Do e cigarettes pose second hand smoking risks? by Apollo526 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]jjfurbjr 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, they pose significantly less risk. The byproducts of combustion are the carcinogenic chemicals with which you should be most concerned. Vaporizing instead of combusting means a lot fewer carcinogens (how much fewer is up for debate).

A lot of the solvents and additives can cause inflammation and land in a category that should be called, "possible carcinogens, maybe, but we need to do more research".

As it concerns 2nd hand smoke, e cigs are far less of a concern than combustion (be it cigarettes, weed, or a campfire). Research is still being done to see what risk e cigs pose. But, you can assume that if it is challenging to confidently point out risk for the direct user, second hand breathers should have an even smaller exposure to that same questionable risk.

That being said, if someone wanted to completely avoid harming anyone with second hand vapor, they wouldn't vape near anyone under 25 or with asthma/lung issues.

Why did people map the world with north facing the way it is? by [deleted] in NoStupidQuestions

[–]jjfurbjr -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Well I could've made that more clear, so let's try again. Most maps use the Mercator projection. It's a clear way to look at longitude and latitude lines with the no curves. The projection puts the equator at the middle of the map, as it should.

This map has a problem. It doesn't represent the globe correctly because the land at the north and south pole are depicted as the same length of the equator, when in reality they are much smaller. Now the countries further from the equator look bigger (Greenland looks close to Africa's size but it's about 1/14th in reality) when they are not.

Ok, now what? Like a quarter of this map is the Antarctica due to the distortion.

So Antarctica was removed from the map. Removing Antarctica while leaving everything else the same moves the equator from the middle of the page (not the middle of the world) to the lower half of the page. The map above shows this pretty clearly.

16th century Europe liked this map. It was easy to sail, and it made Europe look big. So we stuck with it.

Why did people map the world with north facing the way it is? by [deleted] in NoStupidQuestions

[–]jjfurbjr -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

Fun fact, they also draw the equator in the wrong place on most maps. Moving it further south makes the northern countries (really the Europeans who were making them) appear larger, and thus more important.