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19w13p | how does a group like skidrow crack games' drm? | How can they see what the protections are and how do they crack them? And how so quickly? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/19w13p/eli5_how_does_a_group_like_skidrow_crack_games_drm/ | {
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"Think of a game - or any computer program - like a recipe. Do this, do that, do this other thing. At some point in a copy-protected game, it'll do some check to see if it's allowed to install or run; maybe check a serial number or make sure the right disk is in the drive or (and this is old school) ask for the 4th word on the 10th line of page 43 of the manual. \n\n\"Cracking\" basically involves messing with the recipe so that the game is fooled into accepting any serial number or not actually checking for the disk or or whatever.\n"
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dz73bf | what's dijkstra's algorithm used for in computer science? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dz73bf/eli5_whats_dijkstras_algorithm_used_for_in/ | {
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"Lots of things. It's also known as 'Shortest Path First'.\n\nI can be used for networking to find the shortest route(least number of router stops when sending a message).\n\nIt can be used in databases to slowly optimize the location of data based on where it is needed most.\n\nIt can be used by robots to determine the shortest path to an objective, or an AI to figure out the optimal path by giving certain obstacles a distance value.\n\nIt can be used by game AI to create a map of the shortest path to ending the game or winning based on what is considered a 'path', a path can be a set of moves, and choose to play those moves; a version of this is A\\* or minimax.",
"The beauty of computer science is that there are often ways to represent many different real world concepts in ways that turn out to be the same. If you can think of a problem in terms of positive values on a directed graph, and what you want to find as the shortest route between two points on that graph, then this algorithm can give you an answer.\n\nWhat about maps? You can represent roads as paths on a graph and distance as the number associated with that path. This algorithm would then give you the shortest route between any two spots on the graph. That would mean the shortest set of directions to get where you want to go. If you replace the distance value with a time value you could instead get the fastest route to your destination."
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2bhj9s | if it's possible to build up a sleep debt, is it possible to build up a "sleep credit"? if not, why not? | If I were to sleep more than I needed to during the week, would that enable me to sleep less at the weekend, in the same way that if I sleep too little during the week I have to "catch up"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bhj9s/eli5_if_its_possible_to_build_up_a_sleep_debt_is/ | {
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"We aren't really sure why, but it doesn't seem that something like that can be done. Think about it like your bladder; you can build up a need to urinate, but you cannot urinate so much that your bladder is more than empty.",
"There's a lot of stuff done during sleep, like muscle repair and forging new pathways in the brain based on your experiences from the previous day, that can't be done in advance.",
"Going off on a tangent here, but is there a way to tell when you've repaid all your sleep debt? However much I sleep on the weekend, I never feel completely refreshed and always feel like I could do with a bit more sleep.\n\nPerhaps my debt mountain is so big I'll never pay it off in my lifetime...",
"There was a recent study claiming that part of what happens when you sleep is that some chemical is drained from your brain. This chemical builds up during the time you are awake, and can only be drained when you are asleep. If this picture is correct, then when you have sleep debt it's like you haven't slept enough to fully drain the chemical, and would imply that you can't get a sleep credit, because once the chemical has been drained there is no reason to sleep. ",
"You can run out of gas but you can only fill your tank to 100%.",
"I think you can compare this with rechargeable batteries, if your batteries are full, even if you leave them on the charge (sleep) when they are full, they won't last longer. ",
"I think it can, but it's more like a gradient and there are diminishing returns. There's also the question of quality; 6 hours of optimal sleep is better than 8 hours of interrupted sleep.\n\nIn my experience, getting a lot of good sleep gets me into a position where I'm happier, healthier and have more energy than if I'm just getting an ok amount. I've also noticed that I fatigue slower, have more stable moods and can go for periods with little sleep relatively easily.\n\nI guess what I'm trying to say is that while it may not be possible to get 12 hours every night then go a week without sleep without suffering problems, there's a difference between \"enough\" sleep and \"good\" sleep. And I think that provides some short term sleep credit. \n\nBut this is all anecdotal.",
"An important part of sleep is clearing away the useless information you don't need to remember like what color was the shirt you wore one month ago? What did you eat on July 15 2010? This might not be flattering but imagine your brain is a trash can, when you sleep you rummage through it, you throw out what's useless and keep what's important. You can't build up a trash debt or trash credit the can will always hold the same amount of garbage.",
"You've got a lot of answers saying no you can't have a sleep credit, but in my experience you kind of can. If I know that I'm going to be sleep deprived later in the week (planned vacation - all night driving, or one night only to clean the house) I'll take Benadryl or Nyquil the two previous nights, sleep for 10-12 hours. Then, I can pull one all-nighter without any effects. \n\nYour mileage may vary, do not operate heavy machinery until you know how it affects you yada yada. I also worked nights when I was younger, so maybe I'm just weird.\n\nThe key is the sedative that makes you go to sleep earlier or stay asleep longer than you would have. If I've slept plenty and I try to go to bed at 7pm I just wouldn't sleep, it would be pointless, but add 2 Benadryl and then I can sleep more to build up. It doesn't last long though, it has to be the next night, there is no compounding interest."
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dxf414 | if bees dont use all the honey they produce, then why do they continue to make so much more than they need? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dxf414/eli5_if_bees_dont_use_all_the_honey_they_produce/ | {
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"Anticipating the inevitable theft of some or all of it?",
"They don’t know how much honey they will need in the winter. They survive by shivering to keep warm and use honey to fuel their energy. If they run out of honey, the entire colony dies.",
"If you do not burn all the fat you store from eating more than you need why do you keep storing more?\n\nHoney lasts nearly forever and remains safe to eat. There's no negative survival consequ3nve of having more, but having less has an obvious danger.",
"Beekeeper here. Bees make honey to help give them food energy through periods when there is not a nectar flow, like during winter and dry times of the summer. A small hive will not make much honey, a medium hive will make some honey, and a large have will make a lot of honey. A large hive that is full of honey will likely swarm and make more hives.",
"Bees don't actually eat much honey. They usually eat nectar or something they make called \"bee bread\" (and some royal jelly for the baby bees). They will eat honey if they need the food of course, but it is not their primary source of food. Honey is mostly for swarming.\n\nWhen honey bees are doing well enough, the queen lays eggs, one of which will become the new queen and inherit the hive. Except for a few bees left to care for the new queen, all of the other bees leave to set up a new hive at a pre-scouted location. This is called swarming. \n\nHoney then, is the high calorie travel food of bees. Its like bee trail mix. It basically never spoils, so they save it up for when they swarm.",
"If humans don't spend all the money they make, then why do they continue going to work to make more money than they need?\n\nTimes of need are unpredictable and a savings helps you get through it.",
"Preparing and plotting. Bees have no compassion and they ask no compassion from you. When their turn comes, they shall not make excuses for the terror.",
"Bees are eusocial insects. They don’t really have a will or mind individually so much as a collective drive. Worker bees make collect nectar and pollen, make honey, build the hive, and tend to young because their brains tell them so. There is no shutoff switch, so they just keep going and going.",
"Additionally honey is an excellent preservative and helps keep pathogens away from their offspring. The more of a protective shield you give your little ones, the more likely they'll thrive and survive."
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5m9bcw | why do sites like youtube and facebook (but especially youtube) continuously modify their interface with new skin, color, and features, despite the negative reception of their userbase? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5m9bcw/eli5_why_do_sites_like_youtube_and_facebook_but/ | {
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"Because everybody hates change. Week 1-4 of a UI overhaul, everyone hates it. It's all different and you have to find the stuff you want again. Once you figure it out you stop caring and usually whatever new/optimized feature gets a jump in usage, which is why they made a new UI in the first place. "
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57venf | what does the chairman of the senate budget committee do? what authority do they have that other senators don't? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/57venf/eli5what_does_the_chairman_of_the_senate_budget/ | {
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"Proposed legislation is typically sent to the committee that it falls under. The committee then holds investigations and actually crafts the legislation. Once the committee approves it, it goes to the floor for a vote are further tweaks. Basically they are the head person of the group that gets to write the first draft of the annual budget."
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54h2ma | is it better to brake hard to avoid in a car or apply firm braking | Say you can clearly see the the traffic is slowing extremely rapidly but you do have time to brake. What will provide the **best reduction in speed**, slam on brakes on braking as firmly as possible? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/54h2ma/eli5is_it_better_to_brake_hard_to_avoid_in_a_car/ | {
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"Depends on your car, road conditions and tires.\n\nIn many modern cars, antilock brakes are standard. So a panic stop where you slam on the brake pedal will engage the antilock system and automatically pulsate the braking to prevent skidding.\n\nOn a regular basis, panic stop braking is high risk and adds additional wear on the car. Gentle braking is safer and better for the vehicle.",
"the quickest way to slow down is the apply enough brakes to use 100% of the tire's traction.\n\nproblem is...you don't know where that limit is.\n\nif you brake 80% of tire traction, you're just leaving some power on the table.\n\nif you brake with 120% of tire traction, you'll lock up the tire and take longer \n\nantilock brakes try to counter this by detecting after you've locked up the brakes and dialing the braking power down by pulsing the brake pedal. almost all the time, this is fine. but this is still a REactive solution rather than a PROactive solution. \n\nthe best way is to quickly apply brake and feel the weight of the car shift forward towards the front wheels, then progressively apply more pedal pressure until you reach the limit, then back off just a tad. \n\nthe first stage is known as weight shift. the available traction of the tire is dependent on how much weight pressure there is on the tire. when you decrease velocity from cruising or acceleration, the weight of the car shifts forward, putting more weight on the front tires. this means you have less available traction when you're cruising. you have more available traction when you're already braking. you want to load the front tires with weight before you go onto the second stage of increasing brake pressure. \n\nduring the second stage, you'll increase brake pressure until you reach the limit of the tire traction. if you go over the limit, you'll know by either the Antilock Brake System kicking in and vibrating the brake pedal, or in a nonABS car, the front tires will lock up and you'll hear squeeching and smell tire smoke. if that happens, you'll reduce the pressure slightly. since your leg muscles are only capable of macro-adjustments, the recommended method is to hold your leg muscle at same pressure and curl your toes until the ABS stops vibrating, or the tires stops locking up. \n\nthe only way you'll know how to do this is to learn it in a controlled environment and practice it over and over. this is best done in defensive driving schools or at autocross car training events. you will have to on the fly adapt to varying road conditions that will dynamically change the level of traction available to your front tires. there are many many variables such as:\n\n1) road surface type. concrete vs asphalt vs dirt\n\n2) debris on road. rain, snow, sand, gravel, oil, ice\n\n3) temperature of the road. asphalt grips better than concrete not only because of the surface but because it's black and higher temperature. \n\n4) flatness of the road. cracks, potholes, patches all decrease the available traction\n\n5) your tire tread depth and compound and tire temperature. cold tires have less traction than hot tires. road tires reach nominal temps after 15minutes of at-speed driving. \n\nawareness of all of these variables pushes you to be more ready to apply the correct braking pressure."
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3oi0p0 | why does drinking a liquid such as a dry wine leave your mouth feeling dry even though it's a liquid? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3oi0p0/eli5_why_does_drinking_a_liquid_such_as_a_dry/ | {
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"With red wine, you are feeling a chemical called *tannin* which gives the illusion of a dry feeling.",
"The tannins in wine are an astringent. The property of an astringent (when the word is used for foods) is that it cause the proteins in the salivary glands to bind up. so...you stop kicking out saliva, and....your mouth is no longer as wet as it was. The second you swallow, the moisture in your mouth is based on saliva, not the stuff you just had in there. It does not \"stay wet\" (e.g. when you wet a piece of paper it absorbs water), it either has moisture in it or it doesn't and this requires constant moisture production in the form of saliva."
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39j2zb | if i am not supposed to peel off a scab how come all my instincts are telling me to do it | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39j2zb/eli5_if_i_am_not_supposed_to_peel_off_a_scab_how/ | {
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"Because your scab has healed at the edges, meaning your body, right at those points, is going \"Hey there's some junk on this healthy skin, get it off!\" so you have the instinct to rip at it (or scratch at it).\n\nThe problem is, it's *only* healed at the edges, and the scab is a big whole thing that's attached, so you can't JUST pull off the part at the edges. But your body is too dumb to know that."
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335p8w | how do antibiotics kill unwanted bacteria but not the body's own cells? | I know about enzymes and such in a basic sense, but the fact that an antibiotic actually *works* still doesn't quite make sense to me. Wouldn't we need a specifically engineered antibiotic for each strain of bacteria? Why does the antibiotic only harm bacteria? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/335p8w/eli5_how_do_antibiotics_kill_unwanted_bacteria/ | {
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"Antibiotics have many different mechanisms, but essentially, they take advantage of how bacteria are different from human (or more generally, animal or even eukaryotic in some cases) cells. \n\nA famous example is Penicillin. It works by damaging the bacteria's ability to maintain it's peptidoglycan cell wall. Humans don't have such a cell wall, so it doesn't harm us.",
"This principle is called \"selective toxicity\". \n\nIt utilises the fact that bacterial cells are different from human/animal cells. Specifically, they have different biochemistry, different anatomy, etc.\n\nFor example, a very popular group of antibiotics called beta-lactams (an example is penicillin, but there are lots of synthetic variants) work by blocking the biochemical pathway that builds the bacterial cell wall. Because the bacteria cannot maintain or extend their cell walls, eventually the wall degrades and the bacteria die.\n\nOther antibiotics affect different chemical processes. For example, the antibiotic tetracycline, blocks the process that bacteria use to translate their DNA code into protein manufacture. The ribosomes, the molecular machines that build proteins, are different between bacteria and mammals, so the mammal ribosomes are less affected (also bacteria actively pump tetracycline from outside to insude because the tetracycline tricks the bacterial molecular pumps which absorb nutrients, so the bacterial ribosomes get a much bigger dose than mammal cells, which don't have pumps which accept tetracycline). The other interesting thing about tetracycline is that it doesn't kill bacteria. It just stops them, or slows down, reproducing because it slows down protein production. This is still useful, because it gives the immune system time to catch up.",
"There are structural differences in the cells - most bacteria have cell walls while we humans do not. Penicillins prevent the proper linking of the cell wall components, making the bacteria very vulnerable to lysis (bursting) when there's an osmotic imbalance"
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3nitzk | how is stephen colbert a character? what is different between stephen colbert and "stephen colbert"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3nitzk/eli5how_is_stephen_colbert_a_character_what_is/ | {
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"Stephen Colbert played a character by the same name on his Comedy Central show \"The Colbert Report\". The fictional Colbert was a parody of the kind of personality-driven opinion shows common on nighttime cable news networks.\n\nWhile that was a very popular character that was appropriate for his cable show, it wouldn't be appropriate for a host of a major network late night talk show. So, what you're seeing there is Stephen Colbert, the comedian, and not the character he previously played of the same name.",
"Stephen Colbert the actor had a show *The Colbert Report*, on which he played a twisted version of himself. The big difference is that their politics were considerably different -- Colbert the pundit was a conservative, while Colbert the actor is pretty damn liberal. They also went to different universities -- Colbert the actor is a graduate of Northwestern, while Colbert the pundit talked about going to Dartmouth.\n\nBoth were Catholic and were huge Tolkien fans.",
"The stephen colbert who you was in colbert report was a character. In reality he is not dumb and conservative and his views are total opposite on colbert report than his real views.",
"It's sort of like how Will Smith in Fresh Prince was a character played by the actor of the same name. Certain elements may or may not play in, but they are otherwise a fictional representation of a person with the same name."
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3wluk0 | what are the specific characteristics that define classical music? | Can a piece composed in 2015 be considered classical? Also, can the soundtracks of video games such as Skyrim or Dragon's Dogma be considered classical music? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3wluk0/eli5_what_are_the_specific_characteristics_that/ | {
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"In the broadest sense, \"classical\" music can mean any type of Western \"art music\" played by acoustic instruments, particularly the violin family, and with less emphasis on improvisation and repetition than folk or popular music.\n\nStricter definitions only include music from the classical period (1730 to 1820). Earlier composers were Baroque, and later composers were Romantic. However, Baroque and Romantic music are considered to be classical by classical stations, record stores, and common speech. \n\nA piece from 2015 could be classical by one definition, but it would be more proper to call it \"symphonic music\" or \"art music.\"\n\nAs for characteristics, classical music uses frequent dynamic loudness variation, frequent tempo and key changes, complex melodies, and complex instrumentation, while most other musical styles use a more uniform approach. At the same time, classical music tends to be very rehearsed, without much room for improvisation (as in jazz or rock.)",
"Among people who like the sort of music you are thinking of, \"classical\" refers specifically to music from around 240 years ago (Mozart, for example). After the middle ages the eras go, roughly, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic; then you start to divide styles by schools rather than eras, but people might talk about Impressionism, post-Romanticism, Modernism, Expressionism, Minimalism...\n\nYou definitely still refer to people who work with that kind of music as \"classically-trained\", though. That is, even if when they compose new work it sounds very different, they've learned to play an instrument or conduct an orchestra in the way perfected during the classical era.\n\nA piece composed on 2015 would probably be identified as \"contemporary\" or else identified with the school of the composer.\n\nThe people who do the scores of films and video games are certainly accomplished musicians, but they generally go to a different sort of conservatory where they train specifically to work for film. The soundtrack for Skyrim might be considered contemporary orchestral music (is that what it is? I've never heard it), just like something written to be performed as a symphony, but the musicians and composer may not have any profile in the music world. There are exceptions, though. Ennio Morricone is widely recognized as a genius for his scores. There was a movie called \"The Red Violin\" that I think was scored and performed by classically-trained musicians."
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5nsg2k | why do so many train tracks run along creeks and rivers? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5nsg2k/eli5_why_do_so_many_train_tracks_run_along_creeks/ | {
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"Rivers tend to form in places that have a long, continuous, mostly-gradual path from high to low places. This is exactly the sort of path trains need, as they cannot climb (or safely descend) very steep slopes.\n\nSome rivers do have steep bits (rapids, waterfalls), and in these bits the train will of course take a different route.",
"Rivers tend to connect developed industrial centers, so following them aids in connecting towns and allows relatively easy transition from sea/water to land movement of freight and passengers.",
"Railway engineers had to design tracks which stayed dry and did not get washed out. The natural solution is to build a ditch capable of handling water beside the track. The water has to go somewhere sometime, so it needs a creek or river to drain into. It works just as well to run the rail line down a real creek or river along the bank.",
"There are several reasons why train tracks were developed close to water.\n\nBefore railroads, the primary way to transport large amounts of cargo was by canal. First, it was barges pulled by horses that ran along the side of the canal. Later, with the advent of steam power, you had steamboats as well.\n\nAs steam locomotives were developed, they initially competed with these canals and steamboats along the same routes, and so they laid track along these same routes.\n\nAnother reason is that steam locomotives need water, and lots of it. For this reason, it made sense to locate the tracks and stations close to major water sources.\n\nAnd finally, as trains expanded westward across the mountains, they needed to choose the easiest routes with the smoothest grades. Over millions of years, waterways had carved routes through the mountain ranges, so it made sense to just follow the smooth grade that the river had already formed."
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77en1w | why are some words pluralized with an "i"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/77en1w/eli5_why_are_some_words_pluralized_with_an_i/ | {
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"Those are words of Latin origin of male gender ending in -us. \n\nThe ~~declination~~ declension of those words demands an -i in the plural. \n\nSee [here](_URL_0_) for a full list of all forms of the second ~~declination~~ declension in Latin. ",
"Those words are:\n\nA) Relatively recent additions to the English language (late 1500s to early 1600s)\n\nB) Are simply stolen, without change, from Latin.\n\nAnd one of the way Latin words form plural is by changing -us to -i",
"They are words that came into English from other languages. Here are some common examples:\n\n| Singular | Plural | Origin | Plural pattern\n:---|:--:|---|--:\ncactus | cacti | Latin, from Greek kaktos, kaktoi | os- > oi / us- > i\nradius | radii | Latin | us- > i\nfungus | fungi | Latin | us- > i\n(originally spaghetto but not used in English) | spaghetti | Italian | o- > i\nmafioso | mafiosi | Italian | o- > i\n(originally blin but not used in English) | blini | Russian | nothing- > i\n\nQuite a few languages form plurals with \"-i\". Often you have to remove some letters from the singular form before adding the \"-i\".\n\nIn Latin it's common to have \"-us\" in singular and \"-i\" in plural. Also Greek words would often form plurals in \"-oi\", but we ended up giving them a Latin plural form in English so they also end in \"-i\".\n\nAdd to that the fact that Italian, which is descended from Latin, still forms many plurals in \"-i\", and you end up with a lot of Greek, Latin and Italian words in English that have this ending. I should point out that a lot of Italian words such as \"piano\" would have originally been \"piani\" etc but now have a regular English plural."
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73golv | how can carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen be rearranged to make up so many different things? | For example, the formula for sucrose (sugar), is C6H22O11, while ethanol (alcohol) is C2H5OH. Sugar and alcohol are very different, yet they are comprised of the same elements. How can this be? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/73golv/eli5_how_can_carbon_hydrogen_and_oxygen_be/ | {
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"Actually hydrogen cannot be arranged too differently. It can be H2, the gas. When combined with oxygen it can form water, H2O, or a hydoxyl group which will react with something. It is when these two types of atom combine with the carbon which normally has 4 bonds available. Substituting the hydroxyl group for a hydrogen atom in methane, substituting it more than once, suddenly give methanol, then ether. The carbons can link in a chain, in long chains, in a loop to form cyclo-hexane, then more and more things. It is the carbon which makes organic chemistry so rich.",
"Much like a basic set of LEGO blocks, if you have enough pieces you can build all sorts of things. There are only 26 letters in the alphabet and yet we use them to fill out all the books in the world. With just two digits we can convert all of that into binary. And with just binary we can code the entirety of the internet. \n\nIt’s all a question of quantity, even with very simple building blocks, given enough of them an incredible number of different things can be built. With a nearly unlimited amount of building blocks, such as C O and H, A fantastical number of things can be built. "
]
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[],
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|
1xl630 | if i file for bankruptcy.... | ELI5:
If I file for bankruptcy what happens to all of my debts?
How are the people that I am indebited to get affected by this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xl630/if_i_file_for_bankruptcy/ | {
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"The people you owe money to get screwed.\n\nThe Court (assuming they agree to your claim of bankruptcy) will gather up all of your assets and sell them off, paying out the proceeds to your debtors.\n\nThis never ends up being worth it to them, they get pennies on the dollar. ",
"Bankruptcy actually stays on your credit for 10 years not 7(unlike other outstanding debts). The answer to your question also depends on whether you file (and are granted) a chapter 7 or chapter 11 bankruptcy, but generally the people you owe get nothing or very little of what you owe them. The longer the BK has been on your credit report the less it affects your chances of being granted credit. You can still have a bank account, you just probably will not be approved for a credit card or loan for a few years. Also it should be noted that federal student loans, child support and backed taxes will never be waived in any BK.\n",
"If you file for bankruptcy and follow all of the rules, most (if not all of) your personal debts will be \"discharged.\" This means that the creditors cannot attempt to collect on the debts; it's like the debt doesn't exist anymore.\n\nNot all debts can be discharged, though, and there are several different types of bankruptcies that you could potentially file, each of which has different rules and requirements for getting a discharge."
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74yav2 | how are us military units numbered? if there's a 501st battalion, are there 500 others active at the same time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/74yav2/eli5_how_are_us_military_units_numbered_if_theres/ | {
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"The military gets bigger and smaller over time. A lot of units are disbanded based on requirements or the most decorated and acomplised ones are kept when others are cut but they keep their names. \n\nSame reason for MI5 and MI6, as far as I recall there were something like 14-17 (british) MI (military intelligence) units at the height of ww2 some were merged and others disbanded. ",
"It means there were likely 500 other batallions *at some time*\n\nDuring WWI and WWII lots of divisions and battalions were created. During WWII the US had 90 divisions, but infantry division designations went up to 106 and armored divisions went up to 20 which is well over 90, so why? Because there were a few dozen \"phantom\" divisions, divisions that existed only on paper and were \"deployed\" to locations to free up real divisions that were about to go on the offensive without the enemy intelligence knowing that an area was now undermanned.\n\nToday the US still has some extremely high numbered divisions like the 101st Infantry Division, also known as the 101st Airborne Division. Today the US only has 17 infantry divisions yet the 101st Airborne division retains its high number in recognition of the unit's service during WWII. Letting a unit live on under the same number, or spawning a new one under an old number is sort of like retiring a jersey number, its about respect despite screwing up the count"
]
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axbmmj | why is it okay for us to eat raw eggs but not raw chicken? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/axbmmj/eli5_why_is_it_okay_for_us_to_eat_raw_eggs_but/ | {
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"text": [
"It is not okay to eat raw eggs in every part of the world. Some places have the same salmonella problems with eggs as they do with chicken. It is not universally safe to eat raw eggs in the US."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
anacdl | what does ping 127.0.0.1 do? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/anacdl/eli5_what_does_ping_127001_do/ | {
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"127.0.0.1 is the “loopback” address, which basically means it points to the machine sending the request (your own computer). Pinging that address has no real purpose, other than maybe testing hardware speeds. ",
"The network stack processes the packet, and goes \"oh, that's for me! Better see what's inside. A ping request? Great, I'll send a ping response to the sender! Which is me.\"\n\nThe packet is never physically transmitted over the wire. You can test this yourself by unplugging the Ethernet cable - ping 127.0.0.1 will still work.",
"127.0.0.1 is the loopback address. It is your machine sending a ping to itself, which can happen totally within software. So a ping to 127.0.0.1 allows you to test software by eliminating the variables of hardware, drivers, and the network.\n\nIf you can't get a response from 127.0.0.1 your IP software is borked.",
"127.0.0.1 much like 10.x.x.x, is a reserved IP number that refers to the local network /computer.\n\n\nAnother example of this is your router which is is almost always 168.192.x.x ... so you use this IP to connect to your router. Since it’s reserved, you can’t get to your router from outside your network.\n\n\n\nAs for the pinging... you’re trying to ping a local host.\n\n\nTo really explain what’s going on, I’d need to know more about what you’re trying to do. "
]
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5pj6bd | which symptoms of the flu are caused by the virus itself and which are caused by our body trying to destroy the virus? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5pj6bd/eli5_which_symptoms_of_the_flu_are_caused_by_the/ | {
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"Symptoms of the flu are actually often caused by your body trying to rid itself of the virus; high fever is a way to try and kill the virus by essentially cooking it, but in the process destroys a lot of your own cells, which can make you feel tired and shitty.\nIncreased mucus production is a way to try and expel the virus from your system by trapping it, then sneezing or coughing it out. Tiredness can also be a result of energy being funnelled into your immune system to try and combat the virus.\nThe virus affects you by invading your cells, reprogramming them to create more viruses, then lysing (exploding) them, which can result in overall reduced physiological function.\nNausea, vomiting, and diarrhea are also a bodily response to try and expel the virus.",
"for almost any disease, most symptoms will be a result of your immune system activating, and the cytokines produced from that activation- fever, aches, fatigue, etc. \n\n\nthese symptoms are grouped as \"flu like symptoms\", and are very common and somewhat useless to diagnose anything without other symptoms- you might have a mild stomach virus, a cold, or something far worse. \n\nother symptoms depend on what cells are being attacked. \n\nrespiratory attacks present coughing, excessive mucus production in the nose or lungs, sneezing, and the like. flu, cold, pneumonia, etc.\n\ngastrointestinal attacks result in vomiting, diarrhea. \"mild stomach virus\", cholera, etc. \n\nlymph node swelling can occur for two reasons- normal immune response and increased fluid movement in that system, or the virus attacking the nodes. \n"
]
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15vp54 | modern, postmodern and all that other art that i really don't get. | Stuff like Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg have never really made sense to me. I try, but I just don't get it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/15vp54/eli5_modern_postmodern_and_all_that_other_art/ | {
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"In terms of paintings.\n\nOne thousand years ago:\n\nPeople hire artists to make pictures of themselves looking handsome and wise, and to make their enemies look evil. Or to record facts and stories. Artists are craftsmen.\n\nSix hundred years ago (Renaissance):\n\nPeople decide that good artists can be more than craftsmen. Now artists are supposed to be a little more independent.\n\nOver time artists start to use their art to do things like try to focus on expressing emotions, rather than simply record events or tell stories.\n\nA hundred and fifty years ago:\n\nPhotography starts to create a problem for art, because the photograph can take over the job of recording things.\n\nA hundred years ago:\n\nIn part because of photography, and in part for other reasons such as industrialization, artists and people who buy art begin to move qucikly away from \"thing that records\" towards \"thing that expresses whatever I want it to\".\n\nFor the next sixty years or so art continues to explore what it can be. People are excited by every new twist and turn, because it shows that art is limited only by the human imagination.\n\nSixty years ago or so:\n\nAbstract Expressionism happens, centered around NY after the war. This is pretty much the pinnacle of paint not telling a story, but instead just being paint that you should value for being colors.\n\nOnce that point was reached, artists started talking about human stories and things again. That's what Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg were doing, they were saying \"yes, abstract expressionism is cool, but what if we use the lessons we learned in abstract expressionism and apply them towards human experiences again\". Others said \"what if we have abstract paintings, but with these paintings the audience is very aware of their own presence in the room and relationship to the canvas\" (minimalism). And more.\n\nGoing on, identity politics started happening. People realized that there were often more than one human story going on in a country at the same time. Yes, there was a white male straight story, but there was also a black story, a female story, and so on. This is postmodernism, where people start to challenge the idea of a single story that art should be telling.\n\nFrom then on things obviously get a little fuzzier because art can be about anyone's story and can be made out of anything. But basically right now art is understood not as \"a picture book on canvas\", but instead as \"anything that makes you think differently about the world around you, as long as it's presented to you as art\".\n\nNote: the above is really vague, not entirely accurate, and is about painting and \"fine\" art alone. Postmodernism can mean different things in different fields.",
"Zirconium did a very good job, but I'll try put in some examples. If we are talking about visual art, think about war\n\nLook at a painting like [this](_URL_2_). How does it make war look? It sort of gives the impression of war being noble and almost bourgeois, and that certainly doesn't sit well with a modern artist. But it's technically brilliant- it realistically portrays the scene. So you need to paint something that isn't really \"there\"\n\nNow look at [this](_URL_1_). Notice how everything is less \"realistic\" in the technical sense, but the painting is far more powerful (well, at least to my mind). It seems to be \"truer\" to what war is like\n\nFinally, look at [this](_URL_0_). Now that doesn't resemble anything in reality at all, but still manages to be (relatively) clearly about war, and has just as much if not more emotional impact then the Goya painting, and certainly more than the first one. Emotionally, this painting best represents what war is like while least depicting it visually. Linking to what zirconium said about the impact of photography, modern art is art playing to its strengths: it can be emotionally true in a way a photo isn't necessarily \n"
]
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[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PicassoGuernica.jpg",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:El_Tres_de_Mayo,_by_Francisco_de_Goya,_from_Prado_thin_black_margin.jpg",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Velazquez-The_Surrenderof_Breda.jpg"
]
] |
|
2355ko | why are some perfumes and colognes so expensive? | Hundreds of dollars for a couple of ounces of fluid? What gives? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2355ko/eli5_why_are_some_perfumes_and_colognes_so/ | {
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"They're luxury goods and status symbols. The same goes for designer clothes and jewelry. You're paying for the name and the prestige.\n\nThey do generally use better quality ingredients, but they definitely make a big profit. On the flip side, there's not a very big market of people who'll pay, so it evens out.",
"Because some people will actually pay that much. "
]
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[],
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|
bvlq52 | the difference between curies, roentgen, rad, rem, sieverts, grays... | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bvlq52/eli5_the_difference_between_curies_roentgen_rad/ | {
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"Curie measures the radioactivity or radioactive decay of a material and is outdated as a unit (modern unit is the becquerel).\n\nRoentgen (named after the German physicist who identified xrays) is another outdated unit used to measure radiation exposure levels in air or other material. The modern unit is coulombs per kilogram. \n\nRad is a measure of absorbed dose (typically in tissue), but the modern unit is the Gray.\n\nRem is a measure of effective dose, or the potential for the radiation to do damage to biological tissue based on tissue type, quantity of exposure etc. One would use the effective dose multiplied by the tissue weighting factor (different tissues have different levels of radiosensitivity) to calculate the equivalent dose, measured in Sieverts. Both Rem and sievert are still used today: 100 rem = 1 sievert (Sv).\n\nRadiation workers in the US like xray techs, nuclear medicine techs, radiologists, etc have annual dose limits of 50 mSv and most of us do not even reach 10% of that in a year.",
"Thank you\nTried to search this out after the Chernobyl docudrama and could find an easy answer."
]
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2je7cp | when to adjust iso versus shutter speed versus aperture? | I understand what each of them do independently, but I don't really understand how one knows which times to adjust what. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2je7cp/eli5when_to_adjust_iso_versus_shutter_speed/ | {
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"It depends on what you want the image to look like. If you know what they do independently, you should be able to figure out what you're prioritizing. It depends what you're taking pictures of and how you want it to look.\n\nIf you want to do long exposure / star trail stuff, do a long shutter speed. If you want to do something in focus and the background blurred, do a large (small #) aperture. If you need the speed and can't open the aperture anymore, increase the shutter speed.\n\nDo you have a more specific example?\n\ne: For example, I shoot both a lot of street and portraits. Street stuff the ISO is usually locked in at 200 (I usually use a film rangefinder), and I set the shutter speed to 1/250 as it's enough to freeze most motion. From there, I just adjust the aperture based on how light or dark the scene is.\n\nFor portraits I just use aperture priority mode, and set that near open to get a nice blur (usually f1,1 to f2) and the ISO stays as low as possible (to be clear as possible), and the shutter speed adjusts itself accordingly. If it's too dark (shutter speed to low), the ISO raises up to compensate.\n\nIn general, keep ISO as low as possible, and shutter speed / aperture will depend what you are shooting and how you want it to look.",
"**ISO:** The lower the better, because low ISO makes for smoother, less noisy pictures.\n\n**Shutter speed:** The faster the better, unless you're trying to make something blurry, show movement, or capture light trails.\n\n**Aperture:** In general, the wider the opening (and the lower the f number) the better. This lets in more light and allows for lower ISO and higher shutter speeds. If you want more things to be in focus, increase the aperture."
]
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2v709g | if we have telescopes that can see galaxies light years away, what's the reason we focus them on nearby planets to take a look at their surfaces? | Typo! I mean't to ask "what's the reason we *don't* focus them..." | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2v709g/eli5_if_we_have_telescopes_that_can_see_galaxies/ | {
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"I think you forgot a 'don't in your question.\n\nI have no idea what the answer is, I'm guessing it has to do with resolution. I have wondered a similar thing about pointing telescopes/cameras at the moon and taking pictures of the equipment left behind after the lunar landings, just to shut up the conspiracy goobers that say it was a hoax.",
"Telescopes take images of far away galaxies by taking a *really* long exposure (allow light in for a long time), in some cases, like the Hubble Deep Field, for weeks at a time. Bodies closer to earth move so much compared to the telescope which makes the image blurry.\n\nIt's kind of like how if you take a picture of someone running 100 yards away from you will be clear but someone running just a few feet in front of the camera will be blurry.\n\nETA: Here is a [What If](_URL_0_) from XKCD that explains it more.",
"Nearby planets don't emit light like stars do. They only reflect light, and they are much further away from the sun, so they are not as bright as stars in distant galaxies.\n\nThey are also very small, very far away, moving very fast, and usually rotating.\n\nIt's like taking binoculars to a baseball game. They work pretty well for watching the game because the field is well lit, the players are moving relatively slowly, and they are pretty big relative to the field of view of your binoculars.\n\nThey don't work very well at all if you want to follow what the mosquito 6 rows away from you is doing. He is NOT well lit, he is moving very fast, and he is very small compared to the field of view of the binoculars.",
"Galaxies are **unimaginably** huge, and produce their own light.\n\nIt's like asking how you could use a pair of binoculars to see a cluster of billions of candles on a hilltop ten miles away (a galaxy full of billions of stars light years away), but couldn't use the same binoculars to see details on the surface of a grain of sand 10 feet away, illuminated by the light of a single candle in your hand (a planet in our solar system illuminated by the sun)."
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2rpkg5 | what exactly is going on in my digestive system to make beer shits so awful? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rpkg5/eli5_what_exactly_is_going_on_in_my_digestive/ | {
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"Just talked about this yesterday. They are terrible but my God are they satisfying. ",
"Drinking draft? More carbonation equals more gas...more gas equals more explosive shits. Try bottles and pizza if you want to pass a nice, solid submarine."
]
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[],
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||
35k2a4 | how do dogs and cats easily determine each other's sex? | When I'm looking at animals, even animals I'm very familiar with, I have to check their junk to tell their gender. And with cats, sometimes I still get it wrong. I know that there are subtle differences in size and stuff, but what are the distinguishing features that help my dog determine male from female in other dogs? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35k2a4/eli5_how_do_dogs_and_cats_easily_determine_each/ | {
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"They can tell in the same way we do, there are certain traits (other than genitalia) which the different sexes have0. Sexual dimorphism (the difference between sexes) is actually less in humans than it is in most other species. Things like boobs seem like a big difference but they actually aren't that big of a difference unless you're actively looking for them.\n\nWe aren't \"wired\" to notice the difference between a girl dog and a boy dog, but dogs are.",
"They do it the same way you can tell a man from a woman - they look. You aren't able to discern because its not important that you be able to. This does not mean that boy cats and girl cats look the same, it just means they look the same TO YOU.\n\nPlus, the balls are a dead giveaway. But...they know long before that just like you know before you see boobs.",
"A lot of it would be smell and pheromones wouldn't it? That's why male dogs go nuts when female dogs are in heat - they can smell the pheromones they're giving off (from some distance away I might add)."
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3i8jtq | why are netflix original sitcoms not exactly 30 mintues? | Netflix is a platform that doesn't air commercials and does not need to allow time for advertisments. So, why are their original sitcoms - that weren't filmed to be on NBC or the like - still less than an even 30 minutes long? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3i8jtq/eli5_why_are_netflix_original_sitcoms_not_exactly/ | {
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"text": [
"Netflix doesn't have their own studios. They finance and greenlight these new series, and as a result, they get the exclusive rights for a period of time to them -- pretty much the exact same way a traditional television network works.\n\nBut after that time, the studio can sell the show to others, and most of their customers will want commercial time. So, this is almost certainly a concession that Netflix made with the studios so that they would be able to remarket the shows after they've appeared on Netflix.",
"Shows broadcast on TV need to be editied to fit inside a 30 minute time slot with a set number of commercials. Normally, they're only 24-25 minutes long.\n\nShows for Netflix don't need to have an exact length. If the story they're telling only needs 22 minutes, adding a few minutes of filler isn't going to make the show any better. If they *really* need 32 minutes to fit everything in, they could do that too."
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9fn6i4 | if the universe is infinite why are there estimated to be only 100 billion galaxies? surely the number of galaxies would also be infinite? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9fn6i4/eli5_if_the_universe_is_infinite_why_are_there/ | {
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"Are you sure that you're not just confusing the fact that the universe is infinite, but there are only 100 billion galaxies in the observable/known universe?",
"2,000,000,000,000 (at least) galaxies. \n\nThere are certainly more, but they lie beyond our ability to see them. So, to me, anything beyond what we can detect would be only an inference.",
"The estimation is not for the whole universe but only for the observable universe. \n\nObservable universe is like is say the part of the universe we can observe. So it is a sphere where light have had time to reach us since the big bang. Because of the expansion of the universe the object from where light needed 13.8 billion years to reach us since the big bang is today 93 billion light years away \n\nThe estimation today of the number of galaxies is from 200 billion to more the 2 trillion. the larger number is from more recent observation and models. Because we have manage to look farter and farther back in time it is likely that the higher estimation is closer to the real number. It looks that the number have grown from 200 billion in 2005 to at least 2 trillion in 2016,\n"
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19fcws | what's stopping me from succesfully starting up an internet company that offers better services at cheaper prices than what is currently available? | You may all know that AT & T/time warner etc offer shit service at high prices with huge profit margins? I'm struggling to understand why there aren't other companies that are able to compete with them? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/19fcws/whats_stopping_me_from_succesfully_starting_up_an/ | {
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"There's a *gigantic* entry cost to providing Internet service. You must have agreements in place to let your users send and receive data from literally every other computer on the Internet; you can't start an ISP that only lets people connect to servers in Texas, and then expand outwards from that. So there's no real way to build an ISP from scratch, unless you are Google and can just straight out buy all the infrastructure.",
"AT & T, Time Warner, Cox, Verizon all have thousands of miles of fiber optic cable in the ground, hundreds of trucks and engineers to manage that cable, and thousands of support reps to sell and support that service.\n\nDo you have any of those things?\n\nBig companies have decent margins on some products, but only because they're grouping offerings together to share cost. JUST selling internet or JUST selling TV or JUST selling phone is HARD, and the margins really aren't as pretty as you think they are.\n"
]
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5wdibv | why/how do actors choose their "stage names"? | Do celebrities choose stage names for some small piece of privacy or is it always about marketing themselves?
What makes some names "better" or more marketable than others?
Do they pick them themselves or is it usually a PR person? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5wdibv/eli5_whyhow_do_actors_choose_their_stage_names/ | {
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"In the old days it would be done by actors with foreign sounding names who didn't want to be thought of as foreign. Today it's usually just someone with a hard to pronounce or complex name",
"In a few instances it's because the Screen Actors Guild requires its members to have unique working names. E.g. Michael Keaton's birth name is Michael Douglas but that name was already taken.",
"Jamie Foxx actually chose his stage name because he noticed that female comics usually perform first so he chose an ambiguous name to perform earlier.",
"Many reasons! Some pick their own, some are given one.\n\n* Avoiding confusion with someone else, sometimes per Screen Actors Guild rules. There was already a Diane Hall, so Diane Hall became Diane Keaton. \n\n* Hiding national/ethnic background, especially in the past. Margarita Cansino didn't want to be stuck with \"exotic\" roles, so she became Rita Hayworth.\n\n* Hiding family background. Francis Ford Coppola's nephew Nicolas didn't want people thinking he'd only made it on his uncle's coattails, so he became Nicolas Cage.\n\n* Some names are odd or difficult to spell, or don't seem marketable. Archibald Leach was given the name Cary Grant, Marion Morrison was given the name John Wayne, Maurice Micklewhite chose Michael Caine. (He had previously been going by Michael Scott, but there turned out to be another Michael Scott, so it's sort of a two-level stage name.)"
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1hzn5v | why tv ads are so important in american politics | For example, the ["Harry and Louise" ad](_URL_0_) that hurt the Clinton health care plan. From what I've read, US Congress members become cozy with special interests because they need campaign money, and they need campaign money to buy TV advertising slots so they don't get defeated come re-election time. Is American political life nothing but what comes out of a glowing rectangle (for 30 seconds at a time)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1hzn5v/eli5_why_tv_ads_are_so_important_in_american/ | {
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"A thirty second commercial is a lot easier for someone to remember and internalize than a paragraph from a speech or an op-ed. It's not entirely attributable to national culture, it's just that we're visual creatures and good at remembering visual things.\n\nHowever, a campaign's expenditures aren't just TV ads. A lot of it is operations for phone banks, volunteers knocking on doors (and sometimes driving voters to the polls), polling operations, and now social media. TV advertising is good for some demographics in some areas, but is becoming increasingly cost-ineffective. For a great example; Karl Rove and the Heritage Foundation spent about 200 million dollars on races in the 2012 cycle and lost almost all of them.",
" > Is American ~~political~~ life nothing but what comes out of a glowing rectangle (for 30 seconds at a time)?\n\nFTFY.\n\nIn all seriousness, the average American is not going to sit down and carefully consider every candidate's position on all the currently important issues under contention, and then make an informed choice as to who best represents their views. The average American either votes along party lines without thinking about it, or votes based on who they've heard good things about from sources they rely on, or who they haven't heard bad things about from sources they rely on. Most of the time, those sources are TV/radio, and this is particularly true of older generations. A 4 second soundbite cooked up by someone with a marketing degree is, sadly, much more effective at developing a following than delivering a cogent 15 minute speech."
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1jquu3 | how do those who engage in illicit trafficking via tor know the entire network isn't an elaborate trap set up by the state department? | I'm relatively new to posting to Reddit, so apologies if I somehow break etiquette here, but I've searched ELI5, Tor, and SR and haven't found a complete answer. Here's what I have found:
-The US Navy and State Department have both publicly backed Tor.
-There are no huge security clearances required to run a server that relays communications via Tor.
-Hypothetically, the State Department would be able to facilitate dissent in non-democratic countries, monitor "secure" communications between enemies and allies alike, and elect either to tolerate (drugs & sex) or enforce (child porn) instances of trafficking.
I'm not normally the conspiracy theory type, but the possibility seems plausible enough to scare anyone whose anonymity and liberty have depended on Tor. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jquu3/eli5_how_do_those_who_engage_in_illicit/ | {
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"I don't know much about TOR because I'm still learning cryptography. However it is my understanding TOR is split into three different segments.\n\nYou have your entry nodes. (A node is a device on a network.) Your computer will make it's initial contact to an entry node.\nThen you have your relay nodes. Nodes that relay do exactly that and only act as a middleman connection.\nThen you have your exit node where your connection leaves the TOR network.\n\nSo for example, your on the TOR network. You're trying to access the hidden Wiki.\n\nYou load up TOR, your computer establishes a connection to the entry node. The entry node then contacts a relay and asks to route your connection through the thousands of other relay nodes. Once your relay node connects with the exit node of where The Hidden Wiki is hosted, it then connects you to the website.\n\nThe idea is to have a massive chain of connections, making it impossible (almost) for you to be traced. However the problem lies with encryption itself.\n\nEntry and exit nodes can be set up to monitor all connections. Relay nodes cannot monitor connections, they just pass through traffic. However entry and exit nodes are responsible for establishing and maintaining connections.\n\nThat's the way I see it, someone who understands TOR better will probably give a better explanation but I'll try and answer your questions:\n\n- Recent NSA leaks show that using TOR is more likely to put you on the authorities radar. \n- This is true. Any one can set up a exit node and monitor what goes on. That's why you are advised to ensure you change your browsing habits and not to be stupid. If your worried about your privacy, don't log into Facebook on TOR. It's just dumb and it gives LE something to work with. No personally identifying information means nothing to work with.",
"Basically, it's for the same reason that we trust encryption technologies like AES. Even though such technologies are developed by the government initially, they are effectively open standards for anyone to use and implement into their own programs. \n\nBasically anybody can peer into and inspect the code and algorithms [(see here)](_URL_0_) that make-up Tor and verify for themselves there is no 'backdoor' exploit built-in that compromises the network.\n\nOf course, it is theoretically possible for someone to purposely use techniques to obscure/obfuscate a back-door exploit such that it is impossibly difficult to figure out what that section of code does by just browsing through the source. But at the same time I imagine the code for such an exploit would end-up looking very unusual and would probably stick-out like a sore thumb (thus should have been detected relatively early on).\n\nAssuming there are no government back-doors, the only other vulnerability with Tor occurs if one particular group/institution (such as the US Government) operates (or has control over) a large percentage of relays and exit nodes. In this case, they have the potential opportunity to both trace traffic back to its original source and the ability to look-through any Internet-bound data traffic which is not encrypted (sites using HTTPS/SSL would still be secure). This is obviously a huge vulnerability, but considering tons of institutions (including, for example, schools) around the world run relays and exit nodes, it makes it very unlikely that any one institution will be able to trace traffic back all the way to its origination point.",
"Basically, it was. Except that the U.S. government didn't know it was a trap when they started it. They helped build it, for anonymous communication, but they did not foresee it's eventual use of trafficking child pornography and other illegal things.\n\nNow, (ten years after it was first published), they were like, this thing is full of CP! Let's try to catch one of the larger hosting services. They helped design the original tor, so it stands to reason that they have the technical knowledge and skill necessary to attempt an attack on Tor. And they did.\n\nThe fallacy you're proposing is that they planned the entire thing, they have complete control of the tor network, and they can arbitrarily de-anonymize more people in the near future. They cannot, they found one vulnerability and in order to infect people on tor, they had to compromise a tor server that people were visiting. The attack on this server actually had nothing to do with tor and still nobody is clear on how they pulled it off.",
"If you want to do internet crime (or not be killed in your country for political bs):\n\n[*] Don't use your home internet connection (use an open wifi or sit out in your pedo van and crack the encryption to some different ap's). Check for security cams in the area and map your route(s) of entry and exit mentally.\n\n[*] Use a computer/laptop purchased (or stolen) from someone else. Don't use it at home. This is your war machine.\n\n[*] Don't use your real identity. Make one up and pretend it's the new you. The real you doesn't exist to this identity. (don't search yourself, don't login to any actual personal accounts, don't cross contaminate). \n\n[*] Treat it like a game of chess. Create a flow chart if need be. Visualize each path and their respective outcomes. (Take the path that gets you to your goal while minimizing risk).\n\n[*] Being a sociopath helps... a lot.",
"Because Tor is open source. Anyone can look up the code, and make improvements on it.",
"If secret US government programs can find backdoors or crack a code, so can competent foreign governments. It is in the interests of US agencies to recommend things that they can't get into because they know it is unlikely that other states will be able to get into it either. Tor is completely secure, the recent events were because javascript is not, and various government agencies recommend script blocking.\n\nGenerally, if you follow all the US government's recommendations, you're reasonably safe from the US government (because it is in their interests to do so). It also kills two birds with one stone because it encourages paranoid people trying to hide from the government (like drug traffickers, terrorists, and child pornographers) that the best practices are \"being watched\" and thus they use less effective security measures that FBI, NSA, etc are capable of breaking. If it's good enough to keep dissidents safe from the Chinese government, it's good enough to keep you safe from the NSA."
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1ta99f | what is the point of the 'press any key' screen in games? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ta99f/eli5_what_is_the_point_of_the_press_any_key/ | {
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"The game just wants to make sure you are actually there. Usually the stuff that happens after a press any key screen is something that the game doesn't want you to miss because you'd have a bad experience otherwise. So, next time you see a press any key screen, maybe watch what happens after you press the key, then think about what a bummer it would have been if you hadn't actually been there during that part.",
"_URL_0_\n\nBecause console manufacturers require you to. Imagine that you load a PS3 game at a mall and leave it there... do you want the game to just sit in the main menu? That's why console games (and hence PC ports of said games) have a 2 layer system. They have the \"press any key to continue\" screen that displays the main game branding details and possibly loop in some cool video. Once you do press something, they can then figure out which controller pressed it (so they know who's playing), and they know that someone is actively attempting to play a game, so they go ahead and now load the actual menu components."
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[],
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"http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/18780/why-do-console-games-require-a-button-press-before-showing-the-main-menu"
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6e05yp | how is it that illiteracy still exists in the united states? | Given that school is required for kids how is it that not everyone has become literate by now in the United States? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6e05yp/eli5_how_is_it_that_illiteracy_still_exists_in/ | {
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"They can make you be physically present in school until you're 18 and gain your full rights as a person. What they *can't* do is make you pay attention or remember anything, that part is up to you.",
"Illiteracy still exists because: Some kids actively refuse to learn to read, and they manage to fake it well enough that they fall through the cracks of the schooling system. Others are severely dyslexic and so are really only partially illiterate, or they have severe mental handicaps preventing them learning to read. \n\nBut statistically these people make such a small percentage of the population that we do have a fully literate society for all practical purposes. ",
"Academic Ken Robinson suggests that Western Education Systems should nurture, and not kill creativity, and that an inappropriate model may have undesirable consequences...including drop out rates, increased reports of ADHD etc\n\n[TED Talks](_URL_0_) \n\nSuch a view is consistent with Ivan illich's [deschooling theory](_URL_1_) \n\n\"\nThe pupil is “schooled” to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new. His imagination is “schooled” to accept service in place of value. Medical treatment is mistaken for health care, social work for the improvement of community life, police protection for safety, military poise for national security, the rat race for productive work. Health, learning, dignity, independence, and creative endeavour are defined as little more than the performance of the institutions which claim to serve these ends, and their improvement is made to depend on allocating more resources to the management of hospitals, schools, and other agencies in question. \"\n"
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19l14n | why do medicine bottles say you shouldn't crush or dissolve the pills? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/19l14n/why_do_medicine_bottles_say_you_shouldnt_crush_or/ | {
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"Because you shouldn't crush or dissolve the pills. Some pills contain ingredients that may harm your mouth if you chew them. Some pills are designed to work after digestion.",
"Medicine is designed to release at a steady rate over time, if you break or dissolve the capsules you can skrew with that release schedule ",
"Some medication has a special coating that breaks down slowly so that the medicine is kept from being digested in the stomach and only in the intestine, it would really depend on the medication though"
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9qq6fe | how fast can a quasar star spin? | I just read in another post that some quasars spin in 1.4ms. That seems impossibly fast - if I could stand on the surface, would I be going close to the speed of light? What's the limiting factor? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9qq6fe/eli5_how_fast_can_a_quasar_star_spin/ | {
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"The fastest millisecond pulsars are in the 1.5 milisecond (670 Hz) range. Assuming they're of typical size (~20 km in diameter) that gives you an equatorial speed around 43 million m/s.\n\nPretty fast, but light is *300* million m/s.\n\nSo how do you spin up a neutron star even faster? Pile more rotating mass! These milisecond pulsars gain their immense speed by sucking mass off another star and spiraling it down to the surface.\n\nThis leeches the orbital and rotational momentum from the victim star and adds it to the pulsar.\n\nSo what's the limit? The fastest we've ever seen is a 716 hz screamer, but in theory they can get a little faster.\n\nOnce you approach 1000hz, the deformation of the pulsar is so bad that there's no real way to add mass and energy faster than you're consuming energy distorting the star and the space around it a thousand times a second.\n\nAdd too much mass and the intensely powerful gravity overcomes light itself and the object becomes a stellar mass black hole instead. The rotation of black holes is not well understood.\n\nAlso, standing on a pulsar is not recommended."
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22l4e1 | how did the different english accents come about? when did american english begin to change and when did the australian accent differ from england's english. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22l4e1/eli5_how_did_the_different_english_accents_come/ | {
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"go over to r/linguistics they talk about this kind of stuff a lot",
"Language evolves all the time: you almost certainly don't speak exactly the same way your grandparents did when they were your age.\n\nLanguage changes in different ways in different areas -- even today, when we have the mass media and increased mobility. But in former times it was much more obvious: people couldn't hear how people at the other end of the country or on the other side of the Atlantic were speaking, so dialects and accents changed in different ways in different places.\n\nAnd it's not at all the case that American English changed while British English stayed the same: both changed, but in different ways.\n\nBut the language didn't change at the same speed everywhere. For example, if you want to get a general idea of how English speakers might have sounded at the time the first settlers arrived in the New World, you would actually benefit from listening to Yosemite Sam. His dialect preserves many of the features of Elizabethan English, including the very strong retroflexive \"r\" (the same \"r\" sound used by people pretending to be pirates) and the use of words like \"varmint\".\n\nThat's not to say everyone on board the Mayflower spoke like a cartoon character, but Yosemite Sam's speech is closer to Elizabethan English than, say, Walter Conkrite's speech, or even Benedict Cumberbatch's.\n\nEDIT: Added Benedict Cumberbatch to prove that I have my finger on the pulse; a.k.a. mid-life crisis.",
"The English accent that I speak with today probably sounded nothing like the 17th Century English accent. ",
"Well, most of this has been covered already so I won't repeat. However, the latter part of the question presupposes 1) that all English people speak the same English, and 2) that the English speaking migrants who went to Australia all came from England. Neither of these suppositions is correct. But, yeah, language changes over time and are subject to a combination of centripetal and centrifugal forces. The further you are from the centre, the faster your version of English is going to deviate from the norm of English English (whatever that is).",
"Im from Donegal in Ireland, If I drove half an hour to Derry, you would hear a different accent. \n\nIts crazy how many different accents there are in a country as small as Ireland. ",
"Not only have we got the perpetual accent change that others have mentioned, but there's never been a point in England's history when it had a homogenous accent. For the past 2000 years, since the Angles and Saxons slaughted most of the native Britons and exiled the rest to Wales, the \"English\" have been completely different from county to county. Yorkshire sounds fundamentally different to Somerset, which is again completely distinct from Kent's accent. Residents of my home town say its name differently to people who live ten miles away.\n\nThis is why it drives Brits mad to hear the phrase \"British accent\". We can pin eachother's origins down to the village they were born in, just by how they order a pint in the pub, *and it's always been that way*. So it's no wonder that if you throw a random selection of us into a colony, a distinct new accent will arise (Bostonian), but throw in another random mix and you'll get another different accent pattern (Aussie). Add in other nationalities (because the British weren't the only ones with colonies) and you'll get South African, Yoopers, and a myriad other sounds, all bubbling to the surface in the English Accent Gumbo."
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5tx32e | why does one get heavy sweating before getting healed from a fever? | I usually dont sweat much when I get a fever but suddenly I get drenched in sweat the night before I get cured, why does that happen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5tx32e/eli5_why_does_one_get_heavy_sweating_before/ | {
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"A fever isn't actually the illness, it is the response. \n\nWhen you are feeling sick, your body will commit more energy towards immune response, and one symptom is a fever. What your body is doing is basically ramping up your body temperature in order to kill off whatever pathogen is ailing you. The danger of a fever is that it can kill you by denaturing (breaking down) the proteins in your brain and body (Think of cooking a hamburger). Your begin to sweat as a mechanism to prevent your immune system from killing you off. Sweating actually cools the body, and occurs as the body attempts to cool down once the fever has \"broke\".",
"In your brain, in the hypothalamic area, a set body temperature is determined based on the physiological state. When you encounter a pathogenic agent(bacteria or whatever) your immune system will secrete molecules called prostaglandins which will cause elevation of the set temperature. When your immune system killed the \nPathogens your set temperature is returned to normal. Sweating is a mechanism by which your body dissipates heat. Sweating is a good sign (when referring to the typical fever caused by e.g flu), it means you are almost healed. "
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5z3ffw | why was the transition of germany into a democracy in ww2 so smooth (for the most part) compared to the attempted transitions in middle eastern countries? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5z3ffw/eli5_why_was_the_transition_of_germany_into_a/ | {
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"Remember, self rule is not absent in German history. Under the Kaiser, the Reichstag stood as a parliamentary system, and under Bismarck, universal male suffrage was implemented. In practice, the Reichstag didn't have terribly much power, but it still existed.\n\nImmediately before WW2, Germany was already a republic, the Weimar Republic, which was actually fairly prosperous before the Depression hit.\n\nAlso, Europe has split between the Soviet Union and everyone else, and as such, the new German republic after unification didn't have to deal with danger from any of its Western neighbors.",
"Several reasons:\n\n1. The borders of modern middle eastern countries were not determined by the people who lived there. They were drawn by European and American powers who had little vested interest in stability (sometimes actively undermining it). As a result, a whole bunch of people who hate each other and have hated each other for a thousand years have been crammed together.\n\n2. Democratically elected governments in places like Iran have been toppled by the CIA because they were doing things the US didn't like. They were replaced with dictators who would sell oil and do what America told them to.\n\n3. Many people in the region don't believe democracy is in their best interests. Colonialism has given western ideas a bad name in the region, and local power brokers like things the way they are. Remember that the instigators of the revolution in the US were the rich and powerful who thought that they could be better off with a democracy than with royal rule. In Germany, disgust with Hitler and pressure from the US made the idea of another dictatorship laughable, and democracy tends to maintain itself once it exists in a good form.\n\n4. Petty dictatorship is the natural way of the world. For almost all of human history, tyrants of one kind or another lorded over peasants. Democracy is a fairly new thing. Even though the Greeks and Romans invented and used it, the US ( < 250 years old) was the first real nation state with a democratic government. I recommend reading The Dictator's Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita for a more in depth look at how various kinds of government evolve, survive, and die. ",
"Germans see themselves as Germans. They might have sub-cultures or regions they are from but they all first see themselves as German. \n\nSomewhere like Afghanistan people are loyal to their tribe over their country and are also split into Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims as well. They mostly see other tribes as either enemies or something or at best just don't care about them. \n\nThey don't want to be led by anyone other than someone from their tribe and especially not by someone from a different subsect of Islam. They don't want to pay for a military to protect other areas or pay taxes for social programs to help other tribes. \n\nIt's just a shitty situation for trying to have a unified government and the only real way to have any kind of unity there is with force. "
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6ttsqj | what performance difference can we see between an athlete that warms up and one that doesnt before a race? | I would like to know specifically about cyclists | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ttsqj/eli5_what_performance_difference_can_we_see/ | {
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"Well I'm no expert but I do play hockey. When I myself do not warm up the first half period of my game is warm up, and I only start playing at my full potential around 2/3 of the way through. Also I notice I have significantly less stamina the entire game, and it feels like I didn't get enough sleep. I'm sure It has something to do with circulation perhaps. Warming up also tends to put me into a mental mindset to where I at least feel more awake and focused.",
"The most important reason for doing a warm up is to allow the body to prepare steadily and safely, thus preventing the possibility of an injury during the performance. In case an athlete didn't do the warm up exercise and an injury like a hamstring strain did occur that will obviously affect the performance, otherwise a considerable difference in performance is highly unlikely. Basically it's a matter of safety, gradually increasing the heart rate and circulation thus loosening the joints and increasing blood flow to the muscles. There is also a psychological factor that helps athlete when doing warm-up because it's an opportunity for the athlete to prepare mentally for the performance ahead. ",
"In short, warming up brings the body from its natural state of rest closer to its exercising state during training, performing etc. Essentially, it makes the transition from rest to exercise much more efficient as our heart rate is already substantially increased due to warming up. Our blood circulation is subsequently increased, leading to increased delivery of oxygen and removal of metabolic waste products from working muscles. Warming up allows athletes to jump straight into performance without having to worry about the stage known as oxygen deficit, where the body literally needs to take in a greater amount of oxygen to satisfy the increased demand for oxygen by the muscles. \n\nSo to answer your question, a cyclist that has warmed up will be able to cycle harder and faster as their heart rate, blood circulation, respiratory rate and more are already substantially increased. A cyclist that has not warmed up will need an increased amount of oxygen delivered to working muscles to satisfy the sudden increase in demand. ",
"Interestingly enough there might not be much of a difference. There was a study done with runners that showed that people who did warm up and stretch before running had the same rate of injuries as those who didn't. "
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1sltba | what is the clunking noise that cars make in movies when they die? | There's always this noise when a car comes to a stall in almost every movie. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1sltba/eli5_what_is_the_clunking_noise_that_cars_make_in/ | {
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"The car is briefly \"dieseling.\""
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xwapa | how does the mars rover curiosity transmit data over such uber long distance? | How does Curiosity transmit data over such long distance: satellites? What type of equipment is used? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/xwapa/how_does_the_mars_rover_curiosity_transmit_data/ | {
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"Rover tone transmit - > mars orbiter - > earth satellite - > JPL",
"I worked with signal equipment in the military so I know a little about earthly communications. Maybe someone else can answer how spacey communications work. I know the voyager 2, which is at the edge of our solar system, uses a wavelength that's measured in inches ~~(realllllly low frequency.)~~ correction -- this isn't that low after all! thanks @BlackCow\n\nDifferent frequencies serve different purposes.. We use ultra high frequency radios for short distances of 1-2 miles, and lower frequencies in a log periodic antenna that can serve maybe 30 miles (they look like old TV antennas.)\n\nFor even longer range, we use antennas that beam radio waves up in the atmosphere and bounce them back down thousands of miles away. There's a weird \"dead zone\" immediately around these antennas because the signal doesn't bounce back so near to the source.\n\nI'd imagine that the difficulty of communications in space is mostly calculating where to point your antenna. Even on earth we need to aim our antennas at each other to get a good signal. Imagine trying to aim a beam of light at a target so far away it takes light 14 hours to reach it! In other words you have to take into account that the earth has MOVED by the time your signal gets there. Mindboggling!",
"In simple terms: Imagine that you are taking a picture with your cell phone. Your cell phone embeds and encodes image, and then we introduces a new signal to make an \"envelope\". This envelope makes it so that we can transmit the data through an antenna. Now the power it would take to go from Mars to Earth would be really high because the signal will decay in terms of signal strength. So there is a satellite around Mar's orbit, it's job is to take that signal, boost or re-envelope it, and redirect it towards the Earth. Once it's close to the earth, it gets taken in once more by a satellite, re-envelopes it again and then gets set to NASA. \n"
]
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[],
[],
[]
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|
2jrmn7 | if sugar, fat, and salt play to our dopamine levels, what do spices (like black pepper, cumin, cinnamon, tumeric, etc) do to our brain? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jrmn7/eli5_if_sugar_fat_and_salt_play_to_our_dopamine/ | {
"a_id": [
"cleg6ty"
],
"score": [
3
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"text": [
"with pepper, and spicy things in general, they also release dopamine and other chemicals. I think it's your brains natural response to the pain. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
1b9z0t | what physics are behind this "stunt"? | [I'm blown away](_URL_0_),I have no idea how this is possible. He attempts to explain it but I still don't get it (I wasn't a very good physics student) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1b9z0t/eli5_what_physics_are_behind_this_stunt/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"What I've been able to find through googling this experiment is that it has something to do with \"the conservation of angular momentum\".\n\nI found a video of some high schoolers doing different things to exploit this property and found the bike tire thing at 0:45 to be the most interesting.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nUnfortunately I suck at physics so I can't really explain this black magic.",
"It's an effect called Gyroscopic Precession. I apologize in advance, but I don't know if I can explain it to a 5 year old, and an 18 year old is a stretch, as it involves some fairly complicated vector mathematics/physics. Hopefully someone else can. Pictures help immensely so instead of doing much explaining I'm going to link to some other sites later. \n\nBasically, Gyroscopes (like a top) behave oddly. Intuitively, a top should never stand on end. However, when spinning, it can resist gravity and stand up until it slows down. Another effect is when you try to rotate an object that's spinning, the rotation will happen in a completely different direction. He's taking advantage of that for a really cool trick I'd never seen. \n\nThis [How Stuff Works](_URL_0_) is probably the simplest, pages 2 & 3 specifically. [This explanation](_URL_1_) is very good, but very technical. \n\nAlso, [here's a simpler version of the trick.](_URL_2_) The wheel is spinning in one direction and gravity wants to make it fall (rotate) in a second. Instead of falling, it spins vertically. ",
"Hey one other fun thing related to gyroscopes you might enjoy (just for fun): _URL_0_"
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.wimp.com/spinningdisk/"
] | [
[
"http://youtu.be/UZlW1a63KZs"
],
[
"http://science.howstuffworks.com/gyroscope.htm",
"http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~hemh/gyroscopes/onetofour.html",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvPAjr_a6Jg"
],
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRJv6z_bxQg"
]
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|
fgkoez | why is it more pleasing to listen to my favourite songs when they randomly play on the radio rather than picking them myself in music streaming apps? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fgkoez/eli5_why_is_it_more_pleasing_to_listen_to_my/ | {
"a_id": [
"fk54ghj"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Because it's reassuring, pleasant, and/or exciting to feel that someone else shares your taste in music. \n\nYou kinda feel vindicated, which doesn't happen when you're doing the choosing."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
8juq9v | court stenographer machines can capture entire conversations in real time but no one uses them as computer keyboards? why? are they harder to use? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8juq9v/eli5_court_stenographer_machines_can_capture/ | {
"a_id": [
"dz2ke5m",
"dz2l0vv"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"[A stenotype machine](_URL_0_) isn't just a quick way of typing, it's also a form of [shorthand](_URL_2_). It's not a 100% accurate way of recording things, it's just a really good way to capture things quickly. You have to do some work after the fact to make it readable.\n\nThere are [chording keyboard](_URL_1_) layouts but they're not particularly popular because it's much harder to learn key combinations than a 1:1 connection between symbols and keys.",
"They are harder to use because the user must know shorthand and know how to use the keyboard. People usually needed professional training in order to learn and use a stenography machine. There are less keys, and you have to press multiple keys at once to “spell” the shorthand words. It’s like having to learn a new language combined with learning a musical instrument. \n\nWith a typical QWERTY keyboard, the user just needs to know how to write in their language, making it incredibly user-friendly and accessible. A stenography keyboard requires training and entirely new skillsets. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stenotype",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorded_keyboard",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorthand"
],
[]
] |
||
2ctuib | why does taking precautionary antibiotics after something like surgery help pathogens to become drug-resistant? | I has surgery on my foot and the podiatrist put me on antibiotics for the week after the surgery. When this was mentioned to my best friend's mom, who is a nurse practitioner, she made it very clear how against it and what a bad idea it is. I understand how starting an antibiotic and stopping before you've taken the full dose can do it when you actually have an infection, but how when you have nothing? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ctuib/eli5_why_does_taking_precautionary_antibiotics/ | {
"a_id": [
"cjixjbu"
],
"score": [
2
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"text": [
"Antibiotics help create drug resistant infection by exposing the infection to the drug.\n\nThey then mutate to be able to work against the drug, and become drug resistant.\n\nSimilar to how humans were once prey, and then evolved to be able to fight against our predators because the ones that were unable to fight back got eaten."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
avml9r | why does stress and sleep deprivation lower your libido? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/avml9r/eli5_why_does_stress_and_sleep_deprivation_lower/ | {
"a_id": [
"ehg9l8s",
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Sex makes babies.\n\nBabies make stressed and lose sleep.\n\nIf already tired and stressed, your body no want add babies.",
"Cortisol is released during stress. It has an adverse affect on your health (including sex drive). Rather than giving you a random internet person’s knowledge on a subject they aren’t very well versed in, id urge you to google cortisol, stress, and the impacts that both can have on your health. \n\nAll we are doing on a day to day basis is reacting to the world and managing it. Our body releases chemicals based on that. It’s pretty simple in the most frustrating way possible if you come to realize that. "
]
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[],
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||
9jwxan | how do geologists record historic and pre-historic tsunamis? | After reading about the 2018 Indonesian Tsunami (prayers to the affected), I checked Wikipedia for list of the tsunamis. There were records of tsunamis all the way from ≈7000–6000 BCE. How do they record/identify those kinds (up to 1001 CE, I guess)??
& #x200B;
P.S.: I didn't know if Physics flair was correct for this. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9jwxan/eli5_how_do_geologists_record_historic_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"e6upsli",
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"text": [
"Tsunamis are huge waves, whose height can exceed tens of metres. The insane amount of energy in the wave lifts up boulders, carrying them all the way upshore. The heavy rocks are then dropped in a semi-neat line where the wave finally ran out of energy and changed directions.\n\nGeologists can identify the boulders as part of a tsunami wave deposit, then measure how high the Boulder is above sea level and make estimates on the height and energy of the tsunami.\n\nIf fossilized plant matter is found, carbon dating can be used to determine when the tsunami happened.",
"Googling ‘orphan tsunami japan washington’ or something like that should get you to a news article wherein Japanese records show a tsunami in the 1700s that agree with a corresponding earthquake in the Cascadia subduction zone around the same time, for which evidence was found back in Washington state. \n\nHere is a link to a journal article that talks about methodology and gives more examples. \n\nEdit: insert link...\n\n_URL_0_\n\nDetective work! We’re fortunate that we can interpret the rock record, and fortunate that throughout history, people like to write down interesting things, like giant, unexpected floods. \n\nSometimes those floods come with actual evidence. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
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"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277576680_Tsunamis_as_Paleoseismic_Indicators"
]
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|
eyry3u | how do gene editing techniques target the whole tissue/organ/organism? | There are very good ELI5s on how novel gene editing techniques work. However, editing the DNA of a single cell doesn't seem that useful. How does the edit become expressed in multiple cells? Can this only be achieved during development? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eyry3u/eli5_how_do_gene_editing_techniques_target_the/ | {
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"text": [
"There are multiple options for trying to genetically engineer tissues/organs/organisms.\n\n1. Get them early -- if you can genetically modify them when they are a single cell (like you said, during development), then once they grow into the complete organism you should have modified the whole thing.\n2. Use something that gets into cells non-specifically. The thing about these is usually they only work well over a defined area that you have a lot of control over -- so more like a tissue or part of a tissue, and not usually like an organ.\n 1. Electroporation, which involves using electric current to disrupt cell membranes and push DNA into the cells, can be used on organisms (though it isn't always very gentle!). I've used electroporation to introduce plasmids into the neural tube of chicken embryos, for example.\n 2. Lipofectamine, which is a lipid-y positively charged tangle of stuff that goops onto the DNA and helps it get into cells.\n3. Viruses. You can package the genetic info you want to deliver into a virus. A popular kind right now are called AAVs, adeno-associated viruses. They're a little small, so you can't fit in really big stuff (for that you need a retrovirus maybe, or a lentivirus). There are lots of different strains of AAVs, and they typically have cell types that they prefer to infect. Because different tissues and organs often (but not always!) have different cell types, you can kind of pick your AAV of choice and have some of your DNA end up in those cells. This has (IIRC) been successfully used in mice to genetically modify parts of organs. There are potential issues in using viruses, centered around the potential for the immune system to clear them before they really get to infect your cells in reasonable numbers.\n4. Synthetic (nano)carriers. These would be around the same size as viruses, would carry your DNA of choice, and would probably use things like aptamers, targeting peptides, or antibodies to be selective to cell types and tissues. These are still in preclinical development, I'm not sure there have been successes in vivo yet. I think most success has been in modifying mammalian cells in tissue culture.\n\nI recognize this isn't really an ELI5, my bad."
]
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[]
] |
|
4whknh | why does the text in older movies always move? | For credits or title screens the text never seems to stay in one place. It always slightly moves. Why is that? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4whknh/eli5_why_does_the_text_in_older_movies_always_move/ | {
"a_id": [
"d670tk2",
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"text": [
"Because the text was applied to each frame of the film separately. That is an imperfect process so ... with a little difference in location of the text from frame to frame you've got what essentially amounts to a little animation!",
"With older film to video methods (called telecine) each frame was projected and captured by a video camera. Projectors use sprocket holes to keep the image stable but they have to move the film then hold it steady 24 times a second. Plus the film's holes are a little bigger than the sprockets so the image can move around. \n\nThe text was added in an optical printing process which added its own jitter. \n\nNewer methods use line scan methods which move the film continuously and the sprockets are optically sensed by the scanner. That reduces the playback jitter somewhat. "
]
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[],
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|
6sbqr9 | how is the production cost for each game of thrones episode $10m, when they have 5 actors who are each receiving $2m per episode this season? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6sbqr9/eli5_how_is_the_production_cost_for_each_game_of/ | {
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"dlbj6s9",
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"text": [
"Every episode has it's own budget based off the budget the studio gives those showmakers. Let's say, like Game of Thrones, you have an 8 episode season, but you just have these 5 characters. The studio would give you $120,000,000 for that season, $40 mil goes to paying the actors, and the other $80 mil is separated into 8 pieces and used on each episode. That way each episode has it's own budget, and the actors are still payed ridiculous amounts of money that hardly seems fair.",
"Where did you get that $2M figure? It was more like $300k per episode max in season 6, but they negotiated hefty raises for seasons 7/8 (up to 1.1M)... which have fewer episodes probably partly to compensate. Also, it's Game of Thrones - you can bet some of those \"tier A\" actors are going to die and/or just not be in all the episodes."
]
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[],
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||
6hcpnz | why is testifying under oath a big deal? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6hcpnz/eli5_why_is_testifying_under_oath_a_big_deal/ | {
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" > I don't see how this oath thing is going to stop these politicians from lying again.\n\nLying under oath is a criminal offense. If they are caught lying then they can be stripped of office and go to jail for a long time.",
"Because if you're caught out in a lie, that has a legal consequence called perjury. Basically you can go to jail for lying under oath, a consequence that isn't present in everyday life. This means that the person under oath has less wiggle room when it comes to lying and can be used as a way to actually catch them out in a lie, enforcing a legal consequence for unethical behavior.",
"Because lying under oath is called perjury and its very illegal. Meaning if someone says a provable lie under oath then they can be face perjury charges. Perjury is what ended up getting Clinton facing impeachment. "
]
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||
33s2co | why is the term "retarded" considered offensive? | Why do people consider the terms "retarded", "mental retardation", etc. offensive? The definition of 'retard' is "delay or hold back in terms of progress, development, or accomplishment." This seems like a very good word to be using to describe someone with a mental deficiency. Why or how did it become offensive to people? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33s2co/eli5why_is_the_term_retarded_considered_offensive/ | {
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"text": [
"Definitions of words aren't really important in deciding what people find offensive. F**got and homosexual both mean the same thing, but only one is considered offensive. \n\nWe view words as offensive when people begin to use them as an insult. This is why \"negro\" was once considered the proper way to refer to black people, but has since been used as an insult and is now considered offensive.\n\nWhile the word retarded wasn't originally offensive, people began using it as an insult so it became offensive. ",
"It's funny how euphemisms become offensive and so new euphemisms have to be invented, again and again. Idiot and moron used to be medical terms used by doctors. Then retarded. Then mentally deficient. Now I'm seeing people use the expression \"exceptional individual\" in a sarcastically offensive way, too. The neverending chain of ephemeral euphemisms.",
"Anything is offensive if society deems it to be offensive. When I was in school retarded was a general term used for special ed kids and a word we also used in place of stupid. Times change and so does language.",
"In the field of education and psychology we use the term \"intellectual disability\", in the medical field they still use \"retardation\". I believe we in the education field prefer intellectual disability because it is tied to IQ and can better assess their needs in a classroom. There are four categories for intellectual disability tied to standard deviations from the mean IQ score where 68% of the population scores. Two deviations ( < 70) means mild intellectual disability. Less than 50, moderate intellectual disability. Less than 35, severe intellectual disability. Less than 25, profound intellectual disability.\n\nObviously using the term retardation does nothing to help teachers and psychologists since there is a large spectrum of iD. Classes are divided along this categories now, because each group has special needs and capabilities.",
"Context. If you use \"retarded\" as an insult to a mentally challenged person or to insinuate that a person is mentally challenged, then it's offensive. If you use it to say, for example, \"The progress on our development of the analysis was retarded because of...\" then it's not meant in an offensive way.\n\nPeople tend to assume that words often used in euphemisms mean the same thing everywhere else, hence why we also have double entendres and people unable to take the word \"balls\" seriously, amongst others. I went to an English school when I was younger and did a double take when I saw \"faggots and mash\" on the lunch menu once. I later found out they meant sausages, but there you have an example."
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1hcvle | the offside rule in football | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1hcvle/the_offside_rule_in_football/ | {
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"text": [
"When a defensive lineman moves before the center snaps the ball into play. If an offensive lineman moves before the ball is snapped, it is called a false start. It is possible for the person snapping the ball to be called for false start, somehow.",
"The offside rule is one of the hardest to grasp, even some players don't know the exact definition. But I'll skip the former definition of the rule and explain it easily, you're still 5 after all...\n\nBasically you cannot pass the ball to any of your teammates that is above the last opposite player (not counting the goalkeeper). Unless you're beyond that last opposite player yourself, in which case you can. The reason for this is quite simple: if you were allowed to kick the ball to someone standing far from the last defending man of the opposite team then he would have an easy job scoring 1v1 against the goalie.\n\nIMHO the offside rule makes the game much more interesting and team based, you HAVE to get to the goal through you opponents, you can't just throw a cannon ball and hope for your one man attack line...",
"If an attacker is closer to his opponents' goal line than both the ball and the second last defender before the ball is played, he is in an offside position. If he gains an advantage from being in that position, he has committed an offside offence and play must be stopped, with an indirect free kick given to the defending team.\n\nA player cannot be offside in his own half.\n\nNot really an explanation for a five year old, but with a bit of thinking you can work it out.\n\nSource: Level 3 referee with 6 years experience + FIFA Laws of the Game\n\n_URL_0_",
"I like how everyone went for soccer except one person. In American Football, offside occurs when the ball is snapped and a defensemen is over the line of scrimmage. A player is allowed (under certain circumstances) to jump across the line of scrimmage and jump back without incurring a penalty; the penalty only occurs if the defensemen is over the line of scrimmage when the ball is snapped. If the defensemen is over the line of scrimmage and touches a player it is encroachment. If the defensemen lines up in the same line as the football (neutral zone), it is a neutral zone infraction. If the defensemen runs across the line of scrimmage and is making a beeline for the quarterback, it is unabated to the quarterback. Same basic premise but many different penalties."
]
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"http://www.fifa.com/aboutfifa/footballdevelopment/technicalsupport/refereeing/laws-of-the-game/law/newsid=1290867.html"
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||
95g9rh | how do passports from foreign countries (not american) wotk? | I thought a passport allowed someone to legally travel outside their native country. I recently heard that some European passports don’t allow travel to the USA. For example, my friend knows someone from Slovakia, whose passport allows her to travel only throughout Europe. And that person has no criminal record, deportations, etc.
Are there different passports for different types of travel? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/95g9rh/eli5how_do_passports_from_foreign_countries_not/ | {
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"text": [
"In Canada we basically have the same passport that you do - it's a book with lots of pages for visa stamps, and our photo.\n\nIf you have a European passport, it's the same deal.\n\nYour friend probably doesn't have a passport. Slovakia is in the Schengen agreement, which allows border-free travelling between the 26 European countries who are members of the agreement. If your friend wanted to go to Sweden or France or Germany, they wouldn't need a passport, just their national Slovakian ID. ",
"Someone is misunderstanding something here.\n\nA Slovakian passport is definitely valid for entry to the US.\n\nWhat your friend may be thinking of is the Schengen Area. The Schengen Area is an agreement between 26 European countries to allow citizens to travel freely between those countries without having to pass through immigration controls.",
"A passport is identification. It identifies the person named in it. \n\nA passport can contain a stamp for a visa. A visa is permission to enter a foreign country. Some visas are granted on arrival. Others need to be applied for in advance. \n\nSometimes, governments will have agreements with each other allowing their citizens to enter each other’s country without a visa, and only a passport. This is called visa-free travel. It isn’t always reciprocal —sometimes it’s just one way. For example, a US passport holder can enter a large number of countries without a visa, even if the US requires the other country’s nationals to have a visa. That’s because the other country gets an economic advantage by making it easy for American citizens (and their money!) to easily enter their nation. ",
"A Slovak passport actually allows a Slovak citizen to visit almost 180 countries without a visa, so yes it sounds like your friend doesn't have an actual passport but rather just a document that allows her to travel between Europe.\n\nIn some countries, like in Russia (Russia might be the only one left actually) citizens get an \"internal passport\" - historically these were used solely for traveling *within* the Soviet Union and they were used to restrict where people could travel in the USSR. But now it's mostly a bureaucratic holdover from those times - a citizen's travel within the country isn't restricted any more like it used to be, but they still use the \"internal passport\" as a form of identification (similar to how we use driver's licenses in the US).",
"Foreign passports work exactly the same as American ones do: they provide identification for the passport holder as well as a valid document issued by a government that said person is a citizen of the given nation and that the information presented is valid. \n\nSome nations will allow passport holders of certain nations to enter with minimal effort. Some will outright reject travellers holding a passport from a specific nation. This has little to do with the passport and more to do with international diplomacy: functionally passports follow some semblence of a standard and are virtually the same, only with a different color and coat of arms on the front. \n\nIf your friend can only travel around Europe that indicates they don't have a passport at all, at best a drivers licence or national ID. A large section of european nations (some 26 of them) have no internal border control. You can walk from the southern tip of portugal to the northen tip of Sweeden and never once be asked to present a passport. However once your friend wants to actually leave this border union they'll need to present a passport."
]
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b4w2b7 | how does p2p encryption work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b4w2b7/eli5_how_does_p2p_encryption_work/ | {
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"Whenever you send a message, the message is locked (encrypted) using a key . The key is unique in the sense that you and only the intended recipient has the key to that lock. Thus, only the recipient can unlock (decrypt) the message.",
"I can't tell you the exact math of it, but that wouldn't be eli5 anyway.\n\nBasically they use math problems that are one-way. By one-way it means that you can easily get a solution when you start, because you know all the parts. But, there are so many possible combinations, that it's very hard to get the original parts when all you're given is an answer. Like this: X+Y+Z=21289745127828972. There are many different combinations of X,Y, and Z that would give you the same answer. But to actually decrypt the message, you need the exact same ones that were used to create it.\n\nKeys are kind of like the X,Y, and Z in the example (but much more complicated.) There are generally two keys: public and private. A private key contains all of the information needed, usually the public key is derived from the private key. A public key only has enough information to create a math problem that can be solved using the information in the private key (encrypting the message.) But not enough information to go backwards (decrypt) the message.\n",
"If it's peer to peer, imagine it like this:\n\nYou own a lock box. If someone wants to send you a letter, you tell them the lock box number to send it to. In fact, everyone can know your lock box number, no big deal. Someone sends a letter and now you have a message in your box. Since you're the only one with a key and the box is impossible to break, you're the only one who has access to that letter. If the key gets lost, you have to get a new lock box because there's only one key ever. \n\nThe lock box is the \"public key\". It's a unique code that allows anyone to encrypt a message but only to you (since it's your personal box). The lockbox key is your \"private key.\" It's the only thing that can decrypt the message (open the lockbox). It would take someone a long long time to recreate your lockbox key, so there's no point to trying. \n\n",
"Here’s the old school way it worked.\n\nYou have a lock box that has two latches for padlocks.\n\nYou put your message inside the box and lock one latch with your padlock. Nobody else can now open the box but you.\n\nYou send the locked box to the recipient using a courier.\n\nThe recipient can not open the box, but they can place their padlock on the other latch. Nobody else can unlock the recipients padlock other than the recipient.\n\nThe recipient returns the now double locked box back to you. You remove your padlock, and send the box back to the recipient. \n\nThe recipient can now remove their padlock and open the box."
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4kczk0 | why have we (humans) advanced so much in the last 150 years or so compared to the thousands of years before? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4kczk0/eli5_why_have_we_humans_advanced_so_much_in_the/ | {
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"more resource/knowledge = more advancement in a same period of time\n\nadvancement against time is an exponentially increasing curve",
"Knowledge helps you generate more knowledge. \n\nTake something simple, ancients believed the world was made of 4 or 5 elements, earth, wind, fire, water and sometimes ether or some magic spirit. And that was fine for along time, because they had no knowledge or technology to study it further. \n\nIt took a long time to go from the idea that gold isn't just dirt mixed together with a combination of air, fire, water, and some magic spirit but it's own unique element. \n\nIt took someone figuring out that earth is made up of different kinds of dirt. From there dirt is made of different kinds of small rocks (sand), and sand is made of different minerals, minerals is made of various molecules, molecules is made of atoms, atoms is made of smaller stuff and so on. \n\nNow that we have that knowledge, we can go back and make gold by smashing other elements together. (obviously not cost effective) \n\nOr look at the Chinese and their invention of black powder. Had it for a long time, until someone said, hey put it in a pot, throw a rock on top. Use that rock to hit someone or something. \n\nOnce the idea of a primitive canon was made, a series of other people made perpetual tweaks to it, to now we have machine guns that can fire a lot of bullets per second. But to get to building a machine gun it took a lot of other people inventing stuff in other fields at the same time. Metalurgy, chemistry, manufacturing, engineering, etc. \n",
"Exponential growth. Once the Guttenberg press kicked off you had the entire European continent working together. Then the World Wide Web, and it's been constant growth through teamwork. ",
"It's actually more like the last 250 years or so. The reason is that 250 years ago is when the Industrial Revolution happened.",
"Complexity. The amount of knowledge that can interact with all other knowledge grew exponentially.",
"Look at each innovation as a Lego block.\n\nTwo lego blocks can be combined to create a new type of block. This block in turn can be combined with all blocks before it and perhaps create a new one. As the amount of blocks increase so does the amount of combinations - exponentially. In comes Minecraft and suddenly the blocks can be shared at (almost) no cost online. Suddenly almost all of earths population has the potential to further the block movement and pursue new combinations. On and on we go and soon that starter hut that almost got blown up by a creeper turns in to the Death Star. ",
"I think it largely started with the industrial revolution. Once we had the combustion engine, the mindset changed to focus on efficiency > craftsmanship. Using the assembly line, we were able to speed through production like never before. It was with this mass production that allowed us to innovate at a rate not seen prior in human history. In under a century we go from learning to fly, to putting men on the moon. \n\nBut looking back in history, we can see that the human race seems to hit it's stride when we are not spending our days focused simply on survival. Ancient Rome is an excellent example of a fast technological incline in a condensed time spread. \n",
"This is a long read, but you will understand the exponential grows of knowledge afterwards:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nHope you enjoy the article as much as I did.\n",
"If you have to spend all your time gathering food to feed yourself and your family you don't have time to advance human knowledge and technology.\n\nBut as some tech gets invented and just a few less people have to work full time to get food other people can work full time with governance and science. This makes a positive spiral. The more tech you have the more people you can have making new tech which in turn makes even fewer people able to feed the entire population letting more people work in tech and on it goes.\n\nThen you also have a similar effect with technology facilitating the creation of new technology. This is probably going to keep exploding with the coming advancements in AI.\n\nEdit: Who knew that thinking out loud for 60 seconds would be my highest rated reddit comment. < 3 you all",
"I cannot recommend this enough, [Connections](_URL_0_) by James Burke. He's a technology historian and a brilliant narrator, trying to answer exactly your question; and there's many answers! In short, more people are in connection with more people than ever before, like a global neural net that's getting faster every day. Each of us is a neuron, and globalization means that the Earth's brain is now in complete communication.",
"Access to information has expanded exponentially over the past 200 years.\n\nBut the largest driver of advancement is excess. People no longer have to spend every single moment of their day working for their next meal. That spare time is crucial for development of ideas.",
"I think it has to do with how much easier it has become to communicate and exchange ideas. From telegraphs to the internet, nothing sparks new ideas and inventions like being able to talk to other people with vastly different educations and life experiences.",
"The invention of the scientific method constrained development into a productive direction.\n\nThe inventions of mathematics, particularly integral and differential calculus, gave us a big and widely applicable lever to enable the progress of science and engineering (contribution by /u/Dekar2401)\n\nThe principles of equality, liberty and brotherhood (liberté, égalité, fraternité), helped removed constraints that limited who had access to knowledge.\n\nThe invention of writing enabled knowledge to persist.\n\nThe invention of printing enabled knowledge to reach more learners for every teacher ( a gain or amplification).\n\nThe development of communications systems, postal services and electrical methods speeded up and widened the distribution of knowledge.\n\nImprovements in manufacturing methods, from [Matthew Boulton](_URL_0_) to the invention of the 2D semiconductor manufacturing process that reduced significantly the constraints on the construction of complexity.\n\nThe feedback of knowledge and inventions into improving the scientific method, recording and distribution of knowledge, and manufacturing methods.\n\nA long time before this many changes from the taming of fire (cooked food enabled bigger brains), the development of trading, the specialisation of skills, to the organisation of big societies and money, provided the foundation for a great leap forward.\n\nTL;DR The right constraints, techniques, forms of persistence and mechanisms of gain have finally come together to enable knowledge and inventions to feedback and improve the constraints, techniques, persistence and gain.\n \nN.B. I don't have any academic references to back this up, I think this is not far from the truth, and criticism is welcome.",
"It's a convergence of 3 factors:\n\n1- Let's remember that there weren't many ways to quickly share knowledge until the mid 1800s, with the apparition of steam-powered large volume printing presses. Then we have real-time communications speeding this up even more as we progress technologically.\n\n2- Let's also remember that it took until 1804 to have 1 billion humans alive at the same time. Realistically, it takes a large proportion of manual workers to support mental workers. So, more people alive means more people sharing more ideas... which requires, well, many people.\n\n3- Let's say one in a hundred of your friends is really, really smart. If there's only a few humans alive, there's going to only be a few really smart ones. At the opposite end, more humans alive = more chances for really smart ones to be alive and have really smart ideas.\n\nPut all these things together and you have it: exponential growth in human population, coupled with hyper-efficient communication channels = way more really smart humans sharing ideas with each others while driving humanity's progress forward faster than ever.\n\nTL;DR: statistically speaking, there's more Da Vinci/Newton/Tesla/Einstein type of top-level smart people alive and sharing ideas together today than the sum of them between the start of humanity up to something like the industrial revolution.\n\n",
"Industrial ammonia syntheeis. I'm a chemical engineer by training, so I'm a little biased, but this process is what started industrial farming.\n\nProportion of time and people needed to collect food dropped significantly in the early 1900s and gave people time to get betrer educations and pursue academic stuff in general \n\nIndustrial farming - > more food + more time - > more, better educated people - > more ideas - > more idea sharing - > tech advancement \n\n",
"People figured out how to figure out things. We call this the Scientific Method.\n\nPrior to that it was mostly guesswork and many people guessed wrong.",
"“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.\n\nThis is known as \"bad luck.”\n\n― Robert A. Heinlein\n\nStarting in the 18th century, we saw a lovely rise in personal liberty and industrialization. That was a good thing.\n\n",
"Exponential growth and zero marginal cost distribution of ideas, especially freethinking, skepticism, and science (not necessarily in that order). We've stopped using humans as a form of kinetic energy and shifted to using them more for mental energy (processing power).\n\nThis has occurred despite hinderance from dogmatism.",
"It's because progress is exponential. A lot of the progress we made has been in math, science, media, etc. And they feedback upon each other.\n\nIn fact people have been postulating that there will be an eventual technological \"singularity\" for decades now.\n\nWhat does this mean? Technology is advancing fast and on many fronts; and the speed of advance is constantly increasing too.\n\nThere will come a time when the advances will be so quick and so far reaching that the society we live in will become unrecognisable even to people who were born into it - you already see this to some extent with elderly people, but the \"bewilderment age\" will drop ever lower. Perhaps a day will come when noone ever feels truly comfortable because as fast as we learn and adapt (And children are the best at this) society will be changing even faster. We will all be in a constant state of future shock (See Alvin Toffler).\n\nTo put it simply: Part of the progress we have been making is in how to progress - and so our progress is progressing ever faster.",
"As has been said... exponential growth. It is best explained in a Ted talks by Ray Kurtzweil. Although to be honest his talking style is somewhat distracting. The pertinent part starts at the 5:33 minute mark. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nIf you wait for it, he says some very interesting and very far out things. \n\nRemember this talk was given almost ten years ago. And although his name is not a household name. In the world of technology he is very well known. He created the first flatbed scanner and the speech to talk technology that you use every day in your phone. And Google hired him a few years ago as the director of engineering. ",
"I would guess its improvements in communication. The telegraph then the phone, then the internet. That you can have a conversation in real time with anyone around the world in the comfort of your hom now is kind of insane. There is near infinite amount of information i can find on the type of work i do on the internet. ",
"Because humans build on past advances to increase the speed at which it takes to discover new ones. The process is only going to get faster, as far as we know there are limits to what computers can do but we still have a long way to go. \n\n_URL_1_\n_URL_0_",
"Since no one mentioned, Mastering risk.\n\nAfter development of probability theory and risk analysis, people no longer felt that future is completely unknown. They were funding/investing ship voyages in the past and businesses during Industrial Revolution which led to more wealth, thereby more further investments, and possibilities. \n",
"I saw a graph showing human population growth in relation to use of fossil fuels. That also could be a byproduct of various technological advances ushering people to do more than just field work.",
"Steam Power and Electricity. Ever play Age of Empires, or Civ-type games? And if so you know how you'll jump from age to age after getting certain technology? Well we jumped, and it was a big jump, like fire and the wheel big, and it's into one of the later ages where you get spaceships that we landed. Some people still just have javelin throwers and farms while we have tanks and pollution to clean up now. Once we unlocked the base tech to start the new age the advancement rolled forward. But for us, it's like living in the first decade we tried farming as a species. ",
"If you play Civilisation here's a decent illustration:\n\nThe first several dozen turns are spent mucking about trying to survive, get a slight edge on the barbarians and other nations, and slowly building up a baseline level of competence and capability.\n\nShit can be real slow at the start because you haven't unlocked anything, and you don't have enough resources of any kind to really get anything started.\n\nBut then as you hit the mid-late game you've already built up a sizable amount of land, you're raking in some serious moolah every turn, you have enough units that you've stopped trying to use all of them every turn, and your research trees have exploded and allowed you to do pretty much everything. This is the snowball period where every single turn causes change on a massive level.\n\nSo that's exactly how it is with us.",
"Better technology makes better technology so we can use that technology to make even better technology.",
"The short of it is that the Industrial Revolution happened, and we've had incentive structures that encourage innovation since then.\n\nThe economist Deirdre McCloskey's hypothesis for why the 'great fact,' as she calls the leap, happened in 18th-19th century England rather than any other developed time or place was the combination of a general increase in economic freedom and a level of social honour and dignity for those who innovate.",
"One word: Industrialisation. \n\nBy increasing the efficiency of food production through industrialisation, people's time to do 'other things' like develop new technology or generate intellectual capital (scientists and scholars sitting around inventing stuff and coming up with new ideas) increased dramatically. This effect has multiplied with every proceeding generation, coupled with an explosion in the population of humans. This has allowed us to move leaps and bounds in terms of productivity. \n\nEventually, some believe that with the advent of A.I and robots we'll reach a 'technological singularity' whereby we'll increase productivity to the point where technology will learn how to do things better than us and self-learn and problem solve.",
"Boolean logic isn't the only reason, but it's a big nugget in the pipeline. It influenced how modern mathematicians and logicians thought about truth, and it laid the groundwork for the computer.",
"Think of history like a walk through the woods. Is there one particular way to go? No, there are many ways to walk through the woods. But whichever way we go we feel like we're progressing. In what way is the path we have chosen progress in comparison to the other paths we could have chosen? In part it is because we are already on this path, and other paths feel like a divergence from the logic which leads us down this particular path.\n\nRecently we have started running down this path. Our own speed has become a large part of our reason for thinking that we are progressing. Yet we continue to move through a forest that has no end point and we leave many paths untraveled. I'm not so sure that is advancement in the sense that you are using the term.",
"There are a lot of minor small things that ended up giving us a huge boost, that in turn boosted us even more.\n\nFirst up - The Loop we started that grows bigger on every turn:\n\n* In the last 150 years we got a lot of that nation stuff organized. Nations are great at building infrastructure.\n\n* Improved infrastructure made information and trade more available for all people. Combine this with some ideas around freedom of the individual, the rights of man and the likes, we suddenly have a large base of learned individuals, with some ideas about how life should be lived, spread over an entire nation.\n\n* More Trade and more knowledge made people specialize, and this makes for more efficiency across the board. More food, more clothes, more medicine, more everything.\n\n* With this wheel rolling we now start getting new problems that lead to more innovation. How to transport stuff faster, safer, more efficiently . Once transporting an item a far way was insanity, soon it was profit to be chased after.\n\nThe above is the loop that keeps giving improvement. Below are some key technological breakthroughs that help sustain the loop, and prevent it from being broken.\n\n* Rifling/gunpowder - Up until around 200 years ago, any nation with the same technological weaponry that existed in the Spartan wars, could invade and crush your nation. Gunpowder, in its advanced form, reset that form completely. Sacking a nation now required that you advance yourself to their level of technology. \n\n* Self-propelled vehicles in all forms - Trains, cars, boats, planes. They massively reduced the need for people and freed up labor for innovative usage. (This is the idea that things can move, without being pulled, the idea that something can move of its own accord, if given the power to do so)\n\n* The Green Revolution - Without this change, we would not have had food to grow our labor force to the size it currently is.\n\n* Electricity - This is the glue that we never had before. Nothing has tied our world together, and improved our technology, if not for this fundamental discovery.\n\n\nAll these technologies and the above-stated loop work came together to cause the massive boost you see today. When people say it's all going to end, what they usually mean is some \"event\" will cause the loop to stop spinning. This is usually being argued to be one of the following:\n\n* Run out of energy - The loop if fueled by constantly having more energy thrown into it. If we cannot give it more energy, it will stop spinning or slow down. (run out of oil/gas/coal)\n\n* A breakdown in the human factor - Too many (overpopulation) / too few (run out of food) or Unable to sustain the quality of human that is needed for the loop to improve. (Inequality in one form or another)",
"I don't know if this has been said yet or not, but I highly recommend watching Neil deGrasse Tysons' Cosmos: A Space Odyssey. It is a very fine introduction to the few brilliant minds that made way for todays scientific advances",
"The real ELI5 here;\n\nWe have less to worry about and more tools to help us advance quicker. Technological advancement is exponential",
"All of these explanations are good. And as far as why are tech boomed in the last 150 years, therefore advancing us faster than anytime in the past is the human thirst to kill each other. Let me explain.\n\nAfter each war man has ever had, the tech used to win the war is obsorbed by the civilians. Whether it is in better metal refining to make better swords to making better clothes to endure the elements of the battlefield. \n\nWW1 marked the first use of mechanical warefare. Using tanks and airplanes on the battlefield. Afterwards all the countries started to race towards making better mechanical implements of war. Better tanks and airplanes, hey let's make troop transports. Of course the civilians say, hey that tank, just a few modifications and I could dig a big hole in hours that would take 10 people a week or more to dig. That airplane that is being built to drop numerous 500 pound bombs, if we put 50 people on it we could get more customers to fly coast to coast reducing the cost of having 3 planes do it. Of course don't forget all the electical components upgrading with each one.\n\nAnd here we are. Since 9/11 how fast has our tech increased due to military's need to win the day? And how much of that had been obsorbed in to civilian life to make your life easier?",
"Porn dude. Now that we have something worthwhile to accomplish, namely watching people do the deed in interesting and exotic ways, we finally have a reason to develop things like TV, cell phones, the internet. Porn.",
"Because every technological invention or improvement speeds up the process of making the next. A rule of thumb you'll hear on science oriented forums and such is that every year of improvement equals the amount improved in the ten before it, implying the same for the next year and so on.\n\nThat is to say: technological advancement is exponential, not linear. ",
"It all started with the printing press. That's the most significant invention of the last millenium. Printing was probably the most potent accelerant that science ever received. The rest is a result if that. ",
"If I had to name one thing it would specifically be the printing press. It was what kicked it all of because sharing people's ideas became so much easier and therefore it was easier to build of what another had started.",
" A man named James Burke wrote a book in the 1970s. That book, connections, was made into a television series in I believe 1977? The television series does a fairly decent job of explaining exactly how mankind advanced based on technological advances building on each other.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Seems like it follows that saying \"It takes money to make money\".\n\nAs in, \"It takes technology, to make technology\".",
"I am going to share an alternative meta-physical explanation based on Baha'i religion. In short and to my understanding the Baha'i religion says that all major religions have prophecy about this special period of human existence and when Baha'u'llah founded Baha'i religion it was from a Divine Catalyst that has infused a new life into humanity. The purpose of the Baha'i Faith is to unite humanity closer in a social and political relationship that transcends nationality, race, denomination and such. Along with His advent, God has infused all humanity with intense spiritual energies. One of the first evidence was the telegraph machine that was used within hours of birth of the [New Religion in mid 1800's](_URL_0_). If you look at technical development of mankind the fastest travel time was by train in mid 1800's. Not very fast. But now about 150 to 200 years later we travel 25 times the speed of sound. The Baha'i believe that the arts and science that exist is born out of human endeavors inspired to make tools for Unification of the humanity so it really will be considered one family. \n\nThis is an unusual religious POV but it is one that is embraced by many. The internet was anticipated by Shoghi Effendi in the 30's as a tool that would help further the cause of unity.\n\n > A mechanism of world inter-communication will be devised, embracing the whole planet, freed from national hindrances and restrictions, and functioning with marvellous swiftness and perfect regularity. A world metropolis will act as the nerve center of a world civilization, the focus towards which the unifying forces of life will converge and from which its energizing influences will radiate.\n\n[That was written in 1936](_URL_1_). So in short all the amazing advances we see are the result of the Manifestation of God appearing on earth and rejuvenating and re-ordering the life of humanity. As of now humanity really does not understand what to do with the technology except applying the technology to system antiquated and harmful to the humanity. But Baha'is believe humanity will progress in spiritual areas as it has in material and scientific arena. \n\nI am not trying to debate but I wanted to share this because it is a very basic axiom in Baha'i religion. There are several \"millennial\" religions from mid 1800's that also have alternate explanation for explosion of technical and scientific advancements since mid 1800's. ",
"i think newton said it best: \"if i have seen farther than any other man it is only because i stand on the shoulders of giants\"\n\nbasically all of science builds on what has come before, the process of determining what is real and what isn't has been a long one. and the key to it: communication.\n\nit is by speech that humans were first able to share information and teach people how to do things beyond simply showing them as our ape ancestors would have done, this allowed information to flow from one person to another and later to be written down allowing people in the past to teach those in the future, it allowed us to catapult ahead from our dark ages after finding the works of the ancient greeks and romans. \n\nthe next big thing was the printing press, allowing even more communication, now people in germany could teach people in england...so long as they can read the language (\"sorry darwin\"~gregor mendel's ghost) or get it translated. \n\nand the next big discovery: science! the scientific method, coupled with the new printing press greatly advanced our ability to discern what is most likely true. \n\neach new discovery built on previous ones and created new ways to communicate, telegraphs, the internet.\n\nand this is why our advancement has been largely exponential, each discovery builds on the last. \n\nand of course communication is useless without people to communicate with, advances in medicine and agriculture have decimated (that's not right...more than decimated...obliterated) infant mortality, from near 80% to less than 1% so there are a LOT more of us. if only 0.1% of all people go on to make great contributions to science that is still 7000000 people making advances in science, network these together so they can share their discoveries and you got a progress machine. \n\nby comparison in the middle ages you would have around (IIRC) 2 million people...on earth....meaning in all the earth you might have 2000 people who could make a meaningful advance in science, and they have no means of communicating, a discovery could be made in europe (say glass making techniques) which wouldn't be available to a person in china. knowledge was very land locked.",
"[This](_URL_0_) article really gives a cool opinion on why, and one that is backed up with some evidence. I think the main reason is exponential growth, this just means as technology increases it allows us to increase technology faster",
"The old quote is, \"From one thing, learn ten-thousand things.\"\nOr, \"One door leads to many others.\"",
"I'd say recent advancements can really be credited to two things: engines (industrial revolution), and communication (internet).",
"Starting from scratch, humans were hunter-gatherers, with barely any technical skills or inventions per se. \nThen came the first wave of inventions and discoveries, namely the use of tools like clubs and such, wheels and fire. \nThese enabled the precursors to develop newer things, newer, better tools. I'd say that the next step was with the metal ages, namely the bronze and iron ages, which succeeded the stone ages. With better tools and techniques being formulated and discovered, humanity began to progress a wee bit faster. \nHumans dabbling in materials, especially in the medieval age people 'working out' alchemy eventually probably led to scientific enquiry, most notably the birth of chemistry. \nWith riding standards of living, people had more time on their hands I suppose, which is why we ended up with rich Lords and counts experimenting in their laboratories. \nChemistry, botany and the physical sciences advanced. \nUp till this point humanity had been steadily gathering skills, tools and resources that would enable them to create and develop far more complex tools, machines even. \nIt's something like the bottom-up hierarchical design flow that one follows in designing electronics and ICs. \nArmed with all this knowledge that was obtained from previous successes (and failures) humanity was poised to attain a much faster growth rate. \nEnter the industrial revolution. The explosion was almost exponential. Every new development and invention in turn spawned the creation of 10-15 others, and so on and so forth. \nThis rate has never slowed ever since. \n\nHence, the rapid growth in the last two centuries, compared to earlier, simpler times.",
"Throwing off the idea that magic exists. Seriously, the further we get from the idea that 'fairies do it', the more diligently we work to understand what we're observing.",
"Storage of knowledge enables faster advancement.\n\nThink of it this way. Before books, you could only learn if someone with more knowledge than you wanted to explain something to you - their audience is relatively limited and they can only teach so many.\n\nThen came books. Then the ability of more people to read those books. Then came the print press which enabled more book production. Then we developed sound recording devices, then video, then the internet... you get the idea. You can now find more knowledge at your fingertips than ever before in history.",
"I give credit to [ James Clerk Maxwell ]( _URL_0_ ). In 1862 he laid down the [foundation for all electronics](_URL_1_ ). After that, there's no mystery, just difficult, but doable engineering problems.",
"Humanity has advanced because a decision was made to allow a growth in conciousness in preparation if a great event, that would paralyze the entire earth with fear and cause grown men to drop dead in the street at its sudden appearance. The secrets of the occult alchemical Masonic witchcraft are now widespread, to prepare the earth and its group consciousness for the literal physical presence and earthly kingdom of Satan himself. Revelation of the Method had to occur, so the hoodwinked can know the extent they've been fooled, to cheerfully magnify and amplify the effect. So technology and science had to be spread. As it says in the Rosicrucian manifesto \"the stones shall rise and give service.\" \"Everything lies veiled in numbers\" asserts the Zohar, and counting and measuring and qauntifying all leaves no more room for a God. This is why the metric system is promoted. To slap God in the face. To take us away from the natural, to pin down earth energies, slaying dragons. It alienates humans from the proper scale and scope of life. But it's another sacrifice. If/then has to work reliably, or there is no Must/be.\n\nThat's what I would tell my five year old.",
"The industrial revolution happened. We figured out how to make technology to make us more productive.\n\nBut that just puts the question a level deeper. Why did the industrial revolution happen at the time and place that it did? (around 1800 in England)\n\nAnd that question is much, much harder to answer. Economic historians have spent a lot of time and ink arguing this, and my understanding is that there is no easy, simple, single answer. Many plausible sounding answers seem like they should have applied to China centuries earlier.\n\ntl;dr: Technology from the industrial revolution. But no one knows why exactly the industrial revolution happened in 1800 in England, rather than during the Roman Empire or Chinese dynasties.\n\nEdit: Whoops, realized this was supposed to be ELI5. Oh well, I'll leave it just in case others find it worthwhile.",
"This is a great question, but a bad question for this format. ELI5 is good for scientific or plainly factual issues, but this is really very unclear and is probably a combination of so many factors that any single answer will be totally inadequate.\n\nFor instance, one guy essentially responded that technology has freed us to become more creative, but that alone is inadequate because it fails to explain why technology has suddenly improved so much. Perhaps it is the development of modern capitalism in the 17-18th century? But then perhaps not, and even if it is we would then have to explain the emergence of modern capitalism which is equally controversial.",
"The exponential nature of technocultural progress.\n\nI can see that rapidly improving from here when I think what can and likely will be dramatically improved in the near future; mindshare is still suboptimal, automation heavily short of what it could be, human-computer interfaces still relatively primitive, real AI nonexistent, disease and death ubiquitous.\n\nWe're used to the geometric improvement of computers, but there are wildcards such as the 3D printer that I can't even imagine the implication of.\n\nEDIT: I guess 3D printers will allow more intricate infrastructure, supporting denser populations, which in turn could be freed by automation, and devoted to further advancement. That is perhaps a decent example of naturally accelerating progress.",
"Two words: steam engine. For the first time in history we were easily able to do manual labor with little to no effort from humans/animals. Instead of entire teams doing a large and potentially dangerous task we only needed a couple of engineers and fuel/water.",
"It's called \"The Industrial Revolution\", and it took place mid-late 1800's. \n\nEssentially though, it comes down to civilizations sudden use of fossil fuels. Prior to that time, there was a spike in whale oil use, but really the only power behind agriculture and commerce was animal and human. Ox plowed fields and moved heavy things. Horses moved people. There were water and wind mills, but they could not produce nearly as much output. \n\nSuddenly this amazing source of energy arrives, and it changes everything. At first, it was coal, and the secondary application of steam power. Suddenly huge amounts of work can be done in a small time. Suddenly farms that fed a few hundred people can feed thousands. And that meant a drop in hunger and an increase in population. Goods can be shipped across huge distances in a relatively short time thanks to steam locomotives. All this industry created millions and millions of jobs, and that created a faster and more diverse economy. \n\nWhen electricity arrived (although still fossil fuel based) culture changed again. Things at home changed. Things like doing laundry became easier with machines. Refrigeration's arrival meant food lasted longer and caused less illness. \n\nThen the wars...both the world wars resulted in massive advances in technology, as well as advances in how we THOUGHT about technology. \n\nThis is why it is thought that if society were to collapse, say in a Walking Dead type of scenario..that we would not go \"back to the stone age\". Instead we would go back to the mid 1800's. ",
"Because we embraced empiricism and rational thinking among a larger portion of our population than merely the academics. Once a sizeable number of humans considered evidence based pursuit of knowledge to be a virtue, the information age ignited. ",
"TLDR: People stopped asking religious or philosophical questions and started asking about the natural world.\n\n\nThere are a lot of reasons on here, which do make sense, but one of the things changed everything was the type of questions that were being asked.\n\nAbout 1,000 years ago the world was focused on religion, and getting into heaven. This meant that the questions that were asked were faith or philosophy based, and thus really slow to contribute to the knowledge of the world. A great example of this the story of Francis Bacon...\n\n\"In the year of our Lord 1432, there arose a grievous quarrel among the brethren over the number of teeth in the mouth of a horse. For thirteen days the disputation raged without ceasing. All the ancient books and chronicles were fetched out, and wonderful and ponderous erudition such as was never before heard of in this region was made manifest. At the beginning of the fourteenth day, a youthful friar of goodly bearing asked his learned superiors for permission to add a word, and straightway, to the wonderment of the disputants, whose deep wisdom he sore vexed, he beseeched them to unbend in a manner coarse and unheard-of and to look in the open mouth of a horse and find answer to their questionings. At this, their dignity being grievously hurt, they waxed exceeding wroth; and, joining in a mighty uproar, they flew upon him and smote him, hip and thigh, and cast him out forthwith.\"\n\nMen who thought they were very smart spent a lot of time having philosophical discussions that did not contribute to the advancement of society, but did questions the Kings divine right to rule. To stop this a King (forget which one) banned these types of discussions. The rich, left with nothing else to do started investigating the natural world. Only experiments that could be reproduced were accepted, and the beginning of the scientific revolution had begun.\n\n",
"Religion often held advancements in medicine and technology to a minimum especially in the dark ages were religion was king ",
"The most succinct way to describe this phenomenon comes down to the law of accelerating returns. \n\nAs other's have mentioned, once we developed a strategy to enable a non-nomadic way of life - humans were able to focus on advancing their ways rather than simply sustaining life. Agriculture satisfied just that - it enabled humans to produce our own food without the need to follow seasonal migratory patterns (think herd animals and pack animals)\n\nOnce we were capable of surviving in one place, we threw our weight at issues beyond simple survival. Fast forward to the industrial revolution - we began devising strategies to do the work for us. Now some of the \"leg work\" was undertaken automatically by machines. Think about the time it takes to do a calculus problem without a calculator versus with a calculator. \n\nFast forward again to today - we are at a point where the mechanized tools help us answer questions so fast they are essentially to a point of developing the questions themselves (and then answering them)\n\nContinue in this pattern until you're a a point where things happen so fast it's almost intangible (the hypothetical singularity)\n\nThis is a TED Talk that you may find interesting. _URL_0_\n\nEdit: in addition, as the saying goes - necessity is the mother of invention. Even though nomads technically had more free time than farmers, farmers had new problems that required innovation to solve.",
"\"Why have we (humans) advanced so much in the last 150 years or so compared to the thousands of years before?\"- Porn.",
"we understood another fundamental force enough to use it everyday. \n\n\nbefore about 1862. we had only understood gravity. and mechanical things.\n\nthen in 1862 we learned to mathematically model a new force, electro-magnetism. \n\nit is like having one tool box with a hammer. \n\nand suddenly getting another tool box with copper wires and volt/ammeters.\n\na person could solve problems they never knew existed. \n\nI cannot wait until we figure out how to use the strong and weak nuclear force for more than just power generation! \n\nand having a whole third and maybe fourth tool box to worth with. ",
"Oil. The ratio of energy produced for energy expended is something we never ever had before. ",
"Human advancement, population growth, etc are directly correlation with energy access/sources/exploitation. We have advanced significantly in the past 150 years because we found a way to exploit fossil fuels ( particularly oil ). Particularly in the 1850s, the settlers in ohio/illinois/midwest/etc found oil that the natives were using and news spread and people realized how valuable it was. That's where guys like rockefeller came from. \n\nYour national power and wealth is also directly correlated with oil use. The greatest nation in the past 150 years was the US because we used the vast majority of the oil. From 1850 to 1950, we accounted for the vast majority of oil production and use. We are still one of the major producers of oil at nearly 10 million barrels a day and we are by far the biggest consumers of oil. \n\nThink of it this way, one barrel of oil produces about 24000 of man hours of work. \n\nIf you look at the chart of US economic growth or world population growth, you will see things started to really rise after the oil boom. \n\nWhether you are talking about ant colonies or bacteria growth or human civilization, they are all dependent on energy/resource acquisition and exploitation. \n\nPretty much every single thing you can think of - from medicine, computers, smartphones, fertilizers, toothbrush, etc - are dependent on oil and its by products. Modern human civilization is oil civilization. That's why nations fight wars for oil. WW2 was a war about oil. ",
"I'm not really satisfied with the top answers, so I'll post, though it'll likely not be seen at this point.\n\nThere was a radical change in agriculture toward the end of the middle ages, we moved to a new system that produced a lot of extra food. This, in itself, is not why we have advanced, but is a good starting off point. This created extra labor, that then was able to move to cities (urbanization) and work in factories (industrialization.) This was coupled with the Age of Enlightenment when education, republicanism, free-enterprise, and science were becoming much more common. Globalization was also on the rise, meaning raw materials were everywhere, and pretty cheap. So, people made factories and machines to make goods cheaper, increasing demand. Bam, industrial revolution.\n\nI'd also argue humanity has been advancing since civilization started. You can see technological advancements throughout all of history. What we have now is explosive technology of a different kind.\n\nIf you start from the last 150 years, we're looking at the 2nd half of the industrial revolution. Cars, airplanes, electricity, etc,... all came from about this time period. They are technologies with real impacts on life. That's really the big difference. A new press, makes printing books easier. That's a moderate impact on society. But a telegraph makes communication instantaneous. That's HUGE. An airplane makes travel much quicker, that's HUGE. Electricity means we can have electronics in the home, that's HUGE. \n\nI'd argue for that for the 2nd half of the Industrial Revolution, the technological advancements have been massive impacts on life, and as a result seem to move faster. They're also much deeper technologies. I mean, you can only go so far with a printing press. A hundred years after the television was invented, we still have big technological advancements that make tv's seem much different then they were even 10 years ago. The technological advancements of the past 150 years are mostly all life changing in ways no earlier technological advancement really was.",
"It's like when you're working on a hard jigsaw puzzle.\n\nThe first few edge pieces are kinda easy but then you have to start putting the middle together and it just looks like a bunch of random colors and patterns and takes you forever to find matching pieces.\n\nBut after a while, a pattern emerges. You get enough pieces together to start to recognize the shapes and patterns and suddenly you start speeding up your progress.\n\nKinda like that.",
"Here's a really interesting article by the guy at Wait But Why: _URL_0_\n\nHe explains that humans are standing at the point of exponential growth where horizontal progress begins to turn into vertical progress. Long read, but worth it",
"A big piece of this is math. We lost a lot of math when the library of Alexandria was razed. So we spent a lot of time rediscovering mathematics that were already discovered by the Greeks and Romans. We know that society develops in correlation to mathematics. Had the library not been burned, we might have had computers and such much sooner",
"Humans are barely any smarter(if any) than humans of 5000 years ago. It's technology and an educational system that has advanced. The industrial revolution brought machinery to farming which has allowed for more crops and more animals for slaughter. The readily available food has allowed humans to be more specialized in non-hunter/gatherer endeavors. Technology has advanced through the efforts of the truly talented and intelligent scientists and engineers. The average human however has remained basically a tool user instead of an innovator. Drop the internet and computers on a human 5000 years ago and they'd do the same thing as humans do today, sit around eating processed food and staring at their mobile devices and giggling like ninnies on Reddit and Facebook.",
"Think of it like a tech tree in any game. You figure out one new thing and that spawns a few more that you can do off of that. Then each one of those spawns even more. We just managed to figure out a few simple things, that further experimentation caused to blossom into more technology. It just keeps going. ",
"Part of it has to do with [Moore's law](_URL_0_)\n\nExponential growth in computing means as things get faster, the rate they get faster also gets faster. But as other commenters have pointed out, this is more universal, advancements allow us to make bigger and greater advancements faster. (better manufacturing tech not only means you can make more complicated things faster, it also means you can make better and more complicated manufacturing tech, and on and on and on)\n\nThink of advancement as a train that's still accelerating, we haven't even reached top speed yet, we are moving forward, but the speed we move forward is still growing, so as you look back to how fast you were going, it seems really slow, but I bet even 2 hundred years ago those with enough history knowledge had similar thoughts about their rate of advancement vs the past.",
"The technology we have developed in the earlier portions of that 150 years you mention has allowed us to do a couple of things; namely, we learn quicker now, and have access to more knowledge than ever thought possible. There is a lot less \"reinventing the wheel\" that has to happen in order to make something new, and push the limits of what we have. Cutting off that time alone has allowed us to more quickly develop new things, which only help with that yet more. Most technology is developed to save time or make something more efficient, only compounding this further.\n\nAlso worth noting, the world has never been smaller, both in travel times around the world, and in communication. We can communicate ideas, and thoughts to people across the world who help us to develop our ideas. The greatest minds of a generation can sit down, from opposite sides of the world and move us forward.\n\nIt is the technology that we have developed that has created this curved rate of growth.",
"Energy. We started burning fuels from underground. And that powered up everything. Machines started making food, other machines, laundry. They gave us transport of matter and information.\n\nAdvances like this happened before. People learned how to use fire. Then animals. Then wind and water. These gave solved many problems and gave more power to humans.\n\nBut burning fossils to power up machines gave so much energy so humanity almost exploded. But we survived and advanced. Wanna predict new era of advance? See where we get energy. Fusion reactors will do some stuff.\n\nBut AI may make a revolution too. Because our level is how much energy we have multiplied by how good we use it. And AI will use it wise.",
"A few reasons, of which I am no expert but I'll give you what I know. For one, strong capitalist societies placed great value on new, helpful inventions. One example is air travel. There was money to be gained on flights like those across the Atlantic, which brought a lot of money into aircraft advancement for instance. Another, more direct reason is world wars. When the top 10 most powerful countries come together, you get things like the Manhattan project, which brought the greatest scientists in the world together and gave them virtually unlimited resources. Aircraft went from rickety wood planes to complex metal bombers. When your society and way of life is on the line, you get great advancements in many areas. \n\nChemistry and physics came a long way becuase industrialization valued the uses of things like oil, dynamite, and medications.\n\nGlobal communication also played a part. European inventions came to America and vice versa. This allowed more than one country & #39;s scientists to improve each other & #39;s invention. The internal combustion engine is a perfect example. \n\nTo tie it all together, the conditions were perfect for scientific advancement. Communication, war, and excess resources made great invention possible.",
"We reached a point with the Industrial Revolution and Scientific Revolutions which, together, turned many of life's necessities into commodities. In the process, vast swathes of humanity have been able to move up just one notch on Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and that's all it really takes. \n\nIt's a loose answer but I think one of the best. \"Luxury\" is now a commodity for two billion people. \n\nHuge disparities continue to exist across regions but a blueprint of how to accomplish the feat is now firmly in place in economic literature and practice with governments following along, some more adeptly than others -- with religion, superstition, and convention being the prime factors mitigating against progress.",
"I would say a lot of advancement was held back due to religious oppression. We should be more advanced than what we are, but the powerful religious oppression of the old days held us back tremendously. ",
"Well, your question has been answered pretty well, and this may get buried, but scrolling down a lot I did not see anyone talk about the [Malthusian Trap](_URL_1_) named after Thomas Robert Malthus, a legendary economist who hypothesized that income (measured by estimations of GDP per capita, which is basically how much a country makes per person in their country) was, on average, not changing for all of human history up to 1800 CE or so, when the Industrial Revolution took place around the world. Some economists argue the exact date of the Industrial Revolution, but my point still stands. Essentially, the Industrial Revolution allowed each person to produce more output, meaning that they were more productive. Also, [property rights](_URL_0_) were more solidly formed in the IR. This gave people the incentive to invest in the economy and try to be as productive as possible in order to increase their profits/income. The more they produced, the more $$$ they got.\n\n\nBasically, the Industrial Revolution spurred a ton of growth, which combined with better property rights, led to increased investments, which led to more capital, which (more or less) means more money for everyone! I am not going into a lot of detail, but all of this spurred people to invent more, and now in 2016 we have grown exponentially. If anyone sees anything wrong in my assessment please let me know and I'll edit it :)",
"1620 Bacon sorts out the scientific method. Let's say you learn something using that. Great. You have learned a thing. Let's say you learn another thing. Now you have two things. Perhaps those two things together help you learn or do something else. Now you have three things. Meanwhile other people have learned three things and you're sharing info. So between say 5 people you have 15 things that you've learned but it only takes two things to learn another thing. So one of your \"results\" can be used with the other 4 peoples 3 results and the same is true of their results. The knowledge grows exponentially. Over the course of several hundred years many more people get into science and it grows even more. The industrial revolution is a big factor but it's a result of that growth from the scientific method. You can also throw in a couple world wars into that mix where the side with the best things wins and then an arms race to build the best nuclear weapon delivery device (The race to the moon) and the growth of knowledge become so exponential that it takes off. ",
"We have more people, with a lower need to work for basic things necissary for life. Food, shelter, clean water, healthcare, we can get that all with relatively few people working on it.\n\nThis leaves a lot of people with a lot of time to do things.\n\nBTW, it has been argued several times that we always have advanced at a more or less exponential curve. If you went back in time 300 years ago and looked at your recent history, it would still look like you were advancing at breakneck speed. You go back to the 1400's, and look how far your society has advanced in the last 300 years, it would still look amazing. Exponential curves always look like something is amazing happening in your time, because the rate of growth is always getting faster.",
"It's possible that we were much more advanced in the past, but extinction level events forced us to reset.",
"Not really sure if it's just a misunderstanding of compound interest. It's kind of like saying how come my brokerage account made so much money in the last few years before I started taking money out of it. Well it didn't make so much money or rather it did but it probably made the same percentage of money as it did in the previous years. So really I don't think it's that Humanity has achieved so much in the last 150 years they have probably achieved about the same percentage increase in efficiency as they did in many of the years previous to that however it looks like a ton of progress because of how compounding percentages work.",
"Everyone is familiar with the law of diminishing returns, but fewer people are aware of the law of accelerating returns. The law of accelerating returns states, quite simply, that as developments begin, the first stages are slow as innovation in the area is new and the path ahead is unsure, but as the new situation normalizes progress rapidly grows as more minds are tasked with advancing it. \n\nIn the last 150, or as some comments say 250, years we've seen new \"gateway\" technologies come into play such as engines, electricity, and communications technology such as telegraph and telephones. These all generated new fields of technological advancement which were profitable to invest into. More minds sought to improve them, and in improving them generated new technologies, which then created more innovators and so on. It snowballs into what you have today where even though everyone likes to joke that the only thing different about the new iphone is that it's smaller than the last, that in itself speaks volumes about the advancement of computational abilities that it could shrink in physical size but maintain similar processing ability in the course of a year of two. \n\nedit: said the first stages were short instead of slow because I'm posting this late.",
"Think about it, we have made is so everybody has to dedicate their life to a certain profession and study pretty much as soon as they are born. Its pretty fucked up if you ask me.",
"It's like compound interest but with knowledge. At first it starts off slow but eventually it builds off itself faster and faster to where it begins to grow exponentially.",
"Several factors:\n\n1) Improved farming technology meant that a higher proportion of the population could live in cities. At the time of the founding of the US, 90% of people in the US worked in agriculture. Today, it is 2%.\n\n2) Increased population. The more people there are, the more technology they can produce. #1 and 2 both served to greatly inflate the number of people who could be involved in the production of new technology.\n\n3) Improved methods of communication made it much easier to share discoveries.\n\n4) Increased levels of public education meant that there was a much larger population to draw new production capabilities from.",
"capitalism: (a free market for labor)\n\nthe death of religion and the rise of nation states: \n\nthe industrial revolution: (the ability to harness fossil fuel for power)\n\ngentle commerce: (stopping war and beginning cooperation)\n\n"
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4hnjy6 | why do #2 / 2hb pencils work on bubble exams yet others don't? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4hnjy6/eli5_why_do_2_2hb_pencils_work_on_bubble_exams/ | {
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"pencil numbers refer to how hard the material is and thus [how dark](_URL_0_) the mark the pencil makes is. Marks made by pencils other than #2 simply are recorded incorrectly by the machines that read the tests.",
"It's the way the graphite reflects light that assists machines in grading the tests. I can't tell you why #2 mechanical pencils aren't allowed, however. I've used them when the moderator said not to, and they work fine. ",
"In the early days of OMR, only #2 worked but these days, the machines are advanced enough to detect any reasonably dark pencil."
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2bfk69 | what are the fundamentals and basics of islam? | I'm looking to just understand this a bit more so I'm after anything you've got to offer. Names, terminology - anything. But I'm here because simple would be nice. I can't just dive into it or I'll be lost. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bfk69/eli5_what_are_the_fundamentals_and_basics_of_islam/ | {
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"Well I don't know much, but I know the Five Pillars of Islam are like the Ten Commandments for Christians and Jews. According to Wikipedia, here are the five pillars\n\nShahadah: declaring there is no god except God, and Muhammad is God's Messenger\nSalat: ritual prayer five times a day\nZakat: giving 2.5% of one’s savings to the poor and needy\nSawm: fasting and self-control during the blessed month of Ramadan\nHajj: pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime if he/she is able to",
"I saw a anti-Islamic comment on here that got removed by the mods. I have already typed up a couple things on Islam and women, Christians, and Jews... so here ya go.\n\n > Shahadah: declaring there is no god except God, and Muhammad is God's Messenger Salat, anyone who doesnt accept/follow islam should be KILLED.\n\nUh... no. From the Quran...\n\n > There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] religion. [2:256](_URL_1_)\n\nFurther...\n\n > Those who believe (in the Qur'an), and those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Christians and the Sabians,- any who believe in God and the Last Day, and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve. [2:62](_URL_2_)\n\nAs for women, Islamic scripture, like the Bible, is misogynistic by modern standards, which you would expect of a text written within a patriarchal ancient society. However...\n \n > For men is a share of what the parents and close relatives leave, and for women is a share of what the parents and close relatives leave, be it little or much - an obligatory share. [4:7](_URL_0_)\n\nThis may not seem like much, but in the context of 8th century Arabia it is downright revolutionary. Women were more often granted no inheritance whatsoever. Even stating that a woman has rights *at all* is revolutionary.\n",
"It's a **religion of peace** contrary to how badly it's been portrayed lately so don’t listen to these terrorists who incorrectly will tell you the religion is about killing, beating and blowing things up.\n\nBack to a contributive answer: \n\nMuslims refer God as \"Allah\"; muslims' book is Qur-an, and they follow the teachings of prophet Muhammad. \n\nIslam has fundamentals:\n\n* Believing in one and only God\n* Believing in judgment day and afterlife\n* Believing in prophets\n* Believing in holy books\n* Believing in angels\n* Believing in faith (destiny set by God)\n\nIslam has obligations:\n\n* Testament of faith (oneness of God)\n* Praying (five times a day)\n* Fasting (a month a year)\n* Charity (1/40th of wealth a year)\n* Visiting holy land (once)\n\nIslam suggests prophet Muhammad was the last messenger as there were many others prior such as Jesus, Moses, Abraham etc… the religion acknowledges and respects them all.\n\nThe main idea is to live a pious, righteous, and prosperous life while helping others, regardless of whom, financially, emotionally and spiritually. All (humanity) eventually would face a grand judgment and based on individual’s good and bad deeds, the person secures time of bliss or punishment.\n\nIt forbids taking life as it can only be given and taken by God. There are obviously exceptions, such as self-defense - if someone was to evade your home to hurt you and your family; obviously no different than federal and state laws in US.\n\nI guess I can go on explaining but this should lay out the basics of the religion. There are no deep notes or catch twenty-two or tolerance about doing “bad” and “evil” in this world – not for God, not for seventy-two virgins. Those who misunderstand and misinterpret the religion usually are uneducated, close-minded, illiterate people who don’t bother learning fundamentals of Islam by asking questions - unlike you.\n",
"Hello. Like any religion, even on the most basic points, you are going to get some form of bias when looking for condensed, basic fundamentals. Studying any religion, for academic or spiritual reasons, is going to take time and commitment, otherwise you often end up with half-studied facts, the distorted opinions of others and so on. There are very few people who are truly objective when discussing religion. My advice: \n\nYou needn't be afraid to dive in, and don't worry about getting lost. If you are serious about understanding Islam, I recommend buying a copy of the Qur'an, preferably the M.A.S. Abdel Haleem translation with a parallel Arabic translation. (search 978-0199570713 on Amazon) This sounds daunting, but just looking at a page of Arabic next to the English translation, you can see how difficult it is to interpret the original for mere translation! With this respected edition, you also have notes and introductions. Be casual about it, simply read it, and most importantly, come to your own conclusions about the religion. Understanding a religion isn't simple, but it's worth it if you want to be truly objective and well-read on the subject. \n\nJust so you know, I am not a Muslim myself, but I believe everyone should approach any subject of study without bias, and reach their own conclusions in a paced, comprehensive manner. \n\nGood luck!\n-Nibblelard"
]
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"http://quran.com/2/256",
"http://www.qurantoday.com/BaqSec8.htm"
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2hk59i | why is it possible for sprinters to get faster times.through the decades? | How is it possible that 100m sprinters can improve their times vastly between different generations of sprinters? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hk59i/eli5_why_is_it_possible_for_sprinters_to_get/ | {
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"Because training techniques and regimens have improved between different generations of sprinters. ",
"There's some difference between what athletes of today can accomplish with better sports science and nutrition and athletes in prior times. Also, there are a lot more people alive today than there were even two generations ago, so there's a greater chance that the fastest person ever is alive today than two generations ago.\n\nThe big difference, though, comes from shoes and track surfaces. Surfaces and shoes that allow for the right amount of bounce, firmness, and friction all help improve times.",
"* technology has improved training, nutrition, sports medicine, and equipment\n* the rise of professional athletes, who can earn a living devoting their lives to running fast\n* an increase in the number of people aspiring to be professional athletes\n* quite possibly, performance enhancing drugs"
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b1nz5j | why is it that wild animals are able to drink “wild” water (lakes, rivers, etc) yet humans appear to not be able to drink water out of a wild water source? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b1nz5j/eli5_why_is_it_that_wild_animals_are_able_to/ | {
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"Gut flora is the main reason. Over time we have lost the ability to digest complex microbioata that are dangerous. Also it's not safe for other animals to drink contaminated water, they face similar problems and die to ameobic dysentery as well",
"We actually can drink \"wild\" water as long as it doesn't have any diseases in it.\n\nThe thing is, it's hard for us to tell if \"wild\" water has diseases, so we just drink water that has been treated because we know it is safe. There's no need to risk the wild water.\n\nI'm not sure if animals are better at telling if water has diseases but I'm pretty sure they just don't care as much as we do, especially since their lifespans are usually way shorter than ours. They also don't have the same options we do(except for pets, but even they don't seem to care where their water comes from. My dog will drink out of random puddles in the street if I let her).\n\nEdit: filtered water is different than treated water, and just bc it's been treated doesn't mean it will taste better. I just took the taste part out altogether ",
"Because a raccoon isn't gonna understand what a parasite or pollution is no matter how hard you try to explain it. They will avoid water that smells/tastes rotten or polluted, at least a lot of mammals will, until they get desperate. ",
"We more or less can. If we got all our water from streams and lakes, we'd be ok-ish, although with bouts of giardia and other problems from time to time, and maybe one of those times it's too rough and we die. But the thing is, wild animals face the same situation. Parasites are pretty common and wild animals often die young. It's not an easy life.",
"And [older threads](_URL_0_).",
"Wild animals get sick all the time and often have parasites. Humans could drink from wild water sources too, and many human populations do, it's just not a good idea when you have options. "
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2gco2t | the axiom of choice in zermelo-fraenkel set theory. | I need to know what this is for a math project. I have searched around the web and haven't come across a simple explanation. Help! :) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gco2t/eli5_the_axiom_of_choice_in_zermelofraenkel_set/ | {
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"Suppose you have three sets. {1,2,3}, {a,b,c}, and {+,$,#}. You can pick one element from each set - say, 2 from the first set, c from the second, and + from the third. You can prove this using only the other axioms of ZF by, say, going from one set to the next and selecting an element from each in finite time.\n\nThe problem comes when you have *infinitely many* such sets. Say you have sets S1, S2, S3, S4... on forever. Now you can't just pick one from each set in sequence, because that operation never terminates. It turns out you can't prove that any such method exists using only the axioms of ZF - so we add a new axiom, the Axiom of Choice, that says \"you can do that\". Specifically, the axiom of choice states that given any infinite collection of sets, you can pick an element from each set."
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kdr6i | how do you sharpen a diamond knife? | Do you need to have an object that's harder than the blade? How does this work? For the most part, I've only found guides on how to sharpen a knife. Aren't diamonds the toughest minerals? "Since diamonds are very hard to cut, special diamond-bladed edges are used to cut them." How do you make a diamond-bladed edge in the first place? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/kdr6i/how_do_you_sharpen_a_diamond_knife/ | {
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"I don't know about diamond knives, but I do know that both diamonds and lasers are used to shape and cut diamonds. BTW, you can use two rough diamonds to make a sharp diamond, it is much harder to do this, but it is possible.\n\nAlso, other materials can break diamonds as well. ",
"Diamonds are very hard, but brittle. A large amount of force concentrated at the right point will cut the diamond.",
"a diamond is like a pane of glass. for the most part, it's really hard, and looks the same all over.\n\nbut, get in close, and you can see differences in thickness and some hills/valleys on the surface. a diamond is really hard where it is solid, but still has fault lines. being able to spot these lines on a raw stone is what makes master jewelers...well, master jewelers!\n\nyou can sharpen a diamond's surface by tapping on these fault lines with another hard object. it doesn't need to be harder than diamond, just hard enough to transfer the force. that's it!\n\nninjedit: you can also use synthetic diamonds or lower-grade diamonds to form a sort of sandpaper edge, which, put on a spinning plate, will wear down the edge of other diamonds. another way to sharpen!",
"In reality, diamonds are cut by grinding them with a constant stream of diamond dust. I cut other gems, the equipment for diamond cutting is similar, it is just an iron grinding wheel with a constant drip of oil with diamond dust mixed in.\n\nAfter rough shaping with a laser, tt takes 12-24 hours to grind a 1 carat diamond. It would take much longer to shape a diamond into a blade in the first place, but sharpening it once it is already knife shaped wouldn't take as long.\n\nedit: Are you talking about a metal knife with diamonds embedded in it? I work with grinding tools like that. You use a tungsten carbide tool to resurface it by tearing the diamond grit out of the metal and reveal a new, sharp layer of diamonds. Cheap tools are made by electroplating metal onto diamond grit, they can be resurfaced once or twice, depending on the number of layers. Sintered bronze tools can be resurfaced many times.",
"This might not be the answer you're looking for, but: \n\nMany ordinary knives are labeled \"Diamond\"-somethingorother. Diamondblade knives, USA, is one good example. These are simply steel blades that have been honed or cut with some diamond implement.\n\nSimilarly with [\"Ceramic\"](_URL_2_) knifes and actual [ceramic knives](_URL_0_). \n\nThere are actual diamond knifes, and most likely you'll never see one. They're brittle - you can [destroy them with a cottonbud](_URL_1_), and they're used to cut cell samples in laboratories for electron scanning microscopes and suchlike.\n\nThese knifes are sent back to the manufactorer, disassembled and re-sharpened, before they're re-mounted in their cutting case.",
"I don't know about diamond knives, but I do know that both diamonds and lasers are used to shape and cut diamonds. BTW, you can use two rough diamonds to make a sharp diamond, it is much harder to do this, but it is possible.\n\nAlso, other materials can break diamonds as well. ",
"Diamonds are very hard, but brittle. A large amount of force concentrated at the right point will cut the diamond.",
"a diamond is like a pane of glass. for the most part, it's really hard, and looks the same all over.\n\nbut, get in close, and you can see differences in thickness and some hills/valleys on the surface. a diamond is really hard where it is solid, but still has fault lines. being able to spot these lines on a raw stone is what makes master jewelers...well, master jewelers!\n\nyou can sharpen a diamond's surface by tapping on these fault lines with another hard object. it doesn't need to be harder than diamond, just hard enough to transfer the force. that's it!\n\nninjedit: you can also use synthetic diamonds or lower-grade diamonds to form a sort of sandpaper edge, which, put on a spinning plate, will wear down the edge of other diamonds. another way to sharpen!",
"In reality, diamonds are cut by grinding them with a constant stream of diamond dust. I cut other gems, the equipment for diamond cutting is similar, it is just an iron grinding wheel with a constant drip of oil with diamond dust mixed in.\n\nAfter rough shaping with a laser, tt takes 12-24 hours to grind a 1 carat diamond. It would take much longer to shape a diamond into a blade in the first place, but sharpening it once it is already knife shaped wouldn't take as long.\n\nedit: Are you talking about a metal knife with diamonds embedded in it? I work with grinding tools like that. You use a tungsten carbide tool to resurface it by tearing the diamond grit out of the metal and reveal a new, sharp layer of diamonds. Cheap tools are made by electroplating metal onto diamond grit, they can be resurfaced once or twice, depending on the number of layers. Sintered bronze tools can be resurfaced many times.",
"This might not be the answer you're looking for, but: \n\nMany ordinary knives are labeled \"Diamond\"-somethingorother. Diamondblade knives, USA, is one good example. These are simply steel blades that have been honed or cut with some diamond implement.\n\nSimilarly with [\"Ceramic\"](_URL_2_) knifes and actual [ceramic knives](_URL_0_). \n\nThere are actual diamond knifes, and most likely you'll never see one. They're brittle - you can [destroy them with a cottonbud](_URL_1_), and they're used to cut cell samples in laboratories for electron scanning microscopes and suchlike.\n\nThese knifes are sent back to the manufactorer, disassembled and re-sharpened, before they're re-mounted in their cutting case."
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1q4q5t | why are sponges considered to have no tissue? | Why not? I googled and found only vague explanations like "partially differentiated tissues, and not true tissues", but I still don't understand what makes a differentiated tissue "partial".
And even if they weren't differentiated, wouldn't that mean that sponges happen to be made of a single tissue entirely? What's the point of saying that they don't have tissue? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1q4q5t/eli5_why_are_sponges_considered_to_have_no_tissue/ | {
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"A tissue in the biological sense is that cells differentiate into different forms, assuming different functions; and that said cells organise themselves into recognizable shapes to enable the function ti occur. \nSponges don't have that. Every singe sponge more or less consists of one cell type with a few variations, but usually not enough to be considered a separate type. All cells are the same, they all have cilia - little whip-like hairs - that they use to move water past themselves so they can then remove nutrients from the water. \nThe cells' colony aids the single cell in a whole colony being able to move around a larger volume of water. Usually the water is being drain in at the sides, filtered through the 'body' and expelled though a chimney-like structure up and out. To facilitate this, all cells also secrete a little part of what in the end becomes a silica skeleton. "
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avgqt4 | do different patterns of emergency vehicle lights have different purposes? if yes, what do they mean? | First: I live in Italy, so it might work differently in your country. This is a question I had since I started to drive.
For example: I've seen some police cars with their lights constantly on (cruise mode) some with their lights flashing and some with their lights off during normal patrol (so no emergency), both during the day and night.
How do they chose if to turn the lights on and what pattern to use?
Do those different patterns have different meanings or purposes? If they do, what does a pattern mean and in what situation they should use it?
Bonus question: Why other emergency vehicles (firetrucks, ambulances) sometimes keep their lights on even if they are not in an emergency and have no hurry? I thought it was for visibility, but they also do this during they day, when they are clearly visible. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/avgqt4/eli5_do_different_patterns_of_emergency_vehicle/ | {
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"Emergency vehicles can definitely drive with lights but no sirens, as they want to keep the quiet. They normally only put sirens on if they are approaching traffic and need to make everyone aware. You should still pull over for emergency vehicles with lights but no sirens. "
]
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82dkad | why does gravity always pull and cannot push like magnets can? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/82dkad/eli5_why_does_gravity_always_pull_and_cannot_push/ | {
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"Because that's not how gravity works.\nGravity has nothing to do with magnets. \n\nIt's like asking, why can't our lungs breathe water. \n\nOr why Hydrogen has the lowest atomic mass. ie. Why it has the amount of neutrons/protons that it has. \n\nIt just does. ",
"Magnetism is the transfer of electrons in one direction. If the directions of two magnets line up (Pos to a Neg) the electrons flow in one direction and pull the magnets together. If they flow opposite directions (Pos to Pos) then they will push each other apart.\n\nGravity works in an entirely different way. Every atom in the universe is drawn to every other atom. Think of the way a bowling ball sits on a trampoline, pulling the mesh down. If you put another ball on there, they will roll towards each other. The mesh is the gravitational plane which all atoms sit upon, drawing all other atoms in with their “weight” (literally gravity).",
"Simplified, gravity is basically mass attracting mass. The more mass something has, the stronger the gravitational pull is. That's why we're stuck on earth via gravity, but we don't have objects getting stuck to us. We don't produce enough gravity. \n\nMagnetism is caused by a flow of electrons.",
"I feel like the other answers here sound a bit... condescending perhaps. Sure, I could also tell you that it is just the way it is. Gravitation is the only force which is *always* attractive. The thing is, though, that the question you are asking is really great!\n\nOne of the big (unanswered) questions in physics is exactly this \nquestion. And nobody knows the answer.\n\nA further step from the \"it is as it is\"-answer would be to note that there exists no negative mass (take electric charge for example, both positive and negative electric charge exist, and, as it turns out, *opposite* charges attract, unlike gravity, where positive masses attract each other, they don't repel each other like electric charges do). Maybe if negative mass existed, we would see pushing gravitation. But why is there then no negative mass? Now, I am of course only speculating, but I think it is great that you are thinking about these things. Sure, you can always just say that things are as they are, but that is boring and doesn't get us anywhere...\n\nBtw, you were mentioning magnets. Magnets have poles, right? A north pole and a south pole. You cannot have one without the other. Every magnet has both. If you cut a magnet in half, you just create two magnets with a north and south pole each. Another unanswered question in physics is \"is it possible at all for magnetic poles to exist independently?\" We have never observed an independent magnetic pole. They always seem to come in pairs. But why?"
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1kn66g | what were friedrich nietzsche's core beliefs? | do you have any criticisms? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kn66g/eli5_what_were_friedrich_nietzsches_core_beliefs/ | {
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"this looks suspiciously like crowdsourcing your homework..."
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14vtt4 | why my vicodin makes me itch. | I am prescribed vicodin to help with pain in my hip and back. Why does it make me itch, and what is the mechanism by which it occurs? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/14vtt4/eli5_why_my_vicodin_makes_me_itch/ | {
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"obviously someone else can answer this better, but I believe opiates cause the release of histamines. If you were to take benadryl and vicodin, you shouldn't itch."
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2sxs2c | why do broadcast tv stations limit streaming? i thought they wanted more viewers. | I thought they wanted more ad revenue based on more viewers? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2sxs2c/eli5_why_do_broadcast_tv_stations_limit_streaming/ | {
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"The ad revenue from streaming websites doesn't go to the broadcasters. It goes to whoever set up the site to steal their content and rehost it. This is why the Supreme Court has found time and time again that these services are illegal.\n\nIt's the same reason musicians don't like it when you steal their music and play it for free... as much as reddit loves to imagine it \"helps\" that's just a shoddy rationalization for the theft. In reality, people take free stuff and stop spending money because they come to expect it all for free.",
"TV stations get money from advertisers. During a regular TV show the viewer most likely sits on the couch and endures the ads - several commercials at a time.\n\nIn streaming the viewer is typically at a computer watching the show. In that case the viewer can navigate away from a commercial pretty easily and come back to the show after it begins again. They can even rewind the show so if they leave while the commercial is playing and come back after the show's been running for a few minutes they can still rewind it easily enough.\n\nTo thwart the viewer from leaving, the TV-streaming service will shorten the ad breaks to just 1 or two commercials. This makes it less troublesome to a viewer to sit and watch than a normal 5 minute break on regular TV.\n\nBut, the shorter commercial break means fewer ads from a less interested viewer base. Therefore, less money from the advertisers. \n\nServices like Hulu and Netflix pay a flat fee to run shows in syndication. Other than the licensing fee the TV stations don't make money. \n\nIn summary, TV stations get better ad revenue from their over-the-air broadcast than they do from their streaming service (like their website). They get significantly more money from broadcast than they do from Netflix or online-streaming. \n\nIf you look at Netflix's lineup you see they have a lot of showtime and HBO shows. That's because those channels can't run their shows in syndication on normal TV (cussing, sex, violence, etc). They also don't generate ad revenue. HBO and Showtime also know that most shows won't do well selling box sets of the seasons (most people don't really care to buy TV series in seasons). So the best option for them is to put the TV series on Netflix and get the licensing fees.\n\nTL;DR: TV stations make money off ads and a listening viewer base. Streaming has fewer ads and a less attentive viewer base. Therefore, TV stations make less ad revenue from their own streaming services and make much less from streaming services like Netflix or Hulu.",
"European reporting in, hi :)\n\nThe situation on our side of the pond is much the same. In some cases they may not have the rights to stream something via the net, only to have it on TV. Examples include English Premier League football/soccer, network premiers of Hollywood blockbusters (that one pisses me off something chronic). We are also really big into playback services (where you can stream on demand at a later date convenient to you), and again some stuff can't be shown as a result of broadcasting rights that they do or do not have.\n\nIf they break the rules, the provider of the content isn't gonna do business with them again."
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43y2ai | coal/carbon is black, but when compressed make clear diamonds. how does the color change? | Additionally, are there any intermediate colors? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43y2ai/eli5_coalcarbon_is_black_but_when_compressed_make/ | {
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"Diamonds aren't formed from coal.\n\nCoal is made from organic matter, most diamonds predate any sort of life.\n\nAside from that, it's based around the arrangement of the carbon atoms.\n\nThis determines all the properties of various carbon forms, from graphite to carbon fiber to coal to diamonds.",
"These different forms of materials, made of the same element, are called allotropes. These allotropes have completely different properties because each atom is behaving as if it had a completely different way of bonding to it's neighbors (which they do). In the case of carbon allotropes in which one is transparent and others are opaque, this has to do with the energy levels available to an electron in the carbon atoms. With things like graphite and soot (coal has carbon but in lots of compounds with other elements), the atoms are bonded in sheets and small chains where the electrons have lots of nearby energy levels, so when light hits them they can capture a photon and excite into a higher level making the material absorb light and thus appear black. In diamond, the carbons are in a three dimensional matrix with bonds all around the atom in a tetrahedral shape. The energy required for a photon to carry an electron to its higher energy level is too high for any visible light, so the photons aren't absorbed and instead they just pass right through (transparent). Because a photon can't send an electron partially up to the next energy level therr is no partially opaque allotrope of carbon in the way we think of it. There are some exotic forms of carbon alloptopes that do have color however. The Carbon Dimer (two carbons together much like O2 or H2) is a gas that can exist at extremely high temperatures in labs on Earth and they also appear in the tails of some comets with a green hue (I don't know if these are spectral lines or from reflection however)\n\nEdit: grams",
"Coal changes to a \"colorless\" diamond based off the carbon inside lining up. The colors you know of though (such as the blue hope diamond )are due to impurities. Blue diamonds are blue due to Boron being trapped inside.\n\nThe colorless diamonds have no free electrons for the carbon inside since they're arranged in a lattice like structure, being stuck together with other carbon molecules so all 4 are in use.\n\nNow let's add Boron. Boron has only 3 electrons to the 4 Carbon electrons. So when carbon is with boron, the carbon has a free electron. That free electron absorbs red light and helps the diamond look blue. You don't need much Boron in a diamond to make it blue either, but there is different grades (cut, clarity, color, and carat).\n\nDiamonds (typically) range from purely colorless, to yellow. If we get rid of impurities and stick with pure carbon, then the best choice is the colorless diamond since it helps display all colors of the rainbow and let light pass cleanly. \n\n"
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9eyayp | what was/is the purpose of the lhc? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9eyayp/eli5_what_wasis_the_purpose_of_the_lhc/ | {
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"It's sorta like how car companies will crash their cars in order to see what happens to them and the dummies inside them.\n\nExcept in this case, you're smashing tiny particles together to mimic the big bang, and you're looking for evidence of subatomic particles that we don't **know** exist but are sure are there because the math suggests that they have to be.",
"There was a long time ago that we thought that Atoms were the smallest particle in existence, and then we learned that Atoms actually had photons, electrons, and neutrons inside of them. Now we have learned that there are even smaller particles that make up the atoms, which we call quarks.\n\nThe problem is that it's not exactly easy to study a quark. They can't exist on their own, they have to be bound together to form a higher level of particle (or if they can be, we haven't found a way to force them apart). As such, we need the LHC in order to study them. Think of it like breaking an egg, except as soon as you break the egg, the stuff inside evaporates into the air. What we do is we break open an egg and record everything that we can possibly record, and then filter through it to try and study the quarks, since they only exist for a fleeting moment before they are gone. Hardon's are the easiest to study (which are photons/neutrons) and so that is why it's called a Large Hadron Collider, it literally his a huge tube that accelerates hadrons until they hit each other, and them records the data. \n\nFun Fact: Each collision creates petabytes of data to work with.\n\n",
"Suppose I have a bunch of cars and you want to figure out what they are. You can't see the cars but I will let you perform tests on them. For example you can have them drive around at normal city speeds and look at fuel consumption and make some educated guesses. But the real way to find out exactly what those cars are is to push the limits of what they can do. Load them up with as many passengers as possible, or the heaviest load they can tow, or drive them as fast as they can go. By doing those things you can establish limits to their capabilities and identify what kinds of cars they are.\n\nThat is sort of what the LHC does. It pushes physics and particles to their limits, producing conditions we don't normally see in order to provide more information about how things work. You don't normally try to fit 8 people into a Toyota Corolla but until you tried you might not have been able to distinguish it from a different car. Similarly if you bash tiny particles together at great speed it can tell us things we couldn't determine otherwise."
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52cgon | why does the u.s. court hear cases about the nfl such as deflategate? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/52cgon/eli5_why_does_the_us_court_hear_cases_about_the/ | {
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"Yarr, ['twas asked by those what sailed in before ye!](_URL_1_)\n\nEnjoy yon older explanations, and remember [rule 7](_URL_0_) says search to avoid repostin'.",
"The courts didn't rule on the rules of football - that's the NFL's problem. They got involved because a player was suspended & the player claimed it violated their contract with the league. It had nothing to do with sports, it was a labor/contract case.",
"There are two court systems in the US. You have Criminal court, where the government tries people for violating laws, and then doles out punishments if they are convicted. You then have civil court. Civil Court is where the government acts as a mediator for disputes between two private parties(lawsuits). All citizens have a right to petition the court to settle their grievances with other citizens. In this case, Tom Brady felt that the NFL had violated a contract they had negotiated(Collective Bargaining Agreement) by punishing him against the guidelines set forth in that document. The NFL by doing this \"damaged\" him by reducing his salary by 25%(4 game suspension). Therefore he petitioned the court to stop the NFL from suspending him, because it violated the contract they negotiated. In the initial trial the judge sided with Tom Brady. On Appeal the Appeals Court reversed that decision and sided with the NFL saying they followed the policies and procedures of the contract negotiated. \nIf private citizens were banned from using the courts to settle grievances, because it cost taxpayers money, then all contracts would be meaningless, because you couldn't enforce them if one party violated it. The end result would be complete chaos."
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4epm0m | attempted manslaughter | So as far as I'm aware, attempted murder is trying to kill someone and not succeeding and manslaughter is intending to hurt someone and accidentally killing them. So what is attempted manslaughter? How can one be unsuccessful in hurting someone which then leads to their death? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4epm0m/eli5attempted_manslaughter/ | {
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"Your understanding of the difference between the two isn't quite right. Generally, a killing is classified as manslaughter if it is accidental/ the result of criminal negligence (involuntary) or an in-the-moment crime of passion (voluntary). The second is a bit fuzzy, and many cases could be classified as murder rather than manslaughter. Murder requires either evidence of premeditation, unreasonable reaction (similar to crime of passion, but think killing someone over bumping into you on the street rather than because they were verbally assaulting you), or something similar. \n\nSo, to answer your question, attempted manslaughter would mean that someone had failed an attempt to kill someone in a situation that would have been classified as voluntary manslaughter (involuntary wouldn't really make sense because it wouldn't be an \"attempt\"). ",
"Manslaughter is killing someone without \"malice aforethought\" meaning without serious intent to kill the person before you did it.\n\nWhether that's an accident (involuntary manslaughter), a different crime that got out of hand (aggravated manslaughter), or killing someone in a heat-of-the-moment situation where you didn't mean for them to die (voluntary manslaughter).\n\nAttempted manslaughter is attempted voluntary manslaughter. Where, in a fit of rage or passion or whatever, you tried to kill someone and failed."
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3s4wwj | how are countries seperated? | E.G:
How was it decided where Germany would end and Austria begin? How was it decided where Poland ends and Belarus begins?
(sure you get the idea now, thanks!) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3s4wwj/eli5how_are_countries_seperated/ | {
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"At some point in history they've decided where the borders are. In many cases it follow a natural landmark like a river, but in others it's just a decision on \"this is mine, that is yours\" or the result of a stalemate in a war.\n\nGranted, it doesn't always work perfectly, there's several places where countries disagree and both claim an area is their. Even close allies like Canada and the US have a couple areas they both say are theirs.",
"As others have said: generally by natural boundaries such as rivers, mountains etc. But boundaries shift over time.\n\nHave a look at [Europe in 1700](_URL_5_), for example. Many countries are still recognisable (Spain, Portgual, England, Scotland, Wales).\n\nOthers are combined (Denmark and Norway are a single country).\n\nItaly is a mass of different countries and independent states, as is Germany. The \"Hasburg Monarchy\" contains modern Austria, Hungray, part of Germany, and others. Greece is part of the Ottoman Empire.\n\nItaly was unified in [1871](_URL_1_), though a series of wars.\n\nOtto von Bismark [unified the various independent German states](_URL_0_), though Germany remains a federal republic, with lawmakers in each state being independent (to some degree). This also involved a couple of wars. Since you asked specifically about Germany and Austria, that link should give you an overview about how that specific border was drawn up.\n\nFor more details, have a read about the [Austro-Prussian War](_URL_2_).\n\nThese sorts of wars have been ongoing in Europe since the Roman Empire, and borders in Europe have moved much more frequently. England [used to rule half of France](_URL_4_), for example. [This page](_URL_3_) has a nice animated map of France, showing the borders evolving over time."
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4zbg9j | why do we feel stronger when we're mad? | Title says it all | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4zbg9j/eli5why_do_we_feel_stronger_when_were_mad/ | {
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"Well, when you get angry your body also gets mad, this means that once your brain releases power milk, this power milk is called adrenaline, and what it does it makes you think faster, get stronger and it gives you better reflexes.",
"Specifically, adrenaline increases heart rate, contractility (force of contraction). And it shunts blood supply away from the gut and peripheral system and increases blood supply to the skeletal muscle and vital organs. It also dilates your pupils and opens up your air passages to allow you to see better and to increase oxygen exchange in the lungs. So your heart is beating more blood and oxygen to the muscles that do a lot of work in the body. In nature this allows you to run away fast from danger or allows you to fight off a predator or attacker. That's why it's referred to as the \"fight or flight\" response. ",
"ELI5 answer: Because you are stronger, as others have stated Adrenaline is pretty good stuff. \n\nSeriously random experiment: go find something heavy, like a couch, or a box that you can just barely lift (keep safe, lift with your legs not your back, don't hurt yourself I am not responsible if you do), give it a go without over straining just to get a feel for the weight of it. \n\nThen have a scream, seriously scream angrily in a (participating) friends face or just at the room in general, jump up and down and do your best war cry, punch a pillow if you need to, simulated anger is the key. Then try to lift your object again, it will feel a lot lighter, My brother and I used this trick to lift a piano up a flight of stairs."
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2wyq42 | why do we glorify conquerors like genghis khan and vilify the likes of adolf hitler? | This stems from A discussion about Genghis Khan that is currently on the front page. Why do we hold him in such high regard? Will people one day look at our "great dictators" responsible for genocide and romanticize them as well? I remember Khan depicted in one of the Bill & Ted movies when I was a kid. I can't imagine them doing that with a modern day killer.
Genghis Khan was a ruthless leader responsible for the deaths of tens of millions; the mongol empire was responsible for 30-40 million deaths. Why do we think that's cool? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2wyq42/eli5_why_do_we_glorify_conquerors_like_genghis/ | {
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"Genghis Khan was the leader of one of the most powerful and widespread nations on earth that was nigh unbeatable due to his prowess on the battle field and diplomatic relations. He killed millions in conquest, like many other great leaders.\n\nHitler was the leader of a country whose conquest hardly spread outside of his own continent. Though he was charismatic, he was hardly a good leader. He slaughtered a few million in an act that probably weakened his nation more than it helped.\n\nIt's doubtful that people will look back on Hitler as great leader purely because he wasn't. He wasn't a good military commander, he wasn't a good economist, he was charismatic but so were numerous other leaders that didn't eventually get beat.",
"Genghis Khan won. Hitler lost. Also, time. I imagine old Genghis was every bit the monster that Hitler was but we don't know him like we know Adolph."
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5rk7fq | how does dna even do things? | I get the basics, I think. DNA is made of four thingies, it codes for proteins that are important (?) And it determines what traits you have. And then it splits in half and replicates itself to form new cells. At least that's my understanding after a couple days of biology class and about an hour of google. Still not quite sure how DNA even tells the cell what to do, but I sorta have an idea of that.
What I really don't understand and can't seem to find an answer to, is how does DNA work? As in, if there are only the four nucleotides, and they match up with each other in a certain way, then all the instructions must have to do with the order of the nucleotides, right? So how does a bunch of nucleotides in a certain order determine what your cells (protein thingies in the cell i guess) are supposed to do? What makes one order different from another?
Unless I'm completely wrong and the order isn't even important. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5rk7fq/eli5_how_does_dna_even_do_things/ | {
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"Short answer: structure = function.\n\nThe order of the four \"thingies\" in DNA determine the order of the joined-up LEGO blocks that we call a protein. DNA uses 20 different, specific LEGO blocks. For example, AAA codes for one type of LEGO, AGA codes for a different one, and so on. (There is overlap - each of the 20 LEGOs has several different patterns that code for it.)\n\nDue to the basics of physics and chemistry, each of those LEGO blocks acts in a unique way with respect to the other LEGO blocks around it. Certain parts of LEGO A attract and repel different parts of LEGO B, and ditto for C, D, E, and F. So at the end of the day, you've got this long string of LEGOs that folds into a certain specific shape, and that determines what the finished protein actually \"does.\" Proteins are kinda like very simple machines, and the order of their parts determines how that machine will behave, simply due to the rules of chemistry.",
"So the function of DNA is to store information in a way that can be copied. This is why the complementary base pairs are important, and you touched on that. So in addition to copying DNA into DNA (replication), DNA can be copied into RNA (transcription). The most basic type of RNA is messenger RNA or mRNA. This is a single strand of nucleic acid that has a copy of a gene. At the ribosome, the mRNA is translated into protein using tRNA, which matches amino acids to codons, which are 3 base pairs long. A proteins starts out as a string of amino acids, the order of which is dictated by the mRNA strand that was copied from the DNA. Based on the order of the amino acids, the protein folds up into a specific shape and this determines its function. Basically all of the things in your cells that are doing anything are made out of protein (some things are other types of RNA). Some proteins, such as collagen, give our body structure. Some proteins are enzymes that catalyze chemical reactions. Some are just there to make one protein stick to another in the right place at the right time. There are also non-coding regions of DNA that aren't transcribed. They have specific sequences that can be recognized (stuck to) by proteins that are involved in regulating whether genes are transcribed or not, and are referred to as regulatory regions.",
"DNA doesn't necessarily \"do\" things. It is acted upon by proteins. \nDNA is composed of the bases A, T, G, C. (A & T pair up and G & C pair up)\n\nEach group of 3 bases (example ATC), called a triplet. Codes for a particular amino acid. (Here's a chart _URL_0_)\n\nAmino acids are the building blocks of proteins. The organization of amino acids determine the structure of the protein. The structure of the protein determines it function. \n\nPS left out RNA to keep things simple.",
"Your body is made of, among other things, proteins. Those proteins are absofrigginglutely amazing: many of them are actually tiny machines. When your muscles contract, you are actually forcing a tiny two headed protein to WALK down a \"wire\", stretching the muscle fibers, causing them to shorten and contract. \n\nThose proteins are made of chains amino acids. There are about 20 amino acids in your body and they all have a different shape. Put different ones together and the assembled protein will have a different shape. If the proteins don't have the right sequence of amino acids, the shape will be wrong and quite likely, the protein won't be able to do its job. Worse, the protein might actually do something *harmful*.\n\nYou have machines in your cells that will follow instructions and grab amino acids floating around in the cell and link them into a protein. So, our body needs to be able to tell those machines which amino acids to grab.\n\nHere's where DNA comes in. There are four bases (ACGT). You're right that order matters. To get enough combinations, we have to put them in (at least) groups of three, because groups of two would only give us sixteen (4^2) different combinations (e.g. AA, AC, AG, AT, CA, CC, and so on), but groups of three (4^3) give us 64 combinations. As it turns out, groups of three bases (called a codon) is what our cells look for. So the TTT codon tells the cell to add a different amino acid than CCC (TTT = phenylalanine, CCC = proline). Because there are extra combinations, there is some overlap. Some codons code for the same amino acid (TTT and TTC both code for phenylalanine).\n\nOur cells start reading DNA, and transcribing (copying it into a different format) called mRNA. That mRNA then gets read by the ribosome and then a machine called a tRNA grabs amino acids and links them up. So a sequence that reads, TTT-CCC-GGG-AAA will get you a protein made of Phe-Pro-Gly-Lys whereas a sequence that reads TTT-TTT-TTT-TTT will get you Phe-Phe-Phe-Phe.\n\n",
"You need the central dogma. DNA makes mRNA, which goes out into the cytoplasm and is used to make proteins, which then get processed and polished up to perform their functions. This video is a quick rundown of what happens.\n\n_URL_0_",
"[Here's a cool video of DNA replicating itself.](_URL_2_)\n\nThe blobs that do the work are made of proteins, which were created by [other proteins that read the DNA](_URL_0_), and then [turn the code into working proteins](_URL_1_).",
"Imagine you're working with three different alphabets and you're trying to translate from one to the next to the next. Let's say DNA is the first alphabet. Each strand of letters in your DNA is transcribed to the second alphabet (RNA). Then that strand of RNA is translated in to the third alphabet - Amino Acids. So now you have a long strand of amino acids. Certain amino acids in that strand are attracted to one another and certain ones are repelled by one another. As the amino acids attract to one another this string starts to fold together in a specific way because of the specific arrangement of the amino acids. This gives the final product a certain shape. (Imagine lightly crumpling up tin foil creating specific shaped pockets in it) The resulting shape of the protein makes it do a certain job (function). For one example we'll use the protein catalase. It is an enzyme which has pockets in it, because of the way it folded, which perfectly fit the hydrogen peroxide molecule. The protein fits the molecule in it and separates the hydrogen peroxide into H20 and Oxygen. That is one example but all proteins perform a function determined by it's shape which is made by the attraction and repulsion of the charges of the amino acids which is a long strand of letters from alphabet \"c\" which is translated from RNA (alphabet \"b\") which is transcribed from DNA (alphabet \"a\"). ",
"Try not to get bogged down with their only being 4 *thingies*. Machine code only has two *thingies* and machine AI can now beat humans at all sorts of things. We have computer code that can predict the weather and computer code that makes tinder appear on your phone, all of it can be reduced down to long strings of 1's and 0's.\n\nFewer values means you need more of them to describe something, that is all, it does not make it any less effective at doing something complex.\n\nI don't know the biology of how DNA works, but I know physics, and I know that there are just fundamental rules happening at the atomic and quantum level all the time. Forces repel, forces attract, momentum must be conserved etc. Given a complex enough system, you will see complex results. Such as how different materials have different properties. Thus you can think of an atomic (or subatomic) structure as a set of instructions for the laws of physics.\n\nNow completely flip that upside down. Imagine instead of the laws of physics we have a very basic computer that runs on machine code. And rather than leaving it up to evolution, let's give a bunch of monkeys a bunch of .txt files and keyboards with only two keys, 1 and 0. Almost all of those monkeys are going to write jibberish. The computer might be able to run the code, but there will be no tangible effect.\n\nHowever given enough monkeys and millions of years... then eventually one of them is going to write some code that writes code. That event, is on par with the existence of life. The code itself becomes a blueprint for a living thing, which on its own doesnt do anything, but when it gets processed by the machine (aka the physical world) the effects are that of life and evolution."
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2qu9ye | stock prices | I'm trying to get into investing, and I want to understand everything: I'm a bit confused on how stock prices rise and fall; what I studied says supply and demand, which I guess makes sense, however: how is the increase in price actually calculated? i.e who actually determines by how much the price rises/falls? Additionally, to my understanding of supply and demand if a stock is doing well why would it ever fall? People want it so the price will keep rising...? Last: does a company set its own value? Do they tell you how many stocks they will sell and for what price? Who owns the non-outstanding shares of the company...?
Thanks and sorry for the long q's. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qu9ye/eli5_stock_prices/ | {
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"The stock market is very complex, so I'm going to address your questions individually.\n\nChanges in price are driven by the market, it's purely \"what it's worth\". This is both in terms of a share of the company (and it's worth) or what others are willing to pay for a stock.\n\nNo one determines the price, the market does. You can sell stock at a non-market price (most commonly seen in \"dumping\" where a big holder wants to turn stocks into cash as soon as possible, even if it's not sold at 100% what it's worth). You can try selling higher, but who the heck would pay more for something they could buy cheaper anywhere else? Most of the time, shares trade at market price.\n\nA stock doing well can fall if the company itself devalues, or even if the outlook for future performance is poor (EX: a company makes guns, and new gun laws were passed which would hurt business. Even though the company is doing as well as ever, the future threat makes it worth less today).\n\nA company does set it's own value, at least at IPO time. They decide a worth, and a number of shares to issue. Worth divided by shares=price. After that, market forces come into play. Changes in the company's value (profits/losses) change the stock price. Demand can change the price as well, since it's only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Say all shares are sold, and the company is doing well, so people want those shares. They will likely be sold at more than they are \"worth\" as a share of the company's value, because the future value of the stock is worth paying a bit extra for today, and the buyer would have no incentive to sell otherwise."
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1tmfzj | how can movie previews show scenes or quotes that are different from what is actually shown or said in the movie? | Not familiar with false advertising laws but I feel like this has to fall under that somehow. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tmfzj/eli5_how_can_movie_previews_show_scenes_or_quotes/ | {
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"Previews aren't always based on final cuts. When a preview features a scene that isn't in the final film, it isn't out of an attempt to deceive, but because the editing changed between the time the preview was constructed and when the final film was released.",
"Many trailers are cut separate from the film itself. Often using a different editor. They might then dip into alternate takes than the ones chosen by the feature editor. Also some producers/directors chose to use alternates so when the audience gets to that scene they don't have the joke ruined."
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1465st | why does my mouth get all salty before i puke? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1465st/why_does_my_mouth_get_all_salty_before_i_puke/ | {
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"My wild guess would be it is to counter the awaited stomach acids (more than a salty flavour i found it weird-flavoured, but definitely alcalic)\n"
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14ptr1 | how despite trade embargoes north korea has successfully launched a rocket to place a satellite into orbit | Given that the place is supposed to be cut off from the rest of the world, how on God's earth are they managing to find the know-how and supplies to put objects into orbit?
How is this possible? They cannot be doing this without the tacit support of at least the Chinese, right? And are people doing business with them in spite of their status? What- if anything- is being done to punish those doing so? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/14ptr1/eli5_how_despite_trade_embargoes_north_korea_has/ | {
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"North Korea is not really cut off from the rest of the world. A lot of companies are doing business with them. Take the Ryugyong Hotel for instance. It is being build by an Egyptian company and will be run by a German company. "
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7up1br | does drinking 1l of water 2-3 times a day have the same “hydration impact” as spreading the water out over the day? | Is there an ideal frequency and volume to hydrate with? I feel like I drink a lot of water, but I do it in large bursts, and still feel dehydrated at times. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7up1br/eli5_does_drinking_1l_of_water_23_times_a_day/ | {
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"There's a lot of nonsense out there masquerading as science about how you need to drink so much water every day, but unless you have a health issue or are an athlete, drink as much water as you need to not feel thirsty, and don't worry about not drinking enough. Your body does a pretty good job of telling you when you need to drink water by making you feel thirsty. ",
"I'm no scientist, but from my experience the more I drink in one sitting the more likely I am on avg to pee afterwards. As opposed to taking sips now and then or the odd drink where I am more \"regular\". ",
"My coach said that we can only take up 2dl of water per 15minutes. If you drink more then you will just pee it.",
"The research (anyone have the citation?) that triggered all these claims about how much water you need to drink a day said that a person needs to consume 8 glasses of water a day. Note \"consume\", not necessarily \"drink\". You get water from your food and in other drinks too.\n\nDrinking 2-3 litres of water a day is unnecessary unless there is a good reason for it, such as being in a very hot climate or it being medically prescribed. Drinking a litre at one sitting will just act as a diuretic."
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a9faxx | young and old sperm impact | If i were to freeze up my sperm right now as 23 year old, and in 10 years i make a baby with that younger me sperm and older me sperm, what differences would there be between those two babies? Does our genetic code changes as we go through life, and does it have an impact on our offspring? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a9faxx/eli5_young_and_old_sperm_impact/ | {
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"The likelihood of genetic mutation is higher at an older age. Coupled with factors like smoking and stress also increases that likelihood. ",
"Sperm from men over age 40 start to have more issues. Basically, when the body makes sperm, it makes copies of copies of copies. Over time, more mutations gather. So older men have more likelihood of a child with autism or schizophrenia, though risk is still small. The man could also develop more health problems, causing issues such as low sperm count, decreasing fertility.",
"Our genetic code does change as a result of spontaneous mutations and replication errors\n\nBut in order for those genes to manifest in the sperm, the mutation has to occur in the testes. "
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1mhgki | can we calculate the death of a star with enough accuracy to watch the light disappear from the sky? | I'm thinking naked eye star gazing. I understand the star would die some time prior to the light extinguishing from view, but is that sort thing actually calculable? Or would a dying star that's located close enough to be viewed with the naked eye kill us before we could see the spectacle? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mhgki/eli5_can_we_calculate_the_death_of_a_star_with/ | {
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"Well, the thing is stars stay pretty bright after dying, and in some cases get much much brighter.",
"We can look at a star's mass and spectrum and say a star will go \"soon\", which to an astronomer means definitely some time between now and about a million years in the future. For example, we're currently waiting patiently for a red giant star called Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion to go supernova. It has already used up most of it's hydrogen fuel and is clearly on its last legs.\n\nThe supernova will be visible \"soon\". Eta Carinae is also visible to the naked eye and predicted to go off in the near-ish future.\n\nDying stars are unlikely to be much of a threat to Earth. There is nothing big enough, close enough and pointed in the right direction to do much damage, although the radiation from either Eta Carinae or Betelgeuse might damage some satellites.\n\nYou actually just missed a good one, in astronomical time, by about 1000 years. SN 1006 was brighter than a full moon from Earth. There have been [many other easily visible supernovas](_URL_0_) but none in modern times.\n\n",
"In astronomy the term \"century\" is used about as often as \"nanosecond\" is in normal speech.\n\nWe can narrow it down to about a million years, but under no circumstances *ever* down to a certain date."
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218fbh | why do americans need to file tax returns each year? | Why do we need to submit complicated paperwork to the government each year before we get our yearly net tax refund/bill? Why doesn't the government just calculate how much tax we need to pay for each paycheck based on basic information (salary/wage, pay frequency, state of residence, etc)? It seems that the only reason someone should need to file anything is if he/she had additional things to deduct, such as mortgage interest, student loan interest, or other special items. It doesn't make sense how someone who pays taxes with each paycheck could end up owing the government thousands of dollars more at the end of the year with basically no warning. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/218fbh/eli5_why_do_americans_need_to_file_tax_returns/ | {
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" > Why doesn't the government just calculate how much tax we need to pay for each paycheck based on basic information (salary/wage, pay frequency, state of residence, etc)?\n\nBecause that's not enough to determine your taxes.\n\nAre you currently a student? Are you paying back student loans? Are you paying off interest on a mortgage? Did you buy an electric car? Did you install solar panels on your house? Did you earn income from gambling? Did you earn interest on savings accounts? Did you donate to charity? Did you have a child?\n\nAll of those factors (and many more) will change your tax obligation, and the government needs you to explicitly list whether or not those things apply to you.\n\n > It doesn't make sense how someone who pays taxes with each paycheck could end up owing the government thousands of dollars more at the end of the year with basically no warning.\n\nThe only way that can happen is if you **really** screw up your deductions when you fill out the W-4 form that your employer gives you when you begin employment (or fail to update it when you have a change in life circumstances).",
"Filing is how you tell the government what you made and whatever other information they need to correctly assess your taxes. They get a copy of your W-2 and other tax sheets, but that doesn't tell the whole story most of the time. If it does, then all you need is the one-page 1040EZ to just confirm it.\n\nYou also need to remember that the taxes you pay throughout the year are deducted by your employer, not the government directly. Your employer deducts it based on what they think you'll owe for the year. If they're deducting too much or too little, that's an issue with your employer, not the government.",
" > It doesn't make sense how someone who pays taxes with each paycheck could end up owing the government thousands of dollars more at the end of the year with basically no warning.\n\nCertain situations pretty much guarantee this will happen. Waiters in the US are paid $2.13 an hour on their paychecks. As long as their tips add up to minimum wage for the pay period, the restaurant doesn't actually have to pay them minimum wage. Because there's so little money on the paychecks, ALL of it must be withheld for taxes, meaning every paycheck a server gets is for $0.00. Even so, $2.13 an hour doesn't add up to shit when tax season actually comes around, so you end up owing a lot of money because not enough was withheld throughout the year. This hits especially hard for myself because I'm not paying for my own schooling (my parents are), I don't have any loans, and I'm still claimed as a dependent by my parents (I let them because they pay for my schooling). This all adds up to a perfect storm of bullshit and I ended up owing $1400 this year.",
"Another aspect is IRS code is used to incentivize certain activities. Encourage people to buy houses? Give 'em a credit. Want to encourage more energy efficient homes? Give 'em a credit for insulation, windows, and doors that reduce heating/cooling costs. Education credits, retirement credits, and so on. Preferred tax treatment on investments held for more than a year to encourage investing.\n\nUS tax code also assumes $X for \"Standard Deduction\" and \"Exemptions\" (per-person in household), money the government won't charge income tax on. Got two jobs? Good way to mess that up. Both may assume, based on your W-4, they are the only source of income for you and will figure in the standard deduction (and exemptions you claim) as not taxable, possibly doubling the amount of income that tax was not withheld on (this can cause taxes to be due).\n\nDoes your country do a flat-rate tax from the first < unit of currency > earned?\n\nAmerican income tax increases base on earnings. 0% for the first $X. 10% on the next $Y. 15% on the next $Z, added to the tax from $Y. (I may be a bit murky here, sorry.)\n\nTo further complicate things, the Standard Deduction can be supplanted by Itemizing certain qualified expenses (Medical Expenses (Reduced by a formula), Mortgage Interest, Real Estate Taxes, Sales Tax, and so forth). If the amount of these expenses are more than your Standard Deduction, you are better off taking these.\n\nSocial Security and Medicare? Flat percentage from dollar 1 (Social Security stops at an earnings point somewhere around $117,000 for 2014), half withheld from your check, half paid by your employer.\n\nSelf-employed? You get to pay both portions if you made more than $400. In this way you can end up not making enough for Income Taxes, but still have to pay in to the IRS (passed on to the Social Security Administration).\n"
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8qvvi7 | why is a burger not considered a sandwich, but a pulled pork "sandwich" is? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8qvvi7/eli5_why_is_a_burger_not_considered_a_sandwich/ | {
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"a burger is a sandwich, it is meat between two pieces of bread. Hotdogs are typically one piece of bread with the meat on top.\n\nBut ya a burger is a sandwich, which is meat between two pieces of bread.",
"Burgers are sandwiches.\n\nA sandwich is defined as \"an item of food consisting of two pieces of bread with meat, cheese, or other filling between them, eaten as a light meal.\"",
"A burger is a particular type of sandwich. The status of hotdogs is irrelevant.\n\nIf you are making an assertion (Burgers are not Sandwiches) but cannot support your assertion such that you need internet strangers to make your argument for you, you should concede the point.",
"Both pulled pork sandwiches and burgers use similiar buns, so the bread wouldn't be the deciding factor. The main difference would be the state the meat is in, i.e. shredded vs patty. I don't think this difference is enough to qualify a burger as NOT a sandwich while shredded pork is, so I would actually say that both are a type of sandwich.",
"Burgers are in fact sandwiches, hot dogs are not, ice cream sandwiches aren't actually sandwiches. Crazy world huh ",
"First of all, by definition, a burger is a sandwich. \n\nThe reason why some people might not consider burgers as sandwiches is just a quirk in semantics and the way people associate words within semantic fields (some words fit much more firmly into certain semantic fields, while some are more periferal). If I tell you to list a bunch of fruits, you'll likely say apple, banana, orange, strawberry, etc. But you likely won't mention avocado or tomato, while botanically they are fruits, they are consumed more like vegetables (ie in savory dishes). \n\n On a typical restaurant menu, there's often a section called \"Burgers and Sandwiches\" or if it's a speciality burger shop, \"sandwiches\" may be on a different part of the menu all together. \n\nSo we definitely differentiate the two in daily life, and there is a meaningful distinction (namely, a ground beef patty on a bun). If someone were to ask you \"hey, are you eating a sandwich?\" and you respond \"no I'm eating a burger\".\nNobody is going to second guess your response or get confused. However, if your response was \"no, I'm eating a Reuben.\" that would be a much more contentious answer, since Reubens are clearly sandwiches, and while burgers are technically sandwiches, they have a their own distinct semantic field. For example, \"are you eating a hamburger?\" \"no I'm eating a bacon cheeseburger.\" again, contentious, a bacon cheeseburger is a type of hamburger. "
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3uwrom | when a pregnant woman is rh negative, they receive the rhogam shot, where the doctor automatically assumes the man is a positive blood type- i have a few questions about this. | I have tried googling this, but only am able to get information regarding how the shot helps the fetus if the mother is negative.
1. Is it that unlikely that their partner is a negative as well because of how rare it is?
2. Or- are men prone to having a positive blood type? (I am female, rh negative, and I have actually met a few people with negative blood types but so far, all were women. My child is a positive blood type.)
3. What would happen if both parents actually were RH negative, would receiving the shot affect the developing fetus in anyway?
4. Why do doctors not look into the male's blood type??? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3uwrom/eli5_when_a_pregnant_woman_is_rh_negative_they/ | {
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"To my knowledge it does nothing to the fetus. If you are fairly certain as to who the father is, the doctor should take that into account. The purpose of the shot is to keep the mother from developing antibodies to the rh+ blood factor(it protects future babies, not really much for the one you are carrying when you get the shot). I do not think there is a gender disparity of rh factors.",
"It's easier to just give the shot, which poses no threat to the fetus, than start brining up questions about paternity. Yes people lie so might as well be safe than sorry. (I work in a blood bank)"
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1nz3tm | if you're not supposed to ever button up the lowest button of a suit, why do they exist? | Fashion dictates that men never button the second button of a 2-button-suit or the third button of a 3-button-suit. Then why are they there? If it's just for "style", why not have the button, but no hole? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nz3tm/eli5_if_youre_not_supposed_to_ever_button_up_the/ | {
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"It's a silly reason, really.\n\nOriginally, jackets were *supposed* to be done up all the way. But at some point, people decided it looked better if they 'flared out' around your waist (since this was typically the widest part of the body... at least if you're a wealthy over-indulgent Earl). Having the fabric pulled in around you could look silly, and so they stopped buttoning it up.\n\nSince then, manufacturers have started tailoring jackets to intentionally take this into account, *but they never removed the button*. [EDIT] As some other commenters have remarked, it is like a vestigial remnant of times gone by.",
"\"Historically, in the early years of the suit as everyday menswear, it appears there were no formal buttoning rules. Look to trade magazines and illustrations from the earlier part of the 20th century, and one sees jackets with between one and five buttons, each buttoned in a manner that suited the personality of the wearer or the cut of the garment.\n\nBut much of this changed with a king who was too fat to button his jacket. Or at least, that’s what legend says.\n\nAccording to the lore of menswear, in the early 1900s King Edward VII started the trend of leaving the bottom button of a suit undone.\n\nApparently, he grew so rotund that he was unable to fasten the bottom button of his waistcoat and jacket. To not offend the king, those associated with him started doing the same. The custom then gradually spread the world round (as England was still largely an imperial power with great influence across the globe).\" -Art of Manliness article on the subject _URL_0_",
"The buttons form a decorative line that would otherwise get interrupted. Another reason might be that buttons are consided a status symbol on suits. E.g. the buttons that you have on your wrist are an indicator how expensive the suit is. If it's a modest one they are sewed in and you can't open them. If it's an expensive suit you can often unbutton them.\n",
"You are supposed to button up all buttons on funerals, or other tragic events. Seriously.\nSource: 5 year experience in selling high quality suits and top notch European clothings.",
"Okay, not the actual reason, but a VERY USEFUL one: \nIt's one of the many, many little traps designed to betray people that don't know proper etiquette. To many, putting on a suit is all that is necessary to look \"professional\", but to habitual suit wearers they are easy to recognise by at least one of the following deadly blunders: \n \n1. Buttoning the third button \n2. Badly cut suit (often legs too long, they must JUST rest on the top of the shoe, anything else is too long, or shoulders too bulky, or arms too long- must JUST rest on the wrist, not a millimetre more). For the record neckbeards, your \"made-to-measure\" Pakistani suit makes you look like a well-to-do Pakistani, possibly a programmer. That is not meant as an insult to Pakistanis, but yes, I can tell about a MILE away that your suit fabric is too coarse, too heavy, the shoulders too square. Sorry Pakistani tailors, please step up your game and get some Italian cuts. \n3. Putting anything into shirt and suit pockets. There is NO, repeat NO pocket on your suit that is actually intended to be used, with the possible exception of a business card in your inner coat pocket. Not a stack of cards though. For anything else, carry a brief case or a coat. \n4. Outlandish/ garish shoes. Bit of a trickier one, you don't HAVE to wear Oxfords/ Brogues (though it does help), but if any sort of rubber was used in the sole, please don't wear them with a suit. \n5. ANY sort of jewelry apart from a wedding band, and a seal ring (if you have a name). Anything else will make you look like a pimp, not like a businessman. \n6. Ties with any sort of motif, or writing, or (even worse) black ties outside of a funeral. No, you don't look like MIB or Pulp Fiction, you look like you came from a funeral, and people will ask, and you'll be thought of as an idiot. Black suit is actually a tricky one, the purist would say no outside of funerals, too (and go for dark anthrazite instead), but US bankers somehow made that one acceptable. Not in a Gentleman's club in London, though. \n7. Outlandish shirt collars. Your shirt should be white unless you know what you are doing, and feature a standard collar and cuffs. DON'T go with the extreme flared-down Italian, or the button down, or the rounded corners one, you don't know what you're doing. A little bit of flare back is acceptable (it's called \"half-shark\" in German, no idea about English). \n8. Your tie knot. Yes, it does matter quite a lot. We're no longer in the 90s, so none of that garish ballooning shit. Neither is hipster style appropriate for an office, so none of that supertight 60s style either. Learn to tie a tight yet comfortable Windsor and stick to it. \n9. YOUR DEMEANOUR. Probably the biggest one. You are wearing a SUIT not a track suit, so don't: a) slouch, EVER b) sit cross-legged c) jump, run, fool around d) leave buttons closed as you sit. Pretend it's a formal dinner, and you're 10. NO FIDGETING! \n \n...if you fail any of the above, my colleagues and me would immediately spot you as a wannabe faker, and we WOULD think less of you in a business sense (e.g. not hire you as a consultant), reasoning that you are either very, very inexperienced, or you are very unperceptive, both of which are not qualities to recommend your service. If I meet you like this at a social function, I will just not take anything you say seriously, you could be Steven Hawking and I'd still think \"yeah you got a Nobel prize but your suit still makes you look an idiot\". \nTL;DR: Not original purpose, but together with other suit etiquette it's a sure-fire Idiot Flag. \nEDIT: I did not know Pakistani suits with 70s flared collars and crepe soles are that popular on Reddit. Ah well, shoulda figured suit elitism would evoke your ire... :-)",
"The second button exists so you can leave it unbuttoned. ",
"My parents always liked to tell me farfetched stories as a child when I asked questions like why dad never buttoned his bottom button. They told me that apparently when the first CEO to wear a suit came to a meeting, he was so fat that the bottom button popped off when he sat down. All other members in the meeting unbuttoned their bottom button in solidarity. It just caught on from there. Fashion is weird.",
" > Fashion dictates\n\nYou knew it all along!",
"They exist because although no longer functional, they may still go in or out of fashion. Like some musicians.",
"This doesn't explain the jacket at goodwill that had a top button with no matching hole. ",
"Have you ever tried getting on a horse with the last button fastened? Fucking impossible",
"It's an homage to the male nipple, which is equally useless.",
"This post made me google \"suits\" into google images, and NOT ONE picture had the second button buttoned up!",
"I never knew this. I'm 28. ",
"I thought it was a styling choice. Like groomsmen have the choice but just needs to stay consistent. ",
"It's a skeuomorph!",
"Button factories conspiracy",
"It's so you can tell which people are the rubes that don't know how to wear a suit, and which people came from money.\n\nAlso, that pocket you thought was fake is actually a real pocket sewn shut to keep it tidy until the suit gets to its owner. You can pull out the thread and have a pocket. ",
"Is this sufficiently complex to warrant an ELI5? Just saying, you can probably ELI35 and the answer would be the same.",
"Because if the button wasn't there we would have to keep the middle button undone and that would look silly.",
"Button the buttons. Screw the system.",
"It's a product of a bygone era, as explained well by u/The_Helper and is now kept to give an aesthetic indication of confidence. Silly as it may sound seeing someone 'refuse' to button up their shirt fully makes them appear distinguishably more attractive due to the confidence it portrays coupled with it typically making their body look slightly better. If you removed any button from a shirt there would be a noticeable difference in how people felt towards it, though it would be more of a niggling feeling than something you really think about, which indicates a relation to emotional impulses like when you're just feeling hungry or happy about something inexplicably. Basically we just feel shirts look better not fully buttoned, but without the bottom button we'd feel differently about what a shirt portrays.",
"Do you wear polo shirts? Do you ever button up the top button? If you do, then don't.\n\nIt just looks good to have the button there and not use it. It's like being really buff and being able to beat up anyone but always being cool and getting along with everyone. (It's exactly like that, actually.)\n\nBottom line, it would look weird if the button wasn't there. It looks weird to button both buttons. So there's a happy medium.",
"FYI--for a two-button suit, always button the top, never button the bottom.\n\nFor a three-button suit, the order is (from top to bottom): \n\nO sometimes\n\nO always\n\nO never",
"You are making the mistake of assuming that fashion has to make sense.",
"My father always told me to button the bottom when standing, and unbutton the bottom when sitting....\n\nI'm wrong?",
"Arbitrary does not equal trivial.\n\nA few posts reveal the history of this trend in men's suit jackets, but they don't answer why we still do it today.\n\nThis \"rule\" is a quick and easy way to gauge someone's ability to pay attention to details. It's subtle, sure. But someone who doesn't button the bottom button on a jacket does this for one of two reasons. Either someone told them this rule and they just kept following along without questioning, or they understand that arbitrary rules are not trivial rules.\n\nSo in practice, you are not immediately impressive because you **DON'T** button the bottom bottom... you immediately a poor first impression because you **DO** button the bottom button.\n\nNot to call out /u/MoDannyWilliams, but his [comment] (_URL_0_) shows that he either doesn't understand the subtlety, or simply no one has told him. Regardless of the reason, since he doesn't abide by this rule you could make the case that he may not have much experience in the business world.",
"I enjoyed this thread, thank you for the ELI5.\n\nBut there is one thing I just couldn't quite wrap my head around: to whom does this stuff matter anymore? I mean, socially. It's a neat bit of trivia to have about the anachronisms of men's fashion, and I'm all for that. Anything to win an argument. \n\nBut who, especially on reddit, is in such a social circle that whether or not you button a button will get you gossiped right out of the club? Also, do those social circles still exist, in such a manner that we should be taking cues from them instead of mocking their outmoded ways of sexism and dress?\n\nTo wit, I do not \"get\" fashion. It's *stretch* of utilitarianism has always baffled me. I mean, I don't dress like the Sixth Doctor or wear a skirt, but these things being talked about here are as foreign to me as the need for a hajib.",
"Because if you did't have a last button the second to last one would be the last button and so on",
"Fuck me. Too many rules for suits. I honestly had no idea it got this detailed. I love wearing a uniform every day. There are only a few things that are optional on them. Most evrerything is standard and written to a T. No interpretations.\n\nMilitary uniforms that is.",
"So the legend says... A long time ago in England, one of the Kings (one of the Edwards I think) grew too large to button his coat up all the way, and thereby started the tradition of never buttoning the bottom button. This style rule applies to jackets, vests, sweaters, etc. \n\nSo short answer: It's tradition. ",
"I never knew you weren't supposed to button the bottom button.",
"This is a style trend that comes and goes. The only practical purpose is to allow the coat to expand a bit when you sit down, but you're supposed to unbutton the top button before you sit, so it serves no practical purpose. It's fashion; it rarely makes sense. ",
"it's called a decoration. not everything has to have a functional purpose. ",
"Am I the only one that thought it was meant to serve as a spare when you lose one so you don't have to use a different looking button and look like an idiot? THAT'S WHAT I HAVE BEEN USING THEM FOR YEARS ANYWAY.",
"As I recall, some British king was a little too fat so he had to undo the lower button. His court followed suit (no pun intended) and being sympathetic the began to unbutton their suits as well",
"Many men will shun your for buttoning ALL of your buttons.....all the while, they don't bother having their suit tailored in a fashionable manner. ",
"Suits exist to make people look nice. Buttons exist to fasten suits. ",
"There will always be a lowest button unless you don't have any buttons.",
"But if we eliminate the last button, then the second to last button would become the last button",
"The same thing is true for vests of a three-piece suit. The bottom button is never supposed to be buttoned and there are several theories as to why that is the case.\n\n1. Edward VIII: Edward had a ballooning waistline that his tailor's could not keep up with. It is said that he often could not button the bottom button of his waistcoat. So out of respect for Edward, the people began leaving the bottom button unbuttoned and the trend stuck.\n\n2. Two Vests: A second theory goes back to a time when dandies used to wear two waistcoats at the same time. In order to show off both of them, the bottom button of the top vest was supposedly left open.\n\n3. Horseback Variation: The more practical third theory is that the bottom button of the vest usually had to be undone in order to get up to and ride a horse. Others claim the bottom button was left unbuttoned to keep the vest from sliding up the chest. \n\n4. Gunslingers: The fourth, and least plausible theory in my mind is that the bottom button was left undone so one could reach their gun quickly and more effectively. However, even if gunslingers popularized leaving the bottom button unfastened, others had worn their waistcoats in the same manner many years before. \n\n1 and 3 seem the most likely reasons in my mind.\n",
"Edward VII started the whole hoopla and it does seem rather ridiculous but at the same time, if I ever see a guy wearing a suit and he buttons ALL of the buttons, he looks like a 5 year old wearing dad's suit to me. It may not make sense, but it is the way it is.",
"In prep school we used to button the bottom two buttons of a 3-button suit and leave the top one unbuttoned. It was supposed to signal a rebellious attitude.",
"Same reason men have nipples and women have assholes. Just for the look. ",
"It's so that you can tell the nerdy people from the normals.",
"Is it weird that I got the answer to this question years ago by reading the comic book Y: The Last Man.",
"All my buttons broke off, so I have no buttons.\n\nSo How do I have one unbuttoned when there is none to unbutton or not button? \n\n\nbutton button\n\n",
"Same reason men have nipples I suppose.\n",
"a lowest button must exist if there are multiple buttons ",
"First there is no 'one way' to use the buttons. Sometimes I unbutton the top, sometimes the last.\n'Why not just have a button'? Because it would look unnatural. This can be further explained by noticing that most suit jackets have pockets sewn shut. Why? To stop men from putting things in them which would weigh down the jacket making it look stretched and odd. Why not leave the pockets off, because it would be odd. Why not make them fake pockets? Because there is no one way to use them, and some people do.\nI have sold suits for 3 retailers in 10 years.\n",
"There is at least one legitimate reason to keep the button: people who have been told that they \"should leave the bottom button undone\" and consistently do so would now be leaving the next button undone, but they shouldn't actually do that. I think a great compromise is to replace the bottom button with a completely non-functional pseudobutton.",
"I think, to unbutton the lowest is just that the suit is not looking too tight. When sit down, ALL buttons will be opened. When stand up, the upper buttons will be closed again.\nThen, the pockets can be unfunctional, means fake pockets, depends on making.\nFurthermore, a good tailor will cut the jacket in a way, that e.g. the wallet is not too visible.\nOverall, it is a question of culture and style like in the past it was common to remove any hat in closed rooms. Today, youngsters keep their infantile base cap on the head even in restaurants and do not realize how fucked up it looks. ",
"Because without it the second bottom button would be the one we don't button. It's so obvious."
]
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4mnurn | why do all relationship/dating mediums have way more men than women? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4mnurn/eli5_why_do_all_relationshipdating_mediums_have/ | {
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"You are not considering the possibility that there is an equal number of single men and women but that they seek for dates in different avenues.\n\nWomen, in general, don't seek out dates via dating websites as much as men. That doesn't mean they aren't seeking out dates via friends or in a club, for example. The reason why women don't use dating websites as much usually comes down to certain social attitudes (internet dating is still seen by some as more desperate / less romantic and they don't want this reputation - these attitudes are changing though so you do see more and more women willing to join these websites), harassment (many women on dating websites get harassed which means that if they join, they often do not stay a member for very long), safety (women worry more about how safe their dating partners are and internet dating comes with its fair few horror stories. If you meet a guy via your friends, they can vet him for you, internet dating doesn't really offer this)",
"Most cultures have, or have recently had, a notion that in relationships, men are the pursuers and women are the pursued. A man chasing after women is seen as normal, a woman chasing after men is seen as desperate or promiscuous.\n\nMost of this is due to lingering sexism, but there are practical considerations as well. Women face greater risks while dating, sexual assualt, STDs and pregnancy to name a few. This causes them to be more selective in the venues they choose to use.",
"Men and women function somewhat differently, especially when it comes to sex. These differences were made more prominent with the introduction of \"spheres\" (different \"worlds\" for different genders). Early human society was far more egalitarian.\n\nNow, in nearly every community around the world, women who are openly sexual are looked down upon - ironically by men who crave it.\n\nMaybe you are a woman, but if you were, I'd think the answer is obvious. Ask a female friend of yours about their experience in clubs or on dating apps. Every one of my female friends gets multiple requests for sex in some way. One girl showed me her OKCupid account and it's just guys asking, \"Do you give good head?\" No first message. No build up. That's what's out there. And then, if they aren't like that, they turn out to be days later.",
"Because when girls join these sites they get inundated with hundreds of messages from guys and unsolicited dick pics. A lot of them delete their profiles within the first week, if not after the first day."
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6xrd2r | what does kim jong-un gain by provoking the us and japan? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6xrd2r/eli5_what_does_kim_jongun_gain_by_provoking_the/ | {
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"A seat at the grown ups table instead of being stuck over with the little kids like Venezuela, Nigeria and Greece. And he's infinitely harder to kill off with nukes than without. Just ask Saddam and Qadaffi.",
"They're the scrawny little brother of the big, strong boy down the street who can be a butthole to other kids and won't face consequences because he's protected. \n\nHe does this to protect his ego from insecurities. \n\nChange that last sentence \"to make KJU look strong to his subjects \" who do not get to know that they're only kept safe because of China. "
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3pz6jx | why does a phone's camera focus on close objects for a second then unfocus? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3pz6jx/eli5_why_does_a_phones_camera_focus_on_close/ | {
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"It is because the camera did not recognize the close object as the object that you are planning to shoot, this can be corrected by lightly pressing the focus button."
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70mdco | if the internet is basically a network of wires and computers, how does data navigate itself from one specific computer to where it needs to be? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/70mdco/eli5_if_the_internet_is_basically_a_network_of/ | {
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"Same way as packages do in mail. Items are just atoms but when you look at certain package, you can read the address and send it forward. Data is encapsulated into a package. A network device looks at certain bits on the packet and interprets it as an address and sends it into right direction. Routers have a certain type of table which they use to check the address.",
"In short, addresses. \n\nYour computer has an address. The router it talks to has addresses for your computer and your ISP to use and all the systems the info passes through have addresses too. \n\n The data from your computer gets wrapped up in a Packet, with info about the data, and some addresses for where it is going. The router gets the packet, checks the address against a list of address ranges that it keeps and if the packet is going to a network it is on, it sends it to the right place. Rinse and repeat. If the address isn't one it knows what to do with, or is told to ignore, it drops it. \n\nIt gets more complicated the more you look at it, but it's basically just a metric ton of addresses and directories working really really fast. \n\n\n",
"Whenever you hear about a \"router\", that's what it's doing. It looks at the traffic, consults a routing table, and sends the data back out on a particular port. The router doesn't have to know the complete route to the destination, it just has to know the next step. You probably have one in your home internet connection, which basically decides whether your traffic is for the Internet or not. Your ISP has routers, their backbone providers have routers, and before long your request could be heading across the Pacific to Japan.",
"It's pretty much like the post Office\\USPS.\n\nYou post\\send a 'packet' out to an address (a bit like a post\\zip code). If it's local (on your network\\the postman's round) it gets delivered by the postman. If not, it sends it to the next distribution centre (router) that it is attached to.\n\n The routers have a list of, regularly updated addresses it knows about and where to send it to. So, once there, the same thing happens. This happens again and again until delivered - if it knows the address is local it delivers it, if not it sends it to the next link in the chain. ",
"_[rolls up sleeves]_\n\nAs others have said, it all comes to addresses, but there's a bit more to it than that, and it's sort of, kind of, magical when you understand it. This is long, but I'm writing it because I love talking about this stuff, and I hope it entertains somebody.\n\nFirst, you have to realise that a computer network is split into multiple layers. \n\nWhen engineers talk about these different layers, they normally do so in the terms of something called the \"[OSI model](_URL_2_)\", and as you can see, that has 7 layers. On the Internet, we normally only talk about some of them, because we group some together.\n\nHowever, all networks (including the Internet) at the bottom layer are physical, you're right. \n\nYou are most likely to be using a wireless connection (WiFi), so there is some stuff going on there at a radio transmitter/receiver level in the gigahertz-range. If you're on your phone and not on WiFi, similar concept, you're just using 4G or 3G, or whatever. Wired stuff is normally in your local network going to be Ethernet, but the link to your ISP is probably going to involve copper cable, fibre, and a few other things (including, perhaps, microwave links - fancy!).\n\nOver the \"top\" of that physical layer is another layer called the data link layer. You will know some terms from this - if you've ever heard of a \"MAC address\", there you go, that's data link. Simplifying greatly, this is a way for all the devices on the same shared physical network to identify themselves and for communications to be clearly routed. A network router can say \"I have a message for this MAC address\", and whilst all the devices on that network might hear it (unless it's a \"switched\" network), only the one with the right MAC address will actually process it.\n\nAnd yes, that does explain how network interception can work, and why WiFi is considered insecure for a bunch of reasons.\n\nNow, above that, the Internet uses, as you may have heard, \"IP\", or the internet protocol. The thing you will be most familiar with is the \"IP address\", which normally looks like 4 numbers between 0 and 255 separated by periods: 192.168.0.1 or 127.0.0.1 for example.\n\nAt this layer the stack looks something like this:\n\n +-----------------------+\n | HTTP, DNS, etc. |\n +-----------------------+\n | TCP or UDP |\n +-----------------------+\n | IP |\n +-----------------------+\n\nSo for your HTTP (i.e. web) traffic get across the web, that protocol sits on top of TCP, which sits on top of IP. When you type in \"_URL_0_\" into a browser, that gets turned into an IP address first using DNS, which uses UDP (normally), which goes over IP. When you collect email via IMAP, that goes over TCP, which goes over IP. Same for SMTP: goes over TCP over IP. With me?\n\nSo this IP thing is sort of a big deal. Your local network has special IP addresses (they start 192.168... or 10.... probably). That gets into public IP addresses using something called NAT which is worth a post all by itself and is the bane of many an Xbox, Playstation or Nintendo Switch fan.\n\nHowever, the public internet, that's where magic happens. This is the point where all internet technologies - web, mail, Skype, your games console - ultimately have to come down to, and how your small little local network gets to play on the big open World stage.\n\nIP addresses are scarce. We sort of ran out of them some time ago (which is why more ISPs are moving to IPv6, something we won't cover here, but I can cover in a follow-up post if you want), but broadly this is how they get allocated.\n\nThey're carved up into ranges or blocks and assigned to organisations that represent some part of the World, called [Regional Internet Registries](_URL_1_). There are five of them in the World, and they are responsible for issuing IP address blocks to organisations in their territory who ask for an allocation.\n\nWe have to get a little technical here: an IP address that looks like 4 numbers - a.b.c.d - is actually one number that is 32 bits (ones and zeroes) long. Each of the four numbers represents one byte (8 bits) of that number. If you're struggling with understanding that [this article might help](_URL_3_). \n\nThe reason I mention this is because allocations are described as the number of bits you can put into your \"net mask\". If I assign you 192.160.1.0/24 what I'm saying is \"24 bits of this number are fixed, you can vary the remaining 8 bits\", and that variation gives you 256 theoretical addresses (in practice, 255, and because one of them will need to be a gateway address, actually 254, but that's another discussion again).\n\nSo when somebody says \"[ISP] has got a slash 8 allocation\", that means they have something like \"4.0.0.0/8\" and that is 16.7m IP addresses. A huge amount. In fact, 4/8 is a bit of an infamous block, but again, time, I'm digressing...\n\nIf you're running a largish organisation, you can go to your ISP and say \"I need some public IP addresses\". They'll require you to justify the needs. If successful though, they'll give you a /30 (4 IP addresses) or a /29 (8 IP addresses).\n\nNow, how does my IP traffic find your IP addresses over the internet? We can finally talk about the clever bit: BGP.\n\nYour ISP has links to other ISPs. Physical links, with fibre optic cables, and network switches and all that jazz. Those connections will be regulated a little with a protocol called BGP which is basically what makes the internet work.\n\nLet's suppose you've been allocated 4.0.0.0/30. Your ISP will make sure everything in that range of IP addresses gets to you. They will then \"advertise\" via BGP that they have a route for that IP address range to their neighbours. Those ISPs they \"peer with\" will have other connections to other ISPs, and they will say \"Hey, I can get you to 4.0.0.0/30, with one hop\". Those ISPs _they_ peer with then re-advertise the range with 2 hops, and _their_ peers re-advertise with 3 hops, and so on, and so on.\n\nIt might look something like this (with the numbers being hop counts incrementing as we get further apart via that route):\n\n 1 2 3\n A ---- B --- C --- E\n | 2 \\ / 4\n | D ---- Me\n You 3\n\nIn this example, I peer with 2 ISPs so when I want to get to you I have two possible routes via D or via E. My router hears from E \"I can get there in 4 hops\" and from D \"I can get there in 3 hops\", so my router goes via D. But if D goes down, I still have the other route, so this is a very fault tolerant setup.\n\nAnd this scales up, and up and up across the whole Internet. Every ISP that does BGP peering (called an AS or Autonomous System), has a routing table for every IP address on the planet and knows how many hops away it is via the peers they interact with, and sends traffic accordingly. This means any IP address can reach any other IP address, and the whole thing can route around outages.\n\nIf you wanted a second ISP like me, you would go to your RIR and ask for an AS number, get a BGP router, and ask your ISPs to advertise your range like that. In practical terms it's a lot more complicated, but this is ELI5, and I've just tried to explain BGP4 AS peering...\n\nAnd that, in short (I know this is long, but I've missed a lot of detail), is how a bunch of wires and computers works across the planet, and why you can read my words that I sent from a machine in London to Reddit's servers in milliseconds, and how they can send them to you, wherever you are, and on whatever type of network you are using locally.\n\nI hope that makes you feel a small sense of wonder like I did when I first learned it.\n\n**TL;DR: the sort of marriage between mathematical graph theory and engineering that is indistinguishable from magic.**"
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2j59lp | if obama is the head of the executive branch, and the fcc is a part of the executive branch, why can't obama just tell the fcc to get rid of internet fast lanes? doesn't he have power over the fcc? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2j59lp/eli5_if_obama_is_the_head_of_the_executive_branch/ | {
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"We have a system of checks and balances... the president is not the king who has unilateral authority. The job of the executive branch is to enforce the laws, the legislative branch of the government makes the laws, and the judicial branch of government makes sure these laws are constitutional. \n\nThis is an ideal way the system should work... but there are always some hiccups that happen.\n\n*Edit for the TL;DR version: If the president tried it, the FCC is well within it's rights to tell the president to go fuck himself \n"
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6my0ma | why are turtles not considered amphibious? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6my0ma/eli5_why_are_turtles_not_considered_amphibious/ | {
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"Depends on what you mean by \"amphibious\". The more general definition: \"suited for water and land\" certainly applies. But scientists use words differently, and in this case \"amphibious\" has a very specific meaning for biologists. Amphibians are a class of animals that, among other things, are generally (but not always) born with gills and generally (but not always) metamorphose into adults with lungs, along with some other important characteristics, for instance they are vertebrates, they do not have scales, they lay eggs, they have semipermeable skin, they are cold-blooded, etc.\n\nTurtles have some of those characteristics, but obviously not all of them. Even discounting the amphibians that do not metamorphose, turtles have scales, putting them pretty firmly into the category of \"reptiles\". For that reason, turtles are not *amphibians*, and to avoid confusion it's best if you do not call them *amphibious*, which could mean different things in different contexts.",
"I literally teach 5 years old at a nature camp as my job, so here it's goes...These are the points I drilled...amphibians lay eggs in water, undergo metamorphosis, coldblooded, and need to keep their skin moist. Reptiles lay eggs on land, have scales, coldblooded and live on land. Bonus: a turtle scale is called a skoot. (I think it's cute sounding)"
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2odloz | is it possible to not have citizenship of any country? | For example i get expatriated from the US and i don't get a citizenship to for a example Sweden. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2odloz/eli5_is_it_possible_to_not_have_citizenship_of/ | {
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"Short answer: yes, it's possible. The repercussions are that any nation can declare you persona-non-grata which means you can be arrested simply for being present in their territory.\n\nAdditionally, you would be legally considered an alien anywhere you were, and have to deal with the local issues.",
"Yes, it is called [Statelessness](_URL_0_), and quite a few people are still in that terrible condition nowadays, notably in Palestine, Greece and Kuwait.",
"Yes, it's possible. For example consider Palestinians. They are not citizens of any recognized country.",
"What's that movie with tom hanks in the airport? That's what this made me think of.",
"Movie:\n\n_URL_1_\n\nBased on:\n\n_URL_0_",
"Here's a guy who is voluntarily stateless: _URL_0_",
"Look up the sea Gypsies. They just live at sea and are completely stateless. ",
"Yes, the term for it is stateless person.\n\nNot everyone can become stateless. Some countries grant unconditional citizenship, some will not let you give up citizenship without having another one. There are international conventions to prevent people from becoming stateless accidentally basically. \n\nBut a few ways you can become stateless: Your state ceases to exist (you may then acquire statehood in a successor state, but maybe not). Your state revokes your citizenship and you don't have another. Your state and place of birth have conflicting rules. Most countries don't allow anyone born there to automatically get citizenship, but you would inherit citizenship from your parents, except you might not, if for example the country of your parents citizenship requires you reside there within X years or X generations and you, well, don't. You can also renounce citizenship, which can leave you stateless if your government doesn't care that you're leaving.\n\n\n\n",
" > is it possible to not have citizenship of any country?\n\nThis is actually a tricky question.\n\nThere are only 2 countries that grant citizenship at birth:\n\n > Of advanced economies, Canada and the United States are the only countries that grant automatic citizenship to children born to illegal aliens. No European country grants automatic citizenship to children of illegal aliens.\n\nNow that said, that's people that are born on 'soil.'\n\nNow Citizenship & Nationality are different things. Not having either can result in what is called Statelessness, which others have linked:\n\n_URL_1_\n\nCitizenship & Nationality are generally used interchangeably however they don't usually mean the same thing. For instance, A US National, and a US Citizen would both be issued a US Passport, and can travel freely inside the US, however.... they aren't accorded the same Rights & Privileges. People born in some of the US Territories are only considered Nationals, while anyone born in the States, DC, and some of the other Territories are considered Citizens.\n\nOther countries have similar rules.\n\nI believe the Commonwealth countries had Citizens & Subjects up until the mid 1900~s.\n\nSo long story short, you can end up being a Citizen, a National, or a Stateless person. Citizens & Nationals have a home country, whereas a Stateless person does not.\n\nHere's a link to the IRS website which shows how we define it.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Hello! I live in Singapore and have an aunt who was born during the Japanese Occupation here. There were a lot of complications with her registration as she was adopted, her birth parents were nowhere to be found, and her adopted mother (my grandmother) kind of forgot to register her once proper administrative procedures were in place. She's 70+ now and has no citizenship of any country as Singapore has rejected her application multiple times (probably because she's not educated nor wealthy). Her ID card looks similar to that of a Permanent Resident's, but it says Stateless. (She recently saw a doctor for some bone problems and he was absolutely stunned by her ID card, most people don't know these things can exist.)\n\nThankfully, as she has an adult daughter who's a citizen, she lives with her and is well taken care of :) I dread to think what might have happened to her if she didn't have a child to support her, as she's denied all medical/housing/retirement/whatever benefits that citizens or PRs have, and wouldn't have had the income to support herself in old age."
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4asi9m | why there is such a big public outcry against stopping illegal immigration if it is illegal in the first place? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4asi9m/eli5_why_there_is_such_a_big_public_outcry/ | {
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"America spent a bunch of it's early years being extremely open with immigration. Making it super easy. Virtually no one in the US is native american, almost everyone is immigrants in the last few hundred years. \n\nThen around 50 years ago they started really changing around how immigration works and started making it harder and harder to be a citizen. And that is kinda okay, you can see that people can't just come and come forever. But it got really sketchy because what we basically did is set up society so we have 12 million people who live in the US who live here but aren't citizens. And we have this whole big weird system that works exactly like every single system where you end up with an underclass set of non-people. Where stuff like whole industries rely on being able to hire workers with no legal protections for a dollar a day or whatever. ",
"The current situation in the US is that there are a lot of illegal immigrants and not a lot of resources dedicated to finding and deporting them. Nobody really likes that situation, but the question is what to do to resolve it.\n\nOne side thinks the country should spend a lot more money on deporting people and keeping them out in the first place. The other side thinks the country should make it easier to immigrate so that those people can immigrate legally. So the debate isn't really about whether the US should or shouldn't deport people who are there illegally, but whether or not all these people should be allowed to legally immigrate.",
"Because it is illegal, but not enforced. You have sanctuary cities, which are cities that basically pledged not to turn anyone to ICE. Those cities still get federal funding for breaking the law. Couple of years ago, ex governor of Arizona passed a law which required for any foreigner to carry their ID with them, and forbade employing illegals. Obama threatened to sue her.\n\nSo, there is an outcry, because people feel lied to.",
"It's more about **preventing and enforcing** illegal immigration laws.\n\nIt's not about passing more laws to stop it since, as you mention, it's already illegal - it's about paying for more cops and border enforcement agents etc to police it.",
"There are a lot of negative effects of a massive deportation scheme. People think \"yay, higher wages and more jobs\" but what actually will happen for 75% of our population is \"Boo, prices for consumer goods have skyrocketed because the cost of labor is significantly pricier!\"\n\nA better solution would be easier path of citizenship for non-violent immigrants already in America. They'd probably demand more money then, but significantly less than their natural counterparts without the ridiculous rush to find replacement employees for areas in the middle of nowhere.",
"This all breaks down to money and therefore votes. On one side you have an idealogy of personal responsibility and therefore feel that they should not be forced to pay for someone else's living expenses. The other side believes that it's OK for the government to pay welfare to those who need it. Now if you bring a bunch of people, namely illegal immigrants here typically they can only get very basic, if any, jobs at all. So many people feel that if these people were made legal they would inherently vote for the people that give them more welfare and take care of them rather than assimilate to our culture and better themselves educationally and professionally. Thus you potentially have a gigantic voting bloc of new \"legal immigrants\" that would vote for leftist welfare policy. So because of that the other side highly opposes it because it would lead to an imbalance of power both voting wise and economically. \n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
3z85pm | why are mobile websites much faster and more responsive than the dedicated app they beg you to install? | Facebook, CNN, ESPN etc..
Shouldn't a dedicated app wrote for a certain phone actually be nice to use? In my experience they are almost always buggy, laggy pieces of crap. Why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3z85pm/eli5_why_are_mobile_websites_much_faster_and_more/ | {
"a_id": [
"cyjzd4c",
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],
"score": [
4,
2
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"text": [
"Follow-up question: does it have something to do with revenue? Are there more ads on the horrible apps? Good question, OP!",
"I always preface my explanations with this being ELI5 I'm going to try to keep my language as \"shapes and colors\" as possible because it is how I would want something explained to me.\n\nSo webpages generally serve you very lightweight content, when you request something from reddit a lot of the work is done on their end. So you say \"Hey Reddit\" I want a salad, they prepare it for you and all you have to do is take the plastic lid off and eat it.\n\nWhen you install an app, it places much of the salad making process in your hands, such as a salad bar, it also gives you more options to customize it (interacting, drag and dropping, touch capability, etc).\n\nAnother food analogy while I'm at it, web content = buffet, app = that grill part of the buffet where you can choose what you want and they cook it in front of you but it takes longer.\n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
7iaznq | how is it that people look so different from eachother despite the fact that our faces have the same components, with only millimetres in difference of the placement of said things? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7iaznq/eli5_how_is_it_that_people_look_so_different_from/ | {
"a_id": [
"dqxf5xa"
],
"score": [
2
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"text": [
"Objectively, many human faces are quite similar. But our brains are incredibly attuned to small differences in faces, because the ability to recognize different humans is crucial to humans' operating as a social species."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
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