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If my parents had sex to conceive me 3 hours earlier than they did, would I have then been born 3 hours earlier?
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There's more of a chance of you not being you than anything else.No pregnancy is exactly 41 weeks long down to the hours and minutes.
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Can someone explain grade deflation/inflation?
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The other post did a good job of explaining *what*, now the question is *why*. Some of this is simply like monetary inflation- grades creep up slowly over time as students, professors and administrators come to accept a "new normal." In some cases, a administration might pressure a professor to make his grading easier because students were complaining. In the United States, college admissions are a consumer culture, and the customer is always right. An entitled student can be a nightmare for an administrator, and might leave, taking their tuition dollars with them. Professors might feel pressure from students because "Little Johnny's never gotten a B before!" It may be easier to start inflating grades than it is to deal with that shitstorm at the end of each semester. Professors without tenure may feel the need to increase grades to keep students happy and become popular with them as a means of trying to preserve their job. A professor who drives admissions or keeps students enrolled is a valuable resource. Incidentally, this may not entail making the course material any easier, but rather just adjusting the grading. If two courses cover the exact same material, have the same tests, the same homework But one gives out 4 As and one gives out 10 As, then the second one has grade inflation. Not an easier class in terms of content, but easier in terms of result. This is mostly prevalent in the social sciences where there aren't hard and fast answers. It's less likely in math where a professor can directly say "this answer is wrong." Even in those disciplines though it happens by professors simply changing the cutoff points for grades.
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What is Guantanamo Bay, and why is it bad?
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When people refer to Guantanamo Bay, they are referring to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, located in Cuba, that is controlled by the United States. The camp is used to hold enemy combatants who are said to be a danger to the United States.A large number of people are angered by the existence of this camp as its detainees are often held without charges, are not generally arrested where the US has judicial authority, and are not granted a jury trial in front of their peers, but face a military tribunal, if they even reach a trial. The fact that some detained at the camp are Americans makes the camp even more controversial.
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How can companies in China or otherwise offer free shipping on purchases, yet it costs me over $30 to ship internationally?
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China's shipping company China Post is highly subsidized by their government, and is not competed with. China Post and USPS have a deal with ebay that makes this even cheaper. For more insight check out [this Quora thread.]
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Why does global warming cause the sea levels to rise, if water takes up more space as ice anyway?
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Two factors. One, ice on land is melting, and that water runs downhill into the ocean. Two, and more important, while ice takes up more space than an equivalent amount of water, warmer water takes up more space than cooler water. The contribution of ice in the ocean 'shrinking' as it becomes water, is far less than what would be needed to offset the expansion of the liquid ocean itself as it warms.
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What happens that causes the "shock" feeling when you eat something sweet after not eating for a while (assuming this happens to everyone)?
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Not sure exactly what you're referring to--is the shock feeling kind of like a sudden sick feeling? This can happen due to lack of protein; it happens to my brother often when he has a lot of carbs for breakfast but no big source of protein. He's usually fine for a while, but the next time he eats, he starts feeling strange and shaky, and the feeling doesn't go away until he gets a decent bit of protein in him . I think it has to do with the body's expectation of certain nutrients at all times of eating. If the shock feeling is something else no idea, sorry.Look up first bite syndrome. This happens to me a lot, and it is usually with sweet or sour foods. It feels more like a cramp in my jaw for me though.
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What's the difference between the ("th-uh") and the ("thee")?
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There is no meaning difference. They are both the same word. It is just different pronunciations. Most of the time "thee" is going to be used before a vowel sound and "thuh" otherwise . People also use the "thee" pronunciation before non-vowel sounds to indicate emphasis on the fact that it is a definite article "Thuh" is used when the next word begins with a consonant sound. ie "Thuh Death Star" "Thee" is used when the next word begins with a vowel sound ie "Thee Enterprise"As I heard it, one is a remnant from when English had formal and informal tenses . Like thou and you, but one was droppedNative English speaker here. To me, it is entirely a matter of personal preference and emphasis. Most say *"thee"* if they're emphasizing something: "This is *"thee"* best tomato I 've ever eaten" but others pronounce "the" as *"thee"* all the time, irrespective of context. I don't hear a consistent use of *"thee"* before nouns beginning with vowels and *"thuh"* before consonants. That would be a nice rule but as you 've probably observed, English is more consistently inconsistent and diverse than many other, more "regular" languages with more clearly defined rules.
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Why do old people get disturbed by loud sounds when, in fact, they have much weaker hearing capacity?
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When hearing loss due to old age starts it is usually high pitched receptors that fail first. So it is harder for them to hear normal speech but they can still hear lower frequencies. So a loud noise that has a deep resonance can still be irritating. Imagine listening to a top of the line surround sound system where all the tweeters are broken. It just doesn't sound right.One thing that some people with hearing problems have is Hyperacusis—a sensitivity to loud sounds. This is most likely because they’re used to things being muffled, and a loud sound is shocking and startling.
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Why is it when I have a cold or flu, I sometimes feel really cold and start shivering violently, even though when I feel my skin I'm warm?
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This is a side effect of fever. Your body temperature is above normal, but your brain wants you running hot in order to help kill the infection, so encourages you to seek warmth. This is on top of the fact that because of your increased body temperature, surrounding air feels that much colder compared to your skin temperature. There are many fever-reducing medications available OTC like ibuprofen and acetaminophenOne part of is that many diseases release chemicals that effect your hypothalamus, which controls, among other things, your body temperature. Another belief is that an increased body temperature can help you to fight off infection.
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How does Darcy Oake's do these (magical) illusions?
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Sleight of hand and misdirection. He has you focus on the feather and the fire, while his other hand reaches into his jacket and pulls out a dove. He's got four doves, a little other bird, and an egg there. In his right sleeve, he has a collapsible wire cage that can expand quickly when you pull on the top of it. He makes it appear while the flames trick you for an instant and hide the movement. Every time he makes something come out of "nowhere", you'll notice he does something with one hand, while the other reaches into his clothing to pull out the appearing animal/item. The second bird in the cage is likely a fake plastic one, btw, which is why he quickly hands it off to his assistant. The black lining in the back of the cage where all four doves are hides a hidden compartment where the woman is hiding. When he tilts it towards the viewers, you can see a dividing horizontal line where the back wall is; the cage is actually half as deep as you are lead to believe, so the woman can hide behind it, under the sheet.
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What is actually going on when you hit your funny bone?
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You're hitting the ulnar nerve, which is a big honkin' nerve that runs down your arm. Most of the time, it is cushioned beneath lots of fat and muscles, but at the elbow joint, it is exposed and relatively close to the surface of your skin. As such, it is vulnerable to impact which makes your arm feel all tingly as the impact causes it to fire off impulses.
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. Why are moths attracted to light?
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*Artificial light is a recent arrival on the night scene. Until recently, the only night-lights were the moon and the stars. Being at optical infinity, their rays are parallel, which makes them ideal compasses. Insects are known to use celestial objects to steer accurately in a straight line. The insect nervous system is adept at setting up a temporary rule of thumb such as, “Steer a course such that the light rays hit your eye at an angle of 30°.” Since insects have compound eyes, this will amount to favoring a particular ommatidium . However, the light compass relies critically on the celestial object being at optical infinity. If it is not, the rays are not parallel but diverge like the spokes of a wheel. A nervous system using a 30° rule of thumb to a candle, as though it were the moon, will steer its moth, in a neat logarithmic spiral, into the flame. It is still, on average, a good rule of thumb. We do not notice the hundreds of moths who are silently and effectively steering by the moon or a bright star or even the lights of a distant city. We see only moths hurling themselves at our lights, and we ask the wrong question. Why are all these moths committing suicide? Instead, we should ask why they have nervous systems that steer by maintaining an automatic fixed angle to light rays, a tactic that we only notice on the occasions when it goes wrong. When the question is rephrased, the mystery evaporates* - Richard Dawkins', "They navigate by keeping the moon/sun on their right/left side. When there's a bright light they mistake it for the moon/sun and end up flying in circles.
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Why can you download entire YouTube videos by copying/paste the URL into a website but not do the same with Netflix?
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Netflix has protections in place to prevent this, since its content is 100% copyrighted. YouTube, on the other hand, is not always such sensitive material and therefore doesn't have as much security against downloading its content.
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Why do tears come out while yawning when we are really tired?
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When we open our mouths to yawn, the muscles around our eyes put pressure on our tear ducts; when the yawn is particularly wide, the pressure is great enough that our facial muscles literally 'squeeze' tears out of the ducts.
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If Almonds contain all of the essential Amino Acids to form complete proteins, why are they considered incomplete protein sources?
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Technically yes you could eat 1000 calories worth of almonds to reach your essential amino acid requirement across the board. However it is much more reasonable to combine almonds with a grain which is higher in methionine and leucine, this is called complementary protein intake. So when they are talking about a complete protein they are limiting it to a certain amount of such a protein and it's ability to meet the necessary requirements. With animal protein it is very easy to reach the needed amount of the 9 essential amino acids but using the equivalent amount of almonds would not be possible. This is why they stress for vegetarians to pair complementary proteins to fulfill their essential amino acid requirements. However as mentioned theoretically since almonds do contain all 9 essentials in varying amounts it would be possible to consume a great deal of almonds to fulfill that need but not really necessary when certain grains are available to complement.
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ELI: Why are sales taxes only enforced when shopping stores and online?
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You are. You are supposed to write the person a receipt, which they then show while registering the vehicle, and then pay the tax there in order to have ownership transferred to them.
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Is burning fecal waste beneficial in one way or another such as generating power to using the ashes as fertilizer?
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One of best things about burning the waste is that you've reduced it's volume, so it's easier to transport and store, and it's probably safer than it was before burning. Regarding other benefits, if the waste is dry enough you can generate power from burning it and I'm not sure if the ashes are viable as a fertilizer at all, and generally ash from burning waste is rather undesirable and just stored at landfills. Though I doubt fecal waste is just burned here, because it's most likely better to use the waste for generating biogas, basically you stockpile the dung in favorable conditions, initiate fermentation and get methane. This time I know that what's left of the waste is indeed usable as a fertillizer.Many dairy farms do not burn, but use digesters. The manure and waste is heated in a closed container to about 100 degrees F. The bacteria in the waste thrive and break down the waste producing methane. The methanes is then captured and burned for energy, while the digester waste is used for fertalizer. One of the big problems with simply burning the waste is that ash is not a good fertalizer. It has some trace elements, and can change the ph of soil, but will not give you the same effect as a fertalizer. You burn off all the "good" stuff.
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If Flash Storage is so useful, why do we still use Hard Drives?
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USB flash drives average $1 per gigabyte. Magnetic hard drives average 5.3 cents per gigabyte. Additionally, a magnetic hard drive is typically 2-4 times as fast as a USB flash drive, or even faster. USB flash drives also have write limitations; there are only so many times you can write to them. If we're talking *solid state* hard drives, then those are faster than magnetic hard drives, and they cost about 81 cents a megabyte -- cheaper than USB flash, but much more expensive than magnetic. Those *do* require a power source, though. So basically, flash storage is tougher and more resistant to water and dirt, but it's much slower and much more expensive.
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EIL5: What's the real difference between AA, AAA, 9v, D, etc. batteries? And why did Dildos/Vibrators take only C's for so long?
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AA, AAA, C, and D batteries are all 1.5 volts. But they differ considerably in the amount of current and time they can produce. A bigger battery can produce more power over time. A 9V battery is just that - 9 volts. But it has a lower current throughput. As for why a vibrator takes a C battery I can only conjecture that it is a very power-hungry device so needs the largest practicable battery. And because the device has a width limitation the maximum diameter acceptable is probably that of a C battery but not a D.
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- what is the "nails on a chalkboard" sensation?
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We don't exactly know, but there are some good ideas on it. The most prevalent theories say that the sounds which cause this reaction do so for reasons related to evolutionary biology. Specifically, the sound has strong similarities to some warning calls given by certain primates. It's possible that we still are unnerved by this because our ancestors had similar warning calls, or perhaps some predators made a sound like it. There are also some theories that relate the intensity of the sound to the shape of our ears. it's possible the frequency is affected by ear canal shapes and that frequency increases when the sound goes through your ears, to the point of being very painful or unnerving compared to other noises. I personally find the sound extremely irritating and unnerving, but not painful, so the former theory seems more likely to me. We really just don't know for sure yet.
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Why why when Russia invade a country all the people from america stand up shouting for violation of right of Sovereignty and why when the US do the same American people show a lot of support ?
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Let me explain it to you: The US is the bestest most amazing country ever in the history of the universe. We were singled out by god to be mankind's only hope, a shining example of awesomeness that every other country on Earth envies and wishes they could be like. Therefore, anything we ever do is by definition perfect. That's why we can criticize other countries for behavior that we engage in ourselves: when we do it, it's right because we're awesome, but when other countries do it, it's wrong because they suck.
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Why it is more common for men to go bald
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It's the male hormone testosterone that does that and since women don't have that much of it men goes bald and women don't. The less hair you've got the more testosterone you have in your body.Bald men usually have higher levels of testosterone than in women.
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the theory that cutting taxes on the rich increases overall tax revenue
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Imagine if the govt taxed everyone's income at 100%. Although the rate is very high, the tax revenue they 'd get from it would be $0. This is because when people don't get to keep any of their earnings, they won't bother to work. So we can see that in this situation a "tax cut" would certainly increase tax revenue. Alternatively, however, if you tax income at 0%, the govt will also receive $0 in revenue, obviously. Anyone can now see that there is a "curve" which shows the amount of tax revenue generated at each rate. This is called the [Laffer Curve] It's impossible to tell what the curve looks like, but we can see that at some places on the curve, tax revenue would increase at lower rates. It's up for debate where the "optimal" place is on the curve, but that's the theory behind these cuts.
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How would you go about making metal tools from scratch? Assume you're stranded on an island and can only use what nature has given you.
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you should watch this video, this guy decided he was going to make a toaster from scratch. _URL_0_', "Well first off if your stranded on most islands you are out of luck since most wont have the resources you need to start. You are not looking for anything in dirt you are looking for certain rocks that contain metal ores. The exact type of rock depends on what metal you are looking for and what is available. Tin, Lead and Copper can all be found in a natural usable state but are not very common since a lot of the easy deposits have been worked in ancient times. Iron can be found in a raw state in meteorites but you have less chance of one of those being on your island than the ores of other metals. Iron ore is more readily available but takes hotter fires to work. Lead and tin are the easiest to melt since they melt in a wood fire but they aren't much good for tools. Copper only takes a fire about 200 degrees hotter than a wood fire to melt. Build a pottery kiln or learn to make charcoal . Charcoal is key to hotter fires until you can learn to make coke from coal. The likelihood of your island having iron and coal is about 0. The metal doesn't have to be completely melted. Most early iron was worked in [bloomeries] where iron ore was heated with air blasted charcoal and hammered over and over until it was more iron than iron ore. Its a lot of time consuming labor. All this took thousands of years to develop. Unless you are a blacksmith, geologist and lucky all at the same time the chances of you starting a metal industry on a deserted island are near impossible. You are better off scavenging from whatever plane or ship stuck you there and reworking that metal into tools.
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What’s bad about dystopia if everyone lives in the society truly think and feel they are happy?
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If they are *truly* happy, I'm not sure it can be a dystopia. If it's enforced/artificial happiness, then you're encroaching on people's free feelings.
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Why can't we make cheese from human breast milk?
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There’s no reason we can’t make human milk cheese in theory. A quick googling shows a bunch of stories about it and even a recipe. The main reasons we don’t encounter it normally are two fold. First is the hygiene angle. There are a number of diseases that can be passed in breast milk. The second is supply. A woman can only produce so much breast milk and a hungry baby can drink a surprising abound of it
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Why didn't evolution decide our teeth can only be maintained through dental chemicals and treatment?
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During most of human history, we ate almost no sugars at all . It is carbohydrates and sugars that feed the bacteria that cases tooth decay , and stone age people rarely ate enough sugars for this to become a problem. What stone age societies actually have a problem with is constantly chewing tough meats and roots causing teeth to wear away and fall out. And that's why adults grow wisdom teeth, to replace those fallen teeth.
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Why can I switch between running programs instantly on quite old PCs whereas on smartphones, even the most modern ones, it always takes several seconds?
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There's something wrong with your phone if going from an app to another takes multiple seconds. It is true however that mobile oses freeze the apps that are not active to save power. And phone apps are often fullscreen only because the screens are so small. If you actually need to multitask on the go, carry a laptop.Desktop OSs have all instances running simultaneously, since they can be selected at any moment. Mobile OSs "freeze" the state of the app when you leave it to conserve power and processor usage, then resumes when you return.
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How will the closing of so many Wal Mart stores affect local economies?
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Because the way WalMart moved in on those communities in the first place was to steamroll into town and undercut all local businesses, forcing them to go under. Pretty soon, WalMart becomes The Only Game in Town, and if it pulls out, all that's left is a big muddy hole. No local commerce, no local jobs, a huge hit to the tax base. It costs money to start up a business from scratch, and a lot of the people who owned mom & pop stores and were flattened retired or moved on.Many of the stores were older, underperforming, and redundant. So unless you work for Walmart probably not much. The older stores may become an ey sore unless another retailer moves in.
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can someone please ELI5 the functions of independent, dependent, and standardized variables in the scientific method?
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The independent variable is the variable that you control and change. The dependent variable is what you're measuring. It changes as a function of the independent variable. Or at least it does if your experiment is valid. A standard variable is basically a validation of your experiment. It has a known set of data associated with it. If you use a standard in the same experimental design as your other variables and get wacky results, there's probably something wrong with your experiment. Example: * Your investigation is to measure the rate at which culinary fats melt as temperature varies. * You are investigating beef fat, margarine, and bacon fat. For some reason, you have pages of data on how butter melts. Butter will be your **standard**. * For each fat, you place a precisely measured amount in an oven. The temperature of the oven is the **independent variable** because that is what you are changing. * You measure the rate of melting for each fat. The time it takes to melt is the **dependent variable** because that is what changes *in response* to the independent variable. * How does a standard typically come into play? When possible, it's used alongside unknown variables. So in this case, you would simultaneously heat the butter and the beef fat. Then the butter and the margarine, etc. Did the melt time of the butter differ drastically from the literature? There must be something wrong.
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Why does the back button on the browser work and other times does not?
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When you 've been automatically redirected from one address to another, depending how that was implemented, the back button can take you to the place you were redirected from - at which point, you're immediately redirected again. Thus, you have to click it twice, fast enough that the second one comes before the redirect, and you get back to where you were. What do I mean by "depending how that was implemented"? Well, if the website was correctly using HTTP REDIRECT that doesn't happen , but lots do it in javascript instead, at which point this comes into play. Some advertisers, in particular, do this deliberately to make escaping their ads much harder. It's obnoxious, but it must be working for them or they wouldn't do it. As a side note, this can always be bypassed by long-pressing on the Back button to get a dropdown of previous pages, and then selecting the page to which you actually want to go back from the list.Hitting the 'Back' button in a browser reloads the previous html file. That worked great for a long time because websites were structured as a series of files. But since JavaScript was developed, many sites will load one file and then dynamically change the content being shown to user *without loading a new file*. Hitting back no longer works as you would expect because the previous content isn't from the previous file. The way it used to work is like a book. If you wanted new content, you would just turn the page. If you wanted to see the previous content, you'd turn the page back. But now it's like a book made out of video screens. The content on each page can change now. If you want to go back to what you just watched, turning to the previous page won't work. You need to rely on the current page's own navigation system.
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What is at the center of Gas Giant planets and what holds them together? Why do they have an atmosphere?
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What holds them together is gravity. As you go into a gas giant the atmosphere which is mostly hydrogen gets thicker. Eventually you get so much pressure that you get liquid hydrogen, and then at the very core you will have solid hydrogen/whatever heavier elements the planet has absorbed.
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Why are people so "stranger-phobic" nowadays?
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Because the media shows so many awfull things happening, that no one actually trusts eachother anymore. That, and I have no idea what to say to strangers, I'm not really talkative and when I do say something in the nicest way, I mostly get a very rude response.Lots of people blame it on internet and videogames making people less social, but I don't believe in that.
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How does genetic drift work?
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Genetic drift is simply changes in the gene pool of a population due to chance. Let's say you have a population of 10 bugs. 5 of the bugs have Gene R which makes the Red in color. 5 of the bugs have Gene B which makes them Blue. Being red or blue is equally advantageous in hiding from their color blind predator, the Monotone Sparrow, so natural selection isn't driving the frequency of red bugs versus blue bugs. Let's say that the local monotone sparrow eats 7 of the 10 bugs. 5 of them happen to be red. This didn't happen because the bird could see the red bugs better. It was just random chance. But now, there are no more red bugs. Gene R has been totally eliminated from this population. So the population has drifted to a population made up entirely of blue bugs with Gene B.
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How does public-key cryptography work?
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Public encryption is best explained by [this picture]. Just take a second to digest each step and realize how both parties do indeed come to the same result and that if you were spying on them in public, it would be difficult to determine their private colors. Now replace the ideas with colors with keys and the act of un-mixing paint as factoring very large semi-prime numbers. That's generally how the Diffie-Hellman key exchange works today. It wasn't even thought to be possible until the 70s. Once both parties has this shared key , they can use that as a key for further communication since it's a secret that only they know of. Pretty neat! There are variations of this idea that use moduli, group theory, and advanced number theory to do the same basic thing but it's all the same idea. This is only a basic explanation of modern public-key cryptography.
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How and why do does the WestBoro Baptist Church make money?
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They did and iama recently. They all hold down regular jobs and some are lawyers, so they are not poor. In any case, what do they need money for? The only expenses they have are travel costs and it's not like they do it for the money. Useful info from the inside:_URL_1_ _URL_0_
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Why is sign language different in different parts of the world?
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if you learn sign language you will notice it's basically a sign for each word. if you learn a second language you will learn that each language has different rules for words, like the order of noun/verb might be flipped or one language will use a second word while another will change the ending of a word. so each spoken language kind of needs its own sign language to match how the spoken language works.
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What is the difference between applied physics and engineering?
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I'm actually majoring in physics. Theoretical physics to be honest, but we were forced to do some applied stuff too. But I've also worked as an intern in an engineering office which makes me feel like I can draw a comparison. Engineering focusses on problems on a higher level than applied physics does. Applied physics bothers with developing stuff that will become the building blocks of engineers like LEDs or the mechanisms behind and LCD display. Also, physicists in solid state physics try to derive actually how to build new materials that suffice certain properties whereas I feel like engineers stand more on the side of using these materials to the fullest extent. So in a way physicists do innovation more on a molecular level whereas engineers focus on a macroscopic level, as they do not get the training to fully understand atomic and molecular physics.
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Why do we get drunk, when we drink alcohol?
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Alcohol is a friendly guy. He loves to hug things, like your brain cells. When you drink a lot of alcohol your brain winds up being too busy hugging alcohol to work right. Alcohol is also a very thirsty guy. That's why you wake up dehydrated.
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How does electrical current "know" which path offers the least resistance?
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They don't. Electrons follow the path of least resistance in the same way that water flows downhill. The electrons do not act collectively, each individual electron is driven away from other electrons, and driven toward positive charges. The collective result is well described by the statement that they follow the path of least resistence.The water analogy is probably the easier way to explain it. Also remember electrons actually go from the negative to the positive, and not the other way around. What we actually call current is the movement of the "holes" generated on the valence shell of the atom, due to an electron leaving that atom for another one. Without the "holes", electrons wouldn't go to other atoms. You could have a path with 2 "holes" and a path with one. 2 electrons will move to the first atom, 1 will move to the other. I'm pretty sure that would have to do with it. Difference in conductors\' atoms explains the resistive differenceAlso, a bit of an offshoot: In a fluid system where two pathways exist , the same amount of fluid goes both ways initially, but the limited output of the small opening will eventually result in an overflow. Is this the case with electricity? That is, does the same volume of electrons travel along each possible pathway until one becomes fully saturated, causing an "overflow" of electrons that will travel down the less resistive paths?Following the path of least resistance is an over-simplification that makes it sound like as long as a live wire were shorted to ground, you could safely touch it. Your water analogy is a much better description of what happens. Electricity flows in inverse proportion to the resistance in a path of a circuit.
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Why is air generally colder in the upper atmosphere, even though hot air rises, and it receives more direct sunlight?
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Air pressure is equal to the weight of all the air above in the atmosphere, so it decreases with altitude. Therefore when hot air rises, its pressure decreases and it expands and gets colder. The reason why it cools down is hard to explain without using math, but it's the same as when you open a compressed air bottle for example. . Since in the troposphere air moves a lot with weather phenomenons, it gets colder with increasing altitude. This is not the case above as this layer is stable and heat conduction makes the temperature close to constant.
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How are we able to type fast without thinking about the key placement, yet probably wouldn't be able to recollect where the keys are without a keyboard
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Muscle memory versus actual memorization. They are stored differently than regular learned memories. Therefore accessed differently. Which is why when you need a key you very seldom use you still look.
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The difference between republican and democrat and what they believe in.
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Put very broadly, and recognizing that there are a lot of variations within the parties, Republicans are the "conservative" party and Democrats are the "liberal" or "progressive" party. In terms of actual policy positions, Republicans tend to be in favor of smaller government involvement in the economy, a larger and more active military, and more regulation of personal behavior in order to comport with traditional morality. Democrats tend to be in favor of more government involvement in the economy, a smaller military that is used more sparingly around the world, and adopting programs that help people to be/do what makes them happy regardless of any external moral view. Those are *very broad* statements that are missing a lot of nuance, and there are certainly people in each party who don't match up. But as a general understanding, that's it. EDIT TO ADD: Also keep in mind that the United States as a whole is generally more conservative than most of western Europe, Canada, Japan, and other countries we compare ourselves too. What that means is that a standard Democrat in America holds policy views that are oftentimes closer to the policy views of a more conservative party elsewhere.Difficult to find one, but we need a non bias person to explain it. All the previous searches appear to say the same thing. Republicans want little government, Democrats want big government. But I'm betting the OP wants details on their specific beliefs on the bug issues.
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Why do we shake our hands after we punch things?
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I would like to venture a guess on this. I think it's a response to some pain or itching signals coming from the nerves in your hand, a very common after effect of punching something solid. The reason we scratch an itch is because it creates a small amount of pain , and pain signals get priority over the itching signals on your nerve pathways, which is an evolutionary trait that many animals share, presumably because someone who is more aware of pain signals than other nerve signals is more likely to treat injuries, and protect themselves and therefore more likely to survive and reproduce. It's just a guess but perhaps the shaking disrupts or overrides some of those pain signals for similar reasons .
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How can such a huge company, like yahoo, afford to rebrand themselves after becoming so prominent under their current brand?
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simple answer they cant afford not to. yahoo is not a sustainable business, as proven by years of losses and failed remedies. they need cash, and if selling the yahoo brand to verizon provides that cash, so be it. Just as sears recently sold craftsman to black and decker. chances are yahoo is positioning to turn out the lights anyway, so I am not sure if there are any legitimate plans to actually sustain the remainco/altaba nameIt is because **Verizon** is buying Yahoo for 4.8 billion dollars. Once it is under the Verizon company, only then will it be rebranded as Altaba.
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How did J. R. R. Tolkien invent his elvish language?
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He was a linguist who was very talented and very imaginativesame way you make up any other language. you make it up. he just had a good sense to write it down and make it make sense .in an elvish wayFrom Wiki..He served as the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, from 1925 to 1945 and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, Oxford from 1945 to 1959. His Elvish language is essentially based on early Anglo-Saxon, but still required a staggering amount of talent and intellect to create a new languageI heard somewhere that he actually created the languages first and the stories evolved out of them as tales told to his children. May be BS, anyone know ?
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If you flew a spacecraft into a gas planet, would you go straight through it or would you hit some form of ground?
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That's pretty much why we've sent Juno up to Jupiter; I understand that it's going to be firing some kind of radar through the atmosphere to see what reflections come back. There are also theories that due to the extreme pressure, the core may contain phase 5 hydrogen, a state in which it forms into a metallic structure. _URL_0_
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Why are there different sockets on motherboard for CPUs? Why isn't there a universal socket to fit all CPUs?
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Part of it forces you to upgrade your entire computer at a certain points and part of it is due to compatibility. As for the compatibility part, when a socket is designed it has certain features they are trying to support, DDR2, PCI-E 2.0, Sata 2.0, ect. In the future this same design may not work for newer features such as PCI-E 3.0, DDR3, Sata 3.0 ect. If you look at the AMD side where they have used the same AM3 socket for their high end chips, it's due to them not supporting all of the latest features.Different sockets have different numbers and arrangements of pins. The pins are the little gold prongs on the bottom of the CPU, they're what makes the electrical connection to the rest of the computer. There are usually around a thousand pins on a CPU: LGA1150 has 1150, and LGA1155 has 1155. How many pins you need and where they should be laid out depends on how the internal circuitry of the CPU is laid out. Each pin serves a specific purpose, so it needs to go to the right part of the CPU. That means the pin should be close to the part of the CPU it's connected with. It also means that you might need more or less pins to run your processor depending on how many internal blocks it has and how much power they need. When you want to design a new CPU, you don't want to be constrained to a specific pin count or circuit layout just to conform to an old motherboard socket standard. It's better to just say "hey, motherboard people, this is how we're gonna arrange our pins for this processor line" and let them deal with it. The motherboard people have a lot more space to work with, so they can handle pretty much any pin layout the CPU people throw at them.
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Why is it that after a full meal, when I can't eat any more, I somehow make more space for a dessert?
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there are probably two parts to this: - there was a study that found that we want variety when we eat. We evolved in a way that our body needs several kinds of minerals and nutrients. In order to incentivize us to get them, the body tells us "this is enough" after eating a large portion of one food, but as soon as we see another, it says "hey, I could use some of that". In the study they tried it with smarties/M & Ms: People ate the yellow ones until they couldnt anymore, but when presented with green ones, they had no trouble eating more of them. - you know about the delight the sugar brings you and view desert as a reward of some kindDessert usually contains a lot of sugar, which sends a signal to your brain to delete the feeling of satiety. So you would just keep eating no matter how much you ate before.
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Why is that computers connect to just one wifi connection and not multiple ones at the same time?
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Wifi cards only have one tuner and transmitter, think of it like a standard radio. You cant tune to 2 stations at the same time, a transmitter can only transmit on one station at a time as wellIt only has one WiFi card. You should be able to connect to two networks if you have two cards. I think.
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why is it called lake michigan and not michigan sea? lake superior and not superior sea?
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Geologically speaking, altitude. 200' above present sea level is, by definition, always a lake. Inland seas are low enough that at maximum sea level they are part of the ocean. But during an ice age , sea level falls enough that inland seas become independent bodies of water. Lake Superior is 600' above present sea level, Lake Ontario is 246'. Lake Bonneville was a salt lake with a shore at 5100'. Once upon 17,000 years ago, [it burst through Red Rock Pass and flooded the Snake]; it's now Great Salt Lake, elevation 1200'. Seas are places like the Dead Sea is at −1,401', Caspian Sea −92' and Persian Gulf .
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What goes on at a landfill aside from just burying the trash?
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Depending on the kind of operation, you might get recycling/sorting operations, to divert metal and other non-degradables from the heap. There are trash burning operations, where it is used to fuel powerplants, but this is fairly uncommon. Otherwise, you don't really bury the trash, except under more trash, until the end, when it'll be capped over with dirt and plastic, then eventually made into something really counterintuitive like a public park.
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If lightning is very short, how does it create a long continuous sound as thunder?
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In addition to what others have said, while the *event* of lightning can be very short, the actual bolt itself, can be several miles in length. While this distance is pretty insignificant in terms of the speed of light, it *is* significant in terms of the speed of sound. So not only do you have multiple reverberations, and echos off the surrounding landscape, but additionally, the initial sound does not reach you all at the same timeThunder echoes around. So while the initial crack of thunder is indeed very short, the sound bounces off of things several times and continues to be heardOn top of all everything else said thus far, how about an analogy? Think of a calm surface of water, like a lake. Now throw a small stone into it. You get multiple ripples and waves that last for a long time; a lot longer than it took for the stone to hit the water. In this analogy, the water represents the air. The stone is the lightning strike; a large amount of energy in a small space. And the thunder is all the ripples and waves.
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Why does my air mattress always go flat after I use it?
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You know when you lay on your arm too long and you get that 'pins and needles' feeling? That's not just a feeling. Your body hair really turns to pins and needles. Now, in a regular polyester-fill mattress, this is no problem. But in an air mattress, you compromise the integrity of the mattress over time. This is why water beds are never as cool as you think they are.
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What are the sparks for? Space Shuttle Launch
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From NASA website: the sparks are used to burn up any hydrogen that may have been leaked from the engines/tanks. If they didn't do this, there was a chance that a pocket of leaked hydrogen would blow up when the engines started.The sparks are for ignition, but not for the engines. They ignite any hydrogen that comes out of the engines without being ignited. Otherwise the hydrogen could spread and then be ignited by the rocket, causing a massive fireball. _URL_0_
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Does space go on forever or is there an end?
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Current models suggest that space is infinite in extent, and that the universe essentially goes forever in any direction. The most popular model is called the [Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker ] model, which suggests that the universe is infinite and flat, based largely upon the data that the universe appears isotropic and homogeneous in all directions. What this essentially means is it is thought to have no boundaries/edges, and parallel lines can go through space indefinitely and will never cross . However, there as of yet does not exist an experiment that can conclusively prove this to be the case. But it is consistent with our current measurements.
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Why do we have so little control over our bodies?
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You evolved from creatures that developed random solutions to problems that may or may not have actually been good solutions. All that mattered for the solution to become prevalent was wether or not it made the creature more likely to reproduce. You will notice that cancer is very rare among individuals who are younger than 60. It just so happens that people are also unlikely to be able to reproduce at that age as well. Because of this, it is very difficult for the evolutionary process to pressure organisms to develop traits that benefit them after they can no longer reproduce. This is called selection shadow. Essentially, if it is not helping you reproduce, there is less pressure to adapt the trait. Cancer and most conditions which kill us are rare when we are young, therefore our susceptibility to them in our older age does not negatively impact our ability to reproduce when we still can. Evolution is more concerned with how many times you can reproduce than how long you will live. We do happen to care more about how long we can live though. We also have evolved the ability to develop genetic engineering and can maybe one day absolve ourselves of our mortality. Maybe that's kind of a freakish demonstration of extended phenotype?
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Why is restoring a painting acceptable/preferred?
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There's still some debate over what is and isn't preferred when restoring something. With some antiques people insists that the patina of dirt is important. With some art people insist that any parts replaced should be done so that they give the impression of the original while clearly being different. But in some cases people feel that it's important to be able to experience the original. The general rules are: * Make any change reversible* Don't do anything that would damage the original* Don't invent things or fill in gaps unless you are sure what was there originally Restoring a painting might involve: * Attaching the painting to a second backing to fix and rips in the canvas from and to stop new ones from appearing* Removing the existing dirt* Applying a glue to secure any loose flecks of paint, or possibly filler to larger cracks* Examining the paint flecks in detail to figure out what the original looked like* Repainting the damaged sections carefully to match the colour, shine, and brush stroke direction * Mounting the painting in a new, or vintage, or restored frame The glue and paint are always water based so they can be easily removed later if necessary. Also everything that touches the painting is selected so that it won't react with the painting
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why listening to classical music is the most beneficial compared to other genres of music
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Contrary to popular belief it doesn't make babies into geniuses, however [music in general effects brain chemistry and can be beneficial to you.]
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How can an object get partially into something and then not be able to get back out? e.g. getting stuck between railings
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shape and compression. a cone or arrow shape could compress a bit and be pushed through but it would present a hard edge and would be difficult or impossible to pull through. Think of [these things] you can push them in but you can't pull them out without manually compressing them due to their shape.
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If staring at screens for long periods of time doesn't cause nearsightedness (myopia), why has myopia increased from 10% to 41% of the US population in the last 30 years?
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It’s not staring at screens that causes it, but a lack of exposure to sunlight and of staring into the mid-distance. So if you spend a lot of your time staring at a screen but still get/look outside for an hour or two every day, your eyes get the full spectrum exposure and exercise they need. Not much different than physical fitness really.
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; Why did Blackberries stop being popular?
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Blackberry was focused on the business market. Originally it was only a business that could justify the expense of a smart phone so the apps were focused on the concerns of businesses. Apple came along and decided that hardware prices have come down enough that justified a consumer level smart phone. Apple focused on the general public and their phones were successful. Very successful. Blackberry stuck with the idea that there were going to be 2 markets, a business market and a general consumer market because business contract are very lucrative. The problem is that many business discovered that an Iphone more than met their needs and they switched. It's been very hard for Blackberry to switch gears and it's been a slow decline ever since.
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Why doesnt Harry destroy the third deathly hallow, the invisibility cloak?
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He destroyed the stone because it drove people crazy, he destroyed the wand because it was used for harming others. The invisibility cloak didn't really cause any harms, and so he didn't see any reason to destroy it. That being said, in the books he didn't destroy the elder wand, he placed it in Dumbledore's tomb, and when harry died a natural death the wands power would be broken. He also didn't really destroy the stone, he just dropped it in the woods to be lost forever, and it seems like that's what happened.
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Why drug dealers would agree to be on those VICE shows
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Journalistic integrity has existed throughout the centuries, protecting sources to get to the truth. Vice is offering anonymity to get the story. Ego is what likely keeps the dealers willing to tell their story in disguise just to be on television. I imagine it appeals to the rush of the drug dealer lifestyle some people who thrive in that community come to expect and enjoy on some level.
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Why do small flies congregate in small swarms in the same place night after night during spring/summer?
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They are banging. That is pretty much it. Flies swarm in order to mate, so you are basically running through a night club where everyone is DTF.
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Why is travel so exhausting?
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Travel in a vehicle is mentally stimulating. You are surrounded by noises and by other people. And it is slightly stressful because you have fairly little control over what is happening -- either because you're a passenger or because you're in traffic. Also, often you were in a hurry just before boarding the vehicle, so you enter stressed. And once on board, you are unable to exercise, which is a great stress reliever.Of the 4, I only really agree with the last. Planes are noisy, uncomfortable, cramped and you are stuck waaaaay to close to waaaay too many people for my comfort. Other people usually exhaust me, if I cant take a break from them once every hour or so. All of those are usually less of a problem on the other modes of transportation. But if they arent in your case, I can see how you feel.At least for air travel, the causes are well known: lowered oxygen, dehydration, vibration, and noise. Modern jets are pressurized to the equivalent of about 8000 feet, at which point you have substantially less oxygen than on land, even if you come from Denver, making you have to work harder at even just sitting and breathing. The cabin is about 2% humidity, which will dry you out if you don't hydrate, leaving you feeling exhausted . The constant vibration can be wearing. The constant noise is mentally and physically wearing. Some of these apply to some degree to other forms of transportation.
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the expression "Clocks don't really measure time, they measure themselves."
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Time exists and always has^ish and always will^mostly. It is not a construct of man but rather a universal condition. Before the clock was invented we had the sundial, which measured the movement of the sun accross the sky, not really time. When clocks were invented the attempted to keep pace with time but had to be reset every day at noon or else they would be off of local time. As clocks got better they were able to keep up with fewer errors, but we're not perfect. Now official time is kept by measuring the vibrations of a cesium atom, and a certain number of vibrations is defined as a second. So the expression is that clocks only measure different physical phenomena the we define as time, either the sun or vibrations, not time itself. A clock is only as good as its ability to keep up with time, and since most commercial clocks have errors they aren't at true time so they only measure them selves.
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What are birthmarks? What causes them?
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It depends on the type of birthmark. Something like a port wine stain: _URL_0_ is actually an overgrowth of blood vessels that grow too much, and too close to the surface of the skin where they shouldn't be. Something like a congenital nevus/giant mole: _URL_1_ is an overgrowth of melanocytes, which are the cells in your skin that make melanin, which is a pigment that gives your skin its darker color.They are just random spots where pigment accumulated. Despite the name, they can form as people grow up.
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How come when you involuntarily blink you never notice, but when you realize and start blinking intentionally it's all you notice
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Well because you're thinking about it. Same thing with the nose, it's always there but your brain ignores it. Once you realize this then it is noticeable.
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Is it normal for a person to regularly fantasize about killing people? What causes it?
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I'm not sure "fantasise" is the right word here, but many people randomly daydream about doing bad things and about bad things happening so that your mind subconciously checks that it is bad and should be avoided. There was a recent ELI5 about it which I will link if I find. If you do mean "fantasise" as in killing people is something you seriously desire, then you might have a problem. I'm not an expert, but there's a line somewhere between "it would be funny if threw that guy out the window in my head" and "I truly want to kill everyone around me with a serrated knife and bathe in their blood". If your thoughts are genuinely aggressive, then it might not be normal.
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Why are people saying that the Ebola Virus is not as transmittable as suggested?
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~~A lot of diseases can survive in the air or on surfaces for long periods of time.~~ ~~Ebola can't. Unless you directly get some of an infected person's bodily fluids inside you, you're extremely unlikely to contract it.~~ ~~So while Ebola is super deadly, it's not really all that contagious, when compared to most other viruses we worry about.~~ It would appear I'm wrong about this ; Ebola actually *can* survive on surfaces. Upon further reading though, I still think zombieJesus may have slightly overstated his case. Yes, it's true that Ebola doesn't insta-die when you take it outside of the body , but it *is* meaningfully less virulent than the sort of virus we'd be really worried about spreading like crazy through a sanitary first world country. Bottom line: don't worry too much. But also don't spread misinformation like I accidentally did earlier.
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What would happen to an object travelling at a great speed(ie: Hyperloop) in a vacuum if it were to suddenly enter the atmosphere?
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You don't really need to wonder . This is basically what happens to meteors and re-entering spacecraft. Massive heat and the violent destruction of the object .Well you are luck, there are plenty of videos of very fast moving objects colliding with the earths atmosphere. Just do a quick youtube search for meteorites or shuttle re-entry and you should see some good examplesIt would probably explode and catch fire. That’s usually what happens to meteorites. Like [this.]
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Why do americans love pickup trucks so much ?
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Part of it, is that the US doesn't pay as much for fuel as many European/Scandinavian countries. On average, we pay about half of what you do for fuel. Therefore, having a utility vehicle that gets poor gas mileage is not as big of a luxury as you might think. Trucks are useful. Many of my relatives are tradesmen and use their vehicles to haul buidling materials and tools. Many people are avid hunters too. A large truck bed is ideal for putting a deer in. Also our public transit is dismal in many parts of our country. We heavily rely on our vehicles for basic tasks and transport. _URL_0_
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Why do reflections still have 'depth' so that our eyes have to focus on objects near and far, even though the reflective surface is flat?
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Reflection is caused by light bouncing off of a surface. So you're not focusing on the surface itself, but on the things being reflected off that surface, which can be varying distances away.
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Why are some foods "acquired tastes" and how do people eventually like them?
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For one thing, both our [sense of smell] and our [taste buds change] as we age. You are basically a lot more sensitive to strong tastes when you are young. So kids have 30,000 taste buds and often hate strong flavors like garlic. By the time you're an adult you have about a third that number and flavors like garlic are not as strong. Interestingly, I remember reading an article that people build capsacin tolerance with repeated exposure. But apparently [that's wrong]. People who like hot foods just like the pain. There hasn't been a lot of research on it. They think it comes down to culture and personality. But none of that accounts for people just getting used to something nasty like [natto]. I don't know if there's an answer to that.
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Claiming tips from deliveries at work.
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You have to claim ALL income, regardless of source for tax purposes. You should try to claim as little as possible so that you are not taxed on that additional income, its technically illegal to do so, but its standard practice to claim little tips as income in many service jobs.
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Why do broken noses bleed so much?
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Our noses serve to humidify the air we breathe before it reaches our lower airways. In order to do this, structures called turbinates project from the side walls of the nasal cavity to increase the surface area for which the air will come into contact. The walls of the cavity are extremely vascular in order to transfer heat and liquid to the air to humidify it. Being that they are very vascular you can imagine that a broken nose will sever many vessels and cause a large bleed. There is another advantage to the nose being very vascular and that is medication is often delivered in the nasal cavity because it reaches the blood stream quickly. The medication crosses into the vessels in the nose and within seconds it will be in the systemic circulation.
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Why is abortion so heavily regulated by the government?
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Many people believe that abortion is morally equivalent to murder, or at least a form of murder. As a result, they advocate policies that they believe will reduce the number of these acts or punish the people who conduct them. The reason it seems like there is so much government involvement is because a large number of people disagree with that sentiment. This isn't the case with things like, say, murder or even the use of hard drugs. As a result there are far more areas where the groups come into conflict when it comes to policy, so you see it more.A lot of people believe that abortion is murder, and that when a baby is aborted, you are murdering that baby. Given this, it is no surprise that they want to use the law to eliminate abortions. The sad thing is that many of the same people who believe abortion is murder, are also against sex-ed and easy access to birth control, two things that have been shown to dramatically decrease unwanted pregnancies.
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How do they accurately measure the movement of a mountain? Everest moved 3cm. after the earthquake. Relative to what?
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With topographical maps, GPS positioning, and satellite imagery; you can easily compare and contrast what the data says today with what it said with previous bits of data years ago.Primarily through sattelites and distancing. Remember Geometry in school? We start there. You have three sattelites. They always attempt to maintain an equal distance from each other. This can be done through radio contact and very, VERY perecise synchronized clocks along with basic laser distancing. Your eyes determine depth like this: You have two eyes. When you focus on a near object, your eyes point more inwards. When you focus on an object father away, your eyes don't point so far inwards. Taking two lasers on a sattelite can do that, easily. This probably isn't how, but it sets up for how they measure distance. Now, you have two sattelites in orbit. They are an equal distance from each other, focusing on one point. Then the point moves. Sattelites adjust themselves- they have not moved, and are therefore a steady point of reference- especially if geosynchronus. Geosynchronus orbits are basically slapping a giant target on the ground and parking a sattelite over it. The sattelite moves as fast* as the earth turns, meaning that it always has a view of the point you are tracking. So you have two sattelites, which can check their own altitude and location, and the altitude and location of objects on the ground. After that, it becomes a geometry problem. A giant triangle. In some cases , a pyramid. The end result is that an angular change can be recorded, and then math can be used to identify the change in distance. And yes- they are frightningly accurate. ELI5 version: Sattelites are really big eyes in the sky that can use math to tell when, where, and how fast something moves. *Fast meaning at a sufficient velocity to always remain in the same point relative to the Earth.
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Lets say the President tries to push his big red button, what happens next?
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If anything in your question happened, it would create a constitutional crisis, so there's now way to predict how it would shake out, but here's what we do know. The president is the only person authorized to use nuclear weapons, and do so any any time for any reason, but this order must be seconded by the Secretary of Defense . The SECDEF could refuse to sign off, but the president could then fire him or her on the spot and direct the deputy SECDEF, who would then be the acting SECDEF, to sign off. If the deputy SECDEF refused, the President could theoretically fire him or her as well, and continue on down the line until he found someone willing to sign off. Assuming the SECDEF signs off, the order then gets passed on by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the missile silos, submarines, and airbases. Now anyone in this chain could refuse to carry out this order, but they can all be immediately replaced with someone who will. Refusing to carry out lawful orders is a huge crime, but whether those orders are lawful or not would have to be decided later. If there's a mass refusal to carry out orders, there's no telling if anyone would face charges or not. So what happens if there's a mass refusal to carry out orders? Again, this would be a constitutional crisis of unprecedented scale, so it's hard to say. All bets are probably off, but the most likely scenario is that the Vice President and the cabinet would avail themselves of section 4 of the 25th amendment which allows the VP and the majority of the cabinet to declare the president unfit for office and remove him from power temporarily, thus making the Vice President acting president.
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Both entropy and inertia (in physics).
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Entropy: Your mom tells you to clean your room every day. She had to go on a business trip so you stopped cleaning your room this week. It starts getting messy and messier and finally looks like a storm blew through it. You stopped putting energy into cleaning your room so it became a mess. Entropy states that without putting energy into existence, existence has a tendency to move toward being less ordered, the same as it takes energy from you to keep your work clean. Inertia: If you have a big rock, it takes a lot of work to push it. If it's rolling down a hill, it takes a lot of energy to stop it. Inertia means that something that's moving wants to keep moving, something that's at a stand-still wants to stay still.
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Why is the task of investigating fraud/counterfeiting given to the Secret Service?
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Because that was mainly why the were created in the beginning, see the [history of the Secret Service] > 1865 - The Secret Service Division was created on July 5, 1865 in Washington, D.C., to suppress counterfeit currency. Chief William P. Wood was sworn in by Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch. > 1867 - Secret Service responsibilities were broadened to include "detecting persons perpetrating frauds against the government." This appropriation resulted in investigations into the Ku Klux Klan, non-conforming distillers, smugglers, mail robbers, land frauds, and a number of other infractions against the federal laws.That's what they were created for. They were given the task of protecting important governmental people later. Why did they get that task? At the time, the only other government police organizations were the park police, postal inspectors, and US Marshals; none of those organizations had members to spare for protection duties, while the Secret Service did.
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why are people always under an illusion that they are wasting their life ?
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Humanity's ability to get itself to a position where all it's physical needs are satisfied and still want more is, imo, what made us the dominant species of the planet. That dissatisfaction keeps us reaching. It's sitting in a dry cave with a bellyful of meat and saying "okay but now what"I just feel like I could be doing so much more to further my knowledge and have a good career. I could live more comfortably and be a somebody. And then there is Reddit
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How does an X-Ray machine work?
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It works like a camera. An X-ray "light" shines on the object and onto a digital sensor that reacts to X-rays just like a digital camera reacts to light. X-rays go through most things so you put the object between the X-Ray source and the sensorOne part of the machine super heats a metal filament, causing its electrons to break free and going running towards another part of the machine that is usually made of tungsten. Tungsten is special since it holds onto its own electrons like dandelions hold onto their seeds. When those crazed electrons hit the tungsten, the tungsten electrons start jumping around in their orbits cause photons to be released. Those photons are the x-rays. Then when those x-rays come at you, whichever ones make it through your body make it to the film, and the film only gets dark where the x-rays have touch it.X-rays excite certain rare earth elements causing both fluorescence and phosphorescence depending in the element. One example is Gadolinium which when struck by x-ray emits orthochromatic green light. The effect of using screens made of these elements was to multiply the exposure effect to the film with lesser amounts of radiation, by conversion of more x-ray to light. In modern Computed Radiography, plates used for portables still use phosphors which hold a latent image until stimulated by a laser in a reader. In the case of direct radiography, it's usually a TFT used as a direct capture receptor. Regarding the image, the dark areas of a radiograph indicate the less dense areas or places there was great penetration of photons, air filled lungs are a good example of this effect. Conversely, a bone will attenuate more photons and less will reach the receptor, hence the white appearance, this is called subject contrast.
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Why is it when you see pictures of fashion models on the runway, they're wearing something nobody in there right mind would wear?
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Think of it more as a walking art installation. Instead of a crazy ass sculpture or a painting, it's a person walking around all decorated and shit.
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Why can little kids squat on their haunches, but most adults cant?
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Practice. Adults who regularly do it can still do it well into their older years. In fact, squatting on the haunches is a pretty common sitting style around the world. Wear and tear does eventually take its toll, but for most people it's atrophy and loss of flexibility due to inactivity that's playing the larger role.
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When boiling a pot of water for cooking, why should you start with cold water instead of hot?
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Cold water is less likely to contain lead from pipes and legionella bacteria from your hot water heater. Hot water boils faster, though
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why does guacamole last longer when you keep the avocado seed in the guacamole?
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I've never heard of that, but it sounds like a folk tale, and not fact. Do you have some link which indicates that this is true, and not just something you've heard before? _URL_0_ > So how does leaving the pits in the bowl mitigate this process? It is not because the pits exude an ineffable, protective aura that reminds the guacamole where it came from, or because they emit chemicals that counteract the oxidation process. As anyone who’s tried the method can attest, the pits are really effective at preventing browning only on the part of the guacamole’s surface they touch. > The pit protects the guac simply because it shields a portion of the dip’s surface from exposure to air. You'd be just as well off plopping a few hardboiled eggs or some golf balls or an iPhone into your guacamole. > Recommending that someone leave the pits in a bowl of guacamole to prevent browning is a bit like recommending that people cover their heads tightly with their hands to prevent their hair from getting wet in a rainstorm. It would help, but not as much as an umbrella. For guacamole, the best umbrella seems to be plastic wrap tamped down snugly to the surface of the dip, to limit as much oxygen exposure as possible. > If you prefer to attack the enzyme instead of the air, adding lemon or lime juice – ingredients many guacamole recipes already call for – also will delay browning. The citrus fruits’ relatively high acidity, along with their natural antioxidants and high vitamin C content, helps handicap PPO-driven oxidation. > Better yet, use lemon juice, avocado pits and plastic wrap. Or just eat it really quickly.
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How can we still see thumbnails for images that are no longer available?
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Say you want to view 1 reddit page with 10 thumbnails from imgur on it. To create the thumbnails, you need to load the images from imgur first, then resize/crop accordingly. Reddit can go to imgur every time someone accesses that 1 page. Wait for the 10 imgur links to load, do the cropping process and then show them to you. But that takes a lot of time and mostly depends on imgur and not reddit. Instead, when someone posts the links, Reddit generates its own set of 10 images *once* and then shows you those every time. If the imgur links are deleted, the reddit thumbnails still remain.I assume you are talking about on reddit? That would be because when you visit the page the system isn't generating the thumbnail all over again, it simply retrieves a cached copy.
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Why do things take "4-6 weeks" to ship?
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This is not always the case, but especially with infomercial trinkets, it's not uncommon for the products you're buying not to even be manufactured yet. By allowing long lead times, the seller can gauge response and manufacture just enough to meet demand.There are a couple reasons for the lead times being so long: 1) Like mentioned, the product may not be manufactured yet2) To give themselves ample time to ship the product out and not feel rushed3) Customer service - If you order a product and it says 4-6 weeks and it gets there in two, the perception of the customer will be "wow, that got here early!"The better question is why does it take 8-10 weeks to get a rebate back?This happens where I work. Essentially we wait until we have all the orders in for that sale and then buy the items and then ship to the customer. Although this only works because we work around "flash sales" which last a week at the most each timeWhat about magazines? Why does it take at least two months for them to get started after signing up?Also the product might not be shipped from within the USA. It might be coming from East Asia which obviously takes longer', "By law, they have to give a time in which the item will be delivered. If the item is not delivered in that amount of time, then the company has to give the customer a chance to rescind his order. Most companies put 4-6 weeks, even if they know it won't take that long, just in case there is a back order or something.
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how are people able to track hackers ie: where they are, who they are, etc
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This is part of digital forensics and is kind of like asking 'how do you know that this person murdered this other person without actually witnessing it?'. You can narrow hacking down to 1) Physical access - someone having access to the machine in order to clone the data to another device or crack it at the location 2) Remote access - someone able to crack into a device via logging in from another location. The password can be cracked by acting as a man-in-the-middle or hash-cracking, exploits, 0-days 3) Exploiting bad code - bad sanitization The way to track these people is by taking advantage of how they use the exploits and either de-anonymizing them via some method or traditional methods . If it is just one person this could be pretty hard to do, especially if there is no real motive except curiosity or mischief. If it is something bigger, the more people are involved, then the greater the chance you find someone who made a mistake, and the greater chance you catch someone who will talk .
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Why can programs on my computer be completely unresponsive but pressing control+alt+delete is always instant?
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This is because the program is stuck in some sort of loop, so sending commands to the program does not work. Ctrl+alt+del sends an interrupt, which means that it tells windows to drop everything it's doing. Next windows will show the ctrl alt del menu. This will not stop the program from being in the loop but it stops the computer from executing the program. Next you can just kill the task, which means that windows stops whatever the program was doing and closes the program. Downside is that you won't be able to save whatever was happening at that point .
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How did recording on wax cylinders in the early Phonograph days work?
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Recording on wax cylinders required a two needle machine, not the single needle player that most people had at home. The recording mechanism had a clockwork system to move the stylus along the cylinder in a long spiral. This could be played or used to make a master. To make a master, gold vapor was plated into the groves to make a reverse master. The brown wax cylinders people played were molded from this master.
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How come you can "feel" when someone is watching you?
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You can't actually tell other than by looking at where other people are looking. Humans are social animals and we look around quite a bit to check where others are looking without really noticing. Only when we detect someone looking our way do we take note, sometimes thinking we somehow knew we were being observed. But when tested under controlled conditions that simply isn't true.
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What makes great paintings great?
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To me, a great work of art is more than just something I perceive with my eyes. It is often thought provoking, and has the personality and psychology of the artist captured within it. These popular paintings are "simply" milestones for their eras. Such as Ansel Adams and the f/64 group or Diane Airbus with their work in photojournalism. You mentioned impressionism, looking at artists like Manet/Monet you can see the slow shift from realism in painting to impressionism . If you ever have the chance to see impressionist paintings in person I suggest you go. The paintings of Monet are actually sculpture-like because the paint is so thick on the canvas. The art leaves an "impression" on the viewer.
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What determines how much spicy food someone can handle? Is it genetic?
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You can build up a tolerance. Also helps if you were raised on it. I imagine genetics plays a part, too. Plants evolved capsaicin because they needed their seeds spread far. Small mammals, lime mice, can't stand the spice and avoid it. However, birds don't feel the capsaicin and can eat and spread the seeds far away. Then humans came along and we loved it. We took it and cultivated it all over the world. I'd say both we and the peppers win.
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If there was a pill that contained all the nutrients, vitamins, energy etc., would you still need to eat?
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Yes. Because the calories you would need cannot be consumed in something as small as a pill.
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Do heat-seeking missiles ever accidentally lock onto the sun?
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Usually, a heat-seeking missile has been programmed to change its trajectory based on various things, and so it can usually tell if it's detecting the sun or if it's detecting its actual intended target. Compared to a person or a vehicle, the sun outputs a very obvious signal in infrared, since it's pretty much always going to be the same level of infrared light and in the same shape, provided it isn't getting partially obscured by things. If a missile simply ignores the brightest source of infrared light if it appears to be the size and intensity of the sun, it wouldn't be tricked by the sun. Of course, it isn't always going to be perfect, and there are conditions where the missile will mistake various things for its target - clouds, heat from sandy ground, and so on. Better and better technology and imaging techniques helps to mitigate this. The most sophisticated heat-seeking missiles basically make an infrared image of the surroundings and analyze it. Of course, even that isn't going to be perfect, yet. That's why we use "identify the pictures that have signs in them!" as ways to prove you're not a robot - computers are pretty bad at correctly interpreting visual data.Yes, this is actually a known problem with primitive heat-seeking missiles, and pilots would occasionally try to get between the missile and the sun in order to transfer the missile's focus onto the sun. Modern missiles are specifically programmed to avoid this.
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What is the technology behind 3d printers?
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Yes, it works layer by layer. The printer consists of a printing head that can squirt molten plastic and can move freely through the printer. The software turns a 3D model into tiny little horizontal slices, and the printer then squirts the plastic into that shape, layer by layer. Each layer is built upon the one below it. [Perhaps a video will illustrate it the best?] The model in the video is split into .1 mm layers and therefore is very detailed.
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What happens if you don't agree to the new data policies the social networks keep telling you about in Europe?
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If you don't agree, then according to their terms of service, you won't be allowed to continue using the service. But that clause is probably not enforceable in most jurisdictions. However, after May 25th at the latest, social media websites with a presence inside the EU will, *by law*, be required to collect and process data according to the new rules. That will be required of them whether you consent or not. It's only the fact that this in some cases will mean changes to the site's policies and terms that mean they will want you to agree to them. How individual sites deal with that is up to them. It might be possible that, for example, after 25th May, one of these sites might simply block you by putting up a pop-up that won't go away again until you press the "I agree" button. The idea is that the new regulations give you more control over how the information you supply about yourself is used, more transparency, and more rights to privacy. In theory, it should be easier for you to stop other people doxxing you, for example. Whether it will make any meaningful difference in actual fact remains to be seen.
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