query stringlengths 8 249 | answer stringlengths 45 7.8k |
|---|---|
When someone loses weight, where does all that weight they've lost actually go? How is it removed from the body? | When your body is consuming fat and sugars, it produces water and carbon dioxide as bioproducts, which are exhaled and urinated away. If you're burning proteins, the nitrogen is generally converted to urea, which is disposed of primarily in the urine. So the vast majority of the weight people lose will he exhaled and u... |
What is the deal with Schrödinger's Cat | First off, Schrodinger's cat is pretty widely misunderstood. Most people think that schrodinger was literally claiming the cat was both alive and dead. Instead, his entire point is that such a state is impossible; he was trying to illustrate fundamental flaws he saw in the theory of quantum mechanics through use of a s... |
Why is labor so cheap in China? | Labor is cheap because there are a lot of people. Simple as that. If you won't do it, someone else will.Combination of of the following factors:* lower cost of living* More people fighting over the same job* Lower cost to meet safety standards / more lax working conditions* Cost of having larger factories lower, due to... |
Why is there still a need for a real-life person to come read gas and/or electric meters? | I work in the water industry. There are many factors, but I'll try to keep it simple to maintain the spirit of this sub. 1) the change to a fixed network system has a high up front capital cost. Generally, the users of the service end up absorbing the cost, so in the interest of keeping people from complaining our havi... |
How is Easter's date determined? | It is actually the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon, which is not exactly the same as the first full moon after the vernal equinox, but instead a standardized approximation of the first full moon after the vernal equinox, which can vary from the actual full moon's date by several days.Easter is the first Sunday... |
How can people do accurate voice impersonations, if their voices sound deeper to themselves? | The inner-voice is often distorted to the untrained ear. This is the reason you'll cringe when hearing a voice recording of yourself being played back. A huge step in training your voice to sing or perform voice-overs is to train your ear. This requires hours of recording yourself and listening to it over and over. It ... |
will we ever see the national debt start going down or will it keep raising forever? | why would we want it to? We just need to keep it in check to keep it from going up faster than inflation. As long as that is the case and it is a smaller fraction of the GDP it's all good. |
Why do famous people get to live in luxury while being in debt (tens of) millions of dollars? | Let's say you want to buy a house. A reasonably expensive house, say, $100,000. Do you have that much money sitting in the bank? Very likely, no. Very few people do. Instead, the bank buys the house, and you pay the bank off slowly . You're now $100,000 in debt. If you're paying $10,000 a year, but you make $50,000 a y... |
Which will be more dangerous: if the Earth stopped revolving around the sun or if it stopped spinning. | Both would disrupt ecosystems and be catastrophes. But, if I had to pick one, I'd guess that life could adapt to a lack of seasonal cycle more easily than it could adapt to a lack of day/night cycle so I'd choose to stop orbiting. |
why is there a big hubub about lack of women in STEM fields such as programming but not in trade fields such as plumbing? | I'm a millwright. I still get asked why I took such a dirty trade. I love being a professional MacGyver. I took nothing but stem and tech in school and I was constantly told the trades are dirty, hard work. It's all stigma. Not only do I have to prove myself to everyone I meet, I have to also prove I'm not here to prea... |
Why did the medical marijuana program in new Jersey never work? And why still even in the face of all the proven benefits is it not reformed closer to that of California? | This is a great question. The program was not designed to succeed. It was designed to exist, but not in a way of seriously helping patients. Remember when Colorado became legal and you could buy ounces on the street for closer to 300 rather than above 400? At this time, NJ Medical legally charged in the neighborhood of... |
How can normal people become depressed in first world countries like my own ('Merica) excluding people experiencing traumatic events? | Depression isn't solely the providence of people who are downtrodden. Heavy work load, difficult life issues, interpersonal stresses and even things as simple as diet and lack of exercise or the weather can have profound impacts on a person's psyche. The mere fact alone that the western world appears to provide adequat... |
Why is the FF7 remake such a big deal? | Also, other FF game like FF10 and FF10-2, which came out on PS2, have been given HD remakes for the PS3 Vita and finally for release on the PS4 just recently. I bought them both. FF10 was one of the flagship games for the PS2 upon it's release, and when I first bought a PS2 I got FF10 to go with it. It was just stunnin... |
How did mankind decide which way up the earth is on maps? | It's pretty arbitrary; if you look at old maps of Japan, for example, they're actually drawn with North on the right and South on the left . |
Before Viewing Earth in Space How Were We Able to Get the Exact Shapes of Continents? | 'Twas oft asked here. Ye may enjoy these: 1. [ELI5: How was map accuracy maintained before the age of satellites and aircrafts? ]1. [ELI5: How could we have had so accurate world-maps before we could fly/see the world from space? ]1. [ELI5: How were maps so accurate before flight or satellites? ]1. [ELI5: How did early... |
'burning' your lawn grass by watering it in the day | You can't. The silly idea that water acts like a magnifying glass is just an urban myth. Even if it did act that way, it would absorb most of the heat. Watering can boost the contrast, making your dead grass more visible. And it can be a waste, because much of the water will evaporate under the hot sun. Quite simply, i... |
Why do some places with open doorways have a "temperature wall" where you can feel a massive change rather than a gradual difference? | I believe it's done to keep bugs out of the place in question. They don't like the drastic change in temperature so they will likely fly away instead of into the store/building. |
Why does it cost so much to desalinate water? | Heating up water takes up an excessive amount of energy. Compared to iron/steel, you can heat up iron ~9 degrees to heat up the same mass of water by 1 degree. Let's say they use coal, coal is only 31% efficient . So you are still losing a lot, not to mention that capturing the steam is very difficult to do , and that ... |
How are billiard balls made? In other words, how are they perfectly round? | Oh they are far, far from being perfectly round it is just that they are so small you can't see the imperfections.[Here is a video of how bowling balls are made] |
Where do the order of operations come from? | This is just a sort of agreed 'grammar' of *writing* mathematics. It's more or less completely arbitrary, but if you changed the order of operations round, or started evaluating sums right-to-left instead of left-to-right, people would just have to put their brackets in different places, and mathematics itself wouldn't... |
Why is the Mona Lisa so famous? What makes it so great? | Also curious. I'm sure I once heard it was because the subject wasn't anyone of interest and it was something unique. Can't do any research at the moment though as I'm on my mobile.I thought it was because of the astounding amount of asian people taking pictures of it.There's always the theory that it was a self-portra... |
How much energy is in the universe, and where did it come from? | > How can you say that energy isn't created when that seems to be what things like generators are doing? Generators convert movement to electricity, you can't get any electricity out unless you use some other energy to get the generator moving. It may be hard to grasp what energy really is, because energy is really abs... |
If making sea water to drinkable water is possible, why don't we solve the shortage of clean water in developing countries? | Basically, if you are not Saudi Arabia, where it costs 5 dollars to fill a tank of a sedan, you can't afford desalination of sea water.In addition to desalination being expensive, not everybody with clean water problems is located next to a large sanitary body of water.One issue that adds to the cost is what to do with... |
why is liquor cheaper in Japan than in the US | There are two things that influence the price: 1. How much will people pay for it? If they don't buy it for $15 you will sell for $10 2. How much taxes do you have to pay on it. As a small example: Scotch is cheaper in Germany than in Scotland even though its produced in Scotland. |
How does a REIT work? Why is the IPO a amll fraction of the real estate value? | A reit is a Real Estate Investment Trust [R.E.I.T.] Reits are easier ways to invest in real estate without having to actually purchase land/buildings. The IPO is a small fraction of the total value because like most companies that IPO, they already have people who own the building but are expanding to purchase more and... |
What is so important about old timey B & W and silent films? | So you go to the playground every day during recess, and you're playing this really fun game that you play every day. You don't really remember where it came from, but all of your friends play it and its really fun. Sometimes you change the rules a little bit, but it's never really that different. One day you go home a... |
How do drugs get to their desired location in the brain? | They're metabolized and that is one of the places they effect. Think of it like, if you dipped 5 people into water, and one of them happened to be the wicked witch of the west, only one would start melting, because only she has a reaction to it, or at least a noticeable reaction to it anyway There are other factors in ... |
Why did Dial-Up internet need to make that sound when it was connecting? | It actually didn't need to make you hear the sound. I found a way to turn it off as a kid and turned it back on the next day. Once you're used to the sound, you expect it. |
Why would ISIS take credit for the recent Texas shooting, it failed. Thats like taking credit for Seattle's decision to pass the ball in the Super Bowl! | Because they're an international organization. They want two things. 1. To show that they are a far reaching, powerful voice for people who agree with their outrage 2. To encourage those who are outraged to act violently and decisively. Figure it this way. Every person vying for the 2 major party nominations in the US ... |
Twelve NJ schools were evacuated/placed on lockdown due to fake threats. Why is it so difficult to trace the person/people making these calls? | There are several ways to mask your identity while making a phone call. 1) Use someone else's phone. This could be a payphone, borrowed cell phone, landline in a business, etc If your name isn't attached to it, and there isn't a camera pointed at the phone, it's going to be almost impossible to prove who placed the cal... |
What’s to stop me from depositing money into an online casino, collecting the 100%-ish new player bonus, then withdrawing? And repeating with another casino with my larger stack? | They stop you doing that by making you gamble an amount or wait a long time. The alternative is matched betting. It's a legal way to take advantage of new player bonuses with 0 risk that you'll lose money. |
Explain to me how private companies are allowed to view and rate my credit based on my private financial records? | A) Because you agreed to give them that access. Things on your credit report are things you signed some sort of agreement. You gave them that right when you signed your credit card application . There's no way to get most things without agreeing to that because being able to report your bad behavior publicly is a way c... |
Explain two-tailed and one-tailed studies in statistics | I haven't been able to figure it out despite all the google and all the help from my teachers. |
What is the difference between gun laws in other countries and the USA? | That's way to broad a question as different countries have different laws, from Israel's forced military service and call ups in time of trouble, which keeps weapons in just about all homes. I believe Norway is kind of the same, but not mandated, just most do own guns. Other end of the spectrum are places like England ... |
If making your heart work strengthens it (like via cardio exercise) does that mean anxiety/stress can do the same if it makes your heart beat faster? | Exercise is generally a controlled use of the muscles and systems, which builds strength and endurance over time. Mental stress/anxiety primes your system for a fight/flight type response and waits for your body to start moving. If it doesn't , it keeps the heart and cardiovascular and endorphine systems in a state tha... |
Why do directors of movies get the most recognition, while the writers of TV series out shine them for the show? | Because it's the directors job to make everything work. For movies based on books, the director, and the writer, have to figure out what works and what doesn't, such as when a character is thinking in a book, do you do a voiceover in the movie? The director oversees everything, including things like working with the ci... |
Why do phone/internet companies charge per gigabyte? | Well there are a lot of reasons. However the correct one is because they haven't figured out how to efficiently collect souls |
How come the word dick is more or less an acceptable insult in America but cunt isn't? | No reason, just the way language evolves. Profanity doesn't exactly have logical consistency.Compare the words "big" and "enormous". The latter has a meaning that lets you think whatever is being described is much larger than the first might be, although applying the first word might be perfectly fine and accurate for ... |
what is the importance of a 401k and when should I start mine? | a 401k is an amount of money you set aside to be invested for you to hopefully build up over time so you can use it to retire. The idea is it's just a way to ensure you have a retirement fund once that day comes. Essentially you pretend that you never had the money at all, it's generally taken out of your paycheck by y... |
If Ebola kills 90% of its victims by basically liquefying their internal organs how do the other 10% survive the virus? | That isn't what it does. That's how some very sensationalistic press accounts have described it, but isn't what actually happens. It creates serious problems with blood clotting, causes shock and eventually multiple organ failure, but it doesn't liquefy your internal organs at all. Nor does it cause massive bleeding in... |
Why do Americans seem to be so much more passionate about their religion than most Europeans? | Its the same in australia, we just really don't see someone else's religion as our business, we tend to judge others on their favorite sports teams. But anyway, because religions in america are expected to have an opinion and a stance on every little thing, they are much more importent to interactions |
Why did everyone leave MySpace for Facebook? | Everyone here is giving some social explanation which are probably valid to a degree. However if I recall correctly, Myspace was ravaged by hackers, bots and spam which made the site border line unusable. This happened right around the time FB was starting up. I'm sure this helped put the nails in the coffin. I haven't... |
Why are humans almost irrationally afraid of spiders and big insects. Were our ancestors the same? | Probably has to do with evolution. Mosquitos aren't necessarily dangerous on their own. But they carry diseases and are general parasites. not being bitten by a Mosquito increases your chance of surviving. It's possibly why most humans absolutely hate the sound of mosquitos buzzing about. It's probable that spiders and... |
how my remote lock range increases when I touch it to my head. | Your body, being mostly fluid or fluid-like, can receive and echo radio signals easily. Try this: Pull up to a traffic light till the radio station fades a bit, then reach out and grab your car antenna. The station should come back in clear. Your body is absorbing the same radio signal and you are joining forces, so to... |
Why is it that normal body temperature is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, but when it's more then 85 degrees out I feel hot? | 98.6 is the temperature in your body. Your skin temperature can be a lot different depending on what's going on around you. Your body produces it's own heat so if it's warm outside your body it has to make up the difference between that temperature and what your body naturally makes. When the air temperature around you... |
Why do some solids dissolve in water? | Water is a polar molecule meaning it has a positive and negative side. Things that dissolve in water also have some form of charge. Think of it as generic Lego pieces, doesn't matter what size the Lego piece is - the bits still slot together. Things that don't dissolve in water do not have any form of charge. Think of ... |
Why aren't games written in OpenGL so they can be played on any computer instead of just Windows? | If you're interested in the history of DirectX and OpenGL, there's a pretty good account of it [here] that helps provide some insight as to why and how DirectX became the dominant API for 3D games. |
How are ancient towns just "lost" and become ruins? | Towns consumes resources to survives, and usually have to produce some sort of resource to justify their existence. If one of these run out, the town dies. Common reasons include: * wells run dry* land is overfarmed, and becomes unproductive* all the trees are cut down* the mines are mined out* climate becomes hotter, ... |
Why does alcohol get better with age, but beer has an expiration date? | Beer's expiration date is not when it goes bad, but the approximate amount of time that the manufacturer guarantees taste. Things like temperature, and light can change the taste of beer. |
What chemical/biological changes occur when you cook meat? What makes it go from slimy and raw to cooked? | A few things happen: 1) As other answers have noted, proteins denature. Proteins have what is called a secondary structure, where the long chain of amino acids that constitutes the protein folds and binds back on itself, kind of like a rope getting tangled. Cooking releases those bonds and changes the shape and structu... |
Why is it wrong to describe the internet as a "series of tubes"? | It's actually not a bad analogy for its original purpose, namely explaining why there is a limit to the amount of information the net can carry. But one must remember it is an analogy, and not try to extend its use beyond its purpose. |
If having good eyesight is an evolutionary advantage, how come so many people these days have to wear glasses? Surely natural selection would have favoured those with good eyesight? | Some people look more attractive when blurry or they may not know they aren't attractive having bad eyesight like permanent beer goggles creating a reversal in natural selection. |
Why must eyeballs remain moist? | They are water balloons. The water pressure inside them is necessary for them to function. If it is off, the lens doesn't focus properly. If the surface dries out, the interior fluid would start to pass through the tissue and evaporate. That, and they need to move around freely in the socket, so the fluid is lubricatio... |
What changed about modern wars so that we no longer have household names like The Red Baron, The White Death, and Alvin York? | Have you ever seen Enemy at the Gate? It's a great movie about a Russian sniper who they basically turn into a celebrity to raise the public's moral and motivation to continue the war. The names you list off all come from WWI, times in which we were waging an all out war. These things need a lot of public support to ge... |
How do social trends among young children, (like the "k-i-s-s-i-n-g in a tree" and "girls go to Jupiter" songs) spread between primary schools across the US without changing significantly? | The rhyme, which means they can't change too much. One school may start it, but then the cousins of kids who go to a different school will pick them up, and it will spread.I remember the "k i s s i n g in a tree" as a skipping rhyme from the early 1960's. But it is probably a lot older than that. |
Why do some animals like Huskies pass down precise markings, others like tigers have specific markings but random placements, and some like Nigerian Dwarf goats are completely random? | I've heard that some animals have genes that are heat activated-so, for instance, cold places on their bodies like the paws will be one color and others will be a different color. Same would be exhibited throughout the body. |
Could I get in trouble for having like $4,000 in cash? | Confirmed, no red flags will be raised. You'd have to be doing it a lot for the banks to notice.Source: bank teller here |
How are Android apps resizable for various screen sizes, while iPhone apps must be altered? | Does it have anything to do with Android being designed for any device that it's installed on, whereas iOS apps are only designed for Apple products? |
Why is there a huge trend in Hollywood over the last decade of re-making and re-booting old franchises? | The better question is why the historic trend has devolved into releasing nothing but awful remakes that make no effort to recapture the original passion or introduce new passion to a franchise. I'm gonna be the snob and say that most moviegoers just don't have good taste anymore, so the studios don't need to innovate ... |
Why do movie credits include information like the catering company and truck driver's name, while other works of art (eg theatre, novels) don't? | Good unions. Back in the day, even a huge movie had short credits. Over time, more and more positions were acknowledged. This is partly due to union demands for recognition of the roles people fill, and partly a way for studios to concede something that doesn't cost them money. Work for peanuts, get your name on the bi... |
Why do we talk about Oxygen more than Nitrogen when referring to air even though it is 70%ish Nitrogen? | Because human bodies take and use oxygen out of the air, not nitrogen and the general idea that air=life. If the air had no oxygen we'd be dead. That's probably why it gets the attention it does.Looking at the graphic on this page: _URL_0_ you can see that the body is made up of 65% Oxygen and only 3.2% Nitrogen. Nitro... |
I am allergic to cats. What would happen if I ate one? | Your current allergies are related to the fur/dander. However, there is a chance you are also allergic to the meat. There's only one way to find out.What people are saying about the fur and dander is true but I did see on 1000 ways to die that drink milk from your cat might not be a good idea. _URL_0_ |
With millions of characters, what characters go on a japanese or chinese cell phone? | I'm not completely sure on your question but I believe if you meant, due to the large amount of characters you are wondering what are the keys on a Japanese/Chinese cellphone. Like how Western has ABC - DEF, etc. If this is what you meant from my knowledge, Japanese cellphones have hiragana/katakana on them, each kana ... |
When meat/eggs go bad, why does cooking them not make them edible? | Besides poop, bacteria also release spores. These are one way for bacteria to make more bacteria. Spores are much harder to kill. Food usually isn't cooked to a high enough temperature to kill spores, because the result would be almost burnt. |
How is golden rice made? | Not a stupid question at all its actually really complicated. I'm getting a biology degree and still don't fully understand it. I'll take a shot at it though until someone more knowledgeable comes along. Basically how they make genetically modified crops is they take the DNA from another crop and *splice* it into the D... |
If a video game is installed on my hard drive, what is happening when a level is "loading" | Sure can. It's just not as big as you think it is. For instance in 3D games, objects and the environment are textured. A texture is just a picture being applied to an object, like gluing a poster over a wall. A 512x512 uncompressed texture would be 768 KB in size, so you can fit 1365 of those in 1GB of RAM, which isn't... |
Why can't a transistor process 3 states but only two? | That's wrong. Transistors in digital logic are used in the fully on or the fully off states, but a transistor can be anything in between as well. It's just far less efficient when doing so. And there have been attempts at ternary computers, but there's really no reason to do it. It adds extra complications for no real ... |
What are these "signaling problems" that always seem to hold trains up? | This video may help explain: _URL_0_ It pertains to the Toronto Transit Commission aka TTC in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and subways, but the idea is the same. The TTC is super old, so the signals problems are quite common. They've been working for a few years now on updating to these new signals, which means that almos... |
How are babies natural swimmers but some adults/teens cant swim? | Babies up to the age of 6 months old have a natural instinct to be able to swim. We lose this at 6 months, I'm not sure why though. Babies always keep their instinct to hold their breathe under water though, these instincts are to prevent drowning before we are old enough to swim. Although 6 months seems too early to l... |
Why can't the government produce mass amounts of money and fix the debt that way? | It could. Some governments have, in history, done exactly that. The reason it's not a good solution is that when you just print lots and lots of money , wages go up , but prices go up, too . In addition, currencies which are treated in this way are considered less valuable by people in other countries. People and insti... |
Why do we want to listen to a specific song multiple times and afterwards don't want to hear it for weeks? | I'd say because what is interesting about the song is that your ear doesn't expect what is happening in the song at first. Once you know what's coming it seems watered down and consequently not as interesting anymore. Kind of like watching sixth sense too many times in a week. |
What is the difference between GDP per Capita and average personal income, and how well do they correlate? | GDP per capita is calculated by taking the value of the goods and services produced in a nation and dividing it by the total population. It correlates pretty well with average income and can often stand in for that, but there could be differences. GDP includes the value of goods and services produced by foreign-owned c... |
Why aren't all cars made from carbon fiber since it is lighter, stronger and cheaper than steel? | Carbon fiber also makes a nasty mess when you break it; carbon nanoparticles can get in your lungs and cause symptoms similar to asbestos exposure, but worse as your body doesn't encapsulate carbon. |
How does a Radio DJ know when the song vocals start. | The system I've seen used. Shows the first few seconds of the song in a wave format. Is you can pretty much pick where the song starts. It does take some practice to get exactly right though. |
Why do toddlers enjoy making people smile and laugh so much? | Actually its them who feel elevated by the thought that they have accomplished something. And that's why they try to repeat. |
why we perform lobotomies and extreme medication instead of euthanasia | I would assume it was for the emotions of the patients relatives more than the patient himself, since they most likely wouldn't know better afterwards. The family would still get to see a moving representation of what they knew as opposed to seeing it lowered into the ground. I guess, prolonging the inevitable. |
How is it that the media (often quoting law enforcement) seem to know all of the big players in the mafia but can't arrest them even after years and years and years? | In order to convict someone, you have to be able to prove they committed the crime. Being in the mafia or even begin the head of the mafia isn't necessarily a crime by default. The big guys keep their hands clean by having underlings do the incriminating stuff, and information about them is kept to a minimum. No emails... |
Why can some animals, like squirrels and birds, understand the concept of cars but others, like deer, cannot. | I assume it's partly because squirrels and birds live in the city and are constantly around motor vehicles. They quickly learn the dangers associated with getting too close to a moving car. Deer, on the other hand, live out in the woods and generally shy away from noisy settlements. A lot of those deer have never seen ... |
Is there really a blood shortage at all times like the red cross emails me about? How much of my blood actually gets sent to people in need? | I've work as a nurse in Ontario for 4 years and over that time I have seen that we do not treat anemia as aggressively as we used to because of the shortage of blood. Often we will put patients on iron supplements and monitor the haemoglobin. Before we used to transfuse a patient if the haemoglobin was below 90 Then 80... |
If Barack Obama was "born in Kenya" and therefore not eligible to be US President, why is Canadian born Ted Cruz in the running for the GOP? | Because the claim from Trump was never about Obama's actual legitimacy, it was trying to find some way to undermine him that people who were already against him could hold on to. This sort of stuff is about theatrics and cognitive dissonance, not actual information. |
As a Canadian with only a peripheral awareness of US politics, why do so many Americans hate Obama so very much? | Reddit is giving you a skewed view. I don't know why, either. Anytime Obama does something good, Redditors say it was a publicity stunt. Anytime the Republicans in Congress block him, they say Obama isn't doing anything. America will look back on Obama pretty fondly, and that he handled a major economic crisis, and did... |
How do the trucks that lay cement cement prevent it from drying up inside the container that pours it out? | You don't, more or less- the constant churning helps, but essentially, it's a timed reaction. There are many horror stories of concrete trucks getting stuck in traffic. Or late deliveries meaning that you suddenly have to frantically spread a truck load of concrete very, very, very quickly. |
How is it that one side of politics could think government regulations are hurting the economy while the other side think a lack of regulations is doing the same thing? | You do not have to choose between the belief that government is good or bad . This is known as a false dilemma. There are good people in government. Of course, this varies by agency. Here is one example of the fight between good and bad taking place in government: [A group of scientists at the U.S. Food and Drug Admini... |
How does moving country change you initial accent? | I have seen two extremes: a chilean moving to spain and in two weeks had picked up the accent and after a year returned to chile and the accent stuck for about 5 years. An argentinian, and a spaniard, moving to chile and *increasing* their accent, making it more exaggerated, as if clinging to their motherland. Personal... |
Why are warm blankets cozy, but rooms of the same temperature are stifling? | Why do I overheat, even if I sleep with just a sheet. I can't use a comforter unless I have 1 leg exposed to the open air. Even with a sheet, I have found myself waking up in a damp bed because I sweated so much, to the point i have to lay a towel down and sleep on the towel. The house isn't necessarily hot or too warm... |
Why do I need to update Flash all the time? | I see a lot of people in here knocking Adobe Flash being coded poorly, or that it doesn't support 'X' standard. Here's the simplest reason that you need to update Adobe Flash all the time: People who are developing exploits to leverage vulnerabilities on computers are looking to target the largest base possible. Think ... |
Why do we feel tired after 8 hours of sleep on workdays, but don't feel tired after 6 hours of sleep on weekends? | It's to do with the mix of chemicals in your brain, and to a lesser degree in your body too. It gets complex because the mixture changes how you feel, but doing things that make you feel change the mixture. It's a loop. Sleep changes this mixture, removing the ones that make you sleepy but there are many other chemical... |
How is the US economy doing since the 2007-2009 recession? | It's doing different. * Employment trends are actually pretty good--not fully recovered, but getting there. Workforce participation is well below where it was in the mid 90's, but job growth has been solid. Layoffs are near an all-time low. * Assets are doing great--stocks are fully recovered, and real estate is back o... |
Why is depression so common now but was seemingly uncommon in the past? | [Professor Robert Sapolsky] explains depression in a way that made a lot of sense to me. Essentially, depression is displaced inward stress. Stress is very effective when worrying about some predator trying to eat you, or someone trying to kill you. You can avoid the problem or deal with it, and move on. Depression mig... |
Why does Putin back Syria to the point that he will arm them against the US? | Why wouldn't he? Russia has a naval base there, a lot of commercial interests, and a relationship with the Assads going back decades. If you're seen to casually abandon your allies as soon as there's trouble, nobody will ever enter into new relationships with your government. Credibility matters. |
Why do moths eat holes through clothing? What attracts them to clothing in the first place? | I don't think anyone has emphasised that it's animal fiber that the larvae go for. Wool, silk and hair not cotton, linen or cellulose based fiber. The moths evolved to seek out dead animals and live on the pelt. Human's weaving dead animal fiber is a close enough equivalent for them. Sweat, and body odour on the fibers... |
what is procedural generation and why is it so popular in video games? | Its only popular in games that are designed for high amounts of replayability or unlimited exploration and open ended games. Think minecraft and No Man's Sky, or like a endless runner platformer. In most story based video games procedural generation lead to bland worlds that are hard to attach story to because each exp... |
How do plastic chopping boards not get completely destroyed by knives? | They do get gouges in them over time, that's the point. If it was super solid , it would dull the knives drastically. Of course, you can mitigate the damage by push cutting and not hitting the board too hard, rather than sawing food apart. There are are boards made now which are designed to give a little without actual... |
Why certain foods never make it out of their geographic area. | > everyone clearly has access to the same ingredients Why do you think this is the case? It isn't. |
What is gas giant and why is it considered to be a planet? | In 1995 we sent the Galileo probe into Jupiter. The thick atmosphere slowed it down considerably and built up an enormous amount of heat on it's blast shield. I think the probe only made it a mile or two into Jupiter's atmosphere before being crushed. |
I believe I can safely use a 75-watt-equivalent LED bulb in my 40-watt-rated table lamp because the LED only uses 13 watts. Is my logic faulty? | The rating on the lamp is more about the amount of heat an incandescent bulb would produce than the amount of power it would draw to do so. Since LED's produce very little heat you're safe, you could safely use a brighter LED if you wanted to. |
Why does saying "if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to worry about" sounds reasonable on its face but still makes me uncomfortable? | Because it falsely assumes that privacy is only used for hiding illegal activities. In politics this technique is called 'framing'. |
Why do movies look smooth @23fps when watching videos @30fps look choppy on my computer? | It actually doesn't it's just the film makers know how to make it less noticeable. Most of the time the cinematographer is tracking a move object with the film camera which makes the choppiness less noticeable to the human brain. It they just pan the camera over the background it's quite noticeable. |
How does applying toothpaste to a CD to help fix scratches work? | You make a scratch that's bigger than visible lights wavelength into little scratches smaller than the wavelength of visible light. |
what would happen if the internet "stopped working" | So many devices rely on the internet to communicate with each other. These devices range from cell phones to ATMs and even large systems like the stock market, phones , shipping networks, TV, more importantly reddit would no longer work. Any system that relied on the internet's communication would become bottlenecked b... |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.