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 |
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ELI5:How can an average person become rich in today's economy? | explainlikeimfive | 1qw705 | 3 | true | false | 0.81 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh4o0l",
"comment_text": [
"This is such a wide open open question. Even with the economy is poor shape anyone has the opportunity to become wealthy. How rich are we talking? You could establish wealth by purchasing rental properties fairly easy. You could start your own company, open a franchise, trade stocks, invest in smaller companies. \n Basically just be smart with your money. Saving money is the hardest part. Once you get that down you'll be able to go from there."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh47fe",
"comment_text": [
"Hard work, a willingness to fail and a social network to fall back on for support and maybe... a little dash of luck.",
"If you have an idea pursue it. Don't be afraid to fail or take sensible risks. You can't get rich doing nothing."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh4mrs",
"comment_text": [
"This post is off topic for ",
"/r/explainlikeimfive",
". Please refer to the sidebar for more information."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh4mrs",
"comment_text": [
"This post is off topic for ",
"/r/explainlikeimfive",
". Please refer to the sidebar for more information."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh4hre",
"comment_text": [
"In the UK, 'Payday Loans' have become hugely popular since the financial crisis began.",
"\nThese are small, short-term loans at ridiculous levels of interest. ",
"For example, someone who wants £100 today is willing to agree to pay back £120 on Friday and because of this, these lendors are becoming very rich indeed. ",
"TL;dr: become a loan shark."
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: How and when did the heart become associated with love and affection? | explainlikeimfive | 1qw7v1 | 18 | true | false | 0.85 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh4sqg",
"comment_text": [
"i didnt feel like explaining birth control to a five year old."
],
"score": 9
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh4q8p",
"comment_text": [
"It was also used as birth control."
],
"score": 7
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh4n1u",
"comment_text": [
"Roman times. There was a plant that had heart-shaped flowers. It was prized, and picked to extinction. The shape was adopted on coins and worked into representing relationships, and finally love."
],
"score": 6
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdhf6py",
"comment_text": [
"When a human gets excited by something the heart starts beating faster. Thus the physical and mental excitement of love and affection causes a noticeable increase in the beating of the heart at the very beginning of that realization by the brain. Thus: My heart beats for you!\" and \"My heart goes crazy over you!\".",
"Hence the association, IMO."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdhhgcx",
"comment_text": [
"I got the birds and the bees talk when I was 5, and I grew up fine."
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: Is money really an illusion? (More in comments) | explainlikeimfive | 1qwan2 | 1 | true | false | 1 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh50vg",
"comment_text": [
"what you're describing is inflation.",
"Presumably, the cost to acquire and sell a fish, in your case is also affected by inflation. "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh4ydm",
"comment_text": [
"Money is just a placeholder for the value we deem other items. Money itself is not worth anything. That's why we don't \"buy\" money."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh5ukd",
"comment_text": [
"How do we not buy money? Aren’t forex investors and speculators constantly buying money?"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh4y93",
"comment_text": [
"My claim is that money is an illusion. Here's why: If I got 10/100 of the money in a country, I've got 10% of the value. A fish costs 5% of the value in the country. Since I got 10%, I can afford two fish. If the country makes another 100 money, the money I got will be 10/200 or 5% of the value. If a fish cost 5% I can now only buy 1 fish instead of two... right?"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh5gi9",
"comment_text": [
"In essence, yes. There are however a fair bit more to the worlds currency systems. For instance in the example you provided it's likely that you wouldn't be able to afford a whole fish at the end since by printing lots of money the government would significantly harm the trust in the currency. As such prices would rise even further as people would expect the government to print even more. (see Germany 1920s I believe)"
],
"score": 1
} | ||
What causes the sensation of falling and/or flying when we dream? | explainlikeimfive | 1qwf4j | 41 | true | false | 0.77 | I mean, why do we feel like we're falling or flying, but in reality we're just laying there? Same goes for the sensation of getting shot, drowning, etc. | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh8b1q",
"comment_text": [
"My understanding is that the jolt you get when you first fall asleep or the sensation of falling is actually the portion of the brain that handles balance shutting down. Your brain actually thinks your body is tipping/falling because that portion of your brain is not sending an \"ok\" signal. "
],
"score": 12
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdhemnm",
"comment_text": [
"it seems like we can only experience sensations that we have felt before.",
"Extremely vivid and lucid dreamer here. I once had a dream I went skydiving. I was actually inspired to go do it about 1 month later. I was really surprised when it felt and sounded exactly how it did in my dream. I had never really thought about skydiving prior to that. Just an personal anecdote, but true nonetheless."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdhgwg4",
"comment_text": [
"I've never been skydiving, though I'd like to try it at one point. But I guess my point about experiencing things we've experienced before should still work. ",
"For example, having never skydived. I would guess that, until you reach terminal velocity, you'll have the feeling of falling. We've all experienced this, whether it is jumping on a trampoline or riding a roller coaster, etc. There would be a ton of wind and wind noise. We've all been somewhere where it was really windy and felt what it feels like.",
"As someone who has never skydived, my brain would probably take the feeling of falling and being somewhere really windy. Just like I don't understand how it feels to be shot, or drown, my brain does the best it can given my previous experiences and idea of how it should feel.",
"Or did sky diving have a different new sensation that you've never felt before, except for your dream? Not trying to call you out or anything, just genuinely curious to see if my theory works for people besides me."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdhde2x",
"comment_text": [
"Which could be the closest answer we've reached. A sensation of falling can be induced when the eyes detect rapid apparent motion. This would typically mean that the eye would be fixed, and a target object would be in motion. With ",
"Vertigo",
" optokinetic nystagmus (involuntary rapid eye movement caused by a rotation movement) and ",
"R.E.M.",
", our eye movements (and possibly the relaxation of the muscles involved with our vestibular apparatus) could be apart of the ",
"falling sensation",
"."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdhh9n0",
"comment_text": [
"Would the sensation of being electrocuted have the same cause? "
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: All of our muscles get tired and we have to let them rest. Why doesn't our heart have to rest? | explainlikeimfive | 1qwb0d | 16 | true | false | 0.72 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh55g6",
"comment_text": [
"http://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/why-doesnt-your-heart-get-tired/",
"One answer is that the “cardiac” muscle that comprises the heart is of a different kind than the “skeletal” muscle comprising the hand. Skeletal muscles are attached to bone structures and cannot stay long in a flexed position without depleting their energy reserves. Those energy reserves come from mitochondria: structures inside the cells that use the energy taken in from food. Thus the more mitochondria it has, the greater the available energy for the muscle.",
"Because it has not been necessary in the course of evolution for humans to be able to flex our skeletal muscles for prolonged periods of time, the total volume of skeletal muscle contains an average of only 1 to 2% mitochondria. This is an entirely sufficient energy source for such intermittent muscular tasks as walking or running. The total volume of the heart, by contrast, is between 30 and 35% mitochondria.",
"That massive amount of energy-generators means cardiac muscle, in a healthy state, need never rest: there is always some energy being transferred to the muscle at the same time that more energy is being derived from caloric intake. And always just in time for that next beat."
],
"score": 9
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh7hxq",
"comment_text": [
"Adding on to that, the heart actually does rest. When looking at an ECG, the ventricles contract which appears as a QRS complex. This typically lasts under .12 seconds. The heart goes into a recovery phase, and recharges the ventricles. This is seen as the T-wave. The rest portion occurs immediately after contraction, and lasts normally for about .32 seconds or less. "
],
"score": 7
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh63yv",
"comment_text": [
"It does... It just takes 80 years o work before cashing in on the vacation days."
],
"score": 7
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh7j5x",
"comment_text": [
"The heart actually does rest. When looking at an ECG, the ventricles contract which appears as a QRS complex. This typically lasts under .12 seconds. The heart goes into a recovery phase, and recharges the ventricles. This is seen as the T-wave. The rest portion occurs immediately after contraction, and lasts normally for about .32 seconds or less. "
],
"score": 6
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh5orq",
"comment_text": [
"could we increase the mitochondrial presence?"
],
"score": 2
} | ||
ELI5: How does the Freedom of Information Act work? Couldn't an agency simply destroy a record and deny its existence? | explainlikeimfive | 1qwggm | 1 | true | false | 0.67 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh82a7",
"comment_text": [
"Foa allows for citizens to petition the government to release something to the public, as long as it's not classified or personal information it usually is. They could destroy it, but they probably need it so destroying it would be useless"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh8lx8",
"comment_text": [
"Most records kept by the gov't are those it is legally required to keep.",
"Destroying a record like that would be a crime."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh98eh",
"comment_text": [
"While the majority of FOI requests are produced there are many cases where they deny the records exist or they black out so much of it that it is worthless."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh9xby",
"comment_text": [
"How can so much be redacted when the whole purpose is to reveal information that otherwise be inaccessible "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdha5u4",
"comment_text": [
"You got me. Here is the latest example I could find. A request for the DHS's cellular shut down protocol.",
"EPIC filed a request for the documents under Freedom of Information Act in July 2012. The federal agency released a heavily redacted and near-unreadable document, after first saying it could not find the records. Homeland Security said the disclosure would reveal \"techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions.\""
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5 - Why are most people not motivated to be productive? Why are most people motivated to be lazy? | explainlikeimfive | 1qwi7i | 1 | true | false | 0.55 | Why | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh7r0y",
"comment_text": [
"Think of it this way. Your brain is like an old computer. The software has been upgraded (culture, art, politics, obligations, technology, science, thought, etc) over the years, but the hardware is still a million or more years old. It has a hard time running modern software, especially when that software requires seeing reward when that reward isn't instant. Procrastination (or lack of motivation to work hard) is a more natural state of mind, wherein you seek things that gratify you immediately. So, for example, what gratifies me more right now? Playing video games and drinking beer all Sunday afternoon? Or pulling up my sleeves, grabbing some tools, and building that deck off my back door I've been talking about for years so that my yard looks marginally better? ",
"Now, why do some people behave this way more than others? This is a nature vs nurture argument. There's no real way to tell what self-motivates some people, and not others. However, what we can assume is that your brain makes life-decisions based on the following criteria: Can I eat it, fight it, run from it, or fuck it? Now, the higher you get on the cognitive scale, the more complex, and meaningful these initial processes become. Thus, which bucket your decisions initially fall into is natural, and how you decide to act on it is entirely up to your temperament. How you were raised, do you have kids to take care of, how selfish you are, how selfless you are, etc. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh73m6",
"comment_text": [
"Because in terms of evolution, up until recently, we had to stay productive in order to survive. We've never needed to evolve the behaviorial traits to really promote productivity because being productive was the only way to survive. But since energy was also scarce, you didn't want to do more than was necessary to survive and conserve any leftover energy. If you were lazy all the time, you probably starved or got killed by a predator. Nowadays, we can survive and be extremely lazy...so it kinda happens for a lot of us."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh7ibh",
"comment_text": [
"Your point is interesting, in essense it comes down to survival. Now how do you apply that to everyday life, turn on the survival instinct to be more productive."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh711b",
"comment_text": [
"Two words: instant gratification. While being productive may pay off later on with decent results some time in the future, being lazy pays off now."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh7k0p",
"comment_text": [
"Because ",
"time preference",
". Essentially, you like doing things that offer rewards right now (ie, porn, funny cat videos, computer games) much more than things that will offer rewards in the distant future (ie, studying for a degree, or applying yourself at work so you may qualify for a promotion)."
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5:why is x the most commonly used variable? | explainlikeimfive | 1qwbed | 88 | true | false | 0.77 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh56q3",
"comment_text": [
"With cultural conventions like these it's always hard to say, but my favourite hypothesis is that ",
"it's because Spanish doesn't have an 'sh' sound",
". "
],
"score": 40
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh6767",
"comment_text": [
"I really like this answer!\n",
"http://www.ted.com/talks/terry_moore_why_is_x_the_unknown.html"
],
"score": 21
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh6bp6",
"comment_text": [
"You're right, but the \"x\" does look like a form of the multiplication symbol. That form is rarely used in algebra though. Usually parentheses or dots instead. And if you have sloppy handwriting, you could on the off-chance confuse your x for an addition sign."
],
"score": 13
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh623e",
"comment_text": [
"http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/2936/why-are-x-and-y-such-common-variables-in-todays-equations-how-did-their-use-or",
" there's a good answer here. Rene Descartes started using it, and everyone else decided it was a good idea."
],
"score": 9
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdh89hh",
"comment_text": [
"Using 'X' for multiplication is never really used for math notation in algebra or beyond. If you want to say 'two times a' you just write '2a', if you need to chain things together, 'two times two times a' is 2(2a). Just like saying 'two dollars' means 2*100 cents.",
"Same goes for division. No one actually uses \"÷\" unless you are in 4th grade. Things which are divided are written over one another with a line between. Just like fractions. What is on the top is divided by what is on the bottom.",
"These conventions together make things much more precise as there is only one way to interpret and parse them."
],
"score": 7
} | ||
ELI5: How does a camera with autofocus know when it has to stop to focus. And which is the right thing to focus on? | explainlikeimfive | 1qwryn | 9 | true | false | 1 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdhc0ls",
"comment_text": [
"OK, so before we get into Autofocus, lets talk about how a Rangefinder works.",
"In essence, before the days of the focus, when you had a camera, you just had to more or less guess. I have an old Kodak Hawkeye sitting at home where the 'focus lens' is just a piece of glass you look down into, that gives you a view of the entire scene. You would focus the lens manually to a certain distance, and take into account your aperture (depth of field) in order to get the picture you want.",
"With the rangefinder, something new came about. The idea was actually simple - you have one image that comes in through the main lens. Then you have another image that comes through a second, smaller lens. You could look through the rangefinder lens and see the two images, one and the other, and by focusing the camera lens, the two images would slowly come into alignment - whatever you wanted in focus, at least. ",
"It worked like in this diagram",
"With AutoFocus, you have either Active or Passive focusing. With Active, infrared or ultrasonic signals are used to measure distance between the camera lens and whatever is in the 'focus' area (usually that little square/circle in the middle of the screen). The camera does some calculations, and adjusts focus for that distance.",
"With Passive, you have a system more like the rangefinder - you have your two images, and you 'align' them and bingo! you have focus. There is also a passive system that uses differences in Contrast - the brightest white to the darkest black - in order to figure out whether its in focus or not.",
"With older cameras with rangefinders, you still had to adjust the lens manually to get everything into position. With newer cameras, you could use a chip to do the same thing, comparing the image from the camera lens (which would be adjusted using motors) to the image in the second matching lens, and when it all aligns, you are set!"
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdhdx2n",
"comment_text": [
"Nope! But I shoot film primarily, and none of my cameras are newer than ~1985. Part of shooting old cameras is figuring out how they work, just in case the one you picked up at a flea market covered in dust and muck isn't working the way it should be.",
"I should note, that newer cameras can use a hybrid of both active/passive, but the explanation should still stand on how things work."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdhds5s",
"comment_text": [
"Thanks for your great answer! Are you some kind of camera technician?"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdhrh8m",
"comment_text": [
"Great answer!"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdhbhi5",
"comment_text": [
"I'm no expert, but sometimes you can see that am autofocus camera defocuses and refocuses before setting itself to the correct focus. I'm guessing a program detects how blurry a picture is and then chooses the least blurry setting. Hopefully someone can correct me since this is just a theory and probably not the answer."
],
"score": 0
} | ||
ELI5: How do top chess players look so many moves ahead? | explainlikeimfive | 1qsmvm | 3 | true | false | 0.8 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg1gko",
"comment_text": [
"Most of them don't look at all possible combinations. They only look for moves that they think are likely for an opponent (in a given position, this may be only one good move to as many as twenty). Also, they are familiar with particular positions. They know which positions to try to get to and which positions to avoid at all costs. So they aren't actually looking at every single possible combination of moves for the next twenty moves."
],
"score": 4
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg1bez",
"comment_text": [
"When the top chess players began playing chess, they only looked 1 or 2 moves ahead. It was all they knew how to do, because they were new to the game.\nAfter beating some other players, having some close games, and becoming familiar with different combinations of moves, the top chess player was able to think 3, 4, 5 moves ahead. The player got better, and could read his or her opponent's next 4 moves, too.\nThe player progresses to thinking up four moves in response to each of the opponent's next four moves. Eventually, they're thinking 20 moves ahead for the end of the pawn skirmish and prioritizing 10 different execution styles in case the first 9 don't work out. It's about familiarity, focus, repetition, and a lot of time."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg59mm",
"comment_text": [
"Memorizing game openings helps a lot too. While there's millions of ways to play out the first few turns of a game, there's only a few thousand that make sense to a \"good\" player. If you recognize the common sequences, you don't really need to analyze all possible moves, just variations on a pattern."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg6xlg",
"comment_text": [
"Experience lets them quickly get rid of a lot of possibilities. When a complete novice like myself looks at the board, I'm overwhelmed, because there are dozens of possible legal moves. But a more experienced chess player looks to the one or two best moves and goes from there. You could conceivably get 3 or 4 turns deep before you reached the number of possible moves that a novice would worry about on turn one.",
"When the game starts, white can make one of 20 legal moves (pawns forward one or two, knights out and left or right). But most of those aren't really viable moves, because doing something else is simply better. That means an experienced opponent will make one of (numbers are entirely arbitrary) two moves. And once the first move is made, often your opponent will stick to a particular opening. So the next few turns you know what they're going to do, and you've still only got two possible game states. Your opponent (who we can assume is a similarly experienced player) is doing the same thing, anticipating what the best move you could make is, and planning around that, rather than thinking about a response for every possible move you could make.",
"The brute force approach of thinking about every possible permutation is used by most chess-playing computers, interestingly enough, because it's cheaper and easier to speed up brute force searches than it is to train a computer to recognize likely moves from unlikely ones."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg9471",
"comment_text": [
"If you have good board vision (i.e. you can see the entire board in your head) then you can imagine making a series of moves on it. You could in fact play out an entire game in your head.",
"Most/all good players can do this. Players that can't, can improve their game by drilling on this subject to try and improve board vision."
],
"score": 1
} | ||
How does the wind get knocked out of you? | explainlikeimfive | 1qsorw | 7 | true | false | 0.83 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg6fbj",
"comment_text": [
"There is a muscle that helps your lungs breath air into your body.\nWhen you get hit really hard in your tummy the muscle that moves your lungs becomes paralyzed for a short time."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg8wkl",
"comment_text": [
"That's a bit too 5-year-old. The muscle in question is the diaphragm, which moves up and down near the bottom of your chest, and which changes the internal volume of your upper chest, which in turn alters the pressure exerted on the outside of your lungs. Changes in this pressure allow the outside air to be drawn in or pushed out, as the case may be. ",
"The solar plexus is the nerve bundle that's at the center formed by the triangle of your nipples and belly-button (well, as a rule of thumb, anyway). This manages the diaphragm and when it gets stunned for some reason (by a fall or a punch or whatnot), your diaphragm starts to spasm. While that happens, it's hard to draw a breath. Fortunately, it's survivable in nearly every case, probably a testament to some natural selection."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg90e5",
"comment_text": [
"I'll add that hiccups are a related situation, but instead of the diaphragm being in a general spasm, it's doing what's called a myoclonic jerk, which is an involuntary contraction of the muscle. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgdbkz",
"comment_text": [
"That's a bit too ",
"r/askscience",
"."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgdbt5",
"comment_text": [
"/r/askscience",
" ",
" ",
" ",
" ",
" ",
" ",
" ",
" ",
" ",
" ",
"/u/WinneonSword"
],
"score": 1
} | ||
How does a drug enter your body through your lungs (as in smoking) and then affect your brain? | explainlikeimfive | 1qsusb | 0 | true | false | 0.43 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg3lfd",
"comment_text": [
"Same way oxygen does. The drug will diffuse into the blood stream via a series of veins that run through the lungs. Once in the blood stream, it is carried all over the body, including to the brain."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg3kt4",
"comment_text": [
"Blood vessels pass by the lungs, pick up oxygen and whatever else, the blood travels around your body to your brain where whatever it can accept gets absorbed in the brain cells."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg3qfx",
"comment_text": [
"The primary function of your lungs is to control the intake of oxygen, and then pass that oxygen into your bloodstream to be used as vital fuel in your bodily functions. The blood is carried to all parts of your body, including your brain. So when you smoke and inhale a drug into your lungs, your lungs pass the drug into your bloodstream, and it's carried throughout your body. The drug is then taken by parts of your body, in lieu of oxygen, and the effects begin to take hold. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg7la2",
"comment_text": [
"The previous responses covered it, but I also wanted to mention that because the drug gets into your bloodstream (on to your brain) quite quickly it is a pretty efficient means of delivery, so you get high pretty quickly. I have a friend (cough, cough) who want to get stoned but didn't feel like smoking at the moment so he just ate a few drops of marijuana resin. That's concentrated THC oil, and he did get high eventually, but it took almost two hours to work its way through his stomach and intestines, then into his bloodstream. Granted, that was on top of a pasta dinner."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg3m11",
"comment_text": [
"I read \"How does a drug dealer enter your body...\" and was prepared to be very concerned for you and to suggest more professional help than I now feel is warranted.",
"Also, Rob is that you?"
],
"score": 0
} | ||
ELI5: How do computers work? | explainlikeimfive | 1qstjt | 0 | true | false | 0.5 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg3bvx",
"comment_text": [
"Someone may be able to explain this here, but I doubt anyone will be able to give you an in depth explanation of all the parts of a computer and how they work. There is just so much information. I also don't know of any good sources or even where to begin. :/",
"Hopefully someone else on here will be able to give you at least part of what you are looking for."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg3g2h",
"comment_text": [
"I'm 15, trying to get into pc gaming. Figured I should get some knowledge before diving in lol. Thanks though!"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg3l7s",
"comment_text": [
"You might want to be more specific with your questions, like \"what is a motherboard\" or \"what does a GPU (Graphics processing unit) do\". You will be more likely to get good answers. It will also make sure the info you get will be what you actually want to hear. Otherwise you might get explanations that are too detailed about concepts which don't directly relate to what you want to do."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg3m5x",
"comment_text": [
"This question concerns one of the most frequently asked topics on ELI5, so it has been removed. Try the searchbar!",
"It's okay to re-post questions, but please indicate that you did a search and that previous questions/answers didn't help you understand."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg3p92",
"comment_text": [
"A computer and its software is an extremely complex system, built from abstractions on top of abstractions on top of abstractions.",
"So, you might start from the very basic level of logic gates (which are built from transistors). More complex electronic components are built out of these, and more complex components are built out of those. Basic system software is written at the level of assembly code, and it provides simpler interfaces that other programs use. Still more high-level programs can use the interfaces that those programs provide.",
"There is a course I heard of a while ago that goes up through these levels of abstraction called ",
"NAND to Tetris",
". It lists programming as a prerequisite, but if you want to understand how computers work and you've never done any programming, I would highly suggest taking an introduction to programming class online!"
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: If everyone gets 1 vote in the US, then why do people of the US complain that their government favors only an elite group? | explainlikeimfive | 1qswty | 1 | true | false | 0.67 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg4bv8",
"comment_text": [
"In general, you won't see very many poor people running for office. It costs millions of dollars to fund an election campaign. No matter who you vote for, they are likely in the top 1%.",
"Sure, it's possible to run without spending much money on campaigning, in fact people do it all the time. But you never hear or see anything about them. Cue the millionaires."
],
"score": 5
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg4fou",
"comment_text": [
"The people don't get to vote on laws; the people vote on who will go to the capitol and make laws. ",
"So, say there is a bill proposed that would make it legal for ... say ... RIAA enforcers to enter your home at any time, without a warrant, and search your home for pirated music. ",
"The people do not get to vote on whether such a thing ought to be law or not. Rather, the senators and congressmen that the people voted into office last year, ",
" decide whether that should be law or not. ",
"Those senators and congressmen are corruptible, just like you and me. ",
"So, the RIAA (in this scenario) has zillions of dollars to pour into convincing the legislators to go ahead and get that bill made law. What do ",
" have not convince them not to? Not a lot, I'll wager."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg7dmf",
"comment_text": [
"The problem is that while this is the ",
" of elected officials, there is scant evidence of it actually happening.",
"And considering that it is illegal (a) to bribe an elected official directly, or (b) contribute more than $2,600 to their campaign from any individual (corporations cannot donate at all), it is because the media misinforms the public."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg4cfo",
"comment_text": [
"Because public officials can receive large funds during campaigning from wealthy individuals or lobbying interests, which makes them somewhat beholden to these groups if they want the money to continue coming to them. So, no matter who you vote for, a lot of the money they're getting is coming very concentrated groups. These lobbying interests also spend huge amounts on fundraisers for candidates that reflect their interests, and constantly lobby these candidates to do what they want. The majority of the US population does not have the sheer amount of resources to do things like this, so a lot of the money and influence going to public officials do not reflect the interests of most American individuals."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg4d3g",
"comment_text": [
"it has nothing to do with the vote to get politicians in office, it has to do with what politicians do when in office...how our tax code is set, kick backs from lobbyists, preferential treatment for friends when awarding contracts, etc etc etc etc etc"
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: Why is it when we grow older, we lose interest in video games? | explainlikeimfive | 1qt7mt | 0 | true | false | 0.29 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg7ysc",
"comment_text": [
"It's a combination of free time, realization of priorities, and realization of mortality. Becomes much harder not to enjoy or get into video games, but to justify the time necessary to really engage with them."
],
"score": 5
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg7y9p",
"comment_text": [
"Responsibilities outweigh carefree living"
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg8cxx",
"comment_text": [
"We do?",
"SOURCE: I'm 32 and I haven't lost interest, though I'm not as into them and don't really buy as many anymore. The last system I bought was a Wii."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg8m2d",
"comment_text": [
"Gamer in my mid 30's here. Don't play as much as I did in college, but it's still one of my top hobbies in terms of hours spent. I think your question is flawed."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg8uf1",
"comment_text": [
"It's not that we lose interest, it's that we have families and, can't just play when we want. I can only play when my wife goes to work, and the kids are gone. It's very difficult to play a video game with 2 kids telling you how to play and being a distraction. "
],
"score": 2
} | |
ELI5: How can money be introduced into a material/barter-based society without some sort of net loss? | explainlikeimfive | 1qtap7 | 0 | true | false | 0.5 | In the past, I know communities used to trade goods between one another for other wanted goods. But this system proved inefficient, so money was introduced as an agreed-upon "placeholder", of sorts, used to represent goods and services. I'm wondering how somebody would introduce money into a society while ensuring a constant financial balance. This seems to be impossible without incurring a debt through interest, or gradually devaluing the money as it is introduced into any given economy. In other words, a banker could either 1) give away money for free, or 2) give away money in exchange for real goods. This bothers me, because in both cases, this seems to be producing something from nothing -- ie, 1=0. If this is the case, the introduction of money to an economy is unsustainable, by its very nature. Hopefully I am making sense.... | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg95ni",
"comment_text": [
"Some forms of money are based on things most people use anyways, such as salt, coffee, alcohol, or tobacco. People barter for these things naturally so they can consume them, but eventually you might want to trade for cigarettes even if you don't smoke because you know that you can always find someone else who wants them. Eventually people realized that metals are more convenient because they are harder to destroy, but it still required faith that there is someone out there who will give you food for your otherwise useless metal."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgfzzr",
"comment_text": [
"Okay, this makes sense. Allow me to rephrase for my benefit: ",
"A uniform commodity would arise internally, rather than imposed by an external entity. The commodity wouldn't be introduced into a system with no effort (for \"free\"). In the case such of gold, the gold represents the time and effort of those who mined it from the earth. Other tradesmen would then trade real goods for the gold, because the tradesmen are buying the gold with the knowledge that they would have to mine it themselves, otherwise. The tradesmen are buying the representation of time and effort.",
"When more time and effort is required to mine the gold, the value of the gold will go up. The miners of the gold will want to be compensated for their time by receiving more goods from the tradesmen. The tradesmen will then demand more for their gold as they use it as they trade with other tradesmen.",
"So, in a nutshell, goods and services are being displaced by the gold as it trades hands. A kind of monetary hot potato....or a wrinkle in a bedsheet.",
"If this is the case, how is gold worth relatively the same amount (by weight, etc.) despite the fact that individual pieces of gold took more effort to mine than other pieces (amount aside)? It seems that each piece would need to be priced individually, according to the effort required to obtain that specific piece. Otherwise, the miner may incur a net loss, at the most basic level of metabolic energy expenditure: \"I did 20 days of work for 1 gram of gold. I need to compensate myself accordingly for this effort in order to survive.\" ",
"As far as I know, gold is set at a fixed price (relative to itself) by weight/amount, and not by the energy required to obtain it. Who gets to decide that fixed price in the world market? And how does this fixed price acknowledge the fact that there will be a discrepancy between the representation of the effort compared to the actual effort to obtain it? ",
"Tl;dr: Who decides the uniform price of gold? Each piece of gold takes a different amount of effort to mine it, which is at odds with the idea of setting a uniform price. ",
"(NOTE: I obviously don't know economics. :/ )"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdt76hy",
"comment_text": [
"One requirement for currency is that the item should be a commodity, that is that each unit should be interchangeable. You don't care where that pound of salt or gold or cigarettes came from, you just weigh or count it. If it costs miner A 1 hour to mine a unit of gold, and miner B 2 hours, two things can happen: 1) price of gold is too low for miner B to work for 2 hours, so the miner finds a different line of work, 2) price of gold is high, so both miners continue to mine gold, but miner A can produce more gold."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg90uf",
"comment_text": [
"Gold. You find gold. It's rare and beautiful and you can make it into jewelry and stuff. A rich person will trade you for it.",
"Eventually people come to recognize gold as something rare and desirable, and therefore valuable. Now you can start using it as a placeholder.",
"This is my guess."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgaqx3",
"comment_text": [
"If you look at our current system, the unifying factor is taxes. You know you're paying income tax in dollars, so everyone needs them eventually."
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: How did animals gain the ability of flight? | explainlikeimfive | 1qtc5e | 0 | true | false | 0.5 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg9ji5",
"comment_text": [
"I think it developed from gliding. Like flying squirrels. You develop skin and or feathers between your arms/legs. This eventually allows you to glide. As your species glides, some have structures which are better at it. Eventually some have structures which allow them to push themselves farther by flapping."
],
"score": 4
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg9tfd",
"comment_text": [
"Everything is a transitional feature. Right now everything about you is a transitional feature. There is no end game to evolution. ",
"Features are thought to have originally evolved to allow dinosaurs to better regulate their body temperature. However, certain dinosaurs could then glide with them. Over time these groups of dinosaurs evolved into the birds we see today. Small steps at a time that eventually lead from features for insulation to flight. "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg9ly5",
"comment_text": [
"And the ones who don't glide as far die off, leaving the better equiped gliders to reproduce."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg9o0l",
"comment_text": [
"Yup, there is a clear advantage of flight and longer gliding over short gliding and no gliding."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg9h6c",
"comment_text": [
"Because god said so. \nKidding, I would also like to know."
],
"score": 1
} | |
Why does it cost so much to make an animation movie? | explainlikeimfive | 1qtffl | 5 | true | false | 0.86 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgaftm",
"comment_text": [
"You have to pay the animators. They are experts (and so their salaries are high) and you need a lot of them. And you need them to work for a long time. ",
"Monsters Inc. Involved something like 500 animators and took about 1 year to animate.",
"If each one got $50k, that would be $25 million."
],
"score": 8
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgal10",
"comment_text": [
"Don't forget the voice talent. You need someone who can completely nail the character you have in mind. Since there are over 700 tones in the English language, and every single unnecessary pause can completely destroy believability...",
"Did I mention perfect enunciation? Stand-up worthy comedic timing? Possible dramatic acting chops? ",
"And wait until you discover the prices if you want one with name recognition. "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgal10",
"comment_text": [
"Don't forget the voice talent. You need someone who can completely nail the character you have in mind. Since there are over 700 tones in the English language, and every single unnecessary pause can completely destroy believability...",
"Did I mention perfect enunciation? Stand-up worthy comedic timing? Possible dramatic acting chops? ",
"And wait until you discover the prices if you want one with name recognition. "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgamwc",
"comment_text": [
"The computing power used to render a scene is obscene. Rendering a single frame from \"finding Nemo\" would take a normal home PC maybe a few hours. Now 60 frames per second of a 90 minute film rendered at a frame an hour suddenly renders in 37 YEARS. If the film uses the 3D glasses popular no it needs to be rendered twice. That's not counting screwing up, experimenting with different angles and whatnot - just rendering the final film. So you need to have quite a bit of computing power on hand to render a 3d movie."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgahps",
"comment_text": [
"No problem!"
],
"score": 2
} | |
ELI5: China is producing 10m Asians per year, meanwhile whites are going extinct. Why don't we nuke China down to a more appropriate size? | explainlikeimfive | 1qtd2b | 0 | true | false | 0.36 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg9r2l",
"comment_text": [
"Had to check that this wasn't ",
"/r/shittyadvice",
". Maybe you should try posting this there, I'm sure it would be a hit."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg9rd0",
"comment_text": [
"Because we live in a global community. Also nukes, more then one country has them. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg9s1y",
"comment_text": [
"When you put it that way, \"whites\" seem inferior AND afraid."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg9sqz",
"comment_text": [
"Being white isn't what it used to be. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgc1yp",
"comment_text": [
"I am so sorry Mr Bigdick_, I am afraid you have a terminal condition known as \"being a cunt\"\nThe surest treatment is a hard kick to the teeth we can start right away if you wish ?"
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: If we have interfaces for our internet that provide us with ultra fast transfer rates (100Mb/s+), why don't we have interfaces as fast for data transfers (like USB or SATA) | explainlikeimfive | 1qtfz0 | 1 | true | false | 0.67 | I was just transfering a file on my computer when the thought struck me | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgaooj",
"comment_text": [
"USB is fast.",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB",
"SATA also starts in at 1.5Gbps and goes up from there.",
"The actual speed you get in everyday life will depend on what you're actually trying to do, such as how much data you're moving and where you're moving it to. Not to mention that the device on either end of the USB cable also plays a part."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgap8k",
"comment_text": [
"Here's a quick analogy: think of connectivity to the Internet as like a bunch of river tributaries connected together into one river network. The main river, and biggest tributaries, can carry a heck of a lot of water - just like ISP trunks can carry lots of data. So increasing internet speed just means widening the river near where you live. ",
"Transfering files via USB is like walking over to your next door neighbour's with a bucket of water. This is slow for a few reasons:\nA) files are copied individually, instead of being streamed over the internet (multiple buckets as opposed to hose pipe)?\nB) the path the data taking is forged each time, instead of following the well-worn riverbed of an established infrastructure of dedicated switches, and\nC) these days your neighbour just uses his own garden hose to water the plants. This is like using cloud storage. Just transfer files using dropbox or skydrive instead of physical media!",
"Also, going beyond the ELI5 scope: standards like USB3.0, thunderbolt, and SATA III as well as solid state drives make it possible to get very fast transfer speeds for files. I will usually get ~90 MB/sec on my USB 3 external hard drive for large files. SATA III is rated up to 6.0 Gb/sec, and thunderbolt II is rated up to 10.0 Gb/sec. Don't know about real world speeds though. ",
"Edit: bits and bytes. "
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgamjk",
"comment_text": [
"Actually, the upper theoretical limit on SATA is 6000Mbits/sec, and USB 3.0 is 5000. ",
"The reason you don't see these speeds in practice is because of slowdowns in other portions of the computer, be it the amount of available memory, processor speed, or bus bandwidth. ",
"These factors also affect data from the internet. Most Ethernet interfaces currently available have the capability for 1Gbit/sec, for example. The speed of the internet connection you pay for is the biggest throttle on the actual speeds you'll see, there."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgaols",
"comment_text": [
"Ok right, that would make sense... thanks :)"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgalrv",
"comment_text": [
"The hardware is different.",
"Besides, USB 3.0 can transfer up to about 4 Gb/s"
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: why when trying to lose weight, my weight fluctuates 2-3 lbs daily? | explainlikeimfive | 1qtqtx | 2 | true | false | 0.75 | I am not overweight peruse, but I want to lose about 10 lbs. I have started limiting my calories and was already excercising close to everyday. What is very frustrating is that I weigh myself at the same time everyday, and my weight fluctuates plus or minus 2 or 3 lbs. Why is that? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgdnqy",
"comment_text": [
"Many times weight fluctuation is caused by water weight. For example, it you drink too much water the day before your body flushes out and will weigh more. This can also occur because of amount of food taken in -- although you are eating healthy, one day you may eat a larger amount of vegetables making you appear heavier. ",
"ALSO-- DO NOT weigh everyday! weigh at a constant day during the week 1 or 2 times a week. any more than that is extremely discouraging! trust me from personal experience"
],
"score": 5
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgdih1",
"comment_text": [
"Could it be that you're weight always fluctuates whether you're on a diet or not and that you're only noticing it now because you're watching it so closely?"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgdkhj",
"comment_text": [
"Likely a combination of a few factors.\n1) Depends on what you're measuring your weight with. Standard step-on bathroom scales are subject to error and drift, so that may be contributing to the variation\n2) Variant diet/exercise. Your body doesn't reset after you go to sleep. What you ate a few hours ago, or even the night before can have an effect on a single measurement of weight. Like some others have said, track trends over time and make conclusions based on that. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgf8ym",
"comment_text": [
"the fluctuation just comes from daily consumption of water or other undigested foods ect. To get your true weight, get up in the morning, take a pee then weight yourself before breakfast. Do this everymorning to track true progress"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgigbz",
"comment_text": [
"Or just average your weight out over a week at a time instead of day."
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: How did they shoot the zero gravity scenes in Gravity (2013). | explainlikeimfive | 1qtxqa | 21 | true | false | 0.71 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdghc7i",
"comment_text": [
"A lot of the scenes were shot by only filming the heads of the actors and CGIing the bodies. I can't speak for scenes that did not use this method."
],
"score": 12
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgi9p8",
"comment_text": [
"Woah, if this is true then the uncanny valley just got a lot more canny."
],
"score": 10
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgijz0",
"comment_text": [
"Although the graphics were hugely impressive, I think a big part of why it was so realistic is that they weren't trying to replicate a human doing normal human activities. Your brain is much less familiar with what a person should look like performing those actions in in 0-G, so you probably would not be as adept at picking up any small abnormalities. And I think it also helps that a big part of the uncanny valley issue is that humans are so adept at distinguishing facial features, and since those were authentic and not CGI, you would not get the same sense of 'wrongness' as you would otherwise. "
],
"score": 10
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgk7yu",
"comment_text": [
"Here's a great article on the visual effects of the movie. ",
"http://www.fxguide.com/featured/gravity/",
"Most of it was pure CG but they invented this crazy light box to capture the actor's faces in the correct light. "
],
"score": 7
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgh5w3",
"comment_text": [
"Neil deGrasse Tyson:\n",
"https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/386993044836212737"
],
"score": 6
} | ||
ELI5: Why the U.S. did not stand trial for war crimes when they killed thousands upon thousands of innocent people in the WW2 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. | explainlikeimfive | 1qtwtr | 3 | true | false | 0.8 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgf9ri",
"comment_text": [
"For that matter, who or what decides what gets taken up to an International War Crimes Tribunal?"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgf9zh",
"comment_text": [
"Primarily because winners don't put themselves on trial."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdggbzw",
"comment_text": [
"Okay, but why do we prosecute dictators who use chemical weapons? From what I read, it seems that radiation has similar, maybe worse effact than chemical?"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdggmms",
"comment_text": [
"I don't know man, I was actually asking a question, not rhetorical, not sarcastic, lol. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgfc4n",
"comment_text": [
"Don't post just to express an opinion or argue a point of view.",
"because they didn't break any international laws. the law is not (necessarily) fair, it's just the law."
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELIF: why do apps need access to so much information? | explainlikeimfive | 1qtu5v | 11 | true | false | 0.77 | I wanted to install a .gif maker and Google Play popped up saying it wanted to access all sorts including phone numbers and location. Why does it need that info? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgekpc",
"comment_text": [
"There are 4 plausible explanations.",
"1.) It doesn't need it and the developer has been lazy, not specifying exactly what they do need.",
"2.) It doesn't need it but the developer has plans in the future to maybe add features that do so they just get permission up front.",
"3.) The app does need it and has features that use that information you aren't aware of. Perhaps you can text your creations to friends. It would need access to their details to do that.",
"4.) Malicious intent, you think you've got a little useful app but it's actually just a front for some kind of data harvesting operation."
],
"score": 15
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdglqk5",
"comment_text": [
"Not without your explicit consent.",
"By default (Without consent, simply ",
" Facebook login on a third party site) the third party has access to any ",
" information you have on your profile. So name, gender, age, status updates, profile photos, friends list. They also get your internal Facebook identification number (The only important bit for a simple authentication-via-Facebook system, it's the one thing in your entire Facebook account that can never change.)",
"They then have ",
" explicit permissions they can ask for.",
" - Gives them your email address",
" - This is things like reading how your friends are grouped, reading your mail, reading your chat, your online/offline status, your ",
" online/offline status, your friend requests. It also allows the third party to add/remove friends, post status updates on your behalf, create events, mark notifications as read.",
" - Gives the third party your birthday, 'about me' section, your geolocation check-ins, education, hometown, groups, pages you like. Essentially all the profile stuff not included in just the basic access. It ",
" grants access to all this stuff on your friends profiles too (unless their settings forbid it I think)",
" - Basically all Facebook applications go through the open graph it's the mechanism they use to store their data when it relates to a specific user. So this is the permission that lets them attach game achievements to your profile, save a game file as yours, mark application 'news' stories as yours. It also lets them read all of this kind of information that ",
" applications have done for you too. ",
"So if I make a game and you grant me this permission I can go in and see what other games you play and what those other games have saved to Facebook about you.",
" - Grants the third party access to manage any pages/applications you manage.",
"So any app that simply wants to allow you to login through Facebook instead of an email address and has no intention of interacting with your Facebook presence shouldn't be asking for ",
" of those extended permissions with perhaps exception to Email. (If they have your email address they aren't completely relying on Facebook always being around to authenticate who you are)",
"The more the app interacts with your Facebook obviously the more permissions it's going to need.",
"Personally I'd be a little cautious of anything that wants ",
" or ",
". ",
"There are plenty of legitimate uses of course but with those permissions you aren't just sending data from Facebook TO the app, you are letting them have some element of control over your Facebook account, as well as opting additional information that belongs to your ",
" into it.",
"Twitter works in much the same way although obviously there is much less private information tied to a Twitter profile."
],
"score": 6
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgf5rj",
"comment_text": [
"Web developer"
],
"score": 4
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgf2zb",
"comment_text": [
"Those points makes a lot of sense. Are you an app developer?"
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgnbro",
"comment_text": [
"Thanks for the great answer. You've explained it all and put my mind at ease. It's time to take the tin foil off my head!"
],
"score": 3
} | |
ELI5: Is there or was there ever an official difference between naming drives, avenues, ways, streets, roads, boulevards, parkways, and any that I may have missed? | explainlikeimfive | 1qu54v | 60 | true | false | 0.83 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdghui5",
"comment_text": [
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_suffix"
],
"score": 24
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgi3za",
"comment_text": [
"Woah!!"
],
"score": 7
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgs2ou",
"comment_text": [
"Okay, which one of you did ",
"this",
"?"
],
"score": 6
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgpff6",
"comment_text": [
"Not that is universal. Each city street naming commission may have their own rules."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgw95u",
"comment_text": [
"I have been in several cities that are built on a grid system, and roadways that run north-south will be called \"streets\" while roadways that run east-west will be called \"avenues\" (or vice versa). \"Boulevard\" is used for major roadways, no matter what direction they run. After that, naming seems to be kind of random. "
],
"score": 3
} | ||
ELI5: Why are cars from the 80s and early 90s really boxy, while current cars have a rounded profile? | explainlikeimfive | 1qunr4 | 5 | true | false | 0.61 | Whenever I see a car (a regular car, not a high-end sports car) from that time period, I always notice how ugly and boxy it is. But most cars that you see on the road now, even the cheapest ones, have a much more rounded and appealing profile. I gather that it might be cheaper to make a car with angular parts than to give it a more rounded appearance, but then the same would go for today as it would then, wouldn't it? Has there been some big change in manufacturing to make this more affordable? Or is it just a change in fashion? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgpkbl",
"comment_text": [
"I don't like the way you say \"ugly and boxy\" as if they were synonymous. For me, there hasn't been an attractive car made since 1992 - all the new ones look like dropped ice-creams, and are nowhere near appealing as an old Mercedes W123 or BMW E30.",
"We had CAD back in the '70s for car design, so \"it's computers, man\" isn't the complete answer for the changing styles. But manufacturing costs are, and in the days of hand-welded shells and hand-beaten panels, curves cost more so designers were very economical with them. These days, manufacturing processes have become cheap enough to make a car any shape you want, within reason."
],
"score": 4
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgrpl4",
"comment_text": [
"I have a '77 AMC Gremlin. It's a pure steel car. The hood feels 3x heavier than my Altima hood.",
"Now cars are made more of plastic and lighter/stronger steel. Plus there is a huge space efficiency between cars then and no when it comes to under the hood. I can easily work on my Gremlin (plenty of room), but have to take my Altima to the shop for just about everything. I had a belt fall off on my Altima so I didn't have power steering, took me almost an hour to try to get it back on. It's right at the right fender and wheel and was not easy to see or feel."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgrzhf",
"comment_text": [
"There are plenty of factors, some of which have already been mentioned. ",
"First, styles change and evolve over time. Fashionable clothing was different in the 80s and early 90s too; car styling evolves similarly. Many of those boxy cars were quite attractive at the time, and some of them were cheap crap too. ",
"Second, safety regulations. One reason modern cars have rounded noses and high hoods, trunks, and beltlines (the level the bottom of the windows are at) is because some countries have pedestrian safety laws that mandate cars be built this way--the pedestrian is more likely to survive being struck. Because cars are usually designed to be sold in every part of the world with minimal modification, cars everywhere have these features. Modern cars also have large, rounded fronts to conceal a steel bumper underneath. This is a little more attractive than bolting the bumper in front of the bodywork. Modern cars also have stronger roofs than older models, and thus all have thicker pillars. ",
"Third, manufacturing, materials, and design practices. It's gotten cheaper to build cars with complex body shapes, especially when large parts of the car are made of plastic. Headlights can be made in any shape and integrated with the rounded design of the car. Cars are all designed to be as aerodynamic as possible, and the body shapes that work well for that are repeated with slight variation across many models. ",
"There's more to it than that, but I think those are probably the biggest ones. Regulations have the largest and most immediate impact because they are legally required, and everything else evolves over time. "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgr0wh",
"comment_text": [
"Fuel efficiency the new cars are more aerodynamic "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgpdu2",
"comment_text": [
"It was just a design change."
],
"score": 0
} | |
ELI5: How do dollar stores manage to sell brand named products for such a low price? | explainlikeimfive | 1quo4c | 26 | true | false | 0.77 | 2 liter bottle of Coke for a $1 vs. the same drink for $2.50 a grocery store. | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgr94h",
"comment_text": [
"Dollar stores generally operate on a high volume, low margin basis. What this means is the store attempts to sell many more items per day than a large grocery store but receive less profit per item. They rely heavily on buying from wholesalers at low cost and having very little operating costs. ",
"You may also notice that many dollar stores carry very few or no perishable goods. A large grocery store may require extra profits on items like Coke because they may have to discard the $200 of turkey meat that is now expired and no longer salable. ",
"There are many other factors that can contribute to the sales price, however. Some Dollar stores are large chain franchises that heavily utilize economies of scale to obtain large price cuts from wholesales. Small Dollar stores generally rely on low financing costs."
],
"score": 19
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgptaw",
"comment_text": [
"Because at a grocery store all those high prices you're seeing are 'impulse' buys. They're stationed at the front where people will quickly buy anything. ",
"For Cub Foods there's a section where you can buy this hugeeee can for pop for less than a buck. Yet Upfront there are smaller bottles for more than twice the price. Once again, because they know people will be making impulse buys upfront "
],
"score": 8
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgqxl1",
"comment_text": [
"It could also be the store buying overflow of stock from other companies. Here in Sweden we have one that buys from all around Europe. So a product that's expensive in let's say Germany is dirt cheap here because we don't know the brand (and the brand won't get damaged by low prices) a little OT but yeah some companies might get to much of an item that they can't turn fast enough so selling it of cheaper is more cost effective. "
],
"score": 4
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgur7c",
"comment_text": [
"I agree with you that some Dollar Stores may do this, however in North America these companies are known as Liquidation Businesses or Merchandise Liquidation Ventures. The majority of Dollar Stores in North America are large franchise chains that obtain the same merchandise through economies of scale. Franchises also offer more organizational flexibility and protect larger investors while local franchises are free to reduce overhead in any way possible."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgskuq",
"comment_text": [
"This is exactly how dollar stores work. ",
"A grocery store has everything you want in stock. If you buy something from them, you know you can go back there and buy it again. ",
"A dollar store just buys whatever is cheap. It might be dish washing liquid this week. It might be batteries next week. If you need one of these things, you can't go to the dollar store and expect them to have it. For that certainty you need to go to the grocery store. ",
"People go to dollar stores to buy cheap stuff, whatever that may be. The cheapness is what keeps people coming back. If they upped their margins so prices were closer to the grocery store, people would just go to the grocery store because they know the product they want will be there. "
],
"score": 2
} | |
ELI5:Why is Australia not classed as an Island? | explainlikeimfive | 1qup4q | 2 | true | false | 0.67 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgod6z",
"comment_text": [
"It's simply too big. 7,692,024 square km according to Google.",
"\nOf course the line between continent and island is some what arbitrary to a certain degree. But Australia is just so dam huge.\nEdit: It's also generally agreed that continents have a lower overall density and so \"Float\" on the mantle. Where as Islands are protrusions in the mantle that happen to be above sea level. "
],
"score": 5
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgobi3",
"comment_text": [
"Because of size. Americas, Euro-afro-asia, Antarctica basically are just big islands"
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgqxha",
"comment_text": [
"That shit is too big, cunt."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgq2kx",
"comment_text": [
"Yeah it is interesting. The weirdest one is what defines a species. If you don't really look into it most people will think it's pretty clear. But there isn't actually a working definition that fits all cases.",
"\nOff topic I know but it's just so weird. "
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgr6m0",
"comment_text": [
"What an Aussie answer!"
],
"score": 2
} | ||
ELI5: Where does rent money go? How much is pure profit? | explainlikeimfive | 1qum6x | 0 | true | false | 0.5 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgnc3x",
"comment_text": [
"They have to pay for things like mortgages on the property, taxes, maintenance, insurance etc. Imagine the size of a money you have to pay on a mortgage for 60 units. Also they have to stock those units with appliances I assume and replace carpets and windows and maybe a pool and more. ",
"I agree college communities have a sweet deal with guaranteed tenants as well as stable residents, but it's no necessarily that there is an evil man collecting millions for nothing. "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgnys4",
"comment_text": [
"Dynamito answered your question as well as anyone here can. Your rent money will go to cover those costs, and whatever is left over is profit for the landlord. Just to address the last point about carpets and windows, the landlord is not allowed to deduct from a security deposit to fix things that fall under normal wear and tear. So if the carpet is 20 years old and needs to be replaced, the landlord would have to pay for that out of his or her own pocket."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgqiea",
"comment_text": [
"This probably isn't the correct subreddit if you want data and figures, rather than an overall explanation; ",
"/r/answers",
" would be better suited for this."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgp7p3",
"comment_text": [
"Seeing OP's responses to the full answers that are given here makes it clear he's missing the point regarding the operational cost/profit question.",
"It varies. Unless you straight up ask the owner of the building/property manager directly, and unless they give you a straight answer, you'll never know."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgnpfk",
"comment_text": [
"You dont lower your prices just because you paid off your mortgage. Insurance is expensive im sure. You may be pure profit but other people arent. There are cases where you have to replace carpet etc that arent the tenants fault. Plus its a business they charge what people will pay regardless of what it costs them."
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: Am I left or right handed | explainlikeimfive | 1qq8j7 | 3 | true | false | 1 | I write, throw balls, use rackets (tennis), and punch right handed. I eat, bat, use sticks (Hockey and such) left handed. I feel stronger with my right arm but my left arm looks bigger in the mirror. As well, I'm in construction and can do many things either way. I frequently change arms when painting, drywall taping, and many other things. | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfc4rz",
"comment_text": [
"For the purposes of most things, you are right handed.",
"Writing is the standard. However, you are very close to ambidextrous. You are probably part of the population that is born without an inherent preference and just \"picked\" over time."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfc83b",
"comment_text": [
"You are NOT ambidextrous by ",
"definition",
" it means that you are EQUAL with both hands. I am similar to you, since I eat and write and do a bit more with my left hand I consider myself to be left handed. Honestly just take your pick."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdffo9g",
"comment_text": [
"People are incorrectly saying you're ambidextrous. This is due to a common misunderstanding about what ambidextrous actually means. A truly ambidextrous person will be equally proficient in all tasks with both hands, this is really rare. What you're describing is \"mixed handedness\", and it's quite common. Basically, for some tasks you use one hand over the other. That you use both hands/arms in your work does raise the question a bit, but I'd suggest that its because those tasks don't require as much fine motor skill as writing, so you simply swap arms when one begins to get tired.",
"This",
" wikipedia article on cross-dominance explains the distinction a bit more clearly. If you're interested in what category you fall into, try looking up the \"Edinburgh Handedness Inventory\", it's the most common test for handedness as it assesses multiple tasks."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfcask",
"comment_text": [
"I think when it came to writing my teacher made me do it that way."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfcbfd",
"comment_text": [
"There you go, you were born either ambidextrous or no preference. Hard to say which. "
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: Can you get herpes from shaking hands? | explainlikeimfive | 1qqomo | 0 | true | false | 0.2 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfk1v2",
"comment_text": [
"What are you talking about???! It's the COMPLETE opposite. Herpes(HSV) is a skin disease and is transmitted by skin to skin contact and saliva( only because infected skin cells can slough off into salvia when sores are present near the mouth)Bodily fluids other then saliva such a blood, urine and breast milk are safe. "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfk1v2",
"comment_text": [
"What are you talking about???! It's the COMPLETE opposite. Herpes(HSV) is a skin disease and is transmitted by skin to skin contact and saliva( only because infected skin cells can slough off into salvia when sores are present near the mouth)Bodily fluids other then saliva such a blood, urine and breast milk are safe. "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfmao5",
"comment_text": [
"Simple requests that don't warrant much explanation aren't suitable for ELI5. For questions such as this, you'd be better of posting to ",
"/r/answers",
", or even ",
"www.google.com",
".",
"I've removed this post."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfo78j",
"comment_text": [
"This subject could bring much discussion. Don't be an elitist prick. I'm sorry that I didn't ask a question about something that was solely interesting to you. Ass.",
"This was an out and out simple question, looking for a simple answer. I'm disapointed that you chose to reply like this, but I'll take this oportunity to remind you of some of ",
"the Rules:",
" Always be respectful, civil, polite, calm, and friendly.",
"ELI5 is for requests for ",
" That means no questions that are just looking for straightforward answers, that are subjective, a request for a guide/walkthrough, or that are objective but not asking for an explanation of an answer. ELI5 is absolutely not a repository for any question you have.",
"This post was removed for violating rule 2, and you've just been banned for violating rule 1. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfo3dt",
"comment_text": [
"This subject could bring much discussion. Don't be an elitist prick. I'm sorry that I didn't ask a question about something that was solely interesting to you. Ass."
],
"score": 0
} | ||
ELI5: What's the difference between a Cyclone and a Typhoon? And what are the two of them? | explainlikeimfive | 1qqztl | 0 | true | false | 0.5 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfkjfu",
"comment_text": [
"Hurricanes and typhoons are both subsets of \"tropical cyclones\". The phrase \"tropical cyclone\" represents the fact that they are cyclonic in nature - they have some features that would be called cyclones - and that they originate in the tropics.",
"However, tropical cyclones have, as one of their features, a rotating pattern of thunderstorms that generate heavy rain. \"Cyclone\" is a much more generic term, since it's possible to describe something as a cyclone even if it has no thunderstorms or rain.",
"I'd also be careful about using \"cyclone\" to describe a tropical cyclone, because it's liable to be confused with \"Cyclone\", implying that it is in the Indian Ocean or South Pacific."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfke23",
"comment_text": [
"They are both types of tropical storm. The difference is ",
" they are.",
"A ",
" is in the Indian Ocean and and South Pacific, a ",
" (which you didn't ask about, but it's in the same group) is in the Western Atlantic and Eastern Pacific, and a ",
" in the Western Pacific.",
"Additionally, confusingly, a ",
"\"cyclone\"",
" (without a capital letter) has a specific meaning:",
"an area of closed, circular fluid motion rotating in the same direction as the Earth"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfket3",
"comment_text": [
"So is it fair to say, then, that hurricanes and typhoons are both subsets of cyclones? (at least in that last more general meaning)"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfkgo5",
"comment_text": [
"There is no difference between a cyclone and a typhoon. There is also no difference between a cyclone and a hurricane. The difference is where they happen. If a cyclone happens in the Indian Ocean and some parts of the Pacific Ocean (usually near Australia), then it's called a cyclone. If a cyclone happens in the Atlantic Ocean, then it's called a hurricane. If it happens in the Northwest Pacific region (which includes the Philippines), it's called a typhoon. ",
"It is a very big and powerful storm that have very strong winds that move in a circle."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfkzj0",
"comment_text": [
"Tropical Cyclone is the proper name hurricanes and typhoons. ",
"The only difference is where they occur. Hurricanes in North America and Typhoons in Asia. In Australia they're referred to as Cyclones, shortened, obviously, from Tropical Cyclone. "
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: Why do most ATMs have a $20 minimum withdrawal limit? | explainlikeimfive | 1qr4he | 1 | true | false | 0.6 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfln5s",
"comment_text": [
"Because they don't hold $10 notes. If they did they would need to be refilled twice as often. I've seen some that only despence $50 and $100 notes only."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdflp1x",
"comment_text": [
"It's a space issue. The same amount of money in $20 bills takes up half the space that it would in $10 bills. Here in the UK most cash machines (I have no idea what an ATM is!) give out only £10 and £20 notes but you occasionally find a machine that will give out £5. £50 notes are like rocking-horse shit."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdflnmp",
"comment_text": [
"Currently US Bank lets with withdrawal money in increments of $5"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfltze",
"comment_text": [
"I'm from Aus. If you wanted to withdraw less than $20 you could use the self serve check out at the supermarket to withdraw it."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfmifv",
"comment_text": [
"(Former) Coles employee here. Our self check outs also have a $20 cash out minimum, and you need to make a purchase. If you want to perform a cash withdrawal without making a purchase, go to the service desk or another register instead."
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5:Why does the letter X look so appealing? ie:Xtreme vs Extreme , GTX vs GT etc. | explainlikeimfive | 1qr6nb | 0 | true | false | 0.25 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfmcjb",
"comment_text": [
"From now on this sub is XLI5."
],
"score": 5
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfma2j",
"comment_text": [
"I think we hit that point in the 90s, it's starting to make it's way back around."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfm5x9",
"comment_text": [
"I'm guessing because it's so rarely used in the words we typically encounter. ",
"At some point (if we haven't hit that pint already), it will be overused in marketing. Then it won't seem so special. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfmaru",
"comment_text": [
"Xactly"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfo51m",
"comment_text": [
"I would think symmetry in an \"X\" is aesthetically pleasing."
],
"score": 1
} | ||
How are artificial scents made? | explainlikeimfive | 1qr3pd | 2 | true | false | 0.76 | Such as pumpkin pie scented candles or vanilla scented air freshener. | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdflk3g",
"comment_text": [
"Most of the artificial scents are some form of ester, which you get by combining an acid with alcohol. One simple example would be ethyl propionate (rum scent) which are made out of ethanol and propanoic acid.\nNatural scents are mostly complex phenol mixtures. Artificially made scents try to copy and synthesize the natural compounds, but since for the most part it's a complex mixture, we end up with something a lot plainer."
],
"score": 4
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdflnh4",
"comment_text": [
"In my advanced organic chem class we were tasked with recreating a natural scent of our choice. We took the raw material and blended it in toluene to the extract organic compounds. we took the solution and processed it using gas chromatography, which told us what chemicals were present and at what concentration. We picked out the chemicals we thought were most likely to produce the scent. We then synthesized the specific chemicals and combined them in the same ratios that we observed in the gas chromatography results. The scents that we created were actually very close to the original. "
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdflsz7",
"comment_text": [
"Kudos to your successes then. For a shame I strongly doubt that large manufacturers bother with careful analyze and recreation, thus the scents put in air fresheners for example only vaguely represent the natural substance (of course there definitely are some small businesses that do, but it's a small part of the whole).\nI would like to ask (since gas chromatography isn't my field) what is the resolution of this method? Since human odor detection threshold (even though is variable depending on substance) can be in the decimal ppm (0.1..) thus I wanted to know is such small concentration of substance can be registered, analyzed and re-synthesized."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfm0kl",
"comment_text": [
"The gas chromatography machine prints out results in the form of a graph that displays the detector response vs the retention time of the analyte. It displays as a series of peaks and the area under the peak is proportional to the amount of that specific analyte. Our machine had an accuracy of 0.001%. We placed 0.1 mL of our blended toluene solution into a vial and diluted it with 0.9 ml of toluene. It does not take much for the machine to register and it is quite accurate. ",
"I only ended up with about 20ml of my scent product. Since our sense of smell is sensitive to the stereochemistry of a molecule and many of the synthesis reactions were not stereospecific we had to separate many of our synthesized products, which reduced yield significantly. Its very time consuming and labor intensive even on small scale. It definitely would not translate easily to large scale manufacturing. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfm4ho",
"comment_text": [
"I hope you don't mind me asking again, it's just that I don't feel like I've got my mind around the sensitivity of apparatus. The 0.1 mL of extract was already diluted? Would you happen to know how much of the undiluted substance was in the whole 1 mL of tested toluene solution?\nCheers for point out the stereochemical aspect of the whole matter as well since (as far as I know) it's quite hard to prevent appearance of 'wrong' forms in the synthesized substance (please do correct me if I'm wrong). Since all of our receptors are very.. placement sensitive a small variation (-cis/-trans for example) can become undetectable (scent-less in this case)."
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: Why is there so much climate change skepticism on Reddit (ELI5, TIL etc.) when those readers are usually well informed on science in other matters? | explainlikeimfive | 1qr32o | 0 | true | false | 0.44 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfm0ko",
"comment_text": [
"I think the science denial can be attributed to a combination of:"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfm6on",
"comment_text": [
"Thanks, I agree with most of those points. ",
"But Redditor's are usually fierce defenders of science (generalization). To actually disagree with/ ignore/ deny science is a pretty big step.",
"Besides, there is as much feelings about powerlessness that plenty of Reddit folk ",
" angry about - why nearly only this issue?"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfmd9o",
"comment_text": [
"I'm not sure where your characterization of reddit as climate change deniers comes from - which is why I ignored that part of your question in my initial response. ",
"Sure, every now and then one pops up, but by and large I see them ridiculed on this site. Maybe we see an increasing amount as the site becomes more mainstream instead of restricted to college-age liberal kids from the East and West coasts... but I just don't see it."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfmbfv",
"comment_text": [
"This isn't an appropriate ELI5 post - hence I've removed this post. ",
"Loaded questions (anything posted for the purpose of discussing your opinion) aren't permitted on ELI5, you might have better luck in ",
"/r/changemyview",
" ",
"Please check the subreddit rules (linked in the sidebar) before posting!"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfmib5",
"comment_text": [
"Wow. ",
"(a) scientific consensus isn't an 'opinion', it's neutral, as close as there is to 'fact'.",
"(b) i would sincerely like to know why there is disagreement with 'facts' on this issue.",
"if you are arguing that believing in science is 'discussing an opinion'..?"
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5:Why is there no GED for college? | explainlikeimfive | 1qr9s0 | 1 | true | false | 0.57 | High school is 4 years. College is 4 years ( supposedly). Why is there no general equivalency test? With all the amazing resources out there is a sit down college really necessary? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfn018",
"comment_text": [
"The purpose of a GED is not to allow you to skip highschool, but to allow adults to have a chance to make up for mistakes they have made. As a twenty year old you can't practically go back and hang out with the fifteen year olds and do highschool again, but not having graduated highschool is a big problem. ",
"More cynically, someone would have to administer and create this test, no university is going to offer this to you. "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfna8z",
"comment_text": [
"The way I see it, college is a more specialized education, where high school is just a general education. To have a GED for college you would have to have a GED for every major out there and that's not really practical. ",
"It would also deprive the university of their tuition, which I'm sure they don't want to give up."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfnwft",
"comment_text": [
"This, plus some college degrees actually mean something. For example, an engineering degree is a legal requirement for professional engineering status, and so ABET (the board the decides how professional engineers are trained) would never allow a GED equivalent for an engineering degree."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfovxa",
"comment_text": [
"Simply put, because high school is compulsory, and college is not. You go to high school (or at least START high school) as a minor, and your parents are responsible for ensuring that you go. NOT going causes many problems, and the GED allows the lack of a high school diploma to be corrected. ",
"College, however, is optional, and not typically paid for by the state. Additionally, you can leave college and reapply at any age. That is not the case with high school.",
"As far as equivalencies, go, you can look into something called CLEP, which is the college level examination program, and they offer exams allowing you to \"test out\" and receive credits for the classes by demonstrating your knowledge.",
"Another problem is that not all colleges accept transfer credits from all other colleges, making a standardized examination for equivalency a serious problem. If there were a set of standards in all areas, then we might be able to come up with a set of standardized tests, but different colleges reach to different criteria."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfqwxr",
"comment_text": [
"You could still at least in theory design some set of exams which proved the competency gained by an engineering degree, but why bother. "
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: Why is location detection more precise in a browser when connected through a wifi network? | explainlikeimfive | 1qrdea | 1 | true | false | 0.67 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfo3bu",
"comment_text": [
"It's not because you are connected to a network. Just having wifi enabled helps with accuracy.",
"Consumer GPS is fairly inaccurate once you get to a small enough level. Companies have created database of where wifi points are, and use your wifi receiver to triangulate your position based on known wifi IDs and locations. ",
"There isn't enough information to calculate your location from just wifi points, but it can help with the last bits of accuracy once the big measurements have been made by GPS."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfo7dh",
"comment_text": [
"Also cellular gps have to use cell towers. They pretty much give an estimate of your location. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfou9r",
"comment_text": [
"Also on A-GPS (Assisted GPS) I think they send the pre-calculated GPS signals to a central server for initial location calculation."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdforpq",
"comment_text": [
"Would it only help then if you are in vicinity of one of these known wifi hotspot locations? If all I am seeing is my neighbor's and my own wifi network would it not be very beneficial?"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfoyn9",
"comment_text": [
"Is your house on Google street view? Then your Wi-Fi information was recorded by Google."
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: How Does Plagiarism Software Work? | explainlikeimfive | 1qrgbt | 1 | true | false | 0.67 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfr414",
"comment_text": [
"There are a number of different techniques for detecting plagiarism. The choice of technique is dependent on the work being checked; the performance of each technique varies for different types of document. For instance, papers prepared for a scientific journal and source code for computing assignments both need to be verified, but the methods used are vastly different.",
"The basic problem the software is trying to solve is to answer the question “How similar are these two objects?” This is a well-researched (and fundamental) problem in the field of Machine Learning. One of the key issues here is to clearly define a way of comparing documents. For example, if you wanted to know how similar two images are you might decide to split the image into a grid and calculate the average colour of each grid cell. We call this a descriptor (or a feature). If the two images have a similar set of average colours in the same locations, it’s likely they’re similar images. This is a relatively naïve technique, but I think it’s intuitive enough for explanatory purposes – I’ve left out detail on how the two sets of data are compared for similarity too, since it’s not really relevant. Choosing a suitable descriptor is context dependent, as mentioned earlier. ",
"For text documents you might take each sentence, and see if it appears in any of the other work in the database. If the sentence appears more than a certain number of times, it gets flagged for review. Again, this is a naïve approach. The algorithm is more likely to try and match sub-strings (parts of sentences). Other methods exist such as stylometry based approaches – these analyse the author’s writing style, and look for sections of text which are stylistically disjointed from the rest of the document. ",
"For source code, these approaches don’t work so well. Instead we look for things like user-defined functions and variables with the same name. Metrics can be computed about the code – how many conditional statements a fragment of the code uses, the number of loops etc. Assignments are usually structured such that the majority of solutions look very similar by the end, so these methods aren’t ideal again since most students are intelligent enough to not literally copy, paste and submit. I know that in my department more students are caught for plagiarism due to non-functioning code than for having a working solution: when two people make the same mistake it’s likely they’ve plagiarised or at least colluded.",
"Research is still being undertaken in this domain. Researchers at the University of California are developing a technique which analyses the citations/references within papers. Additionally my old dissertation supervisor at the University of Surrey previously worked on a visual search system intended for use in plagiarism checking of the visual arts – photography, painting etc.",
"So in conclusion plagiarism software works in a variety of different ways. The methods used for detecting similarity vary in suitability from application to application, and the problem of plagiarism is very much still an active research field."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfqnrv",
"comment_text": [
"'Plagiarism detection' [PD] software/services (e.g. Turnitin) basically just go through your submitted paper line by line and search for strings of words (using fuzzy logic) to see if those strings appear in the reference document library (which may comprise of the following source material): ",
"a) other assignments/papers submitted through the service (almost all PD software will scan these sources)",
"b) public online documents found by web crawling / web searches (almost all PD software will scan these sources)",
"c) academic/scholarly journal articles [the types of articles you retrieve from special paid-subscription databases that your school provides access to] (most PD software will scan these sources)",
"d) digital/OCR-scanned copies of textbooks and/or other books and printed materials (not typical for PD software to scan these sources)",
"Fuzzy logic word string scans just means there are adaptable/flexible rules used for scanning documents for matching word strings that account for the fact that students may re-order, change or skip certain words (to avoid plagiarism detection) while still copying most of the text from the original document.",
"So, just as an example, the search rule may be something like \"scan for a sentence in the document library that has at least 50% of the words in the student's sentence and has at least 3 consecutive words that also appear consecutively in the student's sentence.\"",
"So this allows, for example, the software to detect instances of plagiarism that are not exact verbatim copies, but seem to use very similar wording.",
"More advanced PD software may go as far as to taking into account word synonyms (i.e. they may assume that students copied the sentence but just changed a couple of words to synonyms that appear different but mean the same thing)."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfordt",
"comment_text": [
"Probably means writing essay or term papers in school, plagiarizing being recognized as copying other information online."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfomvz",
"comment_text": [
"Can you elaborate please? Do you mean torrenting or file sharring websites?"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfos0k",
"comment_text": [
"Right my bad."
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: If Libertarians run as Republicans in the US, why aren't more Socialists, Greens, and others openly running as Democrats? | explainlikeimfive | 1qrio5 | 5 | true | false | 0.86 | I'm aware of how Republicans and Democrats have successfully locked out third parties running under their own name, but why haven't they tried harder to hijack the current process? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdftako",
"comment_text": [
"\"libertarian\" is a philosophy, \"Libertarian\" is a political party. Some libertarians feels there political goals are best met by being active in the Libertarian party, some do not.",
"Similarly, \"green\" and \"socialist\" are philosophies, and many who hold to those philosophies are Democrats. \"Socialism\" has become a politically charged and largely misused and misunderstood term, so it isn't politically feasible to call yourself that. But there are many politicians in the Democratic party who embrace \"green\". "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfqrte",
"comment_text": [
"\"Libertarian\" isn't inherently a party, it's just a philosophy towards government, so when they run as Republicans, they're not hijacking the process. The two major political parties are relatively philosophy-free in that anyone who chooses can run under their label, so there's not even anything to hijack, things are set up to allow for differing views to attempt to win nominations. There are Democrats who have issue stances that align well with the Green Party, there's just no benefit for them to call themselves Green Party Democrats."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfrhv4",
"comment_text": [
"But the premise of the question is flawed - just because someone says they're a libertarian doesn't mean they're a member of the Libertarian Party. They don't use the power as Republicans to help out the Libertarian Party, so they're not hijacking anything. Again, it's an ideological stance, and the reason the other third parties aren't hijacking them is because the people who would be members can just as easily be Democrats and push the same issues."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfw09i",
"comment_text": [
"The word \"libertarian\" is capitalized when referring to a member of the Libertarian party. Someone with libertarian values who is not a Libertarian is still a libertarian.",
"The OP is clearly referring to political parties, because the question has all the political party names capitalized.",
"I'm not saying your response is invalid on its own merit, it's just not a valid answer to the question because your response refers to libertarians while the question is asking specifically about Libertarian Party members."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfwh9d",
"comment_text": [
"Ah, I see what you're saying. In that case, it's a question of what the definition of a \"Republican\" or \"Libertarian\" is. There's the legal question - in my state, at least, to run under a party label, you have to be registered for that party, and a statement like \"I'm actually not a member of the party I'm running on\" on the campaign trail would be grounds to get your party label removed.",
"But in the more abstract sense, what's being a member of a party other than what you label yourself? How can you be a Libertarian if you're calling yourself a Republican? Again, you can harbor Libertarian ideologies, but that's just fine, there's no requirement for a certain set of beliefs to be a Republican. And in terms of how a legislature organizes itself, it doesn't matter if you're secretly a Libertarian, you still count towards the Republican tally if that's what you're calling yourself."
],
"score": 2
} | |
ELI5: What causes a hangover, and what are some good cures? | explainlikeimfive | 1qrj8r | 1 | true | false | 0.6 | I used to just assume it was just dehydration, but now I am pretty certain there's more going on. A multivitamin helps so some good stuff is getting flushed out with the bad stuff, maybe?
(btw I know booze causes it but just looking for a physiological answer.) | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfrasp",
"comment_text": [
"Between drinking and expelling, ethanol undergoes some chemical reactions. In some point it becomes a compound named acetaldehyde. This acetaldehyde is the most toxic form ethanol takes during its' way out. And this form is the main cause of hangover. ",
"There are as many ways to get rid of hangover as drinkers. If you can eat and not throw up, eat something (some say scrambled eggs are good), drink warm tea and sleep. If not, just go to sleep. Also, beer or 50 ml of vodka seems to help. From more crazy things, intravenous infusion with glucose, as well as inhaling oxygen, to push ethanol further into its reactions and change acetaldehyde into more friendly acetic acid."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfs8r6",
"comment_text": [
"Wow, awesome answer. :)"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgdkx7",
"comment_text": [
"To add to this, there are two main things that happens in a hangover; you're dehydrated, and your body is trying to chase after all the evil little rugrats you let lose the night before, namely, the toxic byproducts of alcohol. There are more facets, but these are, IMO, the big two.",
"To deal with dehydration, drink water. Preferably, drink water while you're drinking. Like, two drinks and then a water, repeat for the rest of the night. If you decide you're done before your friends are, have another glass or two. It will help in the morning, guaranteed. ",
"Unfortunately, the second you can't do much about. Certain types of drinks have chemicals called congeners. The darker the drink, the more congeners, typically. These are the evil rugrats. There are so many toxic chemicals your body is trying to tackle, it takes a toll on you. You can't really speed this up, it needs to work itself out.",
"And anyone who tells you drinking more helps, is misinformed. It delays the inevitable. It gives your body some nice, simple ethanol to chew on, and so you put the bad stuff on the back shelf. But once you run out of ethanol, you'e right back where you were.",
"Other tip: Light drinks dehydrate you, but don't cause a real hangover as long as you drink water. Stick to vodka, or gin, or light rum if you're fearing a hangover."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfpjfi",
"comment_text": [
"here's a good ",
"overview"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfq55f",
"comment_text": [
"People often forget that alcohol is essentially diluted poison. If you got food poisoning, you'd feel sick for a few days. Being intoxicated really isn't all that different. "
],
"score": 2
} | |
ELI5: What people mean when they talk about "PC Master race" | explainlikeimfive | 1qrmi3 | 7 | true | false | 0.61 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfqe0x",
"comment_text": [
"Its a running joke, born of the competition between the two major categories of gamer: Console and PC.",
"People who talk about the \"PC Master Race\" argue that PC gaming is superior in virtually every aspect to Consoles and therefore PC gamers are the \"master race\" of gaming."
],
"score": 31
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfr4lm",
"comment_text": [
"it started at the Escapist :\n",
"http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-glorious-pc-gaming-master-race"
],
"score": 9
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfrjsh",
"comment_text": [
"For further the explanation, many people are very supportive of this argument because its possible to even be a cheap/poor gamer and still have better performance than console with less money. budget gaming custom builds can be bought for 400-500(using seasonal/store deals) that match next gen and the argument for costly upgrading is optional from there if you want to see improved performance/visuals.",
"Also controllers(namely the xbox controllers) work nativly with almost all pc games now, and gaming can be done on a television on the couch thanks to steam big picture mode/steam OS.",
"tl;dr - the PC master race idea is so large because almost all arguments can be \"won\" "
],
"score": 7
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfrjsh",
"comment_text": [
"For further the explanation, many people are very supportive of this argument because its possible to even be a cheap/poor gamer and still have better performance than console with less money. budget gaming custom builds can be bought for 400-500(using seasonal/store deals) that match next gen and the argument for costly upgrading is optional from there if you want to see improved performance/visuals.",
"Also controllers(namely the xbox controllers) work nativly with almost all pc games now, and gaming can be done on a television on the couch thanks to steam big picture mode/steam OS.",
"tl;dr - the PC master race idea is so large because almost all arguments can be \"won\" "
],
"score": 7
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfskog",
"comment_text": [
"Except for the one that ultimately matters - comfort of use. Consoles are plug and play and foolproof. You don't need to worry about incompability, system specs, assembly, setup, troubleshooting and unneccessary overly annoying DRM measures.",
"I am a PC gamer myself and I don't have problems with these things because I've learned how to solve them, but ultimately the comfort aspect is intriguing"
],
"score": 5
} | ||
ELI5: How do subcultures like punks, juggalos etc. get popular and make people change their lifestyle? | explainlikeimfive | 1qs3t3 | 33 | true | false | 0.86 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfwqil",
"comment_text": [
"It's an aesthetic. You wear the uniform, and instantly you identify yourself to other people who take issue with current societal behavior or whom wish to express a part of themselves - many of these subcultures have room for individual creative experimentation within the basic tropes.",
"The music is often angry, and it explores subjects taboo for children. Murder. Sex. Evil. Injustice. It can unite those who come from sheltered backgrounds, or those who survived Hell on Earth. Largely, it starts appealing in adolescence. In a time when your emotions are intense, and your worldview not expansive, it's often very introspective in a way that seems self-absorbed or even threatening to older people, but seems more real... ",
"Also, the many cultural revolutions these styles have created have done wonders for getting us to be more accepting of one another. ",
"It used to be that not fitting in was asking for violence, or imprisonment. Now, those who wish to take part may, visually at least, leave the herd, and those offended dismiss it as being a snowflake. Most Westerners simply don't care. ",
"Human culture evolves, in tiny, insignificant steps. "
],
"score": 31
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg3wqc",
"comment_text": [
"How will nobody else see it? It's the only answer so far."
],
"score": 6
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfwu4n",
"comment_text": [
"Very good explanation. Looks like nobody else will see it, but I want to let you know that I really appreciate that!"
],
"score": 4
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgksic",
"comment_text": [
"i was the opposite, i grew up listening to all walks of music and in my later years have a great influence from the 70's and 80's harcore punk era even though i was born early in the 90's, its all i listen to these days along with a lot of the bands here in Sydney (in australia) that are still playing gigs and making music. i only started listening to punk in my 20's but the scene fits me perfectly, most, not all the people i hang around with at gigs share the same views and that.\nThere are always people who talk about \"posers\" and \"real punk\" i guess the same is for the jugglalo sub culture, they are the cunts no one really likes but think they are top shit. \nthe appeal comes from the message that the music sends, punk is mostly full of the younger white crowd, i see it as the blacks have hiphop culture and we have the punk culture with crossovers in and around throughout race, it all depends on location, attitude and influence when it comes to the music we listen too and associate with. ",
"i can't speak for other citys but in sydney we have a massive group of punks that are twisted and backwards to what punk culture is about, i can't speak much on what it used to be like as i've only been around the scene here for a few years however it seems to be getting more and more PC and appealing to the mainstream crowds with the off branches of the punk core. great for the genre but annoying when people think of bands like greenday when you mention you listen to punk. ",
"i've also seen a big influx of the 'hipster' sub culture starting to listen to punk or at least i think they are listening, now i dunno if its a fashion thing, most likely is with a lot of them, but i see a lot of people wearing minor threat, black flag and 7 seconds shirts around with there purple XL knit sweaters, 50's greaser hair cuts and sailor tattoos."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgbhzz",
"comment_text": [
"The thread didn´t get any attention at all, that´s why I wrote that. I´m happy it´s not the case."
],
"score": 0
} | ||
ELI5: Why don't we realized we're dreaming during our dreams? | explainlikeimfive | 1qs985 | 9 | true | false | 1 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfxmjd",
"comment_text": [
"When we're dreaming, the pre-frontal cortex (PFC) of our brains experiences significantly reduced activation.",
"The PFC is the area of the brain that is involved in rational thought processes for helping you (for example) focus/concentrate and attend to a particular task, make good judgments, logically weigh potential consequences of your actions, control/inhibit instinctive impulses and urges, as well as helping you plan ahead and predict expected outcomes of observed actions/behavior.",
"Since PFC activity is reduced during dreaming, your ability to rationally analyze the situation (and judge that what you are seeing is false or nonsensical) is significantly impaired."
],
"score": 9
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg79o6",
"comment_text": [
"Sometimes (maybe 40-50%) during a particularly upsetting dream I'll realize that I'm dreaming and try to wake myself up. It's almost like my brain is fighting another part of itself the whole time. "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg76ui",
"comment_text": [
"Most people aren't. Thats why the phrase \"dream logic\" refers to things that only make sense if you don't think too hard."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg1cxj",
"comment_text": [
"The strangest thing is that it seems to be a skill that can be learned and strengthened. I am not sure how this affects sleep and rest since a part of the brain that is supposed to be asleep is not fully shut down, but I get a full 6 hours and have never felt any different when I take control or when I let the dream run its course."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg720u",
"comment_text": [
"When you lucid dream, you still get the same restful feeling. Your brain doesn't work much harder, it's just a little more aware of what's happening. It usually takes a lot of training in making yourself aware of your surrounding when awake, so you question them more in your dreams."
],
"score": 2
} | |
ELI5 What is the technology at work in the Power Balance Performance bracelets? | explainlikeimfive | 1qsbmu | 2 | true | false | 0.75 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfxm0z",
"comment_text": [
"Pure weapons grade bullshit."
],
"score": 10
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfxq8i",
"comment_text": [
"magnets, rocks, crystals, etc do not affect your body in any way.",
"Well, sticks and stones have been known to break bones."
],
"score": 5
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfxnp1",
"comment_text": [
"Nothing. It's a complete lie. There have been no peer reviewed and accepted scientific studies that have found Benefits from such products. ",
"magnets, rocks, crystals, etc do not affect your body in any way. "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfxqzh",
"comment_text": [
"Ok: simply by wearing them"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfz4d7",
"comment_text": [
"What do they claim it does? The magnets balance you out??"
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5:Why is it that sometimes it looks like glitter is floating in the air? Is this "seeing stars"? | explainlikeimfive | 1qsbzu | 0 | true | false | 0.5 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfyd12",
"comment_text": [
"That is probably because your blood pressure drops Quickly as you get up too fast. "
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfxqf4",
"comment_text": [
"It might br \"floaters\" witch are just a thing that happens to your eyes"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfy3ec",
"comment_text": [
"It's not floaters; I know what that is. Sometimes I stand up to go walk and I see what looks like glitter in the air. I close my eyes and open them again, and it's gone. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfy75z",
"comment_text": [
"This happens to me quite often, and it has me baffled."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfzzbj",
"comment_text": [
"White blood cells",
"(xkcd explanation)?"
],
"score": 1
} | |
Why does a guys long hair not look fluffy or the same as a woman with long hair? | explainlikeimfive | 1qsg3t | 1 | true | false | 0.56 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfz1r4",
"comment_text": [
"Most guys with long hair do not use product or style their hair."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfz3wt",
"comment_text": [
"Because a woman uses product, a blow drier, and often times a straightener. Us guys with long hair wash it and brush it either occasionally or after it's washed, but rarely any other maintenance than that. Another factor that may come into play is the face that women go to a salon and get the split ends cut off at least monthly, keeping the hair healthy and preventing breakage. This is another thig that guys with long hair rarely do. "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfzj5e",
"comment_text": [
"women go to a salon and get the split ends cut off at least monthly",
"Erm. I'm a woman and I've never ever ",
" of anybody doing this. "
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg1v6x",
"comment_text": [
"Relevant",
"."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdg3go6",
"comment_text": [
"Yeah, hair that is maintained properly should not get split ends anywhere near that much. My mom would go get her hair trimmed once a YEAR to take care of split ends. "
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: Why do large, humanoid constructs move and react slower than their regular size counterparts? | explainlikeimfive | 1qsg9t | 0 | true | false | 0.5 | Exactly what the title says. Why do big robots like the Iron Giant and the robots from Pacific Rim move slower than humanoids in, say, iRobot? Or better yet, why do Titans (from the anime Attack on Titan) move slower than humans? If their size is scaled up, wouldn't their strength be as well, meaning they could move and react similar to smaller constructs of the same proportions? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfz40g",
"comment_text": [
"Couple reasons, but the square cubed law is one big one.",
"Basically, the volume and mass grows faster than area covered by the shape. It gets increasingly hard for the mechanism to move itself based on mechanics that worked for a smaller figure.",
"It's why we don't have house sized ants.",
"http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square-cube_law",
"\"...",
"\"",
"That, and it's a movie. The illusion of size is carried by slow motion."
],
"score": 5
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdgnb4i",
"comment_text": [
"Thanks! This had been bugging me for a while.",
"(And yes, I do realize its a movie yadda-yadda but this is always how it is represented in cinema, there must have been logic behind it)"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfz16p",
"comment_text": [
"large arms legs are very hard to move.",
"also, its a movie, so artistic decision"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfz5fk",
"comment_text": [
"Weight and gravity"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfzu09",
"comment_text": [
"Please refrain from pure speculation in top level posts. "
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: What's the difference between getting all your vitamins from supplements, and getting them from fruits and vegetables? | explainlikeimfive | 1qnqs9 | 19 | true | false | 0.71 | Why do you need to eat fruits and vegetables if you get all your vitamins through supplements and other sources? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdemxce",
"comment_text": [
"You cant put fiber in a vitamin pill. Fiber is praised for being able to lower cholesterol levels and regulate BM.",
"As with the other redditor's comment, its quite hard to replicate antioxidants in a pill.",
"Calcium is one vitamin that is extremely hard to get your daily value all within a pill.",
"Minerals have a \"charge\" if you will. If one mineral has more of a charge than another mineral, then it will block the other one to be absorbed. (This is a very simplified explanation)",
"A multivitamin may have a vitamin you are deficient in, but if you take it and are already getting enough of another vitamin (e.g. Vitamin A, the most toxic) you can develop a toxicity that can cause very bad side effects and sometimes even death."
],
"score": 10
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cden9t7",
"comment_text": [
"There's a lot of misinformation here. I'm not a perfect source either, but I'll do my best to set a few things right.",
"First, you can get all your nutrition from supplements. We know the recommended daily values of all the macro and micro nutrients that we've identified. As such, you could make a blend that would have everything you need in once simple place. A capsule would be a bad delivery method though, due to decreased bioavailability, and the size it'd need to be. There's a product in development right now called Soylent that claims to do exactly this. Apparently it tastes like oatmeal water.",
"Creating a full blend of all the macro and micro nutrients is actually the exact method we use to keep coma patients alive. An intravenous blend is made each day, and injected directly into the blood in order to provide full nutrition to the individual. This method is not desirable, because it'll result in a shutdown of the digestive tract. Additionally, the immobility of coma patients can result in severe atrophy and blood pooling, so there are associated risks.",
"There is some argument that there are nutrients in whole food that we need, but have not yet identified. That's a toughie to address. This may well be true, but it's pretty much arguing that we need things we don't know we need or know about. How can that be quantified or supported? It may not be wrong, but it's pretty hand-wavy. I don't know how much stock I'd put into that until we find more supporting evidence. "
],
"score": 5
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdemy46",
"comment_text": [
"First of all, eating fruits and vegetables is the default state of affairs, so backwards your question is.",
"\nSupplements are usually more expensive and also it is hard getting the dosage right. Plus they taste horribly.",
"\nBut the most important thing is: Normal food contains more than just isolated nutrients. There are lots of secondary substances found in fruit, veg etc. that cannot be replaced by pills because they haven't even been identified. Others, some vitamins, need the presence of fat or another substance to work.",
"\nOur bodies have long ago adapted to fetch the required nutrients out of our food, including an adaptation to cooked food. There are biological mechanisms in place that ensure nutrients are taken into the blood stream. Presenting the body exclusively with the ready made substances in pure form does not work as well.",
"\nThose companies selling their supplements are dubious at best. They always make it seem as if we are basically lacking everything. Not so. Your normal everyday food intake, as long as it is a little varied, will contain enough of all vitamins, minerals and trace elements. Unless a doctor diagnoses a deficit of a substance there is no need for you to buy supplements. "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdepsk3",
"comment_text": [
"I disagree with the statement \"Calcium is one vitamin that is extremely hard to get your daily value all within a pill\" this mineral is readily available in several different formulations, swallowable caplets, chewable tablets and liquids. There is sufficient evidence behind it to make it beneficial to be frequently prescribed to help reduce bone demineralisation. (These are prescribing habits for the UK, i cant speak for anywhere else) It's often includes vitamin D which helps with absorption of calcium."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdesjce",
"comment_text": [
"There are lots of other practical ways. I easily get mine through dark greens, and clean protein sources. I have a dairy intolerance, along with 80% of the planet, and we all seem to do fine. "
],
"score": 2
} | |
ELI5: What creates the "Hot" sensation when eating a a very hot pepper... why does it also "Burn" when leaving the body as well | explainlikeimfive | 1qntxc | 1 | true | false | 0.57 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdenux0",
"comment_text": [
"Capsaicinoids cause you to feel heat by lowering the threshold at which your nerves respond to heat. So instead of actually having to be hot to trigger those nerves, you feel heat at normal temperatures."
],
"score": 4
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdeo33h",
"comment_text": [
"TIL. Which is kinda neat, because today I also ground up in my blender a whole crapload of homegrown chiles into a powder that I will use in the coming year to season anything and everything that needs some heat."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdepm6h",
"comment_text": [
"You only need to grind the seeds."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdepvm4",
"comment_text": [
"Ethanol also works the same way. Which is why when you cut yourself and lather alcohol, it burns!"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfbpwy",
"comment_text": [
"Interesting, I dont know if im delving too much into it, but are you able to explain how Capsaicinoids actually cause this reaction? (ELI5..again)"
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: Why isn't there a cure for cancer yet? | explainlikeimfive | 1qnxyl | 2 | true | false | 0.62 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdeongf",
"comment_text": [
"Cancer is different from a virus or a bacteria because it's a mutation. We don't have cures for viruses because they mutate too frequently (vaccines are the best we have), but cancer cells are technically human skin cells. They aren't foreign materials, which makes it difficult to remove the cancer without affecting the cells in your body you actually need."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdeor5i",
"comment_text": [
"Cancer is cells that divide uncontrollably and could be either undifferentiated (not any particular kind of cell) or differentiated (skin, hair, teeth, muscle, etc.), not human skin cells. ",
"There are also MANY causes of cancer and different kinds of cancer, which makes it hard to find a cure for cancer overall. "
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdepn20",
"comment_text": [
"cancer is akin to saying 'broken'"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdeov2f",
"comment_text": [
"Cancer isn't just one disease - it's several related diseases with a common cause(uncontrollably multiplying cells). Different cancers respond best to different treatments - even the same type of cancer can be different depending on the mutations involved. (For instance, some breast cancers will respond to estrogen blockers and others won't)"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdepsfq",
"comment_text": [
"All of your cells know how to replicate themsevles, its how we work. Sometimes in some cases parts of their DNA gets damaged, now DNA is huuuuuge so some damage just kills the cell or does nothing bad. But sometimes! It damages part controlling its replication so it begins replicating and does not stop. This is cancer. It will keep replicating until it uses up your bodies resources or it 'crowds out' important organs and you die.",
"There isnt really a cure since the cancer is you! And its unique to you! Only solution is to lower the chance of having that original damage occur or to manually remove all the cancerous cells, if you miss a couple they will keep growing! We have gotten a lot better at removing them, such as some that used to be 'you got it, you're dead 100%' are now manageable. But its extremely complex and there pretty much never will be a 'cure' in the way we know it, just effective treatment and preventions."
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: What are fractals? And how do they benefit math or life in general? | explainlikeimfive | 1qnz9l | 3 | true | false | 0.81 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdepzv1",
"comment_text": [
"http://www.ted.com/talks/benoit_mandelbrot_fractals_the_art_of_roughness.html"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdeufoe",
"comment_text": [
"Another good video on fractals: ",
"NOVA: Hunting The Hidden Dimension",
" (53 minutes)"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdezg14",
"comment_text": [
"Thanks a bunch! "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdesguo",
"comment_text": [
"Say I took two points- Point A and Point B, and drew a fractal pattern in between them. Now say I zoomed in on say; 1/10 of the distance between A and B. ",
"Now say I zoomed in further on that 1/10 portion. ",
" And if I zoomed into 1000000%, there would be another fractal, and another, and another, and another; etc...",
"A fractal is a sort of weird in-between dimensions line; infinite recursion, infinite detail, infinite complexity. They do odd things. They are space-filling curves that completely encompass an area (2D) while being only a line (1D). They model some real world behaviour, like the formation of coastlines or mountains (they are actually used in random generation for some games). They are continuous but not differentiable. They are chaotic yet ordered. They just ",
" ",
"As for how they benefit math and/or life? They're interesting. People like to study/look at interesting things. Is that so much to ask? We know they apply to our real world- like the Golden Ratio or PI. We just havent figured out ",
" yet.",
"\nEdit: Edited due to factual error/misdirection."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdezdxs",
"comment_text": [
"Thanks! But another question, you mentioned infinite recursion... how does distance reach a limit if it keeps zooming in...wouldn't it get bigger/longer? And is there always just two points (like A and B)? I did watch the video, I really enjoyed it. "
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: Why are there so many different kinds of plugs for electrical outlets all over the world? | explainlikeimfive | 1qo06i | 2 | true | false | 0.67 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdepbjz",
"comment_text": [
"In addition to the point below about different volatages, which is the main reason, different countries have different ideas about what the safest design is for outlets, so many have different shapes.",
"Also, European standard is 50Hz"
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdepozg",
"comment_text": [
"Up until 50-60 years ago, people didn't get all their electronics mass produced in Chinese factories. Everything was made (relatively) locally. Travel between countries was uncommon and expensive.",
"There was no reason for them to be the same.",
"Since, in the early days, everyone had to sort of invent their own stuff, everyone came up with different plugs when designing their electrical systems. Most of those in common use are equally good, so there's no advantage to picking one standard over the other, as long as ",
" is standard. Once a standard is picked, there needs to be a ",
" good reason to change it so people stick with it."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdep9qa",
"comment_text": [
"There are different standards for electricity around the world. In the US, the standard is 120Volts at 60Hz. I don't completely remember the European standards, but as I recall, it's 45Hz. Different electronics will not function unless running on the correct power, so the plugs are different so people don't accidentally break anything."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdeqkoy",
"comment_text": [
"In most of Europe, Its actually 50 Hz"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdeqr35",
"comment_text": [
"Technically it's 230 volts but it usually ends up being around 220"
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: If short-sightedness is caused by convex of the eye, and long-sightnedness is caused by concave of the eye, why do some people need bifocal lenses? | explainlikeimfive | 1qolvs | 2 | true | false | 0.67 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdev8lc",
"comment_text": [
"I think it basically boils down to the fact that your lens is more stuck in the neutral position, since the muscles are having a hard time adjusting it both ways..."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdevy1g",
"comment_text": [
"Man, as a person suffering of Astigmatism, Hypermetropia and Myopia I sure want to know."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdewgoe",
"comment_text": [
"Your if's are wrong. All persons have convex lenses. These lenses are stretched by muscles in the eye to change focus. Persons who are short-sighted cannot stretch the lens flat enough to allow the image of distant objects to focus, and the lenses in long-sighted persons cannot relax to a shape that is curved enough to focus on a close object.",
"Persons needing bifocal lenses can do neither. The lens in their eye isn't flexable enough to work for distant or near objects. They need an adjusting lens for both close reading and distant vision."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdewkww",
"comment_text": [
"When I meant \"long-sightedness is caused by concave of the eye\" I meant that their eye is \"too flat\" and as you put it \"cannot relax to a shape that is curved enough\". (Obviously I didn't mean that long-sightedness means your eyes are shaped inside out, I think that would be just a ",
" worse than long-sightedness :P)\nThanks for the clarification though."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdewql9",
"comment_text": [
"Your eye is a lens, all lenses have focal points. When you have near or far sightedness, your lens is misshapen causing the focal point to not be in the normal human positon. So the eye will pull and relax your lens to focus better, but due to the lens having an incorrect shape your eye can't really manipulate your len enough to get your eye to focus at the normal distances.",
"Now for bifocals this is a similar thing but different cause, when you age your lens and eye become to deteriorate, basically your eye can't manipulate your lens enough to read things close to your face. That's why you'll see older people holding things far away from their face to read them. "
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: How to some dogs instantly hate each other at first sight and some love each other, even though they've never met before? | explainlikeimfive | 1qoaem | 12 | true | true | 0.76 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdex813",
"comment_text": [
"From recent studies, it is generally now accepted within dog pyschology circles that the \"pack\" mentality doesn't exist within domesticated dogs. The average dog is considered to have roughly the same level of intelligence as a 2 year old human.",
"Dogs are not stupid. They do not think you are part of its \"pack\" or that it is in your \"pack\" it knows you are a human, and not a dog. Dogs have evolved to naturally be obedient to humans. The level of obedience depends on the quality of early training between the 2-12 weeks periods where the dog learns most about \"rules\" of the household."
],
"score": 4
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf3a5o",
"comment_text": [
"Just as there are manners with humans, there are manners dogs. Just like humans, some dogs don't understand these manners. ",
"They're little things people often don't notice. They aren't supposed to look other dogs straight in the eye at first meeting. It's rude, just like staring a stranger down would be. ",
"When dogs are in another's territory, they are supposed to submit to a good ass sniffing. This is how dogs recognize each other so it's a way of meeting/greeting. Failure to do so could result in hostility",
"It's little things like that. We often times see them as fighting, but sometimes it is just in their manners."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf55sz",
"comment_text": [
"I'm not an expert, but have had 3 dogs and have a GF who has 6 dogs. My guess is that dogs will act friendly towards each other when neither of them perceives the other as a threat. A dog may be perceived as a threat by another by displaying dominant behavior. Some dominant behaviors are pretty evident when it happens, I'm sure you've noticed it. Tensing of the muscles, ears and tail are pointing upwards, scratching at the ground, etc. However, I'm sure there are other \"signals\" that are subtle enough that a human will not readily identify them but the dogs themselves will. Thus, the human will get the impression that the dogs are hating each other for \"no reason\", when in reality they are being agressive because they perceived dominant behavior from the other dog and are not willing to accept that."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdexq1b",
"comment_text": [
"Dogs are not stupid. They do not think you are part of its \"pack\" or that it is in your \"pack\" it knows you are a human, and not a dog. Dogs have evolved to naturally be obedient to humans. ",
"Fair enough, but what has that got to do with OP's question? We're talking about dogs interacting with dogs not dogs interacting with humans."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdexyrx",
"comment_text": [
"I wasn't commenting on OP's question, merely refuting the information about the pack mentality as to not give false information to the OP (I assume he is a dog owner)",
"As an answer to OP's question, dogs make prejudiced decisions and assumptions about other dogs very similarly to how we humans do. We walk past a person in the street and apply past experiences and social and societal norms to assume what that person is like.",
"If someone walks down the street with scars and tattoos, dishevelled and drinking from a bottle of whiskey at 2pm its safe to assume you probably dont want to associate with that person and thus would be on \"guard\". This prejudice could be completely wrong and speakign to that person your guard will lower and you will be comfortable.",
"Same with dogs however dogs dont have media and social access that we do. Dogs cant message other dogs from all over the world and interact on the same scale we do. Their interaction involves the few humans they live with and a few dogs in their neighbourhood.",
"A dog will apply past experiences and teaching to \"assume\" what another dog is like, and then investigate/back off.",
"My friend owns a jack russel who got attacked by a Staffordshire bull terrier and ever since, whenever he sees another staff he immediately backs away and tucks itself into my friend (his owner) for protection. ",
"Smaller dogs are usually perceived as more \"aggressive\" when they meet another dog. However this is not aggression. It is fear. Smaller dogs still have wild instincts and know \"that dog is bigger than me and can kill me, therefore I cannot be submissive\" and will usually bark/bite/scratch in order to make itself seem more threatening, the same way a smaller human would do to a larger bully.",
"Dogs communicate firstly by smell, then hearing, then sight. They pick up chemical changes to sense mood. If one dog is in a relaxed or submissive state when coming into another dog in the same mood, more than likely no aggressive behaviour will be displayed. If there is an imbalance, one is submissive the other is in a dominant mood, there could ",
" be no trouble, but either the submissive dog will change its mood and attack/be attacked."
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: Whatever happened to drive in movie theaters and why have they become almost extinct? | explainlikeimfive | 1qope2 | 1 | true | false | 0.6 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdexbyh",
"comment_text": [
"You can't:",
"Control weather - heavy rain would make viewing the screen impossible, wind can shake a fabric screen.",
"Place a theater in a small area - cars take up a lot of space",
"Control sound- you have to compete with street traffic and noise ordinances.",
"People can also 'sneak' in drinks and snacks, which is where most theaters make the profit margin. "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdeye6e",
"comment_text": [
"http://projectdrivein.com/",
"Save the drive-ins!"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf9k2d",
"comment_text": [
"Drive-ins were also a byproduct of post-war America's love of cars. People wanted to do ",
" in their car.",
"These days, an increasing number of teenagers don't have cars."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdew3yy",
"comment_text": [
"living in wa state I would prefer indoor movies during the winter/colder seasons, dunno if that is related. plus I read something a month or 2 ago about how most drive ins couldn't afford to switch to digital projection since pretty much all filming is done that way nowadays. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf9rdn",
"comment_text": [
"They still exist.",
"They are and conventional indoor cinema dying of because of people not going out anymore.",
"Some are selling out to developers.",
"Some are just closing instead of investing in digital projectors (a must for any cinema to show the latest films, that is a 20K investment usually).",
"The revenue for the density/year is likely not there to pay expenses, or create enough profit."
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5:How has climate change led to stronger storms/typhoons/tornados? | explainlikeimfive | 1qoyav | 0 | true | false | 0.38 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdeyg9z",
"comment_text": [
"Global warming means higher temperature, change in temperature means change in pressure. More drastic changes of pressure usually result in more drastic storms "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf0l7k",
"comment_text": [
"It's tough to say, because a generation of human lives is less than a millisecond of time for the planet-geological changes take thousands of years. That being said, it ",
"appears",
" from data collected for nearly the past 100 years that global warming has led to stronger typhoons. ",
"NASA",
" also agrees that heavier precipitation, increased temperature extremes, and more intense cyclones can occur."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf103f",
"comment_text": [
"Firstly, there is no evidence that climate change has increased the frequency and severity of weather events. It is only a prediction of what climate change might lead to in the coming decades. Here's an article that discusses one particular study. ",
"http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2013/09/23/climate-change-global-warming-thunderstorms-tornadoes/2854979/",
"Weather is so unpredictable and complex that it is very difficult to say with certainty that severe weather events are on the rise. Even if someone can prove it, it's significantly harder to then blame climate change. Now many people point to all the extreme weather events in recent years as proof (Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Katrina, the typhoon in the Philippines, etc.). Be wary though as confirmation bias is a bitch. The global community is so well connected these days that we hear about about any major weather event quickly and in incredible detail. This can make is seem like there is an increase when the data isn't there to support it."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf23n8",
"comment_text": [
"Not contesting your point, proving a link between climate change and global warming, and climate change and weather events is prone to bias, but you may want to check the article you cited. The extremely talented and respected Dr. Jeff Masters has ",
"commented",
" in response to rising sea levels that \"people who are least to blame for emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere are the ones that are suffering the worst\". The ",
"PNAS",
" article that USA Today cited is a little dense, but the study is based on a very robust computer projection, and uses historical data from 1970-1999."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf34op",
"comment_text": [
"I may have resorted to a bit of hyperbole when I said that there's no evidence. However, the way OP worded the question was concerning. It sounds like they think it is a fact that global warming is already causing an increase in severe weather. I tried to inject some skepticism because it is an incredibly difficult thing to prove. I'm not convinced we're really experiencing climate change induced severe weather yet."
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: What is it with humans and patterns? | explainlikeimfive | 1qow4i | 3 | true | false | 0.6 | Humans seem to really like patterns. We look for them everywhere, and they're a part of daily life, it seems. Music, for example. Are patterns really prevalent in the way our brain/body works, with how we learn, or what? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf218y",
"comment_text": [
"Yes, they are very prevalent. Many people, myself included, believe that intelligence is based upon recognizing patterns and constantly using those patterns to predict what will happen around us. Perhaps you've heard of computer systems that attempt to recognize speech or the contents of images. Those are very challenging problems that seem to require some degree of intelligence and the only solutions that stand a chance of achieving reasonable results are systems that are trained to recognize patterns in actual data. Rather than designing a system that can detect an image of a dog, you need to design a system that can learn to detect things that are similar to what it's seen before, and then train it with images of dogs. Currently the state of the art in these domains is layered neural networks (deep learning) that is somewhat inspired by the human brain. The terms \"machine learning\" and \"statistical pattern recognition\" are mostly interchangeable."
],
"score": 5
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdeyd3u",
"comment_text": [
"This won't completely answer your question about music, but it might get you started. Pattern recognition and extrapolation is actually a major part of how our brains work. We are only capable of being conscious of a tiny portion of the raw data that our brains take in - much of what we experience is an ongoing attempt to make sense of what we see and what may be next.",
"As an easy an fun example, check out ",
"this",
" site about blind spots. We all have a blind spot in each eye (where the optic nerve touches the retina) that is incapable of taking in any information. We don't experience these blind spots because our brains infer what must be there based on the surrounding information."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdeyz8q",
"comment_text": [
"So, are neurons similar or the same to how ours are/work required for a species to reach an elevated level of intelligence, such as ours? ",
"If so, could another species out there reach human-level intelligence within any remotely predictable timeline, or is intelligence really a stars-aligning kind of rarity that's likely to not happen to any other species on Earth?"
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdeyb1d",
"comment_text": [
"Mm, not totally sure. I mean, music existed before mathematics. And I'd imagine you wouldn't have a person who doesn't respond well, or at all, to patterns, simply because they didn't learn mathematics.",
"One scenario in which this could ",
" be true is if mathematics are, as some will speculate; a fundamental, universal truth, likely present no matter what sort of universe or race exists. ",
"Either way, still holding for a hopefully-definitive answer."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdeyf9r",
"comment_text": [
"music existed before mathematics",
"True but humans do mathematical things without realizing it, think throwing a spear, you measure the weight of the spear, look for the right angle and throwing power. Long before math was written. I just think its naturally in our minds, without being represented by numbers."
],
"score": 3
} | |
In MySQL what is the difference between, left, right and inner joins? | explainlikeimfive | 1qp1k7 | 2 | true | false | 0.67 | When is each one most appropriate? Why would I use on vs the other? Does one work faster? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdezcm7",
"comment_text": [
"Left: takes all records from the first table and matching from the second\nRight: takes all records from the second table and matching from the first\nInner: takes only matching records from both tables"
],
"score": 6
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdezfd7",
"comment_text": [
"I've found circular charts the best way to explain it: ",
"http://i.stack.imgur.com/1UKp7.png"
],
"score": 5
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdeze7m",
"comment_text": [
"A LEFT join takes all the records from the left table and matches them with the right table. Sometimes there will be no matching records on the right table, those will return nulls in that row.",
"A RIGHT join is obviously the reverse.",
"An INNER join is a join in which only full rows are returned.",
"A FULL OUTER join is both a left and right join.",
"The speed isn't a necessary factor in this -- it's more about what information you're looking for."
],
"score": 4
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf0tsi",
"comment_text": [
"http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/10/a-visual-explanation-of-sql-joins.html",
" -- this is very useful."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf99yi",
"comment_text": [
"Let's say you have a list of houses & a list of people. Some of those people live in the houses. Some of those houses are empty.",
"If you want a list of all the people & the houses they live in, you'd do an INNER JOIN. This gives you all the people in your list that live in one of the houses on your list.",
"If you want a list of all the people, including their house if they live in one, you'd do a LEFT OUTER JOIN from people to houses. This gives you all the people and the matching house if it exists. If there's no matching house, you just get NULL for the house information.",
"A right join is the same as the left, it just goes the other way."
],
"score": 2
} | |
ELI5: I never understood what is company stock and what gives it value. Please explain. | explainlikeimfive | 1qp86i | 0 | true | false | 0.5 | I've heard about stock market and companies entering the stock market etc. But what the heck is the concept of stock. How does it affect the company? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf1dem",
"comment_text": [
"Suppose you and I are an adventuring party. You're a thief, I'm a wizard. We want to delve into the dungeon of Ashardalon, but we know our current equipment won't be up to snuff. We go into town, and offer a deal to everyone--for each person who gives us 100 gold now, they'll receive an equal share of the treasure when we emerge from the dungeon, just as if they had accompanied us. We've just sold stock in our adventuring party.",
"Stock is an agreement to fund a company--or loan it money, if you prefer--in exchange for a promise to share in future profits, if any. It funds the company now in the hopes of getting more money for everyone later. In fraudulent schemes, the company just takes the stockholder's money now and then gets the hell out of Dodge."
],
"score": 5
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf1vv1",
"comment_text": [
"Both. In our adventurer's story, suppose the only proof we offer our customers in town is a certificate--now other people might want those certificates either because of how they hear our adventuring party is faring (rumors), because of how we're actually faring (magically accurate information), or just because other people want them (following the herd). From there, demand and supply determine the price of those certificates (and, to be perfectly clear, if they have to give them up when we get out of the dungeon, that's different from stocks, which they can buy or sell whenever they like)."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf1c8o",
"comment_text": [
"A company's stock is a physical representation of ownership in the company. Like 1 share of apple is 1 millionth of one percent of owning apple. If you owned 50 million, you'd own 50% of the company. ",
"This is done so that investors can buy 'stock' for loans. Then they get that percentage of the companies profits in order to pay back the loan. "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf1t8n",
"comment_text": [
"Haha! Awesome explanation story. So can stock be added or taken away or is it fixed from beginning. From what I understand, a company has shares that investors buy and then if company profits the investor profits because the share price goes up and the amount invested may double for example. But why do these shares go up? Is it the actualy earnings of company or is it because the stock is suddenly more in demand."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf1zug",
"comment_text": [
"Not quite but close. Say, you own a share of stock in Apple. Apple has a news announcement saying they've had a great financial quarter and profits were great. They say they will pay 1$ a share (this is called the dividend). That means for each share you own, Apple will literally give you a dollar. Now some people have hundreds or thousands of shares. That is the benefit of owning shares. You partly \"own\" and \"share\" in the profits.",
"A stocks price if different. If many people want to own shares of a company, by laws of supply and demand the price will go up. If Apple has a good quarter, the stock price will rise because more people want to own shares. ",
"EDIT: Also, For some investors, they ONLY care about the share price and dont worry about the dividend "
],
"score": 2
} | |
ELI5: What will prevent people from waiting to buy healthcare until they get sick with the pre existing conditions clause? | explainlikeimfive | 1qpg9h | 1 | true | false | 0.56 | This is a serious question. I don't follow politics that closely so maybe there are obvious answers to my questions, but from my perspective, it seems like there is no motivation to waste money on insurance if I'm healthy and can buy it once I get sick. Also, I'm 25, almost 26 and I've heard people from both parties say that the system needs my demographic to buy into the program to keep it afloat, so knowing that statistically I am being overcharged based on my probability of getting sick, and not having much extra income to throw around, why would it be important for me to purchase insurance? Thanks for your answers. | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf3vnx",
"comment_text": [
"Nothing. Understand that you will have to pay a fine, and the fine increases every year. Other than that, nothing will prevent you from buying insurance when you need it. "
],
"score": 4
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf4dmq",
"comment_text": [
"Fines totalling $200, assessed only when you seek medical attention.",
"_ which is less than any visit to an emergency room, Again OPs' question - whats my motivation?"
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf44mw",
"comment_text": [
"As Xelopheris points out, there is an annual fine/tax for failing to obtain coverage, which maxes out at $695. Now, as you've probably reasoned, that figure can be easily eclipsed by the annual cost of even very modest coverage. No doubt, some young people will look at the fine as sunk cost and move on without coverage. Others might be willing to pay up the balance and actually get some for their money.",
"But, for the low-earners at least, there are subsidies that can help bridge the gap between the fine and the cost of coverage. That said, even with the subsidies, so-so coverage for a person of modest means can still easily reach the four figures annually, which may be money that person doesn't have.",
"I concur with your suspicion that at least some people will remain uninsured until they get sick. (Indeed, consumers aren't exactly jumping on the Obamacare train at the moment.) But it remains to be seen whether and to what extent these countermeasures will convince the young to come aboard."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf45u1",
"comment_text": [
"The signup window for the launch of the Affordable Healthcare Act is October 2013 to March 2014. After that, you have to wait until October thru December 2014 to sign up for 2015 insurance, and so on for each year. So if you don't sign up before end of March and get in an accident in June, you are SOL. The pre-existing condition only applies if you sign up for insurance and you previously had cancer, for example, the insurance company can't deny you coverage."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf4ht1",
"comment_text": [
"This is a fine strategy if you don't have insurance today, and you find out you need a million dollars of cancer treatment tomorrow.",
"The problem is if you don't have insurance today, and you just got $200,000 of medical treatment for a car accident yesterday. ",
"You can't buy insurance to retroactively pay for medical expenses. So if you lose the \"catastrophic accident\" lottery, and have no insurance, you'll probably be poor for the rest of your life."
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: What are empty Calories? | explainlikeimfive | 1qpog2 | 2 | true | false | 0.75 | I have always wondered what that means. For example alcohol has no nutrients but has lots of calories. Is this correct? If so, does it mean the body can't use those calories to burn in the muscles? Is fat an empty calorie? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf6bry",
"comment_text": [
"\"Empty calories\" just means calories with no nutritional benefit. As you said, alcohol is a great example. Your body can still burn those calories just fine, but you haven't satisfied any of your daily nutritional requirements (no vitamins, no minerals, no protein, etc.), and so you still need to eat regular food ",
" of those empty calories, and doing that regularly can lead to weight gain."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf9zak",
"comment_text": [
"So fat is an empty calorie then or not?",
"No. You need a certain amount of fat in your diet to remain healthy. ",
"And also one then could live on just sugar and vitamin pills?",
"No. You also need fat, protein, and (arguably) fiber."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf6cbm",
"comment_text": [
"You want to eat a certain number of calories a day. But you also need certain other nutrients in certain amounts each day for a balanced diet. When you're eating something that's empty calories, it usually means that it contains little to no other nutritional content (or too much of the bad things like Sodium, Fat, etc.)"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfizk6",
"comment_text": [
"The most confusing part is the fact that a calorie isn't a real thing you eat. It is a measure of energy.. like Joules for example are in chemistry. What makes someone gain weight or become fat is much more complicated than just \"oh i ate 3000 calories\". You can't eat a calorie. You can just eat something that ",
" a calorie in energy. There are many types of nutrients the body absorbs from food and roughly speaking if you follow the measure of food you take in as calories (the whole calorie in/out equation), then you will more or less gain/lose weight accordingly so that's why people use it.",
"With that explained, empty calories are basically foods without many nutrients that you would want such as vitamins, minerals, protein, and fiber, etc but only have a few nutrients which aren't desired for any reason. For instance, a soda would contain simple carbohydrates and while it does give you energy measurable in calories, it doesn't give you any of the aforementioned nutrients in great number so people say it is \"empty\" calories because you could eat that same number of calories in say... fruit or vegetables and get much more nutrients out of it."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf9scw",
"comment_text": [
"Ok. But does the source of the Calorie matter in terms of how it can be used - or is it like fuel - all the same?"
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: How someone can get into hard drugs, like meth, heroin, and crack. | explainlikeimfive | 1qpu6s | 4 | true | false | 0.75 | I understand lesser drugs, such as weed, coke, acid, shrooms, etc, but with all the knowledge of how bad they are for you, how does someone fall into the epitome of hard drugs? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf88re",
"comment_text": [
"It's interesting that you put cocaine on your 'lesser' drugs, but 'crack' in your list of hard drugs. Both are very similar in their effects and addictive profile. Tobacco and alcohol should also be on your list as they are quite addictive drugs which have numerous health issues associated with them too. And then there are all of the prescription drugs which are abused.",
"Drugs make you feel good. Many people use all of those drugs without it leading to terrible consequences. Occasional recreational use is possible and it can create cultures of drug use. The problem is that a very significant portion of the population can very easily find themselves drawn to one drug or another to a level where it ruins their lives. Very few people who start out think that they are going to have a problem, they look at other people they like and respect using these substances and think that they have their acts together, why not me? There is often a curiosity about how good it really makes you feel.",
"People who end up with an illicit drug problem do so in little steps. Each step seems reasonable from the one before it and it is only with perspective or hindsight that one might see the pattern."
],
"score": 5
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf85it",
"comment_text": [
"Coke isn't a lesser drug. I consider it a hard drug. "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf8mj8",
"comment_text": [
"There was a really interesting experiment done a few years back (see this fun comic! ",
"http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat-park/",
") that showed that drug addiction in rats is significantly correlated to how shitty their lives are. The authors suggested this might be one of the reasons why drugs are associated with poverty: people take drugs and remain addicted to them to escape their crappy situation. ",
"As an aside, the paper then goes on to suggest that instead of a war on drugs, we should be fighting a war on poverty. Seems to make sense to me!"
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfc0x7",
"comment_text": [
"For me, it was a long and slow progression. I did not wake up one day and decide to put a needle in my arm. It started with percocet here and there... then led to oxys and by that point the addiction was so bad that heroin was a cheaper alternative...took me about 2 to 3 years to get to that point."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfjoj7",
"comment_text": [
"First off, I am going to mark answered due to your response. Thanks for the insightful answer.",
"Secondly, I put coke on the \"lesser\" list despite putting crack on the \"harder\" list as cocaine is usually viewed as a party drug, just taking a few lines from time to time, whereas the latter seems to have a more negative connotation associated with it."
],
"score": 2
} | |
ELI5: Why does the US not require drug testing for government assistance? | explainlikeimfive | 1qpt71 | 0 | true | false | 0.5 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf7ows",
"comment_text": [
"It assumes anyone claiming welfare is guilty of drug use without any evidence."
],
"score": 6
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf7upn",
"comment_text": [
"You don't need to be. You choose to accept a job that requires drug testing. You could ask the same question. Why does your employer choose to drug test you?",
"What are you suggesting that anyone receiving any government benefit should be drug tested? Or really are we just talking about poor people.",
"Do you wanna test veterans? What about people getting a mortgage interest deduction? Elderly people on social security?"
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf7upn",
"comment_text": [
"You don't need to be. You choose to accept a job that requires drug testing. You could ask the same question. Why does your employer choose to drug test you?",
"What are you suggesting that anyone receiving any government benefit should be drug tested? Or really are we just talking about poor people.",
"Do you wanna test veterans? What about people getting a mortgage interest deduction? Elderly people on social security?"
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf7z7a",
"comment_text": [
"Well if you make up facts of course you win arguments."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdf7z7a",
"comment_text": [
"Well if you make up facts of course you win arguments."
],
"score": 3
} | |
ELI5: What are the major types of welfare / governmental assistance program that are available to me as an American citizen? | explainlikeimfive | 1qq33h | 1 | true | false | 0.66 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfaovo",
"comment_text": [
"It all depends on what kind of citizen you are. "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfarkd",
"comment_text": [
"What do you mean? I was born here. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfawsu",
"comment_text": [
"I think he means your demographic info. Whether or not you're married, have kids, how old you are, how much you make, your financial situation, what you're employed in, what you were employed in, where you live (state/city), if you have disabilities. There are tons and tons of programs available; it'd take a long time to just list them all and probably wouldn't be very helpful."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfayiv",
"comment_text": [
"The government offers a lot of programs but you have to meet the eligibility requirements. Being born here does not qualify you for everything that's offered. For example, you have to be a senior citizen to qualify for medicare or social security. You have to be a disabled citizen to qualify for disability.",
"What specifically do you need?"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfcqzu",
"comment_text": [
"Most programs are run through individual states. Even when it's federal money, it's generally used to pay for state programs rather than being run centrally."
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: In terms of performance, what are the differences between a fast processor (high frequency) versus a multi-cored processor? | explainlikeimfive | 1qq66p | 5 | true | false | 0.79 | I'd like to know what the pros and cons of having a very fast, let's say a 1.5 Ghz dual-core chip, versus a slower processor with more cores, like a quad-core 1.5 Ghz CPU. Thanks for helping me learn! | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfcw7m",
"comment_text": [
"Think of a processor as a factory connected to a road. To do work, the road delivers raw materials to the factory, then the factory turns those materials into finished product, and then the finished product is moved away by road.",
"Each core in a processor is an assembly line. The frequency of the processor is a measure of how fast each assembly line does work.",
"Now, there are different types of work to be done. Each piece of work might take a little input or a lot of input; it might produce a little output or a lot of output; and it might do that work slowly or very fast.",
"Most of the time, it's the road that slows the factory down. If there is a traffic jam of trucks waiting to deliver input or carry away output, the assembly lines have to wait for the jam to clear.",
"Some factories (like the CPUs in personal computers) tend to spend a lot of their time idle, waiting for the user to do something; these factories may be called on to do a huge variety of different types of work at any time, depending on what the user wants.",
"Other factories, like Web servers, generally do one kind of work all the time and the amount of work they have to do is relatively steady.",
"Depending on the type of work being done, along with the variance in the workload, engineers build systems differently. Some systems (like \"big iron\" mainframes) need lots of road and lots of assembly lines, but the speed of the assembly lines don't have to be particularly fast (they prefer reliability over speed). Other systems that might specialize in doing very heavy math don't need a lot of road or a lot of assembly lines, but they need those assembly lines to be very fast.",
"So, the answer to your question is, it depends on the situation. CPU power isn't everything. You want a high frequency when you are doing heavy linear processing (like compressing data); you want more cores when you're doing heavy parallel processing (like rendering fractals).",
"For personal computers, the idea these days is to deliver a nice balance of both: more cores lets your computer run more tasks at once, including background tasks that the user isn't directly aware of, while higher frequency allows many tasks to be completed more quickly."
],
"score": 5
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfej5h",
"comment_text": [
"Brilliant response.",
"I would add is that the number of cores isn't necessarily the deciding factor of how many tasks can be executed concurrently; that would be ",
".",
"Usually, the number of threads and cores are identical but, with Intel processors in particular (I'm not too familiar with AMDs offerings), it's becoming more common to see cores which are capable of executing two threads per core. \nTo continue the factory analogy, it would be like turning each of the roads into a dual carriageway allowing two lanes of traffic instead of one. ",
"Additionally, application developers are generally optimising their software for multi-core processors. Applications that perform tasks such as video conversion, which traditionally benefit from a single fast processor due to its linear nature, are now being built as ",
" applications. Multithreading is when a single task is broken down into a number of threads which can run concurrently on a multi-core processor. \nGoing back to video conversion, a single core 3GHz processor will be able convert the video file at a rate just below 3 million calculations per second (due to overheads and other processes) and will work through the video from beginning to end. On the other hand, a quad-core 1.5GHz processor converting the same video at just below 1.5 million calculations per second, but can work on 4 sections of the video at a time, each one at 1.5GHz, so it will convert quicker.\nCaveat: The video conversion example only works if the conversion software is multithreaded, allowing it to divide the workload. If not, then it will only function with a single thread regardless of how many cores there are, and will be limited to the top speed of that core. "
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfesm4",
"comment_text": [
"Thank you, your analogy was very effective, and you explained it like I'm five! +1."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdffsof",
"comment_text": [
"Thanks! :)"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdffvjq",
"comment_text": [
"Thank you very much.",
"I'm a programmer and so I'm immersed in this kind of thing every day. It did me good to deconstruct my own understanding of it and reconstruct it in a way that would hopefully be easy for a non-programmer to visualize. I'm glad you like the result."
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5:In Harry Potter, what makes a sorcerer stronger than the other? | explainlikeimfive | 1qkqtt | 4 | true | false | 0.74 | if the spell is pronounced correctly and the wand movement was also done correctly, what makes voldemort stronger than any other wizards? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddsnbj",
"comment_text": [
"The three times I can remember a character explicitly explaining how to perform magic are when Lupin teaches Harry the Patronus Charm, when Snape teaches Harry Occlumency, and when McGonagall teaches the trio how to perform spells without speaking. In those cases it was not the physical aspect of the spell, but the the emotional and intellectual control of the wizard. The power of the Patronus Charm seems to hinge mostly on how happy you are capable of being at will, Occlumency is based off of the wizard's ability to quiet his emotions, and silent spells require extreme concentration.",
"Also, engaging in a wizard duel seems to require both having memorized a vast array of spells, but also quick thinking about how best to deploy them. When Voldemort tried to send thousands of shards of glass at Dumbledore, he had to know the exact spell to turn it into sand and deploy it quickly (OotP)."
],
"score": 7
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddssx0",
"comment_text": [
"Also, when Belatrix explains to Harry that the Cruciatus Curse only works when you deeply want to cause pain."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddrmqf",
"comment_text": [
"It seems that in the HP world the ability to perform magic is like any other talent, such as music, athletics, or cooking -- practice and study will improve skills, but some just have more natural talent than others. And some, sqibs, have no talent for it at all."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddrl8b",
"comment_text": [
"It's my impression that the \"Magic\" that they produce originates from their Spirit. Mean spirited people are more proficient with dark origin spells, and High spirited people are better with practical spells.",
"But in the aspect of Voledmort, he was not only a great wizard, he was deadly with his proficiency. He was trained in years of attacking and killing people, and you can read all you like about something, but until you've mastered it, you pale in comparison to someone who has."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddtdfl",
"comment_text": [
"What film does McGonagall teach them how to perform spells without speaking?"
],
"score": 0
} | |
ELI5; If as I've just found out Orcas are Dolphins, why aren't porpoises ? | explainlikeimfive | 1qkqzh | 2 | true | false | 0.67 | Well I just discovered that apparently Orcas are a type of Dolphin.
I've studied enough science that I understand why this is, even though I had never realized before.
So why aren't porpoises a type of Dolphin ? They're also very similar. Even to the naked eye they are very similar easily confused and from what I've read they live a very similar lifestyle, from what they eat to socialization.
What makes them so different ? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddzz7w",
"comment_text": [
"The orca and the dolphins are different geni in the family known as \"oceanic dolphin\".",
"Porpoises are in a different family; the porpoise and dolphin family are both considered part of the same \"superfamily\".",
"How do they decide which animals are in which genus, family, etc.? ",
"This is a decision based on how they think the animal evolved, which in turn is based on comparing features between animals, and more recently, DNA sequencing. Charles Darwin started off this process, obviously it has been greatly improved ",
"since then",
"."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdeh2ap",
"comment_text": [
"I study genetics as part of my degree so I understand how things are organised into families. However I don't understand the significant difference between dolphins and porpoises that cause them to be in a different genera. I've attempted some Google research but the only differences I've come across is the shape of the teeth and size."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdep9m8",
"comment_text": [
"Maybe we are out of ELI5 scope now. Summoning ",
"/u/Unidan",
" ...."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cder1zh",
"comment_text": [
"Do you mean genera? "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdevbt7",
"comment_text": [
"Yes, yes I did. I'm gonna have to edit now."
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: Why does China want Tibet so bad? | explainlikeimfive | 1ql2fc | 0 | true | false | 0.5 | Is their a resource in Tibet that China wants? Is there some sort of trade route? Are these imperialistic views or oppressive acts against Tibetan Buddhism? I could probably just Google but I'd like to hear some different views from everyone here. | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdepthv",
"comment_text": [
"The Chinese consider Tibet a part of their empire for a long time.\nAlready in the Yuan (13th century) it was a part of China , ",
"Wikipedia map",
", although it was independent during the Ming. It was a part of Qing again and was considered a part of China during the Republic (before communism). It's important to remember that the Chinese empire often contained ,or was even ruled by people who were not Han Chinese, so the fact that Tibetan culture is so different from Chinese culture does not seem like an issue for the Chinese. Also, Tibetan Buddhism was China's official religion of the Qing imperial court. I don't think the Chinese have anything against Tibetan Buddhism per se, it's mostly a political question, since in Tibet Buddhism and Politics are interrelated. "
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde9yya",
"comment_text": [
"This is what I was looking for! Thank you very much."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde9yya",
"comment_text": [
"This is what I was looking for! Thank you very much."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddv9c2",
"comment_text": [
"He answered it perfectly. If China lets Tibet go, then other provinces will want to separate. So the reason China wants Tibet is because it shows the rest of Chinese people that they better not be thinking about \"anything crazy like that\""
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddvj8p",
"comment_text": [
"I guess what I'm looking for is what are the reasons for Chinese occupation in Tibet? Tibet was an independent country until the 1950s, i think. Was it the idea of communist expansion that had China decide to take Tibet in the first place? "
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5:I know I don't drink enough water. If you're supposed to drink 6-8 glasses a day, why am I not dead or severely ill? | explainlikeimfive | 1ql4gx | 2 | true | false | 1 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddvjf1",
"comment_text": [
"8 glasses a day is a myth. You need as much water as you need. If you live in a cold climate you'd need less. If you lived in a desert just having 8 a day would kill you from dehydration. "
],
"score": 6
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddvown",
"comment_text": [
"Most food does too"
],
"score": 6
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddvhzh",
"comment_text": [
"Simple, everything you drink currently has water in it!"
],
"score": 4
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddx05w",
"comment_text": [
"You do ",
" want to get kidney stones!"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddxht0",
"comment_text": [
"No, but the morphine and oxycondone is nice. "
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: Why is a shaft with a bore through it stronger torsionally than one without a bore? | explainlikeimfive | 1qlbz8 | 4 | true | false | 0.83 | I understand the concept of double/single shear, but I can't wrap my head around why a removing material increases torsional strength. | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddz0gt",
"comment_text": [
"Flex, the shell can flex and creates less torque on the center of the mass. Cross sectional area has been reduced so shearing stress has also been reduced. It's the maths, bro."
],
"score": 7
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde1zf3",
"comment_text": [
"It's a common misconception. It's not. You can't add more material and make it easier to torque.",
"The comparison is that a cylinder has more resistance to torsion than a solid rod of the same cross-sectional mass. This is because the farther away mass is from the center of rotation, the more resistant it is to torque. ",
"6kg iron rod - boring a hole through it leaves a 3kg cylinder that's easier to torque, and a 3kg core (thinner rod) that is easiest to torque of the three.",
"This is why I-beams exist; they're designed to have most of the mass moved several inches away from the center so they're harder to twist under load than a solid, thinner rectangular beam."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde1wz0",
"comment_text": [
"It lets it bend. .even just a lil bit. Is that better?"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde1c6o",
"comment_text": [
"Was that really a LI5 E?"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde210v",
"comment_text": [
"Yup, thanks."
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: Whats the deal with Obamacare and having health insurance or you get fined when you do your taxes? | explainlikeimfive | 1qlc30 | 0 | true | false | 0.5 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddxz30",
"comment_text": [
"This is for concepts you'd like to understand better; not for simple one word answers, walkthroughs, or personal problems."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddycgh",
"comment_text": [
"I think he has asked a very important question about one of the central concepts of the ACA. Nothing about his question could possibly be construed as a request for a one word answer, a walk through or a personal problem. He is seeking a simple explanation to a conceptual question that SEEMS to be bothering a lot of Americans. Misunderstanding of this particular issue is widespread and I applaud him for asking for a simple explanation. ",
"I'm not sure what point you are making but it seems a perfectly reasonable question. I don't know any simpler way to explain the material than I used if your comment was meant for me. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde09ri",
"comment_text": [
"Actually, he has a question: Whether or not he will get fined for not having health care. (S/)He and their fiance(e) don't have healthcare, but their son does, and they want to know if they'll pay a fine.",
"That's both a personal problem and ",
" request for conceptual explanation, although I do appreciate your feedback. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde1jdf",
"comment_text": [
"Since you appreciated my feedback so much here is some more. You are intentionally playing semantic games (or playing dumb, IDK). He asked what the deal was with Obamacare. And he asked what the deal was with getting fined for not having insurance at tax time. Clearly he asked two (2) questions neither of which are of the yes/no variety. Both require simple, clear concise answers at a moderate level of detail. The fact that it is an issue he is dealing with in real life does not make it a \"personal problem\" except to the extent that the answer will potentially effect him personally.",
"This is a particularly important request for an explanation as there is so much bad information, so many misconceptions and so much effort being made to suppress accurate information regarding ACA. It seems to me you are justifying your actions based on your personal interpretation of fine print and possibly your own political leanings. ",
"Even though your last sentence is basically a self-justifying fabrication, it seems, thanks for your prompt response."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde1on6",
"comment_text": [
"Since you appreciated my feedback so much here is some more. You are intentionally playing semantic games (or playing dumb, IDK). ",
"More likely, I just spend more time in ELI5 than you do, and I have more experience. I'm not playing semantic games ",
" playing dumb, I'm just moderating. ",
"He asked what the deal was with Obamacare. And he asked what the deal was with getting fined for not having insurance at tax time. Clearly he asked two (2) questions neither of which are of the yes/no variety. Both require simple, clear concise answers at a moderate level of detail. The fact that it is an issue he is dealing with in real life does not make it a \"personal problem\" except to the extent that the answer will potentially effect him personally.",
"This is a particularly important request for an explanation as there is so much bad information, so many misconceptions and so much effort being made to suppress accurate information regarding ACA. ",
"The ACA has been covered to death. OP didn't mention they'd searched the archives and had specific questions which weren't answered, so even if I accept your interpretation of the OP, which I do (why not?) as it even crossed my mind for a little while, the post ",
" gets removed.",
"It seems to me you are justifying your actions based on your personal interpretation of fine print and possibly your own political leanings.",
"Hah. Hah. Hah.",
"You think you know my political leanings. ",
"You're cute.",
"Even though your last sentence is basically a self-justifying fabrication, it seems, thanks for your prompt response.",
"I don't need to self justify, nor is it a fabrication. What you mean to say is \"platitude.\" And yes, to some extent it's a platitude, if only because I say it pretty regularly."
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: Why dont companies like Sony/Microsoft add backwards compatibility for their consoles? | explainlikeimfive | 1qlkm2 | 11 | true | false | 0.8 | Surely its just a matter of adding the code for running previous console games onto the new software? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde0n6w",
"comment_text": [
"It's more than 'adding the code', it's adding ",
" of code. The new consoles have completely different hardware that basically makes them incompatible with running previous generation games. Don't think of this as xbone trying to run xbox360, think of this as PC trying to running xbox360 and you've got the same obstacles. A whole emulation software would need to be developed and implemented into the console, which would take up space, time, and money.",
"The first PS2 was able to be backwards compatible because the literally shoved a PS1 into the console. Later they were able to develop an emulator program for it. The Xbox360 has emulation programs for classic xbox titles as well (or the titles themselves were ported (translated) into a format the 360 could understand), and even then it wasn't 100% perfect. And the emulation program gets harder and more complicated because the games being used are complex.",
"And what would all that money and time yield for either company? Its not exactly a selling point, and if you want to use the older games, then you can buy the older consoles to do so. If anything, adding backwards compatibility will hurt sales of the older units (as people will simply refrain from buying one and wait until the next gen console came to the market).",
"TL;DR - backwards compatibility takes time and money that neither company seems interested in investing."
],
"score": 18
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde0t23",
"comment_text": [
"Surely its just a matter of adding the code for running previous console games onto the new software?",
"Er... sometimes. But it's significantly more complicated than that. ",
"Why don't mac games run on a PC? Well.. because OSX is different than windows, so there are a huge collection of libraries you need to use. You need to write programs differently for each operating system.",
"With the Xb2 and PS3 they used a different architecture hardware than the PS4 and XB3 (which both use basically glorified AMD laptop parts). So not only do you have new OS problems but you have to deal with hardware differences too. ",
"Now in the PC programming space or mac or the like where a program I wrote for windows XP will still work on windows 8 that's because you've written the program, and it depends on libraries that force it to be general. Console games are tightly (very tightly) optimized for exactly the hardware they have. There's no question of having maybe 32 bytes of memory here, or 16, or 64, on a console you definitely have exactly what you have, and it performs exactly the way it does. Sony actually botched one of their runs of PS2's and they didn't quite work with every game for this reason. Windows (and mac) require you accept inefficiencies in your program - for example default directX and OpenGL, because for a small hit in performance they'll work on all sorts of devices and new ones going forward. ",
"So are there solutions to this? Yes... kinda. Other than for just putting the old console inside the new one (the original PS3 did essentially that, it had a hardware PS2 inside) Both are varying degrees of bad. ",
"What you need to know is that when you write a program (particularly a game) you rely on a bunch of libraries that come with the operating system it's going to run on, and you compile into assembly instructions specific to that OS and hardware - that's what compilation is in general but not everything is compiled. Compilation makes things run fast though. ",
"The first option is what is called binary translation - basically you can take the program and map the binary level instructions from one type of hardware to a new type of hardware. This is how the XB2 tried to do compatibility with the XB1 - but it uh... only mostly worked, some of the time. And that was from PC - which is the standard architecture around which all others are measured. ",
"The other option is emulation - you can download free emulators for your PC for old consoles, they are of dubious legality, but they mostly work. The think here is that making an emulator well is really really really hard, and can require many dozens to hundreds of times more processing power than the device you are emulating, and even then it can still suck.",
"The new 3rd option is what sony is going to do - they're going to have a giant cluster of Playstation 3's to run games over the web (like netflix for PS3 games). That has some issues with networking, but it's probably 'good enough'. They don't solve problem 1 or 2 - they just basically let you rent time on a PS3 remotely. Or at least they plan to.",
"So the long and the short of it, is that it's REALLY hard to emulate another device - there are free (legal) android emulators for development that you can try and emulate all sorts of devices with - and a lot of them are slow as molasses and still suck. Binary translation is incredibly difficult to do properly. So the options are limited, and they'd rather sell you a PS3 or a XB2 on the side than drive up the cost of the PS4 or XB3. "
],
"score": 5
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde0mmq",
"comment_text": [
"It's not just a matter of adding the code. It's either adding essential parts of the previous generation's chipset (Original PS3 had this,) or creating a program that emulates said chipset in a virtual environment (which often ends up being buggy.)",
"And it's a waste of their resources. They want to move their tech forward, and the amount of people who wish for backwards compatibility are outnumbered by those who don't care."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde1gvm",
"comment_text": [
"So, why did the PS3 include a PS2 for backwards compatibility, then?"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde31wo",
"comment_text": [
"It had a chunk of hardware inside which was a minimized version of the PS2 processing unit, thats why it costed 500 bucks and why it was removed in later versions of the console. "
],
"score": 2
} | |
How does succesful investing work and how do people make millions off of trading stocks and investing in things? | explainlikeimfive | 1qlqyb | 7 | true | false | 1 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde38xc",
"comment_text": [
"The best way to make money off of investing is to do something called \"diversify\". ",
"If we are talking about the stock market for example, we know that over time, the market as a whole will increase in value, yet any single individual stock may go either up or down. So if you put all of your money into one stock because you thing it will go up, you are essentially gambling. However, the safest best, the sure way to make money, is to invest in as wide of a variety of companies as possible. The more spread out your investment, the more stable your investment is. The broader your investment, the closer to market growth you will be.",
"Does that answer your question?"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde44x2",
"comment_text": [
"Yes, but a diverse fund doesn't make not rich people \"rich\""
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde4uxk",
"comment_text": [
"But that's a start.\nOver the time, we study different companies and get to know them very well. This allows good selection of companies.\nAnother great way to make money is investing in IPOs. Always look out for companies announcing IPOs. Value Of almost all of them increases substantially in small period of time. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde506k",
"comment_text": [
"Very few beat chance. And in an IPO it's usually the stockbroker's friends that get the first stock. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdecosq",
"comment_text": [
"An IPO is the box with gold in it?"
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: Why is fighting allowed in Ice hockey? | explainlikeimfive | 1qloui | 1 | true | false | 0.54 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde1sbb",
"comment_text": [
"The Wikipedia answer is rather good: ",
"http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_in_ice_hockey",
"In the NHL fights generally result in in game penalties, but in other countries they result in ejection from the game.",
"North American fans really like the fights so it draws people to the game."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde1qgx",
"comment_text": [
"The conventional wisdom seems to be that if players aren't allowed to fight and release their aggression then they will resort to even more violent actions like hitting each other with their hockey sticks. I don't know if this is true but I've asked friends who are hockey fans this same question and that's the answer they have all given.",
"Strangely, fighting doesn't seem to be as popular in hockey played in other parts of the world so this theory may be complete horseshit. Luckily for you there are plenty of Canadians on Reddit who will give you the best answer."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde1y8t",
"comment_text": [
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qloe5/eli5_why_are_there_so_many_fights_in_ice_hockey/cde1x2l"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde2ibu",
"comment_text": [
"The fighting is the best part of hockey.",
"No, really. The NHL rules are pretty obviously designed to allow and even encourage occasional fighting. You can't not notice this."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdecv1r",
"comment_text": [
"Electro is wrong. Denise is correct.",
"Because hockey is unique. Unlike football, the worst thing you can do is throw a ball really hard at someone. Hockey, you can use your stick as a weapon. So the players take the frustration out in an organized way.",
"It's actually safer to fight for 20-30 seconds, than to let frustration build for 60 minutes until someone hits someone with a hockey stick."
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: How do countries successfully implement/maintain gun control? | explainlikeimfive | 1qlx8u | 3 | true | false | 1 | If it's just a law change, it doesn't seem like enough to stop anyone who desires from obtaining a gun and using it? And yet the gun crime rates in those countries are phenomenally lower than the likes of North America. For example, why don't gangs in England have much gun violence? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde3v8w",
"comment_text": [
"By enforcing the laws.",
"Why do people in America pay for a license to drive a car? You could easily drive without one, and you could even go years of driving with never getting caught. But for whatever reason very few people actually take the risk.",
"There's also a social element I'm sure. So it comes down to enforcing the laws, and social acceptance of the laws.",
"On a personal note, it annoys me so much when people think an argument against gun control is the criminals will ignore the laws anyway. Criminals ignore laws against murder, assault, and theft, but we aren't going to get rid of those are we?"
],
"score": 6
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde4feg",
"comment_text": [
"The criminals always have a theoretical advantage, unless you let people legally own every weapon ever made. By that same argument, criminals currently have an advantage because they can use theatre ballistic missiles, and law-abiding civilians can't.",
"In practical terms, there'll always be a gun nut with bigger guns, more guns and better training than you. If you're relying on your own arsenal for personal defence, it means you've given up faith in the law enforcement to begin with - that's the real problem, not the fact that civilians aren't allowed to have an arms race with criminals.",
"Also, \"if you ban x, only criminals will have x\" is a tautological non-argument."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde3v19",
"comment_text": [
"Gun control doesn't mean banning all guns. I'm routinely told by Americans that I can't own a gun because I'm Australian and they're banned and yet there are millions of privately owned firearms in Australia. Legally owned. We have gun control though. The US had gun control. Every country that has laws on firearms has some sort of gun control. The question is just how much. "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde4ehw",
"comment_text": [
"Same thing here in Canada. For a country that supposedly has banned firearms, we're sure a heavily armed people. And I sure know a lot of people who own them. "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cde418g",
"comment_text": [
"The idea behind that argument is that if you make a law broadly restricting gun ownership, and law-abiding people follow it and criminals don't, it will mainly serve to give criminals an advantage. So, for example, if handguns are banned, criminals will have handguns to commit crimes with, but handguns won't be able to be used for self-defense against criminals, or other legitimate purposes such as target shooting. Gun rights advocates would prefer a law that, instead of outright banning handguns, would implement a harsher sentence for using a handgun in a crime."
],
"score": 2
} | |
ELI5: What happens if an individual declares bankruptcy in the USA? | explainlikeimfive | 1qmm99 | 5 | true | false | 1 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdebojq",
"comment_text": [
"Like you're Five: On the day you get your allowance, you buy a bag of candy. The next day, you want more candy, but you spent your allowance, so you ask your brother if you can borrow his allowance, and pay him back with your next allowance. You buy another bag of candy. The next day you ask your sister if you can borrow her allowance, and promise to pay her back when you get your allowance. You buy another bag of candy.",
"When you finally get your allowance, you realise you're in trouble - you can't pay your brother and your sister. You get so worried about it that you go buy a bag of candy instead. When you get home, you get in a big fight with your brother and sister about it.",
"When your Mom asks what you're fighting about, your brother and sister tell her that you borrowed money and you won't give it back. She asks you why not, and you say that you spent all of the money on candy, and you don't have any money left. She sighs, and makes you give all the candy you have left to your brother and sister. They want to know when they get their money back, and she tells them the money is gone, and they need to stop fighting with you and forgive you. They say that that isn't fair, and she says that it really isn't, and that they should remember this the next time you ask them for money."
],
"score": 8
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdef9wm",
"comment_text": [
"well cant you get candy from that guy that drives the big white van?"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdee99i",
"comment_text": [
"As the answer always is with legal concepts: it depends. In this case, it depends on which chapter the bankruptcy is filed under. There are two chapters available for individual debtors: Chapter 7 and Chapter 13. (There's also Chapter 12, but it's conceptually similar to a Chapter 13, and is only available for farmers and fisherfolk. So I'm ignoring it.)",
"In either case, the debtor enjoys an \"automatic stay\" commencing on the date he files bankruptcy, and continues until the case is over. The automatic stay abates virtually all proceedings against the debtor and his property. This gives the debtor some breathing room, and ensures an orderly bankruptcy proceeding.",
"Chapter 7 is liquidation. All the debtors assets are pooled and sold, with the proceeds being distributed ",
" among the creditors. (Although \"secured\" creditors, who have a right to collateral, can recover the collateral without sharing it with the others.) There are a lot of exemptions from this, though, such as various consumer goods and often a \"homestead exemption\" - which is a portion of the value of your home. If the debtor's a good boy (i.e., doesn't try to hide money, lie to the court, or cheat his creditors), he will get a \"discharge\" at the end of the case. The discharge cancels almost all the debtor's remaining debt. However, some obligations are non-dischargeable. These commonly include domestic support obligations (like child support) and student loans.",
"Chapter 13 is reorganization. Here, the debtor is given an opportunity to negotiate with his creditors in order to reorganize his debt on terms he can actually meet. However, there are certain secured and unsecured debt caps that you must satisfy to file under this chapter. At the end of the case, instead of getting a discharge, you get a \"plan,\" which basically says \"the new deal you worked out with the creditors is binding; the old deal is gone.\"",
"That said, most Chapter 13s crater into Chatper 7s.",
"As for the effects of bankruptcy - apart from those listed above - it can substantially harm your credit. (But of course, your credit can be built back up.) You can also only file once every seven years."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdefzs1",
"comment_text": [
"This is very accurate."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdfcgpb",
"comment_text": [
"A few small corrections. ",
"You can file all you want (as long as you don't have more than one active case a time). You can only get a DISCHARGE once per seven years.",
"Also you are slightly off about a Chapter 13. You get the plan at the start and you follow it for 3-5 years and get discharged at the end. Your case is active the whole time. If you don't follow it, you get dismissed, and not discharged. The stay is in effect that whole time."
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: Why do I have green eyes when my parents have blue eyes? | explainlikeimfive | 1qmn5c | 2 | true | false | 0.67 | It seems like I should have blue eyes too :P | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdecxcs",
"comment_text": [
"Eye color is usually dumbed down into two categories, Dominant traits vs Recessive traits. Blue eyes are a recessive trait along with other unusual colors such as green, amber, hazel, grey, etc. You can also be a carrier for other colors which is based on your genetic makeup.",
"For example. lets say Dad has brown eyes, but he's a carrier for blue, green, hazel. Mom has brown eyes as well, and a carrier for blue, and amber. Brown is a dominant trait and all other colors are recessive. Odds are their children will most likely have brown eyes as well, but since they're both carriers of the recessive blue, there's a chance that their children could have blue eyes.",
"So to your example. Both parents have blue eyes, and you have green eyes. Technically blue and green are both recessive traits, so your parents are both carriers of the green eye color and it just happened to come out in you.",
"For comparison, my dad has blue eyes, mother brown. I have blue/grey eyes, my sister has blue and my brother has hazel. Because my dad has a recessive eye color, he doesn't have the brown (dominant) trait, and a carrier of at least green, grey and hazel And my mother was a carrier of blue, grey and hazel as well.",
"Keep in mind that eye color, hair color, etc. are a bit more complicated than just dominant vs. recessive but this is how basic biology explains it."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdek6df",
"comment_text": [
"/u/Thepineappleheaddres",
"'s answer is (I think) the only one that's not just plain wrong.",
"Eye color isn't mendelian, both your parents have very little melanin in their eyes and you have very little in yours. If you could drain all of the fluid out of both yours and your parents eyes you would find that their iris was clear and yours was also clear but slightly yellowed.",
"Because none of you have any real color to your iris Tyndall scattering makes the light coming out of the back of your eyes blue and so their eyes mostly look blue and yours mostly look green.",
"I say \"mostly\" here because it turns out that there's so little actual pigment involved here that the color of the light involved ends up making quite a bit of difference. Have your parents walk into a bright yellow kitchen or something and look at their eyes and I bet they look green."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdebe9r",
"comment_text": [
"Did your mother hang around dockside bars?"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdebs22",
"comment_text": [
"ZING! don't think so"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdeiafs",
"comment_text": [
"Mailman?"
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: What causes children of divorced parents to react negatively when they meet their parents' new partners? | explainlikeimfive | 1qmoq7 | 3 | true | false | 1 | Children of age might experience anxiety, anger, or other negative emotions when meeting their parents' new boyfriend or girlfriend. Parents might ask their children, "Why don't you want to meet him/her?" or "Why does it bother you that I'm dating?" -- what are some of the actual reasons? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdebiza",
"comment_text": [
"I have no idea. But I'm 32 and my parents have been separating for years now. I still have trouble with this, I try not to, but I don't like it."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdebkim",
"comment_text": [
"In my personal experience, my daughter was angry with my girlfriend and my girlfriends Daughter, mostly because, she felt I was using them to replace her and my ex-wife. It took awhile for her to see that they were just an extension to the core family, rather than a replacement for my old family. "
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdeblq7",
"comment_text": [
"They always have this hope or feeling, deep down, that their parents will get back together. That hope is squashed when a parent starts seeing someone else."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdebpit",
"comment_text": [
"What would you guess is the cause, then, for a child who does not have that hope, or even want them to reunite? "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdec10m",
"comment_text": [
"There can be a lot of irrational reasons but often times the parents new partner is seen as the cause of the family splitting up. In my case my dad cheated on my mom and had another kid. My brother saw my dad's new family as a giant fuck you to he and I his entire life (he's now 31). In my case I tried to have a relationship with my dad and half sister but not my stepmother that woman is a massive cunt. My parents divorced when I was about 9 months old so I've only ever really know my parents separated situation. I never disliked my stepmother simply because she was my dads wife but because she was a horrible human being. My dad finally realized this and filed for divorce last year so I think they are officially divorce. I live in Ontario and my dad lives in Alberta and I just met his new GF at my cousins wedding and they came over for a visit, nice enough lady and my old man seems to be happy. My opinion is I think he moved into another relationship to fast. He spent nearly 28 years not knowing his first two kids because of his cunty wife (even my 1/2 sister who is her daughter doesn't like her), and now that he has time to try to get to know us he is investing that time in some random woman. What I've realized from the whole situation is that my dad can't be alone and is willing whether knowingly or not to hurt those around him in order to get what he wants. So it's not exactly the new partner in their life as a person they don't like but the underlying issues that children often have, however sometimes like in the case of my stepmother she was just an awful person. However I'm sure if you talked to my 1/2 sister she would have a very different answer given that both of her parents are going through this."
],
"score": 0
} | |
ELI5: Why do certain foods (jar of cheese, salsa) need to be refrigerated only after opening? | explainlikeimfive | 1qmp0r | 2 | true | false | 0.67 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdebjp0",
"comment_text": [
"The jars are sealed with little to no bacteria content inside of them. Once they're exposed to the world, bacteria is getting in, no questions asked. The rate at which bacteria progresses decreases as temperature decreases, so refrigerating it gives it a longer shelf life."
],
"score": 8
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdebkak",
"comment_text": [
"Because it was sealed in a sterile environment. When you break the seal you introduce bacteria. You have to keep it cold or the bacteria will grow."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdelknr",
"comment_text": [
"Also mold. Same thing, different organism. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdebjyx",
"comment_text": [
"Some have preservative chemicals and some don't. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdebkp2",
"comment_text": [
"Because it is pasteurized and sealed. Until you open the jar, there are negligible amounts of bacteria inside to negatively affect the food. Once you open it, however, you've allowed in all the bacteria present in the air, which can cause it to go bad."
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: How come Facebook has no direct competitors. | explainlikeimfive | 1qmoa1 | 2 | true | false | 0.75 | Twitter is the closest I can think of and that's a stretch. | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdebi7g",
"comment_text": [
"Facebook DOES have direct competitors, it just beats them. Here's why: even though the ToS of Facebook is stupidly crazy, so many people are on Facebook that it's hard to leave.",
"Would you go to a \"better\" party, if you were the only one there? No. You wouldn't. You would stay at your shitty party and hang with all of your friends. It's not that bad at the shitty party, you would rather be somewhere else, but your friends make it fun."
],
"score": 5
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdebd5v",
"comment_text": [
"How would you compare google + to Facebook? I think once so many users have signed up to one form of social media it is very hard to get a mass migration."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdebltj",
"comment_text": [
"Nobody goes over to Google+ because nobody's on Google+."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdebqc4",
"comment_text": [
"OK. So, MySpace had hundreds of millions of users - what made them switch to FB?"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdebe0c",
"comment_text": [
"Just like like myspace."
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: Why does my chewing gum start to disintegrate if I chew it along with a piece of ice? | explainlikeimfive | 1qmtq0 | 4 | true | false | 0.75 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdee6do",
"comment_text": [
"This is all just a guess, so I can be completely wrong. Gum is merely rubber-like substance and saliva after you've chewed on it for a bit. The ice is freezing the saliva and/or causing the rubber to become less elastic. In either case, the result will be the gum becomes more rigid and brittle, thus becoming grainy and falling apart."
],
"score": 4
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdecx7r",
"comment_text": [
"I don't chew gum anymore but this boggled my mind in my youth! Ice destroys all gum, WHY?!"
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdehdzk",
"comment_text": [
"probably because it has lots of sugar which dissolves in your saliva"
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdeols4",
"comment_text": [
"This has made me wonder for a long time... it's so disgusting."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdegfmj",
"comment_text": [
"Also: why does cheap gum eventually turn to mush and then liquid if you chew long enough?"
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: The unwritten rules of Reddit [{Serious] | explainlikeimfive | 1qmt3j | 3 | true | false | 0.71 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdecuac",
"comment_text": [
"Don't be a dick"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdedl57",
"comment_text": [
"i don't have one, so i don't plan on being one "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdecx0m",
"comment_text": [
"Corectly spel everthing haz 2 b #1 on da lizt."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdedm4i",
"comment_text": [
"th@Nkz"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdecysu",
"comment_text": [
"Don't beg for upvotes."
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: What is addictive in painkillers and what is the high "like"? | explainlikeimfive | 1qmqrt | 6 | true | false | 0.8 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdeccd0",
"comment_text": [
"The high is basically a euphoria, but if you've been suffering from long term pain, just not feeling the pain is a great feeling of well-being. \nBut of course, the dosage necessary to feel that again and again, against the tolerance you build up is where the addiction comes in. \nIf you're asking because you want to try it, DON'T. Opiate addiction is brutal, and NOT worth it. Trust me. "
],
"score": 10
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdecf70",
"comment_text": [
"When a person feels pain, the signal needs to transmit from the place where the pain occurs to your brain. The signal passes from one neuron to another over something called a synapse, a junction where one neuron sends a signal to the other using chemicals. Painkillers mostly work by changing how chemicals behave in the synapse.",
"The body, however, doesn't really like having its signals disrupted, so it will tend to change the synapse to try and reestablish previous levels. This change takes days to weeks, but it is fairly effective and it reduces the effect that an amount of the drug has.",
"Now, let's say you stop taking the drug after your body has adapted. Your body is expecting it to be there and without it (for most painkillers) the signals are now way, way too strong. Every tiny ripple of pain which your body might otherwise ignore now feels intense. Your body will eventually change, but it will, once again, take days or weeks to adjust. This is terrible for the person experiencing it and is usually enough to push them to want to keep taking it.",
"The high of painkillers is just generally pleasant. Pain dies away and is easy to ignore and the world seems just a bit smoother and more tolerable. If you can imagine a time where you felt a moment of contentment, where it seemed like everything was just going smoothly, painkillers tend to give that feeling at will."
],
"score": 8
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdef691",
"comment_text": [
"No, Codeine is actually extremely weak. No junkie seeks out Codeine. You're thinking of Oxycodone and Hydrocodone. When I was using, I wouldn't have even felt Codeine."
],
"score": 5
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdef691",
"comment_text": [
"No, Codeine is actually extremely weak. No junkie seeks out Codeine. You're thinking of Oxycodone and Hydrocodone. When I was using, I wouldn't have even felt Codeine."
],
"score": 5
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdecp4b",
"comment_text": [
"Painkillers are opiates, similar to heroin. Once you have more experience with them you can differentiate between various opiate based highs (heroin vs oxycodone/oxycontin vs hydrocodone/vicodin/lortab vs hydromorphone/dilaudid vs oxymorphone/opana vs codeine etc) and notice subtle differences in the buzz. For the most part though, they're pharmaceutical heroin. It doesn't so much get rid of pain as it makes you not care. You feel like you're wrapped in a warm fuzzy fluffy blanket physically and there's another warm blanket wrapped around your brain and you care about nothing else besides keeping that blanket wrapped around you.",
"See this to for a description of heroin: ",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/wnj2d/iama_heroin_addict_been_clean_now_for_4_months/c5ez7ne?context=1",
"I'm a recovering opiate addict and that link right there IS opiate addiction for me, to a T."
],
"score": 2
} | |
ELI5: 128-bit encryption, 256-bit encryption and the like, and why are they so hard to crack? | explainlikeimfive | 1qn3k0 | 1 | true | false | 1 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdefuqj",
"comment_text": [
"This is a really great video about encryption. It'll explain everything you want to know! :) ",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7kEpw1tn50"
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdefzgf",
"comment_text": [
"In general its all about size. The larger your number, the more possible combinations there are, and so the harder it is to guess the right number.",
"128-bit encryption gives you 340282366920938463463374607431768211456 different combinations. at 3 gHz computational speed, that would take you close to 4 years to get through."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdehv69",
"comment_text": [
"that would take you close to 4 years to get through.",
"How do you figure? I get 3x10",
" years even if you can check one combination per clock cycle (reality would take much longer), but I could be wrong."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdehys0",
"comment_text": [
"I said at 3 gHz computational speed. simplified and assuming you are simply going number by number that's about how long it would take.",
"Obviously this is too simplified to cover how an actual attacker would try to brute force the key, but it gives an idea of why it is difficult and what time scales could be involved."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdeidxh",
"comment_text": [
"It looks to me that at 3 billion checks per second you get through 340282366920938463463374607431768211456 possible keys in 3.5 Sextillion years. Am I doing the math wrong?"
],
"score": 1
} | |
Marine corp pronunciation | explainlikeimfive | 1qnfea | 0 | true | false | 0.5 | Google search said the silent p because it's a French word. Is that right? Why use French in the US military?
EDIT: should have been corps, thanks for the correction. | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdejcda",
"comment_text": [
"French has had a lot of influence on English, we have plenty of French words around. Colonel is pronounced as it is because of French, you've got foyer and lietenent too. (Although I've noticed the Americans are quite inconsistent here and often say foy-yer rather than the more correct foy-yay and loo-tenant rather than lef-tenant.)",
"Also yes, corps is pronounced core more or less."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdek23f",
"comment_text": [
"Here's ",
"a list of French words and phrases used by English speakers."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdel9ko",
"comment_text": [
"Lieutenant is not pronounced loo-tenant or lef-tenant in French. It's more like lyoot-non, so if anything, lef-tenant is wrong-er. I mean, where on earth did the F sound come from?",
"http://www.larousse.com/en/dictionaries/french/lieutenant/47084?q=lieutenant#47011",
"ETA: Wikipedia to the rescue.",
"The early history of the pronunciation is unclear; Middle English spellings suggest that the /ljuː-/ and /lɛf-/ pronunciations may have existed even then.[2] The rare Old French variant spelling luef for Modern French lieu ('place') supports the suggestion that a final [w] of the Old French word was in certain environments perceived as an [f].[2]",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieutenant#Pronunciation"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdel087",
"comment_text": [
"\"loo-tenant\" and \"lef-tenant\" are the same thing? all these years I thought \"lef-tenant\" was a responsibility instead of a rank."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdejfea",
"comment_text": [
"It's corps, with an s at the end, and yes it is pronounced \"core.\" It comes from the old French ",
", which comes from the Latin word for body, ",
" (which is where we get English words such as \"corpse\"). The US Military can use French words if they want to use French words. "
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: With surgery, what would happen if I successfully switched brains with someone else? | explainlikeimfive | 1qngzu | 8 | true | false | 1 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdekb55",
"comment_text": [
"I don't think we know."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdekto4",
"comment_text": [
"Well Robert J White's experience transplanting the brains of gorillas was that 1) medical science is incapable of repairing the damage you have to do to the spine to disconnect the brain, thus you're paralyzing the patients below the head and 2) immune system rejection gives you a few days to live. ",
"Exactly what was going through the minds of the successful transplants, which did live for a time and regain consciousness, is only really something we can guess at though. "
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdel1c3",
"comment_text": [
"So I guess my dream of installing my brain into a robot body won't ever happen, SIGH. Maybe we'll still figure out consciousness uploading some day? Anything to leave the meat behind."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdeljlx",
"comment_text": [
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_6gnqucgOc",
"clears this question up quite well and all of the sources have been confirmed."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdek59u",
"comment_text": [
"You'd have two dead bodies "
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: How does the NSA keep Facebook posts if they're deleted? | explainlikeimfive | 1qhv66 | 3 | true | false | 0.71 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdcxqw1",
"comment_text": [
"I'd imagine it's similar to how Google can Cache a website. But I'll defer to people who know more.",
"Mr Snowden, you're up."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdcy55b",
"comment_text": [
"Rule #1 of the Internet: Nothing you post, say, publish, upload, or send anywhere, on any website/domain is ever, ever, in any way, truly deleted."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdcyj4n",
"comment_text": [
"You are friends with a spy (a bad spy at that), and he leaves a secret document which is of interest at your house. Because you are interested in this information, you photocopy the document and put the copy in a drawer to look at later. Your friend later appears to take the original document, and he shreds it. The original document is destroyed, but you still have a copy."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdcymib",
"comment_text": [
"Please read the sidebar and ",
"the rules",
" before participating in ",
"/r/explainlikeimfive",
".",
"2. ELI5 is for requests for ",
". That means no questions that are just looking for straightforward answers, that are subjective, a request for a guide/walkthrough, or that are objective but not asking for an explanation of an answer. ELI5 is absolutely ",
".",
"I have removed your submission for this reason. Please don't be discouraged from making submissions in the future that are more in line with the mission of this subreddit :)"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd43su",
"comment_text": [
"Hey saltyjohnson. Thanks for the kindly message. It was my first post, but even after reading the rules I managed to blunder it. My apologies. I love this thread! Incidentally, NG96 pretty much confirmed what I suspected. :)"
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5:Why do pictures of screens have that striated star-like pattern? | explainlikeimfive | 1qhxhz | 23 | true | false | 0.9 | You know what I mean, when you use your phone to take a picture of a TV or computer screen. Why does that pattern invisible to the eye, but so obvious on a photo? I took a photo of a white screen to try to illustrate it for those who aren't sure what I'm talking about. IPhone camera: | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdcyqa7",
"comment_text": [
"Ultra simple explanation: screens display images with pixels, which are dots arranged in a grid to small see with the naked eye. A camera records an image with a grid of sensors. So you have two grids layered over each other. Where the grids don't line up you get a distortion. If you two pieces of window screen and overlay them you will see the same effect.",
"Wiki link: ",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moir%C3%A9_pattern"
],
"score": 12
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd0dz7",
"comment_text": [
"Moirè patterns also show up when photographing stripped or chequed materials with a digital camera. Just ",
" the moirè will appear depends upon the spacing of the stripes, the resolution of the sensor, and the focal length of the lens. We usually just ask actors not to show up in stripes.",
"It's possible to de-moirè an image, but this actually involves blurring the image a bit. "
],
"score": 4
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd0gg6",
"comment_text": [
"Why don't film cameras (remember those?) show moirè? Because the grains of silver are arranged randomly, rather than in a grid.",
"Can something be 'arranged' randomly? Hmmmm"
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd2f38",
"comment_text": [
"As others have mentioned, this is a Moire pattern. If you play with this ",
"flash thingy",
" a little bit, you'll get a better understanding of it than reading."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddaoje",
"comment_text": [
"It's to do with the desync in refresh rate of the 2 screens, capture. Computer monitors refresh at a certain rate (hertz), and when combined with the refresh rate of your phone, it doesn't sync up and creates lines where you can see the points of time where the screen and your phone syncs."
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5 since we can not describe colours, how can we be sure that we all see the same version of them? | explainlikeimfive | 1qhx7n | 13 | true | false | 0.69 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdcy9y6",
"comment_text": [
"We can't. That's actually a philosophical idea created by John Locke called the Inverted spectrum.",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_spectrum"
],
"score": 17
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdcypu9",
"comment_text": [
"The Ancient Greeks discussed this very question. "
],
"score": 9
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdcyem3",
"comment_text": [
"It doesn't matter, since the colors are determined by the wavelength of light that is being reflected from the object (or was it absorbed?). If what you see as red is actually what I see as green, it doesn't matter, since you've learned to call it red (or I call it green). Either way, the same wavelength of light is given off by all objects that you call green, so those objects all look alike. The same is true for my vision, all those object look alike, but red."
],
"score": 8
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdcyep3",
"comment_text": [
"Here's a good video about exactly what you mean : ",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evQsOFQju08"
],
"score": 7
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd18pw",
"comment_text": [
"All of them, probably. I think most people have this thought on their own sometime."
],
"score": 6
} | |
ELI5: Which donation method benefits the victims in the Philippines the most? | explainlikeimfive | 1qi3wo | 1 | true | false | 0.67 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd0h07",
"comment_text": [
"For disasters like this, it's hard to know how much actually goes to the victims. That said, find a good charity at ",
"www.charitywatch.org",
" and donate to their Philippines relief fund. "
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd2gto",
"comment_text": [
"Good answer!"
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd0io5",
"comment_text": [
"Heh, good question. Donating money is always tricky. There is certainly no lack of organizations competing for your money but it is not easy telling the effective ones from the ineffective of even the downright fraudulent ones.",
"\nWhat you want to do is look for organizations that are transparent in where their money goes. All off them have an administrative overhead, 10-25% are regarded as acceptable. What you find acceptable is up to you.",
"\nAlso they should be able so show what they do with the money that goes into actual help, i.e. transportation, materials, time frame etc. Ideally they state their performance on past projects so you can decide whether you want to support that cause.",
"\nI have heard good things about ",
"Médecins Sans Frontières",
" who have a big button for both \"International Financial Reports\" and \"International Activity Reports\" right on their homepage.",
"\nThus, they make it easy to look up where and how they spend the donations. Organizations that make checking them difficult or even impossible should be avoided. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd2gf6",
"comment_text": [
"In all honesty, anywhere up to 90% of money donated to 'large' charities doesn't go directly to the victims, but goes on things like administration costs, salaries, equipment, transport etc.",
"I would stick with the known 'good' ones, Red Cross/Crescent, Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) etc.",
"There is an Aussie Mob known as the ",
"National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre",
" that have a team of trained doctors and nurses that specialise in disaster recovery, as well as infectios desease control. The have just left for the Philippines to set up a mobile hospital."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddagwl",
"comment_text": [
"This post isn't asking for a laymen explanation to a concept / idea / answer - hence I've removed it. ",
"For questions that require an answer rather than an explanation, you're better off with ",
"/r/answers",
" or even ",
"www.google.com",
".",
"Thanks"
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: Why do big PDFs take forever to load in my browser (Firefox), but download to my computer much quicker? | explainlikeimfive | 1qi6rn | 2 | true | false | 0.76 | Just wondering. It would seem like if I my internet connection is fast enough to download the PDF in a few seconds, it should completely load quickly in the browser too. | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd1a1l",
"comment_text": [
"Downloading is just moving some data from one computer to another, that happens as fast as your connection and hard disk can handle it. ",
" the PDF is a complex procedure which involves decompression, fonts and images and columns of text and colours and transparency and things overlaid on other things etc. etc. That requires your computer's CPU to do lots of thinking. "
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd7rfw",
"comment_text": [
"I'm unconvinced; as the process of downloading a PDF then firing it up in a PDF viewer, is still several times faster and more reliable than viewing it in the browser, most of the time.",
"The in-browser view often has a display saying that it's downloading the file which proceeds a lot slower than if you save the file; and going from page to page in the browser PDF viewer is a lot slower than going from page to page in the standalone PDF viewer."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd99cs",
"comment_text": [
"It's not just slower to render, it's actually considerably slower to load the whole file. It seems the same in all browsers."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd8d5w",
"comment_text": [
"You're not unconvinced, you're asking a completely different question. So you want to know why Firefox's PDF viewer is slower than \"the standalone PDF viewer\"? I don't know what that is but you're asking why one application is faster than another. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd7rn8",
"comment_text": [
"Off-topic here, but if you use some other viewer besides Adobe's, then PDFs are faster all around. I use SumatraPDF."
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: What an isotope is and how it differs from an ion. | explainlikeimfive | 1qi7fa | 3 | true | false | 0.81 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd1bmq",
"comment_text": [
"Atoms are defined by the number of protons in the nucleus. Carbon has 6, and always 6 protons. However, Carbon also has neutrons in the nucelus (as do all the elements except a few). Carbon exists in two ",
", Carbon 12 (which has 6 protons and 6 neutrons) and Carbon 14 (which has 6 protons and 8 neutrons). Neutrons help to stabilize the nucleus, and so isotopes have different ",
" (radioactive) properties. ",
"The number of protons in the nucleus also affects the charge of the nucleus, since each has a charge of +1. The protons attract electrons, normally an equal number, each with a charge of -1. Carbon normally has 6 protons, and it has 6 electrons. When The protons equal the electrons the charge is zero and the atom is said to be neutral. When the number of electrons changes, the atom gains a charge, and it is now said to be an ",
". Electrons have an effect on how an atom will interact with other atoms, and so the number of electrons affects ",
" (bonding) properties.",
"Welcome to the wonderful world of atoms.",
"edit: to everyone discussing atoms vs elements. I'd agree that the number of protons determines what element you are dealing with. That being said, I'd also have to say that pointing out the difference in ELI5 is incredibly pedantic. Also, as long as we're getting pedantic, I said that atoms are defined by the number of protons they possess, which is an entirely true and accurate statement, I never tried to define the word atom. "
],
"score": 6
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd1pex",
"comment_text": [
"(as do all the elements except a few)",
"Hydrogen is the only atom without a neutron. A Helium-2 (two protons, no neutrons) is so unstable that there is doubt that it has ever been observed, and its half-life is anybody's guess."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd1k4a",
"comment_text": [
"You've forgotten ",
"carbon-13"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd1t6h",
"comment_text": [
"The middle child of the Carbon family"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd21dn",
"comment_text": [
"He means \"The number of protons in the nucleus of an atom determines which element it is an atom of\". His actual wording is an acceptable substitution at ELI5 level IMHO.",
"If you want to get pedantic, \"The element is determined by the number of protons\" isn't very good either, for example some substance which contains 6 million protons could consist of 1 million carbon atoms, or 3 million hydrogen molecules, or various other possibilities. You seem to be talking about atoms but trying to avoid actually using the word \"atom\" for some reason (perhaps because you want to include H",
" in the discussion but you don't consider it to be an atom)."
],
"score": 2
} | |
Eli5: The two dollar bill. | explainlikeimfive | 1qi7uf | 3 | true | false | 0.72 | Why do they make them? Why do they seem so rare, but also not very rare at all? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd3hf3",
"comment_text": [
"I'm going to assume you're from the US.",
"Two dollar bills make up a small amount of the notes in circulation, but they are still being produced so they aren't \"rare\" like old prints and other collectable currency.",
"If you consider the other denominations they seem like a sensible fit: $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100. They're obviously useful for buying small items or making up change, it means you can carry less $1 bills and have a low chance of needing note change (as opposed to the $5 and up).",
"There's no real practical reason why they don't print more to drive up circulation, but in general people are used to just using the one dollar bill. According to Wikipedia some people consider two dollar bills unlucky, and because some store owners don't actually know they're a real thing some people have had trouble trying to spend them."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd57q8",
"comment_text": [
"They make them because Congress passed a law in 1862 authorizing them, and the law has never been repealed.",
"They seem rare because people don't spend them. When they get $2 bills, many people hoard them as a novelty. If you want $2 bills, it's literally as easy as going to the bank and asking for them. I routinely get $2 bills from the bank, typically $200 at a time, with the express purpose of circulating them, and probably 80% of the time they have at least a few in the drawer. I've never had a problem spending them. Some cashiers get confused and don't know where to put them in the till, and others have no visible reaction at all. I spend them as tips a lot. For the girl who cuts my hair I'm basically the Tooth Fairy's banker as she takes the $2s I give her and gives them to her kids.",
"Recently I had the same idea about halves (aka the 50¢ piece). Those they actually don't make anymore other than for collectors; the last halves intended for circulation were minted in 2002. To get some I had to have the bank order them for me, and they only come in boxes of $500. (For more information see ",
"/r/crh",
", where people order halves looking for older ones that are made of silver.)"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd3jhp",
"comment_text": [
"Of the three you linked only the US $2 bill is still in circulation, the Canadian and Australian notes have both been replaced by coins."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd3jhp",
"comment_text": [
"Of the three you linked only the US $2 bill is still in circulation, the Canadian and Australian notes have both been replaced by coins."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddc41f",
"comment_text": [
"Well currently people are seeing them more often because of the strip club industry. The strip clubs have figured out to only give change in 2$ bills instead of singles. That way every time you tip, you tip twice as much. ",
"So every nice crisp 2$ bill you find has been through a strip club. "
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: With the abundance of insects, especially in Earth's past, why aren't there more carnivorous plants? | explainlikeimfive | 1qi8ro | 1 | true | false | 0.67 | Animals too, I guess. Lots of those... Why wouldn't more plants eat them? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd210l",
"comment_text": [
"For the most part, you only see carnivorous plants in areas of poor soil quality, where they must derive some of their nutrients (mainly nitrogen) from other locations.",
"I am not quite certain why you might not see large quantities of carnivorous plants supplementing their nutritional intake in other locations, but I would assume that it comes down to energy. Everything takes energy to do, and there is no reason to do something in a complicated fashion if the same task can be accomplished by a simpler mechanism. Digestion by plants is not a rapid process, so I would guess that expending resources to make bug traps for most plants is not worth the same amount of resources dedicated to deriving nutrients from the soil."
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd1mw2",
"comment_text": [
"For it to be an evolutionary advantage there have to be a ",
" of bugs around. You do see more of then in tropical areas where there are a lot of bugs."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd2rfb",
"comment_text": [
"Because evolution doesn't plan. It just takes what it has and adapts it through natural selection. If normal plants work better in most places then they're what will win. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd4jtz",
"comment_text": [
"Adding on to everyone else, carnivorous plants can survive completely on photosynthesis like other plants, eating insects just gives them more energy."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd1r61",
"comment_text": [
"Any answer you get is going to be a ",
"just-so story",
", and ultimately unverifiable.",
"The best answer you're going to get is that there wasn't a big enough advantage that anytime someone started to fill that niche they were more successful than they'd have been otherwise. "
],
"score": 0
} | |
What is dryer lint, and what really happens if i never clean it out? | explainlikeimfive | 1qi9eg | 3 | true | false | 0.72 | Also, any other uses for it? I know it's pretty useful for starting camp fires | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd1tl8",
"comment_text": [
"It's also pretty useful for dryer fires, so I'm told."
],
"score": 10
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd24lu",
"comment_text": [
"Also why I lick my orange fingers, to avoid cheetotanious combustion. "
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd3n97",
"comment_text": [
"One of my neighbors had a house burn down because they didn't clean out their lint trap. Not something to fuck with."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd55wf",
"comment_text": [
"It's important to clean it out for two reasons. First because in order for a dryer to dry your clothes well it must have good air flow. Heat alone would take a very long time to dry your close. There has to be a place for the humid air to escape. If the lint filter is clogged it can almost completely stop air flow. Now the second reason is defiantly because it's a fire hazard. "
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd1w14",
"comment_text": [
"It's small stones and weasel shit, commonly known as dust. If you don't clean it from the entire ventilating system your home will burn down. Cheetos are a better campfire starter."
],
"score": 1
} | |
Why do motorbikes stabilize with speed? | explainlikeimfive | 1qii3i | 2 | true | false | 1 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd4qq0",
"comment_text": [
"As the wheels turn faster, they become gyroscopes. Gyros have a basic principal that resist external forces applied to them called \"rigidity in space\" (not to be confused with the pigs). Although, a force applied to the gyro happens 90 degrees in the direction of the rotation called \"gyroscopic precession\" Example: If you were traveling at a high rate of speed on your motorcycle and rapidly turned the handlebars to the left, the force applied to the wheel would be at the 3 o'clock position pushing from left to right. The reaction would be at the 12 o'clock position forcing the the bike to lean in the opposite direction (right lean, right turn). That is why one leans in the turns at high speeds and doesn't use the handlebars alone. I hope this helps."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd4s2p",
"comment_text": [
"Conservation of angular momentum. Basically, when you have an object that is spinning very quickly, in this case the tire, it will maintain that momentum, which keeps the tires vertical.",
"For a more detailed answer, watch ",
"This Sixty Symbols Video",
" (skip to 1:53 for the part directly related to bikes)"
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddb6zn",
"comment_text": [
"Gyroscopic effect is a very commonly cited answer, as seen here by the other comments, but it is actually quite wrong. The wheels of a motorcycle has negligible mass compared to the rest of the rider/cycle system, so any gyroscopic effects will be equally small.",
"Motorcycles - and bicycles - are designed with ",
"positive trail",
", which provides a mechanism for self-righting. That is, if the bike tilts to one side, the wheel naturally turns into the tilt. This is, by far, the biggest factor.",
"There are other effects at play here, as it's been demonstrated that in the absence of even ",
" of these parameters, a bike can be self-righting."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd5qoe",
"comment_text": [
"Example: If you were traveling at a high rate of speed on your motorcycle and rapidly turned the handlebars to the left, the force applied to the wheel would be at the 3 o'clock position pushing from left to right. The reaction would be at the 12 o'clock position forcing the the bike to lean in the opposite direction (right lean, right turn).",
"Yes, and to elaborate a little bit further:\nSports bikes riders will even use this consciously as an aid in order to lay the motorbike down, especially if they are coming in uncomfortably fast, in a curve. By pressing the handle bars in the opposite direction of the curve, they actually force the bike down so they can take the curve. ",
"But steering at any speeds higher than pretty slow really works the same way, you lean the bike into the turn by subtle movements of the handlebars in the wrong direction (even on bicycles), you just normally don't think about it.",
"Because the gyroscopic precession will naturally apply to the force when trying to lay the bike down in a curve as well. So applying a force on the 12 o'clock position would yield a reaction at the 3 o'clock position. So trying to force the bike down by shifting body weight doesn't really work at all, the gyroscopic precession makes sure of that. The reason bikers in races are shifting their body weight is not in order to lean the bike down, it's in order to bring the center of gravity of the bike+driver as low to the ground as possible in order to be able to go as fast as possible. "
],
"score": 0
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddb4uk",
"comment_text": [
"No, that's wrong. ",
"Countersteering",
" has nothing to do with gyroscopic effect, but it has to do with how and where the wheel contacts the ground in relation to the center of mass.",
"Even for a motorcycle, the gyroscopic forces are small compared to other design considerations."
],
"score": 0
} | |
ELI5: Why does our body freak out when entering cold water. but not warm/hot water? | explainlikeimfive | 1qis0c | 5 | true | false | 0.78 | [deleted] | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd7zp5",
"comment_text": [
"Thank you for that. I had kind of an idea, and now i know!"
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd7zp5",
"comment_text": [
"Thank you for that. I had kind of an idea, and now i know!"
],
"score": 3
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd7tfm",
"comment_text": [
"Not really very scientific but, looking at evolution, running into cold water is something that might happen in nature so animals need to have a response to save them from it. Water that's hot enough to damage our body isn't that common."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddslpr",
"comment_text": [
"You are confusing two different responses. Your body's reaction to water at 160 degrees is different to your body's reaction at 40 degrees.",
"Basically, you have two types of sensors in your skin: hot and cold. During exposure to very hot (burning) temperatures, both of these sensors fire at the same time. And you feel extreme pain. This reaction is fundamentally different than exposure to very cold temperatures, where only the cold sensors are activated, and you don't feel pain, you feel an urge to remove yourself from the cold."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd7dzh",
"comment_text": [
"I think it's just the sudden change in temperature, at least that's what it is for me"
],
"score": 1
} | |
ELI5: How come one of my nostrils is ALWAYS plugged? | explainlikeimfive | 1qj1me | 0 | true | false | 0.5 | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd9ndh",
"comment_text": [
"That's how the human body works. We (mainly) only breathe out of one nostril at a time. We just don't really become aware of it unless we take a second to realize it. Also sometimes how much the other one is plugged is more prominent making it more noticeable "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd9nyr",
"comment_text": [
"Not a doctor but found this on the web:\nThis is a common problem for people. First of all, no one breathes 100% out of both sides of their nose at the same time. The nose goes through what is called the nasal cycle where one side swells up while the other one shrinks or \"unswells\". Their are a lot of theories as to why but it can be due to hormonal or local mediating factors. That being said, you should be able to breath through both sides some. The nasal septum (the cartilage and bone that separates the nasal cavity into a right and left side) can be deviated causing your symptoms. I would suspect this is part of the problem if one side is always more obstructed than the other. Another source of congestion/obstruction is from turbinate hypertrophy (enlarged). Inside your nose there are several swellings called turbinates. They are made up of a thin piece of bone covered by erectile tissue that swells when exposed to pollen, pollution and other chemicals. This is what is primarily changing and causing the nasal cycle. The purpose of these structures is to humidify and heat the air that you breath in through your nose. Sometimes these can get too large or too swollen due to allergies or other factors and this can lead to nasal obstruction. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdd9v39",
"comment_text": [
"So would you think getting a humidifier could potentially cause temporary relief from the swelling? So I can at least sleep and be able to breathe through both. "
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdda1s0",
"comment_text": [
"The only tips I can give you out of personal experience is:\nHumidifiers can cause a great relief but I can't guarantee that it will do the trick. Furthermore, most (or all) pharmacies and drug stores sell over the counter nasal sprays that also help clearing up congestion. One thing I have to add to this is; a friend of mine has the same problem with only one side of his nose chronically congested. After he started using nasal spray daily for a couple of weeks, his nose got used to the spray and when he stopped using it, the congestion would be ten times worse than before starting to use it. Now he is kinda addicted to the spray because he cannot comfortably breathe without using it. I recommend to try the spray but only use it for a maximum of one week in a row but I think the pharmacy/drug store can give you more information on this."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddarqc",
"comment_text": [
"does nobody here read the rules? search before posting this question has been asked many times. "
],
"score": 1
} | ||
ELI5: Prisoner Confession before and during Torture | explainlikeimfive | 1qj93n | 1 | true | false | 0.6 | In the movies and TV it seems like many people undergo horrible pain before succumbing to a confession. In cases where the person is indeed holding back the truth, do most people crack before torture begins? Those who don't crack right away, do they really think they can hold out from confessing? | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddbgbq",
"comment_text": [
"It has been shown that, when subjected to torture, people will say just about anything to make it stop. However, what they say isn't necessarily true."
],
"score": 6
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddfags",
"comment_text": [
" ",
" ",
" ",
" ",
" ",
" ",
" ",
" ",
" ",
"There are laws against torture",
". In a large part of the world, torture is illegal and \"evidence\" obtained under duress cannot be used in court. ",
"Truly, that something is illegal doesn't mean that it isn't done, but it is not fair to say that",
"most governments sanction torture to extract useful information",
"because, at least officially, they condemn it."
],
"score": 2
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddbpna",
"comment_text": [
"Why is the goal to \"just break you\"? What functional value is there in that kind of scenario? Maybe I am naive but I am making an assumption that most governments sanction torture to extract useful information...not to simply break the spirit of the enemy..."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cddbpna",
"comment_text": [
"Why is the goal to \"just break you\"? What functional value is there in that kind of scenario? Maybe I am naive but I am making an assumption that most governments sanction torture to extract useful information...not to simply break the spirit of the enemy..."
],
"score": 1
} | {
"comment_id": "t1_cdde80t",
"comment_text": [
"Most governments ",
" practice torture."
],
"score": 1
} |
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