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value | url stringlengths 4 110 | answers dict | title_urls list | selftext_urls list | answers_urls list |
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7xpfhn | why do very tall (7"+) people have odd proportions? e.g skinny, long necks. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7xpfhn/eli5_why_do_very_tall_7_people_have_odd/ | {
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"text": [
"You're looking at it the wrong way.\n\nIt's not that 7ft tall people have \"odd proportions\" it's because in order to become that tall you need \"odd proportions\".\n\nA few rare body conditions make people grow much taller than normal so I guess that's it.",
"I’m on mobile (and also I need to put down my phone and go to sleep), but the Wikipedia pages for [acromegaly](_URL_0_), [gigantism](_URL_2_), and [Marfan syndrome](_URL_1_) might be helpful."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acromegaly",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marfan_syndrome",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigantism"
]
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vqk95 | what is drm free and how do you even notice if it is not there? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/vqk95/eli5_what_is_drm_free_and_how_do_you_even_notice/ | {
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"DRM (Digital Rights Management) is software that puts restrictions on other software or files, like music or film or video games. The specific function of DRM is to be restrictive, sometimes it only restricts your ability to copy the software and sometimes it requires a permanent internet connection to a server to use the software or view the files and sometimes it requires the use of another piece of software to function.\n\nThese different types of DRM are intrusive in different ways and hated to different degrees, but the one thing that is common across all DRM is that it restricts what the user can do.\n\nDRM free means that a file or piece of software does not contain any DRM. Once you have the file or software you are free to do whatever you want with it and use it however you like.\n",
"DRM is a very broad term. It means \"Digital Rights Management,\" and broadly covers any of the different ways that files are protected or restricted under copyright/trademark/patent conditions that the rights holder (the manufacturer) desires. Some DRM is un-invasive, some DRM is incredibly invasive. How do you notice that it's NOT there? Usually DRM affects two primary areas- how you use your files, and how you share your files. If you can use your files anywhere at any time in any way you wish, AND if you can infinitely copy these files to any source you wish (computer to compter, computer to flashdrive, to harddrive, to cloud, to CD/DVD, etc.), then that most likely signifies that there is no DRM. ",
"DRM restricts your use of files. If it's DRM free, you can do anything you want with it, like copy it, burn it to a disk, distribute it, etc. If the file is DRM protected, then you'd only be able to do what it allows you to, like simply play it for yourself. "
]
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cbe85t | difference between being anxious and being nervous? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cbe85t/eli5_difference_between_being_anxious_and_being/ | {
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"In my layperson’s opinion, anxiousness pervades beyond the immediate circumstances whereas nervousness does not. If you’re worried about something that’s about to happen in 5 minutes, you’re nervous; if you’re worried about something that probably won’t happen for days if at all, you’re anxious.",
"Well, imagine you know that you'd be killed and you can do nothing to change it (though you have no reason to believe that someone want to kill you). This would be anxiety. And now imagine that you're on exam and your future depends on your performance. That's being nervous.\n\nFirst is feeling a future threat or failure, it's feeling between sore, fear and despair of something practically inevitable (even though it is probably not only \"evitable\", but you can consciously understand that subject of your feeling may even not be a threat at all or may be easily avoidable, but subconsciously you just can't make not feeling this way and you're in closed loop of your thoughts and can't do anything other, it's like short-circuit in your brain that makes you thinking and thinking about it and feeling it more and more deeply and disturbing).\n\nAnd second is kinda overthinking subject of fear or failure and... well... being nervous, worry about smth that could happen, but then you can just, like, distract from it and not thinking about it and everything becomes okay.\n\nYeah, you're most probably overthinking it, like most other people who thinks they have anxiety and panic attacks, they literally thinking not about their fear or cause of anxiety, but about them fearing or feeling anxiety, it's like they want to feel it instead of actually feeling it, while they should not wanting to feel it and not thinking about it.\n\nBut our brain works that way that reading descriptions like this one we immediately trying to feel descripted, trying to find depicted sympoms in ourselves (see [cyberchondria](_URL_0_)) and that's the reason for most cases' anxiety - not because it's real anxiety, but because we read about anxiety and think that that it is (though, of course there's some percent of people with real disorder).",
"Nervousness: Short-term, non-persistent outside of the immediate scenario or cause for the nervousness. \n\n \\- You go to get a vaccination. The needle makes you nervous because you fear the sting, but once it's all over you go back to being relaxed, and no longer worry about it. You don't become autistic. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nAnxiety: Long-term, persists outside the immediate scenario or cause of the anxiety. \n\n\\- You go to get a vaccination. You worry about it in the week leading up to it. You fidget in the waiting room. You're uncomfortable when the doctor gives you the needle. You worry about all the side-effects long after the vaccination days afterwards, even if there are none. Even the thought of another needle starts you worrying again. You *look* a bit autistic, but it's not because of the vaccine: It's because you suffer from chronic anxiety.",
"Nervousness is when our 'flight or fight' instincts kick in for rational reasons. Anxiety is when it becomes irrational, unhelpful and, in some cases, debilitating."
]
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[],
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberchondria"
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f616iq | how do satellites measure ocean salinity? | [_URL_0_](_URL_0_) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f616iq/eli5_how_do_satellites_measure_ocean_salinity/ | {
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"text": [
"Salinity changes how water reflects microwaves.\n\nSatellites can capture the reflection of microwaves, so some math, and figure out how much different the area they’re looking at compares to pure water."
]
} | [] | [
"https://salinity.oceansciences.org/"
] | [
[]
] | |
631j80 | how to e.r. doctors determine the course of treatment for an unresponsive, alone patient? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/631j80/eli5_how_to_er_doctors_determine_the_course_of/ | {
"a_id": [
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"Science.\n\nSpecifically, the knowledge of what conditions can result in a person losing consciousness, and time-tested protocols that have shown what works and what doesn't.\n\nFor example, unconsciousness occurs when your brain doesn't have enough energy to function. This can happen if there isn't enough blood, enough fuel, enough oxygen, a non-pumping heart or some kind of infection or disease process that prevents the brain from functioning normally.\n\nBecause doctors already know what can cause unconsciousness, they fill in the gaps with history and quick bedside assessment. If the patient comes alone, you can make an educated guess based on their age, gender, whether they have any ID or information on them, and a fair battery of bedside tests such as a fingerprick glucose, an ECG, and evaluating the important things such as body temperature, breathing rate, pulse and blood oxygen content.\n\nAlso, in addition to unresponsiveness, you have to worry about making sure the patient's condition doesn't worsen, so that involves protecting the person's airway to make sure that they get enough oxygen to their organs, and keeping their heart, kidneys and brain well supplied by blood.\n\nAll this is done in the case of people showing up straight to the ER, but generally the basic stabilization is done by Emergency Medical Technicians/ Officers in countries that have a good EMS program."
]
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[]
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1srp06 | why do the thepiratebay's old domains (_url_1_, _url_0_) still redirect to new domain if they were seized? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1srp06/eli5_why_do_the_thepiratebays_old_domains/ | {
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"text": [
"mine didn't redirect. I had the \"Oops! Google Chrome could not find _URL_0_\n\nTry reloading: piratebay.sx\" page",
"I get a website unavailable page, however I'm also using OpenDNS so that's probably got something to do with it.",
"As no one has really answered this correctly yet I'll give it a go...\n\nWhen a domain is seized any changes can only be affected at the root level for that exact domain; there is now \"purge\" functionality in DNS, so there is always going to be previously cached queries on thousands of 'downstream' servers that technically are still valid as long as the TTL (expiration date) for those records has not yet expired, so those valid cached records will just be used to resolve to IP address for you as long as you hit one of the DNS servers that has a cached copy (DNS servers cache just about everything they can and this is the magic that makes DNS so massively scalable, also of course more popular domains are more likely to be in cache everywhere.)\n\nSo here's a simplified version of what happens with DNS and where I think you can work around a domain seizure (a little bit at least.)\nDNS works by first looking for a valid record to answer the question \"where is this server\" if it does not find that first in your browser or your PC's DNS cache then it moves to your ISP's DNS servers, now they very likely have a valid cached copy already (if its a popular domain) but if they do not then your ISP server may instead still have a cached copy of where the DNS servers for that domain are so then they can go directly to those servers and ask them... and here's where you can be tricky!!\n\nIf you first set the NS records for any domain to include a list of DNS servers from alternate domains (which is perfectly within the spec) and you maintain a high TTL for them then once that domain is seized you'll still catch a ton of traffic trying to resolve to that domain far after the time of the seizure because the cached NS records are still valid. Now what you can do is change any records for the seized domain on those other servers (as they are still within your administrative control) probably you should send them to a web server and do a 301 redirect (permanent) but I see piratebay only do a 302 redirect (temporary) but the immediate affect is the same.\n\nOf course if they are only seizing domains, not actual servers or IP ranges, you still have live servers at the same live IP addresses you only need to make sure redirects occur on the server side for the old domain names... a DNS change is actually not even needed as long as you set everything up as I explained above.\n \nTrying to keep it ELI5 compatible... sorry.\n\nAlso I *think* _URL_0_ has not been seized afaik but it does now redirect to _URL_1_ in case it will be some day."
]
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"thepiratebay.se",
"thepiratebay.sx"
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"piratebay.sx"
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dtsvfv | how does the phrase 'trust but verify' not directly contradict itself? | Because if you trusted somebody, why would there be a need to verify them? Wouldn't verifying only be done if you didn't trust them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dtsvfv/eli5_how_does_the_phrase_trust_but_verify_not/ | {
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"It's consistent because it is to say I trust that an operation was undertaken in good faith with pure motives, I'm just going to make sure there weren't any unnoticed mistakes and nothing has changed or was miscommunicated.",
"It's similar to the use of \"we never negotiate with terrorists\" or \"innocent until proven guilty\". If we always doubt people coming with new findings, it is likely that we will be Selective of which information we actually accept. Let's say something controversial was found, \"racists are generally more likable than other people\" I would instinctively be quick to dismiss it. However, it is very important that I, let's say I was a scientist, actually accept the finding. However, I should also make sure to test objectively to see if my dismissive hunch was correct.\n\nThe point of the phrase is actually to make sure that two vital but contradictive actions Both always happen. \"always verify\" would close us to new findings, but \"always trust\" would of course make us accept blindly things that are wrong. We need both, thus the saying.",
"It's just like sampling inspection in manufacturing. You trust the manufacturer or assembly operator to follow the instructions but you pull and inspect every, say 100th unit, just to verify everything is going right. Humans do make mistakes. If they didn't , you wouldn't have to \"verify\"."
]
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1rjhbr | when a town or a city elects a dog or a cat for mayor, how does that end up working? | I've seen several towns that elected animals as their mayors, and I'm really curious about how that works. Does the animal actually get paid? Do they actually get an office? Is their presence required at official events? I read this article: _URL_0_
and I just don't see how a cat or a dog could fulfill this role. Well, maybe a cat... | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rjhbr/eli5_when_a_town_or_a_city_elects_a_dog_or_a_cat/ | {
"a_id": [
"cdnw262",
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"text": [
"It is never official.\n\nTypically it only occurs in unincorporated towns where they don't have government at anything lower than the county level. Such communities will often elect an unofficial mayor as sort of a spokesman. Since there are no real laws covering this, there is nothing stopping them from getting silly from time to time.",
"They hire an appointee to smoke crack cocaine for him/her and blow in in their face. Dogs are less keen on this change than cats. "
]
} | [] | [
"http://people.howstuffworks.com/government/local-politics/mayor1.htm"
] | [
[],
[]
] | |
6vml9k | how do skulls and, specifically, brain cavities grow in humans? | I'm at a loss, considering a skull is solid bone and doesn't seem like it could expand through one's formative years. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6vml9k/eli5_how_do_skulls_and_specifically_brain/ | {
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"dm1dyxi"
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"text": [
"The skull does not start out as one solid chunk of bone. At birth, it consists of multiple plates connected by cartilage. Infants have a soft spot, aka a fontanelle, where you can feel that bone has not fully formed and even see the baby's pulse. The plates grow larger and the cartilage is replaced by bone, which eventually fuses the plates together into one solid skull. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
5vfmtw | for example, when they say "the market goes up/down/stabilize", who are they referring to as "the market", and who controls it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5vfmtw/eli5_for_example_when_they_say_the_market_goes/ | {
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"\"The market\" is a casual term for the collection of buyers and sellers, and the prices of things bought and sold. Noone really controls it, other than by choosing if and when to buy or sell, and at what price.\n\nThink of a flock of birds.",
"The market is the stock market. Basically every company that is publicly owned. Often they are not talking about the market, but a specific index fund. One common index fund the Dow Jones industrial average, which is made up of 30 very large companies. So people might say \"Dow jones is up 3% today, which means those 30 stocks went up 3% today on average\".\n\nNow, lets talk about one stock. I owe a lemonade stand, and my companies future value is worth about 100 dollars. I have 100 shares of stock, and each one is worth 1 dollar. If I report that sales are great this quarter, my stock price will go up, because I'm profitable. If I announce that I'm entering the iced tea market, and I project to double sales, my stock price will go up. Basically when buying a stock you are predicting that the company will be worth more in the future. \n\nNow, why do companies sell stock? To raise money. If I invent facebook, I eventually want to get some money for my invention. There are not many people who can give me 50 billion dollars, but I can sell millions of shares at a small price and raise money easier.\n\nOr if I am a company, and want to build a new factory. I can take out a loan, or I can issue more stock. The stock gives me money to build a factory and make more money. In return I issue stock.\n\nA lot of stock pays dividends. So once a year they pay out a small amount to every stock holder. Think of it as profit sharing. They make money, and give a bit back to all their shareholders. That is the incentive to own stock. A lot of people are hoping the stock value goes up, but if you are thinking longer term you also get a return on your money from the dividends the stock pays.",
"I see a lot of straight forward \"stock market\" comments- that's bullshit.\n\nIt really depends on the context- could be the different [stock or commodity exchanges](_URL_0_), the housing market, job market, private investment market. Really depends on the context."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stock_exchanges"
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9b5hyf | why does body move slowly in outer space? without resistance of gravity shouldn't muscles move faster? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9b5hyf/eli5_why_does_body_move_slowly_in_outer_space/ | {
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"It doesn't move slowly at all.\n\nThe spacesuits are bulky and have air pressure resistance. The \"slow motion\" is due to the suits. Inside the spacecrafts, people move in regular speeds.",
"People move more slowly so exactly what you're describing doesn't happen. The Third Law of Motion: if you jerk your body around, you'll get equal and opposite reactions. In zero-G, you learn to move fluidly and slowly to minimize the herky-jerky that comes with quick motions."
]
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2xcm87 | if we know of the people who have gone over seas to fight for isis. why can't we just not allow them back into the country? | It seems like the most logical thing to do. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xcm87/eli5_if_we_know_of_the_people_who_have_gone_over/ | {
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"text": [
"That's exactly what's happening. \n\nThe problem isn't that we know of specific people who fight for ISIS and that they can then come back. The problem is that we know there are specific people doing this, and that means it's possible, if not incredibly likely, there are more that we *don't* specifically know about. And those are the ones that will be able to come back and create problems. ",
"Article 13.2 of the UN declaration of human rights\n\n > Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.",
"What if they are still working for ISIS..? I don't think you would want to bring a threat back into your country."
]
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[],
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f7ozh4 | are there any differences in the effectiveness of skincare products that have the same active ingredient? | For example, most acne treatment products have 0.5% - 2% Salicylic acid. If two products both contain 1% of it, is there any difference in what they can do? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f7ozh4/eli5_are_there_any_differences_in_the/ | {
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"text": [
"Short answer: no. If the active ingredients are the same, then you get the same actions.\n\nLong answer: maybe. The non-active ingredients may play some role in preserving the active ingredient, helping it get to the site of action or making it easier to use. They may also just be fillers to bulk up the product or things like perfumes that drive consumer preference but don’t effect the potency or action.\n\nMost generic OTC stuff in your market or pharmacy are indistinguishable, on a chemical or pharmacological level, from the brand name item."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
6y0n6q | i know the sun is visible from pluto and beyond, but at what distance does it stop providing enough light to actually illuminate things for our eyes to detect? on what planet would it still be dark during the "day"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6y0n6q/eli5_i_know_the_sun_is_visible_from_pluto_and/ | {
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"text": [
"The [NASA Pluto Time website](_URL_0_ ) says that noon on Pluto is about as light as 10PM in the California desert. As someone who's been to the California desert at 10PM, it's too dark to see a lot of things with that much light. At Pluto the Sun is too dark to see by (well), but of course you can See the Sun if you look at it..\n\nYour eyes can see a star from a long way away. Tau Ceti is a g-type star, like the Sun, that's 12 light years away. You can see it without a telescope if you're in a spot with excellent viewing (it's in the constellation Cetus (the sea monster)).",
"The sun as seen from Pluto would still be [far brighter] (_URL_0_) than the full moon is as seen from earth. So if you can read by the light the full moon (some people say they can, others not), you should be able read quite easily by the light of the sun from Pluto. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/pluto/plutotime"
],
[
"http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/03/15/bafact-math-how-bright-is-the-sun-from-pluto/#.Wa3x08iGM2w"
]
] | ||
br0lsi | why do different injections go in different parts of the body? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/br0lsi/eli5_why_do_different_injections_go_in_different/ | {
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"text": [
"Different routes absorb at different rates is the primary reason. Where you want the medication to go is another. You can push a smaller amount of a medication through a vein and have it take affect quickly or you can push a large dose into a muscle and have it start working over time. Also, you might be injecting a medication like lidocaine to numb a specific location; lidocaine in the veins is done to treat certain heart conditions and could be fatal otherwise.",
"Some drugs work best when they're injected just under the skin, others when they're inside a muscle, and others need to be in your bloodstream.\n\nSome parts of your body make it easier to hit each of those things. For instance, your arm for blood veins, your stomach for under the skin, and your rear end for muscles.\n\nSometimes a doctor will use a certain spot because that's what he's used to, and sometimes if you ask, they might be willing to use a different one.",
"It depends on the drug and desired rate of absorption into the body..IV based medications go directly into the blood stream, generally used for medications where you want the drug to act almost instantly (think Propofol, used to put you to sleep)...Subcutaneous types of injections go directly under the skin (like Insulin)...This type of injection is slow acting because there are very few blood vessels in that layer of skin and therefore allows a slower rate of absorption..Then you have intramuscular injections which go directly into the muscle..There are more blood vessels in the muscles and allow for a faster absorption rate..However, not every drug is able to be taken via IV, just like not every drug is able to be used as a subcutaneous injection...There are other types of injections, but the idea is the same!"
]
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9c37hp | why do some objects float? | So like why do metals sink and plastics float? How come big metal boats don't just sink?
Edit: I should point out this was asked for the purpose of university study, learning certain ways how people teach/explain specific topics. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9c37hp/eli5_why_do_some_objects_float/ | {
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"Ships float because they are mostly hollow and the weight of the water they displace is higher than the weight of the ship itself.",
"Its all about density. Specifically, whether or not the average density of everything below the water line is more or less dense than water. For example, a solid iron bar will sink because iron is more dense than water, but a metal boat can float because a lot of what is under the water line is just air (because the boat is hollow).\n\n & #x200B;\n\nAs to \\*why\\* this happens, consider what is required for something to sink. That object needs to push harder into the water than the water is pushing back at it. Both of these pushing forces come from gravity (gravity on the object pushes it down, gravity on the water around the object pushing the water in and up underneath the object). The amount of force gravity pushes with is just a multiple of the object's density, so if the object is less dense than water it pushes with less force, and thus can't force the water out of its way to sink.",
"Density\n\nObjects float because they push water out of the way and that water pushed up on them. If they're less dense than water then they'll push enough out of the way before they're completely underwater, if they're denser than water they won't and they'll be fully submerged"
]
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5hqio8 | why is vitiligo considered a disease? | Why is a -not normal- body mechanism considered a disease when it have absolutely no negative effect and doesn't cause problems to the body. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5hqio8/eli5_why_is_vitiligo_considered_a_disease/ | {
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"db45tmo"
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"text": [
"It does cause problems, in extremely hot and sunny places where skin colour and tanning would normally act as protection from UV, the white blotches are burnt very easily and have a higher chance of developing skin cancers"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
jixjt | how tourism works in communist countries. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jixjt/eli5_how_tourism_works_in_communist_countries/ | {
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"text": [
"I have been a tourist in Laos, Vietnam, and China: three of the five countries which are self-declared communist. It works the same way there as any other country. Tourism brings in money, they like tourists as much as anywhere else. Visas are a bit more annoying than comparable places like Thailand though.\n\nThe other two, North Korea and Cuba, may be different, particularly the former.",
"I have been a tourist in Laos, Vietnam, and China: three of the five countries which are self-declared communist. It works the same way there as any other country. Tourism brings in money, they like tourists as much as anywhere else. Visas are a bit more annoying than comparable places like Thailand though.\n\nThe other two, North Korea and Cuba, may be different, particularly the former."
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9rl9ku | why no matter what you eat/drink your excrements have more or less the same colour? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9rl9ku/eli5_why_no_matter_what_you_eatdrink_your/ | {
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"Your body digests most of what causes food to have color.\n\nPoop would be a dull greyish color....but what gives it the brown color is the remnants of red blood cells. We are almost always getting rid of old blood cells, so our poop is almost always brown. ",
"A large percentage of feces is made up of bilirubin, made from dead red blood cells, and has an orange-brown color. You also get some bile from the gallbladder, which is yellow but mixes with bilirubin to make it more brown.",
"When your red blood cells get old your body breaks them down in the spleen. One of the products of that breakdown is bilirubin. Bilirubin travels to the liver where it gets processed more and sent to your intestines to be removed. The bilirubin gets put into your intestines where more conversions happen. Some get turned into urobilin which is a pigment what makes pee urine yellow. Most of the bilirubin gets oxidized into a thing called stercobilin, stercobilin is what makes poop brown. So it doesnt matter what you eat / drink (for the most part) because the color comes from the stercobilin. \n\n"
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dqa8mh | what is the difference between analog and digital computer components? (i.e. vga vs. hdmi) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dqa8mh/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_analog_and/ | {
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"In analog voltages take any value between two limits. Eg, if a signal is 0 to 5V, then anything in between is valid. In VGA the range is 0V, which corresponds to complete darkness, to 0.7V which is full brightness. In digital signals you transmit data bit by bit and there's only two valid voltages with some tolerance. Eg, 0 would be 0 to 0.7V and 1 would be 4 to 5V. Any signal that's in spec is as good as any other.\n\nWhat are the practical differences?\n\n* VGA doesn't have pixels as such. It has well defined lines, but columns aren't strictly separated.\n* VGA needs good transmission and circuitry. Back in the VGA days there was such a thing as a video card that produced a better output. Meaning, two video cards, both capable of say 1024x768 and having the same technical capabilities could still be different in that one would look prettier because it would generate more precise voltages and with better timing.\n* VGA allows for varying color as smoothly as you like, though back in those days computers weren't powerful enough to take good advantage of that.\n* HDMI has exact pixels. There's no adjustment needed, the monitor can display a pixel perfect image if it's capable (eg, a LCD). \n* HDMI has exact transmission of data. You can't get better text quality through a better video card or a better cable. If it works, it works, and it's perfect.\n* HDMI has limited color accuracy. If you're at 8 bits you're limited in how good a gradient you can display."
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30dduz | how can the moon be clearly visible in the sky at 1 in the afternoon? would that mean it is not visible on the other side of the earth where it is has just gone midnight? | It is a beautiful sunny day, the moon is out, and high in the sky.
I can see obviously this is possible. But does it mean the moon isn't visible on the opposite side of the world?
It is early afternoon in the UK, and midnight in Australia. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30dduz/eli5_how_can_the_moon_be_clearly_visible_in_the/ | {
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"The Moon doesn't orbit Earth fully every 24hr, so it can be seen during the day sometimes. And yes, if you can see it, someone on the other side of the planet can't.",
"Why would you think the moon cannot be visible during the day? it orbits the Earth, and the Earth turns beneath it. It is not somehow 'affixed' to be opposite the Sun. \n\n > But does it mean the moon isn't visible on the opposite side of the world?\n\nWell of course. If the Moon is above you, to see it on the opposite side of the world people would have to look past their feet through the Earth, and it is reasonably opaque. ",
"Yep. The moon is only ever visible from half the earth at a time. You don't always see the moon every night.",
" > How can the moon be clearly visible in the sky at 1 in the afternoon? \n\nThe earth rotates under the moon once every 24 hours, causing it to rise and set just like the sun. But the moon also orbits the earth once every 27 days, so it rises and sets a bit later each day such that, after 27 days, it has \"wrapped around\" and rises/sets at the same time as it did 27 days earlier.\n\nOn most days, the moon is visible during part of the day (not the whole day) and part of the night (not the whole night). During a full moon, it's visible mostly during the night, and during a new moon, its visible mostly during the day, with varying times for the phases in between.\n\n > Would that mean it is not visible on the other side of the earth where it is has just gone midnight?\n\nYes.",
"The moon is like the sun. You'll always be _URL_0_ see it, but only for half(-ish) the day"
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69hjxu | how do mirrors in videogames work? | Obviously mirrors irl are based around actual reflections, but how does that translate into a digital format? Are games rendering secondary identical models that copy the original's every move, but flipped? Is there an entirely reversed area "behind" the "mirror", with the "mirror" being nothing more than an invisible wall? And why did it take me this long to wonder about this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/69hjxu/eli5_how_do_mirrors_in_videogames_work/ | {
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"A lot of games have a copy of the room on the other side and the mirror is just a window. Then it copies the player character in reverse.",
"Most modern computer games use the concept of objects (a wall, the players character and so on) and then have a camera. That camera takes often 30 or 60 times a second a picture and then puts it onto your screen. It doesn't know about rays of light though. Instead it calculates the position of each object and then checks which pixel shows which part of an object to determine the color of that pixel.\n\nTo show a mirror, a reflection in water or similar effects they have two cameras. One takes the picture from the perspective of the mirror. Then they \"glue\" that picture onto the mirrors object and take another picture from the perspective of the user. \n\nThis is a lot of work and the main reason why reflections are rather new and uncommon. Sometimes developers cheat and use a fixed image for the mirror image. Then the players character doesn't have a mirror image.",
"There's different approaches really based on how realistic you want the reflection to be and more importantly the performance hit that you can afford because reflections are expensive generally. The most realistic way of rendering an actual mirror reflection wouldn't be an option for real time games (ray tracing photons and doing an actual physical simulation of them bouncing off a reflective surface) so the general straight up approach is simply to render the scene from the view of the mirror and then from the normal view of the player. this provides a straight mirrored result but can be expensive because you end up rendering a scene twice. Usually this a is a problem because many games are already pushing the hardware before even getting to mirrors.\n\n This is why many games avoid mirrors all together or if they do have them it's only in a small environments like a bathroom for example. They may also limit how many mirrors they use and or make it so that mirrors can't mirror each other like in real life. Sometimes they'll limit what actually gets rendered in the reflection like what objects actually get drawn or the resolution of the mirrored rendering and limit the draw distance to a very short distance for mirrors all of this can save on performance and allow you to use mirrors in more complex environments. You can also do things like make the reflection update at a lower rate than the main game or pre render the reflection and do a cheesy overlay of the characters player model on to it. This ideas game developers have come up with are numerous so i can't go over all of them but if it isn't obvious there's some pretty clever ways to tackle the problem. "
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quztm | graphic card drivers | What do they exactly do? How can they improve performance in a certain game with newer updates? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/quztm/eli5_graphic_card_drivers/ | {
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"The driver is a piece of software that knows how to talk to your hardware. It is an interface between your operating system and the physical card.\n\nThe card has its own instruction set that is proprietary. The operating system only knows how to do generic things like 'draw this shape and put it here'. The driver translates the operating system commands (which come from the program drawing graphics) into hardware instructions. The hardware works at a much lower level and is optimized to work that way (low level memory management and mathematics in the GPU).\n\nDriver updates improve performance in certain games because the manufacturer observes that the graphics commands from the game are not as efficiently translated into hardware commands as they could be. Sometimes this is a legitimate flaw in the code and sometimes it is just the manufacturer finding a way to cut a corner with a very specialized 'hack' so they can improve framerate and sell more cards for a popular game.",
"Imagine we're back in the middle ages. You work for the church and you need to get a whole bunch of paintings done. Because your church is wealthy, you hire the best painters from all over Europe to come and make these paintings.\n\nThe only problem is they don't all speak the same language. \n\nNo problem! You hire a bunch of translators. Now you explain to the translators what you want and they explain it to their specific painter, in their language. \n\nEverything is great until you learn about this new style called 'Impressionism' that you really want to use. Your painters all know about it (because they're painters, and they keep up on this sort of thing) but your translators don't because they aren't artists.\n\nSo, you get rid of the old translators and hire new ones that know about impressionism. Everything is now working again.\n\n\nSo, in this example you're the operating system that is getting asked by an application (the church) to make pictures.\nThe graphics cards are the painters and do the actual drawings. Each graphics card works differently -- different languages.\n\nThe translators are your drivers. They 'translate' what the operating system is asking into instructions the specific graphics card they're designed for. When a game is using a new or advanced technique, you replace the drivers with new ones that know about this this new technique so they can 'translate' it to the graphics card.\n\n\n\n"
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6gczzn | how do people make money/benefit from claiming bankruptcy? | How do the rich make money off of claiming bankruptcy if it ruins your credit and several their things? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6gczzn/eli5_how_do_people_make_moneybenefit_from/ | {
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"Wealthy people usually don't claim personal bankruptcy, their businesses claim bankruptcy. The whole purpose of a corporation is to protect your personal assets if the business fails. \n\nIf you run a successful business for years, pay yourself a big salary and sell stock, if your business runs up big debts, you get to keep all that money, and the money held in the business is lost. Then through bankruptcy, you can shake off that debt, may reinvest some of your personal assets, and get the business going again.",
"In general, they don't. Some people will claim it is a routine thing, but some people will also claim that hyper-intelligent beings from distance galaxies routinely send their grad students on a centuries long voyages across vast distances, just to kidnap some human meth-heads and shove things up their butts. Many claims people make are not true.\n\nBut, there are some strategies you can try. \n\nYou could start several highly risky businesses, in which some are likely to do well exactly when others do poorly. Like one business that would profit from solar energy taking off, and another that would profit from it not taking off. Then you convince banks to loan you lots of money to fund those businesses. This is easier said then done, since banks usually don't want to lend money to highly risky businesses. You have to user your charm, guile, connections, good looks, and trickery to make them think they are not highly risky. Then once it becomes clear which way the wind is blowing, one of your businesses goes bankrupt and you lose your investment and the banks lose their loans. The other one does well, and you have enough to pay off the loans for that one, as well as keep enough profits to make up for the money you lost in the other one. Also, throughout this you try to pay your contractors and vendors as much in arrears as possible. For the business that eventually fails, you never have to pay them, because the arrears are discharged in bankruptcy. For the one that succeeds, you do eventually have to pay them. Perhaps with extra interest. But not paying the other people at all more than makes up for some extra interest for the ones you do have to pay.\n\nAnother is to buy a company which has both a lot of assets (which are hard to evaluate) and a lot of debt. Split the company in two, putting the good assets into one company, and the bad assets and debt into the other. Then let the bad company go bankrupt and never pay off those debts, leaving you with most of the good assets but few of the debts. Again, this is easier said than done, so you need more of that charm, guile, connections, good looks, and trickery. If you want to send all the debts off to one half of the splitting company, you have to get the existing debt holders to approve it (or a court). They won't approve if it if it is obvious that all the assets one of the new companies is getting are all the bad assets."
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6vl3e9 | can you create propulsion in space with magnetism or a non-burning chemical reaction? | I've been repeatedly searching and I can't find this topic. I don't understand physics but I'll do my best to explain the thought process I'm struggling with. It started when I was imagining a tube balanced on a pyramid with a ball bearing in it. When the tube tips one direction the ball bearing shoots forward and propels the tube in that direction. Not sure if there's a name for this but I'm wondering if that type of force where an object rushes forward and slams into the front of a tube could be used for propulsion, and how the physics of this work in zero gravity.
So picture a tube in zero gravity with a magnet at the front and large steel ball bearings at the back of this tube. If you applied a strong electrical current to the magnet I imagine you could pull the bearings with enough force to slam them into the front of the tube. Would this not propel the vessel forward? What equal but opposite reaction would prevent this? I'm more asking about the physics of propulsion in zero gravity rather than the viability of electromagnet applications specifically, as I was also imagining how a similar reaction could be engineered chemically. So however you manage to accomplish it, can you slam mass into the front of a vessel to create propulsion in space? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6vl3e9/eli5_can_you_create_propulsion_in_space_with/ | {
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"The tube would be pulled towards the ball bearing with the same force, when the ball bearing comes to a halt at the front of the tube, the two forces would cancel each other out and you would have net zero velocity. ",
"In your example. The electromagnetic force that push the steel ball toward the back of the tube would also push the tube forward. Then when the steel ball would hit the back of the tube, this would push the tube backward cancelling the initial forward motion.\n\nWhat you can do is to not have a back at the end of your tube. The electromagnetic force would push the steel ball backward, and your tube forward and the ball would then exist the tube without cancelling the forward force. Of course you would need a lot of steel ball because you lose them every time.\n\nIn reality, there is thing like ions engine that use a similar concept, but instead of steel ball, they use ions, aka atoms without electrons. They accelerate them in the back of the spacecraft and this propulse the spacecraft forward.",
"In regards to the magnet idea i believe under the right circumstances you could get the ship moving, but it would be stuck moving at a constant speed. Your system starts with magnetic potential energy. When the magnet is turned on the ship and ball are pulled towards each other with the same force. But if the ship has a lot more mass than the ball then from an outside perspective the ball would move towards the ship. The ball converts its magnetic potential energy to kinetic energy. When the ball collides with the ship that energy has to go somewhere. The ship will vibrate, probably heat up and deform, but the ball and ship system could theoretically start moving as one object. That kinetic energy could be maintained as kinetic energy in the collision. But without additional energy, the ball and ship will be stuck traveling at a constant speed.",
"There's a fundamental principle in physics called the law of conservation of momentum. What it means is that objects can't move on their own — if you want to move something to the right, you have to move something else to the left to balance it out.\n\nFor instance, if you have a rocket floating in space and you want to push it forward, you can do that by pushing burning exhaust out the other end. The faster you push the exhaust, the less you have to push in order to accelerate the rocket. But you can't accelerate the rocket by even the slightest amount without accelerating something else in the other direction.",
" > a non-burning chemical reaction?\n\nYou can certainly build a rocket that doesn't rely on combustion. All you need is some mass and and a means to throw it out the back of the rocket as fast as possible. Electrically powered ion drives are used in some satellites, for example - they use xenon ions as the propellant and are powered by electricity. They are far more efficient than chemical rockets, but they cannot produce enough thrust to counter Earth's gravity - so they can only be used one a spacecraft is in orbit.\n"
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2i25xm | the difference between digital, digital 4k, imax, 35mm, and 70mm. all of the options for interstellar when it comes to theaters. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2i25xm/eli5_the_difference_between_digital_digital_4k/ | {
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"35mm is the standard film format used for most films you see, 70mm is a higher resolution format that shows more detail, making it more suitable for projection on larger screens. IMAX is a specific type of 70mm film and projection system. All of these are analog film formats, where the frames are printed on a roll of physical film. The films passes in front of a light to project onto a screen. Since film rolls are expensive to reproduce there is trend towards digital projection, where films that were recorded in analog, are stored and played back digitally.\n\nDigital projection uses only digital files, much like the ones you encounter on BluRay's or DVD's. Though with higher resolution (2K by default, twice the detail of the regular HD format, 4K is supplanting this, which is in turn twice the detail of 2K). Here the projector's light goes through a small screen to project the image. Digital IMAX is a type of digital projection system, used to project the analog 70mm recorded IMAX film.\n\nThe film industry is largely switching over from analog film camera's to digital ones. Still one can print digitally recorded films to analog film (and play it back using normal projection), and film that was recorded in analog can also be stored and playback digitally. Hence, I understand your confusion :)"
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3dsnjc | why haven't any private organizations reached the moon? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3dsnjc/eli5_why_havent_any_private_organizations_reached/ | {
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"It costs billions of dollars, you could die, and at the end all you get is some rocks, so no private organization has seen enough reason to do it.",
"Several reasons:\n\n(a) It costs a lot of money.\n\n(b) It's a huge and dangerous undertaking.\n\n(c) Private organisations need profit, and there's no money to be made from a moon expedition (yet).",
"Since no country has been back.. do you kinda wonder if the moon already has people who don't want our visits??"
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e2er59 | how does bots / hackers figure out your password? | You know when you get like an email saying there has been a login attempt on your account from another computer, or when an authenticator has sent out a code to your email. That means that whoever is trying to login to your account has managed to figure out your password but can’t get past the extra step of verification. How do they crack the password? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e2er59/eli5_how_does_bots_hackers_figure_out_your/ | {
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"If your password is simple enough, they can make a \"brute force\" attack to guess it automatically. For example, they might try every word in the dictionary, so if your password is something ridiculously simple like \"purple\" then the brute force software will find that very quickly.\n\nAlternatively, your password may have been released during a previous hacking of a company's database. You should check [_URL_0_](_URL_0_) to see if your email address and any associated passwords have been compromised in any known data breaches."
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3pcnvx | why muzzle velocity is measured in feet per second rather than mph/kph. | Surely using a smaller unit for something generally supersonic is backwards. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3pcnvx/eli5_why_muzzle_velocity_is_measured_in_feet_per/ | {
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"Because bullets generally travel in units of feet rather than units of miles and the United States uses the Imperial system rather than the metric system for common units of measure.",
"Generally you're not worried about trying to (or even posses the ability to) hit targets that are miles away, but rather you're aiming tens or hundreds of feet away. Knowing how many seconds related to feet is more useful because you measure distance to target in feet. Similarly, this is why in metric this is generally given in meters per second rather than kilometers per second.",
"Gravity will pull a bullet to the ground at the same rate as if it were just dropped. It takes roughly half a second for something to drop from 4 feet, so if you know the muzzle velocity of a gun, you know approximately how far it will travel before it hits the ground. Just divide muzzle velocity by 2. If muzzle velocity is 1000 f/s, the bullet will hit the ground about 500 feet out. "
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70sruj | why are there nazis in the usa? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/70sruj/eli5_why_are_there_nazis_in_the_usa/ | {
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"Many of the posts here are very good, but, one thing that most people don't realize is that there were plenty of German sympathizers widely present prior to the U.S's entry into World War II. There were communities near me that were devoted to ex-pat Germans who totally supported what they was going on in the 'old country'. This did not go away, it more went underground.",
"Fuck me this went on really long. TL;DR - freedom of speech is super important here, even if you're an asshole, there's lots of lingering racism and religious intolerance because we're a really young country all things considered, people want someone to blame for the economic crisis, and our president's an idiot who won't disown toxic views.\n\n**************\n\nSo, a brief history lesson. The US was founded largely by religious and political dissidents who wanted to express themselves freely, but were forbidden to or prosecuted for their beliefs in their homelands, most of which had state-endorsed religions or were monarchies where speaking out was against the law or treasonous.\n\nAs such, when we won our independence in the Revolutionary War (as it's called here), we took a good amount of time figuring out our government. What stuck (ultimately ratified in 1791) was our Constitution, as well as the Bill of Rights, ten articles amending the constitution that were (and are) considered fundamental guarantees of our citizenry. And the very first one was:\n\n > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; **or abridging the freedom of speech**, or of the press; **or the right of the people peaceably to assemble**, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.\n\nBuilt into the very foundation of our government, our *first* given right is that of freedom to practice religion, speak as we want, print what we want, assemble peaceably as we want, and complain to the government as we want.\n\nIt was, and is, considered a fundamental part of not just our government, but our society. The idea of free speech permeates almost everything we do, and debates about it can be pretty heated, as some think it's a completely off topic discussion, that things like censorship or \"political correctness\" violate it. While the constitution only prevents the federal government from censoring or prohibiting free speech, most people take it to the furthest extreme, that anything is considered free speech.\n\nIt should also be noted there are a few exceptions. For example, yelling \"FIRE!\" in a crowded building is the classic example of non-protected speech, as it's intended to cause harm or damage. Speech to incite lawless use of force or any lawless action is also not protected. Speech that provokes or incites violence is also considered potentially non-protected. Obscenity laws can apply to censor things from public display or announcement. False advertising. The list is short, but it contains mostly sensible examples.\n\nBut where we get complicated is when we get into trying to define hate speech. Just because a position or belief is reprehensible does not mean it is or should be illegal. And while hate speech or inciting violence is non-protected speech, it's not all encompassing. The Supreme Court ruled in Watts vs United States (1969) that \"threats may not be punished if a reasonable person would understand them as obvious hyperbole.\" So if someone wants to go out and yell about threats to a person or persons, but it's clear they're not speaking literally or inciting immediate lawless action, the speech could be considered protected. The infamous Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) uses this tactic often, going just to the line of inciting speech but doing very little to actually cross it.\n\nBecause of how fundamental freedom of speech is considered in this country, it's often considered very taboo to protest or reject it, even if the speech is disgusting. So it allows groups like the KKK, WBC, and even admitted Neo-Nazis to express and hold their views, so long as their speech does not fall into unprotected territory. There's a fear of censorship leading to a potentially slipper slope (this is an entirely different debate) that the limit of what is or isn't censored could become blurred based on who's in power and who is considered offended or not, hence the hesitation to directly outlaw anything. There's also a fear of being seen as hypocritical, since one of the biggest draws of the United States (at least in terms of perfect ideals) has been that of freedom. And no one wants to set the precedent of censoring or trying to censor a politically reprehensible group for fear it could be used later for state-sponsored censorship or stopping opposing views, which is considered highly important to be able to express or maintain.\n\nSo it causes an environment where you can hold and express nearly any view as long as you don't actively threaten direct and literal violence against a specific person or group in a specific way. It's how people can get away with making comments about how certain political figures should die or be killed, because it's very different than directly inciting or outlining a plan for violence. You can't be arrested for just *being* a Neo-Nazi, you have to be arrested for some illegal act, even if it stems from there. The belief itself is not illegal and cannot be punished due to freedom of speech.\n\nLately, there's been a social push back against these sorts of beliefs, since the first amendment stops the *government* from censoring you, not individuals. There was a website called the Daily Stormer that has basically gone offline because no web hosting service wanted to host it. While some cried it was a first amendment issue, there's no obligation for a private business to take their business or give them a platform. And unless you're part of a [protected class](_URL_0_), you can't cry discrimination without having to go through a long and lengthy legal battle.\n\nAs for why most of this comes from the right wing... well, it's no secret that the country's economy has gone downhill in the last decade or so, since the major financial crash in 2007 thanks to the housing market crashing. Add onto this lingering fear and panic from the September 11th attacks that caused a spike in more conservative views and leadership due to their closer ties with the military. Unfortunately, as with any group, when things go wrong (gas prices spike, employment is harder to find, prices in general go up, etc), people want to look for blame. And it's very easy to cast blame on the *other*. People you don't identify or agree with. And unfortunately, there's a racial aspect to this as well, since the US is predominantly white, as well as predominantly Christian. So if you don't fit into that group, you can be considered an *other*. Lingering fear and resentment from the terror attacks only added to that fear of foreigners, especially coming from the Middle East or practicing Islam. However, because of freedom of speech, it's still legal to hold those kind of views and express them.\n\nSo in the wake of a deadly attack and a subsequent rise of national pride and patriotism, followed by an economic crisis, the instinct was to \"circle the wagons.\" Focus on \"America first,\" since we needed to get our own house in order. This unfortunately gave a lot of power and voice to people that wanted to blame the *other*. Blame those who seemed to be \"new\" or \"taking\" things that had previously been just theirs'. As embarrassing as it is, Civil Rights were only truly legally implemented in the 1960s, so there are many who grew up in a world where non-whites were strictly an *other*, or were taught that way by their parents.\n\nSo then a group comes along that places the blame for all these problems all in one convenient basket. Remember how things used to be? Remember how the country was safe, prosperous, and clean? All before *they* came. While this is no more true than it was for the Nazi party to blame Jews and others during World War II, this is the mindset that permeates. Lost your job? Lost your house? Property values down? Can't afford things you used to? Blame the *other*. And it's an attractive option to a resentful population that feels they have no recourse from the government, because the government has to take care of *everybody*. They feel that resources that are being spent on the *other* could be spent on them. They feel attacked on all sides because things aren't as great as they used to be, and they want someone to blame for it all. Add in a president who's done fuck-all to stop these feelings or disown them, and they feel even more emboldened to speak out and protest openly, feeling they have a man on the inside who believes as they believe.\n\nThis isn't even getting into the massively increased polarization of American politics, or the politicization of nearly every issue regardless of whether politics are involved.",
"Conspiracy theories are a strange sort of mythology. You see them begin to rise during the late middle ages and into the Renaissance and Reformation, but what you also see is that as they shift and change, they keep all of the old names, but change the details.\n\nFor example, the Bavarian Illuminati were once a real, historical group. During the reformation, they were a secret alliance of merchants and traders who helped to smuggle religious artifacts and priests out of cities that were going to fall. They were hated by both sides for helping to preserve heresy, and weeding them out became an important goal for the most aggressive on both sides. Today, the bulk of that story is forgotten and lost, but people still remember the Illuminati as a shadowy group of businesspeople, and grandfather them in to other conspiracy theories that really have nothing to do with religious artwork in the reformation.\n\nThe Jewish People, unfortunately, are also grandfathered in to conspiracy theories. As early as the middle ages, people accuse Judaism of being witchcraft, and associate problems with their local Jewish diaspora. By the Renaissance, they became associated with banking, and the negative feelings that indebted monarchs had towards userers in general. Today, people still insert the Jewish people into conspiracy theories, anything related to cultural collusion, particularly banking and media.\n\nBecause Americans are no less vulnerable to conspiracy theories than other human beings, and because conspiracy theories re-use the same names with different conspiracy pitches, there was always going to be a subset of Americans who hated Jewish people.\n\nIt's not hard to leap from that to being a Nazi. You're skeptical of the media and the big banks, and someone offers you a grand conspiracy theory. Maybe it starts with George Soros, a famous Jew in Media, and they start to draw connections with other Jews. Maybe you arrived there from somewhere else. Regardless, once you believe in Nazi stuff, you start to believe that maybe Nazis weren't the bad guys, and then you start to question whether half of the Nazi stuff happened at all, or if the conspiracy is making up details to villify them, that the media about WW2 is a lie designed to protect the conspiracy. Then it gets easier to wear swastikas and speak openly of Nazi ideas.\n\nAnd that's how Nazis are in America. Conspiracy theories re-use old names for the villains, the Jews are an old conspiracy theory villain name, and once you buy the conspiracy theory you can interpret everything that disagrees with you as proof of the conspiracy's existence.",
"Because people opposing them started calling them that, and they took a liking to it, for some reason.\n\nNazi comes from the NSDAP, which was Hitler's party. Anything not related to the NSDAP - which doesn't exist anymore, is not a Nazi.\n\nThose extremists just like using Nazi symbolism.\n\nAlso, consider that Nazi often is used as an insult - just like Commie. Loads of left-wingers being called 'commie' by right-wingers aren't commies, and loads of right-wingers being called 'nazi' by left-wingers aren't 'nazis'.\n\nThen there's also the what is now commonly known as the 'alt-right', composed majorly of young people, many of whom don't get offended easily, so using a swastika for a joke means nothing to them, while it might feel like they are a nazi to other, more sensitive people."
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2tvthf | how is the newly elected syriza government going to save greece's economy? | Correct me if I'm wrong but here's what I know so far:
* Greece owes hundreds of Billions to the EU.
* They currently have a deficit in their budget despite the austerity packages imposed by Europe.
* SYRIZA rejects austerity which means that their spending will only rise when they are in power.
* They somehow don't plan on exiting the Euro. I suppose this means they will have to pay their debts one way or another.
How does this all add up? What's SYRIZA's plan? Am I missing a way a part of their plan that will generate billions of euros per year? How on earth is Greece going to start paying it's debts if they increase their spending?
If they increase their spending (and thus increase their debt as well) how do they plan on staying in the Euro zone? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2tvthf/eli5how_is_the_newly_elected_syriza_government/ | {
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3xghqg | why is it required to perform some tasks on a pc as an administrator, despite there only being one user account anyway? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3xghqg/eli5_why_is_it_required_to_perform_some_tasks_on/ | {
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"Normal programs are not allowed to change your system configuration. Your computer wants to make sure, that, when some program tries to change its configuration, this is intended by you as his owner. He is afraid that some bad software, for example a virus, could have asked for a change in system configuration, to let attackers in or steal your passwords. That's why it sometimes asks you directly for permission. He just does not want that someone tries to use your computer for something you don't want. ",
"This behaviour is more secure and wasn't originally how Windows worked. It comes from the multi-user world, where systems have both professional administrators and normal users. When e.g. a Windows 10 PC has only one user, that user has to be the administrator too, but that doesn't mean that user is a PC expert who knows how to avoid damaging the system or letting viruses in. So Microsoft has put in these additional safeguards to warn you when you're doing something risky. \n\nI have friends whose kids have PCs with them as administrator users too ... they get warnings about crapware, but ignore them anyway. The result: when I visit them, I'm always being asked to clean up their PCs ... ",
"Your normal user account should not be the adminstrator account. You only want to run programs with full privilege when they really need it. If you end up downloading malware or there's an exploit in some software you're using, you don't want to be running as admin, becuase then the attacker can do literally everything to your computer. Only running as admin when you actually need to reduces this risk. It's known as the [principle of least privilege](_URL_0_).",
"it lets my mom know she has wandered into the deep end of the pool and better ask before she clicks"
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5ruxwv | why have some suns already gone supernova? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ruxwv/eli5_why_have_some_suns_already_gone_supernova/ | {
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"Additionally, some are much older. Our Sun is only a fraction of the age of the universe and many of the stars in it.",
"Based on the radical differences in star ages, what causes a star to from in the near-term? Is the matter rotating in a gravity well and just finally falls in on itself?",
"Stars are fueled by nuclear fusion - hydrogen forced together into helium, then helium forced into lithium, beryllium, and so on. As you may know from humanity's continued attempts to create fusion power plants, fusion gives off a ton of energy, but it *takes* a ton of energy to make it go. In a star, fusion is caused by the intense gravity of the star crushing down on the elements in the core, squeezing them together until they fuse (and also quantum tunneling, but that's another ELI5).\n\nIf a star is more massive, the fusion at its core goes faster. More mass means more pressure forcing the atoms together, and more atoms to force together. Big stars burn much hotter than small stars, but they can't burn forever. Fusing light elements together gives you more energy *out* than it took going *in* to fuse them. But fusing heavier elements gives you less energy and takes more energy, [shown in this graph](_URL_0_). The opposite is true of fission - bigger elements release more energy when they're split than smaller elements, and that makes a kind of intuitive sense. When you fuse elements, you're investing the energy into the atom that it took to fuse the two smaller elements. With bigger elements, it takes way more energy to fuse them, so you're investing more in than you get out with fusion. When you split them, you release that invested energy so you get more out of fission than fusion (with heavier elements; you get less energy from splitting lighter elements).\n\nThe point where the two meet is iron. Up until iron, the star gets more energy out of fusion than went into fusing the atoms. That extra energy is what balances the star against the gravity crushing the elements down. The star is kind of self-limiting - if gravity overpowers the fusion energy, more atoms are crushed into the core and fuse, which creates more energy pushing out against gravity. If the fusion energy overpowers gravity, the atoms move away from each other and fewer fuse, so there's less energy to fight gravity. When the star reaches iron, that balance stops. Fusing iron *absorbs* energy instead of releasing more of it, so for every iron atom fused there's less energy pushing against gravity. More atoms are pulled downward into the core, crushing the core harder, so more iron fuses, so there's less energy, so gravity pulls more atoms into the core... There are still lighter elements fusing outside of the core, so it's not immediate, but once a star starts fusing iron, its life is almost over (\"almost\" being a relative term - the star will still live for thousands or millions of years). The iron fuses into heavier elements that absorb even *more* energy, so there's even less pushing against gravity, and that reaction accelerates faster and faster as heavier elements are created. Each stage of fusing heavier elements takes less time, from thousands of years for iron to hundreds, to a decade, a day, then a few hours, until the last stage of fusion, in which every single atom in the core of the star gets fused within *fractions of a second* and the mass outside of the core collapses at significant fractions of the speed of light, crashing into the super dense core of the star, creating one last massive explosion of fusion, fission, and the reflection of the mass bouncing off the core. That explosion is a supernova. As XKCD pointed out, if you replaced our Sun with a supernova, and also detonated a hydrogen bomb that was *literally touching your eyeball*, the supernova in place of the Sun would deliver more energy to your retina than the hydrogen bomb.\n\nEven though big stars have much more fuel to go through, they burn through it *much faster* than small stars and reach the stage when they fuse iron much sooner. Smaller stars may not have enough mass to fuse iron at all, and will never go supernova, they'll just stop fusing their mass and slowly cool off over trillions of years. Our Sun is one of those - it doesn't have enough to mass to go supernova, it'll just slow down until it stops. Some of the largest stars will only last for a few millions or hundreds of millions of years, but will burn incredibly brightly until they explode. The smallest stars will burn through their fuel slowly, and stay super dim, but last for billions, if not trillions of years.\n\nAnd some stars are just older. They formed from the very first dust clouds after the big bang and were big and exploded. Remember, matter doesn't *go* anywhere, so after those stars explode their matter is flung out into space where it can collect and form new stars. Some stars are big *and* old and had enough time to reach the end of their fusion and explode, and some are still forming from the remnants of the old stars that already exploded.\n\nEDIT: Some typos and clarifications. Also worth mentioning: some stars can go nova (not *super*) and explode a \"little bit\" (again, \"little bit\" being a relative term - it's still a big boom). If the mass of the star is high enough, when it goes supernova the remnants of the star are so dense, and there's so much energy in one place, that it collapses into a black hole. But not all stars go supernova, and not all supernovas end in black holes! Some end in neutron stars, which are very weird."
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2ctalj | what goes into the multitudes of pages of end user license agreements? | They tend to be pretty long, and I'm pretty sure noone has read any of those 500 page eulas. So what exactly goes into most of them to make them that mind-mindbogglingly large? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ctalj/eli5what_goes_into_the_multitudes_of_pages_of_end/ | {
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"A massive amount of legal language to make sure that the company is within the law on their product and has fully informed you of the agreement you are entering in too."
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2ri8wp | what can someone do with licence plate numbers? | They're always censored and whatnot, so if someone got a hold of one, what could they actually do with it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ri8wp/eli5_what_can_someone_do_with_licence_plate/ | {
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"Depends on the laws of your country what's public, but almost always you can look up certain information.\n\nLaw enforcement can usually look up all related information, including who's the owner of the vehicle and where he lives. It's not inconceivable that someone who wants to do harm can get this information too. It's also possible that someone doesn't want to be identified by law enforcement, for instance because they're doing illegal things in the pictures or video."
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23ogor | if i dug a hole from the north pole to the south pole, would i fall halfway and then fly upwards for the second half? | Ignoring spinning of the earth, dying of heat, magma, etc.
I just want to know if I would eventually reach the middle and just stop, gravity acting on me equally in all directions with me floating in the very centre?
Thanks. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23ogor/eli5_if_i_dug_a_hole_from_the_north_pole_to_the/ | {
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"From what I've been told, you would float. Thered be all this mass around you so gravity would become a stasis-like force rather than a rooting one. Also, you'd fall past the center, but you'd come back and wobble in between, eventually settling",
"With no air resistance, you would forever fall back and forth between both holes. With air resistance, you would slow down and eventually just float in the middle",
"Assuming you could dig the hole, and it was a perfect vacuum. Then if you fell in, you'd be accelerating all the way down. Once you got to the middle, you'd fly past is and start decelerating. You'd eventual make it all the way back to the surface on the other side, where you would then fall back. If you ignore all other forces(like air resistance) then you wouldn't settle in the middle like everyone else is saying. You'd oscillate between the two holes indefinitely. You can think of this with the energy principle. Before you fall in, you have only potential energy from gravity. When you reach the middle, all your potential energy has converted to kinetic energy. Then it's all potential again when you reach the other side.",
"Follow Up Question.... So how fast would you be going when you got to the center, if it was a vacuum? In a vacuum your acceleration would be continuos all the way to the center, so I would think you'd be going pretty damn fast by the time you got there. Also, would the pull of gravity increase or decrease the closer you get to the core? It isn't 9.8m/s2 all the way to the center is it?",
"You would get to the middle and float there because that's where all of the planet's gravity is pulling you.\n\nSource: Magic Schoolbus.",
"Watch this video by MinutePhysics, it explains it!\n\n_URL_0_",
"If you're digging the hole, there'd be no fall, since you'd already be down there... Just sayin. (Unless you climbed back out, only to jump into the hole)",
"If you ignore all the facts, then what would happen is that after a mile down a dragon would carry you through the center of the Earth to south pole. "
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4dip49 | what's the difference between popcorn and regular corn? also, microwave popcorn and regular popcorn. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4dip49/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_popcorn_and/ | {
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"Popcorn is actually a different variety of corn than the kind you eat (sweet corn and the like). There are different varieties of popcorn, too. It's main characteristic is that, well. It pops when heat is applied. \n\nThere's no real difference between microwave and 'regular' popcorn - it's just packaged and (obviously) prepared differently. Microwave popcorn comes in a bag that contains oil that'll heat it up, as well as flavouring. ",
"Popcorn has a higher water content inside it. This is what causes it to pop. when heated the water begins to steam and eventually the pressure build and the pop corn pops.\n\ni will try to find the episode where alton brown talks about it.",
"If you take a handfull of popcorn, put it in a paper and roll up the end, you have microwave popcorn. You dont need the fancy bags ",
"What makes popcorn pop is the result of a few things:\n\n\nThe outer hull(Paracarp) is unusually thicker than other corn varieties, as well as being water tight.\n\n\nPopcorn has a higher concentration of hard starch, its basically the only kind of starch.\n\n\nThis means when pop-corn is heated, it heats the small amount of water inside the kernel into steam. This also causes the starch to gelatinize. Once the internal pressure gets high enough, the kernel explodes, and the starch rapidly expands and set.\n\n\nThere is no difference to microwaved popcorn compared to popcorn found in containers, other than the way it was packaged and what kind of variety it is."
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3s74gv | why are donated organs kept on ice? wouldn't it be better for them to be kept at body temperature? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3s74gv/eli5_why_are_donated_organs_kept_on_ice_wouldnt/ | {
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"Upon death, your body immediately begins to decay, because active regeneration and maintenance that cells do slows down. Keeping things cool slows the process of decay, whether is be a chemical, or biological one",
"Because while they are disconnected from a body, they aren't getting what they need to stay alive. Cooling them slows the rate at which they will begin to break down and decay. At room temperature they'd become unusable relatively quickly. "
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f0emr2 | where does the energy of a tornado come from? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f0emr2/eli5_where_does_the_energy_of_a_tornado_come_from/ | {
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"Ultimately all energy on earth comes from the sun; with some exceptions - the radioactive elements remaining from the primordial dust cloud etc. So the energy of a tornado comes from differential heating of earths surface (which then transfers to the air). This changes the air pressure and is responsible for tornados, and pretty much any other weather phenomenon"
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204ggn | how do electronic musicians end up collaborating with singers for vocals? | Does the musician go like, "Hey [insert singer name here], come record vocals for my song and I'll pay you?" or what? How does it work? Does the vocal artist just sing a few lines then walk out? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/204ggn/eli5_how_do_electronic_musicians_end_up/ | {
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"Depends on the musicians!\n\nWhat I usually do is create a rough groove of a backing track, forward it to my singer through Dropbox, and she does a rough vocal draft and we bounce back and forth with new takes and ideas until we're happy and ready to record in a studio. But this is just independent production, I imagine major labels do it a little differently. There's always that element of collaboration though. I think truly disconnected work where the vocalist only does one thing would be extremely rare."
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651nh2 | why is it that all the blockbusters have gone out of business, but adult video stores are still around? | I would have thought that all video stores would have been just as affected by the internet. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/651nh2/eli5_why_is_it_that_all_the_blockbusters_have/ | {
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"Adult 'video' stores don't just sell videos, they frequently also sell sex toys, lubes & fetishwear. Many of the ones around here also sell bongs & pipes.\n\nOn top of that, they often have \"video rooms\" in the back where people do... \"stuff\"."
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1ihwxq | how do braces work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ihwxq/eli5_how_do_braces_work/ | {
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"I'm a dentist. The roots of your teeth are covered in a very specialized tissue which we call a periodontal ligament (PDL). It is very sensitive and bridges between your teeth and your jaw bones. When we put braces on your teeth and pull a tooth to the right the ligament is compressed on the right and stretched on the left. Compressing the ligament causes a chemical signal in your body that signals the cells which break down bone. When we stretch the PDL it causes a chemical signal that causes bone growth. This process is mostly independent.",
"Pain. Lots of pain.\n\nSource: I had braces for 6-7 years",
"they hold your trousers up using anti gravity forcefields",
"Dentists, get off Reddit and get back to making your patients wait for 45 minutes in their chairs with the lead apron on!",
"Shout to to everyone with braces in this thread, I had mine on for 6+ years and I just got them off yesterday at the age of 19. I couldn't be happier and they are definitely worth it!"
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2zeein | why/how do we dye rivers for holidays? how does it not damage anything? how long does it last? | Saw this video of the coloring of the Chicago river. How much dye does it take? How expensive is it?
Doesn't it damage boats/wildlife? How long does it last?
Pretty much someone just tell me everything they know.
Also: Happy Saint Patrick's Day! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2zeein/eli5_whyhow_do_we_dye_rivers_for_holidays_how/ | {
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"The dye is an orange powder that turns green when in water. (The Chicago thing, anyway)",
"I'd also like to know what chemicals they use and how toxic they are. I'm assuming they're perfectly safe for humans and fish or this wouldn't be legal, but does it really have zero impact on the ecosystem to dye the river green for a day or two? I mean, at the very least wouldn't it block photosynthesis?",
"Some googling revealed that it's a biodegradable vegetable dye. They do it between Columbus and Wacker Drive, which IIRC is... a few miles at most? It dissipates in a few days.\n\nEdit: the distance is one mile, from near the river's mouth on the lake down to where it bends southward."
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4a100b | how come if someone far enough away from earth will only see dinosaurs? how does that work? does that mean there can be aliens but we can't see them currently? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4a100b/eli5_how_come_if_someone_far_enough_away_from/ | {
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"Because light doesn't travel instantly. If someone looked at earth with a strong enough telescope and was 3.5 million light years away, the light would take that long to get there, and they'd see was was happening that long ago, like how some stars that are super far away could have already exploded, but the light takes so long to get here that we haven't seen that yet",
"Problem is there's no possible way for this to exist because that level of detail would require a lens/scope so large (using conventional design of telescopes) it would be some 4-5 light years in width. Meaning the lens would be so large it would take you 4-5 light years (traveling at the speed of light) to go from one end to the other).\n\nAs others pointed out - the thing would also collapse on itself and cause a black hole - so no... not possible."
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5mt5jc | how do illegal immigrants live in the us. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5mt5jc/eli5how_do_illegal_immigrants_live_in_the_us/ | {
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"it's not legally required to prove you're a legal immigrate to go to school.\n\nyou can rent without needing to break out your birth certificate or passport. landlord wouldn't even know how to authenticate a passport anyway. \n\nfake ID's are easy to get...just ask any high schooler. \n\nyou can find a job for a boss that looks the other way. because he's going to pay you less than minimum wage.",
"Regardless of their status, every child in America has a legal right to a K-12 education.\n\nThere was a supreme court case that makes it illegal for schools to require anything only a legal citizen could obtain (social security number) or inquire about anything that may out their parents as illegal immigrants.\n\nHousing discrimination based on immigration status is illegal also. \n\nAnd as far as work goes . . . It is illegal to hire illegal immigrants as far as I know. But you *know* that they are getting hired in large numbers for low-skilled jobs.\n\ntl;dr: America goes out of its way to make sure that illegal immigrants can't be discriminated against. ",
"Okay, I'm going to out myself as breaking US federal law, but as I already paid a fine and discussed it with immigration before, I don't feel too bad. Granted, my case isn't like what you imagine when you say \"illegal immigrant\". \nI've since returned to the US several times, legally and for extended periods since so I figure they've had a few chances to slap the cuffs on. \nSystems may have changed since I was there to make how I did it harder.\n\n\nI have worked illegally in the US twice. \nI've done it in Florida and California, both states that are pretty tight on illegal immigrant checks. \nAbout 10 months each time.\n\nA buddy and I decided to go to the US to \"tour\" like many of our friends did, except not to the UK or Europe like them. The \"tour\" is basically a rite of passage for a lot of Aussies, Kiwis and South Africans.\n\nWe did some visiting with friends in several states, and ended up buying a truck in Utah, from a govt auction site. \nWhen applying for insurance, all of them required a SSN. They simply had no system that would accommodate the idea of two foreigners just wanting to insure a vehicle for a few months with an SSN or a US driving license. So we went off to the local govt office, and asked. It was that simple. \nWe both got an SSN for about a $10 processing fee and it had a bold stamp on it saying \"Not valid for employment\". Fair enough. \nWith that, we got a $5 Utah id card (So as not to have to carry passports any more at places that carded customers), and then also applied for a driver license. \nBoth of these were official government issued, and bore the SSN and *no* employment status indicator. \n\nWe toured for a bit more and were in California when money became short. \nWe had open return tickets, valid for the 3 months of the visa waiver terms, but decided to stay. (Young, dumb and full of cum. Right?) \nSo we got jobs. I had a semi skilled job helping some guy install electronic systems, and my buddy found another role. \nBoth places asked for ID and SSNs, and the driver license satisfied both. \nWe got an apartment in Santa Ana, paid rent on time, and paid taxes (automatically deducted). \n\nThe second trip I had, I met up with him in Florida. There I got a job with him doing manual labour doing office installations. \nAgain, they only needed basic proof of SSN for tax purposes. \n\nNo-one gave a shit. In economies where a lot of the jobs are by word of mouth, or people get their relatives hired, *no-one* confronted us with a \"You took er jerbs\". In fact to most they were amused that two white boys were working illegally in California and Florida. We kept our noses clean, kept our vehicle roadworthy and legal, and paid taxes. \nWe had insurance but never needed to use it, and the emergency funds to leave if we ever had to in a hurry. \n\nThe immigration system may have changed since then, but I bet there's still loopholes. \nI'm sure it's harder since 9/11, but that's only for entry. If you're not on any lists or from any flagged nations, I bet you could get in and disappear. \nMany people from tin-pot nations meet the financial requirements of being able to support themselves for those months by bring cash from people in their home country and simply bank it in the US so that those people can get their own assets out of the country easily and have a bit of a nest-egg should they need to flee. \n\nI've since been back a few times, two of them while employed by a UK company, and once prior to that to attend an American university as a foreign student with full compliance in immigration. \n\nIn all that time, I got stopped once when visiting with family and paid a $95 fine for overstaying my visa on my second trip. \nI fessed up to it at customs when the guy entered my data and asked me if there was something he should know. Didn't bullshit them. They would have turned me away that day if I tried to lie about it.",
"I'm in a large U.S. city. I worked at a company that used illegal immigrants for labor, which I'll call \"my company\". There are legit businesses that have access to illegal immigrants. My company would tell the legit business \"we need 12 guys. 6 for the day and 6 for the night\". My company would pay the legit \"illegal worker\" business $6 per hour for each worker. The business would keep $1 and pay each worker $5 per hour. If anything was exposed, my company could play dumb, since they weren't actually hiring the illegal immigrants. My company was paying a legal person/business. Not sure of any other details of how this all worked. But there's a system in place if someone wants to come here to make money."
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4gdagn | why are the islands in the south china sea so important to china? | Is it worth it to them to get into a war with the US over these islands? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4gdagn/eli5_why_are_the_islands_in_the_south_china_sea/ | {
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"A couple of things:\n\nThe South China Sea is important to China because:\n\n* China wants to become more of a naval power because it sees itself as being contained by the US running along a line from S. Korea to Taiwan to the Philippines. China's commercial and geopolitical interests point toward a more active navy.\n\n* China resents America's primacy in the Western Pacific. China would like to see the Western Pacific run according to Chinese interests or, at least, to have a greater degree of influence.\n\n* China has a strong disincentive to back down regarding \"historic\" claims such as these as Chinese sovereignty is an extremely important issue to the Chinese people who saw their country carved up by outside powers from roughly 1850-1950. It's the same reason China insists that Taiwan not be formally independent.\n\n > Is it worth it to them to get into a war with the US over these islands?\n\n* There is a middle ground between war and accepting Chinese spurious claims that overlap with the territories belonging to China's neighbors (which are theirs according to the globally accepted standards of the UN law of the sea). In fact, simply accepting Chinese demands with no pushback would arguably make war more likely as China would see itself as having a free hand to push the envelope further, which could easily lead to a situation where the US or, more likely, one of China's neighbors is pushed so far as to make war an inevitability.\n\n* It is in the US' best interest to maintain the standards of international law regarding the rights to sea territory. Not only would those rules breaking down make war more likely in the seas around China, but could also spark conflict in contested waters elsewhere around the globe (e.g. the Eastern Mediterranean where massive undersea gas reserves have been uncovered in the last few years). \n\n* The US conducting freedom of navigation missions (pretty much the extent of our actions so far) continues to lend credence to the fact that we'll stand by the other nations around the South China Sea and their maritime claims.\n\n* Ultimately, China will back down or reach an mutually acceptable compromise when it sees the cost of brinkmanship as higher than the gains. Every one of China's neighbors, even traditional allies like Myanmar/Burma has come much closer to the US and cooler toward China in recent years, in no small part because of increased Chinese assertiveness. The stronger those ties to the US become, the greater the benefit to the US and the higher the costs to China, as they make US encirclement even more of a reality than it already is. Ultimately, China will likely abandon its assertive stance or compromise as it sees its attitude as increasingly self defeating.\n\nNote: \"China\" above is just referring to the CCP government.",
"They want the island's for multiple reasons. 1. With control of the islands they can control the shipping route that goes through the region. If they control the route they can enable taxes on the trillions of dollars that go through it every year. 2. They can build military bases for things like, refueling, extra range for missiles, etc. 3. It solidifies there claim of the territory in the area. \n\n\nTo answer the part about going to war with America. America will not go to war with china (Americas biggest trading partner) over a few islands that do not directly affect America, only Americas allies. \n\n(source: Knowledge, research, and I wrote a paper on a similar topic.) \n ",
"China wants to have exclusive access to what it sees as fertile fishing etc., but doesn't have a claim out there at all. The entire \"historic\" claim is completely fabricated, these islands are uninhabited. China's \"claims\" in this area are completely outlandish, and run aground of several other island nations' shores.\n\nLots of the small nations in the area are frightened by China's aggression here and ironically are going to buddy up to western powers, mostly the US, in order to defend themselves.\n\nChina doesn't have a blue water navy, and these islands aren't really a good path to obtaining one. It doesn't even make sense for China to have a strong navy, they are just imitating the US."
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5wlofs | since when and why did we use the word "layman" to describe "a person without professional or specialized knowledge in a particular subject?" | I've been wondering ever since I've seen it on the sidebar. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5wlofs/eli5_since_when_and_why_did_we_use_the_word/ | {
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"_URL_0_\n\nIt's been in use since the 15th century. The original meaning was to refer to somebody who wasn't an ordained priest but still involved with the church in an official capacity. By extension, it took on the meaning of referring to anyone who wasn't a professional or expert in a subject matter.\n\nSee also: _URL_1_"
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1tnnkt | why haven't we bred miniature versions of other animal species for domestication? | I was thinking of a 30-pound polar bear, and what an awesome pet that might be, and then I wondered "why don't we breed some species smaller and smaller as pets or working animals?" | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tnnkt/eli5_why_havent_we_bred_miniature_versions_of/ | {
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"Not every animal can be domesticated. Some animals are just too aggressive or not sociable enough. Remember, you can't just make an animal small right away. It takes generations upon generations of selective breeding to make an animal appear a specific way.",
"The domestication process takes many hundreds if not thousands of generations. If a breeding program decided they wanted to breed a small version of a polar bear, as you suggested, it would require a very large breeding population, which would be almost impossible to manage. Think about how many polar bears you see at the average zoo, and multiply that by about 300. And this is just to domesticate the bears, let alone start developing different breeds that might start to be smaller than their wild ancestors.",
"Bears are aggressive and take a long time to mature, making them difficult to domesticate. Without a clear benefit to doing so, mankind has never gotten around to the 1000 years or so of selective breeding it would take to make mini-bears."
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1zrlho | how is rockstar able to make the massive open world environment in gta v run with only 512mb of ram? and 256mb on ps3 if i'm not mistaken. | It's absolutely insane that they're able to do this, I'd love some insight. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zrlho/eli5_how_is_rockstar_able_to_make_the_massive/ | {
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"Most of the world is stored as polygons (points and edges) plus textures. Textures can be reused and points/edges are very memory efficient...with 512Mb of RAM you can hold millions of polygons. Almost all of the heavy lifting is done in real time by the processor. ",
"It's an illusion.\n\nAt any given time, the game is only rendering a very small part of the world. The further away from your point of view, the less detail the game has to render. In the business this is called \"Level of Detail\" or LOD.\n\nImagine your character is standing on a chess board. The game will render the square that you are standing in at the highest level of fidelity. It will also put stuff in that square - cars, birds, pedestrians, etc.\n\nThe nearby squares are rendered in a lower level of detail, and the system doesn't have to put anything in those squares but the buildings, roads and vegetation.\n\nThe furthest away squares are rendered at the lowest level of detail. You can see shapes and colors but not details like words on signs or branches on trees.\n\nIf you move from square to square, the game changes the LOD for what you're looking at dynamically. It plays some clever games near the edges of squares so that the transition from square to square is seamless. It will \"remember\" for a brief time the existence of objects in the game world in the square you have most recently left, so that if you go back it seems persistent.\n\nA lot of math is used to build the various LOD and to do it on the fly as you move around the game world. The budgets for all the graphics you see in terms of how much memory they require is carefully managed by the artists and programmers. By doing a lot of work up front, and using a lot of clever math, they can sustain the illusion quite well under most in-game conditions.",
"It's called streaming technology. Instead of putting basicly the entire game in the RAM from the get go, it places only that in the RAM which it needs at the moment.\n\nImagine like this; you have a 1 \"world\". The old method is to basically store the entire \"world\" in your memory. Back in the day this was done to remove/reduce loadtimes.\n\nWith streaming technology, you basically divide the world into 1000's of unique parts (so instead of 1 city block, you have; 8 buildings, 20 street lights, 4 roads, 6 mailboxes, etc). The game \"knows\" where you are and what needs to be shown. So the amount of necessary RAM is reduced significantly. Load times can also be (partly) removed this way as the levels are loaded in the background (e.g. closed elevators are typically loadscreens, see mass effect or dead space).\n\nWith less parts in the RAM at the same time, they can hold more detail. This way you can create a world as big as your disk/harddrive allows, with the detail being limited by the RAM (and smoothness of the game aka FPS is determined by CPU/GPU/RAM/HD speeds).\n\nI think that is pretty ELI5. Obviously it is a way more complex thing to program (which is why developers have dedicated programmers that make this sort of stuff happen)."
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3aixrb | why do european trucks have a flat "face", but north american trucks do not. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3aixrb/eli5_why_do_european_trucks_have_a_flat_face_but/ | {
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"The flat fronted trucks are called \"cab-overs\". They were fairly popular in the US a few decades ago when overall length (truck and trailer) was a factor in legality. However, nowadays, the standard van trailer is capped at 53 feet in the US--when it's connected to a conventional truck, they're still legal. Longer trailers typically require permits.\n\nThe advantages of a conventional truck include a softer ride since you aren't sitting directly above an axle, a simpler design, and more space in the sleeper. These traits are extremely desirable on straight, wide open US roads where you cover long distances (Texas is about 800 miles to drive across--about the same distance as Manchester to Zurich!). The main disadvantage of conventional trucks is the longer wheelbase. This makes the vehicle less maneuverable and many areas in Europe still base legality on overall length of cab + trailer. Further, the better maneuverability of cab-overs pairs well with the tighter, curvier European roads.",
"At least in Germany flat fronted trucks became the norm when in the 1960s the train-friendly minister of transport mandated that the truck should be included in the calculation of the maximum length of the overall rig. As the overall length of a rig is limited to 18 meters, companies started to favor the flat fronted trucks as they allowed for a longer trailer. Beforehand long nosed trucks were quite common here also"
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w7exm | my rights, as an american, surrounding searches and warrants. | Basically I want to know which situation I can tell a cop he can and cannot search and what I'm protected from. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/w7exm/eli5_my_rights_as_an_american_surrounding/ | {
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"You don't ever have to consent to any search.\n\nIf a cop has probable cause, you're getting searched without consent no matter what. Here's the thing: If a cop has probable cause to search you (or your car or your bag or whatever), he's not going to ask - he'll just do it.\n\nNot consenting to a search is not, in and of itself, probable cause.\n\nMore often than not, being the lowlife, lying shitsacks that they are, a cop will lie and fabricate the probable cause needed if he really thinks he can get you on something.\n\nMost important is to keep repeating the phrases\n\n* I do not consent to any search.\n\n* Am I being detained, or am I free to go?\n\nIf you're free to go, then go.\n\nIf you're being detained, find out why. The cop, being the lying shitsack that he is, will continue to try to fuck with your head in order to get you to consent to a search or to do something stupid. Just keep repeating the above phrases.\n\nIf/when the cuffs come out, STFU. The only words out of your mouth at that point should be, \"I want my lawyer.\"",
"Not a full lawyer, so don't hold me 100% to this.\n\nFirst, I advise be polite. It's not a rule, but being hostile will almost never end well and being polite often speeds things up. The vast vast majority of cops are not like the few you hear of on r/politics breaking the rules, they are doing their job and respecting that helps move things along (and frankly they are often less inclined to search a cooperating person).\n\nAnything in plain view, a cop may look at. Anyplace you have a \"reasonable expectation of privacy\" meaning your home with the blinds closed, a fully zipped backpack, a purse etc can be searched only with your consent or with probable cause. If you consent they may act on anything they find. Others can not give consent on your behalf, so for example you could not let cops in to your roommate's bedroom or car.\n\nIf a cop claims probable cause, ask what the probable cause is, it may come up as a defense if it is a shaky reasoning. Refusing to cooperate is not probable cause, but sniffing dogs indicating your bag (for example) is considered probable cause. If a cop says they have a warrant, ask to see the warrant and what it covers. A warrant is specific about where a cop may look and what they are looking for. In either of these cases the cops do not need your permission to conduct a search. \n\nIf during the course of a legal search they see something in plain view not covered by the warrant they may act on it. If it is something that may be destroyed such as documents or drugs they may seize them.\n\nIf you are being questioned, ask if you are free to go. If they say you may not go you are considered in police custody and therefore have the right to an attorney. If you ask for an attorney the cops may not do or say anything to gather information from you without a lawyer present. \n\nIf cops break any of these rules to gather information, that information may never be used in court. Not only that, but if information gathered illegally leads to other information all that information is thrown out as well. Such information is considered \"fruit from the poison tree\" and makes (most) cops very careful about how they gather information because it can lead to guilty men walking free if handled wrong.",
"This is slightly oversimplified, but close enough for most purposes.\nFirst, if the police ask you for permission, always say no. You can always say no, and they can't hold it against you (in the legal sense). If they can legally search you without permission, they won't ask for it.\n\nIn your own home: the police always need a warrant.\n\nIn your car: the police can search all of it if they have probably cause to believe a crime has been committed and that a search of your car will turn up evidence or contraband. This includes the trunk, and any containers in the car that could hide the evidence/contraband they have probable cause to believe they will find.\n\nYour body: the police can briefly detain you for investigation if they have some halfway decent reason to think that a crime has been, is being, or will be committed (this doesn't have to be enough to count as probable cause). If they stop you like this, and they have some reason to believe you might be armed or dangerous, they can pat down your body and your clothes for weapons, but they can't go rummaging around through your stuff and pockets looking at things that could not possibly be mistaken for a weapon.\n\nIf you are arrested: You can be strip-searched. Even if it was just for jaywalking. Thank the current Supreme Court for that. The police can also search the area within an arms' length of you when you are arrested, and if you are in a car when arrested, they can search the passenger compartment (but not trunk) of the vehicle."
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1lh1f8 | why is it that when women get hit by men its a bigger deal than a man getting hit by a woman? | I know this is a real touchy subject, and in no way do I support abusing women or anyone for that matter. I would just like to hear some different opinions on it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lh1f8/eli5_why_is_it_that_when_women_get_hit_by_men_its/ | {
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"I think there is a general perception that men are physically stronger than women and so can do more damage when they attack someone, and can defend themselves better when being attacked. Legally speaking, I don't think cases of spousal abuse are treated any differently depending on the sex of the abuser. ",
"For much of Western history, women have been seen as delicate flowers dependent upon men for protection. Women weren't able to vote in the USA until 1920. The idea of them being able to work and support themselves (without being teachers or whores) didn't begin to gain acceptance until the 1950s.\n\nOn top of all the cultural stuff, women *are* generally smaller, weaker and less aggressive (and thus, less adept at fighting) than men. The result is that we view a man that needs to hit a woman as being weak & needing to pick on the defenseless - a contemptible being. Fortunately, there's always going to be some chivalrous man to stand up and defend her."
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1ro0ua | why is it illegal to sell a kidney, but things like donating sperm/eggs and being a surrogate mother are legal? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ro0ua/eli5_why_is_it_illegal_to_sell_a_kidney_but/ | {
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"Well, being out a load of sperm or a couple eggs is no big deal. A kidney is. It could lead to abuse of the poor. Kidneys are expensive because they are rare but if it became legal the price would drastically drop due to increased supply. Then you would have a lot of poor people that sell their kidneys for $500 then require tens or hundreds of thousands of care later. "
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61pucl | why do credit card companies that offer those "5% cash back" deals that require users to activate a different category each quarter need to be so secretive/mysterious what the future categories are? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/61pucl/eli5_why_do_credit_card_companies_that_offer/ | {
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"Probably to keep people from gaming the system by planning large purchases around upcoming deals. If people know what's coming, they can take advantage of the program and the credit card company would lose than they'd like. ",
"The idea of those promotions is to get you to put more money on your credit card - you're supposed to think \"Ooh, I can save money on *x*, but I'd better buy it now!\"\n\nIf they announce those promotions in advance, it encourages you to put off purchases instead, which is the opposite effect of what they want."
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fwk0bo | when you are young you dont think old people are attractive, do you just get old and suddenly you think they are attractive? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fwk0bo/eli5_when_you_are_young_you_dont_think_old_people/ | {
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"It depends. Studies have shown that although women are attracted to men around the same age, men find women in their early to mid twenties most attractive regardless of age.\n\nThis makes sense evolutionarily to best procreate.",
"Yes your tastes mature and what you consider attractive changes. I mean you can always see a 20 year as attractive, and some never grow beyond that, but most just find them exhausting. I am 40 and anyone under 30 just looks like someone i am going to have to mother. Certainly not someone i can depend on fir emotional support. Also you cannot carry on a conversation with them because your priorities change so much.",
"Pretty much. \n\nYoung people start to look like children. You get surprised at roles they're in, that they can deal. \n\nThen you think \"we're all different yet all the same\" and go and talk to them and forget what they look like at all.",
"Attraction is complex.\n\nIn general, a fit body shape is universally attractive, but then for specifics, for men certain facial hair and hair styles can be attractive to old age, silver hair can be attractive, etc. For women, hair styles and eye colors, as well as smile / laugh lines can be very attractive.\n\nAnd otherwise we have clothes and elegance to cover body imperfections and make people attractive.\n\nAnd, as the others have said, a big part of it is personality and level of maturity. Being able to hold a discussion about music, history, politics, or any topic really, can be extremely attractive to people.",
"I remember my first crush was when I was in grade school. I was still young enough to find the thought of sex to be icky but I was attracted to girls around my age.\n\nThat's obviously something I grew out of but I can't point to a specific time when it happened. Certainly nothing as specific as \"half your age plus seven\".",
"What do you mean by old? In my early to mid 20s I wouldn't even consider dating a dude in his 30s. I always like guys my age or a bit younger. The thing is now \"my age\" (34) has expanded. It's not two years either direction, its 6ish years either direction (42 is about the oldest I would even consider). I'm assuming by the time I'm 45 it will expand even more perhaps opening the door to guys nearing or in their early 60s. Who knows!",
"People find youth attractive no matter what age they are, especially men. There's plenty of studies and anecdotal evidence backing this up. Look at the kind of partners rich and powerful men - the ones that have the option - tend to choose, maybe not always 21 year old supermodels (though, often enough) but very rarely women their age.\n\nBut there are practical reasons for choosing a partner closer to your age than the physical ideal. And I believe, people sort of train or habituate themselves to which sorts of people are romantic prospects, and their attention adjusts to notice things about those people more.",
"I'm in my late 30's, and so far yes.\n\nWhen I was 20, I thought 20 year olds were the hottest thing around. Now they look like awkward, barely pubescent kids. They remind me of my friends' teenage children. I'm old enough to be their dad, and at this point I'm more likely to think their dad is hot than them. I want a man who looks like he has experience. \n\nNot to mention that I have very little in common with 20 year olds now. They don't remember 9/11, I don't know the celebrities or music they care about, they're either still living off their parents/in college or still getting their feet under them and learning how to be an adult. Again, it's like talking to my friend's teenage children. They're nice kids, but we don't know or care about the same things, so we often don't have much to talk about.\n\nI'm expecting/hoping that this trend continues. When I'm 70 I'm sure people in their 30's will look like kids.",
"Here's an article on a study that was done on this topic.... i hate it\n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)",
"In a word yes, but really what I think is happening is that your understanding of beauty gets a lot less strict. When you are young, you see one flaw and you lose all interest in them. Obviously older people are going to have more flaws. When you mature, your whole viewpoint matures and while you might still find college chicks hot, you wouldn't throw Katie Holmes out of bed even though she is 41. \n\nI started watching some old episodes of Star Trek TNG during this COVID lockdown and I can't help but think \"Man, I don't remember Crusher being such a babe.\"",
"I'm 45 and can confirm-- it just slowly happens. You don't really notice it happening but it definitely happens.",
"No it works the opposite way: young people appear younger. 18-year-olds look like little children to me. When I was 25 I had grown out of 18-year-old girls maturitywise, but I still thought they were sexually attractive. Now they just look like babies.\n\nThe reason is, you always think you are the same age. Because aging is such a slow process, you don't notice it. When you look in the mirror while brushing your hair every morning, the person you see is the same person you've seen every day of your life. It's only when you look at an old photograph of yourself, or run into someone you haven't seen in many years, that you realize you look older. It hits you all of a sudden, and the first time or two it happens it's quite a shock.\n\nFinally, what you find attractive changes. If you're a man, you are still sexually into the young hotties (bc men are still hardwired toward women of childbearing age - a few of whom you can still get if you are in shape and have money) but you have grown tired of the frivolousness and unnecessary drama they bring to life, and that makes them much less attractive. (As you get older, you come to the conclusion that younger people are idiots, yourself included, because they are preoccupied with things that are unimportant, or at least that no longer matter to you.) Meanwhile older women, who were not attractive when you were younger, look attractive because they are physically the same age as you, and they generally present much less headache than younger women."
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2680d4 | why are credit cards that size? | I see plenty of things listed as "credit card sized" (knives, toolkits, USB chargers, etc.), but I want to know how that particular size came to be a standard for things.
Wikipedia lists the ISO standards that describe the size, but it doesn't say *why*. How was that particular size selected? Does the size make it easier to manufacture them? Is it because wallets already had credit card-sized slots in them? Help me understand, Reddit! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2680d4/eli5_why_are_credit_cards_that_size/ | {
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"This goes back to the 15th century, when you handed your card to the herald so that you could be announced, but back then, they were the size of a deck of cards. Eventually, business cards became the size they are due to limitations with printing presses (though some say it's due to the size of tobacco boxes people used to store them in). And yeah, credit cards were made the size of business cards so they all could fit together in your wallet. ",
"U.S. Banknotes (dollars!) are a little bit smaller than the length and width of a standard wallet, folded out. This is so the bills will fit comfortably in a wallet. \n\nCredit cards are approximately *half* that size, so you can store them in the pockets of your wallet - without needing to be folded in half. The industries are symbiotic, along with CC readers, this standard size was developed.\n\nUS Drivers Licenses/ID are of a similar size - but don't have to be exact since you don't read them in a CC processor. \n\nIf you notice, other countries have different *sizes* for their bills - and therefore different size wallets (and IDs). However, credit cards are all the same size because they were invented in the United States. \n\n"
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4376of | why do some people with mental illness snap and commit violent crimes even when receiving treatment, while others don't? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4376of/eli5_why_do_some_people_with_mental_illness_snap/ | {
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"Because not all mental illnesses are the same, and even people with the same mental illnesses may be at complete different levels, or experiencing different symptoms, or even have different reactions to the medicine (some may be helped by meds, some may have their symptoms worsened by them -- though this is rare: do not stop taking meds because of a fear that this will happen.) \n\n",
"1. Actually only a few from a variety of mental disorders present with acute psychosis causing people to lose contact with reality. A person suffering from psychotic episode can, however doesn't have to, be violent.\n2. There is some correlation between violence and mental illness, but it's not an if/then. The vast majority of people with mental illness are not violent, not criminal and not dangerous. People with psychiatric disabilities are far more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violent crime.\n3. In the case you brought up, obviously the treatment Robbie Hawkins received wasn't accurate and/or sufficient. He had a history of dangerous violence and threatening people, yet he was left alone and unsupervised with his demons (it was not made clear if he was receiving any treatment at the time of his death, if his was on any meds etc., I'm gonna assume he wasn't).\n4. There is no direct answer to your question, I'd say there are two major factors: 1) What kind of mental disorder is one suffering from; 2) Is one diagnosed accurately and receiving proper treatment.\n5. It is worth mentioning that those who suffer from incurable life-long mental disorders, like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, have the tendency to go off medication. It's a part of a disease."
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2cn0y8 | zero-calorie soda. | How do zero-calorie sodas work? For example, Coke Zero is zero calories, however it tastes very close to the original. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cn0y8/eli5_zerocalorie_soda/ | {
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"They contain artificial sweeteners, chemicals that taste sweet like sugar, but cannot be broken down for energy the same way sugar can."
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cjjlfl | who and how do they pay for town,city and interstate lights? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cjjlfl/eli5_who_and_how_do_they_pay_for_towncity_and/ | {
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"Generally the utility company tells the city approximately how many streetlights there are and as u/Callico_m pointed out, the city then pays the bill.\n\nThis is why reporting streetlights that are out to the town/city/village/whereverthefuckyoulive is important as you're still paying for it even when it's not working."
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1pj6hd | why won't the world use rubbish as their new source of electricity? | Apparently Sweden has literally ran out of trash because of this method. So why don't other countries just follow suit? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pj6hd/eli5_why_wont_the_world_use_rubbish_as_their_new/ | {
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"Trash is kind of a pain to burn as it's super inconsistent as a fuel. Also, it can be quite polluting depending on what gets put in the trash; e.g.: batteries in the trash = bad news for what ends up in your air/water when you burn them.\n\nSweden goes to a lot of trouble to use their trash as fuel. From what I've heard/read they do a pretty good job all things considered, but it does cost them quite a bit more to run their trash-energy program than a lot of other energy plans would.\n\nEdit: As a followup, you basically have to put people into the cycle in some sort of trash-sorting role to make it work well; the automated sorting processes aren't good enough yet... This is the main part that gets expensive.",
"So you're saying Sweden has just run out of a source of power it's presumably spent a lot of money on developing?\n\nI can't conceive of a single reason we're not all doing it. ",
"Florida burns a lot of garbage. I live in Pinellas county which has been turning garbage to electricity for 25 years. _URL_0_ ",
"In my efforts to discover if Japan burns rubbish for fuel I found an article that answers your question: \n\n_URL_0_",
"I'm a chemical engineer studying in Canada. Just last year we took a tour of a **plasma gasification** plant in Ottawa, Ontario called [Plasco](_URL_0_). This is a company that buys garbage from a landfill, plasma gasifies it, and then makes electricity out of the high energy waste product. \n\n[Here](_URL_1_) is a video made by two of my classmates explaining the principles of plasma gasification and its benefit over **Land Filling** and **Incineration**, two of the most commonly used alternatives to dispose of waste products. The biggest major difference is that this method creates electrical energy for grid use while the other two don't. \n\nTo answer your question as to why the world doesn't use waste for electric power, the answer is that not every country is as limited for land use. Plasma gassing is quite expensive, and since Canada has the land to store garbage in land fills, this method is not necessary for the sustainability of the land. However, European countries see a significantly greater value in this (Sweden as you said), but must be willing to put forth the investment to do so. \n\ntl;dr. As always, investment capital is the issue. We aren't as limited by the technology in this case. ",
"Like some have commented on sweden, it is extensive. However this is only so because sweden has a large network and the costs are kept low thanks to a combination of sorting at home and already paid off station. The main cost lies in the initial investment, which has been paid of in sweden since they have been doing it for a while. There is no need for sorting the trash. As a Swede in Canada that has lived in the US I can say that I have only heard of sorting over on this side of the atlantic. \n\nTo answer the question it is not energy efficient enough. It is true that we have a shitload of trash but that needs to be sorted if it is already in a landfill. Even doing so it is highly ineffiecient way of getting new electricity. Out of an energy pov it is better to recycle or consume less.",
"\nOh I’m sorry, I can put the trash into a landfill where it’s gonna stay for millions of years. Or, I can burn it up and get a nice smokey smell in here and let that smoke go into the sky where it turns into stars.",
"Because we're saving it for time travel.",
"Materials Engineer here. From the refractories side, burning garbage is a nightmare to design for. Any furnace typically composes of a steel structural shell lined with refractory so the steel structure doesn’t get damaged. The refractory is usually designed to withstand a either acidic or basic burning stock. It’s pretty damn hard to find material that will withstand both and be economical. Burning garbage basically means you have no idea what you’ll be burning, how much energy the stock will have (i.e. how much extra “help” in chemical burners you’ll need to reach an efficient temperature to run your turbines), and the composition of that stock. All of these unknowns means a lot of quick adjustments, which means automation, which means big bucks. \nIt’s certainly not impossible, just not economical based on our current garbage system. Now if we started sorting garbage as religiously as the Japanese…\n",
"As has been pointed out, it's expensive and doesn't have a lot of benefits beyond saving land, which in lots of places is not in short supply.\n\nMy city sells methane from its landfill for heating and manufacturing, so it's not impossible to use garbage as an energy source, even in a landfill.",
"I'm not exactly an expert on burning trash but from what I have read in the past trash is not an optimal fuel source for a few reasons.\n\n1)The cost of stopping production is very high. Because trash is often not really flammable it needs to be ignited at a fairly high temperature to burn efficiently. So if you have to stop production during a time when energy demand is low you have to waste a lot of fuel heating back up to the point where you can burn trash again.\n\n2) Trash can be inconsistent I.E. you don't necessarily know what you are burning. Some things will be energy dense and some wont. You need to have a consistent supply of varied garbage. I think some places even go to the trouble of mixing different kinds of trash to ensure constancy.\n\n3) You need a lot of trash. As I said the cost of stopping production is high. Another reason you might stop production is because you run out of trash. So you need to be fairly sure that you will never run out of trash. ",
"Some places do. Funny you ask this now bc just yesterday I noticed that the side of our waste management system truck says \"This trash will become your energy\"",
"A number of towns in the U.S. have had (and some still have) trash incinerators with an \"energy recovery\" component (marketed by incinerator companies as \"waste-to-energy\"). Basically they burn trash and try to capture some of the energy from the burning as energy that goes back into the system. This has been around for years. It hasn't worked out well.\n\nThe problem is that the companies in the U.S. have done it poorly, resulting in extremely expensive incinerator plants that are not run well, stick the town with huge long-term debt to finance the plant, and usually end up polluting the town with extremely toxic substances known as dioxins.\n\nRead more:\n\n1. _URL_1_\n\n2. _URL_0_",
"My dissertation touched on this topic. As others have said, rubbish is rubbish to burn and inconsistent. Typically rubbish is burnt as a **disposal** method, which just happens to generate power.\n\nThen calorific efficiency to electricity is only ~30% [subject to edit, can't remember exactly and don't have the report with me]. Plants which also provide heating for communities (read Scandinavia) are often built as the centre of a town and can read much higher efficiencies.\n\nThen theres the fact that incinerators are very expensive. You have to build them near to waste sources otherwise transport then costs a lot [hence every city has its own waste dump/landfill]. So you need to build them regionally, but they're expensive. AND, the smaller the less efficient they are [in terms of both running and construction].\n\nFinally, incineration does not just make the waste disappear. ~33% by weight and 40% by volume [again I'll need to double check] remains as ash/generic black powder after incineration. This then needs land-filling anyway.\n\n**tldr: Not very green, very expensive so hard to place locally, not that efficient in generating electricity and don't even get rid of the waste entirely.**",
"I know this one guy years ago who used it to power his time machine. "
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6f03b1 | how is the body still able to function so well in space where there is zero gravity? | I understand the heart is able to circulate blood like a pump throughout the body and the muscles do deteriorate at a quick rate. That being said, how does our body move food throughout our intestines and how are neurons still able to fire as well in space as on earth, etc. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6f03b1/eli5_how_is_the_body_still_able_to_function_so/ | {
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"There are very few things in our body that require gravity to work. If that were the case then you would have a lot of problems on Earth as you move your body into different positions. Your digestive system can not stop if you lie down. You still have to be able to drink water when upside down so that you are able to drink from a lake or stream. Your neurons have to work in any position as you wave your hands around and also as you go to sleep at night. So all our body functions have developed to work in lots of different orientations and are independent of gravity.\n\nThere are only a couple of minor problems with spending extended periods in free fall. First of all the heart is located in the upper half of your body so that it can provide better blood pressure to your head. The blood pressure in your feet are normally helped along by gravity. The difference is well within the limits of what is tolerated in short periods. If you have been upside down for some time you may have noticed a few problems as the blood pressure in your head are elevated and you have too little blood pressure in your feet. Astronauts are only in free fall and not upside down so the problems are not so great but they are still there. This is why you see astronauts with bloated red faces but it normalized when they get back to Earth. There are some problems with the eyesight and such caused by the elevated blood pressure.\n\nSecondly since they are in free fall they do not stand upright. They can just float in the air without straining a muscle or a bone. The body is very good at adapting so when you do not use something it will deteriorate. So since astronauts do not use their muscles and bones nearly as much as people on Earth their bones and muscles are becoming smaller and weaker. This can cause problems when they get back. The way to cure this is to go for extended daily training sessions to use the muscles and bones."
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11m0lf | what does "3rd cousin, twice removed" means? what's a 3rd cousin? how was he removed twice? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/11m0lf/eli5_what_does_3rd_cousin_twice_removed_means/ | {
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"Your first cousin has the same grandparents as you, but not the same parents, right? Go back another generation, with your great-grandparents. Someone who also has the same great-grandparents, but not the same grandparents, is your second cousin. Go back another step to your great-great-grandparents, and you get your third cousins.\n\nYour parents also have first cousins, these are your first cousins once removed (once removed = one generation up). They also have second cousins, they're your second cousins once removed. Your grandparents also have first, second, and third cousins - they're your first, second and third cousins twice removed (again, two generations up = twice removed).",
"As long as they are not first...you are good to go!",
"This is the best image I've seen on the net to explain this:\n[LINK](_URL_0_)",
"In Arabic, when asked something like that we just say \"He is from my extended family\". When asked what exactly your relation is, we say \"you will need to refer to family tree for that\". ",
"Do people in the US still consider this a relative? Here in Iceland, pretty much everyone is each other's 3rd cousin twice removed....",
"You can always use wolframalpha to figure out any relations. You can search like \"[3rd cousin twice removed](_URL_1_)\" or like \"[mothers uncles fathers aunts niece](_URL_0_)\".",
"In my family, my grandfathers sister in law married my grandfathers brother. \n\nIs there a special term for the cousins produced from that? \n\nWhat would normally be my dads first cousins are somehow closer. They always say double cousins, but there might be a better term?",
"For any 5-year-old programmers/math geeks in the audience:\n\nYou and your *N*^th cousin *R* times removed have a (pair of) common ancestor(s). The common ancestor is *N*+1 generations back for one of you and *N*+*R*+1 generations back for the other. \n\nSo the \"removal\" is the difference in generations. My *N*^th cousin's kid and I are once removed. My *N*^th cousin's parent and I are also once removed, but we look at it from their perspective because they're closer to the common ancestor, so we're (*N*-1)^th cousins once removed. \n\nSo, first cousins: *N*=1, *R*=0 → common ancestor is *N*+1=2 generations back, i.e., same grandparents.\n\nThird cousins twice removed: *N*=3, *R*=2 → common ancestor is *N*+1=4 generations back for one of you (great-great-grandparent) and 4+*R*=6 generations back for the other (great-great-great-great-grandparent). \n\nThe usual terminology doesn't extend down to *N*=0, but if it did, \"0^th cousins\" would mean siblings, while \"0^th cousins once removed\" would be aunt/uncle and niece/nephew. Further removal would just add \"grand\" and successive \"greats\".",
"[This does provide a pretty good graphic of it](_URL_0_)",
"What's the name for your cousin's cousin? \n\nEg. you have a parent, and they have a brother, Bob. \n\nBob marries Jane, and they have a kid, Harry. \n\nJane has a sister, Jill. Jill has a child, Mike. \n\nSo Mike is Harry's cousin, but then is there a relation between Mike and yourself? Is it a cousin-in-law or something?",
"After reading this thread, the word \"cousin\" looks really strange or misspelled or something.",
"Tennessee boy here. My grandpa came from a holler in Jackson county where he lived as a sharecropper. Wasn't much contact with the cities and wasn't much time to travel. Back in the day, his daddy married his second cousin. Hooray for mild incest! Since every one of their descendants is both their child and the child of their cousin, we're all related to ourselves. Grandpa's his own third cousin, Dad's his own fourth, and I and my brothers are all our own fifth cousins. The weird part is that, hypothetically speaking, because my fifth cousin is also the fifth cousin of any of my brothers, I'm also my brothers' tenth cousin. Brain hurt? You're welcome. ",
"In German, removed translates to the same word as distant or remote. Quiet relevant. ",
"I can help you out here by making an example, if you learn better this way.\n\nOnce upon a time, there was Abigail and Andrew. Abigail and Andrew had two children, Beth and Ben. Beth got married and had one child, Christopher. Ben also got married and had one child, Callie. Christopher and Callie are first cousins.\n\nNow, Christopher gets married and has a child named Donald. Callie also gets married and has a child name Diana. Donald and Diana are second cousins. Their parents are cousins. \n\nNow, how do you explain Christopher's relationship with Diana? They are not first cousins. They are not second cousins, either. They are first cousins, once removed. \n\nOK, back to our previous example. Donald and Diana are second cousins. Now, Donald has a child named Elliot, and Diana has a child named Emma. Elliot and Emma are third cousins. They both share a set of common great-great grandparents (Abigail and Andrew).\n\nElliot has a son named Frank, and Emma has a daughter named Felicity. Frank and Felicity would be called fourth cousins, I guess (most people don't really go this far into relationships). If Frank had a child (Greg) and Felicity had a child (Gretchen), they would technically be 5th cousins. Elliot and Gretchen would be 3rd cousins, twice removed.\n\n- - - - - - - - -\n\nI sometimes think it helps to think of real life examples. For example, I grew up with a cousin who was just 6 months older than me. I'll call her Ashley. Ashley and I found out we were both pregnant around the same time. She had her child one year in August, and I had mine in October. Our two kids are second cousins. Her son, I'll call him Hans, is my first cousin, once removed.\n\nThink about your own mom. Do you know who her cousin is? That is your first cousin, once removed. Does that person have kids of his/her own? If so, those kids are your second cousins, just like my son would be Hans's second cousin. ",
"I know this has been answered. I just want to sort it out for myself.\n\nIf you and your first cousin share common grandparents, you and your 2nd cousin share common greatgrandparents, so 3rd cousins share common greatgreatgrandparents.\n\nIf your 3rd cousin has a child, you would be 3rd cousins once removed with that child. Therefore, if your 3rd cousin has a grandchild, you would be 3rd cousins twice removed to the grandchild."
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1xov1x | could an astronaut re-enter atmosphere without shuttle? | ELI5:I'm watching Gravity the movie. Theoretically, if an astronaut had a parachute, could he/she successfully re-enter earths atmosphere or would he/she be subject to the same atmospheric dangers of burn up that the shuttle experienced upon re-entry? Could he/she re-enter and parachute back to earth? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xov1x/eli5_could_an_astronaut_reenter_atmosphere/ | {
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"Note: this was explained to me by a trusted person. So I *think* I know the right answer, but I may have misunderstood, or been trained wrong on purpose as a joke. I welcome correction.\n\nThe problem with your scenario is that the issue an astronaut faces is not gaining too much speed as they fall, but LOSING speed as they de-orbit. \n\nAs [this XKCD](_URL_0_) points out, orbiting the earth requires you to be going sideways very fast. The reason that things burn up on re-entry is because they are using the atmosphere to slow down this sideways motion. Effectively, they are using the air as a braking system. \n\nSo, no, a parachute would not be enough, because either they'd still burn up from the sideways motion or, if they someone just kept going at orbital speeds, die when they smashed into the ground at a lethal speed. \n\nEDIT: re-reading the XKCD, I think it just directly answers your question. Way better than I could/did."
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ecwjbz | why is it acceptable to eat raw eggs in dried icing, but not in it's liquid form? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ecwjbz/eli5_why_is_it_acceptable_to_eat_raw_eggs_in/ | {
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"There is a small chance that eggs will have salmonella on the egg shell. With today's processing usually you don't see this especially with eggs that tend to cost more in the store as they are usually cleaned with an ab soap before they are boxed. \n\nBut with the rise of more farm to table foods and the very correct limitation to using anti-bacterial products on everything under the sun, the likely hood of getting eggs with salmonella on them again is rising (although it is still really small.)\n\nIf you're going to using raw eggs in something it is best practice to wash the egg shell along with your hands with an anti bacterial soap and let dry before cracking.\n\nNo it doesn't matter if the icing is dried or not, salmonella persists when dessicated."
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9iknpt | how are icbms intercepted? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9iknpt/eli5_how_are_icbms_intercepted/ | {
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"With really fast land- or submarine-based non-nuclear missiles that disable the drive system and harmlessly explode the warhead without starting the chain reaction required for a nuclear explosion.",
"Generally, they're not.\n\nThere are anti-ICBM technologies but generally speaking they are not super reliable, especially when you consider the potential damage a single nuclear-tipped missile could cause.\n\nThere's a few different methods. Generally speaking it's best to hit them in the boost stage, when they're moving the slowest. By the time they're re-entering they're moving a lot faster, and modern ICBMs oftentimes have countermeasures or multiple warheads/re-entry vehicles.\n\n1. Blow it up with another missile using explosives - might still be able to disable it if you don't directly hit it and just blow up near it, but if the ICBM has radioactive or biological components, you might spread that all over. Far, far better than hitting its target though.\n\n2. Blow it up or disable it with a kinetic kill vehicle - basically hit it with a missile that doesn't have any explosives and destroy it with sheer kinetic energy. As you might imagine, it's pretty difficult and kind of like hitting a bullet with another bullet\n\n3. Destroy or disable it with a laser - Lasers have relatively short range, require a large amount of power, and take some time to do their work.\n\nLarge read that covers different types of systems both actual and in test, that operate at various stages of a missile's flight: _URL_0_",
"Seems difficult. You would have to shoot down the missile before it releases its payload. The ICBM doesn't just fly all the way to the target. It releases one or more vehicles containing the explosive - those are smaller and difficult to intercept. Luckily we have early warning radar which would give 15-30 minutes to launch a counter offensive, but I am not sure we could do it. "
]
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_defense"
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divu9f | why is it so hard to disguise your hand writing? | Every time I watch a true crime show like Forensic Files they always nail the criminal by identifying their handwriting through some minuscule detail. Why are these so hard to mask? It seems like it would be easy to forge a document in a completely different writing style if you wanted to. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/divu9f/eli5why_is_it_so_hard_to_disguise_your_hand/ | {
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"First off, great show choice. I watch it all the time.\n\nYou technically can change your handwriting. However, the caveat is that you'd need A LOT of time and practice. You've spent all of your pertinent childhood years writing a certain way so those quirks you've developed are essentially muscle memory by now. To change them would require discipline, practice, and patience. As for the criminals on the show? I doubt they are practicing for months or even years trying to forge a check. Maybe they'll practice on a few sheets of paper tops. Old habits are destined to leak.\n\nEdit: fixed “is that is that”",
"I think it has to do with how you create the letters, not what font you use. For example, i write my capital As starting on the right bottom and then draw the outer shape, then put in the line. I could make it a different shape but i would probably always or more often start at the same place. Seems to me these kind of details are what gives it away"
]
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[],
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] | |
29ed65 | why does the dutch national anthem talk about being of german descent, and honoring the king of spain? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29ed65/eli5_why_does_the_dutch_national_anthem_talk/ | {
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"text": [
"The lyrics are from the point of view of William of Orange, who led the revolt against the king of Spain. So in the beginning, he talks about being a loyal follower, then in later stanzas how he came to be rebellious against him.\n\nAnd the word \"Duytschen\" in the 16th century could mean either German or Dutch, although William of Orange was born in what is now Germany."
]
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[]
] | ||
2e7zmg | why do we grunt and make bizarre noises during sex? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2e7zmg/eli5why_do_we_grunt_and_make_bizarre_noises/ | {
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"cjwx6s2",
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"text": [
"For lack of better words, it's our bodies subconsciously \"faking\" it. They're instinctual auditory cues so that our partners know we're feeling pleasure and exerting ourselves.",
"You and me baby ain't nothin but mammals"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
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1ipzzs | how you can make money from youtube videos. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ipzzs/eli5_how_you_can_make_money_from_youtube_videos/ | {
"a_id": [
"cb6w8ck"
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"text": [
"Applying for a YouTube partnership with Google adsense tied to your account will do. To be qualified, read up here _URL_0_\n\nA tip for being eligible for the partner program: make it so watching your videos feels like watching a T.V. Show. Notice the high profile, popular accounts. They all appear professional and made to resemble what you may see on T.V., rather than something home made. You'll attract tousands of viewers and subscribers this way, and bingo, you can make money off of it. Basically treating your YouTube channel as a job.\n\nSource: friends who are partners"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.youtube.com/yt/partners/"
]
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3jjnjy | where does vinegar come from? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jjnjy/eli5_where_does_vinegar_come_from/ | {
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"text": [
"Vinegar is very dilute acetic acid. It's made as a waste product by a certain bacteria digesting alcohol or it's made from feedstocks methanol and carbon monoxide."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
1ho6p1 | why it's hard to see lcd screens in direct sunlight. and while we're at it, how some screens like on the kindle resolve this. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ho6p1/eli5_why_its_hard_to_see_lcd_screens_in_direct/ | {
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"LCD screens depend on a light source shining through them to make the image visible. The sun, of course, is a great deal brighter. The Kindle's E-ink screen has hundreds of tiny spheres in it. An electrical charge is applied to each sphere to determine if the dark side of each sphere or the bright side of each sphere faces the person who is reading. Characters on the page are, of course, made up of spheres with the dark side facing the reader. Because the E-ink screen uses reflected light, just like paper, it is much more readable in bright sunlight.",
"LCD/LED are 'backlit' displays. They work by having a light source behind the screen. LCD works by filtering a white light into different colors, like a stained glass window. LED works by having many tiny light bulbs that turn on and off like a neon sign. To see the image, the display has to overpower any background light, like the sun, which is usually much brighter.\n\nKindles use 'e-ink'. These displays are not actively lit up by themselves. They are simply pigments which are moved around, like an etch-a-sketch. You need external light to see them, so the sun actually helps.\n\nBacklit displays will shine in a dark room like a flashlight. E-ink will not, like a newspaper."
]
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[],
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4qjkxr | how can we say with certainty what the earth's composition is? in particular, how do we know what the centre of the earth is like? | Given that the deepest point on Earth barely even makes a dent in such a vast distance, how was this determined? Do we actually know or are these estimated guesses? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4qjkxr/eli5_how_can_we_say_with_certainty_what_the/ | {
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"We guess. \n\nWhen you hold up a piece of amber with a mosquito encased inside of it, and look at the light coming through it, you are using the way the amber and it's interior structure change the light moving through it. Our eyes do this in an instant and we perceive these changes as color and brightness and shadow. \n\nSeismology can do something similar but without using light, and instead using things like p waves and swaves. They travel through the earth or along it's surface, and depending on what they pass through, the waves properties will change. It's like ultrasound imaging or a kind of underground sonar. \n\n\nWe can't see inside the earth, but we can see how energy moves through the earth, how long it takes. We know that waves move through liquids and plasticized rock at a different rate from solid rock. So when you look at something like an earth quake, and how long it takes the waves to arrive at various listening stations around the globe, you can correlate all of that information to see how long it took to arrive, and what path it took to arrive, whether it passed through deep rock, or just surface rock. \n\nTo use an analogy, by listening to the sounds of things like earthquakes, magma moving through the crust, nuclear explosions, and things like that, from all over the surface, we can map out the composition of the interior kind of like using ultra sound but very rudimentary. It doesn't paint in details, but it gives you the big picture. \n\nDuring an earthquake for instance there are different kinds of waves created, and they travel in different ways and at different speeds, so that gives us even more detail in our comparisons with the arrival times from other stations. \n\nThis is also how we triangulate the position and depth of the epicenter of an earthquake. \n\n"
]
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[]
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76o00i | why is it that (sometimes) when i’m urinating and near completion does a shake/chill go thru my entire body? i’m a male, in case that matters, because i don’t know if females experience something similar. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/76o00i/eli5_why_is_it_that_sometimes_when_im_urinating/ | {
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"I don't have an answer for you but just wanted to throw in that females also experience this.",
"Hmmm...maybe something evolutionary? \n\nThanks for clearing up the fact that females do experience this. \n\nNow I have to figure out why.",
"Piss shivers! There was an answer to this question over on Reddit's more formal cousin [Quora](_URL_0_)",
"When you are holding in your pee your prostate is acting as a dam for your bladder. When you finally let the pee go your prostate stops holding up the dam and releases the waters. So that chill you get is essentially the greatest workout aftermath ever... and it hits your nerves like a ten-ton truck.",
"Trans guy (ftm) just popping in to say that I experience this about 95% of the time. I only pee sitting down, and I've always had it this frequently, even before I started hormones. That doesn't really help answer the question, but people without penises who sit to pee certainly do experience this. ",
"You won't like the answer because of the homoerotic implications. It's a tiny glimpse at what it's like to have your prostate (the male g spot) stimulated. ",
"The truth is no one knows for sure. It's commonly called the 'pee shivers' \n\nYou'll only really find theories on it",
"I thought it was because when you pee you lose that amount of warm liquid pretty fast, so you get a chill and shiver. "
]
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"https://www.quora.com/Why-is-it-that-sometimes-when-I-pee-I-get-the-shivers"
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4cumb2 | why does the nsa goes through the hassle of strong arming companies like google, facebook, and reddit when, as i understand it, they can just get all the info they ever need by doing the same thing to internet service providers? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4cumb2/eli5why_does_the_nsa_goes_through_the_hassle_of/ | {
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"Because they can't get that info from ISP's. \nIn most countries they have laws that protect them especially against the NSA and other US agencies. \nIn Europe they just got a new law that protects it's citizens against all US government tries to get information of any European citizen. \nSo this also means if you VPN to Europe you will be protected against anything the NSA tries to get about you. \nBut companies like Facebook and such are US companies and they have to follow mainly US laws. \nThere are still some laws such as information on European servers can be protected against US government organizations but this would be to long to talk about. But this being said, the European server farms of all the said companies are pretty much protected against NSA and co.",
"Because they cannot get any of the information that they are asking from those companies from the ISP's. The ISP's do not have the information to begin with. "
]
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8rfx5k | how exactly do drugs and alcohol cause depression to the point where a person commits suicide? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8rfx5k/eli5_how_exactly_do_drugs_and_alcohol_cause/ | {
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"Alcohol and drugs are depressants. They may make you feel good initially but the come down will worsen depression symptoms due to depleted dopamine and seratonin (the feel good chemicals).\n Basically, when you take drugs your happy chemicals may rise. Therefore, when the drugs effects wear off then fun time is over because any of the seratonin and dopamine you had going in are now completely gone so you're even worse off, depression-wise, then you were before the drugs. Not worth it.",
"It's probably less that drugs and alcohol make people depressed and suicidal, than it is that depressed and suicidal people will turn to drugs and alcohol as a means to escape the dire situation of their lives before giving up altogether.\n\nTo be sure, being on drugs and alcohol will make your life a whole load worse - but a happy person doesn't descend into non-functioning addiction on a whim.",
"* if you are abusing drugs, there is a decent chance you are already depressed and are self-medicating\n* drug dependency is stressful, as is messing up your life due to dependency, both leading to depression\n* some depressants provide short-term relief, only to make you more depressed in the long run"
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63o5z3 | what's the problem with food stamps? why do they cause issues in the u.s? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/63o5z3/eli5_whats_the_problem_with_food_stamps_why_do/ | {
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"There are no problems with food stamps in general. The public generally has a negative attitude to individuals in need (seeing them as lazy and undeserving) and has a gross misunderstanding of how any of these programs work or who benefits from them. The problem isn't the program, its the incorrect public perceptions and resulting attitudes. ",
"To play Devils advocate here. Some reasons people have a problem with food stamps:\n\n- The system has loopholes which favors households with illegal immigrants. The system requires everyone in the household to report their income, but it does not include the income of illegal immigrants while still counting them as a person for benefits. So for example. Let's say a family of four lives in the US: mother, father, two children. If the mother is a stay at home mom, citizen, and the father is an illegal immigrant the father's income does *not* count towards household income, but the benefits are still awarded as four individuals for assistance.\n\n- There is abuse in the system. Many people on food stamps are living in a household with extra income which goes unreported. This is especially common among single mothers who later meet a man and move in together. If she was on food stamps previously it can be detrimental to their benefits if they claim the other person in the household so they often don't and the boyfriend will use an alternate address so they can continue receiving government assistance. They may even forego marriage to stay on the system. Additionally, people who work for cash or tips may not declare all of their income and receive benefits they don't deserve.\n\n- Everyone who has lived in a poor area of the US has seen people using their EBT cards to buy groceries for themselves and friends/relatives and cash exchanged for cigarettes/alcohol. While this is often considered rare, it is not uncommon for it to be seen at local grocery stores. I remember the first time my wife asked me about the two mothers and their individual shopping carts, one mother paid for the other mother's groceries on her EBT card and received cash in return. My wife asked me what that was about. My response: she can't buy cigarettes, alcohol or meth with an EBT card so she buys her friend some groceries and gets cash. Also, our local flea market is filled with people reselling items from grocery stores below value for cash that they purchased with an EBT card. This isn't uncommon elsewhere in America.\n",
"This is a great question.\n \nThe Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program, or SNAP is seen as an easily abused hand out. To qualify for SNAP, your household has to be under 130% of the poverty line with what you make before taxes. Because of programs that aren't part of SNAP but overlap with it, such as the Earned Income Credit, it's easy to see how people envision a situation where bad people combine the bare minimum of on-the-books work with unorthodox living situations to maximize their benefits from state and federal governments. A popular caricature involves a bad person supplementing their income by selling drugs or taking of their clothes to make money they don't have to declare in order to live quite comfortably. These are things that happen, but it also keeps people from having to decide if they're too poor to have a family, so it's also a good thing. \n\nAnother controversy, and the reason we'll never cut SNAP, is SNAP is a subsidy for the Ag sector. Corn, soy, or wheat is used in most foods. The government is able to generate additional buyers with SNAP benefits and subsequently provide a boost to the size of the economy. \n\nTL;DR Stamps benefit a lot of people, but some people take advantage of them, including corporations, farmers, and drug-dealing stripper/waitresses.",
"It's worth mentioning that abuse is fairly low (SNAP fraud is generally ~4-6%, this includes reselling it for cash) - typically people assume it is much higher. That perception is often encouraged. (sources if you care to read more: [1](_URL_1_) [2](_URL_0_).\n\nThe program also has limits on benefits, particularly if you're able to work. You're required to work a certain amount of hours per x months to get assistance.\n\nIn regards to immigrants; i couldn't find easy numbers on immigrants, but on net, immigrants (including illegal ones) pay more into welfare services than the average person. Although this is largely due to the fact they pay into Social Security, but can't draw benefits."
]
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"http://www.cbpp.org/food-assistance/snap-combating-fraud-and-improving-program-integrity-without-weakening-success",
"https://www.fns.usda.gov/pressrelease/2013/fns-001213"
]
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bt0xna | when you exercise your muscles ache afterwards, so how come your heart doesn’t ache after doing cardio? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bt0xna/eli5_when_you_exercise_your_muscles_ache/ | {
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"One: it's a different type of muscle. Two: it gets a steady supply of nutrients to repair and replenish itself.",
"Iirc, The reason your muscles hurt is because of micro tears from the strain of a work out that cause a build up of lactic acid. This acid is what makes you sore. \n\nThe heart doesn't tear like your other muscles do. And there's not as many pain receptor around your heart as there are around the surface of your body.\n\nFor example, if someone feels a wierd pain shoot down your left arm (I think thats right), it could mean you're having a heart attack (referred pain). This is because there's not enough pain receptors by the heart for it to tell you hurts, so it sends the signal elsewhere. That's also why you don't \"feel\" most of your visceral organs, just their effects on the body. Like the thumping of your heart.\n\nIt's been a while though, so please correct anything I got wrong.\n\nEdit: fixed point about referred pain",
"Your muscles build up lactic acid when they don't get enough oxygen. Your heart is a different type of muscle so it don't produce lactic acid.",
"when your heart isn't getting an adequate supply it does ache, its known as angina and if progression takes place, heart attack.",
"In some people their heart does ache after putting stress on it- angina. But that is not a good thing!",
"There are no pain receptors in the heart. Chest pain indicating heart trouble is ancillary pain in the region."
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3fy2y9 | what happens to all the lead from shooting ranges? wouldn't it be harmful from an environmental standpoint? | I was just shooting clay pigeons at a firing range, and couldn't help but wonder about all the lead that just sits down there, probably collecting in the same general area. Wouldn't water runoff carry it to the waterways and potentially poison ecosystems? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fy2y9/eli5_what_happens_to_all_the_lead_from_shooting/ | {
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"The lead is stopped by the backstop (usually earth) which crumbles over time and is scooped up and taken to a landfill. Bulk metallic lead doesn't leach easily into the soil so the risk of contamination is minimal, but state DECs still monitor it. Elbert County Gun Club in Elberton, GA actually has a sporting clays range that partially overlooks an abandoned quarry. Some of the shots have you shooting directly into the ponds below. Fish in the ponds have been lead tested in the past and were found to not have elevated lead levels.",
"I'm a competitive pistol shooter and salvage lead from the bullet traps at our ranges all the time. It's recycled and used to cast new bullets. Most all bullets are now copper jacketed which greatly reduces the lead dust that comes from firing. None of it gets into the environment. We have very strict lad abatement plan as part of our permitting.",
"Rifle and Pistol ranges have some sort of bullet catcher arrangement (steel plates, sand traps, snail traps, etc) which collects the shots. Depending on the method and local laws, they can then sell the lead off as scrap or in areas with stricter environmental laws, you may have to contract a licensed company to come in and empty the butts - that might be monthly, annually or every couple of years depending how heavily the range is used.\n\nClay Shooting grounds can have problems with contaminants leaching out, and this is considered as part of the planning process when the range is set up. Generally a clay site is fine, but if you wanted to put the land back to agriculture or something you would need to remediate the surface layers.\n\nObviously a lot of shooting grounds are deliberately located in places like quarries that provide a ready-made backstop and nice, contained environment. On those ranges, a bit of lead is generally insignificant compared to the contamination left by the previous industrial processes that were going on!\n\nIn the UK, I believe wildfowlers are now required to use steel shot because you *do* get leaching problems when you have lead shot going directly into a wetland environment where contaminants can obviously spread much more easily than on dry land."
]
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6iu4f8 | - why is the glitch where things can't just fall and lie still but instead spaz out so common in videogames? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6iu4f8/eli5_why_is_the_glitch_where_things_cant_just/ | {
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"Former game dev here,\n\nI haven't written physics code since college! That was over a decade ago. I'm trying to remember what it was that caused this sort of thing, so I might get this wrong. We wrote a dice physics simulator in class - it's just a tumbling cube, it doesn't get much more simple than that. But the dice would come to rest, and then ::jiggle::, then ::jiggle jiggle::, then ::POOF!:: it would shoot off the screen and be gone forever.\n\nOur physics simulation wasn't deterministic, and it was greatly effected by the refresh rate. So if a large gap in time occurred between one frame and the next, it would act as a multiplier of the force values over time. Real numbers aren't well represented in computers, what we call floating point numbers. For example, 0.1 in binary is non-terminating, just like 1/3 in decimal is 0.33333333... And floating point numbers are prone to error. Normally, and in scientific computing, you account for this, typically the error is smaller than the number of places of precision you give a damn about. But in a simulation, that's a different story, and small amounts of error can quickly compound into explosive values, then your die launches off your virtual table in a single frame...\n\nSo there needs to be code to dampen this error. If the slope is descending, it should stay descending and numbers shouldn't get larger. Detecting this scenario, when you get down to the threshold where error starts acting up, it's best to just \"clamp\" the object, turn off the physics, set values to 0.0 instead of computing one of the many representations of 0 in floating point encoding, and save those CPU cycles for something else.\n\nBut video games are complicated, and there can be edge cases where there was oversight, and code that is normally capable of preventing this doesn't get turned on, then ::PEW!:: shit goes flying."
]
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3keyv7 | when my girlfriend does something cute i have the urge to squish her. what is it about the the feeling of cute that correlates with violence? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3keyv7/eli5_when_my_girlfriend_does_something_cute_i/ | {
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"text": [
"What you are talking about is called cute aggression and, right now, people think it might be a mechanism to monitor positive extreme positive emotion. Humans have many similar, seemingly paradoxical reactions to strong emotions, like being so happy you cry or so nervous you laugh. ",
"Cute aggression, just as /u/flowngandflown stated. One possibility as shown in [this](_URL_0_) article, \"we have so much pent-up aggression over cute pictures is that seeing something cute, like a baby, drives us to want to take care of it. But we can't reach through a photograph to cuddle it, so we get frustrated -- and then aggressive.\"",
"They talked about this on The Biggest Problem a month or two ago. Basically cute things are disarming on a level that is upsetting so you compensate by getting angry. It's another primal, outdated defense mechanism.",
"Repost; the desire to smash cute things was discussed here just a few days ago."
]
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"http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-01/science-says-adorable-animals-turn-us-aggressive"
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3moaif | presidential term limits in cases where the vp becomes president. | How do the term limits imposed on the US Presidency affect those Presidents who were not elected in for their first term? Prime example being Lyndon Johnson following the assassination of JFK. Does the two term limit in LBJ's case include the term he served following the assassination, or would his first term be the term would be re-elected (non-American so I can't recall if LBJ was actually re-elected)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3moaif/eli5_presidential_term_limits_in_cases_where_the/ | {
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"The exact text of the 22nd Amendment:\n\n > No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.\n\nSo if the Vice President serves more than 2 years of the previous term, it counts towards the 2 terms and they can only serve one more term. If they serve less than 2 years, they can still be elected twice.",
"It's not a 2 term limit so much as a 10 year limit (there's still a 2 term limit, but it's easier to look at it via the 10 year limit)\n\nIf you run for President, and are elected to it for 2 terms, that's 8 years, and thus you can't run again (as another term would be 4 years, and you'd be over the 10 year limit).\n\nIf you're elected Vice President, and the President dies after only a year in office, you can only run for President once (3+4=7 years, so another term would be 11 years, or over the 10 year limit).\n\nIf you're elected Vice President, and the President dies after 2+ years in office, you can still be elected President twice, as you'd be under the 10 year limit.",
"This is, luckily, something explicitly covered in the 22nd Amendment:\n\n* You may not be elected as President more than twice (consecutive or non-consecutive terms).\n* If you take over as President for someone else for more than two years of their term, that counts as a term for you, so you may only be elected as President once.\n\nJohn F. Kennedy was assassinated after he had already been President for more than two years. So, per the 22nd Amendment, the part of JFK's term that LBJ served didn't count as a term for LBJ. Lyndon Johnson would be able to serve the remainder of JFK's term, and then serve two more terms if elected."
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1qqxrb | if down syndrome is caused from a person only having one extra chromosome why are there worse cases of down syndrome than others? | Are the extra chromosomes sometimes partial? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qqxrb/eli5_if_down_syndrome_is_caused_from_a_person/ | {
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"Basically, yes\n\n_URL_0_",
"From what I understand, it depends on the point in development that you get the production of cells with the extra chromosome. \n\nFirst, you have a processed called 'meiosis' that creates mum's eggs and dad's sperm. This is when cells split apart to halve the number of chromosomes they have. This means that mum's chromosomes in the egg can join with dad's chromosome's in the sperm to make the normal number of chromosomes again.\n\nUsually, a cell from mum or dad, you or me, would have 46 chromosomes. But each of these are paired up with a friend, so that you have 23 X-shaped friendly chromosome pairs. \n\nDuring meiosis, the friendly chromosome pairs swap some of their genetic information with other friendly chromosome pairs. The cell then divides in two and puts half of the chromosome pairs in one half and the other in the other. But sometimes the friendly chromosomes stick themselves together too tightly and 'nondysjunction' occurs. This means that there are too many chromosomes going into one cell and not enough in the other cell. (This can occur at either Meiosis I or Meiosis II). In this case, all of the cells that then grew from this ovum or spermatozoa would also be given too many chromosomes. This is what happens in Down Syndrome. If cells developed from the cell with too few chromosomes, life doesn't usually develop unless the monosomy is a Turner's syndrome. \n\n(Note that there are other ways in which a chromosomal imbalance may develop such as a Robertsonian Translocation)\n\nThe main point here is that if the mutation occurs in meiosis, then all of the progeny cells will carry this mutation.\n\nIf the mutation occurs in mitosis during the development of the foetus, you're going to get a slightly different outcome. In mitosis, chromosomal imbalance can come about again through a nondysjunction event whereby during the division period some of the chromosomes stick together and aren't distributed properly into the daughter cells.\n\nIn this case, only the cells derived from this mutated cell would have the trisomy. The cells that came from normal cells will still be normal. In this case you get a 'mosaic' Down syndrome. This is where some of the cells in the body are mutated and others are not. This leads to a less severe form of Down syndrome because not all cells are affected. \n\n",
"As much as nedgus wrote, he's not entirely accurate. The severity of the case of down syndrome depends on how much of the third chromosome is present. Mitosis of the zygote (reproduction of the fertilized egg) chromosome 23 does tend to stick together and not want to separate, but it's also rather fragile, and the extra copy can break, causing that third copy to actually be a fragment. So, technically, people with down syndrome will have any where from 2 and, say 1/16th copies to 2 and 7/8ths (a full third chromosome tends to be fatal). The larger the piece of the third chromosome, the more severe the case, as more proteins are expressed that cause the symptoms. This happens early is embryonic development, and effects ALL cells of the person, not a selected few. If what nedgus is explaining were true, you'd have people with suited syndrome in like, half of they body, but not the other half. \n\nCredibility: I hold a bachelor's in biology with a focus on human genetics and evolution.",
"This is a stupid, ignorant question but I'm going to ask it anyway. Can downs syndrome be considered an evolutionary avatism? Since humans have 46 and apes have 48, does that make folks with downs syndrome and their 47 chromosomes the \"missing links\" between humans and apes? "
]
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8z2qb9 | how professional athletes can compete in the top level when they are sick? | Marginals are really small and every athlete is in perfect condition, so how it is possible that there are professionals who can continue competing even on fever?
For example Ivan Rakitic from the Croatian football team played semi-finals waking up with a 39 degree fever. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8z2qb9/eli5_how_professional_athletes_can_compete_in_the/ | {
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"Same way some of us wake up and go to work. \n\nYou just power through it. Doesn’t make it easy or fun. Completely sucks. But you just go. You push yourself. \n\nPersonally, if it’s really bad you really don’t even think. You just sit there miserable and your body moves on it’s own. \n\nI used to competitively swim. The race would just blur by. You finish, and then are like oh. It’s over? Ok. \n\nAll that said, when you are fit and in good condition, colds and fevers don’t happen very often. \n\nA cocktail of medicine, adrenaline, determination and the promise of rest when it’s over absolutely help to get one through it as well. ",
"They cant compete at their top level when they are sick. But even impaired their level of skill is often high enough to be decent and with the best players it is likely to still be higher than much of their competition. \n\nAlso, a fever on its own is not that debilitating of a condition. It is easily treated (at least temporarily) with some tylenol or similar over the counter fever reducers and that when combined with adrenaline it is more than enough for most to power through at least for the game. Fevers only become debilitating when they are extreme and they are combined with other symptoms such as physical weakness, vomiting, coughing, diarrhea, etc. "
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5wdccx | energy transfers from the hand to pluck a guitar string. this energy is then transferred into vibration which travels through the air to our ears. energy doesn't die, so where does the energy go once it's hit our ears? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5wdccx/eli5_energy_transfers_from_the_hand_to_pluck_a/ | {
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"That very small amount of energy is absorbed and dispersed. Your ear drum is sensitive enough to changes in pressure that you interpret as sound, but the vast majority of those vibrations are absorbed by both the surrounding air and the surfaces it comes in contact with. \n\nThink of a heater you may have in your home: if you're near the heater, you feel and absorb some of that heat. The farther away you are, the less you feel because more and more of that heat is absorbed and distributed to the surrounding air and the various surfaces in your home. Get far enough away and its imperceptible. ",
"I'm not an expert in acoustics or physics by any means, but I would think most of the energy dissipates exponentially in the soundwaves, as they are going out in a complete sphere from where the sound originates, so the energy hitting your eardrum is just a tiny fraction of what was put into the guitar string.\nBut then the eardrum vibrates and the bones connected to the eardrum move and the electrical impulses go into your brain and the cochlea absorbs some and your skull absorbs some. ",
"There's virtually no energy in sound. It will be converted to heat but there will be so little heat, and so widely spread, that it will be almost unmeasurable. Consider a 100W audio amplifier. The electronics of a hi-fi amp will be less than 50% efficient so less than 50W of sound energy will leave the speakers. This can still be a very loud sound. Compare this to the amount of heat given off by a 50W light bulb.",
"A lot of the answers here focus on how little of the original energy of the pluck make it to the eardrum and into the nerves.\n\nThis is true, but kind of ignores the question of what happens to the rest of it.\n\nSound waves are just vibrations within the air (ussually) or other material along which the sound transmits. Heat is another type of vibration in molecules. The only difference is that a sound wave is the majority of molecules vibrating together in an overall sinusoidal pattern, while heat is the random movement of molecules. This is why you can't \"hear\" heat, since it doesn't really cause your eardrum to move in any particular direction, instead just giving random impacts all along the contact area with the air.\n\nWhen sound hits a surface, some of the energy is reflected (echos) and some of it is absorbed and transmitted, but the longer you follow these pathways, the more these patterns will overlaps each other and just look like random noise, which is what we feel as heat.\n\nAs other posters have also identified it takes comparatively little energy in a cohesive wave to be audible when it hits our ear drum and a comparative lot of energy to actually raise temperature in an object. That's why our ears don't catch on fire when we listen to a guitar being plucked.\n\nTL:DR; the noise dissipates as heat, but the temperature impact is negligible in most cases."
]
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36uy0s | what is imputed income? | I work for a fast food chain and was recently promoted. I am checking my pay stubs each month and noticed "LTD-Imputed" for some of my income. Its only about $5 income each pay check, I just don't understand what it means or why its "imputed". I am required to work a minimum of 48 hours a week, the 8 is always overtime. But I usually work well over 50, which I am happy about. So I was just curious what that meant. Thank you guys for reading! I appreciate any help you can give me on the subject. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36uy0s/eli5_what_is_imputed_income/ | {
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"google: \"define:imputed\" apparently it means to assigned. If your LTD is a defined benefit maybe it's considered income?",
"LTD is 'long term disability' insurance.\n\nYour employer pays for LTD, and that amount they pay is taxable to you as income. If you didn't sign up for LTD, then ask them what is going on."
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25fthm | here in the uk why don't we have fire hydrants? | When they seem to be all over the place in the US. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25fthm/eli5_here_in_the_uk_why_dont_we_have_fire_hydrants/ | {
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"Because the UK uses a different system, one in which fire hydrants are carried by the firetrucks. A manhole cover is removed and the hydrant is placed. Cheaper and less footprint, a bit more effort though.",
"[This link]( _URL_0_) appears to verify that fire hydrants do exist in the UK.\n\nIt appears that in the UK they are commonly marked by a yellow plaque bearing a black \"H,\" and look like nothing more than a plain pipe instead of the iconic American-style fire hydrants and are probably located under a plate in the sidewalk or roadway in urban areas.",
"We do, they're under the little doors in the floor with H on them, also the concrete posts (usually painted yellow) with a black capital H on them mark their site. ",
"We do have fire hydrants, it's just the fire service actually carry the hydrant body on the truck with them\n\n_URL_1_\n\n\nThey're in the ground, similar to the stopcock that's outside your house\n\n_URL_0_",
"[We do, the black H on the yellow sign is for fire hydrant.](_URL_0_) \n",
"The numbers on the sign:\n\nThe top number is the size of the water main.\nThe bottom number is how far away it is.\n\nOlder signs used inches and feet, newer signs use millimetres and metres. It's pretty easy to tell the difference, because you're unlikely to find a 3mm water main ;)"
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"http://i.imgur.com/bNVKlTq.jpg",
"http://i.imgur.com/1Ezf10V.jpg"
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"http://www.dorsetfire.gov.uk/files/8413/7882/1703/hydrant_small.jpg"
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k2ukm | the difference between tig and mig welding. | Maybe even stick welding? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/k2ukm/eli5_the_difference_between_tig_and_mig_welding/ | {
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"Tig is a Tungsten electrode -sparp and pointy which arcs and you use a filler rod.\n\nMig is spool fed wire typically steel or aluminium. \n\nBoth generally use a shielding gas (argon mix)- however Mig may use a flux coated wire which does not require a gas. Work is earthed wire or electrode is powered. \n\nStick is Non gas uses a flux coated rod.",
"Tig is a Tungsten electrode -sparp and pointy which arcs and you use a filler rod.\n\nMig is spool fed wire typically steel or aluminium. \n\nBoth generally use a shielding gas (argon mix)- however Mig may use a flux coated wire which does not require a gas. Work is earthed wire or electrode is powered. \n\nStick is Non gas uses a flux coated rod."
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aaz3dp | how does an ice age occur and what happens to the energy? | As we all know It takes quite the ammount of energy to make something cold in a fridge and according to the first law of thermodynamics energy can't be created or destroyed. So where does the energy come from when an Ice age is started and where does it go after ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aaz3dp/eli5_how_does_an_ice_age_occur_and_what_happens/ | {
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"There are several ways ice ages can occur. The climate is very unstable as there are several things forcing it to be either hotter or colder. One of the stronger forcing effects making it colder is that snow and ice is white. This reflects most sunlight out into space instead of being absorbed into the ground."
]
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3f78x0 | what is iso and how is it possible to record in so dark conditions and make the images look bright. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3f78x0/eli5what_is_iso_and_how_is_it_possible_to_record/ | {
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"ISO marks the camera sensor's sensitivity level. \n\nThe camera's sensor is actually an array of photoelectric sensor. These sensors can sense light and convert it into electrical current. More light = more current. \n\nThe ISO level determines how the current is translated to the actual brightness of each pixel in the image. Higher ISO means that the same amount of light results in a brighter photo. ",
"ISO, in reference to photography, is the sensitivity of your film or image sensor to light. The higher the ISO, the more sensitive to light. When a photo strikes the film surface, chemicals react to form an image. Lower ISO is less reactive to light, where higher ISO is more reactive. ",
"ISO refers to the sensitive of the film, or it's equivalent on the sensor of a digital camera. A lower ISO number used an emulsion of including a smaller grains of silver halide, which capture more detail but are slower to react to light exposure. A larger ISO number uses larger grains, which react faster, but produce a \"grainy\" photo and capture less detail.\n\nFor further information: _URL_0_",
"It is much like a pupil in an eye. In the bright, you take in less light because the world is lit up. After spending time in the dark, you can see better because they adjust. Same concept"
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4co6et | does wearing black clothes in the desert somehow help someone cope with the heat? | I remember reading something about this in my year 11 physics class. They said that the bedouins will wear black and it somehow (forgot exactly how) helps with the heat and prevents extra heat from coming in. I remember accepting this explanation at the time, but now it doesn't make sense to me since, based off what we all know, dark clothing attracts more heat. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4co6et/eli5_does_wearing_black_clothes_in_the_desert/ | {
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"The black clothes do not help nor hinder the heat, these two sources discuss studies that explain why more: _URL_1_\n\n_URL_0_\n\nBut basically, this summarizes it: \n > The additional heat absorbed by the black robe was lost before it reached the skin.\n\nThere was no difference between different colored robes",
"When I was young, we had a burlap bag full of water at baseball practice. Didn't matter where it was, the evaporation kept it cool. These days, I notice that all school buses have white roofs. So, there is something there. But I guess with all of the airflow and evaporation maybe it doesn't make a difference if you wear a black robe or a white robe.",
"As long as the fabric isn't tight against the skin, and the fabric can breathe, it doesn't matter.\n\nSource: Has been in the desert in black jeans, black shirt and black leather jacket. The jacket was the problem, I wasn't cooler in white shirt and khaki pants.\n"
]
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"http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v283/n5745/abs/283373a0.html",
"https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/aug/19/most-improbable-scientific-research-abrahams"
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99g1wy | why can't we directly mix engine oil into gas, but have to add it separately? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/99g1wy/eli5_why_cant_we_directly_mix_engine_oil_into_gas/ | {
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"The kind of engines we use for most things has separate places for gasoline and for oil because gasoline and oil serve different functions.",
"To be useful, oil has to be coating the cylinder walls.\n\nTo be useful, gasoline has to be *not* coating the cylinder walls, and instead must be vaporized in the intake air inside the cylinder.\n\nIt's **extremely** difficult to accomplish both of those with a single injection system injecting both fluids at the same time **unless** you really don't give a damn about emissions or burning engine oil.\n\nTo be fair, though, it is done for some very small-scale RC engines, as well as some old weedwacker or lawnmower engines."
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4tfje7 | why is it that android devices require such powerful hardware and so much ram while ios and windows devices have way less but are sometimes smoother? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4tfje7/eli5_why_is_it_that_android_devices_require_such/ | {
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"Apple has a very small (and very similar) ecosystem of hardware, so the software can be optimized well to run on all the applicable devices, since they all interact and behave predictably, and similarly. Android had an enormous diverse product range with completely different hardware and different processes and priorities, and so optimization is much much harder, so in many cases, manufacturers take a \"brute force\" approach to performance. \n\nHardware that can handle less optimized code leads to developers not being so worried about optimization, so the code gets a little less efficient, since the phones can handle it with all their beefy specs.\n\nLess optimized software leads manufacturers to try to overcome the issue with brute force, etc. etc. ",
"iPhones are exclusive to Apple. You can't buy a new, first-hand iPhone from anyone except Apple.\n\nOne benefit of this is that every app developer knows exactly what's inside of every single iPhone -- the processor, the memory, the battery, etc. Developers can optimize their apps specifically for iPhones because they don't have to account for handling different types of processors, or memory, and so on. Apple users may get a smoother experience as a result.\n\nAndroid OS, on the other hand, is installed on many different phones from a million different manufacturers. LG, Samsung, HTC -- they all run on Android but they each use different processors, different memory, etc. A slow $75 no-name phone from WalMart and a new Samsung Galaxy are both running Android, but they each have very different capabilities.\n\nSo, even though your shiny new phone is ultra powerful, it doesn't do much good when running an Android app that was designed \"generically.\" Your phone is not using those extra cores/RAM because the app is not designed to use them. The app is designed to use minimal resources so it can run on more Android phones, like shitty cheap ones with crap hardware. Even though you've got a ton of power, the app isn't designed to take advantage of it.",
"This is hard to ELI5 well, but Android and iOS do things differently.\n\niOS has always been strict about what can go on in the background, and Android has always been more permissive. As a result, Android is more likely to have stuff in the background taking up memory and the CPU than iOS has.\n\niOS always used native code (machine code), whereas Android started out using a Java virtual machine, meaning that the apps were java code running inside a program that interpreted it. This takes more memory and CPU than running native code. Android moved away from that model in Android 5 and now takes Java code and converts it into machine code (like iOS), BUT it still relies on Java-style memory management that takes up more memory and CPU than the iOS equivalent (which is primitive, but efficient).\n\niOS has higher-level libraries, meaning that applications rely more on features of the operating system to do things than Android does. On Android, it tends to leave more to the application. The practical upshot is that iOS apps tend to have more shared code than Android ones. Shared code requires less memory.\n\niOS has a fairly rigid and simple security model with little flexibility, whereas Android has a considerably more flexible and complex model for security and interprocess integration. The practical result is that the Android model also requires more resources to manage it.\n\nFinally, and perhaps more important: Android runs on a wide variety of hardware, and the specs are quite varied. It's natural for a certain amount of competition on having the most impressive sounding hardware to reel in consumers. iOS devices have 2 models each year, each having pretty much the same RAM and sometimes differing between using the previous and the next generation of CPU. And there's only one vendor for iOS devices -- so there's no competition at all on specs."
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2hc9j6 | why does every store/gas station/fast food place compulsively give me receipts? | Why can't they just put them in a box in case their needed later and only give them on request... it gets really old having to tell the cashiers to keep them and then they give me this look like I'm Royal Baron Van Douche-a-lot that wants them to toss my trash away like they're a servant... not to mention the amount of trees this kills | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hc9j6/eli5_why_does_every_storegas_stationfast_food/ | {
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"Gm at a burger king, we make the associates give the customer the receipt because they can be cancelling an order and keeping the cash, you might come back and say you were over charged, you might want a refund. Many different reasons actually. ",
"It helps protect the store. If there is an issue and you claim to not have a receipt, they will say they give them to all customers. \n\nI travel for business and have to keep all of my receipts to expense it out. I understand it can be annoying to get them when you're not wanting them, but I am hate telling them I need a receipt when they don't normally give them. In many cases it takes far more work to go back and print one. ",
"In Philippines it's the law, it is used there as a way to ensure stores pay their VAT. ",
"The receipt fills multiples roles. It is proof of purchase/expense for the customer, the business, and the government. As such, a stack of receipts in a box would be a serious invitation to fraud.\n\nI rarely run into the Baron Von Douche look because so many people do not take receipts. The few mean-mugs I see in this situation I attribute to a clerk having a bad day or just being a jerkface.",
"The thing that kills me is when at a grocery store, such as Giant, prints you out a receipt that's 3 feet long when there are maybe 4 items being purchased. ",
"I'll give you the money, and you give me the doughnut. End of transaction. [There is no need to bring ink and paper into this.](_URL_0_)"
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dnhxjn | how do you use hexadecimal code? | I'm watching the Martian and he's using Hexadecimal code to speak to NASA.
Why is he doing this and how does it work?
Edit: Could iI get an explain like I'm a newborn? Because I still don't understand.
How can you get the full range of the alphabet from 0-9 and A-F? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dnhxjn/eli5_how_do_you_use_hexadecimal_code/ | {
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"ASCII tables are an agreed translation that relate a count to a character. If you wanted ro say \"HI\" an ascii table says \"H\" is 72, and \"I\" is 73. but ascii tables show lots conversions, instead of decimal 72, you can use hexadeximal 48, or binary 0100100. These values are all the same, it is just changes how we display them. you could use any method to communicate but in the movie i believe he explains a little bit that he selected hexadecimal because it only uses 16 characters 0-9 plus A-F which is easier than english 26 letters plus characters. Also, hexadecimal is very clearly \"yo, i am using computer speak!\" to anyone who uses computer speak, in this case NASA.",
"Hexadecimal codes are just numbers, only instead of using 10 digits (0 through 9) it uses 16: 0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-A-B-C-D-E-F. You have probably heard of binary, which just uses two digits: 0 and 1. It's the same basic concept.\n\nSo at the most basic it's just a code where a number represents a letter, like A=1, B=2, Z=26, etc.\n\n[Here](_URL_0_) for example is the \"code sheet\" for the ASCII encoding scheme. Each character corresponds to a number, which is helpfully translated into decimal, binary, hexadecimal, and octal.\n\nSo if Matt Damon wants to say \"HELLO\" that corresponds to the numbers 72 69 76 76 79. In hexadecimal that translates to 48 45 4C 4C 4F. Hexadecimal has the advantage over binary in that it can express all 120+ ASCII characters with only two digits.",
"\" How can you get the full range of the alphabet from 0-9 and A-F?\n\nRemember in elementary school when you made that super cool secret code where A = 1, B = 2, C = 3 e.t.c?\n\nComputers do the same thing. A = 42, B = 43, C = 44 e.t.c. One of those standards is called ASCII. \n\nMark only has 0-9, A-F. If he want's to send \"M A R T I A N\" he'd first use the ASCII table to convert that message to the numbers 77 65 82 84 73 65 78.\n\nFrom there he can then represent them in HEX to get 4D 41 52 54 49 41 4E.\n\nNASA can then go in reverse, translating that to MARTIAN and reply."
]
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1j5yll | in the us, does state law trump federal law, or is it the other way round? | I saw where the DEA did raids at medical marijuana dispensaries in Seattle (where marijuana is legal for recreational use), and it totally has me confused. As I understand the constitution, besides things involving bringing something across state lines, state law trumps federal law. So which is it?
Also, if federal law trumps state, then what was the point of states allowing marijuana if it's still illegal? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1j5yll/eli5_in_the_us_does_state_law_trump_federal_law/ | {
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"You do have it backwards. A validly enacted federal law trumps state law. This is called \"preemption,\" and it is based on the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution. \n\nAs to \"bringing something across state lines,\" you are on to something there. The federal government is technically a government of enumerated powers. In other words, in theory, it can't just make whatever laws it wants, but has to act under one of the specific powers listed in the Constitution.\n\nOne of those powers is set forth in the commerce clause. It says that Congress can make laws regulating interstate commerce. This is probably where you got the idea about things crossing state lines. But for a long time now, since at least the New Deal, the Supreme Court has interpreted the commerce clause so broadly that Congress effectively can make laws on whatever subject it pleases. ",
"Federal law trumps state law. The constitution puts limits on the *types* of laws that the Federal Government can pass, not the supremacy of Federal law."
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3cpihw | what are the pros and cons of windows 10 as opposed to windows 7? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3cpihw/eli5_what_are_the_pros_and_cons_of_windows_10_as/ | {
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"The biggest improvement I can see is directx 12. It's essentially the graphical \"system\" that controls the video output. Directx 12 is better than previous versions and should help gaming performance.\nOtherwise it has a lot of the same performance improvements over 7 that 8.1 has.",
"The main updates are mostly in the UI. They took the best of Win 7 and Win 8 and put them together. You can resize the start menu and put both full screen apps and traditional programs on it. The command prompt doesn't suck, there's a new alt-tab menu Cortana's built in, there's a notification menu, you get the idea. I don't know anything about performance but assuming it's he same as 8 it will still be more efficient with RAM usage then 7. Plus, it's free so I don't see what you stand to lose by downloading it once it comes out ",
"We know that Windows 10 will have reduced system requirements, it will also use less system resources, and have a smaller HDD footprint. It will also support Direct X 12, which is shaping up to be a godsend for gamers. Lastly, the form factor and ergonomics of Windows 10 seems to be vastly improved over previous Windows. ",
"That depends, really, on how you're using it. The biggest changes are in the interface. Different task-switching, window-snapping mechanics, taskbar, and a new notification center that's more like the notifications in Android. It also offers support for DirectX12 which supposedly brings some graphical performance boosts. Thankfully, they seem to be leaving Windows 8's Metro behind. \n\n\nOf course, it also has features from Windows 8.1, including the ability to mount ISOs and VHDs, and like Win 8.1, there are a lot of enterprise features that you'll really only notice if you're using the Pro version in a domain (and you're an IT guy, or at least interested in that sort of stuff). Like Windows 8, there will be more integration with Microsoft's cloud services, like OneDrive and Office 365 online. They're standardizing their office apps so that they're the same on all platforms, which is nice.\n\nSo yeah, it depends on how you're use it. For example, Win 10 will have native support for USB 3.0, but if you've got an older computer with Windows 7 and no USB 3.0 hardware, that doesn't help you. Also, if you aren't using it to connect to an enterprise VPN or in a domain, you probably won't use a lot of the behind-the-scenes windows 8.1+ management features.",
"Win 10 is the first in a vision of unified platform OS's -- that is, the same OS spans from destkop -- tablet -- phone -- console and what ever else is in the middle (hololense, etc). It's setting the ground work for how future products are developed and deployed\n\nFrom a mechanical perspective:\n\n* Pound for pound faster than 8. Similar guts, refined handling and a shedding of *lots* of legacy code\n* Tweaked hyper-visor and visualization infrastructure\n* Easier deployment integration for the enterprise\n* Changes to security model\n* Azure/o365 tweaks\n* Cross platform coding (technically not Win10 specific, but goes hand in hand)\n* Powershell v5 baby! (you're welcome).\n\n\n\nFor the Consumer:\n\n* FREE. Seriously, if you aren't taking advantage of this, you're a fool.\n* Start menu back. Complaint numero uno on the list of Win8 upon release\n* DX12 for those that are into next-gen gaming \n* Integration with cloud/platform -- building continuity of use, easier access to your data\n* Overall a speedier performance on the same hardware. If you can run 7, you can run this. \n\n\n\n\nMost of the goodies are really behind the scenes, and most consumers won't really care -- but the overall experience is superior in every way to Win8.",
"Source: I'm a Windows 10 insider member and have been using it as my daily driver on my Surface and my desktop since the start of the program.\n\nThe easiest way to look at it is this:\n\nW7 was a very nicely polished *desktop* operating system that was very well optimized.\n\nW8/8.1 was Microsoft's attempt to duct tape together two completely different computing environments: Desktop and Mobile. Of course, execution was awful, and the idea of jumping back and forth from tablet to desktop just didn't work well. (Plus an empty app store didn't help things either)\n\nW10 is Microsoft removing the duct tape, giving Windows 7 a new paint job, and attaching some mobile features to the desktop environment with what could be considered a welding gun, for a much more polished finish.\n\nInstead of forcing Windows users to jump recklessly back and forth between desktop and Mobile environments, regardless of their computer type, Microsoft has essentially put the choice in the user's hands. Are you using a desktop? If so, here's desktop mode. Users can use a more familiar desktop environment, with the return of a repainted start menu, plus, all of your favorite desktop apps are still there, including a new web browser that's a vast improvement over IE. Of course, its a Windows app instead of a regular program, but they covered that too. In desktop mode, a familiar action bar is present at the top of Windows apps, making the transition from program to app less severe.\n\nNow there's also a new feature called tablet mode. It's specially designed to be used when on a tablet, and switches the start menu to something similar to what we saw it Windows 8. Apps also become full screen, but the taskbar is still present at the bottom, to retain familiarity. And fret not! You can still use desktop apps in tablet mode, its just that tablet mode is, well, designed better for tablet stuff.\n\nA new feature W10 offers is Cortana, Microsoft's fun personal assistant in direct competition with Siri and the Google Now lady. She's really excellent, calls you by name, and really works as an effective PA, like, better than Siri or GNlady imo. She also searches with Bing, so there's that too.\n\nW10 also offers everyone's favorite, Virtual Desktops! Basically, this allows you to minimize clutter on your desktop, by separating different programs you're running into different Desktops. This has been something on Unix systems for years that people have been begging Microsoft to adopt, and they finally have, so yay!\n\nMicrosoft also used some magical wizardry to shrink down Windows noticeably. With W10, if you ever need to factory reset your PC, the reset function actually rebuilds Windows from scratch, rather than copying files over from a different partition, which saves a huge amount of space. Plus, if your computer comes prepackaged with bloatware, you can simply do a factory reset and have a fresh new Windows install!\n\nWe might be seeing some more apps coming to W10 soon as well. With the whole universal app platform, apps can be easily designed to run and change appearance whether you're on desktop, tablet, phone, or HoloLens (maybe even xbox, who knows), which simplifies things for developers. Why develop 4 or 5 apps, when you can develop one? (Plus, easy Android and ios app porting is coming, making more app creation even easier), so that's pretty great too if you're into that kind of thing.\n\nFinally, if you have Windows 7, you can upgrade to W10 free within the first year of release, so it won't even cost you anything to upgrade.\n\nOf course, there's a lot of under the hood performance improvements and changes as well that are a little to complex for an ELI5, but those are the basics that you would see as an end user.\n\nTl;Dr: W10 is a very well polished operating system with almost seamless desktop/mobile switching, that will still be familiar to users of Win7, but with better performance, less bulk, and a heap of new features, plus, its free, so why not.\n\nEdit: /u/ncshooter426 reminded me: Windows 10 will also have DX12, which will be the new version of Direct X, which will allow for some pretty sweet next-gen gaming in the future.\n\nPlus, there's a lot of enterprise improvements as well, including Microsoft Exchange & enterprise security features, so for the IT guy inside all of us, we can rest peacefully knowing that our data is safe.\n\nSome of the under the hood improvements courtesy of /u/DerJawsh:\n\n* Built in virus protection using MSE, not essentially the best, but still, native protection.\n\n* Hybrid boot to make boot up extraordinarily more quick.\n\n* Overall performance improvements, making Windows faster than ever before.\n\n* New, Revamped, and highly functional task manager.\n\n* Native ISO mounting support so you can run virtual disks without having to use a third party app.\n\n* File transfer options, you can now pause, or cancel a file transfer and see much more detailed statistics about it. \n\n* Greatly enhanced driver tech which means that performing a clean install will be MUCH easier. Windows will be able to detect your GPU and download a driver automatically for it. \n\nObligatory \"Thanks for the Gold!\" Edit.\n\nOne more edit for those who are curious (from my comment below):\n\nHere's a picture of what my desktop looks like (with start menu open) in the latest build:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nAnd heres a picture of everything in tablet mode, if you're interested.\n\n_URL_1_\n\nAnother edit cause a lot of people are asking: live tiles on the start menu are removable. Right click on them and press \"Unpin from Start\". If you remove them, its more similar to Win7's start menu than it already is.",
"I *should* know the answer to this, but I don't. My files [Steam games, mostly] won't get borked if I upgrade to 8.1, then 10, will they?",
"As a user of both, \n\nWindows 7 is desktop/laptop optimized. \n\nWindows 8 is touchecreen optimized. \n\nWindows 10 is both",
"Does anyone have any insight into the privacy/security issues raised by some about Windows 10?\n\nThis thread almost makes moving to 10 seem like a no-brainer.",
"Can someone give a non-generic, not vague answer about under-the-hood improvements? Every single Win10 article says the exact same things over and over, even the top comment here. Does anyone have more detailed info on what was improved. I'm a Windows fan, so I'm not picking at it, I just want more info similar to [this article about Windows 8.](_URL_0_) ",
"Look, call me cynical but either Reddit is crawling with Microsoft PR goons, or younger people are being way too trusting about the launch of an admittedly completely redone product by a company which has proven over and over and *over* in the past that it can't make a day one success.\n\nI lived through Windows ME, Windows Vista, and Windows 8.0 launches. Nothing in any of these launches convinced me that I should be first in line to join the free-Windows revolution. It's practically Microsoft's calling card to massively fuck up the launch of any new product and then either crash and burn, or slowly use their incredibly frustrated userbase to eventually hammer it into a product that the mass market will actually accept.\n\nWindows ME screwed up royally? Take what we learned and make Windows ME II, i.e. WinXP. Windows Vista screwed up? Take what we learned and make Windows Vista II, i.e. Windows 7. Windows 8.0 screwed up? Take what we learned and make Windows 8.1.\n\nSorry, just not buying it this time, even at \"free\". I don't mind staying out of the fray for six or eight months to see what they destroy this time before I take a leap.\n\nAnyways, I'm prepared for this comment to be downvoted to hell by bots, tech geeks, and people who never even saw Clippy in his natural environment, and I'm fine with that. I'm just saying I'm gonna wait and furthermore add an extra month of wait time every time I see somebody say \"get on this thing now or you're forever a idiot loser dinosaur\".",
"does it have any code whatsoever from anything attached to anything even remotely METRO based? because if it does, you should treat it like you are handling a bloody dick coming at your face that has AIDS. ",
"Famn this is going to get buried but I have a similar question.\n\nI game a lot on my PC. If I switch to windows 10, will my steam games still work? Or will I need to wait for an update to make them work/re download a new version? How is that going to work?",
"I assume you use Windows 7 and are familiar with it. \n \nWindows 7 is arguably the most polished and well-done OS to date. I can't say the same about 10 yet as it still is in beta. (People say this as a con towards 10. It is an invalid argument.) 7 is incredibly well-rounded, sharp, and - here's the kicker - *extremely* professional. Seriously, it's one of the best tools for business currently available. This has resulted in extremely wide adoption across the business platform, and the home user platform, too. \n \nNow we should look at why Windows 8 \"sucks.\". (I used quotes because, as a Surface user, I don't find it terrible. But that is a matter of opinion.) While, as stated elsewhere, Windows 7 was excellent for desktops and laptops, 8 was optimized for touchscreen. This is great for devices for touchscreen, but not too many of those exist yet, especially in the business environment. This resulted in very little adoption by the business world, and scattered and hesitant adoption by the general consumer. Things like the Start Screen, the charms, Metro apps, etc., all are not very ergonomic for the desktop user. People hate it because it does not allow the users a choice on what they want, but rather decides what's best for them. The Surface is really the only device that meets the transience the OS has. \n \nPeople are somewhat apprehensive about Windows 10 because, if they've only seen news articles and such, it looks a *lot* like Windows 8, and 8 sucks, so that must mean 10 sucks. \n \n \nWell, they're wrong. \n \n \nWindows 10 is, as mentioned several times in this thread, the best of both Windows 7 and 8. It has the element of 8 that are best for touch, like the Start Screen and precise touch controls, while still retaining many elements of 7 that were best for the desktop, like the Start Menu and controls meant for mouse, all rolled into one OS. \n \n > But EpicPumpkinSmash, \n \nYou might say, \n \n > You're basically talking about Windows 8 again! How is this any different? \n \nWell, you're basically right, as I suck at explaining things. But there is one key difference between what I've just described as it applies to both OSes, and that's CHOICE. The user has a choice between using the Start Screen and its like features - called Tablet Mode - and the traditional Start Menu and point-and-click features, called Desktop Mode. This \"choice\" thing is called Continuum, and is one of the **many** features available in 10. \n \nAdditionally, Windows 10 is aesthetically superior to Windows 8 - I actually just picked my Surface back up again after using 10 on my family desktop for a while, and hooooly crap is it ugly. It tried to be modern with all the flat UI elements but totally half-assed it and only updated a few of the icons. Windows 10 corrects those mistakes with a *fully* updated UI that's fast, fluid, and light. Smooth transitions, Aero-like transparency, and completely automatic (or customizable, again, choices!) theme coloration throughout the whole OS - the color of the buttons, items, icons, etc. all reflect the colors of your wallpaper. \n \nWindows 10 still offers the use of MSAs (Microsoft Accounts) for the synchronization of settings and apps across any computer you use, if you make an account with it. Say you've signed into your computer with your MSA, TwentyfootAngels@example.com. If you have another PC, you can make an account using your MSA and all of the settings you change and the apps you use will seamlessly update between themselves. \n \nCortana is built into Windows 10. I haven't used her much, but from what I understand, she's great at keeping track of your calendar and such. Many other things will eventually incorporate her use, such as Microsoft Edge. \n \nEdge is Microsoft's way of admitting that Internet Explorer stinks. They will not update IE past its current version in terms of features, and are only leaving it around for business users who need it for certain apps. Edge is fast and light. It sucks up significantly less RAM than Chrome, and tends to load faster and respond better than Chrome. It currently lacks excellent extension support (read: no AdBlock), but this will be added in the future. Edge will also have Cortana integration in the future. \n \nNotifications are a new feature in 10. The notifications pane is opened by clicking the notifications icon in the tray. It displays your recent notifications from the system and apps, and also has mini-settings like brightness, volume, and tablet mode toggles. \n \nThe rejuvenated Start menu is able to handle both Live Tiles (think Start Screen) and the typical list of apps like in Windows 7. You can completely customize this menu in terms of size and quantity. Say you want lots of tiles - you can stretch it to accommodate lots of tiles (or optionally just use the Screen all of the time). You can also shrink it down to something akin to the Windows 98 start menu. \n \nVirtual desktops - being able to have different programs running on different desktops - are inherently available in 10. 10 has a more excellent Windows Store that is just so much better than the old one. Nearly all of the Control Panel options have been migrated to Settings (still a work in progress, I believe).\n \nLast but certainly not least, the OS itself is incredibly efficient. It installs much faster than 7, IMO; it has a footprint of, with only one user and no installed programs or files, a mere 8 GB; it has much less resource usage overall (easily monitored in the excellent Task Manager of Windows 8); it runs internet browsers and games much faster on my half-decent PC; and best of all, it turns what may have been a sluggish and drowsy PC on Windows 7 into a lightning-fast machine capable of any task you throw at it. \n \nThis list of features is much better written and more complete on [this awesome Microsoft webpage](_URL_0_). \n \nNow, probably the answer you're really looking for: What makes Windows 10 so special besides all these fancy features? \n \nWell, Windows 8 had this thing called Metro/Modern apps - a theme standpoint that really didn't turn out well. Scrap that, because here comes Universal apps - an excellent way to develop an app that is universally compatible with all Windows 10 devices. Programming an app for the Windows 10 store is easy because instead of having to code for all sorts of different kinds of devices - tablets, phones, desktops, etc. - you can make base code and easily modify it to run on all the devices. (Disclaimer: I am not a programmer, I would like to be one. I really have no understanding of programming for the Store. I plan to learn.) THis is what Microsoft hopes will attract developers to the Store, which will, in turn, attract more people to things like Windows Phone. People don't use WP because there are no apps, nobody develops for the Store because there are no users, ad infinitum. This and the free upgrade should entice many multitudes of people to Windows 10 and all its devices. \n \nThis OS is capable of running on all KINDS of devices - tablets, PCs, phones, laptops, even the tiny little Raspberry Pi will get a version of 10! The specs for the OS are not much more demanding than those of 7 - you need > 1GB of RAM for 32 bit, 2 for 64; at least a 1.2gHz processor... easily accomplished for basically anything made after like 2008. Full compatibility is what MS is aiming for here, and they are certainly accomplishing it. \n \nWindows 10 is shaping up to be the best OS yet. The insider \"builds\" - versions of the OS as developed by MS - have less new features and are working towards making a completely bug-free work environment. As we near closer to the release date, 10 is feeling much less rugged and haphazard as it was in the early Technical Preview days of November 2014 and much more like 7 - a smooth, well-rounded, and fluid experience for even the most underpowered of PCs. All of the PCs I've installed 10 on have run better than 7, so \"upgrade\" can be used in the greater sense of the word. \n \nMark your calendars, folks, because July 29th, 2015 will be the greatest day of OS history since the GUI debut!",
"One thing I am looking forward to is the integrated Desktop recorder. No more fraps, record your game footage with a windows hot key. ",
"Sooo when's it officially coming out? Because I'm seriously sick of Windows 8"
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704pe3 | why are ios/android apps like facebook and twitter over 200mb in size (fresh install)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/704pe3/eli5_why_are_iosandroid_apps_like_facebook_and/ | {
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"Pictures, sounds, and maybe videos embedded in the installation will take up most of the space. Even for a large app like Facebook the code should not take up much space, but adding things like hundreds of emoji's will.",
"Pictures, sounds, and maybe videos embedded in the installation will take up most of the space. Even for a large app like Facebook the code should not take up much space, but adding things like hundreds of emoji's will."
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8e589i | why is it a natural human instinct to flail your arms and legs around when jumping freely from a distance, such as a diving board or cliff diving? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8e589i/eli5_why_is_it_a_natural_human_instinct_to_flail/ | {
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"By rotating your arms you push your body the opposite direction, serving to try to keep your body upright. Note that people instinctively rotate their arms in the direction their torso is tilting as they fall, it isn't random flailing.",
"It helps with keeping your body stable or orienting into the most safe position, its the same reason why a cats legs and tail will turn and spin to land on its feet."
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2nh2bu | why do youtubers comment a blank comment under their own videos? | I see it all the time but i cant figure out why they do it? Can anyone explain please? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2nh2bu/eli5_why_do_youtubers_comment_a_blank_comment/ | {
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"It's an automatic comment field that you can't get rid of. You either have to write something lame in there or have it empty. "
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at0fzf | reese's cups sticking | Why do some batches of Reese's peanut butter cups stick to the waxy wrapper while others don't? I've wanted to know why some come off clean and others rip and stick to the wrapper for over two decades. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/at0fzf/eli5_reeses_cups_sticking/ | {
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"Either the chocolate is warm now and not as strong so it snaps away cleanly from the packaging, or the chocolate bar was exposed to heat at some point after it was packaged. This caused the chocolate to soften and form a greater seal with the surfaces of the wax-paper \"cup\" than what was originally formed when the warm chocolate was poured in and then contracted a tiny bit as it cooled. They're specifically formulated so the first pouring makes a nice clean get-away when you pull the paper off the cup, but move the temperature up and down a few times and you're going to get more of a vaccuum seal in there that increases the odds of sticking.\n\nAn analogy is one of those little scent-sampler candles. Put it on a surface while cold, and it's fine. But put it on that surface and then burn it a while so that wax overflows a bit and pours out into a puddle, and after it hardens that wax has to be snapped away from the surface because it's sealed it. If you try and remove that wax while it's still warm you'll get a flaky fragmented mess."
]
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