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[ "Shiny things are usually rare and/or valuable. We put them with other shiny things as a show of wealth or status, like the British Crown Jewels or the Hope Diamond." ]

[ "The way I learned economic growth, the ways economic growth is measured is by increasing the production capacity the country has (or, in other words, produce more stuff, which then brings in more money when the country exports it). War is famously known to help production (although it also has its downfalls), as the government wants every ounce of resources it can get to produce weaponry and other goods, and hence WWII is usually credited with officially ending the Great Depression.\n\nThere's also growth that's caused by better quality of life for the residents, such as technological advances (such as from horse-and-buggy to cars), increased literacy rates, decreased poverty rates, lower unemployment rates, better environments, etc. With these, people are more eager to spend money rather than to spend (such as the \"world is ending\" mindset many people had during the last years of the Cold War in the '80s), and of course, with more spending, there's typically a healthier economy which leads to more growth.", "Economic growth simply means an economy grew in value. Value can be expressed as GDP (Gross Domestic Product). GDP is the TOTAL value of ALL goods and services that a country produces. \n\nFor example, let's say in Year 1 the US earned $100b through selling goods and services. In year 2 they managed to earn $200b, which means they experienced economic growth.\n\nExtra: with growth, comes inflation. This is where the price level of all goods rises. This is because if an economy grows, people have more money to spend on items. Shop owners can increase their prices because they know people will continue to shop there" ]

[ "[Source](_URL_0_)\n\nThe cup (or shell) amplifies the ambient noise, which is the thing you hear.\n\nMany people believe it's an echo of your blood, this can easily be disproved. Try to exercise and put the cup to the ear. The noise is no louder, even if you hearth is beating faster.", "I believe it is the vibrations from the blood pulsing through your ear region.", "Containers reflect certain pitches of sound better than other pitches. The larger the container, the lower pitch reflected. When you put a cup to your ear, it is reflecting the medium pitch sounds from the room around you much more than the lower or higher pitches." ]

[ "Your body temperature decreases to initiate sleep. The recommended temperature for a good night’s sleep is 60 to 67 degrees. That’s a lot lower than what I think most houses are at right now. So if your house feels too warm and you’re noticing it when you lay down for bed that’s probably why. I know the first sign every year for me to break out my a/c is when I lay down at night even though it was most likely hotter during the day" ]

[ "It is entirely possible and definitely a thing, such apps and sites did pop up when 3D touch became a thing with the iPhone 6 release, but IIRC Apple labeled the use of the phones in this way a liability and these apps were removed from the app store, but some websites are still around such as TouchScale.", "Yes: _URL_0_\n\nThough there are some issues, notably that it only works on capacitive objects (which stops it working on most drugs) and that it is somewhat inaccurate on the gram scale (also making it not a good option for drugs)." ]

[ "The rocket engines push against the exhaust that is being expelled. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. It's exactly the same as if you were wearing ice skates (standing on ice, obviously) and holding a bowling ball. If you throw the ball forward, you'll slide backwards. This is not because the bowling ball is pushing against the air. It's because when you push the bowling ball forward, you're also pushing yourself backward.\n\nWith a rocket, the exhaust from the engines is the bowling ball.", "The fuel of the rocket being expelled out the back of the rocket pushed the rocket in the opposite direction.\n\nNewton's Third Law of Motion in action." ]

[ "Having a monopoly is not inherently bad or illegal. What is illegal is using your control over a market to stifle competition. That's when the government steps in and companies are broken up.", "The government doesn't care of a company with three percent of the market merges with a company with two percent. The additional market power of the new company will negligible. And in such a case, the government shouldn't be interfering with private economic actors making their own legal economic arrangements. Moreover, these mergers can create efficiencies and lead to innovation which benefits consumers, and frequently helps create economies of scale which lead to lower prices. so long as it doesn't give a single company too much power, mergers are generally positive for the public and shareholders of the acquired company, and occasionally they're of great benefit to the public (not often, but it can happen).", "It is not consolidation itself that is considered monopolistic. A monopoly dominates an industry and flexes that position to control the market. Companies that merge must go through a legal examination to determine whether or not they would end up a monopoly in their market. Businesses must stay competitive, because if they do not, they will go out of business. Smaller businesses (in their market) may not have the scale to compete against giants in their industries. This is why it is sometimes necessary or most compelling for two companies to merge.\n\nHypothetical A: Green Co. and Red Co. make widgets. Green Co. currently holds a 10% market share at 10 million units per year and has been a leader in the market for the last 50 years. Red Co. holds a 1% market share and, while still profitable, makes less profit than Green Co. Because they are so much smaller, their production is smaller with equal fixed costs, and so their costs of production are also higher per widget, which translates to lower profits per unit (economies of scale). \n\nIf Green Co. were to lower the price of their widgets, Red Co. would need to lower their prices as well to stay competitive. If Green were to lower their prices below what it costs Red Co. to make their widgets, Red Co. will spend more money than it makes and end up out of business. Green Co. would then be able to take their market share and sell more units at that low low price.\n\nRed Co. could also merge with Blue Co., which holds a 5% market share at 5 million units per year, and it would allow them to reduce their production costs to stay competitive in the marketplace and accommodate the low prices that the market now demands. If they were to do this, it would not be a monopoly because they still maintain a smaller market share than Green Co. The new, Purple Co., could now remain a competitor and stay in business.\n\nnote: this is a rough overview of monopolies in business which I typed up just now. Some of the numbers may be off or I may have missed a few points. Please feel free to correct me or add to it as necessary.", "Not all mergers are bad.\n\nIf mergers were not allowed, then the assets of a failing company (such as patents, R & D, customer base, etc) might be wasted if the company was completely dissolved. On the other hand, a merger could result in benefits for multiple parties (such as the shareholders, customers, employees, etc). An example of where a merger/acquisition might positively affect employees is if the acquired company only suffers a few layoffs as opposed to total dissolution (and thus everyone being laid off).\n\nIn other cases, some companies acquire another company which does not otherwise compete with the acquiring company. It might happen because the acquiring company wants to acquire technical competence in an area where they might otherwise not be good at.\n\nIn cases where companies might merge and form monopolies, it is usually the job of a regulatory agency to ensure that the merger is not harmful to the consumer for example by allowing monopolies to exist.\n\nThat being said, there are some acquisitions that are more questionable. For example, if an investor purchases significant amount of shares in a company then they can gain partial control of the company and can act against that company's long-term interests. I'm not sure why this is even allowed." ]

[ "Vitamins are not food and they are not drugs. They cannot regulate them because currently they do not have the authority to do so. They (or some other part of the government, I am not sure) would have to reclassify all vitamins to make them a drug and therefore able to be regulated. \n\nEdit: Also the FDA does not make any drugs, they regulate the companies that makes drugs. I am not sure how the FDA changing the classification of vitamins would magically make them more beneficial.", "Multivitamins are not usually medically necessary. A normal diet will get you the vitamins you need. If you supplement it, then you're essentially creating more work for your kidneys and producing very expensive urine.\n\nSome people have medical conditions or dietary deficiencies that make supplementation useful. For example, people with thyroid conditions may want to supplement with iodine. Vegans may need to supplement B12 or D. But a single one-size-fits-all daily multivitamin is neither practical nor necessary.", "Recent studies have shown zero benefit from vitamin supplements.\n\nAlso the FDA is a government regulatory agency, not a manufacturer of anything but policy.", "Because they know vitamins are a crock. Normal people get all the vitamins they need from their food as long as they are eating more than poptarts for every meal. Vitamin supplementation is good for people in extraordinary situations. For example, pregnancy, *diagnosed* deficiencies, and individuals who may be in a nutritionally deficient environment like someone who works in the arctic.", "ELI5:\n\nYou are a consumer of lemonade. There are several stands in your neighborhood, and the parents in the neighborhood watch all the lemonade stands to make sure the lemonade is made properly. Some kids add more sugar than others, some use organic lemons while the rest use regular lemons, some kids sell lemonade in big glass jars while others sell it in little plastic cups.\n\nThe parents make sure the kids are washing their hands before they make lemonade, that the kids aren't claiming their lemonade cures cancer, and that the kids aren't lying about the ingredients they use to make lemonade. \n\nThen the parents recommend Billy's lemonade. But why? Billy's lemonade is really not all that different from Suzy's lemonade, or John's lemonade. \n\nSee, different people need different types of lemonade, so for the parents to recommend one type as superior sends the message that all people should have the same kind of lemonade, which is completely false.\n\nThus, the parents are clearly backing a false message, which is massively hypocritical considering their job is to make sure the lemonade stands do not make false statements about their lemonade.", "Because vitamins are a waste of money, they offer no health benefit to an otherwise healthy person. \n\nIf you're not suffering from malnutrition, and are not pregnant there is practically no reason you should be taking vitamins. \n\n\ntl;dr vitamins are a scam." ]

[ "> why is it the only French speaking region of Canada?\n\nIt's not. It's only the only province where French speaking people are a majority.\n\n > How come since Quebec was British owned and subsequently part of an independant Canada, English was not able to replace French?\n\nTo avoid uprisings, the British accepted that it would keep its laws, language and religion thinking they would eventually assimilate. People decided they wouldn't and made efforts to preserve those. To this day, Quebec still works on a different legal system than the other provinces.\n\n > Is French still realy the dominant language of Quebec?\n\nYes.\n\n > Do most people speak it there?\n\nYes\n\n > What are the languages though in school/shown on tv/ radio etc.?\n\nSchool teaches some English but not enough to qualify as bilingual. Media produced in Quebec are in French.", "> How come since Quebec was British owned and subsequently part of an independant Canada, English was not able to replace French?\n\nFrom the beginning, Quebec was very very Catholic. When the english took over, the Catholic church was the authority for French-Canadians and dictated most aspects of life. To resist the non-catholic rule of the English, the church decided the best way was to outnumber the English. The priests pressured families to have a lot of kids. And they did. 10 to 20 children was something normal until the middle of the 20th century.\n\nSo basically, in Quebec, the English were vastly outnumbered and couldn't successfully ban the french language and the catholic religion like in the other provinces. However, back then, the city of Montreal was controlled by its strong English upper class. They were still outnumbered by the french-speaking lower class.\n\nAt the end of the 50s, the francophone were able to gather and start the [Quiet Revolution](_URL_0_). They took back power from the english elite and took out public affairs from the hands of the catholic church. They then made laws to protect the french language and made it the only official language. \n\nTo try to avoid that Quebec separates from Canada, the Canada government decided that the country should be billingual. But it was too late for the french language in most other provinces. French still was able to survive in Ontario and New Brunswick. However, there are 7 million native french speakers in Quebec compared to around a million in the rest of Canada\n\n > Is French still realy the dominant language of Quebec? \n\n80% of quebec have french as their first language. English is the first language of 9%, most of them in Montreal. Even in english areas of Montreal, most jobs require people to be billingual.\n\n > at are the languages though in school/shown on tv/ radio etc.?\n\nFrancophones and immigrant kids go to french schools for primary and secondary education. Anglophones go to English schools. However, there are both English and French universities and colleges in Montreal. \n\nMost of the TV channels based in Quebec are in French, but people also have English channels that are based in the rest of Canada and the united States. Most radio stations are in French, but there are almost half of the radio stations that are in english in montreal." ]

[ "It's probably a combination of reasons.\n\nHumans like to be awake all day and sleep all night. And we take our cues from the sun. If it's raining it's darker, so our bodies think, hey almost time for bed! Let's get sleepy!\n\nThe other reason is ( I'm not to sure about this one so other redditors feel free to debunk me! ):\nWhen we're in our mommy's belly we're constantly surrounded by the sound of her body, her digestive system gurgling but mostly the sound of her blood circulating. Which is a constant rushing sound. Rain kinda sounds like that, just like a rolling car, or vacuum cleaner. This makes us feel safe and comfortable. And again sleepy.\n\nFun facts about this: If you drive a long way and don't have any distracting sounds like a radio the sound of your car can cause 'highway hypnosis' causing you to relax and fall asleep behind the wheel.\n\nBabies, when they're tired fall alseep very easily in the car or when a vacuum cleaner is running. Because it reminds them of being inside mommy's belly.", "This is a pretty good article, and it's written ELI5 style as well. [Sun Sentinel Article](_URL_0_)" ]

[ "You reduce the circulation dramatically meaning the blood isn't being supplied to the cells including the nerves and therefore they shut down. Restore the circulation and they start up again deluging you with all your missed messages." ]

[ "The rule of thumb, (I think according to Phil Plait's book), given current technology, the estimated cost for launching something into space is roughly the cost of the weight of that thing in Gold, and the cost to get it to the moon would be the weight in diamonds. \n\nTo be more mathematical, according to this sourced Yahoo [answers page](_URL_2_) the cost is about $5,000 per kilogram to get something into orbit. \n\nNow, getting something into orbit is not enough, since orbits decay and that would just put the junk right back on earth. Likewise, that $5,000 is based on a space plane that isn't going to scale quite the same. But, combining those too let's say it only costs twice as much to get material permanently out of earth's orbit. (my guess is I am off by an order of magnitude)\n\nThe U.S. generates 2,300 metric tons of waste [per year](_URL_1_). That's 2.3 million kilograms. At our unbelievably conservative estimate, that means the minimum cost for launching that material into space is 23 billion dollars per year, just for the United States. For comparison, NASA's budget in 2012 was 17 Billion dollars. \n\nfor comparison:\n > It’s been estimated that Yucca Mountain – the United State’s current plan to store nuclear waste – will cost about $58 billion to store waste over the course of 100 years.[space.](_URL_0_]\n\nthat's only 5.8 billion per year. \n\nAnd, that's without considering the risk of an accident. Imagine the impact if a rocket full of metric tonnes of radioactive waste exploded two miles above the surface of the earth, spreading highly radioactive material over an enormous area. \n\n***TLDR;*** It is too expensive, and too dangerous.", "It costs a lot of money to launch something into space, plus it would add to the already sizable and growing amount of things that we have put into orbit.", "Because if something goes wrong and the rocket blows up, there will be exploding radioactive waste in the atmosphere.", "Storing the waste is a ton cheaper and more manageable then launching it into space." ]

[ "Smoking by itself is actually insufficient to properly preserve foods. Smoke is an antimicrobial and an antioxidant but only protects the outside of food, so it is usually combined with other processes like salt-curing and drying which protect the interior of food from bacterial growth.", "Moisture is the reason food gets moldy, so by smoking it you dry it out and prevent the molding." ]

[ "The conscious image of the world is not a direct input from your retinas. Your brain does a lot of processing to make sense of the world before your consciousness gets the image. This happens for many reasons! Your brain is built to recognize edges and borders, which helps us pick out hiding predators, prey, dangers like snakes, and tree branches to grab during [brachiation](_URL_0_). You're wired to detect faces and emotions conveyed by the expressions. Your brain automatically fixes colors based on lighting and shading. And, most importantly for the thing you're describing, your brain predicts what it should see and adjusts the picture accordingly.\n\nIt takes time to process the information from your eyes, recognize the image, make sense of it, put it into context, deliver it to your consciousness, and act on it. It's really damn fast, but it's not instantaneous. To make up for that, your conscious picture of the world is not what your retinas see, it's what your brain a few milliseconds ago thought you should be seeing a few milliseconds later. That puts you in the \"present\", or at least, a very good approximation of the present.\n\nWhen you're staring at the moving bottle caps for a long time, your brain gets used to the movement and predicts that the movement will continue. This is great, because it lets you track the moving objects better, since you're anticipating it instead of trying to catch up. When you look away, though, your brain is still predicting movement, and adjusts the image accordingly. Since those things are *not* moving, they appear to wave as your brain predicts their movement, then corrects for the fact that they didn't move, then predicts they'll move again, then corrects again, and so on until it catches on to the fact that things aren't moving through your field of vision anymore.", "This is due to how the movement is processed in the brain. Very basically, there are certain neurons that are firing in response to the moving pattern. The moving pattern is constant, so they are firing continuously. When you look away those same cells continue to fire because they've been doing so for however long you were looking at it. Your brain knows that the moving pattern is no longer in focus, but it still takes a bit to inhibit the neurons and stop them from firing. It's why optical illusions [like this one](_URL_1_) work." ]

[ "Way back when there weren't multiple channels whose only purpose was cartoons. There was a MARKET for cartoons, but not a huge market. What day and time are kids most likely to be available year-round to watch things marketed towards them? Saturday mornings. During the week they're in school. Sundays, might have church. Later in the day Saturday, might have family activities. Parents might even try to sneak in a little sleep by sleeping until 8 or 9, and kids might be able to get up early and watch cartoons.", "Back in my day, there weren't any other cartoons than the Saturday Morning Cartoons!\n\nSeriously though: The saying comes from the days when TV had all of 3 channels, and most programming was for adults. Soaps during the day for housewives, the news and sitcoms/crime procedurals (and later on, Star Trek) for either the working men or the whole family, and then nothing after like 11:00.\n\nSaturday morning, though... the adults slept in, and the kids wanted to watch something. So Saturday morning was for cartoons.\n\nBy the time I was born, cable TV had nickelodeon which had more-or-less 24 hour kid-centered television, and the idea of saturday morning cartoons was dying out.", "There weren't many other day cartoons. Not in a chunk like that. You might catch some Looney Tunes or something on PBS in the afternoon, and later Nick came along (but even that was mostly live action stuff). Saturday morning was the only time you could reliably find kid programming/cartoons for a few hours in a row." ]

[ "Each TV has a tiny camera in it that is always watching you watching TV." ]

[ "CERN is basically trying to find out the origins of our universe and how everything works by using a very large particle accelerator to accelerate particles to 99.99991% the speed of light and have them collide with one another. When these particles collide they break apart and that is when we can see what holds particles together and how things work. Only problem is that there is years of data to go through and experimentally proving everything will take a long time. \n\nThere is no real threat from this, what you see online is just that, \"conspiracy theories.\" People believing that smashing particles will create a black hole and destroy the world.", "CERN studies the science of how the universe works at the smallest scale, smaller than an atom. They are trying to prove or disprove our theories about how the universe works at such a small scale. This is important to understanding how our universe came into being.\n\nCERN only makes smaller-than-atom sized things, and only for billionths of a second at a time. It learns what it can by scanning them in that time, they analyzing that scan for months and months. The things they make are new and exciting and sometimes sound scary, but nothing they make is a danger to us - all of it exists all around the universe, just not exactly where and when we need it to scan it." ]

[ "That wasn't a cause of the subprime mortgage crisis, but more of a result. But that's too much to get into here.\n\nWalking away isn't without consequences. You will get a big mark on your credit rating, which won't go away for 7-10 years, meaning anything dependent on your credit score (including some forms of employment) can be harder than it would be otherwise. New car loans, buying another house, etc may be impossible for 7-10 years.\n\nA mortgage is a \"dead loan\", meaning that when the underlying security is recovered (the home), the obligation from the borrower is complete. Other type of secured loan don't have this feature, and it's possible for you to get a loan, secured by some security, be unable to repay it, have the security taken and sold, and still be liable to pay the outstanding balance.\n\nSo if you bought a house for $200K, and the subprime mortgage crisis hit, dropping home prices in your area so your house is now worth $100K while you still owe $150K, your choices are (a) Keep paying your mortgage for your $200K house, (b) sell the house for $100K, and immediately owe the bank an extra $50K you probably don't have, or (c) walk away, let the bank foreclose, and deal with the consequences.\n\nIdeally, you'd do (a), but if home prices are falling because everyone in your area is losing their jobs including you, or your mortgage is structured in such a way that your payments jump (more on this later), or for some other reason you need to move (congratulations on your new promotion, half way across the country), then you can't keep paying the mortgage, and have to do one of the other choices. Walking away suddenly seems like your only choice.\n\n\nIn the leadup to the crisis, there was a high investor-side demand for mortgages to invest in. The banks sold complicated financial products to investors based on mortgages that were virtually guaranteed to not fail. Business was good, and the banks sold a lot. This meant they had to have mortgages to sell to investors, so they really pushed home ownership and writing mortgages on homes. This lead to some really bad mortgage lending practices that were not good for the borrower at all. A lot of crappy mortgages were written -- these are the \"subprime\" mortgages.\n\nA \"prime\" mortgage must meet certain rules: no more than 80% of the assessed value of the property, the borrower can't have too much debt already, etc. Any mortgage that doesn't meet these rules is \"subprime\", and have a higher risk of failure. So the subprime mortgage crisis immediately implies that a lot of risky loans were being written. Loans that were interest-only for the first 5 years (so a 6% loan on a $100K house would only have payments of $500/month for the first 5 years), but jumped after that. Loans that were structured to be 5 years long, with a large balloon payment at the end, adjustable rate mortgages with a very low intro rate but jumped high after 5 years, etc. The supposed idea was that since home values always went up, a good subprime borrower would, after 5 years, qualify for a prime loan and could refinance on better terms.\n\nWhen housing prices fell, the subprime borrowers couldn't refinance, and the whole thing fell apart. Homeowners lost their homes, investors didn't get paid on their investments, etc.", "It's largely a US thing, and only in some states which consider mortgages to be a \"non-recourse debt\". The debt is secured on the property, but the borrower isn't personally liable for the debt beyond that security. If foreclosing and selling the property doesn't cover the full debt then the lender can't pursue the borrower further." ]

[ "There's really not much to it beyond needing that longer lens to zoom in more. Since the moon is being lit up by the sun the exposure times are just like taking a picture of anything outdoors in the middle of the day so it can be a handheld shot.\n\nThink of it like wanting a picture of a specific person's face in the other side of a football stadium. As long as you have a lens that gets you close enough you can get the image you want." ]

[ "The biggest misconception is that there's \"more power\" or something similar to higher octane gas. This is not true.\n\nIn essence, higher octane means it's more stable and less easy to burn. \n\nWhy does this matter, and isn't that kind of counter intuitive? It matters because many of the ways engineers improve an engine's performance requires a more stable fuel. \n\nOne common example is higher compression ratios. So when your motor compresses the Air/Fuel mixture in the cylinder, the more it compresses that mixture, the more power it will get when it's ignited. However, with more compression (pressure), the mixture is more likely to ignite *before* the sparkplug actually ignites the fuel.\n\nIf you use a low octane fuel, it burns more easily so the chances of you getting premature ignition of the mixture is higher in a higher performance engine. With a higher octane fuel, the mixture will be more stable and burn less easily under higher compression. \n\nThe reason it matters in this case is that if your mixture explodes in the cylinder early, you will damage your motor depending on the severity.\n\nIf your car calls for premium, you should put premium in it. If it doesn't, you shouldn't. In either case, putting in the \"wrong\" fuel will negatively affect your car's performance." ]

[ "Human females can't produce the same quantities of milk that female cows can. It wouldn't be very profitable.\n\nPlus, notice that we mostly drink milk that comes from animals that like to graze on grass, like cows, goat, and sheep. Humans eat a lot of junk food and other stuff that doesn't make for very good tasting milk.", "*\"I'd imagine it has something to do with availability.\"*\n\n\nTrue. We'd probably have problems locking up women in cages too, though.", "They lactate after they have a baby (calf) just like humans and other mammals. Calves are usually taken away soon after birth, bottle fed by farmers and the mother is hooked to the milk machine. Fun fact, if you stop breastfeeding/milking the cow often enough, the milk \"dries up.\" Yay for biology knowing the law of supply and demand.", "Mammals (including humans of course) lactate only when pregnant or after giving birth to calves. It would be highly unethical to keep human women pregnant for the sake of producing a commodity like milk. \n\nEDIT: Added \"after giving birth to calves\"." ]

[ "Silicon is the other element other than carbon that would form long complicated bonds that life could evolve around. Though it is almost certain that another life form would be carbon based this gives a way of creating a \"totally new life form\".", "It's silicon .. Not silicone. Silicon is the next element after carbon with the same characteristics. It's abundant and in most cases you can substitute carbon with silicon and form similar compounds. Eg ch4 is methane, a flammable gas. SiH4 is silane, another flammable gas.", "First off, I wouldn't say sci-fi movies \"almost always\" have silicon-based life forms. I don't think I've seen that idea used in a long time, in fact.\n\nSecondly, take a look at a periodic table. Silicon is directly underneath carbon, which means that in theory, it could have very similar properties. In practice, this turns out not to be true. Silicon just doesn't do the same types of complex chemistry that carbon does. But for a quick and dirty \"ooh, this is a sciencey-sounding thing!\", it works." ]

[ "Before the 80s software was covered by copyrights instead of patents where unless you copied something exactly you were not liable to be sued for stealing someone's ideas. However large companies wanted more protection of their software and after some court cases including some at the supreme court they changed the rules and started allowing patents of software ideas rather then just a copyright on the specific code.\n\nThe idea was that it would give inventors and programmers more incentive to come up with new ideas as they would have more legal protections from having their ideas stolen. However because patents can be very vague they ended up issuing patents to lots of things that maybe were not new concepts, such as \"transmitting data over the internet\". \n\nSo instead of encouraging innovation it led to companies getting issued patents for simple things everyone did and then sue each other for \"stealing\" ideas. Also some lawyers saw that big software companies would just payout settlements to avoid going to court and decided to just sue every company with big money with the hopes of getting a fat payout to make them go away. \n\nSo now companies will pay lots of money for the patent rights for stuff that should not have been patented in the first place just so they can say \"if you sue me for patent infringement then I have patents also and will sue you right back!\". It is a huge mess.", "This doesn't directly address any existing lawsuits between those companies, though they are involved: you might find this episode of This American Life extremely useful in getting a better understanding of what goes on in patent law concerning software - I know I did:\n\n_URL_0_", "Apple and Microsoft own a bunch of patents that are vague and very common things. Let's say that Apple owned patents for the real world. They would own a patent for opening doors. This means that if your business depended on opening doors to get things done, like at the office, Apple could sue you. That's what a lot of these software patents are akin to.\n\nApple and Microsoft could sue EVERYBODY over the things they own, because the patents are very vague and patent common things. They don't, though. They only sue their competition. Patents were supposed to spur innovation and competition and Apple and MS are using them to do the opposite.\n\nApple and Microsoft have also bought patents recently in order to stop their competition from having them, not to use the technology, which is against the law because it stifles innovation." ]

[ "The executable files of a game are basically just a bunch of machine code. Machine code are instructions executed by your computer. \n\nBy using a so called Dissassembler, you can turn the machine code into a somewhat human readable format called \"Assembler language\".\nIf you are good, you can then analyse the code and modify to circumvent copy protection mechanisms, e.g. by taking the copy protection code out or jumping over it.", "Crackers basically change the inside programing of it\n\nFor example : If a game has an online protection (that requires to be online to be played), they'll modify the code, to make the game think that you are actually online.\n\n/u/dale_glass also answered this 2 years ago :) \n\n\n > Some games come with code that makes it hard to run a copy by just possessing the data for it. For instance, it may make you enter a serial number. You copy the CD fine, install it, and it asks you for the number. You don't know it, so the game refuses to work.\n > Well, somewhere inside the game there is logic like this:\n > Ask user for serial number\n > Perform some operation to check the number. For instance, all digits should sum up to 9.\n > If the answer is right, continue\n > Cracking is just interfering with this logic. You can modify the code to jump past the verification step. You can make it still ask for the serial number, but accept any number at all. You could flip the logic around so that it accepts only invalid numbers. Etc.\n > This was the early era of cracking. Then the companies started making things more complicated. The program may be encrypted and self-verifying, so not only you need to break the encryption and make the change, but also find how it checks itself and defeat that as well.\n > Some are more devious and don't make it obvious that they know something is wrong. Instead the game runs, but breaks something subtly in such a way that the 5th level becomes impossible to finish.\n > Any kind of protection is breakable, but with enough effort it's possible to make something that requires considerable thought and time to get around, and it's quite possible that if the protection is good enough the game will remain uncracked for months.\n\nHope it helped ;)" ]

[ "Assume carbon ratios in living organisms within an environment are constant (perhaps it may vary for terrestrial vs. marine). The ratio only remains constant for that orgnanism while the organism is alive (just assume this is due to respiration). Any change in the \"known constant\" and the currently measured value yields a number of years since the organism died." ]

[ "My thoughts are because it is supposed to be a game changer(literally) and to release anything sub par could potentially hurt the concept and make it take even longer for people to get interested in it again, I for one would be extremely disappointed if it was clunky and didn't work as good as I'm imagining it will.", "Because they needed to launch with a decent software library, and find a cocktail of specs that they could scale production up to no problem and without issue.", "In my opinion, I think they are waiting for two things:\n\n1) Developers to create enough VR compatible content so that people don't get bored and give up on the medium too quickly.\n\n2) Hardware to catch up. The rift requires some pretty hefty hardware to run optimally. My good-but-not-great gaming PC could juuuust barely run it when I got my developers kit. I had to upgrade my machine just to run some of the beefier demos. Basically, in order to run the rift well, you're looking at a about $1000 (at least) homemade PC or about $1500 to $2000 for premade, plus the cost of the rift itself. Eventually, as the technology progresses, adequate hardware for the rift will become cheaper and cheaper, therefore making the rift a much more viable product to sell.", "1. Google Glass \n2. OUYA games console \n3. Lytro camera\n\nAll potential game changers ruined irreparably by shitty 1st generation products. \n\nThey need to get it right before they launch it.", "*The last 10% takes as long as the first 90%.* That's a quote I heard about engineering development. And it seems to apply to most every type of dev work.\n\nCombine that with a lack of hurry. There is no need to rush things. They have the money to work on it and do it properly.\n\nI bought a DK2 and although it worked great. it was very clunky to install and work with. It was simply not possible for a lot of people to install and get working properly. Let alone would most people be willing to do the research to get it up and running. It needs to work out of the box with no more than a simple program/driver install. And that's not a simple thing.\n\nThen there is also their control system they have hinted at. I'm out of the loop, but there was talk about developing their own controller as well.\n\nAnd software. DK's were for developers. They had sub par hardware so that software development could start. Just because the DK1 with it's crappy screen and motion sickness inducing screen was out 2 years ago, doesn't mean ti was anywhere near ready for the public. Now newer and better screens are cheap enough to be used.\n\nBy waiting they give time for all these things to come together. \n\nVR already has a stigma attached to it that it's a gimmick. Virtual Boy is an obvious failure, but 3D movies and the 3DS and old 80's red/blue glasses have given VR, not a bad name, but definitely not a good one either. Most the public thinks of VR and 3D as the same thing. So if it doesn't work right off the bat, it's done. It will just get laughed at and dismissed. It will never get any traction for another 10 years, until another company tries again.", "Because after 2 years, it's still very difficult to even get it to run many of the demos properly. The programming API is still quite immature.", "If it was easy, people would have done it already. Occulus is trying to pull off some cutting edge stuff, and that takes a while.", "Software\n\nImagine someone came out with the greatest gun of all time but no one sold bullets for it.", "It has some pretty hefty hardware requirements. The more time that goes by, the more widespread and affordable a consumer release will be.", "Windows 10 has built in support for VR headsets. Both Nvidia and ATI have built in support for VR. Oculus's SDK works with both these new graphics drivers as well as new Windows drivers/features custom designed for VR. There's also the games themselves which take years to develop.\n\nIt took this long for everything to fall into place. There's the hardware, software, drivers and OS support. Had they released a retail product earlier, it would have been a far inferior product.", "It's because they are waiting for the developers to create quality apps and games, and tweaking the gear while they wait. Some great AAA games take up to 5 years to develop, and this is brand new technology. They know this will be a game changer and don't want it to flop due to limited games and crapware.", "Well...\n\n_URL_0_\n\nSeems to have \"Q1 2016\" plastered all over it so expect it to come out Q1 2016?\n\nThats only a few months away.", "Most AAA games take longer then 2 years to develop. You don't launch a product without products. It would be like launching a iWatch that has no apps yet.", "As someone who has tried DevKit 1 and 2, there is a very simple answer to this question: Oculus isn't ready yet. \n\nIt is close, but the so-called \"screendoor\" effect from the pixel magnification is still noticeable. I found first person shooters like TF2 fairly easy to play with Oculus, and LOTS of fun. \n\nDigital Combat Simulator (DCS World) is my go-to flight sim, and it also supports Oculus. Here is where the real pre-prod weakness of the Oculus was apparent, IMHO. Basically, due to the screendoor effects, seeing terrain details and landmarks in the flight sim was next to impossible. \n\nTL;DR: Oculus is close, but for consumers, the team is (rightfully IMO) waiting to release so that they can fine tune the configurations for various *types* of games. Anything \"far away\" just disappears, even in Devkit 2.", "Three main reasons, as I understand it:\n\n1. Bugs. Wouldn't want to release something that doesn't work at a very premium feeling level because:\n\n2. Software has to be developed for it, and it isn't cheap to do R & D, especially for a new 'revolutionary' kind of tech\n\n3. Only a small percentage of PC owners actually have the raw capability to run the programs at the required framerate and resolution to make the 'game' or whatever simulations, feel immersive. For reference, the current generation of consoles (XBONE, PS4) don't have the power to drive those programs. In short, there will be a limited consumer base, unless you plan on everyone who buys an oculus to also drop a grand on a PC powerful enough to run it", "It takes a long time to prepare software (drivers and SDK's), A good factory line, a good user experience, and hell, games to play on it. The purpose of the development kits was to get people making games for VR, as the name suggests. Its working (see _URL_1_)\n\nCV1 release date is the first quarter of 2016\nThe HTC Vive (Really the Valve Vive) comes out at the end of this year.", "My father is actually in samsung, working on vr goggles. \nThe problem is that videos such as live ones come with such crappy quality that there needs to be better quality for people to enjoy, while computer generated ones are great, but they take alot of time. There is still too much unknowns, with companies not supporting their development teams to actually accomplish something fast. However looking at my dad working on this for like 6 years is really cool, seeing how things transitioned and became much better", "TrackIR and friends have been around since 2001. If you are still using a joystick to look around you might want to check out some of these:\n\n* _URL_6_\n* _URL_5_\n* _URL_6_\n* _URL_6_\n* _URL_5_\n\nedit: formatting", "How many of you know that [you can get an Oculus headset for $200](_URL_7_) *right now* if you have a Galaxy S6 or a Note 4? I sure didn't when I got my phone but after reading some reviews to try and figure out what features they added I stumbled on the fact that you could turn your phone into an Oculus headset.\n\nI originally bought it for 3D video and wasn't excited at all about VR but the VR is simply amazing. It is absolutely game changing. There is no question about it.\n\nThe problem is that the technology isn't quite there yet and for as cool as it is, trying to show off VR is kind of like trying to show off dial up internet. You can do a lot of cool stuff, but it takes some imagination to see how those pixelated videos will one day become youtube and Netflix or how those odd looking message boards will one day become Reddit and Facebook.\n\nAdvances are being made but there are a lot of less obvious problems that need to be solved. Not many of us are impressed with 720p displays anymore but it's not easy to get 2 of those just inches away from your face, mounted in a headset you can wear. Imagine trying to catch up to standard desktop resolutions. Additionally, people were getting sick, viewing angle and peripheral vision still isn't where it needs to be, and media of all types will need to be completely changed.\n\nThe most unimpressive things I've seen so far are old 3D movies like Avatar that were made before VR. Games look good, but there's still a lot of refining to do when it comes to camera angles and controls.\n\nTL;DR: It's getting better and better, but there's a lot of catching up that needs to happen before you give up your current TV or monitor.", "Because only high end computers can run the Oculus Rift properly. The Oculus has 2 high resolution screens, one for each eye, and if it runs a game at less than about 70 frames per second it's like to induce nausea. Right now the PS4 and Xbone can't even handle one of those screens at less than half the frames per second it needs and to build a computer than can handle an Oculus would cost you between one and two thousand dollars.", "I've gotten to try on out. The DK2. \n\nIt was a dreaming awesome experience. Something I'll buy when the consumer version is out. But you could easily see the pixels within the unit itself but it was nice also because the unit I didn't find heavy or anything. But the demo of it was unreal. As long as they take their time to release it properly I think it'll be a fucking blast.", "There's a really obscure problem that [Wired did a story on](_URL_8_) called the \"vergence-accommodation conflict\". \n\nBasically your eyes will get really tired and start to hurt after using the current VR technology for longer than a couple hours. They might have to start over with the tech to find a solution.\n\nI think that's a big reason they're still delaying the release.", "What i'm mostly curious about the Rift is what about people that need glasses? I have moderate to high astigmatism and some hypermetropia and i need them constantly. Is there a way to use the Oculus while wearing glasses at the same time?", "> I still need to move a joystick around to change my viewpoint in games.\n\n[Someone already made a fix for this](_URL_9_)", "Lets change it from \"oculus rift\" to \"3D immersion\" and the from what I can discern, the issue is support and usability.\n\nSony has Mobius and Facebook has the Oculus Rift. Barring the differences the reason they have not come to market is because this is what you would call a disruptive change in product. It will in effect change everything if it is adopted by gamers in mass. It could lead to us not using televisions in the majority of cases for consoles. It is a lot of money on the line so here it goes...\n\n**1) Support**\nWe have seen some developers say they will support Mobius/Oculus, and that is good, but when it hits the shelves and there are 5 games out for they will only convert the early adopters the \"it's new I have to have it\" buyers. There won't be any on-the-fencers buying the OR/Mobius for 5 games. The Kinect and PSEye are perfect examples of failure of support for peripherals, no one supported so no one bought it, no one bought it so no one wanted to support it. [It's a vicious cycle.](_URL_10_)\n\n**2) Usability**\nLittle fact, the Oculus rift made first time participants throw up often. Littler known fact, when video games that showed movement was introduced older people, think 18+, tried playing games like Zelda OoT would make them sick due to motion sickness. Oculus Rift had to combat the problem where it actually made the participants sick / headachy due to motion sickness. From what I understand they have wrapped that up and the current weight is just under a pound or less than 380 grams. It's wearable technology if its not comfortable it's not usable. \"mild irritation while playing\" becomes \"i will not use that thing because it hurts my ears / eyes / neck\" and with long play sessions it won't be an option it has to great.", "This is actually pretty normal especially with new hardware. The time it takes to go from functional prototype to production ready is pretty long and can even take over a year in oculus' case. The product needs to be tested and reworked probably a lot of times and they definitely will want a great product coming out when it hits the market. There are probably a lot of ideas that also get scrapped, which go through the same testing cycle but as consumers we never get to experience.", "It's bleeding edge.\n\nYou wanted it released with absolutely no games or demos to be used on it? You want it released when the major of people who *built* their computers can only handle it at minimal specs? You want another Crises release where no one can run it at it's potential?\n\nTwo years isn't a long time for Devs to produce something meaningful with brand new tech in it's infancy that already requires a system that borders on \"Enthusiast\" level to run just *okay*.\n\nThink about it.", "Because throwing the Oculus out there without enough content will instantly kill it. I had the DK2 for a few months and eventually sold it again because there just wasn't enough stuff to do with it, except for mostly 5 minute experiences that you try out once and then never look at again.\n\nNot saying it isn't awesome though, it absolutely is!", "Compatibility testing and optimization is a huge part of any development process in the PC market. \n\nBeyond that, the average home user desktop isn't up to snuff to operate these things at a reasonable framerate. They'll have a bigger market for a more polished product with fewer design compromises if they release during a later hardware cycle than current.", "I don't know if you noticed, but the internet is vicious with things that perform even slightly sub-par. They are tightening up what it can do, basically. The VR/AR craze is not something they want to be a passing fad, and they are at the forefront of this development.", "The hardware is half the equation. Innovative hardware creators need a \"killer app\" to ensure that the hardware is perceive well, as well as working with major graphics card manufacturers to ensure wide ranging availability and long lasting compatibility.", "It's done. They're waiting for market conditions and available game developers to create the perfect storm so they release it when the market clamors for it, instead of a few fanboys look for it", "Imagine you had a recipe for the best cupcake in the world. moist, flavor packed, with very tasty frosting. Only problem is that you didn't have an oven that was hot enough to cook it. so the recipe goes in the back of your cookbook, until you can get a hot enough oven.\n\nThen, one day, you realize that there is an oven hot enough to cook the perfect cupcake. you get very excited, because now you can make the best cupcake ever. however you realize you haven't ever tried to make it before. There was never a point to, you could never get the cupcake hot enough to cook.\n\nso you try a few, you make a couple and give them to a baker. no frosting, and the cake is flat because it's missing a few ingredients. The baker tell you that it's not the best cupcake, but it is very tasty and they can see with some more tries this could be the best cupcake ever!\n\nso you try again, you make it with some better ingredients and add some of the missing ingredients. then you make more and sell them at a local bake sale. they are still missing the frosting, but they are nice and fluffy and people really like them. people all around hear about these awesome cupcakes and everyone gets excited as well. \n\nso you make more, you add much better ingredients. very good flour, fresh eggs, and frosting but you don't add sugar. you sell these at a large bake sale and everyone really likes them. they want you to sell these cupcakes everywhere.\n\nbut you know that these are not the best cupcakes. they are very good, but they can be so much better. so you go back and make the best cupcakes. with sugar in the frosting and sprinkles this time. but you have to make a lot of them, so it takes time so it takes a bit longer.\n\nbut remember the baker who tried the cupcakes in the beginning? he just kept going on and on about how these cupcakes were going to be the best. telling everyone he could possibly tell, making everyone hungry to at least try one. As more people tried the cupcakes at the bake sales they as well tell us how awesome the cupcakes are going to be when everyone gets to try them.\n\nThis is the point we are at now with oculus: we have heard about this awesome thing before it was anywhere close to being a finished product. we wait and wait, constantly hearing about the awesomeness coming but it feels like a very long time. Eventually we will have the oculus, and it will be up to us to determine if the hype is worth it.", "First, I'm by no means an expert, but I have experience developing for the Rift and Google Cardboard, as well as the general reaction to a wide variety of industries (warehouse management solutions, gamers, academia, etc.) when I show them the technology. Here is my little summary on it:\n\nAs many have mentioned, it is SUPPOSED to be a game changer, but I think the current problem that Oculus realized a bit late (that I have advocated from the beginning) is that the headset alone is NOT a game changer. Yes, it's neat, yes, it brings some cool things into play, but the majority of people in the industries I mentioned above (obviously with a few exceptions) have been generally unexcited, and really just not interested in the technology. The reasons for this (again, as best as I have gathered) is because it comes off as \"just another screen\". Yes, it's a bit more immersive, but it comes with drawbacks: Games have to be slowed down to prevent motion sickness, universities have to pay for higher powered computers to use the headsets (which, while cheaper, are still relatively expensive if you want more than a 2 or 3), and companies can't find a substantial benefit that requires it since what they have now still works (They don't want to fix what isn't broken). A headset alone just isn't going to provide enough gains.\n\nWhat is needed to sell virtual reality is a new type of input. Something that allows for new ways of controlling the headset outside of your standard Xbox controller. This changes quite literally everything, because if you can track where the controllers are in 3D, you can do the same with the headset, allow you to now walk around instead of \"controlling\" around. This can potentially attract casual gamers like the Wii did, and allows companies to do a lot more with it (Virtual home tours where you can physically walk around a room, training for police, etc.). It might not sound like a lot, but think about how much more interactive a game with a motion controller is, rather than a normal game controller. A menial task like cooking can easily become a full game with this, just look at the Vive demos.\n\nAnd I think Oculus is realizing this. That's why Oculus Touch was shown so soon, rather than keeping it as a secret announcement. It's also why Valve waited so long to show theirs I believe. And the reviews for these demos show too.\n\nAgain, these are just more my speculations, so maybe that's not all there is to it.\n\nTLDR; Oculus wants to add better input for the devices to help it sell better, which has caused some delays.", "My input as a developer and owner of both development kits: they're still perfecting it. There are two choices to viewing your game on the rift, extended mode and direct mode. Extended mode works with most other developers games but it's a huge pain for end users because the rift is treated as a secondary monitor, which causes headaches trying to get the software to display right. The other mode, direct mode is what is needed but not well implemented. It allows the end user to keep the display in a single monitor configuration and display the game directly to the rift. The problem is, the rift sdk (software development kit) doesn't support it very well. They're releasing a new sdk this week that actually gets rid of extended mode and provides a much improved direct mode for developers to implement into their software. So imo it's taking so long to release cv1 (consumer version 1) because they want everybody to be on direct mode for ease of consumer to run their software, making it a uniform experience for the general public.", "I've been following the progress of the rift for a year now, mainly because they block reddit at my work. However, I can answer your question - to a point.\n\nThey have set themselves goals for different specs that they have to achieve before they will release it. I don't recall any of the specs or even what they were, but I do remember that their goals were pretty lofty considering where they were at the time (DK1) - the DK2 got them much closer, but they're still trying to get that thing up to their own insane standards before they'll release it.\n\nSo, kind of what the other people are saying - they want to release a good product - however, less about software and requirements and all that stuff.\n\nEDIT: sorry, i don't have any links... I know I got there from going to here: _URL_11_ and just reading articles and interviews", "I own a DK1 and DK2. I try to follow the news of the CV1 as much as possible. \n\nIt is my understanding that many rival companies are coming out with their own versions of the Oculus Rift. Therefore, Oculus is spending a lot of time creating a product that will be far better than the competitors. It did not help things when the co-founder was killed in a car crash 2 years ago. They are also trying to add things that are very difficult to create, such as making it wireless and having your hands shown in-game. As of right now a lot of people are saying Valve's VR headset will be better than Oculus, so I think they are keeping things pretty secret and working around the clock to bring us the best VR experience when it is available at local stores. I believe they are planning on a 2016 product release.", "Honestly I feel like Facebook acquiring them slowed down their progress. They would likely have a Beta consumer version out by now if they weren't swallowed up by the Zuckerberg machine. At this point they run the risk of getting out done by competitors who have quicker turnaround time. If the first legitimate VR headset to market is made by Apple or Samsung, you can bet your ass Oculus Rift will be an also ran in this industry. The only thing they may have a leg up on is the proprietary software for movement control, but even that can be replicated.\n\nEdit: Relevant news today; _URL_12_", "I know of a developer working on Occulus-Rift who fainted with a seizure after using it continuously for a few hours! \nThe headsets can cause something called a Cybersickness or Simulator Sickness. The brain gets confused handling all the virtual data and simply shuts down or produces some nasty symptoms which luckily are temporary. \nThe CEO of occulus suffered from motion sickness after he used the headset for the first time and resolved to launch the headset to public only after they solved the problem. You can imagine the bad press otherwise. \n\nHere's a link if you are interested\n_URL_13_", "I think they are doing most things correctly to create the best product possible. I think where they have messed up is not releasing Oculus touch as a dev kit to DK2 owners and not increasing the FOV significantly. The killer apps for VR are going to use joysticks like Touch and the Vive controllers. Vive is going to have a head start with potential killer apps out of the gate (e.g. The Gallery, Hover Junkers, and shooting gallery games) and Oculus will have to play catch up and wait for devs to develop apps with Touch in 2016.", "I've played with the prototypes and tried out different intrefaces. The display, even when it gets very good, is not much. It is just a very immersive screen, but after the first weeks is not so special. What actually changes the game is the addition of hand held controls. We did a proof-of-concept game using Kinect & Playstation Move handles with the Oculus DK2. That gets expectionally good and that is where the interesting things start to happen.\nDon't even think about getting a VR display without the hand held controls, you'll be missing alot.", "Even if the rig actually comes out, you won't get widespread game adoption. Most games won't support it due to the high cost of integrating something like that in. The best you'll get are ports of existing games which would mean hooking up free look to the goggles. And even then, existing games will break, how do you handle separating the gun from the view? A lot of FPS games actually use the camera position to shoot, so you would have to de-couple that and integrate it somehow. The answer is, get used to waiting.", "I think they're waiting for software.\n\nMy old work was one of the first third-party studios to get a Natal, before it became the Kinect, and even with being on the ground so early, we didn't really have time to do... anything, with it. I think a lot of people were in the same position, which is why there were really no third-party games that used the Kinect well on launch.\n\nDevelopers need Oculus kits like... at minimum, 2-3 years before they can put a really great game on that hardware.", "Two reasons really. One: They needed a screen manufaturer to come up with a 5 inch screen in mass volume with 2x 1080p resolution at 75hz so they could offer 1080p per eye or better. (Hello Samsung Note 5) Two: They needed desktop gaming video cards to catch up and be able to drive two screens of 1080p or more at 75hz at medium settings minimum. Both of these requirements will be met around the end of 2015. ALSO Cake day! woot", "There used to be a popular term, \"killer app.\" Basically, the game or application that you can't live without, and that justifies the purchase all by itself. Like, when a new console launches (PS4 for example), most people check to see which games are available at launch, and many if not most people wait till something like COD or GTA comes out on that platform before they will buy it.\n\nThat doesn't yet exist for the oculus rift.", "A few reasons:\n\n-They need compelling and complete games and software. Great hardware means nothing without great software to use with it.\n\n-It is gonna take a pretty beefy PC to run the consumer Rift. The longer they wait the more affordable the parts will be.\n\n-Facebook's acquisition allowed them to make less compromises for the consumer product. So what they originally had intended for a consumer product was probably delayed do to redesign and additional/substitution of parts.", "It's like having a lemonade stand on a hot summer day without the ice. Execution is what matters. \n\nThe Occulus Rift is the lemonade stand. The sugar is the hardware and the ice is the software. If you only have a cube of ice, then it's not going to be as good as if you had a few in in it. Same with sugar, not enough sugar and no one is going to really enjoy it's sweetness.", "Because they don't have many games that you can play it on. all we have are concepts so far. \n\nIt's not like how when Nintendo made the analog stick for the N64. They launched with Super Mario 64 and then later with Ocarina of Time and other games that used the new technology. Oculus doesn't make games. They need a developer to have faith in the Rift and make a game *for* the Oculus Rift.", "Just a hunch, but I think they need to do more research on the negative long term effects of using VR. Most people complain about headaches after 1-2 hours of continuous use. Doesn't sound like something I'd want to bring to market until I was 100% sure I wasn't going to get my pants sued off or need to recall 100,000 units.", "Facebook: Having a tech giant with a broader vision of connecting people across the world buy a virtual reality interface company means the design parameters which would yield a quick to market, quick to profit model of development was not chosen in favor of a more deliberate process with a much bigger scope and longer term goals.", "I actually got to look at an earlier version in early 2014. And while it is an insanely cool idea, the display was at that time not yet nearly good enough. You could still easily make out the little black lines between the pixels. My guess is that they are still tweaking the display.", "Could be a sales manuver. They're timing the release to build up the hype and increase initial sales. If the initial release is a fail it gives the product a bad name. Also they may be waiting for a specific games to release it with.", "They want it to be good when they release it. I would guess there are still a few bugs and problems with it right now. Not anything huge, but if they want to really change the market, it has to be perfect.", "My friend works for a company creating VR content. He says it's going to change everything if it's done right and I truly believe him. Hoping it's not ruined by a crappy launch. I'm willing to wait", "I wondered the same. \n\nCan there BE a more \"shut up and take my money\" product?\n\nThen I realise the implications of Nausea-gate. \n\nIf early reviews are all 'makes people feel sick' it could kill the concept.", "I don't even care about the rift anymore. Especially as its being developed under Facebook. It's all about valve's version now, if that is implemented well with steam then the rift won't be able to compete.", "they want to make a perfect product. but they gotta hurry too, because the hype is dying down fast. im nowhere near as interested in the product as I was 10-12 months ago..", "Because the Dev kits still have issues and because devs need it for years before consumer release to actually develop stuff. Otherwise you get a device with no developer support.", "I feel like they're just holding out until it's totally flawless and all encompassing so it doesn't get bad press and people chalk it up as just a novelty", "so what do i invest in to make money off it? plz don't tell me it has to be facebook....", "They need to hurry up and finish oculus rift. I want to bang a virtual anime girl already, dammit!", "Because Facebook is trying to find a way to make money off people using it in every day life.", "TBH? Waiting for game developers and graphics card manufacturers to catch up." ]

[ "It basically comes down to pH value of the whey and it's drained. Casein is bonded by calcium phosphate (which is where the calcium comes from) and as the pH decreases it becomes soluble and is drained away." ]

[ "> Basically, how is this caused, and why the hexagon bokeh is always perfectly shaped?\n\nBoth of those answers are because it is the shape of the lens aperture of the camera. [This link shows what structure is causing the shape.](_URL_0_)", "I don't believe its a characteristic of the water. It's likely the shape of the cameras aperture is causing the reflection to appear hexagonal." ]

[ "You get the same thing from lightning strikes. The electric potentials involved have enough energy to break the bonds in ordinary molecular oxygen (O2) and some of the free oxygen atoms can reform to ozone (O3). You need energy to do this because it tends not to happen spontaneously, as the O2 molecule is a more stable molecule than O3. The voltages provide the energy for the reaction to occur." ]

[ "Because persons are smart, people are dumb\n\nAs some comedian said, imagine what average, I mean totally middle of the road intelligent, person is like. Now realize that HALF the population is dumber than that.", "they found a niche in american and have been milking it for all they cash they can for over 20yrs. I hate them as musicians, but i have to respect them for marketing themselves very well and making lots of money from very horrible music.", "ICP created a crazy subculture surrounding the group that their fans subscribe to. You can see similar things in other genres like punk and hardcore, but in those cases it's more towards the scene instead of one group. Maybe it could be a sense of belonging that their fans don't feel otherwise? I know a guy who's toured with Wolfpack and from his stories the \"brotherhood\" is insanely dedicated." ]

[ "It is *not* an infinite amount. It is less than 4.\n\nIn *does* take an infinite amount of digits to explain precisely what the amount is, but that's about being precise, not about being huge.", "Pi isn't infinite - it's more than 3 and less than 4.\n\nHowever, pi can't be expressed as a decimal or fraction because it's irrational, so it *does* take an infinite number of digits to accurately measure pi. \n\nSort of like how there are an infinite number of numbers between 0 and 1. \"Infinite\" can mean a few different things, based on context." ]

[ "Because the question in the wild is not so much if you win, but if you get injured. If the large animal stands and fights, yes, it might kill the small animal, but maybe the small animal takes a chunk out of the big animal's leg. Then the big animal has a gimped leg, can't run, can't catch prey (or escape other predators), and it likely dies.", "Size isn't everything. Plenty of animals are more than capable of severely hurting or killing animals many times their size.\n\nSnakes can prey on antelope.\n\nWolverines can take on bears.\n\nHell, elephants are afraid of mice." ]

[ "Henry Ford has been credited with creating the weekend as we know it today. Apparently the normal work week used to be six days, and Sunday was the day of rest. When Ford was paying workers $2 per day (maybe $2.50, not sure), the going rate at the time, there was lots of turnover and constant hiring and training, so Ford decided to double the rate to $5 per day to reduce turnover and keep employees instead of constantly training new hires. At the same time, he also decided to make a five day work week to give his employees Saturday off, thinking they would buy more cars to ride around in for the weekend. The local business community told him he would bankrupt his business. The day after he ran a full page ad in the paper for the $5 per day jobs, there were massive lines of people applying for jobs with Ford. The idea was extremely successful, and the weekend was born.", "Well, in the old days (like the Middle Ages) people worked 6 days a week then when to church on Sunday. \n\nThe idea of two days off, Saturday and Sunday, wasn't until the 20th century when some companies like Ford did it so Jewish workers could have Saturday off to go to the synagogue, too. The Jewish day of rest is Saturday not Sunday like Christians. \n\nThen labor unions (a bunch of workers that group together to ask for thinks like more money or better working conditions) pushed for the 5 day work week in the 1920s. \n\nIn 1948 the federal government in the US made a law that there is a 40 hour work week, and work over than is paid 50% more (overtime) and most companies went to the Monday thru Friday thing, and the weekend was here.", "Lenny Henry launched an excellent marketing campaign for Premier Inn and it just kinda stuck.", "The nation of Israel before becoming what we think of as Jewish believed God commanded a day of rest (not a bad idea, really), and set up six days \"to do all thy labor\", but...\"on the seventh day thou shalt do no work, for...\" which is followed by a brief explanation and the basic outline of what is/isn't acceptable on that day (worship, family, close your business and give your household help the day off, even animals got the day off!). They tied it strongly to the story of creation (Six days, plus a day of rest by the Creator). This was what is now Saturday--modern Jews still observe Saturday along with a handful of sabbatarian Christian denominations.\n\nI'm sure other religions had similar stories, but that is the most familiar to most in the western world. Jesus came well after the wilderness exile (where the commandments were given), and encouraged the continuing of the tradition/law in the early Christian church, which later drifted over to Sundays for [reasons] and was codified by the Holy Roman Empire/Catholic church which was arguably the political and spiritual heir to the [actual] Roman Empire even if the military and legal power was broken up into the many vassal states. The Catholic Church and most Protestant denominations observe (or at least worship on) Sundays even today.\n\nOther religions have similar concepts, some as strong, others more generic/general; but it was the early Christian churches Jewish roots that led to the later Sunday/Saturday traditions in countries with Christian or para-Christian influences (example: colonists building businesses in colonized non-Christian countries which have continued to follow the weekend tradition even after the colonists left).", "In the British Factory Act (1850, or thereabouts) they limited Saturday working to half a day (you finished by 2pm) and you also got Sunday off. Not sure why Saturday though instead of another day." ]

[ "When you sleep, your brain releases chemicals that essentially paralyze you so you don't hurt yourself by moving while you dream. They take a while to wear off though.\n\nSleep paralysis is an unpleasant side effect of nightmares and waking up while the chemicals are still in effect.", "_URL_0_\n\nThis is the #2 post on ELI5's front page right now. Please look around a bit before posting something." ]

[ "They don't \"do\" anything.\n\nMedalling is proof that you are among the best in the world at your sport. That can help you get sponsors and endorsements, and it can help you leverage a post-sports career in something like journalism or broadcasting if you play things right. But there are no special privileges or anything that come with having a medal." ]

[ "The media is owned by corporate capital and has been shifting culture from progressive collectivism to ineffectual individualism for decades on purposes. The real opposition to Obamacare is not over its actual impact on the economy or personal freedom, it is about squashing any impulse towards collectivism or solidarity and replacing it with self-defeating individualism. \"Organized capital and vertical monopoly GOOD and organized labor BAD.\" Progressive movements are floundering in iterative intersectionality and back-biting while capital prospers unopposed.", "Unions are not inherently positive or negative. It depends on what they do. I think overall, most unions are very helpful and necessary for the workers they represent. However, there have been situations where the union is demanding simply way too much money than the company can pay, and the company is forced to take their labor overseas or elsewhere. This can really hurt local and national economies. There are also situations in which the labor union has a monopoly in an entire industry, but their dues are so high it can very difficult for workers to start out, but almost impossible to find work outside of the union.", "The criticism comes from the fact that unions are quite susceptible to corruption. Unions do still serve an important functions, especially in many trades.\n\nBeware of anyone who wants to crush unions, or those who want to give unions power at the expense of their members. Such people are extremists; a better approach certainly falls somewhere in the middle.", "Generally on why people that would benefit from social equity oppose it :\n\n* Media lense that promote conservative and dominant view more.\n* Moral view on work : the idea of merit and work is very present in the middle class.\n* Relative position in society is more important for a lot of people, for middle class welfare is seen as something that could bridge the gap with lower placed groups, hence relative downfall with objective amelioration.\n* The \"could be\" syndrom, a lot of people identify as people that could make it. And they wouldn't want to get their hard earned money taken if they make it. Even if it's objectively very unlikely.\n\nNow on labour itself viewed by the society:\n\n* Medias again\n* The transition from industry to service driven economy change the impact of strikes on people life. In industry, a strike will at most have a very indirect impact on normal people but a big one on capital. B2C services strikes, has a direct impact on both.\n* unions mostly fight to keep labour protection or improve them. But now, this form of labour is attacked by auto entreprenership and stuff like that (which is more akin to primitive labour btw), so protected labour can be seen as a privilege (which is true, but a much much smaller privilege than capitalistic ones).\n\nLately on labour organization :\n\n* In most western countries, labour unions representatives are completely integrated in the political life, thus making the chance of real change comming from them very slim." ]

[ "Mars has a number of advantages over the moon, although some of them are still in the speculated-but-not-confirmed category.\n\nMars has a lot more natural resources than the moon that we can use. Things that are on both, like ice, are more abundant on Mars and there are a number of things not present on the moon at all - notably, an atmosphere. Although the Martian atmosphere is *very* thin compared to the Earth, there's still enough to it that we can use the C02 to convert it into breathable oxygen for settlements. Over centuries, we might even be able to terraform it into a breathable atmosphere. Having an atmosphere also helps a tiny bit for landing things on Mars, as parachutes are an option to assist (although nowhere near as useful as on Earth, retrorockets would still be very much needed). The moon does have an advantage of much lower surface gravity (roughly half that of Mars), but while that makes it easier to get there, it would make permanent settlements less comfortable. Over time, humans in low-g environments develop weaker skeletal structures and muscles, so in the long run, the higher Martian gravity (compared to the moon) would be a good thing.\n\nThen there's the environment itself. First, Mars is a little better off in protecting the surface from solar radiation than the moon because of distance from the sun and its atmosphere. Again, it's nowhere near as good as Earth, but it's still something. But more importantly is dust. Because the moon has no atmosphere, it's dust is *much* more abrasive and tends to wear out moving parts much faster. Martian dust has been worn down by wind, so it's not as abrasive.\n\nFinally, there's the human element - two key factors, really. First, we've been to the moon. It's old hat. Mars is a brand new place we've never been... that gets people more interested. But also, Mars is another step *outward* and away from the Earth. Colonizing Mars shows, much more than the moon, than humans can survive elsewhere in the galaxy with minimal support from the Earth.\n\nEDIT: I forgot to add the day/night cycle. This is important because solar is probably going to be a primary source of electricity for a settlement, as it's one of a very few methods of large-scale power generation that doesn't require large amounts of liquid water (as coal, natural gas and especially nuclear all do - although some forms of solar also do), and wind isn't a great option because of how thin the atmosphere is. The Martian day is only 40 minutes longer than an Earth day, providing a similar day/night cycle. This is important to solar because you only need to store power long enough to get through the night. Contrast it to the moon, which has a 29.5 Earth-day long day. That means night on the moon is about 2 weeks long (dependent on where you are, of course), so you would have to store enough electricity to get through those two weeks. That would take a *lot* of batteries.", "It's just a bit of hype, like the Moon was back in the 60's. It's somewhere man has not yet set foot on.\n\nWe'd need to wait for 20 more years so that we get a mission there, see how expensive it is, how hostile the planet is, how hard it is to get a window to send more stuff there, how expensive resupplies are and after that we'll settle for building a base on the moon." ]

[ "Same reason you don't keep turning the ignition key for hours in your car when it won't start -- there's no point in doing it, it won't get better." ]

[ "At the very lowest level, modern semiconductor **transistors** are pieces of lead and silicon arranged so that putting a current on one electrode allows current to flow between the other two electrodes. By itself, that might not sound significant, but think about what happens when we make transistors control transistors.\n\nA transistor can be said to be \"on\" if current can pass, and \"off\" if not. The beauty of having these two states is that we can use the **binary code** to store numbers using only on/off states ([explanation](_URL_0_)). Another important thing is that these data points, individually referred to as **bits**, can be stored on wires (low/high voltage), hard discs (magnetized/inert spaces), optical disks (dots/dashes), or cards (slots/blanks). Now, as you can see, there are ways of using massive arrays of transistors to store numbers. Then, using the properties of the binary counting system, we can easily make circuits that add or subtract stored values from each other and place the result in a new memory slot.\n\nLet's get more complicated. A computer works by inputting a stream of bits that form numbers into a vast network of transistors, which do mathematical operations and then spit out new bits. The job of the programmer is to feed the correct bits into the computer's memory, so that they get manipulated by other transistors into the desired result. However, you can see how this is impossible on a modern computer with billions of transistors all connected to each other. Thus, we need **programming languages** to make shortcuts for us. Instead of individually feeding bits into the processor, we can feed it decimal numbers and operations (+,-,*,/). When the program is executed, those decimal numbers get turned into binary numbers (by a circuit that does just that purpose) before being run through the processor that performs the operation and returns a number (that then is converted back into decimal format). \n\nBut modern computers have millions upon millions of memory slots, and we can't do useful stuff with just raw numbers. The purpose of programming languages is to \"hide\" tedious tasks like writing binary numbers and organizing memory so that the programmer can concentrate on **human-understandable concepts** like decimals, words, colors, sounds, etc. For an example on how this works, look at [ASCII](_URL_1_). Each letter is stored by the computer as just on/off states on the hard drive or in the transistors, but with enough of these bits we can store entire books in ASCII or Unicode. Everything we push into a computer gets converted into easy-to-understand easy-to-store binary numbers before it gets manipulated by silicon transistor circuits.", "Computers run off of binary code which is basically a bunch of 0's and 1's. So when you write a program in any programming language or in terminal/command prompt you are really just typing in a bunch of 0's and 1's that the computer can easily read.", "the machines are created to handle things. Think about it like a car with stick shift. \n\nIf the stick is in the first gear, then the car behaves a certain way. If the stick is in fifth gear, the car behaves differently. the inner workings of a computer work the same way." ]

[ "The way we find these planets is to monitor the amount of light coming from a star and then see if it drops slightly occasionally. If it does then that means the star is partially obscured by a planet transiting across the front of it. \n\nWe do not have that perspective on planets beyond the orbit of earth as there is nothing bright for them to obscure.\n\nWe cannot see them with telescopes because they are too dark and/or distant to detect, the best we can do is look for slight changes in the orbit of objects we can see (such as Pluto) to see if they are being affected by the gravity of something unknown.", "Knowing where to look helps. Space is unbelievably big, and outer planets have orbits in the several hundred year range which means we could quite literally look for years and not spot them. Add to that tthe possibility of them orbiting off the plane of the ecliptic the way Pluto does and it makes the search area much bigger. Finding an exoplanet is a matter of looking at a star in one spot and watching for it to dim when the planet gets in the way, we can't do that with planets in our own system unless they're between us and the sun." ]

[ "Have you ever seen a Rothko in person? It makes a huge difference. First and foremost, they're BIG paintings. Second, he always wanted people to look at them up close. IIRC he said the ideal viewing distance as 18\" (45cm). When you're that close to a huge painting, you literally can't see anything else. Your entire field of vision is consumed by this intense color field. The color kind of radiates on to you. Rothko's work was important because it was a pretty big influence on this notion of \"pure expression\" or \"direct experience\". It doesn't operate through language, symbols, or cultural understands. It's mean to be just something you feel, free of associations with anything else. It's important to note that Rothko isn't just important for making this kind of work, but also for talking about it quite extensively. Rothko was a very famous painter even before he started making abstract paintings, and he was quite popular and well respected. His transitions from representational and abstract works, along with his public writing/teaching/lectures/etc. on the subject makes him an enormously important figure in the history of art and the development of contemporary art theory." ]

[ "\"Crapware\" refers to all of the pre-installed apps that you don't want, but the device will not allow you to uninstall.\n\n\"Rooting\" means basically taking control of the device in such a way that you can do things that it normally doesn't permit you to do, including uninstalling \"uninstallable\" apps. The term comes from UNIX operating systems, where, aside from the normal user accounts, there is a \"root\" account that has absolute permission to do anything it wants, and will not be restricted in any way by the operating system.", "I know nothing about crapware, though l imagine it may refer to the stuff that your phone company preloads onto your phone that you can't get rid of without rooting.\n\nRooting means unlocking administrator level access to your phone, so you can change the underlying programming that your phone uses to operate or use programs that would otherwise be incompatible or restricted. Rooting allows a person to change things like \"overclocking\", meaning that it allows them to remove restrictions on how hard their processor can work - this can be dangerous in that it can burn out your processor or damage other hardware in the phone, but if used correctly it simply gets more performance out of the phone without making any hardware upgrades.\n\nRooting often voids any warranty on the phone unless you can reset the phone to factory defaults before attempting to redeem a warranty, and it can lead to stability issues and crashing, even \"bricking\" the phone (making it entirely non-functional), and should therefore not be done by anybody who is not capable of understanding and executing the detailed instructions for rooting or is and comfortable with the risks.\n\nMost people do not have any need to root their phone. Factory settings will get the job done, and more simply, for the vast majority of users. For those that need more or like to tinker, rooting is the place to go." ]

[ "Because of the way radio technology works.\n\nThe station you pick isn't actually what you are listening to, you're listening to a range or band of frequencies, rather than just one.\nThe name of the channel is based on the range of frequencies assigned to it, in terms of the actual frequencies being broadcast to make that channel.\n\nHowever, it's much easier to call a station 101.1 than \"101-101.199\" or what have you. 101.1 lies in the middle of the band so it makes more sense than other possibilities" ]

[ "The correct answer is that you have the same amount of B in A as there is A in B.\n\nConsider this: each container has 100 units of liquids A and B. The ladle can carry 10 units. In the first scoop, you have 10 units of A in the ladle. You transferred it to container B. Now Container A has 90 units of A. Container B has 100 units of B and 10 units of A.\n\nWhen you take a scoop from container B, you have about 0.91 units of A, and 9.09 units of B (since that solution is 10/110 liquid A). You add this to container A. Now container A has 90.91 units of liquid A, and 9.09 units of B. However, container B still has the same proportion of liquid A and B after the first mixing - namely, 10/110 liquid A, and 100/110 liquid B. This translates to 9.09 units of liquid A, and 90.9 units of liquid B.", "We can use reductio ad absurdum to show that A and B have the same volume.\n\nLet's assume that we end up with more liquid A than liquid B (or vice versa). \n\nBut how can we get this result? Since no liquid is added or removed, the split will always be equal and opposite. If one container has 60%/40%, the other must have 40%/60%, or 90%/10% and 10%/90%. Each of the two liquids must add always up to 100%. There is never a situation where you have 70%/30% and 30%/69% because that one percent cannot just disappear. Since adding or removing liquid is the only way to get more of one liquid than the other, we have to conclude that the the amount of A in B and B in A are the same.\n\nYou can work through the math like others have done, but this is an intuitive way of thinking about the problem." ]

[ "Your repertoire is the body of works that you have learnt and are able to perform. You may have one or many pieces in your repertoire. \n\n\nIn this context, it sounds like you are being asked for pieces of contrasting style, or from different periods in the history of classical music. If you fulfill the latter, then you pretty much automatically fulfill the first - for instance you could have four sonatas from the Classical period, and you would have to strive hard to make sure they all offered contrasting elements. Or you could choose four different sorts of pieces from the Classical period and show the variety that was present in just one period. Or (and this seems like the safest bet), you could choose four pieces from different periods and they would almost certainly provide plenty of contrast. I'm thinking in terms of Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, 20th Century, and Contemporary/Modern periods. There is no end to the variety of different styles and types of work since the 20th Century." ]

[ "Look back on the past two elections:\n\n2008: McCain only released 2 years of tax returns. He didn't get heat for it. Nobody cared. He was rich, and was attacked for being rich. Remember his wife's comment about not knowing how many houses they owned? But only releasing two years of tax returns didn't matter.\n\n2004: Kerry wouldn't release all of his Vietnam service records. He was pounced on, with the attitude \"Obviously he has something to hide.\" The attack worked, it weakened his support. He lost. Everyone still believed he was hiding something. Later, Kerry later released all the remaining service records. Turns out, Kerry wasn't lying at all. He didn't have anything to hide, and he was telling the truth all along. He said he didn't release them earlier because he felt it would be wrong to cave to opponents' requests. \n\nNow here we are in 2012, apparently having forgotten recent history and created new standards. \n\nI'm going to state something anathema to Reddit. Perhaps Romney is...telling the truth. What if he doesn't want to release them because he believes in some privacy? That is most definitely a possibility. But Reddit seems to reject it. \n\nThe ultimate answer is, we just don't know. Only Romney himself knows. All this speculation about what he *may* be trying to hide is the same crap that created problems in 2004. And if you think we should be upset about it now, why didn't we care in 2008?", "To begin with, the \"liberal media\" is a myth.\n\nTo get to your question, he hasn't released his taxes because they will make him look bad.\n\nIn his best case scenario, he didn't do anything illegal but he use tax loopholes to pay an inordinately low percentage of his income in taxes. This will reinforce the notion that he, being ultra rich, gets special advantages that everyday people don't get and that he isn't contributing his fair share. It makes him look out of touch, and undermines his whole campaign notion of lowering taxes for rich people like him.\n\nIn the worst case scenario, he's trying to hide that he took part in a 2009 amnesty program run by the IRS in which those people who were defrauding the government by illegally using foreign tax shelters were allowed to repatriate their money at a greatly reduce cost. If this came to light, he would be rightly seen by the public as a tax cheat and that would be devastating to his campaign.\n\nHarry Reid's accusations were really a brilliant political ploy, essentially putting Romney in a \"damned if you do, damned if you don't\" position. Meanwhile, the longer he continues to not release his taxes, people will grow more suspicious as to why he just doesn't release them.", "Probably because he ships his income overseas to swiss banks to avoid income tax here.", "There are a list of possible reasons here :[_URL_0_] some of which are a bit over the head of a 5 year old so I'll summarise the ones I find interesting:\n\n * Mitt Romney is a member of a church to which he is morally obliged to pay a proportion of his income. Some question if he's been paying all that he should have. The tax returns would reveal this situation (if it were so).\n\n * Mitt Romney would like to distance himself from a corporation he used to work at (and partly own) and which some voters would approve of. The tax returns may show he was involved more recently in the running of that corporation than Mitt would like us to believe.\n\n * Mitt may have made contributions (and claimed a tax benefit which arose from those contributions) to groups that some supporters of his party would not support and would not like to think that Mitt has supported." ]

[ "They need to take a breath for their next cry. Longer pauses adds more intensity when the second cry hits.", "Small as in infant? Toddler? My 17 month old usually sleeps through the night. Occasionally, if she wakes up she will cry once to convey, \"Hey, I need you.\" Then she waits quietly for a moment. If I fail to respond, she continues. Because I obviously must not have heard her request for assistance, she increases the volume and sometimes adds higher pitched shrieks to express her frustration and fear. \n\nBasically- Babies aren't the best at communicating and are easily frustrated." ]

[ "I'm not so sure they do. I drink apple juice, grape juice, and orange juice and I notice they do change in taste year in and year out and also season in and season out as the source of the fruit changes as seasons change in different parts of the world. So answer is, they don't control it. Some batches are better than others.", "Most commercially-available year-round juices are infused with \"flavor packs\". These flavor packs are flavor extracts which are added to the juice to enhance the naturally-occurring flavor which tends to degrade over time. The most well-known example of this is orange juice, which must be stored for long periods of time in aseptic, oxygen-free tanks. During this period flavor tends to degrade at least slightly, so flavor packs are added to bring back and at least mimic the natural flavor of fresh juice." ]

[ "The heck where are the comments? \n\nThe behavior is called mirroring which we humans have accepted as affectionate behavior. When babies babble in their cute high pitch voices, we also babble back. \n\nWhen cats miaow, we miaow back. Same with kittens", "In animals and babies, the words you use can't always be understood. What can be understood are tones, body language and expressions. When you admonish an animal you'll usually use a harsh tone, versus a lighter tone when you want it to be playful. Same holds true for babies before their language skills develop." ]

[ "Threads tend to be deleted because they break some subreddit rule (no joke posts, post must be a question). Comments tend to get deleted because they break Reddit rules (doxxing, copyright infringement).\n\nOf course, either can be removed for the other reason." ]

[ "Because according to FDA regulations, any foods that has 0.5 g of trans fat or less PER SERVING can be labelled as trans fat free.\n\nIn big bags of chips, the manufacturer can jiggle the serving size so that each serving will have less than 0.5 g. But small bags of chips are generally considered to contain only 1 serving, and so they can't divide out extra servings to screw with the numbers.", "Food product companies bribe regulators to allow the manufacturers to lie about their products.\n\nSawdust is food if they label it microcrystalline cellulose.\n\nWater is broth if they inject it into meat.\n\nRancid sludge is meat if treated with floor cleaner.\n\nFat is fat-free if they can divide it into a large enough number of servings.\n\nThis is why a sausage is 2.5 servings.\n\nModern food products are not food. Nearly everything on the label is a lie. The product itself is a sham. Try eating food you prepare yourself for a week (like meats and vegetables). Then try eating packaged food product for a week. Keeping calories the same, you will find you are still hungry after eating the packaged food product because no matter what the FDA permits, sawdust, water, and corn syrup are not chicken.\n\nEDIT: To anyone who doubts regulators are getting paid off, you must prove that our food regulations are not the product of bribery (in layman sense, not technical legal sense)." ]

[ "Our brains learn how to move, and eventually store the information in our \"muscle memory\"; the stuff that's so familiar to us, our mind can essentially take shortcuts to use it. This is why acrobats can do gymnastics that other people would never be able to perform, even though their actual muscles aren't necessarily any stronger. It's also why babies can't write. When we're very young, we first learn to grip things with our entire fist, then we have to learn to turn over, then we have to learn to crawl. Writing with a pen and pencil takes a certain combination of muscles that we have to consciously learn before we can unconsciously repeat.", "Your brain is telling the muscles what to do. Your brain is controlling this activity, such as walking. It decides that you need to put your right foot forward. \n\nThere are different types of neurons, but the important one here is the motor neuron. The brain will control your actions by sending a signal down the motor neurons and to the correct muscles in your leg, causing it to move.\n\nIt's not a one way thing either. The brain is also getting feedback from your leg and at a certain point, your right foot is firmly on the ground. The brain has been made aware of it due to the nerves in your foot feeling it. It then knows to stop and switch to the left foot.", "If OP doesn't understand her question, she means how we can do things like move and walk seemingly automatically. I wondered when I was a child. If you want to go left, you just go left. You don't pick up a leg, set it down, and follow suit with the other leg. It's interesting how the body does that." ]

[ "Fertile river valleys that create a lot of good agricultural land. The same reason that the Nile delta is so much more populous than most of the rest of the area. There are lots of other similar examples around the world. \n\nIt's also worth noting that China and India are *big*. In terms of land area, China is actually larger than Canada.", "Many factors... The simplest are birth control, cultural values, and (lack of) women's rights. More complex are economic and demographic...\n\nBirth control: people like doing the NSFW, and things like the pill / and condoms are very recent inventions (within the past ~60 years). Even with modern birth control available, there's still an issue of getting people to use them. It's more expensive to use a condom than not... well, in the short term.\n\nCultural Values: the \"large\" populations in India and China are very narrowly removed from subsistence farming, where large family size is desired (just as it was desired in the rural US or Europe ~150 years ago). You want children because they provide labor and are a sign of wealth / good character. People want to be in a large loving family, putting more emphasis on that than in the developed world where individualism and privacy are more highly prized (and more economically viable).\n\nWomen's Rights: This is a very complex issue, and it's linked to both of the two above, but essentially the decision on when to have children and how many to have is largely removed from the mother. With the cost of bearing a child removed from the one(s) making the decision the birth rate is higher.\n\n\nOn the economic side... children in these countries are \"cheap\". Which doesn't mean they have less value as a person... just the cost of raising a child is much lower than in the west. Every time you see a figure like \"someone in India makes only a dollar a day\"; it's because they're eating very cheap food and living in very poor conditions (likely a shack / shanty). They don't have the costs most parents in the west pay: a fancy crib, painting a nursery (or even having nursery), formula, diapers, day care, a car seat...\n\nOn the demographic side, you have to remember these populations have always been large / growing. Similar populations (ex: the South America) have similar birth and death rates, but they started from a much smaller based (much of the population emigrated from Europe, the native populations having been decimated by disease and colonialism).\n\n\nAs well bear in mind the death rate has been declining because we're getting much better at understanding and treating diseases. Many things that previously would kill large portions of the population are now prevented or treated. Much of this is from civil improvements like providing clean water separate from sewage, reducing rates of things like cholera, dysentery, etc... Better understanding nutritional needs (even people living off food aid now get sufficient vitamins and minerals...). Epidemics are more quickly identified and contained, rather than spreading through the populations. With advances in emergency care, injuries that used to be fatal can now be treated allowing the person to recover.", "Rice has a lot to do with it.\n\nIn the pre-industrialized world, rice provided more calories per acre than any other crop. It is also more labor intensive to grow. The end result is that rice both allowed and required denser populations.", "China has a One-Child Policy (started in 1979). Their population growth is controlled and its not an issue. More people are dying than are being born. The policy has led to some interesting predicaments. There are now a few million more men than women. Lots of Forever-Aloners. But that's the cost of population control. China's population is now stable. \n\nIndia doesn't have such measures. Educational resources are severely lacking. This means people aren't aware of birth control or the financial/social impact of having children. *Access* to birth control is also limited. Additionally, Indian culture views all children as \"miracles\". \n\nLook at our own country. Mississippi has a policy of \"Abstinence Only\" sex-education. That, compounded by religious rhetoric, means they have the highest teen-pregnancy rate in the country. Religion means that not only abortions are difficult to obtain - but so is access to proper birth control for teens.\n\nLastly, healthcare has improved *worldwide*. People used to have lots of kids anyways, even in developed countries. Let's say you had 6 kids, maybe two or three would make it into adulthood. Small pox, TB, even the Flu are incredibly deadly. Children were a numbers game. In India there are free vaccines for polio, flu, etc - and that makes children live into adulthood. Yet, the practice of having several kids hasn't stopped - and that's where education comes into play." ]

[ "Straighten your esophagus. Back straight. Shoulders back. Use your lower abdominal muscles to apply pressure toward your spine then upward. Relax your throat. Project." ]

[ "It's not about electrical safety directly. If you use a metal hull as ground, especially in salt water, electrolysis can cause corrosion.", "I'm not sure about civilian ships, but in the Navy we used an ungrounded 3 phase system for reliability." ]

[ "You have a box of m & ms. You shake it and take them out one by one. Put them back in and repeat. If you keep doing this, eventually you will pull them out in the same order as the first time." ]

[ "Probably because with each year that goes by, you have a longer frame of reference to what time feels like? I don't think I phrased that well, but what I mean is that if you are 5, one year is 20% of your entire existence. If you are 50, one year is 2% of your life. So, to get the same feeling of \"long ago\", it takes more years, the older you get. Same concept as why summers seem to fly by compared to when you were a kid." ]

[ "> A person receives information about the person he or she is smooching by locking lips, Fisher said. A kiss transmits smells, tastes, sound and tactile signals that all affect how the individuals perceive each other and, ultimately, whether they will want to kiss again.\n\n > Women tend to be attracted to male partners with a different immune system makeup from their own, Fisher said. They subconsciously detect information about a partner's immune system through smell during kissing, she said.\n\n > Research led by Wendy Hill, professor of neuroscience at Lafayette College, looked at how kissing affects the hormones oxytocin, sometimes called the \"love hormone,\" which is associated with social bonding, and cortisol, a measure of stress.\n\n[Source](_URL_1_)\n\nTL;DR: There's much more to kissing than what you might think. One of those is that you subconciously pick up things about the other person through smells you won't notice. There's also this [cracked](_URL_0_) article that explains it quite well, despite being a comedy site:\n\n > It turns out Nerve 0 is directly connected to the regions of the brain associated with sex and gives your nose a direct, private highway to your genitals. Well, that's interesting. What could that be for?\n\n > Scientists theorize that when you kiss someone, Nerve 0 picks up their pheromones and warns your body to start sending blood and good vibes down to your crotch as quickly as possible. It's important to note that Nerve 0 doesn't travel through your olfactory bulb at all, which means you can't actually smell any of the things your sex nerve is designed to pick up. And since our pheromones don't carry very well, getting close enough to kiss is basically the only way your Boning Nerve can do you any good.", "Our lips have an inordinate amount of nerve endings in them. Touching them together will stimulate both partners quite a lot." ]

[ "As far as I know, QuiBids charges $0.60 a bid. So if they see something for $10, that's 1000 bids, and they've made $610. The person buying it gets a pretty good deal and everyone else who bid is screwed.", "You buy bids for 60 cents each, and every bid you spend raises the auction price by 1 cent. When the auction ends, the last bidder gets to buy the item for the final price.\n\nThe major difference between Quibids and other auction sites is that you pay for your bids whether you win the auction or not. If you bid 10 times on something and don't win, that's $6 down the drain.\n\nWhat this means is that if the final auction price for an item with an MSRP of $500 is $15, there were 1500 bids on that item. And since each bid was purchased from Quibids at a cost of $0.60 each, Quibids made $900 just on the spent bids alone. The final bidder pays $15 for the item so Quibids makes 915 - 500 = $415 on the transaction and get to advertise to the world that they just sold a laptop for $15.\n\nAs /u/Sir_topem_hat pointed out, there are also some auctions that are purposefully kept to a limited pool of users or only to beginner Quibids users in order to generate attractive sales like the ones you mentioned--a $1200 Macbook selling for $1.50 wouldn't make a profit for Quibids but it would definitely drive people to the site. Those types of wins are uncommon and Quibids can afford to lose money on them because they make so much more on every other auction on the site.\n\nThe whole thing is genius, really.", "Generally the cost of all the bids put together outweighs the price of the original item, so everybody's bids all together will add up to like $1500, and the item cost $1200, the site makes a profit", "On ebay, if you bid and aren't the highest bidder, you haven't paid any money.\n\nOn QuiBids, when you bid, that money is gone from your account whether you win the item or not." ]

[ "I'll explain the difference between them, without going into what either form of Relativity actually *is*: Special Relativity only deals with objects (and reference frames) moving at constant speed. General Relativity extends Special Relativity, by figuring out how to deal with acceleration. (Spoiler alert: All acceleration is indistinguishable from gravity.)\n\nSpecial Relativity doesn't actually require complicated maths either. High-school algebra (variables, square roots) is sufficient to cover the entire subject, making it less complicated than high-school physics (which if you're not using calculus, you're not doing correctly). On the other hand, General Relativity requires ass-butt maths. As in, I have a bachelor's degree in mathematics, and I don't know enough math do to general relativity. It's a topic called Differential Geometry, which *starts* by figuring how out to draw straight lines when space itself is curved. It then goes into trying to count the number of different incompatible ways that you can do calculus to the inside of a four-dimensional sphere (lack of spoiler alert: not yet proven to be finite; generally believed to be more than 1).", "Special relativity describes flat space; general relativity describes curved space.\n\nNote that general relativity is a superset of special. It's not an evolutionary step - GR doesn't replace SR like GR replaced Newton.\n\nOn a scale where the curvature of space is approximately zero, things behave just like SR says. \n\nNote that all other forces and particles inhabit space, so SR is really a statement about the geometry that applies to all forces and particles. Although it was first discovered in the context of electromagnetism, it's not unique to electromagnetism." ]

[ "This isn't correct at all. Western depictions of cyborgs/robot are often positive (Chappie, WallE, Short Circuit), and depictions in Japanese media are often negative (Bubblegum Crisis is the only one I can think of now because it's been a while since I watched anime). You are seeing a correlation where one does not exist.", "The way this has been explained to me, and keep in mind I'm no expert on Japanese culture, I'm just parroting what others have told me, is this is partially a product of Shintoism.\n\nShintoism is similar to the old polytheistic religions of Rome and Greece in that everything has some kind of protective spirit. I believe the Japanese word for spirits in general is \"[神\\(kami\\)](_URL_1_)\", and for our purposes the equivalent words in Latin and Greek are respectively \"[genius](_URL_5_)\" and \"[δαίμων\\(daimon\\)](_URL_0_)\".\n\nI don't know how seriously the Japanese hold Shintoism, but at least many are familiar with it. My understanding is the idea of everything having some form of spirit makes it easy to anthropomorphize objects that *appear* to have autonomy, even if they're just simple robots. It's like the spirit is acting through the robot.\n\n[I have no idea if this article is accurate, if its contents reflect what I'm saying, or if it's purely anecdotal, but here's an article about Japanese people doting on their AIBOs. It at least seems to suggest what I'm saying among other things.](_URL_3_)\n\nIn the West this idea isn't as prevalent. Instead we tend to see robots as methods of industry or convenience, not autonomous beings, and a lot of our science fiction has explored the potential ethical problems of this attitude. Stories where robots are the *antagonists* often make a point of acknowledging there's more than one side to the conflict, that mankind isn't without fault either. I feel compelled to mention these stories are also often allegories for imperialism and slavery, but considering Japan's history in WWII that's a can of worms I don't want to open. I leave that to your own research and speculation.\n\nAn interesting side note is we actually get the word, \"[robot](_URL_6_)\", from a Czech word meaning \"feudal labor\", \"[robota](_URL_4_)\". The source is a play called [Rossum's Universal Robots](_URL_2_.).\n\nIf I'm not spouting shit I'm sure this is just a small part of the difference here, so take everything I'm saying with a grain of salt. It's at least an interesting idea.", "Depends on what you're watching, really. Johnny-V, R2-D2, Optimus Prime, Robocop, The Vision, Baymax, and Cyborg are all heroes embraced by Western audiences. And Japan's cyberpunk scene has lovingly portrayed all the ways robots could look cool killing us, with an almost fetishistic attention to detail. \n\nBut there seems to more acceptance of everyday robots in Japan, at least as far as the news filters out here in America. I think part of that is due to Japan's efforts to modernize. Begun long before World War II...\n\nWe know that tragedy. \n\nThere was much to rebuild. And new technologies to explore. \n\nAnd during that time, many artists looked towards the future. For example, while Walt Disney dug into the past in shaping America's culture, his Japanese counterpart, Osamu Tezuka, wrote stories about a heroic little robot boy who was abandoned by his creator for the crime of looking too much like his dead flesh and blood son. \n\nBack then, audiences were less fractured than they are now. Cultures were more homogenous...\n\nIt's possible to trace direct influences, and then watch as the arts influence later generations of scientists.\n\nOf course, I'm criminally oversimplifying all of this. And I really hope someone gives you a more in-depth answer. This is just all I know, off the top of my head...", "Because, when the Japanese introduce their evil robot overlords, they're gonna need the people to be accepting of them.\n\nIt's the first step to complete robot takeover of earth.", "I am not sure about Japan, but the West is going to be heavily influenced by Frankenstein and to a lesser extent Golem myths... Artificial life, while not inherently evil, has infinite opportunity to go wrong. If you don't have these myths, then it's not an immediate assumption." ]

[ "Inside your eye are 3 different kinds of cells for detecting colors, one can see red, one can see green, and one can see blue. In colorblind individuals, one of those is either missing or not functioning properly, and so the number of combinations of colors you can distinguish is drastically lowered. You can still tell most colors apart because even if you may not see green properly, you'll detect the varying shades of red and blue in that color but you're missing some of the information.", "Fun fact: There is a small percentage of women with a 4th color receptor, enabling them to see an enormous extra amount of shades of colors." ]

[ "What's getting left out is where the border guards ask to see your passport, ask what you're bringing in to the country, and so on.", "Border patrol who let you through checkpoints generally do quite a bit of profiling. If everyone they see is white in a nice car you probably are just passing back into the US and don't feel the need to check you. If you so much as look Mexican in a junker they're going to check you Holmes. Your friends are pretty much spot on.", "Northern and Southern are pretty different with the southern border having a bit more security. The border patrol for whatever country you are entering either questioms you (usually if you drive a shitty car and/or a minority (especially Hispanic) and asks for ID and if they have probale cause, a search.", "In arizona I often cross the border. Basically my white family of 4 in a mom van gets the usual passport check. But when I drive by myself with my old truck I get more of a talking to. Basically seeing my business in mexico" ]

[ "The commonality across all those big trucks having a doubled rear wheel. On a doubled wheel, you need to be able to bolt the two wheels together to be secure them. The rims budge out so they can touch each other.\n & nbsp;\n\nThe front wheel can't be doubled because it would interfere with steering. In order to only need one spare tire, the truck using the same wheel across the entire trunk, meaning that the budged rim is used for the front wheels.\n\nedit: spelling", "I'm not sure if you are referring to the wheel to hub offset in large vehicles but for the dually work trucks in the company I work for the reason is so that a single spare wheel and tire can replace a flat tire anywhere on the vehicle." ]

[ "The GED is the \"General Educational Development\" test. It is the test that those who drop out of high school, or who fail out of high school take to show that they have learned the equivalent of a high school education. They are made fun of because they have already proven themselves failures by societal standards just having to take the test. It is not a kind thing, but society is seldom kind." ]

[ "Because the software it's running is made for newer-gen models. \n \n > Is my new iPad going to do this in a couple years? \n \nEventually, but not for much longer. The newer-gen models are magnitudes faster and more powerful than the first gen.", "There is increasingly heavier and heavier javascript on webpages causing them to be very slow on older computers. Also another thing is very high resolution images that are now posted on the Internet apologetically.\n\nYou can try using the equivalent of NoScript for the iPad, if it exists, which it probably doesn't.", "Could be issues in the software, could be issues in the hardware, could be that newer webpages demand more of your ipad that it cannot handle anymore, especially in combination with new software installs.\n\nThere is some things you can do to figure out where the problem lies, chief among those is a clean software install. That falls more into tech support though, which is not really the purpose of this subreddit. Might be useful to google clean install ipad, or post to one of the apple subreddits to get help doing a fresh install of your device so you can see how it reacts afterwards." ]

[ "_URL_0_\n\nCheck this out. Pretty much answers your questions." ]

[ "It's all chemistry. You start with a real grape and you sit down in the lab and try to figure out what it is in a grape that makes it 'grape like' in flavor. You could physically break down the grape into a slurry, and then use mechanical processes like centrifuges, or chemical processes like solvents and acids to separate the different chemicals in the grape and then examine the individual molecules for ones that create the grape flavor, grape color, grape scent (which is not always the same chemicals responsible for the flavor). \n\nWhen the chemicals responsible for the flavor and odor of the grape are isolated in this way, their structure can be studied, and using chemistry you can create a method of taking other chemicals and processing them in such a way that they form these same flavor compounds. \n\nLastly once you have something viable, you test it for toxicity and eventually palletability. \n\nWhile the actual grape may contain hundreds of molecules responsible for it's subtle flavors, the artificial flavoring may contain only a few that are primary influences of grape flavor. \n\nThe substances that create these flavors may appear in many other fruits and flavors as well but in differing ratios so study of grape flavor may discover compounds that are also responsible for berry flavor, or cherry flavor etc. Eventually a working set of \"fruit flavors\" are developed and over time the secret gets out and they become industry standard flavors. \n\nMany lemon and lime flavors for instance are just citric acid and sweetener.", "What we call 'flavors' are merely a mix of chemicals in the right portions. Scientists recreate these flavors by synthetically creating the chemical formula." ]

[ "Nope, Russia could just veto it since they are on the security council. It's a fundamentally broken system." ]

[ "Wells are not technically built, they are drilled. \n\nIn reference to a water well, a company will do some research to see if they can drill a well in the desired area. This all depends on location, ground type, and various other things. If a well is drillable they will bring out a truck, that is basically a small oil derrick, and begin drilling the well. Depending on you location and ground type the depth of the well will vary. \n\nSome places have underground \"rivers\" and can be relatively shallow wells, on the other had, some need to be deeper so that more water will seep into the vacant area that is created by the drilling. \n\nOnce the well is drilled you can begin getting water from it using a bucket or a pump. \n\nThis is all i know. \nI hope this answers your question. \nResource: had a well drilled on old property. \nPlease correct me if I'm wrong." ]

[ "Raindrops form when water vapour in the atmosphere clusters around microscopic solid particles (such as dust) in a process called nucleation.\n\nNucleation is reversible. As water molecules attach themselves to cluster, other molecules are leaving. There is a point called the *critical nuclear size*, at which point the cluster of water molecules is stable. This is the point at which a raindrop forms.\n\nThe critical nuclear size /critical radius is controlled by temperature. The mathematics tells us that as the temperature is lowered, the critical radius decreases.\n\nHopefully this answers your first question, and if I'm wrong I'd very much like to be called out on it! Cunningham's Law and all that ;) Ultimately, though, the answer lies in thermodynamics.", "You need to know that all precipitation starts as ice and as it falls to the ground, the temperature heats up and it turns into flurries or snow or hail or raindrops that can vary in size depending on the ice that was crystallizing in the clouds.", "Basically the hotter it is the more dust and whatnot there is in the atmosphere which makes bigger rain drops. (I think)" ]

[ "Well, they use very rigorous clean room techniques to minimize the amount of biological contamination that is on our probes. Beyond that, the harshness of the environment is likely to whittle down at least some of what small amount they miss. But they are not sure they are not contaminating the objects, they probably miss *some* stuff. Not that either environment is especially conducive to life as we know it. The Moon especially, although some things may be able to eek out at least survival on Mars, if not prosperity.\n\nThey care because we don't want to substantially alter the environment we are studying before we study it, and just in case there could *be* anything alive there, it'd be a shame to accidentally destroy it with competition. Additionally, if we go to all the work to find life and then bring samples back to Earth, it'd be a real bummer if by the time they got here it as just good ole tardigrades or something of the sort.", "All space-faring nations [have signed a treaty](_URL_0_) agreeing to avoid cross-contamination. This is in relation to the study of extraterrestrial life - we don't want to destroy whatever evidence there may be. \n\nAs such, there are several levels of protection depending on how likely there is to be life. ([NASA link](_URL_1_). Their SSL certificate is bad, you may need to click through a warning screen.)\n\n**Category 1**: Missions to bodies we figure have nothing to do with life. This covers missions to boring asteroids, the sun, and Io. No protections.\n\n**Category 2**: Missions to bodies which might have something to do with the chemical origins of life, but we figure there's no chance terrestrial life could survive. This covers Callisto, Venus, more interesting asteroids and small Kuiper belt objects. This also includes a number of provisional bodies, where we think we might find places life could survive if we studied further: Pluto/Charon, Ganymede, Titan, Triton, large Kuiper belt objects. For this category, you just need documentation.\n\n**Category 3/4**: Missions to bodies where there's a pretty good chance terrestrial life could survive. This is Mars, Europa, and Enceladus. Category 3 is for flybys/orbiters, category 4 for landers. Category 3 requires extensive paperwork, cleanroom construction, trajectory biasing (i.e. choosing a course that won't eventually collide with anything) and possible \"bioburden reduction\" - probably ultraviolet sterilization or gamma irradiation. Category 4 requires yet more paperwork, cleanroom construction, bioburden reduction, and possible bioshields (presumably, antimicrobial surfaces. Copper alloys, for instance, are antimicrobial). Both categories also require microbial assays (that is, you swab it and see what grows in a petri dish). There are further subcategories for Mars rover missions.\n\n**Category 5**: Missions from a body back to Earth - we don't want to import space-flu either. Currently, Mars, Europa, and Enceladus are considered Category 5 Restricted - strict quarantine procedures for all samples and equipment, until it's all been sterilized or carefully examined. Everything else is Category 5 unrestricted, so no protections required.\n\nThe reasoning for all this is to preserve evidence for future generations who may have better techniques. \n\nBy way of analogy -- We'll never know much about the city of Troy, because of crappy archaeology techniques. Nine cities were built on the site, one on top of the other. [Heinrich Schliemann](_URL_2_) figured that the famous Troy, the one from the *Iliad*, must be on the bottom, right?\n\nSo he dug through the top eight cities without cataloguing anything. The Troy he was looking for was probably the sixth or seventh city. It's because of incidents like this that modern archaeologists make a practice of leaving half a site unexcavated, for future archaeologists with better techniques." ]

[ "It is a good question. The answer is how it works on the organism. Anti-biotics work by interfering with some important function of a bacteria cell. Think of throwing a wrench into a machine and watching it gum up the works. Cells that have different machine arrangements can be more resistant to wrenches. They'll have casings around important stuff or gears that can allow a wrench to slip through the teeth without stopping. Maybe they have extra redundant machines.\n\n\nAlcohol, chlorine and copper work by physically dismantling the machine. No amount of changing the machine will help when you shown up with a screw driver and start removing things.", "Resistance to antibiotics is realistic, because they work with cleverly shaped molecules, like a key in a lock.\n\nResistance to these other things is not realistic, it's like developing a resistance to bullets or to fire. They work by brute force, so resistance isn't a thing.", "The ways which we sterilize things are often overkill on a level far above that of things like antibiotics.\n\nAntibiotics and similar substances are extremely targeted chemicals which work on very specific parts of a virus or bacteria's function to kill it because they are going into your body and the idea is to kill the bacteria without killing you. Because the effects of antibiotics etc are so targeted, it only requires a minor evolutionary change to become resistant.\n\nWith sterilization you have the luxury of not having to worry about the human that the bacteria other things are inside, so you can use much more lethal and powerful methods of killing that contamination.\n\nThink of sterilization like a nuclear weapon and antibiotics like the Black Plague with humans. With some very minor evolution it wouldn't be too difficult for humans to develop a resistance the Black Plague. Yet it would be much harder for humans to develop a biological resistance to being incinerated by a nuclear bomb. \n\nSterilizing medical equipment works the same way, most of the methods used to sterilize things kill all life, and would probably kill a person if applied in a sufficient dose.", "Antibiotics have a very narrow action - they generally interfere with the function of a single, specific type of molecule (usually an enzyme) in the bacteria, which is vital for them. If the shape of that molecule changes a little, the bacteria become immune to the antibiotic.\n\nThings like chlorine or alcohol, on the other hand, have a very simple chemical mode of action. They chemically disrupt a lot of different parts of the bacteria, so that a lot of things would need to change at once to give resistance.\n\nAnd as for why antibiotics don't use those broad mechanisms as well? The broad mechanisms work against your cells just as well, and the goal of an antibiotic is generally to kill the bacteria without killing the patient." ]

[ "* To kill by breaking someone's neck you need to sever the spinal cord, thus breaking the link between the brain and the rest of the body thus stopping the beating of your heart and lung function\n* Blood carries the necessary oxygen to the cells in your body so a major blood loss can stop your cells from functioning, and enough can cause organs to stop working\n* Severe head injury can cause a break in the link between your brain and your heart/lungs\n* Dying of old age mainly is a standard infection or illness but your body is weak enough to not combat it", "All deaths are a result of cerebral hypoxia. This is where your brain no longer receives the necessary oxygen it needs to keep your body working. EVERY death is caused my this." ]

[ "When your brain is deprived of oxygen (which is generally happening whenever the thing that's killing you is, you know, killing you), your brain shuts down different parts of itself in a given order, in an attempt to keep you alive as long as possible. \n\nTurns out, when the visual centers of the brain begin losing oxygen, you start getting tunnel vision, plus you lose the ability to see color, which means whatever light source you look at starts looking like the \"light as the end of the tunnel\", even if you happen to be staring at a streetlight or something." ]

[ "There are a lot of possible explanations, someone might be able to link to studies but let's go for ELI5 and speculation.\n\nNew things are very exciting to your mind. The first taco you eat is AMAZING. The first time you play a video game it blows your mind. The first good book you read is SO POWERFUL. So you keep doing these things.\n\nBut after a while, you start running out of practical new things to do. You can try new restaurants, but eventually most of the menus have the same things you've eaten at others. You can play new video games, but after you've played a few dozen it's hard to find one with completely unique mechanics. After a few hundred books, you can't find many new plots. See the pattern?\n\nA lot of people get bitter and decide this means new things are worse than they used to be. This isn't often true. But it is true that there's no way, in 2017, to recreate the feeling you might have had playing Super Metroid for the first time in the 90s. You already played it for the first time, it's hard to be surprised in the same way again. \n\nThe best thing you can do is desperately keep trying to find new experiences. Or get a really nasty case of amnesia.\n\nThere are other bad things that happen to adults. We get in debt. We love, and lose. Sometimes people hurt us. Sometimes we hurt ourselves. Time isn't very nice to very many people. That tends to have a very bad impact on how \"happy\" you can be.", "Its most likely because you have more responsibilities as you grow. The fun you has as a child was an innocence of care, you did stuff without having those thoughts in the back of your head like: oh man this is gonna affect me in the future or that thing i gotta do tomorrow.", "I think it has to do with novelty. As we get older we tend to select routine and safety, and thus don't get the same thrill.\n\nTry doing new things and you'll experience it again." ]

[ "What do you mean when you say brain waves? If you are thinking of the readouts of machines like EEG's or similar devices what you're seeing on these machines is the electrical activity of certain areas of the brain that are picked up by the electrodes of the machine. \n\nBecause most brain activity is a chemical exchange based on the electrostatic gradient, there are no \"waves\" or sound waves involved. What you are measuring with these machines are the minute changes in electrical activity in certain areas of the brain. \n\nHope this helps a little." ]

[ "A markov chain is a mathematical approach to disentangling several possible events that depend on outcomes before it. \n\nTo stay topical, take a look at March madness brackets. You have a pretty low chance of getting your bracket right. But if we apply some really simple logic, we can increase that chance. \n\nIf you fill out the bracket as a set of unorganized fill in the blank boxes, you won't do well. For instance, you could have a team that you eliminated in the sweet sixteen winning the final four. That doesn't make sense. Instead, let's create a chain of causes that predict the inputs into the next block of causes. \n\nIf a team doesn't make the first round, they can't end up in the later rounds. Better right?\n\nBut if we have even more information, we can do even better. We could fill out our bracket *as* the tournament is happening and expect to do really well. A player who lead scoring got injured in the elite 8? We can use that information to reduce the team's chances in the final four. That's why a Markov chain is so.good at making predictions. It refined it's approach as it gets information. \n\nIn real use, Markov chains get much more sophisticated. So sophisticated that becomes hard to keep track of all the variables. That's where higher level math like *linear algebra* comes in. \n\nIn a *Hidden Markov Model*, you don't actually have to know how all the pieces fit together. You just need some good relationships:\n- taller players do better\n- players have to be healthy to play\n- scoring early is important\n\nUsing *eignevectors* a mathematical approach can take a *system of related linear equations* and figure out which variables are *independent* of the rest. You do this by mathematically rearranging all the equations so that the few that dominate the rest fall out.\n\n- taller players do better and the early scoring for this team is directly caused by their best player being tall. It's really only one variable at work here. \n\nAs the Markov chain gets updated, the most important variables might shift.\n\n- Taller players do better but this team's tall player is injured so the height variable is no longer part of what contributes to their early scoring.", "Systems evolve probabilistically. Markov chains are a mathematical framework we use to capture this.\n\nThe state of a system is the information about the system that we care about. A Markov chain makes the assumption that probability distribution for the next state only depends on the current state.\n\nA simple example is Monopoly (ignore community chest, chance, jail, double rolls, etc.). Our state is what square we are on. To move, we roll a dice and move that many squares forward. Note that the probability distribution over the next state only depends on the current state (not e.g. on the whole path we have taken so far).\n\nA major object of interest of a Markov chain is its stationary distribution. This is the probability distribution over states that we arrive at after doing many transitions. For Monopoly, the stationary distribution is uniform over all the squares (i.e. if you make 1000 moves, you're roughly equally likely to end up on any of the squares).\n\nMarkov chains are an important tool in inference. One example is the Kalman filter, a popular way to better estimate a system's state (e.g. position/velocity) based on a time series of noisy data. This algorithm uses a Hidden Markov Model, which builds on the idea of a Markov chain by adding latent variables (variables that aren't observed, but are related to variables we do observe).\n\nOther applications in inference are Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithms, which allow us to sample from distributions that are very difficult (computationally) to calculate/express. This is accomplished by building a Markov chain whose stationary distribution is the distribution of interest. Usually this distribution is a posterior (the distribution after seeing some observed variables) on a latent variable.", "Markov chains are used to mathematically describe a chain of random events. A simple Markov chain could be your position in a game of chutes and ladders. In this example each of the 100 possible positions are a “state” you can be in. You transition between these states with a certain probability. In this example you have a starting state at the beginning of the game. And an ending (absorbing) state at the end. If modeled correctly you could solve for an expected number of spins to reach the finish. \n\nAnother example of a markov chain could be, the amount of cash you have while playing a specific roulette betting strategy at a casino. Your state here is how much cash you have. And you transition to other states with wins and losses. A markov chain here could help solve for the probability you double your money before you go bust.\n\nMarkov chains can also describe more complex systems like Brownian motion. Even though the details are more nuanced the principle is the same. At some time the system is at a certain state. And as time progresses it changes to a different state. And properly modeling that helps you answer questions about that random process.\n\nThe reason these are important is because they help answer questions about random processes." ]

[ "Aside from having one of the highest death tolls (only the Congolese occupation has a higher average-estimate death toll), it receives attention partly because it was a new type of event. The word 'genocide' itself was only coined in 1944 to try and name what the Nazis had done.\n\nThe Holocaust was a planned, deliberate attempt to completely wipe a race of people from the Earth, domestically and internationally, executed in a large-scale industrial fashion using all the tools of a developed 20th-century nation, and had the fascists not been stopped by war, they would have seen it through to completion.\n\nThat's new. That hadn't happened before. That's why it's so studied. Sure, there had been lots of other mass killings and racist crimes of humanity -- but they weren't like the Holocaust. They usually fell into two categories: brutal massacres committed by invading armies (as seen in Mongol campaigns) and horrendously exploitative colonialism (as seen in the Congo Free State). \n\nThe fact that Nazi Germany was a modern highly-developed nation also factors into it, I'm sure; it has a larger, more devastating impact to think of a modern educated developed country doing this, compared to say, the tyrant King Leopold and his absolute monarchy generations and generations ago. Likewise, Eurocentric views dominated as a matter of policy until very recently, so of course an event occurring in the heart of 20th century Europe has more shock value than some old business off on the (gasp) Dark Continent. Then there's the fact that we have huge amounts of recorded testimony, photographic evidence, video evidence, etc of the Holocaust. There are a lot of factors.", "I'm not sure that \"popular\" is the right word! But I know what you mean.\n\nAccording to [Wikipedia](_URL_0_), the holocaust was he second-worst genocide in history. That in itself makes it remarkable - but the fact that it came very close to wiping out the entire European Jewish population - 78% of that population was killed - makes it stand out above any others.", "It was done by white people against whiteish people. There are still people alive who were involved. The Germans kept copious records." ]

[ "More to the point, it is almost like doing a one legged squat. In addition to holding all your weight up, you are lowering yourself several inches (with one leg) each time you kick/push with the other leg. \n\nI have a adult sized kick scooter where I experience the same thing. I could kick all day, but switch legs often because of the fatigue in the leg on the board.", "you have two legs for a reason the weight is meant to be distrusted across both of them. When you kick / push not only are you putting all of wight on one leg but you are also using extra muscles to keep your balance. That can can exert a lot of stress on said leg. As with any form of excessive If you skate often though your legs should get stronger up to a point and it shouldn't be so bad later down the road you might not even notice it.\n\nOf course if you've been on a hiatus then yes you would feel the effects to a greater extent." ]

[ "The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) defines the specifications of the web. It's largely an organization of technology companies and publishers trying to agree on standards to move the technology forward.\n\nAs streaming audio/video is being increasingly standardized (in things like HTML5), the MPAA naturally would like to have early input into how it's works - not unlike how Bloomberg cares about RSS.\n\nThe controversy is largely because MPAA has for years fought the industry rather than worked with it, so most people perceive it as a way for the MPAA to slow down tech or make a fuss about DRM (as that's how they've behaved before) rather than a step in the right direction to offer good solutions.\n\nWhat does that mean to the average Joe?\n\nWell, for years there wasn't a standardized way to do video on the web. So Flash emerged, and Flash sucked. For years Adobe had a monopoly on it, and it's the reason a lot of early video didn't play on your iPhone (because it was an Adobe-owned format that they couldn't come to agreement on).\n\nHTML5 streaming video (which the W3 standardized the specification of) fixed that by pushing it as a standard that every vendor could implement on largely their own.\n\nLots of technology like that will emerge and evolve over the coming years. How it affects the day-to-day for the non engineer in the industry is usually non-obvious (like the above example).\n\nIt simply means the MPAA will be present at a few tech meetings earlier than they have in the past. If you're an optimist, that means that they've learned their lesson somewhat and will try to work with the industry instead of fighting it. If you're a pessimist, it means they're going to make a short-sighted fusses that slow down the technology evolving." ]

[ "The more general rule is that a system will tend to minimize its potential energy. For example, a ball on the top of a hill \"wants\" to roll down to minimize its gravitational potential energy. Similarly, a circuit \"wants\" to minimize its electrical potential energy, or voltage (technically voltage is electric potential energy per charge aka electric potential). *Ground* is defined as voltage=0, so a circuit being grounded is like the ball reaching the bottom of the hill.", "How about an ELI21?\n\nThink about electrons like a group of college bros barhopping on a Friday night down a crowded street during spring break or something. Each bar is a place they could be, and the street is the ground.\n\nIf they are in one bar and there aren't enough chicks there, they will probably hang out for a bit and then move on. If there are like 3 chicks for every guy, they aren't going anywhere if they can help it. They might even text their friends and tell them they should totally be there, attracting more bros until the ratio evens out.\n\nNow, the street (ground) is full of people basically all the time, drinking and hanging out or whatever. Since there are so many people outside, the ratio of bros to chicks is basically even all the time. So, if the guys are at a bar that's a total sausage-fest they will be attracted back out to the street again.\n\nEven if there is another party street across town, the bros probably aren't going to leave this one unless the ratio on the whole street is off by a lot. Getting across town is hard--even if the other street is much bigger. Thats the way another planet would work. It wouldn't attract more electrons because it is bigger. It's entirely about the ratios, not the size.", "Ground doesn't always mean the \"ground\", its a high concentration of electrons trying to even out with a low concentration. Grounding is a term used that even though sometimes literally is the ground it doesn't have to be.", "Electricity doesn't want to be grounded. It only goes into the ground if there is an excess in charge. By saying that, you're giving the concept of electricity human characteristics. It's kinda like asking an Apple why it falls off a tree.\n\nIf you have heard of potential difference, commonly known as 'voltage', you would know that it is a *difference* in voltage between two points. This creates a force known as an 'electrical field' which exerts force on positive electric charges towards a direction of lower voltage.\n\nThe ground or earth is 9/10 times the part of a system with the lowest voltage. Excess charge flows into the ground and the ground stays neutral. You could say the earth is kind of like a cup which you can keep filling with water, and it would stay empty.", "The answer is cost saving. \n\nAlternating Current (AC) electricity goes up and down in a sine wave. This means it actually changes from positive maximum to negative maximum over a length of time. This is important to understand for the next bit, unless you take it as rote. \n\nWhen electricity is generated, we don't just get 1 power line, we actually get 3. The difference between the three lines is the time at which each is at its maximum. \nLine 1 is at max at 0, line 2 is a bit later, and line 3 is a bit later again. \n\nThis is 3-phase electricity. Each line, used on its own, is single phase. \n\nWhen we generate these lines, we connect them into the power grid, the network of power cables going to the user, using transformers.\n\nThe transformers have 2 winding types for 3-phase, and they are shaped differently. One is shaped like the letter Y (called star), with all three lines being connected to a central point, while the other is connected in the shape of a triangle (called delta because of the Greek letter being triangular), with each line being connected the corners of the triangles and so to the other two lines.\nWe can select the winding for each side of the transformer based on what we want to go in and out of the two sides. \n\nWhen we go from the generator to the user, we have a star winding on the user side of the transformer. This means we get the central connection, and can call this the reference level, which we label as 0 volts. \nOn the generator side, we use a delta winding because it transfers more power.\n\nTo keep the grid all at the same voltage, we need each branch to be held at some global reference level. If we don't do this, the system can fluctuate across the network, with areas being higher in voltage and other places being low in voltage. If we connect all of the star common connections, we pin the middle of the star winding to the same voltage, and then everything can be related to that voltage. \n\nNow remember that we have multiple transformers in the grid for this transfer of electricity. Each one has a common point on the start of the leg, but at the exit end all power dumps out in a connection with no common point. So what do we do with the common point of the star?\n\nFrom the star winding, the central common connection can be sent via a wire, which adds a fourth wire to the 3 lines of electricity. This is done in the user domain to provide a good return path for the electricity, for safety reasons if you are a worse conductor, electricity won't flow through you so much when it can take the easy route. On the grid side though, it is too costly to send the connection down a wire. It is a long distance between each connection, and it is every connection. But with all the transformer systems, there is still a common point. \n\nWe use this by whacking a bloody great rod into the ground, and attaching the common connection, which gives us the term Ground or Earth. This keeps all grid sections referenced to a single 0 volt of Ground. \n\nOn the user side, even though we send this 0 volt line out as the Neutral connection, we still use Ground as a reference. This means that although you have a really good, clean, efficient conductor going into your house for this wire, you can put the electricity into the ground and the circuit will still work. The reason it doesn't do that immediately is we isolate it with insulators, and so the current take the path of least resistance and goes down the wire. But when the voltage from the line is exposed to Ground, some voltage will still go that way, in parallel to the return wire. \n\nIf we didn't attach the common points to the ground, the potential of the circuit would not see the ground as a return route.", "Ground = 0 volt is just a level definition like 0 meters above sea level. In reality 0 volt is still a certain level of charge, the level where all atoms has the amount of electrons they desire.\n\nIf there was a bigger planet nearby, that had too many or too few electrons for it's number of atoms it consisted of, it's ground level would be different and there would be an electric potential difference between the two planets. \n\nSo yes, if the planets were close enough there would be a jump of electrons between them. Probably \"close enough\" basically mean that they are about to collide seconds after though." ]

[ "If you're not brushing your teeth well enough before you go to bed, it may be plaque. But if you are, it might just be the inner lining of your mouth shedding and congealing nastily due to the nighttime dryness of your mouth.\n\nYour mucus membranes shed even faster than the rest of your skin.", "Is it white stringy weird shit? You might wanna try a different brand of toothpaste and mouthwash.\n\nCrest products do this to me. I'm a straight up Colgate person now." ]

[ "Whoever those bills are owed to, as the corporation does not have to pay them, so the debtors are shit outta luck on recouping that money.", "The **meaning** of bankruptcy is that the business either won't pay its whole debt or won't pay it in time. If you're a creditor, then you can experience one or more of the following:\n\n1. You get paid later than you were supposed to;\n2. You get paid less than the whole amount you were owed;\n3. You don't get paid at all.\n\nIt all depends on the details of the loans and the bankruptcy." ]

[ "Because only a small number are printed. If you print a million of something, the costs are divided across that large number and it can be cheaper. Print only 10,000 and the \"fixed\" costs are now divided across 1/100 the number of books." ]

[ "Two things\n\n1. Remember how you spent the first several years of your life sitting in rooms reading stuff all day? and then you go to work and read stuff all day?, etc, etc. Your brain does \\- so when it sees words, even without you telling it to, it goes \"ooh, I know what to do here\" and reads them. The brain just gets conditioned to read words that it becomes \\(somewhat\\) automatic. You can notice yourself doing this in other parts of your life too where you will automatically read stuff even if you weren't specifically trying to focus on it \\(e.g. signs on the side of the road\\)\n2. Often in movies where there's dialogue being exchanged between two characters there's not that much else going on but the subtitles are changing, so they are actually the most \"interesting\" thing happening. Next time your watching a movie with subtitled but not trying to pay attention to the subtitles pay attention to when you pay attention to them \\(as weird as that sounds\\) and you'll probably notice that you're more likely to notice what the subtitles are doing when there isn't much else going on than you are during the action sequences." ]

[ "You're not paying for \"the internet\". You're paying for a company to *connect* you to the internet. They build the infrastructure, they run a lot of very high-end, very specialised equipment, and they spent a *lot* of money on it. They're not going to let you use those for free.", "The Internet is a network. We say that nobody \"owns\" the Internet because that term refers to the connection between many different computers; you can own a server or a cable but not the concept of the Internet itself.\n\nTo connect to the Internet, your computer needs to route through many servers and cables. These cost money to install, maintain and expand, which is part of the job of the Internet service provider. That's why you have to pay your ISP for access. By \"limit,\" are you referring to caps on data transfer? It actually doesn't really matter to the ISP that much how much data you are transferring in total, but it cares about the peak demand, since that determines what the capacity of the network should be. More capacity costs more money. Data caps are just one way for the ISP to generate income to cover its costs and make a profit; ISPs generally think that billing methods more accurate to what you cost specifically (such as level-of-service pricing) would be confusing to consumers.", "The internet is a series of computers that are all connected to one another, using a commonly agreed upon way to communicate.\n\nSomeone has to maintain the connections between those computers - there are millions of miles of copper and fiber optic cables, thousands of servers to direct traffic, hundreds of servers to perform DNS lookups etc - in order to keep the internet going. \n\nWhile no single entity owns the entire internet, companies do own and maintain parts of the communication system. Its fair that you have to pay them to use those systems, since they had to pay to build and maintain them." ]

[ "Lighting mainly. When a volcano is conveniently located that will suffice. Plus if you have a decent damp pile of plant matter as it decays it can just get hot enough to burn.", "There are plenty of hot things in nature. Lightning being the main culprit. \n\nThe Australian bush is designed to burn. That how it germinates. Dry leaves and hot summers and it doesn't take much" ]

[ "You just need to let it rest for 5-10 minutes before cutting into it. When you cut it right away after removing from heat, you will notice the plate will fill with liquid. That liquid is full of flavor that the steak loses.", "You aren't supposed to wait until it's cold. Heating the meat makes the proteins \"tense\" up, thus pushing juices out, when you let the meat rest the proteins loosen up some and reabsorb the juices." ]

[ "It is calculated by measuring the rates of breakdown under less than ideal storage conditions. With ice cream, the limiting factor is likely to be the time it takes for ice crystals to grow, as well as the oxidation of some fats, degrading the taste and texture of the product. Because of this, it is likely to be called a 'Best Before' than an 'Expiry' date.\n\nAll of this is very complex, but is reduced to a certain number of days, from which is subtracted a safety margin, again carefully calculated. This is added to the date of production to give an expiry date. \n\nIf it has been in your properly functioning freezer, and is a few days over, then chow down and enjoy.", "Also, in case you miss it: _URL_0_ This site will give you a good indicator of various foods and how long they will remain good.", "I work for a beverage manufacturer and the way we have to test our drinks for longevity is the same as a food manufacturer. Depending on the size of your company, you will either have your own lab and QA staff, or send off samples to a third party lab for testing. A range of tests are performed to make sure it is okay to sell and consume, and as you never change a formula due to contractual obligations, you're 'best before' or 'expiration' (two different things) will always be the same from the day of production. They perform tests in different climates (eg heating the product), differing reactions, etc. In drinks, generally natural flavors are what gives drinks a shorter life span, not because they go off, just because the coloring fades and customers do not recognize the brand.\nAlso keep in mind, the reason those dates are put on the product is so the people who make/sell it don't get sued, so there will always be a grace period on those dates despite what anyone tells you.", "The date doesn't generally indicate when food's no longer safe to eat. It's simply the average date after which company taste testers feel the flavor, texture, etc will no longer meet the standards for their brand's quality. Most food and drink are technically safe to eat well past the \"best by\" date.\n\n\nTLDR: company taste testers eat it until they go \"meh\", then slap a date on it." ]

[ "Because sound travels through the solid medium ( the floor slab). On the floor above, people are directly in contact with the surface; while on the floor below, you're only depending on the noise traveling through air and noise traveling in air is divided into reflected, absorbed and transferred, major percentage of which, is reflected." ]

[ "You would want to lower your metabolic rate. Decrease heart rate. Calm down. Take long deep breaths. Make each breath last as long as possible....... I think.", "I found this out from a diver training website,\n > Breathe almost as if you were asleep — slowly and deeply. This saves air by promoting the most complete exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide.\nYou might think that taking shallow breaths, as if sipping from your tank, would conserve air. In fact, it wastes air. Every breath first brings to your lungs the \"dead air\" that remained in your throat and trachea from your last exhalation. This dead air has a high concentration of carbon dioxide and a low concentration of oxygen. The high carbon-dioxide concentration triggers the urge to take another breath, even before you need more oxygen.\n\nSo basically, ELI5, deeper breaths conserve more air, as it allows a complete exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide." ]

[ "The usb standard originally allowed for only 500mA to be drawn per port. This isn't really enough for smartphones and especially power hungry tablets etc., so the manufacturers came up with a way for chargers to indicate they were willing to supply more power to the device. The device charging circuit can then draw more power than that safely - without that signaling the device could try to draw more than the charger/port can supply and possibly burn it out. \n\nSadly there were different methods chosen - some short together the data leads, some use different resistors between them or between them and the ground pin etc. \n\nThe wrong charger/cable with the wrong device won't step up to the higher current. \n\nI've just bought a small gadget from dealextreme which sits in the usb port and tells you how much current is being drawn from it. My cables vary from 0.3 to 0.95A to the same device - I'm in the process of labeling them and exploring the various combinations of charger, cable and device. \n\nTl;Dr it's complicated.", "Chargers also need to tell the phone - in some way - how much power is available. The 1A wall charger provided with your device has the circuitry there to properly communicate with device. The third-party car charger doesn't, so the device might assume it is an overloaded version 1 USB port, and draw the minimum 1/10th of an amp.\n\nAn interesting point is the Samsung chargers. Although they will provide 1 amp at 5 volts to anything that plugs into them, plug a Samsung device in and it will negotiate up to 20 volts to charge the device quickly.", "I would download an app to make sure you're actually getting the full current. Sometimes USB cables aren't grounded so they don't offer more than 500ma." ]

[ "There is no such concept as \"defensive weapon\" in any of the UK legal systems. Anything carried with the sole or primary intent of causing injury upon another is always considered an offensive weapon in the UK.\n\nNote that the perceived intent of usage is important. If you were carrying a baseball bat outside a town park at 11 o'clock on a Sunday morning you'd be highly unlikely to be stopped by the police. If you had the same bat outside the same park at 2am the police would almost certainly consider it an offensive weapon.\n\nAlso note that defending yourself in a threatening situation is perfectly legal in the UK, as long as you use \"proportional force\" and that you haven't pre-armed yourself with a weapon." ]

[ "To answer your questions: no, and yes. \n\nBacterial infections treated by antibiotics vary widely. There are gram negative and positive, cocci and bacilli and several other ways to isolate or classify organisms. A physician will order a culture/sensitivity test which takes several days to determine what cootie you're growing and what antibiotic it is most sensitive to. Antibiotic stewardship follows treating the infection with the least broad spectrum medicine available to avoid creating more resistant strains. Also remember the common cold is a virus which are not affected by antibiotics." ]

[ "Coincidence, confirmation bias and faulty memory.\n\nThere are no special forces. Rather, sometimes when you happen to think of someone they will contact you soon after. More frequently when you happen to think of someone, they won't contact you at all. Human memories are fairly flawed. Some of us might think we are masters of remembering stuff, but really, we aren't. Maybe rough lines, but details? Nope. And our memories are quite easy to influence as well, both by others and by ourselves.\n\nAll of this leads to the situation where you are more likely to remember those times you were thinking of someone and they just happened to call you. That makes you believe someone is always calling you as you think of them (because you don't remember the more frequent times when they don't) and you confirm your bias with your flawed recollection. \n\nJust grab a notepad and start marking down every time someone crosses your mind, even for a moment. Write down when these people call you. Do this for a week, and you'll quickly see that you think of people far more often than they call you, and them calling you is not related to you thinking about them.", "Confirmation bias:\nYou don't notice all the times you didn't think of someone before they called you but the coincidence times you do stick in your mind more." ]

[ "They provide step inputs to your suspension that can't be completely soaked up by the shock absorbers, causing the vehicle and its contents to vibrate at an audio frequency that most people are sensitive to.\n\nHere is what the [US Federal Highway System](_URL_0_) has to say about them." ]

[ "Why does Bud Light have commercials of a guy playing ping-pong with Arnold Schwarzenegger instead of advertising its price and alcoholic content? Like any other advertiser, the Army spends millions trying to find the best way to sell themselves. The simplest answer is likely the exciting action commercials are the result of a group of very intelligent people studying data and crafting a pitch they think will attract the largest group of people. As with any commercial reaching millions, the results tend to be generic and inoffensive.\n\nThere are many reasons I think they'd avoid a \"Hitler is killing all these people\" commercial:\n\n* It's a complex situation. We're talking about a fifteen second commercial designed to grab your attention, not a WWII newsreel.\n\n* A commercial focusing on the enemy subconsciously reinforces the danger of serving in the armed forces. The single biggest downside to joining the military is that you could end up dead, and they obviously want to avoid anything that could reinforce that idea.\n\n* Hot-headed assholes yelling \"Let's go kill us some ISIS!\" is NOT what the military wants. The keywords they use instead (bravery, commitment, service, etc.) are the more important indicators of military success that they're looking for.\n\n* Our enemy isn't exactly the most... politically correct. The White House [refuses to even use the term \"radical Islam\"](_URL_0_) when referring to people like the Charlie Hebdo murders, for fear of alienating American Muslims and Muslim allies. The armed forces are likewise strongly recruiting Arabic-speakers and Muslim-Americans, and angry faces with turbans on your commercials won't help." ]

[ "The North Pole is in the middle of the water, usually covered by ice (less so nowadays because of climate change), and has polar bears, but no penguins.\n\nThe South Pole is on land (Antarctica) and has penguins, but no polar bears. \n\nAlso, the North Pole is in the Northern Hemisphere and the South Pole is in the Southern Hemisphere.", "North Pole points towards the Pole Star.\n\nThe South Pole is exact opposite considering the Earth is a globe.\n\nThe North Pole is on water/ice whereas South Pole is on land(Antarctica)\n\nYou can correlate the poles with Earth's magnetic field, however the magnetics poles are at slightly different location than the geographic poles.\n\nEdit: Also, the poles can shift because of movement within the Earth's crust.", "The North Pole is water/ice surrounded by land. \n\nThe South Pole is land/ice surrounded by water." ]

[ "I remember that this was explained on Ask Science a year ago (Don't know why I know about it, but eh...); here's the link to the answer given, as it's really nice: _URL_0_\n\nTo paraphrase the analogy:\n\nGenes code for different things. Some genes code for different structural proteins. You can think of these genes as coding for bricks. Our \"good\" alleles (b) code for rectangular bricks, and bad alleles (B) code for spherical bricks. If you have one gene for each, you're going to be making both spherical bricks & rectangular bricks. But that's a problem - your building needs all rectangular bricks, and having some spheres and some rectangles doesn't build your building. You have loss of function, so that negative trait is dominant. (the bad allele B is the dominant one)\n\nIn contrast, if a gene codes for an enzyme, it's likely to be recessive. These are like building trucks. A good truck works, and a bad one doesn't work. But, if you have some good trucks (good alleles, T) and some bad trucks (bad alleles, t), you might just have enough good trucks in total to transport the material you need from one place to another. Thus, we say that the bad trait is \"recessive\", because you're not going to experience full loss of function unless you have two bad alleles (only the tt case shows total loss of function, so the good allele T is dominant over the bad one t). Now, you might have some negative effects, particularly if you need a lot of the enzyme, but it's not going to be a total loss for the most part, and you may well be able to function on a day-to-day basis without major issues.", "It all has to do with protein production. DNA codes for a certain protein which is how the trait is expressed. Take hair color for example: Brown hair is dominant over blonde, blonde hair is the absence of the protein for brown, so if there is even just one allele for brown you will have brown hair (this is a simplification because the protein interaction are very complex that produce a large range of hair color)" ]