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kpw7rf
|
How is it that when Little Hotties hand warmers get wet they stop working, then they work again once dry?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
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"They're reacting with the air, and the water prevents the air from the getting to the iron inside the packs, when they dry out they can resume reacting. More importantly when they're wet they clump up and very little surface area is available, thus no heat, when they're dry they can be more powdery which allowed plenty of surface area to react and generate heat."
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kpxsld
|
Where do smells go? How does something stop smelling? Or does it just get diluted with the rest of the air?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
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"You answered your own question. The molecules dissipate into the air surrounding it to the point that the smell is non existent and there isn't a higher enough concentration of molecules for your brain to register its smell",
"Smells, like everything else, are made up of atoms. You answered your own ask - the concentrated smell gets diluted with non-smelly atoms over time and goes away. Also, Cake Day twins! happy Cake Day!",
"if you are asking why we no longer notice a smell after a period of time? That IS interesting, it turns out that smell is a sense that essentially detects/reports changes in chemical concentrations, as opposed detect detect smell and report to conscious brain, it is actually more important for our safety to recognize CHANGES so that's why we don't notice our own bad [ URL_1 ]( URL_0 ) but we notice others things that are more transient. smells do dissipate in the air, and warm smelly objects smell less when cold, or an object may have \"given up\" most of its smell particles from its surface after a period of time (a smelly candle wax for example may not smell as much after years, but scratch its surface and you can smell it better"
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kpxv2g
|
How can two singers sing the same song in the same key still have distinguishable voices?
|
This is actually question my daughter posed and I’m pretty stumped. She asked how, if two people with (let’s say) perfect pitch sing a song, how is it possible that we can still tell who is singing when the notes would be identical? Note: I know absolutely nothing about music, but figured this was the best place to ask for her. Edit: Wow, many of these answers are incredible! I had no idea this would receive such in depth and thoughtful feedback. I have learned a huge amount. I was not exaggerating above when I said I know nothing about music (I don’t even know what pitch is - just quoted my daughter on that) and I’m grateful to those of you who took the time to help me learn.
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
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"One of the components of a musical note is its *timbre* (pronounced TAM-bur). Timbre is all the sounds associated with the source that *aren't* part of the pure tone. Instruments (and the human voice - hereafter I'll just say instrument, but it works the same either way) don't produce a pure tone. The instrument creates the root frequency, the pitch you're trying to make, and also overtones. Take a guitar string: it will vibrate at a particular frequency, and it will also vibrate at exactly twice that, and exactly thrice, and exactly four times, and etc. The shape of the instrument and what it's made of and the size and shape and material of the main source of vibrations (lips, reeds, vocal cords, etc.) all change which overtones get amplified and which get diminished. Your ears can hear the differences in these overtones, although your brain filters it from your conscious perception of the sound unless you focus on it. With a human voice, this includes the size and shape of your mouth and lungs and sinuses and skull and thickness of your skull and jaw and tongue and so on and so forth. All of these things change the overtones in subtle ways, so that even when the root pitch is the same the pitches around it won't be. Timbre also includes all the unique sounds that come from the instrument: things like key clicks or valve movements or breath noises or little scratchy bits in your voice, etc. Edit: \"That's not how you pronounce 'timbre!'\" [It is in American English.]( URL_0 ) It is at the very least *one* correct pronunciation in English. Yes, I know it's borrowed from French but this comment isn't in French, it's in English. I don't expect everyone on the internet to understand English, but if you're reading this in the original that means you understand English. Some 60% of the English lexicon comes directly from French so if you're gonna get upset every time someone pronounces a French word \"wrong\" in English you're not going to get very far.",
"All good answers. For a five year old I’d say that a saxophone and a flute can play the same note, but they have unique shapes to their bodies causing a difference in sound. Humans also have different shapes to their bodies causing them to sound different when singing the same note. Edit for a more complete answer to address harmonics and overtones: Imagine having a palette of only red paints. They are all the same color (or note) but are different shades (or spectrums) of the red paint note. You can mix the lighter red shade with the darker red shade and you’ll still get a red. The color of red that a person can sing is based on their unique blending of red shades. They sing these shades based on how their body is built.",
"The sound isn't just the exact pure tone of the pitch they're singing in. Every instrument and voice has a distribution of frequencies around the main pitch, known as its *timbre*. A piano, for example, is very concentrated around a specific pitch, while a drum is more spread out (which makes piano a better instrument for expressing detailed harmonies, but also makes it sound much more dissonant if you play a note that's a bit off).",
"I think there's a better and more interesting answer than the ones posted here, even though they're all good explanations. The \"note\" a singer, or any other instrument makes, is a frequency. Literally \"how **frequently** does the sound oscillate?\" With a guitar, it's \"how frequently does the guitar string oscillate?\" Meaning vibrate. If you watched a guitar string in slow-motion, you'd be able to see it vibrating after it was plucked. You can kinda see it even without slo-mo, it's just a blur. With your voice, it's flaps of skin in your throat that are vibratring. If someone sings an A#, that means their vocal chords are vibrating 466 times per second. Everyone singing an A# at the same time is vibrating their vocal chords 466 times per second. But sound is MORE than just a frequency, which you know if you think about it. It's also an \"amplitude.\" Which means \"loudness.\" We could both be singing A#, but I might sing louder than you. Same note, two different volumes. But sound also has a SHAPE! Which is SUPER COOL! Let's look at the \"purest\" tone, which is called a [Sine Wave.]( URL_1 ) That is a real simple wave and because it's so simple it would make a very pure tone if you listened to it. But **pitch** is **just** frequency. A wave with a different **shape** but the same **frequency** would be the same pitch, but could sound very different. Let's look at a different kind of wave. What's called a [Saw Wave.]( URL_4 ) You can see why it's called a saw wave, right? Looks like the teeth of a saw! Well, this makes a VERY different sound. It sounds...actually it sorta sound the way it looks! It has an *edge*. It's not as pure as the sine wave. When you listen to any bowed instrument, the sound you're hearing is a Saw Wave, because that's the actual physical motion of the string! [Watch this!]( URL_2 ) (the preview might not be working) URL_2 You can see it there. The bow is pulled across the string. At first, the friction of the bow catches the string and pulls it smoothly back. That's the \"ramp up\" of the saw wave. Eventually the tension in the string overcomes the bow's friction, and the string 'snaps' back. Which is the sharp, straight-down line of the saw wave. But the bow is still pulling, so the string gets caught again and the cycle repeats. Saw Waves and Sine Waves are still pretty simple though. The waves produced by the human voice look *weird* and *messy.* [Look!]( URL_3 ) If you look on the graph, everything from the 1 hash, to the 8 mark is ONE cycle. That is a complex wave and it's still way simpler than the human voice. The human voice looks more like [this.]( URL_0 ) THAT is why two people singing the same note are recognizably different. They're vocal chords are vibrating VERY complexly. So complex, it's almost unique! When you recognize someone's voice, you're recognizing the unique properties of the SHAPE of the wave their vocal chords make. That shape is based on the physical shape of their vocal chords and their throat and even their mouth which is helping shape the sound as it comes out. The **rate** at which their skin flaps vibrate might be the same, but because their skin is floppy and weird shaped, it doesn't just go smoothly up and down like a guitar string. It waggles all over WHILE going up and down and that is what singers and musicians call \"timbre.\" Timbre means \"The way your skin flaps waggle around while you vibrate them.\"",
"So basically everyone has vocal chords but they're all shaped a little different. Because of that little difference it makes the frequencies slightly different. And our bodies are also different so the way the sound resonates in my mouth before it comes out is different.",
"Timbre of the voice is what makes it sound different. I’d suggest starting more research there!",
"Oh cool something I know a little about from my past in audio recording. The top answer is totally right. But interesting thing that happens when you’re recording vocals or any other instrument for that matter. You can duplicate tracks so you have two sound files playing the exact same pitch and timbre. Everything is exactly the same. To the listener, all it will sound like is as if the original track got louder. But take the exact same singer or instrument and record a brand new take playing the same thing, the minute differences, even from the exact same instrument/player/singer is enough to give the listener the perception of layers rather than just being louder. Also fun fact, if you simply move the second duplicate track off by milliseconds, it doesn’t give it the same “layered” sound of a new take, but instead creates the “chime-y” like sound effect called “chorus” (or swirly sound called “phaser”/“flange” depending on the amount of milliseconds delay). TL; DR - In theory, if two voices could be so identical in timing, pitch, timbre, and everything, you definitely couldn’t tell them apart. But only computers or recordings can be so precise. So anything performed by humans, there are so many small imperfections in performance that your brain can tell the difference.",
"A voice is an instrument. While some sound similar (some even sound almost identical), subtle differences like size, materials, shape, make them sound different. Those are odd terms to use when describing people, but a 110 lb woman is going to sound different than a 300 lb woman singing the same note. The shape of their mouth, the way they push the air out, all make a difference. It’s like if I have a trumpet and a flute play the exact same melody. They’re both wind instruments, but they sound different enough that you can differentiate them.",
"Another thing I marvel at this subject is how it takes special instruments and shapes to make music and sounds yet even a tiny speaker can recreate that special timbre.",
"Something nobody else has really touched on in depth: Waveforms. So in really basic electronic music, you've got sine waves, sawtooth waves, and square waves. Every note is literally just a pulse of air at a given frequency. It's why car engines, which are literally just exploding aerosolized gasoline, make audible notes. There are videos you can search (I'd link one but I can't right now) that show the relationship between frequency and pitch. **So what does that have to do with a sine wave?** Well the waveform is what the sound wave actually looks like. A square wave is completely no noise, then immediately completely 100% energy, then back to complete silence. A sawtooth wave is like a square wave at first, but instead of staying at 100% energy it trails to zero over time. A sine wave is just a very rounded (sinusoidal) square wave so the energy changes are smoother. And all of those waves have different timbres, or tones. But if we layer a sawtooth wave with a sine wave, or we decide to cut a huge divot in the top of a sine wave, you'll get different tones still. Playing with these waveforms is precisely how electric keyboards attempt to synthesize other instruments. Okay so now we can step away from the electronic sounds, and go back to the natural world. Horns, car exhausts, and the human throat all have characteristics that make their own wave form. There are so many things that can affect which frequencies are highlighted and which frequencies are subdued. You can choose to manipulate those with tongue placement and mouth shape, or bell shape and pipe length or construction material.",
"When someone sings a note at a certain frequency (let's say 400 Hz) it's not just that frequency playing, it's actually a bunch of frequencies which are whole number multiples of 400 Hz (which is called the *fundamental frequency*). So in addition to 400 Hz, you also have 800, 1200, 1600, etc, which are called *overtones*. The reason that this happens has to do with the fact that the ends of a string (or vocal cord, etc) that vibrate have to be still, a condition which can be satisfied by whole number multiples of the fundamental frequency as visualized [here]( URL_0 ). Notice how for all of the depicted frequencies, the ends of the \"string\" do not vibrate, meaning that it is a valid frequency for that string. These overtone frequencies tend to get quieter and quieter the higher you go relative to the fundamental frequency, but how loud a particular overtone is relative to the other frequencies is determined by the shape and composition of the thing that is vibrating. Each person's vocal cords and voicebox and mouth are going to be shaped a bit differently, and so different overtones will be emphasized, leading to a different sound.",
"A piano, guitar, marimba, glockenspiel, flute, harpsichord, harp, and...you get my point, can all play for the most part a set of identical notes, and yet you could easily distinguish them from one another. Human voices are all different in the same way. We all have differences in our voices that contribute to how our singing voice sounds. Though I will say, the more well trained they are and how perfect their pitch is, you'd find it hard to distinguish 2 female soprano singers singing an E6 or similarly high note. But down in the mid range of your singing voice which comes from a combination of your chest and head voices, you'll start to hear the differences between 2 singers quite clearly."
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kpy3e0
|
How does sound travel during phone calls? How am I able to hear someone half way across the world but it sounds like I am sitting right next to them?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
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"Sound travels in waves (usually through the air). When your vocal chords vibrate, it makes a pattern of waves in the air. If a speaker vibrates in that exact same pattern, it makes the same sound as your voice. The speaker vibrates either in or out. A microphone is essentially a tiny speaker. When your “voice waves” vibrate it, that in and out pattern is recorded as electronic instructions. Those instructions are sent to the other device over internet, cellular, radio, wire, etc. Once decoded, the device reproduces the in and out pattern on the speaker and you hear the same sound.",
"The sound doesn't. It's converted into an electrical signal that is transmitted through the phone system or the internet (depending on the type of call), then converted back into sounds on the other end.",
"A “transducer” turns pressure (sound waves) into voltage. Once you have a voltage signal there is a bunch of fun stuff you can do with it: turn it into 1’s and 0’s, broadcast it out on an AM tower, shoot it into space... etc"
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kpygt5
|
Pasta sticking in boiled water
|
Why do the macaroni noodles stick together when I put them in the boiling water and let them sit for a few seconds instead of stirring them right away? (I assumed chemistry but not sure)
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
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"The pasta has a little bit of starch on the outside. If it hits the water in a clump the starch will soften and glue together with the starch from its neighbor. Edit Here's a source: [ URL_1 ]( URL_0 ). ### Stir your pasta. A lot. During the first two minutes that you drop your noodles into boiling water, they're covered in a sticky layer of starch. If you don't stir them continually during the first two minutes, the noodles will stick to each other and stay stuck because they'll cook adhered to one another. So just keep stirring.",
"They soften as they hit the water, and if they sit for a bit on a hot part of metal, the starches wil burn on the metal and stick as its sort of burned (scalded?) on."
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[
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kpzd2a
|
How do poisons like cyanide and arsenic kill you?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
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"text": [
"The presence of cyanide/arsenic prevents the ability of cells to manufacture or use a compound called ATP which is the primary source of energy for cells. Without it, they don't function. It'd be like putting a chemical in your gas tank that prevents the gas from combusting when it gets to the engine.",
"Every time I hear of cyanide I think I think if the Tylenol murders... Also how we got a lot of the safety precautions on food and meds URL_0"
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|
kpzk1k
|
Questions about Epigenetics/Molecular Genetics
|
Could someone please help me out? I have some questions: a. For epigenetic markers, do they only attach to CpG sites in cells where that gene is expressed? For example, let’s say external factors want me to stop producing insulin for whatever reason (without me dying.) Would that marker only attach to the genome in my pancreas cells? b. Would those methyl markers spread in ways that don’t have to do with DNA replication, let’s say by cell signaling between cells of the same specialization? c. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about gene expression in eukaryotes, but can someone explain transcription factors (notably activators/enhancer regions/depressors/silencers)? I don’t have anyone I can ask about this. Thanks in advance if you can answer these, and let me know if anything needs clarification.
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
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"These questions might be a better fit for ask science or biology stack exchange, but here's an Eli5 attempt. *Do epigenetic markers only attach to cpg islands where that gene is expressed?* No. Your DNA, which contains instructions on how to make and operate a human, has to be used carefully so that liver knows how to be liver, heart knows how to be heart, pancreas knows how to be pancreas, and so on. To do this, the DNA is covered in all kinds of stuff, all the time, that helps it stay organized and turn on or off the right instructions. The instructions being used at a certain time are not the only ones organized like this. They all are. *Do methyl markers spread by cell signaling?* Yes. One of the instructions that helps a piece of DNA know how to turn on or off is called a methyl group. Methyl groups can be \"read\" and \"written\" and \"erased\" on the DNA according to signals from the outside, and this varies according to what the DNA has to do. *Can someone explain transcription factors*? When DNA instructions get read and used, that process is called transcription. It gets done by a little machine called a polymerase. But the polymerase doesn't know where to go all the time! It needs help finding the right instructions. It's sort of like a blind person in a library full of braille books with ink titles and jackets. It can read, but first someone needs to hand it the right book. Transcription factors help the polymerase find the right book. They physically grab the DNA, and they hold on while shouting, hey, over here! Aside from taking out a single DNA book, they can also help reorganize the shelving so that sections on \"nonfiction\" or \"sci fi\" or \"how to be a pancreas\" become available or locked up."
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kpzvwy
|
Why can trans men grow beards, but some men are never able to grow a beard?
|
I was on zoom with family and I have a relative who is transitioning, and he is already at a stage where he is growing out a beard. Yet his cousin who was born a man still cannot grow a beard well into his 30's. Is it possible for a male to take the same medication to help them force a beard? Is it still based on genetics?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
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"Genetics play a huge role on transition and this kind of changes, but some products may help with the beard as Minoxidil, for example. Plus your trans guy family member probably takes some kind of testosterone. Testosterone is a very strong hormone, you would be surprised of what it can do with the body.",
"To grow a beard you need a certain level of testosterone to activate the follicles, and the follicles have to be there in the first place. (Scalp and pubic hair don't care that much about testosterone, but face and body hair do.) Your follicle density is genetic. Guys from some places (Inuit and Japanese come to mind) often have sparse facial follicles so they'd have trouble growing a full beard no matter how good their testosterone was. You might notice more beards on trans guys because they're making an effort to get a masculine facial appearance - so maybe it's not that they're more able, but they just choose to grow them more often??",
"Not all trans men can, just like not all cis men can. Their ability to do so is comparable to that of cis men, provided they're taking normal male levels of testosterone (which they usually are).",
"Because the ability to grow a beard has nothing to do with the presence or absence of a Y chromosome. It's all about testosterone, or more specifically the androgen dihydrotestosterone, which is catalyzed from testosterone by the enzyme 5α-reductase. The genes associated with secondary sexual characteristics, including facial and body hair, breast growth, baldness, etc., are carried by everybody. But these genes are only activated in the presence of specific hormones. In the case of both facial/body hair growth and male pattern baldness, the genes are only activated in the presence of dihydrotestosterone. Everyone has some testosterone in their bodies, but most AFAB people have very little, and so very little is catalyzed into dihydrotestosterone. This is also why young boys don't grow facial hair or go bald - they don't have high testosterone levels yet, so they don't have high dihydrotestosterone levels either. When trans men start hormone treatment it raises their testosterone levels to average adult male levels, which effectively puts them through male puberty. If they have the genes associated with the ability to grow dense facial or body hair, those genes will be activated. But if your relative's cousin is a cis man who can't grow a beard well into his 30's, chances are he just doesn't have the genes for it. It's possible he has very low testosterone levels, but that's pretty rare and he'd probably have noticed other more serious issues if he did. And if he just doesn't have the genes for dense facial hair, adding more testosterone won't change that. It can't activate genes that just aren't there.",
"Genetics. The amount of testosterone that trans men take is to put them around the middle of typical male testosterone levels so they have no advantage in this regard. If you were to take the same testosterone as trans men take, this would elevate your testosterone to above normal levels which would come with a whole host of health risks. It also comes with the risk of your body just aromatising extra testosterone into oestrogen which is why we see steroid-abusing bodybuilders with gynecomastia (ie breast growth) and testicle shrinkage. There are a couple of reasons that trans men may appear to fare better in the beard lottery. Firstly, trans men are more likely to seek out options like Minoxidil and stick to the strict routine that they require to be effective. Secondly, trans men with awesome beards are both more likely to post about it and more likely to receive upvotes and thus be seen by more people. I personally can't grow a particularly impressive beard after over ten years on testosterone. I can manage a chin strap which is patchy in some areas and with barely any growth on the cheeks."
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kq00mc
|
When streams lag, why does the resulting images then look the way the way they do?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"To save data, streams usually work by sending *keyframes* (full images) periodically and communicating the *changes* to those keyframes rather than sending a full image for every frame. What you're seeing is the changes without a full keyframe. The outline of the player changes rapidly because one side of it is the player, and the other side is the background, so that section's going to appear in most of the updates, but without a proper keyframe it's going to just show up as a distortion on whatever was originally behind it."
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[
"url"
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[
"url"
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|
kq0hjy
|
Why does skin get itchy after vibrating?
|
I had a sore back after skiing today so my mom used a [theragun]( URL_0 ) — a vibrating massage therapy thing — on my back to help loosen up my muscles (after I had done some back stretches). I noticed my back got really itchy and I’m not sure why, I’ve experienced the same itchy feeling on my feet when rolling them on a vibrating massage ball (side note: really good for avoiding sore feet). **What exactly is the vibrating sensation doing to result in itchiness?** ___ ^(Bio was never my strong suit but I know enough to have passed my high school classes 6 years ago. In other words, a basic explanation would be great!)
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"text": [
"Vibration is actually hazardous long term. Aside from muscle and bone stuff, it causes blood vessels in your skin to constrict and it desensitizes nerve endings. If you have ever used a powered hand tool, such as a leaf blower, you notice this from numbness and tingling in your hand. I guess the itching could be one of the manifestations of either the blood vessel thing or the nerve thing."
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[
"url"
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[
"url"
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kq1kt0
|
How do CPUs deal with dead transistors?
|
A CPU has billions of transistors, of which any number of them could be broken or not working - how do they continue functioning without these transistors?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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],
"text": [
"Welcome to the wonderful world of CPU binning. Have you ever wondered why Intel doesn't just make i7s? This is why. They try to make all i7s, say a 4 core CPU (not anymore but things have changed a little bit from this a 2 years ago because chiplets). Say a transistor in 1 core runs a little slow, its not broken but it can't run at full speed. Depending on this speed, they may take this down to a lower tier i7 or an i5. Say the transistor is completely broke. They will disable that core, disable the second worst core, and call it an i3 with 2 cores. I do want to note that the vast majority of the transistors aren't transistors in the cores, most of the CPU is cache. In which case they just disable the cache block with the faulty cache, and depending on how much cache they have to disable, they might also disable cores and call it an i3. In theory these cores disabled beside the faulty cores are perfectly good (though if disabling a working core, they will disable the worst working core), in fact back in the day you could re-enable them and use them, but just to keep a consistent and small set of cpu models they will keep a few of them. Do note that CPUs don't really have transistors dying with use usually. The only errors are usually in the manufacturing process. But overall they will only throw away CPUs that don't work completely. Everything else can still be sold.",
"One failed transistor, in certain parts of a CPU, could kill it dead. *However...* ...in a lot of places, processors have redundancy. If part of the memory cache fails, for instance, the processor can mark that section of the cache as unreliable and just work around it. If a 6-core system has a core go down, I'll bet it would reconfigure itself to 5- or 4-core operation and carry on. Not sure it could do that on the fly, that would be super impressive, but it seems possible. Processors have a lot of ways to check themselves, like attaching parity bits to data and sending 'acknowledge' messages when they receive signals. If a part fails, often the error will be noticed and the system will have a way to work around it. Like any error, if you catch it immediately and don't panic and have other resources, there's probably a way to carry on. As a chip manufacturer, you don't want your chips to have a reputation for dying all the time, so you'd want to design resilient CPUs that can fight through it when they have a problem.",
"The other comments in this thread right now provide macro answers, but in terms of physically masking out an actual integrated circuit; typically to provide redundancy and performance in certain areas of a chip, multiple transistors will be used instead of one. It may also be the case (depending on the process used and the physical implementation of transistors on the device) that hybrid transistors are created with, for example, a single gate but two channels. This provides redundancy by allowing one or more of the components not to work but still provide the correct logical function, perhaps with slightly lower performance (for example, if one redundant transistor in a logic gate doesn't work, the output drive strength may not be as high, meaning it can't be driven at its highest clock frequency). Your central assumption is certainly correct, though, and designers think carefully and strategically about transistors not working and how functioning chips can still be yielded from imperfect wafers."
],
"score": [
44,
21,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kq1o3a
|
How did people in the middle ages not die due to dehydration from drinking alcohol, given that drinking water generally wasn't safe?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi1ehqg",
"gi1k5i7",
"gi1flva",
"gi1ea9o",
"gi1o51i",
"gi2bfef"
],
"text": [
"People were not subsisting on hard alcohol back then. They were drinking rather dilute beverages. Ciders and beers have very low alcohol content and they do not dehydrate you when you drink them. In wine growing regions like the Mediterranean, the wine was diluted with water. Plus, when you consume alcohol all day, every day, your body grows accustomed to breaking it down; the liver produce more of the enzymes needed to metabolize it snd the kidneys adjust to keep the body in tonic equilibrium.",
"To also add, we know that boiling drinking water was commonplace in the middle ages from manuscripts. Local lords would put out boil water notices from time to time if something iffy sprang up.",
"I heard whole thing about them drinking alcohol all the time because the water wasn't safe is a myth and they weren't stupid to just throw their waste in the water supply.",
"Most of the alcoholic drinks that commoners had in the middle ages were pretty weak - 1%-ish. That was from rudimentary fermentation, from not giving the drinks a ton of time to ferment, and from watering the drinks down. So they weren't walking around with a constant buzz. :) The big advantage of drinking weak wine/beer is that the alcohol is an unfriendly environment for germs, so you were less likely to die from diarrhea that way than if you trusted the straight river water.",
"Small beer was not as widely drank as you'd think URL_0 There are some points to take from this video People knew about clean water and did drink tainted water though it is a little more recent than medieval times URL_1",
"The idea medieval people didnt have access to clean water is a myth. They weren't stupid and knew what sources were safe and which weren't. They also knew boiling water made it safe, even though they didn't understand why. Yes, alcohol was widely consumed and ale was safe because the distillation process involved boiling but people drank it because they liked to get drunk. People generally drank water from springs, wells, clean rivers etc if they were thirsty."
],
"score": [
222,
58,
17,
8,
6,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://history.howstuffworks.com/medieval-people-drink-beer-water.htm",
"https://youtu.be/Na9iO_HEe14"
],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kq1zdw
|
How cell phone connects to the tower.
|
Yes, I can't figure it how. I know that the tower has a big powerful antenna that can send signals to long distances and cell phones can pick them. But how does a cell phone connects back to the tower to transmit data over long-range without that powerful transmitter?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi1hjos",
"gi1i1d0",
"gi1i59z"
],
"text": [
"The tower also has a very sensitive receiver. That's the main gist of it. You don't need much RF power if you can \"see\" what you are taking to, which is why the cell towers are very tall, so low power is totally fine since the signal doesn't need to go far.",
"There are a few steps. It connects in the same way all wireless things communicate: Radio Frequency waves. A cell phone has enough power to reach a cell tower about 45 miles away. However, because the towers use triangulation to determine what the best path available is, you need to be much closer for the timing to work correctly. The phone sends it's MAC, an address native to it's hardware. It also sends it's destination and the message. This allows the tower's computer to route the traffic effectively. Once it's at the tower, the tower can determine the best path to send the message throughout it's network, not unlike your home router does. If you have any other follow up questions, feel free to ask. I left the answer vague because the question was a little vague.",
"Cell towers not only have very powerful *transmitters* but also very sensitive *receivers*. Since cell phones send out such a weak signal, the towers compensate by using a high powered receiver. Like a big antenna receiving weak signals from a Mars rover. Radio waves travel at light speed for a long way and these antennas are crazy good at picking them up. Keep in mind this is bleeding edge radio frequency technology and the big companies don’t like sharing their methods."
],
"score": [
9,
7,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kq2jbf
|
going without oxygen for a few minutes will kill you. Why? What does oxygen do for the human body that is so critical that it’s constantly needed?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi1k1zb",
"gi1mran"
],
"text": [
"Your body needs energy to run. The chemical reaction that fuels your cells needs oxygen. You only hold about 60 seconds oxygen reserve in your blood at normal exertion levels. If your oxygen supply runs out the chemical reactions that keep your cells going, including your brain, your heart, etc. all stop quickly without oxygen.",
"The other questions here answer why you need oxygen, but not why you need it *all the time* and can't recover if it falls too low. The main use of oxygen in the body is *aerobic respiration* within cells. Cells use sugars, particularly glucose, and combine them with oxygen to produce energy stored in a molecule called ATP. The problem is that *starting* this reaction requires you to *already have* ATP available. If your cells run out, they can't start the reaction at all, and so even once oxygen is reintroduced they may not be able to recover. This causes cells to die in uncontrolled ways, which releases all kinds of nasty cellular by-products that poison nearby cells; this process happening in the brain is the immediate cause of death (your brain dies, and with it the signals that tell the rest of your body what to do). Your body has some mechanisms for countering this, where it can temporarily break down sugars in other ways without oxygen (*anaerobic respiration*). This is why your muscles get sore after heavy exercise - your muscles exhaust the available oxygen supply around them, so they resort to those backup methods. But anaerobic respiration produces far less energy and creates toxic by-products that your body cannot clear fast enough for it to be a sustainable way to run your whole body. So once the oxygen in your blood runs out (or falls too low), you die very quickly as the reserves of sugar in your cells run out and cells begin to die."
],
"score": [
6,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kq3dxs
|
How do some humans get adult-onset allergies?
|
I had no allergies as a child. Now I am severely allergic to a number of common things. How did this happen, that in my 30s, I'll develop allergies I never had even when I was in my 20s?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi1pvdo",
"gi1qnuh",
"gi2cu3f"
],
"text": [
"The immune system is complex and constantly changing. Just like it can learn to defend against a new virus it can learn a new false alarm (allergy)",
"It happened through repeated exposure. Many common things are actually allergens, but your immune system doesn't recognise them as such. After years of sensitisation, your body can start to develop an allergic reaction to things you used to be exposed every day.",
"I had no allergies at all until after I got badly sunburned in my thirties, and had a reaction to the after-sun cream I smeared on. Since then, I've become allergic bit by bit to more and more products like creams, shampoos, cosmetics, and insect repellents. It may have been because I was pregnant at the time of the first reaction, so my immune system chemistry was different than it normally was, but after the reaction my system never calmed down to normal again. It seems that exposure to new pollens and products you weren't exposed to when you were young can provoke reactions. I moved to France from New Zealand in my thirties. For the first few years living in France I had no allergic reaction to any plants, but after 3 or 4 years, I started having reactions to pollen from Cyprus trees (there are lots here!), and then it seems that as the years go on, I've become allergic also to olive pollen, and Mimosa pollen. I'm guessing it is because I didn't grow up with those plants around me. I also worry that I seem to be becoming allergic to more and more things as I get older, and wonder if it will stop at some point!"
],
"score": [
11,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kq4ctk
|
What is Hedonic treadmill
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi1svss"
],
"text": [
"It means that any strong emotional state of happy or sad will quickly go back to normal. No matter how good your condition is, you won't be euphoric all the time, \"perfect\" will very soon be your new normal and at most you can be content about it. So if you win the lottery, or have a major accidant, a few months later you'll be back to normal on your happy scale no matter what. It's called treadmill, because to get constant pleasure you need to get more and more new positive events."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kq4ijx
|
Why is there shadow left behind after nuclear blasts?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi1ub1q",
"gi1tstm",
"gi2vfot"
],
"text": [
"Light and heat can slowly degrade the color of many things. Have you ever left a toy outside all summer and it goes from bright red to a dull pink? That's the sunlight degrading the color. This happens to stuff like buildings and pavement too, but because it happens uniformly, we don't really notice it. When the bombs went off, the intense light and heat instantly bleached everything that it touched. A person walking by a wall, and the wall itself, would both have taken a direct hit (almost certainly immediately killing the person in the process), but the person would have blocked a portion of the wall, i.e. their shadow, from being hit directly. This part of the wall wouldn't have been affected as much, so it's a noticeably different color than the rest. This is how the person's \"shadow\" got imprinted. That part of the wall was shielded from a direct hit by the person themselves. A less intense version of this effect happened to people further from the blast, where the pattern on their clothes was flash-burned onto their skin. Does that all make sense?",
"Milliseconds after detonation, a heat wave is sent out from the explosion that scorches everything in its path. This means, when the wave encounters a wall, it scorches or “bleaches” the color of the wall, but if a person was standing in front, the person’s body would block some of that heat from hitting the wall directly, leaving a silhouette of the human body that was vaporized just a moment before.",
"One of the things made from intense heat is light. That's how old filament light bulbs work. The electricity heats the metal which glows red (or other colors) hot. The intense heat of the sun is what makes it generate light (and other radiation.) A nuclear blast generates intense heat which generates intense light. The light is so bright as to fade colors (have you ever seen a curtain or something left out in sunlight too long? It loses color. If the light is brighter it fades faster.) But the flash from a nuclear blast is so fast that if a person is standing in front of a wall, they block the light from hitting the wall (unfortunately, the person gets burned instead.) The blocked parts are the \"shadows\" where the wall is the normal color and the other parts of the wall that were not blocked by the person are faded by the intense light. So the shadow is just where the paint is not faded from really bright light of the nuclear blast. Aside: dark colored clothing absorbs more light than light color clothing, and thus dark clothes get hotter in bright light than light coloree clothes. Some victims in Hiroshima were wearing patterned clothes (a mix of dark and light designs.) Where dark color cloth covers their skin, they got burned from the light turning back to heat. So... Some people had burn patterns that matched the color patterns of their clothes. It's absolutely terrifying."
],
"score": [
24,
16,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kq50zq
|
How are lunar eclipses and nights different?
|
Earth Science
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi1w4nw"
],
"text": [
"The two aren't comparable. Night time (defined as \"it's dark out\") is a term we apply to the side of the earth currently facing away from the sun and thus is getting minimal, if any, direct sunlight. This has nothing to do with the moon. Lunar Eclipse is when the moon while orbiting the earth passes in to the shadow of the earth, i.e the sun can't illuminate the moon because the earth is in the way. This is different to a new moon in that the moon isn't in the shadow of the earth when there is a new moon, but that the side of the moon we're facing is facing away from the sun. The moon *is* illuminated by the sun, but the illuminated side is on the others side and we can't see it: we're essentially looking at the part of the moon where it's currently \"night\"."
],
"score": [
10
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kq5f2m
|
Light without heat.
|
Is it possible to generate light without generating heat?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi1yewm",
"gi21qk1"
],
"text": [
"We are very close with LED lights. A problem is that light will turn into heat when it gets absorbed by a material. And we are yet to find a material that is fully transparent, especially one which are capable of emiting light. So even if all energy gets turned into light with no losses in the transfer and convertion of energy some of the light will get absorbed by the material of the light anyway. As I said we are pretty close with LED but we are not quite there.",
"Short answer: No. Long answer: No. When you say \"generate light\" I assume you mean \"generate light *from electricity*\". Electricity is one form of energy, light is another, so what we're doing is converting one form of energy into another. Whenever we convert energy like that, some part gets lost as heat, according to the second law of thermodynamics. The only way to convert energy without losing some of it as heat would be at absolute zero, but the third law of thermodynamics means we can never reach absolute zero."
],
"score": [
10,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kq5uiy
|
Why are UV considered carcinogenic while they are non-ionizing and wireless, radio and other types of non-ionizing radiation isn't considered carcinogenic?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi20bv9",
"gi20h4l"
],
"text": [
"Biological molecules absorb energy to different lengths depending on the wavelength. As it happens, the peak absorbance of DNA sits within the wavelength band we call ultraviolet light, which means it absorbs UV light very efficiently, and that can cause certain parts of the DNA to bond incorrectly. This must be corrected by DNA repair mechanisms, but those mechanisms aren't perfect and can sometimes translate that incorrect bonding into a full-blown mutation. That's about it, really. It's only interfering with hydrogen bonds so it doesn't need to be ionising radiation (It's not removing or adding electrons, just confusing them), and if DNA happened to have its peak absorbance in the infrared range instead, then we'd all be afraid of IR light instead.",
"Ultraviolet light (specifically the near- and mid-frequencies) may not carry enough energy per photon to directly be ionizing, but what they *can* do is exert photochemical effects (the photons can mediate/induce chemical reactions) that closely mimic ionizing radiation. Radio frequencies (and visible light) don't even carry enough energy to do that."
],
"score": [
13,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kq6fx8
|
how does one suddenly turn lactose intolerant? Can it happen anytime in life?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi29vqn"
],
"text": [
"Bruh, it happened to me at 20. And I come from a dairy farming family, so it doubly sucks. Lactose intolerance is actually the genetic \"default\". In nature, we, and most animals, don't have access to milk after early childhood, so making lactase (the thing that helps us digest lactose) is a waste of energy. To avoid this, our bodies were programmed to stop producing lactase as a child. By mutation, some people accidentally lost this instruction to stop making lactase, or have a damaged one (such as not stopping until later in life). After we domesticated animals, this became useful in obtaining extra calories and thus spread through the population. In some areas, like most western countries, these mutations have become the norm and lactose intolerance (the original default) is now the exception. However in some areas, especially in Africa, lactose intolerance is still the rule, not the exception. Did that clear things up?"
],
"score": [
10
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kq6pz2
|
Why do some clouds rain and others don't?
|
Earth Science
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi240z6",
"gi2dhq5"
],
"text": [
"Clouds collect moisture in the air and beco.e more and more dense. After reaching a certain density it begins condensation and drops form. If the cloud isn't raining it just hasn't become dense enough to fall.",
"All Clouds are dust and water. At any time the temperature of the air allows it to hold a certain amount of water. When the temperature changes due to heating cooling or elevation the amount of water the air can hold changes. If this becomes more then the amount of water the air can hold the water drops out. We call that dropping out water rain and it only happens when the clouds have more water than the air can hold."
],
"score": [
7,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kq6vva
|
Why does the liquid inside rotate with the tumbler? If there's a bubble at 12 o' clock, it will remain at 12 o' clock even when we rotate.
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi24w61"
],
"text": [
"Fluids are pulled by the rotating walls of the tumbler by friction. Friction causes the speed of the fluid at the wall to be 0 relative to the wall. This is called the \"no slip\" condition."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kq6vvi
|
How come bars of soap feel slippery on the skin initially, but soon afterward leave your skin feeling coarse/rough?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi25yh0"
],
"text": [
"Soap itself is slippery. But it also dissolves fat. Your skin secretes fat for protection which does also make it soft and smooth. The soap can dissolve this fat and get it to rinse away which leaves your skin bare. This makes it feel rough and dry until the fat layer reforms. A major difference between body soap and cleaning agents is how well they dissolve fat. You want body soap to just clean off dirt and bacteria but leave most of the fat alone."
],
"score": [
16
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kq7r40
|
Why does glass bottle drinks tastes better than canned / plastic bottle drinks?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi2b7oo",
"gi2bu9r"
],
"text": [
"Glass is non reactive therefore it will not contribute to changing the flavor of what it holds whereas aluminum and plastics are reactive and will interact with what they hold, changing the flavor over time.",
"let see Plastic is porous and loses carbonation with time. also there's no UV or normal light protection Aluminium cans... its a common misconception that the aluminium is touching the soda, its not. there is a plastic lining between the soda and the metal can but aluminium is a very good conductor, meaning that variation in environmental temperature is quickly transferred to your soda, its great for cooling them, but bad when they are on the shelf or a warehouse. Glass, glass is not only the least porous of the 3, but its also the best isolator, the soda inside (or beer) varies in temperature less and is more protected from the environment, so the soda tastes better. Some manufacturers add a brown or green tint to their bottles to offer some light protection."
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kq921s
|
How do we improve the tech of batteries? What is the difference between battery produced decades ago vs present vs future?
|
SmartPhone batteries from the last 10 years have progressed quite significantly, 4000mAh or more is now thr standard for many high end phones Ultimately we want batteries to store as much energy as possible, near perfect efficiency, as small as possible, as cheap and commercially available as possible. . How do we improve this? What changed in the past, what development is needed to gear up the batteries to the next level in the future? . Additional question : what about electric cars? Seems like tesla has been progressing quite a bit recently
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi2frxn",
"gi2hu2q"
],
"text": [
"The main improvement of modern batteries is power density. The more power we can get from less mass the better. One of the new major limitations on batteries we have is cooling large batteries. We can make huge or super dense battery packs but we won’t be able to cool them efficiently. Electric car batteries are as complicated as combustion motors, they have huge cooling requirements, they’re heavy and they have a couple computers working together to tell them what to do. A lot of the improvements in the past were based on cooling and weight reduction of supportive electronics such as thermocouples(to measure temperature of battery cells) and electronic control modules. Reducing the mass of the battery pack without a loss of power is of course an improvement in power density.",
"The capacity improvement of cellphone battery is in large part simply because they are larger. Larger screens and higher performance and difference in usage have resulted that the average user requires more power have resulted in larger batteries used. 2000mAh common in the past and 4000mAh today so twice the capacity. The capacity for a Li-ion battery if the same size and weight have not increased by 100% in a decade so batteries are heavier today. If you make the cellphone larger and heavier you can increase the battery capacity. You can make a phone with 50 000mAh battery today and 10 years ago but it the size would result in the most useful not purchasing it. So batteries have gotten better because of better chemistry but the main change that you put larger and heavier batteries in the phones. You save weight and space by not having them removable. The electronic is also smaller."
],
"score": [
5,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kq9hyn
|
Why do apps like Venmo charge a fee for instant transfers versus an slower transfer that could happen in any range of time?
|
So Venmo charges a fee when transferring to your bank if you want it instantly as opposed to the free 1-5 business day transfer. Does it actually cost Venmo money to transfer your money instantly and they push that cost to you with fees, or is it the same cost to them but they simply choose to make it an outlet
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi3bfrd"
],
"text": [
"TL;DR: there are several funds transfer mechanisms (\"payment rails\") in the US. Instant transfers use the credit card networks to send money -- which does cost more to use. In the US, the most common payment rail is called \"ACH\" (Automated Clearing House). ACH uses a \"batch process\" -- meaning many payment transactions (both debits and credits) can be processed together in batches. While efficient, ACH payments are not instant. The average ACH transfer takes 1-2 days to complete (and can take up to 5 days). More recently, ACH supported \"same day\" transfers at an increased cost, but it's still not \"instant\". Another common way to send payments is via the credit card networks, e.g., the Visa and Mastercard networks. Since they are designed to handle credit card transactions, these networks are designed to operate \"instantly\" (in real time). When companies like Venmo sends payments to your bank, they will typically use ACH because of the lower cost. But if you want \"instant\" transfers, then Venmo sends the money using one of the credit card payment rails (Visa or Mastercard). However, Visa & Mastercard charge a per transaction fee (%) to Venmo for using their networks, so Venmo must in turn \"pass on\" the cost to you the consumer. Note: there's a relatively new payment rail in the US called \"Real-Time Payments\" (RTP) that promises to deliver \"instant payments\" at a lower cost. However, RTP isn't yet available to every bank. As of today about 60% of US checking/savings accounts can receive RTP."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kq9taj
|
Why do reporters on TV crowd people and yell out questions over each other?
|
Is this just a TV thing or does it happen in real life? Has anyone ever actually gotten the answer to a question randomly yelled out by a mob of reporters? (I found a previous question similar to this but specifically about press conferences - this is about reporters yelling in unstructured environments.) Edit: To clarify, I’m talking about cases where people clearly don’t want to talk to reporters in the first place - they are walking to their car or minding their own business.
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi2jofv",
"gi2jqg6"
],
"text": [
"The squeaky wheel gets the grease. You like to see more structure at press conferences, but usually the person driving the event is choosing who to call on. And if a reporter's not raising hands and shouting and trying to make it known she has a question, then she's probably not going to get called on.",
"The question-ee almost never stands there and takes questions until everybody's done; the situation for reporters is more like \"there are 8 reporters here, she's going to answer maybe 2-3 questions, and I really want her to answer mine\". That leads to some disorganized, competitive behavior. When the person does answer a question - any question - all the reporters are going to take down the answer and they can use it in their own piece. But if your story is from a different angle than everybody else's, you might need an answer to *your* question and the others won't help. If you can't get yours answered, you have to re-think how to write your article, and you don't want that."
],
"score": [
7,
3
],
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|
[
"url"
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[
"url"
] |
kqaanc
|
Why do some songs you first disliked grow on you, but some don't?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi2mova"
],
"text": [
"Mere Exposure Effect. You just tend to like things more the more you are around them. For example, an annoying individual might become tolerable after being with them for a few years. You don't always come to enjoy that disliked stimulus, but it is not as abrasive when comparing to how it was when you first encountered it."
],
"score": [
6
],
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[]
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqauo0
|
why is it easy for kids to learn language while it is very hard for adults?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"gi2xaov",
"gi3dotr",
"gi2ph2d",
"gi2pb9t",
"gi3jie0",
"gi2ycse",
"gi3ln2w",
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],
"text": [
"While brain mushiness is definitely part of it, another thing to consider is that when kids learn a language it is generally because they are immersed in that language. As an adult, it is fairly rare to be in a situation where you are immersed in a foreign language for any real amount of time. Adults absolutely can learn new languages, but it is very hard to replicate the conditions that kids go through in order to pick up new languages.",
"It's not actually easy for kids to learn languages. Compare an adult with two years of immersion in a language to a five year old. Learning languages is inescapable for a child. If you were completely dependant on giants who couldn't understand you unless you learned Welsh, you'd learn Welsh pretty quickly.",
"Disclaimer: Not my area of expertise! Short answer: neuroplasticity Explanation: your brain is made of tiny connections. As a baby grows, they learn new information and create lots of these connections. If the baby keeps using those skills like speaking, riding a bike etc, they will \"solidify\" and become permanent. If they aren't used, the connections are trimmed to make space for new skills. Adults don't have as much neuroplasticity.",
"The term is 'plastic' as in easily moldable. Basically, little kids are designed to learn and the adult brain is designed to be repeat functions we've learned. That's why you see elderly dementia patients who can't remember their own names who can play piano or dance like they did when they were young.",
"This answer is a bit different from others, but check this out. It's basically the same for adults as it is children. Likely easier in fact. For a child to reach acceptable levels of communication takes years. An adult, immersed in a target language, without the ability to communicate in their native language will learn to speak it to a high degree of competency within about a year. Problem is, most adults don't have the time for that, so the best we can muster is an hour or two a day if you're dedicated.",
"There is also a physical aspect to speaking. It seems that past a certain age, it becomes very difficult to learn how to make new sounds with the vocal tract and the brain just defaults to what sounds it knows how to make in order to make \"similar\" sounds. Because of this, many adults who learn a new language and are 100% fluent in it will often still have an accent where their brains and tongues are incapable of making a sound the same way native speakers would. But thing kids who learn a new language have a much greater chance of sounding like a native speaker.",
"It isn't really. A child spends 12 hours a day interacting with parents and ends up with a very basic vocabulary. If an adult spent 12 hours daily learning a language they'd have much better results.",
"Just my personal experience: I was 17 and an exchange student from the US to Latin America. I had studied about two years' worth of French, but it was pathetic. I had terrible headaches for the first few months, but by the end of the year, spoke Spanish fairly well. I had a doctor say that the headaches were likely because I was literally forcing blood into parts of the brain that by the late teens start to atrophy. That was 40 years ago, and I now speak ten languages to varying levels of fluency. I've used Spanish for my work on an almost daily level for the last 20 years, and speak it fluently. I agree with others here- I think it's a combination of immersion for more than just an hour or two a day, combined with the need to use the language with people who only speak that language that really fuels learning."
],
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|
[
"url"
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[
"url"
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|
kqazcf
|
Can someone explain what a six figure income is please? I read it everywhere on the internet that people have a six figure job and that it's not enough to get around and stuff, but like holy sh... $100.000+ a year? Is that a normal income in the US?
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
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],
"text": [
"A six-figure income could be anything from $100,000 a year to $999,999 a year, but of course most of them will be at the low end of that range. Here's some data I found on average income by state. $100,000 isn't normal - it's about 30% above average in DC, and it's more than twice the national average. It's almost triple the lowest state average, in Mississippi ($35,444). URL_2 Scroll down here, to the table on *Personal income by educational attainment* - according to that, average income doesn't crack six digits unless you have an advanced degree. URL_0 . I wanted to find distributions or standard deviations and didn't have much luck - there's gotta be a Department of Labor Statistics, or something, where those numbers have been well crunched. It's also important to look at these numbers side by side with cost of living. There are places (Virginia) where $40,000 a year can be enough, and there are places (Manhattan) where the average *apartment* is $45,480 a year. URL_1"
],
"score": [
10
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States#:~:text=The%20Bureau%20of%20Labor%20Statistics,sex%2C%20ethnicity%20and%20educational%20characteristics",
"https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/ny/manhattan/",
"https://www.infoplease.com/business/poverty-income/capita-personal-income-state"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqb9er
|
How do they fill water towers?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi2sydt",
"gi32mdv",
"gi2s5s3"
],
"text": [
"A water pump. Most industrial/commercial pumps use a whirly thing to make water spin and go to the sides. They redirect the sides motions in the direction they want the water to go. The reason they have a water tower is that they can have the pump running all the time. When not a whole lot of people are using the water (like at night), the extra water it can pump goes in the tower. When more water is being used than the pump can pump, the water comes from the tower (which is full because it was pumping while nobody was using it)",
"They pump water into the tower. But the key thing is that water towers are not to store water. They are to provide water pressure. The normal water used by an area does not go through the tower. But the water in the tower is connected to the water system. With fluids, the pressure is the same everywhere in the system. So gravity pulling on the water in the tower creates pressure that pressurizes the entire water system. Water can be drawn from the tower if demand is temporarily high, such as when fighting a fire or if the power goes out and the pumps do not work. But storing water is a secondary benefit of the towers.",
"With pumps. They pump the water up into the tower when the level starts to drop. This lets the system provide constant pressure, while the pump only turns off-and-on at whatever speed it's more efficient."
],
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17,
10,
4
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqbe25
|
How is it possible that the universe is estimated to be 91 billion light years wide but our universe is only 14 billion years?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi2tu90",
"gi2sf46",
"gi2uma8"
],
"text": [
"The universe is not an object, its rate of expansion is not a speed in the same way the \"speed of light\" is, and its expansion is not constrained by the speed of light. Distant objects are indeed receding from us much faster than light and will, in the relatively near cosmic future, leave our visible universe forever. But this isn't a movement *within* space so much as it is an expansion of space itself - it's less that they're moving away and more that the space between us and them is getting bigger such that the distance between us grows. Put another way, speed (in the \"speed of light\" sense, i.e. movement within space) is not the rate of change of distance in cosmic terms. Counterintuitive, but true! When we speak of the \"speed\" of the edge of the universe, we're speaking of something a little different and not directly comparable to \"speed\" within space. Over very long timescales, only clusters bound fairly tightly by gravity will remain in contact with one another, with every other object fading into the cosmic dark as the expansion of the universe accelerates. (The exact degree to which this happens depends on an understanding of why the Universe's expansion is accelerating, which is something we currently know very, very little about.)",
"It expands. The outer edges have a relative speed of expansion that's greater than the speed of light.",
"Think of the universe as a big spring slowly being stretched out. Each coil is moving slowly relative to the coils around it, but the total spring is expanding faster than any individual coil. In this example the spring is space time, and if you imagine each coil is moving just under the speed of light away from the coils on either side then each coil would not see anything going faster than light. [article.]( URL_0 )"
],
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29,
7,
3
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"https://futurism.com/how-can-the-diameter-of-the-universe-the-age"
]
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|
[
"url"
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[
"url"
] |
|
kqbv2u
|
why is one cup of coffee everyday acceptable but one energy drink of equal caffeine considered bad? (assuming coffee is black and energy drink is 0 cal 0 sugar)
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi2vfew",
"gi310d0"
],
"text": [
"Some energy drinks have 300 mg of caffeine which is a lot. M9nster and redbull have around 200. A regular cup of coffee is probably 50 to a 100. Not to mention the artificial sweeteners in energy drinks to make them tasty and not ass but still say 0 sugar",
"In terms of nutritional value, energy drinks offer a wide array of artificial sweeteners, artificial supplements and ingredients to preserve shelf life, and artificial color and flavors. Artificial food ingredients tend to be controversial because there are many correlations with side effects/unknowns with the underlying chemicals. Same follows for coffee-based drinks that are flavored or artificially sweetened. While the caffeine content with energy drinks is typically on par with coffee, it’s all the other chemical constituents that are nutritionally problematic."
],
"score": [
18,
4
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|
[
"url"
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[
"url"
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|
kqcb7g
|
how does the circulatory system work for amputees?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi2z42m",
"gi3n97h",
"gi3zs5t"
],
"text": [
"During amputation, the blood vessels that go to the amputated area are cut and sealed off. The blood that would go to those areas diverts into the vessels above the cut and returns to the heart the same as any other blood does.",
"I think maybe some background about how the circulatory system works in general would be helpful for helping this make sense. A lot of people picture it like blood goes down an artery, loops down at the end of an appendage, and comes back up a vein. So obviously if you cut off the end, how does the blood get across? But it's not exactly like that. Consider the plumbing system of a long, dead end street. Water flows down the water mains, through individual pipes branching off leading up to the houses, through the pipes in the houses to be used in faucets and sinks and showers, then back down through pipes, then to the road, then to the sewer drain and back out of the neighborhood. This is like how blood flows...down an a major artery, to smaller and smaller arteries, then to capillaries to be used by actual cells, then to bigger and bigger veins and back to the heart. Now imagine we amputate our part of the street....bulldoze a dozen houses down at the end of the street, tear up the end of the road, and remove the water mains under it. Assuming the workers do their job and cap the mains, does this effect water flow to the other houses? No, because those pipes were only supplying water to those houses that are no longer there. The other houses aren't \"in the loop\" of the amputated houses...water that flows to one house doesn't ever go to another house, it goes to the sewer. It's parallel, not series. Amputating limbs works the same way. The veins and arteries that are cut are only important for supplying blood to the cut-off part, so their loss doesn't have a big effect on the remaining limb, which is still getting blood through the same route it always did. And you certainly don't have to join any veins and arteries to each other, any more than you'd have to join the water main to the sewer pipe when removing the end of the street. Instead, you just need to block them off so blood isn't lost.",
"Think about roads. If a section of highway collapses, cars will take the last off-ramp and use back roads to get to their destination. (With an amputation, it's even more convenient, since all the destinations past the collapsed highway are also gone!)"
],
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[
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[
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|
kqcclq
|
What's the difference between source code and the code you can find in the progam/files?
|
been seeing a lot of source code leaks lately and i don't really get it
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"text": [
"Source code is made to be readable by humans, while the data in a typical executable (what you mean by 'program') is made to be readable by a computer's processor. For example, I might write something like this in source code: int x = 14; But in fact, this human-readable instruction requires quite a bit of extra work behind the scenes. The exact work depends on the language, but one example might be: allocate space for an integer and store an address to that space store the value 00000000000000000000000000001110 [i.e., '14' written in binary] to the address from the previous step add x to the list of currently used variables But even this is human readable. In an executable, \"allocate space\" would be identified by some numeric code (say, 1010111101101), \"store an address\" would be identified by another one (say, 0011111001000), \"store this value to this address\" by another (say, 0001000101110), and so on. So in an executable, this would read as something like: 1010111101101[some location to store the address goes here]0011111001000000100010111000000000000000000000000000001110[the location from before goes here] Which is obviously not very useful to a human eye!",
"Hello World in C: #include < stdio.h > int main() { printf(\"Hello, World!\"); return 0; } The very same, compiled and hex dumped (had to snip out some from the middle to fit in a comment): 0000000 457f 464c 0102 0001 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000010 0003 003e 0001 0000 1060 0000 0000 0000 0000020 0040 0000 0000 0000 3978 0000 0000 0000 0000030 0000 0000 0040 0038 000d 0040 001f 001e 0000040 0006 0000 0004 0000 0040 0000 0000 0000 0000050 0040 0000 0000 0000 0040 0000 0000 0000 0000060 02d8 0000 0000 0000 02d8 0000 0000 0000 0000070 0008 0000 0000 0000 0003 0000 0004 0000 0000080 0318 0000 0000 0000 0318 0000 0000 0000 ... 0003650 0000 0000 0000 0000 6300 7472 7473 6675 0003660 2e66 0063 6564 6572 6967 7473 7265 745f 0003670 5f6d 6c63 6e6f 7365 5f00 645f 5f6f 6c67 0003680 626f 6c61 645f 6f74 7372 615f 7875 6300 0003690 6d6f 6c70 7465 6465 382e 3630 0030 5f5f 00036a0 6f64 675f 6f6c 6162 5f6c 7464 726f 5f73 00036b0 7561 5f78 6966 696e 615f 7272 7961 655f 00036c0 746e 7972 6600 6172 656d 645f 6d75 796d 00036d0 5f00 665f 6172 656d 645f 6d75 796d 695f 00036e0 696e 5f74 7261 6172 5f79 6e65 7274 0079 00036f0 7768 632e 5f00 465f 4152 454d 455f 444e 0003700 5f5f 5f00 695f 696e 5f74 7261 6172 5f79 0003710 6e65 0064 445f 4e59 4d41 4349 5f00 695f 0003720 696e 5f74 7261 6172 5f79 7473 7261 0074 0003730 5f5f 4e47 5f55 4845 465f 4152 454d 485f 0003740 5244 5f00 4c47 424f 4c41 4f5f 4646 4553 0003750 5f54 4154 4c42 5f45 5f00 6c5f 6269 5f63 0003760 7363 5f75 6966 696e 5f00 5449 5f4d 6564 0003770 6572 6967 7473 7265 4d54 6c43 6e6f 5465 0003780 6261 656c 5f00 6465 7461 0061 7270 6e69 0003790 6674 4040 4c47 4249 5f43 2e32 2e32 0035 00037a0 5f5f 696c 6362 735f 6174 7472 6d5f 6961 00037b0 406e 4740 494c 4342 325f 322e 352e 5f00 00037c0 645f 7461 5f61 7473 7261 0074 5f5f 6d67 00037d0 6e6f 735f 6174 7472 5f5f 5f00 645f 6f73 00037e0 685f 6e61 6c64 0065 495f 5f4f 7473 6964 00037f0 5f6e 7375 6465 5f00 6c5f 6269 5f63 7363 0003800 5f75 6e69 7469 5f00 625f 7373 735f 6174 0003810 7472 6d00 6961 006e 5f5f 4d54 5f43 4e45 0003820 5f44 005f 495f 4d54 725f 6765 7369 6574 0003830 5472 434d 6f6c 656e 6154 6c62 0065 5f5f 0003840 7863 5f61 6966 616e 696c 657a 4040 4c47 0003850 4249 5f43 2e32 2e32 0035 2e00 7973 746d 0003860 6261 2e00 7473 7472 6261 2e00 6873 7473 0003870 7472 6261 2e00 6e69 6574 7072 2e00 6f6e 0003880 6574 672e 756e 702e 6f72 6570 7472 0079 0003890 6e2e 746f 2e65 6e67 2e75 7562 6c69 2d64 00038a0 6469 2e00 6f6e 6574 412e 4942 742d 6761 00038b0 2e00 6e67 2e75 6168 6873 2e00 7964 736e 00038c0 6d79 2e00 7964 736e 7274 2e00 6e67 2e75 00038d0 6576 7372 6f69 006e 672e 756e 762e 7265 00038e0 6973 6e6f 725f 2e00 6572 616c 642e 6e79 00038f0 2e00 6572 616c 702e 746c 2e00 6e69 7469 0003900 2e00 6c70 2e74 6f67 0074 702e 746c 732e 0003910 6365 2e00 6574 7478 2e00 6966 696e 2e00 0003920 6f72 6164 6174 2e00 6865 665f 6172 656d 0003930 685f 7264 2e00 6865 665f 6172 656d 2e00 0003940 6e69 7469 615f 7272 7961 2e00 6966 696e 0003950 615f 7272 7961 2e00 7964 616e 696d 0063 0003960 642e 7461 0061 622e 7373 2e00 6f63 6d6d 0003970 6e65 0074 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0003980 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 * 00039b0 0000 0000 0000 0000 001b 0000 0001 0000 00039c0 0002 0000 0000 0000 0318 0000 0000 0000 00039d0 0318 0000 0000 0000 001c 0000 0000 0000 00039e0 0000 0000 0000 0000 0001 0000 0000 0000 00039f0 0000 0000 0000 0000 0023 0000 0007 0000 0003a00 0002 0000 0000 0000 0338 0000 0000 0000 0003a10 0338 0000 0000 0000 0020 0000 0000 0000 0003a20 0000 0000 0000 0000 0008 0000 0000 0000 0003a30 0000 0000 0000 0000 0036 0000 0007 0000 0003a40 0002 0000 0000 0000 0358 0000 0000 0000 0003a50 0358 0000 0000 0000 0024 0000 0000 0000 0003a60 0000 0000 0000 0000 0004 0000 0000 0000 0003a70 0000 0000 0000 0000 0049 0000 0007 0000 0003a80 0002 0000 0000 0000 037c 0000 0000 0000 0003a90 037c 0000 0000 0000 0020 0000 0000 0000 0003aa0 0000 0000 0000 0000 0004 0000 0000 0000 0003ab0 0000 0000 0000 0000 0057 0000 fff6 6fff 0003ac0 0002 0000 0000 0000 03a0 0000 0000 0000 0003ad0 03a0 0000 0000 0000 0024 0000 0000 0000 0003ae0 0006 0000 0000 0000 0008 0000 0000 0000 0003af0 0000 0000 0000 0000 0061 0000 000b 0000 0003b00 0002 0000 0000 0000 03c8 0000 0000 0000 0003b10 03c8 0000 0000 0000 00a8 0000 0000 0000 0003b20 0007 0000 0001 0000 0008 0000 0000 0000 0003b30 0018 0000 0000 0000 0069 0000 0003 0000 0003b40 0002 0000 0000 0000 0470 0000 0000 0000 0003b50 0470 0000 0000 0000 0084 0000 0000 0000 0003b60 0000 0000 0000 0000 0001 0000 0000 0000 0003b70 0000 0000 0000 0000 0071 0000 ffff 6fff 0003b80 0002 0000 0000 0000 04f4 0000 0000 0000 0003b90 04f4 0000 0000 0000 000e 0000 0000 0000 0003ba0 0006 0000 0000 0000 0002 0000 0000 0000 0003bb0 0002 0000 0000 0000 007e 0000 fffe 6fff 0003bc0 0002 0000 0000 0000 0508 0000 0000 0000 0003bd0 0508 0000 0000 0000 0020 0000 0000 0000 0003be0 0007 0000 0001 0000 0008 0000 0000 0000 0003bf0 0000 0000 0000 0000 008d 0000 0004 0000 0003c00 0002 0000 0000 0000 0528 0000 0000 0000 0003c10 0528 0000 0000 0000 00c0 0000 0000 0000 0003c20 0006 0000 0000 0000 0008 0000 0000 0000 0003c30 0018 0000 0000 0000 0097 0000 0004 0000 0003c40 0042 0000 0000 0000 05e8 0000 0000 0000 0003c50 05e8 0000 0000 0000 0018 0000 0000 0000 0003c60 0006 0000 0018 0000 0008 0000 0000 0000 0003c70 0018 0000 0000 0000 00a1 0000 0001 0000 0003c80 0006 0000 0000 0000 1000 0000 0000 0000 0003c90 1000 0000 0000 0000 001b 0000 0000 0000 0003ca0 0000 0000 0000 0000 0004 0000 0000 0000 0003cb0 0000 0000 0000 0000 009c 0000 0001 0000 0003cc0 0006 0000 0000 0000 1020 0000 0000 0000 0003cd0 1020 0000 0000 0000 0020 0000 0000 0000 0003ce0 0000 0000 0000 0000 0010 0000 0000 0000 0003cf0 0010 0000 0000 0000 00a7 0000 0001 0000 0003d00 0006 0000 0000 0000 1040 0000 0000 0000 0003d10 1040 0000 0000 0000 0010 0000 0000 0000 0003d20 0000 0000 0000 0000 0010 0000 0000 0000 0003d30 0010 0000 0000 0000 00b0 0000 0001 0000 0003d40 0006 0000 0000 0000 1050 0000 0000 0000 0003d50 1050 0000 0000 0000 0010 0000 0000 0000 0003d60 0000 0000 0000 0000 0010 0000 0000 0000 0003d70 0010 0000 0000 0000 00b9 0000 0001 0000 0003d80 0006 0000 0000 0000 1060 0000 0000 0000 0003d90 1060 0000 0000 0000 0185 0000 0000 0000 0003da0 0000 0000 0000 0000 0010 0000 0000 0000 0003db0 0000 0000 0000 0000 00bf 0000 0001 0000 0003dc0 0006 0000 0000 0000 11e8 0000 0000 0000 0003dd0 11e8 0000 0000 0000 000d 0000 0000 0000 0003de0 0000 0000 0000 0000 0004 0000 0000 0000 0003df0 0000 0000 0000 0000 00c5 0000 0001 0000 0003e00 0002 0000 0000 0000 2000 0000 0000 0000 0003e10 2000 0000 0000 0000 0012 0000 0000 0000 0003e20 0000 0000 0000 0000 0004 0000 0000 0000 0003e30 0000 0000 0000 0000 00cd 0000 0001 0000 0003e40 0002 0000 0000 0000 2014 0000 0000 0000 0003e50 2014 0000 0000 0000 0044 0000 0000 0000 0003e60 0000 0000 0000 0000 0004 0000 0000 0000 0003e70 0000 0000 0000 0000 00db 0000 0001 0000 0003e80 0002 0000 0000 0000 2058 0000 0000 0000 0003e90 2058 0000 0000 0000 0108 0000 0000 0000 0003ea0 0000 0000 0000 0000 0008 0000 0000 0000 0003eb0 0000 0000 0000 0000 00e5 0000 000e 0000 0003ec0 0003 0000 0000 0000 3db8 0000 0000 0000 0003ed0 2db8 0000 0000 0000 0008 0000 0000 0000 0003ee0 0000 0000 0000 0000 0008 0000 0000 0000 0003ef0 0008 0000 0000 0000 00f1 0000 000f 0000 0003f00 0003 0000 0000 0000 3dc0 0000 0000 0000 0003f10 2dc0 0000 0000 0000 0008 0000 0000 0000 0003f20 0000 0000 0000 0000 0008 0000 0000 0000 0003f30 0008 0000 0000 0000 00fd 0000 0006 0000 0003f40 0003 0000 0000 0000 3dc8 0000 0000 0000 0003f50 2dc8 0000 0000 0000 01f0 0000 0000 0000 0003f60 0007 0000 0000 0000 0008 0000 0000 0000 0003f70 0010 0000 0000 0000 00ab 0000 0001 0000 0003f80 0003 0000 0000 0000 3fb8 0000 0000 0000 0003f90 2fb8 0000 0000 0000 0048 0000 0000 0000 0003fa0 0000 0000 0000 0000 0008 0000 0000 0000 0003fb0 0008 0000 0000 0000 0106 0000 0001 0000 0003fc0 0003 0000 0000 0000 4000 0000 0000 0000 0003fd0 3000 0000 0000 0000 0010 0000 0000 0000 0003fe0 0000 0000 0000 0000 0008 0000 0000 0000 0003ff0 0000 0000 0000 0000 010c 0000 0008 0000 0004000 0003 0000 0000 0000 4010 0000 0000 0000 0004010 3010 0000 0000 0000 0008 0000 0000 0000 0004020 0000 0000 0000 0000 0001 0000 0000 0000 0004030 0000 0000 0000 0000 0111 0000 0001 0000 0004040 0030 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0004050 3010 0000 0000 0000 002a 0000 0000 0000 0004060 0000 0000 0000 0000 0001 0000 0000 0000 0004070 0001 0000 0000 0000 0001 0000 0002 0000 0004080 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0004090 3040 0000 0000 0000 0618 0000 0000 0000 00040a0 001d 0000 002e 0000 0008 0000 0000 0000 00040b0 0018 0000 0000 0000 0009 0000 0003 0000 00040c0 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 00040d0 3658 0000 0000 0000 0202 0000 0000 0000 00040e0 0000 0000 0000 0000 0001 0000 0000 0000 00040f0 0000 0000 0000 0000 0011 0000 0003 0000 0004100 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0004110 385a 0000 0000 0000 011a 0000 0000 0000 0004120 0000 0000 0000 0000 0001 0000 0000 0000 * 0004138 As you can see, one of these is a little easier to understand and work with.",
"Source code is the recipe. The program you have on your computer is the cake. Though the cake does its job just perfectly, if you want to find out how it was made, you need the source code. And you can't unbake the cake (at least, not without spending so much effort that you could just bake another cake all of your own, from scratch). The recipe tells you how to make the cake. So if you have the recipe, you can make as many cakes as you like, and even change the cake to do what you want. If you only have the cake... then you only have the cake. You can't change it, and you won't know how it was made. Thus the source code is far more useful, valuable and protected by the companies than the cakes that they sell to you. It's like someone finding out the recipe for Coca Cola and telling the world. Now everyone could, in theory, make their own Coca Cola that tastes just like the real thing. Worse, though, is that the recipe will reveal other secrets about the program that you may not want exposed - security vulnerabilities, hidden codes, patented methods of doing things, trade secrets, etc. (And in this example, the \"oven\" is called a compiler, it's a program that turns source code into a program that will run on your computer)",
"Computer programs are a bunch of instructions written in binary. It's nearly impossible for humans to read/understand binary so we write programs in another language (C++, Assembly, Basic, etc) and use another program, called a compiler, to translate our instructions to binary. Source code is the original file written where humans can still read it, included comments/notes in the code, named variables, and all the logic spelled out. Your local programs are only the binary translation. This can be dangerous to have source code leaked because its easier for hackers to find holes in the security when they can see exactly how the system works.",
"Source code is a recipe. The stuff that's on your computer is like a cookie. Sure, at some level, with sufficient skills and equipment, you can kind of deduce what the ingredients were, but only sortof. You'll never get the actual recipe back out again.",
"Software is very complicated cake with various layers, toppings, sprinkles and sides. If you're given the cake, it's delicious right? But you can't make it yourself because you don't know what the ingredients are or how it was cooked, you could modify it a little bit, but ultimately you're just changing the existing cake slightly eg: adding your own chocolate sauce for example (akin to installing software modifications) - you could also take great pains to recreate the cake yourself by tasting bits of it and approximating them yourself, it'll be more or less the same, but not quite. That cakes source code is it's ingredients list and method of cooking with detailed instructions, times etc, the comments within the source code itself are the pictures within the cookbook.",
"The program is a baked cake, the source code is the recipe/ingredients. Can you tell what went into a cake by examining it or tasting it? Kind of, but you'll never really be exact and a lot of it will just be guessing. Reproducing the cake from only having the finished product is nearly impossible if it's sufficiently complex, same with software."
],
"score": [
105,
34,
21,
16,
5,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqcgu6
|
How do small animals survive hail storms
|
Like birds are so tiny and their nests (as far as I know) are fairly exposed how do they and other small animals manage to survive during such dangerous storms?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi2zy1w",
"gi3u394"
],
"text": [
"They run and hide from storms. They have special organs that let them know a storm is coming early so they can be first to find a safe hiding spot. Also, their bones and bodies are so light weight and flexible that if they do get hit by hail, that it will bounce off.",
"Mostly they're good at seeking shelter. Small birds also have high reproductive rates. A nasty winter might wipe out 80% of a sparrow population only to have it recovered by the end of the next summer."
],
"score": [
7,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqcnxi
|
How does a diffuser work?
|
How does an (aroma) diffuser work? How does it create mist? And how is cold "steam" possible?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi37zyu"
],
"text": [
"Loooots of shaking on a liiiitle circle plate make the water break up so fast it turns it into a mist. Scented oils in the water break up as well and float around with those tiny water drops."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqdnn4
|
Why is it that when an electron absorbs energy and moves to a higher energy level, their potential energy actually decreases according to Coulomb's Law?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi394zf",
"gi3bsau"
],
"text": [
"Coulomb's Law relates to *attraction/repulsion* between two charged particles. As the distance increases (the electron moving to a higher energy level), the attraction/repulsion diminishes while the electron's energy increases.",
"Finally! This question that lets me make use of my college physics revision, because I *always* got stuck on this *exact* problem. The electric potential energy between two point charges [like a nucleus and an electron] is defined as being 0 when they are infinitely far apart. When they're close, the interaction between them is strong, and when they're infinitely far away, there's 0 interaction. This distance infinitely far away is called the 'reference point'. Potential energy isn't the amount of energy the electron and nucleus have, ***it's the amount of energy that the electron needs to be able to move to that infinitely far away reference point.*** Think of it like this. I have a golf ball in a deep hole, and I want to bring it back up to the surface, which is my distant reference point, where the elevation is 0. To do this, I fill the hole with water until the ball floats back up to the surface. At the start, the ball is the bottom of the hole, which means I need a lot of water to bring it up to the surface. But, the more water I add and the further up the ball floats, the less water I then need to finish the job and push it all the way up. This is what potential energy is. It's not how much water is in the hole, it's how much water I need to pour into the hole to bring the golf ball 'infinitely' far away from the bottom of the hole. The further away I am from the bottom, the less water I need to do the job. So yes, when an electron moves further away, it is at a higher energy level. But it's closer to being at a distance where the attraction is 0, so the potential energy [the energy required to push it to that point] decreases. You could summarise it as 'let's say that 0mph is maximum slowness and 200mph is minimum slowness. A car travelling at 170mph has more energy than a car travelling at 30mph, but the fast-moving car needs less energy than the slow-moving car to increase its speed to minimum slowness. So the potential energy [the energy ***needed***] of the fast car has decreased.'"
],
"score": [
11,
7
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqdnxl
|
Why don’t you feel the effects of a car crash (like sore muscles or strain) immediately instead of a day or two after?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi3993d",
"gi3745a",
"gi38ttm"
],
"text": [
"I'll second what the other poster said about adrenaline keeping you going for the first few minutes, but there's more to it than that. First, you most certainly *can and will* feel pain from a traumatic injury right away, even with adrenaline. This happens when severe structural damage has been done -- for example a broken bone, a ruptured muscle body, torn ligament/tendon, or large amounts of blunt force trauma. Adrenaline will only cover up so much in these situations. You will be in immediate pain, and as the adrenaline wears off the pain will get worse. Adrenaline diverts blood flow away from your (potentially damaged) extremities, but it also puts your brain into fight-or-flight, where the instinct to stay physically active overrides the debilitating effects of pain. As for the pain that presents a day or two after -- this is due to inflammation in the tissues which gradually builds up as part of the healing process. Your damaged tissues release inflammatory markers that promote blood flow, and that swelling is painful. This is no different than how your muscles don't immediately hurt after working out, but the next day may be extremely sore.",
"Adrenaline kicks in when we are in danger - so whenever we are, or believe we are, hurt, adrenaline is released. Our bodies then enter a stressful fight or flight mode where we feel no pain, can run faster and lift heavier. This lasts, usually, for a few minutes and then shock kicks in if we are severely hurt. Shock is the opposite of adrenaline where we are weaknd. Blood vessels contact to stop potential bloodloss and that leads to even less energy and oxygen reaching the muscles - Futher weakening the body to conserve all essential energy.",
"There is no drug like adrenaline. Your body is flooded with the hormone right after a wreck blocking pain receptors and increasing your energy levels. This can give us the capacity to manage or remove ourselves from a traumatic situation increasing our odds of survival. So even if you are feeling no pain you still need to see a doctor anyway. Many years ago I was hit by a car while crossing the street. I saw a doctor and had no broken bones but my clothes were torn all to shit and not just a little bloody. I felt incredibly energetic and hungry so I grabbed a friend for lunch, which changing. It was an idiot move and the next day after my fight/flight response settled down because I was in a safe environment, the pain hit me hard and I took a long time to physically function normally again."
],
"score": [
55,
7,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqe0ex
|
How does our brain classify a food as tasty or not? Does it work as a primitive defense against harmful or poisonous food?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi39t4n",
"gi3dmb7"
],
"text": [
"It is two-fold - foods that are 'tasty' are foods that contain nutrients that we need to survive and foods that are 'gross' are foods that were likely to contain poisons or other items that are harmful. So, for example, we tend to like savory, salty and sweet things because those contain good nutrients for us (proteins, salts and sugars, respectively). Mildly sour items are also appealing, as they contain important vitamins. We tend to dislike bitter things because those are often poisonous, and we dislike the taste of foods that are rotting because those likely contain harmful bacteria/fungus that could also poison us. Our brains are also exceptionally good at developing food aversions based on past experiences. A food that would normally be good for us, but happened to poison us at some point in our history, will seem 'gross' to us to help prevent us from eating it again. Case in point, I ate a bad batch of coleslaw in my youth that made me very ill and to this day I can't stand the sight of the stuff.",
"Another interesting aspect is also that many fruits/berries rely on animals eating those fruits while discarding/pooping out the seeds so that they can continue to spread, so they evolve alongside the animals to taste good. If they didn't, no animal would eat them and if they rely on the previous method they'll die out. Fun fact, there are nearly NO fruits/berries that are poisonous while at the same time tasting good (being sweet). If anyone knows of any good counterexamples I would be very interesting as it would make for a good plot-point in a story if you try to poison someone."
],
"score": [
10,
7
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqe1gy
|
How are we not all inbred
|
If we all came from a common ancestor, how are we not all inbred and have debilitating diseases? Is it because there's a nearly infinite possible set of DNA combinations possible? How did our really closely related ancestors not become inbred? Really struggling to wrap my head around this...
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi3afwq",
"gi3bfw9",
"gi3adk2"
],
"text": [
"There wasn't just one set of humans magicly put onto the earth from which all other humans came. Everything on the planet has evolved from one or more single celled organisms millions of years ago, mutated trillions of times. There wasn't one clear line of evolution from ape to human, the classic picture showing each stage of human evolution is a bit misleading, in reality there are dozens of branches as different environmental pressures selected for different traits to be more advantageous than others. Some branches died out as they werent suited or weren't as efficient at their role as other animals and got out competed. There is such a vast ammount of genetic material out there that we don't get the same issues we see in several generations of inbreeding",
"> If we all came from a common ancestor, how are we not all inbred and have debilitating diseases? Genetically, we can narrow our ancestors down to a few ancestors. That doesn't mean those ancestors were alive at the same time and only bred with each other. Our genetic 'Adam' may have lived hundreds of generations before or after our genetic 'Eve.' There were what are called [genetic bottlenecks that happened to humans]( URL_0 ). But even then there were thousands of breeding pairs. Even if there was a lot of inbreeding though, there are two things which would prevent us from being \"all inbred\" One, mutations still happen over the course of thousands of years, introducing genetic diversity into the gene pool to make us sufficiently different so the risks of inbreeding decreases. Two, the risk of defects from inbreeding are just that, a risk. The more closely related you are, the higher the risk, but it is still possible to produce children who aren't inbred. First cousins have a much higher risk of birth defects than distantly related cousins, but that risk is only 4-7%.",
"On some level we are! You can look up Mitochondrial Eve for more info. The issues with inbreeding diminish fairly quickly with generational drift until the chances of problems (not really diseases) are about the same as for two random people."
],
"score": [
25,
10,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory#Genetic_bottleneck_theory"
],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqe4z2
|
Why is it that I still experience flatulence after taking two Lactaid pills if the purpose of the pill is a to mitigate lactose intolerance reactions?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi3d729"
],
"text": [
"Lactose intolerance comes from the inability to produce Lactase in the small intestines which is what brakes down lactose to regular sugar. Humans are otherwise unable to digest Lactose but the bacteria in the big intestines loves it and is what is causing problems. To solve this issue we add Lactase to the food so the Lactose gets broken down before people eat it. Alternatively Lactaid pills can be taken with the food and release Lactase into the small intestines like normally. But this is not as good as the Lactase will be released into the food very unevenly. You could end up with food that does not get the Lactase treatment if it is eaten long before or long after a pill. And once this happens there is nothing that helps as the Lactose is already on its way to the bacteria in the big intestines. It should be noted that even if you are producing Lactase naturally or if you are taken the Lactaid pills as prescribed you do still usually get some Lactase through the small intestines. So you may still experience some increased flatulence or in some cases even an upset stomach after eating dairy products. However there is a difference between having to cover up a few farts and being chained to the toilet the rest of the evening."
],
"score": [
8
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqee9x
|
Brushing Teeth?
|
Why does brushing your teeth twice a day slowly give you whiter teeth but really aggresively brushing for an hour doesnt give you whiter teeth?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi3gnku"
],
"text": [
"Whitening toothpaste work by chemically bleaching your teeth. The toothpaste has a very diluted form of bleach, and your teeth whitens after being slowly bleached over a long period of time. E.g., twice a day for weeks or months. Aggressively brushing doesn't increase the concentration of bleach, so that doesn't make your teeth whiter. To whiten your teeth faster: * Use commercial \"whitening strips\" which basically has stronger bleach vs. whitening toothpaste * Have your dentist apply a super-strong bleaching agent at the dental office"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqehwl
|
Why does sitting down help us catch our breath faster?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi3wf4c"
],
"text": [
"Relaxing your midsection allows the diaphragm to extent further and easier than if other core muscles are working. Anyone who ever told you to put your hands on your head and not sit is spouting nonsense. Sitting or going to a bent-over, tripod position is a natural reaction to physical exhaustion. Even toddlers will go to this position to breathe better after running."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqezzh
|
Why are you more likely to get carsick if you are riding in the backseat compared to riding in the front?
|
I’ve always heard people saying they need to ride shotgun/in the front of the car because they get carsick. Even for myself, I notice that I get sick if I ride in the back, but I’m completely fine if I ride in the front. Is that just in my head or is there a reason for that?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi3fcy9",
"gi3i0t4",
"gi3f85s",
"gi3gwem"
],
"text": [
"Our brain knows how our body is moving, even if our eyes are closed. This happens because we have this structure called semi-circular canals in our ears. There's fluid swishing around in there and based on how it moves around, our brain knows when our bodies are moving. But when our eyes are open and not looking at how we are moving, our brain gets confused. Motion sickness is when your eyes disagree with our semi-circular canals' information (because you're looking at a phone, or reading, or on a boat where the horizon doesn't seem to move while you're rocking back and forth). When that happens, throwing up is a defense mechanism in case you ate something dangerous that could cause that same movement confusion.",
"* When your various senses don't agree about what is happening to you, your body suspects it's being poisoned and tries to make you vomit. * In a car, your ears can sense you're moving from the tiny amount of fluid inside. * But if your eyes don't agree, you can be in for trouble. * The front seat has a much better view and when you're riding up front you're more likely to be looking around and seeing things outside the vehicle. * In the back seat, you can't see as well and are more likely to be looking at something like your phone.",
"The back of the car is usually lighter due to the engine being in the front, so the back bounces around more.",
"One of the reasons for being travel sick is that there's a disagreement between your eyes and your ears. That's worse in the back of the car. Our balance is made up of a number of different factors. The inner ear contains balance organs called semicircular canals, which come off of something called the vestibule. So there is a *vestibular* input. We also make use of pressure information, feeling forces on our bodies based on the ground pressing into our feet, or the seat pressing your back, etc, as well as the feeling of our muscles being stretched as we move. This is called *somatosensation*. The final piece of the puzzle is our *visual* input. Our eyes are good at detecting movement. If our eyes see that the world is moving past us, it's probably a cue that we are moving. In fact, the *vestibulo-ocular reflex* (ocular meaning eyes) is the quickest reflex in the body and makes our eyes twitch as we move to stabilise the image we see. This is why you can see fine when you are walking, but a video someone filmed when they were walking looks really jumpy. Anyway, if there's disagreement between these systems, it can make us feel sick. When you are sitting in a car or a boat, your ears can feel like you are moving around a lot (because you are). However, your visual system sees the room around you as being stationary. This is because the room (or the car) is moving *with* you. So, there's a mismatch. Now, if you sit in the front of the car, your visual field is filled with movement. You can see that you are actually travelling. Same goes for going out on the deck of a ship, where you can see the horizon in the distance, and see that the floor is actually tilting you. This means there's less of a mismatch, so you feel a bit better. I should add that we're not *exactly* sure why this mismatch makes you feel sick. One of the main theories is that your body believes there is something wrong with you because of a toxin, so it makes you vomit to try to get rid of it. It trusts your eyes more, and thinks there must be something wrong with your vestibular system. I.e. your body is trying to make you throw up to get rid of something that it thinks is causing the mismatch, when it's just how transport works!"
],
"score": [
6,
4,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqf2or
|
If pain meds such as Naproxen, Ibuprofen, and Motrin are supposed to relieve pain and relax the body why does it raise blood pressure!?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi3gg3g"
],
"text": [
"Sorry that this answer won't be particularly ELI5, but it's a question about internal medicine/pharmacology so I'll do my best. The drugs you mentioned are all in a class known as NSAIDS, which work by inhibiting a group of enzymes (COX-1 and COX-2) responsible for inflammation and blood clotting, among other things. NSAIDS do not relieve pain by lowering blood pressure, they do it by reducing inflammation. In the kidneys, those same enzymes (COX-2 specifically) work to help get rid of sodium from the body via your urine, and then water follows the sodium out. This means that normally the enzyme helps reduce the amount of fluid in your arteries/veins when appropriate. When you knock that enzyme out in an attempt to reduce inflammation/blood clotting, your kidneys start retaining more salt and fluid, so your blood pressure goes up. NSAIDS aren't vasoconstrictive so much as they cause you to hold onto fluid, filling up your blood vessels more. The average increase in blood pressure is pretty tiny (3 mmHg/2mmHg), and has never been shown to meaningfully interfere with medications intended to lower blood pressure."
],
"score": [
23
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqf4hj
|
What is cas latency?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi3fl4h",
"gi3ux47"
],
"text": [
"CAS Latency (CL) stands for Column Address Strobe. This is the number of clock cycles that pass from when an instruction is given for a particular column and the moment the data is available. In general the lower the CAS latency the better within a given memory technology (DDR, DDR2 or DDR3). URL_0",
"Imagine a conveyor belt that goes from the processor to the memory (the memory bus). The belt is evenly partitioned into spaces (cycles) to hold data coming to or leaving from memory to travel to the processor. Each stick of memory is like a librarian with columns of data behind them that accepts, stores and retrieves data being sent or requested by the processor. The librarian (memory stick's controller) cannot process every request immediately because the columns of data are pretty long and can only be read so fast. So, because of this constraint, the librarian (memory stick) can only fill a certain number of those spaces (cycles) on the conveyor belt (memory bus) at a time. CAS latency is essentially the number of cycles on the conveyor belt (memory bus) that goes unused because the memory stick could not fill them fast enough. The lower the number, the more efficiently your memory bus is being used by the memory sticks and the faster memory operations are completed."
],
"score": [
8,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://integralmemory.com/faq/what-cas-latency"
],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqfegv
|
Why is it bad too sit close to a TV or PC while VR headsets are safe to sit centimeters from your eyes?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi3hjzm",
"gi3hfsv"
],
"text": [
"TVs were dangerous when they had Cathode Ray Tubes that were shooting high-power electrons at you and relying on the lead in the front glass to stop and resulting X-rays before they fried your brain. That's not how they work anymore. You might get eyestrain from focusing close for long periods, but that's a risk reading a book for a long time. VR headsets have lenses so they focus at distance, even though they are very close to your eyes, the lens makes the image appear at distance. You need this eye relief, hold your phone on the bridge of your nose and you won't be able to focus on it at all (unless you are nearsighted).",
"* The problem with sitting too close is eye strain. * TVs and PC monitors are designed to be best viewed at a certain distance. * If we sit closer our eyes are constantly shifting and re-adjusting focus as we look at different parts of the screen. * With VR everything is presented in the same area of our vision. We aren't shifting our eyes or re-focusing to look at different parts of the screen, rather we are just moving our heads."
],
"score": [
12,
8
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqfith
|
How can edible items have 0 calories in them while still contain nutritional items like carbs (sugars and other sweeteners), vitamins, and amino acids (BCAAs etc.)?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi3tq9s",
"gi3ivjc",
"gi3zjx6",
"gi3xuk5",
"gi4d1j2"
],
"text": [
"You have two things going on here. 1. The label can round down. So if there are 0.499 Calories in a serving it can list 0. Bonus: Serving sizes for a lot of items are arbitrary so they adjust the serving size to hit the 0 Calorie rounding sweet spot 2. Artificial sweeteners are in there in very small amounts. I forget the numbers but an easy way to explain it is that the artificial sweeteners are thousands of times sweeter than regular sugar, so you only need very tiny amounts to make something very sweet. Obviously number two has a lot of nuances and complicated things going on, but that doesn't belong on ELI5.",
"they round down fractions by servings so like 1 serving might be zero cals for anal items but you eat so many that it makes a few but each serving has zero",
"Alot of foods are allowed to be zero call because laws allow under 5cal to be rounded down, small portion sizes allow this despite them being basically all sugar (looking at you tic tac)",
"If a product is below like 15 calories per serving, it can be labeled as 0 calories. Coffee is famous for having zero calories when it’s actually 5-10 calories a serving. Tic Tacs infamously list a single mint as the serving size, so despite being little sugar pills, they’re printed as 0 calories.",
"This is why in the EU and other places the amount of calories, carbs and sugars, proteins, salt, fat and saturated fat, and fibre **MUST** be reported per 100g. And the net weight must also be present. They may also give these values per \"serving\", but only alongside the 100g values. I was eating some chocolate today that listed the serving size as 3 squares of chocolate. The bar is made in rows of 4 squares... But the bar was 85g (and yes I ate the whole thing). I thought something similar had recently been brought in in the US too, residually in light of stuff like Tic Tacs have \"zero\" Calories per services despite being almost 100% sugar. Please tell me I didn't imagine that ruling from several months ago..."
],
"score": [
164,
35,
10,
9,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqfnea
|
Why does Banana completely overpower the taste of every other fruit in a smoothie?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi3m4wk",
"gi3obtm"
],
"text": [
"A lot of that comes down to Water content. Apples, berries, pears and Stuff have watercontents in the ranges from 82% to 85%. Bananas have around 70-72%. The higher the ratio the more \"watered down\" its Taste.",
"This is why you should only combine them with bacon, on a peanut butter and toast sandwich of course. Problem solved. Next!"
],
"score": [
6,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqfsoh
|
what an extradition treaty is
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi3jpza",
"gi3jvhu"
],
"text": [
"* Each country has their own set of laws and so when someone has broken a law in country A, but they are physically in country B, there needs to be some agreement between the countries about how and when, or even IF country B will hand over the person. * For example some countries don't have a death penalty, and this is a moral choice. * They don't believe the government should be able to take someone's life as punishment for a crime. * But the country that the crime was committed in *does* have the death penalty. * In that case they would might have an agreement that says \"We don't hand over a suspect if there is a chance they might be punished to death.\" * Similarly if a country thinks the other might not have a proper legal system and might convict and innocent person. * It makes sense to setup these agreements ahead of time that way everyone involved knows what to expect.",
"Say a person commits a crime against American law but they are located in Canada. Extradition would be the American authorities requesting / demanding that the Canadian government transfer that person back to America so they can be tried in the US justice system. When there's an extradition treaty or agreement, it means that the two governments will almost always trade prisoners or suspects when requested. When there's no extradition treaty or agreement, it means that one country can request the second country to transfer the person over, but the second country has no legal obligation to do that. They can just say \"no\" and the first country would not have good reason to do something bad in return."
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqfv5a
|
Why does body heat warm you better than electrical heat?
|
When I‘m standing against a hot radiator I don’t really seem to warm up permanently, as opposed to cuddles/hugs, why is that?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi3ldwx"
],
"text": [
"Conduction transfers heat faster. Additionally, contact like that is immediately reducing heat loss with the introduction of giving heat. Sitting next to a radiator still involves losing body heat to air and radiating it away. Feeling \"cold\" is more explicitly a feeling of losing heat too quickly rather than your body surface temperature being at too low a level."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqfxth
|
Why does room size affect my hearing?
|
I sit in my home office most of the day, which is a small, enclosed room with a door. Each time I come out, into the much larger household, with high ceilings, and a family member says something to me, it’s really hard to hear what they say. It just sounds like muted/garbled speaking. My hearing adjusts fairly quickly after that, but I’m wondering why this happens?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi3zr61"
],
"text": [
"You hear most clearly when there is nothing obstructing or adding to the sound waves between the source and your ears. In a small room with carpet when the source is low volume there is little to no obstruction or reflection (sound waves bouncing off walls and other surfaces). When you step into a larger, more reverberant room you increase the amount of information added to source before it reaches your ear. Sound bounces all around the room before hitting your ear. These reflections hit your ear at a slightly different time than the source signal creating confusion and \"muddyness\". Additionally, room shape and size determine the frequencies that resonate within it as the source signal bounces around. Some frequencies will double up while others will cancel out. Its called phase cancellation but is probably a bit beyond ELI5. Low range frequencies are most prone to doubling up because they carry the most energy and can bounce around longer before they peter out. Low frequency buildup can make spoken voice less intelligible. Add to this the fact that in a larger room the speaker feels like they need to speak more loudly and you're now putting out more energy that reflects more times before making it to you. Try asking people to stand closer and speak more softly in the big rooms rather than standing at a distance and speaking loudly. You can also look at acoustic treatment products online that are intended to absorb certain frequency ranges rather than reflect them. I would start by targeting low frequencies in the 20-500Hz range in the corners of your room. This is the range that creates booming muddyness and lack of clarity. If you need more I'd look at targeting the 2-5KHz range on flat surface at ear level around the room. Addressing this range will absorb the conflicting reflections of frequencies in the standard range of spoken voice."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqg5dd
|
In racing games, how do the developers determine which cars get the 'best' stats? Do they try to emulate real life as well as possible or do brands pay them for inflated stats?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi3n3yb",
"gi3mdjz",
"gi3lngo",
"gi3mjou"
],
"text": [
"There is usually a distinction between racing games and racing simulators. A racing simulator will try to replicate the exact stats of the cars they are simulating. Car manufacturer may share their data from the design, especially for a car that have not been launched or is otherwise unavailable. However racing simulators prefer getting their hands on the actual car and race it around with instruments so they can measure the actual characteristics of the car. Racing games on the other hand allow themselves to change the simulator model for the cars to get a better gaming experience. It is usually no fun racing around if all the cars behave the same except that some are just faster the others. So they tend to make the cars have more similar lap times but make them more different in other ways. They might change the handling characteristics, how fast they corner versus high speed, how hard they are to set up, how much fuel and tyres they use, etc. This tends to make for a more engaging gaming experience on the cost of accuracy.",
"There's a huge amount of variables that go into car performance in modern racing games. Back in the mid 2000s with games like Need for Speed, it was pretty much just guesswork and arcade physics. But in games like Forza Horizon 4, you can go into the stats page and see a ridiculous wealth of information about cars. They go as far as to model things like suspension travel, hundreds of different types of surfaces, even tire width, all in the name of getting performance as realistic as possible. They also work closely with most manufacturers to get as close as possible to reality.",
"There should already be a lot of data about those cars. Test results, racing data, manufacturer data etc.",
"Everyone who has any interest in racing will already know what cars are better than others, so if they play a game where (to use a Formula 1 example) a Haas car leaves a Mercedes in the dust, they're going to complain how unrealistic it is and tell their friends to not buy it. Developers like their games to actually sell, so they'll try to get the cars as realistic as possible. They might fail at that, but that's a different kettle of fish."
],
"score": [
76,
10,
6,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqgk29
|
Why does apple juice not have to be refrigerated before opening, but orange juice does?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi3sk0b"
],
"text": [
"If your juice needs refrigerated it was not pasteurized. If it is shelf stable it was pasteurized. Pasteurization can affect taste so perhaps pure orange juice is generally not pasteurized, but Sunny D is (tbf Sunny D has very little juice in it)."
],
"score": [
21
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqgkvm
|
why can’t we remember before a certain age?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi3piuk",
"gi3ucrs",
"gi3pfee"
],
"text": [
"Because the brain isn't fully developed when born. And it generally takes a couple of years for the brain to develop enough to store memories",
"The most sensible thing I've read about it is related to the development of verbal memory. Our brains aren't equipped to store verbal memory long-term until about 3 years of age. We can have memories from before then, but they won't be verbal or be organised in ways we're used to. They would be sensory and perhaps unlikely to have a focused subject, since small children tend to take in entire scenes at a time rather than breaking them into individual objects with names. Can't remember where I've read this, though. I'll see if I can dig anything up. edit: The wiki page has some info: URL_0",
"Your brain is a really efficient computer. It does keep a lot of information but it does so purposefully. The main purpose is survival, so your brain will hold on to information it thinks will help you survive. This is why you remember that embarrassing event from way back when, your brain never wants to go through it again."
],
"score": [
54,
25,
16
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood_amnesia"
],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqgl7j
|
After shaking or dropping the container, why do carbonated beverages bubble more vigorously when opened?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi3papg"
],
"text": [
"Agitation gets the carbon dioxide bubbles moving, so when you pop the top, they can release faster. The bubbles are distributed through the soda, but under normal conditions (unshaken), the bubbles can only release through the top layer."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqgmru
|
Why aren’t all trees evergreen?
|
What makes an evergreen tree stay green all year round vs a tree that dies? Why can’t all trees do this?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi3okw3",
"gi3uxgs",
"gi41dmi",
"gi3plhg"
],
"text": [
"Takes energy to make the durable leaves. So the trees keep them. You can drop your leaves and forget about having to spend energy to keep them. If you want some cool easy information about trees, The Common Descent Podcast has an episode on trees.",
"The best leaf is a broad leaf, in terms of doing what leaves do. A broad leaf has more surface area for better photosynthesis. The problem is that the broad leaf is a weak leaf, it is easily eaten by other animals and loses water like crazy. So, if your winters are relatively short and not extremely cold, a broad leaf tree (like in New England, the rainforest, Hawaii, etc) works great. If it is cold and arid, like the US west, then needles work better. BTW, the tree doesn't die, it just loses its leaves. The tree is very much alive.",
"One additional downside to keeping broad leaves in the winter is that the weight of snow and ice building up can cause the branches to break off. I lived in Montana for a few years and the trees would be fine during winter blizzards, maybe lose a few twigs here and there. One June, after the trees all had leaves, there was a freak snowstorm and the weight broke huge limbs off nearly every tree in town. It took weeks of the city scooping up piles out of the streets with front loaders and dump trucks to clean up all of the broken branches. In drier areas of the tropics, there are also broadleaf forests that lose their leaves during the driest part of the year and regrow them during the rainy season. Leaves require a lot of water. Sagebrush have leaves all year but they grow different leaves for summer and winter. The winter leaves are better adapted to cold, wet conditions and the summer leaves are better for hot, dry weather.",
"Loosing ones leaves in the fall is an evolutionary adaption to cold climates. Leaves have a big surface area which means that they evaporate a lot of water. But when the ground freezes the tree is no longer able to collect water through its roots and it can dry up. One way trees adopted to cold climates was to get rid of their leaves at fall and then regrow them in spring. Most of the nutrition in the leaves are collected and stored in the trunk and the roots during winter. But evergreens have either not adopted to the cold or they have done so in other ways. A common way to grow in cold climates is to have narrow fat leaves instead of thin broad leaves as this have much less surface area and it is therefore easier to control the evaporation of water. This is how pine trees ends up with needles instead of leaves."
],
"score": [
22,
17,
6,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqgrxl
|
What exactly was the Watergate scandal and how did it cause Nixon to resign?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi3qn02",
"gi3qf1s",
"gi40end",
"gi3rids",
"gi4eobl"
],
"text": [
"a team of operatives working for the Nixon re-election campaign broke into the offices of the DNC (in the Watergate hotel complex) to steal files. They were caught. Nixon tried to use the power of his office to cover up his knowledge and involvement. The scandal led to impeachment proceedings and his resignation.",
"Nixon assembled a team of criminals to steal information and 'rat fuck' his opponents because he was paranoid. His own Attorney General was in on the caper. He did many, many other terrible things besides Watergate, but that was the time he got caught redhanded. The criminal team was called 'The Plumbers' because they prevented leaks to the press. They were lead by a deranged ex-FBI man named G. Gordon Liddy, who once tried to impress a hooker by holding his hand over a burning candle and once shot off a pistol in a courtroom. The actual crime was a break-in at the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate building. The team was spotted by an African-American security guard who called the DC police. After the burglarly squad got caught, the whole plot began to unravel. Reporters Woodward and Bernstein, working for the Washington Post, started out following the money, seeing who had paid off the burglars. By the time they were done, they had proven that dozens of top White House operatives, including the Attorney General were involved. That's just the tip of the tip of the iceberg. The real investigation went on for years.",
"The best ELI5 is to watch *All the President’s Men.* Essentially, Nixon staffers got caught breaking into Democratic campaign offices at Watergate. The break-in isn’t what caused the resignation; it was the cover-up. Nixon recorded everything in the Oval Office, and tapes were finally released with him acknowledging the illegality of it and telling them to cover it up, all while telling the American people nothing happened. At that point, impeachment and removal appeared inevitable, so he resigned.",
"The story was unfolded when a brake in attempt at the Democratic campaign offices was thwarted by a security guard. The criminals had attempted to steal secret document from the offices. The evidence quickly lead the police to senior members of the Nixon reelection campaign and it was quickly suspected that Nixon himself was involved. And the more the police were looking into Nixons senior staff the more evidence of illegal activities were uncovered. Including illegal wiretapping, corruption, kidnapping and obstruction of justice. One of the most damning piece of evidence was an illegal wiretapping made by Nixon himself in the oval office discussing the brake in at Watergate making it clear he was personally involved. Congress got sworn testimonies from people who had heard the tape and ordered the white house to release it. They answered that the tape had been destroyed and no copies were available. However the tape was eventually released. A number of Republicans were sentenced with criminal charges. However Nixon resigned and were then immediately pardoned by the vice president and therefore evaded justice.",
"Thanks to this, though, every scandal and conspiracy since then has “-gate” added to it."
],
"score": [
103,
83,
8,
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqgx3m
|
How does the digestive system work for legless people or injured amputees?
|
The title is kind of misleading... But I was roaming on my social media a few days ago, and came across a popular page on snapchat, and it presented this athlete with basically no lower half, doing certain workouts as well as playing sports such as wrestling, basketball, and others. He seemed to have only his upper body all the way until his belly button region. This made me think, how do these certain individuals use the bathroom? How does their digestive system work? I remember reading somewhere on reddit that certain amputees actually need to eat more because they use more energy in the muscles that are pulling all the weight for their body. Thanks
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi3s6lv"
],
"text": [
"Luckily the entire digestive system is located in the pelvis and upward. If some damage happened to the region, preventing them from eliminating properly, they might have a colostomy bag or a catheter, depending on the situation. But simply not having legs would not greatly affect the digestive system in its most basic functions. Persons still playing sports would be able to transfer themselves from their wheelchair to a toilet. Persons unable might have a CNA, a family member, or someone similar to help them with the processes. There's not really an all the time rule for persons in wheelchairs because they all have different level of abilities that they will adapt to help them with their daily lives."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqgyf3
|
How do wealthy people utilize shell companies/corporations to avoid paying taxes?
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi3ynhq",
"gi3qmdt"
],
"text": [
"I run Bob's Lemonade Stand Inc. in the U.S. and I'm sole owner of the company. I'm subjected to 25% tax rate on profits, so my $1000 in profits mean $250 in taxes. (simplifying with a single tax rate, but in reality there are marginal rates meaning you only pay that top % on some of profits or income, not all). Now, I set up Bob's Lemonade Brand Holding LLC in a country with 5% taxes. I transfer the Bob's Lemonade brand, logo, recipe to this holding company. Bob's Lemonade Brand Holding LLC charges Bob's Lemonade Stand Inc. $800/yr in royalties for use of the brand and recipe. Bob's Lemonade Stand Inc. now only pays tax on $200 in profits, or $50. And Bob's Lemonade Brand Holding LLC pays $40 on the $800 in royalties profits it receives. Now, instead of $250 in taxes, I have only paid $90 in taxes.",
"They'll do stuff like transfer all of their profits to the shell company, or buy things from the shell company so that they can send their money to the shell company in a way that looks OK on paper but is actually just a fraudulent money transfer. That way, the books look like the company made no money in, say, the USA, or even lost money. So they don't have to pay any taxes on it. But really, they made a lot of money but it all went to the shell company which is located in a country where they don't have to pay taxes on the money, and they might even be able to hide the fact that any money exists because the micronation or wherever that they sent the money has laws that prevent disclosure of the funds. Useful to hide fund not only from the government, but also from your family if you want to get a divorce or something. You may want to watch this video about The Panama Papers for more details: [ URL_0 ]( URL_0 ) The Panama Papers is a recent leak of a cache of documents that show how the ultra rich hide money in tax havens in secret. They're from a firm that specializes in helping people do this. The ways this is done are complex--if they were simple, then governments could easily uncover the money transfer and take action. They're designed to be obscure, secretive, and difficult to find. The video explains everything in an ELI5 way with nice visuals that are far superior to what I could convey here."
],
"score": [
15,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2APYPjTWZ8"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqhd5f
|
How is it that a caller/telemarketer can call me, but if I try to call back, it doesn’t even ring and the line automatically disconnects?
|
I’m probably not describing this very well, but basically I get a lot of calls from unknown numbers and whenever I try to call them back, 99% of the time I don’t even get a dial tone— just a series of loud beeps and then the call suddenly ends. It just doesn’t make sense to me that someone can contact me from what appears to be a working phone number, but somehow it’s impossible for me to even redial that same number mere seconds later. Why does this happen? How is it possible that a number works for making calls but is unable to receive them? Hope I’m making sense here, if someone could please enlighten me that’d be great because this is literally breaking my brain for some reason lol
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi3yp9j",
"gi3za45"
],
"text": [
"You're likely not calling their real number, as they've spoofed the number that shows up on your caller ID. The new pattern by these telemarketers and fraudsters is to replace the calling number to something that you'd be more likely to answer from, like a similar number in your area.",
"The phone system does not track where a call is coming from. A phone exchange is just looking at where the call is going to when deciding where to route it. It does not even care if the call is coming from a direct line or from another phone exchange. Caller ID is an afterthought and is never actually checked. A lot of business phone systems even requires you to enter the Caller ID yourself when you set it up. This may be needed if for example you want people returning your call to reach the reception instead of being able to call directly to the desk phone of the employee. Telemarketers, both legal and illegal ones, might not want you to call back at all. So they program their phones to use a number that looks real but that they know is not connected to anyone. They are not actually using that number to call out with, in fact they do not need a phone number to call out at all. It is even common among illegal phone scammers to use the Caller ID to harass people that were cruel to them when they called."
],
"score": [
26,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqiarx
|
If our brain creates the colours we see, what is the original colour of our surroundings?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi3yxv6",
"gi44vyh"
],
"text": [
"\"Color\" means two different things here: * The sensation you, as a consciousness, perceive. * The actual wavelengths of light emitted/reflected by an object. The two are related but not the same. For example: * Different spectra of light can produce the same sensations, because your sensations are based on only three types of cell. * Some internal sensations can't be created by any spectrum, and are seen only due to problems within the brain itself. The reason for this is that green light always stimulates your red and/or blue receptors a bit, so you never see \"pure green\". * There are many wavelengths outside of your visual spectrum that don't produce a sensation to you at all. So it's not really right to say \"your brain creates the colors that you see\", at least not in the strong sense of \"without any reference to what is outside\". Nor does it really make sense to ask about \"original color\" except in the sense of what wavelengths of light an object emits/reflects. It's kind of a non-question, because once you're framing each piece the right way the question disappears - they continue to emit/reflect the same wavelengths, regardless of what your brain does or doesn't perceive.",
"My question has always been how do we know that we are all seeing the same colors. What if my green is your blue? We would still both know it as green, but we wouldn’t be able to describe it as being different. It would just be green, even though we were seeing different colors"
],
"score": [
12,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqimhl
|
why are prepaid phone plans cheaper?
|
I’m looking at switching to Verizon. If I do a single person plan with unlimited it’s ~$75, but if I do the same single person plan as an unlimited prepaid plan it’s ~$60. Why the price difference for what is essentially the same service?
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi40elh"
],
"text": [
"Unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean by prepaid (we don't use that term in the UK), it's basically because you've already paid. There is no risk to the company of not getting your money, as they already have it. Thus, they can afford to make it a bit cheaper."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqivjm
|
How come we can see galaxies that are millions of light years away but barely know anything about the solar systems right next to us?
|
[This]( URL_0 ) article got me all excited that there really might be intelligent life out there, but then I thought: how is it that we have no clue? We have telescopes that are so powerful they can see galaxies that are ridiculously far away - and take good photos too!...but we can’t take a good look at the star(s) next door to our sun and its planets?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi426eh",
"gi429lz",
"gi42l9e",
"gi441dc",
"gi444ud"
],
"text": [
"Galaxies are big and bright, they project light very far. Things in our solar system are small (relatively speaking) and only reflect a bit of light from the sun. That's like how you don't see microrganism on your own eye, but you see that boat a couple of miles away.",
"Galaxies are **HUGE** and **BRIGHT**. Planets are small and dark. We have telescopes that can see a galaxy because galaxies are easy to see. Planets that emit no light are very difficult to see.",
"[This video]( URL_0 ) does a really good job explains why our best telescopes can see things billions of miles away, but not something as close as the Apollo landing sites on our own moon. Basically the things Hubble looks at a not only billions of miles away, but also millions of miles across. Another thing is that deep space observation is often looking at things that are very dim, or producing light in non-visible ranges. In both cases we need electronic data to interpret an image from.",
"Take a movie theater screen, few dozen feet across and tall. You can see the screen from anywhere in the movie theater. Now shine a bright white light onto the screen, it's even easier to see the screen, right? Now tape a gnat to the screen. From up close you might be able to see the gnat over the bright light wash out but from further towards the back the whole screen will just look white. The movie screen is a star, the gnat is a planet orbiting that star.",
"Planets are extremely tiny relative to galaxies or even stars, and they emit no light of their own. Even planets in our own solar system appear tiny to the naked eye and can only be seen under certain conditions. The only evidence we have of planets outside our own system is when they move between us and their star, creating a shadow. Whatever light they may be reflecting from their star at other times doesn't stay cohesive long enough to reach our telescopes. Another issue is that interstellar photography is only one of many ways that astrophysicists study stuff. Learning that a certain planet is blue doesn't tell us as much as estimating its chemical composition or temperature. Thus there's not as much call to take a picture of an exoplanet, especially given how difficult the task would be."
],
"score": [
8,
6,
3,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[
"https://youtu.be/QkaNqud_VxU"
],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqivrz
|
What helps plants on mountian tops do photosynthesis?
|
Okay this sounds stupid, but for my science assignment, I dont really get it. What are some adaptations that help plants on a mountain top do photosynthesis? Because on mountain tops, its cold and windy, and the plants up there would usually have smaller leaves to minimize frost damage, so it'd be less room to absorb sunlight?? This is stupid but I need an answer
|
Earth Science
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi428s1"
],
"text": [
"One big benefit is fewer obstructions. No Mountain that keeps them in shade for much of the day when you're on a mountaintop. Also no big trees, and fewer clouds, and fewer pesky animals eating your leaves. Every ecological niche is different, and the plants that thrive there are adapted to their niche."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqj43v
|
what are cramps and why do they hurt?
|
Hi! I’m a very late bloomer and I always heard others talking about cramps and how badly they hurt. I thought they were exaggerating but I’m having some of the worst pain of my life right now and I was never taught why they happen. Can some explain exactly what a cramp is and why do they hurt so bad?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi44020",
"gi456kq"
],
"text": [
"some one correct me if i’m wrong, but its my understanding that your uterus is mad that theres no baby in it so it tears off and gathers up the wall paper it had ready for the baby, plus the crib it just bought with all the baby clothes and throws it out the door. in short. your reproductive system builds up in anticipation of impregnation and when it doesn’t happen it needs to offload. cramping is you feeling the change it goes through as it “starting” with a blank slate. it happens to guys on a undrastic and miniscual scale. if they haven’t released any sea-man in a while they wake up wet. some guys don’t let it get to that though if they release often. sorry its so painful 😣",
"Muscles that normally don't do much, or do something different, are all now working together to squeeze out material that's been building up in your uterus. I think it's kind of the same as suddenly doing a lot of unusual exercise - if you started doing aerobics non-stop, it wouldn't be long before your body started complaining."
],
"score": [
13,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqj4o5
|
Why do internal search engines often do not work as you expect them to work?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi46par",
"gi46lks",
"gi44xsc"
],
"text": [
"Because building search algorithms that work *as you expect* is extremely hard. Google works so well because they invested unfathomable amounts of money into the development of their most-known core product, the search engine. Now just compare it to the next competitor, Microsoft's Bing search. While developing that one also took lots and lots of money, its results are arguably worse than Google's, at least in public opinion. So we easily see that, while the amount of spent money on development is still huge in absolute numbers, search quality decreases faster than the money involved. Fast forward now, skip a lot of search engines in between until you're looking at your internal search engine, that probably isn't a core product of a multi-billion dollar company. It's probably just a by-product the developers threw onto a specific product to make it look more complete. There cannot be remotely enough \"brain power\" in there to provide anything more than exact text search with some fuzzy tolerances in matches maybe. In other words, it lacks any *semantic abilities*. But those semantic features are what you *expect* from a search engine and they are simply not available. // edit: To provide an example for semantic abilities, based on the example from a post further down here: If you type \"Star Wars\", then returning \"star\" and \"wars\" is dumb. Returning \"Star Wars\"-matches is better, but still not good. If the engine knows that, for example, \"Rogue One\" is somehow connected to \"Star Wars\" even though they do not share more letters than the \"r\", then you have an algorithm that is semantically useful.",
"Like many applications, a search engine needs programming help to operate more efficiently. Search relies on programs that help to index the results, kind of like a filing system... so, for example, if there are a lot of documents that contain both “peach” and “pie”, but only a few that have “apple” and “pie”, a good search could list peach pie documents first, even though Apple would come up first alphabetically. You may have heard of Google’s “spiders”: these are programs that crawl the web 24/7 to find relationships that help make their search engines more accurate to what you’re actually looking for. Usually internal systems are implemented “out of the box”, as they come from the developer. There isn’t a lot of tuning or customization, because it’s expensive and it’s not a revenue-creating activity.",
"I work for an education department...it’s easier to search for a document through Google then to use the internal search engine. I have further defined the problem."
],
"score": [
30,
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqjecx
|
What is a partial derivative? Why are they useful?
|
I'm a mathematics major and I do know the answer to this question, but I'm curious on how to ELI5. I love calculus and I want to be able to talk about it with more people who don't have a strong mathematics background.
|
Mathematics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi45kip"
],
"text": [
"Since you're already versed in the concept, one way to think about it is as a special case of the directional derivative - that is, df/dx is the directional derivative with respect to < 1,0 > , df/dy is the directional derivative with respect to < 0,1 > , etc. Or for the non-mathematically-inclined: \"if you go in such and such a direction, how quickly does the function change?\" They're useful for the same reason that regular 1D derivatives are useful: they tell us how the output of a function will change with small changes to its input, it just so happens that for functions of multiple variables there are several ways in which we can change the input."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqjgo3
|
how do bank transfers work?
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi45o5w"
],
"text": [
"They don’t owe you money when you deposit. You put $ in one bank, that bank is now “holding” your money. When they send them to another bank, that bank is now in possession of the $ you deposited to bank 1. Hope that helps"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqjj4x
|
When you burn fat where does it go?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi45tty",
"gi468h8"
],
"text": [
"You breathe and pee it out, mostly. Fats are mostly carbon and hydrogen, which get combined with oxygen to leave your body mostly as (respectively) carbon dioxide and water.",
"Most of it you breath out. Stored fat (or sugar) is combined with oxygen (this is why we need to breathe), in a process that results in usable energy for your body, carbon dioxide, and water. Roughly 80% of the mass comes out as the carbon dioxide. Related fact, where do trees get their mass from? They don't suck it up through their roots as you might think, they're mostly carbon from carbon dioxide in the air. They use (basically) this same reaction in reverse."
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqjqdi
|
[Psychology?] Why do we as humans speak in a higher pitch to things we consider cute?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi46zu9",
"gi48coy"
],
"text": [
"We instinctively speak in a higher tone to human babies, to make ourselves less threatening to them. Speaking to other things like that is a consequence of that association.",
"It depends on the theory. But it boils down to either the higher pitched tone is less threatening or that babies recognise higher voices better. The second idea is thought to be linked with babies hearing female voices (their mother) more often in the womb so they recognise higher pitches as safe and lower pitches as strangers. We speak to them in that way to get a reaction. There are cases were people interacting with deaf babies, stop changing their pitch because the babies don’t react to it. But I don’t know enough to know if that’s widely accepted."
],
"score": [
12,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqk6e7
|
Why is it that I will have to urgently go pee not more than 5 minutes after going to the bathroom? It feels like I completely empty my bladder the first time.
|
???
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi4lnk5",
"gi4gamw"
],
"text": [
"You probably have actually emptied your bladder. The human body has an amazing capacity to produce urine at different rates. It isn't a constant thing. Sometimes it might be a trickle, at others something you ate or drank could cause your body to decide it needs to get rid of excess water or salt - and BOOM your bladder fills very quickly. I'm an endurance athlete (Ironman distance triathlete) and we spend a lot of time trying to \"optimize\" our fluid and electrolyte intake so we pee about once per hour during competition. It seems that the generally accepted dogma is you're properly hydrated when you pee every hour during racing. It is really difficult because of factors such as humidity, temp, and effort are tough to add in the equation.",
"(For a woman) Lean forward when you pee, it straightens out the passage from the bladder to the urethra and helps you fully empty your bladder. Also wait a bit longer after you think your done to fully let your pelvic muscles relax and release anything left. Another common issue is weak pelvic muscles not being able to hold small deposits of urine in. Look into Kegel exercises (very easy to do) to strengthen those muscles up. *Tips from a urologist I once visited with!"
],
"score": [
7,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqlc1z
|
Why does alternating current still provide continuous power to an electrical object (light, solenoid, etc.), even though the “electrical pressure” wavers between positive and negative, including zero?
|
If electrons keep changing their direction in a closed circuit, how does that work for a solenoid (for example) that always requires a particular direction of current to work properly?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi4ibmf"
],
"text": [
"It doesn't provide continuous power. Sometimes that matters, sometimes it doesn’t, sometimes it is required. Current flowing in either direction provides energy, it’s the motion that is important, not necessarily the direction. For lights like incandescent bulbs, the current running through just heats a thin wire filament, the filament doesn’t care which direction the current goes in. The light does actually flicker as a result of the alternating current but flickering at 120 times a second out eyes don’t notice it. For lights like LEDs which require current to go in one direction, they generally cannot use alternating current. For solenoids, it depends on what you want to achieve, for instance a transformer is two solenoids wrapped around the same core and alternating current is required for the transformer to work correctly. But if you want to just create a magnet, you would need current to go in one direction."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqldzr
|
With no visual references, and just a vast featureless ocean, how did warplanes navigate back to their carrier in WW2?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi4hu6e",
"gi4jczj"
],
"text": [
"“A significant wartime innovation for naval aviators was the YE-ZB radio system, which enabled aviators to find their aircraft carrier without giving away its position. The ship broadcast Morse code letters in 30-degree arcs. The aircrew flew a heading assigned to the letter. The signals were modulated so they would sound like static if heard without the ZB-1.” [Source]( URL_0 )",
"There were two ways: The first one, just tell the pilots \"We will be at these coordinates in four hours, see you there\". You didn't need to know where you are now or then, just know where you need to be relatively to where you are now. Math and compass work and hope that nothing comes in between. The second is with radio direction finding instrumentation on the plane, where the carrier would send a signal and the planes could determine the direction they need to fly to."
],
"score": [
31,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://timeandnavigation.si.edu/multimedia-asset/zb-1-radio-homing-adapter-and-security-cover"
],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqljya
|
Do we build up a tolerance for naturally produced chemicals like Dopamine and Endorphins?
|
We seem build tolerances to most drugs if taken often, but what about all the chemicals that's produced by ourselves like natural Dopamine, Serotonin, Endorphins and such? Essentially what i'm asking is if it's possible to build a tolerance for happiness? If you live a purely problem-free and happy life will it eventually turn monotone until you get a new "record breaking" new dose of happy-chemicals? Whatever the answers may be does the same apply to the chemicals we produce for feeling sad/stressed and such?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi4j1mp"
],
"text": [
"In a way, yes, but usually not naturally. The way it works is that, when faced with large amounts of those chemicals, more receptors for them will be produced so the body is able to take in all the extra chemicals. But while the chemicals will eventually go away, the receptors don't, or at least take a lot longer; which reduces the effect of regular doses of the chemicals. This is part of how addiction works, and why some people get addicted to things that are not chemically addictive; the dopamine rush they get produces more receptors, which reduces the effect of regular amounts of dopamine, and also reduces the effects of other dopamine rushes, which is why you hear people who've struggled with addiction say that after a while they don't feel good engaging with the addiction, they just feel bad for not engaging in it. But outside of addiction, this shouldn't happen. For more receptors to be produced, you need large amounts of chemicals *suddenly*, whereas if you live the happiest life possible, your body can still handle those amounts of dopamine, because it's not being flooded by them. Unless there's some exceptions I'm not aware of."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqll79
|
Why does breastfeeding require so much instruction and support?
|
I’m expecting my first baby and I’ve been inundated with offers for classes, lessons, books, support, etc. about breastfeeding. I’m truly grateful that all these resources are available. However, I was always under the impression that you just put your breast in the baby’s mouth, they instinctively sucked, and milk came out. Can someone explain what makes it so challenging and why a new mother might need a lot of help with it?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi4i7ce",
"gi4lq6k",
"gi4ows9"
],
"text": [
"Some people have an easy time getting their bodies to work the way they want them to work. These blessèd people don’t need support. But not everyone is so lucky. Biology is messy. People’s bodies are complicated. Some times bodies just won’t do the thing you want them to do. Maybe it is because you have been sick or injured. Maybe it is genetic or congenital. And sometimes, maybe it’s because you just have no idea what you are doing and so you are doing it wrong. By far, not knowing what you’re doing is the most common reason why people have trouble doing new things that they have never done before. And not knowing what you are doing is very common experience for people who just given birth for the first time, or who are about to and are nervous about it. Babies also have bodies that don’t always work right. And they also don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t know anything! They don’t know anything as truly and completely as anyone can not know anything. So they are totally helpless when instinct fails them, and so totally reliant on adults who know how to take of them. So there’s a lot of material and support out there to meet the demand for information and guidance around pregnancy and early childcare.",
"My BFF and I both have 6 month olds. I put my baby to the breast as soon as he was born and we were off to the races. He latched well immediately and was happily nursing from day 1. My BFF put her baby to the breast immediately as well, but her baby couldn’t figure out how to latch. She couldn’t get any milk out and was crying from hunger. They tried various positions, and ultimately had to get a tongue tie clipped. Once they figured out latching, things still weren’t working out. Turned out my friend had low supply and needed to do a bunch of stuff to increase it. It was super easy for me and so hard for her and there was no factor to explain why our experiences were so different.",
"I think one of the biggest reasons for all the support offered is that it is now very much supported that women do breastfeed. For at least a generation women were very much discouraged so lots of women’s wisdom got a bit lost. So now, women are sometimes conflicted if they have issues and either want to quit of feel badly about themselves because they think they can’t do it. I had a few problems at the beginning but worked things out within the first week mostly on my own. My sister in law had much more difficulty due to some physical/medical issues and needed emotional support and also some medical support. But in the end it worked out."
],
"score": [
15,
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqmewd
|
Why is that urge to pee that we have when we get to a cold temperature?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi4r9h8"
],
"text": [
"[Cold diuresis]( URL_0 ). To preserve body heat, blood vessels near our extremities constrict, causing a rise in blood pressure for some people. To lower the blood pressure, the kidneys start filtering out some water to reduce the amount of liquid in the system, resulting in more urine. It is a (very) early sign of hypothermia, so bundle up."
],
"score": [
11
],
"text_urls": [
[
"http://www.arkansasurology.com/blog/what-is-cold-diuresis"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqndo3
|
How do Zero Click exploits work or manage to execute the code
|
How do these exploits manage to force the device to run the code? Can you really just send TCP or even SMS packets/messages with the messages in a way the device will run? I am very intrigued and worried about these attacks. Apple says they patch them but there are constantly new ones
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi4tv0r"
],
"text": [
"I mean data recieved at some point gets redirected to some application. Those applications do something when they recieve the data. Sometimes the application in question is the OS or your Messaging program or your 18+ XXX Minecraft server. A clever and patient person who understands how the target application handles incoming data can format said data to cause unintended behavior on your device. That's what they call an exploit or a security hole. None of that inherently requires the user to click anything. Of course most systems don't allow themselves to do anything crazy, or are hemmed in by security from their environment. The easiest way to bypass these safeguards is to get the dumbest, most gullible, and most needless part of a system (the user) to do something like click a link or run a program."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqnmpl
|
How is our drinking water different than normal water in nature?
|
Earth Science
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi4uuks"
],
"text": [
"It's filtered and treated to remove dirt, bacteria and other contaminants. Water-borne diseases are very common in places without water treatment. Some water has fluoride added as that massively improves the health in your teeth. Some sources of water have that naturally."
],
"score": [
8
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqnt1w
|
Why does the bullet go where the sight of the gun is even tho the barrel is lower than the sight?
|
I don’t understand how on a rifle or any gun the sight of the gun is often above the barrel yet the bullet goes where the sight is. Does the bullet always go where the sight is or is there always going to be some inaccuracy?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi4wchc",
"gi4x5a5",
"gi4wa2n",
"gi4vpd3"
],
"text": [
"You set the sights up so they “zero” at a certain distance. The barrel will be angled very slightly up compared to the sights. Imagine you draw a line straight down the sights and another straight down the barrel - they’ll intersect at some distance away. You set up the sights so the bullet lands on the bullseye at a known distance (eg 100 yards). (The actual process also compensates for “bullet drop” as the bullet is continually being pulled down by gravity just as one you drop out of your hand would be. Then if you want to shoot further - say 200 yards you adjust the sights by a configured amount (“clicks”) on the adjustment wheel to compensate for the bullet falling over the second 100 yards of the shot. The “misalignment” is actually essential to being able to shoot any significant distance. If the sights somehow were completely aligned with the barrel then you couldn’t make the required adjustments to compensate for the bullet falling during its flight.",
"A sight will only be perfectly accurate at two distances. The reason is that a bullet begins to fall the instant it leaves the barrel of the gun. The barrel of the gun must be angled upward slightly relative to the sights. If you have the gun sighted in perfectly at a long distance what happens is that the bullet will travel in a shallow arc. After it leaves the barrel it will be traveling upwards, it will cross the sightline of the guns sights (or scope) - then as the bullet drops down it will intersect the target at the same time it crosses the sight line of the gunsight (or scope). This means that there will be another distance much closer where the scope will be perfectly accurate; where the bullet path intersects the sight line on the way up.",
"The barrel and the sights are angled slightly so that they converge at the set distance. Like this: URL_0",
"The front and back of the sights are offset some so while it feels like you're aiming straight, you're usually looking at a very slightly downward angle in order to align them with one another."
],
"score": [
61,
9,
7,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[
"https://aussiehunter.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/sighting-graphic-1-300x255.jpg"
],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqo5qu
|
Why can every phone company claim to have the “Largest most reliable network”?
|
I’ve never seen a phone commercial that didn’t claim to be the best. How can they all claim that without any thing to back it up?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi522rj",
"gi53f3r"
],
"text": [
"There can be multiple definitions of the same claim. Using largest network, do you have the most towers, the most customers, cover the greatest area, greatest amount of unique numbers? All of these could reasonably be used to claim having the largest network",
"Every time you see a claim like that being made, pause the video and check the fine print; it will explain what the claim is based on. A claim of \"largest\" could mean number of customers on the network, number of people *covered* by the network, number of cell sites, or bunch of other metrics. A claim of \"most reliable\" could mean lowest percentage of dropped calls or dropped data connections, or it could even be based on customer surveys asking \"how reliable is our service?\" You'll notice that these bold claims are always based on a vague metric such as size, speed or reliability, and you have to look at the fine print to see what the *actual* metric is."
],
"score": [
6,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqod1g
|
Why cant HIV be transmitted through casual contact, like if there is sexual fluid somewhere and someone has a cut on their hand why do people deem this a zero risk for infection?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi578v5",
"gi4zy32"
],
"text": [
"It's not _zero_ risk, but it's very very very low. HIV is actually not a very transmissible virus at all - it can't survive outside the human body for long and even if you get it in you you've got reasonable odds of not contracting the disease. We take extreme precautions because it is a very nasty and currently incurable disease, but it's not easy to get.",
"it doesnt survive long outside of the body, so the virus in the fluid dies and/or becomes inactive before someone else can touch it. you also need to be in contact with a decent amount of the virus to get infected."
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqop8h
|
What do we know about the long term effects of vaping, if we’re sure of anything?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi59sb1"
],
"text": [
"Not much yet, we'll need to wait until they've been in common use for a long term. They've only really been in use since the mid-2000s, which isn't long, and didn't really become common for about a decade after that. And they've changed a lot during their short time on the market. Some things we know from the short term: * We do know that nicotine itself is very addictive, but is not dangerous on its own in the quantities received from vaping/smoking. However it's not safe to leave the liquid where a small child (or anyone really) might drink it, and exposure to concentrated nicotine-based insecticide can be harmful. * We know that the danger from smoking primarily comes from byproducts of the tobacco curing process and the tar that sticks them in your lungs, and vaping doesn't have those. * However vape liquid (like any product) can contain trace amounts of various stuff, as well as flavoring, with unknown effects. Regulation varies, but generally it isn't regulated in terms of ingredients like food or medicine yet. * THC vaping liquid is different than nicotine vaping liquid, and is of course totally unregulated where it's illegal. The thickener Vitamin E Acetate used in illegal THC liquid has been implicated as the probable cause of [vaping lung illness]( URL_0 ) * Although there haven't been any reported cases from vaping yet, a flavoring [diacetyl (butter/popcorn flavor)]( URL_1 ) has been banned from vaping liquid in the EU and most manufacturers elsewhere have also stopped using it in vape liquid, after it was found to be dangerous to factory workers who produced the flavoring."
],
"score": [
9
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%932020_vaping_lung_illness_outbreak",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diacetyl#Worker_safety"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqp1av
|
How do people build computer components such as transistors that are nanometers in size and make billions of them in tiny chips to hold and read data?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi54v1h",
"gi543h4"
],
"text": [
"Photolithography. (Literally: writing with light on stone). You print out the patterns you want on some glass then you shine light through the glass and through some lenses until you have a teeny tiny image projected like a projector onto some silicon with some special chemicals on it. Then you develop it all like a photograph where you use some acid that will eat away anywhere the light didn't touch and keep anywhere the light did touch. In the modern day it gets more complicated because everything is so small and you end up exploding single drops of tin in a vacuum to make pure enough light and having to put the lenses in ultrapure water so you can use weird optical effects of liquid to duplicate patterns that are too small to project directly but the general idea is just shine a tiny image on some light sensitive film then remove all the material that light didn't hit.",
"The process is called lithography. They make an image of what they want, layer by layer. Then they use lenses to project a much smaller version of the pattern on a wafer. They build it layer by layer, coating the material with a photo reactive substance. After the substance reacts to the imagethey etch off the part of the layer that's not protected."
],
"score": [
5,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqpam0
|
why do people with tourette syndrome use a lot of curse words?
|
I have a sister who is now 16 had it when she was around 7. Everytime we try to explain her something she always mutter to herself "bitch" and slam the door. I never understood that but it made me mad, u know like "who you calling a bitch" and then she'll get angrier and things like that. Anyways, I realize now that this is actually a normal occurrence with people in tourette's and I just want to ask. Do you do it out of emotion? Or it just comes out like that? Not trying to be disrespectful I hope.
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi59ddk",
"gi57my4"
],
"text": [
"Tourette Syndrome patient here. First thing to understand is that this is actually not very common. I don't have this tic, and I've never met any other person with Tourette's who does. It is one of the rarest symptoms of it, with only something like 3% of all diagnoses actually exhibiting this symptom. Second, the best way I can explain any tic, including this one, is like an itch. You just gotta scratch it, something in your brain tells you that you have to. But that's still not really accurate because with an actual itch, once you scratch it, that's it. It's scratched. You also choose to scratch it, while tics tend to be automatic. Also, you gotta repeat tics, over and over and over, till it feels like you'll go insane. Problem is, if you don't do it, you will also go insane. But the insanity of repeating tics feels better than the insanity of not doing it at all. There's no rhyme or reason as to what triggers them, but once they've been triggered, it takes a lot of willpower to not (again, the insanity ratio). Sometimes - most of the time, there's no option, it just happens without you thinking. Hope this helps you to understand her a bit better. Trust me, she doesn't enjoy it and wishes she could stop. We all do.",
"Think of it like this: when you, as a neurotypical person, feel pain or discomfort, there is an urge for you to say something like \"ouch\", or to swear. You can exert willpower to keep yourself from vocalizing from discomfort, and greater levels of discomfort make the urge to vocalize stronger. Visualize this as a mental \"pressure\" making you want to vocalize, that increases with discomfort and as you use up your mental fortitude. People with tourette syndrome essentially have a quirk to their brains that makes them generate their own discomfort/mental pressure internally that makes them want to vocalize. It's not like physical pain, but acts like an ever-increasing urge to make some kind of vocalization. When they do cry out or swear, it resets the pressure back to zero, or close to it, but their brains are constantly increasing that pressure, so as more time passes between each one, it would take more and more focus for them to suppress the urge. Swearing isn't a 100% universal outlet for people with tourette's, but it's fairly common, and your sister likely isn't often swearing at you, but just swearing in general to relieve that mental pressure."
],
"score": [
16,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqpnv7
|
Why is it that the center of a watermelon is the most tasty part of it?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi5eaah"
],
"text": [
"Fruits have tough rinds to protect from very small animals that aren't capable of distributing the seeds well. If the inner flesh of a watermelon was exposed, insects could swarm and eat all of the sugary material while not carrying the seeds away. However, a large bird or primate would be able to break the fruit open and ingest both the flesh and seeds, defecating them out far from the source. Through natural selection, this causes those fruits to be more successful in their environments. Then, we humans domesticated and specifically bred the fruits to have a far larger ratio of flesh to rind, because it tastes good."
],
"score": [
10
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqpox6
|
Why do most elevators have two call buttons if neither of them change what direction you’re going?
|
I notice that almost every elevator has these things, but obviously the buttons inside the elevator do all the work. Why the extra button then?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi57h8c",
"gi57ql8"
],
"text": [
"It changes when the elevator opens. If you are on floor 3 of a 5 floor building, and you are going to floor 1, the elevator should know that you are going down when it is going up, bringing someone from 1 to floor 5. Otherwise, you have to wait in the elevator as it first goes up to the top floor, and then descends all 5 floors.",
"Say you're on the ground floor, and you've pressed the 'up' call button. If the elevator has passengers in it, and they're traveling from the rooftop to the basement, then the elevator will skip the ground floor on the way down, drop off its passengers in the basement first, and catch you on the way back up. If you'd pressed 'down' instead, you'd be sharing the elevator with those other passengers."
],
"score": [
14,
8
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqpv93
|
What exactly is it about stimulant abuse that makes people look old faster? How does that work?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi5anvw",
"gi5b5pt",
"gi5g7l9"
],
"text": [
"It’s not ever really the drug itself, it’s that when you’re buzzing on amps you forget to brush your teeth and wash your face and drink water etc etc bc you don’t really have a daily cycle anymore. Think, you probably brush your teeth and shower before you go to bed/when you wake up. If you just didn’t go to bed when do you decide to stop mid whatever it was you were doing to go do something like that. Also amphetamines and stimulates dry the absolute fuck out of your mouth and saliva does a lot to protect your teeth. Combine that with not drinking water, and not burnishing your teeth Source:adderall usage",
"Excreting drugs, even alcohol, from your system requires a great deal of water. A lot of the aging is from chronic dehydration. If you go on a bender, you'll see the aging, and if you stop early, your skin will spring back (saying the bender is like a month and not a year+). Plus, stimulants decrease appetite, and you don't sleep. You're running on empty, all the time. You're probably lacking nutrients that would keep your skin and hair healthy. This is on top of the loss of interest in anything that isn't getting high (rest, hygiene, etc)",
"What we call \"age\" is cumulative cellular damage. When you're young stem cells come in & replace damaged cells rapidly. But stem cells eventually ware out, at which point you start to age quickly, like from smoking, or sun tanning in your youth. When you abuse stimulants you're literally poisoning your body, killing cells, forcing stem cells to exhaust themselves replacing old cells. On top of that stimulants cause you to over exert yourself & avoid sleep, which also ages you faster. In the night you go through 5 cycles of sleep. Each cycle has 3 stages; light sleep, REM sleep, & super deep stage 3 slow wave sleep. Your body only repairs itself from each day's activities during stage 3 deep sleep. IOW, stem cells cant even really do their job without stage 3 deep sleep. As it turns out, this is the hardest sleep to get & the most easily damaged sleep ability. Any change in the sleep cycle can upset stage 3 sleep, sometimes permanently destroying the part of the brain that causes it. If you miss out on much deep sleep, you age (or die) much faster."
],
"score": [
6,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqqcat
|
Why is our teeth so sensitive to cold, but not as sensitive to heat?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi62nmu"
],
"text": [
"When you take your temperature below you tongue is should be around 98F, so the rest of your mouth we can say is around 90F. If you drink something hot it’s not going to be much more than 120F before it actually burns your tongue, where as ice cream can be as low as 10F. The difference between the normal temperature of your mouth and the extremes is greater for cold stuff."
],
"score": [
13
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqqf1u
|
how can plants get “too much fertilizer”?
|
I’m just getting into growing plants, and I see warnings like “make sure to avoid ‘too much light’ or ‘too much water’, which make sense. But some say “avoid too much fertilizer”. Why? Edit: I’m curious about the mechanism of the “overdose”.
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi5bsfj",
"gi5efv8",
"gi5hr92"
],
"text": [
"It’ll burn the plant... Many things are needed by all sorts of organisms and are fatal in larger quantities. Human for example will die if they drink too much water or eat too much salt. Yet both are required for life.",
"You know how a single pill of aspirin will improve your circulation, but a whole bottle will kill you? It's the same concept. Organisms are designed to function within certain parameters. Too much or too little of any substance will disrupt the function and cause damage.",
"Ever heard of \"the dose is the poison\"? It states that everything has a lethal dose, even food, water and oxygen. The lethal dose of snake venom is low, so not a lot of snake venom is required to kill you. On the other hand, the lethal dose of water is high, so you can drink water safely - as long as you don't drink too much (6+ litres). Same with the plant. If you give it a lethal dose of fertilizer it will die."
],
"score": [
7,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqqg4r
|
How is it that insects can maneuver their way through tight spaces INTO a trap, but they cannot do the same thing to escape the trap? They sometimes can’t even escape an open window, it seems.
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi5ci9t",
"gi5iacs"
],
"text": [
"Insects perceive the world completely differently than we do. They can smell the bait and follow its scent, but can’t see the exit Compound eyes are great for seeing predators and motion, but not very good for fine details. Insects can’t see glass. They don’t understand the concept. EVERY window looks open.",
"There are a lot of perceptual differences which make insects bad at that kind of navigation task, but one big factor is that they are usually guided into the enclosed space by a smell. And because of how particles diffuse in air, smell-based navigation is kind of a one-way trip. Imagine you're in an empty room, and there's a crack in the wall of one corner of the room, and a distinct smell of bacon seeping into the room through that crack. Can you find which corner of the room it's in? Pretty easy, right? Just follow your nose. Now imagine instead that you're sealed in a room *with* some frying bacon. The smell is filling the room and gets stronger the more it sizzles. But somewhere in the room, there's a crack. Lots of bacon smell is seeping *out* through the crack, but the only thing seeping in is a little fresh air. Can you find your way to the crack by smell now? Probably not."
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqqqf8
|
what happens to matter in the "Big Freeze"?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi5yrti"
],
"text": [
"A brief overview of the \"big freeze\" is required. Currently, matter *exists.* Hydrogen is the simplest atom in the universe and therefore the most abundant due to it's ease of creation. All of the stars fused hydrogen into helium and continued this fusion down the periodic table of elements until they reached heavy metals like iron. At that point, the first stars in the universe were exploding into massive supernovae that put all of these heavier elements into the universe. Billions of years pass and eventually planets are being formed from these other atomic materials. Gas planets, solid metallic planets, icy planets, etc. A supernova is like a tree rotting in the forest. The tree may have died, but the nutrients that it leaves behind allows for other trees to grow and thrive. But eventually, the elements are so dispersed that they can no longer come together because of gravity. By this point, most stars have either exploded into supernovae themselves, turning into black holes or neutron stars, OR have swollen and then shrunk down to white dwarves. At this point, far far into the future, there isn't enough material to create new stars. Stars continue to radiate their heat energy very slowly and eventually are the same temperature as the vacuum of space. Neutron stars take longer to reach equilibrium and black holes even longer, through hawking radiation. But *eventually,* when all of the celestial bodies in the universe have reached the same temperature as the vacuum of space, no new stars are being born, and nothing else happens. The matter still exists, but is so evenly distributed that it is essentially frozen. This is the idea of entropy. Gasses in a bottle don't clump to one side, they spread out to fit the container they are in. If you consider all matter in the universe to act like a gas (because we know the universe is expanding) then eventually it'll just be so evenly distributed inside the container of the infinity of space that particles will no longer interact with each other. That was a wordy explanation, let me know if you've got other questions."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqqr6s
|
How can astrophysicists calculate everything in space with precision if 85% of the matter is uncounted for?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi5fcb5"
],
"text": [
"They can't actually calculate the movement of a galaxy, the theories don't explain it based on what we can see. See being with light. Not everything needs to be seen with light though, we are seeing a gravitational anomaly. That's where dark matter comes in. We (or I should say Einstein, building on the work of some other geniuses) came up with general relatively, it explains gravity. We apply it to to the moon, checks out. We apply it to the solar system, checks out. We apply it to all sort of crazy things, making sure the clocks on our GPS running faster in space because of gravitational time dilation is accounted for. We have detected the gravitational waves predicted by it. We've predicted blackholes with it, and then photographed one. We've witnessed light bend by gravity like a lens. We're pretty sure general relativity is right. But then we apply it to galaxies, and something's wrong. We can only see so many stars, and guess how much mass is there. But galaxies spin faster than they should. As if, there's actually more mass than we can see. So what's wrong? Is general relativity wrong? Are we calculating gravity wrong? At that scale, doesn't seem like it, everything says it's good. But that very well could be an option, although it doesn't seem likely. We know for a fact general relativity is probably wrong at very small scales, just not big ones. Are we missing some stars? Absolutely, but we have a good idea of how many we haven't found. Is it planets? No, too small and can be accounted for. It is random gas clouds? Doesn't seem like it, we can tell where those are and they do give off light. Is it back holes? No, those show very strong local gravity, so they have things orbiting them. They also aren't very dark, they things they suck in get very, very bright before they reach them. This mass is everywhere around the galaxies, like a cloud. Not clumped into a blackhole. Could be an observation problem, but doesn't seem likely. So there appears to be some sort of mass out there. It's not localised, like a black hole or star. It doesn't interact with light, like gas or stars. It doesn't glob together like matter. But it seems to have mass. This is dark matter. What is dark matter? Well have have some theories, but we don't know for sure. There's some sort of matter out there that just doesn't electromagnetically or nuclearly interact. This isn't unheard of, we know of neutrinos. Billions from the sun are flying through you right now, but almost all of them don't hit you. They don't interact with matter with electromagnetics or the strong nuclear force (what holds an atom nucleus together). They just interact with gravity, and with the Weak force. So they do very rarely in some odd case interact with matter with this Weak force, and we can occasionally detect them, and can account for then to determine that a large amount of then probably is not the dark matter. We only ever originally predicted neutrinos because nuclear reactions seemed to have mysterious missing mass too. Quite similar really, but probably not our candidate. A possible name for dark matter is WIMPs. Weakly interacting, massive particles. Big neutrinos, that interact with gravity and possibly something weak or weaker than the current capital 'W' Weak force we know of. Never seen one though, or witnessed it weakly interact."
],
"score": [
8
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqqy2a
|
When giant ships like the Titanic sink is there a whirlpool effect that can drag people under when the ship fills with water? Can someone please explain why or why not this would happen?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi5h828",
"gi5geem",
"gi5iwiy"
],
"text": [
"Let's get this out of the way. The effect is a real thing that happens with large ships. The Mythbusters did one small scale test, with a boat far too small for the effect to be noticeable. There are many accounts and engineering studies showing that the effect happens. You need a large ship such as the battleship HMS Hood, and it needs to go down fast (the Hood went down in a few minutes after it blew up) As to why it works. Ever move you hand through a pool of water? Behind you hand there’s less water because your hand pushed it away, so water fills in that place. The water moving into fill that place is what’s sucking you down. If your hand moves fast, the water has to move fast to fill the space. Also there’s air trapped in a large ship that bubbles up to the surface as the ship goes down. In some cases, the bubbles make the water light enough to make it impossible to swim or float. The air going up also displaces water, causing it to rush in from the sides.",
"When a ship goes down it leaves a giant column of air above it. Water then rushes in to fill in this column, dragging everything with it. The moving water is the fabled whirlpool effect. This is also what causes tsunamis, but at a much larger scale. A plate drops (or rises), water is displaced and it forms a giant wave. Fortunately, ships can neither drop as fast as a tectonic plate, nor does it displace enough water, so sinking ships don't cause tsunamis.",
"To add to other answers a very similar effect can happen in air and it has pulled airplanes out of the sky. We don't have man made things big enough to do this to airplanes, but water can do it. It's called a microburst. Basically something causes a small stormcloud or part of a larger one to quickly and violently rain most of it's water. This causes a massive downdraft as the water displaces and pulls air down with it. The air that goes down goes out and up and the air above and to the side is pulled in and down."
],
"score": [
71,
17,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
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}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqr0z0
|
Why do techs always 1st ask if we restarted the router? Why does that the most common fix to the issue?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi5g2rp",
"gi5gerj",
"gi603y4",
"gi5g3ar",
"gi5gil7"
],
"text": [
"A router is essentially a small computer, and like all computers, may develop issues after running for a while without a restart--maybe some application on it has a memory leak and starts running slow, or memory fragmentation due to constantly allocating and deallocating memory blocks is a problem, and so on. Restarting sets it up clean and thus tends to fix issues. This is also why the tech asks you to do that first, because it's simple and will solve a lot of problems.",
"The classic I.T. Crowd \"Switch it off and back on again\" is a genuine quick solution to a lot of I.T. problems because it forces the device to \"rediscover\" the correct settings, typically the techs are reading off a script and often they cannot diverge from the script because they'd get sacked. For routers, the firmware in them automatically creates routing data tables and errors creep in to data tables causing the router to do the wrong thing, so restarting it erases the table and forces it to rebuild the data with no (or more likely fewer) errors. Edit: clarity",
"A lot of the answers here are either inaccurate, don't actually attempt to explain, or are great answers but a little simple. u/d2factotum and u/ADelicateOrange gave very good answers. (Which isn't meant to say that other people didn't also give great answers.) Here's an in-the-weeds answer if that's what you're interested in. Routers work by using *Routing Protocols.* These sets of formal instructions determine how the router sends packets of data across the network. Some of those protocols send out packets to all other devices and ask for a response. They use the time (in milliseconds) to determine the distance. If you're trying to send a message from one place to another, it'll choose the fastest route. However, sometimes the fastest route is also going to see the most traffic. This means that you'd be clogging up the main path, which makes traffic slower for everyone. So engineers create newer and better routing protocols that can handle different situations. They combine things like response time (what I described above), number of hops (amount of devices in between), and they also communicate the speed available of the link. Using all of this data, you're able to create a really good map of how to send traffic around a network quickly. Howwwwwever, eventually things change in a network. New devices are added, networks grow, links change. So what was correct last week might not be the fastest option this week. Some routers are able to handle these changes as well, but those are more expensive than most standard user routers. Like u/d2factotum mentioned, computers must have memory to do *anything.* In case you're not familiar, memory and storage are different. Storage is your hard drive, and memory is Random Access Memory, or RAM. Anyway, computers can use storage to supplement memory for faster processing. If the routing tables fill up storage, then this can also slow the ability of the router to process data. This isn't the same thing u/d2factotum said, so his explanation is correct but different. When you restart the router, like many others have said, it clears these tables and means that it can find the most correct paths. Finally, network storms happen in misconfigured networks. You'll probably never experience one in your home network because home networks are small. But a network storm is (very) basically a situation in which routers and computers create loops when trying to find new devices. All of a sudden the network is at max capacity much like a traffic jam on a highway. This is a critical failure and by restarting the router, all traffic stops as well. This gives the whole network an opportunity to restart from a baseline. Restarting the router verifies that this issue isn't the cause of a problem and much like power, allows the tech to move on to the more complex issues. There's no reason to replace an engine of a car if the user just failed to put gas in the car. Start with the easy and the simple because easy problems happen more often than hard ones.",
"Computers work in pretty linear ways. It works with building lines of code upon itself. When it fails it doesn't really understand how to fix itself. So, the easiest way to fix it is to have the system restart to allow the technology to start back at square 1 of the current build state, and see if it can actually do the code. 9/10 it will be able to. Sometimes things just break like those awkward times we trip on nothing.",
"Computers in general, including routers, have memory. As the router works, it fills and empties parts of that memory. Over time, some memory may be written to, however the program doesn't refer it anymore, which looses memory. Restarting the device clears this memory. Its also possible some bug in the program occurred that wasn't accounted for, and this causes some glitch that can't fix itself. This can possibly freeze the program, or it can cause slow downs. A restart will get rid of these glitches by resetting the program's state. Its something that can fix most of the temporary issues, and has very little risk to cause further damage."
],
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14,
8,
5,
3,
3
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"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqrazk
|
Is the word chemical misused, and if so, what do people really mean when they refer to chemicals?
|
I just googled what is a chemical and Google told me everything is a chemical because everything is made of chemical compounds. When I use the cleaning supplies like Windex and bleach, we refer to those as chemicals. When I think about what makes my watermelon lollipop taste like that, the answer is chemicals. It seems like people use chemicals to refer to anything unnatural/manmade. What is that category of things actually called?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi5igq6",
"gi5irgy",
"gi5jqi5",
"gi5ivdn",
"gi5kcnc"
],
"text": [
"Synthetic chemicals, perhaps. When it comes to chemistry, the line between manmade and natural gets pretty blurry. Turpentine is just purified pine oil, but few people would consider it any more healthy than gasoline.",
"If you look at the dictionary answer on google it gives a better response. People generally use the word chemical when there is a high concentration of a single compound, and when it is artificially made. It also applies to compounds that have special reactions.",
"Chemical has become a catch all phrase that is often used as a replacement for the word artificial. This is in my expose to the word at least, and I'm sure everyone will use it slightly differently depending on context. It's very literal definition is appropriate for use in a technical setting and falls under what I'd consider jargon. Jargon is specialised words that are normally used and understood by experts but not necessarily the general public. A chemical is just how you refer to a specific substance usually made up of one kind of element or a very specific mix of them. - eg. It doesn't make sense to describe sand as a chemical, but it does make sense to describe silica as one It's this disconnect between the scientific world of chemistry and the general public that has muddied the definition of what it means to describe something as a chemical.",
"I think so many use 'chemical' as something harmful to you because when you think of chemicals, you might imagine various liquids on a chemistry station and you certainly wouldn't drink those, right? It's a mix of blurred lines like another redditor stated as well as fear based marketing with a dash of ignorance",
"It's not necessarily a misuse. Chemistry is a distinct field of science and the word chemical in general is meant to refer to molecules in the context of chemistry. So when you say, toast a piece of bread, no one usually talks about chemical reactions because you aren't using the science of chemistry to analyze it. But if you study how the specific molecules in bread transform to affect taste (ref: Mallard reaction) then those molecules are then properly referred to as chemicals since you are talking about molecules in the context of chemistry. In the context of ingredients it's usually a matter of referring to ingredients that have been purified/isolated. So take soapmaking as an example. When you make soap you will usually take some natural oil or fat which is a mixed bag of various molecules which would not typically be referred to as a chemical. And you would mix in lye which has been made in a industrial process (usually electrolysis) and therefore would properly be referred to as a chemical. From a completely different perspective you could take something like purified oleic acid distilled from olive oil which would be considered a chemical, and mix it with wood ash which would not be considered a chemical and you would still get soap (though not very good soap, usually you would extract lye from the ash but then you would have a chemical and I'm trying to make a point here :D)"
],
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9,
9,
6,
4,
4
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"text_urls": [
[],
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[],
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}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
kqs1kp
|
why do newer smartphones reboot after changing a SIM card?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi5m8i9"
],
"text": [
"Older phones you had to shut down before messing with the Sim, so the reboot was hidden. iPhones don't need to reboot because they don't utilise some sim card features like contacts storage."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
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}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
kqs73c
|
How does compressing a file work? As in how can you can a specific amount of data in the form of bits take less bits to have the exact file?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gi5p500",
"gi5n1ft",
"gi5m2bc",
"gi5t4ow",
"gi6v6ty"
],
"text": [
"Say I give you the following sequence of numbers, it's twenty digits long: `11111111444442222222` The sequence consists of eight `1`'s, followed by five `4`'s, followed by seven `2`'s. So you could code the same information in a different way using only six digits: `815472`. That's how compression works. (Compression isn't magic. A compression program only gives you a shorter output if there's some kind of pattern in the input that the program can \"look for\" and then code in a shorter way.)",
"It's because real files have lots of repeated patterns. Text files are usually very highly compressible because language naturally has lots of repeated phrases and words. A compression algorithm can then build a little table of the longer and more frequent patterns matching them to small codes. There is some overhead with storing the table of patterns and with identifying data that isn't in the table but this amount of extra data added will usually be less than the space saved.",
"Both the sender/encoder and the reciever/decoder can agree on some form of file type or encryption scheme, so that basically some of the information is already known by both parties. Say I wanted to write a piece of music, and I had to write every note plus the time delay until the next note. But if you and I both agreed that all notes are .5 seconds apart, then I would no longer need to write the delays, only the notes, so the file would be smaller. Or if I was sending you a book, but we both agreed that the letter r by itself represented the word are. Then I could send you a file with slightly fewer letters without losing meaning.",
"Lets say we want to compress the message \"i like apples\" We could say that the number 1 means 'i', the number 2 mean 'like', the number 3 means 'apples', and the number 0 means ' ' (a space). So then the message would be, '10203' instead. This message would take 5 characters instead of 13 characters to encode. But there's a problem! This scheme would only work with messages that use 'i' 'like' 'apples' and ' '. You can't encode a message like 'i like bananas' with this. You should be able to see that if our scheme is too specific, it isn't usable for general cases. And if its too general, then you would just be mapping letters to numbers 1 to 1, so it wouldn't reduce the size anymore. With these two ideas, there exists some specialized optimal encoding in between these two extremes that is general enough and specific enough to reduce the size of our file/message. This is also why you can't really compress a message multiple times. It reaches some optimal state of encoding data that can't really be reduced anymore or else you lose information in the message.",
"In short, the trick is: make short words for things you tell often, make long words for things you tell seldom. Take, for example, English text. Letter \"E\" takes up 12.02% of all letters in the text, while letter \"Z\" - only 0.07%. But with standard ASCII encoding both will take 8 bits. We can do much better if we give letter \"E\" short 3 bit code, and letter \"Z\" can have 11 bit code. Yes, letter Z became longer, but it so rare, that it will have minuscule effect. On the other hand, we save a lot of space on letter E, because it is so common. If we do that for every letter in the alphabet, we can achieve 4,2 bits per letter on average (instead of 8 bits per letter). We can do even better if we encode pairs of letters. For example, letter H is pretty rare on its own, but it is much more common after T. We can go even further and encode entire words or short phrases! All that will make the result even shorter. That's the gist of how compressors works: they calculate statistics of how bytes is used and encode them in \"short often, long seldom\" fashion. Many also have some kind of \"dictionary of common words\" to encode repeating sequences shorter."
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