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5gu7t7 | what's an easy way to describe gap insurance? | I've been told and read about it, no one gives examples, easy examples. Please help. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5gu7t7/eli5_whats_an_easy_way_to_describe_gap_insurance/ | {
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"GAP insurance covers the difference between the actual cash value of a vehicle (what your insurance will pay if it is totaled) and the balance still owed on the financing (car loan, lease, etc.). GAP coverage is mainly used on new and used small vehicles (cars and trucks) and heavy trucks. Some financing companies and lease contracts require it.\n\nSo... you buy a $30k car and insure it properly and also get GAP coverage.\n\n3 weeks later you get in an accident, totaling your car. Your insurance gives you $25k for the car (they don't cover the depreciation you ate driving it off the lot).\n\nGAP insurance covers the remaining $5k so you don't have to come up with it out of pocket."
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6s5osv | why does a small private plane such a cessna cost so much more than the materials and labor? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6s5osv/eli5_why_does_a_small_private_plane_such_a_cessna/ | {
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"Several reasons.\n\n- The material are actually more expansive. For a car you can use normal steel, you don't need high end material unless you make a high end car. But you can't use that for a plane of it will be way too heavy, you need a material that can strong and light. That usually mean aluminium, fibreglass or even carbon fibre.\n\n- Everything important in a plane need to have a very high reliability, easy maintenance and if possible be in double. Having problem with you car is annoying, having problems with your plane mean several death and a possible lawsuit for the manufacturer. \n\n- Economy of scale. A car manufacturer will sold a lot more car than a plane manufacturer could. Not all expanses are proportional to the amount you make. It's not because you make 100 times more car than plane that you need 100 times more lawyers, factories, employees, etc.",
"Lawsuits are a significant factor in the cost of general aviation aircraft. When there's a fatality, the manufacturer is almost always sued, regardless of circumstances. Even when the aircraft performed safely for 30 years. Manufacturing a single aircraft means the manufacturer faces potential liability forever. \n\n\"By some estimates, product liability costs add more than $100,000 to the bottom-line price of a typical new general aviation airplane.\""
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42xs7d | how do comedians verify if their jokes are original? | With all the backlash that Amy Shcumer is getting over plagiarizing jokes, wondering how comedians could possibly know if their material is original. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/42xs7d/eli5_how_do_comedians_verify_if_their_jokes_are/ | {
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"They don't.\n\nIf you come up with it on your own and it just happens to be similar, thats not stealing a joke. Some comedians may try and vet that to hopefully not get accused but most people understand that happens. \n\nYou have to actually put in effort to end up with a joke that people cant easily see how youd just happen to both come up with it."
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a7os23 | how are non-organ, donated body parts prepared to be transplanted such as skin? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a7os23/eli5_how_are_nonorgan_donated_body_parts_prepared/ | {
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"Skin *is* an organ. \n\nSkin harvested from body donations is used for transplants, and in that case it is called a *cadaver skin transplant* or *allograft* to differentiate it from a transplant of one's own skin.\n\nA device known as a *dermatome* is used to skin skin from the donor, the common one is basically a fancy wood planer but they also have electric ones.\n\nMost skin grafts use thin layers of skin, with only a small amount of dermis, which leaves stuff liker fair follicles and sweat glands behind.\n\nFull-thickness skin grafts take the whole skin, especially useful for reconstructing a face, and the recipient will need antirejection drugs just like any internal organ transplant."
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7f591g | how does the human ear discern between a quiet noise and a distant noise? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7f591g/eli5how_does_the_human_ear_discern_between_a/ | {
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"A distant noise sounds more echoey because it is accompanied by a lot of reflected sounds on its path to you, whereas a quite sound close to you is more direct.\n\nFor very close sounds, another cue is that the sound has different angles to you ear. Whereas an infinitely distant sound arrives at your ear at the same angle, closer sounds become more different, and your ear can pick up that difference. Additionally, the sound is louder to the closer ear, more than expected of distant sounds.",
"A quiet noise from a nearby source will have more high frequency content than the same noise made much louder from far away. This is because air absorbs high frequency sound energy over distance but not low frequency to the same extent (think about how a plane sounds low and rumbly from far away, but when you are close, it sounds like all of the frequencies).\n\nAdditionally, nearby sounds will create stronger reflections off of surfaces close to you, creating a more full sound compared to distant sounds which will most likely consist of just one apparent location, or the reflections will be recognized as an echo, another indication that the sound is a large distance away.\n\nIf you are not near any other objects, the first effect will be the predominant way your ear/brain make the distinction.",
"Just to add to what's already been said. I think we can agree that the outer ear (penna) is weird looking. These bumps and ridges are important though because they bounce sound around the ear. We are able to detect if a noise is above or below us this way.",
"Interaural arrival times (sound arriving in on ear slightly before the other), interaural spectral differences (the fact that your head casts an acoustic shadow and blocks high frequencies will help you determine which direction it's coming from and how far away it is, less of an acoustic shadow means the sound is closer) and interaural intensity differences (sound from farther away will be louder in the ear facing it, whereas this difference will be less pronounced in a sound that's close).",
"In the study of audio engineering the terminology that we use is interaural time difference and interaural level difference. It refers to the sound hitting the ears at different times and at different amplitudes.\n\nThe first order reflections of a sound source bouncing off of surfaces between the listener and the source will collect carry and transmit information to the listeners brain about the location of the source. \n\nIf you listen to a loved one who is in your childhood home over the phone you might be able to tell which room your family member is standing in simply by the pattern of first order reflections.",
"How much reverb is on the sound. If it is 'wet' (lots of reverb) it is far away and if it is 'dry' (less reverb) then we know its close. This is because a close sound has less time to interact with its surroundings and is therefore less muddy. Whereas a faraway sound can interact with the space around it and add reverb.",
"I'd like to add to the top answers that your ear doesn't; your brain does. Your ear is just a microphone that translates vibrations into a signal (nerve pulses in this case, electrical current in the case of an actual microphone) that your brain (or computer) can work with. Your brain (or computer) then processes it and judges what is the case and not.",
"Audio expert here. Didn't read any other comments, so this may have been answered already.\n\nIn terms of decibels (also referred to as volume, or the intensity of sound), a distant noise could measure the same as a quiet, nearby noise. The difference is that through evolution, we've learned to pick up on the fine nuances between the two.\n\nNearby sounds will tighter reflections (echos) off the walls and surfaces around us. Far away sounds, that were loud when produced but have gotten quieter as they reach us, are filled with reflections that are greater spaced. A sharp \"bang\" 1/2 mile away will trail with echos a lot longer than a nearby snap, though both may have the same decibel rating.\n\nAlso note that over distances, low frequencies travel further than high frequencies. That's why when you hear a helicopter close up, you can detect the high-pitched whine of the turbine very easily, but seeing a helicopter in the distance, you only hear the low pounding of the blades. Knowing this, our brains automatically can decipher how far away something is, especially when we know what it sounds like nearby.",
"It’s not so much the ear that has this ability but the brain. The ear serves to transmit the auditory information into a language the brain understands (sound propagation through air into electrical and chemical transmission in the brain). The Brain is then able to interpret the information the ear has picked up. In this scenario, key information would be the change to sound waves that a far noise would undergo vs a noise that was nearby (distant noises undergo more reverberation) and the differences between what the left and right ear pick up. (Is greater for sounds further away). The brain has evolved to be very good at extracting this information, as I imagine it’s a large survival advantage to locate the whereabouts of prey and predator.",
"I don’t know it has been said like that but we use three different things to tell an audio source\n\n- Inter-aural time difference (ITD): since a sound is travelling around our head it takes it slightly longer to reach the ear that’s further away to the sound source\n\n- Inter-aural intensity difference (IID): for the same reason, the sound arrives to the ear that’s further away from the sound source with a lower amplitude\n\n- Inter-aural spectral difference (ISD): the shape of our outer ear, the pinna, does the rest.\n\nAdditionally, it’s important to know that a sound from closer distance will have more high frequency content.\n\nEverything together is helping us locating a sound source.\n\nEDIT: Spelling.",
"Not an expert, but there's a wonderful audio clip called 'virtual barbershop' that will demonstrate to you very well how exactly the brain identifies where a sound is coming from.\n\nIf you hear it, you'll realise that the way your brain determines how far and where a sound is coming from has nothing to do with how loud it is\n\nIn short, your brain can detect the tiny differences in the sound as it reaches each of your ears. And it uses that to determine the location.\n",
"It's actually easier than that. Sound is pressure waves carried by the air. In your ear these pressure waves vibrate tiny hairs which your brain interprets as sound. Intensity (volume) is based on how strongly the hairs vibrate. Location (direction) and distance are based on the difference in time it takes the sound to hit one ear over the other (yes milliseconds, but your brain perceives it) as well as the different intensity of the same sound in each ear.\n\nBasically your brain does trigonometry with sound automatically. \n\nIts actually the same basic principle that allows animal's with forward facing eyes to detect distance and movement with high accuracy (the same light hits each eye slightly different and your brain maths the rest)",
"The better question is, why do emergency sirens (cops/EMTs/firetrucks/etc) sound like they're coming from all directions."
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4uj7tc | why do men need stimuli for an ejaculation? wouldn't it be better if you could do it actively like moving a muscle? | Wouldn't it be advantageous in wild nature (This is what humans are supposed to live in, after all) to be able to ejaculate as quickly as possible, or even do it completely conscious like moving an arm? So: in - inject - out.
This would reduce mating time drastically and so the time you are exposed to predators. I guess this applies for any other animal that uses stimuli to ejaculate too. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4uj7tc/eli5_why_do_men_need_stimuli_for_an_ejaculation/ | {
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"There needs to be a positive feeling associated with sex to make sure we do it. If it was like flexible your arm, then you would not go out and look for it. Its like working out. We know we should, but most don't.",
"If something feels good, then you do it more. Same goes for woman.\n\nThink of junk food, it taste good so you will always want more, if it didn't taste good then you would never want it. (only difference is that sex is actually good for your body lmao)",
"Being advantageous has absolutely nothing to do with it. Its not like we can put in a Feature Request to change how the Human body works. \n\nEvolution doesn't go \"Hey, you know what would be cool?\" Evolution is a long, long series of *random mutations* which, *if* they provide a significant enough advantage, *might* pass on to the next generation and *eventually* become permanent. It is *not* directed. "
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1hxh80 | how sound works? | I read a post where someone said that there is no sound in space. I wanted to know why? What causes sound to be heard? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1hxh80/eli5how_sound_works/ | {
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"Think of sound as a movement. \n\nWhen you beat a drum, the drum-skin vibrates up and down; this causes the air surounding the drum skin to move up and down too. \n\nThis movement propogates through the air as a [pressure wave](_URL_0_), until it hits something. When this pressure wave hits your ear and ear drum, it causes your ear drum to start moving and vibrating at the same frequency that the drum-skin is vibrating. \n\nThis movement is then sensed and interpreted by your brain as a sound, hence you hear. \n\nSound can't propogate through space, as it's a vacuum (or at least near enough). With no air molecules to transmit the sound wave, there's no sound. \n\n[See here for more info.](_URL_1_)",
"It's a pressure wave that travels through the air. So something moves - maybe a person's vocal chords, or a speaker, or whatever. That jiggles air molecules, which jiggle the ones next to them, and so on, and that wave moves out like ripples on a pond. Then the air right next to your eardrum moves as well, which moves the eardrum, and you hear the sound.\n\nThere's no sound in space because there's no air to carry the wave. Just like there are no pond ripples if you're not... on a pond.",
"Interesting fact to add here. In order to have sound, you need a source, a medium and a receiver. An example would be the words you speak, the air which the sound travels and the ears that receive it.\n\nSo if that silly question comes up \"If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?\" The answer is a definite no because there's no receiver.",
"Heh, I feel obligated to link Bill Nye's tv episode about waves. It has relevant information regarding sound, plus I LOVE this show:\n\n_URL_1_\n\nOne more thing to add about sound, there is a neat effect called Doppler you've probably heard before and didn't know what it meant. It basically means a shift in frequency based on relative motion. See picture for clarification: _URL_0_\n\nAnd a couple of videos. Works better with headphones: \n_URL_3_\n_URL_2_\n\nWhen an object is coming towards you, the sound waves it's emitting are compressed more, thus the pitch sounds higher. When that same object is right next to you, you're hearing the true sound waves. And when the object has passed you and is moving away, the sound waves are spaced out more and thus have a lower pitch.\n\nTwo prime examples of this are standing next to a NASCAR track and hearing the cars roar by, and standing next to train tracks and hearing the train go by."
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"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPJyYaXhuv4"
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6pmasf | how come if milk is poured in to a pint glass, that when ever beer is poured into the same pint glass it will become flat? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6pmasf/eli5_how_come_if_milk_is_poured_in_to_a_pint/ | {
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"That is a myth. Beer will always go flat once it is not under pressure (keg, bottle, or can) so it will go flat in any glass that it is poured into. \n\nNow the kernel of truth that exists is that if you pour beer into an unwashed milk glass it will not form a good head. This is due to the fats from the milk preventing it from retaining surface tension. You will see a similar effect from any source of fats, so if you put a drop of grease from the food you eat it will do the same. But this loss of head is not the same as going flat. "
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9pg2gt | what optical property allows a projector to project a coherent image onto a surface while simply pointing an lcd screen at surface only produces a blurry image? | I've always found this difficult to understand. When you point an LCD screen at a surface, the projected image is usually blurry even when the surface is very close. However, a projector does project a coherent image onto a screen. What specific optical property is allowing a projector to do this?
Also, is the reason the image projected by the screen is blurry because the image is already incoherent when it reaches the surface, or is the initial image hitting the surface coherent, but it becomes blurry when reflected off the surface and into our eyes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9pg2gt/eli5_what_optical_property_allows_a_projector_to/ | {
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"A projector has a series of lenses on the inside that focus the image. You can adjust these lenses to focus the image, where as a lcd screen is light scattering in any direction with no organization. "
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5hb0bt | how do companies like gj wentworth work? | I assume they don't just give you one lump some of cash. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5hb0bt/eli5_how_do_companies_like_gj_wentworth_work/ | {
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"When you win a lawsuit or settle it in your favor, the person you won the money from usually doesn't have to pay you all at once. Instead, there is a payment plan. When you agree to such a payment plan, instead of having a trial, this is called a \"structured settlement.\"\n\nJG Wentworth and similar companies buy your structured settlement from you. So, let's say that you won $10,000 in a lawsuit, and the other party has to pay you $1,000 per month for 10 months. A company like JG Wentworth might offer to pay you $7,000 right now, today. In exchange, they'll get the $1,000 per month for ten months. You get the money quicker, but they come out on top.\n\nHence: It's my money, and I want it now.",
"They get the rights to some income stream you have, and in exchange they give you cash up front. \n\nAn example would be something like this: You get hit by a car. The Jury awards you 100,000 dollars for your injuries, but the person doesn't have that lying around, so the ultimate deal is you get 5,000 dollars a year for the next 20 years. \n\nBut, the next day, you decide you want to have a down payment for a house, so you go to JG wentworth and say, \"hey, I'll give you the right to collect my 5k a year for the next 20 years, if you give me, say, 30k right now.\" They figure out the risk and the impact of inflation and decide that's a good deal, so they make the trade. "
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2dm88p | how does live cd work? | I consider myself an adequate Linux user, and have a general layperson's understanding of computer systems. However, I still don't understand how Live CD works.
Specifically, I noticed that you can still create new files (such as using apt-get to install packages), but since the system image and other files are supposed to be unaltered, how is this done? Do these live systems create in-memory file systems? Or do they just use the spare space in the USB disk? If so, what about read-only CDs? If not, what if the main memory is too small? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2dm88p/eli5how_does_live_cd_work/ | {
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"Yes, AFAIK live system create in-memory file systems. _URL_0_\n\nI don't think you can run those if the main memory is too small.",
"Instead of mounting the file systems on to persistent storage, such as a hard disk, the file system is mounted in volatile memory (i.e. RAM), often using something called [tmpfs](_URL_1_), the temporary file system. Since the contents of main memory are lost when the computer powers off or restarts (hence the term \"volatile\" memory), the contents of the temporary file system will also therefore be lost and no permanent changes will be made.\n\n*Edit*: a little more detail. Many live CDs actually use something a little more complex, called [unionfs](_URL_0_), which allows the file system on the disk to be mounted as read only, but then will transparently switch to the writable memory mounted file system (e.g. tmpfs) when changes are made. This allows memory to be preserved, as it's only used when the user actually changes something. Since most users of a live CD won't be installing huge amounts of software, making lots of changes or downloading lots of data, memory isn't usually a problem."
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99stce | how does going to a malacious website help the people behind it spy on you and take your personal information? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/99stce/eli5_how_does_going_to_a_malacious_website_help/ | {
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"They can look at your cookies, which are bits of info that search engines like Google use to find ads that suit you. Companies can look into these to find out things such as your age, gender, and use that to track you further. I'm not an expert, but I'm comfortably sure all of this is factual. There are definitely other ways malicous sites can gather info about you, so be safe with a VPN"
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fwquy9 | how gear ratios, long and short gears work. | Half a year ago I got my licence, which made me want to know as many things as I can about cars. The physics behind the working of a vehicle is the most interesting part for me. I've read many articles, and watched videos, therefore I now know quite a lot about the topic, but gears, gear ratios is something that I definetely need a simple explanation of. Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fwquy9/eli5_how_gear_ratios_long_and_short_gears_work/ | {
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"lets say you have a gear with only say 10 teeth, against a gear with say 20. the constant in this case is that spinning through one tooth (36 degrees) on the first cog, moves through one tooth (18 degrees) on the second cog. in such a way, you've managed to move the second gear at half the speed of the first.\n\nHowever, ignoring the friction losses, the work you put into gear A has to be carried through to gear B. since gear B only moves half as far, it has the capacity to turn with twice as much 'torque' or rotational force. this is why your car has different gears, some for moving slowly with an increase in torque, and some for moving fast with less torque.",
"A gear ratio in a car means that for every one rotation of the input, the output will rotate \"x\" amount of times.\n\nA gear is basically a lever, but a bunch of little levers in a circle. That's how torque (turning force) is transmitted. The size of the input gear related to the output gear is what determines how much torque can be transmitted.\n\nFor example, if the engine is turning at 1000rpm and the rear wheels are also spinning at 1000rpm the gear ratio is 1:1 (this is usually around 4th gear in a car).\n\nA gear ratio that has a second number larger than one, eg 1:3 (the output (wheels) spins once for every three turns of the input(engine)), (often first gear) means the wheels are spinning slower than the engine - the car is in a lower gear which will transmit a lot of torque from the engine to the road. This is for when the car is trying to speed up.\n\nA gear ratio that has a second number less than one, eg 1:0.8, (often fifth gear)means that the wheels are turning faster than the engine - this is called \"overdrive\". There is very little torque going to the rear wheels in overdrive, however by this point the wheels are already spinning fast and have inertia - the high gear just delivers enough power to *keep* them spinning against friction. It's much easier to keep something moving than to get it moving.\n\nShort gears mean that the ratios are relatively close throughout all the gears, which allows you to speed up quicker. Long gears means the ratios are farther apart, allowing you to have a higher top speed with a lower engine RPM."
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tgsnd | which is more powerful the suck of a fan or the blow of a fan or are they the same? | An interesting question my older brother just asked me. I'm not totally sure how to answer. Any help? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/tgsnd/which_is_more_powerful_the_suck_of_a_fan_or_the/ | {
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"Imagine a lot of people entering the Disneyland through the turnstiles. They are very uneducated people so they don't have the habit of queuing. Instead, they just congregate near the entrance as they move slowly through the turnstiles one by one. Once they're in, they immediate rush towards the attractions straight ahead.\n\nThis is a poor analogy because the mechanisms are reversed, but it roughly illustrates how air particles move around the fan. One key concept is that air particles are always pushing at each other. When fan blades spin, they \"kick\" air out the front. The air around the back, being push by the air further behind, are drawn into the fan from all directions much more slowly. Therefore you can feel the wind from the front, but hardly from the back.\n\nI think the real question here is that, the blowing stream is fast but narrow, while the suction stream is weak but wide. All in all, which is stronger? The answer is the blowing stream, because the fan blades are adding energy into the air stream while they're spinning."
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1yxyh1 | how does a html5 video load instantly (even on a phone), never buffers, and has amazing quality, when the same video in a gif takes 30 seconds to load, stutters, and looks like shit, and a flash video buffers and pauses all the time, and why isn't everyone using html5? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1yxyh1/eli5_how_does_a_html5_video_load_instantly_even/ | {
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"Easy:\n**GIFs** are basically a series of images strung together, created decades ago. They are really simple files. Long gifs are made up of quite a few hundred images that you have to load and as such you can imagine they are quite slow.\n\n**Flash** basically plays a video file using it's own plugin. Video files are way better than Gifs because they were designed to actually show video and as such instead of huge amounts of individual images it basically sends a few and then a bunch of info regarding what happens in-between them. It's better than GIFs but unfortunately it has the added overheaded of having your browser load a plugin (Flash) and then the video itself.\n\n**HTML5** is quite new and basically just loads and plays a video file, bypassing the whole loading a video into flash and loading the flash plugin part.\n\n\nThe problem with web development is that it's quite chaotic and there's quite a few different browsers that don't support every feature. Flash is fairly safe today but a lot of Browser programs don't allow HTML5 features such as video. \n\nI could go into more detail as to why there's no buffering on HTML5 and such but this is ELI5 :)"
]
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[]
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||
2zrbtr | why do we most often focus on economic growth in absolute gdp terms instead of gdp per capita? | It's always bugged me that I read about economic growth in real GDP terms being the same primary metric of economic success for countries with high population growth (like Lebanon) as it is for countries with low or negative population growth (like Japan). Why isn't economic growth always discussed in per capita terms?
If I'm a job-seeker in a high-population-growth country like Lebanon, doesn't the economy have to expand much faster to create jobs for all the other job-seekers than it does for an economy like Japan, where the population is actually shrinking? In Japan's case, doesn't a shrinking population conceivably leave everyone with a larger piece of the pie (even if that pie is growing more slowly than it is in Lebanon)? In other words, why isn't 0% real GDP economic growth in a country with a shrinking population considered better than 2% economic growth in a country with 10% population growth?
Thanks in advance! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2zrbtr/eli5why_do_we_most_often_focus_on_economic_growth/ | {
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"text": [
"GDP isn't meant to be used as an employment statistic, you're absolutely right about that. It's supposed to measure a nation's ability to participate in a war through the creation of useful goods and services, and it's overall purchasing power to pursue new kinds of industrial technology."
]
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[]
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|
fstna3 | during the therapy of a person, what's the goal of a psychologist? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fstna3/eli5_during_the_therapy_of_a_person_whats_the/ | {
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"The goal of the therapist is to help the client find their own goals and support them as they work towards those goals.\n\nSafety is also the top priority, so sometimes assessments of SI or SIB need to happen.\n\nBut overall, the therapist doesn't really have their own goals in the relationship.",
"Say you want to build a house. You have no idea how to build a house. So you go talk to an expert, an architect or an engineer, etc. and ask them for help. They don't know what you want, but they can help direct you define what you want or need and make sure you don't skip any important steps.\n\nThey don't \"build a house\" for you, they help you build your own house.\n\nA psychologist does not have a goal, so much as they help you with your own goals."
]
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[],
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1u6l7q | why do i sometimes hear a really high-pitched noise in one of my ears then go deaf in that ear for a minute? | It happens once every couple weeks and lasts anywhere from a few seconds to a couple minutes | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1u6l7q/why_do_i_sometimes_hear_a_really_highpitched/ | {
"a_id": [
"cef0fv1",
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"score": [
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"text": [
"You could have [tinnitus](_URL_0_).\n\nYou should see a doctor if you want any further information, since asking for medical advice is not allowed in this forum.",
"WebMD says you have Cancer."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus"
],
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|
3oxe2i | why is north korea generally not considered to be a monarchy? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3oxe2i/eli5_why_is_north_korea_generally_not_considered/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Because it's not a monarchy, it's a single-party state.\n\nBasically, the government consists of the Worker's Party of Korea, which is led by Jim Jong Un as the Secretary of the Worker's Party (and commander of the military).\n\n"
]
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||
3lhh5j | the difference between headphones | I'm considering looking for a new pair of headphones, and I am nowhere remotely close to an audiophile. But I do think a new pair of headphones would be nice because I've had my pair for years. Thing is, the prices confuse me when I know nothing about sound quality and the descriptions offer no help. So ELI5: How do an $80 and a $180 pair of headphones from the same brand differ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3lhh5j/eli5_the_difference_between_headphones/ | {
"a_id": [
"cv6c7z4"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Please for the mother of god, go to _URL_0_ and make a new post. Tell them what type of music you listen to and if you play games or not. Tell them if you like bass or not, or if you even have a preference. Explain the types of instruments that you like the sound of. Tell them your budget that you'd like to stay within. Tell them WHAT you're using to listen from. (ipod, computer, xbox, etc) Tell them if you want earbuds, ON-ear, around-ear, or whatnot. They'll hook you up.\n\nSource: audiophile. I wasted a TON of money before I found out about the world of GOOD headphones. They don't even have to cost a lot."
]
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[
"head-fi.org"
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|
7xp7qa | what would happen if we didn't remove the air bubble from syringes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7xp7qa/eli5_what_would_happen_if_we_didnt_remove_the_air/ | {
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"The main risk with leaving an air bubble in a syringe is inaccurate dosing. With the syringe partly full of air, the amount of liquid won't be accurate to the markings on the syringe.\n\nGetting air into a vein isn't a significant hazard unless it's a huge amount - like a whole drip tube full or someone squeezes a drip bag in, including the large air bubble. \n\nThe air will circulate in the veins and reach the lungs where it will lodge and get removed in a few minutes. The lungs will filter out the air so it can't travel to the brain except where there is also a \"hole in the heart\". ",
"A small amount of air in an IV will not hurt you. We were taught in school it would take at least 10mL of air injected at once to possibly kill someone. \n\nThey have a test called a “bubble study”, it can”identify potential blood flow issues inside your heart. For the bubble study, you will get an intravenous (IV) line in a vein in your arm. A saltwater solution called saline is mixed with a small amount of air to create tiny bubbles and then injected into your vein”, Harvard University. ",
"The heart is fundamentally a pump, if you were pumping water out of a ditch and air got mix into the pump with water, the sudden changes in fluid medium (type) would cause various pressure and flow changes that could potentially damage the pump. I guess that's a layman's way of looking at it haha. ",
"It feels incredibly weird going into your vein then dissolves into your blood. You could shoot an entire 100 unit syringe of air into a vein and be fine. ",
"One thing not mentioned yet is that at least 1 in 10 people have a hole in their heart (patent foramen ovale). If air goes into the right side of the of the heart in people who have this or any other hole in the heart the air can travel to two important organs with life threatening consequences, the brain or coronary artery. ",
"It's unpleasant and causes hydraulic issues with the heart and arteries. It can also lead to clotting just like blood exposed to air. \n\nEver hear about a mechanic complain of air in the brake line? Same concept, air compresses and most liquids do not, it affects hydraulic flow and can cause foaming. \n\nImagine a bottle of liquid hand soap that has no air in it, like a brand new bottle. Shake it up and what happens? Nothing. Now do the same with an air bubble in it, and you end up with foam that takes a long time to dissipate. The heart doesn't like foam and neither do the VERY narrow capillaries all over the body. ",
"Nothing would happen. It takes around 50 mL of gas to be injected into a vein very rapidly for it to cause serious problems like an air embolism. \n\nAs a nurse, I've routinely pumped around 1mL of bubbles into a patient's vein very quickly during a \"bubble study.\" \n\nAnd unless you're using a 1mL insulin syringe, a small bubble in the barrel of a syringe isn't going to mess up your doses all that much. Even a small bubble in a 3mL syringe isn't going to make that much of a difference.\n\nSo for the most part, nurses who thump syringes to get rid of bubbles are doing it because they've seen it done on TV or on the floor and are just imitating what they've seen."
]
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3yl1uh | in the united states why is it legal for me to home brew beer but illegal for me to distill spirits? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3yl1uh/eli5_in_the_united_states_why_is_it_legal_for_me/ | {
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"text": [
"Chances of adult soda go boom not very high. Chances adult spirits go boom much, much higher",
"Search turns up a few prior discussions, including one long one: _URL_0_\n\nQuick answer: Taxes. The federal tax on distilled spirits is much higher than on beer or wine.",
"From what I understand, federal taxes are required to paid on ALL distilled spirits produced in the US. ",
"A leftover from prohibition. The government doesn't want to change it as they would loose out on tax money. Can be dangerous but more people are hurt by deep frying turkeys every year. Let me make that choice myself. Make me pass a safety test. Legalizing homebrewing it has launched a 4 billion dollar craft beer industry. \n\nCall your congressman to support H.R.2903 \n_URL_0_\n",
"It's simple, hard alcohol tax is much higher than beer tax. Also, it doesn't hurt that President Carter liked to brew beer"
]
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"https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/2903/related-bills"
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ecjcth | how did studios able to upgrade old mv to 4k on youtube (especially last christmas by wham)? | How difficult is the conversion? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ecjcth/eli5_how_did_studios_able_to_upgrade_old_mv_to_4k/ | {
"a_id": [
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Actual 35mm has a expected resolution of approximately 4K so it's just a matter of doing a new transfer from the film to digital media. So there's really not a whole lot involved it's just a matter of scanning the film in at the higher resolution."
]
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|
3i7hdp | what is going on with the hugo awards | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3i7hdp/eli5_what_is_going_on_with_the_hugo_awards/ | {
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"text": [
"This was asked previously at _URL_0_.\n\nI thought the article relatively straightforward, but I was already familiar with the basic Hugo process. Perhaps if you started a new thread asking specifically about what in the article is confusing. Otherwise, between the previous thread and that article, I don't know what to make simpler. ",
"Many conservative authors believe there is an effort to exclude them from the Hugos so started a pair of voting slates to increase nominations or force exclusionary forces to vote for no award (which is allowed in Hugo voting). The conservative slates were both wildly successful in nominations, and there were many awards that were not awarded. \n\nIt's highly likely this will continue next year (rules changes take a while to go into effect), though the rules have changed for 2017. \n\nTo read [commentary](_URL_0_) that's more favorable to the other side, try this (both are biased, but you might be able to get more of the story by reading through both biases). ",
"Some of us like our SF and fantasy WITHOUT tedious political and social commentary. Some moderately effective but shortsighted people attempted to enforce that view on what is supposed to be a cosmopolitan award ceremony, and were soundly rebuffed by the remainder of the voters in what became basically a nullification of the whole event.\n\nGRRM staged a minor coup and held his own awards ceremony."
]
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3i3p61/eli5_whats_the_big_controversy_with_the_hugo/"
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[
"http://accordingtohoyt.com/2015/08/23/burning-down-the-field-in-order-to-save-it/"
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||
37n8re | how would zimbabwe reintroduce its own currency | Regardless of whether it would be economically viable at the present time, in theory what would the steps be for a country like Zimbabwe which has practically no foreign currency reserves to reintroduce its own currency? What could the new currency be tied to? Would it be tied to the US dollar dor example, then exchange dollar notes for new currency notes, thus creating a reserve? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37n8re/eli5_how_would_zimbabwe_reintroduce_its_own/ | {
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"At the moment they've introduced bond coins which can only work in Zimbabwe as time goes they'll keep increasing the denominations until there's proper Zimbabwean currency then they'll ban foreign currency for selling in stores I think ",
"If you want to create a proper internationally exchangeable currency - especially one that is \"free-floating\" market-traded currency - you must have reserves. Reserves are there to back your currency for as long as you don't have an established currency market or secure credit lines in foreign currency markets or institutions like the IMF which can serve as an analog with their XDR.\n\nIf there's a well functioning market then there's enough activity that even a completely \"fake\" currency - such as bitcoin - can work and over time build up proper volume of transactions simply because people will want to use it for sales and purchases. If there's no such market then the currency has to have some inherent value because otherwise it will lose it's intrinsic value if you have to wait from one incidental transaction to another. That's why originally all currencies were backed by valuable commodities - especially gold and silver. They store a lot of value between transactions. The larger the volume and velocity of transactions the closer a market gets to quasi-barter with currency serving as value metric.\n\nThe main problem for Zimbabwe is that they have absolutely no markets and a barely functioning economy - and a terrible record to boot. Because of that if they wanted to introduce their new currency they'd have to have a very strong backing in foreign reserves or some valuable commodity. But the weaker the market the larger the reserves have to be. Nobody is going to believe Zimbabwe if they decided to start up a currency with a fractional reserve of 3%. \n\nAnother thing is that there is really no starting point right now for that new currency so they'd need a very solid reserve to denominate the real value of said \"New Zimbabwean Dollar\" because nobody knows how much it really is worth. But if you say we just print one billion NZDs ad we back them up with a million of USDs then people think \"there's 1USD for every 1000NZD, the chance to redeem the USDs is such and such, the markets offer such and such investments and goods...\" and in time they'd settle on a market price (if NZD is free-floating) of 3000NZDs per 1USD for example. Or some people might want to try and derail the system and cash in all the $1m for the fraction in devalued NZDs\n\nYou can replace foreign reserves with something else - like land shares, or public debt bonds but that is far more risky because it offers very little liquidity to back the market. You have to remember that when you start up with a new currency it usually will be of dubious value - not unless it survives a couple shocks first and proves to be reliable in the long term - so you need something to back it up so that when somebody comes to pay with it and says \"but I want something else than this banknote\" you can give something else which has real value to such person. This is why foreign reserves are good because everyone knows that at worst there are so many dollars, euros or whatever to pick up if the new currency collapses. You lose but at least there's something you can take and move on to other trades *immediately*. Now if the other choice is a confusing and time-consuming legal process concerning titles to land or some future income denominated in a bond....\n\nNow the real question is *why* you want Zimbabwe to have its own currency. You don't need it. If the markets are strong and flexible they will attract currency. The historical reasons for countries setting their own currencies are simple...\n\nIf you own the money you get to use the invisible tax called inflation \n\nIf you own the money you get a lever to influence how the markets work in case something goes wrong and the foreign currencies (or gold silver etc) runs away.\n\nIt's pure politics... there's no economic \"need\" for a national currency. \n"
]
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9occ9i | what makes someone a polyglot? is it something about the brain, or simply a learning technique that anyone can do? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9occ9i/eli5_what_makes_someone_a_polyglot_is_it/ | {
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"text": [
"It's just hard work and dedication. The more languages you know, the easier it is to learn new languages. The earlier you start studying, the sooner you can start practicing, the sooner you can achieve mastery.\n\nIt's like any field of study. Just hard work and practice.",
"While there are always some slight personal biological differences (some people have a stronger sense of language than others) most of it just comes down to hard work, dedication, interest, and getting in early. \n\nPeople who grow up around two languages will naturally absorb both of them and be naturally bilingual. As people get older they become less of a sponge and have to put in more manual effort: but when it is all said and done anyone can become a polyglot if they put in *enough* effort and proper practice. "
]
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378qpu | why won't any of the arab nations take in and help the "palestinians"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/378qpu/eli5_why_wont_any_of_the_arab_nations_take_in_and/ | {
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"text": [
"I'm not sure why you've got Palestinians in scare quotes. It suggests that you're not asking this question in good faith. However, I'll assume it's just a peculiar way of asking the question. As for the Arab states, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon all contain large numbers of Palestinian refugees and have done since the 1940s. Even in stable and prosperous countries, taking in large numbers of displaced peoples is disruptive and complicated. And you'll notice that most of the Arab states are not the most stable and prosperous of places. Finally, the Palestinians have agency here. They've not given up hope of settling the right to return question and many (most?) are unwilling to give up their claim to the lands they lost in '49 and '67 (since integrating as Egyptians, Lebanese, or Jordanians, were that easily accomplished, would mean giving up that hope). "
]
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||
2pzeq0 | in american high school, i learned virtually nothing at all about african or south american history. why isn't it part of the world history curriculum? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pzeq0/eli5_in_american_high_school_i_learned_virtually/ | {
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"I teach and I know that in California both subjects are part of the 8th grade curriculum. ",
"\"World History\" is about the history of the world as a whole. If there have been no major world-changing events that happened in those places, they wouldn't be covered.",
"* Did you learn about the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, or Egyptians? Because those are in Africa.\n* A world history course in any country is going to tend to focus on the history relevant to that country. For the US, that is Greece- > Rome- > Europe- > America.\n* There is only so much you can fit into a high school level course, and not all geographic areas are of equal significance.\n* Americans high school textbooks suck. Badly. The selection process is highly politicized, and the people selecting care more about the number of pictures of men vs. women or white faces vs. black faces than accuracy.",
"Many schools are improving in this respect, but American education has historically had a bias towards Western culture. From a Western perspective, Asia is important for its influence on Europe and the Americas but Africa and South America are just former colonies.",
"Prioritization. European history has a clear effect on your life, as does American history, maybe the parts of Asian history you learned. African and South American history is less prominent day-to-day, and there's only so much time.",
"Well, consider that it's world history and you most likely took a 1 semester, MAYBE a year long, course to cover WORLD history. There's a lot of history in the world. A lot of it will be deemed lower priority because they play a much smaller role in US history compared to others. \n\nAfrica - Played very little role in US history beyond a few scattered pirate instances. The only major role Africa played in relation to US history are the ancient civilizations (Egypt, maybe Carthage) which is indirect (impacted civilizations that led to the US of today)\n\nSouth America - Generally hasn't played a large role in US history beyond the Monroe Doctrine and early settling.\n\nThere was some focus on Asian (particularly Chinese) history but on the whole very little. Most of it focused on modern history (1900's+)\n\nTL;DR most of it is irrelevant. Interesting and important, but irrelevant to the ultimate goal of the education in HS which generally focuses more on the US and important influences."
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6s56ur | how do elites hide money successfully behind 'front' companies established in other countries? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6s56ur/eli5_how_do_elites_hide_money_successfully_behind/ | {
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"text": [
"So the first thing to understand is that a corporation is an independent legal entity from its owners. \n\nSo let's say I own a successful construction company. I make around $10,000,000 in profit every year. Now, I own a big company but I don't need that kind of money to live day to day. My expenses total only (\"only\") around $1,000,000 every year. So I have 9,000,000 leftovers. \n\nNext thing to consider is taxes. Let's say my company pays a 25% corporate tax rate. So on our $10 mil profit, I lose $2.5 to the government, take out $1,000,000 for myself and have $6.5 million leftovers to save or invest back into my company. \n\nNow, I want to engage in some tax avoidance. So I start a second company somewhere with favorable tax law. In some countries (for example) profits earned from assets that are not within that country are tax-free. So I come up with a plan. I'm going to sell ALL of my construction equipment from my main company to the second company for $1. The second company will then rent back all of that equipment to the first company and charge them $8,665,000 per year (that's an oddly specific number...). \n\nNow, the rental company has $8,665,000 in its bank account, zero expenses and is not required to pay tax on that profit (since the equipment is in my country and the rental company is foreign).\n\nHere in America, my construction company made WAY less profit, only $1,350,000. I pay a 25% tax rate, so send $333,750 to the government and take out my $1,000,000 that I need to live on. leaving only $1,250 in the construction company.\n\nNow, I live the exact same lifestyle as before, I pay for my home and kids and vacations all out of that $1,000,000 that I take out personally. I have no personal problem with the IRS. My company pays the proper tax on its profits, so again no IRS problems.\n\nMy foreign company pays no tax, but that's allowed within the laws of that foreign country. So no problems there.\n\nThe only problem is this. If my foreign company pays any of that money to me (the owner) I'm supposed to pay American tax on it. That's a bummer since the whole fucking point was to avoid taxes. And if I spend any of that money in the US, the IRS will be all over me.\n\nBut if I spend that money while out of the country, the IRS will never know! So my little equipment rental company owns a villa in Italy, some exotic cars and sends it's shareholders (only me) on expensive \"company retreats\" all the time. Or I could just have my rental company invest that money in the markets (American or otherwise) and use the company as a kind of retirement account. "
]
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||
496xcz | why are car engine idles not lower? | Majority of cars I've been in have an idle of 800 or so.
Surely a lower idle would consume less fuel, albeit with less smoothness? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/496xcz/eli5why_are_car_engine_idles_not_lower/ | {
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"text": [
"I had a car that had problems with the idle adjustor. The engine would drop to 300-400 and would shake the whole car. I believe 800-1000 RPM is to keep the car from stalling as well as to keep the car from shaking. \n\nAlthough, I did own a car for a bit that would actually shut the engine off while stopped and in neutral. It would restart once put into gear. That would be pretty cool as a standard feature but I believe the car needs some kind of secondary battery for that to work. ",
"Bmw inline 6 engines idle quite low because they can without vibranting a lot. 4 pots are mostly around the 800rpm."
]
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7ma602 | how does apple slows down its phones? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7ma602/eli5_how_does_apple_slows_down_its_phones/ | {
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"text": [
"A process in the background regularly checks the battery capacity, when it goes down a certain threshold set by Apple, that process kicks in and underclocks the CPU of the phone to 600 Mhz IIRC, so that means a slower phone but a slightly better battery life and prevents most unexpected shutdowns."
]
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||
2a3aep | why is poor vision so much more prevalent across all age groups than other types of sensory loss, and why is it not viewed as a disability while others are? | The sheer number of people of all ages who wear some type of corrective lens for their vision is kind of astounding to me. Why do so many of us have bad eyesight, even from such a very early age, when there aren't nearly as many people born with poor hearing, or a diminished capacity of some other sense?
Also, why is vision loss not viewed as a disability, and glasses are just as apt to be considered a fashion statement as they are assistive devices? I know there's probably some discrepancy in the fact that most people's vision can be corrected to simulate near-perfect eyesight, when hearing aids can't exactly do the same for a person's hearing loss, but... What accounts for the difference in perception of these things? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2a3aep/eli5_why_is_poor_vision_so_much_more_prevalent/ | {
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"My guess; vision is our most important sense. No one gets hearing aid if their left ear hears 10% less than the right, but if the left eye is 10% off-center...\nOn the other hand i think a lot of kids get glasses when they dont really need it. Parents are easy to sell to. I know i didn't need glasses, and stopped wearing them as soon as i got tired of bullies breaking them."
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4or7ab | how intelligent were prehistoric humans? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4or7ab/eli5_how_intelligent_were_prehistoric_humans/ | {
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"They were as intelligent as we are now. What they were able to expend that intelligence on was limited by a lack of knowledge, not cognitive ability.",
"They were basically as smart as us, but the difference is that they had to start from basically no technology. Everything we have ever made was made with the same brain capacity as the first homo sapiens, its just we've had a lot of time to make it."
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6npkz1 | why do soda contents not drop/settle to the bottom and need to be mixed up or stirred but other drinks like juice do? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6npkz1/eli5_why_do_soda_contents_not_dropsettle_to_the/ | {
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"Juice has solids in suspension. They're not actually chemically dissolved, just \"stuck\" in the water molecules like a microscopic ball pit. Over time they'll settle to the bottom.\n\nSoft drinks don't have that many ingredients, and the few they do have are water soluble. Unlike the suspended solids in juice, these chemicals interact with the water molecules and will stay in liquid form indefinitely."
]
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3rq51t | 'magic underwear' worn by mormons | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rq51t/eli5_magic_underwear_worn_by_mormons/ | {
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"Mormons believe that certain ordinances must be completed in order to enter the highest kingdom of heaven. One of those ordinances is called an endowment. It takes place in their temples. During an endowment worthy members are gifted certain signs and symbols needed to enter heaven. There are distinct markings on the garments that remind members of the signs they learned and promises they made to remain holy. On top of this the garments are supposed to keep one modest and virtuous. They are to remain hidden because they are seen sacred and they are to be worn almost always. Source: exmormon.\n\n",
"Lifelong Mormon/former missionary/soon to be EX Mormon here. I wore the underwear from 2005 until a few months ago. In Mormon temples, members of the church go through a ceremony called \"The endowment\" where, among other things, they believe they make covenants with god. The \"magic underwear,\" known as \"garments\" in mormonism serve as a reminder of those covenants and have symbols sewn into them representing certain things. Members, after they go through the temple for the first time are supposed to wear the garments 24/7, except for obvious exceptions like showers, swimming, etc. They are also supposed to serve as protection against primarily spiritual harm, although it's commonly accepted that they will protect you physically as well. Stories abound about people burned over their whole body except for their torso where their garments were, or bullets bouncing off, etc. Along with the temple ceremony, the garments have been altered over time to be more acceptable to members. They started out as full length like long johns!"
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1sw2tb | why orgasms become more intense the more you have in a row? does this apply to all sexes? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1sw2tb/eli5_why_orgasms_become_more_intense_the_more_you/ | {
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"This ain't funny OP. We know you girls have it good, no need to rub it in.",
"doesn't even apply to all girls",
"I can have multiple orgasms, but mine become less intense with each one.",
"Most males can't have multiple orgasms - they're pretty much out of commission for at least 15 minutes (which can increase to hours with age)."
]
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reec2 | interlaced display vs noninterlaced (progressive scan) display | I lack the information to even understand the basic concept. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/reec2/eli5_interlaced_display_vs_noninterlaced/ | {
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"Picture a paper notebook with lined paper. You are going to make a cool flipbook animation with it.\n\nOn the first page, start at the top line and draw your picture on every other line down the page.\n\nOn the second page, start at the second line and draw your picture on every other line down the page.\n\nOn the third page, start at the top line again and draw on every other line.\n\nAnd so on until the animation is complete.\n\nNow, when you flip through the notebook and see your animation, it will still look pretty good even though every page only contains half the information. This is *interlaced* display.\n\nProgressive scan is like a regular flipbook where you draw the whole picture on every page."
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ao5ug4 | what is an interface in programming? | I'm an web dev, I have worked with Ruby on Rails for over 1 year now, I started now actually studying design patterns, so far they seem to mention a lot about Interfaces, in my research it leads me to believe it's commonly used in Java, but I can't grasp what it is, or what it is supposed to do, or even how it differs from an regular class. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ao5ug4/eli5_what_is_an_interface_in_programming/ | {
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"An interface is basically a class with no implementation that is intended to be subclassed so that a related set of classes all share a common set of methods. This lets you program parts of your code in a way where you don't have to worry about which of the subclasses you're working with, and anyone else using your code can implement their own subclass from that Interface that should work. \n\nUsing the common programming textbook example of classes representing different kinds of vehicles, we could imagine that we're creating a video game where you have different kinds of vehicles you can drive and pressing a button causes the vehicle to accelerate. So we want to make a Vehicle interface that defines an accelerate method, but there's no generic implementation for accelerate, since each vehicle accelerates differently. So then we'd subclass the Vehicle interface in a Car class, a Train class, an Airplane class, etc., and each would implement the accelerate function in the way that specific vehicle should accelerate.\n\nEdit: In Java there's a specific keyword for defining an Interface, but any object-oriented language should support this type of design. Your interface would just be another Class that either doesn't implement the functions defined, if the language allows that, or implements dummy or placeholder functions that would be replaced by a subclass.",
"Going for a little more ELI5 than the other answers here....\n\nAn \"interface\" is a set of methods that *must* be implemented on an object. It's not just a Java thing--.Net has them too, and I'm sure others will as well.\n\nWhy is that important? Because it makes two pieces fit together.\n\nWhen the class you're creating implements an interface, what that means is that the object in question A) has the listed methods, and B) the listed methods accept the listed parameters and return the listed values.\n\nSo why is it important? Because it means that you *know* two pieces will fit together. If something implements an interface, it means that any class that works with *any* object that implements that interface can work with *all* objects that implement that interface.\n\nTranslating the concept into real-life objects instead of programming, take a USB port. That's an interface, too--it's just a hardware interface instead of a software interface. There are a million and one devices that can be on the other end of that USB cord, but because each of those devices implements the USB interface, they *all* can communicate with the computer, because the computer implements the USB-port interface. \n\nSoftware interfaces are the same type of concept. Make your object implement an interface, and suddenly its compatible with everything else that accepts that interface."
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9qu7jj | how are you supposed to know who to believe in political debates when both candidates just accuse the other of lying the whole time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9qu7jj/eli5_how_are_you_supposed_to_know_who_to_believe/ | {
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"You could try doing your own research and coming to your own conclusions. This \"thinking for yourself\" is often superior to taking the word of people who are trying to persuade you of something that directly benefits them. Tasks such as essays or research projects during the various stages of formal schooling is intended to develop such skills in students."
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24cs5k | when a dog or a cat's owner changes clothes or wears something out of the ordinary, do they think the attire is part of your body or can they tell that clothes are just something that we put on top of our bodies? | I just got a puppy for the first time in my life! She seemed to think I was a different person because of a hat I wore the other day and this question popped in my mind!
Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24cs5k/eli5_when_a_dog_or_a_cats_owner_changes_clothes/ | {
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"She probably realised you were the same person, but your hat scared or confused her.\n\nIt's hard to know what animals actually think, but whatever they do think, they get used to it. Animals go by more than just visual appearance, of course: smell, gait, voice -- all these are important. Your puppy can probably already tell you apart from other people just by hearing your footsteps.\n\nOne of my two cats doesn't like bare skin much, and will, for example, refuse to sit on my lap if I am wearing shorts. The first time she ever say my wife get undressed, she looked on in horror, and then carefully reached out with her paw to touch my wife's skin.",
"Whenever it's cold here in Australia my Rottweiler would run away from me because I wore a beanie. \n\nNow days whenever I wear my security uniform she hesitates before coming up to me. \n\nAs long as you speak and let them know you're still the same person, no matter what you're wearing should make any difference."
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4yhfjh | what actually happens in our brain when we experience a heartbreak? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4yhfjh/eli5_what_actually_happens_in_our_brain_when_we/ | {
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"It works very similarly to withdrawal. I'm not a psych major and I can't get into all the chemicals involved in the process but I know that being in love is, to your mind at least, much like being on drugs (I think one study even showed that being in love activates the same parts of your brain as cocaine?). It activates reward centers and you start to want it more and more because, like drugs, the feelings you associate with the state can be very addicting. Also like drugs, the separation can be very taxing on the brain. \nTl;dr - I'm no expert, but being in a breakup is like being addicted to cocaine but then cocaine tells you that your hairline sucks and your life is going no where and then riding off to be snorted by someone- anyone else ",
"First let's define \"heart break\" in terms of \"primal emotions\". When we feel heart break it is essentially a loss of something we care about or \"need\". Imagine being a monkey and you just found a banana, well what if a bigger monkey came along and stole your banana. You can't do anything about it and you have to deal with the fact that you lost something and you can't get it back. Luckily, you can always find another banana, just like how you can find another lover (not that lovers and bananas are the same, but I think you get the idea). \n\n\nSo we've established heartbreak as essentially this realization that you lost something you need and you won't be getting it back. There are MANY neurotransmitters and hormones acting when we feel things. When people say \"serotonin is for mood\" or \"dopamine is for motivation\" this is a huge oversimplification. First of all, neurotransmitters aren't what make things happen, it's the receptors they attach to, and there are a bunch of different kinds of receptors that each neurotransmitter. Second, these receptors are attached to neurons that spread out to different networks, which have different functions. Third, not one neurotransmitter is always responsible for one function, sometimes the networks overlap. Keep in mind that neuroscience isn't all that well known at the moment. I don't remember the exact numbers, but I believe serotonin has 7 types of receptors it can attach to, which have sub-types making things more complicated. When a neurotransmitter, such as serotonin, attaches to a receptor, it activates the neuron, which communicates the signal to wherever it needs to go. Sometimes that signal tells a part of the brain to GO or to STOP. The same applies to dopamine or any neurotransmitter. \n\n\nAlright, so we went through some basics, so where does all this come in. Despite what I said earlier, let's make this simple by saying serotonin and dopamine are responsible for mood (they do contribute to mood, but there are a bunch of other neurotransmitters that do as well). So lets say more serotonin better mood and more dopamine means more motivation (again I'm oversimplifying). At the same time, sometimes serotonin can inhibit dopamine depending on the network it activates. This makes sense, because we don't need to be motivated to do something if we are happy. For example, if I already have my banana, why would I need to be motivated to find another banana, so it would make sense that serotonin would inhibit a motivation network. So when we recognize loss, such as \"oh no I lost my banana\", a network is activated to either activate dopamine to get us motivated and/or serotonin influx has been halted so our body knows we just lost the banana, and we need to get motivated to find another banana. In this example, more serotonin (satisfaction) means less dopamine (motivation) and vice versa.\n\nHope this helps, again remember that this is an ELI5 answer :)",
"I saw a picture last night of a girl I'm basically in love with, sat with a new boyfriend. The physical pain it caused me was so strong I actually took a moment to marvel at just how bad I was feeling. The brain is weird.",
"Psychologically it is a huge anticlimax. \nYou plan your life around someone and start making too many predictions about your future based on this person, then suddenly all this is yanked away all at once. It's just like expecting a movie to be good and being disappointed, just multiplied to the scale of your life.\n\nThis is why it usually gets a little less dramatic as you age and realize no person can actually provide this happiness and stability in your life except yourself and some major luck. Also it gets worse if you are already down, which is why rebound rejection can be even tougher than a breakup.\n\nRegarding the chemistry in the brain and body, it does not need to be massively different to other reward mechanisms related to food etc. \n\nThe trigger is expectations and the solution is expectation management, through experience and realism. \n\nTry to accept that you are basing all your hopes and dreams on a person who can not provide everything you need and should not have to carry that burden and the heartache might be less severe.",
"Same as drug withdrawal. Your brain associates something with good emotions, and good emotion are supposed to be associated with good thing. The stronger the emotion, the more important the event associated with it is supposed to be, the more likely you are to remember it, and the more importance and effort you're likely to put into seeking it (if it's weighted positively) or avoiding it (if it's weighted negatively).\n\nWhen you get to the level of cognition humans have, you notice the system is full of flaws, often associating bad things as if they're good, or making a big deal of things that aren't all that bad. In the fields of Machine Learning and Neuroscience there are many names to the kinds of mistakes these systems can make, such as \"overfitting\" (\"prejudice\"), which's to be over adapted to the limited data you have, rather than be able to consider you don't have all the data.\n\nThinking one can't live without a person or a drug, same as thinking all Xs are Ys because one has seen one or two Xs that are Ys, are cases of overfitting. The person haven't met all Xs, and the person hasn't lived they're entire lives yet, to be able to accurately tell they could not live without the person or the drug or any other addiction.\n\nBut because the brain sees no way to directly fix those wrong weights, the specific nodes and synapses that say that that person or that drug are the best thing ever and you can't go without, even tho the rest of the brain sees that it's incorrect, it seeks ways to rewrite those weights by external means, such as trying to find reasons to hate the person, or finding a replacement to the addiction by seeking the same values from other sources (somebody else, another drug, a new hobby or interest, etc). \n\nSo things can seem very confuse from the consciousness side, being bombarded with different opinions and approaches coming from different parts of the brain, and trying to be the judge of them.",
"Hey OP I believe being as responsible as you can before you get into a new relationship is the best thing you can do. That way, when you get into a breakup, you'll have other things to occupy your time without feeling like you've lost everything in the world. Just my two cents"
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2g5jru | why does dental pain feel worse when lying down? | I currently have an infected tooth and I was more or less fine until I came to bed and now it feels like my tooth is literally going to explode. Why is this? All Google told me was how to make the pain better, not why it was so much worse. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2g5jru/eli5_why_does_dental_pain_feel_worse_when_lying/ | {
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"Your blood pressure increases in your head when you're horizontal."
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cxod96 | why are bricks stacked the way they are rather than just one directly on top of the other? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cxod96/eli5_why_are_bricks_stacked_the_way_they_are/ | {
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"Have you ever seen that experiment where they put two phone books together with one page overlapping the page of the other, so they interlock?\n\nAnd then you can't pull the interlocking phone books apart from eachother? \n\nThat's why, the pattern they're in interlocks all the bricks together, forming a much stronger wall than if they were stacked on top of eachother",
"Stability. If you knocked out one brick in a stack, all those above it have no support. Not the case with the way they build",
"By staggering them the weak grout seams are minimized in the vertical direction, making the wall somewhat stronger.",
"In-between the bricks is structural weakness, because the filler isn't as strong as the bricks. The way they are stacked now minimizes that weakness by making all of the structure being held up by brick, if it was just one on top of the other you would have giant lines of weakness."
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1di735 | the ellen show keeps showing "psychics." what makes it all bullshit? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1di735/eli5_the_ellen_show_keeps_showing_psychics_what/ | {
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"The fact that psychics can't do what they say they can do is what makes it all bullshit.",
"There are no decent scientific studies that have shown that anybody that claims to have psychic abilities can actually provide specific information gained through \"psychic\" means. \n"
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1w1hi4 | why does cold water make razor blades last longer? | I got a free razor in the mail with a pamphlet about shaving and one of the tips was rinsing your razor with cold water make the blades last longer. Why is this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1w1hi4/eli5_why_does_cold_water_make_razor_blades_last/ | {
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"First of all, are we *sure* that this isn't just an urban legend? \n\nThat said, I can think of an idea: hot tap water contains more minerals, which can either deposit crud on the blade, or corrode it.",
"Never heard about this one, but one thing I know for sure is that if you keep a small container of isopropyl alcohol in your medicine cabinet and give your razor a quick rinse in it after you finish shaving your razor will definitely last longer. Tapwater usually has a good amount of dissolved minerals in it such as calcium, magnesium, and iron. if you don't rinse the tapwater off with the alcohol, the minerals will remain on the blade after the water evaporates and will eventually foul up the edge of the blade. My guess is that hot water may have more minerals in it because insulated glass tanks usually have a lot of gunk in the bottom that has precipitated out over the years OR the minerals may more readily precipitate out of the water onto your blade."
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lw93a | what the us holds against the palestinian state? | I've just been watching the news about Palestine getting Unesco membership, I'm not trolling but I don't feel I understand the context in which the US is getting so upset? Why is this such a big deal? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/lw93a/eli5_what_the_us_holds_against_the_palestinian/ | {
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"Well as usual with a question potentially related to the Israel Palestine conflict there are at least two answers to provide if we intend to be \"textbook fair\" I suppose the answer one would get from an American or Israeli official is that the USA doesn't have any problem with Palestine as long as Palestine respects Israel's right to exist and brings about peace with Israel through bilateral negotiations. Which would mean peace on Israel's terms. \n\nThe other answer would be that there are roughly thirteen and a half million Jewish people in the world and many of them hold very strong opinions on this issue. There are about five million in Israel, maybe five and a half, and about the same in America. The Jewish people in America have done very well in business and contribute a lot to the economy and as such they have very powerful lobby groups and hold many important positions in government. They're well connected is where I'm going with this I guess. So when they say \"jump\" to a US president, he either jumps or he doesn't win the next election so easily. \n\nOn top of being well connected in the media and in politics a lot of people have a lot of sympathy for the Jews seeing them as the victims of a great deal of terrible racism and persecution over the years and want to help them as much as they can, even if the Israeli Jews aren't in the right or are unnecessarily cruel to the Palestinians the world and the US in particular are used to thinking of the Jews as victims and anyone who disagrees with them as evil fascists, when this is of course not the case. \n\nEdit: criticism taken on board, adding the words \"so easily\" after \"he jumps or he doesn't win the election\"",
"In one sentence: A Palestinian state is a direct challenge to and verification of the United States' rapidly decaying power and influence in the Middle East via Israel. \n\nThe U.S. and Israel are good friends. Israel lives on the bad side of town (middle east), and doesn't have many friends, so the U.S. likes to be extra nice to Israel. In exchange, the U.S. gets to influence what happens on the bad side of town.\n\nThis worked well for both sides for a long time. However, the bad side of town has gone through a lot of changes recently. The people there are trying to make it better. However, Israel views this as a threat to their prosperity and safety. This also means it's a threat to U.S. power and influence. \n\nWhen we made friends with Israel, we also made a whole bunch of other friends in the bad neighborhood. Over time, we slowly lost those friends and gained enemies. Those friends started to notice we didn't actually like them very much, but used them for their cool stuff (i.e. Iran).\n\nAs we lose more and more friends, we start to really value our good friendships. When our good friend needs support, we give it to them. We don't care about the specific scenario, we just honor the history of our friendship. There's history there, A LOT of it; More than any one person could possibly study in a lifetime. \n\n",
"I don't have good political points to offer, but from a strategic perspective let's start by discussing geography. The Palestinian state would have to come from somewhere, some piece of land (yes, yes, sixty years ago that's how Israel came to be). That land would come out of Israel. Israel isn't a very large country, [tiny](_URL_0_) in fact. If you refer to that pic you'll see that the west bank (often referenced as land that should be returned to Palestinians) is perhaps 20% of the entire land mass of the country of Israel, and that when it is removed the strip of land connecting North and South Israel is narrow enough that you could literally fire across the country with artillery. Given the rather violent attitudes of Israel's neighbors towards Israel (these existed long before Israel did things I didn't like, which they do aplenty), and their history of going to war with the express purpose of destroying the entire country, you can see where turning this land over to people who hate them isn't something they'll agree to anytime in the near future.\n\nThe US's interests, as far as I can tell, are at least partly based on the need for a strategic partner in the area and Israel, though a not-so-likable ally, is culturally far more similar to the US than other countries in the area and is definitely *an* ally. \n\nSo, the US doesn't like Palestinian statehood because there's a good chance it would be the first step towards destruction of their only useful military ally in the region (Saudi Arabia and Egypt have their high points, but I'm going to stop now...don't have detailed knowledge of the geopolitics of the area). There are a lot of other reasons, and possibly/probably far more important ones, but this is one that seems rather obvious to me.",
"The US doesn't recognized Palestine as an independent state (for a whole *ton* of reasons, most of which are complicated to get into); Palestine getting Unesco membership is a step toward international recognition of Palestine's sovereignty.\n\nIf Palestine achieves international recognition as a sovereign state, the US will be put in an embarrassing position of choosing either to support international recognition (which is against long-standing US policy), or refusing it (which makes the US look really bad on the international stage).",
"The main reason is that the Palestinian people are now represented by two main political camps. Hamas in Gaza and Fattah in the west bank. Hamas is a globally recognized terrorist organization that will under no circumstances negotiate with Israel. They also happen to murder Fattah members in Gaza, so it's hard for one party to speak with the other. There could never be a country divided by two parties like this and by allowing Palestinian recognition the UN is giving legitimacy to a terrorist organization as a government. If/when this happens the US is afraid that there would be added pressure on Israel that would eventually lead to war. Israel is the only democracy in the middle east and the US's greatest ally in the region. \n\nThe US will do what it can to protect Israel as an asset while delegitimizing Hamas on a global scale. \n\nThis is just one facet of the argument, but from the state department, department of foreign affairs, and the department of defense the most critical aspect of the entire situation.\n\nEDIT: Baked420 brings another face of the situation to light, focusing more on how Israel and the US are allies, this is also very important to the situation and I agree with what he posted.",
"Palestine is not strong, they don't have many natural resources (therefore no money), they don't have many weapons, and they don't have any allies. Syria, Jordan, and Egypt (Palestine's other neighbors) sometimes pretend to be their ally, but they each individually really just want to take Israel and Palestine for themselves, but know they can't do that because then they'd have to fight the other two. \n\nThe sad truth is that Palestine, for these reasons, really is just fucked all day (sorry kid, don't tell your Mom). It's not worth being friends with them because they have nothing to offer in the relationship. It would be nice if international politics worked like schoolyard friendships, and we could just be nice and be their friends anyway, but it doesn't. If we pick Palestine to be our friends, Israel will turn on us, and that's a much bigger problem than not being friends with Palestine (that effect is shrinking, as Israel becomes less popular, but it's still very much the case).\n\nPalestine is split into two parts, which are separated by Israel, their sworn enemy. In order for Palestine to be a real country (which they are not now, more on that later) they would have to have an \"open border\" arrangement with Israel. If that happened, many people in Palestine would just get jobs in Israel, because they'll probably pay better (in the same way that Mexicans come to the US for jobs. They're not the best jobs, but they're better than the ones in Mexico). If you do that for more than a generation or so, pretty soon a lot of the younger Palestinians just want to be Israeli, and Palestine is effectively absorbed by Israel. \n\nThe only real way for Palestine to be a real country and stay that way is to join its two parts together. Because of the way the geography works in that region, they can't just take a sliver of Israel, because the border wouldn't be defensible, they have to take the whole thing. They have to take over Israel.\n\nThe only way that's ever happened in the many-thousand-year history of the region is when a very powerful nation from somewhere else sweeps in and unifies the region under its own power, then slowly collapses and leaves the borders in different places in its wake. It happened with the Roman empire, with the Babylonians, with the Byzantine empire, and most recently with the British after both world wars. None of those or any other countries are interested in doing that right now. Iran is, but they're not strong enough. If they get strong enough (likely with help from Russia, over the next several years), they might take the whole Syria, Jordan, Israel, Palestine thing over (probably along with Iraq, btw). They'd then be a very powerful force in the middle east, who hates the US and much of the western world (and would then be strong allies with Russia, a very powerful country indeed). The US (and most western democracies) doesn't want that at all, so we support Israel and try to destabilize Iran as much as we can. That means giving Palestine the finger at every opportunity, and that's why the US and most western powers do so. ",
"Well as usual with a question potentially related to the Israel Palestine conflict there are at least two answers to provide if we intend to be \"textbook fair\" I suppose the answer one would get from an American or Israeli official is that the USA doesn't have any problem with Palestine as long as Palestine respects Israel's right to exist and brings about peace with Israel through bilateral negotiations. Which would mean peace on Israel's terms. \n\nThe other answer would be that there are roughly thirteen and a half million Jewish people in the world and many of them hold very strong opinions on this issue. There are about five million in Israel, maybe five and a half, and about the same in America. The Jewish people in America have done very well in business and contribute a lot to the economy and as such they have very powerful lobby groups and hold many important positions in government. They're well connected is where I'm going with this I guess. So when they say \"jump\" to a US president, he either jumps or he doesn't win the next election so easily. \n\nOn top of being well connected in the media and in politics a lot of people have a lot of sympathy for the Jews seeing them as the victims of a great deal of terrible racism and persecution over the years and want to help them as much as they can, even if the Israeli Jews aren't in the right or are unnecessarily cruel to the Palestinians the world and the US in particular are used to thinking of the Jews as victims and anyone who disagrees with them as evil fascists, when this is of course not the case. \n\nEdit: criticism taken on board, adding the words \"so easily\" after \"he jumps or he doesn't win the election\"",
"In one sentence: A Palestinian state is a direct challenge to and verification of the United States' rapidly decaying power and influence in the Middle East via Israel. \n\nThe U.S. and Israel are good friends. Israel lives on the bad side of town (middle east), and doesn't have many friends, so the U.S. likes to be extra nice to Israel. In exchange, the U.S. gets to influence what happens on the bad side of town.\n\nThis worked well for both sides for a long time. However, the bad side of town has gone through a lot of changes recently. The people there are trying to make it better. However, Israel views this as a threat to their prosperity and safety. This also means it's a threat to U.S. power and influence. \n\nWhen we made friends with Israel, we also made a whole bunch of other friends in the bad neighborhood. Over time, we slowly lost those friends and gained enemies. Those friends started to notice we didn't actually like them very much, but used them for their cool stuff (i.e. Iran).\n\nAs we lose more and more friends, we start to really value our good friendships. When our good friend needs support, we give it to them. We don't care about the specific scenario, we just honor the history of our friendship. There's history there, A LOT of it; More than any one person could possibly study in a lifetime. \n\n",
"I don't have good political points to offer, but from a strategic perspective let's start by discussing geography. The Palestinian state would have to come from somewhere, some piece of land (yes, yes, sixty years ago that's how Israel came to be). That land would come out of Israel. Israel isn't a very large country, [tiny](_URL_0_) in fact. If you refer to that pic you'll see that the west bank (often referenced as land that should be returned to Palestinians) is perhaps 20% of the entire land mass of the country of Israel, and that when it is removed the strip of land connecting North and South Israel is narrow enough that you could literally fire across the country with artillery. Given the rather violent attitudes of Israel's neighbors towards Israel (these existed long before Israel did things I didn't like, which they do aplenty), and their history of going to war with the express purpose of destroying the entire country, you can see where turning this land over to people who hate them isn't something they'll agree to anytime in the near future.\n\nThe US's interests, as far as I can tell, are at least partly based on the need for a strategic partner in the area and Israel, though a not-so-likable ally, is culturally far more similar to the US than other countries in the area and is definitely *an* ally. \n\nSo, the US doesn't like Palestinian statehood because there's a good chance it would be the first step towards destruction of their only useful military ally in the region (Saudi Arabia and Egypt have their high points, but I'm going to stop now...don't have detailed knowledge of the geopolitics of the area). There are a lot of other reasons, and possibly/probably far more important ones, but this is one that seems rather obvious to me.",
"The US doesn't recognized Palestine as an independent state (for a whole *ton* of reasons, most of which are complicated to get into); Palestine getting Unesco membership is a step toward international recognition of Palestine's sovereignty.\n\nIf Palestine achieves international recognition as a sovereign state, the US will be put in an embarrassing position of choosing either to support international recognition (which is against long-standing US policy), or refusing it (which makes the US look really bad on the international stage).",
"The main reason is that the Palestinian people are now represented by two main political camps. Hamas in Gaza and Fattah in the west bank. Hamas is a globally recognized terrorist organization that will under no circumstances negotiate with Israel. They also happen to murder Fattah members in Gaza, so it's hard for one party to speak with the other. There could never be a country divided by two parties like this and by allowing Palestinian recognition the UN is giving legitimacy to a terrorist organization as a government. If/when this happens the US is afraid that there would be added pressure on Israel that would eventually lead to war. Israel is the only democracy in the middle east and the US's greatest ally in the region. \n\nThe US will do what it can to protect Israel as an asset while delegitimizing Hamas on a global scale. \n\nThis is just one facet of the argument, but from the state department, department of foreign affairs, and the department of defense the most critical aspect of the entire situation.\n\nEDIT: Baked420 brings another face of the situation to light, focusing more on how Israel and the US are allies, this is also very important to the situation and I agree with what he posted.",
"Palestine is not strong, they don't have many natural resources (therefore no money), they don't have many weapons, and they don't have any allies. Syria, Jordan, and Egypt (Palestine's other neighbors) sometimes pretend to be their ally, but they each individually really just want to take Israel and Palestine for themselves, but know they can't do that because then they'd have to fight the other two. \n\nThe sad truth is that Palestine, for these reasons, really is just fucked all day (sorry kid, don't tell your Mom). It's not worth being friends with them because they have nothing to offer in the relationship. It would be nice if international politics worked like schoolyard friendships, and we could just be nice and be their friends anyway, but it doesn't. If we pick Palestine to be our friends, Israel will turn on us, and that's a much bigger problem than not being friends with Palestine (that effect is shrinking, as Israel becomes less popular, but it's still very much the case).\n\nPalestine is split into two parts, which are separated by Israel, their sworn enemy. In order for Palestine to be a real country (which they are not now, more on that later) they would have to have an \"open border\" arrangement with Israel. If that happened, many people in Palestine would just get jobs in Israel, because they'll probably pay better (in the same way that Mexicans come to the US for jobs. They're not the best jobs, but they're better than the ones in Mexico). If you do that for more than a generation or so, pretty soon a lot of the younger Palestinians just want to be Israeli, and Palestine is effectively absorbed by Israel. \n\nThe only real way for Palestine to be a real country and stay that way is to join its two parts together. Because of the way the geography works in that region, they can't just take a sliver of Israel, because the border wouldn't be defensible, they have to take the whole thing. They have to take over Israel.\n\nThe only way that's ever happened in the many-thousand-year history of the region is when a very powerful nation from somewhere else sweeps in and unifies the region under its own power, then slowly collapses and leaves the borders in different places in its wake. It happened with the Roman empire, with the Babylonians, with the Byzantine empire, and most recently with the British after both world wars. None of those or any other countries are interested in doing that right now. Iran is, but they're not strong enough. If they get strong enough (likely with help from Russia, over the next several years), they might take the whole Syria, Jordan, Israel, Palestine thing over (probably along with Iraq, btw). They'd then be a very powerful force in the middle east, who hates the US and much of the western world (and would then be strong allies with Russia, a very powerful country indeed). The US (and most western democracies) doesn't want that at all, so we support Israel and try to destabilize Iran as much as we can. That means giving Palestine the finger at every opportunity, and that's why the US and most western powers do so. "
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bxm8pc | how do gut bacteria actually make it to your intestines with the hydrochloric acid produced by the stomach in the way? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bxm8pc/eli5_how_do_gut_bacteria_actually_make_it_to_your/ | {
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"First, the stomach doesn't constantly produce acid. That only happens when you're digesting food.\n\nSecond, the bacteria in your intestines don't have to pass through the stomach. They live and grow in the intestines, and it would actually be pretty bad if they get anywhere else in the body. The *E. coli* outbreaks you might have heard about in the news are caused by a germ that normally lives in the intestines, but if they're ingested and digested you're gonna have a bad time.",
"The hydrochloric acid in your stomach is usually heavily diluted in the first place, and only long-term exposure can erode their membrane away. Most, however, reside in your gut lining, which has a nice, thick layer of mucus to protect then from your stomach fluids. Some of the mucus gets washed down when the contents of your stomach move from your stomach to the small intestine, where bile acts as a general transmitter for bacteria to your large intestine. Basically, your gut bacteria spreads throughout your GIT due to pure luck. Pretty good luck for the both of you, too, because you have a mutual symbiotic relationship.",
"A lot of bacteria die in the stomach, but a few make it through. Some are partially resistant to the acid. A=Others can produce spores that are resistant to the acid. Some are just so abundant in food that a few make it through by shear luck."
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acd0hy | the point of volts, amps, ohms, etc... | Now before you say how **"*****I've seen these posts so many times...*****"** I'll say I've seen the good ol' water explanation which helps with understanding what they are. what I'm wondering now is how do I *actually* use this information. For instance, why does **X** need **Y** Amps and **Z** Volts and what happens when you increase one of them and a followup question is how can ***I*** use this information
Thanks in advance | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/acd0hy/eli5_the_point_of_volts_amps_ohms_etc/ | {
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"Amps, ohms, and volts are all related to each other through the equation V = IR. r stands for resistance (measured in ohms), I stands for current (amps) and v for voltage (volts). If you increase voltage, your resistance or current must decrease proportionally to match, and so on for any other changes within a circuit. If you have a higher current, you need a larger diameter wire than an equivalent circuit with a lower current and higher resistance/voltage. \n\nGenerally you probably won't care about this stuff directly affecting you unless like, you're traveling to a different country that has outlets with different voltage outputs than where you live (you would need to find the proper adapter or new charger cables for your items), or if you're trying to replace a power cable for a laptop or anything else with a mini transformer in it.\n\nDifferent pieces of equipment have different needs when it comes to these variables. Xray equipment needs high voltage transformers between the power company and the xray machine, for instance, but a regular TV or household appliance does just fine plugged into a normal outlet. You need to know what your equipment requires as far as power/electricity in order to make sure you don't irreparably damage it or the circuitry within your house/company/whatever. ",
"Power is the product of amps and volts. So you have to get the right product to run the device at the power it was designed to use. So why not just lower the volts and raise the current? Because the wires that carry the current are probably not rated for much more than the current that the device was designed to draw, and if you exceed the rating you risk destroying the wires. Also, depending on the source of the electricity, the voltage may be fixed, so you can't change either.\n\nHow can you use the information? If you don't know the above already, you are probably limited to just reading the label and obeying it. For plug-in devices, this is mostly a problem when traveling since some countries use different voltage in their outlets. They guard against this by using different shaped plugs, but they also make adapters that allow you to plug in. But if the device isn't prepared for the voltage, it will underperform or get damaged. For battery operated devices, just use the right batteries and she'll be right.",
"I used this information lots of times during my time in Film School. Back then we shot with tungsten 650w and 1000w bulbs in ordinary houses with wall sockets. It was very easy to put too many lights on one breaker and trip it. The lights are listed in watts but the fuses and breakers are Amps, so you need to figure out how many amps each light draws budget your power. The same rules apply for all household power. 1000w / 115 V = 8.7 Amps.",
"Volts is energy per charge - it's like an electric pressure. Just as water will flow from on top of a hill to the bottom of a hill, electrons will flow from high voltage to low voltage. It is energy per charge, so the amount of voltage is like the height of the hill with water flowing on it - a taller hill means water will flow faster.\n\nAmps is a measure of current, just like water current. Amps is literally just a measure of how many electrons pass a certain point in a wire. If you could shrink down to microscopic size and count the electrons that pass (per second), you would be measuring amps.\n\nSo let that take us to power (watts). Volts tells you the energy each charge makes, and amps tells you how many charges flow by - so if you multiply these, you get the total energy that pass per second, or watts. \n\nOhms is a bit more abstract and is defined in terms of amps and volts. Ohms is a measure of resistance - as current flows through a metal, some of those electrons bump into atoms making them slow down, lose energy, and the metal generally has some resistance to the flow of electricity. One ohm of resistance is the amount of resistance such that one volt of energy per charge only has enough pressure to push through one amp of current. More ohms means more resistance means the current goes down. \n\nSo what is all of this used for? These are just the basics of every electrical appliance in existence. Aside from a simple light bulb, most electrical devices have tons of little things inside of them resisting the flow of charge and directing the flow of charge. ",
" > why does X need Y Amps and Z Volts\n\nUsually, you don't \"need\" a certain number of volts if you're designing a device. You *assume* a power supply of a particular voltage will be available to you, and you go from there. If you're designing something to be plugged into a wall socket in the US, you assume you'll have 110 V for a power supply. If you're designing something portable, maybe you assume you'll have 1.5 V or 3 V, standard voltages for everyday batteries.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThen you design a circuit with that voltage as your starting point. The elements in your circuit will have a certain inherent electrical resistance to them. People often recite Ohm's Law as V=IR, but it's more accurate to say that I=V/R. Both equations are mathematically identical, but the cause and effect relationship is better portrayed in the second one. You start with your power supply voltage *V*, the elements and arrangement of your circuit determines the resistance *R*, and the current *I* that flows through is just a result of those two features. Your device will try to pull in as many electrons as it can to get the current up to what's predicted by the expression V/R.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThings start melting down and blowing up when the designer doesn't notice that the circuit is going to pull in more current than the device can handle, or when a home user has plugged in the 17th device to the one wall outlet, not realizing that the resistance of the circuit drops every time he adds a new device (See *Resistances in parallel circuits*), which means more and more current flowing through that one circuit.",
"How you can use this information: \n\n & nbsp;\n\nIf you travel to a country with different outlets dont just use an outlet adapter if your device cant use the different voltage. Plugging a device meant for 120 into a 240 outlet will draw too much current and fry the device.\n\n & nbsp;\n\nJust because a charger fits the charging port on your electronic device doesnt means that it outputs the right amount of power for your device. A tablet might require a 2 amp charger and your 1 amp cell phone charger will take longer to charge\n\n & nbsp;\n\nUsb charging time can diminish with a longer cable due to the increased resistance of the cable. \n\n & nbsp;\n\nExtension cords, surge protectors, lamps and the different circuits in your house have wattage limits. Some devices draw a lot of current over a resistor to make heat and light (incandescent light bulbs, hair dryers and space heaters). Dont plug a bunch of space heaters into an extension cord/splitter\n\n & nbsp;\n\nNext time you see a sub station just marvel at how we can wirelessly transfer energy from one AC circuit to another in order to step up the voltage and prevent power loss over large distances."
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310u2t | what do the numbers for my eye prescription mean. for example, my left eye is -6.0 and my right is -5.75 | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/310u2t/eli5_what_do_the_numbers_for_my_eye_prescription/ | {
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"The number is a measure of the optical power of the lenses in dioptres (the reciprocal of the focal length in meters). Essentially a positive number increases the optical power of your eye (which corrects for farsightedness) and a negative number decreases the optical power of your eye (which corrects for nearsightedness).\n\nThere are a few numbers that go along with the prescription:\n\n- **Sphere** - This is the basic correction for your eye and what the bulk of the prescription is, measured in dioptres. If you just have a number listed for your prescription, it is almost certainly a measure of sphere. This effectively is a measure of what sort of spherical shape is added to the lens for correction.\n\n- **Cylinder** - This is a correction for astigmatism present in your eye, measured in dioptres. Astigmatism is when light is focused at a different place vertically and horizontally, and results in shapes being blurred slightly in an oval. This effectively is a measure of any cylindrical shape added to the lens (which would add optical power in one direction but not for the other, rather than in every orientation like a sphere).\n\n- **Axis** - This is a measure of the orientation of the cylinder part of your prescription, measured in degrees (0-180). Astigmatism can occur in any orientation in the eye, so this is always included with a cylinder prescription so the correction is in the right direction.\n\n- **Prism** - This is a measure of a prism-like shape that would get added to the lens which would move the position of focus on the retina, and is measured in prism dioptres. This would be correction for if your eye focuses light offset from center of your retina, and is very rare to be included in a prescription (as it is only very rarely needed).\n\n- **Base** - This is a measure of the direction that the prism corrects for, and would only be present when a prism prescription is present.\n\n- **Add** - This is a measure of any additional optical power that is added to the lower part of the glasses when being used for bifocals, measured in optical power.\n\nIn your case if you only have a -6.0 and -5.75 on your prescription that means it is spherical power, and it is correcting for nearsightedness in both eyes (meaning without correction you can see things up close fine but things are blurry far away)."
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lqkgs | us army camouflage | As you can see in [this image](_URL_0_), US Army camouflage seems to be pixelated. I don't know of any plant/dirt/etc in the real world that is pixelated like that - so why does the Army choose this pattern? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/lqkgs/eli5_us_army_camouflage/ | {
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"they've already changed it. as it turns out, the ACU pattern is pretty bad in nearly every environment...besides maybe gravel. they originally switched to that pattern for a number of reasons, cost being one.",
"Look at the camoflage on a zebra. They're black and white striped. The grass/environment they live in isn't black and white, its mainly yellow. You'd be surprised how difficult to spot they can be though!\n\nThe point of camoflage isn't to make you look exactly like the background, but to break up your body shape/silouette, to make you blend in.\n\nPlus, if an enemy is close enough to tell your camoflage is pixelated, you're probably in trouble already.",
"they've already changed it. as it turns out, the ACU pattern is pretty bad in nearly every environment...besides maybe gravel. they originally switched to that pattern for a number of reasons, cost being one.",
"Look at the camoflage on a zebra. They're black and white striped. The grass/environment they live in isn't black and white, its mainly yellow. You'd be surprised how difficult to spot they can be though!\n\nThe point of camoflage isn't to make you look exactly like the background, but to break up your body shape/silouette, to make you blend in.\n\nPlus, if an enemy is close enough to tell your camoflage is pixelated, you're probably in trouble already."
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aaw6fi | why do cameras “freak out” when they are recording someone with a striped pattern on their clothing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aaw6fi/eli5_why_do_cameras_freak_out_when_they_are/ | {
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"I'm not sure what you mean, exactly. If you're talking about that trippy pattern that shimmers and moves over a striped pattern as the camera moves, that's a [Moiré pattern](_URL_0_). It's a sort of optical illusion that happens when you look at a striped pattern through some material that is also striped, and the stripes are at an angle to each other. For instance, if you have two bits of window screen and place one over the other, you'll see this pattern. The reason that you sometimes see it on TV is that TV images are made up of colored dots (\"pixels\") in a grid. Looking at an image on TV is like looking at a scene through a fine window-screen... so when there is a striped pattern in the scene, you can get that Moiré pattern."
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3inrqw | why do presidents seem to dissappear from politics after their term ends? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3inrqw/eli5_why_do_presidents_seem_to_dissappear_from/ | {
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"What are they gonna do, take a lesser job and be \"Senator\" instead of \"President\"? No way.\n\nMost presidents are pretty old when they leave office, and they have reached the pinnacle of the political world, so nothing to do but retire.",
"US President is the highest office in the nation. Once you've been President, you can command many thousands of dollars in speaking fees, you can open your library, you can publish your memoirs and make more money, you receive a pension of $200,000 per year - why would you want to stay in politics?\n\nAnyways, they don't all retire from politics. Harry Truman stayed active for years, campaigning for Democrat Senate candidates. ",
"It doesn't always happen. John Quincy Adams was a congressman for 17 years after he was President, and William Howard Taft was appointed Chief Justice eight years after he left office.",
"It is also considered \"good form\" and \"high handed\" to not be the center of attention after leaving office. Showing up on Sunday morning television on Meet the Press to discuss the day to day bullshit politics would make you look petty and bitter. Obama has praised both Bushs for staying on the sidelines. Clinton has taken heat for his speaking fees. Carter is damn near a GOD and one of the more selfless ex presidents there has ever been."
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qipnt | the ending of the movie 2001: a space odyssey | I have watched and re-watched it several times but still I feel like I am trying to write a thesis with a massive hangover for the last 20 minutes or so of the movie. What about the monoliths? Whats with that fetus? Just what the hack happens in that long ending sequence?All that symbolism actually makes it even harder for me to understand it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/qipnt/eli5_the_ending_of_the_movie_2001_a_space_odyssey/ | {
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"Someone correct me if I'm mixing up the book and the movie (because there is a difference). IIRC, Dave Bowman basically gets brought through the monolith which turns into a kind of wormhole and gets brought to where the aliens are, and he is essentially evolved into a higher being. \n\nI haven't seen the sequel film (2010), but I have read the books which backs that up. Dave is essentially a non-corporeal being who is able to manipulate matter and energy.",
"Here it is straight from the mouth of the director:\n\n_URL_0_\n\n**GELMIS: The final scenes of the film seemed more metaphorical than realistic. Will you discuss them -- or would that be part of the \"road map\" you're trying to avoid?**\n\n > KUBRICK: No, I don't mind discussing it, on the lowest level, that is, straightforward explanation of the plot. You begin with an artifact left on earth four million years ago by extraterrestrial explorers who observed the behavior of the man-apes of the time and decided to influence their evolutionary progression. Then you have a second artifact buried deep on the lunar surface and programmed to signal word of man's first baby steps into the universe -- a kind of cosmic burglar alarm. And finally there's a third artifact placed in orbit around Jupiter and waiting for the time when man has reached the outer rim of his own solar system. When the surviving astronaut, Bowman, ultimately reaches Jupiter, this artifact sweeps him into a force field or star gate that hurls him on a journey through inner and outer space and finally transports him to another part of the galaxy, where he's placed in a human zoo approximating a hospital terrestrial environment drawn out of his own dreams and imagination. In a timeless state, his life passes from middle age to senescence to death. He is reborn, an enhanced being, a star child, an angel, a superman, if you like, and returns to earth prepared for the next leap forward of man's evolutionary destiny. That is what happens on the film's simplest level. Since an encounter with an advanced interstellar intelligence would be incomprehensible within our present earthbound frames of reference, reactions to it will have elements of philosophy and metaphysics that have nothing to do with the bare plot outline itself.\n\n**GELMIS: What are those areas of meaning?**\n\n > KUBRICK: They are the areas I prefer not to discuss because they are highly subjective and will differ from viewer to viewer. In this sense, the film becomes anything the viewer sees in it. If the film stirs the emotions and penetrates the subconscious of the viewer, if it stimulates, however inchoately, his mythological and religious yearnings and impulses, then it has succeeded. (Gelmis, The Film Director as Superstar, 1970, p. 304.) ",
"man put in zoo, dies, reborn, aliens send him back to earth more kick ass than before. ",
"I will skip to the last 20 minutes. Dave, after a long arduous journey and realizing his ship is tits up and that he is now \"Major Tom\" floating in a tin can, decides to at least see what this monolith (the TMA) is all about. I mean why not? He is dead anyway. So he gets into a small probe and drifts towards it.\n\nAs he drifts closer he realizes it is not a solid object but a portal. Like a really large open door. He notes that there are stars in it.\n\nAs he enters the portal he is propelled though space and time. During this process he also has some type of \"awakening of conscious\". Think of it like when Native Americans would go for their vision quest. Also he is being transformed physically into a super being. But does not realize it.\n\nAfter all the transporting that seems like Pink Floyd video he is basically a newbie super being. So he is not yet comfortable or familiar with it all and he does not really understand it. Even though he is a super being now he reverts to a comfortable form. It is interpreted that this is subconscious on his part. Basically he reverts to being in really comfy room with a really comfy bed with comfort food readily available. And he digs in, and sleeps a lot. Probably masturbates a time or two, I know I would.\n\nWhile in the room he starts to gain a better understanding of what happened. He sees a \"vision\" of his physical human form growing old and dying and finally gets the point. The Dave that he knew is dead.\n\nDave is not a guy without a sense or irony. He decides to take the form of a giant floating fetus. He calls himself Star Child and uses his new found super being-ness to travel about the solar system. In the book he flies through Jupiter to see what is there (discovers some flying creatures in there) returns to earth and disables all nuclear devices.\n\nSo we are left saying WTF? Some alien race planted the original monolith on pre-historic earth to inspire the ape men to make tools, which led eventually to space travel and the discovery of the TMA on the moon, which led to the trip to Saturn to investigate the TMA there which led to Dave Bowman entering the portal and becoming a Star Child of his own. That's what I call \"Batman-like planning\" on the part of the alien species.\n",
"You should read the book. It's excellent, and the ending is much easier to follow.",
"For everyone who says \"read the book\". It's important to know that the book and the movie are supposed to be watched/read together as the book and the script were written at the same time and they are meant to portray the same story form slightly different directions... So yeah, read the book.. but also make sure to consider the movie!",
"I would highly suggest reading the book, but also the sequal movie (2010) I feel explains things really well at the end. Basically 2010 is a movie designed to explain what happened in 2001, and finish off the story. The books are very different.",
"I read the book and thought \"Ohhhhh! So that's what it means\".\n\nAnd then I went back and watched the film and thought \"WTF?\"\n\nBut I understand the ending now.",
"\"Read the book\" = \"I don't know the answer myself\".",
"I'm surprised nobody has yet posted the breakdown by Rob Ager. The read is well worth it.\n\n_URL_0_",
"If you are looking for an interpretation of the movie and the ending, I would recommend checking this out: _URL_0_ The animation is rather old, but it does a good job of breaking the elements down and delivering an interesting explanation.",
"+1 on read the book. It's very, very good. ",
"Very nice interpretation in flash video:\n_URL_0_\nWhole thing takes about 15 minutes.\nBasically it focuses on the idea of tools being essential for human evolution, to the point where we completely depend on them. Bowman destroys HAL freeing himself from tools, and is then ready to take next evolutionary leap.",
"Dave Bowman's pod approaches the giant monolith in orbit around Jupiter, which turns out to be a kind of gateway left there by the technologically supreme race of aliens responsible for the monoliths' construction (and, by extension, the rise of mankind). He sees some wild shit on his journey. Eventually he arrives inside a kind of constructed plane of reality with its own code of physics – time passes at an abnormal rate; Bowman perceives his own past, present and future simultaneously. He dies of old age after either/both an extremely long and/or immeasurably short period of time. Upon his death, a transcendental AI left behind by the monolith builders gifts him with a new existence as a Starchild; no longer bound by conventional physics, Bowman is immortal and capable of traveling vast distances in the blink of an eye.\n\nThe novel goes into a lot more detail about exactly what he experiences in the last hours of his human existence. While traveling through the monolith, he passes through a derelict space dock filled with a huge variety of alien spacecraft, and after his transfiguration, he returns to Earth and destroys a recently-launched nuclear missile before it can impact its target.\n\nKeep in mind that I'm basing all of this from my memories of reading it as a kid, so I'm not sure how wrong I am. Probably quite.",
"I'd just like to chime in that on a purely aesthetic level, the monoliths occupy a two dimensional viewing space more often than not. Beyond their physical presence in the film, they take on the role of complete, inscrutable obstruction for the viewer, much like the mind might respond to knowledge that advanced.",
"Some really good looking guy asked this on /r/movies a while back, got some good answers.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Everytime a monolith is discovered, the species takes a leap forward in evolution. That's about all i know. The end is still a mystery to me even if I have my own interpretation.",
"Saw it when it first came out, was stoned, thought I understood it. Flash forward 26 years and realize I didn't get it at all.",
"The monolith is god, more or less. or an alien intelligence so advanced as to amount to the same thing. And these monoliths are observing and guiding mans ascent into a higher creature. At the Dawn of Time, a monolith appears and man then uses a tool for the first time- the animal bone- and starts up the evolutionary ladder. The next monolith is on the moon, waiting for man to evolve far enough to be able to find it buried on the moon. When sunlight hits the unearthed monolith on the moon, it sends a radio beam at Jupiter. Man equips the spaceship Discovery to go to Jupiter and investigate. When they get there the monolith appears again and causes man to evolve to another level. Thats the \"star child\" fetus which floats back to earth at the end of the film. Presumably the unexplained light show at the end, the weird hotel room and the aging astronaut are part of the transformation this latest evolutionary step involves. This evolutionary step leaves the audience, us, behind since we are all still just regular people that didn't get the magic evolutionary boost, so to our eyes and experience, the journey the astronaut goes on at the end is represented by the light show. The novel explains a lot of this stuff.",
"Watch it again on acid",
"Your guess is as good as mine",
"_URL_0_\n\nThis provides an not only an excellent explanation but also some insights to the film from beginning to end. \n\nAs for the five year old part....\n\nMen being in space is like a fish being in a tank. Once the fish fall out of the tank they suffocate and drown. We literally needed to re-learn how to breath! So in the end when the spaceman is taking out the bad computer was a symbol showing how we grew too attached to the machines and how we literally needed to be close to dead to travel. In the end it showed we needed to get back to the basic tools to survive the most harsh environments. Once were free only then could we continue. \n\nSo when the spaceman was eating his final meal he accidentally dropped his glass and the wine was still there. Which was the 'alien's/higher being's/god's way of telling him that his body is dieing but he will live on. ",
"Welcome to the world of epileptic seizures, timmy.",
"Read the book.\n\nIt explains everything outright (none of this wishy-washy interpret-for-yourself symbolism), and is worth your time even if you've already seen the movie.",
"Thanks for asking this. I saw it for the first time a few days ago, and felt like my brain hadn't been so royally fucked since I started trying to understand Evangelion.",
"There are a lot of ways to look at it.\n\nThe way I prefer to look at it is that there is always something outside the characters that makes them move forward. \n\nThe war with the other apes makes the apes use weapons--did the Monolith give it an idea or not? \n\nThe space race gave the people the push to go to the moon. \n\nThe evidence of an alien monolith there pushed them to explore Jupiter. \n\nHAL's screwy behavior drove Dave to head into the monolith. It also killed everybody else. This means that sometimes outside influences don't make us succeed; they might not have an impact on us or even hold us back.\n\nAll the weird stuff Dave saw inside the monolith led him to let go of his body and become a star child. Now he can go and push humanity to better from beyond like the monolith did, which he sort of did in *2010: The Year We Make Contact*, the sequel.\n\nIf you don't get what I mean about letting go of his body, use ctrl+f and type in \"wine\" to find a poster who explained it much better than I could. \n\nThe point is that none of these people would have done any of these things if something hadn't come up to push them onward, to give them a problem to solve. Progress, or moving forward and making things better, comes from adversity, or things that are creating problems for you. \n\nAnother idea that comes from all this is, look at how far we've gone. Imagine how much further we can go! So far we've only been to the moon, and in nowhere near as cool, regular a way as the movie. If something pushed at us to keep going to the moon, pushed us to go to other planets... just imagine what we could actually achieve. Those apes, they couldn't understand going to space; they didn't really know what space was. Likewise, we can't understand what our future will be like so far away. That's why the end of the movie, with Dave in the monolith with the colors and the fancy room, doesn't make any sense to most people. If you look really hard, you might get an idea.. but there are more ideas there than we'll find because no one's ever been there... yet. \n\nSo the whole movie is kind of Kubrick meets *Oh, the Places You'll Go.*",
"Wow, people really can't use the search feature. The last thread (just in ELI5) about this was posted just [14 days ago](_URL_1_). \n\nThen again before [1 month ago](_URL_0_).\n\nA total of ten threads going back 6 months starting with [this one](_URL_2_).\n\nIt's good to ask questions but please use the search feature as noted by the side bar. If the last thread had been over a year ago or something similarly outdated it may be fair to resurface the question to get a fresh perspective from any new people to see it but when the last thread is only two weeks old...",
"The movie is incomplete. I watched this damn thing several times, and couldn't get it either. I've read the \"making of\" and the mental gymnastics he expects the viewer to make are ridiculous. Read the book, it'll explain everything and fill in the gaps that Kubrick expects us to hurdle."
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1fh8me | how people are so distracted from space exploration and technologies? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1fh8me/eli5_how_people_are_so_distracted_from_space/ | {
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"There are many, many interesting things in the world. Space exploration is just one of them. Lots of very clever people are busy working on different problems.\n\nThe majority of the population, though, just isn't interested in science and space, and would rather sit at home watching soap operas.\n\nAs for the few people left who *are* interested in space exploration, money is the biggest problem. Space exploration is expensive, and unlikely to provide any return for an investor for the foreseeable future."
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2cf3hc | why are the conservative republicans afraid of the the tea party republicans? | I hear this a lot and not 100% sure why. Not looking for Republican bashing just why they are so influential | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cf3hc/eli5_why_are_the_conservative_republicans_afraid/ | {
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"There are people who desperately wanted to see an end to old DC back in 08 and never got it. The GOP also espouses many values that are falling out of favor with the majority of Americans, so they can't afford to have any infighting between two factions: people with simple traditional values vs rabid radicals who want to see DC burn. If they can't build enough consensus, they'll never achieve any of their goals and will continue to be forced to just blocking other actions. ",
"For several years now the Republican Party has been dividing into two groups, Establishment and Tea Party (it's a bit of an oversimplification, but it gets the point across). The Establishment is guys like John McCain, John Beohner, etc. that have money, power, sat on the Hill for a while, and like the way they do business. \n\nThe Tea Party candidates are mostly people who are new to politics, do not want to do business the way the Establishment does. They're usually younger, less willing to compromise, and more conservative (especially on issues like taxes and border security). \n\nThe Establishment (what you call Conservative Republicans in your question) doesn't like the Tea Party because they don't fall in line when voting comes around. Boehner wants to pass an immigration reform bill that compromises with the President so Republicans can possibly drum up some support among Latino voters. The Tea Party candidates don't care whether they get more support from Latino voters, they don't want an immigration reform compromise that that doesn't start with enforcement of current laws and border security.\n\nAnd the Tea Party (which should be noted are simply a faction of the Republican Party) has gotten big enough that they can actually stop a bill from passing. Even more than that, they don't care about Republican seats on the House and Senate, they'll run agains fellow Republicans...and they topple VERY powerful guys like Eric Cantor.",
"The Tea Party really should be their own political party, but if they really broke away, then the Democrats would most likely win, which is even worse for the Republicans. Their unwillingness to work with the Democrats has forced them to turn to the Tea Party who are technically Republicans to help and they have to listen to the Tea Party demands to pass the laws they want."
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e06i7i | what causes the occasionally visible electricity when you plug things in? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e06i7i/eli5_what_causes_the_occasionally_visible/ | {
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"If the thing you're plugging in draws a lot of current, then there will be a brief spark where there's enough connection to transfer electricity but there's not enough metal-metal contact to make it a efficient, low resistance connection. The metal right at the connection point gets hot and you get a little bit of a spark.\n\nThis is common in things like laptop power supplies that have big filter capacitors in them that draw a lot of current when first plugged in. You'd see the same if you plugged in a big resistive heater while it the power switch was on. That's why i'ts recommended to make sure things like that are off before you plug them in to help eliminate sparking and arcing and power surges.",
"It's called arcing. I'm not good with electricity, but I'm pretty sure it's caused by voltage being high enough (or the gap being small enough) for the electricity to jump the distance between the outlet and the plug. \n\nIt might also be caused by, like, damaged or faulty outlets."
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3jpl9r | why don't they put high quality microphones/speakers in air planes? i've never been able to hear what the pilot is saying clearly. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jpl9r/eli5_why_dont_they_put_high_quality/ | {
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"A couple reasons:\n\n1) Financial - If the current stuff works \"well enough\" that information is communicated between the tower and the plane, then it's enough to hear \"Brace for impact\" or something similar.\n\n2) Noise! - Airplanes vibrate...a lot. The vibrations cause the microphones and speakers to become somewhat distorted, and those speakers are just good enough to relay critical information. They're not sending high quality radio through them :P\n\nIf you plug headphones into the plane you should hear the pilot \"somewhat\" more clearly."
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k1xpw | how the does a printer work? | I watched a huge printer in the office today. It is about 4 feet wide and was printing extremely intricate details for me. I don't understand how a printer works! How do lasers or jets work so that color comes out on the page? Help me out Reddit! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/k1xpw/eli5_how_the_does_a_printer_work/ | {
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"There are a few different ways printers work.\n\nInk jet printers work by placing small drops of ink onto the paper. That's why when you print something like a color photo that the paper seems a bit damp when it comes out of the printer.\n\nLaser printers work on a principal of static electricity. An actual laser shines in the drum on the toner cartridge creating a static electric charge. The drum turns, and toner sticks to the spots the laser hit on the toner drum. The toner then gets transferred from the drum to the paper using static electricity again. Finally goes through a part of the printer called the fuser that actually melts the toner onto the paper. That's why freshly printed pages from a laser printer feel a bit warm.\n\nFinally there are plotters. These are printers that have actual ink pens in them. An apparatus grabs a pen and draws lines on the paper. Plotters used to be used quite a bit for line drawings, like schematics or building plans. They have been replaced by large ink jet printers for the most part.",
"Here's a short [video](_URL_0_) of how copiers work (to answer your laser printers).",
"You can say fuck on Reddit.",
"There are a few different ways printers work.\n\nInk jet printers work by placing small drops of ink onto the paper. That's why when you print something like a color photo that the paper seems a bit damp when it comes out of the printer.\n\nLaser printers work on a principal of static electricity. An actual laser shines in the drum on the toner cartridge creating a static electric charge. The drum turns, and toner sticks to the spots the laser hit on the toner drum. The toner then gets transferred from the drum to the paper using static electricity again. Finally goes through a part of the printer called the fuser that actually melts the toner onto the paper. That's why freshly printed pages from a laser printer feel a bit warm.\n\nFinally there are plotters. These are printers that have actual ink pens in them. An apparatus grabs a pen and draws lines on the paper. Plotters used to be used quite a bit for line drawings, like schematics or building plans. They have been replaced by large ink jet printers for the most part.",
"Here's a short [video](_URL_0_) of how copiers work (to answer your laser printers).",
"You can say fuck on Reddit."
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8ikxrj | why are drugs that have no recreational use, such as a drug that you would get to treat a sinus infection, only available through prescription. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ikxrj/eli5_why_are_drugs_that_have_no_recreational_use/ | {
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"Im guessing youre talking about antibiotics. It would become a real issue if anyone at anytime could buy antibiotics when they have the sniffles. You see antibiotics ONLY work against bacteria, so if you dont have a bacterial infection they would be useless. Now it wouldnt be an issue if you were swallowing antibiotics and they wouldnt do anything but that is not the case. If you take antibiotics for shorter than your doctor recommended (even if youre feeling better take them as long as he/she told you) you increase the chance of basically breeding resistant bacteria in your body. ",
"Are you talking about antibiotics? If you’re talking about antibiotics the reason is that we’re at a tipping point in history when it comes to medicine and antibiotics. They’re currently being over prescribed and used incorrectly. This includes prescribing them for infections that the body can handle well on its own as well as not using them correctly (taking a course of antibiotics only until symptoms improve rather than until the supposed infection is cleared out). Both of these practices occur often in medicine as it is and leads to the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria. \n\nThe prevalence of antibiotic resistant bacteria is a threat to all of medicine as we know it. Things like surgeries wouldn’t really be possible anymore since patients are treated prophylactically (read: beforehand) with antibiotics to prevent possible that they’re being exposed to since they’re being cut open and sewn back up. Not treating them with antibiotics beforehand could result in some pretty bad infections and the risk outweighs the benefits of many surgeries. People with compromised immune systems are also put at risk in a world where antibiotics don’t work anymore because we can’t give them anything to help their handicapped immune system fight off infection. There are other examples, I’ll go look for a more credible source than my memory.\n\nEdit: found a PDF with a lot of good information pertaining to the subject. A little old (from 2010) but still relevant. Lemme know if the link goes bad\n_URL_0_",
"It would vary depending on the classification of drug.\nWith what I assume would be antibiotics to treat a sinus infection, incorrect usage such as not taking doses at the right time, or not finishing the course make it more likely that some of the bacteria survive and the infection returns within a few days. On a populational scale this may also contribute to antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria developing.\n\nTo continue with the antibiotic example, these can have side effects such interfering with natural gut flora or reducing the effectiveness of the birth control pill for women. The action if a drug may also be harmful in groups that don't require it, such medication for hypertension (high low pressure) or hyperglycemia (high blood sugar). Very effective in groups dependent on it, but if taken by someone with normal levels this could induce syncope (fainting) or even coma.\n\nAnother consideration is the difference between a drug's therapeutic dose - the amount required to take effect - and the dose at which it causes harm to the body. In some medications, and even some fat soluable vitamin supplements (e.g. vitamin A) taking the incorrect dose can be harmful.\n\nIn summary, by requiring a prescription it ensures medication is only given to those who need it, gives an opportunity to explain correct usage and side effects, and consider previous medical history. From a healthcare perspective, if a patient in admitted with no prescription history to reference, even administering an otherwise harmless drug can cause a fatal interaction."
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3k7v63 | why is their so much abuse on online gaming? | I am reasonably new to the gaming community, after only a few hours i realized how abusive the online chat for some games are.
The game I am talking about in particular is Rust. So explain why this happens. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3k7v63/eli5_why_is_their_so_much_abuse_on_online_gaming/ | {
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"One of the key factors is anonymity, just the fact that nobody knows you, unless you are playing with friends. People are much more likely to lash out at people and even verbally attack them when they know the other person more than likely can't do anything about it. It's even a way for shy people to become, at least somewhat, social. ",
"When some people are anonymous they are nasty to people because they know they can get away with it. After all, how can you retaliate?\nAnd it's not just online gaming, it can happen on Reddit too. You fucking cunt."
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4ktjwk | why are many important historical artefacts locked away and rarely displayed even though they are very well protected (climate control boxes etc)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ktjwk/eli5_why_are_many_important_historical_artefacts/ | {
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"The space to safely display important artifacts is much smaller than would be required to display all the archived artifacts. It's just too expensive to put everything on display and take care of it.",
"Most museums do not have the floor space to put their entire collections on display, nor the money to expand it--and very special artifacts bring added costs with them.\n\nKeep in mind that museums don't just serve the general public. It is common for them to employ researchers and cooperate with universities--making the artifacts available for study is very valuable, even if they can't be on permanent display. For many museums, public display developed as an outgrowth of their academic work.\n\nIf there is something in particular you'd like to see on display, you should contact the museum curators. If money is the concern, your donation could make it happen.",
"No one's stated the obvious yet, which is that in most cases, displaying an artifact will actively further its deterioration. One of a museum's primary purposes is, as you seem to understand, to *preserve* historically and culturally important objects - this is why they're stored in climate controlled areas, etc. These conditions are scientifically engineered to prolong the life of the object as much as possible. Putting delicate objects on display is subjecting them to conditions that are detrimental to its long-term survival: light, humidity, and warm temperatures are all highly detrimental to historical objects. Galleries (areas where objects are on display) are often very well lit, somewhat humid, and fairly warm, because those are the conditions that are most comfortable for humans to be in."
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6e9pn3 | why is there a border crossing between hong kong and china since the british relinquished to the people's republic on china in 1997? | A friend of mine just got back from China and described having to cross a border check-point between Hong Kong and China.
Why is this in place, considering the British relinquished control of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China in 1997? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6e9pn3/eli5_why_is_there_a_border_crossing_between_hong/ | {
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"Hong Kong is an autonomous territory, meaning that although it belongs to China, it pretty much runs its own affairs. It has its own government and its own economy (even its own currency), so is almost (but not quite) a separate country. All China really does is to take care of Hong Kong's military defence and foreign affairs. This is done according to a principle described as \"one country, two systems\".",
"Hong Kong is considered a \"special economic zone\" by the Chinese government. Things which are illegal in China are often legal in Hong Kong. This legal barrier is somewhat of a propaganda problem for the Chinese government, as the special economic zones (Macau is also one) are in general more prosperous than most of the rest of the country.\n\nSo, to prevent ordinary Chinese citizens from being...peeved...at government restrictions, China just doesn't allow mainland Chinese folks to live or work in either of the SEZs. They have customs officials, different passports, their own governments with surprisingly large amounts of autonomy considering China's history, and even their own diplomatic missions from foreign countries. The American Consulate in Hong Kong is actually larger than the official Embassy in Beijing.\n\nThe end result? China benefits from the economic strength of the SEZs even though both of them function more like their own countries than like regions of the same country. It's a very bizarre situation, but it came about through political necessity.",
"Others have already answered your primary question, but the craziest part about this to me is that it's much easier for you as a foreigner to enter Hong Kong than it is for a Chinese national. As an American, I can just show up in Hong Kong for a vacation without doing anything in advance. A native of Beijing, for example, however would first need to obtain an [Exit-Entry Permit](_URL_0_) in order to travel to what is technically just another part of his or her own country."
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6lewna | how large corporations recover once they have been infected by ransom ware. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6lewna/eli5_how_large_corporations_recover_once_they/ | {
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"Any corporation with a competent IT department does regular system-wide backups on a daily basis. They also have a disaster recovery plan that allows them to stand up new instances of their critical systems on short notice.\n\nAnd sometimes, they just pay the ransom. They routinely put thousands of dollars worth of software on every desktop, paying $500 a pop to free them up is painful, but not undoable."
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dufwn4 | why do two transits of venus occur every hundred or so years, but the transits of mercury occur more frequently than venus? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dufwn4/eli5_why_do_two_transits_of_venus_occur_every/ | {
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"Mercury orbits the sun much quicker than Venus. And Venus and Earth's orbit time are closer. That means Mercury is going to \"lap\" the earth far more often which gives opportunity for a transit.\n\n(Imagine a track race where you're on the outer track and the person next track in is running only slightly faster. They'd lap you every 10 laps or so. That's Venus. Mercury is on the inner most track on a motorbike and laps you both far more frequently)"
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3n22v6 | why do states seem to carry out executions in the middle of the night rather than during the day? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3n22v6/eli5_why_do_states_seem_to_carry_out_executions/ | {
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"If someone is due to be executed on October 1st, they do it right when it turns october 1st, right after midnight."
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||
k702l | how lottery cards are made? | They obviously cant have thousands of cards with the same combinations, so how does it work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/k702l/eli5_how_lottery_cards_are_made/ | {
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"The non playing areas are all the same and made by standard off-set printing methods. A special printer based on the same technology as ink jet printers selects numbers at random from a computer bank and prints them on the playing area, along with the unique bar code. Then off-set printing is used to cover the numbers with scratchable ink.",
"The non playing areas are all the same and made by standard off-set printing methods. A special printer based on the same technology as ink jet printers selects numbers at random from a computer bank and prints them on the playing area, along with the unique bar code. Then off-set printing is used to cover the numbers with scratchable ink."
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61ytji | why do islands come in chains? | Someone recently told me Hawaii comes from an underwater volcano and moving tectonic plates...? It doesn't make sense to me at the moment. Could someone explain how an Island chain is formed and maybe compare it to how other islands form? Thanks in advance! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/61ytji/eli5_why_do_islands_come_in_chains/ | {
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"From my simple understanding; those tectonic plates are moving slowly. As they pass over the hot spot where the molten rock is oozing from the earth's mantle, there is enough buildup to form an island.\n",
"The Earth is divided into layers of what it's made of. The crust on the outside, about 5 to 50 miles thick, is solid rock that was originally made from volcanic eruptions. Then there's the mantle which is about 1800 miles thick, also solid rock but is primordial having been mostly solid since the Earth was formed. Then the outer core which is liquid iron, then the inner core solid iron.\n\nThe Earth can also be divided into layers of how it acts. The outside layer, called the 'lithosphere', is made of the crust and uppermost mantle and it's cooler which makes it rigid. It's broken into a number of pieces called 'tectonic plates' which move around sideways. Below that is the hotter asthenosphere, part of the mantle which flows in super slow motion; it's solid, remember, but think 'solid like plasticine'. The plates mostly correspond to continents or oceans, for example there's a Eurasian plate and a Pacific plate and many others.\n\nIf a part of the upper asthenosphere or lithosphere melts, it creates some magma. Rock doesn't melt all at once like ice, it 'partially melts', so you get a bit of magma and some residual solid rock mixed together. The magma rises because it's less dense than the solid residue, and then either stops and freezes again in the crust somewhere or erupts through the surface and makes a volcano.\n\nHow to melt some asthenosphere? Three ways. One, simply make it hotter, naturally. Two, let it rise closer to the surface while retaining its heat, it's under less pressure and that makes it melt. Or three, get some water into it, which lowers the melting point.\n\nIn Hawaii it's the first one. There's a 'hotspot' which makes some magma which then makes a volcano. Over a long enough time the volcano builds above the sea surface. But the tectonic plate is moving, compared to the hotspot, which means after a while the island is too far from the source of magma. Its volcanoes stop erupting, and new ones form. This processes repeated over and over gives a chain of islands, their ages increasing along the chain from the newest one. The old islands get eroded, eventually down to below sea level. So the Big Island is the largest and the youngest, with the volcanoes still erupting, at the east end of the chain and they get older and smaller as you go west.\n\nFor the mid ocean ridges, it's the second one. The plates are pulling apart, stretching the lithosphere thin to breaking point, the asthenosphere fills the gap and melts and the magma then freezes again into new oceanic crust.\n\nFor \"island arc\" volcanoes such as the Aleutian Islands, it's the third one. There's a subduction zone near the island chain, where one tectonic plate crashes into another and is forced underneath. This carries water down into the asthenosphere, making it melt, and forming a bunch of volcanic islands. Unlike Hawaii where the island at the end is youngest and the ages increase systematically down the chain, island arc chains have no pattern to their ages.\n\nAnd just for good measure, Iceland is a combination of 1 and 2. It's a mid ocean ridge over a hotspot, which means extra magma so the new oceanic crust builds thicker and rises above the sea surface.\n\n_URL_0_"
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1yes9b | my poop floats sometimes, and sinks others. what gives? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1yes9b/eli5_my_poop_floats_sometimes_and_sinks_others/ | {
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"The density can vary based on things like fat content; having too much fat in it can make it float for example.",
"I have a B.S in nutrition and a Doctorate in Naturopathic medicine. \n\nThis question actually needs a slightly complicated answer. So here we go.\n\nThere are two main reasons why your feces will float. \n\n1) You have a fat malabsorption problem, which can be anything from Crohn's disease to gallbladder or pancreatic problems) or you have a terribly diet full of fatty foods. If it is pale or clay colored, this would indicate gallbladder or liver problems. \n\nIf it's greasy and leaves film on the toilet, you could have digestive system problems and therefore may be deficient in fat soluble vitamins like Vit A, D and E. Vitamin deficiencies can cause disease in other body systems like the eyes and skin.\n\n2) You eat lots of fiber and have a healthy diet. Your stool would be brown, not offensively odorous, and well-formed [(see type 3 or 4 on the Bristol chart).](_URL_0_)\n\nFor the most part, if it floats, doesn't smell bad and it brown, you are probably OK. \n\nIf it floats and is clay colored, greasy, black, and/or offensively odorous or very different from your normal stool then you should see someone either a nutritionist, naturopath, or gastroenterologist depending on the severity of your symptoms. \n\nI hope this helped :) \n\nEdit: For the people who think I'm making this all up... _URL_1_",
"You should look into the book, \"What is my poo telling me.\" It actually has saved lives."
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f9az61 | why are whites and yolks mixed in separately while baking cakes? sometimes extra yolk is also added. how does that affect the cake? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f9az61/eli5_why_are_whites_and_yolks_mixed_in_separately/ | {
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"They aren’t always separate. More often than not the whole egg goes in. Yolks the fattiest most flavorful part so they extra yolks being more moisture and depth to taste. Whites are comparatively less so but whip well to being structure and solidify cakes (binder).",
"This is too general a question without a specific recipe.\n\nOne reason I separate them is to whip the egg whites separately (with tartaric acid/cream of tartar) to form a reasonably stable foam. This foam won't form properly in the presence of oil/fat which the yolk has. \n\nAfter mixing the batter with the yolks etc. carefully fold in the egg white foam into the batter. This gives a lighter/fluffier cake after baking. Additional yolks give a nice moist mouth feel to the cake. \n\nIf the goal or desire is for a more dense cake, then the egg doesn't need to be separated. It is a preference. A bit more effort for a lighter cake."
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49qixr | how does the us democratic party's rule of proportional representation work? | How does the rule work and apply to two candidates and what does it mean to the candidate coming second? From the little I have heard on the news it seems that the candidate coming second will always be second because of the rule. That seems like it would be a broken rule though so I do not think that is true. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49qixr/eli5_how_does_the_us_democratic_partys_rule_of/ | {
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"All candidates who get 15% or more of the vote in a certain state get delegates. How many delegates they get depends on the number of people who voted for them: if candidate A gets twice as many votes as candidate B, then candidate A gets twice as many delegates (up to some rounding).\n\nAs an example, suppose we had three people running: Alice gets 10% of the vote, Bob gets 30%, and Charlie gets 60% in a state with 30 delegates. Alice didn't get more than 15%, so she doesn't get any delegates. Bob and Charlie split the state's total of 30, and Charlie gets twice as many (20) as Bob does (10)."
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49fl0s | spanning tree network? | Please. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49fl0s/eli5_spanning_tree_network/ | {
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"I assume you have a basic understanding of networking to be asking this question. But essentially, if you have a layer 2 network without spanning tree or some other means enabled what happens is the broadcasts/traffic would propagate throughout the network forever. Spanning tree stops loops by disabling one of the links between switches. If the primary link goes down for some reason the backup link comes online. There's a lot more to it, but that's the basics. It's a means to disable a port between two switches that have multiple connections to stop broadcasts and such from continuously being sent throughout the network.",
"Probably the wrong sub for this I'd head over to /r/ccna or /r/networking but the primary purpose of spanning tree is to prevent layer 2 (MAC addresses) loops in a network where two switches have more than one link connected to them by shutting down the redundant ports.\n\nImagine you have two switches with 2 links connected to each other and the other ports have PCs on them. When one PC sends a frame out of a switchport the switch then associates that MAC address to that specific port. Basically saying (hey i know this PC because I know his MAC). The problem arises because of multiple links between the switches because each switch can (and will if STP isn't enabled) associate the same MAC address with two different ports. And because frames don't have a time to live field like IP packets the frame will transverse the network continuously.\n\nThat wasn't ELI5 was it :("
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4cj7rp | i know who takes over if a u.s. president were to die in office, but who would take over if a presidential candidate were to die of a heart attack or such? they're running mate or would their party nominate another candidate? what would happen? | I was so afraid to google "what would happen if a presidental candidate would die before the elections" lol... So I figured I would ask here. Thanks.
Yea yea yea, I know, I ment their not they're, sorry in advance. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4cj7rp/eli5i_know_who_takes_over_if_a_us_president_were/ | {
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"The party whose nominee they would have been would decide how to replace them. There are reasonable arguments to be made for either the second highest vote getter in the primaries, or the Vice Presidential nominee. Unless this happened just days before the election I would guess there would be a sort of emergency convention to decide - although it's also possible that the parties have a plan already.",
"If it's a presidential candidate (and not the president elect), then I think it's in the hands of the party to decide. I can't think of an instance of a presidential candidate having to withdraw, but there are examples of that at other levels.\n\nFor example, back in 2004 for the Illinois Senate race, Jack Ryan won the Republican primary, but ended his campaign before the election due to a scandal. The Illinois Republican committee selected Alan Keyes to replace him. Keyes went on to lose 70%-27% to Barack Obama.",
"It depends on what stage the election was in.\n\nIf it was before the parties had nominated their candidates, things would go on as if the candidate in question had left the race for any other reason; their supporters would have to vote for other candidates. Maybe another candidate (or even a newcomer to the race) might run \"in their memory\" and try to poach their former supporters.\n\nIf it was after the conventions, the party of the dead candidate would have to nominate someone to run in their stead. They probably wouldn't hold primary elections for lack of time, so the decision would ultimately fall to the party leadership.",
"The nomination process isn't part of gov't...all the Constitution cares about is who wins the most electoral votes on election day.\n\nStates have laws about how to get on their ballots, and what deadlines you have to meet to do it. If a candidate died or otherwise left the race, after that deadline, the best their party could do was some sort of write in campaign, likely for the vice presidential candidate.",
"This has kind of happened already.\n\nRobert Kennedy was assassinated on June 6th 1968 by the Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan. He was shot as he was giving his victory speech for winning the California Primary. Because it was still in primary season, instead of the actual Presidential election, the Democratic Party went ahead with the other Democratic choice, Johnson's Vice President, Hubert Humphrey. Humphrey lost to Richard Nixon in the 1968 general election.\n\nAt the time he was shot, RFK was about 100 or so delegates down from Humphrey--that includes his win in California, which bumped him up quite a bit. By the end of the election, Humphrey won the Democratic Primary's popular vote with 2.91M votes vs. RFK's 2.3M votes--which is a hell of a slim margin.\n\nRFK doesn't strictly apply here, since it looks like you're trying to figure out--for example--what would have happened if Barack Obama or John McCain was shot in fall 2008. At the time RFK was shot, the Democratic Party hadn't picked their nominee yet, and honestly--it was looking like a pretty damn close Democratic convention.\n\n[Source for numbers.](_URL_0_)"
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4lxl3u | why when you look in a mirror with a mirror oppisite that it goes on forever, but seems to get darker the further in it gets? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4lxl3u/eli5_why_when_you_look_in_a_mirror_with_a_mirror/ | {
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"Mirrors aren't perfect - not all of the light that hits a mirror is reflected back out again.\n\nIf, for instance, a mirror reflects 90% of the light that hits it, that means 10% will be lost.\n\nSo on the first reflection, you'll be down to 90% of the original light intensity.\n\nIt hits the second mirror, and we drop 10% from the 90% we've already got - 81% of the original.\n\nReflect it again, another 10% off the 81%, 73%... 64%... 56%... 50%...\n\nSo each time we've got less and less light being reflected, so the reflections get darker and darker until they're impossible to make out."
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bx10vk | could someone get in trouble for accidentally stumbling upon child porn | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bx10vk/eli5_could_someone_get_in_trouble_for/ | {
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"It depends on how many times this \"accident\" happened. And btw...before considering telling police that you meant to be committing a different form of illegal movie downloading...you might want to consult with a lawyer.",
"Theoretically yes, practically no. Firstly law enforcement are not tracking those who on a single occasion saw something for a few seconds. Secondly if you accidentally clicked on something innocent then it is likely that hundreds of other people would have done the same and law enforcement can track back on your device to see how you came to the location.",
"Obviously, do not just click any random link that people send you. Do not download files that you are not sure of. That being said, accidentally downloading something is probably not going to get you in trouble. A police department or DA's office is not going to bother with someone who downloaded one file and then deleted it. Now if you accidentally download a few thousands photos and movies...well, you should be prepared for the consequences."
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2tertv | why is there so much down time in professional football games? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2tertv/eli5_why_is_there_so_much_down_time_in/ | {
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"I'm assuming you mean American football. There are a couple reasons: \n\n* It provides ample time to include commercials\n* Football is an extremely brutal and tiring sport; the downtime gives players a chance to recover between plays\n* Oftentimes there are a lot of things that have to happen between plays; the ball needs to be spotted, teams need to decide on their plays, chains may need to be moved, the line needs to be set, etc. All of this takes time."
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77kcc2 | why does rain make us feel cozy? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/77kcc2/eli5_why_does_rain_make_us_feel_cozy/ | {
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"It depends on where you are. If you're at home, and it's also cold out, you turn on the heat and some lights, grab a sweater or a blanket, and bam, you're feeling cozy. Because those things make you feel warmer. If you're outside, you pull up your hoodie or get under an umbrella, maybe stand close with someone else under that umbrella, and bam, cozy! Imagine being outside in the rain, no coat, no umbrella, no somebody, no warm...no cozy!",
"Let's be a bit more specific and talk about gentle rains with maybe a bit of thunder in the distance while you're inside or under shelter. There's a big number of things that contribute.\n\nFirst, the *soft white noise*. A gentle rain creates tons of mildly distracting pleasant white noise. This helps reduce stress. \n\nIt *amplifies positive feelings of comfort, shelter and safety*. You don't get these positive feelings when you're outside doing stuff in it, you get them when they're not drenching you. So there's a bigger difference between INSIDE (where you're comfortable) and OUTSIDE (where you wouldn't be), so you notice that you're in a positive state a bit more. And this contrast can be bigger if there's thunder off in the distance somewhere. And such rains comes when it's usually comfortably humid and cool, rather than sticky and too hot. \n\nGentle rains are tied to an emotional state of calmness too because they're *associated with a history of calm activities and \"me time\"*, relaxing and not working. The last time there was a day like this you pampered yourself a little with a good book on a comfortable couch... so you look forward to the next time. \n\nRain *symbolizes renewal and cleanliness*. It's a positive source of growth for plants and it often produces a nice clean smell as it washes dust away. So there's a mental association with a few positives there.\n\nAnd for those of us who live in temperate zones, this type of pleasant rain means it's not snowing and there are leaves on the trees... and so it's what most of us consider to be *the better time of the year*.",
"Less fomo: it's socially acceptable and expected to get cozy when it rains. Guilt free cozying without missing out on the coolest party ever or other socializing because there's a good chance everyone else is just getting cozy too.",
"Way back in cavemen days, rain meant we could rest without fear of being hunted. We could sit in our caves and relax."
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62kt68 | how do darknet dealers get drugs like cocaine and heroin in the first place? | Like where does the drug come from in the first place? How'd they make it and stuff? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/62kt68/eli5_how_do_darknet_dealers_get_drugs_like/ | {
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"You just find a supplier and buy it with bitcoin, its actually real easy, took maybe half an hour to set up and make a purchase. I ordered over 20 times in large quantities and never got caught or lost a package",
"From drug suppliers, who get it from drug cartels.\n\nIllegal enterprise creates an entire underground economy.",
"The same way traditional drug dealers do. From producers, or importers (who get them from producers). The drug supply chain does not change, what changes is how the product gets to the end user.\n\nThink of it like Amazon vs a general store. They both buy products from suppliers and wholesalers but they retail the products very differently. ",
"My question is how do people actually get this stuff delivered? How is it not caught every time..",
"I recall checking out Silk Road when I first heard about it. Some of the sellers that had cocaine seemed to be buying large amounts of cocoa paste? I have no idea where it was getting refined or what the path/connection was. It was not industrial amounts though... my first thought was that someone was getting paste and producing it on a smaller local level. I could be wrong.\n\nAnyways.. it would get cooked up into large glass pans, probably lasagna or casserole pans and make these nice sweet bricks of pure coke. You could see the shiny/flake crystalline pattern that good cocaine will have on the close up shots of broken chunks. \n\nAnecdotal, but I thought it was pretty interesting how they showed their production process for authenticity purposes I suppose. Also interesting was the reviews section where buyers would rate the product and delivery experience etc. \n\nIf I recall correctly, the money transfer was held in escrow until both parties were satisfied. A sellers account needed to make so many confirmed sales before money would be moved out of escrow or too win a dispute. A buyers account also needed to have made several confirmed purchases before being able to win a dispute. All in all seemed like a pretty fair system and I think the favor usually went to the buyer if something was seized in the mail. \n\nI must have spent half a day just browsing silk road and all it had to offer. Never went back again.. it was simply window shopping.",
"Not a dark net thing persay, but... when I moved from NC to CA, I could only take so much with me on the plane. I stuffed all my other belongings in a single box. \n\nThat included various blankets, trinkets, movies, but 5 open bottles of alcohol, my glass pipe which I didn't realize had a freshly packed bowl in it. Sent it off via UPD with a fragile sticker all over.\n\nNothing actually happened though. It just showed up, no problem. ",
"Cocaine is made from coca leaves. Opiates (such as heroin) are made from opium resin, from the sap of poppy flowers.\n\nCoca is a bushy plant that is native to South America, and grown mostly there. (Coca is not to be confused with cacao, which is the plant that chocolate comes from.) Poppies are a flower that is native to the Mediterranean region, but is today most heavily grown in central and southern Asia.\n\nPoppy flowers that you can buy at garden shops are actually the same species as \"opium poppies\", and they do contain opiates. It's legal to grow them for decorative purposes, but not to extract opium from them. (The bright orange \"California poppy\" does not contain opium.) Similarly, poppy seeds that are used in pastries do contain a tiny amount of opiates. It's a myth that eating one poppyseed bagel will make you test positive for opiates on a drug test. However, some European pastries are stuffed with poppyseed-based filling and will certainly register on a urine test. A blood test can tell the difference between heroin (or fentanyl) and poppyseeds, though.\n\n(Historically, poppy seeds were a byproduct of opium production. Opium has been used as a medicine for pain since the dawn of recorded history in Europe. There are sculptures from Minoan Crete depicting the poppy as a goddess of healing. By the way, cannabis is from the Caucasus, and the Greek historian Herodotus was kind of weirded out by how the people there — the Scythians — used it: they would burn it in bonfires to get high on the smoke.)\n\nAnyway, these plants are grown secretly, or with the cooperation (bribery) of local governments. Extracting cocaine from coca leaves, or crude opium from poppies, doesn't have to be much more complicated than extracting caffeine from coffee beans or tea leaves. But for the drug trade, it's done with chemicals to make it faster and more efficient. Turning opium into heroin is a bunch more complicated and involves secret chemical labs. Opium is ancient, but heroin was only invented in the 20th century.\n\nExtracting opium from poppies involves letting the flower go to seed, and then scratching or cutting the seed-pod to make it ooze sap. The sap contains a mixture of many different chemicals, some of which are already drugs (primarily morphine) and others that can be chemically changed to make drugs. Extracting cocaine from coca leaves involves soaking them in water and chemicals to get the cocaine to dissolve out of the leaves.\n\nIt's worth noting that coca leaves and poppy extracts can be used as drugs without any further preparation. Native people in Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru have chewed coca leaves as a mild stimulant for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks and Persians used opium extracted from poppies with alcohol from wine. However, coca leaves and poppy pods are very bulky; refined cocaine and heroin are much more compact and therefore easier to smuggle.\n\nThere is a general rule that when drugs are made illegal, people find ways to make the drugs stronger, because stronger drugs are easier to smuggle. In the 1920s, when the U.S. prohibited alcohol, the production of beer and wine basically shut down, but gin and whiskey became more popular. Cocaine is stronger than coca leaves, and crack is stronger again than cocaine. Modern cannabis is much stronger than the \"Indian hemp\" that has been grown for thousands of years. Some of the opiates used today, such as carfentanil, are so much stronger than plain opium that they were originally invented not even as painkillers, but to be used in tranquilizer darts on elephants!"
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ec1b5e | whats the difference between sorting by best and sorting by top? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ec1b5e/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_sorting_by_best/ | {
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"Top: Highest score (Upvotes - Downvotes = Score)\n\nBest: [This is more complicated](_URL_0_). It takes all the current votes on a post as a sample and gives it a score that it is 95% confident it will end up with, given infinite time.\n\nEssentially, it prevents older posts with a higher score (simply because they were posted earlier) from pushing newer, popular posts all the way to the bottom of the page."
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46f9oq | can we really clean pesticide off fruit by just rinsing them off? wouldn't that mean rain would rinse it off all the time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/46f9oq/eli5can_we_really_clean_pesticide_off_fruit_by/ | {
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"You're not cleaning off the pesticide. You're cleaning off dirt and other toxins that may have stuck to the wax they put on the fruit to make it shiny.\n\nPesticides stick to the fruit, but they are also absorbed by the plant and end up within the flesh of the fruit. ",
"Rinsing is for removing contamination, especially for removing feces from fertilizers, irrigation systems and sloppy storage. You don't get all the bacteria off from it, but removing any large clumps should reduce the load to where your body can fight off any of the rest.",
"Primarily I wash my produce because I have no idea who touched it before me. Did the employee stocking the produce section wash his hands after he sneezed? How about the other shoppers who are picking up and touching produce while they look for the very best apples in the display? Or the people who packed it for transport to the store? \n\nNot to say that washing them won't also remove any residual pesticides on the surface. However, I recall reading about how pesticides are very water soluble and for this reason are applied following rain events or watering. ",
"There are different types of pesticides. There are systemic pesticides and contact pesticides. The contact pesticides stick to the surface, the systemic are absorbed by the plant. You cannot rinse a systemic pesticide from the plant.",
"I don't know about you, but I wash my dishes with scalding hot jets of water for 2-3 hours, and I wash my fruit with a gentle stream of cold water for 3-5 seconds.",
"It's not that they spray pesticides and get them all over the fruit and you take them home and have to wash it off. The sun took care of most of that for you by breaking down the chemical chains that kept the pesticide together. Most of them are designed to do their job a short while, and then break down into less lethal bits and pieces. \n\nThe danger comes from what the plant does with the pesticide and whether it was water soluable or not, whether it got into the soil or not, and whether the plant absorbed some of it while it was growing or not. If it did absorb some, then it's not broken down by sunlight. \n\nHowever, many pesticides have little to no effect on human beings so there is little to worry about. Unless you are an invertibrate they will have little effect on a person or in some cases they might get you high. Take nicotine and caffeine for instance, both natural pesticides, both go great with a bagel. ",
"Actually, pesticides aren't really the reason we rinse fruit. The biggest danger are actually bacteria and virus like E. Coli, Salmonella and Norovirus.\n\nContrary to popular belief there's actually a bigger risk of these things in organic products than conventional.",
"Like was said you are not washing off the pesticide or fungicide but washing off the dirt and contamination that happens from the picking of the fruit/vegetable to your house.\n\nAll pesticides/fungicides and herbicides have a PHI (pre-harvest interval) meaning that the farmer is not allowed to harvest the fruit until that interval it up. That interval is tested thoroughly by government agencies before the chemical is allowed to be used. It also means that once that interval is up there shall be no traces of the chemical in or on the fruit (It just breaks down and away much like your body breaks sown and away poisons you ingest). \n\nSo, for example, if the farmer sprays the crop with chemical X, and chemical X has a 14 day PHI he cannot harvest prior to that date at which time the chemical will be gone completely from the produce.\n\nNow you may ask what about countries that do not have such strict rules, well all fruit that enters USA/Canada and I assume the EU are randomly tested when they both enter the country and in some cases when they leave the country of origin. If a batch is found to have contamination from the chemicals it is very, very bad news for the shipper/producer and supplier. The entire shipment will be sent back and large fines as well as other consequences. It is far too risky for the farmer to cheat.\n\n\nSOURCE - lifetime fruit farmer.\n\n",
"Plant biology person here. There are actually some pesticides that you can rinse off and actually come off from rain.\n\nThere is two broad categories of pesticides. One of them are systemic pesticides. Systemic pesticides are absorbed and can't be washed off.",
"When I grew weed we stopped putting pesticides on a month before harvest to supposedly cleanse them. ",
"Rain DOES indeed rinse pesticide off. I live in the heart of \"Apple Country\" here in Ontario Canada. Every single time it rains (or sometimes even after heavy dew), the Orchard owners are out there spraying. \n\nAs another piece of colloquial evidence, I have two apple trees in my yard. I was told I had to spray after every rain, but I just couldn't be bothered. Every year (for maybe 6 years), I would get fruit, but it would get fungus and fall off (all of it, both trees - one mac, one spartan). \n\nOne year I bought some spray, and did the spraying (by hand, with a bottle - they are miniaturized trees), and indeed, I ended up with great fruit the the squirrels and birds were happy to eat, just before it was ripe enough to pick! \n\nThat said, it was a total pain in the ass, and apples are under $2.00 / lb, so I've never done it since :) \n\n* Note that fungicide AND pesticide are generally done in one spray * ",
"you don't wash off pesticide. But the level of pesticide you ingest is so insignificant that it won't cause harm to the body."
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bg3rzi | how does illiteracy work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bg3rzi/eli5_how_does_illiteracy_work/ | {
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"Can you elaborate on what you mean? Because illiteracy is the natural state of humans.",
"If you’re asking WHY people are illiterate, there are a ton of different reasons. For the older generations, it wasn’t as frowned upon to quit school to work to help your family. Sometimes the school system fails students. Sometimes people have problems like dyslexia that can make them decide that learning is too much trouble, especially when they don’t have teachers willing to really work with them. \n\nI work with a nonprofit dedicated to adult literacy, and those suffering from illiteracy are often impoverished because their work options are limited. In the United States, there are over 36 million adults that are considered functionally illiterate (basically, illiterate to the point where they can’t even fill out a job application) and some never seek out the resources to help them become literate because there’s such a stigma surrounding adult illiteracy."
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3i8vgu | how do the genetics of three-parent children work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3i8vgu/eli5_how_do_the_genetics_of_threeparent_children/ | {
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"We usually just think of our DNA as just being stored in the nucleus, but that's not the case. The vast majority is there, but some organelles also have their own, unique DNA. That's actually the basis of one of the theories on how we came to develop organelles, endosymbiotic theory. Basically, it's the idea that some/many of our organelles, like mitochondria, were originally separate single celled organisms, which were then essentially devoured or merged into what would become eukaryotes.\n\nAnyway, the third parent in this situation donates an egg, which contains mitochondria and various other organelles, but has had its nucleus removed. Then the nucleus of an egg from the other female parent is placed inside it, and sperm containing DNA from a third parent is added.\n\nAFAIK, it's always been two women, one man so far, but you should be able to perform the procedure with any three people. It would just involve additional steps to move the DNA around into sperm cells or eggs or whatever."
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633gj6 | what computer language is artificial intelligence written in and is it enough? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/633gj6/eli5_what_computer_language_is_artificial/ | {
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"One computer language is equivalent to another in terms of what they *can* do, but AI has historically been associated with Lisp, Prolog, Java, C, and Python. There's no reason you can't do it in whatever language you want, of course. "
]
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288hcc | how can businesses like airbrush booths use licensed icons, logos, or characters legally? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/288hcc/eli5_how_can_businesses_like_airbrush_booths_use/ | {
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"text": [
"They don't. \n\nFor instance all that Calvin and Hobb's stuff, everything made is stolen, no merch has ever been liscenced."
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1n2m4h | what is at stake in the us senate filibuster by ted cruz that has been going on all evening? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1n2m4h/eli5_what_is_at_stake_in_the_us_senate_filibuster/ | {
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"He is attempting to make a point about how serious he feels it is to oppose the Affordable Care Act, and holding up the business of the Senate, but other work can proceeded elsewhere and he is not preventing any votes from being held. This can not effect the Affordable Care Act itself, as that is already law. It is purely a symbolic stance. The only thing at stake appears to be his dignity. ",
"[Absolutely nothing.](_URL_0_) The vote will happen regardless, because what he's doing isn't a filibuster. And even if he could somehow prevent the vote, Obama care is still funded regardless. This is about getting Ted Cruz in the papers and nothing more. ",
"I wanted to make an offshoot about this. Can somebody ELI5 why, besides partisan lines, republicans are really so against the affordable care act? I feel like in my own life it has already helped me and will help me, yet a group of politicians are trying incredibly hard to deny this from staying in effect. ",
"Absolutely nothing. \n\n1. The affordable care act is already law, and much of the money funding the act is \"mandatory spending.\" ELI5 - a government shutdown or \"defund Obamacare\" bill would not impact it.\n\n2. The senate is poised to take up a bill from the house that prevents a government shutdown and defends Obamacare, but it hasn't been introduced yet. Debate hasn't started. That means that no matter what the Senator does he'll have to STFU when the Senate makes a \"motion to proceed to debate\" of the bill. Most senators filibuster bills while they are being debated, FYI.\n\n3. It's a pretty shitty position He's putting republicans in. Essentially he's asking them NOT to vote for a bill that prevents a government shutdown (something everyone wants to avoid) and defends Obamacare (something every republican wants). A no vote would easily be spun during the elections, used to accuse republicans for voting to shutdown the government. The republicans in the senate don't want that getting in the way of their chances for taking over the chamber in the next election cycle.\n\nThe sad part is that Senator Cruz knows all of this, but will use the risks of shutting down the entire government to make his point about Obamaxare being bad and (in my opinion) get some media attention as a conservative darling before he officially announces his run for President.",
"Ugh, I heard about it this morning on the radio in Germany. The only clip they played was him reading Dr. Seuss and how he isn't helping the tarnished image of congress being one of the least productive in history.",
"Nothing is at stake, except to prove what pieces of shit the Tea Party animals are. There will be no difference no matter what he does or says.",
"I keep reading that it's not a true fillibuster. I'm not absolutely certain, but I think that's because Senate rules do not allow filibustering on an appropriations bill. ",
"It technically isn't a filibuster because it will get voted on no matter what. \n\nEither way keep it up Cruz. ",
" > For states that do expand Medicaid, the law provides that the federal government will pay for 100% of the expansion for the first three years and then gradually reduce its subsidy to 90% by 2020. \n > From: _URL_2_ \n\n \n > The states themselves will not receive the federal funds. The money will be given to hospitals and providers, but after 2016, states will have to start contributing their own funds to the program. \nFrom: _URL_1_ \n\nTexas (rightly) says that the federal government is passing a law that greatly expands medicare and obligates states to pay for something they cannot afford. This is socialized medicine. \n\nYou may think Texas is not capable of making a difference here, but you should think again. \n\n > One out of four Texans do not have health insurance -- the largest percentage of uninsured in the nation -- and leaves the state with over 6 million potential customers for the health insurance exchanges. \n\n > With so many people potentially signing up for health care, Texas could make a strong case for the ACA's success, but it could also be the best place for opponents to discourage enrollment in the exchanges in order to collapse the system. \nFrom: _URL_0_\n\nDo we want socialized medicine? I would say the majority of us would. However, under the current method, it will be the most expensive socialized healthcare on the planet. There are other ways to fix this problem. This way just makes sure that doctors, hospitals, labs, and insurance companies get to keep goughing the poor via you tax dollar. Everyone should know by now that the figures on that hospital bill have nothing to do with reality.",
"Nothing is at stake because its congress. Nothing gets done anyways\n",
"Honestly just seems like a ridiculous act for attention ",
"THIS IS A POWER PLAY! \n\nPlease please please understand what Ted Cruz is doing here. \n\nThis is not meant to shift blame onto the democrats, this is a long-term, calculated effort by Ted Cruz and Mike Lee to \"purify\" the GOP, remove GOP Senate leadership, and shift the party consensus to the right. Everyone is of the understanding (whether true or not) that if the government is not funded, the blame will land on the GOP. This is meant to force the hand of Moderate Republicans to vote for a resolution that does not defund ACA. This way, these people will get oustered come the 2014 elections, as many of them come from states that have strong Tea Party support. The Tea Party is done with McCain types diluting their message, and want a unified front behind new GOP leadership. \n\nThe irony of all this is that most of what is happening is considered \"Astroturf\" (as opposed to grassroots). Made to look of the people, but actually sponsored by Heratige, American Century etc. \n\nSource: I live on Capitol Hill and am roommates with 2 GOP Senate staffers, RNC employee and a Dem. House staffer. Got the lowdown last night and actually went to the gallery to watch for an hour. ",
"It was a diarrhetic grandstanding in an attempt to join the upper-echelon of human spam. "
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act#State_rejections_of_Medicaid_expansion"
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7re6mp | what is a "flathead v8"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7re6mp/eli5_what_is_a_flathead_v8/ | {
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"Flathead engines are ones where the valves are placed in the engine block, alongside the pistons. Compare to overhead valve engines, where it's up top.\n\nV8 means it has 8 pistons arranged in two sets of four, which meet at an acute angle, making a \"V\" shape."
]
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3m6zmf | short selling | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3m6zmf/eli5_short_selling/ | {
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"Suppose I want to make a bit of money and you lend me your car to do so. I could sell the car to somebody for $120,000 (Nice car!) and in a few months buy it back from them. Since they have been using the car for a while it has done more kilometers/miles so I only pay $100,000. I still have to give the car back to you but have made an extra $20,000.\n\nShort selling is exactly this process but instead of a car you are dealing with shares in a company and they are borrowed from a broker. Short selling also only works if the value decreases. For example, what would happen if the person I sold your car to installed a brand new engine, wheels and wanted $150,000 for me to buy it back?"
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8jf0gq | options and "buy to open," "buy to close," "sell to open," "sell to close." | I've watched several videos and had several people explain this to me and for some reason it is still really hard for me to grasp. Can someone explain to me what options are, what these four terms means, and how they all relate to each other? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8jf0gq/eli5_options_and_buy_to_open_buy_to_close_sell_to/ | {
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"Options are a deal between two people, where one person pays the other for the opportunity to take an action later. Because they're a deal, we could create a brand new option from nothing (our agreement creates it) or we can trade our position in an already existing option. The exchange tracks all the options so that the final owners can follow through when the time comes for the agreement to end. \n\nBuying and selling to open means you want to create a new option. Buying to open means you'll pay money now to have the option to do something later. Selling to open means you'll get money now but be on the hook to fulfill the option's rules if the buyer wishes to do so in the future. \n\nBuying and selling to close means you're trading your portion of an already existing option to someone else. Buying to close means you were paid money to create an option, and now you're paying someone else to take your place for the remaining time. Selling to close means you were the payer previously and now you'll receive money from someone who want's to take your place as the person who can take the action for the remaining time. "
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75e2mr | why dont they make a usb connected laptop charger? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/75e2mr/eli5_why_dont_they_make_a_usb_connected_laptop/ | {
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"In the USB 1.0 and 2.0 specs, a standard downstream port is capable of delivering up to 500mA (0.5A); with USB 3.0, it moves up to 900mA (0.9A). The charging downstream and dedicated charging ports provide up to 1,500mA (1.5A).\n\nBasically, it would take a long time to charge.",
"They did, and they have. The primary reason usb wasn't used is because people are prone to killing their usb cables by constantly putting it in the wrong way, that's just the last thing you want from a cable. But, with the advent of USB-C quite a few laptops and monitors have been popping up that have a usb-c port which is just stellar because i can use my charger for my Nexus 6p\n\nThe laptop I'm currently using that has it is a chromebook acer 14 for work. ",
"The USB standard doesn't carry enough power to charge a laptop in a reasonable period of time. If you were OK with it taking three days to charge and not being able to run indefinitely even when plugged in you could, but most people prefer other solutions.",
"What do you mean? Like a laptop charger that charges the laptop through the USB port?\n\nBecause they make those now, but only for USB C\n\nPrior to USB C/3.1 you couldn't get enough power down a USB port to charge anything large, but USB Power Delivery supports large amounts of power, all the way up to 100 W with certain cables so you'll be seeing more USB C laptop chargers in the future. Many laptops are now just coming with one or two USB C ports which serve as both the data and charging ports"
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4chqvv | is it true that vaping marijuana with vaporizers such as the volcano make weed completely safe for the lungs? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4chqvv/eli5_is_it_true_that_vaping_marijuana_with/ | {
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"There is an insufficient amount of clinical data to answer this question with any level of confidence; vaping is a relatively new technology, and the negative effects of smoking are most prominent decades after first use. \n\nAnyone who answers this question with any more confidence than that is at best oversimplifying and at worst making stuff up. \n\nAs far as the potential effects...it may be better for you than smoking, but it also may be worse. There are certainly chemicals present in normally smoked marijuana that don't become airborne when vaping, which certainly suggests potential health benefits. However, it is also possible that the high temperature with normal smoking denatures potentially harmful inhalants, which remain intact during vaping and could have far-reaching health effects. We simply don't know right now. ",
"No one knows. \n\nBecause marijuana has been a schedule I narcotic, it hard to do *any* testing on it.\n\nBecause vaping is so new, we have little data on its long term effects.\n\nAnyone who says vaping marijuana is completely safe is an idiot. Not because they are necessary wrong, but because they have no one of knowing and are just talking out of their ass."
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7rlx3o | is the concept of light speed defined by light itself, or does light just want to go infinitely fast but physics puts a cap on it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7rlx3o/eli5_is_the_concept_of_light_speed_defined_by/ | {
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"Light is fast, way faster than most people can even imagine, but thankfully our measurements are very precise as well, so we are able to measure it very accurately (First done by Fizeau and Focault in 1830ish, not like /u/ganganinja claims by sending lasers to the moon, we do that to measure how far the moon is away, knowing how fast light is and then measuring the time).\n\nLight, sadly, is not infinitely fast, it is actually very, very, very slow compared to the size of the universe, even the closese star is lightyears away form us, meaning that the light you see when looking up at the sky and seeing all those small little bright spots has taken millenia (and often way, way, way, way, way, and i mean like way way way, longer than just a few millenia, wich is basically no time, to be honest), to get from the star that emitted it to us here on earth. \n\nI would also like to add that in fact these days we dont measure the speed of light at all, in the 1980s we just agreed on the speed of light as a certain number (exactly 299,792,458 metres per second) and are now using that number as the basic measurement for everything (so if you know how long a metre is you no longer go to baris and look at that stick napoleon made and about wich he said \"this is a metre, and any metre on earth is defined by beeing exactly as long as this stick\", you instead take the distance for wich a beam of light needs exactly 1/299,792,458 seconds to travel it)",
"As far as we know, it's the second one. Particles with no mass travel as fast as physics allows anything to travel. Since photons are the massless particles that we encounter most often, we first encountered that maximum speed by observing light and we called that speed \"the speed of light\". ",
"Watering it down, a lot, light is a wibble in the em field. \n\nSound moves at different speeds through air, or helium, or steel essentially because of atoms knocking into each other. So basically energy take time to transfer through the material. Even light! Because its just a wibble in the EM field. If you were to shine a light next to a steel beam while passing electric current through the beam, the light would arrive *just* ahead of the electric current. The energy took longer to travel through steel than free space.\n\nSuppose you wanted to travel faster than sound, what happens? You move faster through the air than the air can transfer the energy of the sound you make. It stacks up and you get a boom, all the sound at once.\n\nWhat happens when you toss a light speed particle at steel(which it should travel slower through, electric current is a wibble in the EM field too), what happens? Well, again really watered down, the energy stacks up and you the excess energy gets released as [Cherenkov radiation](\n_URL_0_). A light boom!\n\nOk so TLDR whats this all mean?\n\nLight can travel slower through a material. But in free space, a vacuum, it travels as fast as energy can be transferred through the EM field.\n\nYou can't travel faster than C because youd outrun the fields holding you together.\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
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"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation"
]
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||
3a3rkn | why don't networks like espn put their field reporters on a split second tape delay to remove the awkward pauses between a question and answer? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3a3rkn/eli5_why_dont_networks_like_espn_put_their_field/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Because, if they did, there would be the same awkward pause between the field reporter's response and the next question.\n\nThe only way around it is to edit the pauses out before putting the segment to air. But you can't do that live."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
8ga2in | why is the war on drugs inherently flawed but a war on guns wouldn't be? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ga2in/eli5_why_is_the_war_on_drugs_inherently_flawed/ | {
"a_id": [
"dy9yzas"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"That's an awfully broad question. There are a variety of tactics and solutions that can take place under either umbrella term, which can be good or bad. Beyond that, the abuse patterns in either are certainly not the same. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
458cdy | how are non latin alphabet characters typed on a phone? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/458cdy/eli5_how_are_non_latin_alphabet_characters_typed/ | {
"a_id": [
"czvwiwi",
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"score": [
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"text": [
"What kind of keyboard are you talking about? Just like QWERTY keyboard, there are keyboard for plenty of non-Latin alphabets, as shown here: _URL_0_\n\nEvery keyboard software supports installing various keyboard layouts.\n\nEast Asian languages also have special keyboard, [as explained in each of the answers here](_URL_1_).",
"You can switch your keyboard layout on most phones. Same as desktop keyboard layouts can be changed. For example, I can simply swipe my spacebar and say привет, swipe it back and continue in English."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/search?q=chinese+keyboard&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all"
],
[]
] |
||
51v9ug | why is the fine art trade a medium for money laundering? | It seems an illiquid asset and very subjective in value.
Billions of dollars worth of funds were embezzled from a Malaysian government fund in what's being called the "1MDB" scandal. The WSJ reported that money was diverted into real estate, and also the purchasing of a Van Gogh piece. Fine art purchases with ill-gotten money is method of concealment I've heard before.
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/51v9ug/eli5_why_is_the_fine_art_trade_a_medium_for_money/ | {
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"text": [
"It's not just fine art - almost anything with intrinsic, lasting value is fair game for the criminals. Basically it's very difficult to give somebody a large sum of money without questions being asked but 'gifting' somebody a Van Gogh may be unusual but it isn't illegal. In doing that, the new owner has no burden of responsibility to explain where the money came from to buy it in the first place.",
"The value of fine art is pretty well pure perception. If i say this shitty painting is worth a million dollars and you're willing to cough up a million dollars for it, that's its value. This makes it a very easy way to disguise money laundering (which is just processing illicit income through legal transactions in order to provide a legal source to claim that income). You can also produce as much art as you like, and thus move quite a bit of money. Plus the fine art trade in general is a fairly secretive one with little oversight; you can have transactions where the buyer and seller are both listed a \"private collection\" or something similar. Neatly ties up any paper trail, especily if it was a cash transaction \n\nIt's also really easy to transport and smuggle art. If I have a box that says it's a shitty 50 dollar painting, but it's actually worth millions legitimately...how the fuck does customs know? They can't have someone show up and appraise every stupid painting so unless something else tips them off, across the border it goes with no one the wiser. And then maybe it disappears for 5-6 years, sitting in some rich person warehouse. Or it sits a freeport somewhere in singapore or something where it changes hands anonymously half a dozen times over a decade and good luck tracking any of that backwards when it finally sees the light of day again. \n\n\n\n\n"
]
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[],
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|
1t67jj | how the us stock market is not currently experiencing a bubble/overbought? | Given the state of the US economy - 7.3% unemployment with the real unemployment rate (U-6) closer to 13%, GDP growth sluggish at 2%, - how come the US stock market is hitting new heights? My understanding is that this can't reflect the real economy and must be a bubble waiting to pop. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1t67jj/eli5_how_the_us_stock_market_is_not_currently/ | {
"a_id": [
"ce4pyyq"
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"_URL_0_\n\nThe answer remains mostly the same - the economy, while a factor in the stock market, is not so large a factor that it defines how the stock market will perform. Plus things like unemployment and GDP growth are not the only pieces of the economic puzzle - there is a lot more to it than just statistics.\n\nThere are sectors in the US Stock Market that are not doing well - similarly, there are sectors in the US Stock Market that are doing very well. There are some sectors might be bubbles fueled more by demand/popularity rather than real value, and some that are generally just doing well. \n\nThe entire 'market' is not one giant bubble - rather than thinking of the stock market as a massive entity in and of itself, imagine it as a bunch of pools of water. Some pools might shrink in size, other pools might grow. Overall, there is growth, because there are always going to be pools that find a way to grow even if overall conditions are shit.\n\nTL;DR: The US Economy is not so large a factor that its decline would necessarily be reflected in the stock market. There are many parts of the stock market, and there are almost always areas where people find a way to profit in bad times. The market will follow those leaders, and the stock market will find a way to keep growing."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/search?q=stock+market+high&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all"
]
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|
9bt0rm | how do people die from too much plastic surgery? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9bt0rm/eli5_how_do_people_die_from_too_much_plastic/ | {
"a_id": [
"e55giiv",
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"text": [
"There's risks involved with any surgery, especially when anesthesia is involved. Things can go wrong - the person's heart stops, doctor makes a mistake, person gets an infection, etc. The odds of this for cosmetic surgery are low but if you keep going under the knife you're taking that chance each time and one day may get unlucky.",
"Surgery carries inherent risks of infection and anesthesia mistakes. These are greater for longer and more invasive procedures, but also present for seemingly minor operations.\n\nThose risks are magnified when you're getting budget surgery done in a van in Guatemala because no reputable surgeon would agree to mutilate you for $500.\n\nAnd of course, people who undergo dozens of superfluous operations because they hate themselves tend to have other substance abuse issues."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
5kd874 | us drug adverts seem to mostly contain a voice over of the negative side effects so what is the point in having them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5kd874/eli5us_drug_adverts_seem_to_mostly_contain_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"dbn37vg"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"Interest-only, in many countries, search advertisements are illegal. Most other developed Nations don't allow drug companies to directly Market their concoctions to Consumers. Part of it is because of the things you've noticed, which is that most consumers basically ignore the side effects at the end and instead pester their Physicians about whatever strange new drug we saw on television. This is likely a factor in the fact that so many Americans are on medications, with the various complications that come with that fact. Those warnings at the end are supposed to be there to protect the consumer, but that's not how they work. If McDonald's had a voice at the end of every commercial saying that their food contributes to obesity and heart disease, people would still ignore that morning had to go buy a Big Mac because they saw it on TV. That's how marketing works."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
8pecp2 | energy changes and transforms, but doesn't disappear. | I understand what that means, but I've been thinking about it.
Imagine I'm sawing a log. The energy I got through food transfers to the hand saw, which in turn saws the log. I'm OK thus far, but what happens with that energy after that? Theoretically there's a finite amount of energy in the universe, so where does that energy goes after sawing the log? How does it go back the the "energy pool"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8pecp2/eli5_energy_changes_and_transforms_but_doesnt/ | {
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"e0akdn8",
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"text": [
"The saw and the log both heat up, so the chemically energy from your body is turned into thermal energy in the log and saw. Also, the sawing makes a sound, so some energy is lost to sound. \n\nEdit:\nI also want to talk about the “energy pool” idea. Certain energy transformations are basically non-recoverable. A good example (for the most part) is the heating of the saw and log. It’s very difficult to recover that energy in a usable form. There will always be some amount of energy that is no longer usable. This is embedded in the idea of entropy always increasing. \n\nEntropy in this case (this is my preferred method of talking about entropy) is basically the ratio between total energy and usable energy. Since there’s always energy that is made unusable in a system, this ratio has a tendency to increase (usable energy goes down and total energy is constant, so that fraction gets larger). This is the 2nd law of thermodynamics. ",
"Almost always if you're asking \"where did the energy go\" the answer is \"heat\".\n\nYour body converts chemical energy into kinetic (plus heat) which transfers from your body to the saw. Most of that energy gets turned into heat through friction between the saw and the wood.\n\nIf you think about the effort it takes to use a saw, most of that effort is the saw *rubbing* against the wood. What happens when you rub something? It generates heat! And you can feel this if you touch the blade of a saw after using it - it'll be hot."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
7ns0mf | what exactly gets lost when mass gets converted into energy? | For example, if hydrogen is fused into helium, the end mass is less than the starting mass. Is something in the protons and neutrons converted into energy while still conserving the characteristics of protons and neutrons? And can you split the helium back to hydrogen and perform the same fusion again? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7ns0mf/eli5_what_exactly_gets_lost_when_mass_gets/ | {
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"text": [
"Nothing gets lost; the law of conservation of energy tells us that. Mass and energy are really just two forms of the same thing. Nothing gets lost from the fusion of hydrogen into helium, the difference in mass is just converted to Energy. And yes you *can* fission helium back into hydrogen but it requires a large input of energy. Lighter elements from hydrogen up to iron create energy from fusion but need energy to fission. For elements after iron, this is reversed.",
"Nothing gets 'lost' per se, that mass represents the energy (and some other stuff) that was originally bound up in the Hydrogen atoms. Helium atoms use less energy to keep everything together than two Hydrogen atoms, so some of that energy gets ejected from the newly minted helium atom. And that's how our sun shines. That little bit of mass that gets transferred into energy, times a very large number, per second.\n\nBonus: [Why does the Sun Shine](_URL_0_)",
"In short: there is energy stored in the interaction between protons and neutrons. When you split them you are changing the state they are in through quantum processes, and the end product is usually the proton, neutron and some radiation. The energy comes from the force that keeps them together (the color force), which you can think of like a spring that stores more energy as you stretch it. Nothing is really lost, but it just changes into other things.",
"Others have already very well answered where the energy comes from, but I see you also asked about splitting it. In theory, one could, but that reaction would require the same amount of energy that the fusion produced, so there would be no gain. In fact, as our energy efficiency is less than 100%, there would be a net loss."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JdWlSF195Y"
],
[],
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|
3elwcn | why do schools in the u.s punish their students so harshly? | I've been seeing several posts about how schools in the U.S suspend and expel their students for what appear to be minor misdemeanours, here in the UK when I was at school you really had to go out of your way to get suspended for longer than a day. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3elwcn/eli5_why_do_schools_in_the_us_punish_their/ | {
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"text": [
"3 major reasons. \n\n1) Everyone became somewhat insane because of school shootings here, so they can put the color of sense on stupid approaches to school violence. So having an overkill policy about \"weapons\" is not treated as being as dumb as it ought to be. \n\n2) Schools can be sued by parents, and often are, for stupid reasons. This is because of the culture of lawsuits and liability is pretty rough in the US, which is *partly* because we don't have universal healthcare and our healthcare is absurdly expensive. So if someone gets hurt, the parents go bankrupt and then in turn give the school an absurd bill. \n\nIn order to avoid being held libable for literally anything, schools write rules in such a way that they keep their responsibility for anything remotely bad happening to an absolute minimum. They're trying to avoid being held accountable for things because being held accountable can mean millions in damages for something like a broken bone.\n\nSo they turn around and exact the maximum penalty for stuff, so that if it comes down to it in court, they can say they did the most they could have done. \n\n3) Similarly, parents complaining to school boards or politicians about a given school employee gives a very high likelihood of that person getting fired. As such, they'll do anything it takes to avoid being called out by some angry parent to their superiors. So these \"zero tolerance\" policies don't just help the school avoid accountability, it likewise helps teachers, principals, and even superintendents from taking any responsibility for a bad situation. \n\nIf we had universal healthcare, and were willing to tell idiots to shut up and go home, instead of responding to their entitled, asshole demands to fire people, none of this would be necessary. \n\nThere is also the cultural belief among those very same entitled idiots that poor performance on a pupil's part is entirely the school's fault. Since many of our students are indeed poor performing morons (you know, being raised by morons themselves, this makes sense,) schools in general are viewed by these people as incompetent. So it breeds the idea that teachers/administrators actually shouldn't be allowed to exercise judgment at all. \n\n",
"As a US teacher, here's what I've found. America is in an uninterrupted chain of nostalgia for the previous generation's form of schooling. Having had no major disruptive events to our institutions, we still essentially pine for the one-room schoolhouse model. Every school board I've seen has proudly boasted that,\"_____ was good enough for me, so it's good enough for these kids.\"\n\nTrace that back far enough, and we're still essentially in a \"spare the rod, spoil the child\" mindset. The helicopter parent has made us back off, but everyone still wants some kids to just get thrown in solitary.\n\nThis, of course, is not the case for those with their heads in the future, but that's rare here.",
"While some of the other answers are good, a lot of the times you here about these stories beacuse the are not common. Yea you somtimes hear about the kid that got in trouble for making a gun with his finger. But that is not the norm, the kid was just caught in the perfect storm of ashollery of teachers and administrators. Yes there are some shitty reasons kids get in trouble in school here, but generally they are the exception not the rule. \n\nMany times if a kid gets suspended for a longer period of time it is more for the other students then punishing the kid. Removing the interference is a viable way to keep the class going smoothly. ",
"ugh, not sure about that being harsh. i've seen physical punishment given to students for talking back to teachers and i consider it harsher than suspension (i grew up in Asian country).",
"I studied in a middle eastern country public school, I was hit, kicked and slapped by my teachers more than I can remember. America isn't so hardcore..."
]
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