There are small muscles attached to each hair follicle. When those muscles contract, the skin tightens up and the hair stands on end. When they relax, the bump goes away.

As for why they are still there, evolution doesn't have a goal - it rewards what works. There was never a benefit in the reaction going away, so it never did.

It is a vestigial reaction back from when humans used to have much more body hair.

Goosebumps cause our body hair to stand up on end. When we were much hairier, this had two effects:

• Trapped more air near the skin, warming us up (like a natural sweater).

• Made us look larger and less attractive to preditors.

While the hair has evolved away, the goosebump reaction remains when we get cold or scared.

> Budget is power and status; there's no reward for returning unspent money to the company.

This is not universal. Many companies have internal policies where managers are rewarded for unspent budget.

There is also an increasing practice of zero-base budgeting, where the entirety of the budget is revisited every year (or period of years) and all expenditures must be justified again, regardless of previous year's spending.

Eh, not really. As the original commenter said, ~94% of cases brought to trail still result in guilty verdicts.

However, ~72% of cases brought to trial don't get convictions on every charge, just some of the charges. It's possible that the defendant may feel that the jury will convict them of a lesser charge than the plea offering the prosecution puts on the table.

It is primarily due to the fact that prosecutors have broad discretion in what cases get brought to trial - they rarely bring cases where guilt is in question, as acquittals look bad on their record. In cases where a guilty verdict may be questionable, they will plead the person down on lesser charges or simply not bring it to trial at all.

For this reason, upwards of 94% of cases brought to trial result in convictions on some or all charges - the prosecutors simply don't press the other cases.

There is also an extensive jury selection process pre-trial, where the prosecution can exclude jurors they feel would be unable to render a fair decision after viewing all of the evidence.

https://the-gist.org/2020/07/new-elements-island-of-stability/

I have two IRS agents in my family. If you think they won't look at supporting documentation if they don't think the numbers make sense, you are sorely mistaken.

Edit: They blocked me so I can't respond, but yes - they will absolutely look at utility bills if they think that cost to serve doesn't line up with the revenues reported.

True, but if your laundromat is showing much higher profitability than other laundromats in your area, the IRS is going to notice that and that could flag you for an audit. If you get audited, they will look at your utility consumption and compare it to industry standards.

Atoms on the periodic table are defined by the number of protons in the nucleus of the atom. It is possible to discover/create new atoms by adding new protons to a nucleus, but those large atoms tend to be very unstable (which is why we don't add them to the periodic table anymore). There is a theoretical "island of stability" when atoms get large enough, but we are nowhere near being able to create atoms that large to test.

It is possible to create new compounds or molecules from existing atoms that we have already discovered, and those new molecules could have interesting new properties.

In that case it actually would be simple - the machines use X amount of water per load, so if your water bill shows you not using enough gallons of water to explain that extra $3500 in revenue, the IRS is going to want to know why.

It doesn't have to be a smoking gun - it just has to be odd enough to get noticed, which will prompt a deeper dive into the finances, which is the last thing you want.

The average laundromat has margins in the 25% range - if your margins are higher, that is going to draw some curiosity. If you run your machines more and your water usage is much higher than comparables, that is going to draw curiosity too.

You could, sure, but laundromats are pretty low-margin businesses, so running with no load is going to eat away most of the profits and limit your laundering.

You also run into the issue with comparables. If your laundromat is doing much better than nearby laundromats, that is a red flag that could get you audited. If the foot traffic to your business doesn't match the number of loads you claim you ran (the average number of loads per person will be pretty static across laundromats) then you are going to have to explain why your business is so unique.

All in all, its going to get your business scrutinized, which is the last thing you want for a money laundering front.

That is why casinos and strip clubs are the best businesses for money laundering:

• Most people use cash (no paper trail)
• There is no "average" spend per customer (one guy could come in and drop 10k) and foot traffic doesn't correlate well with revenue
• The marginal cost is next to nothing
• Comparables are hard - your casino/club may just be higher end than the neighboring ones, explaining your higher revenue.

Laundromats aren't actually that good anymore - the IRS is pretty smart and will look at water consumption rates to determine if you are claiming more revenue than your expenses would dictate.

The mob figured out the best businesses for money laundering a long time ago - strip clubs and casinos.

They are still the easiest way to move moderate amounts of money at low cost. I'm not going to show up and pay my $2k HOA dues in cash, nor am I going to bother with trying to set up a wire transfer. I'm just going to cut them a check and move on.

> What is the gain in allowing it?

People tend to get upset when the bank doesn't let them access their money. Telling a client - particularly a wealthy one - that they can't have their money for several days may lead to them moving to another bank.

Since the vast majority of people deposit valid checks, there is little risk to the bank allowing them access to funds before those checks have cleared.

It's very common for banks to make a portion of a deposit available immediately as a courtesy for its customers. While it may take several days for the checks to clear and the customer to access all of the deposit, it does tend to keep them happy if the bank floats a portion of the difference for a couple of days.

Sorokin took advantage of this fact, depositing hundreds of thousands of dollars in bad checks, while only withdrawing tens of thousands against them.

The Democratic National Committee had offices in the Watergate complex - which held both offices and hotel rooms. During Nixon's second campaign for President, those offices were burglarized in an attempt to ascertain the campaign strategy for Nixon's opponent. The burglars are caught during that attempt.

A tip was given to Bob Woodward that the burglary was committed by allies of President Nixon. This tip came from a man calling himself "Deep Throat" - later revealed to be FBI Associate Director Felt.

As the investigation into that burglary continued, it was discovered that not only were the Republicans behind the burglary, but Nixon himself had authorized it. This was discovered because Nixon secretly recorded many of the interactions that he had in the Oval Office, including discussions of the break-in among them.

Nixon knew that this was damning evidence of a criminal conspiracy, and ordered that the special prosecutor be fired, leading to the resignation of key officials in the administration.

When the SCOTUS ruled that Nixon had to hand over the tapes, it was basically the end of his term. Articles of Impeachment were being drafted, and Nixon was told that he didn't have the votes in Congress to survive. On Aug 8th, 1974, Nixon resigned. That September, Ford pardoned Nixon for all his crimes.

A full timeline is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Watergate_scandal

To answer the question in a bit more depth, the Big 4 (EY, PwC, KPMG, and Deloitte) have management consultancies. MCs advise company management on how to enact specific changes in their organization. This typically falls into one of three catagories:

• Strategic: High level business decisions, like which markets to enter, which products to launch, which companies to purchase/divest, etc. The big stuff that the C-suite is invovle with.

• Process: How to actually implement a given strategic priority. Like, if you decide to sell a new product, how do you operationalize that? What does your sales model look like? How do you optimize the manufacturing and supply chain? How do you set up a shared service center to handle support issues?

• Technology: The actual software and tech that allows for the change. If you decide that you need new CRM software, how do you actually implement that and get it integrated with your existing technology stack.

The software devs will work with the consultants in the third example - the consultants will do the design and planning to ensure that the business objectives of the technology are met, while the software devs will actually do the coding and implementation to those requirements.

Crack cocaine is cocaine hydrochloride processed with ammonia or sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and water, and heated to remove the hydrochloride thus producing a form of cocaine that can be smoked. The term "crack" refers to the crackling sound heard when the mixture is smoked (heated), presumably from sodium bicarbonate.

The purpose of the baking soda is to make the crack smokable - the baking soda alone does not get you high and is thus not a controlled substance. To make crack, you first must have cocaine, so we just keep cocaine illegal.

This is often the case with chemistry. Two things apart can be fine but when put together make something dangerous or two things together can be fine but are dangerous apart.