A place for factual questions and Ask the Expert threads.
Canada's changing their citizenship law, so it looks like my husband, born and raised in Ohio and now living in Illinois, might be a Canadian citizen. His father was born in Canada, you see, and became a US citizen in, oh, 1986 or so. I'm a little...
The short version: What did a portable breathalyzer machine look like in 1982? The long version: I am a huge fan of the British show Ashes to Ashes, a spinoff of the popular Life On Mars series. Season 2 of Ashes started this past Monday night....
I'm working on a book. Not the one I've posted about on the Dope a zillion times--an entirely different one, already sold. The manuscript's about 220 pages & 75,000 words long, and divided into 16 chapters. Per my editor's request I decide to...
OK - I know the black oxide finish denotes sockets intended for use on impact wrenches, and chrome is all other read: hand tool of whatever kind. Q: Can i use an impact soket on my trusty old ratchet, or is that a no-no? I can see a socket beingf...
It's my understanding that French set yoghurts, when made at home, are made by culturing the yoghurt in the container in which it will be served (is my understanding correct?). However, this cannot be true of commercial yoghurts, though, can it? ...
I'm well aware that Geek Squad has a reputation for being the next best thing to a scam - overpriced, undertrained, and generally ranging from incompetent to awful. So...who should I call? What's wrong with my computer? Heck if I know. It's slow,...
Anyone know how shithouse rats became "the" definition of crazy?
Why are there two teams in the Premiership with claret and blue kits (West Ham and Aston Villa)? A couple of teams in red I could understand, but claret and blue isn't really a common colour combination, is it?
When Concorde was decommissioned, what happened to the pilots that used to fly those planes (this holds for any plane taken out of service, I suppose)? Were they made redundant, retrained, or what?
When you have a cold, what is it in snot that turns it green? Surely it's bacteria of some sort creating some substance, but what is that substance?
Did Kemal Ataturk have any cousins? This is for a bar bet - need answer fast! :wink:
I have a single betta fish who was living in a small 2 gallon tank with a light. Something went wrong with the hood so I decided to replace the whole tank and bought a 1.5 gal. cube with a Whisper filter and light. Got it all set up and the fish...
Is there any truth to the idea that on average, a mongrel dog will outlive a pedigree one? Are mongrels any more illness resistant than their posher counterparts? Does the same apply with cat's? Or have the studies not been done to give a...
When did it cease to be a scandal for a man or woman of good social stature to be in the company of actors? If my understanding is correct, the Victorians saw actors as an underclass, so presumably sometime after the nineteenth century, but when,...
What is the typical day in the life of a foreign ambassador? What sort of things do they do?
Realistically, if NATO and the Eastern Bloc would have started fighting in the early 80's (for instance), and the war went nuclear, what would the effects on the planet have been? Are we talking about an end to all life apart from bacteria and...
On Monday there's a meeting coming up for our homeowners association and they're looking for people to run for office, even including president. Sounds exciting. Ok, maybe not, but it sounds like a chance to do something I've never done before and...
Last night while coming home from work, I saw a big, fluffy black and white cat darting across the highway. I slowed down as much as I could, but I'd been going highway speeds and there were cars behind me, so I wasn't going to come to a dead stop....
While reading a blog this morning, I came across this bizarre claim in one of the comments: My parents are both biochemists, and they occasionally have to teach nutrition classes for medical students. Here’s their response whenever someone...
...for my coursework which is due in tomorrow! :smack I have a variable scope problem which I'm not sure how to resolve. Okay I have code that looks like this (simplified, assume it's within a 'main' function, which is inside a class with the...
I was just reading the Wikipedia page on left-handedness. This isn't very well cited, and seems to have lots of weasel words and references to books (which may or may not be a load of rubbish). Is there any concrete evidence for a difference in...
As a child my family vacationed in Maine. The tides there are legendary. It was explained to me that the ocean is so wide at that point that .... something something something. OK, so why are tide extreme in one place and not another?
Every now and then my internet provider (cable) gives me a new IP. I haven't had one for some time now. Is there any way to get around a website blocking my IP? I've seen the odd "Anonymous Browsing" website out there, that'll let you browse...
Some of the current names for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan appear to be made to bolster a certain political viewpoint, rather than be used as cryptic codewords for a certain campaign or operation. For instance, the current American campaign...
Yesterday a pot of boiling water hugely overflowed when I tried to dump in some pasta (it was one of those explosive reactions) and it flooded the stove. The spark thingies started going crazy and sparking nonstop, so BF unplugged the power from it...
It seems to have become a truism that doing crossword puzzles helps ward off dementia, but what is the evidence, really? I've seen anecdotes in the media about "people who do crosswords never get Alzeimers", but I'm skeptical. Obviously an elderly...
Bear with me. I have come to realise that I own a lot of videos which are taking up a lot of space. I no longer watch them because the video player is downstairs and the TV is up. So. I thought I would copy my favourites to disc and then throw the...
I've always thought that revolvers are loud, prone to failure and slow to reload when compared to semiautomatic handguns, which was why the latter were invented in the first place. Here and there I pick up the notion that revolvers are more...
There's a few names in the members list that are almost certainly spammers (e.g. FreePornMovies), yet haven't made a post. Why is this? Surely they've done the hardest part by managing to negotiate the registration procedure, only to fail to...
My 'scrip' is faxed to Wal-Mart from a city twenty miles away. By the time I arrive and wait in a ten minute line, they say they don't have it. No, hell no, I insist. You MUST have it. Go check. She meanders away, out of sight behind the big...
I was asked this by a friend the other day and couldn't answer. Here in Italy there is no tradition for wearing mortarboards at a graduation, she wondered if it was just an English/American thing and how the tradition came about. Anyone out there...
Clayton_e's question sparked a memory from childhood and I found a picture and I know the name, but what is the purpose of a vertical lift bridge? farm2.static.flickr.com/1339/1406491165_c7fae343d8.jpg?v=0
I have googled and googled and I can't find the answer to this seemingly simple question. Is it even possible to link an entire sheet from one workbook into another in Excel 2007? I know how to link individual cells but it would make much more...
I currently have Time Warner standard cable. I'm kinda curious about switching to digital cable (mostly out of interest in Extra Innings), but there are things I don't know. Does digital cable always require a box? Can it work with my beloved...
I remember reading something like that a long time ago and although I may have got the number wrong, the gist of it was that between birth and death, there were only a fixed amount of 'life situations'. Here's a few I thought of, but can you help...
In this story about a drug bust on the border, "customs officers discovered that the gas tank sending unit located under the rear seat of her vehicle had been tampered with, police said." WTF? Are they taking out seats at random now?
What does it and other bots that appear in the members list do, exactly?
So here's the thing: My sister's husband is a bit of a conspiracy theory fan and always makes sure to pull out all his quackery at the family gatherings. For some stuff, like his explanations of the whole Nibiru thing, I'm content to let him yak...
When you're quitting something really heavy like crack or heroin, what does the withdrawal feel like?
So, the headaches have been getting bad. In fact, I've begun referring to it as The Headache, as it returns promptly around 11 a.m. and shows up any time the pain pills wear off. Since it's either remain in a drugged stupor or try to find a root...
One of the major trends in the US in recent years has been financial troubles at many of the major daily newspapers. Several formerly healthy newspapers have either morphed into online only versions (like the Seattle Post-Intelligencer) or have...
What are the practical differences between 5W20 and 5W30. All the paperwork for my engine makes it seem like the car will explode if I use the 30 instead of the 20. I mean, they make a point in stating how important the 20 is for my engine and for...
I recall that in some states it is legal for minors to drink if they are with a legal guardian. So are teenagers given wine for communion if they go to church with their parents?
Why do I lose weight when I drink water more regularly? Or is the question really: why do I gain weight when I let myself get dehydrated?
Up until a few weeks ago, I assumed that most Canadians used the metric system, except for perhaps some elderly folks that were "too old to learn those newfangled measures" (or what have you). However, thanks to the magic of the Internet, I've...
It's more or less in the title, but how did horses manage in the wild before 'hoof pedicurists' arrived on the scene and decided they needed better footwear?
Question is in the title.
Am buyingf a house (Sacto CA). Instead of a back yard, it has an old pool/spa. This may or may not explain the prescence of the crud on the sliding door. There are 2 sliders (family room, master bedroom) - only one side of the family room door is...
What exactly is the status of hypnosis, and hypnotherapy? Is it a load of rubbish, or is there something really going on?
I've always wondered this. What's so special about their design that it requires them to have fuzz?
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