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How does audio play from a CD, Tape, Vinyl, or Digital file? How does the recieving side make the sound it's told to ? | Sounds is a pressure wave in air. It's particles moving back and forth, vibrating. A microphone captures sound when the moving air pushes and pulls against it, which moves a coil of wire around a magnet inducing an electric current. The amount of current is analogous to the amount of pressure changes in air, which is w... |
Wouldn't it be more accurate to have pedometer devices for the ankles rather than wrists? | I bounce my feet when sitting in a chair. It would register a few thousand extra possibly for me. Also, putting on ankle stuff is annoying, tougher, and risks more damage if a puddle isn't seen. |
Why do cheap companies like Kia offer a '7-year Unlimited Mile' warranty, but higher quality companies like Mercedes-Benz and BMW only offer 3 years? | Kia is a cheaper brand and needs incentive to get buys. Mercedes, BMW etc have less warranty, but that may also coincide with the cost of repairs. My brother in law has an e class and it's £400 just for a basic service. He's had issues with error lights and the cost of those repairs aren't a joke He's told me German bu... |
How can a country be communist with a free market? | China is about as communist as North Korea is a Democratic Republic. I guess they got lazy and didn't bother to change the name. |
How did the 2004 tsunami claim so many lives even though the wave wasn't very tall? | It doesn't need to be very tall. That much water is ridiculously heavy and will be carrying debris along with it. You can drown easily in 6 feet of churning water, and even easier when you get crushed by a car while doing so.Instead of imagining a 10 foot wave, imagine what would happen if the sea level suddenly rose b... |
Doesn't Guaranteed Basic Income just cause crazy inflation? Is there any evidence that GBI actually works in the long term? | No, it should not cause crazy inflation those at the bottom get help from multiple sources now and basic income would effectively replace multiple payouts/subsidies into a single payment. This would allow more efficient utilization of resources, as maybe a domestic worker has housing and so doesn't need the Section 8 v... |
Why are 14-16 year-olds able to work and pay taxes that help fund the government but aren't allowed to have a say through voting on where that money should be spent? (USA) | It's worth noting that states actually can individually lower the voting age to less than 18. They just can't make it any higher. Just no one has. |
What would happen to the US economy if traditional businesses switched from 5-day work weeks to 4-day work weeks? | I've never had a job where I put in less than 10 hours a day. Shit, it'd be nice to do that for only 4 days, as opposed to 5, 6, and 7.4-10 hour days would give everyone an additional day off. An additional day to spend money & boost the economy. People would save money by not having to buy gas to commute 1 additional ... |
How does someone own a level in a building? | Let's say, you make a cake. And someone buys a piece of cake from you. It is now theirs to do what they wish with. They can add more things to it, they can eat it, they can keep it in their fridge forever and let it grow old. You can't get it back, but you can sell it to someone else. A special part of the cake deal is... |
how is the annihilation of Matter/Anti-matter not against the Law of Conservation of Matter? | Conservation of matter is really helpful when you think about chemistry. It is really helpful to think that no matter what chemical reaction happens you need to have the same number of atoms of each kind that you started with. But conservation of matter doesn't apply to all kinds of reactions though. Radioactivity and ... |
How sports venues paid for with tax payer money maintain a monopoly on crappy, overpriced food when there are obvious alternatives? | There are a limited number of stalls at a venue. The businesses there have to pay a premium on the real estate. A sports venue isn't open all the time. A baseball stadium or concert venue might be open for 3 games per week. A football stadium might have two games per month. You have to pay people more money to convince... |
Why is it so easy to recognize cognitive bias/ dissidence in others, but nearly impossible to detect in our own thoughts/ arguments? | Because of cognitive bias. We're not programmed to analyze everything we already believe to be true, that's a lot of brainpower. When faced with new information or conflicting information as presented by someone else, we're biased towards believing things we already believe . |
Why are we able to digitally transmit sounds and visuals, but not any of the other senses (smell, touch, taste)? | Very simple: we can't easily produce smells or taste. They both result from chemical interactions, and we don't have any way to create those chemicals on demand. We can reproduce touch, but only if you're wearing some kind of suit that's going to touch you. In science-fiction it might be possible to pass impulses to re... |
If people are wired for survival, why is it fun to live reckless (skydiving, motorcycles, surfing, rollercoasters, etc)? | The Darwin Awards was a good movie on this subject. The gist of it is that risk takers produce societal benefits, so evolution produces people that range from extremely harm-avoidant to extremely reckless. We needed people who were willing to fight neighboring tribes, and hunt dangerous game. Today, we need people who ... |
How come we can go days without water, weeks without food, but only minutes without oxygen? | We also don't have really a storage for oxygen in our body, we only have the oxygen dissolved in our blood |
what are 1- electric potential 2- potential difference 3- electric potential energy 4- difference in electric potential energy | electrical tension" or "electro-motive force". It measures again how much work a charge can do when it goes from one wire to the other. The other quantity, electrical current, determines how many charges move through a given path per time. Multiply them together, you get work done per time, or power1. Electric potentia... |
Why the Boston bombers are considered 'terrorists' while the shooter from the Wisconsin Gurdwara shooting is just a 'white supremacist'? | There is no real distinction legal or otherwise with respect to the categorization of this sort. It gets more complicated, what separates a rebel group from a terrorist? how about the mafia, they commit violence and cause terror, what makes them different then Al Qaeda? Sadly, in the west we have a tendency to label al... |
Why are teams so superior at home? (Soccer specifically, but it's true for many other sports) | Three reasons: 1. Referees give home teams more favorable calls , and in sports like soccer and basketball, even a few extra calls going in your favor can easily change the course of the game. 2. Travel can be a huge drain on a team, and a team that has been at home for several days has an edge over one that has been f... |
Why america is focused on the race issue when the rest of the word has class issues. | Because the powers at be want us to think our class issue is a race issue. As long as middle class white people blame their problems on black people milking welfare and Mexicans stealing their jobs they don't think about the rich cunts that fucked everything up in the first place", 'Racism is an issue worldwide. It is ... |
Why does grease make paper permanently translucent? | Remember, if you're not sure about something, rub it against a piece of paper. If the paper turns clear, it's your window to weight gain!", 'The oil, grease, or fat has about the same index of refraction as paper, So the amount of scattering is kept to a minimum. Most of the light that would be scattered from the not-o... |
Why does wind and sun exposure make people so tired? | Your body heats up a layer of air around it, insulating it effectively. Wind constantly removes this heated layer and replaces it with colder air. . As your skin is cooled, your body has to work harder to bring it back to your normal body temperature. As for sun exposure, I'm less sure, but one reason could be that bec... |
Why can I drive across the US with my headlights on and my battery will be fine, but if I leave my headlights on over night my car will be dead in the morning? | Imagine what would happens to your iPhone battery if you leave it unplugged for a day or so. It would be drained, right? If you leave it plugged in, however, not so much. Same thing in the car. When driving the car, the battery is being constantly charged by a component called an alternator, which is powered by the eng... |
How does pop/soda dehydrate you if there is a liquid in the bottle? | Diuretics are chemicals that block your kidneys' ability to reabsorb water used to flush out the byproducts of day to day life. Basically, you pee out more water than you should as a result of drinking some sodas . My understanding is that the diuretic properties of caffeine lose effectiveness over repeated use, but I ... |
Why many phone cameras make the same distinct snapping noise when taking a photo? | Jeeeez this has made me feel old! It's because the old, analogue cameras I guess you'd call them, used to make that noise when you took a picture. So now they've just copied it for digital cameras |
Serious question: Would there be any negative consequences of there being absolutely no guns or bombs in existence in our modern world? | Ever heard of the Middle Ages? Most people were serfs back then. I wouldn't care to try the odds. |
Why is Japan not involved in the "Afghanistan War?" | It's due to the post-WWII constitution imposed by the US as part of peace negotiations. It is an entirely pacifist constitution, and prohibits the use of force in aggression. The Japanese Self-Defence Forces can only engage militarily in self defence, this is also why they weren't involved in the Korean, Vietnam and an... |
Stenographers...Just how can they possibly track everything that is said in court | Shorthand. They don't write in basic english, they have a special written language they use to not down whole words or phrases at a time. |
EI5 Why would it be a bad idea to raise children as gender neutral? | The thing is there was a study done with two identical twins in Canada and it actually well documented. The two boys were circumcised shortly after birth, however the doctors wants to use a new innovative way of doing it. On one of them they planned to remove the foreskin with a laser however, this went horribly wrong ... |
What's the difference between a civil war and a revolution? | The terms are not exclusive and don't always mean the same thing. A civil war is simply an armed conflict between two factions within a nation or state. A revolution is a successful attempt at changing the political/social landscape. A rebellion is a failed attempt at changing the political/social landscape. A coup is ... |
How are oil companies able to have 'leaks' and then not being able to plug the well? | When they first start drilling, the hole isn't pressurized. Don't forget that these wells are there to pump oil up through several thousand feet of pipe so the contents of these wells are under immense pressure. Here's something you can try at home. Take your garden hose and something that can fit into the hose tied to... |
Why is it racist/closed-minded to find people of a race unattractive? | You aren't racist. You were expressing an opinion of what you prefer. If I were to say I prefer shorter women, does that automatically implytall women are not attractive? You weren't being racist, they were being hyper sensitive. |
Why does aluminum foil spark in the microwave, but doesn't when its used as the container for, say a chicken pot pie? | Rounded vs. pointy sections. Crumpled foil has pointy sections. Same reason lightning rods are sharp. You can leave a spoon in the microwave in your tea or food, and probably a fork IF the tines are submerged. Don't try to to use a fork in your food with the tines exposed. |
Is it possible to skip Monday by traveling through time zones? | In principle, you could stand on the international date line, and at 11:59:59.99.. on Sunday step over to where it was just 11:59:59.99.. on Monday, and have it tick over to Tuesday, but in practice that level of precision doesn't exist and you'd still experience a fraction of a second of Monday. |
The difference between American and Australian gun laws. | Radically different. I could only imagine farmers would have guns. I wouldn't know where to buy one, how much they cost, or what procedure you need to go through. All Australians I've talked to about guns , usually following some latest international massacre, doesn't consider it a right or a privilege to have guns, an... |
Why are so many video games requiring the user to be Online, even if they want to play a single player mode? | The main reason a game like Diablo III forces always online, is to prevent cheating. Of course you can also do DRM checks, but pirates find ways around those checks. If designed correctly, keeping your saves on a company controlled server means that hackers would need to break into the server database in order to cheat... |
Why do we know Jeb Bush is running for POTUS when he won't "officially" announce it until the 15th? | To be able to raise a ton of money. He's basically manipulating election law to a degree never seen before except on Colbert. |
Why does Congress want oversight of the Iran deal? | Some parts of Congress don't believe the deal is good enough. They don't believe its adequate protection against Iran getting a bomb, and they have been trying to gain leverage to get a better deal, either now or in a few years. |
Why is 2% inflation better than 0%/no change? | Another thing that people haven't mentioned is that it also benefits government as it decreases value of national debt.Small amount of inflation is also useful to adjust prices to where they should be. If something is overpriced in a non-perfectly competitive market, it can stay above the price it should be. Inflation ... |
Why does China want to keep the yen weak in comparison to other countries? | Everybody's bang on, except China uses the Yuan/Renminbi. As far as I know the names are sort of interchangeable but I believe it's Renminbi in Chinese. Japan uses the Yen.A weak currency encourages more exports - and because the main contributor to China's economy is manufacturing this weaker currency makes it cheaper... |
How come American sports do not have promotion and relegation like their European equivalents? | We do have something similar, it's called College Sports. The best players from a university team get drafted into the professional leagues. |
How does rain happen? How does snow happen? How does hail happen? | Where the clouds form, it's really, really cold. On land, it's warm. So water vapour rises because of the heat. It cools and turns to condensation and maybe ice and that's what causes rain because the ice particles melt and return to water form. But if it's really, really, *really* cold, the ice particles stick togethe... |
Using the term "ex-girlfriend" in the following sentence: | I broke up with my ex-girlfriend". It can also be used to emphasize the "ex" part, if it was a relationship you regret, or one the current girlfriend is jealous of"I broke up with my girlfriend" is correct because the action of breaking up was done when she was your girlfriend. If you were to speak about her now, you w... |
During medieval times why did the Europeans have straight swords while Asians and Middle Eastern people had curved swords? | It's all down to how they are being used. Long straight swords are great for thrusting and getting under plate armor. Curved swords are excellent for hacking. European swords were more often used with thrusting techniques, but later on curved cavalry swords made for striking from horseback become popular. Matt Easton f... |
Can how well a sports team does make a noticeable difference in the local economy? | Not significantly. Remember, the vast majority of the revenue for these teams comes in the form of ticket and merch sales. The majority of those go to fans and the majority of your fans would be local. If the locals are broke so are your fans. Broke fans don't buy tickets even if you are winning. There would be some be... |
Why do we say 'on the bus', 'on the train' etc. but 'in the car'? | Maybe it's a matter of personal vs. shared- in a motor home, in a private jet, on a plane. Just a thought", 'Fun Fact: Did you know in France they say "My hairs", instead of my hair? For example, they will say "I am going to get my hairs cut" Fun right?George Carlin: > About this time, someone is telling you to get on ... |
How is that in basketball, where everyone agrees taller is better, we repeatedly hear about teams (such as the Golden State Warriors) getting an advantage by "going small?" | Small ball refers to change in tempo where more athletic players are playing. Having smaller players only involves centers and some power forwards. Regular centers are often slow and don't spread the floor as much. Having a smaller center they are more agile and able to shoot with more range. problem occurs if the othe... |
Why are fire animations, fogs and shadows in video games so demanding for graphic cards? | A lot depends on how all these elements are handled in a game. Best case scenario: - The fire is a simple object, animated in a 3d program and let loose in the game. The animation loops and it's quite noticable but you can get away with it. - The fog is just things in the distance getting blurrier. Looks quite bad but ... |
How could a small group of protesters shut down a rally attended by thousands? | You only need a small number of people blending in with everyone else to start throwing rocks or causing other trouble. That very often will incite legitimate protestors to start doing that themselves. Even if it doesn't it's very rare for the legitimate ones to 100% band together, grab them, and kick them out before l... |
What would happen if I was to fill a air mattress with helium, would it be able to lift my weight or would it fail to even lift itself? | Thanks guys looks like I'm not going to be spending Xmas in the states this year =. I tried it recently with very pure helium and a plastic glove, didn't work at all. |
Why the math in Mitt Romney's tax plan doesn't "add up". | Mitt has promised to do 4 big things: 1. Close tax loopholes for the wealthy. 2. Cut everyone's taxes by 20%. 3. Do this without raising the deficit.4. Do this without raising taxes on the middle class. The problem is this: the tax loopholes he's going to close are insufficient to make up for the 20% drop in taxes from... |
There are 1 Billion Hindus also from relatively poor countries. Why dont they have any terrorist incidents against the West like Islamic terrorists? | Don't assume the West is always the target. There aren't many Hindu terrorists operating against the West, but there is frequently violence perpetrated by Hindus against India's large Muslim minority, the [demolition of the Babri Masjid Mosque] in Ayodhya being a prominent example. Terrorism isn't about religion or wea... |
Why do humans have physical and mental limiters. | These are both false. We'd be vegetables if we could only use 10% of our brains. Not sure where that 30% thing came from, but we don't usually need 100% of our strength to perform daily tasks. We save 100% of our strength for times when we need to lift a car off of someone who's been in an accident, for example. Adrena... |
With all the free porn that is available on the net these days how could it be profitable to continue to make new movies? | think of it like food. i can get 3 square meals at mcdonalds for under 15 dollars a day. does that put restaurants out of business? nah. because maybe i was at costco with my mom and i tasted a shrimp. and it was free… but… can i have more shrimp? what else does shrimp come in? mcdo doesn't have shrimp. ok ok, well i d... |
Why are maps that way round? | All the maps are the one way around because having it standard makes everything easier. It took a long time for everyone to start doing that. Everyone used to do their maps differently until eventually we all saw each others maps and realised it would be easiest if we all did them the same way around so we wouldn't be ... |
Why does sound changes pitch when moving away? | The Doppler effect is when when a moving object is emmiting a wave, the waves do not change their speed depending on what side they were emmitted from, and so are squished together on one side, and spread appart on the other. Here's an animation. _URL_0_: |
Why are mice seen as cute yet rats are universally hated and feared? | Because my old pet rat revived the dark lord and started the second great wizarding war. Now all I'm left with is this retarded mini-me git of an owl.Because mice will scurry across a room as close to the wall as possible and try to be unseen. Rats will plop down next to you on the couch and steal your chips.As somebod... |
Why 3D printers are advancing in leaps and bounds but 2D printers are still disappointing, self-destructing, money-eaters. | Common misconception. Top-grade commercial printers are absolute *monsters*. In a good way. The one we have at work is used to print *thousands* of pages per day, and I still don't recall ever seeing a paper jam or badly printed page. |
If Hydrogen and Oxygen are both gases, then how come when combined they form a liquid? | Water is unlike some other substances because there is an attraction between the molecules called the [Van der Waals force] named after Dutch scientist called [Johannes Diderik van der Waals]. As /u/mlp-r34-clopper explains [here] the water molecules are lop-sided with the Hydrogen atoms over to one side and the Oxygen... |
how do doctors diagnose a narcissist/psychopath when they're very good at deceiving others? | I'm a resource coordinator for a mental health organization and have worked in direct service as well. With personality disorders, the key is observation of behavior and keeping professional boundaries. When you establish boundaries, and are outside of a client's personal life, you will, over time, get a more clear pic... |
Why is there a tendency for record-breaking tall people(7 and a half feet and above) to have a shorter life span? | Most if not all of the tallest people had a tumor on their pituitary gland, causing it to produce excessive amounts of human growth hormone, so that they never stop growing. This tumor in and of itself could kill you, depending on how it's positioned, since the pituitary is vital for life, plus it's in the skull and co... |
Why do you place your left hand under your right elbow when shaking hands or grabbing something in South East Asia? | It's a gesture to support the act of giving and receiving. In east Asia and SEA for example, you'll receive things with two hands, and you give things supporting your elbow. It's a cultural thing, a bit difficult to track down it's original purpose. There may be no purpose at all because many cultural phenomena just ar... |
Why does sleeping for longer after sleeping short make you feel more tired? | I find that the effects of sleep are more apparent the day after in general. If you get 4 hours sleep it doesn't matter how much you get the next night, it's still going to suck in the morning.The entirely unscientific answer that has always seemed true to me is that sleep has a 24 hour lag. Hence why you can pull an a... |
Will someone explain why the election in France is so globally important? | France is a large, populous country with a very long democratic history. Like great Britain, it has ruled large sections of the planet in it's time, is still a world player, is a nuclear nation and has a history for left-wing political leanings with a strong socialist tradition. It is currently being tempted by the ult... |
Why do hiccups occur, what causes it to stop, and why does it sometimes hurt? | There's also the theory that a buildup of air in the stomach is the cause for hiccups, and is an attempt to remove the air. I've found when I burp, my hiccups go away. Source: _URL_1_ |
Was the reason that the Spartans were so good at warfare was because they started at a young age or was because the training was that effective/brutal? | They stressed sacrifice, toughness and physical training as a society. Mothers had babies that would then be inspected for defects. If they didn't pass they'd be left for dead. They wouldn't get along well in the international community these days |
Why is the ozone layer higher up than oxygen gas? Should not ozone(O3) weigh more than oxygen gas(O2) and therefore closer to the earth? | Others have already replied to your question, but this is an important detail: even if a molecule is heavier than another per se, it doesn't mean the actual material composed by those molecules will have a higher density. H2O is a tiny molecule but water has a higher density than a vast majority of organic compounds li... |
Why the hair on our arms and neck stand up when we are cold or scared. | It's an old survival mechanism to make you look bigger, since we have no thick fur or hair or anything it doesn't really make a difference. If we had that then all of it standing up at once would maybe scare predators away because we would be bigger than they first thought. |
Why do Americans want the state to run their schools? | Because changes at the Federal Level are slow, entirely because the Federal Government has to get a consensus in a nation of over 300 million people. If an individual state wants to change its curriculum, they shouldn't have to wait for the Feds to do it. In addition, if a given state wants to promote a certain set of ... |
What is Job's Daughters? | Yup. The Freemasons are an all-male group, and Job's Daughters is a youth organization for their daughters. |
Why do 15/20 year old videos look so bad when they looked good even on big TVs back then? | The truth is, the world was just blurrier and less well defined back then. We thought it looked great because it's all we had seen. H/T to Calvin and Hobbes:_URL_0_", 'Older crt displays were just a bit blurry to begin with; this hid some of the imperfections. In a way, it was a feature, not a bug. For a good example, ... |
Why is "anaesthesiology" a specialty, in other words, why can't just regular surgeons or nurses administer anaesthesia, since it's just about knocking a patient out? | Now I am not a doctor so someone else could probably explain it better. However from what I have heard it is all about having the balance between blood pressure and actually been knocked out. If someone who didn't know what they were doing did it they could very easily kill the patient. Surgeons want the blood pressure... |
How does a modern touchscreen actually works? | Besides the already mentioned capacitive and resistive , there is also IR frames, acoustic wave and vision based systems. These are typically for larger size displays . IR frames can be placed on top of one or more screens and create a grid of infrared lasers on top of them, one side with emitters, the other side with ... |
Why is Twin Peaks considered such an amazing, groundbreaking show? | When I watched it first time, I was like 14 or so. It really impressed me. I was truly in love with the show. It felt unique and atmospheric and just all around awesome.However when many years later I tried rewatching it, I couldn't get far It's like a game with awesome, but short, main story, filled with crappy, unnee... |
How is it that disco seems to have exploded in popularity and then died in such a short span of time? | Have you listened to Scissor Sisters, Cut Copy, or Holy Ghost recently? Disco isn't dead any more than any other genre of music - it just changes as time passes, pretty much like everything else.Disco was a fad. A big part of its popularity was the fact that it was popular. People thought it was cool in part because ot... |
Why do people randomly twitch for a bit when they first fall asleep? | Some studies done by Mark S. Blumberg:_URL_5URL_4URL_5_ Here's a link to an easier to read, simplified article: _URL_4_ Mark S. Blumberg, one of my old professors at the University of Iowa, studies sleep and hypothesizes that the twitching, especially as a baby, occurs because your brain is establishing which axons con... |
Why have main stream computers stopped at 3 ghz? What stops us from making 100ghz or even 500ghz | CPU speed has way outclassed the other bottlenecks - memory speed and I/O speed. Until those are solved there isn't much reason in increasing CPU speed. Plus, we are hitting limits due to the speed of light. Until even smaller processors can be made, we're at a plateau. |
Why do bond prices fall when interest rates rise, and vice versa? And what is the relation of bond prices to coupon rates/yields? | i could be wrong, but since noone has attempted this yet, here goes: a bond locks in your money, at a fixed interest rate, say 5 %. this is not affected by outside events. say the outside market interest rate is 3% before you bought the bond, but rises to 10% after you do. before you bought the bond, everythings fine b... |
Why are disposable coffee lids designed in the shape that they are? | milk" etc buttons you can push in. 3) Matching. Not sure how to describe it in one word. Essentially your face normally has lips and a nose and you don't want to squish your nose every time you want to take a sip. And your lips should be able to create a seal around the lids opening.Are you talking about the little bit... |
What is the difference between a starting pitcher, a relief pitcher, and a closer (baseball)? | A pitcher can throw the ball more in a game than the rest of the fielders combined, and as such, suffers from fatigue. Ideally, a pitcher throws for all 9 innings, but that is increasingly rare. So these days, pitchers fall into more specialized roles. * Starters - These are usually your best pitchers, who not only hav... |
What's the difference between bits and bytes, and is there an easy way to remember? | Here's a neat way to remember what a bit is. A bit is a **B**inary dig**IT** - a single 0 or 1. Next up, and not part of your question, is a nybble, which is 4 bits, half a byte. Last up is a byte, a single character's worth of information, a number from 0 to 255, essentially the smallest usable chunk of information th... |
How do wifi packets know which device to go to? | They don't know which device to go to. Even before you start talking about MAC addresses you have the physical layer which in the case of wifi is the UM layer aka radio waves. Each packet is broadcast out and any wifi device in range can receive the signal. In order to decode the signal though it needs the wifi key whi... |
How in the hell does quicksort work? | Imagine you have a big pile of rocks and you want to order them from smallest to largest. First, take a random rock out of the pile. If you want to choose a smart starting point, try to pick one that looks like it's middle-sized based on a couple of random rocks from the pile. Place that rock in front of you. Now take ... |
How do people find complicated Easter Eggs in games? | There are a couple of ways. The basic ones are by accident. One of the programmers tells someone, and it eventually leaks to the web. What's the point of an Easter egg if nobody knows about it? It's hard to keep a secret like that to yourself and hope that someone eventually finds it. By reverse engineering the product... |
What is going on with Isreal and why are we talking about them so much lately? | We elected a proven moron and the world is understandably pissed. And it was a pretty big surprise to everyone considering everyone pretty much agreed that they wanted someone new. And it's his 4th term because for some reason we allow unlimited terms. Basically, fuck politics and politicians. |
When I sell stock, who is buying it? | It may feel like everybody is selling it, but you can only make a sale if there is a buyer. Some investors buy tanking stock because they can get it very cheaply if they believe the stock will turnaround later. The company doesn't buy back stocks when they're tanking. If stock tanks too much, it may be delisted from th... |
How do apps like Google Maps or Apple Maps know how the traffic is in realtime on roads all around the world? | They aggregate data from any electronic device they've acquired a license from. I subscribed to TomTom's traffic HD service and it forced me to share data. Essentially, they know the speed you should be travelling on a given road and if you and someone else on that road is doing half that its a pretty safe guess you're... |
Why hiphop artists/fans are so obsessed with the Illuminati? | While hip hop certainly isn't the only genre to mention the Illuminati or similar groups one possible reason it seems prevalent could be because the culture of hip hop often has an us versus them mentality, especially when it comes to 'The Man' keeping people down and/or under control and the Illuminati theory fits in ... |
Why does sleep paralysis occur? | It happens when your body is out of sync during your sleep cycles. Your brain is basically awake, but your body is still in sleep mode, it occurs when you're transitioning from a REM sleep to a wakeful state. Generally it occurs in people who have sleep issues, and people who have disrupted sleep cycles, however an exa... |
Why doesnt Oman have the same issues/crisis its southern neighbor Yemen Has? | I really like Oman. I'm fairly ignorant about the area, and I've never visited any other middle eastern country for comparison, but it's always struck me as a very welcoming and peaceful place. There's a strong relationship with the UK, and a progressive and positive attitude, which makes it a great place to be. There ... |
How Does Ad Revenue Keep So Many Websites Alive When So Few People Actually Respond To Ads? | You don't care about the stupid Amazon product. But you remember the stupid Amazon product. That's what 2/3 of ads are about. Just remembering the product.Imagine if we had tens or hundreds of thousands of people click on ads all over the Internet to cost companies money with no return. |
What does cancer benefit from developing? If it kills the host, doesn't it kill itself? | Cancer isn't an organism. It's a mutation in a persons DNA. The mutation makes the affected cell/s grow out of control, hence tumors. |
Throughout history plenty of buildings made of stone/marble have apparently "burned down". How is that even possible? | This really has to do with the structural engineering of buildings. While as you point out stone doesn't burn, it also doesn't do a lot of other things well, specifically join things together at angles. This is why stone buildings typically have roofs, and often many other internal structures made out of other material... |
What happens if a piece of space debris large enough to cover the earth in dust lands in the ocean? | To give you an idea, such an impact is believed to have happened off the coast of Mexico, and is responsible for the the mega-extinction that killed off dinosaurs. So, it's not good. |
Why are some shows allowed to show people doing illegal things? | Usually its only a crime to posses drugs. Moonshiners was all fake. I met a guy who's son was offered the moonshiners show but turned it down. So discovery offered it to the guy who runs the moon-shining festival at half the price. The old man says Tim's daddy was 1 hell of a moonshiner They can do everything in the pr... |
Explain the relationship between cell size and maintaining an efficient internal environment | As cells get bigger, their volume increases faster than their surface area as per the [square cube law]. This makes it harder to get enough things in and out of the cell to keep it alive. Imagine you're in a sedan. Getting in and out is no problem because everybody has a door. To make transporting people more efficient... |
Why do high-end fashion designers make those ridiculous outfits for runway models that no one will ever wear? | It's just art. Why do painters create massive canvases that people will never have in their house? In this sense fashion is used as another medium for people to express themselves, make a statement, or whatever other reasons people make art for. |
. Why did ancient Egyptians practice mumification, if they believed in an afterlife? | They believed that the soul would depart from the body during death, but that the soul would return at some point after death. However for the soul to return to the body, it needed to be able to recognize it. If the soul couldn't find the body because it was unrecognizable , the soul could not have eternal life in the ... |
How does gun spinning work? | As a caveat, gun spinning is dangerous because it violates a whole bunch of the 4 rules that one shouldn't ever violate with a gun. In the old days of shooting, people tended to be much more relaxed about safety than shooters today. Gun spinning originated with cowboys who largely were shooting Colt Single Action Army ... |
Why are mammals never brightly coloured? | Birds have an advantage over most predators because they can fly away from most threats. So, they can afford to be more brightly colored than other animals. Most mammals don't have this luxury: they are either hunters, in which case they need camouflage to sneak up on prey, or they are the hunted and thus need camoufla... |
How does Saturn's Moon Titan have 100x the oil as Earth if oil comes from ancient organisms? | I was not aware of this - seems I'm a bit behind on my space knowledge! Funny to think that you could probably reach escape velocity using a simple jet engine, using oxygen as fuel. |
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