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6t1tiz | Why do different U.S. states have different start dates for back to school? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It can differ even from school district to school district! \n\nEducation policies are set at a local and state level, not federal. State sets things like number of days/hours of classroom instruction each school year. But actual calendar can be set even more locally. When I grew up, we started the week before Labor Day in the Chicago suburbs, but city of Chicago started the day after Labor Day. Some of this may be due to local practices (ie. my schools closed for 2 days for Jewish high holidays each fall due to high number of Jewish students and teachers). Some areas get a \"ski week\" in February in addition to the other breaks all schools get around Christmas and in the spring. While no longer the big impact it was when school year was set 200 years ago, there may be certain areas that are impacted by crops and shift their calendars accordingly. Lots of local reasons can affect the start dates and length of school year.",
"Others are correct, but it also stems from when climate control within the buildings was a bigger concern than it is today. \nYou would not want to be in the classrooms in the hottest months of the year in a particular region when AC wasn't available."
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} | train_eli5 | Why do different U.S. states have different start dates for back to school?
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91vice | How come when you shine a laser the light doesn’t automatically try and spread apart? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Light comes in little packets called photons. These packets can't exactly spread out on their own. They travel in the direction they are emitted in until something like a lense or mirror makes them go a different direction. A laser is set up so that light bounces in a particular direction inside, and this stimulates atoms to send out more light in the same direction. Any little bits of light that are created not travelling along this line just don't end up in the beam. They usually hit the inside of the case holding the laser. So in a sense you have a machine gun firing light particles in a single direction with no reason to really spread out.",
"It does. It just does so as slowly as is physically possible for that size (diameter) beam. All light beams with a finite width will spread as they propagate. This is called 'diffraction'. Actually any type of wave (sound, water, matter) will exhibit diffraction.",
"The light is \"columnated.\" Meaning the mirrors inside the laser make all the photons go out in one direction. Photons will continue in the same direction unless they're acted upon by another force. Therefore, the light doesn't \"spread\" (much.)"
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} | train_eli5 | How come when you shine a laser the light doesn’t automatically try and spread apart?
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6nxw22 | Why, in well over 5 decades, has the United States cut out any major overhaul on infrastructure? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"This just isn't true. The US has grown insanely in the last 50 years and grew all the infrastructure to go with it. The interstate highway system expanded tremendously. Ports grew to incredible size and scale, public transport popped up and grew in various cities across the country... oh and cities! Places like Phoenix, Denver barely existed 50 years ago. Orange County, CA still had orange groves all over, and San Antonio looks a world different.",
"Its fucking expensive. Like OMFG WHY DOES A BRIDGE COST THAT MUCH expensive. \n\nExpensive projects will usually require a state to raise money via taxes. You want to know the fastest way to lose an election? Raise taxes.\n\nFurthermore these expenses while incredibly valuable are very difficult to quantify. I know the interstate brings in money, but how much?\n\nPlus people drive these roads and bridges daily. They think \"i drive on it all the time, What do you mean it's about to collapse?\"\n\nAll of that means politicians are not willing to spend money on these projects, until the are critical.\n\nAdd to this the fact that we are just barely out of a massive recession and you can see why we are falling behind",
"The United States spends over 400 Billion dollars a year on infrastructure spending, or 1,250 dollars per person per year. I'm not sure what you're getting at with this question."
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} | train_eli5 | Why, in well over 5 decades, has the United States cut out any major overhaul on infrastructure?
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8cq77c | What is a promissory note and how/why/when would you use one to buy a house? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A promissory note is related to mortgages and is the official document you sign that the lender keeps to prove you owe them the money and agreed to pay it back."
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} | train_eli5 | What is a promissory note and how/why/when would you use one to buy a house?
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1809f3 | how is it possible to have millions of different lock and key combinations without having any overlap? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Suppose that a key has 10 different places where differences show up, and each place has 10 different variations.\n\nThat gives you 10 *billion* possible keys.",
"I used to make keys and here is the scoop:\n\nThere is some overlap, and there will always be some overlap. The key blade is rather short, and you can only add so much variety to a cut. However, different lock sets come with different keys. There are common key styles used, the 2 most used are the SC1 and the KW1 which belong to schlage and kwickset locks respectively. However, actually finding a set with a matching key and using it would be a very shitty way of actually getting through to door because you would have to purchase thousands of lock sets to find the right one that has the same key. It would be a lock quicker just to kick down the door or use a method that would cause the lock set to structurally fail. \n\nAlso, there are a lot of different key blades, and a lot of different ways to cut them. Of the top of my head, common ones to cut are the Y1, Y11, SC1, S22, KW1, KW11, M1, M2, and SC22. There are hundreds if not thousand more blade styles/lengths, each of them being able to be cut different ways, each only being able to take that certain key. Now that being said I can take an SC22 and cut it to fit and SC1 lock because the only difference in the blade is the length, so if I cut from the tip of the blade I can give you a key that will work, however you cannot take a pre-cut SC22 and fit it in a SC1 lock even if you have the same cut because of the length difference. \n\nNow we get into the territory of specialty keys used for retail locks. I do not know very much about them, but I do know you cannot reproduce them in your basic hardware store key cutter set up, and that they have more features to them that I believe make the overlap even less likely and the lock harder to pick.\n\nTl;Dr: Overlap exists, but it is not enough to pose a real issue because breaking the lock would be much quicker and just as effective.",
"The short answer is: It isn't.\n\nThe more detailed answer is: But it's damned unlikely to be a problem.",
"There is overlap. Take Kwikset for example. If you have a Kwikset lock on your home there are 6 places for pins and 6 different pin lengths. This means there are 46,656 combinations of keys. Also, they intentionally sell locks in groups of the same key so that people can buy same-keyed locks without having to re-key the locks. This means that if you buy a lock at the hardware store and someone else buys a lock after you from the same pack, its not unlikely that they use the same key.\n\nSource: I worked at Home Depot in the hardware department and rekeyed dozens of locks every week."
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} | train_eli5 | how is it possible to have millions of different lock and key combinations without having any overlap?
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ps33u | I want to know more about the anatomy of cars. Can I please get an overview about car lingo and car performance on their characteristics? | Always hear about v6, v8, 1.8L, 2L, the torque, the HP.. whoosh over my head. What are they and how they interact between each other to make the car better, faster (stronger)? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Where to begin?! I hope this is 5 enough...\n\nTo start with, HP (horsepower) and KW (kilowatts), are common units used to measure to power of an engine. The power usually has a direct relationship to the top speed performance of a vehicle. \n\nThen you have the torque of an engine, usually measures in Nm (Newton metres) or lb/ft. This figure determines the pulling power of the engine and usually has a direct relationship to the rate of acceleration of a vehicle. \n\nDisplacement is measured in cc (cubic centimetres), ci (cubic inches) or some derivative of both, such as 5.6L (which is 5600 cc). Now in an engine, there is a series of tubes. Heh. There may be one or many tubes. These tubes combine to form an engine. The displacement measures the combined volume of the maximum range of movement of the pistons contained within all the tubes.\n\nSo what about this V6, V8, I6 etc? This refers to the layout of the tubes in the engine. A V6 has six tubes, but forked to look like a V, where the tubes all drive a common shaft where the V joins. A V8 has eight tubes, a V12 has twelve. An inline 6 has six tubes in a straight line. You can also get some unique configurations which some manufacturers have invested into, such as a Boxer engine, where the tubes are on a single horizontal plane around a single middle shaft, kind of looking like -o- . These are commonly known as flat 4 or flat 6 engines (depending on the number of tubes), because as their name suggests, the bulk of the engine is flat on a single plane. There are some other configurations like W's and rotaries, but they're another beast. \n\nSo how does engine layout or configuration make a difference? Well quite a bit it turns out. V configurations tend to produce more torque at the cost of peak power. Inline engines tend to do vice versa. Combinations of engine configuration and displacement have a direct impact on how torque and power is generated, even the angle of the V in an engine can produce a significant change in the character of an engine. The more displacement, the more power and torque generated, at the cost of fuel efficiency, which is a big deal these days. \n\nTo complicate matters, the true nature of an engine can't be separated from how it performs at various rpm (revolutions per minute), and this is conversely also dependent on the layout and displacement of an engine. For example, I had a motorbike as a learner which was a 250cc inline 4. It could hit the upper limits of its performance at 18 000 rpm! Compare this to my 1.6L Toyota Corolla which maxes at at around 7000 rpm.\n\nThe car enthusiast has a lot to look for, but I hope this nudges you in the right direction!",
"I'll have a go.\n\nAt its simplest an engine does work by igniting petrol inside a container (called a cylinder) which is sealed by a piston. The petrol burning creates cases which expands and pushes the piston upwards. The movement of the piston turns a long rod called a crankshaft which turns the wheels (in practice there is a gearbox or transmission in between).\n\nNow, it should be clear that if you have more cylinders and pistons, then you can do more work. So all else being equal, an 8-cylinder engine is more powerful than a 4-cylinder one. But that's not all - a piston can only do work to turn the wheels when there are gases expanding, but that can't be all the time. (The reason for this is that in order to rotate a crankshaft, the piston has to move up and down rather than just going up forever.) So a 1-cylinder engine is only producing power, at best, for half the time. The rest of the time the piston is going back down and compressing the gas inside the cylinder (actually what it is doing is pushing the spent gas out through an exhaust pipe).\n\nSo that explains the 8 in 'V8'. But what does the V stand for? It refers to the way the cylinders are aligned. Cylinders are either aligned parallel to each other in what is called 'in-line' or 'straight', or at an angle, a 'V'. You can also combine 'V's to make a 'W', if you have enough money and cylinders. Each layout has its own merits and drawbacks so the one used largely depends on other factors like the intended use of the engine, budget/size constraints and so on.\n\nTorque is a measurement like 'kilograms' which measures how hard you can rotate something. Think of a standard door. If you push at the handle, it is easy to open. If you push equally hard at the door's hinge, it will hardly move at all. You need to apply more torque if you push at the hinge to get the door to open (or strictly speaking, rotate about the hinge) at the same rate. Torque is measured in Newton-metres of foot-pounds depending on your country.\n\nWhat does this mean for cars? A car with more torque can accelerate faster. The load of the car like the seats, body, etc, can be thought of as the weight of the door, and the crankshaft from the engine is your hand pushing the door open. If you have a torquier engine (i.e. you can push harder on the door) then you will accelerate faster (open the door faster). If you don't want to push harder (makes your hand sore :P) then you can move your hand closer to the handle so that your push moves the door farther. The automotive equivalent is using a gearbox. First gear is having your hand at the handle and top gear is having your hand at the hinge. You can open the door a lot faster pushing at the hinge but you have to push a lot harder to get it going (accelerate it).\n\nHorsepower (kilowatts in metric countries) is the measurement of engine power. It is the product of the engine speed measured in revolutions per minute and the torque produced by the engine at that speed. Typically you will hear car commentators talking about peak power at a certain RPM. To be honest this is not very relevant in the big picture as there is a lot more to a car's performance than the peak power number. Still, it's frequently advertised by manufacturers.\n\nThat should give you a basic idea of how a petrol engine works. Just ask for what parts you want elaborated.",
"There are four Categories for engines with piston (there are two other types: diesel and rotary but that's for another ELI5) \"I\" in which the cylinders are lined up in a straight line, \"V\" where the cylinders in the engine block are arranged in an alternating \"V\" pattern, The \"W\" ( usually reserved for race cars or multi million dollar toys for rich people like the Bugatti Veyron) in which , you guessed it, the cylinders are arranged in a \"W\" shape, and finally the boxer engine in which the cylinders are arranged horizontally as opposed to the usual vertical and slightly angled. \n\nThe purpose for all of these different engine types is to maximize the power while keeping size to a minimum. Did you ever see any of those 1930's cars with the really long fronts? It was because all of the cylinders were in one line. Now compare that to a Mustang from 2010. Even though you have a large difference in engine size, the newer engine outperforms the older. And it's not even the advances in technology with computers like this or synthetic materials like that. It's just straight up engineering. And I won't even go into the specifics for performance and gear\nratios and such because that is for a future lesson. \n\nThe 2.0L or 265 cubic inch or anything similar is a measurement of engine displacement. Displacement is measured by (pi/4)*bore^2*stroke*number of cylinders. When they talk about and compare displacement they're following the old saying \"there's no replacement for displacement\" which is pretty much false since smaller engines can create more power than larger engines with the help of turbos and better gearboxes. Summary: people think that more displacement ALWAYS equals more power which is false. \n\nTorque is the measure of how much turning force something which pertains to how much power can be transferred to the road through the axles. \n\nThere's much more to cars but it's four in the morning and I'm dead tired. Good luck!",
"I'd like to know as well. Having family dinners are horrendous whenever my uncles and cousins start talking about cars and I end up sitting there. quietly."
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} | train_eli5 | I want to know more about the anatomy of cars. Can I please get an overview about car lingo and car performance on their characteristics?
Always hear about v6, v8, 1.8L, 2L, the torque, the HP.. whoosh over my head. What are they and how they interact between each other to make the car better, faster (stronger)? | [
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5kzi1g | What do large marine mammals drink? | Building on another question... how do large sea mammals stay sufficiently hydrated? I understand some moisture will come from their food but surely a mammal as big as a blue whale will need to drink a huge amount of water. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Many marine mammals have a built-in filtration system that allows them to drink sea water and filter out the salt. In addition, they get a fair amount of their water from the contents of prey that they eat, which is often less salty than the water."
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} | train_eli5 | What do large marine mammals drink?
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nz2ic | r/shitredditsays | Some basic questions about the subreddit [/r/shitredditsays](/r/shitredditsays).
* Why was it created?
* What is the purpose or goal of it?
* Why does it catch so much flak from reddit comments?
* Obviously this one would probably vary between members, but any open question to any of them that browse here as well; Why are you subscribed to it?
And really anything else anyone cares to add to their description of it.
Tried to leave as much of my own bias out of these questions as possible.
Edit: I guess "**No bias.**" was too much to ask. Kind of makes sense considering the subject matter can't be completely factual.
[](/scootaloo"Stealth pony.") | explainlikeimfive | {
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"ShitRedditSays is (or was, it seems to have been cut off recently) a subreddit designed to point out bigoted or hurtful statements that reddit has chosen to upvote.\n\nThe subreddit is designed to draw attention to those posts (for parody or whatnot). \n\nIn practice, the subreddit suffers from a lot of bias, people with persecution complex or persecution complex by proxy. It's very hostile to the \"majority\" demographic, so you see a lot of bias or unkind statements directed at the white college age male demographic.\n\nPeople are not fond of it because they feel that the subreddit is designed to censor (like a downvote brigade, although in practise you see more harassment than downvotes), they feel as though the members are unnecessarily hostile to the majority demographic, and they feel that the members of the subreddit are overly sensitive and have no sense of humour.\n\nThis is exacerbated by the presence of trolls and Poe's law. In the same way that redditors might upvote tasteless off colour humour, SRS members will upvote misandrist or bigoted statements against reddit in general. \n\nSo people tend to have strong opinions of the subreddit.",
"Full disclosure: I'm a liberal straight white male who has been subscribed to r/SRS for a few months. I don't understand the more circle-jerky aspects of it (couldn't tell you who any of the mods or personalities are) but I'm definitely in favor of what they do.\n\nAs far as I know/am aware, SRS is sort of a self-policing of a kind. Because Reddit as a whole is dominated by one group (mostly straight single white males), often the comments and culture of the community leave behind or otherwise diminish women, minorities, etc. In my mind, the point of SRS is to provide a counter-narrative to the accepted opinions of \"the reddit hivemind\". \n\nIt gets a lot of \"flak\" from comments because honestly, people don't like having their privilege challenged. These users may not really understand their privilege, or how their experiences are different from those of others.\n\nI'm subscribed to it because I believe it's important in the age of internet anonymity it's a lot harder to hold people responsible for heinous shit that they say. Some might argue \"it's only a joke, like on top gear!\" but the latent racism and misogyny that exists in this community needs to be called out whenever possible. \n\nTL;DR- I fucking LOVE SRS and if you don't understand it's purpose, you might be part of the problem.",
"SRS was created to showcase racist, sexist, and other bigoted comments that are made on Reddit, even ones that are \"just jokes\". The idea is that even jokes are bad, because they serve to normalize actual oppression. (please, I do not want to debate this notion in ELI5). Comments are linked and made fun of. The purpose is to provide a place for people to laugh and mock comments they don't like. There is, and never has been any great goal to improve or fix Reddit.\n\nIt gets flak because a lot of redditors do not appreciate being criticized for what they see as jokes. A popular misconception on this website seems to be that free speech means speech without consequences, and feel like a community that criticizes the things they say is an attempt to silence them. \n\nI subscribe to SRS because I like laughing at and making fun of terrible content. It is a fun way to waste time.",
"Because reddit is full of terrible people (white men) who get hilariously whiny and hypocritical when you criticize things they say (because free speech only applies to white men, and criticism = censorship apparently) or make jokes at their expense the same way they do to others to the point where a subreddit provoking such a reaction is easily the most entertaining thing on the entire website.",
"It's Bizarro World where the Reddit majority is treated like a minority. Everything follows from that.",
"It was created to be a collection of horrible things that redditors say. The hope is that it will eventually teach people to stop validating bad statements, but when it comes down to it it's just a place to laugh at the people who do.\n\nIt catches a lot of flak because the shitty opinions that get called out aren't that unpopular among redditors. Ironically, people tend to take offense when told they're being offensive.",
"Something that also might help with particular issues: [/r/SRSDiscussion](/r/SRSDiscussion)."
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Some basic questions about the subreddit [/r/shitredditsays](/r/shitredditsays). * Why was it created? * What is the purpose or goal of it? * Why does it catch so much flak from reddit comments? * Obviously this one would probably vary between members, but any open question to any of them that browse here as well; Why are you subscribed to it? And really anything else anyone cares to add to their description of it. Tried to leave as much of my own bias out of these questions as possible. Edit: I guess "**No bias.**" was too much to ask. Kind of makes sense considering the subject matter can't be completely factual. [](/scootaloo"Stealth pony.") | [
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7492yv | Is it possible for an unfit, out of shape, overweight, 40 year old male to ever do the Jean-Claude Van Damme split? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Maybe.\n\nSuppose it takes 10 years of dedicated training to reach this goal - from my own experience of doing yoga 3 mornings a week for 2 years in my early 40's, I think that to get to such an accomplishment in 10 years would be a best-case scenario.\n\nSo that means spending your 40's working towards that goal. There are some tremendously fit & healthy 40-50 year olds, but let's remember that there are degenerative problems (like arthritis and loss of cartilage in joints, stenosis, etc.) that you might slow but won't reverse - and those often start appearing sometime in your 40's or 50's.\n\nKeep in mind also that there will be injuries on this path, and that every year that goes by, it takes you just a little bit longer to recover from injuries. And the time spent recovering from injury is time where you're losing gains in strength and flexibility.\n\nHere's a question - how many athletes or performers that were able to do this move in their 20's can still do it in their 50's? I would suggest that someone who could do it in their youth probably has an advantage over someone starting from from a fitness deficit.",
"Endurance, body fat, nor muscle tone have anything to do with flexibility. Just stretch and stretch and frikkin stretch some more. You'll get it. The only thing that may prevent you from accomplishing it is the condition of your knees and hips."
],
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} | train_eli5 | Is it possible for an unfit, out of shape, overweight, 40 year old male to ever do the Jean-Claude Van Damme split?
[removed] | [
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5ulcm1 | Why can't popular singers stream a show live on YouTube and profit money with ads and stuff | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Too much time and not a lot of money in it, it would be like giving away a free concert honestly."
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} | train_eli5 | Why can't popular singers stream a show live on YouTube and profit money with ads and stuff
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3g8sjk | How exactly do brethalyzers work? | How realistic are breathalyzers in determining how impaired you are? For example, if I swished around some liquor in my mouth, spit it out, and then blew- would it register that I have alcohol in my system? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"For the ones which count as evidence in a DUI, there are two mechanisms which measure the alcohol. One is infrared, the other is electrochemical.\n\nOne of them falls for the liquor-swishing, the other guards against it. Some of hand-held ones are electrochemical and will be duped by mouth alcohol. But those aren't valid for a DUI trial. \n\nThat's why DUIs wait 20 minutes before taking it just as an extra measure. All the alcohol will be gone by 15 minutes, unless you puke up fresh booze from the stomach.\n\nIt's also why the breath sample has to be almost impossibly long, so the infrared mechanism gets the air from the longs and not stuff from the mouth.",
"When you drink alcohol, it is absorbed in the stomach but is also digested. As it enters the blood stream, your blood goes to every part of your body including your lungs. When you exhale, some of the alcohol that is passing over the cell membranes in your lungs is also exhaled. \n\nThat is what they measure.\n\n::edit:: I just realized I did not answer OP's question at all... downvote plz",
"I'm a defense lawyer, so I can explain this quite well.\n\nYou see, you breathe into the straw, which goes into a chamber with infrared light. the light bounces off a series of mirrors. As your breath reaches the chamber, it essentially turns into a vapor, or smoke. When the light bounces in the chamber, if there is more alcohol in your system, it has a harder time passing through the smoke, after bouncing on the mirrors, which in turn determines how drunk you are.\n\nReally, if you think about it, it's all just smoke and mirrors!",
"The infrared component detects mouth alcohol, and the 20 minute waiting period starts over."
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} | train_eli5 | How exactly do brethalyzers work?
How realistic are breathalyzers in determining how impaired you are? For example, if I swished around some liquor in my mouth, spit it out, and then blew- would it register that I have alcohol in my system? | [
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23iu99 | why hasn't any space program accepted astronaut applicants between the ages 20 and 30? why only 35+ | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They want extremely experienced people to admit into years and years of training. There's just no way you're ready for what they want out of you at age 20 and even 30 is certainly pushing it. \n\nThat said Gherman Titov was 25 when he flew a Vostok mission.",
"From the NASA website:\n\n > Are there age restrictions?\n > \n > There are no age restrictions for the program. Astronaut candidates selected in the past have ranged between the ages of 26 and 46, with the average age being 34."
],
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} | train_eli5 | why hasn't any space program accepted astronaut applicants between the ages 20 and 30? why only 35+
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8vau50 | When you get a shot, like the flu shot or b12, why do you have to get it in certain areas like the arm? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It depends on what kind of shot you get, but often if you get a shot in the arm it is because it is easiest and least irritating for the patient",
"Yes and no. Yes in that certain shots need to go into certain types of tissue. This means some shots need to go into your muscle, some need to go below your skin and actually go in your skin (the test for tuberculosis).\n\nThe muscle ones are the most common and those are really decided by the size of your muscles. The big, easy to get to muscles are your butt, your thighs and your upper arms. In general they limit how much volume (milliliters) per muscle. So smaller injections can go in your arm (very easy to get to), larger ones need to go in your legs and the biggest ones tend to go into the butt.\n\nYou've got muscles all over but trying to inject the same amount of medicine into your rib muscle would be difficult and painful compared to your relatively large bicep. For the most part muscle is muscle (exceptions like heart muscle and muscle that moves your intestines around) so size is the most important factor, followed by convenience like ease of access.",
"Many shots are directed into large muscles in order to be slowly absorbed by the body. Such placements also are easier for the administer because the exact positioning isn't as important as trying to enter a vein, and it does not present as much risk of bleeding.\n\nArm muscles are large and convenient to access. Conceptually they could use the legs but many people wear long pants which would obstruct injection."
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} | train_eli5 | When you get a shot, like the flu shot or b12, why do you have to get it in certain areas like the arm?
| [
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6l6emq | If artists can draw realistic drawing and paintings, how come there's no good realistic drawings of people from the past? | People from ancient times especially | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Most artists nowadays learn about musculature and other superficial human structures. As the knowledge of medicine increased, the level of detail increased. Art is not always \"see and copy\", it's more like \"see, understand, and replicate\". \n\nThis is the reason da Vinci is considered a pioneer is because he studied the human form in incredible details (for his time), among other things as well. \n\nEdit: referring to knowledge of anatomy within a culture. Also, sculptures like Michelangelo's David came near anatomical detail only because of anatomical studies by the artists on their own.",
"More often than not, they didn't want to. It wasn't important to them. They wanted to represent other things. Don't you think that if the ancient greek were able to create a bronze sculpture of a god like [this one](_URL_0_) 2500 years ago they wouldn't have been able to draw him \"realistically\" as well?\n\nEdit to include the paleolithic (because I realised your \"ancient times\" might refer to that): I don't know about you, but I can't draw [horses](_URL_2_) nor [bulls](_URL_1_) so well.",
"Materials and primarily access to them. \n\nAlso a lot easier to learn different techniques now, passed down knowledge etc."
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"https://www.thoughtco.com/upper-paleolithic-modern-humans-173073"
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} | train_eli5 | If artists can draw realistic drawing and paintings, how come there's no good realistic drawings of people from the past?
People from ancient times especially | [
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2q3284 | What's the whole Bill Cosby scandal and does it seem like he's guilty? | I've been in France for two months, and the first thing I hear upon my return to JFK is about Bill Cosby and his possible assaults or rapes or whatever. Can some one run me through it? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Cosby had been accused of drugging and raping women several times, and in 2006 he paid a settlement to prevent a civil suit about it from going to trial. \n\nThis was reported in the media at the time, but not widely reported, and it did not receive much attention until earlier this year. Comedian Hannibal Buress mentioned the rape allegations on stage, and for whatever reason, it caught fire. I personally had never heard about the allegations until this happened, and I think I am in the majority with this.\n\nSince then, several women (27 at last count) have come forward saying that Cosby drugged and raped them. The stories are very similar. They were trying to break into acting. Cosby said he would help them. Then he offered them a drink and the next thing they knew they were naked in his bed. These stories go back as far as the 60s.\n\nMy personal opinion, he is guilty. I just can't imagine 27 women all making up the same story, and taking all the risks that come with publicly accusing a famous person of rape. I am not a juror, though, so take my opinion for what it is worth.",
"I believe he is guilty and has gotten away with drugging and raping many women. He is a disgrace and I hope justice is somehow served....Karma."
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} | train_eli5 | What's the whole Bill Cosby scandal and does it seem like he's guilty?
I've been in France for two months, and the first thing I hear upon my return to JFK is about Bill Cosby and his possible assaults or rapes or whatever. Can some one run me through it? | [
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6kf9iv | Why do americans seem to have a lot of bank accounts across different banks? | I recently read popular post, at reddit, about finance and it had quote like "We got 8 different accounts across 5 banks". Its not uncommon quote I see either.
I come from country where people *probably* have 1-3 accounts. One for everyday use, one for savings and one for "investments" if you are bold (or rich) enough for that. Usually in just one bank (We have like 5 banks anyway).
Googling the issue only brings "number of people without bank accounts on the rise", so I guess its cultural thing that people dont really think about. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'll explain my reasoning. \n\nPG County Credit union savings from when I was a minor and my parents belonged to that credit union. My first account. \n\nBaltimore credit union savings and checking through my current employer because it was required for direct deposit of paychecks. Also have an IRA and deferred comp account with them. \n\nMD Employees checking offered no fee withdraws for my first home's mortgage and was a free transfer from the Baltimore account above. \n\nWells Fargo checking because they offered to match up to $500 deposit when I bought my car if I set up direct deposit for my car payment through them. Essentially 1 1/2 free car payments. My second credit union account auto transfers once a month to Wells Fargo for no fee to guarantee the funds are there for my car payment. \n\nChase Manhattan checking for same reason as the above Wells Fargo but for my mortgage. \n\nSynchrony bank checking. Same reason as above but for my bedroom set and they offered 0% interest on the loan for 2 years. Took the total and divided by 23 payments and set that as the auto payment amount. \n\nBank of America savings because the rates were good. Dropped $1000 in it a couple years ago and don't touch it.",
"In my case, I use different bank accounts to separate mandatory (mortgage, utilities, etc) and discretionary/variable (restaurants, gas, entertainment) expenses. Each account has a direct deposit based on how much I've budgeted and a third account gets whatever is left over and is used as an emergency fund. \n\nHaving a separate account for mandatory expenses means I don't have to worry about overspending and not having enough money to pay the rent. I try to keep a 1 month buffer in each of the two spending accounts and 3 months in the overflow/emergency account. I also never use the mandatory account for anything other than automated payments so it's much less likely to be compromised.\n\nLastly, by having the accounts at three different banks it's unlikely that I'll lose access to all of my available cash due to a problem with a bank.\n\nIn addition to those, I have an investment account that I roll money into from the emergency fund into when it gets too high, an employer-mandated investment account for buying company stock, a home equity line of credit, and a few more accounts that banks required for various loans. All are with different banks.",
"In most countries, you do not lose anything by closing an account, and many bank accounts (especially with a credit/debit card connected) have a yearly fee.\n\n\nIn the US, you have the weird system for credit score that no one seems to understand, but one way to get a good score is to have an account for a long time. Therefore, Americans don't want to close their accounts even if they don't use them, as this would lower the average age of their bank accounts and thus hurt their credit score."
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} | train_eli5 | Why do americans seem to have a lot of bank accounts across different banks?
I recently read popular post, at reddit, about finance and it had quote like "We got 8 different accounts across 5 banks". Its not uncommon quote I see either. I come from country where people *probably* have 1-3 accounts. One for everyday use, one for savings and one for "investments" if you are bold (or rich) enough for that. Usually in just one bank (We have like 5 banks anyway). Googling the issue only brings "number of people without bank accounts on the rise", so I guess its cultural thing that people dont really think about. | [
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5crrrw | Why are animals physically superior to cats (such as alligators) manage to still be afraid of them? | [Here](_URL_0_) is an example of what I'm talking about. How does a large reptile, who could easily tear apart a cat, back away from one? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"two reasons:\n\nFirst, animals are afraid of things that are unknown or mysterious, even if the danger might not necessarily be life-threatening. Think about how many human beings are afraid of spiders, or non-venomous snakes, or small dogs? \n\nSecond, threats aren't all life or death. Sure, that alligator might have been able to take that cat, but that's a big cat and a small alligator. What if the alligator loses an eye? bleeds out from it's tongue? what if the Alligator is hungry, and worried that the energy it will take to fight that sizable cat might be worth more than any meal it even might be able to get?",
"Gators are stealthy, agile, and powerful... in the water. Thats their turf. They sneak up on you burst out of the water and drag you in. On land he's vulnerable, slow, and heavy. He's already insecure and has this thing lunging at him so he returns to the water where he's got the upper hand.",
"The alligator doesn't know that it's physically superior. All it knows is that there's another animal, and it's being aggressive, so maybe it is superior? It's not used to being attacked, so when the cat lashes out, the alligator runs."
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} | train_eli5 | Why are animals physically superior to cats (such as alligators) manage to still be afraid of them?
[Here](_URL_0_) is an example of what I'm talking about. How does a large reptile, who could easily tear apart a cat, back away from one? | [
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7l1s45 | Why does your phone (or any flat rectangular object, like a credit card) flip on both its x and y axis, when you flip it from just the bottom? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's called The intermediate axis theorem. \n\nRotating your phone with its axis perpendicular to its face takes the most energy to spin it, because the corners are far from the axis of rotation.\n\nRotating your phone with its axis perpendicular to the narrow usb end takes the least energy to spin it, because the corners are closer.\n\nRotating your phone with the axis perpendicular to the button side is in-between them, so it takes a middle amount of energy. This makes it unstable, or semi-stable. So it wobbles as it rotates.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Your fingers aren't perfect. You flip one side slightly faster/harder than the other, so you have a little relative motion, so it rotates.",
"You can find complete explenation in this article: _URL_1_\nIn short: You can imagine 3 ways which you can flip your phone (drawing in article):\n\n1. Phone is vertical, its side facing you\n\n2. Phone is vertical, screen (or back) facing you (this is scenerio you desribe)\n\n3. Phone horizontal\n\nAxis 1. and 3. have respectivly the bigest possible and smallest possible moment of inertia. Such situation is stable, small perturbation during flipping are not significant for whole motion. On the other hand, case 2. is intermediate between 1. and 3., and this situation is not stable. Small perturbations during flipping grow exponentially, causing this tumbling you describe. You can try scenario 1. and 3. and you will see by yourself, that motion is much more steady.",
"It is possible, sit there long enough and it will happen. (Maybe 40 or so tries you should get it.)\n\nHave you asked yourself why it is quite easy to do a non spinning flip with the phone facing sideways?\n\nIt's because most of the weight is aligned with the spin axis. So when you try and do a spin when it's facing up all that weight is spread across from the axis and is more likely to find another axis to spin on, which it does. (The one to it's side.)"
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"https://sciencenonfiction.org/2016/06/12/the-mysterious-phone-tumble/"
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} | train_eli5 | Why does your phone (or any flat rectangular object, like a credit card) flip on both its x and y axis, when you flip it from just the bottom?
[removed] | [
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36696t | What happens in a molecular level when wood ages? | When wood fences or branches get old, they are easily breakable, so do the chemical bonds age as well and weaken too? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A chemical bond is either a \"yes\" or a \"no\". It doesn't weaken so much as get converted into some other form of molecule.\n\nWood is mainly made up of long chains of molecules from the \"sugar\" class of compounds. And different types of wood have different densities of the sugars - oak, for example, has a lot more than soft woods like poplar. Those sugars are indigestible to us, but the bacteria in the bellies of termites can eat them, and some fungi do the same. \n\nThere's physical abrasion (for example, walking on a deck), the sun busting some of those molecules with its ultraviolet light energy, and water penetrating and freezing/thawing to cause cracks to grow and so on, and insects such as ants burrowing in it. But the big thing is that the sugars in wood get digested over time by living things unless blocked through chemical products.\n\nWater helps fill in the gaps between the sugar molecules and adds strength, which is why a \"green\" twig will bend but a dried one is easier to snap."
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} | train_eli5 | What happens in a molecular level when wood ages?
When wood fences or branches get old, they are easily breakable, so do the chemical bonds age as well and weaken too? | [
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7ejuuz | How do they stop a large gas main fire? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Depends on the intensity of the fire. Generally they shut off the flow of gas further up the system. Letting the remaining fuel burn off, cooling it with water or foam and sealing the well.\n\nThere are methods to shutting off fires at oil wells which can involve the use of explosives or other methods of capping the well.\n\n_URL_0_",
"> Just got me wondering how they keep it from going back up the line.\n\nFire needs three things to continue: Fuel, oxygen, and heat. There's no oxygen in the gas line, so fire can't burn there.",
"Fun fact, they used explosives to put out the oil rig fires that Saddam started in the first Gulf War."
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} | train_eli5 | How do they stop a large gas main fire?
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5no9ff | What is a computer server? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A computer. It's a computer that has a whole lot of storage space and a really sturdy processor. It also runs specific software for specific tasks.\n\nAn office's file server, for example, would be a totally normal computer except it would have, say, four terabytes of storage. That computer goes on the local network and is made accessible to, and from, any computers on that same network. The employees then use said server to exchange files.\n\nThey will also use Windows Server (or the equivalent) rather than Windows 7/10 due to software features."
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5o2irm | What's the relationship between taste and smell? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"> Why does losing sense of smell cause reduced taste buds\n\nIt doesn't. Your taste buds can only tell if something is salty, sour, bitter, sweet, or umami (a sort of \"meaty\") flavor. That's **it**. Those are the only tastes that exist. So a banana, a pear, an apple, a tablespoon of sugar, and a piece of candy all taste the same (sweet) as far as your taste buds are concerned.\n\nThe complexity that makes a banana \"taste\" different from a pear or an apple is 100% from the smell that you get as your chew (as particles from your mouth travel up to your nose from behind), and isn't taste at all."
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1i2uhb | electronic music sub-genres | Being an old git, I kind of stopped listening to new music in the early 90s. Since then it seems there was a vast explosion in electronic music and there are now all these subgenres I keep hearing about. My interest has rekindled and I want to explore it but there's an overwhelming amount out there. Can someone give me an ELI5 rundown of what each subgenre is like and who the top few artists are in it? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"[Here is a handy animated guide.](_URL_0_)\n\nIt has descriptions for the primary genres as well as many of the obscure subgenres. And of course, a handful of samples for each category that you can listen to right away.\n\nThis has been around for at least 5 years and I don't know how up to date it is. But you should be plenty informed after exploring it.",
"Alright, I can finally answer one! Really there are way too many subgenres and nuances to go though in a single post, but I'll break down a few of the main one's you'll hear these days (the examples may not be top artists in the genre, but they will be good examples of the genre):\n\n**House**: House music is characterized by a \"four on the floor\" kick-drum rhythm (meaning there is a kick on every beat). It tends to be on the slower side (these days, between 120-130 beats per minute). House music should focus on creating unique, interesting rhythms between the percussion sounds and the bass, but this is not always the focus. House can be divided into several sub-genre's itself, with some of the more notable being: Tech House which borrows some elements from techno and tends to be more minimal, progressive house which includes a wide variety of tracks which focus on melody and bigger, more interesting progressions, and electro house which tends to have huge bass sounds, synthy riffs and less percussion. Examples: [Adam K and Soha](_URL_12_), [Hanna](_URL_12_), [Hardwell](_URL_12_)\n\n**Trance**: Similar to house with a few differences (and these days its getting harder to tell them apart). It is also characterized by a four-on-the-floor rhythm with the kick drum. It tends to be faster than house, between 130bpm and 140pm and focuses on big melodic progressions with a pretty rigid track structure that tends to go like this: bassy intro, a main theme, emotional breakdown, buildup, chorus/main theme, outro. Very rarely will you find trance songs deviate from this. They tend to be almost orchestral, and aim for an emotional response. Examples: [Sean Tyas](_URL_12_), [Armin van Buuren (aka Gaia)](_URL_12_), [Shogun](_URL_12_)\n\n**Dubstep**: This is a controversial genre. It has catapulted into popularity in the last few years due to artists like Skrillex, Rusko etc. It is an extremely bassy music, usually around 140pm (but with a half-time feel to make it feel slower). It is usually characterized by a break-beat (not 4x4 like house or trance) and can have some really interesting rhythms in the percussion and bass (including the characteristic wobble). Its other main feature is the very low, sub bass that makes your house shake. Examples: [Skrillex](_URL_12_), [Benga](_URL_12_), [Mt Eden](_URL_12_)\n\n**Drum and Bass**: I'm not a huge DnB head, but I'll do my best. It is the older, double-time cousin of dubstep. It is a fast, bassy, music that is characterized by an iconic rhythm that you will just have to hear for yourself in the examples. It ranges anywhere from 140bpm to 170pm and can sometimes even go faster. It has some notable sub-genre's including Liquid Drum and Bass which tends to be more melodic. Examples: [Netsky](_URL_12_), [Sub Focus](_URL_12_), [London Elektricity](_URL_12_).\n\nOf course this is not an exhaustive list by any means. There are other genres such as Moombahton, garage, IDM, trap, industrial, glitch-hop etc. Really, the best way to tell the difference between the genres is to just listen, listen, listen. There are a ton of nuances to each that you just have to hear for yourself. Also, reddit is a great resource. There is a sub-reddit for pretty much every genre out there where you can find great examples of each. Hope this helps!",
"I have been listening to EDM since 2007 and here is a simple, but comprehensive cross-section of popular sub-genres in recent years. Note that the relationship between sub-genres (in general) is in some ways hierarchical and in others non-linear and fluid. I'd also like to emphasize that genres/styles often revolve around certain labels, and I try to name them when possible.\n\n*House* - Happy music, steady beat. Has changed a lot over the years, but I think of it as the new form of disco. Early house was often just chopped up Disco songs sped up to about 120bpm.\n\n* David Guetta\n* Eric Prydz\n\n\n*Trance* - Dream-like, ethereal, seems to be very repetitive at first but actually it's changing so slowly and subtly that it alters your perception of time. \n\n* Above & Beyond - \tSee: [Anjuna Beats] (_URL_54_)\n\n*Psy-trance* - made with psychedelic drugs and transcendental states in mind, in a very explicit and open way.\n\n* Infected Mushroom\n* 1200micrograms\n* Shpongle\n\t\n*Progressive House* - Sort of a mixture of House and Electro House. Often kind of Trancy. \n\n* Moonbeam - _URL_61_\n* Anybody on Anjunadeep (Sister label of anjuna beats) like [Arty](_URL_62_), \n* earlier Deadmau5\n\n\n*Electro house* - House, but grittier due to more [Sawtooth waves] (_URL_57_) and moar Bass.\n\n* Vitalic - _URL_60_\n* Crookers/Bloody Beetroots - Italians _URL_51_\n* Wolfgang Gartner - _URL_55_\n* Boys Noize - More electro than house. _URL_61_, Started [Boys Noize Records](_URL_50_)\n* Deadmau5 - a giant mouse. Started the [Mau5trap] (_URL_57_) label with talent such as [Feed Me](_URL_62_)\n \n*French House* - France's style is so distinct they got a pseudo-genre out of it. \n\n* Justice - _URL_62_ - Absolutely HUGE band when they came out, groundbreaking stuff really\n* Sebastian \n* Kavinsky\n* Daft Punk\n\n*Minimal House* - understated House, slightly more repetitive, generally more laidback, but sometimes has high energy. Can evolve slowly over the course of the song (or DJ mix), much like Trance. \n\n* Claude VonStroke - Created [Dirtybird Records] (_URL_58_) - _URL_58_\n* Marek Hemman\n* Richie Hawtin/Plastikman\n* Dubfire\n\n*Breakbeat* - Deviates from 4/4 drum pattern. The Amen Break is responsible for all of this madness: [Short story] (_URL_56_) , [Long Story](_URL_52_)\n\n* The Prodigy - _URL_60_\n* The Chemical Brothers - _URL_56_\n* Bassnectar - delves into a lot of things, prides himself on FAT DROPS\n\n*BASS MUSIC* - Umbrella term to group Dubstep, DnB, and some types of House for their emphasis on bass. \n\n*Dubstep* - 140 beats per minute, but drums usually go half time. Lots of LFO and Sub Bass\n\n*\"UK\" Dubstep* - The \"original\" dubstep. More relaxed tracks are mellow, deep and dark while others are \"dirty\". See: /r/realdubstep.\n\n* Benga/Skream - good to bob your head to, sounds like you're underwater most of the time _URL_62_ ,\n_URL_51_ , [Benga & Coki - Night] (_URL_59_)\n*Caspa\n* Flux Pavilion/Doctor P - HUGE bass WOWWIIEE. This kind of sound helped propel Dubstep to North America. Label: Circus Records\n_URL_55_ , \n_URL_59_ , \n_URL_54_ \n\n*\"US\" Dubstep* - Dubstep recently made a huge splash in North America, where it underwent some stylistic changes (moar growls, moar energy). It shares the same name \"Dubstep\" as the UK style but some like to adamantly differentiate them. Some folks call it \"Brostep\" because of guys like [this](_URL_60_). AFAIK nobody refers to a \"Canadian\" Dubstep, they're just lumped in with Americans. (Sorry I can't escape my US-centricity)\n\n'muricans:\n\n* Skrillex - [OWSLA](_URL_53_) Label\n* Bassnectar \n* 12th Planet\n* Kill the Noise\n* Minnesota - an [example](_URL_60_) of \"chiller\" US dubstep \n\n\nCanucks:\n\n* Zed's Dead\n* Datsik\n* Excision\n* Downlink\n\nKiwi:\n\n* Mt. Eden\n\t\n*Drum and Bass aka DnB* - Sped-up Breakbeat. I'm sure this was covered in the other responses but here's:\n\n* Pendulum - _URL_59_\n\n\n*Complextro* - Same tempo and general song structure of Electro House, but has the BIG sounds of Dubstep. Constantly jumps to different things in quick succession, for example a single bassline for 2 bars can actually be 4 different instruments bouncing back and forth (deriving from French Electro House, it's also found in other genres but the feature is less central)\n\n* Knife Party\n* Porter Robinson\n* Wolfgang Fartner\n* Skrillex\n* Uppermost\n* Feed me\n\n*Electrotrap aka Trap Music aka EDM Trap aka Trapstep aka Acid Trap*- Most people right now just call it 'Trap' but the \"original\" trap music was a kind of American Southern Rap. Trap is one of Mad Decent's (Diplo's label) specialities. [Short history from /r/Trap] (_URL_56_)\n\n\n* Flosstradamus - You start with [this] (_URL_52_) (A Hardstyle beat) and then you [TRAPIFY IT] (_URL_52_)\n* Baauer - \tHarlem Shake (Do i really need to link it?)\n* UZ - _URL_61_\n* Dillon Francis\n\t\n*Moombahton* - Same beat as Reggaeton, but house-ified. I havent listened to many artists who call themselves Moombahton, I think it's just something a lot of Complextro artists try out /s \n\n* Dillon Francis - Specializes in Moombahton (thanks /u/redbaaron) [here's one] (_URL_52_) he made with Kill the Noise\n* [More](_URL_58_) from /u/snarkyturtle.)\n* \n\n*IDM (\"Intelligent\" Dance Music)* - Prides itself in nonconformity, generally more complicated than the above and less constrained in structure, possessing elements like irregular drum patterns and glitchiness. Much of it is upliftingly dark in style. In my experience, nearly all IDM artists overlap with either *ambient* ,*downtempo*, *trip hop* or *glitch*. Usually seen on /r/futurebeats. \n\n* Squarepusher - _URL_51_\n* John Hopkins - _URL_58_\n* Chris Clark - _URL_53_\n* Aphex Twin\n* Baths\n\n\n*Ambient* & *Downtempo* - Both are relaxed and calm, perfect background music for headaches or comedowns. Downtempo has a steady beat, while ambient doesn't need one and is more focused on creating a soundscape. In my experience, they overlap so heavily with IDM that's it's easier for me to point out which of the following bands are *not* IDM. There's also overlap with some *trance* and *house*.\n\n* Royksopp - not IDM\n* Bonobo - a little IDM\n* Telefon Tel Aviv\n* Tycho\n* Nosaj Thing -_URL_57_\n* Apparat\n* Four Tet\n* Boards of Canada\n\n\n*Synthpop* - A close cousin of electro house, but slower and not as intense, and more bubbly glitchy, groovy, \"retro\" sounding.\n\n* La Roux - _URL_61_\n* Ladytron - _URL_53_\n* Crystal castles - _URL_54_ , _URL_53_\n* Calvin Harris - _URL_54_\n* Cut Copy\n* Hot Chip\n\n*Dance-Punk* - A rock band + Electronic Music. Think of an updated New Order or Depeche Mode. Usually upbeat, and the presence of guitars vs. electronics will vary.\n\n* The Faint - _URL_56_\n* Late of the Pier - _URL_57_\n* Digitalism\n* LCD Soundsystem\n* Soulwax - I honestly don't know what the fuck happened to these guys, they are way too far off the map for how good they are. They started out as a rock band and their album called 'Any Minute Now' was remixed by two of the members into one of my favorite electronic music albums of all time: [Nite Versions] (_URL_55_)\n\n*DJ heavy guys* - Not a genre really, I just wanted to point out a few artists who incorporate a lot of DJ-ing into their original productions\n\n* DJ Shadow\n* A-Trak\n* Birdy Nam Nam - _URL_50_\n* Diplo \n\t\n\t\n*HONORABLE MENTIONS:*\n\n* Hardstyle, Gabber, Hardcore, Happy Hardcore, UK Hardcore - [from](_URL_50_) /u/piexil\n\n* Disco aka Nu-disco - [Explanation](_URL_55_) courtesy of /u/thetobester\n\n* Industrial - VNV Nation - _URL_59_\n\n* Tech House, Deep House - Related to Minimal\n\n* Glitch Hop, Trip Hop - Glitch Mob, Massive Attack\n\n* Jungle \n\n\n\n*HONORABLE ARTISTS*\n\n* Chromeo \n* Big Gigantic - ALTOSAX \n* Guillermo Scott Heron aka Prefuse 73\n\t\nEdit: I've really been continually updating it all day but wow thanks for gold!",
"Here is a list of video links collected from comments that redditors have made in response to this submission:\n\n|Source Comment|Score|Video Link|\n|:-------|:-------|:-------|\n|[CelsiusOne](_URL_104_)|186|[Netsky - Memory Lane](_URL_88_)|\n|[CelsiusOne](_URL_104_)|186|[Kaskade - 4 AM Adam K & Soha remix HD](_URL_121_)|\n|[CelsiusOne](_URL_104_)|186|[London Elektricity - Elektricity Will Keep Me Warm featuring Elsa Esmeralda](_URL_86_)|\n|[CelsiusOne](_URL_104_)|186|[Sub Focus - Follow The Light](_URL_119_)|\n|[CelsiusOne](_URL_104_)|186|[Mt Eden Dubstep - Sierra Leone](_URL_105_)|\n|[CelsiusOne](_URL_104_)|186|[Benga - I Will Never Change](_URL_108_)|\n|[CelsiusOne](_URL_104_)|186|[SKRILLEX - Scary Monsters And Nice Sprites](_URL_134_)|\n|[CelsiusOne](_URL_104_)|186|[Shogun feat. Emma Lock - Save Me Original Mix](_URL_128_)|\n|[CelsiusOne](_URL_104_)|186|[Armin van Buuren presents Gaia - J'ai Envie De Toi Official Music Video](_URL_128_)|\n|[CelsiusOne](_URL_104_)|186|[Sean Tyas - Melbourne Original Mix Full Version](_URL_129_)|\n|[CelsiusOne](_URL_104_)|186|[Hanna - Sometimes Quell loves you sometimes remix](_URL_133_)|\n|[CelsiusOne](_URL_104_)|186|[Hardwell - Spaceman Original Mix HQ](_URL_126_)|\n|[Budddda](_URL_81_)|135|[Rebel MC aka Congo Natty - Get Ready EXCLUSIVE](_URL_124_)|\n|[Budddda](_URL_81_)|135|[Sylk 130 - Last Night A Dj Saved My Life](_URL_93_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Wolfgang Gartner - Undertaker](_URL_109_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Pendulum - Slam](_URL_130_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Doctor P - Sweet Shop](_URL_122_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Dubstep Flux Pavilion - Cracks](_URL_135_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Benga & Coki - 'Night'](_URL_106_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[VNV Nation - Illusion](_URL_78_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Kid Cudi - Day N' Night Crookers remix ](_URL_94_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Boys Noize - Lava Lava](_URL_136_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Amen Break - normal, fast and slow version](_URL_131_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Feed Me - Blood Red](_URL_137_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Chemical Brothers - Saturate](_URL_110_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[The Prodigy - Invaders Must Die](_URL_100_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Vitalic - Second Lives Official](_URL_83_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Ladytron - Ace Of Hz Official Music Video](_URL_125_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[La Roux - Bulletproof](_URL_129_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Major Lazer - Original Don ft. The Partysquad](_URL_127_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Crystal Castles \"COURTSHIP DATING\" Official](_URL_95_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Crystal Castles - Crimewave](_URL_89_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Birdy Nam Nam - Defiant Order UZ Remix](_URL_126_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Knife Party - 'Sleaze'](_URL_131_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Porter Robinson - 100% In The Bitch](_URL_137_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Moombahton:Dillon Francis & Kill The Noise - Dill The Noise -Lunar Network](_URL_77_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Nosaj Thing - Try feat. Toro Y Moi](_URL_90_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Late of the Pier - Focker](_URL_102_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Clark - Growls Garden HD](_URL_138_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Jon Hopkins - Vessel](_URL_132_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Squarepusher - 'Dark Steering' taken from 'Ufabulum'](_URL_85_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Arty - Kate](_URL_115_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Moonbeam featuring Blackfeel Wite - Song for a Girl Official Music Video](_URL_112_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[FULL ALBUM Soulwax - Nite Versions - 2005](_URL_79_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[The Faint - Forever Growing Centipedes](_URL_138_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Caspa - Wheres my money](_URL_80_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Calvin Harris - Merrymaking at my Place](_URL_133_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[DJ Fresh - Louder Doctor P & Flux Pavilion Remix](_URL_82_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Justice - D.A.N.C.E. Official Video](_URL_130_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Major Lazer - Original Don Flosstradamus remix](_URL_136_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Minnesota - Stardust Dubstep](_URL_116_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Video explains the world's most important 6-sec drum loop](_URL_113_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|107|[Claude Vonstroke - Who's Afraid Of Detroit](_URL_101_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|53|[Peter, Björn and John - Young Folks Diplo Youngest Folks Remix](_URL_76_)|\n|[Stue3112](_URL_103_)|36|[ComicDead - Robots Can Sing](_URL_96_)|\n|[Stue3112](_URL_103_)|36|[Monsta - Where Did I Go Dillon Francis & Kill Paris Remix](_URL_107_)|\n|[Stue3112](_URL_103_)|36|[Far Too Loud - 600 Years Firestorm EP - Funkatech Records](_URL_98_)|\n|[Stue3112](_URL_103_)|36|[Noisia - Could This Be](_URL_111_)|\n|[Stue3112](_URL_103_)|36|[Trance - Mitchell Claxton - Fire Vortex Monstercat Release](_URL_99_)|\n|[Stue3112](_URL_103_)|36|[KOAN Sound - Funk Blaster Official Video](_URL_84_)|\n|[Stue3112](_URL_103_)|36|[Angerfist - Dance With The Wolves](_URL_114_)|\n|[Stue3112](_URL_103_)|36|[My Digital Enemy & Jason Chance - Feel It In The Air Zulu Records](_URL_97_)|\n|[Stue3112](_URL_103_)|36|[Electro - I.Y.F.F.E - Jurassic Monstercat Release](_URL_134_)|\n|[VagabondOfTheWastes](_URL_132_)|36|[Telefon Tel Aviv - fahrenheit fair enough](_URL_120_)|\n|[Stue3112](_URL_103_)|36|[deadmau5 - Some Chords](_URL_117_)|\n|[Stue3112](_URL_103_)|36|[Ellie Goulding - Figure 8 Xilent Remix](_URL_118_)|\n|[Stue3112](_URL_103_)|36|[Skream - Midnight Request Line](_URL_87_)|\n|[Stue3112](_URL_103_)|36|[Fedde Le Grand & Nicky Romero ft. Matthew Koma - Sparks Vicetone Remix](_URL_127_)|\n|[Stue3112](_URL_103_)|36|[Bro Safari - The Drop FREE DOWNLOAD ](_URL_91_)|\n* [VideoLinkBot FAQ](_URL_123_)\n* [Feedback](_URL_135_)\n* [Playlist of videos in this comment](_URL_92_)",
"Ok then, I'm going to go for the main ones, with a \"explain like I'm five detail\".\n\nHouse: 4x4 beat, usually has a \"caribbean\" feeling to it, here's an [example] (_URL_141_).\n\nElectro House: I'm not even going to say electro by itself because it dosen't even exist anymore, anyway, beat is again 4x4, usually different sounds in rapid succession is complextro and otherwise is just synth and bass heavy music, here's examples of both [Complextro] (_URL_149_), [Electro House] (_URL_142_).\n\nDubstep: Brokean beat, heavy bass lines, is carachterised by \"bass wobbles\" - it's important to note dubstep has change A LOT over time: [ old dubstep] (_URL_151_), [new dubstep] (_URL_148_).\n\nProgressive House: Basically like electro house, but, you guessed it, much \"slower\", the progression to the drop is steeper and more complex, [example] (_URL_143_).\n\nMoombahton/Moombahcore: electronic raeggeton, moomahcore is moombahton with dubstep influence; [moombahton] (_URL_140_), [moombahcore] (_URL_150_).\n\nDrum & Bass: Fast break beats with heavy bass lines, [example] (_URL_139_).\n\nTrance: [Fucking melodies and shit] (_URL_145_).\n\nGlitch Hop: What really makes it different from dubstep is the drum arrangement and the tempo, which is usually 110 BPM, [example] (_URL_146_).\n\nTechno/Hardcore: Repetitive, rave music: [hardcore] (_URL_144_), [techno] (_URL_152_).\n\nTrap: I know many people won't like this definiton, but for the sake of keeping this simple, it's bascially hip-hop like music, [example] (_URL_147_).\n\nAnd I have absolutely no clue how to define deep house.\n\nThese are all the \"main\" electronic genres :)",
"_URL_153_ \n\nThis a great electronic music streaming site with all the genres explained.",
"Oh my goodness I fucking love electronic music. Truly, it is the music of ideas.\n\nIshkur's guide is good until like 2002, it's true. I dunno why he hasn't updated it because it's so funny and informative... ah well.\n\nYou really can't talk about modern electronic music without talking about Dubstep. Dubstep came from Dub Reggae and 2-Step. It started out as a [dark, minimal style.](_URL_155_) It got a little harder over the years, with songs like Skream's 'Filth' or Rusko's... well, just Rusko, but it wasn't until it got to America that we decided it wasn't quite American enough, so basically the aggro feel of punk and metal came back and injected itself into the usually dark, contemplative genre of Dubstep and became the screechy, warbly, robotic genocidal wobblefest that Excision (who is Canadian I just remembered), Skrillex, (fucking) Borgore, and others have pushed into the mainstream. Since 2010, it's calmed down a little and been massaged into lots of different flavors, ranging from the chill-out vibes of Hot Flush Recordings, to the 'clownstep' that Doctor P and Eptic perpetuate (I'm not a fan), to a combination of the dark pre-2008 British dubstep and the hard, crazy post-2008 Dubstep, such as Sleeper, District, Kryptic Minds, and Truth. I can give more varied examples if you want - Doshy comes to mind as particularly unique.\n\nSince then, the hard-as-fuck influence of American Dubstep* - especially the exaggerated DROP that we all love so much, Scary Monsters & Nice Sprites in particular - has infiltrated most of the electronic music world. From DnB to Electro House to Moombahtrap-step (no, it's not real. yet.), people have sort of forgotten how to dance because they store all their energy up for the doubling kicks right before the bass comes back in, then they jump up and down for 20 seconds and then lose interest because lots of artists were just latching on to this idea of the HEAVIEST DROP EVAR instead of focusing on an actual groove that humans can feel in their souls that compels them to dance. It's dying down a little, thankfully, and people are starting to realize more that musicality is still more important than loudness and sound design - even though those are still key obviously. \n\nThe other annoying thing about modern EDM is that teenagers are extremely susceptible to trends and 'flavor of the moment' mentalities, which leads to a large amount of people searching for the \"next\" sound, leaving previous genres in the dust. Dubstep has already started to die down in the wake of Trap (which is a translation of slow, Southern American Rap beats to EDM song structures and synths), which is in the same BPM range and has the same emphasis on overwhelming bass. And yet Electro is apparently going to be around forever, much to my chagrin as I personally find most Electro and House to be fundamentally boring.\n\nWhore moment: I'm a moderator of /r/electrohiphop, which we define as intentionally very broad, since electronic music genres tend to become extremely narrow these days - detrimentally so in my opinion. We expand it to mean basically any song that is a blend of EDM and Hip-Hop. Good examples are Gramatik (so fucking good), GRiZ (same), Pretty Lights (not my fav but he's definitely pioneered the sound), and lesser known stuff like [The Geek](_URL_154_), which is more Hop than EDM, but you can tell it's structured for the dancefloor. If you're interested in a combination of electronic beats with a Hip-Hop feel and a lot of Funk & Soul influences, you will love us and we would love to have you. I'm also the creator of /r/tribalbeats, which is unfortunately very small and mostly inactive. Defined as electronic beats with ancient tribal influences. Again, intentionally very broad.\n\nIf you have more questions, I'll try to answer them. I love talking about this stuff.\n\n\\* We really should have renamed the style that Americans created from British Dubstep, because it's completely fuckin different and historically we have never let a style change so much and keep the name that it came from.\n\n**TL;DR** genres are fucking silly, there is good music and bad music and that is all you need to worry about.",
"You are so lucky, you've got a veritable treasure trove awaiting you. One thing I would say is that your tastes have probably changed over time. Many artists have changed considerably over that time too, so you'll have to hop about and see what sort of things take your fancy.\n\nEveryone has covered all sorts in here, so I thought I'd give some general recommendations of what I consider to be excellent electronic music since the mid 1990's. Some artists I list here I have't listed all their albums, that's because either I don't rate them as *excellent* or simply do not own them. Every album I list here I consider *amazing* and still listen to regularly today.\n\nAlso, I'm from the UK, so there is likely a strong bias because of that.\n\n**Daft Punk**\n\nYou probably remember these with their amazing album [Homework](_URL_161_), which was quite a hard funky electronic sound. They've progressively smoothed out since then, producing several excellent albums.\n\n* [Homework](_URL_161_)\n\n* [Discovery](_URL_172_)\n\n* [Human After All](_URL_156_)\n\n* [Random Access Memories](_URL_176_)\n\n**The Chemical Brothers**\n\nYou might have just missed out on these, they started with two incredibly hard electronic albums, which was very refreshing at the time compared to the softness of popular music at the time. Probably the most popular 'Big Beat'. Like Daft Punk, their music has softened and smoothed to sublime levels over time. \n\n* [Exist Planet Dust](_URL_174_)\n\n* [Dig Your Own Hole](_URL_173_)\n\n* [Surrender](_URL_168_)\n\n* [Come With Us](_URL_188_)\n\n* [Push The Button](_URL_158_)\n\n**The Prodigy**\n\nI'm sure you've heard these! So, I won't bable on about them. Pure Rave to start with, moving into the more heavy industrial side like The Chemical Brothers early stuff, but not mellowing out to the same extent as The Chemical Brothers have.\n\n* [Experience](_URL_180_)\n\n* [Music for the Jilted Generation](_URL_157_)\n\n* [The Fat of the Land](_URL_162_)\n\n**Goldie**\n\nThe mid to late 90's saw the rise of Drum and Bass in the mainstream. I have a particular preference for those artists that combine the hard and fast drums with melodic strings/synths/vocals so what you see here reflects that - some D & B 'greats' I simply didn't get on with so can't recommend.\n\nGoldie's first album is perhaps the crowning glory of Drum & Bass, others (that we'll get to) built on the platform that Goldie built. He only ever had one, aptly named, album of note - but *what* an album. The first 21 minutes are one of the greatest 21 minutes of audio ever created.\n\n* [Timeless](_URL_181_)\n\n*NOTE: I literally could not skip listening to that 21 minutes so this post has taken me ages to write now!*\n\n**Roni Size**\n\nRoni took Drum & Bass to a whole new level of popularity, winning awards across the board and truly bringing D & B to the mainstream. He breaks a lot of the formulaic nature that had settled into the genre, experimenting and creating something altogether new.\n\n* [New Forms](_URL_171_)\n\n* [In The Mode](_URL_175_) *NOTE: Link to a single, not the album*\n\n**LTJ Bukem**\n\nFrom the early 90's, so you've probably come across LTJ Bukem but it's so good I couldn't risk you missing out. He took a much smoother/softer approach to D & B which I loved.\n\n* [Logical Progression](_URL_160_)\n\n**Propellerheads**\n\nOne album, but a great one. An almost indescribable and eclectic mix of 'sounds'. Really heavy beats/breaks, very heavy sampling, hard synths (808/303) and shit you've just never ever heard before or since that somehow works. In particular check out [Bang On](_URL_182_).\n\n* [DecksAndDrumsAndRockAndRoll](_URL_177_)\n\n**Fatboy Slim / Norman Cook**\n\nFatboy slim created a string of massively popular hits in the late 90's/early 2000's. His music is quite unique, lots of samples and heavy re-mixing. I guess 'Big Beat' or 'Breakbeat', but I'm not too clear on the boundries of those genres. Again, a progressive softening/smoothing occurs over time.\n\nHe was also in the first wave of really massively successful DJ's, which in early 2000's saw a move to many 'one off' artists (often the same producers releasing work under different names) and mixing sets.\n\n* [Better Living Through Chemistry](_URL_178_)\n\n* [You've Come a Long Way Baby](_URL_183_)\n\n* [Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars](_URL_187_)\n\n* [On The Floor at The Boutique](_URL_169_) *NOTE: Mix album, though arguably one of the greatest ever)*\n\n**DJ Shadow**\n\nHard to describe the music of DJ Shadow, the word *epic* probably fits best. There is a wide variety of tracks with a trend to heavy beats and breaks mixed samples and softer melodic sounds. But then there's [Organ Donor](_URL_184_) so, you know, hard to classify! All amazing though.\n\n* [Entroducing](_URL_165_)\n\n* [The Private Press](_URL_164_)\n\n**Groove Armada**\n\nEarly 2000's saw a lot of more mellow, relaxing electronic music hit the scene. 'Chill-out' became a really big thing for a while. Groove Armada are on the funkier side of chillout, and all of their music is good, but Love Box in particular is an astounding album that's incredibly varied.\n\n* [Lovebox](_URL_166_)\n\n**Kinobe**\n\nSimilar to Groove Armada, their first (and best) album *Soundphiles* has a very varied mix of style going from quite heavy beats/breaks/sample to super, super chilled. Great for winding things down.\n\n* [Soundphiles](_URL_170_)\n\n**Cream / Gatecrasher / Ministry of Sound**\n\nThe late 90's saw the explosion of the 'super-clubs' and 'superstar DJs', and mix albums became incredibly popular in the electronic scene (still prevalent today, it seems to a lesser extent to me but then I'm older now). In particular, Trance and House music were the genre's of choice, and to a lesser extent Break/Big-beat.\n\nI'll just give a selection of my personal favourites here. There are many, many more, and many albums had the same tracks.\n\n* [Cream Anthems '97](_URL_185_)\n\n* [Gatecrasher Red](_URL_179_)\n\n* [Gatecrasher Black](_URL_186_)\n\n* [Gatecrasher Wet](_URL_167_)\n\n* [Ministry of Sound - The Annual](_URL_159_)\n\n***That'll have to do for now! It's got you some way into early 2000 and covers what I consider all the greats of that era. I'm sure I've missed some, and there are a lot more in between then and now - whole amazing genres like Dubstep.***\n\nAll I'll add is that *right now* I'm listening to [Rudimental - Home](_URL_163_) which is an exceptional album from a new artist. They've had a couple of massive hits off the album already, but the album is a work of art - definitely worth getting.",
"All Electronic music fits under the umbrella term EDM (electronic dance music). It's about the equivalent of the term rock. Now EDM has many sub-genres and is often accused of micro-genring their music. To try and make this as non confusing as possible I'll only focus on the major sub genres. \n\n\n**House** Probably the most well known of them all. House is characterized as others have said by the 4/4 rhythm. The rhythm almost always involves a kick drum and hi-hat of some sort. House is also very repetitive, you may find one loop left in for a while before being changed. The final identifying aspect would be that house sounds warmer and more human than a lot of EDM genres. It takes influences from funk and disco. Some notable house artists include: **Daft Punk, DeadMau5,** and **Justice** \n\n**Techno** Techno is very similar to house, but there are a few differences. They both have similar rhythms, tempos, and a knack for repetition. The difference comes down to a few things. The most notable is techno sounds less human than house. Vocals are less likely to be used and if they are they wont sound like a person's. The only other difference is where they are affiliated. Techno comes from Detroit, while house is linked to Chicago. House and techno are very similar and easy to mix up, no one will cut your head off if you call a techno artist a house one and vice versa. Some notable Techno artists include: **Robert Hood, Jeff Mills** and **Underworld**\n\n**Dubstep** First thing you need to understand about dubstep is that Skrillex is not an accurate representation of the genre. Most dubstep sounds nothing like his music. Now that, that is out of the way dubstep is characterized by two things. It's syncopated rhythms and its heavy use of bass frequencies. I'm sorry if I can't put this simply, but I'll try. Syncopated rhythm is the opposite of a steady 4/4 rhythm. It is complicated, its not repetitive and it doesn't always have the strong beat feel that a steadier rhythm might. Bass frequencies is pretty straight forward, it doesn't always mean having a drop, but that is one form of it. In most cases it just means it has a lot of low notes in the music. Some notable dubstep artists include: **Burial, James Blake** and **Flux Pavilion** \n\n**Trance** Trance sounds like what you would expect it to. The music attempts to put you in a trance. The most common features of the music would be a melodic sounding synthesizer melody that repeats. Like house and techno the 4/4 rhythm is used here as well. The other notable characteristic of trance is the build up and break downs used through out the music. Snare rolls are used a lot before the build up or to lead into it. Some notable trance artists include: **Paul Oakenfold, Paul van Dyk** and DJ **Tiesto.**\n\n**Drum & Bass/Jungle** For the sake of simplicity I'm going to call these two genres the same thing and use the terms interchangeably. Some may say they are different, but its not a settled issue by any means. D & B is the fastest of any the genres I've covered so far. Slow D & B would still be faster than any of the other genres I talked about at their fastest. Jungle features what are known as break beats. It's similar to what I talked about with dubstep's syncopated rhythms'. It's similar to that but more extreme and complex rhythm wise. Also as the name Drum & Bass might imply besides the complex drums their is frequent use of bass lines in the music. Some notable Drum & Bass/Jungle artists include: **Squarepusher, London Elektricity** and **Goldie**\n\nThere are a few major genres I didn't cover here like UK Garage (most because its a combination of a bunch of styles) IDM downtempo and ambient. I'll cover any of those if people want me too. \n\nIf I got anything horribly wrong please let me know. I am by no means an expert on or qualified to discuss any of these genres. I just tried my best with my knowledge and the use of the internet. So I hope that pretty much covers it.",
"[Monstercat](_URL_189_) has several playlists of MANY great songs by MANY great artists separated by subgenre. Listen to a few songs from each and you'll feel the difference. The EDM playlist is the other/miscellaneous/unidentifiable section.",
"I see where you said you listened to alt-rock/metal in the 90s, and while that reply came later I'm kindof surprised that no one catered to it really. There's lots of great electronic music out there, and lots of people have already covered some of the really major things. However, there's one sub genre that I'd like to focus on that no one has even mentioned: Breakcore. Breakcore is pretty much the death metal of electronic music. You'll hear distorted drums and guitar loops, you'll hear screaming, you'll hear samples from obscure B rated horror flicks and so much more. Some of the great Breakcore artists out there right now are guys like **Venetian Snares, Ladyscraper, Igorrr, Bong-Ra, Enduser, Eustachian, Sickboy, Doormouse,** and a personal favorite of mine, **Droon**. \n\nGiven your post talking about your musical background, I'd say start with some tracks like:\n\n[Venetian Snares - Hajnal 2](_URL_194_)\n\n[Ladyscraper - Thou Art Fucking Dead](_URL_193_)\n\n[Igorr - Tout Petite Moineau](_URL_190_)\n\n[Enduser - Too Many Fucking Stairs](_URL_192_)\n\n[Droon - Cripplefight](_URL_191_)",
"Since no one did the harderstyles, I'll do it.\n\n**Gabber/Dutch Hardcore** \n\nSome people like to consider this the starting point, but I'm not doing a history. It tends to be very dark, very fast past and very distorted kicks. People who are fanboys of the genre tend to hate happy and UK hardcore. Still produced, but peaked in the 90s. (Especcially since they're stopping thunderdome this year :( )\n\nExamples\n\n[Nosferatu - Strength](_URL_206_)\n\n[Evil Activities - Nobody Said it was easy](_URL_198_)\n\n[Neophyte - Army of hardcore](_URL_201_) (They started the main record label, Neophyte Records)\n\nOthers:\nRotter Damn Terror Corps\nAngerfist\n\n**Hardcore Techno/ Happy Hardcore**\n\nTends to be very energetic, very \"happy\" melodies, and usually has a lot of piano riffs. Isn't really produced anymore as it's been taken over by the newer UK hardcore. Peaked in the 90s\n\nExamples\n\n[Critical Mass - Happy Generation](_URL_195_)\n\n[Party Animals - Atomic](_URL_205_)\n\n[Seb - Rainbow Islands](_URL_199_)\n\n**UK Hardcore**\n\nPretty much people took the idea of happy hardcore, used more modern synth sounds, and put a higher emphasis on melody. It's pretty much Happy Hardcore 2: Electric Boogaloo\n\n[Styles and Breeze - You're shinning (Hixxy Remix)](_URL_207_) (These are all three of the big producers)\n\n[Dj S3rl - MTC](_URL_204_) \n\n[Heaven 7 - Dance me (Someone accidentally a word in the name)](_URL_202_)\n\n[S3rl - t-t-t-techno](_URL_196_)\n\n**Hardstyle**\n\nTo tl;dr, take gabber and slow it down, and distort the kick. That is hardstyle. Rather than a common bpm of 170, it's 150.\n\nExamples\n\n[Showtek - The Colours of the harderstyles] (_URL_197_)\n\n[Headhunterz - Doomed](_URL_200_)\n\n[Zatox - My life](_URL_203_)\n\n\n\nI think Hard trance and hard dance were covered in another post.",
"My advise, ontop of reading up on technicalities. Listen to trance / house / drum and bass. If you can distinguish between those 3 genres by ear you've basically got it. Youlk confuse yourself with terminology otherwise.",
"ELI5 how Darkstep isn't Drum and Bass anymore.",
"The lack of mention for electro swing music is saddening\n\n[Caravan Palace - Maniac](_URL_208_)\n\n[Parov Stelar - Catgroove](_URL_209_)\n\n[Caravan Palace - Newbop](_URL_210_)",
"Well, Billy - you're 5 years old and I officially don't feel bad about letting you listen to my grown-up music so I'm going to try to explain it to you. Daddy hasn't been listening to electronic music forever, he's only recently developed a taste for it, but he'll try to explain to you what you'll be hearing at this years American festivals and clubs...not that you're going, young man.\n\n**House** is a very BIG genre and very old as well. The house music that's been out since you were alive is much different than the house music from the 80s. It is characterized by the constant kick drum on every beat and a moderately fast tempo (120-140 bpms if you remember that piano less we had you take.) Some people like less sounds in their house music, they like to enjoy just the simple and nice parts and don't like all the extra stuff. [Deadmau5](_URL_213_) got very rich and famous making this music.\n\nOn the other hand, some people LOVE all kinds of bleeps and bloops in their house music. Almost like they're listening to a big laser fight. [Savant](_URL_212_) is one of Daddy's favorites for this kind of house music (and he's good at lots of genres other too.) This is called [complextro](_URL_220_)\n\nOf course there's mainstream house as well. This music usually revolves around a single melody or two. [Avicii](_URL_216_) is a good example of this. It's not terrible, if it's catchy enough Daddy will like it.\n\n**Dubstep** is VERY popular right now. It goes from very slow to very fast, usually in the same song. [This One](_URL_218_) is appropriate for someone your age. Notice the \"wobbly\" sounding bass that seems like it keeps saying \"wow.\" That's everywhere in dubstep music. By far the most famous dubstep artist though is [Skrillex](_URL_215_).\n\n**Moombahton** is Daddy's favorite. It's not too fast, not too slow, and should be very easy to dance to. It started when some DJs slowed down their house music and mixed it with something called \"reggaeton\" which is a Caribbean style of dance music. Nowadays though moombahton is simply characterized by a tempo of 108-112 bpms. [Dillon Francis](_URL_221_) is very popular for this music. \n\n**Trap** - This genre has just recently become very popular, mostly thanks to [Bauuer](_URL_223_). It is slow. It has lots of \"triplets\" in the drums, which make it sound like they are stretching out. Also, there's almost always something that sounds like an airhorn. Gunshots are common. So are large groups of men saying \"what.\"\n\n**Glitch-Hop** is a lot like hip hop, but they use lots of the same sounds as other kinds of electronic music. The artists are all very different, and have their own styles. Mainly I'm thinking of people like [Pretty Lights](_URL_214_), [Gramatik](_URL_217_), and [Glitch Mob](_URL_222_).\n\n**Mashups** are also very popular now, especially in bars where the DJ needs to play songs that people know but also wants to make people dance with the popular electronic songs that people only hear at the club. Stuff like [This](_URL_219_). \n\nThere is also another kind of mashup artist that likes to take lots and lots and lots and lots of songs and mix them together into one. I'm talking about [Girl Talk](_URL_224_) and [White Panda](_URL_211_). Entertaining, but it might make your ADD worse.\n\n\nOf course there are more genres but these are the most popular where we live right now in New England. I would keep explaining but me and your Mom are gonna go pop mollies and sweat at the club. Don't drive your babysitter too nuts with all those heavy basslines and kick drums!",
"This my favorite Dubstep song, although this is \"old\" Dubstep, so it doesn't sound like Skrillex's Pop Dubstep stuff.\n\n_URL_226_\n\nThe entire Album is great, I leave it on loop all the time.\n\nThis track is great too:\n\n_URL_225_\n\nI love the pace and feel of it.",
"NEVER ask Americans about electronic music. Despite inventing it they ignored it for 20 years and then borrowed dubstep from the UK and made it into bro-step. They have no fucking clue about any of it.\n\nHip-hop? No problem. Rock? Sure. Electronic? Nah.",
"Go to [Digitally Imported (_URL_227_)](http://_URL_227_/) - they have like 40+ free, streaming channels devoted to all different genres and sub-genres of electronic music.\n\nIt's one of the best streaming sites out there for electronic, IMHO.",
"_URL_229_ has a huge selection of electronic radio stations you can listen to for free. It's really cool.",
"Is chiptunes not electronic music? Check out [anamanaguchi](_URL_230_). They make music with a modded NES.",
"If you liked metal, you might want to check out some of the industrial sub-genre that crossed between hardcore/metal and electronic: synthcore, sometimes called coldwave. (Ishkar's characterization of coldwave as \"goth to the max\" isn't accurate.) Bands to check out: 16 Volt, Acumen Nation, Hate Dept, Chemlab. Also Babyland has a full-on hardcore sound without guitars. Lots of the bands were on Fifth Colvmn and Reconstriction Records in the 90s.",
"Check out the blog by chrissy muderbot \"my year of mixtapes\" (I am on my phone so can't post link will come back later) \n\nBasically he works through by genre providing a mix for each genre, a track list and a brief history\n\nNot all are bang up to date (has new jack swing eg) but good resource",
"I encourage exploration of all sub-genres. Personally I like a lot of the tech-house, minimal techno, detroit techno, etc. There's a lot of beauty in this style. Probably my favorite artist would have to be Richie Hawtin. This is one of my all time favorite mixes he's done.\n\n[Boiler Room - 70 min mix](_URL_231_)",
"not sure if he's been mentioned before but, after considering a few things you've mentioned here, you should check out *sebastian*.\n\ni really enjoyed his album, but here are a few (what i consider to be) key tracks:\n\n[\"ross ross ross\"](_URL_234_)\n\n[\"kindercut\"](_URL_233_)\n\n[\"arabest\"](_URL_232_)",
"I see a lot of TL:DR posts here, so i'm going to let bassnectar explain it in 3min\n\n_URL_235_\n\nBassnectar is a king of electronic music, one of the founding members of \"dubstep\" and just a great guy.",
"Don't forget Goa:\n\n[Goa Spirit - Psychedelic Goa Trance (part 4)](_URL_236_)",
"ITT: Tons of new music for me to listen to.",
"Check out this [definitive documentary](_URL_237_) on house music."
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"http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16bRiH5zfOY",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwpj9UANXo4",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WWZDF-Ldfs",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSeNSzJ2-Jw",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWsPOhUCgHM",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FgKQdc96k4",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTQTClgXjTE",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgrpoyV-AfU",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lETmskoqh30",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP0yGKG57Qo",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbARZzdsNaI",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG7cRDcPY3k",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac",
"http://www.owsla.com/",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBgSqGEG0P4",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1i2uhb/eli5_electronic_music_subgenres/cb10d5c",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/trap/comments/14n330/damn_son_howd_we_find_ourselves_here_a_brief/",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLLvnZ-gV0w",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdIAN6lMXSU",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch_5_x1IUA8",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiqFcc_l_Kk",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7grdctNU5vc",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6GIdGhxyHw",
"http://boysnoize.com/",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvLAKrVbCBM",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb9kYcg4eGM",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3yv2k_gJ8c",
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} | train_eli5 | electronic music sub-genres
Being an old git, I kind of stopped listening to new music in the early 90s. Since then it seems there was a vast explosion in electronic music and there are now all these subgenres I keep hearing about. My interest has rekindled and I want to explore it but there's an overwhelming amount out there. Can someone give me an ELI5 rundown of what each subgenre is like and who the top few artists are in it? | [
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7to9ka | Why are cooling towers shaped the way they are? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"_URL_0_\n\nThis is probably the best answer you can find. From my knowledge, (assuming you’re referring to ones of the hyperboloid shape found in nuclear plants), it has to do with the pressures of keeping cold air down toward the base, while efficiently evacuating hot air through the top",
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} | train_eli5 | Why are cooling towers shaped the way they are?
| [
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3s1x23 | Why do Muslims call their God 'Allah' even though they believe in the same God as do Christians and Jews? | That *is* true, right? Why is it "There is no God but *Allah* and Muhammad is *Allah*'s messenger rather than simply "There is no God but God and Muhammad is God's messenger"?
Not trying to start a flame war. Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Allah is simply the Arabic word for God. Christians Arabs also used the word Allah to refer to the same God.",
"\"Allah\" is just the Arabic word for \"God.\" However, Arabic is a very important language to Islam: the Quran is in Arabic; it's the language of the major figures (other than those already in the Bible, of course). So English translations often preserve the Arabic word \"Allah\" because of its special associations.\n\nIn Judaism, the name \"Yahweh\" (also rendered \"Jehovah\") is not permitted to be pronounced, which is why Jews say \"Adonai\" out loud while reading--it means \"Lord\", and in many English translations you'll find \"the LORD\" where the original text said \"YHWH\" (Yahweh). A similar concept.\n\nIt is perfectly acceptable to say \"God\" instead of \"Allah,\" and there are versions of the Quran where you won't find the word \"Allah.\""
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} | train_eli5 | Why do Muslims call their God 'Allah' even though they believe in the same God as do Christians and Jews?
That *is* true, right? Why is it "There is no God but *Allah* and Muhammad is *Allah*'s messenger rather than simply "There is no God but God and Muhammad is God's messenger"? Not trying to start a flame war. Thanks! | [
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ruq5j | Why you have to turn off all electronic devices on an airplane. | explainlikeimfive | {
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} | train_eli5 | Why you have to turn off all electronic devices on an airplane.
| [
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ls8xr | How was the first language created and what was used for communication before? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"**Edit:** If this isn't \"ELI5\" enough, please ask me to rewrite or explain any part of my answer. I don't mind! :)\n\nYou would be interested in reading [\"The Unfolding of Language\"](_URL_3_) by Guy Deutcher. The book is about how language may have developed - going through the phases of first nouns, then nouns and verbs, then nouns and verbs in a particular order to show who is doing what, then inflecting verbs to talk about the past or future, etc. I wish I had the book on hand, I'd give you some good quotes from it. His writing is very approachable; it's not necessary to have any linguistics knowledge to read his stuff, so check it out sometime! \n\nThe only problem is, there's not really a \"first language\" - each small group of people would have probably had different sets of sounds for words, and the idea of language may not necessarily have all come from one group of people, it may have sprung up naturally in different groups around the same time. It's very difficult to know that specific kind of information. Since no written form of language exists beyond about 6,000BC (and that's cave paintings, mind you, alphabets didn't even come about until 3,000BC with the hieroglyphs - or possibly Chinese, [but that's being debated](_URL_2_)), it's very difficult to have any strong evidence of language before then. It's like trying to learn about your grandmother's life, when she only started keeping a diary at age 15. However, we can trace changes that we do have evidence of, and theorize how language was changing before then, and trace language evolution that way.\n\nWikipedia has [an extremely good article on the origin of language](_URL_0_), which goes into some other things I don't know much about, like pre-language communication (the theory for that, apparently, is very similar to what apes do now, which is calls and gestures). You might also be interested in an article that [MSNBC posted not too long ago](_URL_1_), about how there are theories that Yoda's particular word order may actually be quite similar to the syntax of the proto-languages in East Africa.",
"It evolved, gradually, over a long time, it was not created in its full form out of nothing."
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"url": []
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"http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44897205",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Chinese#Evolution",
"http://unfoldingoflanguage.com/"
]
} | train_eli5 | How was the first language created and what was used for communication before?
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1k7nqb | Why are insects attracted to shiny surfaces/lights? | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"I have read that nocturnal insects use far away light sources (such as the moon) to help them navigate. Consider how some small kids think the moon is following them when they are out at night. This is because it is so far away that it seems to stay in the same place relative to you as you walk in a straight line.\n\nIf a moth flies past your porch light and perceives that it is the moon, then when they move so it is behind them, they perceive that they must be flying downward so they adjust their course to keep it \"above\" them. They keep adjusting their course to keep it above their back. This results in the flying in a spiral upand around and eventually right to the light. They bounce of and then fly in the same pattern again. It made sense to me but seems kind of sad."
],
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} | train_eli5 | Why are insects attracted to shiny surfaces/lights?
| [
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5s0fml | What is a 'beer belly'? | How do they form and what do they consist of? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's actually a combination of fat from a poor diet and an inflamed liver. Alcohol causes inflammation of tissues, particularly in the liver. Add in a crappy diet with carb-heavy beer, and the gut takes on a swollen appearance. Just a plain old fat belly won't be as round and swollen looking as a beer belly because a beer belly is actually swollen.",
"It forms from consuming too many calories and/or not exercising enough. One difference between a beer belly and just a flabby belly is that, in the case of the beer belly, much of the fat is visceral, whereas, in a flabby belly, it's subcutaneous. Visceral fat is associated with more health risks than subcutaneous fat.",
"Visceral fat buildup behind the abdominal wall. everyone has fat protecting their organs, people with beer guys have a lot. It is typically caused by drinking a lot of beer and eating high carb food at the same time"
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How do they form and what do they consist of? | [
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1fbsu3 | what is conservatism and liberalism? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Do you mean American conservatism and liberalism?\n\nOr everywhere else? Because they mean quite different things",
"In terms of economic policy, there is a very simple rule for left versus right:\n\nThe left believes that cooperation delivers the best results\n\nThe right believes that competition delivers the bet results",
"Key conservative ideas:\n\n* Small government — the state shouldn't get involved too much. Most things can be provided by businesses, and welfare can be provided by charities.\n* Low taxes, freedom for businesses.\n* Tradition — ‘the old ways are best’. Why fix what isn't broken?\n* Law and order. One of the few things conservatives think the state *should* have a heavy hand in is law and order. They tend to favour harsh punishments for criminals.\n* Morals — conservatives tend to have traditional moral values.\n* Personal responsibility — you are responsible for yourself and your family. If you fall on hard times, it's up to you to work your way out.\n\nKey liberal ideas:\n\n* Democracy — everyone should have the vote, and the voting system should be as representative as possible.\n* Permissiveness — Although a basic level of law and order should be maintained, ‘vices’ should not be punished by the state — things like prostitution and drug abuse should either be minor misdemeanours or legalised.\n* Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are important liberal ideals.\n* Equality and tolerance — equal rights for all, equal treatment of all religions (no state religion), no heredity rulers like monarchies and nobles, and equal access to education.\n* Big government — this pertains more to social liberalism. Basically, through taxes, the government should provide welfare, education, and healthcare to the citizens.\n* Edited: In modern times, liberal parties have become associated with the concept of protecting its people from harm. This has lead to what is sometimes called the ‘nanny state’ — excessive regulations and protections that often get in the way and waste time.\n\nIn practice, most electable parties and governments in the Western world have a mix of both conservative and liberal policies. Here in the UK, for instance, the Conservative party is trying to reduce Welfare spending (a Conservative policy), while at the same time legalising same-sex marriage, a Liberal policy.",
"There are two different definitions: the \"technical\" definitions of liberal/conservative, and the current \"political\" definitions. Even the political definitions are different from nation to nation. However, they are all closely related.\n\nThe \"technical\" definition: Liberalism espouses the goal of liberty and equality. They generally have a baseline support of civil rights, free elections, private property, free religion, etc. \n\nConservatism promotes preserving existing institutions. They see society as a \"marketplace of ideas\" so if something has been in place for a long time, there must be a reason and why change it if it works? Since these institutions vary from place to place, conservatism's ideals can also vary.\n\nNote that, despite the common persepction, int he technical sense liberalism and conservatism aren't necessarily at odds. In America and the UK, for example, an \"existing institution\" is private property, so someone who defends private property can properly be seen as both a classical liberal *and* a conservative.\n\nOf course, the *political* definitions are a bit different, although certainly related. Conservatives tend to favor existing institutions but not necessarily at the expense of their other overriding ideals, which include free market and private property, respect for (and promotion of) the military, low taxes, equality of opportunity, and small government. They believe in individual responsibility in nearly all things, so that outcomes are closely correlated to an individual's actions. \n\nPolitical liberals generally feel the opposite. They view society (i.e., the government) as harnessing some responsibility for its citizens. This generally results in higher taxes and larger government, a focus on civil rights, institutions designed to encourage equality of outcome, and generally view the government as a way to correct the outliers that inherently form in society.\n\nThere are a thousand different tl;dr about the differences in the political definitions, but I can try. Liberals generally put *equality of outcome* as a preference, since they believe that the inherent nature of Western free-market democracy forces some citizens to be left behind due to no fault of their own (either because of capitalism or the political process), and it is immoral to simply let these people fail. Conservatives generally put *equality of opportunity* as a preference; the government should ensure that everyone has an equal starting point, but how they succeed or fail is left to their own efforts, and it is immoral to correct the efforts of those that failed by taking away the benefits of those who succeeded.",
"One way to think about political positions is looking at attitudes to change:\n\n* Conservative: \"Conserve\" what we have, stay with tradition, the tried and true, respect authority, when change is required, go slowly. \n* Liberal: Social, political, and economic progress is possible and should be advanced, specifically extending power to all facets of society, not just an elite. \n* Reactionary: The past was the best, we have gone too far, we need to return to a simpler time. \n* Radical: We need a complete overhaul of society, and even liberals move too slowly."
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1q7m7q | How have there been so few fatalities due to the storm in the Philippines? | Somehow it seems, especially not in a fully industrialized country, that a lot of people would have gotten killed by a storm of this magnitude? Anybody know how they stayed so resilient? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"This isn't the first time its happened. When you live out on an island in the pacific where these storms happen regularly, you get used to it.\n\nIts kind of like how Florida can regularly get hit by high category Hurricanes with minimal (relatively speaking at least) damage, while someone further up the coast gets hit and its virtually ends the world. Florida knows it gets hit a lot, so they prep everything to handle it when it happens.",
"It is very hard to count bodies during the middle of the biggest storm in history.\n\n\nWait until next weekend, and then you tell me the death count."
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} | train_eli5 | How have there been so few fatalities due to the storm in the Philippines?
Somehow it seems, especially not in a fully industrialized country, that a lot of people would have gotten killed by a storm of this magnitude? Anybody know how they stayed so resilient? | [
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4u9p8b | Why is it so hard to grip things or twist things open right after you wake up? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In order to stop you from injuring yourself when you're dreaming your body paralyses you. When you wake up you're still under the influence of these chemicals which takes a while to get over. Additionally when you sleep you often compress the carpal tunnel (specifically the median nerve). As you wake up, the pressure on the nerve is relieved, but it takes a little bit for it to get back to full strength. The median nerve controls a few muscles in the hand, so your grip strength decreases when the nerve is damaged/irritated. \n\nAdditionally when you sleep your blood doesn't spread the same as when you're awake and vertical so the pressure is different. If the body's response to a change in vertical position is slow or absent, the result is orthostatic hypotension. It is not a true disease, but the inability to regulate blood pressure quickly. It isn't anything major unless it affects daily life significantly (as in, two hours after waking up you still have delayed movement and/or weaker grip or if you walk and are unable to orient yourself quickly enough to not fall over).\n\nEdit: Fixing grammar because I wrote this drowsily early in the morning.",
"but if someone scares you, you will gain full strenght and conciousness in a milisecond. its the most efficient way of waking up. watch a screamer on youtube and you will have full energy no matter what"
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} | train_eli5 | Why is it so hard to grip things or twist things open right after you wake up?
[removed] | [
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2i2hnv | Why do I laugh when I'm in pain? | For example, I've had a shoulder surgery recently and afterwards, I'd experience jolts of intense pain. Instead of crying or screaming, I'd start laughing. Same thing happens with toothache, or when I had broken my wrist.
It's that some kind of defense mechanism, and if so, how does it work? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Generally, people that do this grew up in an environment where the strong dominate the weak, and only the strong are the ones who's genes are passed down. When in pain, you do not want to appear weak, so you laugh to make look like it's not that big of a problem to you; that you can deal with it. If you, for example, cried instead of laughed, the people around you would view that as a sign of weakness.\n\n Often, people who have grown up in abusive environments laugh when they talk about the abuse they have undergone, as if to say, \"Yeah, my parents got drunk and repeatedly punched me, haha, no biggie, right?\", as, in their minds, admitting their feelings about the abuse they have undergone would make them appear weak, and they would be placed at the bottom of the social pyramid and wouldn't have their genes passed down."
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} | train_eli5 | Why do I laugh when I'm in pain?
For example, I've had a shoulder surgery recently and afterwards, I'd experience jolts of intense pain. Instead of crying or screaming, I'd start laughing. Same thing happens with toothache, or when I had broken my wrist. It's that some kind of defense mechanism, and if so, how does it work? | [
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1ub9t2 | How does an antenna transmit and receive signal? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"/r/hamradio\n/r/amateurradio\n/r/askelectronics\n\n^Those folks will LOOOOVE explaining this to you (and much much more. So much more that you will regret ever asking LOL).\nEdit:formatting",
"antennae do not transmit signals, transmitters transmit signals, antennae are cut at resonant frequency of the transmitted signal, which mean a whole wave must be able to fit on the antenna but in reality, you can propagate a quarter of the wave on the antenna. there is some simple math that will help you calculate the needed length of the antenna, i will get to that lastly. if you look at the antenna on your car, it sometimes has an antenna with a single rod and then a wire wrapped around that rod, both are cut for opposite ends of the spectrum the antenna is required to receive. so lets say your listening to FM radio, and you are getting crappy reception on 101.5 , that is 101.5 MHZ. the math 300/101.5=2.955 meters *39.37 gives you 116.36 inches *.25 ( quarter wave ) gives you 29.09 inches would be the length for best reception. 300 divided by megahertz is the basis for the formula which has to do with the speed of light, like someone said, it gets really complicated and is difficult to put in terms a 5 yr old can comprehend.if you were doing AM radio you would present it in decimal lengths of MHZ example 101.5 KHZ on your radio dial would be 300/.101500. but in AM radio, the lengths can get very long. 300/.101500=2955.66 meters * 39.37=116364.66 inches /12=9697 feet *.25 (quarter wave)=2424.26 feet. before the days of active filters and active antennae, they wrapped coils of wire around a ferrite core for AM radio antennae. edit: nomenclature",
"Simply, radio waves (and all light waves) are electro-magnetic waves (as per one school of though). This allows them to induce a current in a coil just the way magnets do. Look up electromagnetic induction for more details on that.\nBasically, with the correct antenna length (explained in more detail in some other posts) the light waves can cause a current to form in these antenna coils thereby converting light to a electric current that can be amplified and normalized to give you a signal that you can hear via 'speakers'."
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377230 | why can a fan make a room cooler when the room is a constant temperature? | We close our bedroom door and the room is hot as hell but cool when the fan is on and no windows are open. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The room doesn't necessarily get cooler, it just *feels* cooler.\n\nTransferring heat form your body to the air works best when the air is moving, even if the air is warm your body can sweat and cool itself from the evaporation.",
"When the fan moves the air, it is transferring heat away from your body and letting it disperse evenly into the air in the room. As long as the air in the room itself does not reach 98.6 degrees to match your body temperature, the movement of the air is cooling you down, just like a radiator can do for an engine."
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} | train_eli5 | why can a fan make a room cooler when the room is a constant temperature?
We close our bedroom door and the room is hot as hell but cool when the fan is on and no windows are open. | [
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3xew7d | Who is the 'affluenza' teen, and why is everyone pissed about him? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They're up in arms because the court decision at the time effectively said that he is so rich and therefore so out of touch with the concept of responsibility that he could not be held responsible for his actions. \n\nBasically that there is a level of \"spoiled brat\" that legally makes you immune to punishment for functionally murdering several people. \n\nWhich is an understandably odious thing to most people."
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} | train_eli5 | Who is the 'affluenza' teen, and why is everyone pissed about him?
[deleted] | [
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3k9ghb | How does thermite work? | I was just watching that episode from breaking bad where Walt and Jesse use thermite to break a lock in order to steal chemicals for their cooking process. What are the chemicals used in the process and what causes them to react in such a way? Why did it seem so easy to make yet so effective? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Thermite is a mixture of a metal and a metal oxide - a common choice is aluminum and iron oxide. When the thermite is ignited, the aluminum is oxidized and the iron oxide is reduced, leaving aluminum oxide and pure (molten) iron. This reaction is exothermic, meaning it releases heat - lots of heat. The temperature can reach 2500 degrees, enough to melt through most metals."
],
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} | train_eli5 | How does thermite work?
I was just watching that episode from breaking bad where Walt and Jesse use thermite to break a lock in order to steal chemicals for their cooking process. What are the chemicals used in the process and what causes them to react in such a way? Why did it seem so easy to make yet so effective? | [
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48w6ga | How come shoes in sizes 7 and 14 are listed as "special sizes" and also so hard to come by? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"This is because in most shops a men's size is from 8 to 13, this is based on average sizes\n\nWomen's sizes go from 5 to 9. That being said, a women's size nine is the exact equivalent of a men's 7, so maybe try that as you can usually get basic shoes in both men's and women's (converse and vans and what not)"
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} | train_eli5 | How come shoes in sizes 7 and 14 are listed as "special sizes" and also so hard to come by?
[removed] | [
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8q62y1 | If humans get parasites from drinking from streams, lakes and rivers, how did we survive before we could clean it? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Most parasites don't kill you. They can stay in your body for decades; it is not evolutionarily advantageous in most cases to kill its host quickly.",
"There are a few factors at play here.\n\nFirst of all, not all parasites will kill you. They might make you unwell, but they won't normally kill you outright.\n\nSecond, exposure to various pathogens in early life helps to \"train\" your immune system. If you manage to survive childhood, you will likely have a pretty robust immune system. One of the theories about the apparent rise in the number of people with allergies is that we're raising children in virtually antiseptic environments, so their immune systems don't develop properly.\n\nThird, if possible people preferred to drink out of wells.\n\nAnd fourth: beer. This is a very old drink (there are references to it in Ancient Egypt), although until fairly recently it would have been a rather soupy (and nutritious) drink -- basically, beer is a kind of liquid bread. The alcohol content was much lower than it is today, and it was routinely given to children. The process of brewing the beer killed off the pathogens and the alcohol helped ensure no new pathogens would get in. Beer was very commonly drunk and it was known to be a lot safer than water. In areas where beer wasn't brewed, there was wine instead.",
"Just because humans CAN get parasites from drinking river water doesn’t mean they will. \n\nYou can get parasites from going on a walk in the woods or petting a dog, it’s a risk but not one you take very seriously or worry much about. \n\nIt’s just luck, we found the cleanest water we could and drank it. Some people probably got sick or parasites and died from it, but most didn’t. There would have to be an impossible number of parasites in a river for every cup you take from it to have them. The odds are probably way, way lower. This is a wild uneducated guess but I doubt there would be any more than 1 in 1000 cups of river water that contained parasites.\n\nAlso there are other ways of finding water."
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} | train_eli5 | If humans get parasites from drinking from streams, lakes and rivers, how did we survive before we could clean it?
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2r6dno | Why hasn't Esperanto taken off? | Wouldn't a set-in-stone, semi-neutral, very consistent language be preferable to the unholy behemoth that is English? It would also solve the problem of what English speakers would learn, I'm currently taking Spanish and I have neither need nor want for the language. I've heard that Lobjan is technically more international, but Esperanto's solid European base would theoretically make it easier to learn and pronounce than something kludged from six completely separate languages. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Lots of reasons. \n\n1. Esperanto isn't a functional langauge in it's original form. It turns out, human language has certain universal rules that require layers of complexity that perfect logic doesn't allow. It has since, of course, been reworked into a usable language, but the \"simple and consistent\" claim doesn't hold up. \n\n2. It is not whatsoever neutral. All of the grammar and vocabulary is blatantly stolen from Romance and Slavic languages. Some have even called it a creole of Spanish and Polish. \n\n3. It has a (relatively) tiny speech community. You think Spanish is useless? Esperanto has 2 million speakers, Spanish has over 400 million. There is more literature, more culture, more people, more conversations to be had, more places to go, more likelihood of running into a speaker in real life, etc. \n\n4. It's not any better than any other languages. The only thing that makes it likable is a regular orthography (which is hardly the fault of existing languages, if Esperanto caught on, it's orthography would be just as bad in 200 years), and vocabulary familiar to speakers of European languages. To someone with a background in any language outside the Indo European family, it's just as hard as English to learn, perhaps much harder, because there are no materials, and few speakers."
],
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} | train_eli5 | Why hasn't Esperanto taken off?
Wouldn't a set-in-stone, semi-neutral, very consistent language be preferable to the unholy behemoth that is English? It would also solve the problem of what English speakers would learn, I'm currently taking Spanish and I have neither need nor want for the language. I've heard that Lobjan is technically more international, but Esperanto's solid European base would theoretically make it easier to learn and pronounce than something kludged from six completely separate languages. | [
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3utg1u | Pokemon IV System | This is more of a niche request for the pokenerds. If this is not appropriate for this board, then I apologize.
I am really fascinated by the IV system and it's long term effect on a specific 'mon or team. But I also saw that there can only be 6 IVs on any given 'mon. What I can't understand is this concept of "perfect IVs" does that mean each stat that has an IV scores a 6, or a 1? and example I have from my Alpha Sapphire game. I have a Froakie lv 1 (wonder trade) it's stats are
HP: 12
ATK 6
SPD 6
DEF 6
SP ATK 6
SP Def 4
As far as I know this Mon has not been used in battle or anything, so it should just be a clean slate. So Reddit, please ELI5 for me. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"IVs (individual values) are hidden values between 1 and 31 attached to each stat (attack, defense, etc) that determine a pokemons overall potential in those stats; the higher the IV value, the higher the stat its attached to will be. These values are set and cannot be changed, unlike EV (effort values) which are increased through battle, the super training minigame and various items.\n\nA pokemon with \"perfect\" IVs is one with IV values of 31 in all of its stats other than the attack stat it doesn't tend towards (either attack or special attack). The only reliable way to get a pokemon with perfect IVs other than trading is to breed one. This video does a decent job of explaining the process; _URL_0_"
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} | train_eli5 | Pokemon IV System
This is more of a niche request for the pokenerds. If this is not appropriate for this board, then I apologize. I am really fascinated by the IV system and it's long term effect on a specific 'mon or team. But I also saw that there can only be 6 IVs on any given 'mon. What I can't understand is this concept of "perfect IVs" does that mean each stat that has an IV scores a 6, or a 1? and example I have from my Alpha Sapphire game. I have a Froakie lv 1 (wonder trade) it's stats are HP: 12 ATK 6 SPD 6 DEF 6 SP ATK 6 SP Def 4 As far as I know this Mon has not been used in battle or anything, so it should just be a clean slate. So Reddit, please ELI5 for me. | [
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15hpov | Why isn't a zip code enough when entering an address, why must I give my State, City AND zip code? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'd assume it's a 2nd check for incorrect zip codes... IE: If you're sending a letter to Scruff McGruff in Chicago, IL 60652, and accidentally mix up your 5's and 6's and send it to Scruff McGruff Chicago, IL 50562, (Which is the zip code for Mallard, IA) they can say \"Chances are, it was meant to go to Chicago, rather than Mallard, Iowa.\" And would therefore reduce \"return to senders\".",
"A 9 digit ZIP code is indeed enough. A 5 digit ZIP code can span multiple cities.\n\nHowever, a 5 digit ZIP code is probably enough, because to my knowledge every case where a 5 digit ZIP code spans multiple cities, one of the cities is a USPS-valid alternative city to the actual city. For example, I live in city A, and my 5-digit ZIP code spans cities A, B, and C, but I can put either city A (my city) or city B (the main city in the area) as the city in my mailing address, and both are considered valid.\n\nAs a bit of extra trivia, the ZIP code now includes an extra two digits called the delivery point (which uniquely identifies your address), so the ZIP code is technically 11 digits. However, that's never written in the ZIP code and is instead only in the bar code printed on the bottom of the envelope.",
"Another reason is Tax, some times different cities within same zip code charge different rate of tax. To make things complex some companies/organizations have special status (for tax purposes e.g. tax exempt) in some city that is not applicable to whole zip code.",
"Actually Zip code is enough. Some systems will ask for only your zip code and street address.",
"ZIP codes are delivery points or zones for the United States Postal Service. There are commonly multiple cities (and sometimes more than one state) in each zone. The state and city further break down the location as the rest of the street address does.",
"Recently I was an idiot and sent myself a package with an incorrect zip code. Thanks to the redundant city and state, I was actually able to receive the package anyway, even though I couldn't reach the shipping company to correct the problem due to the holiday rush.\n\nBesides 30 pounds of steel cubes wandering around a nearby city for a day, I received my package without incident. I suspect this is why they require it!\n\nCheers,\n\n-Dirk",
"Hello,\n\nI design the interfaces to systems that ask you for your city, state and ZIP. The reason we ask for all 3 is that none of them are a unique identifier. Some ZIP codes span two states. Cities contain many ZIP codes, etc.\n\nThe three bits of data combined are a reliable unique identifier.",
"Just for fun, I sent a letter to myself with no return address information.\n\nI only addressed the letter to [my last name] with no address but my zip+4. It was delivered without any delay.",
"I always wondered why time has to be in AM and PM. Why not just A and P. Because this bugs me, I always write time out as 7:15P or 11:21A. I refuse to put the \"M\" because we already fucking know it's \"M\". Until I glance at the time and it says \"3:41 AW\" I refuse to acknowledge the \"M\".",
"I work at a museum, and when we take mailing addresses to send people their membership cards, we take the ZIP code and the computer enters the city and state. Some of us verify the city, but it's not really necessary, because the mail will get there anyway, and both sides of the transaction know it.",
"Former corporate mail manager here.\n\nZIP (Zone Improvement Plan) Codes were introduced in the '70s to speed the sorting and delivery of mail. Prior to this, all mail was sorted entirely by hand, and alphabetically. The ZIP Code makes it easier and faster to sort. Here's how the Code actually works:\n\nThe first digit represents one of ten broad delivery regions around the country. Most of the Northeast is 0, for example.\n\nThe next two digits specify a central sorting facility within that area. Triple-digit stations sort mail for regions about the size that you could drive across in a couple hours or so. (All of Greater New Haven, for example, is handled by the 065 station. Most of central Connecticut by the 064 station, Hartford area by 061, and so on.) These stations are assigned by volume, not according to geography. As a federal entity, USPS needn't adhere to state and municipal boundaries, instead emphasising efficiency across state and local borders.\n\nThe last two digits represent the specific local office that handles your 'local' mail. 06511, for example, is the Elm Street Station in central New Haven. 0 = Northeast; 065 = Brewery Street sorting station; 06511 = Elm Street Station.\n\nSo, the ZIP Code is really only good enough to get the mail *near* you, not *to* you. ZIP+4 is used to specify carrier routes, but not specific drop points. (What USPS calls the 'point of surrender'.) Rather, that is specified in the line above, where you usually put a street address. (Any *subsidiary* routing, where a postman would physically surrender a mailpiece, should be appended to that line. Any *internal* routing done by someone else, such as internal boxes or mailstops, should be written above it, since they are not the postman's purview.)\n\nIt's not necessarily possible to create and use a code that's that precise, for a number of reasons. One is that local addresses can and do change. You might not notice it, but it goes on all the time. Local authorities assign street addresses, not USPS. So USPS can't get a lot more specific than, \"This station delivers the mail,\" and the rest the local station sorts out through ongoing communication with recipients and local authorities. Another is that such a code, even if it were feasible, would have to be a lot longer; that's not impossible, but it would place constraints on how mail is addressed, the use of labels, and so on -- details that have been sorted out over many years, and would then have to be changed all over again.\n\nThat's actually why we use two-letter state codes. Three-letter codes would have been preferable, but it was feared they might not fit on mailing labels. It was decided that two letters was good enough, even though it puts a higher learning curve on mailers.",
"Actually you don't have to put the city and state if you put the zip code. Write the street address then make sure you displace the zip code so that it can still make it through the mail sorter.",
"I can imagine there could be cases where two small towns next to each other share a zip code and each have a \"1 Main Street\". Does anyone know if this can't be true?",
"Cause a lot of cities have more than one zip code and some zip codes cover multiple cities.",
"it would really suck if you had a typo in your zip-only address",
"I'm in Australia, my postcode covers three suburbs."
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} | train_eli5 | Why isn't a zip code enough when entering an address, why must I give my State, City AND zip code?
| [
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1s76f5 | DeMorgan's Laws | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'm going to use some more practical examples to explain this. We all make decisions like \"Go outside if it's sunny\" or \"Eat pizza if tired and hungry.\" De Morgan's Laws state that when you take some decision that has more than one part (e.g. \"tired and hungry\" or \"thirsty or hungry\"), you switch ANDs and ORs (AND becomes OR and vice versa) when you negate each part of that decision.\n\nFor example, when you say you'll \"drink tea if your throat is sore or you are thirsty and you like tea,\" you can break it up like this:\n\n (throat is sore) or ((thirsty) and (like tea))\n\nSo if your throat is sore (regardless if you like tea or are thirsty) or you're thirsty for tea and enjoy drinking it, you'll drink tea, but if you're thirsty and you don't like tea, or your throat isn't sore, you won't drink it.\n\nSo let's examine when you DON'T drink tea. To do this, we negate each part of that statement and switch our ANDs and ORs.\n\n (throat is NOT sore) and ((NOT thirsty) or (DON'T like tea))\n\nWe negated every part of that decision and switched our ANDs and ORs. Now when you don't drink tea, it's because your throat is not sore and you're not thirsty, or your throat is not sore and you don't like tea. So if we examine both when you drink tea and you don't drink tea, you'll see that there is no case when you would do both. These are considered mutually exclusive and only one is always true, but not both.\n\nSorry this analogy is rubbish. I wanted to avoid mathematical proofs to explain a little about how it works.",
"In addition to these good comments, try this on for size.\n\nSuppose it's Christmas morning and your 5-year-old twin sister claims that Santa and Jesus have both appeared in your house. The fat man's in the living room and the good guy's in the den, she says. Go see for yourself!\n\nWell, you're pretty sure she's delusional, so you want to prove her wrong. What do you do? Run to the den. If Jesus isn't there, then she was clearly lying and you can go tell mom. ... And even if Jesus *did* somehow show up in the den, you could still prove she was a liar by running to the living room and finding no Santa Claus. You've got this in the bag, you tell your 5-year-old self, because you have *two* chances to prove your sister is a dirty rotten liar.\n\nWhy? Because in order to have told the truth, she needs *both* of her statements to be true -- and as a result, if *either* one is false, she's gonna be in trouble. Of course, you might find both Jesus and Santa are in fact in your house, but as soon as one of them is missing, you can call her on it.\n\nIn symbols: S = \"the event that Santa is in the living room\" and J = \"the event that Jesus is in the den.\" Your sister's claim is (S AND J). You believe NOT (S AND J), which is the same as *either* (NOT S) OR (NOT J).\n\nIn a venerable Venn diagram: _URL_0_"
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6nf80v | Why do flight fares change all the time instead of having fixed fares like buses and trains? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Trains and busses for public transportation are regulated and subsidized by the government. The city or state will have a transit authority or department of transportation negotiate and partially subsidize a fixed price. \n\nPublic transportation is subsidized by the government as a public service and to encourage commerce and employment by having cheap transportation from residential areas to business districts. \n\nAirlines are not considered public transportation so their prices are not regulated.",
"It's called 'active pricing' or other euphemism for trying to get the highest price possible for each ticket.\n\nAirlines, as well as many sellers on Amazon, have noticed that people are willing to pay more for some good or service at different times of day, at different income levels, for convenience, depending on how many times they searched for it, etc.\n\nSo an airplane ticket may cost more closer to the day of take-off, it may cost more because big data says you have more to pay, it may pay more because big data says you are bad with money, or it may go lower in price after you've searched for another airline. Or even for no reason at all - sometimes the prices are a little random.",
"First, train and bus fares can change based on the system. Mine has higher fares during rush hour because more people are riding.\n\nThe same principle for planes really. But unlike a bus or a train where if it's crowded you can just stand a plane absolutely has a max capacity that can't be broached.\n\nAdd the fact that most airlines are privately run and you have to use something to figure out who gets to fly at any given point. Price is a good way to do that."
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} | train_eli5 | Why do flight fares change all the time instead of having fixed fares like buses and trains?
[deleted] | [
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53n527 | What happens to a file after it has been deleted? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It is removed from the active file directory(what you see) so you can no longer find it. Then the spot on the hardrive that stores the data is marked as free space. The data is still there for a little bit until you write somethings over it.",
"File systems have some kind of indexes, which lists where each file exists, and where do you have free space.\n\nDeleting file does nothing else but remove this entry from this index. If you were to somehow look for the data, you would find it just where you left it, but if you don't remember where you put your file, you may have to go through all the now-free space on your hard drive to find that file again.\n\nAnd because that space was marked as free, any write operation has a chance of overwriting the data.\n\nThere are so called digital shredders which overwrite the actual file data after deleting it from the index, once or twice depending on if you believe NSA is willing to spend millions to uncover your hdd contents or not(once for \"no\", twice for \"yes, nsa is after me\"). Also, if you sell your computer to someone, or your hdd, then you're probably gonna want to shred the entire disk once, just to be safe.\n\nOther than that, usually the file is for all practical ourposes gone once you delete it.\n\nAlso, computers have separate trash bin feature, where instead of deleting a file, it's moved to special folder called trash bin, where you can delete them later. This makes it easier to retrieve data if you made a mistake. Trash bin contents still take disk space because user may want to undo the operation, so you can't overwrite the space those files are at."
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} | train_eli5 | What happens to a file after it has been deleted?
[removed] | [
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3nbcp4 | why do catholics worship the virgin Mary? | Like what importance does she serve? Is she just symbolic? I'm christian so I just see her as someone blessed with a baby from god so, what do they believe? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Common misconception that they \"worship\" her, she's just held in really high regard (like a Saint, but higher) as she is believed to have been born without original sin and obviously birthed Jesus, who is an important guy.",
"This is a misconception. She's just treated VERY well. It's a bit like respect for a friend's mother, only that the friend is much better, and will help you out of Hell.\n\nWhy is there a difference in views?\n\nWell...\n\nLong time ago, there was a very popular denomination in Christianity. It was called Catholicism. There was a head: It was called the *Catholic Church*. Now, as a Catholic, I have to agree that some things the Catholic Church did were unreasonable, and sparked a rebellion. This rebellion was started by *Martin Luther* (not Martin Luther *King*; those are very different people).\n\nNow, Martin Luther, unhappy with the Catholic Church, split and started his OWN form of Christianity. It was called \"Protestantism\".\n\nNowadays, Protestantism has now broken up into a lot of different forms, while Catholicism also has broken into a lot of different forms, although not as many as Protestantism.\n\nSource: I am a Catholic Christian (Jesuit to be exact).",
"The word worship may be a bit abused at times.\n\nPeople can venerate a person without \"worship\". Many stories have a hero to be respected or recognized for their good deeds.\n\nAny \"worship\" done in such a case is not the same as the \"worship\" given an actual god.\n\nWhen you get into religious discussion, words are often abused as such and leads to some very muddy waters. Many arguments about religion devolve into what *seems* to some to be pedantic arguments, but in all reality, the words used *are* important.\n\nAdhering to a more specific lexicon is common in other specialized discussion. You don't suddenly start misusing or creating new arbitrary definitions for say, physics terms, without catching flack from the physicists for talking out of your ask or needlessly complicating what is being covered. Specificity has its place in many discussions."
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} | train_eli5 | why do catholics worship the virgin Mary?
Like what importance does she serve? Is she just symbolic? I'm christian so I just see her as someone blessed with a baby from god so, what do they believe? | [
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18k4b4 | What is the "c" character with the little squiggly thing at the bottom for? | This: ç | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It represents a \"soft\" c, or S sound in French and Portuguese. (It exists in other languages, but I'm not sure if it does the same thing in those languages)\n\n\nFor example, the French word français is pronounced \"frahn-say\" whereas without the cedille, francais would be \"frahn-kay\"",
"In a lot of languages, including English, you can tell whether the letter \"c\" represents a [k] or an [s] sound by the vowel that comes after it: it's a [k] before \"a\", \"o\", or \"u\", and an [s] before \"e\" or \"i\". You write \"ç\" if it comes before an \"a\", \"o\", or \"u\" but is pronounced like [s] anyway."
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} | train_eli5 | What is the "c" character with the little squiggly thing at the bottom for?
This: ç | [
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4vnkp7 | Oort Cloud | I'm interested in the hypothesis itself, not its history. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'm not sure \"hypothesis\" is the right word to describe it, unless you mean that it's hypothesized to exist.\n\nBasically, it's a roughly spherical cloud of debris surrounding the solar system, just inside the sun's gravitational influence but far enough away not to get blown away by the solar wind or get collected into any of the planets."
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} | train_eli5 | Oort Cloud
I'm interested in the hypothesis itself, not its history. | [
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5nmsa2 | How can someone be lost at sea with all of the technology and satellites we have now? | I saw the post earlier about a man and his daughter who have been lost at sea for about a month finally landed in Australia. Maybe it's because I watch too many sci fi movies, but I find it hard to believe that with all the technology we have now we could not pick them up on a satellite or something. Are we not as technologically advanced with satellites as I assume we are? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"> ...pick them up on a satellite...\n\nSatellites don't have any special abilities to \"sense\" where people are.\n\nMost satellites aren't cameras, those that *are* cameras are in use by spying agencies and they cost a trillion dollars.\n\nIf those lost people were floating around the Indian Ocean spotting them with a spy satellite would be like spotting a tick on a dog from a mile away.\n\nCompounding that, the ocean is full of floating garbage. Miles and miles of it.\n\nIts not a matter of technology, but scale.",
"Oceans are huge, and most GPS technology only *accepts* information from satellites; it doesn't talk back or relay any information back to the satellites, so no one sees or hears anything.\n\nAlso, did I mention that they oceans are huge?",
"Sci-fi TV/movies paint a pretty amazing picture, lol - they just dial up a satellite, cut to the shot of it spinning into position (cue low rumble), snap a couple pictures, enhance, and oh look! Facial recognition says that's our bad guy :)\n\nMost satellite imagery that you see on the news or Google Maps is captured from Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and therefore has a pretty narrow field of view, 8-12 miles wide in the case of the [WorldView](_URL_2_) satellites. The resolution is 1 pixel per 18inches at best, so detecting a face is out of the question, maybe a body, a boat is reasonable.\n\nImagine trying to find a single flea (and that's ridiculously large as compared to a human, heck even a boat, in a 100sq-miles of ocean) on a carpet square 45ft x 45ft, taking pictures 1-inch by 1-inch, and you can only take a 1-inch wide row of pictures every 90min (on average the time of one orbit around the earth at ~380miles up). It would take you over a month to photograph the whole thing. Let's hope the flea (or the boat) didn't move.\n\nNow somebody's going to nitpick my numbers, but I fudged a lot...point being, it's just not practical to visually scan an ocean from so close, and the ones that are sitting at Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO, 22000 miles up) don't have that kind of resolution - they're meant to look for hurricanes, etc.\n\nHowever, [NOAA](_URL_0_) has been operating the [Search and Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking (SARSAT) System](_URL_1_) and it has rescued almost 4000 people since 2001, but that only works if the vessel or person is carrying an emergency transponder.",
"Oceans are huge, that's basically the answer. A major aspect though is that acquiring temporary use of a satellite costs millions of dollars, something that's not viable for search and rescue. So, helicopters can be sent out to look, but again, the ocean is huge. \n \nIf the people lost at see bought an [expensive satellite phone](_URL_3_), they could call someone and give them their location (cell phones would still have a GPS signal).",
"I think the main answer is Oceans are huge, but also in the specific story you mentioned they were harder to find because they told people they were heading to the Bay of Islands and ended up heading to Australia instead... and they didn't have a radio or any means of communication on board their vessel.",
"Not nearly.\n\nThe sea can wipe out any ability to notify anyone of anything. Searching at random across the ocean would take all the lifetime a person would ever have in decades and more."
],
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} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Oceanic_and_Atmospheric_Administration",
"http://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/",
"http://www.satimagingcorp.com/satellite-sensors/",
"https://satellitephonestore.com/"
]
} | train_eli5 | How can someone be lost at sea with all of the technology and satellites we have now?
I saw the post earlier about a man and his daughter who have been lost at sea for about a month finally landed in Australia. Maybe it's because I watch too many sci fi movies, but I find it hard to believe that with all the technology we have now we could not pick them up on a satellite or something. Are we not as technologically advanced with satellites as I assume we are? | [
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2di06q | How was code invented before code? | How did someone code a programming language without using another one. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"you programmed in binary by flipping toggle switches. after that came punch cards.",
"All programming is basically simple logic (addition, subtraction, comparing values, etc.) and control statements (jump, branch, etc.). At the lowest level of all, you've got electrical circuits, not code.\n\nThis is how adding two numbers works: [image](_URL_1_). This performs basic binary math, and outputs the addition of two 1's or 0's (with an extra \"carry\" digit if you're doing 1+1, which is 10). Here is an example of a 4-bit full adder: [image](_URL_0_). However, in your device, it's probably a tiny chip only a few microns thick.\n\nA person who wants to build a computer from raw metal and silicon would want to make these electrical circuits, then stick them together in the right way to make a processor. The wizards at intel and whatnot have to do this basically by hand, and so did the first people who made computers.\n\nThe processor takes in binary inputs (for instance, the number 00011101101110), and then depending on what number it is, does a different operation. When you add A + B in code, A + B are being stored in this binary input, as well as the word \"add\", and where you want the number to be stored. The processor looks at the binary number, send the electrical signals to the circuits that will add them together, and goes on to the next line.\n\nAt this point, they can reasonably easily invent programming languages using these microprocessors. You make a computer with circuits that turns text like this:\n\n add a, b, c\n\ninto \n\n 100101000010001000010\n\nwhich when fed to the compiler will store b+c in the address of a.\n\nThat \"add a,b,c\" is assembly, the base for programming languages. The coding language \"C\" uses a \"compiler\", which turns if \"I.amhungry() { dothis(); }\" into assembly, which is then assembled into the machine code binary, which is executed by the processor.",
"Machine language is a code that CPU can run directly. Many years ago some brave young men and women wrote a series of machine language programs that converted assembly language into machine code. After this point, programmers simply needed to write programs in assembly language and pass it through the machine language translator. Eventually more machine language programs were invented that allowed people write in high level programs then compile them into a large number of different machine languages so a single program can run on a number of different computers.\n_URL_2_"
],
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} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": [
"http://www.waitingforfriday.com/images/thumb/e/e4/Full_Adder_circuit_wiki.jpg/400px-Full_Adder_circuit_wiki.jpg",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adder_(electronics)#mediaviewer/File:Full-adder_logic_diagram.svg",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_language"
]
} | train_eli5 | How was code invented before code?
How did someone code a programming language without using another one. | [
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8wik0n | Why can't we drill 1m diameter hole above the location of taiwan kids trapped in a cave instead of diving to try and rescue them ? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Experts are considering it... \n \n_URL_0_ \n \nPS - It’s in Thailand (tropical, touristie place) not Taiwan (political place where people from the old China live).",
"What if that cause the cave to collapse onto the kids trapping them or even killing them. Their safety is more important than getting them out hastily and risk getting them in harm’s way",
"Any idea why can't a scuba diver go down there with breathing gear and take the kids 1 by 1?"
],
"score": [
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} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": [
"http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-06/thai-cave-rescue:-drilling-could-be-the-solution,-expert-says/9950934"
]
} | train_eli5 | Why can't we drill 1m diameter hole above the location of taiwan kids trapped in a cave instead of diving to try and rescue them ?
[removed] | [
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24z056 | With regards to documentation, what is the difference between "format" and "style"? | I've been using the two words interchangeably up until now. Are they synonyms, or do they refer to different aspects of a document? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"It's a little context sensitive but I'd say that document format dictates how your document is structured while style dictates what that structuring looks like.\n\nFor example my format defines paragraphs, headers and hyperlinks. My style defines that paragraphs have a normal font weight, headers have a bold font weight and hyperlinks have a normal font weight but a blue color and underline."
],
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3
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} | {
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} | {
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} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | With regards to documentation, what is the difference between "format" and "style"?
I've been using the two words interchangeably up until now. Are they synonyms, or do they refer to different aspects of a document? | [
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17e7ja | why people think the moon landing was fake? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There's no good reason for it. Some people just believe crazy things.",
"First off I want to say I believe it was real.\n\nBut there are a couple of reasons. The first and most simple is some people always believe that the government is lying to them and that everything is one big conspiracy. Another reason is when you think about it, the whole process is really amazing. Just think, back then they took a tiny room fill with oxygen, flew it over 400,000 miles and came back, alive and well. All on a computer that has less power than a simple calculator. It really is amazing when you think about it, and it seems too amazing for others.",
"In the end, I think it comes down to the fact that some people are truly convinced that the government is incompetent. They are certain that the USA would never be able to land on the moon. Furthermore, their skepticism implies that they also believe that the government is too stupid to properly fake the moon landing.\n\nThe moon landing was a very important event for the American; it was a Cold War victory over the Soviets. The skeptics realize that the government needed to land on the moon, but since their bias has them convinced that the government is unable to do so, they deduce that NASA must have faked it.\n\nThe skeptics are further convinced that the moon landings are fake when they watch the footage and find alleged flaws in the video. One prime example is the American flag waving around on the moon. There is no air on the moon, so it shouldn't do that; the movie must be fake. Once again, it's their bias against the government that surfaces. Let's just pretend for a moment that the government did indeed fake the moon landing, and they filmed the astronauts planting the flag in a studio. Why the hell would they have the air conditioning on, causing the flag to blow around? Why the hell didn't anyone notice the flag waving before they showed the tape to the public. Moon landing or not, the people at NASA were probably the smartest people in the country, and somehow none of them realized that flag shouldn't wave in space, and yet some basement dwelling conspiracy theorist does? Hell, I believe that if NASA did fake the moon landing, it would probably look more real than the actual video. \n\nThat's how the skeptics think, they honestly believe that the government his too stupid to land on the moon, and that they are too stupid to properly fake it; they believe that they can outsmart the government.",
"One reason is that you can't see any stars in the photos from the landing. I'm not scientist so I'm not sure the details, but I read that's because so much light is reflected off the Moon's surface that it basically blinded out the stars in the camera's lens. If the camera was going to take pictures of the stars it would need a super long exposure and at that point the reflected light would make the whole picture one giant lens flare."
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} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | why people think the moon landing was fake?
| [
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51oe6g | Why do we get nightmares when we are feverish or sick and fall asleep? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Dreams are not fully understood, and neither are nightmares. Based on empirical findings there are several theories that present themselves. \n\nBased on those different theories there are different explanations and answers to your question, but our knowledge in this area and the brain as a whole is surprisingly limited.\n\nNightmares are defined as bad dreams. \n\nThe most reasonable theory would be the Modern (Freudian) Theory:\n\nMost people today subscribe to this theory that dreams are a connection to our unconscious mind ie. our hidden desires and true feelings.\n\nHence, when you are sick, the emotions generated in our unconscious mind correlate to those which have been proven to elicit nightmares, as dreams are a reflection of out strongest, most abstract emotions according to this theory.\n\nStress and discomfort cause bad dreams as a result. Nightmares due to being sick or going through a rough patch in life have the same cause.",
"It's literally a hallucination effect because as your brain cooks...really...the parts that control your rem sleep kinda go haywire...for lack of a better layman term...it focuses on not letting critical parts of your brain die. So, in turn you get random sometimes awful dreams.things you think about once and forget consciously but come back when your body is basically on damage control. .not comfort mode."
],
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} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | Why do we get nightmares when we are feverish or sick and fall asleep?
| [
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10orog | why doesn't ice cream freeze into a solid? (it remains softish) | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"There are two key ingredients/additives in commercial ice cream. These are called **Stabilisers** and **Emulsifiers**.\n\nThe two used in Ice Cream are called **Guar Gum & Xanthan Gum**.\n\n***Guar Gum*** comes from seeds from the Guar Plant. It is a refined additive which acts like a Thickening Agent/Emulsifier. When used in small quantities, it prevents the growth of ice crystals which would cause the ice cream to harden into icicles.\n\n***Xanthan Gum*** is a Stabiliser that comes from Seaweed and is also used in foods as a gelling agent and thickener. This Stabiliser helps keep air in the ice cream mixture\n\nWithout these two additives, yes Icecream would freeze into more of a solid.",
"Ice cream starts out as *stuff* dissolved in water. Through churning it at low temperatures, you get the water to freeze, but it can't freeze into a solid block because there's all that *stuff* in the way. So what you end up with is tiny ice crystals suspended in a matrix of stuff, not a solid block of frozen water."
],
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2
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} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | why doesn't ice cream freeze into a solid? (it remains softish)
| [
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4x5dhp | Would Michael Phelp's 'special' genes make him good at sports other than swimming | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"d6cmmmg"
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"text": [
"No sport puts as much emphasis on upper body strength as the Butterfly, except probably wheelchair racing.\n\nHis reaction time seems pretty good, and he could probably hit baseballs pretty well. Translating that into a baseball defensive position seems questionable. Maybe golf, though that's much more finesse than raw force (drive for show, putt for dough).\n\nSome boxers have long reach, and power helps there, but the short legs might not be a plus."
],
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3
]
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | Would Michael Phelp's 'special' genes make him good at sports other than swimming
[removed] | [
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4jx35x | Why is the Earth's moon named The Moon while other planets' moons have actual names? | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Because it was named centuries before we knew that the planets had moons. To discover the moons round other planets we needed to invent the telescope and then realised that there were a lot of moons out there so they needed names to identify them.",
"It does have a name: the Moon. Other moons are called \"moons\" by analogy with Earth's: a moon of another planet is something that's like the Moon, but that planet's version. The common noun (and the discovery that other planets even had moons) came well after the Moon was named.\n\nIf the Moon was named \"Bob,\" then you'd be asking why the Bob doesn't have a name while other planets' bobs have names. If English had kept something like \"Luna\" from Latin, you'd be asking why Luna doesn't have a name when the other lunas all have names. There *is* another word for \"things orbiting a planet\" (satellite), but at least these days the standard generic English word is the one that derives from the name of The Moon.",
"The Earth moon has a name, it is \"Luna\". \"The Moon\" is also considered an accurate term, scientifically. \n\n*Edit: Literally no clue why this is being downvoted*",
"The satellite orbiting the earth did not need a distinctive name for centuries. Moon is the word in English while Luna is the Latin equivalent.\n_URL_0_",
"Moon is the name of our satellite.\nPlanets have satellites not moons, this is just a common misconception which is usually accepted."
],
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} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": [
"http://www.livescience.com/33373-moon-name.html"
]
} | train_eli5 | Why is the Earth's moon named The Moon while other planets' moons have actual names?
| [
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2mxu0b | What exactly is our problem with immigration? | Obviously something is wrong, and I just don't understand. Thanks for the help! | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Immigration is a fantastic concept that allows many people from different countries to give themselves or their children an opportunity at a better life.\n\nIllegal immigration is a problem because unregistered people use a countries healthcare, school system, and public facilities. This weighs heavily on the countries tax payers as there is no one to pay taxes for unregistered citizens.",
"In a place where jobs are hard to come by and unemployment is high, 5 million more workers willing to work below minimum wage more puts greater economic pressure on the resident citizens."
],
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} | {
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"url": []
} | train_eli5 | What exactly is our problem with immigration?
Obviously something is wrong, and I just don't understand. Thanks for the help! | [
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3te5xo | Why do humans respond faster to auditory stimuli than to do to visual stimuli? | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Research is still a bit fuzzy, but the hypothesis involves 2 parts. \n\nA. your ears utilize reflexes, which are faster than responses (responses involve additional levels of processing in the brain). Essentially, there is less processing that is needed for an auditory stimulus than a visual stimulus. \n\nB. The nerve that transmits auditory information is shorter than the nerve that transmits visual information. The auditory nerve travels from your ear to a very close region of your brain, while the optic nerve (vision) has to travel all the way to the back of your brain (the occipital lobe) in order to transmit its information. While this difference in length and speed is negligible to you in your every day life, it is significant when it comes to quick reflexes and responses"
],
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} | {
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} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | Why do humans respond faster to auditory stimuli than to do to visual stimuli?
| [
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4k4987 | How does hydroplaning happen? Is there any "safe" speed? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"When there is water on the road your tyre has to shove it out of the way if it's to stay in contact with the road. The tyre has grooves in it to make this easier, but there's a limit to how fast they can move water. Exceed this and the water builds up like a wedge under the tyre, lifting it off the road.\n\nYou are now no longer driving but sliding on a thin layer of water. Brake and the wheels will stop but the road doesn't care (for a while) and you'll just carry on. Likewise you'll not be able to steer.\n\nAs explained, there is a speed at which the tyre cannot shift the water fast enough. Below this speed you still have contact - though as you approach lift-off you'll have progressively less contact as the wedge develops. You can sometimes tell because the road noise drops away suddenly.\n\nThe safe speed is well below this!"
],
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5
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} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | How does hydroplaning happen? Is there any "safe" speed?
| [
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zqjn4 | - Homeownership (specifically first time home buyer) | So as the title eludes to, I am looking to buy a home. Unfortunetly, I live one of the most expensive areas in the country (Bergen Country NJ) and don't have a lot of money to be spending. I don't think I would be able to afford to actual house here, but perhaps a Condo / Townhouse / Apartment. Ideally, I would like it to be a minimum a townhouse so I setup a home theater. We really just want to get out of money-burning renting circlejerk. In total, I have spent over $40,000 renting and it kills me that it could have been equity in a house if I was not an idiot growing up. Kids, listen here - SAVE YOUR MONEY! You will be so much better off in the long run if you skip buying that new shiny toy.
So here are a few of my questions:
1. I would be a first time home buyer. Are there are incentives the government is handing out right now for people like me?
2. My fiancee and I don't have a lot saved up and we are saving for a wedding on top of that. Are there any assistance programs out there to help with a downpayment?
3. My fiancee is a public school teacher in the state of NJ. Does NJ have it's own programs to help out with home buying costs?
4. Realtors...Are they good or could I do it and save myself the money?
5. Should I use a credit union? I know credit unions always have the best rates.
If anyone could help, I would really appreciate it! | explainlikeimfive | {
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"First, IAMA former real estate agent/broker. Here are some answers to your questions, and a few other things to keep in mind:\n\n1. Yes, kind of. First time home buyers are eligible for FHA financing which enables you to get a lower down payment at a lower interest rate than other options. If you want me to go more into this let me know, but that's another question entirely.\n\n2. Yes, kind of. There used to be programs that would let you put $0 down, but most of those have gone away. Your best bet is going to be FHA financing (See #1) which would allow you to put 3% down\n\n3. Can't help you with this one. See my answer to #4 though.\n\n4. Realtors can be both good and bad, but in the majority of cases in the US the buyer doesn't pay for the realtor at all. In fact, in many states there are real estate agents that will actually *pay you* to let them represent you. If you decide to hire a real estate agent try to ask friends and family for their experience first, then talk to the agents yourself. Almost every agent is going to look through the same database of homes (the MLS) so the key is to find one that you feel you can trust, and who you feel will provide you with the level of service that you want. I can tell you all kinds of stories about great agents and bad agents - don't be afraid to talk to several buyers agents if you don't feel comfortable with the first one you speak with. Also, read any paperwork that they have you sign up front very carefully. It is common for agents to \"lock you in\" to using them for any house that they show you, but it is uncommon for them to ask for up front fees, etc.\n\n5. Credit unions *do not* always have the best rates. Compare multiple banks and credit unions to find one that you trust. A good resource is [fatwallet finance](_URL_0_).\n\n\nRegardless of what you decide with regards to the five points above, here are three things to be aware of:\n1. The most important decision you will make aside from which home you want to purchase is what financing to take. Call many, many banks. Ask lots of questions. **DO NOT** get locked into buying a house before you are comfortable with the mortgage you will be using to buy it.\n2. Townhomes & condos aren't always the way to go. Most people know that they will pay a mortgage payment every month, but many forget that they may also have to pay HOA dues, condo fees, and townhome assessments. Ask about these before being locked into buying any house - they can be as much or more than the mortgage in some cases.\n3. Plan to have to pay for maintainance on your house of some kind, even if you buy a condo/townhouse. This can be expensive, so don't go to the top end of your budget and leave yourself no room!",
"Without really answering your questions (sorry), let me give you some other things to consider about home ownership.\n\n1. A large part of your mortgage payment will go to interest, not equity. You really only start to build substantial equity if the home's price increases. That's still an uncertain factor, today. \n\n2. It is a bad idea to try to buy a house with 0 down. You'll be paying through the nose on your 2nd mortgage. \n\n3. You and your finacee don't sound like you're anywhere near financially stable enough to own a house. You should have at least 4 months' worth of savings in case something goes horribly wrong. That's on top of, ideally, the 20% down payment.\n\n4. On top of your mortage payment, which will be substantial (probably larger than your rent, but you can do the math on that), you need to budget for ALL the little things that you don't have to worry about while renting. Landscaping, plumbing problem, appliance replacement, bugs, mold, bad roof, utilities that may have previously been covered by your rent, MUCH higher energy bill (in all likelihood). Oh, and when these things go wrong, you don't get to call your landlord and have it taken care of, you have to either do it yourself, or spend time finding a reputable contractor to do it for you, then monitor their job.\n\nBasically, I think you need to think this through a little more.",
"I can't stand this \"rent is a waste\" argument. It isn't. You need a place to live, rent provides that. Stop that. Home ownership isn't the fairy tale people make it out to be, and in many, if not most cases, you lose more over the course of owning the home than you would from the sale.",
"From a financial standpoint, I would axe the wedding expenses in favor of the downpayment. I know a lot of brides want the expensive princess wedding, but you need to realistically look at what your costs are. If you must have the perfect wedding, put off buying for a few years until you save more.\n\nCU vs Bank comes down to rates and benefits you would get. For instance, some placesay give you a discount for having a checking account with them. \n\nAlso look for the APR, not the rate. APR takes into consideration Rate + extra costs & fees.",
"> I would like it to be a minimum a townhouse so I setup a home theater. [...] You will be so much better off in the long run if you skip buying that new shiny toy.\n\nIrony.",
"As a recent first-time buyer myself, I strongly recommend reading this book: [Nolo's Essential Guide to Buying Your First Home](_URL_1_). It breaks down the whole home buying process in ELI5 terms, and really helped me out."
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"http://www.amazon.com/Nolos-Essential-Guide-Buying-First/dp/1413313221/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1347410906&sr=8-2&keywords=how+to+buy+a+house"
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} | train_eli5 | - Homeownership (specifically first time home buyer)
So as the title eludes to, I am looking to buy a home. Unfortunetly, I live one of the most expensive areas in the country (Bergen Country NJ) and don't have a lot of money to be spending. I don't think I would be able to afford to actual house here, but perhaps a Condo / Townhouse / Apartment. Ideally, I would like it to be a minimum a townhouse so I setup a home theater. We really just want to get out of money-burning renting circlejerk. In total, I have spent over $40,000 renting and it kills me that it could have been equity in a house if I was not an idiot growing up. Kids, listen here - SAVE YOUR MONEY! You will be so much better off in the long run if you skip buying that new shiny toy. So here are a few of my questions: 1. I would be a first time home buyer. Are there are incentives the government is handing out right now for people like me? 2. My fiancee and I don't have a lot saved up and we are saving for a wedding on top of that. Are there any assistance programs out there to help with a downpayment? 3. My fiancee is a public school teacher in the state of NJ. Does NJ have it's own programs to help out with home buying costs? 4. Realtors...Are they good or could I do it and save myself the money? 5. Should I use a credit union? I know credit unions always have the best rates. If anyone could help, I would really appreciate it! | [
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7yl3vt | Why does the handle in a clay cup not heat up when there is hot liquid inside, but does when you place a cover over it? | So I was making tea this morning as per usual and i cover it to prevent it getting cold. But it’s just weird that the handle does not get hot yet my cover does, even though the handle is connected. Please explain this to me thanks! | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because heat rises. The handle is not only off to the side, but ceramic is very good at insulating heat, the handle has a huge surface area that touches the air to keep the handle cooler than the cup as a whole."
],
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} | train_eli5 | Why does the handle in a clay cup not heat up when there is hot liquid inside, but does when you place a cover over it?
So I was making tea this morning as per usual and i cover it to prevent it getting cold. But it’s just weird that the handle does not get hot yet my cover does, even though the handle is connected. Please explain this to me thanks! | [
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ohhsr | the materialist conception of history | I was flicking through some videos of the late Christopher Hitchens, and I noticed that in recent years he commented frequently how he no longer considered himself a socialist, but still considered himself a Marxist, in that he believed that "the materialist conception of history" was valid. See [here](_URL_0_), for example. What does that mean? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The materialist conception of history is the idea that history is driven primarily by *wealth*. That is, you can explain most major events in history by noting that people acted to gain more wealth or keep the wealth they had. This view was popularized by Marx, because he thought that communist ideology was a natural result of it, but in modern times a lot of people who don't necessarily agree with his ideology have adopted it.",
"It is also called the 'economic theory of history'. It basically says that if you want to know how a society works, you have to know how its economics works. For instance it would explain the difference in the forms and theology of religion in the middle ages and that of the the late 1800's by saying that in the middle ages the feudal system of economics lead to a religion that was very hierarchical with churches full of wealth and ritual. Once capitalism gets fully developed in the mid-to-late 1800's churches start working and looking more and more like factories. They were very spare, and minimally decorated. Sorry if this isn't exactly an ELI5 answer, this might be a little more helpful:\n\n_URL_0_"
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} | train_eli5 | the materialist conception of history
I was flicking through some videos of the late Christopher Hitchens, and I noticed that in recent years he commented frequently how he no longer considered himself a socialist, but still considered himself a Marxist, in that he believed that "the materialist conception of history" was valid. See [here](_URL_0_), for example. What does that mean? | [
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23d3nu | How desiccant packets work and why don't they expand or something? Or do they? | Also, are there any other uses for them? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Desiccant packets are used to maintain a dry environment, or for preservation. Basically, the silica gel has millions of little \"pores\" around it, like a golf ball. Water molecules adhere to these pores really well, and fill that porous space. This traps the water, without increasing the overall volume of the silica gel itself."
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} | train_eli5 | How desiccant packets work and why don't they expand or something? Or do they?
Also, are there any other uses for them? | [
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6kpbeh | - What exactly caused Illinois to go into such deep debt? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"To begin with, Illinois had a normal amount of debt for a state. Probably some parts of its debt are larger than average - for example, there's always a lot of talk about pensions for state workers. It also wasn't great about matching up taxes and revenue with the money it was promising to spend, so a long-term projection looked bad. Still, this was all within the realm of \"normal\" until 2014.\n\n\nIn 2014, Republican Bruce Rauner was elected governor, but the Democrats kept control of the state legislature, led by House Speaker Mike Madigan. Madigan, it should be noted, has been House Speaker since 1983. So even if that's all you knew about the situation, you'd know that politicians in Illinois were in for a fight.\n\nIn the red corner, Rauner came into office hoping to pursue a business-friendly agenda. He was a businessman himself before coming into office, and he talked about bringing businesses into Illinois by making it less expensive (lowering taxes on businesses, loosening some regulations, etc.). Rauner talked about \"corrupt union bosses\", and wanted to get laws passed that would take away bargaining power from unions. Republicans have been very supportive of Rauner, both because Rauner has donated his own money to other Illinois Republicans, and because they're a little tired of Madigan's control.\n\nIn the blue corner, Democrats in Illinois have been union-friendly for a *long* time, and are not about to stop now. So the unions are solidly behind Madigan, and since Madigan has been House Speaker for so long, and has done so under both Republican and Democratic governors, Democrats are following his lead.\n\nWhat happened then? They couldn't agree on a budget. Rauner insists that any budget include some of his pro-business/anti-union agenda, and Madigan refuses. Democrats have control of the legislature, so they can pass a budget, but they can't get past Rauner's veto. Since 2014, Rauner and Madigan have been political chicken, refusing to be the first to back down. Everyone's angry about this, but Democrats are angry at Rauner and Republicans are angry at Madigan, so there hasn't been much movement toward compromise.\n\nThe lack of a budget means that for a lot of things, even when Illinois is sitting on the money to pay for stuff, it doesn't have the legal authority to pay for it. The government has managed to pass a few stopgap measures that pays for a few things (most schools, keeping government offices open, paying for road repair), but there's a whole lot of bills going unpaid and *racking up interest*. \n\nOn top of the unpaid bills and the interest they're collecting, Illinois's debt rating has fallen pretty low (I think it's now junk status, or close to it). That means that if Illinois wants to borrow more money, its interest rates are going to be *terrible*.\n\nOf course, the only way to dig your way out of a financial hole like this is to raise taxes or cut spending, so however this works out, it's going to be unpleasant and politically difficult."
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} | train_eli5 | - What exactly caused Illinois to go into such deep debt?
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yu3cp | Where Did the Money From the Stock Market Crash Go? | The title pretty much explains it. I don't really know the first thing about the stock market (I suppose I have a few years before I need to know) and this question popped into my mind a few days ago. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Imagine that everyone in your neighborhood has been buying Special Bags of Gold for many years as an investment. Everyone has put a fair amount of money into buying these Special Bags of Gold and they have all been told that their value has increased over the years. Typically, 1/2 of everyone's net worth is stored in the Special Bags of Gold, which they sell to each other at ever-increasing prices. One day, someone opens on of his Special Bags of Gold, to discover that it contains nothing but dog shit. He tries to sell his bags off as quickly as he can before others discover their contents, but word travels fast and soon everyone realizes that 1/2 of their wealth is worth nothing at all.",
"Nowhere. That's the shitty thing about economic collapses, the money doesn't get moved around... It disappears.",
"It wasn't so much that people \"had money\" and then later they did not. Rather, they had items that they thought they could trade for money if they wanted more, and then found out they couldn't. The same principle applies to the housing market crash from a few years back; people simply discovered they were overestimating the sales value of their possessions.",
"It's always good to know how a financial system works, regardless of your age.\n\nThe money was on paper. It wasn't real. Then, as the value of all of these companies dropped, the money just disappeared. It ceased to exist."
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} | train_eli5 | Where Did the Money From the Stock Market Crash Go?
The title pretty much explains it. I don't really know the first thing about the stock market (I suppose I have a few years before I need to know) and this question popped into my mind a few days ago. | [
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2fup95 | why do my previously broken body parts hurt when it rains. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"no one knows for sure. but some theories..\n_URL_0_",
"I have also always heard my parents and complain about old broken bones etc getting incredibly painful when it is cold. And even though I am not \"old\" by any social term, I have started getting pains in fractured bones etc when it is bitterly cold. But I am talking minus 7 cold. So maybe as you age, your resistance to what level of cold you need to ache weakens? Who knows?"
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"url": [
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} | train_eli5 | why do my previously broken body parts hurt when it rains.
| [
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4dzhc1 | Why didn't many people evacuate Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the warning leaflets were dropped? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Everyone is talking about the leaflets, but the other half of the story is that Japanese cities were being bombed every week. And these cities had more deaths and destruction than Hiroshima and Nagasaki (though caused with multiple bombs). \nLooks like 105,000 were killed from nuclear weapons while fire bombs killed 500,000.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nELI5: A pack of school bullies have been taking your lunch money every couple of weeks, usually $5 to $20. One day just one bully shows up and takes $15 instead of the usual pack of three bullies. To you, it might not seem that different than the other days, so why skip school that day?",
"Would you have?\n\nGuys, guys, listen to this! This is the message on this leaflet that's blowing all over the place! Listen, I'll read it for you.\n\n\"Hey people living there! Those of you that can read, that is.\" Yeah, not you Saiko, sorr... quit it, I'm trying to read here! \n\n\"We, a country from very far away that you're fighting, are going to KILL YOU ALL in a little bit with our GIANT BOMB that we just invented! We strongly urge that you leave because we have a bomb that is going to annihilate your whole city and stuff. P.S. We mean it!\"\n\nYeah, right. Americans. From the other side of the world. Bomb. Su-u-u-u-re. Pfft. Crazy huh? \n\nYeah me too. Gotta get back to the vegetable patch or I'll never hear the end of it from my wife. See you at the market tomorrow.",
"No leaflets were dropped before Hiroshima, and by Nagasaki, everyone knew about it and while leaflets were dropped, no one knew the next target city. It was also illegal by Japanese law to read them FYI.",
"suppose you had leaflets dropped in your town by the japanese saying they were going to release godzilla to destroy your town.\n\nthat's how crazy the idea of a nuclear bomb was then. there was a guy who survived the attack on hiroshima, went home to nagasaki, told people what happened and no one believed him (the only person to survive BOTH bombs)",
"Interesting... A lot of these answers are pretty contradicting, from \"Leaflets were dropped, but nobody believed them\" to \"Leaflets were dropped, but nobody was allowed to read them\" to \"No leaflets were dropped before Hiroshima\".\n\nIf no leaflets were dropped, then why didn't the US drop them?"
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} | train_eli5 | Why didn't many people evacuate Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the warning leaflets were dropped?
| [
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70dioz | With possible bipartisan interest in tax reform, what would most people agree is "broken" about the US tax system? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The high complexity of the code means that most people lack the time or resources to correctly file and receive the correct amount of return or pay the correct amount of tax. There are services like H & R Block or Quicken that are affordable, but it says something about the system that you need a specialized computer program just to file the average person's taxes.\n\nThis benefits the wealthy who have even higher complexity BUT have the ability to pay for professional accountants to do their job. In addition the wealthy have the ability to move their income around and often pay lower rates than their income would suggest due to perfectly legal manipulation of how their income is reported. \n\nA complete overhaul of the tax system is an opportunity to clean up that entire code and make it much clearer to the average user and much \"fairer\" to the population as a whole. The goal of taxation is to fund the government which provides services to it's citizens. An efficient tax code allows the government to intake the amount of money it needs rather than making a guess and hoping it is close. In theory, this would mean that taxes were set at the rate that was needed rather than an arbitrary number that is a constant political point. In practice... look man, people are nuts and we're never gonna get that good.\n\nIn short - we clean up the code so the rich, the poor, and everyone in between are able to quickly and efficiently file their taxes, pay their share, and move on with life."
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} | train_eli5 | With possible bipartisan interest in tax reform, what would most people agree is "broken" about the US tax system?
[removed] | [
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6jnc8p | Why do some restaurants/stores accept MasterCard/discover and others don't? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The usual reason is that they don't like the fees associated with one card or another.\n\nDepending on their payment processor and the current fees associated with the four major credit card issuers, the cost for accepting a Discover card may be much higher than the cost of accepting an American Express, and the store may decide that it isn't worth it to accept the card.",
"There is no requirement to accept every credit card, and different credit card companies have different terms and rules for stores to work with them.\n\nUsually, it costs money for stores to support taking a credit card, and if they don't get very many MasterCard users, it may not be worth the money to keep MasterCard support."
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} | train_eli5 | Why do some restaurants/stores accept MasterCard/discover and others don't?
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30v48k | Indiana's Religious Freedom Bill | Hello, I've recently moved away from Indiana, and my Facebook feed has been full of posts giving this bill a huge amount of backlash. To me, it seems very confusing. Businesses are already allowed to refuse service to anyone they want (can't they?) so what makes this any different than that?
A lot of my friends are upset about the timing of the bill. Homosexuals have been granted a lot of privileges as of late, and now this bill surfaces which seems to allow discrimination against them as long as it goes against the person's religion.
So, please ELI5 this for me, and anyone else who could use a little clarification. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The law cannot 'significantly burden' religion except in the case of 'compelling interest'. That's already the rule.\n\nSo, there can't be a law forbidding you to go to church or forbidding you to wear your burka or making you stand and say there is no God. Amish people aren't made to do a lot of the birth certificate, compulsory schooling, etc, that the rest of us do.\n\nSometimes, there is a 'compelling interest' -- a good reason for the government to say you don't get to follow your religion. An extreme example would be if you decided to kill infidels. A more normal and relevant current example would be if you refused to vaccinate your kids. Another example might be the lady in the burka wanting to wear it for her driver's license photo.\n\nSo, these new laws, they're basically meant to increase your ability to defy established (or new) law based on your beliefs. One thing that's different in Indiana's, as opposed to the longstanding federal version, for instance, is that businesses can also have religious beliefs. \n\nMy own state, NC, is currently considering a similar one, that will go even further, by saying that the government not only can't 'significantly burden' your beliefs, but simply cannot 'burden' them at all. \n\nThis is very much about same-sex marriage, of course, such as the couple who orders a cake and the baker won't provide it because the couple is gay, and she thinks being gay is a giant sin. However, there is really far more to it than that. You can basically defy any law if you can demonstrate that it 'significantly burdens' your religious beliefs, and the government can't demonstrate a 'compelling interest' in making you obey. We have a lot of shitty laws, but we also have quite a few that have good reasons, and there are mighty few that should have special exceptions for religious people.",
"Businesses have the right, elsewhere, to deny a person service, so long as that denial is not based on discrimination. For example a restaurant can deny to sit you for w/e reason, so long as it isn't discrimination, example include: not wearing shoes/shirt, being close to closing, or the fact that you've been there before and typically cause problems... etc. In Indiana, under this bill, if someone were to sue a business claiming they were not served based on discrimination, a for-profit company is completely able to use \"religion\" as a reason for denial of surface, this is different than other religious freedom bills because in other bills the state government must be involved in order for those laws to apply.\n\n\nPErsonally, I feel its wrong to force people to attend matters or celebrations for catering or photography job when they would not go to this type of thing of there own freewill, but likewise its wrong to allow businesses to discriminate under the guise of \"religion\" \n(Jesus set at a table with hookers and lepers, but God forbid you have to do business with a gay person).",
"It allows business owners to decide for themselves if they want to celebrate homosexual marriage, based on their religion. So if a gay couple comes into a bakery asking for a cake for their wedding, a Christian baker wouldn't have to bake one. However, if they came for a birthday cake, the law would not protect the baker if he declined based on his faith, as celebrating a homosexuals birthday does not qualify as celebrating homosexuality.",
"Isn't there comparable federal law that is identical to the Indiana law and also identical laws in several other states? What makes Indiana law so different that it's come under so much scrutiny?"
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} | train_eli5 | Indiana's Religious Freedom Bill
Hello, I've recently moved away from Indiana, and my Facebook feed has been full of posts giving this bill a huge amount of backlash. To me, it seems very confusing. Businesses are already allowed to refuse service to anyone they want (can't they?) so what makes this any different than that? A lot of my friends are upset about the timing of the bill. Homosexuals have been granted a lot of privileges as of late, and now this bill surfaces which seems to allow discrimination against them as long as it goes against the person's religion. So, please ELI5 this for me, and anyone else who could use a little clarification. | [
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2zbkfi | How did credit cards start? | How did credit cards start and how did consumers accept that small cuts of plastic are acceptable currency.
Also the difference between each of the cards: Mastercard, Visa, AmEx, Discover. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It started in 1950 with the diners club. Basically the head of the diners club would give out cardboard cards and pay for people's meals on the hope that they would pay him back at the end of the month.",
"To get really basic with this, it started when loans were invented. Credit cards are just automated loan services. You trust them because these loan companies are huge and reputable."
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How did credit cards start and how did consumers accept that small cuts of plastic are acceptable currency. Also the difference between each of the cards: Mastercard, Visa, AmEx, Discover. | [
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2e2qy2 | what is procedural law, and what is substantive law? | Reading about the Court of Arbitration for Sport and came across these terms in this intro: _URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Procedural law is the laws and rules that determine how a court case is handled. It says how long each party has to respond to the other party, what is allowed as evidence, etc.\n\nSubstantive law is what most people generally think of as \"law.\" It tells you what actions a person must do in order to be liable, and what the remedies of the other party are."
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} | train_eli5 | what is procedural law, and what is substantive law?
Reading about the Court of Arbitration for Sport and came across these terms in this intro: _URL_0_ | [
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3gkpzb | What is so bad about artificial sweetners that have no sugar/calories? | See above. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"> **Benefits of Artificial Sweeteners**\n\n > **Low Calories**\nIf you’re trying to lose weight, replacing sugar with moderate levels of artificial sweetener may prove helpful. Artificial sweeteners can help you cut calories on everything from baked goods to iced tea. As with any product, use artificial sweeteners in moderation.\n\n > **Diabetes-Friendly Options**\nMany diabetics struggle to adapt to highly restrictive diets. Artificial sweeteners may help ease this difficult transition and allow those diagnosed with diabetes to continue eating their favorite foods. Unlike traditional sugar, artificial sweeteners are free of carbohydrates, meaning they have a negligible effect on the blood sugar.1 Not all sugar substitutes are the same. Consult a doctor or nutritionist before adding artificial sweeteners to your diet, especially if you’re diabetic.\n\n > **Hazards Associated with Artificial Sweeteners**\n\n > **Lack of Nutritional Value**\nDiet sodas, like regular sodas, provide no nutritional value and also contain phosphoric acid, an ingredient that could increase the risk of bone loss later in life.2 Diet sodas are also sweeter than regular carbonated beverages. In time, this could increase your taste for sweet drinks and food. Nutritionists recommend that people avoid both diet and regular soda and stick to drinking water.\n\n > **Taste**\nSome people don’t notice a difference in taste between real sugar and sugar substitute. Others, however, feel like they’re being deprived when they eat or drink products containing \"fake\" sugar. Both products need to be eaten in moderation. Some nutritionists argue that it’s better to eat a small portion of food with sugar and feel satisfied than to eat a lot of foods containing artificial sweeteners and still feel deprived.\n\n > **Side Effects**\nCertain sweeteners, such as aspartame, are believed to cause a number of harmful side effects in myriad patients, including those with cancer, severe depression, multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus. Commonly reported side effects include mood swings, headaches, fatigue and dizziness. If you believe that the consumption of sugar substitutes may be contributing to these problems, consult a doctor. Artificial sweeteners may not necessarily be the cause of such symptoms, but cutting them from your diet may still prove helpful."
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See above. | [
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7c1ka4 | What is Big O, Big Omega, and Big Theta Notation? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When you have two sequences or functions, you are often interested in how fast they grow compared to one another. For example, suppose you have two functions f(n) and g(n) that tell you how many operations two different algorithms use to sort a list with n elements. As n gets bigger, if the number of operations f(n) gets bigger faster than the number of operations g(n) gets bigger, then you would say that g(n) is a more efficient algorithm. There are a variety of ways to make that idea more precise, and Big O/Omega/Theta are one of them.\n\n\"f(n) is Big O of g(n)\" means that the rate of growth of f(n) is at most the rate of growth of g(n).\n\n\"f(n) is Big Omega of g(n)\" means the rate of growth of f(n) is at least the rate of growth of g(n).\n\n\"f(n) is Big Theta of g(n)\" means f(n) and g(n) have the same rate of growth.",
"/u/BigSerene is very close to correct, but I want to rephrase what they said an add some clarification. Buckle up, because this is knee-deep in college-level computer science.\n\nBig-Oh notation is used to compare algorithms and determine which ones take more time than others to complete. But what is an algorithm? Well, it's a finite series of steps to solve a problem. Very handy in computing. Some algorithms are really slow, though. Some are fast. We want to find the fast ones and avoid the slow ones (assuming both of them get the right answer in the first place). In order to do that, we need to have a standard to compare them by. That's Big-Oh.\n\nSay I want to find a pair of matching socks. Once thing I could do is, for every sock I own, compare it to every other sock I own (at a rate of one sock per minute, for simplicity) until I find a match. In the worst case, I'd need to go through every sock I own, _for every sock I own_, to find a match. Let's write it in Big-Oh. The notation is written relative to the size of your input. Usually this size is represented as _n_, and in this case, it represents the number of socks I own, which can vary over time. We want our algorithms to run reasonably well regardless of the size of the inputs. This one runs in O( n^2 ).\n\nOne nice thing Big-Oh does for us is get rid of clutter. I'm going to avoid the actual definitions because this isn't /r/askscience, but the jist of it is that we can ignore any _constant-time processing_ that isn't related to how many socks we're looking through. Say I putzed around on my phone for an hour for no reason before I picked my socks. We could speed up by _not_ doing that, but it won't change or Big-Oh expression, because O( 60 + n^2 ) = O( n^2 ). Same story if I wanted to count up all my socks beforehand. O( n + n^2 ) = O( n^2 ). Or if I wanted to double-check something about each pair of socks I looked at. O( 2n^2 ) = O( n^2 ). It's really nifty and helps us compare algorithms without having to know the specifics of how the data is handled or preprocessed. Obviously the algorithms with the additional expressions will run a tad slower, but when you're processing a hundred million socks, those expressions are eclipsed (known as the asymptotic running time).\n\nThese next few explanations are a distillation of the definitions, to keep things a little simpler. Unless you want to get in deeper, just take it at face value that constants are ignored, and that all members of an addition expression _except the one with the greatest magnitude_ are also ignored, a la O( 1000 + n + 1000n + n^2 ) = O( n^2 ).\n\nBig-Oh says that, _at worst_, the approximated running time of an algorithm (how long it will take me to find my matching pair of socks) will be _no higher than_ the approximation given in parentheses (in this case, n^2 ).\n\nBig-Omega is similar and says that, _at best_, the approximated running running time of an algorithm will be _no better than_ the approximation given in parentheses.\n\nFor an algorithm to be Big-Theta( n^2 ), it has to be Big-Oh( n^2 ) _and_ Big-Omega( n^2 ).\n\nThose last two are mainly used in analysis, or to find the Big-Oh notation of algorithms that don't play quite as nicely as my socks example (say, algorithms that recurse). Hope that helps!",
"I'd highly recommend reading the article \"A Gentle Introduction to Algorithm Complexity Analysis\". It really helped me understand the concepts and how to analyze the complexity of an algorithm, along with the notation. _URL_0_",
"You've just done your laundry, and now you are sorting your socks. Obviously, the more socks you have to sort, the longer it is going to take. But it isn't a direct relationship, twice as many socks takes more than twice as long to sort becasue more socks makes the task not only bigger, more complex.\n\nBig O notation is an attempt to measure that complexity, to give you an idea how the time to get something done grows with how many things you need to work with. Some tasks, like counting the socks, have a simple linear relationship...twice as many socks takes twice the time. You could find a function that says t = 2n, which means if you have n socks, it will take 2n seconds to count them. This means the complexity is 2n, which for hand waving reasons we won't get into, simplifies to n. Similarly, if sorting socks can be described with t = 3n^(2), the complexity is n^(2).\n\nBut sometimes it isn't that easy, especially when you can anticipate exactly what kind of socks you are sorting. If they are all the same ankle length white athletic socks, they will sort faster than if every pair is unique. That's where O, Θ, and Ω comes in:\n\n* O means your algorithm is at least that **fast**, and in specific cases might be faster. An O(n^(2)) algorithm at **worst** is n^(2), but sometimes might be n or even better.\n* Ω means your algorithm is at least that **slow**, and in specific cases might be slower. An Ω(n^(2)) algorithm at **best** is n^(2), but sometimes might be n^3 or even worse.\n* Θ means while there might be some variance, your algorithm never significantly faster or slower. An n^2 algorithm never improves to n or worsen to n^(3) based on the data.\n\nBig O is by far the mostly commonly used of these, to the point people often say O when they really mean Θ."
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m0bec | How you make broadband faster. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Broadband is like a chain, its as strong as your weakest link. Therefore you need to trace everything back from your devices back to the ISP"
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34c28w | Why do digital downloads of games cost the same amount as a hard copy? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because if they were cheaper, people would have much less reason to buy a hard copy. There'd be no real reason to pay people to manufacture them, ship them, or sell them. The people who own those businesses want to stay in business, so video game developers are careful not to screw them over.",
"The vast, *vast*, **vast** majority of the cost of a game comes from the actual development, not the manufacture of the physics discs.\n\nThe discs only cost a few cents to make, and the packaging a bit more than that. So maybe you could sell the digital version for $1 less than the physical version to account for that, but the difference isn't enough to be a real incentive.",
"Modern pricing is based on \"willingness to pay\" rather than the older \"cost-plus\" model. Cost-plus says: this CD cost us $Y to make (after manufacturing, paying the artist, studio time, editing, marketing, etc.) therefore we will sell it for $Y+X%. Willingness to pay means that the price is set based on the customer's willing to pay. In this case, even if digital is the same price as a hard copy, you will still pay it because it is more convenient.",
"People here are talking more about marketing reasons for the difference of prices but I would suggest taking a look at the ebook and book price differences. When ebooks first started to getting big there was sometimes a big price difference between a physical and digital copy. It started a fight between retailers, publishers and consumers. It all links back to price fixing and manipulating the store market.",
"There isn't one single reason, the right answer is a combination of many things that are being explained in this thread.\n\n* The costs of manufacturing physical media are dwarfed by the costs of developing the game. Prices *did* Drop between the Super NES era and the Playstation era, then rose again when the XBox 360 was released. The SNES costs were associated with the high cost of ROM memory (Chrono Trigger retailed at around $90!), the XBox 360 costs were associated with the costs of producing HD content.\n* Hosting digital media, processing payments, and providing high-speed downloads can cost a lot of money as well. Hosting multiplayer servers or features like cloud save data represents ongoing costs that increase with sales. Companies can pay for someone else to handle this, like Steam, but either way these services have ongoing costs that last after sale.\n* Physical goods are still the only option for many people. Retailers don't have to stock an item. Many retailers expect to be paid to stock items or promote them, and the impact on sales can be very big. This can also include deals that dictate prices cannot be lower at other retailers. (Amazon and other major book retailers got in trouble for these kinds of deals recently.)\n * Also, the extra profit from digital sales help subsidize the costs of paying these retailers. As backwards as it sounds, this is the explanation for why print NYT subscriptions are cheaper than digital subscriptions.\n* \"Price\" is a complicated concept, but for many reasons there's no motivation to discount digital games to keep the margin constant:\n * Gamers are used to paying ~$60 for high-end new releases. Any number of people who refused to buy digitally because of pricing must be insignificant because \n * The effects of a consumer protesting digital sales by only buying physical copies aren't dramatic. Companies would in theory make more money if all sales were digital, but if you protest and buy the physical copy they still make money.\n * Video games are a scarce resource and gamers tend to be very loyal to their favorite series. Saint's Row got a lot of attention for releasing new, discounted content when GTA V released and GTA V still went on to break sales records. Being cheaper doesn't impact sales as much as the reputation of a major franchise does.\n\nI don't like it, and I do wish some downward adjustment happened, but it's possible that by the numbers digital copies aren't *that* much cheaper to 'manufacture' when all things are considered.",
"PSN games actually cost MORE than the physical copies here in the UK I find, I can buy a physical game for anywhere from £40 to £50 or so depending on the game but I see the digital copy on for £55 to £60 at times it is ridiculous.\n\nIf I buy from amazon it works out even cheaper, sometimes as low as £37 for brand new games",
"Because STEAM takes a 30% cut of any game sold by them. Since they have almost a monopoly when it comes to digital downloads, the game companies are forced to pay up.\n\nThis is why you have legit sites like green man gaming that can offer better prices for a game, and still make a profit.They just make less money than STEAM does for the same product."
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2dxe4r | Are there any other species besides humans which naturally (i.e. without training) understand pointing? As in if I were to point to an object, a member of this species would look toward the object and not the tip of my finger?) | Or is this a uniquely human behavior?
| explainlikeimfive | {
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"[Elephants](_URL_0_) point and understand when we point at things too."
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Or is this a uniquely human behavior? | [
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5tdewh | When did blue became the standard color for ball pens? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It really isn't the standard, but there's many reasons why it could be preferred by companies that manufacture pens. Here are some explanations.\n\nFor one, blue ink is distinguishable. If you're printing out a paper in greyscale, blue ink will stick out on the paper. This is especially important for official documentation such as what you get in the doctor's office. The color on the paper makes the person who's looking at it know exactly what you wrote without having to scan through the paper.\n\nAlso, blue ink makes an original document visible from copies. Since most copy machines use black and white printouts, the blue color of the pen makes the original document (the one scanned) easy to identify.\n\nAnother explanation is that blue ink writes better. The composition of the ink allows the pen to flow better on the paper.\n\nAnd finally, there might not be a reason. It's likely that when different colors of ink were developed that people naturally developed a preference for blue. Like black ink, it's legible but unlike red ink, still easy to read. This is probably the more likely explanation."
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7mq6s7 | How do electronic devices or circuits know how much current to draw from a power supply? What determines how much current it needs? | If a mini computer needed say 1a and I plugged it in, it would indeed take 1a and no more. What's happening that allows it to take just as much as it needs? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The circuit has a characteristic resistance. The source voltage divided by that defines the average current required. Of course, things are more complicated than that, because the actual current varies from time depending on what state the circuit is in, but that's not as ELI5 an explanation. Things are always more complex than they seem in ELI5.\n\nIn the case of your computer, if the power supply says 1A then under no circumstance does it need more than 1A. It probably only takes 0.5A most of the time, but the power supply has to allow for startup surges and special cases.",
"I = V/R\n\nAnytime you have a voltage difference the electrons want to flow as hard as possible to balance it out, what slows them down is the resistance. \n\nIf you have a circuit with low resistance (like a short) there is a lot of current flow; if there’s high resistance the current doesn’t flow as easily.",
"Assuming you power your computer with a 12V DC source, your computer presents at least 12Ω of resistance to the power supply.\n\n > \"But what is this resistance of which you speak?\"\n\nI like to use water as a good analogy for electrical units:\n\nVoltage: is the water pressure within a pipe.\n\nCurrent: is the volume of water that passes through the pipe in a given amount of time.\n\nResistance: is the diameter of the pipe. A smaller diameter creates more resistance.\n\nIn a pipe of given diameter, as water pressure increases, more water will flow. For water at a given pressure, as the pipe diameter decreases (i.e. resistance increases), less water will flow. If the pipe is blocked, the water stops, no matter how high its pressure.\n\nImagine a factory with one hundred widget making machines, where each machine is powered by its own water wheel connected to a municipal water supply of constant pressure. \n\nWhen your sales team fails you and your widget production is low, you may have only one or two machines operating. So you open the valves to only one or two water wheels. When you hire a better sales team and you maximize production, you open the valves to all of your water wheels so you can run all of your machines. \n\nWhile each wheel presents the same resistance to the municipal water supply, opening up more valves increases the total amount of water flowing through your factory. The municipal water company is madly speeding and slowing down its water pumps to maintain pressure within the city's water supply, while your factory happily opens and closes valves to its widget machines as production rates change. The juggling is always on the supply end. If the water company can't supply enough water, eventually the pressure in the water supply decreases, and everything slows down.\n\nNow we can carry this analogy back over to your computer.\n\nThink of each of the millions of transistors inside your computer's CPU as a little machine in an information processing factory. Each machine has its own water wheel and valve. At idle, your computer probably presents much more than 12Ω to the power supply because all of the transistors are idle and their valves are closed. But when the CPU has to process a lot of information, its logic opens the valves to allow the transistors to function. This offers more paths for electricity to follow, which means less resistance across the whole chip, which increases the current flowing through it. What limits the amount of current flowing through your CPU is the number of transistors it contains, and how efficiently each of them can do their work.\n\nThe power supply always supplies 12 V, so as your CPU's resistance drops, the current increases, and it draws more *power*. Power is what determines how much heat your power supply must dissipate. Because electrical current excites the molecules in the conductor through which it flows, more current means more heat. Every power supply can only dissipate a finite amount of heat before it fails. So what the 1A limit on a 12V power supply really means is \"Don't plug me into anything that presents less than 12Ω of resistance, or I will melt!\"\n\nIf you want to process more information, you need more transistors, which means your computer will draw more current, and create more heat. Thus, you would need to upgrade your power supply to one that can safely handle the increased current your spiffy new computer demands.",
"Devices 'drawing' current means they allow some amount of electricity to flow through them and that amount is a consequence of what parts it's made of. A machine doesn't 'choose' how much current to use when you turn it on, the engineer who designed the machine already did when she specified how it should be built.\n\nIf you supply a higher voltage then more current will flow because it's being 'pushed' harder. (Of course that usually results in the machine not working right or even breaking!) If your device has a power setting, like a hair dryer, that switch connects more or more powerful electrical components which will let more current flow through, doing more work as it goes.\n\nSo how much current an appliance uses is not a decision, but a natural consequence."
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} | train_eli5 | How do electronic devices or circuits know how much current to draw from a power supply? What determines how much current it needs?
If a mini computer needed say 1a and I plugged it in, it would indeed take 1a and no more. What's happening that allows it to take just as much as it needs? | [
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7inlmq | When something stressful happens, people are initially calm. Once the situation is passed, then stress sets in | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Stress actually focuses you initially. Afterwards adrenaline is still in your body, which triggers other physiological reactions we normally associate with panic.\n\n\nSome people just react differently to the situation mentally.",
"As a survival mechanism, people are surprisingly good at staying focused during a serious emergency. Their emotions are temporarily suppressed so that they can act.",
"One thing that CAN happen at times is a state of sort of hyperattentivity. \n\nOne theory goes, as your body gets ready to go into fight mode, your vital fluids divert towards vital processes. So the same way blood flow diverts towards your heart and lungs, giving you a temporary performance boost while also explaining why your face and hands go pale\n\nIn your brain, things divert towards the core of your brain, for reaction, sensory perception, motor skills, etc but that also diverts power away from higher level non-essential stuff like emotion, morality, etc. \n\nThis is why some people after dangerous situations, or after combat describe a sensation of \"time slowing down\" or superhuman awareness. At the same time, its also why feelings like fear and guilt don't kick in until later. \n\nA lot of people after a gun fight feel this feeling of guilt about things they did in the gun fight because \"I shot that guy and I didn't even feel bad. I saw that other guy get killed and I didn't stop. I though 'glad that wasn't me' and kept moving.\" Well, that's because the part of your brain that manages that stuff was powered down. The energy was diverted to the see, react, move parts of your brain because those help you survive.\n\nOnly after the situation is over, when your brain activity has returned to normal, do you get activity back to the parts of your brain that say things like \"was that soldier I shot a child???\" \"holy shit did we almost just die there?\" \n\nHere is one decent write up on some of these ideas. \n\n_URL_0_"
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"url": [
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} | train_eli5 | When something stressful happens, people are initially calm. Once the situation is passed, then stress sets in
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38wjg1 | How does rubbing batteries together restore their charge? | Sometimes when my batteries are low I rub them together and they seem to have more life in them, for example a torch might be brighter with the same batteries after rubbing them together, why does this happen? Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It doesn't. \n\nWhat does happen, is that since you're holding the batteries, you're warming them up due to the warmth of your hands. Chemical reactions happen faster at higher temperatures, and as such, warming the battery produces a slight boost.",
"You are probably just heating the batteries up. Heating them up causing the chemical reaction to accelerate, producing more current, but then reducing their life.",
"Sometimes batteries can appear flat if they are no longer making good contact with each other, or the device. Moving them around can restore the contacts and make them work."
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} | train_eli5 | How does rubbing batteries together restore their charge?
Sometimes when my batteries are low I rub them together and they seem to have more life in them, for example a torch might be brighter with the same batteries after rubbing them together, why does this happen? Thanks! | [
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3nxapl | Why do vehicle speedometers go so high? | Realistically the highest speed you'll ever go under normal conditions is at max maybe 130 km/hr. But my speedo goes to 220. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It provides the illusion of performance. Having a speedometer that goes high implies that the car *must* have stronger engines. Also, in other countries, like Germany, cars that travel on the unrestricted autobahn can reached higher speeds. It's also cheaper for one car company to use the same speedometer across all their models.",
"That depends on your location. For example on the German Autobahn you would often be stuck between the trucks in the right lane if you never drove faster than 130 km/h.\n\nSpeedometers usually aren't specific to one engine. Even if one car doesn't manage anything close to the end of the scale, the same one with a more powerful engine might.\n\nAnd finally it looks impressive."
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} | train_eli5 | Why do vehicle speedometers go so high?
Realistically the highest speed you'll ever go under normal conditions is at max maybe 130 km/hr. But my speedo goes to 220. | [
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29w78d | Is there a way to get over phobias? | I hate bugs so much. They make my heart skip some times. | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Different things work for different people. Some people get help from hypnosis, some have a really gradual desensitization/exposure therapy. [This is a link](_URL_0_) to a self desensitization therapy. My advice would be to skip past the nonsense pre-reading to \"step 1.\" Essentially the most common way to get over a phobia is to practice relaxation techniques enough that you get really good at them. Then, you spend a few minutes every day on a \"hierarchy of exposure\" where you use those relaxation techniques. For you, as an example, the hierarchy might be for the first few weeks, to think about a bug far away from you, then a few weeks after that might be to think about a bug outside your house, then inside your house, then inside the room, then actually seeing a bug, then actually touching the bug. After each thing (like thinking about the bug far away), you'd practice relaxing yourself every day until it became second nature to be relaxed in that situation... then you'd move on to the next thing.",
"Yes. Usually Exposure therapy. Your body has an irrational fear response. Exposure therapy teaches you how to calm down during that fear response.",
"Realize that your reaction is a feedback loop.\n\nYou see/hear/experience/sense something. You think about it anxiously. Your body has an anxiety (fight or flight) reaction. You think about it more anxiously. Your body has a stronger anxiety reaction. Your body feeds your mental anxiety, and that mental anxiety feeds your body's fight or flight response. And so on, and so on, as it snowballs...\n\nThe key is to short circuit the snowballing feedback loop. \n\nThe easiest way to do this is to continually expose yourself to the anxiety provoking thing/situation, until you get used to it, and you're able to to be exposed to it without having that \"anxiety < -- > fight or flight\" reaction.",
"Progressive exposure. Get a kid to catch a pillbug in a jar and sit across the room from it. When you're used to it, move up to a bigger bug. Sit closer after a while. Sit outside next to a jar with a grasshopper in it, then open the jar, and watch it escape.",
"As others have said, exposure can be a way. It certainly worked with my extreme fear of E.T. (Yes, the cute alien)\n\nEDIT: I still get a small adrenaline rush whenever I see E.T. for the first time in a while, so I guess I'm not completely over it."
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"url": [
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} | train_eli5 | Is there a way to get over phobias?
I hate bugs so much. They make my heart skip some times. | [
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2xgkcp | Why is gambling so restricted in the US? | In Britain, placing bets on football on a weekend is a huge part of sporting culture. Why is it not legal to do so in the USA? What is the legal status of other types of betting (casinos, for example)? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"TLDR: Religion in the past, corruption in the present.\n\nOriginally gambling was restricted on religious grounds.\n\nThen it was restricted because of inertia (restrictions already on the books and nobody cared enough to have them repealed). Sometime in the second half of the 20th century, states discovered how much money they could make by having a monopoly on gambling through the state lottery.\n\nRecently many states have opened casinos, but typically licensing is rigged so a few businesses with good political connections are decently shielded from competition.",
"A large part of it is the doctrine in nearly every jusridiction that gambling debt cannot be collected as one would any other debt in court. You sign a contact to buy a car you fail to make the payments, you forfiet the car, the courts will back the seller up on this one. The courts will not get involved in squabbles over those dice, \"Stagger Lee threw 7 Billy swore that he threw 8.\" Given no legal recourse to collect on gambling debt the wronged party often resorts to violence as a collection method.\n\nYou are never in debt to a Casino. You buy the chips that you use to play when you enter and cash out whatever you may have left or have won as you leave.\n\nSame with parimutual betting on races, the track has your money in hand before the race begins.\n\nOf course there are no end of small time, small pot gambling situations that go unnoticed and unpunished, nobody's going to get an arm broken over an office NCAA tournament pool, but as the stakes go higher, and the risk of people resorting to violence to settle debt increases, law enforcement takes a keener interest.",
"A lot of American culture developed with a Puritanical sense. Gambling and drinking have been viewed for a long time as \"sinful\" (we even use the term \"sin tax\") and thus severely restricted. Alcohol sales on a Sunday are still limited in many places, and it's only in the last decade that NY residents have been able to buy alcohol before noon on Sunday (and liquor stores still can't open before noon). Similarly, gambling has been limited - in some places, only Native American reservations can offer it because they work outside of many state laws. Riverboat gambling sprung up in the south because it used a loophole. Since laws are state-by-state, a place like Nevada can offer almost unrestricted gambling, while other states might just offer betting at an establishment like a racetrack.\n\nAs a result, gambling has an association with organized crime, since it's illegal yet there's still a demand for it. The same thing happened in the earlier 20th century with Prohibition. It's hard to say whether the efforts to expand legal gambling have been hampered by organized crime which has a vested interest in keeping it illegal, but the negative associations have made its expansion slow and often contentious.",
"With sports betting in particular, the biggest opposition comes from the sports leagues themselves. Every time a state other than Nevada proposes legalizing sports betting, the NCAA, NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL all do everything they can to oppose it including threatening to not hold events in that state. \n\nAs to why, ostensibly it is to protect the purity of the game but I'm sure there are other reasons.\n\nThat said, recently the new NBA commissioner has come out in favor of legalized sports betting and the MLB has made similar comments.\n\nRight now, Nevada is the only state with legal sports betting but New Jersey is trying to legalize it."
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} | train_eli5 | Why is gambling so restricted in the US?
In Britain, placing bets on football on a weekend is a huge part of sporting culture. Why is it not legal to do so in the USA? What is the legal status of other types of betting (casinos, for example)? | [
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2cvj9f | Why don't engines create max hp at max rpm? | I like cars and motorbikes and as such have a decent understanding of this area (I like to think so anyway). Although I have always just accepted that combustion engines produce maximum horsepower before the end of the rev range like [this](_URL_0_)(although it is more signifcant in other cars) and never questioned it until now, why is this though? Logically it would make sense to produce more power the higher the rpm, seeing as the combustion cycle is happening more per minute. Anyway thanks for reading this and I hope to receive some interesting answers :) | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Horsepower is a measure of work which is force over time. Assuming that each cylinder produces the same amount of force every 4 stroke cycle, the more cycles you can pack into a given amount of time, the more work.\n\nSo your gut feel is mostly correct. Because the rpm keeps increasing, but the cylinders are still producing the close to the same amount of force, the peak hp is up near the red-line.\n\nThere are other forces at play which can cause the peak hp to be somewhere else like increased friction at very high piston speed or pumping losses due to trying to get air through a fixed size hole (the valves are the restriction in most cases) at increasing speeds. Those other factors can eventually overcome the gain from additional cycles as rpm increases."
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} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | Why don't engines create max hp at max rpm?
I like cars and motorbikes and as such have a decent understanding of this area (I like to think so anyway). Although I have always just accepted that combustion engines produce maximum horsepower before the end of the rev range like [this](_URL_0_)(although it is more signifcant in other cars) and never questioned it until now, why is this though? Logically it would make sense to produce more power the higher the rpm, seeing as the combustion cycle is happening more per minute. Anyway thanks for reading this and I hope to receive some interesting answers :) | [
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5gau2p | Why, when looking at a computer screen from a lower angle, do the colors invert to a weird blue and black? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A computer screen is made up of pixels. There is no single LED/crystal/light source that can display all the colors you want represented as a single piece. Instead, there are multiple sub-pixels in each pixel. The most common is to have one Red, one Green, and one Blue (RGB). They adjust the relative brightness of each sub-pixel to mix RGB colors into the final color you want.\n\nThe sub-pixels are all meshed together in grid pattern. Something like\n\n R\n G B\n\nAdditionally, each pixel is surrounded by a mask to prevent the light from one pixel bleeding into the next.\n\nEach pixel is optimized to cast light forward, towards you, the viewer. Imagine you had 3 christmas lights, red green and blue, at the back of a toilet paper tube. If you were looking directly at it, you could see all 3, producing a white light effect. As you tilt the tube, there comes a point where one is blocked, and then a point where 2 are blocked, changing what color of light you would perceive at each point.\n\nThat is essentially what is happening when you look at a flatscreen from outside its optimum viewing angle. The mask around each pixel is blocking one or more of the sub-pixels from your vision, preventing you from seeing that part of the color. Different flatscreen technologies (TN vs. IPS vs. AMOLED) and different production qualities within each of those will result in different optimum viewing angles.",
"Light coming at a flat angle from the screen has passed through a thicker layer of liquid crystal than intended, and is thus more rotated. Colors that were supposed to be blocked may thus pass, and colors that were supposed to pass are thus blocked."
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} | train_eli5 | Why, when looking at a computer screen from a lower angle, do the colors invert to a weird blue and black?
| [
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2b9lnf | - why auto manufacturers don't install solar panels in the roofs of their electric/hybrid vehicles | I understand the fragility of the panels but even to install them below a glass panel similar to the glass used in Sun roofs would be easy to do. Is there a reason they have not or is it simply the monetary aspect? Common Tesla, get your shit together! | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Solar panels covering the roof of a car would produce a minuscule amount of energy. It's not worth it.",
"There is one car that does (and it's a beauty). It's called the [Fisker Karma](_URL_0_). It's a hybrid, but not in the typical way. Instead of running on its petrol engine when the battery runs out, it operates more like a diesel-electric train, wherein the engine does none of the actual driving, it just keeps the batteries charged and the car runs on those. It uses the solar panels on the roof to run all the basic internal electronics (radio, lights, etc.)",
"It really would only a gimmick at this point in time. There is not enough surface area on the top of a car to really make a large difference with today's commercially available solar cell technology. It would take several days to weeks depending on weather, Latitude, etc to charge an electrics car battery using only a solar cell the size of the roof of the car.",
"It's all about cost effectiveness. If you have a certain amount of money to invest in solar panels, you'll get tremendously more energy to use to charge your car if you install them on your roof and connect them to the grid instead of putting them on your car.\n\nOn your roof:\n\n* You can use commodity rectangular panels because you don't have to worry about aerodynamics or durability concerns or efficiency.\n\n* Your panels will be optimally positioned / angled to get the most sunlight per day.\n\n* You can connect your panels to the grid and take advantage of time-of-use metering: Get paid 3-4x as much for the electricity your panels produce \"on peak\" compared to what you'll pay to charge your car overnight \"off peak.\" So every kWh your panels produce could mean 3-4 kWh to use in your car.\n\nOn your car:\n\n* You have very limited area available on a curved surface where aerodynamics are very important, so you'll need custom-engineered high-efficiency panels. They'll also need to be engineered to be tougher to survive the small road hazards encountered in high-speed travel.\n\n* How much sun your panels get is dependent upon where you park for the day - avoid any shaded parking spaces or your panels are useless. Perversely, if you're interested in the health of your EV's batteries you want to do the exact opposite and avoid parking in direct sunlight as heat kills batteries.\n\n* All solar energy collected must be stored in your batteries, except for the minuscule amount you collect while driving. That means if your battery's already full any energy produced is completely wasted, and it means that for every kWh produced at best about 0.8 kWh can be used to charge your car, due to losses during power conversion and battery charging.\n\nHopefully this makes it clear why any automaker that does include a rooftop solar panel to charge an EV/PHEV battery does it only as a marketing gimmick. One application of car-top solar that could make some sense, OTOH, would be a small panel that simply drives a cooling fan to cool the cabin and/or batteries when the car's parked in direct sunlight. But even for that simple application it's very unlikely there'd be enough energy available to do any significant cooling.",
"After posting this in think I may have used the wrong subreddit! If someone can suggest a better one, it would be appreciated!"
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"url": [
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} | train_eli5 | - why auto manufacturers don't install solar panels in the roofs of their electric/hybrid vehicles
I understand the fragility of the panels but even to install them below a glass panel similar to the glass used in Sun roofs would be easy to do. Is there a reason they have not or is it simply the monetary aspect? Common Tesla, get your shit together! | [
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1k6a2j | How do shows such as moonshiners get away with all of their illegal actions if the identities and methods are portrayed up front on television? | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Hate to ruin the magic but its fake. \n\nAlso the methods are never really shown, generally key details are always left out."
],
"score": [
3
]
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | How do shows such as moonshiners get away with all of their illegal actions if the identities and methods are portrayed up front on television?
| [
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5xw87m | Why is a Pint of Guinness so much better in Ireland/NYC/London etc. than my suburban bar? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"delcuma"
],
"text": [
"I haven't been able to verify it myself to take this with a grain of salt.\n\nGuinness in Ireland or other more populated areas will be fresher and will end up tasting better. A pint of Guinness at your local suburban bar will be shot out of a keg and through lines that have had older staler Guinness in it for much longer than a keg in a bar where more Guinness is consumed much more quickly. Basically, the Guinness in your suburban bar is more likely to be old.",
"It could be those bars actually pour it properly. Or your local bar gets older kegs. Or both.",
"There's several breweries that produce Guinness under license. They have different water supplies so the product varies. Each individual bar also has to store it and serve it correctly which is where the real trick comes. A pub which is clearing a barrel every day will have a far better pint than one which only clears one a week (or more)."
],
"score": [
3,
3,
2
]
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | Why is a Pint of Guinness so much better in Ireland/NYC/London etc. than my suburban bar?
[removed] | [
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53eux2 | How do our eyes know when something is just about to hit them? Like when a bug hits my closed eyelid when just a second ago it was open. | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"d7sgsut"
],
"text": [
"Eyes are great at detecting motion and changes, and the nervous system is much faster than conscious thought. You reflexively blink before you're aware"
],
"score": [
5
]
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | How do our eyes know when something is just about to hit them? Like when a bug hits my closed eyelid when just a second ago it was open.
| [
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6zs7x0 | How does a record play all the different notes and sounds of a song? | [removed] | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dmxocqx"
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"Your ear only hears in one dimension: at any given instant in time it senses the pressure of the air against your eardrum. \n\nWhen an instrument plays a note that produces a rapidly changing pressure--it goes from higher-than-ambient pressure to lower-than-ambient pressure hundreds of times per second. Your ear interprets that rapidly changing pressure as the sound of that instrument.\n\nWhen two instruments play different notes at the same time they both produce rapidly changing pressure waves. What you hear is literally just those two waves added to one another. Your brain then does some amazing processing to be able to identify that it's two different things, to tell what they are, and so on.\n\nWhat this means is that to encode any number of instruments playing simultaneously you just need a single waveform and it'll be as good as your ear can tell. This is accomplished by having a single groove that moves back and forth as the needle traces it. The wiggling of the needle is amplified to go to the speaker. If the groove is precise enough, the amplification is clean enough, etc, then the sound will be indistinguishable from the original to your ear (in practice things aren't perfect, which is a way you can tell it's a recording and not live).\n\nThe shortcoming of this is that most people don't have *an* ear. They have two. The above description works for older mono records, but people have two ears and want to hear things accordingly: you need two signals at any given time. You could accomplish this with two grooves, but that would be make it hard to get the needle positioned right. You could also set up the groove to wiggle not just left and right, but also up and down, like [this](_URL_1_).\n\nThat approach gets you pretty far, but it makes it so that a mono record player will just get one track. You also have a hard time making the up-and-down track balanced with the left-and-right track, since they're different motions and may be interpreted differently on one record player or another. \n\nTo improve on that design you rotate the whole thing 45 degrees like [this](_URL_0_). This setup allows a stereo record player to get two equal tracks off of a single groove while allowing a mono record player to get a single track that's influenced equally by both of the stereo tracks."
],
"score": [
4
]
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": [
"http://i.imgur.com/289QsY2.gif",
"https://i.makeagif.com/media/5-12-2015/qdLj8D.gif"
]
} | train_eli5 | How does a record play all the different notes and sounds of a song?
[removed] | [
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409c7v | Is posture and muscle balance more important than the type of mattress you're sleeping on to relieve back pain? | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"cyskmtm"
],
"text": [
"I have no medical education, but speaking from experience as someone with 3 herniated discs, I can say the mattress makes a huge difference.\nI was studying abroad when I had my first crisis because of an herniated disc and the mattress provided by the university was complete shit. As soon as I got home my pain reduced a lot in a couple of weeks due to a better mattress (my home mattress was A LOT harder if you're curious).\n\nBut posture does make a difference. Not so much when walking and standing, but sitting correctly helps a lot, specially if you're sitting for a long period of time in class or work."
],
"score": [
5
]
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | Is posture and muscle balance more important than the type of mattress you're sleeping on to relieve back pain?
| [
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2c7ec2 | Is there some cultural significance to a male Asian child always having his junk out in public? | I work as an event coordinator and often have events in public places...I have seen this same old Asian woman and small child (maybe 2 y/o) a few times...The child's khaki pants do not zip or button closed, they are basically crotchless, and he doesn't wear any underwear/diapers...It is very awkward because he always wants to come to our events and play...but it is kind of upsetting to guests, seeing his business poking out of his weird khaki pants like that... is this a cultural thing? A way of potty training? I just really need to know! | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"cjcoid6"
],
"text": [
"In rural China kids (regardless of gender) wear [crotchless pants](_URL_0_) for ease of peeing or pooping. In Chinese cities this is seen as a very trashy thing to do now, since more sophisticated parents buy diapers and peeing or pooping everywhere is not acceptable (and doctors warned about UTI). There are countless numbers of internet forum posts talking about how trashy and embarrassing those rural folks are, especially outside the country.",
"It's less cultural significance of him having his junk out, it's more that there is no significance with him keeping it in. And if you don't care that his junk is hanging out, you have to admit it's a pretty big saving on diapers."
],
"score": [
4,
4
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} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": [
"https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4086/4954057989_1fa088eecc.jpg"
]
} | train_eli5 | Is there some cultural significance to a male Asian child always having his junk out in public?
I work as an event coordinator and often have events in public places...I have seen this same old Asian woman and small child (maybe 2 y/o) a few times...The child's khaki pants do not zip or button closed, they are basically crotchless, and he doesn't wear any underwear/diapers...It is very awkward because he always wants to come to our events and play...but it is kind of upsetting to guests, seeing his business poking out of his weird khaki pants like that... is this a cultural thing? A way of potty training? I just really need to know! | [
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49iy49 | Historically, does socialism work long-term? Why or why not? | Citing historical examples, not hypothetical, does a socialistic system of government really work in practice over the long term?
| explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Social policies mixed with capitalism have been proven to work very well together. This includes the United States, Canada, and many European countries. Pure socialism (public ownership of *all* means of production) has never been properly implemented.\n\nCapitalism comes with many inherent flaws, and a \"mixed\" approach which applies social control over some aspects of the economy seeks to remedy those flaws.",
"Nearly every socialist country has given it up after experiencing a string of economic failures. The most notable example is the Soviet Union. Another interesting example is China, which still calls itself communist but is in fact a large percentage capitalist. Both of these countries experienced not only poverty, but even starvation of millions of people, as a result of their failed economic policies during socialism.",
"Pretty much every democratic country that collects taxes and uses tax money to fund things like infrastructure, healthcare, public education, etc is socializing the costs of all of those things, so I would argue that some socialist principles work out pretty good in the long run.",
"This ends up not being a topic that lends itself well to an ELI5 explanation.\n\nThe reason for this is that we're discussing a political entity who who has at its core a tactic of controlling the definitions and names for things through propaganda.\n\nOne of the better examples is the Bolshevik party in Russia (originating in 1905, coming to power as part of the 'October' revolution)... they eventually formally became the party of Vladimir Lenin. At the time, they called themselves officially the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. But that's long and hard to remember so they called themselves the 'Bolsheviks'. Bolshevik in Russian literally means ' of majority'. Note that they called themselves this before coming into power, long before they would have been considered a majority party. Also note that their opposition party (Menshiviks) literally translates to 'of minority'. Even though, at the time, they were actually the majority.\n\nIt's a propaganda tactic, used in amazing effectiveness. Quite an interesting history study actually. They basically called themselves the majority and the masses started thinking of them in that light.\n\nRelevant Point: discussions on the topic you're asking about is steeped in a history of propaganda. You'll be lucky if anyone even agrees on what the difference between \"socialist\" vs. \"communist\" is.\n\nHow do I know all this? Well I speak Russian. I am not Russian, but have read many, many books on this history. It's fascinating.",
"There has never been a long-term socialist government. I highly doubt there has ever been a short-term socialist government on any real scale. (As in, more than a few hundred people.) Plenty of governments have attempted to be socialist, but none have accomplished it. \n\nThe fundamental core of socialism is the obliteration of the concept of value, both of people and material items. Which goes against basic tenets of rationality, (at least, for the long foreseeable future.) This manifests in various contradictions and hypocrisies which prevent a society from properly functioning.",
"There has probably never been a proper implementation of socialism on a large scale. Certainly all of the historical examples, like the Soviet Union, are not examples of socialism. In all of these traditional historical examples, the government wasn't actually socialist, or it sacrificed its socialism pretty quickly for something else, like fascism, but continued to call itself socialism, confusing the world to this day.\n\nSo we really don't have good information to say whether or not socialism can work long term. Someone needs to really try it for real."
],
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5,
5,
2,
2,
2
]
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | Historically, does socialism work long-term? Why or why not?
Citing historical examples, not hypothetical, does a socialistic system of government really work in practice over the long term? | [
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llk53 | How does soap kill bacteria? | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"c2to5x9"
],
"text": [
"bacteria have a lipid encasing that soap will adhere to, soap has two ends, one that likes water and one that likes fats. lipids are a fat.\n\none end hooks onto the lipid coating, the other end hooks into the water. this allows the bacteria to be washed away."
],
"score": [
5
]
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | How does soap kill bacteria?
| [
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2wibmn | Why do modern lightbulbs seem to only last for eight or so years but the first lightbulb ever made still runs today? | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"cor3z0g",
"cor6mxx",
"corv9yo"
],
"text": [
"It's not the first bulb ever made that still runs today. Early light bulbs used to last only a few hours before burning out. A specific light bulb, with low energy consumption and a thick carbon-based filament (that they're not quite sure what it's made of...) still runs after over a hundred years of continuous use, but we don't want dim light for a long time, we want BRIGHT light to illuminate our hovels, and that wears out components much more quickly.",
"8 years? Man you have been lucky with your bulbs!",
"How would light bulb companies making money if people were only buying lights once their life time?"
],
"score": [
48,
8,
2
]
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | Why do modern lightbulbs seem to only last for eight or so years but the first lightbulb ever made still runs today?
| [
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1splrt | Would it be possible for animals to have sex and babies with another subspecies? (like chimpanzees having sex with orangutans) | I mean, they have a sex drive as well. So if I was a lonely Raven I would totally try to have sex with a pigeon...
Is it possible, that something like that would ever happen? Could they even have babies like that? | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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],
"text": [
"This doesn't work in most cases.\nOne case where it works is for example horse and dunkey, their children can be two different subspecies, depending on which of those two is the male and the female. The problem here is, that this animals can't recreate further.",
"It depends on a lot of factors.\n\nFirstly, orangutans and chimps aren't actually subspecies, they're entirely different species. Generally speaking an animal from a different species is either clearly physically different (think tiger and lion) or unable to produce fertile offspring.\n\nThis isn't foolproof though. As others have pointed out, the horse and donkey are different species, but can mate and have offspring (although the offspring can't reproduce). There are quite a lot of examples of animals which are clearly separate species mating and having babies. In some cases, these offspring are capable of reproducing themselves. One such example is the polar bear / grizzly bear pair, children of which are called \"grolars\" and are fertile.\n\nIn answer to the case you proposed, they could physically complete the act, and there is a chance offspring would be born. Chimps and orangutans parted ways a while ago, but so did a lot of other species which we've seen produce offspring. On a more disturbing note, it is possible that humans and chimps or bonobos could mate and produce offspring. Fortunately this has never happened, although one mad scientist did send out advertisements for volunteers...",
"Only when very closely related. For example, the entire Panthera family can interbreed with the offspring having varying degrees of fertility. Certain whales can with dolphins."
],
"score": [
3,
2,
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]
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | Would it be possible for animals to have sex and babies with another subspecies? (like chimpanzees having sex with orangutans)
I mean, they have a sex drive as well. So if I was a lonely Raven I would totally try to have sex with a pigeon... Is it possible, that something like that would ever happen? Could they even have babies like that? | [
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63ov95 | What does it mean to unlock your phone to another service provider? And why, depending on the brand, does it cost so much and take so long? | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dfvtlny",
"dfvtofj",
"dfvttlz"
],
"text": [
"Most phones are *capable* of talking to other carriers that use the same networking technology. For example, in the USA, AT & T T-Mobile and I think a couple others all use the same GSM system. \n\nHowever, if you buy a phone through one of those carriers, they put a piece of software in place that checks who you're trying to connect to, and will block it if it's not AT & T or whoever. Why? Because they gave you a bargain/contract when you bought that phone through them, and they want you to stay inside their network.\n\nThus they make unlocking the device and leaving their network challenging and/or expensive. If you leave, they don't make money billing you.\n\nCell phones not purchased through a carrier company are unlocked and can be used with any compatible network.",
"Many phones are locked to a single carrier. If I have a locked Verizon phone, I can't use it with Tmobile or Sprint or whatever. Some phones come unlocked, so they can use any carrier you have a SIM card for.\n\nSome phones can be unlocked, which is simply removing this restriction in some way. It's usually expensive and inconvenient because they don't want you to buy their product and then use it with a competitors service.",
"Most cellphones in the US are locked to a specific network (AT & T and T-Mobile for GSM, and VZW and Sprint for CDMA). Unlocking a phone allows that phone to be used on any network which uses the same technology (GSM and CDMA are not compatible with each other). I've had two cellphones unlocked for a total of $40, and after I paid the fee I was given codes to dial into each phone which unlocked them from their respective carriers (one was T-Mobile and the other was AT & T), and it took me about twenty minutes total. I've since gotten around that by using Google's Nexus phones, which are compatible with all GSM networks out of the box by design and intent."
],
"score": [
5,
3,
2
]
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | What does it mean to unlock your phone to another service provider? And why, depending on the brand, does it cost so much and take so long?
| [
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4oqu8l | what is social engineering? | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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],
"text": [
"Social Engineering is using specific triggers and actions to provoke an action in a person or group of people.\n\nReverse Psychology on children is a simple example, but it gets pretty deep down the line.\n\nThings like mob mentality, mass hysteria, and moral panic can all fall under the heading when provoked intentionally.",
"It's just lying. \"Social\" and \"engineering\" mean things, but the term is almost exclusively used to talk about people lying to other people to gain access to... whatever. \n\n\"Hello, this is CEO of YourCompany(TM), please tell me what the pin number is to the backdoor?\""
],
"score": [
6,
2
]
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | {
"url": []
} | train_eli5 | what is social engineering?
| [
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