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Why is a photocopying machine so huge compared to a normal colour printer? | There are very small photocopiers too. On the large ones, most of the extra size is for complex paper handling: several large supplies of different sizes of paper; a collator that can make 10-20 separate copies of a whole document; sometimes an auto-stapler; a high-speed jam-resistant paper feeding and duplexing mechan... |
How do we know that two identical snowflakes have never existed and never will? | The reason we can say no two snowflakes are identical with such high confidence is due to the absolutely disgusting number of possible differences that can occur in the formation of a snowflake. To put it into perspective, take a deck of cards and shuffle it. Statistically speaking, the order in which the cards end up ... |
What is up with the child entertainers of North Korea? | Yes, completely true. These kids are placed into these programs starting at a very early age and usually are "performers" for a while. People disguised it as a job of high honor and privilege but these kids go through a hard reality. For example, if you have ever seen the "mass games" in NK, there are thousands of chil... |
Which is a better, more practical healthcare option? | At 630 a month?You should probably be looking into Medicaid. The Obamacare marketplace is for people that make too much for Medicaid. Part of this rollout was also a boost to how much you could make and not still qualify for medicaid--however, many states chose to not take this option. The federal government was even g... |
How do birds fly from standing still? | It certainly is not effortless, their wings are part of their body and flapping hard enough to shoot off the ground takes a lot of effort. Their bodies are very light and their wings very large comparatively so a big strong flap pushes enough air to propel themselves.The available lift of a foil vs. airspeed flowing ov... |
Besides bragging rights, for what reasons are countries still "racing" in space exploration? | imagine being in 2nd grade and everyone had home packed sandwiches and juice boxes and you were the first kid to have that baller ass pizza lunchable and caprisun combo. not only are you the coolest kid in the lunchroom, but you could trade that caprisun for way above its value---a juice box and a bag of oreos---becaus... |
how does the taliban manipulate people into thinking that there going to be accepted in heaven if they remove education or commit suicide bombings | People from "1st world" countries often don't realize how much more education and knowledge they have access to than people from 3rd world countries. Knowledge is truely power in most circumstances. Groups like the Taliban take advantage of the fact that certain peoples only education comes from their parents or elders... |
How/why did China's population grow so large so fast? | Holy crap, something I can actually answer! From what I remember in my Chinese history class, Leader Mao wanted a strong army and felt a large population was necessary. Lots of campaigns were led to convince people to have as many kids as possible. It didn't take long before the country had a massive population. The on... |
What is in magnets that make them magnets, as oppose to a piece of iron or other metal. | Permanent magnetism is caused when most of the electrons in an object have their spins aligned in the same direction. There isn't really a way to ELI5 it.A magnet is any object that has a magnetic field. The space surrounding a magnet, in which magnetic force is exerted, is called a magnetic field. If a bar magnet is p... |
Where do "smells" go after they have dissipated? | Think of a glass of water being the gaseous area around you The smelling zone You now drop on drop of liquid food colouring into the glass, the dark heavy first impact area of that droplet represents, let's say a fart. After the initial impact of the fart it begins to dissipate into the rest of the water, trailing off,... |
How come we don't get burns (or worse) on water slides? | The water acts as a thin barrier between you and the slide, so that reduces the friction to the point where you wont be burned. As long as you're wet, you should be ok with a brush against the side , but sliding down when everything is dry would result in some serious friction burns. |
How is it possible for pasta to stick together in water when it is being boiled? | You are boiling the pasta in too little water, you really need at least a gallon of water at a rolling boil. What's happening is you are saturating the water with excess starch, it gelantizes and turns into glue. literally, it's library paste. |
Why do humans need a variety of sustenance in order to stave off malnutrition, but many animals can live on only a single food? | We eat a variety of foods to live *optimally*. In theory, you can survive off a singular diet, and as long as you get enough calories, you will live. However for optimal brain development in children, for the longevity of our bodies and living many years without disease/illness, we eat lots of different foods. For exam... |
If climate change is such a massive problem, why can't the government create laws to begin to limit the usage of items that increase greenhouse gases, until they can gradually completely ban it? | In economics, it's called an "externality" when the impact or cost of some action will affect a person *other* than the person who's performing that action. Air pollution is a famous example of an externality. Factories and trucks produce large amounts of smog that can affect plenty of people who had nothing to do with... |
How can a fired ex-employee sue their boss for discrimination? Couldn't the boss just make up a reason for firing them (attitude, wardrobe, etc)? | The person suing would take all the evidence they have that it was disfrimination, the person being sued would take all the evidence they have that it was another reason, and a judge would decide whose story is more likely. If someone believes they were fired for discrimination, the boss most of done some discriminator... |
I'm from the UK and only heard about Comcast recently; what is so bad about it? | Cable company and ISP. People get mad at their admittedly poor customer service and their state reinforced local monopolies . Then a bunch of people whose mothers pay their cable bill come to Reddit to complain that they aren't getting free gigabit to their house.They are a movie/tv company [NBC, Universal , Fandango, ... |
How do the battery meters in phones/laptops/other electronics 'adapt' to changing battery life as a device ages? | Short answer - badly. longer answer - they monitor the amount of energy that they are using and cross reference it with the measured battery voltage. If the battery voltage gets low enough that it's a good assumption that it's nearly dead, then the device re-calibrates its own estimate of what the capacity is. |
Bodybuilding, power lifting, strongman, crossfit training, calisthenics, etc. What's the difference? | Largely it's the goal of the training. Power lifting is strictly about developing strength for specific types of lifting. Body building is about developing muscle tone and size, but not necessarily strength. Calisthenics tends to use lighter or just body weight, with a goal toward overall aerobic fitness. Crossfit, at ... |
If an overweight person goes several days without eating to lose weight, what are the unhealthy side effects this has on the body? | Fasting is fine, short term fasting with good liquid intake is not going to be detrimental for a healthy individual. Good luck keeping it up though, the will power required is astronomical.Fasted for two weeks once, the mental clarity after a few days was so intoxicating and the most alluring part of it. After three da... |
Why is my belly button lint always navy blue, regardless of my t-shirt color? | Overwhelming the clothes you wear are of darker colours, blue, grey, black etc. The lint is build up over time. Dr Karl actually studied this. He recently did an AMA too, but I cant find it for you now. Interestingly, if you shave or generally have no stomach hair you dont get belly button lint. Think 'Sarlacc Pit', as... |
How can London Heathrow get by on just TWO runways!? | I would assume those are just the primary take-off/landing runways. There is surely a series of smaller runways used for moving "into position" and taxiing around the airport. *Theoretically*, you could have a plane starting take-off while another is just leaving the ground on the other end. I'm sure they are also quit... |
Pain tolerance fluctuations (NSFW) | When you're doing the act, your adrenaline is flowing, your endorphins are up your body is basically focusing itself on the act and tuning out other stimuli as much as possible. It's the same reason a punch hurts less if you're sweating and warmed up than if you get sucker punched. Your body's in fight mode, and it's t... |
The battle of Stalingrad (lack of Russian armor) | Most of the fighting in the battle of Stalingrad happened inside the city itself where armor is not all that useful. Tanks are powerful in open country because they can bust a hole in the enemy's lines and then move into their rear areas and wreck their command and supply units. Inside a city a tank is basically reduce... |
How do (did some) hunting tribes survive living of an all-meat-diet (like some Inuit tribes)? | They eat a lot of things like organs, fat, and bone marrow that contain more nutrients than the normal cuts of meat you 'd find at the grocery store. It's entirely possible to meet your nutritional requirements on a totally carnivorous diet if you're willing to eat the "gross" parts of animals.Did you ever eat a seal's... |
What would happen if you put sunscreen (or some form of spf) on plants/trees? | Plants have a waxy coating, cuticle, on their leaves which protect against the environment. The underside of the leaf opens at night and allows the leaf to respire. The plant also produces flavonols that protect against uv rays. Basically nothing will happen to the plant of you applied Sun block unless you applied it t... |
What do the dilation drops actually do to your eyes and why does it make your eyes sensitive to light? | Dilation drops open up your pupils, much like they would naturally do in the dark, to allow more light in. Helps the doctor see better when he's examining your eyes. Going outside while your pupils are dilated hurts because your pupils are already open and they can't retract like they would normally, so the light is PO... |
Seriously, what is the deal with airline food? | Airline food has to be prepared many hours in advance, then kept warm until it's needed. Hundreds of meals have to be kept in a very tiny space. It needs to be cooked on an industrial scale. It's not an easy task. Of course it could be done if they wanted to. But: > Why doesn't competition between airlines .. Airlines ... |
What is the royal family’s job? | The Queen is the official head of the government and the ultimate authority by which it is operated. What good does any monarch provide for their country? In a practical sense she doesn't make many decisions but she can fire the Prime Minister if she wants and install someone else.CGP Grey has ~~two~~ three excellent v... |
Why are livers prone to failure, when they can regrow themselves? | Livers aren't prone to fail over time due to alcohol, that is the wrong way to look at it. Livers valiantly extend the lives of people dead set on drinking themselves to death, holding out for as long as they can.It takes a relative fuckton of alcohol abuse to cause liver failure. You pretty much have to be drunk for m... |
If phone numbers are public record why can't they be reverse searched? | > why do they charge to find out who's actually calling you? Because they *aren't* public record, so those companies need to buy the data from somewhere. Granted, most land lines will appear in the white pages/directories, but those you obviously do not need to pay to get info . _URL_0_ literally has a section that say... |
Periods.. Other than humans very few animals have them. What are the other mammals doing differently? | Basically humans aren't like most other species. In many other species the mother controls the bloodflow and nutrients to the embryo. That's why several animals can miscarry their pregnancy on demand to evade a predator. Human females do not control this nutrient exchange. Basically once an embryo attaches itself to a ... |
What do people see when they look at me? | Have you never seen a pic of you?The reversed version of it. For example, I part my hair to what I think is the right side but when others see me they see it as being parted to my left. |
How come car companies use glass that shatters into a million peices as a windshield and not something like plastic? | Windshields behave the way they do for safety. It's a feature, not a problem. In the case of an accident, you get either a large cracked bendy piece of windshield, or you get lots of little round fragments that can't cut you and kill you as you experience the crash. Large shards would be super dangerous. Plastic is sof... |
Why use fans on heat sinks rather than a small thermoelectric generator feeding into the PSU? | Electricity is cheap and the amount you would get from most products that could utilize this is negligible. Small generators typically produce small voltages that would have to be converted, and large generators require large amounts of heat. No reason to bother when you can pay $0.10 for more electricity than the gene... |
Why is the brain considered such a complex machine? | You are currently processing crystal clear images of your surroundings, focusing on this post, reading squiggles and translating them into sounds, connecting those sounds into words forming sentences with meaning while simultaneously feeling your hand on your mouse, smelling the air, hearing and interpreting sounds aro... |
Why does my computer act 'groggy' when I start it up? | You might have a lot of background stuff like Steam, Skype, Spotify set to turn on when the computer goes up, you might wanna get CCleaner and check to see what starts up when you open your computerwindows does "disk caching" or something similar. it basically keeps track of which files you opened. and keeps some parts... |
Why does a small splash of vinegar result in perfect poached eggs, where the absence of vinegar results in stringy nonsense | The acid coagulates the proteins or whatever. Use fresh eggs, at least three or preferably four weeks from the use-by date. They hold together just fine and are a billion times nicer than something artificially held together with vinegar. I don't get poached eggs when I go out any more because they often reek of the st... |
You couldn't kill bacteria with 102° water, so why does your body heat up while you're sick? | The higher temperature boosts your body's immune system. It's more effective at higher temperatures. Of course, it's a fine balance, because above 105°, the heat starts causing serious brain damage. |
Why don't things burn instantly? | It needs to heat up to the point where it has enough energy to combust. Also not everything is very flammableFor the instance you mention, it is because of an issue of needing to heat up. In the case of a log on a bonfire, it is because oxygen is being used too fast for the amount that is able to enter the area. |
How are pranks where people dress up like police officers legal? Is this not covered by laws against "impersonating an officer"? | Impersonating an officer only applies when you attempt to use the power an officer has such as pulling over another car, detaining a person or trying to acquire goods or information. With a prank, no harm is done. It's revealed that is it a prank shortly after and good times are had by all. |
How did the ancient civilizations map out coastlines? | They just estimated them, by sailing around and eyeballing distances. Take enough data and distances, and you can construct a decently accurate map of the coastline. Enough for navigation purposes, at leastHow ancient are we talking? Using a sextant and a compass you can get reasonably accurate positioning and you coul... |
How to implement the pentatonic scale (or any type of scale for that matter) over a simple I-IV-V progression. | A pentatonic scale fits nicely with all of those chords, so really you have the world at your fingertips when it comes to improvising over those chords using the pentatonic scale. When you want to hit a long note, try to chose one that is a note in the chord you are on at the moment, or maybe a 7th or a 9th . Otherwise... |
Why I can hear my dreams before I'm completely asleep? | Don't worry about your sanity, you're experiencing hypnagogia, a very common part of the transitional state between waking and sleep. People experience a wide range of sensory phenomena, such as: random noises ranging from buzzing to random speech to explosions; visual effects like bright flashes, colorful speckles, ge... |
Why does more electronic storage cost more? | In some cases, the manufacturing process is a lot more complex to make the item that has more storage, even if it isn't physically any bigger. In other cases, they make many storage devices, all with the higher amount of storage. Some of them are faulty, and can't store as much as they're supposed to, so they get re-co... |
If a ninth planet exists and easily fits our readings and models, why haven't we found it yet? | How do we notice most of the planets in our solar system? We observe them because light hits them and bounces back for us to see. The further away they are the harder they are to see, you get to Saturn and you can't see anything with the naked eye. Further out you need binoculars or a telescope to see them. In fact Nep... |
Why do our noses run when we are cold | You have small hairs inside your nose that are constantly doing the wave and pushing the snot back up your nose where it drains down your throat. These are cilia. When it's cold they say fuck this and quit working allowing gravity to do it's thing and make snot come out of your nose. Bonus fact: your body produces a cu... |
Why is the standard format for a rock band a 4 piece drums/bass/guitar/vocal? How and why did that happen? | That comes from jazz music, where that combination of instruments is known as [the rhythm section]. In early New Orleans and Dixieland jazz , trumpet/clarinet/trombone would playing the melody and countermelodies, the guitar/piano/banjo would play chords, the tuba/bass would play the bassline, and the drum set would ke... |
Why do women's menstrual cycles sync up after a while when living together? | They don't, it's a popular misinform. Am a woman, get periods and have had many female roommates over the years |
Why hot drinks can be consumed comfortably, yet if any is split on the skin it can cause pain. | ever got a blowjob? if not, put a finger in your mouth. your mouth is much warmer / hotter than your finger. so of course, your mouth wont suffer as much as your finger from touching a hot drink. it's the other way around too: try to put an ice cube in your mouth and keep it there for more than 5 -10 seconds . you prob... |
Why do so many countries view ex-president George W Bush as a war criminal? | Because he invaded a country the UN had not given permission to invade, based upon "intelligence" which wound up being entirely bogus. He then had hundreds of innocents "detained on suspicion" without trial, and many of them wound up being tortured, which is a war crime.A number of legal scholars have made arguments th... |
What is a private or "profit" prison, and how do they work? | It's a prison that is run by an independent company. And they charge the government for performing that service |
How is it possible to hang from something like an electric fence but only get electrocuted once you make contact with the ground? | When they touch the ground, it completes a circuit that allows the electrical current to go through their body. |
What's up with the CERN drama, What are they trying to do? | What CERN drama? I can find nothing significant about CERN in the news. Are you sure you didn't find a five year old fear-mongering website about how "oh the LHC will destroy the wooooorrrrlldddd!!!!1!"', "It's business as usual. With the LHC, specifically, collisions are continuing at 13 TeV with 25 ns bunch spacing. ... |
Pensacola, FL has white sand and clear water. Corpus Christi, TX has brown sand and murky brown water. How is there such a huge difference on the same body of water? | Other posters are right in that the continental shelf of the western portion of the GOM is mostly mud/clay, meaning that most of the rivers dump muddy silt into the gulf, including the Mississippi River. The Gulf of Mexico churns counter clockwise bringing the muddy water down along the Texas coast. If you think Corpus... |
why does it take so long (years even) to get a citizenship in a foreign country? | Because those countries want to limit the number of people who get the benefits of full citizenship. Making it take longer means taht fewer people will go through the process and the ones who do will really want it, or possibly be better in some way ', "Because that country has established a lot of paperwork to get in,... |
Why are bad words "bad"? | Detailed discussion of taboo topics like sex and dispelling of feces requires a specialized vocabulary. People are traditionally and unfortunately uncomfortable taboo topics , so people used this specialized vocabulary to shock and surprise people in normal conversation. That's where it starts and from whence the "badn... |
how this guy ran a marathon at age 95 | Your body rises to the level of care and use you put into it. Eat correctly, exercise regularly your entire life, and avoid any injuries, infections, or genetic issues that could mess you up. After that, its up to luck, and this guy has gotten pretty lucky. |
How wireless charger work? | The charger has a coil of wire that creates a magnetic field. That magnetic field induces an electric current in a separate coil of wire inside the device being charged, which charges the battery in the deviceOn a related question, how efficient is it, compared to the normal charger cord? |
Why are gingers hated? | It has something to do with the belief that gingers- those with red hair, pale skin, and freckles- have no souls.A lot of people just don't find them visually appealing. |
How are free withdrawal ATM machines profitable? | ATMs are actually less costly for banks than withdrawals from human tellers. Remember when all ATMs were free Pepperidge Farm Remembers. EditPrior to 1988, there was no surcharging of cardholders by ATM owners in the U.S. In 1988 Valley Bank of Nevada began surcharging "foreign cardholders" for withdrawals at Valley Ba... |
How can Scientology be considered a religion? | There are certain things that are unique to Scientology as a religion: the whole "pay as you go" thing , Scientology is the only religion that has gone to legal lengths in order to protect its information, and the only religion that has had a 20+ year fight to be called so. |
How can Sasha Baron Cohen (Bruno, Ali-G, Borat, etc.) meet and film with important groups like the FBI when he is only going to make a joke of it? | I heard that on the Ali G show, he would have someone else in a suit pretending they are going to do the interview and he just played one of the camera crew. When filming started he took over the questions and caught the people off guard. |
Why can't I just hit the "Off" button on my computer rather than "Shut Down" | + Pressing shut down Will terminate all system and user processes normally. Exiting processes have time to write logs and results in the primary memory. Some of it can be important, but 95% of the time you won't notice a difference, if you are a casual home user and not involved in servers or programing projects etc. I... |
How did Anonymous CONTINUE to control @KuKluxKlanUSA for days? | "Twitter comes to the rescue of the KKK" not good publicity.We're not talking about the Dallas Cowboys or Apple Computer here. The KKK as a whole doesn't exist. It's made up of several local groups with their own leadership structure and lots of infighting between them. KKK's don't have offices, organizing one is like ... |
If our heart is behind our ribcage, why can we feel it when we put our hand on our chest? | You're not literally feeling your heart against your hand. But the heart is a very powerful muscle and its pumping action sends vibrations through the rib cage to the skin. |
What causes the Reddit phenomenon of [deleted] and subsequent chain of deleted comments? | Typically when you see a ton of comments deleted it's because of a combination of user-removal and mod-removal. If two people get in an argument that either has nothing to do with the thread topic or becomes particularly nasty/abusive the mods will often delete the whole thing. Sometimes they'll just delete one party's... |
How do modern aircraft "lose contact" with flight control? | "Lose contact" is a very vague phrase that could mean just about anything, but it means one thing for sure: lots of page views for advertising. Air France AF447 "lost contact" - flight was out of radar coverage as is totally normal for that part if the world. In between check-ins with air traffic, poor decisions allowe... |
Why is it some people hiccup when eating spicy foods? | This happens to me too. I'm not entirely sure, but I do notice that if I make an effort to not inhale when swallowing I don't have a much of an issue. My guess is the tendency to inhale right as we are swallowing trying to cool off the food causes the problem. |
How are the marines 240 years old when America is only 239 years old? | The Revolutionary War started a year before the states formally declared independence. Originally the colonists\' view was that they were loyal subjects of the King of Britain , but Parliament had no special power over them because, among other things, they had no votes in Parliament. Most of the Founding Fathers origi... |
How did Hitler and the Nazi leaders justify the alliance with Japan when the Nazi party was so against non-Arian people? | The Japanese were declared "honorary Aryans" or "Master Race of the Orient" . In fact, Hitler held the Japanese and Chinese in high regard because of their long history and achievementsI think it was meant to be purely strategic, as they were both world powers at odds with the same nationsThe enemy of my enemy is my fr... |
Do All the Planets in our Solar System Spin and/or Orbit in the Same Direction? Why? | All planets in our solar system orbit in the same direction . This is becuase the planets formed from one big disk of dust and debris that was spinning counter clockwise. Once the matter in the cloud clumped up to form planets and moons, the planets all kept going in the same direction. It is also the direction that th... |
If keeping your heart rate up is good for you during exercise, is the same true of watching scary movies, playing video games, or other passive heart rate boosters? | Heart rate increases due to exercise are healthier than heart rate increases due to terror . Terror-based heart rate increases are accompanied by a spike in adrenaline, which can be damaging to your heart over timeWhen you are afraid, anxious, or stressed, the main causes of passive heart rate increase, your body relea... |
What causes loose skin on some people after losing weight? | when you get fat, your skin stretches, there's almost no limit on how much the skin can stretch and you will get stretch marks if it stretches too fast. when you lose fat, it's hard for your skin to unstretch. so they are left with loose skin. of course the more weight they lose the more significant an issue this will ... |
how a hardware store worker is affecting a whole country's economy | He posts the true dollar to bolivar exchange rate. The Venezuelan government insists n setting the rate rather than permitting it to fluctuate based on demand. Since the people are now armed with better information, they are spending their bolivars with that information in mind. The article explains this in more depth.... |
when baking, why can you not simply 2x, 3x, etc the recipe to increase the batch? | Baking is a very specific form of cooking that requires two things; humidity and temperature. When you're making your dough, you need it to raise and set. The size of your rolled/patted dough alters how it raises and sets. If you multiply a baking recipe, it could possibly affect the size of your rolled/patted dough, w... |
Why do my veins look blue when my blood is red? | Oxygenated blood is the bright red you are familiar with, blood without oxygen is a darker red. Due to the way that light is absorbed by the skin and muscle between your veins and the surface, the dark red blood appears blue. Edit: any of the other answers stating that human blood is blue without oxygen are just incorr... |
What does U2 get out of releasing it's new album for free on iTunes? | A new generation of people listening to their music. Said people may consider buying their other albums which are not free1. a fat check from apple.2. promotion of upcoming tour and a shit-ton of other commercial products that will undoubtedly be associated with the album and the brand.3. update in sales of prior album... |
How does an insect's mind function relative to our own in terms of "thoughts," motivation, and instinct? | As far as brain development is concerned, humans have a shared heritage with other mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and even fish. There are structural similarities between the human brain and the brains of these species, and through various states of altered consciousness we can make an educated guess about the co... |
How do our toes, such a small part of our bodies, withstand our body weight with full stability without breaking? | They've evolved to be strong enough to. Bones are pretty darn strong compared to their size/weight. That, along with your muscles helping support them, can generally withstand a good bit of weight, assuming you're relatively healthy. And if you trained those muscles, you could do even more. Ballet dancers can jump arou... |
Why do we call bigotry towards homosexuals homophobia? | Homophobia is not a recognized clinical disorder the same way acrophobia is. It's first recorded use was in a NY Times article in the 80's. The wiki page on homophobia has a section mentioning the same semantic criticism that you do, with LGBT scholars suggesting terms such as homonegativity or sexual prejudice to repl... |
How can the police or the fire departement tell what the cause of a fire was? For example by arson, by accident or just by nature itself? | Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: How do technicians determine the cause of a fire? Eg. to a cigarette stub when everything is burned out. ] ^1. [ELI5: How do people determine how fires start? Wouldn't all the evidence of the cause of the fire be destroyed in the fire? ] ^1. [ELI5: H... |
Why do scam websites that claim to sell "a revolutionary product" all look the same? | Because they work. Scam artists and lazy people see an idea that brings money for little work, and they emulate that idea. Why fix something that isnt broken, right? Similar idea to why there are a million different versions of Minecraft and Bejewelled. The people peddling these things aren't innovators. They don't des... |
If women have a right to their own bodies, why is abortion legal, but prostitution illegal? | The straightforward answer to the legal question---at least in the U.S.---is that the government has a lot more power to regulate commercial activities done for entertainment than it has to regulate private medical decisions. The slightly less straightforward answer has to do with how courts look at the interests of th... |
Why, when looking at the reflection of my monitor in a glass of orange juice, do I see rainbows across the reflection? | Because your glass is curved. So it's going to curve the light passing through it and reflecting off of it ever so slightly. Bending light in such a manner produces a rainbow effect because the medium does not bend all the frequencies of light the by same amount. |
how do people (Tom Petty Gaye family) win copyright battles over songs with loosely similar melodies? Haven't all the basic pop melodies been used a thousand times already? | Songs can be stylistically similar in a number of different ways, and it's when these add up that infringement becomes a problem. In other words, yes, it is inevitable that occasionally two songs will share a similar melody here and there. However, songs consist of more than just melodies: - Lyrical content - Beat/rhyt... |
Why are warm showers very sedative and cold showers very stimulating? | The heat from a hot shower helps tightened or inflamed muscles relax and also promotes better blood flow and circulation. This, naturally, has a relaxing affect on the body. Cold water can stimulate oxygen intake via the physical shock from the temperature and can also increase heart rate, circulating blood flow. Cold ... |
why some game updates introduce more bugs | Think of computer code like a spider web - if you tug on one end of the web, the entire web moves slightly because it's all connected. Now, ideally, code should be modular, such that if you change this one piece over here, that other piece over there is completely unaffected. However, in the real world, it's quite comm... |
Why do we forget dreams so fast? | They're not stored in long term memory. The reason for this is probably because there's no advantage to remembering them and remembering them would clog your memory up with crap. |
How does 'dual-citizenship' work if one of the countries concerned doesn't have the provision of 'dual-citizenship'? | It doesn't. If you are a citizen of a country that doesn't allow you to hold multiple citizenships, when push comes to shove you may have to decide to give one of them up. Or you may lose your original citizenship automatically as soon as you acquire your new one. But it's not like, for example, the U.S. government won... |
Why don't blood vessels sort of kink when we fold our knees/elbows? | 1. The outside of each blood vessel is made of a material that has the right blend of firmness and flexibility. 2. Most blood vessels are surrounded by soft tissue that will yield first, or hard things that will protect them from some of the pressure. 3. The interior of blood vessels is pressurized by the action of the... |
What is a Banana Republic? How is it related to Bananas? | Banana republic can either be: A fake republic, like the Nicaraguan republic in the late twentieth century. In this sense, banana is a connection to a centralized republic, like, int he hands of the few, in the case of Nicaragua, the hands of the banana business family. See the paradox? Or you can be referring to the n... |
How do tattoos stay in our skin even though we shed and peel away skin after sunburns? | Because we only shed and peel the upper layer of skin. The tattoo is a few layers deeper in and fairly well protected from peeling and shedding and loss of skin. |
Why is Alcohol aged in Barrels? | As far as Bourbon The whiskey expands and contracts into the wood as it ages and with seasonal changes. This mellows the whiskey and imparts the oak flavor. The longer it ages the more mellow the flavor. This process creates longer molecular chains which aid in a better flavor. I drank some 23 year old bourbon yesterda... |
How is it that we've managed to make so many diverse variations of dogs, and would we be able to do this with any other animal on the same scale? | Dogs have a really weird and seemingly unique thing called a Slippery genome. We haven't discovered any other animals that have this yet, but it really helps in dog breeding. Dogs basically have backup genes that allow them to survive mutation much better than most animals. For example, if we bred lots of dogs with stu... |
What does the parental advisory label do and does it prevent a child from buying CDs with that logo? | The advisory label is voluntary. There is no law or regulation that requires a retailer to not sell to a minor. It was created as a response to gangster rap from the 90s entering the mainstream. In contemporary times, I'm sure high school kids know more bad words than I do. And they probably know how to download whatev... |
Why do hear an echo like sound when we place a glass on our ear even though the room is quiet ? | Seashell resonance. The rushing sound that one hears is in fact the noise of the surrounding environment, resonating within the cavity of the shell. The same effect can be produced with any resonant cavity, such as an empty cup or even by simply cupping one's hand over one's ear. The similarity of the noise produced by... |
Why do moths and other bugs like to crowd around light sources so much? | We think that moths use the moon/Sun for navigation. If you stand outside so that the moon is to your left, and walk keeping the moon to your left, you can keep a general heading. Moths developed this ability long, long before ANYTHING at night shined brightly other than the moon. So it gets confused when it sees a lig... |
Why don't copyright laws affect China? | US copyright laws only really apply in the US. International copyright laws apply worldwide, but only to the extent to which countries wish to enforce them within their borders. China isn't making it a priority, and there isn't much the rest of the world can do to force them. |
why does my Apple IPhone require that I have at least 4.5 GB of storage available in order to update? | The files you download in the update must be decompressed before being permanently installed. A 500 MB download could easily decompress into a couple of gigabytes or more. |
Why is there such a small amount of steam games for mac? | It takes effort to build the game for the mac. Not as much effort as building it from scratch, but it does take a significant investment. It can also be different enough that you may want a specific team just for the mac work. For many companies that extra effort isn't worth the cost given the relatively small amount o... |
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