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Why is the NRA so powerful?
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Any special-interest group , National Organization for Women , United Auto Workers ) gains power from membership. The more members an organization has, the more money it has to promote its cause and the more voting power it can wield at the ballotThe NRA is the largest gun advocacy group in the States with roughly 4 million members. With this number of people that the group represents they can influence politics with money and like minded people who will vote along with the group. This gives them power over politicians with votes or money that they spend on lobbying or funding politicians.
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Venn x Euler Diagram, what is the difference?
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One of them is pronounced just as you expect it to beWikipedia has a pretty good explanation here. _URL_0_ In sum, a Venn Diagram has circles that partially, but never entirely, overlap, but an Euler Diagram can have a circle that is entirely contained in another. If I want to draw an Euler Diagram for the statement "All cats are animals", I can draw a circle that represents "animals" and then draw another circle inside it that represents "cats". In a Venn Diagram, I start with two circles that only partially overlap. One circle represents "cats" and the other "animals". In the circle for "cats" there are two regions: one that overlaps the circle for "animals" and one that is outside of the region for animals. Now, imagine that you have to sort all of the cats and animals in the world. All the cats would be in the part of the diagram where the circles overlap. The part of the cat-circle that does not overlap animals would be empty. In order to show that it is empty, you shade it in . The result looks like this: _URL_1_', "A true Venn diagram has all the possible combinations/overlaps, so for N circles you'll always need 2^N crayons to color it. Euler diagrams can have some combinations missing.
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how do auto-dimming rearview mirrors work?
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It depends on what you mean by "effective". The manual tip up mirror uses a wedge prism to either reflect almost all of the light or just a fraction from a lightly silvered front surface. This system is totally optics, and has infinite resolution. It's hard to beat simple physics, but it's not automatic. The auto-dimming mirror uses electrochromism. A special substance in the mirror, a layer between the front surface and the reflective surface, changes color from mostly clear to mostly grey when 12V is applied to it. This layer isn't as precisely made as the LCD in your computer display, it only has one "pixel", and this can cause artifacts. If you see a distorted image, the electrochromic layer is damaged, take it back to the dealer and get a new one. It you just like the look of optics better, well, too bad, Marketing at the car companies likes electrochromism better. Maybe a replacement mirror??
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Why isn't it possible for a counterfeit bill to perfectly emulate a real bill?
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It is possible. If you had access to every piece of equipment that the government uses to produce currency, you can make the exact same currency. They do make it extremely hard to get certain materials and certain machinery that makes this hardBecause [President Lincoln never wore a turtleneck sweater!]It *is* possible. This is true for absolutely everything: if you have access to the same materials and processes, you can produce an identical product. The goal is simply to make it complex enough that: 1. It's difficult to guess "how" it was made.2. It requires a *lot* of separate processes that are difficult to replicate.3. It's slow and tedious.4. It's more expensive to make the counterfeits yourself, than it is to use real money.
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Why are benzodiazepines (chill pills) so bad for you, but work so well?
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Benzos really aren't that bad for you, except for the addiction risk. They're particularly safe when compared to what used to be prescribed beforehand, usually barbiturates. You actually have to go well out of your way to manage to OD on benzos. Anyway, as far as benzodiazepines go, Ativan is pretty weak sauce, so if you're only getting occasional scripts for that or Xanax and the scripts don't even have refills on them, you aren't running any real risk of addiction, so I wouldn't worry about that. Why hasn't anyone come up with anything better? Just bad luck. They're always trying; a drug company that could come up with something to treat anxiety that actually *worked* and didn't have any sort of addiction risk would make them literally billions in profits. You may want to check out /r/nootropics too; there's lots of GAD sufferers there always keeping an eye out on the latest research.
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Why was torture used in the past?
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If you are asking from a moral standpoint, this was never a factor to the people looking for information, or to do experiments. Physical torture, or the threat of physical torture could coax info from somebody much the same as psychological could. And for experiments, definitely a controversial topic, but it has gotten us plenty of valuable medical break-throughsMichel Foucault's book *Discipline and Punish* argues that in many instances, public torture in the premodern era could either be 1) to intimidate people into not committing crimes , 2) to help cleanse the person of sin before they die, 3) to avenge the damage done on the sovereign's body by damaging the criminal's body, etc. During the 1800s in Europe, however, the crowds watching started to sympathize with the criminal/torture victim and see the executioner/state as the vicious party; thus, discipline and punishment moved from the town square to walled prisons.It absolutely does work. That it doesn't is propaganda. Why else would it be used? Is it good for getting reliable intelligence? Maybe not. But it is great for getting a confession.
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How does closing our eyes signal to the brain that it's time to shut down (sleep)?
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It's not necessarily so that closing your eyes makes you sleepy. Often it's the other way around: you feel and urge to close your eyes when you are tired and sleepy. Bu in a way it's like two sides to a coin - the two phenomena are interconnected and interdependent on eachother: When you close your eyes very little meaningful information flows from the retinas to the brain. The stream of visual impressions stops. Quite a large part of the brain is at any time occupied with decoding and interpreting visual information. By stopping the flow the activity in the brain is diminished and this gives the brain "rest" . Also, as the retinas stop being exposed to light, both by closing the eyes and by the sun going down and darkness falling in the outside world, there is a signal from the retinas of the eyes, through some fibers of the optic nerve, to the pineal gland, a small gland buried deep in the brain. This signal gives rise to an increased production and release of the hormone melatonin which makes us sleepy. This is not an instant process, but happens over the course of maybe 15-30 minutes. Interestingly some people who are blind due to injuries or malfunctions in the central nervous system may still have functioning retinas that can give signals to the pineal gland through the optic nerve so that these people, even though they can't tell through sight if it's light or dark can have a circadian rythm that is controlled by the light conditions in the outside world.
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Why are Russians considered "Eastern European," when they're technically North Asians (geographically).
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The western boundary of Asia, in this area, is the Ural Mountains. Most of the major cities in Russia are west of that, and therefore are part of Europe.Many people in Russia are not ethnic Russians, but that doesn't change the fact that ethnic Russians are Europeans. The Rus' people were Scandinavian and they moved eastward into what is now the area around Moscow. That Russian kingdom came to conquer a Russian Empire over much of Asia.
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What's the psychology behind serial rape? Do serial rapists genuinely think they won't get caught?
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Not an expert, but I'm going to guess that getting away with it once leads to the belief that he will continue to get away with it. I knew a guy who was running some type of credit scam through his employer . It began as 100 or 200 dollars. When there were no consequences, it was easy to do again and again and again. When the owners finally figured-out what was going on an who was responsible, he'd frauded more than 20k.
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In the Jared Fogle case, the charges always emphasize that he "crossed state lines" to commit certain crimes. Why does this matter so much?
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The fact that he crossed state lines makes this a federal case, rather than a state case. Federal courts have a few different rules and punishments and such, and a lot of resources for the investigation. From a legal standpoint, it's a pretty big difference, since he'll be in a whole different court and prison system.
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What is the "Deep State" in the U.S.?
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Deep State refers to the people and organizations that *actually* control the politicians that control the government. Who/what the Deep State is depends on whom you ask. For some it is the [Military Industrial Complex]; for others it is a collection of [oligarchs] and plutocrats. Others use the term to refer to the large number of bureaucrats who make policy that has the force of law, but neither the policymaker nor the policy that they come up with is from an elected official. Like many terms used today, it has no clear, single definition.
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What does the Kantian phrase 'end in itself' mean?
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That's not just a Kantian phrase, but it means exactly what it says. End in this context means purpose or cause. It is an end goal in it's own right. It's not a step to some other goal . Art as a hobby is often viewed as an end, something people do because they derive enjoyment from it with no goal beyond that. Art as a job could be viewed as a *means* to an end. The end goal is to make money, art is how that is achieved.
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Why isn't it false advertising to advertise a price, to then add inseparable, mandatory fees?
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They always mention the fees when advertising their price. Usually it's in small print. Or if it's spoken then they say "prices starting at $49.99".
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Why is the alphabet in the order it is, theoretically, does it have to be in this order, and why cant it be in just any order?
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There is no reason for it to be in the order it is. There is even less reason to change its order.There is no real reason for the order. The order it's in is derived from the order the latin alphabet was in, which is derived from the order the greek alphabet was in, which was derived from the order the phoenician alphabet was in, and we have no idea what reason they had for ordering thier alphabet in the way it is. we order it like that because that's how weve always ordered it and theres no good reason to change it. having a universally agreed upon order is useful because it allows for things to be sorted alphabetically. maybe there would be a benefit to a more thought-out order? like putting all the vowels first or something, but the benefits to that wouldn't be as great as the benefits of switching the US to metric, or our counting system to base 12, or electrical diagrams away from conventional current, or even switching the qwerty keyboard to the dvorak keyboard. and considering we havnt managed to do any of those things, i think the alphabet is pretty far down the list of priorities
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Why does sound seem "louder" during the night as opposed to during the day?
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A few things - how much ambient sound is there at night? There are probably fewer cars and fewer people out, so with less background noise, the TV sounds louder because it doesn't need to compete anymore. Another possibility is that in the darkness, your hearing sensitivity increases to compensate for the lack of sight. I *think* this might be an evolutionary trait . I believe there have been studies/experiments on this insofar as hearing increasing naturally in darkness to compensate for lack of light/eyesight. But I think the first reason is probably more likely. My NYC apartment during the day is always noisy because of the street outside, but at night there's almost no car traffic except large trucks, and the TV becomes much easier to hear at very low volumes.Sound travels much better in cold environments than in warm environments. Sun goes down, temp goes down, sound goes up. However that is not really relevant to your specific situation as you are talking about noise internal to your home. Thing slow down at night. Less traffic noise, less ambient noise inside your house from dishwashers and cooking etc. Your ears adjust to the lower ambient noise and just like a dark room becomes visually lighter just by you staying in it longer, being exposed to less overall sound makes an unchanging level of sound appear to "increase" as we adjust our internal sensitivity to the sound level. There are also psychosomatic issues at play here where your internal biorhythms are preparing your body for sleep and just overall slowing everything down
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Why Hotels need your address and phone # even if you pay by Cash?
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Because if you trash the room or something happens they still need a way to contact youThere are typically legal requirements for hotels to collect and maintain info on their guests. Laws vary by country but are generally in place to deter money laundering, and prevent illicit funneling to terrorist/drug organizations. Hotels have historically been a relatively easy method for money laundering by reporting income from far more rooms then are actually physically occupied. By requiring them to collect your info, such as a copy of your passport, it becomes harder to do this and easier for authorities to audit them. These laws became much more prevalent after 9/11.Because then they would have to wait until the room was cleaned to check you out, making sure you didn't steal anything, break anything, eat food from the mini-bar, etc etc. It assures them that if anything was wrong in the room or you leave anything behind that they can get ahold of you.
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Does 'closing your eyes' when fatally wounded have any impact if you die or not?
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It's not more of a staying conscious at the time of your death, it's literally stay with me, don't give up, please show me you can still make it. I'm not a 100% accurate on this but when a person gets an injury, sometimes it is important to stay awake for the body to not get into something - I forgot if it was shock, or something else.
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Why does the dark side of the moon never face the earth?
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Sometime the dark side of the moon *does* face us. It's called a [New Moon]. I believe your question is about the [far side of the moon].
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Why is pain "painful?" Why don't I like feeling pain?
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pain is bad mmkay. it's how your body lets you know something's going wrong with it. spice is the plant's defense, so it wont get eaten by animals, since they're not stupid enough to eat it twice if it burns their mouth for half an hour after.Pain is your bodies way of telling you something is wrong. In a lot of ways it is a good thing. There are some cases where people are born without the ability to feel pain, and they will chew their tongue off in their sleep without knowing.Pain is to signify that something is causing, or has caused, damage. It's unpleasant so that you stop either injuring yourself, move away from what is injuring you, protect what is damaged, etc.
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Why does it seem that the common cold 500 years ago is much more lethal than a cold in the modern era?
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You can't really ignore those two things. Those two things are very important for modern medicine. But *other* than those things: our diets are much better, so we have a lot more energy to fight off colds. Food is readily available, so if for some reason we're too sick to work it *probably* doesn't mean you'll starve to death . That also means you *can* choose not to work, so you can take it easy and avoid stress that would make the infection worse. We have also eradicated other opportunistic diseases and generally keep much better hygiene, so we don't have to worry about secondary infections that will take advantage of an immune system weakened by the cold. We can identify infections much more quickly so if there *are* complications and the cold worsens to the point when it might become lethal, you'll get professional medical care more quickly . We do have a few anti-viral drugs that directly assist your body in fighting off the cold. Antibiotics don't fight viruses like the cold, but they *do* fight off bacteria that would, again, take advantage of your weakened immune system. Um we have temperature controlled homes, so we don't take on additional stress or the energy-drain of maintaining a healthy core temperature. We don't live alongside our animals .
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Why are the names of oil companies that spill oil into the ocean plastered on the news, but not the party responsible for the California natural gas leak?
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The sad truth is that the BP Oil spill got mass attention because it's a much more tangible event and it harmed animals. The California gas leak is equally or worse than the oil spill but I suppose that news isn't selling. I won't say there's conspiracies but some could easily say that parent companies of, say, CNN don't find it in their best interest to demonize big oil and gas unless they can sell it on something about saving the animals.
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Why can't people in the US sue individual police officers like we can doctors?
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The state asserts "sovereign immunity". In other words, you can't sue the King unless the King agrees to let you. We don't have a King, but our government retains sovereign immunity. There are many times you can sue the state even when it doesn't want to let you. Exceptions to sovereign immunity have been carved out of many laws and are commonplace, but one place it is not is in the exercise of police power. It makes good sense for this to be so, or everyone who was arrested would sue, and the police force would be unable to operate. Typically the redress for issues with police misbehavior is through the ballot box, not the court system. The police are accountable to elected authorities, who can, will and do force them to alter their behavior and in some cases waive immunity so a lawsuit against truly egregious behavior can go forward.> Why is it then that I'm only able to sue the police force as a whole and not the individual officers as well? The officers are expected to put themselves into difficult positions as part of their duty, and are not paid enough to afford the expensive malpractice insurance that doctors must carry. The assumption of the risk is taken on by the government agency itself as a necessity of having anyone be willing to take the job.In many places you absolutely can. You can sue the officer for a particular incident. If the department stands behind the actions of the officer and says "this guy/gal was acting within the legal scope of his/her duties and didn't act outside departmental policy" then the department is required to cover any/all costs associated with the lawsuit. Honestly, this is what lawyers and plaintiffs are hoping for as the city/county/state has much deeper pockets than the officer. If the department says the officer acted outside policy and/or law, the officer can be on their own. Many officers have started suing people who assault them and they're winning. Goes both ways.
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How can a 600W PSU supply 50 A on 12V, while the electrical wires in the wall would literally burst into flames at 50A?
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A power supply pretty much conserves power, give or take a few losses. So the output power is 12 x 50 = 600W, as advertised. The input, from the wall, is at 120V So the input current is 600/120 = 5A, well within the capacity of a standard 15A domestic circuit. Incidentally, the wires would not burst into flame at 50A, you would simply blow a fuse or pop a breaker. The whole point of fuses and breakers is to prevent this sort of fire.
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Why do spots stop hurting after we remove the puss from them?
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For those of use who might not be aware, 'spots' is a term that aussies and brits use for pimples.I assume it is a pressure release. If I remember correctly the puss and stuff is pushing up because pimples are a reaction to bacteria and your immune system is fighting it. Releasing all the pressure from all the dead things dying in that "battle" makes it hurt less.
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When and why did basketball hoops become such a staple for American driveways?
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Basketball is the second most popular sport in the US. It is easier to set up a hoop for simply play and practice than it is to get space to play football or soccer, and far less than practicing baseball . This means it is a common recreational activity for active/semi-active families. As for when it became popular. That would have been in the 50s-70s during the boom of suburbia. Cities would have public parks with full courts available, suburbia everyone had a drivewayI can't give you a good answer on the "*when*" part, but the "*why*" is several reasons combined: - Most other sports take up a ***lot*** more room. - You don't have to take the kid anywhere to play. - Much lower chance of a broken window than baseball.
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Why isn't Robert E. Lee viewed as a traitor?
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He probably gets let off the hook for being reluctant to go to war and rejection of his military life after the war. He became president of then Washington College and said his greatest mistake was a military education.Robert E Lee is one of the most interesting parts of the American Civil War. Yes, he was a traitor, but he was a particularly good kind of traitor. He did not turn against the United States for money, or for spite, or for dislike of it. Hell, his house was literally visible from the White House. He was a model citizen. He was granted commissions from both sides, and agonized for months over which choice to make, writing letters back and forth between Abrahan Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, and he ultimately decided that his loyalty to his state was greater than his loyalty to his country. Subsequent events proved that he was one of the greatest military commanders in American history. If it weren't for a lucky break at Gettysburg and the brutally effective tactics of General Sherman, Lee could have practically single-handedly won the war. When it was all said and done, he gave up his farmland, and gave his property across from the White House to the US government to be used as a cemetery for American Soldiers, [and it still serves as such today.].
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How Britain and America went from what could be described as bitter enemies to what could be described as best buds?
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both countries have a deep shared cultural heritage that has proven to be a powerful unifier, overshadowing the brief periods of conflict and hostility that could have resulted in longstanding resentment. solidarity between the United States and the three major Commonwealth countries was further reinforced by entry of the United States into WW1 and WW2 as an ally nation. these two in combination has resulted in a special relationship that isn't experienced by, say, France, lacking the same cultural heritage.
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Stereotypically speaking, why do men play baseball and women play softball?
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It's not a stereotype, it's a fact. When kids are young, often girls will play baseball. But as they get into high school, almost all of them switch to softball . Then, when middle-aged people play recreationally, they generally do softball because it's less intense and physical. The sports are very different. Baseball, you always wear pants, the pitcher throws overhand and can throw breaking pitches, there are only nine players on the field, and so on. In softball, the pitcher delivers underhand . The ball is much larger and does not travel as far, the bases are closer together and the pitcher's rubber is much closer to the plate, and sometimes the players wear shorts which generally prevents them from sliding. Those are just a few of the differences but as you can see it determines the physicality of the sport. Why specifically/historically softball and baseball both developed in high school and collegiate leagues I do not know.
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How are sex change operations done?
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There are graphic videos on youtube if you're really brave.Both male and female genitals start off as the same set of organs, as you grow in the womb, these organs are acted on by your genetics to become either the penis/testes or clitoris/ovaries etc. The structures being somewhat similar lets some be "recycled" during the operation. Some people choose to have hormone replacement only and never an operation, everyone is different. Male to female involves removing testes and the internal structures of the penis, turning the skin of the penis inside out to create the interior of the new vagina, with the tip of the penis being fashioned into a clitoris. Female to male transitions are sometimes accomplished with hormone replacement only, which stops the menstrual cycle, and increases the size of the clitoris.Surgery uses a flap of skin from the arm or elsewhere on the body to create a penis
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when the moon comes up, it's gravity is strong enough to rise the tide. How come small particles don't go flying as well?
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Probably the biggest thing to understand is that the moon's gravity doesn't create the tides "all in one go". As the Earth rotates, the pull of the moon has a constant very small effect that over time builds up a sort of standing-wave front that we call the tides. It's the cumulative effect that causes the tides, not the \'instantaneous\' gravitational pullTl;dr tides are caused by fluid dynamics powered by the moons gravity, not the moons gravity directly. Watch this excellent video by PBS spacetime for a full explanation: _URL_0_', "The earth gravity is many times stronger than the gravity of the moon. Imagine an elephant pulling on a flexible coconut palm tree.. If you pull from the opposite side, you will make the tree bend a little less.. - but if you go around to help the elephant, together you'll manage to bend it a little further.. The moon can't attract particles, because the earth is dragging so much more, but the moon can counteract the drag a tiny bit..
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why are Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome so much better than Internet Explorer? What are the big problems with Explorer? If I have good anti virus software is there really a difference?
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Historically you would be correct about IE being a bad browser. But it you use the Modern ones they are pretty equivalent to Chrome and Firefox. They all have add-on's to varying extents. They all confirm to standards pretty well.
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why prosthetic limbs cost almost twice as much as a car
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Supply and demand. Money doesn't really have any "real" value, all the prices you see are imaginary, so to speak. That's why diamonds, for instance, cost so much. It's not that they have some kind of actual value, it's just that people are willing to buy them at a certain price, and the seller, seeing as people buy them, obviously continues to sell them. Ideally, one wants to work/spend as less as possible and to gain as much as possible. This idea is widely practiced and it has lots of very unfortunate consequences around the world, but that's another issue altogether.
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What is the point in hiding scores for comments for a certain amount of time?
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People are most like to read only the first few comments which are more likely to be upvoted which are more likely to be upvoted resulting in a kind of avalanche. People are also more likely to upvote comments that have already been upvoted. Vote hiding attempts to counter this.So that the reddit hive mind doesn't jerklecirc legitimate points/opinions.
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Why our voices sound so different than what we think they sound like
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When something 'makes' a sound , it does so by causing particles to bump into each other, then those particles bump into more particles, etc etc outward in all directions until they bounce off something. When you speak, the thing making the sound is your vocal cords vibrating. Other people only hear the sound that is created as the wave passes through the particles in the air. You, however, also hear the sound as it moves from your vocal chords through the solid/liquid mass inside your own head.
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Why can't you fight dementia by training your brain?
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You can, to an extent - it has been shown that bilingual people and people who keep their brain active can fight off the *effects* of dementia for longer. But a lot of types of dementia mean your brain is *physically* shrinking, and parts of it are lost forever. At some point too much of it is gone for you to be able to work around.
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What did the developers of HTML5 do to make things so much faster?
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Nothing. HTML is just a set of instructions telling a browser what it should display. There are different versions of HTML, the latest one being HTML5, but the differences between them are mostly a matter of a few new instructions , and maybe some minor changes to the syntax. How fast a page renders in a browser depends on how fast your computer is, how fast your internet connection is, how well-written your browser is, and what sort of content it's being asked to display . If you're talking about HTML5 *video* technically, there isn't actually such a thing, but for marketing reasons that's what it's been called. HTML5 has a new tag which instructs the browser to display a video. Previously, the only way to do this was to use a plugin, usually the Flash player; HTML5-conformant browsers now have a video player built-in, so they don't have to go through the whole business of firing up a plugin, a process that can take well, a second or two, let's be honest: it was never a big deal. This video player can use a codec that can be easily compressed, meaning you have fairly high quality video with a smaller file size, so it's more likely to stream better. That, at least, is the theory.
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Why is it so bad to drink ocean water, even for those who are on the verge of dying of thirst?
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They say drinking seawater will drive you mad but it will dehydrate you & make you more thirsty because it contains salt. Also your kidneys can have a job processing that amount of salt.
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what is physically different from a "normal" brain and a psychopath's?
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The term 'psychopath' refers to a large array of behaviors, which do not necessarily correlate to brain differences. Some people may behave differently based on their upbringing and experiences, for example. However, some brains do function differently than most human brains, and we know a small bit about this. To start, human brains are composed of a large number of parts which work together to form our consciousness. Some parts of the brain perform different functions, like vision, memory archiving, and abstract processing. The amygdala is the fear center of the brain; trauma or injury here can make people more or less afraid of things. Sometimes, the amygdala can be intact but not functioning. We don't know why this is, and this is the case for a lot of mental disorders. People with schizophrenia and Alzheimer's often have brain-wide tissue shrinkage, so there can be large differences in actual brain structure. However, to answer the question, *sometimes there are large brain differences in people with mental disorders, and sometimes there aren't.* [Here is an MIT lecture on brain disorders.]
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How does aspirin, ibuprofen, and acetaminophen work? How does it know where the pain is? (Example: Headache; Back pain; Leg pain; etc.)
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Aspirin and Ibuprofen belong to a group of drugs calls NSAIDs and with regards to pain, decrease pain by inhibiting COX enzymes. The COX enzyme increases inflammation . Acetaminophen, whilst not being an NSAID is postulated to work in a similar fashion. The drugs don't know where to work and are transported through the blood stream all over the body. Where ever the COX enzyme is, the drugs will act on it . In areas of inflammation, certain COX enzymes are higher in number.
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What makes an MR layout car more likely to oversteer?
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Think less about the weight transfer, and more about where the weight is in relation to the tires. On rear-engined cars the engine weight is out past the rear tires, and so when the cornering car decelerates, the side force of the engine weight is applied to the rear tires alone, which increases their slip angle, too When you decelerate, think of that as a backwards force acting on the center of gravity. But the car is also rotating, and that rotation is carrying the mass of the engine outside of the line the center of gravity is tracing, and trying to rotate the car further. And the further it steps out, the greater the force it creates trying to rotate the car, which increases slip angle, which decreases available traction, and I think you can see that viscous circle. Rotation increasing, traction decreasing, rotation force increasing. That is your snap oversteer. A good practical way to visual this is to put a pencil on the desk in front of you, pointed directly away from you. If you flick the pencil on the eraser, it moves straight away from you. If you turn the pencil slightly to one side, but still flick directly away from you, the more the pencil is angled, the more of your flick that goes into rotating the pencil and less into moving it away from you. The force of that rear engine is your flick. If it's inline with the direction of travel, no big deal. That's not so true when the car has rotated to a tail-out attitude. If you apply the flick further up the pencil, the initial rotation decreases the further forward you apply the force.
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Why Are AMEX cards not allowed to be used as much as Visa and Mastercard?
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Well I have a business and the fee isn't really the problem if I'm being honest; business owners will say it's the fees but it's bullshit. That extra percent isn't going to kill most businesses. The real reason? Chargebacks. AMEX will process them for virtually any reason. You bought a laptop from me and thought the blue color would be lighter? Bam refund, keep the item. Unless you habitually chargeback, and even then AMEX will let you do it a whole lot, you'll get a refund for any reason. Accepting AMEX means I risk giving away every item sold with AMEX. The good majority of AMEX holders also have some sort of Visa/Mastercard, usually a debit card at least. So the couple sales I 'd lose is negotiable, most just go "I'll pay with another card".
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why we sell gas by the volume but not mass, unlike in avionics and auto racing?
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Planes and race cars care about how much weight they're moving around as it has a significant impact on performance. A plane needs more power to get more weight off the ground so extra mass is a problem for it if you happen to fuel it on a cold day Passenger cars don't care as much about added mass, and people know they have a 10 or 12 or 15 gallon fuel tank, not a 64, 96, or 128 pound fuel tank. We generally measure liquids by volume not mass, you can see this with baking instructions too We also don't meticulously temperature control gasoline. Put it in a big underground tank and it'll stay around the same temperature all year long. Even if it does go through temperature swings, it doesn't change in density that much. At 0C gasoline is 1.8% denser than at 15C, and at 30C it is 2% less dense than at 15C, that's not a huge swing
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How and why do things get preserved in amber?
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Amber is basically tree sap. Bug or animals chilling out near tress have some of it fall on them or they step in it and get stuck. The amber surrounds them and keeps them there. As far as getting preserved they are kept away from reactants, i think oxygen is the big one, which stops them from decaying or being broken down over great periods of time. Its like a can of food. It lasts forever becuase they are sealed up from everything outside.
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Tone curves in digital photography/photoshop.
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There are different [color tones] . This picture, although it might not be scientifically totally correct, really helps to understand the tones: The different tones are red, blue, green, yellow, purple, and so on. Tones can differ in brightness: Colors more in the middle of this circle are brighter, but have the same tone as colors more on the outside in the same position. When you change the tone, you turn this circle slightly: blue turns purple, purple turns pink, pink turns red, and so on, of course it also works in the different direction. Note that for example in Photoshop the tone is a number between -180 and 180, with 0 as default. That's the amount of degrees you turn the circle , which makes sense, since 360 degrees is a whole circle. 0 wouldn't change the tone at all, 180 turns a picture into its negative . Usually you don't want to change the tone much, since it would turn colors odd, like humans green or the sky red. Edit: Wait, did I explain something wrong? I might have confused some terms while translating them :(
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Why can I barely hear a siren when I'm driving and it's right behind me but they always wake me up in the middle of the night from far away?
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Probably because in your car there's engine noise, road noise, and music, while at night it's quiet. Could that be it?
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how could major body changes evolve in small steps?
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Your point hinges on the fact that the intermediaries are detrimental, and that is inherently false. Your argument is common, though usually the eye is used as an example. Every step in between non-existence of the organ and the fully functional version we have today had some use, or did not provide a major disadvantage. Evolution is all about survival and reproduction - if a parent survives, it can pass mutations to its children. A frilly lizard born without legs will probably not reproduce, and will die; a frilly lizard born with an extra frilly frill may consume extra energy to sustain its extra frilly frill, but if it is a strong frilly lizard, the extra frilly frill is not enough to stop it from surviving. Eventually, extra frilly frill may indicate a strong frilly lizard - all the weak frilly lizards with extra frilly frills died because they couldn't compensate for the extra energy the extra frilly frill consumes. As for your examples: Lungs - I'm not exactly sure, to be honest, though I'm sure someone who studies this for a living would know. Calling /u/Unidan Wings - A small raptor was born with extra skin flaps in its "armpits". It didn't affect the raptor's ability to survive and reproduce, so it got passed on. Eventually, the trait gets more and more accentuated, until the flaps catch enough air to slow down freefalls . From there, gliding; after that, flight. Water to Air - Take a look at amphibians Cells to Egg - I don't think I'm qualified enough for a good response on this one either Egg to Birth, Meat - Same. These are all questions that would deserve their own post in /r/askscience.some fishes have lungs. this allowed the fish to survive and migrate in areas with only isolated bodies of water. therefore it's an advantageous trait to those that have it vs those fish that don't have lungs that are stuck in water only.
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The tax system (in broad terms) and why do we have to pay taxes on property we own, like houses or inheritances.
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You have taxes to fund the government and the various services and programs it provides. Property tax is commonly used to fund schools. Inheritance is not a tax on property you own, you did not own it your family member did. It is a tax on the ownership of that property changing hands. The purpose of this is to limit the massive accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few families over generations. Something that can and will happen given enough time.The tax system is two things mixed together. The government needs money to pay for the services it provides. The government generally prefers to take money from people on a progressive basis . The government wants people to do some things and not do other things. This presents an opportunity to use the tax system to motivate behavior. Rather than outlaw something, like beer, the government imposes a special tax on it. This brings in money that the government needs, and it discourages over-consumption of beer. Unfortunately, this combination can have some bizarre interactions. Warren Buffet mostly invests his money in things the government approves of. As a result of these tax incentives, he claims he pays a lower tax rate on his humongous income than his secretary pays on her modest income. That's the sort of problem that occurs when government ties to to two things at once. Simpler is better, and the US tax system us the opposite of simple.
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What is a pentaquark?
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A pentaquark is a combination of 5 quarks .Quarks are subatomic particles smaller than the electron, and make up protons, neutrons, and other larger particles, called Hadrons. Quarks cannot exist alone, and must "partner" up in groups of 2 or 3. When quarks form particles in groups of 2, they're called mesons, and when they're formed by 3 quarks they're called baryons . A pentaquark is significant because it shows that quarks can combine in ways that have never been observed. On a fundamental level, quarks, hadrons, and leptons make up all visible matter, and this discovery helps us to learn more about how ordinary matter is made.
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How did those guys get stuck in the cave in Thailand in the first place?
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Ok, so the group has traveled into that cave system a few times in the past. Decided to go again this time round. Usually it's safe to visit before the rainy season arrives but unfortunately a rainstorm came early and flooded the entrance of the cave, trapping the group inside. More rain, more water, so the group had to move deeper into the cave to find higher ground or risk drowning.They ventured deep in the cave, it rained, long parts of the cave flooded and trapped them 2 miles inWalked deep underground past all the signs warning of flooding just before forecast monsoonal rains. Then it rained sealing them inCould they drill an air hole from the top?
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Why is it that if theres a parking spot with snow, its a lot easier for cars to go in than to go out? Shouldnt it be the same?
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You have inertia going in. Plus, the wheels compress the snow as they go over it. It often turns to ice when this happens, forming a ridge of ice the car has to bump over to get going again. Ice has almost zero friction so you can be stuck with each wheel in a little cup barely 1/2 inch or 1 cm deep. Hence the commercial about carrying a bit of cat litter with you to throw under the tires when that happens.
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Is my green the same as your green?
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Everyone is going to say nobody knows, which is true. But just to break it down a bit You really need to define "see." When you think about what your brain is visualizing when you look at the screen, there are essentially two steps: the light hitting your eyes, and then your brain interpreting the light. Strictly speaking, if you define the light hitting one's eyes as "seeing," then we do all see the *same* color. If we got an eye transplant, we should perceive the same exact colors; which makes sense, because we are interpreting the same wavelengths of light. However, if you define "seeing" as being what your brain interprets the wavelengths as, then there's no way of knowing. The only real test would be if we could isolate the portion of the brain responsible for doing those interpretations, and transplanting/modifying those. My guess would be that we *don't* see the same colors, because everyone's brains could develop differently; and even if they do, there's always the possibility for mutation. You could use this same analysis for all five senses. When you hear an instrument, does it sound the same to everyone else? Is "hearing" when the sound waves hit your eardrums or when they go to the brain? Is taste when the chemicals hit your tongue or when they go to the brain? Same process for each.This is a philosophical concept called the inverted spectrum. It is impossible to know if we see the same colors, but it ultimately doesn't have any impact to most people. The one possible exception are people that may have a rare condition called tetrachromacy. Normally, we see color through the combination of three color receptors. Tetrachromats have four, and can see about 99 million more colors than most humans. But these humans have no idea they are unusual unless they are specifically tested for it. In this case, they most definitely do not see the same colors, but could hardly ever realize this.Nobody knows. There is no way to know.
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If everyone knows California is due for "the big one" earthquake along the San Andreas fault. Why do people seem to not care?
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Because in California, nobody gives a fuck about shit', "Los Angeles resident here. It's dangerous, perhaps, to live on a fault line, but we won't just leave because of something that MIGHT happen. So many things could go wrong, and probably will but we're not going to up and evacuate our homes and families. Why do people live in Wyoming when there's a supervolcano underneath Yellowstone? Why Cuba and Florida and Louisiana when there's the overwhelming threat of hurricanes?
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How do bankers actually make our economy better?
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Essentially, the entire role of the banking industry is to collect money from people with it, and distribute it out to enterprising people that need money. If done correctly, everyone, the saver, the bank, and the entrepreneur profits from the venture. Everything financial that you mentioned, from the stock market to the hedge funds, exist just to find new ways to make money for those three groups. No, the system isn't perfect, and is rife with abuses, but without it there'd be no long haul trucking, new construction, or new businesses, just to name a few. Without a doubt, the ability to move around large sums of money is a cornerstone of the world economy. An example: Think of the economy like a vehicle. The savers are the gas tank. They have lots of money , but don't really have anything to do with it. The engine on the other hand, wants to move the vehicle forward, but lacks the fuel to do so. In come the banks, like a fuel pump system, moving and managing the flow of gas, timing things properly so that the vehicle can continue to move forward.
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Why are there no national/state 911 apps (in the US)?
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There has been. E911 system has been specced for years. But not all dispatch centers have upgrade their systems. The FCC has a timeframe at 2020 for full completion. And to add, even if the dispatcher got the address, cops wouldn't be there to help her. It'd take 5-10 minutes average in cities. In random lake or something expect more than 15-30
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What prevents some one from changing monetary numbers in a banks computers to get rich.
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Do you mean what stops a hacker from entering the bank's records from outside and altering them? Or what stops a bank's employees from altering the records from inside. THe answer to the first is some excellent security. Basicly the inner workings are never accessible even through the banks website. What you are seeing is merely a copy or false face of the actual records. So in the case of a mismatch the bank defaults to the back end copy that can never be altered. In the case of an internal employee the answer is internal controls. It normally takes 2 people to do just about any significant action so you would have to get someone else in on it. Then all actions are tracked and reviewed, so you WOULD get caught, and the penalties are severe.
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Are paper toilet seat covers (aka ass gaskets) really more sanitary than naked seats or just another example of humans being wasteful?
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Chances are, there's nothing particularly hazardous on the seat itself regardless. A toilet seat is not a hospitable place for bacteria to hang out. If anything, they're a peace-of-mind device.People often confuse "dirty" and "unsanitary." You can have sanitary dirt, and clean things can be unsanitary, if they're not also sterilized. They do not help with sanitary at all. The paper is sitting there right next to the toilet, toilet germs are going to spray into the bathroom every time someone plops, sprays, or flushes, and this includes onto the paper. They do, however, help with dirty. A bit of dried pee, a tiny smear of poo, or even just someone's ass-dirt, those are all blocked by the paperThere is no chance of you getting an STD from a toilet seat. They provide nothing sanitary at all. Just a waste of money', "You can actually find more bacteria on the toilet seat in the average home than in most public restrooms. This is due to the fact that they have to clean the bathrooms many times a day, up to hourly. Whens the last time you cleaned your bathroom twice in a day, much less every hour? My vote is that they are wasteful and don't do anything more than provide you a little peace of mind that you're not doing the naked butt kiss with the guy who was in there before you.
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How exactly do hacks work in online gaming?
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Most hacks involve either finding where an app stores data, and modifying that data, or decoding how an app communicates with a server and spoofing that communication. Unless the game is played with zero input from the player, then it is impossible to stop hacks, but you can make them harder to do, through the wonders of encryption. The most secure option is to have the game app just stream data from the server, and store none locally, but for many games, especially real time games, this requires far too much bandwidth.
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why do pictures taken with very good cameras show so much detail that we can't see on our own.
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Imagine you have a grid that is 10 boxes high, and 10 boxes wide. In total there are 100 boxes. If you were to try and draw a perfectly round object, it would be difficult. There would be jagged edges. So you take each box, and divide it into 10 boxes high by 10 boxes wide each single original box is now 100 boxes. This means you have 100 X 100 or 10,000 total boxes. Now you try to draw a circle, and it doesn't look half shabby Our eyes have a certain number of "boxes" we can resolve too, depending on how far we are from something. Some camera are able to capture more light than our eyes, and can map that light to a grid of EXTREMELY small boxes. They capture so much detail that you can zoom into one box or region of the picture, and it is still enough "definition" to be considered "3d resolution" by our eyesYour eyes have light detectors called cones and rods. The more dense and the more of them you have, the better the "resolution" of the picture. It's very similar to a computer monitor in the same way. In [this picture] you can see the different between a high resolution and low resolution. Eyes don't *quite* work that way, but your cones and rods are almost like pixels. Human eyes have about 200,000 of these light detectors per mm in the fovea - the center of your retina; eagles have about 1 million per mm. One megapixel is roughly 1 million pixels of resolution in the light detectors of a camera. So a really good camera literally gets more information and a better resolution than your eyes. Then, you can make the picture bigger, spreading those pixels out to the resolution of your eyes. Essentially, you're artificially trading a broader view for greater detail.Pro Photographer here. Actually that's not necessarily the case. Any modern DSRL camera with a good lens and with the right settings can produce very high quality images.
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Why are some defenses not allowed in court?
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When someone says "That's not a legal defense" they're not saying it's not allowed, they're saying that the defense won't absolve you under the law. "I was running late" isn't a legal defense for speeding, but that doesn't mean you can't try it. It just won't workA legal defense is a valid reason why are you not guilty, or at least less guilty of an action that is usually a crime. "He was trying to kill me" is a legal defense. "He slept with my wife" is not a legal defense. You are free to mention it in court, but if anything, it will make you appear more guilty.
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Why can't we clone endangered species to rejuvenate their population?
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As /u/FixBayonetsLads said, it wouldn't produce diversity. Lack of diversity means the population would die out much more easily. There's also more risk for genetic mutation, i.e., Dolly the Sheep . Dolly was the first mammal cloned from an adult cell, however, her telomeres where much shorter that normal, causing her to age more rapidly and die young. If this couldn't be corrected, animals would have less time to breed and repopulate. _URL_0_
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How does Impulse = deltaP if Pf = Pi
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The bullet changes momentum, as does the block. The bullet changes it's momentum byΔP = 5x10^-3 =-0.6 kgm/s The block changes it's momentum by ΔP = 500x10^-3 = 0.6 kgm/s Total change in momentum of the _entire system_ is zero . However, the bullet "gives" some of its momentum to the block, which is the impulse.
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What's the affordable care act?
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Please search. [This fine explanation] has over 4000 upvotes. It is working, in the sense that some uninsured people have insurance. It has also had many unintended consequences, mostly that plans which people liked were cancelled and many people have seen their health plans cut coverage to avoid "Cadillac Plan" taxes.
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Why was president Andrew Johnson impeached?
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Politics He was elected as a unity pro union democrat VP for Lincoln then Lincoln was killed. He was pro south and didn't care about punishing the south or upholding the rights of freed african-americans like the republican congress wanted. He was impeached for violating an unconstitutional law the prevented him from forcing Lincoln's cabinet secretaries to resigning. It was a trap. He just survived not being convicted by 1 senate vote, which may have involved bribery on both sides.
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If a person has lung or stomach cancer, why can't the affected organ simply be removed?
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Doctor do remove those organs sometimes as part of cancer treatment. There are serious side effects, but it's worth it to not die of cancer. However, a malignant cancer will eventually spread through the blood or lymph vessels and infect other organs. At that point, removing the lung or stomach won't eliminate the cancer, since it has seeded itself all over the body.If cancer is caught *in situ* , it can be surgically removed most of the time - although the removal of something like a lung would not exactly be a first approach. But most dangerous cancers - lung among them - are dangerous partly because they readily spread across the body.
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Why do brittle things, like lead on the tip of my mechanical pencil, seem stronger when shorter?
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Comes down to leverage, a longer piece means you can apply force further away from the breaking point, thus multiplying the force appliedIt has to do with Leverage. The strength of the material, lead in your example, does not get stronger or weaker depending on its length. Rather, the force placed on the material is amplified based on the length of the material. Think of how a crowbar works. The longer the crow bar the more force that’s applied to the working end. Or think of a door - You can barely push on the knobbed side of a door with your pinky and it will still swing open or closed. Now apply that same amount of force an inch away from the hinges and it won’t move at all.
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how do phone card codes work? I know you punch in a number to call, but how does it bypass your phone carrier so you don't get charged by them too?
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You dial a toll free number first to connect to the company that issued the card, then you type in the code and phone number to tell them who you are and who you want to call.
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What is the difference between delusions and hallucinations?
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A hallucination is a sensory thing. You can see, hear, feel or I suppose taste something that's not actually there or the direct result of a stimulus on a sense organ like the eyes, ears, etc. A delusion is a belief that clearly disconnects with reality. If I think that the KGB has tapped my phone because I see people in red jackets regularly that'd be a delusion. One can be aware their hallucinations are not real, and therefore are not deluded. One can be deluded without having a direct sensory issue like hearing voices.Delusions are false beliefs and thoughts, e.g. "my cat wants to kill me." Hallucinations are false sensations and perceptions, e.g. "my cat is talking to me. But wait, I don't even have a cat."
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Do the rubber "bristles" on certain toothbrushes actually have a positive effect on teeth cleanliness?
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Those are not intended to get your teeth clean, but to stimulate your gumsNo, but those things allow to make the price of the toothbrush higher.
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The United States immigration process
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Getting a Visa gets you into the country. There are different forms of visas, depending on why you actually came . All must be maintained, and can be rescinded for bad behavior. Once your Visa expires, you're forced to leave. Once you have been in the country for 5-10 years , you are eligible to file for lawful permanent residency , which is what the green card is. At that point, you can live and work in the US without penalty, but you don't have the privileges of citizens. 5 years after you get LPR, you are eligible to become a citizen. It should be noted that the hard part is getting LPR; once you have LPR, you're essentially set so long as you don't do something worthy of deportation. Going from LPR to citizenship isn't particularly difficult.
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Why is it easier to remember the items on a few short lists than it is to remember the items on one long list?
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Mostly because of chunking: which is a mnemonic device . Chunking basically means that you remember things placed in groups better then when it’s one larger thing.
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when to use past vs. passed.
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Past when you are talking about time. Passed when you are talking about objective or distance. e.g. "It is *past* my bedtime!" e.g. "I *passed* the test!" e.g. "You just *passed* the exit."Past is a noun referring to a time previous to this time. Passed is a verb telling us that something happened in a previous time. EDIT: Past can also be used as a preposition like beyond in the example from /u/sinderling: "It is past my bedtime."
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How do people solve murders?
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Yeah they also use your post and search history on websites like this and Google. Don't do it man just watch forensic files and first 48
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How do you die in a wildfire if you know it's coming?
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Fires can move fast. Like, *really* fast. 60-70mph is not uncommon. A very big fire essentially creates its own weather. With hurricane force winds whipping it into a massive firestorm. Fires can also "jump" large sections of land riding on the wind. If you aren't careful or if a fire suddenly shifts directions you could very quickly find yourself surrounded.
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What's SRS and why does everyone hate them?
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/r/shitredditsays Because people see them as manipulating votes on subs they link to, acting aggressive and confrontational, and constantly railing against reddit despite being part of it. Also, because, frankly, most redditors don't care one bit about what they have to say.The kind of people who would hold up signs that say "I need feminism because instead of feeling proud about the picture of me graduating college, I feel disappointed because I am more focused on how I look in the photo"It *was* a sub-Reddit designed to highlight hypocritical or ridiculous posts and jest about how crazy and morally detestable they are, such as racism, people advocating for Nazi ideology, conservatives saying ridiculous things about poor people that kind of stuff. People hate it because it's basically been taken over by radical feminists, and has become a voice box for a sub-culture of internet sites called "The Fempire", which includes sites like _URL_0_ and other radically feminist productions.Has anyone tried buying them chocolate yet? In my experience, when females get cranky it's never as complicated as you imagine. Maybe they just want a gesture to show that they are taken seriously , and some kind words to let them know you care about them .
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Can you hear your own voice internally or externally more loudly? Why?
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Your own voice in your head is louder that your own voice that you hear externally. This is known to anyone that has ever heard thier own voice in a recording. However you hear your voice when you speak or sing is NOT how others hear it. There are lots of acoustical dynamics going on when you hear your voice such as resonance, depth, and sympathetic vibrations that no one hears except you. 2nd part: I don't know what you mean..
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Why does an MRI scan have no effect on the iron in your body?
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Because the iron in your body isn't actually iron as such, the iron atoms are bound with other atoms in molecules, which changes their properties. Same thing as with hydrogen. Flammable on its own, not flammable when bound with oxygen . Iron on its own is magnetic, iron bound in molecules is not.
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how do people in Vancouver afford 1-3 million dollar houses that would sell for half the price anywhere else in Canada ?
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Basically, you don't. Only people who make more than 60k a year live in Vancouver proper. Everyone else lives in the suburbs, like Burnaby or New Westminster. Middle class people who make 50k-80k before taxes can rent a multi-bedroom place in these areas or even a small house. People who make less than that just spend most of their income on rent and have room mates, with 2-3 couples sharing a house.
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Could a woman take testosterone supplements while pregnant to increase the chances of the child being a boy?
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No. Sex is not a hormonal issue, it's a genetic one. Your sex is determined based upon whether the sperm cell that fertilized your mother's egg had an X or a Y chromosome. No amount of testosterone will change that.no, ignoring what would probably be miscarriage inducing effects of hormone treatments, sex of the child has nothing to do with hormones. In fact its determined by the males sperm
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How do insects have such strong grip?
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Because insects have a proportional larger surface area than volume, where volume equates to weight and surface area is proportional to muscles which equates to more strength. Also insects have "hooks" in their legs that allows them to stick to rough surfaces.
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Why the microwave has to be closed to start working?
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Very little would happen if you operated a microwave with an open door. Microwaves are notoriously hard to get into the food that you're trying to cook, which is why most microwave ovens have a rotating tray, to try and align the food with as many microwave paths as possible. If the door were open, the energy would dissipate almost immediately. On Mythbusters, they once tried to make a microwave "gun" with the magnetrons from three microwave ovens, but were unsuccessful, even with that amount of overkill. Sticking your hand into an operating oven, though, is a different matter, so better safe than sorry.It's a safety feature if you jammed the door mechanism you could microwave your own head.
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Why is the VA (Veteran's Administration) so dysfunctional and inefficient? What are the reasons for the current scandals over patient care?
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A large part of the problem is a delay in transitioning to a computer-based system, coupled with a massive number of veterans. There are currently over 20 million veterans. For each of these, the VA needs to keep complete records regarding past service, medical issues, financial options, disability And those are all kept in paper copies. Here's a good picture of about 0.2% of the records: _URL_0_ The military has only recently transitioned to a computer-based record system for active duty members, so the VA's system will be faster for future veterans. In the meantime, in order to transition to a computer-based system, all of those 20 million records will need to be scanned in and digitized by VA employees. As for the current scandals, most of the VA hospitals are over-worked as well, resulting in long wait times. Certain people made the decision to hide the unsatisfactory wait times from the official reports. Extremely long wait times for medical care are viewed as unacceptable, especially for veterans, which has caused the huge uproar.
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What exactly causes the "seeing stars" effect when you blow your nose too hard?
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When you sneeze, your facial muscles tense up, putting pressure on your eyes. This increased pressure causes the sensing cells on your retina to misfire, causing what your perceive as spots of light. You get the same effect by just pressing on your eyes with your fingers
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Why does a li-ion/lipo battery explode when shorted out?
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The lithium atoms can crystallise and form a chain, that chain can short circuit the poles and it is this short circuit which can cause a fire. - _URL_0_', "They have much higher energy density than other batteries. All that energy has to go somewhere when a battery is shorted - it just turns into heat. Then the heat damages the mechanical structure of battery by burning off the layers of protective materials and exposes the chemicals inside which can now continue burning even after the electrical energy is exhausted. This is one of the reasons that electric vehicles will not get much better than they are now. The energy stored in batteries is very dangerous because it is easily released when shorted. Petrol, on the other hand, will not explode or burn unless mixed with oxygen. Lots and lots of oxygen. Therefore, it's much safer. We think of petrol as dangerous and batteries as safe but that's only because petrol energy density is much higher than batteries and we usually deal with much larger quantities of it. For batteries to be as effective in cars they need to have similar energy densities and similar size which pretty much turns them into bombs ready to explode and burn when shorted. And you can't just douse the flames because they don't need oxygen to keep going - all the usual firefighting techniques are less effective and you treat it as metal fire which requires specialist equipment to deal with.
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why is genital skin always darker than normal skin?
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Copied from askscience: > The expression of Androgen receptors is greater in melanocytes located in the areolas and genital area. Thus, Androgen stimulation promotes the synthesis of melanin and pigmentation in these areas.This is a relevant paper: _URL_0_ > There are other hormonal stimuli that promote melanogenesis and their excessive activity causes excessive genital pigmentation . **ELI5 translation:** The chemicals that turn you into adult also make you darker. The skin at your genitals reacts more from those chemicals. We evolved this way likely to protect the areas more from harmful sunlight radiation.
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Why don't we rebuild ancient structures to there former glory rather then leave them as they are?
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Partly it's because we're not 100% sure what their former glory was, and are worried that if we were to rebuild them that we'd get it wrong and thus ruin an important part of human history.
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Why can you feel nauseous when you wear polarized sunglasses?
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Visual information goes to part of your brain that also gets balance information . But 'polarized' glasses alter the incoming visual information, so any conflict or differences between these inputs gets percieved as nausea .
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How did societies enforce the law before police were a thing?
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There were always enforcers, members of the tribe that enforced the rules, they just didn't have job titles.Over time, the role of the church and parents has lessened on this subject. The concept of "it takes a village to raise a child" has diluted quite a bit. Church elders, teachers, town elders, but above all, parents. Your reputation was everything in many cultures, so you conducted yourself accordingly. The more an area urbanizes, the more social contacts decentralize, resulting in more and more anonymous contact, resulting in more people believing they can get away with conduct they wouldn't get away with if they lived in a society where all their life, they only knew 150 people. So over time, police evolved when societies got too large to ensure that local peer pressure and reputation ensured the majority kept in line.
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What's the difference between a President and a Prime Minister. What's the difference between a Congress and a Parliament?
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The difference between them is who chooses the leader of government. In a presidential system, the people elect both the members of the legislature and the president independently, and the president is the head of the government. In a parliamentary system, people elect the members of the legislature , then the members of parliament choose the prime minister, who is the head of the government. Many countries with parliamentary systems also have a directly elected president who serves as head of state , but they don't have as much power as the president in a presidential system, like this US. The Prime Minister in a parliamentary system is like taking the Speaker of the House in the US and giving them a lot of the president's duties.Disclosure: I am an American, with little knowledge of my own government and less of other governments. A President is head of state as well as head of government, at least in the US. In countries such as Ireland, which has both a President and a PM, the President is the head of state, but the PM/Taioseach is the head of the government. As far as the difference between a congress and a parliament, I can say only that the congress is composed of an upper and a lower house, each with members elected by the voters. Each state in the US has two Senators, and a varying number of Representatives depending on population.
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Taiwan and China's relationship in the past and now.
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Taiwan used to be a small native-held island, in China's sphere of influence but not considered very important. In the 17th century or so, Chinese colonists started showing up. When Japan gained control over the island in 1895, a majority of its inhabitants were Chinese. After World War II, Japan gave the island to the Republic of China. The Republic of China was the Chinese government formed in about 1912. They lost a war against the People's Republic of China , and now rule only the island of Taiwan. Both governments claim that they *should* own both Taiwan and mainland China. This used to be a huge diplomatic issue, but it has mostly calmed down; both sides have made it clear they don't want to attack the other. There's still some tension, especially since China has prevented Taiwan from being recognized as a country in most international affairs.
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do we lose our imagination or do we suppress it as we get older ?
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Neither, really. Some people maintain very active imaginations for much of their lives. However consider *why* a child has a need for a greater scope of imagination. Much of their world is still a mystery to them. They might know that something works a certain way, but they don't know how. So perhaps that little light in the refrigerator is indeed turned on by a tiny and very fast moving elf. Maybe that shadow in the dark hallway is really a monster. Maybe the old guy next door is Santa Claus in disguise the rest of the year. Children have active imaginations because it helps them to come to grips with the world around them. As you get older and you come to understand the 'reality' behind your environment, the things you imagined as a kid become nonsense and are discarded.
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Why are clothes hangers not shaped like human shoulders?
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They are designed to be in the shape of human shoulders. From the Wikipedia page on clothes hangers; > A clothes hanger, coat hanger, or coathanger, is a device in the shape of: > * **Human shoulders** designed to facilitate the hanging of a coat, jacket, sweater, shirt, blouse or dress in a manner that prevents wrinkles, with a lower bar for the hanging of trousers or skirts.
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Why are we so concerned with wealth inequality/disparity in the US?
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I think that for most people, just knowing someone in an office earns millions of dollars a year while they work just as hard to scrape by with $30K a year irks them. Very few people are happy in the knowledge that they have it better than their grandparents did while watching the ridiculous wealth and privilege that's glorified on tv, movies, tabloids, etc. That, and too many people are not happy with what they have - commercialism and consumerism are bred into us from day one in the US. We're constantly told that we 'deserve' a new car, that our life will better with a bigger tv, etc. It's brainwashing. You hear it every day, and it works. We want more. In terms of politics, it has to do with the idea that money buys influence. Elected officials are supposedly there to represent ALL Americans, but when the same 1% of the country represents such a large portion of your campaign funds, who are you more likely to please once elected? The millions of people who may or may not have voted for you or were too lazy to pay attention to the election at all - or the people who gave you an assload of money to get elected? The same for lobbyists. If you or I want something changed, we make phone calls, write letters, maybe start a petition. Will the official ever even hear our pleas? Will a few phone calls or letters matter? Now imagine if a few CEOs of major corporations want something done. Their wealth can buy the services of any of the nearly 12,000 lobbyists in the US. Last year, they spent $3.24 BILLION to influence policy. I know for a fact I didn't contribute any of that $3.24 BILLION dollars directly, so they aren't going to be representing my wishes.
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How do astronomers calculate when and where an eclipse will occur, and how total it will be?
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The earth, the sun, and the moon all have very predictable orbits. The earth is slightly tilted and the orbit of the moon around the earth is also slightly tilted which means the moon crosses the plane between the earth and the sun every once in a while. The earth takes 365 days to orbit the sun, the moon takes 27 days to orbit the earth, that means the moon passes between the earth and sun 13-14 times a year. Because the orbit of the moon is tilted it doesn't always cross in front of the sun, sometimes it crosses a bit to the left or a bit to the right, we only get a solar eclipses when it passes down the middle All of these orbits are very consistent and predictable. The ancients knew when solar eclipses would be over 2000 years ago. Having computers just lets us spit out the eclipse schedule for the next millennia in an hour, but the math has always been known
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US army/navy/air force numbering systems
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It's all sequential. It starts at 1 and goes to 2, 3, 4, 5 etc When the U.S. goes to war it expands the number of units activated to fill up every number sequentially. When the U.S. leaves a war or downscales then it gets rid of most of its units except the ones with historic or glorious lineage. That's why units like the 101st Airborne are still around._URL_0_ > Is there a method to the madness or just chronology actually, it is not a good idea to have a sane numbering system. It turns out that statisticians can figure out how many troops are on the battlefield based on # observations and troop numbers
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Why are colossal (eg. Godzilla) things depicted as moving so slowly?
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As things get larger they may appear to move slower, but that is just because they are far away. Godzilla would be walking much faster than an insect could fly, but not in comparison to its size. If it was matching speed to size it would probably be breaking the sound barrier.Flies have an [absurdly high reaction time] compared to humans. About 0.02 seconds. Yours is about 0.2 to 0.15 seconds at best. On top of that they don't have brain like we do, and don't have the burden of decision making that can drop your reaction + decision / action time to more like 0.25 seconds. Before you can even acknowledge that the fly is moving it's made 10 to 15 observations about where the swatter is and what direction it's going and changed direction accordingly.
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How much of a given generation’s Social Security benefits are paid by succeeding generations in the US?
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it's a continuously revolving system. money in, money out. the working generation pays for the retiree's. problem is in recent decades, there's more retirees than workers and the trend is going to be even more retirees than workers. social security is not an investment vehicle. it's a wealth redistribution from young to old.
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The difference between a wireless access point and a network switch
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Think of a network switch as a telephone operator. When you pick up a telephone, and call a number, the telephone operator will connect you to the number you want to call. A wireless access point is like the base on your wireless phone that is connected to the phone switch. It allows your wireless phone to make calls. When you use your wireless phone, it connects to the base, in which the base is connected to the telephone network. -- TL;DR: A network switch will relay data between two computers connected on the switch. A wireless access point connects a wireless device to the network it's connected to.
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what is going on when you feel a tickle on your skin like a tiny bug is moving on you but your closest examinations reveal nothing is there.
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There are very tiny nerve receptors in your skin if two or more of them are stimulated at the same time you get this sensation, sometimes the bug moved before you saw it, sometimes it can be dust or other debris, sometimes it can be a phantom response. For more on the nerves in your skin - _URL_0_That's called Formication. There's lots of causes--menopause, some drugs, even static electricity moving your hair. When an actual bug crawls on your skin, you sense it because it moves your body hair, triggering nerves there to tell your brain about it. When the nerves in your body hair are triggered by non-bug things , your brain explains it to you by saying "Hey! There must be a bug on you!"', "It may be that knowing a bug is on you is so important that having some false positives is necessary. It's better to think there is a bug when there is not, than to not think there is a bug when there is a bug.
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Why does the connection strength between a phone and a wifi router fluxuate, even when neither are being touched?
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Your connection strength isn't just determined by the strength of the signal between you and your phone, it is also impacted by the noise in the environment While the signal strength may remain constant, if the noise increases because of a leaky microwave or increased WiFi traffic from your neighbor's router then the signal to noise ratio drops and you router may need to send messages slower to ensure that they get through to your phone
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What is "Right to Work" and why do so may people think it's a ripoff?
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It's the label that anti-union forces have placed on legislation which prohibits workers from being forced to join a union at a business where a union exists. The argument for "right to work" is that people should be able to decide whether to join the union, and their employment shouldn't be contingent on a worker being "forced" to pay a percentage of his paycheck to the union. The other side, though, is that unions only are effective when they have sufficient bargaining power with the employer. If the workers won't follow union instructions regarding strikes and the like, the company has little incentive to capitulate to union demands for pay increases, better benefits, etc. Additionally, there's the freerider problem. In most union shops, the union negotiates for all workers, and the results of the union's negotiation are enjoyed by all. But if that's the case, there's no incentive to pay to be in the union-- they get the benefits without the costs. Union membership dwindles, and the union runs out of funds to complete its mission-- it withers on the vine. So even though "right to work" is posed as some sort of employee benefit or freedom, its goal is to suffocate the strength of unions. You can decide whether that's a good or bad thing.
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