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How do you determine the boiling point of water under certain vacuum pressures?	You use [Antoine's equation](_URL_0_) which is an empirical forumala that gives you the vapour pressure as a function of temperature. Each chemical has different A, B and C constants. You're going to have to convert your vacuum units into absolute pressure to use it however. To save you time, here's a graph of the resu...	[ "The boiling point of a liquid varies depending upon the surrounding environmental pressure. A liquid in a partial vacuum has a lower boiling point than when that liquid is at atmospheric pressure. A liquid at high pressure has a higher boiling point than when that liquid is at atmospheric pressure. For example, wa...
if we can produce phone screens that are 6" in diameter with a full hd resolution, whats stopping us from making 16k tvs?	Nothing is stopping us. Theres just no market value. Even 4k is limited by content creators actually making their products 4k in resolution, most of the market for media consumption is for 2k displays.	[ "An important consideration, however, is that this is based on the physical screen size in millimeters and is not proportional to the screen size. As such, an 18 mm tube with a resolution of around 64 lp/mm has a higher overall resolution than an 8 mm tube with 72 lp/mm resolution. Resolution is usually measured at...
what "chained cpi" is, and how it affects the social security cuts.	Standard CPI has a couple of problems in that it overestimates inflation for consumers as it doesn't account for substitution in consumer behavior. In the simplest example imagine someone is buying Lays brand chips that cost $2 a bag. Suppose that the price rises to $2.20 a bag, instead of accepting the higher price p...	[ "Application of chained CPI has been suggested as a means of reducing the US federal budget deficit by reducing the rate of growth of government benefits. The Moment of Truth Project estimates that moving to the Chained CPI would reduce the deficit by about $390 billion in the first decade alone, with roughly one t...
can insects see cells and their organelles? aren't there insects or other very, small microorganisms (think face mites or mites in general) that can see things as small as mitochondria? any organism with eyes that can detect things- what's the smallest thing they can visually perceive?	People are talking about what the smallest visible thing actually is and while I find that very interesting, I wonder if they might be overlooking something (but I could be wrong). An eye has to be fairly complex in order to perceive small, intricate things, and as far as I'm aware, the smaller a creature is, the less...	[ "Many small organisms such as rotifers, copepods and flatworms use such organs, but these are too small to produce usable images. Some larger organisms, such as scallops, also use reflector eyes. The scallop \"Pecten\" has up to 100 millimetre-scale reflector eyes fringing the edge of its shell. It detects moving o...
Solar thermal farms are 19th century technology, why isn't the US full of them?	This chart from the Energy Information Administration shows the levelized cost of energy from various renewable and non-renewable sources: _URL_0_ Essentially, solar thermal is among the costliest sources of generation, even when compared with other renewable alternatives. Still, it has had some success in California...	[ "Solar thermal power plants can generally be built in a few years because solar plants are built almost entirely with modular, readily available materials. In contrast, many types of conventional power projects, especially coal and nuclear plants, require long lead times.\n", "In the early 1970s, before the Arab ...
Did people living in the Roman Empire call it the "Roman Empire"?	It was more common to refer to people ethnically rather than in terms of a kingdom, although "Romans" often referred to themselves as Romani. So you had Etruscans, Etrurians, and so on which made up the body. All people could collectively be referred to as The Populus, however that's not really the name for the e...	[ "Though Marcellinus does not refer to the Empire as a whole after 395, only to its separate parts, he clearly identifies the term \"Roman\" as applying to the Empire as a whole. When using terms such as \"us\", \"our generals\", and \"our emperor\", Marcellinus distinguished both divisions of the Empire from outsid...
Any sources for reading about CIA, NSA, or just secret intellegence over all? Good non fiction.	Look for James Bamford's books: The Puzzle Palace: Inside the National Security Agency, America's Most Secret Intelligence Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency The Shadow Factory: The NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America I've read and enjoyed the first two, didn't read the ...	[ "Espionage and secret operations have long been a source of fiction, and the real and perceived U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is a source of many books, films and video games. Some fiction may be historically based, or will refer to less action-oriented aspects, such as intelligence analysis or counterinte...
How did the introduction of the pocket watch effect surveying?	Finding longitude and latitude were very big problems for a ship out on the ocean. It was impossible to precisely measure the distance from one day to the next with no hard and fast landmarks, and the actions of currents and imprecise speed gauges made it hard to correlate knots with actual travel. Use of navigationa...	[ "The use of pocket watches in a professional environment came to an ultimate end in approximately 1943. The Royal Navy of the British military distributed to their sailors Waltham pocket watches, which were 9 jewel movements, with black dials, and numbers coated with radium for visibility in the dark, in anticipati...
What social opportunities would be available to a free black family living in the antebellum deep south?	This is what my master's thesis was on, so buckle in, I love to talk about it. It was specifically about a wealthy Tuscaloosa, Alabama man named Solomon Perteet. He was by no means the most successful person of color in the antebellum South, but he's the one I know best. That said, let me give you a short bio of his li...	[ "There were economic and ethnic differences between free blacks of the Upper South and Deep South, with the latter fewer in number, but wealthier and typically of mixed race. Half of the black slaveholders lived in cities rather than the countryside, with most living in New Orleans and Charleston. Especially New Or...
how come even after just wearing my glasses for an hour without touching them, they’ll still get smudged?	Your eyelashes may hit the lenses, leaving behind oils. And airborne dust may also get caught in said oils, further adding to the smudges noticed.	[ "The glasses appear to be more susceptible to damage than the screwdriver; in \"The Girl Who Died\", a Viking warrior takes the glasses off the Doctor's face and easily breaks them in half. Nevertheless, the glasses continue to appear via replacement or repair until the end of the season. They return the following ...
how do dogs know to be gentle with babies?	Weve been breeding dogs for 40 thousand years to do things we want. The ones who didnt, didnt get to reproduce. Part of this was selecting for good hunting dogs, tracking dogs, guard dogs, but not murdering your children is also a trait that would be selected for.	[ "They make fairly good watch dogs. When necessary, this dog will bark to alert its family that someone is nearby. This breed is typically good with other pets, especially when socialized at an early age. This dog gets along well with children, but it may be a good idea to socialize this breed at an early age as wel...
Does listening to neuroacoustic music have any measurable effect in putting people to sleep?	The man is a quack and he has no scientific studies (besides his own) backing him up. There's no identifiable process behind the supposed 'theory', and everything I've read is nonsense. So in short, no. Nothing beyond placebo.	[ "In another study, specifically looking to help people with insomnia, similar results were seen. The participants that listened to music experienced better sleep quality than those who did not listen to music.\n", "The use of auditory stimulation has been shown to increase PGO waves during waking and sleeping cyc...
when you listen to music on high volume in a loud place, does it damage your hearing the same way as it would in a quieter place?	If you turn your music up, it will be more likely to damage your hearing. Doesn't matter how loud it is relative to your background noise. That's not considering if the background noise is loud enough to damage your hearing as well	[ "According to the Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks, the risk of hearing damage from digital audio players depends on both sound level and listening time. The listening habits of most users are unlikely to cause hearing loss, but some people are putting their hearing at risk, becaus...
what makes good sushi "good"?	the freshness of the fish and how the chef cuts it, i.e. not leaving the skin on it, thick or thin slices etc. Also with nigiri sushi (fish on rice with wasabi between) the right amount of wasabi. Some bad sushi ive had had insanely big slices, like hard to eat big, the salmon still had a little silver on the side, and...	[ "Sushi has seen rapidly rising popularity recently in the Western world. A form of fast food created in Japan (where bentō is the Japanese variety of fast food), sushi is normally cold sticky rice flavored with a sweet rice vinegar and served with some topping (often fish), or, as in the most popular kind in the We...
how did "*" become an understood symbol for correcting a spelling mistake made while typing?	"*" is usually used in text to [reference a footnote](_URL_0_). I assume it has derived from this as the corrections are usually placed under the text.	[ "Incorrect use of the \"ß\" letter is a common type of spelling error even among native German writers. The spelling reform of 1996 changed the rules concerning \"ß\" and \"ss\" (no forced replacement of \"ss\" to \"ß\" at word’s end). This required a change of habits and is often disregarded: some people even inco...
How were cartoons (political or otherwise) printed in newspapers during the age of movable type?	What /u/CptBuck said. Also, cartoons don't really appear in newspapers until the 19th century, first in the form of lithographs; Punch in Britain and La Caricature and Le Charivari in France in the 1830s. Before that they exist as stand alone sheets. What we would recognize as political cartoons, employing carica...	[ "Until the 1980s, most large newspapers were printed with turn-of-the-century \"letterpress\" technology using easily smudged oil-based ink, off-white, low-quality \"newsprint\" paper, and coarse engraving screens. While letterpresses produced legible text, the photoengraving dots that formed pictures often bled or...
what are those random sharp pains i get often on my skin almost like a big bite that catches my attention but immediately goes away?	It could be a misfire of the nerves. It could be a hair stuck and being pulled on by something. Or it could be an insect, there are many microscopic insects that live in the pores and hair follicles of your skin.	[ "Pain is very subjective and it is difficult to ascertain how much the initial piercing will hurt to a given person. Some people experience pain comparable to that of an average cartilage piercing to the helix or tragus, and others have described it as one of the most painful piercings they've ever received, either...
Is it possible to access more of your subconscious?	The subconscious is a psuedoscientific term used by New Age types... not by modern psychologists. Contemporary science doesn't really view the unconscious mind (which is the more scientific term) as some sort of powerful resource to be tapped into.	[ "Erickson maintained that it was not possible consciously to instruct the unconscious mind, and that authoritarian suggestions were likely to be met with resistance. The unconscious mind responds to openings, opportunities, metaphors, symbols, and contradictions. Effective hypnotic suggestion, then, should be \"art...
how did the fluoridization of water improve dental health in america; historically and scientifically?	They found that people who lived in areas with naturally high fluoride levels in their water supplies had far fewer cavities than those that lived in areas with lower levels of fluoride. So they started testing the compounds and determined that fluoride helps to strengthen enamel. It was a simple addition to the water ...	[ "Water fluoridation is the controlled addition of fluoride to a public water supply to reduce tooth decay. Although many dental-health organizations support such fluoridation, the practice is opposed by conspiracy theorists. Allegations may include claims that it has been a way to dispose of industrial waste, or th...
How did tall ships and the like leave port before the advent of modern engines?	Most of the time tall ships aren't docked, they're moored in a more accessible area and then when they push off, it's mostly a question of letting the wind and the tides do the work. However, if that's not good enough, there is also a particular anchor called a kedging anchor which is taken out by longboat in the dire...	[ "The steamship was preceded by smaller vessels designed for insular transportation, called steamboats. Once the technology of steam was mastered at this level, steam engines were mounted on larger, and eventually, ocean-going vessels. Becoming reliable, and propelled by screw rather than paddlewheels, the technolog...
How much of the earths surface can we see from the moon?	From the side of the moon that is facing us, one would see about half of the earth at any single point in time, or all of the earth over a period of time. From the side of the moon that is not facing us, one would see none of the earth ever. Asking "How much of the earths surface can we see from the moon?" is essenti...	[ "BULLET::::- The full moon covers only about 0.2 deg of the sky when viewed from the surface of the Earth. The Moon is only a half degree across (i.e. a circular diameter of roughly 0.5 deg), so the moon's disk covers a circular area of: × (), or 0.2 square degrees.\n", "The Sun is seen from Earth at an average ...
why do people hate tsa soo much?	The TSA is the organization that deals with security at places like airports. The typical person's interaction with a TSA member consists of the individual having to prove that he or she is not a threat. This involves waiting in long lines and going through a metal detector. In other circumstances, people may be pat...	[ "The entertainment industry has been accused of depicting those with TS as being social misfits whose only tic is coprolalia, which has furthered stigmatization and the general public's misunderstanding of persons with TS. The symptoms of Tourette syndrome are fodder for radio and television talk shows. Some talk s...
Do we lose any weight through exhalation?	You're exactly right! We actually lose most of our weight through exhalation. (Sweating is the other major mechanism, but since that's mostly water it doesn't create a net loss.) This is why weight loss is so hard; all the fat molecules that your body stores have to be oxidized and exhaled.	[ "The main reason for exhalation is to rid the body of carbon dioxide, which is the waste product of gas exchange in humans. Air is brought in the body through inhalation. During this process air is taken in through the lungs. Diffusion in the alveoli allows for the exchange of O into the pulmonary capillaries and t...
Why are cheetahs so fast?	Cheetahs have a ton of physical adaptations for speed. Just mentioning a few here – - extra flexible spine for long strides and quick turns - shoulderblade doesn't attach to clavicle for added flexibility - lighter bones - they only run on the tips of their toes, using their claws more for traction than other big cats...	[ "African cheetahs may achieve successful hunts only running up to a speed of while hunting due to their exceptional ability to accelerate; but are capable of accelerating up to on short distances of . It is therefore the fastest land animal. Because of its prowess at hunting, the cheetah was tamed as early as the 1...
What was the first event in recorded history?	There's a discussion of dated events at _URL_0_. I was taught at school that Egypt's unification around the 32nd century BCE was the first specifically recorded "event", though the precise date is unknown. I'm not sure if we've found earlier ones in the interim - shameful, I admit!	[ "The earliest recorded event in its history is the building by Ethelfleda of a fortification at Runcorn to protect the northern frontier of her kingdom of Mercia against the Vikings in 915. The fort was built on Castle Rock overlooking the River Mersey at Runcorn Gap.\n", "Three Plinian eruptions are known to hav...
factory method design pattern	Have you ever had to instantiate an object, and then do something to configure or manage it? Let's say your application has a SoundManager object, and you need it to know about every Sound object that you create. This means that you're liable to write code like this: mySound = new Sound( data ); mySoundMana...	[ "The making of industrial patterns begins with an existing block pattern that most closely resembles the designer's vision. Patterns are cut of oak tag (manila folder) paper, punched with a hole and stored by hanging with a special hook. The pattern is first checked for accuracy, then it is cut out of sample fabric...
How did Buddhist communities in East/SE Asia perceive the decline of Buddhism in India?	We actually have some decent contemporaneous accounts of Chinese pilgrims visiting India during Buddhism's stable phase and then further accounts during the terminal phase. Faxian describes his experiences in India in his text Foguoji (A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms). He departed China in 399 as part of a pilgrima...	[ "The decline of Buddhism has been attributed to various factors, especially the regionalisation of India after the end of the Gupta Empire (320–650 CE), which led to the loss of patronage and donations as Indian dynasties turned to the services of Hindu Brahmins. Another factor was invasions of north India by vario...
I was microwaving some water, and it exploded all over the inside of the microwave with a loud "pop". What happened?	Superheating happened. Water normally boils at 100^o C or 212^o F, but that is only if there is a nucleation site for the first bubbles to form. A nucleation site can be a defect in the vessel (your mug in this case) or contaminates in the water. If you had relatively clean water, and a nice smooth mug, it's possible ...	[ "In a July 2012 post (which has since been removed), Hari quoted the ideas of Masaru Emoto that microwave ovens cause water molecules to form crystals that resemble crystals exposed to negative thoughts or beliefs, such as when the words \"Hitler\" and \"Satan\" were exposed to the water. Steven Novella calls Emoto...
how does the united states federal government prevent a president from assuming total control and creating a dictatorship - like the actual people, laws or processes, etc that stop a rouge president from becoming a thing?	Mostly the fact that people would not recognize his authority. If the president ordered airstrikes or army occupation of a US city without cause, the military leadership would inform the president that is an illegal order and ignore it and likely inform congress of the president's attempt to murder US citizens so that...	[ "In dictatorships, the title of president is frequently taken by self-appointed or military-backed leaders. Such is the case in many states: Idi Amin in Uganda, Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, Ferdinand Marcos in Philippines and Saddam Hussein in Iraq are some examples. Other presidents in authoritarian states have wiel...
how and why does mega work differently than others file hosting services?	Mega does this because the file itself is encrypted. Files are encrypted before uploading and then decrypted on your system. What is really happening is: The encrypted file is downloaded, this takes the time. The file is decrypted, very fast. The decrypted file is saved, as you noticed rather quickly. They do this to...	[ "Open hosting servers allows people to upload files to a central server, which incurs bandwidth and hard disk space costs due to files generated with each download. Anonymous and open hosting servers make it difficult to hold hosts accountable. Taking legal action against the technologies behind unauthorized \"file...
Assuming there IS silicon based life there in the universe, what would they use as "water" or as their organic solvent?	If water is available, there's not much reason to believe they wouldn't use it - carbon and silicon have near enough identical chemistry with water. Otherwise, your options are quite limited. If it's too hot for water, you're really too hot for most simple liquids - you also don't really expect silicon at high tempera...	[ "In addition to carbon compounds, all currently known terrestrial life also requires water as a solvent. This has led to discussions about whether water is the only liquid capable of filling that role. The idea that an extraterrestrial life-form might be based on a solvent other than water has been taken seriously ...
Did modesty in clothing (particularly covering the genitalia) originate from one culture or did cultures develop this fashion concurrently?	Perhaps this is a question more suited for r/askanthropology? I'd suggest cross posting this there.	[ "Early in the culture, the loincloth was used by both sexes. The women of Crete wore the garment more as an underskirt than the men, by lengthening it. They are often illustrated in statuettes with a large dagger fixed at the belt. The provision of items intended to secure personal safety was undoubtedly one of the...
why are we not working on sending a probe towards our nearest habitable planet (gliese 581g)?	Because by the time it could get there we'd already have sent probes there using faster engines, if there's any reason to do it at all. Current technologies would take on the order of a hundred thousand years. We can probably cut that significantly just by waiting a few decades. At that time scale, it would even make...	[ "Freitas finds numerous reasons why interstellar probes may be a preferred method of communication among extraterrestrial civilizations wishing to make contact with Earth. A civilization aiming to learn more about the distribution of life within the galaxy might, he speculates, send probes to a large number of star...
Why is derivative notation d2y/dx2?	Often, dy/dx is written d/dx(y), where "d/dx" is an operator. It's an abuse of notation but well understood. If you apply an operator twice it's common to write it as "squared" - another abuse of notation. e.g A(A(t)) = A^2 (t). If you square d/dx you get d^2 /(dx) ^2. Apply that to y and drop parentheses and you ...	[ "Partial derivatives may be combined in interesting ways to create more complicated expressions of the derivative. In vector calculus, the del operator (formula_28) is used to define the concepts of gradient, divergence, and curl in terms of partial derivatives. A matrix of partial derivatives, the Jacobian matrix,...
why will youtube show people dying but freak out over nudity even non sexual nudity?	For the exact same reason a film can have dozens of deaths depicted yet remain PG but throw a couple breasts and swear words in and it's an instant R rating. American prudishness, pure and simple. All nudity is considered inherently sexual (not long ago there was a question on here freaking out about the idea of child...	[ "Experts say that sexting poses a serious problem, partly because teens do not understand that the images are permanent and can be spread quickly. \"It does not click that what they're doing is destructive, let alone illegal.\" \"Once they are out there, it spreads like a virus,\" police say.\n", "In January 2019...
What is the volume of an inch of rain?	So, first of all, a full measure of rainfall would be "X inches in the last Y hours". (Typically, the Y is standard, particularly on local news, and many times is just 24 or however many hours since the rainfall started. But a careful weather report will make sure to indicate the value of Y.) The reason you don't need ...	[ "The largest recorded raindrop was 8.8 mm in diameter, located at the base of a cumulus congestus cloud in the vicinity of Kwajalein Atoll in July 1999. A raindrop of identical size was detected over northern Brazil in September 1995.\n", "Rain is measured in units of length per unit time, typically in millimeter...
why does a rocking motion facilitate sleep?	I imagine that it has something to do with the development of an unborn child in the mother's womb. In what way is it comfortable to sleep? - in darkness, in warmth and with rocking motions, three attributes of the inside of the uterus. You spent the first nine months of your life sleeping inside of there. It's only lo...	[ "Many adults find rocking chairs soothing because of the gentle motion. Gentle rocking motion has been shown to provide faster onset of sleep than remaining stationary, mimicking the process of a parent rocking a child to sleep.\n", "Indian people believe that the rocking motion soothes and relaxes the child and ...
why is it that playing an online game uses less data in comparison to watching a video or browsing the internet?	Here's an analogy. You're driving down the road, talking to your mom on the phone, telling her everything you see. Your mom isn't familiar with the area, so you have to say a lot - what restaurants you're passing, what the streets are called, what the signs say, where the potholes are, etc. You have to say a lot. In ot...	[ "Online games are video games played over a computer network. The evolution of these games parallels the evolution of computers and computer networking, with new technologies improving the essential functionality needed for playing video games on a remote server. Many video games have an online component, allowing ...
Is it possible to cure HIV or AIDS with a full body blood transfusion?	HIV infected cells migrate to (reside in) the lymph nodes as well as in circulation. Performing a full body transfusion, which would be difficult on its own, would not remove the infected cells which are traveling in the lymph or residing in lymph nodes. What you may want to look into is the recent case involving a...	[ "Preventing the spread of these diseases by blood transfusion is addressed in several ways. In many cases, the blood is tested for the pathogen, sometimes with several different methodologies. Donors of blood are also screened for signs and symptoms of disease and for activities that might put them at risk for infe...
How did the religious class view Benjamin Franklin's scientific experimentations during his retirement?	I'd suggest that that documentary was probably lying, or at least misrepresenting things. People have offered naturalistic explanations of lightning for as long as people have been writing about lightning, and I don't think they would have created a dichotomy between "God did it" and "lightning is a result of X natura...	[ "In 1743, Franklin founded the American Philosophical Society to help scientific men discuss their discoveries and theories. He began the electrical research that, along with other scientific inquiries, would occupy him for the rest of his life, in between bouts of politics and moneymaking.\n", "He was part of a ...
Why do we build larger particle colliders with bigger diameters instead smaller diameters traveled multiple times?	To go to higher energies at a fixed bending radius, you need stronger bending magnets. The momentum per unit charge of a particle along the central orbit inside a bending element is called its magnetic rigidty: Bρ = p/q. B is the magnetic field strength of the bending magnet, ρ is the bending radius of the central o...	[ "The shape of the collider is also important. High energy physics colliders collect particles into bunches, and then collide the bunches together. However, only a very tiny fraction of particles in each bunch actually collide. In circular colliders, these bunches travel around a roughly circular shape in opposite d...
why do people tap the top of their soda cans before opening them?	If bubbles have formed on the side of the can, tapping the can may dislodge them and cause them to pop at the surface. Since the can is usually somewhat pressurized, any gas in the can will expand when you open it. If the gas expands under liquid (the bubbles stuck to the side of the can), the gas might carry the liqui...	[ "Cans are filled before the top is crimped on. The filling and sealing operations need to be extremely fast and precise. The filling head centers the can using gas pressure, purges the air, and lets the drink flow down the sides of the can. The lid is placed on the can, and then crimped in two operations. A seaming...
Why can't we make a camera that captures images that look the same as how we see them?	What you should be asking is, "why can't we make a camera that captures images exactly how we see them and reproduce them in a medium which is visually indistinguishable from the original scene?" Designing a camera that captures information identical to the photoreceptor layer of your retina is simply a matter of engi...	[ "Photographic technology employs different physical methods than the human eye in order to capture images. Thus, manufacturing optics which produce images that appear natural to human vision is problematic.\n", "Certain image capturing devices are capable of producing images through materials that are opaque to v...
I have a question about Pavlovian conditioning.	It could get generalized to either of the two responses. It is more likely that it will not bring forth any response, though that may depend on how the middle C functioned during the conditioning process. If there was no stimulous matched with it then there would be no reason for the dog to expect anything. I dont kno...	[ "Pavlov proposed that conditioning involved a connection between brain centers for conditioned and unconditioned stimuli. His physiological account of conditioning has been abandoned, but classical conditioning continues to be to study the neural structures and functions that underlie learning and memory. Forms of ...
Parsley can cause a miscarriage?	[There is some evidence that parsley might be partially effective in inducing abortion, but it doesn't appear to be very safe.](_URL_0_) That "infographic" is at least ill-advised and possibly dangerous.	[ "Miscarriage, also known as spontaneous abortion and pregnancy loss, is the natural death of an embryo or fetus before it is able to survive independently. Some use the cutoff of 20 weeks of gestation, after which fetal death is known as a stillbirth. The most common symptom of a miscarriage is vaginal bleeding wit...
why can't i just hit the "off" button on my computer rather than "shut down"	+ Pressing shut down Will terminate all system and user processes normally. Exiting processes have time to write logs and results in the primary memory. Some of it can be important, but 95% of the time you won't notice a difference, if you are a casual home user and not involved in servers or programing projects etc. ...	[ "In Apple macOS the computer can be shut down by choosing \"Shut Down…\" from the Apple Menu or by pressing the power key to bring up the power management dialog box and selecting button \"Shut down\". An administrator may also use the Unix codice_1 command as well. It can also be shut down by pressing [Alt]+[Comma...
Could a planet be 'locked' in orbit between two stars?	~~Yes but~~ no because it would be unstable meaning if there were any gravitational fluctuations at all from anything it would perturb the system pulling the planet towards one of the Stars slightly more than towards the other which would increase the Gravity from the one-star and decrease it from the other until the p...	[ "The two stars orbit each other with a period of only 2.15 days and an eccentricity of zero, indicating their orbit is close to circular. They are orbiting sufficiently close to each other that their rotation periods have most likely become tidally locked—meaning they always maintain the same face toward each other...
Why is history's calendar based off a religion that not everybody follows?	Well it has been the tradition, and from a long history of western colonial dominance it has become (generally) the worldwide norm, the same way that western dress and the English language have become dominant in governments worldwide. Some countries, (Saudi Arabia is the best example) don't use the Gregorian calendar,...	[ "[T]he Christian calendar no longer belongs exclusively to Christians. People of all faiths have taken to using it simply as a matter of convenience. There is so much interaction between people of different faiths and cultures – different civilizations, if you like – that some shared way of reckoning time is a nece...
What causes logs to turn white while burning, and why do moving black patches appear?	The ash that is produced is composed of several products. Some of of it is incompletely combusted carbon which tends to be black. Other components are due to other elements in the wood such as magnesium which forms white magnesium oxide when burned. The colour fluctuations you see while it is burning is due to black...	[ "Logs that are cut from the butt forest, brought to a mill or to a log-house construction yard, have their bark removed and are used to build a log-house shell (handcrafted log houses), or sent through profiling machines (manufactured logs) are usually referred to as \"green\" logs if they have not been air- or kil...
why right before you go to sleep do you feel heightened emotions that you normally don't feel during the day? either motivation for making a life change, fear for a test, regret for a decision etc.	Do some meditation and you'll see that this doesn't have to happen only at night. The sad fact is that people are scared to be alone with themselves and their thoughts. We find distractions to fill our minds every minute of every day. Have you ever seen the running joke on reddit that people HAVE to take something to t...	[ "Sleep plays a role in emotion regulation, although stress and worry can also interfere with sleep. Studies have shown that sleep, specifically REM sleep, down-regulates reactivity of the amygdala, a brain structure known to be involved in the processing of emotions, in response to previous emotional experiences. O...
how to christians justify strict adherence to one part of the bible (e.g. homosexuals not allowed to marry) and complete disregard for another (e.g. bible says you cannot get a divorce, etc.)?	Because people tend to not follow rules/laws they don't want to follow. Every religion has the rules that only the most devout people follow because those rules are inconvenient. And you'd have trouble finding someone who doesn't J-walk even though it's against the law, because it's an inconvenient law.	[ "Christian marriage is to be between one woman (adult female) and one man (adult male) and that God Himself joined them and that no human is to separate them, according to Christ (Matthew 19:4-6). The Holy New Testament states that an unmarried Christian woman is to celibate or is to become the Christian wife of on...
What speed and distance units were used to measure speed before cars?	Speed limits for horses were often expressed in terms of the horse's gait: walking only, no trotting or running, etc. Certainly by 1905, towns were posting speed limits for autos in mph. But miles per hour were certainly well known for trains, and speeds for ships were similarly measured in knots. It's just that ste...	[ "Speed is the change in distance to an object with respect to time. Thus the existing system for measuring distance, combined with a memory capacity to see where the target last was, is enough to measure speed. At one time the memory consisted of a user making grease pencil marks on the radar screen and then calcul...
what does a light scratch hurt more than a deep cut?	Because most of the pain receptors are found near the surface of your skin, , so a wide superficial cut will trigger a lot more pain receptors than a small but deep puncture.	[ "Low levels of damaging forces produce small bruises and generally cause the individual to feel minor pain straight away. Repeated impacts worsen bruises, increasing the harm level. Normally, light bruises heal nearly completely within two weeks, although duration is affected by variation in severity and individual...
I have an AP US History exam tomorrow, what is one bit of US History you feel is important for me to know?	Alexander Hamilton shows up all the time. On every practice exam I took, he was on it. So I'd know who he is and why he's important (and why he's the most awesome founding father ever, but that's just me.) The other guy who will show up all the time is Henry Clay. That dude lived for a long time.	[ "The AP U.S. History exam lasts 3 hours and 15 minutes and consists of two sections; additionally, each section is divided into two parts. Section I, part A includes 55 multiple choice questions with each question containing four choices. The multiple choice questions cover American History from just before Europea...
what is the difference between an emoji and an emoticon?	An emoji is a little picture, while an emoticon is a collection of letters and symbols which look like a little picture (;-)	[ "Emoticons is a Unicode block containing graphic representations of faces, which are often associated with classic emoticons. They exist largely for compatibility with Japanese telephone carriers' implementations of Shift JIS.\n", "An emoticon (, , rarely pronounced ), short for \"emotion icon\", also known simpl...
why is there always construction being done on roads that had nothing wrong with them?	Yes, that happens. But preventative maintenance is still a thing. Also, sometimes they have to work on something under the road (sewer/gas line, etc) and there's nothing to be done but to tear up the road to do it.	[ "When roads are built by engineers with capital to support their work, they are successfully able to build roads across difficult soils. Modern road builders have less need to seek out easy geological conditions. When roads were made not by civil engineers but by people walking on the ground, the road followed the ...
What is the history of coal and coal mining?	Well, I can't give an in depth review of the importance of coal, but I can say this- 1: Coal was important because it was commonly found in Europe and abroad, but where as something like oil took a fair amount of processing to take from initial substance to a workable product (mining might seem expensive, but so was ...	[ "The history of coal mining goes back thousands of years. It became important in the Industrial Revolution of the 19th and 20th centuries, when it was primarily used to power steam engines, heat buildings and generate electricity. Coal mining continues as an important economic activity today. Compared to wood fuels...
if looked at under an extremely powerful microscope, what would sub-atomic particles look like? what would the space between them look like?	Part of the problem with you question is that "looking" is something that is not independent of size. Visible light has a wavelength from 390 to 700 nm (3.9 to 4 x 10^−7 m) while atoms have a radius of 30 to 300 pm (3 to 30 x10^-11 m). So seeing is not really applicable here visible light does not work at this scale...	[ "Because of their extremely small size, the study of microscopic and subatomic particles fall in the realm of quantum mechanics. They will exhibit phenomena demonstrated in the particle in a box model, including wave–particle duality, and whether particles can be considered distinct or identical is an important que...
why jeremy johnson is being jailed for contempt of court after invoking his 5th amendment rights?	From the article: > After being sworn in and refusing to answer basic questions, the judge found Johnson in contempt. Your 5th Amendment rights don't apply to basic questioning, only to questions asked that could incriminate you while you are in custody.	[ "The Fifth Amendment protects against double jeopardy and self-incrimination and guarantees the rights to due process, grand jury screening of criminal indictments, and compensation for the seizure of private property under eminent domain. The amendment was the basis for the court's decision in \"Miranda v. Arizona...
do the wings on my paper/plastic/model airplane work like the wings on a real airplane? if not, how does it fly?	Model airplanes, yes. They use a specially shaped wing to produce lift (see: airfoil). A paper airplane, however, is acting more like a parachute, using the large surface area to slow its descent.	[ "The wing box of an airplane is the structural component from which the wings extend. It is usually limited to the section of the fuselage between the wing roots, although on some aircraft designs, such as the Boeing 787, it may be considered to extend further.\n", "\"Note on terminology:\" Most fixed-wing aircra...
How do pebbles on the beach get those tiny holes through them?	The stones aren't the same stuff through and through. Sometimes there's an inclusion or patch or bit of other mineral that's more soluble or less resilient than the surrounding mineral, leaving a gap, hole, or pit.	[ "Pebbles are found in two locations – on the beaches of various oceans and seas, and inland where ancient seas used to cover the land. When then the seas retreated, the rocks became landlocked. They can also be found in lakes and ponds. Pebbles can also form in rivers, and travel into estuaries where the smoothing ...
does keeping someone "awake", keep them from dying like in movies?	> You know that thing they do in movies where people are like: "Hey, stay with me?" as if they're trying to keep someone from falling asleep? Does that actually prevent someone from passing away? It does not. It is used to determine the patients ability to stay conscious. If it doesn't work anymore, the situation h...	[ "The Dead Sleep Easy is a 2007 Canadian drama film, a co-production of Odessa Filmworks and Zed Filmworks produced on location in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. Its tagline is \"When you're this far south, sometimes it's better to be dead than alive.\"\n", "BULLET::::- Waking sleepwalkers does not harm them. While...
where does the idea that jews run the world come from? and when something happens, immediately point to isreal and us?	The idea that Jews runs the world dates back to the early imperial age and the rise of the middle class. Often times merchant ventures needed loans to get started, and since Catholics weren't allowed to charge interest on loans, invariably that meant going to a Jew. Now, being in a position to even approach someone abo...	[ "According to some ancient Hebrew worldviews, reality unfolds along a linear path (or rather, a spiral path, with cyclical components that nonetheless have a linear trajectory); the world began with God and is ultimately headed toward God's final goal for creation, the world to come. The main textual source for the...
How does my brain instantly calculate that I can toss an object into a small area from several feet away while walking?	It's an interesting question; do you mean for something you are doing for the first time, something you have practiced, or something you do often without thinking too much about? The same question could be asked about how people are able to react in sports to balls, for example. How does a tennis player know exactly h...	[ "Cells in the M pathway have the ability to detect high temporal frequencies and can thus detect quick changes in the position of an object. This is the basis for detecting motion. The information sent to the Intraparietal Sulcus (IPS) of the posterior parietal cortex allows the M pathway to direct attention and gu...
Footage of people being knocked out by a 'sucker punch' usually shows their legs instantly going rigid. Why is this?	The nerves for conscious motor control originate in the "top" of the brain at the cortex and make up the corticospinal tract, but there are also subconscious reflex arcs that help you maintain your balance in the vestibulospinal tract. These reflex arcs originate much lower in the brainstem and often even in the spina...	[ "David Boreanaz's stunt double, Mike Massa, says the scene in which he is tossed across the room upside down is his favorite stunt of this season. To get the effect, he was shot across the room using an air ram. \"The reason I like it so much is because it really knocked the heck out of me,\" he says. \"It was 900 ...
what does western society have against the female nipple? (serious responses only)	It's not so much that society is against the female nipple. It's more that society is against public sexuality. A fully nude man is, broadly speaking, no more acceptable in public than a fully nude woman. But female nudity has become so fetishised that the default assumption is that bare skin on a woman is sexual ...	[ "The culture tendency to hide the female nipple under clothing has existed in Western culture since the 1800s. As female nipples are often perceived an intimate part, covering them might originate as a Victorian taboo just as was riding side saddle. Exposing the entire breast and nipple is a form of protest for som...
Does an increase in energy also increases the amount of entropy in a system?	Generally speaking, yes. When increasing the internal energy of a system increases its entropy, that system is said to be at positive (absolute) temperature. Certain systems can be arranged in a way that increasing their energy decreases their entropy. Then it would have a negative temperature. So any system with pos...	[ "This effect can be explained by looking at the change in entropy of the system. At zero temperature only the lowest energy level is occupied, entropy is zero, and there is very little probability of a transition to a higher energy level. As the temperature increases, there is an increase in entropy and thus the pr...
do authors get money only when a person buys their book, or when the bookstore buys it in bulk?	I think this answer needs a little background. Via the traditional publishing route: Author writes a book. Author sends book to agent, who reads the book and figures out what publishing editors to pitch it to. Agent pitches the book to editors at various publishing houses. It could be a high-powered agent with good c...	[ "“Writing books, reviewing books for publishers, and copying them afterwards takes a lot of time. This time is usually paid for by state institutions or funding agencies. The publishers do not pay for it. On the contrary, some even require money from the authors to keep the book prices low (...). When libraries buy...
video aspect ratios	It adds dramatic quality to the video. Epic and dramatic scenes and movies will be filmed in a wider aspect ratio than say a comedy or something. There are many movies where aspect ratios change dynamically throughout more intense/epic scenes and you wouldn’t even notice unless you were told. You would notice the scene...	[ "Cinematographic aspect ratios are usually denoted as a (rounded) decimal multiple of width vs unit height, while photographic and videographic aspect ratios are usually defined and denoted by whole number ratios of width to height. In digital images there is a subtle distinction between the \"display\" aspect rati...
why do our tongues get stuck on poles.	Because your tongue is wet, and metal is extremely heat-conductive. So, the metal cools your saliva faster than your tongue can warm it up. At low enough temperatures, the saliva freezes to both the pole and tongue, so you're stuck. The only safe option for releasing the frozen saliva is to heat up the pole above ...	[ "The practice is associated with significant health risks, as tongues are coated with a film of microorganisms, which may cause infections in the eye, such as conjunctivitis, herpes and chlamydia. It also carries the risk of corneal abrasion and corneal ulcers. Oral bacteria on the tongue can potentially enter corn...
musical chord progressions.	Your question is pretty vague but I'll give it a shot! A chord progression is essentially a sequence of chords, often repeating multiple times throughout the duration of a song, that have been selected and placed in a specific order due to their relationship to one another. To break it down further; a chord itself is...	[ "Harmonically, in rock music, the most common way to construct chord progressions is to play major and minor \"triads\", each comprising a root, third and fifth note of a given scale. An example of a major triad is C major, which contains the notes C, E and G. An example of a minor triad is the A minor chord, which...
why does america have such a higher report of children with autism and adhd compared to other countries?	There is so many things that play a role, it is hard to name them all. - Overall, the USA does have a very high quality medical system compared to certain countries. Doctors are available here and know what Autism/ADHD is. You can't say the same about certain other countries. Sometimes they do not have doctors, of whe...	[ "The best-known example is that of the increasing rates of autism in developed countries such as the United States, which some studies suggest is at least partly a result of people substituting diagnoses of autism for mental retardation and learning disabilities. While a pilot study by the MIND Institute published ...
How did Harald Hardrada escape from Constantinople?	> The same night King Harald and his men went to the house where Maria slept and carried her away by force. Then they went down to where the galleys of the Varings lay, took two of them and rowed out into Sjavid sound. When they came to the place where the iron chain is drawn across the sound, Harald told his men to s...	[ "The crusaders reached Constantinople on 23December 1096. The Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos demanded an oath of allegiance from their leaders and imposed a blockade on their camp to enforce it. Baldwin made raids against the suburbs, compelling Alexios to lift the blockade. The Emperor also agreed to hand ov...
Can all life be explained by chemical reactions/processes?	Although we can't recreate all elements of it (ie throw a bunch of components together and have it work as a eukaryotic cell) science and physics adequately explains every component of the life of a cell and all of the functions of life	[ "In the same way, biology cannot be fully reduced to chemistry despite the fact that the machinery that is responsible for life is composed of molecules. For instance, the machinery of evolution may be described in terms of chemistry by the understanding that it is a mutation in the order of genetic base pairs in t...
what does it mean for a watch to be waterproof up to "200ft"?	After that the water pressure is great enough to break whatever seal was protecting the goods	[ "In horology, the waterproofness of a watch is defined by its resistance under pressure. The manufacturers indicate mostly the degree of waterproofness in metres (m), feet (ft) or atmospheres (atm). Watches with the \"waterproof\" name, with or without indication of overpressure, have to be complied and have to und...
In his time was Shakespere's writings difficult to understand?	Hi, FYI there have been some earlier posts asking this question * [When Shakespeare's plays were first performed, was the average theater goer able to sufficiently understand the dialog to be able to follow the plot and understand the character's motivations?](_URL_0_) - featuring /u/texpeare * [Did people actually ...	[ "Besides the publications cited above, he revised and edited Charles Hole's \"Brief Biographical Dictionary\" (1866), and the \"Dickens Dictionary\" (1873), and began a \"Cyclopædia of Shakespearian Literature\". He edited \"Mother Goose Melodies\" (with antiquarian and philological notes, 1869). He left unfinished...
If we were to discover tomorrow that a huge asteroid is going to hit Earth, could we do something about it?	there have been a lot of theories of how we would be able to deter an asteroid, most people first think to blow it up but if it's too close to earth then that isn't going to do us much good. The best plan that I've seen (works only if there's enough time before it gets to earth) is to land a vehicle on the asteroid and...	[ "In 2016, a NASA scientist warned that the Earth is unprepared for such an event. In April 2018, the B612 Foundation reported \"It's 100 per cent certain we'll be hit [by a devastating asteroid], but we're not 100 per cent sure when.\" Also in 2018, physicist Stephen Hawking, in his final book \"Brief Answers to th...
what is a "principal component analysis"?	Hard to explain without using images. See: _URL_0_	[ "Principal component analysis is used to study large data sets, such as those encountered in bioinformatics, data mining, chemical research, psychology, and in marketing. PCA is also popular in psychology, especially within the field of psychometrics. In Q methodology, the eigenvalues of the correlation matrix dete...
Did nativism play a significant role in the American prohibition movement?	There was indeed a great deal of overlap between the nativist and prohibitionist movements. The Anti-Saloon League, the most vocal prohibitionist organization in the country, was led mainly by Protestant ministers, most of whom were concerned that the religious and moral character of the United States was in peril. It...	[ "In a backlash to the emerging reality of a changing American demographic, many prohibitionists subscribed to the doctrine of nativism, in which they endorsed the notion that America was made great as a result of its white Anglo-Saxon ancestry. This belief fostered resentments towards urban immigrant communities, w...
why do "800 service" call me every day but nobody is ever on the line?	If you let it go to voice mail, they'll play a prerecorded message. But they know that trying to play a prerecorded message when there's a human on the other end doesn't work, so the computer making the call is programmed to hang up if someone answers.	[ "AT&T Phone (formerly AT&T U-verse Voice) is a voice communication service delivered over AT&T's IP network (VoIP). This phone service is digital and provides a voicemail service accessed by *98 from the home number. Customers who subscribe to both AT&T Phone and U-verse TV get features such as call history on chan...
so how does the body 'die'? also what does it feel like just before a person is about to die?	Neuroscience PhD here. We have learned a lot from near-death experiences (NDEs). The body dies from the outside in. For most people, your heart is the first to stop. It just gets tired and worn out having been in use continually for 80+ years. Because blood is your body's way of heating the whole system, you start...	[ "In a certain philosophical context, death can be seen as the ultimate existential moment in one's life. Death is the deepest cause of a primordial anxiety (\"Die Anfechtung\") in a person's life. In this emotional state of anxiety, \"the Nothing\" is revealed to the person. According to twentieth-century German ph...
do blind people need to close their eyes to go to sleep if so why? if they already see pitch black?	Because eyes need moisture and the only way to do that it to close your eyes so that your tears can cover the entire surface of your eye.	[ "Another study has indicated that sleeping with the light on may protect the eyes of diabetics from retinopathy, a condition that can lead to blindness. However, the initial study is still inconclusive.\n", "Night blindness is the difficulty for the eyes to adjust to dim light. Affected individuals are unable to ...
what do the numbers mean in reference to eyesight? eg. 20/20	According to below, 20/20 essentially means the person can see an image 20 ft in front of them the same way someone with 'normal' vision would see the image. if they had 30/20 vision for example, this person would see an image 30 ft away the same way someone with 'normal' vision would see the same image from 20 ft away...	[ "The standard definition of normal visual acuity (20/20 or 6/6 vision) is the ability to resolve a spatial pattern separated by a visual angle of one minute of arc. The terms 20/20 and 6/6 are derived from standardized sized objects that can be seen by a \"person of normal vision\" at the specified distance. For ex...
how does kelvin work?	Kelvin is a temperature scale that start with absolute zero and has uses the same degrees as Celsius. Celsius has water freeze at 0° and boil at 100° absolute zero is at -273.16° C. So in Kelvin absolute Zero is a 0 K, water freezes at 273.16 K and boils at 373.16 K There is a corresponding temperature scale that al...	[ "The Kelvin transform is a device used in classical potential theory to extend the concept of a harmonic function, by allowing the definition of a function which is 'harmonic at infinity'. This technique is also used in the study of subharmonic and superharmonic functions.\n", "The kelvin is the base unit of temp...
why commercial airplanes are usually white while military airplanes are usually grey?	3 main reasons : 1. Minimizing visual signature . Aircraft operating over sea can be camouflaged by painting them blue\-grey. 2. Blending of aircraft with the tarmac. Parked aircraft outlines are harder to see if the aircraft color doesn't provide sharp contrast with the surface they are on. 3. Modern milit...	[ "Originally, many aircraft in service retained the basic color scheme they were acquired in. Prior to World War II, combat aircraft were given a green and brown top scheme with white or sky blue underside, similar to the Royal Air Force. After the war, jet fighter aircraft such as the Sabre and Starfighter would se...
how do websites, particularly like instagram and tumblr, deal with constant additions in content? is their storage virtually unlimited?	those are so tiny compared to youtube. youtube adds storage space at the rate of petabytes a day. there's a module in a shipping container that house storage for 12petabytes. drop one of those in, you're good for another couple of days	[ "Web Storage is a W3C standard API that enables key-value storage in modern browsers. The API consists of two objects, sessionStorage (that enables session-only storage that gets wiped upon browser session end) and localStorage (that enables storage that persists across sessions).\n", "BULLET::::- One file per ar...
why do home appliances all hum at the same tone frequency?	Your electrical power is alternating current - switching back and forth 60 times per second. You will hear that 60 Hz tone, as well as overtones of 60 Hz (such as 120, 180, 240 Hz). edit: typo in overtone frequencies.	[ "Digital alarm clocks can make other noises. Simple battery-powered alarm clocks make a loud buzzing or beeping sound to wake a sleeper, while novelty alarm clocks can speak, laugh, sing, or play sounds from nature.\n", "Some central office switches in the United States, notably older GTD-5 EAX systems, utilize a...
What are some examples of artwork by historical leaders?	Winston Churchill did [a lot of painting](_URL_0_) too.	[ "Its name honors the politician and historian Diogo de Vasconcelos, which stood out as a pioneer in defense of the historical and artistic heritage, mining and national level and is considered the first historian of art in Brazil.\n", "Among the most representative works available to the public, we find historica...
Who was General Tso?	[Tso Tsung-t'ang](_URL_1_) (alternately Zuo Zongtang) was a Chinese general during the late Qing dynasty, most famous for helping to quell the Taiping rebellion. I'm about to commit a horrible sin for /r/AskHistorians by linking to a TED talk. Nevertheless, this [talk by Jennifer 8. Lee](_URL_0_) (coincidentally title...	[ "General Xu Yongchang (15 December 188512 July 1959) (Hsu Yung-chang; ; style name: Cichen (Tzu-chen)) was the Minister of Board of Military Operations of the Republic of China between December 22, 1948, and April 22, 1949, and the representative of the Republic of China on September 2, 1945, at the signing of the ...
How do we have so many pictures and videos of the treatment of Jews in europe during the Nazi-era?	Much of the footage that you see was done by the Nazis themselves. Their plan was to destroy the Jewish people and wanted to have evidence of how they had done so in a very thorough and efficient way. There was also a plan for Führermuseum - a museum whose purpose was to display a selection of the art bought, confiscat...	[ "The attitude of German soldiers towards atrocities committed on Jews and Poles in World War II was also studied using photographs and correspondence left after the war. Photographs serve as a valuable source of knowledge; taking them and making albums about the persecution of Jews was a popular custom among German...
Is there any evidence suggesting that the Roman origin myth, that it was settled by emigrees from Troy (or the Trojan war), had any basis in fact?	The Homeric epics and Virgil's Aeneid, the telling of the myth of Rome supposedly founded by the descendants of Troy, are, well, myth. The Iliad tells us more about the culture of Archaic Greece at the time that the epic was put in writing than it does about the mythical time of Greek Gods and Heroes that is narrated i...	[ "Eratosthenes, the most influential of the ancient chronologists, reckoned that the sack of Troy occurred in 1184 BC, more than four centuries before the traditional founding of Rome, in 753. The history of the Alban kings conveniently filled that gap with a continuous line leading from Aeneas to Romulus, thus serv...
how do doctors choose which of several medicines that do the same thing they should prescribe?	Medicines will be ranked as first, second or third choice, etc., for a given condition. Doctors will work through the line until they get a solution. This is why you should never give up on meds just because they don't work for you. Second line meds might work far better than first line meds for any given person.	[ "In pharmacy, a formulation is a mixture or a structure such as a capsule, tablet, or an emulsion, prepared according to a specific procedure (called a “formula”). Formulations are a very important aspect of creating medicines, since they are essential to ensuring that the active part of the drug is delivered to th...
Was it common for WW2 fighter planes to shoot for wing-mounted bombs?	Such precision gunnery was nearly impossible with WWII fighters. Shooting for the bombs would be a much more difficult target than the engine, cockpit, or wing root (where the wing meets the fuselage). There were largely two types of guns in WWII fighters. The first type was wing-mounted guns that were generally con...	[ "During World War II, a new bombsight was invented that allowed bomber planes to hit precision targets from high altitudes, but at 25,000 feet a single degree of oscillation in the plane's flight course threw a bomb 400 feet off its target. The Flight Control Equipment system commonly known as “auto-pilot” was init...
why do many americans support a 2-term limit on presidents?	If you take a good hard look at this current election, do you really think the logic of "if people don't want a president, they won't vote for them" always plays out perfectly? There are many reasons why term limits are important. Why, look no further than the Senate. The Senate is useless, constantly gridlocked, a...	[ "Many modern presidential republics employ term limits for their highest offices. The United States placed a limit of two terms on its presidency by means of the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution in 1951. There are no term limits for Vice Presidency, Representatives and Senators, although there have been calls for...
How intelligent are giant octopuses?	I don't know, but increased body and brain size don't correlate with higher intelligence so you can't really infer anything from that alone.	[ "Octopuses are ranked as the most intelligent invertebrates. Giant Pacific Octopuses are commonly kept on display at aquariums due to their size and interesting physiology, and have demonstrated the ability to recognize humans that they frequently come in contact with. These responses include jetting water, changin...
How can a curve in spacetime make a a force (gravity)?	The rubber-sheet analogy is an extreme simplification that doesn't really shed much light on the underlying mechanism. It gives a bit of intuitive justification for how the paths of objects can be curved, but as you correctly observe, it doesn't provide any explanation for where their motion comes from, or why gravity ...	[ "In Einstein's theory of general relativity, gravitation is an attribute of curved spacetime instead of being due to a force propagated between bodies. In Einstein's theory, masses distort spacetime in their vicinity, and other particles move in trajectories determined by the geometry of spacetime. The gravitationa...
Is anything still named after Hitler?	Maybe not entirely irrelevant to your question would be the story of the Viale delle cave ardeatine in Rome. You might have guessed this road was formerly named 'Viale Adolfo Hitler'. And was part of the greatest charm offensive in history. Mussolini wanted to impress Hitler so badly that he invited him over on a ...	[ "\"Schicklgruber\" is the surname Adolf Hitler's father, Alois Hitler carried for the first 40 years of his life, until he took the name Hitler (Hiedler) from his stepfather. While Adolf Hitler himself never carried the surname, the British made use of it for propaganda purposes since even to Germans, the name is l...
What would stop an AI system with greater-than-human intelligence from being detrimental to humanity?	This question is difficult, mostly because of the notion of "greater-than-human intelligence". What does this mean? In some sense it seems to imply that intelligence is a unidimensional quantity, and everything fits neatly onto some scale with humans at the top (currently). This is obviously wrong, though. Computers a...	[ "A survey of AI experts estimated that the chance of human-level machine learning having an \"extremely bad (e.g., human extinction)\" long-term effect on humanity is 5%. A 2008 survey by the Future of Humanity Institute estimated a 5% probability of extinction by superintelligence by 2100. Eliezer Yudkowsky believ...
Why was American Revolution helped by European powers, but French Revolution was feared?	The reason is that the American revolution wasn't viewed as a revolution. The American revolutionaries legitimised their actions by claiming that the England had encroached on their traditional rights as Englishmen. The monarch had acted as a tyrant and rebellion could therefore be defensible, if the aim was to *restor...	[ "French support of the American Revolution was probably a significant factor in shaping American's feelings towards France. Prior to that, the French had been seen as rivals for control of North America until their decisive defeat in the French and Indian War. With the elimination of France as a major colonial powe...
Would it be possible to build a magnetic shield for earth to protect us from solar flares?	Yes it is possible, and the earth already has one! The part of the earths atmosphere that protects us from radiation from the sun and other sources of radiation is called the [magnetosphere](_URL_0_). We could build an artificial magnetic shield by wrapping massive wires around the earth several times and inducing a mi...	[ "CME radiation is dangerous to astronauts on a space mission who are outside the shielding produced by the Earth's magnetic field. Future mission designs (\"e.g.\", for a Mars Mission) therefore incorporate a radiation-shielded \"storm shelter\" for astronauts to retreat to during such an event.\n", "Another stud...

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