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74q2kq | what led to the creation of the knights templar and what was their mo? | Why did they even exist after the church regained power? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/74q2kq/eli5what_led_to_the_creation_of_the_knights/ | {
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"During the Crusades, the Church controlled Jerusalem for a time, and this attracted pilgrimages to go see the holy land. The trip from Western Europe to the Levant was rough and dangerous. The Knights Templar were formed as a monastic order charged with securing the safety of pilgrims.\n\nBesides safety, they also served as a basic form of banking for pilgrims. Before you left, you'd deposit your valuables at a local Templar place, get a certificate of deposit, and afterwards you could either withdraw once you returned, or get an equivalent in treasure when you were in Jerusalem. This financial dealing made them relatively powerful.\n\nDespite the myths around them, their utility and purpose waned as the Muslims recaptured Jerusalem and the surroundings. Due to their power and ongoing feuds with the Knights Hospitaller, the French king eventually ordered them all arrested, and pressured the Pope to do the same. Some were killed, but most were given pensions and allowed to leave, or became absorbed into other monastic orders.",
"so I don't know much about their start.\n\nBut their MO was that you were already an extremely skilled knight before you joined. They didn't take green knights that hadn't fought a battle yet.\n\nSo you take the cream of the crop. Then they spend all day (when they aren't escorting pilgrims to holy sites) praying/other godly stuff, training, chores.\n\nSo the shear amount of time they spent training alongside other skilled knights made them even better. Couple this with the surplus funds that their banking system made (one of the reasons the french turned on them) giving them what for that time was a huge budget and they could afford to keep their men equipped with the best gear possible.\n\nOn the field they worked mainly as cavalry in chain mail (due to it being too hot for plate armor) and used a V formation in cavalry charges. They also trained closely with auxiliaries, non knights fighting on foot."
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1b3tco | why we flinch | For example:
If I look at the toaster when the bread pops up it makes me jump.
Why is this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1b3tco/eli5_why_we_flinch/ | {
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"Fight or flight instinct. When surprised, your body/brain makes itself ready to defend itself, or run for the hills...",
"Also, moving away from a collision when it happens dampens the overall effect or damage. Kind of like how you have to move your hands back to catch an egg. If you flinch back when someone punches you, it will hurt less. maybe?"
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523jlk | what will happen if we try to land on a gas gaint, like jupiter? will we come out from the other end, never being able to land? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/523jlk/eli5_what_will_happen_if_we_try_to_land_on_a_gas/ | {
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"No, as you enter the gas giant the pressure would increase and the interior gases would buoy your ship because their density would be increasingly higher as the molecules are squeezed closer together by gravity. You'd probably end up floating inside like being deep underwater rather than just passing straight through.",
"From my understanding, most gas giants have a solid core of (I think) rock/metals. But Jupiter's high Gravity, and high atmospheric winds/pressure would be make it too dangerous for us to \"land\" on the core. ",
"The Galileo probe entered Jupiter's atmosphere. Due to the immense gravity of the gas giants probes enter them at a really high speeds (tens of kilometers per second), so they need huge heat shields to survive. Afterwards you just have atmosphere without any surface below - but if you go too deep, pressure and temperature rise so much that no probe will survive it. The probe gets crushed, its pieces slowly descend further (because metals have a larger density than the hydrogen/helium atmosphere).",
"I see most people stuck in the real-world on this. Y'all need to borrow NdGT's Ship of the Imagination, allowing you to participate in the universe as an outside observer. \n\nMany scientists actually think there is a solid rocky core on most gas giants. Drop your ship low enough and you eventually reach some solid material, whether it's metallic hydrogen, silicates, a lump of uranium.",
"Think of it like a submarine going too deep into the ocean- you reach a point where the pressure is so immense you are crushed. The gas giants do not have \"air\" flowing over \"ground\" like a rocky planet, it's a dense atmosphere that gets so dense it's basically liquid, then so dense it's basically a gooey solid, much like the hot molten rock of the mantle layer on a rocky planet. While made of \"gas\" (Hydrogen) it's so hot, and so dense it's insane. \n\nThere may or may not be a solid core within but it's not going to be anything you can say you \"landed\" on considering the density on your way down. You would not say you \"landed\" on the core of Earth after drilling though super hot dense semi-liquid mantle.",
"The interior of a gas giant is actually quite dense...Jupiter's core is believed to be about twice as dense as the earth's.\n\nWhat makes a gas giant different is there is no sudden transition from atmosphere to surface...it just slowly gets denser and denser as you approach the center."
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3ggsuw | why there are lions in india, but no tigers in africa? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ggsuw/eli5_why_there_are_lions_in_india_but_no_tigers/ | {
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" > Lions, leopards and tigers are all part of the Felidae family of cats, which originated in Africa and share a common ancestor. At some point, probably around 2 million years ago, one offshoot of Felidae migrated east toward Asia, and those cats evolved into the orange-, black-, and white-striped beasts we know today. Once established in Asia, however, tigers never returned to Africa.\n\nLike many species, their ancestors left Africa and evolved, and never returned."
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5rttns | why do spinning objects seem to stay in the air longer? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5rttns/eli5_why_do_spinning_objects_seem_to_stay_in_the/ | {
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"Spinning stabilizes the object so that it doesn't wobble or flip over. This enables it to continue moving through the air smoothly. By itself this doesn't make it stay up any longer, just travel farther. \n\nHowever, if the object is also shaped like a wing (a Frisbee is), staying in the right orientation allows it to generate more lift for a longer time."
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93500e | what exactly happens when we bend paper? why is it permanent? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/93500e/eli5_what_exactly_happens_when_we_bend_paper_why/ | {
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"[Here's what paper looks like under a microscope.](_URL_0_) These are ~~collagen~~ cellulose fibers that came from the pulp of the trees used and they all kinda mesh and weave together all tangled up - giving paper its strength. When you crease a fold, the fibers that get bunched up on the inside of the crease force the fibers on the outside of the crease to stretch and tear. If you then crease the fold the other way, you now break the fibers on this side, leaving only a thin layer of fibers in the middle to hold the two sides together (and making it now relatively easy to tear apart). \n\nSame thing if you've ever had to use a piece of bread as a hotdog bun; the bottom of the bread always breaks in half. ",
"materials have 2 regions. Plastic and Elastic. Elastic means it can snap back to its original form. Plastic is permanently changing the properties of a material. Some materials have a higher elastic region which means they can take more abuse before causing permanent damage.\n\nYou can flex a piece of acrylic quite a bit before it permanently stays bent, or press your hand and squeeze an aluminum coke can and watch it snap back into its original shape. Press it too hard and now its bent, and changed forever. These materials have high elastic regions. Bending paper will also retain its original shape, until you crease it, crossing into the plastic region. Once something enters the plastic region, it is now permanently that shape and will never return to its original form. ",
"Imagine breaking a branch, but on a smaller level. If the branch is fairly new (not dry), it can be hard to break. One side will splinter while the other side still holds the two halves together. If you try to bend it back together, the first (splintered) side will still be broken, so it can't ever go back to how it was before. The same thing happens with paper; on a smaller scale than you can probably see, one side of the paper rips apart a little bit while the rest of it hold both halves together."
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m609b | how does nasa take super detailed pictures of space? | Like this one _URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/m609b/eli5how_does_nasa_take_super_detailed_pictures_of/ | {
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"What NASA and many other photographers do is they take a bunch of really zoomed in pictures, putting the zoomed in pictures right next to ones that are close to it, and stitch them together, making a really detailed picture. \n\nThis same process is used when making panoramic pictures. \n[Image Stitching; Wikipedia](_URL_0_)",
"Taking them takes ages. Whereas a normal camera requires a split-second worth of light to produce a picture, the big telescopes (such as Hubble) stare at a single point in space for weeks, sometimes even months. That way much more photons hit the camera, and thus produce a better picture.",
"What NASA and many other photographers do is they take a bunch of really zoomed in pictures, putting the zoomed in pictures right next to ones that are close to it, and stitch them together, making a really detailed picture. \n\nThis same process is used when making panoramic pictures. \n[Image Stitching; Wikipedia](_URL_0_)",
"Taking them takes ages. Whereas a normal camera requires a split-second worth of light to produce a picture, the big telescopes (such as Hubble) stare at a single point in space for weeks, sometimes even months. That way much more photons hit the camera, and thus produce a better picture."
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yq7b0 | gluons | I understand the properties of fermions and most bosons, but gluons are the ones that are easily the most complicated and are the coolest. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/yq7b0/eli5_gluons/ | {
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"Ok since you understand the principles of bosons, and fermions, I'll step the cutesy analogies, and just explain it simply. Gluons are basically the exchange particle of the Strong interaction. The strong interaction is what keeps the quarks together. It works just like electromagnetism, where the photons are the exchange particles, where the force is carried between two other particles, making an interaction. \n\nNow this force (strong force) is very important, as quarks are the building blocks of Protons and neutrons (as well as other particles), which make up the nucleus of an atom. Also this force is extremely strong, much stronger than gravity. Which is what the basis for how nuclear power, bombs, etc. works. The amount of energy expelled from breaking this force is huge!\n\nNow what exactly does the gluon do? Well it doesn't do anything more than other exchange particle (or gauge boson), except in the matter of \"Color change\". The idea behind is that there is three different \"states\" (not to be confused with the 6 different quarks, but rather the state of each quark at a given time) at which a quark can be. This represented by colors, Red, Blue and Green. There is also the anti-colors: Anti-Red, Anti-Blue, and Anti-Green; which make up the states of the anti-quarks. Now gluons carry both an anti-color, and a color. This means that a Blue quark can emit a blue-anti-red gluon, that when interacting when a Red quark, the red quark becomes Blue, and the Blue quark becomes red. This works because the anti-state cancels out the \"color\" of the Red quark, and replaces it with the color of the gluon. This also means that the first quark has to be Red since it \"gave up\" it's blue state. \n\nThis is something that you don't find in the other forces, since for example, in the electromagnetism field exchange, there is only two: Positive and Negative; and the Photons that exchange that force will either be positive carrying or negative carrying (so the number of total states of the particle, matches the states of the exchange particle). But in the strong interaction, quarks can only be three possible states, while gluons can be six (Red-anti-blue, Red-anti-green, Blue-anti-red, Blue-anti-green, Green-anti-red, Green-anti-blue).\n\nIf you want me to explain down any further, I can try, but I figure if you understand bosons, then this shouldn't too much of a step upward.",
"Why would a 5 year old need to know particle physics?!?!?!?!"
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5ge7u0 | why do male orgasms get more intense in relatively short amounts of succession? | Why is that? For example, if you masturbate the first time, it feels nice. But by the 3rd time in a relatively close time period, let's say about 45 minutes from the second orgasm, the ejaculate volume is low, but the orgasm is noticeably more intense than the first or second. Anyone know why that is? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ge7u0/eli5_why_do_male_orgasms_get_more_intense_in/ | {
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"Well everyone is different. Wildly so, in fact. Some people are capable of sustaining multiple, repeating orgasms of increasing intensity. This is more common in women, but certainly possible in men. Others can only have one orgasm of great intensity, after which they lose sexual stimulation for a long refractory period. \n\nWhat you experience is relatively rare compared to the general male population. But the reason they escalate in intensity is probanly because none of these are \"true\" orgasms that kick off a refractory period. Theyre more like partial orgasms that heighten sexual stimulation and pleasure, so the orgasms continue to build in pleasure until the satiation signal is triggered.",
"It's a set of chemical responses within the nervous system that trigger other physiological responses. Generally, those regions responsible for chemical signals become more active and able to do so.\n\nA good analogy for this might be working out your muscles. As you do some warmup exercises, you're actually able to lift more weight than at the beginning of a workout. Then you get tired.\n\nOf course there is a refractory period for reserves of the transmitters in those regions to build back up, among other things, much like seeing a bright light depletes the chemicals in your retinas so you have to wait until you can see again.\n\nTo go back to the muscle analogy, this would be hitting a hard set of reps until you can't lift the weight anymore. In the short term, the chemicals are depleted, but the muscles are getting extra blood and signals now so the strength increases. Lather, rinse, repeat. No wait, don't lather... everyone knows soap is a bad idea here..."
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pe0vp | i spent a frustrating hour with gimp before coming to you guys, please eli5 how to make animated .gifs. | With this username I'm often asked which gif I'm referring to so I'd like to make some to answer people. Unfortunately my years on the internet have not yielded this information.
So how is it done? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/pe0vp/i_spent_a_frustrating_hour_with_gimp_before/ | {
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"You'll need each individual 'frame' to be on a separate layer. If you already have all your pictures you want to turn into a .gif made (and named in proper order), simply go File > Open as layers, select all pictures, and it will imported as layers.\n\nOnce you have every frame on it's own layer, select File > Save As. Select .gif image. You should have two options, to flatten the image, or to save as an animation. You want to click \"Save as animation\" and then export. The only necessary thing left to do is to adjust the delay in miliseconds. It may take one or two shots to get the proper speed.\n\nI really hope this helped, I tried to use the simplest terms possible. (FYI this post is coming from a guy who downloaded GIMP for the sole purpose of making animated .gifs easily :P)"
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2gvbvh | georg cantor and set theory | Can someone eli5 how Georg Cantor came about this theory and the implications it has on mathematics today? Any good, easy to understand examples?
Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gvbvh/eli5_georg_cantor_and_set_theory/ | {
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"He came up with a new proof technique, called diagonalization, and was able to show some infinities were bigger than others. It goes something like this:\n\nThere are an infinite number of natural numbers, and also an infinite amount of real numbers. If these infinities are equivalent, it should be possible to come up with a process that matches all real numbers to a natural number:\n\n 1 - 0.12345....\n 2 - 3.14159....\n 3 - 2.71828....\n etc.\n\nLet's construct a real number, *s*, such that:\n\n* the 1st digit is different than the 1st digit of the real assigned to 1\n* the 2nd digit is different than the 2nd digit of the real assigned to 2\n* the *n*th digit is different than the *n*th digit of the real assigned to *n*\n\n*s* is clearly a valid real number, but it also is different from every real number on the list. This means it is impossible to create such a list, and the infinity of real numbers of \"bigger\" than the infinity of natural numbers. Such infinities, that cannot be mapped to natural numbers, are called uncountable.\n\n"
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fupvfr | how would the earn it act negatively affect end to end encryption? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fupvfr/eli5_how_would_the_earn_it_act_negatively_affect/ | {
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"Hopefully a simple example:\n\nNo matter how good a safe you install to store your valuables, the government wants the safe manufacturer to make a door at the back with a key available to the government. This is just in case, the government feels that you might be storing something illegal in the safe. This means the safety provided by the safe is only as strong as the \"back door\". \n\nThe problem is similar for encryption. Any time (for software) you try to make a \"back door\" available, it becomes the vulnerable point for hackers. And what is worse, if the method for breaking the \"back door\" is found, ALL messages are potentially vulnerable. \n\nThis is like the government asking for a \"skeleton key\" for all the safes - if anyone steals or copies the key, then every safe built is now vulnerable to the thief."
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yq0ao | how someone can recover from being paralyzed. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/yq0ao/eli5_how_someone_can_recover_from_being_paralyzed/ | {
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"Your brain uses nerves to tell your body to move (think of your brain as a power strip and your nerves as the outlets) sometimes an injury destroys ALL the outlets, and your brain can't do anything causing a paralysis. Other times, only one outlet is destroyed, and the brain can just plug the function into another part to make the appliance work. hopefully that makes sense!"
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2jwzjm | why is autism seemingly more common now that is has been in the past? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jwzjm/eli5_why_is_autism_seemingly_more_common_now_that/ | {
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"The answer from the medical community is: 'we're not entirely sure'\n\nOne factor may be increasing awareness so cases that were previously undiagnosed or misdiagnosed are coming under the ASD umbrella.\n\nIt's also not entirely clear what causes autism, and there may be multiple causes - there's certainly a genetic component and some cases have been linked to specific genetic abnormalities. Higher maternal age at childbirth might also be playing a role in the increase. Studies have also been looking at environmental triggers with some evidence pointing towards various organic pollutants. Some research is also linking ASD to immune system functioning in the mother.",
"Maybe with aspergers (which now comes under the autism umbrella) more people are getting diagnosed. Not because its 'popular' but because they have suffered all their lives and finally managed to get a diagnosis. Aspergers has only been used as a diagnosis for approx the last 3 decades ...so anyone over about 30 might now be getting a diagnosis for the first time. Also its becoming known that females present traits differently to males and as this is recognised more females are getting diagnosed than before.",
"You probably know at least one old man or woman who is undiagnosed autistic",
"With the most recent DSM (V) several diagnoses which used to be separate now fall under Autism Spectrum Disorder (there is no Artistic Spectrum!), so that's probably part of it. More awareness is probably another part. And finally, given that it's not known what causes autism in the first place, there might be an actual increase in autism (vs an apparent one) caused by an increase in whatever causes it.\n\nOr maybe we're just evolving and in a few thousand years non-autistic humans will be the aberration.",
"* The term \"autism\" has been expanded to include a much larger demographic than you might expect. Many \"autistic\" people have no obvious signs. \n* In past times, the more stereotypical autistic children were killed/left to die/unable to survive. Obviously our medical technology and society has progressed far enough to stop this for the most part. \n* The Industrial revolution has exposed humanity to chemicals/pollutants that we still don't even fully understand/appreciate. ",
"LGSW here: \n\nTwo key reasons:\n1) In 2003, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) changed its definition of autism to include a spectrum of disorders. \n2) As with many psychological conditions, public awareness increased, which leads to more individuals being diagnosed and treated. "
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p77w4 | the fine print on the xkcd website | "We did not invent the algorithm. The algorithm consistently finds Jesus. The algorithm killed Jeeves.
The algorithm is banned in China. The algorithm is from Jersey. The algorithm constantly finds Jesus.
This is not the algorithm. This is close."
What does this mean? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/p77w4/eli5_the_fine_print_on_the_xkcd_website/ | {
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"It was a viral marketing campaign that XKCD took over, [like a boss](_URL_0_).\n\nNo idea why they're still there. Probably because the author thinks they're funny, or is proud of them.\n\nEdit: For a less disappointing response, ask again in r/shittyaskscience. :D",
"More specifically, I believe it's a play on a much maligned [_URL_0_ billboard campaign a while back](_URL_1_)",
"_URL_0_\n\nFor all your \"I am not as smart as I thought\" needs.\n\nFrequent User,\ngarbaxo"
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1lma9i | why are dogs no longer found in the wilderness? | Hello I am wondering why dogs are no longer in the wilderness, you can't go out in the woods and find any household species can you? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lma9i/eli5_why_are_dogs_no_longer_found_in_the/ | {
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"You can find some wild dogs, mostly in cities, but dogs were never an existing species, they're wolves that we domesticated that became so removed from wolves they became their own species.",
"A dog is a domesticated wolf. Dogs were never a wild animal, humans tamed wolves and over time those animals where different enough to warrant a different species. \n\nOf course there are feral dogs out there, they can be a big issue in cities. ",
"There are dogs in the wilderness; they're known as coyotes, dingoes, wolves and foxes. Modern domestic dog breeds are all descendants of these species that have been bred to have certain traits and split off into subspecies.",
"There are wild dogs. And there are wild domestic dogs too.\n\n_URL_1_\n\n\n\n**Bonus Pic:** I took 4 pics from the Wiki article and put them together.\n_URL_0_",
"It's believed that at some point in history, someone caught and made a pet out of a wild animal similar to a wolf. After many hundreds of years of more humans catching, raising, and breeding that pet, you now have what we call a domesticated dog. \n\nToday, dogs sometimes end up outside and alone, outside the care of humans. Sometimes they've gotten lost or they've been released by people who don't know better. These dogs can become what we call feral, or wild, and have puppies which then become feral. This just means they aren't friendly or tame.\n\nThen there are animals we call Wild Dogs, like the Dingo or the African Wild Dog. They aren't the same as domesticated dogs. We know this because scientists like to make a family tree of all the animals in the world. Scientists study these animals and know they are related but not the same. Since no one is sure how closely related these animals are to each other, they might classify them differently from each other."
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1926gl | what is the difference between constant and variable bitrate mp3 files, and what makes the latter supposedly "better"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1926gl/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_constant_and/ | {
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"Bitrate means how many bits are used per second of song. In general, the more bits you have the higher quality the recording. \n\nThe thing is, some sounds are more 'complicated' and have finer details (higher frequencies). To accurately capture this, you need more information per second. You could just record the entire song at really high bitrate, but then you are just wasting space on the sections that are simpler and don't need as much information.\n\nVariable bitrate is the middle ground, the sound is analyzed before hand and the more complex parts are assigned a higher bit rate, simpler parts are assigned a lower bitrate. That way you still get good reproduction of the original sound, but don't waste a lot of information; makeing the file smaller."
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3guv9b | why does it feel so nice/good to sing along to a song? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3guv9b/eli5_why_does_it_feel_so_nicegood_to_sing_along/ | {
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"There's complicated theories behind why this happens but basically we get pleasure out of having an anticipation satisifed, which is why \"catchy\" songs tend to have repetitive lyrics and melodies which you can easily catch on to and remember. Since you know what's coming, you have an anticipation which is then satisfied when you hear the actual part of the song you're anticipating, triggering a pleasurable response. Singing along enhances the effect. Add the factors of \"letting loose\" and if you happen to not be alone sharing something with others and all adds up to the good feeling.\n\nEdit: \"As scores of theorists and philosophers have noted...music is based on repetition. Music works because we remember the tones we have just heard and are relating them to the ones that are just now being played. Those groups of tones—phrases—might come up later in the piece in a variation or transposition that tickles our memory system at the same time as it activates our emotional centers...Repetition, when done skillfully by a master composer, is emotionally satisfying to our brains, and makes the listening experiences as pleasurable as it is.\" From _URL_0_\n"
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repetition_%28music%29"
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1010j5 | why is reddit composed mostly of male, middle class liberals? | I can understand why most of Reddit is white (b/c most Americans are white, obviously) and why most of Reddit are young adult or teenage (b/c they tend to be more net-savvy). But I can't think of a reason of why Reddit would appeal particularly to liberal, middle class men. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1010j5/eli5_why_is_reddit_composed_mostly_of_male_middle/ | {
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"Reasonable conjecture:\n\nBecause young teenagers tend to be more liberal.\n\nAlso, reddit draws a lot of focus towards technology related issues, which men are on average more interested in.\n\nFinally, middle class americans have more free time to blow on reddit then lower class americans.\n\nAlso, upper class americans are less numerous.",
"First off America is not the only place on Earth that Reddit can be accessed. Secondly, I don't think that there are necessarily that many more white, liberal, middle class men on Reddit than other groups, they just have the loudest voice (aka most power). It's like looking at the US congress and wondering why everyone in the US is an old white man. ",
"This is a very broad generalization based on a very small sampling, but in my personal (and recent) experience, the Republicans that I know who have tried Reddit get bored / annoyed very quickly. They're not interested in \"discussion\" or \"dialog\" or \"the conversation\". Reddit looks like a giant mess to them, and they're more interested in easy answers anyway, ones that they already agree with. They're right, you're wrong, there's no point in talking about it. One of them hangs out of some of the more obscure gaming subreddits, but that's it. I couldn't get one of them to spend any time on here at all, even on /r/Cincinnati which is a town he's ape about. \n\nTL;DR - Repub friends think that all of Reddit needs a TL;DR that agrees with them.",
"This is a faulty assumpton. Honestly there are a lot more women than you'd expect. \n\n\nAlso, the UK, and most of Europe is fairly active on here. More than I've seen I'm sure. I only notice because they talk funny.\n\n\n(Totally kidding.)\n\n\nAlso, what makes you think they are all middle class? Certainly you could expect a bias towards people who can afford an internet/cell connection, but that hardly tells me their income.\n\nUnless you've done a survey, I'm not sure your assumption is accurate.\n\n",
"We're the only ones who have enough free time at our desk jobs to surf the internet during the day. Lower class people (often conservative) tend to be working physical jobs without internet access and/or the time to use it. Super rich people are too busy making more money to surf reddit."
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7r7a6k | if one company buys out another company for a monetary fee, wouldn’t the money go back to the parent company, therefore the parent company essentially gained capital for free since they own the other company? how does that work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7r7a6k/eli5_if_one_company_buys_out_another_company_for/ | {
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"No, because when the company is bought it is bought from its owners. You know, the shareholders? They get the money from the buyout.\n\nThe only way it would stay with the company is if the company owned itself which is silly.",
"Nope. A company, just like most stuff, have an owner. This is confusing, because when you buy a car from Tesla, the money goes to the company. This is because the company owned the car.\n\nHowever, you buy Tesla the company, the money doesn't go to the company (that will be stupid, like you pointed that out) the money will go to the previous owner of the company, in this case, Elon Musk and a few other owner. ",
"To keep it simple;\nWhen you see a \"buyout\" that amount of money is being paid to the original owners of the company, whether divided by the shares if a public company or all to one person if a private company, not the company itself.\n\nIt's essentially the price paid by a new owner to obtain ownership from the old."
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107ntk | how does the "vote weight" system work--on reddit/res and elsewhere? | when i say "vote weight," im talking about the little number beside peoples usernames on RES, that you can change. How does that--and the idea of weighted votes in general--work? What happens if i give myself or someone else an exorbitantly large vote weight? also, i did a google search, and *what does the creator of xkcd* (the webcomic) *have to do with any of this?!* | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/107ntk/eli5_how_does_the_vote_weight_system_workon/ | {
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"Vote weight simply tracks the total net points you have given to a certain person. The ability to manually set it to whatever number is a novelty feature. \n\nAlso, I believe the creator of xkcd (Randall Munroe) wrote reddit's ranking algorithm."
]
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6hcy6x | how does championship unification in boxing work, and how do championships get separated again? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6hcy6x/eli5_how_does_championship_unification_in_boxing/ | {
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"First things first. Boxing matches are not organised by a central governing body or league the way that say tennis tournaments are. Instead they are organised privately between two individual fighters (usually by a promoter) as a commercial arrangement where one fighter pays the other to fight and they both agree to a certain split of profits. You might be thinking then, \"how do they stop rich but not very talented fighters from buying title fights until they win one by luck. \n\nThe answer is, the world governing body for professional boxing of which there are at least five. These bodies sanctioning title fights, which means each governing body sets qualifying rules for boxers to qualify for a shot at their title. This prevents random rich challengers from having a lucky win.\n\nSometimes the holder of say a WBC title will decide that they want to try and win the WBA title as well. This fighter then arranges the right qualifying fights according to WBA rules and eventually is in a position to be granted permission by the WBA to fight the current their champion for the title. Then this fighter needs to convince the current champion to take the fight. If the details can be worked out the fight goes ahead and if the challenger wins, the titles are unified. If the challenger loses, they each go home with their original title (since the WBC hasn't sanctioned so the fight won't resolve that title).\n\nOn occasion both governing bodies may co-sanction, meaning each fighter has met the others qualifying rules and permission has been given for both titles to be on the line. In this case, the winner takes both titles and the loser gets nothing (except a fat pay cheque).\n\nOnce titles are unified, they can be split apart again very easily. Since they are each governed by different bodies, a challenger needs to meet the qualifying criteria of and get the permission of both bodies in order to challenge for both titles at the same time. If a challenger only meets the criteria of one body, then if they win a title fight, the challenger only takes home one title. If the other governing body doesn't give permission for the fight, then their title can't change hands, and it stays with the current champion regardless of the outcome. \n\nIf a unified champion retires while holding titles, each governing body has it's own rules governing how to appoint a new champion, meaning that it is most likely that each title will pass to a different new champion. ",
"In boxing, there are 4 major sanctioning bodies that offer World Championship titles. (The WBO, WBA, WBC, and IBF)\n\nSo in each weight class, there are four world championship titles. That means in each weight class up to four separate fighters can each say they are the world champion in that weight class. (There's actually more than 4, explanation below)\n\nFor example, lets take a look at the world champions in the welterweight division.\n\nOrganization |Fighter |\n---------|----------|\nWBA| Keith Thurman | \nWBC| Keith Thurman | \nIBF| Errol Spence\nWBO| Manny Pacquiao\n\nSo basically, Keith Thurman is the welterweight champion of the world. Manny Pacquiao is also the welterweight champion of the world. In addition, Errol Spence is also the welterweight champion of the world. They each have a championship title from a different sanctioning body. (Yeah, it's a bit strange)\n\nA Championship unification occurs when two world champions fight each-other. The winner gets both championship titles: the one they already had, and the one other fight had. In this division, you will notice that Keith Thurman has two championship titles, from the WBA and from the WBC. This is because he unified them. He held the WBA championship title and then fought and defeated Danny Garcia, who held the WBC championship title. Therefore, Thurman now has both of those titles.\n\nLets says that Manny Pacquiao and Keith Thurman agree to fight each-other. That will mean that three championship titles are on the line. Both of Thurman's and Pacquiao's WBO title. The winner will unify all three. \n\nWhen championship titles are unified, there are many ways that they can separated:\n\n*If a boxer retires while holding multiple championship titles, the titles are vacated and each sanctioning body will then have two new boxers fight for the titles. \n\n*Fighters have to pay a sanctioning fee to the each of the organizations. So sometimes, they will voluntarily drop one of their titles and only keep one to avoid the fees.\n\n*Each sanctioning body has their own rules. If a fighter is inactive for a period of time, their title can get stripped. If they reject a mandatory opponent pushed by the sanctioning body, they can also get stripped of the title. \n\nThere are so many other factors that I didn't bring up. It's gets really bizarre and confusing when it comes to boxing titles. For example, there's really 5 titles in each division because one the sanctioning bodies decided to split their titles and offer a \"super\" and \"regular\" version. Also when two championship boxers fight each-other, their titles are not always automatically on the line. Sometimes they'll choose not fight for them for various reasons, like not wanting to pay sanctioning fees. "
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3d1qjf | why is it when you take a nap, you get indents and marks from your sheets/body, but when you sleep normally you don't? | example of what I mean: _URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3d1qjf/eli5_why_is_it_when_you_take_a_nap_you_get/ | {
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"There would be no difference, other than when you sleep normally you move around a lot so you're not in one position for long enough for your skin to be indented. When you take a nap you tend to move less as you only really enter 1 R.E.M. cycle."
]
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"http://imgur.com/CNTD6nY"
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1lr9oc | why do(almost) all police cars use the same car/model? | I noticed that even narcs use them. I mean I understand for the typical not undercover police people. But what about those that follow cars. I mean if there was an all black police model car with tinted windows I would know something is up. But if I was followed by a different car I probably wouldn't notice. Now I know they use the Ford models because they're American. But not all the cars have to be the same. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lr9oc/why_doalmost_all_police_cars_use_the_same_carmodel/ | {
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"buy in bulk for a cheaper rate.",
"Buying a lot of the same model means you get bulk rates as well as make maintenance easier. \n\nAnd for unmarked cars they do often use different models, and sometimes have the police use their personal vehicles. ",
"Only a few cars are designed to be turned into police cars. They have to have more powerful engines, brakes, electrical systems, alternators, plus they have to have adjustments you may not even think of.\n\nFor example, my Charger has a really wide center console because standard police equipment like radios are 9\" wide. And the cruise control is on the wheel instead of on the steering column, because the police model has a column mounted shifter."
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3ophb7 | why do we, humans need to have wars when we can just talk problems over?u | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ophb7/eli5_why_do_we_humans_need_to_have_wars_when_we/ | {
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"You ask me for some ice cream.\n\nI say no.\n\nYou really want the ice cream.\n\nI say no.\n\nI'm the only one with the ice cream.\n\nI say no.\n\nYou try to talk to me nicely about it.\n\nI say no.\n\nYou try to negotiate.\n\nI say no.\n\nYou beg me.\n\nI say no.\n\nYou get fed up and get all your friends to come and force me to share the ice cream.",
"Because talking doesn't help. There are lots of peole driven by power. Putin can't just say \"Hi Ukraine! could you give me crimea thanks\". He has to take it with force. You can't call head of ISIS and say \"Hi guys. Stop killing people. Thanks\". That won't work either.",
"A \"zero-sum game\" is an instance in which, in order for someone to gain something, it must directly correspond to another person losing something.\n\nLife, in general, is a zero sum game.\n\nResources are finite, there is not enough for everyone to have their fill. Influence can not be shared...if it were split, then it wouldn't be very effective influence.\n\nThe idea that people can just \"talk out\" their differences implies that all sides are interested in a solution that is mutually beneficial, this is never the case."
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1ypnmp | why can i kick a soccer ball farther when it's rolling towards me? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ypnmp/eli5_why_can_i_kick_a_soccer_ball_farther_when/ | {
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"Soccer balls deform under stress.\n\nWhen it's moving towards you, there's a certain momentum in that direction, which causes it to deform more when your foot impacts it than it would if it was stationary.\n\nThen when it snaps back to its normal shape, more energy is imparted to the ball causing it to fly off with more force.\n\nBasically, movement towards you lets you add the energy of that movement onto the energy imparted to the ball by your kick (it also means that the ball will equally impart more energy to your foot, but feets are strong and can generally withstand that without trouble - as overall the ball is much less massive than the person kicking the ball)",
"Think of it this way: if a ball is rolling towards you and it hits your leg (without you moving) it will bounce back, right? And if the ball is not rolling and you kick it, it will fly back. In your situation, it is just the addition of both of these. "
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2bd7fn | the different parts of web development and the languages/tools that are used for each part. | I am looking at leading a start up in the near future. After speaking with some developer friends, I was told I would need to find people who are familiar with things like Angular, Python/Java, Drupal, Jquery, etc etc etc. The list goes on! Could someone break down the different layers to this website/application onion and explain examples of tools/languages at each layer? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bd7fn/eli5_the_different_parts_of_web_development_and/ | {
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"This explanation is a huge oversimplification but this is ELI5 after all... there are basically three levels of code in any code base as follows:\n\n1. Database Tier (MySQL, Oracle): this consists of database tables which contain all the data for your website like user name, address info, etc. This tier also contains all the commands to interact with the database tables like retrieving the data to show on the webpage.\n2. Business Tier (Python/Java): this consists of most of the logic involved in your website. For example, when you submit data on reddit this is where that data is validated before it is stored in the database.\n3. Presentation Tier (Angular/HTML/Jquery): this consists of building the HTML to show you the webpage. By this point all the data has been pulled from the database and validated in the Business Tier and we are ready to show you the results.\n\nAgain, this is a super simplified version of one way to look at a code base and super nerds will say this is old fashioned and blah blah blah. But in the end you have to perform these 3 things no matter what.",
"Think of building a website like opening up a restaurant on undeveloped land:\n\n1. buy land. (buy hosting)\n2. register your name in the address book like yellow pages. (register your domain name)\n3. stock up on raw materials (write content)\n4. build your store out of wooden frame, put up walls (HTML)\n5. style your walls with paint and align tables and chairs (CSS)\n6. hire employees (chefs, food servers, cleaners) (write Javascript)\n\n**HTML**\n\nHTML is the frame of your restaurant. Put on your construction worker hat, build a frame, put up walls, and move in the the tables and chairs and other furniture. It's a rough frame to hold your content. Use \"class names\" to name your walls/areas so that you can refer to them later. Ex: < div class=\"curtain\" > < /div > \n\nThink of an HTML \"page\" as a \"room\". Each room is typically styled in a similar way, but a \"lobby room\" will have different stuff than a \"reading room\", or a \"contact-us room\".\n\n\n**CSS**\n\nWithout CSS, you would have a white-walled shop with tables and chairs scattered randomly in inconvenient spots. CSS is like an interior designer who decides on the colors of the walls, how far the tables will be spaced apart (margins, padding, borders), and how to arrange the chairs. How large should the posters be on the walls? what font should the menu and front door signs should be? These are problems you solve in CSS stylesheets which you import into your HTML layouts. You use the \"class names\" you defined in your HTML to tell CSS which things to style how. Ex: .curtain{ background: blue; } to make the curtain blue.\n\n\n**Scripting**\n\nScripting is more dynamic in nature.. think of it like your employees - people who do stuff in your store. There are two types of employees: back-end and front-end. \n\n**Front-end (JS, jQuery)**\n\nFront-end workers are like restaurant food servers (confusion alert: they're not 'web-servers'). They're good at quickly clearing the table, and putting in new stuff, sometimes with flash effects. They're dynamic lads that can re-arrange a table for you so that a big group of customers can sit together, they can show them the menu when you want it, and give them extra information if they ask for it. They basically hide or show stuff based on the customers' immediate needs, without disturbing the \"back-end\" staff like the manager and chef every single time. How much responsibility you give to these guys is up to you - but you usually don't want them handling sensitive data, because mischievous customers can trick them into giving it to them. You can say something like $(\".curtain\").hide(); to hide the curtain if someone asks you to.\n\n**Back-end (Node.js, Ruby on Rails, PHP, Python, etc.)**\n\nThe back-end workers are managers and chefs. These are employees trained in doing things according to procedures, in an isolated environment away from the customers, without much regard for people's feelings. Ex: The chef takes orders, makes the food, silently puts it in the \"done\" bin, and rings a bell for the food-server to bring it to the customer. He never really deals with the customer directly.\n\nOld-school restaurants (usually. those built in PHP) tend also have construction workers who will build new rooms for people to go into if they want things. The proceedure was to not have any front-end workers, but instead to keep asking the user to go a new room for things. \"Oh you want a steak? Okay madam, follow me to a special room we built for you that will have your steak ready for you.\"... walk to a new room... However, with front-end Javascript workers you can tell your visitor \"Oh, you want a steak? Okay wait right here while I fetch it for you.\", then clear off the table, and plop the steak on their table.\n\n\n**Databases (MySQL, Mongo, etc.)**\n\nYour restaurant will have a storage room filled with stuff you will need at some point, but you don't need it all on display at all times. They're organized in neat shelves with labels to help you find stuff. This is called a Database. When the back-end chef needs stuff, he goes into the storage room, finds the appropriate shelves, fetches the needed ingredients (data). Your blog site might store your blog posts in a table. \n\nYou need a database for the same reason you need a storage room - lots of stuff to store, and it needs to be organized. You could of course run a crappy restaurant without a storage room, in which case you can have the raw meat stored in the walls of the place, or have it out in the open for unsuspecting customers to be disgusted by.\n\n**Payments**\n\nOf course you can provide this food for free, and provide advertisements on the walls, or you could sell the food using payment processing systems. A payment processing system can be built using a nice \"front-end\" and \"back-end\" workers that work together to carry out and verify the payment, or you can put them in a room\n\n**Now a little demo (This is fun LOL)**\n\nSo let's say Suzy is hungry and decides your restaurant is a healthy choice. So she looks up your address in a phone book. (DNS lookup). They find your address, and follow the roads to your freshly built store. (IP & HTTP protocol). They open the door and that annoying bell goes off, and Mr. Google Analytics chuckles and adds a tick to his tally of how many people visited your store.\n\nSuzy has been to your place before. You know that because last time she was here, you strategically taped a cookie to her back, along with a secret code that identifies her. You carefully inspect the cryptic code on the cookie, recognize her as Suzy Poozie, a member of your VIP club, and see that she is still logged in. So you tell your big russian VIP lounge guards that she's cool, the nod to confirm.\n\nSuzy requests your store's menu. If you're a good restaurant designer, you present them the menu by having one of your well-trained front-end Javascript workers to show it to her.. maybe throw in some nice tool-tip cards to answer their FAQs on the spot... but if you're old-school, you can just have a door labeled \"Choose what you want to eat.\" that leads to a room with more doors, one for each item you have. Of course, you don't need to actually build all these rooms now.. you'll build them just as she turns the handle.\n\nAs she looks thru the menu, Mr. Google Analytics in his labcoat is carefully studying their fingertip taps, tracking what's taking her 3 whole minutes to make a decision.. so they can later show you in a nice graph.. how often each menu item was glanced or tapped.\n\n\"I'll have the filet mingnon\" says the customer to your front-end worker, who passes their request to your chef, along with a bell to ring when he's done, who's sitting there bugeyed scraping knives together just waiting for an order to come in. Your chef recalls what he needs, goes to the storage room, gets the stuff, makes the meal, (all in a fraction of a second) and rings the \"HTTP 200 OK\" bell, if he takes longer than the acceptable time, the bell will go off on its own with \"HTTP 408 Request Timeout\". But assuming all's good, the front-end worker clears your table, and arranges your table with all the stuff you need to enjoy your meal.\n\nAfter they're done, the front-end worker takes them through the payment process. (hopefully something like Stripe payments that uses AJAX, and not through a long tunnel, over to a different building and then back again like PayPal lol)"
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6ea8u3 | what happens when your body "adjusts" to a high-fiber diet | I'm looking for a somewhat science-based explanation for why certain "problematic" foods, like beans, broccoli and cabbage, present a problem in terms of GI ruckus for a few days before the "body adjusts."
I've read "the body adjusts" a dozen times without an explanation what that entails. Does the body just produce flatulence when it's unaccustomed to new foods? (That doesn't seem to make sense.) Does the bacterial profile of your intestinal microbiome change after, say, eating beans for a few days, encouraging the growth of bacteria that digest "fibrous"/prebiotic foods without creating gas as a by-product? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ea8u3/eli5_what_happens_when_your_body_adjusts_to_a/ | {
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"Any dietary change can cause rumbletummy. Your gut flora adapts to dealing with slower digesting food. However, some people have more difficulty than others. I eat lots of bran fiber as well as raw and cooked vegetable fiber... And chicory root (in fiber bars, some yogurts, and fiber cereals) gives me awful rumbly tummy even when I eat it for a week.\n\nBeans have undigestable starches in them that cause gas. Soaking beans overnight and discarding the water helps remove the starches."
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yg4wf | - why is microwaving metal objects dangerous? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/yg4wf/eli5_why_is_microwaving_metal_objects_dangerous/ | {
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"Microwaves can induce electric current in metallic (or any conductive) objects. They are, quite literally, antennas. And while normally antennas receive signals of low power, these are high power signals meant for transferring energy. \n\nThe effect of these currents depends alot on the object's makeup. \"Pure\" metal in a smooth shape tends to disperse the current pretty easily. If, however, the metal is mixed with other things, or has sharp edges, or air gaps, this makes it much harder for all the electric forces to equalize and you can get sparking which becomes a fire hazard. The classic example here is that usually forks cause sparking, but spoons do not."
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7c3acd | how is tv static from the big bang? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7c3acd/eli5_how_is_tv_static_from_the_big_bang/ | {
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"text": [
"It's residual energy that is still dissipating. In the grand scheme of the universe our lives are a mere split second, there are things at work that are bigger and take longer then we can comprehend.",
"Most of the TV static is from the amplifier itself; only ~1% of that is cosmic background radiation. CBR is spread across a pretty wide band, 0.3 GHz to 630 GHz, which broadcast TV is within that band. It's also really quiet, which is why almost all the static is local (part of the TV circuit itself) electrical noise.",
"I'm guessing your really asking how there could still be left over effects from the big bang. \n\nStatic exists because TV antennas pick up light waves of a certain frequency that overlap with frequency of waves from somewhere out there in space. \n\nIt turns out those waves from out there are actually the big bang happening. \n\n**How could the light from the big bang be just reaching us now?**\n\nWell, light travels fast - but it turns out something travels faster - the expansion of space itself. [inflation](_URL_0_) is the process of more space being created between the stars. \n\nHave you ever asked where the big bang took place? Like, what park of the sky it would be in? Well, it was all of space, so it took place everywhere. Everywhere was just a lot smaller back then. As all of space expanded away from itself, some parts actually did so at *faster* than the speed of light. This means there are parts of space who's light will never reach us and some parts (going a little slower) who's light is only now reaching us. The electromagnetic radiation (light waves) from the dawn of time travel across the universe to come to rest in your antenna and make a gentle hiss and some soothing snow. "
]
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1xcpg5 | 50 years ago $20 was a lot of money, today it's almost spare change. where does all the extra money come from? | I understand that there is 'inflation' and things cost more, but where has all this extra money come from? I feel like there should be a finite amount of money in the world, otherwise someone is just printing extra money and handing it out, but who does it get handed out to? And if it just gets printed out and we get more and more money, doesn't that make money more and more worthless? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xcpg5/eli5_50_years_ago_20_was_a_lot_of_money_today_its/ | {
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"The more money printed the less it's worth. Why QE is so controversial. But that is what happens constantly.",
"Unfortunately your question doesn't have an easy answer, it can't be narrowed down to one thing in particular. Whereas I'm no expert in economics but it has been a course I've studied at A level and as part of my degree. Maybe somebody else could help us both out with some more expert knowledge.\n\nInflation refers to the general increase in the cost of goods/services and thus the cost of living. Ideally everyone should expect a pay rise every year or 2 in line with this sort of inflation. The bank of England sets the target at around 2% per year. That being said everything should therefore be relative and so as time progreses we wouldn't notice a difference to relative living costs. This isn't the case though as the financial system of earth is affected by global trade, influence from bodies like the WTO and MPC etc etc. It is also influence by local (or national) influencers such as demand for goods, tax, interest rates etc. The exchange of moneys in both these settings will therefore determine how much cash is lurking around your nations economy. The transfer of money between foreign and domestic markets is also determined by interest rate dependant on how well that economy us doing. Sadly I cant offer much on the origins of exchange rates. It's again a fairly complex system.\n\nThe restrictions on cash as you say are in place as we speak (or type). An economy would destroy itself by constantly injecting cash because the currency would be worthless- think about it for a moment. However when there is a shortage of cash and inflation makes the cost of goods harder for the majority to budget on then a process called quantative easing is used to inject multi millions or billions in an attempt to put a few more pennies in everybody's pockets. It's a last resort fix for an economy though. It will almost certainly make your exchange rate weaker so is avoided at all costs.\n\nFinally currency devalues over time thus bigger value notes are more common in your pocket. So lets say £10 today will be worth £9 in 2 years time (just an example, not actual rates of devaluing). Go 20 years down the line it's mow only worth £1 in today's value. So in 20 years £10 today is actually £100 ( work is out by the same method I've done and £100 now in 20 years will be worth £10, if you understand. So yeah its quite complex and a lot of factors affect currency valuation. As I say hopefully somebody can offer a greater explanation.",
"Twenty Dollars is Spare Change? Are you rich? Twenty Dollars can buy you a lot even in today's world"
]
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400w7p | how does giving to charity save rich people money? | I don't know what a tax write-off is, so please explain like I am actually five. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/400w7p/eli5_how_does_giving_to_charity_save_rich_people/ | {
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"This is just a basic example and not 100% accurate, but it will give you the idea. Lets say I make $1000. Normally I would pay taxes on the whole $1000.\n\nLets say I make $1000 and give $200 to charity. I would now only pay taxes on $800.\n\nIn reality, it doesn't really save you money. Because even if you were paying the maximum amount of taxes on that money, you would still end up taking more money home than if you didn't give to charity.\n\nThe real tax writeoffs are the ones you claim as expenses for your business. For example, you can claim you drove your car for work and get a writeoff for a certain amount based on how many miles you put on the car. Then you have people that cheat the system and go to dinner with their wife and call it a \"business\" expense. ",
"Instead of giving money to uncle sam and getting nothing in return, i can donate it and get influence. "
]
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[],
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2otqay | why do we work so hard against extinction of any species, when 99.9% of species naturally die out? | Forget that puppies are cute, I'm talking cold hard mutation and evolution here.
Even if a species is 'saved', it will eventually (however not naturally in foreseeable future) become another species. So why do we care so much about saving a particular type of cat or deer?
If it's about the loss of one species leads to a chain reaction (no bees, no pollination, no crops, hell), well, isn't that our cue to adapt as well? And if the solution to a food shortage is to breed the animals we eat, once again, why do we care about a certain type of leopard.
It just seems a silly preoccupation, and I'd like to know the reasons for it.
Note: I do think animals are beautiful. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2otqay/eli5_why_do_we_work_so_hard_against_extinction_of/ | {
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"you don't really adapt to having no food. learning how to stop killing bees is probably more worth our time than walking around with cotton swabs pollinating plants by hand\n\nalso \"it was going to happen anyway\" is not a good argument. everyone dies eventually murder is still illegal ",
"Because the extinction of an entire species due to our collective irresponsibility weighs on some of our minds. If it's natural so be it, but it's a damn crime for a species to disappear into extinction because of our over-demand for...whatever it may be (food, land etc).",
"It depends. If a species is going extinct naturally, I think we should let it go, maybe a keep a few in captivity or something. However, there are many species that have gone extinct or are going extinct due to human activity, and sometimes, this can have a great affect on the ecosystem.\n\nTake Great White Sharks, for example. They used to thrive off the coast of Massachusetts. Sometime during the 70s or 80s, people became extremely fearful of the sharks, leading to a mass execution of any shark, but especially the Great Whites. After this happened, there were few or no predators to hunt seals in the area. The local seal population exploded, which in turn depleted certain fish populations. The fishermen who depend on catching these same fish for a living began to come back empty handed, and whoever depended on those fishermen, like markets and restaurants, were also affected. Recently, the sharks have come back to the area, are hunting the seals again, and fish populations are returning to normal. This is a situation where, because of human activity, we really messed things up for awhile.\n\nWhen species die out naturally, I would say that most of the time, it happens quite slowly. This would allow some time for other species to fill the extinct one's role. Let's say Great White numbers in North Anerica were naturally decreasing for over a hundred years or more. What should happen is other species would fill the predator over time. As Great White numbers dropped, perhaps other sharks, like Bull, Tiger, or Hammerheads, would move in to fill the void. It's also possible that a completely separate predator, like some type of whale, rather than other sharks, could take over for the Great Whites, Either way, something is there to hunt seals, keeping the ecosystem in a state of equilibrium."
]
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1vl90s | what are the properties of hydrogen/helium that enable physicists to distinguish them from 'metals'? | i.e. how does their definition differ from a chemist's definition of a metal | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vl90s/eli5_what_are_the_properties_of_hydrogenhelium/ | {
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"_URL_0_\n\n > Metals are commonly:\n > \n > * Shiny\n > * Good conductor of heat and electricity\n > * High melting point\n > * Malleable (this means that they can be hammered or distorted)\n > * Ductile (this means that they can be drawn into wires)\n > * Usually solid at room temperature. An exception to this is mercury, which is liquid in nature.\n > * Generally have low electronegativities.\n\nMetals are defined according to their position on the periodic table. Every other element (including hydrogen and helium) is non-metal."
]
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_table_(metals_and_nonmetals)"
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20acw9 | how do we know what the earth looks like on the inside? | Another post on the frontpage made me think of this. How can we know that the world is a solid core in the middle? We have never drilled that deep. Is it speculation, looking at other bodies, or something else? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20acw9/eli5_how_do_we_know_what_the_earth_looks_like_on/ | {
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"In the simplest way I can think to explain it, different parts of seismic waves behave differently when they travel travel through different substances (solids, liquids, and different types of each.) Parts of the waves pass through fluids unaffected, parts bounce off, parts are absorbed, parts slow down, and so on. By studying the data gathered from seismic activity like earthquakes and using that knowledge, you can draw a pretty accurate picture of what layers are where. Densities, chemical properties, melting/boiling points, etc. come into play also when the exact composition of each layer is stated."
]
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|
3q6gp1 | when not hunting, what do predators do when they meet prey animals? | Do they attack anyway? Just ignore them? Just sit there awkwardly? And how do prey animals attack when they run into a predator that is clearly not an immediate threat -- sleeping, for example. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3q6gp1/eli5_when_not_hunting_what_do_predators_do_when/ | {
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"Predators don't want a drawn-out stand up fight. A predator is only fighting for its food; the prey will be fighting for survival. Neither animal *wants* to get hurt, but the predator is the one that can afford to break off at any time and try again, so that means it'll be picky about starting one. Therefore if the prey animal is big enough to fight back, the predator is going to be mostly interested in some combination of stealth, surprise, or wearing down its energy with a chase.\n\nThis means that if a predator isn't already \"in\" stealth mode and actively hunting, but just saunters into an area obviously, few of the prey animals in that area will be good targets, because they all already know it's there. Making a move would be a waste of energy when the target is fresh, rested, healthy, and can react immediately. So a lot of the time both sides will appear to be \"ignoring\" each other simply because it isn't worth being the first to burn energy on a sprint. The prey will keep a minimum safe distance and leave at its own pace."
]
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dakn8k | why are data measurement units (mb, mb, gb, tb) not even numbers of bytes? like why is a gigabyte not exactly 1000 megabytes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dakn8k/eli5_why_are_data_measurement_units_mb_mb_gb_tb/ | {
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"Because computer measurements are based on multiples of 8. (Base 8)\nThis is why you've heard the term 8 bit, 64 bit and so on.\n\nA gigabyte is 1024 megabytes, a megabyte is 1024 bytes and so on.\n\nIt's all in multiples of 8. There have been attempts to metricise this, but they've not really taken off.",
"They can be, which is why manufacturer chicanery lead to using kebibytes (KiB), mebibytes (MiB), gebibytes (GiB), and tebibytes (TiB)\n\nManufacturers were describing their drive sizes in the unformatted size with 1KB = 1000 bytes. As drive sizes get bigger, you get situations like one manufacturer using 1KB = 1024 bytes selling a 1TiB drive has 74GiB more than a manufacturer selling a 1TB drive with 1KB = 1000 bytes"
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8eut4h | what is happening to our brain when we go to speak and the start of the words get switched? | It isn't that the words I speak don't make any sense but that the first letter/s for each word get switched around e.g. I may go to say "what is you phone number" but it comes out as "none phumber" . Not sure if this is the best example but it has happened to me few times lately and I find it very strange! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8eut4h/eli5_what_is_happening_to_our_brain_when_we_go_to/ | {
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"My dad used to say that you are sixing up your myllables! I was 5 when he first told me that so it fits in this sub (kinda, sorry I'm not helpful). ",
"The basic idea is that your brain has to go through a bunch of steps to put together sounds and words into a sentence, and sometimes it messes up a step. Linguists call these slips of the tongue \"speech errors.\" Linguists study them to figure out how our brains store and combine all the parts of a sentence.\n\nWe know that people make speech errors regularly, every day. We also know people are more likely to make speech errors when they're tired, nervous, or drunk. But we actually don't know exactly what happens when you make a slip of the tongue, because we still don't know the details of how our brains store or combine words in the first place. \n\n\n\nSource: undergrad in linguistics and cognitive science\n\nReferences: _URL_0_\n_URL_1_"
]
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[],
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_error",
"https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Psycholinguistics/Speech_Errors"
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q5h8t | the tree of life | I can't fathom why it was nominated for best picture. I need to know what I don't get. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/q5h8t/eli5_the_tree_of_life/ | {
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"The Tree of Life is primarily about sublime experience more than it is about deep story.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nSublime is a philosophical concept about the sensation of being incapable of taking in the entire power and magnitude of something, especially something natural. Looking at the night sky and imagine all the stars, looking out at the vastness of the ocean, standing at the foot of an enormous mountain.\n\nTree of Life's \"story,\" is more about Mallick resolving his thoughts on his childhood, but the point of Tree of Life (for audiences) isn't the story. Tree of Life is about pushing sublimity, the overwhelming power and beauty of imagery. I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it, but for many people (the Academy included), looking at the Tree of Life is the cinematic equivalent of taking in the Sistine Chapel.",
"There is a very interesting analysis of *ToL* alongside *2001: A Space Odyssey* in [this By Way of Beauty post](_URL_0_). ",
"So the movie, from what I gathered, is trying to tell a story that combines the life of one boy and his family in Waco, Texas and the bigger story of creation, life and death. It uses biblical metaphors and allusions as well as the sublime.\n\nFor a typical viewer, Mallick's style seems disjointed, stretched-out and boring. However, his style is not for everyone, and it's more of a transcendent experience rather than a rational step-by-step story. What he seems to be trying to accomplish throughout the movie is overwhelm the viewer in imagery, allowing them to emotionally reflect in each of those moments. The movie strips away dialogue and replaces it with the narrative inner thoughts of characters as a means of creating that personal and meaningful connection, as if this is not only the story of one little boy, but the thoughts of all of mankind.\n\nThe story itself is split up into separate parts that all have an overarching theme Creation, Life and Death. Death appears at the beginning and then end of the movie with news of the brother's death and Sean Penn's ethereal travels in the barren afterlife. Creation is portrayed starting with the beginning of the universe and then life itself on earth followed by the birth of Jack. Life, which becomes the focus of the story reflects on the trials and tribulations, the moments of happiness and sadness and the overall experience that Jack, the main character, has.\n\nLife, as one can interpret it throughout the movie, is all that we really have, and it’s those moments that define what we become as individuals and as a society. The segment of life is portrayed in the movie through the endless days throughout Jack’s childhood. His life is engaged in a dualistic struggle between his father and mother. This juxtaposition of his caring and gentle mother and his more strict and rough father becomes an iconic archetype battle. The father seems to represent the more dogmatic Old Testament God, with bouts of rage, uncompromising rules, and a generally cold relationship with his sons. He espouses the philosophical concepts associated with Hobbes, that man is a wretch in nature, and they need a form of strict authority to keep them in place. The mother, represents a more caring, Chist/Mary-like figure who is nurturing, understanding, playful. She is the embodiment of philosophies of Rousseau and Locke who believe that man in nature is generally good, and can live in harmony. In the end this push and pull for the boys becomes who they are in life. Jack attempts to break away from the rigid rules of his father by doing sadistic things, sneaking into people’s houses and generally making the choices that would go against the unbending will of his father. But at the same time, these choices aren’t the ones that his mother tried to instill in him, but rather reveal a more dark version of mankind, whose choices reflect a human being without rules and outside the realm of good grace. Eventually Jack’s character learns to follow the rules his father has implemented and becomes sucked up into the rigid corporate world but he still clings to the memories of his mother/nature.\n\nThe movie is definitely not for everyone, and as much as I might appreciate it, I don’t think it’s one of Mallick’s best films. I can understand not everyone liking it, but it does has some interesting themes and generally it reflects a higher level of cinema than Transformers. I guess the issue becomes, do you agree with Mallick’s interpretation of Life and Death? Are the themes he tries to explore poignant or kind of hashed out?\n\n**TLDR:** The movie is a tale of Creation, Life and Death, and it is told through the larger scope of all mankind, but similarly through the personal experiences of one boy. \n\n**edit** Sorry I didn't explain it like you were five, but I tried to simply explain what I got out of the movie.",
"Like youre five: Movies are something that artists can use to tell stories or express themselves. They are like paintings or music. When you paint a picture of your house and family you try to make everyone look like themselves so when other people look at your painting, they will recognize your house and family. \n\nSome painters make paintings that arent of certain people or places but are of feelings, or ideas. Can you imagine what a painting of sadness might look like? Or frustration? Or thankfulness? Well, some movies try to do the same thing. They dont want to show a straightforward a story, instead they want show you a feeling. Like a swirl of oily paint and some sound effects to show you how amazingly big and empty the universe can feel. \n\nThe Tree of Life is one of these movies and it specifically deals with the idea of the beginning of life and how the universe went from a lifeless soup to family of complex creatures who get mad and upset and feel love and loss. It is amazing and awe inspiring to think about. And since the movie isnt too specific in its storytelling, you are able to kinda put yourself into the movie and it makes the feelings stronger. The movie isnt about Brad Pitt's family, really. The movie is about *your* family and everyone's family and how incredible it is that there even are families and how intense it can be to be alive. \n\nWhen watching a movie like this it is important to not expect too many details or explanation like you would get with most other movies. These movies are different. So just relax and ask yourself what you are feeling while you watch it. \n"
]
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"http://www.bywayofbeauty.com/2011/12/harlem-river-dispatch-2011-tree-of-life.html#more"
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2n87hb | why do we tear up when we rip out nose hair or rip off a inner nose scab? | I just plucked a few long nose hairs, nothing painful but my eyes started watering right after I did it...why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2n87hb/eli5why_do_we_tear_up_when_we_rip_out_nose_hair/ | {
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"Probably because there are lots of nerve endings in the mucosal lining. And it hurts like a bitch. The worst is when you get a zit in there."
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bstjpx | why are vietnam veterans praised so much in america? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bstjpx/eli5_why_are_vietnam_veterans_praised_so_much_in/ | {
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"1. A lot of people were drafted. They did not choose to go.\n\n2. People already in the military also did not have a choice.\n\nMost of them were in one of those two categories. So if they had no choice and went through hell for their country (whether or not the war was justified is a separate story) why shouldn’t they be praised? \n\nI’m saying all this as a non-American so I have no patriotic bias here.",
"Mainly , and this is my opinion/take on it, because a majority (FC?) of the military was drafted and there were *lots* of protests against the Vietnam war and how we shouldn’t have been there. It was a horribly gruesome war, and the veterans of it deserve the praise because of what they were forced to endure meaninglessly.",
"They are praised because they were forced to do the wrong things, while the public had no idea. Then they came back and got shit on because of what the government had them doing. Basically this praise is a response to the initial public reaction, i.e them getting thrown under the bus. I hope no one thinks vietnam was a good idea, but i think you should respect the people that were forced to go there and fight for basically no reason."
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fwvcbi | how come peripheral vision is blurrier or less clear than whatever you're directly focusing on? | And less and less clear the further in your periphery it gets | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fwvcbi/eli5_how_come_peripheral_vision_is_blurrier_or/ | {
"a_id": [
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"The brain can only handle so much information at once. In fact, only a tiny area of vision is ever clear, if you look at the middle of your phone keyboard the letters on the side already are not clear. But you know what's there because it's held in very short term memory.\n\nFun fact, your peripheral vision is also black and white because color sensitive cells in your eye are only right in the middle. But your brain knows what color most things are so it fills it in with \"fake\" color.\n\nEdit: your brain also only NEEDS a small amount of information at one time. It's so good at filling in gaps that between the brain and how quickly eyes move there's really no evolutionary need for your entire field of vision to be crystal clear\n\nEdit 2: another fun fact. Because your peripheral vision does not have color receptors, it can have more brightness receptors. Your peripheral vision is brighter than your straight ahead vision."
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a664dd | what causes a car's head gasket to blow and why do certain car brands seem to have a bigger issue with this than other brands? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a664dd/eli5_what_causes_a_cars_head_gasket_to_blow_and/ | {
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"Alot of factors going into a head gasket blowing but the most prevent is design, especially the motor design, how much HP, amount of stress on motor and so on. The reason so many subaru's blow head gaskets is the design of the \"boxer engine\" where the pistons go outward putting more stress. ",
"For manufacturing reasons, the cylinder head is fabricated as a separate piece of metal than the cylinder body. These two pieces of metal are bolted together, to enable maintenance, at a point where there are very high combustion gas pressures. These high pressures are essential to generate power with the engine, so the assembly must contain them. Neither metal has infinite stiffness and there are only a few bolts holding the head to the cylinder. This combination could easily allow combustion gas pressures to separate the two pieces of metal at the seam and allow gas to leak out - causing mischief. To resist this a compressible gasket is installed between the two pieces of metal and compressed by the bolts. The compression forces the gasket to conform to the gap between the two metal objects elastically, so that further pressure from combustion gas further compresses the gasket making the seal tighter rather than letting gas out. It's a great design, everybody uses it.\n\nSome manufacturers produce parts with higher precision than others. Larger gaps allow the combustion gas to apply more pressure, allowing the gas force to exceed the strength of the gasket material. \n\nSome manufacturers make engines with larger displacement than others. This encourages performance boosting behaviors which also can lead to pressures that exceed the gasket material strength."
]
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f7oi2z | the accounting equation (assets = liabilities + equity) | I've heard explanations like "What you own = What you owe" and that this equation shows the dual-nature of every financial transaction.
I think I get the Liabilities part: what I owe. But I'm not quite clear on the difference between Assets and Equity.
Also: let's say you don't owe anything (i.e. Liabilities = 0)
That would mean that in that case, Assets = Equity
On the other hand, if the equity is zero, that would mean Assets = Liabilities!
Please clearly explain this equation to the confused 5-year-old in me with relatable dummy-friendly examples
Thank you | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f7oi2z/eli5_the_accounting_equation_assets_liabilities/ | {
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"text": [
"Things in your possession - Things that you borrowed = Things that belong to you.\n\nThe \"Things in your possession\" are your assets. They are the things you can use to do fun stuff.\n\nThe \"Things that you borrowed\" are your liabilities. You can use them to do fun stuff, but they need to be returned eventually. Further, if you break or lose these things while doing your fun stuff, you'll need to either replace them with your own stuff or borrow someone else's stuff to replace them, which will eventually need to be returned, and so on. If you borrow too much without giving back or you get a reputation for losing/breaking stuff, people will stop lending you their things and you won't be able to do as much fun stuff.\n\nThe \"Things that belong to you\" are your equity. You can always use your own things to do fun stuff, and you don't need to give them back when you're done because they belong to you. If you lose or break them, it's not quite as bad since no one will come knocking on your door asking when they can have them back.\n\nThus,\n\nAssets - Liabilities = Equity,\n\nor rearranged,\n\nAssets = Liabilities + Equity."
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favv2y | how do guitar pickups get the strings sound? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/favv2y/eli5_how_do_guitar_pickups_get_the_strings_sound/ | {
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"Magnets.\n\nDo people ever google something before just vomiting their thoughts here?\n\n_URL_0_",
"Inside the pickups are magnets wrapped in coils of wire with an electric charge running through them. Those magnets are what \"pickup\" the vibrations",
"Magnets.\n\nIt works in the same way that moving a metallic object (the strings) near a magnetic coil (the pickups) generates power fluctuations (frequencies) in the copper coil wound around each magnet in the pickup. These can then be passed onto the amplifier and played through a speaker.\n\nSpeakers/amplifiers work in the reverse way, using electronic frequencies to make a magnet move on a diaphragm and generate pressure waves in the air that you perceive as sound.\n\nEssentially the pickup translates the vibrations of the string into electronic frequencies that the amp translates back into vibration."
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1eroh7 | bayes' theorem in probability | And also Contingency table? Please and thank you. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1eroh7/eli5_bayes_theorem_in_probability/ | {
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"To understand Baye's theorem, we must first understand the concepts of conditional probabilities and probabilities. A probability is the chance of an event happening, often denoted P(A), where A is the event, i.e. P(A)=1/6 where A is rolling 1 on a six-sided die. A conditional probability is the chance of an event occurring given that another event has occurred. This is denoted P(A|B), the probability of event A, given that event B has occurred.\n\nBaye's theorem gives us a method to relate probabilities and conditional probabilities. This can be combined with other theorems (such as the law of total probability, which provides a method to generate probabilities from conditional probabilities), to allow for a more complete analysis."
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1qskfr | why doesn't a lightbulb act as a short circuit? | I don't understand 100% what exactly consumes electricity and acts as a load. A lightbulb just heats a wire so why doesn't it act as a short circuit? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qskfr/eli5_why_doesnt_a_lightbulb_act_as_a_short_circuit/ | {
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"Well, it does, kinda.\n\nA light bulb has a very thin wire. You might think that filament is about a millimeter wide, but the filament is actually a coil of a coil of the actual wire. The wire is much finer than a hair.\n\nPushing electric current through that wire is hard. So only a small amount of electric current can flow. Pushing that current through the wire takes effort - work -Energy - and this energy ends up as heat. The filament gets hot, really hot, until it glows brightly."
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1phz1o | why do some toothpastes produce a lot of foam and some produce non at all? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1phz1o/eli5_why_do_some_toothpastes_produce_a_lot_of/ | {
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"Sodium Lauryl Sulphate. It is a detergent. It produces foam which carries off debris you scrub off your teeth. It also tastes kinda like mint and blocks all your sweet receptors which causes your OJ to taste bitter. "
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e0wwie | how did currency exchange rates form in the very beginning? | I was wondering how exchange rates formed in the beginning. As in, when the first two countries came together to exchange a monetary deal, how did they know how much of their money equated to the other countries money. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e0wwie/eli5_how_did_currency_exchange_rates_form_in_the/ | {
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"Same way as the price for anything: both sides do their homework on how much stuff they can get with the other sides currency and then figure out how much of their currency you are willing to give for a given amount of the opposite sides currency. At some point both sides reach an agreement. If they cannot reach a mutually agreeable price for the opposing sides currency, there isn't a trade agreement.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nedit: the exchange rates aren't set by individual countries, they are floating based on how much different currencies are worth when doing international trade.",
"Countries often initially had their currencies locked to a precious metal (typically gold or silver). For example pound sterling (GBP) derives its name from when 20 shillings was literally a pound of sterling silver, under Anglo-saxon rule. These are pretty easily exchangeable because the international value of that coin is its metal content.",
"First they were set according to gold(or a rare earth metal) then world war happened.\nThen all of them were set according to USD which was set according to gold( I think it was the Brentwood agreement).\nNow it's like a free market depending on supply and demand it's called the forex market(foreign exchange market)",
"Precious metals.\n\nCoins were invented to simplify trading in precious metals. If someone showed up at an inn with a hunk of hacksilver, the innkeep had to judge the quality and weight to determine how much beer and mutton that would buy him.\n\nTo make it easier, someone (typically the state) would produce coins of a specific mass and purity. The coin would have some primitive security features so that a merchant could quickly determine that the coin was probably real and probably hadn't been shaved or altered. Now the barkeep can have an actual menu/price list: one of Lord Suchandsuch's pennies will get you 2 beers, 3 will get you a room for the night and so forth. If someone shows up with coins the innkeep has never encountered (eg: from Lord Soandso's mint), the innkeep had a few options. They could just say no and lose the trade. They could take the hacksilver approach and judge the value as best as they could. They could direct their customer to a moneychanger who knows all about coinage and assay to get the coin exchanged for currency that the innkeep is familiar with. As a side effect of this, the moneylender would develop a schedule comparing different coins: an 8g gold sovereign was taken to have the same value as one pound of sterling silver. A silver penny weighed 1/240th of a pound so 240 pennies was worth 1 sovereign (1 pound sterling). Other countries used other currencies. The Spanish real was about 1/150 lb so, assuming the merchant was familiar with the coin, one would be worth about 1.5 pennies. \n\nWhen governments traded, it was all gold and silver traded by weight. The actual shipment could be a mixture of bars and various coins..it didn't matter as long as they were of acceptably purity and the total weight was correct.",
"Ooh! Economics Major here. I can answer. \nMost of the answers given are right, but I wanna give the full picture for a more holistic answer. I assume that you're referring to today's economy with all different types of exchange rate systems (flexible, fixed, managed float, peg, dollarisation,...), and how these started. In that case, we have to see some major turning points in history, namely the Gold Standard and the Bretton Woods System.\n\nI won't start too far back as it doesn't really answer, but silver was widely used as the standard until the Bank of England decided to drive silver out of circulation (because it was running out of it).\n\nBut in 1870, the Gold Standard was established. This was sort of the beginning of \"exchange rates\".\nThis started with the British. With the industrial revolution, countries believed that a necessary condition to facilitate world trade was a stable exchange rate system.\nEach country set the value of 1 unit of their currency at a predetermined percentage of the weight of gold, or in others words, its value.\nFor instance, a British Pound was 0.23546% an ounce of pure gold, and the USD was 0.048379%. This made the Dollar-Pound exchange rate 0.23546/0.048379 = 4.867. \nThese values were fixed, and the gold standard required that each country adjust its domestic money supply in direct relation to the amount of gold it held. \n\nHowever, there were many problems along the way. WW1 caused the gold standard to be ceased for a while, but it came back. At one point in time, US and France held 70% of the world's gold alone, and this caused the other countries that adopted the gold standard to hike interest rates, which essentially led to the infamous Great Depression. At this point, people realized the gold standard actually caused many problems, and decided to abolish it.\n\nThis led to the Bretton Woods System. \nThe USD was pegged at $35 per ounce of gold, and all other countries under the Bretton Woods System pegged their currency to the USD. This was essentially a fixed exchange rate system. This also made the USD the international reserve currency.\nAlthough this was meant to promote growth and trade, Bretton Woods was formed on the basis of Capital Control and Financial Market Regulations (Impossible Trinity, if you're curious). This was bad in the time of increasing international trade. Hence, it eventually broke down for a few reasons, which I won't really explain to keep things simple.\n\nIn the end, the Bretton Woods System collapsed in 1973, and the dollar was delinked from gold. People also realized that fixed exchange rate systems weren't all too good an idea. This ushered in the era of flexible exchange rates, which grew to the myriad of systems we all know today."
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bf7j6d | why is nationalism bad? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bf7j6d/eli5_why_is_nationalism_bad/ | {
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"Because it’s moved past nationalism, and into jingoism. \n\nNationalism isn’t bad until it starts coming at the expense of others.\n\nEdit: had to double check definitions, and I was describing PATRIOTISM. I guess nationalism is defined as extreme patriotism coming at the expense of others.",
"Nationalism is “identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations.” the important part there is the detriment of other nations. Nationalists think their country and the citizens are better than others. The exclusion of others often leads quickly to racism as nationalists try to rationalize one country being better than others. Since nations ultimately are lines in the sand they often turn to racial lines as something more “concrete”.",
"Nationalism is defined as “identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations.” This means you put your country first no matter what. One of the side effects of this is a complete lack of care, empathy, compassion, or essentially any positive view of anyone who is from any other country. It essentially is the us and them mentality on steroids; us good, them bad. One of the common tactics of us and them is dehumanizing “them”. See terminology from current American alt-right, nazi germany, imperial japan. A common example is calling minority groups by animal terms, I.e. monkey, rat, pig, dog. This dehumanizing makes it easier for events like genocides to occur. It goes from “killing your neighbors and their children” to “removing the plague of rats and their spawn infesting the land”. \n\n\nTl;dr: nationalism feeds us and them mentality. Us and them mentality is us good, them bad. This thinking leads to the idea that “they” are just animals. Thinking of “them” as animals makes it easier to kill. Aaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnddddddddddd you’ve just won an all expenses paid genocide."
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1qze3o | why is beef tenderloin so expensive? | I went to the local market and saw beef tenderloin for $25 a pound. What makes this such an expensive cut? Is it the demand for it? Lack of supply? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qze3o/eli5_why_is_beef_tenderloin_so_expensive/ | {
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"[Here](_URL_0_) you have a chart showing where different beef cuts comes from.\n\nThe more a muscle has worked in its lifetime the tougher the beef cut tends to become and the tenderloin hasn't done much work in compared to to the rest of the cow. You can serve it very rare and nice tenderloin will still almost fall apart in your mouth.\n\nSo you have a small amount of very nice and tender beef from each cow which of course drives up the price.",
"It's the most tender part of the animal, and therefore the most desired. It's more in demand.",
"The prices of meat cuts are rising due to the cost of raising livestock increasing. A Beef tenderloin, or a (eye) fillet for those outside of the states, is one of the most desirable cuts due to the muscle being used very little making it particularly tender.\n\nI do not live the US so I don't know how your local markets work compared to those held in my home country of Northern Ireland but I presume you still be straight from the farmer. If so that is actually pretty standard. $25 would suggest that the farmer is raising the livestock in good conditions."
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3u8zxy | why do ships sink vertically? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3u8zxy/eli5_why_do_ships_sink_vertically/ | {
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"Its only if the breach in hull is only on one end or another. So when water start to fill up the ship one side gets heavier and goes down first. If the breack in the hull was all along one of the boards the ship would tilt towards that side before sinking and not vertically"
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1twhai | basic beliefs of taoism | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1twhai/eli5_basic_beliefs_of_taoism/ | {
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"The Tao of Pooh. Read it.",
"Taoism can be summed up pretty generally as it all focuses pretty much around nature and being a natural and forefilling person;\n\nDaoism (Taoism) 道統 (Daoism and Taoism are the same thing)\n\n- A way of life (in China may be referred to as a religion)\n- 'To go with the flow', be positive, to agree with most things, to enjoy - life to the fullest, to life the high-life.\n- Dao - translates to Way/A Way\n- Daoism is Chinese because it originates in Chinese culture and it is most clearly understood through the Chinese language and views of being.\n- Daoism is considered a 'religion' because it involves an orientation towards and relationship with, 'the sacred'.\n- Fundamental Daoist ideas/concerns include:\n~Wu wei : Effortless action, to behave in a completely natural and uncontrived way\n~Ziran: Naturalness\n~Zhenren: realized/perfected person, to be enlightened and aware of the world\n~Dao: Way, path, route, such as choosing the right path to take in life\n",
"/u/georgeisamazing has a good answer for the basic tenets of Daoism as laid out in its most important foundational texts, the *Zhuangzi* and the *Daodejing*. \n\nHowever, you should know that modern \"Taoism\" bears little resemblance to that....2,000 years of history has twisted it quite a bit, and these days Taoism as a religion in China is basically a collection of crazy superstitions and remedies for immorality (Zhuangzi and Laozi are probably rolling in their graves being associated with that nonsense).\n\nMore than most other \"religious\" systems, though, I'd say you'll have an easier time understanding Daoism if you actually read the foundational texts. For what it's worth, the Daodejing is really short and the Zhuangzi is pretty entertaining (although they both require a lot of thought to follow)",
"Everything is the Tao. Nothing is the Tao. \n\nThe Tao is nothing. The Tao is everything.",
"That which can be explained is not the true Dao.... (wooden flute blows)",
"The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.",
"Read the Tao of Pooh, bst simple beautiful little book that explains it well. Winnie the Pooh is a taoist! Just Be! :-)"
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1z3nj9 | how come when you crack your knuckles underwater, it is incredibly loud, but when you try and scream underwater, the sound is muffled to a whimper? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1z3nj9/eli5_how_come_when_you_crack_your_knuckles/ | {
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"Water transmits sounds quite well, so if an action vibrates the water to make a sound, you'll be able to hear it clearly in the local area. However, sound does not cross mediums very well. When you're trying to talk (or scream) underwater, the sound is being generated by vibrating air in your vocal chords. When this hits the water just outside your mouth, only a little of that energy is transmitted into producing underwater sound waves. The rest is lost, reflecting back into your mouth.",
"To add on a bit to /u/KahBhume's answer:\n\nThe sound is also louder because water, a liquid, transmits sound waves better than air, a gas. As you may recall from basic science courses, both gases and liquids have free-moving particles and aren't rigidly structured like solids. That's why a spilled glass of water will spread out all over the table. However, liquid molecules are best friends- they stick together- while gas molecules are like a teenager on Maury- they go wherever they want whenever they want- and aren't always close to each other. \n\nThis is important because of the way sound waves are produced. Waves are formed when one molecule bumps into another, which bumps into another, which bumps into another. Your eardrum picks up these waves and your brain turns them into sounds. This is why there is no noise in space. In a vacuum, there are no molecules to bump each other, so there can be no sound.\n\nWhen the molecules are far away from each other, as in a gas, the molecules bump into each other less often. They still do, of course, because you can hear in your everyday, gas-filled life. In a liquid, the molecules are close together, so a moving molecule is much more likely to hit another molecule. This results in a better transmission of the wave, and therefore a better transmission of the sound. The density of the object (closeness of the molecules) is also why different gases can raise or lower the pitch of your voice.\n\nTL;DR: Liquid is more dense than gas, transmits sounds better."
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3zykkm | why is there such a large amount of rain falling across australia, when it is meant to be an el nino year and be very dry? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zykkm/eli5_why_is_there_such_a_large_amount_of_rain/ | {
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"El Nino is the summer part of the phenomena. In winter it becomes El Nina and brings more rain. I would guess that in the southern hemisphere the season are reversed."
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4mu1x7 | the uploader has not made this video available in your country. | Why? Just f**cking why???? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4mu1x7/eli5_the_uploader_has_not_made_this_video/ | {
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"text": [
"Its likely the video contains material that is not licensed for worldwide use. International licenses are significantly more expensive than licenses for a specific region. "
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37o19j | how for example, gun laws are so different from state to state and why they just cant be the same all over the country | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37o19j/eli5_how_for_example_gun_laws_are_so_different/ | {
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"Basically the US Constitution says that anything that isn't specifically spelled out as belonging to the Federal government will be left to the states or to the people (10th Amendment). ",
" > The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.\n\nThe 10th Amendment to the US Constitution (part of the Bill of Rights) specifically says that, outside of the powers *specifically* granted to the Federal government, the states are responsible for making laws.",
"In the US the Federal government only has as much power as the States give up to it. This means that everything not specifically set as a power belonging to the Federal Government is an issue for the States to control. Gun laws are one of these. "
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t1zek | philosophy, what is it and why do people study it? | ELI4 | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/t1zek/philosophy_what_is_it_and_why_do_people_study_it/ | {
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"Philosophy would be very hard to explain to a four year old like you asked. \n\nI think the [first 2 sentences on wikipedia](_URL_0_) sum it up.\n\nAs far as why people study it, it can be very interesting and mind expanding.",
"Philosophy is basically really deep thoughts about everything.\n\nFor example: \n\n* How do I really know I'm here? When I see things, am I really seeing things? When I touch things, is my brain interpreting what I'm touching exactly correctly, or are things getting \"lost in translation\"? If none of my senses are working exactly perfectly, how can I know what the world looks like? If my brain isn't working exactly perfectly, how can I know that I exist if my thoughts aren't correct?\n\n* When we do something for the good of everyone, but one person gets hurt, is that still right? What is \"right\"? Is there one definition for what is \"right,\" or do we always need to compare it to \"wrong\"?\n\n* Does God exist? If there is evil in the world, and God can do something about it (he's \"omnipotent,\" right?), then why doesn't he do something about it? Does that mean he's not nice (\"benevolent\")? If being nice is one important part of being God, is God not \"God\" anymore?",
"Philosophy involves thinking about why things are the way they are and how can we be sure we really know things are that way. In the western world, over 2000 years ago a man called Aristotle decided to organize exactly how people should think about things like that. \n\nAnd up until the 1500s pretty much all science, education, religion, law, and politics in the western world was directly effected by the way he set up things. One important reason is that one of Aristotle's' students was Alexander the Great. When Alexander took over the known world and put his personal stamp on it, it was a stamp informed by his teacher.",
"**What is philosphy?** If you were to take a course an Intro to Philosophy course in college, you would learn about major schools of thought regarding human purpose, ethics, and rationality. The foundation of most of today's philosophy is based in Greek Philosophy -- the ideas of ancient philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Socrates. Their timeless writings are still relevant and debated to this day. Their work has been built upon for many years and have gone in many different directions. Some of these schools of thought are in direct conflict with one another, such as utilitarianism (the ends justify the means) and deontology (the ends do NOT justify the means; it is about the best moral choice). \n\n~~Philosophy is considered a \"soft\" science, similar to sociology. This is different from a \"hard\" science like biology or physics because it deals in intangible social issues: things that are difficult to measure and prove with hard data.~~ Philosophy is full of a lot of debate and semantics (determining the exact meaning of a word -- such as \"morality\") that don't always end with conclusive answers. \n\n**Why do people study it?** People study philosophy to better understand the human condition. People want to better understand not only individual purpose (self), but collective purpose (all of humanity). People also want to better understand ethical issues, and argue for what they believe are the most moral choices. An example of a classic ethics debate is whether or not the \"needs of the many outweight the needs of the few.\" Such questions are not easy to answer because they heavily depend on the context. \n\nNonetheless, people spend a lot of time contemplating these questions. Anyone can sit around and read about and contemplate these questions--most people do at some point in their life. But academically (at Universities), it has to be more than wayward contemplation. Therefore, like anything in academics, it requires a deep knowledge of past and current writings on the topic to provide a foundation of supporting concepts and ideas. This creates a web of supporting data to transition and progress into new or modified ideas. \n\nAt the end of the day, people who study philosophy hope to understand themselves and their world a little better than they did before. There are not a ton of career options tied to philosophy -- many who specialize in it often become professors of the subject, or move onto higher education that is more focused on something like law. The study of law is often intertwined with philosophy due to its connection to morality/ethics. Therefore, a background in philosophy is not a bad stepping stone into law. \n\nMore often, philosophy as college curriculum is taken as a minor degree, or a class or two in supplementation to a seemingly unrelated degree. Example: someone who is specializing in biological engineering may be forced to take classes in science ethics, which is rooted in basic philosophical principles. This is so they are able to better make choices in a career field that is full of difficult, complex moral dilemmas that cannot be answered with a microscope. They are questions that require subjective introspection.\n\n**TL;DR- 42.**",
"There are a lot of areas one studies in philosophy. Not all scientist study biology, and not all philosophers study ethics.\n\nThere is metaphysics - the study of Universals and particulars; Objects, Entities; General and individual\n\nOntology - the study of existence, where things come from and what they are. It gets very confusing very fast.\n\nEpistemology - The study of Knowledge, which is traditionally defined as a \"justified true belief.\" How do we know what we know.\n\nEthics - The study of ought and should. Ethics isn't about logic (it might borrow or use logic), or something being rational. Many things that are considered unethical are still rational.\n\nLogic - An abstract system that defines other systems, most notably mathematics is the prime example. Logic is learned along side metaphysics usually. If you see a book \"how to think logically\" it's probably not about logic. If you see \"fallacy of 'x'\" it's talking about logic, but, most people are ignorant think that their petty human language and debates are actual logic. Symbolic logic is what undergrads study, specifically predicate logic. Modal logic adds a couple of more operators, but that's more of a graduate study.\n\nAnalytic and Continental philosophy. Both are poorly defined in their start, and are poorly defined now. But it's pretty easy to distinguish them.\n\nAnalytic philosophy - Without arguing who started it, lets just say Frege, Whitehead, Russell. (Note: Russell is ONLY real analytic philosophy when he writes the Principia Mathematica, his political mumble jumble is muddled pseudo philosophy. The whole \"Russell's Teapot\" is not real philosophy.)\n\nAnalytic philosophy is the study of Logic, Metaphysics, Language. Easier said: Universals, general terms, more than one kind of thinking. Objects that are shared, or are part of other things.\n\nContinental philosophy - Usually said to start with the three H's: Heidegger, Husserl, Hegel. Though, when I said things were poorly defined initially and now, Husserl kind of does analytic and continental, Hegel is now being studied by analytics, and Heidegger is more of the Nietzsche branch. It's very easy to see which philosophers are talking about Nietzsche, and which are talking about other areas of continental philosophy.\n\nNevertheless typically continental philosophy is the study of the subject, the existential, the phenomena.\n\nAnalytic and Continental really only serve as what schools focus in studying. But there is also American philosophy, and American philosophy is Pragmatic philosophy. Pragmatic philosophy was initially very similar to Continental, but then it became American Analytic. So analytic philosophy is usually thought of as Anglo-American. Continental is really \"French\" type of philosophy (European).\n\n*Language - Both continental and analytic philosophy study language. For analytic philosophy language is studied more in how it applies to the abstract, what words denote. In continental philosophy language is studied as a system as well, but more what it connotates, what people mean when they say.\n\nPeople study it for all sorts of reasons. The main reason people study it is because it serves two other humanities pretty well -- History and English.\n\nOther people who study philosophy, like me, tend to disdain much of philosophy (historically a lot of people did too). We prefer to describe ourselves closer to mathematics than to the humanities. Logicians, not philosophers. It makes sense too, most (important) logicians were mathematicians.\n\nPhilosophy was doing physics before our physics became good. It tries to describe a Universal theory of the World. Physics tries to do that now. If you read theoretical physics it's VERY similar to philosophy. Unfortunately, if you don't know the history of philosophy your physics will suffer the same problems we have already addressed.\n\nSo really, there is a convergence point. Most historical/ancient philosophy is dead. But you still need to know the history to know contemporary philosophy. Contemporary philosophy and science differs in terms of methodology.",
"Like you're four:\n\nScience is a field where you study the world with experiments and studies. Philosophy is where you study the things that can't be answered with experiments and studies. With science you can figure out things like how electricity works, or what happens in a black hole, or how ants communicate with each other. Even stuff like why humans fight wars are based in science. These are things you can see with your own eyes. But there are a lot of questions that you can't answer by watching or testing them with experiments. This is stuff like \"What is good and what is bad?\" \"What happens after we die?\" \"How do we determine what is beautiful and what is ugly?\" \"How do we know we're not actually dreaming right now?\" But they're not guesses...people have arguments, some of them very convincing, for their philosophical beliefs! \n\nPeople study philosophy because it makes sense of the world. Science is for understanding the world around us, and philosophy is for saying \"Well, what does that mean for us? How does all this knowledge impact how we live our life?\"\n\nEven asking \"What is philosophy?\" is a philosophical question! You're trying to make sense of the world, out of a concept that isn't scientific but is based entirely in the realm of human ideas."
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3gd1s4 | how are babies born with "hardcoded" reflexes that they can do first time, without practice? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3gd1s4/eli5_how_are_babies_born_with_hardcoded_reflexes/ | {
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"Hardcoded is the exactly correct word to use.\n\nThey are born with neural pathways in their brains that will automatically respond to stimuli, residing in a more primitive part of their brain.\n\nFor many animals, that more primitive part of their brain is almost all that they have, so all of their behavior is hardcoded, and they have very little capacity to learn. For humans, the primitive brain is small, with most of their brain devoted to learned behavior."
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||
f2w29z | how do people who suffer from epilepsy safely drive? | Some forms of Epilepsy can be triggered by flashing/flickering lights and when driving, especially at night, even driving on a motorway can cause lights to flicker due to oncoming traffic etc. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f2w29z/eli5_how_do_people_who_suffer_from_epilepsy/ | {
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"They can’t. Exceptions not withstanding (minor cases, controlled by medication,etc) Licenses can be denied over medical issues.",
"To begin with, people with certain medical conditions can't drive. In this example, it's having seizures. \n\nFrom there, it depends on the particular circumstances. For example, if the seizure was caused by certain drugs, severely low low sugar, it can be quickly and effectively managed by not taking those drugs, and managing your blood sugar. In these instances you should be back driving quite fast, maybe not even losing you license. \n\nNow if its cause is unknown, then they suspend your license until the doctors are satisfied that it's a one time event, not likely to happen again.\n\nThen we have people who are prone to seizures. They probably won't ever be allowed to drive. Again though, they take into account what causes these seizures. Flashing lights are just possible cause. And even then, it's not all flashing lights. An actual strobe light may cause a seizure, but those are not being used as much in emergency vehicles, they're mostly LED lighting which may not cause a seizure. Same with reflections on glass, or signal lights, or lights from a passing vehicle. That means the person may be still be safe to drive because what causes the seizure isn't likely going to be found while driving.\n\n\nIn short, just because someone may have seizures, doesn't mean they're caused by lights. And even if they are, the conditions have to be just right for it to happen, and those conditions may not be something you'll encounter while driving.",
"I used to date a girl with epilepsy. She was otherwise normal, but just wasn't allowed to drive. There really wasn't a work around. I was happy to give her rides though, and she would Uber/Lyft if no ride was available."
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w9tqb | purpose of the f keys on the top of your keyboard. | Why are they there? What was their original intent? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/w9tqb/eli5_purpose_of_the_f_keys_on_the_top_of_your/ | {
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"Back in the bad old days, there was no such thing as a \"mouse\"- all you had was your keyboard. But some software still needed the \"menus\" that we take for granted in most every program we use today. \n\nSo, the F keys were implemented as a quick and easy way to access those menus. Programs could draw those menus across the top of the screen, along with the name of the key that would pull that specific menu up- and you could use the arrow keys, or letter shortcuts to navigate from there.\n\nNowadays, they're typically not used at all, except for shortcuts for advanced users. For example, F12 in Chrome brings up Developer Tools, allowing you to look at the base level of what each part of HTML code on the page you're viewing is responsible for."
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17ljfh | why do objects in space tend to orbit in a disc-shaped pattern? | Why do Saturn's rings, our solar system, and, indeed, most every solar system and galaxy in the known universe tend to end up in disc-shaped orbits? My gut feeling tells me the answer is centripetal (centrifugal?) force, but that doesn't seem to account for why the shape is so common. It would seem to me that since space expands in all directions and gravity exerts its force in all directions, that there would be far more examples of celestial bodies with odd-shaped orbits than than are currently known (to me, anyway).
Just for a little bit of background on my line of thinking, this question occurred to me while I was watching a TED Talk about dark matter and based on what the speaker explained (and from what I knew about dark matter beforehand), dark matter does not seem to operate in disc-shaped patterns but instead exerts its huge amount of gravitational force in all directions.. And it was from this realization that I started questioning why "normal" matter does tend to exert its gravitational force on one primary plane. It's quite possible I could have misunderstood this concept and, considering the theoretical frontier that dark matter is on, I realize the answer to this question may not be as simple as I'm hoping it is. Nonetheless, thank you in advance for any answers you have.
Edit: My question was more or less answered by Imhtpsnvsbl, but feel free to discuss further or add anything you like. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/17ljfh/eli5_why_do_objects_in_space_tend_to_orbit_in_a/ | {
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"Conservation of angular momentum, basically.\n\nImagine a big cloud of particles, each moving with some random velocity. The cloud will have some well-defined center of mass, obviously, so each particle that makes up the cloud is going to be in orbit about that center of mass, the orbit determined by where the particle starts out and what its initial velocity is.\n\nEvery body in orbit around another body has some angular momentum. If you were to compute the angular momentum of every single particle in the cloud, you'd be able to add them all up. Many of the individual momenta would end up canceling out; there's a particle here that's moving this way with such-and-such angular momentum, but there's another particle on the other side moving in pretty much the opposite way, so those two momenta cancel out almost exactly.\n\nBut once you've added up all the angular momenta, you'll find that it doesn't *all* cancel out exactly. Instead, there's some *net* angular momentum. We can say that's the angular momentum of the whole cloud.\n\nHere's the thing about angular momentum: It *never goes away.* It moves around, adds and subtracts, and it can cancel out under the right circumstances, but it never just *disappears from the universe.* So if the cloud starts out with some net angular momentum, then it will *keep* that net angular momentum *forever.*\n\nSo if you let the particles move around for a while, you'll notice that they start interacting with each other. This one bumps into that one, these two graze each other, whatever. In each interaction, angular momentum *moves around* — this particle gains a little, that particle loses a little — but it *never just disappears.* Maybe occasionally a particle will bounce off another in such a way as to get knocked out of the cloud entirely; when that happens, it'll carry a tiny amount of angular momentum away with it. But in general, the total angular momentum of the cloud remains constant.\n\nAs the particles interact with each other over a long span of time, these interactions will have a net normalizing effect. That is, every particle in the cloud will tend to have its angular momentum \"nudged\" closer and closer to the net angular momentum of the cloud, divided by the number of particles. That's because a particle with *more* than the average angular momentum will tend — statistically, I mean — to interact with another particle in such a way that it gives up angular momentum. Particles with less than the average angular momentum will tend to gain angular momentum from their interactions.\n\nSo over a very long time, the particles will tend to get \"averaged out,\" so they approach uniform angular momentum.\n\nThat means they end up settling into orbiting in the same direction, and *in a plane.* Particles that are orbiting outside the plane of the cloud's net angular momentum will tend to get pulled back toward it by their interactions with other particles.\n\nSo that's why planetary systems, like our own solar system obviously, tend to form planes. Because the huge gas cloud that existed here before our solar system condensed out of it had a net angular momentum, and because angular momentum is conserved, the solar system that exists today has *pretty much* exactly that same angular momentum.\n\nDark matter doesn't tend to form disc-like structures, though, because dark matter particles *don't interact* with each other at all. They're completely transparent to each other, passing through each other like they're not even there. Without interactions to average out the angular momenta of the particles, clouds of dark matter tend to say … well, *cloud-like,* forming the galactic halos we observe when we look out into the night sky."
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1zgvzj | why do we combine words together accidentally when speaking? | There have been times when I will have a conversation with someone and I will randomly combine words into one word. For example there was a time when I was comparing my residence water with my home water and I meant to say "nice water" but ended up saying wice... It's embarrassing when the other person looks at you like "what are you saying?" anyone else have this problem? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zgvzj/why_do_we_combine_words_together_accidentally/ | {
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"Your brain forms sentences by trying to put together words that represent what you're thinking. Sometimes your brain knows the words, but doesn't send the signals to the muscles in your face quick enough for your mouth to form each individual word correctly, so you blend a couple words together, and people wonder why you just said 'wice' instead of nice water."
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f74668 | how do rape kits/paternity tests work if sperm only has 50% of the father's dna? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f74668/eli5_how_do_rape_kitspaternity_tests_work_if/ | {
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"Each sperm only has 50%. \nThere are many many millions of sperm. \nThe odds that all of them miss any part of the father's DNA is essentially zero.",
"I mean...spermatozoa contains 50% of DNA compared to the othet cells.\n\nBut 100% of this 50% DNA belong to the guy who ejaculated.",
"Even 50% of the DNA is roughly a shitload of data. You still got extremely much to compare with.\n\nSay that you are matching if two books are the same. Even if you only have every second word of one of the books. you can still make a pretty strong assumption on whether it is the same book or not."
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6mg3ia | what is a w-4? | Like, I vaguely know what it is, but how does it work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6mg3ia/eli5_what_is_a_w4/ | {
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"Essentially, the government requires that your employer collect your income tax on your wages and send that to the government. \n\nIn order to do that, your employer needs some way to estimate how much you'll pay in taxes. To do **that**, they need information from you about how much you expect to pay in taxes. \n\nSo you tell your employer if you're married or single, and if you have certain allowances that would be subtracted from your taxable income. (like having kids) You can tell your employer to withhold extra money, if you have special circumstances or if you're working two jobs. Your employer then uses that information to estimate your income taxes, and withholds those funds from your paycheck. "
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4dd9t0 | why do child victims of abuse gravitate towards people similar to the abuser? | Why *does it seem like* child victims of abuse gravitate towards people who also abuse them? Wouldn't they want to go in another direction?
I can't relate of course, but if I was beat up at a 4H convention I would make sure never to attend another 4H convention - not seek out more 4H members. Silly example I know. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4dd9t0/eli5why_do_child_victims_of_abuse_gravitate/ | {
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"Abuse is all about control. A lot of abuse involves making its victims feel worthless, like they can never do better, like they cannot find happiness or deserve happiness, etc. Control is part of how abusers keep their victims silent. \n\nVictims of child abuse often have little exposure to healthy relationships. They also tend to have lower self-esteem, and it requires a lot of consistent help and guidance and support to help victims. Victims can also potentially develop behavioral issues and can be difficult to deal with if people don't understand or know how to deal with it. This leads to more self-esteem issues, a tendency to revert back to what they know and what they've been told by the abuser. \n\nHelping a victim of child abuse doesn't stop with just removing them from the abuser(s)' home."
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ctwhwy | how does uhaul/any other car rental company keep vehicles equally distributed across the country? | Shower thought I had.. how do they match the random sporadic demands of vehicles that you can’t predict? Do people get paid to drive them to different locations n such? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ctwhwy/eli5_how_does_uhaulany_other_car_rental_company/ | {
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"Car rental businesses hire people to drive vehicles to other locations. I’m sure Uhaul has something similar in place.",
"They hire people to drive vehicles back to where they need to be to equalize distribution. Sometimes you can even get a really good deal on long distance rentals because they have vehicles that need to go to a certain destination.",
"U-Haul is pretty famous for pricing rentals differently to give customers reasons to drive the trucks where they're demanded. It can cost vastly more to rent a truck to go from a low supply city to a high supply city, than the other way. \n\nRental car agencies charge considerably more for a 1-way trip than a pick up and return at the same location trip. The rental cost likely includes the cost of transporting the car back to it's original location. \n\nWhen needed drivers can be hired to move vehicles."
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4wrlje | if you wore an oxygen mask that simulates the elevation of 5,000 feet, would it make breathing at 6,000 feet easier, the same, or harder? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4wrlje/eli5_if_you_wore_an_oxygen_mask_that_simulates/ | {
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"I assume by \"oxygen man simulating 5,000 feet\" you are actually talking about a tanker full of normal air that has been pressurized to match that elevation, and not a tanker full of just oxygen. It would be easier. That is what any pressurized container meant for human life is trying to do. Airplanes are pressurized so they simulate ground-level pressure vs. the atmosphere at 20,000 feet up. Submarines are pressured so they simulate ground-level pressure vs. the ocean at 5,000 feet down."
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oyl8p | the movie "primer." | Seriously -- my brain, she hurts. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/oyl8p/eli5_the_movie_primer/ | {
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"Not possible at all. I don't think it's possible to explain to a thirty year old.",
"In short: multiple time lines running parallel to each other. In long: See this image _URL_0_"
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8x6blt | why when lying on my side, my brain prefers to watch parallel to the floor instead of parallel to my eyes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8x6blt/eli5_why_when_lying_on_my_side_my_brain_prefers/ | {
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"Your brain knows that you are lying on your side. It expects things to look rotated for the eyes. If they are not something is wrong.",
"Your brain is a very complicated machine that does a lot of things you're not aware of, especially with regard to processing images. Your brain figures out what's up and down based on visual cues and a special little gravity sensor inside your ear.\n\nFun fact, in an \\[experiment\\]([_URL_0_](_URL_0_)), a guy was able to completely adjust to seeing the world upside-down, through the use of mirrored glasses. It took the guy about a week, but when they took the goggles off, the \"normal world\" was as confusing and disorienting as the \"upside-down\" world had initially been.",
"Does it? I prefer to have it parallel to my eyes actually."
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3z6xr5 | how exactly do we move our limbs and why don't we mimic our movement in robots? | I've always wondered what mussels have to move in my arm to pull my finger tendons and how that signal is sent from my brain, but can't seem to get a straight answer.
It seems pretty efficient so why don't we mimic it in robots instead of using motors? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3z6xr5/eli5_how_exactly_do_we_move_our_limbs_and_why/ | {
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"In order to move a muscle, we need to send a signal to a primary motor neuron. This specialized neuron controls groups of muscle fibers in one particular muscle, causing them to contract. When you want to consciously move a muscle you directly send a signal to the appropriate motor neuron which causes the action. We do it this way because we have other signals we want to control muscles; like reflexes or autonomous control. \n \nThe reason we don't make robots like this is because we already have motors that spin around an axis, but we don't have ones that constrict like muscles. We could build motors that function that way, but theres not a lot of incentive because the current system works as it is. I'm not an engineer or robotics expert so I can't get any more specific with this part of the question."
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75403n | astronomy question | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/75403n/eli5_astronomy_question/ | {
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"Inverse square law-\n\nThe inverse-square law, in physics, is any physical law stating that a specified physical quantity or intensity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source of that physical quantity. The fundamental cause for this can be understood as geometric dilution corresponding to point-source radiation into three-dimensional space.\n\n_URL_0_"
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||
3mqpfi | how alcoholic must your breath be to catch fire, and why does it even work? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mqpfi/eli5_how_alcoholic_must_your_breath_be_to_catch/ | {
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"80 proof and above is generally flammable. Although I really don't see how this could happen, this would require actually inhaling some embers, which doesn't really happen when you smoke. \n\nFurther more, its going down different \"tubes\" the alcohol is going down through your stomach. \n\nSmoke goes through the respiratory system to your lungs, there wouldn't be much if any alcohol in your respiratory system to catch fire."
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187h5b | why can't we capture light? | For example, why can't we take a perfectly round ball with mirrored insides and "capture" light. Or a cylinder and observe the light falling down with gravity as it circles around down the cylinder. I have a pretty firm grasp of physics and light so maybe not quite like I'm five. But this has always intrigued me. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/187h5b/why_cant_we_capture_light/ | {
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"I'm a chemist, and not a physicist, so it's quite possible that I'll be wrong on some of these things. But I'll do my best.\n\nFirst, it is somewhat possible to capture light in the way you're suggesting, at least transiently. The problem is that matter absorbs light and turns it into an alternative form of energy. So the light bouncing around the solid will eventually all be absorbed and then... not be there anymore. You can make the box quite large, and then the light will \"last\" longer. After all, some light from the sun manages to travel millions of miles. I don't read much of the physics literature, but I'm sure somebody has published papers on the fabrication of a near perfect mirror for this application. \n\nAs for the second thing, I can think of two problems. First, you can't \"see\" photons. You see things that light reflects off of. If we could see light, then... well... we really couldn't see anything at all because our eyes would be overloaded. Light waves (and waves of all energies, too) are constantly whizzing around in every direction. Luckily, we don't see their motion. We rely on the fact that light bounces off of an object and goes into our eyes to identify things.\n\nAdditionally, I know that light is affected by mass, but you'd have to have A LOT of mass to affect it's trajectory. Ancient astronomers did beautiful scientific work while completely ignoring the fact that mass distorts the trajectory of light. A little metal ball or cylinder is hardly going to affect it. ",
"\"why can't we take a perfectly round ball with mirrored insides and \"capture\" light.\"\n\nThis was posted before in some science subreddit, and you could probably find it with a bit of searching. Even if you put light into a perfectly spherical mirror, it wouldn't be 'captured'. Some of the light energy would inevitably be converted to heat. \n\nYou can't beat the laws of thermodynamics. ",
"Okay, so you might now this already, but for others coming to this thread: photons (particles of light) aren't real. Not real like you or I or the ground or the air. They're something else entirely.\n\nThey come into being when an atom goes from an excited state into a less excited state. Technically, this is when an electron drops from a higher to a lower \"energy level\". These energy levels are strictly defined and electrons can only exist in one or the other, there's no in-between.\n\nSo when an electron drops from a high energy level to a lower one, it does so *instantaneously*, and creates a photon in the process. (Sidenote: the drop in energy dictates the wavelength, and thus the colour, of the light.) You might know that nothing can accelerate to the speed of light. Well, fortunately, from the moment that photon exists, it is *already* traveling at the speed of light, and it will continue to do so until it hits something. \n\nWhen it hits an atom, its energy is transferred into the electron/s, making them jump up an energy level (or two or three). Here's where we answer your question: the second law of thermodynamics says you can't have a perfect transfer of energy. When the receiving atom gets the photon, its electrons can't jump to a *higher* level, they can reach only the *same* or a *lower* level.\n\nSo, over time - and it would be a very short amount of time for any kind of vessel we would be building - the wavelength of the light would be getting longer and longer, and thus the energy would be getting lower and lower. Eventually, the energy of the light being emitted would be so low that it can't raise any electrons from their *ground state*, their lowest energy level.\n\n**But**, I hear you say, **but what about the conservation of energy? Energy can't be created or destroyed; it has to go *somewhere*.** Correct! It does.\n\nWhen a photon can't raise an electron from its ground state, all the energy is transferred into *heat*. Heat is really just atoms moving about on a small scale, so you can imagine the photons coming in and knocking the atoms about a little bit. So your vessel would be dark inside but slightly warmer.\n\nNote, because I can sense it already coming, that this is *not* infrared light. That's called \"radiant heat\", this kind of heat also has a name but it escapes me. Suffice to call it \"normal heat\". If the inside if your vessel is a vacuum, and I assume it is, then you inside it would not feel the heat; but if you touched the walls, you would. There would be a stage, when the wavelength of the light was becoming longer and longer, when some of the energy would be thrown around as infrared light, but after a while the energy is too low even for that. It ends up warming the vessel itself, not holding warmth *inside* the vessel.",
"Well I don't think I could give a satisfactory answer to a five year old, but maybe to a 10 year old?\n\nLight is a form of energy, and energy wants to disperse itself evenly throughout the universe (we call this idea entropy). If you put energy in a box, no matter how you make the box, eventually the walls will absorb the energy (you've never heard of a thermos that keeps things warm forever have you?).\n\nThe same applies to light. You perceive light energy with your eyes, and think of it as \"brightness\" but what you are really measuring is energy of a certain frequency. Like heat in a thermos, if you put light in a box, eventually it's energy will get absorbed by the walls of the container."
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80riqs | active reading and why it's important to a reader | By the term "active reading", I'm referring to the reading technique that's usually done in English Literature classes.
I'd like to know what it is, what it involves, how one would mix it into their everyday reading, and why it is important. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/80riqs/eli5_active_reading_and_why_its_important_to_a/ | {
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"\"Active Reading\" is simply reading, but with an emphasis on paying attention to content and critically analyzing the text as you read, instead of just reading the words and moving on. \n\nIt's important as it gets a person to focus on the content of the text, it lets them identify unknown words or grammatical concepts to research further, it can arguably be helpful as a memorization tool since you are concentrating more on it, etc.",
"\"Active reading\" usually just means reading to understand what is important rather than just mindlessly reading. As for why it's important, I'm sure many of us have at one time or another read a page in a book a couple of times half heartedly before realizing we don't remember anything at all and putting the book down. That is the opposite of active reading and what happens if you don't read actively.\n\nThink of reading like a conversation. Which method makes you learn more; actively paying attention to the person talking to you or just zoning out while they drone in your ear? That's why active reading is important; it lets you quickly understand the parts of information in texts that are important and remember those instead of forgetting quickly.\n\nAs for techniques many of them are things many readers do already; things such as looking for key words, summarizing ideas in your head, or predicting what is going to come next can all work as active reading techniques.",
"One of my lit profs drilled into me that I needed to not only know what all the words on the page meant, but what they would have meant to the person writing them.\n\nI found a pocket etymological dictionary to be of invaluable help in understanding the correct period usage of words I was reading."
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mv2l5 | socialism vs. capitalism (and right-wing vs. left-wing) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mv2l5/eli5_socialism_vs_capitalism_and_rightwing_vs/ | {
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"Socialism is when the 'means of production' (factories, land, raw materials) are owned cooperatively. Either by groups involved in the production, or by the state on behalf of the people. either the products or the profits from their sale are distributed according to the group's plan.\n\nCapitalism is when the 'means of production' are privately owned. the product or the profits from its sale are distributed according the owner. ",
"At least in America, the Right Wing accuses the Left Wing of being Socialist as though it is an insult; and the Left wing accuses the Right Wing of being Capitalists as though it is an insult. My point is that in America these meanings are slightly warped when compared to how 'Socialist' and 'Capitalist' are used everywhere else.",
"Socialism is when the 'means of production' (factories, land, raw materials) are owned cooperatively. Either by groups involved in the production, or by the state on behalf of the people. either the products or the profits from their sale are distributed according to the group's plan.\n\nCapitalism is when the 'means of production' are privately owned. the product or the profits from its sale are distributed according the owner. ",
"At least in America, the Right Wing accuses the Left Wing of being Socialist as though it is an insult; and the Left wing accuses the Right Wing of being Capitalists as though it is an insult. My point is that in America these meanings are slightly warped when compared to how 'Socialist' and 'Capitalist' are used everywhere else."
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5wg44w | why do hdr videos require more processing? | Why does it require a good hardware for playback?
[edit] I was referring to the hardware required for playback | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5wg44w/eli5_why_do_hdr_videos_require_more_processing/ | {
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"HDR is more information between the darkest and brightest points. The greater information per-frame means it takes longer to load, and better hardware to process."
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7bvtau | how does hydraulic fracturing work? and what are the pros and cons of the process. | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7bvtau/eli5_how_does_hydraulic_fracturing_work_and_what/ | {
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"You drill a hole into a rock formation containing tiny pockets of trapped natural gas. Then you pump a mixture or water, solvents, and tiny bits of sand into the hole. You pressurize the liquid at high pressure, fracturing the rock and wedging the little bits of sand into the cracks. When you let the pressure off, the natural gas comes out, and you capture that and sell it. It pushes the liquid out, so you store that and then pump it in again and again until you've cracked all the rock and release/harvested all the gas.",
"Water is incompressible, so if you have a cubic meter of 'stuff' (dirt, stone, oil, gas) and you force water (fracking liquid is mostly water) into it, you'll get out a slurry of stuff mixed with the fracking fluid out. You can then filter it to get the oil/gas you want. \n\nIt's a way to drill for oil/gas in deposits that are not easily tapped with traditional oil wells, but is more costly than normal oil well drilling and has some environmental concerns related to groundwater, small earthquakes, etc. That being said the price of oil is relatively low at the moment and fracking is not that profitable at this trough in energy markets, so you're seeing less fracking and thus less env issues."
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9g181m | are all physical traits “inherited”, or are some of them random? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9g181m/eli5_are_all_physical_traits_inherited_or_are/ | {
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"Some of them are random - that’s actually how evolution works.\n\nThe way your body grows is defined in a set of rules stored in each cell, which is your DNA. When your body makes new cells (as you’re growing, or when you need to heal a wound), that DNA has to be copied to the new cell. Sometimes errors occur during this copying process, and these are known as ‘mutations’.\n\nSome mutations are good, such as an immunity to a deadly disease. Some mutations are bad, such as those which result in cancer.",
"When animals breed, they have mutations because the biological process is imperfect. Sometimes proteins get switched around or changed.\n\nIf those mutations (changes) don't kill anything, then they are passed down (maybe) to the next generation, in which case those changes become inherited, rather than an on-the-fly mutation.\n\nSome physical traits can occur in the womb during the gestation of the animal.\n\nbut in terms of evolution, mutations happen (imperfect system), and if there are beneficial mutations, say, a better immune system, they will be passed on and increased in frequency in the animal's population. Then they'll continue in the population to be inherited."
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1zw8uk | would an airplane be affected if it flew over land that was experiencing a massive earthquake (i.e. over 9.0)? | In other words, would the earthquake on the ground affect anything in the air that would affect anything in the sky? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zw8uk/eli5_would_an_airplane_be_affected_if_it_flew/ | {
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"Earthquakes in maritim regions can cause floods and Tsunamis, which in turn have a strong influence on local winds. Those can possibly influence airplanes close to the ground. I can't imagine an airplane being affected by earthquakes when it flies at its normal transition height of around 10-15 km and neither when its above large areas of solid grounds.\nEdit: If the earthquake comes with volcaninc eruptions, it's another story. But in that case, we have one cause (volcanic eruption) and independent consequences (1: earthquake, 2: a lot of air movement above the vulcan, 3: etc.)",
"Unless you were flying low, the only time an earthquake could effect an aircraft is if there was a volcanic eruption as ash would be able to reach the altitudes that an aircraft flies at.\n\nPlanes have been effected before by this, for example, British Airways Flight 9.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Speaking as a pilot, and I am, the simple answer is NO. As soon as the plane is off the ground, the ground can shake all it wants. The air will be not be affected by the ground enough to cause any issue with the plane. So far the answers have been over thinking the basic question."
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3am7sd | what is going on inside my phone that causes it to freeze? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3am7sd/eli5_what_is_going_on_inside_my_phone_that_causes/ | {
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"There are a lot of different things, but basically it's the same reason computers occasionally freeze - lack of system resources or a critical error in core code. Because we keep pushing technology forward towards more features and more power, we never have time to optimize code and operating systems to remove ALL of the bugs that are in them, for perfect reliability. Intermittent issues that can be solved with a reboot is a price that consumers have shown they're willing to pay, so companies have little to no incentive to perfect systems."
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3a0ruz | what happens in my brain when i get inspired? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3a0ruz/eli5what_happens_in_my_brain_when_i_get_inspired/ | {
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"i don't know for sure, but it would make sense to me (again no idea on the science), but synapses fire that trigger parts of the brain that release endorphins which make you feel good and happy about it. the more inspired, the more synapses fire the more endorphins released"
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5o5xj4 | why do domestic trailers have less material than international ones? why not just use the international trailer for foreign and domestic audiences, especially when youtube exists? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5o5xj4/eli5_why_do_domestic_trailers_have_less_material/ | {
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"Trailers are often made to appeal to a specific audience.\n\nFor the most part, trailers for western countries will all be the same, but you may see some difference in trailers for Japan and China, as those audience have different tastes for films and content then western audiences, and if the film contains asian actors, they would often be incorporated more into the trailers, while they may not be given any additional time in the western ones. \n\n Other than that, if you do see other differences in western countries, they will be very minor, and again, just made to appeal to the audience who its target at."
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7utstl | the new memo release and what it means | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7utstl/eli5_the_new_memo_release_and_what_it_means/ | {
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" > Is this release as bad as they say?\n\nWho is \"They\"?\n\n > What does it mean?\n\nIt means we know nothing we didn't already know. The FBI used in part, a democratic-funded dossier as evidence to obtain warrants to conduct surveillance against Carter Page. Related information much later was found to be false Republicans claim that the dossier was a central part of why they obtained a warrant and thus the FBI is allowing democrats to (extremely) indirectly fund surveillance against republicans. The FBI is claimng this memo willfully omits key facts - which could include anything up to and including numerous other facts they had that would have justified surveillance making the entire issue a moot point.\n\nFurthermore, almost everyone involved in approving said surveillance was appointed by Trump so the concept that this is a Democratic plot relies on this idea that there's secret sub-organizations within the FBI so powerful that they're more powerful than the director, deputy director, etc etc etc - all appointed by Trump.\n\nSo basically the memo says things we already knew for months, and means absolutely nothing in and of itself. "
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68wq28 | why dixon ticonderoga pencils can erase better than other pencils. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/68wq28/eli5_why_dixon_ticonderoga_pencils_can_erase/ | {
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"You kids should stop playing with rubbers.\n\nSerious answer, it has to do with the composition of the rubber. I've noticed that the rubber on those erasers rolls off it into little cylinders. This is important because it increases the surface area of the rubber. Imagine wiping up a desk with a Clorox wipe. You use one side until it's black. What do you do? You flip it over and use the other side! The rolling effect of the rubber flips the dirty side and the clean side, and because the rubber is strong enough to remain connected to itself, you can roll those little suckers around and wipe up your mistakes! \n\nOn other lower quality erasers, the rubber doesn't quite hold together and just kinda breaks apart and disintegrates(not a literal disintegration, but it gets the point across). Now you have all these tiny itsy bitsy chunks which in theory have more surface area than the cylinders from before because they can use their sides and front and back and top and bottom, whereas the cylinders can only use front and back. Buuuuut, because the chunks break apart and scatter (and because there is no compression force acting upon them) they don't do shit. They don't have the structural integrity to withstand the pressure you are applying to them, so they they turn into dust and make it even more difficult to erase things."
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1xoo6e | if humans are really that bad a multitasking, how can people sing and play an instrument at the same time? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xoo6e/eli5_if_humans_are_really_that_bad_a_multitasking/ | {
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"They're *good* at multitasking if the two tasks can be done with different parts of the brain.\n\nThis is why you can drive a car and carry on a conversation with ease, but you can't tap two different rhythms with your hands.",
"Because to an experienced musician, both singing and playing an instrument come so naturally that they require very little conscious thought - or sometimes, the conscious thought all goes into the singing, and playing the guitar or piano or whatever just happens automatically.\n\nA good analogy would be having a conversation while driving a car. If you've been driving for 10 years, it's easy to have a conversation with someone even as you change lanes, put on a turn signal, adjust your speed with traffic, and so on. If you've been a professional musician for years and that's included singing and playing an instrument, it's easy to sing while playing an instrument too.\n\nAlso, note that the singing and playing are both the same song, and they're very much related. The musician has to think about the part to sing and the parts to play, but they fit together.\n\nSinging one song while playing another would be *very very* hard. Maybe not impossible, but it'd require lots of practice and probably wouldn't be very good. That's the kind of thing that's meant when we say humans are bad at multitasking.\n"
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855tbh | why does gps need almanac data? | Been reading about GPS recently but this confused me a bit. Why isn’t time and ephemeris sufficient to triangulate position? Sure it gives the rough position of the satellites so that the GPS knows which signals to listen for, but can it not just listen for all satellites? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/855tbh/eli5_why_does_gps_need_almanac_data/ | {
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"It could, but that would mean a lot more processing. Almanac data is almost always available, so it is much more efficient to use that instead of listening to everything and then figuring things out from there.",
"You could listen for all the satellites at the same time, but it takes up a lot of signal processing power. GPS satellites transmit almanac data every 12 minutes so your GPS receiver knows which satellites to look for. In military applications it also makes it harder to spoof as military receivers can listen for an encrypted signal and will ignore signals from satellites that aren't supposed to be visible.",
"The problem with GPS signals is that they are extremely faint, and they are all transmitted on the exact same frequency using a \"spread spectrum\" approach. On top of that, the satellites are in orbit, so will have widely varying Doppler shifts affecting both the signal frequency and the code frequency/phase. The code sequence for each satellite is published in advance and built into the receiver firmware.\n\nYou cannot even detect a GPS signal unless you know the frequency, code and the code phase in advance. Once you know the frequency, code and code phase, you have to use a long (1 second+) averaging process to collect many signal samples and average them out to confirm a detection.\n\nIn practice, the code phase can't be known in advance. So you have to brute force search for the code phase. The problem is that each search requires a long averaging period. So, you really, really do not want to have to brute force search the frequency and code as well. So, having an almanac allowing rough calculation of which satellites are visible (and therefore which codes to check) and what their rough frequencies will be, can drastically reduce the search space. \n\nReceivers typically include a large number of signal search cores, so that the search can be done in parallel, but more processor cores increases cost and power consumption. However, these days, there is increasing demand for GPS receivers with very fast start and other features as a result, manufacturers are integrating huge numbers of search cores (multiple millions) which can complete a brute force search in about 30 seconds in good signal conditions, and 1-2 minutes in marginal signal conditions where longer averaging times are needed for confirmation.\n"
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2lv1n9 | why do screens use red/blue/green pixels but printers use red/blue/yellow ink? | i know that my computer screen makes the colour white by combining red, green and blue light. but in art (and my computer printer), the 3 primary colours are red, blue and yellow?
these two setups seem so similar, but with one obvious difference. what gives?
i do remember being told that this difference exists in high school physics, but not "why". if you can ELI5, i'll be happy and a fair bit impressed as well! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2lv1n9/eli5_why_do_screens_use_redbluegreen_pixels_but/ | {
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"Inks subtract color, screens add. Basic ink colors are cyan, yellow and magenta. So cyan is white minus red, but on a screen it's constructed as blue plus green. It works like this because white light goes through ink, so the color comes from what is subtracted. On a CRT or LED screen, a pixel is a tiny lamp of red, green or blue color, so the color comes from what is added to black (screen off). Also, pixels are monochromatic on LCD screens even though they absorb light.",
"The inks used in printers are cyan, magenta and yellow (and black), not red, blue and yellow. This is called a subtractive color model, because adding ink to the white paper subtracts some wavelengths of light. If you add all three colors, you get black (but in reality you get something brownish, which is why black ink is also used). \n\nThe monitor on the other hand, does use red, green and blue pixels. This is called an additive color model, because wavelengths of light is being added to the otherwise black screen. If you add all colors, you get white. \n\nIn art, the base colors taught are usually red, blue and yellow. Why this is I do not know, but if I were to speculate I would say that at least a part of the reason is that it's much easier to get kids to remember \"red\" and \"blue\" rather than \"cyan\" and \"magenta\". ",
"It's the difference between additive and subtractive primary colors. Pigments are \"subtractive\" because when you look at red paint, it reflects red light that is shined on it and absorbs all other colors, \"subtracting\" them. Light is \"additive\" because shining two different colors of light on a (white) surface adds them together and doesn't subtract any color.\n\nAlso, technically speaking the subtractive primary colors used in printers are CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black)",
"Printers don't actually use red/blue/yellow ink, but instead a mixture of four colours generally, you may have seen this written somewhere as CMYK, this just stands for cyan, magenta, yellow, and key (key being a fancy term for black, really a mixture of all of the others).\n\nBecause printers start with a white surface (something that gives off every colour of light) and cover up the white surface with certain pigments to create colour each pigment is actually subtracting from the origional 'full spectrum'. This is called \"subtractive colour model\". \n\nThese colours are approximated in art using similar colours, red being the substitute for magenta (a very bright pink colour, red is actually a mixture of almost equal parts magenta and yellow), blue being the substitute for cyan (a very blight almost baby blue colour, what we call blue or use as blue in art would really be a mixture of mostly cyan with some majenta in it) and yellow for yellow (again, the yellow used in art actually being a slightly more lustrous yellow than the somewhat pale looking yellow used in printing)\n\nWhen these colours are combined in different ratios they are able to remove certain wavelengths (subtracting them) until eventually with all of them being applied as thick as possible you would reach a theroetical 'key' (black) colour, this generally can't happen in a printer as they don't really apply a very thick amount so a key tone is added (black) to be used to 'darken' the image anywhere that needs to happen (somewhere that all three would be applied in equal amounts).\n\nFor example, to create a very pale red you would apply a fine amount of yellow and a fine amount of majenta, and this would subtract all of the colours other than the wavelengths between the yellow and magenta masks which would make the paper appear red. To darken it one could apply a mist of equal parts of each colour, or using black could simply apply a black mist and darken it much easier this way. \n\nScreens on the other hand are not natually white, they are black. They also use a combination of four colours really, the exact opposite of the colours used in subtractive model colour making. When equal parts of red, green and blue light are given off something will appear white. This is an additive colour model, the more wavelengths of light you want present the more colours of light you will turn on. The fourth colour is white, given off by your backlight, which is the opposite of key just to give you an idea of how the key would be used in subtractive printing. \n\nTherefore the one obvious difference is not so, in art the red and blue used are not perfect colours and limit the range that one can produce, but they are good approximations to create many colours and are often easier pigments to find and deal with at a more primary level. In reality there is a huge difference, they are totally opposite colours with the intention of completing totally opposite processes!",
"You've got a lot of great explanations here, but maybe this one will be a little simpler:\n\nFirst of all, when people told you in art class that the primary colors are red, blue and yellow... they lied. Sort of. Actually, those \"primary\" colors are magenta, cyan and yellow. Close enough for a beginner's art class to simplify as red blue and yellow, but not really true.\n\nWhy is this important? Because when you're talking about mixing pigments on paper or canvas in art, what's happening is you're mixing *reflected* light. Light bounces off the paint. Your TV is creating light-- it's not reflected, it's the actual light.\n\nThat's the easy answer, but here's a little more in-depth:\n\nOkay. So white light (not REFLECTED light, but the light itself) is made up of red, blue, and green. If you combine all three of those colors of light you get white light.\n\nBut what if you only combine two of them? Then you get another color-- Blue and red make magenta, blue and green make cyan, red and green make yellow.\n\nMagenta, cyan, yellow. Your \"reflective\" primaries.\n\nSo another way of looking at that is, say you take white light, and you subtract green. That means all you have is blue and red, which makes magenta.\n\nSo magenta is white light without the green in it.\n\nAnd when you paint on something, what happens is the white light hits the paper, hits the paint, and the paint soaks up the green light, leaving only magenta. That's why the reflective colors are different-- you have to take *away* light to make colors, since the light you're seeing is reflected off of something.\n\nWhereas with your computer screen, it's actually emitting the light itself, so it has to *add* the colors of light."
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c76vfq | why don’t we have fat and muscle surrounding our brains as an added protective layer over our skulls? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c76vfq/eli5_why_dont_we_have_fat_and_muscle_surrounding/ | {
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"Heat retention. The brain uses a large portion of our energy and the temperature range from normal to heat stroke is all of 3 degrees C. Also because of all of the blood vessels in the brain, a lot of the body's heat is pumped through your head.\n\nJust being hot makes you think slower and make more mistakes.",
"Muscle tissue has the sole purposes of enabling movement of the body and organs, fat tissue is mostly only for energy storage. So neither of those two tissues really qualify as a protective tissue and if we start thinking evolution it makes little sense for an individual to have increased reproduction rates because of two ridiculously energy cost intensive tissues around the skull which already protects the brain.\n\nTissues that are fit for acting as protective Barriers are bone, skin, and mucous membranes and those are already pretty solidly implemented into our heads at this point. Anything beyond that would probably just drive the cost-effect balance into negative and would decrease our fitness as individuals, thus leaving us more susceptible to natural selection which would lead to a relatively fast extinction of such a muscle-fat-head human.",
"We do, only the very top of the skull doesn't have skeletal muscle attached. There's a specialized type of skin called scalp that covers the skull, it's extra thick and tough for added protection. All skin has a layer of subcutaneous fat as well. Inside the skull there's several more layers of protection called the meninges, made up of three layers; the dura mater which it tough and thick, the arachnoid mater which is spongy and the pia mater which is thin and delicate. The brain itself also floats in a tub of liquid called cerebrospinal fluid that flows between the meninges and through the brain itself via a system of ventricles and canals, supporting it and further cushioning it."
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6fqv7v | how did fentanyl become part of the illegal drug trade and is it here to stay? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6fqv7v/eli5_how_did_fentanyl_become_part_of_the_illegal/ | {
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"Parmacist.\n\nEvery opioid has become apart of the illegal drug trade because they all cause euphoria when abused. Causing big issues. It's as unavoidable as gravity. But they're also irreplaceable in pain treatment. \n\nFentanyl in particular has several forms, like mucosal sticks and long-duration patches. No other drug has these formulas. Even if there were, patients routinely complain that only one type of thing alleviates their pain. So it's continues presence is also quite certain as it is a drug medicine needs.\n",
"It's synthetic and much more powerful than heroin, so it can be mass produced in labs at lower cost and marketed as a \"better\" high. It's also used to cut normal heroin. It's going to be a global problem for the foreseeable future. ",
"Fentanyl was completely uncontrolled in China until 2015, which meant that legitimate chemical companies were free to produce and sell it without restriction. That meant that a legitimate Chinese chemical plant could produce it and sell it to drug dealers in the US and, as far as the Chinese government was concerned, everything was completely legal. It also helps that Fentanyl is extremely cheap to produce - much more so than other opioids.\n\nIn 2015 China began regulating Fentanyl, but enforcement is fairly light. Basically, the Chinese government will only act when the US government complains about a specific supplier, and even then there usually isn't a punishment as long as the company stops producing Fentanyl for long enough.\n\nAnother factor is that ts possible to slightly alter the Fentanyl molecule so they you get something that is technically a different chemical, but which is so similar to Fentanyl that it behaves in the exact same manner and is just marketed as Fentanyl. The US considers those new chemicals to be \"analogues\" of Fentanyl and they are automatically treated identically to Fentanyl under US law.\n\nConversely, Chinese law treats analogues as being a completely new, and therefore unregulated chemical. China has been slowly banning Fentanyl analogues, but its a slow process that, again, only really starts occurring when the US begins complaining loudly enough.\n\nBecause of that, there is a large amount of cheap Chinese Fentanyl that is easily accessible to US dealers. "
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5dbpkh | why microwaves don't explode with the pressure of accumulated steam from food. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5dbpkh/eli5_why_microwaves_dont_explode_with_the/ | {
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"The microwave is actually not air tight. There are air vents on the microwave itself. I also believe that the door itself is also not air tight. Microwave energy is also not kept inside of the microwave completely, given why pregnant women should not stand by the microwave. ",
"It has air vents. Microwave energy is prevented from leaving the microwave due to a metal mesh that surrounds it. [This mesh is not airtight, and doesn't need to be](_URL_0_) to function properly. "
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284br3 | weed smokers of reddit: what is the advantage of smoking marijuana instead of making pot brownies? | I mean, smoking is pretty bad for your lungs, and stuff, and brownies taste great, so why smoke it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/284br3/eli5_weed_smokers_of_reddit_what_is_the_advantage/ | {
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"But once it does kick in... :o",
"And there's just something inexplicable about the vibe and mood of blazing a joint somewhere isolated in nature.",
"Smoking, you need a somewhat secluded or private area, where as the brownies, you can eat pretty much anywhere without others being alerted to it.",
"Some of us actually appreciate the bud. We smell it. We inspect it. We look at it with magnifying glasses. We taste it delicately. We compare it to others. We seek out specific strains and specific features. We celebrate specific growers. We take notes. Ok, some of us do. \n\nFor all the reasons that some people drink wine instead of jello shots, we like to smoke finely cured buds, instead of eating sugary shit brownies filled with leaves and shake.\n\nYou're not appreciating the buds if you're just grinding them up into cake batter to get fucked up. Any crappily-grown weed or improperly cured weed gets thrown into edibles. To get a truly good *smoking* weed, the process really has to be done right from start to finish. Learning to appreciate that, and all the steps involved, is a huge part of my enjoyment.\n\nAnd you don't need to \"smoke\" it. I use a vaporizer a lot of the time. It's instantaneous and basically harmless healthwise. You can taste all the subtle characteristics of what you're vaping. It's really easy to find your favorites using a vape.\n\nI still hit the bong quite a bit because goddamnit, that's the way I was raised and nobody will ever convince me to give it up!\n\nI think edibles and concentrates are a waste of time, money, and bud. They're jello shots.",
"If you've ever eaten a pot brownie, you'd know. A high from smoking is virtually instant (latency is usually no more than 15s if you inhaled enough), and it doesn't last too long (likely no more than 45-60min, usually much less). Meanwhile, a brownie has a much longer latency (could be 45min-1hour), and then the effects last much longer (could be several hours). This doesn't accommodate proper functioning in society, while smoking can be a break in the day or just a nice chill at night. \n\nOn a side note, vaping, while still with some negative effects, would be much safer than smoking because you're not burning the plant so you produce less toxic chemicals in the process. "
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9oqgb5 | - what is preventing the us government from making voting day a national holiday? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9oqgb5/eli5_what_is_preventing_the_us_government_from/ | {
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"The US has no legal holidays where all businesses are required to give all workers the day off, it's a capitalist country.\n\nThere are about 260 working days per year. Adding another federal holiday thus costs about 0.4% of productivity. While it's a small number, 0.4% of the US GDP is a really big amount of money. Spending that money on voting day isn't perceived as worth it.\n\nWhen you suggest switching another existing holiday for \"Voting Day\", you get a lot of pushback. If you pick a day like Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples Day that not everybody gets off, it costs a lot of money. If you pick a day most people get off, like Thanksgiving, then you get a whole new level of angry. "
]
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||
61s5oi | how are paintings restored? | How are famous paintings restored without the restorer actually putting paint onto the surface to fix cracks? How does the process work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/61s5oi/eli5how_are_paintings_restored/ | {
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"First they study the picture to see how the painting constructed. They use X-rays and ultra violet lights to see what paints and varnishes were used.and if any repairs have been done before. Also knowledge of the artists usual technique and of the time period are important.\n\nOnce they have this info they might put a new backing on the canvas to make it stronger. Then they use solvents and knives to gently clean away old varnish and previous restorations.\n\nThey do fill in the missing areas. But they use special compounds that can be easily removed in the future. As well as detailed records of the work that was done.\n\nThen they cover it with special non-yellowing varnish to keep it looking good. "
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aa0dob | how do game anti cheats, like battleye or gameguard work? | What I mean is - I know they can check the processes which are running and are associated to the game that you're playing, but how do they know that those processes are actually cheating tools? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aa0dob/eli5_how_do_game_anti_cheats_like_battleye_or/ | {
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"There are different flags that can be detected to assume someone is trying to tamper the game, such as debugging another process (the game in this case), accessing the memory mapped to that game, running the game in a virtualized environment, tampering the binary or assets and many more. \nAnti-cheat try to detect those abnormal behaviors targeting the game's process. ",
"They guess. \"We know about a cheat program, and it looks like *this*. You currently have something running that looks like it, so we're gonna assume you're cheating.\"",
"Different anti cheats employ different methods to combat cheating. Most of them keep these methods secret so that they can remain one step ahead of cheaters. Common methods include memory modification detection, the idea that when the cheat program modifies memory, some code will scan the binary (.text section) and find differences. This will flag the account for further investigation. Some anti cheats, however, use pattern detection. If someone with aimbot and esp is killing people through walls they can flag accounts and allow for further investigation. The goal of cheat makers is essentially to bypass these detection vectors and allow the cheater to continue cheating. Anti cheats have also gotten more complex over time because cheat makers have found more security holes in the OS and games in general. This led to Kernel level anti cheats which basically act like anti virus programs (have the same privilege level) and locate cheats that utilize better stealth. Even with these sophisticated anti cheats like BattleEye, cheaters can still remain safe for long periods of time due to how difficult detecting some cheats can be. To sum, the anti cheats basically scan memory for modifications, look for patterns both in the user and the program, or search through the PC for cheat related software that is present. "
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6vfq7h | how much of the "side effects" medicine talks about are actually side effects? | In every TV ad, I've heard side effects ranging from headaches, abdominal pain, coughing, sneezing, sweating, heart attacks, stroke, arrhythmia, some disorder, cardiac arrest, etc.
But how much is actually proven to be a side effect? Are all effects experienced during clinical trials listed as "side effects" because companies are too cheap to do extra testing?
Does that mean that heart attack could actually be a 10% occurrence and not a .01%? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6vfq7h/eli5_how_much_of_the_side_effects_medicine_talks/ | {
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" > But how much is actually proven to be a side effect? \n\nAll those are \"possible side effects\", meaning you *might* experience them. Drugs can be difficult to predict and just because someone experienced them in testing doesn't mean you will.\n\n > because companies are too cheap to do extra testing?\n\nExtra testing probably won't help. Suppose 5% of people who take the drug experience anal leakage while others don't. What will more testing reveal about that possible side effect?\n\n > Does that mean that heart attack could actually be a 10% occurrence and not a .01%?\n\nSuch a dangerous drug would never pass FDA approval."
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3fip1v | why when another person is picked up when they are conscious, they feel lighter than their actually weight, but if they are unconscious or like a rag doll they feel more like their true weight? | Just a thought going through my mind while at work... | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fip1v/eli5_why_when_another_person_is_picked_up_when/ | {
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"People who are concience are able to help you lift them, or shift their weight so it's less awkward to cary.",
"Think about it like trying to pick up a hundred pounds of sand. Consciousness is, metaphorically, sand bags. The contain the mass. A conscious person being carried has a desire to not be dropped, and so will assist the carrier by keeping his limbs tucked in, maybe even wrapping arms around the center mass of the carrier and alleviating pressure on the arms by putting more weight on the hips and legs. An unconscious person can't contain their body, their legs and arms will flop and they won't grab on for support, so it's like trying to lift a hundred pounds of sand using a large piece of tarp to carry it instead of a bag."
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80bpn2 | why does orange juice after brushing my teeth with mint tooth paste feel like the gods are punishing me? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/80bpn2/eli5_why_does_orange_juice_after_brushing_my/ | {
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"Orange juice is very sour and very sweet. Your tooth paste temporarily makes you unable to taste sweetness. Without the sweet there to balance it, the sourness of orange juice becomes kinda overwhelming. \n[A similar thing happens with the miracle berry, which blocks sour and salty tastes](_URL_0_)",
"To add on to the other answers, as a general rule, you’re not supposed to brush 30 minutes to an hour before or after eating or drinking. Admittedly far easier said than done. Perhaps it’s the god of oral hygiene who’s punishing us all.",
"It’s the Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS) in most toothpaste that causes this reaction. Find a toothpaste that is SLS-free and you can enjoy your orange juice without fear of punishment. "
]
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j3mnq | li5: cuban missle crisis, bay of pigs... | I wasn't around for these activities. Can someone help me become less herpderp about it?
What did the USA do, what did Cuba do, and how did it make everyone feel? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j3mnq/li5_cuban_missle_crisis_bay_of_pigs/ | {
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"Long ago, in 1823, President Monroe announced the Monroe Doctrine, which essentially said that the United States would view any attempts by European nations to colonize North American countries as threats to US national security. This is important.\n\n\nCuba used to be ruled by a US-friendly dictator named Fulgencio Batista. The US liked Batista, the communists in Cuba didn't like him. In 1959 there was a revolution in Cuba and the communists, led by Fidel Castro, took power. Now, the communists in the Soviet Union were generally big fans of any other nation becoming communist, so they immediately tried to become allies with Cuba. The United States was not happy about the Soviet Union getting an ally in their backyard, and remember the ancient Monroe Doctrine allowed them to say that the Soviet Union interfering in Cuba's affairs was a threat to the US. This made sufficiently flimsy justification for the US to attempt to remove Castro and reinstate Batista or another US-friendly ruler.\n\nIn 1961, Kennedy authorized the Bay of Pigs invasion. Essentially a bunch of exiled Cubans were trained by the CIA to invade Cuba. The plan hinged on the fact that the communist Cuban army would be weak, the Cuban resistance would want to lend their support to the exiles, and the Cuban people in general would be happy to help overthrow Castro. As you can guess, it backfired. The invasion failed in 3 days, and it was a big foreign policy disaster for Kennedy.\n\nThe Cuban Missile Crisis was basically the closest the world ever came to full-scale nuclear war. As I mentioned above, the USSR and Cuba were allies, and the USSR had started stockpiling missiles in Cuba that had the ability to strike most of the continental US. The US had a similar situation with their allies in Turkey allowing them to strike the USSR. In October, 1962, a US surveillance plane took photos of Soviet nuclear bases under construction in Cuba. This kicked off about two weeks of posturing and brinkmanship over the Cuban bases. Hawks in the US wanted Kennedy to invade Cuba, which would have essentially kicked off a nuclear war. Ultimately the crisis was settled by Kennedy and Khrushchev (then head of the USSR) agreeing to get rid of the bases in Turkey and Cuba."
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1m6g0q | how did cavemen maintain their teeth if they didn't have the proper knowledge and tools the same way we do in the modern world? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1m6g0q/eli5_how_did_cavemen_maintain_their_teeth_if_they/ | {
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"They did not. Many died of starvation because they could not eat. ",
"Did did not have any added sugar in their food, which made it much easier to maintain good teeth health.",
"As far as I can tell, most people who survived childhood lived fairly long lives, 40 years at least to a high of 70. This is only well sourced since well into modern men since there are few bodies to make generalizations on of cavemen.\n\nIt seems a study published this year in *Nature Genetics* done by University of Adelaide is frequently referenced as saying that Cavemen had a better set of bacteria to protect their teeth and postulates our diet favors less helpful micro-organisms. _URL_0_\n\nThe true answer to this at the moment seems to be: we don't know if cavemen cleaned their teeth or not, we don't know how often they kept all their teeth until death, and we don't know how often they died of dental problems.",
"They probably didn't.\n\nBut between not having refined grains and sugars, and having to gnaw at their food a lot more, they probably avoided a lot of the dental problems that face modern humans.",
"Dentist here. Cavemen did not have modern diets and had no refined sugar. Eating mostly meat and raw foods, cavities were not a problem, just like they aren't for most animals. Cavemen probably didn't snack too much, as there was not an abundance of food or resources. No snacking and no sugar so, for the most part, cavities were not a problem for cavemen. However fossil records have indicated almost universal periodontal disease in prehistoric man. Basically meaning they were losing bone around teeth from an infection in their gums."
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