What do you think of the kissing tradition in Egypt?
I'm really surprised that we share so much in common ;) I think that's really gross too. When I first came to Egypt for college lots of people I had never even seen before would try to kiss me when being introdued for the first time. I would pull back and simply extend my arm at full length to simply shake hands! I don't really like strangers invading my personal space! The result of course, was that I was not exactly miss popular! People thought this was an indication that I was stuck up, vain and rude! When friends got to really know me they expressed their surprise at how different I was from that initial impression I had made when they first met me! In other words, they were surprised that I didn't turn out to be a total jerk after all! In addition to being unhealthy and gross, I also think of this as being a kind of hypocrisy. Kissing someone is supposed to be a sign of affection. Why on earth would I ever want to kiss someone whom I don't even know?! Even with friends, it doesn't make any sense to me to kiss my friend every time I see her when I see her every day! It's really silly. My friends have long since gotten used to my view and have come to accept it. They'd all kiss every day in college when we saw each other in the morning, but would only shake hands with me! They were very surprised when I once kissed my best friend who had been absent a few days. Upon saying "ishmi3na ba2a?!" I told them because that was a real expression of affection since I had really missed her! However, now that I have graduated and married and have more social obligations I can't really afford to hold myself to my ideals and standards :( I have to accept this gross form of greeting from people I barely know just because thay are relatives of my hubby or people he knows. I have to say though that for me two is more than enough! After that I pull back, unless of course the other person is really "3'itit" and pulls you back by force to continue the charade of mwah mwah in the air! As for my colleagues, they know me well enough to respect my wishes and thankfully I'm not forced to undergo that stupid air kissing at work. I mean for heaven's sake most people just smack their lips really loud right next to your cheek! If I really feel like greeting a friend with a kiss, it's a real heart felt kiss on the cheek, not that stupid lip smacking in the air! So I'm all with you on this one Ruby!
Is there empty space outside the universe?
I’ll add this amazing answer from crnaruka from What is outside the observable universe?EXCERPT:The best answer is that not only do we not know what is going on outside of our observable universe, but we simply can't know what happens there.To better get a sense for what I mean, let me point out that the term "observable universe" is somewhat misleading. The truth is that we can't actually observe what we call the observable universe in the usual sense, i.e. we can't watch it in real time The reason is that it takes light from a distant object at least about as long to reach us as the distance from that object divided by the speed of light. I say at least because as the light is traveling, the space it is passing through is also expanding. This expansion means that it takes longer for the light to reach us than you might expect from our initial separation to the source as shown in this diagram:It's for this reason that the edge of the observable universe is 46 billion light years way, while the age of the universe is less than 14 billion years.Following the reasoning above, what defines the "unobservable universe" is that we could never have received light from those regions. The importance of this fact is deeper than it may seem at first sight. The speed of light is not just the speed at which a wave of light ravels in a vacuum, but it is in effect a cosmic speed limit for causality.What this idea means is that not only can we not detect what goes on beyond the observable universe, but as far as we are concerned that part of the universe might as well not exist.Now to be fair, the fact the observable universe seems so uniform may make us want to extrapolate that the rest of the universe is probably similar. But in reality we just can't know. Even if much of the distant universe consisted of galactic-sized armadillos fighting for supremacy, we could never see or feel the effect of those clashes.[/EXCERPT]
What is the difference between initializing a string to null and initializing a string to an empty string (for the Java language)?
Declaring a String in the following wayString s = null;will throw a NullPointerException if you try to access it before initializing it, or giving it some value, which means, the String s has not yet been allocated space in memory. In other words, ‘s’ is not present in memory.On the other hand, the instructionString s = "";will not throw a NullPointerException, which means that memory has been allocated for the String variable ‘s’. Yet, no value is stored at that location, so you still cannot access it before initializing. For example, if you execute this :String s = "";System.out.println(s.charAt(0));It will throw an ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException, because the size of the String is 0, and it has nothing stored at 0th location.Hope you got it.Yeah, so a friend commented that memory is allocated when we doString s = null;and he is right. Here’s a catch, though - that memory is not where eventually a String literal would be stored. One thing missing in my answer is that String variables in java do not actually hold a String value, like an int or float variable. They store a reference(address) to that literal. I’m going to use an analogy, which I think would make this answer simpler.Imagine you have a house somewhere. You write its address on a piece of paper, because you would not want to search the whole world every time you want to reach home. The land where your house is, is java’s constant memory pool(do read about it), where String literals(houses) are stored. This scenario is just like doingString s = "my address";In another scenario, lets say you have a piece of paper, but it has no address written on it. Mind you, it has the potential to hold an address - it’s just not holding one right now. This means that there is no place on earth, where the contents of that paper are pointing to, even though this piece of paper is taking up space in your notebook. This notebook space is the one our friend here is talking about. In our case, this is just like doing,String s = null;In a third scenario, you have a piece of paper, and it has an address on it - but, if you go to that address and see for yourself, you will find nothing. The amount of land area which this address id referring to is ‘0’. This happens when we doString s = “”;I’m guessing everything is clear now.
Is it true that everything has water in it?
Almost all living things do, with the exception of certain very rare life forms that can survive when completely desiccated. Even bacteria contain water. Viruses generally do not, as is the case with prions, if we want to count them as life forms.That said, lot’s of things have no water in them. For example, diamonds, or pure mercury. When first manufactured, steel contains no water, nor do refined petroleum products (although they can adsorb trace amounts later).But what really matters is, due to invasive bamboo roots, my darn swimming pool has no water in it either.And tragically, soon the same may be true about Cape Town, South Africa. And that’s no joke at all.
How would a dead human body decompose in space compared to on earth? would no gravity play a factor?
(Decompose) 1. To separate into components or basic elements. 2. To cause to rot. v.intr. 1. To become broken down into components; disintegrate. Well no oxygen (yes) However the human body lives on earth in a protected environment. In space you would not decompose but evaporate from the heat from the sun or end up freezing once you got to far away from it. To the guy that said you would loose all your bodys water and dry up. Thats not 100 % true. It depends on where in space you die. Lets say your on a trip to pluto and your there. You wont loose any water at all you would freeze and go through space as a frozen iceman and when you eventualy came into another atmosphere millions of light years later you could end up landing on a moon like ours and making a big splash and be buried on another planet for millions of years untill you are discovered by aliens and they bring you back to life. good luck.
In the opening of Avengers, did Thanos know one of the Infinity stones was in Loki’s sceptre? If he did, then why did he still give it to him?
Thanos definitely knew what was within the Sceptre, though Loki did not.Thanos found Loki after the events of Thor, and Loki told him of Earth. Thanos probably even used the Sceptre to mess with Loki's mind. When S.H.I.E.L.D. started messing with the Tesseract, the Mind Stone within the Sceptre must have flared up. Thanos realized that the Tesseract is on Earth, and knew that he could use Loki to retrieve it. Loki wanted to rule Earth as a God, and was willing to do anything to achieve that end. Thanos lent Loki the Sceptre and an army of Chitauri warriors to take over Earth, so long as Loki gave Thanos both the Tesseract and the Sceptre back.The Tesseract, the Space Stone, is by far the most important for Thanos's plans. With it, he could travel instantly to wherever he desired, including the locations of the other Stones. Thanos recognized how important the Space Stone was and gambled the Mind Stone to retrieve it. Thanos also knew that if Loki failed, the humans were too stupid to realize what the items were, and he could grab them at a later date.Edit: I forgot to explain why Thanos didn't go to Earth himself to retrieve the Tesseract.Thanos is playing a game of 4d chess with the entire universe. In GotG it is shown that the Nova Corp are aware of Thanos and they are attempting to keep an eye on him. Thanos cannot reveal his intentions yet, as there are beings more powerful than him who are surely watching him as well. These beings are the Cosmic entities that were briefly mentioned in GotG by the collector. Thanos must hide his plans until everything is in place, only then can he show himself and take the Stones that he has so desired.
OMG!!! I got sharpie all over my face... i don't know how to get it off.. somebody please help?
Cold cream. Let it sit on your face for around 5 minutes or so and then tissue off. You might have to do it twice. You should clean your face with soap after you tissue the cold cream off. Try Ponds. It is pretty good and not nearly as expensive as most others. Another method - use eye make-up remover. I think cold cream is the best.