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As Christmas is around the corner, can someone please explain why Jehovah's Witnesses don't celebrate it?
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Jehovah's Witnesses don't celebrate Christmas because of a few reasons: Jesus commanded to commemorate his death and not his birth. Early apostles and disciples didn't celebrate Christmas. There is no proof Jesus was born on December 25th. They believe Christmas isn't approved by God as it is rooted in pagan customs. That last point is fairly true. Christians basically appropriated pagan customs and put a thin veneer of Christianity over preexisting festivals. The Yule Log is for the deity Yule of course, and offerings of milk and cookies to Santa are extremely similar to offerings to hearth gods; don't you think it is weird Santa comes down chimneys? Christmas basically is unrelated to Christ other than an example of Christianity's forceful extermination of rival religious and cultural traditions.
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How did dinosaurs become oil?
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They didn't. It comes from small marine animals and other life that lived before the dinosaurs. When they decomposed mostly carbon and hydrogen was left over, as the oxygen was removed over time the left over remains were covered by layers of sediment. As they got deeper in he earth, around 3048 metres, or 10,000 feet, pressure and heat turned the materials to the hydrocarbons that create crude oil and gases. The amount of pressure determines which type of hydrocarbons are produced. It's bad for the earth because when they are burned, they create gases that go up into the atmosphere and stay there. Too much of them causes the heat from the sun to be magnified.
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3D Printers. How do they work? What's used for "ink?"
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They do work. It's kinda like a really precise hot glue gun. They use plastic that's melted down and then put in the shape that a computer tells it.
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Why are there no international laws prohibiting excessive forms of capital punishment (stoning, crucifixion)
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Because countries have to agree to it just like war laws and the Geneva convention. Why would a country that stones people to death agree to a law that says not to do so?The issue isn't "we need a law ", the issue really is "who is willing to commit troops/money/time or risk money/economy to enforce existing laws". Too many people think "if we only passed a law, things would be better!" when the issue is that current laws aren't being enforced. Remember: murder is illegal, and yet it still happens. Example: Chicago has an issue with murders and guns are effectively banned and yet criminal continue to get guns and murder people. Why? The prosecutors continue to not go after straw purchasers who are providing the guns to criminals. You will recall the 2 police offices who sued a gun store for a straw purchase? The local prosecutor has still not gone after the person who made the straw purchase . There is a lack of willingness to enforce laws against inhumane punishments.The UN does have a stance on the issue. It's called the [United Nations moratorium on the death penalty] which basically calls for countries to abolish the death penalty / work towards abolishing it. The problem is that the UN cannot really force a country to abolish it. Additionally, one of the major principles of the European Union is the abolishment of the death penalty. Any country wanting to join the union needs to first abolish capital punishment before they can do so. At this point, there is only one country in Europe that continues carrying out the death penalty and that is Belarus . So EU regulation does prohibit it, but obviously that is only going to apply to countries within Europe that wish to join.
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how do precision induction cook tops work?
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Induction cooktops work by generating a powerful oscillating magnetic field that vibrates the molecules in the pot sitting on top, which in turn causes the metal the pot is made out of to heat up. Since they operate on pure magnetism, the pot or pan used has to be made out of a magnetic material - cast iron, steel, or stainless steel. As such an induction cooktop has little to no effect on nonmagnetic materials, even metal ones. Aluminium cookware, jewelry, etc. won't be appreciably heated. No part of the cooktop itself operates by getting hot, though the glass surface will pick up some heat back from the pot that's being heated while touching it. Fancier models may have temperature sensors built in that face upwards at the pot and can gauge its temperature for more precise cooking control. The sensors detect infrared light radiated by the heated pot, and therefore can only judge the temperature of the pot itself and not its contents. It's also worth a mention that you can really, *really* authoritatively erase a floppy disk or credit card by leaving it on top of a running induction cooktop
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How do banks know if a check has already been deposited?
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The bank that has to pay the check usually has software to notice duplicate checks. Once a check is used once to withdraw money from the account the check info is saved and if the same check is used again it should be flagged. Say you use Check #1023 to pay me $100. Once the check is processed, it will be marked on your account that check #1023 for $100 was processed. If another Check #1023 for $100 comes through, it will get flagged. The problem is when someone uses remote deposit and then cashes the physical check before the drawee bank can process it. I think there are some services out there that are attempting to communicate among banks when a check is cashed to prevent this, but they're expensive right now so not many places use them. There can also be an issue if the person takes the paper check to a check cashing place that's not a bank since that place will pay cash before the check has a chance to process. While you can get away with depositing checks twice like that in the short term, the double charge will show up on the drafter's bank statement and it will be pretty obvious who did it. The threat of getting caught after the fact is also why most people don't copy your account number and routing number from the bottom of a check and then use that information to commit wire fraud.
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Do animals that utilize camouflage prove they're self aware?
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Usually when we use the term "self aware" we mean consciously aware of, and having the ability to reflect, on our self -- in particular our mind. However, no such self-reflection is actually needed for camouflage necessarily, as it can a subconscious reaction, honed in millenia of evolution's trial and error . Some animal's camouflage isn't even real-time adaptive, so it would work without any thinking at all -- look at mimicry and mimesis, like a butterfly taking on the color of the trees in an area. So, do e.g. chameleons tell their body to change color? Googling various research on this, the word seems to be still out on that -- maybe a biologist with more knowledge can chime in!
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how do I recognize an object?
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I don't know weather this could be explained fully at the moment. It's to do with rather complex processes and interactions between different parts of your brain. First your visual cortex puts together a picture of what you see. It turns all the signals from your eye and optic nerve into a picture. The second step is when your brain associates that picture with something it knows, sort of like looking it up in a giant catalouge. Weirdly, it's a bit better in this case to examine what happens when this goes wrong. The man who mistook his wife for a hatstand is an interesting read, and deals with Visual agnosia. That's when your brain cannot recognise what it sees. Tends to happen after a brain injury or stroke etc. If you have visual agnosia, your eyes see a car. Your visual cortex flashes up a picture of a car, but the part of your brain that recognises all those lines and colours as a car doesn't return anything, or returns the incorrect thing. You still have an idea of what a car is, you might even know how it works, or recognise that they come in different colours etc. but your brain cannot connect what you see with what you know. Hope this helps, it's been a while since I studied psychology!
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How do scientists know that they've found 90% of near earth asteroids?
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This is an estimate based on the number, density, and size distribution of the observable objects. Given that they have found X number of asteroids of different sizes, and that there are so many within a certain area of space, and that number is much less in other areas of space, they can estimate about how many they think might be yet unobserved. Edit : sorry, jut read second question - by tracking an objects speed and direction, they can math out about where it's path will take it, and check that against our own location.
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How can multiple people watch the same online video at once?
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While the video is being played back it's read into a server computer's memory chips temporarily. From there it can easily be read many times per second to serve multiple users. If huge numbers are playing it, multiple servers are used.
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How will transmedia culture affect future careers?
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Career paths are almost never meaningfully affected by the introduction of technology. For instance, the structure of the animation industry has stayed basically the same after the introduction of computers. People do months of horrible unpaid work and years of horrible badly paid work in the hopes that they will be one of the few who graduates to less horrible decently paid work. The only difference is that now everyone's holding a mouse in their hand while they work.
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Why did the Soviet government change their opinion on Shostakovich after the 5th Symphony?
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Shostakovich fell out of favor with the Soviet government because his works were at odds with their notion of how classical music should sound. The Bolshevik authorities wanted artists to create works that could easily be appreciated by the masses, and Shostakovich wasn't doing that. His work was dissonant and not especially tuneful, and he was accused of "formalism." The 5th Symphony is more traditional. It's tonal. It has tunes you can hum. It was more like the kind of music the authorities expected composers to create - supposedly easier for people to appreciate and enjoy. This gave the appearance of his having acquiesced to their demands, and he was returned to their good graces.
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How do phones and cell-towers deal with the Doppler effect?
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It doesn't matter The Radio waves are moving at 3x10^8 m/s, thats 300,000,000 m/s. If you travel towards a cell tower at Mach 10 you'll be moving 3,430 m/s and change the wavelength by 3,430/300,000,000 or 0.0011%. You're not traveling anywhere close to Mach 10 so the impact is truly insignificant
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Why does the shower change temperatures if you flush the toilet while the shower is running?
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Because the temperature of your water is set by mixing hot water and cold water. The toilate and shower often share the same source of cold water, flushing the toilet means there's less cold water available to the shower. So the nice mix that you had so carefully created, is all of a sudden has way to little cold in it, so the resulting product is way to hot.
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Would creating a matrix disprove the theory that we could be living in one?
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If anything it would add more credibility to the theory, as it proves that a lifelike universe is possible. And no, the new matrix citizens can create a simulation of their own matrix. Surely it won't be an exact simulation of their own universe, but neither can ours be . Computationally, it's no harder to simulate the atomic movement of a bunch of rocks than to simulate the movements of a computer. At the atomic scale, the distinction kind-off disappears.
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What makes a great conductor great? and conversely what sets them apart from a random high school band teacher?
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It's important to keep in mind that a conductor is nearly always the leader of the orchestra, too. So for weeks and months before you see him/her waving a baton around, they were in charge of auditioning band members, selecting the music, organizing rehearsals, making artistic changes or interpretations to the piece as it goes, and directing each section and musician. So there was a hell of a lot of behind-the-scenes work that we don't always think of. As far as actual performance, a good conductor is giving a dozen instructions at once. Speed, volume, and style are all communicated by single movements. Are his beats large, waving motions, full of drama? I'll bet there'll be horns blaring long, sonorous notes. Are they short, tight, precise movements, close to his chest? You're almost definitely going to be hearing soft, short staccato notes. Is he facing the trombones, pushing one hand down while conducting with his other hand? He's asking them to play softer - maybe the acoustics in this room aren't what they're used to, and they're overpowering the rest of the band more than expected. There are a million little adjustments that will go on in any given performance, and a good conductor can make them on the fly in very clear ways. And of course, all of that body language goes to the audience too. When you see that person swinging their arms in big, wide arcs, you'll get excited, even as the music begins to swell. And when you see them sweep their arms in, you'll lean in, straining to hear the soft parts of the music. The conductor is a visual cue to you to tell you what your ears can expect.
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Why does poop, urine, sweat, etc. smell bad?
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Many animals have evolved to not like the smell of poop because poop is not nutritious and is full of bacteria. The animals who didn't think poop smelled bad probably died from the bacteria. The animals who developed by mutation receptors in their noses that recognized toxins in poop avoided the poop and lived. These animals had more offspring and thereby passed these receptors onto their offspring.Sweat doesn’t actually smell bad, it is stale sweat that creates the smell. I guess the same as many things when you leave it too long it begins to smell.So you don't eat them. Seriously, things that smell bad are usually bad for you. You evolved to find common unhealthy substances distasteful.
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It is generally common knowledge that psychics are scams, my question is how do they still make enough money to keep their business going?
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Not everyone accepts the idea that they're scams. Even some people who accept that they're scams find it fun.As P.T. Barnum said, there is a sucker born every minute. That is how.If you needed to appeal to the majority of the population, there would be no niche businesses at all. Most people don't play the piano , but I can tell you where to find a thriving piano shop. Most people don't believe in psychics, but that doesn't mean there's not a suitably gullible market out there.
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Sometimes when I click on an imgur link, it sends me to an unrelated image. Why is this?
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If you're clicking on an old imgur link, it could be that the original image has timed out. I believe imgur holds onto images for 6 months from the last time someone linked to it and then recycles the code. For example, lets take [this image] on the front page of imgur right now. It's coded **bDk9o2A**. If 6 months passes, and no one uses that link, they'll delete the picture and throw that code back in to be reassigned to some other picture that might be uploaded later.
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Why there is so much hate to Comcast?
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They have a near monopoly position on an 'essential' service. Their 'near-monopoly' is due to the way the US telecom/internet industry is structured. They lobby to keep it that way. They also abuse their position to maximize profits at the cost of customer well-being/satisfaction. This works because customers really have no where else to go and require the service to 'function' in modern society.In many places, they are the only viable option, so they can have overpriced plans, they also have a history of poor customer service, and even illegal additions to some customers bills.
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How does distillation work?
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In order to distillation to work properly, you need two different liquids mixed together - one very common distillation is water + alcohol. Now water becomes gas at 100°C, but alcohol has a lower boiling point around 78°C. This means that if you heat the mixture to, say, 85°C, all the alcohol in it will become gas while the water will remain liquid, separating the two substances. Normally a proper distillation equipment has a tube on top of it which redirects the gasified substance into a cold compartment, where it cools down and becomes liquid once again. So at this point you have two separated liquids: in the example this would be the newly-condensed alcohol and the water remaining from the original mixtureDistillation is purification through boiling. Different things have different boiling points, so you can separate things by temperature. Collect the boiled off bit in a different container.
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How's the calculator industry doing since the rise of the cell phone?
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Just fine. Most high schools still use the same TI graphing calculator I used 25 years ago and charge a shit load for them. Also, using a smartphone for rigorous calculation sucks.
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why do dvds look so much better and crisp on CRT TVs then on HD flat screen TVs.
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The difference will be almost all down to HD flat screen TVs being bigger than CRT TVs. Tell us the size of the TVs you are comparing. Blowing up an image to a larger size will make it look more blurry and reveal other imperfections. If you could make a fair, side-by-side test with a CRT and an LCD panel of the same size you'd find the results very close.
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How does the Monte-Carlo method work?
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Let's say you have a white piece of paper and a black marker, and you color some areas of the paper black. You ask me to figure out what fraction of the paper is colored black. Let's say I already know the area of the paper and that this doesn't change. One way to figure this out would be to precisely measure, using geometric techniques, the area of the black regions. But, this may be very difficult if the shapes you drew aren't nice. For example, if you drew a bunch of perfect circles, that's not too hard to figure out, but if you scribbled a bunch, that's a lot harder to do. Monte Carlo methods are a family of techniques to estimate unknown quantities using randomness. I can estimate the proportion of the paper you colored by throwing a bunch of darts at it and counting the ratio of darts that landed on black points to the total number I threw. The estimate becomes more precise as I throw more darts, and as long as my darts are hitting points on the paper truly randomly, I can confidently estimate to arbitrary precision by throwing enough darts.
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In the US, why are alcoholic beverages not required to have the same nutrition fact labeling as other foods and beverages?
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Food is under the Food and Drug Administration which does the nutrition labels. Alcohol is under the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms , which does not have a labeling standardIn Canada and as someone on keto, I appreciate that Sleeman clear has nutritional facts despite not having toDue to the way alcoholic beverages are treated by the government, they do not fall under jurisdiction of the FDA, and as such are not required to have nutrition labels.
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Why are some of my dino nuggets ice cold and the others lava hot, even when I place them in a circle?
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A microwave produces [standing microwave waves] inside it to vibrate certain molecules in food to heat it up. The issue is that the wavelength of the microwave is about 12 cm long. Due to the nature of the standing wave, this means that there are spots where the waves cancel out every 6 cm . The cold nuggets are sitting in these nodes so they don't get heated. This is why the turntable in a microwave is very important to rotated the nuggets around so they are evenly heated.
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why is it that when food is too hot to touch it doesn't necessarily burn your mouth when eating?
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Because the inside of your mouth is already around 37C and coated in slimy film, where as your hands are dry and have a surface temperature relative to the air temperature. If you dipped your hands in say..slime, they could also pick up hotter objects. Your hands and other sensory organs are wired to tell you "this hot, painful" as a protective method, and it may be that hot food your holding wouldn't actually burn you.
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why are animated gifs substantially larger than mp4 videos?
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An animated GIF is a series of images stuck after each other, like an old movie roll. So you have all the data of all the frames: Frame + Frame + Frame + Frame + [ .] + Frame. An MP4 video is a repeat of a full frame image followed by a series of incremental frames which show the differences with the full image. So you have one time the data of a frame and a bunch of data of small updates to it: Frame + Update + Update + [ ] + Frame + Update + Update + [ .] + Update. Further an animated GIF frame does have a bad compression algorithm compared with the one used in a video.
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Why do people instantly grab/press a body part which just got hit/injured?
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I would assume people do this to prevent further damage to that body part. For example, if you are in a fight with someone and they punch you in the left arm, you would cover it to try to block more damage from happening. It could also be for applying pressure on a wound to lessen the bleeding.
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Why are some websites updated with "© 2016" at the bottom while others may say "© 2012" or whatever year, when clearly they're still copyrighted?
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The copyright date establishes the beginning of the copyright . If I write something in 2012 and never change it, it stays with that copyright and it will eventually come out into public domain. If I continue to update the same site or information, the copyright updates as well and pushes back the date when I loses copyright.
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Where does the battery "juice" (or charge) in my laptop, phone, etc. go when it runs out?
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It is converted into kinetic energy used to spin your hard drive, heat from the various components in your computer operating, light from your monitor and from the various indicator lights on your laptop and the various laser reading heads on different devices you may have, magnetic fields as you write new data to your computer hard drive, radio waves as you use wireless, and many other things.The energy gets used by various components and will end up as heat, light and sound . But if you are asking about the electricity itself, then this is all about electrochemistry. The battery has two electrodes and a medium in which they both are. The electrodes must be from different materials, that interact with the medium in such a way, that an electric charge is being generated between the two. This voltage is then being used by your electronics. Draining this charge will slowly change the medium and will neutralize battery's ability to generate such a high charge as before. In time, this charge drops down so much, that the battery could be irreversibly damaged , so the computer will turn off to prevent that.What is "voltage?" Voltage happens when charges are separated. You probably know about the subatomic particles that make up all atoms, neutrons, negatively charged electrons, and positively charged protons. In a battery for example, you have more electrons than protons on one side, and more protons on the other side than electrons . You also have a wall separating the two sides, through which electrons cannot pass. When you add a wire to both sides, you give a path for the electrons to travel from one side to the other. These electrons move, and because of this, they have kinetic energy which can be changed into what needs to power your computer. When a battery runs out of power, the charges are pretty much equal on both sides, therefore you no longer have electrons moving between the sides.
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Why do businesses seem to be stingy with ten-dollar bills?
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Often they have few if any to give. The thing is, fives are more versatile since they can break tens or twenties, but tens can only break twenties or higher. Higher than twenties the next up is fifty or a hundred, so youre better off breaking with twenties and fives . Considering most bills arent going to need flat fifty as change, but say, 47.73 or so , stocking tens doesnt really make sense. When the registers are stocked after drawers are counted, those are the bills they get. Most or all tens they get came from customers,.For most of the business I've worked for, the registers wouldn't have any ten dollar bills in them at the start of the day. Still not quite certain why, but it was just always how it was. So, quite often, it wasn't that we were hoarding all the ten dollar bills. It's just that there were none to be given at all.
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What happens to the animals killed during crop harvesting?
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A farmer friend of mine said, yes they do occassionally clog up the works but for the most part they end up in the harvester, and caught by various filters, and by the sorting devices later. Larger animals, once freed , are often tossed off to the side for the predators/scavengers. Animals around farms are often smart, and a 'pecking order' is visible while driving. The combine scares the mice from the swath, the eagles/falcons swoop down for the mice, the cyotes run out to catch the birds once they land OR hunt for the nests these birds have near by. Apparantly the crows will mess with the other animals - they wait for the eagles to do the heavy lifting and catch the mice, then the crows attack the eagles making them drop it.What animals? Are you talking about things like field mice and rabbits killed when harvesting plants? Or animals that die and are unsuitable for consumption?
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Why is disinfecting wounds painful?
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There's two main reasons. First, the wound is sensitive, as that part of the body has been damaged and is screaming at your brain to start taking damage control steps. Putting anything in an open wound is going to hurt some. Second, the things we use to disinfect typically do that by killing biological material, which will include the cells around and in your wound. So basically you're quarantining and nuking the area to make sure the infection doesn't spread. The basic part of your brain that handles pain doesn't understand that, or the reasons for disinfection, it just sees more damage to an already damaged part of the body, and registers it as pain.
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When there is a catastrophic injury to a person's head, why is there a delay before blood starts pouring out? [NSFL]
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It isn't just the head but most flesh that reacts this way. An injury usually happens when force is applied to the flesh and this tends to compress it before tearing it, which pushes blood out of it into the surrounding tissues. Imagine if you forced a rod through a sponge; it would tend to squeeze the water out of that portion, right? Once pressure on the wound is released the blood can start to flow again, but it takes a moment to saturate the tissue it was pushed out of before exiting the wound.
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How are exchange rates decided? Who decides the actual numeric value of one currency in another?
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In the modern economy, most exchange rates are determined essentially by supply and demand. For example, if you are American you are paid in dollars, but need Euros to buy goods produced in Germany. When you want to buy a German good, you are "demanding" Euros and "supplying" dollars so the value of Euros increases relative to dollars. Governments and central banks can affect the value of their currencies through monetary policy but it's all based on this principleHere's an example. I'm selling Euros at 1.3136 USD. You want to sell Euros at 1.3140 USD. Bochinsky wants to buy Euros, but he wants more than what I have. Bochinsky's broker discovers that I was the last one selling at 1.3136. You have the next best price at 1.3140. The price of the Euro vs the US Dollar has gone up and is now 1.3140 because there is no one left who wants to sell it at a lower price. The brokers connect with each other via "liquidity providers". Connecting the brokers and traders together is what keeps rates similar from one broker to another.
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Cold temperatures wake us up while hot make us tired, is this purely a matter of comfortability or is there something happening to our bodies?
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[There was a study done] and it says the optimal sleep temperature is between 60-68 degrees farenheit. Too warm or too cold and you can become restless. It's interesting that warm temperatures make you tired, the opposite rings true for myself.
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What do they mean when they say the mass of the atmosphere of Pluto has decreased by a factor of 2 in two years?
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Uhhhh, Pluto is heading into it's hundred year 'winter' season. The atmosphere is freezing to the planet as ice. It's a 'dwarf' planet equivalent of a comet . Everyone saying it's lack of gravity is missing the fact that that process takes eons, not two years.Pluto was recently at its closest approach to the sun. It gets warmer at that time and some of the ice on its surface vaporizes, producing an atmosphere. But the atmosphere is temporary, as Pluto moves further away from the sun, some of the gas escapes the planet and some refreezes, so the atmosphere is getting thinner. The New Horizons mission was given priority so that this phenomenon could be studied, it was clear before launch that solar warming would have interesting effects that would rapidly cease to be observable as Pluto moves further from the sun. When Pluto reaches its closest approach to the sun again the process will repeat itself.
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why wired data transfer is faster than wireless.
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I think it's mostly because wireless transfer is more prone to interference - it's very difficult to corrupt data that's being sent over a wire, but it's very easy to corrupt it if it's sent through the air. Particularly if there's any sort of obstacle between the transmitter and the receiver. Sure, any computer worth its salt can detect errors like that and send a "data was corrupted, please resend" message, but that takes time. So it'll take longer to move your data. As you put it, "you can move more data across a cable than you can through the air".
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Why are search boxes in many websites so seemingly innefective, while googling the same thing almost always gives me what I was looking for?
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Google has been optimizing their algorithm for a long time. It uses all of the past searches everyone has ever made using Google in order to learn what results people are most likely to click on, and then offers those results ahead of others. Because Google is popular, a lot of people have used it, and so they have a lot of example searches to learn from.Think about the other websites. How many people use them? How long have they been around? I bet they don't have as many previous searches to work with as Google by a long shot. So they aren't going to have the same training data for machine learning, and their performance won't be comparable as a result.
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Why are baby animals so cute? Is there a genetic advantage to this?
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There is some belief that traits we identify with 'cuteness' are traits possessed by immature animals, and as such there's a protective/friendly hardwiring in the brain. The advantage would presumably be that immature animals are less capable of caring for themselves, and therefore those that are cared for by adults perform better. It may be that the traits we find cute are shared in a general fashion by other nonhuman animals, so we respond similarly to them. Interestingly, a noted phenomenon in domestication is that domestic animals tend to retain traits common to immature members of their ancestor populations, into adulthood.
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What is ASMR? Can anyone describe what it’s like?
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It stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. Basically, it's a physical/physiological reaction to certain sounds. These trigger a tingly sensation esp on the spine and head. It can also be used as a relaxation technique. Others have a sexual response to it. So it's kind of the reverse of nails on a chalkboard Sounds such as whispering, tapping, water running, and so forth can create a pleasurable physical reaction. I'm not sure of the chemical mechanism that causes this, but that's the easy answer.Also why can I not see a comment I just got wth
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How is it I can spend 3 hours laying still in bed not sleeping, then doze off repeatedly in the middle of driving the next morning?
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Are you saying that you actually doze off while driving? *Repeatedly?* This is not normal and is a grave concern to me. I have never dozed off while driving. You should not be risking your life and that of other drivers that way. I'm frankly totally shocked. If something like that happened to me, I think I would see a doctor immediately.
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Why are we charged 9/10th of a penny with gasoline?
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In addition to the other posts, another reason is that gasoline profit margins are extremely tight but high volume, and it adds up. In 2014, it ended up being an extra $1.2 billion in revenue. via [source]
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If I let two chess engines play each other 100 times, how do they play 100 different games if there must be one optimal game?
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There is a field of Computer Science called "Computation Theory", which is adjacent to AI. With our current computation power, we aren't even able to solve a single chess opening , let alone the game itself, so while working with Computation Theory has advanced our understanding of the game very much , we still don't know and can't compute the "optimal" responses to a certain move. With that said, different chess engines utilize different methods. Some use AI theory to assign values and evaluate each position. Others use a "backtrack" algorithm to compute possible board states 3-4 moves ahead and see which move results in a more optimal future setting. Others draw from online databases of countless matches, to see which move had more winning chances in an approximately equal board position. Most modern engines utilize a combination of the above. Depending on configurations, and think time, 2 chess enginges can play very different styles of chess
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How does a cars speedometer know not to increase when a cars tires are spinning?
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It does not know. It assumes the tires are in proper contact with the ground, and when they are not, it gives an incorrect reading. Future speedometers may be corrected using GPS, but that generally is not done today.I haven't worked on a newer car, but on older cars the speedometer is driven by a cable/gear on the transmission. I'd imagine newer cars do something similar, albeit without the cable. Tire speed is not used for the speedometer. This is why changing tire size often requires the speedometer to be recalibrated.
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How do burning arrows stay lit after the immense acceleration they experience being shot from a bow?
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Depending on the fuel used, it can be almost comically challenging to put it out. If you've ever dealt with a gas fire, you'll know what I mean. I'd wager they were using coal-tar or peat or natural gas of some sort -- though I'm a little out of my depth here.
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How is the US allowed to just raise tarrifs when laws that have minors effects on trade have to go all the way through the WTO?
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The premise of your question is mistaken. The European Union has initiated a WTO case against the US over these tariffs.
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Why do we use the base 10 system, and what are its benefits over other mathematical systems?
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no benefit, other than a convenient correlation with the number of fingers. there are better systems that work better with the base 2 of computers and which have more easily divisable fractions. Base 16 would probably be an ideal candidate for both things.tl;dr: The decimal system came to be bacause humans have 10 fingers and it made sense. There are other systems that are better, but we're stuck with this one because people don't like change. It was used by the ancient Egyptians and Greeks and our modern 10 written numbers come from Arabic numbers. There are plenty tribes in the world that use different number systems, like base 12, 32 and 27. It's understandable that these don't make much sense to us, but it's important to note that mathematics doesn't care about which number system is used - the basic principles still apply. Curiously, the people who use base-27 actually point to their body to indicate numbers as we would by extending fingers. As for advantages of the decimal system, well, multiples of 2, 5 and 10 are easier to calculate in your head than, say, multiples of 7. That being said, many systems are superior in terms of factors, like aforementioned base-12 which can be divided nicely into twos, threes, fours and sixes, or the base-60 system which was used by the Babylonians, which has 12 factors! If you'd like to know more, [here's a nice video from Numberphile] - it's about base-12, but he talks about the decimal system too, as well as some interesting tidbits that I haven't mentioned, like the role the French Revolution had in most measuring units being decimal.
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how does hand sanitizer make your hands clean when you don't use anything to wipe the dirt off them?
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Hand sanitizer is not the same as hand *cleaner*. Its only function is to kill the micro-organisms on your hands. There are certain gels called hand cleaners that work like a pencil eraser though. Those ones do actually clean your hands by trapping dirt and then flaking away as you rub them together.Well, it doesn't make your hands clean of dirt. It only makes your hands clean of bacteria. Any dirt that was there will still be there.
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The crucial difference between operating systems (Windows, Mac OS, Linux etc...)
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Windows - > Expensive. Sort of easy interface with many "advanced mode" options. Closed source. Solid ubiquity and compatibility. Mac - > Very expensive. Easy interface with less "advanced mode" options. Closed source. Poor ubiquity & compatibility with some industry pockets of ubiquity & compatibility. Unix - > Price varies widely on application. Interface is esoteric and only comes in advanced mode. Closed source. Poor ubiquity & compatibility with some industry pockets of ubiquity & compatibility. Linux - > Pretty much free. Easy to ultra advanced the NSA is watching me interface. Open source. Poor ubiquity but slightly better compatibility then unix. Some industry pockets of ubiquity & compatibility exist.
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If someone gets arrested but is later found innocent, why does their arrest and initial charge remain on the NCIC's database?
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if there is no record that it happened then the government might think they forgot to arrest you or something. if you are found innocent you can remove it from your publicly viewable recordMost people will never see a complete report from someone's criminal history on NCIC. I use it as part of my job, and see them daily, specifically the CCH/III reports. Everything from murder to jaywalking will stay on there, whether you get it "removed" or not, however it does say the outcome. For obvious reasons I can't post a copy of one, but the general idea of what they look like is: Charge # Arresting Agency Name and ORI Charges ------ Federal/State?Local offense code Case info Court Disposition-- Court where charges were filed Charge code again Plain Text Description *** Charge Class *** This "Charge Class" is what most people think of. It will usually say "misdemeanor conviction" or "felony conviction", that type of thing, but when someone it can also say "acquittal" or "charges dropped" or similar things depending on the agency. Some sources will remove these, some will still show them, however even the "removed" or "expunged" ones still stay in the system, but I'm not in a position to speculate on the reasons for this. I hope that answered your question.
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How is it so difficult for video game publishers to detect cheating on PC?
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The fundamental problem is that the user has physical control over their own PC and the only information the game manufacturer gets is whatever their PC sends. > Doesn't their code have digital signatures? Sure, and those can always be defeated someone with enough time and perseverance. Let's say the code is running on my PC. The first thing the code does is check to see if it's been modified, and refuse to run if its code doesn't match the signature. No problem, I just modify the code that detects whether it's been modified or not. The code uses the code's signature to encrypt all messages to the server? No problem, I just modify it so that there's another *unmodified* copy of the game installed and it encrypts messages using that signature instead. Basically any checks on the client side can be bypassed by a programmer who knows how to disassemble. It's only a matter of how long it will take or how tricky it will be.
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why certain surgeries require months of recovery time
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Well, it really depends on the part of the body being operated on. Different types of cells in different areas of the body replicate and replace at different rates. A neuron, for example, can take as long as 7 years to replace itself . Shoulder muscles can take months to repair themselves. Surgeries are great. They can help speed up the process of repair, and correct for improper repair , but they can't actually do the real repairing themselves. They just set all the pieces in place and help the body along in the repair process.
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Why do Japanese albums often contain bonus tracks not available elsewhere?
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There is complex and lengthy process to be allow to sell albums in Japan. This leads to the fact that most of the time, album are release in Japan later than in other country. To make sure people wait for the japanese release and don't just buy stuff abroad through internet, companies put exclusives bonus tracks in these releases", 'CDs in Japan are sold at a fixed price. It is cheaper to import CDs from the US than to buy them at retail value in Japan. In order to discourage this, they add bonus tracks to Japanese CDs. This is how I understand it anywayCDs are expensive in Japan. A typical CD might cost $10 in America, but they sell for closer to $30 in Japan. To prevent consumers from simply importing cheap CDs, extra tracks are added specifically for the Japanese market.
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Where does the term "the birds and the bees" to explain sex-talk came from?
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Birds and bees are good animals to use to discuss sexual reproduction with children without the need to talk about sex itself, using processes that children are likely familiar with. **Birds** lay eggs, which is similar to female ovulation. **Bees** deposit pollen into flowers, which is similar to male fertilisation. Hence, the birds and the bees.It's one of those things that have been lost to time. From what I've read there's some hints to it having come from a Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem that read: > All nature seems at work . . . The bees are stirring--birds are on the wing . . . and I the while, the sole unbusy thing, not honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing. Cole Porter has the oldest written example which is quite explicit in the comparison between birds, bees, and sex: > When the little bluebird > Who has never said a word > Starts to sing Spring > When the little bluebell > At the bottom of the dell > Starts to ring Ding dong Ding dong > When the little blue clerk > In the middle of his work > Starts a tune to the moon up above > It is nature that is all > Simply telling us to fall in love > And that's why birds do it, bees do it > Even educated fleas do it > Let's do it, let's fall in love But no one is really sure where the phrase comes from. [Source 1] [Source 2] [Source 3] [Source 4]
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how do we know when our sun will go supernova?
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Our sun will not go supernova, and when our sun begins to die, it will go big and red. We know this due to calculations that we do and observations.Our sun doesn't have enough mass for that. It will eventually swell into a red giant and eventually putter out into a dwarf. Unfortunately no massive explosions involved.
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Why do people give Al Gore credit for inventing the internet?
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They really don't. Some people say it as a joke, but that's it. [The snopes article has more information.] You only need to read the first three paragraphs.
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What exactly is happening when a black hole 'burps'?
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Around some black holes an accretion disk is formed. This is basically just a disk of gas orbiting the black hole, sometimes it comes from a companion star. As this gas orbits and moves towards the black hole, it is superheated, and this is what is causing the xrays. The xrays are not coming directly from the black hole since nothing can escape the event horizon but rather from the disk of gas surrounding the black hole. If a black hole does not have an accretion disk, then it will not give off any radiation in the idea of xrays emitted from black holes, the xrays are emitted by the matter being accelerated into the black hole. so the xrays do not come from the hole itself, they come from outside of the event horizon. Currently we believe that nothing can escape once past the event horizon and xrays and super-hot gasses are no exception. edit, so the hole does not burp.
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How was the Apollo 11 landing different from say the current Space X landing.
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If you are referring to it's return to earth, it deployed parachutes and splashed down in the ocean. Here is the video. _URL_0_ The difference between SpaceX and Apollo 11 is that only the crew re-entry vehicle was recovered. The rest of the ship separated during launch and burned up on reentry.For one, the LEM could actually hover - its engine could throttle down to 10% thrust, which was ~4.5 kN, while the LEM only had a weight, when fully fueled, under Moon gravity of 16 kN. This allowed a larger margin of error in the landing burn. An empty Falcon 9 first stage, on the other hand, even with only one engine on at minimum throttle, still reaches about twice as much thrust as it would require to hover. That is why it has to do what SpaceX calls a "hoverslam" and what in aerospace circles is generally called a "suicide burn", i.e. the engines are fired with such timing that the vehicle's altitude above ground and its speed reach 0 at exactly the same time. If you mess up the timing, you either shoot back up or hit the ground before your speed reaches 0 .The lander was piloted by Armstrong, with guidance input from Aldrin. Armstrong was a talented pilot who had then trained intensively on a variety of ingenious simulators . Space-X is impressive for different reasons - the two aren't really comparable. EDIT - I'm referring to the landing on the moon - as /u/8livesdown says, return to Earth was parachuted.
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ELIA5 the "War Z" fiasco, please.
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The game has been released and is in really early development. A lot of the features being advertised are not in the game [yet?]. People think it's false advertising and are unhappy with the end product.
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what prevents dangerous mold from growing on cheese during the aging process?
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During normal aging-for-production, no mold will infect the cheese by itself. Shortly after "creating" what will become a cheese, it is separated from the surroundings by rubbing a special, very salty solution on its surface frequently . Cheese which isn't treated that way frequently gets bad quite fast. For special mold to grow, it is added from the beginning to the solution which becomes the cheese, or, if it's mold on the surface, it's added with the salt. Cheese with mold is never very old cheese, it's usually only a few weeks old at the maximum, so it needs less protection against mold, thus allowing special mold to grow because it's added in high doses, but not allowing other mold in the air grow because it's simply not around for a long enough period of time. Of course that wasn't always the case, and sometimes they got infected, sometimes after being "opened". Some people then discovered that some types of mold are edible.
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Why did the DEA decide to make CBD a schedule 1 narcotic?
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Because there is a long history of pharmaceutical companies lobbying to have anything that might take some of their money made illegal. CBD oil is making headlines and deserves to be researched. By lobbying to have it made schedule I, there will be little to no research done in the U.S. ensuring that we will have to buy pharma products.
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Why is Carfax, a commercially owned company, allowed to collect all kinds of information on our cars, and sell it to others for money?
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Every bit of information that is on Carfax is either: 1) Not information that qualifies for privacy protection 2) Information that is already public - this includes police records 3) **Information that, somewhere down the line, you agreed to allow another company to sell**, likely in a very long sale contract, online agreement, or other similar instrument. That's how they do it. Source: IP attorney.
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Why do some belly pains only go away after using the toilet/restroom?
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The pain in those cases are caused by pressure. Like a blocked pipe, enough pressure can cause issues, and also like the pipe, if we unblock the way and get rid of the stuff causing the pressure, the pain goes away.
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ISIS, sunnis, shias, and why didn't Muhammad leave behind a predecessor?
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Sunni Muslim here. I'll try to explain the situation as I best as I can but sorry if I fail to help you understand since this a very deep and old conflict. Allah knows best. Muhammad was the leader of our people. In his time there was no Sunni or Shia, his followers were simply Muslims. The trouble started when Muhammad passed away and there was a need for a new leader. So the Muslims community chose Abu Bakr as their leader in a democratic fashion. He was chosen because he was most capable if being the leader. However some Muslims disagree and they believed Ali, cousin of the prophet, deserved to be the successor. So we Sunnis believe that a successor should be chosen by the Muslim nation. On the other hand Shias believe that the leader should come from the prophets bloodline. We call the successor of Muhammad a Khalifa. There are 4 rightful Khalifa accepted by Sunnis. They Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali. May Allah be pleased with them all. And yes that is the same Ali who didn't make it the first time. So the successor is known as the Khalifa in Arabic and the nation he leads is the Khilafah. In English you know these terms as caliph and caliphate. Recently some criminals established a "Khilafah" known as ISIS, the Infidel state of Iraq and Syria. They placed this man named Abu Bakr Al-Bagdadi as the Khalifa without consulting the 1 billion Muslims around the world. How can he call himself the Khalifa if we won't accept him as our leader? Some insider information from a Muslim. Most of us consider them heretics or people controlled by the west. Some even consider them satanists. If you have anymore questions please askPredecessor? Think you may need to rethink your question. Generally leaders of the various mythologies around the world have not left any direct successor to their leadership.
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Who decided that we need exactly 12 years of grade school? Seems like kind of a random number to me.
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OP, /u/Teekno has some decent points, but his information is a bit inaccurate. Unfortunately, all the people arguing over his inaccuracies have failed to actually fill in the holes those inaccuracies present in answering your question. The PRIMARY reason that school ends when you turn 18 is because 18 is the age that US males were required to sign up for the draft. 18 was the age that was determined acceptable for going to war. In the US, until as recently as the 70s, 21 was considered the age of adulthood. You couldn't vote until you were 21 for a very long time in this country, and many other rights were only unlocked at that age. But the right to serve your country in the armed forces has been available to 18 year olds for nearly as long as the country has had a structured education system. As /u/Teekno mentioned, the ages of 4-6 are when most average children demonstrate the ability to sit still, listen and accurately mimic. So we put them in school as soon as they are capable of learning in a school environment, and we provide an education to them up to the point where they are old enough to serve in the military.
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What, exactly is happening when I have diarrhea? Why is liquid falling from my butt?
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Whenever you eat food or drink water, your stomach begins to digest it and produces a liquidy substance called "chyme" which is essentially just partially digested food. This is then released into your intestines where eventually the nutrients and water will be absorbed. So when you eat something that your body recognizes as being really bad your body will try to essentially flush it out. Think of how you get a cut and you wash it under water to get all the nasty stuff out of the wound. The same thing is going on except in your intestines. Your large intestine as well as your kidneys will normally draw out most of the water from whatever you 've eaten leaving a nice solid turd for you to poop out. This process usually takes a while and is a big reason as to why your intestines are so long. But when there's an emergency and your body says, "we need to get rid of this stuff, now!", you don't really have time to absorb all that water and so your poop comes out liquid. This is why drinking water after having diarrhea is very important. You often lose a lot of water which can cause hundreds of problems.Your body's GI system is attempting to remove its contents as fast as possible. This means not spending time in the large intestine which usually absorbs liquid.
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Surviving a freefall into a body of water
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Under best conditions, any, up to and including world record edge of space, because terminal velocity and "best conditions". A human being trained to skydive can assume a position that lowers their terminal velocity to somewhere around 150 mph. If they can properly time a flip into a feet-first dive like a water-slide, they 'd survive with major trauma . The most important part about "best conditions" is that there would need to be a lifeguard and an ambulance waiting at the landing zone to pull the skydiver out of the water, administer first aid, and immediately rush him/her to a hospital. If you want an average person to swim away from the impact with the water, that's really a question of percentages - some people hit the water wrong from 40 ft, black out , and drown before they can be saved.
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How are credit card numbers validated?
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The first step in that the first few digits will be checked to correspond to a certain company. For example an Amex card will start with 34 or 37 and will be 15 digits long. Where as a Visa will start with a 4 then the next 3 digits describe the issuer and card type, it will also be 13, 16 or 19 digits long. If it then passes this then a Luhn algorithm will be checked. You take every second digit and double them. Any double digit numbers are added together to get a single digit. You then sum these numbers up with the other digits and get one whole number. The modulus 10 of this number should be 0 if it isn't then one or more digits is wrong. So if you have 80 then the modulus 10 is 0 so it works whereas if you had 23 then the modulus 10 is 3 and you know there's an error. Now that you have an entry that you know is accurate the machine then contacts the bank to verify it with the CVV and expiry date to authorise the purchase.
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How come when I'm driving and I stop at a light the road seems to keep moving?
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Tunnel vision. Perhaps, while you are driving, you should take notice at your surroundings more frequently. Keeping your eyes on the road ahead is good, but it's equally important to be aware of everything else around your vehicle while on the road.
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The U.S. President just said in his Weekly Address that the U.S. Air Force is the smallest it's been since 1947. How is that possible since the AF was established in 1947?
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Because the US Army Air Force transferred all assets and personnel to the US Air force upon its creation and in 1947 they had a lot of assets having just finished fighting WW2. More pertinent should be just how stupid that talking point is in terms effectiveness. If you only measure the effectiveness of any branch of the military based on numbers you get the wrong answer. One F22 is equivalent to an entire fighter squadron or more from 1947, and if you were to pit it against a bomber fleet from 1947 then none of the bombers would ever return. More to the point who are the USAF supposed to be fighting? The US Air Force, 2017 version, is the largest air force in the world, the second largest is the US NavyI'm going to explain to you something about the president. He says things. He says LOTS of things. He says them not because he read it somewhere, or heard it somewhere, or was told it by someone who is an authority on the subject. He "feels" it. And then he says it. That's all.
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What are crazy long math equations used for, and what do they solve?
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Not everything that is worth doing can be described simply. For example, suppose you want to do something simple, like come up with a mathematical model to figure out how much snow will be on a road a few hours after it has snowed. To be able to decently capture this, at a minimum you will need to include: * temperature* wind speeds* humidity* precipitation* cloudiness* ambient light levels* latitude* time of year And the real kicker is, many of these factors interact with each other, so you also need to capture those interactions. And this is for something as simple as how quickly is the snow gonna melt! Imagine what you may need to describe something more complicated. I happen to know all of this because I am currently writing a paper on this topic ', "I've never seen the formula you mention before, and without context on what the different variables mean, there's not much to say. In general it really depends on what you want to describe, and how many **variables** it has. Your function shows a relation between different p, g, q, omega, lambda and tau, which are a lot of variables. So the total relation is complicated. Another thing is that sometimes you can make it as complicated as you want. For example in **approximations**. A Taylor series for example, approaches a function by > a + b*x + c*x² + d*x³ + and so on. You can add terms for as long as you want, depending on how accurate you want the result to be. [This gif] shows how for every extra term the approximation gets more accurate.
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How much executive power does the PotUS have to launch nuclear weapons?
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All of it. They do not have to get the permission of anyone to launch a nuke as they are the commander in of the military and are the singular authority over them. It is possible for someone in the chain under him to disobey orders, but that is not likely. During military activities there is not time to call a session of Congress, wait for days for enough to gather to have a quorum, and wait more days for it to be discussed. In a situation where nukes are needed that decision has to be made in minutesOne wrinkle that hasn't been mentioned is that under the "two man rule" the President's order to launch has to be verified by the secretary of defense . Legally the secretary of defense has no authority to veto the president's decision but if the president just woke up one day and ordered the US to fire all its weapons at New Zealand or whatever this two man provision might act as a "pocket veto". This has probably been war gamed at some point but I doubt the results are a matter of public recordI'm going to cite a Wikipedia article, but feel free to look into the sources. [The article] says:- > "the President does have unilateral authority as commander-in-chief to order that nuclear weapons be used for any reason at any time"', "Fundamentally, the nuclear command structure is designed for speed. If we detected missiles being launched from Russia, we would have about half an hour from the detection of those launches to the weapons striking their targets. That doesn't leave a lot of time. It's not enough time to gather Congress to consult them, let alone the American people. As a result, the nuclear command structure is fundamentally designed to allow the President to respond to such an attack immediately. As such, as Commander in Chief of the US military, the President has the singular authority to order a nuclear attack.
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Is water truly a renewable resource? I know we have a lot of it, but could we ever run out?
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Water is absolutely a renewable resource. That is to say, the same amount of water is "on" planet earth constantly. The issue, and what causes the droughts, is the reallocation of liquid water as well as water moving from one state/phase to another and being trapped there longer than it "naturallly" would. Both of these are largely the result of human activity though the earth does naturally cycle through climates and therefore available fresh water. As to the second part of your question, technically yes but we needn't worry about it. All of the water on earth could be held as vapor and we would live out that old saying, "water water everywhere but not a drop to drink". However, if the climate were to ever warm enough to evaporate all of our fresh and saltwater, we will have been dead for millenia.Not in any sort of realistic timeframe. The oceans are really, really, REALLY big, and if we *really* wanted water we could desalinate it. It's extremely expensive and wouldn't support the entire world, but it could be done.Technically you could electrically separate water to hydrogen and oxygen, thereby eliminating all water completely.
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Why do names tend to cycle in and out of popularity throughout different generations?
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"That's an old person name, I know an old lady at my work who is named that it's so icky" or "Haha gross I can't name my kid after my dad" "Haha gross I can't name my daughter after my gramma" "Oh man, wouldn't it be great to name my child after a relative I barely know to honor who they are as a person?" At least, that's how it goes in my family. Everyone gets a first or middle name from someone dead in the family that the parent liked. My middle name is a great great great uncles, my first name is a great grampa. My sister is named after two aunts who were sisters. My brother is named after someone on my dad's side, a cousin or something of my grampa.People tend to like to give their kids names that are unique, but not too unique. They want them to feel special, but not weird. So parents find names that weren't common in their generation and find out about them because other people are naming their kids that, some get popular, and suddenly we have a lot of Calebs. Then the Calebs grow up and look for a new semi-unique name for their kids.
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why are old jugs or bottles of liquor commonly shown labeled with three X's?
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It's typically a numbering system for jugs of moonshine- the number of Xs is the number of times the mixture was runn through the still before being bottled- XXX indicates it was run through 3 times, which means the moonshine inside is pure alcohol.If I remember correctly, the Xs were to show how many times the moonshine had been run through the still. 3 meant it was triple distilled, meaning it had a very high ABV
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What happened to time itself during the earliest stages of the big bang?
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"So, isn't the universe older/younger depending on from where you view it? " Since by definition you are part of the universe, you cannot \'view it\' from anywhere else. The idea that you can must therefore be a fiction. Likewise, the idea that there is a detached \'point of view\' also has a non-empirical basis and contains a paradox, similar to the statement \'a circle whose centre is everywhere\'.This is kinda of a strange question, not a fool at all. Time it self is just a measurement we use to understand cycles that happen in nature. Your statement is true a second is a second. Time changes with acceleration or any non uniform motion. So we humans start moving at some % the speed of light we would experience a time dilation . The universe is the age that we give it based on light we measure from super nova's, pulsars, stars and galaxies we observe. For example if we witness a super nova we can infer how old that star is based on light ray emissions, x-rays, etc etc. With the past 100 years or so of understanding Newtonian motion and more recently high energy particle physics we determine the age of the universe fairly accurately. EDIT: I think your thinking time is a thing. It's a measurement to record and measure events. Time and space are woven together and when you experience high speeds or massive gravitational pull you essentially change this fabric. Gravitational time dilation is experienced the closer you get to the center of a massive object . [This] is a example of say person on earth moving in uniform motion and an astronaut in free fall rotation around earth. Their clock is slightly slower than the persons on earth. Once you are on the planet you are in uniform motion. It's the period of time you are moving through gravity or free fall. But the clocks are not actually this is just a way to explain the idea. Both people feel time the same.
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Why is Nickelback so hated?
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The main thing for me is how ridiculously similar their songs are. I mean, I understand having a signature "sound," and Chad Kroeger definitely has a distinctive voice, but for some reason they can't seem to come up with anything new. Oh yeah. One example I found is this clip of two of their songs, each playing on one speaker - listen in stereo: _URL_0_', "People *originally* disliked Nickelback because it was mainstream, highly accessible, not-so-original music. Kind of the King of Queens of music. Now people hate Nickelback because it's cool to do so.
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Does Mary Kay really give their best employees pink Cadillacs, and if so, how can anyone possibly sell enough makeup to pay for a Cadillac and still make the company a profit?
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Yes they do actually give you a pink Cadillac CTS they are usually the women at the top of the local pyramid, who have recruited a large amount of members.You don't make money selling the makeup. You make money convincing people that selling the makeup will make them a ton of money, if they would just spend $100 for that initial investment to get a display set. Mary Kay employees make their money by recruiting new salespeople. The numbers are potentially huge. It doesn't hurt that Mary Kay isn't bad make-up, but yes, the top employees can earn enough that the Pink Cadillac isn't a waste of money.
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If Reddit is not paying sub-reddit moderators, why are they working on Reddit, unpaid?
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You can look at it from the point of view of the mods giving a free service to Reddit, or you can look at it as Reddit giving a free service to the mods. It's totally possible to run your own message board. But you would have to pay for the webspace, you'd have to learn how to install and maintain the messageboard backend software . You'd also have to pay for the bandwidth costs of having users access the message board. And even after you've done all that, you need to find users. Reddit does all of that for you, at no cost to you, and they have a massive user base. It's so much easier to promote a sub on reddit than a stand alone message board. Of course Reddit gets a benefit from this, or else they wouldn't give you access to all those resources for free. So it works out for both parties.
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Why is it called a pair of jeans when there is only one?
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Pair of pants . Back in the middle ages, the hoses were kind of put on separately. The phrase stuck for 500 years after it stopped making sense. Go figure.
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why are scientists trying to clone a wooly mammoth using ancient DNA when they could be cloning endangered animal species, such as the white rhino, whose DNA we can still collect?
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As has already been said, there are research efforts focused on both. However, tackling the technical challenges of piecing together a genome that hasn't existed for thousands of years would benefit the scientific community more than trying to keep a species alive that nature can no longer support. Sequencing the mammoth genome would represent a major achievement in our ability to study the genetic content of extinct species and could ultimately lead to greater insight into the origins of cellular life. This is the reason it gets more funding and media attention.
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How does something like a drill speed up the harder you pull the trigger?
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The trigger is attached to something called a variable resistor. As the trigger moves a metal contact plate slides along the resistor. There is a small power supply that sends a voltage through the resistor. The electricity flows through the metal contact into the resistor. As the metal contact moves, the electricity has to flow through more of the resistor. This cause the output voltage to drop. The circuit that controls the speed of the motor checks the output voltage from the trigger circuit and sets the motor speed based on it. So as the trigger moves in and the voltage drops, the motor circuit makes the motor spin faster.
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Why do a lot of people love the smell of gasoline?
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There are a couple reasons. 1. It gives you a tiny high. Just like huffing, it provides a mild anesthetic effect and gives a slight feeling of euphoria. 2. Associations. Smell is the sense tied closest to memory, so if we have positive connotations with the use of things with gasoline engines, we will get a positive feeling when smelling that again, as the ghost of the memory provides a little hit of dopamine.I love the smell of gasoline, I don't associate it with anything, I just like the smell and always have. I dunno why", 'I like the smell of gasoline, also the smell of freshly laid tar.I liked the smell of gasoline as I always associated it with fun. Hot Rods,mini-bikes, go karts, dirt bikes etc. I will say though that gasolinein the 60's - 70's smelled much better than it does now. The big changeI noticed started in 74-75.I know a couple former cokeheads who love the smell of gasoline because it reminds them of cocaine. Presumably one of the chemicals used to cut it either smells like or is gasoline.*Cocaine* For those that don't understand, good for you, goodytwoshoes.
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Could someone explain to me who Rick Perry is and what he has done/is doing to make him so hated on Reddit?
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Rick Perry is the current governor of Texas. He has demonstrated beliefs that are very conservative, though that by itself is not the problem. Rather, Perry is like the guy that always raises his hand in class and says "that's not what my momma said." When faced with scientific evidence he'll bulk claiming that science isnt accurate. However, he's willing to try and get texans to pray for rain during the current drought. He is also in the pocket so to speak of big business. I'm going to go out on a limb here, but reddit is fairly liberal and does not like big business. Many of the solutions he's offered to the state of Texas have involved gutting benefits and social welfare systems then appealing to the federal government to provide assistance. In short, he's a hypocrit that is willing to put money before people. Sarah palin 2.0* current Governor of Texas* believes that droughts are best addressed by group prayer* wants to bring this kind of leadership to the Oval office
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When someone gets rushed into the ER like they do in the movies, what do the doctors do to save that life?
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This is entirely situational. Arrest blood loss, restore normal rhythm to the heart, take a two-by-four out of someone's rib-cage and lung. It depends on what the nature of the insult to the arriving person is, and the 'everything' is basically 'reasonable measures to repair that insult, or sustain the injured who has it.'", 'It would depend on why that person was being "rushed" to the ER, but just so you know, almost nothing in the movies/TV is even close to being accurate concerning what actually happens in an emergency situation. If you could clarify your question a little I could probably answer it a bit better though.
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If the original patent for the fire hydrant was burned, then...can I patent the fire hydrant?
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You run into the problem of prior art. In short, [if it's been done then you can't do it].
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Ion water/alkaline water recent health fad ?
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Water scams go back quite a ways. There are no really new ones, because just about anything you can think of has already been done a thousand times over, including all the various combinations thereof. And they are all pseudoscientific garbage. Finally I've found a place to link [to this site.] I knew it would happen eventually:)", 'Its one of the oldest and longest running scams in human history. It sounds like bullshit because it is.
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Why is network speed measured in bits but storage size in bytes?
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Because when information is transmitted over the network, extra bits are added to tell routers where each packet needs to go, and to add coding that will help minimize transmission errors. So it isn't quite right to take the number of bits/second and divide by 8 to get the number of received bytes/second. Also, Marketing. You get bigger numbers when you talk about bits instead of bytes, so it sounds more impressive. **TL;DR** - Overhead.
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Pros and Cons of Verizon entering the Canadian market
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Traditionally Canada has been very protective of its own telecommunications companies. For the most part, it is completely illegal for foreign telecoms to operate in Canada. The fear is that if foreign telecoms started operating in Canada, they would end-up taking tons of jobs and customers away from Canadian-owned telecoms and that these foreign telecoms would simply funnel all the money they make from Canada to somewhere outside the country , ultimately harming the Canadian economy. The argument in favour of foreign telecoms is that it creates more aggressive competition in the marketplace . Currently there are very few major telecoms in Canada and most of them seem to be colluding to create very similar service plans, fees and usage restrictions -- this harms consumers and limits choice. The idea is that by adding new foreign telecoms to the mix, it would force Canadian telecoms to actually compete for their place in the market and this would ultimately benefit Canadian consumers. the idea is that existing Canadian telecoms would no longer be able to get away with providing poor service, charging ridiculous fees and introducing heavy usage restrictions since customers would have the choice to simply switch-over to the new competition to avoid such issues. Thus Canadian telecoms would constantly need to improve there services and keep their pricing low in order to remain competitive.
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Adding halves of halves forever
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No, you won't, not in that situation. You'll have something like, as time approaches infinity, ruler approaches 12 inches. At that point, you'll be increasing the length by infinitesimal - ly small increments. It's called Xeno's Paradox, and it's fun.You will approach 12 inches. What that means is that you will get really, really close and with every bit added you will get closer, but you'll never quite reach 12 inches. Think of it this way, you always have 2 pcs of ruler. The original piece and the piece you're halving. No matter how many times you cut the second piece in half and add the half to the first piece, you still always have 2 pieces. And until you can get to one piece the first piece can never be 12 inches because a tiny bit of it is still the second piece. But when your first piece is 11.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 inches or so, most people will just round up and say "Yep, it's 12 inches." and disregard the tiny little sliver of ruler that you have left.
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How did Helen Keller learn anything when she is missing the two most important senses involved with learning?
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She got sick as an infant, IIRC. It was hard for her, she was eventually able to make the connection between the smooth sweet tasting thing and the hand movments people kept making in her hand. The issue is that you're too reliant on those two senses. Yes, they're very important, but a human can survive without them in our society. See, blind + deaf people are taught language through tactile interaction; you talk to them through touch. Sure, Helen Keller would never know the nature of the "redness" of an apple, because she would have no concept of red, but she could know that an apple is sweet by taste, round by touch and smells a certain way by, of course, smell, and other people describe it as red and call it "A-P-P-L-E". You're too used to thinking in sounds and visuals and this is what stops you from being able to really understand the way people with no sight or hearing operate. Source: my grand uncle was deaf+blind since birth and he was one of the most incredibly intelligent people I ever had the pleasure of meeting.
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Why do things smell stronger when they get wet?
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A - Because you reek of smoke all the time but have got used to it so you don't notice. And B - the water is evaporating taking the smell into the air with it, combined with the moisture in the air "traps the smell" better than "dry" airYour nose can smell better when the air is humid. More moisture in the air = better sense of smell. This is the same reason that farts in the shower smell so bad.
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Why does my phone take longer to charge than the actual time of me using it?
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It depends how you use it. Let's say you make a phone call here or there, check your email a couple times - the battery should last you a day or so, remaining on standby the rest of the time. Now a different case. You start playing Angry Birds, and then shoot a lot of 3D video, playing it back constantly. You're also in an area with poor reception, so the wireless chip has to spend more energy communicating with the cell towers. You also have the screen on full brightness. In the second case, you're demanding a lot more out of your phone. It takes energy to light and control the screen, to run the processor, to run the camera, etc. That drains the battery at a certain rate. And when you plug it in, the battery can only charge so fast.
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Who gets to decide what to name a newly forming Hurricane?
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Nobody does! The names have already been chosen. The National Hurricane Center has a list of names that they cycle through every 6 years. You can look at it [here.] The first tropical storm of the year takes the \'A\' name at the top, and later storms just go down the list. The most recent tropical storm was named "Don", so if another one happens in 2017, it'll be named "Emily". At the start of 2018, they'll move to the next list. The lists repeat every 6 years. > "But QuirkySquid, why isn't \'Katrina\' or \'Sandy\' or \'Other big hurricane name\' on that list?" That's because after large hurricanes happen, they retire their names. That way there will never be any confusion over which hurricane is being referred to. If there was a really bad hurricane in 2011 named "Katrina", then conversation could get really confusing. > "But QuirkySquid, what if they run out of names on the list?" In that rare scenario, they will start using the Greek alphabet. In 2005, there were storms named "Alpha
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How come surgeons can slice you up like a Christmas ham and there's minimal bleeding?
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They can either use something called electrocauterisation, which is where they heat the tissue with electricity in order to burn and seal blood vessels, or they can 'tie off' blood vessels using ligation.When you cut your finger with a knife, there is a large amount of blood due to the large number of small blood capillaries that run close to the surface of the skin. When doctors use cauterization to cut through the skin for the initial incisions, they burn and seal most of the small blood capillaries that would bleed. Down below the skin and first layers of thin tissue, there are very few small capillaries, so by avoiding the larger blood vessel and pinching or tying of the vessel that have to be cut, doctors can avoid any unnecessary bleeding.Surgeons know where the major blood vessels are and they avoid cutting them if they don't need to. If they need to cut them, they clamp them off first so not much blood is lost.
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Why does Reddit care so much about privacy?
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I think most people are ok with governments having the physical capability of tapping a phone, intercepting email, and other such suveillance. But they want that power to be safeguarded behind court orders for specific cases. > Am I naive for thinking the government doesn't really care about most of the illegal stuff I do ? Here in the UK we literally had local councils using anti-terrorism laws to snoop on people putting their wheelie bins out on the wrong day, and people who didn't put their dog's shit in a bag. You bet your bottom dollar that the government would just *love* to nail you for anything it possibly can.
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If a person can't be put on trial twice for the same crime, what prevents people who committed a crime and did not get sentenced, openly talk or discuss the crime?
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They can still be sued by the estate of the deceased. Like OJ - wasn't convicted of murder, but had to pay a shitload of money to Nicole and Goldman's family.There are crimes you can be charged with that go along with the murder: illegal possession of a weapon, breaking and entering, trespassing, reckless endangerment, etc. You might be found not guilty of murder, but by then confessing to the murder, you also confess to these crimes. Also, the police will watch you like a hawk for the rest of your life. Anytime you do anything even remotely illegal, they will get you. Since you now have a history of lying, you will more likely get convicted this time, even if you are innocent. Quite frankly, if you got away with murder and bragged about it, the police must just be pissed off enough to frame you for another.They can talk as openly about it as they want, but they may accidentally admit to a crime they can then be charged with that they weren't charged with originally.
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-How is life possible?
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> Life itself contradicts this goal. In our bodies at every given moment chemical reactions are going on that send these atoms UP the stability gradient. HOW?! Because of constant energy input from the sun. You appear to be talking about the concept that entropy always increases. But that only applies to a "closed system", and the earth is not a closed system. The sun is essentially "running down" and it's transferring vast amounts of energy to the earth in the process. > It isn't until the life leaves our body that our atoms and molecules all stabilize . Decomposing is not "stabilization". The molecules of our body are used as food for bacteria, mold, and fungus. Life continues.
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