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AskReddit/efm23l7 | amhn9w | How bad are shock collars for a dog? | If you use them correctly, they aren’t bad. I know all the people in this thread are acting like you’re a psychopath if you use one, but that isn’t the case if you learn how to use them appropriately and use the lowest setting needed to get the desired result. I didn’t use them for regular training, normal positive reinforcement worked really well for 99% of training (sit, stay, housebreaking, coming when called). However, I had an English Setter who could run over 30mph and I lived in a very rural area where there were a lot of deer and elk. This pup got lost for 26 hours after he chased a heard of elk through the woods and wouldn’t respond to calls (even though he came when called every other time). After that, we got a training collar that went from a simple vibrating buzz and had over 120 levels of “shock” that could be used. It was only ever used when he was off leash in the woods and just to keep him from running after herds of elk, and it was used at the lowest setting possible. We only had to use it a couple of times before the simple act of putting the collar on him (whether or not it was even on), was enough to get him to respond to verbal commands when distracted by elk. This was a last resort choice and it worked incredibly well. | 3 |
askscience/dx5cb9h | 8b8pse | Is it possible to have a component efficiency greater than 1? | No, efficiency cannot be more than 1 due to the laws of thermodynamics. As another comment mentioned, there's no difference for components/systems because that distinction is arbitrary to begin with. Open systems can appear to bend laws of efficiency or entropy on a very superficial level. From the point of view of a computer, the power cord is an unlimited source of power with no (obvious) inefficiency. Obviously the power isn't "free", but it is to the designers of the system. We might think of solar or wind energy as "free", and it is to residents of Earth, though it ultimately comes from nuclear reactions in the sun that obey the same laws engineers cope with. | 7 |
AskReddit/esa82xg | c6n2nd | What is one movie Reddit loves to quote a lot? | I am also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her. Notting Hill Edit sorry I misread and saw likes to quote and didn’t realize it was supposed to be reddit favorites. Sorry | 2 |
explainlikeimfive/ddm09cj | 5te2hq | What is black light and how do we artificially produce it? | Black light is light of a color that is outside of our visible color range (usually ultraviolet). We produce it just like we produce any other color of light.either make white light and pass thru a filter.or find something that produces, only ultraviolet when excited. Even though we can't directly see the light, it performs like light energy in other ways (converts to heat when it hits and object). And there are other animals that can see an extended range of colors | 29 |
AskReddit/ceari8a | 1trn16 | Which is worse for the environment: Individuals driving to the store or ordering online? | UPS/USPS are driving around delivering packages anyway, so you're piggybacking on their "carbon footprint." Delivery services also utilize methods to reduce trip time and fuel usage, so they are much more efficient with their fuel usage than the average driver. | 2 |
explainlikeimfive/emxp88f | bmdf3x | Why are we (for the most part) dominant in one hand and not the other? | It's possible that hand dominance is a byproduct of human tool usage, hunting and fighting. Fighting and attacking, and often using many tools, essentially requires a certain amount of balance. Consider standing squarely in front of somebody who pushes you. You don't have much balance and will stumble backwards. However standing offset allows you to balance better regardless of what direction a force or threat comes from. "Choosing" what foot goes forward and what foot goes back determines how we can then use our hands to defend or attack. If I stand with my left foot forward, my right hand can strike with much more force than my left. Many other tools, like swords, spears, shovels and hammers and up following similar principles of physics. Choosing a hand to favor likely helped us master the physical world more effectively, and changing back and forth and trying to learn to wield weapons for hunting or defense with both hands may have proven too lengthy and humans that essentially favored one could adopt their technique and move on to the next task. This is of course just a theory I came up with on the spot, and of course there could be other factors far more important in hand dominance, and likely simple brain limitations are part of that. Evolution is somewhat random and not at all purposeful. Mutations occur at random, if they happen to allow the organism to multiply then it would be considered successful, an advantage, but it's not because we chose certain traits. | 2 |
AskReddit/dfktebk | 629mxk | How would your country react if the government enacted a law that puts a limit on how many children you can have based on your income? | It certainly wouldn't be a free country. I hope the people would riseb up, and I am no fan of children. But everybody should have the right, I just don't think people should get more tax breaks for having 19 children like the Duggars who breed like effing rabbits on crystal meth | 2 |
AskReddit/cjjylgx | 2cx7w0 | What would you do if you suddenly saw thousands of paratroopers falling from the sky, and an Ariel bombardment on your town? | Since my country spends such a ridiculous amount on defense, I can only assume my government has decided to attack me, because no other country could possibly get paratroopers this far inland. With this assumption in mind, I cannot legally say what my response would be. I will posit that I have killed a deer at over 200 yards and I have 1200 rounds on hand. | 2 |
AskReddit/eb93it9 | a3to58 | What’s the most amazing thing about the Earth that most of us don’t know? | The earth has roughly 1x10^50 atoms. A 1 with fifty 0s behind it. It’s often stated that if earth were shrunk down to the size of a cue ball, it would be equally as smooth. That’s wrong, It would be equally flat but be as smooth as fine sandpaper. It’s theorized that the majority of earths water actually arrived from collisions with space debris. The moon is vastly bigger in size in a planet-moon ratio than most other moons, and is possibly a planet nuclei that collided with the earth eons ago. The earths shape is technically an Oblate Spheroid. Magnetic north constantly shifts, and moves around 25miles per year. The ozone hole is shrinking Edit: Correct a number | 2 |
AskReddit/ctwlyg5 | 3gbaen | What is your opinion of children calling their parents by their given name rather than "Mom" or "Dad"? | A lot of people seem to think it's disrespectful, which I don't understand. I've been calling and referring to my parents by their given names since I was in middle school. I did go to a Montessori school for YEARS and we referred to our teachers by their first names too. Anyway, my parents have not expressed any issue with me, but I am the oldest child and I matured very quickly. I was pretty much making my own decisions at 16. As for my sisters, they don't really appreciate it. | 2 |
AskReddit/cchamca | 1ncble | What was your most traumatic experience? | When my Mother and Sister were in a car crash on the motorway. They were going 70MPH. Luckily they weren't hurt, but I remember feeling physically sick when they told me, even though they told me them selves so I could see that they were fine. Still feel stupid for that being my most traumatic experience, but it was. | 2 |
AskReddit/esnjw06 | c8knln | What was your best year of summer vacation as a kid and why? | 1986. Freedom to be a kid. No internet to warp my brain. Lots of cycling, fresh air, sunshine, and hanging out with friends. Had a little job to pay for slurpees, chocolate bars, and movie tickets. Evenings were filled with Night Court, Johnny Carson and David Letterman. Sometimes, I bought a NY Seltzer. What machines we did have, didn't break after 2 years. People were actually friendly to their neighbours, and nobody had a car alarm. | 3 |
AskReddit/e40beox | 96gr7e | What are ways someone can use to stop being attached to people they just met ? | It's not a bad thing to get attached to people. It's only bad if they don't have any merit for it. Just learn to get to know people and not put so much weight on the status of being their friend or having them be your friend. Relationships are about the time and effort you are willing to put into them and be cause you only have so much in your metaphorical bank just don't put a lot of stock in those who don't give back at least some returns. | 2 |
askscience/c79vvu4 | 144jab | What are some cells in our body that, if removed, could flourish for an extended period of time? | Ignoring limiting factors to their actual mechanical collection, any cell can be removed and plated, as long as the conditions on the plate are correct. They'll live there as long as they receive proper nutrition from the substrate and their waste is removed. There are caveats though, not all cells will reproduce in that condition, some may not live as long due to other factors, such as isolation from other cells. Cells are alive, but have a very limited set of ways to sense their environment. So, as long as it's specific range of needs are being met, a cell can't really tell the difference between living on a plate vs living in a body. | 2 |
explainlikeimfive/c5oif6e | xpifu | How or where do radio stations get their music? | I work at a college radio station. We get a constant stream of new music sent to us by record companies that we digitize. If Djs feel like playing the actual cd, they can. We used to get vinyl too, so we have a huge collection of vinyl that can be played. Beyond that, most student djs just play music off their laptops, which means it is their music that they're playing. The music we get comes either from record companies that have been sending us music for a while and know about us, or from labels we contact if we're interested in an album they're putting out. We typically get music before it's actually released. We're not allowed to play commercials either since we're not a commercial station. | 17 |
AskReddit/c8cg35t | 1885s1 | What's the biggest "reality check" you've ever had? | Sitting in an interrogation room as a suspect for an armed robbery. Was with a friend who pulled the robbery. We ended up getting pulled over. I was not in the driver seat and my friend was identified as the robber. I was held for 18 hours as they tried to get me to admit involvement. I didnt budge and neither did my friend. He ended up in prison and i walked. I would like to say i changed after this, but i didn't. This was only one of many reality checks. | 2 |
AskReddit/emy4y2r | bmnzgi | Who is the nicest person you have ever met, and why? | My best friend. I swear he is one of the most selfless people I have ever met in my life. The man would give me the shirt off his back if it's the only shirt he had. He's not like that just to friends, he holds the same conviction for a complete stranger. He truly is one of the most altruistic people I know. It's and absolute honor to call him a friend. If I had to pick on person who I know would lay it out on the line it's him. In his career, family and life he is good. I've never told him this. I probably should huh. | 2 |
askscience/e03kuis | 8oi28h | Is WISE 1828+2650 habitable at all? | So a few points about this: That infographic just gave a single temperature of 27 °C / 80 °F, which is a little disingenuous since it says nothing about the uncertainty. Estimates are that the cloud-top temperature is anywhere between -23 to 127 °C, or -10 to 260 °F. Even if the cloud-top temperature really is mild by human standards.that's at cloud-top. There is no surface to stand on, just an atmosphere that gets thicker and thicker, until the pressure and temperature is so great that hydrogen becomes a liquid metal. If this object formed like a brown dwarf, there's likely not even a solid core under all that crushing pressure of metallic hydrogen. The range on the mass estimate is pretty large - plausibly anywhere from 3 to 6 Jupiter-masses. That means the gravity at cloud-top is anywhere from about 8x - 15x Earth's gravity. Even if you could float in a balloon at cloud-top, the gravity would crush you pretty quickly - no one can survive that for any extended period, and you'd black-out pretty quickly from your heart being unable to properly pump your blood. So.don't plan on building your vacation home at WISE 1828+2650 just yet. | 25 |
AskReddit/ep6pi8i | bu4akk | What are the best (friendly, safe, affordable, etc) countries for Gen Z both to study and live in in Europe? | Most big cities in Western and Northern Europe are pretty tourist and foreigner friendly. Eastern Europe and the Balkans are nice to visit and travel to, but are sketchier to live in. | 2 |
explainlikeimfive/dhtfr3d | 6cbn9w | What makes a binder clip "elastic"? | Binder clips are made out of spring steel, which is designed so that it can bend a lot without permanently changing shape. Paper clips are just "regular" steel that can bend a lot easier. | 2 |
AskReddit/c0eko6e | 9v277 | Is it possible for a medium to travel faster than its 'mach' speed? | The speed of sound in a medium IS how fast pressure waves can propagate through it. However fast it is. that's how fast it is. You can't see any effect at the far end until the pressure waves get there, right? This ties into that age-old thing, what if I took a really long stick, say a light-year long, and I poked someone with it. The far end is poking a light-year away, and the stick is rigid, so I can transmit a message across that light-year instantly by tapping out Morse code, right? No, because the far end of the stick doesn't poke until the pressure wave gets there. | 7 |
AskReddit/cejizbg | 1umds6 | If you could go back in time to see any gig/concert, what would it be? | My first concert was to see Yellowcard at a university here about 8 years ago. I was in high school, so I guess that's what made it even cooler. Also went crowd surfing for the first time, and gave the violinist a high five. Felt awesome. | 3 |
explainlikeimfive/ehqumwn | ax2flo | How does our body "redirect" blood to certain parts of the body during fight or flight? | Your blood vessels have a layer of muscle lining in their walls that can be constricted or relaxed depending on the signals they recieve from the body. If the body wants more blood to be there, the vessels dilate. If the body doesn't want as much blood there, the vessels constrict and get smaller. The rest is just up to the blood taking the path of least resistance. Example, when youre using large groups of muscles or running from something (since we're using the fight or flight comparison), blood vessels in your muscles dilate or relax so that more blood can flow through them. More blood flow means more oxygen is being delivered which enables the muscles to work harder/more efficiently. The signals from fight or flight also have a direct effect on the heart itself and can make it pump faster and stronger too. This causes the overall amount of blood flow to increase. | 2 |
askscience/c3hi5rb | oibm9 | Why is blue the last color to fade in sunlight? | Because the blue coloring agents reflect the higher-energy light from the blue end of the spectrum rather than absorb it, and so they avoid being broken down into colorless molecules longer than the others. | 11 |
askscience/c3uvxy8 | q5b96 | Is there an experiment that could cause a Vacuum Metastability Event if the universe is indeed in a false vacuum state? | In the last few months there has been active discussion on whether or not this is even possible, in principle, if we life in a nearly Minkowski space. In MWT (or string landscape), the vacua are really degenerate. In this case all the Hilbert spaces are orthonormal and it's really impossible to know about the existence of the rest of the vacua. When you break the degeneracy, then you might have tunneling through bubble nucleation. In order to artificially create a bubble, you would need enough energy to climb the potential wall that separates you from the other vacuum. This is model dependent, but I imagine that if the wall was small enough such that you could artificially tunnel at the LHC, then the lifetime of this vacuum would be smaller than the age of the universe and we would have already crossed to the other side. | 4 |
AskReddit/dxnd07t | 8dibtt | If you could quit your job with no repercussions, what would your walk-out line be? | there is a company wide conference call every morning. I'd unmute my phone and turn on Take This Job And Shove It by Johnny Paycheck real loud and walk out | 3 |
AskReddit/e22xaav | 8xev2l | What do you think the long-term effects of so many people being glued to their screens will be? | I think dopamine addiction is going to be a lot harder for people. So probably some sort of moderation laws for kids. And besides. Parenting is hard. It's easy to get a break by just placing your kid in front of a screen. | 7 |
explainlikeimfive/c2o9kry | kyf7a | What is special about a Klein Bottle? | A Klein bottle has only one side; as The Number Devil explained it, "If you wanted to paint the inside blue and the outside red, you would start painting the outside of the base red, and then paint up the neck, and then suddenly you would find yourself on the inside of the bottle!" The outside of the neck fluidly becomes the inside of the base. This is why they have to be computer models or blown glass; it's kind of difficult to make something that goes through itself, so the choices for building it are limited. | 5 |
AskReddit/ec8cgwj | a86e8x | What are some difficulties left-handed people face that right handed people do not? | Having to take blue book midterms and finals through back pains, twisting for hours to write on a right-handed collegiate lecture hall half desk. | 3 |
AskReddit/dechu7t | 5wrkt8 | What are some of the most interesting things to do with a Raspberry Pi? | Shred it using a cheese grater. Then boil it in 20 oz of water for 25min. Finally add sauce, cheese, and spices. Enjoy your raspberry pi noodles | 2 |
AskHistorians/ch9jzkz | 24pbdn | Why did so many bombs not explode when they were dropped on Vietnam/Laos? | There is always a base failure rate with any technology. Bombs are no different in this respect (and many of them are more complicated than you might realize, and complication often adds new failure modes). So let's imagine you have a bomb that works 99.9% of the time — that is way higher than the success rate of many bombs (some modern bombs apparently have failure rates at least as high as 7% — I've no idea how high it goes today, or what it was back then) but it illustrates our purpose. How many bombs are we talking about? There was apparently around 7 million tons of bombs dropped on Vietnam by the US during the war. So if .1% of those failed, then we're talking about 70,000 tons of unexploded munitions randomly dispersed around the country. If we use more realistic failure rates, we might come up with several orders of magnitude more (with 7%, we have ~500,000 tons — note that the individual bombs usually weighed well under a ton, and with cluster munitions, you can have individual bombs that weigh practically nothing, so that weight would mean a lot of unexploded ordnance). So the real issue is not how difficult it is to make a bomb explode — maybe you can do that really, really well. The question is, what's your total sample size? And in the case of Vietnam, it is HUGE — we dropped way more tonnage on Vietnam than was expended by all sides during World War II (which was about ~2 million tons of TNT equivalent, including the two atomic bombs). So even a very small failure rate would have left a lot of unexploded ordinance, and under jungle conditions the failure rate was probably relatively high anyway. TLDR;: The issue is not how faulty the bombs were so much as it is how many bombs were dropped. | 8 |
AskReddit/cce9szn | 1n0b5l | What's something that there should be a word for, but there isn't? | Is there a word for whatever quality it is in someone's voice that I can pick out who is singing a particular song? I mean, given two people singing the same notes of the same song, I can still generally distinguish between the two somehow. At that point it isn't pitch or accent; what is it? | 2 |
askscience/cola749 | 2vuod8 | How do you correct for selection bias in surveys? | To correct for your specific example you would need to use other sampling methods. Cold called phone interviews, or something like that. The answer to your question will also depend somewhat on what the purpose of the survey is. Measuring people's attitudes to something is different to an experiment that uses surveys as a method. In both cases, random sampling will help, and you'd want to try and make sure you don't oversample some aspects of the population (i.e., your sample is not 100% retired bankers). If you're using a survey to just measure attitudes to something then that's really all you can do. (There are alternatives to population sampling, such as stratification sampling, where you target a very specific population). In the latter example, you usually have some kind of manipulation. For example, you give people something to read, but vary what they are reading. Here, you need to randomly assign participants to these different conditions, and it's slightly less of an issue if your sample is a little wonky overall (i.e., more 20-year-olds than the population at large) as long as you can randomly assign individuals to the different manipulations. | 3 |
askscience/c31jask | mjktw | Why does hair grow on spots or moles so much faster? | Moles are parts of the skin that require more blood to stay alive. Hair needs the same blood and nutrients to grow thus hair on moles generally grows faster and healthier than other areas of the skin. | 3 |
explainlikeimfive/ddtojnj | 5ufxoe | Why it's much easier to seduce a woman to which you have no feelings unlike the woman in whom you fell in love? | Many woman feel very well when man loves them or not. I dont know why but this is how many woman actually works - many of them just lose interest to you when they understand that you have feelings for them, because there is nothing to achieve in the "game". So when youre "seducing" woman to which you have no feelings, she perfectly understands this and while you thinking that you are seducing her believe me, its all vice versa. | 2 |
AskReddit/efc41uo | al9s8l | What screams "this is a bad neighborhood"? | Noticeable shoes dangling from power lines. Certain colors can denote a specific drug and that it can be found in that location. More well groomed neighborhoods these would be removed regularly, bad neighborhoods there would be an obnoxious amount and replaced if the city came and cleaned them up. | 2 |
AskReddit/c2exa5t | jt7by | How come gangsters like Al Capone, Bugsy Malone, John Dillinger and others didn't get arrested instantly and yet were able to commit crimes and get away with it for long periods of time? | Paying off the authorities can go miles. Capone had a hideout in my small rural Wisconsin hometown and was extremely friendly with the local police department. Fun little tidbit, the corruption in our local police lasted through to the present. We had an officer arrested for selling cocaine and meth in an abandoned building last year and a rather large investigation into racial profiling by the police department (followed every black person in town almost constantly waiting for them to screw up on minor violations, etc.) | 5 |
AskReddit/cyo2yhm | 3zq6ue | What is the best video game of all time? | Timesplitters 2 will always have a special place in my heart as my favorite game. My brother and I played that game religiously and it was probably the most fun I've had playing a game in a long time | 2 |
AskReddit/e4gnrdn | 98kfjw | How does one go about writing a cover letter? | Tl;dr, i have a rough idea of how to write one, my career svcs ctr didnt teach me how to write them, and all the jobs in my area require one or a work sample. My writing tends to be beggy or i dont drum up my accomplishments enough. | 3 |
explainlikeimfive/ccbu4kq | 1mr1wx | How do countries "borrow" and "lend" "money" from/to other countries? | Countries issue bonds, which is basically a prepackaged loan of a certain amount and with certain terms. So for instance, the US can "issue," or offer for sale, ten thousand Treasury Bonds, each costing ten thousand dollars, with the promise that the US will pay the holder of those bonds eleven thousand dollars in five years (please note, I'm using round numbers, and very small numbers, to make them easier to understand). Then China, or Germany, or the California Public Employees Retirement System, comes along and buys them, essentially "loaning" the US government money, and in five years we pay them back with interest, assuming they haven't sold the bonds to somebody else in the meantime. So when we say that China is the US's biggest creditor, what we mean is that they hold more US Treasury Bonds than anybody else. | 5 |
AskReddit/dpilu0b | 7bk3pa | What do you hate most about Android Phones or iPhones, depending on the phone you prefer? | Well, it is a draw. I like the iOS for it’s simplicity and for “just working”. And for the long lifetime of the product with long (security) updates. I dislike it for the restrictions, missing customisable dashboard and the paywalls. Android is a great customisable OS. I like it for it’s flexibility and running on almost everything (not on the cat, she refused to have android installed on her). Unfortunately most Android phones are outdated in terms of updates, which might a security problem. Thus the effective lifetime of an android product is shorter compared to iOS devices. And I think it is more complicated to setup. TLDR: Both are good, iOS is simple to use, Android more flexible. | 2 |
AskReddit/c4qhwc6 | txaup | When you figured out what to do in life? | I figured out what I wanted to do in HS. Then I worked to get good grades in HS and college and now I have a job to build up money so that I can go to grad school. Good grades there and eventually onto starting my own company. In the interim I have worked out, played games, had gfs, hung out with friends, and traveled some. Plan on more of the same. | 2 |
AskReddit/dcssfkt | 5pph16 | What is something you gave a second chance that you hated the first time and ended up loving? | Pho. Hated it the first 3 times I ate it, but eventually I stuck with it. My palette got a bit more refined as I introduced more and more Asian cuisine to my gut, and now I love pho! Probably eat it 6 times a month. | 10 |
askscience/daavgqi | 5e9btf | What are the Effects of Climate Change and Oceanic Acidification on Phytoplankton? | Probably the biggest impact will be on biodiversity; some algae will do great and thrive under more acidic conditions, whereas most will not and may die out. Unfortunately, some of the ones who thrive are the red-tide producing dinoflagellates, meaning that the likelihood of more red-tide events is very likely, well more in the context of more locations since red-tides are a seasonal event. However the existing tides may be larger or last longer. The Zooxanthellae that populate corals oddly are not as tolerant of acidic conditions as their free-floating dinoflagellate cousins are. Some studies have shown that in acidifying conditions, zooxanthellae cover up to 92% less surface area on corals, which then allows non-calcifying algae to take its place, smothering and killing the coral. Also coral larvae like to attach to coralline algae, so it prevents growing and formation of new corals as well. As waters warm from climate change you'll see more of the algal species 'migrate' north since some can be fairly temperature-sensitive. Increased CO₂ and acidic conditions causes some algae to go into overdrive, increasing consumption and production considerably. This potentially could cause more algal blooms of the not red-tide variety. This is also bad, unfortunately, because algal blooms if too large can cause local water areas to become anoxic due to bacteria overpopulating as a result of the dead biomass caused by the bloom. Seaweeds will share the same fate as their microscopic relatives with some like Halimeda, a green calcareous alga, retreating in acidic conditions. Some will do well and invade corals as I mentioned before, so it's possible our shores could be more full of certain types of seaweed. | 4 |
AskReddit/db6cgeh | 5i91ap | What advice do you give a person who is struggling to find a romantic partner? | More info? Age, gender, past experiences, things you've tried? Generally, it all comes down to making yourself an attractive partner. Those qualities you find attractive? Well if you want to attract a partner like that you had better have them in spades. Not easy, but it's the best way. | 3 |
explainlikeimfive/cvju2nw | 3n02v9 | What causes lightning and why does it generally only occur when it is raining? | Lightning occurs as a result of charge separation in thunderclouds. When the weather is hot and humid, rising air currents force water vapour upwards into the atmosphere. As it rises it cools, forming water droplets and, if it reaches high enough in the atmosphere, eventually freezes to form hailstones. The exact way in which charge becomes separated in a thundercloud isn't known (it’s difficult to study the inside of a storm) but it's thought to be as follows. There is a temperature range at which hailstones and water can exist at the same time (between 0 and -10° C) and a really tall cloud can reach an altitude within this temperature range. The water droplets and hailstones do not coexist peacefully. Instead, they collide with each other, causing charge transfer: electrons are transferred to the hail which give it with a net negative charge and the water droplets are left with a net positive charge. The hail (negative charge), falls towards Earth because of gravity; the water droplets (positive charge) are carried upwards by air currents. This results in a big old thundercloud where the base is negatively charged and the top is positively charged. Normally the air is an insulator, which means that electricity doesn’t flow through it. However, in a thundercloud eventually the charge increases enough that electrical breakdown occurs. This is a rapid decrease in the resistance of either the water vapour in the cloud (resulting in a discharge of lighting within the cloud, from the base to the top) or a rapid decrease in the resistance of the air beneath the cloud (resulting in a cloud-to-ground lightning strike). This neutralises the charge because electrons have flowed from the negatively charged area to the positively charged area and returned balance to the force. The falling hail and rising rain will then continue to build charge and the whole thing starts again. Bonus: normally in a cloud to ground lightning strike, the lightning originates from the bottom, negatively-charged, part of the cloud. However, sometimes there can be a lightning strike which originates from the top, positively-charged, part of the cloud. This can strike the ground miles away from the thunderstorm and is called a "bolt from the blue." Bolts from the blue tend to have far higher charge and voltage than “normal” negative lightning strikes – you’d never know what hit you. Edit: if the hailstones that form are small they'll have melted by the time they reach the Earth and will instead be heavy rain. If they're large they won't have melted (or not completely anyway) and you're gonna get pelted by lumps of ice. | 3 |
AskReddit/ccc37oh | 1ms2nm | What can i do to be a better significant other? | At minimum, 5-10 minutes of skin-to-skin contact (or shirt to shirt contact) but regardless you need to be touching for a short period of time where that's all you're actively doing. Maybe while watching TV or just before bed or whatever but this physical closeness helps to reaffirm your relationship, it helps you both to keep from enforcing your daily "physical bubble" with your significant other. Even if nothing has warranted it, try to always greet your significant other with a reasonably meaningful encouraging sentence or two. Even if you're about to get into a fight. Especially then. Make sure that for every negative thing you say, you say 2 positive things. It's hard to do this at first but then you get in a habit of it. Don't fight at home. Go to a park or a coffee shop. It keeps both of you civil and makes sure that you always have a safe place to come home to. In fact, don't allow any sort of fighting to go on in your home. Tell people to take it outside. This is probably the single most important lesson I've ever learned. | 232 |
AskReddit/dg98h1v | 65crnp | What feels good that is actually not good? | Cashing in tickets for prizes at Dave and Busters. Feels good to take home a prize but if you think about the actual money spent to accumulate all those tickets. | 2 |
AskReddit/d2kgzmv | 4gt20l | What is the worst conversation you've overheard? | I was on the bus once sitting in front of a couple who must have been in their early twenties. This was a long bus ride and the build up was long and ridiculously surprising. They were both Mexican-American and talking about the region of Mexico they are from. They must have just started dating because they only just realized their families were from the same town. Shortly later they realized they were cousins. I remember the girl saying "we can't keep doing this." And the guy saying "but we've already done everything, so what?" They sat in silence for the rest of the bus ride. | 2 |
explainlikeimfive/clgqm6x | 2k0esw | Are all neutrinos Majorana particles? | We don't know yet if neutrinos are Majorana particles, but if they are, then all of them are, because they are excitations of the same field. If neutrinos are Majorana, then the lepton number is not conserved. It is easy to see this if you consider a pair production of a neutrino and an antineutrino. Since neutrinos are leptons, they must by definition have a lepton number L of 1. But if antineutrinos are the same as neutrinos, they also must have a L of 1, so the total sum is L=2, where previously it was zero! That means that L is not conserved in this case. | 3 |
explainlikeimfive/cee9z8b | 1u3x6v | What are the spasms your body makes right as you are falling asleep? | The cause of this is as your body falls asleep your brain wont receive any messages from a muscle so it sends a strong message to check if things are still responsive causing a violent jerk | 6 |
AskReddit/c3sm4yn | pvp97 | If you could live in ANY book, which would it be? | Most any fantasy book where I get to be a cool archer adventurer. A little magic thrown in for good luck is always nice. Preferably right at the ending so everyone can live happily ever after. Or the Firefly verse, but only if I get to sleep with Mal.err while Inara is um elsewhere. Actually if Jane can keep his mouth shut I would love to have his bed too. | 2 |
AskReddit/cu06zaj | 3gpaww | What's the most hypocritical thing that you saw one of your parents do? | Growing up in high school, my parents would always tell me to do my homework early so I wouldn't have to worry about it. They always said, "Don't do tomorrow, what you can do today." Well I am finishing up college, and discovered that everybody in the world is lazy. My parents are the worst ones! If something needs to be taken care of now, I go and do it on the stop. When I confront them about it, they brush it off and try to change the subject. | 2 |
AskReddit/e05b2n9 | 8oqkk1 | What is the weirdest/most interesting world record you know? | There is a big record breaking culture in India and I heard about a guy who holds the world record for cooking on a frying pan mounted on the handlebars of his motorbike which he then drove backwards using only his feet in a circle for the most amount of time. Who thinks of these things!? | 2 |
AskReddit/duvcadi | 80ga7j | Why does the millennial generation receive so much hate? | I think the issue is they sort of live in a state of indecisive conflict. Half of the time the millennials are complaining that they don't have this "cut out" life that their parents had. Our parents could buy a car for a few grand, they could get a stable job at a factory in blue collar employment, their college degree guaranteed them long term employment, etc. The problem is I don't think that would make millennials happy and I'll tell you why. Millennials are a generation which actively strive to be different for the sake of different. The idea of being uniform or common in 2018 is the worst thing ever. Expression and individuality and uniqueness are the drug of choice for most of this generation. Rejection of gender norms Rejection of social norms Rejection of sexual norms Rejection of style norms Rejection of religious norms (or in general) Rejection of labels as a whole Etc. So even if they did in fact have those options, they'd most likely be miserable and hate it because they'd feel like they were trapped in the same box their parents were and the last thing they want to be is their parents and to be caught in the society machine trap. So I don't actually think the millennial generation has a uniform idea of what it means to be successful or happy. I don't even think the average millennial could tell you if you surveyed the whole. | 6 |
askscience/djuhxrt | 6lbhye | How much pollution would be needed to block the moon from view at midnight? | Even a quarter-phase moon – which has much lower surface brightness than a full moon – is easily visible during daylight. If the Sun can't do it, then I believe it would be extraordinarily difficult to artificially generate enough light pollution to render the full moon "not discernable" in the night sky. | 2 |
AskReddit/c2j8slv | kcu9c | What's the worst moment of your life? | I killed a man once. Not in the stabby, put you in a coffin kind of way, but in retrospect I'm thinking it might have been easier on the guy if I had. It was my first time on jury duty, and I was so excited. I was going to be handing out JUSTICE, important stuff would be going down. I was 18. Turns out most of your first day of jury duty is waiting in a large room for a trial to actually be ready to select a jury. First one comes up about 3pm, and almost thirty of us file into the back of a court room. It's a child molestation case. The judge tells us all in a calm way that we can opt out of this trial if we don't think we can handle it. My stomach turns at the thought of what might come up, but I swallow it. Justice, remember? What's more important than this kind of case? They select the first 12 jurors through a ballot, and I'm not one of them. I breathe a sigh of relief that it wasn't my choice not to get this case. I get ready to go back to waiting, but the Judge tells us to stay. The defense and prosecution both have the right to veto any jurors they feel may be biased in the case. The defense knocks out all the women over 28. The prosecution knocks out a skinhead. Three more jurors are needed. Three new people go up, and none of them are knocked back. I was the third. We quickly handle the other formalities, presenting the charges, seven in all, and choosing a foreman for the jury. I put my hand up, naturally. If justice is getting done in this building I want to be the one to do it. Even if all it involves is telling the judge when we're ready and reading the verdict at the end. The next part of the trial, hearing the evidence goes well. I enjoy it, like a good novel, more information fleshing out a complete picture. I know now what the answer is, I know what the verdict I read out has to be. He's innocent, there's no doubt in my mind. The penultimate part of the trial involves the jurors discussing on their own what they think of the trial until we can come to a unanimous verdict. Piece of cake, there is no solid evidence against this guy, there is zero credibility from the witness (she was sixteen at the time of a non-direct accusation in a school paper where students had to write about something terrible in their life and how it helped them find christ). On our first day of talking together the vote stands 7 to 5. Guilty. I panic a little but keep it together, there's no way this is going to last. I spend the next few days calmly pointing out that there needs to be evidence beyond reasonable doubt that the crime was committed. The prosecution had succeeded in proving that the accused maybe had the opportunity to commit the crime once. Not that he did, not that he would have, just that there was the outside chance that he could have. The girl had supposedly been three at the time, going by her recollection in the schoolwork. A medical examination confirmed her hymen was intact. The prosecution proceeded to show us a diagram of the female anatomy trying to explain how it was even remotely possible that the defendant had committed the act. I argued brilliantly. My time in high school as a debater had paid off and I fought with all I had to prove my points, justify every statement and direct the jury towards the obvious conclusion. Even if it was possible, it wasn't plausible, it wasn't credible and it certainly could not be said to have happened beyond reasonable doubt. With every day I argued fiercer, and with every day somehow I lost more of them. I kept my calm as it turned against me. 9 guilty, 2 not guilty and one not sure. Then 10 guilty. Then 11. After two weeks of fighting I was a mess. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror, and I questioned every thought for bias. Was I wrong? Was he guilty and I just somehow couldn't see it? Eleven people believed he was guilty, what made me so special that I could tell eleven people they were wrong? It came to Friday and I was faced with the end. If I caved, and voted guilty with the others, the trial would be over, and I could stop thinking on it. If I held on till monday, I would have to live the weekend with it rattling in my brain. I gave in. I mentioned earlier the foreman reads the verdict? I had to look in a man's eyes and say he was guilty seven times. I saw his life fading, I knew I was handing him the walking death sentence and seven times I called him guilty, of a crime to this day I am sure he didn't commit. I killed him. And I can never forget it. | 18 |
AskReddit/ey7vn5k | cw2nm5 | What was the trigger event that led to the best period of your life? | My suicide attempt led me to rehab, which then led to me living clean and sober (coming up on 4 years). I'm now able to be the son, brother, uncle, friend and person those that have supported me know I can be. | 3 |
explainlikeimfive/e8adsns | 9qkzhu | How accurate are the projections used to determine which strain of the flu to produce protection for in flu shots each year? | Depends on what metric you want to use. On any given year, the effectiveness is typically 40-60%. Some years are less. However, that's mostly just measuring "how many people got the flu." Another thing to consider is the severity of disease. People that are vaccinated will develop some immunity, and even if they still get sick, they tend to have a much milder disease course. There isn't a single really good metric to quantify this. Maybe you could look at "number of inpatient days per thousand", or maybe ICU days. Overall, it seems to be fairly accurate, in the sense it can prevent about 50% of the disease, and prevent the majority of mortality and morbidity. | 3 |
AskHistorians/cob0w2r | 2upufg | How historically accurate was MASH? | The film and show are based on Richard Hooker's novel; "MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors". "Richard Hooker" was a pseudonym for Dr. Richard Hornberger and writer Wilfred Charles Heinz who wrote the book as a collaborative. It was based on Hornberger's (Hooker's) experiences with the 8055th MASH unit during the Korean War. Hornberger had tried for 11 years to publish his novel before collaborating with W.C. Heinz on the book. The subtext of the subsequent movie and sitcom was about Vietnam, but the show itself based on the book, was about the fictional 4077th MASH in Korea. MASH as an overall (novel, movie, and sitcom) was received in a mostly positive way. The film was also deemed "culturally significant" by Congress and was selected for preservation within the National Film Registry. Hooker (Hornberger) went on to write sequels of MASH. The show took many liberties from the book, as they almost always tend to do. However, the portrayal of daily operations of a MASH unit in Korea was fairly accurate. The use of H-13C Sioux helicopters in the show is accurate, uniforms are fairly consistent with the period, weapons and materiel (much of the issued equipment during the Korean War was Second World War production), vehicles utilized are accurate, procedures are fairly accurate, even the premise of characters induction of mandatory service and their attitude towards such is relatively accurate. While the subtext was about Vietnam, MASH is relatable to more than just Korea or Vietnam. The hardships, trials, and tribulations aren't solely unique to those conflicts, even today many of the moral, ethical, and other dilemmas visited in the show exist in similar military units deployed around the world. What makes MASH a superb compilation of varying types of media and to a point "culturally significant"; is it shows the humanity and inhumanity of war, the insanity that exists in war, and the depth that the human mind will go to maintain sanity. | 66 |
AskReddit/eny9t2t | bpwjc7 | Is there an book or movie that changed your perspective on life if yes how? | They're was a biography type book I read once. It was about a YouTuber girl that was gay. Really have me a different presepective on life. Just seeing how her life worked out, and how ridiculous it is to act like being gay is just people being rebellious or whatever. | 3 |
explainlikeimfive/cuccp7u | 3i13dh | Why do banks get to claim entire ownership of a home if a person that has paid mortgage for a significant amount of time suddenly stops paying it? | One of the steps of a foreclosure is the sheriff's sale which involves an auction if the bid exceeds the unpaid amount of the note (including interest since the last payment, any late fees, or other charges) the balance will be given to the homeowner. In practice, most homeowners whose homes are worth more than their loan can frequently sell their home before the foreclosure process is finished, repay their note with the proceeds, and keep any excess. So foreclosure occurs only when the value of the home has fallen below the loan balance. | 12 |
askscience/cg8hmcd | 2107vp | Are there any other species besides humans that are able to play games with rules? | I guess you'll have to define 'rules'. Anytime an animal is 'playing', one rule might be 'don't kill what you're playing with'. If you mean something like, say, 'chase me but you can have to keep your eyes closed', or the like, I'd say resoundingly yes, many animals understand the concept of play in a wide variety of contexts. | 4 |
AskReddit/c68x1co | zyg72 | How do you get used to living alone? | I've been living alone for about 6 or 7 months now, I also work from home so as you can imagine I'm by myself quite often. I guess how I am able to not lose my mind is I try to have a lot of places I'm suppose to be every week, like a poker night every Thursday at a friends place, also skype. I probably spend 6 to 7 hours a day on skype talking to friends while I work or play games. | 3 |
AskReddit/dc2fuou | 5mbvzt | What's your favorite or most efficient way to kill time? | Go back in time and kill an ancestor of yours, bam, a huge paradox has formed and the space-time continuum can't handle and reality is destroyed as we know it. Thus, you have killed time. | 8 |
explainlikeimfive/cd1ik00 | 1pec8z | Why do cats like sitting in boxes? | The same reason that you can put a piece of paper in the middle of a carpeted room, a cat will sit or lay on it. I think they either like the change in texture, or if it is warmer than the surrounding floor. Boxes pose a mystery for them. Ever seen a cat outside? They like to hang in bushes, under chairs and cars. It might be an instinctive urge to basically protect themselves on several sides (boxes) where they can see a threat coming, and be able to either defend (closed box) or escape. | 6 |
askscience/d1rfhb1 | 4dhvjs | Is there any differences in urine from humans VS animals and differences in urine in different species of animals? | Yes. The differences are most noticeable due to the different chemical compositions and how dilute such things would be in the urine. Animals like housecats, who evolved in desert climates, have much denser concentrations of waste compared to humans. You'll note that cat urine is much stronger scented than you'd imagine for the amount of liquid released. Also notable are different levels/types of molecules used for marking territory and such. The differences between urine even varies greatly of members of the same species (and even individual). You'll note your urine color and scent changes dramatically based on hydration level, illness, and diet on, sometimes, an hourly basis. The differences between animals of different species is even more dramatic. | 2 |
AskReddit/c205mjr | i1o0j | Will presenting audio recordings of workplace mistreatment backfire on me? | Present them to who, your dysfunctional management? By backfire, do you mean getting you fired. Yeah, it probably would. If you have a legal grievance, where they owe you money for uncompensated work, then take it to whatever OK state board of labor has jurisdiction. Short of that, start looking for another gig, and bail. | 4 |
explainlikeimfive/cqnm6jj | 33r7ka | How did the United States go from having one of the most advanced and intricate railroad systems in the world to becoming virtually non-existent in the railroad world compared to other places such as Europe and Japan? | The US still has one of the most advanced and efficient railroad systems in the world.for moving cargo. Ubiquitous car ownership, well developed highway system, and unfavorable demographics and geography made trains unattractive for passenger use. | 1,181 |
AskReddit/chikfi1 | 25mb1h | What would be the worst way to die? | Alzheimer's. Everything that makes you YOU fades away. Your memories, your passions, your best and your worst, gone. But your body stays. Stays to be a burden on those you love, to replace the memories they have of you with memories of what you became. And you see this all happening. Before you go completely you know what's happening, that you're slipping away and you know those caring for you will be the ones that have to carry you. That my friends, is the worst way to die. | 2 |
AskReddit/evfgvwa | cjr3a3 | What is the strangest place you’ve woken up at after a night of drinking? | In my own bed at the college dorm. Not a strange place to wake up, but I had no recollection of getting there. I was found outdoors passed out by friends and carried in. My last memory was indoors at a wine and cheese event. | 2 |
AskReddit/diqpy6m | 6gj5n1 | What's a funny story of how you or someone you know fell and completely embarrassed themselves? | One Christmas we were all BBQing around the swimming pool and my gran was sitting in one of those plastic chairs. Both back legs of the chair broke at the same time and my gran fell backwards. It was so funny. One minute she was there and then without any sound except the "CRACK" of the chair breaking, all we saw was both of her feet go straight up in the air. She fell onto the grass and wasn't hurt at all. She was laughing so hard she nearly choked herself to death on some salad. Good memories. Rest in peace Gia gia. | 2 |
askscience/cpc1n2z | 2yqjt8 | Does entropy ever actually decrease globally for a system over short times stochastically? | >Has such local decreases in entropy actually been observed and if they have, are they true global decreases and not just a "trick" that the entropy increased sufficiently elsewhere? The short answer is, although I don't know if such an experiment has been set up, if it were, it would be exactly such a trick. The key point is, you'd have to measure the system constantly. If you had a system where you might expect a lower-entropy state to be reached in a reasonable time scale, you'd have to be taking measurements (of whether or not the system is in that state) at a ridiculous rate. And then you reach two options: Your measuring system can have an absurd amount of memory, so much so that the entropy of the storage device reaches the entropy you want to lose by the time you can reasonably expect to see the event. Your measuring system can be constantly deleting memory. Then by Landauer's Principle, which states that erasing one bit of memory requires at least kTln2 of energy, your storage device winds up losing energy to the environment, thus producing entropy to compensate. I'm not entirely sure how this would be shown with adequate rigor, but I presume it'd follow Bennett's exorcism of Maxwell's Demon. (For the uninitiated: Maxwell's Demon stands at a partition between two chambers full of gas, opening a door in that partition only for particles going in one direction. Bennett's solution, which clarifies a line of thinking that grew out of mid-twentieth century information theory, says that the calculations done by the demon in order to decide when to open the door require storage that produces an adequate amount of entropy to compensate.) >How would this classical discussion be transplanted to quantum frameworks involving Von Neumann entropy? It's actually much easier because von Neumann entropy is mathematically nondecreasing - any valid time evolution (a completely positive, trace-preserving map) cannot decrease the von Neumann entropy, temporarily or otherwise. The only thing (in Copenhagen) that can is measurement, for which see above. | 8 |
AskReddit/el6ajry | bejigo | What is the worst thing to be allergic to? | Water allergy(Hydrophobia) is not as bad as it sounds, it doesn't mean that u are scared of water itself, just swimming, drawing a bath in a tub, etc. Unless, u have rabies at which point hydrophobia will be the least of your worries. I would say dust allergy is the worst of all, your eyes constantly keep watering and burning, it is unbelievably irritating, you cant keep you eyes open even for a short while(while watching a movie or something) | 2 |
AskReddit/c404c2m | qsn2v | Is there a double standard against men in society? | I have a feeling you're about to get a lot of downvotes. But to answer your question. Yes there are double standards against men. And women, gays, blacks, mexican men, asian women, midgets, black women, white people, religious people, & atheists. If there is a group of people that has been lumped together by one defining feature than there are inherent double standards that will follow. | 10 |
AskReddit/cbw1u62 | 1l5sz7 | How to get over being shy? | You just have to lock it in a closet like an illegitimate redheaded stepchild. I pushed myseld into a customer service job to try an over come my shy-ness and force myself to be interactive with stangers. I didn't help much because I still have problems talking to people but the moment I stop caring what other people think I'm able to interact with them like a normal human. Then I get overly excited my word blend together I stumble and stutter then resort back to being quiet and shy. Its a sick cycle but it gets better each time. | 2 |
AskReddit/coh2euh | 2vf8mg | What is the difference between Coca-Cola Light, Zero and Life? | Marketing mostly. Life also contains sugar, just less than regular coke. Light/Diet is marketed more towards women and zero towards men. Life is supposed to be more natural and environmentally friendly. It isn't of course but that's how it's marketed. | 3 |
explainlikeimfive/d7zcfgy | 546kj2 | How are trusts used to avoid paying the estate tax? | When you set up a trust, you give up some money to be held by a trustee and handled according to your instructions. Its not your money anymore, you can't pull money out of it. The trustee manages it and pays out from it according to instructions and conditions you st up initially. The money is lost to you though, you can't go and withdraw money from a trust like it were a bank account. So when a person dies its not part of their estate, its not an asset they have, the trust is an independent thing. So there is no estate tax to pay on it. | 4 |
AskReddit/ew90swu | cnctea | What do you do to get over a really bad day? | Fix as much as I can fix on the cause of my problems then take a nap and maybe try to get home early and do some sports. On really bad days I don’t want to be at home alone and game or similar. So if this doesn’t help i try to meet some friends and silently enjoy their company and listen to their stories until i‘m happy to talk. | 2 |
AskReddit/es1ca9z | c56lid | If you could control the next step in human evolution, which human feature/behaviour would you change and why? | In a roundabout way, we're actually kind of going to do this. The biggest problem with the current direction human evolution is headed involves the fact that humanity is somewhat immune to many of the methods that natural selection uses to create (for lack of a better word) organisms that are more fit to survive in their environment. For instance, in the wild an organism who is sick or broken in such a way that makes them less capable to survive will eventually die, either from being preyed upon by other organisms or by not being able to access its own food supply. Other members of their species will either not mate with them, or at least be able to find other more suitable mates, and any offspring they do have is not likely to survive with out their support or eventually die off on their own if they happen to possess the same negative traits. The problem is that humanity has modern medicine and other support systems to keep the sick and broken alive. Not necessarily well, but usually alive at least. A person suffering from serious genetic issues is not likely to be preyed upon by another species or die from starvation. Furthermore, they're almost just as likely to reproduce as the rest of us, and pass on their health issues to the next generation. Luckily, with the introduction of new treatments and especially genetic alterations we may be able to make many of these issues a thing of the past. You won't have to worry about passing on your family's predisposition to diabetes, cancer, sickle cell anemia, or even severe mental illness. We can control our own natural selection. Not just by surviving despite our health issues, but allowing the next generation to survive without those issues even being in the equation. If I could direct human evolution I'd just speed up this same process. | 2 |
AskReddit/ecz4j6g | abb7nn | What romance cliche almost never applies in real life? | Watching someone for extended periods of time is not romantic, it's creepy. Especially when it's "they see the person for the first time and stare because they're totally smitten." ​ As much as I love The Little Mermaid, she's guilty of this. And, well, trading her voice for legs to kiss a guy she doesn't even know isn't very applicable to real life. | 3 |
AskReddit/c18st9r | ekmjs | Does anyone know of good tips for training a dog? | One of the biggest helpful tips I can give is BE CONSISTENT. If one of you lets the dog get away with bad behavior, it doesn't matter how much the other one tries to train it. It will know that sometimes it can get away with misbehaving and will try to do that all the time. Good luck! | 3 |
AskReddit/eaag6wg | 9zml81 | What was the worst Nightmare that you ever had? | Ive has sleep paralysis a few times in my life. The one time I’ll never forget was an incident with some old-fashioned dressed woman. In this case, one night my eyes opened but I couldn’t move. I had sleep paralysis before so I only braced myself for the worst. While my whole body couldn’t move, my eyes, unfortunately, could with no problem. There, standing in the corner of my room, was a woman. She had a veil over her face and she was wearing a big, almost Victorian looking, black dress. Of course I was scared, but It all felt so typical to a horror movie. I wasn’t surprised of the idea that this was just my head remembering some horror film. She stared at me for what felt like hours. Then, in complete silence, she started walking towards me. Before that moment, I thought I was scared. Now, as she came up to the side of my bed, I knew how scared I could get. She looked over at me and I ended up being surprised, almost shocked. She was a gorgeous woman, probably in her 20’s. She had crystal blue eyes and her skin was practically spotless. We just held eye contact and that’s when she started yelling at me. She was screaming with a lot of anger in her voice. Repeatedly she would say “Why was it you, why couldn’t it have been me?” She also kept telling me that it just wasn’t fair. Throughout the tantrum, I realised that she never cursed or anything close to it. Her speech, from what I remember, sounded rather educated. Not once did I hear anything actually insulting. I turned my focus to the ceiling and let her continue her rant. At that point, all I felt really was pity for her. I didn’t think she was going to hurt me anymore so I wasn’t even scared. She kept yelling at me while I was just sitting there trying to make sense of it all. After a while, she stopped. Right above my bed to the right, I have a window. When she stopped talking, I looked over and I saw she was looking out the window. She had her elbow on the window sill, fist on her cheek. It was dark outside and I couldn’t get up to see what she was staring at. Turns out, the sun was just beginning to peak. I saw the rays of light hit her face as she just stared at the early sunrise. She then covered her face and cried. Just a simple, soft weeping. I looked up at the ceiling again, feeling really sorry for her. Somehow, I just fell asleep to that last moment. When I woke up, everything was normal. It was the same calm feeling I sometimes get when I am super stressed out and suddenly relieved. While this wasn’t terrifying from start to end, it definitely did have its moments. | 3 |
explainlikeimfive/d17b1ny | 4b8ad2 | Why do you become sexually attracted to someone once you develop feelings for them? | Its a chemical trick our brains play on our body in an attempt to propagate our genes. If you have "feelings" for someone chances are you will be able to overlook their bullshit (everyone has their own personal bullshit) for the 5ish years it takes to go from conception until about the age of 4 or 5 when a human infant is no longer requiring two adults to prevent it from dying. For women "feelings" often means "is capable and willing of giving me the resources and labor I require to breed" and those feelings do a negotiations with physical attraction to see if the resources the man supplies are compensation for his less than perfect genetics. If the man has good genetics then the opposite internal negotiation begins, "are his genes good enough to where I don't mind that he doesn't have/isn't going to give me the resources and labor I want." Which is why good looking dudes (good genes) smash way more than short/skinny/fat/skinnyfat dudes unless said dude is rich/high status. Thats pretty much dating/mating in a nut shell. | 13 |
askscience/drfndsf | 7khjm4 | What causes interference noise while touching metal with unplugged headphone jack? | Keep in mind that an antenna is essentially a giant piece of metal and that you can generate an electric current by passing a piece of metal through a magnetic field, or in this case, passing an oscillating magnetic field through a piece of metal. What's essentially happening is that the modern world is saturated with electro-magnetic radiation in the form of radios that we use for FM/AM, Wifi, Ham Radio, Microwaves, etc. What you're hearing is those background signals inducing an electric current in that piece of metal, and by extension, your headphone cable. Your headphones are generating that as noise because the whole point of a speaker is to convert electrical signals into compression waves (sound). | 3 |
AskReddit/cfofxll | 1ywq08 | How do you avoid germs? | Avoiding germs isn't always a good thing , you need to train your immune system and exposure is the best way . Now, I'm not saying go look for germs but don't make avoiding them a point , just let your body fight them for you and if it's more than that it can handle , antibiotics will do the rest . | 2 |
AskReddit/es8b8uw | c6errs | What's the weirdest thing you've ever seen in public? | I saw a woman arguing with herself outside of a Rite-Aid. I went to my friends house for a couple hours after that. My mom picks me up and takes me to Ginos (which is beside the Rite-Aid). The woman is STILL there arguing with herself. And not just arguing. SCREAMING at herself. No self-harm, but it looked like one of those cartoons. She would yell at nobody from a side, go to the other side and yell at nobody again (faxing the direction of where she was just standing). It was by far the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen, in public or in private. | 2 |
AskReddit/e1rq1ii | 8w09ef | What's something you wish more people realized? | I bike a lot and nearly get hit by cars a lot bc nobody in my area cares about bikers . . . i wished they realized they were in a fast moving cars and they're bikers around so stop texting and driving | 3 |
AskReddit/dymzgtq | 8hwb0w | What “old person” things do you do? | Tell long pointless stories (sometimes multiple times), make people speak up so I can hear them, remember things from 30 years ago, wear clothes that are more comfortable than fashionable, know old-school ways of doing things, try to fix everything that breaks before replacing it, enjoy museums. I might just be old. | 12 |
askscience/c4mketd | th1e7 | Are laws of physics, such as Coulomb's Law and Newton's Law of Gravitation, fundamental and underivable, or is it believed that there are deeper laws that give rise to these? | Neither of them are fundamental laws; both rather are only approximations to more fundamental theories, which hold at length and energy scales which we encounter in everyday life. Coulomb's law is an approximation to the deeper theory of quantum electrodynamics, which predicts the inverse square law but also has lots of extra subtleties and uncertainties associated with the weirdness inherent to quantum mechanics. Newton's law is also an approximation to a deeper theory of gravity, Einstein's theory of general relativity. General relativity describes gravity not as a mysterious force between massive objects, but as a manifestation of the curvature of spacetime itself, which affects all objects. If you apply Einstein's (rather complicated) field equations in the limit of slowly-moving bodies and weak gravitational fields, Newton's inverse square law miraculously pops out, but when strong gravitational fields (e.g., those around a black hole) are involved, or you have particles travelling near the speed of light, it no longer applies. | 11 |
explainlikeimfive/dytnsdz | 8ipxat | Why does rubbing your eyes cause flashes of random colors? | I'm sure someone will be able to explain it better than myself, but I believe it has something to do with your optic nerves misinterpreting the pressure as visual stimuli, so your brain tries to make up what you're seeing. Edit from Google: Phosphenes are most commonly introduced by simply closing your eyes and rubbing them or squeezing them shut, tightly; generally the harder you rub or squeeze, the more phosphenes you'll see. This pressure stimulates the cells of the retina and, thus, makes your brain think you are seeing light. | 5 |
explainlikeimfive/db6tjk0 | 5iawmd | How was the Colosseum built? | The Romans were good builders, but Damm near legendary engineers. Plus it wasn't their first arena they had built. Gladiator combat and shows were popular throughout Roman history, they just upped the scale. Combine quality concrete, large amounts of both slave and plebian labor, and a bunch of money they wanted to blow on ambitious projects and you get incredible works. | 4 |
AskHistorians/c963bsu | 1bdrn2 | Why did soccer become more popular in Europe than in America? | PartiallyRibena touched on it. European empires exported the sport to their colonies along with other aspects of their culture (language, music, food, etc). The fact that it requires nothing more than a ball and 4 sticks makes the sport wildly accessible to even the most poor and remote regions. Whereas American football and baseball require more equipment (and therefore $) to play "properly." Now as to why it's not popular here in the U.S.it's mostly speculation as hard data on something like this is hard to come by. The primary arguments are: 1.) We're not dominate in the sport, unlike American football and baseball. In fact we're pretty bad at this sport (though IMO getting better). Because we don't win anything, people don't want to see watch us play. Also, most U.S. soccer fans probably have another nations team they support who is 1. more successful and 2. plays a more "beautiful" brand of soccer. USMNT does not play an attractive or interesting game. Not yet. 1.b) The quality of players produced in the U.S. is quite low, with the exception of goalkeepers. There are maybe 4-6 USMNT players playing for "top-tier" European teams. Most of our gifted athletes go into other sports like basketball, baseball and Am. football because that's where the big bucks are. 2.) The American domestic league(s) MLS is very young compared to other European leagues. Several European clubs celebrated their centennials within the past decade. Where were the L.A Galaxy 100 years ago? While there were previous leagues before MLS they were poorly managed and went bust (see NASL in the 70's). 3.) This is a controversial point, but I believe it to be valid. Advertising. How many commercial breaks are there in a game of baseball? How many in American football? How many during a game of soccer? Some analysis came out that an average American football game has ~11 minutes of ACTUAL gameplay, the rest being huddles, shots of players, the crowd, and advertisements. Soccer is played in two 45 minute halves with one break in between. Not a lot of time to sell your product. Because there is less time to advertise during a match of soccer the sport hasn't had the financial backing in the states like baseball and football have. Baseball and football started gaining popularity around the same time that televisions became common throughout, which meant the many breaks and slower pace became a chance for advertisers to sell their products, thus the ad companies began buying up ad time during games. How much do you think Budweiser's contract with the MLB and NFL is worth? That's a lot of money for these organizations to re-invest. I hope this is helpful, and if you want more info I would recommend posting this again in r/soccer, you might get a better answer (and one with sources!) | 7 |
AskReddit/c37pyhb | nb7z2 | How would SOPA and/or PIPA affect non-americans? | I can see 3 ways this could affect us non-Americans: 1) If the servers are on US soil the site will be blocked either way no matter were you are from. However all major sites can move their servers offshore very easily. 2) If the site is blocked in the US the owners of said site could miss a lot of potential income from ads meaning a decrease in funds, quality and content on the site. 3) Other countries could become inspired and make their own version of this law. | 2 |
AskReddit/daua2d4 | 5gqf74 | What do you hate most about flying economy on planes? | I like flying in general but leg room, lack there of. I mean I'm five foot three and my legs are cramped. How can you be over six foot and ever be comfortable in an economy seat? It defies logic. | 2 |
AskReddit/eg2ajrf | aony6t | What by-choice experience did you undertake that changed your life or the lives of others? | Going into Johns Hopkins Inpatient Pain Treatment Program. I am no longer bed ridden, and for the 1st time in many years am on a positive path and living life. Every day is hard work, but it is paying off. | 2 |
askscience/chrhwhe | 26ii32 | How small can a gas planet be? | This is very temperature dependent, the reason planets lose atoms/molecules of gas is mainly due to thermal loss, atoms which have sufficient energy to get to escape velocity and leave the planet. For small planets the energy required is very low (compared with say, the same thing on the earth) and a high fraction of molecules in the gas have an energy above escape velocity, leading to rapid loss until the "planet" would boil off entirely. If however the planet was in orbit of a dead star (say a brown dwarf) then it could be at a very low temperature (~3 Kelvin) and very small bound states of gas might be possible, but there is no obvious way these could be observed and probably wouldn't be considered planets anyway but "gas dwarfs". | 51 |
AskReddit/e0rdb1a | 8rhgyk | What is your personal idea, which will help save Earth? | if parents donot have money/time /love for their kids, they should not have kids. there are loads of people have a troubled life becoz of their parents. they can hardly save themselves, let along the earth. if we all have a loving family, i think people would be more loving towards the earth. | 3 |
Ask_Politics/d9xo9tm | 5cmigt | What has Obama done to improve the lives of women and racial minorities in the United States? | He didn't pass policies delimiting their voting rights, or their rights to an abortion, which is the cornerstone of Trump's policies. His tax policies didn't benefit the extremely wealthy, as Trump's will, he didn't destroy the environment and worked for sound environmental policy, unlike Trump will. He did pass Obamacare, which provides access to health care to many women, who have healthcare needs often uncovered by their work insurance, or lose their jobs if they become pregnant, and minorities, who are overwhelmingly uninsured when compared to whites. He did work to fight voter suppression laws, and other Republican efforts to erode our democracy. He did fight to protect women's bodily sovereignty, and vowed to support Planned Parenthood, for many women the only way to avoid a pregnancy from rape or incest and abuse, and the bondage such a pregnancy bestows. Trump will undo this. I fear for the Republic. | 7 |
AskReddit/c5hx1lv | wzuc3 | What's the most terrifying day of your life? | I was out hunting once in an area with bad cell reception, when my phone rang. I answered it and it was my wife. She was crying and very very upset. I tried to calm her down but she was nearly inconsolable. I tried to get her to tell me what was wrong. A quick back story.she's at home by herself with our 4 children all under the age of 7 and including one nursing infant (yeah, I got a great wife who lets me hunt whenever I want). My oldest son was a being a real problem that day and my wife was at the end of her rope. What she said into the phone was (crying and sobbing), "Daniel is being bad".but because of the bad cell reception, what I heard was, "Daniel is dead". At that instant we completely lost reception and my cell dropped the call. I literally died inside knowing that my son was dead. I got in my truck and drove to town as fast as I could so I could get cell reception. The entire time, I'm bawling my eyes out thinking about my poor son and my wife at home alone with those three other kids. I finally got cell reception about 10 minutes later and called her back. By this time, she had calmed down, but I was out of my mind. I asked her what happened to Daniel and are the other kids are ok. She told me that he was acting up and she had put him in his bed for a time out. At this time, I was very confused. How could Daniel be in bed if he were dead. It took us a few moments of talking for the situation to be made clear to me. I can't describe to you how relieved I was to find out that Daniel was fine and just being bad. I literally broke down and cried with relief. It was the worst 10 - 15 minutes of my life. tl;dr wife called me when I had bad cell reception. Thru the broken cracking line, I thought she said our son was dead. Then the reception went away and the call dropped. I rushed to an area with good cell reception and found out that my wife said our son was being "bad" and not that he "was dead". | 2 |
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