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Recent studies show that "binge" watching may cause health risks, but no one seems worried about reading. Why? | Not much. But there is an epidemic of hours and hours in front of the TV. The same overuse of reading isn't really a widespread problem ;) |
why do some flashlights have a “fast flash” mode? | Strobe lights are incredibly disorienting because your brain is only getting flashes of the image in front of you, and your brain is constantly trying to connect the dots between the images you see but it doesn't really work given the frequency of a proper strobe light. |
ELI: Why is rubbing alcohol harmful to ingest but okay to put on an open wound (and thus introduce into your bloodstream) | The quantity of alcohol that is introduced *in* to your bloodstream by wiping an alcohol swab on a superficial wound is slight; the alcohol doesn't go far because the bleeding flushes out foreign matter, including the alcohol from the swab. |
Why won't companies ship to P.O Boxes? | Maybe I'm mistaken, but I always thought it was to try to avoid fraud. Like, if you use a stolen credit card, it's safer to have them mail something you bought to a PO box than to your home address, so by forcing a person to use a home address, it might make them think twice about using the credit card. |
Why is identity theft a difficult problem to solve? | Creditors want to be able to quickly get people into debt, valid debt. They want easy quick ways to lend us money. However, they need to make it safe enough that they know you are who you say you are. Balancing quick with safe is the difficulty. They could solve it by requiring a verifiable 3rd party to do biometric id... |
Why do paper grocery bags have edges that are cut with "VVVVV" type of cut when they lead to bags ripping because the edge is weakened? | I have worked on high speed paper machines and the serrated edges are used because they make a more efficient cut. There is less chance of breaking the web with a serrated edge as compared to a straight cut. The last thing you want on a 2 meter wide paper converting machine going 1500 meters a minute is a web break. Th... |
Why do products with double the amount/content don't nearly cost double the price? | Because it's easier and quicker to make 1 big sandwich than 2 small sandwiches. About half the price of many things is paying the people who made it. Give a sandwich-maker big bread and big ham slices, and he/she can make big sandwiches at about the same speed as someone making small sandwiches. The big bread and ham c... |
When someone talks about rendering a video, or an animation, what does that mean? And how would not rendering it affect it? | Animation, effects, etc. are a collection of 1000's of frames. It would take forever to make those 1000's of frames manually with the tiny changes in each one think about how simplistic old cartoons are that were done that way. The background scrolls and the character has limited motion. Now, compare to something like ... |
How do paralyzed people not become overweight? | Weight is directly linked to calories in versus calories out. If you take more in than you burn, you will gain weight. If you burn more than you take in, you will lose weight. Exercise does not cause you to lose weight, it aids in increasing the number of calories you burn to further offset your caloric intake. There a... |
Why are sounds less annoying for those making them? | Participation and anticipation. The guy who has keyboard clicks on his phone SMS? He tunes them out because he's thinking of what he's typing. Me listening? I have no idea of context, so all I know is click click click click click click click clickclick click click clickclick click click click. Crunching an apple on th... |
Why doesn't the US president have a single term limit? | In short: because we decided two terms should be the limit. The longer explanation: The original constitution didn't have term limits. George Washington voluntarily stopped running for president after 2 terms, this set a precedent that other presidents followed. Then FDR ended up with a 3rd term . Many reasons for this... |
Why is it difficult to move some body parts individually? | 1. The muscle that controls your middle toe is the same muscle that controls most of your other toes. It's hard to just move just one part of a muscle, so usually when you flex the middle toe, you flex all of them. [Source] 2. The nerves that control the upper third of your face cross over and control both sides. Your ... |
How does my pubic hair 'know' when the hair is long enough to stop growing? | Like the rest of the hair on your body it doesn't know anything. Each hair grows from a follicle which, after a time period controlled by genes the hair stops growing and falls out and a new hair starts growing. Genetics also determine the thickness and colour of the hair, straightness or curly ness. We shed hair all t... |
why leaving a phone charging for a long period of time (eg, overnight) is dangerous | It's not. I've left multiple phones charging over night every night for years. They don't catch fire, they actually barely even heat up. Some people argue that it's not good for the battery life of the phone, but it's not dangerous.As the other answers have correctly stated, it's not dangerous anymore. However, to answ... |
Why haven't we done anything about North Korea's labor camps and human experimentation? | Something to remember is that the U.S. was involved in the Korean War. It didn't work out that well, people were drafted, and many people feel like that battle has already played out.Why haven't \'we\' done anything about Guantanamo bay? Why haven't \'we\' done anything about every single injustice in the world? The an... |
How does Judge Judy actually work? | My friend was on Judge Judy. He filed a suit in local small claims court and he was contacted by Judge Judy's producers. They apparently look for possible cases on small claims dockets in different places. They invited him to come on the show and presumably both parties agreed. Judge Judy is not a court of law, but it ... |
Why is it that the liver can (to an extent) regenerate but other vital internal organs cannot? | Necessity. The liver is designed as a chemical factory that neutralizes all sorts of toxins in our bloodstream, both produced as byproducts of our regular bodily functions and from our environment. Because it regularly handles large amounts of toxins, it's pretty likely to get damaged. Thus liver cells can regularly re... |
Why have arcade fighting games have been removed from every possible public venue? | Home consoles are at the point now where they're nearly identical to arcade games. Playing online gives you the ability to play against strangers around the world and fighting games are a smaller niche than stuff like angry birds or whack a mole which generate more money. |
Are We 4th Dimension Objects? If Not, Why? | Sort of - think of your example of length and width, which you could describe on a piece of paper with x and y coordinates. If I gave you the x and y coordinates of each point of a square, you could depict it pretty easily. If I gave you the x, y and z coordinates of a cube you'd be able to sketch that out pretty easil... |
How can space be infinite? | We know that the universe we can observe is not, in fact, infinite. We don't know, for certain, whether the universe as a whole is. There's a number called omega that describes how dense the universe as a whole is. If omega is < =1, then the universe is infinite, if it's > 1 then the universe is not infinite, and curve... |
In a manual car, what would happen if you went into 5th gear as you were driving very slowly (e.g. 3mph)? | The engine in a manual vehicle, whether diesel or petrol powered, requires a certain amount of momentum to keep it turning in the time between the firing of the pistons. In manual engines this momentum is provided by the mass of the engine itself, the crank, pistons etc. If you engage fifth gear and release the clutch ... |
How does ear wax build up? And why? | I don't know why, but I can say, definitively and without hesitation, that the way to remove wax buildup or a clogged ear canal is with a water syringe. Get in the shower with a glass, fill it with warm water and maybe some peroxide. Fill the syringe with the warm water and shoot it into your ear repeatedly until the b... |
Why is the ACLU pushing for Dylann Roof to be charged with terrorism? Isn't possible charges for hate crimes more severe? | It's less about the punishment than it is about making the point that terrorism can be carried out in the name of any cause, not just Islam. The recent pattern has been clear Muslim does something like this? Terrorist. Non- muslim? Mentally ill. Even in cases like last year's Ottawa shooting, where the guy actually was... |
Why does nobody pee themselves when they're under General Anesthesia during long surgeries? | Patients are generally catheterized in these situations and they are instructed to fast and take a laxative before the surgery to clear their bowels. Not sure if this is for all procedures, but my dad went through the process before each of his four major cancer surgeries. General anesthesia also interrupts peristalsis... |
How do some songs utilize the effect where a part of the song plays in one ear and another part in the other ear. Or when the song switches between your two ears. | these days most sound sources are in stereo, two channels, one for each ear. in the old days technical limitations meant 'mono' was more common, which only has one channel, and you can't hear that effect. there is also 'quadrophonic' which never really caught on, with 4 channels. 7.1 Surround sound? 8 channels of sound... |
Why humans cry when they're really happy. | Nobody really knows for sure, and it's different for everyone - most people *don't* cry when they're happy! The best theories are that it is your body physically signalling to yourself or to others; your body wants you to pay attention to the fact that you're happy, or it wants other people to know you're happy - likew... |
What does leprosy do to a human? How can you contract it, and is it treatable? | Leprosy is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae, and transmission is thought to be either via the respiratory route or through direct contact with an infected organism. Infection by the bacteria doesn't immediately mean you have Leprosy. There are 2 possible presentations: tuberculoid or Lepromatous. In the tub... |
Why can companies use other brand names in advertising in a negative sense and avoid copy right laws? | There's nothing illegal about using someone else's name to refer to their own product. It's just normally not done because it's effectively free name recognition for the other brand. Alka-seltzer, by naming Nyquil thinks the benefit from the comparison is better than the harm from sending some customers to Nyquil by ke... |
When school busses are driving with no students in them, why do they have that sign in the back that says : "This bus is empty"? | This must be an American thing because I've never seen this. I presume it is to force the bus driver to walk to the back of the bus to check whether or not there are any students left after the last stop.Because of kids like me. When I was in kindergarten, I fell asleep on the bus and missed my stop. I woke up in the b... |
Why is it considered such a terrible thing to order beef/steak well done? | Because heat causes the muscle-fibers to get firm, and the flavorful juices to cook out. Excess heat destroys both the flavour and tenderness of these cuts; negating the entire *point* of ordering a steak in the first place. If you're going to dry the shit out of it, you might as well just have some beef jerky instead.... |
Is it possible to improve your eyesight without surgeries? | When I was in college, I lost my glasses and couldn't afford to replace them for almost a year. I'm nearsighted, but not dangerously so, so I just squinted and struggled until I had a bit of extra money and could get a new pair. The eye doctor was happy to tell me that my previous prescription would no longer work, bec... |
Why did T-Rex's have those little tiny claws? | At some point, a T Rex was born with shorter arms . He survived, had baby T Rexes, and a few of them had shorted limbs, too. Over a few thousand years, and lots of generations, there was a significant group of T Rex with short arms and we manage to find a fossilized few. There could have been a T Rex born with a shorte... |
Why does the journey on the way back feel shorter than the one there? | The reason is because on the journey there our brains take in new information which takes longer than you think. When we come back we've already seen it so your brain just ignores taking in new information.Always thought of it this way: ride to somewhere, vacation/work/ect., you’re anticipating/worrying about getting t... |
Why do some ammo types use caliber (.50, .45, etc.) and some use mm measurements (10mm, 5.56mm, 12.7mm, etc)? | Why does the rest of the world use metric and we don't?", 'The names of rifle/pistol calibers come from the internal diameter of the barrel. Imperial measurements go from land to land, metric from groove to groove. [illustrated here] The powder charge and shape of the casing also affect the ~~caliber~~name of the cartr... |
why deserts get freezing cold at night | Sand is a very poor at retaining heat as opposed to water. In in climate near an ocean the temperature does not vary much from night to day. The sun heats the water and at night when the sun is gone the water releases it's heat slowly. While in a dessert the temperature changes drastically because the only source of he... |
The danger of the goverment knowing the IP of their people/no anonymity in the internet. | Well, if you're a democracy, it creates a chilling affect, making that democracy less effective. Additionally, it also makes opposing the government difficult in general , and frankly it just violates your right to privacy. The government are people, would you really show some random guy on the street a list of all you... |
Why do some people like playing the victim? | Because people like to help each other out, if you are a victim you get free help. So if you can get people to think you're a victim, you benefit. |
If the slightest smack/tap on your balls hurts so much, how come it doesn't hurt when they're hitting someone during sex or when someone sucks on them? NSFW | Balls don't hurt because they are hit, they hurt because they are hit hard enough to squeeze/deform them. Balls are light enough that having them bump your lady bits or bottom won't deform them, but hitting them with something will deform them and thus cause the pain. I could take off my pants and shake my hips in such... |
why do people with sleep parlaysis only dream nightmares? | I don't think they do. Some people have out of body experiences instead of nightmares. [info]", 'When in sleep paralysis, the body is somehow aware of its environment but still asleep. By being unable to move and having the body completely frozen, the brain starts hallucinating as in a normal dream but accordingly to t... |
why is standing on one foot with our eyes closed so much harder than doing it with them open?? | Your brain pulls data from your eyes to help with balance along with your ears. Your ears are certainly the *main* source of data for balance, but your brain will also use input from your eyes to scan for the horizon and adjust your balance accordingly. That's why it's so disconcerting when [what we're looking at doesn... |
What are the health risks (if any) associated with being vegeterian? | Depends on what sort of vegetarianism. Because for some, fish is allowed. Some won't eat dairy, and vice versa. None of that is an option for vegans. [Vitamin B12 deficiency]:Fish contains vitamin B12, and the only non-fish/animal source I know of for vitamin B12 is crimini mushrooms. But the dose is rather low, so veg... |
Why Cthulhu is considered one of the scariest creatures in literature. | Cthulhu is a god and his motivations and thoughts are beyond anything humans can think of. It is an unknown that doesn't care for us. His form is so foreign, that merely looking at it will drive you insane, its goals are uncaring for humans, just as humans are uncaring for ants. |
Why do dentists say your gums shouldn't bleed even after they poke it with sharp metal things | If you brush your teeth and gums + floss regularly, they don't bleed when you go to the dentist. They also don't really even hurt during cleanings.There more inflamed tissue is, the greater tendency for it to bleed. If inflammation of the gum tissue is absent, then mild poking should not elicit bleedingyour gums should... |
What did this basketball coach do wrong? | he did nothing wrong a coach's job is to coach his team the referee's job is to control the game. if anyone should have called the game it should have been the ref people are going after the coach because its easy", 'The coach played as aggressively as possible for the first half in order to run up the score. He obviou... |
How long after I eat something does it turn into fat? | I know this doesn't really answer your question, but It depends on what you are eating and the state your body is in. I used to think a calorie is a calorie, but after 6 months of practicing a low carbohydrate, high fat diet, I no longer hold that belief. When it comes down to it, carbohydrates turn into body fat much ... |
Why doesn't the Catholic Church sell some if it's $7.3billion in assets to help hungry/homeless/helpless people in addition to asking for donations? | I'm pretty sure most of those assets are churches and other religious buildings. Yeah, they could sell some of the paintings and statues that they own, but I'm pretty sure that that things like the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica are the key source of those assets. Most of the rest of their assets are probably ... |
How the Occupy movement's "Rolling Jubilee" is going to work. | It won't. But, they'll be buying debt like debt collector's do and instead of trying to collect - they'll be forgiving it. I'm sure some people will probably love it. But it won't change the system in a meaningful way. |
why does ground beef / chicken breast cost less than red peppers? | Cows and chickens aren't eating red peppers and grapes, first off they are eating corn, soy, other cheap grains that are also less perishable. Red peppers and grapes are expensive because they can only grow in certain conditions, and thus at certain times of the year have to be shipped from halfway around the world. Be... |
what is Ngnix ? when and why should you use it for your app? And how would you integrate it with the cloud-hosting services such as heroku? | Nginx is a web server comparable to Apache, IIS, and lighttpd. Nginx does a couple of things really, really well that make it ideal for certain configurations. 1.) It serves static content extremely quickly and with almost no overhead. Proactive sysadmins will often have a single Nginx server handle static content requ... |
Why does buying a MB and a frame, and a screen/digitizer unit separately, (and building a franken-phone), still cost less than buying a complete unit? | Why do ready-to-use computers cost more than when you buy the separate parts and build it yourself? Really it comes down the fact that you don't have to pay for labor, marketing, logistics, packaging, warranty claims, profit margin, retailer margin . While I'm not well-versed when it comes to building your own phone, I... |
How are imaginary numbers applied/used in real world situations? | Electricity and signal stuff. Anything with oscillations will have complex roots. That's the simplest answer I can think of. |
How does ISP work ? Can i become my own ISP? | ISPs buy bandwidth from upstream providers. Those providers sell bandwidth in bulk. Becoming an ISP is technically simple but logistically complicated and expensive, because you need to pull some sort of connection to a lot of people's homes. This is not just expensive, you will probably not be able to buy some public ... |
How are medicine names chosen? | Believe it or not, international nonproprietary names, also called generic names, are actually selected by the WHO. Generic names are what the substance used is called, like paracetamol, acetylsalicylic acid , ibuprofen, etc. It is nonproprietary and can be used by anyone. A drug will also have a brand name that is dec... |
Am I just being paranoid to believe that ad trackers are listening to everything I say? | Probably not, at least not yet. So far as I've seen, there isn't any evidence that companies are recording speech data for advertising purposes. It's very likely that it isn't yet being done, or at least not on a large scale. I say *yet* because technologically speaking, there's no reason they *couldn't* be listening i... |
How do people colorize Black and White films? | Some are entirely coloured by artists, but that's not always the case. Old film negatives do contain a tiny amount of colour information which was not usable at the time, but with modern technology and digital enhancement can be used to restore some colour automatically. This is usually the case with historical footage... |
Why your eyes hurt when you look at a computer to long in the dark | Focusing your eyes at one distance for an extended period of time causes stress to your eyes. In the dark, there isn't much else to look at, so your eyes don't look at the other stuff around the monitor, which means that you spend longer with your eyes focused at one length than you do during the day.If you are working... |
Why does a long nap lead to grogginess and less energy than that of a shorter nap? | The longer the nap the deeper you're falling into REM sleep. Waking up from a deep REM sleep causes grogginess. The ideal nap is ~20 minutes if your goal is to wake up feeling better. REM sleep - look it up. |
Why do we always know something isn't quite right with a scene if a green screen is being used? Why can't they fool us more reliably? | Confirmation bias. You only note the times that you weren't tricked because you weren't tricked. The times you were tricked you're not going to note because you were unaware of being tricked. |
Why is Snapchat so successful amongst teenagers? | Because they don't know any better, and think the service is actually capable of providing something like temporary private images. It can't, of course. The images aren't even deleted effectively, let alone invulnerable to someone taking a pic of the screen.Because they can send naked pics of them selves to random peop... |
Does every car in existence have a different key and how do manufacturers make sure keys are not duplicated ? | Simply put, they are duplicated. That goes for really any key. However there are enough combinations that it's virtually impossible to find a twin lock that your key will work in. If you own a 1997 Honda Accord, and tried your key in every other 1997 Honda Accord you came across, you'd eventually find one that you can ... |
Why doesn't current flow through an open electric circuit? If it does where is it going? | Imagine current as a stream of electrons, because that is exactly what it is. To keep things simple, let's imagine we're using a battery. Now, the battery essentially has two parts: a part with a lot of electrons and a part with fewer electrons. The part with more electrons wants to push the electrons away and the part... |
When you're cooking, does touching raw meat with your spatula matter in terms of food safety if you continue using the same utensil until the meat is cooked? | Yes. If you handle raw meat with a tool then use the tool again to handle the cooked meat, you're reintroducing the bacteria onto the meat. |
How does currency like "$0.0375" work? It's only 3 cents? | Fractions most commonly come into play when you're stating/working with a **rate**. The final price, if a fraction, will generally be rounded to the nearest cent. Ex: If you're working with a price per gallon of gas, the fraction will have an effect over several gallons of gas. Say one gallon of gas costs $3.49999. If ... |
What is it with auto companies naming the model year a year in advance? | It's a marketing thing. That model is going to be sold mostly during 2017, so they name it that in advance. If the new model for 2016 was called the 2015, people would think it's a year old already and be less likely to buy it.What about the European makers like VW and BMW who sometimes change body styles and call thin... |
Why don't we look like we're getting bald when we see a lot of hair in the shower drain? | Because you lose hair naturally, without going bald. Hair regulates it's length by falling out after a set amount of time. There are lots of hairs on your head, so there's always one that's ready to fall out and start over. |
How do they remove large dead animals at zoos and aquariums? | Can't speak for seaworld, but Marineland in Niagara Falls used to bury their animals, including orcas and belugas in mass pit graves. They were ordered by the government to stop a few years ago though [source] |
The importance/fear of Modern China | China will soon overtake the US as the most powerful economy. When you have 4 times as many people, this isn't hard to do, now that they are typically more urban and not destitute peasants. Frankly, I'm surprised it's taken as long as it has. Most of the people who fear this are somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of ... |
How do they get bottles to break over people's heads so easily in movies? | Fake bottles. The sound of breaking glass is dubbed in later. Breaking a real bottle over somebody's head can cut them horribly requiring medical attention. |
Why does the Government want to attack Encryption? | Well in short, if the government , can't read your messages, how do they know what you're saying?They argue, 'We need to know for security reasons'. But the real reason is they can't control public opinion, if they don't know how we feel as a nation. |
when a cat kneads a spot before laying down, what are they doing? Do they do this in the wild? | I don't know if there is any clear-cut, single reason. Here's a couple possibilities, though: _URL_0_ |
why don't heavier people naturally have more muscle definition from carrying around extra weight? | they do have more muscle, but you can't see it past the fat layer. Sumo wrestlers are a good example of this. They appear really fat, but a lot of that is built muscle. |
Why does my car only have 5 forward gears? | It's even more interesting when you think about the fact that large trucks can have between 9 and 18 gears. |
How is the whole world in debt and to who is this debt owed? | It's owed to different nations and within each nation. A misconception about U.S. debt, for example is that it's all owned by China. That is untrue. Though the U.S. is in debt to China some, a lot more of U.S. debt is in the form of bonds that the government gave citizens. Although it might be different as far as inter... |
Why doesn't law enforcement google things like "live tv streaming" in order to seize more illegal sites? | You'll notice a lot of them are .cz, .ru, these days and places outside of america where there is no jurisdiction for them to shut them down. |
If alpha and beta particles are respectively helium nuclei and electron why are they dangerous? | They're subatomic bullets, launched out of the decaying nucleus with tremendous energy. Direct hits on your cells can damage or destroy critical cellular components. |
Who does wearing gloves at food stalls prevent food infection, the workers would still touch the same surfaces as they would with bare hands? | Aside from what you touch, your body excretes oils, dead skin cells, sweat, and waste through it's pores constantly. That includes your hands. |
Why is there no check on the price of diamonds? | Why would they listen to someone telling them to cut their prices? As long as people keep buying, they have no reason to. The only way they'll lower their prices is if people are no longer willing to pay the price they're set at. |
What is happening in South Korea with MRSA? | It's not MRSA, it's MERS-CoV. The way shit went down is thought to be as such;Dude goes to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE and Qatar and fucks a camel. Gets bad shit. Goes home, spreads shit at home. Dude in Guangdong gets it. People start getting it. Authorities get nervous. The Heathen Chinee sequences the MERS-CoV from t... |
Why is it traditional for the bible's pages to be so thin? | In modern Bibles produced for mass distribution, the pages are thin to keep the book to a reasonable size and printing cost. If you look at high-quality ceremonial Bibles, Bibles with large pages, or where the Old and New Testament are split into separate volumes, you'll find the pages are usually thicker and more enjo... |
is it possible to make an argument that my browsing history is a unique collection of destinations curated by me and therefore is my intellectual property that I create and own? | You could make that argument, but it would never fly. Your browser history is just a record of what you have done. It is you making a request of the ISP to get certain data and send certain data out. You can't claim that your request of someone else is somehow intellectual property that you created, since you didn't ac... |
How possible is it to have a helicarrier (like the one from Marvel's Avengers) and how would it work or why wouldn't it? | Not possible without a sci-fi fuel source: square root law vs square cube law. The bigger something is, the more of its 'weight' is dedicated to both move it, and provide structural integrity. This is the reason why elephants are slow and weak relative to their size, yet things like ants can carry many times their body... |
Why can't the US Federal Government put marijuana legalization to a majority vote like states do? | It wouldn't get passed federally. That would have been the simplest solution all along, but also not actually feasible. There are a lot of people with financial incentives against the legalization of marijuana, including companies that process drug tests, pharmaceutical companies that make drugs that can't compete agai... |
Why are my punches in dreams so weak? | The best reason I have heard is that during sleep your muscles are largely paralyzed. Since in a dream your brain is operating as it were awake, when you try to make fast motions, your body can't respond and so in the dream it seems you are powerless. |
Why do some people put slashes in their 7's & Z's? | Helps to distinguish the letter. For some people their 7's can end up looking like 1's and their Z's like 2's. By putting the slash in its clears up what the letter/number is.You can tell them apart from 2s better.I work in an industry, where i have to deal with other people's handwriting. I deal with numbers and lette... |
Why does the warm, humid air of a shower "open up" my sinuses, yet the cold, dry winter air also "opens up" my sinuses. | I have no explanation I just wanted to say I know what you mean - and I think it depends on where you live/your body. I don't think these other posters quite understood. Where I live we have cold, very cold dry winters and the cold air always makes my nose run. Not just me, everyone I know - you go outside in -40c, you... |
What's the deal with John Scott? | It's a complicated story, but short version: fans as a joke voted in literally the worst player in the NHL to the All Star game. The league hates it, tries many methods to get him out of the game but they all fail. They do some mean stuff to him too. He goes to the game as the captain of his team and actually plays wel... |
Why does the US tip food delivery drivers? | How do you understand tipping waiters, but not delivery drivers? A waiter didn't cook your food either. |
What is the purpose of body hair? | _URL_0_ Basically, we used to have fur, kept us warm etc, but evolution hasn't needed for us to get rid of it completely. Why we don't *still* have most of our fur is actually a better question - I'm curious what advantage *less* hair gave us during evolution. Goosebumps are another vestigial trait. On animals with fur... |
So what exactly IS Separation of Church and State? | > **Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;** or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. That's it. |
Why can't my $199 laptop play stutter-free 1080p if my $30 Chromecast can play the same media just fine? | Your laptop CPU is like a 4-wheel-drive car. It can go just about anywhere and do just about anything with *decent* speed. A graphics chip is like a bullet train. It does exactly one thing - go forwards along a track really, really fast . However, if you want to go somewhere that is not on or near the track , it's usel... |
How can they tell that a huge wildfire, burning hundreds of thousands of acres, was started by a single campfire, or dropped cigarette? | Taking what cheekske said a little further. In a forest fire the fire builds intensity as it grows. The origin of the fire is not usually completely consumed. They know the direction the fire traveled. They follow it back. They find an area that its burned, but not burned completely out. What they found in the case of ... |
How do weather services calculate things like wind chill and "Real Feel?" | Wind Chill = 35.74 + 0.6215T – 35.75 + 0.4275T T is the air temperature in degrees Fahrenheit, and V is the wind speed in miles per hour. FYI, that was less than a minute of Googling. 'RealFeel' is Accuweather's own version of how they calculate what it 'feels like' outside. There is also a 'heat index', which is what ... |
In statistics, why can't you sample a group larger than 10% of the whole? | You can think of statistical tests like drawing cards from a card deck. Lets say that you care about whether or not a card is red. If I draw a card, and it is red, that reduces the chance that the next card I will draw is red, and if I draw a card that is black, that increases the chance of me getting a red card on the... |
Why are most gun optics and telescopic optics circular, when if they were square you'd have a larger FOV? | Because the means to make a square lens equally precisely isn't cheaper. Actually, to make a precision square lens, they make a round lens and then cut out the square part of it. If you have the extra money to spend, there are always bigger and better optics to buy; and they are cheaper than their square counterparts w... |
Maps. Specifically, why is there a debate over which map is the most accurate? | Because when you try to make a map of a globe you're attempting to convert a 3D object into a flat image, you're literally trying to remove an entire dimension. |
In tennis, why are women's French Open and other Grand Slam winners paid the same amount as men when they play fewer sets? | Because the appearance of equality is more important than actual equality. If you wanted actual equality you would evaluate pay on the amount of spectators/viewers the 2 genders draw in and use that as a metric. How many sets they play or how much work they do isn't relevant to a pay/prize money discussion since pay is... |
If they're undocumented immigrants, how does the US know that there are 11 million of them? | Estimates, as mentioned below. Bear in mind that 'undocumented' doesn't actually mean undocumented. What it means is that they do not have legal status in this country. This includes people who DID have legal status but lost it The numbers reported in the news are a culmination of analyzing data from all these sources. |
Why do mirrors look like they have depth while screens (computer, tv, etc.) just look flat? | When we look at a mirror, we see reflected light, which apart from being flipped is no different to the light we see when we look directly at objects. When we look at the a picture on a screen we see light coming from a flat plane. The way we can tell how near and far objects are from us is by our brains comparing the ... |
If we know the algorithm behind a hash algorithm, how is it not cracked? | 34845" hashes to "5", and "14128" hashes to "4". We can use this "algorithm" for any length input to return a single-digit hash. For example, input "88412695821" hashes to "5". Ok so now you know our little "algorithm" pretty thoroughly, correct? So let me give you a hash I made: "8". Crack it and tell me what the orig... |
Why is the trade-off of the American soldier so controversial? | If you give a mouse a cookie, he'll ask for a glass of milk. This is why we don't EVER negotiate with terrorists. If you show a terrorist that the easiest way to get his buddies out of prison is for them to kidnap ANY SOLDIER and then exchange said soldier for FIVE terrorists, they will kidnap more soldiers.At the end ... |
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