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lapyrj
|
Why does bread heat up so fast in the microwave?
|
It takes me 1:00+ to warm up my leftover Chinese, but I can get my cinnamon roll steaming in 10 seconds. What is it about bread that makes it heat up so fast in a microwave? I added the chemistry flair because I assume it has to do with the molecular makeup of bread or something, but I also have no idea what I’m talking about.
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
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"It has a low specific heat capacity due to having extremely low density (holes/sponginess makes it that way). This means it heats up faster, (and the breakdown of glycerides makes it soft/soggy) and starts cooling down faster once taken out (it starts to regain firmness)."
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"score": [
8
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[
"url"
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[
"url"
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laq9gr
|
Why are the palms of your hand lighter than your (main) skin colour?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"Hi, preparing an histology exam rn. The palm of your hands and plant of your feet have a layer of cells on the epidermis which is lighter (I don’t know the exact name of the layer in English because I am not a native speaker) than every other layer and serves as protection for such a sensitive area. Maybe it’s because of this?",
"The outer layer of the skin is like a lasagna. Most of the body has only one layer of cheese on top. The palms has a thicker layer of cheese on top, so it's harder to see the marinara sauce.",
"I think this is only for darker pigmentation complexions (less pigment produced in palms). My skin tone is light and my palms are pink, for example, so the opposite of what you posted, palms darker than main skin colour.",
"I believe it's a few reasons. Friction causes the need for more frequent skin growth. Your palms are in the sun less so they don't tan as much. And also the skin naturally grows tougher there."
],
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25,
23,
8,
6
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[
"url"
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[
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|
laqikv
|
Where does the money come from when you cash in your shares ?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"When you sell your shares, someone else buys them from you. On the brokers page are listings, like an auktion. You say \"I'll sell my shares in X for $Y\", the someone else puts up \"I'll buy n shares in X för $Y\". And if both your \"$Y\" are equal, or someone is willing to buy yours for more than you sell for, the deal closes.",
"There always is a buyer on the other end of a sale. Stock exchanges job is to match the \"I want to sell at X $\" orders with the \"I want to buy at X $\" orders. The money come from the buyer minus commissions from each intermediary",
"The stock market is a closed system. You can’t make a dollar from selling stock unless someone loses a dollar buying stock. The “value” of stock is allll imaginary numbers that show up on the computer and may or may not be true. Until you cash in and sell, there’s no real value.",
"You sell the shares to someone else. In publicly traded companies, you do that on a stock exchange where thousands of investors constantly buy and sell shares so the price is determined by the market. If it’s a private company, you still have to sell the shares to someone but it’s a much slower process and usually involves negotiations to determine the price.",
"When you sell your shares, that's because somebody else had to buy them... the money comes from that other side of the transaction. So you execute a trade to sell 10 shares of XYZ corp in your E-trade account and somebody else bought those 10 shares of XYZ shares in their Fidelity account. A clearing house manages the exchange, with your brokerage transferring over the shares and their brokerage sending over the money."
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5,
5,
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3
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laqmzn
|
How can some morbidly obese people on bad diets avoid atherosclerosis for decades and some seemingly fit people succumb to it (through heart attack etc)?
|
Posting after the death of a contestant on a obstacle course program who would have relatively good fitness and figure. How do some morbidly obese people (exclusively those who eat poorly) avoid getting clogged arteries after decades? And why do some fitter people who would eat less of these foods comparably end up with clogged arteries?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"Genetics is still not fully understood, but essentially each of us has a natural state (epigenetics) as well as genes which can be switched on and off, for example, through exercise. An obese person may be existing on their 'natural' state (i.e. doing exactly what their genetics dictate) by being obese - hence why diet and excercie legitimately dont work effectively for some people. Alternatively, someone who experiences heart disease may also be following their genetic coding. That's without taking into account external factors, an obese person may actual not stress their body as much as someone who exercises vigourously, as unhealthy as they feel and are. Hopefully someone with a bit more expertise can either support or clarify this, I hope my basic understanding isn't coming across as bro-science.",
"First, we should know that heart attacks aren't just caused by fat in the vessel. It can be any obstruction of the artery or even overworking the heart so much too suddenly that your body can't match the demand. One of the important factors to consider is how quickly the increase in heart's demand for oxygen increased. If it was too sudden then it can cause a heart attack, if it's slow then your body can develop alternate pathways to supply blood if one is blocked. So basically everyone has a different level of predisposition to development of vascular diseases such as atherosclerosis. And obesity just increases that level for you. It's not a guarantee that an obese person will die of heart attack. But there is a really really high probability they will. So doctors telling patients to lose weight or do exercise (especially when they have a family history) isn't saying they won't have a heart attack now. It's essentially a precaution to reduce your chances. Just like smoking and lung cancer. There are non-smokers who died of lung cancer and chain smokers who lived 80 with no lung problem.",
"I think your question lacks nuance. It’s quite difficult to compare one contestant (presumed healthy) on a reality TV show to the entire population of those considered morbidly obese. It could’ve been genetics, it could’ve been bad luck. Maybe he smoked crystal meth on the weekends. Maybe he did eat poorly, but metabolises it better. There’s too many variables."
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laqykb
|
Lung hairs
|
Is there something in the lungs that filters the bad stuff we breath in like nose hairs? Does it create lung boogers? Where does all the dirty stuff we breath in go?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"text": [
"Your nose and mouth do the heavy lifting and filter out most stuff. There’s then indeed small hairs in your lungs waving towards outside, particles that come in get covered in mucus and get transported out which you then cough up. Ofc a lot potentially stays in such as tobacco smoke particles and microdust. This can hinder the function of the hairs and in time render you short of breath and decreases lung capacity",
"In our windpipe, we have stuff on our cells called cilia and they create a something call the mucociliary elevator. (Muco = mucus; ciliary = brush-like structures on our cells; elevator = moving the stuffs upwards) They basically brush everything upwards towards your throat at all times. Dust, particles, and most important bacteria. Once this brushed stuff makes it past your windpipe and into your throat, you’ll swallow it or cough it up. Usually you don’t notice this throughout the day. When you’re sick you make even more mucus and do even more of this brushing upwards action, so that’s why you can actually notice the stuff you’re coughing up more. Unfortunately if some “dirty stuff” is able to make it past your windpipe and into the deep parts of your lung, you won’t be able to cough that up. Instead we rely on immune cells to go and eat that stuff up and hopefully degrade it. They can definitely cause damage in those places, which leads to things like stiff lung (fibrosis)"
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8
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[
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lar7y3
|
How do tax havens work ?
|
How do tax havens, money laundering, offshore banking works.
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"Company A starts another company B and registers them in the Caymen Islands. Company A at the end of the year has a million dollars profit which can be taxed in the USA. Company A pays company B one million dollar consulting fee. Company A now how has no taxable income. Company B has a million dollars but rewarded with Caymen taxes."
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8
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larqwa
|
The Kosovo war
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"First it's very important to know that Yugoslav internal borders are mainly communist drawn, during and after WWII (1943-1945). Every South Slavic ethnic group inside Yugoslavia got their own socialist republic, but Serbs, because they were the most numerous ended up spread in 3 other republics as well. Kosovo, as a cradle of Serbia but with majority Albanians at that point, became a autonomous area inside a socialist republic of Serbia. Only Serbia had autonomous areas, which will prove to be both unfair and deadly in the end. Had there been autonomous areas for Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia for example, war could have been avoided and Serbia could deal with their own autonomous area in a different manner. After the Constitution of 1974, it became much easier for republics to gain independence, which almost all socialist republics used to gain independence in 1991 with exact borders drawn by the communists. But that way a lot of Serbs ended up outside of their own country, and that's why the war started. For Kosovo it was even more complicated. They wanted independence as well, but they were not republic but autonomous area. Serbs felt that after so many of their fellow Serbs ended up outside of Serbia, in foreign countries, they had a right to keep a land although the foreigners, in this case Albanians were majority in that part of a country. They felt that if Bosnia and Croatia could keep their land with a lot of Serbs in it, they could do the similar with Albanians. Albanians, of course, didn't agree with that and started their \"Kosovo Liberation Army\" (terrorist group) and Serbs answered in the same dangerous way, they both killed a lot of innocent people. Serbs of course being a stronger side committed more of it. At that point US (with NATO) sided with Albanians and intervened by bombing Serbia for 3 months. As a consequence, Serbian military retreated from Kosovo in 1999. Kosovo unitalerally declared independence in 2008, but Serbia is still not accepting that. Why? Because there are hundreds and hundreds of medieval Serbian monasteries and churches on Kosovo, Serbia as an entity was practically built on Kosovo. The greatest battle in Serbian history also happened on Kosovo, against the Ottoman empire. That's why is very complicated. Albanians are majority and it should have been their country but its a Serbian cradle, where their kings ruled and built their legacies and where the Serbian culture started and was defended for a long time. That's why they can't accept the current situation.",
"Part of the reason why this is so confusing is because for over five hundred years the balkans were under Ottoman control. And they allowed people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds to move around freely within the country and settle in the same areas. In fact they were encouraged to as it made it easier to supress any rebellions since the rebbels would have a hard time finding a stronghold with lots of supporters. It also made it easier to set the different groups against each other if needed. This is not only something we see in Yugoslavia but throughout the former Ottoman territories including Grease, Syria, Palestine and Somalia. However this strategy meant that after the fall of the Ottoman empire and then the fall of Tito and his support from USSR you ended up with a country composed of various different ethical and religious groups who had all been brought up to hate each other even though they shared the same neighborhoods. Even if they had tried hard to find a peaceful solution it would be almost impossible to draw up a set of boarders that would be easy to control and maintain.",
"One of the prime causes of deaths was ethnic hatred and distrust! The Serbs wanted to ethnically cleanse the country of Muslims. Not dissimilar to the way Nazi’s treated the Jews in the 1930’s and during WW2. When Tito rules Yugoslavia all these ethnic differences were held in check and when nationalism broke the country up into individual countries there were many issues over borders and historical land ownership etc. Similar thing happened when Sadam Hussein was overthrown in Iraq. When the dictator falls other issues come to the surface. Religion and ignorance has been the cause of many conflicts!",
"So just to add to the other answers. All of these countries belonged to Yugoslavia. After the long-time ruler died, there was a power struggle. The two largest power blocks were Serbia and Croatia. In Yugoslavia at that time (1988-89), the member countries had voting powers. The Serbian President engineered a way to hijack control of Yugoslavia by gaining control of 4 of the 8 countries by creating unrest and using other dubious methods. Milosevic used Serbian nationalism to consolidate his power as a dictator. Eventually war broke out in 1991. When war broke out the first time, Bosnia was occupied by 3 main ethnic groups of people: Croats (Catholic), Serbs (Eastern Orthodox), and Bosniaks (Muslim). Serbia became increasingly interested in annexing parts of eastern Bosnia that they alleged contained ethnic Serbs whom they wished to repatriate. Around that time, a council of Bosnian Serbs created what was effectively a separatist nation within Bosnia called Republika Srpska, which had it's own army. That army and government was supported by Serbia, who was, in turn supported by Russia. War broke out. The Bosnian capitol of Sarajevo was held under siege for 4 years. This happened in the 1990's in Europe. A modern city was under siege for 4 years. There was a street called sniper's alley. It was unbelievable. As Republika Srpska forces occupied eastern Bosnia, Bosniaks were forced into enclaves. The Republika Srpska began pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing, claiming they were going to deport these people to other parts of Bosnia, which at this point was effectively two countries, in open warfare, with no fixed borders. These enclaves included Gorazde, Srebrenica, and other places. In Srebrenica, in June of 1995, the Serbs loaded 8,000 Bosniak men onto buses that were never seen again. The Serbs massacred them and laid them in mass graves. 30,000 more men attempted to escape to the allied held town of Tuzla, 55km away. 2/3 of those men did not make it. The Serbs committed other atrocities all over eastern Bosnia. At that time, the international community knew what was going on. One of the issues was, after the fall of Russia, who would be \"in charge\" internationally, and how would human rights violations be handled in the new world makeup? The U.S. had tried to intervene on its own in Mogadishu in 1993, which went wrong and led to the very public and very brutal loss of American soldiers. That was basis of the movie Black Hawk Down. Therefore they were not very interested in attempting to stick their neck out the very next year. Rwanda happened in April of 94, and while it was basically over too quickly for the international community to react, no one did. It had also become increasingly apparent between 92-94 that the UN would not be able to get anything meaningful done because Russia would block any action with its seat on the Security Council. So nothing did happen. When Srebrenica collapsed, there was a lone battalion of Dutch peacekeepers that had been systematically weakened over the previous year and who were helpless to do anything but act as observers for the outside world. In the end, no meaningful action was taken by the West. The conflict ended in 1995, and Milosevic was still in power. I don't know as much about the details about how the Kosovo issue was re-kindled, but it had never really went away. Kosovo was a semi-autonomous region in Serbia that was also primarily Muslim. In the intervening years, Bosnian Serbs and indeed Serbia had been attempting to cover-up the actions had occurred before, and the West was attempting to investigate and build a case. When the events in Kosovo began, the Western powers were determined to intervene. NATO is a military alliance that used to be the old counter against the Warsaw Pact. It was controlled primarily by the US, UK, France, and Germany at that time. NATO was its own entity. It did not have to report the UN, and it was capable of responding much more quickly, in a coordinated method, and with an actual military. NATO forces were the ones responsible for intervening. They eventually went forward in Kosovo, and even bombed Belgrade. Now, for one final backdrop. One of the 'agreements' the West had made with the old USSR as it was breaking up was that NATO would not begin to poach former Warsaw countries as soon as they hit the international 'free market'. Yugoslavia wasn't a part of the Warsaw pact, but Serbia was still very much within what Russia considered its sphere of influence. Another was that NATO would not begin encroaching eastward. Russia has always been interested in Pan-Slavism and has sought to exert international influence through proxy countries made up of Slavic peoples. Its support of Serbia in 1914 and its unwillingness to allow Austria to take corrective action against Serbia after a Serb terrorist group assassinated Franz Ferdinand was a major factor in the start of WWI. Russia took the entire Kosovo actions extremely personally. To this day, there are interviews with Vitaly Mutko, ex-FSB officer and current Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, where he states that the bombing of Belgrade is when \"the West lost Russia\". And it goes some way to explaining Russia's diplomatic posture over the last decade. Edit: (spelling and grammar, and year corrections)"
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las3sc
|
How did ancient missionaries convert entire nations to a different religion?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"You target influential leaders mostly. Think about it, the thing that allowed Christianity to flourish in Rome was Emperor Constantine accepting and converting to Christianity. Though arguably it was for political reasons, it still had the effect of making Christianity the dominant religion in the Roman Empire within 10 years. Where 10 years before they were persecuted and regarded as enemies of the state.",
"Muslims: Conquer neighboring countries then tell people that they are free to worship anything they wished as long as it was done in private. Publicly they need to follow Islamic law. Then you forbid women to marry any male not Muslim and within a generation or two conversion was well on its way. Christianity: Adobt some local practices and customs and make them Christian. That makes conversion more palatable. True Christianity requires very little outward activities. I would estimate that 95+% is simply adobted practices that hold no real value to the Christian faith. ) Others: Not sure but most likely similar types of practices.",
"I know Sweden only converted because the king wanted better relations with the Christian world, a lot of the time that was how it was done. Even so, it took time for people to forget the old religion obviously, even in Rome there were still pagans for hundreds of years after Christianity became the state religion. Another way was through conquest, convert or die. The Muslim conquerors were a bit more subtle, they imposed a tax on \"people of the book\" (Christians & Jews) that they had to pay if they wanted to keep their religion."
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laswd3
|
why bread gets harder when it’s exposed to the free air and it doesn’t occur when it’s in a package filled with air?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"When the bread is in the pack, the moisture is sealed inside with the bread so it is stable. The moisture can only move between the bread and a very small amount of air. When the bread is exposed to the air, the moisture evaporates from the bread into a much larger volume of air and the bread cannot absorb it back again. Therefore it dries out.",
"Packaging is flushed with an inert gas, usually nitrogen, this delays the bread going stale. The quality of the sealed packaging is then critical."
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lat0f8
|
What is the difference between a Jazz Bass and a Precision Bass?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"text": [
"The J bass has a pickup on the bridge (bottom part of the guitar where the strings connect) and near the neck (long skinny part where you push the strings to changes notes). The p bass only has a pickup near the bridge. The pickup is the part of the guitar that \"hears\" the sting vibrate and turns it into a signal for the amp. On the jazz bass you can adjust the volume of each pickup on their own so it gives you a lot of options in how it sounds. Because the pickups are in different spots along the strings they will hear slightly differently and give the sound a different tone or color. As an aside, a lot of times j bass players will just match the level of both pickups because it rejects a buzzing sound that happens with single coil pickups. But by plucking near each pickup you can change how the notes sound. The p bass is a little more limited in that sense in that it only has the single pickup, but it's not necessarily a bad thing, just a difference in how the bass works and plays.",
"P bass has that round \"Motown\" sound, J bass is brighter, punchier, better for slapping and such",
"Then there's the P/J... a thinner Jazz neck on the larger P body, with the Jazz bridge pickup and controls added."
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latj7b
|
How does lightning form ?
|
There is another question like this on this sub but those answers weren’t understandable for me😭. Can somebody really explain like I’m five how does lightning form
|
Earth Science
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"Think of lighting as a big static shock, same as if you rubbed your feet on a carpet and touched a doorknob. Like your feet on the carpet, the water and ice particles in the cloud rub against each other. This creates charged particles, negative towards the bottom of the cloud and positive towards the top. Once the negative charge is big enough, it will attract to positive charge in the ground, because opposites attract. This is like when you touch the doorknob, the opposite charges connect making an electric shock. Now, it should be said, there is POSITIVE lightning too but it is much more rare.",
"A lightning bolt is an electrical spark (not an 'arc') on a massive scale. Remember, positive and negative charges want to love on one another. The bottom of the clouds are powerfully negatively charged (the tops are positive, so often the lightning is between different parts of the cloud), remember that when you have a disparity between negative and positive charges you are creating a difference in potential. As this difference grows the electrons in the cloud start ripping electrons off the in the air around the cloud which forms a plasma. The plasma follows the path of least resistance to the earth and the electrons flow up from the earth over the plasma and once the difference in potential is equalized the plasma goes away and the clouds and earth smoke a cigarette in post coital bliss."
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latkbt
|
what causes severe negative reactions to any irl contact in people with anxiety?
|
As in title. To sit in place where few other people irl are, who mostly keep to their work when I do mine, I need lot of support and yet it's still really draining. Not to mention when I actually have to ask for help. I just want to understand what's so different between average person and one like myself, on brain level.
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"text": [
"From how I understand it, it's mostly just recalled trauma and learned patterns. One had a bad experience with a thing, one's mind stored that thing in the \"in case of emergancy\" box, and now when you encounter the thing or something similar, it causes kinda like a mental allergic reaction. As for the more \"invisible wall\" kind of anxiety, I really don't know. I, personally, don't concider stopping what I want to do, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I'd imagine it's the same as other types, mentally. I think it's mostly just how people process certain stimuli, and sometimes the thing begets a squiffy response which would have been reasonable before, but isn't here.",
"People with social anxiety are bad at reading the intentions of other people. A normal person who be on edge filled with adrenaline from walking down a dark alley in an unfamiliar city. Anxiety sufferers are like that in any social situation. The cause could be a trauma, overactive nerves, inadequate exercise or nutrition or other causes."
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3
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[
"url"
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[
"url"
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latth0
|
How thin does a wire have to be to pass through your body without harm?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"text": [
"The short answer is No. The longer answer is that it doesnt really have anything to do with size. At this scale (when looking at things the size of atoms or below), the analogy of atoms as particles that work like some sticky sand doesnt work anymore. If you look at the atoms and sub-atomic particles, those things dont interact by \"touching\" as grains of sand do. They interact by a number of forces that depend NOT on the size of, but the distance between things. The question would be whether you can make a string of particles that can move through your hand without exerting forces that would be strong enough to break chemical bonds in the atoms in your hand, while exerting strong enough forces on themselves to remain a string. The problem is that all conventional matter interacts strongly at very short distances - if that was different, your string wouldnt be a string but just a formation of particles that dont interact. So as long as your string is actually a string (something where you can pull on one end and the other end follows), it can not pass through yout hand without damage. There are, however, particles that can pass through matter unhindered. Neutrinos would be an extreme example. Radiation at some wavelengths is an other example - e.g. X-rays. But while those can be technically seen as particles, its hardly something you could call solid matter or even form a string with. There is also diffusion - random movement of some particles through other material - but this happens with particles that are not bound, so they cant be part of a string."
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36
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lau492
|
How does oral medications actually work?
|
I’ve always been curious to know how exactly medicine ends up helping you but need it to be dumbed down. For instance, if I have a headache, how does medicine dissolve in my stomach and help the headache?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
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],
"text": [
"The medicine you digest is actually a chemical with effects (the part you want) and side effects (things that also happen but hopefully they're not too bad). If you crush it up and snort it or if you shove it in the backdoor it'll be the same. Those chemicals have the same effects wherever your body absorbs them. The effect is what happens when that drug (chemical) is taken in by your body. The medicine doesn't know what's wrong, it doesn't matter. The medicine is just a chemical that has an effect and that's it. Imagine getting drunk. You are taking a chemical into your body, something that is not food. The body digests and absorbs it, and the desired effect is what you get. Same with oral (or any) medication. Same with poison. Same with vitamins.",
"The process is called metabolism. You can imagine that you have tiny blobs (enzymes) in your small intestine and liver. When you take a pill, the stomachs job is to break it up into tiny pieces using its juices, so that when these pieces move through the digestive system, these blobs can stick to it. You have several different blobs, each a specific shape that are looking for a tiny piece that is the right shape, like 2 puzzle pieces that go together. Once the tiny pill piece and the blob are together (called a metabolite) they are carried by the blood through your body. In the case of Tylenol for a headache, that blob+pill piece make its way up to the brain, and they are the perfect shape to sit against the areas in your brain responsible for perceiving pain. They build up against these pain receptors so they can't work as well, so you don't feel the pain of your headache any more. Eventually the metabolite is mixed with proteins and other enzymes in the brain, changing their shape again, and they are picked up by the blood and carried down to the kidneys, who see this big blob as waste and remove it from your body."
],
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lau53j
|
What makes a singer's voice sound "old fashioned" when listening to older songs?
|
For example, at the 1:10 mark, the male chorus sounds so different to me from modern singers: [You Can Fly]( URL_0 )
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"text": [
"I would say this is the combination of recording equipment at the time but also the Mid Atlantic English Accent. (The old fashioned movie voice)"
],
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|
[
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[
"url"
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lau5od
|
Why does Gas/Petroleum go bad after a few months?
|
Why does it go off after a few months? Is there anyway to preserve it and make it last longer?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glpzz2g"
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"text": [
"Petrol is a mix of a lot of light chemicals. Its properties depend on that mix. The different chemicals have different boiling points, different abilities to evaporate. As the lightest of the chemicals evaporate away, the properties of the petrol change, and it no longer works as well as it should in your car or mower. Some chemicals can also react with each other creating heavier chemicals, even waxes. The fuel can oxidise without igniting, and water can also be absorbed by the fuel. Believe it or not, there are even mould, fungi and bacteria that grow in petrol! These also consume parts of it and create gunk that can damage engines. There are ways to preserve it. A sealed, or nearly sealed, container helps. There are also additives called fuel stabilisers that prevent the formation of waxes, reduce evaporation, and prevent growth of gunk."
],
"score": [
18
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|
[
"url"
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[
"url"
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lau77x
|
Thousands and thousands of years of humans living and dieing on earth many times over, how can you NOT find century old bones when ever a a construction site digs up the earth to build building foundations? You'd think that by now, there would be bones everywhere right?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"text": [
"Most of the time bones break down by the elements and get eaten by microorganisms, not much different from the other parts of a body. It takes longer, but not so long that it doesn't happen in an instance geologically speaking. when an entire corpse is buried, the bones are more likely to survive, but even that is not a guarantee. That is why fossils are so rare.",
"Lots of predators and scavengers back then, fewer decent shovels to hide bones 6 feet down. Most animal remains (including humans) are eaten by other animals. Yes even bones.",
"Our best estimate is that there have been 107 billion humans on earth. This means 15 dead people for each living person. If each corpse is given a generously sized 64 square foot grave site, then a graveyard to hold every human corpse ever would be 229568 square miles, about 0.1% of all land on earth. Some ways to reduce the needed land area include cremation, mass graves, or simply the slow decay of bones into dust. In fertile soil with no coffin, a skeleton will be destroyed in about 20 years. In sandy soil an unprotected skeleton can last hundreds of years. It is extremely rare for a skeleton to become fossilized and preserved for thousands of years."
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[
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|
lauk68
|
Calories and weight gain.
|
Let's say I eat 1kg of burger and my twin eats 1kg of apple, will both of them gain the same amount of weight? I know that the person who eats 1kg of burger will consume higher calories, but what I don't understand is, how calories relates to weight. In the sense that since, in this hypothetical scenario, both of them are consuming the same amount of food therefore they must gain the same amount of weight. And if this is true, then why is calories intake amount given so much importance? I am sorry if this is a dumb question.
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"Not all the weight of food is going to contribute equal to calories. A lot of that weight is water, which you don't get any energy from. likewise, plants contain cellulose which humans are not able to break down. the reason both weigh the same but the hamburger has more calories, and will thus ultimately make you gain more weight, is because the hamburger has more organic molecules that you are capable of breaking down and using for energy and for structural molecules. Of course, in the very short term each of you will gain one kg, it is just that the twin who ate the apple will defecate a larger amount. Because that twin has to get rid of all that cellulose they cannot digest. They will also likely urinate a bit more to get rid of the excess water.",
"In the immediate term, both people will gain some weight from eating 1kg of food, but this is a transient effect lasting only a few hours as they digest the food and then excrete the waste. Calories is a measure of the amount of energy the food contains and that has more of an effect on overall weight gain, loss or maintenance. So say, for example, 1kg of burgers contains 1500 calories and 1kg of apples contains 500 calories. Let’s say your hypothetical twins use up about 2000 calories a day just going about their daily lives, so in order to maintain their current weight they each have to consume 2000 calories worth of food. Twin A, the one that ate the burgers, feels very full and has eaten most of the calories they need to keep going through their entire day. If they don’t eat anything else for the rest of the day then they might even lose a bit of weight. But burgers are made of cooked meats and simple carbohydrates which are relatively quick to digest, so Twin A might end up feeling hungry later and eat more food, taking them above their 2000 calories. Any extra energy that they eat but don’t use during the day gets stored as fat. Twin B, who ate 1kg of apples, also feels very full, but they’ve only eaten 1/4 of the calories that they need for the day. On top of that, the fiber in the apples will slow down their digestion so that they feel full for longer. But their body still needs 2000 calories just to get through the day and it has to get those from somewhere, so it starts breaking down stored fats (and sometimes muscle) to provide the energy that Twin B needs to live. Even if Twin B eats more later, they will still need to eat a lot more than Twin A did to catch up to their 2000 calories, and they’ll likely eat less because they’re still feeling full from all those apples. As a result, Twin B will lose weight."
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5
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|
[
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[
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lav45g
|
when people use a supercomputer to supercompute things, what exactly are they doing? Do they use special software or is just a faster version of common software?
|
Also, I don't know if people use it IRL. Only seen it in movies and books and the like.
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"They are mostly fast because of multiple processes at the same time. The do not work well on linear problems and scale best on tasks that can be done in parallel. They have special schedulers that assign calculations to cores and collate the results. Its more like a hundred or thousand PCs all working together on one problem.",
"So my work is in Quantum Chemistry (Supercomputer time is life) and our calculations are essentially linear algebra on a massive scale to calculate tiny particles. Based on how efficient the computer algorithms are these separate linear operations can be run in parallel very quickly. We use a combination of self-built/shareware and proprietary paid-for software designed for use on supercomputers. The biggest optimization that goes into our calculations is figuring out which operations need to occur in order and which can be run in parallel - sadly there has been limited work on figuring out which operations can be ignored (something like 90% for small molecules (5 atoms) and something like 99.99999+% in anything like a protein). For more information there are some good primers on Quantum calculations out there and some really interesting work into how to use Quantum computers to skip a lot of these matrix calculations in interesting ways.",
"It depends. A supercomputer is, roughly speaking, hundreds of smaller computer chained together (with extra hardware like GPU,... sometimes) You have two ways of using that: 1) launch a simple code hundreds of times on individual datasets 2) launch a big special code that uses all the small computers (nodes) at the same time. In case 1, the software is the same as it would be on your computer. In case 2, it's a software specially designed for the supercomputer.",
"They use a lot of (fast) computers combined and that's why it's so much faster than a single one. Imagine 2000 very smart people working on a list of math problems instead of a single person.",
"Supercomputers *that* much faster than a regular computer, it's just that there are lots of separate computers working together. This means the software that is running on them needs to be able to split up the work in a way where multiple things can be run at once, therefore having a performance gain. Take the following todo list: 1. Reply to boss's email 2. pick up child from soccer practice 3. go to grocery store 4. drop child off at friends house In the list above, we could either have one person do all of them sequentially, or if you had two more people to help you (total of three people), then steps #1,# 2, & #3 could be done all at once by different people. Step #4 however, can't be completed until step #2 is done, and also needs to be done by the same person who completed step #2 as they have the child in the car. Computers are the same way. Certain problems can be more easily split up and run in \"parallel,\" while others must rely on the result of a previous step. The same thing is happening in your average computer when you have multiple \"cores.\" Each core can run a different task, but the software has to be able to efficiently split up those tasks in the first place in order to utilize them.",
"Supercomputers are used on very specific types of problems, they need to be massively parallel because we're not talking about using 4 or 8 cores, we're talking around 10,000 multicore CPUs and 20-30k GPUs which gives closer to a million independent cores. Folding@Home is a good example of a distributed supercomputing problem, basically you need to try every combination and you can have each core testing a combination and then moving onto the next Early supercomputers were used for modeling in nuclear weapons. They wanted to model all the little bits and track tons of points in the explosive and core and model how it will all compress together to create the reaction. Stuff like this and Computational Fluid Dynamics are basically infinitely parallel and more cores results in either better results with more points, or much faster results with the same number of points You can't just throw a super computer a Crysis and expect it to play nice, that wasn't the type of problem it was meant to solve",
"A super computer is really just a bunch of computers connected together to work together. Users use special applications to split a workload across them. A normal CPU can only handle a few things at a time and any further work has to wait, albeit nanoseconds, to be processed. With a super computer, you wait less because it's distributed across all the processors. A good example is render farms for 3D animation studios like Pixar. Rendering those movies takes a LONG time, as it has to work hard on each individual frame of the movie. Pixar uses \"super computers\" to divvy up frames to different machines so that it takes less time. Fun fact: it still takes weeks to months to render the whole movie. Source: I work in IT AND do video editing and 3D rendering as a hobby. I've actually set up distributed rendering across multiple PCs at home.",
"Some problems we can give to computers in different ways. Let's say you wanted to find all of the even numbers from 1 to 1,000,000 If you have a simple processor that can do one operation per cycle you might tell it do do the problem like this 1-Start at 0 2-Add 2 3-Record that number 4- go back to step 2 This single operation processor will need to repeat this 500,000 times to finish. That could take a while Or you could build a really big computer with 500,000 simple processors You can then approach the problem diffently Give each individual processor a number from 1 to 500,000 and these instructions 1-start at the number you are given 2- multiply it by 2 3- record that number Our big super computer can now solve the same problem in one go. So some of super computing is writing the program smartly so it uses many processors well, but most of it just throwing a ton of processing power at the problem all at once.",
"Supercomputers are machines with a large number of processors and lots of memory. They tend to use basically the same software everyone else uses (generally free and you could download it and run it on your computer). There are a couple of kinds of problems: those that are parallelizeable and those that are not. Parallelization is the act of dividing a task up so that multiple, separate entities can work on the task with minimal cross-communication. * Ex of a parallelizeable problem: (borrowed from another comment) if you have a problem set of 100 problems. None of the answers depend on one another so you can find 100 people and make them all do one problem and be done in under 5 minutes. In the real world, this could be a chemistry simulation where you model molecules and forces between them. In a large simulation, you just divide up the simulation space (picture a box with molecules in it) into smaller boxes and let each cpu handle its own box. There has to be a little bit of communication between boxes, but not too much, so this sort of simulation is run on supercomputers. * something that doesn’t parallelize well: imagine solving a long division problem to a million digits. Even if there’s 100 people around you willing to help, it’s a hard problem because each step of the long division determines what the next step will be. It’s not possible to let anyone else help with “other parts of the problem.” Therefore, problems that can’t be helped using parallelization don’t scale well on super computers because there’s nothing gained by having more processors. “People” - many researchers, professionals use it. It’s used in a number of areas in research to simulate chemical reactions/processes, in mechanical engineering to simulate loads (ie simulate a car crash), and in NASA for orbital simulation (the Martian bugged me on this because there’s no good reason to be physically plugged into a super computer. The hard part isn’t moving the data to the computer, but actually running the simulation to predict what will happen)",
"Traditional 'supercomputers' such as the Cray ([ URL_0 ]( URL_0 )) usually ran custom operating systems, usually based on a Unix kernal, and so could run most Unix software. These supercomputers were often used in science and engineering in order to process large data sets. So, they might run mathematical models to calculate traffic patterns in major cities so they can optimise stop lights, handle complex stock market calculations or calculate orbital trajectories for space probes, or calculate complex scientific research problems. Their uses were far and wide. However, the pale in comparison to even modern smart phones these days, most of which are more powerful than the classic supercomputers ever were. The actual software applications are often custom written for these purposes - it's not like they were running Microsoft Word or Adobe Photoshop for example. And whilst that software was usually build on for Unix based system, in theory it could run on most other Unix operating systems. However, the key difference is that traditional supercomputers were essentially huge multi-processor systems, and so the software was written to take advantage of that by running processes and tasks concurrently. So, if they had a task to process a million pieces of data in order, the software will break it up according to the number of processors available and feed a chunk of data to each processor, then 'glue' the results back together. If you've got 100 processors who can all work on something at the same time, that's 100x faster than a single processor processing all the data (not strictly accurate, it's not actually 100x faster, but for ELI5, it is!). This kind of optimisation is still present today in regular domestic computers. Some computers can have 8, 10, 12 or more 'cores', but if software is not built to take advantage of all of those cores, those computers can often be slower than single 'core' machines which a faster 'clock' speed. Lots of supercomputers have made way for networked and distributed computing now, just because it's often cheaper to use lots of smaller computers working together than one huge expensive computer with multiple processors, which is why the traditional supercomputers such as Cray's are much less common these days."
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[
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[
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lavbs5
|
What is an Operating System?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"text": [
"It’s software that creates a standard interface for other software to control the underlying hardware. Think of how cars work. Every car has a steering wheel, gas and brake petal and so on. But you can have a high performance engine underneath the hood. An operating system is like everything between the steering wheel and the actual engine that makes the car go. And cars are designed in a way that you don’t need to relearn how to drive a car when you get a new one. It’s still just a steering wheel and a gas petal.",
"It's basically a software that allows people to run other software on top of it easily. Android is the operating system. It's main job is to run your apps. Sure you can build an app that directly runs without the Operating system, but you're using that phone/computer only for that app. An operating system allows you to run multiple apps simultaneously. It also gives the developer of the app a lot of things easily. If I have to make a Whatsapp clone that shows the messages, connects to Internet to send messages etc. I can use a several modules that are provided by the Operating System to build it. If you remove the operating system, I will have to write all of that on my own.",
"If all of the software on a computer were the workers at a building site, the operating system would be the foreman. The operating system loads up while booting, and then interacts with the user (you). If you ask the operating system to do something (open a spreadsheet, for example) then the operating system's job is to go an open that spreadsheet; to ensure that that spreadsheet has what it needs to do its work (such as, for example, CPU time or the ability to talk over the network) - the spreadsheet gets nothing that the operating system doesn't let it have. If you're running multiple programs at once (say, a spreadsheet and a word processor) then the operating system is what juggles them, makes sure that they each get a fair distribution of CPU time, and basically does all the underlying management. It gives the other programs what they need to work, and it makes sure that they're properly organised. But it doesn't do the work itself. Hence, the foreman.",
"Other answers here are great, but if you think this stuff is cool, I can elaborate a little on how an OS works. An OS is the main program running on a computer and is also the manager of the computer's resources and it's schedule. When another program starts to run, the OS has to approve of it. Sometimes the OS asks the user to put in an administrator password to give user approval, if the OS thinks the program is doing something that the user should be approving manually. If approval is given, the OS will set up an environment for the program to run in. It gets a share of memory space and a timeshare of CPU usage. The OS often has the CPU switching back and forth between many processes. It happens so fast that usually the user can't tell. But if you open many programs at the same time, you might see some lag as the CPU is split between too many things and can't run them all at full speed anymore. Most OS nowadays have a GUI (graphical user interface) that allow users to use a mouse to click on stuff and open visual menus. However, very old OS such as DOS only had a console to type commands in. So the GUI is really just a great feature, it isn't what makes an OS an OS. The management of resources of a machine is what makes it an OS."
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[
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[
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|
lavnt0
|
What exactly is the difference between "freebase cocaine" and "crack cocaine"
|
As far as I can tell, they seem to be the same thing, or very similar at least. Cocaine in its "regular powdered" form cannot just be smoked, hence, we get freebase and crack, the smokable versions. I guess what is confusing to me is the fact that "freebasing" was a popular way to smoke cocaine in the 1970's, which is quite a while before the "crack epidemic" of the 80's....is the "crack" version more pure than the "freebase" version? Or are they all the same thing, and the MSM needed a better term to call it, as they are famous for doing?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"Technically, the only difference between freebase cocaine (FC) and crack cocaine (CC) is the chemicals used to create the freebase. Cocaine hydrochloride is the salt of cocaine. Cocaine itself is a base, hydrochloric acid is... well... an acid. You mix them together and you get what's called a \"salt.\" Salts can be good for drugs (both legal and illegal) because a salt generally dissolves better in water than a freebase. To get a freebase back from a salt, you need to add another base. For FC, the base added is ammonia. For CC, the base added is sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). In both cases, the acid is removed and you're left with the freebase of cocaine. One thing you have to know now is that all of these reactions occurred in a liquid. Specifically, water (remember how cocaine hydrochloride salt is more soluble in water?). Now, you have to get the cocaine out of the water (things don't burn very well when dissolved in water). For FC, ether was added. This dissolved the cocaine in the ether and left the ammonia behind in the water. And since ether and water don't mix, you can just separate the two layers and you're left with cocaine in ether. Evaporate off the ether and boom, you've got your FC. For CC, you don't do any separation. You just boil off the water and you're left with CC. This process can be advantageous since you're not working with chemicals like ether and ammonia; just baking soda and water. Also for FC, ether and freebase cocaine kind of like to \"stick\" to each other, so it can be hard to get the FC completely dry. That means you could be inhaling ether along with the FC when you smoke it. Tl, dr: The difference between freebase cocaine and crack cocaine is that there are different separation and purification methods used. The cocaine product is the same, you just have different chemicals used in the process.",
"They’re similar, but freebasing isn’t really around anymore, to my understanding (I work in forensics). With freebasing cocaine, ether is used to “free” the cocaine, and then one uses a lighter/torch to heat so the vapors can be freed. Ether is extremely combustible, so people got hurt. Crack is cocaine with baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) as a base, which forms “rocks.” It’s less likely to blow up in people’s faces."
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3
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|
[
"url"
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[
"url"
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lavsgd
|
What’s actually happening when we think of an image and can “see” it in our mind?
|
If I think about a place I’ve been or an object I’ve held, I can “see” it in my mind. Even places I’ve never been to, or items I’ve only seen, or even just creatively imaging things from nothing.. what’s happening when we think of something and can “see” it in our mind?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"Simulation of sensory stimuli activates the same parts of the brain as a legitimate stimulus. So thinking about an apple makes one appear in your mind's eye, since many of the same neural pathways are firing. We don't have answers much deeper than this, there is a shitload we still don't know about how the brain works.",
"You also might want to check out r/aphantasia which is a sub for people who can't \"see\" an image in their mind and r/hyperphantasia which is the other end of the spectrum. Lots of articles have been posted there. Edit: corrected a spelling mistake"
],
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10
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|
[
"url"
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[
"url"
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law3pk
|
Why does water stop evaporating when it reaches cloud-level, instead of floating into space?
|
Actual question from my actually 5 year old son, which I tried to research but couldn't understand the answer myself. Hoping someone can explain to both of us.
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"text": [
"Cloud level itself is dependent on things like the temperature and moisture content of the air mass, and it varies widely. Moist air rises until it reaches its dew point, the temperature where that moisture condenses out as visible water vapor that we know as clouds. Whatever altitude that occurs at (based on the atmospheric conditions) is \"cloud level\". There can be many such layers of clouds at any given time. Vertical development, where the clouds are lofted much higher than they would otherwise be, is seen in atmospheric disturbances like thunderstorms that pump warm, humid air up into the atmosphere.",
"Gravity. Same reason we have atmosphere. The only way to escape the Earth’s gravity well is to accelerate to a speed of over 11.2 km/s on the surface (or 7km/s at 9km altitude).",
"Steam still has weight, which means it will be pulled towards earth by gravity. It just rises until everything that's heavier than the steam over it is now under it. It rises until the air surrounding it is roughly the same weight, very simply put."
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[
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lawmnx
|
why do Casinos Ban You for Winning? Or after a winning streak you're not allowed to play that game anymore
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"They won't ban you unless they feel that you are doing something unfair or are exploiting some vulnerability. The games and machines will pay out winners every so often based on a statistical model and probability. It's no ones \"fault\" that they won, if they win. Someone will accidentally win every X number of plays/spins. If you win, good for you, here take some pictures for advertisements, and send you on your way. But they won't ban you. Now, if they feel like you are exploiting some loophole in a game, or counting cards, or communicating with another person in some unfair way, then they might ban you because you are operating outside the boundaries of those statistical models and you are going to mess up their profit margin. And they are well within their rights to do so. It's their property. No one has the right to gamble on their property. Sports gambling, on the other hand, yes they will ban you for winning too much. Or at least limit your betting. Because it's very much a skill and knowledge based system and you simply are costing them too much money by being too good. They still have the right to do that too.",
"That’s not true. They can ban you for any reason whatsoever, but unless they suspect that you’re cheating, they want you to keep,playing so they can win your money back. They’ll even give you a free hotel room and meals if you win enough, whatever it take to keep you gambling because the odds are in their favor.",
"They don’t. This isn’t really a thing. Getting banned from a casino is like a super obscure thing that would only be done in extreme cases of someone winning huge amounts of money as something like a sophisticated card counter in black Jack or if they suspect cheating. The more common reason someone is kicked out-not banned, told to leave—is that they’re too drunk",
"Casinos ban you if they think you’re cheating/card counting. They need solid proof if they want to try have you prosecuted, but just need a gut feeling to stop you coming in the door. Maybe they’re wrong and someone just hit a 100,000,000,000:1 winning streak, but from their perspective potentially losing one honest customer is outweighed by denying access to someone they think is running some sort of con.",
"I mean... In the end it comes down to a really simple answer. They're a business. They want to make money. They make money by you losing money. If you find a way of making more money from them than they make from you then they lose money. They don't want that."
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[
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|
lawnnw
|
what exactly is food poisoning and why does it normally only last for 24 hours?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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],
"text": [
"Food poisoning happens when you eat some bad bacteria living on/in your food. These bacteria (commonly staphylococcus aureus and bacillus cereus) make a toxin and spread that toxin all in your food. When you eat that toxin, your guts are like “this is a bad thing so let’s get rid of it” and your guts get rid of it with vomiting and diarrhea. The vomiting and diarrhea get rid of the bacteria and essentially clean you out. Some bacterial diarrheas last longer but that’s because those bacteria can live in your guts and make their toxin instead of these food poisoning ones that make their toxin before you eat it. Source: final year medical student"
],
"score": [
10
],
"text_urls": [
[]
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}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lax0uj
|
Why do you not always get burnt if you touch something hot quickly?
|
People can put candles out with their hands and jump through fires. I just touched the metal on my lighter after I lit a candle and I don't have a burn. I'm pretty sure if I held it there it would have left a mark. Why is this? I'm not wise to the science behind it and was hoping someone might be kind enough to explain.
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glqho2u",
"glqhueb",
"glqhrsf"
],
"text": [
"Because we \"feel\" heat TRANSFER and not temperature. Have you ever touched something like a book and a metal door knob in the same house? The door knob feels colder than the book. Not because they're at different temperatures, but because metal transfers heat much better than paper. It absorbs the heat that your hand releases faster than paper and as a result it feels colder. And the longer you hold, the more you'll feel it. Experiment: Take a mug out, try tapping it vs holding it. When you hold it, you can feel the heat transfer occurring vs tapping it briefly. So it feels much colder the longer you hold. Same reason why you can tap something very hot and not feel alot or burn yourself. But leave your hand there and... oof",
"Heat transfer is a process that takes time. Like a river draining one lake into another lake. It doesn't happen instantly. Different materials transfer heat at different rates. Even if you touch something that is technically very very hot, but it takes many seconds to really transfer much energy, then you could certainly grab it for those few seconds before any damage is done.",
"The thermal energy isn’t transferred all at once. Your skin doesn’t transfer thermal energy very fast. Think about metal and water. If you held a lighter to metal for a bit you’d expect it to be hot because metal transfers thermal energy well. So with just a bit of exposure if would be very hot. Opposite that is a glass of water. Imagine holding your lighter to the surface of the water for a bit. Do you expect the water to be so hot it’ll burn you? I would hope not. Water has a very low thermal conductivity. Since your skin is contains a lot of water it also has low thermal conductivity. Therefore you’d have to hold you hand to the lighter for a while before you’d absorb enough energy to cause damage. Basically your skin is an insulator. It does not transfer energy quickly and so you would have to hold your hand to the lighter for a bit longer before it would burn you."
],
"score": [
7,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lazqez
|
Why does it feel like batteries of electronic devices (phones, laptops, etc.) generally last a bit longer at lower percentages?
|
It always seems like my phone's battery interface goes from 50% to 40% way quicker than from 10% to shutting down, even when I shut off applications that save battery life. Is this a real phenomenon in most phones, or am I just imagining it?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glr0f8b"
],
"text": [
"I would say due to app usage on your phone probably? There’s really nothing in a battery’s chemistry that would cause a longer life at that percentage as the battery would hold a charge evenly due to the way it’s made. Batteries are basically metal and acid in a pouch. Somehow it holds power. I used to sell the things and still think they’re part black magic, but I digress. Usually when the battery percentage on a phone gets low (~20%) you’ll receive a prompt telling you. At that point the phone will already try and shut background stuff off or put it on pause to try and keep the phone alive long enough to get to a charger, stuff like location services, open apps, internet connections for stock apps, time, etc. It then goes a step further when you hit 10%, so on, so you’ll see an ‘increase’ in use time when it’s on a lower battery just cause the phone’s literally not using as much power anymore. Also, strong to fair chance you’re paying more attention to the phone at lower power than at 50%. Try timing how long it takes to drop the batt % on it sometime, might be a cool experiment to see if you’re on to something. TL;DR: Either your phone’s turning stuff off on you, you’re imagining it, you’re right, or Black Magic. (Experience for knowledge-base: Sold and assembled cell-phones and 100+ types of batteries from button cell to Marine for over 3 years) Edit: corrections, grammar"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
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}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lb0a1o
|
How is money real any more? When millions and billions can disappear and reappear in the blink of an eye?
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glr4i44",
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"glr3c2v",
"glr298c",
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"text": [
"The stock market is not *money*, it's *value*. If you have a $1 bill, then you have money with a fixed value of $1. Today it's worth $1; tomorrow it'll be worth $1. If you have 1 share of stock that's currently trading at $1, then you do not have any money. Instead, you have a stock with a variable value - if you sell it right now, then you'll gain $1. That converts its theoretical value into actual money. If you bought that stock when it was $1, then sold it when it was $1, you broke even. You spent $1 of money to gain a stock with a value that can go up and down, then you sold it when the value was $1 and gained that much money back. If you bought that stock when it was $1, then sold it when it was $100, then the value of your stock went way, way up - but you never had a $1 bill that magically transformed into a $100 bill. You spent $1 to buy the stock, then you sold it for $100. You gave your $1 bill to someone in exchange for the stock, then someone else gave you a $100 bill of theirs in exchange for your stock. *Value* was created out of thin air here, but it was paid for in *money* that never changed its worth.",
"From the tone of this question and current events, I assume you're talking about the stock market. When people say they have X amount of money in the stock market, what they're really talking about is the \\*value\\* of their stocks. And just as the price of physical goods (e.g. food, metal, electronics) fluctuates, the value of stocks (which represent ownership of a company) will also fluctuate. For example, maybe my phone is currently worth $300. But tomorrow, the manufacturer announces they're about to release the next model. My phone's value plummets even though the phone itself is unchanged. So did my $300 just disappear? No, I never actually had $300 in the first place.",
"Money is just something we as a society decide is worth something, in order to deal with the inefficiencies of a barter system via having something everyone wants.",
"It was never real, economy is a social construct people made that got more and more complicated but fundamentally it's all fake. Since the beginning.",
"Money doesn't disappear and reappear in the blink of an eye though. I'm not sure why you think it does. I think you might be talking about the stock market? Not 100% sure, but the money doesn't disappear at all. Take the stock market. You buy shares of stock at $100/share. The stock then goes down in price to $20/share. The money didn't disappear. You gave it to the person you bought the shares from. They have that money now. Your asset is just worth less. Just like if you go buy a car, and drive it around for 6 months, that car is now worth a lot less than it was when you first bought it.",
"Money is only valuable based on the faith of the people that it’s valuable. If nobody has faith or believes that it’s worth anything, then it’s not.",
"money is NOT real. people can exchange it because the people who receives it BELIEVES that it worth something, that is VALUE. so when something happens, and people start to question and don't believe anymore or believe it more and more (like people believe that GME worth a lot of money), the VALUE changes. money is just something that try to replicate VALUE.",
"Tell me when you thought money was real. Money is a token that represents a value that's not actually present in the material of the money itself. A dollar note is not \"worth\" a dollar of materials, it's just a token that we all generally accept is worth a dollar (which is a purely imaginary concept). You can talk about \"gold standard\" and having the value to back the currency, but the \"money\" you use isn't real, no more real than a number in a bank account. (Over the pandemic, 34% of people report not being able to use cash to buy things because of shop policies - money is only valuable because we all agreed to use it as a token, that breaks down when we stop using it as such a token, like the Zimbabwean dollar). But even in ancient times, money was an odd concept. \"This token with a hole in it represents one dollar/lira/whatever, you just have to accept that as true\". No money is \"real\". They're just tokens of worth that people have agreed to accept. And you can no more pay with your US$ in my country than with a Zimbabwean dollar. Until you convert them to the thing that my country has agreed is \"a valid token\"."
],
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228,
17,
16,
14,
10,
3,
3,
3
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lb0exf
|
How do updates that require a restart differ from those that don't?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glr3eos"
],
"text": [
"Basically the restart is because the files that need to be updated are in use, so cannot be updated. For example, as you have Windows up and running, there are literally 1000's of files that Windows has in an open state because it's using them. If the update you install requires a new version of these files, it can't be done while windows is running. So it requires you to reboot the system so the files can be updated. It would be like trying to change the oil in your car while the engine is running. It can't be done without destroying your engine. You have to turn off the car, change the oil, then turn the car back on."
],
"score": [
8
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lb0fnc
|
How are buyer side real estate agents incentivized to get cheaper deals for clients?
|
If they are paid on percentage commision, wouldn't it be best for them to have a higher buying price?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glr46qh",
"glr6frz",
"glr5gcf",
"glr795p",
"glr5z0c",
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],
"text": [
"Yes but having a deal is better than not having a deal so they're incentivized to close on the deals even if it means a lower price or even giving credits.",
"Freakonomics explained explains this. It’s been a while since I have read it and I’m paraphrasing, so [here]( URL_0 ) is the excerpt. But basically the percentage each agent gets is fairly small, about 1.5%. So a decrease of price of $10,000 on a $300,000 house may only lose the agent $150. So it’s probably worth more to them to just get the house sold quickly rather than for a higher price so they can move on and sell other houses",
"Realtors live off their reputation. They will get dumped by an agency or license revoked if they fuck over a client. Having a good deal means more business and better reputation and building out repeat business.",
"Agree with a lot else what else was said but a lower price is also easier to get the required appraisal value. If the offer price is higher than the appraisal deals often don't close and as other mentioned if you don't close you don't get paid.",
"In my opinion it is a conflict of interest. However, as others have stated in this thread, they don't get paid unless a deal is made, so they would not want the price to be so high that their buyer walks away. And good agents are going to be providing a lot of valuable services for the buyer. That being said, I recommend that anyone planning to purchase begin eyong the local real estate market two years before they buy. That way they will have a good sense of whether a property is priced fairly.",
"You usually give the agent a price range and locality that you’re willing to consider. For the most part, they’ll only bother showing you listings that meet that criteria. My range was 375-425K. He showed us the listing of every house that was available. If he would have started pressuring me to look at 500K houses, I would have fired him, and found someone else. Then he wouldn’t get a deal, at all. He was better off just finding us a house quickly, and closing the deal quickly. Then he gets paid quickly, AND has a satisfied customer who will refer him to friends and family."
],
"score": [
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4,
4,
4,
4
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"text_urls": [
[],
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"https://forum.nachi.org/t/exerpt-from-freakonomics-book-regarding-real-estate-agents/56492"
],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lb1158
|
Why are fish in the Great lakes comparatively small vs other large bodies of fresh water?
|
The great lakes are gigantic but the biggest fish (sturgeon) only get to ~7 feet in length. There are several much bigger fish species in relativelly small swamps and rivers in the southern United states.
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glrb955"
],
"text": [
"The great lakes are actually pretty low in nutrients, meaning there's not much for the lowest end of the typical marine food chain to feed on. Without a lot of microbial life, there isn't much small fish, and without much small fish, there aren't much in the way of big fish."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lb14xi
|
when you heat water in a steel pot and try to pour it out, it hisses and splutters as the water touches the steel higher up along the side, but stops after some water has assed over it. This only happens with steel, not with iron or aluminium or other types of pots. Why?
|
I was using a steel pot to heat some water over the stove for a cup of coffee today, and as I poured it, the water hissed and splashed around when it touched the dry part of the steel pot. After pouring for a while, it stopped hissing, and poured normally, but only through the path that the water made first. If I turned the pot to expose more of the pot to the water, it hissed again. I've only seen this happen with relatively thinner steel pots, not any other material. I'm thinking it probably has something to do with the conduction of the steel compared to other materials, but I'd love a better explanation.
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glrbuun"
],
"text": [
"The hissing and spluttering is the [leidenfrost effect]( URL_0 ). Once the metal has transferred enough heat into the water that it can't sustain the leidenfrost effect, it stops occurring in that location. Other areas of the pot might be comparatively hotter still. The reason it happens in various locations is because conduction through the pot material isn't instantaneous. The cooling effect caused by the water occurs more rapidly than heat from the other side of the pot can conduct through the metal to keep the pot at a uniform temperature. You're creating a \"cool\" spot while the rest of the pot is still super hot. Slosh some water up the opposite edge of the pot and the effect occurs again. It occurs with other materials. All of my cookware is titanium and it'll do this as well. You'll notice it in thinner pots because there just isn't that much material there for thermal mass and the cross section is small enough that conduction doesn't happen that quickly. A heavy cast iron pot will be more uniform but with a super thin steel pot you'll get little spurts of hissing as the water sloshes up to touch all the dry parts and then the effect no longer occurs because the pot has cooled too much."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leidenfrost_effect"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lb1nlq
|
How do new words get popularized? Sometimes I see a synonym to a word an think, how was that word thought of and popularized? How do words and synonyms become popularized?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glrma4d"
],
"text": [
"Somebody starts using it, then people who spend time with that person keep hearing it. Eventually, they start using it too, and so it spreads. Before cars, people lived in smaller populations that were much more isolated. Each of these towns and villages would develop their own dialect, and so lots of variations crept in to languages. Then, when travel became easier, the different synonyms began to mix. Britain is a great example of this. The rivers and hills meant there were loads of small populations that were isolated from each other, even though they were only a few miles apart. It's part of the reason why British accents are so diverse, and how you can work out pretty well where someone is from with just a few questions about language use."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lb2enf
|
How does our body helps itself by raising his temperature?
|
The natural body temperature is between 36 and 37 c°. When we get sick, the body raises his temperature by 1 or 2 degrees to fight the disease but how those 2 degrees help? And why do we feel like shit even though the change is so small? A change bigger than 3 degrees is considered extreme.
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glrfuu5",
"glrg71v"
],
"text": [
"A fever helps fight off an illness because high temperatures can do two things. First, higher temps help certain types of immune system cells work faster, which since those cells are what’s fighting the infection/illness, then working faster is obviously a good thing. Second, higher temps can also make it more difficult for bacteria and viruses to survive and continue to reproduce in our bodies, also a good thing. The problem is that a lot of our normal body cells also start to struggle at higher temperatures, there’s a reason our bodies try to stay at normal body temperature. So if your fever gets too high, or stays for too long, it can start doing more harm than good.",
"Because most metabolic processes in our cells and those of bacteria and virii are temperature dependent. So when the temperature is too high or too low, those processes can malfunction or fail altogether. A fever is the body's attempt to create a hostile environment that cripples the invading pathogen long enough for the immune system to destroy it. This does have some adverse effects in our own cells, but a couple degrees isn't going to do any real damage and it's a worthwhile tradeoff to halt an infection."
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lb3czv
|
Why is it recommended to drink lots of fluids when we’re sick?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glrlxj1",
"glrmbid"
],
"text": [
"Our bodily systems go into overdrive when fighting an infection, which generates a lot of heat that we dissipate by sweating off to the environment, especially when we develop a fever. All that water is critically needed by our cells so we need to consume more water than normal, or we become dehydrated and less able to fight disease.",
"Your body, while physically resting is working overtime in fighting whatever bug you got, and even if we are not nauseous, we usually don't have a big appetitew hich will lower our essential vitamins and minerals our body needs. So fluids help deliver those and are easier on the stomach And to add to that, frequently we DO have diarrhea and/or vomiting that pushes liquids out of our body thus dehydrating us. Simplified answer: If your body is struggling, why add dehydration to this list? Control what you can control"
],
"score": [
7,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lb3ocg
|
- Why is perfect pitch required to play a theramin properly?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glrowez",
"glrqc6u",
"glro81q"
],
"text": [
"It isn’t, it just makes it a LOT easier. A lot of practice can eventually get you thereish. However it should be noted that a theremin is a really strange instrument in how it functions and can be prone to really wacky variations in pitch that you might not see with a normal instrument. Guitars have frets, wind/brass instruments have valves, and even violins and stuff without huge overt indicators aren’t that hard to play mostly correct. I’d probably compare them to something like a trombone which had less defined methods of pitch accuracy. Making sure you’re hitting note changes/intervals correctly is obviously really important. Listening is just as important as watching/the feel of it. In a theremin, you use the position of one of your hands to control the pitch, which is obviously a great avenue for human error. Being able to make corrections on the fly is where having perfect pitch helps.",
"OK, let's take the piano as one extreme. Assume that a piano is perfectly tuned and in good working condition. It'd possible for someone who has no sense of pitch whatsoever to simply learn what keys to press and learn to play a song. As long as you press the right key, you get the right note. Same with a fretted guitar. You can learn fingerings and get the right notes or chords without being able to hear them. Many wind instruments like flute or clarinet are similar. For the most part, as long as you blow in it correctly, and use the correct fingering, the correct note will come out. It doesn't matter whether you can \"hear\" that the pitch is correct or not. However, to play a wind instrument really well, it does require hearing the pitch and making small adjustments. Trumpet and most brass instruments are harder. Playing the correct note requires both fingering and also buzzing your lips with the correct frequency. Beginning trumpet players quite often end up accidentally playing the wrong note even though they're using the correct fingering and think they're buzzing correctly. The only way to know it's wrong is by listening and hearing that it's the wrong pitch, and adjusting. Instruments like violin don't have frets. While you can \"learn\" the finger position for notes, playing well requires making constant tiny adjustments by listening to your pitch and moving your fingers accordingly. Then take singing. You can't sing a melody correctly without being able to hear what pitches you're supposed to be singing. Really, theramin is not that different than violin or singing - you can \"learn\" finger positions for theramin but you can't play them correctly without listening and adjusting. However, \"perfect pitch\" isn't the right term. Perfect pitch just means that if someone asks you to sing or play an F# you can do it without any context. That's not required to play theramin any more than it's required to sing (most singers do not have perfect pitch, though some do).",
"There is no fretting, tuning, or math. You stop moving your hand here or there based on how it sounds you can’t be taught."
],
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9,
6,
4
],
"text_urls": [
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lb4655
|
Time Dialation
|
I read recently about a russian astronaut who ages 0.002 seconds (20ms) slower than anyone else because of the speed he travelled in outer space for a long time. i looked up definitions of this phenomenon called time dilation , none of the definitions really make sense to me or i don’t understand half the words.
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glrrqp3"
],
"text": [
"The speed of light is a constant. C. What's more, it is NOT relative. Every other speed is \"relative\". We talk about how we drive 50 miles per hour, but that's a relative speed. It's our speed in comparison to the surface of the Earth. The Earth itself is moving very quickly through space. We don't add the Earth's speed to ours. Imagine you are driving at 50 mph. You then throw a ball out the window forward at another 30mph (you aren't in mlb). An observer on the ground will see the ball fly at 80 mph relative to how they're standing still. Now, what happens when you turn on your headlights? How fast does the light go out of your headlights? is it C, or is it C + 50mph? It's C. Even though you're going 50mph and you are \"throwing\" the light ahead of you, the light still travels at its constant speed C. What's more, the light is traveling at speed C as observed by the person standing still. So unlike the ball, that you see go at 30mph and the observer sees go at 80, you both see light travel out at C. How can that be? Speed is a factor of distance and time. In this case if the speed is constant, it is TIME that must change. The faster you go, the slower time must go in order to allow light to travel at C from where you currently are. Typically C is so astronomically huge that this isn't even really measurable, but at speeds achievable in space you start to get there."
],
"score": [
19
],
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lb4a25
|
Why do male voices drop during puberty?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gltmrkq"
],
"text": [
"There's a piece of cartilage in your throat called the thyroid cartilage. It forms sort of protective housing for the vocal cords. In boys, testosterone production during puberty will cause a growth spurt in this cartilage that causes it to protrude outwards. This protrusion is what we call the Adam's apple. This growth also stretches the vocal cords and alters thee shape and size of the airway, and the net effect is that air movement caused by talking creates low frequency sound waves. Low frequency sound waves is what we hear as deep voice."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lb4ffr
|
What makes PNW forests very un-walkable and Northern European forests very walkable?
|
There's an obvious answer: PNW forests have huge thick bushes that you can't walk through, while the ground of the forests in, say, Sweden or Finland, is all moss and smaller plants. Of course I am curious to know how and why this came about. I did see a similar thread from 5 months ago called "Why do some forests have undergrowth so thick you can't get through it, and others are just tree trunk after tree trunk with no undergrowth at all?", but I want to understand this specific comparison more. Both have been logged, but I know the logging and replanting practices are different. Also the weather and climate are different. So, I want to understand what role each of those plays.
|
Earth Science
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glru8ji",
"glsnccm"
],
"text": [
"Speaking as someone who lives in the PNW, you've mischaracterized our forests. They're plenty walkable the way you describe Sweden/Finland. Sure, you do occasionally have larger plants, but most of the time it's little stuff that you can step over.",
"Quite a lot of European forests have been managed for thousands of years. They've been cut down, burned, replanted, encouraged to grow in specific ways because that was how you got a lot of timber in the shapes you wanted it, and farmed for plants that grew well in wooded areas. Underbrush has been cut back to let humans move around easier in the forest, to encourage new growth to attract game which was then easier to see and shoot, and so on. That hasn't happened in the Americas to anywhere near the same degree because the population was much sparser."
],
"score": [
10,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lb4sr2
|
Do men really mature later than women, or are women just socially conditioned to mature earlier?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glrw6om"
],
"text": [
"It depends on what kind of \"mature\" you're talking about. The biological part of maturity (growth, puberty, development of organs and neurological capabilities, etc.) is governed by our biochemistry and we can test and study and measure that. If you mean \"maturity\" in terms of social interaction (how we behave, what kinds of life choices we make, relationships we form, etc.) that's got a big component of social/cultural influence. There are places on earth where a 15-year old mother is a total oddity and where it's completely normally...biologically, those are the same people. Culturally, not even close."
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lb50g0
|
What makes smart people "smart", and how do their brains work differently?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glrzsnt"
],
"text": [
"IQ is pattern recognition versus time. High IQ means you learn quickly. I know plenty of people with lower IQ than me who hold a wealth of knowledge in their heads that I couldn't hope to accomplish. IQ isn't memory retention and recall. I also know plenty of people that are extremely witty. They may not be educated, learn at any remarkable pace, or have vast troves of knowledge in their brain, but their sense of humor is wondrously sharp. \"Smart\" means a lot of different things depending on how you're choosing to measure it. The science on how to measure IQ is actually quite settled. There's no mystery there. The US Army actually led a good chunk of the effort last century and made some interesting findings. The scary thing is what you choose to do with that knowledge, and what types of interpretations you can make with a large data set of people's IQ. It offers opportunity for some nefarious applications by abusive governments and employers. The direct answer to your question is that high-IQ people have [larger and faster neurons]( URL_0 )."
],
"score": [
25
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en/follow-hbp/news/brains-of-smarter-people-have-bigger-and-faster-neurons/"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lb5qiw
|
Why do cable companies still use all that gear when streaming services can offer live TV with just wifi?
|
I took a job with a cable company doing phone service from home, in my training we had to go over a number of really crappy and convoluted gear that customers will need in order to use the service. I'm wondering why they need all that gear when say YouTube tv offers the same thing without it.
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gls2o4d"
],
"text": [
"First, WiFi is not internet. Its just a convenient way to send a wireless signal a very short distance. The WiFi has to be \"generated\" from a box with a wired connection to the internet. Most people get use WiFi generated by a router, which is physically connected to cable equipment, such as a modem, which is hardwired back into all the buried cable connecting everyone together. Youtube can only get a video to your phone or computer by taking advantage of all the physical hardware and wiring that companies already installed."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lb632w
|
Why is audio quality on video calls so terrible? Video can be bad and glitchy but the audio always seems worse even though presumably it is a lower bandwidth signal.
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gls3h67",
"glsdag0",
"glsnqwu"
],
"text": [
"I think is has to do with people usually not using good microphones that are close to their mouth. Generally the further the mix is from your mouth, the more noise it picks up along with the intended speech. Most people on video calls are speaking into little pinhole microphones somewhere on their laptop or phone.",
"The human eye isn’t as sensitive as the human ear, in terms of the ability to distinguish gaps. The eye can see a gap in an image that lasts at least 20 milliseconds, rarely past 10 ms. The ear can hear a gap in a sound that lasts at least 5 milliseconds, rarely past 2 ms.",
"Instances of video/audio glitching are not generally caused by lack of bandwidth, but by latency spikes / packet loss. A latency spike or lost packet will affect the short timescales of audio signals (1 sample every 20-100 μs) far more than the long timescales of video signals (1 frame every 16-33 ms). Though in practice, individual audio samples are typically buffered several milliseconds in advance to provide some protection against packet latency. It also depends on the cause. Video and audio are *both* affected equally by networking issues, if the underlying cause is physical disturbance (e.g. EM interference). But if the underlying cause is due to network congestion, then the high-bandwidth video signal might actually help drown out the low-bandwidth audio signal, unless the audio signal is being properly prioritized by your router (\"Quality of Service\")."
],
"score": [
7,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lb6jtu
|
how does the high heat in a sauna (195F or 90.5C) not kill people or cause other serious damage?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gls6na2",
"gls6txq"
],
"text": [
"It will if you wait long enough. Your body is very good at cooling itself, even under sauna conditions, as long as you can sweat. This is why you sweat so profusely in a sauna. It also takes time to heat something as large as a human. Figure a 12 lbs turkey takes hours to get up to \\~180F in a 300F+ oven...a human is 10x+ heavier in a with much less temperature difference to the sauna, it would take hours and hours to get your body core up to sauna temperature (you'd be dead long before that though). Sweat is not an infinite resource...eventually the sauna temperature will overcome your own ability to cool, you'll overheat, and you'll die. So don't stay in there too long.",
"You don't stay in the sauna for very long each round, usually 5 to 10 mins, then jump into a lake or snow, then have a beer. It's all good!"
],
"score": [
13,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lb6umv
|
oh Why is Kaliningrad and the area surrounding it (a wedge between Poland and Lithuania) part of Russia?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gls8vbc",
"glsn6rd"
],
"text": [
"Historically it was known as Konigsberg, prior to WWI, it, along with the northern strip of Poland next to it known as Gdansk was part of Germany. Specifically both of those were part of the German state of Prussia. After Germany's loss during WWI, Germany conceded Gdansk to Poland to be a \"semi autonomous\" province under the jurisdiction of Poland so that Poland could have access to the sea, but Konigsberg was still German territory. With Germany's loss during WWII, Russia annexed Konigsberg (because Russia is desperate for any warm water port they can find) and essentially deported all the Germans from there, settled it with Russians, and kept it under the control of Socialist Russia rather than another state that makes up the USSR. Poland similarly annexed a bit more of the northern strip from Gdansk to Szczecin. When the USSR fell, Russia kept it.",
"Historically, Russia's foreign policy can be summed up in three words: Warm water ports. They want them, they need them, they will fight tooth and nail to get them. Russia fought the Ottomans multiple times to acquire territory on the Black Sea. Peter the Great went to war with arguably the strongest empire in continental Europe (Sweden) for St Petersberg. They got their asses kicked by Japan just so they could have a port on the Korean Peninsula. After WWII, the Soviet Union was granted direct control of Königsberg by the Potsdam Agreement and renamed it Kaliningrad in honor of Mikhail Kalinin. Even with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, they still kept control of Kaliningrad, because it's a warm water port."
],
"score": [
10,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lb7mlo
|
How do freezers and fridges and stuff mke things cold?
|
I dont understand how you can remove heat from something
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glsgv4e"
],
"text": [
"It's important to understand that there are two related but distinct concepts at work here: **temperature** and **thermal energy**. Generally speaking, when you add thermal energy to a substance you raise its temperature. When you remove thermal energy from a substance, you lower its temperature. The most common way to transfer energy into or out of a substance is to place some *other* substance next to it with a higher or lower temperature. So, if I place an ice cube in my cup of water, the ice cube will absorb some thermal energy from the surrounding water because the water has a higher temperature. Now, here's where it gets interesting. There is another way to affect the temperature (but not the thermal energy) of a substance. If you compress a substance, such as a gas, into a smaller volume you will raise the temperature of that gas. **It's important to understand that even though we have raised the temperature, we have not changed its thermal energy at all.** By the same token, if we expand that gas back to its original volume, its temperature will revert back to its original level. We can exploit this phenomenon by repeatedly doing the following: * Compress a gas (temperature increased, thermal energy remains the same) * Expel heat out to the environment (thermal energy decreased) * Expand the gas (temperature decreased, thermal energy remains the same) * Absorb heat from the freezer compartment (thermal energy increased) This is known as the refrigeration cycle. Although you can theoretically use any kind of gas in this cycle, we use special gasses (refrigerants) because they have unique properties at certain temperatures that allow the refrigeration system to operate more effectively and efficiently."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lb7nhy
|
when picking up a baby/ pet, why do they feel heavier when they’re sleepy than when they’re awake?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glseia9"
],
"text": [
"A sleeping body has no weight difference compared to a awake body. ... A dead weight basically means that the centre of gravity is where ever you are supporting the weighted load with no support from it. It feels heavier, but it weighs the same."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lb7v0p
|
How is the filthiest thing in the house able to clean things we put in our mouth. How does rubbing an unhygienic sponge on utensils and dishes clean it?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glskl19",
"glse9y7"
],
"text": [
"The goal of the sponge is to knock off large chunks of grime. After wiping with a soapy sponge, your dishes will still be covered in a thin nasty layer of soapy, bacteria and grime filled water. But, and this is the key thing, that nasty layer of gunk should no longer be _attached_ to the surface of the dish. Then, when you rinse off the dish, you are rinsing off the now-unattached nasty layer of soapy gunk...some of which is from the sponge, some of which is from the dish itself. This leaves the dish cleaner than it would be without wiping down with a sponge.",
"Microwave damp sponges for one minute or put them in the dishwasher with a drying cycle. The UDSA found that this kills over 99 percent of bacteria, yeasts and molds. Many of us keep sponges until they look dirty or smell bad. Some of us even wait until sponges fall apart before throwing them out."
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lb81xg
|
Why do some chemical makeups not exist?
|
I just found out about the website [ URL_0 ](https:// URL_0 ), and as a non-chemist noob I have to ask, how come some chemical makeups exist only on paper but not in the physical world?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glsl41b"
],
"text": [
"Atoms are not like legos. They don’t just snap together. Electrons mediate chemical reactions and there are certain rules governing their behavior which preclude certain combinations of atoms."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lb83a3
|
How do services like Spotify create personalized suggestions for each user?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glt9xuz"
],
"text": [
"They take music you listen to a lot, and use an algorithm to suggest music by similar artist or similar people. (For example, they would translate “if they listen to Rap God by Eminem suggest My Name is By Eminem” into JavaScript or whatever coding language they use"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lb83c4
|
If my girlfriend is drinking 8oz of a 10% beer and I am drinking 16oz of a 6% beer, who is getting more alcohol?
|
I'm drinking twice the amount of beer, what does this mean?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glsf5if",
"glsjvf2"
],
"text": [
"8oz of a 10% abv drink is 0.8 ounces of ethanol, 16oz of a 6% abv drink is 0.96 ounces of ethanol.",
"I googled \"6% of 16 oz\" and \"10% of 8 oz\" and got 0.96 oz and 0.8 oz respectively. You are getting more alcohol than your girlfriend. Now divide those by your respective body weights to see who is getting more alcohol per pound. But also consider none of this will reflect how effective your bodies are at remediating the alcohol."
],
"score": [
24,
10
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lb8ick
|
what is a computer doing when its "shutting down" why can't we just turn off the power and the machine stops working, and then works normally when we turn it on?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glsi5f7",
"glsjx4c"
],
"text": [
"It's making sure all the programs and processes are saving data and shutting down properly *themselves*, because data can be corrupted or even fully lost if the writing process just stops abruptly (that's also why they tell you not to turn the console off when your game is mid-save, for instance). You *can* just do a hard reset but you risk losing data if you do that.",
"Imaging if whenever the teacher says \"okay, that's it for today\", all the students stop mid writing, and just burst out of class all at once without listening to their assignements, or finishing their notes. That's similar to what happens to a computer when it's abruptly shut down, because the operating system is like a teacher, it's responsible for keeping all the apps and processes in check and provide them with their needs of memory and CPU power, that's why when shutdown a computer The operating system goes through the process of making sure every app and process have finished writing to memory and that there are no tasks to do before shutting down."
],
"score": [
9,
9
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lb8inv
|
Why are American children not taught anything about finances, stocks, or money management in grade/middle/high school?
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glsicaz"
],
"text": [
"Some of these factors change, regularly. Spending a lot of time talking about the specific products used to finance a retirement, is going to go over the head of many of the students, and by the time they reach an age where they will actually start making plans the products available may have changed. Some concepts such as compound interest, which is the fundamental piece in talking about investment gains and the risk of debt is taught in most math classes. In addition depending on the options you take you may take business or accounting classes that go into depth on some of these topics. Bottom line is that most people remember very little of what they are taught in high school. That isn't the point of school, it is to learn how to learn. If you learn those skills at an appropriate level, learning personal finance concepts on your own at appropriate times is quite easy."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lb8xhy
|
What do billionaires do with their money? Do they have a regular savings account? How does it work?
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glskkco",
"glskcw6",
"glsme55",
"glskso1",
"glupy6z",
"glskncz"
],
"text": [
"Billionaires do not have billions of dollars worth of cash that they need to store in accounts. They are billionaires by virtue of owning things that total billions of dollars worth of value, such as stock, companies, real estate, sports teams, etc... The amount of actual cash they have available is likely much much smaller, because they don't want their wealth in cash form if it doesn't absolutely need to be. They are billionaires because they understand that cash doesn't grow in value like the other things I mentioned do. The cash should be used to purchase things that appreciate in value over time, not sitting around in a bank account doing nothing.",
"They invest it. Hedge funds, businesses, real estate, and so on. They don't have a lot of *money* (well, they do, but not *that* much) so much as a lot of *assets* which are worth a lot of money.",
"Billionaires do not actually have money. Or at least have as much money as you think. All of their wealth is tied up in assets. Things like stock or land. A while back Elon musk was in the news because he couldn't make some personal debt payments. All of his wealth was tied up in stock options that hadn't vested yet. What that means is that on paper he looked like a billionaire. He did not have one actual red cent to his name. His wealth existed only in the idea of what his companies are worth. Because that's really all stocks are. It's the idea of what someone would pay you to own that stock. So they use all this money that doesn't actually exist as collateral to take out loans from banks to get real money. Then it gets spent on crazy BS like buying your own islands or towns or your fifth mega yacht with a dock for your other yachts and a helipad. Because money has lost all meaning to them at that point and they're all trying to keep up with the other mega wealthy people.",
"Most people that are \"billionaires\" are only that on paper. The value of their posessions (including stocks, companies, assets, etc) is valued at $XX Billion dollars. Some will be liquid (in a bank somewhere with easy access) but the VAST majority isn't even in something that they can liquidate easily without disrupting the markets. For example, Bezos is a multi-billionaire. He doesn't have billions of dollars in a bank somewhere, he owns billions of dollars of stock in Amazon. If he tried to liqudate it, the supply of available stock would push the price down so low, he would drive his own self-worth down. This is also why headlines like \"Bezos loses $XX Billion today!\" are such crap. It just means Amazon stock dropped (like stocks do). It's not actually money, it's stock value.",
"I worked for a billionaire about 15 years ago (Jay Chaudry, good guy). He was the most humble guy. Back then he was worth around $1.2Bn. He took $20mn in cash and had the rest in investments. With that $20mn, he started 10 companies with $2mn each. Then he hired folks to preside and run them. That's the closest I ever observed to him \"having cash\". His daily driver was a very old and crappy Honda. We'd go to meetings with strategic accounts, folks who knew of him/his wealth and were excited to meet him. Then this wreck of a Honda would arrive in the parking lot. It was embarrassing. Folks would ask him why he doesn't buy a better car, he'd simply say \"he doesn't have the cash\". The man was obsessed with keeping costs not just low, but consistently low. And he'd extract every ounce of utility from whatever he bought. After ~2 years of us complaining, he finally got rid of that Honda and replaced it. He bought a second hand Lexus for around $30k, with financing. I went on many trips with him, to many meetings in many countries and what I learned is he is not a man that has any use for cash. Rather, his wealth gives him access to very cheap *credit*. At a certain level of wealth, you can borrow money so cheaply, and turn that borrowed money into something that generates more money than it costs to borrow. Example, he borrowed $2mn, his monthly payments were around $4,800. 2 years later, he sold that company for $120mn. Total cost to Jay was $120k. His personal net return on that was close to $40mn. And it's all credit-based. No cash. But these guys do not hoard huge piles of cash that they go swimming in, Scrooge McDuck style. They will have savings accounts, off-shore accounts, investments, and irons in multiple fires. They'll have staff who do day to day shopping (Jay didn't, his wife did that, at least back then). When they di need to do shopping, it might be on a black card which is managed by a dedicated account manager, the bills for which will be sent to a nominated money manager to pay. And on this point, I have another Jay story for you. I was in Atlanta for a 4day Sales Kick Off. On the 3rd day, I was tired. 7am starts, 10 pm finishes plus jet-lag is a bitch. I needed some air and went for a drive, I ended up in an Apple store. Jay was in there, grilling a guy about the ipod. Jay is a deeply analytical guy, he wants to know every detail, he asks a million questions. Eventually, he decides to buy, that's when he realises he didn't have his wallet. So the multibillionaire asks me to buy it for him, and in the only display of arrogance I'd ever seen from the man he said \"I think you know I'm good for the money\". Sorry for the ramble, I hope I answered your question and perhaps entertained you a little along the way. Peace and love.",
"They mostly own lots of things. Buildings, shares of publicly traded companies, art, all sorts of stuff. Very little of their money will be in cash or something close like a bank account."
],
"score": [
68,
15,
13,
7,
7,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lb9ixp
|
what is Kubernetes?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glssp1e",
"gltv3px"
],
"text": [
"Kubernetes is a container orchestration solution. Containers are mini-computers that run on someone else's big computer. Sometimes, people or businesses like being able to run lots of mini-computers rather than maintaining their own fleet of big computers (due to physical space, cost, maintenance, etc.), and Kubernetes helps you manage all the mini-computers that you have running in various big computers.",
"So... businesses started realizing that setting up a bunch of “containers” on physical servers was a much better way to allocate resources. Each of these containers was its own virtual computer, so now the apps they host are no longer fighting with each other for resources. It’s like turning one computer into 20 computers and they’re all completely isolated from each other. This is great! But what happens when you have to start managing 10,000 of these containers? 100,000 containers? Google was spinning up over 2 BILLION containers a week and learning through trial by error how to manage all of them. That trial and error led to the creation of kubernetes. In 2015 Google decided to donate kubernetes to the open source world and so now here we are. It’s a way to manage all of your millions and millions of containers and it does it so well that it became an industry standard shortly after (duh, it was Google’s personal solution for managing their enormous, ENORMOUS infrastructure. Also Redhat deserves a shoutout for their contributions to kubernetes)."
],
"score": [
6,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lb9l3a
|
How is audio digitally stored and reproduced?
|
My understanding is that computers, at their hearts, can be broken down to the 1’s and 0’s of binary. Photos and videos can be stored this format by determining how much red, green, and blue light to shine through each pixel. But what about audio? I could imagine a song being broken down into a collection of pitches at certain volumes, but what about the different tones of various instruments/voices? When a singer’s voice is recorded and played back, it is their specific, unique voice that is heard. How can something like that be broken down into raw data?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glsqn5g",
"glspqc1",
"glt10rf"
],
"text": [
"Hi there: audio engineer here. I'm going to answer your questions backwards as I think that'll make the most sense. & #x200B; The most basic tone possible is a simple sine wave. The reason that different instruments/voices/noises all sound unique, is because they all have different harmonic content, related to the base sine waves produced. Each one of these harmonic frequencies are sine waves all on their own, with their own associated harmonic frequencies. This complicated mess of waves is what gives everyone a unique voice, and every instrument a unique timbre. However, when all of these frequencies hit your eardrum or the diaphragm of a microphone, they all average out into one wave. The high/low points of each sound is effectively averaged out, the final product being one wave. Imagine the compressions and decompressions in your eardrum could be translated into electrical signals-This is how analog audio is produced (albeit extremely simplified. Let me know if you want to know about that process) & #x200B; We are let with a series of positive and negative voltages, that with properties such as amplitude and frequency, are able to reproduce the sound they represent. Now we introduce an Analog to Digital converter, also known as an A-D converter. This is a device that takes digital snapshots of the analog signal at a defined rate, called a Sample Rate. The most common Sample Rates are 44.1kHz and 48kHz. Each snapshot it takes, it uses strings of binary information (1s and 0s) to represent the voltages in the analog audio. Essentially, a camera takes a photo of the signals position 44,100 times every second (or up to 192,000 per second.) That \"photo\" contains bits that are represented by the 1s and 0s. The amount of bits can vary too, according to the Bit Depth. Bit Depth is usually 16 or 24, and all it means is how many bits are used to represent the position of the signal during every sample. & #x200B; Simply put, using CD standard of a sample rate of 44.1kHz and a bit depth of 16, every second you have 44,100 samples represented by 16 bits each. That is the analog audio represented digitally",
"Audio is just a funny way to vibrate air, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a whole orchestra, a singer, or a simple digital beep, it’s all just moving air, as long as you can somewhere how much the air moves, you can record the sound Back in the really old days they just used a needle to scratch some wax, the moving air moved the needle and the scratch encoded the movement, put a thing in the hole and spin the wax the same way, you make the thing move like the needle and you record the audio A microphone turns air movement into electricity and a digital recording uses an ADC to measure the voltage and store it as a number, and does that a few tens of thousand times a second To play it back you use a circuit called a DAC to turn the number back into voltage and a speaker moves air again so you can hear it",
"The key to storing anything digitally is to represent it as numbers, because that's exactly what binary is, a number system. Sound is just a vibration in the air (it can also travel through other mediums but let's keep it simple). A microphone is a device that uses that vibration to move a magnetic coil, which in turn produces an electrical voltage. If you take many samples of that voltage over time (say, 44,100 times per second) then you have effectively captured the sound wave as a stream of numbers. You might then record those numbers more or less directly into a file (uncompressed - eg. WAV) or find some way to identify repeating patterns or represent sound wave changes mathematically (lossless compression - eg. FLAC), or find more efficient mathematical expressions which approximate the sound wave or remove sounds humans aren't good at perceiving (lossy compression - eg. MP3). Reproduction of the sound at the other end is then simply a matter of using the voltage levels to move a magnetic coil which recreates the vibration in the air. That's right, a speaker is fundamentally the same thing as a microphone! Nowhere in any of this does the computer need to 'know' about pitch, tone, timbre, volume or any other property of the sound, those attributes which allow us humans to recognise the voice of another individual, or tell the difference between a saxophone and a flute. It's just blindly recreating the sound wave."
],
"score": [
9,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lba9me
|
Why do we instantly feel refreshed when drinking water if it should take time to actually enter our system?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glst6es",
"glt089n",
"glt8azq",
"glxvbc1",
"gltoh3w"
],
"text": [
"Its the brains response to the cool liquid in an effort to motivate more of the same. The human body is amazing.",
"Your body needs water to survive. There would be no benefit to your body in delaying the reward feedback sensation. Eating food also gives you instant feelings of gratification, even though it takes even longer to digest the food. Or, imagine if the act of sex wasn't pleasurable... but childbirth WAS, do you think humans would be as likely to procreate?",
"A couple of reasons, the body needs water so it rewards drinking it with a pleasant sensation. This is also a reaction from the brain to prevent us from drinking too much water as it is a surprisingly delicate balance the body likes to maintain, as both too much water or too little water can damage certain delicate organs, namely the kidneys.",
"Did this thread make anyone else go and drink a glass of water?",
"Because your body absorbs water VERY quickly. It’s not like food that has to be digested. If you’re really thirsty you can tell your body absorbs the water before it even hits your stomach."
],
"score": [
48,
20,
5,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lbax9q
|
How am I able to watch someone do something (like a professional) and understand how they're doing it, yet I'm not able to do it myself?
|
This is about videogames, but I feel it can be applied to almost anything. I watch live streams every day of people playing League of Legends, and they're all pro players. They're amazing at the game, like the top 0.007% of all players. When I watch them, everything they do makes sense to me. All the things they do and all the ways they do it just seems easy to do. Then when I go and play the game, I can't do shit. I'm stuck at a Gold level and they're at a Diamond/Challenger level. If I've watched thousands of hours of pros playing this game, why can't I just do the things they do?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glsx48h",
"glsxkbx"
],
"text": [
"Watching someone do something, even if you understand it, is passive. You are being fed a stream of information and evaluating if it makes sense. This is an entirely different skill than seeing one piece of information and making an inference/decision based off of it. This is the same for foreign languages, for instance. It's much easier to learn to understand what other people are saying to you than for you to speak to them. Same difference in terms of passive vs active skills.",
"Because what you are understanding is what they are doing at each individual task. But to be able to copy them you need to know why they do each individual task and in what sequence. I dont play league of legends but my guess is that its quite logical? If it is, write down the actions the streamer does and in what sequence. Ask yourself why he/she did that specific action and if its part of a larger compound of actions. Once you have it figuered out, all you need to do is recognize the conditions for when each action should be made and do it the way you have analyzed."
],
"score": [
8,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lbbbc9
|
How do you tell the difference between a satellite, shooting star, planet, and comet
|
Earth Science
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glt0605"
],
"text": [
"A satellite will only be visible for a short period just before sunrise and just after sunset, and will look like a faint, steady, dim light slowly moving across the sky. A shooting star is what we informally call a small rock (meteoroid) that has entered the earths atmosphere at very high speed and burns up, creating a nice little bright trail and flash. It's very fast, usually less than a couple of seconds, and might have some color to it. A planet is going to basically sit still, and does not move in relationship to the other stars in the sky as you watch in a single night. It will generally be brighter than the stars, and will be seen only in a particular part of the sky, not randomly scattered around like stars. A comet is a big ball of dirty ice orbiting the sun and will generally look like it has a long tail trailing behind it in the sky, caused by the sun blowing the ice and dust gasses away from the object. They can usually be seen in the sky for weeks at a time as they slowly travel around the sun, then disappear for years before returning."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lbbzr5
|
How exactly does the clock in a laser range finder work?
|
How exactly do laser range finders work? I know that it uses distance=speed of light\*time by measuring the time it takes light to travel to the target and bounce back. I've seen a laser range finder accurate to millimeters. However, it takes about one nanosecond (one billionth of a second) for light to travel one foot. This means the clock inside the device has to be accurate to fractions of a nanometer. The problem is that quartz clocks are only accurate to about 1 part in 500,000 (a higher error means it will be off by more than a minute a year), which is too inaccurate. Clocks that are accurate and precise enough to measure nanoseconds must be atomic clocks. However, I'm reasonably confident that atomic clocks aren't used for handheld laser rangefinders. Can someone please explain how these devices can be so accurate while using light (ie, the fastest thing in the universe)? I don't know which of my assumptions are wrong. Please help me understand.
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glud5u9"
],
"text": [
"I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think that laser range finders rely on time of flight analysis. They follow more amplitude shifts, interference and pulsing the laser and averaging out the data. I more work with like laser scanning of surfaces and in that case, we use interference patterns by comparing a mirror surface to a rough surface by splitting a single beam of light. In cars for example, Lidar relies on doppler shift rather time of flight, so by combining data from the car's speed and how much the laser phases changes upon reflecting off an object, this is how you can tell the distance to the object. Time of flight on laser analysis is extremely complicated, as you can read about the ligo experiment which detected the gravitational wave shift. But again am leaving this here hoping someone corrects me."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lbc2en
|
What is it about gum that makes it strongly affect the flavors of other foods that might be stored with it, like candy or chocolate?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glt68jm"
],
"text": [
"This applies to anything minty really. People put candy canes in stockings along with chocolate and all the chocolate is basically ruined. No one wants peppermint Reeses Peanut Butter Cups."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lbcaeg
|
How do smoke detectors know that there's smoke around? And how do they make it infinitely reusable?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glt5yvb",
"glti1rf"
],
"text": [
"Inside a smoke detector, there is a small amount of radioactive material between two electrically conductive pieces of metal. The radioactivity causes the air between the plates to ionize and conduct electricity. When smoke enters the detector, this ionization is interrupted. This causes a change in current between the plates, which the detector can sense. ETA - This is also why the detector is reusable. There's nothing about this setup that would change after smoke is detected. The half-life of the radioactive material in the smoke detector is about 400 years, so you don't have to worry about that part either.",
"You've got a couple of descriptions of Ionisation Smoke Detectors but as these have proven to be not reliable to an accepted standard, many places around the world have legislated against the use of them and instead favour photoelectric smoke detectors instead. Photoelectric (or optical) Smoke Detectors have a light chamber with an LED and a light sensor inside. When smoke particles enter the chamber the light beam is scattered and the alarm is activated. You can get a lot of false positive alarms from these (such as from steam from cooking which is why it's only recommended to install near a kitchen and not within the kitchen) but they are a lot more sensitive than Ionization types with tests demonstrating smoke detection 2-6 minutes sooner in photoelectric models. The parts that detect the smoke are not consumables so they will continue to work for quite a long time (most recommend replacement after 5-10 years with annual or bi-annual battery replacement and checks to make sure they're working correctly)."
],
"score": [
33,
10
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lbccem
|
Why do explosions hurt?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glt6jdr"
],
"text": [
"Explosions are releases of super high pressure. They generate immense forces, which can either directly damage you, or can propel debris at bullet-like speeds."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lbcdkd
|
Oxygen tanks for hospital patients vs. firefighters
|
In hospitals, there is always a notice that you can’t smoke or have open flames because oxygen tanks are being used. I always assumed that pressurized oxygen tanks were unstable/explosive if stressed with something like a flame. While watching Station 19, I got curious regarding if this is true, how can firefighters be surrounded by fire while wearing their oxygen tanks and the tanks don’t explode?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glt6pbg",
"glt6qq5",
"glt6xtq",
"glt73t3"
],
"text": [
"Used to be a volunteer firefighter and used to use the Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus ( SCBA). The air in those tanks we wore on our banks just contained normal breathable air, not pure oxygen. The tanks used in hospitals and for those on oxygen therapy contain pure oxygen, which when exposed to a heat source and fuel, will cause fire to burn stronger.",
"Firefighters are not breathing oxygen like medical patients do. Firefighters are just breathing normal compressed air, with the same mixture as the atmosphere, so it's not hazardous in combination with fire.",
"Medical oxygen tanks are filled with almost entirely oxygen. This is quite dangerous, as it makes things around it burn easier. Fire fighter and SCUBA diver oxygen tanks are filled with normal outside air, that has been squeezed into the tank. It's no more burny than regular air. Mainly because it's 79% not burny Nitrogen.",
"Firefighters don't use pure oxygen, they use compressed air. No one on a full respirator uses pure oxygen, that shit is toxic at high concentrations. Just like divers use different oxygen/nitrogen/helium mixes depending on the depth."
],
"score": [
20,
7,
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lbdnes
|
How do you tell the difference between deep sleep and a coma?
|
From a neurological stand point, I guess? Like, is there a marker for when a coma “begins”?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gltkmcj"
],
"text": [
"There is a region of the brain called the Reticular Activating System. This is always on and functioning 24/7 controlling wakefulness and consciousness. It is OFF in a coma, almost like a state of strong, indefinite loss of consciousness. You can diagnose it in a few ways: 1. Shine a light in eyes and see if the pupils constrict 2. Try to Wake them up (unconscious people do wake up after a while, coma pts dont) 3. MRI or EEG to see which parts of the brain are on/off"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lbdpxx
|
We can’t remember things while we sleep so how come it doesn’t feel like closing your eyes to sleep and immediately waking up and opening them.
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gltsupx"
],
"text": [
"This certainly isn't my area of expertise but I at least have some knowledge of it and would like to give it a shot! My understanding of this is that this has to do with your sleep cycles. If someone was going through some sort of particular trauma or growth (puberty for example), the brain will have a lot of healing to do that can only be done while you're sleeping. The brain does the best healing during your deep sleep cycle. At this point in time, you are the LEAST conscious. Therefore, you aren't dreaming. If the brain had to heal the trauma, you'd have an exclusively deep sleep cycle. At which point, you would wake up and feel like you literally just closed your eyes. However, that's not the case 99% of the time. Most night you cycle between deep (healing) sleep, and lighter (dreaming) sleep. You always dream, but you don't always remember them. During the time that your dreaming, you are the MOST conscious of what's happening and of time. Therefore when you wake up, you are aware that time has passed because you are subconsciously aware of the dreaming cycles you've had. But you are also unaware of the time that has passed while in your healing cycle. Which might explain why it feels that some time has passed, but not the entire 8-10 hours. I hope that helps!"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lbezdr
|
How can the owner of a company lose ownership of their own company?
|
I've read recent news on Jeff bezos stepping down as CEO of amazon. And if i remember correctly, Steve Jobs was also fired from Apple. How is this possible if they are the founders and rightful owners.
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gltndch",
"gltngzs"
],
"text": [
"Once the company goes public, other people buy shares and own part of the company. Jeff Bezos owns more of Amazon than anyone, but he only owns 10%. Once a company issues stocks, they have to have a board of directors that represent the stock holders. If enough of those board members don’t like the way the CEO is running it, they can fire him, even if he is the founder of the company. He’ll still own his percentage of the company, but he’ll no longer be running it.",
"They still remain majority shareholders and still get compensation and most of the benefits however, when someone like Jobs and Bezos or Gates steps down or “is fired” they can no longer make decisions for the company and lose authority in that regard. The board of directors decides whether or not to oust the CEO. Boards of directors exist in order to preserve the integrity of the company and prevent a crazed or incompetent CEO from causing damage to the company (and the profits). For example it is technically possible for Mark Zuckerberg to be “fired” from Facebook but all that really means is that he’s no longer in charge. He would still reap all the financial benefits like using the company plane, security and facilities for example, but not the CEO salary."
],
"score": [
17,
7
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lbfg9o
|
Why is shorting company stock even allowed in our financial system?
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gltsjzp",
"gltuxfh"
],
"text": [
"shorting helps prevent a stock bubble from being created due to overvaluing a stock. since shorting a stock is inherently risky, the shorter typically has to do their due diligence to value the company (in theory). also since a stock has to be bought to complete a short sale, there is a stabilizing effect when the stock goes back in.",
"Because shorting is, in effect, just the act of selling a stock when the price is high in order to buy the stocks back when they're cheaper. The weirdness of shorting comes from how you are doing this with other peoples stocks rather than your own. But you are also paying them for the opportunity to short their stocks. It isn't an inherently bad practice, but a simple mechanism which allows people to make money on predicting changes in pricing. And a practice which helps the market in correctly pricing stocks at any given moment."
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lbfgf1
|
How come we can eat raw fish but we can't eat raw chicken?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gltqpe7"
],
"text": [
"So generally meat of an animal is going to be fairly sterile. The problem comes when butchering it. The outside of a chicken is likely to be contaminated. Fish have similar issues and you can get really sick if you eat improperly prepared raw fish. URL_0 URL_1"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://meatpoultryfoundation.org/fact-sheets/salmonella",
"https://www.foodsafety.com.au/news/salmonella-raw-fish-growing-concern"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lbfnue
|
Could you theoretically create your own religion and demand your work to accommodate it under freedom of religion?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gltrmdj"
],
"text": [
"I think it would depend on your contract with your employer, however in theory if you come up with your own religion and follow the IRS guidelines for it to be considered a church legally ( at least I think I’m no lawyer) they’re could be no repercussions as it is for all intents and purposes a religion. Also if they do say fire you for it then you could (again not a lawyer) seek legal compensation"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lbfp66
|
Why is there no gas around The Moon?
|
As I’m sure you all know there is no gas around the moon, why is that? Can’t the moon at least hold a little bit of gas with its gravity, even if it has to be as dense as xenon.
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glv7g4a",
"glvazvv"
],
"text": [
"There is gas around the moon. As you correctly stated the moon can hold a little bit of gas with its gravity. URL_0",
"Effectively the only gas around the moon is outgassing from lunar material and briefly captured solar wind. The major reasons the moon can't hold these (or any other atmosphere) for any length of time are tides from the Earth, the magnetic field from the Earth, and solar wind without a magnetic field to deflect it. Basically, any atoms and particles that get caught by the moon's gravity are at the mercy of far stronger forces that push/pull them away from the moon. So, no atmosphere can be accumulated. As u/dkf295 said, there is gas around the moon. It's just not enough to be more than a slightly soft vacuum."
],
"score": [
10,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_the_Moon"
],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lbftvy
|
What is it that the sun is "feeding on" to be burning for so long? There has to be something being consumed right?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gltsc6a",
"gltua2c",
"gltsmu8",
"gltscdx"
],
"text": [
"Yes, hydrogen and then also helium. It’s a big giant ball of fuel for nuclear fusion. It’ll eventually run out. URL_0",
"The sun runs on nuclear fusion and is not combining hydrogen and making helium. So it is not burning but a hot glowing nuclear reactor. It converter 4 million tons of matter into energy each second. The sun is just enormous so it has fusioned hydrogen for 4.5 billion years and has still enough to run for another 5.4 billion years until the hydrogen in the core is used up. It will then expand to a red giant and will swallow Venus and might swallow Earth. , it will certainly heat up the surface so life is not possible on Earth. The helium-burning will be a lot shorter around 130 million years. It will then shrink to a white dwarf after ejecting most of its mass. It will no longer have any nuclear fusion just slowly cool down but the time it takes is longer than the current age of the universe (approximately 13.8 billion years). Compared to the volume the sun produces less heat the human it is comparable to a pile of compost. The sun produces 276W/m\\^3 at the core. Humans produce around 100W just to say alive and we have a volume of less the 1/10 m\\^4. So you produce around 4x per unit of volume than the core of the t sun. The density of the core of the sun is 150x the density of water. Human density is close to water. The result compared to you mass human produce 4\\*150=600x the energy than the core of the sun. So the sun does not produce a lot of energy compared to the volume or mass. It produces a lot of energy because it is enormous.",
"The Sun does not \"burn\", like we think of logs in a fire or paper burning. The Sun glows because it is a very big ball of gas, and a process called nuclear fusion is taking place in its core. Nuclear fusion occurs when one proton smashes into another proton so hard that they stick together...and release some energy as well. This energy then heats up the other materials (other protons and electrons and such) nearby. This heating eventually grows out from the center (or core) of the star to the outside, finally leaving the surface and radiating out into space to be the heat and light we know stars emit. People, including scientists, sometimes say that the Sun \"burns hydrogen\" to make it glow. But that is just a figure of speech. Hydrogen really doesn't burn, it fuses, into helium.",
"Hydrogen being pressed under the extreme weight causes fusion to larger molecules This reaction releases energy, some of which comes to us as heat and light. This is a bad explanation. Hopefully someone will give a better one."
],
"score": [
16,
11,
5,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://youtu.be/W1ZQ4JBv3-Y"
],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lbfxcz
|
What is VaporRub and how does it work?
|
Since I was a kid I’ve thought of Vicks VapoRub as a magical minty jelly that clears the schnoz by divine powers- now, though, I’m an adult working in healthcare and I am plumb embarrassed that I don’t know the science.
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gltt2s6",
"gly4iyd"
],
"text": [
"From my understanding VapoRub creates a sort of menthol like vapor that when inhaled sort of tricks your brain into believing you’re breathing easier than before. But I have a pretty primitive understanding of it",
"Vaporub is basically just petroleum jelly mixed with menthol and a few other fragrance oils. The petroleum jelly is just the goopy base that holds everything together and doesn't have a medical use. Menthol is the chemical that makes mint \"minty\" and cold. The menthol, along with the other fragrant oils, are known to soothe sore throats and suppress coughs. The cooling action of menthol can also help soothe sore muscles, such as chest muscles sore from coughing and sneezing. None of the ingredients in vaporub are known to be effective decongestants, so Vaporub doesn't actually clear up your nasal passages. The soothing smell may help trick you into feeling more relaxed and less stuffy, and it does really help prevent you from coughing, which can make you feel less congested."
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lbg8zc
|
Why do we sometimes wake up just minutes before an alarm we set goes off?
|
I experience this a lot, I'll have an alarm set for 7 AM and wake up at 6:56 AM.
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gltuwri"
],
"text": [
"Your body gets accustomed to certain bodily schedules by repetition. It's why we get sleepy at night and energetic during the day. Have a read of [this]( URL_0 ) (particularly the diagram - it's interesting stuff)."
],
"score": [
8
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lbgenj
|
Why do we get sick of eating too much of the same thing when it tasted so good at first?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gltwiwe",
"gltyqlj"
],
"text": [
"The same reason money doesn't really buy happiness. Humans are easily able to become 'normalized' by their environments. Things that are exciting, scary, sad, disturbing, thrilling all become 'normal' after a while.",
"Dopamine adjustment For me it's soda, I have waves of drinking it for almost every meal for several weeks, then I won't touch it for 3+ months because I can't stomach the thought of it, and the cycle continues Day 1-5 of no drinks besides soda : lots of dopamine being produced, soda is sooo good! Day 6-11: a little less dopamine, I have to drink larger amounts of soda to feel as good or as caffeinated as before Day 12-16: severe lack of dopamine from just drinking soda, the things I don't like about soda (I feel bloated, the sugar spike sometimes gives me a headache, too much soda in a day leaves a film in my mouth) start to outweigh the lingering amounts of pleasure I still receive Day 17-30: tired of soda, receive no dopamine from soda, look for me next dopamine hit elsewhere until the cycle begins again)"
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lbgzzf
|
Why do spiders not bleed out and die when losing a limb?
|
As a human if I lost a limb I would most likely bleed out and die within minutes if I didn't get medical attention but spiders are like "Oh no... Anyway..." And they just keep on trucking. Why is that?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gltzdri",
"gltzsev"
],
"text": [
"Because arthropods don’t necessarily use blood to circulate oxygen throughout their bodies. In ELI5 terms, they instead have small holes through their bodies for oxygen to enter directly and spread locally.",
"The main reason is that spider legs are designed to pop off. There's muscles at weak points that clamp down if the leg is removed. Also spiders don't really have a circulatory system. It's more like they're in hollow and filled with goop (haemolymph) tho it is still pumped around."
],
"score": [
10,
9
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lbh1yj
|
How did taxation work during medieval times when most of the population was illiterate?
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glu0fhh",
"glu0a2y",
"glu5asc"
],
"text": [
"People didn’t have 401ks and healthcare plans they needed to calculate against their income after standard deductions. They had a local lord who sent his tax collectors /armed goons around to eyeball how much money people might have and extract what they figured was due. The illiterate folks weren’t really in a good position to argue. The lords then owed goods/cash to their regional managers, who in turn coughed up the big bucks to the king. Going back further there were some right bastards - for a while the Roman Empire used to have bids for the right to collect taxes. To win the contract you had to commit to collecting more than anyone else was willing to commit to - then you and your goons go around and extract as much money as possible from the population and at the end if you collected more than you bid you got to keep the rest. I’m sure you can imagine how that went.",
"In the Medieval era (clear through to the Ancient era), usually the king or whoever would levy a certain amount of stuff from an area. A tax collector would immediately pay the king that amount of stuff. Then he would gather up some people with weapons and go to the area and try to get that stuff + some stuff he would keep for himself. If you didn't like it, the guy had people with weapons, so not a lot you could do on the spot, because if you did you'd get stabbed. You might be able to complain about it to the local lord, but odds are they wouldn't care. If they did, they'd either be able to stop the tax collector, or gripe about it to the person above them. Otherwise, it was just usually the local lord coming with guys with weapons asking you to give him stuff or get stabbed.",
"There wasn't an income tax based how much you earn in a year. Lords were owners of critical infrastructure and natural ressources such as bridges, mills, careers, forests, etc... And were renting their usage or installing tolls. For example a toll at the city gate on the day of a wool trading fair would be profitable in a large city. In villages, since you need a mill to turn your wheat into flour, you don't have much choice but to pay the tax for the usage of the mill (a guy would be appointed to be the mill manager and collect the money, embezzle some and send the money to the lord periodically). Salt sales were also often taxed for example (salt conserves food. And there was no fridge) They could also rent some plot of land to someone to cultivate it and would get an fraction of the harvest. Some special taxes could exist for certain types of merchants, who were more educated. Selling professional licences, offices and voting rights in an area was also a source of income. Racketeering could exist but plundering your own population is a good way to get a peasant revolt, so it's much easier to plunder another lord territory. And ~~war~~ \"\"defense\"\" and \"\"protection\"\" was the raison d'être of the nobility in the feudal social order. Ransoming noble prisoners of war was a very profitable business. Basically the lords were controlling the means of subsistence or making money through war. It didn't change since. Also while people were illiterate, they weren't dumb. They could totally understand \"out of ten sacks of rice, give me four\". It just takes more time and if it gets complicated it's just eyeballed."
],
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8,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
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}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lbhbzw
|
If sound travels better in denser mediums, why does covering my ears with my hands dampen what I hear?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glu11sw",
"glu14ei"
],
"text": [
"Because sound doesn’t travel very well when Changing mediums. When sound waves are traveling through air and then hit a solid, some of the sound waves get transferred to and through that solid, but many of them bounce off the solid. This is why you can hear and echo in an empty room, the sound waves are bouncing off the walls. That’s also how Sonar works, sound waves are emitted, traveling through the water, hit something, and bounce back. So when you cover your ears with your hands, it gets quieter because a decent amount of the sound waves are bouncing off your hands.",
"Sound doesn't necessarily travel better in denser mediums. Flesh specifically is quite bad for sound transmission, as well as foam, both of which are much denser than air. However, covering your ears with your hands would work even if your hands were made of something that carries sound super well, like steel. This is because sound has great difficulty transitioning between different mediums. Air is not very dense, but flesh is very dense, and so the sound is mostly reflected."
],
"score": [
13,
7
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lbhei0
|
Why can't we crush germs to death?
|
I know the question is a little silly, but why are we able to squish ants, but not something way smaller like bacteria? At what size does it become very difficult to kill a certain organism that way?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glu1xjr",
"gluki6a",
"glv1qkb",
"glu2pns",
"glv9lah"
],
"text": [
"Probably not gonna be the best answer but I would think that whatever we use to try and crush them has an imperfectly flat surface. Germs are only a few microns. It'd be like trying to hit a fly with a swatter made of chain link.",
"Technically, we can, it’s called Pascalization. Can you do it with your hard or a hard stomp? Likely not due to a the immense pressures needed, but specialised machines can.",
"There are two reasons: 1. Ants and other small crushable organic things are made up of millions of cells that fit together. When you crush them, you are actually more often than not crushing all these connections between the cells, and ripping and tearing those cells from destroying everything between the cells. Bacteria, unlike Ants, are single celled, and therefore they have their own internal \"cytoskeleton\" a connection of very small proteins that help distribute any outside force over the entirety of the bacterial surface. 2. Bacteria are so miniscule that most things that would crush them are too uneven in their surface that they won't be able to. As an aside, you are actually destroying cells the same size as a bacteria every day in a kitchen, when you salt meat or mushrooms the cell wall breaks from all the liquid pouring out, and when you whisk an egg yolk until it foams it is the protein from inside the cells that come out as they get \"crushed\".",
"If you had a full coverage of ants beneath your hand, they would be much easier to crush. I'm sure you've seen people lie on a bed of nails, where their weight is distributed across many pointy nails and so they aren't injured by them. Bacteria are very very small. To crush one, you'd need to apply a fair amount of force to it. However, any force you try to apply will be spread put across many of them. Not only that, but in general, creatures' squishiness scales with their height. Just as you could easily crush a tall stick, but a tooth pick would just impale your hand.",
"You *could* crush a bacterium/germ. Not easily (see other answers for why), but it can be done with some equipment. The real problem is that crushing a germ isn't really going to *do* anything. That one germ dying isn't going to affect whatever sort of infection you have. Think about it like an anthill. There are *thousands* of them. It would be *much* easier to wipe them out with some sort of chemical agent than trying to crush them all one by one. The same can be said about bacteria, except there are probably many, *many* more of them in any sort of active infection. You just can't kill them \"by hand\"."
],
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[],
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lbhkup
|
What happens to the blood flowing out inside the body during an internal bleeding?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glu2pku",
"glu46qi"
],
"text": [
"It will start to fill whatever body cavity the bleed is in. There are several different body cavities that are separated by layers of connective tissues. This is to prevent infections from spreading from one body cavity, to a neighboring cavity. However, in your case, if the bleed is severe enough, the blood will seep into and fill the respective cavity it is in. Depending on the cavity, this could cause a number of other issues. Example is a brain bleed, that would fill the cranial cavity and cause pressure on your brain, which could cause other neurological symptoms aside from the bleed itself. Source: nursing student that just finished Anatomy and Physiology",
"The job of cleaning up anything outside of your cells and circulatory system belongs to your [lymphatic system]( URL_1 ). It is a kind of drainage system with check points called lymph nodes. In these lymph nodes are [macrophages]( URL_2 ) anchored in place, but there are also macrophages that roam freely. These macrophages will consume dead or damaged red blood cells to help keep your body clean and tidy. All the fluid the lymphatic system cleans up is eventually emptied into the [inferior vena cava]( URL_0 ) where it is returned to the bloodstream. Enough internal bleeding can overwhelm this system to the point that it can't clean up the blood before clots clog up the lymphatic system, put pressure on near by tissue, or provide food for bacteria to thrive. That said, there is always some small holes forming in your blood vessel leaking a small amount of blood somewhere in your body. Patching those holes up and cleaning the small amount of blood that leaked out is a very routine function of your body."
],
"score": [
11,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferior_vena_cava",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lymphatic_system",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrophage"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lbhoro
|
why do you always have bad breath after sleeping?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glu32kv"
],
"text": [
"When you're awake saliva is constantly being secreted into your mouth and swallowed, effectively a primitive washing. When you're asleep this process obviously can't happen so without the secretions (saliva) constantly washing your mouth it stays dry and bacteria can grow. As part of their metabolism bacteria produce sulfur compounds that have gross smells, and their increased number after sleeping increases the number of gross smelling compounds."
],
"score": [
12
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lbj8ns
|
Bremsstrahlung
|
When an electron is accelerated (or decelerated) it emits light in a continuous spaktrum. But as we can see from the equation \[E = h \* f\] light is quantized into individual photons. So here is my question: How does the electron "decide" when to emit a photon? Why can't it, instead of one photon with a short wavelength, emit two or more photons of longer wavelength? The deceleration is continuous, how does that come together with discrete emission of photons? I mean, at every point in the deceleration process the electron doesn't "know" when it last emitted a photon or when it will emit a photon again, does it? If there is an intuitive way of explaining it whithout going too deep into the maths, I would greatly appreciate it!
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gludsgx"
],
"text": [
"> The deceleration is continuous Careful there.... As soon as we decide to describe the process in the quantum framework, we can no longer say the deceleration is continuous in a classical sense. > when it will emit a photon It comes down to probabilities. (In the same sense that an unstable particle's half-life can tell you about the probability of a particle decay in a given time.) Bremsstrahlung radiation shows up in the framework of Quantum Electrodynamics as a very important \"radiative correction\" to calculated results, which means a Field Theory textbook will have a lot of details on the calculations of Bremsstrahlung probabilities, starting from first principles. (Edit: spelling)"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lbjmld
|
What's the objective difference between a 'horror', 'thriller', 'phycological thriller', 'physcological horror' and 'physcological drama'.
|
I can't keep up with all these film sub-genres. What's the difference between them? Or is best to think of the genres existing on a spectrum? Black Swan for instance is labelled as a phycological drama, but felt more like horror to me
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glugn39"
],
"text": [
"The way I look at it Horror : basic hack and slash movies, blood/guts/gore “Friday the 13th” Thrillers : Not that scary/gruesome, but has “creepy” things such as “Bird Box” Psychological thrillers : same as above most most of the movie revolves around tricking your mind such as “Get Out” Psychological horror: mainly focuses on mind games and whatnot to disturb viewers as much as possible such as “The Grudge”"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lbk4lq
|
Why there isn’t gold everywhere?
|
Earth Science
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glufjsr",
"glugqyo",
"gluibq8",
"glulx6m"
],
"text": [
"There is - just in minute amounts. Seawater, for example, contains trace levels of gold. Think 1g /100,000,000 tonnes of sea water",
"It’s found in such small amounts that it would be impractical to try and process it. In most cases it would be like trying to make a nail with the iron in your blood. You probably could, but it’s pointless. As for the amount we can dig out, it just happens to be something that there isn’t a lot of in relation to other elements in the earth, like iron and copper",
"The first element created is Hydrogen (H, atomic number 1). All other elements were created through fusion and fusion that is traceable back to H. This process of creating other elements occur in stars. Elements beyond iron (Fe, atomic number 26) are only made when very massive stars die off (supernova). As such heavy elements (atomic number > 26) are rare. Obviously the heavier it is, the rarer.",
"Gold isn’t particularly rare in the universe. There is no reason for it to be made less in stellar fusion than its neighboring elements such as mercury and lead, neither of which we consider rare. Gold isn’t even rare in the Earth. It is however rare on the Earth. The problem with gold is that it is heavy. Back when our planet was a molten blob of liquid rock, all the gold sank to the center of the earth because gold is heavy. But when why didn’t other heavy materials like lead not sink down? Because lead likes to make chemical bonds and gold doesn’t. Gold is known for its purity, it really doesn’t like to join with other elements to form molecules. Lead is usually found in nature as something like lead sulfide, a compound which is a lot less dense than lead metal itself, and similar is true for all other metals. Despite being heavy as metals, as compounds they are less heavy. And all in all, gold just doesn’t make compounds."
],
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12,
6,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lbk71o
|
So I've been learning about protien synthesis in biology, it seems very complicated. How did life invent that?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glug8s7",
"glumxrl"
],
"text": [
"We don't really know, since we're not entirely sure how life formed to begin with. But the basics are that increasingly complex biological chemicals came about under the right conditions of early earth, which had extreme tempretures, lots of lightning, different atmosphere etc than today. Things like amino acids formed and they formed other components which formed proteins and a sort of loop was formed where these chemicals produced more similar components. Thats essentially what life is, a chemical reaction that is very complex with lots of loops that build onto it.",
"That's the big question, or one of them at least. So far we've only been able to make educated predictions about it - essentially, using logic to figure out how it probably went based on what we know about how it is now. So, at this point you know about ribosomes I'd assume, as well as DNA and RNA. If you haven't figured this out already, DNA and RNA are exceptionally similar molecules - DNA is really just RNA but more stable, making it a better molecule for storing information long term. And something you may not know is that ribosomes are made of RNA (and yes, that does mean that RNA can act not only as a storage molecule, but also as an enzyme-like catalytic molecule too). So with this information, you know that RNA can both store information and catalyse reactions. Now, there is really only one process necessary for \"life\": Self-replication. That is, simply by existing, the molecule causes other, smaller molecules it comes into contact with to fuse together, becoming an identical copy of the molecule. As long as the rate at which that process happens is faster than the rate at which the molecule decays, there will always be a population of the molecule that is greater than 0, so the \"species\" will continue to exist. As it happens, RNA can do this too, which means RNA can store information, catalyse reactions *and copy itself*, given the right order of bases. And better yet, it's also been proven that RNA can arise spontaneously from smaller, naturally forming organic molecules. The current theory is that the first true living entity was a self-replicating RNA molecule that spontaneously arose from many smaller organic molecules sticking together. Over time, slight variations in the copies it made of itself led to different types of RNA that had increasingly more specialised jobs, until eventually symbiotic communities of RNA arose, none of whom could do all the functions of life themselves but could do their specific job well enough to cover for the others. At this point, you had some RNA that stored information and was responsible for doing the evolution part of life, you had some RNA (ribosomes, or ribosome-like entities) capable of translating that information into functional molecules. Eventually they evolved to start making proteins, and eventually some of those proteins started doing the job of replicating RNA (meaning the storage RNA no longer had to replicate itself), and eventually that storage RNA evolved into the more stable DNA whilst its symbiotic cousins, the mRNA, tRNA and ribosomes stayed as RNA. Indeed, at some point those self-replicating ribosomes even incorporated themselves into the DNA too, having evolved proteins capable of doing the job of copying the ribosome for them. So, really, protein synthesis mechanisms are the result of self-replicating RNA molecules evolving into colonies of highly specialised, cooperative molecules who work together to produce a huge array of proteins that exist solely to propagate those evolved RNA molecules. It is bloody complicated, but it's also absolutely incredible."
],
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11,
3
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"text_urls": [
[],
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lbkawt
|
How do bombs work?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glugk8q"
],
"text": [
"Bombs generally do two things, create a lot of heat and/or create a lot of gas. Both of those things cause rapid expansion, new volume is being created faster than the air around it can move out of the way, this creates a shockwave which is what does most of the actual damage."
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lbkeak
|
What is the science behind motion sickness?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glva5oy"
],
"text": [
"Long Story short: Eyes: guys we are moving! Brain: No we don't! I didnt give the order! Stomach: Oh damn, that might have been me... better get rid of everything we ate today..."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lbkenj
|
Why do certain sounds (like Chicago tornado siren) sound so creepy to us ?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"gluod45",
"glukqqc",
"glupyw2",
"glukxvw",
"glukot9",
"glunl6i",
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"glurtpu",
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"text": [
"It's just the context, Israel uses [simple voice]( URL_0 ) repeating \"Red alert\" in Hebrew and if you know that in few seconds rockets start showering you, it has the same unnerving effect.",
"To me it sounds rather goofy and it gets creepy in the context of a serious threat. Like children’s laughter is nice on a sunny day in the park. But if you are camping alone in a remote forest at night it will not be nice at all. Apart from that humans are very sensitive to frequencies that are similar to screaming babies, that’s why sirens almost always use frequencies similar to that. But I guess that probably only helps to get our attention and is no reason for it to sound scary. The other guys link has probably some more serious info on this though, I’m just rambling here.",
"That's a crazy sounding siren, it sort of sounds like vocal patterns, as though some giant creature is singing in a weird language. I live near traditional [nuclear/air raid sirens]( URL_0 ). They're tested a few times a year. They have none of that unexpected tone progression and yet these things terrify me. As soon as I hear that first rising tone I get chills.",
"In the video you mentioned, I think a big factor is the meta level. Not the sound itself, because if I had just heard a sound clip, that would be kind of erie, but seeing the context of the sound, you can see the rooftops, the echo of the sound is realized to be not just loud but so loud that every creature in every direction until the horizon and beyond can hear this. Add in the fog so you still have that realization of scope, without getting the visual details. What's in the fog? Is it bad humans? Is it monsters? What kind of monster makes these sounds but can't be seen, oh me oh my, wheres my pointey stick and my friends to kill this, oh wait it's a siren and I'm in a city, right.",
"The alarm sound used for earthquake warnings in Japan is chilling as well. URL_0",
"I for one like how it sounds. But in any case, one thing's for sure, that's one sound you're not going to ignore.",
"I associate that sound with a \"siren head\" a famous enemy/monster in videogames, which is pretty chilling. [ URL_0 ]( URL_0 )",
"I think its related to associative memory. From wiki In psychology, associative memory is defined as the ability to learn and remember the relationship between unrelated items. This would include, for example, remembering the name of someone or the aroma of a particular perfume.[1]",
"It's simple context and conditioning. Unconditioned, you would probably not have such an unnerving reaction. For example, I have never heard that kind of siren (which is odd, as I grew up 2 hours from Chicago and went there all the time). However, whalesong (which this siren kind of reminds me off) creeps me the F\\*CK out because I'm terrified of open water. Yet, many other people use whalesong records for relaxation.",
"Is it maybe also because we're conditioned to know something bad is going on when we hear those frequencies and so it makes us feel uncomfortable? I'm likely talking rubbish but another example is when you see an empty hearse drive by. It's not audio related but you know someone has either just been taken to a cemetery or is being picked up when you see it drive by. Makes me feel sadness and dread. Anyone, I'm rambling. 😅"
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],
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xQ1jJqLSys"
],
[],
[
"https://youtu.be/indtUhIso-U"
],
[],
[
"https://youtu.be/sEpmzpbKd9U?t=80"
],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lblebk
|
How does remastering old games work?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glv14le"
],
"text": [
"For the majority of people, remastering generally means \"make this shit look better\". That said... It's important to note that in most cases with a game, the assets are developed in very high quality and down-graded to something smaller when placed into the game, for RAM, speed or hard drive space reasons. The original models for Doom 3 were insanely high quality and used to help fake the visual effect in-game. What you see in-game looks similar to the original high quality models but takes up a lot less space and runs *much* faster. This is done in general for most game development because you can always downgrade it less at some point, but if you create it in the intended crappy quality, there's little to be done if you want to up the quality. It's like creating a super high quality GIF and then resizing it depending on your monitor. You want a 4k image, preferably. That won't look any better on a 16k monitor than a 4k monitor, but maybe you don't care about \"16k-compatible\" but if you used a 1440p image, you can't really claim \"4k-compatible\" because it won't look any better on a 4k monitor than it would on a 1440p monitor. **Option A: Re-use** Sometimes they use the original game and just apply better-looking assets to it (models, sound effects, flashier shaders, smoother and/or more realistic animations, etc.). Maybe they make some code changes to the game to make it run a little faster in light of some new technology since the original. This is what's happening with Mass Effect Legendary Edition. **Option B: Recreate** Sometimes they start from scratch and are basically creating a new game using the original as the design plan. This is what happened with Final Fantasy VII Remake and I'm assuming what's happening with Diablo 2 Resurrected. **Option C: Mix** Maybe they re-use the original assets but start coding from scratch or switch to a new game engine. I know this has been done but I can't think of any games off the top of my head. [Edit] Mix is Warcraft 3: Reforged. It’s a new engine with updated assets."
],
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9
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lblen2
|
How do embers stay burning for hours, even while buried beneath soot/ash?
|
Earth Science
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glum06g",
"glupr1c"
],
"text": [
"The oxygen in the air is burning the fuel in the wood. Imagine the oxygen as a thirsty person, and the wood/charcoal/whatever as a glass of water. If the embers are completely open to the air, the oxygen can just drink it all up quickly. When the fuel is covered up with ashes and soot, it is more like trying to drink through a cocktail straw, as there is a much smaller path for the oxygen to get to the wood. So, the fuel takes longer to burn (and doesn't burn as hot)",
"They don't have to actually burn. The ash stops oxygen from getting to the embers, so the burning is suppressed, but ash is also insulating the embers, so they stay hot. When the embers are uncovered, they immediately get the influx of oxygen and can glow again."
],
"score": [
19,
9
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lbmhax
|
why is it that voice output systems can produce naturally sounding speech most of the time but then sound like robots with certain phrases?
|
For example when I get an auto reminder call confirming an upcoming doctor appointment the part about the doctor's name, address etc sounds natural but the part about the date and time is robotic. So whats preventing the whole thing from sounding natural?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glussn5",
"glusuuy"
],
"text": [
"Inflection has to be programmed. Each word and phrase is typically only programmed to put emphasis and inflection in the forest way the words are recorded. That’s why names (uncommon ones unlike Clark or Smith) will sound very robotic.",
"Most likely what you are hearing is an actual human speak most of it, and then a computer just filling in the variable stuff. Alternately, it might be all artificial but the software is set up to put pauses between the variable things to make it easier for you to pick out the key information."
],
"score": [
5,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
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}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lbmodb
|
how does a solid like asparagus seems to go straight to urine within 30mins, instead of stool 3 days later? what other solid have this same impact?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glusntl",
"gluth1i",
"glvs447",
"glwiqni",
"glw5c3s",
"glwfqqr"
],
"text": [
"It is a mixture of both in all cases. All of the cellulose from the asparagus is going to be excreted as feces. but the asparagus, just like any other food, is absolutely full of chemicals that your body can absorb in the intestines and stomach, and those end up in your blood, get processed, and any waste products eventually get excreted in your urine. With asparagus, it is just that one of the chemicals in it is something your body cannot use, so it excretes it pretty quickly, and it has a distinctive smell.",
"When you chew the asparagus and dissolve it in stomach acid it is no longer a solid. This process releases various organic sulfur compounds found in asparagus. These compounds gets absorbed into the blood stream like all the other neutrients in the asparagus. But the liver and then the kidney will brake these down and seperate them into the urine giving it the perticular smell. Technically all food and drink will have the same impact on your body and your urine. However most of them produce metabolic biproducts which are not as easy to detect by humans from a distance. However it is easier for dogs or specialised labratories to recognize different chemicals in your urine or even your sweat which originates from things you have eaten.",
"Stool in 3 days? My digestive system works much faster than that. More like 3-6 hours. But to explain a bit. When things go into your stomach, they get dissolved by acid. Some things dissolve quicker than others. Plant matter takes much more time than the liquids (water and oils) that are inside it. So those liquids get absorbed quicker by your stomach while the solids take a bit more time. Some things don't even get absorbed like corn.",
"Are we asking if you pee asparagus instead of pooping it?",
"> what other solid have this same impact? The other thing I've noticed is cinnamon.",
"Beets will color your urine and feces if you eat enough of them. Note of Caution: Beets are a pretty effective laxative and may cause stomach pain and diarrhea if eaten in larger amounts."
],
"score": [
57,
12,
6,
5,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lbmubg
|
Why do some songs pop up in our head randomly?
|
This morning while eating breakfast a song that I didn't listen to since few months came up in my head for absolutely no reason and that made me wonder why songs or memories reappear randomly, without any particular reason..
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glvt9ye",
"glutfid",
"glvakkb"
],
"text": [
"Not a professional in that matter, but recently heard about similar experience. My explanation is that you heard this song in the similar ambient environment. Lets say month ago you overslept and decided not to hurry at school/work. Mixed your playlist and started to eat muesli with milk and at the same time you heard your neighbors talking outside. Your neurons recorded all that without you knowing. Month passed, you overslept again, you are not in the hurry, eating your muesli and neighbors talking outside. Something missing??? Oh yeah \"su-summer summer time, sumer time sadness\"",
"Same here i would like to know. I woke up humming a song i don't remember listening to recently",
"I have a theory that it’s your brain trying to talk to you. I once had a song pop up randomly too, a song I hadn’t heard in years or thought about. It bugged me so much I realized I should look up the lyrics. It turns out that the song was motivating me (it talked about not being afraid and just going what I was after). It just so happened that I was contemplating our big move to another city. I guess it was bothering me more than I realized hence the song pop up."
],
"score": [
13,
6,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lbn0il
|
() Why can footballers in injury rehab run, and do weights but not play?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gluuhvm"
],
"text": [
"Training is a controlled environment where the player can tap out at any time with no consequence, far less unpredictable than a game where a players motivation to win will push them too hard to heal and risk worsening the existing injury"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lbn2lj
|
Why is it so difficult to emulate PS4 on PC? Is it something Sony intentionally prevented in development or the architecture itself?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gluvuwi"
],
"text": [
"They did not intentionally prevent emulation but they did make several design decisions which had the unintended consequence of making emulation dificult. Firstly games consoles are very dificult to emulate because they typically use a different archinecture. This means that every single processor instruction have to be translated into instructions that the computer understands. And there is usually no one to one mapping between these. This means that in order to be as fast as the console the cumputer needs to run at much higher clock speeds. But the PS4 is already running at around 2 GHz which is very close to what even modern computers are able to run at. And even though they did go for the same architecture as found in computers meaning there are more one to one mappings between instructions they included a graphics processor which you will not find in most computers. The PS4 also includes a lot of other advanced controllers outside of the processor. While these are of the type you may find in a computer they are not connected to the processor in the same way. And you are not going to run the PS4 software on a home built computer but rather need to emulate it so you can not use any of the devices on your computer directly either. We are able to emulate one computer on a computer. But this is something that took a lot of effort. The processor itself does have support for virtualization so that it does not have to be emulated. However all the devices in a computer have been painstaikingly emulated by some software. And there are not many devices which have gotten this treatment either as it is a very big job. You have to repeat this all for the PS4 and all its devices, including the graphics card."
],
"score": [
11
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lbnd42
|
Where did the idea of ripping up contracts to nullify them come from, and, more importantly, is it true?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gluzo0w",
"glv3ezj",
"gluwbv4",
"glvitgt"
],
"text": [
"Its a visual aid for the audience in shows etc. In reality it only works if there is absolutely no other proof of that contract.",
"Normally when a contract is signed, all parties get a copy of the contract, and can make more copies as they need. The only thing ripping up a contract does is eliminate that one copy as proof of the contract. Any other copy still exists as proof.",
"Only if the contract hasn't been finalized with a notary does ripping up a contract mean anything. If it has copies and is legally on the record then all you did was rip up a representation of said contract.",
"1. Paper says you can't do a thing 2. Destroy that paper 3. Paper no longer has power over you 4. Do whatever you want I don't think this behavior has any deeper etymology Of course it doesn't work that way, the paper is a visual representation of higher powers, the power does not lie in the paper itself. But that is a very abstract concept. Until writing existed, if you wanted something to stop, you'd hit it over the head until it stopped."
],
"score": [
15,
8,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lbndfj
|
If the Universe is ever expanding, what is it expanding into?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gluwb7u",
"glv0om3",
"gluz6pn",
"gluwdy5",
"gluwi5n"
],
"text": [
"This is a really uncertain question. One relatively simple answer that I like is \"expansion as we commonly think of it doesn't really apply' Space is something that only exists inside the universe. Since there is no space outside of the universe, it is not expanding into anything, instead, more space is just being made inside the universe. But in the end, we don't really know.",
"Imagine the surface of a balloon. As you inflate it, the balloon itself, the material that makes it, is the same size. There is no new rubber being “made”. Nevertheless, as you inflate it, points on the surface will get further apart as the balloon stretches. This is a 2-dimensional (flat) analogy of what’s going on with the universe. It isn’t necessarily expanding “in to” any pre-existing area/space. But the fabric (balloon surface) of space itself is expanding. Basically don’t think about the inside of a balloon for this, think of the surface. Same material, but getting bigger.",
"Universe is not expanding into pre-existing space. In fact, it’s the space within the universe that is expanding all the time, everywhere. Now at the scale of atoms, humans and planets this expansion is not noticeable, because it’s relatively slow, and the forces which bind our atoms together overpower it by a lot. Between galaxies it’s a different matter - they are very far away from each other and don’t gravitate much, so the distance between galaxies is increasing. At some point in the past the universe was expanding very rapidly, faster than light, i.e. in a slice of time more space was created between two points than light could travel. This means that now there are parts of the universe which are not observable to us - the light from those parts will never catch up with us. So we can only see around us to a distance of about 13.7 billion light years. We do not know and will not ever know what’s in the universe beyond that border. Therefore, whether the universe is infinite, and if it’s not then what exists beyond the universe - those are futile questions. Even if the universe is finite, its boundary is moving away from us faster than light, so we cannot ever reach it and we cannot observe it.",
"No, it creates more space as it expands. (To my knowledge), the stuff that makes up the universe isn’t just made out of nothing- it was all in the big bang. The expansion of the universe is just the space between things getting larger and larger",
"URL_0 To sum that up we don't really know what we're expanding into. The theory goes we're expanding into a untraceable \"super universe\" and that our universe is creating space as it expands into this nothingness. Unfortunately your question is one of the biggest mysterious in the scientific field"
],
"score": [
31,
11,
6,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://observatory.astro.utah.edu/universe.html"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lbnmi1
|
Why does Task Manager force-close applications more effectively (Windows 10)?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gluy5z2",
"gluze4y",
"glvh02c",
"gluy5bn",
"glvb5tk"
],
"text": [
"There's essentially two ways of shutting down an application. Once is graceful, and one isn't. When you hit the close button on the window, it starts a graceful shutdown. This means that the program is allowed to interrupt this process. For example, it might ask you to save the document you're working on. This means that if the application is misbehaving, it might not respond to this signal and not actually close. When you do a force close from Task Manager, it does a non-graceful shutdown of the application. This means the application is not allowed to interrupt it. Instead, the shutdown happens entirely from the OS side. Essentially, it's the difference between asking someone to resign and having them clean out their desk, versus having to have security escort them out.",
"When you click the X you are asking the application to finish up whatever it is doing and shut itself down safely. When you kill it with the task manager, you are telling the operating system to turn it off hard - just deallocate its memory and stop any code it is executing. Analogy - the x is your mother asking you to pause your game and come to dinner. The task manager is your mother unplugging your computer and dragging you by the hair to dinner.",
"Imagine you're in a crowded grocery store. Hitting the close button is politely saying excuse me to the person in front of you. Normally, the person hears you and moves. It may take them a moment to adjust their cart or stop what they're doing but they're able to get to it pretty quick. Now imagine the person in front of you is on the phone. They're super busy with their task, they don't hear you. It doesn't help that the store is crowded and loud. You could wait and hopefully they process that someone is behind them waiting, or you could take the task manager approach which is essentially chanting a Ludacris song while shoving past them. Scenario 1. No hard feelings between you and the person. When you might again things are cool. Scenario 2. Because of the negative interaction, there may be issues next time you cross paths. Edit: Windows is trying to aim for scenario 1 when it can.",
"Normally a Windows application runs in an \"event loop\", processing messages. Messages are things like \"The user moved the mouse\", \"The user pressed the 'a' key\", \"The user clicked the close window button\", etc. Sometimes applications stop processing those messages and if that happens, they don't react to the X button. This is why the task manager can dispense with the niceties of telling the application it should exit, and just kill it outright. And the reason why the X button works differently because you normally want to let the application a chance to react, and ask \"Are you sure you don't want to save the last 6 hours of work?\". Killing it just stops it immediately, and as a result it won't get a chance to do anything of the sort, even if it's working perfectly fine.",
"> one which works in all cases? Heh, as an IT guy I can assure you sometimes you still have to use the fourth option."
],
"score": [
166,
20,
9,
8,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lbnsoc
|
If dolphins breath air why do they die out of water
|
Pretty much what title says
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gluywio",
"gluz6lg"
],
"text": [
"Because they evolved to live in water, going outside of the water would for once mean no movement, but more importantly since they are constantly in the water they are using the water as cooling/are used to cooler temperatures. Going on Land makes them die from the heat and their normal skin and organs aswell would dry out.",
"Their skeletons, muscles and heart is optimized for being in the ocean. So while they are able to stay on land for some time it will be painful and they will suffer from a number of issues. Even breathing would be painfully tough without the same support from the skeleton and muscles that most land animals have."
],
"score": [
8,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lbo9k8
|
Would scientists be able to predict if an asteroid is going to hit Earth?
|
There are many asteroids out there, but, if a big one that has a damage potential would be on a collision course with Earth, would we be able to know that for sure? Or, could it happen at any minute without warning ?
|
Earth Science
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glv2ibx",
"glv2qfp",
"glv2bux",
"glv37t2"
],
"text": [
"It's in a range. We are fairly confident that we know of most world-ending sized asteroids in the solar system, but there's still a lot of damage that can be done from asteroids smaller than that, and we don't know all of those are. It could happen \"at any minute\" but is still incredibly unlikely. There's plenty of other threats that we should worry about way more.",
"We think that we have found all the really big (as in dinosaur-killing) asteroids in the solar system, so we are pretty sure that none of them are of any danger to Earth. But for smaller ones - in the several-hundred-meters-range - which could still cause more devastation than the biggest nuclear bomb, we certainly do not know about all of them. If one of the not-yet-found ones were on a collission course with Earth, we MIGHT see them in advance. But it seems that, whenever an asteroid passes through Earths vicinity, we more often see them only a day or so in advance, or even find them only after they have passed. There also was absolutely no warning for the chelyabinsk meteor in 2013, although that one was small enough to not cause all that much damage. & #x200B; Another thing is that there is the occasional asteroid that we know, but cannot accurately predict the future course for some reason. For example, there is asteroid Apophis, which has a tiny chance of hitting Earth in 2036, but we dont know yet because it will pass Earth quite closely in 2029, and that passage means that the course for the remaining 7 years can only be predicted with much less accuracy. In that specific case, we would at least have those 7 years to prepare.",
"The larger they are, the easier they are to spot. A complete world-killer that’s many miles across would be relatively easy to spot from a long way off and calculate its orbit in advance. Smaller rocks that can cause more localized damage are harder to track and can sneak up on you. A dinosaur killer you’d probably get warning. A Meteor Crater digger, you may not.",
"Without any warning for a massive asteroid to hit Earth? Unlikely. If we see an object, we can monitor it and calculate its trajectory/orbit around the sun pretty accurately and know whether or not it'll hit Earth and when. However, seeing them can be the hard part. Impacts happen all the time without warning but they're mostly small enough to not cause a significant event. The smaller an object is the harder it is to see because, given the dark background of empty space, we can't see an object unless sunlight is reflecting off it and back to Earth. The larger an object the more light it reflects (just by being larger), making them generally easier to see from a further distance. Additionally objects are basically impossible to see during the day because the light we receive from the sun blocks out any reflected light, so you can only really detect them at night. Objects large enough to make it through the atmosphere, but small enough to go unseen, do happen - and there are recorded events of them impacting Earth...but they aren't large enough to cause massive worldwide effects."
],
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10,
9,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
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}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
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