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7jbwkp | integumentary system | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7jbwkp/eli5_integumentary_system/ | {
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"text": [
"Skin keeps you warm in cold places, cool in warm places, and stops infections from getting into your blood. It keeps fluid from leaving your muscles, and helps you express emotion or relays messages. "
]
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3re4kp | how a scramjet works | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3re4kp/eli5how_a_scramjet_works/ | {
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"Because there's no blades pushing the air into the engine. It needs to be manually started. Then they combust the air like other jets. Thrust blows out the back. Finding the right balance of air rushing in and combustion out is key so that it becomes self sustaining. Sucking in air on it's own at that point to fuel the combustion."
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3qja1x | prince harry/william are military officers, so do colonels and generals address him as "your majesty" or "highness"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qja1x/eli5_prince_harrywilliam_are_military_officers_so/ | {
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"When they're acting in their military capacity, they are no different to any other officer (as far as possible).\n\nHarry, in particular, is very keen to be \"one of the lads\" as he puts it. He is known as Captain Wales, and gets no special treatment whatsoever other than a few extra security considerations.",
"Yes, the royals who go into military service at least on paper are supposed to be treated like everyone else.\n\nIn practice this of course doesn't always work out and people have to act around the elephant in the room in parts, but at least everyone knows they are supposed to try.\n\nFun fact. During WWII Queen Elizabeth (then Princess Elizabeth) joined the military. She was officially know as Second Subaltern Elizabeth Windsor in the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service and worked as a driver and mechanic. It was naturally in large part a PR thing but everyone tried to pretend she was not the future head of state and just one of the girls.\n\n"
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coz08j | how can mere bolts of electricity convey extremely detailed pieces of information in the brain? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/coz08j/eli5_how_can_mere_bolts_of_electricity_convey/ | {
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"It's not just the electrical charge that conveys information. It's also the way that the charge is interpreted by other neurons.\n\nNeurons have very specialized functions based on what type of receptors they have and what type of neurotransmitters they release. You can also think of each neuron as storing a bit of information.\n\nFor the purpose of simplicity, I'm going to put the neurons/neurotransmitters in two major categories: excitatory and inhibitory.\n\nWhen a neuron wants to send information, it dumps excitatory neurotransmitters onto other neurons which allow these neurons to be activated and in turn send their own information to other neurons.\n\nWhen it wants to prevent something from happening, inhibitory neurons will dump inhibitory neurotransmitters onto other neurons, preventing the neurons from firing.\n\nYou can think of it like this: when you want to bend your arm, you have to flex your biceps. There are excitatory neurons in the brain that are specialized to do exactly that. They excite the pathway that allows for your biceps to flex, and your arm bends.\n\nIf you want to relax your arm, there are totally different inhibitory neurons that send the message to tell the biceps to relax.\n\nThere are these circuits and specialized neurons for everything that we need in life, from seeing to hearing and eating.\n\nHope that made sense."
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3vh9yw | why do some movie transfers have different color tones than the original release? | Some movie transfers have different coloring than the source material. I believe Hoth suffered from this on the SW Blu Rays. What causes this, and why don't the studios fix it before releasing the Blu Ray?
Here's an example:
_URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3vh9yw/eli5_why_do_some_movie_transfers_have_different/ | {
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"The different color grading is them fixing it. Each time they do a remaster, they fix/improve the color grading and imperfections. \n \nIf you notice, from LD- > DVD- > BD the dynamic range is much better (specifically the highlights), but the BD version is a bit too flat, so the 3D-BD has more realistic highlights."
]
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"http://imgur.com/faJTTd0"
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7f2puk | what is an elliptical orbit? | From what i understand it is some kind of orbit around two points, but I'm hoping for a simple explanation and maybe an example of how they would affect manoeuvres in a low or high orbit, or even combat manoeuvres - or is that too speculative?
Thanks in advance | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7f2puk/eli5_what_is_an_elliptical_orbit/ | {
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"All orbits are elliptical. Ok not all, but in the simplest orbital mechanics even circular orbits are elliptical. It's not about orbiting two bodies, it's about the shape of the orbit.\n\nAn ellipse is a shape made by a curve traced such that at every point the sum of the distances from two given points (the locii) are equal.\n\nAnother way to think about it is as a section cut out from a cone. For this reason sometimes orbits are sometimes approximated as conic sections.\n",
"An elliptical orbit is one where you orbit around an object in a flattened circle shape, and the object is a bit to one side. The main tactical features are that you go faster during the parts of the orbit when you are closer to the object, and slower when you are farther. Also of note is the best time to apply thrust to change the orbit is at the highest and lowest parts."
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50cq7s | why is "father" shortened to "dad", when "mother" is simply shortened to "mom"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/50cq7s/eli5_why_is_father_shortened_to_dad_when_mother/ | {
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"I'm not sure that dad is strictly a shortening of father, more a parallel evolution. Words for parents tend to come from the first syllables that babies work out how to say - mama, papa, dada. In Latin you have pater and mater, which ended up as father and mother because Germanic languages weirdly changed a lot of p's to f's when stealing Latin words (or at least getting them from the same root).",
"It's not that the words \"mother\" and \"father\" are shortened, but that \"mom\" and \"dad\" come from different origins themselves. The longer words are from Old and Middle English. Not much has changed.\n\nWhile the English language came from the British Isles, keep in mind that back then, many, many languages were spoken there and were mutually intelligible with languages elsewhere. \"Great **Britain**\" is called so compared to **Brittan**y in France.\n\nAs for the shorter two, it's usually postulated that they come from baby talk. A lot of human language is rooted thousands of years back. [This article here](_URL_0_), although its formatting is *way* off, shows that we've actually been using the same words across what we think are unconnected cultures for thousands of years. **And** that a lot of words might just naturally be ingrained in us to an extent.\n\ntl;dr \"mom\" isn't the shortened version of \"mother\"; \"dad\" isn't the shortened version of \"father\". We just have multiple words for the same thing.",
"It's thought that it may have entered the English language from Welsh, the Welsh word for father being *tad* (pronounced with a long a, in case you're wondering).\n\nInterestingly, the Welsh for mother is *mam*, which is also tantalisingly close to mum, mom or just mam as used in various English dialects.",
"Simply put, English is a creole -- a language that emerges when populations with different languages mix over long periods. Put Celtic, Latin, Danish, German, French and a few others in the Cuisinart, let it run for a couple of thousand years, and you have English.\n\nYou think \"mom\" and \"dad\" are inconsistent? Try \"tattoo\". It has two meanings in English that came from different cultures and are totally unrelated.",
"There is also a lot of evidence across many languages that these are naturally easy words for children to articulate. Mama, papa, dada, etc. are easy to articulate because they don't involve complicated vocalizations and they are located at points of articulation that are easily seen by infants (the lips and palatal ridge). The phonemes that are used during the babbling stage tend to be 'pa', 'ba', 'ma', 'ta', 'da'.",
"Because if u called your father \"fat\" instead of dad it probably wouldnt be appreciated by him"
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3go8yu | everyone i've met is better at snapping their fingers with their off-hand (ex: i'm righty but can only snap with my left hand) -- is there a scientific explanation for this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3go8yu/eli5_everyone_ive_met_is_better_at_snapping_their/ | {
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"text": [
"Seems anecdotal. My right hand can't do any tricks. It's left hand only for me. Writing and snapping."
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60jsn3 | do any other animals go and visit other animals' homes in a friendly way like humans do? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60jsn3/eli5_do_any_other_animals_go_and_visit_other/ | {
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"Not sure about wild animals, but some domestic ones do, in a manner, at least.\n\nI've seen one of my neighbor's cows repeatedly escape so that it could hang out with another neighbor's cows in the other lot.\n\nThere are also outdoor cats that effectively have multiple human families, and visit the different houses from time to time.",
"So animals have been seen to have \"friends\", individuals they seem to prefer to hang out with. Cows are well known for [this](_URL_0_). This is not as commonly seen in wild animals as it is in domestic animals, and is incredibly rare between different species in the wild, though more common in domestic ones. \n\nAlso it's worth noting that most animals that have \"homes\" are territorial animals, and so have warnings around where they live that would deter most visitors. \n\nI guess to sum it up I would say this: Animals often have friends, but there isn't really a way to say they go over to each other's houses. "
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[],
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"http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2011124/Cows-best-friends-stressed-separated.html"
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6npmet | where did the social expectation of only girls wearing dresses come from? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6npmet/eli5_where_did_the_social_expectation_of_only/ | {
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" About three thousand years ago, when the fashion was robes (because technology) men who were going into the field to work, or going to battle would \"gird up their loins\" by taking the hems of their robes, and tying them up around their legs like pants. This continued for quite a while, the styles started to change, robes became dresses over time, and pants became the norm for those that went out to work and fight. Being that peasant women stayed on the homestead for a majority of their lifetimes, there was no need for pants. ",
"Basically, in the past pants were more expensive than dresses, cause sewing wise, dresses are extremely simple (not modern ones), while pants are more complex. So you used pants only if needed and usually they were useful for the \"manly\" works, while all the women stuff was easily doable also with dresses, so there wasn't need for expensive, more complex and so more prone to breaking pants.\n\nFrom that, it stemmed the conception that dresses aren't manly, so the style evolved with that."
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1fz4di | english grammar — nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc.. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1fz4di/eli5_english_grammar_nouns_adjectives_verbs_etc/ | {
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"Here's how they were explained to me when I was 5: _URL_0_",
"Nouns are used to name things, and there are different types of nouns for different types of things. Common nouns are used to describe everyday objects that you can touch or hold, such as a \"desk\", \"cat\", or \"lemon\". Proper nouns are used for important things like places and people, and these have a capital letter at the start to show how important they are, like \"New York\" or \"Barack Obama\". Abstract nouns are for things that exist but cannot be touched or held, like \"love\", \"ambition\" or \"authority\".\nVerbs are 'doing' words, and describe an action, like \"running\", \"jumping\", or \"climbing\". Adverbs are used to describe how these actions are done and usually end in \"-ly\", like \"quickly\", \"quietly\" or \"gently\". Notice the \"-ly\" endings?\nAdjectives are used to describe things, some examples are \"lumpy\", \"hairy\", and \"purple\". This makes a sentence more interesting and descriptive, as instead of saying \"the car\" you could say \"the fast loud car\".\n\n\nIf you want any other types of words explained, I would be happy to oblige. These were the first ones that sprang to mind and the ones included in your post."
]
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"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14fXm4FOMPM&list=PL3JRHgTyDqdbjm83PzOafR3a9FDFqWe7D"
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2auzyc | the legality of recording phone calls in the usa. | This recording of the Comcast customer service rep seems to go against my understanding of when it is legal to record a phone call. As I understood, you needed to inform the other party of the recording which doesn't seem to have happened here. Thanks in advance for the explanation. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2auzyc/eli5_the_legality_of_recording_phone_calls_in_the/ | {
"a_id": [
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"It really varies from state to state. Some states have no recording/wiretapping laws at all. Those that do permit recording with the consent of the other party. So if Comcast informs you that the call will be recorded, and you stay on the phone, you're implicitly consenting to the recording. If you informed the rep that you don't consent to being recorded, they'd have to stop the recording or terminate the call (and I expect they'd go with the latter)."
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1izpkw | alcoholic content by volume | I like to drink occasionally, and I've never understood the alcohol by volume and how it translates. I know higher = gets you drunk more, but that's all I know. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1izpkw/eli5_alcoholic_content_by_volume/ | {
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"The alcohol percentage means how much of that bottle of booze is pure alcohol (ethanol), meaning it something is 70% alcohol then 70% is actually alcohol the other 30% more than likely things such as water and flavourings. Hope this helped.",
"Basically, if you separated the alcohol out of a beverage, it would be that percentage of the total volume of the beverage. A 12 ounce beer at 5% ABV has 0.6 ounces of pure ethanol in it. A five ounce glass of wine at 12% ABV has the same amount - 0.6 ounces. At 80 proof (40% alcohol), 2 ounces of vodka actually has more alcohol than either of the other two - 0.8 ounces."
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7w2gyi | how do you use unique rectangles to solve sudoku? | I've tried reading multiple explanations, seen step by steps of examples, but none of them explain it in enough detail for me to understand how it works, so that I can use it on my own.
I know the purpose of the process is to eliminate number candidates, but I don't understand what the technique does to help you do that. Every "why" explanation I read for examples feels like they're missing to make it make sense.
Also, if there's too many candidates in a lot of the cells, like in an expert level puzzle, if you know any techniques to quickly identify a unique rectangle, that'd be a big help. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7w2gyi/eli5_how_do_you_use_unique_rectangles_to_solve/ | {
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"A standard sudoku puzzle has *only one* solution. Unique rectangles let you eliminate possibilities because those would lead to a situation with two solutions, which you know to be impossible. \n\nSo in a sudoku puzzle, if you pick any four spots that forms a rectangle, those four spots will always have more than two different numbers in them. If a rectangle was made with (going around) 2,5,2,5, it could just as well be 5,2,5,2. That’s two solutions, and that against the “rules” that a puzzle has only one solution. So, if you were to encounter a point in solving a puzzle that it appears this situation can happen, like a rectangle has two numbers in common in all four spots, you *know* that it can’t end that way. Say the bottom corners are already reduced to the same two numbers, but the top corners also include another number. One of those top spots must be one of those other numbers. If that number is possible elsewhere in line with the rectangle, you can eliminate those other possibilities because you know it must be one of the rectangle corner spots. \n\nI think you’ll understand how to use it once you firmly understand this aspect. Using them in practice requires identifying potential “deadly patterns”, like a rectangle with only two numbers, and then figuring out which possibilities that you can eliminate because of it. "
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1uitx5 | how come the sheer power of dreams is enough to make me ejaculate in my sleep when the same thing takes considerable physical effort when awake? nsfw i guess. | I've wondered about this for years. I'm 30 now and it still happens on occasion. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1uitx5/eli5_how_come_the_sheer_power_of_dreams_is_enough/ | {
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"Your brain is split into four basic areas or lobes. Frontal, Parietal, Occipital, and Temporal. The most relevant lobes for your question are the Occipital and Frontal. Occipital is responsible for vision and Frontal is responsible for critical thinking, logic, reasoning etc. In the brain of a sleeping person, the visual cortex is working yet the frontal lobe activity is severely diminished. So among believing any ridiculous thing, the diminished activity in the part of the brain that is responsible for logic makes it so that you really believe the things you see in your dream are going on. So if you dream you're having sex with Kate Upton or Beyonce for instance.... you will have the most powerful nut of your life because you will believe that's happening even though that's ridiculous. The reason you may wake up and have a vague memory or none at all but you obviously still know you came in your sleep is because of a mechanism I'm blanking on but it's just that you forgot your dream. When you're awake your actual surroundings distract from the fantasy in your head because at the end of the day, when you're awake you know your fantasy isn't real (sucks, I know).\n\nTL;DR: Our brain plays tricks to make us believe illogical things while we dream and chances are we forget the dream when we wake. The difference with wet dreams is we have physical evidence in the morning that the dream happened regardless of if we remember or not.",
"Physical stimulation sends happytime signals to your brain. When you have a wet dream, your brain just generates these signals itself, or pretends it has received them. This is completely the same as how you think you see and hear things in your dreams, your brain is screwing with you man.",
"I'm 22 and I've never had a wetdream. Is that normal?",
"Have you ever heard the term 'the brain is the largest sexual organ'? This is the proof.",
"I've never had a wetdream... but I've also been fapping nearly every day since like age 7... but I've never woken up with wet/sticky sheets!"
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3ov7cx | explain the us election. i'm australian. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ov7cx/eli5_explain_the_us_election_im_australian/ | {
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"What about the US election do you want explained, specifically?",
"people run for office and the citizens go to a polling station and cast a vote for the person of their choosing. how do they do it down under?",
"The election for the next U.S. president will be in about a year, in November of 2016.\n\nThe U.S. has only two major political parties, the Democrats (more liberal) and the Republicans (more conservative). While there are more parties than those two, they don't tend to matter in large election because the elections are winner-take-all, unlike in a Parliamentary system like in Australia. So whenever a third party emerges it tends to either get absorbed by one of the two major parties or die quickly.\n\nRight now candidates are preparing for the primaries, where people vote on which candidate should be the official nominee of each party. There are hundreds running, but around 15 Republicans who seem to be serious contenders, and 6 Democrats.\n\nPrimary voting happens state-by-state, with the first primary happening in March. The candidates spend a disproportionate amount of time campaigning in the states that vote first, such as Iowa and New Hampshire.\n\nIt's still way too early to project who's going to win the primaries. At this time eight years ago, Obama was way behind in the polls, but he slowly gained support until he ended up winning the primaries decisively.\n\nBy around June it will be obvious who the official nominee is of each party. Then that person will pick a running-mate, who will be the Vice President if they win. Then they campaign until November when everyone picks either the Democrat or the Republican to be the next president.\n\nThat final vote is state-by-state too. For the most part, each state votes, and whoever is the winner of that state gets all of that state's votes towards the final decision. So sometimes the winner of the election isn't the one that got the most total votes, because they won strategic states.\n\nFinally, there are also elections for Congress and local races going on too of course.\n\nUpdate - fixed two typos (thanks): first states are Iowa and NH (not Ohio), and Obama's primary was eight years ago (not four).\n",
"The mechanics are not *terribly* complex.\n\nThere is a federal election scheduled for November 2016 during which all members of the lower house will stand for election and 1/3 of the upper house as well as the President.\n\nTo decide who is going to be on the ballot for all of these positions, different states have different processes. With some exceptions pretty much any legal voter can get on the ballot if they get a petition signed by enough people, but the major parties choose their supported candidates through some sort of democratic process. This process is some combination of primary or caucus.\n\nPrimaries are an extra mini-election which occurs before the actual election to choose party candidates and are pretty straight-forward. Caucuses are systems of local meetings which are run by different rules, but usually require that people show up to special meetings and vote, sometimes for intermediate electors which go and vote again in some sort of state convention.\n\nThe party candidates for President are officially selected at national party conventions in the late summer by delegates who are chosen to attend through primaries and caucuses. These primaries and caucuses don't all happen at the same time, so starting in January, we will start getting results from different places. They will select 'sworn' delegates who promise to vote for a particular candidate and we will be tracking how many delegates each candidate has until one has a majority for each major party. At that point, the actual convention will just be an election rally for the candidate.\n\nThe actual election of the President is a bit wonky as well. It won't be based on a national popular vote, instead each state has a number of 'electors' which are just like delegates. Most states assign a panel of sworn electors for whichever candidate got the most votes in that state, although a couple of small states assign them a bit differently. It occasionally means that the winner of the electors is not the winner of the popular vote.\n\nAs for the politics of it, well, this post is already very long and it would need to be *much* longer to explain it adequately.",
"Unlike many other countries, we do not vote for parties. We vote for individuals. So individuals run for the House of Representatives, based on districts within each state, every two years. Individuals run for 1/3rd of the Senate seats, which each cover an entire state, every two years (each Senator serves a 6 year term). And individuals run for President every four years. \n\nSince we vote for individuals and parties don't have an official place in the structure of our government or in elections, the major parties are currently trying to decide which person to throw their support behind. Party representatives from each state will travel to their national convention in July of next year to vote on who gets the party backing. \n\nBut before that happens, the state parties have to chose which representatives are going to the national convention. So between January and June of next year, residents of each state are going to vote on what representatives they want to go to the party convention. This is either done with a secret ballot, or by a bunch of people getting into a room and debating and doing more of a \"show of hands\" type thing, depending on the state. Those are the primaries. Since the party representatives only make one decision (who the party should back for president), the platform is pretty simple (\"I promise to back X for party candidate\"), so we're really just voting on who we want the party to back. \n\nThe big election, the one most people care about, will happen in November of next year. Or rather, the 51 elections people care about happen in November of next year. The general election works much like the party conventions- we're not actually electing the president, we're electing state (and district, for Washington DC) representatives to go to the electoral college and vote for president on our behalf. The ballots are done by each state, so it's entirely possible for someone to be on the ballot in one state and not another. ",
"dmazzoni's comment is a good intro, but it might be important to understand how these elections are paid for as well.\n\nIn Britain, elections are funded, largely, by the public. In the U.S., this is not necessarily so. \n\nAfter the [Citizen's United decision by the United States Supreme court](_URL_2_), Super PACs have become and even bigger player in elections. Super PACs (Political Action Committees) can take unlimited donations from people or companies. Often, though these PACs have names like \"[Americans for Prosperity,](_URL_1_)\" they will support one candidate. (They can also be used to support a specific issue like, say, [Wolf-Pac](_URL_3_) which is trying to overturn Citizen's United.)\n\nThese PACS cannot work directly with candidates. This, however, is a fuzzy line and it's very easy to work around. Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart took this to task on their TV shows. Their work won a Peabody - one of the highest journalism awards in America - for their work on the issue. \n\nSo, you have a company like Goldman Sachs which gave money to both Obama and McCain/Romney in the presidential elections.\n\nNow, candidates can also get money directly from their supporters. But people are only allowed to give $2,700 to a candidate in an election cycle. \n\nOften, you'll hear of candidates having fundraisers that are dinners which cost $2,500 a plate, meaning you get a ticket if you donate $2,500 to the campaign. This is completely legal. [Here's an overview of the current state of fundraising for candidates.](_URL_0_) \n\nThere are more restrictions on campaign finance, but they get a bit hairy and technical. \n\n"
]
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[],
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[],
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"http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/08/28/434708855/charts-2016-presidential-campaign-finance-fundraising",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_for_Prosperity",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC",
"http://www.wolf-pac.com/"
]
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||
chytwt | why are names like aaron and aaliyah spelled with 2 a’s? how does that double a affect the pronunciation? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/chytwt/eli5_why_are_names_like_aaron_and_aaliyah_spelled/ | {
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"Traditionally Aaron is pronounced 'air-on'. It derives from the Hebrew 'Aharon'. Thus, the double a is from the loss of the 'breathy' second a. 'Aaliyah' is spelt with two as presumably to show the long a sound in the Arabic original.",
"Many names or words with double letters or silent letters are just artifacts of a time when we either did pronounce the letters (knight was keh-nixt or keh-nicht, light was lixt), or have dropped letters from the word that used to be pronounced (plough became plow, but used to be pronounced like plug).\n\nThere are a ton of other reasons that a silent letter might pop up; letters that were **added for really no good reason** (the \"u\" in neighbour/honour in UK spelling), **to clarify an origin or meaning** (the s in isle was added to look like the Latin insula, and then later put in island for the same reason), **consonant clusters might just be pronounced differently in your region so they appear silent** (azma instead of asthma, or Chrissmus instead of Christmas) , **a letter may exist just to show it's a version of another word** (the n in damn reflects it's actually the shortened damnation, the g in phlegm reflects phlegmatic), and some other reasons as well."
]
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11dljx | how do optical illusions of static images look like they're moving? | _URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/11dljx/eli5_how_do_optical_illusions_of_static_images/ | {
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"It's because your eyes are constantly moving, and when your eyes move from one place on the picture to another, they're naturally attracted to places that \"match up\" with the last place they were looking. However, slight differences in the surrounding areas make it look like they moved, the same way slight differences in frames in a cartoon do.\n\nIf you force yourself to stare at one spot, the picture will stop moving. If you can control your eyes to move them from one \"bean\" to the one next to it, you can see more clearly how the surrounding beans rotate."
]
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"http://i.imgur.com/9bZ5i.jpg"
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[]
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69ttg3 | how do new sports teams fill their rosters? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/69ttg3/eli5_how_do_new_sports_teams_fill_their_rosters/ | {
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"It depends on the rules of the league that they're entering. For example, Las Vegas was awarded an NHL team that will start competing next season. A special expansion draft will be held after the end of this season's playoffs where Vegas will choose one player from each of the 30 other teams. Teams are allowed to protect a certain number of players on their roster. \n\nVegas is also allowed to pursue players that don't currently have NHL contracts and will also be given a head start in negotiating with free agents, NHL players whose contracts have expired and don't currently have a contract with any team. (Edit - I mean, players that won't have a contract as of July 1st, 2017)\n\nThey were also given the same odds of winning the entry draft as the 3rd last team, I think they will pick 6th overall in the entry draft, in which teams claim the rights to young players who are entering the league."
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[]
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2pjbwr | how did hdtvs go from being eye-poppingly expensive 10 years ago, to being arguably the cheapest long term investment for electronics? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pjbwr/eli5how_did_hdtvs_go_from_being_eyepoppingly/ | {
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"The same reason a computer from 5-years ago costs less now. As time goes on, when we innovate in technology, it becomes cheaper to make what used to be considered top of the line, as our understanding of how to create the technology increases.",
"If you think consumer electronics are an investment, I have a bridge to sell you."
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54e5n0 | why do some people flop around when they get knocked out? | I've seen people getting KO'd and videos of it and occasionally the person getting knocked out will wiggle their whole body in a weird motion, wondering if there was any reason for this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/54e5n0/eli5_why_do_some_people_flop_around_when_they_get/ | {
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"When you get knocked out, it's generally from either concussive force or from a sudden drop in blood pressure to the brain.\n\nWith concussive force that knocks you out, the things that protect your brain have basically failed -- that force is pushing around your brain itself in higher-than-wanted amounts. This tends to cause a lot of problems including misfires on nerves, and, well... unconciousness. \n\nWhen your brain detects a sudden change in blood pressure, it tries to find the easiest position to get blood to your brain. Since gravity draws blood away from the brain, the easiest way for your heart to get blood to your brain is when you're laying down. The fastest way your body has to get you to lay down is to make you unconscious. (really the fastest way would be when you're upside down, but your brain isn't good at making you do that involuntarily.)\n\nIn both cases, your brain is going to be sending odd signals over the nerves due to being in a not-normal state and will be trying to recover your consciousness. Both of these things can make someone wiggle around a little bit.\n\nRelated: [Marine knife hands knockout from sudden change in blood pressure](_URL_0_)"
]
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[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcaOr1TBA1w"
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3miste | how does gift card prevention theft work? | For example, whats stopping me from walking into this Target and taking a Steam card without going through the register? Is there a system that only lets the code work when the computer activates it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3miste/eli5how_does_gift_card_prevention_theft_work/ | {
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"Precisely. \n\nGift cards have no real value until activated. \n\nAlso, stores will have there own security in place to prevent theft. "
]
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4dl1ei | (foreigner edition) how do the us primary election work? could a democrat not just vote for the shittiest republican candidate (and vice versa) to sabotage it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4dl1ei/eli5_foreigner_edition_how_do_the_us_primary/ | {
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"That's exactly what happens, however, some states have laws that limit primary voting to people who are registered to that party. So if you aren't a registered republican, you can't vote in the Republican primaries. ",
"In most states you have to register a party affiliation in order to vote in a primary - so registering for the opposite party means you can't vote for your own.\n\nIt would also have to be coordinated, some democrats would probably prefer to vote for the most democratic-like republican instead - just in case. But that level of coordination would be obvious and would probably cause the party to scrutinize new votors carefully.\n"
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7f2adx | if latin is the parent language of many modern languages, and is still being taught today, why do people not speak latin? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7f2adx/eli5_if_latin_is_the_parent_language_of_many/ | {
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"Even during the heyday of the Roman Empire, written Latin had deviated quite a lot from the common street language in Italy. Language evolves much like living things do. If a sub group of speakers becomes more or less isolated from the rest, the language they speak will change over time.\n\nTake a look at Wikipedia: _URL_0_",
"Try to imagine the Roman empire back in the day. It comprised a big chunk of Europe and went all around the Mediterranean sea, included parts of the Arabian region and North Africa. It was really big.\n\nBack then, education wasn't as we understand it today. People from the lower socio-economic classes didn't get a formal education, which translates to learning latin -the official language of the Empire- from what you can hear and trying to mimic it, but never formally learning how to write ir read it. Over that, consider that most of the territory was conquered, people already had a common language before the Roman empire conquered them.\n\nNow, think about English. Even with a standard education system that's common for an entire country, you can find differences on how the language is treated between regions. For example, the english used in the south of US is different in some instances to the english used in the northwest. And that's in a country founded with people speaking the same language.\n\nNow imagine what happens when those populations begin with a mix of latin and their native language, the education system isn't common, AND the populations aren't as connected as they are today.\n\nThe result is that you get a lot of local variations that begin to differentiate, which later on become languages of their own.\n\nWith the fall of the Roman empire the use of latin began to decrease, leading it to its death.\n\nThe upside of this, is that it spawned a lot of languages which where then exported all around the world with European conquering, and it was a refined language in the upper socio-economical class that used it. Thus, it was widely used as a common language for formal and technical endeavors, like science and art.\n\nIt is a dead language because there aren't any native speakers left, meaning it won't ever change, its rules are set in stone. Compare to greek or english, which have been used for a long time and are still used natively to this day. A living language will keep changing as long as it has enough native speakers."
]
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages"
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1qnvzj | what is meta data and metaprogramming? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qnvzj/eli5_what_is_meta_data_and_metaprogramming/ | {
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"These are unrelated concepts.\n\nMeta-data is data about data. The primary information we care about in a picture is the picture itself, but there can be additional data about the picture such as the time it was taken, what sort of device took the picture, what format the picture is in, etc. This extra data about the picture is often called meta-data and it can apply to anything, not just pictures.\n\nMetaprogramming is writing code which writes code. Programmers often look for patterns in their code so they can remove duplication. Duplicated code is often more difficult to understand and if it needs to be changed in the future, you have more places which have to be changed and thus more opportunities for errors. Most of the time a programmer can just write a simple function which does the duplicated task and refer to it whenever the duplication would be used, but sometimes this is not enough to remove the duplication. Metaprogramming allows the program to write or alter the code in response to how it is being used. It allows greater flexibility, but often at the cost of being more difficult to understand what is going on by looking at the code.",
"These two concepts are not really related, despite both having \"meta\" in the name.\n\nMetadata is information that describes other information. Email headers are metadata. They describe certain things about the email message, like whether the body is in ASCII or Unicode or some other text format. The actual message is the data, and the headers that tell the computers about how to display the message are metadata.\n\nMetaprogramming is the idea of using computer program code to create other program code. For example, c# code running on a Web server can actually create customized javascript for a web page. In this case, the programmer has written program code that outputs program code in a different language, intended to be run on a different platform. This is more than just copying a script file and sending it to the browser; rather, the program is assembling different bits of script as needed to create something unique on demand.\n\nAnother type of metaprogramming is the use of things called templates or generics, where the template or generic defines behaviors that don't know much about the type of data they operate on. For example, a programmer could write a generic function that takes an ordered collection of information and creates a new ordered collection using every third element from the original. This function wouldn't need to know what kind of data the collection contains (numbers, text strings, dates, etc.) or even what kind of ordered collection it is (list, array, text string, or even the results of a function that returns a series of numbers).\n\nBy writing a generic, the programmer has used metaprogramming to apply the desired behavior to any and all types of data that it could possibly be applied to.\n\n* edit for wrong word",
"Meta data is the portion of data that is _not_ the \"core payload\" that passes through any information system.\n\nFor example when you make a phone call your phone company knows that your phone number (for example sake) 1234 5678 just called 1111 2222 at 8:00am and that call was 13 minutes and 17 seconds in duration. This is meta data the phone company keeps on hand for versus reasons including law enforcement and billing.\n\nWhat they _shouldn't_ keep is the phone call itself. The call itself is not meta data because that is the \"core payload\" of the information passing through a system."
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w7xsl | is it possible to increase your attention span? | Does not being able to concentrate or having a short attention span have anything to do with a chemical imbalance in the brain, or is it something that takes practice?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/w7xsl/eli5is_it_possible_to_increase_your_attention_span/ | {
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"Some people would call your lack of concentration Attention Deficit Disorder. There are differences in the brains of people with ADD and without. If you are really stubborn or have a lot of willpower, maybe you can change it when you notice you're getting distracted. However, if you actually have ADD, then the easiest way to change it is by taking adderall. \n\n[Check this out, it might help](_URL_0_)"
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"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002518/"
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47aczi | what's the difference between an architect and a civil engineer? when a new building is built, what are their respective contributions? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/47aczi/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_an_architect/ | {
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"An architect designs the building, determining what it will look like, its size, what materials it will be built from. He will do this in great detail.\n\nCivil, structural, and mechanical engineers will do the hard math and applied science of determining the amount and strength of materials needed, how components will be fastened together, actual construction details and sequences, how water, electricity, and gas will be distributed to the building, etc.",
"An architect's job is to design the thing that is being built. A civil engineer's job is to get it built.\n\nThey both have to work together most of the times, though.",
"I think you mean structural engineer?\n\nGenerally speaking, there is a saying that the engineer makes a building stand, architects make a building work. \n\nA building can stand fine, but didn't ensure that the bathroom won't stink up your living room and that the bedroom is big enough bed and dresser and that the dining room is attached to the kitchen. \n\nOn the other hand, architects can't detail a truss. \n\nEither of the fields are legally allowed to do the other (to some extent) but are not experts on them. "
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5d64js | why are african americans at such a disadvantage today? | I am really looking for an explanation of the causes. Redlining is one example I already know of that has impacted the race. I am looking for others as well. In 2016, there are few if any structural barriers for african americans, yet they are still at a great disadvantage. I would really like to know exactly what put them there, and what can be done about it. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5d64js/eli5_why_are_african_americans_at_such_a/ | {
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"I'm sure many other people will discuss some things about structural racism, implicit bias, etc.\n\nBut the main point i want to add is how inheritable wealth and poverty are. Despite the lip service we give the american dream, one of the biggest indicators of how wealthy you will be is how wealthy your parents are, and their parents before them (the reason we celebrate people like Carnegie and Obama is because they are the exception not the rule).\n\nThis manifests itself in dozens of reinforcing ways. Poor parents means poor nutrition, poor housing, more violent neighborhood (research effects of chronic stress on child brain development), exposure to things like lead paint from older houses, poorer quality schools (which are still funded largely by the local tax assessment). Poor neighborhood and poor schools means lower chances for strong colleges, which means missing out bothnon a stronger education, and far more importantly a strong social network that can get you jobs, internships, and \"put a good word in for you.\" Poorer and more violent neighborhoods (also exacerbated by redlining and predatory \"block busting\") also means greater liklihood of getting caught up in the legal system earlier, less access to preteial diversions, and therefore greater chance of resume stains.\n\nAll that is to say that \"things are decent legally now\" doesn't instantly wipe away huge headstarts elsewhere.\n\nThere are certainly many white people whose families were also very poor several generations ago. And guess what... tons of them are still poor despite facing less descrimination and a more favorable legal system. But there are also lots of super wealthy and powerful white people as well. What makes the situation for minorities somewhat unique is that they were collectively held back to such an extent, that as a block there are many shared experiences.\n\nHope that's helpful. It's not an easy question, and it is a situation that thousands of people bothninskde and outside the communities go to work every day working to balance.",
"Black people are at a disadvantage because a long time ago all the important people were white racists who didn't like the idea of black people having a life as good as theirs.\n\nIt's a very old, complicated problem and people keep trying different things to help. Some ideas help more than others, some of them accidentally make it worse, and some of them were actually trying to make it worse and only pretending to try to help.\n\nThen there's the problem that some people are racist, and it's not just white people. It's people who are frustrated and hurt by something, and they don't know how to cope with it so they tell themself \"it's **that group's** fault,\" and because of how memories work, they keep remembering all the bad things people in **that group** did that made their life harder until they've convinced themself that the jews or the blacks or the asians or the whites are the big problem in the world.\n\nSo really, it's complicated, and racism is easier to use to explain it than complex money problems, bad luck, and every individual person having different goals and needs.",
"I am no expert but this is my opinion. They modern day welfare system has destroyed the black family. It was started with good intentions by JFK , but it failed in a major way. It does not allow unmarried mothers to live with their children's father in government housing. This has lead to a 75% unwed mothers in the black community. This will never in a million years amount to any kind of economic stability. It takes two people by and large to raise children. Kids need dad's and black dad's aren't there. This is a fact.",
"One of the most significant factors that determine how successful an individual will be is their parents' income. Think about it. Parents with reasonable financial stability can move to an area with a good public school, or pay for private school. They don't work three minimum wage jobs, so they have time to help with homework. Kids that aren't hungry tend to learn better. When they get older, teens have more time for homework if they aren't financially required to work a job or babysit younger siblings while their parents work. People tend to have friends at approximately their same income level, so young adults with financially stable parents can network with family friends to find good job opportunities. And having parents with savings that help with college tuition means less debt, so they can start saving to provide for their own kids. It's a cycle of inheritance that's very powerful.\n\nNow for a big portion of US history African Americans were enslaved, which means they were not allowed to make money. Even if racism had magically vanished at the end of the civil war, this alone would be a huge setback. The majority of people who were not enslaved prior to the war already had a lot of the advantages listed above, while the former slaves did not. That difference propagates through the generations \n\nAnd we already know that prejudice did not end the moment the war ended. There were Black Codes, laws which let African Americans be arrested for actions that would not cause someone else to be arrested. There were quote \"literacy tests\" administered before voting or serving on a jury, so African Americans had much less say in their government. And the 13th amendment technically outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude \"except as punishment for a crime.\" So if someone was convicted of a crime, then the state could still loan them out as unpaid labor to nearby farms and businesses, and the business would pay the government - not the workers.\n\nIt's kind of impressive to look at the sharp change in incarceration rates that happened as soon as that \"except as punishment for a crime\" loophole went into effect. In 1865, just prior to the new amendment, African Americans made up less than 33% of Tennessee's prison population. Two years later it was at 58%. Another ten years later it was 67%. The overall number of prisoners rose sharply as well, from 121 in North Carolina in 1870 to 1,071 in 1890. Look up \"convict leasing\" for more stats.\n\nSince providing prison labor to businesses was a way to raise funds for other government programs, economically there was incentive to have a reasonable number of prisoners available. And since literacy tests kept African Americans from serving on juries, and at the time the all white juries tended to have some bias, the ease with which African Americans were convicted isn't nearly as surprising. \n\nIt should go without saying that unpaid labor while imprisoned generally does not increase one's familial wealth.\n\nThere are many other factors that affected the opportunities available to African Americans. The main takeaway though is that when it comes to building wealth over generations, African Americans are starting out at a significant disadvantage. This has effects on all sorts of other areas of life, and effects that persist across generations.",
"[This speech by British rapper Akala](_URL_2_) should sum it up. It's long, but it's very ELI5. I've probably watched it half a dozen times. [His music is also great](_URL_3_).\n\nIf you want a shorter explanation, try [this segment he did for a show](_URL_0_). The real explanation starts at [2:04](_URL_1_). He's talking about Britain but it applies to the US as well.\n\n > In 2016, there are few if any structural barriers for african americans.\n\nThat's the problem. There are *many* barriers for Black people in the US. You just haven't experienced them and are probably convinced they aren't there. The typical view is that unless someone shouts a racial epithet or explicates in a situation that they're being racist, we want to believe they aren't racist. But you don't need to be a KKK member to partake in or benefit from the same institutions that keep other people down. Hence why it's so difficult to convince White people, the majority, that things they might not think are racist are in fact racist.\n\nThey've done studies where simply having a Black-sounding name is enough to get your job application looked at weeks later rather than days. Yet will anyone who reviews a CV admit to it? No, because they also don't think they're doing anything racist either.\n\nEdit: the fact you say there are \"few\" barriers implies there are at least more barriers for them than say, White people. That's still too much and can have a profound effect."
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adwzji | how does sleep affect muscle growth? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/adwzji/eli5_how_does_sleep_affect_muscle_growth/ | {
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"A certain sleep stage increases production of growth hormones, which promotes muscle growth. Also, adequte rest after working allows the body to repair the used muscles and consequently increases volume and strength.",
"There’s a lot of hormonal changes that occur during sleep that help the making of protein and ultimately muscle. \n\n_URL_0_",
"The process of muscle growth consists by stress - repair - compensation. Basically you damage your muscles, your body immediately starts repairing, and compensate giving you a bigger/stronger muscle. Sleep acts on the repair stage.",
"I know someone more qualified will eventually answer but my quick two cents is this.\n\nWhen you exercise a muscle to complete exertion (the pump/intense burn) you damage and leave microtears in the fibre of your muscle tissue.\n\nWhile carb and protein rich foods supply the nutrients when you are awake and eating to replenish your glycogen storage and send repair cells to the already torn tissue, the process is minimal while one is still active and using energy for other things in your daily routine.\n\nWhen one falls asleep the body properly prioritizes recovery since your brain is no longer telling your body to be actively awake.\n\nYou go through 5 cycles in a full sleep which each vary to some degree the rate of recovery for your muscles. If I can recall correctly, NREM which is the 2nd last cycle of sleep is the most productive cycle that encourages HGH (Human Growth Hormone) to bolster the nutrients from food to come repair the torn tissue fibres.\n\nEDITED: for clarifications\n",
"Have you ever played a video game and just couldn't beat the level, only to go to bed that night wake up the next morning and smash the shit out of it in the first few tries? Your brain re-wires itself to be more effective at something you constantly do. It takes a lot of time and energy to do this and it just can't while its taking in information from you eyes, ears, the touch of your finger tips or the smells you come across and all the other functions you've got going on while your awake but it can do that while you're asleep. \n\n\nSame thing with muscle growth. It's complicated and a lot of work for your body to grow muscle so when all systems are in \"sleep\" mode is the best time to do this cause you don't have to worry if something will kill you you're warm and safe. It helps your muscles grow to make the things you did repetitively (lifting weight, running etc.) much easier. \n\n\nA lot of body builders will get 9-10 hours of sleep for the reason. \n\n\n",
"If sleep helps repair muscle, does this mean the brain works in a similar way since it’s always being compared to a muscle? ",
"Muscles grow more with higher levels of growth hormone. The brain releases higher levels of growth hormone when you are asleep.",
"The body repairs itself when it sleeps. This is due to the release of HGH (human growth hormone) in REM sleep. Also, your body knows that it won't need the energy for the next few hours so it directs more nutrients and energy to repairing itself. ",
"All the cells in your body have to work really hard when you’re awake. When you go to sleep, those cells don’t have to work as much to keep you awake, so they can do other things, like focus on making your muscles bigger! When you don’t let them rest as much as they need, they don’t have as much energy to go towards fixing things and making your muscles bigger. \n",
"It strongly affects hormones and liver functions, and likely in turn has big hormonal impacts (like testosterone). So sleep likely heavily impacts.\n\nA lot of the research is very recent, but it's looking this direction.",
"This is not something that can be explained by hormones and other bodybuilding pseudoscience.\n\nWe have many different chemical pathways, some of them take the form of cycles. Two distinct cycles at play here are the cell cycle, that regulates growth and repair, and the circadian clock, which is intimately linked to the cell cycle.\n\nThe circadian clock is our body clock, it tells us when to sleep and wake, and it tunes itself though UV light hitting our retina. When you sleep it upregulates growth and repair through the cell cycle. It has done this for billions of years, cyanobacteria, 2 billion+ years ago, had a basic form of this clock so they could replicate their DNA during the night time in the absense of harmful UV radiation.\n\nIt is the circadian clock that directs the body to grow, if at all, overnight.\n\nSince I am on mobile I am not going to put any citations right now, however, if you save my comment or reply I will provide interesting and relevant journal article references tomorrow.",
"Without sleeping your body cannot adequately heal itself, which is essentially what it's doing when you tear your muscle fibers, it rebuilds those microscopic tears stronger than before, which is why you get stronger.\n\nSo without sleep you can't build muscle, you build muscle during sleep, your body heals and replenishes itself when you sleep.\n\nIt's essential to keeping your body healthy ",
"Long answer- For anybody who is interested in learning more about the benefits of sleep, I’d HIGHLY recommend listening to episode #1109 of the Joe Rogan Experience (featuring Matthew Walker) or to check out Matthew’s book “Why We Sleep.” I’m currently halfway through the book and the power that sleep holds continues to amaze me. The general gist of both book and podcast is that consistently getting a full 8 hours a night will improve memory, help with weight loss, increase muscle capacity and generally leave you with an overall better well-being. \n\n\n\nShort answer- Greatly. ",
"Just like you can't cross the road when you stop and look both ways and see a car, the road can't be fixed or upgraded if there are cars using it. Imagine you're brain is the car and your body is the road. \n\n\nThat's why you sleep. To upgrade and fix yourself.\n\nSleep is actually AWESOME!",
"Pretty sure it's deep sleep and not REM sleep where most of your HGH is produced. Bodybuilders used to take GHB to boost deep sleep. ",
"Diff hours of beginning sleeping affects hormone production, I think 10pm is the perfect time if I remember",
"Basically the body can only do so much. That is why when you are sick you sleep a lot, cause your body is trying to dedicate more energy to repairing it self.",
"Dreaming helps the muscles work through unresolved abstract problems that build up incrementally through the muscles daily waking activities and experiences."
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55ph4q | why do some stretches of road have a "turn on headlights next 11 miles" sign even though it's during the day? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/55ph4q/eli5why_do_some_stretches_of_road_have_a_turn_on/ | {
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"Some states have laws dictating when you must have your headlights on. NY requires they are on when it's raining, PA requires they are on when it's a construction zone. I have seen signs like that in PA when entering large construction zones. I'm sure other states have other reasons and require them on in those cases.\n\n[Alaska requires headlights on when your speed is over 45mph on some roads](_URL_0_)",
"Headlights improve visibility of your car regardless of whether it is night or day. You may not need them to see, but other drivers can see you better when they are on. Thus, some roads or some weather conditions can require you to have them on. \n\nI drive with my lights on 100% of the time. Night or day, rain or shine.\n",
"In my experience I've only seen thst on two lane roads that have cars traveling at high speeds and reflective dividers in the middle. I always assumed it was so you'd see the dividers better because they'd be reflecting light so you'd be less likely to veer into oncoming traffic that would be going too fast to stop in time",
"There's a lot of those through NV. The roads are only two lanes and it's really hard to see cars when their lights are off in the desert. The sun reflecting off everything and the heat waves are really blinding. "
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2udlki | how did the upper class not end up just spending their fortunes in pre industrial revolution england? | I understand that holding on to fortunes was a huge part of marrying within your class, but the owners of Manors still had expenses including keeping themselves and the help fed, keeping up with fashion, and doling out allowances. How did the money not just run out? And where did the money originally come from? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2udlki/eli5_how_did_the_upper_class_not_end_up_just/ | {
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"The money came from profits made from land holdings and business investments, trade, etc. In some cases it *did* run out for some minor noble families.",
"They are the ones that ended up owning the factories.\n\nAs an analogy: Most of the big old news media companies remain the top online news companies as they had the resources to throw at the 'new world' to keep their place.",
"A noble would rule over hundreds, if not thousands peasants and other commoners, and would make money from:\n\n* the rents the peasants paid him\n* the crops and livestock from his personal lands, usually tended by peasants to pay their rents\n* he would typically own a mill, and charge peasants to use it\n* his lands might have mines, forests, and other natural resources he could extract and sell\n* he might sponsor weavers, tanners, vintners, brewers, smiths, and other craftsman to create goods from raw materials extracted from his lands"
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4my14p | meaning of this quote from albert camus. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4my14p/eli5_meaning_of_this_quote_from_albert_camus/ | {
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"Not an ELI5, but an observation: this is basically the theme of the Hunger Games novels/movies, if you've read/seen them.\n\nRevolutions tend to begin as a dream to overthrow injustice and return to freedom and innocence...and end in a sacrifice of freedom and surrender to injustice.",
"You have to fight a bloody war to gain your version of freedom. During that war, you may have to step on your own principles",
"Let's break it down. Sentence by sentence.\n\n > Freedom, \"that terrible word inscribed on the chariot of the storm,\" is the motivating principle of all revolutions.\n\nThe first part says that freedom is the one goal rebellions strive for. It's what every rebel wants - the 'chariot of the storm' is the energy of the revolution.\n\n > Without it, justice seems inconceivable to the rebel's mind.\n\nIf we have no promise of freedom, there is no justice in our actions.\n\n > There comes a time, however, when justice demands the suspension of freedom.\n\nEventually, we must give up our freedom in order for justice to prevail.\n\n > Then terror, on a grand or small scale, makes its appearance to consummate the revolution.\n\nTerror (or the act of taking action - rioting, protesting, revolting etc.) must always rear its head to be partnered with the revolution.\n\n > Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.\n\nEverything we do when we rebel, harks back to an inner urge for peace, harmony and a better world. We think our actions are innocuous (innocent) because we have the best intentions at heart.\n\n > But one day nostalgia takes up arms and assumes the responsibility of total guilt; in other words, adopts murder and violence.\n\nBut, whether we realise it or not, these innocent intentions were bought at the price of becoming vicious killing machines. Murderers. We are ultimately guilty for our actions despite our intentions. Was it worth it?"
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6w8ruy | how does a storm surge work? | Where does the water come from and do other areas have lower water levels because of it?
Obviously I know it comes from the ocean, but it is just the wind pushing water up onto land? Currents? Something else?
Thanks. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6w8ruy/eli5_how_does_a_storm_surge_work/ | {
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"The wind of the storm pushes against hundreds of miles of ocean building up a wave-front as it travels. When that wave front is pushed into shore by said wind it is called a storm surge. The ocean is literally being pushed inland. ",
"Put some water in a dinner plate. Blow across the plate and the water will stack up and spill over the far side. The near side of the plate will lose water.\n\n",
"Storm systems have low air pressure and this accounts for part of the effect. It's just like when you suck liquid up a drinking straw. Every 10 & #8239;mb (millibars) of air pressure translates into almost 4 inches of water height. Category 4 storms have pressures of around 930 & #8239;mb compared to the normal pressure of 1010 & #8239;mb, so that accounts for about 30 inches of water rise."
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1mu2ha | why does almost every single app want to know my location? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mu2ha/eli5_why_does_almost_every_single_app_want_to/ | {
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"Analytic data is used to determine who, when , where and how people use an app. With the supposed end-goal of using this information to provide a better product. ",
"Many times its part of some advertisement plugin they use to provide ads local to you.",
"that's a very good question, but before I can give you a full explanation, I need to know where you are.",
"Market research, probably. Let's make up an app and call it Orangered. (No, I did not participate in the Chroma war.) The people who make Orangered want to know where you are so they can tell the other people where you live, \"Use Orangered! Everyone else is using it!\" or something like that. Another example: if you use Orangered with tacos more than hamburgers (or something), then if the Orangered people sell the information to someone else, then the someone else can use it to market tacos more efficiently.\n\nHope this helped.",
"How else is the app going to find hot horny single women in your city?",
"To track you and server you local ads, and sell your location data. Thats what pays for the app. there are no \"Free\" apps. You pay in one way or another.",
"I'm more worried about the apps that want full access to the camera ",
"So you can laugh like a maniac at your giant real-time map of the locations of all of the people who buy your app and enjoy godlike Orwellian powers usually reserved for the NSA.\n\nAlso, local pizza place ads."
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2fdhmf | why do so many people on reddit have depression, yet it real life i never seem to meet anyway? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fdhmf/eli5_why_do_so_many_people_on_reddit_have/ | {
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"There are benefits to anonymity; such as making it easier to talk about things you wouldn't normally.",
"Because very few people walk around in real life talking about how depressed they are. It doesn't really make for a good conversation starter and it's not something many people feel comfortable talking openly about. ",
"Because generally depression and mental illness still has a stigma that more 'physical' ailments do not. And I think that is a great shame on modern society. It's getting better though but there is a long way to go.",
"People get very good at hiding their mental illness. I would think that many of them go out of their way to 'put on a happy face' because that's is what they think that society expects of them...or maybe it's just a way of getting though the day.\n\nJust look at Robin Williams, he looked to be the happiest (at at least the funniest) guy in the world, yet he was apparently suffering from severe depression. \n\nThis is really one of the biggest problems with mental illness....there is such a stigma attached to it, that people don't want to talk about it, they don't want to or don't know how or when to seek help.\n\nSo one of the main things that people are advocating about mental illness, is that it needs to 'come out into the open' and be something that can be discussed freely. ",
"Mental illness still carries a lot of stigma in our society and the only reason people open up about it on reddit is because of the anonymity. Also even if someone didn't mind opening up about it, it is still really hard to bring up in normal conversation. Unlike physical illness, depression can be quite invisible to the outside observer. Some of the friends I know who do suffer seem to be happy, funny, outgoing people socially. Many of them don't want to burden others with their own problems. \n\nAlso there are thousands of people commenting on reddit daily, so just browsing for a day and your sample size is much, much larger than the number of people you would interact with in real life. ",
"I guess it would be something like this\n\n_URL_0_",
"You have met them in real life, you just don't know it. Something like 1 in 10 US adults has some form of depression. ",
"Depression is not something you talk about to just anyone and everyone. Also, a lot of people don't understand depression and think those with it are attention seekers, can get over it easily, etc. I don't even understand it myself. Also, depression is on a spectrum. You hear about extreme cases (i.e. suicide), but you don't often hear about those with more mild forms of depression since they do not seek solace in death."
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2ypzk6 | why doesnt christianity have any forbidden meats like the other major religions? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ypzk6/eli5_why_doesnt_christianity_have_any_forbidden/ | {
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"Until the '60s, Catholics traditionally refrained from eating meat on Fridays.\n\nMatthew 15:11 says 'What goes into someone's mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.\" Which is probably why it's not a trend you see much of.",
"It mostly comes down to one verse: Acts 11:9 Do not call anything impure that GOD has made clean\n\nIn context it basically says that you can eat anything. Or at least that's how most Christians interpret it. \n\nEdit: typo. ",
"Ethiopian Orthodox and some Copts abstain from pork.\n\nI've heard it argued that most Western Christians did away with dietary restrictions to attract more converts. Some Catholics and Orthodox still abstain from meat on Fridays and fast on some other days.",
"I can only answer for protestants:\n\nIn the Old Testament, there are three categories of laws/commands: Moral (overarching right vs. wrong), Political (distinguishing the nomadic, originally kingless people of Israel from other nations) and Ceremonial (Religious/how to approach God). There are a variety of statements concerning food, which things were clean or unclean, and how things should be prepared, which fell under the Ceremonial and *occasionally* the Political categories. \n\nIn the New Testament, there is a scene in which Peter has a vision of God lowering a blanket filled with \"unclean\" animals for him to eat. He refuses because they're all against the rules. This happens a few times until God makes a statement that HE decides what's clean or unclean, and not Peter or tradition or anyone else. \n\nThis, combined with the nature of Jesus' death and resurrection, has been interpreted within the protestant church as meaning that the Ceremonial laws are over and done with. There are sacraments that are forms of worship, but there is no longer that level of separation between God and man - so ceremonial laws and restrictions on food and etc are no longer necessary. ",
"In the New Testament we are specifically told that we can eat what we want. "
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4bzn7u | why does our heart & other important organs only protected by a rib cage, wouldn't it be more effective to have a plate armor like bones for protection? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4bzn7u/eli5_why_does_our_heart_other_important_organs/ | {
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"Ribs are important for mobilization. Had we had a thick...strangely armor-like endo-skeleton, we wouldnt be very agile, thusly putting us lower on the foodchain. Its all thanks to evolution",
"Okay, think of it this way: with our rib cage, we can sustain significant impacts to any area of our ribs and break one, two, maybe three ribs. These ribs can heal themselves, while the rest of our rib cage is healthy, still offering protection. If we had one large plate of bone, then any impact could result in the whole plate cracking or breaking, thus while it is healing there is not proper protection for your organs. In addition, and possibly most important, the bones covering your ribs need to be able to move up and down with the movement of your lungs. If we had a plate, it would not be flexible enough, and breathing would be much harder. ",
"There are some animals that have evolved armor: armadillos, turtles, ankylosaurs, some lizard species and loads of invertebrates (such as crabs, beetles, nautiloids).\n\nBut armor is just one strategy of avoiding predators. There are many others (become poisonous, camouflage yourself, dig a hole, group up in a pack/herd so someone else gets eaten instead of you etc). Our monkey-like ancestors used the grouping up strategy a little but mostly evolved another strategy for avoiding predators: climb a tree. That's why we have an opposable thumb that we can use to make our own armor from leather or steel."
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50pqq0 | why do we see blurred in the water ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/50pqq0/eli5_why_do_we_see_blurred_in_the_water/ | {
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"When light passes the border between two media, for example between water and air, it changes direction a little bit. That's why a straw looks broken or bent when it sticks out of the water in a glass. How much the light changes direction (or \"bends\"), depends on the two media. Going from air to glass for example will bend the light more than going from air to water.\n\nNow, this effect is what allows your eye to see sharp, because the border between the air and your cornea bends the light in a way that makes the image on your retina appear sharp. But when you're under water, suddenly there is no air in front of the cornea, but water. As I've mentioned above, how much light bends depends on what media it's passing through. And as it happens, when going from water to the cornea, the light bends way less than it does when going from the air to the cornea. Therefore, the cornea fails at focusing the light like it does under normal circumstances, and the image we see is blurry."
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2c2el9 | why do some programs crash/become unresponsive when minimized? | Skyrim is a huge example for many people. Why can't some programs do this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2c2el9/eli5_why_do_some_programs_crashbecome/ | {
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"When minimized, the system forces it to dump it's memory usage to cache, and lowers it's CPU priority. This is much more complex for large games, and the priority is not there for game makers to debug all the issues. They don't want you to minimize. Keep playing!",
"Let's say your computer is a line of students (programs) in primary school waiting to be served lunch (processing resources).\n\nSkyrim, the school bully, has the notorious reputation of beating other kids up to get the Fullscreen pass which allows him to cut in front of the lunch line so he gets the highest priority for the food.\n\nA new teacher, Mrs. Minimize, notices the bullying and forces Skyrim to the back of the line. Since Skyrim is always used to getting the highest priority for food, he gets extremely upset. If he isn't first in line, then no one should be! He charges through the cafeteria, crashes the table of food to the ground, and stomps his way out.\n\nSummary: Some programs are used to getting high priority for processing power. When minimized, they switch to low priority which could cause processing issues, causing them to crash or become unresponsive."
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utxrf | i saw a post a while ago about some men having no refractory period after orgasm. i hadn't realized it was a medical thing, i am one of those men. could someone tell me more about this? | Not complaining, since it's quite useful, just curious. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/utxrf/i_saw_a_post_a_while_ago_about_some_men_having_no/ | {
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"Well during a refractory period, women no longer attract men. Like in your head you'd know she's hot and naked, but you just don't feel it.",
"First, Lucky you.\nSecond, your desire for sex goes to basically nothing. \n\nLike eating a really good meal till you're full. Yes, you enjoyed it, but well, you're full, you're not going to eat that meal again, you just need to wait till you're atleast a little hungry again. \n\n"
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4ggz4y | if we see with our eyes, how come nobody has invented a prosthetic eye that can restore vision? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ggz4y/eli5_if_we_see_with_our_eyes_how_come_nobody_has/ | {
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"text": [
"not all vision problems stem from the actual visual organs. There could be something wrong to the path that leads to the brain or the part of the brain that processes vision.\n\nWe have created replacements, but they are not quite up to the standard that naturals eyes are at.",
"There are actually a number of tools out there that can restore vision. Retinal implants exist, but they aren't as good as a human eye and involve invasive surgery.\n\nReally, it comes down to where the problem is on the eye - > optic nerve - > brain information pathway.\n\nThere are also other tools. One that I know particularly well is the BrainPort, a device that involves a camera on a pair of sunglasses. That camera creates an image which is then recreated on your tongue via electrical stimulation - each pixel corresponds to an electrode. Over time, your brain learns to read this tactile image as though it were a real picture and the visual cortices of your brain begin to respond. This is an example of a tool used to restore vision when the eye or optic nerve, rather than the brain, is the problem. \n\nThe BrainPort and other similar devices work via \"sensory substitution,\" or replacing the input of one sense with that of another (replacing vision with your tongue's sense of touch). Because the stimulus is encoded in the same way that it would be for the primary visual cortex (the first part of the brain to receive visual stimuli that responds to general grids and bars of light), the brain is able to perceive the image as though it was received from the eyes.",
"Interfacing with the brain is a complicated subject, and one we've only really been able to start doing in the past few decades.\n\nBut even with that, prosthetic eyes *are* being developed, and have had some promising, though rudimentary, initial success.\n\nThe big stumbling point so far has been finding a material which can successfully make a long-term connection between technology and brain cells.\n\nBrain cells are very delicate, and it's difficult to make a connection which doesn't cause scarring and other degradation in the brain.\n\nHowever, research is ongoing and there are been some really interesting developments in recent years. Graphene again demonstrates interesting properties in that there is some promising initial evidence that it can form stable, long-term connections with the brain."
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19k7yv | the difference between phone/tablet processors and ultrabook/laptop processors | Hey guys! Can someone please explain to me the differences between mobile (phone, tablet) processors and say, laptop/desktop processors? I see phone and tablet processors get more instruction sets, tackle on DirectX , and even reach speeds above the 2.0Ghz range (projected for this year, Snapdragon 800 will be capable of 2.3Ghz) WITH multiple cores. The rumored Samsung Galaxy S4 might have a quad-core or an octa-core processor. Meanwhile, many laptops (ultrabooks) have intel’s ultralow voltage processors (such as the core i5-3337U) clocked at 1.2Ghz or 1.8Ghz. Or even the normal voltage CPU’s from a few years ago run at around 1.5-2.0Ghz. Are today’s phone processors faster than intel’s notebook processors from 2010?
**I understand there is A LOT more to a processor than its cache size, operating frequency, etc… but it still makes me feel a little crappy knowing that my phone has more cores, and operates at a higher clock rate than my laptop. What am I missing?** How do the two compare? Does a phone processor (assuming all else equal – ram volume and speed , hard drive rpm, graphics) REALLY rival that of a laptop? Are they about the same? Approximately how much more “powerful” is one over the other? I understand these questions are very vague, but I’m just trying to get a better understanding of this rapid tech development and I’m having a difficult time gauging the sheer power of these processors.
Also, for the comparison between laptop and desktop processors, I see laptop processors with similar specs as desktop processors but running at 35W. They appear to be able to handle the same exact thing, same movies, 40+tabs in chrome, games, etc… so what gives? Intuitively I know the desktop processors which can suck more juice are more powerful but once again I’m having a difficult time understand how or why.
Thanks a lot guys!
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/19k7yv/eli5_the_difference_between_phonetablet/ | {
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"At the very fundamental level, Notebook Processors and Smart Phone and (Low end)Tablets are like apples and oranges.\n\nNotebooks still have an x86 CPU this means that they can run things made for x86 CPUs (So lets say Notebooks are circular holes and can accept circular pegs).\n\nSmart Phones / Tablets run an ARM Processor (e.g. Snapdragon like you said) ARM is like a square hole and can only accept square pegs. The problem is that when the square holes get to be popular you need to start designing programs for them rather than using your older circle peg programs on your circles. (As Circles don't fit into squares in this example.)\n\nARM Processors (Smart Phones) can't understand the same programs that your computer runs, even if it is running something like Linux. This is because your CPU takes machine instructions (patterns of 1's and 0's) and interprets them. Giving a ARM processor x86 instructions is like speaking English to someone who only knows Japanese.",
"I'm afraid I don't have an exact answer for you.\n\nHowever, here's one thing you might like to consider.\n\nYou're comparing clock speeds of desktop processors directly with those of ARM processors. I don't think that's a valid thing to do, for two reasons:\n\nFirstly, the number of cycles that each instruction takes isn't necessarily going to be the same.\n\nAnd secondly - and probably more importantly - the number of instructions required to carry out a tasks isn't necessarily going to be the same.\n\nIt sounds like you've got enough knowledge that you might want to go a bit deeper than ELI5 level?\n\nWell, ARM processors are a type of processor known as RISC, and the clue is in the acronym: it stands for Reduced Instruction Set Computing. It's many years since I did any work with RISC computers, but from what I remember the basic idea is that you trade complexity for speed.\n\nRISC processors have a very simple set of instructions, and therefore it will often take more instructions to accomplish the same task. The trade-off is that they often use less cycles per instruction, because not only are the instructions simple, but they are also optimised in other ways. For example, having each instruction take exactly the same number of clock cycles makes it easier to plan when to pre-fetch the next instruction. \n\nI've never worked with ARM processors, so this bit is speculation, but I'd be willing to bet that the reduced instruction set is a bigger factor, compared to any benefits than can be derived from having a reduced instruction set. And this would explain why mobile devices don't have the capabilities of laptops and desktops."
]
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4ulv7i | the yelling, booing and cheering between the politicans inside the house of commons. what are the rules? | Why is the atmosphere there so hostile?
Why are other politicans allowed to make noises when one of them is talking? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ulv7i/eli5_the_yelling_booing_and_cheering_between_the/ | {
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" > Why is the atmosphere there so hostile?\n\nWell, because it's an intense kind of room. You have a bunch of really committed people arguing about the issues they care most about. Tempers are going to run high. \n\nAlso, you might only tune into the House of Commons when something exciting is happening, like Question Period, or a debate over a controversial law. If you watch parliamentary proceedings when not too much is going on (i.e. most most of the time) you'll find everyone is a lot calmer. \n\n > Why are other politicians allowed to make noises when one of them is talking?\n\nIf it gets too disruptive, the Speaker of the House of Commons will step in and call for order -- up to and including expelling members from the House. \n",
"Literally, because of tradition and etiquette.\n\nIt is strictly prohibited to clap in the House of Commons, so they yell instead. It's been this way for centuries."
]
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psgpi | el5 the difference between nuclear reactors and nuclear bombs | How do nuclear reactors function differently than nuclear bombs on a fundamental and mechanical level. My best guess is that reactors are a most stable "slow burn" of materials that provides a steady source of energy. While nuclear bombs are a rapid release of energy in a short period of time. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/psgpi/el5_the_difference_between_nuclear_reactors_and/ | {
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" > My best guess is that reactors are a most stable \"slow burn\" of materials that provides a steady source of energy. While nuclear bombs are a rapid release of energy in a short period of time.\n\nWithout going into complex details, this is essentially it.\n\n > details and stuff\n\nBasically you throw balls at fuel rods, which then throw more balls in random directions. In a reactor, there are also rods that catch balls so they can make sure things don't get crazy.\n\nIn a bomb, essentially they throw as many balls as possible at the fuel, and don't do anything to stop things from going crazy.",
"All atoms have a small bundle at its centre called the nucleus (plural: nuclei).\n\nThrowing tiny balls (called neutrons) at a nucleus can cause it to split into two smaller pieces, plus a few MORE neutrons, plus energy. \n\nThis process if called fission. \n\nThe extra can neutrons produced can then go on to cause other nuclei to fission, and release MORE neutrons, which cause more reactions and so on. It is chain reaction, where each fission causes the next fission, and every fission releases energy in the form of radiation.\n\nIf each fission only requires 1 neutron to occur, but gives off three neutrons, then the number of fissions is going to triple every time, and become very large, very quickly. An enormous amount of energy is given off in a small amount of time. This is a nuclear explosion.\n\nHowever, if we can absorb some of the neutrons harmlessly, so that on average each fission only produces one neutron, then the number of fissions per second remains pretty much the same. It is a controlled, but still ongoing, chain reaction. This is what happens in a power plant's nuclear reactor.\n",
"Imagine a whole room full of mouse traps. Each of those mouse traps is set and balanced on the trap are two pingpong balls. \n\nHave you got that image in your head? Great. \n\nNow, imagine that you throw a single pingpong ball into the room. It sets off a mousetrap, which flings two ping pong balls flying about the room. Those two set off some more mousetraps which set off more and more and more.\n\n[It looks like this](_URL_0_)\n\nThat's a nuclear explosion. It's what happens in a nuclear bomb. In fact, as you listen to that clip, note how the speaker is forced to SHOUT over the sound of all those mousetraps going off. One mousetrap wouldn't be that loud, but that single ping-pong ball sets off a **chain reaction** which results in **lots** of mousetraps all going off and each of them makes a tiny noise which results in a big noise.\n\nA nuclear reactor works in pretty much the same way except we prevent the reaction from running away. We do that by reducing the number of balls flying around the room. In our mousetrap example we might simulate that by loading only 75% of the mousetraps in the room with 1 ball each. In a real nuclear reactor we do it by absorbing neutrons.\n\nSee, neutrons are the hammers that split atoms. When an atom of U-235 -- your standard nuclear fuel -- splits it produces Barium, Krypton, some energy, and three neutrons. Each of those neutrons is like one of our ping-pong balls, zipping off to find another mousetrap -- another U235 atom -- to smash. We use other materials which easily capture neutrons to slow the reaction, preventing all of the mousetraps -- all of the U235 -- from fissioning at the same time. \n\n",
"Like you are five:\n\nA nuclear bomb is like a room full of mousetraps. If you trip one into activating, it will probably activate a neighbor or two, who then in turn activate another neighbor. Very quickly, every single mousetrap in the room gets activated. You can imagine that when suddenly every trap is being activated, a lot of energy is being released in a chaotic fashion.\n\nA nuclear fuel rod in a nuclear power plant is more like a thin row of mouse-traps. You activate one, and it activates the one next to it, which activates the one after it, etc. While energy is still being released, it is much more stable and is more easily controllable. That is how we get the fuel rod to turn water into steam which powers turbines which produce electricity!\n\nHope that was good.",
"Reactors use only about 5% enriched fission fuel.\n\nBombs use about 95% to 99% enriched fission fuel. Nuclear bombs ALSO ignite a nuclear fusion reaction to \"Boost\" the explosive power of the weapon.\n\nReactor fuel is generally Uranium-235, which requires special moderation to work correctly. Loss of moderation will reduce power. \n\nBomb fuel is generally Plutonium-239, which needs no special moderation to release maximum power.\n\nThe reactor is designed such that power only increases slowly, and there are things that happen naturally to prevent power from increasing quickly, such as water boiling (which reduces moderation, because steam is less dense than water).\n\nBombs are designed such that the thing releases as much energy as possible before it blows itself apart.\n\nReactors have control systems to automatically detect power increases and stop them or shut the reactor down.\n\nOnce a nuclear bomb is triggered it will cause the largest chain reaction possible as quickly as possible and is irreversible. The only way to shut down a nuclear bomb reaction is for it to exploding, causing all the pieces to break apart."
]
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[],
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"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxzPN-vdP_0&t=0m20s"
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1awusq | why do my eyes "leak" while laying down sometimes? | For example, laying in bed in the mornings. If i'm laying on the left side of my body, the left corner of my left eye will "leak" almost as if i'm slightly crying. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1awusq/eli5_why_do_my_eyes_leak_while_laying_down/ | {
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"text": [
"Glad I'm not the only one",
"When you lay on your side like that, you are putting extra pressure on your tear duct for that side. This doesn't happen to everyone.\n\nSort of like squeezing an orange, you squeeze out a tear or two.",
"Slightly offtopic, but why do my eyes leak when I yawn?"
]
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[],
[],
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3dfgy7 | the iranian nuclear situation, with its real implications. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3dfgy7/eli5_the_iranian_nuclear_situation_with_its_real/ | {
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"text": [
"Were liberals right about North Korea not getting the bomb? India, Pakistan?\n\nGuess what? They are exactly that correct, again."
]
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[]
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7ftsux | when the entire world is driving electric cars, is the risk of batteries exploding greater due to larger capacity? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7ftsux/eli5_when_the_entire_world_is_driving_electric/ | {
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"Yes, basically.\n\n\nThe risk of exploding batteries is obviously increased the more of them that are around, since it is a non-zero risk individually.\n\n\n\nedit: i should add that while this is pedantically correct, it is also true that the risk of 'exploding batteries' is infinitesimally small, and absolutely pales in comparison to the risk of petroleum-based fires.",
"Not necessarily. Any well engineered battery should be perfectly safe within the parameters the manufacturer intended for its use. The size of the battery doesn't make much of a difference. "
]
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23gpnl | the technical aspects of the openssl issues. | I'm alright with computers, network security, etc. but this is taxing my knowledge.
I want to understand, but it's beyond my skill level I've found. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23gpnl/eli5_the_technical_aspects_of_the_openssl_issues/ | {
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"text": [
"Probably the best way to describe it.\n\n_URL_0_",
"[This xkcd comic](_URL_1_) gives you the bird's eye view, but it's not very technical.\n\n[This answer on security.stackexchange](_URL_0_) gives a more technical explanation, but it's still readable."
]
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| []
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"http://m.xkcd.com/1354/"
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"http://security.stackexchange.com/a/55350/9030",
"http://m.xkcd.com/1354/"
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3s3bh6 | how does the united states know its nuclear warheads would work as intended in a real nuclear attack if it cannot test them? | The last nuclear test conducted by the United States was in 1992, 23 years ago. Since then, the warheads have aged. How can we know that they can still work properly if we cannot test them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3s3bh6/eli5_how_does_the_united_states_know_its_nuclear/ | {
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"text": [
"They use supercomputers to simulate nuclear tests.\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThey can and do test the non-nuclear components of the weapons like we saw yesterday with the missile test.",
"We have so many of them, some are bound to work. And if your country is hit by 100 nukes, and only 10 work... Your country is still gonna be toast. :P"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"http://io9.com/5916320/supercomputer-simulates-nuclear-explosion-down-to-the-molecular-level",
"http://www.state.gov/t/avc/rls/202014.htm"
],
[]
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3f3fqc | why do our fingers crack when we stretch them? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3f3fqc/eli5_why_do_our_fingers_crack_when_we_stretch_them/ | {
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"text": [
"Air builds up in our joints, and when we stretch them, the joints shift, and the air pops out of them. It's almost like bubble wrap."
]
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[]
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|
||
cu4jah | what makes a lightbulb explode? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cu4jah/eli5_what_makes_a_lightbulb_explode/ | {
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"text": [
"So to allow the wire in there to glow without burning they remove the oxygen. This creates a vacuum. Think reverse balloon. Once a balloon has a hole all the pressurised air inside rushes out and makes the pop. With a lightbulb the air is trying to fill the vacuum. This breaks the thin glass and sprays it all over."
]
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| []
| [
[]
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|
||
3ew6ss | if we replace fossil fuels with alternative energy, then how do we replace the petroleum by-products in our economy and society? | I looked up a list of things that are by-products of petroleum. It's kind of staggering. I'm all for reducing our carbon footprint so that the planet doesn't turn into an oven on the self-clean cycle, but I'm curious as to whether there are alternatives out there for some of the by-products we use. Plastic is a huge one all by itself. Here is a list that I found:
_URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ew6ss/eli5_if_we_replace_fossil_fuels_with_alternative/ | {
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"text": [
"Yeah i often owner about this, especially things like the insulation on all the electrical wires that are part of a windmill/solar etc.",
"Most of these things can also be made from natural gas and other fossil fuels that are cleaner to extract than crude oil.\n\nEventually, once we had enough alternative energy sources and energy was cheap enough, we could make these things synthetically (like how we make synthetic oil) less expensively than pull them from the ground.",
"Bioplastics are slowly getting big. They're made from plant or microorganism products and may replace most synthetic materials eventually.\n\nNot only will they help us break the dependency on fossils, they'll also be better for the environment and us.",
"There are other options for creating materials. Petroleum based plastic just happens to be SUPER cheap and easy. ",
"So, I'm not a scientist, but if you recycle your plastics they go into making other plastic things. I assume there is a limit to this, based on color, type of plastic, and probably a diminishing return on the amount of recycling, but it still seems like a better option to reuse rather than drill for more oil.\n\nBut once you burn fossil fuels in an engine, you can't recycle that into more fossil fuels. So it seems to me we would get more mileage out of reducing the need for burning it for energy than we would reducing the necessity of plastic.",
"You don't have to replace everything. Increase the price of petroleum usage (carbon tax etc) and over time, marginal uses of petroleum will switch to alternatives. Those uses with no reasonable alternatives will get more expensive. This doesn't mean the end of the world, it just requires us to to make different choices.\n\nFor instance, if either from scarcity or carbon tax, or whatever, crude oil was 10x as expensive, there are plenty of alternatives for people to get to work\n- move closer\n- get a different job (remember that companies would be under the same pressure - open offices closer to where people live or go bankrupt w/no employees - so they'd have to meet in the middle somewhere, metaphorically and geographically)\n- bicycles\n\nLikewise, using oil to create cheap plastic dollar store crap, can easily be replaced by what we did before there was cheap plastic dollar store crap\n- more local craftspeople working with natural materials, less crap, more quality\n\nHowever there are no reasonable alternatives for aviation, so we'd expect aviation to get more expensive. However it really works the same, instead of \"alternatives to fossil fuels for aviation\" we'd be choosing \"alternatives to vacations\" so we'd\n- travel more by train\n- spend more money locally\n\nThere will always be high value uses of petroleum that would be unaffected by even massive price increases\n- ambulance and fire service\n- human organ transportation\n\nBut the beauty of the price system is that these are absolutely minuscule uses of fuel in the big picture. If we only used petroleum of ambulances, fire engines, and organ transportation, we could do so for thousands and thousands of years. These aren't the uses that are hurting us, it's the, \"I want to drive 1 mile to the store\" or \"I want cheap plastic shit I'll throw out in a year\" \n\n"
]
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1vs0d0 | how do you "get internet"? how do cable companies "get" the internet that they sell you? | Why cant a group of people band together and provide their own internet? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vs0d0/how_do_you_get_internet_how_do_cable_companies/ | {
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"\"The Internet\" is just a name for a worldwide network that connects computers together. The best analogy is to think of it as the system of roads and highways that lets you drive all over the country.\n\nIf you want to be able to drive from your house to your grandparents house in another city, the first step is to leave your driveway and turn onto the streets outside of your house. Those streets are your ISP. They maintain wires that connect computers in local homes and businesses.\n\nEventually, you're going to want to leave your city and hit the highway. That highway is like one of the Tier 1 providers. ISPs pay to be able to connect to them, just like you pay to connect to your ISP. The Tier 1 provider lays out extremely-high-bandwidth wires that run between cities, and between countries (including under-sea cables that cross the ocean).\n\n > Why cant a group of people band together and provide their own internet?\n\nBecause you can't afford to physically run a cable to every other computer in the world. The only feasible option is for multiple groups to work together to get cables connected to everything."
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4jaxeu | how do puppies instinctively know how to hunt having never seen this behaviour acted out by anyone else? | For example, my boarder terrier puppy knows to go for the neck of his toy lamb and flap it about. Are personality traits or skills passed down through breed? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4jaxeu/eli5_how_do_puppies_instinctively_know_how_to/ | {
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"I'm pretty sure the dog would be able to know \"this part is important\" the same way we do, so that would explain the neck, but the shaking is likely an emergent behaviour, meaning that the dog is solving the problem of \"how will I kill this?\" with its own solution. Basically a mix of common instinct and problem solving.",
"We can narrow a dog's actions down to two things generally speaking: learned behavior (like learning tricks, responding to its name, etc.) And instinct. The dog comes \"pre-programmed\" knowing how to breathe, it learns to walk, and ultimately knows it needs to eat and will acquire food in the only ways it knows how: killing. DNA is pretty amazing, all things considered, because all that behavior is there the second the puppy is born; it just needs to gain experience and learn how."
]
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4cua0c | those worms inside pea pods and other vegetables, how do they get in there? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4cua0c/eli5_those_worms_inside_pea_pods_and_other/ | {
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"text": [
"Eggs. They're either laid on the surface and the grub burrows in when it hatches, or the eggs are laid inside through an [ovipositor](_URL_0_)."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovipositor?wprov=sfla1"
]
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|
||
463jx5 | the mass migration to the credit card chip. why is the chip considered so superior now to swiping? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/463jx5/eli5_the_mass_migration_to_the_credit_card_chip/ | {
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"text": [
"Without the chip, any compromised terminal can copy the information on the card. This allows for fraudulent payment even while the card holder maintains possession of the card, which means the fraud is often not discovered until much later. The chip facilitates the use of encryption, so that the particular information from the card and the processor network received by the terminal are only valid for that specific transaction--the data can still be copied, but cannot be used for new transactions and is therefore useless.\n\nThe \"mass migration\" is because the credit card networks are now incentivizing merchants in the U.S. to accept the chip--if they do not, they bear the cost of fraud, and not the issuer (as with most fraud). So now not only will the issuers benefit from issuing chip-enabled cards, but the merchants will want to accept and use those cards as well.",
"/u/TokyoJokeyo's answer isn't wrong, but isn't particularly ELI5.\n\nIt's pretty easy to get and/or hack equipment that can read a magnet strip off a credit card. If I can read the magnet strip, I can copy it onto a new card, that machines will see as an exact copy of the original card. Some of these card readers are very small, and can be stuck onto bank machines (or other devices) without lots of people noticing. One such example of a \"skimmer\" is [seen here](_URL_0_) on an ATM. If I put a skimmer like this onto a machine that takes bank cards or credit cards, I can read (and thus copy) the magnet strips for *lots* of credit cards and steal people's money.\n\nThe chip, however, is much harder to duplicate. It can be done, sure, but it would likely be more expensive than it's worth.\n\n(There are weaknesses with any card, of course, the biggest one being the human factor. Don't lose your card!)",
"With all the push to switch to chip transactions, I have two follow-up questions: (1) why do about half the businesses I visit have the chip readers but tell you not to use them because they don't work, and (2) why hasn't my bank sent me a debit card with a chip on it?",
"The mass migration is because the US congress passed a law that both required card companies to issue chipped cards, and holds merchants responsible if a stolen card is used in their store and it's swiped instead of put in the machine for the chip to be read.\n\nThe current chip implementation, without a PIN to back it up, is only useful in making it harder for a thief to use a cloned card (because they can still use it online, and they can still use the original chipped card if it is in their possession) Which I feel is not worth the aggravation of having to deal with temperamental chip readers that can't read a card if it's even the tiniest bit dirty (last night, my card actually crashed the POS terminal, I can't imagine that this could even possibly happen with a normal swipe card)",
"Magnet strip is like a Barcode anybody can read it because it's just a number. If they then also spy your PIN they have all your monies.\n\nChip is a little computer that knows secrets. It can use these secrets to give special answers to questions that are never asked twice. \nSo even if you spy on what the terminal and the card are saying to each other you can only hear a question and a answer to a question. When you try to fool the machine that reads the card it will ask a completely different question, and the answer you secretly listened in on is useless. Only the machine that reads the cards and the computer on the chip in the card know the correct answers to the questions. ",
"Wow I'm 25 and I've had cards for 10 years and they have always had chips, is this new for America? Why hasn't it happened sooner when its a better technology?"
]
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"https://3a09223b3cd53870eeaa-7f75e5eb51943043279413a54aaa858a.ssl.cf3.rackcdn.com//local_04_temp-1343545538-5014e0c2-620x348.jpg"
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68htp7 | why are potatoes considered healthy and dangerous? | as someone who loves potatoes hearing that someone could eat only potatoes and one other thing (can't remember what) and be able to survive, yet also hearing that potatoes are also posionous I am very confused? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/68htp7/eli5why_are_potatoes_considered_healthy_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"dgykakw"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Potatoes contain a lot of nutrients but they also contain solanine and chaconine which are toxins. Potatos produce these as a natural defense against things like insects and so on.\n\nCooking the potatoes can break down some of the toxins rendering the potatoes safe to eat. In addition, potatos have such low levels of the toxins that it isn't really a problem unless you eat a *lot* of potatoes or you let the potatoes sit in sunlight for a while (which stimulates the production of chaconine). Green potatoes usually have developed enough chaconine that they would be dangerous to eat.\n\nSolanine and chaconine poisoning from potatoes doesn't usually result in death except in weakened individuals with no access to medical care, although other plants in the nightshade family can contain enough of these toxins to cause death. "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
8mb39i | how (and why) offensive is the n-word? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8mb39i/eli5_how_and_why_offensive_is_the_nword/ | {
"a_id": [
"dzm52vy"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Imagine your ancestors being called this while being whipped and ostracised to the point of where standing up for themselves to claim a seat in a bus or using the wrong bathroom is a reason for death penalty.\nNow imagine that people still think that way in 2018 and want you enslaved, punished. \n\nAs I'm white, I can't probably feel what black people feel being called that, but it's extremely offensive for most black people I know. "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
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|
||
6tsc69 | why is so much easier to eat fresh food (e.g. fruits, fresh vegetables) when you're sick, compared to "savory" food (e.g. cheese fondue, curry, pizza)? | Currently going through the whole pharyngitis package, complete with tonsillitis.
It feels like it's much easier to eat a banana, an apple or a cucumber than some bacon and eggs. They're all hard to swallow, it's just that simply looking at a pizza makes me want to shoot myself and go to bed. Whereas salad leaves are perfectly fine for example.
Is it purely psychological or is there some biological process involved?
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6tsc69/eli5_why_is_so_much_easier_to_eat_fresh_food_eg/ | {
"a_id": [
"dln58tw"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"I think its probably psychological (or to be precise psychosomatic). There are some psychological theories that relate to why this might be however - morning sickness in pregnancy comes to mind. The general concept is that certain foods (meat etc) are more likely to be a source of contaminants than foods such as fresh fruit / veg, and as such avoiding them via excess sensitivity is a easy heuristic to reduce risk to the person in question, especially during a sensitive time in pregnancy for the foetus (first trimester). \n\nIts not been disproved (evo psych stuff is hard to either prove or disprove), but it has a certain air of plausiability to it, and it could hold true to a greater degree for certain groups of people. For what its worth though, I'm totally not the same. When i'm very ill I tend to favour either drinks like milkshakes / fruit juice, ice cream, beans + cheese, or just general suckable candy. I know other people who favour eggs + toast. I think its most likely to be psychologically comfortable foods, with certain characteristics that are desirable depending on the precise nature of the illness (soft foods for tonsillitis for example). "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
5r8d5s | why do most flavors for candy (fruit, cinnamon) taste nothing like their real counterparts, yet we all seem to except those flavors? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5r8d5s/eli5_why_do_most_flavors_for_candy_fruit_cinnamon/ | {
"a_id": [
"dd56nmj"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text": [
"*accept. Because if I wanted fruit, I'd eat fruit. I want corn syrup and sugar with food coloring. They can call is strawberry or the pink taste of death... Strawberry sells better. "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
||
7ugb99 | how do animals know when to run away? | For example, if I walked towards a zebra herd, will they run away? I've seen zebras not bothering when an elephant comes along or something, but when they see a lion, they run. This might sound like 'well duh' but I wonder how do they know to run. For example, deers don't run when they see cars. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7ugb99/eli5_how_do_animals_know_when_to_run_away/ | {
"a_id": [
"dtk5j90",
"dtk5rpn"
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"score": [
2,
2
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"text": [
"The are two parts to this answer: (1) the innate conduct, and (2) the learned conduct.\n\nThe innate conduct is also known as instinct. It includes all the behaviours an organism presents from the get go, without the need of someone else teaching them. On the other hand, there's the chain of teach-and-learn-then-teach that goes from generation to generation. After some research, I haven't found any conclusive evidence pointing to one or another.\n\nRegardless of which one is the main contributor in that behaviour (they can even be both), you can understand an organism as a \"machine\" that responds to stimuli, one of them being \"the presence of a lion\" for a zebra. The learn can either (a) have an innate response to the presence of a predator, or (b) a learned response to the presence of the same predator, or (c) a little bit of both. Maybe they get scared when they hear rustling leaves, which indicates someone lurking, compared to a elephant only minding its own business, without any lurking. Or maybe they *learn* to get scared about it. We really don't know since its quite hard to make the relevant experiments to get conclusive evidence.",
"Well, I would imagine that some animals know through experience which things are ok and which things could be dangerous.\n\nOther times they're just not bright enough, some deer seem to know how to wait for a car to pass, others just don't grasp it or are spooked so they run out in front of the car.\n\nOther times, it's the eyes. 'Prey' animals have eyes on the side of their heads to better see predators. 'Predator' animals have eyes on the front of their heads to better focus in on the prey. So even though YOU know you don't mean harm to a zebra or deer...you have the eyes of a killer. They watch out for that.\n\nNow, do they 'know' this or is it just instinct? That I can't say. Some animals are just higher strung, as in, you can't even domesticate a zebra because it's too wild. It's grown up in Africa where it is constantly under threat. If a horse gets spooked by you being behind it, it will often \"kick to miss\" by kicking out but not hitting you, like a warning shot. A zebra? It will kick you every single time. They don't mess around. Because they are trying to survive in a world with *lions.*\n\nBut elephants don't look like predators and they likely have never experienced much fuss from an elephant so they just kind of get along, or at least they don't respond to them as they would something they would think is a predator."
]
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[],
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e3mqb6 | in-sink garbage disposal, where does the food go? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e3mqb6/eli5_insink_garbage_disposal_where_does_the_food/ | {
"a_id": [
"f93ul9b",
"f93uz8m"
],
"score": [
13,
2
],
"text": [
"The food is chopped up into tiny little pieces and washed away with the water, down the pipes, eventually hitting a water treatment plant, where the water is filtered and prepared for re-use. A garbage disposal is basically a bunch of blades that chop up food that falls down the drain small enough so it can be washed away.",
"It still ends up going through the drain, but ideally the stuff gets ground so fine that it doesn't cause clogs. Then it goes back to the water treatment plant to get filtered out.\n\nDisposals have a small container that fits under your sink where there's not just blades, but grinding wheels and gears to mash everything really small and a mesh plate the food has to go through before it can get back to the drain pipe."
]
} | []
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[],
[]
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|
||
7wx9ub | curling. why and how is this an olympic sport? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7wx9ub/eli5_curling_why_and_how_is_this_an_olympic_sport/ | {
"a_id": [
"du3zazr",
"du45sgw"
],
"score": [
30,
15
],
"text": [
"Curling is an old sport which was invented in Scotland. It is a very strategic sport and many shots are surprisingly difficult to make. Think of a combination of archery and pool except on ice. ",
"Curling has about 500 year history. It has been popular in various northern countries and locations where lakes freeze over.\n\nFor many people in northern countries it was surprising that it wasn't included in the earlier Olympics. It wasn't available for Olympic medals until 1998. "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
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||
7ud0na | why are some emotions and sensations (such as laughter or pain) so automatically reflected in our facial expressions to the point where in some situations it is impossible to keep a neutral expression? | For example, if I stub my toe really hard, my face automatically goes into a grimace until the pain starts to subside. Or for example on SNL sometimes the actors break character and simply can't help but to smile or laugh even though they are trying really hard not to. Why is it that in these types of situations we can't really control our facial expressions? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7ud0na/eli5_why_are_some_emotions_and_sensations_such_as/ | {
"a_id": [
"dtjnpc1",
"dtjpp9r"
],
"score": [
3,
7
],
"text": [
"We communicate to others non-verbally as well as with sounds. They're set deep in our pack animal evolution, before language. A yell and/or a pained expression might signify \"I need help\" or \"Danger here\" to the rest of our tribe. It's not going to be subtle to distinguish \"I stubbed my toe\" from something everybody needs to know about. Smiles, laughs, etc, convey their own messages.",
"Facial expression is probably the most important non-verbal cue we have. The types we have control over are the forced expressions (i.e. smiling when we don't mean it, or acting surprised at a known outcome). But the vast majority of facial expressions - like the ones you are describing - are controlled by more primitive structures in the brain and are relatively automatic. This allows us to present ourselves so that social partners can understand a little bit about our mental set (called Theory of Mind). Even a 33 millisecond exposure to a facial expression can allow someone to form an impression of trustworthyness, attractiveness, and a bunch of other characteristics.\n\nFacial expressions contribute so well to our adaptive success in society as a whole that they have become 'hard-wired' in our brains. It's a communication tool that allows us to respond rapidly and accurately to our surroundings. \n"
]
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[],
[]
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|
9nx3rm | how do glasses get smudged so fast? where does it come from and what is it made of? | It seems like I can sit down at my computer with fully clean glasses, and then find myself needing to clean them again after only an hour or so. I make a point to avoid touching my lenses, and am not abnormally greasy or anything.
If it's grease from my face, how is it getting from my skin onto the lenses, since they're not touching? If it's stuff condensing / settling from the air around me, how come I don't notice it on my windows or other glassware?
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9nx3rm/eli5_how_do_glasses_get_smudged_so_fast_where/ | {
"a_id": [
"e7pmoge"
],
"score": [
14
],
"text": [
"It’s shedded skin and oil, your eyelashes may be touching the glass.\nAcrylic lenses can have a slight electric static charge on them which attracts dust\nIt helps if you use some wax on the glass after you have cleaned it, dirt can’t stick as easily/"
]
} | []
| []
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[]
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|
6r32mx | why do we feel bad after a short amount of sleep? shouldn't we feel more rested regardless of the amount we got? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6r32mx/eli5_why_do_we_feel_bad_after_a_short_amount_of/ | {
"a_id": [
"dl1xkvc",
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"score": [
2,
3,
3
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"text": [
"I'm only commenting because I want to know this too. I'm an EMT and always super-duper-extra shitty after getting woken up like I did an hour ago for a call.\n\nExample, I work a regular 9-5 business job. I go to bed around midnight and get up at 6:30 every working day. I'm fine all day long. On my EMT shift I'll go to bed around the same time and probably get woken up once. I may have a 3 AM call and return at 4:30. Then I'll sleep until 7:30 and go home, and I will be absolutely useless for the rest of the day.",
"I get huge headaches when i take a nap during the day and it kind of ruins the rest of the day. Is this similar?",
"So I found a website that explains the phenomenon really well. A little wordy but it works. Basically, when we sleep we enter different stages of sleep, and how we feel depends on what stage of sleep we wake up out of. Waking up during stages 3 or 4 when the body is repairing itself, or waking up during REM sleep cycle will cause extreme fatigue and \"brain fog\". Of course it's a lot more complicated than that, but I think that answers the question. "
]
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[],
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||
75p3kr | how is a wart destroyed or terminated in different areas of the body? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/75p3kr/eli5_how_is_a_wart_destroyed_or_terminated_in/ | {
"a_id": [
"do7tirq"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Warts are caused by Human Papilloma Virus (HPV). It infects the skin, and this results in a benign growth in that location. \n\nRemoval of a wart has to also remove the pocket of HPV, which can be hard to do, particularly if adjoining areas of skin are infected. Methods include freezing with liquid nitrogen, surgical removal, and treatment with mild acid followed by abrasion to remove the growth.\n\nNone of the above methods are particularly effective. The best treatment, oddly enough, is time; the body's immune system will eventually eliminate the virus, and the growth will disappear. Physical treatment is usually only indicated if the wart is in a location that causes issues, such as on the face, bottom of the feet, or genitals."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
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|
|
5frr3h | why in europe you can plug in pc (or any high tech appliance) either way? | I mean you can not tell hot and neutral side from each other, there is no difference.
I understand how it is simple with a lamp, but what about high techs? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5frr3h/eli5_why_in_europe_you_can_plug_in_pc_or_any_high/ | {
"a_id": [
"damkhud",
"damqq3v"
],
"score": [
4,
4
],
"text": [
"Computers don't work with alternating current, they work with direct current. So the first thing that happens when power goes to a computer is it gets transformed into direct current (this is what the brick on the chargers for many smaller devices is for). As with the lamp, the AC-DC converter doesn't care about which side is hot and which is neutral.",
"It doesn't care, in fact almost nothing cares. Voltage is defined as a potential difference, a difference requires two points. So if side A is neutral and side B is hot, then a device might take power from A-B , if you flip it around, then it takes power from B-A. However, if we are talking AC, then A-B is the same as B-A (except for a 180 degree phase shift). Basically it means your 120V AC socket is 120V plugged in both ways because AC is always negative half the time and positive for the other half. Plugging it in backwards just switches what half is what, and the only things that actually care are things that compare it's input voltage to other things also plugged in (I can't think of an example for a single phase system, for three phase systems it does matter, and screwing it up can make motors run backwards).\n\nSo why do we care about neutral vs the hot if nothing care about it? It's safety. Ideally, if you have a metal vacuum cleaner you want the outside of it connected to the earth (literally, a rod stuck into the earth). Since you stand on the earth, you will not get a shock from something connected to earth (no difference in potential). The old solution to this was to just wire one side of the transformer on the pole to a rod stuck into the earth. That side is then the neutral, and you can connect it to the metal case of your vacuum. If something breaks inside and the hot touches the metal case, instead of zapping you it goes into the neutral and blows the fuse, you are safe. That's the way we still wire the home power. But we don't wire the vacuums like that anymore.\n\nIt turns out people don't really check that neutral is really neutral. It's really common to wire them backwards, and your vacuum cleaner has neutral connected to the case, then you're going to get zapped even if it's not broken. The solution of course is to add a third prong, ground. This one is always tied to earth, it's green and un-insulated, practically impossible to miswire.\n\nThe actual rule for appliances now is you can use just two prongs if you assume that both sides are hot and make sure that if they break inside and touch the case, that the case in that area is plastic and it doesn't short to anything. The output of your power supply (like a laptop charger) isn't actually electrically connected to any wire on the plug (isolated). The ground pin is the only one that can be connected to your metal case, and if it's possible that a hot wire touches a metal case then it needs a ground pin connected to it. With this type of device, from a safety point of view, cell phone and laptop chargers assume both sides are equally dangerous, and may safely be connected either way without a ground because there is a very little chance that it would cause you to get zapped. This of course assumes it follows the standards, which isn't always true for the made in china crap."
]
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[],
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mbtbd | why does the gop want to defeat barack obama so badly? | It seems like the GOP's only goal is to defeat the president next year and everything else is taking a backseat, like job creation.
“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” - Mitch McConnell
“I don’t think there’s gonna be any level of excitement for anything other than beating Obama." - Club for Growth President Chris Chocola | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mbtbd/why_does_the_gop_want_to_defeat_barack_obama_so/ | {
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"c2zo5s4",
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"score": [
17,
2,
4,
17,
2,
4
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"text": [
"Because he's a different political party, simple as that",
"I don't think this is a serious question, just an agenda piece, but anyway.\n\nThe entire purpose of a political party is to get elected. That's it. Not to make good policy, or make friends, or anything else. Making good policy is one of several ways to get elected, but it's not the most efficient way by any means. More often than not, good policy causes you to lose elections rather than win them.\n\nA more efficient way of getting elected is to pass bad policy that enriches people who will donate money to you. This is hard to do with an empowered, informed electorate. That's what propaganda is for. Propaganda allows you to 1) weaken the electorate, so money has more influence over elections, 2) change the conversation, to delegitimize the opposing party, and 3) make it easier to pass bad policy.\n\nThe job of the *voter* is to reward good policy and punish bad policy. That's not the job of the party. If the party can weaken the voter, they can get elected more efficiently and enact more bad policy, creating a vicious cycle.",
"He's ideologically different. It's not really complicated. \n\n\nAnd he's black. ",
"Because he's a different political party, simple as that",
"I don't think this is a serious question, just an agenda piece, but anyway.\n\nThe entire purpose of a political party is to get elected. That's it. Not to make good policy, or make friends, or anything else. Making good policy is one of several ways to get elected, but it's not the most efficient way by any means. More often than not, good policy causes you to lose elections rather than win them.\n\nA more efficient way of getting elected is to pass bad policy that enriches people who will donate money to you. This is hard to do with an empowered, informed electorate. That's what propaganda is for. Propaganda allows you to 1) weaken the electorate, so money has more influence over elections, 2) change the conversation, to delegitimize the opposing party, and 3) make it easier to pass bad policy.\n\nThe job of the *voter* is to reward good policy and punish bad policy. That's not the job of the party. If the party can weaken the voter, they can get elected more efficiently and enact more bad policy, creating a vicious cycle.",
"He's ideologically different. It's not really complicated. \n\n\nAnd he's black. "
]
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[],
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[]
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3bkcti | why do dolphins tend to protect a human from a shark attack? | Supposedly, dolphins help protect humans from a shark attack. Why do they do that, I mean it would make sense if it was for another dolphin, but why a human? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3bkcti/eli5_why_do_dolphins_tend_to_protect_a_human_from/ | {
"a_id": [
"csmwzs4"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text": [
"Dolphins just plain hate sharks, I doubt they're instinctively trying to protect humans. There's plenty of videos on youtube or dolphins just being pricks to sharks for the fun of it."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
82a8do | why there is no antigravitation as there seems to be an opposite of every other force? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/82a8do/eli5_why_there_is_no_antigravitation_as_there/ | {
"a_id": [
"dv8juou",
"dv8m98d"
],
"score": [
2,
7
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"text": [
"Because gravity may not even be a force. We do not understand as much of it as you would think, and it doesn't fit into our theory of everything.",
" > To rephrase, I read that there are two opposing forces for every physically phenomenon, such as acceleration, magnetism and so on, but gravity is always attractive.\n\nI think you are confusing Newtons Third Law. The law states:\n\n > When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body. [Source](_URL_0_)\n\nThe law isn't about any physical phenomenon. Rather it is specifically about forces in a certain situation: The law says that if Body A applies a force on Body B, then Body B will apply an opposite and equal force on Body A. Acceleration is *not* a force. It is how quicly you are speeding up or slowing down or changing direction.\n\nFor example if you push against a wall (apply a force on wall), you will feel the wall pushing back against you (the wall applies an opposite but equal force on you). \n\nAn important thing to note is that the forces the third law is talking about are always applied to *different* bodies. In the previous example, the forces are on you and the wall (which are two different bodies).\n\nIn the case of gravity, the equal and opposite force is also gravity. In this case the two different bodies are you and the Earth. The Earth's gravity is a force on you that points downwards. However, you also have mass, and so you also have gravity. The Earth is attracted to you by an equal but opposite force - a force that points upwards.\n \n"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_laws_of_motion"
]
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||
2v8gv4 | how are cameras different qualities (x megapixel , y megapixel) | I understand how a camera works but how do you get different qualities of camera? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2v8gv4/eli5_how_are_cameras_different_qualities_x/ | {
"a_id": [
"cofd3ps",
"cofdt62"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"You can pile on more and more [CCDs](_URL_0_) onto the image acquisition aspect of the camera. These are complicated structures and adding more and more poses various problems including cooling, quality, minituarisation etc. ",
"4 major things that affect the quality of a digital camera:\n\n1. Resolution and quality of the sensor. Those are the megapixels. More megapixels is potentially more detail, but other factors come into play. Read on.\n2. Post-processing. The camera makes image adjustments (contrast, brightness, white balance) then compresses it to make the file size smaller. There are big variations here because some cameras have faster processors and thus can do more. Also, the higher the compression, the smaller the file size but also the less detail the image will have.\n3. Lens quality. More expensive cameras have more glass elements in the lens and higher quality glass and coatings. This helps the image come into sharper focus from the center all the way to the edge. Lower quality cameras are visibly fuzzy around the edges of the image.\n4. Lens size. Larger lenses allow more light in and render lens imperfections and dirt/smudges less obvious. They also give you shallower depth of field for more creativity."
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2vwj91 | why did it take humanity so long to start a civilization? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2vwj91/eli5_why_did_it_take_humanity_so_long_to_start_a/ | {
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"Before the onset of farming they were all hunters and gatherers and therefore had to follow the food so they could not settle in one location.\n\nOnce people started farming civilization took off. ",
"Simply put, early hunter gathering was pretty easy, but it required constant work. Food was plentiful, and there were not too many people to compete with (estimates for pre-agriculture populations are around 6-12 million people worldwide). After the last ice age, there was an influx of agriculture in many parts of the world, most notably the Fertile Crescent and near the Indus river, but in smaller pockets almost everywhere. By using agriculture, humans could create a food surplus so that not everyone had to spend their time supplying food, thus, civilization was born.\n\nThere are many theories as to why humanity began to farm instead of hunt to survive. One idea is that the new climate forced some people out of some areas, and allowed them to move into new places, putting them into conflict with other humans. The threat of war caused people to group together in larger groups. You needed more food to feed large collections of people, so farming was created.\n\nAnother idea is that humans had been toying with agriculture for millennia, and the increase in temperatures allowed it to be used to its full potental. This is supported by the fact that even while many civilizations closer to the tropics were prosperous, humans living in the north remained to live as nomads. ",
"Because sometimes the starting location for your settler isn't in a good location or has a better one nearby. Thus a turn one city doesn't always happen."
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ayshki | why does making a 3 degree difference in your homes thermostat feel like a huge change in temperature, but outdoors it feels like nothing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ayshki/eli5_why_does_making_a_3_degree_difference_in/ | {
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"Because outside you have multiple things that affects the way the temperature feels. A slight breeze or moment in the shade will feel cooler. Humidity or the sun shining on you will make it feel warmer. Inside you don’t feel these variables nearly as often.",
"When you're inside and have things at what you think is a comfortable temperature, you're normally not wearing very many clothes, usually aren't very active, and there usually isn't much air moving around. So your body becomes used to a very small temperature range and you really notice it when it drifts outside of that small range. This awareness of change gets boosted by your home being your almost-entirely-controllable \"area of comfort\" where you learn to expect a lot of control over the temperature you're in.\n\nWhen you go outside, often you have a lot more clothes on and are moving around in a much more active way, and the temperature has a tendency to shift up and down. So between the extra insulation you're wearing that protects you from temperature change, the \"wind chill factor\" that contributes to robbing your body of heat or adding more heat to it when it's really hot out, and your own activity level generating and removing heat from your body, you don't really notice a few degrees of change as much. And because it's not entirely under your control, you get used to not really controlling it and so become a little less aware of how it changes.",
"In the summer, using the AC to drop the temperature just a few degrees removes a ton of water from the air and the drier air feels much cooler to humans with our constant evaporative cooling and all. ",
"The wind chill is likely the largest factor, it creates a distribution of temperatures above the actual temperature so due to that variance a small increase isn’t going to be so noticeable as you’ll still as some points feel just as cold as before (stronger breeze)",
"I'm going to make this a bit simpler than the rest of the answers and say that it's mostly just because you're used to it.\n\nIn our house the temperature changes between 16C/60F to 21C/70F depending on the time of the day, when the fireplace was last used, how cold it is outside and so on. I'm used to it and don't really notice much of a difference anymore. You're just used to the inside of your house being at a particular temperature and for a while it feels weird when it's something else than what you're used to.",
"In colder weather, when you're outdoors, you're typically dressed a lot warmer and you're typically active.\n\nIndoors, you tend to wear much less and you generally aren't moving around as much so the cold ",
"Outdoors you are wearing more clothes and are moving around, thus utilising your thermoregulatory system to a greater extent.\n\nAt home you have fewer clothes on and move less, thus having less insulation and \"producing\" less of your own heat.",
"Part of it is the temperature of the air coming out of the vents. When cooling, that air will be around 55°F; when heating it's around 80°F. This is so that the unit doesn't have to constantly run to get your home to the desired temperature",
"Humidity. When I was in tech school for a/c my teacher said as far as comfort the humidity that a/c removes is just as important if not more than the change in temp it produces. This is one of the reasons it is bad to oversize an a/c unit. It won't run long enough to remove enough humidity.",
"Because it has to change the temperature of a whole closed environment, whereas outside there are a million variables and a temperature there is really just in the spot where the thermometer is.",
"So a few things you might not have known\n\nYou sweat nearly almost all the time, you feel sweaty when it is not being evaporated fast enough\n\nSo in winter, you likely dress for weather, coats jumpers (hats and scarves ?) so hence you can make 10c weather feel warm almost. Outside you are likely to be exercising like walking or whatever, this will keep you warmer, and your body will be doing vasoconstriction to some degree, reducing blood (heat) flow to the upper skin layers on your hands and feet.. Outside you will likely have your hands in your pockets, and hence they will lose much less heat than if they were exposed to air.. Try using a keyboard and typing outside, your hands get cold!\n\nIn summer you feel cooler than what the temp would suggest as there is wind! The wind helps your sweat (remember constantly sweating) evaporate.. So it doesn't accumulate and you don't feel sweaty.. Even at the higher temperature.. Installing ceiling fans and increasing your ac set temp, can save you a lot of money!\n\nSo in short:\nWhen you are at home (not much exercise, not much wind) , your body mechanisms for controlling temperature don't work very well, they work better when you are out and about.. So the 3 degree change in temperature at home is noticeable.. ",
"Considering the temperature on the outside varies by 10° during the day but your room temperature is pretty much the constant value you set on the thermostat meaning no fluctuations "
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1rc38j | to what extent is the wrestling in wwe, tna, etc., real/fake? | Watching some clips and that one that stood out was when the Undertaker threw Mankind of a giant steel cage. How much of that was scripted? How is that allowed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rc38j/eli5_to_what_extent_is_the_wrestling_in_wwe_tna/ | {
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"They are pretty much acrobats. They know how to land and \"hit\" each other in the least damaging way possible. I honestly don't like that fake wrestling bullshit when there's so much real combat sports to watch. I'm sure there are accidents and the guys get injured from time to time. ",
"It may not all be *scripted* but it's certainly all fake. ",
"The results of matches are predetermined and in the ring wrestlers are essentially just actors doing improv. They basically are doing an extreme version of stage combat. If you watch closely you can see that the performers aren't actually hitting each other that often and when they do (for jumps) they try and land in a way that doesn't actually hurt the wrestler but gives the appearance off that it did. \n\n > Watching some clips and that one that stood out was when the Undertaker threw Mankind of a giant steel cage.\n\nBig events in matches are either heavily scripted or both parties know at some point that one of them needs to be thrown off a steal cage and its up to them to decide when and how to do it. \n\n > How is that allowed?\n\nThe wrestlers agreed to it and its usually done as safely as possible. Getting hurt is simply an occupational hazard. "
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3n1p4r | why do seagulls always form huge flocks when there is a storm approaching? | More specifically in big cities, nowhere near the ocean or any large body of water. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3n1p4r/eli5_why_do_seagulls_always_form_huge_flocks_when/ | {
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"Birds fly in flocks due to micro turbulances in the air, making it easier for them to travel, though i do not think that is the case in a panic mode AKA incoming storm,\n\nwhen theres a storm coming its more of a sheep thing 'i see this fellow creature of my species fleeing away to that side, thus i probably need to go as well, lets follow them'\n\nThis behavior packs them all up in a huge flock."
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3zo8lt | why does your throat hurt after out-of-shape running exercise? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zo8lt/eli5why_does_your_throat_hurt_after_outofshape/ | {
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"I too am out of shape and as a result I breathe heavily through my mouth after rigorous exercise.\n\nThe act of moving large volumes of air through your mouth and throat can cause irritation if they aren't used to being used that heavily.\n\nThink about it like your feet. The first times you go running they start to hurt early in the run, but as you practice you can go further distances with less pain.\n\nEdit: simplified esophagus to throat.",
"Muscles are being worked and breathing heavy will dry out your throat faster. Should get better "
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5j4aej | how do clients interact with servers? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5j4aej/eli5_how_do_clients_interact_with_servers/ | {
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"Genetally it goes like this.\n\nA client program starts up, the client opens a servers ip on a certain port. The port depends on what program. World wide web is port 80 or 81 (for secured). FTP is port 21 although files get sent in port 25 usually. \n\nTher server listens for connection tmrequests on this port. When it gets a request the server opens the port and communicates with the client.\n\nThe client may, or may not, send a packet with initial message (user mame, hello, etc). Then, depending on the program, the client will request something from the server (login, or send this web page, or whatever the program client ans server are programmed to do.\n\nAt the end either the client or server may disconnect but usually it is the client that closes the communication first"
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2vd44k | how jenga works? why are only certain pieces loose and stuck? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2vd44k/eli5_how_jenga_works_why_are_only_certain_pieces/ | {
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"Jenga pieces are not perfectly even thickness and straightness, which makes some pieces fit tight or loose."
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2me7l2 | what's the difference between an ave, rd, st, ln, dr, way, pl, blvd etc. and how is it decided which road is what? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2me7l2/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_an_ave_rd_st_ln/ | {
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"I think you are looking for [THIS](_URL_0_) wikipedia article on Street Suffixes\n",
"**as much as i appreciate it, I've been given gold 5 times in this thread, I dont need it more, if you appreciated it that much, I would much rather you make a donation to your local food bank or toys for tots drive and let me know about it in the comments, there are a lot of people going hungry and giftless and your money is better spent on them than me**\n\nAs this has gotten so popular I want to emphasize from the start, there are many acceptable definitions for these, this is just one set, it is highly likely you have seen something different. Different places will have different rules on whats what or no rules at all. There are literally dozens of right answers to this. Almost all of these should really be affixed with \"is usually\" but because of how long this has gotten, I cant include every exception and variation.\n\n**this post has become more effort than its worth and I am no longer maintaining it or replying to it, thanks for understanding**\n\n**everything I found here is either rephrased from an urban planning textbook, wikipedia, or googles define function, I never claimed to be an expert on anything, what I gave here is essentially the most common occuring definition I could find, but many are used interchangeably, how a word is used in vernacular does not change an accepted definition.** \n\n* A **road** has no special qualifiers. It connects point a to point b.\n* A **street** connects buildings together, usually in a city, usually east to west, opposite of avenue.\n* An **avenue** runs north south. Avenues and streets may be used interchangeably for directions, usually has median\n* A **boulevard** is a street with trees down the middle or on both sides\n* A **lane** is a narrow street usually lacking a median.\n* A **drive** is a private, winding road\n\n\n* A **way** is a small out of the way road\n* a **court** usually ends in a cul de sac or similar little loop\n* a **plaza or square** is usually a wide open space, but in modern definitons, one of the above probably fits better for a plaza as a road.\n* **a terrace** is a raised flat area around a building. When used for a road it probably better fits one of the above.\n\n\n* uk, **a close** is similar to a court, a short road serving a few houses, may have cul de sac\n* **run** is usually located near a stream or other small body of water\n* **place** is similar to a court, or close, usually a short skinny dead end road, with or without cul de sac, sometimes p shaped\n* bay is a small road where both ends link to the same connecting road\n* **crescent** is a windy s like shape, or just a crescent shape, for the record, above definition of bay was also given to me for crescent\n\n\n* a **trail** is usually in or near a wooded area\n* **mews** is an old british way of saying row of stables, more modernly seperate houses surrounding a courtyard\n* a **highway** is a major public road, usually connecting multiple cities\n* a **motorway** is similar to a highway, with the term more common in New Zealand, the UK, and Austrailia, no stopping, no pedestrian or animal traffic allowed\n* an **interstate** is a highway system connecting usually connecting multiple states, although some exist with no connections\n* a **turnpike** is part of a highway, and usully has a toll, often located close to a city or commercial are\n* a **freeway** is part of a highway with 2 or more lanes on each side, no tolls, sometimes termed **expressway**, no intersections or cross streets.\n* a **parkway** is a major public road, usually decorated, sometimes part of a highway, has traffic lights.\n* a **causeway** combines roads and bridges, usually to cross a body of water\n\n\n* **circuit and speedway** are used interchangeably, usually refers to a racing course, practically probably something above.\n* as the name implies, **garden** is usually a well decorated small road, but probably better fits an above \n* a **view** is usually on a raised area of land, a hill or something similar.\n* **byway** is a minor road, usually a bit out of the way and not following main roads.\n* a **cove** is a narrow road, can be sheltered, usually near a larger body of water or mountains\n* a **row** is a street with a continuous line of close together houses on one or both sides, usually serving a specific function like a frat\n* a **beltway** is a highway surrounding an urban area\n* **quay** is a concrete platform running along water\n* **crossing** is where two roads meet\n* **alley** a narrow path or road between buildings, sometimes connects streets, not always driveable\n* **point** usually dead ends at a hill\n* **pike** usually a toll road\n* **esplanade** long open, level area, usually a walking path near the ocean\n* **square** open area where multiple streets meet, guess how its usually shaped.\n* **landing** usually near a dock or port, historically where boats drop goods.\n* **walk** historically a walking path or sidewalk, probably became a road later in its history\n* **grove** thickly sheltered by trees\n* **copse** a small grove\n* **driveway** almost always private, short, leading to a single residence or a few related ones\n* **laneway** uncommon, usually down a country road, itself a public road leading to multiple private driveways.\n* **trace** beaten path\n* **circle** usually circles around an area, but sometimes is like a \"square\", an open place intersected by multiple roads.\n* **channel** usually near a water channel, the water itself connecting two larger bodies of water,\n* **grange** historically would have been a farmhouse or collection of houses on a farm, the road probably runs through what used to be a farm\n* **park** originally meaning an enclosed space, came to refer to an enclosed area of nature in a city, usually a well decorated road.\n* **mill** probably near an old flour mill or other mill.\n* **spur** similar to a byway, a smaller road branching off from a major road.\n* **bypass** passes around a populated area to divert traffic\n* **roundabout or traffic circle** circle around a traffic island with multiple connecting routes, a roundabout is usually smaller, with less room for crossing and passing, and safer \n* **wynd** a narrow lane between houses, similar to an alley, more common in UK\n* **drive** shortened form of driveway, not a driveway itself, usually in a neighborhood, connects several houses\n* **parade** wider than average road historically used as a parade ground.\n* **terrace** more common in uk, a row of houses.\n* **chase** on land historically used as private hunting grounds.\n* **branch** divides a road or area into multiple subdivisions. \n\n\nThese arent hard and fast rules. Most cities and such redefine them their own way about what road can be called what.\n\n\n**why you drive on a parkway and park on a driveway** parkway originally referred to the decorations along that particular road, not the state of the cars on it, its similarities to a park being obvious. driveways were orignally much longer than they are now, so you actually would drive on them.\n\n\n**not being further maintained**",
"Totally depends on where you are. Everywhere in MN that I lived, avenues ran north/south, streets ran east/west. The others I have no idea. \nNow I live in Phoenix, streets are east of Central, Avenues are west of central, with numbered going n/s and named going e/w. Drives, roads, etc are also split based on which side of town, but I don't know which is where. \n\nThose are only 2 example but give a good illustration that it's completely depending on location. It's ultimately up to the city. ",
"TIL there are two 123 fake st's in the US... thanks google",
"Depends on the city. In Seattle, streets are east-west, avenues are north-south, and ways are grid-defining arterials that also determine the directional suffix/prefix.",
"Depends where you are.\n\nIn the UK, there really is no distinctive difference between them all.\n\nSome can be named after their function, like approach, park, parade, quay, bypass, promenade.\n\nOthers can describe their rough shape out: court (circular), bend (as it says on the tin), heights (a steep slope), circle, crescent, oval, square, loop, hill, ridge, valley.\n\nThey can describe the type of houses: manor, terrace, alley, apartments.\n\nSome are pretty vague, but you can have an educated guess of what they mean as you drive into them: mews, gardens, highlands, trail.\n\nOthers are cul-de-sacs (dead-end roads): close, court, place.",
"In Vancouver:\n\nStreets run North South. \n\nAvenues run East West. \n\nLanes bisect standard city blocks to give rear access to buildings. \n\nBoulevards are streets and Avenues with a grass median. \n\nRoads are winding and do not follow the standard grid pattern. \n\nPlace is a road the doesn't extend 4 blocks and usually ends abruptly, or is a dead end. Cul-de-sac for example. \n\nWay is a place that doesn't end abruptly. Like a winding lane. \n\nDrives always have a dead end, like the path to a golf resort. \n\n",
"In Vancouver:\n\nStreets run North South. \n\nAvenues run East West. \n\nLanes bisect standard city blocks to give rear access to buildings. \n\nBoulevards are streets and Avenues with a grass median. \n\nRoads are winding and do not follow the standard grid pattern. \n\nPlace is a road the doesn't extend 4 blocks and usually ends abruptly, or is a dead end. Cul-de-sac for example. \n\nWay is a place that doesn't end abruptly. Like a winding lane. \n\nDrives always have a dead end, like the path to a golf resort. \n\n",
"This has come up before and from what I remember the conclusion was: They used to have distinctions but now-a-days its just whatever. Some people might stick to the older conventions though.",
"It varies based on city. I spent a large portion of my life in Tucson, and there it's a general rule that streets run East-West and avenues run North-South (at least in the older parts of town). \n\nInteresting fact: because of this, there's a roadway called Cherry Strav, or \"stravenue\", because it runs diagonally.\n\nEDIT: to add that this is a colloquial name. I remember seeing the \"Strav\" on the sign and asking my dad about it, but Google Maps doesn't seem to know this exists (which is rather disappointing)",
"In spokane wa streets are north/south. Ave are east/west. Blvds are arterials that go diaganally or not directly northsoutheastwest. Places are same as blvds except not arterials and ways are basically places",
"Didnt go all the way through the comments but I will add this. In Edmonton Alberta they use Streets for N and S and Avenues for E and W\n\nHowever, to add, if a road has a name instead of a numbered ave or street, for example Yellowhead Trail or WhiteMud Drive it \"wiggles\" through the grid.\n\nThat means that it will not be at the same reference point throughout the whole city. On Whitemud Drive for example, sharply turns N/S to cross a river and goes from around 51 avenue to closes to 90-100 avenue on the western side of the city.\n\nWhen you need to arrive at a \"Named\" road, check to make sure you know where it is at the intersection your are going to.",
"The builder picks the road name and the town/city whatever approves it. Usually how it works\n\nSource:worked in construction",
"What about Trail? I live on a Trail in section 8 housing in a very affluent area. Oddly enough, Im eager to see the intended use of Trail. ",
"I know that traditionally, an avenue is a road which has trees either side of it and cause a canopy over the road.",
"My road is ......avenue road. I've always wondered wtf?",
"[Mental_Floss](_URL_0_) have a great response to specifically the difference between a Road and a Street. They also have a whole section of their site devoted to [Big Questions](_URL_1_) like this. This site will truly make you a knowledge junkie. I've been addicted to their magazine since college.",
"In Grand Rapids, MI, the city organized itself in the early 20th century two ways.\n\nFirst, it was divided into quadrants, right from the center of the city. North of Fulton St. and east of Division Ave. is NE. South of Fulton and east of Division is SE. North of Fulton and west of Division is NW. South of Fulton and west of Division is SW. Makes it easier to narrow down addresses.\n\nSecond, street names were given uniform distinctions within the city limits:\n\nAn east-west street more than a block long is a street.\n\nA north-south street more than a block long is an avenue.\n\nA north-south street a block or less long is a place.\n\nAn east-west street a block or less long is a terrace.\n\nAnd diagonally running streets are drives.\n\nI know of a couple of courts, but I'm not sure why they're named that.",
"If only I had a civil engineer friend to address these pressing matters...",
"Avenues traditionally were a road lined with trees on either side.",
"It really depends on what city you live in these days. Back in the day, however, a public thoroughfare was named according to how wide/long/winding/etc it was. Nowadays, city planners and devleopers just pull the extensions out of their behinds.",
"Largely missing so far is the historical background that gave these terms their resonance in English. \n\nRoad is Germanic and comes from a meaning of \"journey on horseback.\"\n\nStreet comes from Latin for paved road. The Romans were famous urban planners.\n\nAs with many words, French origins connote sophistication and class, like Avenue and Boulevard, while Anglo Saxon implies something simple or rustic, like Lane or Way.\n\nFor example, Avenue is originally a landscaping term for a straight path with plants alongside. The word is from the French venir and implies arriving at a destination. It's one of the oldest landscaping features and so implies importance. (Source: _URL_2_)\n\n[Boulevard](_URL_0_) on the other hand was made famous by Baron Haussmann's modernization of Paris and led to an [entire culture](_URL_3_). The word origin itself is less relevant here and many Parisian boulevards have Avenue in the name but the concept is grand, wide, and straight.\n\nBucolic terms in modern English probably relate to the Garden City movement either directly or indirectly. _URL_1_\n\nSo a complete answer would have to get into a bit of history and urban studies and not just (highly variable) conventions.",
"In Michigan, Streets run East and West, Avenues run North and South",
"I think it is completely controlled by the municipality planners and whatever their preferences are. Here in Cape Coral, FL, Place, Avenue, Court, and Boulevard run north-south while Street, Terrace, Lane, and Parkway run East-West. Boulevards and Parkways are divided roads (with a median) and usually multiple lanes...the rest are low traffic side streets. And then we have one or two \"roads\" but they are kinda highwayish and operated by the county or state. ",
"A terrace is often a road where the road or the house is on the road are carved into the side of a hill or mountain",
"It depends on where you are. I delivered Pizza in Washington State, so here's my local knowledge-dump:\n\nStreet - runs East to West\n\nAvenue - runs North to South\n\nWay, Blvd, Drive, Road - has turns, so it runs both N-S and E-W\n\nLane, Place, Terrace - if there's more roads than numbers that ought to get assigned to roads, the minor roads get called one of these. So you'll drive through a neighborhood, and see cross streets in order like \"40th St, 40th Pl, 40th Ln, 41st St, 42nd St, 42nd Pl, 43rd St\" etc.\n\nUltimately, though, things were named by locals well before anyone had the bright idea of standardizing everything. In Japan, the majority of streets aren't labelled - the pieces of land that get divided by them are.",
"This question popped up at straigth dope recently. Here is Cecil Adams answer to it: _URL_0_\n",
"I wonder are getaway drivers required to know these definitions. I can imagine a situation whereby a getaway driver heads down a street called suffixed with 'grove'.. and the passengers are all like: 'No dude, a grove relates to a Cul de sac' and then the getaway driver be like: 'Not, in Florida'.",
"In my province (Alberta, Canada), there is *some* kind of a standard, but you'd be hard-pressed to know it.\n\nStreets and avenues are at right angles to one another. Most places have avenues going east-west, but at least one town near me turns it sideways, so avenues are north-south.\n\nA county south of me uses streets and avenues for its main roads (more on county roads in a minute), and if a road angles off a street, you add 1000 to a number and call it a drive; if it angles off an avenue, you add 2000 and call it a drive. So 192 Street can have 1192 Drive going off it, and 434 Avenue can have 2434 Drive. Lunacy!\n\nA road called a \"trail\" is going to be a highway or expressway here. Examples are Deerfoot Trail, Stoney Trail, Blackfoot Trail, Glenmore Trail. We don't have roads with the type \"Expressway\" or similar.\n\nHighways, from local roads going between towns to the Trans-Canada Highway, are all numbered highways. Highway 1 is reserved for the Trans-Canada; Highway 2 is the main corridor going north-to-south through the province.\n\nMost counties use what are called range roads or township roads to divide up the area in grids. This works off the [Alberta Township System](_URL_0_), which actually also is used in the provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba and some locations in the northwest central US states. The roads are numbered, in my area, based on the ATS - I'm in roughly the middle of Township 23, Range 5, so the nearest township road is **23**2, and range road **5**2.\n\nIn the nearest city to me, the suburban side-streets are just named for the community with all sorts of type suffixes appended. For example, the community of Falconridge in Calgary has Falconridge Drive, Falconridge Road, Falconridge Terrace, Falconridge Boulevard, and once they run out of ideas, they'll modify the main name, and give you Falmead Road, Falmead Rise, Falmead Terrace, Falchurch Way, Falmere Place, Falton Mews Falton Gate, and so on. There are tons of suffixes like 'Mews' and such that I'd never heard of until I moved here. I found one today, coincidentally, called Fireside *Burrow*.\n\nSo here, all the suffixes when you get down to suburban level have seemingly no rhyme nor reason to when they can be used, but there is some structure for larger roads.",
"I see this is already explained, but I would like to point out that where I live, in Vancouver, there are Commercial Drive and Clark Drive (among other \"drives\"). Neither are \"private winding roads\", one is a well known retail/ residential/ cultural centre and the other is a high volume commercial traffic roadway that connects the ports to the rest of the lower mainland of BC. \nAt their origin, both Commercial and Clark drive were used by logging outfits to \"drive\" logs down to the ocean at Burrard Inlet. \n",
"Here is 37th Ave running East West and one block south is not 36th Avenue but 37th Road. This is in Jackson Heights, Queens. \n\nThere is no sense to it at all. \n\n_URL_0_",
"What about roads numbered odd and even, is there a reason for that?",
"Shout out to [The by Way](_URL_1_), which just breaks all the rules.\n\nAlso I forgot [Boulevard](_URL_0_). THE NAME OF THE STREET IS BOULEVARD!!! THAT'S IT!!!",
"I used to sit on my local council and was active in naming several roads. There is no hard and fast rule for naming a public roadway. We named a two way street a lane. A glorified alley a way. And a genuine alley a street. It felt to me that the descriptor generally needed to fit the proper name. If it sounds good, it's good to go. \n\nAlso, the developer of a plan of homes can choose any name he wants. As long as the USPS says it is acceptable. ",
"Where I live, a drive is a set of streets with only one ingress and egress. That means you'll always enter and exit from the same street. ",
"What about Avenida, Calle, Paseo, and Via ( So Cal here)",
"As a non american, that is too much to think about. Also, i'm from Colombia, and here the streets are all numbered, not named (with a few exceptions). And we use Calle, Carrera, Diagonal y Transversal. As simple as that. Is there any other country that uses this system?",
"In Europe, Switzerland :\n\nA Boulevard is a fat street that replaced a city wall. usually seen around oldtowns.\n\nAn avenue is a street lined with trees.\n\nA road leads to someplace usually linked to the road's name.\n\n\n\n",
"Explain this... Why do I park in a Driveway, and drive on a Parkway?",
"Good lord. Why don't they explain this crap in drivers ed? "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_suffix"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://mentalfloss.com/article/30020/whats-difference-between-street-and-road",
"http://mentalfloss.com/big-questions"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulevard#France",
"http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_city_movement",
"http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avenue_(landscape)",
"http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flâneur"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1319/whats-the-difference-between-a-street-a-road-an-avenue-a-boulevard-etc"
],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberta_Township_System"
],
[],
[
"http://imgur.com/uWBrOrB"
],
[],
[
"https://www.google.com/maps/place/Boulevard+NE,+Atlanta,+GA/@33.7627739,-84.3719855,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x88f5040c6d06c137:0x2694bb8bc8d23104",
"https://www.google.com/maps?espv=2&q=the+by+way+atlanta+ga&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.79142246,d.eXY&ion=1&biw=1437&bih=736&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&ei=_BdoVN2WL4ShNuDWg-gB&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ"
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1lgvov | the difference between java and c#. | I checked on Google and the differences were explained by techies well beyond my level of comprehension.
I'm looking at getting into programming and unsure of which language to begin with. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lgvov/eli5_the_difference_between_java_and_c/ | {
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"Are you looking at getting into programming for fun or out of interest in programming? Are you looking into it as a way to get jobs? Your question is ambiguous so it's hard to tell what kind of answer would actually help you.\n\nFor example, one big difference between the two is that C# mostly gets used by companies working with Microsoft-heavy environments, while places that use mostly Unix and its derivatives (Mac OS X, Android, etc.) use Java a lot and tend not to use C# at all. Now, that's not in any way a difference between the two languages, but it may be the key thing you need to know to decide which one you want to pursue.\n\nSo, tell us what you're actually looking for and why?",
"If you're just getting started, start with Python."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[]
]
|
|
aqmjrp | why many comics use all caps style? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aqmjrp/eli5_why_many_comics_use_all_caps_style/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"This is a good and interesting question! In the 19th century, comics (political cartoons mostly) used a mixture - often dialogue would be in normal mixed-case lettering, while subtitles or labels would be all-caps, to make them stand out. \"The Yellow Kid\" was one of the first super-popular comic strips, and in its early days it used mixed-case lettering a lot of the time, but quickly moved to all-caps. \"Little Nemo\" similarly used an all-caps style which got more and more refined.\n\nCapital letters work well for a lot of reasons. For one thing, they are more legible, especially when printed in 19th century newspapers - this is probably the #1 reason. They are also more easy to make consistent. When someone is lettering a comic by hand, they want all their letters to look the same as much as possible; with the loops and whorls of lower-case letters, that's harder to do. Finally, capital letters are more eye-catching and dramatic, which was a selling point in comics in general, particularly once crime and horror comics like Dick Tracy or pre-code DC started to get popular.",
"Capital letters are more legible than lower case. People with poor eyesight find upper case easier to read. "
]
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| [
[],
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|
||
3p287i | why is controlling your own breathing so uncomfortable? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3p287i/eli5why_is_controlling_your_own_breathing_so/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"I find its just so much responsibility, like what if i fuck it up? Will i die?",
"because breathing is usually mediated by CO2 levels in the body- CO2 levels rise, and you instinctively breathe out. When you breathe manually, you are ignoring CO2 levels and just breathing when you think you should or need to take a breath, so your bodies CO2 levels are not regulated properly. This is uncomfortable because we don't like CO2. "
]
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[],
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34fxrm | how to be politically correct | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/34fxrm/eli5_how_to_be_politically_correct/ | {
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"The problem is that the term 'Politically Correct' has had many means over the years stemming back to a 1793 Supreme Court decision. It was picked up by communist and used in the 20th century to refer to those who do not align with the Stalinist doctrine (e.g. referring to the Communist Party Line).\n\nRight wingers in the US began using it referring to what was being taught in academia; particularly politically and culturally. Now it is used as a term for those to ensure they do not do or say anything that would disparage against a certain group. \n\nThe problem is there is no such thing as politically correct because the acceptable terms are arbitrary and not all people from a certain group would agree that a 'PC' term is the preferred and acceptable term (with the exception of a some racial terms).\n\nThe best way for you to 'be politically correct' is to simply treat everyone with respect. Do not call out any social/economical/racial differences or issues unless they bring them up (they being the group in question). Try your best not to make snap assumptions and never assume your values are everyone elses values (and vice versa)."
]
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| []
| [
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4s7l9u | the terminal velocity of water | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4s7l9u/eli5the_terminal_velocity_of_water/ | {
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"d575gdx"
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"text": [
"Falling water will break into droplets. You've seen water droplets falling at terminal velocity: it's called rain.\n\nThe weather influences the droplet size. As you may have experienced, very small droplets fall more slowly.\n\n[Details here.](_URL_0_)"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"http://wxguys.ssec.wisc.edu/2013/09/10/how-fast-do-raindrops-fall/"
]
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|
||
1qq2zh | how can anyone think the ocean could ever be polluted? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qq2zh/eli5_how_can_anyone_think_the_ocean_could_ever_be/ | {
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"text": [
"I find this to be flawed logic.\n\nWe have WAY more air and atmosphere than we do ocean. Can air not be polluted because there's \"so much of it nothing we do will affect it\"?",
"First, though the ocean is vast, much of the life in it lives fairly close to land. For example, coral reefs, which are found on the shore, hold 25% of all marine life. Coral reef are easily susceptible to pollution and other forms of destruction, which puts quite a bit of life at risk. We don't care about the state of the actual water so much as the creatures that live in it.",
"Five percent of the *volume* of the ocean has been explored, but we monitor most of the surface regularly, via ships, planes, and satellites. \n\nWe have definitely found [evidence of pollution](_URL_0_) on the surface.",
"The part of the ocean that will be most contaminated will be the surface. That's also the part of it we happen to use.\n\nAlso remember that water doesn't need to be heavily polluted to have health concerns. Even if you have a tiny amount of poison in your cup, would you be comfortable drinking it because \"the cup is so vast in comparison\"? A small amount of toxins in water can be fatal depending on what they are. So if a massive amount of pollutants are dropped into the ocean, even as it spreads out across the ocean, it could still be concentrated enough to harm you.\n\nLastly, keeping the above in mind, think about the impact any pollution anywhere would have on the sea life that's there. Water can remain dangerous at lower toxin levels than you might think, it will remain on or near the surface for quite some time, and also, it takes *time* to spread out. So for a significant amount of time, sea creatures could be jeopardized. And not just if it's fatal - you could argue it's actually worse if the fish live, because then that fish might end up on your plate.\n\nThe way the food chain works in the ocean, it's only really small creatures like plankton that actually absorb those toxins. But then something a little bigger than the plankton eat a whole bunch of them. Even if the toxins weren't so concentrated in the plankton, they get a little more concentrated in the next species up. Whatever eats that species will have a slightly higher toxin level, up and up and up, until the biggest fish (a.k.a: the ones we eat) have high toxin levels, even though the water itself didn't."
]
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| []
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[],
[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch"
],
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||
2jk6f1 | other than for looks, why aren't pipes (and wires, etc.) kept aboveground? | Maintenance, replacement and damage detection would be much easier if they weren't underground. They could be put similarly or right next to [phone lines.](_URL_0_) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jk6f1/eli5_other_than_for_looks_why_arent_pipes_and/ | {
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"text": [
"Damage *potential* is much, much greater too. Both malicious and accidental.",
"Phone lines are very vulnerable. Weather, car accidents - now imagine if that were a gas line. In fact, some neighborhoods are moving their power lines underground. ",
"The ground largely protects these wires and pipes from damage from humans and in some cases protects humans from them as well. Above-ground services are easily damaged by accident; they also pose a threat to people and property such as downed power lines or ruptured gas lines. Burying these does increase costs to repair, but tends to reduce overall maintenance costs and risk.",
"Sewer and water pipes will avoid being frozen in buried too, it'll probably depend on your climate, but just having them a couple of foot in the ground is usually enough to stop them freezing."
]
} | []
| [
"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Undergrounding_of_overhead_power_lines_along_Edward_Street_and_Tongaboo_Lane_in_Wagga_Wagga.jpg"
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8h4rcg | why are human/biped mammals' nipples much higher on the body than those of quadrupeds? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8h4rcg/eli5_why_are_humanbiped_mammals_nipples_much/ | {
"a_id": [
"dyh2o4e"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Because we hold our young?"
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1826td | 3-d printers of biological items | I've read several of the previous posts detailing how 3-D printers work, and am now aware that there are several styles that utilize different methods to create 3-dimensional plastic things.
BUT, now i see we're working on printing organs, and have printed stem cells. this no longer makes sense to me.
in order to "print" a cell, the printer has to have "ink cartridges" filled with the "colors", or material, of the object to be printed. right?
if the "colors" of a cell are like cytoplasm and phospholipids and mitochondria... we take other cells and crush them up to get their parts to fill the printer cartridges? isn't this counter productive? and there are multiple different parts that cannot be made of the same materials...and how can these things be functional on a biological level... and is this cost-effective and useful?
my brain hurts. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1826td/eli5_3d_printers_of_biological_items/ | {
"a_id": [
"c8axlr4"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"You don't need to break down a cell to the level of subcellular units. You can print the cells themselves."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
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|
4vyuth | why do bananas have that little nipple thing on the end of them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4vyuth/eli5_why_do_bananas_have_that_little_nipple_thing/ | {
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"d62j3ba"
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"text": [
"That is where the flower attached to the plant. Bananas are the fruit of the plant."
]
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6ao6hb | why do children like children's music? or is more of a social construct? | I can see how sound effects and slow bpm to process each phrase would help them get into the story, but otherwise don't see where the whole "aesthetic" of it comes from?
or is it* (correction for the title) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ao6hb/eli5_why_do_children_like_childrens_music_or_is/ | {
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"text": [
"Somewhere I heard children enjoy repetition more, so that explains why they'll listen to the things a billion times. They also like playing with words and sounds since it's new to them.",
"Children's music is often very simplistic in harmonic structure, often repeating the same few chords. Simple melodies and harmonies, and lyrics are easier for learning brains to process. I think it's likely as simple as that!",
"I know it doesn't really answer the question, but some of the answers remind me of Alice Cooper's response to what music he raised his kids on: Beach Boys, The Four Seasons, and the Beatles. Simple, poppy, well-constructed songs.",
"Simplified music which they can sing along to and parents can too. Furthermore *safe*. May sound strange, but being able to put on a Wiggles CD whilst you're having a shower is magic. That 5 minutes where a parent can become 'human'. \nOf course, I got my son onto AC/DC as soon as appropriate. (About 6..)",
"I think it is a social construct. When my kids were babies, they heard a lot of metal music because that was what I would listen to (when their mother wasn't home at least - she isn't a fan of the genre). They seemed to enjoy it.\n\nWhen they got older though, they seemed to like it less and less. I'm not sure why exactly, but I suspect they were just hearing other music in other contexts and began to prefer that. Neither of my kids (still both under 10) are really very musical though; they seem pretty indifferent to music generally.",
"Also, at least based on the evidence of my life right now, many songs correlate to baby shows. So simple upbeat music combined with favorite tv characters. Tangent here, the first few espisodes of 'Blue Clues' my son watched blew his mind. He was about a yr old and he reacted like someone seeing the Mona Lisa. It was a pure emotional tearful happiness. made me realize that masterpieces can be more common than I thought. "
]
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2001td | why does subway have a reputation for being healthy when everything they serve looks incredibly processed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2001td/eli5_why_does_subway_have_a_reputation_for_being/ | {
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"most sandwiches are going to be healthier than most burgers. bread and salad are a bigger part of their products compared to other joints. it's not so much that they're healthy as such, it's healthy in comparison to franchises in similar positions. such as burgerking, pizza hut, etc. ",
"Marketing, marketing, marketing. And one Jared to top off that delicious, nutritious, you-will-lose-weight-if-you-eat-50-of-these sub sandwich.",
"Subway is a lot healthier than other restaurants. I tend to eat a lot less when I leave there with my takeout Sub, get halfway home, and realize the restaurant has made me smell like vomit.",
"Because sandwiches made out of processed meat are likely to be healthier than burgers or pizza or nachos or fried chicken.\n\nIt's not really that it's healthy -- but that of the major fast food chains, it can be healthier than their competitors.",
"If you don't really pay attention to what you order, it is not really *that* much healthier than McDonalds (_URL_0_ \"The nutrient profile at Subway was slightly healthier, but the food still contained three times the amount of salt that the Institute of Medicine recommends\")\n\nThat being said, you'd have a hard time convincing me that my regular sub at subway (ham & cheese on white with all the veggies - no sauce) is less healthy than what I could get at McDonalds. Just don't drown your sub in sauce and mayo.",
"I would say that the \"subway is healthy\" craze started before the general public fully embraced real, organic, non-processed food. I honestly think that it wasn't until about 2000 that Americans actually started caring about what was in their food. Back when subway started it was comparable to McDonalds and Burger King in service time and price, so, back then, it was \"healthier.\" Healthier than real food, no. Healthier than the its fast food competitors, probably.",
"So much wrong with this question, they have options that are much more healthy than other fast food items, but also items that are unhealthier than other fast food alternatives. By health I mean low in fat and calories, \"processing\" is something we do to all food and is not unhealthy, you probably are referring to the food seeming not fresh, which it is. Ham at Subway is probably equally \"processed\" to to ham at a fancy deli, just probably been sitting longer.",
"There was a guy named Jarrod who \"lost weight only eating subway sandwiches\".\n\nOf course they left out the part where he was eating 6\" subs with no cheese and exercising regularly, and eating proper food for dinner.",
"In my opinion, Subway doesn't taste the best or use the freshest/best ingredients. BUT if I need to grab a quick meal at work or on the road, they're often the best option to get a decently healthy, cheap meal. A lot of their subs are loaded in fat/calories, but I typically just get a 6\" ham or turkey sub with veggies and mustard. I forget exactly, but I think it's under 300 calories. ",
"The long trays of vegetables. ",
"Subway has pushed that in its marketing for years. Seriously, [check out this product placement from Hawaii Five O.](_URL_0_)",
"Because at least it's not deep fried.",
"Because they have a clever marketing and PR team",
"The sad reality is it's all marketing to poor people. Those who can afford to eat healthy don't eat at Subway if they're trying to eat healthy. To say it's healthier than McDonald's is an embarrassing defense, of course, but again, only poor people would weigh those two evils and make that defense. Imagining it being healthy is just sugar to make the medicine go down. Reinforced by marketing. It's a vile restaurant, when looked at honestly.\n\nI mean, you've eaten there, right? Bleached bread, limp tepid veggies, and gelatinous meats. It's a joke."
]
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19upx3 | what is a semi automatic gun? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/19upx3/eli5_what_is_a_semi_automatic_gun/ | {
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"It's a firearm that automatically prepares itself to fire its next round, but doesn't actually fire it. So, if you press the trigger 5 times, 5 shots will be fired -- no need to manually eject a case, reload the weapon, or re-cock it.\n",
"\nBasically, all you have to do is pull the trigger over and over, and you shoot one bullet per trigger pull until you are out of bullets.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n > A semi-automatic, or self-loading, firearm is a weapon that performs all steps necessary to prepare the weapon to fire again after firing—assuming cartridges remain in the weapon's feed device or magazine. Typically, this includes extracting and ejecting the spent cartridge case from the weapon's firing chamber, re-cocking the firing mechanism, and loading a new cartridge into the firing chamber. Although automatic weapons and selective fire firearms do the same tasks, semi-automatic firearms do not automatically fire an additional round until the trigger is released and re-pressed by the person firing the weapon.\n",
"In its most basic form, a gun is a tube closed at one end. You put something explosive in it & then cover that with something heavy. You light the explosive on fire and it shoots the heavy thing out *really fast*, hopefully hitting what you wanted to kill.\n\nThe earliest guns were 'muzzle loaders' - you had to stuff everything in the mouth of the tube. Eventually somebody decided this was a lot of work so they invented the modern [cartrige](_URL_0_) - a metal case with the explosive and the heavy thing already in it. Modern cartridges have explosive 'primers' (they work sort of like the caps in a cap gun but are more powerful) that start the main body of the explosion.\n\nLoading a modern gun involves putting a bullet in the chamber & pulling back the firing pin (the part that hits the primer hard enough to set it off). This is most easily visualized by looking at a [revolver](_URL_1_) - like the ones you see in old cowboy movies. The cylinder rotates into place to line up a new round & the hammer gets pulled back - pulling the trigger releases the hammer, hitting the pin, triggering the primer & shooting the bullet. Something very similar happens with a [bolt action](_URL_2_) rifle except that you have to put a new round in the gun after every shot.\n\nA semi-automatic weapon does all of this for you. It uses a bit of the power from firing the bullet to eject the old round, load a new one & set the firing pin. You still have to use your own power to load the first round but, after that, you can keep firing until you're out of rounds."
]
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[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-automatic_firearm"
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[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartridge_\\(firearms\\)",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolver",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolt_action"
]
]
|
||
3cphyd | what is that sort of silver/gold tinfoil that we see so often in space probes/objects in general? whi is it so 'shriveled-up'? | [Example.](_URL_0_)
Is it some sort of reinforced material to wrap the probe and isolate it from the outside?
EDIT: Thanks everyone for the answers ! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3cphyd/eli5_what_is_that_sort_of_silvergold_tinfoil_that/ | {
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"text": [
"It is actually gold foil.. it is for heat and radiation protection. It is shriveled up becase it is a foil similar to aluminum foil. It retains its creases and folds that occur during application. ",
"It's exactly that, foil or metal-coated mylar. It's designed to be extremely lightweight insulation. It reflects direct sunlight better than plain white paint would, and if the back side is shiny, it reflects internal heat back inside, too, to keep it from getting too cold. I believe it's \"wrinkly\" so that it can expand and contract with temperature changes.",
"Sometimes it's actual gold foil, sometimes it's a polymer material called Kapton, depending on the circumstances.\n\nIt's used mainly as a heat shield.\n",
"It's a literal \"space blanket\": a thin sheet of mylar with an even thinner layer of aluminum or gold deposited on the surface, acting as insulation.\n\nSince there's no air in space the main way a space probe can gain or lose too much heat is by thermal radiation, either sunlight heating it up or the probe's own infrared \"glow\" cooling it off. Shiny metals will reflect both kinds of radiation, keeping the probe's temperature in balance.\n\nThe mylar is there to be a durable (and lighter-weight) reinforcing layer for the super-thin metal layer. Aluminum and gold are used because they're resistant to corrosion -- space is almost but not completely a vacuum, and it has free oxygen radicals floating around (especially in low Earth orbit) that are *incredibly* corrosive.\n\nIt's wrinkled and shriveled because it's not tightly wrapped around the probe underneath -- it may be insulation but it's still going to get hot, or cold, depending on whether it's facing the sun or not. So to minimize the amount of heat flow that can happen through *conduction* between the insulation and the probe's structure, they minimize the points of contact between the two. That leaves the film wrinkly but (hopefully) not too floppy and loose."
]
} | []
| [
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d8/RTG_is_installed_to_New_Horizons_for_a_fit_check.jpg/1024px-RTG_is_installed_to_New_Horizons_for_a_fit_check.jpg"
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| [
[],
[],
[],
[]
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|
cp5scf | what causes the "life flashing before your eyes" phenomenon and can other animals experience this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cp5scf/eli5_what_causes_the_life_flashing_before_your/ | {
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"text": [
"I've read it's like your brain going through all your memories like desperately looking for something to get you out the situation",
"Isn't it supposed to be a DMT dump?"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[]
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|
||
3enrcb | how do they get trains into underground networks such as the london underground? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3enrcb/eli5_how_do_they_get_trains_into_underground/ | {
"a_id": [
"ctgnsq4"
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"text": [
"The London Underground has a lot of above-ground depots that function like normal train depots they use. I'd bet most undergrounds have a similar system for getting trains down."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
||
d7xlr1 | the difference between stress and anxiety? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d7xlr1/eli5_the_difference_between_stress_and_anxiety/ | {
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"text": [
"To put it simply: stress is a physiological state, anxiety is an emotion. \n\nTo elaborate: stress is our response to a perceived threat, you've probably heard of the fight-or-flight response. Our body releases hormones to do things such as increase our heart rate to prepare for action. Stress is often supposed to happen reactively; something sudden might startle us such as an animal jumping out at us. It's an involuntary process, and our mind is more often preoccupied with making snap decisions.\n\nAnxiety is a general mood often based around dread, the anticipation of a perceived threat. It's the fear that an animal might attack us, though we haven't seen one yet. It starts as a mental state that then might lead to a stress response. \n\nIn general use, people might interchange the terms to mean the other.",
"Either can cause the other. But they’re separate things. \n\nEver had butterflies in your stomach because you were going to ask someone out or had to do public speaking? That weird feeling of uneasiness and maybe queasiness that leads you to second guessing decisions and playing scenarios out in your head and worrying about them. Usually you can’t sit still, you’re restless and maybe pacing around or keep checking the time or your phone without any reason to... just fidgety?\nThat’s anxiety. It’s in your head. \n\nNow, anxiety or tension causes your body to react. Your pupils dilate, your heart rate increases, your brain releases hormones, your metabolism slows down etc. \nThat’s stress. It’s in your body. \n\n\nWhen people talk about “stressing” over something, they’re usually referring to anxiety, but that’s because anxiety makes us feel stress (as do many other things) so people who don’t have an acute awareness of anxiety like those with PTSD etc just associate them together and get their terminology wrong.",
"You manage stress.\n\nYou experience anxiety. \n\nThis is the simplest understanding I have come to managing both in my life.",
"Stress is pressure, anxiety is an overreaction to \"future\" stress.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nA bridge has stress, and engineers design it to handle this stress. Too much stress and the bridge is no longer a bridge.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nEmotional stress is a metaphor for the pressures we feel from life, and anxiety is an overreaction to feared overwhelming stress.",
"The shortest way possible..\n\nStress = body reacting to something currently happening\n\nAnxiety = your body reacting to something that will/might be happening in the future"
]
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[],
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||
262ad7 | why are lobsters so expensive? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/262ad7/eli5_why_are_lobsters_so_expensive/ | {
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"they used to be cheap and poor man's food until the railroad allowed mass distribution. then it's popularity shot up, and now it's mainly supply/demand, and it's status as a delicacy.. ",
"They're popular, in limited supply, and hard to transport.\n\nLobsters- the kind that's common in the United Sates, anyway- come from the coast of New England and eastern Canada, up into Newfoundland. Only a certain number of lobsters grow to market size out there each year: lobstermen can't harvest more than that number without, at least not for more than a few years.\n\nMeanwhile, lots of people want lobster. It's pretty much *the* prestige seafood and a cliche of luxury. I think the very fact that you care about how much lobster costs reflects the fact that there's demand out there.\n\nBut the third thing, transport costs, is the big one. Lobsters need to be freshly killed when they're cooked, or else they taste bad. That means they have to be transported alive, often in water, and delivered quickly: no sitting in a warehouse for a week before a truck takes them to the grocery store. That kind of supply chain is expensive.",
"They're not.\n\nWell, not for me. I live in Portland, Maine. Lobster is cheaper than lamb, and sometimes cheaper than beef.\n\nThe reason lobster is so expensive for you is twofold.\n\n - One: the poor things spoil so fast that they have to be shipped live or cooked. \n\n - Two: butchering a lobster is fiddly work, either taking a lot of time (if you're careful) or wasting a lot of meat (if you're not). \n\nSo while I can drop by Fisherman's Net for live lobster, 3.99 a pound, you're probably seeing $40 or more for ready-to-eat.\n\nThis is a [five-dollar lobster](_URL_0_) with what I'd guess is a ten-dollar plane ticket and a couple bucks of profit."
]
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| []
| [
[],
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[
"http://catchapieceofmaine.com/products/medium-live-maine-lobster"
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|
||
bwbynb | why are there many gpu manufacturers (zotac, asus, msi...) but onlz 2 pc cpu manufacturers? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bwbynb/eli5_why_are_there_many_gpu_manufacturers_zotac/ | {
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"text": [
"It comes down to the stunning cost of being a major CPU manufacturer. The industry is so competitive, you need to build a major new factory every two years or so, and such a factory can easily cost over a billion dollars, and must be supported by an army of extremely advanced design engineers.\n\nThere isn't room for many companies to keep up with this spending race and still make a profit.",
"They're graphics card manufacturers, not GPU manufacturers. For the GPU the two largest manufacturers are nVidia and AMD, it's pretty much like with CPU's. \n\nThey develop and create the GPU. Third party graphics card manufacturers can then make a deal with Nvidia to use their GPU. The GPU design can't be changed, but everything else that's on a graphics card, such as ram or voltage controllers. Besides that, they can increase the MHz of the GPU.\n\nIf you buy a CPU you already buy the chip itself. There's pretty much nothing, besides overclocking, that a 3rd party manufacturer could change. And Intel and AMD rather sell their own products.\n\nI must say though that this only applies for the Desktop/Laptop market. When it comes to other things, such as smartphones, the list of actual GPU and CPU manufacturers significantly increases.",
"Motherboard makers are like restaurants. They take available ingredients (computer chips, resistors, capacitors, etc.) and cook (wire them in the board and program software drivers) them into a dish (motherboard, GPU board). Since the ingredients can be easily sourced, making a new restaurant (brand) is not difficult.\n\nCPUs are difficult-to-make ingredients that are required by certain dishes. Like high quality olive oil that requires huge fields of old olive trees and years of experience in processing the olives, CPUs require billions of dollars to build the fabrication factories and very specialized engineers to design them. This makes it difficult for new companies to compete with the two entrenched CPU companies. This also applies to GPUs.",
"You are not making a fair comparison. Zotac, Asus and Msi does not make GPUs, they make graphics cards and will buy the GPU from usually NVidia. The graphics card will contain other components then the GPU such as memory, power supply and cooling. The same companies, Zotec, Asus and MSI, also make motherboards which is similar to graphics card in that they contains CPU, memory, power supply, etc. The difference is that a PC motherboard usually have socketed CPU and memory so the user can upgrade these components. This is usually not the case with laptops though.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nAnd it is not true that there is only two CPU manufacturers. Popular CPU manufacturers includes companies like Broadcom, Atmel, Qualcomm, Apple, IBM, Analog Devices, Oracle, Texas Instruments, etc. However you would not consider them to replace your Intel or AMD processor because they use different architectures from the x86 based architectures that Intel and AMD uses. This is the best supported architecture and have a long pedigree. ARM is catching up though. The GPUs also use different architectures but for graphics there is a simple common interface that all graphics processor architectures implements. However if you want to do general processing on the graphics processor unit then you will have to explicitly support different architectures. The reason why both Intel and AMD can manufacture x86 based processors is because of IBM. There is a long standing policy within IBM that they do not buy hardware with only a single manufacturer. So when Intel wanted to supply IBM with processors they had to license the design to AMD. This way Intel could guarantee to IBM that there would be a competing supplier for their design."
]
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||
1rre3f | what is the difference between qubits and normal bits? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rre3f/eli5what_is_the_difference_between_qubits_and/ | {
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"text": [
"Imagine a sphere, with 1 at the North Pole and 0 at the South Pole. A bit can only be prepared in one of these two states but a qubit can be prepared in any state on the sphere. You generally can't measure where on the sphere the state of a qubit is: only antipodeal points can be perfectly distinguished.\n\nStates on the sphere are called pure states but we can also have states inside the sphere called mixed states. These are qubit states which are 'fuzzy'. You can create 'entangled' states of > 1 qubits where the totality is purer than its component qubits are. When these parts are spatially separated from each other, they can be used for neat things like quantum teleportation, cryptography and (less well-known) super-dense coding (send two bits of information in one qubit.)"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
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