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Why is the Earth's moon named The Moon while other planets' moons have actual names? | Because it was named centuries before we knew that the planets had moons. To discover the moons round other planets we needed to invent the telescope and then realised that there were a lot of moons out there so they needed names to identify themIt does have a name: the Moon. Other moons are called "moons" by analogy w... |
What exactly is our problem with immigration? | Immigration is a fantastic concept that allows many people from different countries to give themselves or their children an opportunity at a better life. Illegal immigration is a problem because unregistered people use a countries healthcare, school system, and public facilities. This weighs heavily on the countries ta... |
Why do humans respond faster to auditory stimuli than to do to visual stimuli? | Research is still a bit fuzzy, but the hypothesis involves 2 parts. A. your ears utilize reflexes, which are faster than responses . Essentially, there is less processing that is needed for an auditory stimulus than a visual stimulus. B. The nerve that transmits auditory information is shorter than the nerve that trans... |
How does hydroplaning happen? Is there any "safe" speed? | When there is water on the road your tyre has to shove it out of the way if it's to stay in contact with the road. The tyre has grooves in it to make this easier, but there's a limit to how fast they can move water. Exceed this and the water builds up like a wedge under the tyre, lifting it off the road. You are now no... |
Why does the handle in a clay cup not heat up when there is hot liquid inside, but does when you place a cover over it? | Because heat rises. The handle is not only off to the side, but ceramic is very good at insulating heat, the handle has a huge surface area that touches the air to keep the handle cooler than the cup as a whole. |
the materialist conception of history | The materialist conception of history is the idea that history is driven primarily by *wealth*. That is, you can explain most major events in history by noting that people acted to gain more wealth or keep the wealth they had. This view was popularized by Marx, because he thought that communist ideology was a natural r... |
How desiccant packets work and why don't they expand or something? Or do they? | Desiccant packets are used to maintain a dry environment, or for preservation. Basically, the silica gel has millions of little "pores" around it, like a golf ball. Water molecules adhere to these pores really well, and fill that porous space. This traps the water, without increasing the overall volume of the silica ge... |
Where Did the Money From the Stock Market Crash Go? | Imagine that everyone in your neighborhood has been buying Special Bags of Gold for many years as an investment. Everyone has put a fair amount of money into buying these Special Bags of Gold and they have all been told that their value has increased over the years. Typically, 1/2 of everyone's net worth is stored in t... |
why do my previously broken body parts hurt when it rains. | no one knows for sure. but some theories.._URL_0_I have also always heard my parents and complain about old broken bones etc getting incredibly painful when it is cold. And even though I am not "old" by any social term, I have started getting pains in fractured bones etc when it is bitterly cold. But I am talking minus... |
With possible bipartisan interest in tax reform, what would most people agree is "broken" about the US tax system? | The high complexity of the code means that most people lack the time or resources to correctly file and receive the correct amount of return or pay the correct amount of tax. There are services like H & R Block or Quicken that are affordable, but it says something about the system that you need a specialized computer p... |
Why do some restaurants/stores accept MasterCard/discover and others don't? | The usual reason is that they don't like the fees associated with one card or another. Depending on their payment processor and the current fees associated with the four major credit card issuers, the cost for accepting a Discover card may be much higher than the cost of accepting an American Express, and the store may... |
How did credit cards start? | It started in 1950 with the diners club. Basically the head of the diners club would give out cardboard cards and pay for people's meals on the hope that they would pay him back at the end of the month.To get really basic with this, it started when loans were invented. Credit cards are just automated loan services. You... |
what is procedural law, and what is substantive law? | Procedural law is the laws and rules that determine how a court case is handled. It says how long each party has to respond to the other party, what is allowed as evidence, etc. Substantive law is what most people generally think of as "law." It tells you what actions a person must do in order to be liable, and what th... |
How you make broadband faster. | Broadband is like a chain, its as strong as your weakest link. Therefore you need to trace everything back from your devices back to the ISP |
Why do digital downloads of games cost the same amount as a hard copy? | Because if they were cheaper, people would have much less reason to buy a hard copy. There'd be no real reason to pay people to manufacture them, ship them, or sell them. The people who own those businesses want to stay in business, so video game developers are careful not to screw them over. |
When did blue became the standard color for ball pens? | It really isn't the standard, but there's many reasons why it could be preferred by companies that manufacture pens. Here are some explanations. For one, blue ink is distinguishable. If you're printing out a paper in greyscale, blue ink will stick out on the paper. This is especially important for official documentatio... |
When something stressful happens, people are initially calm. Once the situation is passed, then stress sets in | Stress actually focuses you initially. Afterwards adrenaline is still in your body, which triggers other physiological reactions we normally associate with panic. Some people just react differently to the situation mentallyAs a survival mechanism, people are surprisingly good at staying focused during a serious emergen... |
How does rubbing batteries together restore their charge? | It doesn't. What does happen, is that since you're holding the batteries, you're warming them up due to the warmth of your hands. Chemical reactions happen faster at higher temperatures, and as such, warming the battery produces a slight boost.You are probably just heating the batteries up. Heating them up causing the ... |
Why do vehicle speedometers go so high? | It provides the illusion of performance. Having a speedometer that goes high implies that the car *must* have stronger engines. Also, in other countries, like Germany, cars that travel on the unrestricted autobahn can reached higher speeds. It's also cheaper for one car company to use the same speedometer across all th... |
Why don't engines create max hp at max rpm? | Horsepower is a measure of work which is force over time. Assuming that each cylinder produces the same amount of force every 4 stroke cycle, the more cycles you can pack into a given amount of time, the more work. So your gut feel is mostly correct. Because the rpm keeps increasing, but the cylinders are still produci... |
Why, when looking at a computer screen from a lower angle, do the colors invert to a weird blue and black? | A computer screen is made up of pixels. There is no single LED/crystal/light source that can display all the colors you want represented as a single piece. Instead, there are multiple sub-pixels in each pixel. The most common is to have one Red, one Green, and one Blue . They adjust the relative brightness of each sub-... |
- why auto manufacturers don't install solar panels in the roofs of their electric/hybrid vehicles | Solar panels covering the roof of a car would produce a minuscule amount of energy. It's not worth it. |
How do shows such as moonshiners get away with all of their illegal actions if the identities and methods are portrayed up front on television? | Hate to ruin the magic but its fake. Also the methods are never really shown, generally key details are always left out. |
Why is a Pint of Guinness so much better in Ireland/NYC/London etc. than my suburban bar? | I haven't been able to verify it myself to take this with a grain of salt. Guinness in Ireland or other more populated areas will be fresher and will end up tasting better. A pint of Guinness at your local suburban bar will be shot out of a keg and through lines that have had older staler Guinness in it for much longer... |
How do our eyes know when something is just about to hit them? Like when a bug hits my closed eyelid when just a second ago it was open. | Eyes are great at detecting motion and changes, and the nervous system is much faster than conscious thought. You reflexively blink before you're aware |
Is posture and muscle balance more important than the type of mattress you're sleeping on to relieve back pain? | I have no medical education, but speaking from experience as someone with 3 herniated discs, I can say the mattress makes a huge difference.I was studying abroad when I had my first crisis because of an herniated disc and the mattress provided by the university was complete shit. As soon as I got home my pain reduced a... |
Is there some cultural significance to a male Asian child always having his junk out in public? | In rural China kids wear [crotchless pants] for ease of peeing or pooping. In Chinese cities this is seen as a very trashy thing to do now, since more sophisticated parents buy diapers and peeing or pooping everywhere is not acceptable . There are countless numbers of internet forum posts talking about how trashy and e... |
How does soap kill bacteria? | bacteria have a lipid encasing that soap will adhere to, soap has two ends, one that likes water and one that likes fats. lipids are a fat. one end hooks onto the lipid coating, the other end hooks into the water. this allows the bacteria to be washed away. |
Why do modern lightbulbs seem to only last for eight or so years but the first lightbulb ever made still runs today? | It's not the first bulb ever made that still runs today. Early light bulbs used to last only a few hours before burning out. A specific light bulb, with low energy consumption and a thick carbon-based filament still runs after over a hundred years of continuous use, but we don't want dim light for a long time, we want ... |
Would it be possible for animals to have sex and babies with another subspecies? (like chimpanzees having sex with orangutans) | This doesn't work in most cases.One case where it works is for example horse and dunkey, their children can be two different subspecies, depending on which of those two is the male and the female. The problem here is, that this animals can't recreate further.It depends on a lot of factors. Firstly, orangutans and chimp... |
What does it mean to unlock your phone to another service provider? And why, depending on the brand, does it cost so much and take so long? | Most phones are *capable* of talking to other carriers that use the same networking technology. For example, in the USA, AT & T T-Mobile and I think a couple others all use the same GSM system. However, if you buy a phone through one of those carriers, they put a piece of software in place that checks who you're trying... |
what is social engineering? | Social Engineering is using specific triggers and actions to provoke an action in a person or group of people. Reverse Psychology on children is a simple example, but it gets pretty deep down the line. Things like mob mentality, mass hysteria, and moral panic can all fall under the heading when provoked intentionallyIt... |
Why do guys get hard in the morning? (NSFW) | During REM sleep, the deepest part of the sleep cycle, during which dreams occur, a lot of the body's functions effectively run on autopilot. One hypothesized consequence of this is that the chemical signals made by the body to prevent erections are not made during REM sleep. As a result, men will get erections during ... |
why diffrent alcohols effect me. | Because they're different alcohols made of different things. > One reason for the different effects of vodka and bourbon, Rohsenow says, could be that bourbon contains 37 times more toxic compounds than vodka does, including nasty organic molecules such as acetone, acetaldehyde, tannins and furfural. A good rule of thu... |
How does 'zipping' a file make it smaller? Why does it need to be unzipped? What is actually happening? | File compression usually looks for patterns within the file on your disk and replaces them with something smaller. Let's compress ``banana``. We'll replace the pattern ``na`` with the character ``%`` Which reduces the word down to ``ba%%`` Then we build a table of things that were replaced so we know ``%==na`` Decompre... |
Why do I always need to go to the toilet at the same times every single day? How is there no variation? | You must have a fairly regular diet and fiber intake. Most people would kill for that kind of regularityA word of advice for those suffering irregularity problems. Morning coffee. |
How does a computer antivirus work? Hoes does it find, erase and prevent viruses from computers? | They have a library of known viruses and what they look like. So when they scan, they are looking for those signatures in the types of files each virus targets. If it finds one, it usually gives options to the user depending on the type of virus with the most typical option being to simply delete the infected files. Mo... |
Why do people seem more saddened by the abuse & death of animals than the death or abuse of other human beings? | generally speaking animals are viewed as innocent almost child like. humans on the other hand are viewed based off what they do and how they act. depending on how cynical of a person you are you will view people as less than innocent. |
The California Energy Crisis of 2000 and the Enron Scandal | As for the energy crisis, basically Enron would cut off the power supply so that the cost of electricity would skyrocket, and then turn it back on in order to make more money. Enron in general, that was mostly down to a type of accounting they used that let them declare potential earnings, so that it always looked like... |
Why does McDonald's only sell the McRib for part of the year? | To give a bit of evidence for what everybody else is already saying: > Aside from weak sales, other theories for the limited availability of the McRib include the higher prices and unreliable supply of pork, the limited-time allure making it a better loss leader for McDonald's, and the scarcity adding to the hype of th... |
Why doesn't North and South Dakota concatenate to just form a single Dakota state? | Because they'll go from 4 senators to 2, that's a reduction of political power. And then you'd have to harmonize the taxes, and that's going to be annoying. |
No, we aren't actually 5. | Keep your answers simple! We're shooting for elementary-school age answers. But -- please, no arguments about what an "actual five year old" would know or ask! We're all about simple answers to complicated questions. Use your best judgment and stay within the spirit of the subreddit. - as per the Subreddit's guidelines... |
Couldn't one just buy hundreds of wine bottles as a long term investment? | Because only some wines are likely to bring any *real* profit; and in most cases buying more than a few is going to be insanely expensive for a 10+ year investment. Don't get me wrong, there is an entire industry concerned with fine wine investment, this is a real thing. But since you have to keep the product in top qu... |
why do clouds look like they have flat bottoms and fluffy tops, why not fluffy bottoms too? | Environmental science major here!! I paid $600 to learn about this for a semester so listen up. First off, think about what a cloud is: It's water particles suspended in the atmosphere correct. How does that water get there? The water cycle. A continuous cycle of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation, more or le... |
Why does running water increase the sensation of having to urinate? | When you urinate, you produce the sound of running water. The sound and the sensation of urinating then become linked, much as Pavlov's dogs linked the sound of a bell with food. The dogs involuntarily salivated when hearing the bell, you feel like you're going to pee your pants when you hear running water. |
The difference between "internal" resolution and "monitor" resolution in video games | Slycone is speaking out of his or her ass. Resolution is the dimensions of the number pixels you're talking about . Framerate is framerate Basically, the game is being rendered at 1024x720. It is then "upscaled" to the chosen resolution, which means something has to basically make up stuff to go in the gaps between the... |
What causes that unique smell of snow? | Cold air dampens your sense of smell because it numbs the scent receptors in your nose. Also, similar to rainfall the water has been cycled from source to cloud to destination so it is fresh and not stagnant like a pond could be. Static water goes off due to external chemicals leeching into the water and contaminating ... |
Why do I get goosebumps when I hear really good music? | There is a flight or fight, adrenalin release which explains that. When very high emotions are felt, dopamine and other neurochemicals can be released. This causes a thrill thru the body, occ. tingling sensation, increased heart rate, goose bumps & so forth. This is often seen with the "1812 Overture" by Tschaikovsky w... |
What is a Kernel in computing? | The [kernel] is the the core of the operating system. It's what actually handles multitasking when multiple programs are running, managing system resources and all of the low-level things going on. It's normally talked about in contrast to "user-land", where user interfaces, programs and all of that lives. |
Why can a person doing an illegal action (burglary, trespassing) sue the property or owner? | Often these cases are thrown out almost immediately. They are not thrown out, however, if there is a case of disproportionate or illegal actions taken by the homeowner . Basically, just because the robber is breaking the law, doesn't mean the homeowner is also suddenly allowed to break the law. And if the homeowner bre... |
What is the purpose of the "Insert" button on a keyboard? | Depending on the program, it lets you toggle insert mode between "insert as I type and shift characters to the right" and "insert as I type, but delete characters to the right". In simpler text widgets like in your browser here it does nothing. Standard behaviour is to shift characters to the right as you insert. It re... |
What's the difference between sweet potatoes and yams? | in North America, we call a particular variety of sweet potato, Ipomoea batata, "yams". This variety of sweet potato is very sweet even for a sweet potato and with markedly orange flesh. Most other sweet potato varieties are more white and less sweet and more starchy. It is a staple crop, after all. This also gets conf... |
Why do we have nerves in our teeth? Wouldn't a tooth ache that hinders our ability to eat end up being a disadvantage for survival? | If you have a tooth ache caused by an infection, how would you know if you didn't feel it? that infection would go untreated and become more dangerous. |
Why do people look visibly different when they wake up in the mornings? | It has a lot to do with the horizontal vs vertical body position. The body has a high water content and throughout the day gravity plays it's part moving fluids around the body, and even compressing the spine so that we are very slightly shorter at night than we were in the mornings. Laying in a horizontal position whi... |
How do civil engineers ensure the on-ramps and overpasses supported by manmade dirt slopes never collapse? | A pile of granular materials has a property known as "angle of repose" which is the angle the side slopes of a pile of that material spills to when left alone. Embankment sideslopes are designed at an angle less than this angle of repose to keep the sideslopes stable. Secondly, the material is compressed, this tends to... |
Why do TV shows use fake bills with small amounts of money? | On the Breaking Bad Insider Podcast they talk about how showing real money on TV is illegal. The reasons for this are complicated and strange but basically they'd be showing real serial numbers which can be used by counterfeiters.If they have to destroy it in the show that is illegal to do to actual legitimate currency... |
Why should I give money to PBS when they have ads for Ralph Lauren, Goldman Sachs, Viking Cruises and more? | Your local affiliate doesn't get funding from those entities, the production companies do. Your local affiliates need to pay bills and pay fees and are non-profits.If their only funding comes from corporations this will likely be reflected in their programming. They need the widest base of support in order to justify p... |
Why do we get lightheaded when standing up quickly after sitting/laying down? | It's called orthostatic hypotension. When you are sitting your blood vessels contract or bend depending on how you're positioned, restricting the blood flow. When you stand up too quick, your blood vessels open up all the way and give the blood a lot more space to move which lowers the pressure. All of a sudden, your b... |
[NSFW] ELIama5yearoldwhofoundhisdad'shiddenpornfolder: Why does so much porn end with the man coming on the woman's face? | Explain it like you're five? You know better than to go playing around on daddy's computer, you're only allowed to use *these* games over here. Now, I'm not mad at you, but what you saw is for daddy and mommy to watch. Starting tomorrow, you're not allowed to use the computer until we can get you your own. Now go watch... |
Why is it that when in warm water we gain the urge to pee? | Warm water relaxes you - when this happens, the parasympathetic nervous system takes over. It basically lets your body know "Hey, you're in a safe place where you won't be attacked, this is a good time to pee" |
Why does skin peel after a sunburn? | You skin is made of several layers of cells. When the DNA in a skin cell get whacked by the sun's ray hard enough, the cell self-destructs and dies . When you get badly sunburned a whole bunch of skin cells in the layer might self-destruct.Other cells in charge of clean up for your body, see that there is a dead cell, ... |
Why is Brazil still hosting the Olympics? | They are the ones that won the bid. There is not really a system in place for the Olympic committee to withdraw who won once it has been decided, and even if there were there is not time for an alternate to prepare.It's too late to have somebody else host. Hosting takes years off planning and building new infrastructur... |
Why did brown sugar get so popular instead of recipes calling for sugar and molasses separately? | It's because brown sugar is actually an intermediate step in the refining of sugar, it's not just literally white sugar + molasses. So brown sugar was an ingredient on its own. |
Why when we want to smell something do we take multiple short sniffs instead of one giant one? Dogs seem to do it too. | First off I'm not sure on this answer but I would say its because it does you no good to take a big sniff. You end up just inhaling the air and you don'[t smell with your lungs. By taking a bunch of short sniffs you are getting particles just to your smell receptors and then rapidly bringing in more. With one sniff you... |
Why some states aren't eligible for participation in sweepstakes, promotions, etc.. | Some states have passed specific laws banning these types of promotions. There was a time when there were a lot of scammy, fraudulent "sweepstakes" that harmed a lot of people. The states took action to restrict the ability of companies or individuals to run those kinds of promotions. Since Amazon is so big, it would f... |
Why do Zambonis need to be so big? | To hold more warm water so they can clean/smooth ice more effectually. How whole internal parts works I am not 100% on. But playing hokey for 10 years you tend to notice things. I know it picks up the ice it scrubs off and melts it for more water to use. As well as it needs weight so the tires/treads can actually moveC... |
The process of an american traveling to Cuba | First you have to get a visa. There are no tourist visas right now, so you have to apply under the following categories: Family visits; Official business of the U.S. government, foreign governments, and certain intergovernmental organizations; Journalistic activity; Professional research and professional meetings; Educ... |
the difference between "Innocent" and "Not Guilty" in the legal system | "Innocent" is not typically a term used in the legal system. "Not Guilty" means there isn't compelling evidence to find a person Guilty of a crime. The law only cares if you're found Guilty. If there isn't enough evidence, it doesn't automatically assign you as "Innocent" it just means you are not yet found Guilty Inno... |
How can the "deep Web" allegedly be so much larger than the surface Web if only a minority of people use the deep Web or hidden Internet. | It's a bit of a buzzword, and sounds more mysterious than it really is. The deep web is essentially anywhere you can access with an Internet connection but is not publicly visible without an account or some form of access control. Forum that requires registration, even free, to see content? Deep web. Passworded Minecra... |
Why are all of the bees dying? | You like honey, don't you? Who doesn't like honey? Honey comes from bees. Certain types of honey bees are better at making the kind of honey that you like , so people keep breeding more of these honey bees and less of other types of honey bees. This is all well and good, because we're getting lots and lots of good hone... |
Why isn't the immune systeme able to handle cancer, although I might now what the cancer is made of and therefore what parts had to be destroyed to kill the cancer? | Immune system will react to anything that doesn't have the marker chemicals that identify it as part of the body. Unfortunately, cancer is when the cells in some organ in your body start multiplying out of control, due to a mutation. Thus the immune system isn't detecting anything because it just sees cells from an org... |
Differences between summer seasons on the North and South hemispheres | you seem to be confused - the days do not get longer at just one end of the day. both sunrise and sunset get earlier and later at roughly an equal rate. the closer you are to the poles, the more drastically they change, and the closer you are to the equator the less they change. the graphs below help demonstrate this. ... |
why you can set .gifs as background in windows 95 but not in Windows 7 | The reason behind this is called 'Active Desktop'. It's basically a function in the default internet browser called 'Internet Explorer' also made by Microsoft, just like Windows itself. It was basically a browser window without borders that would be layed over the wallpaper but under other stuff like desktop icons, so ... |
- Can someone explain the negative associations I'm seeing about the Red Cross and the recommendations for donations to be directed to other charities besides the Red Cross? | Iirc, there has been multiple scandals coming up, originating from Red Cross. Charging people money for care , and a lot of donor money missing, and not being spent on relief, as they were supposed to be. I believe during hurricane Katrina, only 4 permanent houses were built, and around 25% of the finished money was ac... |
Why do humans seek familiarity like staying in the same house or bed but get bored of performing the same task over and over? | As just stated, Safety is first, so comfort and familiar environment can last a long time until the person feels they can attain that same safety elsewhere. When it comes to tasks however, purpose and passion come in. To be useful or valuable, the brain wants to do something meaningful, creative, successful, etc., whic... |
When making security questions for password recovery, why don't they let you write your own question? Wouldn't that be significantly safer? | Not really. Imagine your average user - their password is probably "12345" or "password," and they probably have the same password everywhere. Now, imagine if that guy could write his own question. "What is 123?" Or "MY PASSWORD IS PASSWORD?" There is very little the site could do to protect people from simply giving a... |
What's the difference between ethanol that's in hand sanitizer and ethanol that's in different types of drinkable alcohol? | Chemically, ethanol is ethanol. The difference is that ethanol that's "not for human consumption" is *denatured* so that it's unpleasant or poisonous to drink. Since it can't be consumed, it doesn't have the high taxes associated with liquor .Moat hand sanitizer contains isopropyl alcohol, aka rubbing alcohol. It's tot... |
Why does holding a glass against a wall make you hear better what is being said in the other room? | It does work, often not very well. What's happening without the glass is the sound vibrations are transmitted from the air on the other side, into the solid material of the wall, into the air on the other side, and finally to your eardrum. Put a glass against the wall and stick your ear up next to it, and now the solid... |
What's the deal with these Obama Phones? | There is a program to give poor folks phones. It is meant to make sure everyone has access to services like 911. It started a long time ago before Obama and applied to regular telephones. Later it started working on cell phones. This also happened before Obama. Now people call them Obama phones because of some politica... |
how microwave presets like "popcorn" or "plate of food" know how long to cook the food? | I think it's just a set time/power setting that has been determined by hardworking people wearing lab coats and a table with many bags of burnt-up or undercooked popcorn. /dream job.My microwave supposedly has a sensor that measures the steam coming off of whatever is getting heated up and knows when to turn offThey ge... |
What relieving the US 7th Fleet commander accomplishes in light of the recent accidents. | After an incident with one ship you can blame the captain . If the captain is not implementing the proper discipline and attention to details it's his fault. After a second incident, you have to think the problem goes higher. If you just punish the junior navy officers, the higher ups will think they are untouchable. B... |
Why do we lose our sense of "play" as we age? | Just a guess, but maybe it's a learning vehicle wherein we practice life skills. Once we 've mastered them we no longer need to "play". |
What is 3D printing and how does it work? | 3d printing is a way to turn a 3d model on your computer into a 3d model made of plastic. You use your computer to either draw an object in 3d or borrow a model someone else has created. Then you use a special program to turn the model into a language your printer can understand. Once you transfer that model to your pr... |
why is the ol sailor saying "pink sky at night sailors delight, pink sky in the morning sailors warning" so accurate? | Pink or Red sky comes from sunlight going through clouds on the horizion. The saying works where weather mostly moves east to west so clouds on the horizon are likely to be over the viewer if they're to the east because they're likely to be moving west, rather than on the horizon to the west where they've either alread... |
What is the nature of the relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico? | Puerto Rico is an *unincorporated organized territory* of the US. Unincorporated means that rights granted by the US Constitution are not fully extended to citizens of Puerto Rico. |
How does slowing down time in a game work? | You can stop time in a game by simply not updating the state of the world. Objects don't move unless your code calculates their next position and updates them so if you don't do that then nothing will move or change. You can run a physics simulation at normal speed by taking the time that's passed since the last frame ... |
Most mammals with bald areas have them around the crotch and stomach. Why are we the opposite? | According to this _URL_0_ It's because when we split from primates having a bush was sexy. The bigger the better.Humans, standing upright, need protection for vulnerable areas such as the chest, stomach and genitals. In addition, the hair serves to draw attention to those areas and provide for sexual selection. Think p... |
Why does being hit in the face hurt more that being hit in the rest of your body? | One reason for it is the increased amount of nerve endings in your face. You know how you can feel it if there's a hair touching your lip, or any subtle touch for that matter? Now compare that to a body area like your back. Nerves there are less dense and more spread out, so you might not feel a touch if it is light en... |
how did Chromecast become so huge and popular? It is pretty much the go to standard I see in most apps no matter if it is android or iOS. | It costs 35 dollars and have basically zero setup or learning curve/u/Hodldown is correct; also, everyone knows who Google is. However, I know way more people who own an Apple TV than Chromecast. |
What part of the brain interprets humor? | According to a quick google, '2 cm x 2 cm was identified on the left superior frontal gyrus' . so a bit of the front left lobe of your brain :) |
What is the Swiss Bank and why is it so important? | The Swiss used to have a law that made it illegal for a Swiss Bank to disclose the name or any identifying information about the owner of an account. That meant that if you put money into an anonymous Swiss Bank account, no country's police could subpoena that bank to force them to disclose who's money that was. In oth... |
Is it technically possible for countries to 'build' a nuclear bomb, even if not given the technology by another nuclear country? | All the theory is well known, you can search it online right now. Nations are usually limited by the availability of weapons grade fissile material for the bomb itself and the elaborate detonators required, which are much harder to obtain or construct. To make the bomb useful they also need a delivery system, which req... |
Can you file a sexual harassment complaint against the “kiss cam” at sports stadiums? | No. There’s no “harassment”. They may be putting you on the spot but they can’t force you to kiss and they’ll move on if you don’t.Nothing is forced, many people kiss on the cheek on those cams, which even in today's world wouldn't get much traction as a sexual harassment case. |
the new qualifications for student loan forgiveness after 20 years. | You have to pay a percent of your paycheck to your loans for a certain number of years to be eligible for forgiveness. The time starts when you sign up for the program not when you started paying your loans personally. For all we know you could be paying off your interest only. |
Why do we celebrate the birth of Jesus on a set date every year but we celebrate his death on different days depending on full moons and the spring equinox? | We don't know what date Jesus was born on. By the time people started using Dec 25th as the date, they were using a modern-ish calendar. Jesus is recorded in the Bible as having died on the Friday near the Jewish Passover feast. The Jews at the time had their own calendar, which was based on the lunar cycle. So Passove... |
Why do console games not use 16x Anisotropic Filtering? | > When I turn it up to 16x vs 4x on my PC, there is literally no performance difference. Consoles are built on the budget hardware of the time and are expected to age for 6-8 years. "Good enough" rules console development decisions. Console players are expected to sit farther back from the screen too so narrower fields... |
How is the "1 in 35 million chance of a shark bite" statistic calculated? | It is based on beach attendance. [The university of Florida has some statistics that get you to a 1 in 11.5 million chance of being attacked by a shark]. Estimated attendance at US beaches is ~264 million. The number of shark attacks is 23. 264 million divided by 23 give you 11.5 million. That is, for every 11.5 millio... |
How is it that at night I can sleep continuously for eight hours, but if I take a daytime nap I wake after 20 minutes? | Humans have evolved to be diurnal creatures. Our sleep cycles, for the most part, are tied to the sun cycle. When the sun is up, we're up and at 'em -- hunting, foraging, farming, what-have-you. When the sun goes down, we're huddled around our fires and in our caves for warm and safety. It's a legacy of our ancestry wh... |
why, 25 years later, is there a new inquiry into the Hillsborough disaster? | Documents that were not released at the time of the original inquiry were made public, which have evidence to malpractice and cause the formation of another inquiry. |
Why does coke taste better in glass than in plastic ? | It's likely that the coke in glass is "mexican coke" or similarly foreign. Different cokes in different countries have different recipes, so its entirely possible that the coke you had in the glass bottle had real sugar cane while the coke in the plastic had fructose corn syrup', "Temperature is one of the factors that... |
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