would know exactly what you meant. [The allegation that the gesture and its symbolism originated at the Battle of Agincourt is false.] ... |
Why do noises seem to get louder as you start falling asleep | Because you don't have much other sensory input coming in. Same reason why a lot of people close their eyes when they really want to listen to music. |
Vehicles and 'gear downtime'. | I am not quite sure what you are referring to. It does sound like you are experiencing the car driving on idle. To prevent the engine stalling out you can not reduce the throttle to zero on a normal car. If you release the accelerator it will go back to a safe low speed. As your car slows down the engine will slow down... |
What is "the dust bowl"? | During the great depression in the 1930 , dust storms and drought devasted the agricultural mid west. The farming techniques used at the time were partially to blame. Many abandoned their farms and moved west. John Steinbecks "The Grapes of Wrath" is a fictional account of one family's experience. |
Why are there countless products made with açaí berries, but they are never sold as just pure, whole berries? | Very few places outside Brazil grow them and berries are too fragile to transport long distance fresh. You can buy frozen berries online though. In addition unlike other berries acai berries doesn't have a lot of pulp and are bitter and grainy, so they are not very good to snack on without processing with other flavors... |
"I", "me", and the "generalized other". | Fresh out of introductory sociology here. Browsing Reddit in the middle of the night, so do excuse me if I botch anything or if this turns out unintelligible. Or as an outright ramble, as I am wont to do. As far as I can tell, this is essentially a manner of explaining Freudian terms, so if my response doesn't fully ex... |
Why are the blades on a guillotine slanted? | The blades are shaped like that so that the weight of the blade is focused on a smaller area as it cuts. It produces more of a slicing motion than a chopping motion, which gives cleaner cuts.Earlier answers are wrong. With a slanting blade, you actually get a larger contact area. The difference is that you also get a s... |
If spray on bedliner is damn near scratch proof, why don't they make it without the texture and paint the whole vehicle with that? | Spray-in bed layers are usually a polyurethane, occasionally fiber reinforced epoxy. They work as a bed liner, because the bed is hidden from view, and people don't mind if the paint is not a nice smooth shiny finish. In general, want their car or trucks paint to be a nice smooth shiny finish, a car painted like a bed ... |
If organized religion is so keen on an afterlife, how come there is no talk of a "before-life?" | There is. A fair amount of it too. For instance, the [Chamber of Guf] in Judaism. There's a tree of life which produces souls, which are dropped into the chamber of guf, which are then sent out to bodies. That was a massive oversimplification of course, but its the basic idea. Granted these arent nearly as well defined... |
Why, when I have a cold, is my nose stuffy when I'm sitting down, but clears up when I'm walking? | It helps to explain the source of the stuffiness: blood capillaries that are leaky and cause the sinus tissues to swell and "stuff" your nose. When you become active , your sympathetic nervous system becomes slightly activated and some epinephrine is released into the blood stream. This epinephrine works to constrict b... |
Why do people go diarrhea when dehydrated? Doesn't the body need that liquid? | You have it the wrong way round. Diarrhea is a common cause of dehydration. The diarrhea is itself a response of the body to certain type of infection, aiming to physically remove the germs from the bowels. EDIT: Some infections also directly cause diarrhea themselves, which they have evolved to do in order to spread t... |
If I took Advil and had a bad headache, a sore foot, and a sore throat, would it "prioritize" those issues? | No. The drug has to disperse through your entire system. The anti-inflammatory effect acts on your whole body, injured/painful parts and parts that don't need the Advil. Any difference in the time those things you mention respond to Advil is due to how quickly their swelling can go down, and the drug's ability to help ... |
What actually are we feeling when we have "butterflies in our stomach" | We usually feel that way when we get excited about something. This sense of excitement triggers the body into stimulating its sympathetic system . This system is responsible for producing adrenaline and noradrenaline, and these two chemicals produce numerous changes to our bodies like increased heart rate, goosebumps, ... |
Why does my leg hurt when it's cloudy, I have a metal Plate in my leg. | Barometric pressure. On cloudy days, air pressure outside is lower than on sunny days. On the low pressure days, microscopic tissue in your body sometimes expands, which puts stress on joints or previous injuries. In airplanes, some people's feet swell because of the atmospheric pressure so high up. This is the same th... |
Why aren't Plasma Converteres being used for all our trash diposal? | I imagine cost is the limiting factor. 1) Depending on where you live, land may be relatively cheap for landfills, so you're not worried about waste disposal. 2) How much does it cost for a plasma converter to produce 1 MWh of energy? How does that compare to coal, nuclear, wind, or solar?", 'Because it turns oxygen on... |
Why do you need to stay warm when you are sick (have a cold) if your temperature rising is a bad thing? | Your temperature rising is not a bad thing, it's a result of your immune system attempting to destroy an infection. It's seen as a bad thing because a fever generally indicates illness, which *is* bad; but the fever itself is actually a good thing. One benefit of a higher body temperature is that the heat can kill off ... |
Why is it that Slander and Libel laws do not apply to political campaigning? | They do, but the standards are different for public figures. Proving defamation against a public figure requires a showing of malicious intent, not just mere negligence . That is a simplified explanation, but basically sums it up. The reason is derived from the First Amendment, and the importance of having an unimpeded... |
Why do some people yawn while working out? | IIRC yawning helps regulate your bodily temperature. Exercise raises your body temperature, so sometimes you yawn while you work out to help bring it back down.Yawning is your body's way of getting a larger amount of oxygen to your brain. If your breathing pattern is altered due to a workout, it may react in order to g... |
If a company was hit really hard, and its stock prices plummeted very hard, and people sold the stocks they owned, who are the people buying the stocks? | The person who is prepared to buy it at that value. In overly simple terms, if your stock is worth $100 and bad news breaks, a shareholder may want to sell and set the value at $95. If someone buys, the value of the stock is then $95. Someone else wants to sell, so they set their sell price to $90, someone buys, then $... |
Why does gum pretty much fall apart when you chew it with a peanut m & m? | A better question is why would you try this?Peanuts have oil. Gum breaks apart in oil. You understand? |
How can rural areas sell gas at a cheaper price than in densely populated areas (despite higher cost of transport)? | The cost of operating the station are higher in urban settings: 1. real estate costs.2. labor costs.3. sometimes delivery costs, storage volumes requiring more frequent resupply and so on.4. urban areas are more likely to have additional taxation on gasoline, as well has higher sales tax . Those are all rational. There... |
How does inflation affects us is a daily basis? And is the effect the same in every country? | If we are *truly* talking about a day to day basis, inflation doesn't have too much of an effect. Broadly speaking, and to simplify, let's break it down into 'hidden inflation' and 'present inflation,' where present inflation is in-your-face, and hidden inflation only reveals itself sporadically. You'll see present inf... |
How you can have two different times for a particle travelling the same displacement and at the same acceleration. | Is this in a Newtonian frame of reference, or have you introduced additional complications? The normal formula for this would be: s = ut + ½ a t² where: * s = displacement* u = initial velocity * a = acceleration* t = time elapsed So it's a pretty straightforward formula, and putting the same numbers in should give you... |
How did humans deal with toe/finger nails before we had tools to cut them. | Most likely the same as nails of animals. They just wear away through daily use. Someone should do a study and see if people who work in heavy industries have to cut their nails less than people with desk jobsThey would probably just break off a lot of the time, especially toenails if you are barefoot all the timeI nev... |
Can people go in hibernation? | Hibernation, no. Hibernation is an instinctual survival mechanism usually intended for animals who would otherwise not do well in the climate change their habitat undergoes while they are in hibernation mode. For animals, their body prepares to be unconscious and stores all their fat meticulously. Once in hibernation, ... |
What is happening when I get the wind knocked out of me? | There's this muscle in your body called the diaphragm that controls your breathing. If you get punched or hit hard near it, it can cause it to spasm and not work right for a bit, which is what we call getting the wind knocked out of you. |
Why there are "big" cats but not big dogs. | Because [large wolves] died out, either due to climate changes at the end of the ice age or human eradicationI would imagine it is because of all the domestication of k9s. The repeated selective breeding for desired traits have created the large number of breeds we have today. There are still some large wolves in the w... |
What is Social Security, how does it work in the U.S, and why is it deemed unsustainable? | Social Security was instituted during the Great Depression to do two things. First, it was to give retired people who had lost everything in the crash income to survive. Second, it was in incentive to get many old people to retire to open jobs up for unemployed youth. So they come up with a plan to take a little bit ou... |
Why do you need to re-apply sunscreen every two hours? | You're also sweating and that washes it off as well. Sweat coming out of your pores from underneath the layer of sunscreen is dissolving and pushing it off |
Why do most people have such negative feelings towards tickling? | You might as well be asking why you, personally, enjoy being tickled. The psychology/physiology behind it is pretty much the same either way. Some people don't like others encroaching upon their personal space. Others enjoy and employ physical contact as often as possible. The former generally hates tickling, the latte... |
Since Russia is in Asia, why aren't American citizens of Russian descent not considered Asian Americans? | Most of the population of Russia is in Europe. All the big population centers are west of the Ural Mountains .thus European. Only the ones who are from Siberia or Central Asia would be considered 'Asian' .and most of them have more Asian features, too.In North America, the term "Asian" is generally used to refer to peo... |
When a food like porridge is said to have "slow release energy", where is the energy stored? | First let me say I'm not an expert in this field at all, but I have a friend who is. This is all what I 've picked up from him talking about his job. So while this concept may be accurate, the terms could be inaccurate. It's not how much energy an individual can store in their body, but the types of carbohydrates invol... |
What is dry humour and how can you master it ? | It’s hard to explain puns to kleptomaniacs because they always take things literally.I like to explain dry humor as humor that's so obvious, silly or stupid, that it's funny. If you want to master it, watch a lot of Monty Python. |
How the interstates/highways we use today were named. | **Odd number:** runs north-south **Even number:** runs east-west **Low odd number:** west coast **High odd number:** east coast **Low even number:** southern US **High even number:** northern US **1-2 digits:** main route, goes through major cities **3 digits:** off-shoot, goes around major cities |
How would I secure billions of dollars if the FDIC only insures $250k? | In some cases you might buy other things that are worth money that you could separately insure. You might also invest in businesses or other things that are insured. You can also split up cash between banks. So if you are insured for $250k at one bank, you can have another $250k at another bank.Billionares actually don... |
Could a Sharknado really happen? | Depends on how remote you want to get? A storm picking up sharks and launching them into New York City? Not possible. There have, however, been reports of storms that rain infantile fish. What happens is that evaporating water will pick up some fish eggs, they hatch in the cloud and rain down. Though those are extremel... |
How can a piece of paper folded 103 times be larger than the observable universe? | Exponential growth. Each fold doubles the thickness of the paper. If I gave you 1 penny today, and promised to give you twice as much money tomorrow, and twice as much the day after, and so on and so on, on day 30 I'm giving you over $5 million dollars. You can do the math on this yourself pretty easily though. Open th... |
Why do things like seashells and cups make sounds like the ocean when I put it up to my ear? | From a wiki article: "The rushing sound that one hears is in fact the noise of the surrounding environment, resonating within the cavity of the shell. The same effect can be produced with any resonant cavity, such as an empty cup or even by simply cupping one's hand over one's ear. The similarity of the noise produced ... |
Why does my car have a low gear? | ford focus can still tow camper trailers up hills.Engine braking! Have you ever gone down a hill? Have you ever gone down a hill so steep that you had to press the brakes to keep a safe speed? #NO! #BAD! Riding on the brakes is an excellent way to destroy your brake system. When you're going down a hill, you should shi... |
How were small countries (e.g. Lichtenstein, San Marino, Malta, etc.) formed and why haven't they been conquered? | There has to be a reason for a country to be conquered you know. Until recently Lichtenstein was poor. It's not like it's sitting on oil like Kuwait. It generally stayed neutral during the wars and so it wasn't subject to getting borders moved at the end as losing countries often are. |
How do recycling centers sort between aluminum, plastic, cardboard, etc? | People with hands and regrets about their life choices. This is why many systems request you sort them yourself.It's not as high-tech as you might think. [This is typical] |
Why are United States parents much more strict with the sexual life of their children compared to European parents? | The main reason is because of the religious background of the United StatesThe U.S. in general has a much stronger taboo on sex, especially with regard to adolescents. Remember that we were more or less founded by super-fundamentalist groups who left Europe, and that puritanical base is still very much a part of our cu... |
If rainbows are made by light refracting off raindrops, why don't they flicker? | The Sun is very large, and it doesn't flicker. Lots of light is available. While any one drop might only send a brief flash to your eye, there is a continuous stream of moving drops, and continuous sunlight. |
How much money (USD) would need to be "destroyed" in order to see a significant rise in the value of the dollar? | _URL_0_ The monetary base went from ~800 billion USD in 2008 to 3.6 trillion 2013 and you had ~10% cumulative inflation over 5 years. So if you want to roll back that inflation you'd need to eliminate at least 80% of the monetary base , and that might get you back to where the US dollar was in 2008. It's a non trivial ... |
How was it possible for space technology like the Apollo module to function with so little memory in their systems? | I'm not sure how the Apollo did it, but computers of the time didn't use much memory because almost every function was loaded as a program. Want to make a left turn? Load the left turn program. Want to change your altitude? Load the change altitude program. Programs were executed as they were loaded from magnetic tape ... |
How do we, physically speaking, drink from straws? I mean, you're not inhaling like when you breathe so how does it get up the straw? | When you suck on a straw, you remove a lot of air pressure holding the water down in the straw. Since there is much lower air pressure in the cavity of your mouth , the water is "pushed" up the straw by the air pressure in the room pushing on the water in the glass, which is connnected to the water in the straw. That's... |
Why do people hate Creed and Nickelback but Maroon 5 is seemingly popular? | Because Adam Levine is apparently hot, despite his voice being mental napalmIt's the celebration of mediocrity and unoriginality. Patton Oswalt once described the types of comedians who come to an open mic show. 1. People who were going to be big someday; who had a voice and a vision. 2. People who were funny, but who ... |
How do pullup/pulldown resistors work? | In a digital circuit, input pins must have a definite value. Imagine hooking up a switch to and Arduino input where when you close the switch, it connects the pin to +V. That works fine when the switch is closed, but when it's open, the pin has no definite value and it "floats". In this case, a pull down resistor is co... |
What is WACC and why is it important? | Weighted Average Cost Of Capital. All sources of capital, including common stock, preferred stock, bonds and any other long-term debt, are included in a WACC calculation. It is important bc it determines how much interest a company owes for each dollar it finances. Also WACC is an investor’s opportunity cost of taking ... |
Why casinos can only be built on Indian lands or whatever. | They don't *only* have to be built on Indian lands, but there are certain restrictions in most states that prohibit casinos. Indian Reservations are their own sovereign nation so they don't have to follow these, hence the reason why there are so many casinos on Indian land because it's a profitable business.In Florida,... |
How realistic are torches in video games? | Semi-realistic. Though they gloss over the downsides of walking around with a giant flaming ball of pitch on the end of a stick. Most people who could afford artificial light would use candles, lamps, or lanterns for obvious reasons. They are more economical and a lot less messy. So depictions you see of, for example, ... |
Why do carbonated drinks get/feel frothier when you swish them around in your mouth? | Carbonated drinks have a gas called carbon dioxide dissolved in them. They are bottled at high pressure so that the carbon dioxide is forced into the drink. When you first open the bottle, the pressure is relieve so a lot of the carbon dioxide leaves right away. There is still some left in the beverage though. Then as ... |
Why is there a gap around the doors on bathroom stalls in the US? | IDK what the hell monkey is talking about. The gap is basically a cost and space saver. You'll notice that a stall door doesn't hinge on the wall, but rather a pivot joint that extends from the stall wall. This allows the door to turn tighter and means the door can be wider with out it needing as much space inside the ... |
Can someone please explain to me how Eratosthenes determined the earth's circumference based on the measurements he got of the shadows? | You don't even need trig to do it . He knew through measurements that the sun shone straight down on one city at noon on a given day. He knew this because he saw the reflection of the sun in the water at the bottom of a deep vertical well. He also knew that the sun shone at a measurable angle at a city a known distance... |
Why is it so difficult to stop spam phone calls? | Because they come from countries where they don't have to follow your laws. So they don't, and there's nothing you can do about it.To go along with the OP: Why can I block someone from calling me, but not block them from leaving me a voicemail? |
How do China and other "enemies of the internet" block their citizens' access to the web? | The chinese government owns or controls the telecommunication infrastructure of the country. Essentially, every wire that runs across the land, every ISP that offers service etc. is controlled by the government. If you control the wires, it's not a big step to install this "firewall" at every point where these wires co... |
Is is possible for someone to buy 51% shares of Google & be its owner? | Yes, but all of those people who own those 51% of shares would have to be willing to sell them. You would probably have to pay them WAY more than than their current market value to make it attractive enough. Since Google is currently valued at about $530 Billion, if you have say $350-$400B lying around, maybe you can m... |
What is privatisation and what are the advantages and disadvantages of privatising government run operations? | Privatisation is the sale of state operations to the private sector. The primary advantage is considered to be the introduction of competition. If an operation is entirely state owned and has no competition it can become flabby and inefficient. Consider the UK phone system. In the 1970s it took 6 months for businesses ... |
Why does eating a banana give me crippling stomach pains? | I'm seriously allergic to bananas, as is my father. We don't get to the stomach pain point though-- more in the "throat closes immediately on contact" category. If you have similar issues with kiwi, that would be a huge red flag for an allergy. Along those lines, an allergy to bananas and kiwi is linked to latex allerg... |
Why water spirals down the plug hole, and why it is spirals the other way in the opposite hemisphere | It doesn't spiral the other way in the opposite hemisphere That's a misconception. It just spirals whatever way it wants depending on how the water flows into the drain and other external factors etc. The rotation of the earth/gravity isn't strong enough for it to affect the direction water spirals into a drain.The mos... |
why do people generally look more attractive when one half of their face is in shadows? | While it's not true 100% of the time people are generally seen more attractive the more symmetrical their face appears to be. There are of course exceptions. So by covering one half of the face there's no comparison to the other side. |
What is the order of shutting down a computer/laptop? Which hardware pieces are shut down first, and last? | The purpose of a proper shutdown is to save data in applications and services to disk to prevent data corruption and data loss. As well as to cleanup logs and temporary data. This way digital garbage data isn't left lying about on your computer taking up space or potentially causing issues during a bootup or applicatio... |
How does net neutrality continue to be threatened through legislation? Haven't we already shot this down? | Unfortunately, there's no "double jeopardy" on bad legislation. They can try and try and try to pass it as long as they want.It's not enforceable I don't think. Plus, the big companies that push for these bills to pass probably won't ever stop really. They want more money, they'll do whatever it takes. |
Why does tiltiting the glass while pouring a drink prevent fizz from developing? | The fizz is caused by the liquid bring disturbed, releasing the gas that is dissolved within it. Tilting the glass allows the liquid to fall a shorter distance than just hitting the bottom of the glass, so the liquid has a lower velocity. Sliding down the side of the glass slows down the liquid, reducing the amount of ... |
Why is moving air cold? | You exchange heat and moisture with your environment. Both transfer more easily the bigger the differential. If the air is still, then you tend to 'load' a shell around yourself with heat and moisture as you continue to generate both. This means subsequent transfer is slower. A fan blows this shell away. This means you... |
WTF is happenining in this Ted Talk? | i would go with derren brown type of suggestions with his speech and voice telling them what to do. the spike trick, chris angel does a similar one, and once again power of suggestion gets him to say the right answer', "The cup and nail trick doesn't always go well. _URL_1_ _URL_0_ |
If recurring decimals are 'infinite' is there a sense (perhaps philosophical) that they are constantly 'growing'? | The number is static. If you cut a cake into thirds, that third of a cake is a third of a cake. Its size isn't changing. It's not growing or shrinking. It's 1/3. The decimal expansion is just a way of *representing* that fraction. You could write it as "1/3". The infinite decimal expansion "0.3333 " is just an aspect o... |
How do Academy members differentiate between Best Picture nominees and Best Director nominees? Wouldn't the best director naturally have the best movie, and vice versa? | Well they are very closely intertwined. Of the 85 films that have been awarded Best Picture, 62 have also received the award for Best Director. I guess the only logical explanation is that there's far more than just directing that goes into making a great movie. Most of the time, a movie wins both awards because it tru... |
How exactly does a pulse oximeter monitor/measure a patient's O2 saturation? | It shines light through your finger. The oxidation level of your blood changes the amount of light that can pass through. More details: _URL_0_ |
How do shoes Michael Jackson patented actually work? | They have a special base plate that gets hidden on the stage and the shoes can lock onto it allowing him to lean extremely far and have the shoes keep him from falling over. [Here's a diagram from his patent that shows the mechanism] |
Why do many technologies (such as phones, for example) rely on an accurate date and time? | GPS for one. A lot of apps also need time and date for house keeping reasons or for very simple non-security related checks, such as when the last time the app was launched. |
Why do we percieve certain colours as bright? | If something is bright, that just means that a lot of photons bounce off of it instead of being absorbed by it. If too many photons go into your eye, the pain is your body realizing that all that light is too much for the receptors and that you should close your eyes to prevent damage. |
Gooseflesh when listening to really powerful song? | [It's known as "frisson", AKA "cold chill See also, /r/frissonAre you talking about that pleasant tingly feeling? |
How does the application of duct tape to a wart actually remove it? | Duct tape has a solvent in it. That solvent dissolves your skin when you leave it sitting there forever. That dissolves the wart along with a lot of the skin. If the wart is entirely killed off the skin will repair itself from the surrounding area minus the wart. It will probably leave a small scar. You can get a much ... |
Why is an electric kettle so noisy? | When you boil an electric kettle, the water next to the element gets hot soonest. It can get so hot that it boils - BUT the water surrounding it is cooler, so a soon as the steam bubble moves away it cools below the boiling point and suddenly collapses. What you can hear is the bubbles collapsing. It goes away after a ... |
What aspects of piracy/copyright infringement are actually illegal, and to what extent? | Think of it this way -- if you rob someone's house, but use the stuff yourself instead of selling it, does that make it any less illegal? If you steal something and give it to a friend, does giving it away make it less illegal? as far as netflix - watching it at their house is fine - using their access to watch it else... |
ELI: Why do dogs eat grass when they're about to throw up? | Dogs cannot digest grass so it irritates the stomach, working as an emetic, and causes them to vomit. It is similar to humans using activated charcoal. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.