id stringlengths 10 10 | question stringlengths 18 294 | comment stringlengths 28 6.89k | passages list | presuppositions list | corrections list | labels list | raw_presuppositions list | raw_labels list | raw_corrections list |
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2018-15411 | How do people leak games and movies before they release? | Making a big blockbuster movie requires the involvement of hundreds, possibly thousands of people. Many of these people have access to early cuts of the film, or have access to the film before release. Before a film is released it needs to be shipped to movie theaters so that they can screen it, which means that physical copies of the final movie exist days/weeks before the movie is set to release. Anyone who can get access to that copy could theoretically make a copy of it and leak it. There are measures in place to prevent this, but if there is a desire for money or even just fake internet points, people are willing to try and circumvent them. | [
"BULLET::::- In 2003 a hacker exploited a security hole in Microsoft's Outlook to get the complete source of the video game \"Half-Life 2\", which was under development at the time. The complete source was soon available in various file sharing networks. This leak was rumored to be the cause of the game's delay, bu... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-03286 | since AIDS is no longer considered a “homosexual disease” why do blood banks still ask if a man has had sexual contact with another man, on the questionnaire? | While it's not still considered a "homosexual disease" HIV/AIDS is still very prevalent in the homosexual community. Gay and bisexual men make up 70% of all new cases of HIV, despite them being less than 1.7% of the population (assuming 50% of homosexuals and bisexuals are male). This is partly because of behavioral tendencies of gay/bisexual men who tend to have more anonymous partners and have unprotected sex. Also, anal sex is more traumatic to tissues than vaginal sex. The rectum is not built to accommodate sexual intercourse like the vagina is, so there is a higher chance of the HIV virus entering the bloodstream via anal sex than vaginal sex. So the question for blood donation is, "Are you a male who has had anal sex, even once, with another man?" Saying yes may disqualify your donation as this behavior has a significantly higher chance of having HIV than other donor types. Yes, they do test blood for HIV and Hepatitis, but these tests are reliant on antibodies. If you were infected within the previous month, you could still be infected but it wouldn't show up on a test. | [
"The HIV-positive people in the presumably heterosexual patient groups were all identified from medical records as either intravenous drug abusers or recipients of blood transfusions. Two of the men who identified as heterosexual specifically denied ever engaging in a homosexual sex act. The records of the remainin... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-01501 | Why can most people only recall the major plot points although they might have read the entire book? | This is how the human brain works in general -- we don't actually remember everything we ever observe, rather, we try to learn and remember the bits that matter to us. | [
"Casci's original screenplay included a story arc for the protagonist, Richard Tyler (played by Macaulay Culkin), who begins the tale as a boy who hates reading, but by the end of the film, learns to love reading. The revised screenplay by Contreras and Kirschner omitted the reading-themed story arc, instead emphas... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-03215 | How are rifles aimed properly when the scope is few inches above the barrel head? | The rifle is zeroed. You fire 3 rounds aiming the reticle is your optic. Then adjust it up or down, left or right. Your adjustments in aim will results in the barrel being slightly adjusted up/down left/right. So the reticle actually moves to compensate until your barrel is aimed where the reticle rests on the target. | [
"This is the reason why rifles are sighted in for specific target distances. This means that the sights are adjusted so that the bullet will hit the location on the target viewed in the center of the sights at a known distance. When shooting at a target significantly closer or farther than the distance for which th... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-11872 | Before spoken language was developed, were humans able have an inner monologue? | Not really, a monologue is by definition language. If language didn't exist then they couldn't have been doing it internally either. There is a bizarre misconception held by some that all or even the bulk of thinking is done via an internal monologue. When you wake up in the morning and need to pee you don't need to think "Hey, I need to pee," you just... feel that you need to pee and understand. You can have thoughts and feelings which you struggle to put into words but you cannot have an inner monologue which you struggle to put into feelings. | [
"In the 1920s, Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget proposed the idea that private (or \"egocentric\") speech—speaking to yourself out loud—is the initial form of speech, from which \"social speech\" develops, and that it dies out as children grow up. In the 1930s, Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky proposed... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
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"normal",
"normal"
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2018-23932 | How does a Turbofan differ from a Turbojet? | Let's clear up some confusion: F/A-18s, F-35s, F-22s, F-15s, etc all use turbofan engines. Turbojet engines haven't been used in fighters for quite some time because they're less efficient. Turbofans are essentially turbojets that are placed into yet another tube, with the turbojet part being the "core" and the space around the core being the bypass / bypass flow. In front of the the core, attached to generally the same shaft that powers the stage 1 (front) compressor disks, is a fan. Air from this fan flows both into the core, and the bypass. For the core, this just provides a minor boost in air flow, but a lot of the fan's work goes into accelerating the air into the bypass flow. --- Now here's where the efficiency aspect comes in: Thrust is generated by a change in momentum. Momentum = mass * velocity. However, increasing the velocity of something requires exponentially (or quadratically; sue me semantics freaks) more energy to achieve. So what this means, is that the most energy efficient way to generate thrust is to move a **lot** of air, but to only move it slightly faster than it was already moving. This is how commercial airliner engines are efficient; they have giant intakes / fans that are designed to move a massive amount of air, but to only move it at subsonic speeds (slower than the speed of sound). The more air that passes through the bypass, rather than the core, the higher the engine's "bypass ratio" is. A bypass ratio of 1.0 means an equal amount of air flows through the core as the bypass. Commercial airliners have BPRs of up to around 9.0 (9x as much air flows through the bypass as core), although some engines can go even higher. Most fighter jet turbofans have BPRs of around 0.2 to 0.6. --- But here's the thing; if you're trying to go faster than the speed of sound (supersonic), trying to propel yourself with subsonic air won't work. If you're ejecting air that's slower than the surrounding air, you're generating negative thrust; you're generating drag. To create supersonic thrust, a convergent-divergent is typically used, as while this doesn't generate thrust, it can convert high-mass (high density), low-velocity thrust into low-mass (low density), high-velocity thrust, including making exhaust gases go supersonic. As a side note, this process also results in the exhaust gases themselves getting cooler. It is possible to make a supersonic jet that has a high bypass ratio, or to even have a supersonic jet powered by an electric compressor / fan (using a convergent-divergent nozzle), but the issue is that compressing and slowing that incoming supersonic air (into high pressure subsonic air, which you can then accelerate with a fan), comes at a cost. Compressing air releases heat, which is real, usable energy being lost, and if you try to decelerate / compress too much air, you can run into the very real issue of your fan and compressor getting so hot that it violently breaks. What supersonic aircraft do instead is they burn fuel. Burning fuel generates heat, but it generates it downstream of the compressor and fan. The turbine stages (which capture kinetic energy to spin the compressor and fan stages) do need to withstand immense heat, but there's generally fewer turbine blisks (disks with blades on the edges) than compressor blisks, plus they can be made to be a little less aerodynamic, etc. Burning fuel also causes liquids to turn into gases, which causes a massive increase in pressure. By creating all this heat and pressure, you provide that convergent-divergent nozzle with a lot more to work with when it comes to expand and cool that gas in exchange for increased flow velocity. You can also inject extra fuel to the exhaust coming from the turbine (in a turbofan or a turbojet) and burn even more of the oxygen (some of which will get through the combustion chamber and turbine without reacting with fuel). This is called using afterburner or 'reheat'. Older engines also even used to inject water (plus things like methanol) into their engines, both to cool critical engine components and to also generate that liquid-to-gas expansion / boost in pressure. This is where the term "wet thrust" came from (which today refers to the thrust generated with afterburner engaged). --- Lastly - why do supersonic jets use turbofans and not turbojets then? Because jets spend most of their time at subsonic speeds; flying at supersonic speeds requires much more thrust; usually afterburner. Afterburners usually consumer about 2-3x as much fuel per unit of thrust, but they also generate more thrust (meaning even more fuel consumption), plus most jets can cruise at decent subsonic speeds at much less than their maximum dry (non-afterburning) thrust level. Something like an F-35 might only burn 5,000lb / 2,270kg of fuel per hour when cruising at Mach 0.75, but at max afterburner it'll be burning 86,000lb / 39,000kg of fuel per hour. Most fighter jets only carry enough internal fuel to fly a max of about 10 minutes in afterburner. A handful of jets like the F-22 can generate so much dry thrust (and have so little drag) that they can fly at supersonic speeds without using afterburner, but again they're generally using their max dry thrust (and maybe some afterburning to accelerate to a decent speed first), so they can be burning 2-3x as much fuel as if they just stayed at Mach 0.8, etc. Bypass flow in turbofans is also useful because it provides cooling to the engine core, plus you can fit radiators / heat exchangers in the bypass flow, allowing you to cool things like radars using liquid coolant loops. Turbojet engines are still used in some things like cruise missiles, but even then it's not because they're superior, but because a turbojet has fewer parts. Some small (cruise missile, etc) turbojet engines don't even use axial flow (where the engine is essentially tube); instead they work like water pumps, with a compressor disk that uses centrifugal forces to push air to the edge of a disk, where it then pass around to the back, gets mixed with fuel burned, etc; all just because machining some ridges onto a disk is easier than precision-milling a bunch of blades, etc. | [
"Section::::Principles.:Thrust.\n\nWhile a turbojet engine uses all of the engine's output to produce thrust in the form of a hot high-velocity exhaust gas jet, a turbofan's cool low-velocity bypass air yields between 30% and 70% of the total thrust produced by a turbofan system.\n\nThe thrust (F) generated by a tu... | [
"Turbofan and turbojets are different. ",
"Turbofans and Turbojets are different entities."
] | [
"Turbofans are essentially turbojets that have been placed into another tube. ",
"Turbofans are essentially turbojets that are placed into yet another tube."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Turbofan and turbojets are different. ",
"Turbofans and Turbojets are different entities."
] | [
"false presupposition",
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Turbofans are essentially turbojets that have been placed into another tube. ",
"Turbofans are essentially turbojets that are placed into yet another tube."
] |
2018-00629 | How does one prove that data (such as text Messages) recovered forensically is actually the data it is purported to be? | Like all evidence, any recovered electronics would follow a chain of custody - a legal document which records the sequence of custody of the piece of evidence. So long as the chain of custody is intact and the people on the chain are trustworthy, the evidence should be considered secure. | [
"In 2015, there was a horrible house fire where a father was able to save his children, but his wife died in the house. The police thought that the fire was actually not an accident, but instead was a cover-up of the father murdering the mother. The forensic linguists were able to obtain the phone of both the fathe... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-03577 | How can glass get fogged up from steam and frost but our eyes can't? | Fogged up glass happens when humid air gets in contact with a cold surface and condensates there. Our eyes have a. a layer of water in front of them, that's because you keep blinking, and b. are not cold enough to cause the humid air to condensate. | [
"The processes of dew formation do not restrict its occurrence to the night and the outdoors. They are also working when eyeglasses get steamy in a warm, wet room or in industrial processes. However, the term condensation is preferred in these cases.\n\nSection::::Measurement.\n",
"BULLET::::- Cold weather: Most ... | [
"Because glass can be fogged up with steam, the human eye should be able to as well. "
] | [
"The human eye has a layer of water in front of it, blocking the steam from fogging the eyes."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Because glass can be fogged up with steam, the human eye should be able to as well. ",
"Because glass can be fogged up with steam, the human eye should be able to as well. "
] | [
"normal",
"false presupposition"
] | [
"The human eye has a layer of water in front of it, blocking the steam from fogging the eyes.",
"The human eye has a layer of water in front of it, blocking the steam from fogging the eyes."
] |
2018-04037 | Where does the SA node gets (or creates?) its electricity from? | > does the electrical conduction system of the heart generates electricity before transferring it? It seems there are some misconceptions behind this question. First, the heart does not run off of electricity. It is commonly taught that the nerves within the body operate via electricity like wires in our electrical grid, but that is a simplification to the extent of being misleading. Nerves actually function based on the electrical charge of tiny chemical reactions between synapses. While the exchange of ions in these chemical reactions is ultimately based on electromagnetism they are much more chemistry than electrical. The nerves therefore do not "conduct electricity" rather they relay nerve impulses which are exchanged between them by tiny changed in chemistry in gaps between the cells. The rhythm of the heart nerve signals is generated within the heart cells themselves, a cyclical reaction which is self-coordinating between them. | [
"Section::::Formation regulation.:Nodal regulation.\n\nSection::::Formation regulation.:Nodal regulation.:Via αII-Spectrin.\n\nSaltatory conduction in myelinated axons requires organization of the nodes of Ranvier, whereas voltage-gated sodium channels are highly populated. Studies show that αII-Spectrin, a compone... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [
"SA node has electricity in it."
] | [
"false presupposition",
"normal"
] | [
"Process is more chemistry based than electricity based. "
] |
2018-03949 | If every American went to the bank and withdrew all funds available and closed all bank accounts what would happen to the economy? | It wouldn't get that far. There is < 1% as much paper money as there is money in deposits. That local bank branch next to the grocery store has maybe $40-50K in it. A handful of people could close it. Typically, if you want more than $10K in cash you have to place an order two days in advance. | [
"The Congressional Budget Office estimated that payment of interest on reserve balances would cost the American taxpayers about one tenth of the present 0.25% interest rate on $800 billion in deposits:\n\nThose expenditures pale in comparison to the lost tax revenues worldwide resulting from decreasing economic act... | [
"Pulling all cash from local banks would cause something to happen to the economy.",
"Every American would be able to withdraw all their money from the banks to impact the economy. "
] | [
"Local banks don't have enough cash to cause an issue if everyone were to pull their money out. ",
"There is not enough paper money held at banks for people to be able to withdraw every dollar within their account."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Pulling all cash from local banks would cause something to happen to the economy.",
"Every American would be able to withdraw all their money from the banks to impact the economy. "
] | [
"false presupposition",
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Local banks don't have enough cash to cause an issue if everyone were to pull their money out. ",
"There is not enough paper money held at banks for people to be able to withdraw every dollar within their account."
] |
2018-23436 | When close to burning out, why will a fluorescent tube struggle to illuminate for long periods of time then work fine once it has started? | A fluorescent tube works by having an electric discharge through mercury vapour. That doesn't happen immediately on turning on the power. Instead the starter rewires the power through two heater filaments at the ends. After a delay the switch opens and puts the voltage through the tube. If the discharge strikes, then it stays that way. If not, the starter recycles through the sequence until it detects the discharge. | [
"Fluorescent lamps near end of life can \"hoot\" at RF and present a serious interference risk as the frequency can vary depending on lamp temperature. This is due in part to the tube being a negative differential resistance (NDR) and current flow through the plasma forming a tuned circuit whose frequency depends o... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [
"If a light struggles to start, it is surprising that it works well once it starts."
] | [
"normal",
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Fluorescent tubes take a long time to start up."
] |
2018-08613 | Why do computers/processors get faster while their speed (GHz) stays the same? | There's not only clockspeeds. The biggest improvements besides more cores are the numbers of instructions processed. This is called the IPC (instructions per cycle). Think of it like when you're coming home from grocery shopping with a car loaded with groceries. Clockspeed determines how long it takes you to carry things from your car to your fridge. IPC determines how many groceries you can carry in one trip. So a 3,4GHz CPU from 2008 might also need 30seconds from the car to the fridge, but it can only carry the bread and eggs while a 2018 CPU can carry the bread, eggs, bacon and soda at the same time. Additionally newer CPUs have more cores. So you're not carrying the groceries alone but got your brothers and sisters helping you. So instead of you doing 4 trips from the car to the fridge and back, you and your 3 siblings carry the stuff simultaneously so you only have to take one trip. Additionally you can save time if you carry the groceries to the fridge in the order they should be put in it so you don't have to reorganize everything in the kitchen. So you gotta anticipate the correct order. Modern CPUs got much better at predicting what's going to be next. All in all, this boosts overall performance. That being said, compared to the development in storage and graphics processing, the innovation of CPUs has slowed down a lot in the past years. | [
"For a given processor, \"C\" is a fixed value. However, \"V\" and \"f\" can vary considerably. For example, for a 1.6 GHz Pentium M, the clock frequency can be stepped down in 200 MHz decrements over the range from 1.6 to 0.6 GHz. At the same time, the voltage requirement decreases from 1.484 to 0.956 V. The resul... | [
"Computer processors are not getting faster. ",
"If two chips have the same speed, they should process at the same rate"
] | [
"Computer processors are getting faster through more cores and IPC.",
"Processor rate is dependent not only on clockspeeds but also on number of cores and number of instructions processed."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Computer processors are not getting faster. ",
"If two chips have the same speed, they should process at the same rate"
] | [
"false presupposition",
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Computer processors are getting faster through more cores and IPC.",
"Processor rate is dependent not only on clockspeeds but also on number of cores and number of instructions processed."
] |
2018-01367 | How are state utilities and resources delivered to people who live on a road that starts in one state and dead ends in another? | Excellent question ! I worked for the fire department. There was an apartment complex in our county that could only be accessed by a road in another county. The police and public utilities departments from our county would respond through the other county to get to the complex. For the fire department, since we had a "Mutual aid" agreement, the closest fire equipment (wich happened to be in the other county) would be sent. I am sure it works the same for states | [
"The total length of the Nebraska section is long, and was completed at a cost of $435 million.\n\nSection::::History.:Legacy.\n\nThe beginning of the I-80 construction in Nebraska in 1957 led the Nebraska Legislature to split the Department of Roads and Irrigation in order to create three separate agencies in the ... | [
"States cannot deliver utilities or resources to other states."
] | [
"States can come to agreements that allow certain areas to be serviced from outside of the state. "
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"States cannot deliver utilities or resources to other states."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"States can come to agreements that allow certain areas to be serviced from outside of the state. "
] |
2018-10332 | Can bacteria or viruses get disease themselves? | There’s bacteriophages which are viruses that infect bacteria. There’s also bacteria that infect bacteria. There’s viruses which rely on other viruses to become infectious as well. Bacteria don’t really “get” diseases like humans do. They’re not really advanced enough or multicellular. But if their DNA or cellular contents are damaged enough they can die. Viruses aren’t alive. They’re more like those horrible 2006 spam chain mails where you send them to your friends or you’ll get cursed. They don’t have a non-diseased state. | [
"Bacteria can often be killed by antibiotics, which are usually designed to destroy the cell wall. This expels the pathogen's DNA, making it incapable of producing proteins and causing the bacteria to die. A class of bacteria without cell walls is mycoplasma (a cause of lung infections). A class of bacteria which m... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
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"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-04564 | Does stored nuclear material deplete as fast as nuclear material in a generator? | Yes it can be and probably is stockpiled. Once enriched uranium fuel pelleted are used in a reactor and the fission process is started that's when it begins to decay. YouTube How it's made nuclear fuel. On another note you can literally hug a new fuel assembly as it's relatively harmless, once it's been in a reactor and gone through fission it will literally kill you before you could get close to it. | [
"According to the work of corrosion electrochemist David W. Shoesmith, the nanoparticles of Mo-Tc-Ru-Pd have a strong effect on the corrosion of uranium dioxide fuel. For instance his work suggests that when hydrogen (H) concentration is high (due to the anaerobic corrosion of the steel waste can), the oxidation of... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
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"normal"
] | [] |
2018-02963 | How does facial recognition recognize me when my face is bruised/swollen? | Facial recognition uses measurements of parts of your face that don’t move. Like the corners of your eyes, the point of the nose, distance between nostrils, and the angles between these points. Swelling is unlikely to cause errors, a broken nose that isn’t reset will. If you google facial recognition images you’ll see a lot of line maps overlaid. Your like map is what the system is comparing to its records. | [
"Studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging and electrocorticography have demonstrated that activity in the FFA codes for individual faces and the FFA is tuned for behaviorally relevant facial features. An electrocorticography study found that the FFA is involved in multiple stages of face processing, cont... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
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"normal"
] | [] |
2018-05130 | Why would a company spend money making offices in a leased spaced. Doesn't the landlord "own" and benefit from all of the enhancements? | There are two basic issues here. First, the benefits and drawbacks of owning vs leasing and second the issue of "improvements" as you put it. The pros and cons of buying vs renting/leasing are well understood and have to be decided on a case-by-case basis. Generally leasing is better for cash flow because you can pay month-to-month instead of needing to put down a large down payment up front. Also, with a lease, you aren't tied to the same physical location forever. If you need more space you can easily move without having to find a buyer for your current space. As to improvements, I think you have a misunderstanding here. When a company comes in to an empty space and builds rooms, offices, shared spaces, etc. they are doing it to their specific requirements. The next company to use that space would likely have a different set of requirements and so would want a different arrangement of the space. They usually have to tear out what had been built before and redo it. So, in that case, they aren't really "improving" the space because it's actually more valuable empty than being pre-built. | [
"The committee suggested offering a floor space ratio bonus to Grosvenor for incorporation into other sites it owned in the City Centre, but subject to providing \"satisfactory guarantees...to ensure the preservation of the historic building and its continuous maintenance\".\n",
"CAM charges are subject to wide v... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-01930 | Why is herpes on your lip (cold sore) temporary while genital herpes is for life? | Herpes on your lip is not temporary. Breakouts are temporary, but once you're infected, it's permanent. | [
"Cold sores are the result of the virus reactivating in the body. Once HSV-1 has entered the body, it never leaves. The virus moves from the mouth to remain latent in the central nervous system. In approximately one-third of people, the virus can \"wake up\" or reactivate to cause disease. When reactivation occurs,... | [
"Herpes on your lip is temporary."
] | [
"Herpes on your lip causes a temporary breakout, but you are permanently infected."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Herpes on your lip is temporary."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Herpes on your lip causes a temporary breakout, but you are permanently infected."
] |
2018-18031 | How does a plane become "invisible" to radar? | 1. Coated in a radar-absorbing paint mixture. 2. Shaped in a way that bounces radar waves off in a different direction than their source, which works because most radar devices have the transmitter and receiver in the same place. | [
"The weak absorption of radio waves by the medium through which it passes is what enables radar sets to detect objects at relatively long ranges—ranges at which other electromagnetic wavelengths, such as visible light, infrared light, and ultraviolet light, are too strongly attenuated. Such weather phenomena as fog... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-08260 | When sailing, how does one sail into the wind without just being blown back the way one came? | The sail is deployed in such a way that it acts like an airplane wing and provides "lift". You don't travel directly into the wind, but at an angle to it. You go left/forward and then right/forward and then back left/forward etc. | [
"\"In a contrary wind a well found yacht is master. She has more stamina to windward than any man by himself\". Von Haeften says that, \"It is impossible to tear working sails in good condition by wind pressure alone. If it happens, nevertheless, it will either be down to some sail-handling mistake so that the sail... | [
"One can sail directly into the wind.",
"If you sail into the wind you may be just blown back the way you came."
] | [
"Sailing is done on an angle to the wind, not directly into it.",
"You travel into the wind at an ankle and the sail provides \"lift\" which prevents being blown back the way you came."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"One can sail directly into the wind.",
"If you sail into the wind you may be just blown back the way you came."
] | [
"false presupposition",
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Sailing is done on an angle to the wind, not directly into it.",
"You travel into the wind at an ankle and the sail provides \"lift\" which prevents being blown back the way you came."
] |
2018-01729 | Why are fencing masks covered in a net instead of a transparent plastic? | Fencing started out as a sport long before modern materials. Mesh was available at the time, and provides ventilation. A clear visor would fog up very quickly during the heavy physical demands of fencing. | [
"Electric fencing became widely available in the 1950s and has been widely used both for temporary fences and as a means to improve the security of fences made of other materials. It is most commonly made using lightweight steel wire (usually 14-17 gauge) attached to posts with insulators made of porcelain or plast... | [
"Fencing masks should use a clear plastic.",
"Transparent plastic would be a better alternative protection for fencers than a mesh helmet. "
] | [
"Clear plastic would fog up and was not available when fencing started. ",
"The mesh helmet provides ventilation to the fencers, making it the better alternative."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Fencing masks should use a clear plastic.",
"Transparent plastic would be a better alternative protection for fencers than a mesh helmet. "
] | [
"false presupposition",
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Clear plastic would fog up and was not available when fencing started. ",
"The mesh helmet provides ventilation to the fencers, making it the better alternative."
] |
2018-16847 | How is electricity turned into a mechanical action? | Electrical current induces a magnetic field. If a ferrous metal is in that field a force will be exerted on it. I.e. place a ferrous core in a coil of current carrying wire and the core will experience the force and thus move the "robots arm" | [
"Section::::Modern practice.\n\nToday, electromechanical processes are mainly used by power companies. All fuel based generators convert mechanical movement to electrical power. Some renewable energies such as wind and hydroelectric are powered by mechanical systems that also convert movement to electricity.\n",
... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
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"normal",
"normal"
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2018-20174 | why does your windshield fog up and what does the defrost do to help that? | humidity builds up in the car, moisture ( usually warmer than the outside ) hits the cold windshield and a dew like effect builds up over the glass edit: this is the lazy man explanation btw | [
"First seen on the Rolls Royce in 1969 then the 1985 Ford Scorpio/Granada Mk. III in Europe and the 1986 Ford Taurus/Mercury Sable in the U.S., the system uses a mesh of very thin heating wires, or a silver/zinc oxide coated film embedded between two layers of windscreen glass. The overall effect when operative was... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-14299 | How does one actually make money of "Stocks" and investments. | There are a lot of ways to make money (or lose money) by investing in stocks. What he is talking about is called a 'short,' and he is almost definitely making it up. To make money on an equity like a company stock that falls in value, you pay a small fee to 'borrow,' someone else's stock and you sell it. Then, when the price falls, you buy it back at that lower price and return it to the guy you borrowed it from. You sold it at a high value and you bought it again when the value fell. You keep the difference. Tesla stock is the most shorted stock in the world right now because it is a company that has never made a profit, it repeatedly misses production deadlines and the CEO has behaved erratically over the last year and probably committed a crime last week. I hope that helps. | [
"Section::::Trading.:Buying.\n\nThere are various methods of buying and financing stocks, the most common being through a stockbroker. Brokerage firms, whether they are a full-service or discount broker, arrange the transfer of stock from a seller to a buyer. Most trades are actually done through brokers listed wit... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [
"Stocks in and of themselves make money."
] | [
"false presupposition",
"normal"
] | [
"Stocks are bought at a low value and sold at a higher value in order to gain money."
] |
2018-02761 | How identical cells in a fertilized egg differentiate to produce different body parts? | All cells have the same genome, but not all genes are activated. External chemical cues determine which genes are turned on and off to specialize cells. | [
"As an embryo develops from a fertilized egg, the single egg cell splits into many cells, which grow in number and migrate to the appropriate locations inside the embryo at appropriate times during development. As the embryo's cells grow in number and migrate, they also differentiate into an increasing number of di... | [
"Cells determine what the cell will produce. "
] | [
"What a cell produces is determined by chemical cues that turn genes on and off. "
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Cells determine what the cell will produce. ",
"Cells determine what the cell will produce. "
] | [
"normal",
"false presupposition"
] | [
"What a cell produces is determined by chemical cues that turn genes on and off. ",
"What a cell produces is determined by chemical cues that turn genes on and off. "
] |
2018-06676 | Once a cyst or abcess is removed from the body, if left alone do they continue to grow? | If put in the appropriate solution. Otherwise no, it doesn't have the access to energy necessary for the cells to do anything, the cells making it up will die. | [
"The more common course for surgical treatment is for the cyst to be surgically excised (along with pilonidal sinus tracts). Post-surgical wound packing may be necessary, and packing typically must be replaced daily for 4 to 8 weeks. In some cases, two years may be required for complete granulation to occur. Someti... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-18212 | How do our ears determine the location of a noise? | Sounds take time to travel from one place to another. Our ears are always in two places with a fixed distance between them and the shape of the ear also slightly modifies the sound based on the direction it is coming from (the same sound will seem different if it is in front of you, beside you, or behind you). Your brain can both measure the difference in time between when the sound reached each ear, and the difference in pitch, timber, and amplitude, in each ear. It then uses that information to calculate (triangulate) where the sound came from. Your brain has other tricks it uses, too, based on your learning and experience over time. Such as learning if a sound is passing through (or bouncing off) one material or another... Metallic sounds are different from wooden sounds, etc. So, your brain can make assumptions about where in the environment a sound might have come from based on queues like that... That's how you know that one bang came from the basement when the other one came from the attic. | [
"The most prominent figure in the creation of the place theory of hearing is Hermann von Helmholtz, who published his finished theory in 1885. Helmholtz claimed that the cochlea contained individual fibers for analyzing each pitch and delivering that information to the brain. Many followers revised and added to Hel... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [
"Ears determine the location of a noise."
] | [
"false presupposition",
"normal"
] | [
"The brain determines the location of a noise, by processing various measureable qualities of sound that has entered the ear. "
] |
2018-07761 | How does a new computer know the date when you turn it on, even if not connected to the internet? | There is a small battery on the motherboard which runs a variety of things including a clock. If your computer forgets the time when it turns off this battery is likely dead. They typically last 3 to 5 years. | [
"The Model 100 ROM has a Y2K bug; the century displayed on the main menu was hard-coded as \"19XX\". Workarounds exist for this problem. Since the century of the date is not important for any of the software functions, and the real-time clock hardware in the Model 100 does not have a calendar and requires the day o... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-04288 | How is the ratio between men and women in the world almost exactly 50% to 50%? What makes it not 58% to 42%? What causes this almost perfect mathematical relationship in something that is supposed to be completely random? | Sample size matters. Flip a coin 10,000 times and you get very very close to 50/50 split but flip it twice and it's less likely you'll get one of each. | [
"Suppose that in a sample of 100 men, 90 drank wine in the previous week, while in a sample of 100 women only 20 drank wine in the same period. The odds of a man drinking wine are 90 to 10, or 9:1, while the odds of a woman drinking wine are only 20 to 80, or 1:4 = 0.25:1. The odds ratio is thus 9/0.25, or 36, show... | [
"Gender ratios should be a totally random ratio.",
"The ratio between men and women should be less equal than what it currently is."
] | [
"There are only two possible genders at birth and both are equally likely so 50/50 will be the normal outcome for a large sample size.",
"Sample size creates a big difference when considering the ratio of men and women on Earth. "
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Gender ratios should be a totally random ratio.",
"The ratio between men and women should be less equal than what it currently is."
] | [
"false presupposition",
"false presupposition"
] | [
"There are only two possible genders at birth and both are equally likely so 50/50 will be the normal outcome for a large sample size.",
"Sample size creates a big difference when considering the ratio of men and women on Earth. "
] |
2018-01697 | When coming to a stop in a vehicle while listening to FM radio, why is it that if the reception isn’t clear, pulling forward about a foot fixes it? | FM radio suffers from *multipath interference* in which the signal bounces off of buildings and other objects, reflecting back and interfering with itself. These spots of interference can be quite localized, so a small motion can move you in and out of them. | [
"Actually, the term path loss is something of a misnomer because no energy is lost on a free-space path. Rather, it is merely not received by the receiving antenna. The apparent reduction in transmission, as frequency is increased, is an artifact of the change in the aperture of a given type of antenna.\n",
"If u... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-01826 | In ancient and medieval times, how did soldiers distinguish friend from foe in battle? | Sometimes they didn't. However for the most part it involved big flags and designs on the shields. Some armies were equipped totally different but others where similarly equipped there were special people called heralds who could tell whose design on a flag or shield were who and which side they were supposed to be on. | [
"IFF is a tool within the broader military action of Combat Identification (CID), \"the process of attaining an accurate characterization of detected objects in the operational environment sufficient to support an engagement decision.\" The broadest characterization is that of friend, enemy, neutral, or unknown. CI... | [
"In medieval and/or ancient times, soldiers were always able to distinguish friend from foe in battle. "
] | [
"Many times soldiers were unable to distinguish friend from foe in battle. "
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"In medieval and/or ancient times, soldiers were always able to distinguish friend from foe in battle. ",
"In medieval and/or ancient times, soldiers were always able to distinguish friend from foe in battle. "
] | [
"normal",
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Many times soldiers were unable to distinguish friend from foe in battle. ",
"Many times soldiers were unable to distinguish friend from foe in battle. "
] |
2018-19278 | Why do drinking fountains have two separate jets of water that combine to form one arc? | Two separate small jets running parallel with each other produces a less chaotic flow of water than a single large jet. You can notice this in those elaborate fountain shows: each jet is actually a bundle of smaller jets that combine to form the big "ribbon" of water. | [
"The book describes the construction of various automatic fountains, an aspect that was largely neglected in earlier Greek treatises on technology. In one of these fountains, the \"water issues from the fountainhead in the shape of a shield, or like a lily-of-the-valley,\" i.e. \"the shapes are discharged alternate... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-22258 | How does drinkable dietary fiber become something solid? | The fiber that dissolves in water is called soluble fiber. At first it dissolves in water but if you let it sit long enough you'll see that the fiber absorbs the water and becomes a gelatinous mass. This helps to bulk up your stool because it creates a blob that your body can't digest. | [
"BULLET::::2. Immobilizing of nutrients and other chemicals within complex polysaccharide molecules affects their release and subsequent absorption from the small intestine, an effect influential on the glycemic index.\n\nBULLET::::3. Molecules begin to interact as their concentration increases. During absorption, ... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-20816 | Why do extreme cold temperature damage our tissue and give us frost bite but storing meat in the freezer keeps it good? | Storing meat in the freezer damages it. Since its already dead, it doesn't particularly care. If anything, damaging meat is a good thing, helps make it tender. Of course if you take meat out of the freezer, heat it to body temperature, then leave it like that it'll go all gross and discoloured. | [
"BULLET::::- Vitamin B (Thiamin): A vitamin loss of 25 percent is normal. Thiamin is easily soluble in water and is destroyed by heat.\n\nBULLET::::- Vitamin B (Riboflavin): Not much research has been done to see how much freezing affects Riboflavin levels. Studies that have been performed are inconclusive; one stu... | [
"Cold temperatures should act the same on human tissue as on meat in the freezer.",
"Meat stored in freezers is not damaged from the extreme temperatures. "
] | [
"Meat in the freezer is dead so being in the freezer doesn't particularly matter.",
"Storing meat in a freezer damages the meat inn the same way frost bite damages human tissue. "
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Cold temperatures should act the same on human tissue as on meat in the freezer.",
"Meat stored in freezers is not damaged from the extreme temperatures. "
] | [
"false presupposition",
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Meat in the freezer is dead so being in the freezer doesn't particularly matter.",
"Storing meat in a freezer damages the meat inn the same way frost bite damages human tissue. "
] |
2018-17479 | Why does metal start a fire in a mircowave? | The microwave induces a "voltage differential" in metal--that is to say, it effects the metal so that one area of it has a higher voltage than another. This causes electricity to flow from an area of high voltage to an area of lower voltage. Moving electricity generates heat; enough heat starts a fire. | [
"Section::::Four-Step Model.\n",
"BULLET::::- 1893: physicist W.B. Croft exhibits Branly's experiments at a meeting of the Physical Society in London. It is unclear to Croft and others whether the filings in the Branly filing tube are reacting to sparks or the light from the sparks. George Minchin notices the [Br... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-02285 | How is it that EMP's destroy electrical components but does not affect our own bodies' electrical impulses? | EMPs work primarily by generating a huge magnetic pulse. This pulse induces an electrical pulse in just about any electrical conductor. This mainly affects metals, most of which are decent conductors. They have electrons that are poorly bound to their parent atoms, so a strong electric or magnetic field can move them about. Your nerves, however, don't conduct electricity the way metals do. Even a very strong magnetic pulse won't induce much of a current in your nerves. | [
"The range of NNEMP weapons is much less than nuclear EMP. Nearly all NNEMP devices used as weapons require chemical explosives as their initial energy source, producing only 10 (one millionth) the energy of nuclear explosives of similar weight. The electromagnetic pulse from NNEMP weapons must come from within the... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-02156 | why aren’t decks of cards the gold standard for cryptography? | While you might think this, there are not that many possible decks of cards. Only 80.658 x 10^66 . OK, that seems like a lot, but 2^4096 , the number of 4096 bit encryption keys is 1.044 x 10^1230 , a substantially larger number. Even 256 bit keys have 1.157 x 10^77 values, more than your decks of cards. Computers are fast, and on problems like this, which are fully parallelizable, $1M will buy you a lot of decryptions/day. The complexity of a deck of cards can be solved by brute force in only a few days of computer time. That's not enough when serious money is involved. | [
"In 1996, thirty-nine countries signed the Wassenaar Arrangement, an arms control treaty that deals with the export of arms and \"dual-use\" technologies such as cryptography. The treaty stipulated that the use of cryptography with short key-lengths (56-bit for symmetric encryption, 512-bit for RSA) would no longer... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-00114 | why we can't (easily) convert ocean water to fresh water? | We have multiple methods for purifying water (also known as desalination in this case). However, they are moderately expensive to set up, and require a large amount of energy | [
"The Earth has a limited though renewable supply of fresh water, stored in aquifers, surface waters and the atmosphere. Oceans are a good source of usable water, but the amount of energy needed to convert saline water to potable water is prohibitive with conventional approaches, explaining why only a very small fra... | [
"We can't convert ocean water to fresh water."
] | [
"We can do this conversion it is just expensive to set up and requires a large amount of input energy."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"We can't convert ocean water to fresh water."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"We can do this conversion it is just expensive to set up and requires a large amount of input energy."
] |
2018-04969 | How the endothelial glycocalyx modifies transvascular fluid exchange? | I think this the title needs its own ELI5. The **endothelium** is the inner lining of our blood vessels. In arteries and veins, it is surrounded by smooth muscles and other cells, but in capillaries they're the only thing making up the blood vessels. When we get an infection and something gets swollen, it's the endothelium getting "leaky" and letting fluid and white blood cells out into the tissue. The **glycocalyx** is a bunch of proteins and lipids (fats) sticking out of a cell. These allow cells to stick together in various ways, and it's the main reason your internal organs don't spontaneously rip open. The **subglycocalyx space** is in the little gaps between cells that fluid can escape through and also pockets of space where there are no proteins. When our heart beats, it creates a lot of pressure. When the pressure approaches the capillaries, it tends to force things out of our blood, like nutrients, amino acids, proteins, etc. This is called *hydrostatic pressure*, and the fluid pushed out is called *interstitial fluid*. As we go along the capillaries, this pressure decreases (because it's further away from the heart and the thinness of the capillaries) and is dominated by *oncotic pressure* (also known as *osmotic pressure*). Oncotic pressure wants to draw stuff back into our bloodstream. This whole cycle of forcing-out and drawing back in is called **transvascular fluid exchange.** [This site]( URL_0 ) has very straightforward diagrams and explanations that may help you. **TL;DR**: Fluid is pushed OUT of our capillaries by our heart, and it's reabsorbed later. The glycocalyx is a bunch of proteins and fats outside the cell and the subglycocalyx space lacks those proteins. | [
"Coagulation or blood clotting relies on, in addition to the production of fibrin, interactions between platelets. When the endothelium or the lining of a blood vessel is damaged, connective tissue including collagen fibers is locally exposed. Initially, platelets stick to the exposed connective tissue through spec... | [
"Endolethial glycocalyx is the correct term for the process that modifies transvascular fluid exchange."
] | [
"Endolethium glycocalyx is the correct term for the process. "
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Endolethial glycocalyx is the correct term for the process that modifies transvascular fluid exchange.",
"Endolethial glycocalyx is the correct term for the process that modifies transvascular fluid exchange."
] | [
"normal",
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Endolethium glycocalyx is the correct term for the process. ",
"Endolethium glycocalyx is the correct term for the process. "
] |
2018-15308 | Why is a car’s usage measured in miles traveled? Why not engine hours as well? | Because normally they're pretty much the same thing. Most people don't idle their cars for hours on end, and though I have heard tell of people using their vehicle engines as some kind of power take-off for tools/generators it's pretty rare. | [
"poemThis is what I told them in California. When I hit the road with hundreds of pounds of baggage, typewriters and testing equipment, I’m not out there just to have fun. I want to get from here to there, which may be thousands of miles away, with as much comfort as possible. Besides, Boji [his dog] now demands co... | [
"A car's engine hours should also be used to determine a car's usage, not just measured in miles traveled."
] | [
"Normally, miles traveled and engine hours are the same thing."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"A car's engine hours should also be used to determine a car's usage, not just measured in miles traveled."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Normally, miles traveled and engine hours are the same thing."
] |
2018-22891 | How were/are bounty amounts determined? | So when you get arrested, you may be able to post bail. That means you can paid the court to let you stay out of jail before your trial and you can get it back if you show up to court. Usually, you wouldn't paid the bail if its really high so I bail bond company may lend you the money. If you don't show up to court the bail bond company knows and is out money. You would have a bounty put on your head from the bail bond company for part of your bail so someone could find you and get you arrested so they can collect the bail back. The hunter gets some and so does the bail bond company. | [
"A bounty (from Latin \"bonitās\", goodness) is a payment or reward often offered by a group as an incentive for the accomplishment of a task by someone usually not associated with the group. Bounties are most commonly issued for the capture or retrieval of a person or object. They are typically in the form of mone... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-04287 | How do people who never lift, workout, or otherwise strengthen themselves experience muscle hypertrophy and pack on mass/definition without stimulating the muscles? | Genetics and specially your own day to day life can also play a big part in muscle development. Anything can be a workout from walking at a fast pace to your workplace to lifting boxes, office supplies, etc. | [
"BULLET::::- Muscle tone—The tone of muscles is controlled by the nervous system, and influences range of movement. Special techniques can change muscle tone and increase flexibility. Yoga, for example, can help to relax muscles and make the joints more supple. However, please note that Yoga is not recommended by m... | [
"People who don't work out should not pack on mass/definition."
] | [
"Muscle can be built through walking, lifting boxes, etc."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"People who don't work out should not pack on mass/definition."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Muscle can be built through walking, lifting boxes, etc."
] |
2018-12658 | Why can't we turn DisplayOut ports on a laptop to DisplayIn ports? | Those exact ports have been wired for one-way use because that's what the market is most willing to pay for. But you *certainly can* have a port on a laptop that lets other devices share their display. This can be done in software over a network, or with software support over a USB port. Here's one example. URL_0 | [
"Docking connectors for laptop computers are usually embedded into a mechanical device that supports and aligns the laptop and sports various single-function ports and a power source that are aggregated into the docking connector. Docking connectors would carry interfaces such as keyboard, serial, parallel, and vid... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-00359 | Why do the colors on your screen invert when you look at it from an off angle? | Good question but long answer. You must be using an LCD (of course CRT is extinct) screen. The important thing to realize about LCD's is that there's a number of steps that happen before the light hits your eyes. There's some different setups but the simplest would be back light, 90 degree polarizer, lcd layer, 180 degree polarizer. Something that not many people know is that light rays can have an angle associated with it. The light from the backlight hits the first polarizer which only allows light with an angle of 90 degrees through. Then the light hits the lcd and gets "twisted" an amount depending upon the voltage applied at the lcd. Then the 180 degree polarizer lets through light based on the amount its twisted. so if there's no twisting all is blocked, a little twisting a little gets through, twisted ninety degrees and all gets through. now in a color LCD display at each pixel you've got this happening 3 times with a red blue and green color filter. Now the problem is the back light is always on and not all that light will be absorbed in the screen. So the LCD screens are designed to focus the light you want in a useful viewing angle and divert the light that you don't away to the sides. That's why the color is inverted its specifically the opposite RGB code of the pixel wanted. If a pixel wants 90% red 20% blue and 10% green that is what gets in the cone but the 10% red 80% blue and 90% green gets thrown out to the side. | [
"TN displays suffer from limited viewing angles, especially in the vertical direction. Colors will shift when viewed off-perpendicular. In the vertical direction, colors will shift so much that they will invert past a certain angle.\n",
"This way of proceeding is suitable only when the display device does not exh... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-06153 | why are some memories easily forgettable while others are impossible to forget? | The age you were when you had that experience, the intensity and duration of emotions you experienced during the events, what was going on in rest of your environment, if certain objects, people, smells, etc. we're around or involved that then become associated with that experience. | [
"Section::::In popular culture.\n\nMemory phenomena are rich sources of storylines and novel situations in popular media. Two phenomena that appear regularly are total recall abilities and amnesia.\n\nSection::::In popular culture.:Total recall.\n",
"Section::::Applications.:Source confusion in later life.\n",
... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-11676 | Why can't we create machine to use carbohydrate as source of energy instead of electricity, oil/gas, or stream? | We absolutely can. One way to do this is a *fuel cell* and another way is just to burn plant material. | [
"Early work with biofuel cells, which began in the early 20th century, was purely of the microbial variety. Research on using enzymes directly for oxidation in biofuel cells began in the early 1960s, with the first enzymatic biofuel cell being produced in 1964. This research began as a product of NASA's interest in... | [
"We cannot create a machine to use carbohydrates as a source of energy.",
"Carbohydrates can't be used to as a source of energy for machines."
] | [
"We can do this by making a fuel cell or burning plant material. ",
"Machines can use carbohydrate energy in the form of fuel cells."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"We cannot create a machine to use carbohydrates as a source of energy.",
"Carbohydrates can't be used to as a source of energy for machines."
] | [
"false presupposition",
"false presupposition"
] | [
"We can do this by making a fuel cell or burning plant material. ",
"Machines can use carbohydrate energy in the form of fuel cells."
] |
2018-17597 | How does a stock broker borrow stocks for you to short-sell | A broker like a person? That’s old school. Basically they work for a bank or an investment house (eg investors group). Those banks or investor houses have millions of stocks of thousands of companies held in trust. That is, they usually have investment management arms that run mutual funds or ETFs so they hold billions of dollars worth of stock. But they don’t actually need to hold all that stock that they own since there’s an extremely small possibility of it all needing to be sold at the same time. So they hold all this stock but it doesn’t have to actually be held. One great way to profit from that is by lending it to people who want to short the stock. So let’s say you bank with Wells Fargo and trade through a WF broker. If you want to short a stock, he has a system that will find that stock being held for the investment management arm of wells and they will transfer that stock to the broker so he can give it to you to sell it on the market. You pay interest on the value of the short sale which goes to wells so they can profit. Otherwise there’s also entities called Prime Brokers which are basically a set of services offered usually by an investment bank whose sold purpose is so lend out securities and cash so if you’re a stock broker who is independent (not affiliated with a bank) you can go to your Prime to get a borrow on a stock to short. | [
"Most brokers allow retail customers to borrow shares to short a stock only if one of their own customers has purchased the stock on margin. Brokers go through the \"locate\" process outside their own firm to obtain borrowed shares from other brokers only for their large institutional customers.\n",
"Some of thes... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-04951 | Why are old/damaged ships deliberately sunk instead of salvaged for their steel? | cheaper to get new steel than to scrap the old. Could be there are not dry docks available for it Could be that there are dangerous materials in the boat (asbestos, lead, ect) that would complicate the salvage effort. | [
"Removing the metal for scrap can potentially cost more than the value of the scrap metal itself. In the developing world, however, shipyards can operate without the risk of personal injury lawsuits or workers' health claims, meaning many of these shipyards may operate with high health risks. Protective equipment i... | [
"It would be more effecient to salvage the metal on a boat instead of deliberately sinking it."
] | [
"There are many different reasons on why one wouldn't want to salvage metal on an old boat such as the metals could possibly be dangerous, and it's much easier and cheaper to obtain new steel anyways."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"It would be more effecient to salvage the metal on a boat instead of deliberately sinking it.",
"It would be more effecient to salvage the metal on a boat instead of deliberately sinking it."
] | [
"normal",
"false presupposition"
] | [
"There are many different reasons on why one wouldn't want to salvage metal on an old boat such as the metals could possibly be dangerous, and it's much easier and cheaper to obtain new steel anyways.",
"There are many different reasons on why one wouldn't want to salvage metal on an old boat such as the metals c... |
2018-04928 | As we get older, why do men find it harder to pee while women find it harder to not pee? | One of the big reasons is that mens' prostate gland can grow larger (even when it's not cancer) which pinches the urethra, so it's like when you kink up your garden hose and less water comes out. | [
"Men with prostatic hypertrophy are advised to sit down whilst urinating. A 2014 meta-analysis found that, for elderly males with LUTS, sitting to urinate meant there was a decrease in post-void residual volume (PVR, ml), increased maximum urinary flow (Qmax, ml/s), which is comparable with pharmacological interven... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-17501 | Why does all medicine, regardless of its flavor, taste awful? | If medicine tasted good, people would be way more likely to use more than they needed. That could cause problems if people took medicine they didn't need, or overdosed on medicine because it tasted good. Making medicine taste bad enough to discourage overuse while still good enough for people to tolerate is difficult. | [
"BULLET::::- 1/2 Table Spoon of Saunf [Fennel]\n\nBULLET::::- 1/2 Spoon Ilaychi Powder [cardamom]\n\nBULLET::::- 1/2 Spoon Khashkhas [poppy seeds]\n\nBULLET::::- 10 Kali Mirch [black pepper]\n\nBULLET::::- 50 g Gulqand Gulkand or 20 dried/fresh Rose Petals\n\nMethod:\n\nSoak the sugar in about 0.5 liters of water. ... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-06056 | What keeps the clouds from settling down to the Earth's surface? | In a sense, the clouds *are* settling down toward the surface... it's just that a lot of other things, like the air we breathe, are also settling down in the same way. Heavier gasses settle closer to the surface, and lighter gasses will tend to rise above them. If you ever see smoke rising from a candle or fire, there's a good example of a lighter gas rising up. | [
"Ultraviolet radiation from the Sun breaks water molecules apart, reducing the amount of water available to form noctilucent clouds. The radiation is known to vary cyclically with the solar cycle and satellites have been tracking the decrease in brightness of the clouds with the increase of ultraviolet radiation fo... | [
"Clouds do not settle on the Earth's surface.",
"Clouds do not setttle down to the surface."
] | [
"Clouds do settle on the Earth's surface.",
"Clouds are settling down, they are just very light so that is a low as they sink."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Clouds do not settle on the Earth's surface.",
"Clouds do not setttle down to the surface."
] | [
"false presupposition",
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Clouds do settle on the Earth's surface.",
"Clouds are settling down, they are just very light so that is a low as they sink."
] |
2018-01324 | When viewing a lengthy video on YouTube, how does YouTube know where to place the ads? | If you are talkign about the banner ads which appear over your video then the position of those is set by Youtube and you cannot change them. What you can do though is set ad breaks in your video where your footage will stop and an ad will appear. Its very much like TV when a presenter says "And we will be back after this break". If your videos are not too short (Youtube has rules about how many ad breaks can go in compared to the length of a video), then setting an ad break like this can be the most profitable way to place ads in your footage. If you access the video editor and click on the 'Monetisation' tab you will see at the bottom of the page a slider for 'Ad breaks' You need to have the option clicked for Skippable video ads above it but once you have you can choose whether an ad will appear at the start, the end or somewhere in the middle, and the longer your ad is, the more ad breaks you can put in. TLDR: The creator can set where the ads go. | [
"Uploaded videos were saved as a .gvi files under the \"Google Videos\" folder in \"My Videos\" and reports of the video(s) details were logged and stored in the user account. The report sorted and listed the number of times that each of the user's videos had been viewed and downloaded within a specific time frame.... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [
"YouTube chooses where to put ads in the video."
] | [
"false presupposition",
"normal"
] | [
"The content creator chooses where to put the ads in the video. "
] |
2018-04790 | Why are buses not designed in a more aerodynamic way? | Aerodynamics only matter at high speeds. Drag is proportional to velocity squared. If your travelling at low speeds (like city buses typically do), it's better to optimize for carrying capacity than for aerodynamics. If a bus was designed to be more aerodynamically efficient (rounded front, tapered back), it wouldn't have as large an interior, and thus couldn't carry as much people. Even for a Greyhound bus, which DOES travel at highway speeds, more people is better. The equation for Greyound's income for one bus trip is this: Income = (Ticket Price * Number of Passengers) - Fuel Costs - Operating Costs Making the bus more aerodynamic lowers fuel costs, but also reduces the capacity of the bus. The extra $$$ from additional passengers outweighs the slight fuel savings from a more aerodynamic bus. | [
"Section::::History.:1960s.\n\nIn 1961, a new bus design, the Hamburg, was unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show. At a time when most coaches were rounded, bulbous or streamlined, the new design had clear-cut lines with edges and large windows. Developed by the founder's eldest son, Albrecht Auwärter, and another stude... | [
"Busses should be more aerodynamic."
] | [
"Busses have a more economimc incentive to make a larger bus not a more aerodynamic bus. "
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Busses should be more aerodynamic."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Busses have a more economimc incentive to make a larger bus not a more aerodynamic bus. "
] |
2018-08644 | Why do most companies prefer or are more likely to hire female candidates for clerical positions? | I used to work on equality\-related employment data for a national government. There are lots of reasons, which vary by country. But one major reason is that women are more likely to apply for clerical positions because the role is slightly gendered, and advertisements for these roles reflect that in their language. This tendency is strengthened when we talk about unqualified workers, because women are more likely to apply for clerical work than \(for example\) manual labour positions. But like with any gender related issue, the real picture is very complex. | [
"BULLET::::- In March 1992 the first female priests in Australia were appointed; they were priests of the Anglican Church in Australia.\n\nBULLET::::- Maria Jepsen became the world's first woman to be elected a Lutheran bishop when she was elected bishop of the North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany, b... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-03511 | How is a nuclear submarine lost at sea not a danger? | Water absorbs nuclear radiation really well, thats why we use it in our reactors (well that and the whole steam thing. The radiation wont penetrate more than like 20 meters even if there was a catastrophic containment failure, but normally its in a giant steel box. So no its fine. Not ideal, but not a danger. | [
"BULLET::::- K-192 (1989; Echo II-class submarine; loss of coolant)\n\nBULLET::::- K-141 \"Kursk (2000; Oscar II-class submarine; sank, 118 killed)\n\nBULLET::::- K-159 (2003; November-class submarine; sank under tow, 9 killed)\n\nSection::::See also.\n\nBULLET::::- JASON reactor\n\nBULLET::::- List of United State... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-16995 | How exactly is inflation over time determined? How can someone say X dollars today was Y dollars in 1978? | By comparing to similar items and making an index. A gallon of milk, 1 pound of potatoes, 1 gallon of gas, ect. If after useing a significant sample size of items you can get a nice graph of what the purchase and power of $1 was in each year | [
"BULLET::::- Historical inflation Before collecting consistent econometric data became standard for governments, and for the purpose of comparing absolute, rather than relative standards of living, various economists have calculated imputed inflation figures. Most inflation data before the early 20th century is imp... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-14808 | In a region of the USA where there is ample fresh water supply, does it really matter how much water I use or even “waste” at home? If so, why? Is it just a matter of power consumption related to purification? Other than that, why does it matter? | It still costs money to pump and treat. Also, just because water is plentiful doesn't mean it's infinite. The huge aquifer that most of the plains states draw their water from is being used far faster than it replenishes. | [
"Section::::Indoor use and end uses.\n",
"Metering of water supplied by utilities to residential, commercial and industrial users is common in most developed countries, except for the United Kingdom where only about 38% of users are metered. In some developing countries metering is very common, such as in Chile w... | [
"It is the water that is wasted when being used."
] | [
"The water is re used but the energy used to treat and pump it is wasted."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"It is the water that is wasted when being used.",
"It is the water that is wasted when being used."
] | [
"normal",
"false presupposition"
] | [
"The water is re used but the energy used to treat and pump it is wasted.",
"The water is re used but the energy used to treat and pump it is wasted. "
] |
2018-23117 | Why do water pipes sound like they're going to explode when turned back on after a couple hours of being completely shut off? | It's usually the hot water pipe, and what you're hearing is thermal expansion at work. The pipes are held in the walls or under the subfloor with clamps, and as the pipes expand from the newly hot water rushing into them and slip in those clamps they make noise. | [
"Cold water pitting of copper tube\n\nCold water pitting of copper tube occurs in only a minority of installations. Copper water tubes are usually guaranteed by the manufacturer against manufacturing defects for a period of 50 years. The vast majority of copper systems far exceed this time period but a small minori... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-15475 | What are the actual physical changes that happen inside a computer while it's running? | Permanent storage in computers generally is done by one of two technologies. For magnetic hard drives, there's a spinning plate covered with magnetic material and a mechanism that allows to detect and change the "direction" of the magnetism in very very small segments of that platter. So writing a file would involve that mechanism changing the magnetic pattern on the disk. For solid state drives (SSD) in computers, as well as the common USB flash memory sticks, the memory consists of a silicon chip with lots and lots of very small isolated conducting spaces which can store electric charge (extra electrons), and transistors to control that. Writing to that memory involves storing electric charge in some (and removing from others) of these "pockets" called NAND cells. Both of these things are somewhat permanent and continue to persist after power is turned off. | [
"Software monitors occur more commonly, sometimes as a part of a widget engine. These monitoring systems are often used to keep track of system resources, such as CPU usage and frequency, or the amount of free RAM. They are also used to display items such as free space on one or more hard drives, the temperature of... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-06403 | Why do sedans typically seat 5 people nowadays when they used to seat 6? | sedans use to put a bench seat in front. That is now known to be wildly unsafe, and it was not typically utilized anyway, so they went to bucket seats up front with a console, losing the middle seat. | [
"The traditional sedans with full-width bench seating offered nearly the same passenger capacity as the newer three-row SUV or minivan. Some models, such as the Chrysler Pacifica, feature a center console in the second row, rather than room for a passenger in the middle.\n\nSection::::Decline.\n",
"Moreover, rese... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-21421 | What causes various 'solid' objects to go soggy when immersed in water, while others stay hard? How are they differently composed? | Density, mostly. Objects comprised of molecules that are more loosely combined absorb moisture easier, thus allowing for the inside of the solid to be filled with liquids. Super ELI5: a piece of cereal is hard when it's dry, but it's also covered with holes and air pockets, inside and out. When milk begins to fill those holes, the internal moisture increases, making it softer. Whereas a rock has been solidified by thousands of years of heat and pressure, so there's no holes for water to get into to make it soggy. | [
"It refers to the tendency of liquids — and of unbound aggregates of small solid objects, like seeds, gravel, or crushed ore, whose behavior approximates that of liquids — to move in response to changes in the attitude of a craft's cargo holds, decks, or liquid tanks in reaction to operator-induced motions (or sea ... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-01786 | What are the laws surrounding entering sewer systems in cities? Since there are no 'no trespassing' signs, are we free to open manholes and enter sewer systems? | Like any other laws, they are subject to local differences. Just like you can't walk into someone else's home uninvited just because there's not a "no trespassing" sign, or can't hop a fence at a military installation if there wasn't a "Do not enter" sign on that particular fence, doesn't mean it's legal to trespass. If you have to open a manhole cover or bypass a fence in order to access something - that's common sense that you probably shouldn't be there. | [
"In March or April 1977, Mark had a conversation with Kenny Near, a past president of the Sewer Board. During their talk Mark offered Near about $2,000 for testimony that the Sewer Board was acting in a vindictive manner towards the Hopkinsons. However, Near refused the offer.\n",
"The player must prevent pedestr... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-04976 | Is there a reason why in the West, pay is quoted in annual terms but in Asia, it's monthly often? | It's usually monthly in a number of European countries as well. It's not an "east vs west" thing, different countries have just settled on different conventions and habits. There's no grand plan behind it. | [
"In Botswana, salaries are almost entirely paid on a monthly basis with pay dates falling on different dates of the second half of the month. Pay day usually ranges from the 15th of the month to the last day. The date of disbursement of the salary is usually determined by the company and in some cases in conjunctio... | [
"West countries use annual terms and Asia uses monthly. ",
"Pay is quoted annually in the west but monthly in Asia."
] | [
"Lots of countries use different methods of quoting rates. ",
"Pay is mainly quoted monthly in the west as well, and it's not exclusive to Asia."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"West countries use annual terms and Asia uses monthly. ",
"Pay is quoted annually in the west but monthly in Asia."
] | [
"false presupposition",
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Lots of countries use different methods of quoting rates. ",
"Pay is mainly quoted monthly in the west as well, and it's not exclusive to Asia."
] |
2018-18140 | How do housebuilders ensure new builds don't rot in the rain or snow before they're completed? | Wood doesn’t just rot the instant it gets wet. It can get rained on and it will dry out and be fine. In general though, they finish framing most homes pretty quick, and the very next thing they do is put the roof on and install the windows and Tyvek on the exterior. This is enough to keep everything dry while they finish doing everything else. | [
"The quality of a steel-framed prefab house, which can be suffering from rust, or a wooden house from rot, can be found in the footings of the structure where it meets the foundation slab. With checks undertaken by a qualified building surveyor, the structural integrity of the house can be quickly ascertained throu... | [
"When wood gets wet it instantly starts to rot. ",
"Wood rots after rain."
] | [
"When wood gets wet it does not instantly start to rot. ",
"Wood dries out after rain and doesn't rot."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"When wood gets wet it instantly starts to rot. ",
"Wood rots after rain."
] | [
"false presupposition",
"false presupposition"
] | [
"When wood gets wet it does not instantly start to rot. ",
"Wood dries out after rain and doesn't rot."
] |
2018-06432 | Why does LSD make you hallucinate? | It causes a chemical change in the way your brain processes sensations and experiences. That's more of a how than a why, I guess. It wasn't intentionally designed with those effects in mind. | [
"Section::::Critical reception.\n",
"According to a 2009 study published in the \"Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease,\" the hallucinations are caused by the brain misidentifying the source of what it is currently experiencing, a phenomenon called faulty source monitoring.\n\nA study conducted on individuals wh... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-03469 | Why do jpgs lose quality/ get "deep fried" when they are downloaded too often? | Transferring a JPEG about the place doesn't affect the quality in itself, but websites will often compress images to save space, reduce download times, etc. So, if someone uploads an image to Facebook, then it goes to Twitter, then Reddit, then Facebook, then MySpace, then Wordpress, then back to Facebook, it's likely many of the websites in the chain will have applied their own compression to the image, slowly turning it into a murky mess (and ironically sometimes resulting in a larger file size than the original). | [
"Those who use the World Wide Web may be familiar with the irregularities known as compression artifacts that appear in JPEG images, which may take the form of noise around contrasting edges (especially curves and corners), or \"blocky\" images. These are due to the quantization step of the JPEG algorithm. They are... | [
"JPGs lose quality when they are downloaded."
] | [
"Downloading doesn't reduce quality, compression tactics used by different websites reduce the quality when it is uploaded. "
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"JPGs lose quality when they are downloaded."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Downloading doesn't reduce quality, compression tactics used by different websites reduce the quality when it is uploaded. "
] |
2018-05953 | Why have I never heard of someone getting heart cancer? | It's just a very, very rare form of cancer so it's not heavily talked about. URL_0 Apparently the drummer of Kiss died from it, though. | [
"In most cases, patients with heart metastases have advanced tumour disease, with the heart being only one of the many places involved in the generalised tumour spread. At that stage of the disease, the patients will have already undergone extensive chemotherapy, radiation therapy or surgical procedures. Cardiac tr... | [
"Never heard of someone getting heart cancer."
] | [
"Drummer of Kiss dies from it. "
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Never heard of someone getting heart cancer."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Drummer of Kiss dies from it. "
] |
2018-16087 | What's happening on some nights when you try to wipe the thick layer of moisture off your windshield but it reappears almost immediately? | Cold glass meets humid air. The water vapor in the air condenses on the glass. Like a cold drink on a hot day. As you drive along, the air hits your car at the speed you're driving into it, not letting the vapor have enough time to condense into water again. Your windscreen also heats up as the inside of the car heats up, preventing condensation. Try warming up your car before driving. Leave the AC on heat for a bit before you hit the road. | [
"BULLET::::- Emulsified - At the point of saturation, a cloudy appearance will be the tell-tale sign that the water/oil mixture has become emulsified.\n\nBULLET::::- Free - The most developed stage of fuel contamination is when free flowing puddles of water appear within stored oil. At this point, bacterial contami... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-19508 | How do old songs like Message in a Bottle or TV shows like Friends get remastered when the equipment itself was used during the time it was recorded or filmed? | The studio recording equipment, eg reel to reel tape and studio cameras make a much higher quality first generation copy of the source material. It's the mixing process and delivery formats that suck. Digitize the source material and re edit using modern equipment, you then get something that looks and sounds better on today's consumer equipment. | [
"For the 1963 re-release of the picture and subsequent re-release of the record, instead of going back to the actual soundtrack recordings recorded in Hollywood specifically for the film and remixing for Stereo, producers took the original monaural New York session tapes and electronically synthesized a stereo sign... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-07480 | How come what we ingest (eat or drink) doesn’t necessarily have to be sterile, but any time we have some sort of surgery or procedure done, everything has to be completely sterile? | Your digestive system isn't really "inside" your body in the same way your organs are. It is fully enclosed, end to end, and designed to deal with all the food-like objects the human animal is going to cram into itself. Your gut does a fine and dandy job of handling lots of pathogens and potential parasites by just generally being a pretty unfriendly environment for life. Now obviously some nasties have evolved to survive through that and will make you pretty sick if you eat them. Your gooey innards though? No such defenses. They are warm and wet and a perfect place for even fairly weak bacteria and other nasties to grow and go hog wild. | [
"In general, surgical instruments and medications that enter an already aseptic part of the body (such as the bloodstream, or penetrating the skin) must be sterile. Examples of such instruments include scalpels, hypodermic needles, and artificial pacemakers. This is also essential in the manufacture of parenteral p... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-15645 | What aren't there term limits on Justices for the Supreme Court of the US like every other level of government? | The idea was to isolate judges from political fights so as to ensure the court's legitimacy. The writers of the constitution did not consider either how important the court would become and thus how politically charged appointments could be. Many other countries have long, yet predictable, terms for judges that allow them to be much more isolated from political cycles. | [
"Federal judges have different terms in office. Article I judges; such as those that sit on the United States bankruptcy courts, United States Tax Court, and United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, and certain other federal courts and other forms of adjudicative bodies serve limited terms: The Court of... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-13739 | Why is it so easy to distinguish a video from a photo even when the video is a still image of a still object? | Because a video is **not** a still image of a still object. Most videos have some blur, which is fine when they are running at full speed because it helps preserve the illusion of motion. Blur is essentially the mixture of images over a short period of time, so you really aren't looking at a still image. | [
"When a camera creates an image, that image does not represent a single instant of time. Because of technological constraints or artistic requirements, the image may represent the scene over a period of time. Most often this exposure time is brief enough that the image captured by the camera appears to capture an i... | [
"Video is always a still image of a still object.",
"A still image from a video is the same as a photo."
] | [
"Most video have some blur, which is essentially the mixture of images over a short period of time, rather than being a still image of a still object.",
"A still image from a video has some blur, which photos do not."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Video is always a still image of a still object.",
"A still image from a video is the same as a photo."
] | [
"false presupposition",
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Most video have some blur, which is essentially the mixture of images over a short period of time, rather than being a still image of a still object.",
"A still image from a video has some blur, which photos do not."
] |
2018-04130 | Why does a song not sound good at first but after 2 or more listens it can become your favourite? | One of the reasons you find music enjoyable is because your brain likes to predict which notes are coming next, and then it feels like a reward when you're correct. If a song has a confusing melody you won't get that same enjoyment from it. It may even seem unpleasant because it doesn't act the way you expect it to. When you hear it repeatedly you're able to recall its melody from memory and that presumably makes it more enjoyable. | [
"Section::::Critical reception.:\"Pitchfork\" review and \"sad boy\" comment.\n",
"At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 73% based on 15 reviews, indicating \"generally favorable reviews\".\n",
"Louder Than the... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-00681 | How do banks choose what interest rates to allow their customers to earn on their savings accounts? | When you hear the news talk about the Fed raising/lowering interest rates, that is just one rate they set... but other banks, mortgage lenders, etc. use it as a baseline to which other rates are pegged. They will set their various rates to that, ie a savings account might pay 0.5% above while a mortgage is 3.5% above, so when the Fed raises rates .25% then those would go up to correspond. | [
"See the (S)ensitivity section of the CAMELS rating system for a substantial list of links to documents and examiner manuals, issued by financial regulators, that cover many issues in the analysis of interest rate risk.\n\nIn addition to being subject to the CAMELS system, the largest banks are often subject to pre... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-20566 | Why it is better to use smaller monitors (not 55" TVs) for playing videogames, if it's true. | A monitor has a latency (delay) that is a lot lower than a TV. Most normal TL monitor screens have a latency of ~5 ms and an average IPS monitor or most other technologies about ~8ms delay. A TV isn’t made for computer use or gaming so the latency is often about a second long and mostly doesn’t even get measured because it doesn’t really matter on TV’s cause most people just use it for television. Second is the refresh rate, a lot of TV’s have fake refresh rates of sometimes up to 1000 HZ but it isn’t actually how fast the screen refreshes. A lot of TV’s use a technology to predict the movement of the next frame. I think you can imagine that it isn’t good if you’re playing video games. Monitors don’t have these weird technologies and display the true refresh rate, most commonly 60HZ (refresh rate is how many times a second a screen refreshes). The refresh rates on monitors can also be a lot higher if you choose a higher end model. Some screens can go up to 240HZ true refresh rate depending on the resolution it’s running at. Lastly is the color. Most TV’s don’t have accurate colors and they are optimized for watching movies. If you’re going to game on it, the colors can be really distorted. Monitors are almost always equipped with OK color reproduction and if you want to you can buy other models with even better color reproduction if you’re going to edit video’s professionally or use photoshop | [
"Section::::Comparison of television display technologies.\n\nSection::::Comparison of television display technologies.:CRT.\n\nThough large-screen CRT TVs/monitors exist, the screen size is limited by their impracticality. The bigger the screen, the higher the weight, and the deeper the CRT.\n\nA typical 32-inch t... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-04823 | How do apps keep up with updates in OS(android,iOS etc.) | Well often times they don't bother, but in general os updates are announced in advance and are fairly well documented so devs can get pre-release versions to test their app and keep up. OS updates aren't released as frequently - minor ones only a few times a year and the big ones less so - often times about once per year. Good devs interested in maintaining their app pay attention to whats happening and ensures that there aren't any show stoppers and they can release updates anytime they want. | [
"BULLET::::- Built-in update: Mechanisms for installing updates are built into some software systems (or, in the case of some operating systems such as Linux, Android and iOS, into the operating system itself). Automation of these update processes ranges from fully automatic to user initiated and controlled. Norton... | [
"Apps always keep up with OS updates."
] | [
"Some apps keep up to date but others do not and this can cause bugs over time."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Apps always keep up with OS updates.",
"Apps always keep up with OS updates."
] | [
"normal",
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Some apps keep up to date but others do not and this can cause bugs over time.",
"Some apps keep up to date but others do not and this can cause bugs over time."
] |
2018-15173 | If the atoms that make up our body aren’t living, what makes us living? | In this case, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Life arises from the interaction of components which cause various processes to occur. | [
"Some of the energy thus captured produces biomass and energy that is available for growth and development of other life forms. The majority of the rest of this biomass and energy are lost as waste molecules and heat. The most important processes for converting the energy trapped in chemical substances into energy ... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-02206 | How did computer hackers do their hacking back in the 60s and 70s? | The vast majority of hacking in the pre-internet days relied on physical access to the system... as that was the only way to access it... or by manipulating someone with physical access to it to do something to it (knowingly or unwittingly) Even today, physical access to the system is often how a lot of hacks take place, there's just no substitute for ease of actually having physical access. Even many newer big name hacks, such as at least one of the Sony hacks and stuff like Stuxnet both were done with physical access. | [
"In 1984, Gold and fellow journalist/hacker Robert Schifreen demonstrated an \"ad hoc penetration test\" of a Prestel network which, according to the writer Nick Barron, used \"a combination of clever shoulder surfing and good old-fashioned hacking skills\". An archive telling the story of how the 1980s hack of Pri... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-12831 | Why are tax havens mostly islands or small countries? | The whole point of a tax haven is that taxes are much lower than anywhere else. If you tried to run a large country like that, you wouldn’t be able to pay for a military, social services, or other essential stuff. That’s why tax havens are usually in very safe places (no need for a military) and have small populations with a lot of rich people (no need for social spending). | [
"Section::::History.\n\nSection::::History.:General phases.\n\nWhile areas of low taxation are recorded in Ancient Greece, tax academics identify what we know as tax havens as being a modern phenomenon, and note the following phases in their development:\n",
"BULLET::::- *♣Luxembourg – one of the largest Sink OFC... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-08353 | Why do massive updates to games give barely any extra space to the game when people download the base game (after the update is released)? | Because most of the update is actually overwriting files that were already there. So instead of adding to the size of the game it stays roughly the same due to files just being replaced with new ones that are similar in size. | [
"Any app that is ready for updating can be updated faster and more efficiently due to this new system. If, for example, a game that is 300 megabytes is updated with a new racetrack that adds an additional two megabytes to the application's size, only two megabytes will be downloaded instead of 302 megabytes.\n\nSec... | [
"Game updates add to the size of the game."
] | [
"Game updates stay roughly the same because the update overwrites files already there. "
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Game updates add to the size of the game.",
"Game updates add to the size of the game."
] | [
"normal",
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Game updates stay roughly the same because the update overwrites files already there. ",
"Game updates mostly overwrite files that are already in the game."
] |
2018-17870 | If someone has a limb amputated, what causes them to feel like it's still there after it's gone? ie. ghost limbs? | The pathways in your brain are strengthened with use. That's why toddlers fall down so much: it's not just that their legs are tiny, it's that they've never done it before. After a year or two they can walk all the time. The neural connections for the muscles and nerves in their legs are reinforced. Now imagine all the things you can do with your arm. Eat food, catch a ball, shake hands, drive, type. A million little things you don't even have to think about anymore, because you've done them your whole life. That experience, that "muscle memory" and object permanence and fine motor control, none of that is actually your arm. It's all in your brain. Those neural connections are strong because they're constantly used. Now imagine you lose your arm. All those memories of everything that you do with your arm, all the sensations and experiences you normally don't even think about, are still there. They're all right there in your brain, even after your arm is gone. You reach out to pick up a glass of water and the pathways for reaching and grabbing activate, even if there's nothing for them to connect to. If you don't think about it, or even sometimes if you do, the motor and sensory pathways that you're expecting to use will fire, and your brain fills in the blanks of what it's expecting to experience. | [
"A large proportion of amputees (50–80%) experience the phenomenon of phantom limbs; they feel body parts that are no longer there. These limbs can itch, ache, burn, feel tense, dry or wet, locked in or trapped or they can feel as if they are moving. Some scientists believe it has to do with a kind of neural map th... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-21743 | Why did the US go into prohibition, and why did it end 13 years later? | It went into Prohibition because a small but very dedicated group of people convinced that alcohol was the cause of society's ills worked extremely hard to put Prohibition into place. They eventually were able to make it such a disruptive wedge issue that it became one of the only criteria that mattered in getting elected. It ended 13 years later because it turns out that you cannot legislate morality and people LIKE to drink. No amount of hand wringing and shouting is going to change that and the small dedicated group could not keep a coalition of people together once the law was passed. I highly recommend the Ken Burn's series on Prohibition which I believe is on Netflix right now. | [
"\"Prohibition\" describes how the consumption and effect of alcoholic beverages in the United States were connected to many different cultural forces including immigration, women's suffrage, and the income tax. Eventually the Temperance movement led to the passing of Prohibition, the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-00010 | Why does freshly squeezed orange juice taste so different from orange juice in a carton? | The process of making mass produced orange juice, no matter the brand or what advertising says, is one im afraid you may not want to know. Basically what it comes down to is large amounts of orange juice is stored in large vats for up to a year or more, which causes it to lose both color and flavor. By the time its ready to be bottled and shipped, it is basically a colorless and flavorless liquid. So, what they do is add "flavor packs" to it to give it the bright orange color, and put flavor back in it. Flavor packs made in a lab. They get away with calling it "all natural" or similar buzzwords because the flavor packets, even though they are made by the same companies that make perfumes, are derived from "natural oranges". Simply put your simply orange isnot so simple, or fresh, as they lead people to believe. | [
"Commercial orange juice with a long shelf life is made by pasteurizing the juice and removing the oxygen from it. This removes much of the taste, necessitating the later addition of a flavor pack, generally made from orange products. Additionally, some juice is further processed by drying and later rehydrating the... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-06974 | Has vacuum negative weight in air, because it is lighter than air itself? Would a vacuum balloon fly like a helium balloon? | Theoretically a vacuum balloon would be lighter than a helium balloon but the structure of the balloon would have to be very heavy to resist the difference in pressure from the surrounding air, so basically it wouldn’t float. | [
"Vacuum airship\n\nA vacuum airship, also known as a vacuum balloon, is a hypothetical airship that is evacuated rather than filled with a lighter-than-air gas such as hydrogen or helium. First proposed by Italian Jesuit priest Francesco Lana de Terzi in 1670, the vacuum balloon would be the ultimate expression of ... | [
"A vacuum balloon may be able to fly like a helium balloon.",
"A vaccuum balloon would fly like a helium balloon."
] | [
"A vacuum balloon will not float because the balloon structure would have to be very heavy to resist the difference in pressure from the surrounding air and the vacuum.",
"A vaccuum balloon likely wouldn't float at all. "
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"A vacuum balloon may be able to fly like a helium balloon.",
"A vaccuum balloon would fly like a helium balloon."
] | [
"false presupposition",
"false presupposition"
] | [
"A vacuum balloon will not float because the balloon structure would have to be very heavy to resist the difference in pressure from the surrounding air and the vacuum.",
"A vaccuum balloon likely wouldn't float at all. "
] |
2018-01809 | Do babies still dance if they haven't been exposed to it? | Yes. There's pretty good research indicating that even infants as young as five months will respond to music by moving rhythmically. The degree to which they're successful at synchronizing their movements with the beat increases with age, but it's something we seem to have an innate instinct for. But it's probably more the *beat*, than the music as such, to which the youngest infants respond. Simple drums, or even just repetitive, rhythmic sounds of any sort, seem to provoke the same kind of response as anything most people would be tempted to describe as "music" as such. | [
"BULLET::::- In the 2002 movie \"Life or Something Like It\", the Dancing Baby appears on the score board at the baseball game.\n\nBULLET::::- The Cincinnati, Ohio classic rock station WEBN featured the dancing baby dancing to the song \"You Shook Me All Night Long\" by AC/DC on a television commercial for the stat... | [
"Babies dance to music. "
] | [
"Babies dance to a beat, rather than music. "
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Babies dance to music. ",
"Babies dance to music. "
] | [
"normal",
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Babies dance to a beat, rather than music. ",
"Babies dance to a beat, rather than music. "
] |
2018-03427 | why people use . instead of , as thousands separator? | Other countries (e.g. germany) have the thousands separator and decimal separator switched. It's all a matter of what you're used to. To us 250,000.00 looks weird, because we're used to it being written as 250.000,00 As for historical reasons why some countries have it this way and some the other, i have no idea. | [
"The International Bureau of Weights and Measures states that \"when there are only four digits before or after the decimal marker, it is customary not to use a space to isolate a single digit\". Likewise, some manuals of style state that thousands separators should not be used in normal text for numbers from 1000 ... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-00929 | why were dinosaurs much larger than most animals we see today? | the oxygen theories posted as other comments applies to insects, not dinosaurs. URL_1 the following theories are not mutually exclusive (meaning it's not #1 or #2, it could be #1 *and* #2 etc.). and tl;dr **we don't know for sure**, all the theories are controversial. theory #1 for dinosaurs: the mesozoic era (~250 million years ago - 65 million years ago, the time period all dinosaurs lived in) had much higher levels of carbon dioxide (co2) in the atmosphere. more co2 = higher temperatures. plants feed (via photosynthesis) off of co2, and higher temperatures promote more vegetative growth. the theory is that some dinosaurs were so big simply because there was so much for them to eat, which would explain why some herbivores were much larger than carnivores. note that the only dinosaurs that were small were carnivores, almost all herbivores were taller than 1 meter. this theory is also being challenged though ( URL_2 ) theory #2: hugeness was simply an evolutionary defense mechanism theory #3: if dinosaurs were cold blooded, as many paleontologists believe, their size could be a way to maintain their internal temperatures despite environmental circumstances. "a house-sized, homeothermic Argentinosaurus could warm up slowly (in the sun, during the day) and cool down equally slowly (at night), giving it a fairly constant average body temperature--whereas a smaller reptile would be at the mercy of ambient temperatures on an hour-by-hour basis." ( URL_3 ) see also URL_0 theory #4: larger size = lower metabolism, longer digestion = bigger dinosaurs need less food. there's probably more out there, but these were the main ones that i found on google. | [
"Early in the Cenozoic, following the K-Pg event, the planet was dominated by relatively small fauna, including small mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. From a geological perspective, it did not take long for mammals and birds to greatly diversify in the absence of the dinosaurs that had dominated during the... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-08357 | why do mountains look blue from a certain distance? | Thats due to the refraction of light in our atmosphere. Its basically the exact same phenomenon that makes our sky blue... | [
"The Greater Blue Mountains Area consists of of mostly forested landscape on a sandstone plateau inland from the Sydney central business district. The area includes vast expanses of wilderness and is equivalent in area to almost one third of Belgium, or twice the size of Brunei.\n\nThe area is called \"Blue Mountai... | [
"Mountains are blue from afar."
] | [
"Mountains are not blue, the refraction of light in our atmosphere causes them to look this way."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"Mountains are blue from afar.",
"Mountains are blue from afar."
] | [
"false presupposition",
"normal"
] | [
"Mountains are not blue, the refraction of light in our atmosphere causes them to look this way.",
"Mountains are not blue, the refraction of light in our atmosphere causes them to look this way."
] |
2018-13288 | Do I need a phone line for the NBN in Australia? If its no longer a phone line what's a nbn connection called? | Depending on what you get (FTTC, FTTN, FTTP, HFC, FW etc), you might need one coming into the house. For FTTN and FTTC you need the four wires which are currently go to your nearby Telstra pillar. For everything else you don't need these four wires anymore. | [
"NBN\n\nNBN may refer to:\n\nSection::::Television networks.\n\nBULLET::::- NBN Television, an Australian television network serving northern New South Wales\n\nBULLET::::- People's Television Network, the Philippine government national television station formerly known as National Broadcasting Network\n\nBULLET:::... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-00432 | Why do UV light bulbs look so different to sunlight when the sun produces UV light also? | UV is actually not visible, so you would not see it from the sun to begin with. Furthermore, it is only about 10% of the sun's total light output (so only 1/10th of the total light, the rest of which is visible "white" light and infrared). UV lights of all types tend to have a more indigo tint because ultraviolet light is closer in wavelength to that color. By focusing on that range of the light spectrum, it can emit more UV light, and more efficiently than if it did a normal light, AND minimize interference in to the UV light. | [
"Section::::Types of ultraviolet lamps.:LEDs.\n\nUV LED devices are capable of emitting a narrow spectrum of radiation (+/- 10 nm), while mercury lamps have a broader spectral distribution. Fluorescent ultraviolet lamps can be fairly narrow, although not as narrow as LEDs.\n",
"Three types of fluorescent lamps ar... | [
"The light from UV light bulbs should look the same as sunlight.",
"If the sun produces UV light, then UV light bulbs should not look different than sunlight."
] | [
"UV is only about 10% of the sun's total light output.",
"UV lights are not visible, therfore it cannot be used to differentiate the image of the Sun and UV lights. "
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"The light from UV light bulbs should look the same as sunlight.",
"If the sun produces UV light, then UV light bulbs should not look different than sunlight."
] | [
"false presupposition",
"false presupposition"
] | [
"UV is only about 10% of the sun's total light output.",
"UV lights are not visible, therfore it cannot be used to differentiate the image of the Sun and UV lights. "
] |
2018-02245 | How come the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, and most of Canada have a high majority of English speakers while other countries once colonized by the British do not? | Because the European immigrants and their descendants *vastly outnumber* the aboriginal people in these places. | [
"There are six large countries with a majority of native English speakers that are sometimes grouped under the term Anglosphere. In numbers of English speakers they are: the United States of America (at least 231 million), the United Kingdom (in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland) (60 million), Canada (... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-05022 | Why are brand new cars years post dated? | It’s marketing. If you’re living in 2018 and have a 2019 model you’ll feel special and superior. That’s all. | [
"In other cases, products of a previous model year can continue production, especially if a newer model hasn't yet been released. In that case, the model year remains the same until a new model is introduced. This is to ensure that the model will be seen by the public, and will actually sell a number of vehicles be... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-15232 | How are satellites able to take such clear images if they're moving extremely fast? | They're really far away. When in the car, look outside the passenger window at some thing close and it will blur. Then look at something in the distance and it will be clear. | [
"There have been hundreds of reconnaissance satellites launched by dozens of nations since the first years of space exploration. Satellites for imaging intelligence were usually placed in high-inclination low Earth orbits, sometimes in Sun-synchronous orbits. Since the film-return missions were usually short, they ... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-19139 | why do air ships like blimps and zeppelins use helium instead of a big vacuum chamber. Based on what I know vacuums are less dense than helium | Trying to support any decent vacuum of that size would require an structure that could support a pressure difference of nearly 1 ATM between the inside and outside without changing shape. With out current materials, such a solution would be extremely expensive and/or heavy. | [
"where formula_28 formula_29 and formula_30 formula_31 are pressure and density of standard Earth atmosphere at sea level, formula_32 and formula_33 are molar mass (kg/kmol) and temperature (K) of atmosphere at floating area.\n",
"Vacuum airships would replace the helium gas with a near-vacuum environment. Having... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-11257 | Why do we get cold in a bath if the water gets slightly less warm, but not if we're swimming in a cold pool (after initial adjustment)? | In a bath you are stationary. Your muscles aren’t moving, and aren’t warming up, whereas when you swim, muscles are engaged and warmed up. When the temperature drops, the added heat from moving makes the temperature adjustment less noticeable than say in a bath, where you are hardly moving. | [
"Blood flow to the muscles is lower in cold water, but exercise keeps the muscle warm and flow elevated even when the skin is chilled. Blood flow to fat normally increases during exercise, but this is inhibited by immersion in cold water. Adaptation to cold reduces the extreme vasoconstriction which usually occurs ... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-17881 | What Happens where Predators eat body parts of animals that contain large dose of Venom, like the head of a Snake or the tail of a Scorpion? | Essentially nothing. Sometimes they can still have an effect, but usually not conventional. It kind of has to be injected into the blood stream. | [
"The distribution of the venom of the Chinese cobra has been studied in mice using a whole-animal radiographic technique. Results indicate that venom accumulates primarily in the kidney (marked localization in the cortex) with little or no activity in the brain of mice sacrificed one to two minutes after intravenou... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-14135 | If a car’s engine is flooded (filled with water) can it be fixed? | It's possible, I've seen hydrolocked cars get fixed but it's a lot of work. You're going to have to tear down the engine to see what the damages are internally | [
"Some manufacturers offer parts for replacement or customization, whether compatible only with their own hydration systems, or usable also with others'.\n\nSection::::Hardware.:Plumbing.\n\nSection::::Hardware.:Plumbing.:Shut-off valves.\n\nEspecially while a hydration system is being carried in a vehicle, there is... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-05612 | Why is urinating not affected by spicy food? | Pee is not the result of a direct line from your stomach to the bladder, unlike poo. When you eat food, it goes through your digestive tract (stomach, small and large intestine). In the intestines, broken down food molecules and water are absorbed into the bloodstream and then carried around the body to the cells that need it. Once the nutrients have been used up and waste products have been put in by the cells, the blood flows to the kidneys, which filter out these waste products and some water. The part of spicy food that tastes spicy, capsaicin, does not last very long in the bloodstream before being broken down into smaller molecules that don't have the same spicy effect. | [
"BULLET::::- In a 1995 episode of the first season of \"Friends\", Chandler pesters Joey, while the latter tries to urinate. Joey begs Chandler to cease the disturbance, claiming that he needs to concentrate in order to urinate. In another episode, Monica is stung on the foot by a jellyfish, and Joey is unable to u... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal",
"normal"
] | [] |
2018-03534 | Why does London have so few skyscrapers or tall buildings in general compared to comparable cities? | Relevant bits from [Wikipedia:]( URL_0 ) > Few skyscrapers were built in London before the late 20th century, owing to restrictions on building heights originally imposed by the London Building Act of 1894, which followed the construction of the 14-storey Queen Anne's Mansions. Though restrictions have long since been eased, strict regulations remain to preserve protected views, especially those of St Paul's, the Tower of London and Palace of Westminster, as well as to comply with the requirements of the Civil Aviation Authority. > The Greater London metropolitan area contains the most skyscrapers in the European Union. As of 2018, there are 21 skyscrapers in London that reach a roof height of at least 150 metres (492 ft),[4] with 18 in the Paris Metropolitan Area, 15 in Frankfurt, eleven in Warsaw and five each in Madrid and Milan. | [
"In the dense areas, most of the concentration is via medium- and high-rise buildings. London's skyscrapers, such as 30 St Mary Axe, Tower 42, the Broadgate Tower and One Canada Square, are mostly in the two financial districts, the City of London and Canary Wharf. High-rise development is restricted at certain sit... | [
"London has less skyscrapers than comparable cities."
] | [
"Paris, Frankfurt, Warsaw, and Milan all have less skyscrapers than London."
] | [
"false presupposition"
] | [
"London has less skyscrapers than comparable cities.",
"London has less skyscrapers than comparable cities."
] | [
"false presupposition",
"normal"
] | [
"Paris, Frankfurt, Warsaw, and Milan all have less skyscrapers than London.",
"Paris, Frankfurt, Warsaw, and Milan all have less skyscrapers than London."
] |
2018-00330 | Why does the body feel sharp pains differently (or less tolerant) in the distal parts of the body like hands and feet? | The body feels pain because every time you touch the skin, it sends a signal to your brain that you are being touched. These signals can tell your brain if it's light touch, vibration or pain. Different parts of your skin send more signals than others. Here's why: imagine a bandaid sized patch of skin. When you touch it, say, on your back, that patch sends one signal. The same sized patch of skin on "less tolerant" parts of your body, like your hands and feet, will send a whole bunch of signals. The more signals sent, the more you feel things. In non ELI5 terms, this is called receptor density. Expanding on that, as humans evolved over time, it was more useful to be able to feel things better with certain body parts (think: hands to feel different foods and make tools with, vs. back, which was mostly just there for structural support), or to sense dangerous things touching those body parts in order to be able to protect them. Distal has less to do with it than you might think - for example, the underwear area (thanks for that word, ELI5) is also very sensitive, and many humans find this useful encouragement to protect it :) | [
"Although thresholds for touch-position perception are relatively easy to measure, those for pain-temperature perception are difficult to define and measure. \"Touch\" is an objective sensation, but \"pain\" is an individualized sensation which varies among different people and is conditioned by memory and emotion.... | [] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] | [
"normal"
] | [] |
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