posted
I'm often coming across small questions that I wouldn't mind knowing the answer to, but that I don't quite care enough to actually try and find the answer. So let's have a thread for small questions, that you'd like an actual answer to. (As opposed to that thread where you answer a question with another question.)
Let's keep it to one question per post.
I'll get us started with something it seems like I should know but has been bothering me for several days now: we have patricide, matricide, and fratricide but what's the term for sister killing? (Less morbid questions are fine too!)
Posts: 1621 | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think it would be good to answer someone else's question before asking a new question, or at any rate seeing it got answered. Like, I'm pretty sure the Daylight savings question would be answered on Wikipedia. I'm guessing 1800 or so. It's often ascribed to the genius of Ben Franklin, though I think the people who suggest that actually want his body dug up and shot repeatedly.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
It occurred to me that I should just look it up myself, but I liked the idea so much I wanted to participate. I'll get a-draggin'.
Posts: 368 | Registered: Dec 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by luthe: The peak of Mount Chimborazo.
Close. That's the point that's farthest from the center of the Earth. We're looking for the point that's farthest from the Earth's axis of rotation.
Posts: 1810 | Registered: Jan 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
What's that song the soldiers sing in the Bill Murray movie Stripes, and where can I find the original version?
Posts: 2705 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I've never seen the movie... Wanna tell which song you mean? (All I'm finding listed is Rubberband Man by The Spinners.)
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: I've never seen the movie... Wanna tell which song you mean? (All I'm finding listed is Rubberband Man by The Spinners.)
Thanks, but I found it. It was doo wah diddy diddy.
Anyone know how to make my comp region free for DVDs? I'm on Vista.
Posts: 2705 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
My mom bought Stripes at Shopko the other day. It was 2 for 1 so she also got Krull the Conqueror.
I don't think plants have nervous systems. Of course, I don't think Provo City Council Members have them either, so I may not be the best person to ask.
Can I take a nap now?
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Why is it that even the most basic DVD players in places like New Zealand and Australia are multi-region but in the US you're stuck with only single region players?
Posts: 867 | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Because movie studios are in tight with both electronics manufacturers and lawmakers in the US. Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Stealing, because that is on the Top Ten "Thou Shalt Not" list. I mean, you can go to jail for that, or at least have to pay a fine and do community service. Not to mention the black black mark on your eternal soul.
You get stolen from, you file a claim with your insurance. No need to confess your felony transgression on every job application for the rest of your life.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
From the PoV of another random Galaxy I would guess it's the highest point above MSL on the Equator at the midpoint of night when the Earth is Rimward of the sun...
Posts: 3846 | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Well, from a far enough point of reference, isn't the whole solar system cooking along pretty fast? I mean, the question has to bound the frame of reference to some degree.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Well, surely we can reasonably discount the motion of the galaxy and the solar system and say that if introduced to the other factors at would make the other factors (such as Earth's rotation around the sun) negligible.
However, if we count the Earth's rotation around the sun, surely as the Earth spins on its axis the side that's going the same direction as the rotation (which would obviously be changing all the time) be going fastest? So, there's obviously a point that is going fastest of all those points. An object such as a train going along the ground at exactly that point, would be even faster, and that would be the fastest point on Earth, for that brief moment that all the 'points' coincide.
I agree that going from Earth's axis makes the most sense.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
So, Fannie Mae and Sallie Mae are completely different organizations and the failing* of one should not worry me about loans coming from the other, right?
Edit: Also, Rush concerts on Colbert Report reruns are awesome.
*ETA: or rather the recent troubling times which may have lead to failing but were "fixed" by (still) decision makers, and whether or not those band-aids will solve anything is yet to be seen.
posted
No nervous systems they are run by hormones boohoo no growing a brain plant (that was my last interest into biology.)
Posts: 1574 | Registered: May 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
Can Dagonee actually hack Hatrack to put up big blinking letters? That would be totally sweet!
Posts: 1327 | Registered: Aug 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
So why do we nickel (I'm guessing that it's nickel) plate some keys? The nickel just wears off and then you see, shockingly, that it's actually just a brass key, like every other key on your ring.
Also I think those new key machines that cut the key themselves are terrible. You give them an old worn out key and you get back a shiny new worn out key. Winner.
Posts: 1621 | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Maybe they are plating the keys to make them different colors so they are easier to distinguish on your key ring? Or maybe people like shiny new things, so they prefer the shiny silvery keys to the brass ones.
I'm in charge of a big nursing home at night. You ought to see the big bunch of keys that I have to carry with me -- the keys to everything in the building. Lessee, I've got 25 of them with me right now, in varying degrees of brassiness and platedness. I must be some kind of genius to be able to find the right key to the right lock in that whole bunch.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
So that when you hand someone a huge stack of keys, and you say, "Which one's the one to the thing?" they can say, "One of the little silver ones."
Posts: 368 | Registered: Dec 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by luthe: The peak of Mount Chimborazo.
Close. That's the point that's farthest from the center of the Earth. We're looking for the point that's farthest from the Earth's axis of rotation.
But since it is so close to the equator anyways (nearly one degree, I believe), wouldn't it be fairly likely to be the fastest anyways?
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by ricree101: But since it is so close to the equator anyways (nearly one degree, I believe), wouldn't it be fairly likely to be the fastest anyways?
*nod* Likely, yes, which is one of the reasons I find this question so interesting. If I recall correctly, Chimborazo is the second-fastest point on Earth, not counting the points immediately adjacent to the fastest point. Linearly and Earth-centrically speaking.
Posts: 1810 | Registered: Jan 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Sean Monahan: How does a rechargable battery work?
First of all how does a battery work? A battery is made of an electochemical reaction, oxidation at the negative electrode and reduction at the positive. For a regular battery we don't really care if the reaction that we choose is reversible but an efficiently reversible reaction is what allows a rechargable battery to be reused. For example in a NiCad battery the redox reaction is the following:
2NiO(OH) + Cd + 2H2O → 2Ni(OH)2 + Cd(OH)2
We divide this into two half reactions, one of which happens at the cadmium elctrode and one at the nickel. At the cadmium electrode: Cd + 2OH- → Cd(OH)2 + 2e- and at the nickel electrode: 2NiO(OH) + 2H2O + 2e- → 2Ni(OH)2 + 2OH-
Here e- is the symbol for electrons. We see that the cadmium elctrode (the negative elctrode) produces electrons and the nickel electrode needs electrons. These electrons pass through the external circuit that you've connected the battery to, which is why batteries do not discharge unless the are connected to a circuit of some kind.
Since a NiCad is a rechargable battery we can safely and efficiently run these reactions the other way (replace all of the → with ←) by running a current the other way around, reproducing the original reactants, recharging the battery.
You can recharge an alkaline battery but the battery will be less efficient after every recharge cycle and there are dangers of the battery producing hydrogen gas, cracking and leaking. The safety and efficiency of the recharging is really the difference between the two.
Posts: 1621 | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
That's the point that's farthest from the center of the Earth. We're looking for the point that's farthest from the Earth's axis of rotation.
![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
