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Could a person survive in a falling lift if they jumped as it hit the ground? | Of course if the elevator only drops two inches, everyone will survive. But the real answer, as others have pointed out, is that jumping won't make any material difference. Also, if the elevator were truly in free fall, you wouldn't be *able* to jump. You'd be pretty much floating around loose inside the elevator, like... |
What causes the American South and Midwest to have so many tornadoes, and why are they so relatively rare everywhere else in the world? | Southern England gets more tornadoes per square km than anywhere else in the world - it's just they're so weak that they're barely noticeable 99% of the time. I've seen two tornadoes in my 27 years of living in southern England, one in Cornwall and one in East Sussex - the total damage of which amounted to a couple of ... |
How can the RIAA ever hope to get 675,000$ out of this one guy? | They don't hope to get $675,000 out of that one guy . They hope that, by suing for such a ridiculous amount, they can deter other people from doing what he did. |
What does it mean to Journal an external hard drive and why is it recommended for Mac computers? | You can format your disk however you want to. If you format it as HFS+ then it'll be journaled. If you choose something else it won't be. There isn't much reason to pick HFS without the journaling as it's simply a depreciated system at this point. If you need to use a Windows-compatible format then you can do that. |
Why is it that the barrel of the gun is the part that becomes hot when fired instead of the area where the bullet is struck from? | The heat of the barrel comes from the kinetic friction between the bullet and the inside of a barrel. Rub the palm of your hand along your forearm back and forth rapidly; you'll notice it'll begin to feel warm. For the same reason your arm begins to warm up, so does the barrel of your gun. Also consider that gun barrel... |
What is a Saudi prince? Why are they always rich? Why are there so many of them? | Not many families. One really, really big royal family. And yes, it's a very wealthy family. |
How do surgeons control bleeding once they cut a person open? | It's a combination of electric cautery and not cutting big vessels. You would be surprised how little people actually bleed during most surgery. In something like a c-section where blood loss is unavoidable you work quickly and efficiently then uses stitches and pressure to control bleeding! |
Why is "playing dead" so rarely used tactic in war? | There's the false retreat, that the Spartans supposedly used, but that's the closest you'll get to playing dead on the battlefield. |
What is the purpose of mosquitos? | It's kinda self centred for humans to imagine that every animal has a purpose, with regards to us. Mosquitos might be asking themselves what our purpose is . |
What is the reason most states mandate that big lottery winners cannot remain anonymous? | The typical answer is so that players can see real winners and be encouraged to play. However, many countries give players the option to go public or not, and still get enough people to use in their publicity. Even when people don't go public, a bit of mystery and speculation occurs which creates interest too. The comp... |
How is it that Apple can market their new iPad Pro without any sort of copyright/trademark/patent infringement given that it appears nearly identical to the Microsoft Surface? | It's a PENCIL not a STYLUS. It's SCREEN SHARING not SNAP. It's a SMART KEYBOARD not a TYPE COVER. EDIT: I forgot the /s for whoever couldn't sense the sarcasm and downvoted me. |
If Roman numerals are written in order from greatest to least in quantity, such as XII (unless when subtracting like XIV), why is Super Bowl 48 labeled as XLVIII instead of LXVIII? | They're *not* written in order from greatest to least. However, *if* a lower-valued symbol appears before a higher-valued symbol, then it is subtracted from it . e.g. XI = 10+1 = 11but IX = +10 = 9 So, LXVIII = 50+10+5+1+1+1 = 68and XLVIII = +50+5+1+1+1 = 48 |
What specifically happens when a speaker “blows out”? | Sound is produced by moving the air to create waves. The electromagnet causes the face of the speaker to vibrate in and out which pushes the air. If the face of the speaker tears it won't be able to push the air as effectively and therefore the sound will suffer. |
Why don't those charities that make wigs for cancer patients simply shave the heads of people about to go through chemo and make them a wig of their own hair instead? | My mother went through chemo so perhaps I have a different angle on the question. When my mother started losing her hair she didn't shave it till well into the chemo, so she didn't have a full head of hair at the time she would have needed her wig. Quantity seems to be the problem. |
How does a pilot manage cruising altitude when local geography/elevation changes? | Altitude is primarily measured by air pressure. You start with whatever the barometric pressure is at sea level, and using that as your calibration point, you then read the local barometric pressure. If it's lower then you are higher up. If it's greater then you are below sea level. Barometric pressure changes hour to ... |
If all drugs were legal wouldn't criminal organizations still have an advantage since they don't have to pay min-wage, taxes, and can sell at a cheaper price? | Most people would pay the premium to not be engaging in illegal activity. Also, drug dealers are notoriously unreliable. I'd rather pay $60 to get an eighth from the store than $40 to wait for an hour in some parking lot for some dude I never met, all the while looking over my shoulder for cops. |
Technocracy and why the USA isn't one. | Because the US was not formed as one and has no easy mechanism to become one. Because there isn't any clear indication many people want it to be one. Because there is no indication that being an expert in a scientific field makes one a better governor. Because knowledge of science can be obtained from experts without p... |
Why do you get periorbital dark circles when tired? | it's genetic when your parents have them you have them, that and a lack of exercise, sleep and diet. When you get older you seem to get them more.. our faces are made out of fat and muscles etc so they get dragged down tldr:it is the fat in our face weakening .from age and a factor of sleep/diet/exercise |
Why does one get that "stomach-dropping" feeling when falling? | You're used to your innards being anchored down by gravity. When you're falling, your innards are falling at the same speed effectively making them weightless, which is disorienting. Exactly how a weightless environment feels. |
Why do we get tired easily when it's a bit warm? | It also feels like it's easier to nap when it's warm, but not fall asleep for the night. No idea why. |
Excluding "Go Set a Watchman" and pertaining strictly to "To Kill a Mockingbird," what is the evidence to support the idea that Atticus Finch is racist? | The article you link seems to answer the question. They don't say that Atticus is out-and-out filled with racial hatred, but more that he seems to talk a good game yet not REALLY connect with the client in a genuine way. Their point seems to be that people think of Atticus as an perfect, ideal non-racist when he's more... |
Why are children born from incest more at risk of having physical/mental defects? | Everyone has 2 copies of each gene, one from their mother, one from their father. Genes come in two types: dominant and recessive. For the sake of explanation, let's say 1 gene controls eye colour. And let's also say that the brown eye gene is dominant, and the blue eye gene is recessive. If you get the brown eye gene ... |
what is escrow and how does it work? | Escrow is also common when you have a mortgage. The bank owns the house, and you pay them monthly. You also pay the state property taxes every year, and they can take your house away if you don't. The bank also requires you to have insurance, so you have to pay the insurance company every year. The bank has a vested in... |
What do bees and wasps do when they come back to find their nest destroyed? | They will begin building another one, but without a queen, it is my understanding that they die. From a practical perspective, this is why it's best to spray in the late cool evening, when the largest majority of the wasps are at home |
How did Spain, the defender of the Catholic faith, the colonial superpower of old, turn so irrelevant in current world affairs unlike her English and French counterparts? | Napoleon! Napoleon was victorious in the First Peninsular War and had his brother installed as King of Spain. Even though the Bourbons were able to reclaim the throne, they were unable to reclaim imperial power. Blocked by US opposition, Spain was unable to put an end to the independence revolutions in Latin America, f... |
Why is India unable to control its population growth as effectively as China? Are there reasons other than their different styles of government? | India has a TFR of 2.5 which is the replacement rate of a developing country like India. The china's one child policy had many detrimental effects where families would abort female babies to have a male child and then you had a big discrepancy in the male to female population. In India population control has been achei... |
Why do I feel colder inside my house in the winter even though my thermostat is set at the same temperature all year? | Your thermostat triggers your heating and cooling based on a feedback control system. From Wikipedia: The thermostat of a house is an example of a feedback controller. This controller relies on measuring the controlled variable, in this case the temperature of the house, and then adjusting the output, whether or not th... |
How come we don't fall off the bed or couch when we sleep? | You have a subconscious sense of balance/orientation and your body stops you from doing things like that. Ever seen someone sleeping in a chair? Notice how when they start to fall over they sorta snap to and sit back upright, all the while still sleeping? It's the same sense. |
Why is peeling skin so satisfying? | Primates are into grooming and picking. /u/FZFletch is onto something with > I guess it's a natural reaction for the brain to want to pick off dead skin to make way for healthy skin to take its place and to avoid carrying around contaminated/dirty and dead old cells. This urge is so strong that it is what causes us to ... |
Why don’t your eyes get damaged when you look at the sun in your peripheral vision? | If your eye held still long enough, and if the exposure were strong enough, then it would cause damage. We tend to scan with our eyes though, not holding them still for very long unless we are looking directly at something . The sun becomes more damaging when we stare directly at it and the eye focuses on the light, di... |
How can Huy Fong Sriracha dominate the market without any marketing or even a trademark on the name sriracha? | Man, Sriraja Panich is the bomb. I'm surprised no one has said that yet! The rooster junk is just gross. |
How does music conducting work? | It's mostly to help those playing or singing keep the timing and count. If the music is set to a count of 4, for example, the conductor will have 4 distinct movements that they will make, one on each beat. The amplitude of those movements, as well as any other movements the conductor might make are to do things like in... |
What's causing the very high pitched engine noise and bangs usually Rally cars produce? | The high pitched noise is the turbo . The bangs are excess gas/air igniting in the exhaust when they let off the gas, because when you are sucking that much air & gas through the motor, it can't stop following instantly when you lift off the accelerator. |
How is it ok for Comcast to be selling Kim Kardashian's Sex Tape OnDemand | Why would anyone raise hell? It's no longer a leaked tape, Kim actually sold the rights to it, so now it's like any other licensed porn movie _URL_0_ |
Why is it so near impossible to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth simultaneously? | It takes practice. There's a technique I learned in my band days called circle breathing where you breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth perpetually. I had to play [this song.] The reason it's so hard to do is because of how we breathe. Normally, air goes in one orifice, sits in the lungs for a second... |
Why does over sleeping makr you feel "hungover"? | Two reasons: * While you're sleeping, you're not drinking. You're essentially dehydrating slowly, whereas normally you'd be drinking some juice or water in the morning. You've just gone for 10 hours without something to drink.* Unless you're young , sleeping longer tends to make the neck stiff, further increasing grogg... |
Is it just luck or some other reason why germs that spread easily aren't nearly as deadly as harder to contract germs (Like AID's or rabies or the like). | Diseases are trying to evolve to spread as much as possible. Killing the host is a very bad move for them, so they'll generally evolve to be less harmful, and to spread faster. HIV, for instance, is a bit of a failure, perhaps because it evolved to be a monkey virus and only crossed over to humans recently . Most of th... |
If I dug a hole from north to south pole and jumped right into it, what would happen? | You would die. If it wasn't from the north to south pole, then you would be slammed against the walls on your way down. If it was between the poles, you would get incinerated as you passed the ever hotter walls which reach 6000 C in the core, as hot as the surface of the sun. Your ashes' maximum velocity would occur as... |
What is 4k gaming, and why can't/don't use it? | The first google result for '4K gaming' is [Why next-gen consoles won't run games at 4k] > if we look at just raw graphic power based on FLOPS we see some pretty big differences. The Xbox One is estimated to have a peak power of 1.23 teraflops. The PS4 has 1.84.Nvidia stated that the Titan has a peak output of 4.5 tera... |
Why do my contact lenses stay on top of my iris rather than sliding constantly? | Eyeball isn't totally spherical. The front of the eye has a bowed put shape. The contact lens is molded to that shape. |
How is the money distributed when you donate to research cancer? | There's a site called [Consano] that uses crowd-funding for medical research Look at a list of projects, donate any amount to the one you want, and all of your money goes directly to that project. The researchers are required to send updates to their donors at least quarterly.I'm gonna jump in here because I spent seve... |
why isnt gas regulated like a necessity? | Because it's not a necessity, it's a luxury to own a car and therefor being able to fuel said car is also a luxury, it's common for alot of people to not have a car and usually rely on walking, biking, carpooling, ect. |
Is antiperspirant deodorant unhealthy? | There's very little to suggest that modern antiperspirants are unhealthy. Antiperspirants stop you from sweating only where you apply them; your body's cooling system isn't significantly impacted because it can still sweat from the other 98% of your body. |
What is the deep web and how do you access it? | The deep web is the part of the internet that won't come up on search engines. You can access it using [The Onion Browser], or TOR. Most people just write tor and not TOR; i just did it for emphasis, I guess. It's supposed to bounce your IP address back and forth across the globe in order to be anonymous but, with know... |
Why wouldn't prop planes require counter torque when helicopters do? Does it have to do with the plane's mass? | Right rudder! Right rudder! If you have every taking a flying lesson, you will constantly hear that. The prop caused torque from its spin, the from the asymmetrical airflow it causes, its asymmetrical lift when at an angle, and even gyroscopic procession. An airplane has a lot of movable surfaces, its rudder and ailero... |
What stops Private Military Companies from just one day going "OK, it's revolution time."? | They aren't connected to any country, and they rely on the existence of governments to form contracts. They are technically not even allowed to open fire except in cases of self defense, or are in a country that has given them permission to fire when necessary. They aren't evil, and have nothing to gain from overthrowi... |
Why doesn't water help with dry skin? | Yeah, the water ends up absorbing moisture rather that moisturizing your skin. Also, repeated water exposure can quickly dry out and chafe skin. It's why it's better to not lick your lips when they're chapped. I learned the hard way when I suffered from a case of REALLY bad chapped lips that the only way to get rid of ... |
Why do we "zone out", or stare into space? | This is what I remember from college:1. Can be petit mal seizures if person can't be prompted out of it2. Acts like a mini-sleep; allows the brain to process and categorize information, which permits learning to occur. Happens more often is brain is taxed from other reasons 3. Can be a result of kind of temporary hypno... |
If modern stealth aircraft have a radar cross-section of a bird, why doesn't enemy radar simply track the 800 mph small bird signals? | The answers here are pretty accurate, but another factor is that most radars can't identify the small birds until they're well within weapons release range. |
What is the method in deciding if an organism is a newly discovered species or not? | Phylogenetics. Basically see the differences in the genetic code and I believe they have some sort of equation for it. Edit: Here you go: _URL_0_ |
Why did we go through this huge change from 4:3 TVs to 16:9 TVs, only to have all the movies now come out in letter-boxed 2.40:1? | A bit of history for you guys new to this whole debacle Movies way back in the day were shot and projected at a 1.66 : 1 aspect ratio, which is essentially 'television aspect'. That was the original aspect ratio. With the advent of television hitting the market, the TV industry staked a claim in direct competition with... |
Why are their braille dots on the drive up ATMs? | My ex mother-in-law was blind. She'd often sit in the rear driver-side seat when she needed to go to the bank. I'd pull up to the ATM where her window was lined up with the machine. She'd roll down the window and do her banking. TL;DR - Blind people can't drive cars, but they are often passengers. |
Why do people sometimes get a burst of energy right before bedtime? | For me it's because I've been drinking caffeinated drinks all day and this is when they kick in. |
If fish "breathe" dissolved oxygen in the water, why do they die once they exit the water? | Mostly because their gills, like our lungs, have to be moist to work. Unlike our lungs, fish gills don't have a mechanism that keeps them moist. Another poster mentioned that they can't move oxygen past the gills fast enough, but this is not the case. While it's true that a fish couldn't gulp down air to breath, air mo... |
Why can't human babies walk (or at least crawl) from birth? | Human babies postpone certain types of development in exchange for the ability to grow much more intelligent in the future. Humans are able to get away with that because the capabilities and intelligence of our adults makes them better at protecting helpless newborns than most other mammals are. A baby deer that can't ... |
Why does Facebook seem to be overrun with still images as videos lately? | I thought it was to prevent the saving of the picture or meme that's being displayed in the video by someone else other than the original creator.I spend about $4k/month on Facebook advertising. The truth is video ads cost less than half of a typical ad. I can quickly make a video out of a bunch of still images and pus... |
Why is violence such an accepted part of TV and movies, but not sex? | Just want to mention it's cultural. For instance in french movies, you always have nudity but never violence . Edit1: sometimes it's violence to see a french actress bush that is true.Are you asking why is violence not accepted in sex? or why is sex not an accepted part in tv and movies? |
What would happen if you took several months of birth control at once? | It wouldn't be fatal, the body can handle sudden increases in these kinds of chemicals sense it makes and expects to dispose of it often. You could expect strange things to occur though, your stomach won't appreciate it one bit and it's likely you would puke most of it out. It's unlikely but it can cause an extreme pan... |
Why are even numbered houses on one side of the road and odd on the other? | Convenience. You start numbering from one *end* of the street, so people know how far down that street they will have to go to find the number. You number the houses as you go. One on one side, the next on the other side, and so on. In a perfect world they would always line up so it would work out as being odds and eve... |
Why is it not appropriate to wear a suit to all interviews? I thought the advice was to always wear one because you can't go wrong with it. | The general advice is that you should wear something a little nicer than you'd wear every day to the job.\r\rThis means that in office settings a suit is the way to go.\r\rOn the other end, wearing a suit will make you look out of place when interviewing for a pizza delivery job or supermarket night fill. In the worst ... |
It confuses me when people say we should eat vegetables raw because nutrients are lost in the cooking process. Can some one please explain. | Vitamins are just organic compounds. At high heats, vitamins can break apart, becoming functionally useless to our bodies. And some vitamins are water soluble, so if you're boiling carrots or whatever, those vitamins will leech into the water, and since we generally don't then drink that water, those vitamins are funct... |
Why do some people have the inability to float in water? | Essentially, the reason we can float at all is that when we spread our weight out, the buoyant force from the water is greater than the weight of our body on the water. However, if there's not enough surface area to allow the pressure to push up on your body, you will sink. I think that some people simply cannot stret... |
Why are sexual fetishes so much more common in men than they are in women? | I don't think they are more common in men than women. I think that our current society allows men to have sexual fetishes and doesn't allow women the same sexual exploration, or at least shames the discussion of female fetishes. Since sex is highly patriarchal and all. |
ELIM5: Why does Einstein have theories and Newton has laws | A theory is a model that tries to explain why or how something happens. A law is a mathematical formula that describes exactly how something happens based on observation. For example: Newton has a [theory of gravity] that says the more massive something is, the more gravity it has and the more it attracts other things ... |
How do unlimited vacation days at tech companies work? | It's mainly an accounting measure. It allows them to not have this bank of outstanding days they have to pay if you stop working there. The place I work allows vacation without manager approval. An one guy just got back from 3 1/2 weeks in europe fwiw. |
Why it matters if a species like the tiger goes extinct | Most of these answers are incorrect if you're talking specifically about tigers. Although tigers are indeed the apex predators in their environment, there are only ~3000 individuals remaining in the wild stretched across all of Asia . Unlike alligators that dig canals or elephants that knock over vegetation, tigers als... |
If our bodies are products of evolution, how could our bodies have evolved the ability to release amounts of DMT upon impending death? | It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with evolution. Some things are just accidents, and the massive overdose of DMT at the very end of life might be one of them. There is no end-of-life purpose, it is just the result of the pineal gland shutting down. The real question is what is the purpose of the pineal gland ... |
If the modern interpretation of a knight (heavy steel armor, huge armies of them) is so incorrect, where did it come from? | well historically that interpretation was correct. but only in certain cases did knights wear heavy steel armor. but huge armies of them is inaccurate. traditionally knights were considered nobility and being knighted was an honor , but it also meant you had to fight for your king to defend your lands. today's definiti... |
Open source vs Free Software? And why does Stallman not like Open Source? | Open Source means the source code is available and you can modify it. Free Software means the source code is available and you can modify it, PROVIDED you release it as free software. Free Software , forces all modifications of its software to remain free. While other licenses like the BSD, Apache, MIT can allow for a ... |
how most wild animals can run at incredible speeds for a long time whilst humans lose stamina quickly. | Humans are some of the best long distance runners in the world, there's actually a form of hunting called persistence hunting where people chase after an animal until it collapses from exhaustion. _URL_0_", 'Humans actually have more stamina than other animals. Over a long enough distance, a fit human can outrun most o... |
how was 0 invented? Was it just the word and number 0 or were there no word for having nothing of something? Did negative numbers exist before 0? How would that work? | Before the mathematical concept of zero was invented, languages of course had words for having none of an item. But there weren't negative numbers; that's actually a pretty advanced mathematical concept. Zero was invented because some advanced math required it. In earlier times, if you needed to count how many chickens... |
why are we trying to get colonies on Mars and not the moon? | If we wanted a launch point for further space exploration, we wouldn't put it on another planet; we'd do it from Earth. Trying to transport a spaceship from Earth to Mars or the Moon and then launching it would be a logistical nightmare and a massive waste of resources. Extraterrestrial colonies are for research, not e... |
What is a Prince Rupert's Drop? | It's molten glass that has been thrown to the water, cooling it really fast. This causes the outer layer to be solid in a small period of time, in which the inner layers of glass are still liquid. When the inner layer solidifies it creates an incredible amount of pressure that grants the Prince Rupert's drop an incredi... |
How come there are no noise cancelling apps out there? Cell phones have the necessary inputs and outputs. I would think someone would have done it a while ago. | A few reasons. There biggest one is that your cell phone microphone is monaural while noise cancelling headphone have to have two independent pickup channels to effectively cancel out the outside noise. Another reason is that your phone can be at any arbitrary distance and orientation to your ears so it wouldn't be eff... |
In the United States, who/what determines if a minor gets charged as an adult? | In theory at least, it's supposed to be a judgement call based on whether or not the defendant was mature enough to understand the morality of his actions. A 4 year old, for example, might not really understand why stealing candy from a grocery store is wrong, but a 14 year old definitely would.The prosecutor decides h... |
Why are radiators always placed directly under windows? | There is also the practical thought that the space below a window isn't often used for anything else - if you want to place a bookcase, it will be at a point where the wall is full height and uninterrupted, so by putting the radiator below the window you will leave more space free elsewhere.Windows are usually the cold... |
Why are people against global warming? | Some people think it's a conspiracy some scientists all over the world cooked up together to get money/funding. Some people think it's real, but don't believe it's happening as quickly as it is. Some people think it will naturally balance itself out, that humans aren't responsible for global warming, and some people ev... |
What do doctors infer from using Stethoscopes? How can they identify what's wrong with us by just hearing us breathe? | A little beside the point, since most of the good answers have already been given. But some other neat little things a Stethoscope can be used for: - Bowel Sounds: not the most sensitive test, but a doc can infer whether your bowel is completely inactive , normally active, or hyperactive w/ tinkling, which could imply ... |
how is a satellite/space shuttle safely decommissioned? | Here is the US Government's official guidance on spacecraft disposal. [ ]", '_URL_2_Sometimes they will go to a disposable orbit. |
why has nasa's curiosity rover only travelled 10 miles in the space of 5 years. | It doesn't need to go that far to do it's mission. Additionally, every inch of movement is meticulously planned. If it goes over a large rock and gets stuck, the mission is over.The rover is slow and they only move it very carefully. It cant go far on a single charge of its batteries either. They dont want to just driv... |
Why do companies like Apple, Sony, and Microsoft not release their products on or close to before Black Friday or other sale increasing holidays? Wouldn't doing so boost or attract sales? | Sony and Microsoft did release their consoles near black Friday- the Playstation IV was released on November 15th and the Xbox One was released on November 22nd. For most of their products though, Microsoft isn't targeting Black Friday shoppers. They're targeting companies like Dell and HP that will put Microsoft softw... |
How are things becoming so expensive if our wages are stagnant and we are making less today relative to inflation? | Are those the same people buying all those things? My wife and I had no parental support and did not live on credit, but we did take some extravagant trips - but we never bought gadgets, bought most of our clothes and stuff in general from thrift stores, shared a single cell phone, drive very old cars, and bought a $40... |
Why are most animated characters portrayed wearing only one outfit 99% of the time? | Because multiple outfits would be a huge time suck to decide on and draw in an already complex process. And also because ultimately people don't really care. |
Why are carbon nanotubes necessary to build space elevators? | Because you need something that is, at once, incredibly strong and incredibly light. There's not much that fits that description. |
What does each coach do on a football team? | The head coach position is a really fluid job, it really depends on the organization, the players, and even the coach himself. During games, generally a head coach will take the advice of offensive and defensive coordinators to make final playcalling decisions. In many cases, a head coach will even defer those duties c... |
How do people "blackout" from drinking too many alcoholic beverages but remain conscious with no recollection? | When you drink, alcohol affects your brain disproportionately in still unclear ways. It seems to have patterns, and is a depressant, but it's different for everyone. It may make you angry, sad, or happy. It make you euphoric or perhaps lose your inhibitions. It may make you want to call your lost love, or punch your fr... |
What would America be like if the British hadn't explored it? | People often go with the idea natives were all wearing deerskin loin cloths and were basically on the level of cave men, but there was several civilizations that were bronze age. That is certainly behind europe at the time, but not so much so that the mesoamericans couldn't have formed a roman level civilization with a... |
Why does pointing a fan outside work better for cooling a room down? | Someone kind of touched on this already but here it is in more ELI5 detail. When you think about how to move to air around it sometimes help to think of it as a fluid. Its really hard to push a fluid effectively. You can do it, but as soon as you stop pushing the fluid kind of swirls around. If you are on one end of a ... |
Why some movies get low rating on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes but it's still enjoyable and well liked by a lot of people? | The worst rated film on IMDb for a long time was [*Gunday*]. It still only has a single star there. Yet, critically it got pretty good reviews, mostly in the 3.5-4 out of 5 range, and it made decent box-office. Many Bangladeshi's felt insulted by some of the framing dialogue of the film, thinking it misrepresented thei... |
Legally, why is Justin Bieber able to get away with ridiculous things like drag racing while drunk and high without a public endangerment charge and serious jail time? | Realistically, cops and courts really only go after the DUI part. Being high - if you get taken in you get held until you're sober, you might get a court date. Underage drinking, same deal. First offense DUIs usually result on some fine or very small stint in jail, one thats not really served due to overcrowding. Other... |
Why do meth users have messed up faces? | When they can't get enough meth to satisfy their addiction, they get the feeling that something is crawling under their skin. So, in an attempt to get it out they pick and their skin sometimes to the point of hitting bone |
Why do people throw up when doing drugs that are not ingested orally? | When I had a tumor removed from my abdomen, the only thing I remember for 3 days is waking up to vomit. The only thing going into my body was through iv. Your body will always try to reject something that doesn't belong, including meds through iv. |
Why should calculus be taught in schools? | Its not taught to everyone. You don't need calculus to graduate high school - only geometry . It's taught in high school so that kids who want to end up in university can get a head start. It's also more useful than you'd think. Any field that needs to know a lick of statistics will benefit from understanding calculus. |
Why are most windows (on buildings) rectangular in shape and not circular or triangular? | It's easier to cut glass into squares. It comes out of the furnaces in a large sheet, and is cleanly trimmed along the edges as it mofes down the conveyor belt. from there it is one simple cut to make a square. Also, glass has fracture lines that run in particular direction, and the squares can take advantage of that. |
Why do girls (generally) have much better handwriting than boys? | Because children are very good at picking up on the social expectations that are being projected onto them by their peers, and the adults in their lives. They learn to conform to the style that's expected of them, or they live with having their masculinity/femininity repeatedly questioned.A lot of the time parents enco... |
Why can't I remember anything from before I was about 5 years old? | Your brain wasn't developed. Scientific studies have speculated that children only begin to consistently remember things from the ages of 7-9. This is a hotly contested issue, though. Children also have a habit of putting an unrealistic spin on their own memories, which may cause their adult selves to doubt their legit... |
How do extremely toxic chemicals like Sodium and Chloride combine to form a non-toxic compound like table salt? | Elemental sodium and chlorine are extremely chemically reactive, so reactive that they will react with anything in your body they come into contract in, the sodium would react with the water in your body and burn you, and the chlorine would react with the water to turn into hydrochloric acid and burn you you. Ionic sod... |
What is Aspartame and why do people treat it like the coming of the apocalypse? | Much of the distaste is hype but as a personal anecdote sweeteners can affect people sometimes. I get headaches if I drink over a gallon a day of aspartame drinks for a week. Sucralose or ribania don't do this. Similarly I react to HFCS as well as in with equal calorie intake the delta between my baseline and by peak b... |
What happens when I reply to an email account such as donotreply@company.com? | I don't know if this post is gone or not, but there could be a couple possibilities: 1. The message originated from a server that isn't actually capable of receiving mail. As in, it's probably running Postfix in send-only mode. So, if you try to send a reply, there isn't an MX record to route your message back to the s... |
Why does mathematics always work? Are there any other universal truths? | definitely yes", and "maybe", you can compare those to other people's values and probably make some interesting mathematical models. So math can answer a great many questions, but you have to pose the right question. As I initially stated it, it's not a mathematically interesting question until you break it down a bit ... |
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