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ff9its | why do all the worst people seem to always get to be kings/dictators/presidents of the world? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ff9its/eli5_why_do_all_the_worst_people_seem_to_always/ | {
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"I think it has something to do with having more of an ability to manipulate people/situations in their favour. They can get a large number of people to believe in anything",
"There is a fun video on Youtube by CGP Grey called the \"The rule for rulers\" and it explains it in a fun and short way.\n\nThe short answer is that leaders cannot be leaders by themselves. They always need a base of support - another tier of leaders and so on. The only way to be at the top is to keep enough of the tier below you satisfied and this goes down the pyramid of power. Ultimately the pie is only so big and there are only so many pieces you can cut it into - therefore the need to take from the general populace.",
"Imagine you have 100 amoral people willing to do anything to get ahead, no matter who it hurts.\n\nMost of them will be pushed to the fringes of society, and wind up dead, in jail, or simply bitter an alone because everyone is going to reject them once they find out what they are all about.\n\nYou don't hear about those guys. You hear about the few who were brutally ambitious at just the right time and that got them enough power people were will do deal with them even when they know what they are.",
"A degree of sociopathy or psychopathy aids greatly in making executive decisions. If you are able to distance yourself from the moral implications of hard decisions, it is easier to make them. \n\nAs a CEO, it helps to not think of ruined lives when you force out competition. You’re even more effective if you cannot think of them at all, and focus only on success. \n\nThat is not to say all sociopaths and psychopaths are bad people, but those who embrace it tend to end up in leadership positions because they put everything but themselves and their success aside.",
"As the famous philosopher J K Rowling once said, \" *Those who want power* do not deserve it. And those who deserve power do not want it. \"",
"because you have to have a serious lack of morals and an absolute narcissism to choose the goal of \"rule over everyone\" because \"i know better\"\n\nthe only real barriers to action in humans are their own moral beliefs. If you have no such beliefs you have no barriers thus thought becomes action without a middle man"
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3uujyw | peoples temple, what happened and why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3uujyw/eli5peoples_temple_what_happened_and_why/ | {
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"Would you mind elaborating on the question? ",
"Classic cult situation. Cult leader says he has THE WAY. Bunch of followers with lax critical thinking skills and low self-esteem buy his bullshit and follow him into an isolated compound. He convinces them the world is against them and they should all kill themselves. \"Drinking the KoolAid\" becomes a metaphor for believing bullshit.",
"A man named Jim Jones started a church called the People's Temple. The temple preached a number of things that drew people in, such as an end to racism, and a call for equality. These people were further drawn in by \"miracles\" performed by Jim Jones, such as one instance where he \"healed\" a persons broken leg, allowing them to run on that leg. After a while Jones became paranoid and moved some of his followers, approximately 900, to a compound in Ghana called Jonestown where they had an agrarian society modeled after Jones' teachings. However as time went on and Jones became more paranoid he started to hold drills of what to do in case of an attack, including mass suicide. Rumors began to spread that some of the residents of Jonestown wanted to return to the US. To investigate these rumors a few journalists, Congressman Leo Ryan of California, and some family members went down to investigate. Ryan found that there were a few who wanted to leave, but that the number was just over a dozen, not a troubling number at all. However Jones felt that Ryan was conspiring to destroy what he had built, and had members of the People's Temple try to kill those who were leaving, as well as those who had come to investigate. Congressman Ryan was killed. Jones then gathered his followers, informed them of what had happened, and commenced the mass suicide using KoolAid mixed with poison. A number of people who refused to drink the poison had it forced down their throats. Jim Jones did not drink the poison, but instead had one of his men shoot him. As far as \"why\", it's difficult to answer, but there are some more popular answers. Jim Jones was paranoid, he was a drug addict, he was a megalomaniac and a narcissist. When Jim Jones viewed his work as under threat he decided that it was better to kill 900 people, including a US Congressman, than it was to let what he had built fall apart.\n\n\nEDIT: One of the members of the party that went to investigate was Leo Ryan's assistant, current US Congresswoman Jackie Speier"
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3o7snu | how can we say that olympus mons is 21,230 meters tall if mars has no sea-level to measure from? | As far as I know, all mountains on Earth have their respective hight determined by the Earths sea level. Mars has no sea, and in return, shouldn't have an anchor to measure its terrain features. How do you then determine the hight of the mountains on Mars? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3o7snu/eli5_how_can_we_say_that_olympus_mons_is_21230/ | {
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"On Earth zero elevation is defined as sea level. As there is no sea on Mars, one way to define zero elevation is by atmospheric pressure. On Mars, anywhere the atmospheric pressure is 610.5 pascals is zero elevation (or it's \"sea level\"). This value is 0.6% the atmospheric pressure at sea level on Earth and was chosen because water can exist as a gas, liquid and solid. \n\n\n & nbsp; \n\nSo now that you have your \"sea level\" you measure the height of the mountain as normal.\n",
"To add to the top post you're confusing tallest and highest. \n\nOn earth everest is the highest mountain but not the tallest. \n\nA 5' person standing on a chair is *higher* than a 6' person but not *taller*. "
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3jprgj | how much of the universe is visible to a person at night? | How far away are the stars? How far are they from one another? In what direction? Is everything moving? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jprgj/eli5how_much_of_the_universe_is_visible_to_a/ | {
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"Most of the stars that you see are within a few hundred light-years, and are of similar distance from one another. A few exceptions - mostly very bright supergiants - are visible from further, in the thousands of light-years (Eta Carinae is 7,500 light-years away, and is the most distant star you'll typically see). Some things that look like stars to the naked eye, like globular clusters, can be further away because they're much brighter. \n\nThe Milky Way that you see in the sky is the combined light of the galactic core, about 30,000 light-years away. In the Southern Hemisphere, you can see the two Magellanic Clouds, at about 160,000 and 120,000 light-years off. \n\nThe most distant objects permanently visible to the naked eye are the Triangulum and Andromeda galaxies, at about 2,700,000 and 2,500,000 light-years apiece. \n\nThe record, however, was [GRB 080319B](_URL_0_), a gamma-ray burst many billions of light-years away (about 7,500,000,000 years in light-travel time, but the expansion of the universe means it's significantly farther away now) that was so staggeringly bright that it was, for about 30 seconds, visible to the naked eye."
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4fe2kb | why is it possible to move on a moving train/bus? | One thing I never understood (which might be really simple or obvious) is why we can walk on a moving bus or train without literally flying about. According to Google, a train moves at around 60mph, why can we just walk around with nearly no resistance while it is moving at that speed? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4fe2kb/eli5_why_is_it_possible_to_move_on_a_moving/ | {
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"Because your body is also moving at that speed. Since you're held by the bus (by a seat or pole, etc.), as the bus gains speed, your body gains the same speed so that there is no difference in speed between you and the bus. Otherwise, every time it accelerated, you would go through the back of your chair!\n\nIncidentally, that shows how G-forces and acceleration actually works. When the bus changes direction or speed, our bodies are still moving the way the bus was before - so there *is* a different. That's called inertia, and it's why your body is pressed to the side of a car every time it goes around the corner, or why you fly forward if the car suddenly stops.",
"As long as your frame of reference isn't accelerating, it acts exactly the same as any other frame of reference that isn't moving. Think about it, the earth is moving at 30 km/s around the sun and yet you aren't flying about during your daily life. In fact if you were trapped in an opaque box, there would be no experiment you could do to calculate the speed of the box you're in."
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evqoq3 | 5g controversy | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/evqoq3/eli5_5g_controversy/ | {
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"People are afraid of new stuff they do not understand and for some treason thing that if have some effect on humans without any evidence. \nSo some people think the radio waves emitted ie radiation by 5G equipment is dangerous. I suspect in large part because of pople do now that radiation is just emitted waves or particles like sound, light, radio waves. \nThey think all radiation is ionizing radiation like alpha radiation, beta radiation gamma radiation from radioactive materials that do damage us. Ionizing radiation is radiation with high enough energy. For electromagnetic radiation, it starts with UV light that can cause cancer but 5g and all other wireless communication used electromagnetic radiation with less energy than light. \nThe worst thing they can do is heat up so a microwave will hurt you but a cellphone with perhaps 1/700 of the power will not hurt you\n\nIt has been the case with 3G, 4G networks and other stuff we take for granted today electricity, trains, wired telephones, television. The general idea of [Technophobia](_URL_0_) can be traced back at least to the dawn of the industrial revolution wh"
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44x2xe | is there any signs for another major economic recession in the next couple of years? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/44x2xe/eli5_is_there_any_signs_for_another_major/ | {
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"Yes. China has become a huge balloon that can explode any second. The world's economy is dependent upon China to a significant extent. However, the developed world doesn't understand China enough and has believed all the growth numbers, but they are quite literally castles built on sand that cannot weather a soft rain, let alone a storm.",
"If you look for signs that point to economic recession, you will find them. There is so much economic data that we can easily find data that could appear to be a sign for whatever economic event we are trying to prove. Because everyone can back up their theory with rational data and models, there is no definitive way to see which way the markets will turn.",
"Keep an eye out for the software bubble to pop. There's only so much demand for apps and analysis, and we're reaching that limit. Silicon Valley's crazy inflation and frivolous spending are both reminiscent of an oil boom -- only the oil is ungrounded speculation on start ups. ",
"There are a few things that could cause a major economic recession in the next few years:\n\n1. The possibility of a financial crisis in China, which would spread to the rest of the world. To keep it ELI5, the Chinese government has pumped a lot of money into the economy by basically telling their banks to lend more (there are other factors, but this is arguably the biggest). Some of these loans might be very poor quality loans - if there is a significant slowdown in the Chinese economy (and the government isn't able to do something to prevent it), many of these loans could default, leading to a credit crunch and financial crisis much like the US experienced in 2007/2008. \n\n2. The Fed raised interest rates in December. While the increase was small, this has the effect of slowing down the economy a bit. The argument for the raise was that the economy is doing well enough to absorb the shock, but if they're wrong it could lead towards a recession. \n\n3. Economies tend to be cyclical. We're now fairly deep into an expansionary cycle. History has shown us that recessions occur with remarkable regularity (usually at least once per decade at a minimum). If this pattern holds true a recession should occur over the next few years. (Caveat: past performance is not always indicative of future results). ",
"It's extremely difficult to predict a bubble with any accuracy. At any given moment there could be a dozen different indicators of a bubble about to pop. The only reason past bubbles become so obvious is because hindsight is 20/20. In each of those cases there were a handful of people that correctly called what was going to happen, but there were also hundreds, if not thousands, more clamoring that something else would bring the house of cards down. \n\nA new recession is inevitable but there's no telling for sure when it will be and what will cause it. ",
"There are many indicators. It all depends on which you want to look at.\n\nI won't go into a big explanation because no doubt there are a ton of people on here who can do a far better job than I can. But one thing to really note about the last recession and a major factor being the way unregulated banks where allowed to work... well, in this country at least, those regulations haven't really been tightened, and the same thing which was a major contributor to just how catastrophic the crash was is still ongoing. Too big to fail is still a thing.",
"We might be looking at an educational bubble in US pretty soon. We have a lot of people who took huge loans to get higher education, thinking they will graduate and make $60k a year right away. Instead, a lot of people do not finish school or can't find a job after graduation, therefore defaulting on their loans",
"Seeing as this is reddit I'm going to go with \"yes, not under Bernie sanders Econmic plan\" and collect my upvotes",
"LPT: save up for the next drop like in 08. Invest in these big companies when their in the low single digits or down to penny stock levels. Make bank.",
"Also don't forget: every time there is an economic downturn, *some* people get fabulously wealthy. It's a game. ",
"A major factor which could also see Europe entering a even larger recession is the possibility of Britain leaving the EU, although you might over look it's importance, if the uk did leave the EU, the Euro and the pound, the second and forth/fith largest currency would drop straight away, the EU would loose its third largest economy, and one of the few economies actaully growing, and easy access to the largest financial capital in Europe, London. The uk would probably see a referendum in scotland (who would actaually leave this time) and the effects of all this would be felt all across Europe, which in turn across the world. But then nothing could happen as well."
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2hmgmj | why do we need a prototype kilogram to determine how heavy a kilogram is when the density of h2o is 1 kg/m3 | Please explain this to me | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hmgmj/eli5why_do_we_need_a_prototype_kilogram_to/ | {
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"That was the initial definition. But there is too much variability in water, the density changes with temperature, and anything dissolved in the water changes the density.\n\nThe reference kilogram never changes.",
"Well I can tell you right now 1m^3 of water is most definitely not 1kg. 1L of water or 1000cm^3 is, though.\n\n Also if you asked everyone to pour exactly 1 litre of water and keep it exactly 4C to measure out your kilograms, you're now in need of two obscenely good measuring devices to ensure you really poured 1L and are at 4C. Compare this to having a prototype which you can more readily reproduce and put on scales for direct comparisons if you want to. ",
"It was originally defined as a litre (one cubic decimeter) just over freezing temperature.\n\nHowever, water varies in density depending on what is dissolved in it.\nWhile we might NOW be able to create superpure water at all the required to keep a kilogram constant, in 1779, not so much.\n\nSo in 1779, it was decided that a prototype kilogram would be better, in 1889, the prototype kilogram was replaced with a new one, the one we still use today.\n\nThe prototype kilogram slightly changes in weight over time, taking the kilogram with it.\n\nWhile the following is not part of the answer, it might still be interesting:\n\nRecently, scientists have been working on trying to redefine the kilogram via a physical constant (These are things such as the speed of light, they do not change at all).\n\nTo do this they have made a shiny ball of silicon weighing one kilogram, and will count the amount of atoms in it.\n\nSource and more information: _URL_0_"
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paqhl | how do they make denim? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/paqhl/eli5_how_do_they_make_denim/ | {
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"Denim is just cotton. How the cotton thread is woven together determines what sort of fabric you get."
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2869el | why can't smart phones send text messages/group messages between different os without having issues? | I recently got an android phone and I have been noticing an issue with text messages. They sometimes come in segments, and the segments aren't necessarily in order. Group messages fail to come through.
My phone can tell me that today is my grandma's dog's birthday and automatically send her a card. Why can't it receive texts flawlessly yet? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2869el/eli5_why_cant_smart_phones_send_text/ | {
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"There is no reason SMS shouldn't go between phones. \n\nThe problem is that Apple did some weird shit with the routing of messages so they could do their iMessage stuff (the blue ones). Their system has some major bugs and keeps thinking your message should be going to an iPhone that doesn't exist anymore. \n\nThe problem is that people aren't sending standard SMS messages. ",
"We have text messages for 160 characters each, here. If you have a longer message, like 341 characters, it becomes 3 text messages : 160 + 160 + 21. \n\nSo if you write a text message with *\"Hi, I am TheHaven94. Call me.\"*, that is considered as 1 message, because the characters are less than 160 characters.\n\nWhile if you compose a text message with *\"I recently got an android phone and I have been noticing an issue with text messages. They sometimes come in segments, and the segments aren't necessarily in order. Group messages fail to come through.\"* That is 201 characters: 160 + 41. So they are considered 2 messages.\n\nThe phone carriers (like Verizon, Vodafone, AT & T) carry our messages from one phone to another. There is a line/channel for text messages where they travel from one place to another. There are kind-of packets which take your text message from your mobile phone to the tower, the tower transmits to some other tower, and later that packet reaches the recipient's phone. The recipient's phone opens up the packet, takes out the text message and displays that message on the screen.\n\nThat packet has a limitation of carrying maximum 160 characters. If your message is 201 characters, it needs two packets, and for 350 characters, it needs three packets.\n\nThese packets are not reliable. Sometimes they reach later (like your friend will receive the message after an hour), sometimes the second packet reaches faster than the first one. Due to this, if someone is sending you a text message with 500 characters- 160(1) + 160(2) + 160(3) + 20(4), it is likely that the (2) will reach first, then (4), then (1) and then (3).\n\nThat's not a problem with smart phones. In fact, it is not considered as problem. All the basic phones, mid-range phones, smart phones - they all use some carrier (Verizon, Vodafone) for sending/receiving text messages, and hence this happens in all types of phones."
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2sdhrt | is there any reason to keep the national firearms act of 1934 around/as is? | In recent years people on the progun side of the political argument in the US have been trying to eliminate the NFA, stating it only effects law abiding citizens in negative ways and does nothing to criminals. In the context of modern technology and today's law, should parts of the NFA be changed or repealed? An example would be a reexamining of the minimum barrel length requirements and if they make a weapon more dangerous or concealable. How is an AR-15 with a 14" or 10" barrel so much more dangerous then one with a 16" one?
Another being the CLEO sign-off for NFA paperwork, which is many places means a de facto ban if your county has a policy against approval them. A few states, like Ohio, have created laws that require approval if nothing is criminally wrong with the person making the request. CLEO sign-offs are irrelevant with the introduction of the NICS background check system. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2sdhrt/eli5_is_there_any_reason_to_keep_the_national/ | {
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"I see no reason to keep the act, but laws are hard to get repealed.",
"Most gun laws are written by people that know very little about actual guns.\n\nThe barrel length thing is about concealment, most crimes involve weapons being used at short range, so it was about sawed off-shotguns. It doesn't really hurt assault rifle effectiveness so much as make the civilian version look stupid. Heck, that law was written when carbines were in their infancy.\n\nThen there are silencers. If you see someone going around with a silenced pistol, maybe they're a hitman. Maybe they're just considerate about not waking up the neighbors when they target shoot or put down a varmint. The criminals that want to be quieter can use a pillow or empty bottle, whereas people wanting to be considerate of everyone's hearing while target shooting are screwed.\n\nSo yeah, the law is a bit silly and needs to be rewritten.\n\nI will say I like H & K's SL8 version of the G-36, but otherwise most of those provisions don't do much today.\n"
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16jg1f | - losing weight | I've heard that the number one most important thing in weight loss is calories. Calories, calories, calories. But as silly as this sounds, I don't really understand how weight loss works, what calories are, what "burning calories" means. Also, where do things like carbs, fat, and sugar, come into play, and why?
Thank you my reddit geniuses. :)
EDIT: Thanks everyone for the simplified answers. I have a greater understanding now. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/16jg1f/eli5_losing_weight/ | {
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"First, calories.\n\nCalories are analogous to gasoline for your car. Let's say your car uses one gallon of gas a day. You don't want to run out of gas, but you don't want to buy extra gas either. The solution is to buy one gallon of gas per day.\n\nLikewise, to maintain your current weight, you should burn as many calories as you take in. If you lead a sedentary lifestyle without much exercise, you need less fuel. If you have an active job or play sports or exercise, you need more fuel. To gain weight, put in more fuel than you burn. To lose weight, burn more fuel than you put in. There are more complexities to it than that due to different metabolisms and many other factors, but that's the basic idea. You can't run when you have too little fuel, and you gain weight when you have too much fuel.\n\nExercise helps this by putting your body in an in-shape condition. It will burn calories more efficiently to maintain your new shape. Plus, of course, it burns off excess fuel.\n\nAs for carbs, fats, and proteins, here's how it works, for the most part. Carbohydrates are usually quick burning fuel, like a firework. Eat a candy bar, get a sugar buzz, then come off of it quickly and feel hungry again. Proteins are much slower burning. That's why a 150 calorie burger patty will feel infinitely more filling than a 150 calorie handful of M & Ms. Fat is similar to protein in that it's satisfying and filling, and some amounts and types of fat in your diet are actually very good for you nutritionally. Still, I find it less satisfying than protein. Obviously, though, you don't want to wake up and replace your morning cereal with a bucket of lard.\n\nIf you're trying to lose weight, I'd suggest looking at your snacks. Replace chips, cookies, and crackers with beef jerky, peanut butter, cheese, and nuts. See how much more satisfying a few pieces of beef jerky are than two Oreos.\n\nYour body burns carbs before fat. This is why so many diets - Atkins, South Beach, and Ketogenic, among others - are low carb, high protein and fat. They try to force your body into burning fat for energy instead of the readily accessible carbs.\n\nExercise is your best friend for weight loss. Schedule it often.\n\nDisclaimer: This is not medical advice and I am not a doctor, I'm just trying to learn about healthy eating as well. Before undertaking a diet that involves more than slight modification to your everyday diet, you should consult your doctor and make sure you don't have a condition that would make certain diets dangerous.",
"Calories are a stupidly out-dated measure of energy that no one besides diet fad books uses anymore.\n\nA calorie is the amount of energy that it takes to warm up one f 1 kilogram of water by 1 kelvin... give or take.\n\nThere is only one way to lose weight:\n\n**Your energy intake has to be less than your energy usage.**\n\n\"burning calories\" basically means doing exercise.\n\nCarbohydrates are the main source of energy that we as humans get from our food. People go on about complex carbohydrates etc. but all you really need to know is carbohydrates are easily converted to sugars (glucose and the like), and therefore give you energy.\n\nDieting fads go on and about carbohydrate. Whilst they aren't essential to a healthy diet, they do make up a good proportion (nuts, grains seeds etc) of a healthy diet.\n\nThe 'no carb' diet is a crock of shit.\n\nThe 'lo carb' diet is less a crock of shit, but still not neccisarily good.\n\nFats are processed to... well body fat funnily enough.\n\nSugar is high energy, so if you don't use that energy, it will be processed to fat as well.\n\n**I will tell you why**\n\nA diet, any diet, if it drastically changes your eating habits is crap.\n\nOnce you lose the weight you are looking to lose, you won't stick to you diet.\n\nEven if you don't reach your weight goals, if your normal eating habits are changed too much, you won't like it, you won't stick to it and you will give up.\n\nSmall changes to your diet (less processed foods, less fats, less sugar, just plain eating less) and a regular exercise regime are the way to go.\n\nKeeping up the exercise is the most important thing, however. It doesn't have to be joining a gym, simply walking for 30 mins or more a day can drastically reduce your weight.\n\nAlso, if you do have a splurge, get your exercise up and you will burn off any extra energy you have taken in.\n\nBest of luck with it, and I hope to see you in one of those \n\n > Look how much weight I've lost Reddit\n\nposts soon",
"To understand this, you have to know the difference between *energy* and *matter*. Calories are a unit of energy. Pounds or kilos (what weight loss is measured in) is basically a unit of matter. Because so much talk about weight loss is in terms of calories, people get confused about the difference between them.\n\nFirst, energy. Energy is what lets you *do* stuff. Every time you flex a muscle, you are using up energy. The more you do, the more energy you use. Lifting something light takes less energy than lifting something heavy. Running fast takes more energy than running slow.\n\nNow, what is matter? Matter is all physical stuff around you. You are made of matter, your chair is made of matter, your food is made of matter. Basically, if you can touch it, it is made of matter. All matter is made up of *atoms*. For our purposes, an atom is the smallest piece of matter possible. If you take a physical thing and keep cutting it into smaller and smaller pieces, the smallest piece you can cut is a single atom.\n\nTo see how energy and matter are related, let's look at *glucose*. Glucose is a simple type of sugar. Just like everything you eat, it is made of atoms. Specifically, glucose is made of 6 carbon atoms, 6 oxygen atoms and 12 hydrogen atoms. When you eat something containing glucose, the glucose goes into your stomach, gets absorbed into your blood, and eventually finds its way into one of your cells. Your cell takes this glucose molecule and combines it with oxygen that you breathed in through your lungs. Combining the glucose molecule with the oxygen causes a *chemical reaction*. It turns the glucose + oxygen into water and carbon dioxide. In addition, this chemical reaction releases energy. Your cell can then use this energy to do work of some type. The byproducts of the chemical reaction will then leave your body as waste. Water leaves your body as sweat and urine, and the carbon dioxide will leave through your lungs when you breathe out.\n\nHere's the key thing to understand. You can think of the glucose molecule as a little battery that has some energy stored up inside it. In order for your body to get at and use that stored energy, your body has to break the glucose molecule apart.\n\nOkay, so what does this have to do with weight loss? Well, now let's look at a fat molecule. A fat molecule is similar to a sugar molecule in a lot of ways. A fat molecule is made up mostly of the same kind of stuff as a sugar. It is made up mostly of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen atoms. A fat molecule also stores energy in a similar way to a sugar molecule, and just like a sugar, our body can break apart a fat molecule to get at and use the energy stored in the molecule. The biggest difference between a fat and a sugar is how the carbon, oxygen and hydrogen are put together. Basically, a fat molecule is a different shape than a sugar molecule, but for the purpose of understanding weight loss, that really isn't important. What is important is that a fat molecule can act as a battery in the same way a sugar molecule acts as a battery. It is a physical thing that stores some energy.\n\nOkay, so now we know that the body can take things we eat (like sugars) and break them apart. Breaking them apart releases energy, and our body uses that energy to do work. We can measure how much energy is stored in sugar. Specifically, 1 gram of sugar has 4 calories of energy in it.\n\nOver the course of a day you do a bunch of things that uses up energy. You also eat a bunch of food, which is what your body uses as a source of energy. Let's say one day you pig out on a bunch of sugar. Over the course of the day the sugar you eat contains 2000 calories. However, you were kind of lazy, so you only used up 1500 of those calories. Well, there's 500 calories left over. That translates to about 120 grams of sugar that your body did not break apart to get at the energy. What does your body do with that extra 120 grams of sugar?\n\nOne possibility is that your body just stores the sugar molecules somewhere, but your body is not built to do that. However, your body is really good at storing fat molecules. So, what your body does is break apart the sugar, and use the released energy to build fat molecules. Your body then takes those fat molecules and stores them in your thighs, butt or beer belly.\n\nWhat happens when you spend more energy than you take in? Let's say you're really active one day. You go on a hike and end up using up 2000 calories. You also don't eat very much, because you're busy hiking, so you only eat 1500 calories. What happens then? Well, pretty much the opposite. Your body was not able to get enough energy from the food you ate that day, so it went to your fat stores. It took some of the fat molecules from your butt, broke them apart into carbon dioxide and water, and used the energy to push itself up the mountain.\n\nThat's how calories are related to weight loss.",
"Calories are energy units(listed as kcal on nutritional info charts, etc) and people only need so much energy a day. Consuming more energy than you actually need puts the extra energy into storage, stored as fat. ~80% of weight loss is diet, the rest being physical exercise. Eating right and doing \"as little\" as walking for 30mins a day will have you losing weight over time."
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2449l2 | why is it so rewarding/addicting to progress in video games when there is no true benefit? | I just started playing Pokemon on my phone for the first time in years. Also, I dislocated my shoulder and haven't been able to be very active, so I created a new guy on NBA 2K and have been having a blast for hours. I spent all day yesterday playing video games, then realized I had completely wasted my day. Beating video games provides nothing for me beyond short-term entertainment. Why, then, is it addicting, fun, and rewarding to our brain? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2449l2/eli5why_is_it_so_rewardingaddicting_to_progress/ | {
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"Because we are rewarded with dopamine, the feel good hormone when good things happen, which happen often in video games because they are designed that way to keep you playing. \n\n",
"Because psychologically, people like earning rewards. It makes us feel good to get experience points, advance in levels, unlock achievements, and generally have fun. Video games provide this to us quite easily because they communicate advancement with direct, perceivable results; it's way easier to see Pikachu gained a level and learned Thunderbolt than it is for me to go to the gym and bust my ass for an hour and be sore and not see any positive visible effects.\n\nAlso, time you enjoy wasting is never time wasted.",
"*\"Playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.\"*\n\nThere is a theory of happiness that says **happiness comes from overcoming challenges**. More than that, the challenge can't to easy, or it will lead to boredom, and it can't be too hard, since that can lead to frustration. Somewhere in the middle is the golden point where the experience is enjoyable. Since we can have such fine control over video games, this point is much easier to reach. You can change the settings from Easy to Hard to find the perfect challenge level for you.\n\n**Games have a clearly defined goal**. The goal gives a clear sense of direction as well as a sense of purpose. Your goal is beat the next gym leader, or catch all the Pokémon, and so on. It gives you something to aspire to.\n\n**Games have rules**. These are important as they remove the obvious ways of fulfilling the goal. You can't just walk with the basketball, for example. This creates a challenge and encourages creative and strategic thinking. \n\n**There is also a feedback system.** This tells you how well you're doing. You train your Pokémon and they gain levels and learn new moves. This gives continuous motivation to keep going, and shows you that you're on the right path. It proves that your goal of beating the gym leader is certainly achievable so you don't lose hope.\n\n**Finally, all games are voluntary**. You're in charge and you can start or stop whenever you want. This can turn a stressful challenge into a fun one: your future does not depend on you beating Misty and becoming the Pokémon master.\n\nBecause of all these reasons above, which are common to all games from golf to Counter Strike to jigsaw puzzles, games feel like a rewarding and pleasant experience. Computers and video games have allowed for the creation of some very finely tuned and complex games, and so we get very addicting games such as World of Warcraft.",
"In terms of evolution, learning is good, it helps you survive. So your brain rewards you for learning new skills. Games are amazing at giving you direct feedback on your actions, whether you succeeded/failed at an attempt and therefore teaching you skills (whether they are applicable or not to life isn't the point of discussion).",
"Because I get little to no satisfaction from real life \"accomplishments.\" Learned not to shit my pants, so did everyone else. Learned to read, so did everyone else. Graduated high school, so did everyone else. Graduated college from a well respected D1 university. Not everyone did this and it doesn't fucking matter because I'm still working my ass off at bullshit jobs for shit pay like everyone else while also paying back student loans...\n\nBut few people have escaped the undead asylum. Murdered the great lords like the little bitches they were. And then walked away from the bonfire left so quiet you could hear the last dragon drop a mic all the way in ash lake because you left that shit unlit while SOUL LEVEL MUTHAFUCKIN ONE! PRAISE THE SUN BITCHES!"
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nfiqk | how does amendment 1456 of the ndaa impact the government's ability to detain us citizens indefinitely? | _URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nfiqk/eli5_how_does_amendment_1456_of_the_ndaa_impact/ | {
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"\n\n > Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I wish to explain what has happened this long afternoon. Originally some of us, namely Senators Leahy, Durbin, Udall of Colorado, Kirk, Lee, Harkin, Webb, Wyden, Merkley, and myself, realized that there was a fundamental flaw in section 1031 of the bill.\n\n > There is a difference of opinion as to whether there is this a fundamental flaw. We believe the current bill essentially updates and restates the authorization for use of military force that was passed on September 18, 2001.\n\nShe is saying that the sponsors of this amendment (the indefinite detention one) have recognized that some people abhor it. However, their reasoning behind it is that it is only reinstating a law that has previously passed on September 18, 2001 (presumably the PATRIOT Act). \n\n > The disagreement arises from different interpretations of what the current law is. The sponsors of the bill believe that current law authorizes the detention of U.S. citizens arrested within the United States, without trial, until “the end of the hostilities” which, in my view, is indefinitely.\n\nThe speaker is recognizing that there is a discrepency between this 2001 law (that's what I will call it from here on). She is saying that some members *do not* think it grants the government indefinite detention of US citizens. She cites the Non-Detention Act of 1971 as evidence that the latter interpretation (i.e. That the 2001 law does not give the government the ability to detain US citizens indefinitely). She then argues that the Supreme Court case, which she calls \"Hamdi\" supports the former interpretation (i.e. That the 2001 law does give the US government the ability to detain US citizens indefinitely). She is arguing both sides.\n\n > So our purpose in the second amendment, number 1456, is essentially to declare a truce, to provide that section 1031 of this bill does not change existing law, whichever side’s view is the correct one. So the sponsors can read Hamdi and other authorities broadly, and opponents can read it more narrowly, and this bill does not endorse either side’s interpretation, but leaves it to the courts to decide.\n\nShe is drawing attention to a proposed amendment, number 1456, that would, if passed, call a \"truce\" between the two interpretations and leave it up to the courts. Essentially, the part about indefinite detention of US citizens in the NDAA will be null. So, to answer your question directly, amendment 1456 would, as I said, nullify the bullshit in the NDAA.\n\n > Because the distinguished chairman, the distinguished ranking member, and the Senator from South Carolina assert that it is not their intent in section 1031 to change current law, these discussions went on and on and they resulted in two amendments: our original amendment, which covers only U.S. citizens, which says they cannot be held without charge or trial, and a compromise amendment to preserve current law, which I shall read:\n\n > On page 360, between lines 21 and 22, insert the following:\n\n > > Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens or lawful resident aliens of the United States or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.\n\nOkay. Read the bill text carefully here. This is the two groups reaching a compromise. This amendment did pass (99-1). This is essentially saying that the US government cannot detain a US citizen indefinitely if they are arressted or capture on US soil. This is very relevant to the Hamdi case. However, it does allow, as the *opponents* argued that the Hamdi case allows, the government to indefinitely detain US citizens if they are arrested or captured outside of US soil (of course, they also have to meet the \"covered\" requirements that the rest of the bill states). Frankly, I think that is disgusting, but it's *significantly* less draconian than what the bill was before (and what Reddit and everyone was going nuts over).\n\nI hope that helps!\n\n**EDIT**: I forgot to add that this, the link you posted, is for the Senate bill, not the House bill (which is being put onto Obama's desk). However, last I checked, this text is already in the House bill. So, everything discussed still applies.\n",
"\n\n > Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I wish to explain what has happened this long afternoon. Originally some of us, namely Senators Leahy, Durbin, Udall of Colorado, Kirk, Lee, Harkin, Webb, Wyden, Merkley, and myself, realized that there was a fundamental flaw in section 1031 of the bill.\n\n > There is a difference of opinion as to whether there is this a fundamental flaw. We believe the current bill essentially updates and restates the authorization for use of military force that was passed on September 18, 2001.\n\nShe is saying that the sponsors of this amendment (the indefinite detention one) have recognized that some people abhor it. However, their reasoning behind it is that it is only reinstating a law that has previously passed on September 18, 2001 (presumably the PATRIOT Act). \n\n > The disagreement arises from different interpretations of what the current law is. The sponsors of the bill believe that current law authorizes the detention of U.S. citizens arrested within the United States, without trial, until “the end of the hostilities” which, in my view, is indefinitely.\n\nThe speaker is recognizing that there is a discrepency between this 2001 law (that's what I will call it from here on). She is saying that some members *do not* think it grants the government indefinite detention of US citizens. She cites the Non-Detention Act of 1971 as evidence that the latter interpretation (i.e. That the 2001 law does not give the government the ability to detain US citizens indefinitely). She then argues that the Supreme Court case, which she calls \"Hamdi\" supports the former interpretation (i.e. That the 2001 law does give the US government the ability to detain US citizens indefinitely). She is arguing both sides.\n\n > So our purpose in the second amendment, number 1456, is essentially to declare a truce, to provide that section 1031 of this bill does not change existing law, whichever side’s view is the correct one. So the sponsors can read Hamdi and other authorities broadly, and opponents can read it more narrowly, and this bill does not endorse either side’s interpretation, but leaves it to the courts to decide.\n\nShe is drawing attention to a proposed amendment, number 1456, that would, if passed, call a \"truce\" between the two interpretations and leave it up to the courts. Essentially, the part about indefinite detention of US citizens in the NDAA will be null. So, to answer your question directly, amendment 1456 would, as I said, nullify the bullshit in the NDAA.\n\n > Because the distinguished chairman, the distinguished ranking member, and the Senator from South Carolina assert that it is not their intent in section 1031 to change current law, these discussions went on and on and they resulted in two amendments: our original amendment, which covers only U.S. citizens, which says they cannot be held without charge or trial, and a compromise amendment to preserve current law, which I shall read:\n\n > On page 360, between lines 21 and 22, insert the following:\n\n > > Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens or lawful resident aliens of the United States or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.\n\nOkay. Read the bill text carefully here. This is the two groups reaching a compromise. This amendment did pass (99-1). This is essentially saying that the US government cannot detain a US citizen indefinitely if they are arressted or capture on US soil. This is very relevant to the Hamdi case. However, it does allow, as the *opponents* argued that the Hamdi case allows, the government to indefinitely detain US citizens if they are arrested or captured outside of US soil (of course, they also have to meet the \"covered\" requirements that the rest of the bill states). Frankly, I think that is disgusting, but it's *significantly* less draconian than what the bill was before (and what Reddit and everyone was going nuts over).\n\nI hope that helps!\n\n**EDIT**: I forgot to add that this, the link you posted, is for the Senate bill, not the House bill (which is being put onto Obama's desk). However, last I checked, this text is already in the House bill. So, everything discussed still applies.\n"
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2qs4bh | why do people continue to buy video games such as fifa or madden each year, when the only changes are updated rosters? | Granted there are some minor changes, but many times there are not many changes. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qs4bh/eli5why_do_people_continue_to_buy_video_games/ | {
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"Something game designers have been talking about lot lately is \"experiencing the fantasy.\" When you play a game, you're inserting yourself into some role, whether it's being a dragonslaying high-fantasy hero or a sci-fi gun-toting alien slaughterer. The more you \"experience the fantasy\" of fulfilling whatever role the game throws you into, the more compelling it is. Another term for the same thing is \"immersion,\" though that's often used specifically in RPG games.\n\nThe point, though, is that the game is supposed to make you feel like you're someone that you're not. A game like Madden or FIFA is supposed to make you feel like a football (heh, it works either way!) manager/coach/player, so having the accurate roster makes you more immersed in that fantasy. I don't *feel like* the Patriots coach, for example, if Wes Welker is still on the Patriots, because... well, Wes Welker hasn't been on the Patriots for years. It disrupts the fantasy. ",
"Because there are improvements to the realism of the game. In madden 07 I believe there was a major glitch that allowed WR's to catch everything on a certain route. In MVP Baseball 05 or 06 there was a glitch that made it impossible to hit a HR with a LHB. \n\nYou may think it's only the rosters that change, but there are sometimes massive improvements in the AI that lead to a better enjoyment of the game year after year. ",
"If you're into sports having updated rosters really is enough to make it worth it and that's not the only thing they change anyway. ",
"To the casual player, the games may look like the same thing every year, but that is not always the case. For example, FIFA 13 and FIFA 14 are drastically different in terms of gameplay. Shot mechanics, ball control, and set pieces were definitely changed up, and it definitely altered my playing style from game to game.",
"EA sunsets certain game servers each year - thereby at some point forcing you to upgrade\n\nhere's a semi recent list\n\n_URL_0_\n\n",
"The games graphics and mechanics also change,just play FIFA 12 than FIFA 15, you can see a major difference. ",
"I buy FIFA year. The primary reason I do this is, as you said, the rosters. Also, players are updated every year according to how they develop in real life and there are a LOT of changes in terms of roster and player updates (and how previously \"default faced \"players now get actual faces, which is funny and exciting at the same time).\n\nThe game updates are usually good, but that's not what I'm thinking of when I buy a new FIFA. \n\nIt's a bit like a hypothetical Game of Thrones game. If you've finished watching the 4th season, and the hypothetical game has you playing first-person perspective of Eddard Stark, trying to save Westoros, all you're gonna be thinking during the game is **he's fucking dead T_T**. Not \"wow, this game has great gameplay\". It just stops making sense. \n\nFor soccer fans, the sheer number of games make any \"un-updated\" version (in terms of players, teams and individual player qualities) obsolete. "
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3l16w3 | why do people's faces look so different from my expectations when i've known them only by their voice for a long time. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3l16w3/eli5_why_do_peoples_faces_look_so_different_from/ | {
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" > Like I said, it's not like they're more/less attractive than what I expected, just different. It seems to happen a lot. Why is this?\n\nVoice is not especially informative of appearance. There's no reason for your imagination to match up to reality, other than perhaps some basics like gender and informed guesses linking things like accent to racial prevalence, but even these can be wrong fairly easily. \n\nIn other words, why would you expect otherwise?",
"There's an old, incredibly sexist and chauvinist, telephony engineer saying. \"Hot on the phone? Add 10 stone.\" Point being is that you can't take someone's voice as indication of their physical appearance. It's a combination of people putting on different speech patterns when on the phone, poor audio recording and your own general imagination filling in the gaps.\n\nOn a dark night switch off all the lights and sit in the complete darkness for an hour or so. Every insignificant noise becomes something it's not. If you remove the input from one sensory organ your brain fills in the gaps. Same with when you can only hear people, not see them. You can't see them so your brain fills in what it thinks the person looks like, usually with complete rubbish based on experience and prejudice.",
"Because there's no pattern to having the same face type and voice type. But sometimes we forget this and think there is, so we get surprised."
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1tzpjv | why do our jaws drop when we are surprised? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tzpjv/eli5why_do_our_jaws_drop_when_we_are_surprised/ | {
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"Fight or flight. Increased oxygen intake. ",
"Pleasantly surprised. If you're surprised by a mountain lion, you might clench, just about everything you can clench.",
"\"Close your mouth, Jane, we are not a codfish.\"",
"naturally we don't do this, this is something that happened in 90's movies and now you probably do it out of habit (like scratching your head when you are trying to figure something out or putting your hands on your hips when you are mad.)"
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7zr4ei | how the us has been in debt for the past 165 years and is a superpower compared to other countries. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7zr4ei/eli5_how_the_us_has_been_in_debt_for_the_past_165/ | {
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"Just saying the US has debt is not particularly informative on why it would or would not be a super power. If it can afford to pay against its debts, it can maintain a debt indefinitely while continuing to grow. If it has a very large economy, as the US does, then it can afford to pay against a *very large* debt while still continuing to grow. \n\nAll debt tells us is that some entity in the United States owes some other entity some amount of money on some date. ",
"Because being in debt isn't a serious problem, or really a problem at all. Imagine it like this; you get a mortgage to get a house. Are you a bad person, or unreliable? No, you're just...buying a house. You're going to pay it off. Same deal. The government borrows money to do things, and then pays it back on schedule. The US government is a VERY reliable investment; that's why the interest rates on things like government bonds are so low, because there's practically no risk.",
"How can somebody be a millionaire and have a mortgage on their house? How can a politician be influential with a car loan? How can Apple be the most valuable company in the world with billions of dollars borrowed?\n\nOwing debt and any aspect of wealth or power have little bearing on each other. Debt can be used for all sorts of purposes and the ability to adequately manage that debt is what's important, not that one has debt or not, that one country or company does or does not."
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s0yu8 | how ww2 ordinance can still explode 70 years later. | It just seems incredible to me that the bombs are still functional after that long. Don't they corrode or something after all those decades? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/s0yu8/eli5_how_ww2_ordinance_can_still_explode_70_years/ | {
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"Engineers back then we're fricken' pros. ",
"Yes, they often do corrode. This does not make the explosives inside the bomb any less dangerous.\n\nSome types of explosives used in bombs can become more sensitive and unstable due to corrosion. This can make disarming old, corroded bombs much more dangerous than disarming a brand new bomb.",
"Not answering your question, but this is a fun thing to think about:...honey was found in Egyptian tombs that was completely edible. Also, archaeologists found fermenting vases, and scientists (i forgot what exactly they are called), were able to revitalize yeast found in the pottery and were able to ferment alcohol with it",
"Munitions are usually manufactured with higher tollerances in order to ensure reliability. Another way to say this is that they are usually designed well and built with high quality materials."
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8qf12y | why does baking soda cure canker soars? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8qf12y/eli5_why_does_baking_soda_cure_canker_soars/ | {
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"How do you apply the baking soda to the sore? I've done the saltwater swish, but never tried baking soda",
"It doesn't cure them per-say. \n\nBut the canker sores are typically infested with bacteria that like acidic environments. Likewise, the pain receptors exposed by the sore will react from acidic things.\n\nBaking soda is a basic compound, which means it will neutralize acid, which may both help with killing off bacteria keeping the wound infected, and more immediately, remove the stinging pain every time you poke at the sore (until your saliva eventually lowers the pH back down).\n\nYou can get the same effect by chewing up a Tums tablet (calcium tablet) in your mouth and swishing it around over the wound. It might sting for a second, but then pick and prod at it all you want - you won't get that sharp shooting pain.\n\n",
"I know baking soda can change the pH level. But if you want a good “cure” a cooking product called alum will help take the pain away from a canker sore. "
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2ft9ar | why does the us have a gun homicide rate 75x that of the uk? | There were 0.04 recorded intentional homicides committed with a firearm per 100,000 inhabitants in 2010. - _URL_1_
In the United States in 2009 there were 3.0 recorded intentional homicides committed with a firearm per 100,000 inhabitants.
_URL_0_
Total Homicide rate UK: 1.0
Total Homicide rate US: 4.7
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ft9ar/eli5_why_does_the_us_have_a_gun_homicide_rate_75x/ | {
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"The simplest answer is that the US has more guns. \n\nOf course, there are many more layers to this type of data such as homicides without a firearm. The tool you use to kill someone is less important than the fact you killed them.",
"Because of cities like Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, and St. Louis. We have a huge gang problem, with no foreseeable solution. ",
"Brits don't have guns, so they find other ways, their overall homicide rate is like 1.23/100k versus the US at 4.8. So the Brits kill with guns 1/30 times and Americans 3/5. The difference in murder rate has been about the same level for the past century, dating back to when there were zero gun laws in either country."
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_the_United_States#Gun_violence_debate",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_the_United_Kingdom"
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jatbt | windows blue screen | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jatbt/eli5_windows_blue_screen/ | {
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"In a weird way, the blue screen is quite like the corpse of windows.\n\nAs a layman, all you'll learn from it is that something went so badly wrong that windows couldn't continue to function.\n\nIf you're a specialist, that screen will tell you exactly what went wrong (which part of windows), and exactly where (that's all the weird numbers, they have to do with the memory, usually).",
"Computer broke, it's telling you in a scary way to reset because it will fix the problem.\n\nIf you did something right before the Blue Screen appeared, you shouldn't do that again.",
"This isn't an explanation, but more of a useful tip for those who don't know:\n\nIf you look about [two-thirds down a blue screen](_URL_0_) and see where it says **STOP:**, take the first 0x_______ number and remove all the zeros in it so you're left with something like \"0x33\", and then Google that number with \"bug check\", [like this](_URL_1_), you'll usually get a Microsoft Support page telling you exactly what went wrong.\n\nAbout 98% of the time your drivers are messing something up, or your hardware is failing (bad memory, bad graphics card, etc).",
"A Blue Screen occurs when your Windows NT-based machine crashes. Most of the time it meas that memory (RAM) that your system had reserved for the kernel (the actual OS code) was used incorrectly by some other program, most likely a device driver (the software that allows hardware like video cards and mice to talk to the OS).\n\nGenerally speaking regular programs (games, web browsers) aren't allowed to go anywhere near the memory that is reserved for the OS, however, because of the way a PC is architected, device drivers *have* to run in the same space as the OS. If the device driver misbehaves then you can get a blue screen. \n\nThis is one reason why MACs are generally more stable than Windows (although Windows is WAY better than than it used to be). There are litterally thousands upon thousands of different kinds of hardware that you can install on a Windows PC from thousands of different vendors (each of whom write their own drivers). With all that \"foreign\" code running in kernel memory space you are BOUND to get badly written and misbehaving code. With Macs, Apple controls all the hardware you can run. Most people NEVER add anything that doesn't actually come with the Mac in the first place and, if they do, they usually get it from Apple. \n\n\n\n\n**TL/DR - A Blue Screen is when your NT Based Computer crashes because something probably accessed reserved memory incorrectly. Also, if you can control the OS code and the hardware it runs on you will have a much more stable computer. ** ",
"In a weird way, the blue screen is quite like the corpse of windows.\n\nAs a layman, all you'll learn from it is that something went so badly wrong that windows couldn't continue to function.\n\nIf you're a specialist, that screen will tell you exactly what went wrong (which part of windows), and exactly where (that's all the weird numbers, they have to do with the memory, usually).",
"Computer broke, it's telling you in a scary way to reset because it will fix the problem.\n\nIf you did something right before the Blue Screen appeared, you shouldn't do that again.",
"This isn't an explanation, but more of a useful tip for those who don't know:\n\nIf you look about [two-thirds down a blue screen](_URL_0_) and see where it says **STOP:**, take the first 0x_______ number and remove all the zeros in it so you're left with something like \"0x33\", and then Google that number with \"bug check\", [like this](_URL_1_), you'll usually get a Microsoft Support page telling you exactly what went wrong.\n\nAbout 98% of the time your drivers are messing something up, or your hardware is failing (bad memory, bad graphics card, etc).",
"A Blue Screen occurs when your Windows NT-based machine crashes. Most of the time it meas that memory (RAM) that your system had reserved for the kernel (the actual OS code) was used incorrectly by some other program, most likely a device driver (the software that allows hardware like video cards and mice to talk to the OS).\n\nGenerally speaking regular programs (games, web browsers) aren't allowed to go anywhere near the memory that is reserved for the OS, however, because of the way a PC is architected, device drivers *have* to run in the same space as the OS. If the device driver misbehaves then you can get a blue screen. \n\nThis is one reason why MACs are generally more stable than Windows (although Windows is WAY better than than it used to be). There are litterally thousands upon thousands of different kinds of hardware that you can install on a Windows PC from thousands of different vendors (each of whom write their own drivers). With all that \"foreign\" code running in kernel memory space you are BOUND to get badly written and misbehaving code. With Macs, Apple controls all the hardware you can run. Most people NEVER add anything that doesn't actually come with the Mac in the first place and, if they do, they usually get it from Apple. \n\n\n\n\n**TL/DR - A Blue Screen is when your NT Based Computer crashes because something probably accessed reserved memory incorrectly. Also, if you can control the OS code and the hardware it runs on you will have a much more stable computer. ** "
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dvrng8 | why can't we completely block out sound when we seal our ears? how is the sound is still being absorbed into our body? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dvrng8/eli5_why_cant_we_completely_block_out_sound_when/ | {
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"Vibrations can still make their way through your bones and skin. There are headsets that work on this principle, they don't cover your ear at all but vibrate against the side of your head, leading to you being able to head despite them not making any actual sound as such.",
"Sound are vibrations, so when they reach your body, they make it vibrate a little bit, which transfer the sound through your body. You need to damper or absorb the sound and this need specific shapes, materials, or just a lot of matter, more than just your body or your hands.",
"Sound is vibrations in matter. Your fingers are matter, and your body is matter. In fact, sound goes through solids more quickly than gases. This is because there is more matter to spread vibrations with."
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3t7xb1 | why does heavy wind affect the wifi in my house? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3t7xb1/eli5_why_does_heavy_wind_affect_the_wifi_in_my/ | {
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"It doesn't. You are imagining it. Source: I'm an engineer.\n\nAlso, most likely your wifi router is inside and so are you, so the wind doesn't even come into play. Even if the wifi signal had to go through the wind, it still wouldn't matter. Radio waves are not significantly affected by wind.\n\nWhat's possible is that in heavy wind you close windows/doors that are otherwise open. That can affect wifi."
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2kk3ai | why do most sports take a referee's decision as final, even if it is easily proven that they were wrong by video evidence like an instant replay? | I'd think they would prefer to make decision over what really happened.
Similarly, rule violations (such as below the belt hits in boxing, or headbutting, etc.) aren't penalized if the referee doesn't see or acknowledge it. Even if everyone in the audience points out that an "illegal move" was used.
Is there any particular reason for this? When we now have the technology to instantly check what really happened by video? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2kk3ai/eli5_why_do_most_sports_take_a_referees_decision/ | {
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"in race-walking, if you have both of your feet off the ground at the same time but the referee doesn't see you, it's actually considered to be within the rules."
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2v1h6t | "your comment has been deemed too short to provide an informative explanation". who are you to decide? i'm explaining it effectively. we aren't supposed to talk as if it's an actual 5 year old. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2v1h6t/eli5_your_comment_has_been_deemed_too_short_to/ | {
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"This has always bothered me. This comment will probably be deleted",
"Don't antagonise the mods, they enforce the \"being nice\" rule by being extremely unpleasant. ",
"I get this a lot too. Challenged it once but got a douchey response.",
"If you have a complaint about what the rules are or how they are enforced, please [send the moderators a message](_URL_0_) instead of making a thread."
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175eu7 | how papa johns can still make money while giving away "millions" of pizzas for free | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/175eu7/eli5_how_papa_johns_can_still_make_money_while/ | {
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"They give away some pizzas and then other people see the pizzas and are like \"oh, papa johns must be really nice\" and then go eat there",
"It's incredibly inexpensive to make a pizza. The markup on pizza is ridiculous. I think the actual cost of a pizza is somewhere near $1.25 for the ingredients. Consider the cost of labor, the oven and power to heat the oven and you're still making like $5.00 on each pizza."
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2390bz | why can some tv shows (like south park) use actual brand names when others have to use alternative names that are close to the real names but not exact? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2390bz/eli5_why_can_some_tv_shows_like_south_park_use/ | {
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"All shows can use real brand names, but they just don't want to give out the free advertising."
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332np5 | why is "i have nothing to hide" a bad argument against mass surveillance? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/332np5/eli5why_is_i_have_nothing_to_hide_a_bad_argument/ | {
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"Freedom's just another word for \"nothing left to lose.\"",
"Because you shouldn't only be entitled to privacy if you have something to hide. ",
"You only don't have anything to hide when the people who monitor you decide you don't.",
"\"I have nothing to hide.\" is an ignorant justification *for* mass surveillance, not an argument against it.\n\nThe U.S. Bill of Rights promise of, \"no unreasonable search or seizures.\" would be an argument *against* mass surveillance. ",
"Know tell us your name, address and how often you masturbate, did you ever stick something up your anus or have you ever watched gay, animal or spanking porn.\n\nOr do you have something to hide? ;) no matter who you are, there is just something you don't share with everybody upfront.\n\n*Edit: Guy porn changed to gay porn ;)*",
"\"I have nothing to hide\" means \"I'm following the rules (therefore I have nothing to hide)\" or you could say: I do what I have to / what they want me to do (by law or whatever).\nAnd that's okay. You don't want to force a revolution tomorrow and neither do I.\nBut what if the rules change? What if laws change? They do. And that you don't have anything to hide today doesn't mean its the same in a year. Or ten.",
"The average American commits several felonies per year.\n\nThere's enough stuff in the legal code that anyone could probably be convicted of something. Currently, you're only investigated if there is some evidence of a crime, and even then it has to be serious enough to warrant the manpower to gather evidence. Without privacy protections, you could easily screen whole populations. With full access to your computer and phone, it would be trivial to identify people with a certain political orientation and then find common crimes prior to an election. On a smaller scale, if the wrong person (cop, prosecutor) didn't like you they could ruin you in a few minutes. With current laws, they would need weeks to months of following and investigating you.",
"The safeguards just aren't there.\n\nThere's nothing stopping someone at the NSA masturbating over or selling photos you thought were private, or taking advantage of price-sensitive information for insider trading.\n\nSure, you may trust in the ideals of some distant branch of government, but do you trust every individual they'll ever hire to use your data responsibly? \n\nDo you trust them to prevent all future attacks designed to steal that data, even from similarly capable organisations? The Chinese and Russian governments likely have spies working at the NSA, do you trust them with your data too?",
"it's a bad argument *for* mass surveillance because the statement implies that not wanting to be searched implies you have done something wrong, which isn't even close to the case.",
"I actually just had this conversation recently with my son. This was his answer, too, I have nothing to hide. So, I used the analogy that if we have nothing to hide would he be ok with it if everyone at his school had 24/7 access to view him on a camera or read his texts? No. It sunk in with him better when he could imagine the downside of that scenario. ",
"Well, assuming the question was worded a little better...\n\nNobody has nothing to hide. Whether it be the porno you like, the 18 year old same-sex partners you've had, the fact that you're mean to puppies or grumpy on Christmas, everyone has something as part of who they are that wouldn't shine very well in the court of public opinion.\n\nOf all the things I mentioned, none are illegal. If we were to all shrug off privacy concerns thinking only terrorists have things to hide and the rest is an open book for the government, how long until we have one unscrupulous government employee who uses that to blackmail? Then how long until the second? After that, everyone?",
" This is taken from a change my view about this topic, it caused significant controversy but answers your question.\n [link](_URL_0_)",
"Modern social norms are built around the idea that what you do in private is probably pretty normal, and that's what we're going to assume. Only \"weirdos\" cross-dress, or masturbate, or indulge in bondage, or swing. \n\nThese are things that are not illegal, but which society is not prepared to know about people. This information becoming public is actually damaging. So pervasive surveillance creates blackmail fodder against virtually everyone. It's rumored that J Edgar Hoover abused his access to law enforcement surveillance to create dossiers on people he wanted to exercise power over. \n\nAnd it's doubtful that society will ever change to the point where we need no secrets. \n\nSo really the right answer is that everyone has \"something to hide\" - it's just nothing that affects public safety. But our punishingly abusive political arena won't allow an answer like \"Everyone has something to hide\"",
"Bruce Schneier gives the best explanation I've seen:\n_URL_0_\n\n\" For if we are observed in all matters, we are constantly under threat of correction, judgment, criticism, even plagiarism of our own uniqueness. We become children, fettered under watchful eyes, constantly fearful that -- either now or in the uncertain future -- patterns we leave behind will be brought back to implicate us, by whatever authority has now become focused upon our once-private and innocent acts. \"",
"Because no matter what you believe and practice in your life and how correct you think it is, you have no control over which random people may be offended by or object to it, and how they may treat you if they learn about it. Maybe you're applying for a job, and the hiring manager has a buddy in the government. They look up your public library records and find that you borrowed a translation of the Quran. You're not a Muslim and you weren't thinking of becoming one, you did this simply because you wanted to learn a little bit more about one of the world's major religions. But now the hiring manager denies your job application for \"culture fit\" or some BS reason like that.\n\nPrivacy is the ability to control what details about yourself you reveal to which people, so that idiots that have strong opinions different than yours can't gang up on you and make your life unfairly miserable.",
"Would you give a complete stranger the login information to your email? Then why is it OK for a random govt official have access to your email? Its not. Safety never equates to security. Thats just wishful thnking. ",
"One reason is that while our current government may not be jailing gays or left-handed people or executing anyone who has searched for certain topics or accessed certain web pages, the next one might, and they will have access to everything that is currently being collected.",
"Because it's a lie - everyone has something to hide from someone.\n\nThe \"nothing to hide\" argument presupposes that the information gathered will only be used for currently lawful purposes. The fact is, information is not only being gathered, but *stored.* Having faith in the fact that you \"have nothing to hide\" assumes that no law will ever be passed, or group, organization, or ideology ever come into power, that you do not run afoul of. You are implicitly trusting, not only those gathering your information, but the limitless and unknowable number of people who will one day have access to that information.\n\nAdditionally, you have no reason to assume that that information will be used appropriately *today.* The FBI recorded Martin Luther King having an affair and attempted to use that information to blackmail him into committing suicide. The American intelligence community has a frankly horrifying record when it comes to ethics.",
"what would you do as a kid if your mom gave you a diary but warned you she would read it?\n\nyou wouldn't put anything you could get in trouble for in there. \nScaring the population into self policing is a form of mass control. \n\nAdditionally, you might not have anything to hide now. But what about when something goes down near you and you are a suspect? You don't want the government to have unfettered access to your stuff.",
"Heres one of the best examples of why \"I have nothing to hide\" falls flat. Taken from another user who unfortunately is [deleted] so sorry about no credit. It's long and not very ELI5 but it's easy to see.\n\n > I live in a country generally assumed to be a dictatorship. One of the Arab spring countries. I have lived through curfews and have seen the outcomes of the sort of surveillance now being revealed in the US. People here talking about curfews aren't realizing what that actually FEELS like. It isn't about having to go inside, and the practicality of that. It's about creating the feeling that everyone, everything is watching. \n\n > A few points:\n1) the purpose of this surveillance from the governments point of view is to control enemies of the state. Not terrorists. People who are coalescing around ideas that would destabilize the status quo. These could be religious ideas. These could be groups like anon who are too good with tech for the governments liking. It makes it very easy to know who these people are. It also makes it very simple to control these people.\nLets say you are a college student and you get in with some people who want to stop farming practices that hurt animals. So you make a plan and go to protest these practices. You get there, and wow, the protest is huge. You never expected this, you were just goofing off. Well now everyone who was there is suspect. Even though you technically had the right to protest, you're now considered a dangerous person.\nWith this tech in place, the government doesn't have to put you in jail. They can do something more sinister. They can just email you a sexy picture you took with a girlfriend. Or they can email you a note saying that they can prove your dad is cheating on his taxes. Or they can threaten to get your dad fired. All you have to do, the email says, is help them catch your friends in the group. You have to report back every week, or you dad might lose his job. So you do. You turn in your friends and even though they try to keep meetings off grid, you're reporting on them to protect your dad.\n\n > 2) Let's say number one goes on. The country is a weird place now. Really weird. Pretty soon, a movement springs up like occupy, except its bigger this time. People are really serious, and they are saying they want a government without this power. I guess people are realizing that it is a serious deal. You see on the news that tear gas was fired. Your friend calls you, frantic. They're shooting people. Oh my god. you never signed up for this. You say, fuck it. My dad might lose his job but I won't be responsible for anyone dying. That's going too far. You refuse to report anymore. You just stop going to meetings. You stay at home, and try not to watch the news. Three days later, police come to your door and arrest you. They confiscate your computer and phones, and they beat you up a bit. No one can help you so they all just sit quietly. They know if they say anything they're next. This happened in the country I live in. It is not a joke.\n\n > 3) Its hard to say how long you were in there. What you saw was horrible. Most of the time, you only heard screams. People begging to be killed. Noises you've never heard before. You, you were lucky. You got kicked every day when they threw your moldy food at you, but no one shocked you. No one used sexual violence on you, at least that you remember. There were some times they gave you pills, and you can't say for sure what happened then. To be honest, sometimes the pills were the best part of your day, because at least then you didn't feel anything. You have scars on you from the way you were treated. You learn in prison that torture is now common. But everyone who uploads videos or pictures of this torture is labeled a leaker. Its considered a threat to national security. Pretty soon, a cut you got on your leg is looking really bad. You think it's infected. There were no doctors in prison, and it was so overcrowded, who knows what got in the cut. You go to the doctor, but he refuses to see you. He knows if he does the government can see the records that he treated you. Even you calling his office prompts a visit from the local police.\nYou decide to go home and see your parents. Maybe they can help. This leg is getting really bad. You get to their house. They aren't home. You can't reach them no matter how hard you try. A neighbor pulls you aside, and he quickly tells you they were arrested three weeks ago and haven't been seen since. You vaguely remember mentioning to them on the phone you were going to that protest. Even your little brother isn't there.\n\n\n > 4) Is this even really happening? You look at the news. Sports scores. Celebrity news. It's like nothing is wrong. What the hell is going on? A stranger smirks at you reading the paper. You lose it. You shout at him \"fuck you dude what are you laughing at can't you see I've got a fucking wound on my leg?\"\n\"Sorry,\" he says. \"I just didn't know anyone read the news anymore.\" There haven't been any real journalists for months. They're all in jail.\n\n > Everyone walking around is scared. They can't talk to anyone else because they don't know who is reporting for the government. Hell, at one time YOU were reporting for the government. Maybe they just want their kid to get through school. Maybe they want to keep their job. Maybe they're sick and want to be able to visit the doctor. It's always a simple reason. Good people always do bad things for simple reasons.\nYou want to protest. You want your family back. You need help for your leg. This is way beyond anything you ever wanted. It started because you just wanted to see fair treatment in farms. Now you're basically considered a terrorist, and everyone around you might be reporting on you. You definitely can't use a phone or email. You can't get a job. You can't even trust people face to face anymore. On every corner, there are people with guns. They are as scared as you are. They just don't want to lose their jobs. They don't want to be labeled as traitors.\nThis all happened in the country where I live.\n\n\n > You want to know why revolutions happen? Because little by little by little things get worse and worse. But this thing that is happening now is big. This is the key ingredient. This allows them to know everything they need to know to accomplish the above. The fact that they are doing it is proof that they are the sort of people who might use it in the way I described. In the country I live in, they also claimed it was for the safety of the people. Same in Soviet Russia. Same in East Germany. In fact, that is always the excuse that is used to surveil everyone. But it has never ONCE proven to be the reality.\n\n\n > Maybe Obama won't do it. Maybe the next guy won't, or the one after him. Maybe this story isn't about you. Maybe it happens 10 or 20 years from now, when a big war is happening, or after another big attack. Maybe it's about your daughter or your son. We just don't know yet. But what we do know is that right now, in this moment we have a choice. Are we okay with this, or not? Do we want this power to exist, or not?\nYou know for me, the reason I'm upset is that I grew up in school saying the pledge of allegiance. I was taught that the United States meant \"liberty and justice for all.\" You get older, you learn that in this country we define that phrase based on the constitution. That's what tells us what liberty is and what justice is. Well, the government just violated that ideal. So if they aren't standing for liberty and justice anymore, what are they standing for? Safety?\n\n > Ask yourself a question. In the story I told above, does anyone sound safe?\nI didn't make anything up. These things happened to people I know. We used to think it couldn't happen in America. But guess what? It's starting to happen.\n\n > I actually get really upset when people say \"I don't have anything to hide. Let them read everything.\" People saying that have no idea what they are bringing down on their own heads. They are naive, and we need to listen to people in other countries who are clearly telling us that this is a horrible horrible sign and it is time to stand up and say no.",
"Having nothing to hide is a bad answer for several reasons. \n\nIt may even be true that you have nothing to hide (although as others have mentioned, we all break the law with some frequency). You may trust this government completely with your data. But what about the next one? What if the political climate shifts and suddenly you're being targeted because of something you said years ago? Stranger things have happened. Case in point, [Joe McCarthy](_URL_0_) and the communist witch hunts in the 1950s.\n\nYou might be perfectly free and safe to express your opinions (privately or publicly) today, but we simply can't know how they might be used against you in the future. And if everything is being recorded, then everything you say \"can and will be used against you\".\n\nEven if you, truly, had nothing to hide -- for starters, you would be a seriously boring person -- you can be damn sure that most everyone you know does. If you're not concerned for your own privacy, you should at least be concerned about theirs. ",
"Because privacy isn't just about being locked up or not.\n\nIn order to maintain control of our public identity, we choose what to present about ourselves to others. What we say to our friends can be very different from our families and coworkers. This control helps us enjoy our lives more, and to thrive in different settings. And it's all based on privacy. If you lose the ability to have private parts of your life, you either need to stop doing things you enjoy in order to \"maintain appearances\" to the outside world or you may have to face embarrassment, at the very least. \n\nWould you really like your family or work knowing the kind of porn you watch? Or that you as a grown up like to spend your free time on Smurfville?\n\n",
"It's only a remotely good argument if the people in charge of the surveillance and everyone who has access to the collected data are completely incorruptible. If I'm an activist for the party out of power and the people in power decide they want to shut me down...",
"Because it's not an argument for or against it. It's a sidestep. It's the same way \"I'm fat and have extra padding\" is not an argument for or against mandatory seatbelts, it's a sidestep, an avoidance of the actual argument and implications."
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230puo | why does your body act "stronger" in certain situations? | For example if you were defending your child or loved one you may hit harder or run faster. Is this just adrenaline? If so, why can't your body act like this all the time? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/230puo/eli5_why_does_your_body_act_stronger_in_certain/ | {
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"Adrenaline and safeguards in your nervous system that release in extreme danger or panic. You can't operate at that level all the time because your tendons wouldnt be able to keep up and you'd stay pretty burnt out all the time. "
]
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[]
] | |
3usrm8 | what is secession? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3usrm8/eli5_what_is_secession/ | {
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"It is when a small group break off of a big group. Like when the confederates states left the union. The small states left the big union, their action of leaving could be described as secession.",
"se·ces·sion\nnoun\nthe action of withdrawing formally from membership of a federation or body, especially a political state.\n\nI.E. When a part of a country (let's say the United States to England) declares itself independent of the nation it used to be a part of. It doesn't matter if this is done for a good reason (like India gaining independence to end centuries of oppression by the British) or bad reasons (the southern states leaving the US to keep slaves). If part of state decide it no longer is part of a state, it has committed secession. This doesn't actually imply that the secession will actually last, just that some part of nation *tried* to be independent."
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my3wp | national defense authorization act | There seems to be quite a bit of uproar over the National Defense Authorization Act, especially the whole "provision that allows the US military to detain ANY US CITIZEN WHO IS ON US SOIL for any length of time with no charges filed, no recourse and no access to attorneys." I'm not sure what's true and what isn't so that's why I can here. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/my3wp/eli5_national_defense_authorization_act/ | {
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"I'd like to know as well. I came here to post this exact request because it seems to have happened without me taking notice until it was passed. I've always had a difficult time understanding political bills and stuff but i'd like to add I want to know the information WITHOUT the reddit biased. What is it about the bill that is bad. Any good at all?",
"The provision is an extension of the \"unlawful combatant\" category that led to the whole Guantanamo situation. \n\nCaptured combatants, i.e. POWs can be detained indefinitely for the duration of a war without charges. However since terrorism has individuals fighting without being sponsored by a state there really isn't **anyone** to sign a peace treaty with to end the war and exchange prisoners.\n\nIn the whole separation of powers setup that the US has, the Commander-in-chief controls the military, and congress holds the purse strings. As such, the National Defense Authorization act is the bill that **must** be passed each year to fund the US Military. It's a *huge* piece of legislation paying for things like tanks, aircraft, troops, fuel, satellites, black programs, etc. If it doesn't pass, the troops don't get paid and things grind to a halt.\n\nSo when someone adds a controversial small clause to permit reclassifying US Citizens as unlawful combatants into a must-pass bill it can be seen as a Jerk Move.\n\nThe 6^th amendment to the US constitution states: \n > *In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.*\n\nBeing able to classify anyone as an unlawful combatant, even if they are a citizen, is a complete end run around the 6^th amendment and is ripe for abuse.",
"Does it anything to do with the US citizen member of Al-Queda killed this year?",
"I'd like to know as well. I came here to post this exact request because it seems to have happened without me taking notice until it was passed. I've always had a difficult time understanding political bills and stuff but i'd like to add I want to know the information WITHOUT the reddit biased. What is it about the bill that is bad. Any good at all?",
"The provision is an extension of the \"unlawful combatant\" category that led to the whole Guantanamo situation. \n\nCaptured combatants, i.e. POWs can be detained indefinitely for the duration of a war without charges. However since terrorism has individuals fighting without being sponsored by a state there really isn't **anyone** to sign a peace treaty with to end the war and exchange prisoners.\n\nIn the whole separation of powers setup that the US has, the Commander-in-chief controls the military, and congress holds the purse strings. As such, the National Defense Authorization act is the bill that **must** be passed each year to fund the US Military. It's a *huge* piece of legislation paying for things like tanks, aircraft, troops, fuel, satellites, black programs, etc. If it doesn't pass, the troops don't get paid and things grind to a halt.\n\nSo when someone adds a controversial small clause to permit reclassifying US Citizens as unlawful combatants into a must-pass bill it can be seen as a Jerk Move.\n\nThe 6^th amendment to the US constitution states: \n > *In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.*\n\nBeing able to classify anyone as an unlawful combatant, even if they are a citizen, is a complete end run around the 6^th amendment and is ripe for abuse.",
"Does it anything to do with the US citizen member of Al-Queda killed this year?"
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cvava4 | how does my phone identify whether or not a wall adapter allows for fast charging? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cvava4/eli5_how_does_my_phone_identify_whether_or_not_a/ | {
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"Older, passive, technology would use resistors or other means to alter resistance or voltage potential between pins of the USB connector - often the two data pins as they're not used when charging. Normally the resistance between those two pins should be fairly high, but if the phone measures a low resistance it might assume it is a certain type of compatible charger, and draw more current than was normally allowed over USB. The iPhone used the more complex voltage potentials instead and varied maximum current draw based on what combination of potentials it measured. e.g. the data negative pin at 1.8v and the data positive pin at 2.6v would cause it to draw the maximum amount of current, and thus charge faster.\n\nNewer, active, technology like Quallcom QuickCharge and the like actually communicate, with the phone 'asking' the charger whether it's compatible, requesting info on what charge voltages / maximum current draws are available, requesting a certain charge voltage and checking the response, etc. That's how they (relatively speaking) slowly ramp up charge voltage and (where applicable) current draw, and thus charge faster.",
"There are 4 wires in a regular usb cable.\n\n2 provide power, and the other 2 are used for data when it's a data connection.\n\nWhen it's just used for power, we have 2 spare wires which can signal what the charger can do\n\nEasiest way is a simple register between d+ and d- which the device can detect and allow more power to be sucked out",
"It all depends on the device. Long time ago it was about testing the connection. For example iPhones were checking if the charger had specific resistance between Data lines (normally adapters had them not connected), and refused to enable fast charging without it, limiting the current to standard 500mA. There were also chargers that set Data lines to specific voltages to show what current they are able to provide. Currently a charger is a USB device that talks to the phone and negotiates common capabilities.",
"Some of the technical details depend on your phone and cable type, but here's the basic version:\n\nIn the electrical circuit that charges your phone's battery there's a chip called a charge controller. It can detect the power coming into your phone and potentially adjust it down if it's too high for your battery, and can also alert your phone's software if the charge coming in is weaker than expected for fast charging. \n\nSo basically the charge controller tells your phone what voltage and amperage the incoming electricity has. Your phone has basic level software telling it what the battery's charging limits are, running the charge controller. Then your phone's higher level software is designed to alert you that you're not fast-charging if the incoming electrical signal is below a certain threshold. For example, if it's below half of the maximum charging capability. This threshold is usually chosen by the manufacturer of the device.\n\nYou can read more [here](_URL_0_)",
"When plugged in the phone says hello to the charger. The charger answers and they then have a very quick conversation about each other's capabilities. At the end of that conversation they have agreed the best, usually quickest, way to charge the phone and they then get on with it."
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67hy0v | why do things sometimes taste dramatically different if it is aerated in your mouth? | I've noticed in that past that as you chew food, sucking air in will create a much different flavor than if you chewed with your mouth totally closed. Why does that happen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/67hy0v/eli5_why_do_things_sometimes_taste_dramatically/ | {
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"Because there are two elements to the flavour of food. \n\nThere's 'taste', which is done exclusively by your tongue. This is sweet, salty, bitter, sour and umami (savoury). \n\nThen everything else, believe it or not, is simply 'scent'. Bacon, celery, asparagus, basil, steak, the majority of those things are more scent than taste. \n\nThe combination of the two is flavour. Of course texture comes into it, but that's something else entirely. \n\nSo if you pull air through your mouth, it's going to send more air across the food, and across your scent sensing organs, too, changing the flavour. "
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2dot6h | is it true that running a lot will make your knees go bad earlier? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2dot6h/eli5_is_it_true_that_running_a_lot_will_make_your/ | {
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"Yes, running is high impact and can be stressful on the knees, especially if you're heavy. However, running with proper form can minimize knee stress.",
"Here's a general principle of aging:\n\nEverything you do in life that uses your body contributes to it breaking down, and then needing to be repaired. When you get older, the repair mechanisms wear out and can't keep up, so things break down more.\n\nYes, if you're causing stress on your knees, you are wearing down the joints, and they are repaired by your body. Eventually, when you're older, you won't be able to repair it as well, and this can lead to osteoarthritis.\n\nDifferent people, depending on their genetics, might have better repair mechanisms than other people, so someone might be incredibly lucky and be the 80 year old man who can still run marathons. My own family, however, has a history of osteoarthritis, with most adults needing joint replacements by the time they're in their 50s. This all depends on a complex mix of genetic and environmental causes - which is generally the answer to EVERYTHING relating to the human body."
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44p3hr | how leaving a faucet running wastes water. wouldn't it head to a sanitation reservoir and evaporate back into the water cycle? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/44p3hr/eli5_how_leaving_a_faucet_running_wastes_water/ | {
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"Yes, but the water cycle can only supply so much in a certain time period. More and the system becomes overwhelmed.",
"Wasting water can be more than one thing. \nFirst, leaving the faucet on causes your water meter to go up and ends up costing you more money.\nSecond, leaving a faucet on causes water that has already been treated to go into the sewer system with contaminated water. This water then travels to a sanitation facility where energy is used to remove the contaminants. Then it is usually piped into a river or lake for storage, or even put back into the system after its cleaned a bit more. Its not that you're wasting water and its going away. But leaving the tap on causes unnecessary wasting of energy. "
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1yghcn | how come tesla s has much longer range than other evs? why hasn't there been real competition yet? | Are the other car manufacturers making sub-par electrical vehicles on purpose? For a brand like VW that owns a ton of other successful brands and can afford to blow billions on publicity stunt projects like Bugatti Veyron, couldn't they just wave their hands and make an even better EV than model S just to show off?
Can't they at least rip off the range technology in the Model S and stick it in the Electric Golf? Don't want the El Golf to get too good in case it starts competing with the Golf? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1yghcn/eli5_how_come_tesla_s_has_much_longer_range_than/ | {
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"The Tesla has an enormous battery and was designed to be electric from the beginning. Something like an electric Golf can't have a battery that big and still be a Golf. The best VW could do would be make something that looks like a Golf from the outside...thus spending billions to cannibalize their own product. \n\nTeslas are also very expensive. An electric Golf is not targeted at the same customer as a Tesla. ",
"A Chinese firm [just bought](_URL_0_) Fisker Automotive. So that may reintroduce some competition on the high end.",
" > Are the other car manufacturers making sub-par electrical vehicles on purpose?\n\nYes. Here in the U.S. pretty much the only reason most car companies make any EVs at all is because [they have to in order to fulfill emissions quotas set by states like California](_URL_0_). The result is they make as few EVs as they can that just barely fulfill the requirements to get their ZEV credits. They will very likely lose money on each sale since they're not committing to mass production and they basically just hand-convert a few thousand cars (or outsource it to Tesla like Toyota does.)\n\nThey also have an incentive for their EVs *not* to be desirable, because they're generally involved in litigation trying to stop / weaken the rules forcing them to make them in the first place. If they can whine about how \"nobody will buy them\" or \"we're losing millions on this\" or \"we believe hydrogen is the future instead\" then that helps their case, although of course the runaway success of Tesla makes them look like idiots.\n\n > couldn't they just wave their hands and make an even better EV than model S just to show off?\n\nProbably yes - it wouldn't really be that hard at least for a concept car just to show that they have the engineering prowess required to make a great EV even if they won't commit to selling it. It is a little surprising that we haven't seen a concept like that.\n\n > Don't want the El Golf to get too good in case it starts competing with the Golf?\n\nThere certainly could be something to this. One of the reasons Tesla is so successful is that they make EVs and EVs only. If you're trying to sell an EV, the first thing you do is point out all the ways that it's vastly superior to ICE vehicles - so you make it look good by making ICEs look bad. If you're a company that's existed off of the ICE profit stream for the better part of a century taking this approach is not so appealing.\n\nNissan/Renault is the one exception to all this - they're honestly committed to EVs with the Leaf and Zoe, but they're just taking a different approach from Tesla. Tesla's attacking the market from the top down while Nissan's going at it from the bottom up. The Model S is obviously superior to the Leaf right now, but it also costs 4-5 times as much. Within 5 years or so we'll very likely see a cheaper model Tesla directly competing against a more expensive premium model Nissan/Infiniti EV, which could be quite interesting."
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"http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/zevprog.htm"
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v33lc | why does your cheek get swollen when you have a bad tooth? | I woke up today with a swollen cheek (tooth isn't hurting, but I know that's why my cheek is swollen). Just curious why/how it happens.. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/v33lc/eli5_why_does_your_cheek_get_swollen_when_you/ | {
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"When you get an infection, one of the ways your body deals with that infection is to send a bunch of neutrophils to that specific area through your blood vessels. These neutrophils are your first-line defenders. They will engage in a full-scale war with the bacterial invaders of your mouth. Soon the dead bodies of neutrophils and bacteria start piling up. That is what causes the swelling by your tooth.\n\nHere's where your body's lymphatic system comes into play. Your lymphatics are the people on the battlefield who drag those dead bodies away. Generally, what your lymphatic system does is store some of those bodies at checkpoints (known as lymph nodes) until they can figure out a way to completely get rid of them. As they drag the bodies away, the swelling at the site of infection lessens.\n\nWhy is that your tooth isn't hurting? Well your body also has a scout team known as your pain nerves. What's bad is that the scout team had the misfortune of getting too close to the infection and were all annihilated before they could get the signal back to your brain. Because your pain nerves have been decayed by the infection, you feel no pain (which is probably a good thing right now).\n\nSoon one side will win the war (most likely your neutrophils since they have an overwhelming numbers advantage) and this will all get resolved one way or another."
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8ois31 | why do anti-uti medications like pyridium and azo make your pee orange? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ois31/eli5_why_do_antiuti_medications_like_pyridium_and/ | {
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"AZO and Pyridium both contain phenazopyridine, which is a red\\-coloured dye. It has pain\\-relieving effects on the urinary tract. When ingested, most of it gets peed out unchanged, allowing it to relieve pain caused by UTIs. This also turns your pee orange.",
"As an unrelated, but important note for anyone who might be confused about this. Phenazopyridine is *not* an \"anti-UTI medication\". It diminishes the *symptoms* of a UTI, but does nothing whatsoever for the underlying condition. You use this drug to stay comfortable while you're waiting for your doctor's appointment, but you need to get on antibiotics as soon as possible to actually correct the UTI."
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epknb1 | how foreign reserves work. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/epknb1/eli5_how_foreign_reserves_work/ | {
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"Forex reserves are reserves held by a central bank in a foreign (to them) currency. If France keeps some USD to balance foreign payments to folks who want USD, then it doesn't have to go to the Euro-USD exchange for every transaction. A smaller country can also do this to stabilize their exchange rates, it there aren't lots of payments between lots of countries using their local currency. This is pretty effective when they keep reserves in Euros and USD."
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n1y3w | the marxist theory of creative destruction. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/n1y3w/eli5_the_marxist_theory_of_creative_destruction/ | {
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"text": [
"Since there's no other text I'm assuming you're talking about the[ broken window fallacy](_URL_0_). The problem with this video is when it compares public works programs to the purchasing of goods or services. Who's to say that the end result of either one is more preferable?",
"Since there's no other text I'm assuming you're talking about the[ broken window fallacy](_URL_0_). The problem with this video is when it compares public works programs to the purchasing of goods or services. Who's to say that the end result of either one is more preferable?"
]
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"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG3AKoL0vEs"
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3d2g2g | am i really saving gas by turning off my car's engine at red lights? | Or does it take as much gas to start the engine back up? I've heard the argument go both ways. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3d2g2g/eli5_am_i_really_saving_gas_by_turning_off_my/ | {
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"It's too dependent of a situation. If the red light lasts 1 second than no, you do not save anything, if it lasts 30 seconds you do , depending on what your car is. If your car is a simple civic, you will not burn significant gas keeping it on, if it's a teched out with on screen controls etc, (lots of tech in it) it will. It's very situation dependant, and in the end the gas you save is not worth the hassle.",
"If you drive a fuel injected vehicle, then yes. Non-fuel injected vehicles use more gas than at idle to start the engine.",
"The amount of gas it takes to start depends a lot on the engine - size, fuel injected vs. direct injected, etc.\n\nEven if you save a little gas, you're also putting more wear on your starter.\n\nTL;DR not worth the hassle either way. It's going to be, at most, pennies of savings.",
"I believe 10 seconds off will make up for the gas to start it up. However if you stop your car at every light you will wreak havoc on your starter. ",
"Forget the original question for a moment. When I learned to drive fifty years ago, my dad made the point that there are idiots on the road (there still are) and you have to be ready at ANY MOMENT to get the hell out of wherever you are.\n\nIf you have a stick shift, don't sit there in neutral with your foot off the clutch unless it IS for a long time. Always be ready to go. If you have an automatic, be ready to go. And if your car takes more than a second to start up...then more time to put into gear... remember that the idiot bearing down on you at \"ONLY\" 30 miles per hour covers 44 feet every second!\n\nDon't let your car be in traffic, which includes red lights, without the capability of getting the hell out of there."
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1ozpmh | poison mushrooms | Why are there tons of poisonous species yet only few eatable species. And why are poisonous mushrooms usually are deathly poisonous? Isn't that a little bit extreme? What purpose does poison serve for a mushroom? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ozpmh/eli5_poison_mushrooms/ | {
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"Poison keeps mushrooms from being eaten."
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62xkpx | how do pyramid schemes like vector marketing still exist if it is illegal? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/62xkpx/eli5_how_do_pyramid_schemes_like_vector_marketing/ | {
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"You kind of answered your own question: it exists because it *isn't* illegal.\n\nWhy isn't it illegal? Because they sell a product. CUTCO Cutlery. In theory, you can make income from selling a product and selling a product isn't illegal. You can also make money by recruiting people and offering money for recruiting people isn't illegal.\n\nWhy is it still a pyramid scheme? Because no one wants the product or, the market for such a product isn't large enough to support the supply. This means people duped into being salesmen usually end up having to resort to recruiting to make up the lost money from failing to sell the product.\n\nBut as long as they could have potentially made money by selling the product, it's not illegal for it to be a pyramid scheme in practice.",
"Consider the typical law firm: Partners are at the top, they recruit senior attorneys and department heads, who in turn recruit junior attorneys out of law school. The junior attorneys earn a salary and this is supplemented by a performance related bonus. The more senior attorneys earn a slightly higher salary and a much bigger bonus, which is based on the profits that they create on their own work, and also the profits of the department they supervise. The partners make an income from the profits of everyone under them.\n\nThe proposition made to a new recruit is therefore that you will earn some money based on the work you do, but if you're successful and in the future you can recruit new people you will be able to make much more money out of the work they do too.\n\nIn theory this is the same principle as MLM, but the key difference is that legal services are an actual viable business that clients will pay for, and therefore the whole system stays afloat and can benefit everyone.\n\nPure pyramid selling is at the opposite end of the spectrum, and there is no product at all. All the money comes from joining fees of new recruits.\n\nMost MLM schemes are somewhere in between, they do have a product and they do sell it for profit to an extent, however the product will generally be inviable itself and would not otherwise be capable of supporting a profitable business, so the real money made by the people at the top is all in the joining fees of people who will end up losing out.\n\nThe legal situation varies by jurisdiction, but in countries like UK where pyramid selling is illegal, the lines will be blurred somewhat for companies that have a product to sell. For people to actually be prosecuted the authorities would have to prove that the intent of the scheme is not really to sell a product but to make all the money in joining fees. A defendant in these cases would argue that there is genuine money to be made from the product, and that the joining fees are just an incidental administrative necessity. The success of the prosecution will come down to the weight of evidence in the particular case. The companies that have been going for a long time will have enough plausibility in their product to make is hard to prove that they are not offering a viable business opportunity to the people who join"
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5bb2ww | why weren't hiroshima and nagasaki as adversely affected by radiation as chernobyl and fukushima? as in, people still able to live there and no exclusion zones. what makes the radiation produced by an atomic bomb distinguishable from that released during the meltdown of a nuclear facility? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5bb2ww/eli5_why_werent_hiroshima_and_nagasaki_as/ | {
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"Nuclear weapons are designed to burn up as much fuel as possible, as quickly as possible. Most of the highly radioactive reaction byproducts get irradiated and fissioned in the explosion, so there is actually comparatively little fallout.\n\nNuclear power plants, on the other hand, are designed to conduct a very flow, controlled, nuclear reaction. This means that at any given time, there are large amounts of awful fission byproducts in the core. Some of these gradually dissipate as the reactor continues running, but a lot of them just stay around as nuclear waste. When a reactor melts down, all that nuclear waste and intermediate fission byproducts get into the environment, where they stick around for thousands of years.",
"1) The Nuclear power plants had hundreds of tons of fuel, the nuclear bombs had pounds of fuel. \n\n2) Nuclear bombs are designed to consume most of the fuel in the explosion. ",
"This is late, but in case anyone else finds it in the future:\n\n* Hiroshima and Nagasaki used small amounts of nuclear fuel compared to a nuclear power plant. Nuclear power plants measure fuel loads by the ton; nuclear bombs by the kilogram. At Hiroshima and Nagasaki, only about 1 kg of nuclear material underwent any reaction. At Chernobyl, a huge amount of nuclear materials had undergone reactions already before it blew up (it was at the end of its fuel cycle).\n\n* The amount of contamination on the ground is due to how many radioactive byproducts get dispersed in quantity on said ground. Think of the problem as not about radioactive rays but about radioactive dust. Again, at Hiroshima/Nagasaki, you only had about 1 kg of radioactive byproducts being distributed. At Chernobyl, it was much more.\n\n* How that radioactive dust is distributed depends on several factors. At Hiroshima/Nagasaki, the bombs were detonated high above the ground, and the fireballs never mixed with dirt or debris, and were extraordinarily hot. This means that their radioactive clouds rose to high altitudes and stayed light enough that the radioactive dust did not come down for a long time. By the time it did come down, much of the short-lived radioactive dust had burnt itself out, and what long-ranged particles there were were mostly dispersed over a large area. That sounds bad, but if you spread 1 kg of material over many thousands of square miles then no individual spot gets very much radioactive dust on it — it doesn't change the background level of radiation much.\n\n* At Chernobyl, many tons of nuclear fuel burned and mixed with heavier materials like graphite and bitumen. They did not burn as hot as an atomic bomb, though, and they attached to heavier particles. So the material went up and then came back down again several hours later. So you have a much higher quantity of radioactive dust (many hundreds of times more than at Hiroshima/Nagasaki), and it also deposited quickly enough that the relative concentrations were pretty high. So more dust, and more of it in any given area downwind of the plant, equals more contamination."
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5cf6es | with all the political arguments happening on reddit, i don't know what it means when someone is "left" or "right". | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5cf6es/eli5_with_all_the_political_arguments_happening/ | {
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"Left and right signify what side issues you land on. Left is associated with being more liberal and right is associated with being more conservative. In our current political climate, this means Left is Democratic and Right is Republican, though there is a bit more nuance when you talk about individual issues.",
"The term comes from revolutionary France. Supporters of the monarchy sat on the right side of national assembly, revolutionaries sat on the left side. \n\nThere are other dimensions of politics aside from left and right. There is authoritarian vs libertarian too. So you can have an authoritarian leftist like Stalin, or a right wing libertarian like Gary Johnson. \n\nBut dividing left and right, a lot of it comes down to egalitarianism, nationalism, attitudes toward social hierarchies, attitudes about tradition, etc. \n\nGenerally the left are more egalitarian, reject tradition, reject nationalism, reject social hierarchies (one race, gender, sexual orientation, class, economic group, etc over another). \n\nThe right more believes in social hierarchies, are more nationalist and patriotic, uphold and believe in tradition, are more aware of and responsive to physical threats (that is why right wing is usually more pro military and pro police. They perceive threats more strongly). \n\nJonathan haidt had some good YouTube videos worth watching about this too. He discusses moral differences between left and right wing. Synopsis - people on the left have 2 channel morality, they value fairness and care and disregard loyalty, authority and sanctity. \n\nConservatives value the last three much more and value fairness and care less. But they value all five moral values about equally, left wing types only value the first two. \n\n_URL_0_"
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6f1309 | what would happen to light inside of a box with a mirror-wall interior? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6f1309/eli5_what_would_happen_to_light_inside_of_a_box/ | {
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"Assuming that the hypothetical box is completely and perfectly enclosed with no way for the light to escape, the light would infinitely reflect within the box while gradually losing energy until it dissipates. Meanwhile the box will become warm (hot, maybe?) because the light energy is converted into heat energy every time the photons impact and reflect off of the mirrored interior of the box until they eventually lose all their energy and disappear. "
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66tanr | why are tv shows set and filmed in different locations? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/66tanr/eli5_why_are_tv_shows_set_and_filmed_in_different/ | {
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"Cost.\n\nIt's almost always as simple as that. If you can film somewhere cheaper, and still maintain the illusion of it being set in it's intended location, why wouldn't you?\n\nPlus can you imagine how expensive most science fiction would be if they actually had to go to another planet to film? :) \n\nAs for why you wouldn't just change the setting? Many possible reasons, but the main two are probably-\n\n-Keeping true to original source material if you're adapting something. \n-Story and character related reasons. If you're making a drama about a family trying to survive the syrian civil war, you can't just relocate the story to mexico because that's where you're filming it. \n",
"Multiple reasons for this, one being weather sometimes the weather just won't suit what you want to film and it can really push back the deadline if the weather doesn't calm down when you want a sunny shoot, another reason is the studio may be in another city so they will film on location and then create the set in a studio for a more controlled environment, another is lighting filming on location can be difficult due to the inability to control natural lighting. The more obvious reason is filming on location can really blow your budget out with the labour cost of constantly bumping in and out of sets on location and the travel of the equipment. So basically they do this to save money, have a more aesthetically pleasing image and to be in full control of the lighting and weather conditions. ",
"Because then all shows would be set in California, NYC or Canada. For one, this is boring. Secondly, you can't have the same plot lines and feel in every place. Dexter would feel very different if set in LA. Other shows like The Wire or Friday Night Lights just wouldn't work outside of their locations. "
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8agqkr | why does boiling water before making it an ice cube make it clear whereas normal tap water is just cloudy? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8agqkr/eli5_why_does_boiling_water_before_making_it_an/ | {
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"It doesn't. Cloudy ice forms due to imperfections caused by trapped ice expanding. See [this guide for making clear ice](_URL_0_).",
"Water contains dissolved air (it's how fish breathe). Less air can be dissolved at higher temperatures, so boiling the water removes most of the dissolved air. This air bubbling out is part of what causes cloudy ice, so freezing previously boiled water can result in a less cloudy ice cube.\n\n(As mentioned elsewhere, the air bubbles tend to come out at the end of freezing when there is no liquid left for them to be dissolved in, so the best way to get clear ice is to only let half your water freeze, and the dissolved air and other impurities will stay in the remaining liquid water)",
"It doesn’t. Clear Ice is made by slowly freezing, allowing bubbles and imperfections to find their way out.\n\nIf I recall correctly. You can make clear ice at home by putting your molds and water inside a small cooler, sealing it, and placing the cooler in your freezer. The cooler acts as insulation and slows the freezing process. And if you have a thin layer of air bubbles on the edge, you can trim it off; this should leave you with near perfect ice cubes.\n\n**Edit: As a fellow redditor pointed out, I completely forgot to mention the water should be cooled directionally. My apologies, it’s been a long time.",
"Ignore every comment about impurities. Clear ice can form on dirty lakes. The ONLY way to get clear ice is to freeze the water *in only one direction*. Cubes in your freezer freeze from the outside in trapping bubbles, creating fractures, etc. Ice sculpture ice (and higher end beverage ice makers like ColdDraft) freeze the water in only one direction. (I spent 4 months researching this.)",
"Imagine you are drawing a grid on a blank piece of paper.\n\nWhen you can start on one edge and continue making the grid in a uniform and consistent way you get a clear grid structure.\n\n Now imagine you have a huge piece of paper (the size of a city), a pen that runs out of ink quickly (causing you to need to walk off the sheet to get a new one), and you can rarely find where you started your grid. Each grid you start is likely not pefectly consistent with the others. The grid that finishes will look ugly and cloudy.\n\nIt is the same for ice. If you can force the water to freeze in one direction it will be consistent all the way through. As an experiment put a couple inches of water in a small cooler ( small enough for your freezer). Put the cooler with the water in the freezer with the top of the cooler off. Let it freeze, it will be clear. You can run a little bit of warm water on the block to get it out of the cooler."
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wzknt | screen resolution, megapixels, hd, hdmi/vga, (aspect ratio?) all this! | I have no idea how any of this shit is related or if it is related, could i get some context on what any of this means.
Edit: spellling. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wzknt/eli5_screen_resolution_megapixels_hd_hdmivga/ | {
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"Screen resolution: Screen resolution is a measurement of how much space for different things you have on your screen. It's measured much like a sheet of paper, in that you get a horizontal and a vertical measurement- a sheet of paper might be 8.5x11 inches, but a computer screen might be 1280x1024 pixels. More pixels means you can fit more stuff, and the different numbers can also tell you about the...\n\nASPECT RATIO. Basically, this is the ratio between the width of the screen and the height of the screen. Bigger numbers (like 16:9, or 1.78) mean a wider picture. Many offices still use 5:4 or 16:10 aspect screens, but most screens being produced now are 16:9, which leads us into...\n\nHD! HDTV is a combination of two things- aspect ratio and screen resolution. HDTV typically has an aspect ratio of 16:9 (wide!) and a resolution of either 1280x720, or 1920x1080. Now, the resolution here isn't quite the same as it is for a computer screen, because you're not actually showing anything different. There's no extra space if you have a higher-resolution screen. What you DO get is a lot more detail, which can be clearly explained by bringing up...\n\nMEGAPIXELS. Simply put, the megapixel rating of the camera is what you get when you multiply the horizontal resolution by the vertical resolution. If we take the 1920x1080 example above, then we have 2.1 megapixels- or just over two million individual points of light. Simply put, all else being equal, having a higher pixel count is going to give you a clearer, sharper image. 2.1MP is plenty for most uses involving a screen (remember, most screens being made don't have a resolution higher than 1920x1080), but it's not enough for a nice, large-print photograph. That's why cameras that are designed to take still pictures instead of video have megapixel ratings as high as 35MP- more than four times the number of pixels in each of the horizontal and vertical directions as HD video!\n\nFinally, you have HDMI and VGA, which don't really link in as well. Basically, they're different standards for connecting displays to a computer or other video source. Long story short, HDMI is almost always going to be much better quality if it's available.",
"Screen resolution is the number of pixels in your image. Think of pixels as a single tile in a mosaic. When speaking in digital terms, a pixel can be off, red green or blue and make up all the colors you see on the screen.\n\nYou may see descriptions like 1080p or 720p or 480i. P means progressive and i means interlaced but I'm not getting into that that explanation right now.\n\n1080p is actually short for 1920x1080.\n720 = 1280x720.\n480 =720x480 or 640x480 (also known as SD or standard definition.)\n\nThe first number is the number of pixels ACROSS your screen. The second number is the number of pixels DOWN the screen.\n\nThese numbers also reveal your aspect ratio, 1920/1080=1.777778 Which is the same math as 16/9= 1.777778\n\nSometimes 16:9 is called widescreen, which is in contrast to regular 4:3 (the aspect ratio of older TVs) 640/480=1.3333333 4/3=1.33333\n\nFilms seen in theatres are usually even wider than 16:9 which is why there is usually that \"this film has been formatted to fit your screen\" business in movies on tv and dvd.\n\nMegapixels are MILLIONS of pixels, so a 10 megapixel camera contains a total of 10,000,000 pixels and depending on the **aspect ratio** of your camera, the pixels down and across would vary.\n\nHD is high definition, as in higher than standard definition(720x480.) Back in the day (pre 2000s, not really sure of the date) all video was Standard Definition.\n\nHDMI is a way to display an HD signal, VGA is limited to standard definition, 720x480 so HDMI will always give you a better/sharper picture than HD if your screen is HD.\n\nPS. This is the first time I've felt useful on reddit. Video editor WIN.\n\nEdit: Skipped a word. Formatting\n\nEdit 2: Also, when an aspect ratio is OFF it means an image is either stretched or smushed to fit another aspect ratio. I had to add because one of my BIGGEST pet peeves is watching a 16:9 movie squished into a 4:3 image and vise vera. Even bigger pet peeve: when no one else notices everyone is super fat or super skinny because of it!",
"All digital images, including videos, are made up of an enormous grid of tiny coloured squares called pixels. Zoom far enough into any image and you'll start seeing them. Resolution refers to how many of these pixels are, and is so named because the more pixels there are making up an image, the more detail there is to *resolve*. It's like mosaic artwork -- you can make a really abstract representation of someone out of 200 tiles, but you'll need thousands and thousands to make a recognisable portrait.\n\n[I made this animated GIF to better explain how resolution impacts detail.](_URL_2_) You can see that the version with only 2709 pixels is basically unrecognisable, and that the more pixels are added, the more detail you can see. The numbers denote the resolution, which is commonly written Width-x-Height -- 500x200 means the image is a grid 500 pixels wide and 200 pixels high, making it 100,000 pixels total.\n\n*HD* stands for *high definition*, and is a non-technical term denoting any video signal with more than 1280x720 resolution. This is what's used for most HDTV, and it's around three times the detail of DVDs and non-HD television. You'll also see the term *full HD* or *1080p*, which means 1920x1080 or 2.1 million pixels. This is what's used on Blu-rays and some internet streams, and it's twice HDTV, or six times regular TV/DVD.\n\nA *megapixel* is one million pixels. If a camera says it's 32 megapixels, that means it can create images that each contain up to around 32,000,000 pixels. They use this term, rather than X-Y measurements like \"500x200\", because they can capture images in a variety of aspect ratios.\n\nVery commonly-used resolutions are often labelled according to their height. Examples are 720x480 (480p/i, or standard definition TV/DVD in USA and Japan), 720x576 (576p/i, standard definition TV/DVD in Australia and Europe), 1280x720 (720p, HDTV), 1920x1080 (1920p/i, some HDTV or Bluray), or 2K, 4K, 6K and 8K (used in digital cinema/high-end cameras).\n\nWhen you pick a resolution on Youtube and see 360, 480, 720, etc, that's what those numbers mean.\n\nThe *aspect ratio* refers to the shape of the frame. You've noticed that new \"widescreen\" TVs are a different shape than the old TVs -- that's a change in aspect ratio, from square to wider. When you watch an old TV show and it has black bars on the left and right of your TV, or you watch a new movie and it has black bars on the top and bottom, that's because the TV show or movie was filmed in a different aspect ratio to your television set.\n\nTelevision sets usually note their aspect ratio as either *4:3* -- meaning that for every 4 centimetres of width they have, they have 3 of height -- or *16:9*. Old square-ish TVs are 4:3, new widescreens are 16:9. Media, however, always denotes its aspect ratio according to :1. 2:1 media would be an image exactly twice as wide as it is high.\n\n[Here's an image I made demonstrating the different aspect ratios in common use.](_URL_1_)\n\nWhen the aspect ratio of what you're watching doesn't match the aspect ratio of your television set, you're either left with unused space on your screen (because a square doesn't completely fill a rectangular hole) or you zoom in on the image to cut off the edges (called 'pan and scan').\n\nHDMI and VGA refer to the way signals are encoded to pass from your computer, DVD/Bluray player, Play Station, etc to your TV set, and the cables designed for those signals. They all operate in different ways. VGA is the old-timey analogue signal; the chips on your computer decode your video into signals about how red, green, and blue (the colours that make up all other colours) different parts of your image are, feeds them through a VGA cable to your monitor, and says \"Here, display this.\" HDMI, or High Definition Media Interface, actually just transmits the raw video *and audio* data from your player to your TV, so your TV/monitor can turn it into image information itself. HDMI supports transmitting much more data, which is necessary for HD signals, and will do a much better job than VGA will.\n\nThe other two important details to note in a video are framerate and scanning type. All videos are just made up of lots of still images played back very quickly; each image is a *frame*. A movie is usually 24 frames per second, while TV is 25 or 30 depending on where you are. There are two types of ways to display these frames. The first is in *progressive scan*: you show all of frame 1, then all of frame 2, then all of frame 3. This is how computers and movie projectors work, and how a modern TV setup with a Bluray player and a HDMI cable will work. But the second option is to *interlace* it. This is where you break the image up into rows [like this](_URL_0_). You show the odd rows of frame 1, then the even rows of frame 1, then the odd rows of frame 2, and so on, alternating very quickly, never updating the entire picture at once. This is how old non-LCD/plasma televisions worked, how videotapes work, and how composite cables -- the yellow cable you used to plug in your Nintendo 64 back in the olden days -- work. \n\nYou'll sometimes see videos described as *1080i60* or *720p24*, especially on camera menus. The first number is the height of the resolution. The *p* or *i* refers to *progressive* or *interlaced* mode, and the last number refers to the framerate. So when you see 720p24, you know that it's going to capture a 1280x720 image, it's going to capture the entire image in one go as opposed to dividing it up into sets of rows, and it's going to do it 24 times per second."
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3bz7n8 | why is a shutdown in place and what is the departure of a admin having to do with this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3bz7n8/eli5_why_is_a_shutdown_in_place_and_what_is_the/ | {
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"_URL_0_\nThey explain it quite well",
"Read the post on r/outoftheloop for a more comprehensive summary. \n\nBasically reddit have let go the admin that handled AMA's. The problem is that they did this without notifying any moderators, thus leaving subreddits like IAmA in a pickle, as they had several AMA's scheduled for today and no way to contact their participants. The moderators of many subs feel like reddit does not care about the people who give up their time to keep the community running, and so have arranged a blackout to illustrate the impact mods have on the site."
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61llny | how does a crematory not mix people's ashes together? | Do they power wash the inside before running another cremation? If not that or something similar, I would think remnants would be left over. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/61llny/eli5_how_does_a_crematory_not_mix_peoples_ashes/ | {
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"They often do get mixed up. What comes out of a crematory oven isn't ash, it's mostly bone dust and chunks, that get ground up in a big blender called a cremulator, and then bagged up. There are almost always at least traces of multiple sets of remains, though they do sweep out the oven every time. It's not considered to be a problem, because, like most such funerary information, people just don't want to know.",
"You could read this book 'Smoke Gets In Your Eyes'. It's a narrative by a mortician. Very enlightening and also well written and interesting, I learned a lot about the morgue life from it. "
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dbr4nz | how does western union work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dbr4nz/eli5_how_does_western_union_work/ | {
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"You pay shop, shop pays Western Union, Western Union pays other shop, other shop pays other person"
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2bra4x | what affect would long term submersion in water do to your skin? | I know why skin gets wrinkly after a long time in the water but what if it was a year or longer? I'm sure there are differences between types of water (salt/fresh, etc) on what it would do to your body as well but, would your skin be able to survive? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bra4x/eli5_what_affect_would_long_term_submersion_in/ | {
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"Realistically, as long as you have been properly hydrated internally, and get proper nourishment and the water is constantly flowing or changed/cleaned for passing waste then... presumably indefinitely."
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cydprl | why do tomato plants need support to grow? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cydprl/eli5_why_do_tomato_plants_need_support_to_grow/ | {
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"They don't, really. \n\nThey need supports to grow *the way we want them to*, and keep the tomatoes off the ground where they'll get rotten spots. \n\nOf course, some don't need supports and they still don't have that problem. We grow Yellow Pear Tomatoes and they make a nice little freestanding bush. It doesn't need any maintenance whatsoever, just prune off anything that gets damaged (say, by a careless dog), and twice-daily watering (in 90+ heat).",
"Tomatoes are like pumpkins and watermelon in the the fruit naturally grow sitting on the ground. This means that a naturally grown tomato has a weird spot on the bottom where it was in contact with the ground (have a look at a pumpkin or watermelon to see what this looks like). For whatever reason, we've decided that we don't want tomatoes like this, so we lift the vines off the ground to prevent it.\n\nIt's human preference, not something that the plant needs."
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dkw2j9 | what is the difference between humanity and animality? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dkw2j9/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_humanity_and/ | {
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"Answer: to quote Friday from 1987's excellent and underrated 'Dragnet' film, \"the difference is that we use cutlery and can control our sexual urges.\""
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2tt01d | why do i feel physical pain in my chest while watching an emotional movie? | When I'm watching a particularly emotional movie scene, I frequently feel a seizing/clenching pain in the left side of my chest in response to the movie.
What's up with that?
Edit: word | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2tt01d/eli5_why_do_i_feel_physical_pain_in_my_chest/ | {
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"These may be symptoms of a heart attack.\nSeriously.\nThe extra emotional strain on you heart may have physical manifestations and what your describing are real signs. \n_URL_0_\n",
"OP, I'm not here to tell you that this is heart attacks. I'm here to tell you that chest pain is a complex issue not readily reduced down to just heart attacks. My best guess is that you're experiencing emotional stress that gets translated to an increased heart rate and blood pressure. Hormones such as epinephrine and adrenaline are probably pulsing through your veins and play a part as well. \n\nI get these pains too in reaction to stress and emotion of film as well so i know chest pains suck.\n\nEdit- Im an idiot. Epinephrine and adrenaline are the same hormone",
"Sometimes while lying in bed I will get severe chest pain and a doctor told me it is due to high anxiety. Maybe you have similar symptoms from an emotional movie. "
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5f11et | why do octopuses/octopi actually need three hearts? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5f11et/eli5_why_do_octopusesoctopi_actually_need_three/ | {
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"Evolution just produces whatever happens to work out, not necessarily the most elegant solution. Could you design an octopus with just one larger heart? Probably. Do three hearts work just fine? Yep.",
"Why do you need two kidneys?",
"As has been pointed out already, they don't necessarily *need* three hearts. They just evolved with three hearts, and because this didn't make it harder for them to reproduce, they didn't evolve them away again.\n\nOn a linguistic note, \"octopuses\" is a perfectly acceptable form for the plural, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. But if you do want to use the more \"classical\" plural, you need to know that \"octopus\" is Greek, not Latin, so the alternative plural you can use if you like is \"octopodes\". If anyone has told you to write \"octopi\", they're wrong.\n\nStick with \"octopuses\". It's absolutely fine.",
"Physiology TA here. [A simple diagram](_URL_0_) shows you a central systemic heart and two branchial hearts. Octopi have a lot of fancy nervous wiring in their arms, which requires upkeep. So the right arms all get one heart and the left arms get one heart. ",
"Complete aside...\n\nOctopus comes from Greek roots, while the -us to -i pluralization is only for certain Latin nouns.\n\nThe correct pluralization is to use either English rules (octopuses) or Greek rules (octopodes)."
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2a2em9 | why do babies stare at certain people for long periods of time? | This happens to me a lot. I will be out in public or seeing a relative who has a baby, and the baby will stare at me constantly. Is it because I look strange? Do they prefer young people? (I'm an 18 year old male who looks fairly normal). | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2a2em9/eli5_why_do_babies_stare_at_certain_people_for/ | {
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"They can see your inner demons.",
"Because you're new to the baby, making you interesting, and it could also be that you're something that is 'easy' to physically look at since babies can have limited head mobility. ",
"Either your face is perfectly symmetrical, or you're ugly. ",
"Faces are the first thing babies can process visually. Most everything else is a meaningless jumble to them. They're staring because they can see that you have a face.",
"Ok, I'll be the weird guy in this topic. \nI have heard from multiple people that some kids (babies especially) can see aura's. Like colors around your head. And I assume some people would have prettier colors than others. \nThat's about all I can tell you because I don't really care about/believe it enough to research it any further.",
"Depending on the age of the baby it may be high color contrast, e.g. pale skin with dark hair. Or it may just be that you made eye contact with them. Despite thinking that they may be too young to understand eye contact, they know enough to know that they are making a connection.",
"you're a baby magnet - didn't make the cut for chick magnet",
"this always happens to me.. i like to think its because they think i'm beautiful :D",
"I don't know that my desire to stare at new faces has declined at all since childhood. Now that I'm an adult, there are less socially acceptable scenarios in which I can do it.",
"I consider myself a people watcher. I love looking at people; we all do. You only notice that babies do because they don't look away when you notice they are looking at you. They haven't learned its rude to stare.",
"They can see the matrix bending around you, you're an outlier in the universe. You were never supposed to be born",
"There actually have been developmental psychology studies on this, I learned about them in my child development class in college, but I don't remember them clear enough to cite them here. The general idea is that babies do have preference over faces that people would consider \"attractive\". The babies in the study were shown two different faces on a screen at a time, and they paid more attention to the ones with higher symmetry and well defined features. So next time a baby can't stop staring at you just remember they think you're cute!\n\nEdit: here is the [link(PDF)](_URL_0_) to an actual study on the topic, not sure if it's the same study my textbook referenced (there are many), but it's the same idea; babies stare at attractive faces longer.",
"My brother and I look very similar - height, weight, hair color, etc. Only difference is I have a beard and he doesn't. When I met his first born for the first time, he stared and wanted to touch my beard for the longest time. Something new to them."
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ej2ydy | is "processed" food that only contains whole food ingredients worse for you than eating the foods themselves? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ej2ydy/eli5_is_processed_food_that_only_contains_whole/ | {
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"There is no clear definition of what is \"processed food\", it's marketing jargon to sell you more expensive foods.",
"Technically anything that was processed or worked beyond it's original state is processed. \n\nCanned vegetables, milk, cheese, bacon, chips, bread, frozen meals, etc.\n\nBe smart, read the lable. Canned beans with only beans and water is no worse than cooking the beans yourself. Watch out for excess or added salt/sugar.",
"I am not an expert, and can't answer the questions on things like the beets or spaghetti. With the chips, however, I'd say that it would arguably be more healthy to do it yourself, because you are in control of the amount of salt that you use, and you would most likely be putting less salt on the chips yourself than what would be added in a factory. In addition, reusing oil releases a bunch of things that are bad for you, one of which can be responsible for bad cholesterol.\n\nHere's an article I just took a look at on reusing oil - [_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\n\nHaving said that, personally I reuse oil maybe two or three times to make fries, but having read that, I'd have second thoughts about reusing it any more than that. You can definitely taste the difference if something is cooked in fresh oil. Again, I'm not an expert, so I can't say for certain that big companies reuse oil, but doing it yourself means that you'd be sure of what you're eating."
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74u6x8 | could i get a cold in a sterile environment? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/74u6x8/eli5_could_i_get_a_cold_in_a_sterile_environment/ | {
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"If the virus is not present, no you can't.\n\nThe virus would have to be in there first, or you would have to bring it in with you.\n\nGetting a cold has absolutely nothing to do with the temperature you are in, that's a myth.\n\nAlso a cold is caused by a virus, not bacteria. ",
"No for a \"cold\"; yes, for other health conditions. \n\nFirst, colds. A cold is caused by something called a rhinovirus (and ONLY a rhinovirus, not just 'getting cold') , that infects you until your body figures out how to make itself fight back, and then you can never be affected by that specific rhinovirus again. \n\nBut wait, you get more colds right? So how is that correct?\n\nIt's because cold-causing rhinovirii (much like influenza or flu) mutate every so often so your body doesn't recognize it any more. It's a DIFFERENT rhinovirus.\n\nSo in an otherwise sterile environment, there's four scenarios here.\n\nYou had a cold in the past but you're \"immune\" to any remaining rhinovirus from it.\n\nYou picked up a rhinovirus just before you entered the box. You'll get a cold, but you wouldn't pick it up after living in the box for a few weeks so it'll be the last one you get.\n\nYou have a cold now.\n\nYou catch a cold from a new rhinovirus that mutated in your body from an old one left over from your last cold. And this MIGHT be possible but the odds of this happening are so very very small that let's consider it impossible.\n\n----\n\nAll this, and you can still get sick. How? Well, being cold all the time is stressful on you and your body has to devote its resources to fighting it rather than keeping all the OTHER bacteria and virii at bay that are normally in your body. And you're probably not sleeping well either, which makes it worse. \n\nYou won't get a cold, but you might develop heart or other problems or a cut on your skin might become infected more easily from the reduced immune system effects of the constant stress on your body. ",
"While it is popular belief, the idea that being cold makes you more likely to become sick hasn't been very substantiated by science. It *may* be that when it's cold, more people hang out indoors and are more likely to spread their filthy germs all over the place. That may not fully explain the phenomenon but just being \"cold\" doesn't make you more likely to become sick.\n\nAlso, the answer is yes and no. The box may be sterile, but your body isn't. A lot of infections, whether they are pneumonia or skin infections are often caused by bacteria already in your mouth and nose or normally living on your skin.\n\nIn rare cases of people who are super immunocompromised, (whether it's because of genetic defects, cancer, or chemotherapy) we do try to create relatively sterile environments for them. While you or I would be unlikely to become sick in one of those, often they still get sick just because of normal bacteria living in their intestines spreading elsewhere in their body because their immune system is too weak to keep them in check."
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100f8f | how does pre-loading a game work if the game is not out yet. | If it allows you to play a soon as it is released, what stops people from playing it before that. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/100f8f/eli5_how_does_preloading_a_game_work_if_the_game/ | {
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"Preloading gets you most of the pieces of the game, but not a few of the ones that allow it to work. When the game is released, those pieces are filled in and you can play.",
"Most new games require on-line verification or a connection to the server, which can be controlled by the company releasing the game.\n\nThere are also cases where you only download 99% of the game along with a patcher, but the last 1% of the game, which is required for it to run, only gets made available for the patcher to download once the game is released."
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mk75a | can anyone please explain tcp/ip and it's layers to me like i'm five? | Hey. I am an average user of the internet and decided to learn a little more about whats going on under the hood with all this talk of censorship. I read a little about TCP/IP and the application, transport, network, data-link, and physical later, but have not truly grasped the concepts because my resources were presented as if I was a computer guy. Can anyone explain this to me like I'm five? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mk75a/can_anyone_please_explain_tcpip_and_its_layers_to/ | {
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"Let's use an office analogy. Forgive me if I stretch this to the breaking point.\n\nIf I wanted to send an internal memo, I would use a simple envelope that just said the name of the destination. That's like the data-link layer. That envelope is the Ethernet header.\n\nIf I need to send a letter to Dave in a different company, I would address an envelope according to the USPS requirements, with street, city, state, and zipcode. This would be like an IP header.\n\nIf I want my metaphor to be strictly accurate, I'd put that external envelope with the IP header into an internal envelope that said 'mailroom' (your default gateway). The mailroom would then take it out of the mailroom envelope and give it to the USPS. Your mailroom doesn't have to care exactly how the USPS handles the letter. They might have their own different data-link layer involving boxes, so they put it in a box marked with the post office number of a facility near the destination. You don't care how they handle it. When the mailroom at the other company gets it, they put it in an internal envelope with 'Dave' on it and it ends up on Dave's desk.\n\nThat's similar to how headers are added and removed. Your packet has an Ethernet header added on between your computer and your router, and the router will strip that header and add a new header that is specific to the other networks.\n\nThe transport layer relates mostly to the connection between the two parties that are communicating. If I'm having regular correspondence each person might write \"I just got your last letter about xxx\" so that the person who receives it knows that nothing got lost in the mail. That's like TCP: each party will send letters saying things like \"I would like to open a connection with you\", or \"I just got your third letter\" or \"please close this connection\". Alternately, UDP lets you just send a single packet out, with no requirement or guarantee you'll ever get anything back.\n\nThe application layer is about what kind of content is in the letter, e.g. \"It's a bill\" or \"It's a newsletter\" or \"it's an HTTP message\". It is concerned with the standard way that certain kinds of conversations happen, for example a bill has a due date and an amount due in easily recognizable spots, and an HTTP GET request has a URL and sometimes some cookies associated with it, in a standardized format.\n",
"I've found this to be a good explanation of TCP, jump down to the big LONG monologue by Steve - just before the end of the page.\n\n_URL_3_\n\n-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-\n\nThere are previous explanations of related topics, like IP, here: _URL_2_ -- do a search for \"48\" and you'll jump right to the explanation.\n\n-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-\n\nIf you find that stuff too technical, then early on in this program, they did a much simpler (though excellent!) introduction to \"How the Internet Works\" here: _URL_1_ - search for \"Chapter\" to jump to the explanation.\n\n-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-\n\nThe whole program has some very good explanations of all kinds of computer related stuff - and it's in an audible or a readable format for those with different learning styles. Just go to _URL_0_ for an episode guide.",
"Application Layer- Manages the data in relation to the information it stores. This layer is the closest to the user interface and deals with (relatively) relevant user data. Think of this layer being the Passenger of a car.\n\nTransport Layer- Manages how the Application Layer data will be sent out. Deals more with the various protocols out there (http, smtp, ftp, etc). Think of this layer being the kind of vehicle the passenger is in.\n\nInternet Layer- Deals with managing and identifying the machines that will be communicating. This is where IP Addresses come into play. Imagine this layer being the directions to get from Point A to Point B, or a gps.\n\nLink Layer- Deals with the physical electrical or radio signals sent out and recieved by Network Interface Controller (NIC) cards (ethernet port, dsl/cable modem, wifi, cell signal). Think of this being the material and engine components of the vehicle along with the concrete of the road, signs, laws, and everything else about driving.\n\n > Edit, added car analogies",
"The thing with TCP/IP is that it is distinct from the OSI model (\"the layers\"). OSI is just a model of the separation of concerns. There are sometimes not clear boundaries between the layers. They simply serve as a guideline to how your networking functionality should be divided.\n\nNow, onto the layers. Suppose you are trying to communicate with Alice and Bob, who are next door neighbors living on each side of your house, using a three cans and three wires. (One can is connected to both other cans.) The cans and the wires are the **physical layer**. They allow you to transmit raw sound (raw bits).\n\nThe problem with this is that you don't know who you are sending to. You want to somehow address either Alice or Bob. So, before you say your actual message, you say the street address (MAC address) of the guy you want to talk to, and they both listen to this address and determines whether the message is for them. Now, you have to have good faith that Bob will not eavesdrop on your message to Alice. This is the job of the **data-link layer**.\n\nLet's say Alice's parents are rich, and they own the entire block. They move around houses every day, and you don't know where she is at any given moment. How will your message reach her? Remember, she listens only for the street address where she is currently at. So, you guys get together and assign each of you a number (IP address) that identifies you no matter where you go. And, you decide to post in the local newspaper (DHCP service) the physical location of each of you, every day. That way, you can look up Alice and Bob’s physical addresses when you need to, and will be able to send them messages. This is the **network layer**.\n\nWhat if you want to talk to multiple people in Alice’s household? What if she has a hot older sister, Charlotte, whom you have a crush on? How will you let Alice know that a message is for Charlotte, instead of Alice? Simple, before your actual message, but after you say the street address, you say “This message is for Charlotte.” But names are complicated, so we assign a number (port number) to each person (process) in the household that wants to communicate. This is the **transport layer**. (TCP and UDP sits on this layer.) Furthermore, sometimes the wire is bad and there’s a lot of background noise outside so you can’t be sure that the other person got your message. What do you do? Simple: have the other person acknowledge every message you send, say, “I got it.” (This is what TCP does but not UDP.) Remember, all of these messages are still prefaced by “This message is for ___” and the street address of the recipient.\n\nHow will Alice know when the conversation is over? What if she wants to go eat and doesn’t want to pay close attention to the wire? Just say “Goodbye” at the end of your string of messages. This is the **session layer**. (This layer isn’t very well-defined, and is often combined with the transport layer.)\n\nPerhaps now you want to talk to David, Bob’s uncle. He doesn’t speak a word of English and only speaks Russian. What can you do? Get a translator! The translator listens to your message, translates it into Russian, and says the message in Russian to David. When David wants to talk to you, he talks to the translator, and the translator translates his Russian message into English, and then relays the message back to you. This is the **presentation** layer.\n\nSuppose, on top of all of that, you want to play a game of chess. Chess has well-defined, standardized notation of the moves. So you can simply say “knight to F3” and the other person will understand that you want to move your Knight to the square labeled F3. Imagine, that you have a chess board that speaks the move in the standardized notation every time you make a move, and every time it hears a move, it moves the mentioned piece to the correct location. Now, you can play chess, over two cans and a wire, with everyone that has a similar chess board, even with David, who has a board that only operates in Russian. This is the **application layer**.\n\nOf course, all of this is a gross oversimplification of the the OSI model, but should give you a gist of how it operates.",
"When two computers talk, they do it with little messages, like paper notes. The pieces of paper can't be too big, so they need to use lots of notes if they want to send a big message. (These are 'datagrams', or 'IP packets').\n\nComputers can't walk around, so they give the notes to the other computers next to them (their \"friends\"), to pass on. So that the notes don't get lost, they have the names of the comp sending them and the names of the comp its for written on the top of the paper. A computers name (an \"IP address\") is made up of 4 numbers. The ones with numbers that are like each other are normally close to each other.\n\nThe notes get passed between friends until they get to where they need to go. Working out which friend is best to pass a note to is called 'routing'.\n\nIf one of the computers is sending a big message, it uses lots of notes. The computer receiving the message has to put all of the notes in the right order, so it can read the message.\n\nSometimes some which are passing the notes drop them, or get them muddled up in the right order. So for big messages the computer puts a note on each one saying something like \"number 1\", \"number \" ... up to \"number 10\". Then the computer reading the notes sends back little notes saying \"i've got number 1\", \"I've got number 3\", \"I've got number 4\" and so the sending computer knows it might need to send number 2 again. This is called \"TCP\".\n",
"Let's use an office analogy. Forgive me if I stretch this to the breaking point.\n\nIf I wanted to send an internal memo, I would use a simple envelope that just said the name of the destination. That's like the data-link layer. That envelope is the Ethernet header.\n\nIf I need to send a letter to Dave in a different company, I would address an envelope according to the USPS requirements, with street, city, state, and zipcode. This would be like an IP header.\n\nIf I want my metaphor to be strictly accurate, I'd put that external envelope with the IP header into an internal envelope that said 'mailroom' (your default gateway). The mailroom would then take it out of the mailroom envelope and give it to the USPS. Your mailroom doesn't have to care exactly how the USPS handles the letter. They might have their own different data-link layer involving boxes, so they put it in a box marked with the post office number of a facility near the destination. You don't care how they handle it. When the mailroom at the other company gets it, they put it in an internal envelope with 'Dave' on it and it ends up on Dave's desk.\n\nThat's similar to how headers are added and removed. Your packet has an Ethernet header added on between your computer and your router, and the router will strip that header and add a new header that is specific to the other networks.\n\nThe transport layer relates mostly to the connection between the two parties that are communicating. If I'm having regular correspondence each person might write \"I just got your last letter about xxx\" so that the person who receives it knows that nothing got lost in the mail. That's like TCP: each party will send letters saying things like \"I would like to open a connection with you\", or \"I just got your third letter\" or \"please close this connection\". Alternately, UDP lets you just send a single packet out, with no requirement or guarantee you'll ever get anything back.\n\nThe application layer is about what kind of content is in the letter, e.g. \"It's a bill\" or \"It's a newsletter\" or \"it's an HTTP message\". It is concerned with the standard way that certain kinds of conversations happen, for example a bill has a due date and an amount due in easily recognizable spots, and an HTTP GET request has a URL and sometimes some cookies associated with it, in a standardized format.\n",
"I've found this to be a good explanation of TCP, jump down to the big LONG monologue by Steve - just before the end of the page.\n\n_URL_3_\n\n-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-\n\nThere are previous explanations of related topics, like IP, here: _URL_2_ -- do a search for \"48\" and you'll jump right to the explanation.\n\n-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-\n\nIf you find that stuff too technical, then early on in this program, they did a much simpler (though excellent!) introduction to \"How the Internet Works\" here: _URL_1_ - search for \"Chapter\" to jump to the explanation.\n\n-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-\n\nThe whole program has some very good explanations of all kinds of computer related stuff - and it's in an audible or a readable format for those with different learning styles. Just go to _URL_0_ for an episode guide.",
"Application Layer- Manages the data in relation to the information it stores. This layer is the closest to the user interface and deals with (relatively) relevant user data. Think of this layer being the Passenger of a car.\n\nTransport Layer- Manages how the Application Layer data will be sent out. Deals more with the various protocols out there (http, smtp, ftp, etc). Think of this layer being the kind of vehicle the passenger is in.\n\nInternet Layer- Deals with managing and identifying the machines that will be communicating. This is where IP Addresses come into play. Imagine this layer being the directions to get from Point A to Point B, or a gps.\n\nLink Layer- Deals with the physical electrical or radio signals sent out and recieved by Network Interface Controller (NIC) cards (ethernet port, dsl/cable modem, wifi, cell signal). Think of this being the material and engine components of the vehicle along with the concrete of the road, signs, laws, and everything else about driving.\n\n > Edit, added car analogies",
"The thing with TCP/IP is that it is distinct from the OSI model (\"the layers\"). OSI is just a model of the separation of concerns. There are sometimes not clear boundaries between the layers. They simply serve as a guideline to how your networking functionality should be divided.\n\nNow, onto the layers. Suppose you are trying to communicate with Alice and Bob, who are next door neighbors living on each side of your house, using a three cans and three wires. (One can is connected to both other cans.) The cans and the wires are the **physical layer**. They allow you to transmit raw sound (raw bits).\n\nThe problem with this is that you don't know who you are sending to. You want to somehow address either Alice or Bob. So, before you say your actual message, you say the street address (MAC address) of the guy you want to talk to, and they both listen to this address and determines whether the message is for them. Now, you have to have good faith that Bob will not eavesdrop on your message to Alice. This is the job of the **data-link layer**.\n\nLet's say Alice's parents are rich, and they own the entire block. They move around houses every day, and you don't know where she is at any given moment. How will your message reach her? Remember, she listens only for the street address where she is currently at. So, you guys get together and assign each of you a number (IP address) that identifies you no matter where you go. And, you decide to post in the local newspaper (DHCP service) the physical location of each of you, every day. That way, you can look up Alice and Bob’s physical addresses when you need to, and will be able to send them messages. This is the **network layer**.\n\nWhat if you want to talk to multiple people in Alice’s household? What if she has a hot older sister, Charlotte, whom you have a crush on? How will you let Alice know that a message is for Charlotte, instead of Alice? Simple, before your actual message, but after you say the street address, you say “This message is for Charlotte.” But names are complicated, so we assign a number (port number) to each person (process) in the household that wants to communicate. This is the **transport layer**. (TCP and UDP sits on this layer.) Furthermore, sometimes the wire is bad and there’s a lot of background noise outside so you can’t be sure that the other person got your message. What do you do? Simple: have the other person acknowledge every message you send, say, “I got it.” (This is what TCP does but not UDP.) Remember, all of these messages are still prefaced by “This message is for ___” and the street address of the recipient.\n\nHow will Alice know when the conversation is over? What if she wants to go eat and doesn’t want to pay close attention to the wire? Just say “Goodbye” at the end of your string of messages. This is the **session layer**. (This layer isn’t very well-defined, and is often combined with the transport layer.)\n\nPerhaps now you want to talk to David, Bob’s uncle. He doesn’t speak a word of English and only speaks Russian. What can you do? Get a translator! The translator listens to your message, translates it into Russian, and says the message in Russian to David. When David wants to talk to you, he talks to the translator, and the translator translates his Russian message into English, and then relays the message back to you. This is the **presentation** layer.\n\nSuppose, on top of all of that, you want to play a game of chess. Chess has well-defined, standardized notation of the moves. So you can simply say “knight to F3” and the other person will understand that you want to move your Knight to the square labeled F3. Imagine, that you have a chess board that speaks the move in the standardized notation every time you make a move, and every time it hears a move, it moves the mentioned piece to the correct location. Now, you can play chess, over two cans and a wire, with everyone that has a similar chess board, even with David, who has a board that only operates in Russian. This is the **application layer**.\n\nOf course, all of this is a gross oversimplification of the the OSI model, but should give you a gist of how it operates.",
"When two computers talk, they do it with little messages, like paper notes. The pieces of paper can't be too big, so they need to use lots of notes if they want to send a big message. (These are 'datagrams', or 'IP packets').\n\nComputers can't walk around, so they give the notes to the other computers next to them (their \"friends\"), to pass on. So that the notes don't get lost, they have the names of the comp sending them and the names of the comp its for written on the top of the paper. A computers name (an \"IP address\") is made up of 4 numbers. The ones with numbers that are like each other are normally close to each other.\n\nThe notes get passed between friends until they get to where they need to go. Working out which friend is best to pass a note to is called 'routing'.\n\nIf one of the computers is sending a big message, it uses lots of notes. The computer receiving the message has to put all of the notes in the right order, so it can read the message.\n\nSometimes some which are passing the notes drop them, or get them muddled up in the right order. So for big messages the computer puts a note on each one saying something like \"number 1\", \"number \" ... up to \"number 10\". Then the computer reading the notes sends back little notes saying \"i've got number 1\", \"I've got number 3\", \"I've got number 4\" and so the sending computer knows it might need to send number 2 again. This is called \"TCP\".\n"
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5la43c | how is it possible to know how big tsunami's were millions of years ago? | I just watched [this](_URL_0_) video and I don't understand how they're able to measure a tsunami that they've never actually seen | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5la43c/eli5_how_is_it_possible_to_know_how_big_tsunamis/ | {
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"The energy released can be calculated. It is a matter of the mass, how far it goes which means its kinetic energy, and how much water it displaces. This energy goes somewhere. When matter hits water the water absorbs most of the energy generating the tsunami. The size of the tsunami can then be calculated. Enough have occurred that the mathematical model checks out.",
"The most common way scientists estimate the [run up](_URL_3_) is to look for debris that could only be deposited by some huge natural disaster. Boulders [like this](_URL_1_) are a common one, but bits of reef are another.\n\nThere is currently a project being done in Madagascar to study some dunes that seem to have marine fossils buried in them, [this was the public announcement of the project](_URL_4_). They have been working about a decade now, a newer article is [here](_URL_2_). The scientific disagreement over the nature of the formations is not settled, though, as there are other possible explanations pointed out [here](_URL_0_)."
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"http://www.sms-tsunami-warning.com/pages/runup... | |
ak9qp8 | what is planck time and how do we know what to base our perception of a second on? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ak9qp8/eli5_what_is_planck_time_and_how_do_we_know_what/ | {
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"The Planck time is the time it would take a photon traveling at the speed of light to cross a distance equal to the Planck length, which is 5.39 × 10\\^-44 seconds. It is **NOT** the smallest possible unit of time, but it is the smallest *meaningful* amount of time according to our current understanding of physics. Planck time, and indeed Planck units in general, don't have any special significance. Planck units are just units that normalize to 1 when expressed in terms of 5 physical constants of the universe. We define the second as 9,192,631,770 cycles of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of caesium-133. It's arbitrary. We could define the second any way we want.",
"**Please read this entire message**\n\n---\n\nYour submission has been removed for the following reason(s):\n\n* ELI5 requires that you search before posting.\n\nThere are absolutely no exceptions to this rule. Please see this [wiki entry](_URL_2_) for more details (Rule 7).\n\n\n\n---\nIf you would like this removal reviewed, please read the [detailed rules](_URL_0_) first. If you still feel the removal should be reviewed, please [message the moderators.](_URL_1_?)"
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66vai3 | how does height increase a bit at morning out of bed? | i read it somewhere out of bed morning height will be higher. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/66vai3/eli5_how_does_height_increase_a_bit_at_morning/ | {
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"The spine compressed over time, due mostly to fluid retention loss in between your discs. Don't worry though, your body replaces it as you sleep. \n\nThink of your spine as a slinky, now put sponges with water in between the links then compress. The slinky will lose height as the water diminishes. \n\nThis is basically what your spine is doing during the day as you walk or run etc. ",
"it's rather that at the end of the day you're a bit smaller. \n\nThe reason is gravity. All your body parts weighing down causes your joints and your spine to compress a bit over the course of the day.\n\nWhen you lie down and thus essentially remove the impact of gravity they slowly return to their original position (which is why your \"morning height\" is your \"real\" height).\n\n"
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1vovqe | how did nuclear bomb tests in the ocean not cause destructive, widespread tsunamis? | [This](_URL_0_) picture made me wonder... When there have been recent tsunamis in Japan and the Indian Ocean, I was under the impression that the tsunami could be at least "felt" or recorded much further away, so I'd expect an explosion like this to have some sort of global consequences. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vovqe/eli5how_did_nuclear_bomb_tests_in_the_ocean_not/ | {
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"The volume of water moved by a nuke test pales in comparison to that of a natural seismic event.",
"I am sure that such a detonation could be detected on a seismograph elsewhere in the world, but the truth is that the kind of bombs we were testing are gnat farts next to an earthquake of the kind that cause massive Tsunamis. \n\nFor scale, here's the paragraph from the wiki page on the recent Japanese earthquake:\n\n > This earthquake released a surface energy (Me) of 1.9 ± 0.5×1017 joules,[60] dissipated as shaking and tsunamic energy, which is nearly double that of the 9.1-magnitude 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami that killed 230,000 people. If harnessed, the surface energy from this earthquake would power a city the size of Los Angeles for an entire year.[44] The total energy released, also known as the seismic moment (M0), was more than 200,000 times the surface energy and was calculated by the USGS at 3.9×1022 joules,[61] slightly less than the 2004 Indian Ocean quake. **This is equivalent to 9,320 gigatons of TNT, or approximately 600 million times the energy of the Little Boy bomb.**",
"This [What If? XKCD](_URL_0_) explains in some technical detail the physics behind water displacement as a result of large explosions. The bottom line is that while there can be very high local effects from a nuclear blast (e.g. waves that can knock over battleships, as you see in that picture of the 1946 Crossroads Baker test), they dissipate fairly quickly. They don't carry on endlessly; they get more and more diffuse. \n\nSo while you could use an underwater shot to contaminate a port (which was one of the implications of the Baker explosion), you couldn't use it to create a tsunami that could destroy an entire coastline, even if it was ridiculously large (e.g. in the gigaton — 1,000s of megatons — range). (By comparison, the Baker shot was about 20 kilotons, the same kind of bomb as Nagasaki.)"
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1s1ie4 | why are we able to grab onto things? | If there is a microscopic amount of space between everything you come in contact with, and nothing truly touches, why are we able to hold and pick things up? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1s1ie4/eli5_why_are_we_able_to_grab_onto_things/ | {
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"Think about how you grip something like a tennis ball. You wrap your hand around the ball, right? Now, there's a microscopic space on both sides of the ball: one for your palm, and one from your fingers. I'm assuming that, since you know that nothing actually touches anything else, you know about electrons/electron clouds. The electron clouds in atoms on the surface of your hand are repelling the electron clouds in the atoms on the surface of the ball, since they are both negative. As a result, repulsion forces on each side of the ball are squeezing it inward, essentially creating a frictional force. This keeps the ball in your hand."
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1abz3m | how come glass can be a window, a mirror, or even one way mirror? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1abz3m/eli5_how_come_glass_can_be_a_window_a_mirror_or/ | {
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"The glass is not responsible for reflection in a mirror. Instead, there is a thin, metallic sheet backing the glass which reflects nearly all light. The glass just overlays the reflective sheet, keeping it flat and probably helping it's reflectivity in ways that I don't understand."
]
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42ioy2 | why do the vast majority of american car commercials show no real reasons to actually buy the car? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/42ioy2/eli5_why_do_the_vast_majority_of_american_car/ | {
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"Image and beautiful car is a huge reason to buy.\n\n\nNot everything is practical\n\n\n\nBlah blah stupid min word requirement",
"In marketing, one would break down groups of people into segments. The car has a look, features, or price point that appeals to people in that segment. If that segment of was, for instance, highly patriotic males in rural settings, then you'd make a commercial about \"panzy liberals in big cities who don't love america\" to associate your brand with the group. Some connections are real, and those are the most powerful, like pickup trucks are actually used by blue collar workers.\n\n\n\nIn sales, there's a concept of push vs pull. If I push a product on you, you will naturally push back, especially in this highly informed world. Subtle segment messaging is a very subtle way to pull people so they want to pull back on a brand.",
"The vast majority of cars aren't that much different from one another. They turn on, get you places, turn corners, etc. And you don't usually buy one because a commercial told you to today, you buy one when you need one, at which point the name you can pull from memory recognition is more likely to be helpful than detailed arguments.\n\nIf theee are special things about it (park assist, safety, fuel efficiency, etc that might be helpful. Otherwise they just want \"our car makes you feel good\" to be what gets through.",
"Because the purpose of the advertisement is to get you to want the car. When you want something, you'll figure out how to buy it all on your own."
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32bk68 | what's going on in the brain when listening to classical music whilst studying? | Apparently listening to classical music can make studying and revision more effective by taking your brain to a higher emotional state that makes it easier to absorb information. But what is happening on a more hardcore neuro level? What effect does the music have on my brain waves that increases the studying efficiency? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32bk68/eli5whats_going_on_in_the_brain_when_listening_to/ | {
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"This [study](_URL_0_) tested various types of music among the participants and found that students who had stimulating music (Music of the students chosen genre) played while studying and being tested had overall worse scores than those who had either A. Sedative or B. No music at all playing, with students who had no music at all playing scoring the highest. It appears that the assumption that classical music (sedative) helps you study may be flawed in and of itself. There have been a fairly large number of studies on the subject of music and studying, and many of them show ambiguous or contradicting results. Seems like a bit of an old wives tale to me. "
]
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"http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/762/the-impact-of-listening-to-music-on-cognitive-performance?ab=typeface&utm_expid=22625156-1.3GC5VkebQMK0FpGxwXQjFw.1&utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3D%26esrc%3Ds%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D2%26ved%3D0CCYQFjAB%26url%3Dhttp%253A%... | |
38y0og | taxi medallions, what is this system? | I was reading an article on NYC taxi driver's and why they feel Uber is a threat to them, one of the drivers mentioned how he inherited the medallion from his father and that it was an investment as it was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars at one point. Why is this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38y0og/eli5_taxi_medallions_what_is_this_system/ | {
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"There are large areas of NYC where only a taxi with a medallion can operate and they limit the number of medallions that they allow to operate in a given year. This registration system generates income for the city and ensures that there are not too many taxis on the roads of the overly congested city. \n\nUber bypasses this system. This means that they are not only competing in areas that are reserved for the medallion taxis, but they are not paying the proper fees and taxes to the city for operating a taxis service. They also do not have the background checks to protect passenger safety that taxis do. "
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36x606 | if i put a giant fan on my sailboat, would i be able to sail as though there were wind, even in the absence of wind? | I have always wondered this. Maybe it's simple. Imagine the fan was big enough to fill the sail, but was attached to my boat. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36x606/eli5if_i_put_a_giant_fan_on_my_sailboat_would_i/ | {
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"What if you did that, but put the fan end in the water?",
"No. See, if the fan is pushing air one way, it's pushing back equally hard on the boat in the opposite direction (every action has an equal and opposite reaction). In fact, with no sail you could use the fan to push the boat in the opposite direction the fan's facing. However, if you put a said on it, the air will push on the sail. This means that, assuming the sail absorbs 100% of the force of the moving air generated by the fan, the boat won't move at all. ",
"Okay so i had to think again about my previous thinking and the answer is actually yes, you can.\n\nBut only if the wind that gets reflected by the sail isn't reflected in the direction of the fan.\n\nLook at this video:\n_URL_0_\n\nIf the sail and the fan are aligned so that the wind is hitting the sail head on then the boat won't move. The fan needs to be angled for it to work.\n\nImagine blowing into a Tube with a U shape while sitting on a boat. Basically you are blowing behind you and thus creating forward thrust.\n\nThis is of course practical nonesense because the sail is taking away a considerable amount of energy from the fan, but it still works if the wind hits the sail at an angle.",
"While common sense says \"No\", newton's third law and all that, Mythbusters have actually proven that it DOES work due to some clever physics. Its similar to how old ships used to sail against the wind and all that."
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1ka17d | how does the perseid meteor shower occur on the same day every year? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ka17d/how_does_the_perseid_meteor_shower_occur_on_the/ | {
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"The Perseid meteor shower is a meteor cloud that occurs in the Earth orbit. As Earth revolves around the sun each year, it passes through them at the same point in its orbit. Since we align our calendar with the orbit of earth it is the same time frame each year for most meteor showers. ",
"As comets get closer to the Sun, they absorb the light and the heat causes them to give off carbon dioxide, chunks of rock, dust, etc (comets are very dirty ice balls). Think of an antacid tablet dropped into water: fizzing and popping. This leaves a debris trail out in space that, once a year, we orbit through like a car driving through a mosquito patch. The speed of the comet debris (meteors) is relatively low, it's that we come barreling through at 67,000 mph that imparts the speed. "
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bggq4r | how self-driving cars are able to stop at intersections with no traffic lights and still know when it’s alright/safe to turn. | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bggq4r/eli5_how_selfdriving_cars_are_able_to_stop_at/ | {
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" > We use all our senses to make a decision like that; like sight, hearing and judging of the speed and acceleration of the other car.\n\nThe sensors and computer of a self-driving car are better at that than we are. I'm not sure why you think they wouldn't be. e.g. lidar is much more precise than the eye at judging speeds.",
"This is a problem with two main systems. Sensors and navigation. \nNavigation is your GPS based coordinates (or better) that point you on a highly detailed map and possibly synchronize with other cars.\nYou typically have at least 5 cameras to the front. Most of the time even more. Combine that with other sensors (radar, lidar, ultra sonic) and you get a pretty clear idea of the area around\nDetecting that you are at an intersection is rather easy as there is a road extending from yours (gets a bit harder with parking spaces and driveways but thats where you have your maps for). \nAftet that you just scan if there is another car/bike/pedestrian. Image based object recognition can do that but typically you rely more heavily on other sensor data (like those mentioned above).\nSo while the car can't move its field of view like you can, it has enough sensors to see \"everything\"",
"Hate to answer a question with a question, but how does a human driver stop at intersections with no traffic lights and still know when it's okay to turn?\n\nYou use your sensory input to \"see\" if there are other approaching vehicles, and you calculate the time needed to traverse the intersection or make a turn, and you do it if you feel like it's safe. (We're actually really really bad at it in comparison to a computer, but that's for a different time.)\n\nSelf-driving vehicles have an array of different sensors, a sensor suite if you will, just like we do. And based on the input, a sensor (such as a radar/sonar/ladar device to detect the speed/size of approaching objects) can be used along with some basic physics equations to determine the distance, speed, and acceleration of an object, as often as the sensor reports back data. With two or more of them, you can identify their exact position in relation to your vehicle, which is how our binocular vision works.\n\nExample: if my sensor reports every tenth of a second, and the distance of an approaching car goes from 1500 feet to 1450 feet in that tenth of a second, I know the car is travelling at ~500 feet per second (roughly 60mph). If in the next tenth of a second, the approaching car goes from 1450 feet away to 1405 feet away, the car is now travelling at ~450 feet per second, and is probably decelerating at a rate of 500 feet/second/second, the next one shows it going from 1405 to 1365, it's going 400 feet per second, etc.\n\nOther sensors, such as ones that detect their own velocity and direction, can have their data combined with other sensor data to create a rich, detailed world perspective that can be processed and understood by a computer.\n\nThe tricky part is making sure that we humans don't take shortcuts when programming the computer, such as using the road lines purely to stay in center of the lane and to traverse turns. Because these shortcuts are fallible, and in the above example (real world, this actually happened) lines painted to direct the \"road\" off of the actual road, can cause a self-driving vehicle to get into an accident."
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9qg2qp | how do gift cards work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9qg2qp/eli5_how_do_gift_cards_work/ | {
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"A gift card is really a branded credit card only usable at a single merchant. The money you pay goes to the credit card company in an account set aside for that merchant. When you use the card at the restaurant the money goes to that particular location just as if you used a normal credit card. If the cards expire or you don't use the full amount eventually the \"slippage\" goes to the restaraunt chain. \n",
"Walgreens bought that gift card from a gift card service for 90%-100% of its face value. That gift card service has an arrangement with Applebee's to pay out some percentage of their sales back to Applebee's.\n\nApplebee's may only get $0.80 for every dollar spent on gift cards, but since gift cards rarely cover 100% of a tables total, Applebee's still makes money."
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5w4ybt | if you're a victim of a large scale crime (such as a school shooting) or terrorist attack in the usa, do you have to cover your own medical expenses or is there some sort of state fund for this kind of situation? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5w4ybt/eli5_if_youre_a_victim_of_a_large_scale_crime/ | {
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"Idont think there is any public fund of sorts. But in the case of the orlando shooting, the local hospital waved all the fees for victims and lots of donations were made to cover costs.",
"The person who committed the act would be responsible. If it is not possible to make them pay, then the expense is on you.\n\nHowever, on a case by case basis, the government will often create a fund to assist victims. For 9/11, a fund of $7 billion was made available, and each victims' family received on average $1.8 million."
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2jf0ga | what happens to the blood supply if a person with ebola (without symptoms yet) donates? will the person receiving the blood get ebola? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jf0ga/eli5_what_happens_to_the_blood_supply_if_a_person/ | {
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"If blood contains any pathogens, then yes, the person receiving that blood will likely get it. However, donated blood is screened, and considering how few people in the Western world have Ebola currently, I wouldn't worry about it. "
]
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eu8nsn | why does cough syrup (i’m looking at you buckley’s) have to taste god awful bad? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eu8nsn/eli5_why_does_cough_syrup_im_looking_at_you/ | {
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"Because they're typically brightly colored liquids that could easily kill someone who overdoses on them--particularly children. The taste is in part because the ingredients just don't taste good and in part because they're to discourage children from picking up the bottle and chugging it like a soda.",
"Buckley's, which is a uniquely Canadian invention as far as I can tell, is basically just Vicks or Metholatum that can be safely ingested, versus a topical rub. It's main active ingredients are menthol camphor.\n\nMenthol which is refined from mint, has some interesting properties. It's a decongestant. It also has mild anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties. Which helps sooth irritated sore throats, and break up excess mucous that causes coughs. It also gives off a cooling sensation, which made it popular with smokers at one time (menthol cigarettes).\n\nCamphor has similar properties. Mainly as a decongestant and cough suppressant. It's very strong smelling stuff, and doesn't taste too great either. Neither does menthol on its own for that matter. Now, they could, and indeed do, sweeten their products meant for children. But I suspect it's mainly a marketing gimmick. People expect medicine to taste bad. It helps differentiate it from other cough syrups."
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6l58wr | why haven't we started seeing the effects of social media companies tracking our online activities outside of ads and stuff? | Surely they must have enough data about us to start doing more right? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6l58wr/eli5_why_havent_we_started_seeing_the_effects_of/ | {
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"They are, sharing it with intelligence agencies, banking, collection agencies, being used to change how you're marketed to, psychometrics etc.\n\nJust because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't happening."
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2t7zlk | why do some men grow layers of chest hair while others remain smooth? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2t7zlk/eli5_why_do_some_men_grow_layers_of_chest_hair/ | {
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"Genetics, some people have the genes for chest hair while some don't, it can also vary between races and ethnic groups.",
"Genetics.\n\n > The individual occurrence and characteristics of [chest hair](_URL_0_) depend on the genetic disposition, the hormonal status and the age of the person. The genes primarily determine the amount, patterns and thickness of chest hair. Some men are very hairy, while others have no chest hair at all. All ranges and patterns of hair growth are normal. The areas where terminal hair may grow are the periareolar areas (nipples), the centre and sides of the chest and the clavicle (collarbone).\n\n",
"Why are some people blue eyed, and others not. It's just variation. We're not all the same.",
"Because not every man can handle that much greatness. Also the way genes are expressed. "
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2a5msz | when i get zapped/electrocuted for a fraction of a second, but feel the tingle for much longer, what is happening? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2a5msz/eli5_when_i_get_zappedelectrocuted_for_a_fraction/ | {
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"Shock can result in muscular spasms and tissue death from overheating, both of which can result in physical sensation. \n\nSomewhat unrelated, but 'electrocution' is actually a portmanteau of electric and execution, and refers explicitly to a fatal scenario, a non-lethal experience would be more properly called an electric shock."
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6gx18t | what happens if britain is unable to come to an agreement with the eu by 2019? what happens if they are unable to come to an agreement internally by 2019? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6gx18t/eli5_what_happens_if_britain_is_unable_to_come_to/ | {
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"Part of the exit clause of article 50 is that if a deal cannot be made in the time allotted then a default ruling will be given that favors the EU to the extreme. This is what they are calling \"the cliff\" and it is much harsher than the \"hard Brexit\" options. ",
" No one really knows what the process should look like in practice, as it's never been used before.\n\nGenerally speaking, Article 50 signals intent to leave on a particular day in the future, far enough in advance that the EU and the leaving country can negotiate either a free trade agreement or other transitional arrangement to take over on the day that the country leaves.\n\nIf no transitional arrangement can be agreed on, then on the day of leaving, the default WTO rules would take over. Each would impose trade restrictions against the other similar to the best terms each had previously been offering to any other nation with whom no free trade agreement was in place. In other words, Britain would adopt the current EU tariff regime and both would apply those tariffs against each other at the same level as the EU currently applies those tariffs to third parties that have no free trade agreement with the EU. This would be bad for the UK in the short term as around half the UK import/export economy is trade with EU. It would be much less bad for the EU because their import/export trade is more diverse.\n\nIn the months and years that followed, both the EU and UK could choose to vary their tariff regime independently. They aren't locked into the defaults that take over day 1. Also, they could begin to negotiate a new free trade agreement to replace the default rules or whatever these rules had evolved into, but this would take a long time. "
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8dnsi6 | what is the difference between "leaking" information and "releasing" information as it relates to us government? | I'm talking about unclassified conversations, emails, memos, etc. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8dnsi6/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_leaking/ | {
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"Leaking generally referred to information which is not released through legal/authorized channels or methods.\n\nReleased implies that it was done officially or legally."
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320pva | how can roe v. wade be overturned if a conservative justice is appointed to the supreme court? | I've been reading many articles stating that should the Republicans win the White House in 2016 and at some point nominate a conservative justice to the Supreme Court, this would spell the end for Roe v. Wade. What kind of cases could be brought up however which would abolish Roe v. Wade? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/320pva/eli5how_can_roe_v_wade_be_overturned_if_a/ | {
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"It is EXTREMELY rare that a supreme court would overturn itself, however it has happened. \n\nBasically Roe V. Wade was a 7-2 split, 7 justices agree 2 justices disagree. \n\nLets say that the Justices reheard the case with an all anti-abortion supreme court, (Wouldn't ever happen but hypotheticals are fun) they could re-rule 0-9 against it and overturn the laaw. \n\n",
"The supreme court **rarely** takes up a case very similar to a previous case and rules completely differently. The most notable example is brown v. board of education where the court decided the prevously ruling ( Plessy v. Ferguson) which allowed state-sponsored segregation was wrong.",
"If I really were to explain like your five I will just say this. It won't be. A good example of why it won't would be that John Roberts after his confirmation basically told his supporters to give up on Roe v. Wade being overturned, in that he basically says that the legislation has been effectively \"settled\" after all this time. Mostly for the reasons everyone else has already said. The whole we are two justices or one justice away from being overturned is nothing more a scare tactic to get votes.",
"This is a pretty big question, but the **tl;dr** is that, while theoretically possible, there is virtually no chance for it to happen within the foreseeable future.\n\n > What kind of cases could be brought up however which would abolish Roe v. Wade?\n\nWell, if you're looking to overturn *Roe,* you're going to need a case that presents the same legal issue as *Roe.* In short, you're going to need a case where the central issue is whether the government can flatly prohibit a woman from having an abortion.\n\nThis is a problem. When SCOTUS rules on an issue, it typically rules for good and all. There's a legal doctrine called *stare decisis,* (stah-ray dee-sai-sis) which is lawyer latin for \"the thing has been decided.\" If a case turns on the exact same legal issue that has already been decided by the highest court, the doctrine of *stare decisis* compels the same outcome. So if there were a case that brought up the exact same legal issues, SCOTUS would decline to hear it (assuming the appellate court got it right) because *stare decisis* precludes any other outcome.\n\nHere, it helps to understand how our appellate system works. Generally speaking, a litigant in state or federal court has at least one appeal of a final decision as a matter of right. That appeal goes to an intermediate court of appeal, which is a \"Circuit\" court of appeal at the federal level. But you can't appeal from a Circuit decision as a matter of right. Instead, SCOTUS decides which cases it's going to hear through a process called \"certiorari\" (or \"cert\" in the legal world). That means you have to fill out a petition, submit it to SCOTUS, and they vote on whether or not to \"grant cert\" (hear your case) or deny it. And FYI, the Supreme Court grants cert very, *very* few times out of the thousands of petitions it receives each year.\n\nSo, as you can see, the twin barrels of *stare decisis* and *certiorari* make it extremely unlikely that SCOTUS would even hear the same case twice, let alone reverse itself.\n\nNow, *could* it happen? In theory, yes. There have been times (a precious few of them) where one Supreme Court has flatly overturned a previous Supreme Court. (Or as is more often the case, they pretend they're not overturning the previous decision, and then admit that they *totally* overturned the decision years later.) But that's a dangerous prospect, because to do that you have to completely ignore/reject *stare decisis,* which could set terrible precedent. If you set aside *stare decisis* in one context (abortion, for example), that precedent can be used to do it in any other contexts (such as free speech or gun control). \n\nThat would be bad news. *Stare decisis* is one of the cornerstones of our legal system. We don't want to mess with it because our whole body of jurisprudence could come crashing down if the doctrine didn't apply.\n\nImagine you're playing Monopoly. You roll a five and move five spaces because that's the rule, and that's the rule *every time* you roll the dice. But what if *one* time, your smooth-talking friend rolls a five and convinces you that he should move *six* spaces instead? Even though the same circumstances have led to the same outcome time and time again, it's different *this* time. No big deal, right? But what about the *next* time he rolls a five? Or a ten for that matter? What about rolling the dice in Life or Risk or Backgammon? That's all up in the air now.\n\nThat's why *stare decisis* is important. It makes judicial decisions predictable and consistent; it makes them *binding.* Without it, all bets are off—the outcome of the day is subject to the political whims of whoever is sitting on the bench that day. And for that reason, courts are very, *very* wary of violating the doctrine.\n\nSo even if SCOTUS were to swing 6-3 in favor of conservatives, I'd be *very* surprised to see *Roe v. Wade* overturned. The precedent that would set could enable any later (liberal) court to overturn everything the previous court did. The justices aren't willing to take that kind of a risk."
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43o9bn | why does it feel so strange when you step onto and off an escalator that is not working, it's like even though you know it's not moving your body still anticipates it's moving | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43o9bn/eli5_why_does_it_feel_so_strange_when_you_step/ | {
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"That is exactly what is happening. Your brain has learnt to associate escalators with movement, and the need to compensate for balance when stepping from a stationary surface to a moving one and vice versa. You will find that if you don't look at the ground, or at the escalator, while stepping on and off, you won't feel that odd sense of vertigo.",
"On an escalator, contrary to normal stairs, the distance between the final steps decrease. This is something to which we are not used, and therefore we often overstep when we reach the top.",
"It should also be noted that there is a very specific pitch (rise/run) for stairs that isn't necessarily the same for escalators because they are designed for you as an occupant to be stationary. This means when it's stopped you feel like you should be on a normal set of stairs but the angle/height/depth are all moderately different which like one of the other posts said goes against everything your body has learned about walking up or down stairs. ",
"To add onto previous answers I will put in my two cents, as I did a bit of research regarding the phenomenon at hand. What's causing this feeling is A) your mind expecting another movement to be happening and B) more interestingly your body doing something that is called anticipatory postural adjustment. This term describes the movements of your postural muscles in back, legs and arms shifting your centre of mass/pressure before any voluntary movement or predictable external disturbance that will change your balance in their course. For example if you prepare to step your legs subconsciously shift all your weight onto the leg that will remain on the ground. Another example is that you subconsciously shit your centre of mass backwards before raising your arms in front of you. It is important to realize that this happens mostly due to feed forward control. This means that the adjustments to your posture are made before there is a detectable change in your balance. Of course it all happens in the range of milliseconds, so we do not really notice what's going on.\nOn another note, there is another common situation where you experience this discrepancy between your anticipated future posture and the following movement. Ever tried lifting something that is heavier than you thought it was or vice versa? It feels strange or can even make you stumble. The changes in your balance are not fit to make the movement go through smoothly.\n\nSorry, if the answers is a bit convoluted. I am not a native speaker. ",
"My 18 month old son loves escalators. He saw one the other day, ran over to it, and very cautiously stepped on, anticipating the movement.\n\n... what he didn't realize is that it was out of order. When the magic stairs didn't move he jumped up and down a couple times, then plodded off looking mildly disappointed.",
"The same thing happens to me when I'm a passenger in someone else's car. If they don't accelerate from a red light at the time I expect it, I find myself slightly leaning forward like a dope, trying to counter g-forces that aren't there yet. ",
"One thing the others left out: unlike a regular set of stairs, the steps of the escalator *ARE* moving a little bit even when it's broken, because they aren't firmly affixed in place. There actually IS a little bit of movement that you can feel.",
"This is sometimes known as the \"Walker effect\", though I prefer the term \"escalator wobble\".\n\nNormally you have to take a faster step onto an escalator than you would on stairs. Muscle memory means that you are still prone to do this, even on a stationary escalator. \n\nThere is a wiki article on the phenomenon here _URL_0_",
"While I might agree with what most people are saying about anticipation, I think part of it is that at the top and bottom of a broken escalator, the steps aren't going to be the same size as the ones in the middle.\n\nThey're usually a little shorter as they sink back in.\n\nWhen you walk on steps, you are used to each step being the same height and length. When they aren't like that it feels weird and can make you trip.",
"[Relevant from a British panel show](_URL_0_) It is David Mitchell and Rhod Gilbert btw."
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980thz | how does aliexpress free shipping work? why does it take 4-6 weeks when it's airmail? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/980thz/eli5_how_does_aliexpress_free_shipping_work_why/ | {
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"Free shipping is exactly what it says on the box: it's free. They do it to win customers outside of China and the cost of this is deducted from their profit margin. \n\nA lot of companies do thus to win clients and build a client base as shipping is the single most important cost in e-commerce. Amazon does this to an extent with Prime, which, by the virtue of gaining more clients, allows them to negotiate lower shipping costs from their logistics partners. \n\nSo long as all involved get their due, everybody wins. ",
"I’m not sure what you mean by how it works. But it essentially takes so long because the goods sit in a warehouse somewhere until there are enough low priority items to fill an entire container which can then be shipped off. That way cost are minimized as, together with economy of scale, logistics are way more simple. This can take a while and will really depend on how much mail there is between any one place and another. If there’s a lot the the actual time could be much less.",
"To add to the other comments - I bet it's NOT airmail even if it claims to be, coming from places like China which export masses of stuff via container shipping the basic explanation I've heard is that they basically use sacks of post as \"stuffing\" in shipping containers which are below their allowed weight, letting them travel for very low cost-per-item but taking weeks to arrive."
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c91z51 | why are my hayfever tablets laid out like this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c91z51/eli5_why_are_my_hayfever_tablets_laid_out_like/ | {
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"The same company makes tablet boxes containing 7, 14, and 30 tablets (often more). It's more cost effective to use a different tablet strip than to use different sized boxes for every amount, so it just modifies the same strip depending on how many tablets are needed. The box is \"universal\" for all amounts, and just gets printed differently to reflect the right number on the outside.",
"Pharmacy's have small pill packaging machines that seals any kind of loose pill in that kind of packet. You can make a 1x1 or a 8x6 then they put the packet in a paper bag. But with this pre packaged medicine company's just want to save money.\n\n\nEdit: [This is the machine](_URL_0_). I use to work for a large chain of pharmacies fixing these."
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1wf3cm | how and why did anti-abortion become so tied into the christian religion? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wf3cm/eli5_how_and_why_did_antiabortion_become_so_tied/ | {
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"This well-known progressive Christian blogger [suggests](_URL_0_) that the extraordinary focus for evangelical Christians on abortion is a function of politics in the United States. You can take or leave his argument as you see fit. \n\nCatholics have held on to the belief for much longer, as part of a more general opposition to contraception grounded in Church teachings about the role of sexuality and when the soul enters the body. However, I am not sure precisely when it emerged as doctrine for Catholicism. ",
"Things like Jermemiah 1:5 \"Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.\" \n\nOr Luke 1:41 \"And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost.\"\n\nThat strongly suggests to Christians that human life begins at conception, which is actually an inarguable scientific truth also. The main argument being not when human life begins, but when human *rights* begin.",
"I can't speak much to the protestant side of things, but the Catholic church has been against it since Roman times, in the same way as infanticide. Views of when human life begins have progressed with science, but the Catholic view has always been that all living humans are persons, and therefor not to be killed.\n\nAs to why it seems rare that non-religious people hold the san e view, that I don't have a good answer for. The best I can give is that for some of them, their notions of personhood are a but more nebulous or nuanced, and others feel uncomfortable with how a lot of religious people really bring their religion with them when involved in pro-life activities, such as the Walk for Life in San Francisco last Saturday. It winds up looking more like a Catholic parade than anything else, even though the organizers like to talk up the non-catholics in attendance. \n\nOn the flip side, in the years I went the opposition was ridiculously tiny, especially considering it was in San Fransisco. I suspect part of the reason was the extremism of some of the groups that were there consistency - self-described \"revolutionary femenists\", Communists, Anarchists, and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Not many people would want to associate (let alone be seen publicly associating) with that lot. \n\nIt's a shame; I think both extremes (religious uniformity and traditionalism on one hand, side-show nuts on the other) really stifle calm, rational discussion of an important issue that really should stand on it's own.",
"Well firstly, you should understand that \"the Christian religion\", as a concept of \"a bunch of people who join a group with a leader (the church) and support each other\", is entirely distinct from the concept of the teachings of the religion itself. You can believe in the things that christianity teaches and not take part in the organized church / club.\n\nSo once you realize that christianity and the organized christian church are two different things, it becomes pretty easy to see why any religion does any such thing like this. Christianity itself is a concept. The christian church, however, is a big group of people. And like with any group of people, many people have their own personal agendas to push and they pervert their label/club/organization's name in the quest to push that agenda.",
"It all stems from whether or not you believe that an unborn child is considered a life. Christians widely accept that unborn children are people from the moment of conception. The Bible lends to that through language found in Psalms 139, etc. It also lines up with God's sovereignty and will. So if a human is being made, even if it's just a tiny fetus, that's considered a creation, and is treated like a life in the sense that if it is destroyed, it is putting an end to a future of a life already created. This is why Christians equate it to murder. Mothers' rights, independent living (whether or not the baby can live outside the mother's womb), potential mental retardation, etc., aren't part of the equation because if one believes that it's a life, all of those arguments go out the window. Most of the time when people debate this, they're actually debating two different issues. The ONLY thing that matters in the argument is whether or not someone believes that this unborn person is as much a life as a born person. That is the only issue that anyone should talk about. This is why Christians are so enthusiastic about choosing \"life\". Christian's aren't against a woman's individual rights. They just think that since the baby is a person, the baby also has rights, mainly the right to live. So it all goes back to that. "
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6gj9zg | what does it mean to say all life on earth had a common ancestor? does this leave scope for other beings of separate ancestry having since died out? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6gj9zg/eli5_what_does_it_mean_to_say_all_life_on_earth/ | {
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"All life that we've investigated on Earth (which is hardly \"all life on Earth, ever\") uses the same DNA structure. Maybe there were once other forms here, and perhaps the DNA based forms ate them, but they haven't been found and examined in labs since we've had the science to do so.",
"All life that we have seen is comprised of DNA. Its a far assumption that the one of the first organism to ever exist was likely a simplistic strain of DNA and this strain would go on to evolve into all the species we see today. It is very possible that other types of organisms existed around the same time, but life is very dominate in the sense that it consumes and grows as much as you will allow it. Any other early species would have been likely consumed or starved for resources. As DNA based organisms spread out and consumed resources there likely would not have been enough for another type of organism to be produced and the ancestors Supplanted themselves as the dominant organisms. ",
"the real answer is - no one knows! isn't it exciting to imagine, though?\n\nit's possible that some lineages were lost. For example, the Burgess Shale has preserved Cambrian life forms that are bulky in utterly different body plans than the standard bilaterally symmetrical, 4-limbed, 5-digited- 2 eyes pattern of almost all modern vertebrates.\n\n\nbut since trees, whales, lichen, and e.Coli all share DNA and many of the same basic genes, if you're asking if there is a completely separate lineage of life, here's no evidence it exists.\n\nwhich is interesting in and of itself. life on earth arise very very quick after the earth formed. which begs the question - why hasn't it re-emerged again and again from basic building blocks like amino acids?\n\nshort answer - We don't know. maybe there was an environmental factor on the early earth that made life's formation much more likely. maybe the presence of life in the biosphere out competes any #f new forms that might have arose were the planet barren.",
"One way to easily explain this is to illustrate the opposite.\n\nWhat if an alien came to Earth and ate a banana?\n\nIf they are truly alien, then it would likely be similar to eating putty or some other non-toxic soft substance. It wouldn't be digested and eventually gets passed.\n\nThe reason pretty much everything on Earth can eat other things on Earth is because of the common ancestor. As a result, a banana happens to be made of sugars and proteins that are common to life on Earth.\n\nNow, it might seem like something like a sugar would be super common and universal, but then there are [artificial sugars](_URL_0_) that are similar enough to sugar to taste sweet, but aren't digested into carbohydrates like real sugars. Furthermore most of those are made by tinkering with existing biochemicals, like converting phthalic anhydride into saccharine.\n\nBiology is a lot of very complex chemistry and the reason life on Earth is compatible is that we share the same biochemistry foundation.",
"Have read of the Wikipedia article about the edicarian biota. \n600 million years ago animals or plants arose (or maybe they were neither, or both) then were replaced by the organisims that arose in the Cambrian explosion. \nIt's interesting and weird."
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2hos0p | what's the psychology behind my reddit addiction? | I mean, it's not like I'm a karma whore, it's just that I *can't* leave reddit, no matter how much I want to. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hos0p/eli5_whats_the_psychology_behind_my_reddit/ | {
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"Shouldn't you be explaining this to us, then?",
"Quick fix feedback, feel goods, sense of accomplishment, self reinforcement group think etc?",
"It creates a shorter feedback loop of positive rewards for actions than real life. \n\n > Make a comment, 5 up-votes, feel good, try again. \n\nIt's basically the application of gamification concepts to a discussion. "
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1nju7d | why do side walks have cracks in them, but they make roads smooth? | Title explains everything, I was rollerblading but find it better to Rollerblade on the road bc there are no cracks. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nju7d/eli5_why_do_side_walks_have_cracks_in_them_but/ | {
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"Sidewalks are made of concrete which is ridged and prone to cracking. Roads are sometimes made with concrete slabs but are usually made with asphalt, which is more fluid / flexible. ",
"1. Concrete sidewalks expand when the get hot. By keeping some space between each slab, we ensure that they don't buckle and break. Asphalt roads expand and contract too, but not as much as concrete sidewalks.\n\n2. It is a function of how they are made. Sidewalks are built slab by slab, while smooth roads are built by pouring asphalt on top of the ground (or more likely, a concrete base layer.)"
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bre3co | why does using a chip credit card at the pump take so much less time than using one in the store? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bre3co/eli5_why_does_using_a_chip_credit_card_at_the/ | {
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"Transactions at self serve pumps are often offline, so the card will say this person is good for certain amount of money. After you've filled up, the transaction is sent to your bank and taken from your account. Transactions in the store are often online, so a request is sent over the internet to your bank to check if you have available funds. Online transactions have to go through various networks and be processed by software so it takes longer.\n\nSource: I implemented a debit card system for a bank."
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biwaoq | how were we able to build the tallest building in the world in 5 years, but there are those that think 5 years is too short a time to make a new roof for notre dame in paris? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/biwaoq/eli5_how_were_we_able_to_build_the_tallest/ | {
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"Restoring a historical building is very difficult. You have to be very careful to be sure you don't damage anything, and if you're doing a faithful restoration you need to source both supplies and workmen that may no longer be commonly available.\n\nCompanies that can knock out a skyscraper are a dime a dozen, but there's only a handful of people in the world who can design and build a wooden cathedral roof.",
"For the cathedral, they wouldn't just be building a new roof, it will be a restoration process which takes time. It is also a cultural heritage site which means it's important to history and protected by many rules and laws. Any plan to rebuild should be reviewed and approved by the pertinent authorities and the people of France.\n\nThe Burj Khalifa on the other hand was a completely new building who's construction was controlled by fewer people who could more or less build it however they wanted because they had less rules/laws to adhere to.",
"You could argue that Notre Dame took 183 years to build, and accurately restoring it means understanding how it was built originally, then learning the forgotten techniques, then building it using the original methods, but slower taking care to make the same decisions and discarding your mistakes that didn't match the original mistakes. Plus, this is a repair, so the whole thing also starts with cleanup.\n\nBy that logic you would expect replacing the roof to take much longer than how long it took to build the original roof. And since that may have been decades given the original timescale, 5 years sounds way too fast.\n\nI think everyone agrees they could slap a steel roof on in under a month, but that's not what they are putting in, the planning of the roof may very well take years. And the design will dictate the effort required. It's one thing if you want to stop off at home depot and grab a couple engineered beams like everyone else. It's a whole nother thing if you need to start an expedition to find 20 trees that match your specs, and then negotiate with whatever owners you happen to find to buy it.",
"The structural engineers need to get in there to remove the debris, evaluate how badly the stone has been damaged, stabilize the roof and walls, then they can prepare the structure for what is necessary for the rebuilding to begin. Then they can start to plan for what actually needs to be done. Those simple preparatory steps can take a few years. And once they get started with the renovation, there will be all the problems they couldn't see until they try to put the new roof together. Plus you will need to find hundreds of skilled craftsmen, who may already be at work on other major renovation projects in other parts of the world. The Burj Khalifa took 5 years to build, but probably took another five years of planning before that.",
"They could knock together a roof and have it on in a matter of a few weeks, but they're trying to restore the roof back to how it was, and that involves building techniques and materials which are very rare today. In addition, restoration of a building which was damaged includes a lot of work to ensure that you don't accidentally damage something else in the process.",
"The Burj Khalifa was probably not actually fully completed in that time period. The overall structure may have met that deadline and some floors could still be just the skeleton waiting for an occupant to purchase and finish to their specification. I'm not actually sure about that but it's common in structures waiting for commercial occupants. \n\nThey also don't have what any normal city would allow for utility setup. Everyday multiple trucks show up to get the buildings sewage pumped in and hauled away. Not many locations would tolerate having a setup like this. It would be like saying Detroit solved their water problem already by trucking in bottled water.",
"That five years is just to build it. Planning, design, bids, sourcing materials, etc took significantly longer. \n\nThat's also not taking into account the fact Notre Dame is a historical building, and those are always a massive bureaucratic nightmare",
"It's not because of the time to construct but the process of having it **designed, consulted, redesigned, bidded, and finally constructed**. *Architecture is a public process.* A significant building will mean lengthy public consultations and various opinions having to be weighed, measured, and accounted for.",
"This is restoring a great work of art, and it is not a small work of art, it is a grand building that is historically significant. For example if the Sistine Chapel was damaged, you would have to work slowly and accurately to get it back to a very good semblance of itself, not just put up some plaster with some paint on it.",
"As others have pointed out, there's a difference between building something fresh and restoring something. When restoring something, there's a spectrum between \"Original state\" and \"Appearing original\". In the former, you've made things exactly as they were originally built, including using the original methods (which you might have to pay researchers a lot of money for several years just to rediscover). Appearing original basically involves building the thing you want, then covering it in a facade that looks original but is usually fake to some degree.\n\nFor important historical buildings and such, it is usually considered far better to restore to original state than to just appear that way.\n\nFurthermore, the skills involved for restoring things are a rare thing. It is not uncommon for large projects to have a lag-time before you start of 5-10 years while you pay for some workers to become master stonemasons and such that are actually skilled in the particular methods (that you might have had to pay researchers to rediscover). And that has to happen before even the first stone is laid in the restoration process.",
"Reno trades person here, it's not just a new roof. Smoke and fire damage has probably completely destroyed lots of other stuff. Smoke damage can change the composition and look of concrete and mortar, so think of the countless statues and pieces of other masonry art that now need to be cleaned or remade. \n\nSmoke and fire damaged buildings are often just torn down and rebuilt from the ground up because restoring things damaged in a fire is often too slow, costly and also structurally unsafe. It's probably more than just a new roof the cathedral needs.\n\nNew construction is quick and straight forward. When I rip open a home several decades or more old though, that's a completely different can of worms because you never know what you'll find.",
"How long did it take to build the original roof? The whole building took hundreds of years, how much of that time was used to build the roof?",
"Restoring something to be identical to what it once was as compared to building something new all willy-nilly takes a lot more time.",
"The foundation on my house is sinking. it's an inch or two lower on one side than the other. I had a guy out to look at it, they wanted to drill 22 holes around the perimeter of my house, hit bedrock, pump them full of concrete, then prop my house up on them. It'll cost $75k and take a month or more. The guy hung around for a while and we discussed it further, and the subject came up, what would it cost to drill the 22 piers and fill 'em with concrete if there wasn't a house there. Guy says $5k and they'd be done in a day. Apparently shit costs more and takes longer when you have to move a whole fucking house to do it.",
"Architect here. \n\nHistorical restoration is difficult for several reasons. I'll list a few below. These are just examples BTW. \n\n1. Same or similar materials have to be used. You can't use cement mortar if the building originally used lime mortar. You can't use steel truss if the original used wooden truss.\n\n2. Even the type of wood and stone has to be original. If they used cedar, you can't use teak. If they used marble from South Italy, you can't use marble from Greece.\n\n3. We do not have structural drawings from the original construction. If, say, the Burj suffered fire damage.... We have the structural drawings, the architectural drawings and all other HVAC, MEP, Fire drawings. We can safely modify, repair and build on top of it. We have the math and physics sorted. We don't have that for old buildings. The plans of Notre Dame are actually more of measure drawings and don't really give you structural details.\n\n4. The finesse in carvings, paintings, stone inlay etc has to be done by hand, by highly skilled workers, for authenticity. That takes time and money. Lots of it. They even have to match the pigments, the brush strokes and the styles of art.\n\n5. They still have to incorporate modern lighting, fire safety rules and follow construction bylaws.\n\n6. The architects and historians working on this are some of the best in the world. They are not easily available. They also take time to do things very perfect.\n\n7: They have to follow the historical plans to utmost perfection, and details are not always available. So they must also research, that takes time.",
"Repairing a building can easily be harder than building a new structure. For example, the [Millennium tower in SF cost $350 million to build, but can cost $500 million to fix](_URL_0_). Fixing a historical building can even be harder because you want to preserve as much of the original structure as possible.",
"New building and restoring an old one are to entirely different things. Takes more time to restore it if you want it done how it was originally.",
"Because size alone isn't a very big factor in how long it takes to build things. A nearby city built an entire skyscraper during the time my community was fixing the front gate.",
"Quality hand craft, vs modern machine construction. If you’re holding to a historic remodel you’d want to do everything identical to how it was done when built. Hand tools and all. \n\nIt’s easy to plop up a new sky scraper using modern tech that has a cheap glass shell, and would probably topple over if an earthquake hit. Not sure if that skyscraper would last more than a few hundred years.",
"Imagine playing Jenga. You're building your tower up for a new game. You need to be careful laying the bricks, so they don't topple, but all in all its fairly simple.\n\nNow imagine looking at a Jenga tower in a game that has been going on for a while. Lots of bricks missing. The owner has even customised some bricks. And you are tasked restoring it to the initial setup while maintaining the owners customization. Oh and by the way, he lost some bricks.",
"Well, we could excavate an olympic swimming pool in a day with an excavator, but it takes an archeologist months to excavate even a tiny site.\n\nIt's one thing to build from scratch, it's another to rebuild a damaged structure while retaining as much of the original structure as possible, while building it with the same material and methods as the original (although with modern equipment, no need to use a hand drill when you have an electric).\n\nIn my opinion, they should make it different. Build a glass roof, like a \"ghost\" of the original roof. But, that won't happen.",
"Some of those long timbers were cut from huge primeval trees that no longer exist. It might take 400 years to grow trees tall enough to provide the replacements. ;-)",
"Do you want something that's going to last 100 years or something that's going to last 676 years?",
"We could build an exact replica in a year, quick simple and painless, but to restor and rebuild while keeping it as original as possible takes a lot of time and planning. \n\nYou are making custom pieces to fit into groves that have been warped over time, without damaging the existing structure.",
"For the same reason it takes more time to convincingly fake a famous painting than it does to paint it in the first place. The attention to aesthetic detail necessary to replicate and old building is much higher than just building a new one.",
"In addition to other comments here: In France people only work 35 hours per week and once they get some experience in leadership at age 50, they retire.",
"We're talking about a 13th century masterpiece, made with carved stones, stained glass, etc. Sort of things have to be done by people, it takes time, it's an art. Not a brand new skycraper made with concrete and metal",
"I could end up being wrong, but I suspect it will be years before they even make any major decisions about the restoration of Notre Dame. The difference is that a modest architect designed Burj Khalifa from the ground up. Notre Dame is a very old building, and nobody wants to be responsible for causing more damage or restoring it in a way that detracts from its original grandeur. Every thing that is done will be very meticulous. They're not just slapping up some steel girders, they're attempting to rebuild one of the most cherished pieces of architecture in the world from wood and stone, and they need to make it fit with the broken remains which were left standing after the fire. As far as I know, they haven't even chosen a person to be responsible for the project, and they won't for some time.",
"It will probably take a year alone to decide where to source the right kind of wood. There are a number of decisions to be made about where to cut off damaged material and add the restorations. Modern building is premised on large scale efficiency and mechanization where much of the work on Notre Dame will have to be done by hand, using the original methods. 5 years seems fast to me. \n\nSource: I study restoration and architecture",
"The planning took a fair bit longer than that, and with Notre Dame, planning hasn't even truly begun.",
"On top of what other redditers have said said there is probably a limited number of masonry and carpentry experts which have the right skills for a restoration",
"The difference is between building something new, and restoring something old. A brand new car probably goes from components and sheet metal to driveable car in less than an hour, but if you want to restore that old Model T you have, it's going to take a while."
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1xypat | why do i get serious gas after i chew extra gum? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xypat/eli5_why_do_i_get_serious_gas_after_i_chew_extra/ | {
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"When you chew gum you also swallow air. That air comes out of your mouth (burp) and/or your bum (poot).",
"Does it have \"sorbitol\" in it? Lots of sugar-free gums use that. It can cause stomach problems."
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2sixda | why is grand budapest hotel considered a great film? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2sixda/eli5_why_is_grand_budapest_hotel_considered_a/ | {
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"I am not sure why it is considered \"good\" among critics. But here is what I came away with:\n\n1. The story is good. Within a short time I felt emotionally invested in the characters. Especially Gustave. This is what a movie should do, get you in the span of an hour to care if someone is lost. \n\n2. The subtle feeling of greatness lost. In the movie we see the hotel as a crumbling artifact. Something of a bygone era, something special that was lost. The owner is the last tie between that great time, and present day in the film. This gives a lot of gravity to the movie as the story is represented as an almost lost, almost forgotten story. Which improves the result of the first point, it's a good story. \n\n3. The tone is unique. How many movies have you ever seen that felt, or looked like it? \n\n\nI've watched famous movies before and been disappointed. But weeks, months, even years later I can remember details and great moments in them. Now I rewatch them when the chance arises. Why? Because the story was well built and enough that it made me think. \n\nTell your wife that if she finds herself thinking about the movie again in the coming weeks that maybe she enjoyed it more than she realized. ",
"As I'm sure everyone will point out, opinions of movies are just that- opinions. You shouldn't explain why it's good. If she doesn't like it, that's her thang. I liked it mostly because of the cinematography and acting. The plot was so-so but most of Wes Anderson's movies are less about plot and more about the way they look and make you feel. ",
"Often when critics and by extension those who vote for awards vote for films they do not take the audiences enjoyment into consideration. If that were the case then Guardians would win all of the awards. They look at how difficult it was to achieve that particular film. Does it express mastery of the medium? I work in film so I can say with full confidence that GBH deserves to be there. What Anderson does in all of his films is remarkably difficult to pull off. GBH is awesome on it's own. But his art direction and the complexity and quirkiness of the narrative really offers something new and interesting to the medium of film. It's very difficult to work within the same universe with a similar aesthetic over and over and keep it interesting. Look at Tim Burton. He continually comes back to that same aesthetic and continually makes shitty movies. However WA does it and every time it feels fresh and exciting. Even if you don't care for the film you should appreciate how difficult it was to achieve what they achieved with it. ",
"Well, there's no accounting for taste and the academy awards still are subjective but what I think makes that movie so great (and I personally feel it's Wes Anderson's best) is it's fantastic script, expert performances, and wonderful thematic score. \n\nThe cinematography, sets, and general aesthetic sensibilities are in many ways indistinguishable from previous Anderson films, but what sets Budapest apart specifically is in no small part the combination of those three components.\n\nIt's not those elements exclusively however. The film is a unique and clever interpretation of 20th century European history. In it we find the interplay of old aristocratic Europe, the rise of fascism, and post war communism all seen through the eyes of the principals within the orbit of this hotel. In addition, the film manages to convey the sense of fear, uncertainty, and tragedy that coursed through these eras while still maintaining the light feeling of a comedy. \n\nIt's just a really well-made piece of work. There's a lot to unpack if one were so inclined, but that isn't necessary because it's also just really really funny."
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1n9728 | why does google - the number 1 most used website in the world and such an influential company - have such a hard time promoting google+? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1n9728/eli5_why_does_google_the_number_1_most_used/ | {
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"I'm not an expert but I'll give my thoughts on the matter.\n\nGoogle+ is a social networking style of site. However there are many social networking sites already established, the biggest currently being Facebook, and before that probably MySpace. Currently Facebook is huge, but in recent trends i would say it is more on the decline or at least have dramatically slowed down its growth in the past while, so Google is trying to add in another social networking site that doesn't offer anything new or different than other sites that already exist.\n\ntl;dr Nobody is interested in joining another social networking sites when all their friends are already on Facebook.",
"The users on Facebook are different from those who were on MySpace or wherever; FB users are mostly not \"hipsters\" or \"techies\" who will flit away to the next flashy thing. FB is good enough, they don't need flashy features. Few of them even looked at Google+ when it launched, for example. FB works, and everyone they want to talk to is on there.\n\nAnd they have more of an \"investment\" in Facebook (Friend relationships, photo albums, groups, etc) than they ever did in previous popular things such as AOL. There is a HUGE \"exit cost\" for users if they leave Facebook. AOL was more of an ISP for most people.\n\nPersonally, I tried Google+ and didn't like it; I like the two-way \"Friend\" relationship on Facebook, not the one-way \"Follow\" on Google+.\n\nThe good and bad features of Facebook and how they should improve it: _URL_0_",
"The biggest issue is audience.\n\nThink of Myspace, Facebook, and Google+ as three competing parties. Myspace's party was full of 12 year old scene kids. They're loud, obnoxious, and friend spammy. This meant that the majority of age groups who were not 12-15 tended to want to avoid this party.\n\nFacebook lucked out by picking the coolest and most desired people to start their party: college kids. Originally, you could ONLY make a Facebook account with a university email address. This meant that by the time Facebook opened to the public, it was full of attractive young professionals and college kids.\n\nThis brings us to Google+. In my humble opinion, the largest nail in G+'s coffin was that they had a beta test. While in most cases beta tests are great ways to work out the kinks in your program, the type of people you tend to initially attract are the type of people who enjoy being beta testers (mostly programmers and tech savvy guys). This meant that by the time Google+ opened to the public, it was 80% men. This did not make for a very cool party, so unfortunately Google+ never got off the ground.",
"There are a few contributing factors, and some are very arguably more important than others depending upon your perspective.\n\n1) Falling out of fashion: The social media bubble hasn't burst, but it's slowly deflating. This could be a whole separate and lengthy conversation, but for purposes of this thread I'll just mention that the influx of new recruits to social media sites isn't keeping up with the people no longer giving it their attention.\n\n2) Minimal added value: Google+ doesn't distinguish itself very much from its top competitor. It's notably different in some areas, but it's rare to find someone say \"I like G+ because it does ___ and FB doesn't.\"\n\n3) Social media requires socializing: It's more likely that you'll join a club if your friends are in it already, and it's more likely that you'll stick around if it's interesting enough to inspire conversations about it with your friends. You're more likely to hear \"I saw ___ on Facebook\" than \"I saw ___ on Google+,\" making FB automatically more engaging by sheer numbers if anything.\n\n4) Google don't play: Some time ago, Google declared that it's not going to add in a zillion \"invite your friends\" games to G+, if anything because it's annoying to see that stuff in your feed if you don't play those games yourself. I truly appreciate that stance, but those do help FB get/keep accounts.",
"I think their late start to the game plays a part, but I don't think it accounts for the whole thing. Pinterest was introduced only slightly before Google+ and look how well it's done. \n\nAll the popular networking sites have something unique to offer. Google+ just doesn't. They looked at the Internet and said, *we should do everything*, what's this \"social networking\" stuff about? \n\nAnd then just copied it without adding anything of value thinking it would work because they're f* & $ing Google, right?\n\nAlso, their advertising campaigns are [hilariously desperate](_URL_0_).\n",
"Because Facebook has your grandmother and they're not letting go of her. Are you going to do that to GamGam? Are you going to just abandon her? You know she gets lonely since PopPop died and seeing new pictures of you really brightens her day. But you're too cool for Facebook. We understand. Just go then and break GamGam's heart. We'll try our best to explain this Google+ thing to her.",
"Google doesn't want Google+ to really compete directly with Facebook, they want a common back-end to tie all their services into that's a little more friendly than their current system. Ideally, it will have your real life information (name, DOB, etc) so if you're forced to use it for say, [Entering YouTube Comments](_URL_0_), you've get less people apt to scream \"That's gay!\" because they're not just a random user anymore.\n\ntl;dr They want to build a back-end system for accountability (and data mining) but they don't necessarily want to compete with Facebook directly.",
"I think it's got something to do with the fact that Google is first and foremost a search engine. People use this search engine to research private and embarrassing topics. In the back of peoples subconscious minds, they're unsure of what will or will not go public between their searches, and what Google tracks on their computers. \n\nI'm not in marketing, but when Google+ first came out, I wondered why they wouldn't give it a completely different name without the word Google in it.",
"I can only speak from my perspective: I don't much care for Facebook's or Google+'s features that much. They're useful, but the most important thing for me is that Facebook is where everyone tends to contact you no matter what they want nowadays. That's why I use Facebook. No one ever contacts me on Google+ and I don't contact anyone there either. That's why I don't use it, and I'm sure that's why most people don't use it either: All your friends are on Facebook, while some are ALSO on Google+. No one is on Google+ only, and not on Facebook. So since the two are identical except for the fact that one has everyone on it while the other doesn't, might as well stick with Facebook. It won't change no matter what features Google+ gets, since after all it's just a social network, which is worthless without the \"social\" part."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://www.billdietrich.me/Facebook.html"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://brainoplasty.com/the-top-google-posts-are-the-same-posts-i-ignore-on-facebook/"
],
[],
[
"http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57604431-93/youtube-gets-the-yuck-out-in-comments-cleanup/"
],
[],
[]
] | ||
306sgy | if light is considered a wave, why can't it bend around obstacles like sound waves do? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/306sgy/eli5_if_light_is_considered_a_wave_why_cant_it/ | {
"a_id": [
"cppmk58",
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"score": [
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"text": [
"It can and does. Check out the double-slit experiment.\n\n_URL_0_\n",
"Light does refract around obstacles.\n\nThe wavelength of visible light is much smaller than that of sound waves, so the effect is much less pronounced.\n\nOn a sunny day, hold a pencil high in the are, and turn around and look at its shadow. In stead of being solid, it will appear fuzzy with a halo around it. That halo effect is refraction."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment"
],
[]
] | ||
32tvbc | why some currencies are written with the symbol before the number ? | $1 or 10£ and some others are written 384€ ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32tvbc/eli5why_some_currencies_are_written_with_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"cqeky1m"
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"score": [
3
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"text": [
"English-speaking countries and Latin America follow the British custom of putting the symbol before the currency. This began as a measure of convenience when using the old British currency system where 12 pence made a shilling and 20 shillings made a pound. This was originally abbreviated 2£ 1s. 4d. \n\nThis was cumbersome, and was done away with in 1971, but long before that people who had to write monetary amounts in ledgers would write £2/1/4. The £ sign appeared at the front for two reasons, it prevented the changing of the number with no upper limit (i.e. adding a 9 to make 92£/1/4) and it avoided confusion about what the numbers meant (i.e. 2/1/4£ could be misread as £4 or as £2.25).\n\nIn the United States, Spanish currency came to dominate, and evolved into the use of the $, but they retained the British custom of writing the currency symbol first. As the rest of the Americas broke from European empires, they adopted many US customs, including the use of the $ as a currency symbol."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
uiiqm | molar mass | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/uiiqm/eli5_molar_mass/ | {
"a_id": [
"c4voa89",
"c4vpd7b",
"c4vpfce"
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"score": [
4,
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"text": [
"It's useful to know how many of something you have.\n\nWith molecules, it's hard to find out - they're so tiny that it's impossible to count them - but for performing controlled chemical reactions we need to know, so that we mix the right number of molecules together.\n\nThe molar mass is the mass of a quantity of molecules, when there are 6.024 x 10^23 molecules present.\n\nThis means that if you have 18.0153g of water, you know you know that you have (approximately) 6.024 x 10^23 molecules.\n\nIf you wanted to react something with that water, you could then work out how much of the other thing you need - if it's 2:1 ratio.\n\nThere's also mol/l - which is the number of moles of substance per litre of solvent. This is used to quantify the 'strength'* of an acid, for example.\n\n* Strength is a good enough approximation",
"Go to the periodic table. See where it has the mass? That's the mass of one atom of that element in AMU ( really small mass unit ). 6.024 x 10^23 atoms of that element weighs the amount of grams that one atom weighs in AMU. So if carbon is 12 AMU, 6.024 x 10^23 is 12 grams. This is useful as it gives us a way to measure the approximate amount of molecules/atoms of any substance we have, so it can be mixed appropriately with other substances",
"Let's say you were building 10 houses out of legos. Each house needs 1 big piece, 1 medium piece, and 3 small pieces. You realize for 10 houses, you need 10 big pieces, 10 medium pieces, and 30 small pieces. However, when you go to the store, you see that they only sell by pounds rather than number of pieces. \n\nYou can't just buy one pound of the first two and 3 pounds of the small pieces because they all weigh different, so you would be wasting your allowance since you would have a lot of left-over pieces. You also don't know if you would have enough to build one house, or if you have enough to build 100 houses. \n\nSo you look at a chart that tells you how many pounds are 10 pieces of the each lego. The chart references a number that we will call a \"Legole\" That number is 10. It's just a constant number that people got tired of writing out, so they gave it a name.\n\nThe \"Legolar Mass\" is how many pounds of each type make up 10 legos. You see the \"Legolar mass\" for the large type is 5, the medium is 2, and the small is 1.\n\nSo, to build your house, you buy 5 pounds of the big type, 2 pounds of the medium type, and 3 pounds of the small type, since those numbers give you 10, 10, and 30 pieces.\n\n\n\n\n\nIn the real world, the pieces of an element are too small to count, so we give them a number called a \"Mole\" This number is 6.024 x 10^23 pieces of that element. So if we want to make 1 mole of Water, we need 2 parts Hydrogen and 1 part Oxygen. We look at the \"molar mass\" of both and add 1 molar mass of oxygen and 2 molar masses of Hydrogen. (~16+(1+1))\n\n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
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