Yaybob

Twenty-one spots were awarded by lottery to various groups to display holiday messages. The atheists got 15, the Christians 2, and the Jews 1. Somebody is crying conspiracy. Assuming only these thre groups participated, and each had an equal chance - 1 in 3 - of winning, what are the odds?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2073879/Ha...

Thank you.

I realize that I am lame, but nevertheless, I cannot figure out or find out how to enable and use my integrated 2.0 megapixel webcam on my Dell Inspiron 1525. I bought the computer used and have no booklets. Help and Support on the Start Button has only one entry when I search webcam (frankly, I'm not sure if that's help for the computer or Vista). Google has been fruitless after about 45 minutes of various searches. I couldn't find a messageboard discussing this, something I've been able to do for other problems in the past. I've pressed the Dell Media Direct button hoping to find a lead. I've looked on the control panel with no luck. Really, I know next to nothing about computers, but I have made a good faith effort to get this answer without luck. Bottom line is I need basic directions. How can I use my webcam on the internet both with people with webcams and those like parents without? What do I click or push to make it work, or do I need to download some driver or find some set-up wizard other item first (these are new terms for me just discovered in this fruitless search). Please assume you're communicating with a complete idiot basket case who knows relatively little jargon.

We had the fifties, the sixties, the seventies, etc. What do we call this decade? The noughts? What did they call it a century ago, between the gay nineties (1890-99) and the roaring twenties (1920-29)?

And what will be call next decade? The teens?

I’ve recently begun using Opera as my browser, which I basically like (skip down to the word “QUESTION” if you don’t care why and just want to get to the question), especially because it offers tabbed windows that remember the order that they were visited (Mozilla always defaults to the neighboring tab if I close one, not the one from which I created the new tab, which is usually where I would rather be, especially if its one of the Yahoo! Answers pages of recent questions asked on a category page). Also, if my computer freezes when I have several windows of several tabs each opened and I am forced to reboot, Opera allows me the option of reopening all of the windows and tabs open at the time of the crash upon reopening the browser. Also, it offers a speed dial function. But I haven’t been able to solve a few problems even with the tutorial, so my hope is that somebody here will be familiar enough with the browser to help me.

The locus of all points on a two dimensional Cartesian coordinate system is a plane containing the x and y axes. This is conceptually simple. Even though the object is infinite and unbounded in two dimensions, it is easily imagined and well defined (x = any, y = any).

Does the geometric object comprising all of the points in a three dimensional coordinate system have a name? Clearly it is not a solid sphere of infinite radius just as a plane is not a solid circle of infinite radius. We could just as easily call them infinite cubes and squares, respectively.

What very famous rock guitarist, ranked among the top 50 greatest rock guitarist of all time by Rolling Stone magazine, has recently completed his doctoral thesis in astrophysics?

When a typical child draws a daytime, outdoor scene, she generally will draw the sun in yellow, the sky in blue, and the ground in either green or brown, depending on whether she is drawing grass or dirt. If she were on the moon today instead, what colors would she need to do the equivalent daytime moonscape, also depicting the sun, the sky and the ground ?

Who will join me?

I would like all fellow Answerers, especially Top Contributors, to join others and me in blocking Askers who give Best Answer to correct answers that aren’t first from receiving future help. This is an annoying and rude habit of some Askers, which I consider akin to stiffing a waitress for a tip. It isn’t the end of the world, I know, but neither is being blocked. It is, however, ungrateful and unjust, and, in my opinion, unkind. And there is no good reason for it.

There are a few of us doing this already. Will you join us? Whenever this happens, we leave a message like the following in the Comments field: “Did you know that a number of Top Contributors (TCs) agree that if an Asker chooses other than the first correct answer as Best, that s/he is being unjust, unkind and ungrateful, and doesn’t value or deserve further help from TCs. Consider yourself blocked by me and other TCs who agree.” (297 characters)

CONT

The following clues correspond to two-word phrases that contain the series of letters WWI in them, always with one word ending in “-W” followed by another beginning with “WI-“, with a space between them.

Example: U.S. president during World War I. Answer:“WOODROW WILSON”,.

In no particular order are the list of words that end in W and also in random order is another list of words beginning with WI. Your job is to fit one from each column together and solve the puzzle. Have fun. Best answer is the first with the most correct answers.

CLUES

1. “Cash or charge?”

2. Found on a canary

3. See as suspicious

4. Describes the shape of a shoe

5. Become unruly

6. Electrical hazard for barnstorming pilots

7. What a man gets when he says “I do” at the altar

8. Alcoholic beverage made from raisins

9. Replacements for the windshield

10. Store’s glassed room visible from the street

11. Cold breeze

12. Mentally challenged

Each of the following clues has an answer containing the letters GAGA in that order (spaces permitted).

Example: Jerry Seinfeld (GAG Artist).

First answer with the most right is Best. You’re on the honor system not to get answers from previous posters. There won’t be room for me to post the answers, so I will email them to everyone who plays that accepts emails (if you don’t normally, you might want to activate that option just for today). Good luck and have fun (Incidentally, this was inspired by and half taken from a crossword puzzle).

1. Preparing a bacterial culture

2. Dawdle

3. Stunned speechless

4. Loses it

5. Imitate a judge

6. An ovum, compared to a spermatozoan

7. No, try a third time

8. Fix a competition

9. Risky behavior

10. A turnip patch

11. Salsa or cilantro from Taco Bell

12. A way to win Wimbleton

13. Why Caesar’s appendix scar showed

14. Helping to build a Gothic cathedral

15. Order a courtroom participant not to sp

If you think that it is wrong to partially answer a question with a few words just to get your answer registered, and then go back and finish it with an edit, why? I do this and I think that it irritates some people, because I come back with my completed answer and find a thumbs down.

Some people don’t care about points or best answer percentages. For me and I’m sure many others, it’s a principle motivating factor. It’s a main reason why we’re here, and why we try to give the best and earliest answer possible. We are competitive and like the game structure.

Others don’t care about that. They just want to be helpful and/or have fun. So do I, but I also want to see how well I can do. Without that incentive, I would do this much, much less. Yahoo! Answers understands and recognizes this. That’s why they give these points. If you play chess or bridge competitively, you know it’s the same. (CONT)

I am on Yahoo Answers both at home and work (I'm self-employed if you're wondering). When I give somebody a thumbs up on my Dell laptop at home (Explorer browser), I see the thumb come back with a 1 beside it. When I do the same thing at work (AMD Athlon tower / desktop, Mozilla Firefox browser), it says "thanks for rating", and the thumbs don't come back. Anybody have any thoughts about why they're different?

These are some terrible puns on some U.S. states’ names. My apologies in advance. The first highest score is the Best Answer. Example: 0. what’s up? how are ya - Hawaii

1. Proper weapon handling technique

2. Eastern potentate is more frisky

3. “That card game’s a piece of cake” says the king of Siam

4. The skull reminded Hamlet that he ________

5. A cul-de-sac in a partitioned street lane

6. The cartoon pinhead’s wife

7. Smith, the deceased race car junkie

8. Dentures after eating licorice

9. Annoy the title holder

10. Ink is considered more proper in these parts

11. Make eyes at a famous seascape

12. Scales for Perry’s assistant

13. I’m gonna find out what she thinks

14. She did me a big favor

15. What’s a four letter slang word for bottoms?

16. Mickey called it in to go

17. No longer radiant

18. Which Manson follower's a man?

19. How could you choose that pigeon?

20. Former Redskins’ head coach at an A.A. meeting.

Far too many of the people on this site are like flies with their illiterate, ignorant arrogance and crude manners. Its like somebody has left the screen door open. Where do they all come from? I think I know.

I suppose all one needs do it to look at America’s most prominent thinkers - most prominent preachers and politicians - the heads of those two great bastions of social and moral norms, the church and state, and it is apparent that leadership is the problem.

The American church and government have undoubtedly severely degraded America culture. Evolution and global warming deniers come to mind. And leadership’s examples of hypocrisy, hatred, indifference, selfishness and moral turpitude are too numerous to cite. The flies come by it honestly.

The most prominent Christian and politician, the lord of the flies, embodies the intellectual and moral collapse of America beautifully.

And I'm glad my life is more than half over. I have no interest in seeing where this is going

Far too many of the people on this site are like flies with their illiterate, ignorant arrogance and crude manners. Its like somebody has left the screen door open. Where do they all come from? I think I know.

I suppose all one needs do it to look at America’s most prominent thinkers - most prominent preachers and politicians - the heads of those two great bastions of social and moral norms, the church and state, and it is apparent that leadership is the problem.

The American church and government have undoubtedly severely degraded America culture. Evolution and global warming deniers come to mind. And leadership’s examples of hypocrisy, hatred, indifference, selfishness and moral turpitude are too numerous to cite. The flies come by it honestly.

The most prominent Christian and politician, the lord of the flies, embodies the intellectual and moral collapse of America beautifully.

And I'm glad my life is more than half over. I have no interest in seeing where this goes.

1. Whispering, or a whisper

2. Laughing, or a laugh

3. Stomach gurgling

4. Sighing, or to sigh

5. Burping, or to burp

6. Sneezing, or to sneeze

7. Yawning, or a yawn

8. Hiccuping, or a hiccup

The most correct answer will be the one with the most correct parts, ties decided by order. I'll provide the answers later.

I am aware that the sun looks yellow from earth due to the atmospheric scattering of short wavelength (blue) light - the same reason that the daytime sky is blue. I am also aware that from space, where this effect does not occur, the sun appears white.

[a] Why, then, do the stars appear white when viewed through earth’s atmosphere? I understand that from such distances, the little bit of blue light that would be scattered wouldn’t light the nighttime sky or make it appear blue in color. But shouldn’t the little bit of starlight that passes through the atmosphere be yellowed like sunlight?

[b] Also, since twinkling of stars is an atmospheric effect like the shimmering mirages on the desert or those over hot asphalt - worse the warmer the night and the more active the atmosphere - why doesn’t the midday sun twinkle or shimmer when seen through our warm daytime atmosphere? Even low on the horizon when it is red and ditorted, it's still not "twinkling." Why just distant stars?

[1] Some of the explorers of the 16th century were looking for a shorter route to Asia through the Northwest Passage to make it easier to get spices home. What was the incentive to risk death from imagined sea monsters or sailing off of the edge of the world to get spice when most of us wouldn't even make a special trip to the store just because we're out of pepper or cinnamon? (Hint: it's not exactly for the reason you and I use spice)

[2] Why was turning water into wine considered a good and helpful miracle, something befitting a deity? After all if somebody wanted to impress the world today, would they turn water into whiskey or beer? No. More likely the other way around. Why was wine better than water? (Hint: it has nothing to do with intoxication)

[1] Why is the dark side of the moon called dark? (Hint: it's not because it gets less sunlight)

[2] Why are the dark ages called dark? (Also unrelated to sunlight)

If ALL of the whole numbers [0, 1, 2, 3, … , infinity] were written out and spelled in American English (and there are an infinite number of them, including such monsters as five hundred sixty-three trillion two hundred forty-nine billion sixty million one hundred sixty-seven thousand four hundred and nine [which looks like 563,249,060,167,409]) – and then alphabetized,

(a) what would be the first number on the list,

(b) what would be the second number on the list, and

(c) what would be the last number on the list (as if you’re ever going to get there – bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!).

Note that if we were only alphabetizing 4, 5, 14, 50, 60 and the monster, they would go fifty, five, [the monster: five hundred…], four, fourteen and sixty ( = 50, 5, [563,249,060,167,409], 4, 14 and 60).