1. What’s the difference between a sauce and a condiment? – Susan W., Tallahassee, FL
A condiment enhances the flavor of food and is used sparingly. A sauce adds an additional flavor or richness of its own to the dish, and may be used generously.
2. Is there a name for that special credit where at the end of a bunch of TV or movie credits you get one that’s like “and WILLIAM P. DINWIDDIE as LORD HALFANDHALF?” – Jim S., San Francisco, CA
I’m glad you asked that, Jim. Frequently as part of the negotiations involved in taking a part in a TV show or movie, an agent will include a stipulation that the actor gets a certain special credit in the opening credits or, in the case of a movie, on the poster. They may strike a deal for a “single card”, which means that the actor’s credit will appear alone in the screen credits, not shown onscreen along with any other actor’s name. For an actor in a particularly strong negotiating position, they may be able to secure a “character credit”, in which the actor is specially identified as playing a particular character on the poster or in the opening credits, while most of the actors are credited by name only.
3. Why does a mirror reverse images left to right and not top to bottom?
I’m getting to this one. I have the answer but haven’t had the time to put it down here.
4. Why don’t you ever see grape ice cream? I mean, it seems like the sort of thing they should have, doesn’t it? Maybe Orange ice cream, too.They have sherbet in those flavors, but not ice cream.
I don’t have the answers to everything.
5. Suppose you had in your hands a CD you don’t expect to see again, and you want to make a lossless copy that you can later convert to mp3 or AAC if necessary. Which lossless format do you use? -Christopher G., via internet
SHN can only do 16-bit audio, while FLAC can encode 24, if you’re into that. But for CD quality (16-bit) files, any lossless format will produce the same audio results upon decoding, it’s only the non-audio features of the format that distinguish them. The primary disadvantage of SHN is ID3 tags aren’t supported.
FLAC has become the most widely supported standard, it’s open source, supports higher bitrates to keep the nerds happy, and can include ID3 tags in the file so when your cat walks across the keyboard and accidentally renames a FLAC file you don’t necessary lose the track info. Plus FLAC is compressed by happy bits that are paid a living wage and get full medical, generous vacation time, and maternity leave, while SHN is compressed by bits earning poverty wages on a contractor basis, which are strapped to a Huffman table and cruelly beaten if they don’t meet their processor benchmarks.
6. Is the water currently in the world all the water there ever was? I am concerned because people pollute it and disrespect it. Are we using the same water dinosaurs bathed in? -Kennedy S., Indiana, USA
If it makes you feel any better, there are plenty of chemical reactions in which H20 molecules are created or destroyed. Hydrogen peroxide hydrolyzes into water, whereas interactions with alkali metals oxidize water into hydrogen gas. So, today’s water is probably not the same water as dinosaurs swam in. It’s all been broken down and recombined and been a million other chemicals at different times, just like any other substance.
That is, if we allow for the persistent existence of individual atoms, which quantum physics doesn’t.
It is as close as I come to religious belief to think that something analogous to this also happens to human consciousness through the life cycle.
(Incidentally, I know very little about chemistry, but I happened to know that. Because I used to make fun of people who believed in reincarnation by pulling out an ice cube and saying, “Maybe after this ice cube melts, someday it will come back as a different ice cube! WoooOOOoooOOOooOOO!”
I’ve actually come up with a better answer since then, I think the whole idea of ‘reincarnation’ misses the point. Life isn’t ilke an ice cube, it’s actually more like a candle flame. If you blow out a candle, can the flame ever come back as another flame? No, because there’s no such thing as fire, it’s a mental construct. There’s a process that produces an effect we describe as a “flame” but it’s not really a thing, it’s just appearances, “flame” is a label we stick on a range of effects we frequently happen to observe together. So is “I”.)
