Why time seems to flow at different speeds.

You could think of it as your mind having two gears - high and low. In low gear, you run on auto-pilot, do things automatically without thinking, exert little effort, and are generally more relaxed. In high gear, you are actively focused, embrace some stress and effort, and are generally working harder.

Time feels as though it moves more quickly in low gear (which we engage more readily while having fun - relaxing with a familiar game or tv show). We're not paying as much attention, we are not as focused. When we "tune in" time has slipped by without us noticing as much, and we experience this as time moving faster.

Time feels slower in high gear (which we engage while learning new tasks, or doing hard things that require effort like writing papers). We're really engaged in what we're doing and can readily remember all the hard work we've been through. The amount of "stuff" we've done over time as we reflect on it seems like more because we were "tuned in" for a lot of troublesome details. Time has been taxing and we experience this as it moving slower.

Hope this made sense! (somewhat weak) source: I do a healthy amount of recreational reading on psychology.

Note: you can be tuned out while doing work ("I have some mindless work to do at my job and it makes the time pass faster.") Naturally, there are exceptions to everything.

Why do we swing our arms when we walk/run?

Humans walk by falling forward and repeatedly catching ourselves before we hit the ground. But when we land on our left foot, we start to tip to the right and vice versa, so we swing our arms to keep our balance centered over the middle of our bodies.

What is usenet and why should i be using it rather than torrents?

Okay, so you already know how torrents work. Everybody shares little bits. You download some and share them, and eventually everybody has a copy. It's free. It can be very slow or very fast, depending on the popularity of a particular torrent file. It can be risky.

Let's change hats and talk about Usenet. I upload a file to a Usenet service (that I pay for) and it is shared among thousands of Usenet servers all over the world. Other users (that pay for their Usenet access) can download the file millions of times. It can be extremely fast, but you have to pay for it.

Free Usenet access used to come with your ISP, but most of them have done away with that. Either that or you could get a free introductory (slow, limited) access through a paid provider, just enough so that you would get hooked and buy more access. Nowadays, most everybody has to pay.

I have had a paid access to a Usenet service for about 12-13 years now. Mine is around $100 a year. I make use of it, although I use it less and less now. It used to have bandwidth caps, meaning you could only download maybe 1 movie a day. Most paid services have unlimited data now.

Keep in mind that there is a separate group for anything under the sun. (More than 50,000 active newsgroups.) Also, no moderation, so lots and lots of viruses. Be careful.

The advantage is that you have almost no chance of being caught / fined, unless you are one of the people uploading content. And there are ways of masking your identity and IP address so that it is difficult, if not impossible, to be caught. Many Usenet services either don't keep a record of what you download, or they only keep it for like 90 days in case law enforcement wants to look at their download records. I have never heard of anyone getting busted unless they were trying to distribute child porn.

So the newsgroups are divided up into categories, which are further divided so on and so on. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newsgroups. So you might have alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.classical and alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.classic-rock. Your alt.* newsgroups are going to have a lot of file sharing going on... music, photos, movies, porn, games, you name it. Pretty good list at: http://binsearch.info/groups.php?server=2 .

Some Usenet services have browser access. Most do not. You will need a newsreader program. I use Forte Agent.

Why the USA is so concerned about Israel and the well being of the state of Israel?

Think of it like this:

Israel = little Tommy Britain = Mommy USA = Daddy

Now Mommy gave birth to little Tommy right after WWII. Little Tommy is precious to Mommy because little Tommy is a sign of good Mommy can be. Now unfortunately for little Tommy he sent to school with a bunch of kids that weren't too happy with his birth because one of their friends died so he could be born. Now instead of playing it cool and trying to make friends, little Tommy starts boasting about how awesome he is and how Mommy (and subsequently Daddy) are always there to protect him and how much better he is than everyone around him and honestly being kind of a giant douche. Well when the other kids start to get physical in reaction to little Tommy's verbal abuse. Little Tommy goes running home to Mommy crying about the mean bullies who want to beat him up. Well Mommy is all powerful and loving and can't let that happen, but at the same time she herself can't handle something like this; she needs someone more powerful, stronger and better equipped for bullies. So she enlists the help of Daddy. So now anytime Little Tommy starts to dick around and pisses off the other kids and they start to fight. Little Tommy runs to Daddy and Daddy pulls out his big stick (TR reference NOT a penis joke.) and starts waving it at the other kids threatening to whoop their ass even though it's his and Mommy's little shit that is starting all the problems.

There you go a simple version of relations in the middle east. While there is wrong doing on both sides of the argument it is my firm belief that Israel starts more shit than they need too and just run to the US because they can. Also something I didn't throw in their is guilt for the Holocaust. But that can be more or less debated.

Why is the order of operations in the order that it is?

It's because of polynomials. Polynomials want to be written (5 * (x³ )) + (3 * (x² )) + (4 * x) + 1.

Notice that this has a lot, a lot, of parentheses. Around the time that this notation was getting formalized, polynomials and their properties were considered the most important use of algebra. Over time people got lazy, and stopped writing the parentheses at all, but everyone knew what was meant. This eventually became formalized as an "order of operations."

Allowing us to write 5x³ + 3x² + 4x + 1, the very compact and modern notation, and everyone knows that the exponent applies to the x (and not the coefficient) and that you multiply each term before you add them together.