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Why do people bother keeping savings in banks/currencies which are potentially unstable? | I see two reasons: 1. In most European countries you need a residence permit to open a bank account. In other words, you must live in the country where you want the bank account. Some countries, like Switzerland, allow foreigners to open bank accounts without a permit. However, the banking fees are high for such custom... |
Why does water freeze from top to bottom? Deep in the ocean it’s below freezing, why doesn’t it freeze? | There are several reasons. The salt in the ocean lowers the temperature needed to make it freeze. Currents stop the ice from bonding, and if Ice did freeze, it is less dense and floats. But the main reason is the pressure, especially in deep water. To freeze, water needs to expand. Deep in the ocean, the pressure from ... |
how they catch digital pirates who use hotspots or do they? | I'm surprised no one has mentioned the identifier on your personal device (MAC ADDRESS) and the ability to change or "spoof" it to something else temporarily. |
The voting rights of citizens in the District of Columbia historically differ from the rights of citizens in each of the 50 U.S. states. Why can't the U.S. just add an amendment to fix that right now? | Because politics quickly becomes political. Currently D.C. is extremely Democratic, so Republicans don't want 2 new Democratic Senators. If the situation was reversed it's likely that the sides would quickly flip and Democrats would be blocking the amendment. |
I've been reading up on nukes. Did the Nevada nuclear tests have nuclear winter? Why or why not? | Nuclear Winter is not a local effect resulting from an atomic blast, but rather a hypothetical effect from lots of nukes going off. The theory is that the nukes would kick a lot of soot and dust up in to the air, blocking out the sun. The blocking out of the sun would result in lower temperatures since the sun can't he... |
How come cars are able to go up to 220 km/h but highways only allow speeds of up to 110 km/h. Wouldn't it be wiser to have cars max out at 110 km/h-ish and reduce the engine capabilities? | How long do you want to take to accelerate? Merging onto the highway in a reasonable time takes far more power than maintaining a constant speed. There are plenty of 1.0 l cars for sale in Europe. They take about 17 +/- seconds to reach 100 kph, but they are very fuel efficient. No one would buy them here in the US bec... |
Is it ever possible in the future to have matching finger/thumbprints? | The idea that everyone has a unique fingerprint isnt really scientifically proven. There is a real possibility that you and someone else currently living have identical fingerprints. |
How a military can overthrow a government? | The people with the guns stop doing what the president says, and they use their guns to do what they want. That's basically how it goes. |
why does spicy food stay spicy when it comes out the other end? | Spiciness isn't a flavor, it's a reaction to the chemical capsaicin, which irritates any tissue it contacts, not just your tongue. This is also why the area around your lips gets sore while eating wings. |
Why do posts on reddit not start on 0 (what's the purpose of allowing one to vote for oneself)? | To reward you for making a comment even if no one else does. |
How does copyright work with references? | US copyright has a Fair Use clause, which a minor reference like the ones you are mentioning fall under. You don't need to pay royalties for something like mentioning "I saw something like this on Star Trek once!" or "This is like Episode 79 of the Original Series, Turnabout Intruder! They got bodyswapped!" As to when... |
Why is the word 'cunt' such a taboo word in the U.S.? | People have made it so. Words can be given such power based on how they're used in the culture. I remember when Austin Powers 2 came out (it was called Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me), and that was seen as quite vulgar for British people. In the US, Shagged is a cute word (like using Poop in place of the word... |
Why is the USA drinking age set at 21 when in most other respects you're an adult at 18. | In the 60s and 70s, the US had a **lot** of fatalities as a result of teenage drunk driving. Waaay more than any other country did. Really, there were two options available to them: raise the drinking age, or raise the driving age. I think they made the right choice. |
Why do I not smell perfume I've sprayed on me but other people do? | Why don't you see your nose? It's within your vision. Your brain filters out your nose, because it's always there, and likewise, it filters out smells that are "always there". The phenomenon is called [sensory adaptation](_URL_0_), this is the brain caring less about constant stimuli. Olfactory neurons also fire less ... |
How does a two headed reptile/siamese twins work? How do they move their bodies assuming there are two brains? | Typically each twin controls a different part of the body. Like the twin girls Brittany and Abigail Hensel. They give the appearance of being one body with two heads, though they have two of each organ above the waist. They have two arms, each controlling one. And from the waist down, they have one body, with each cont... |
why aren't AK47's an "accurate" rifle | 1. AK-47's distance between the sight and post is very short which makes it so that for longer ranges, it is extremely difficult to line up an accurate shot as you are more likely to be misaligned with your eye to the sights. 2. It uses a relatively low velocity round, meaning it arcs more and spends more time to get t... |
Why can I not remember what happens when I'm drunk? | Memories enter the brain first as short term memory, that is then transformed into a long-term memory. This is evident because the majority of short-term memories that we experience are lost before they ever make it into what we will call "long-term" storage. When alcohol is consumed it affects your ability to take s... |
Why does having noise in the background (TV, music, etc.) make me feel safer when I'm home alone? | Your ears are sensitive through a wide ride of volumes. When it is very quiet, you hear faint noises you are unaccustomed to, which can be disconcerting. Background noise hides those sounds with ones more familiar to you, restoring your comfort level. |
Isn't the freshwater we have to work with just going in a cycle? How are we losing fresh water? | When the water ends up in the oceans, it slows down the cycling a lot. Water in aquifers (the stores under the ground that we access when we use wells) and water on Earth's surface are the cheapest to use. We have been either polluting these (surface) or using them too fast for new water to filter in. We have also allo... |
Why is there such a large Insane Clown Posse (Juggalo) following? | A lot of it is because the group tries to make its fans into a "community" (Juggalos). Like, fans of a band like, say, the Black Keys, are just people who happen to like the Black Keys. But ICP specifically encourages fans, "Hey, dress up like us, be like us, be part of something," and then the fans encourage each othe... |
Why metal at room temperature feels cold while, say, fabric at room temperature doesn't | I believe it has something to do with the rate at which heat from your body is transferred to the material. Your body is hotter than both the fabric and the spoon, which are at the same temperature, but the spoon conducts the heat at a faster rate and so you feel it as being colder. Please correct me if I am wrong or m... |
A neighborhood cat comes to your home and you feed it. A day/week later, other cats appear at your house looking for food. How did the other cats find out that you're a food giver? | Kitties talk among themselves, just like humans. They may not make a sound, but they do communicate ... and follow each other around. Seriously: you can/should check out [Alley Cat Allies](_URL_0_) for all sorts of info about hungry kitty visitors. |
Why do southern states freak out over a little snow? | There is essentially no infrastructure to deal with snowfall in southern states because it happens so rarely. Roads are not salted or plowed so they are covered in ice, and nobody has snow tires or much experience driving in snow. It is sort of like how everyone up north has trouble with a little heat wave where it get... |
What is the origin and meaning of "Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government." | It's a quote from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The "strange woman lying in pond" is the Lady of the Lake from the Arthurian legend. _URL_0_ |
What are those bastardly little tongue sores you get from eating too much salt or sugar, and how do you get rid of them? | The condition is called aphthous stomatitis, or commonly, canker sores. They are NOT inflamed tastebuds. Rather, they are small ulcers (areas of inflamed, healing tissue) that are characteristically painful and confined to the mucosa (soft tissue) of the mouth (including surface of the tongue) by definition. There is n... |
Why are swearing words related to genitals and/or sexuality? | Swear words come from things we consider taboo or distasteful. In English-speaking society, we have a lot of taboos surrounding sex, even in this day and age. We also put a very high level of importance on hygiene, so words relating to waste and where they come from are also taboo. Certain words automatically make you... |
How can Pewdipie make $4M a year? | Most of his money would come from Youtube views and advertising. Having as many views as Pewdipie gets would certainly net you a lot of money from Youtube. |
Where exactly is a woman's G-spot located, and how do you find it? | Straight in, stick to the top, two o clock (yes always) until about the second bend in your fingers, if you've hit your knuckles that's way too far. It all generally feels the same to you but it has sort of an interesting texture. So I know perhaps you've always been told to do the "Come here" motion but it's actually ... |
Why do we hear static from radios and TV's when there's nothing being broadcast? Shouldn't we just hear silence? | Because there isn't nothing there. Every spectrum is full of random noise from stars, radioactive decay, all sorts of things like that. It's just terrestrial broadcasts are so much stronger that it overwhelms the random noise. This is why when you start reaching the edge of the coverage area for the station you're list... |
why you can't put metal in the microwave but nothing happens to the metal that it's built from | You can put metal in microwaves, which is a lot come with racks, you just can't put metal with sharp edges/points such as forks and aluminum foil. As for the interior, most microwaves have their interior painted to prevent these issues. |
The size of the universe. | I'm sorry that I don't know how to answer your question, but I would like to post this here: _URL_0_ Space Engine, kind of like google Earth, but a map of the entire (known) Universe. I found out about it from r/TIL |
Why do school hours not match working hours? | That means teachers would go home at 7 or 8pm, school buses would have to contend with commuter traffic, and students would be walking home in the dark most of the time. |
Why do dogs go absolutely crazy after getting a bath? | A bath is a time when dogs get much attention and get touched and scrubbed all over. A dog can become emotionally overwhelmed from this extreme attention. Also, the situation of getting soaked to the skin is unusual for the dog, perhaps stressful, because their undercoat is an important protection to them. To get this... |
What was the warsaw uprising | Warsaw was under Nazi rule. People didn't like that, especially the Jews living in the ghetto. People were purposely starved, killed in the streets. The Polish Underground State was formed - a resistance paramilitary which was made of several groups that wanted to liberate Poland (and save Jews). Some folks with radio... |
Why do professional athletes have a significantly lower pulse than the average person ? | Because they have increased stroke volume. Their hearts are strengthened so that they are able to move more blood with each pump, so their hearts don't need to pump as many times. |
Pirate Bay Megathread | I love how the government spends so much time to seize it, and then another one pops up an hour later. |
How, with the proliferation of free porn websites like youporn, does any porn production make money? | You like pink crayons a lot. There is this place where you can get free pink crayons, but you have to deal with ads and possibly malware. Also the pink crayons are low quality and the place may not have the specific type or model of pink crayon you are looking for. Now there is this other place where if you pay a bit y... |
How do landlords make money | so essentially making money from letting requires a large amount of time and/or starting capital? |
Why do DVDs in widescreen format play with black bars on top and bottom on my widescreen TV | Just because it's "widescreen" doesn't mean that it's the same exact aspect ratio as your TV. A movie with black bars on the top and bottom was filmed in an aspect ration that's even wider than your widescreen TV. Look [here](_URL_1_). Most widescreen TV's are 16:9 (the third from the bottom on that page), and many mo... |
How do spammers spoof a cell phone number to make scam calls? | When you make an outbound call, the calling system gives the phone system the caller ID information. The reason this can be (legitimately) different from the actual call is for example a business that has both direct lines to each extension and a main line. An employee calling out would show up with the main line as th... |
How have wolves impacted Yellowstone? | This is just one example. More grazing animals means less vegetation for other animals to use as a home or shelter from prey. They also took vegetation away from the river banks causing more erosion. (The roots held the soil in place) The reintroduction of wolves stopped that and kept the grazing animal population in ... |
What is the difference between a CEO and the President of a company? | "President" is a term that is often based on the law of the place where the company is created. For example in the United States, most states require that a corporation have a person with the title President. That title carries with it some legal obligations that tie the individual to the actions of the company. Most j... |
Why is it, that when I get really tired, everything is so much funnier? | The phenomenon of being more easily amused falls under Emotional Lability which means emotional changeability or instability. You're probably more likely to cry too. In extreme cases, this is a medical condition, see _URL_0_ but in regular life, it's just that the parts of your brain which keep you on an even keel aren... |
How do people get infected with plaque? | Plaque isn't just one bactera it is what is known as a biofilm. Layers and layers of diferent bactera and their extracellular matrixs. Pretty much any bactera can eventually form biofilms. Everyone has bactera on and in their bodies called their natural flora. Your natural flora bactera grow into the plaque on your tee... |
Why does a company like Boeing need to make a commercial? It's not like anyone watching is going to buy one. | Companies that have to choose between Airbus or Boeing still consist of people (who can be manipulated through commercials), and they can sadly often do so with bias even though they're supposed to run the numbers and make an informed decision. |
How do American football have bruised lungs without also having broken ribs? Isn't that the point of ribs? | This is actually one of the major issues with American football. The padding protects from the blunt hit and spreads out the impact so you aren't taking a lot of force to a particular place on your body, but your body is still being shoved really hard as a whole. This means the force is spread out and absorbed a bit so... |
What are dentists actually doing when they scrape at your teeth with those metal picks? | I think my dentist was counting money while my hygienist was scraping my teeth. |
When did we stop having to type in 'www.'? Why did we have to to begin with? | It's because servers where traditionally named according to the services they provide. So a world wide web server had www., a file transfer protocol server had ftp., et caetera. We stopped having to type it because nowadays, the www._URL_0_ and _URL_0_ URLs both refer to the same server (URL is like a set of coordinate... |
What is the difference between real and imaginary numbers? | The real numbers are all the numbers you grew up working with - 1,2,3,4, 4.5, 1/3, 1.2345, -27, 3.1415... and so on. When you limit yourself to the real numbers, the square root of -1 is undefined - there's just no possible number it can be. To get around this, mathematicians defined **i** as the square root of -1. Giv... |
How odds work if everything is random? | Odds basically tell you that if the exact same situation were to occur an infinite number of times, what portion of those times would lead to that specific result. e.g. If you have the Ace of Hearts, King of Hearts, Queen of Hearts and Jack of Hearts in your hand and 48 shuffled cards in front of you, there is a 1 in 4... |
How do phones and iPods and such know when they are turned sideways? | _URL_0_ It's called an accelerometer. This guy breaks it dowwn. |
What would be the simplest way to "unplug" the internet, causing total shut down by means of disabling hardware? | Like, in your house? Or the whole thing? In your house, just unplug the cable between the router and the modem. The Internet as a whole is so resilient (it was intended to survive nuclear strikes) that it would be extraordinarily difficult. Global thermonuclear war might do it. |
The whole Wiki leaks and assange debacle. | Assange made a website that exposed private and sensitive information about important people and events, in particular the government, and they got angry. |
How my wife and kids would go about inheriting things that are only in my name like bank accounts, house, ect.. | By default, after you die, everything will go to your legal next of kin. That person (or persons) is defined in this order, and if you don't have a living member of each group, it passes to the next one down: Spouse Children Parents Siblings I believe that next comes grandkids, then grandparents, but don't quote me on ... |
What is my all carbs/protein diet doing for me? | Weight gain is dependent on calories in and calories burned. It doesn't matter where you're getting those calories from, if you burn them all through activity and lifestyle, then you're not going to put on weight. Olympic Swimmer Michael Phelps ate somewhere around 2000 Calories for breakfast (remember watching a docum... |
Are calories just calories? Is it the same if you get a calorie from a fizzy drink or a piece of fruit or a slice of potato or a bit of cheese? | A calorie is a physical measure of energy - specifically, the amount of energy needed to heat one metric mililitre of water by one degree Celsius. Energy in food intake is also measured in this way, though the terms kilocalorie and calorie are often used interchangably, which can cause confusion. But yes, no matter wh... |
Why do computer telephone response systems always ask me to type a bunch of info, then transfer me to a human who asks for the exact same info? | I used to work for costumer service and we do this to make it an unpleasant experience for the costumer so that they never call again. It's the same concept as those In-mail rebates that tend to be annoying to complete. That's why I ended up quitting. I didn't like the whole idea of treating the customers bad. |
Why is it that lakes/ponds around the world have fairly similar fish, instead of them each having their own unique species of fish like land ecosystems do for animals? | The water in the lake came from somewhere. Most lakes are fed by rivers and streams, or were originally parts of a river network as is the case with [oxbow lakes.](_URL_0_) A lake that was completely isolated from any other sources of water would eventually see evolutionary divergence if it had unique stressors, but th... |
How bars or clubs charge huge crowds of people randomly ordering drinks. | people either start a tab or they pay up front. it's part of a bartender's job to make sure they get paid for their goods/services. i'm sure some bars and bartenders will allow regulars to get away without paying upfront in certain scenarios, but that really depends on the business and employees. |
Why group mentality is so powerful | Human nature to belong and conform to social groups, empathy, and natural fear of exclusion. It's kind of instinctual, that's why the weak minded are susceptible to group mentality. Case in point: Reddit. |
If each pixel is merely a combination of a red, blue, or green light, why don't colorblind people who can, for example, not see red or green colors, only see blue on computer monitors? | It's not that colour-blind people can't see red or green. They can see them both fine; they just can't tell them apart. |
The Hateful Eight in 70mm, is there no way to replicate so every theatre gets that "visual effect"? | Gonna get a little technical: The movie has a digital equivalence of around 8192x2968 (assuming a 4K equivalence for regular 4-perf 35mm). I don't know of any theater that has a projector above 4K, many are even at 2K (2048x1080, almost the same as regular 1920x1080, as most movies are 2K). So, seeing it in a thea... |
How does a watch know when a month has 30 or 31 days? | I think you have to manually adjust it every time the month changes, but not sure, sure someone will correct me. |
Why does tiredness feel as though it comes in waves? | Biorhythms. Your body has cycles: breathing, heartbeat, blinking, even which nostril you use. Your wakefulness/tiredness is also cyclic. |
how does your brain produce a coloured image through staring at a negative? | Your eye sensors tire after a short while viewing a static image. In this example they're giving you a fixed point to focus on so that the image stays positioned in the same place on your retina. Notice how her lips are green in the negative. Staring at that wears our your green sensor there. Then, when you switch to l... |
Why are most passwords hidden on-screen by default when you type them, but WIFI passwords are not? | Most on screen passwords are hidden in-case you have any shoulder surfers(people watching you type over your shoulder). WiFi passwords give you the option to either hide or show, in my opinion as WiFi passwords are normally longer than other account passwords they can be hard to make sure your typing correctly without ... |
Why does time use the number 60? | 60 is easy to divide cleanly in multiple ways, and a number based on 60, such as the number of degrees in a circle, can be divided yet more ways. 60 can be divided by 1,2,3,4,5,6,10,12,15,20,30 and itself. This provides many easy-to-reckon, useful fractions. In the days before pocket calculators, slide rules, Napier's ... |
The true difference between i5 and i7 processors | ELI5 is not really the right place to get the help you are looking for, u/bendvis gave a great answer to i5/i7 but that does not answer the questions you don't know to ask yet. To add some answers about the rest of the system, you really want to educate yourself before rushing out to buy that shiny i7 and 1080ti, you s... |
Why does water taste bitter after eating pineapples? | When the water hits your taste buds, they are stimulated a little. The problem is they have been overloaded with sugar and acid, thus they are temporarily unable to *report* sugar and acid at that moment. Therefore they report the only thing left: alkaline (bitter) taste. Add that to the fact that most water has dissol... |
how a drug goes from needing a prescription to being able to buy it without a prescription | Like you're five? Because the grownups who make the drug (Sanofi) showed the grownups who regulate the drug (the Food and Drug Administration) that the drug is safe enough to take without needing the advice from a doctor. The drug itself does the same thing only now you don't need a prescription from the doctor. People... |
How do cars calculate speed and preview it on the speedometer? | **NOT ELI5** The car's driveshaft also powers a *speedometer cable*, which spins a magnet around at the same speed inside the *speed cup*. This magnet rotates continually in an equal direction. This spinning creates a fluctuating magnetic field. The laws of electromagnetism dictate that a current must therefore flow in... |
What would happen if we could drill a hole to the core of the Earth? | The Earth is molten beyond the crust, so we wouldn't get any further than that. |
Is there a psychological term for when you finish a game/book/series and feel empty inside? | "Ennui" (pronounced "on-we") is a pretty close fit. Also, it's French and they're very good at feeling empty and dissatisfied inside. ennui: 1. a feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or lack of interest; boredom: |
Why is it, that even though I genuinely love Whiskey, I shudder nearly every time I drink some? | Your conscious brain loves it, but your subconscious brain realizes that alcohol is inherently bad for the body, and causes you to shudder. It's a subconscious survival mechanism that you're overriding with your conscious brain. |
Why is it when I drink a glass of liquid I urinate at least twice as much back out? | Your bladder only sends the "time to pee" message to your brain when it reaches a certain level of fullness. So the amount you pee out doesn't just represent the glass of water you just drank, but all of the water you have drank since the last time you peed plus the water your body needed to dissolve the waste products... |
What prevents DNA from getting tangled? | Proteins! There are *many, many* proteins in your body that have a specific job of keeping your DNA tangled/condensed the perfect amount. There are topoisomerases, a family of proteins, that specifically twist/untwist your DNA to introduce/remove "supercoils" (like what would happn when you twist an elastic band) to c... |
Why does the tray in a microwave rotate? | Because there are hot and cooler spots due to the way the microwaves reflect around inside the oven. Rotating the food attempts to distribute the heat in the food more evenly. |
why child support is based on income rather than what a child would need monthly. | Child support is partially based on income. It is also partially based on the number of children and their age, the cost of basic living expenses and school in that general area, and whether or not any special needs are present. Which sometimes leads to a very high ratio, but that is also something that can happen when... |
If you had a room with all walls, the floor, and the ceiling made of perfect mirrors and you shined a light in there somehow, would the light continue in there forever? Would it somehow disappear? | Nothing is a perfect mirror. The material still ends up absorbing some of the light. Eventually it would all get absorbed. |
It seems like the whole world is against George Lucas' remade and remastered version of the Original Star Wars trilogy. What exactly did he do to change the story that makes fans hate it so much? Why all the vitriol? | As Pandromeda mentioned, Han Solo fired first. Also, he added in a bunch of CG aliens that didn't fit, put back in a deleted scene with Jabba the Hutt that wasn't necessary, added cheesy special effects to the Death Star explosion, added in a fucking song and dance number to Return of the Jedi, replaced the original en... |
How do blankets work? Why do they allow me to become warm even when the outside is cold? | your body makes heat. this warms the air around your skin. the blanket holds that air close to you. |
Why does the media spend so much time covering the question of whether or not Jeb Bush can rise in the polls, but doesn't extend nearly that level of coverage to other non popular contestants? | Jeb Bush is considered (generally) the primary establishment candidate, which means he's expected to have significant political clout with the republican party. Alternatively, he's also a Bush, which means he's entangled in a lot of familial controversy, 'Bush Dynasty' 'Can George Bush's brother win after his unpopular... |
The different between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims. | Shi'ites think that leadership in Islam should be hereditary, and that Imams more or less represent the authority of the founder through his bloodline. Sunnis think that leadership in Islam should be by some sort of democratic process, and you don't need to be a descendant of the founder to hold authority. It started o... |
Why did film become a synonym for movies when photography also used film? | It depends on the context, but I'll stick to your examples. People didn't view still photographs on photographic film. They needed to be printed on photographic paper. Slides are an exception, but they didn't get popular until later. Motion picture film is negative and printed onto another piece of film to make a posi... |
The core beliefs of American political parties. | This is a difficult question, America is insanely vast. A Republican in New York is going to be much different from a republican in Texas. A democrat in California will be different from a democrat in Michigan. Any person that wants to run for major office with a likable chance of winning usually has to run under one o... |
How do broadcasters sell and maximize advertising revenue during live sports when they don't know how many commercial breaks there will be? | For American football games they know within one or two how many breaks there will be. On between possessions they will radio down and stop lay during the break a "TV timeout" and a dude in a bright colored red or yellow jacket will come out and stand with the ref until it is time to resume play. |
Why when we are sick/have an infection does our body temperature go up, as in a fever? | Many infections grow best at particularly precise temperatures. Your body raises your temperature as a defense mechanism, slowing down the reproduction of the infectious agent and giving your own defenses a chance to 'catch up'. At the same time it enhances the ability of some of your body's defenders to move around mo... |
Why do real almonds not taste like almond paste/flavoring? | The almond flavour you taste in almond paste, marzipan and so forth comes from an aromatic called benzaldehyde. This is found in *bitter* almonds, which also have a fairly hefty amount of cyanide; the latter is removed during the extraction of the benzaldehyde. The almonds you eat in nut form are *sweet* almonds, which... |
Why haven't people as a whole adapted to the cold? We have adpated to the sun by the pigment in our skin changing colour depending on your exposure to sunlight. | Human's primary form of adaptation is the use of technology. So we have adapted to the cold by inventing insulated shelter, controlling fire, and making clothing. |
When I swallow a pill, why is there sometimes a heavy feeling in the back of my throat? | I used to get that feeling a lot when I first started taking my daily pills. Turns out I wasn't getting the pill "stuck" in my throat exactly, but I was not swallowing them with enough water. When someone swallows pills without proper salivation or lubricant the object can "scrape" itself on the back of your throat, l... |
Why is Reddit valued at "only" ~$1.8 billion, when less popular sites (e.g. Twitter) are worth many times more? | Reddit isn't publicly traded (there hasn't been an IPO yet), so speculation can't inflate the value of the company like Twitter or Tesla. A company is basically worth how much people are willing to pay for shares of it, but you can't buy shares in Reddit yet. It's also not profitable, yet, which doesn't help. |
How can there be a sex wage gap in the US if we've had the Equal Pay Law since 1960? | There's a bit of a misconception about the wage gap. For jobs in the exact same role with the exact same responsibilities, the wages are about the same. However, men tend to be more likely to be promoted to higher-paying positions. Women are also more likely than men to take extended time off or work part time while ra... |
How can electric motors for cars be small enough to fit into a car and relatively cheap while industrial electric motors with similar power and torque are the size of a kitchen and cost more than an electric car? | Industrial electric motors are meant to be run nearly 24/7 at higher loads and don't have to be portable, so size isn't usually a factor as much as keeping them cool, so they're built to shed excess heat better, and more surface are = more heat that can be transferred away. on the other hand for cars, weight and size a... |
Why are sunglasses universally considered "cool"? | people use their eyes to communicate their level of comfort/aggression/submission with one another. shades will remove this information and allow others to fill in the blanks. for example, you might be avoiding eye contact, but because of your sunglasses this does not register with people and you seem undeservingly "co... |
What is the difference between quality sushi and regular sushi? | Fresh vs. Frozen - was it alive this morning? The Chef's reputation and experience - you're buying his car! The ambience isn't free, if you're having sushi at a Chinese buffet, it's mostly fake crab and Thai illegal immigrants doing the work. The exact kind of fish! You're not going to find supermarket fish at the S... |
Why do American cities often have to take large public transport projects such as light rail and metro system to the voters but don't have to do the same for massive highway and road construction? | Large road projects usually exist to keep the existing road network running, or to improve its relation to the rest of the city. Bridges need to be retrofitted, underpasses capped, tarmac replaced. They may be big projects, but they're really necessary to keep the system functioning like it is. A major public transport... |
How come bluetooth is so much slower than Wi-Fi? | Bluetooth is designed to be short-range very low-power for small portable equipment. Part of the power-savings of Bluetooth come from diminished bandwidth (just as much as the weaker signal). One could speed up Bluetooth to Wi-Fi speeds, but then it would defeat the purpose of BT's major design feature. If you're looki... |
How does the ISS avoid damage from solar wind's if it is always in constant orbit? | The ISS orbits beneath the protective shield created by the earth's magnetism. The bulk of the solar wind is deflected away from earth by the earth's magnetic field. |
Why do we tear up when we yawn | Not 100% sure if this is the correct answer, but the act of yawning presses against the glands which produce tears. These glands are like a sac, so pressing against these sacs make the tear flow regardless of if you need it or not |
With the Separation of Pangea, how come we didn't evolve into several different species? | We weren't around back then. The continents were already in their present form when humans evolved (in Africa, almost certainly). |
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