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What is the connection between Thai and Chinese? | Regarding the cultural closeness of China and Thailand, as [this Wikipedia article] notes, a significant portion of Thai people are ethnic Chinese, and they are especially influential in business and politics. So a Thai immigrant to the U.S. could very well be a third-generation Chinese, and if that person were to star... |
Why is 1080p advertised as "full hd" when there are much higher resolutions? | Because 1080p is what is considered high definition. 4k is considered Ultra HD. It's just a term used. |
How did Oasis become so popular in the'90s, and why aren't they as Iconic as Nirvana? | They had catchy, well written tunes . for one album. Their follow up albums got worse and worse and the Gallagher brothers were notorious for not getting along with others or even each other. They even fought on stage. What they were not, however, is ground breaking. They sounded like an update of the Beatles. Nirvana,... |
How are people able to feel how wet an object is through latex or vinyl gloves? | The most immediate giveaways would be the sudden temperature change, as well as reduced air pressure within the glove |
Why do we laugh when being tickled when it's not enjoyable whatsoever? | As with most things biological, there is a tremendous amount of guess-work required to come up with a meaningful answer. There are many theories as to why we are ticklish and why we respond the way we do to it. The most compelling to me is the theory that tickling is related to play-fighting. The young of many social a... |
Does the car A.C. Use gas or electric to run, and how does it affect gas mileage specifically? | It doesn't directly use gas *or* electric. There's a pulley in the front of the engine. The air conditioning is turned by a belt that connects it to the pulley. When the air conditioning is switched on, it's pretty difficult to turn the air conditioning unit. And since this unit is connected to the engine by the belt, ... |
Why we need to become unconscious in order to sleep? | There are a few animals that are capable of remaining conscious while sleeping, such as dolphins. This is a phenomenon known as [unihemispheric sleep], in which one half of the brain is sleeping at a given time. As to why humans did not evolve to be unihemispheric sleepers, it is likely that the requirements to do so w... |
How do loading bars know how far along a download is? | When you begin a download, it creates a "box" that says there is a specific amount space that the file will be contained in. As pieces in the box fill in, the box says "hey, I currently have been filled with X number of the Y required pieces." |
Why do bands bring have their own speakers and amplifiers if everything is just run through the arena's PA system? | Like their guitar amps and stuff? A guitar amp does a whole lot more to influence the actual sound and tone than the PA. A guitarist's amp is pretty integral to his whole sound, so he'll want it to be consistent, and he'll want control over it. Then the venue will put a mic on his amp to connect it to the PA. |
In space, it always seems that we are shown traveling on a 2D plane. What happens if you leave Earth and go straight "Up" or "Down"? | Our planets are all mostly on the same plane, which is nicely convenient for illustration purposes. If you go any other direction, it's pretty darn empty. And it will take a while to run into the [Oort cloud]. Beyond that is way more empty before another solar system.Everything. Everything is out there. First, let's ex... |
Why is the ocean water so clear in places like the Caribbean but not at US beaches? | Tropical waters like those in the Caribbean are warm, clear, and completely devoid of nutrients. This is why life clusters around reefs, a lot of creatures eat the plankton and algae that grows on the coral, they provide food for the area The waters up north are cold, dark, dirty, and full of nutrients! The darkness is... |
What makes someone a "light sleeper" vs a "heavy sleeper" and are there ways to change it around? | It's just a matter of habit. This is why you're supposed to have plenty of loud noises while your baby is sleeping, so it gets used to those noises and you don't have to worry about waking it. These habits are started as a baby by your parents, and they are extremely difficult - but not impossible - to change, once you... |
Why have newspaper comics gotten so abysmal these days? | Several factors are at play. First, you're older, so you've developed a taste. You might recall loving Garfield as a kid, but now you read recent strips and it's dull and bland. But if you went back and read strips that were published when you were a child, you would find them equally dull. Second, the authors change o... |
How is it that I get so car sick when I try to read or write in the car when I'm otherwise fine? | Reading and writing requires intense visual focus. Your eyes home in on the paper, and the visual part of your brain kind of stops paying attention to anything in your peripheral vision. However, if you're in a car, your inner ears are telling your brain "hey, I'm moving all over the place". But your eyes are telling y... |
Why is cheese sometimes crunchy/gritty? And what causes that texture? | The crunchiness is caused by crystals of various substances that form as the cheese dries. They start out dissolved in water in the cheese, but as the water evaporates, they start to crystallize. Usually, the crystals are made of calcium lactate. But sometimes, for some cheeses, there are crystals of amino acids like t... |
If a MLB pitcher were to hit a player in the head, and that player have life suffering injuries, would the pitcher be in trouble? | Unless it was intentional, no. All the players signed legal waivers when they sign their contractsOnly if intentional. By playing on the field you are accepting the risk of injury. |
If a joint cracking is a result of gases in the joint popping, how can I crack the same joint multiple times? | imagine you have a balloon and cracking a joint is like opening the balloons mouth for 1 second. If you have more fluid in your joints than one moment of release from a single crack, more will come out on subsequent ones. you may notice how they get progressively less powerful as the crack count continuously goes up', ... |
Why or how do fires make sound? More specifically 'roar' ? | Hot air rises, and the fire heats the surrounding air unevenly, causing increased turbulent air flow around the fire that we can hear as soundThe flames heat the air near it, causing it to expand, then as that air leaves more air comes in to be heated, causing waves of pressure I.e sound |
The phases of the moon and their rise and set times. | The moon orbits and rotates around the earth in the same way as the earth orbits and rotates around the sun. Because the moon orbits the earth at a different rate that the earth rotates it causes the moon to rise and set at different times of the day The phases of the moon are also due to its orbit. The part of the moo... |
Is there any Virus which infects Apple products?Why is there such a big problem with windows and hardly any problem with the mac when it comes to bugs? | Yes, there has been malware for Apple products including OSX. Windows gets targeted more because it has a far larger market share. I haven't had significantly more bugs on a Windows device than I have on OSX. I haven't seen a BSoD since XP was the latest Windows OS, but I did see a kernel panic on OSX just a few months... |
Do birds stop for rests after flying for long periods of time? | It depends on the bird. Most birds do stop to rest, but birds like swifts, terns, and albatrosses can stay in the air for weeks or months at a time, usually by gliding on air currents. One benefit is that lets them conserve energy. |
Why auto makers dropped the frameless doors? | Because they really didn't work too well. It was too hard to build a seal between the car frame and the glass, that worked well when closing the door, while allowing the window to slide up and down. Because you couldn't hold the glass in a channel, the window gets pulled away from the seal at high speed, unless you des... |
is it true that if one sits too close to a television it will affect your vision after a certain amount time? | It MAY cause eye strain which could be a temporary annoyance, or cause a headache. But no long term damage can/will come of it. Simply put, your parents said that because if you were to close to the TV, it makes it harder for others to see. |
Australia is a relatively new country which was settled by the British so...where the bloody hell does the accent come from? | It doesn't take long for an accent to change! *We* even have different accents from our own parents. Or maybe you can tell more easily from your grandparents. My grandparents sound much more \'plum\' than I do. The children of the first fleet would have had a different sound from their parents, who were a unique mix of... |
Why do low fuel prices have a negative long term effect? | They don't. ..although they can have. One of the things you need to remember with economics, is that very few things "do X". Economies as a system are too complicated for such easy conclusions. In this case however: The rise of fuel prices tends to drive inflation , a good that costs $1 today could cost $0.9 tomorrow; ... |
What are/were qualudes? What were they originally intended for? What did the effect feel like? How they used? | Well, since they are impossible to find these days, no harm in discussing what they were about. They were originally a sleep aid, prescribed to those who can't fall asleep or sleep through the night . People pretty quickly found out that if you resist the urge to sleep, you were hit with a pretty powerful high. The dru... |
Why can we be woken up by others snoring but not our own? | You can be woken up if your sleep is not deep. You only snores when your sleep is deep.I have woken myself up by my own snoring, early morning, in a dream state. It's a really weird feeling. |
How can birds sit on electricity cables and not be electrocuted? | Electricity will always seek to flow through the path of least resistance. If it can flow at all, it will go through the conductor that is lowest in resistance to the flow. When a bird perches on an electrical wire, there's no change in the bird's electrical status- it offers no easier path for electricity to flow, bec... |
How do they make old 70s and 80s movies in high definition when it didn't exist back then? | Film is a very high quality medium capable of storing images very high resolutions. The master prints of those films are still around and are used to create HD copies. Back then, scans of the films were taken at relatively low resolutions because VHS tapes were the standard medium for distribution. VHS tapes are low qu... |
How healthy are probiotics for you? Do they help with weight loss? | Probiotic refers to food that contains "healthy" or "beneficial" bacteria. Our intestines are loaded with bacteria that help us digest food. Probiotics contain some of those bacteria. They are generally recommended for people who are on long term antibiotic therapy, among other things, as those people will have a lower... |
What is syndication on TV? | Syndication" is essentially a market for programs to be sold to TV stations, to fill out their schedule]. For the most part, at least for broadcast TV, \'primetime\' and morning news shows are the only programming produced exclusively by a network for broadcast on their own channel. Everything else is syndicated progra... |
Why do apps on Google Play need me to give them access to details which are seemingly private and unrelated to the app I'm downloading? | It depends on the app; either it: 1. Is spamming malware . 2. Is sneakily but legitimately selling your information to advertisers. 3. Has features you aren't aware that utilise those features for a real and positive feature. |
What exactly is the Dial-up sound? | They're doing a few things: * Figuring out which protocols each modem is capable of, and selecting the best one that they both can handle. * Sending some commands to the telephone network that switch it to a mode more useful for modems than talking. * Measuring the qualities of the telephone connection. * Figuring out ... |
When a relative gets into an accident, how do emergency services notify you? | Depending on the circumstances, there are a number of ways next of kin are notified of an accident: - if the accident is fatal, all efforts are made by the police to locate the next of kin and notify them in person. This allows for support and victim services to be made immediately available. This also ensures that the... |
What is going on in Syria right now regarding the war of government vs. rebels, etc. Also, what will happen now that Syria has agreed to surrender their chemical weapons? | Please read the sidebar and [the rules] before participating in /r/explainlikeimfive. > 9 . **You must search before submitting.** All posts on ELI5 are archived, so you should search before making a submission. Remember to search using *keywords,* don't just paste your title into the search bar. If your search results... |
Why can English speakers efficiently communicate with most other English speakers (regardless of dialect) but a lot of Mandarin speakers can't communicate likewise between the various dialects of Mandarin nearly as efficiently? | Because there is no clear distinction between 'language' and 'dialect'. An important aspect of differentiating between a dialect and a language is mutual intelligibility. If two people who speak the different dialects cannot understand each other, then they speak different languages. However, in the real world language... |
Why do people feel a dull ache in their forehead when an object (like a pen or finger) is brought very near to, but without touching, the point between their eyebrows? | I get the same sensation when something comes close to the area between my eyebrows. It has nothing to do with eye movement or mystisism. I cannot explain why but i can feel a slight pressure when an object is close. I have wondered about this myself.I'm kicking myself because I can't find the source, but I read an art... |
Why do my eyes tear up when I pull a hair out of my nose? | Because it freaking hurts! As an aside, I love doing that all day. I guess I should have used a throwaway for that, but who cares? :) |
Why are weather forecasts still so inaccurate? | You remember the times they're wrong and rarely remember the times they're right. Also if an app is telling you it's sunny and clear when it's raining perhaps the location services on your phone aren't functioning properly. |
Since I'm not a Nielsen family, does pirating a show basically have the same effect as watching it on live TV? | With respect to TV ratings, if you're not participating in any special Nielsen Families program, then pirating would be effectively the same as watching the TV program live via antenna or via a passive cable/satellite tuner . There are, however, cable/satellite TV set-top boxes that can technically report back to the t... |
How can gas stations charge 9/10 of a penny, when no such denomination exists? | Since there is no such denomination, they "do it" by rounding to the nearest penny. When you multiply any amount of gas by any price, you always get something that has to be rounded off. It's their way of turning 9 cents into a dime, 99 cents into a dollar. That also gets them a tiny bit more money than if they didn't ... |
Why do spicy foods affect some people more than others? | From personal experience, it's how used to spicy food you are. The experience I've had involves home made curry; one my dad made that he considered to not be spicy at all, I agreed, was way too hot for friends I shared it with. I imagine it's tolerance. The more spice you eat, the more you body is used to the level. |
Why does society view the exposure of the female chest so differently from that of a man's? Why do women have to cover and men don't? | In New York State wherever a man can legally be topless, so can a woman.Societies will always view a man's bare chest differently than a woman's bare chest, because breasts are a secondary sex characteristic that men don't have. How exactly that plays out in a particular culture at a particular time will change, but it... |
Why do homegrown plants need constant attention such as water or they will die, while wild plants are left alone and flourish? | Wild plants die all the time. The ones you see are the few that lived - natural selection. They are outdoor so they get water from rainfall. Indoor plants are often from another region. They are constantly at "room temperature", something that no plant is naturally accustomed to, so we often get plants from climates th... |
Why are Hazmat suits so big and bulky? How come they can't make them smaller and slimmer? | They are both positive pressure and most contain a SCUBA apparatus. This alone results in a system that isn't small. Additionally, the material the suit is made from should be chemical and puncture resistant, this adds thickness. Additional layers may be worn underneath depending on the situation encountered.They are a... |
Why are actors/directors/crews not employees of major studios (or are they)? | Movie studios used to operate this way many decades ago. It was referred to as the star system. The decline of this method of operating came about largely because studios became notorious for exploiting actors and heavily restricting or controlling their careers. The system also tended to favour the development of a st... |
why is it easier to balance on a bicycle when moving than when standing still? | I actually did a little research project on this a few years ago. There are two main sources of tilting: the moment of force from gravity, and the moment of force from the centripetal force.What you have learned subconciously is how to use your steering weel as input to use the centripetal force to balance out what the... |
Why do deeply religious people badmouth other religions? | From their perspective, other religions *are* evil. If you believe your immortal soul goes to heaven you believe the right stuff, and goes to hell if you believe the wrong stuff, other religions are Satan's trick to try to lead you into damnation. To you, they are literally the worst thing in the world. |
When you download a newly aired episode of a show, where/who does that file come from? | Someone runs their cable box's output into a computer which captures the video stream and saves it as a video file. That is then uploaded. The capture and creation of video files isn't unique to media companies you know. |
Why are the directions "left" and "right" associated with liberal and conservative political philosophies? | It comes from the French Revolution when people loyal to religion and the king would gather to the right of the president of the National Assembly while supporters of the revolution would gather on the left. The right thus became associated with traditionalism and conservatism while the left with equality and revolutio... |
why is there a feeling of total disgust for men after they finish masturbating...and what causes it | Your mind pretty much goes from a high state of pleasure to a state of reason in a matter of seconds ', "Masturbation itself doesn't cause disgust. But often times porn includes things that are disgusting. Rimming, girls taking it in the ass then mouth, ugly guys gang-banging a girl gross! [But if you're aroused, the a... |
Differences between IVR, MMP and the American voting system. | America has FPTP also. Basically, whoever gets the most votes wins. In some cases they require a majority. Then they take the top two and have a runoff. The problem with this is as follows. Let's say we have three candidates, Alice, Bob, and Charlie. 60% of people like Alice or Bob, but hate Charlie. The other 40% like... |
How do nations determine their currency value? | Most currencies are not regulated in the way you say, countries do not set the values of their currency in international trade themselves. This was not always the case , but now, most currencies are floated on an exchange, the Foreign Exchange Market, where the value of each currency is determined by market demandA cou... |
How are urls created, and also how are they made so they dont match another url? | each url links to exactly one ip address . this ip address determines the webserver which will serve the webpage. [server].[domain].[top level domain]/[sub directory] default server is usually www. although the domain host can choose to have others for specific pages within the same domain such as, _URL_2_, _URL_0_, _U... |
Why do some people feel more comfortable in the city, while others are more at home in the country? | preference . I am not aware of any specific cause. The human brain rebels against monotony and sameness so that might have something to do with it. |
Why did it take so long for FTC to accuse Vemma of creating a pyramid scheme? | Many pyramid schemes masquerade as legitimate MLMs. The structure is identical, so just because it has that kind of structure isn't enough for the government to file charges. They need *evidence* that something illegal is happening. |
Why does it feel normal to sit back down in your chair, but if you sit in someone else's it feels warm? Why can't we feel our own butt warms? | When you sit in a chair it will change to the temperature of your body. So you wouldn't know the difference because the temperatures would get to the same degree as you currently are. Other people's body may be at a higher temperature at the time so you will notice the difference as the chair would be as warm as the pe... |
How do Blimps work? | Blimps will have a second gas bag in the envelope that can be filled with air, this increases the density of the helium making the blimp heavier. Helium can also be vented if the blimp needs to descend rapidly. Blimps can also have variable pitch engines that can be pointed up or down - some blimps are slightly heavier... |
If money or politics were no object, how would we best protect the power grid from a solar storm, EMP or attack? | > No matter how remote the possibility, any chance is too high to leave it unprotected. Really? What about a chance smaller than the chance humanity just gets wiped out outright? But to answer your question, burying it underground would protect against just about any currently available form of attack - except you said... |
Why are people able to get your IP from your Skype name but not from other things? | If you've got a direct connection to someone , they can see the IP address you're using. Other things like Facebook aren't a direct connection between users; both people access the server to see what's been posted to it. It's a question of who has access to the information. If I ran a message board, I could allow admin... |
How does the network know where my mobile phone is? | Your cell phone connects to the local tower and identifies itself uniquely. Calls directed to your number go through that tower to you. |
Why don't countries apart from the US have manned moon landings? | I think the US sent a man to the moon more for national pride than for any practical purpose. JFK declared America's intent to complete this mission in order to send a message to the Soviets and the world that the US was a superior nation. Today, it's less about pride and more about science. It makes no sense to send m... |
why our eyes create pink visual stains after we look at strong light? | There are multiple ways that our eyes adapt to different light conditions. One of the ways this automatically occurs is due to the way the light receptors in the back of the eye work. In each light receptor cells are molecules called retinal , which are the ones that react with light and eventually cause a signal to be... |
How do people hack into an intranet and why do we need anti-virus systems in an intranet? | There are a lot of ways someone might "hack into an intranet" but a simple way to understand why something might get through the barriers surrounding an intranet is to consider USB thumb drives. A virus on a thumb drive might easily be introduced within the network even with the strongest of barriers between the intern... |
Explain how recording onto the old vinyl records works. | Why should the vocals be different from the instrumental music? Vocals are made up of sound waves just the same. You are drawing a distinction which is physically meaningless. |
What is Maoism? Why is Chairman Mao considered a great leader when he caused a lot of deaths? | My family is Chinese and my parents grew up during this period and almost everyone in my family and relatives dislikes him for what he had done. My parents are pretty outspoken about their dislike for him and my relatives are still in China but they don't really praise him either. From what my parents told me - they di... |
Why is there a northern and southern accent in the United States? | There isn't *a* southern accent and *a* northern accent. There's a Boston accent, a couple different New York City accents, a Chicago accent that is similar to much of the Midwest, Minnesota has a distinct accent, Kentucky isn't quite the same as Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina sound a bit different from e... |
Why do antidepressant often have depression as a side-effect? | Anti-depressants are a guessing game as far as prescribing them. You're messing with the brain my friend. There's no telling exactly how they'll affect one particular person and how they feel. Having used them, it's hard to tell exactly what feels different sometimes. You think a strange thought that you've never thoug... |
Why does it always come down to "drink lots of fluids" when you tell the doc you gave the flu? | There's no cure for influenza once you're sick. It's a self-limiting and mild infection that your immune system will fight off, all you have to do is keep your body working long enough for it to do so. That means sleep and fluids. |
What's a cellular automaton ? | For starters, it's not really an essential part of understanding computing. The idea came about as more of an entertaining thing to do with computers. At best, they're a footnote in the history of computing. Take a grid. Each cell of that grid can either have a thing in it or not. Now, given some rule based on the neig... |
How a "double bounce" or "super bounce" on a trampoline works | Fred is going to double bounce George. As George comes down from a jump, Fred jumps in and lands right next to George. Their combined weight and momentum stretch the trampoline tighter than it would with just one of them. At the bottom, Fred hops off to the side, however the trampoline is still stretched very tight. Th... |
What does 10th Cousin, once removed mean? | First cousins have the same grandparents. Second cousins have the same great-grandparents. Third cousins have the same great-great-grandparents. And so on. So 10th cousins have the same great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents. "Once removed" means that you're of different generations. For exa... |
Why do Jehovah Witnesses not celebrate Holidays? | exJW here. We avoided Easter because we celebrate the last supper in form of The Memorial, instead of Jesus' resurrection. As for the rest of the main holidays, we avoided Christmas due to its roots in paganism, Halloween due to its association with the occult, and birthdays because King Herod had John the Baptist behe... |
Why do people work more hours today than we did in the 50s and 60s? What has happened to cause this? | I think it includes factors like the erosion of the middle class, stagnation in wage growth, predatory lending and insufficient welfare. I think people are over committed to debt, being paid less in real terms and are scared of losing their jobs partly due to the way the unemployed get treated. Anybody who blames women... |
Is North Korea a credible threat to the the US? Aren't these the same guys we mock mercilessly? | North Korea is not a credible threat to the US. There are a bunch of US military stationed in South Korea who could be in danger if war broke out there. NK has a large but generally poorly equipped and trained army. They could potentially cause a decent sized mess in South Korea in the early days of a war, but they wou... |
If computers have to follow direct commands, how can it choose things at random? | Computers usually *can't* choose things at random. Instead, they have algorithms that can generate [psuedo-random numbers]. This often involves seeding the number generator with various "random" factors, such as mouse movements, the current time, and/or the contents of the computer's memory, which are all unlikely to b... |
Why do people say ouch even when something doesnt hurt. | It's a learned response. Different languages have different words for "ouch". You expect something to hurt so you go through the learned response. |
Why don't bands release instrumental tracks alongside their regular albums? | In most cases there just isn't enough demand to justify an instrumental release alongside the standard album. In the rare cases that it does happen there's usually a proven demand for it, either that band or the genre as a whole do well with just instrumental releases. |
Why can we digest salad (Leaves etc.) but not grass? | Most of grass is made of cellulose and human digestive system is not equipped to extract energy from it. Unlike cows. Some parts of grasses can be eaten, like grains, where the glucose is stored. Leafs have less celluloce and the sugars are stored in a form more suitable for humansMost grasses are high in cellulose, wh... |
What did they do before eye-glasses? What if people had horrible vision? | They were said to be blind or have clouded vision. In some societies they were taken care of or depending on their vision could be mostly self sufficient. In others they were killed or left to die for being weak. |
What makes a CD an EP and not an LP or album? | EP and LP are terms that originated with the technology of vinyl records. An LP is a 12" vinyl record which when played at 33-1/3 rpm gave you ~22 minutes per side -- they were able to stretch that a little bit but not too much. A 'single\' was a 7" vinyl record with a bigger hole in the middle which when played at 45 ... |
Does cooling a sealed bottle/can of soda and then letting it come back to room temperature cause it to lose carbonation? | No. The sealed bottle or can is much closer to an enclosed system than an open container - it can stay very well carbonated for months. It would be a reasonable simplification to say that the carbonation hasn't changed at all. However, there is another property that is important, Solubility. When you open up the can, t... |
How do dressmakers/tailors make garments bigger or take them out? | Clothes are made from several pieces seamed together. Seams are usually created by folding the edges of the pieces over in a complicated way and sewed over. The way the pieces are folded on the edges depeond on what kind of seam you want to create . When taylor makes the clothes bigger he cuts the thread and undoes the... |
When, why and how did Monday through Friday become a classic work week, with weekends Saturday and Sunday? | Unions pushed for a standard 40 hour work week with 2 days off.Saturday is also a religious workless day. While most Christians celebrate the Sabbath on Sunday, Jews and some sects of Christianity celebrate it on Saturday. Until recently, there weren't weekends at all, in some careers , but when workers pushed for a 5-... |
Other then the large influx of cash from the IPO (I get that reason), what are other reasons a company would want to go public? | I'll use Uber as an example and make up numbers. Two guys start a company. The company really catches on, but it is expensive to grow and they really aren't making much or any profit. The two guys own this company that they could sell for $1 billion, but they live on $100K/year salaries. $100K might seem like good mone... |
- Why do motorcycles only have manual transmission motors? | Motorcycles with automatic transmissions exist. Perhaps you don't see as many as you live in a society where people who ride motorcycles are the sort who want power and control, or are cost-conscious, both of which manual transmissions have an advantage. Also, there isn't anything about a standard motor which makes it ... |
Why scientists can date the age of Earth, but not the Egyptian pyramids or the Sphinx? | Radiometric dating works by comparing the ratio of isotopes in an object now to a known reference ratio at the object's inception. Each element has a different useful range of applicability based on the half-life of the decaying isotope, with increasing error and eventually uselessness outside that range. C14, for exam... |
Is there any biological significance to "dating your mother"? | Not sure, but one could surmise there is an evolutionary aspect. "I know my mother was able to support and rear a child so a woman similar to her would have a higher likelihood of doing the same". |
Whats that feeling when you're about to fall asleep that everyrhing feels small and heavy? | Could you be describing [Alice in Wonderland syndrome]? I used to get this pretty often when I was a kid. Not sure if this is what you're describing but a "fucked up" feeling when on the brink of falling asleep meets the criteria. The exact cause isn't known. Basically it's a disturbance in perceptions, such as percept... |
Why do we sometimes remember dreams days or even weeks later? | That's probably a case of confabulation, where your brain makes plausible sounding lies to fill in a memory gap. The tricky part about confabulation is that you can only notice this when other people point out contradictory facts. |
How did Lani Sarem and Handbook for Mortals "game" the NYT Bestseller list? | Usually the author or publisher buys the copies. The trick used to be that the NYTimes don't record every sale to create the best seller lists, rather they sampled certain bookstores and it wasn't too hard to figure out which ones were the sampled ones and then buy lots of copies of a certain book at just the sampled b... |
why is the Scottish independence referendum positioned as neck and neck in the polls, whereas the bookmakers odds suggest the opposite? | I expect that the odds are down to a significant number of people betting the outcome will be 'No'. Odds aren't just calculated by looking at what will *probably* happen, but also by the amount of money already taken in by people betting. If the odds were, say, both even , and a disproportionate number of people bet on... |
Is there a difference legal or otherwise between "sponsoring" a politician or bill vs a bribe? | Sponsoring legislation is the term for when a member of Congress introduces a bill, it has nothing to do with money, bribery or corruptionWell, these are kind of three different things. A campaign donation is simply donating any money to a candidate. Usually this would be done because one already supports the candidate... |
What exactly IS Citizen's United, and why is it bad? | Citizens United itself is a nonprofit organization that helps conservative candidates win elections. That's not important. What is important is that when Citizens United tried to broadcast an anti Hillary video before the Democratic primary, they were told they weren't allowed. This started the Supreme Court case Citiz... |
How do all those many different anti-virus companies, even fairly obscure ones, have such huge but mostly similar databases of virus footprints? Do they get them from some common source? | Unfortunately I have never been able to remember the correct name, but there is an agreement to share virus information between "legitimate" anti malware companies. The exact definition of what defines a legitimate company, and how quickly to share the files has been debated a lot so I used to just refer to it as the q... |
Humble bundles.. and how it works from the game developers' perspective. Also.. how much does each dev get from a bundle? | Not sure about the first question, but the amount the developers get is determined by the buyers themselves. When you buy a bundle from the site you can choose how to split the money between all the developers, the charities and the humble bundle site. |
Why does the Black Lives Matter movement not protest black on black violence in Chicago? | Because the purpose of the movement is to bring attention to the high ratio of black victims of police brutality. Black victims of police violence are often overlooked and their stories disappear. The movement is geared toward bringing this issue to light and helping to end it. Not every organization can work on every ... |
Why are manholes located in the middle of the road? | It's best for city planning for them to run directly under the roads. After all, closer to the sidewalks, and you run into domestic gas lines, internet/phone cables, and maybe buried power lines. Sewers are very spacious, large pipes. It makes sense to put them under a wide, uninterrupted path with no other cables unde... |
Why didn't people see "the dress" in the original colors of the photograph? | The lighting had a lot to do with it. Our perception of colors are based not only on the actual color of the object itself, but also on the object's visual environment . The dress in question appeared back-lit in the photo, so instead of merely perceiving the actual colors a lot of us automatically color-corrected and ... |
What happens with excess electricity from a generator? | If there really was excess electricity because the motor speed was too high, the voltage would rise. Voltage fluctuation is acceptable within certain limits, but past a certain point it could damage the devices attached to it. Generators you can buy have regulators to prevent this from happening - see [here] for an exp... |
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