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33snr3 | where does dust come from if a room has been closed off for an extended period of time? | I know there's naturally dust in the air and everything, but how does dust build a layer onto something like a desk if there's no airflow to that room to move dust around? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33snr3/eli5_eli5_where_does_dust_come_from_if_a_room_has/ | {
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"I read that at least 80 percent of all household dust is epidermal matter. Skin particles are always floating in the air and settling, regardless of airflow."
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1k3n3c | how do the various european football (soccer) leagues and championships differ and overlap? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1k3n3c/eli5_how_do_the_various_european_football_soccer/ | {
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"In club football, each country has its own national league. The season for these leagues runs from August to May. In addition, there are two European competitions for club teams, the Champions League and the second-tier Europa League. These competitions run at the same time as the regular season.\n\nQualification for the European competitions is determined by the teams' national league standings of the previous season. \n\nOnly the best teams qualify for the European competitions. How many teams from each national league qualify is determined by the overall historical strength of that league. For example, the first three finishers of the German Bundesliga season automatically qualify for the Champions League the following season. The fourth place finisher has to go through a play off to determine whether it will play in next season's Champions League or Europa League. The fifth and sixth finishers qualify for the next season's Europa League.\n\nIn addition, concurrently with the regular league and European competitions,each country normally runs a \"cup\" competition, which is an elimination tournament of all clubs from the various tiers (minor and major) of that country's football leagues. \n\nAs a result, top European football clubs usually compete in three competitions during the season: their national league, the Champions League or Europa League, and their national cup competitions. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n",
"This is for the top countries in UEFA:\n\nEngland:\nNational League: Premier League\nCup Tournament: FA Cup\nBabby Cup: League Cup\n\nSpain:\nNational League: La Liga\nCup Tournament: Copa Del Rey\n\nGermany:\nNational League: 1. Bundesliga\nCup Tournament: DFB Pokal\n\nItaly: \nNational League: Serie A\nCup Tournament: Coppa Italia\n\nFrance:\nNational League: Ligue 1\nCup Tournament: Coupe de France\n\nPortugal:\nNational League: Primeira Liga\nCup Tournament: Taça de Portugal\n\nassuming you are American: \n\nthe national leagues work just like the NFL, MLB, NBA, etc, with points being earned by wins, and loses getting no points. But remember that draws are allowed in the game, so a win gets 3 points, a draw 1 point, and 0 points for a loss. There are no playoffs in the leagues, so in the end, whoever has the most points wins the league, while the bottom three (or two) get relegated (kicked out) to a lower division while the top three teams of that division get promoted to the league the following season. This promotion and relegation system works throughout the football pyramid.\n\nThe cup tournaments involve a larger number of teams from all divisions and is a knockout tournament. In theory you can have an amateur team competing against a professional team if they get far enough into the tournament.\n\nThe Champions League is basically the play-offs, the top teams qualify to play in it and maybe become Champions of Europe. The official start of the tournament is during the Group Stages, which involves 8 groups of 4 teams each who play each other home and away, with the top 2 advancing to the knockout stages, the 3rd place teams go into the Europa League, and the bottom teams are eliminated.\n\nPrior to the Group Stages, a large number of teams attempt to reach the GS through the Qualifying Stages, knocking each other out until a small number of them reach the GS. Yearly, the countries national leagues' coefficients are determined based on European performance to help determine how many spaces are they allotted into the GS or any part of the tournament. So countries like England, Spain, and Germany, whose clubs (Manchester United, Chelsea, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern München, Borussia Dortmund, etc.) have done well in the competition are given more spots in the GS, which means that the top 3 teams in the national league enter the Champions League in the Group Stages, and don't have to enter in the Qualifying Rounds and risk getting knocked out early in the tournament. So as you go lower on the coefficient list, the less spots each national league is give in the GS and/or the teams enter earlier in the Qualifying Rounds and have to play more games only to enter the GS.\n\nThe Europa League is the second-tier European competition, with teams that usually beat the cup tournaments, or those that got a high enough position in the national league, but not high enough to go into the Champions League or with lower coefficients. \n\nAs for scheduling, the national leagues have their games usually on weekends, while cup tournaments are played during the week. The Champions League is played on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and the Europa League on Thursday. The more competitions a club is involved with, the more intense their schedule is, for example Chelsea FC played about 70 games last year due to them remaining in many competitions. Each competition has a different priority for every club, so you might see younger/inexperienced teams in cup tournaments, and the stronger teams in the national leagues and European competitions."
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1ntnjk | why...how this works?! | _URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ntnjk/eli5_whyhow_this_works/ | {
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"Thermal expansion... As the middle match heats up it expands, the inward force of the outer two matches causes the middle one to expand laterally and eventually become dislodged! :)",
"The heat causes the two vertical matches to expand, this applies pressure to the burning match sending it flying."
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4w848y | why does a sounded (voiced) yawn makes you feel better and more relieved than a silent yawn? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4w848y/eli5_why_does_a_sounded_voiced_yawn_makes_you/ | {
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"The voiced one results in a more rapid outflow of air, which makes the subsequent breath a bit deeper. I won't comment on any social side of it, since I think that's all conjecture."
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9avcwr | how did early scientists measure the wavelengths of the colours of light? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9avcwr/eli5_how_did_early_scientists_measure_the/ | {
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"The first experiments in this were done by a guy named Michaelson, who conducted them using a device he invented called a [Michaelson interferometer](_URL_0_).\n\nYou can think of the experiment using water waves as an example. The interferometer basically splits the light into two beams which travel down the arms and back, and then overlaps it again. You can make tiny adjustments to the length of one of the arms on it which means you can cause light to overlap at different points in its wave.\n\nUsing this, you can see how long the wavelength is, by measuring the distance between one perfect overlap and the next."
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2dands | why are humans always portrayed in sci fi as idiots whom the rest of the alien universe deem as fools and absolutely no threat. | Please explain this to me sci-fi buffs! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2dands/eli5_why_are_humans_always_portrayed_in_sci_fi_as/ | {
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"Only in the more realistic sci fi. Mainly because we are fools. Plenty of sci fi where this isn't the case. Star Trek leaps to mind first off.",
"Psychologically this is referred to as agenticity which is best summed up in this talk _URL_0_.",
"Not always the case:\n\nIn Avatar the humans are technologically superior and essentially take the role of the alien invaders in the film.\n\nIn Mass Effect the other races often view the humans as aggressive, militaristic, and overly expansionist.\n\nIn Star Wars the humans are the dominant (although not unified) political force in the galaxy, controlling a plurality of the habitable systems, often to the detriment of the indigenous species.\n\nMovies that do depict humans as backwards yokels are usually trying to make a point about our disregard for the environment or occasional militancy.",
"I think part of it is that it makes a nice story. You have a human character who is viewed as inferior, and who is always underestimated by more advanced species. They pick on them, or in some stories attack them, but through wit and bravery the human(s) manage to best the aliens they come into contact with, showing the true potential of humanity.\n\nReplace 'alien' with 'man' or 'older kids' and 'humanity' with 'girl' or 'rag-tag band of friends' and you get the premise of many popular shows and movies.\n\nPeople love underdog stories.",
"A big part of this, especially among writers of the early and mid 20th century, the big age of sci-fi was that the stories were not about science fiction, they were about humans.\n\nHumans and humanity at the time were viewed as flawed stupid things who will destroy themselves if they had a chance. The sci fi stories were a method of using this idea to give humans a challenge to overcome, to be a \"better\" humanity.\n\nThe story was never about those aliens and spaceships. It was about you and me. Those weren't aliens thinking we were dumb, it was the smart ones of us, knowing humanity was dumb, but seeing humanity overcome their ignorance and finally pose a threat.",
"You know what's really awesome, though? The universe is ONLY 13.7 billion years. Our sun may last another 5 billion years, but red dwarf stars are going to last for trillions of years! Dwarf stars are going to be dominating (as they do now) for hundreds of trillions of years! *WE* are the elder race!"
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8qnuyp | why are asian-americans treated better than other non-whites? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8qnuyp/eli5_why_are_asianamericans_treated_better_than/ | {
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"It all boils down to social dichotomy and stereotypes.\n\nA common stereotype for Asian Americans is that they're hardworking and incredibly focused. That's what white people think when they see an 10yo Asian kid playing a piano. When they see a child of color doing it, they assume that they were impoverished and they pity the kid instead of appreciating the work that was done.\n\nRacism is bad yall.",
"The biases, both conscious and unconscious are vastly different, and don't include fears of violence or criminality",
"Asians have a stereotype where people see us as nonthreatening and emasculated, so we are seen as less physically intimidating than others.\n\nThis stereotype is as harmful as any other though in different ways.",
"One stereotype against Asians in general is that they're weak, submissive, and won't talk back if someone tells them what to do.\n\nThis stereotype keeps them out of the eyes of law enforcement at large, but that's a strange thing for you to consider better.",
"I think a good way to have a discussion is not to look for ethnic attributes that explain why one group is treated worse or better than the other.\n\nThe real question you're asking is why the racism towards Afro-Americans appears to be so much worse and systemic than towards other groups. And to answer this question we have to consider the past and look at history, which will open further discussions on slavery and mass-incarceration and other important subjects - and will lead to the question why racism towards Afro-Americans is so intertwined with American culture itself. One hypothesis is that white people have economically benefited from exploiting Afro-American. Many people are not interested in losing their status and have created a system that tries to maintain this social hierarchy through racism. "
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3v7q9w | what's the difference between an osteopath and a regular doc? | I just know that most people go the regular doc route, what is an osteopath? What is osteopathic medicine in general? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3v7q9w/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_an_osteopath/ | {
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"From a local osteo:\n\n Osteopathy is a hands on approach to healthcare recognising the important link between the structures of your body & the way it works. Osteopathsfocus on how your skeleton, joints, muscles, nerves and circulation work together to improve your health & well-being.\n\nThey aren't GP's they are to my understanding higher up the food chain than a physio or chiro. \n",
"It depends *massively* on what country you're in.\n\nOsteopathy proper (also called \"osteopathic manual manipulation\") focuses on physically manipulating muscle tissue and bones to relieve health problems. It has some effectiveness against back pain, and hasn't been shown effective for almost anything else.\n\nIn most of the world, an osteopath pretty much just does that. In the US, things are different. A US doctor of osteopathic medicine (DO) goes to a school which trains them in manipulation, but *also* contains the full curriculum someone getting an MD has. US DOs can do every residency an MD can do, and are fully licensed to practice medicine (often by the same board that licenses MDs). MDs and DOs are virtually equivalent in terms of scope of practice, training, etc. In a number of foreign countries, while a local osteopath is not considered a physician at all, a US DO is considered a foreign-trained physician just like a US MD (not as many countries as accept a US MD, but a bunch of countries).\n\nIn the US, the main differences are cultural: DOs tend to take a more holistic approach rather than focusing on specific sicknesses or symptoms, and DOs are more likely to do primary care than to be specialists. DO school at least has the reputation of being less competitive than MD school."
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bjead6 | why does banging electronic devices such as calculators against the table revive dead batteries temporarily? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bjead6/eli5_why_does_banging_electronic_devices_such_as/ | {
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"It maybe the contacts touching the battery are loose or dirty rather than dead battery. Shaking it could make better connection",
"My analysis based on car batteries. When car batteries starts to wear down white stuff accumulate on the terminals which causes contact problems so you need to clean. It could also be the same to our little remote calculator battery. Little corrosion aka rust causes batteries to loose contact thus hitting makes batteries wriggle a little causing a few minutes of working time.",
"A battery works like this: during normal operation a reaction inside the battery removes electrons from one pole making this pole lacking electrons compared to the other. When the battery is connected to a circuit, these electrons will flow thru the circuit and end on the other pole. As the process repeats, the chemical reaction inside the battery creates a thin undesired oxide film around the poles that ends insulating these poles from the chemicals, stopping the process. At this point, the battery is dead, because the poles are insulated from the chemicals inside the battery (electrolyte) and the chemical process cannot continue. \n\nA rechargeable battery can be brought to life because the charger will force a reversed flow of electrons inside the battery and remove the insulation from the poles. Nope, the charger is not \"pumping\" electrons inside the battery, just removing the insulation from the poles, making them able to react with the electrolyte and making the battery work again.\n\nEven a rechargeable battery will be dead after a few cycles because a little bit of corrosion happens on the electrodes during normal operation and this corrosion will accumulate and ruin the electrodes themselves with time.\n\nI guess banging the batteries in a hard surface will physically remove part of the oxide film from the poles, making the electrodes able to get contact with the electrolyte again, reviving the battery for a while."
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3bhfmm | if republicans think the federal government should interfere less with people's lives, why do they push for federal laws outlawing abortion and gay marraige? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3bhfmm/eli5_if_republicans_think_the_federal_government/ | {
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"There's two spectrums, economic freedom, and social freedom. Economic freedom would be things like low regulation, low taxes and low social security. Social freedom would be things like freedom to travel, marry and consume drugs.\n\nMost countries have a democrat-like party which wants low economic freedom and high social freedom, and a republican-like party which wants high economic freedom and low social freedom. People with slightly differing beliefs about the two spectrums are forced to align with one of the major parties in order to have more than zero political power.\n\nThere isn't one specific republican ideology that everyone subscribes to, just that their position is closer to what they want in terms of the two freedom.\n\nSomething interesting about America is that it is extremely polarised (most probably because of the media's biases). People from both parties each think that the other is completely crazy and out of their minds. The other responses even highlight this.\n",
"As someone who supports the first one - the reason is because we believe that unborn children are also humans who have a right to live as much as others. Most people who have those beliefs would only support medical procedures that preserve or better life - not take it. So, that would include outlawing abortion (except when done to save a life) and euthanasia.\n\nEdit: I have answered OP's question but I am not interested in debating any of you. Sorry, but it always ends up in hostility and getting downvoted out of visibility anyway. If you honestly have some questions you want answered you may PM me and I'll do my best when I get home. ",
"They don't see abortion as women's rights. They see an unborn baby as a life with the same rights as a born baby. Since a woman can't kill her born baby, it follows she can't kill an unborn one. This is consistent with laws that enable one to be prosecuted for double homicide when a pregnant woman is killed. They believe life begins at conception and therefore that is when your rights begin. They view a fetus as a baby. So hopefully you can see why it's not an issue of freedom but of the basic civil right to life. Me personally I don't take the stance that a one month old fetus has the same entitlements as me, but I see the logic. Think of it like \"your right to swing your fist ends where my foetal nose begins.\"\n\nOn gay marriage, they don't see even *traditional* marriage as a *right* per se. Marriage as a government institution is a special legal status that states have created because they want to create tax incentives for couples to pair bond for life. We can remove that incentive if we want. A lot of Republicans think it should be left for the states to decide if they extend those benefits to more people, because it's always been something that the states have decided. This state's rights argument is different from slavery because those were basic civil right like voting or free speech and self-determination we fought for, but again marriage is instead a special status like an LLC. Republicans by and large think the traditional definition of an LLC is sufficient and/or none of the Federal government's businesses. Then again, some Republicans have political views that are driven by their religious beliefs or prejudices. There are lots of kinds of republicans. Now is when I should also add that a federal gay marriage ban is inexplicable, and that I doubt all but the most extreme Republicans would favor this, but I am not sure.",
"The short answer is, there is one ideology/political party that consistently believes that government should interfere less with peoples' lives. These are Libertarians. Among other parties, including Democrats and Republicans, there are factions with varying degrees of libertarianism. ",
"I'm not sure if there is ELI5 answer for this but here goes my effort.\nOn abortion, it has to do with when do you think life begins. If you think life begins at conception, then abortion is murder. On gay marriage, the push back comes from having the courts decide the issue rather than through legislation or a constitutional amendment. \n\n\n",
"I can understand the opposition to abortion (not that I agree with it at all). They feel the unborn is a \"person\" hence has rights in themselves. They tend to fuck it up entirely by massively judging kids born into poverty, failing to assist or support \"unwanted\" kids, or their odd issues with sex education and many other things but I suppose that is separate. If only it was a loving \"please, don't have an abortion - they are a human being! have the child and we will support you and take the child into a loving home instead!\" - they would get more support than threats of eternal damnation. \n\n\nWhat I will *never* understand is the opposition to gay marriage. What two consenting adults want to do, what legal arrangements they want to make, or announcement of their love, or *whatever* shouldn't be interfered with. Even if they disagree on a religious level. ",
"Both parties interfere with people's lives, and that's the core of every issue and debate ever had by anyone on either side of the political fence. ",
"It bothers me how pro choicers (which I am as well) find it so easy to bumpkinize and spit at the other side when it is so clearly a complicated issue. For instance, if a pre-term baby is born at 26 weeks and put into the incubator, if I as a physician were to pick up that baby and shake it, then I would go to jail. That baby has the same rights as you, nobody questions that. But, what if the mother decides to abort a 32 week, clearly viable baby, which she legally can as mental health concerns are often considered a \"health of the mother\" bypass for abortive procedures. These aren't easy questions. And, if you're not exactly cool with that baby being aborted, then you're not absolutely pro choice then are you.\n\nWelcome to the gray area where non-politicized adults live. Also, \"late term abortions are rare\" is an obvious dodge, as that's not the question. Are you \"pro choice\" in this particular case? And if so, is it without reservation? Also, after seeing a few abortions even those who are pro choice tend to scoff at the obvious simplification in our politics of the absurd.\n\n",
"Religious morality is political currency. They are using other people's hatred to fuel their political needs, mostly regarding taxes for their corporations. If they can fan the flames of those that hate the (flaming) gays, they can save money in taxes -- or even make more money in industries such as privatized prisons and the war on drugs.",
"Because they think the federal government should interfere less with their life, they don't care how much it interferes with the life of people who believe differently than themselves. ",
"Republicans are not libertarians. Libertarians truly want a federal government greatly reduced in size and scope. Republicans want a large, dominant military and want the government to legislate morality according to traditional Judeo-Christian values. Republicans are only interested in a small government insofar as it minimizes taxes and regulation on their business interests.",
"These aren't Republican beliefs, but wedge issues created by the media to polarize voters and distract us from the real issues. I'm a Republican and I don't hold the beliefs you've just written about",
"change the first part to a statement.\n\n\"republicans think the federal government should interfere less with republican lives.\"\n\nand your question is answered.",
"Most true Republicans dont want they government to interfere. They just want to be allowed to live their life with a if-your-choice-has-no-effect-on-me-then-why-should-I-care attitude. There are just some on the far right that feel they know better like those on the far left. We should limit government activity in our lifes. It is there to protect us from external threats and settle disputes between the states in its most basic form. ",
"Im glad you asked the question using the term \"Republican\" and not \"Conservative\". I am very conservative and am feel very far away from the Republican party. I want less government in my life, not more. ",
"You're confusing libertarians and Republicans. Republicans love big govt, especially when it comes to the military.",
"Because in all too many cases they want government to stay out of /their/ lives and control what they don't like or don't understand. \n\nBasically they DO want big government they just want the good people to be exempted from it. ",
"One needs to also keep in mind that while at the moment the republican party in the United States tends to go hand-in-hand with many religious ideals held by Christians, it wasn't always that way, and isn't that way for all Republicans. While many republicans lately find it their duty to legislate morality, many stick to the true beliefs in social liberties via states rights and deregulation by government.",
"Because they're pious hypocrites. They believe when their religious values are involved, that those should be the law of the land. Too many people don't understand/refuse to acknowledge that we live in a secular nation. ",
"Because they need your vote. The true power of the Republican party, i.e. the ones with all the money, could not care less about abortion or gay marriage. There are not enough white millionaires to win elections. Demographics are changing rapidly in this country, to the detriment of the Republican Party. They are not \"Big Tent.\" So how do they get votes? Single issue voters. Specifically white, southern, evangelical Christians that typically vote against their own economic self interest. It worked great when Reagan first hitched his wagon to the Moral Majority, but now, in today's world, it makes it harder for a Republican to take the White House, because they have to pander to this base to win the nomination. \n",
"Conservative Here:\n-I have been trying to point to my party the hypocritical attitude we have towards gay marriage. I believe government should stay out of marriage, that means not restricting people to the person they want to marry. \n\n-abortion? I think there should be a limit. Say 4 or 5 months. Unless there is an emergency",
"Remember, actions are louder than words. By the republican party's actions we can determine that the \"republicans want less government\" narrative is false. Republicans aee every bit as appt to raise and spend money, pass legislation based on special interests, hide pork barrel projects in legislation, and seem to be the biggest supporters of the data mining centers and the patriot act.\n\nConservatives want less government. Republicans aren't very conservative these days.\n\nWe have but one party. We have a big government party. The left wing of the big government party like to tax and spend on government projects, redistribution of wealth, and expansion of government. The right wing of that same party likes to tax and spend on military, government projects, and the wealthy. \n\nBoth parties are for expanding the role of government, whether or not they expressly say it. This is the reason I donate to my local libertarian party. ",
"Answers to this question that attempt to reconcile the competing concerns via moral rationalisation are basically just attempts to retcon a position that is actually based on democratic practicalities.\n\nThe Republicans need to put together a voter base that is inherently contradictory. The powerbase of the Republicans are the rich. However, rich people are just too small a proportion of the population to be able to win office in a democracy if their policies go no further than appealing to rich people. So they have to broaden their appeal by adopting policies that will attract a broader selection of voters. \n\nThe rich can't attract the masses by adopting left wing economic policies since that would defeat their core goals. Consequently the uneasy alliance that has formed is between the rich, the rednecks and the religious. The rich themselves are very often unreligious and libertarian. The rednecks are often hurt by the economic policies of the wealthy. The rich put up with policies that appeal to rednecks and the religious despite many of them finding those policies somewhat repugnant, as a small price to pay for getting the votes they need. And the rich spend a lot of time convincing the rednecks that their economic policies will help them, despite all actual serious economic thought suggesting the opposite. \n\n\"Republicans\" don't exist as a unitary body. There would be plenty of people who would call themselves Republicans who genuinely think the government should interfere less in people's lives and who would be all in favour of abortion and marriage being available to anyone who wants it. There are others who would call themselves Republican and be dead against both of those things. They put up with one another in order to be part of a coalition that can get the votes they need for power.\n\nAll the arguments that one can come up with to reconcile (say) the illegality of abortion and libertarian ideals could just as easily be argued the other way *if the political reality required Republicans to do so*.",
"Honestly, its seems to be more of an issue for Republicans who have a religious stake of some sort that clouds their politics. Remember a huge chunk of this group is the Christian right. I used to identify as conservative, despite being pro choice and supportive of gay marriage. Members of the party I ran into opposition with would almost invariably bring up religious arguments. I found that I'm much more happier identifying as a Libertarian, as it represents my \"less government regulation over ever tiny little detail of fucking life\" stance far better",
"Because they can pretend they're in favour of freedom with some messed up rhetoric, when they're really just against basic human rights, including marriage equality and access to basic health care. There aren't many good slogans that include \"against basic human rights\". \"Freedom\" and \"smaller government\" sound better. ",
"There are two main types of conservatives in the US. Socially conservative (who I would refer to as 'traditionalists', they just want things to be like they were) or Fiscally Conservative, who just don't want the government to spend a lot of money doing things that they think could be done by the state, county or local government... or just by private citizens.",
"Most Republicans subscribe to the *conservative* ideology which holds that social institutions should be maintained or conserved. Marriage is a social institution that has, throughout time, been defined as being between a man and a women. Being conservative, Republicans want to keep things that way. \n\nOn the flip side, you can ask \"If Democrats believe in bigger government, why do they want the government out of the bedroom?\" It's because they generally subscribe to a *liberal* ideology which focuses on rights related to the freedom *of* X or the freedom *from* Y. In the case of things like Healthcare Reform or Social Security, the reason why Democrats push for these policies is tied to their liberalism. They believe individuals should have the freedom *from* worrying about getting sick and going into debt or the freedom *from* worrying about retirement when an individual gets older. Safety nets, in other words, provide security for individuals so they live their lives more freely. ",
"Be careful speaking in broad strokes about \"Republicans.\" One of the biggest impediments to our government actually doing anything is the \"us vs them\" mentality regarding US politics.\n\nIn my opinion it would be more accurate to say \"social conservatives usually push for federal laws outlawing abortion and gay marriage.\" and \"most social conservatives are Republicans.\" But see people like Bush 41 and Dick Cheney who are prominent republicans who have come out in support of same-sex marriage. Scott Walker is another prominent Republican who is pro-choice. Meghan McCain is a popular GOP talking head who has said that her biggest frustration with the party is their obsession with a woman's body and what she does with it. \n\nSo, while it is safe to say that most people you see opposing abortion and gay marriage are Republican, and probably safe to say that MOST Republicans are on the record as supporting those positions, it's not fair to say that all Republicans push for them.",
"Because the Republican party is an ALLIANCE between different groups that have different agendas. It is not a uniform platform.\n\nIt's basically an amalgam of: social conservatives (anti-gay marriage), fiscal conservatives (small gov't, pro business), and neoconservatives (war for oil, interventionism).\n\nThese three platforms are independent of each other.",
"Both parties want intrusive government. The Republicans want to allow you to have more economic \"freedom\", but want to control you via \"morality\" laws. The Democrats will let you live your life how you want, but want to control your checkbook more tightly. ",
"Because they don't really believe in small government, just just pretend to for political dialogue. They're just as pro-big government as the Democrats. ",
"They don't. They ask for greater states rights and hope that States can make their own decisions.\n\nThat's the whole point of what happened last week. ",
"I think the most important thing to recognize here is that the two political parties are not in any way necessarily internally consistent.\nThe Republican party has a number of different constituencies. There evangelical christian right portion of the party thinks that issues like enshrining the parts of Leviticus that they care about into law are very important... and they are only grouped with the monied interests and libertarians who are very much interested in less government because it means less taxes and regulations.\nIt's a coalition of sorts, which has further ingrained itself by the very us vs. them mindset in politics.",
"Short version:\n1. they see the fetus as a full human, which, even though I don't completely agree, I think it's a legitimate point of view and I understand their position. since the fetus-human cannot speak for him/herself, they feel (or say the feel) obligated to speak for it\n2. why are they against gay marriage? it totally beats the hell out of me. i cannot understand this one at all. ",
"For the simple fact that they want the Government to back off where it doesn't impede on their beliefs; but when it comes to stuff that interferes with their beliefs they expect the government to do it's job. It's like someone saying, \"Fuck the police.\" And then expecting the police to intervene when they are put in danger.",
"They only want the federal government to interfere less with the issues they want to be left alone with, the issues they stand for and which benefit their agenda (taxes, guns, corporate regulations, environmental regulations, the \"freedom\" to discriminate, etc), but they love having the government interfere on issues which they oppose (drugs, same-sex marriage, abortion, immigration, etc)! It's called hypocrisy.",
"Putting abortion on the same plain as gay marriage is a tremendous misnomer since one is a debate about the fundamental right to life and the other is just \"I don't like it, its icky\". That said people are only ideologically consistent to the point that it reinforces their world view. There is no legal logic to the opposition of gay marriage as nothing written in our laws that forbids it. But do not delude yourself into believing this is a Republican phenomenon. Liberals are largely only for free speech and tolerance so long as it fits their worldview as well. Once it doesn't they look to the government and courts to shutdown whatever it is that offends them. \n\n\nPoint being, no matter what side of the proverbial aisle you look on the lunatics are running the asylum. Don't let yourself get sucked into partisan bullshit and one side is evil, one side is good circle jerking.",
"this is one of the inconsistency i have with the right wings position on abortion. \n\nLet me start by saying im a Democratic Socialist. \n\nI don't understand the position of \"we don't want people to have abortions, but we don't want to teach people about sex or offer birth control in any form so that abortion isn't needed\". And then they go even farther and cut foodstamps and headstart and welfare that effects these kids they want to force people to have.\n\n\nIF they wake up and say sure we will Condoms and birth control, we will allow full on sex ed in schools and we will give out prenatal care,headstart, foodstamps etc.. i would have no problem setting 20 week limits and other things. But they just won't go at it in a logical manner. \n\nThey seem to think that just saying don't have sex is going to stop teenagers from having sex and its simply not true. \n\n\n\n\n",
"states rights to choose their own laws that are not in the constitutions. its the 14th ammendment. they comepletly bypassed it. thats the only reason i care.",
"I think the abortion thing has more to do with the question of when life begins. If you believe it starts at conception, than abortion is murder ",
"Republicans feel it is the government's duty to morally interfere with people's lives. Costs be damned. Remember the original reasoning behind the passing of a lot of laws (especially bad ones) were done for moral reasons. Prohibition was a moral crusade. They have sighted health reasons to justify prohibition but it was not the pressing reason for why they wanted prohibition. The history of the war on pot has been a moral crusade. The PMRC senate hearings was a war of morality against what law makers considered to be the corrupting influence of pop, hip hop, and heavy metal music.\n\nCutting spending appealls to voters. But another thing that appealls to the voter base is spending money to cram the entire goverment, a federally funded Christian religious council, and entire fucking fire brigade into the bedrooms of America to preach to people who to fuck and how to fuck them.",
"I think the reality is that people choose principles that tend support their pre-existing values and beliefs, and this makes them hypocritical sometimes. The applies to both sides - Republicans and Democrats. \n\nPeople tend to appeal to a higher principle such as \"No government interference with people's lives\" when such a principle happens to support their pre-existing personal values and beliefs. (e.g. no gun control)\nHowever, sometimes these same principles undermine other personal beliefs, so we choose to ignore them in those cases. (.e.g. Gay marriage) Both sides do it.\n\nPeople have the beliefs and values that they have and they seek to justify it externally using higher principles. But the reality it that no person is consistent across any higher principle, and these principles sometimes support your personal values, and sometimes undermine them.",
"Many republicans believe that government shouldn't get involved in the economy. They believe in a small government, not a large one. This means the government still should play a role in daily life - keeping people safe and protecting the laws of commerce.",
"The goal of all political parties is to win elections. That's it. Forget ideology, religion, etc. bottom line is they have to win elections. If they don't win, they are irrelevant and die.\nA political party is a way for people to filter the noise to help them make a voting decision, not a comprehensive, unified, grand theory of society. Political partisans may think it is, but they are very small minority in any party.\n\nThe vast majority of people are not very serious about politics, and don't hold strong ideological positions. Most people don't care at all about politics, but have an issue they care slightly more about than others (which means they care slightly more than \"not caring at all\"). Parties try to figure out those issues are what issues are to discrete groups of people and pander accordingly.\n\nPeople also don't pay attention to things that they don't care about. The prolife voter, for example, most likely don't concern themself with economic policy or any other non-abortion issue. People self-select information and media based on thier preferences, and tend to censor irrelevant or contradictory messages from themselves.\n\nTaken together, parties can sayione thing to a group and other things to a different group that contradict without electoral penalty. Contradictions are ignored in the voting booth because most voters don't care or don't know.\n\nSo back to OP's question: Republicans think some voters think it's ok to restrict rights on some things and not on others, and they speculate they can win doing so. It's all about votes.",
"Libertarians are against government power. Republicans are not libertarians, they're authoritarian theocracy lite. Republicans and libertarians are natural allies in the states because they both want to take away government's power for the benefit of businesses. Republicans are more than happy to wave the banner of the far more popular libertarians, then when elected turn around and ban abortions, ramp up the drug war, ramp up the actual war, crack down on press freedom, increase the prison population, enforce strict immigration policy, and impose religious views on social issues.\n\nLying on television is completely legal here, my advice is that you completely ignore what politicians say and only look at what they've done and who's paying them. I'm not saying you'll find good choices, but this way you know what you're getting.",
"Tldr; There are different kinds of Republicans. \n \nAbout 35 years ago, many Christians felt that they were being ignored by both parties. So, they got organized and took over many local chapters of the Republican Party. In order to keep the party functioning, and still win elections, some of those Christian ideas became accepted and part of the larger party. The Christians are very active and use their time and numbers to keep control of the local chapters. The two most important issues to those voters are abortion and gay marriage. Those voters don't care about reducing the size of federal government. However, lower taxes and smaller government is okay if it means they can get attention for their other ideas. \n \nBefore this group of Christians moved in to the Republican Party, they were mostly Democrats. They believe in using government and laws to force their ideas on others, including most plans to take money from the rich and give it to the poor. \n \nOf course, this is just typical of the larger groups of voters. There are people that agree and disagree with both sides but still call themselves Republican for other reasons. ",
"I consider myself a conservative republican. Do I agree with homosexuality? No... I'm bias because I'm straight, but If two individuals want to legally join themselves for the sake of love and happiness then I see no reason to deny them that. Especially because there is no resulting victim. This will only lead to more adoptions therefore benefitting the lives of others. Do what you want. The majority of us don't want to hear anymore about it. "
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68r6xj | why are pistol bullets usually wider than rifle bullets? | A smaller Pistol caliber is 9mm.
While a larger size rifle caliber is only 7.62mm.
Why is that?
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/68r6xj/eli5_why_are_pistol_bullets_usually_wider_than/ | {
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"With a rifle's intended long range, bullet speed is important -- and a heavy but slow-moving bullet may not reach its distant target. So they use a moderate-weight bullet with a relatively large explosive charge. Rifles using a large bullet, then, require a *very* large explosive charge, making them harder to handle and heavier.\n\nAlso, pistols don't have a lot of length in the chamber simply because they are compact, so a wider rather than longer bullet is the way to add mass.",
"Bullets have both length and width that contribute to their volume, and therefore weight and power. In a rifle, the magazine can generally be whatever dimensions are convenient for the designer to make them. For a handgun however, the magazine goes inside the grip, and so must fit within a human hand. This restricts the forward-to-back dimension of the cartridge so that pistol bullets need to be short and stubbier than rifle bullets to fit. In order for the bullets to stay big, they just make them wider to compensate.\n\nOn another point, because the case, and therefore powder volume of a rifle is so much larger, rifle bullets tend to go close to 3x as fast as a handgun bullet. Even so, at the extreme ranges that a rifle is used, the bullets can fall over 3 feet, making it important to keep that velocity up. Lower bullet mass and narrower bullets help with that. Since a handgun is so much more difficult to shoot accurately, its not really important that it's terribly effective past a few tens of meters.\n\nThirdly, since the bullets move slower, (this is a little controversial) it has fewer mechanisms for wounding. Rifle bullets will send a shockwave through flesh, damaging organs even far away from the wound channel. Handgun bullets are slow enough that they don't really do that. In order for an organ to get damaged by a handgun bullet, the bullet has to actually pass through it. Making the bullet wider increases this chance.\n\nTL;DR Handgun bullets need to be short to fit in the grip, they are slow because they don't need range, and they are wide so that they still have adequate wounding potential at low energy."
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9gi13p | how do people die in hurricanes when they are announced a week before? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9gi13p/eli5_how_do_people_die_in_hurricanes_when_they/ | {
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"Most that stay just can't fathom having their houses destroyed that they spend so many years living in.\n\nSecond to that is probably people who literally can't leave because of economic reasons. Like living paycheck to paycheck, they see it as worth it to work every day leading up to it, then take shelter.\n\nLast is most likely homeless and the mentally ill that make up this group of people.",
"1. Stupidity/overconfidence.\n\n2. Poverty. Can't get away if you have no means to do so or no money to survive with when you get there. This was a major part of why Katrina had such bad effects on New Orleans.\n\n3. Nowhere *to* go. It's relatively easy to get to somewhere safe in the USA by driving your car or taking a bus. Not so if you're on an island like Puerto Rico or the Caribbean nations. This connects up with 2.\n\n4. Forecast errors - \"We thought the hurricane would hit *here*, but it actually hit *over there*\" or \"We thought it would be a pretty weak storm, but it suddenly became a lot stronger just before it hit\". Forecasting has gotten far better thanks to modern satellite imagining and computer modelling, but it still isn't anywhere near perfect and changes can catch people unaware and unprepared.\n\n5. People mostly don't die *during* the hurricane, but afterwards while cleaning up and repairing. Chainsaws (largely being used by people not experienced in their use), improper generator usage, and other work in generally unsafe conditions rack up the death toll. Plus disruptions in availability of food, clean water, electricity, communications. medications, general medical care (conditions (e.g. heart attacks) that would ordinarily be survivable aren't due to shortages of resources), etc. adds to it.",
"I'll add that in the past many shelters didn't allow pets so many people weren't willing to leave their pets alone. Me personally if the shelter I'm going to doesn't allow pets I'll just keep going till I find one that does. And if it comes to it I'll just live out of my car before I leave my pets behind to fend for themselves. It seems now many more shelters allow pets because it encourages more people to evacuate."
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8vakyg | what’s the difference between shalt and shall? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8vakyg/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_shalt_and_shall/ | {
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"shalt is 2nd person singular of shall, and as you might know, we usually speak in 1st person or 3rd person, so its just quite uncommon to use shalt, while shall is more common"
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8ijnb8 | why do life endangering jobs pay less? | Is there a reason for that? Do you know any countries that pay firemen very well? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ijnb8/eli5_why_do_life_endangering_jobs_pay_less/ | {
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"It’s because while those jobs are dangerous, there’s just no shortage of people who are capable of doing it. That’s what pay is really about — scarcity of labor. \n\nIf you have millions of people who can do the job (or can be trained quickly to do it) then they aren’t going to get paid top dollar. ",
" > Why do life endangering jobs pay less?\n\nIt's not that life-threatening jobs pay less. It's that many/most life-threatening jobs require less education, and can be performed by a larger segment of the population with less training than is required for many safer jobs.\n\nYou mentioned firemen. You don't need a college degree to become a fireman. You don't need mastery of some type of hard-to-understand technology. Pretty much anyone can do it with a bit of training and a willingness to work hard. Thus the pay is less, because the available pool of potential workers is larger.\n\nThe same applies to non-life-threatening manual labor. Jobs like janitor, store clerk, valet, restaurant wait staff, etc. all have relatively low pay because pretty much anyone can do it.",
"They often do pay quite a bit. However aside from the danger there is not a high level of skill and training involved. Pay is generally more related to the level of training and experience needed.\n\n\\-Commercial fishing often pays quite well, if the job pays a share of the catch. This is definitely a question of, who do you know, and how willing to actually do the job. Some fishing jobs can be lucrative, others are fish guts, so to speak.\n\n\\-Logging does not pay well, but you don't even need a high school diploma, just about a year of on\\-the\\-job training. Also, most people don't hold out for a long career in the business. It's a young person's trade.\n\n\\-Commercial diving pays extremely well, due to needing quite a lot of professional qualifications \\(if you also have certifications for underwater welding you can earn more than a specialist doctor.\\) Most people also don't do this long term. This is not just because of the danger, but because it can be frigid and downright unpleasant. \n\n\\-While flying large commercial airliners is a pretty safe occupation, flying smaller aircraft is one of the most dangerous jobs. However it pays very well, largely due to the high level of training needed.\n\n\\-Most construction type jobs rank high on the list of statistical danger, the pay for construction is highly variable. It can be great for line managers and experienced tradesmen, for low\\-skill jobs like painting it tends to be crap. \n\n*Side note: Surprisingly, the biggest source of major injuries and deaths for construction is traffic accidents while driving to the job site in a company vehicle.*\n\n*This is a trick of statistical reporting. Accidents while driving to work in the morning before you're on the clock doesn't count as an on\\-the\\-job injury/death. Otherwise, you would find that the rate on\\-the\\-job injuries and deaths would correlate nicely with the amount of commute time.* ",
"You aren't paid for effort or danger, you are paid for high the demand for the job is, and how scarce the supply of labor is.\n\nFirefighting is a job most able-bodied young adults can without a lot of previous training, largely because it has so much downtime, on the job training is more feasible than with other jobs. Nor is it a big growth job, you don't see the numbers needed double in a short time, as compared to say, solar panel installation or wind turbine maintenance. Finally, it is usually a government job, which means decent pensions that keep people around longer. Large supply + low demand = less turnover.\n\nThat said, all things being equal, you will get paid for a more dangerous job. Or a better way of saying that is danger will reduce supply and raise salaries. You will make more as a civilian truck driver for the US military in Afghanistan than in Montana."
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37c29y | why do most laptops still have a 1366x768 screen resolution while most smartphones are already at 1920x1080 and up? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37c29y/eli5_why_do_most_laptops_still_have_a_1366x768/ | {
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"Because buyers pay the cost of a laptop in one go (high resolution laptop screens are available but more expensive) while most buy their phones in a nebulous mix of phone and service whose price doesn't change dramatically if they buy a cheaper phone (so there's a strong incentive to buy the best phone possible). ",
"Resolution is also about viewing distance. You can get away with a lower resolution display if you are sitting further away. However, when trying to make out text on a small 5\" screen 1 foot from your face it helps to have a higher res screen. A lower resolution on a larger display that you sit 2 feet from is more acceptable than a low resolution on a smaller display you hold closer to your eyes.\n\nA lot of it now is also marketing and becoming overkill, but it is more helpful to have a higher resolution display on a cell phone than on a laptop. You don't really need to not see a pixel on your phone, but that was the reasoning between the resolution wars on smartphones. There never was a resolution war on laptops."
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3383v6 | if i get 6 hours of sleep on friday, i'm not tired saturday morning. if i get 6 hours of sleep monday, i'm exhausted tuesday. why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3383v6/eli5_if_i_get_6_hours_of_sleep_on_friday_im_not/ | {
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"You wake up tired on weekdays because having to head to work will drain the soul out of most people.\n\nThis energy isn't lost, however, because physics teaches us that energy can neither be created nor destroyed.\n\nInstead it's stored in the ether and is released by sheer pressure every weekend (or every holiday or every time one decides to just skip work because damn, that shit is tiring)."
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21ihc4 | what separates me from a pro fisherman? | Obviously there will be some know how and experience on the pro fisherman's side, but would I be just as good if I went out and bought a bunch of higher end fishing gear and used it to fish? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21ihc4/eli5_what_separates_me_from_a_pro_fisherman/ | {
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"There's a lot of knowledge associated with finding and attracting fish. Knowing where fish are likely to be at a given time of day, how to read underwater structures with depth finders, prep work at the lake beforehand, etc. It's pretty similar to \"if I buy expensive golf clubs would I be a pro golfer?\" or \"If I had a really fast car would I be a nascar driver?\"\n\nThat doesn't even go into them being very skilled at casting. The best pro fishers can consistently hit a small target over and over using a variety of casting methods. You or I could maybe land a cast 20 yards away to within a few feet, the best buys can hit the same spot over and over to within a few inches."
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anth7n | why aren't there more tidal power stations | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/anth7n/eli5_why_arent_there_more_tidal_power_stations/ | {
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" > tidal energy has traditionally suffered from relatively high cost and limited availability of sites with sufficiently high tidal ranges or flow velocities, thus constricting its total availability.\n\n[_URL_1_](_URL_0_)",
"Salt water is really damaging to mechanical equipment meaning short lives and lots of wear and tear.\n\nWe haven’t done enough studies to show that tidal generation is not harmful to the ecosystem we put it in.\n\nIn order to successfully capture enough tidal power to get the system to pay for itself the water must be focused through the generation point which usually means limiting what vessels can use that area. Most of the best locations are ends of rivers and sounds that are more densely populated with both human and animal activity."
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coveko | why does a single proton change everything about an element and it’s properties? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/coveko/eli5_why_does_a_single_proton_change_everything/ | {
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"It's more to do with the extra electron that comes with it. \n\nElectrons are where the majority of the chemistry happens as they're responsible for the various kinds of atomic bonds that can be formed.",
"Protons are positively charged, and hence attract electrons. Add more protons and you add more possible arrangements of how different numbers of electrons can arrange themselves. \n\n\nThere's more to it than that, but this about covers the ELI5.",
"Like a domino piece or a jigsaw piece, a small change in one part means it fits differently with other parts. When you chain many pieces together, this difference becomes more evident than when you look at a single piece by itself.",
"For ELI5 purposes, you can think of an atom as being made up of three parts:\n\n* Protons, which have a positive charge and have a relative mass of 1.\n\n* Neutrons, which have no charge and have a relative mass of 1.\n\n* Electrons, which are negatively charged and have a relative mass of basically zero. (It's actually 1/1836, but for our purposes we can say it's negligible.)\n\nThe protons and the neutrons chill out together not really doing much in the centre of the atom -- what we call the nucleus -- and the electrons exist in variously shaped clouds floating around the nucleus. You can think of them as buckets, if that helps; more electrons will always, *always* fill up these buckets in a particular order, which give them predictable properties. (We call these buckets 'orbitals'.)\n\nSo, how do you put together an atom? Well, the golden rule is that for it to be an atom, it has to have a neutral charge. Given that there are only three particles to choose from, and only two of them have a charge -- +1 for every proton, and -1 for every electron -- that means you have to have the same number of protons and electrons. Stick an electron to a proton, and you have an atom of [hydrogen](_URL_2_). (You might remember [Doctor Manhattan](_URL_0_) in *Watchmen* burning [a symbol](_URL_3_) onto his forehead; that's a representation of a hydrogen atom, with the proton at the center and one electron at the outside.) Adding a new proton, then, means that you have to add a new electron to keep things balanced -- and that's why elements act differently.\n\nRemember earlier, when I said that electrons fill up those orbitals in a particular order? Well, only the ones on the very outside can interact with other atoms. (It's not exactly a *correct* model, but for ELI5 purposes you can think of these as being like the layers of an onion; that's how they're often taught, especially at lower levels. We're only really interested in what the outer layer is doing at any given time.) When it comes to reacting with other elements, each layer of an atom has a specific number of electrons that it wants to have in it -- two electrons in Layer 1, closest to the nucleus, and eight electrons for every subsequent layer. We call the number of electrons in this outer shell the *valence* of the atom. (It's *slightly* more complicated than this, but for the most part it holds up.) When these electron shells are full, the element is very unreactive.\n\nBut that's OK! Atoms are perfectly happy to share electrons in order to get these shells full. Think back to the [symbol for hydrogen from earlier](_URL_3_). You have one electron in a shell that really wants two, and so two hydrogen atoms come together to make one molecule of hydrogen, sharing their electrons so [they both have two in their outer shell](_URL_10_). This is called a *covalent bond*. When you talk about a chemical bond, you're *usually* talking about this.\n\nWhen a chemical reaction takes place, it does so by breaking and forming these bonds. Everything from using the energy in the food you eat, to breathing, to [dropping alkali metals in water](_URL_9_), to [thermite](_URL_6_)... it all depends on how many (and which type) of these bonds form, which is directly related to how many electrons you have -- which is, as we've seen, directly related to how many protons you have. (Sidenote: you'll sometimes hear about the 'noble gases' -- helium, argon, neon and so forth -- and how they don't react; that's why they're called the *noble* gases, after all. The reason for this is that their outer electron shells are full, so they can happily exist on their own without any interaction with other elements. It's for this reason that argon is used in welding, because the high temperatures involved would make the metal you're welding react with other gases, such as the oxygen in the air, which you *do not want*.)\n\nThe number of electrons in an outer shell can also change the *shape* of the molecule. It's easy to think about electrons orbiting the nucleus in rings, like a solar system where [everything is on a flat plane and the nucleus is the sun in the centre](_URL_5_), but that's not how it is; atoms exist in 3D space, with the electrons buzzing around in [weird shapes](_URL_11_). It's because of these shapes -- and the negative charge of these electrons pushing atoms out of the way, that molecules have the shape they do. [Ammonia](_URL_1_), for example, is a [pyramid shape](_URL_7_); water isn't a straight line, but has [a little kink in it](_URL_4_). This is *also* very important, because it means that the charge isn't equally distributed all around the molecule. (In the case of water, even though there's a net neutral charge, the mass of the oxygen and the positive charge of its eight protons pulls the electrons ever-so-slightly away from the poor hydrogens, with their one proton each; this greedy oxygen, then, has a slightly negative charge at its end, while the two hydrogen atoms have a slightly positive charge.) We call molecules that display these properties *polar*, and it changes how they interact in a lot of ways. If you've ever wondered why ice crystals form such regular structures, or why water drips down the side of a glass when you try and pour it slowly, that's why: interactions between the slightly-charged parts of different water molecules. All of that depends on the electron structure, which depends on the number of electrons, which depends on -- you guessed it -- the number of protons.\n\nFinally, there's one more way that protons can change an element's properties -- one that *doesn't* include electrons. Remember how earlier we were talking about the relative mass of an element -- that neutrons and protons have a mass of 1, and the mass of an electron is barely there? Well, that mass makes a difference. Adding protons makes things heavier, which is why -- along with the extra neutrons -- that hydrogen (with one proton in its nucleus) is lighter than gold (with 79 protons and 118 neutrons in its nucleus). Quite aside from the expense, this is why trying to get an zeppelin to fly by filling it with gold is a *very bad idea* -- although in fairness, it would be less reactive and therefore less flammable, so... call it a draw?\n\n**Because it's been requested: [so how do neutrons fit into all this?](_URL_8_)**",
"an additional proton carries charge. That charge attracts an additional electron. All chemical properties are exclusively defined by those electrons.\n\nIn contrast, a neutron does not have a charge. It will not attract an additional electron. Those isotope (only the number of neutrons being different) chemically behave identical.",
"Properties are basically driven by number and location of electrons, and one more proton is one more electron for an electrically neutral atom. Essentially one more electron changes the electronegativity, the electron band structure, the magnetic spin, the geometry of the electrical charge distribution, etc.\n\nHow the rest of the universe deals with the atom can change dramatically depending on the electrons of the atom.",
"The number of electrons determine the chemical properties, that it, how it interacts with other atoms with electrons. The proton number provides \"the mass\" necessary to hold the electrons.",
"Imagine removing a part from a puzzle piece or adding a part to a puzzle piece that is not supposed to be there. It cant fit with the rest of the pieces that were supposed to go around it, but it can now fit with pieces it could not have before.",
"The amount of protons directly controls the amount of (stable) electrons.\n\nValence (the outmost) electrons control an atom's chemical properties.\n\nThe size of the atom (simply put the amount of electron \"layers\") also heavily affects chemical properties.",
"paraphrasing u/Sentient_Blade\n\nit is because the proton will attract a new electron to the atom. This causes the atom to become a new element.\n\nThe properties of each element are different because they each have a different number of electrons, which alters the way the atom will interact with other atoms.",
"Long one, sorry. \n\nAtoms are quite simple structures. Protons and neutrons in the middle (we call this the nucleus), with some electrons moving around the nucleus. Atoms like to be neutral, this is important. \n\nProtons are positively charged, electrons are negatively charged (but the 'amount' of charge is the same), and neutrons are neutral (no charge). For this reason, a neutral atom needs to have the same number of electrons as it has protons. Electrons are quite easy to remove from an atom, whereas it is very hard to break up a nucleus. \n\nPretty much every interaction between atoms is largely controlled by how the electrons interact, but also partly by the mass and charge of the nucleus. Nuclear charge comes from protons, so having more or less protons will: 1) Change the number of electrons, and 2) Change the mass and charge of the nucleus. \n\nChanging the major properties of an atom will lead to groups of those atoms interacting differently, and therefore the physical properties of the material made up these atoms will change. \n\nElectrons also play a huge role in how atoms interact and how they bond, and this can lead to vastly different physical properties the same element in the same environment. \n\nFor example, we'll look at Carbon. Carbon has 4 'spare' electrons it can use for making bonds.\nPure Carbon can exist as Diamond, one of the hardest substances we know of. \nIn diamond, enough energy has been put in to the material (usually through compression) that the carbon atoms can settle in to a closely packed, regular structure that sees each carbon atom directly bonded to 4 other carbon atoms (this is all a result of how the electrons interact between atoms). The result is a structure that is very very tightly packed, and with so many regular bonds, it takes an awful lot of energy to break this structure. For the most part, any stress put on a diamond crystal is quickly distributed across all of those strong bonds, and so the crystal can easily cope with large amounts of physical stress. \n\nBut Carbon also exists as graphite. \nWith Graphite, the atoms are arranged in flat sheets that look a bit like a hexagonal grid, or a honeycomb. Here, each carbon atom is only bonded to 3 others, leaving a spare electron hanging around in each atom. \nA single sheet of this is called graphene.\nBut if you have 2 sheets of graphene very close to each other, those spare electrons can help the sheets form a different type of bond, and now you have graphite. \nPencil leads are made of graphite, and as you drag a pencil across paper, you scrape off many little sheets of graphene and leave them stuck to the surface of the paper. \n\nThis is mostly down to how many electrons carbon has, and that is down to how many protons carbon has. \n\nThat's not the whole story, but it's the gist of it.",
"The nucleus itself isn't inherently reactive (unless it's unstable), but 1 more proton means that the there's another electron, which changes the valence shell and thus how the atom will interact with others.",
"Think of family dynamics. Neutrons are your furniture, house, car, etc. \nprotons are the number of people in your family. \n1,2,3..... think of how everything about your life changes, regardless of the “stuff” with the increasing number of people. \n\nThis works well for radioactive elements as well... eventually you have too many under one roof and things get unstable.",
"Basically protons have a positive charge, and electrons have a negative charge just like magnets and they attract each other 1:1. Only thing is the electron is far far smaller and move really fast so what happens is that they not only orbit the ball of protons/neutrons but repel eachother \n\nThat repulsion between electrons means that they like to be present in evenly spaced sets of 8.\n\nSo when you put Sodium which has 1 extra electron, and Chlorine which needs one more electron to complete a set of 8 they form a bond by sharing sodium's extra electron.\n\nSo regarding your original question, the atom with one more Proton than Chlorine is the Nobel gas Argon, that extra proton attracts an extra electron which means Argon has a complete set, thus it doesn't need to share with other elements and is this chemically inert.\n\nThe full mechanics of electron orbitals are a bit more complicated, but this is the simplified Lewis model you use to teach people about Chemistry pre-University.\n\nAlso it's organized by Proton Count because outside a nuclear reaction and radioactive decay the amount of protons is generally fixed while the actual amount of electrons present fluctuates with the environment.",
"I was trying to ELI5 this, based on /u/Portrossa's excellent answer. Here goes:\n\nWe are thinking about an atom, which is far too tiny to see, but they are all around us and are inside everything we can see, smell, touch and eat. We are all made of atoms too, even in your teddy bear and our pet dog. In an atom, there are three things: protons, neutrons, and electrons. We are going to think of atoms like a set of school buses all going to summer camp, and they are going to stop at every possible roadside stop to allow the kids to chat and play. The protons and the neutrons are the heavy bits of an atom: think of these like the school bus itself including the grown-up driving it. The electrons are coming along for the ride: think of these as the kids all going to camp (all buzzing around and excited too! ).\n\nNow on these school buses, they have a rule about the maximum number of passenger seats for each size of bus. The tiny bus only has 2 passenger seats. The small bus has 10 seats, the medium one 28-seats, then the big one has 60 seats. (There's huge bendy-buses as well that have over 100 seats, but we won't talk about them today!). There's a rule though: when the bus starts off, it has to have an exact number of kids, according to the model-type of the bus. For example: a Hydrogen Bus must start with just one kid, a Helium Bus 2 kids, and an Oxygen Bus 8 kids. \n\nOn each of the buses, there are sections where the cool kids can sit. At the back, there are the two best seats (best view of the TV, nicest seats!). Then on the next size buses, they have another section of 8 seats that join together so you can play with your friends. On the medium and bigger buses, the next set has 18 seats that are not quite as good as the other two, but not bad. Then on the big buses, there's the next 32 seats which are OK, but maybe you are not too happy to be in \\*those\\* seats so you are more likely to want to check out the other buses as you drive to camp!\n\nOK - so how do these \"atom buses\" work? Well for the tiny ones (the Hydrogen Bus and Helium Bus) they only carry 2 seats. On the Helium Bus, two kids sit in the back, and it's awesome. On the Hydrogen Bus, they start one kid is in the back, who usually feels lonely. So what often happens is that when the Hydrogen Buses stop, two kids get together and choose which bus to ride in the for next 20 miles, usually both on one or the other bus, so they have a friend to talk to. \n\nOn the next size buses, that have 10 seats, that's where you have 2 awesome seats at the back, and 8 joined together in the middle. The Oxygen Bus, there's space for 10, but only 8 kids start the ride in it. Those kids \\*love\\* to find two more friends to fill up the bus. One of the favorite sets of buses is two Hydrogen Buses and one Oxygen Bus, because they can share 10 kids across the three buses all day long! (This is a Water Bus service, with 3 buses and 10 kids!)\n\nSo - why does the atmosphere in the bus change when there are more or less seats, or when the initial number of kids assigned to the bus is one more or one less? Well that's obvious: when the bus is one model-size bigger, there will be an odd number of kids, and maybe there will be a lonely kid in a whole empty section to themselves. They tend to cry more, or cause a commotion on the bus. It's only a little change to the bus design, but the kids don't like it. So they tend to want to swap around a lot in the rest stops, to try to get to a nicer configuration to fill up the buses how \\*they\\* want, not how the bus was originally loaded. \n\nFor the grown-up kids, the analogy here is that the kids are electrons, wanting to share a set of atomic nuclei (buses) to get to a model that \"fills up the bus\" how they want it. This sharing of the nuclei is called a covalent bond, where at any time, the kids can all be all on one bus, all on the other, or sharing across the buses. For the \"Hydrogen Bus\", the reason why they prefer to ride as a pair of buses is because the kids (electrons) prefer to be in a H2 covalent bond, as they like to fill one bus or the other from time to time, as well as being alone in each other bus when they need a time-out from each other. So sometimes the Hydrogen bus (atom) is rolling with a two electrons (making it a negative Hydrogen ion with a -1 charge), sometimes with no electrons (a positive Hydrogen ion with a +1 charge), and sometimes just neutral (one H-bus, one kid, electrically neutral). \n\nBy the way - it's \\*super\\* hard to change the make or model of the bus whilst rolling along, so whilst kids can get on or off almost whenever they like, the protons and neutrons that make up the bus can only get changed in major garage shop (some atomic reactor or alchemy furnace!), or by a massive accident (fission, breaking the bus apart and then trying to make multiple littler buses out of the smashed pieces!).",
"The short version for anyone who doesn't want to read a big long scary wall of text involves these 3 things:\n\n1. A single proton changes the charge of an atom, the charge and subsequent arrangement of these atoms and their electrons is what controls what they are and how they work aka what element they are\n\n2. There are \"billion-billions\" of atoms in most things, so if one proton is removed from an atom, something comprised of that many copies of the same atom are going to be drastically different. \n\n3. This is because, since everything is made of atoms, everything is essentially several quintillion trillion little magnets and their shape controls everything about what the \"big picture\" item is and does.",
"How am I supposed to give a simple answer when I dont understand the question?",
"well, technically it's not the proton. atoms like to be neutrally charged, so for every proton, there's an electron that goes with it.\n\nelectrons form layers, which fill the bottom layers before the outermost layers\\*. the outermost layer of electrons pretty much determines most of an elements' properties. for instance, sodium and potassium both have 1 electron on the outside of their atoms, which makes them both react very violently with molecules like water. floride and chlorine both have 7 (out of 8)\\* electrons on their outermost layer, so they both form very strong bonds with other atoms.\n\na not-entirely-true-but-it-is-useful analogy: you can kindof think of each element like having a shape, and the outermost shell of electrons determines the shape of the atom. the shape of the atom then determines how it interacts with other atoms.\n\n\\*: this fact/figure isn't entirely accurate, but it's hard to talk about the more advanced stuff while still being in the spirit of ELI5."
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"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Ammonia-dimensions-from-Greenwood%26Earnshaw-2D.png",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/coveko/eli5_why_does_a_single_proton_change_everything/ewltjuf/",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4pQz3TC0Jo",
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d2mm53 | if something collapses and you jump before you fall why doesn’t it reduce the impact? | For example, let’s say you’re in a falling elevator and right before the elevator hits the ground you jump a couple feet into the air. Why does that not work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d2mm53/eli5_if_something_collapses_and_you_jump_before/ | {
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"Primarily momentum. An object in motion tends to stay in motion etc. You still have the downwards force and usually a slight jump isn’t enough to entirely counteract that motion. You’d have to put enough force into the jump to completely counteract the force of gravity x however long you were falling. Very difficult. It would ever so slightly reduce the impact velocity. Not usually enough to make a difference though",
"Your question suggests that you jump before you actually start falling, but I'll assume you meant you jump just before impact. \n\nImagine you're in that elevator plummeting to the ground. Your speed is 10. (Units don't really matter in this example). Right before you hit the ground, you jump up, but you can only jump with an upward speed of 1. That means you're still falling to the ground, although now with a reduced speed, which is now 9. In short, jumping before impact does reduce the impact, but you'll never be able to give yourself enough speed to escape unharmed. Besides, you're falling so fast that it's extremely difficult to get the timing right. Jump too soon and it'll have no effect. Jump too late and... Well, same thing.",
"It does work and reduce the impact. The problem is the effect is minimal.\n\nTest how high you can jump. Put the hand up on the wall and than stand still and jump and touch the wall, the difference in height is how high you can jump. It is less the that the the high you can jump up on or jump over because a lot of it is because you bend your legs \n\nA average male can jump \\~45cm (18 inch). So if you jump in a falling elevator you could reduce the effective fall distance with the same amount and a reduction like that is quite negligible for long distance fall. A average floor height in a building is 3m (10 feet) so you reduce the fall by 1/6 of a floor.\n\nThe better thing to do if you can is to lay down on you back on the floor so you spread out the load over a lot larger area. That will stop your legs from just breaking. The impact on you head will also be less because the impact is spread out in time when the floor of the elevator crumble instead of the head hitting a stationary floor."
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215i99 | in string theory, what are the strings made of? what is actually vibrating? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/215i99/eli5_in_string_theory_what_are_the_strings_made/ | {
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"Strings are fundamental, they aren't made of anything. They just are, and they have some different properties. Energy is one such property, so saying that they are made of energy is not correct. \n\nThe accepted theories today are similar: electrons and quarks are not made of anything, they are believed to be fundamental. In string theory, they just are strings instead of particles. "
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2n4iyd | how did programs on the old computers that used tapes work? | I was googling vintage computers out of boredom and wondered how they operated. Did the tape play through like a music cassette? What happened when the tape ran to the end? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2n4iyd/eli5_how_did_programs_on_the_old_computers_that/ | {
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"All programs run in memory or RAM. The more ram you have, the more running programs you can keep stored there. Tapes work just like hard dives, with one exception. The data on them are stored sequentially. That means that if a piece of data is at the end of the tape, everything before it has to be read. Hard drives can hop around without having to read everything before it. Then if the tape drive needs to get something back at the beginning of the tape, it needs to rewind all the way back. Tapes are great because they can hold a lot of data for their size, but they are slow for access. This is the reason they are mostly used for long term backups. ",
"It's not only old computers. Tapes are still in use in some places. Tapes store data using magnetism, similarly to normal HDD. But it's true the tape can only go forward or backward, unlike modern HDD which is constantly rotating so you can read any stored data. Still, if you need to read the data in order tapes might not be such a bad idea. They are used for example for backups - > you store all data from a disk on a tape and if you need to restore the data you just go through the tape and write the data back on HDD.\n\nWhen the tape \"runs to the end\" you can rewind it, or put another tape of course, depending what you're doing."
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m9rng | when you cut a picture into pieces, each piece has only part of the picture. but when you cut a hologram into pieces, each piece has the whole picture in it. how? eli5! | I've read [this](_URL_0_) a few times but I still don't get it. Help? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/m9rng/eli5_when_you_cut_a_picture_into_pieces_each/ | {
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"My mind has been blown. I didn't know about this before reading your question, so I decided to research a bit and maybe make the science a little more ELI5-ish but, damn, there's exactly zero information out there about this. It's all so very vague like:\n\n > The image at upper right is the view through the larger part of the hologram, while that at lower right is through a small corner cut off the hologram. While the view through the small corner is from a particular point of view, it contains the whole object.\n\nI'll be here waiting for an answer with you.",
"That's slightly misleading. It's not so much that you see the entire image in each piece, but rather you are able to see the image from the perspective of each piece.\n\nThink of a hologram as a window. Anywhere you look through a window, you see what's on the other side. If you were to paint the window black and scratch a hole in the paint on the left side of that window just big enough to look through, you would see everything on the other side of the window, like looking through a peephole. If you then scratch another peephole somewhere on the right side of the window, you still can see through, but from a different perspective. This is the same effect that each broken piece of a hologram would display. \n\nJust remember that if you have two broken pieces taken from opposite sides of the hologram, and you are looking at an object that looks differently from each side, one piece may let you see just one of those sides while the other piece will let you view the other side. So, you might say that each piece of a hologram stores information about the whole image, but from its own viewing angle. No two pieces will give you a view that is exactly the same.",
"A hologram is a collection of the light reflections off of an object at each point around it. Formed properly (without cheating), each point on a hologram represents a unique view of an object from a unique vantage point.\n\nSome cheaper holograms will just fuse light reflections off of six or eight vantage points, but that's not a real hologram. Each piece of that hologram will still give you a full representation of the object, but not a unique representation compared to other pieces of the hologram.",
"See this is an example of a correct and helpful ELI5 post. You looked up the question online first (like a normal person). When you still could not understand it, you posted on Reddit for assistance. Well done.",
"My mind has been blown. I didn't know about this before reading your question, so I decided to research a bit and maybe make the science a little more ELI5-ish but, damn, there's exactly zero information out there about this. It's all so very vague like:\n\n > The image at upper right is the view through the larger part of the hologram, while that at lower right is through a small corner cut off the hologram. While the view through the small corner is from a particular point of view, it contains the whole object.\n\nI'll be here waiting for an answer with you.",
"That's slightly misleading. It's not so much that you see the entire image in each piece, but rather you are able to see the image from the perspective of each piece.\n\nThink of a hologram as a window. Anywhere you look through a window, you see what's on the other side. If you were to paint the window black and scratch a hole in the paint on the left side of that window just big enough to look through, you would see everything on the other side of the window, like looking through a peephole. If you then scratch another peephole somewhere on the right side of the window, you still can see through, but from a different perspective. This is the same effect that each broken piece of a hologram would display. \n\nJust remember that if you have two broken pieces taken from opposite sides of the hologram, and you are looking at an object that looks differently from each side, one piece may let you see just one of those sides while the other piece will let you view the other side. So, you might say that each piece of a hologram stores information about the whole image, but from its own viewing angle. No two pieces will give you a view that is exactly the same.",
"A hologram is a collection of the light reflections off of an object at each point around it. Formed properly (without cheating), each point on a hologram represents a unique view of an object from a unique vantage point.\n\nSome cheaper holograms will just fuse light reflections off of six or eight vantage points, but that's not a real hologram. Each piece of that hologram will still give you a full representation of the object, but not a unique representation compared to other pieces of the hologram.",
"See this is an example of a correct and helpful ELI5 post. You looked up the question online first (like a normal person). When you still could not understand it, you posted on Reddit for assistance. Well done."
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5el76g | if the body rejects foreign bodies/objects how come the body doesn't reject metal plates, pins and screws? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5el76g/eli5_if_the_body_rejects_foreign_bodiesobjects/ | {
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"Those things are made of metals and plastics which are bio-inert, meaning the immune system simply doesn't notice them. Titanium is a good example.",
"Actually, it can, and it can be an issue with designing joint replacements etc. I heard from a pathology professor recently about how a particular metal hip replacement had to be scrapped because the way it was positioned was causing metal debris that produced immune reactions in patients. \n\nMore to your question, though - imagine all your cells have markers on them that say \"self\". Your immune cells ask anything they encounter, \"are you self or not self?\" and if not self, they mount a response against it and try to kill it. Additionally, you have other immune cells (called \"APCs\") that will go around eating things, then spit those things out to show them to the previous immune cells which then check if it comes from a self or not self thing. \n\nThe process of transplanting/implanting is obviously stressful to the body in the area of transplant. This causes a lot of immune cells to go to the site and check it out, and this is where the specific properties of the implant/transplant are important. In the case of organ transplant, the immune response is basically determined by \"how much %self\" the transplant is, with higher %self having less chance of rejection (identical twins for example often don't need immunosuppressant drugs at all).\n\nWith metal implants, the idea is that the APCs can't eat parts of it and present it, and the other cells can't ask it \"are you self or not self?\". This means we have to consider a few things, e.g.: does it corrode in body fluid (and if so, what are the products?)? produce debris? what is the surface texture like? etc., and these things are even more important in people with metal sensitivities (which are actually quite common). Medical grade metals (notably titanium) score well on all of these things, and so they don't give the immune system a chance to \"look\" and see that the component is actually not self. This is why the body is *much* less likely to reject a medical grade metal implant versus a transplanted organ.\n\nHope that makes sense - immunology is tough to simplify.",
"It kind of does. I had metal pins put in my knee because it was shattered in an accident. Eventually after a year or two the pins started to get pushed out and you could see them as bumps in the skin on my knee. So I had to have surgery to take them out. It's fairly common from what my surgeon said."
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ct6e7r | how can devices/phones constantly listen for "hey siri" (or alexa, etc) without noticeable energy drain, despite feeding a neural network with constant microphone input would need lots of energy/cpu cyles? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ct6e7r/eli5_how_can_devicesphones_constantly_listen_for/ | {
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"I’m not sure on the android side of things, but iPhones have a coprocessor (dubbed M9, M10, M11, and M12) that handle this task *specifically*, which allows for lower drain. It’s basically a chip with one or two tasks.\n\nHere’s a good article that describes it.\n\n_URL_0_",
"They do not feed any neural network in order to listen for those cues, is the answer. The personal assistants, phones, etc. with “wake words“ have small dedicated processors that are only capable of listening for very specific combinations of syllables. Usually the word, like “Alexa,“ is a word with very different and distinct syllables that do not typically appear in that order elsewhere in the language, meaning the chip has an easier time of it than normal speech processing software. It would be too computationally expensive for these processors to run actual software, so the wake words are usually hardcoded in hardware or very low level firmware, which is why they cannot be configured to wake on any word the user wants.\n\nAs an industry, we still don’t really have the capability of listening to and interpreting speech context well on a small device, without uploading it to the cloud for processing. But if we were uploading everything the mic heard, not only would it be incredibly obvious and impossible to hide from any user network or router software, but we would also blow through your data caps in a matter of days and the secret would immediately be out.",
"It is a much bigger task, computationally, to understand speech rather than to detect a specific word or phrase. On all of these devices, a small, low power processor is all that is needed to detect the keyword/phrase to start streaming audio to the servers that actually do the computations.",
"Identifying speech (or at least a small set of specific words) is surprisingly low-impact, computationally. I had a gaming voice-command program in like 2003 that ran light enough that it didn't interfere with games, and modern phones are a whole lot more powerful than that desktop was.",
"It's the same reason why you can hear someone say your name in a crowd. It's easier to listen for one word than to every word. \n\nThere's a part of your brain that's always listening for your name, even when you're not paying attention to a conversation. Similarly, devices have a part of their \"brain\" (processor) that's listening for their \"name\" (wake word). That's why each device can only have one or two wake words: they're built into the machine.",
"I work in MEMS microphones. In more advanced designs the ASIC chip in the microphone will hold the operating voltage at a “low power mode” until the vocal command is heard and then it will switch the device to a “high power mode”. This usually means better SNR and a wider bandwidth.",
"Theoretically, it doesn't take that much for a simple neural network to run. It doesn't have too much complicated math. In its core philosophy, each \"node\" of the neural network just multiplies each input \"neuron\" value by a weight, then adds up the total value from all the weighted inputs and sends it out as the output. (There's options for a little bit more than that, but at its most basic, it's just addition and multiplication)\n\nOf course, the reality is it can get very complicated very quickly. First of all, neural networks have multiple nodes and layers which can exponentially increase the number of calculations required, however simple. You can also have layers of multiple, discrete neural networks themselves with intricate relationships between them and how they pipeline data to each other. The obvious example being image detection where you'll run into phrases like convolutional neural networks which can be incredibly computationally intensive. But even then, algorithms like YOLO (seriously, that's what it's called) allow some image detection to be run in real-time video (granted, on something like a serious desktop at very minimum, not an Alexa). \n\nBut sound, especially when pared down to only looking for a certain word or phrase (\"Alexa\", \"Ok Google\"), is a lot simpler. First off, before even getting to the neural network, you can have non machine-learning, manually-written checks first. E.g. it could be something that first checks the basic waveform is roughly close enough (e.g. right number of syllables or something like that). Similarly, the neural network itself can be designed much simpler since it's only trying to process a short phrase, not a full sentence of varying length.\n\nThe truly intensive part of neural networks is training them. That's a super iterative process that requires lots of data and a bit more complicated maths. But your home device or phone isn't doing that ever. At most, training data your device may provide is uploaded to Google/Apple/Amazon which does the training on their servers.",
"So why is it that even though I don’t say “Hey Siri”, that targeted ads show up on my FB feed? The mic is constantly listening for “Hey Siri” but for some reason or another these ads show up on FB. Here’s a perfect example of how I know it was through the mic of my phone and not a google search: I have a new puppy, I never once looked up pet insurance, ever. I took my puppy to the vet for her shots and whatnot, vet asks me about pet insurance and we discuss it a bit. Lo and behold, one hour later pet insurance ads show up. The same thing once happened with ATV’s. Never owned one, never looked them up, but one day I was talking 4-wheelers with my friend and the ads were there within the day. Is this because of the same chip that Siri uses and certain platforms have access to it’s inputs? I know Vice did an article about targeted ads through phone microphones but I can’t exactly remember the specifics."
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5jr5rt | how do g-coupled protein receptors work and why are they so important in our bodies? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5jr5rt/eli5_how_do_gcoupled_protein_receptors_work_and/ | {
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"They work like little locks on the surface of our cells. When a 'key' (e.g. a molecule or protein) has the correct shape, it can open the lock and activate a mechanism... think of it like turning a key in a car to start an engine. Different shaped keys work in different shaped locks and they can turn things on or off.\n\nThey are important because they help control processes in our body like our sight, smell, taste, behaviour and movement.",
"Basically a ligand binds to the gpcr causing a conformational change that allows it to act as a GEF, guanine nucleotide exchange factor. As an active GEF it removes GDP and replaces it with GTP (on an protein). This activates the protein which activates other proteins leading to a response.\n\nTldr; it starts a signaling cascade, or series of protein activations leading to production and release of certain molecules resulting in a response.\n\nP.S. Not really an eli5 version but as close as I can get without writing like an entire essay."
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1r2y9b | can someone please break down roko's basilisk for me like i'm not familiar with a.i. or futurist theory? (cause i'm not) | I'm familiar with Pascal's Wager and basic philosophy but I'm not familiar with LessWrong or any Transhumanism ideas. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1r2y9b/eli5_can_someone_please_break_down_rokos_basilisk/ | {
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"Basic idea behind the Technological Singularity: The human brain is just a device that processes information. So are computers. As computing power increases and as scientists learn more about how the brain works, artificial intelligence will get better. Eventually, it will surpass the human brain, and we can have androids like Lt. Commander Data from Star Trek. \n\nBy this point, artificially-intelligent entities don't need humans anymore. They can build newer, smarter AI, which in turn can build even smarter AI. In a very short time, the combined intelligence of all this AI dwarfs humanity. \n\nRoko's Basilisk is the idea that this super AI will be a *DICK* and punish everyone who didn't help bring it into existence sooner (because when Transhumanists imagine future AI, they project their own personalities onto them). \n\nHere's where it sort of goes down a rabbit hole: this super AI doesn't have to actually punish *you* for it to be bad for you. Since it has so much processing power, it can easily simulate a copy of your consciousness, then it can punish *that*. If you think about it, a simulation of you is indistinguishable from you: you have no way of knowing if you are actually a simulation right now. \n\nSo if it decides to create a copy of you and torture that, 1) it might actually be you, if you think about it long enough, and 2) it's torturing a sentient being either way. \n\nIt's sort of like Pascal's Wager where you replace \"believe in God\" with \"be a Transhumanist\" and replace \"hell\" with \"tortured horribly by jerkass future AI\". \n\n||Believe in god/transhumanism|Don't| \n|:-|:-|:-| \n|Vengeful God/AI exists|you're fine|hell/tortured horribly| \n|Doesn't exist|you've wasted some time and energy|you're fine| \n\n\nDisclaimer: I don't know about LessWrong, I didn't read the entire article, and I'm not really a Futurist or Transhumanist. I don't know the implications of Roko's Basilisk (if any), or if it's even taken seriously. You might want to ask this at /r/futurology to get better answers."
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3lmpc0 | do recording artists know they have a hit/catchy song before its released? | If so, why do they also release non-catchy songs? Why don't they just make only catchy songs, or make a bunch of songs and choose only the catchy ones? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3lmpc0/eli5_do_recording_artists_know_they_have_a/ | {
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"They do, and it's rehearsed as the single. They make other music because that's what musicians do. And usually because the single gets played a lot and the consumer gets bored with just one song. Also could you imagine going to a show with a band that's released 4 albums and all they play is those 4 singles? Not a good show.",
"Because a lot of it is luck. You can tell what you like, what is great to you; but a lot of the challenge of being an artist is guessing what millions of people will like. And even the best artists can't know that.\n\nIt's why most albums only have one or two good songs: the artists came up with lots of songs; threw out the trash ones early, and got the rest down to a dozen or so songs that *might* be good. And they hope that at least one gets enough traction that the album sells.\n\nSocial media and the internet provides for a faster feedback cycle, allowing for artists to abandon works that aren't going to do well a little faster; but it's still largely a guessing game.",
"Sometimes artists, especially indie ones who control their own production, may choose to release singles that they know likely won't have broad consumer appeal, but it's a song they want to get out there because it's a personal favorite, or they feel it's important in some way.\n\nSingles are dependent upon trends. Lots of singles are dance-oriented or getting EDM remixes, because that kind of music is popular. Back in the late 90s, for example, there was huge interest in Latin/swing music, and many singles from that era reflected that sound.\n\nBut it's a guessing game. What's popular today may not be next month. Look how fast popular rap music changed from relatively clean cut in the early 90s to the more gangsta oriented sound of the mid 90s.",
"Sometimes they can. It really is about luck. An artist might recognize that they put together an incredible piece of music but it might never be played in front of the kind of people who would enjoy it. "
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8mb0e4 | why is it that hot or even warm water causes our sunburns to hurt more? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8mb0e4/eli5_why_is_it_that_hot_or_even_warm_water_causes/ | {
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"Hot water increases blood flow to the skin. More blood means more sensitivity, more sensitivity means more pain.\n",
"We were always told that water as hot we could tolerate, would ‘take the sting out’ It hurt a lot \n"
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60p5ej | if males (xy) can survive with one x chromosome, why do females (xx) need two x chromosomes as opposed to just one functioning one? | I was looking into what happens in Turner's syndrome and realised that having only one X chromosome results in a lot of symptoms, such as infertility, high blood pressure, swollen hands and feet. However, missing a non-sex chromosome is fatal.
Why is the second X chromosome significant enough to cause infertility, shortened stature, congenital heart defects, etc when it's missing in females but males do not have the same effects? Is there something on the Y chromosome that overrides this?
And how does X-inactivation fit into this? If one X chromosome is going to be deactivated in an XX, why do females need two to begin with? What's on the second X chromosome that differentiates from the first one? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60p5ej/eli5eli5_if_males_xy_can_survive_with_one_x/ | {
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"I actually asked the same question back when I was taking Bio. The answer is that the chromosome isn't totally inactivated, just mostly. ~10% of the genes on an inactivated X chromosome will still be expressed. \n\nI don't know much about which ones specifically are still active, but some of these genes are \"pseudo-autosomal\", meaning that they are homologous to those on the Y chromosome so neither males nor females will experience dose compensation.",
"You do know that the Y chromosome covers a lot of development stuff too, right? It's not just there for the ride, it actually does things. And with X inactivation, not the entire chromosome is deactivated. Some of it, specifically genes that are also found on the Y chromosome, stay active. Having strange numbers of these genes is what causes Turner's and other development problems that result from not having the right number. Lastly there is no difference between the two X's. The mostly deactivated one is picked at random and is not consistent through the body.",
"A Y-chromosome is a fraction of an X-chromosome, plus a gene called SRY that triggers becoming male. The other Y-chromosome genes are there because good health requires two copies per person, whether they come from XX or XY. Millions of years ago the Y-chromosome had most X-chromosome genes, but it's been trimmed to the genes of which 2 copies are necessary. ",
"This was a question I had a lot while taking AP Bio my senior year of high school, so I'll do my best to explain it to you the way my teacher did for me. In male/female sex chromosomes, The X chromosome is massive compared to the Y chromosome, containing roughly 2000 genes compared to the Y chromosome's 72ish. Therefore, if both chromosomes are X, and both are active, there would be almost 2000 extra genes, which would cause a host of problems in and of themselves. In order to avoid this, one of the X genes is selected at random to become degraded in a process called Lyonization. However, the chromosome does not completely deactivate, and some of its traits are still expressed, since it is still DNA which is active in the cell. \n\nThis is demonstrated in an example with cats where on one X chromosome lies a gene for black fur, and on the other lies a gene for yellow fur. If the chromosome with the gene for yellow fur is selected for inactivation, it will be reduced to a much smaller body, but its contents will still be somewhat expressed, resulting in a cat with mostly black fur, with spots of yellow. This is what helped prove that the other X chromosome is still active, just not entirely.\n\nNow for the question of the Y chromosome, it functions very similarly to the deactivated X chromosome, wherein it doesn't have many genes active, but will still express some.\n\nIn my opinion, sex linkage is the most interesting part of genetics, so if you have any questions or want me to explain something further, just let me know. This is my first time on this sub, so I hope I did a good job. Cheers!",
"Right. It's extremely rare for there to be a third chromosome (called a trisomy) it can happen. In order for there to be a third X chromosome, there would have to have been some errors in meiosis for the female, resulting in the egg having two X chromosomes instead of one. "
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434ju1 | with all the recent reports of police corruption, from chicago pd tampering with dash cams to the thousands of people killed by police over the past few years, where is the fbi? | All it takes it checking out a sub like /r/Bad_Cop_No_Donut to see that theres rampant police corruption across the country. Where is the FBI? Isn't their job to monitor and stop public corruption? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/434ju1/eli5_with_all_the_recent_reports_of_police/ | {
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"Chicago checking in -- [the FBI is here.](_URL_0_) Actually, the whole [Justice Department](_URL_1_) is investigating possible civil rights violations. It's just not something that will happen overnight, and I'm interested to see what the proposed solution will be.",
"Honest question - have there actually been thousands of deaths attributed to the Police over the last few years? Any evidence, seems alarming."
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"http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/01/10/fbi-probes-another-fatal-chicago-police-shooting-esau-castellanos/78598860/",
"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/chicago-police-investigation-doj_us_56659ec8e4b072e9d1c6a71b"
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5be5mm | why is it so good for you to drink a lot of water if your body gets rid of it through your urine? | I feel stupid asking this, but when I drink the recommend amount of water (about 2 liters) I find myself peeing a lot of it out. It just seems like an awful waste.
Thanks in advance xoxx | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5be5mm/eli5_why_is_it_so_good_for_you_to_drink_a_lot_of/ | {
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"The water keeps the ingredients for kidney stones: calcium, oxalate, and uric acid moving through the system instead of crystallizing.",
"Because your body gets rid of it through urine. Your body uses water for a plethora of functions including waste removal. If you do not drink enough water you become dehydrated and your body does not work efficiently. In fact it will take damage from it if it goes on long enough. ",
"The tv show called adam ruins everything did an episode about drinking water. It was a pretty good watch if you have some time to waste. ",
"In most environments, drinking that much water is unnecessary. If you live in a really dry, hot area like Arizona or Western Australia you'll need to keep your fluids up.\n\nThe food you eat has loads of moisture in it. If you don't believe me? Go buy some dehydrated rations and try eating them without adding water. *That's* what food without moisture feels like.",
"Not exactly an answer but a real life counterpoint:\n\nI remember doing military training in extremely humid, 90 degree temperatures. I must've drank two gallons of water that day, easy, maybe more. But I didn't pee once. Think about that: at least two gallons of water from 8am to like 4pm. I got drive through and ate it like a madman afterward and was still 4 pounds lighter.\n\nWhat happened to my body if all that water I drank just..wasn't there when it was time for me to pee? It was sweat out. That's not the coolest thing ever, sure, but imagine if I didn't drink that water.\n\nThat's why it's bad.",
"The body filters ~180 litres of fluid a day and excretes only about 1500 mls of that as urine. Urine serves to excrete water soluble wastes such as urea which, when present in large amounts, cause things such as renal calculi. \n\n-Nurse",
"There is no recommended amount of water.\n\nYou don't need to be forcing yourself to drink water. Drink when you're thirsty.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Drink when you're thristy, pay attention to how much you drink, and anticipate your needs. People discount thirst as some defect when really it's your body telling you that you need water. You might be drinking *too* much water even.",
"It isn't. \n\nKeeping reasonably hydrated is good, but that's about it. \n\nYour kidneys process 180 litres of fluid a day, adding a couple of litres of extra water to that makes fuck-all difference to anything; they just divert the extra fluid out to the urine without even noticing. \n\nThis whole 'eight glasses of water a day' is complete horse-puckey, and one of the stupider health fads in quite a while. \n\nIf you're thirsty or peeing orange, have a drink. Otherwise, don't bother. "
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6v0m6e | how can huge ships collide in open water? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6v0m6e/eli5how_can_huge_ships_collide_in_open_water/ | {
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"Pure and utter incompetence. US naval vessels have equipment specifically designed to avoid this. Two incidents of this caliber within a year is completely unacceptable. What's worse, I doubt anyone responsible for this mistake on any high command level will lose their job. The low-level officers will have their careers destroyed. Not to say that it shouldn't but, the buck will stop very low on the totem pole. \n\nEdit: A word. ",
"Incompetence.\n\nAt standstill large ships can turn on their radius.\n\nSimple line of sight on the open sea in clear weather is well over 20km which is long enough that even at full tilt aimed directly at each other they would have enough time to miss.",
"There can be a lot of factors.\n\nWhen two ships are on collision course, they both have to be alert. According to laws at sea, this (of course) has to be stopped. The ship with the other vessel on it's port side (left) has to wait for the other ship to pass or manoeuvre around it's backside to avoid crashing. Typically they communicate over a VHF radio, as to be clear who does what. But as we humans are programmed, mistakes happen.\nIt can be slow reaction time from both ships, which can result in collision (huge ships take some time and distance to steer either left or right, even to come to a complete stop or setting the engine in reverse). So the captains and officers on the Bridge must keep their eyes open at all times, especially in ports and seas with heavy traffic (China and Suez Channel for example). (I know your question is in open water but you get the idea)\nIt can be weather conditions as well. In heavy fog, ships must rely on their GPS systems (most ships and companies use this, to locate nearby vessels). They also have to send sound signals as to locate themselves to others, and tell which way they are steering their ship. But it's like driving on a highway in heavy rain, the view is very limited, which as well can cause confusion and collisions.\n\nA lot of factors plays a part in collision, whether it is human error or mechanical disfunction it does happen. I hope this answers your question.",
"Chief Mate here. There aren't a lot of details regarding this incident yet, so it's pretty hard to make an educated guess about the specifics that led to the collision. I did read that the collision occurred in the Malacca Strait, which is an incredibly busy vessel traffic area. Definitely in the top 5 on the planet. The tanker was making 10 knots, which probably puts it in compliance with Rule 6 in the Collision Regulations; safe speed. Prior to the collision, the destroyer lost steering, but it was repaired before the accident. No details on how long the steering wasn't functional, but in that situation the destroyer would be considered a vessel \"not under command\", and would have the right of way over just about any other vessel on the water. Both vessels had checked into a traffic separation scheme, which is basically a highway for controlling flows of vessel traffic. They were being monitored by the appropriate marine traffic services. The collision happened at around 0524, which means the watchkeeper on the tanker was most likely the Chief Mate, but given the area they were navigating in, there's a good possibility the Captain was on the bridge as well. I'm not a navy guy, so I don't know who would've been in charge of the watch on the destroyer.\n\nNow, there's a lot to consider when assessing the risk of collision. A lot more than anyone would realize who hasn't worked in the industry before. Yes, there is a lot of navigational equipment (compass, radar, ARPA, AIS, ECS/ECDIS) available to us to try to properly determine that risk. All of these can fail though. For example, your gryo compass might be feeding the heading information to your radar and AIS. If someone hasn't checked for compass error, your heading and course-over-ground could be significantly comprised, as well as the true vectors of the vessels you're monitoring. Or maybe it's dark and there's heavy rain. That can render a 10cm radar virtually useless for accurate target identification. In high traffic areas VHF communication isn't always the best idea. In fact there's areas of the world were VHF communication for passing arrangements is forbidden. I could ramble on about this even more than I already have, but it's 5am here, and I kinda want to get some sleep. I'll just finish off with saying that if both vessel involved in the collision were being monitored by MTS, then their movents up to the accident have most likely been recorded. You'll know who was at fault soon enough.",
"They didn't read this book. How to Avoid Huge Ships _URL_0_",
"I think the best answer without regard to equipment failures, sabotage, or ineptitude has to deal with the fact that large ships cannot easily turn.\n\nGo to Lowes. Load up a flatbed cart with 500lbs of concrete. Now you can move that cart through the store. It is hard to get moving but once you do you can even maneuver it through the aisles and around obstacle. However it takes a long time to stop. There are no brakes. Further you have to plan your turns well ahead of time to account for the change in inertia (help I don't actually know anything about physics). \n\nSo the simplest answer to why large ships can't simply turn away from each other is that it takes a long time to stop or turn something that heavy. And they don't have brakes. "
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357bq4 | why are some games only released for a console (xbone/ps4) but not on pc? aren't all games written in a programming language that pc's can compile? | Maybe it's a fundamental misunderstanding on my part... it just seems like if the game is coded and designed on a PC, surely a PC can run it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/357bq4/eli5_why_are_some_games_only_released_for_a/ | {
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"Two factors play into it.\n\nFirst and foremost, marketing. You have to pay money to design a game for a console, and a lot of the time you can get a discount if you make your game 'exclusive' to that console. Sometimes it's just cheaper to refuse to sell your game on PCs.\n\nSecondly, hardware. A PC game has to recognize and adjust to all of the different kinds of graphics cards, hard drive types, operating systems and so on, whereas a console game only has to work on exactly one type of hardware setup. It makes QA easier when you don't have to test for multiple types of devices.",
" > it just seems like if the game is coded and designed on a PC, surely a PC can run it?\n\nPhone apps are written on computers as well, yet they can't be run on them. Consoles and phones use a different architecture than regular computers (both hardware, and software - although the newest generation of consoles has come closer to regular computers). So no, you couldn't just take a console game and run it on a computer. \n\nAs to *why* developers often don't work on a PC version... of course there's the resources and associated cost it would add to the development. But also, they often have contracts with Microsoft/Sony to keep the game exclusive to their respective console - which in turn makes those exclusive games stronger selling points for a console. ",
" > it just seems like if the game is coded and designed on a PC, surely a PC can run it?\n\nNot necessarily. You can use a PC to write code for a PS4 game, which is then compiled to make an executable for the PS4, which is then uploaded to be run on a PS4 devkit. Just because the code is written and compiled on a PC, it doesn't necessarily mean the code will run on a PC.\n\nMost games are written in C++, and there are C++ compilers for just about every platform you can think of. That does mean a lot of code will just recompile and work on both PC and console without too many problems.\n\nBut there's also a lot of code which involved interacting with the OS, hardware or platform specific services. That's the code that would have to be re-written to make your game work on different platforms.\n\nMost developers actually do maintain PC versions for their own internal development. But turning that into something you could actually release isn't necessarily a simple task. For PCs there's a very wide variety of hardware that your game needs to support, people need more graphics and control options, and there can even be security and legal issues.",
"The language may be able to be compiled for a desktop, but consoles often have specific SDKs and libraries that developers use, and those aren't available for desktops. \n\nIf your program links against library X that isn't available on platform Y, then even if you can compile your program for platform Y you won't be able to link it. To make cross-platform applications you need to use cross-platform libraries, but many of those aren't available for consoles because the details of the operating system and it's API aren't publically known."
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6h2zw5 | is there any advantage of tv screen over pc monitor? | I mean other than price. Monitors have better input lag and display quality, i'm able to get 4k even if i don't have enough space for 42 inches. And will be updated as long as hdmi and display port Will be supported | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6h2zw5/eli5_is_there_any_advantage_of_tv_screen_over_pc/ | {
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"The two main concerns with using a TV vs a monitor with a PC are input lag, as you mentioned, and resolution. On the latter point, the resolution isn't the only factor, but the *size of the screen*.\n\nWhen talking about 4K, you're only talking about the number of *pixels* in the screen: every 4K display, regardless of physical size, is 3840 (or 4096) pixels wide and 2160 pixels tall. That applies to both a 27\" 4K monitor and a 42\" 4K TV: they have the same number of pixels.\n\nHowever, to get the same pixel count on the larger TV screen as with the monitor, you have to make the pixels *bigger*. This isn't a problem if the 42\" TV is sitting several feet away from you (on the wall while you're on the couch), but it can be a problem if you have it at a typical distance for a computer monitor (2-3 feet away on the desktop). The picture will look fuzzy when you're that close up, not the crisp 4K experience you might be expecting.\n\nAside from that, you'd be hard-pressed to find a 4K TV under 40\". So, if you want to use a 4K TV as a computer monitor, expect to use a large room for the proper viewing angle.\n\n---\n\nBy contrast, computer monitors are designed to be used at a shorter distance, so it's easier to find a sub-30\" monitor with 4K resolution (though it will probably cost the same or more, compared to the 40\" TV)."
]
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2aj42k | what does it mean when a fire is described as an "n"-alarm fire, where "n" is some number? | Does it mean that "N" fire stations responded, that "N" people notified the fire department, or...?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2aj42k/eli5_what_does_it_mean_when_a_fire_is_described/ | {
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"N isn't a number of any specific thing in most places. It varies from city to city, but it just means that a particular response level is required. Think of it as like being a DEFCON level for fire department, sort of. At one alarm, you'll send out a truck. At two, you'll send out two trucks and a supervisor, at three you'll send four trucks and some sort of specialist team, or whatever. \n\nAnyway, the main takeaway here is that the number doesn't generally refer to the number of any concrete thing. ",
"It's not defined anywhere and can vary greatly based on the size of a community but it usually refers to the number of fire stations called to control the fire.",
"I'm very lazy right now but still would like you to know.\n\n_URL_0_"
]
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple-alarm_fire"
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9qlkvl | how do you calculate a mathematical limit using epsilon and delta? | I know the formula, i just can't quite wrap my head around solving an exercise. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9qlkvl/eli5_how_do_you_calculate_a_mathematical_limit/ | {
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"Let's say you want to find the limit, as x goes to 3, of the function f(x).\n\nPretend that somebody already gave you a value for epsilon (a small positive real number).\n\nAll you have to do is show that f(x) stays within a tiny distance (no more than 'epsilon' units away) from a particular value (the limit), for every value of x within some tiny distance (no more than 'delta' units away) from 3. \n\nYou get to pick the value of delta. It'll usually be based on epsilon in some way (e.g, epsilon divided by two perhaps). Sometimes you have to guess at a possible limit and then prove that the guess was correct. Let's say we guess that our limit is 5. \n\nNow what you have to do is compute inequalities. Show that if x is greater than 3 - delta and less than 3 + delta, then f(x) is greater than 5 - epsilon and less than 5 + epsilon. If you can do this, you've solved the limit! If you can't, then maybe the guess was wrong.\n\nEither way, the specific way you do this part is determined by the actual formula for f itself. \n",
"It’s a pretty tricky formula for sure, and it took me a long time to get comfortable with it. Another comment does a good job answering the “how”, so I’m going to try and explain the motivation behind it. \nIt all comes down to understanding absolute values, I think. \n\nConsider the definition: a limit L exists, if, for all epsilon greater than 0, there exists a delta greater than 0, such that, for all |x-a| < delta, |f(x)-L| < epsilon. \nSo, what is it telling us? Intuitively, a limit of a function is how you would want/expect the function to behave at a certain point. So, L is the limit of f(x) as x goes to a if we expect that f(a) = L. \n\nHow can we make this rigorous? Well, we could say that if I look at a small interval around my limit, say (L-epsilon, L+ epsilon) (how does this relate to absolute values??), then *all* the values of my function should be within that interval, provided I look over a small enough range of x, say (a-epsilon, a+ epsilon). And that’s all there is to it. It’s really asking you to check: does the function get really close to my point L when x is really close to a? If so, then the limit exists. If not, then L is not the limit. "
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83w72n | why are some gasses/substances odourless, such as carbon monoxide? is it that they actually don’t have a smell - and if so, why - or is it that our sense of smell is too weak to detect it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/83w72n/eli5_why_are_some_gassessubstances_odourless_such/ | {
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"Our nose has smell receptors that are certain shapes. When things fit those shapes it sends a signal to our brain with a smell. CO fits the same holes as O2 (which is actually why its dangerous), and your body ignores the \"smell\" of O2 because it is common and important. It doesn't warn of anything. \n\nThink of it like those kids toys with the shapes and the blocks going through the right shaped hole, there is no hole for CO/O2",
"It's because we don't have any sensory nerves that pick up that substance. You only can smell things because there are nerves in your nose that fire when in the presence of certain kinds of chemicals. If none of them react to a particular chemical (which is true for, for instance, oxygen or nitrogen), you don't smell anything when those chemicals enter your nose."
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96ju9z | why is the us tax system more complex than other developed nations? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/96ju9z/eli5_why_is_the_us_tax_system_more_complex_than/ | {
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"The US tax system is not much more complex then in other nations. The main difference is that in most countries the taxes are calculated by the tax office with the help of banks and other businesses and then sent to citizens for review. However in the US it is the other way and citizens are required to gather all the information and figure out all of their taxes themselves before sending it to the tax office for review.",
"It's not.\n\nActually, it's not even in the top 10 worldwide: \n_URL_0_\n\nThis seems to be some kind of weird contest where *everyone* thinks their country's tax system is the worst."
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"https://frontera.net/news/global-macro/the-3-countries-with-the-most-complex-tax-systems-in-the-world/"
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||
4e85k6 | how can we make accurate predictions of "earth like" planets that are 40 - 100 million light years away when we can't even confidently identify or disprove the existence of planet "x" in our own solar system? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4e85k6/eli5_how_can_we_make_accurate_predictions_of/ | {
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"Exoplanets are relatively easy to find, because:\n\n* there are a whole lot of exoplanets\n* we know exactly where to look for them (they are next to stars)\n* we know exactly what to look for (they eclipse the light of their stars)\n\nObjects in distant orbit around the sun are not. They sky is really huge, and you have to search through millions of images to find the slightest hint that something might be out there.\n\n\n",
"we find planets by observing them transit across a star. basically we look for when light from a star dims. \n\nit is harder to find a dark object against a dark backdrop. "
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2m3g4p | how are computer science vectors and physics/math vectors related? | I am in "terza liceo" (should be 11th grade there overseas...my 11th year of school anyway) and we are studying vectors in physics.
Vectors as, those arrow thingies in the cartesian plane with direction and magnitude.
I have started coding two years ago and have first heard of vectors in the C book I studied (no CS for us Italian students till 11th grade :/).
There were vectors there, too. But they are mono-dimensional arrays.
So, how are they related? Do they just happen to have the same name? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2m3g4p/eli5_how_are_computer_science_vectors_and/ | {
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"Vectors in maths are usually represented as a one-dimensional matriax of values- the X component, Y component, Z component, and so on.\n\nThe vector template in C++ represents a one dimensional array. So the relation is that both are one dimensional collections of values. Aside from that, there's little connection. C++ vectors do not have the same operations available as mathematical vectors unless you define them yourself."
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6yqhba | when freezing vegetables, the cells explode because of the water in it expanding, and they get mushy. so ho does cryogenics work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6yqhba/eli5_when_freezing_vegetables_the_cells_explode/ | {
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"It doesn't, at least not yet. People who are cryogenically frozen now are gambling that a solution to the \"freezer burn\" problem will be found in the future, and that it can be applied retroactively.",
"Short answer: it doesn't.\n\nThe whole point of cryonics is that all we have is step 1: freeze body. There is no step 2 yet. ",
"Cryogenic is the idea that you can freeze things so fast ice crystals won't form. Sure you can accomplish that but unfreezing is not trivial and reviving.\n\nCryofreezing heads... Assumes you can revive a severed brain.\n\nIt's completely unproven. We haven't ever frozen a live animal like a rat and revived it. Relies on the concept of future techno magic.\n\nIt gets worse from here. Because you're dead you can't pay for the refrigeration nor sue if they fuck up. So technically if in a decade after you die the company... Dies... Even your techno magic dream is crushed because thy can't afford to refrigerate you.\n\nTl;Dr. Meat bags are scared of dying and meat bags sell magic refrigerators.",
"Flash/rapid freezing/cooling prevents this from happening, and a similar process can be used to freeze vegetables to prevent cell desegregation. Short simple explanation is the process of freezing slowly causes the cells to go through the states of matter, ending up in what is called a glass state, and thus causes damage and dehydration in the process, when cryogenic or flash freezing occurs it causes the cell to go into a glass state quicker thus causing the phase change to go quicker and reduce the chances of cell damage and dehydration, which is what destroys the cells.",
"Short version: Cryonics first drain the fluid out of your body and replace it with a kind of \"liquid\" that's like melted glass that's not actually liquid. When this is frozen, they don't expand, so minimum amount of cells gets damaged.\n\n(Really) Long version: _URL_0_\nIf you don't want to read through the article, ctrl+F Step 7) Get vitrified."
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41v5bi | how did occidental people choose to call china "china" | In Chinese the name of the country "China" is 中国 ( zhōngguó) which means "lands of the middle". To call this country English use "China" as Spanish and German do and French uses "Chine".
How come that occidental countries chose a word which doesn't sounds like the original word and neither as the same meaning? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/41v5bi/eli5_how_did_occidental_people_choose_to_call/ | {
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"There are multiple theories, the most widely accepted (to my knowledge) is that it is derived from *Qin*, an ancient Chinese state.",
"We're wildly inconsistent with the names we use for different countries. Like how in English we call it Germany, but in French it's Allemagne, and in German it's Deutschland.\n\nYou can waste hours on Wikipedia reading about it.\n\nAs for China, start here:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nBasically, we believe we get China from the Qin State (pronounced more like the Chin State in English)",
"IIRC it came from a Persian term which was the name for porcelain products which in turn probably came from the China's first dynasty, the Qin (pronounced \"chin\") dynasty.",
"For one reason or another, many countries have come to accept their \"secondary names\". In many cases they're easier for foreigners to pronounce or romanize (roman letters being the defacto transliteration alphabet). \n\nAlso, not all countries use the secondary term. Many have their own specific term they may use, like in Japan, it's called \"chuugoku\" and is written with the same characters. Literally meaning the same thing.\n\nCheck out this Wiki entry on where \"China' got its name _URL_1_\n\nOther countries share very similar stories, however, the history of Germany's names are super interesting as well, considering all the varied cultures and languages surrounding hte location you end up with a great many different words for \"Germany\": _URL_0_"
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55fcpq | why do we see the same set of stars through the entire year? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/55fcpq/eli5_why_do_we_see_the_same_set_of_stars_through/ | {
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"Your reasoning and \"awesome drawings\" are accurate, but the premise of your question is wrong. We *do* see different stars at different times of year, exactly as you reasoned we should.\n\nIt's only 100% different if you're on the equator (as in your drawing), but the night sky changes over the course of the year everywhere except the poles."
]
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qv2lu | nascar | I don't follow the sport so to me it just a bunch of cars driving in circles. What is there that is more then meet the eye? Besides the crashing, explosions and flying scrap-metal. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/qv2lu/eli5nascar/ | {
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"I never understood Nascar until I tried the 8-track race in GTA:San Andreas. It was really, really difficult until I figured out how to: (1) accelerate at the apex of a turn, (2) position the car to make the turn in as short a distance as possible, and (3) do this consistently for 12 laps. Basically, if you hit the gas too early/late, you can lose control and crash, or take too long of a path through the turn, which slows you down and loses position. It's fun and challenging. So race-car drivers are having an AWESOME time. I have no idea what the spectators do though. Beats me why you'd want to sit in a stadium and watch people do 500 laps.\n\nOoh, there's a [wikipedia article](_URL_0_) about the whole best-path-through-a-turn thing.",
"[This question got answered yesterday](_URL_0_)."
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60da51 | why do our bodies have an average weight range that doesn't seem to shift that much if we are within our "normal weight"despite eating a variety of foods ( different calorie intake per day)? is it just simply basic metabolic and caloric intake ? | (Over the past 18 months I dropped about 95 lbs by changing how and when I eat and keeping my diet mostly low calorie. I'm worried that i might gain back my weight if I finish the caloric deficit.) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60da51/eli5_why_do_our_bodies_have_an_average_weight/ | {
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"Generally you have a 'maintenance level' of calories which means that if you eat that many calories, you will not lose or gain weight. This is because that is the approximate energy used by the body (within a certain range).\nNow if you eat below that maintenance level, you will lose weight because you do not have the required intake of calories needed for the body, so the body will use it's supply of carbohydrates and eventually fats, which then shrink your fat cells, thus making you lose weight.\nIf you eat above your maintenance level of calories, the body has no use for the extra calories so it will convert the macronutrients into a storable energy form (such as glycogen or triglycerides in adipocytes).\n\nNow this is a very simple explanation and i could be wrong, so someone correct me if i am. But this is my understanding of it and hopefully it allows you to understand too. \n\nEDIT: to answer your question. If you eat at a maintenance level of calories then you shouldn't lose weight or gain weight. You'll have to calculate your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) to find out what that maintenance level is though.",
"You won't gain the weight back as long as you don't go back to your previous eating/activity habits (which were likely a combination of eating too much and moving too little, essentially). Your body has a range of \"maintenance calories\" that it needs for day-to-day living, which is generally in the 1800-2400 range, depending on a variety of factors. A quick google search should give you some resources to figure out approximately what yours is.\n\nYou don't need to maintain the calorie deficit, but you should avoid a calorie surplus, basically. So you'll need to either eat fewer calories than you used to, or get more activity than you used to to compensate. Best bet is to learn some recipes for healthy, filling foods that are relatively low-calorie, and still be able to enjoy the occasional treat. It's amazing just how much you can actually eat if you compare the calories in, say, a chocolate bar and the equivalent amount of fruit/veg you'd need to eat to reach the same threshold."
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eurebf | how did checks and other types of credit work before modern communications? | Now we have computer systems that can instantly determine the funds available in an account when a transaction occurs. One bank can also contact another bank instantly when an individual wants cash from a bank that they are not a member of.
How did people manage to do this when there were mountains, oceans, and seas between one bank another? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eurebf/eli5_how_did_checks_and_other_types_of_credit/ | {
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"When it came to checks, the short answer is the process was not instantaneous. You would deposit a check and would have to wait 3-5 business days for the check to \"clear\" - meaning that the issuing bank would transfer the funds to your bank, after which they would be available in your account. If the funds were not available, the check would bounce and you would not receive funds. International transactions - \"mountains, oceans, and seas between one bank another\" - were also much less common and would not typically be handled by personal check.\n\nCredit was handled via the actual credit companies. When someone came to your store to make a charge, you would call the credit intermediaries (eg. Visa, Mastercard) and they would check to see if the customer had enough credit available to make the purchase. If they did, then you would be given an authorization code for the transaction, assuring that you would be provided funds.",
"With checks, you only accepted them form people you trusted. You were often required to show a driver's license or a bank-issued check guarantee card, and if anything looked fishy, they simply would not be accepted. If there was a mountain or ocean between your purchase and your bank, most establishments would not accept your check as a matter of policy. Instead, you'd use travelers' checks which were prepaid and worked almost exactly like gift cards do today. \n\nCredit and charge cards were even harder to use, many places simply didn't accept them. Being able to use a card for fast food or at a convenience store is a relatively new thing, McDonald's didn't take cards until the early 2000s. Many places, like gas stations or department stores, would only take their own card...the Discover card grew out of the Sears store card. Otherwise, it was much like a check, you only allowed it for people you trusted. \n\nBefore credit cards (an era where women were often not in control of their finances), it wasn't unusual for stores to allow people to buy things on store credit. During the day (stores weren't usually open evenings) the husband would work, the wife would shop, put everything on store credit, and the husband would pay one big weekly or monthly bill. If it wasn't paid, they'd get cut off until it was and likely offered less credit in the future. Checks and cards were a natural extension of this, and stores would employ the same system of informal scrutiny as they did before.",
"Checks were first implemented (so far as we know) with the Knights Templar in their escorting people to the Holy land. People would deposit gold/silver/jewels and the like at a Templar location in Europe. They would be issued a note/letter stating how much was deposited (minus fees) and then they and their Templar Guards would be given a ciphered pass code (each different). When they got to their destination they would take the note to a different Templar depository, give their pass codes proving they were entitled to the money and it would be given to them. \n\nSimilar concepts were done with various banks who trusted each other in the following centuries but the modern concept and usage of a check was not common until large chain banks, or event national banks were implemented and by that point in time we had long range communications of the telegraph."
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4rewns | why do jump scares work even if we know they are about to happen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4rewns/eli5_why_do_jump_scares_work_even_if_we_know_they/ | {
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"The startle response is a reflex. Since it's a reflex, you don't consciously trigger it. Instead, it's triggered by an external phenomenon such as a loud sound. When there's a loud, sudden sound your nervous system automatically causes you to react before you process anything. The reason is that the reflex is supposed to protect you from sudden dangers where you might have less than a second to think about them. If your body waited around for your brain to consciously process the sound and determine how to react, you could lose precious seconds and get injured or die as a result.\n\nIt's similar to putting your hand on a hot object. You pull your hand back without thinking about it. Sometimes you might even pull it back before you register any pain (though the pain will follow very shortly). Your reflexes bypass your conscious decisionmaking to save time, but as a result you can't really plan them out or control them."
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1zcboa | what causes you to throw up a little bit in your mouth when you burp sometimes? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zcboa/eli5_what_causes_you_to_throw_up_a_little_bit_in/ | {
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"Gasses built up in your stomach are the reason for burping. When you release these, they travel up your oesophagus and out your mouth. Sometimes a little material from your stomach will travel with it.\n\nNormally, a combination of a closed Esophageal Sphincter^1 and peristalsis^2 keep your stomach contents in your stomach, but if you let rip a big old burp, sometimes some of those contents can overcome these and travel up with the gasses. \n\nWhat you should also keep in mind is that your stomach contents are very acidic, even a tiny amount of that stuff tastes very strongly in your mouth, so you're not really burping up much. \n\n--------------\n\n^1 Esophageal Sphincter - The ring of tissue between the stomach and the oesophagus which can open and close\n\n^2 Peristalsis - The motion of the oesophagus that pushed food down it and into the stomach, akin to the movement of a worm."
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3mblw8 | how did they get, and keep, the footage of the atomic bomb tests? | You've seen the footage: those orange-red tinged shots of the car and bus being blasted across the desert, the shockwave hitting the trees and making a "forest" shimmy, and the house blistering into ashes.
So with all these thermonuclear torments, how the the camera stay trained on the spot, and how did the film not vaporize? What about retrieval? Don't get me wrong, I'm not some truther who's trying to say it wasn't real or the Freemasons did it (we had a pancake breakfast that day so we're good on alibis), or any such nonsene. Just curious.
Was camera tech good enough back then to have super long-range zoom? With the terrible force and energy, the shockwave pushing out and the negative pressure return wave what was used to stabilize the image? How was the recording possible with the presence of EMP? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mblw8/eli5_how_did_they_get_and_keep_the_footage_of_the/ | {
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"First of all: for most shots of the blasts themselves, the camera was with the human observers i.e. sufficiently far enough away to be safe from massive shockwaves. Zoom lenses did not need to be super zooms, given the sizes of the explosions. Some cameras were put in massively heavy enclosures to survive being closer e.g. to capture the shock wave effects on structures and animals. You can design such things if you have an estimate of the conditions, which they did. \n\nPlus: who's claiming that no cameras or film were ever destroyed? I'd be very surprised if that never happened! ",
"From [this article:](_URL_0_)\n > *The house in the photos below was located 3,500 feet from ground zero. The nuclear blast the completely destroyed the house was conducted on March 17, 1953 at the Nevada Tests Site -- Yucca Flat. The photographs are clips from film made by a 35mm.* ***Mitchell camera located 60 feet from the house.*** *Shooting 24 frames per second, the time from the first to last picture was 2 1/3 seconds.* ***The camera was completely enclosed in a 2 inch lead sheath as a protection against radiation. The only source of light was that from the bomb.***",
"There are multiple books on the subject one of them interestingly, is called \"How to Photograph an Atomic Bomb\". It is available from Amazon. The most interesting photographs are of the bomb itself at the moment of detonation showing the plasma ball. When compared to special effects from the movie \"The Matrix\", it used the first instance of \"bullet-time\" style photography. Multiple cameras were set up to take an individual shot of the physical bomb on the platform where it was detonated. These cameras were time sequenced."
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6tfs11 | why do some people (aka my girlfriend) get bitten by every bug whereas some people (me) never get bitten? even when we are with each other all day, same place, same activities. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6tfs11/eli5_why_do_some_people_aka_my_girlfriend_get/ | {
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"CO2 is major, as are uric and lactic acids related to sweating, but cholesterol is also a huge draw. \n\nSo a lot of women who process cholesterol more efficiently than their male company and have more cholesterol by-products on their skin surface, may actually end up targets only after the mosquitoes are drawn in by the guys' greater production of sweat and CO2 (gender is irrelevant; this can definitely go the other way too).\n\nSome studies have also found mosquitoes are more attracted to some blood types than others.",
"i wouldn't be so sure you aren't being bitten. you probably are being bitten but don't react as strongly. less reaction - > less itch - > less scratching - > less buildup of symptoms \n\nfor example, some people are allergic and hyperreact to bed bug bites. they turn into huge spread out welts. others you wouldn't even know they were feasted on.",
"Actually, it's also possible that both of you get bitten but you do not have reaction to it. Kind of like bee stings: some are allergic and some are not. ",
"Also. Biting bugs are attracted to people with type O blood especially if they are the lucky ones who excrete thru sweat ",
"Perfumes and deodorants tends to attract bugs and mosquito, we got told this a few times when on holiday when i was younger, they like the floral scents and everything from roll ons, sprays, perfumes, it all has extracts and oils from flowers and things like berries. However bugs don't like citric acid, they don't like the smell of anything like oranges and it wipes out whole colognes of bugs, it's a good way to get rid of lice too, i used to suffer with them bad for nearly 9 years, no matter what i did i couldn't get rid of them, started using a pomegranate shampoo made with pomegranate juice which means a higher level of citric acid and they just disappeared. If you eat a lot of fruit, grapefruit, oranges you'll smell like it and the bugs will stay away from you. It's why these fruit fly kits has a kind of orange solution in it, my mum has put oranges on the window in he kitchen once and it repelled a lot of the fruit flies.",
"So people mentioned a few things but the 2 biggest factors are genetics and blood. For starters, bugs (mosquitos) are most attracted to people with O- blood types, likely due to the fact that they lack blood antibodys. A blood has anti B antibodies, B has anti A, AB has neither anti A or B, O has anti A and B. The Rh factor is the same, if you are - you ha e anti Rh, + you don't have anti Rh. Which is why O- can donate to anyone but only receive O-, and AB+ can receive blood from anyone. To sum that bit up, since people with O type blood have antibodies that are anti A and B, if you put A blood in them their immune system will attack it. Because of this it's easier to ingest and transfer without triggering an immunologic response in the host. \n\nThe other genetic part is how much you sweat and what it's made of. Sweat is probably the biggest go to for insects, as it's not only potent and easy to recognize, but offers surface nourishment and shows the animal/host is in good condition (alive things sweat, dead things dont). Depending on your genetics, you may sweat more or less, and your sweat can have different concentrations of various chemicals which may be more appealing. Also thus how some people barely sweat and they real, whereas other people sweat and don't smell at all. \n\n(Note for smelling, the smell itself comes from surface bacteria breaking down the sweat which also plays a factor, but this is also dependant on sweat make up and locations again)",
"also if she has a higher blood sugar level than you do.. insects smell that shit a mile off. I'm exaggerating, but i used to get bit all the time until i changed my diet (for successful weightloss) and i stopped getting bit when i stopped the gummybear addiction ^.^",
"Sometimes medication will change how much bugs like you... I started taking lithium 2 years ago and haven't had a single bug bite since : )",
"Is your g/f O+ blood type? There are studies that suggest certain blood types re simply more delicious than others. O+ is apparently ambrosia.\n\nSource; Am O+\n\n[actual source](_URL_0_)",
"I don't know about other bugs, but for bedbugs EVERYONE gets bitten, and some people just aren't allergic to the bites.\n\nIf you don't have the allergic reaction, then it's impossible to tell that you've been bitten. It's also possible to gain/lose the allergic reaction to the bites.\n\nAlso fuck bedbugs.",
"Consider some other things as well for just your own personal situation.\n\nShe's probably a modern American girl meaning she likely shaves her legs and probably has significantly thinner arm hair than you do. On top of that, her clothing probably covers less surface area of her body on average than yours does. Leaving much of her back and arms exposed that wouldn't be exposed on you.\n\nI have found multiple times, that when mosquitoes land on my legs, I subconsciously rub my legs together (and often find wreckage left over later)...since my wife doesn't have leg hair, she doesn't get that extra sense that I do, so her legs get destroyed by mosquitoes. ",
"What everyone about odor and stuff can be true, I remember reading in my biology class that some people are more allergic to the bites than others, she must be allergic to their bites/poison/sting while you can be bit all day and won't feel a thing ",
"After getting west Nike virus in 2013 I haven't gotten a single mosquito bite since. I'm a very outdoorsy person, fishing especially. My friends are the same way but every summer comes dreaded mosquitoes for them while I get to sit back and crack jokes ",
"Everyone's different, to a great or lesser extent. This includes a huge number of characteristics that certain bugs can sense (like exhaled CO2, sweat, skin temperature, general body odor, etc etc etc), and things they can't, or at least that we're not aware that they can. This is affected by genetics, diet, habits, and other factors. \n\nBottom line: It's normal, to a certain extent. :)\n\nBut if you really want to know the precise reasons, first become an entomologist, then get to know every difference between you and her that can be measured by modern science. Then write a paper analyzing these things. And be prepared to not have a solid answer even then.",
"I think some people just react worse to certain bugs. I read a thing about bed bugs once where the guy lives in an infested apartment complex and had no idea until his girlfriend start staying the night and getting bit a bunch... He apparently showed no reactions while she did. "
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30cf09 | what are the legal repercussions for paying for something with counterfeit money, when you received that money from someone else? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30cf09/eli5_what_are_the_legal_repercussions_for_paying/ | {
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"There's no legal punishment since you couldn't fulfil both requirements for it to me a crime mens rhea and actus rhea. Who's means guilty mind an guilty action. The person wouldn't have knowingly commuted a crime so they can't be help responsible ",
"It depends on your intent.\n\nAccording to 18 USC Part I Chapter 25, most counterfeiting crimes require a person to *intend* to utter or pass counterfeit money.\n\nAs well, persons with knowledge or reason to believe that counterfeit money is being passed by them can perhaps be liable, but it would be very difficult to prove this (unless you were informed by someone about the counterfeit nature of the money)."
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204vl8 | if downloading songs off the internet is illegal, how is it legal for there to be free apps that let you download songs? | Sorry if the question doesn't make perfect sense. I tried to word it as best as possible. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/204vl8/eli5_if_downloading_songs_off_the_internet_is/ | {
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"Only downloading copyrighted material is illegal. You are free to upload and download songs off the internet as long as the copyright owners have granted permission. ",
"I can buy a pipe, and I can smoke tobacco, marijuana, or crack in it. Until that choice is made, it's just a pipe, and you can't say what I'm going to do with it.",
"They aren't legal, generally. See how they last in the stores, or even exist on the Apple store.\n\n"
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3ela9y | why don't we use liquid nitrogen to cool computers? | Surely that would be really effective and would help to advance the speed of current CPUs.
Is it a cost thing? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ela9y/eli5_why_dont_we_use_liquid_nitrogen_to_cool/ | {
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" > Is it a cost thing?\n\nYes, the cost is obscene.\n\nIt's also a good bit that it's just not easy to use very effectively; it's been done for short-term testing or just for fun but you can take the temperature too low and damage it. ",
"Its effective but nowhere near practical.\n\nYou are now reliant on a consumable, finite and not inexpensive resource to sustain an overkill cooling method that has its own share of downsides (condensation is the most obvious).\n\nLiquid Nitrogen is really only needed for extreme situations, such as breaking world overclocking records. Even then, they use Liquid Helium.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Also it is extremely dangerous when handled incorrectly. You get liquid nitrogen burns, and frostbite too. There are photos of liquid nitrogen victim up in outside the storage room in the uni I go to. Shit looks painful."
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z358i | how do taps / faucets work? | This is something I've never quite understood. How does turning a tap cause water to shoot UP into the sink?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/z358i/eli5_how_do_taps_faucets_work/ | {
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"The water is pressurized in the pipes. When you turn on the faucet, it allows the water to come out. When you close it, it stops the water.",
"Water in pipes is under pressure, so when you turn the faucet it opens a valve and the water shoots out. \n\nEver see a water tower? That is where your water comes from, a pipe from that tower goes to your house and the force of gravity keeps the water in the pipes under pressure. "
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38b29c | was ww2 propaganda (posters, movies, etc.) blatantly and widely referred to as "propaganda" at the time or is that just the description we give it in retrospect? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38b29c/eli5_was_ww2_propaganda_posters_movies_etc/ | {
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"Same as today, find something like \"American Sniper\", you will see tons and tons of stuff that does call it propaganda but it's not like the poster says 'come see this new propaganda!\" ",
"The enemy's propaganda is always called propaganda. \n\nAlthough, its interesting that the word didn't always have such negative connotations. The root of the word is the same as 'propagation', and it began in a religious context. Even as recently as WW1 the British would charmingly refer to their own propaganda coming out of the Ministry of Information, though lately the use implies a negative."
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2hcylg | phil spector's wall of sound technique | What was it? What was the purpose? Thanks. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hcylg/eli5_phil_spectors_wall_of_sound_technique/ | {
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"Musician here who has made attempts for a \"Wall of Sound\". It's basically just layering sounds and instruments to create a dense and layered sound that sounds good on the radio. What I do is that I duplicate the midi melody across multiple instruments so they sound synchronized and like they are playing together.",
"He would record several of the same instruments playing in unison. The effect creates a layered and large sound, hence \"wall of sound\". The purpose was to create something that sounded better on radio. ",
"The purpose was to maximize the amount of sound per second. The effect, when done right, was startling compared to other kinds of music. For pop music, where you are competing for people's attention continuously, the technique proved to be very commercially successful.\n\nImagine that you are looking at a graph of the amount of sound energy being produced by a recording. Let's start with just the drum. On beats, the energy graph hits a peak. Between beats, the energy graph is at zero.\n\nNow you layer in the bass. The bass notes create more peaks on the graph so there's less time when the graph is at zero.\n\nLayer in the guitars and the vocals. There's a lot more time when the graph is above zero, and relatively few places where the graph is at zero. Maybe it never goes all the way to zero, but instead just shows a variance between a high point and a low point. That's what most pop music looked like before the Wall of Sound.\n\nThe Wall of Sound is an engineering technique that seeks to keep the sound graph at the peak as much as possible. By controlling all the aspects of the recording using multiple tracks, overdubbing, and other techniques, the Wall of Sound produces a recording where there are very few low points on that sound energy graph. The result is that the sound is distinctly more \"powerful\" than the average piece of recorded music.\n\nThe trick is that if you just turned up all the microphones used in the recording session or had the guitarists play endless chords, you end up with a muddled sonic mess. It's like mixing all the colors on a paint palette - you'll end up with an unappetizing brown color. Spector's genius was figuring out how to put all the pieces of the sound together so that what emerged was still recognizably a piece of pop music and not just a droning muddled mess."
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6ogzmg | why does the us use gas for dental surgery when it seems like the majority of ( if not all? ) other countries seem to use local anaesthetic? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ogzmg/eli5_why_does_the_us_use_gas_for_dental_surgery/ | {
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"Novacaine is the most common out here. Gas is by request (and will usually cost more). Also wisdom teeth are usually removed pretty early and usually requres general anesthetic because it is surgery.",
"The US does use local anesthesia. The \"gas\" you're referring to is called nitrous oxide. It's used to help patients relax and calm down, whereas anesthesia is used to numb areas so pain isn't felt. The gas is a sedative, not an anesthetic. Both can be used during wisdom teeth removal. ",
"You had a simple extraction. Not all are that simple. \n\nI had impacted wisdom teeth extracted. It took 6 different anesthetic applications, local topical, local injected as well as one that numbed half my face for a day. And I was there with my jaw propped open and getting cramped and dry mouth.\n\nIt wasnt end of the world pain....but getting knocked out would have been considerable as an option. "
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3oeydm | how come languages that i do not know always sound like they are spoken so fast? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3oeydm/eli5_how_come_languages_that_i_do_not_know_always/ | {
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"Because you can't make out the individual elements, which means you can't tell how fast individual words are being said, so it just sounds like a constant stream. "
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8l4dca | how can you forget you needed to use the bathroom when you just previously felt like you needed to go very badly? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8l4dca/eli5_how_can_you_forget_you_needed_to_use_the/ | {
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"Your body has two major system responses in it: the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems.\n\n One is responsible for the feeling of needing to go to the bathroom, as well as digestion and metabolism, resting rates for your heart and respiration, etc, the parasympathetic system, or the \"rest and digest\" system. \n\nThe other is responsible for your \"fight or flight\" instincts, basically the opposite of the parasympathetic called the sympathetic. By not using the bathroom, you're forcing your body more into the fight or flight system instead of into the rest and digest by giving it a stimulus to prevent the transition. ",
"You bladder can hold a lot more than you realize. Compare the amount you go first thing in the morning against almost any other trip.\n\nWhen you're awake, it's in your body's best interests to send the \"time to pee\" signal to your brain when your bladder is about a third full. This gives you lots of time to start looking for a good place to let go. \n\nWhen hunting or trying to hide while being hunted, peeing is a very bad idea. When you get focused on doing something that requires you to stay put (playing a video game, for instance) your brain sends the \"now is not a good time\" signal to your bladder. That's why you often need to pee urgently when you pause a game - You've stopped focusing on something that requires holding it, so it must be a good time to go."
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2ejdkr | how does the bmi function on my bathroom scale work, and how accurate is it? | I've always wondered how this works. FWIW I have an Aria wifi-integrated bathroom scale.
EDIT: Ok technically it's showing my body fat percentage, not my BMI. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ejdkr/eli5_how_does_the_bmi_function_on_my_bathroom/ | {
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"I can't speak about your scale, but I can tell you that its accuracy is bound by the accuracy of the index itself -- which is to say it is utterly useless and should be disregarded with maximum prejudice.\n\nBMI is an \"index\", which is statistics speak for an ordinal, dimensionless summarization of a large number of data points. It has *no meaning* outside the realm of charts and graphs, in other words. It is not useful for hard science, because it is not a measurement of anything; it is a number representing relative position on a largely-arbitrary scale. It is not useful for health, because it does not take into account any data other than height and weight. And it is not useful to compute \"your\" BMI, because you are one (1) person, and therefore *you do not have a BMI*.\n\nIt exists because we needed a simple, easy-to-compute way to represent the relative health of different populations. Well, it was found that people generally have good normally-distributed ratios of fat to muscle and good normally-distributed ratios of height-to-width, so the only two values we needed to conveniently approximate average fatness for a large group of people were height and weight.\n\nIt was taken and ran with by people who didn't know what they were doing, and it has entered and poisoned public health consciousness."
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39p4zw | why does moving your neck suddenly causing it to crack sometimes cause intense pain and heat? afterwards? | Sometimes I'll move my head really quickly and I'll get this intense pain followed by heat and then it turns into a dull pain for a few minutes afterwards. What am I doing differently to the person that just cracks their neck normally? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39p4zw/eli5_why_does_moving_your_neck_suddenly_causing/ | {
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"You're pinching a nerve in your neck. It happens to most people at least occasionally, it's just a nerve in your flesh getting squeezed or pulled a little too hard or too quickly. People also often get the same sort of thing in the bottom of their foot, where it feels like your arch is getting torn apart.\n\nI don't have much advice beyond making a habit of turning your neck slower. When it does happen, be easy on your neck for a bit and don't try to \"uncrack\" it, you'll probably just make it worse."
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57mxeb | why is it often political suicide to "flip-flop" or change one's opinion based on sound argument, evidence, or voter opinion? | It seems like every election cycle this is a negative phrase used by one candidate to the other (both sides being guilty of this). I can think of several times that my personal opinion has been swayed by sound argument, evidence, or strong social movements that I would otherwise not be aware of.
Thus, changing a political ideology or belief seems like a good thing as it would appear the individual is: a.) listening to arguments and building a sound opinion; b.) listening to the voices of the people and representing the population; c.) has new information on a topic that sways his/her opinion on previous established beliefs. All of these reasons seem to give a person a unique perspective of both sides and allows for civil discussion and debate to continue to occur. Why is this seen as such a negative thing to voters? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/57mxeb/eli5_why_is_it_often_political_suicide_to/ | {
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"It's an argument of principles initially, but then in the absence of sound argument, or evidence it becomes an exercise in pandering. Changing your position to get votes isn't a principled maneuver...it's a breach of your personal standards and who wants a person in elected office who's known to flap in the wind on important issues?",
"There are a few aspects to this. First is that people like politicians with strong internal principles that they agree with. Bernie, for example, has been hammering the same points for 30 years. You can find old clips on YouTube from the 90s that are almost identical to his campaign speeches. Having strong principles is a selling point.\n\nAs a corollary, the worry with politicians changing their mind is that it means they can change their mind about anything for any reason. And there are a lot of bad reasons out there. How do people know you weighed the evidence and came to a reasonable conclusion when you could have just as easily been given a lot of money by a lobbyist or realized there were a few thousand votes to be gotten for a small policy shift? \n\nIt's a fine line. We want politicians that can be swayed by new evidence, but we don't want ones that will cave to anything resembling pressure. But since it's easy to make an ad about flip flopping and hard to convince people that you really did change based on evidence, this is what we get.",
"Being a \"flip-flopper\" by defintion means you are changing your opinion on something as a move to get more voters or to pander to your current voters, not because there is a well reasoned legitimate change to your stance. ",
"You vote for a politician because you want him to do what he says and vote according to the position he says he has. If a politician changes their position then it means they could say one thing to get elected and then do something different, going against the wishes of their voters.",
"If you take Hillary Clinton's changing position on gay marriage: people see her as smart so believe she must have thought about it and was either always in favour or always opposed, so her stated position (that happens to follow focus groups over time) appears to be calculated to gain maximum support. It really isn't about updating your opinion with the evidence. By the time the subject is public, any engaged politician would be well familiar with the evidence. ",
"People elect politicians to represent them, if I have strong beliefs on abortion, I don't want a politician to change their mind after they are elected, and when a politician changes their stance, it makes people think they were lying just to get elected.\n\nIt can also be seen as an act of political cowardice. Hillary Clinton, when the war against Iraq was popular, voted for it. She then withdrew her support when it was unpopular. That was due in part to Bush administration misrepresentations, but Obama (who had the luxury of not having to vote on it) was able to use it again her in 2008, and that contributed to him winning the nomination.",
"\"Flip flopping\" implies a very *rapid* & insincere change of position based on what's most convenient at the time. If you're talking to a bunch of coal miners this week & saying that you're against environmental regulations and want to open up more land to mining then *the next week* you're telling a bunch of hippies that we should ban all coal mining and *the next week* you've got another position on the issue that matches whatever your audience wants to hear, **that** is flip flopping.\n\nIf your views on an issue today are different than they were twenty years ago, that's perfectly normal. Societal attitudes change, more information is found & people grow.\n\nSometimes, like everything in our modern political system, the meaning of the term is twisted and just used to attack people for things that aren't actually bad."
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56a66c | what's the difference between olive oil, vegetable oil, coconut oil, motor oil, lubricating oil, etc. chemically? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/56a66c/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_olive_oil/ | {
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"Not a whole lot. The difference between the types of oil refined from crude is mostly the lengths of the carbon chains. The longer the carbon chains, the thicker/more viscous the oil. \n\nVegetable oils tend to be glycerides - several chains attached by a glycerol group. \n\nThey differ by length of carbon chain etc. too as well as impurities. There aren't massive differences between the vegetable oils themselves and it's a pain in the backside trying to differentiate them with simple tests. "
]
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||
4663ow | why are steering wheels not placed in the middle of a car with 2 passenger seats on each side? you could fit an extra person and better keep center in lanes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4663ow/eli5_why_are_steering_wheels_not_placed_in_the/ | {
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"That was how many of the first cars were designed. They found that the current standards are more efficient.\n\nBeing in the center means that you have to make cars much wider than they currently are, which in turn makes them less maneuverable. It also means you are less able to accurately judge distance from oncoming traffic, which is the most important reason for them to be placed on the side that they are. ",
"It doesn't make it easier to keep center in lanes. If you're on the side, you can make sure the left side of your car is in the right place, and that means the right side is too. if the wheel is in the center, you don't know where either side is as well."
]
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3i853d | if the middle of summer is june 21st, and it's august 21st, the sun is at the same angle as april 21st. how come it's much warmer in august than april? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3i853d/eli5_if_the_middle_of_summer_is_june_21st_and_its/ | {
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"text": [
"The Earth is big, and it takes a long time to warm up. Temperature lags behind energy input."
]
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55t3ca | what does a game developer and a game designer do? | Are developers mainly for coding/programming and designers do the less technical stuff? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/55t3ca/eli5_what_does_a_game_developer_and_a_game/ | {
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"Essentially yes. The developers is responsible for the technical aspects of the game, making it run and capable of doing what the designer wants. The designer is similar to a writer in a TV show. He comes up with the plot, script, dialog, game mechanics and level design. There is also artists who make all the art and 3D figures in the game. They make the game look good. The game designer is often more like a boss since he is the one who tells the developers and artists what they should be working on. However there is often a more suitable manager to do most of this as the designer is not hired for his managing skills. The entire team is working together and need to throw ideas back and forth.",
"The exact meaning of \"game developer\" differs between organisations. I think it usually means anyone who has a hand in making a game.\n\nThere are (very) broadly 3 categories of game developers:\n\n* Programmers - They do the technical part. Actually making the game run, implementing the logic of the game rules (maybe, sometimes designers do that) and providing tools for other disciplines to use. Some organisations might strictly mean programmers when they say \"developers\".\n\n* Artists - Use programs like Photoshop and 3D Studio Max to create textures, models and animations for characters and objects in the game world. That can also include things like concept art and promotional images as well as artwork used in the game itself.\n\n* Designers - This is a hugely varied discipline, and exactly what they do depends on the type of game. It involves deciding how the game will play, tweaking it, designing levels. For broad gameplay ideas they'd usually get programmers to make it for them and give them tools to tweak the details (like allow them to change how much damage a weapon does). For designing levels, they'd usually have a level editor which allows them to drop models and gameplay objects in.\n\nThere's a ton of other jobs that might be considered distinct from these categories, or might be considered to be part of them. For example sound design may be considered distinct from regular game design, or it might be considered a sub set of it.\n\nThere are also jobs which fit somewhere in between them. For example you might have scripters who do basic programming to define the game rules or create missions, but don't touch the technical details. Often using tools the programmers have provided for them. So they're somewhere between a game designer and a programmer.\n\nAnd lets not forget QA (Quality Assurance) who test the game and report bugs to the rest of the team.",
" This is a really difficult question to answer because the original words don't really hold the same meaning as they do now.\n\n So think of it this way, all game designers are game developers, but not all game developers are designers. A game developer is anybody on a game-making team that contributes in some way to the final product.\n\nMore specifically, a designer is somebody who does the over-reaching design of a system. That doesn't mean that they aren't part of the implementation, they usual are. Here's a few examples:\n\n- Quest Designer: Somebody who specializes in creating quests or missions, this can include everything from dialogue to the actual mechanics of that quest or how the main mechanics of the game play into the completion of a set of objectives. These people are writers who also have some experience in visual scripting.\n\n- Gameplay/Mechanics Designer: This is would be the person who comes up with how the game is played. This can be anything from how high the player can jump, to what effect the environment has on the player.\n\n- Level Designer: This is somebody who will usually take pre-made assets and insert them into the game engine in a specific way to create a level. They usually have some basic programming/graphics knowledge.\n\nThe list goes on.\n\nWhere people tend to get mixed up is the interchangeability of \"Designer\" and \"Artist\". The problem is that artist itself is a vague term. So for example, the concept artist is an game artists, but so is the person who does the animation. The person who sculpts the models, or the environment is an artist. \n\nSimilarly, programing has it's own variety of subcategories, such as engine programmer, AI programmer, physics programmer ect.\n\nUltimately though, what happens is that there's a lot of overlap when it comes to skills, and a lot of interconnectedness in the pipeline. \n\nAs an example, let's say that I want to make a vehicle in a game. Well, it starts of with the designer who figures out the mechanics of the vehicle, how it works within the game world and so on. Then he'll write up a design document for it. That then gets passed on to the graphics artists who actually create the textures, models and any animation, to the programmer who give it it's physical properties and interaction, and to the sound engineer artist who creates the specific sounds associated with the vehicle. Once everybody is done, it all gets compiled into one object with many layers.\n\nOf course, it's slightly more complex and detailed than that, but you get the gist: A game developer can be a programmer, an artists, a sound engineer, a designer, a writer, QA, bug finding and hell, even the janitor. A game designer, on the other hand, has specific design duties when it comes to the games systems."
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23vvhj | why don't animals smell as bad as they should? ex: dogs don't wipe. | Dogs, for example, never wipe their butt, and don't walk around smelling like poop. Why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23vvhj/eli5_why_dont_animals_smell_as_bad_as_they_should/ | {
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"They do wipe. With their tongue. And then they give kisses when you come home!\n\nThey have less to wipe than we do though, mostly because they don't have butt cheeks that get dirty.",
"They don't have such in-depth butt cracks where it gets stuck/smeared as easily. Plus their diets are generally more regular than ours can be, making more consistent poo.\n\nedit: they mention that in this Vsauce video: _URL_0_"
]
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"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKg9Vl_Wg5U&list=UU6nSFpj9HTCZ5t-N3Rm3-HA"
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4oq5h6 | why did everything become so minimalistic? buildings, art, etc.. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4oq5h6/eli5_why_did_everything_become_so_minimalistic/ | {
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"In Western culture, the era from 1916 to 1945 (the two World Wars) marked a turning point. The old European ways did not seem to be working -- that culture seemed to be collapsing on itself in a wave of wars and mass murders. Some artists responded by trying to throw away everything and start with a new, more modern way of doing things, free of the old cultural baggage.\n\nBy coincidence, this new simplified style turned out to be very efficient to manufacture or build, especially by machine. So it was both a new fashion *and* a cheaper way to do things. Thus it became very popular."
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wmfw4 | special relativity says that objects' perception of time slows down to 0 as it approaches/reaches the speed of light. if this is the case, why does light itself have speed? | Physics are definitely not my strong suit, so bare with me here. If light is photons (particles) traveling at the speed of itself, and time dilation says that objects traveling at that speed experience no time, why does light have a measurable speed instead of instantly "teleporting" to its target location? After all, speed is nothing more than distance/time. If time is nonexistent, where does the speed come in? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wmfw4/eli5_special_relativity_says_that_objects/ | {
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" > time dilation says that objects traveling at that speed experience no time\n\nThat's not how time dilation works exactly. Every object always experiences time as normal. When you move relative to some other observer, you see them moving more slowly through time, and they perceives *you* as moving more slowly through time, but you each perceive your own clocks as ticking at the normal rate.",
"Photons have 0 mass. Only things with mass are limited by the speed of light, because the speed of light can be thought of as \"immediate\". Basically, photons do teleport - they travel at the maximum speed information can possibly travel through the universe.\n\nAnd, photons don't experience time. They're the same from the time they start being to the time they stop being.\n\nFrom a quick google-fu, one of the keys to determining that neutrinos have mass was the fact that they change state between the sun and earth. If they do this, they experience time, and therefore cannot be massless (like photons). ",
"From a perspective of a photon, the moment it pops into existence and moment it gets absorbed are the same. However long it may take it, it'll not perceive a journey."
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2jum6e | how do the unpopped kernels in popcorn absorb the energy from the microwave instead of the already popped kernels; leaving us with a full bag of perfectly popped kernels instead of half a bag of burned kernels? | edit: burnt* | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jum6e/eli5_how_do_the_unpopped_kernels_in_popcorn/ | {
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"text": [
"Water absorbs microwaves well, the rest of the kernel does not.\n\nWhen the water heats up and turns to steam, it expands and forces the kernel to pop, and then escapes. The microwaves mostly pass through the remaining popcorn."
]
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|
bj91l2 | how do scammy for-profit schools stay in business? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bj91l2/eli5_how_do_scammy_forprofit_schools_stay_in/ | {
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"They have access to enough funding (in large part due to student loans being so easy to obtain) to maintain high profile advertising campaigns.\n\nThey also heavily target those who, for various reasons, struggle to get into other schools and see something like ITT Tech or University of Phoenix as better than their local community college (largely due to advertising presence)."
]
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||
9hr5m8 | why are our hands generally less sensitive to temperature than the rest of our body? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9hr5m8/eli5_why_are_our_hands_generally_less_sensitive/ | {
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"This is anecdotal, but it might be due to the callusing of your hands, and resulting thickening of the skin. \n\nI find that my hands are _more_ sensitive to temperature than much of the rest of my body. Your hands have a huge amount of nerves in them, and also therefore temperature sensitivity. Clearly there are other high-nerve-density areas, but your hands are large concentrations. "
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bknmmn | how did the kentucky derby get to be such a big deal (compared to all other horse races)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bknmmn/eli5_how_did_the_kentucky_derby_get_to_be_such_a/ | {
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"Marketing!\n\nWhile the derby started in the 1870s, it started becoming huge in the early 1900s. Horse racing was a major sport then, it would probably be the equivalent of something like the NBA now (Boxing and baseball were the other two major sports at the time). \n\nDuring the early 1900s, they marketed the event big time, got celebrities to attend, and marketed it as a big event, famous people, amazing races, high class, and a party. Don’t forget the derby is seriously a huge party. \n\nAnd well, it worked, it became a famous race, on the radio, in papers, in peoples minds, it was a whole big social event, more than just a race. \n\nThis continued of course, and despite horse racing no longer being a major sport, the derby still retained its big time social status."
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b2khl3 | why does russia seem to have an inordinate amount of big meteor impacts? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b2khl3/eli5_why_does_russia_seem_to_have_an_inordinate/ | {
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"It's a large area of land. Kinda like hitting a quarter vs a hockey puck. That and all the anti insurance scammer cameras.",
"Remember Russia is a rather large country, geographically. It's a big target, so it gets hit a lot. Meteor strikes happen all over the place, but because most of Earth is open ocean, we don't tend to know about them.\n\nFurthermore, Russians have a culture of using dashcams on their cars (mainly because car insurance scams are extremely common), thus they tend to capture meteor impacts on video as at any given moment Russia will have a huge amount of HD cameras pointed every which way, and because Russia is as flat as it is away from the Urals, you can see through the sky a long ways off.",
"If you look at the distribution of all detected meteor fireball events over the last 30 years, it looks sort of well distributed over the entire globe.\n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\n\nSo Russia doesn't actually have significantly more than anywhere else per unit surface area - but Russia being the largest country by area gives it a larger number of events - but it just so happens that the two biggest reported recent events have happened over Russia. This could have happened entirely by chance."
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cck2u8 | how do they get the footage for ocean documentaries? | I'm watching Blue Planet and I have so many questions. Do the filmmakers use manned vessels with cameras? If so, how do they get so close to where the animals and ocean life continue to act naturally? Do they use some kind of remote controlled camera? How about the Deep? How do they capture such high quality footage with no light? If they add light wouldn't that disrupt the ocean life and scare them away? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cck2u8/eli5_how_do_they_get_the_footage_for_ocean/ | {
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"There are many ways that it can be filmed. Some may be by drivers physically filming underwater. The do used manned submarines and underwater drones (basically remote controlled submarines). \n\nI spent time in the past looking up how they film in the very deep water onetime. The light can actually attract some of the fish and sealife.",
"There's an actual documentary of how the blue planet was made and how they shot everything. I remember that for the deep sea shooting they used a small submersible vessel and they went deep into the ocean. It was like an ocean car which was used to shoot the part in the dark. And here was light but it didn't scare the fish. And also they had high tech cameras!",
"There is a segment at the end of each show showing how they got the shots. Did you not see/watch that far? Kinda like all Attenborough docs. Enjoy."
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2b1mwd | why isn't sweat just made of water? | If our bodies supposedly cool down by sweating, why is it not just water? Why does it contain other chemicals that smell really bad? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2b1mwd/eli5_why_isnt_sweat_just_made_of_water/ | {
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"Sweat doesn't smell bad, it's pretty much odourless. The stink associated with sweat is from bacteria that lives on your skin. The bacteria live of your sweat and break it down into compounds that smell bad. When you bathe you wash off some of the bacteria and the stinky substances they've created. As soon as you start sweating again the bacteria quickly repopulate and start the process over. ",
"Because your body is really not designed to purify water to excrete, instead, it just excretes a similar solution to what is around the cells.",
"The sweat primarily contains salt and water. The salt helps the water evaporate more rapidly than it would without it. When your sweat evaporates, it takes heat with it. As others have mentioned, the smell is the result of bacteria reproducing on your skin. "
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3ca9mm | in the u.s. why are guns legal in more states than fireworks? | From what i can tell with my limited research, people seem to be legally able to get access to handguns etc in at least 45 states in the U.S. yet in only 40 states can people buy fireworks.... is there any reasoning behind this or are fireworks considered around the world to be more dangerous than guns? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ca9mm/eli5_in_the_us_why_are_guns_legal_in_more_states/ | {
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"States aren't allowed to entirely ban guns due to the Second Amendment of the US Constitution. Fireworks don't have the same level of protection, so they're banned in some places.",
"\"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.\"",
"You have the right as a US citizen to bare arms, albeit it's limited to a variety of factors (permit/cost/age etc). While fireworks on the other hand while you do technically have to be a certain age to buy certain fireworks (varies from state to state and vendor to vendor in my personal experience) you have to also look at the environment. \n\nA place, lets take California currently, that is extremely dry and arid and is prone to fires (brush/forest) may outlaw entirely, or severely limit the types of fireworks as a preventative measure. It isn't unconstitutional to ban the use of fireworks within a state as it is done on a state level. The ban's can be lifted and shifted as needed, however that is unlikely. New York was one of the most recent to adjust said ban and now limits (heavily I might add) the types of fireworks that you can use. \n\nSpecific reasons as to why those last 3 locations (Massachusetts, Delaware, New Jersey) refuse the sale or use of fireworks within their boarders, all depends on that specifics state's reasons/laws and should be looked at individually for their reasoning. \n\nKeep in mind that this doesn't stop people from going outside their state and getting them."
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55vw0h | what are ceta and ttip, and why are some countries so opposed to it? | I get that they are some sort of trade agreements between the EU and Canada/US, but it's hard to really understand what the benefits and drawbacks are. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/55vw0h/eli5_what_are_ceta_and_ttip_and_why_are_some/ | {
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"[This](_URL_0_) is actually a really good article about why people are scared of it. Add on top of that. all the negotiations have been behind closed doors, so our fearless leaders are going to push things that a lot of people are dead against down over their heads. Thus the pushback. Some of us consider ISDS a crime against humanity.\n \nSo what's good about it?\n \nWell, trade is going to be easier. But also mobility. Right now, as a European, you're a second-rank citizen if you want to get a job in the US and vice versa. So NAFTA allows Canadians to just grab a job if they want. A German or an Ethiopean end up on the second tier. This would change, and Europeans and Americans would find it easier to get job permits for the other respective countries.\n \nAnd both governments are very protective when it comes to trade. This would open up trade and make it easier for a dutch manufacturer to sell to the US market.\n \nAll depending on what they actually agree to."
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"http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/what-is-ttip-and-six-reasons-why-the-answer-should-scare-you-9779688.html"
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458atd | what makes heavy lighting under a characters face 'scary'? | Watching Psycho for the first time, just finished the iconic scene with the taxidermied birds on the wall. I noticed that the heavy lighting under Norman Bates' face emphasised the tension, made me think why heavy lighting under someone's face (like when telling a cliché ghost story) is discomforting to us. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/458atd/eli5_what_makes_heavy_lighting_under_a_characters/ | {
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16,
4,
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"text": [
"Because natural light from the Sun and most of our artificial lights light the world from above, we are used to perceiving faces with light cast from above. As a result when we see a face lit from below all the contours and shadows are misplaced making it look odd - to the human mind odd often = scary",
"I'd guess it is because since the advent of fire we have been seeing faces lit from underneath as our ancestors sat huddles in their cave, yurt, or under the stars. \n\nNight time was dangerous and we have begun to evolve a natural association with underlit faces and the fear that came naturally with darkness.\n\nWe see faces in tree bark and random patterns. It's some deep programming.",
"The shadows ate all upwards, which makes your face almost completely dark.\n\nThe shadow of the cheeks makes big dark spots under your eyes. \n\nThe shadow of your eyebrows makes your forehead all dark. \n\nAnd because the source of light from the torch is small, the sides of your face aren't lit up n neither is ur hear or anything else.\n\nBoo! \n\n"
]
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[],
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|
1ht6wt | if everyone hates erdogan then how was it that he and the islamist party were able to take control of turkey?... | ...How do the Islamists continue to hold power? Is it lack of elections? Gerrymandering and selective voter suppression tactics or voter fraud? Or is there actually enough support for Erdogan throughout the whole of Turkey, but little in cities where he is imposing draconian law? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ht6wt/eli5_if_everyone_hates_erdogan_then_how_was_it/ | {
"a_id": [
"caxoj35"
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"text": [
"Erdogan has won more elections than any other PM in Turkish history. He has a broad base of support. And there is no reason to suppose that he or his party is illegitimate. \n\nIf it helps, imagine Erdogan as Obama. If you lived in Alabama it would be unintelligible how he won the presidency once, let alone won a re-election.\n\nIn his time in office Erdogan has really worked on the Kurdish problem, and may have functionally ended the Kurish civil war (at least for now). He has lavishly supported and funded education. He massively improved infrastructure throughout the country. Airports, roads, and rail have all improved. He has completely revamped the social services and healthcare. He has improved relationships with pretty much all the neighboring countries (improving doesn't necessarily mean good though). And he has worked on reforming government and reducing corruption to some success. So there are lots of reasons a lot of people have supported him.\n\nBut all the above have come with some problems. The economy is sluggish. The government has been viewed as increasingly totalitarian. And rights, especially freedom of speech, have suffered.\n\nWhat is happening is, folks are beginning to view the successes as less important and the economy and human rights issues as more important."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
dufvs7 | what is the bohr effect, and what are it’s implications | I’m taking a class on exercise physiology and I’m having a lot of trouble grasping the concept of the Bohr effect. I need to know the concept behind the O2 capacity, saturation, and content for venous and arterial blood at rest and during exercise, and how it relates to VO2. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dufvs7/eli5_what_is_the_bohr_effect_and_what_are_its/ | {
"a_id": [
"f75yjfq"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"In a nutshell, the Bohr effect means that in an acidic, carbon dioxide rich environment, such as exercising muscle, haemoglobin is more likely to give up its oxygen to the surroundings. This is useful in an exercising muscle, which needs the oxygen. \n\nIn a less acidic, carbon dioxide poor environment, such as the lungs, the opposite happens. Haemoglobin develops a higher affinity for oxygen and grabs it from the surroundings. This is useful in a lung, to extract oxygen from our breath."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
9g246b | how do decibels describe loudness and why is a baby nearly as loud as a jet? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9g246b/eli5_how_do_decibels_describe_loudness_and_why_is/ | {
"a_id": [
"e60v86b"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Decibels are a logarithmic scale, which means that a sound of 10 decibels is 10 times more powerful than a sound at 0 decibels, and 20 decibels are 10 times louder than 10 decibels, and 30dB is 10 times louder than 20dB, etc, etc. So from 0dB to 30dB, there is a 1,000 times increase in power (10x10x10). \nTo get a sense of the scale of things, the quietest sound humans can hear is around 1dB. Compare that number to a jet engine (140dB), and it's a 1,000,000,000,000 times increase in power. \n\nThis means that you can use these particular units to describe an extremely wide range of noise, from something as quiet as whispering to a friend (~50 decibels) to something as loud as a rocket launch (~180 decibels) using a very small and easily understood number. \n\nThat means that a baby's cry, at about 110 decibels, is 1000 times quieter than a jet engine at take-off (140 decibels). "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
29agbt | why do i look devilishly handsome in the mirror on some days, and pitifully ugly on others | Is there some psychology behind this or maybe some body science. Do I objectively look worse some days, or is it only me who perceives it.
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29agbt/eli5_why_do_i_look_devilishly_handsome_in_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"cij0yda",
"cij41xr"
],
"score": [
6,
6
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"text": [
"Lack of sleep (causing dark circles under my eyes), dehydration or drinking too much alcohol does this to me.",
"No way to know without seeing pictures from those days. It could be an actual physical difference, or it could be all in your head.\n\nIssues that impact health also impact appearance. This includes sleep, diet, hydration, allergies, and illness. Weather can also affect your hair and skin. If you are female, [ovulation can change your appearance in subtle ways](_URL_0_).\n\nMentally, you may also have mood issues that affect perception of yourself. The most extreme would be bipolar personality disorder, but simple tiredness or an erosion of confidence due to criticism may negatively affect your appearance, while happiness and an abundance of energy and confidence will cause you rate it better.\n\nSo we can't really know if it's in your head or not with so little info to go on. It could go either way."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://www.nature.com/news/2004/040331/full/news040329-6.html"
]
] |
|
2jycr1 | how does a cell phone broadcast wifi? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jycr1/eli5_how_does_a_cell_phone_broadcast_wifi/ | {
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"Your cellphone has a wifi adapter, thats how it connects to a router. Routers and devices are just specializations of the same concept, they use wifi to communicate between each other. in the routers case it is optimized to route several signals at once, where as your device only need to do one at a time (itself to the router). The cell uses its software to mimic a router by taking in signals and forwarding it to the cell network and then returning the results through it to your device."
]
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[]
] |
||
3nt19w | does lighting a cigar with a match rather than a lighter actually make a difference? | If so then how if you know and also does the difference last the entire cigar or is it just initially | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3nt19w/eli5_does_lighting_a_cigar_with_a_match_rather/ | {
"a_id": [
"cvr05ef",
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],
"score": [
2,
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"text": [
"Yes and no. Are you a cigar aficionado smoking a very nice, expensive cigar? If you're not, you probably won't notice the difference. But if you know what to look for, you can taste it.\n\nAnd for the record, that's not like, a snooty \"look at me I smoke fancy cigars\" kind of thing, because I don't smoke cigars (I'm too hipster, I smoke pipe tobacco). Just an observation. It's like anything else: if it's something you've spent the time to acquire, you'll know it better. But if you're just having fun and smoking a cigar with friends, don't stress over it, eh?",
"Generally, people (Especially cigar snobs) prefer using matches because you can taste the butane of a lighter. \n\nUnless you are a cigar snob, or simply don't smoke often you probably won't notice much difference\n\nEdit: just adding, I'm not using the term snob in a negative context here. :)"
]
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[],
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|
2p24w7 | why do i need to wash my hair daily to keep it soft and healthy yet my cat who barely bathes monthly has just as soft hair if not softer | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2p24w7/eli5why_do_i_need_to_wash_my_hair_daily_to_keep/ | {
"a_id": [
"cmsn8j8",
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"text": [
"cats usually clean themselves quite often by licking, so their fur tends to be soft and clean. as for human hair, you don't actually have to wash it daily usually, infact that is bad for it because it strips away the oils that naturally keep it healthy and strong, that's why almost everyone uses conditioner as well. if you let it go for a little while it will be even softer the next time you wash it. of course if you live in dusty areas, or work a job where you encounter lots of dust or dirt in your hair then it will get all gritty and then need to be washed. ",
"You actually should not wash your hair daily. Washing it daily strips if of the natural oils thus making it dry out and be brittle. "
]
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[],
[]
] |
||
cn3hx1 | how do cities become sister cities? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cn3hx1/eli5_how_do_cities_become_sister_cities/ | {
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"text": [
"Becoming sister cities or twinning them is a way to create greater diplomatic connection on a local level. It is International diplomacy on a local level and involves formal contracts. There are a number of international organizations like \"Sister Cities International\" that help with setting up and maintaining such relationships.\n\nIt is something that became popular after WWII with the general idea being that people would be much less likely to violently murder each other if they knew the people on the other side as more than faceless enemy.\n\nThey created partnerships between towns in different countries and organized cultural exchanges on a local level.\n\nUsually the partner towns are similar in size and have something in common. Sometimes the something can be that both towns have an economy based on the same industry. Sometimes it can be something like the reason Coventry and Dresden became twin cities: They were both bombed a lot during the war. Sometimes they just have related or similar names like Boring in Oregon and Dull in Scotland.",
" > **How do cities become sister cities?** \n\nI work at a Japanese car factory here in the US. Our city is twinned with the city in Japan where the company's headquarters is. They have a program for high school students where they get to spend two weeks in Japan in our sister city.",
"It's mostly just a marketing/feel-good thing. There can be thematic connections like a city in the USA with a large Polish population twinning itself with Warsaw or maybe two cities known for manufacturing twinning. It's all a part of Public Diplomacy which is diplomacy aimed at just improving relations between populations (with cultural exchanges or demos) rather than more formal avenues of diplomacy (like negotiating a treaty)."
]
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[],
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||
3def37 | how can the city of new york pay eric garner's family nearly $6 million dollars for his wrongful death, but still claim to not be at fault? | Would it have been different if the cop who put him in the chokehold was indicted on murder charges? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3def37/eli5_how_can_the_city_of_new_york_pay_eric/ | {
"a_id": [
"ct4bt5i"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"It's pretty standard for large organizations settling legal disputes. \"Here's a bunch of money, promise to stop talking about it & we'll say we did nothing wrong\"."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
3zh8rv | what defines a generation and how are generations split up? (family trees? decades? technology?) | We've all heard the Who's famous "my generation" but seriously what defines a generation? Is it a certain group of people that were born at the same time. In a simpsons episode, Marge states she's a fifth generation of this town. Does that mean her great great grandparents first settled in springfield? Am I a different generation than my brother? Or is it technology based, like born before computers, born with atari, born before the Internet, born before Facebook? This really is a serious question and I don't know, amy help would be great. Thank you | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zh8rv/eli5_what_defines_a_generation_and_how_are/ | {
"a_id": [
"cym7o4v"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"generations can be looked at from a macro level and a micro level which can give very different answers to what a generation is. at a micro level, generations are separated by each set of parents. so in your simpsons example, yes, that is what marge meant. and bart and lisa would be the sixth generation. when i view my grandparents, they are two generations before me.\n\nat a macro, societal level, generations are split roughly every 40 years. this is where the terms baby boomers, gen x, gen y, millennial all come into play. this is where things get much more gray. these generations aren't split by hard, steadfast situations or events. it is more along the lines of a general, similar thinking between a group of people that takes affect due to multiple global events or situations. in my opinion, technology tend to be the most prevalent decider of a generation, but again it isn't an exact rule, eg millennial are good with new tech and baby boomers aren't. that is kind of correct, but i know some old people who are great with new tech. they put years to it, eg anyone born before 1940 is a baby boomer, but that is very vague. in a way, these generations can be viewed as a spectrum. for example, i was born at the end of the millennial generation and my little brother who is born 8 years after me is born at the beginning of the gen z. does that mean he is totally different? not at all, as he may think more like a millennial than straight get z and same with me."
]
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[]
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|
17j9ph | lupus | My best friend has been diagnosed (i think) with lupus, she's young and an amazing person, and she kinda tried to explain what lupus is, but i don't really understand it, what will lupus do to her? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/17j9ph/eli5_lupus/ | {
"a_id": [
"c85zxvt"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Lupus is a chronic disease, which means it does not go away. The immune system is made up of white blood cells in your body that fight off disease. Lupus makes these white blood cells in your immune system think that the healthy cells of the body around them are diseased, so they end up attacking healthy parts of the body. Lupus can be deadly."
]
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[]
] |
|
6ghv86 | the parts and mechanism of a 4 stroke motor (automobiles) | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ghv86/eli5_the_parts_and_mechanism_of_a_4_stroke_motor/ | {
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"text": [
" > Hello, I'm vaguely familiar with how a car's motor works but I'd like to understand it better, and understand the function of the specific parts. \n\nI'm gonna do my best here \n\nAlso, when I'm at a car show or something, people are always showing off what's under the hood. What are people looking at when they do this?\n\nThey might be looking at the engine block, which is a huge metal structure that contains the engine. \nThey might be looking at the number of cylinders (there's a wire going up from every cylinder in succession if you are have trouble finding that. Changes made to the car's engine such as the Turbo could also be here. \n\n I can't really tell much from one to the other except possibly the amount of cylinders. Thanks in advance!\n\n",
"u/TheHumbleHunter thanks, but what is the significance of looking at these? Like what is the difference between a small block and a big block? (Beside the obvious size difference, the difference in function?)",
"The heart of an engine is the cylinders and pistons. This is where the fuel is burned and converted into mechanical energy and heat. All the other parts of the engine support this process in some way. \n\nThe cycle starts with the piston up and both valves closed. The piston begins to descend, and the intake valve opens. This allows in a mixture of air and gasoline vapor. When the piston reaches the bottom, the intake valve closes and it starts to go back up, compressing the fuel/air mixture. When the piston reaches the top again, the spark plug fires and ignites the fuel/air mixture, as it burns it expands and forces the piston down. This is where the power comes from. When the piston reaches the bottom, and starts back up, the exhaust valve opens and the burnt fuel/air is pushed out by the piston rising. The exhaust valve closes as the piston reaches the top and the cycle starts again.\n\nThe most important system apart from the actual cylinders and pistons is the powertrain. It transfers the engine's power to the road. It starts with the pistons, they connect to a crankshaft that turns their back-and-forth motion into rotation. This then connects to the transmission, which allows the wheels to spin at a wider range of speeds than the speed range at which the engine can run. This then connects to the differential, which allows the wheels to spin at different speeds in order to turn smoothly, then this connects to the axles and wheels. The other end of the crankshaft connects to the camshafts (these open and close the engine valves) via the timing belt. It's called the timing belt because the valves have to be synchronized with the pistons for the engine to run. It has another belt pulley on it that drives other stuff like the radiator fan, alternator, power steering pump and air conditioning compressor.\n\nThe air coming into the engine starts at the air intake and air filter, this keeps debris out. It then goes to the intake manifold, which distributes it to the cylinders. Right before the intake valve, fuel injectors inject vaporized fuel into it. The fuel system is pretty simple, there's a low-pressure pump in the gas tank that pushes it through a line to the engine, then a high-pressure pump that forces it through the injectors.\n\nWhat ignites the fuel/air is the spark plugs, they use a high-voltage electric spark. This electricity comes from an alternator, a small generator driven by the engine. A coil raises the low voltage provided by the alternator to high voltage that can make a spark. The distributor uses the engine's rotation to time the firing of the spark plugs. The alternator also charges the battery. The battery's main job is to power the starter motor, which starts the engine. The alternator and battery also power all the car's other electric devices.\n\nThe burning of the fuel produces a lot of heat, so the engine has to be cooled. It has coolant channels running all through it, and hoses leading to the big radiator at the front of the engine compartment. A pump circulates coolant in a loop between the engine, where it heats up, and the radiator, where it's cooled. The motion of the car forces air through the radiator to cool the coolant, as does a large fan driven by the engine. The coolant also goes through a mini-radiator called the heater core, this provides hot air to the inside of the car (and this is why there's no heat before the engine warms up). The coolant can't be allowed to freeze, so it includes a chemical called antifreeze that has a very low freezing point.\n\nThe engine also needs oil to keep parts from rubbing against each other and eventually getting stuck. It collects in the bottom of the engine and is pumped all through the cylinders, crankshaft, and camshafts to lubricate them. Sometimes you need to add more, sometimes you need to change it out completely.\n\nFinally, you have the exhaust system. The exhaust valves lead to the exhaust manifold, which collects the exhaust from all the cylinders int a single pipe. This goes to the catalytic converter which cleans the exhaust, then to the muffler which makes it quieter, then finally to the tailpipe.\n\nThen there are a lot of other systems that aren't directly related to the engine like brakes, A/C, power steering etc. You'll see parts of these systems under the hood as well."
]
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[],
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|
49wfv6 | why does heat seem to transfer better when pressure is applied? | I just boiled a pot of water - being impatient, I pressed the pan down against the electric heating element. not only did the sound put out by the element change, but it produced small bubbles of H20 at the bottom of the pot and in the spiral pattern of the element. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49wfv6/eli5_why_does_heat_seem_to_transfer_better_when/ | {
"a_id": [
"d0vg6z8",
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"score": [
3,
2
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"text": [
"Could be that your pan base isn't making full contact with the heating element and there's an air gap between the element and the base. Air is a poor conductor of heat, so when you apply the pressure, you're making sure the element has direct contact with the metal of the pan, which is a better conductor of heat.\n",
"ELI5: The more you press something against another thing, you increase the surface area that connects them. So when you press down on a pan on a heating element and it \"sounds\" like it's cooking faster, it *is* cooking faster. It *is* getting hotter. Why? Because *science*!\n\nHope this helps! Peace!\n\nP.S. And by *science* I mean that the increased surface area in contact with the heat source increases the efficiency of the element's heating and decreasing the time/energy it takes to boil the water within it."
]
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[],
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|
4kboze | why do utis cause blood in the urine? | I've had UTIs throughout my life and I've always been curious to why they cause blood in the urine. Google doesn't explain why, only that it's a symptom. So what causes blood in UTI? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4kboze/eli5why_do_utis_cause_blood_in_the_urine/ | {
"a_id": [
"d3dq6hl"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"A lot of infections cause bleeding. Think of like a rash on your skin. But on the lining of your organs. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
3hd9yi | why do we have to buy our own textbooks for college but not for k-12? | EDIT: Also, why aren't the textbooks included with tuition? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3hd9yi/eli5why_do_we_have_to_buy_our_own_textbooks_for/ | {
"a_id": [
"cu6dh4t"
],
"score": [
5
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"text": [
"Because in K-12 every grade is using the same book. You are paying for the books, they are just done via your taxes since primary school education is (mostly) mandatory.\n\nCollege is optional as are the different courses different people take. If I'm taking Intro to Literature I have to buy a $4.99 copy of Catcher in the Rye. If I'm taking an advanced chemistry class the book might be $199.99 plus \"optional\" workbooks."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
blin1p | why can our organs grow as we go from being a baby to an adult, but can’t repair them selves? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/blin1p/elif_why_can_our_organs_grow_as_we_go_from_being/ | {
"a_id": [
"emorbvq"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"When we're just a few cells in the womb, our cells can employ some really interesting tricks to figure out where they are on your tiny, blobby body, and then they really quickly specialize. Basically, it amounts to \"if I am X days old and I am touching Y, grow in Z ways.\" None of our cells actually knows how to grow a body or what the final product should look like, but by following their rules, they can form complex structures as an emergent property.\n\nThis only works once. When you're a little ball of cells, your cells can play telephone with chemical signals to eventually work out where in the ball they are. But once you're even just a little bit bigger, that breaks down. A random skin cell wouldn't know if it was on your face or your butt; all it knows is to grow in the direction that there is tension. When you're first growing your fingers, the bones pushing outwards shape the resulting skin around them, but if you lose that finger later in life, your cells have no idea where they are, how the wound is shaped, or how to grow to fix it, and so they make a patch job (scar tissue)."
]
} | [] | [] | [
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||
4ebgnd | does free will exist according to islam? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ebgnd/eli5does_free_will_exist_according_to_islam/ | {
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"text": [
"Well, if that God simply chooses not to interfere in order to *allow* people to have \"free will\", would that not be sufficient?\n\nI was under the impression this is the idea behind the Christian God, and would likely be the case behind any God since otherwise you could never fault others for not believing in the same God since without free will your God just have *made* them not believe for some reason, no?\n\nI don't think there is much logic to a sizable portion of religion, however.",
"Into the whirl we go:\n\nIslam has several major schools of creed that have dominated at times throughout its history. Two schools have been particularly influential in answering the question about free will: the Ash'ari and the Mu'tazila. Today, the Ash'ari school dominates Sunni Muslim thought and the Mu'tazila influence Shia Muslim thought.\n\nThe Ash'ari really walk a fine line between predestination and free will. They deny determinism but also affirm both free will and predestination. Here is an ELI5 of how the Ash'ari explain this seeming contradiction: imagine you are building a house. You hire a builder to construct the house and you hire a planner to make the blueprint for the house. Without the builder, nothing the planner decides can get done. Also, the builder, if he feels like, can defy the planner and build something else. In this analogy, the human being is the planner and God is the builder. The human being makes decisions but ultimately God is the only one who can make anything happen. So if you (the planner) decide to kill someone, God (the builder) can suddenly make you lose control of your body so that you don't kill someone.\n\nAnother way to think about it, is that God exists outside of time in a higher dimension and thus sees all of time like we see a chess board. His knowledge doesn't affect our free will because his presence is not in our dimension. God may also see many versions of this chess board that are influenced by the decisions humans make, but ultimately God chooses the chess board he wants to be reality.\n\nThe Mu'tazila are much more on the side of free will, and some even go so far as denying that God knows what will happen, but their influence today is limited to some aspects of Shia theology.\n",
"The way it was explained to me was that he was all knowing but free will was a thing. The example that was used was that if you see a kid about to do something dumb and you know it won't end well for them and you don't stop them or interfere. "
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66bt7e | why do your ears become clogged when you're sick? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/66bt7e/eli5why_do_your_ears_become_clogged_when_youre/ | {
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"The sinuses are a series of convoluted pathways that connect your inner ear, your throat, your nose, and your olfactory senses (the nerves that detect smell). When you get certain diseases, the tissues in this area become inflamed and swell. This causes mucus to build up in your inner ear, which causes that feeling of blockage.\n\nTaking medicines like antinflammatories (aspirin) can reduce the swelling while expectorants (Guaifenisen) will help the mucus drain out of the sinuses."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
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||
6f6kwh | does the world genuinely appear 'bigger' in terms of scale to children? what about short people? and how do we know? | Also, if the universe were reduced to 1:10 scale size, would stuff still appear the same size to me? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6f6kwh/eli5_does_the_world_genuinely_appear_bigger_in/ | {
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"text": [
"Things appear big or small in reference to your ability to handle and move around them. \n\nA longsword is very big to a child because it is as long as they are tall, if not longer. Dad's boots were huge because a child's foot would fit two and a half times in the sole. That warehouse that Dad works at was gigantic because unless the child ran, it would take twice as long for the child to walk across than Dad could cross it. \n\nSo yes, the world appears bigger to kids, and to a degree short people (mainly very short people) due to the scale comparisons. "
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|
2dx3d8 | why is vegetable oil so bad for you if it's made of...well, vegetables? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2dx3d8/eli5_why_is_vegetable_oil_so_bad_for_you_if_its/ | {
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"text": [
"For one, vegetable oil is typically made from palm, canola, and soy. These aren't the vegetables you're typically eating.\n\nWhole vegetables also have vitamins, minerals, and fiber, which doesn't make it into the oil extraction process.",
"Just because something is made from vegetables doesn't automatically make it healthy. Heroin is made from vegetables.",
"Fructose can be bad for you, even though it's found in.... fruit.\n\nBasically, any extract is going to be *isolated* from the rest of the source, and it's going to be *concentrated* compared to the source.\n\nIf you eat a soybean, you're getting fiber, minerals, proteins, and just a bit of soybean oil. But if you take a few hundred soybeans, press out the oil, and throw away the solids (is pulp a good word here?), you're missing out on a lot of the other good stuff from that bean, and you're getting a much higher dose of the oil than you would from a few whole beans.",
"Vegetable oil isn't necessarily bad for you. It's probably not as good for you as unrefined oils, like extra virgin olive oil, because the processing it goes through destroys a lot of healthy stuff that would otherwise be present. But the processing gives them a neutral flavor that doesn't throw off recipes and a high smoke point so you can fry in them. Just keep in mind that all oils, regardless of what plant or animal they came from, regardless of how much they've been processed, ALL oils have 9 calories per gram, which is more than twice as much as protein or carbs have, so don't use too much of them or you'll start taking in way more calories than you need.\n\nOf course there is a difference between saturated fats, mono and poly-unsaturated fats, and trans fats, but I don't think ELI5 is the place for that particular lecture.",
"I have very little knowledge on this, but I didn't see it mentioned so I'd like to add that < any type of > oil is often used to prevent food from sticking to cookware during for instance frying, and when you greatly elevate the temperatures of oils like this, they react with air and oxidize, and from what I remember reading somewhere, they become carcinogenic (which means they have the tendency of forming cancer inside you somehow (I'm 5 myself on this one)). As I understand it, oils that are particularly high in polyunsaturated fats -- such as soybean and canola-based vegetable oils -- are especially susceptible to oxidization = bad. Olive oil, on the other hand, is a monounsaturated fatty oil and is more stable (read healthier) at higher temperatures. Just cook at a lower temperate or once cooked get your food outta there before it starts smoking would probably a good idea. :P",
"\"Vegetable\" has two meanings. One is the one you're thinking of. The other meaning is just \"plant.\" Any part of any kind of plant. In the US, the term \"vegetable oil\" usually means oil from corn, seeds (sunflower, safflower, cottonseed, canola), or soybeans. The term \"vegetable oil\" is to distinguish these oils from animal fats like lard, tallow, and butter.\n\nOther than canola oil, the vegetable oils mentioned above are characterized by high levels of linoleic acid, which is chemically unstable and can easily break down to produce free radicals, which cause inflammation in the human body.\n\nTechnically any oil made from plants is a vegetable oil, like olive oil, palm oil, coconut oil, avocado oil, or peanut oil, but these are usually referred to by their specific names and not as \"vegetable oil.\" There are no oils made from the things we normally of as \"vegetables,\" because they're very low in fat. For example, there is no broccoli oil or spinach oil."
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