q_id stringlengths 5 6 | title stringlengths 3 301 | selftext stringlengths 0 39.2k | document stringclasses 1 value | subreddit stringclasses 3 values | url stringlengths 4 132 | answers dict | title_urls list | selftext_urls list | answers_urls list |
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1rz8i5 | Has there ever been a child ruler with actual political power? | I know there are cases of children being crowned as emperors and such (Puyi, for example), but also that there were adults in charge of making actual political decisions, and that the children served just as figureheads (at least until they grew older). Has there ever been an example of a child ruler who actually ruled and was listened to from a young age? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1rz8i5/has_there_ever_been_a_child_ruler_with_actual/ | {
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"How young do you mean by a child?\n \nIt's important to remember that the direct influence that a child ruler can have on politics is perhaps limited by their age, but indirect influence can be phenomenal. Edward VI is a good example, for both his own mother (Jane Seymour) and, of course, his father were dead upon his accession to the throne. He still had lord protectors; (Somerset and Northumberland) who sought to rule as regents; but without a direct link to the King, with Somerset only his uncle, the strength of the regency was limited, as is evidenced by his replacement by Northumberland. While Edward was younger, this manifested itself in the downfall of the Duke of Somerset. But it is worth noting even then that Thomas Seymour, Somerset's brother, was desperate to gain influence with the young King to the extent that he broke into his bedchambers, where he was found with a pistol - an event understandably interpreted in the most menacing light. His execution on charges of treason months later is further evidence of the extent to which people were willing to secure the patronage of the King - for a young King that grew up was of course going to reward those that were closest to him.\n\nThe political aspect of this comes in terms of Edward's religion, though. Although the command of patronage enjoyed by even a young ruler was great, his personal religious views were particularly strongly protestant for the period and were far removed from the mainstream of religious opinion in England, which was fundamentally recusant Catholic.\n\nBut because securing the King's favour was so important, especially as he entered the middle of his adolescence, many of these religious changes - which were in themselves fundamentally almost extremist - were nonetheless enacted. Thus was a young King able to command political power - even though Edward did not rule himself, he still commanded vast political power through his own influence."
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474zcb | what's happening when my phone battery completely runs out, but i am able to turn it on with some battery left later? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/474zcb/eli5_whats_happening_when_my_phone_battery/ | {
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"There are chemical reactions in the battery that generate the electricity. The new compounds that form from those reactions can and will build up and either separate the chemicals that need to react, or prevent the electricity from flowing. If you let the battery rest, those compounds have a chance to dissipate, allowing the chemicals to react, or electricity to flow, again."
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o2jns | - an outline of the republican nominees | Hey guys
Australian here. Could someone please give me a run down of all of the Republican nominees (or at least the main ones) with information like what they stand for and what the public (or various subsets of the public) think of them?
Cheers! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/o2jns/eli5_an_outline_of_the_republican_nominees/ | {
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"Found this from three days ago. Should answer your questions.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n",
"I've just been using this \n_URL_0_\nJust a quick snapshot of where they stand on various issues",
"_URL_0_\nThis is a nice source of information.",
"**Mitt Romney** is the former governor of Massachusetts and prior to that he was a businessman. He is very wealthy. He is a social and economic conservative, but many voters feel he may actually be more moderate based on his history of changing his official stance on certain key issues. \n\nRomney ran for president in 2008 and has an extensive campaign network.\n\n\n**Rick Santorum** is a former senator and he is extremely socially conservative. He is known for likening homosexuality to beastiality and pedophilia.\n\n**Ron Paul** is a social and economic libertarian. He believes government exists to take away individual rights and he wants to remove as much of the government as possible. He also doesn't believe in financial regulation or much of the current US foreign policy.\n\n**Newt Gingrich** is the former Speaker of the House. He is an economic conservative but his record as a social conservative is somewhat suspect. One of his major campaign issues has simply been to bash Obama.\n\n**Rick Perry** is the current governor of Texas. He is a religious social conservative and financial conservative. He is in many ways comparable to George Bush. ",
"I'm a Conservative (Not the right-most kind, but still), and my outline:\n\nThey're all retarded.",
"Let's say your class is having elections to decide who gets to be the President of Kindergarten.\n\n**Mitt Romney**: That kid in your class who has a lot of money and sucks up to anyone he can to get what he wants, and usually does. A lot of people don't like him, but he'll probably end up being the front-runner anyway. Some of the Christian Evangelical kids who are from the South additionally don't trust him because he's a Mormon. In his defense, he has successfully run many lemonade stands and seems to kind of know what he's doing.\n\n**Rick Santorum**: One of those insane Evangelical kids I told you about. He's been against anyone who's... different... for a long time now and it earned him some nasty nicknames. You probably shouldn't Google what his last name is slang for now. You know, since you're five and all.\n\n**Ron Paul**: He's sort of an outsider kid with some rather unusual opinions. For one, he says that you guys shouldn't play with regular monopoly money that is only worth what you say it is, but that it should be valued in terms of something real that you can hold, like shiny things (gold). He also doesn't trust the school and thinks they're only there to take away your rights. His supporters are very big fans of his, but he's found it hard to win elections in the past regardless.\n\n**Michelle Bachmann**: Another crazy Evangelical girl. She has a boyfriend, but the word around the merry-go-round is he is more interested in other boys than her. She is regarded as either being actually insane or just not particularly smart by some, if not many, of the kids in your class. Fortunately for her, she decided that it isn't worth it to pursue the post any more.\n\n**Rick Perry**: Poor Rick. He tries, really, but he's just not all there. He's kind of like that kid in your class who has to wear a helmet all the time and eats mud, then says stupid things like: \"If I were President, I would get rid of homework, naptime and um... what was the third thing... ooops!\" To make it worse, he tries to recover from that by being even more hateful than that Rick Santorum kid.\n\n**Jon Huntsman**: A nice, smart kid, but he doesn't stand a chance. Quite sad, really.\n\n**Herman Cain**: We're not sure if he was really in this to win or just to attract attention to himself. "
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g50jq | Help with coming up with an optics experiment | So I need to do an optics experiment for my first year of physics at uni, the problem is that we are limited with material and that you need to be original, which is almost an contradiction =/
Does anybody have an idea for a cool experiment? (and yea the double slit one has been done)
| askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/g50jq/help_with_coming_up_with_an_optics_experiment/ | {
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"You could try and measure coherence length of a white light source using a Michelson interferometer?\n\n\nYou will need:\n\n* A white light source\n* A lens or lenses to produce a collimated beam of light\n* Two mirrors\n* An adjustable translation stage stage on which to mount one of the mirrors\n* A beam splitter (can be a simple piece of glass)\n* A photodiode\n* An oscilloscope\n\nSet your equipment up as shown in [this diagram]_URL_1_).\n\n\nThe detector will only detect interference fringes over a very small range of motion of the moving mirror, centred around the point where the distances between the beam splitter and the two mirrors are equal.\n\n\nSignal should look something like [this](_URL_0_).\n\n\nEdit: sorted the bullet list out",
"You can do a modified double slit experiment. Instead of having 2 vertical rectangular slits, you have 1 vertical rectangular slit and one round hole. When you illuminate both openings with a laser, the outgoing wavefunctions will not be similar enough to give a traditional interference pattern. (In the case of the traditional 2 vertical slit, the wavefunctions are of a cylindrical type.) \n\nThey will still interfere, but not in the same way. Instead you will probably see a very altered interference that represents the Fourier overlap of the cylindrical waveform (slit) with the spherical waveform (hole)."
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274r0a | catch 22 | I think I understand what it is but can someone give an example of a catch 22? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/274r0a/eli5_catch_22/ | {
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"A real life example is: You need 2 years experience to get an entry level job. There is no way of getting that experience because all entry level jobs require 2 years experience. ",
"In the original novel, catch-22 was a situation that really couldn't exist. If you wanted a discharge from the amry for being crazy you had to ask for one. If you ask for a discharge, you're not really crazy (since it's very sane to want to escape the violence). The whole novel is about the absurdity of war.\n\nOther examples:\n\n1. Needing experience to get a job, can't get a job because you have no experience.\n\n2. Can't get a bank account without an address, can't rent a place without showing bank statements.\n\n3. Working for money to spend on your free time. No free time because you're always working.",
"The best example might be from the novel of the same name.\n\nIn the novel it is noted that going on a bombing mission over Europe in WW2 is something only a crazy person would do because it was so dangerous.\n\nBut there was a rule stating that if an airman was insane, they should be grounded, so they couldn't go on the mission.\n\nIf you asked the doctor to ground you because you were crazy for going on the mission, then they would declare you \"sane\" because you understood the risks.\n\nBut the doctor couldn't evaluate your sanity unless you asked him to evaluate it, and everyone knew this.\n\nSo if you asked to be grounded, you were sane. If you didn't ask to be grounded you were probably insane, but you couldn't be declared insane.\n\nEither way, you had to do the mission.",
"The original use of the term was from a novel (Catch-22 by Joseph Heller) in which combat pilots could get out of combat duty by claiming insanity, but this never happened because anyone who would claim insanity to get out of combat was showing rational thought and was therefore obviously sane.",
"You have the last box of crayons on Earth, and you love to color. The more you color, the sooner you won't be able to color anymore. If you save them, you won't color as much, which you enjoy."
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376lio | how can little mice run up walls? these things are driving me insane the places they can get to | How THE SHIT are they getting on top of the fridge??? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/376lio/eli5_how_can_little_mice_run_up_walls_these/ | {
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"Rodents have very sharp claws, low body mass, and can squeeze through impossibly tiny spaces. Wood, plaster, gypsum, wallpaper, stone, brick, almost anything we make walls out of in residential homes is easy to climb for a mouse (they don't do so well with tiles though)"
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68risd | Where did the millions of KKK members of the 1920s go? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/68risd/where_did_the_millions_of_kkk_members_of_the/ | {
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"Could you be more specific? Do you mean like what happened to the millions of people who used to belong the Klan after the organization faded? ",
"I can talk about the Klan in Colorado, drawing primarily from Robert Alan Goldberg's *Hooded Empire: The Ku Klux Klan in\rColorado*. I don't know how well this applies to the Klan as a whole.\n\nIn Colorado the Klan more or less exploded into existence. In 1920 it was all but non existent. By 1925 it controlled both state legislative houses, the governorship, Denver's Mayor's office, and had seats on the State Supreme Court. In a state where the total population was around 900,000 the Klan boasted 200,000 adult members. One single Denver picnic event brought out over 100,000 attendees.\n\nBut contemporary records show that people didn't really see it like we do today. Instead it was seen to be of the type of mutual benefit organization as the Elks or the Masons. Instead of fezzes, or aprons and secret handshakes they had hoods and parties in the desert with cross burnings. Although nominally \"Protestant\" they even allowed Catholics and Jews to join, something that wouldn't have happened in the Deep South. It was definitely a conservative and nativist movement, but far much less so than in the Deep South. It represented \"middle class values\" not virulent hatred. There were members that had that hatred. There were threats of violence. But that seemed to only involve a core group numbering in hundreds.\n\nThat said KKK in Colorado sponsored no lynchings. Much of the literature was racially oriented, but in the overwhelmingly white state it wasn't *all that* relevant. Of course groups like the Denver Boulé, a black support group, would strongly disagree with what I just said, and I don't mean to dismiss the racism they did suffer. But it was more in the vein of legal covenants restricting black home ownership to certain neighborhoods like Five Points, not murder. There's also no reason to think that the vast majority of members supported the more extreme actions.\n\nThe whole thing crashed down almost as quickly as it exploded up. In other areas of the country, and among a core group of leaders it absolutely *did* stand for virulent hatred. As reports came in from other parts of the country, people saw a very different Klan than the local brand. Then a series of corruption scandals hit involving klan leadership , including a tax evasion scandal against John Galen Locke, the local Grand Dragon. Locke and governor Clarence Morley both ended up in prison. While the vast majority of members moved on to groups like the Elks or Masons.\n\nUltimately the Klan didn't accomplish much in Colorado despite nominally having massive support. They weren't able to overturn the state civil rights protections. Proposed laws like the firing of all Catholics and Jews from the University of Colorado died in committees. Simply put, they never really had the support their nominal numbers should have given them.",
"I can speak for the state of Kansas. In response to an influx of German and Irish Immigrants, to Kansas the Klan grew rapidly. They also opposed modernism and urbanism and took a strong hold in rural towns. While the Kansas branch of the Klan never had comparable numbers to southern states, in 1922 it had about 40,000 members, 6000 of which lived in Wichita, the biggest city in Kansas at the time. The Klan in Kansas would regularly intimidate African Americans and other groups they despised. They went as far as Kidnapping a Catholic priest who spoke out against the Klan and whipped him. To my knowledge, no lynchings by the Klan occurred in Kansas. \n\n\nNeither the Republican Party or the Democratic party openly challenged the Klan in the state legislature in the early 1920s. In fact a significant proportion of the legislature were Klan members. However, after the KKK began winning city elections in the city of Emporia, famed newspaper editor William Allen White, ran for governor in 1924 on a platform that included strong opposition to the Klan. White called them \"an organization of cowards\" and called them an example \"of the tyrannies of men in masses\". White had a strong showing for the election but did not win. However, his election campaign brought awareness to the issue of KKK activities within the state. On February 28, 1927, after a lengthy legal trial between the state and representatives of the Klan, the Ku Klux Klan was legally ousted from Kansas. This ended overt activities by the Klan in the 1920s in the state of Kansas. \n**Sources**: \n\n\nCraig Miner's *Kansas the History of the Sunflower State* \nVirgil Dean's *John Brown to Bob Dole Movers and Shakers in Kansas History*\n\n"
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2uv1af | how is physical money converted to digital money ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2uv1af/eli5_how_is_physical_money_converted_to_digital/ | {
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"That usually happens at a bank. For example, you have a 50 dollar bill in your pocket. You go to the bank and you tell them you want to deposit that 50 dollar on your bank account. The bank takes your 50 dollar bill and than makes an entry into their computer system adding 50 bucks to your bank account. Than the money is digital.",
"You give the bank some money, say, a 50 US dollar bill.\n\nThe bank then, in return, writes down that they owe you 50 dollars. You can ask the bank for your 50 dollars back (At say, an ATM).\n\nYou can also tell the bank that you transferred your debt, or part of it, to someone else.\n\nLet's say you want to buy something at an online store for 25 of the 50 dollars. You tell the bank that the store now owns 25 dollars of the debt the bank had to you, they will write down that they now owe 25 dollars to the store, and 25 to you.\n\nThe store can then go to the bank, and ask them for the 25 dollars in physical money.\n\nYou might also notice that this way, there are actually 100 dollars in the economy after you deposited the money, the bank owns 50 physical dollars, and you own 50 dollars worth of debt from the bank, there are 50 physical dollars, and 50 digital dollars.\nThe money was never 'converted' to digital money, the bank simply keeps track of to whom they owe money (And who owes money to them). This debt is much easier to transfer since the bank only has to write down who they owe money to, instead of having to go to everyone and hand them the money, this also means it's much faster for transactions over a large distance, and safer for large transactions, since there is no chance the money gets stolen during travel.",
"To oversimplify the explanation: existing physical money is EXCHANGED for digital money. It isn't converted.",
"I use a scanner, but I think copiers and fax machines could do it also."
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17yhdj | Will fusion power allow for advances in Metallurgy? | With advances in Fusion power, will there be advances in metallurgy? Much as the industrial revolution allowed for the advances in metallurgy, such as the Bessemer process, and other advances in steel, will the fusion process allow for creation of new alloys and new metal structures? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/17yhdj/will_fusion_power_allow_for_advances_in_metallurgy/ | {
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"It is more like the opposite situation. Will advances in metallurgy allow for fusion power? One of the major obstacles right now in fusion power is having the materials withstand the conditions of an active stable fusion source. That means it has to survive high heat and more importantly high radiation damage. The amount of 14 MeV neutrons coming out of a fusion reactor is enormous. These cause massive damage to the surrounding structure and of course turn it radioactive. Currently there is a lot of active research into making materials that can withstand large amounts of radiation damage without becoming brittle. "
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2lkyd3 | Dis Laissez-faire capitalism lead to the Gilded Age in America? | As I understand it (and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) laissez-faire economics means that the government is almost completely hands-off with matters of business. But if that's the case, didn't the Gilded Age prove that business owners will try to squeeze every penny they can out of their workers? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2lkyd3/dis_laissezfaire_capitalism_lead_to_the_gilded/ | {
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"Your question belies a fundamental misunderstanding of American capitalism in the 19thC. There is a trope that the gov't was hands-off in terms of business regulation and taxation. This is completely false. There are numerous books out there that seek to eradicate this myth -- so many that destroying the myth has become a bit of a trope itself.\n\nSee, for instance, Brian Balogh, *A Government Out of Sight,* Steve Usselman, *Regulating Railroad Innovation,* and Richard Bensel, *The Political Economy of American Industrialization.*\n\nThat said, every business owner ever has tried to squeeze every penny out of their workers. It's certainly true that late 19thC workers had far fewer protections than some have today. It's also certainly true that many work environments were terribly dangerous and that many workers were killed in horrific accidents. \n\nThe rise of corporate capitalism and the influx of immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th Cs are intertwined deeply. American capitalism would certainly have evolved differently if there wasn't a very steady supply of nearly disposable labor. There are libraries full of books on this subject, but Sinclair's classic novel, *The Jungle* captures the experience well. For a more academic version of same, see Jim Barrett's *Work and Community in \"The Jungle.\"* \n\nSo what? Well, it is out of this soup of labor and capitalism that more-or-less current business and labor regulation is born. Numerous movements sprang up all over the country to first assist immigrants, then to push for social and legislative change. There are so many of these groups that it's nearly impossible to catalog them all. \n\nOut of all of this came what is known as the Progressive Era, roughly 1875 to 1920 or so. During this time, oodles of laws and regulations were put in place to try to smooth things out. Whether they were successful is the subject of a few thousand books. Some like Shel Stromquist (in *Re-Inventing \"The People\"*) and Alan Dawley (in *Changing the World,*) see it as a time for democratic expansion -- no longer were native-born whites the only political entity that matters. Others see it as a time of a lost cause of sorts,when workers lost the opportunity to organize themselves into a massive movement that would change the fundamental nature of US cap'ism. See Nick Salvatore's classic, *Eugene V. Debs, Citizen and Socialist,* Andrew Cohen's *The Racketeer's Progress,* Robert Johnston's *The Radical Middle-Class* and a few thousand others for more on this take."
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7pxw4n | what happens to smoke or other gases in a sealed container? | If I blow out a candle and immediately cover it, smoke accumulates inside but eventually fades away. The next day when I open the candle there is no smoke inside. What happens to the smoke inside? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7pxw4n/eli5_what_happens_to_smoke_or_other_gases_in_a/ | {
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"The smoke is made of tiny particles that either fall to the floor of the container or cling to the sides of it. \nTobacco smoke particles, for example, can be as large at 3 microns.",
"Smoke is typically comprised of very small solid particles suspended in a gas. Given enough time, these particles will fall under gravity to the bottom of the container. Some of these particles may carry an electrostatic charged and can be attracted to the sides/bottom of the container by electrostatic forces (with glass, for example). \n\n"
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5uwaar | what is the difference between a department (eg. nc department of motor vehicle) and a commission (eg. nj motor vehicle commission) | In most states I have seen, they have a Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) that runs everything related to motor vehicles while New Jersey has a Motor Vehicle Commission which seems to do the exact same thing. What is the difference between a department and commission when the DMV and the MVC seem too be the exact same thing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5uwaar/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_a_department/ | {
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"Every state is different. They can name the department anything they want.\n\nSo essentially there's no difference except for what each individual state allows. ",
"Typically a commission is a group of individuals (frequently five) that are charged with setting policy in a certain area, although the bulk of the work is done by the permanent staff. Frequently commissioners are chosen by the governor, but he doesn't have direct say on their decisions. Often, commissions are designed so that the minority party gets some input in who gets chosen.\n\nA department in government is just like a department in a company -- it's headed by a single individual (usually called a secretary or administrator, but there are other named) who makes decisions on how it will run, but that person is directly answerable to the governor.\n\nAll of that said, each state can have different rules, and some departments are more independent while some commissions are more directly supervised, and there's no law that says you have to name an agency one way or another. From the perspective of an individual citizen, most often the particular form of the agency is of less importance than the content of the regulations they promulgate."
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60smp8 | why do the symptoms of hunger become less painful/obvious after 48-72 hours | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60smp8/eli5_why_do_the_symptoms_of_hunger_become_less/ | {
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"Because your body is a survival machine.\n\nPain serves as an indicator that there is an issue; continued pain does nothing to help the issue other than to serve as a reminder. Your mind starts to ignore continued unchanging pain which significantly dulls it. The same is for when you physically injure yourself such as getting a bruise. The initial injury will hurt and for a few minutes afterwards its all you can think about but very quickly you forget its even there unless it is agitated and you receive a sharp reminder of your injury.\n\n",
"It wouldn't help our survival much if we were too distracted and lethargic from hunger to go hunt. Your body reminds you to eat with hunger pangs, but when food still doesn't come, it backs off a bit so you can fix the situation. \n\nThere are also different ways your body gets energy from stores in your body. Much of the energy you get between meals comes from your liver which is kind of like a high revving energy machine but it can only run a few days before it's out of gas. \n\nThe more long term energy comes from fat stores, but it takes longer to make use of this energy and it's more of a slow and steady energy source rather than a quick and powerful one. \n\nNeed to run from a predator? Liver to the rescue (and faster energy stored in the muscles). Need to survive a month without food? Fat finally gets to do something good for a change. \n\nSo generally when you fast, the first few days are the hardest as your liver depletes and your body begins changing over to a fat burning metabolism. Once the fat burning is in full swing, you are a little sluggish, but the energy you do get lasts a long time. "
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1se9e7 | what constitutes a generation | So we say generation x and y but who is in which? 2 people born in the same year would be the same generation but what about a sibling 5 years younger would they still be the same generation? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1se9e7/eli5_what_constitutes_a_generation/ | {
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"Depends on context. If they have a common ancestor A, then the children of A are of the same generation, the children of those children (being siblings and first cousins) are of the next generation, the children of those are the next and so on - to find your generation, count the levels to the common ancestor. \n\nIf you are speaking more generally (Gen X vs Gen Y vs Millenia, etc) they are defined by date ranges and span about 20 years each",
"Depends on what year they were born.\n\nGeneration X is usually considered anyone born between 1961 and 1981.\n\nWhere Generation Y or Millennials are born between 1982 and 2004.\n\nThese dates are not set in stone and are just agreed upon ideals of societal commentators.",
"It depends largely on context. For example, in my family, I have cousins who were born in the same time frame as I was, and so we are all members of Generation Y as far as social commentary goes.\n\nHowever, within the family itself, the shared ancestor is their great-grandparents, who are my grandparents (i.e. their parents are my first cousins). As a result, within the family, I am a member of an older generation, and my genetics are technically closest to the the our older ancestors among myself and my same-aged cousins."
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9s91md | can we imagine new colors? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9s91md/eli5_can_we_imagine_new_colors/ | {
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"No. Our eyes have 3 cones (aka color receptors): one for red, one for blue, and one for green. That means we can only pick up those colors and the variations that come with them, making up our color spectrum. Other animals may have more cones than us, allowing them to see different colors. We cannot create a new color because we already see every single one that we are capable of seeing (due to having only 3 cones). \n\nI will forever be jealous of the bluebottle butterly with at least 15 cones, able to see way more shades and colors than us.",
"How would you define \"new\"? Visible light covers a range of the electromagnetic spectrum, so there is a limited \"pool\" from which to draw new colors. With [deep color](_URL_0_) covering over a billion colors in that spectrum, it's hard to argue that anyone could imagine any new colors.",
"This question doesn't really mean anything. If you can visualize a color, then you can perceive it. And if you can perceive it, it really isn't a \"new\" color. ",
"Colors and other qualia are our interpretation of stimuli (sensory information). I think we could imagine new colors but, without additional, or altered, stimuli, imagining new colors would be something like a gestalt shift (a new interpretation of something) rather than the perception of something new. That is as far as sensory information goes. \n \nBut really, no one \"sees\" physical reality itself - every sensation is imagined (like hallucinated). i.e. The part of your brain that \"sees\" color doesn't see light - it sees electrochemical pulses and interprets (hallucinate) it as light/color. And the same goes for tastes, scents, sounds, etc. Think of it like we \"see\" sensation (qualia) as an interpretation of our senses (sensory organs: brain, eyes, ears, etc) sensing stimuli (physical reality) and we do this, presumably, to produce information that is useful to us. \n \nHonestly, I don't know if anyone knows why exactly we see colors or other kinds of qualia the way we do - at best we can just point to parts of the brain and say, \"this does it\", and we guess this is good because, \"contrast helps define things\". \n \nBut the short answer is, yes, probably... maybe. You could look into synesthesia and maybe get a different idea. lol",
"I like this question. The answer is, unfortunately, no - our monkey brains are limited to what we have seen before with our own eyes, mixtures of red, blue, and green. It is like imagining a 4th spatial dimension - it is impossible to wrap your head around, even though we can talk about it.\n\nThis concept was part of Aliens Ate My Homework by Bruce Coville - they entered a new dimension where light behaved differently and caused them to see new colors. It's a thought-provoking concept."
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l88p9 | Why can dogs and cats sleep with a blanket over their head but I can't? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/l88p9/why_can_dogs_and_cats_sleep_with_a_blanket_over/ | {
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"A lot of people sleep with blankets over their heads too. It is just a personal thing. :)",
"A lot of people sleep with blankets over their heads too. It is just a personal thing. :)"
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7ovnds | What determines the color of the noble gases since they’re colorless under standard conditions? | So I’m doing a Chemistry project on the noble gases and I’m confused about something
Every gas of the noble gas group is colorless under standard conditions right? But when electricity is applied (a couple thousand volts or so) the gases will emit a colorful light.. is that right?
My question is what determines this light? Is there only one color for each element (for example can advertising signs using neon only be red and argon only purple) or can there be a variety of different colors for each element? And how could you change the color of a gas like neon when electricity is applied?
Thanks. | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/7ovnds/what_determines_the_color_of_the_noble_gases/ | {
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"A lot of matter can emit light if you give it energy. Metals will glow if you heat them enough for example. \n\nLight emission in single atom chemicals is directly related to the amount of energy it takes to bump an electron up to the next orbital. Which the noble gases fall into this category. The more energy it takes to excite the electron, the shorter the wavelength (which means the more \"blue\" the light). \n\nThis is actually a pretty fundamental feature of atoms."
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5gvftx | what is the point of the adjustable piece on the bottom of a stapler? | You know the thing that you can flip around on the base of the stapler that makes the staples point out instead of in? In what situation would you ever need to use that? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5gvftx/eli5_what_is_the_point_of_the_adjustable_piece_on/ | {
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"When the staples face out instead of in they are much, much easier to remove. So you use it when you want a bunch of pages together for a short while, sort of like a paperclip, but less likely for the pages to fall out the bottom.",
"It's called pinning (like in sewing, pin something with a straight pin). Easier to remove if you don't want it to be permanently stapled. \n\n [Source](_URL_0_) "
]
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[],
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"http://lifehacker.com/301470/temporarily-pin-documents-with-your-stapler"
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8975wx | why are there so many relationships that are proportional to inverse squares? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8975wx/eli5_why_are_there_so_many_relationships_that_are/ | {
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"The surface area of a sphere goes up as the [square](_URL_0_) of the distance from the center.\n\nSo things that diffuse into space, like waves, tend to get reduced by the square, resulting in an inverse square law."
]
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere#Surface_area"
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1bprav | Why do some Countries that used to be Colonies of England such as Canada and Australia still have English Monarchy ties? Historically are they fully independent or are they still under the influence of the Crown and why/why not? | Basically I have been wondering for a while and have not been able to get a good answer through google on why Canada/Australia and some other countries still seem to have connections to the Monarcy of England. Examples would be people on their money, titles, etc. Sorry if the question is worded weird I couldn't really come up with a good way to explain it in a short sentence. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1bprav/why_do_some_countries_that_used_to_be_colonies_of/ | {
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"There are 16 nations categorized as being a member of the Commonwealth Realm, though this term is informal. These countries, including Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Jamaica, and others are linked by their shared history and interests. The Realm also recognizes the Monarchy as a figurative head of state. For example, the Canadian constitution in 1867 states \"The Executive Government and Authority of and over Canada is hereby declared to continue and be vested in the Queen\" ( _URL_1_) and as far as I can interpret the text, there has been no amendment changing that statement. Until 1982 the constitution of Canada was not even in the country, but was held by British Parliament. With the Constitutional Act of 1982 (Canada) and the Canada Act of 1982 (Great Britain), Canada had authority to amend their constitution without the approval of British parliament (previously, Britain had the ability to amend the Canadian Constitution, but not without Canadian parliamentary approval.) Link for Constitution Act : _URL_1_ \n\nAustralia has a similar history, though they became a federation around 1901, by royal assent of the queen. Queen Elizabeth was granted the title of sovern in 1953 when the Australian parliament passed the Royal Styles and Titles Act of 1953. Though there have been attempts to create a republic in Australia (see the Australian Referendum of 1999: _URL_0_) the public seems to indicate they are happy to recognize the Monarchy.\n\nThis would strongly suggest that several former colonies recognize the Monarchy from tradition, and lack of public support to remove mentions of the Queen's authority from their constitutions. However, this is regarding only two such countries, I am not familiar with the other countries' relations with the British monarchy.\n\nI apologize for formatting issues- I'm typing on my phone.\n\nEdited: To clarify the Constitution act, thanks to WashedUpMeathead and doc_daneeka.",
"Curry_favor has tackled the why these countries still possess the constitutional monarch as their head of state, so I'll just add a point that I think needs to be made.\n\nNo members of the Commonwealth who still recognize Elizabeth II as their head of state such as Australia are still attached to the British Monarchy, as they each have an independent Crown. As such, when discussing the monarch in reference to Australia, she is the head of the Australian monarchy. The fact that each of these crowns still shares the same monarch is simply a matter of history and politics, for all we know, in 20 years the laws of succession of these states could start to differentiate from each other and thus, a different monarch would sit in the UK and Australia. ",
"Canada has it's own monarchy. Queen Elizabeth II is the Queen of Canada, and her family forms the Canadian Royal Family. By mutual agreement with other Commonwealth Realms, we all maintain that our respective monarch is the same person - Queen Elizabeth and her Successors.\n\nIt's a complicated road from Queen Elizabeth I of England and her Newfoundland colonies to Queen Elizabeth II of Canada. Until 1867, what we know as Canada was a group of colonies known as British North America. Canada East and Canada West (Quebec and Ontario), New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland were all separate colonies of the British Empire. Several colonies united in 1867 under the British North America Act to form Canada. The preamble of the BNA Act states that the colonies:\n\n > have expressed their Desire to be federally united into One Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with a Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom.\n\nWe now have a country, the Dominion of Canada, that is semi-independent in that it had its own Parliament and could create its own laws, but is still firmly within the Empire, with the Queen of the United Kingdom (Queen Victoria at the time). Canada's position as a semi-independent country is confirmed when the United Kingdom declares War in 1914, and Canada is automatically included. \n\nThe next important step in Canada's evolution is the Statute of Westminster of 1931. This piece of UK legislation confirms the equality of Canada's Parliament with that of Westminster. Canada essentially becomes fully independent at this point, because only Canadian politicians may now advise the monarch (at this time King-Emperor George V) on Canadian legislation. Canada also got its own monarch - the King of Canada, who, according to the Statue of Westminister, was also King of the United Kingdom, King of Australia, King of New Zealand, and King of Newfoundland (Newfoundland was a semi-independent Dominion until it joined Canada in 1949). The Canadian Prime Minister (William Lyon Mackenzie King, an interesting character in his own right) flexed his independent muscles in 1939, when the UK again declared war on Germany. This time Canada ALSO declared war, a few days after the UK. There were no automatic inclusions this time.\n\nThe final link between Canada and the UK is cut in 1982 with the repatriation of the Constitution. This is a fancy way of saying that before 1982 the UK's Parliament could amend Canada's constitution. \n\nAll this boring legislation is very different to how most countries win independence. The USA fought a war. South Africa, India, Pakistan, and other countries ditched the monarchy as soon as they had enough independence to do so. Canada, meanwhile, plodded along because things were working fairly well. We didn't have major beefs with the Empire like the Thirteen Colonies. Until very recently Canada was a mostly white and English-speaking country (outside Quebec), and had natural ties to the \"mother country\", unlike India or South Africa. \n\nTwo interesting things are happening now with regards to the monarchy. The first is Canada's changing demographics. You only need to look at Toronto which has transformed from a mostly White Protestant city to the most multicultural city in the world in about 50 years. The same has happened in Vancouver. Fewer people have that \"natural\" tie to the mother country like we did 100 years ago.\n\nThe second thing that is changing is the monarch herself. The Queen is 86 years old. Her mother lived to 101, so she could remain on the throne into the 2020s, but chances are we'll be seeing a new King some time soon. Canadians generally support the continuation of the monarchy because we like the monarch. When the Prince of Wales becomes King, you'll start hearing a lot more questions about Canada's monarchy. A prominent Canadian politician (John Manley) suggested just looking into whether or not we should keep the Queen back in the 90s, and he was shut down very quickly. People liked the Queen, and didn't appreciate a politician talking about thinking about dumping her. I don't think Prince Charles will have so many defenders.\n\nThere's also now an effort to change the Laws of Succession. Charles is next in line, followed by William. William's wife is pregnant. If that child is a girl (lets call her Elizabeth), and the couple later has a boy (lets call him D'Brickishaw), Prince D'Brickishaw will become King before his sister. People aren't so comfortable with this latent sexism anymore. The UK has introduced legislation to take gender out of the succession equation - first born is next in line to the throne, regardless of whether it's a boy or girl. The fun problem is that now every single Commonwealth Realm has to enact this law. The Statute of Westminster, from back in 1931, says every Realm has to have the same monarch. The UK is now in a funny situation whereby it has to ask for Papua New Guinea, Jamaica, New Zealand, Canada, and all the other Realms to let the UK change its own laws. We've come full circle in from an Empire ruled in London to a Commonwealth scattered around the globe. \n"
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"http://www.aec.gov.au/Elections/referendums/1999_Referendum_Reports_Statistics/index.htm",
"http://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/Const/page-1.html#h-3"
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5c3j04 | if america engaged in nuclear war where would the nukes land and what plans are in place? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5c3j04/eli5if_america_engaged_in_nuclear_war_where_would/ | {
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" > What are the big targets (Both in america and in the countries we would be nuking)\n\nClassified! We don't really spread our secret nuclear strike plans around so the chances you will get particulars over the internet are slim to none.\n\n > who's downwind\n\nDownwind of global strikes? Everyone.\n\n > how soon would normal citizens know of the attacks/retaliation, \n\nFor most it would be when the flashes of light burn the flesh off their bones. Some lucky people would see the contrails from launching ICBMs and put things together from there, but the difference between the two would probably be about 30 minutes max.\n\n > and what formal protocols are in place?\n\nPut your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye."
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1d5tur | raspberry pi and examples of its various uses | I have done some googling, but I figure someone here can help give me a better breakdown and some examples using raspberry PI. Thanks in advance | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1d5tur/eli5_raspberry_pi_and_examples_of_its_various_uses/ | {
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"There is FAR more to it than what I am saying here.\n\nIt is a tiny computer. It isn't very powerful, but it can do enough to make it worth it for a lot of people, especially considering the low price. You could use one to connect to a media server in your home and stream movies/shows on your network. You could turn almost any TV into a sort of \"WebTV\" type device, and browse reddit. You can even play (a special version of) Minecraft.\n\nTL;DR: It is a small, cheap computer.",
"I use a Raspberry Pi as file server inside my house that's connected to a big USB hard drive. It runs a program called [Sick Beard](_URL_1_) that knows what TV shows I like, when they come out, and how to go on the internet and look for them. When a TV show comes out on TV, it finds information on how to download it, which it then passes to another program called [NZBGet](_URL_2_). NZBGet downloads the shows and then tells Sick Beard that they're done, so that Sick Beard can put it in the right place on the hard drive.\n\nIt then talks to another program called [XBMC](_URL_0_), which is running on a different computer that is connected to my TV. XBMC looks kind of like what you see when you're using the set top boxes that come with a satellite dish or a cable service, but it's mostly for playing movies and TV shows and stuff that's on your computer or on a network, and it also does a lot more.\n\nAnyway, Sick Beard tells XBMC that new shows have arrived. XBMC is able to connect to the Raspberry Pi using a method called FTP, and it also knows where TV shows are stored. So, rather than buying a PVR device to record TV shows for me off of my satellite, which can be pretty unreliable, I instead let my Raspberry Pi worry about downloading them automatically. And what's more, I can watch those TV shows from any computer or phone or tablet in my house. It's done a much better job of it for me, in my opinion.",
" > examples\n\n- A media PC that runs [XMBC](_URL_0_) and hooks up to your TV\n- a weather station that pulls weather data from the internet and displays it on a big LED matrix\n- a cheap, compact file server in your network with a bunch of USB drives connected\n- an automated alarm system that read data from a webcam, uses the openCV framework to detect human movement and sends you an email if a burglar arrives\n- a cheap, compact PC that you put in the guest bedroom with your old TFT screen where your guests can browse reddit and check their mail if they forgot their laptop.",
"I'm actually using one to build a functioning Pip-Boy for my friend",
"I plan to use mine for my wedding photo booth. Just buy a touch screen LCD with an LVDS connector, a 5V adapter that pushes 3 amps, and a micro usb cable to get the screen working.\n\nYou could also use a smaller touch screen with the Pi as a quasi-tablet."
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1lhq9r | Was there ever a nation-state of Kurdistan? How close have the Kurds ever been to true sovereignty and self-government? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1lhq9r/was_there_ever_a_nationstate_of_kurdistan_how/ | {
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"There has never been a true nation-state of the Kurds. Under the Ottoman empire, the Kurds lived in primarily autonomous emirates that were designed as a sort of \"buffer zone\" between Ottoman and Persian territory. (Kurds in Iran performed a similar role).\n\nThis changed in the nineteenth century, when the Ottomans began to exert greater control over the Kurdish emirates, as a result of rebellion in the Balkans and a growing Russian threat in Anatolia. This led to the first Kurdish revolts, but David McDowall argues that these were primarily tribal in nature, rather than nationalist. \n\nAfter the First World War, the Kurds were promised a referendum on independence in the Treaty of Sevres. However, Sevres had been signed with the Ottoman empire, which by that time had little to no control over its former territory. A new treaty was negotiated with Kemalist Turkey, that divided up Kurdistan between Iraq, Turkey and Syria.\n\nIt was this division that led to the growth of Kurdish nationalism. (A warning: I can only really talk about the Kurds of Iraq here; perhaps someone else can talk about the PKK.) In 1946, the Soviets, who had occupied Iran during WWII, backed a Kurdish secessionist republic based around the town of Mahabad. This collapsed, however, when the USSR chose to pursue stronger relations with Iran. \n\nOne major figure in the Mahabad Republic was Mustafa Barzani, an Iraqi Kurd who had led a revolt in Iraq before fleeing to Iran. From the forties until the seventies, Barzani led the Kurdish insurgency in Iraq. In 1975, the insurgency collapsed when the Shah of Iran and the US withdrew their support. This led to a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kurdistan. (I'm simplifying things a bit here.)\n\nIn the 1980s, with the Iran-Iraq War, the Iraqi Kurdish movement experienced a resurgence, as they allied once again with Iran. By 1986, the two major Kurdish groups, Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party and Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, were allied with Iran and in control of vast swathes of rural Kurdistan. This led to Saddam Hussein's government pursuing an increasingly brutal campaign against both the Kurdish peshmerga (soldiers - literally, \"those who face death\") and their civilian support base. \n\nThis culminated in the genocidal 1988 Anfal campaign, overseen by Saddam's cousin, the infamous \"Chemical\" Ali Hassan al-Majid. Iraqi forces used chemical weapons to \"flush out\" Kurdish civilians, before detaining them in horrific conditions in prisons and concentration camps. From there, hundreds of thousands of Kurds, primarily \"battle age\" men, were taken to the southern Iraqi deserts and murdered by firing squads. The Anfal continued after the end of the Iran-Iraq War, and resulted in what semmed to be the complete destruction of both rural Kurdistan and the Iraqi Kurdish national movement.\n\nIn 1990, Saddam, both flushed with success and burdened with debts from the Iran-Iraq War, invaded Kuwiat. Obviously, this didn't work out too well for him. During the campaign to oust him, George H W Bush made statements that seemed to tell the people of Iraq to rise up against Saddam. A resurgent KDP-PUK alliance, along with southern Shia communities, did so.\n\nHowever, it soon became apparent that the American-led coalition were not going to aid the Kurds. Once the military campaign was over, the Iraqi forces turned their full attention to crushing the rebellions. this led to an exodus of Kurdish civilians from Iraq. This prompted international pressure to do something. The US and its allies created a \"safe haven\" in Kurdistan, using air power.\n\nIn the \"safe haven\", the Kurds soon developed an autonomous government, the Kurdistan Regional Government. Despite a brief civil war between the PUK and the KDP, the KRG has gone from strength to strength. It remains almost completely independent of the central government in Baghdad, and is one of the richest and most stable areas of Iraq. It has also recently become a safe haven for Syrian Kurds, and Masoud Barzani (son of Mustafa) has threatened to intervene to protect Kurds in Syria. All in all, I would say that the KRG is the closest that the Kurds have come (so far) to self-government.\n\nI hope that answered your question, and wasn't too rambling.\n\nSources:\nDavid McDowall, A Modern History of the Kurds.\nJoost Hiltermann, A Poisonous Affair.\nKerim Yildiz, The Kurds in Iraq: Past, Present and Future.\n\nMcDowall's 1996 report on the Kurds for the Minority Rights Group (good overview of Kurdish history and the situation as it stood in the mid-nineties) is free to download here: _URL_1_\n\nHuman Rights Watch's definitive report on the Anfal (with plenty of background) is available here: _URL_0_",
"I believe the closest the Kurds got to sovereignty was under the rule of Salah ad-Din Ayyub. He established the Kurdish Ayyubid Dynasty in Egypt during the times of the crusades in the 12th/13th centuries. But then again the numerous principalities that existed before and after, although short lived, may have been closer to sovereignty than the Kurds under Saladin"
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xoyx2 | as someone who hasn't been watching the olympics, why is everyone pissed at nbc? | I haven't been keeping up on team USA (other than hearing about Phelps and that our female gymnastics team are in the spotlight), so I have no clue why everyone is so upset. I recently read [this](_URL_0_) story, so I can see why the dissent based on that. What else has happened, though? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/xoyx2/eli5_as_someone_who_hasnt_been_watching_the/ | {
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"From what I hear in the UK, NBC are being pretty lame about what they cover. They cut out the very moving war victims memorial from the opening ceremony and replaced it with an old interview with Phelps claiming that the war memorial 'wasn't suited for an american audience' which was pretty much a **HUGE** 'Fuck you' from NBC to the rest of the world. \nI hear that their coverage is Americans only, and only sports where the athletes are ogglable instead of covering the interesting and dramatic events. \nThis is just the perspective of a Brit who hasn't watched a minute of NBC in his life though, so take it with a pinch of salt.",
"1) Despite that many NBC viewers are American, they also want to hear the stories and backgrounds of non-American athletes. We're also missing out on some of the huge controversies because of the American-centric coverage. One that comes to mind was the gold medal that was given to a German fencing athlete over her Chinese opponent despite that the winning point would have never occurred if not for an error with the timer. \n\n2) The coverage is delayed, with no live options. NBC is also idiotic with spoiling the winners of the events *during commercials of the delayed broadcast*. It takes all of the suspense out of watching the events. One that sticks out is the unexpected win of the USA women's crew team, with a very close finish after a surprising lead. \n\n3) NBC cut out \"unimportant\" events, like the war victims memorial, as Y__M mentioned. That's just a slap in the face to Americans and internationals alike. It's already a delayed broadcast, there's no fucking reason not to include interviews *and* events taking place. ",
"For one the huge delay is frustrating. Several times I've accidentally seen the results for an event before I was able to watch it. They aren't showing half the events I care about, and all of the coverage is extremely USA centric. They say you can stream it live on the internet, but to do so you have to have a paid TV service, many of us don't."
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a21c4o | Is there a unit for pain? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/a21c4o/is_there_a_unit_for_pain/ | {
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"No. The \"del\" has been proposed, but never seriously. \n\nThere's no objective way to quantify the experience of pain. As such, it will be subjective from individual to individual.\n\nHowever, there are systems that attempt to quantify pain based on an individual perspective; these are necessarily imprecise, but they can serve as references. One such scale is the [Schmidt sting pain index,](_URL_0_) which attempts to put insect sting pain in relational perspective. ",
"I know there is no del unit. However, some doctors do a 1-10 phase where 10 is \"the pain is so much you pass out\" and 1 is \"no pain, can go about daily life\" "
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vt5f6 | What is the stuff in the pink ring around bathtubs, sinks, etc.? | What makes up the pink rings you see when it's been a while since you last cleaned the bathtub or toilet or sink? Just hit me and I was curious! | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/vt5f6/what_is_the_stuff_in_the_pink_ring_around/ | {
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"Its a mold/mildew.\n\nI'm not an expert on fungi by any means, but as I understand it, fungus grows in moist environments and it's probably feeding on your stink of the day. Haha"
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4kgz5r | why do nascar tires have to be changed so many times in one race? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4kgz5r/eli5why_do_nascar_tires_have_to_be_changed_so/ | {
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"NASCAR tires are what are called \"slicks\" which means that they have no tread at all making them very good for gripping smooth surfaces like race tracks. They are also made of very soft rubber which increases traction further. A downside to this soft rubber is that it wears out very quickly compared to normal tires. The high speeds that they drive at also wears out the tire much more quickly than normal which means that they have to change them frequently or risk a blowout damaging the car or having to get towed.",
"Because the tires they use are designed for peak performance, sacrificing durability, and driving at such high speeds is very stressful on tires. Sure they could probably make tires that would last an entire race, but the trade-off would be that they couldn't go near as fast, and the short amount of time they spend in the pit changing tires cost less time overall than driving that much slower would. ",
"Besides what has been said, they also drive at high speeds which means the tires get incredibly hot, and since they turn as hard as they possibly can (imagine making a 15 second turn on the edge of sliding out) this wears them even further"
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15tn3f | Is there a way to prevent tooth decay without brushing? | A way to delay decay when brushing is not an option. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/15tn3f/is_there_a_way_to_prevent_tooth_decay_without/ | {
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"The historically correct way to avoid tooth decay would be to have a diet with very little sugar and die young.",
"Chewing sugar free gum after eating will remove surface plaque and loosen food particles, as well as increasing saliva production which neutralizes the acids in your mouth that damage tooth enamel, but it probably isn't effective enough to be a true alternative to brushing, just a good supplement for dental health."
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j7uwf | please eli5 what happens in a microwave when there isn't anything in it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j7uwf/please_eli5_what_happens_in_a_microwave_when/ | {
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"The microwaves bounce off all inner surfaces, nothing happens.",
"Nothing at all.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n > A microwave oven works by passing non-ionizing microwave radiation, usually at a frequency of 2.45 gigahertz (GHz)—a wavelength of 122 millimetres (4.80 in)—through the food.",
"The microwaves bounce off all inner surfaces, nothing happens.",
"Nothing at all.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n > A microwave oven works by passing non-ionizing microwave radiation, usually at a frequency of 2.45 gigahertz (GHz)—a wavelength of 122 millimetres (4.80 in)—through the food."
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3rhwq9 | in the music industry, what does an audio engineer do and how is this different than what a producer does? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rhwq9/eli5_in_the_music_industry_what_does_an_audio/ | {
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"A producer is the logistical and managerial head of the production. He likely works for the record company that is funding the recording and is there to make sure everything goes smoothly. He hires the audio engineer and any other players (other session musicians, any other person that is needed). Any other session musicians hired for the day, he will be in charge of and have them sign their paperwork.\n\nThe audio engineer works for a recording studio or audio facility and is actually operating the equipment. He edits the music together, mixes it to make it sound good, sets up microphones, adds effects and sfx. He has creative input as well.\n\nThe producer manages money and schedule. So if it's the end of the day and the musician isn't happy with something, the producer needs to hire the engineer for the next day which has impact in both schedule and budget."
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216989 | Is caffeine in coffee different to the caffeine in tea? | I can seemingly drink an unlimited amount of tea and never really notice any effect on my body, but any more than 2 cups of coffee I seem to notice my hands shaking slightly and my heart rate increases sometimes. It could just be psychological I guess but I'm curious and hopefully some of you have some insight into it.
Thanks,
S | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/216989/is_caffeine_in_coffee_different_to_the_caffeine/ | {
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"The caffeine in tea and coffee (and cola, etc) is the same substance. There are different amounts of caffeine in different types of teas (and different types of coffee drinks, too), however. Some drinks that we call tea are not actually made from tea leaves and have no caffeine at all in them (herbal tea, for example). Perhaps you just drink a weak and heavily diluted tea drink, which when compared to a regular or strong coffee drink might seem like it has much less caffeine (because it does).",
"Coffee is \"impure\", i.e. it may have other psychotropic compounds than caffeine. Many natural sources contain a mix of compounds other than one straight ingredient. For instance chocolate also contains theobromine with caffeine. I've personally noticed similar additional effects with coffee when comparing it to tea, cola, energy drinks and even caffeine tablets. "
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3k1xkm | why do phones practically stop working when your at a large event? (i.e. sporting events or concerts) | If it is just because of the mass amount phones in the area, why hasn't that been fixed by now? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3k1xkm/eli5_why_do_phones_practically_stop_working_when/ | {
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"yes it's because of the mass amount of phones trying to access the same data network at the same time. Basically, it's clogging the data lines up. Too much traffic = traffic stops. \n\nIt's not fixed because there's no reason to invest a ton of money to fix a problem that is so infrequent. If they did add enough capacity for those one-off events, they would have all this extra capacity doing nothing 99% of the time. That's a waste of resources from the company's perspective.",
"Cell towers can only handle so many devices at once. When you have too many devices trying to talk to one tower, you run out of time slices and lots of people don't get a chance to transmit/receive. The only solution is to install more cells in the venue, which can be very expensive depending on the desired capacity."
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1dednk | Why doesn't water become more viscous as it approaches freezing? | As I study for a biochem midterm coming up, the properties of water have totally piqued my interest. I understand that in ice, water forms four hydrogen bonds creating its crystalline structure, and as the temperature exceeds the freezing point some of the bonds sort of fall apart. But then my book says that a "majority of the H bonds in H20 survive the transition from solid to liquid."
So then why the heck is liquid water uniformly the same viscosity across a wide range of temperatures as the amount of h bonds change?
Hell vodka gets thick as it passes below freezing! im scratching my head at this one. Im genuinely curious! | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1dednk/why_doesnt_water_become_more_viscous_as_it/ | {
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"The viscosity [does change](_URL_0_), but it's already so small that it's difficult to notice.",
" > Hell vodka gets thick as it passes below freezing! im scratching my head at this one. Im genuinely curious!\n\nI'd like to point out, vodka is typically 59%+ water, so that's a pretty bad example.",
"Actually, water near the freezing point is almost 6 times more viscous than water near the boiling point. Try the following experiment:\n\n- Take two similar pots, fill them with equal amounts of water.\n\n- Put one pot in the refrigerator.\n\n- Put the other on the stove and bring it just shy of boiling.\n\n- Now place the pots next to each other, and tap lightly on the side of each pot. Compare the amount of tiny ripples, and how quickly those ripples disperse...you'll definitely see a difference.\n",
"The viscosity of [water](_URL_0_) and [ethanol](_URL_1_) is actually very similar, except that below 0 degrees water freezes, while ethanol keeps getting more viscous until it freezes at -114 degrees.\n\nI think OP knows that the viscosity changes to some degree, the question asked is about why it's not noticeably more viscous close to freezing. If the \"majority of the H bonds in H20 survive the transition from solid to liquid\", why isn't this more noticeable? Why is the transition so sharp?"
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1c7dov | why is n. korea considered a communist state and not a totalitarian state? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1c7dov/eli5_why_is_n_korea_considered_a_communist_state/ | {
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"North Korea is a democracy...but there is only ever one name on the ballot. \n\nNorth Korea is totalitarian no one really denies that. Its an absolute, hereditary, military dictatorship. ",
"North Korea was founded by Stalinists, but technically their official ideology is called [Juche](_URL_0_).\n\nWhether you consider Juche, Stalinism, Maoism etc. to be Communism is a bit subjective, but historically the western media has tended to use the term \"Communist\" to describe states that practice any of these ideologies. \n\nAlso, I see no reason why communist and totalitarian are mutually exclusive terms (indeed, where there is one there is usually the other.)",
"It's just historical - it was founded by \"Communists\".\n\nCurrently it is just a militaristic monarchy, and it doesn't ressemble Communist states like China or former Soviet Union or its various European satellites at all.\n\nPretty much #1 rule of Communist was non-hereditary rule by the Party - which was technically worker's party, and civilian in nature, and although there was often a bit of militarism, there was never any kind of military-led government like in North Korea.\n\nThey don't even call themselves Communist any more.",
"Because it's often easier to put easy labels on things, rather than totally acurate ones. Sometimes it's because the thing being labelled wants to call itself something. Sometimes it's because the popular view of what the label means isn't what it \"really\" means. Sometimes because the people who can put the labels on the can are deliberately misleading consumers. There is no central authority regulating truth-in-labelling for governments.\n\nFor one classic example, the United States is formally a *republic*, but it often calls itself (or is called) a \"democracy,\" which isn't technically the same thing. Of course, you can find plenty of opinions as to whether or not, or to what extent, it has practical characteristics of a democracy, but that's beside the point. Although calling the USA a \"democracy\" isn't formally truth-in-labelling, many people figure it's close enough.\n\nNow, a lot of the \"communist\" countries have, for one reason or another, tended to decay into *practically* totalitarian states, whether or not they initially had good intentions (and many of them were communist only in name from the outset). Furthermore, in a lot of western cultures, \"communism\" has been widely portrayed as totalitarian craziness, even though that's not formally supposed to be part of the program. So conceptually, it's easy just to go ahead and call North Korea \"communist,\" especially if North Korea itself agrees with that label. Again, it's not formally truth-in-labelling, but in many people's heads, it's either close enough, \"seems true,\" or is convenient for some reason."
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bxuha9 | Are there any known instances in history of the "big guns" on a battleship actually hitting an airplane? What about the main gun on a tank? | I do not know what the technical term for them would be, but the especially big guns on a battleship, primary guns? The really big ones. I am sure that many battleships had anti aircraft guns on them, I do not mean those. The big guns on a battleship are/were ludicrously powerful and also potentially very accurate on fixed positions, but, they are not known for their great speed. Hitting a plane with one ever seems wildly unlikely BUT at the same time there have been a lot of planes and a lot of shots by battleships.
Has this incredibly unlikely thing ever happened? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/bxuha9/are_there_any_known_instances_in_history_of_the/ | {
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"German tank ace Otto Carius claims his tank shot down a Soviet airplane during WW2 in his memoir *Tigers in the Mud*.\n\n > ... we had a lot of trouble with the Russian fighters. They \"lurched\" past us, almost without a break. That's really the way one has to describe that type of flying. My gunner, Unteroffizier Kramer, can take credit for a deed that was probably unparalleled on the Eastern Front. That is, he succeeded in shooting down a Russian fighter with the tank cannon. Of course, he was also helped by chance. This was how it happened. Kramer, upset In the unrelenting nuisance of these guys, elevated his cannon along the approach route. I talked him in. He took a \nchance and pulled the trigger. On the second attempt, he hit one of the \"bees\" in its wing. The Russian crashed behind us.\n\nSimilarly, a commander for lend-leased Sherman tanks in the Soviet Army claims he saw one of the tanks under his command shoot down a German dive-bomber in his memoir *Commanding the Red Army's Sherman Tanks: The World War II Memoirs of Hero of the Soviet Union Dmitriy Loza*\n\n > The German pilots quickly spotted the tank moving out of cover and pounced on it. An unusual duel commenced between one Emcha and six German bombers.\n\n > The leading Junkers completed his approach to bomb run and went into a dive. At his moment, the driver-mechanic Guards Sargeant Mikhail Korablin, drove the Sherman's bow up onto the high railway embankment. The long main gun tube was pointed into the sky, almost like an antiaircraft weapon. The lead aircraft continued its headlong dive. Behind him at normal intervals came the other bombers.\n\n > (...)\n\n > When it seemed withing would save the Sherman from a direct hit from a series of bombs, its main gun went off with a roar. The tank shook and then backed down slightly. The first Ju-88 exploded in flight."
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4dsv3q | why do they say that There are more possible positions in Go than there are atoms in the universe when the universe is axpanding so we can't know for sure how many atoms there are ? | why do they say that There are more possible positions in Go than there are atoms in the universe when the universe is expanding, so we can't know for sure how many atoms there are ? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/4dsv3q/why_do_they_say_that_there_are_more_possible/ | {
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"They mean *the observable universe.* We have no idea how large the universe is beyond the furthest distances we can see. Also, the fact that the universe is expanding doesn't necessarily mean that there are more atoms being created; the universe can expand while the number of atoms remains constant.",
"Very easily. Go has 19^2 squares, each one of them being possibly empty, black, or white, so that's about 3^19^2 , or 10^172, positions. (Even if we restricted to positions with, say, the same number of white and black stones (which are more likely to be legal Go positions), that would still come out to 2^361 ≈ 10^108 positions).\n\nOn the other hand, the **visible** universe has a radius of 15·10^9 light-years, or about 10^26 m. Its volume is therefore about 10^78 m^3 . Since the universe seems to contain about 5 atoms/m^3 , this makes the number of atoms **vastly** inferior to the number of Go positions."
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cwtqtt | why does your hearing sometimes get softer and you begin to hear a slight high-pitched tone, then go back to normal? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cwtqtt/eli5_why_does_your_hearing_sometimes_get_softer/ | {
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"_URL_0_\n\nIs this what you mean?",
"Do you have allergies? Any sinus issues? Does this happen most when you've been in one position for a while then move?\n\nIf \"yes\" to any of those question, then good news! You win a toaster.\n\nI'm kidding, you're just experiencing some pressure changes in the connected system of Ear-Nose-Throat. This can be the result of congestion, muscles constricting around the neck and altering the geometry of how your ear drains (the eustachian tube), and a few other things.",
"Hi! I'm an audiologist, someone who specializes in hearing and balance. \n\nThis phenomenon is known as transient ear noise. It's completely normal and can happen to anyone. It may last several seconds, possibly up to a minute. \n\nThere's lots of theories about why this happens, but it could be due to caffeine use, head position, tension, etc. It can also happen for no reason at all. \n\nThey're typically harmless occurrences and don't mean damage is occuring to the hearing system. There's no evidence to connect the events with hearing loss or more serious tinnitus (ringing in the ear).",
"This can very commonly also be caused by myoclonus (spontaneous rhythmic contractions) or spasm of the stapedius muscle in your middle ear or tensor tympani muscle, which makes your eardrum taut.",
"This may get buried. It has to do with the phenomenon of attenuation and the tensor tympani muscle. You have a muscle in the middle ear who's purpose is to limit the vibration of the ear drum. Normally to protect you from loud sounds. When it contracts or spasms, there is a decrease in the amplitude and range of vibration that is transmitted to the inner ear. \n\nNow your brain also has this mechanism where it tunes out stimuli that are present continuously for too long. That way you can focus on more important changes. When the tensor tympani spasms, and those static signals decrease, your brain interprets this as a change and you hear the difference. Similar to staring too long at a high contrast image and then looking at a white piece of paper.",
"Your ear can produce sounds that you can hear if you are focused upon them. They are called otoacoustic emissions, or OAEs. \n\nIn most people, OAEs can be evoked through certain types of stimulation, and this is used for clinical tests of inner ear health, called evoked OAEs or EOAEs. \n\nIn some, but not all people, OAEs happen spontaneously (SOAEs) and no one is sure why. Some people have a single sound that their ear produces, and some people have multiple sounds that their ear produces. For some people, their SOAEs are in one ear, and for others it’s both.\n\nOAEs are different from tinnitus in several ways - but one of the biggest differences is that OAEs can be heard by recording equipment (or other humans with incredible hearing); whereas tinnitus is a hearing experience created by your brain and there are no sounds coming out of your ears for anyone or any recording equipment to hear or record, although the experience is quite real and can be quite maddening. \n\nOAEs are quite subtle in volume compared to tinnitus, and often come and go, where a major complaint with tinnitus is that the sound is continuous.\n\nYou can think of tinnitus like a jump rope between two neurons - one in your ear and one in your brain. When all is healthy and working well, both ends communicate, and that’s how we get sounds from the outside world into our big thinkative brains.\n\nSometimes when the jump rope is damaged on one end (in the ear), the other end (in the brain) doesn’t know what happened, and it keeps trying to communicate with the other end of the jump rope, even though there is no one there now. It’s kind of like it keeps calling out, “Hey, can you hear me now?”, but the body has no easy way (that we know of yet) to say “shut the $ & @/ up, there’s no one there now”. So it just keeps calling (the person with tinnitus just keeps hearing this really annoying tone in their ear, regardless of what they do).\n\nFrom your description, it sounds like you’re having an SOAE and for some reason, your hearing attention is drawn to shine it’s light on the super soft sound of the SOAE within your ear; which would also cause the other sounds outside of your body to “seem” to get softer, because the light of your attention is no longer fully on them.\n\nYou can focus your hearing attention, just like your visual attention; which means you can focus in on something small or focus out on something larger. Sometimes (usually) our attention focuses reflexively, meaning it focuses on something in particular without us having to think about doing it on purpose. We can learn to control and point our focus/awareness on purpose as well (meditation is helpful for gaining control of the focus of your awareness, whether its visual, auditory or somatosensory, etc.). \n\nIt sounds like your attention is being drawn to the soft sound(s) in your ear reflexively. And then (totally guessing here), maybe because there’s nothing that interesting or threatening going on, your attention goes elsewhere shortly after.\n\nOr, SOAEs come and go. So it’s also possible you stop hearing it because it stops emitting sound.\n\nEOAEs are used clinically, and SOAEs are an active area of research, but not much is known about SOAEs. Surprisingly, Wikipedia had pretty good info on it - better than some of the big organizations in the field. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nI don’t think I’d be concerned about this, but it’s always good to check with your doctor if you are. It’s worth asking if they know about SOAEs, because not all audiologists will.\n\nRegardless, you’re not crazy. And it can be super fun to start to pay attention to the weird sounds your ears may be making on their own.",
"Thank you so much for knowing how to write this out. I get this and couldn't put it into words.",
"This happens to me at times due to Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, my observation is that it happens because my neck is unstable to a degree and so when I have my head turned certain ways it can squish the flow of cerebral spinal fluid/ blood/ nerves a little bit as well as cause muscle spasm and thus temporarily effects the pressure in my head/ear. Here's a better explanation though:\n\n\n\"Rapidly appearing intense but short lived tinnitus is often associated with small muscle spasms located in the middle ear space. These very tiny muscles contract and tighten the eardrum area, causing a characteristic and noticeable 'loss of hearing' just prior to the onset of fairly loud high pitched tinnitus, which gradually fades over a few seconds or at most a minute or two. These little episodes are very common and are associated with jaw or neck tension, caffeine, or sometimes head position, although they certainly can show up spontaneously without obvious cause.\"\n\n_URL_0_",
"THANK YOU for asking this OP!!! I have always wondered about this, and thought it was just me.",
"Just someone adjusting the gain too high and then feedback occurring so turning that down a bit 🤔😅 #audioengineer"
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1ewjxf | how is uk local government financed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ewjxf/eli5_how_is_uk_local_government_financed/ | {
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"This is going to be a dull answer because it's a dull subject.\n\nIn the UK, we pay a range of taxes on a range of services, and fines for non-compliance with some aspect of the law. Some of this money goes to local government, some of it to central government, depending on what it is. The central government then allocates some of the money it has received to local governments for them to spend, and also gives them some money to manage (which isn't quite the same thing).\n\nExamples of monies that go to central government:\n\n* Income tax\n* National Insurance\n* Inheritance tax\n* Stamp duty\n\nExamples of monies that go to local government:\n\n* Council Tax\n* Business Rates\n* Parking fines\n\nThere is (and has been for many years) a lot of debate about how much money should be within the \"gift\" of central government, and how much autonomy the local government should have.\n\nThe councils can dictate what council taxes and business rates should be set at, but obviously work in a competitive system against neighbours where if they lower their rates too much they will not be able to invest in the services and infrastructure people expect, but if they raise them too highly then people will be inclined to move away unless the area has other qualities that make it highly desirable compared to its neighbours (cf. Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea, et al).\n\nSome local authorities are able to give their bottom line a bit of a boost in various ways. The boroughs of Manchester, for example, own Manchester International Airport. Many councils will own car parks, shopping centres and other facilities that they operate commercially to generate revenue for the area.\n\nThis subject then gets a little more convoluted when you realise that local authorities can be responsible for delivery of some key services (e.g. education, social services, etc.), however the money for those services is pretty much entirely within the control of central government. So the Department for Education will hold the purse strings on how much schools should get, but it's up to the councils to make sure the schools get run appropriately.\n\nIt goes without saying that what applies in England is not what happens in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland: there are many subtle and not-so-subtle differences. This complicates it further, as I'm sure you can imagine.\n\nIt looks quite straight-forward at first, and the more you dive into it, the weirder and more obtuse it gets. If you were to walk around a Town Hall and figure out who paid for each of the services people in there were working on and how, you would quickly tire of the bureaucracy and paperwork involved in working that out.",
"I'll give you an answer based on actual facts, rather than guesswork and assumptions.\n\nAs /u/bigjo66 states, there are two primary sources of funding:\n\n* A grant from central Government, which is calculated according to the demographics of the area (the number of people who live there, what their age groups are, and so on). Typically this will meet about 60% of the local Council's annual budget requirements.\n* The local Council will then levy a Council Tax on its residents to make up the balance. However they are not free to choose any amount they like. Details below:\n\nFirstly, people's houses are placed into a band (from A = the cheapest to H = the most expensive) based on what was the value of the property in 1991. Council tax is then set such that an \"average\" property (one in band D) pays £X per year, and there is a sliding scale such that a band A property pays approximately 70% of the band D price and a band H property pays approximately 150% of the band D price. This formula is fixed nationally for all councils. So if a council sets its band D tax at £1,000 per household per year, for example, the values of all the other bands are calculated based on that.\n\nSecondly, councils are only allowed to increase their council tax year-on-year by a certain amount (typically only 1-2%). If a council increases it beyond this amount they're in breach of the law and in the past they have been fined and the councillors banned from office.\n\n**TL;DR** local councils are financed by a mixture of central Government taxation, and a local taxation which is based on property values, not on income.\n\n*Edit:* the above is certainly the case for England, there may be some subtle differences for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland but I believe the general principles are the same."
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3zkbe1 | why are we told for example it is -2 degrees celsius but feels like -10 degrees celsius? | If it is x degrees then it feels like x degrees. And I would imagine that feeling something would be different from person to person. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zkbe1/eli5_why_are_we_told_for_example_it_is_2_degrees/ | {
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"This has been asked before, but it helps to know the right buzzwords for search, \"wind chill\": _URL_0_",
" > If it is x degrees then it feels like x degrees.\n\nYou can easily disprove that for yourself. If you heat an oven up to 500 degrees, then the air is 500 degrees, and the metal rack is 500 degrees. Do they both feel the same if you touch them with your hand? No of course not. \n\nIf it's freezing outside, does it feel the same to stick your tongue on a tree as it feels to stick your tongue on a telephone pole? No.\n\nThe rate at which heat is transferred between you and the environment informs your sense of temperature, not the actual absolute temperature. This rate can be modified by factors such as the conductivity of the material, and importantly here, wind.\n\nNow how to calculate windchill is another matter. There are a number of formulas at work to attempt to provide an estimate of what you'll feel. ",
"They're generally talking about something called the wind-chill factor. \n\nAir is a great insulator and if the wind isn't blowing, the air immediately around your body (both the immediate environmental air and the air trapped in your clothing) stays in place so it stays warmer. When the wind is blowing, it sweeps away all that air and replaces it with colder air in the larger environment. On top of that, your sweat evaporates faster when the air around you is moving faster which means the natural cooling system your body has ends up extra effective.\n\n",
"The \"feels like\" temperature takes into account things a thermometer can not detect, such as relative humidity and wind. \n\nYou already know that a breeze helps you feel cooler, that's why fans were invented. Humidity affects your ability to regulate your body temperature as well. Neither of these factors affect a thermometer.\n\nSo, while a thermometer will report the actual temperature, -2 in your example, the combination of wind and humidity *plus* the actual temperature will make it feel like -10 on your skin as the heat is pulled away from your body."
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8geimn | How do hydrocarbons form on other planets, etc.? | Organic chemistry is very much not my strong suit, but I was wondering what the chemical processes involved in hydrocarbons forming without some type of biomass looks like, as on bodies such at Titan. And to add to that, are similar processes found on earth in a notable amount, or do all of our hydrocarbons form from biomass? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/8geimn/how_do_hydrocarbons_form_on_other_planets_etc/ | {
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"I'll give a partial answer.\n\nMost extraterrestrial hydrocarbons we know of consist of methane (1C). Methane is the shortest hydrocarbon, and it can be released as a byproduct of the chemical reaction which occurs when water and olivine react to form serpentine and magnetite, where:\n\n Olivine + water + CO2 → Serpentine + Magnetite + Methane\n\n(Fe,Mg)2SiO4 + n·H2O + CO2 → Mg3Si2O5(OH)4 + Fe3O4 + CH4\n\t\n\n.\n\n\n(If you'll pardon my terrible Markup formatting skills)\n\n.\n\n\nOlivine is a rather common mineral in mafic and ultramafic volcanic and intrusive rocks, and an important part of the mantle of most planetary bodies (we think). On Earth, olivine is a major primary constituent of mantle rocks. In the specific case of Mars, we are equally confident that olivine is a major constituent from having observed olivine-bearing rocks in- and ex-situ, as well as from geophysical modelling and orbital hyperspectral imaging. The observation of methane on Mars has been directly linked to processes involving serpentinization (see, for instance: [Wray, James J., and Bethany L. Ehlmann. \"Geology of possible Martian methane source regions.\" Planetary and Space Science 59.2-3 (2011): 196-202.](_URL_0_))\n\nThe same process has been observed on Earth, and methane produced by serpentinization of olivine can be distinguished from that resulting from biological processes by its carbon stable isotope ratio, where [the isotopic ratio of biogenic methane may be highly fractionated while that of abiogenic methane will show very little fractionation](_URL_1_).\n\nNow ... that's sort of covers epigenetic methane on rocky planets, I hope someone will fill in for primary methane on gas giants and complex hydrocarbons on Titan-like bodies.",
"Much of the carbon containing material found on Titan (and Pluto, and others) are referred to as [Tholins](_URL_1_): a complex, ill-defined mixture of carbon containing compounds that form from small molecules in space, especially methane and nitrogen (but also including some sulfur) when [ultraviolet light and/or cosmic rays break them apart and they recombine](_URL_2_). There is a simple, readable description [here](_URL_0_). These materials condense and coalesce, and eventually get deposited on the surface of a planet or moon.\n\n\nThere are quite a number (over 180 we've identified so far) of small molecules in space, in a variety of environments such as:\n\n \n\n-Diffuse Interstellar Medium: H2, C2, CH^•, CN, PAH's, C60\n\n-Molecular Clouds: H2, CO, HCO^+, HCN, HC3N, H2O(ice), MeOH(ice)\n\n-Star & Planet Formation: CO, H2O, HCN, C2H2, PAH's, C60\n\n-Stellar Ejecta: H2, CO, C2H2, HCN, HC3N, PAH's, C60\n\n \n\nDifferent environments lead to different chemistry: gas phase molecules in the vacuum of space, for instance, react differently than on the surface of [ice crystals](_URL_3_). Working all this out is a hot topic of research, and in 2012 lead to the formation of a whole new subdivision of the American Chemical Society, the [Astrochemistry Subdivision](_URL_4_), to bring together those studying the different aspects: chemists, astronomers, and planetary scientists."
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"https://briankoberlein.com/2015/09/21/what-are-tholins/"... | |
2utotg | why is the fcc suddenly supporting net neutrality? | Everything I've heard up to this point about the FCC and its attitude towards net neutrality has led me to believe they have been staunchly supportive of corporate efforts to move towards a tiered internet. Why are they suddenly pushing for the classification of the internet as a utility? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2utotg/eli5why_is_the_fcc_suddenly_supporting_net/ | {
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"Are they pushing for it? From what I've heard lately they seem to be portraying themselves as on the fence.\n\nIf they *are* suddenly pushing for the Internet as a utility, it may be another SOPA moment. SOPA was ready to pass in Congress with a solid majority, but widespread public outrage, the blackout of Wikipedia, and the most phone calls to Congresspeople in recent history caused a historic reversal, and nearly half of Congress changed positions practically overnight, so that the bill failed by a sizeable majority.\n\nMaybe, just maybe, our government is actually listening to the people for once. "
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1mdlzh | Why are we unable to prove Collatz Conjecture? | The wikipedia article doesn't explain much about it. Is the proof perhaps related to the Prime number theorem? To me it seems like common sense that the total stopping time will always be less than infinity for any natural number. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1mdlzh/why_are_we_unable_to_prove_collatz_conjecture/ | {
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"The conjecture relates the operation of addition to primes, which you can think of as 'atoms' of number theory. So far the relationship between prime factors and addition is far too complicated.",
"It's generally quite hard to give a good answer for why we *haven't* proved something—if we had a good answer, we'd probably have the proof!\n\nThe basic difficulty, though, is that the factorizations of the numbers *n* and *n*+1 can be wildly different, which makes it really hard to control what happens as you start applying the Collatz process.\n\n > To me it seems like common sense that the total stopping time will always be less than infinity for any natural number.\n\nHow so?",
"[Wikipedia link for the lazy](_URL_0_)\n\nThe real miracle of mathematics is that it's actually possible to prove so much! There's no reason to expect to be able to prove any particular statement. Indeed, it's a proven theorem (Gödel's theorem) that there are true statements which have no proof. (Proof idea: construct an equation corresponding to the statement, \"This statement has no proof in this particular system of axioms.\" That statement is clearly true, since any proof using the specified axioms would lead to a contradiction.)\n\nAs for Collatz, it's a problem of integer arithmetic. While simplistic, the integers have painfully little structure. For example, division fails most of the time. Real numbers are much easier to work with because they have more structure. Complex numbers are even easier, because of their nice properties (e.g. every nonconstant polynomial equation has a solution over the complex numbers).\n\nIn higher mathematics, mathematicians prove theorems by relating them to various abstract structures. Ironically, it's often easier to solve a more general problem than a specific one. For example, Fermat's last theorem was proven by relating solutions of the equation x^n + y^n = z^n to objects called elliptic curves, and also modular forms. Both of these objects have rich and well-developed mathematical structures. It was a deep understanding of these seemingly unrelated structures which finally led to a proof.\n\nFor the Collatz conjecture, nobody has found a good way to realize that problem in the framework of some greater mathematical structure, which could be subsequently understood. Perhaps there's some relation which nobody has noticed. A more insidious possibility is that the Collatz conjecture could simply be true for no particular reason other than a likely coincidence.\n\nThe Collatz conjecture is \"likely true\" roughly for the following reason. (This reason is not at all rigorous, since if it were, people would develop it into a proof!) Note that if x is odd, then 3x is also odd, so 3x+1 is even, thus the 3x+1 operation is *always* followed by division by 2. The net effect is roughly to multiply x by 3/2. From there, it seems to be mostly a random 50/50 coin-toss as to whether the result is even or odd. (But why???) So roughly half the time, you're multiplying by 3/2, while the other half of the time you're dividing by 2. These two options are weighted asymmetrically, towards making the number smaller. For example, if x is an odd number which is approximately 1,000,000, then after doing (3x+1)/2 you get roughly 1,500,000. But if that result is even, then you divide by 2 to get about 750,000. Thus we see that after both of the roughly-equally-likely possibilities occurred, the number decreased by by 25%. After repeatedly decreasing a number by 25%, it will exponentially decrease towards zero. Once the number is sufficiently small, it must fall into the traditional 1,4,2,1,4,2,1,... loop. By this heuristic, you can predict, for instance, that a 500 digit number should fall into the loop after roughly 8000 iterations of either (3x+1)/2 or x/2. Indeed, you can do an experiment where you take a random 500 digit number, [make a plot of the logarithm (y-axis) against the number of iterations (x-axis)](_URL_1_), and it decreases as expected (blue), fluctuating about a predicted line (purple).\n\nIn the case of Collatz, the difference between what \"probably\" happens and what \"provably\" happens is enormous. Integers often behave in seemingly random ways, as indicated above, but other times they behave in an ordered way which defies this sort of probabilistic argument. This tension makes it extremely difficult to prove these sorts of conjectures.",
"Does it help at all to think of similar problems? Consider the Collatz conjecture, except with 5n + 1 instead of 3n + 1. In this case, things definitely don't always go to 1. As an example, you can get loops like this: \n\n13→66→33→166→83→416→208→104→52→26→13→...\n\nAs another example, there are some numbers that seem to diverge to infinity when you take 5n + 1 instead of 3n + 1, like 11 (This is conjecture. I can't prove 11 goes to infinity, but I got up to 3326758719153445233). ",
"The biggest problem is proving that no \"loops\" exist.\n\nPerhaps at 10^100000 there will be a sequence of 10,000 numbers that tie back around into each other and loop between each other forever, thereby never reaching 1. We don't know.\n\nFor problems that are similar to the Collatz conjecture but use different constants (eg, if it's even divide by two and if it's odd multiply by FIVE and add one), we find such loops all over the dang place. Why haven't we found any loops yet? Are we just not looking far out enough to see them? Or do they really not ever exist?\n\nProgress has been made on this front: we've proven that no non-1,2,4 cycles exist with length < 275,000. However, there's unfortunately a big difference between 275,000 and infinity."
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607xrl | why is financially supporting oneself and saving so difficult for people in the 20-30 year old range? | I am asking this as a relatively sheltered teen, so excuse my ignorance. Feel free to include some numbers. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/607xrl/eli5_why_is_financially_supporting_oneself_and/ | {
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"Once upon a time, people retired at a certain age. They got a watch and a party at the office, and went home to collect their pension. That freed up space in the company to promote people up the chain, eventually opening up a space at the bottom for someone to start.\n\nThat doesn't happen anymore. People die at work rather than retire because their retirement savings got wiped out by the investment banking industry, which has terminally clogged mid-and-higher level employment, forcing university graduates with years of practical experience to compete for entry-level positions against rich kids who can afford to take unpaid \"internships\", positions which have zero upward mobility, because when a space up top opens up, nobody gets a promotion, management just fills the one space from outside.",
"It's kind of an anecdotal question... no one answer would describe the entire 20-30 year old range. There are plenty of well off people in that age range. But as a general rule, it's the time in which people are getting settled into routines, settled into jobs (if they work). People also learn the routine of what their parents may or may not have taught them about saving, personal finances, debt management, etc. etc. \n\nCoupled with all that... the price of everything is going up, and people are taking on monumental amounts of $250,000 in student loan debt for a degree in German Polka History, in which the payment for the loans is crippling and the income a job in that field isn't sufficient to live on. \n\nSo in essence, as a TL;DR: People have too much debt, or not enough knowledge in finance, debt management, and living within their means. ",
"It's going to vary a lot from person to person, depending on what their income is.\n\nBut in general, young 20s is when people are just starting their careers. They're in the lowest bracket of earnings they're likely to be in their lives.\n\nThey might also be in larger amounts of debt, relatively speaking. Despite being lower income, they'll likely have student debt. They might also want/need to invest in a car/house early on. (depending on where you live, a car may be a luxury, or you may need it to commute). Similarly, many view renting as a waste since you aren't building equity, so there is pressure to buy early.\n\nThat's just for the lucky ones who have higher incomes. Many entry level jobs aren't high enough to sustain a lifestyle where you can actually move away from your parents (assuming you can even get something in your field. Many find themselves working odd jobs like Starbucks etc to make ends meet).\n\nAnd last, mentally, they might not have much experience in budgeting/saving, as well as mentally discounting what they need for saving. It's well known that we mentally discount things that will happen in the future - candy today is much more attractive than candy a week from now. This can make it hard for people to fund their savings/retirement as well as they \"should\" (as well as not splurge on a nicer car/house)"
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2n03gh | what's the difference between androids and robots? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2n03gh/eli5whats_the_difference_between_androids_and/ | {
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"A robot is at it's simplest: an automated mechanical/electrical device that is made to operate with minimal or no human control and preform specific tasks. \n\nAn Android is a robot, a robot made to be specifically human looking or human like. \n\nA Cyborg is a combination of mechanical/electronic parts with biologic parts to make a half machine-half living organism thing.",
"Robots are used in assembly lines to take automobiles from start to completion.\n\nAndroids are used in hotels to take Japanese businessmen from start to completion."
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6xn462 | why do photography cameras take a maximum 24.2 megapixels whereas video cameras can shoot up to 8k resolution. | There is an obvious price difference between something like a sony A9 and a Red Weapon. But I have yet to see a photography camera that has more than a 24.2 megapixel sensor. Why is this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6xn462/eli5_why_do_photography_cameras_take_a_maximum/ | {
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"I just found a camera with a 50 Megapixel sensor here: _URL_0_ and it is still much cheaper than the Red Weapon, but that's not surprising at all.",
"You have to consider the shear amount of data pushed per second from a sensor. A raw 24 mega pixel image averages about 51 mB per shot. At 30 fps you need around 1500 mB/s throughput rate. 60 fps you need almost 3000 mB/s. The true limitation is pulling data off the sensor at those speeds.\n\n\n8k video is roughly 19 megapixel in image size.\n\n\nOnboard storage is another problem. 90 minutes of raw 4k is around 6 tB. 90 minutes of raw 8k takes almost 18 tB. There is an 18k video. Images from it approach 200 mB each."
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f6wmsd | what is fxaa antialiasing and what does it do for pc gaming? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f6wmsd/eli5_what_is_fxaa_antialiasing_and_what_does_it/ | {
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"**F**ast Appro**x**imate **A**nti-**A**liasing.\n\nIt smooths out jagged edges in rendered animation/screens. It's also faster than some other methods and uses less CPU because it only smooths out edges as they appear on screen, not how they are actually rendered. It can also work on non-vector based images unlike MSAA (multisample anti-aliasing).\n\nIn games, it gives you a better image for less computational power which in turn means higher frame-rates."
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1os8xx | Did any East Asian explorers sail the Pacific and "discover" America before the Europeans did? | Or around the same time perhaps? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1os8xx/did_any_east_asian_explorers_sail_the_pacific_and/ | {
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"The short answer is no. The Pacific Ocean is huge and there isn't a whole lot out there. Ships capable of making the trip would have been expensive and the people who built them wanted to make sure they got their money back. Sending them blinding across the Pacific would be a major risk for very little in reward. That is assuming a ship could make the journey at all and have enough food and water to survive being at sea for half a year or more. \n\nThere is some good evidence for Polynesian explorers arriving in South America before Europeans. There are chicken bones that have been dated to pre-columbian times. Also sweet potatoes, which are South American, being grown on Pacific islands before European contact. I think most important is that Polynesia has a history of sea fairing. The colonization of the Pacific is the long slow story of island exploration over vast expanses of open water. Thor Heyerdahl showed that it was possible for wooden boats to cross these distances. Populations of Polynesians in remote places like Easter Island and Hawaii prove that they had made similar journeys. But any contact between Polyneasians and South Americans probably happened from these islands farthest across the Pacific. So any Polyneasian who made the journey would likely have been from as far east away from Asia as possible. Not a bold Asian sailor crossing an entire ocean in one go. \n\nThe closest thing to East Asian explorers you are asking about is probably the Chinese treasure fleets of 1421. These voyages appear to have gone as far as Africa and Australia. These journeys were not for exploration per-se. They were started to expand trade and secure the loyalty of local rulers to the emperor of China. They had no reason to head off for months at a time across open water because there were no people to trade with. But just because they didn't cross the Pacific does not imply they weren't great endeavours. It would be almost 100 years before Europeans were making similar journeys. So if you are interested in Chinese explorers look into Zheng He. "
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21ym5s | how are above poverty wages bad for anyone? | The idea of above poverty wages has been stated as "wealth redistribution" and "socialism". Why? Why do a few people need to have all the money? How is this good economics, or even capitalism? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21ym5s/eli5_how_are_above_poverty_wages_bad_for_anyone/ | {
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"Basically the idea traces back to a primitive time when economies most limiting factor was labor. The physiocratic school of economic thought realized that people will work very hard up until they are paid the minimum wages to get by on. Once they get paid more than that however, they will start substituting work hours for leisure hours, because they can afford to and who wants to work 16-18 hour days? So at that time, the best economic policy to promote economic growth was to allow wages to sink to the bare minimum, which forced people to work a maximum, and thus resulted in maximizing economic output.\n \nIn today's developed economies, however, with our production technology, people really just don't need to work that much anymore. In fact I would argue that the biggest thing limiting current economic growth is lack of demand. Companies can produce all they want, but if people cannot afford to buy stuff they don't need, then so what? \n \nKeeping wages super low keeps corporate profits high, and that's what corporations care about. As a result, there's been much propaganda drawing on the old physiocratic idea of low wages = economic growth to justify keeping wages as low as possible. Hopefully enough people will wake up to the fact that we aren't living in a 1600's era, labor-limited economy and we can fix the system."
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gv5zq | Why don't rod cells in the human eye add color information? | My understanding of how cone cells see color is that they are sensitive to certain wavelengths, and not others. But rod cells seem to do the same thing, after all, we cannot see UV even at night, when rod cells work but not cone cells. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/gv5zq/why_dont_rod_cells_in_the_human_eye_add_color/ | {
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"Rods are responsible for detecting light in low light conditions, like helping you see at night when there aren't many light sources around. You have 3 different types of cones which are best at detecting three wavelengths, red, green, and blue. If one of the cone photoreceptor genes is mutated so that it's peak wavelength is too similar to one of the other cone photoreceptors, it will prevent the person from easily distinguishing between the two colors, like red and green, leading to \"colorblindness.\" We integrate these signals from various cone cells to assign a color to a portion of our vision.\n\nOk, so enough about cones which provide us with color. Rods respond to photons in the visible spectrum and they are very sensitive, not really specific for certain color wavelengths. They are sparsely distributed compared to the high density of cones found in the macula. They are very sensitive and in daytime lighting conditions they are totally oversaturated, like if you took a picture with a very long exposure you would just get white. Because they receive a constant overexposed signal under daytime lighting, our brains filter out and ignore this signal and we only really use them under low light conditions. ",
" > My understanding of how cone cells see color is that they are sensitive to certain wavelengths, and not others.\n\nClose, but not quite. It's because we have three *different* types of cones, each sensitive to a different wavelength band. So if the ones sensitive to longer wavelengths get stimulated and not the ones sensitive to shorter wavelengths, you perceive the color as red. Any individual cell can only detect whether or not it's absorbing light. Color information is provided by comparing the different signals.\n\nIf you look at a computer monitor, it has red/green/blue subpixels which get turned on in different combinations to represent colors. Color vision works on the same principle, but in reverse. Since there's only one type of rod cell, in low-light conditions you only get information on intensity and not color.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n(Side note: I could have sworn there were other replies to this post a few hours ago. Did they get wiped out during the Amazonpocalypse?)",
"I'll try to be concise...\n\nBoth rods and cones have sensitivity curves that define how likely they are to respond (hyperpolarize) to a photon of a given wavelength:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nYou have three different response curves for three different types of cones, effectively allowing you to 'triangulate'/estimate the true spectral distribution. There is only one type of rod cell however, so when the cones are not responsive (ie in low light) you cannot estimate the spectral distribution based on a single absorbance value.",
"Layman here, but I read this intriguing bit on Wikipedia yesterday:\n\n > [at low light intensities the rod cells may contribute to color vision, giving a small region of tetrachromacy in the color space.](_URL_0_)\n\nThere's a citation, but it doesn't seem to have a whole lot more to say on the issue."
]
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[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_cell"
],
[
"http://www.webexhibits.org/colorart/i/cone-spectral-sensitivitie.jpg"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachromacy#Possibility_of_human_tetrachromats"
]
] | |
bsprym | How come all items that go through a charcoal process turn black? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/bsprym/how_come_all_items_that_go_through_a_charcoal/ | {
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"Very few elements remain solid at the temperatures involved. Carbon is very common in most of the materials that undergo pyrolysis, and is solid at even extreme temperatures. It is also black. Charcoal is black because it is mostly elemental carbon."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
6utgkp | how do your teeth detect cold and hot foods when it's just a bone? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6utgkp/eli5_how_do_your_teeth_detect_cold_and_hot_foods/ | {
"a_id": [
"dlv9ki4",
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"text": [
"Because there are living nerves inside.\n\nYer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained:\n\n1. [ELI5: Do you feel your teeth? or is it an illusion? ](_URL_0_)\n1. [ELI5: what's the point of having nerve endings in our teeth, when all it can do is hurt for the rest of your life, as they won't heal themselves or grow back if they get a cavity ](_URL_1_)\n1. [ELI5 Why in hell do we have nerves in our teeth? ](_URL_3_)\n1. [ELI5 - why do we have nerves in our teeth?](_URL_4_)\n1. [ELI5:Why are our teeth so sensitive? ](_URL_2_)\n",
"There is a nerve inside your teeth that detects pain, otherwise you would just ruin your teeth because you wouldn't be able to detect anything at all."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5gopqn/eli5_do_you_feel_your_teeth_or_is_it_an_illusion/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36qhnw/eli5_whats_the_point_of_having_nerve_endings_in/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2wh8wn/eli5why_are_our_tee... | ||
1j0zrl | Why did the US evolve into a country with huge corporate subsidies and little individual welfare, compared to Europe, where it's arguably the other way around? | This is obviously a fairly loaded question, and you might want to argue with the premise, but I truly am curious and this is the best I can articulate it right now.
Mostly I am interested in the political arguments, which drove these decisions (both in US and Europe) and why they succeeded.
The reason I am asking is because in my country (Estonia) there appears to be a turning point coming up in the near future: which path we will choose. And I would like to be prepared for the arguments which will be made. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1j0zrl/why_did_the_us_evolve_into_a_country_with_huge/ | {
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"This isn't a place for soapboxing, and ~~your 'question' has a very polarized and concluded view of current trends - - are you really looking for history of policy?~~ disregard that last, I'm defensive.\n\n\n\n",
"One of the signal events you should consider is actually legal in nature -- that's the development of the Fifth Amendment at the turn of the twentieth century. \n\nBefore the Depression -- and before FDR, really -- the \"due process\" clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments:\n\n > [N]or shall any person . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law\n\nwere understood to protect, as a basically fundamental right that cannot be intruded upon, an all-but absolute liberty of contract. As a result, when the legislature proscribed a rule of business, like, for example, minimum wage laws, the law would amount to a violation of the \"due process\" right of the employee and employer to freely contract. From a policy perspective, the argument is, \"if he wants to work for less money, let him!!!\" The case to look at is [Lochner v. New York.](_URL_1_)\n\nWhen FDR came to power and set out his \"New Deal\" agenda -- including restrictions on the trading of securities (Securities and Exchange Acts), and other programs, obviously the rule in *Lochner* posed a major roadblock. To end the rule, which the Court maintained term after term, FDR went to war with the Justices, threatening to expand the size of the Court so he could add his own, sympathetic jurists. \n\nFDR lost that fight. It was seen as an unprecedented power grab -- but for \"some reason,\" the court repealed the rule in Lochner not long after the threat. This was the \"Switch in Time that Saved Nine,\" and it's best seen in [*West Coast Hotels v. Parrish*](_URL_0_). \n\nQuery why the Court \"switched.\" Were they actually intimidated? Or was there a genuine change of heart? \n\nThis is actually a case of the individuals *gaining* power vis-a-vis the corporations, through a change in a (now) relatively obscure doctrine. I recommend you read the decisions to get an idea of how \"corporatist\" and anti-corporate rhetoric developed in the early 1900s. The Cornell LII site has the opinions, linked from the Wikipedia articles. \n\nThere's also a relatively modern debate about *Lochner*, too. \n\n* Conservative columnist George Will called for a return to *Lochner* in a major [article](_URL_2_).\n\n* Bloggers on the prominent Volokh Conspiracy [blog](_URL_4_) supported him.\n\n* And Akhil Amar, a major constitutional scholar, [weighed in too](_URL_3_). \n\nAmar is a major legal thinker these days. Anything you can find by him on the subject, I recommend you read it. Amar is an expert on legal history and has an interest in *Lochner*.\n\n-----\n**Edit** for sourcing. I'm an attorney and took constitutional law, and I read most anything Amar writes :). "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_Hotel_Co._v._Parrish",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lochner_v._New_York",
"http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-09-07/opinions/35274849_1_individual-rights-ninth-amendment-bakeries",
"http://www.volokh.com/2012/09/12/de-habilitating-lochner-a-resp... | |
pjutz | Books on Soviet Tactics in the Second World War | I'd like to learn about the tactics employed by the Red Army on the Eastern front in the Second World War. I've been reading Guy Sajer's *The Forgotten Soldier* (historically shaky, apparently, but emotionally truthful), and it has really sparked my interest in how the Soviets fought. As I read Sajer describe German positions, I can think in my head of how Anglo-Commonwealth and American troops would deal with them, but I still don't have a clear view of how the Soviets did things. Can anyone recommend any good resources? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/pjutz/books_on_soviet_tactics_in_the_second_world_war/ | {
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"Luckily this article is available as a free download:\n\n\"Stalingrad and the Evolution of Soviet Urban Warfare\" by David R. Stone\n\n_URL_3_\n\nAlso, try the following:\n_URL_9_\n\n_URL_4_\n\n_URL_2_\n\n_URL_5_\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_6_\n\n_URL_7_\n\n_URL_8_",
"I'm currently reading a work of fiction by Vasily Grossman called LIFE AND FATE, which is about the Russian front, specifically Stalingrad. Grossman was a correspondent for years during the war and probably saw at least as much if not more direct action than any other correspondent in that part of WWII. The level of detail is fantastic. Being a novel, naturally it's not about tactics, but I thought I would mention it to you anyway. The book was confiscated by the KGB after it was finished in 1960 and destroyed, but unbeknownst to them Grossman had made other copies and one was smuggled to the West for publication. It's highly reminiscent of WAR AND PEACE, though without the metaphysical depth (so far, anyway--I'm less than 1/4 of the way through)."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.amazon.com/PANZER-DESTROYER-Memoirs-Army-Commander/dp/1844159515/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328910546&sr=8-1",
"http://www.amazon.com/Colossus-Reborn-1941-1943-Modern-Studies/dp/0700613536",
"http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Shores-Viktor-Leonov/dp/0804107327/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=132... | |
6lbssy | When was the speed of sound generally understood by scholars and how did they rationalize the slowness of sound when observed at a distance? | We take for granted these fundamental understandings of how the universe works, and it leads me to my curiosity toward civilizations that existed before understanding these basic scientific principles. Specifically the nature of sound waves (and maybe Doppler effect if anything existed to display the phenomenon) | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6lbssy/when_was_the_speed_of_sound_generally_understood/ | {
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"As early as Aristotle's *On Things Heard*, we find the idea that sound is vibrations pushed through the air on a wave. Aristotle also argued that higher pitched sounds travelled through the air faster than lower pitched sounds. This idea was incorrect, but it does show that Aristotle conceived of sound as something which not only implicitly had speed, but which also implicitly had speeds which might vary. So basically, the slowness of sound was something Alexander The Great would have known about (Aristotle having personally tutored the young conqueror).\n\nAristotle's natural philosophy was all about observation, but it wouldn't have occurred to Aristotle to mathematise those observations, in order to figure out the exact speed of sound; it would take until the Scientific Revolution for that to happen. \n\nIn terms of the Scientific Revolution, Galileo Galilei did experiments with glasses of water and sound, and in *A Dialogue Concerning Two New Sciences* he agreed with Aristotle that sound was propagated by the vibration of the air (based on analogy to the movement of waves in water which occur when glasses vibrate, as the props department of *Jurassic Park* could no doubt tell you). \n\nOthers following Galileo specifically tried to measure the speed of sound. Marin Mersenne tried to measure the speed of sound via measuring the time it took for an echo to return, and got a value of 316 m/s. In 1656 Borelli & Viviani estimated it at 350 m/s. A measurement in Paris in 1738 produced the reasonably accurate 332 m/s, based on cannon fire. Isaac Newton, using his theory of physics (rather than observations), and based on Galileo's prior observations, came up with a value of 298 m/s for the speed of sound. The variability in observations was a bit of a puzzle, and Branconi showed that the temperature of the air had something to do with it in 1740.\n\nHowever, it wasn't until Laplace in 1812 that there was a clear/basically correct explanation of why the speed of sound was so variable from experiment to experiment even in experiments where measurement was more precise: the speed of sound was heavily dependent on the properties of the air it was moving through. How humid that air was, the composition of the air, and the pressure of the air all mattered; if Newton had factored these into his calculations his theorising would have been essentially correct. \n\nLaplace's formula took into consideration the *elasticity* of the air, which itself depended on temperature changes as a result of the vibrations of air. And once Laplace revised his understanding of the elasticity of air in 1825, his formula for the speed of sound - given a particular temperature, air pressure and the nature of the gas - was satisfactorily well-correlated with observations. Since 1825, scientists have refined Laplace's formula slightly, and the measurement of the speed of sound has progressively become more precise because instruments have gotten more precise, but Laplace's basic formula still reliably explains the speed of sound (which the Bohn article cited below says is 331.45 m/s (+/- 0.05 m/s) in dry air at 0 degrees celsius).\n\nSources: \n\n1. Dennis Bohn, 1988, 'Environmental Effects on the Speed Of Sound', in the *Journal Of The Audio Engineering Society*\n\n2. Caleon & Subramaniam, 2007, 'From Pythagoras to Sauveur: tracing the history of ideas about the nature of sound', in *Physics Education*"
]
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[]
] | |
cn5yxu | how do we instinctively know whether music 'sounds' right or wrong? | For example if someone is singing off tune, or a piano player hits the wrong note, we seem to know that this is wrong. But how do we know that even without music training? Is it innate or learned? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cn5yxu/eli5_how_do_we_instinctively_know_whether_music/ | {
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"It's actually math.\n\nSounds correspond to specific frequencies of vibration in the air. Low notes have longer, slower vibrations and high notes are shorter and faster.\n\nNotes that harmonize together have complimentary frequencies, which add up in clean integers or simple ratios to produce a complex but repeating frequency.\n\nNotes that sound terrible together don't add up and instead produce interference, cracking out an irregular garble of sound waves with no short-term repetition.\n\nThe complexity of the resonances has increased over the years as talent and instrument quality has increased, but the scales and harmonies in music are almost always designed to play on this mathematical base. You can usually tell immediately when a note is out of resonance with the others.",
"The phenomenon of notes sounding 'off' is called [dissonance](_URL_0_).\n\nIn western music we have become culturally familiar with the sound of certain [intervals](_URL_1_) and certain [harmonies](_URL_2_) that sound pleasant to us. Over centuries these intervals have become the standard building blocks of western music.\n\nIf you use a note that falls between these standard intervals (a microtone) or if you overlap two notes that don't function harmonically well together, then you can get dissonance. The music of some non-western countries utilizes microtones and different accepted harmonies and so can sound abrasive and unpleasant to western ears.",
"A lot of it is instinctive. I love this video by Bobby McFerrin:\n\n_URL_0_",
" > Is it innate or learned? \n\nIt is both. We naturally develop capacity to distinguish between sound frequencies as a part of developing language skills (both speaking and listening) and in some unique ways specifically for music.\n\nYour sense of what sounds right is shaped by the culture your grew up within. For example, musical notes or combinations of notes that might sound 'wrong' to you may work in a different culture's musical theory. For example, Western classical music vs Indian raga music, if you were raised listening to just Western Classical music then a lot of the notes and changes between notes in a Raga will sound wrong. This is true even though both styles divide a full octave into 12 semitones, they make different choices about note transitions and combinations. \n\nThere are different reasons notes could sound 'wrong' either when played together or in sequence and the theory gets complicated. But even if you have not studied music you will still hear combinations that sounds wrong. Ultimately this comes down to expectation violation. This is because you have developed an internal musical framework to process musical sounds. Part of that framework is pure biology and part of it is cultural.\n\nIf you want to get deeper into the science I highly recommend a book called [This Is Your Brain on Music](_URL_0_) by Daniel Levitin, a neuroscientist who was also a musician and record producer before moving in to studying music and neurology as an academic. It is a great book and you do not need to understand musical theory to read it, it starts from the basics using tunes and songs you will know (or could easily look up on YouTube) and builds from there.",
"There's definitely the cultural or adaptation in addition to the math. In my younger days, I thought 7th and 9th chords sounded 'wrong'. Many times they do when played alone, but when played in a progression that resolves to a root, they can sound perfect.",
"There are a of good responses here, I'll add another thing to consider.\n\nTension and release is the driving force behind Western music. The reason certain melodies and chord professions sound good or satisfying is because they have a good flow of tension and release.\n\nBad sounding notes or notes that are out of tune are causing more tension than your brain was prepared for and therefore sound wrong.\n\nThings that sound bad to us western people are commonplace in other areas of the world and are considered normal.",
"You can learn to stretch your ear and to like dissonance. For example, some 20th c. classical, free jazz, industrial. Try them out!"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonance_and_dissonance",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interval_(music)",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmony"
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne6tB2KiZuk"
],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_Your_Brain_on_Music"
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[],
[]... | |
7sqwcf | Given that Elizabeth I did not officially name a successor, how did James manage to take the throne without significant opposition? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7sqwcf/given_that_elizabeth_i_did_not_officially_name_a/ | {
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"Mentioning previous AskHistorians answers is not intended to discourage questions, especially because archived posts can't be replied to (and new comments would tend to get ignored anyway), and some of these comments didn't address the \"without significant opposition\" part of the question.\n\nThe most pertinent article seems to be this from the FAQ: [\"Was there notable opposition to allowing James VI to ascend to the English throne\"](_URL_1_), comments by /u/historiagrephour. They concluded with,\n\n > TL;DR? The English had a choice between James and two unmarried, childless women. They were tired of women rulers who might or might not provide an heir and because James had already fathered kids, they knew that the succession was safe should he suddenly kick the bucket. Moreover, James was a Protestant when one of the female claimants was Catholic, and James had already been a monarch for thirty-six years by the time he succeeded in England. He knew what he was doing whereas the women didn't. So, the English were like 'Eh, could be worse. He might be Scottish, but at least he's not a woman.' \n\nIf you care about the propaganda of the time, GeneralLeeBlount pointed to the [proclamation of 1604](_URL_3_).\n\nFor a bit more information on Mary Queen of Scots, there was [\"How did Queen Elizabeth I go from being hell-bent on killing Mary, Queen of Scots to naming her son James as her successor?\"](_URL_2_), answered by /u/neverwasahat (a Best Of for April 2017).\n\nFor more info about other candidates, [\"Succession of Queen Elizabeth I and possible candidates.\"](_URL_0_), answer by /u/RTarcher.\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7c4uqj/succession_of_queen_elizabeth_i_and_possible/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/396zdf/was_there_notable_opposition_to_allowing_james_vi/cs19bi1/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/67dc6n/how_did_queen_elizabeth_i... | ||
1x9ez7 | why are the world's deserts where they are/not at the equator? | I've always assumed it's hottest at the equator, and therefore the world's large deserts would be there. But when I was indulging in exploration via Google Maps, I saw that jungles seem to make up the equatorial area.
I feel like I should know this from some middle school science class explanation, but I can't remember or find it through a quick google search. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1x9ez7/eli5_why_are_the_worlds_deserts_where_they_arenot/ | {
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"Deserts are less about sheer temperature as they are about aridity. Rainfall patterns are influenced mostly by air currents. The way air circulates around the planet causes particularly dry air in bands 30 degree off the equator, which is where you'll find most deserts.",
"Hadley cells man. All of the air at the equator rises and travels approx. 30 degrees north or south and start to sink again. Here we have hot, moist air- and the rest between the equator and the 30 degree meridian is cooler, dryer air causing deserts to form.\n\nA similar but reverse process happens at the beginning of the Antarctic continent (:"
]
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[],
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] | |
iw6lv | Why do flashlights/lasers leave "trails" when shining on an object and moving back and forth? | Hope that made sense. Is it actually happening, or does our brain think it is. Or do I just move faster than the speed of light. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/iw6lv/why_do_flashlightslasers_leave_trails_when/ | {
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"Your brain (or your eyes, really) thinks there are trails. \n\nIt takes time for the light receptors in your eye to return from the 'on' state back to 'off' state after the illumination has gone and during this time the receptors are signaling to your brain just like they were actually receiving photons. \n\nSame idea is what makes fast-moving things look blurry in pictures with insufficiently fast shutter speeds while the same object with a really fast exposure time is clear and sharp.",
"It is called [Persistence of vision](_URL_0_). "
]
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[],
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9xpeop | tasks dentists do that we never do at home | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9xpeop/eli5_tasks_dentists_do_that_we_never_do_at_home/ | {
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"Not much of anything. Dental health is one part genetics one part diet one part hygiene. If a dentist is trying really hard to take care of their teeth, they'd likely avoid acidic drinks (especially soda) and when possible use a straw, avoid excess sugar, use proper brushing and flossing techniques, and get regular cleanings."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
d371z8 | how does sound's volume or intensity (not pitch) behaves physically? like frequency is the length between waves? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d371z8/eli5_how_does_sounds_volume_or_intensity_not/ | {
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"It's the height of the wave, i.e. its amplitude.\n\nThe pitch/frequency is how often the air molecules vibrate back and forth in a second, the intensity is how **far** they vibrate back and forth with each swing."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
29ibxf | What would cause ice to form in a million paper thin sheets like this? Does this have a name? (imgur link) | [Here are photos of both the ice and where it came from.](_URL_0_) It was difficult to get more than just the outer layer to show up in the photograph, but I hope the intricacy is visible as it was quite beautiful, really. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/29ibxf/what_would_cause_ice_to_form_in_a_million_paper/ | {
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"Ice crystal formation is sensitive to environemental conditions. What happened there is that the surface of the pond must have frozen first, and the water level must have then dropped. This sealed a pocket of water-saturated air between the ice crust and the water surface. So crystal growth was constrained by supply as evaporation bottlenecked the supply of water vapor which was feeding the crystallisation process. The type of crystal is a variety of skelettal crystal called a bladed crystal ([skeletal thin plates in the graph](_URL_0_)). They occur in a variety of minerals as well.\n\n"
]
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"https://imgur.com/a/WCU9w"
] | [
[
"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118667934.app4/pdf"
]
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6ld7ny | could a human genetic mutation produce a superhero power? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ld7ny/eli5_could_a_human_genetic_mutation_produce_a/ | {
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"It depends on what kind of superhero powers you mean. Most of them - super speed, healing factor, near-invulnerability and others - violate the laws of physics and are simply impossible. Others, like echolocation or night vision, are a reality in animals and could possibly also show up in humans to a degree.",
"Usually, when we have a genetic mutation, it is a very small change.\n\nBig changes tend to either result in disabilities (e.g. Downs Syndrome), or death either before or shortly after birth. If there was a big change that was beneficial, it's highly likely that it would have already happened at some point in human history and we'd all have that mutation already. So - big changes, not totally impossible, but very, very unlikely.\n\nSmaller changes, though, are possible. Another poster talked about things that already happen in nature, things like echo-location. In fact, some blind people have already developed a form of echo-location.\n\nBut a genetic change wouldn't suddenly make you amazing at echo-location. What it might do is make you a tiny bit better than most people at echo-location. If that resulted in you being more likely to live long enough to have children, and then your children inherited it, then over many, many generations it's possible that it could evolve into something that we might consider a super-power, although to the people who have it, it would simply be \"normal\". But in modern society we are extremely good at ensuring that everyone lives long enough to have children, so I can't think of a genetic change that would make it any more likely for you to have children than the population as a whole.",
"For all intents and purposes no.\n\nFlying like superman: This almost certainly violates the laws of physics and is impossible\n\nFlying with angel wings: This will not work due to significant weight and balance issues and biomechanical arrangement. This is the same reason why there are not mechanical flying suits truly worthy of the name. There is a reason there are not birds the size of people or dragons. There is simply a practical upper limit on how big/heavy something can be to let you slap wings on it and make it fly.\n\nLasers from your eyes: This one runs into issues to do with energy consumption. To power lasers like this you would need to consume just an insane amount of energy, probably more than your digestive system could handle. And you would need it available in bursts which again is something your body isn't evolved to provide.\n\nMutant healing: There is a condition currently in humans where cells grow very rapidly - cancer. Our current healing/regenerative abilities are balanced against the risk of cancer and if you turned them up you would likely be dead inside of days from multiple cancers. On top of that there is an energy problem similar to that of lasers from your eyes where growing cells takes a huge amount of energy from the body and it would be extremely draining to instantly heal even a minor injury.\n\nSuper speed/strength: Evolution didn't fall asleep on the question of how strong humans are. It is possible to imagine us being stronger but to be able to punch a hole in a concrete wall requires not just muscle strenght, but also your skeleton not to shatter like glass at the force of the impact. There are hundreds of bits and pieces in your body (including your heart), that are simply not prepared for you to actually be strong enough to lift a car over your head. If you look at strongmen and bodybuilders they suffer horrible injuries because of the physical stresses they put on their bodies. N.B. even if you were super strong/fast the kinds of things that come with that in the comic books (running into something at super fast speeds, getting into a fight with someone else where you are swinging lamp posts at each other like clubs), violate other physical laws (there is no amount of strenght on the planet that would allow you to lift and swing a lamppost because of the weight distribution, it would just keep making you topple over), and the injuries you would take in turn would be catastrophic and unsurvivable.\n\nTelekinesis: Violates laws of physics. Impossible.\n\nMagneto: The energy requirements for magneto to actually do any of the stuff he does are beyond what your body holds in reserves. To crush a car, or tear down a bridge, or even fling manhole covers like poker chips requires massive, massive, massive, amounts of energy and most of the scenes involving magneto involve him using more energy than a person has if their entire body mass were consumed in the process (assuming he also doesn't have some kind of fat burning nuclear reactor inside him).\n\nInvisibility: ehhh... This one is not impossible but is also one of the lamer super powers.\n\nLast but not least... ECHOLOCATION: This is a personal annoyance of mine. Lets say you could hear like a sonar system. It would be terrible! Right now you can see at the SPEED OF LIGHT. With echolocation you would be getting information much slower than with your regular eyes. Daredevil for example would never see a rifle bullet coming - it travels faster than the speed of sound. This kind of ability would be significantly worse than what you currently have and the only reason bats have it is because there isn't any light in caves.\n\nEdit:\n\nElectricity bolts: Electricity bolts (how could I have forgotten this one), are actually rather interesting because how we imagine them and how they would actually operate are open to some debate. Electricity is a lot more like water than it is a stick. A stick you can point and throw, electricity (like water) just flows \"down hill\". The electrical current is going to look for a path to take based on electrical properties not which way you \"point\" it. So in terms of selecting a specific target and zapping away... good luck. There was a tv show \"White Rabbit\"? where they tried this out and under extremely controlled conditions did get the electricity to do what they wanted. However you walk into a train station with power generators, electrical wiring, lighting, etc. etc. etc. and try to zap a guy twenty meters away with a thunderbolt? For that you are going to need to violate a few laws of physics and control some things that are uncontrollable by our biology (or turn yourself into some kind of giant electro-magnet tunneling guy). I read an interesting paper a few years ago where the idea was to use a short laser pulse to ionize a path of air and then send a lightning bolt down the path of air. That is the kind of stuff you need to do if you want proper electirical lightning powers. And, again, big energy drain issues, and your underlying biology would fail in a hundred different places due to the current you are running through your body (absent a special suit).",
"Yes. Someone could mutate immortal cells. They'd still die if they jumped off a cliff or overdosed on drugs or got shot but, a mutation conceivably could cause cells to not lose information as they divide, they'd be biologically immortal. There's a lot of research being done on this. \nAnother mutation could cause an abnormally high number of connections between areas of the brain, resulting in \"super\" intelligence or creativity. \nMichael Phelps, the Olympic swimmer has a mutation that causes his arms to be longer than than is normal for his height and also produces less lactic acid when he uses his muscles.. not really a \"super power\" but, the only powers likely to be possible are biologically based. "
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67leto | what makes a cancerous cell a good candidate for an immortal cell line? | Given the number of cancer patients we have had in the past, we should have thousands of immortal cell lines if not more. Is there anything special about the commercialized cell lines or would any patient qualify for "donating" (I don't really know how this works, please bear with me), as long as the mutation is novel? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/67leto/eli5_what_makes_a_cancerous_cell_a_good_candidate/ | {
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"The NCI 60-panel cell line (which is what you're talking about with chosen immortal cell lines) is composed of various agreed upon immortal cell lines that are chosen to predict (or chosen because they predict) the behavior of distinct phenotypes representative of the known types of cancer. The program was designed to test single compounds that are synthesized or isolated from natural products against this panel. If the compound works by a broad non-discriminate mechanism it will show cytotoxicity in many or all cell-lines and be considered generally toxic and not of interest. If the mechanism is more specific and unique it can display strong cytotoxicity in a few or maybe even one cell type and be very much of interest for developing chemotherapy agents used to treat the type of cancer that provided that cell type because it kills that cell type without doing as much damage to other cells. So new cell types, new biopsies that is, added to the panel would have to enhance the program strategy I described by providing increased predictability in identifying chemotherapeutic agents that have good therapeutic indexes for specific types of cancer."
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5gpyfj | How did the United States justify having an entire government office for censoring the media during World War Two? | I understand why they needed the Office of Censorship, to protect classified info, etc., but in a country where freedom of press is so heavily valued how did FDR justify it to the public? And what would've happened if someone challenged it all the way to the Supreme Court? Was it constitutional? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5gpyfj/how_did_the_united_states_justify_having_an/ | {
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"The Office of Censorship was a _voluntary_ press code. Obviously \"voluntary\" in wartime can be less than \"voluntary\" in peacetime — threatening to denounce as unpatriotic, etc., even occasionally invocations of the Espionage Act as a threat — but it wasn't as heavy-handed, or as monolithic, or as _effective_, as the name might imply to modern ears. It was also essentially compatible with the First Amendment — there is nothing that says the government can't _advise_ the press on how to behave, or _chastise_ the press if it does things it doesn't like. This is different than actually shutting the press down, jailing its editors, etc. (Whether the Espionage Act is compatible with the First Amendment is a separate question, and it tends to come down to a lot of specific situations.)\n\nOffice of Censorship would basically send out bulletins that said, \"here are things we really don't want you to talk about, please.\" If a newspaper or radio show _did_ talk about one of these things, they would work really hard to indicate to the editor/owner that a) they had violated a rule and that was not cool and if they kept it up the government was going to let everyone know who was actually helping the enemies, and b) they would try to make sure that it didn't get syndicated to more stations/papers. Without syndication you could limit the effect to a regional area in those pre-Internet days. \n\nIt was also meant to apply specifically to things that pretty much everyone would agree were \"war-related.\" Troop movements and the like. It was not meant to censor political opinions. Obviously there can be fuzzy lines there, but it wasn't as heavy-handed as, say, the use of the Espionage Act in World War I, which was _extremely_ punative to critics of the war effort, in ways that in retrospect almost certainly did violate the First Amendment. \n\nI have looked quantitatively at the effect of the Office of Censorship's diktats against discussion \"atomic energy\" and \"uranium\" and things like that. In short, I found there wasn't really any effect on the usage of the term across many national newspapers — there was always a low \"hum\" of mentioning these terms, both before and after the diktat. There _had_ been a big drop, considerably _before_ the diktat, but that was caused by them basically rounding up all the scientists who worked on these topics and putting them into secret laboratories and stopping them publishing or talking with journalists. So there is perhaps a little lesson there on what _actually_ leads to secrets being kept! There were many leaks regarding atomic energy work during the war, [some quite egregious](_URL_0_), most pretty subtle. Despite these leaks the Germans and Japanese seem to not have gotten an inkling of the American work. "
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1qwjbd | when i transfer money from paypal, where does it go for 3-7 business day until it appears in my bank account? | I use Paypal to process credit cards and for Paypal transactions. I refunded a customer on Friday, and they called this morning - angry - that they haven't received their money. I called Paypal to complain, but they said that the money is gone from their accounts, and could take 3-7 business days before the customer received the money back. I asked, "So you're telling me that their bank is holding onto their money for 3-7 business day until they decided to give it back? Why?" Of course, they claimed not to know.
To me, this doesn't make any sense. Why is it that if I send money to Paypal, it's instantaneous. But trying to get money out of Paypal, takes days? (as Paypal account holders know, this is true for transferring money from the Paypal account to a bank account as well) Is it just me, or is paypal doing something underhanded (like pooling money for interest) under the guise of, 'This is normal processing time.'? Please someone, explain this to me.
Edit: This isn't the first time this has happened: more than once, I've received angry phone calls from customers complaining that paypal hasn't given back their money - even though the refund was 'processed'. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qwjbd/eli5_when_i_transfer_money_from_paypal_where_does/ | {
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"There are various clearing houses ([FedWire](_URL_2_), [CHIPS](_URL_0_), [ACH](_URL_3_)) where the money sits for a bit as it makes its way to the other bank. This is something I'm not too knowledgeable about so I can't go any further without risking being incorrect :P\n\nIt's not just PayPal by the way, if you try and transfer money between two bank accounts it will always take 3 business days.\n\nEDIT: I just found a PayPal employee [who says that they use ACH to do transfers](_URL_1_). This is the same system that generally handles direct deposits, automatic bill pay, etc. It isn't PayPals fault :)"
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"http://www.investopedia.com/terms/clearing-house-interbank-payments-system-chips.asp",
"https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/Account-balance-Archive/Why-does-it-take-3-4-business-days-to-withdraw-funds-from-paypal/td-p/363796",
"http://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fedwire.asp",
"http://www.investo... | |
37g3a7 | how do insurance companies afford to pay out such large sums of money when individuals buyers of plans do not pay as much as they receive? where does this money all come from? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37g3a7/eli5_how_do_insurance_companies_afford_to_pay_out/ | {
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"Because there will be people who never have a pay out. So in a sense, those people who do not get a pay out, pay for someone elses pay out.",
"Let's say for example you give your insurance company $100, and this insurance company has 10000 customers, the insurance company then invests their $1 000 000, and makes a return on that. Some insurance companies invest in the markets, others in commodities, and even some in real estate. They also make money by their scrupulous terms and conditions and contracts and declining payment to some claims. Also things like car insurance also generally have an excess you have to pay before you can even make the claim.",
"Lets say you like Kool-aid and you want to be able to have Kool-aid when you need it but you don't need it now. So you buy Kool-aid insurance so that when you need Kool-aid you can get some. Now because you're not sure exactly when in the future you want Kool-aid you keep paying a monthly premium.\n\nSome of your buddies go their entire lives without ever needing Kool-aid, some need it almost every month it seems. But you don't want to be the lone kid on the block without Kool-aid, especially once the need hits. \n\n\nNow lets say you need Kool-aid so you call and get it. Well the people who you buy your Kool-aid insurance from knows you've used it once so they might charge you a little more in case you want Kool-aid again. The more you need Kool-aid, the more they charge you. \n\nYour Kool-aid insurer gets lots of money from kids that never need Kool-aid. They are required to keep a certain amount of money on hand as cash or \"liquid assets\" in case a large percentage of thier customer base needs Kool-aid. But they actually don't spent a ton of money on Kool-aid. So they consider that profit after operating costs of getting the packets of Kool-aid and sugar and water and cups. ",
"(Fictional numbers are used in the following explanation, read responsibly)\n\nThe company has 100 customers that pay $1 per month. They also know that on average there will only be 1 accident per year and that accident will on average cost $100. Well 1 year of earnings is 100\\*$1\\*12 = $1200. It would take a single customer 100 months, or 8 years, to save up $100, but with everyone pooling their money the insurance company has $1100 left over after the one accident that happens that year, and they can use that money to improve the company.",
"insurance functions in two ways.\n\nfirst they collect insurance policy payments from all their clients, this amount is based on the type of insurance cover, the risk factor, and the potential cost of an accident. The more risk prone you are, the more expensive you pay, for example a sick/old person will pay a more expensive health insurance than a middle aged healthy person, because the older person will cost more to the insurance.\n\nanyhow, all the money from the insurance policies goes into the insurance company's account, they invest, in financial or non financial products to make money with money.\n\nmeanwhile, let's say the company has 5 million customers paying 500 dollars a year on average, that's 2.5 billion in income, the total claims value will be less than that no matter what.\n\nPlan B, insurance companies have insurance companies, commonly called as re-insurance companies. their business is to insure insurance companies against potential bankruptcy from colossal claims and to pay them back should something go wrong.\n\nin countries where car /health insurance has just become mandatory, you would see a great increase in the cost of getting insured between year 1 and year 2. Year 1 would be sort of a guinea pig year where the companies will all rate the risk at the same level, after one year and seeing the statistics of the claims, it is very likely that the average insurance cost will go up. same goes for household insurance, if you are in a high crime area, it is possible that your household insurance might be sky-high because the probability of getting robbed is high. etc etc\n\n\nTL;DR : it's all about statistics and calculated risk.\n",
"I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned it, but when an insurer takes a premium from you, they only have to keep a certain amount in reserve to pay out claims. The rest they can invest, this leads to a larger pool to pay out to shareholders etc. \n\nIn lloyds of london, before solvency laws were tightened up, some underwriters ran at a 120% loss ratio but they managed this by investing premiums.\n\nIn the old days a broker may collect the premium from the client on day 1 and have 30 days to pay the underwriter, this means they could invest the cash they have collected for 30 days before paying the underwriter."
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34tqs4 | what are the little nubs that are under the "f" and "j" keys on a keyboard supposed to do? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/34tqs4/eli5_what_are_the_little_nubs_that_are_under_the/ | {
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"When you type without looking at the keyboard those two nubs let you know where to place your fingers: They represent the start of \"home row.\"\n\n_URL_0_",
"Center your hands for proper typing form. If you're taught typing you learn where key placement is from this.",
"they are reference points for your fingers. your index fingers should rest on these keys when you are typing. \"ASDF JKL;\" is what is known as the \"home row\""
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bw624c | why do sharks have to continuously move to breathe but fish can breathe just fine while sitting still? | What else separates sharks from the normal fish? I know they aren’t in the same genus(?) / phylogeny (?) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bw624c/eli5_why_do_sharks_have_to_continuously_move_to/ | {
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"It depends on the fish.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nSome fish(and sharks by proxy) have to keep moving to keep water over their gills.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nSome have the ability to use their mouths to push water over their gills to be able to breathe, and thus can be immobile.",
"Actually, only a small number of sharks (a couple dozen out of about 400 known species, though those dozens include some of the most famous ones, like the Great White, so popular knowledge projects this on to sharks in general) need to keep moving. These are called \"obligate ram ventilators\".\n\nThe reason is basically that they lack cheek muscles (known as the \"buccal muscles\", they lost them at some point in their evolution, as ram ventilation worked fine for them, as they were already in constant motion for other reasons), which prevents them from sucking in water, so they have to keep moving to push water into their mouths and through their gills to get enough oxygen.\n\nMost sharks (and all fish) don't need to keep moving, as they still have those muscles, so they can suck in water like you sucking up soda through a straw.\n\n[This article](_URL_0_) has some more information.",
"Fish isn't really a term that makes much sense cladistically.\n\nIf it lives in the water and has an internal skull made of bone or cartilage and isn't descended from anything that at any point walked on land it is a fish.\n\nSharks are fish.\n\nAll land vertebra are descended from fish, but don't count as fish even if like turtles or dolphin they live in the water. Some fish are closer related to us or dolphins than they are to other fish.\n\nTo make matters worse all sorts of animals have \"fish\" in their name without actually being fish. Cuttlefish, starfish, blackfish etc.\n\n\"Fish\" is a terrible way to group animal species together and have that make in sort of sense and it contains all sorts of groups.\n\nAll of them have skulls, some have jaws, some have spines, some have a skeleton made out of bone.\n\nSharks belong into the group who have jaws, but have their skeleton be out of cartilage rather than bone. Rays fall into the same group and are related to shark."
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r0j2l | How do viruses infect bacteria or other living cells? | Is it true that inside a virus is a place where some kind of genetic material is stored, and somehow this is injected into a cell? How does the virus open up the cell and put genetic material into it? And why would this foreign matter get incorporated into plasmids and such? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/r0j2l/how_do_viruses_infect_bacteria_or_other_living/ | {
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"I'll explain using an example: influenza A\n\nInfluenza A is an enveloped virus that has a negative-sense, segmented RNA genome. This means that the structure of the virus is basically a protein shell made up of matrix proteins that has its genome inside (plus a few other proteins such as its own polymerase) and around the protein coat is a phospholipid bilayer (stolen from the previous host cell). Embedded within this bilayer are two key proteins, neuraminidase (NM) and hemaglutinnin.\n\nWhen an influenza virus bumps into a human cell, the hemaglutinnin (HA) on its surface recognizes sialic acids attached to galactose. The difference between avian and human flu is that the carbohydrates have different bond positions (avian flu uses an alpha2,3 linkage for entry, and humans only have these in the lower respiratory tract. Human flu uses alpha2,6 linked carbohydrates, which we have in the upper respiratory tract). So after HA binds the receptors that have this glycosylation, one of our own enzymes made in our respiratory tract cleaves HA and creates a fusion protein portion. These events cause the virus to be taken up by endocytosis. The endosome then fuses with a lysosome, and the pH drops. The drop in pH causes a conformational change in HA that makes the fusion protein portion of HA insert itself into the host membrane. Multiple of these HA fusion protein insertions cause coiling of the HA, allowing for fusion of the virus envelope and the host vesicle, dumping the contents of the virus into the cytoplasm.\n\nWhile all that acidification was going on, the M2 ion channel was allowing acidification of the inside of the virus, causing the viral core to disassemble. When the virus dumps its contents into the cell, they are then free to go about their business of infection as a complex. The genome of the virus + the polymerase it brought with it go into the nucleus of the infected cell and begin their dirty work. The RNA-dependent-RNA polymerase carried by the virus then turns its negative-sense genome into positive-sense mRNA which codes for viral proteins (HA, NM, M2, coat, polymerase, etc). The positive-sense viral mRNAs are also re-transcribed into negative-sense genome fragments for incorporation into new virions that are going to be released. There's more to the story, but that's about viral exit and replication. :P\n\nOther viruses accomplish this in other ways, but the trends are the same. Some viruses utilizes their own special set of proteins to insert their genomes into the host genome (enabling latency), and some contain special promoters or helicases that they bring with them (like SV40's T antigen). HIV even drags along one of your tRNAs and uses it as a primer for its reverse transcription. ",
"Some viruses do in fact inject their genetic material directly into other cells. Some of them still use nanoscopic needles with drill bit heads to force their way through cell membranes, while others trick cells to allow them inside.\n\nCheck out this article on a virus with a multipurpose tool that acts as a drill. _URL_0_"
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26lmci | What did pre-Columbian North Americans make their clothing out of? | I live in New Mexico and a lot of the traditional stuff that the Native Americans here wear for their ceremonies and stuff is (as far as I can tell) wool, but they couldn't have had that before the Spanish brought sheep here. So what did people wear before that? Surely they didn't wear hides all the time? Especially here in the southwest that seems like it would be too hot to be practical. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/26lmci/what_did_precolumbian_north_americans_make_their/ | {
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"For Mexico, at least, clothing was made from spun cotton or maguey fibers. There were still people who made clothing made out of hides and in the Florentine Codex the person Sahagun was interviewing for this information called them barbaric for doing so. Usually the lower class people wore clothing made from maguey fibers while high class people wore cotton. The cotton clothing for nobles would then be supplemented by feather headdresses or perhaps a jaguar pelt depending on the people.",
"The Southwest is interesting because it represents two major textile traditions colliding. \n\nFirst, the various Pueblos had a tradition of weaving cotton, which they had picked up from trade contacts far to the south (see /u/Mictlantecuhtli). Prior to Spanish contact, men and women in the Pueblos would have been predominantly been wearing breechclout and mantas, respectively, made from either cotton or tanned leather (pronghorn or deer). Of course styles varied, and depending on where you where ponchos and skirts might be more common. Cotton played an important part in the culture of the Southwest. It was traded west into coastal California and east to at least the lower Mississippi Valley. The cotton trade may have reached all the way to the Atlantic coast; during the de Soto *entrada* the Lady of Cofitachequi was reportedly carried in a palanquin draped with cotton. However, there's not yet archaeological evidence for cotton that far east at the time, so the chroniclers may have misidentified the textile. In addition to be important economically, cotton had a ceremonial context, as its fluffy white seeds evoked the clouds and, by extension, the *katsina*. \n\nSecond, there was, in fact, a pre-Spanish tradition of wool textiles in the area. It was likely brought down from the north by the Navajo and the Apache during their emigration from Canada. Before the Spanish brought sheep, the production of wool was a time-consuming process that couldn't produce large quantities of textiles. The main sources of wool were wild mountain goats and dogs. Mountain goat wool was collected from the clumps shed by wild goats. As for dogs, in coastal Canada there had been a specialized breed of wool dog, which is now extinct. While the Navajo and Apache didn't bring such specialized dogs south with them, the hair of less specialized dogs were still used. The introduction of sheep made wool much more readily available and easier to produce. Sheep were also easier to manage than wool dogs, which brought about the end of that bred once sheep wool products became common that far north.\n\nIn addition to leather and hide clothing, other textiles you would have been able to find in pre-Columbian North American would have been made from yucca, dogbane (aka silk grass and Indian hemp), cedar and mulberry bark (the mulberry bark cloth might have been what the Lady of Cofitachequi was actually using), rabbit fur, moose hair, and bison hair."
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e32tuv | why are saxophones so much louder than guitars? | More generally: Why are instruments you blow into so much louder than guitars, violins, pianos... | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e32tuv/eli5_why_are_saxophones_so_much_louder_than/ | {
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"Brass instruments are designed to make the air you blow vibrate stronger throughout the pathway of the instrument which makes it stronger; the keys change this pathway to produce different sounds. String instruments are designed to make the air that the string moves vibrate stronger. In the case of a guitar it is in the body where this strengthening occurs, and the sound is changed by the length of the string that is allowed to move. \n\nThe biggest difference is that brass instruments have more time to strengthen the sound because of the longer path way, and their shape and material do a better job at this. String instruments have a smaller area to strengthen the sound and wood is not as good as brass at strengthening sound. That's why cymbals are made of brass instead of wood!",
"Larger brass and woodwind instruments resonate much more loudly than guitars simply because of how they're constructed (i.e. from metals).\n\nSaxophones are also louder typically because saxophonists are obnoxious.\n\nSource: played saxophone for 10 years, was obnoxious."
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88w7qp | what is the relationship between laissez-faire and trickle down economics? | I understand the individual terms. But many articles i read use the term slightly interchangeably. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/88w7qp/eli5_what_is_the_relationship_between/ | {
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"Let's say I have a billion dollars, I can do three things: I can spend some of it, I can save some of it and I can invest some of it.\n\nIf I buy something, I increase demand for that thing. If demand increases, producers will try to increase production and hire more people. This creates jobs. People benefit.\n\nIf I save it in a bank, I make credit available to people. People can take loans and start new businesses or they can buy stuff which boosts industry. People benefit.\n\nIf I invest it, I am hiring people or supporting a new business and helping the economy directly. People benefit.\n\nSo, ultimately, if I am left to do what I want with my money, I benefit humanity as a whole. So my billion dollars end up helping not just me but other people poorer than me as well. So in a metaphorical sense, the money \"trickles down\".\n\n(This is the theory. Whether it works in practice needs to be demonstrated by empirical studies.)",
"Laissez-faire is about deregulation. The idea is that companies and individuals will tend to do what's best for them, and they'll end up making something that works well for everyone. No government rules; people will just magically know about every company's misdeeds and take them into account when doing business with them. Companies won't become too powerful to run roughshod over individuals because the Great Pumpkin will intervene or something. It can work with a society up to maybe a couple hundred people.\n\nTrickle-down economics is an idea that, to make poor people's lives better, we should give money to rich people. You see, if we give money to rich people, they'll eventually get around to spending it, which will create jobs, and some of those jobs will go to unemployed people. So for every extra dollar that goes to rich people, you get maybe ten cents in the hands of poor people. Which is better than giving money to poor people because...work ethic? Wealth is a sign of virtue and poverty a sign that you lack virtue? Something like that."
]
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[],
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2iadl9 | Do spider webs decay or degrade over time? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2iadl9/do_spider_webs_decay_or_degrade_over_time/ | {
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"In contrast to the other two answers, I'd like to suggest that, while spider webs degrade over time, it isn't a super rapid process (i.e., I don't think they 'rot' easily).\n\nSpider silk, which makes up the webs, is a protein fiber with [beta-sheet crystals organized into fibrils](_URL_1_). Enzymatic degradation is possible (as the other comments mentioned, spiders can eat their silk), and slow environmental degradation is also possible.\n\nHowever, the environmental degradation can take a considerable amount of time. Studies of the [tensile strength of spider silk](_URL_0_) have found that there is an improvement of the mechanical qualities of the silk over the first year, with subsequent degradation over subsequent years. This is relevant for when we want to make materials out of bio-mimetic synthetic spider silks. ",
"A spider's web/silk is an organic polymer. All organic polymers have a half-life. Every organic bond have a probability of staying intact over a period of time. As time passes, the chance of the fiber remaining intact decreases. Eventually, the spider's silk will degrade.",
"Yes, slowly. Just think about spooky old houses filled with webs they accumulate over the years. Must webs get damaged by debris and the wind. If you're ever in a pasture when the wind is blowing watch where the sun shines on the grass inevitable you will spot the glint of webs pieces flying by. The wind carries the webs and they break up as they snag on things. As they breakup more and more the exposed surface area increases and they oxidize and break down."
]
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"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jez.480/abstract;jsessionid=0D3F4B4053CE0D57577F3AE4D9731FDE.f02t03",
"http://jpkc.dhu.edu.cn/xwhxwl/ziliao/tzcl/Spider%20silks%20and%20their%20applications.pdf"
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5mqeqt | how did banks keep track of legitimate withdrawals before the electronic age? | It seems that the old paper savings booklet banks used in the past would have made bank withdrawal fraud extremely easy.
How did banks protect themselves against exploits back in the era before electronic banking? And how did your savings information get propagated between various branches of the same bank or even worse different banks?
Could you only ever draw money from your home branch? What would you do in case of an emergency while on holiday for example?
EDIT: added some more info to substantiate the question. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5mqeqt/eli5_how_did_banks_keep_track_of_legitimate/ | {
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"The savings booklet was just your personal record. The bank's record was the final say in the matter.\n\nKeeping track of deposits and withdrawals before electronics was easier because there was a paper trail and things happened more slowly.\n\nElectronic banking enabled a host of new scams and problems because transactions can happen very quickly and a person exploiting a weakness in the system can do so from a hidden location.\n\nThe *only* problem with the old way was the mountains of paper that had to be maintained and gone-through if there was an audit.",
"Occasionally banks would and probably still do get taken in by confidence scams...anyone who's been a cashier long enough has encountered someone asking for change for a 20, but phrases it as \"can I get 2 fives and 2 tens for a $20?\"\n\nAnyway, there was a reliance on Photo ID's, deposit slips, accounting ledgers, and the skill to use them, along with massive physical record stores, requiring two forms of ID for common banking tasks as recently as the late 90s, and knowing customers personally... There were a lot more local banks in the 1980s, when the national outfits started buying the smaller guys like crazy. \n\nLike typesetting, and page layout, and drafting, and a half a hundred other professions at least, before computers moved in and abstracted away the physical parts of lots of industries, humans were basically the computers, and pulled off remarkable feats of precision and physical accomplishment on a daily basis. \n\nIn 20 years when robots start framing buildings and hanging drywall the same questions will be asked about the construction industry. ",
"All that same data was kept on paper documents.\n\nWhen you traveled you either got traveler's checks or you withdrew cash from your home branch. You could theoretically use other branches of your bank if you did not plan your trip properly but you would have to wait for your information to be verified which would take hours or even days. ",
"To get an understanding and some fun you can read (incudes a few more scams and prison time in Sweden than the movie) or watch: Catch me if you can \n\nIt is the story about [Frank Abagnale](_URL_0_) who during 6 years ran several impressive confidence scams where he ran bank scams, pretended to be a pilot, a doctor, a lawyer and a Teaching assistant. He made millions of dollars before he got caught. "
]
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[],
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Abagnale"
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r1r26 | what is the difference between eating 2000 calories per day versus eating 2300 but burning 300 of them by running per day? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/r1r26/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_eating_2000/ | {
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"Here you go, buddy, plugged from /r/fitness:\n_URL_0_",
"If you eat more you have lots of energy to run about. If you run about, you get to eat more or yummier foods (yay!) and be more fit and healthy (yay!).",
"In terms of simple weight not much.\n\nHowever, I'm surprised no one (even on /r/fitness) mentioned that exercising is good for you. Very, very good for you. \nBurning extra calories with an exercise like running stimulates the creation and upkeep of muscle and bone cells, decreases blood pressure, lowers cholesterol, leads to lower cortisol release (and thus a less active stress response), and leads to increased neurogenesis which can alleviate depression/low self esteem. It can even help control chronic/recurrent pain (endorphins, baby!). Plus you're X kg of more compact muscle instead of X kg of untoned fat.\n\ntl;dr: numerous cardiovascular and neural benefits. You look sexier too."
]
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"http://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/hfeuy/what_is_the_difference_between_eating_1000/"
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67bbx0 | what is the dangly thing in the back of the throat/what does it do/ what is it called? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/67bbx0/eli5_what_is_the_dangly_thing_in_the_back_of_the/ | {
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"It is called your uvula. It helps guide food down your throat by covering the opening to your nose when you swallow. It also secretes saliva to lubricate your throat so the food that you swallow can slide down easily."
]
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[]
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3mil38 | why does the power company want me to use less electricity? | I got my bill with the little bar graph shaming me for my (large) household using more electricity than my neighbors. They also send me emails suggesting energy-saving strategies etc.
Isn't electricity how they make their money? In fact, the more I use the more the price goes up. I understand that we should all be trying to use less but why is the power company involved in this? In most other realms the businesses and the government want us to consume more of everything even when it's bad for us and the environment.
EDIT: I guess this is answered. I think I'm satisfied with the answers, but not necessarily happy with the truth in them | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mil38/eli5_why_does_the_power_company_want_me_to_use/ | {
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"Two reasons:\n\n1) The cost of building new electricity generation capacity is expensive. In particular, the cost of installing and operating peak power plants (plants that are usually idle, but ramp up production when peak consumption requires additional power) is very high. It is cheaper to promote energy efficiency versus build and operate these expensive plants.\n\n2) The industry is still subject to a lot of regulation. In many places, the government necessitates an energy efficiency program. This can include rebates for efficient light bulbs, advertisements (on bills, TV, radio, etc), etc.",
"There's a reason some professions work best when controlled by the government. You want to have fire fighters, but in an ideal world they'd never need to put out fires. You want to have police but in an ideal world there would be no crime. You want to have doctors but in an ideal world no one would get sick.\n\nPower is sort of the same thing, sometimes it's complex regulations on a small set of big companies that incentivizes things rather than the government directly, but what the government wants is for you to use as much power is beneficial, and no more. \n\n > Isn't electricity how they make their money?\n\nSo.. yes it is. But the police don't want you to shoot people, and doctors don't want you to get cancer either. Either by charter or regulation the goal of the power company isn't to make money as such, it's to find the cheapest cleanest way to supply you with the power you want. That means minimizing waste, but if you need power for something... go ahead and use it. That's what it's there for. "
]
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[],
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6cxvpu | why isn't there an industrial process for manufacturing petrol/gasoline? | We know the exact structure of the relevant chemicals, we know the exact composition of the petrol our cars require, and we know how to vary composition for performance and climate. Why can't we just make it instead of having to drill for and refine it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6cxvpu/eli5_why_isnt_there_an_industrial_process_for/ | {
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" > Why can't we just make it instead of having to drill for and refine it?\n\nWe can, it's just that making it requires more energy than burning it releases so you end up with a net loss of energy. Drilling doesn't suffer from that.",
"I mean, CO2, Nitrogen, and water have everything you need to make iso-octane and the other components of gasoline, right?\n\nWell, it takes energy to do so. A *lot* as it turns out. Creating an energy source (gasoline) doesn't serve much of a purpose if you spend more energy creating it than burning it actually yields. That's exactly the problem.\n\nConverting the slurry of chemicals in raw petroleum into the components of gasoline and filtering out excess stuff takes *way* less energy.",
"One can do it that way.\n\nThere are plants in existence that convert natural gas to petrol / gasoline. It's commonly called gas-to-liquids or GTL.\n\nThe process is actually that one first breaks down the natural gas into its components - carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen and oxygen. So one could generate gasoline / petrol with only these products as the starting point.\n\nThe challenge is to make it cost effective. "
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8eiyws | how is dna affected (if at all) by transplants? the first penis and scrotum transplant seems successful- will his ejaculate be his dna, the donors, or a mixture of both? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8eiyws/eli5_how_is_dna_affected_if_at_all_by_transplants/ | {
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"Sperm are made in the testes. I don't know a lot about this case though. If by 'scrotum transplant' they mean the scrotum (skin) only, DNA would be the patients original. If they mean scrotum+contents (including testes) then they would be donors. ",
"The patient in question lost his genitals and part of his lower abdomen by stepping on a hidden explosive. The transplant replaced the muscle, skin, the scrotum and the penis. The testes were not transplanted as that would be unethical. Therefore the patient will be able to get erections and to ejaculated but will not have any sperm."
]
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[],
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7rtsdc | what happens to our muscles when we 'pull' our neck? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7rtsdc/eli5_what_happens_to_our_muscles_when_we_pull_our/ | {
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"What do you mean by \"pulling\" your neck? are you talking about a neck strain or neck cracking?"
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edum69 | why do some small electronics such as a router have a bulky adapter plug, but a large appliance such as a vacuum cleaner have a regular plug? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/edum69/eli5why_do_some_small_electronics_such_as_a/ | {
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"Because small appliances run on low voltage DC power which requires a converter that's normally integrated into the plug. The makers of these appliances only want to make one model that they can sell all over the world that has different power standards and plugs. They just package a different wall wart in the box for different markets.",
"Because the router runs on low-voltage DC current and needs an adapter to convert the 120 volt AC current coming out of the wall.\n\nThe vacuum cleaner is a large appliance and all its components just run on the standard 120 volt AC current.",
"The block is a converter. It converts AC and DC power as well as controlling the amount of energy flowing into the device. Some devices cant handle the amount of energy that comes from the wall socket and some larger devices simply have it built into the product.",
"Your small electronic devices all need low voltage DC power, they generally run off 24V or less so they need a power supply that can take the 120V or 230V AC power from the wall and convert it into the 5/12/24V DC that the device needs. This can be done with a wall wart(big plug on the wall), a power brick in the middle of the power cord, or inside the device.\n\nIf you want to make a small device then you want to move the bulky power supply to a power brick or a wall wart so it doesn't bulk up your primary device.\n\nYour vacuum just runs straight off the AC. AC runs into the motor, AC runs to the secondary motors, everything runs directly off of power provided from the wall. Even for bigger things like a stove which may have a display, they're large enough that fitting a small power supply inside the device isn't going to require a larger device.",
"Some things run on AC power which is what the power outlet in the wall provides. It’s alternating voltage like a sine wave. The wall provides 110-120v AC which is a lot. Waay to much voltage for small electronics. \n\nThe bulky adapter takes the 120VAC and will step it down and “rectify” it into a DC source (constant voltage like a battery, not a sine wave like AC). The circuit required to do this is a step down transformer which is ratio of a lot of coiled wires around a magnet, followed by other component to make up the rectifier circuit. \n\nYou vacuum cleaner motor runs off the large 110-120VAC because it needs the power and has built in conditioning circuitry",
"Thanks for your replies. So it sounds like they need the block to step down the amount of electricity coming in. But what about other small gadgets that have a regular plug such as a night light? Aren't they also low voltage?",
"Some good answers here already. Another big factor is cost. It costs extra money to house that brick inside the device, whereas there is already an entire industry around manufacturing \"wall warts\" to fit various applications...and those can be purchased in bulk.",
"There are a few reasons:\n\nI'll use a router for the example:\n\n1. Small items, such as an internet router, typically run on direct voltage (DC), while your common plug is AC. The bulky \"wall wart\" that you plug into the wall will convert AC to DC. \n2. The wall wart can take up a lot of room. If a goal is to reduce the router's footprint, you can save precious space by removing some of the components (ie power supply) to the plug.\n3. It's less expensive for manufacturers of the routers to outsource the power supplies (wall warts), as the manufacturer of a wall wart can make them for several companies and therefore sell the wall warts to the router company for less cost compared to the router company making it in house.\n4. Some of the smaller items (again routers) need to reduce the amount of heat generated by the device. By moving the power supply conversion to the plug, a source of heat is removed from inside the router's case.\n5. Power supplies break easily. By using the wall wart (a very common point of failure) you can \"repair\" a router by replacing the wall wart in many cases.\n6. There is a safety standard in which some electronic appliances have to disconnect if dangled (i.e. if they fall off your desk.) The way wall warts usually work, they will disconnect if you trip on the cord, or drop it off of a desk."
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jzst6 | I keep hearing about invasive species flourishing in the United States coming from Asia, I was wondering.... | Have there been any invasive species in Asia that came from the United States? My examples are: stinkbugs, Sneakhead fish, and the Asian Tiger Mosquito (I'm sure there are more). | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/jzst6/i_keep_hearing_about_invasive_species_flourishing/ | {
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"Here you go:\n\n_URL_0_\n\n",
"I read the title of your post and didn't have to read the comment that followed (i finished it in my head). great question and well worded!",
"Here you go:\n\n_URL_0_\n\n",
"I read the title of your post and didn't have to read the comment that followed (i finished it in my head). great question and well worded!"
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5ci2uc | why do we sometimes notice certain words in a large amount of text when only quickly glancing at it? | I've noticed that whenever I'm quickly looking through text (not even looking really, just turning pages/scrolling) I somehow manage to notice/read specific words from within the text that usually relate to something I recently thought about/am thinking about.
How does this happen? If I'm not reading text, but just look at it for a really short amount of time, how does the brain manage see/to pick out a certain word that may relate to my thoughts? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ci2uc/eli5_why_do_we_sometimes_notice_certain_words_in/ | {
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"This doesn't exactly answer your question, but this study may help: _URL_0_\n\nIt's about how people only read the first and last letters of words, and can still understand it, so while people skim text, they are actually understanding a lot more than one would thing. \n\nSpeculation here, but I believe this is how services like Spritz work, which show you words one at a time up to 1000 words per minute. When you eliminate the subvocalization (the voice that reads inside your head), you can still comprehend words, which might be why you can quickly pick out the meaningful ones. "
]
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fif9g | Why do physical bodies attract with a force proportional to their mass? | I always thought that nobody knows for sure why physical bodies attract with a force proportional to their mass. However, they know a vast amount about these observable proportions. Am I wrong? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/fif9g/why_do_physical_bodies_attract_with_a_force/ | {
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"Because we live in a universe with gravity."
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e459zj | Assuming you were a random nazi foot soldier who survived the war, what kind of trial and punishment would you be expecting to receive after Germany surrenders? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/e459zj/assuming_you_were_a_random_nazi_foot_soldier_who/ | {
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"More of course can be said, but denazification is a topic that has been asked about before, and /u/kieslowskifan has a number of excellent answers on the topic, which do speak to parts of your question here, and also would be of larger, general interest to the topic as well. Not to discourage further responses, but do check out these links:\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_2_\n\n_URL_3_\n\n_URL_1_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/b6w6ym/nazism_in_postwar_germany/ejouod0/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/902aab/given_adolf_heusingers_prominent_role_in_the_nazi/e2ozei8/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/aw8j8f/how_arewere_ww2_veterans_treated_in_... | ||
9e0rj0 | Do our ears react to quiet and loud in a similar way to how our eyes react to bright and dark? | To expand.
I know that when it is bright your pupils constrict to allow less light in and therefore prevent damage from being caused by overexposure, and that when it is dark your pupils dilate to allow more light in so you are able to see better. So, do our ears respond in a similar way, with something changing when there is a long period of loud noise to attempt to prevent our hearing from being damaged, and/or if it is silent do our ears change so that we are able to hear more minute sounds we would not make out otherwise?
(My question is entirely about the ears. I understand the eyes enough to be satisfied, it is just the only way I could think to describe my question)
Edit: Some wording | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/9e0rj0/do_our_ears_react_to_quiet_and_loud_in_a_similar/ | {
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"There are muscles in your ear which respond to loud noises by tightening your eardrum which reduces the amount of sound which gets transmitted through to the inner ear. You can feel this action, particularly when there's a loud, pulsing sound triggering it repeatedly."
]
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vxwan | there's been a few posts about what the higgs boson is, but i want to know what the effects of its discovery are? basically, why should i be excited? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/vxwan/eli5_theres_been_a_few_posts_about_what_the_higgs/ | {
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"You should be excited because it's a terrific confirmation of the [Standard Model](_URL_0_) of how the Universe works. The Higgs Boson was predicted to make certain aspects of the Standard Model work right. If there were *no* Higgs boson, then the Standard Model would have to be scrapped, which would be unfortunate -- it is the most precisely verified physical theory ever invented.\n\nThe prediction of the Higgs boson is similar to [James Clerk Maxwell](_URL_1_) inventing the \"[displacement current](_URL_2_)\" in the 19th century. The \"displacement current\" is a small, then-undetected aspect of electrical and magnetic theory. Even though it was too small to detect, it was needed to make certain calculations consistent. By adding the small term to the equations for electricity and magnetism, Maxwell created a wave theory of light and gave rise to Einstein's theory of relativity.\n"
]
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"http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clerk_Maxwell",
"http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amp%C3%A8re%27s_circuital_law#Displacement_current"
]
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4fb092 | how can google maps calculate a 35h long route in less than a second, yet it takes my garmin half a minute to do that | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4fb092/eli5_how_can_google_maps_calculate_a_35h_long/ | {
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"Google has an array of servers that are thousands of not millions of times faster than a single Garmin.",
"Your Garmin has all the maps stored locally and does the processing locally too.\n\nGoogle Maps etc just streams the information form the internet, so all the calculations are not done on your phone, but in massive server farms that even your gaming PC can't hold up with.\n\nSo calculation speed is much faster and then the results are just brought back to your device.",
"Maps/GPS often work out routes by an algorithm called \"Travelling Salesman\". All the map data is stored in a database and the app/GPS solves the Travelling Salesmen algorithm between two locations in that database. It's a mathematical problem that can be reasonably intensive to solve.\n\nGoogle maps is supported by a *huge* server farm with thousands of powerful servers. The Travelling Salesman algorithm is solved on these servers for each request and the entire operation is massively optimised.\n\nFor the Garmin, the algorithm is solved directly on the GPS device, which is often a very low powered piece of hardware in order to keep production costs down, and therefore it simply takes it much longer to solve the Travelling Salesman algorithm.\n\nIt's also possible that the Garmin software doesn't have an efficient implementation of the algorithm, or it's internal database isn't as optimised as it could be, which would all lead to delays in calculation."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
5qzpt8 | how online stores can afford to offer free shipping on heavy items | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5qzpt8/eli5_how_online_stores_can_afford_to_offer_free/ | {
"a_id": [
"dd3cwsc"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text": [
"In short the answer is volume. They do so much business with the shipper that they are given steep discounts for doing all of their shopping through their company. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
6nouhk | the afterburn effect of high intensity interval training. what happens in your body during the period after your workout? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6nouhk/eli5_the_afterburn_effect_of_high_intensity/ | {
"a_id": [
"dkb72j8"
],
"score": [
2
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"text": [
"Specifically in a way that doesnt go to much in depth, is activating many..many..many.. different hormonal systems in place to prepare your body to condition the physical exertion you used.\n\nA large part of this is the mitochondrial build up in muscle cells - your body is making a shitload more mitochondrion within your muscles to perform more metabolism, even in rest state (and on rest state it tries to kill some to match the metabolic need)\n\nHowever theres millions of other things going on, and pinpointing them is faulty to conceptually understand the grander scheme.\n\nYour body prepares itself to use more energy to be able to do what you did before. It conditions you, and in turn you are catabolising more actual energy even in rest state.\n\nThis is the idea behind intensive interval conditioning."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
65uk6v | Why, in String Theory, would other dimensions be curled up for us not to perceive them ? | String Theory suggests that there are more than 3 spatial dimensions. The proposed reason we don't see those dimensions are that they are "curled up" (Brian Greene uses the example of a hose or a cable that, viewed from afar, is a straight line, but to an ant it's something that can be walked over and around).
However, in the famous "Flatland" thought experiment, the flatlanders have no perception of the 3rd dimension.
Extrapolating from this, I don't understand the requirement of those extra dimensions to be curled up for us not to perceive them. We wouldn't perceive them simply because we don't exist in them.
So what am I missing ? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/65uk6v/why_in_string_theory_would_other_dimensions_be/ | {
"a_id": [
"dgdjljd",
"dgdx3nd"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"Either the extra dimensions are curled up (compact), or you are prevented from moving in them because you are confined to a lower-dimensional D-brane (braneworld models). In this case the particles of the standard model are open strings whose endpoints are attached to the brane and so cannot move in the dimensions orthogonal to the brane.\n\nMany popular models for string phenomenology combine both of these elements, placing various D-brane in compact dimensions; the standard model particles are strings stretching from one brane to another near the point in the compact dimension where the branes intersect.\n\n > We wouldn't perceive them simply because we don't exist in them.\n\nThat doesn't make sense; you need a mechanism to confine you at a certain position in the extra dimension. In flatland, this is magic. In the real world, being constrained to live in a lower-dimensional subspace requires a reason. D-branes are the incarnation of this mechanism in string theory.",
"The curled up dimensions or the extra dimensions that one doesn't perceive are the **small** compact space dimensions. By compact space, I mean something like a circle or a sphere. \n\nIn the Brian Greene's example\n\n\n > of a hose or a cable that, viewed from afar, is a straight line, but to an ant, it's something that can be walked over and around\n\nthe hose is a real line x circle. (R x S^1) The circle being the cross section of the hose which is very small compared to the length which is the real line R. Seeing the hose from far off is equivalent to physics at large length scales while seeing the hose from the POV is equivalent to physics at small length scale. Another point to note that the curling or the compactification has to be done over compact spaces like circle or sphere and not on non-curled spaces like a flat space or a straight line. \n\nIn the limit where the size of the compact space goes to zero or negligibly small, no fields depend on this extra space dimension and the theory is dimensionally reduced. This is what is meant by not perceiving the extra curled-up dimension in practice. So as far as the physics at large length scales are concerned, you can happily forget about the small curled up dimension and work out everything till a certain length scale where stringy effects can be neglected. Think of the known physics as the large length scale limit of string theory. \n\nAt small length scales, however, the extra dimensions are not negligible and need to be taken into account.\n\n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
1fohn2 | If I took a fish out of water in zero gravity conditions how effectively will its gills be able to extract oxygen from the air? | I know that a big problem with fish gills is that they aren't sturdy enough to keep from collapsing or drying out when outside of the water, but if I were to take a fish into space with me and I kept it in a humid environment how effectively will it be able to extract O2 from the air? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1fohn2/if_i_took_a_fish_out_of_water_in_zero_gravity/ | {
"a_id": [
"cac88h4"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"When fish are removed from water, air surrounds the gills, the gills collapse against one another, and oxygen from either water or air can't reach most of the gill membranes. The fish suffocate. As long as the air pressure is ~1atm, they'll still suffocate."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
5i7asv | why do gas stations constantly adjust their prices up and down with the market, but retailers of other commodity-driven products (coffee shops, jewelers, etc.) don't? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5i7asv/eli5_why_do_gas_stations_constantly_adjust_their/ | {
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"db5xurb",
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"text": [
"Because they can.\n\nFor a gas station with electronic signage, there is almost no upfront cost in changing the price that gas is being sold at. Unlike many commodities where physical paper signs must be changed (where the cost of labor discourages frequent small changes.).\n\nGas is a commodity with an inflexible demand. If you need gas on a particular day, there's not much you can do except buy gas from someone, which leads to\n\nCompetition between nearby gas stations. Many major gas stations are in close proximity to another. As the product they sell is virtually the same thing, a price war often ensues: with each gas station trying to win over customers, while avoiding hurting their profit margin too much. \n\nAlso, because of near-daily price adjustments over the past few years, customers have come to expect in accept it. A coffee shop or a grocery store would likely draw intense feedback if they started adjusting prices frequently.",
"Because consumers can very easily shop for cheaper gas. You are in your car, the prices are right there on a giant sign, it is the easiest thing in the world to drive an extra block to a cheaper station. So gas stations have to compete to the last penny.\n\nCompare that to going into a coffee shop. You don't immediately know how much it costs vs. the competition, and even if you did, you are already there, and it isn't worth the bother to save a quarter.",
"Another factor besides those mentioned is the relatively small markup on a gallon of gas (average: less than 20 cents/gallon with less than 5 cents turning into profit after costs). The retailer has to constantly change prices in order to be competitive and the difference of a nickel/gallon can be the difference between losing & making money.\n\nCommodities like coffee have a much larger markup relative to the actual price of the materials. Consumer products like cokes & chips have a much larger markup as well. Many gas stations sell gas in the hope of attracting customers who might then spend money on something inside with a larger margin.",
"They do. You can get up to the second fresh prices on gold, and coffee beans, etc. People trade with these things, just like stocks.\n\nBut you, as a typical consumer, are not buying those commodities. You are buying a service and/or a refined product. A cup of coffee at a coffee shop is more than just the cup of coffee: it is the ambiance of the place, the staff's wages, etc. It's all the things that makes you prefer buying it at coffee shop X rather than at their competitor Y. Either way, you know you are paying for significantly more than just the cup of coffee (as anyone who makes their own cup of morning coffee at home will tell you).\n\nGasoline is of course also a refined product (very literally, even). However, since there is exactly no difference what so ever between the gas that you get at one brand of gas station vs. another, and the experience of pumping gas is horrible and smelly everywhere you go, gas stations compete almost entirely on price. What actually makes them money is the store, where the markup on a Snickers bar is significantly better than what they can get for the gas. In fact, they can often tolerate selling gas at a slight loss, just to get you into the store. \n\nVirtually nobody says to themselves: \"the hot dogs and soft drinks are cheaper at station X, so I'll go there instead of at Y, where the gas is evidently cheaper, as it says on the big sign\". So that's how they get you."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
2wlp1d | If neutrons are electrically neutral why isn't the universe filled with free neutrons? | My assumption is that free electrons have a tendency to bind with protons as atoms so that is why we don't see free protons as much. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2wlp1d/if_neutrons_are_electrically_neutral_why_isnt_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"cos1k1y",
"cosgvc7"
],
"score": [
27,
2
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"text": [
"Free neutrons are unstable. A free neutron decays with a half-life of about 10 minutes, generally into a proton, an electron, and an electron antineutrino.",
"Nucleons in an atom constantly change from proton to neutron and vice versa. However this changing conserves the original \"protonness\" of the whole nucleous. A free nucleon will bind to electrons in the proton mode and one it has binded is has shed the energy to change pack into neutron mode."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
4mw7h3 | After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia was voluntarily deemed the sole successor state to the USSR. Is there any historical consensus as to whether this was good for the modern nation of Russia, or did the obligations outweigh the benefits? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4mw7h3/after_the_dissolution_of_the_soviet_union_russia/ | {
"a_id": [
"d3z1fqt"
],
"score": [
15
],
"text": [
"Well, it's not so much that it was *deemed* the successor nation of the USSR, but that it *was* the successor nation of the USSR. The USSR was formed out of the collapsed Russian empire, when the Bolsheviks took over Moscow and St.Petersburg and then formed the USSR after the Russian civil war. Russians always formed the de facto leadership of the Soviet Union, as much as Stalin was Georgian and several other examples. Therefore, when the USSR collapsed (or, better put, was destroyed by its own political elite) the Russian federation was the successor state. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
3oby2f | How did the Soviets falsify photographs | I would often see photographs in history textbooks such as this _URL_0_ and it baffled me that the Soviets could do such a brilliant job in doctoring photos even before the existence of Photoshop or computers for that matter. Heck, their 'photoshop' skills are even better than some people's attempt at photoshop today.
How were these photos doctored and was this only practiced only in the USSR? (as Ive only seen examples from the USSR). | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3oby2f/how_did_the_soviets_falsify_photographs/ | {
"a_id": [
"cvvusmo",
"cvw1t95"
],
"score": [
10,
3
],
"text": [
"Doctoring a photo is pretty simple if you know how printing photos works. You have a negative and a piece of photo sensitive paper. You shine a light through the negative and onto the photo paper and you have a picture. If the negative is directly on the paper, it's a contact print, 1:1 ratio, or you can use an enlarger and blow up your 135 film to a 4x6 or 5x7 or whatever you want.\n\nAll the photoshop stuff is based on old darkroom techniques. If the image is a bit too dark, you simply expose a bit less time. Too light? A bit more time. Image is blurry? Use a duplicate negative to sharpen the image.\n\nTo remove a person, the quick and dirty method is simple. Make a shield to cover the photo paper, print your image, and you end up with a big white space where the shield was. To make it not as obvious, you have to fill in the spot. Using a shield to cover everything else, you can re-expose the paper and fill in the blanks. Unless you have an exact match in size, shape, color, etc, it'll still look a bit... off. But that's where artists come in. Using pencils/crayons/pens/brushes/whatever, they can blend the two images together.\n\nIf you look at your example, the doctored photo is of noticeably lower quality. Printing a photo at a lower resolution hides the messy details. The fact they were doing this with film and then printing and reprinting, and then publishing in a newspaper, most people wouldn't even think twice about it.\n\nAs for other countries, I don't have much to say on that. Lots of famous American photos have been doctored, but not necessarily at the behest of the government. [Here's a Time article](_URL_0_) showing some examples from around the world. You can see US photojournalists edited some minor things and a person was added to a Civil War photo - comparable, but again, a private decision, not a government one.",
"Hi, you may be interested in this recent post \n\n* [How did they edit this picture of Stalin](_URL_0_) "
]
} | [] | [
"http://imgur.com/uLDXcuB"
] | [
[
"http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1924226_1949526,00.html"
],
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3j6xci/how_did_they_edit_this_picture_of_stalin/"
]
] | |
2srbzu | why do little kids seem so much more creative than adults? | I have a daughter who is a little over two years old. As she has grown and gained more language ability, I am more aware of her creative play. She seems like she is in a constant state of play that frequently involves making up things, and generally imaginative play with dolls (the dolls are going to bed, eating breakfast, etc).
Are adults less imaginative? It seems like it to me. If so, why is this? I have no formal training in psychology or neuroscience. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2srbzu/eli5_why_do_little_kids_seem_so_much_more/ | {
"a_id": [
"cns59n4",
"cns6rni"
],
"score": [
9,
3
],
"text": [
"Kids don't understand physical limitations or impossibilities. They're more creative because they don't consider what they can't do, just what they want. ",
"It's a type of learning mechanism.\n\nPeek-a-boo is about object permanence. When kids like to play that is when they're just developing the ability to realize that objects still exist even when they currently can't see them.\n\nWhen they've learned it, they get bored by it and it's no longer funny/interesting.\n\nGood play is learning. Science can happen.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nTry showing her some of those and see what happens."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/user/itsokaytobesmart/videos"
]
] | |
1oq325 | To what extent did Western popular culture penetrate the Soviet Union during the Cold War? | I'm looking to do a presentation on this topic for my 4th year Soviet History class next month. Depending on how it goes, I may also base my term paper around this topic as well. I'm basically looking for any information to help me along, especially any recommendations for academic or literary sources.
I find this topic within Soviet History very interesting even outside of my class, so any input is welcome. Thanks guys! | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1oq325/to_what_extent_did_western_popular_culture/ | {
"a_id": [
"ccuh9t6",
"ccujtpa"
],
"score": [
4,
20
],
"text": [
"Im typing this from my phone so excuse the brevity. Look into the stilyagi. Alexei Yurchak has a book called Everything was forever until it was no more that might also get you going.",
"In three words: to A great extent.\n\n[Stilyagi](_URL_0_) were mentioned. That's 50-60s. Then Hippies came in 70s-80s with long hairs (note slight timeshift). Punks and Heavy metal fiends followed in 90s.\n\nGood illustration of accessibility is a song on [russian, \"Meloman\"](_URL_1_), written circa 1983 by K. Kinchev from [\"Alisa\"](_URL_2_) - many music styles, groups and artists are listed in English in the lyrics. Funny that song itself is a rap - the only one in \"Alisa\" discography.\n\n**Source:** I grew up in USSR, listening to the western music as well as russian rock - mostly English (The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple/Rainbow) and US (Shoking Blue, CCR, The Doors, Cars, Genesis, Jimi Hendrix etc.), some European (Space, Kraftwerk, Europe, MSG, Scorpions etc.). \n\nYou could buy vinyl discs in flea markets or copy tape from either friends or at semi-underground 'studio of sound recording' in any major city - they boasted catalogs with hundreds of artists and albums. \n\nEDIT: typical russian issue with English - *A* great extent? *The* great extent?"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stilyagi",
"http://alloflyrics.com/lyrics/Alisa-Konstantin-Kinchev/Meloman-10902.html",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alisa"
]
] | |
4yu3c2 | how light travels in a particle and a wave. if one photon is a wave, does that mean many photons propogate outwards in a expanding wave till it hits something? does human eye see a particle or a wave when it hits retina? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4yu3c2/eli5_how_light_travels_in_a_particle_and_a_wave/ | {
"a_id": [
"d6qfx62"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
" > ELI5: how light travels in a particle and a wave.\n\nThat's one of the really great unexplained questions in physics. It's quite possible that we'll never truly be able to fully understand what a photon \"is\" because it's so far beyond anything the human brain actually experiences.\n\nHowever we can describe with extreme mathematical precision how a photon behaves. And it just turns out that in some circumstances it behaves *exactly* like a particle would, and in other circumstances it behaves *exactly* like a wave would.\n\nSo it's not a particle or a wave. It's a ... well, it's a photon. You can use analogies to describe its behaviour in a given set of circumstances but you have to constantly remember that they're just analogies, not actual descriptions of the real photon."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
28956i | Since different people have different sized eardrums, do they interpret pitches different than everyone else? | If I play a C on my piano, will my huge friend hear a different C than I do? I understand that all the pitches are relative so no matter what it sounds like to them, a song will sound like it was put together well. Just not sure about the definite pitches. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/28956i/since_different_people_have_different_sized/ | {
"a_id": [
"ci8psze"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Eardrums simply separate the inner ear from the outside world, and controls the amount of sound transmission through tensing or relaxig.\n\nDetection of frequency on the other hand is done by the stereocilia in the [cochlear](_URL_0_).\n\nI guess we all learn to recognise the pitch of a \"C\" by experiencing music, in the absence of a defined frequency some people might tune their instruments to a higher or lower pitch. In the 18th C standard A varied from at least 380 to 480 Hz before standard tuning forks were available. [Concert Pitch](_URL_1_)."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlea",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concert_pitch"
]
] |
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