title stringlengths 3 300 | subreddit stringclasses 1
value | post_id stringlengths 5 7 | score int64 0 47.9k | link_flair_text stringlengths 0 63 | is_self bool 1
class | over_18 bool 2
classes | upvote_ratio float64 0 1 | post_content stringlengths 0 29.7k | C1 dict | C2 dict | C3 dict | C4 dict | C5 dict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ELI5:Why in the summer I need to set my house a/c at 70 degrees but in the winter 70 is freezing and the heat needs to be at 80? | explainlikeimfive | 1q67y4 | 3 | true | false | 0.71 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9lers",
"comment_text": [
"My first thought is because the outside of the house is colder. The rate of flow of heat energy is proportional to the difference in temerpatures, therefore in colder weather when the difference between the outside and inside temperatures is greater your house lo... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9ne97",
"comment_text": [
"Remember that your AC unit is controlled by a thermostat, so it will only heat/cool the house until the temperature ",
" is what you set it to.",
"So in the summer, it'll be warmer the further you are from the thermostat (assuming some heat transfer throu... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9ndd2",
"comment_text": [
"I feel like its more of a human condition than the mechanical aspect of cooling/heating the air. If for instance its 95 degrees outside I would not be comfortable with indoor temp set at 80....it would need to be 70. Adversely if its 30 degrees outside I'm stil... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9outa",
"comment_text": [
"In a way that makes sense to me, if you have spent time outside and it is cold out you want to come back to a ",
" home rather than merely average temperature, whereas is it is hot out then you want the relief of a cool home when you step inside. Is that what... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9sgpw",
"comment_text": [
"Unrelated to your question: You should never set your thermostat to more than 15 degrees cooler than outside. It causes moisture issues."
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: How come we don't already have free health care due to the sheer amount the government spends on it? | explainlikeimfive | 1q6jjh | 2 | true | false | 1 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9oo83",
"comment_text": [
"Will you rephrase and resubmit this question as \"How does the US Government spend so much on healthcare and still not provide a single payer system?\" please? ",
"The current phrasing is going to lead to arguments, which is not what we want in ELI5 (that's n... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9otaq",
"comment_text": [
"Yeah my wording is awkward. I'll change it to this.",
"How does the US Government spend so much on healthcare and still not provide free healthcare for everyone?",
"\"single payer system\" seems like a rather cryptic way to say free healthcare."
],
"s... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9owb1",
"comment_text": [
"It's not free, though. Single Payer is what it is. That's part of what the argument is going to be about. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9p2gi",
"comment_text": [
"I had to look up Single Payer System, which is why I don't want to include it in an explain it like I'm 5. But it's exactly what I meant by Free Health Care, I don't see why anyone would be confused or have an argument over it. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9plxr",
"comment_text": [
"I'm telling you, from experience as a moderator on this subreddit and on reddit in general, that a solid 70+% of the time that someone says \"Free healthcare\" it turns into a \"NOTHING IS FREE\" debate.",
"The fact that you don't see why anyone would have an... | ||
ELI5: What was so special or revolutionary about the Mandelbrot set if fractals like the Koch curve were already known at the beginning of the 20th century? | explainlikeimfive | 1q6whd | 1 | true | false | 0.57 | There are a few questions on the Mandelbrot set in this sub but none answer this specific question. | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9te8o",
"comment_text": [
"Both are relatively simple formulas, but the Mandelbrot set is capable of producing much more complex results, and at times those results are almost artistic in appearance when graphed. I suspect that these are the primary reasons that the Mandelbrot sets are so ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9vb2a",
"comment_text": [
"Prior to Mandelbrot you had a discontinuous set of similar things most of which were a pain in the ass to formulate (the way they were done back then)... Julia set unifies all of these (afaik) and Mandelbrot set (subset of Julia set) gives you almost all of the i... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cf8e5e6",
"comment_text": [
"Actually, the Mandelbrot set is considered kind of a \"roadmap\" of the Julia sets. The black points in the Mandelbrot set correspond to values of ",
" that produce so-called \"connected\" Julia sets."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cf8edxg",
"comment_text": [
"I thought all Mandelbrot sets were just a subset of the Julia sets where C = 0?"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cf8f0do",
"comment_text": [
"The Julia sets and the Mandelbrot set are produced by the same iterative formula, Z(n) = Z(n-1)",
" + c. To get a Julia set, you set c to any value you want and set Z(0) to a point on the plane. The Mandelbrot set is produced by setting Z(0) to zero and set... | |
ELI5: When someone "works from home" what does this work consist of? | explainlikeimfive | 1q6z2u | 0 | true | false | 0.5 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9tbnm",
"comment_text": [
"Whatever their job is."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9tvjp",
"comment_text": [
"...without pants."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9u1za",
"comment_text": [
"Yeah, this is key"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9td8v",
"comment_text": [
"Depends on their job. I have a job that I can work from home if I want to. I have my IP Phone and my laptop and VPN into my office and work on my tickets. I don't have to put on pants, but I don't have the resources of my office to help me (no cubicle shouting fo... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9tji7",
"comment_text": [
"I don't have the resources of my office to help me (no cubicle shouting for answers).",
"On the other hand, you (and I) also don't have random people wandering up to your desk, interrupting what you're working on, and demanding your help. And touching the mon... | ||
ELI5: Why picking up a roadkill, skinning it, cutting it, storing it, and eating it, is illegal? (a deer for example) ... and why a felony?? ? | explainlikeimfive | 1q73hf | 1 | true | false | 0.67 | i should have had "IN SOME STATES" and in comparison, why is it ok for hunter to kill them, and do the same as i would do with a roadkill? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9uvyd",
"comment_text": [
"It isn't necessarily illegal. But with most animals, particularly ones that are also hunted, you must have the appropriate tags to show that the animal was obtained legally and not via poaching. Where I grew up, you could get a tag for a deer that was killed in... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9vdpo",
"comment_text": [
"If one could stock their freezer without need for a license by simply saying \"oopsie\", when running down a deer, then collecting the carcass, I suspect that cheap used car dealers would be out of stock, and there would be a lot more \"accidents.\""
],
"sco... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9yh0m",
"comment_text": [
"Shoot a deer. Hit it with your car. If a game warden catches you, say you hit it with your car. Get home without ever having a hunting license."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9yh0m",
"comment_text": [
"Shoot a deer. Hit it with your car. If a game warden catches you, say you hit it with your car. Get home without ever having a hunting license."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdjdeff",
"comment_text": [
"and what about the bullet?"
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: How is causality preserved in Quantum Mechanics? | explainlikeimfive | 1q745y | 7 | true | false | 0.81 | Say you have (A) and it can either become (X) or (Y). It turns out to be (Y), but why does this turn out? Isn't a probabilistic theory of causality neglecting a step of causality (what it to be (Y) instead of (X)), and in doing so doesn't it completely break the chain of cause and effect? Thanks in advance! | {
"comment_id": "t1_cda0ftg",
"comment_text": [
"oooh this is interesting. So, essentially in MWI, the thing that causes Y rather than X is the 'birth' of a world in which Y was the case?"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cda0hgz",
"comment_text": [
"I don't have a philosophical issue with determinism itself. I have a philosophical issue with the many worlds hypothesis, namely that I find the idea of there being an infinite number of universes implausible given the lack of compelling evidence. I don't think i... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9vsli",
"comment_text": [
"But, in this case, one might remark that ",
" caused it to be Y as opposed to X right? In other words, if there is no reason for its becoming Y instead of X, the indeterminist would say that there was no cause needed for it. Which is to say that there needn't... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9vyjg",
"comment_text": [
"Yes. A non-determinist would say that the laws of physics demand that if A happens, either X or Y will happen, but that's it. Between X and Y, nothing ",
" it to be one or the other when the system is measured, it's just a random chance.",
"More formally,... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9x5xa",
"comment_text": [
"great, thanks so much for taking the time!!"
],
"score": 1
} | |
What caused the twin towers on September 11th to collapse? | explainlikeimfive | 1q7fek | 0 | true | false | 0.38 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9yejo",
"comment_text": [
"The planes had enough fuel on them for a cross-country flight, but were only about an hour into the journey when they were crashed into the towers. That means there was a ",
" of jet fuel on board each of them -- and jet fuel burns at a very high temperature.... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9z4vw",
"comment_text": [
"These buildings were designed for an accidental plane strike, not an intentional high speed attack, that is why these buildings failed. Remember these were designed in the 60's, at the dawning of the commercial jet services. At that time the Boeing 707 was the ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9z4vw",
"comment_text": [
"These buildings were designed for an accidental plane strike, not an intentional high speed attack, that is why these buildings failed. Remember these were designed in the 60's, at the dawning of the commercial jet services. At that time the Boeing 707 was the ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9z7lf",
"comment_text": [
"It is somewhat curious. Both the 40 Wall Street building and the Empire State building sustained plane crashes, and they're both older than the Twin Towers. The difference is that the planes in the 9/11 attacks were much larger, and the Twin Towers were much tall... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9ye1w",
"comment_text": [
"Gravity, and the lack of structure to overcome said gravity. The heat along with the structural damage to the building cased the metal frame of the building to warp and then droop, causing the upper levels above the impact site to collapse upon the levels below ... | |
How do scientists determine the kind and quantity of nutrients (carbs, fat, vitamins, minerals, etc) an animal's body requires for optimal health? | explainlikeimfive | 1q2kf8 | 8 | true | false | 0.84 | Is it by trial and error (deplete a nutrient and see what ill effect it has -- I know some essential nutrients were discovered indirectly because the lack of them caused illness, like vitamin C -> scurvy). Do they analyze the chemical composition of a healthy animal/person for the presence and quantity of nutrients? Do... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8k3zv",
"comment_text": [
"Check out this article: ",
"http://jn.nutrition.org/content/133/11/3698.full",
"To be honest, though, from what I've seen, they really have no idea what they're doing. I recently took a blood test that said I was Vitamin D deficient, so I've been doing so... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8rcvr",
"comment_text": [
"I must disagree because you didn't really define what you mean by \"healthy\".\nMacro nutrients such as Fats, Carbs, and Proteins are all important for the human being to be able to bodily function properly. If you look at vegans, they lack protein, but you would... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8uas6",
"comment_text": [
"If you look at vegans, they lack protein, ",
"Vegans who eat healthily do not lack protein. Beans and soy (protein) are a crucial part of a vegan diet. If you don't have enough protein, you're not healthy.",
"What about paleo diet followers, lack of carbs... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd99fnx",
"comment_text": [
"Vegans who eat healthily do not lack protein. Beans and soy (protein) > are a crucial part of a vegan diet. If you don't have enough protein, you're not healthy.",
"Yes, but who determines how much protein you need? Do you really believe that the average Joe... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd99gey",
"comment_text": [
"Definitely!"
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: Why is the call-waiting beep so drawn out and interrupting instead of a quick blip | explainlikeimfive | 1q2nsc | 0 | true | false | 0.33 | When I'm on the phone with someone and I get a call from someone else, the interruption is like "BEEEP::pause::BLURP::beep", which seems to last a full second or maybe longer. Why did the phone companies pick a symphony of robotic orgasm groans instead of a simple "beep" or "beep beep"? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8ku9m",
"comment_text": [
"Because when you have call waiting with caller ID the number calling you has to be encoded as an audible data burst so your phone can display who is calling."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8xtj4",
"comment_text": [
"Since this thread has 0 points, I don't think I'll be getting another explanation, so I'm going to pester you for more info.",
"This sound is the same on my landlines (work and home, yes, I'm lame with a landline), and it happens regardless of caller ID. Do ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd922y4",
"comment_text": [
"What do you mean by regardless of caller ID? Are you saying that the lines in question do not subscribe to caller ID at all? If that's the case then I don't know why you would get such a long call waiting tone."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd93mfj",
"comment_text": [
"Yes, I am saying independent of whether the lines have caller ID (ones at home do, ones at work don't), the beep is the same. It's even the same on my cell phone (which does have caller ID). I have never noticed a difference in the call waiting BEEP BLURP BLURP... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd96m4v",
"comment_text": [
"Cell phones don't work the same way at all and have no need to do a data burst for caller ID, so that's not it. ",
"Also, since all I've done for the last 26 years is maintain the phone network I'm surprised to hear that your call waiting tone is exactly the... | |
ELI5: Penny stocks | explainlikeimfive | 1q3411 | 2 | true | false | 1 | What are they? Why do the differ from "regular" stocks? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8ox1h",
"comment_text": [
"They're almost definitely a bad investment.",
"They are companies whose stock is trading at approximately $0.01. Certain scammers try to get unwitting investors to pour money into these lightly traded, low value stocks. Because the volume is so low, it's easy... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8pfpy",
"comment_text": [
"They are companies whose stock is trading at approximately $0.01",
"Many people generalize penny stocks as stocks that trade under $1.00. Some people even extend this definition up to $5.00, but that's not very common. Some people also generalize OTC stocks n... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8q30w",
"comment_text": [
"I think the reason less than 5$ is commonly used I've tiny a penny stock is that in general if your making this purchase it is for the short gain and not the long term, the term investing implies it is a long term purchase. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8q4ho",
"comment_text": [
"More or less, yes to everything you said. Penny stocks are more-often-than-not seen as a gamble, not an investment."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8pfx8",
"comment_text": [
"Are these companies with such insanely low values not about to go out of business?"
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5 why aren't the people who own the pictures we use as memes sue the hell out of the websites and users that use them? | explainlikeimfive | 1q33ro | 31 | true | false | 0.73 | Isn't there a lot of money to be made there? Even if we stopped using that specific meme he would still have enough people to sue to last a lifetime. | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8pigt",
"comment_text": [
"The 'Techno Viking' is doing exactly that. Someone did make a lot of money from that famous video, and he wants his cut. "
],
"score": 12
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8p329",
"comment_text": [
"Due to the nature of the internet, if they did make a copyright claim, I would expect a new meme to be made of them mocking their copyright claim."
],
"score": 11
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd90wgq",
"comment_text": [
"IP Lawyer here.",
"For the most part, these answers are terrible. Datums is right about Techno Viking, however.",
"A few things.",
"Check out Communications Decency Act § 230. Reddit is simply not responsible for the content that its users post. That ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8qf69",
"comment_text": [
"Ah, the Streisand Effect!"
],
"score": 7
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8oxwi",
"comment_text": [
"I honestly dont think it would hold up in court for very much money, and they certainly cant just sue every website that displays a meme for eternity. ",
"I mean, unless the judge was a huge ",
"/r/advice_animals",
" fan, they would just see it as \"t... | |
ELI5: Why does anyone take losses on stocks? | explainlikeimfive | 1q37bc | 5 | true | false | 0.78 | Perhaps this is a bit of a strange way of putting the question, so a little context. Basically, why would you ever sell stocks for big losses? It seems incredibly rare to see a company actually go out of business. Why isn't it always a better bet to hold onto your stocks and wait for a company to rebound? Say you bough... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8pu0a",
"comment_text": [
"You're not properly accounting for ",
"opportunity cost",
". Why would you invest in a stock to begin with instead of just putting that money in a savings account? The savings account would have guaranteed you a return on your investment. Why would you... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8pu39",
"comment_text": [
"You're describing an emotional approach to investment. You paid $10 for a stock, it's now worth $8, and you don't want to admit you screwed up and take the loss. This is probably a very bad way to think.",
"The $10 you paid is totally irrelevant.[1] That m... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8pvrk",
"comment_text": [
"Often people do hold on to stocks in those situations, hoping that eventually the price will rise again. However, there are several reasons turn a paper loss into an actual loss:",
"1.) ",
" - taking a loss on a stock position offset tax liability, since... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8qef5",
"comment_text": [
"Yeah, all of these make sense.",
"Thanks.",
"Here's a question: how does anyone actually lose money in the stock market? It sounds like it would be impossible to actually ever have a loss (that you didn't want to take for liquidity or tax reasons)."
],
... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8ql72",
"comment_text": [
"I guess it's true that if you have another investment opportunity to invest the $8, and immediately make $60, you should do it.",
"We can go even further than that.",
"If your stocks are worth $8 now, then regardless of how much you bought them for or how... | |
ELI5:What is the difference between "i.e." and "e.g"? | explainlikeimfive | 1q38o4 | 1 | true | false | 0.55 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8q4mh",
"comment_text": [
"ie = id est = that is",
"eg = exempli gratia = for example"
],
"score": 10
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8qbhq",
"comment_text": [
"In simple terms - i.e stands for 'that is' originally from latin (id est) and e.g stands for 'for example' originally from latin (exempli gratia)",
"Used in sentences as:\nThe permanent members of the Security Council (i.e. US, UK, China, France and Russia) w... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8r7m5",
"comment_text": [
"ie is used when all the proposed items are mentioned in the list",
"Or to give clarification on a point:",
"\"After the war, the Allied forces (i.e., the victors) celebrated\"."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8sgl8",
"comment_text": [
"You can just Google this?"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8vsag",
"comment_text": [
"While we're posting links, here's a cartoony infographic explanation that involves tacos."
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ElI5 how do headphones work? | explainlikeimfive | 1q39ww | 1 | true | false | 0.67 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8qnc1",
"comment_text": [
"This is a bit misleading. Ones and zeros have nothing at all to do with headphones."
],
"score": 6
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8qrct",
"comment_text": [
"Those 1's and 0's stored on your digital music player are decoded and converted into an analogue signal, amplified, and then sent to the headphones. Sending a digital signal to regular headphones will yield nothing..."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8qplb",
"comment_text": [
"Sound is nothing but vibration, or a mechanical wave. The frequency of the vibration changes how we hear the sound. ",
"Speakers and headphones send and electromagnetic wave down a wire at the same frequency as the vibration which would produce the sound. Thi... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8qhge",
"comment_text": [
"To expand on this answer, most speakers use a small membrane - usually some sort of paper/plastic - that has a magnet attached to it. An electromagnet is then used to pull/repel the membrane, which makes the pressure waves that we interpret as sound."
],
"sco... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8qqpo",
"comment_text": [
"Headphones work just fine when plugged into a record player or tape player. Speakers (of which headphones are just a miniaturized version) have been around since long long before digital music sources."
],
"score": 1
} | ||
How do movie makers make babies cry in movies? | explainlikeimfive | 1q3e8g | 6 | true | false | 0.75 | How do they scare/frighten babies to make them cry in certain scenes? Is there any negative affects on the babies like trauma? Please explain to me like im five, im really curious. | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8ryfe",
"comment_text": [
"This has been asked before.",
"If you watch movies and TV carefully, you'll figure out that you don't need a baby to be crying to get 99% of the shots you're talking about. ",
"You show someone holding a doll, you play the sound of a baby crying. ",
"... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8u0xa",
"comment_text": [
"Believe it or not, they actually used to pinch them.",
"Source: Wife was in the film industry."
],
"score": 7
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8rgbw",
"comment_text": [
"Make them watch clips from Batman and Robin (1997) just before their scene."
],
"score": 4
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cda6l3v",
"comment_text": [
"Oh sorry, new to reddit and subreddit so i didnt know. I recently watched Breaking Bad season 5 and was really curious how they make them cry. In a scene where Walter and Skylar was arguing, the baby cried. Is there a possible chance babies can sense the intensit... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cda6umr",
"comment_text": [
"Babies don't like loud noises in general, but I don't know about them \"sensing\" emotions. ",
"In that specific case it's pretty well documented that in BB the real actors were interacting with a real child, because Cranston has talked about Holly spontaneou... | |
ELI5:When I eat a thick steak, or leg roast or other large cut where are all the blood vessels? | explainlikeimfive | 1q3e9r | 48 | true | false | 0.76 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8tgi3",
"comment_text": [
"A big cut of meat comes from a large muscle. Big blood vessels (running to parts of the body other than that muscle) generally don't run through muscles (flexing the muscle would dramatically increase blood pressure), just the blood vessels that supply blood to ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8zct8",
"comment_text": [
"Downvote. Meat is red due to the presence of myoglobin, an iron containing compound like hemoglobin, that helps muscles store oxygen. "
],
"score": 16
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8z1yy",
"comment_text": [
"Meat oxidizes. If it never comes into contact with air, it will not turn brown. SInce most meat in stores is shrinkwrapped and sealed, it doesn't turn brown. Dye is not needed. "
],
"score": 14
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8zgyp",
"comment_text": [
"Carbon-monoxide is used as a color fixing agent",
", which produces extremely bright red meat which looks dyed, compared to normal plastic-wrapped meat.",
"Not dyed, but also not a natural color due to artificial additives (CO gas)."
],
"score": 9
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8y0nq",
"comment_text": [
"They are there. You just have to remember that they are floppy tubes rather than solid pipes, and so tend to flatten out and collapse when not pressurised. Since most people get boneless cuts of beef, the bigger ones have been removed, but I like bone-in cuts, ... | ||
Video games; why does it seem like it takes me 20 shots to kill someone but it takes them 2 to kill me | explainlikeimfive | 1q3nvp | 0 | true | false | 0.46 | Also, if I get shot, I hardly have the chance to react but yet when I shoot my 20 shots (which all hit them) they have the chance to do a 180 and drop me 1 shot. | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8tpjv",
"comment_text": [
"Well, to pull the bandaid off quickly, you probably suck and are missing a lot. This is causing frustration and you'd rather not blame yourself so you think it must be something else that it causing the problem. The cognitive dissonance caused by you reasling y... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8x0hd",
"comment_text": [
"Record and see urself play. You will be more objective. Mp fps isnt without its tech issues and i get frustrated with net code too."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8tp8z",
"comment_text": [
"Video game AI isn't at the same level as human play, so the only way to increase the difficulty of the game is to make enemies harder to kill and/or you easier to kill."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8vbzj",
"comment_text": [
"I'm not OP but I notice this issue even in multiplayer games. I don't think the game is actually rigged, so it must be a psychological thing-- but I really do feel like the other players are magically \"recovering\" in some way that I'm not."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8wp56",
"comment_text": [
"Aim. Head shots > Body shots.",
"Source : Been playing FPS for 16 years."
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: How can a scammer hurt me of they have my bank account number? I thought you need ID to withdraw any money. | explainlikeimfive | 1q3v19 | 3 | true | false | 0.61 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8w51o",
"comment_text": [
"I don't know all of the details, but consider this:",
"Most people (~87%) are uniquely identifiable from their birth date, zip code, and gender",
"This is not the usual information that people think about when they are restricting access to their personal... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8xaha",
"comment_text": [
"Ever purchase anything online? Most online ordering sites simply require you to put in your account number and bank routing number. With these two pieces of information, they can make \"purchases\" out of your account. ",
"We see it all the time in banking.... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9294t",
"comment_text": [
"It says way more than that. It says \"give this to the bank and they'll make it good.\"",
"It's a negotiable instrument, more than a promise to pay, and is a money substitute. All these big words mean that it is a commonly used commercial paper."
],
"sc... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd900it",
"comment_text": [
"At first I thought you were going to say ",
"Source: I'm a criminal trying to get into your bank account."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8wyne",
"comment_text": [
"If I have your account number and the name of your bank I can look up your routing number. If I have your routing number and your account number I can use my computer to print or order checks that that pull from your checking account. I can put any name on these ... | ||
ELI5: Can someone explain the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and what actually goes on in there when the market is open? | explainlikeimfive | 1q3y5i | 17 | true | false | 0.74 | I've been watching the first few minutes of Twitter (TWTR) stock trading at the NYSE but it just doesn't make sense to me at the moment AT ALL. If share trading is done through brokers and stock orders, why are huge screens and terminals everywhere, and do they display the same thing? Why is it bustling with people? In... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd933jd",
"comment_text": [
"As I used to work on the trading floor of the Chicago Board of Trade I'll give you an analogy. In the movie zoolander when the two try to acces the files from the computer it results in monkey noises and them banging on it. That is what the floor is similar to. ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd93kqc",
"comment_text": [
"Hah! This is great. And AMA please."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9q99u",
"comment_text": [
"I'm not that reddit savy, but if you have any questions I'll be happy to answer"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9qcik",
"comment_text": [
"What were you trading/what was your role?"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9qgav",
"comment_text": [
"My firm traded options on index futures contracts. Since I was an intern my most important job was to get lunch, as well as energy drinks and candy throughout the day. I also ensured trades were entered correctly and made sure there were no expensive mistakes."
... | |
ELI5: Why does the government not bottle it's own country's water and sell back to the people for profit? | explainlikeimfive | 1q3vko | 1 | true | false | 1 | After hearing again about Nestlé bottling Canadian water for free and then selling it for huge profits, just wondering why government's couldn't do this to make a bit of extra cash for services? Hindsight 20/20? Its not It's -- before I get set on fire. It's early, people! | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8vwoe",
"comment_text": [
"Many people are against state owned enterprises, even if they are highly profitable. They believe it is not the role of the government to make a profit through the sale of commercial goods, that it is too close to controlled economies. "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8w9qa",
"comment_text": [
"There's been large anti-government sentiment rising in recent years. Many people do not trust the government and think that if the government were to enter into one industry that they will harm it. First they would say that the government has a particular ability... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8vwmu",
"comment_text": [
"They already charge for water every time you turn on the tap. "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8w209",
"comment_text": [
"Is this not a bit of an old-fashioned view? I'd rather buy government bottled water than Nestle water and know that my proceeds have gone to perhaps paying for healthcare, keeping Canadians employed, educating children, etc. ",
" Also -- what does it mean to ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8wgcn",
"comment_text": [
"I can see how the government getting involved in the sale of water would create an unfair advantage in the business world -- if it were only Nestle that was pushed out , I wouldn't really give a damn -- but that's a slippery slope. ",
"Perhaps a non-profit wi... | |
ELI5:What is the basis for the feminist notion of objectification? | explainlikeimfive | 1q46d4 | 0 | true | false | 0.5 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8z5j9",
"comment_text": [
"The problem is that women are treated as sex objects in most situations, even those where it isn't appropriate."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8z6mn",
"comment_text": [
"You're going to have to be more specific, what exactly do you need explained. Are you asking what people mean by \"objectification\"?"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8zhk0",
"comment_text": [
"Fair enough, we'll see how this goes then. Keep in mind that ELi5 is not a place to argue a point, if that's what you're looking for, this will likely be closed down and you'll be redirected to ",
"/r/changemyview",
".",
"ELI5 is not for telling you ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8zk15",
"comment_text": [
"Sorry im not tying to argue. Im trying to understand if my ideas on thought (basically hume's) are consistent with the overall theory of 'objectification' in gender studies (been a while since ive dabbled in the humanities). They seem to be and so I don't think i... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9015r",
"comment_text": [
"The idea that all things are objects completely dismisses empathy. You can't relate to your coffee cup the way you can relate to the doctor. The idea of objectifying women is exactly this: you're not empathizing with them at all and treating them like they are ul... | |
ELI5: When acronyms are used as words such as radar, laser, sonar, scuba, are they derived with the intent of being used as words or is it just happy luck that we can say them as a noun? | explainlikeimfive | 1q46rw | 2 | true | false | 1 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8zdev",
"comment_text": [
"A lot of them are specifically named so they can be said as a word. I'm sure there are some that weren't, too.",
"Do you think the ",
"niting and ",
"trengthening ",
"merica by ",
"roviding ",
"ppropriate ",
"ools ",
"equired to ",... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8znp3",
"comment_text": [
"I think it was purposefully named that way to put a possitive denotation on it, so voters can just look at the acronym and feel like it's a good thing. The examples I gave have no such agenda, so I'm not really convinced for them and others that are similar."
... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd951ec",
"comment_text": [
"If a the abbreviations of a group of words can be pronounced, they are an acronym. Examples; SCUBA, NASA, SONAR, etc. If they can not be pronounced they are an initialism. Examples; FBI, CIA, DVD.",
"http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2012/05/the-diffe... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd90766",
"comment_text": [
"Based on what I've read of their origin, their names were chosen with the intent to be used as words. ",
"For example, you start with an underwater rebreather and you need a name for it, so you come up with an acronym that explains the function but is easy t... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8z69w",
"comment_text": [
"Most of those are government/military words; and the military is pretty good at naming junk."
],
"score": 1
} | ||
Why are tobacco companies allowed to continue selling products guaranteed to kill or do serious harm? | explainlikeimfive | 1q4i77 | 2 | true | false | 0.67 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd92k0j",
"comment_text": [
"Because it's not illegal for people to harm themselves."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd92l81",
"comment_text": [
"Because it is worth a lot of money to the government!"
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd92kar",
"comment_text": [
"Because they're taxed to all hell."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd92qfw",
"comment_text": [
"They have great lobbyists. ",
"They also spent a lot of money obfuscating the true damage that cigarettes do, by hiring scientists to study the subject of cigarette smoking and blow smoke (couldn't resist) into the faces of scientists who studied the subject ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd92rgu",
"comment_text": [
"Lobbyists from big tabacco corporations give lots of money to senators and congressional members of both parties. Thus keeping more stringent laws from coming about. Also its a personal choice and shouldn't be illegal regardless of lobbyists "
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5- Arguments against flu shots/are they dangerous? Is there merit to the arguments against receiving a flu shot? | explainlikeimfive | 1q4gms | 8 | true | false | 0.83 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd92c2r",
"comment_text": [
"No. Even if there are drawbacks to the flu shot, influenza kills an estimated 250,000 - 500,000 people per year. Reducing it's ability to spread far outweights whatever psuedo-science, conspiracy theories, and minor-risk of infection or whatever else people have ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd92d9g",
"comment_text": [
"What arguments are you referring to? ",
"I'd guess there are a few common ones, like:",
"Responses:",
"This is a valid point--the doctors responsible for mixing up the vaccine choose three common strains of the flu virus from the previous year's strai... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd95ito",
"comment_text": [
"Actually this is a common misconception. In a person with a normal immune system, the flu vaccine will not affect their ability to fight off another infection. This is because the immune system is able to expand rapidly and adapt to multiple infections at once wi... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd951js",
"comment_text": [
"Thanks--I couldn't remember if the shot or the mist had the weakened virus."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd951js",
"comment_text": [
"Thanks--I couldn't remember if the shot or the mist had the weakened virus."
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: What is the difference between whiskey and bourbon? | explainlikeimfive | 1q4j2g | 0 | true | false | 0.5 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd934em",
"comment_text": [
"Whisky or whiskey is a liquor produced by fermenting certain grains (wheat, corn, rye, barley, typically), and then distilling them into hard alcohol. Typically it's spelled whiskey when talking about American or Irish whiskies, and whisky when talking about Sco... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd93r56",
"comment_text": [
"Different types of whisky can taste rather different, though if you have had one you will probably still recognize any other as being whisky.",
"Scotch is probably the most widely respected, though there are many quality bourbons that are as complex if not mo... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd93hbg",
"comment_text": [
"Whiskey is a generic term for the product of distilling fermented mashed cereal grains, though it generally refers to a barrel aged drink as opposed to \"white whiskey\" which is unaged.",
"Different specific types like Scotch, Irish, American, Bourbon, etc d... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd94m2n",
"comment_text": [
"Bourbon's corn usually results in a flavor most describe as \"sweeter\" than whiskys made from other grains. Scotch frequently picks up smoky flavors from the peat fires used in the malting/roasting process. ",
"Also, any liquer that's barrell aged will pic... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd938tm",
"comment_text": [
"Thanks! Great answer! Although I still do have a question: Is there a significant difference in tastes? Also, is one type perceived as being of the finer, or of better quality, generally speaking?"
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: Why does it seem like pooping is so much harder for many adults than for kids? | explainlikeimfive | 1q4nfz | 5 | true | false | 0.62 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd95tf5",
"comment_text": [
"dehydration in many adults"
],
"score": 4
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd96pqv",
"comment_text": [
"also adults have had a lot longer to develop unhealthy eating habits which clog their digestive tract, years and years of buildup."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9fjqs",
"comment_text": [
"This is simply not true. Nothing I ate last week, regardless of how unhealthy it was is still in my digestive system. Even eating unhealthy for a decade and being morbidly obese, if you fast for a few days, you will have nothing that you have previously consumed ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd9bu4l",
"comment_text": [
"What's your sample of kids? I know kids who have a hard time pooping. Maybe you just don't hear about it much. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd97tf8",
"comment_text": [
"what these people said, and the fact that the toilets we use arent really designed to make it easy. The way an average adult sits on a toilet actually causes your sphincters to work poorly resulting in the having to push. your body is designed to have to squat... | ||
ELI5: What defenses does the White House have? Is it particularly well-guarded compared to any other valuable government building? | explainlikeimfive | 1q4fzj | 6 | true | false | 0.75 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd926u2",
"comment_text": [
"I remember reading in Newsweek (way back there, like during the Clinton administration) about the various defense features of the WH, and they're pretty robust. The WH absolutely has a fallout shelter/bunker and shoulder-mounted AA missiles (think Stingers). That... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd91zgg",
"comment_text": [
"nice try terrorist "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd93dju",
"comment_text": [
"Most of what they have is classified. Some of it can be inferred by other systems and whats people can see.",
"First there is a visual warning system around DC that flashes red & green lasers at aircraft to warn them they are entering restricted airspace, it ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd96h7e",
"comment_text": [
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_Emergency_Operations_Center",
" its not nearly as impressive as is shown in the movies, its a very short term shelter facility and in the event of a problem they would seek to evacuate the president.",
"The recent... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd93jud",
"comment_text": [
"TIL. Thanks for updating my 90's info, bro.",
"It would also be reasonable to presume that there is a Phalanx CIWS somewhere on-site for close-in interception.",
"And if anyone doesn't know what this is, google it. It's awesome. It's essentially a minigun... | ||
ELI5: | explainlikeimfive | 1q50yz | 0 | true | false | 0.5 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd98bho",
"comment_text": [
"Here we have a great example of the sort of pointless novelty account that nobody outside the GTA will understand or care about in a couple of weeks. ",
"Have fun with that though. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd98e01",
"comment_text": [
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efomqKJuUfY&feature=player_embedded"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd98ecp",
"comment_text": [
"Seems as if this qualifies as out of the GTA."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd98etm",
"comment_text": [
"You didn't read anything I said, did you? "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd98h13",
"comment_text": [
"I really could not care any less about what you said :)"
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5:Why don't women grow facial hair? | explainlikeimfive | 1pzm4v | 1 | true | false | 0.67 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7o2ku",
"comment_text": [
"Females still can get light facial hair, so I think the question is more why do men have beards?",
"I'd imagine it's an evolutionary trait developed over the last million years or so, females tended to prefer males with lots of body hair (a good sign of lots ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7ohko",
"comment_text": [
"Beard growth is also stimulated by testosterone during puberty, and women have much less testosterone than men. "
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7o3uu",
"comment_text": [
"women do. it's just not as much. ",
"it's western culture for females to remove facial hair if visible. other cultures don't have that. "
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7oe2q",
"comment_text": [
"Testosterone"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7oegl",
"comment_text": [
"The only thing I could think of at this point.",
"http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/236x/28/50/41/285041ab467cc6447918b7d806335121.jpg"
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: How do vocal cords work? | explainlikeimfive | 1pzsf3 | 3 | true | false | 1 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7rtin",
"comment_text": [
"Your vocal cords sit at the top of your windpipe and are actually just two little ligaments that vibrate together when you breath out. When you are just breathing and not speaking they stay far apart and aren't used but when you want to speak, muscles pull them t... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7xfm9",
"comment_text": [
"This is all correct, I just wanted to add that the process by which this occurs is the exact same way that you can take a piece of grass between your fingers blow across it and get a buzz/whistle or if you've never seen that trick before you can just take a piece... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7qcef",
"comment_text": [
"This website",
" explains it perfectly!"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7qmvs",
"comment_text": [
"Thank you!"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7sg61",
"comment_text": [
"As an aspiring voice actor, and/or singer, this is very informative as well, thank you!"
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: What exactly creates this 'second' tide? | explainlikeimfive | 1pzx53 | 2 | true | false | 1 | So i've been pondering over this picture for a while now But i can't think of a good reason for the tide at the other side of the earth. Why isn't that side being pulled towards the moon as well? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7rbxd",
"comment_text": [
"Because the moon and the earth aren't pulling each other like tugging a rope. They are falling towards each other but keep missing because they move forwards faster than they fall. The moon isn't just spinning around the earth while the earth stays still. They ar... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7ueer",
"comment_text": [
"Just replying to point out that this is the correct one.",
"High tide on moon facing side is directly because of gravity's pull. High tide on opposite side is exactly as described, the earth is \"falling away\" from the water"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd825hb",
"comment_text": [
"The earth is moving away from the water before it catches up. ",
"That is awesome, thank you for answering!"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7rt1e",
"comment_text": [
"The moon's gravity is pulling on all the water on earth. If it were pulling on all of it equally, it would not affect the water. However, it's not pulling equally. Gravity diminishes proportional to distance squared. So, compared to the center of the earth, t... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7sg1x",
"comment_text": [
"The high tide closest to the Moon is caused by the water being pulled up towards the Moon.",
"The high tide on the opposite side is caused because that's the water being pulled by the Moon the least as it's the furthest away. The water elsewhere on the plane... | |
ELI5: Why doesn't YoutTube make their comment system not suck so much? | explainlikeimfive | 1q006v | 2 | true | false | 0.63 | Has happened many times where I look to the comments, only to see there are 55,000 comments, sorted by time. They have thumbs up, but no way to sort by most votes like Reddit. I cant believe the largest video site in the world wouldnt implement such a common sense thing unless there was a reason not to | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7vqt0",
"comment_text": [
"I think even YouTube realize that their comment section is the biggest sack of turds on the internet, so why bother? "
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7s30j",
"comment_text": [
"Priorities. YouTube's draw is the video content, not the discussions. They only have so many resources they're willing to spend at any given time, and they believe that improving the video quality, load times, interface and other things are higher priorities than... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd82cuh",
"comment_text": [
"Yeah but maybe it wouldnt be so bad if they used a karma/point system. On Reddit it seems to have a pretty self-moderating effect"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7s90s",
"comment_text": [
"I would buy that explanation except that voting ability/information on how many votes there are has been existing for a while, so I would think it would only involve writing another line or so of code"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7scs3",
"comment_text": [
"Unfortunately, not being high in their priority list, they have to test new features for bugs, and the fact of having to implement and deploy this on every server they have seems like a waste of time and money. Specially when very little people are complaining ab... | |
ELI5: Couponing. How is it possible? | explainlikeimfive | 1q0g8a | 6 | true | false | 0.71 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7wtuc",
"comment_text": [
"First, you buy a Sunday newspaper. A newspaper is an archaic static form of news and information that is printed on paper with black ink. In the Sunday paper there will be several flyers, which are also printed on similar paper, but are usually in color. These fl... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7wml4",
"comment_text": [
"Couponing in what definition, serious couponing or simple discounts?",
"Serious:",
"Most very serious couponing will end up on some type of media, giving free advertising (except the couponing) to the company. If it doesn't end up on media the person is s... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7ydc4",
"comment_text": [
"Companies issue coupons realising that the vast majority of them won't be used. People will see them and have the urge to buy a product, they might even cut them out and plan to use them, but due to expiration dates, or the most convenient location for a shopper ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd87o79",
"comment_text": [
"For the most part, it isn't..what you see on TV is the absolute best case scenario, not what you can do on a week to week basis.",
"The basic trick is:",
"Also bear in mind this takes a lot of work. If you spend 12 hours to save $100, you might be better... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7x949",
"comment_text": [
"If you want to spend countless hours collecting, filing and cross-checking coupons with store advertisements, it can work. If you want to get stuck buying stacks of shit you don't need because you have a coupon, it works. Most people don't bother because they h... | ||
ELI5: if people think the US landing on the moon was fake why can we just use our powerful telescopes to take a picture of it? | explainlikeimfive | 1q0odd | 2 | true | false | 0.75 | ELI5: if people think the US landing on the moon was fake why can we just use our powerful telescopes to take a picture of it? If we can see other planets or take that amazing picture of the solar flare on the sun couldn't it see the moon because it's the closest thing too us. Edit: Forgot to say to take a picture of t... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7yov0",
"comment_text": [
"Earth based telescopes are not powerful enough to image the lunar landing sites - however a recent probe sent to the moon was able to take pictures.",
"http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/revisited/",
"However if you are a die hard conspiracy nut you... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7yr26",
"comment_text": [
"We can do better than that, you can, if you have access to one powerful enough, shoot a laser at the moon and bounce it off a mirror left there and receive it back."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7yvtl",
"comment_text": [
"If you built a football stadium on the Moon and then pointed the Hubble Space Telescope at it and looked for it you wouldn't notice it. At that distance a football stadium would be 1 or 2 pixels. "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7z0ju",
"comment_text": [
"This was done by Mythbusters, and confirmed that humans had in fact planted a mirror on the moon."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7z804",
"comment_text": [
"I know, mythbusters did a whole episode about the moon landings. Don't know why they needed to do the laser mirror one though as can't think of anyway you could take it considering anyone with the money can buy the equipment and test it themselves. "
],
"scor... | |
ELI5 Thunder and lightning | explainlikeimfive | 1q0tjn | 1 | true | false | 0.56 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd80g5e",
"comment_text": [
"Helpful lying is not explaining. "
],
"score": 5
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7zyyd",
"comment_text": [
"Lightning is caused by static electricity building up in the atmosphere. It's common during thunderstorms because the movement of air and water molecules causes a significant build up of electrical charge. Although the actual energy of each lightning strike is ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd83zd5",
"comment_text": [
"Well that's what sound is, compressed air moving as a wave. The lightning suddenly heats up a (roughly) column of air and the heat forces a wave of air to propagate outwards away from the bolt. "
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd83hot",
"comment_text": [
"Where does the sound com from though?"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd80kbe",
"comment_text": [
"I was just goofin. "
],
"score": -2
} | ||
ELI5: How to use an umbrella in the wind? | explainlikeimfive | 1q0uev | 0 | true | false | 0.5 | This is the second time in a month that I've ended up with a broken umbrella within five minutes of walking out of my dorm (also the second time in a month that it's rained heavily and I needed to walk outside). How am I supposed to hold an umbrella so that it doesn't immediately fly inside-out from the wind and snap t... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd80ahg",
"comment_text": [
"At certain high wind speeds you just accept that you'll get rained on and lose the umbrella. Wear a waterproof jacket and hood."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd80b86",
"comment_text": [
"It's not even high wind speeds, though. It's any wind whatsoever."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd80d11",
"comment_text": [
"Point your umbrella to break the wind then. It may be that the elbow joint is causing it to fail when you do so. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd81337",
"comment_text": [
"My wife has an extensive collection. She says to buy better umbrellas. She also says, finding one is very difficult."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd835u7",
"comment_text": [
"Keep your umbrella half-opened, just enough to squeeze yourself in. Then, point it towards the wind and try to keep it as closed as possible. You can even try to get inside the umbrella and cover yourself from the rain, but you can't see where you are going. You ... | |
ELI5:In pool, when the white ball goes into a pocket how does it come in a separate spot from all other balls? | explainlikeimfive | 1q0wc2 | 0 | true | false | 0.43 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd80qou",
"comment_text": [
"All the other balls are smaller in size. It wont fit in the holes designed to drop the main balls. There is a hole that is just the size of the cueball at the end of the tracks inside the table that the cue ball goes down."
],
"score": 5
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd80yeo",
"comment_text": [
"Having worked in an arcade with pool tables, I can confirm that this is correct, OP. ",
"Inside the tables I've seen is a mechanism that stops all the colored balls from passing through, but allows the cue ball to slide through since it is slightly smaller. S... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd80zpy",
"comment_text": [
"Thanks for the edit on that. I knew one was smaller then the other. On boardwalk empire, it stated in a story that the cue ball was a lil bigger."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd80tvo",
"comment_text": [
"wrong"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd80tvo",
"comment_text": [
"wrong"
],
"score": 2
} | ||
ELI5: Why are certain things more expensive in certain areas? Can you not just order from another country via the internet. | explainlikeimfive | 1q0z54 | 1 | true | false | 0.66 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd81khy",
"comment_text": [
"Different IP is all well and good, but what about the actual address for shipping? Even if the place you are ordering from is willing to ship there, it's going to be expensive."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd81q2e",
"comment_text": [
"Wow, shipping completely slipped my mind. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd81lpi",
"comment_text": [
"Delivery costs, customs and excise, import taxes, licences, and so on, and so forth. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd81mtz",
"comment_text": [
"I wish it was that easy in Australia with console games (though hopefully that will be changing). I couldn't believe it when I saw we pay twice as much as North America. We would have to buy consoles that supported overseas games and pay expensive postage."
],
... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd82k8a",
"comment_text": [
"If you want a pair of italian leather dress shoes, just for some hypothetical, they would probably be cheaper in Italy. But the businesses in America don't want everyone ordering from Italy and not supporting the business stateside, so they lobby for taxes on im... | |
ELI5: As a German, I don't get it: Why do Americans mostly think that Snowden is a traitor? | explainlikeimfive | 1q1bbn | 1 | true | false | 0.67 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd85hzw",
"comment_text": [
"A lot of people don't really follow politics and what not. For many Americans as long as it does not personally and obviously effects them they aren't just going to be interested. Many Americans are also very supportive of foreign intelligence gathering and do n... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd85k51",
"comment_text": [
"This is the most accurate answer. In my experience, the only people who DON'T think Snowden is a traitor is Redditor Americans. Anyone you talk to in person either doesn't really know what is going on, or thinks that Snowden is a traitor and support things such a... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd85j5r",
"comment_text": [
"This is a loaded question, so it's been removed (it assumes that Americans mostly think he's a traitor, they don't).",
"Also snowden has been discussed to death on ELI5, probably more than any other topic. Please search first."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd85pyw",
"comment_text": [
"you are right: sorry, I read something else before.\n",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbW4dSC3KvM",
"=> here it says, 55% think he's an whistleblower, only 34% think he's a traitor. dunno where i picked this up, but sorry!"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd85l4s",
"comment_text": [
"Its split, on reddit the general sentiment is positive. The general public is split between people that like him, people that think he's a traitor, and those that don't really care. It'd be tough to split that into actual percentages.",
"As for why some peopl... | |
ELI5: The game of Cricket. | explainlikeimfive | 1q1dg5 | 0 | true | false | 0.22 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8614g",
"comment_text": [
"Rather than pasting the contents of Wikipedia, it's probably helpful to explain Cricket in the context of baseball. There's a better than average chance the guy asking is an American. Cricket is a lot like baseball, except for the following differences:",
"... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd873tf",
"comment_text": [
"Oh, and those crazy Brits have one other difference: They call two innings \"innings\", but they call a single inning \"innings\" as well! Singular of innings is innings.",
"Bloody pear-shaped torches and lifts, smoking fags..."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8wpv8",
"comment_text": [
"So let me see if I get this correctly. Someone asks you \"what is cricket\" and you think the right answer is to assume his nationality, assume his lack of knowledge, assume that he's not, despite his clear request for it, looking for a general description of th... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8wubt",
"comment_text": [
"I refer you to the post (that was made 22 hours ago - Way to pay attention, genius) from the original poster. It's directly below your post:",
"Thanks, that actually makes much more sense put like that.",
" ",
" ",
".",
"But I'm so sorry that... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8x48z",
"comment_text": [
"So you're definitely right. But since your entire comment history involves you telling other people how wrong they are, constantly, you're also a prick.",
"You didn't piss me off, prick. It pisses me off that assholes like you are still allowed to breed. Y... | |
Eli5: how does McDonald's make every item taste the same as the last time I got it and even at a different location? | explainlikeimfive | 1q1hou | 4 | true | false | 0.7 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd878yr",
"comment_text": [
"McDonald's snark aside, they do it by producing them at central locations and distributing them to franchises. The preparation methods are also standardized."
],
"score": 7
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd87dbj",
"comment_text": [
"The preparation methods are also standardized.",
"Incredibly so.",
"Fast food thrives on i) containing costs; and ii) producing a consistent product. These are the twin tenets of quality control in most fast food chains. McDonald's carefully measures eve... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd87bt1",
"comment_text": [
"Stringent quality controls on how the food is prepared (same cook time, cook temperature, etc.).",
"All the base ingredients are sourced from the same place suppliers, and then they are mashed together in giant factories with the same amount of each ingredien... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd87ekf",
"comment_text": [
"the raw products are shipped to the franchises but the base meat, buns, fries etc all made at the same locations using the same recipes and methods. But hey even with this there could be some variation, McDonalds doesn't want that. In order to cook the meat it is... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd88m9x",
"comment_text": [
"Chemical processing, and large homogenized batches of products produced in central locations and shipped world wide. "
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: Phone network speeds (Edge, 3g, 4g, etc) | explainlikeimfive | 1q16jo | 5 | true | false | 0.78 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd84oc6",
"comment_text": [
"You might think that these terms are engineering terms and that as such they have clear definitions with standards attached. While that is true with some of them it is not true of them all. The reality is that these are marketing terms.",
"The g stands for ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd83xrw",
"comment_text": [
"Generation"
],
"score": 4
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd854p6",
"comment_text": [
"Quick note: The original iPhone only came with EDGE, the iPhone 3G was the first to utilize...well, you know."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd859h7",
"comment_text": [
"Sorry, I'm Canadian and we missed the original, the 3G was the first available here and I forget that it was not the actual first. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd85cz2",
"comment_text": [
"Yep, I'm Canadian as well and even though my first iPhone was the 3G model, Rogers took about 18 months before upgrading our local towers to support it. EDGE was so painfully slow."
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: Why do old people have a distinct "old person" smell? | explainlikeimfive | 1q1hr1 | 90 | true | false | 0.88 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd88ctj",
"comment_text": [
"Our smell is a combination of skin gland secretions and bacterial activity, both of which change in an age-dependent manner during the course of our development and aging process.",
"Yes, ",
", and yes we can detect it. And no it isn't because of an inabi... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8jhn0",
"comment_text": [
"we are all slowly rotting to death"
],
"score": 16
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8bs61",
"comment_text": [
"Mung Beans"
],
"score": 11
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd89rio",
"comment_text": [
"We eventually lose our sense of smell. My grandmother stated one day \"I don't smell bad anymore so I don't have to wear deodorant!\" We had to inform her that infact was not the case she just couldn't smell herself"
],
"score": 10
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8fz4h",
"comment_text": [
"Oh trust me some meds do stink to high heaven if excreted in sweat,modafinil for example makes you smell like sulphur(Especially your pee) and mephedrone(Not exactly medical) which makes you smell like...shrimp."
],
"score": 7
} | ||
ELI5: How does Google make money? | explainlikeimfive | 1q1lyr | 1 | true | false | 0.67 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd88lez",
"comment_text": [
"You're missing how much advertising they're doing. Go Google a product you're interested in buying. See something in yellow at the top? That's an ad. Someone is paying for their service to be listed on top when your search meets certain things.",
"The adverti... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd88mhe",
"comment_text": [
"Google Adsense! Basically consumers pay Google to advertise on videos, side of pages, on google at the top of results etc... Google also share some of the made revenue with people who want to put other peoples advertising on their videos or websites, generating e... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8a1cp",
"comment_text": [
"Technically it's Adwords that Google makes money from. What you've described is both Adwords and Adsense put together. Adwords is where people can pay Google to run their ads. Adsense is just the part that lets anyone display those ads on their own site and make ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd88ntm",
"comment_text": [
"Advertising. Perform any search. ",
"Refrigerator, for example",
". The right ",
" of the page is 100% ads, relevant to your search. At the top of the results is a section in peach labelled \"Ads related to refrigerator\". If you go to the shopping ta... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd89arj",
"comment_text": [
"Google is an advertising company that also runs a search engine, some web apps, and a phone platform. They make tens of billions of dollars a year through advertising.",
"Also, remember the old adage: If you aren't paying for a service, you are the product.... | |
ELI5: TV guided missiles | explainlikeimfive | 1q1k2u | 2 | true | false | 0.67 | How do they work? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd884zd",
"comment_text": [
"The top post on ELI5 thoroughly answers your question"
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd88bpq",
"comment_text": [
"Are you referencing ",
"The TV Missile from Battlefield",
" or ",
"the GB-4-like 'TV' Missile from US military testing",
"?",
"The battlefield one probably still functions the same as the GB-4 - a camera is mounted on the missile to allow for ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8872k",
"comment_text": [
"That's more for general guided missiles and how they work. I'm looking for a ",
" explanation of TV guided missiles."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd88vrn",
"comment_text": [
"So it's basically a drone?"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd88yi5",
"comment_text": [
"For all intents and purposes, yes - a remote operator uses some form of radio communication to guide a rocket, either by visual indicator or by a literal camera attached to the rocket to provide a 'first-person view' for targetting"
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: Why some people pronounce the word "ask" like they pronounce "axe." | explainlikeimfive | 1q1zv8 | 0 | true | false | 0.5 | Trying to keep this as PC as possible, but I couldn't help but wondering if there was any linguistic explanation here. Most of the time (in my limited experience) the people who mispronounce this word don't mispronounce many other words. | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8d0kb",
"comment_text": [
"Just the evolution of speech, same reason some say Y'all, or yous guys, different dialects for different regions, socioeconomic groups, even race and gender."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8d15g",
"comment_text": [
"It's not necessarily \"wrong\" to use a nonstandard pronunciation of a word. If the speaker is a user of African American Vernacular English, it's a common variant, though other dialects have used it as well. It's no more wrong than the way a Californian pronounc... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8do6t",
"comment_text": [
"Ask and aks have been different pronunciations of the word in different accents dating back to Old English times, so it's not really a mispronunciation, it's just that African American Vernacular English has held onto aks while other American dialects have standa... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8czrq",
"comment_text": [
"That's the way they've always heard it. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8d62b",
"comment_text": [
"A lisp or speech issue. For example, I have issue with saying the sounds 'ch' and 'sh'. All other sounds//words, just fine.",
"Regional accents [\"American South\" vs \"Inner City\" vs \"New England\" vs \"Midwestern\"... larger scale, \"American\" vs \"Briti... | |
ELI5: 4th dimensional space. I don't understand anything about it, any help would benefit me. | explainlikeimfive | 1q1zxg | 1 | true | false | 0.67 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8cyqk",
"comment_text": [
"Well, this is going to sound a little weird, so bear with me.",
"A 2 dimensional object (a square) has four edges, each with a length. The entire object has an area.\nA 3 dimensional object (a cube) has six faces, each with an area. The entire object has a vo... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8d4t3",
"comment_text": [
"I don't get this shit either."
],
"score": 4
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8g60q",
"comment_text": [
"It's to be expected. ",
" can really visualize a 4 dimensional object. You can get a 'feel' for working in 4+ dimensions (in maths and physics mainly) so it doesn't seem weird, but that's it.",
"If you're familiar with the Rubik's cube, ",
"here's a 4... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8d1ht",
"comment_text": [
"I understand the words and ideas you're using, but I just can't visualise or imagine it. Am I stupid or is this to be expected?"
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8d5kh",
"comment_text": [
"Example ",
"http://i.imgur.com/THbddFG.gif?1"
],
"score": 3
} | ||
ELI5: How do stores with massive inventories profit even when most of it doesn't seem to sell very quickly? | explainlikeimfive | 1q21b7 | 7 | true | false | 0.81 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8dc35",
"comment_text": [
"Cause when they do eventually sell it all its positive revenue"
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8dlup",
"comment_text": [
"Take Walmart for example. All of their shit (literally shit. It's poop.) is so cheaply made and cheaply acquired from the manufacturer, that when they do sell something, it's probably 3 to 10 times profit. Maybe even more. It's basically money in the bank. Ju... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8fkrc",
"comment_text": [
"Many stores finance their inventory, which means they really are only paying the interest on the cost of the item for the time it sits on the shelf."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8he39",
"comment_text": [
"you don't get a large inventory before you can handle the costs of storage",
"you can compare it to buying a car , you don't buy it before you can afford the gas"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8jbxj",
"comment_text": [
"What you're seeing is because of what the industry calls \"Just In Time Inventory Control\", \"Just In Time Ordering\", or just JIT. Businesses order products far enough ahead that they will arrive just before the last item on their shelves is sold. Businesses ... | |
ELI5: Why does my nose run when it's cold? | explainlikeimfive | 1q28k8 | 12 | true | false | 0.76 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8i325",
"comment_text": [
", it's really a combination of two things. It's part respiratory biology and part of it is physics, or thermodynamics. One of the main functions of the nose is to warm and humidify the air that we breathe so that when it reaches your lungs, it's nice and conditio... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8oold",
"comment_text": [
"Because it's scared."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8ol23",
"comment_text": [
"Tell him the truth. Our noses run because our feet smell, and there has to be a balance."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8pk1r",
"comment_text": [
"I was just trying to sound clever but yes.......this is the real reason. Smelly feet=runny nose. True story. Google it."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8vqn7",
"comment_text": [
";)"
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELi5- How will the loss of 'net-neutrality' in America affect the rest of the world? | explainlikeimfive | 1pwxwm | 12 | true | false | 0.72 | Specifically Canada. Also - would it mean a website who chooses not to pay the ISP would be impossible to access in America? Thanks :) edit: doesn't this make for bad business in the long run since (as I understand it) only a few big corps. make their major profit from internet usage alone? I could be misunderstanding ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6wgv9",
"comment_text": [
"The thing many people don't realize is that, at present, all threats to network neutrality are at the consumer ISP level. The way that ISPs and businesses buy and sell network connectivity, deliberate failure to deliver packets to/from ",
" site would be a c... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd70als",
"comment_text": [
"The answer to your question is pretty much that everything is legal if it's in your contract.",
"Most ISPs allow 'fair use', which is something they determine, usually to discourage downloading large amounts of data which puts strain on their system. The beha... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd77nwv",
"comment_text": [
"In a word, maybe.",
"The Internet isn't one big super-network, it's a lot of networks linked together, usually owned by large telecommunications companies, some of which double as ISPs.",
"You have an ISP, so does the website you're trying to view, and yo... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6xbdh",
"comment_text": [
"The trouble is that consumer ISPs -- mainly cable companies, like Comcast or Time Warner -- do not have to overtly prioritize traffic. They're not saying, \"Oh, Hulu gave us money, so program the routers to send all the Hulu packets before the Netflix packets.\"... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6xkju",
"comment_text": [
"More likely the ISP will demand that Netflix pay them in order to have fast access to all of the ISP's customers, i.e. you."
],
"score": 2
} | |
ELI5: Why are capital gains rates lower than ordinary income rates? | explainlikeimfive | 1px2pi | 0 | true | false | 0.5 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6xj0u",
"comment_text": [
"This isn't an opinion subreddit. This subreddit is for explanations of complicated concepts. It appears you already understand the concept of capitol gains.",
"edit: Terrible wording."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6yd2p",
"comment_text": [
"Because they're supposed to have external benefits."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6yykp",
"comment_text": [
"You're taking a stance, not requesting an explanation. You'd get some really great answers over at ",
"/r/changemyview",
". Your post has been removed!"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdbwdn4",
"comment_text": [
"This removal was inappropriate and overzealous."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdbwyrf",
"comment_text": [
"No it wasn't. The rules clearly state that loaded questions and personal bias are not allowed unless specifically noted and contextualized. This post was asking for arguments against a specific stance on the issue, which is LITERALLY what ",
"/r/changemyview"... | ||
ELI5: Why exactly do we still use daylight savings time in the United States? | explainlikeimfive | 1px9an | 1 | true | false | 0.55 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6zt0v",
"comment_text": [
"It originally came about because Ben Franklin satirically suggested the people of France would save money on candle wax if they changed their clocks during the winter. Whether or not we see any appreciable savings in modernity, I can't say. But it is much nicer l... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6zn61",
"comment_text": [
"Because we always have and changing it now causes more confusion than leaving it alone. It was bad enough when Bush moved the dates and it threw off computer clocks everywhere because they had bad timezone data."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd72g7j",
"comment_text": [
"One study in 2008 in Indiana suggested that DST actually increases energy use and cost. There was another big one done in Australia, That showed it was essentially usless. One study in California in 2007 said it was useless, in that the savings of energy consumpt... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6zput",
"comment_text": [
"NO ONE KNOWS"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd700oi",
"comment_text": [
"HAHA, Blame Bush, good move Obama! edit: Im surprised that the blame Bush first only got me a few negative votes, where's all the liberal cunts, btw, for those that understand history and the constitution, the President signs laws, he doesn't write them, ie.the... | ||
ELI5: How do people that invest in the stock market continually make money? | explainlikeimfive | 1px8r3 | 6 | true | false | 0.8 | It seems to me that the only way to make money is to buy shares and then once the prices go up you sell them. But then after you sell them and make your profit, how do you make money off of it? Would you not have to reinvest your money to make gains that you would just invest again? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6ziaf",
"comment_text": [
"Much of the time, people simply invest in a company they think will do well in the long term. If the company's stock goes up, the person can sell and get their money. At that point, they have the option of taking their money and leaving, or they can reinvest it i... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd71nt8",
"comment_text": [
"Some companies also pay dividends. That is, they pay each shareholder some amount of money for each share/fraction of a share is owned. Usually this comes out of a company's profits and is used to attract investors."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd737x3",
"comment_text": [
"It seems to me that the only way to make money is to buy shares and then once the prices go up you sell them. But then after you sell them and make your profit, how do you make money off of it?",
"Maybe you don't. One (very simplified) scenario goes like fol... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd73dyr",
"comment_text": [
"I don't mean to put words in your mouth, but are you wondering how people can survive entirely off of investments, without having a job? "
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd76f6j",
"comment_text": [
"Ok, I've got you now.",
"The most important thing to remember about these people is they usually have a really large initial investment, a million at the lowest, more like tens, if not hundreds, of millions. You then take that initial sum and invest in all ki... | |
ELI5: Why do public women's toilets have lids if they're never going to be lifted up? | explainlikeimfive | 1pxg6c | 5 | true | false | 0.6 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd722vj",
"comment_text": [
"Standard parts for efficient manufacturing."
],
"score": 20
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd73dk0",
"comment_text": [
"you could lift it up in order to vomit"
],
"score": 10
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd723yc",
"comment_text": [
"Do you mean seats? You'd have to lift up a lid to use the toilet, regardless of sex. Seats keep people from falling into the toilet while sitting down, which women have to do 100% of the time they use the toilet. "
],
"score": 8
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd72hsm",
"comment_text": [
"Because it is cheaper to have 1 manufacturing process and mass produce it than it is to have 2 manufacturing processes. It also saves money in inventory; instead of keeping track of 2 items, you only need to keep track of 1."
],
"score": 7
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd72gak",
"comment_text": [
"OP means liftable toilet seats."
],
"score": 5
} | ||
ELI5: What are all these "False Flag" conspiracies that pop up every time a shooting/bombing happens in the US and why do people fall for them so easily? | explainlikeimfive | 1px9d5 | 1 | true | false | 0.67 | I have coworkers and family members who truly believe that Sandy Hook, the Boston Marathon bombing, and the recent LAX shooting are just conspiracies perpetrated by the government. Are these stories really that compelling or are they just gullible(stupid)? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd701xk",
"comment_text": [
"Who benefits the most from little children being gunned down in a middle school?"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd71c2g",
"comment_text": [
"Undertakers (corpses), gun-control lobbyists (more support for their lobby, more money from supporter), or policemen (more risks, higher demand for police, job security).",
"Disclaimer: I don't believe any of these. But those are some logical constructions th... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7017f",
"comment_text": [
"I think it simply comes from looking at who benefits most."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd74ehj",
"comment_text": [
"Though i dont think the 2 mentioned are such, False Flag Operations have been done several times in the past. Therefore people loose faith in those, who commit them (police,state,...).\nIn Germany this was an issue after a policeman attacked other policemen with ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd70hjz",
"comment_text": [
"I've read that many people are disturbed by the apparent randomness of these kinds of things and find it difficult to accept that horrible things could happen at any time for no reason. In an attempt to force some order into things, they choose to believe that th... | |
ELI5: How do dogs enjoy treats when they eat them so fast, sometimes without even chewing? | explainlikeimfive | 1pxet3 | 0 | true | false | 0.4 | Every time I give my dog a treat she scarfs it down immediately. Why don't they take their time and enjoy it? Most of the time she won't even chew it so I can't imagine that she actually tastes it. | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd71mqg",
"comment_text": [
"Animals have foods they like and dislike like humans; I worked at a wildlife rehabilitation center and it was kind of incredible how different each animal was. Some bunnies would only eat timothy hay and leave the alfalfa, some refused to eat carrots, etc. The tu... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd71iyu",
"comment_text": [
"So getting them Cesar's brand instead of a knock off doesn't matter? I guess my dog is just a snob, she won't eat certain treats. "
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd72cx7",
"comment_text": [
"Why would you not take the testimony of a person who works closely with multiple types of animal species every day, unless you are just being an obstinate dick?"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd72lhh",
"comment_text": [
"If they eat for nutrition then why do they eat shit?"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd72ll3",
"comment_text": [
"Why do different animals, even within the same litter, prefer certain foods over others? Wouldn't they have the same instinct to eat the same foods? They seem to have individual preferences for foods-even if they are choosing them for nutrition-which leads me to ... | |
ELI5: My family lost its health insurance plan because of Obamacare. Why? | explainlikeimfive | 1pxq05 | 0 | true | false | 0.47 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd74rhx",
"comment_text": [
"Obamacare establishes certain requirements for healthcare plans. People with plans that are non-compliant need to switch to plans that are. Generally these plans are more expensive, but the old plan wasn't cheap because it was good, was it?"
],
"score": 12
... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd74tmy",
"comment_text": [
"Obamacare dictates certain minimum levels of coverage for all health insurance plans. For example they must now cover colonoscopies and mammograms. Plans that don't meet these requirements have to be modified or replaced with ones that do. Lots more details on... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd754yq",
"comment_text": [
"I agree with this. I'm just commenting to add that you (OP) should be careful when picking a new plan. Apparently insurance companies have been sending misleading letters out to people in similar situations to yours, trying to sign them up for much more expensive... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7rde7",
"comment_text": [
"I'm in the same position as OP. I'm losing my healthcare. My options are to switch to something 1.5X more expensive and has less coverage and higher deductibles. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd74rtz",
"comment_text": [
"Perfect answer.",
"/thread. "
],
"score": 1
} | |
How do balloons float with helium? | explainlikeimfive | 1pxu2v | 0 | true | false | 0.5 | Everyone says it's because it's lighter then air, which is like saying something is wetter then water. | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd762lz",
"comment_text": [
"Not really. Air is not weightless, in fact it weighs quite a lot. Air is heavy, we just don't notice it because we're built to live in it! If you pull up your periodic table (",
"here's one",
") you'll see that, just as lead has a weight (we'll run with 2... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd75xik",
"comment_text": [
"Actually that's a horrible analogy because 'wet' doesn't have an empirical scale, while weight does. A balloon filled with helium displaces more 'weight' in oxygen than the weight of helium contained within the balloon. For the same reason that a boat floats, the... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd763x1",
"comment_text": [
"Well, to start with if the balloon was in a vacuum, you'd need a lot less helium to expand it. This goes back to the idea of air having weight. To blow up a balloon on Earth, you have to overcome the weight of all that air pressing on it first. Only then can you ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd764g7",
"comment_text": [
"It would sink",
" as the balloon is now denser than its surroundings."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd78m85",
"comment_text": [
"Density is a measurement of how heavy a given amount of stuff is...",
"per given volume. It's basically (mass / volume = density) which should be the same for all pure materials.",
"This is substantially less than that of helium...",
"*more",
"jus... | |
ELI5: Where do Zoo's bury a rhino? | explainlikeimfive | 1pxyyg | 0 | true | false | 0.33 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd76z57",
"comment_text": [
"Very often deceased rare animals form Zoos are are sent to museums and other research/educational institutions to be used as specimens for display, research and experiment."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd774kr",
"comment_text": [
"BBQ. "
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7ddee",
"comment_text": [
"All the animals at our zoo go to the local veterinary college for research and education."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd76y5t",
"comment_text": [
"I'd be surprised if zoos bury any deceased animal -- I imagine they generally send them off to commercial disposal companies who cremate them. Yes, you'd need a large crematorium for an animal the size of a rhinocerous, but such things undoubtedly exist."
],
... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd76zrv",
"comment_text": [
"Thanks you :)"
],
"score": 0
} | |
ELI5: The difference between mouthwash with and without alcohol | explainlikeimfive | 1pxm2r | 1 | true | false | 0.67 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd768na",
"comment_text": [
"This, the others are just as effective, and often with must less burning. "
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd74cmv",
"comment_text": [
"The alcohol just acts as an extra disinfectant."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd78chk",
"comment_text": [
"To elaborate, the only purpose of the alcohol is to cause the burning. People like the burning, because this makes it feel like the mouthwash are working."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7lu22",
"comment_text": [
"That is simple not true."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd79kmd",
"comment_text": [
"Alcohol-free mouth wash is not as effective as mouth wash with alcohol. Two different types of bacteria exist, gram-positive (no outer coat) and gram-negative (outer coat made of LPS). Alcohol-free mouthwashes generally target gram-positive bacteria, while gram-n... | |
ELI5: What is better: 2 1ghz CPUs, a 2ghz CPU with multithreading, or a 2hz duo core CPU? | explainlikeimfive | 1pyh4r | 0 | true | false | 0.5 | There are many websites that explain what each of these mean but none really explain (that I could understand) what one is best. I'm thinking about building a computer for ProTools and Vienna Ensemble Pro and am having a hard time picking the right CPU for the jobs (way too many options). Edit: 2ghz duo core CPU. | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7bz9x",
"comment_text": [
"Unfortunately, the clock speed of the processor doesn't correlate directly with performance. This means that without looking at benchmarks, there's really no way to determine which would be faster. ",
"The way the software is written also impacts performance.... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7ch9c",
"comment_text": [
"Thanks that helps. I will check out benchmarks."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7c3k6",
"comment_text": [
"You should go to a review site and look at specific models, its extremely difficult to make generalizations about CPUs just based on the clock speed. It would be like saying \"This car has 150 Horse Power so it must be faster than this car that has 100 Horse Powe... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7cg8j",
"comment_text": [
"My current rig has a 2.66 ghz Core 2 Duo and I'm constantly maxing out the CPU running with all my software plugins. Since Pro Tools and VE Pro are optimized for multicore, I'm getting the feeling that a slower processor with more cores would be better than faste... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7g9yq",
"comment_text": [
"I'm actually running a Core2Duo as well, but I built my PC in 2009. Since then, processor architecture has advanced quite a bit, and pretty much any current Intel desktop processor will run significantly faster than your Core2Duo, even with a lower clock speed li... | |
ELI5: What are some of the side effects of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913? | explainlikeimfive | 1pyjof | 5 | true | false | 0.66 | I noticed W. Wilson referenced a lot while digging through wiki articles about american economy/history and also noticed we're coming up on 100 years since the passing of the FRA, therefor thought it was rather fitting for discussion. | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7cthb",
"comment_text": [
"This is an extremely broad topic. Could you be more specific about what you actually need explained? It's hard to determine what are the \"effects\" and \"side effects\" of legislation that impacted our economy and monetary in such significant ways. Almost an... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7g1ex",
"comment_text": [
"I suppose 'major', as in changed the way the country works forever. Largest 3 effects would be sufficient, if that helps at all."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7nmib",
"comment_text": [
"You should watch \"thrive\" its a documentary that's goes over the repercussion of the federal reserve act! ",
"Spoiler:the man who helped pass the act killed himself after realising what he had done "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7sfwe",
"comment_text": [
"This? ",
"http://www.thrivemovement.com/the_movie"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd84m8z",
"comment_text": [
"Yes that's it my friend!! "
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5:how does alcohol proof work? | explainlikeimfive | 1pyzlx | 1 | true | false | 0.67 | Does drinking 1 shot of vodka (40%) equate to drinking 5 shots of wine (8%)? .... What does over proof mean and why does a 70% shot seem to get me so drunk? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7haee",
"comment_text": [
"Because alcohol burns when it is at least 50% pure alcohol (100 proof) Back in the days before accurate measurement, the 'proof' of the alcohol was that it would burn. The rest is history."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7kh8o",
"comment_text": [
"How much alcohol affects you depends on both the amount of alcohol and how fast you drink it, among other things independent of what you are drinking. Basically, anything you drink before your body has time to process any of it will affect you the same as a shot... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7hb5r",
"comment_text": [
"CTRL-C+CTRL-V from Wikipedia on ",
"Alcohol proof",
":",
"From the 18th century until 1 January 1980, the UK measured alcohol content in terms of \"proof spirit\", which was defined as spirit with a gravity of 12/13 that of water, or 923 kg/m3, and eq... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7h4go",
"comment_text": [
"'Proof' just means double the percentage of alcohol. So 20 proof = 10% alcohol."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7hbpt",
"comment_text": [
"Check the 'history' section - ",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_proof"
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: A question on the stock market and money supply | explainlikeimfive | 1pyzc7 | 5 | true | false | 0.78 | Hi, first time poster. I am an economics student and I have a quick question regarding the stock market and money supply. If someone's money is invested in a stock, and that stock goes down and the owner sells the stock, the person incurs a loss. But what happens to the money that was originally invested in the stock?... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7h619",
"comment_text": [
"If you buy something from me for $5, i keep the five dollars. If you decide to sell that item to someone in the future, but you are unable to sell it for more than $3, you incur a $2 loss. It has no effect on the supply of money."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7hu7v",
"comment_text": [
"This is a good question and a common misconception. When you purchase a stock you are almost always buying it from another person. You have paid someone for that property. When you sell the stock you are selling it to another person. If the price has gone down, y... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7h3eh",
"comment_text": [
"When you buy X stock, you are literally buying from another person who is trying to sell their shares. That person gets the money that you pay for the stock. If the price of the stock drops, then that means that there is less demand for it (i.e. people are no l... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7hq4j",
"comment_text": [
"On ipo company sells me 10 shares at $100 a share. I pay $1000 company revives $1000",
"Stock drops to $80 a share, I sell it to you for $800. You pay $800 I get $800. ",
"All are balanced transactions. A buyer and a seller. "
],
"score": 0
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7hla1",
"comment_text": [
"What increases or decreases with changes in stock price is the 'market capitalization' of the company. ",
"On a macro level, total stock market capitalization can be measured.",
"For more research:",
"http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketcapitali... | |
ELI5: The reason behind Colorado county secession vote today | explainlikeimfive | 1pyyou | 6 | true | false | 0.87 | Hello ELI5, I keep hearing about Colorado 10 (or 11) counties trying to secede. Sometimes these stories mention a possible "North Colorado" as a new name. Can someone familiar with the state's politics explain to me the reasoning behind this? Have that many rural voters really been disenfranchised by the urban centers? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7h59m",
"comment_text": [
"Many states have tensions between urban areas, which tend to be more liberal, and rural areas, which tend to be more conservative. In Colorado, which in recent years has trended liberal, legalized pot, banned high-capacity magazines, etc, the rural conservatives... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7hn18",
"comment_text": [
"I understand the traditional tensions between urban and rural but I guess I just thought that this kind of action would have required a more specific tipping point. Are the issues stated here (gun control, legalized pot) officially the stated reasons in this case... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7h0kt",
"comment_text": [
"I've heard it been described as an attempt by the more conservative districts to send a message to the more liberal legislature that they are unhappy with the current state of government. Most commentators do not think that it is a serious movement towards an ind... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7l7tw",
"comment_text": [
"Not really. This is more a straight up rural vs urban divide. Neither the most religious (Colorado Springs) nor the least religious (Boulder) areas are involved. And there are no unique religious characteristics to that corner of the state.",
"I'm sure some r... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7l38u",
"comment_text": [
"Gun control was the specific tipping point.",
"The Denver metro area has had a fun history of mass shootings including some more recent ones. With the Dems in control of both chambers of the legislature and governor, it was a good year to push through changes... | |
ELI5: health insurance deductibles (particularly in ACA)? | explainlikeimfive | 1pz5xq | 2 | true | false | 0.76 | Let's say the plan's deductible is $2000 and it's a Bronze plan that pays 60% of the costs. Do I have to pay 100% of my expenses up until I spend the $2000? My confusion comes from these statements in a Forbes article ( ) First it says this: "A deductible is the amount you have to pay for covered services before your i... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7jk6y",
"comment_text": [
"The answer is in the paragraph just below that part.",
"Your share of costs might come in the form of a large deductible with low coinsurance once you’ve met your deductible. Another plan might offer a low deductible with higher coinsurance. For example, Silv... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7jpns",
"comment_text": [
"That's the way I understood it, but I've been having a lot of people argue with me about this, saying that the plans start paying right away without you having to reach the deductible."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7kfx7",
"comment_text": [
"It's weird tho, how they're able to estimate \"the average\" - that's kind of BS because I don't spend enough on doctors to ever go over the deductible. So in my case I'd get 0 insurance and still have to pay hundreds of dollars a month?",
"I do understand th... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7kk67",
"comment_text": [
"Because its the actuarial average, not ",
" average. Its the average someone of your demographics, your sex, age, etc, will cost the system on average.",
"Think of it this way, there's three people, you, and two others. Two of you didn't use your insuranc... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7kyw2",
"comment_text": [
"That doesn't add up. Because if I use nothing, second guy uses nothing, and the third guy uses $3,000, he is still responsible for the multi-thousand-dollar deductible before insurance kicks in. And all three of us paid all the premiums."
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: Why doesn't the air in the atmosphere create different layers? | explainlikeimfive | 1pzcac | 3 | true | false | 1 | I mean why don't the different gases in the air like oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitrogen, seperate and create layers depending on how dense they are? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7l97j",
"comment_text": [
"The sun (and some other things) heat sections of the atmosphere, causing that part as a whole to rise, to be filled in by cooler atmosphere - we call this wind. It has a much more powerful and rapid effect than large-scale separation by density. The fact that nit... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7yyxm",
"comment_text": [
"What about air in a closed room with a steady temperature? Wouldn't the air create layers then?"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8vxnx",
"comment_text": [
"For our air (nitrogen and oxygen), I think the molecular kinetic energy due to normal temperature range would be more than enough to prevent layering. Bring the room down to maybe 100K and you should be able to observe layering"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7l4ud",
"comment_text": [
"No low effort explanations or single sentence replies.",
"Removing."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7l4ud",
"comment_text": [
"No low effort explanations or single sentence replies.",
"Removing."
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: Why is Queen Elizabeth's husband not the King? | explainlikeimfive | 1pyghl | 1,969 | true | false | 0.87 | if the King marries, his wife automatically becomes Queen, right? EDIT: Wow!! Front page!! This really blew up for an random query. Thank you! | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7br1i",
"comment_text": [
"if the King marries, his wife automatically becomes Queen, right? ",
"Yes and no",
"There are actually two types of queen - a queen regnant and a queen consort. Queen Liz is the ruler, so she is queen regnant.",
"There is no equivalent title of king c... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7ef44",
"comment_text": [
"People really loved Princess Diana. A lot."
],
"score": 325
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7ct5m",
"comment_text": [
"This explained it better that the one you replied to, thank you!"
],
"score": 230
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7gmsb",
"comment_text": [
"And when she died in 1997, she was arguably the most famous person on Earth. Any redditors who were too young to remember have no idea what it was like even over here in the states. TV networks basically switched to all-Diana news coverage for a good couple weeks... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7cbdi",
"comment_text": [
"I dont know if you're allowed to share youtube videos here? But this one explains your question really well!! ",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUY6HGqYweQ",
"EDIT: My grammar sucked"
],
"score": 190
} | |
ELI5: What is the Affordable Care Act? What are the pros / cons? | explainlikeimfive | 1pzk2g | 0 | true | false | 0.33 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7nnq7",
"comment_text": [
"If you use ",
"the search engine for Obamacare",
" you can find a lot of answers.",
"Yeah, I know it's not \"Obamacare\" ",
" but it's a useful term for a search since so many people used that term."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7nm3g",
"comment_text": [
"Distilled: The AHA sets new standards for health care plans that all companies have to conform to.",
"There were a lot of not so nice practices that insurance companies had for 'business reasons'. Most know that preexisting conditions would mean you could not... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7nmn8",
"comment_text": [
"This question is asked quite often. Use the search feature. ",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/search?q=affordable+care+act&restrict_sr=on"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7nri8",
"comment_text": [
"Some of the biggest advantages: Insurance companies will no longer be allowed to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions; they can no longer have a lifetime cap on benefits; many preventative procedures, such as colonoscopies, are now covered with no co-pay; s... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7nn0a",
"comment_text": [
"also forces employers to provide health insurance to workers at 35 hours",
"This applies to companies with at least 50 employees."
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: Due process | explainlikeimfive | 1pziik | 2 | true | false | 1 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7nggl",
"comment_text": [
"That's a huge question. Like, in one of my classes we've been studying a ",
"really specific application",
" of due process the Supreme Court addressed in 1990. The final answer for us (first year of law school answer) was \"we really don't know which of ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7njjb",
"comment_text": [
"Aha, seems like it could cause problems then! Thanks. "
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7nt2e",
"comment_text": [
"Why are people saying due process is broken / lost with the recent Senate scandal in Canada?"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7ofe2",
"comment_text": [
"Ah, thanks anyways. Have a good day!"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7nkqu",
"comment_text": [
"If you have some specific question about due process I probably can't answer it but will be willing to tell you if I can't."
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: How do we know the half life of various things? | explainlikeimfive | 1pudsu | 1 | true | false | 0.67 | The half life of carbon-14 is, according to the internet, 5,730 years. But how do we know that? Or something where the half life is even longer, like uranium? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd652kf",
"comment_text": [
"By using the equation:\nm(t)=m(0)1/2",
" \nk in this equation is the half-life, m is mass, and t is time (usually in years)\nScientists can measure the current mass before running an experiment, and, usually a long time, later they come back and measure the m... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd65nnb",
"comment_text": [
"Thanks! I guess I just saw things like \"Uranium has a half-life of 4-point-something billion years\" and wondered how the hell we managed to figure that out."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6587m",
"comment_text": [
"If you know something's half life, you can do a little math, and find out its quarter life or its 99% life, and vice versa.",
"So if you had a sample of carbon-14, and waited a few years, you'd have 90 some odd percent of it left. Give precise values of that... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd65oc6",
"comment_text": [
"Sure, those half lives are long, but any visible amount of matter has a lot of atoms in it, so we can observe decays. Half-life is a statistical property of groups of atoms - you can't predict the life of a single atom by knowing the half-life."
],
"score": 1... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd64woj",
"comment_text": [
"By observing how quickly it deteriorates."
],
"score": 0
} | |
ELI5: Why do we start a new day at 12 and not 1am + why does daylight savings starts at 2? | explainlikeimfive | 1puegc | 2 | true | false | 1 | Why do we start a new day at 12 and not at 1am?
Also, during daylight savings, why do we start it at 2am to go back to 1am if we 'start' the next day at midnight?
It would make better sense to me if (according to our time keeping) if we went back from 1am to midnight, otherwise the latter would make better sense.. | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd65k1e",
"comment_text": [
"We start the day at midnight insted of one because you start at zero and not one like in military time the day actuall starts at 0000 and goes up 0100 0200 blah blah up to 2359 then resets to 0000 im not sure about daylight saving time"
],
"score": 5
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd65q02",
"comment_text": [
"I think DST changes over at 2am for convenience more than anything else. It is less annoying to just change your clock, go to sleep, and forget about it. If it changed over when more people were awake, more people would be awake to be confused about the time. "
... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd66bms",
"comment_text": [
"I've never understood the 12 instead of 1 thing. But daylight savings at 2 is to avoid computers accidentally counting a day twice. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd69xws",
"comment_text": [
"was it another time before computers?"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6a69k",
"comment_text": [
"No idea. "
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: why viruses kill their host | explainlikeimfive | 1purvd | 1 | true | false | 1 | Why do viruses kill their host? By killing their host won't they "die" as well? Why haven't they evolved to form symbiotic relationships with humans by doing good stuff for us instead of bad stuff so that their host a good host to live in? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd69te8",
"comment_text": [
"Microbiologist here:\nViruses are the most simplistic things you can can point to in the biological world. Essentially just random segments of code. By sheer luck a couple get lucky and become infectious and get replicated and thus spread thought a population. If... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd69lom",
"comment_text": [
"It all depends on what benefits the virus. I'm going to talk about bacteria here as well, because I don't know of a good example involving viruses, and the same principles apply. ",
"Cold viruses don't kill their hosts, or even incapacitate them because they'... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6auol",
"comment_text": [
"TIL that mitochondria were once bacteria! Wow that is mind blowing! Thanks :)"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd69ofv",
"comment_text": [
"That's an interesting thought! Thank you heliopteryx!"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd69szx",
"comment_text": [
"I'm glad you found it useful :)",
"If you want to learn more about cholera and epidemiology, I recommend the book ",
"The Ghost Map",
" by Steven Johnson. "
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5:(serious) Why are the penalties so lenient for fighting in the NHL compared to the NFL, NBA, and the MLB? | explainlikeimfive | 1pun6q | 0 | true | false | 0.5 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd683w0",
"comment_text": [
"I've copied this from ",
"/u/SomethingFoul",
" 's post about hockey fights that got gold 8 months ago. Hopefully this helps",
"\"In hockey, fighting isn't seen as a way to injure someone, like it would be in \"real life\". There is a code of sportsma... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd68i5o",
"comment_text": [
"No."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd68i5o",
"comment_text": [
"No."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd68fln",
"comment_text": [
"Thank you for that. "
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd682cz",
"comment_text": [
"It's similar to why, despite it being 2013, there's no video replay review of controversial baseball calls: It's part of the game. ",
"Traditionally, hockey has had fighting, so they still allow it. It's easier to allow it in hockey because since you're on sk... | ||
ELI5: Why did Hitler and the German Nazi Party adopt the Swastika? | explainlikeimfive | 1pvkak | 1 | true | false | 0.67 | Brownie points to whoever can explain why it was also rotated slightly. Thanks! | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6hk7u",
"comment_text": [
"When Hitler created a flag for the Nazi Party, he sought to incorporate both the swastika and \"those revered colors expressive of our homage to the glorious past and which once brought so much honor to the German nation.\" (Red, white, and black were the colors ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6hlkn",
"comment_text": [
"The Nazi swastika is a variation in the Germanic Iron Cross. This cross has its origins in Angelo Saxon origins. As early as 3 rd century AD. The cross was also thought to represented Thors hammer Mjolnir. ",
"So basically Hilter took some pagan symbol that i... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6hoi1",
"comment_text": [
"Thanks for the great response. I'm left to wonder how he came to the idea that the Swastika could be linked to the \"struggle for the victory of the Aryan man\"? ---- Seems a bit of a non-sequitur linking a largely south-asian symbol to the Aryan man. Then again.... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd74nxe",
"comment_text": [
"Aryans are from India/Iran. ",
"Except that by Hitlerian logic they were pale-skinned blondes, who remained \"pure\" only as present-day Germans while the rest, including present-day Indians, were mixed with \"lesser\" races. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd8jfh8",
"comment_text": [
"There was a huge push in the 1800s for German historians to create some kind of idea of a \"Germanic culture\" that was separate from the Latin roots of French, Italian, Spanish, etc culture. They wanted something that they could identify as their own, instead o... | |
ELI5: Why is blackface makeup automatically racist, regardless of circumstances or intent? | explainlikeimfive | 1pvowq | 0 | true | false | 0.41 | I'm not an American, but of course I'm aware of America's history of slavery and racial discrimination etc, but this is just unfortunate historical baggage, and not everyone is American and sees things in that frame of reference why is blackface so offensive if it's done as part of a costume or in a play or something? ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6iz5s",
"comment_text": [
"I think it is because of the history of black face. It was used by white performers back in the 1800's, usually portraying blacks in a very unfavorable way. Also keep in mind the reason white performers used black face is because actual blacks weren't usually a... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6jga5",
"comment_text": [
"isn't it a matter of context",
"Yes, but the standard is set pretty high. Someone punching you in the nose is also a matter of context; it's only acceptable in certain few circumstances."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6j55f",
"comment_text": [
"Blackface harkens back to a time of some pretty vitriolic stereotypes about black people, some of which persist to this day (",
"pancakes",
", anyone?).",
"It was a stereotype largely portrayed in the movies and later on television of black people as ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6ji1n",
"comment_text": [
"It's just a touchy subject. I have native american and Jewish ancestors and unflattering depictions of them don't both me but those ancestors don't define me as much as being black does to black people. I'm guessing, someone who is black would have to answer th... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6jnhi",
"comment_text": [
"Strictly speaking, that's not ",
"blackface",
". Just dressing up like a black person is not necessarily blackface unless you begin acting the part. Blackface involves not just the look (exaggeratedly large lips with red paint, extremely dark makeup on th... | |
ELI5:Why do tires or similar rotating objects look like they are rotating forwards then backwards, then forwards again? | explainlikeimfive | 1pus8p | 1 | true | false | 1 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd69tix",
"comment_text": [
"An example:",
"Suppose you have a ",
" with ",
".",
"Every 1/5 rotation, or ",
" forward motion, the spokes will be in the same place.",
"Filmed at ",
", if the car is moving ",
", the spokes will be back in the same place for ever... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6a7p5",
"comment_text": [
"I see this in real life."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6a2qu",
"comment_text": [
"You can see it in real life at night when the rotating object is lit by a light that is actually flicking due to AC power, or any rotating object lit by a strobe light.",
"To further explain the frame rate issue, movie cameras move the film in front of the sh... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6xycm",
"comment_text": [
"No matter what the other guy says, you are right and he is wrong...I see this daily. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6xxdb",
"comment_text": [
"I don't know if you have ever looked at a cars wheels driving during the day but yes, you can see it in real life during the day. It is a scientifically proven fact and it is a shame that you so vehemently regard it as false. Such a shame. "
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: What purpose did inventing a new language fulfil? | explainlikeimfive | 1pvuzw | 10 | true | false | 0.82 | Why were so many languages invented if many of them were derived from existing ones? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6kpvc",
"comment_text": [
"Almost never does someone deliberately invent a new language. Language change slowly over time, and isolation allows them to diverge to the point where they are no longer mutually comprehensible. Sort of like speciation in biology. ",
"Bear in mind that unti... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6mb7w",
"comment_text": [
"The only language I'm aware of being deliberately \"invented\", and used with any modicum of success, is Esperanto, which was an idealistic invention of the late 19th century. It was hoped that Esperanto would provide a simple, global language that would encoura... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd70xh2",
"comment_text": [
"There are loads of invented languages created for various reasons.\n",
"SolReSol",
" is a language based on the musical notes (do rey mi fa sol la ti) and which could be \"spoken\" by people with various sensory shortcomings, and thus the blind could comm... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd74690",
"comment_text": [
"Let's simplify the discussion.",
"Do you speak prefect English (or whatever your native language might be)? Probably not. Most people don't speak with a perfect grammar out perfect enunciation. This is how it starts, with vernaculars. It's like evolution. Sma... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6prlc",
"comment_text": [
"Because there was much less contact between geographic areas than today, and no 'standards'. Geographic separation and local influences, such as neighboring or invading languages, caused languages to evolve differently. Even in countries like England, Germany and... | |
ELI5: Why is something as medically beneficial as LSD still banned? | explainlikeimfive | 1pw04g | 0 | true | false | 0.38 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6m5mt",
"comment_text": [
"It's not really all that clear that it is beneficial. That's very much an open question. There were a few studies done decades ago that showed extraordinary promise for things like the treatment of alcoholism and some psychiatric issues, but it's not that weird f... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6myq0",
"comment_text": [
"LSD is truly one of safest drugs in the world... physiologically speaking. Mentally it can be another matter. You can have a wonderful, mind-altering experience on it, or you might have a bad trip. A hellishly bad trip. Some after using LSD practically never touc... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6myv3",
"comment_text": [
"I think that MDMA shows more potential for psychiatric healing than LSD but I understand what you mean. The answer is that our society is afraid of many things and drugs is top of the list. ",
"There has been so much propaganda against drugs that few people c... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6m42x",
"comment_text": [
"LSD medically beneficial? Google, away! "
],
"score": 0
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6m73h",
"comment_text": [
"I thought LSD damages your brain..."
],
"score": 0
} | ||
Physicians of reddit, how do you choose your maintenance IV fluids for your acute patients? | explainlikeimfive | 1pvz4s | 6 | true | false | 0.87 | Why lactated ringers over normal saline? I understand tonicity, but what are the "flags" you notice in bloodwork that makes you decide between the two?
When do you choose the hypotonic solutions and how do you choose them (d5w, 0.45% nacl, etc)?
How often do you use the hypertonic solutions (I rarely see them in action... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6mz7n",
"comment_text": [
"I believe you may have meant to ask this in ",
"/r/askreddit",
", ",
"/r/askscience",
", or ",
"/r/asksciencediscussion",
". Best of luck to you though!"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6nnd3",
"comment_text": [
"Short answer: fluid choice is guided by the specialty you chose. Surgery, you'll be an LR fan. Anesthesia will likely stick with LR to keep the surgeon happy. Medicine, you'll probably only use 0.9 NS. Peds will probably use 0.45 NS with some dextrose. ",
"Th... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6oe8d",
"comment_text": [
"Thanks for the input. I've noticed these trends as well (minus the peds and neuro as my hospital rarely deals with those specialities). "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6oi2y",
"comment_text": [
"Fuck. So 5 year olds know what all of that means. Fuck me."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6sx36",
"comment_text": [
"Lol Good point, wrong subreddit."
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: Why can't paper towels be recycled? | explainlikeimfive | 1pw5xp | 3 | true | false | 0.72 | According to the hand dryers at my university, even though paper towels can be made of recycled paper, they can't be recycled after their use. | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6nuls",
"comment_text": [
"Paper towels typically are not recycled because paper towels are usually made with a fairly high percentage of recycled paper. The fibers in paper towels are too short to be woven into new paper products. ",
"Source"
],
"score": 8
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6p1ew",
"comment_text": [
"That's re",
", which is different. The OP is also talking about the (generally) paper-bag brown paper towels used in commercial restrooms, not Brawny that you buy at the supermarket."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd7dyda",
"comment_text": [
"They can be recycled but are not favorable and actually cost more to recycle. Also the parer industry likes clean wood/paper this is the reason pizza boxes aren't recycled"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6zbi5",
"comment_text": [
"The pulping process by which paper is recycled actually involves temperatures and chemicals that sterilize. The reason dirty paper like napkins should not be recycled it the time between when you recycle it and when it is chemically broken down. During that time,... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6p94z",
"comment_text": [
"Oh i love those paper towels, so brown and strong... Ah.. "
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: How do song recommendation algorithms work? | explainlikeimfive | 1pwpnk | 2 | true | false | 1 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6u0mv",
"comment_text": [
"iTunes / Netflix / etc base their recommendations on pure number crunching of their transaction / viewing logs. People that watched X also tend to watch Y. It's pure number crunching without analyzing the content.",
"With Spotify / Pandora, the do a lot of ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6w4xr",
"comment_text": [
"There isn't that much difference between song recommendation algorithms and other forms of recommendation algorithms (for example, Netflix or Amazon). ",
"At a high level, these algorithms take information about the user and the content and use machine learni... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6v1yh",
"comment_text": [
"Whatever record company owns the music of the Hollies and the Zombies must be paying pandora a shitload. I hear \"Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress\" and \"Time of the Season\" on every station I make."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6zjvl",
"comment_text": [
"The longer I have a station going, the more it tends to contain some of the same songs as my other stations. I don't think it's necessarily dealings with another company, it could well just be that you have a specific taste in music."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd6w75j",
"comment_text": [
"At it's simplest form...",
"When you rate a song you're building a profile of likes and dislikes.\nWhen other people rate songs, they're building profiles too.",
"So if you LIKE song 1, 2 and 3... but DISLIKE song 4, 5, and 6, a database can ask:",
"\... | ||
ELI5: Why do some people feel warmer to the touch than other people do, when our core body temps are the same? | explainlikeimfive | 1ps5kr | 2 | true | false | 0.67 | Why is it that when my body is at normal temperature (98.6F), I am so much warmer to the touch than someone else? When I am sleeping, my husband says my body puts off heat like a furnace, but I know that my core body temp is no higher than his. Why do some bodies radiate heat more than others? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5h05z",
"comment_text": [
"Not everyone is the same though. Not everyone is the same mass, same body fat, as active, etc. "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5g6oc",
"comment_text": [
"Because you're, hopefully, not sticking your hand into their core. You're touching the skin and skin temperature is totally different to core temperature. If your skin is colder than that on someone else they will feel warm. "
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5igck",
"comment_text": [
"In your specific example, it's because women have a layer of fat under their skin. This helps us maintain our body temperature better but it also means that the heat from our muscles doesn't reach the surface of the skin as much."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5h4cz",
"comment_text": [
"One primary purpose of our hands and feet is to release heat. If I have been exercising, my hands and feet are going to be warm because they are releasing warmth. If it's cold outside, my body is going to make my hands and feet cold so that I don't lose my heat. ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5j6i8",
"comment_text": [
"All body surfaces lose heat equally. "
],
"score": 2
} | |
ELI5-Do auditory hallucinations wake up a person suffering from schizophrenia? | explainlikeimfive | 1ps4sy | 1 | true | false | 1 | I saw a YouTube video that contained an example of the auditory hallucinations a schizophrenia sufferer endures. It may be a dumb question, but I was wondering if the hallucinations persist during rest, or if they subside while he/she sleeps? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5gd4w",
"comment_text": [
"Hi! I'm schizophrenic with past extensive auditory hallucinations (PTSD from them they were so bad. I'm also about to graduate with my nursing degree). Personally, my hallucinations never woke me up from a sound sleep, they were just so loud they prevented me fro... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5iva4",
"comment_text": [
"How did you manage? How long were you without sleep? Thank you for answering! Hope things are better for you"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5j4py",
"comment_text": [
"Stay awake long enough and you WILL sleep. I'd go a couple days sometimes. Waiting for the sun to come up. Watching the Shadow Menand dead bodies roaming around my room. Watching me. My bookshelves had guns on top pointing at me. Listening to Willis and Wilson (t... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5jbsx",
"comment_text": [
"Hey! I am kitty",
"! My iPod and computer are on two different accounts and I didn't realize it!"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5kicu",
"comment_text": [
"My first visual hallucination was when I was 8 or 9 (I don't remember which. My dad was still alive, though, and he died when I was 10) an I was swimming in my pool by myself. I saw a blond head fly around my pool and I knew it was going to kill me. I waited, sca... | |
ELI5: How do football players know where to be? | explainlikeimfive | 1ps5s9 | 5 | true | false | 0.78 | So I'm watching the Florida State/ Miami game and as soon as the whistle blows the play dead, some players run off the right away. Why? Don't they have to wait for the coach to call the play? Is the next play already called by the time the play is dead? If so, do the coaches have a predetermined sequence of plays they ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5g8vl",
"comment_text": [
"There are many ways that teams call the play in NCAA. The most common is hand signals, though large boards with pictures are gaining popularity. In general the first signal is for the personnel that needs to be on the field (the amount of TE, WR, and RBs that a... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5ggtc",
"comment_text": [
"Coaches typically use hand signals or signs to tell players which formation the next play will be in. One particular player (usually a linebacker) will be in charge of interpreting and executing the coach's playcall.",
"NCAA QBs are told by the coaches how mu... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5hvwh",
"comment_text": [
"No problem. I love talking football.",
"I'd say you have it right that the defense will be the one adapting to the offense more often than not. There is time to substitute in new players based on what the offense shows, but not much. The thing is that it is a... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5gxpb",
"comment_text": [
"The NFL uses headsets exclusively, though only the QB and middle linebacker are allowed to use them. (they have a green dot on the back of their helmet to denote who has the radio in them).",
"It really depends on who the assistant is. If it's the offensive... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5h10f",
"comment_text": [
"Thanks very much to you, too. This is very helpful. ",
"Another questions emerged: Who picks first? It seems like the defense has to adapt to the formation that the offense is using that play. Like if you have 4 wide outs then the d would probably not want to... | |
ELI5: I hear about people tearing ligaments in two places, how is this possible? | explainlikeimfive | 1ps8sw | 4 | true | false | 0.84 | And under what parameters (not like I'm five). | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5gi7n",
"comment_text": [
"this is possible? lol"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5gkmj",
"comment_text": [
"Or I've been lied to twice now."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5gpg6",
"comment_text": [
"The same ligament in 2 places or 2 ligaments at the same time?"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5grs6",
"comment_text": [
"same ligament, 2 places."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5h2dt",
"comment_text": [
"I've never heard of that happening. It seems unlikely because the force that tears the ligament would be focused on one location, but I guess if you get hit REALLY hard or multiple times it might be possible."
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: What would happen if all of the poverty striken countries suddenly disappeared? | explainlikeimfive | 1pshbv | 0 | true | false | 0.5 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5jvdh",
"comment_text": [
"Just to clarify, you're talking about countries like India(someparts) and some African countries. I am dumb so I don't know many others. But I bet that the governments of the world would convene as soon as they found out about it, and try to figure out what had h... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5moow",
"comment_text": [
"/r/futurewhatif",
"I'm removing this. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5mp0a",
"comment_text": [
"I was not aware of such a sub. I think I got my answer, though. Thanks!"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5mcya",
"comment_text": [
"Some of those poverty stricken countries have little or no industry except for basic resource extraction, agriculture or tourism (if that). So, some minerals acquisition may be disrupted, some foods might not be available and people might have to make new vacati... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5mkn8",
"comment_text": [
"And to take it a step further, if the land itself disappeared, it would significantly impact our ability to make computers?",
"That's pretty impressive."
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: Which value preposition best describes Costco? | explainlikeimfive | 1psj3i | 2 | true | false | 0.75 | I'm having a hard time deciding between "less for much less" and "more for less". "Less for much less" means settling for less on an item/service simply because it's cheaper. "More for less" means you get the best products and services for low prices. I read in a book that Costco offers less product selection and low l... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5k2ve",
"comment_text": [
"Costco doesn't offer inferior products for less than standard products, they offer standard products at a low price if you accept the inconvenience of buying large quantities."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5khc4",
"comment_text": [
"So it's neither? It's more like Costco offers the same products and services for less?"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5lxar",
"comment_text": [
"Yes. As you mentioned, they provide less customer service (although the service they do provide is generally really good) and you have to deal with the inconvenience of buying in bulk. That's the trade off.",
"I wouldn't put them in either category, the way... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5ml9x",
"comment_text": [
"Ok thank you :)"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5m8sy",
"comment_text": [
"The (main) savings from Costco come from two places:",
"Bulk. The products are actually the same as you'd find anywhere else, but you're getting more for your money because you are buying in bulk. Any other place could do the same thing if they wanted, but mo... | |
ELI5: Why cocaine is considered to be "classy" while crack cocaine is thought of as a trashy, poor person's alternative | explainlikeimfive | 1psm13 | 3 | true | false | 1 | I was under the impression that crack is made from cocaine, and that they had similar effects- except crack is somehow easier to mass produce. So why would anyone make crack instead of using or selling the cocaine they have? Why would anyone want crack over regular cocaine? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5ks3x",
"comment_text": [
"Crack isn't pure, as it is mixed with baking soda and/or other chemicals. Pure cocaine often is more expensive since it also gives a more intense high in most cases."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5l5sy",
"comment_text": [
"If crack is really just diluted cocaine, then I don't see why its perception seems to be so different. Maybe it's the history of the socioeconomic divide between them, but I don't see how the relationship isn't much different than beer and liquor."
],
"score"... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5l77m",
"comment_text": [
"A gram of cocaine is upwards of $80 some places, a rock of crack is $5 everywhere. That's why crack is ghetto and coke is perceived as uppity or higher class. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5lb4b",
"comment_text": [
"Wine is traditionally very expensive, while ales and beers are relatively cheap. Therefore, wine used to only be affordable to aristocrats and nobles, while the common folk could afford to get beer. The association naturally follows that expensive items represe... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5tqcw",
"comment_text": [
"Crack isn't just diluted cocaine. It is the \"free base\" form of cocaine - if anything, it is chemically more pure than powdered cocaine, as it is not a hydrochloride salt.",
"It's just that there is commonly no attempt in purifying the product after it's be... | |
ELI5: How is it that static electricity can fry a flash drive or computer when they require electricity to operate? | explainlikeimfive | 1psj9d | 1 | true | false | 0.57 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5msf4",
"comment_text": [
"Another analogy might be pressure vs volume vs rate of flow. Voltage = pressure, rate of flow = current, volume = charge. Power is charge flowing at a given pressure, and work is a certain volume of charge carried from some place to some other place, due to flo... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5jt3g",
"comment_text": [
"The amount of voltage involved in static electricity is usually thousands of volts, something that the tiny resistors and transistors in your flash drive aren't ready for."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5k7ac",
"comment_text": [
"The higher voltage as mentioned, and the uncontrolled manner in which the voltage is delivered. When used properly, the electricity is rather precisely controlled along the circuit, and any \"excess current\" leaves the device. With a static charge, there's oft... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5lbjv",
"comment_text": [
"Think of the static shock you feel after rubbing your socked feet on a carpet. If the lights are out, you can sometimes see it, and it's travelling through one of the more resistant resistors there is, the air itself.",
"Direct power can induce those high vo... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5kgkm",
"comment_text": [
"How is it that small amounts of static electricity have more voltage than direct power? I understand the amperage of a wall outlet is higher than that of a small static shock, but how is it that the voltage is higher? Also, doesn't the circuitry of a computer hav... | ||
EL5: How did the whole world adopt a universal measurement of time? | explainlikeimfive | 1psrjb | 43 | true | false | 0.83 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5mmym",
"comment_text": [
"Contrary to \"because that's what makes sense\" and \"cause conquest\"...",
"The proper answer is railroads. ",
"http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_time",
"Turns out you don't really need a universal time until you have interactions between far re... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5mn9u",
"comment_text": [
"A second, or a minute, or an hour, are all arbitrary measurements of time. They just happened to be convenient and easy to define because they are based off of the rotation of the Earth which is more or less consistent from our point of view. The question isn't w... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5qhkk",
"comment_text": [
"We don't have a Universal Time all over the world by far.",
"Different calendars are used around the world.According the official calendar of Iran and Iraq, the ",
"Solar Hijri calendar",
", today is 9 of Aban,\n1392.According to the",
" Indian Na... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5msov",
"comment_text": [
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_of_time",
"In classical China, the kè (刻) was a unit of decimal time, dividing a day into 100 equal intervals of 14.4 minutes. "
],
"score": 5
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5mv6d",
"comment_text": [
"Fair enough. "
],
"score": 4
} | ||
ELI5:why does medicine not work until you eat something? | explainlikeimfive | 1psxix | 6 | true | false | 0.67 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5oeeo",
"comment_text": [
"Lots of medicine requires you to take it with meals. This is moslty because when your digestive system is working, it produced acids and bile that dissolve things. The food tells your body that there is something in its system it needs to deal with, and as the fo... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5oemv",
"comment_text": [
"Of course it could just be that it got late enough for you to get tired "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5ofay",
"comment_text": [
"that makes a lot of sense, thanks a lot man!"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5ogap",
"comment_text": [
"Also for some safety reasons, just in case your brain reacts unfavorably to the alien chemical in your stomach."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5q03b",
"comment_text": [
"It's not that you HAVE to get some food with the pills. You should, to avoid gastrits. Because some pills will be absorved by the stomach walls. That means that your stomach will perceive the pill as food, but you'll not have anything to protect the stomachs wall... | |
ELI5: Since every mammal species on Earth can be wildly different, why do all of our organ diagrams look more or less the same? | explainlikeimfive | 1psvrz | 2 | true | false | 1 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5o0fu",
"comment_text": [
"Because all mammals distended from a common ancestor and they all have similar biological functions, there internal organs are very similar. It can be seen in embryo development that many analogous structures (like fins, arms, bat wings etc) come from the same a... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5o0oc",
"comment_text": [
"Your answer is accurate but not informative. "
],
"score": 4
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5o20h",
"comment_text": [
"We all come from the same common ancestors. The insides pretty much work no matter what environment you're in so that's why the variation in structure isn't dramatically different. Evolution doesn't fix what isn't broken. Having different internal structures woul... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5orcs",
"comment_text": [
"Because of one common ancestor who had these. Eventually evolution took it's path and made mammals (and all the other kinds of animals and plants) more distinguished over time. Don't imagine evolution as going from an \"Ancient Cow\" over \"Old Cow\" to \"Modern ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5nzng",
"comment_text": [
"Common ancestor - is that more to your liking? All modern mammals are descended from a shared ancestor with that arrangement of organs. They all inherited that same arrangement and adapted it to their own needs without significantly changing it. "
],
"score":... | |
ELI5: Why do men lose hair with age but women don't? | explainlikeimfive | 1pt4le | 5 | true | false | 0.86 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5qii2",
"comment_text": [
"This called androgenic alopecia, and happens due to change in steroid hormones (who more predominant with men, than women). A good example is if you castrate a young male, he will grow bald very quickly as his hormones are not allowed to develop. "
],
"score"... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5qkum",
"comment_text": [
"Your right. In addition women do start to lose hair with age. Not all of them just as not all men but some of them do its just slower and less common.",
"To me the more interesting question would be why human males tend to go bald but our closest relatives in... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5rp3v",
"comment_text": [
"Women do lose hair with age, they just don't go completely bald."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5s27i",
"comment_text": [
"my understanding is male pattern baldness is strictly a reaction to the change in hormone levels. Maybe apes & chimps don't have that change (and if not, why not?) or they have some mechanism that counters the changes or fur is different from hair in ways that th... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5qkdu",
"comment_text": [
"A small percentage of testosterone, male sex hormone, gets converted into ",
"dihydrotestosterone (DHT) which kills hair follicles",
"Since women have much less testosterone, they don't make enough DHT to affect their hair."
],
"score": 2
} | ||
Repost from ASKREDDIT- ELI5: Why was it important in evolution that Africans will know how to sing and dance, and specially, have an excellent rhythm? | explainlikeimfive | 1pt9m5 | 0 | true | false | 0.29 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5s6p3",
"comment_text": [
"Whole lot of stereotyping going on there (i.e. try backing up your claims with stats and facts).",
"But, to try and answer your flawed question: rhythm, music, singing is more of a cultural phenomenon than a geographical one. It has always played a part in ou... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5s9h0",
"comment_text": [
"It's strictly cultural. Central Africa isn't as far removed from it's tribal roots as Europe so a lot of the ancient cultural songs and dances have been well preserved into the modern era.",
"Europe, Asia, and the Americas also have their own cultural songs ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5shzd",
"comment_text": [
"That's ridiculous. Just because a group of people don't have a particular hardship, that doesn't mean that they have no hardships at all. Each environment is unique and comes with its own set of challenges to overcome. "
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5shzd",
"comment_text": [
"That's ridiculous. Just because a group of people don't have a particular hardship, that doesn't mean that they have no hardships at all. Each environment is unique and comes with its own set of challenges to overcome. "
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5s9kq",
"comment_text": [
"i specifically said Africans and not \"Black\" people to avoid stereotypes. i didn't meant to be a racist question, but a phenomena i was interested in "
],
"score": 1
} | ||
Why is the healthcare website composed of 500 million lines of code? What about it needs that much code? | explainlikeimfive | 1ptqh0 | 1 | true | false | 1 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5xhvz",
"comment_text": [
"It makes me wonder how they're defining a line of code."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5xkq2",
"comment_text": [
"The entire claim comes from one NYT article that attributes it to an unnamed source. It's almost certain that this source was misquoted or had no idea what he or she was talking about. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5xlij",
"comment_text": [
"a) It's clearly not well-designed.",
"b) Even a well-designed system would have to synch with several government agencies and a ridiculous slew of insurance plans, all of which have their own systems; it's going to be a Rube Goldberg contraption no matter wha... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5xy81",
"comment_text": [
"A blank line between two sections technically counts as a line of code. Without seeing it, there's no way to say how much of it was useful and how much of it was filler. It's entirely possible it was excessively annotated (comments that are written along the way... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5xfzd",
"comment_text": [
"It doesn't need that much code. That's what happens when you involve government."
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5:Why is this baby crying? | explainlikeimfive | 1ptvie | 4 | true | false | 0.7 | I know it seems trivial, but I don't understand what's happening . If something scared a baby it would cry or yell, if the baby is amused it would smile and laugh. But here it's crying out of emotion and pleasure, almost out of the appreciation/emotion of the singing... can babies at that age have such a complex unders... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd61y54",
"comment_text": [
"Emotional development isn't set in stone. Some babies develop earlier than others. It looks to me like this baby understands that the mother is singing a sad song and is sensitive to it. "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd67tow",
"comment_text": [
"i would think it was the subject matter of the song (kinda sad song) and the kid knows that based on either the mother's facial expressions/body language or by the tone of voice. Kids react to the mother's emotions very easily."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd69yrx",
"comment_text": [
"Huh, didn't think of that, I think you hit it right on. Even then, the expression that was expressed was fairly complex, something I don't think someone of that age could have understood. But I think you're explanation seems the most likely."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5zgej",
"comment_text": [
"Hmm, I don't see it, the timing of his expressions say otherwise. I might be wrong though, why do you say that?"
],
"score": 0
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5z433",
"comment_text": [
"Honestly, I think the baby in that video just had gas"
],
"score": -1
} | |
ELI5: Why does it make sense for a country to ban guns but not also cars (as cars can be just as deadly as guns)? | explainlikeimfive | 1pttw7 | 0 | true | false | 0.22 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5yccs",
"comment_text": [
"ಠ_ಠ"
],
"score": 6
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5yt47",
"comment_text": [
"It doesn't make sense to do either. But notice that, in America, cars are much more heavily regulated than guns. I can go out today and, never having owned a gun and only a few times fired one, purchase and fire one all I want for a few hundred bucks. If I was... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5ydsk",
"comment_text": [
"Because cars are extremely useful for things other than killing people. Their main purpose is not to kill people. Killing people is an occasional side-effect of the mis-use of cars.",
"Whereas proponents of banning guns would argue that the main purpose of gu... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5yi9o",
"comment_text": [
"People need cars. They don't need guns"
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5yeyw",
"comment_text": [
"Firearms exist for one singular purpose: to kill.",
"Sometimes they are used to kill in legitimate ways (i.e. hunting rifles), but often they are used as a means of killing humans.",
"Cars are used primarily to transport people and goods, not kill."
],
... | ||
ELI5 Why the inflation seems to be much higher than "they" tell us when looking at historical values? | explainlikeimfive | 1ptouc | 3 | true | false | 0.67 | I've been looking at lots of different commodities, from food stuff to gas to furniture, and the inflation, to me, seems to be in the 8-12%. Why is it that "they" tell us that the inflation is 2% when it seems to be significantly higher? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5x5pm",
"comment_text": [
"Where on earth do you get that from? If inflation really ran at 10 percent for a century, prices would be 13 780 times what they were in 1913.",
"They...er...aren't. Not even close. "
],
"score": 5
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5xfvq",
"comment_text": [
"First, the seventies had much heavier inflation at times than today. Second, it's still going to be hard to justify any claim that inflation has been at sustained levels that high since 1970. You realize you're claiming that prices are on the order of 45 times ... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5xj7i",
"comment_text": [
"Just curious. What specific products are you looking at here, and using what data? "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5xah9",
"comment_text": [
"I think you're like just a smidge away from being able to answer your own inflation.",
"\"Inflation\" in this sense really means \"inflation in price of X good\" or \"inflation in prices of XYZ goods\". So when \"they\" say inflation is 2% or w/e, they're act... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd5xvc1",
"comment_text": [
"As I said though, a sustained inflation rate of ten percent (the middle of your range) would mean that these products are now 45 times as expensive as they were in 1970. If we go with 12 percent, it's nearly a hundred times the price. I can't imagine where you a... | |
ELI5: Why do we use inflation instead of phasing out pennies and nickels? | explainlikeimfive | 1pu67n | 0 | true | false | 0.5 | Wouldn't it be financially beneficial to cease production of those coins? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd62fw2",
"comment_text": [
"Wouldn't it be financially beneficial to cease production of those coins?",
"Yes",
" and \n",
"Yes",
"Even President Obama agrees",
" "
],
"score": 5
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd63lfx",
"comment_text": [
"If currency value drops, lower denomination coins are more useful. You've got it the wrong way around. Inflation makes lower denomination currency less useful. We consider pennies useless because there are extremely few things today that are worth pennies. They'r... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd62ilc",
"comment_text": [
"Yes, it would be financially beneficial. What does this have to do with inflation?"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd62ox2",
"comment_text": [
"So would continued inflation lead us to a point where we drop those coins?"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cd641qi",
"comment_text": [
"I'm confused. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive; if anything, inflation would make pennies/nickels worth ",
" in the marketplace."
],
"score": 1
} |
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