Unanswered Questions
1,459 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
57
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Are a large proportion of programming job applicants unable to implement FizzBuzz?
On the blog Coding Horror, Jeff Atwood quotes individuals as saying that a large number of programming job applicants are unable to implement FizzBuzz. Why Can't Programmers.. Program?
[Quoting Don't ...
- 39.3k
52
votes
0
answers
3k
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Are neo-Nazis calling for the murder and torture of Stack Exchange members?
Earlier today, a question was posted on the Meta Stack Exchange site. Here is an excerpt from that question:
Several right-wing websites have started reporting and thus directed attention of far-...
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43
votes
0
answers
6k
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Is this shoe lacing technique effective at preventing blackened toe nails?
See:
Reddit: LPT: How to lace your running shoes (June 7, 2015)
Reddit: Black toes from ultimate? (May 20, 2015)
Runner's World: How To Lace Shoes: Prevent Black Toe Nails (March 4, 2011)
They link ...
user16797
29
votes
0
answers
1k
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Did Burmese typewriters contain an upside-down character, which subsequently became proper typewriter style?
I was reading about the Internet Archive's work to archive the materials of a famous New York City typewriter family:
http://blog.archive.org/2020/08/26/an-archive-of-a-different-type/
I was ...
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28
votes
0
answers
4k
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Does polygamy result in less infidelity and prostitution?
An answer (now deleted) at the new Islam.SE site made the following claim:
If one takes a look at society where polygamy is banned or discouraged, you will see that some men will always try to ...
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27
votes
0
answers
1k
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Is sexual harassment of girls increasing in schools?
This article claims that experts told UK MP's that sexual harassment is increasing in schools because of internet pornography. However, I haven't seen any references to studies done on the subject so ...
- 1,532
24
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22k
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Was it illegal in Venezuela for doctors to list starvation as cause of death for children?
In this video Jordan Peterson says the following:
Do you know that it is now illegal for physicians to list starvation
as the cause of death for a Venezuelan child in a hospital. That's how
they'...
- 3,803
24
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0
answers
1k
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Was there a Soviet anti-motorcycle-helmet campaign in the late 1950s and early 1960s?
Lessig (1995, pp. 964–965) writes:
Before the 1960s, motorcyclists in Soviet Russia did not wear helmets. In part this was because of a lack of any perceived need to wear helmets; in part it was ...
user17967
24
votes
0
answers
764
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Does the H-1B visa program cause a net decrease in the employment prospects of skilled U.S. job applicants in STEM fields?
It is widely claimed that the H-1B program "takes away jobs from Americans." For example, here's a message posted in the Academia chat room by SSimon not long ago:
The way I understand it when H-1B'...
- 10.2k
23
votes
0
answers
625
views
Do soccer players suffer a “3%–5% drop in performance” after their first tattoo?
In a 2017 article in The Sun, “Top footballers are wrecking their performances by having tattoos, claim experts” it is claimed:
Dr Ingo Frobose, of Cologne’s German Sports University, urged clubs to ...
23
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0
answers
3k
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Are "banana traps" effective at catching monkeys?
There is a famous claim that says the way to trap monkeys is by placing a staked container with a hole cut into it just wide enough for a monkey to stick its empty hand into.
The container is baited ...
- 1,077
21
votes
0
answers
2k
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Were three journalists (Bob Simon, Ned Colt and David Carr) investigating a plausible relation between the CIA and 9/11?
Apparently these three journalists all died within a couple days of each other (Feb. 11 to 12, 2015). The implication of some rumours going around is that these folks were killed because they have ...
- 18.1k
21
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1k
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Is "Behind The Veil" an accurate representation of secret Mormon rituals?
In the hidden-camera clip Behind The Veil: Never-Before-Seen Footage of Secret Mormon Temple Rituals we supposedly see never-before-seen footage of secret Mormon Temple rituals.
A longer version of ...
- 3,085
21
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0
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8k
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Is the Predictive Index® personality inventory for hiring based on scientific research?
I just heard of it (a friend has to take it) and it seems obvious that it's a product marketed directly to business people.
I'd expect that the test isn't worth much because it was made in 1955 and ...
- 2,813
20
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0
answers
3k
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Is the skeleton in the grave in “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” that of a recently deceased actress?
In one of the final scenes of the movie “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” the titular characters dig up a grave in a cemetery to reveal a skeleton.
Several sites online report that this is a real ...
- 309
20
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0
answers
3k
views
Did Coinstar add a delay and fake noises because people didn't believe a machine could count coins quickly?
I saw a post on Reddit claiming that Coinstar machines are extremely fast at counting coins, but that the company had to introduce a delay and fake noises to the machines because customers didn't ...
- 2,934
20
votes
0
answers
7k
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Did a casino in Las Vegas suffer its worst week in history after hosting a physicists conference?
According to The Crime of Reason: And the Closing of the Scientific Mind:
In March 1986, Las Vegas newspapers buzzed with rumors that the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino had suffered its worst weekly ...
- 10.3k
20
votes
0
answers
3k
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Is the U.S. Tea Party astroturf or a genuine grassroots movement?
According to The Wikipedia article on the United States Tea Party movement (emphasis mine), TeaParty.org defines the Tea Party as "a grassroots movement that calls awareness to any issue which ...
- 18.6k
19
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0
answers
5k
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"Relax and Win" - Classified military method to fall asleep quick?
The book Relax and Win by Bud Winter (a track coach) claims to reveal relaxation techniques developed by him and others for the US military:
Based on mental and physical training methods used to ...
- 99
19
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0
answers
2k
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Is using vim faster than a mouse-based editor for source code?
Many people claim that editing text using the vim editor is faster than using a mouse-based one, for experienced users.
There seems to be a lot of anecdotal evidence for this claim, but considering ...
- 299
19
votes
1
answer
5k
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Does listening to rap music increase violent behavior?
Related
(Kind of) Classical music in public places: does it affect violence?
Do violent video games cause violent behavior?
Can music incite murder?
I've heard many people say that listening to rap, ...
- 21.9k
18
votes
0
answers
1k
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Is the average office worker only productive for 3 hours a day?
A recent answer on StackExchange linked to a blog post claiming that:
Research suggests that in an eight-hour day, the average worker is only productive for two hours and 53 minutes.
According ...
- 826
18
votes
0
answers
4k
views
Does masturbation (or sex) help one focus better later?
From a NY Post article:
Kit Maloney, the founder of O’actually, a feminist porn production company, said that “masturbation [and] orgasm is like meditation. It allows the space for the brain to ...
- 66.1k
18
votes
0
answers
1k
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Are most women incapable of orgasm through vaginal stimulation alone?
In Wikipedia's article of Orgasm it suggests vaginal stimulation isn't sufficient for women's sexual pleasure:
Kinsey found that most of the women he surveyed could not have vaginal orgasms.[59] He "...
- 349
18
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0
answers
11k
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Is fish-flavored cat food bad/dangerous to a cat's health?
Our (two male) cats normally eat turkey and chicken flavoured canned wet cat food from our favorite cat food brand. However, we don't feed the cat's any other flavours which all contain fish, such as ...
- 285
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0
answers
5k
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Do gas pods improve fuel efficiency?
I ran into this claim today about detachable car fins, and was wondering if there is any validity to it:
about a five percent reduction in drag and corresponding five percent boost in fuel ...
- 9,342
17
votes
0
answers
6k
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Did Yuri Gagarin eat a lemon out a cup of tea when dining with the English Queen?
There is an anecdote, popular in Russia, about Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, who was served tea with lemon when dining with the English Queen.
After he had had the tea, he reached into the ...
- 4,525
17
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0
answers
974
views
Was the UK's drive to acquire civilian metals to use in WW2 necessary for the war effort?
This question was asked here recently:
Were World War II scrap drives in the United States truly necessary for the procurement of raw materials?
And it has produced some very solid analysis and ...
- 57.1k
17
votes
0
answers
941
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Does mixed-sex education increase violence in schools?
TSA-Alerie reports [French] that a poster on a conference at the National Library of Algeria has a controversial claim:
La mixité sexuelle à l’école est la cause numéro un de la violence scolaire
...
- 1,503
17
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0
answers
459
views
Are more than half of scientists who have ever lived alive today?
This Washington Post article quotes Brian Nosek as making the claim that:
Brian Nosek offers up a stunning factoid: More than half of the scientists who have ever lived are alive today.
It then ...
- 18.8k
17
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0
answers
2k
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Did JFK say that "you can win with half the people's votes but cannot govern with half against you"?
According to Al Jazeera:
Jose Miguel, president of the Institute of Legal Medicine, told Al Jazeera: "The most worrying thing is the intolerance and deep divisions within the population, so the ...
17
votes
0
answers
1k
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Does science fiction inspire significant amounts of people to pursue STEM careers?
It's a common belief within the science fiction community that sci-fi has motivated a lot of people to pursue careers as scientists and engineers. A brief search finds many anecdotal accounts where ...
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17
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0
answers
2k
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Do long-haired men have better intuition?
I found an article on Worldwide Hippies which describes a military experiment on the intuitive abilities of Native American trackers:
Then they would pair two men together who had received the same ...
user16405
17
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0
answers
1k
views
Which position is healthiest for sleep?
If you believe the internet, there is no healthy way for you to sleep: front, back, side, fetal; they are all going to cause you problems like acid reflux, spinal problems, skin problems, problems ...
- 18.2k
17
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0
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2k
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Was there a peak in suicides associated with the release of Pokémon red and green?
My 13-year-old stepson just told me this story: When Pokémon Red and Green was first released in 1996, there were dozens or hundreds of suicides of children caused by high-frequency sounds in the ...
16
votes
0
answers
801
views
Are conservatives happier than liberals?
A 2025 article by Nate Silver says that liberals tend to be less happy and have lower-rated self-reported mental health than conservatives:
A 2023 American Affairs article says liberal have higher ...
16
votes
0
answers
939
views
Were nuclear sub engineers told that when alarms go off they should grab a bar, until they have examined their instrument panel?
The book Debugging: The 9 Indispensable Rules for Finding Even the Most Elusive Software and Hardware Problems by David J. Agans, which was first published in 2002, contains the following claim:
On ...
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16
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0
answers
5k
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Does California have a dress code for drivers?
Many "crazy law" sources claim that California motor vehicle law contains a bizarre sartorial proscription.
On CNN.com, the article "Do you know why I pulled you over?" by Craig ...
- 4,245
16
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0
answers
937
views
Are North Koreans banned from laughing for 11 days?
This article states that North Koreans face similar consequences of the leader's death anniversary as in previous years, now being banned from laughing for 11 days. Is the regime so authoritarian that ...
- 291
16
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0
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4k
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At Chernobyl, did someone see the fuel channel caps bounce shortly before the explosion?
The well known 2019 show Chernobyl mentions an operator who happened to walk through the reactor hall of Unit 4 seconds before the reactor exploded. He allegedly saw this:
If this story seems ...
- 1,392
16
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0
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507
views
Are conversation-starting memes on social-media harvested by criminals?
There have been a raft of warnings circulating on Facebook for years (but seem to have had a recent uptick) warning that memes that are shared on social media that encourage people to post trivia ...
- 147k
16
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0
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1k
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Are more than half of all new PhDs in the U.S. from diploma mills?
John Bear, co-author of Degree Mills, a book that delves into the topic of fake degrees in higher education has claimed that more than half of all new PhDs in the United States are issued from diploma ...
- 271
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2k
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Can John Gottman predict which couples will divorce with extremely high accuracy?
John Gottman (a prominent psychological researcher who has done extensive work on divorce prediction) has some very strong claims about his ability to predict divorce. The claim that led me to start ...
- 211
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0
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3k
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Did Donald Trump stop a mugger in 1991?
Claim
In the year 1991, Donald Trump witnessed a mugging from his limousine. He told his driver to pull over, got out, confronted the attacker, and caused him to stop.
Sources
I googled this a bit, ...
- 240
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0
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2k
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Was John F Kennedy accidentally shot by a secret service agent?
In the book Mortal Error: The Shot That Killed JFK, Bonar Menninger argues that the third shot that hit John F Kennedy was fired by accident by a secret service agent. The book's Wikipedia page ...
- 279
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18k
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Is rice water a good fertilizer?
When rice is washed, the wash water becomes whitish due to the starchy powder in the skin of unwashed rice. I've often heard or read, usually in water-saving, money-saving, or gardening tips, that the ...
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884
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Does a monkey/ape flee from half peeled bananas?
There is a claim by a German philosopher, named Max Scheler.
Ein Affe, dem man eine Banane halb geschält in die Hand gibt, flieht vor ihr, während er sie ganz geschält frißt, ungeschält aber selber ...
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0
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495
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Should you regularly replace your pillow?
According to an article in the Guardian:
Out of 2,200 men and women, only 18% knew they should replace their pillows every two years. The average person uses the same pillow for three years and two ...
- 34.1k
16
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0
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6k
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Do crabs exemplify "crab mentality" behaviour?
Is there any verifiable evidence that crabs, in fact, behave as if they possess "crab mentality"?
The term “crab mentality” is used to describe a kind of selfish
thinking that runs along the lines ...
- 3,812
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0
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743
views
Do mechanical keyboards improve accuracy?
A famous mechanical keyboard site claims that:
Many mechanical keyboard fans rave at the loud, clicky sound they produce when using one of these keyboards. As mentioned above, the mechanical switches ...
- 79.3k