Yahoo! Answers

Hey Guys,

Consider for a moment the wristwatch. For centuries (or at least a whole lot of decades), it’s been a mainstay. For some, it was a fashion choice. For others, it was a necessity–people needed a way to know what time it was. But now, with cell phones everywhere, are wristwatches going the way of the typewriter?

Anecdotally, the evidence certainly points that way. In meetings, at malls, and on planes, I notice fewer and fewer people wearing watches and checking their phones instead. I did some research on the Web to see if the statistics backed up the observations.

I’m hardly the first to postulate this theory. Back in 2005, the St. Petersburg Times ran a story on the growing trend of young people shunning watches in favor of phones. A story from ABC explains that watch sales fell 10% from 2005 to 2006 among the “price category most frequently purchased by teens and young adults.”

Slate hosts an interesting article that focuses on Fossil watches–in 2005 and 2006, sales fell with a moderate thud. And MSNBC reports that nearly two-thirds of teenagers never wear a watch. Makes sense–as the article points out, you can now get the time not just from your phone, but from your computer, your cable box, and the clock in the car.

I also found an official UK report on watch sales. It’s a little dense, but from what I can tell, they’re on the decline. Whether that’s due to cell phones, the economy, or both, I’m not really sure.

What about you guys? Do you still wear a watch or has your cell phone rendered it obsolete? Please leave a comment below.

Thanks for reading,

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It happens sometimes: You post a question and get no answer, or you can’t find that “best answer.”  Here’s a quick reminder of how you can save points while getting the most  from your questions.

• Once your question is open for business, you can always add details. Just hover your mouse over the “edit” section under your question to more fully explain the scope of your question and what type of help you are asking for..

• Instead of asking the same question again, why not give the community more time to answer? You have the option to extend the expiration of your question by four days — plenty of time to increase your chance at getting the answer you are looking for. Since your question is initially given four days to be resolved, extending it means eight days to get an answer. At the end of the eight days, you will either have to pick a Best Answer or put your question up for voting. You will not be able to extend it any further. (Updated)

• If your question expires without an answer, it will disappear. If you just don’t see a great answer and your question goes to a vote (and the No Best Answer option is chosen as best) , you will recover the 5 points and you can post it again. However, think before asking again. Did you provide enough details? Was the question written clearly? Try to give your potential answerers as much background information as they’ll need! (Updated)

And finally, pick the best answer. It’s a great way to reward the person who took time to give a brilliant response to your question. Who doesn’t love a pat on the back from time to time?

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Hey Guys,

I’m a guy who loves to sleep. Always have, always will. One of the greatest satisfactions I can get comes from clicking the snooze button. Being in that foggy half-awake-half-asleep state and knowing that I now have nine more minutes of peace and quiet… ah, it’s bliss. But, hold up–why are all snooze buttons programmed for nine minutes exactly? I put on a pot of coffee and went searching for answers.

Mental Floss explains that the nine minute rule stems from the old days when alarms were mechanical and not electric. The snooze button was added to alarms in the 1950s. By then the gears “had long been standardized.” The gears that controlled the snooze “had to mesh with the existing gear configuration.”

The Jewish World Review backs up the theory about meshing gears. Clock makers had to “choose between a gear that made the snooze period nine-plus minutes or 10-plus minutes.” A snooze lasting ten minutes exactly wasn’t possible. It’s likely that the clock makers decided that it’s more “responsible” to only give people nine extra minutes of sleep than eleven. I disagree, but nobody asked me.

Just for good measure, I looked around the Web for some further elaboration at The Straight Dope. Author Cecil Adams theorizes that clock manufacturers originally wanted the snooze to last ten minutes, but due to mechanical constraints, that just wasn’t possible. So, they settled for nine minutes, and the standard stuck.

What do you guys think about the snooze button? Do you use it religiously or do you get out bed right away? Gimme nine minutes and I’ll give you my answer…

Thanks for reading,

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Photo by jelene

I recently read an article that truly disturbed me.  Now, before I tell you what it is, let me confess that I am no health nut.  I suffer from a mild cheeseburger addiction, I can’t say no to a slice of pizza, and I’ve been known to put away more than my fair share of tacos al pastor.  I especially love anything fried –well, almost anything, which leads me into that disturbing article.  It was a feature from a Dallas/Fort Worth news site talking about the finalists for the Big Tex Choice Award at this year’s State Fair of Texas.  Topping the list, and I kid you not, was deep-fried butter.  Yes, take a moment if you need one.  Deep-fried butter.  Here’s the “tantalizing” description:

“100 percent pure butter is whipped ’til light and fluffy, then specially sweetened with a choice of several flavors. It is then surrounded by a ‘special dough’ and quick-fried.”

Listen, I know that state fairs aren’t exactly a bastion of healthy eating.  I know very few people, myself included, who would be satisfied to wander the midway gnawing on a celery stick and handful of goji berries, but this seems ridiculous to me:  gluttonous simply for gluttony’s sake.  Is this the dietary path we’re on?  Have we reached the point where we’re so beyond caring about what goes into our bodies that we’re ingesting the most decadent, non-nutritional, artery clogging thing we can think of?  I find it somewhat unconscionable that something so grotesque and unquestionably destructive could be considered for any award (other than, perhaps, “The Best Foods You Should Never Put into Your Body” award), especially in a state (not to mention an entire country) facing a huge obesity problem.

In the interest of balancing out the scales, so to speak, I’ve scouted out some delicious suggestions from Answers users on alternative methods for preparing some of our favorite fried foods, including chicken, fish, French fries, and falafel.  Here’s hoping that next year’s entries are a little more creative and a little less deadly.

What is your opinion of the latest food fad–deep-fried butter?  And what healthier alternatives can you suggest for preparing your favorite fried concoctions?

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Hey Guys,

The other day I noticed something that I’m embarrassed to say I never noticed before. Birds don’t have ears. Interesting, I thought to myself. But hold the phone–if birds don’t have ears, why do they chirp all the live-long day? Things weren’t adding up…

I was relieved to see that I wasn’t the first person to admit ignorance regarding bird ears–there are indeed a slew of related questions within Yahoo! Answers. I did a general web search and found several sites that explain how birds hear.

Backyard Nature hosts an excellent article on the subject. The truth is that birds do have ears, they’re just not very easy to locate (owls excepted). Bird ears are covered with feathers. Once those feathers are spread apart, you can see that the ear hole is nearly as large as the bird’s eye. The author speculates that feathers cover the ears to drown out wind noise.

So, mystery solved–birds have ears. But that brings up another aviary question–how can birds perch on power lines and not get electrocuted? Enchanted Learning explains that for a bird to be electrocuted, a “potential difference must exist across two points of the bird’s body (its feet in the case of a bird on a power line).” Because both of the bird’s feet are on one power line, the bird is safe. However, if the bird were to touch two power lines at once, it would get quite a shock. This is often a danger for bigger birds with wider wingspans and squirrels with poor depth perception.

Thanks for reading,

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