A place for factual questions and Ask the Expert threads.
That is, after they have overcome the dreaded infidel. Do they really believe they can convince the world to worship Allah, by terrorising us all into submission?
Should my broadband connection be fluctuating between on and off, just because it's raining outside, or a bit windy? Why would my signal be at all dependent on the state of the weather? I can almost accept it when I'm on my wireless connection, but...
Which country had the first national grid for electricity distribution? I was watching a bit of James May's 20th Century earlier today and he said that until the 1920's there were over 20 different types of electricity socket in widespread use in...
Some good friends of ours just got back from London, and they had an absolutely fabulous time there (aside from the French - are they really that bad???). So, I'm thinking that it's about time for hubby and I to start planning our trip out there....
The source is dubious, but it certainly sounds plausible:Halberstam noted that all GM dealers in Michigan were required to donate one dollar to the Republican Party for every car they sold. The guy who cooked up this scheme, Arthur Summerfeld, was...
How the frak do you not kill yourselves with these things around? I just finished re-reading Hippopotamus, by Stephen Fry. One of the major plot points revolves around an ha-ha (which I had to google, 'cause I was all kinds of confused) and...I...
I am sollicitous about that pretty thing call'd copyright. I have a book The World's Great Letters, published in 1940 (in the US by Simon & Schuster) which includes the brief letter of Voltaire to Boswell in which he responds to a question on the...
I was in Denver a few months ago; modern, American city. The sign on the shopping cart said that i took the shopping cart out of the parking lot, the wheels would lock up. Sure as shooting when I pushed the cart into the area in front of the...
And you're out in the remote woods and you have a rifle with you. Before Biggie can get into the next copse of trees you take aim and fire, nailing it between the shoulder blades and it goes down. Upon approach you realize that it's not actually a...
For a background, Lagrange's theorem states that the cardinality of a subgroup of a finite group is a perfect divisor of the cardinality of the supergroup. In algebraic notation: if H = (M', *) < G = (M, *) where M' < M then #H | #G . Now the...
Inspired by my last "Wut is that?" thread. (been back in that area somewhat recently, by the way, but forgot to swing over that way.. I promise you guys I'll do it sometime in the next month or two). I'm using the dark room this time due to its...
I was looking at this picture on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Walla ... _edit2.jpg Just kind of checking out the details and noticed a strange detail. Two of the three Alabama Highway Patrol officers surrounding Wallace have...
I'm having trouble finding a particular kind of light, a fairly simple kind, to meet a certain home lighting need. 1) A nightlight that plugs directly into a standard US household outlet 2) Illuminated by a red LED bulb (or uses a replaceable...
So artifex went this morning to get a MMR booster for nursing school, and on the questionnaire, they asked not only her ethnicity, but her religion. Ethnicity I can at least vaguely understand; certain groups are more prone to certain diseases than...
Giant supermarket sells salted butter with an outer carton which is predominantly red, and their unsalted butter in an outer carton which is mostly blue. BUT, when you open the cartons and remove the individual sticks of butter, the wrapper colors...
This seems like a very mundane question, since I've always just assumed that random means the plyer will pick tracks/files at random. But how does it pick the next selection in a randomized fashion? Is there a simple process/program it has to get...
I would like to get MrScotch an ipod for his birthday. Any recommendations? Anything to avoid? I know almost nothing about them, so please feel free to dumb it down...
The likelihood of finding a data/voice recorder under a mile or more of water seems implausible (though IANAE). Is there a way to have a hardened data container have another outside container filled with deflated bags of some sort that could...
I saw something unusual this morning and it got me thinking... In the middle of the large square in front of Shibuya Station (packed with people on the weekends), there was a 30-ish woman wearing a kimono, with a bow (as in archery) wrapped up...
please
I was thinking about the Kindle and how its touted as being environmentally friendly, since it eliminates the energy needed to print and ship books all over the planet (and having worked in a book distribution center, I can tell you that its a...
Specifically from 1980-1983, and ideally, pictures of the area at the time, is want I'm wanting. However, simply knowing what was in the area back then would be a big help. The part of Chicago I'm interested in is 6400 block of South Halsted on...
Every so often you hear about a film that gets a very limited release. For example, the 2006 film Zyzzyx Road was shown on one screen in one theatre for one weekend, where it officially took in $30 at the box office. Jessica Simpson's Blonde...
Ok, after our last set of houseguests we've realized that the 30 year old twin ain't cutting it anymore as a guest bed. None of us are that small anymore and it's uncomfortable to the point of finding guests on the floor or the sofa in the morning....
Tomorrow I'm getting an MRI on my ankle, and they called to ask a bunch of questions - have you had an MRI in the past year, how much do you weigh, how tall are you, are you pregnant or breastfeeding, do you have any implants, etc. So I got to...
It's really hot today and Mr SugarPlum (aka McNutty) and I disagree about the following: Party A thinks that running the dishwasher increases the temperature of the kitchen. Party A also thinks that running an extra tower-type computer in the...
I am curious about the diversity of employment in a typical natural history museum. I presume that most such jobs require some sort of specialized educational requirements; but are there any interesting positions that tend to hire on the basis of...
I got an e-mail last night from a woman I knew thirty years ago, or more precisely it was from her via "tagged@taggedmail.com" and it said that she had sent me some pictures. Figuring she quirkily decided to send me some photos from our childhood, I...
As on greetings cards and in text messages, etc. Presumably it's mean to represent the shape of a mouth when kissing, but for how long has this been used?
I'm planning on getting an external terabyte drive and was wondering if there is any free software, or anything worth purchasing, that will make the procedure more reliable?
Suppose the judges of SCOTUS went nuts one day and started making bizarre rulings. Is there any way to remove them?
I use Photoshop a lot, mainly to scrutinize very closely photos, for detail-work in my paintings. I've been very successfully using the magnifying glass icon to blow up the photos, often to unrecognizable size, but today my copy of Photoshop...
It's played by holding it up to the mouth and blowing into a mouthpiece, and it features what looked like about an octave's worth of piano-style black and white keys. What was this thing?
Did I miss something? I thought it went over (well, behind) the counter in 2006. http://www.walgreens.com/library/finddr ... B&id=17824
Or ovoid, or whatever the shape is. They are definitely not round. How would this be likely to affect their view of the world?
So, BabyScotch is now 5 months old and needs a little extra help in the milk department. Up until now she has been breastfed, and I will continue to do so as well as giving formula. She is used to a bottle as I occasionally express milk so her Dad...
Why? My doctor gave me a prescription for Ativan, a tranquilizer. It had no effect on me. I can also take Benadryl with no drowsiness. Okay, so I'm a freak. But why? What's the actual mechanism by which you and I are affected differently...
Because I think we can all assume I'm not going to sue anybody because I got a boo boo on my ankle. I ran three miles yesterday and it was fine (although I might have had one of those moments where you put your foot down and you get a twinge for...
Why are there so many poison or venomous Australian animals? So, perhaps the harsh conditions in some parts of the country may explain the presence of animals with powerful venoms there, but why are there so many poisonous Australian sea creatures,...
My system has recently scanned itself and given me this report - PCguard Anti-Virus Scanning Report (30/05/2009 17:02:45) Master Boot Records and Fixed Disk Boot Sectors Scanned 1 Master Boot Record(s) for viruses. Scanned 2 Boot Sector(s)...
I don't think there is any doubt that these things exist, but their very nature seems to suggest that we can't learn much about them, other than they are there. The matter that falls into these 'whirlpools in space' would seem to have to reappear...
What is the last reported case of a ship being damaged by rogue ice to the point it had to be abandoned?
A recent CNN article says that you are less likely to die soon, compared to your peers, if you have a MET score of 7.9 or higher: That number, in metabolic equivalent units (METs)-- which basically measure how much work your body can do -- is...
Can someone point me to a good link on the section of US copyright law which deals with commentary/criticism? Specifically the parts of it that say if you use a work for such purposes, there's a whole lot of nothing that the copyright holder can do...
It looks like an alien baby or something.
That's it really. I don't want a full dissertation, just a brief rundown of the basic differences in characteristics.
A friend lives in the corridor where planes come into LAX, and we sat on the deck one night (in food comas after a huge meal) watching them fly over. I found this cool page that describes what each of the flashing (or steady) lights on the plane...
With all the unrest in the world and people's tendency to worry about the effects of immigration, is it possible to come up with a figure for how many people a country can handle before it is deemed overpopulated?
Flint on steel (or flint on flint) creates sparks, but what is actually happening at a microscopic level? Is it the same as the way sparks are generated on a grinding wheel? - i.e. (I assume) little bits of material are torn off and the friction...
Obviously, a woman who dances ballet. But I've encountered another usage of the word that has me stumped. My wife is taking a translation class, and the continuing class project is to translate J.D. Salinger's short story "A Perfect Day for...
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