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3lmxut | funding planned parenthood | Why is there a need to fund planned parenthood now that we have the affordable care act? Why arent the people that are using these facilities using their insurance to pay for these services now that everyone is required to have healthcare coverage? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3lmxut/eli5_funding_planned_parenthood/ | {
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"Not all of PP does is services covered by the ACA. Family planning and education. \n\nSecondly there are a number of states where they did not take medicare expansion and leaves a large number of people in the gap between what they make and where the subsidies will get them.\n\n3rd there is convenience. You need to get in to your doctor for an appointment most PP have walk in hours where they will take you in and handle your servces. ",
"Everyone is required to have it, but not everyone can afford it. If you can't afford it, you pay a fine when you pay your taxes. PP offers basic health services (pap smears, std tests, cancer screenings, and more) to men and women who don't have insurance, or can't afford the co pay. When I had am ectopic pregnancy, I paid thousands of dollars for testing, care, and abortive services (the fetus wasn't viable and could have killed me) even though I had insurance. Through Planned Parenthood, it would have been free. So it's a safety net for people who can't afford insurance, or couldn't afford copays with insurance. ",
"Healthcare coverage doesn't cover everything. And there are a lot of areas that are underserved -- don't have much in the way of medical facilities to go to. PP is in a lot of those communities, as just a little community health center, an easy way for people to get treated for STDs or have a pregnancy test or an annual exam without having to drive to a big city.",
" > We still need Planned Parenthood. It’s services aren’t replaced by Obamacare; they go hand-in-hand with it. Many states have opted out of expanding Medicaid, and many people have yet to get covered under the law. There are about 30 million Americans without insurance, who have nowhere affordable to turn for the services Planned Parenthood provides.\n\n_URL_0_"
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2k20cr | why are the bottoms of your feet so much more sensitive in the mornings? | I can walk on rocks barefoot during the middle of the day, but if I step on anything first thing in the morning, I'm in a lot of pain...
Edit : My feet seem to be perfectly healthy, and I'm not diabetic. Thanks for the concern though! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2k20cr/eli5_why_are_the_bottoms_of_your_feet_so_much/ | {
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"Information filtering. If you're off your feet for 8 hours sleeping, the first things you touch will seem stronger. After time, the influx of sensations is dampened in your brain so it can focus on more important things. It's the same as you feel your clothes when you first put th em on, but not after a minute or so. Or how you smell a scent immediately, but don't notice it as much after a bit of time."
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fpri89 | how does the body’s “dictionary of antibodies” work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fpri89/eli5_how_does_the_bodys_dictionary_of_antibodies/ | {
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"There are special 'watcher' cells in your body that are constantly 'eating' everything near them, to check if it's okay. If it's something they don't recognise (usually a virus or bacteria), they take it and run back to the other immune cells, and show it to them.\n\nBillions and billions of different immune cells check out the new molecule, and most ignore it. But eventually one will say \"hang on, I know what to do with that\". And it will start making copies of itself. Billions and billions of copies, each one a tiny bit different. Meanwhile, the 'watcher' stands in the middle of the pit of new cells, and holds the molecule out in front of him. Then there's a competition between all the new cells to see who can grab onto it the tightest. Anyone who doesn't hang on dies. Billions and billions of cells die this way, but at the end, you have the absolute, 100% best cell possible to hang on to the 'new molecule'.\n\nThis cell then starts making loads of copies of itself. These copies start spewing out that same attachment protein that the original cell used to grab onto the 'new molecule' (remember, that's the one from the virus or bacteria). These attachment proteins, once you release them into the blood, are called 'antibodies'.\n\nThat's all an antibody is. Something which holds onto viruses and bacteria very tightly. Once the antibody 'grabs' the bugs, then our immune system can come along and destroy them. Once all the bugs are gone, 99% of the clone cells that were producing antibodies die. But 1% remain. They live for years and years, waiting for the bug to come back.\n\nIf the bug does come back, they clone themselves again (but this time, there's no selection process). The selection process involves billions of cells, so it takes days and days (sometimes weeks). That's why the first time you get sick, it takes ~2 weeks to get better. The second time, you often don't even know it, because your body has the cure already made. It just needs to step up production.\n\n\"Dictionary\" is not a good word. \"Library\" is probably better. Over the course of your life, all the viruses and bacteria that have come through your body have produced this response from your immune system, and your immune system has stored copies of the memory cells just in case it comes back."
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2cnbq0 | how do we know the documents being released by snowden are true or haven't been edited by a foreign power? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cnbq0/eli5_how_do_we_know_the_documents_being_released/ | {
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"Well, the fact that rather than disputing his claims, the US government is calling him a traitor and trying to have him arrested is a pretty good indicator.",
"Remember that even though there are not a lot of people ALLOWED to comment on the material, there are a lot of people who actually do have access to it (in parts, presumably). That means that if the government accused Snowden of lying and he was not lying, there would be many who knew. There would be a risk that some of those people would be outraged by the government falsely accusing Snowden and would themselves leak material that collaborated Snowden's documents.\n\nThe government would be aware of this risk and would likely refrain from falsely accusing Snowden. Therefore, the fact they have not accused Snowden is an indication that any accusations they could make would be false.",
"We don't know for certain. But,\n\nHe is providing enormous amounts of evidence for his claims, and the US government has little to no defense against the facts he brings forward. One can only assume. ",
"Actually, I have a great example that applies to 5 year olds. Let's pretend you saw your brother stealing all the cookies from the cookie jar. You run to your parents. He'll probably say \"nuh-uh no I didn't\". But if he were to respond to the accusation with \"... WELL FT4M IS A POOPY HEAD\", it seems obvious that he did it due to a lack of counterclaim. If the US is accepting Snowden's stuff, it's probably true.",
"Snowdon's not releasing any documents, they're being released by the journalists he gave them to. As to their truth well we just don't know although no-one in the Govt is denying they're not true. Remember, it's rare that we get to see the actual documents; we're generally just fed articles based on what the journalists think the documents prove..."
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a4x6j0 | internal resistance? | I'm doing A-level at the minute, AS, and I have just come across Internal Resistance. Only one problem. I have no clue as to what it actually is and can't get my head around it. Can someone help me? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a4x6j0/eli5_internal_resistance/ | {
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"Any electrical component will have some wires and other conductors which have some resistance to them. In a battery it is even worse as there is a chemical reaction that needs to take place for the electricity to flow. This resistance is usually called internal resistance as it is internal to the component in question. For example if you want to model a battery you need to model it as a voltage source in series with a resistance. Because if you measure the voltage with a high impedance voltmeter you get the full voltage. However as you connect a load to the battery the voltage drops. This is modeled as the voltage across the voltage source staying the same but as there now is current there is a voltage drop across the resistor so that the voltage on the output terminals of the battery is lower."
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3i1qqj | if rhinoceros horns are made of keratin, why don't people just grind up fingernail clippings and sell it as rhino horn? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3i1qqj/eli5_if_rhinoceros_horns_are_made_of_keratin_why/ | {
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"I understand that there will be demand for whole horns for various other things (such as decorative sheaths for knives and such); but for traditional Chinese medicine, it has to be powdered, no?\n\nWhy can't we just gather up a shitload of fingernail clippings, grind them to dust, and sell them as rhino horn? ",
"Because rhino horn isn't a compressed powder, it has structure and internal shape. A rhino horn is more like a gigantic hair than it is a fingernail.\n\nThere does actually exist [synthetic rhino horn](_URL_0_) though, and people are actively trying to flood the market with it to protect rhinos.",
"Your hair is primarily made of keratin too, similar to your fingernails.\nAre they too similar?\n\nFrom [Wikipedia](_URL_1_), Keratin is a **family** of fibrous structural proteins.\nThis means that there are tonnes of types of them, and they create tonnes of different structures that are completely different.\n\nAs /u/unladen-swallows [said](_URL_0_), there do exist synthetic rhino horns, but they are not as simple as ground up fingernails ",
"Because then it wouldn't have the magical rhino juju.\n\nSeriously, these idiots are hunting a rare animal to extinction for \"traditional\" medicine that has absolutely no evidence of actually working. They want rhino horns, not fingernails or hair. Logic isn't coming into play here. ",
"So you're telling me I just need to eat my fingernails and I'll start getting boners again?",
"Cos the complete fuck nuts that massacre rhinos to sell their horns as supposed aphrodisiacs probably wouldn't ever have the intelligence to think of it.\n\n/rant"
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bftseb | how come tadpoles can breathe underwater but frogs can’t? | Why and how does that work?
Edit: I guess the real question is how does something develop lungs and go from breathing via gills to breathing air? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bftseb/eli5_how_come_tadpoles_can_breathe_underwater_but/ | {
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"text": [
"Tadpoles have gills, so they breathe underwater like a fish. As they mature into frogs, they develop lungs."
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37bm7z | american baseball leagues | As a British person, I naturally know very little about Baseball. But I've since learned all about the game and find it very enjoyable. But can anyone explain how the leagues / schedule of games work? Is it like a premier league kind of situation? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37bm7z/eli5_american_baseball_leagues/ | {
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"The other answers have the basics covered, but I'll expand on the Minor League system. There are four basic levels: Rookie, A, AA, AAA with Rookie being the lowest level and AAA (called Triple-A in conversation) being the highest. Each Major League club controls minor league clubs at each level and uses them to develop their players. They can move any player in their organization up and down a level as they see fit, so long as they don't exceed the maximum roster sizes for each club.\n\nEDIT: Forgot about the draft\n\nThe draft is the annual meeting of Major League teams to decide who gets to sign what young players. This may be hard to understand for someone who's not American, since I believe we're the only country where amateur athletics and education are so closely associated, but our high schools and colleges are the biggest development centers for young athletes. Once a year, the Major League clubs get together and pick, in an order determined by their results from the previous season and other factors, which high school or college players they want to sign. If a team drafts and signs a player, then they control the rights to that player for a certain amount of time before that player is free to sign with another team. This system introduces some measure of parity to the league since the worst (usually poorest) teams get to pick earlier and retain the players that they pick for a few years without getting into a bidding war with larger, richer clubs."
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925m1w | how can a single fiber optic cable(or other data line for that matter) carry multiple signals at the same time? what keeps all the information being transmitted from mixing and turning into data gobledygook? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/925m1w/eli5_how_can_a_single_fiber_optic_cableor_other/ | {
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"Imagine Morse code. It requires just one color of light to signal information with it.\n\nNow imagine many different colors of light flashing different Morse code messages at the same time. Despite them being together, you can analyze which colors of light are blinking when, and decipher that specific message. It’s like a different Morse code language for each message.\n\nSo computers at each end of the fiber optic cable have designated a certain stream of data with a certain color of light. They can communicate forwards and backwards, and multiple messages all at the same time. ",
"1. Different colors of light carry different channels — just the way different radio frequencies can carry different stations.\n2. Each channel is divided into brief \"packets\" of digital data, one after another, and each packet starts with a numeric \"address\" so they can be sorted by recipient."
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1gghd8 | how is money launderd? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1gghd8/how_is_money_launderd/ | {
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"When a person gets a bunch of illegal money it could look suspicious. How did the guy who has no job suddenly buy a house with cash? So the money needs to be laundered. \n\nLaundering money is passing it through a business that looks like it's not breaking the law. It could be a simple local business like a restaurant where the crooks give the illegal money to the restaurant and the restaurant writes down that they sold more food than they actually do. They can then pay the money out back to the crook and it looks like it came from regular restaurant business. \n\nA good way to do it with lots of money, especially when the crooks need to move the money between countries is to use big banks. Put the money into the bank in one country, take it out in another. The second country doesn't know how the money got there. It might have come from a perfectly normal business. Some big banks got into a lot of trouble for this recently."
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3u4xrb | which side is turkey on? | I know that the situation with Turkey, Russia, Syria, Daesh, the US, etc is more complex than a 5 year old could understand, but wtf is Turkey doing? How long can they expect support from their allies in the West? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3u4xrb/eli5_which_side_is_turkey_on/ | {
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"Turkey shot down a Russian jet within their airspace after it was repeatedly warned (and this was not the first incident like this where a Russian jet flew over Turkey). Turkey dislikes ISIS and opposes it, but hates Assad and his Russian and Iranian supporters more. They have not cracked down on ISIS members crossing the Syrian-Turkish border as much as they could have because ISIS makes far more trouble for their enemies than it does for them or their allies. ",
"Well, like any country, they are first and foremost on their own side. So, what are they doing? After multiple warnings to Russia not to fly over its airspace, Turkey took action against violations of its airspace.\n\nWhat's going to happen now is that Russia will scream, other countries will urge restraint. Talking head on TV will talk about NATO and Article 5 and all of that. \n\nBut what's really going to happen is that Russia won't be flying over Turkish airspace anymore. Because if they continue provocative action, then they'll be drawn into a conflict against a NATO member, and that's one thing they'd rather avoid.",
"- They are nominally a member of NATO and have the second largest forces (!).\n- Pushing a country out of NATO may break the alliance overall.\n- They make a lot of money trading with ISIS forces AND Turkmen rebels at the same time.\n- They don't think they'll gain much from having Assad in power, in fact they hate him.\n- They hate some rebel groups, but not others. They REALLY hate the Kurds because if they gain much power/independence after this, they fear the Kurds will be a greater internal threat in Turkey.\n- They are kind of ambivalent about ISIS and probably don't want to be seen as directly combating Islam to their conservative voters who keep them in power.\n- They really don't like Russia much either.\n\nIf you're more confused now... You're at the same point as the rest of us.",
"To answer the last question first, Turkey is right up there with Israel as our most important strategic ally in that area of the world. They control the only sea route out of the black sea, and there is basically nothing that can possibly happen in Syria that comes close the the importance of maintaining the strategic alliance with Turkey for the US.\n\nTurkey is on Turkey's side. Ethnic Turks in Syria have been [intensely targeted by Russian airstrikes](_URL_0_) lately, and Russia is propping up Assad, who is one of Turkey's local enemies. Russian aircraft have repeatedly crossed into Turkey. Armed planes actively dropping bombs crossing your border is a big deal. \n\nIn terms of the border, Turkey is opposed to Kurdish control of the border due to their > 30 year rebellion/terrorist campaign for independence in SE Turkey. They have been willing to support anyone else who can contest the border area against the Kurds for straightforward security reasons. This is similar to the US being willing to prop up despicable dictatorships in South America to prevent them from becoming hostile during the cold war.",
"Pseudo isn't correct about ISIS.\n\nTurkey is a member of NATO and are aligned with the west mostly.\n\nTurkey has a large kurdish minority that have wanted independence for centuries. They don't like Assad, they don't like ISIS although they have sympathizers. There biggest concern is a kurdish state being created on there border.\n\n"
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371mbi | what would life be like/what would happen if the earth spun faster, or slower? | I've been wondering how different the world would be if the earth spun faster or slower. For clarification: Not the earth speeding up or slowing to a different speed, but if the earth had always spun at a different speed. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/371mbi/eli5_what_would_life_be_likewhat_would_happen_if/ | {
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"Day/Night cycles would be longer/shorter. Because of this, Plants and animals would have evolved so that their pattern of activity works better with this (for a simple example, sleeping and staying awake for longer/shorter periods of time). Seasons would still be the same length however, as they are governed by the Earth's movement around the sun and the tilt of Earths axis relative to the sun.\n\nIf the Earth were to spin *extremely* fast, things would still probably be the same (but with shorter, more frequent sleep/wake cycles etc). However if it were to spin *extremely* * **slow** *, then things would be quite different I'd imagine. Animals would have to be able to operate effectively during both day and night or else be able to work similarly to Polar animals, being very active during the 'daylight' weeks/months and hibernating during the 'nighttime' weeks/months. The latter is more likely as smaller vegetation would die off during the darkness.\n\n Vegetation could be much the same as it is now, optimised to grow when the sun is always out and produce seeds that can lie dormant for weeks/months during darkness. Larger vegetation could be more storage focused, in order to survive the darkness. Deciduous would probably have evolved similarly, just with a leaf blooming/falling pattern adjusted to suit the day/night cycle."
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932svu | why does old movies (just before and right after colored movies) often seem to be in way better quality than movies from the late 70s or 80s? and sometimes even better than videos from the early 2000s | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/932svu/eli5_why_does_old_movies_just_before_and_right/ | {
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"Because when things like colour were first introduced the technology wasn’t very good so there were lots of artefacts like grain which decreased quality. In the 2000s when digital video became popular, resolution was low so things were grainy and pixelated and the colour wasn’t very good. \n\nOlder black and white films had perfected black and white cinematography, but early colour films used a brand new technology that wasn’t perfect yet. ",
"Black and white movies let directors cheat. Not having to worry about shadow allows them to do interesting, high contrast things with light and shadow that you just can't pull off with color.\n\nBut probably more importantly, when you look at an old movie, you are looking at a **good** old movie, *Casablance*, *Citizen Kane*, *Gone With the Wind*, these movies are considered masterpieces. There are plenty of crappy old movies with bad cinematography, you just don't get a lot of chances to see them. Comparing old good movies to modern average movies is like comparing *The Shining* to *Friday the 13th*. Even though they came out in the same year, one has masterful directing and cinematography, and the other has fake gore to scare your girlfriend."
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3tyvke | why do 20fl oz bottles of diet sierra mist cranberry splash have 10 calories while 2l bottles and cans have 0? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tyvke/eli5why_do_20fl_oz_bottles_of_diet_sierra_mist/ | {
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"Check the serving sizes to see the difference. If a serving size has 5 calories or less, they can legally put 0 on the label. So a serving size of 12 oz (can) has 5 calories, it can say 0. If a 20 oz bottle has 8 calories, it gets rounded to 10.",
"Nutrition facts are based on serving sizes. Servings with fewer than five calories can be labeled as having zero calories. Servings with fewer than 50 calories may be rounded to the nearest 5 calories. Servings with over 50 calories may be rounded to the nearest 10 calories. \n\nFor your question specifically, the drink contains just a few calories and the serving sizes are different for the different containers, which leads to differences in rounding. The serving size for the 20 fl oz. bottle is larger than the other two bottles and when the calories are rounded to the nearest 5 calories, you get 10. The other two serving sizes have fewer than five calories, so they can be labeled as having zero calories.",
"It's due to FDA rounding rules. Pepsi addresses this issue under the picture of the can [here](_URL_0_).\n\nThe [FDA allows](_URL_1_) manufacturers to round calories under 5 down to 0.\nCalorie amounts less than 50 must be rounded to the nearest 5 calories.\n\nSo the 12oz can and the 2L bottle use serving sizes of 12oz. If there are 4.5 calories in 12oz of soda, they list it as 0. The 20oz bottles are obviously intended to be single-serving, so the FDA requires them to use the whole amount as the serving size. 4.5 calories divided by 12oz times 20oz would mean there's about 7.5 calories in the 20oz bottle, which means Pepsi has to round it to the nearest 5 calories - thus 10 calories per serving.\n\nThe FDA requires companies to round up when the number of calories falls exactly between two increments, so there must be between 4.5 and 4.9 calories in 12oz of your diet soda."
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141uvo | what is the difference between the html i learned 10 years ago and html5? | I have always hand-typed my HTML in Notepad. That's about as complicated as my web-skills get. And I like it. But I have no idea what the whole deal with HTML 5 is. My friend told me that I will have to close every single tag now, including < BR > tags, that's about as much as I can gather. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/141uvo/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_the_html_i/ | {
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"Sorry, your friend is completely wrong, that's XHTML. XHTML is basically HTML written in an XML style, with properly closed tags, lowercase names, attributes, etc. XHTML has been around for a very long time but browsers are quite forgiving and allow old style HTML. \n\nHTML5, think of it as the HTML that you know, but now with more capabilities. These are features that have come about as a result of what web developers have been doing on their sites through 'other' means. Offline storage, threading, file access, audio, video - there are new features around these that are available for you to use in your HTML and JavaScript. \n\nHave a look at [this site](_URL_0_) and click on Features at the top, then click the feature you want to know more about.\n\n",
"Ok, first let's talk about WHY we need html, CSS, Javascript, and all the rest of this stuff. At its core, the http (hyper text transfer protocol) is extremely shitty by today's standards. All it does is, as its name implies, transfer text from one place to the other. A good way to work around this limitation in order to make cool \"applications\" like google docs or maps, is build layers of abstraction on top of this.\n\nHTML is one basic layer of abstraction. The text being transfered is not just simple text like this comment here, but instead it has a specific structure that is meant to be read and interpreted by a computer, and not yourself.\n\nHTML5 is simply a new version of HTML. It incorporates new tags and functionalities, but it still is just text. It's not software that you install; rather, it's a new set of standards that newer browsers all agree on.\n\nSo, what's the difference? Only the way that the browser reacts to it.",
"HTML 5 is really getting back to the core, whilst adding features. There are a lot of naming elements like 'footer' or 'sidebar'. Also, I find it generally just a lot cleaner.\n\nCSS3 is truly fantastic; although there is still some progress to be made.\n\nBut the big problem is IE9 and lower. So untill everyone has IE10, which will never happen IMHO, you have to either only use things IE supports, or double code half of your css.\nAnd sadly there's still a shit load of people using IE."
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cacqhv | how did the vikings and other seafarers of yore manage to sail to specific locations (ports, beaches) when the compasses they had only indicated direction? | Compasses can indicate direction but not really the specific paths they would have to take to reach specific ports or beaches. So although those sailors would have known that they're going, say, a direction like SSW, how could they know that they're on the right path to hit the port or beach they wanted to get to? If their boats were to "drift" sideways, they'd still think they're going the right direction, but could end up hundreds of miles off target, right? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cacqhv/eli5_how_did_the_vikings_and_other_seafarers_of/ | {
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"Most \"seafarers of yore\" overwhelmingly tried to keep within sight of a coastline whenever they could. In situations where this wasn't possible, they referred to the stars, ocean currents, and (when available) compasses. Vikings were pretty good at this, Polynesians were *great*.\n\nIt is hard to overstate just how important the invention of reliable timekeeping was to navigation. Once you know the math, you can reckon your latitude pretty easily from the sun and stars, but calculating longitude without time or landmarks is **really hard**. \n\nShortly before naval chronometers really took off, one competing plan was to set up beacon stations which set off fireworks, every hour, **across the entire ocean**. Fortunately (unfortunately?), this plan was never implemented.",
"Celestial navigation. The height of stars can be used with trigonometry to determine your position. It wasn’t anywhere near as accurate as it is today, but it was the primary form of navigation since roughly 3,000 BC"
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4riub9 | why do apostrophes appear as " & #035" or other strange things on random youtube videos, comments, and other places? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4riub9/eli5why_do_apostrophes_appear_as_035_or_other/ | {
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"It's a way of encoding the character for a format that does not allow the character itself to be used.\n\nMany databases, for example, use apostrophes for special purposes when dealing with requests for data or updates to the database, so any time you want to update the database with data that contains an apostrophe, it encodes the apostrophe as a different string of characters (\" & #035\") instead, so that the apostrophe that would have caused problems is no longer present in the text.\n\nSometimes (such as when displaying the text of a comment that was saved) when it is grabbed later, it is converted back into an apostrophe. Other times, they don't bother converting it back, possibly because they use that text string to create a link and so just keep all of the escaped characters (the ones encoded differently from what they usually are), hence making some URLs suddenly have weird \"%20\" or \"_\" instead of spaces (depending on how the database maker decided to code it).",
"All characters are represented inside a computer as numbers. For example, a lowercase 'a' is number 97. When representing a block of text, the computer is storing a list of numbers corresponding to the letters that make up the text.\n\nFor a variety of reasons, it's a good idea to limit the characters that are \"allowed\" to exist in a given block of text. A lower case 'a' is allowed almost everywhere. A number 32, a space, is not allowed in URLs, or user names on most web sites, but is allowed in arbitrary text blocks. A number 215 is not allowed in a lot of places, because different computer systems don't 100% agree on what character number 215 is. If you've ever copy pasted text from Microsoft Word into a web page, and seen quotation marks turn into some strange character instead, that's what's happening -- Word used character number 215 (or something), meaning a quote mark, but the web browser thinks character number 215 means something else.\n\nOne solution to this problem is to replace \"bad\" characters with a representation using the \"allowed\" characters that everyone agrees on. That's what's going on with \"\\ & \\#035;\"; the web page is using punctuation marks which all computers involved can agree on to indicate the presence of a character which isn't in the range that's \"allowed\" or agreed upon. This happens a lot in web pages (which have a standard set of \"allowed\" characters and a standard way of representing characters outside the \"allowed\" set). The problem comes when somebody didn't tell the computer to translate back out of that encoding into the character the person actually wanted when the page is being displayed -- so the \"\\ & \\#035;\", which is just meant as an internal instruction, actually gets displayed.\n\nThe problem applies especially to apostrophes, punctuation marks, and dashes, because back when people were agreeing on the standard set of characters and the numbers that correspond to them, they just made a very simple set of punctuation marks (no separate open and close quotes, or separate short and long dashes), and so in the recent past software manufacturers have made new punctuation marks for open and close quotes etc., and there initially wasn't 100% agreement on which numbers to use for those new marks.\n\nThere is actually a more proper solution to this problem -- a standard agreement about what numbers correspond to what letters, which covers every character in every language and any punctuation mark anyone can think of -- called Unicode. Unfortunately it brings a whole new set of issues and difficulties, without completely eliminating the issues that arise when you try to encode characters outside your existing allowed characters. Progress!\n\nEdit: Well, that was funny. Because of a similar issue, reddit translated \"\\ & \\#035;\" into something else when I typed it above."
]
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42gvyr | how and how much do "gaming" glasses actually help your eyes? | So by "gaming" glasses I mean those type of glasses that Gunnar makes. What's the science behind them, **how** and **how much** do they protect your eyes? Also what's the difference between *computer* and *gaming* glasses in terms of the science part? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/42gvyr/eli5_how_and_how_much_do_gaming_glasses_actually/ | {
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"I know they reduce strain by having a light zoom so you don't squint as much when trying to see fine details, and they have orange glasses to prevent blue light from reaching your eyes so it doesn't affect your sleep much. It's still a high price point for what they offer, knowing the orange part can be achieved via free software."
]
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|
7c270i | why do fire alarms ring in 3s? | You know, it rings 3 times, and then where it would ring the 4th time there's some silence and then it starts ringing again. Why do they do that? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7c270i/eli5_why_do_fire_alarms_ring_in_3s/ | {
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"The Temporal-Three alarm signal (a.k.a T-3) pattern is a standard pattern used by alarm manufacturers. It is one of the alarm patterns that is designed to let people know what type of emergency there is. T-3 (three alarm sounds followed by one silent count) is the standard signal for \"Fire in the building\". There are other standard alarms as well. For example, T-4 (4 alarm sounds followed by one silent count) is the standard for Carbon Monoxide alarms.",
"* the alarms are coded, different rings mean different types of emergencies\n* it makes the alarm stand out more\n* it makes it clear this is, in fact, an alarm, not some other kind of noise"
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5f9lnm | why is it cheaper to build a gasoline vehicle than an electric vehicle. | Since electric vehicles do not have engine blocks. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5f9lnm/eli5_why_is_it_cheaper_to_build_a_gasoline/ | {
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"Electric-only cars may not have engines, but they do require powerful motors, and a huge array of batteries to power the car. ",
"The amount of battery cells necessary for an electric vehicle to have a practical range cost more than an engine block does. As battery technology improves and economies of scale improve -- that's why Tesla is building its Giga Factory -- the prices should come down dramatically.",
"Beyond the cost of all the batteries, there is much larger infrastructure in place for gas car manufacturing. Factories can crank out all the parts and cars very quickly. Electric cars are built in much smaller amounts and largely by hand, so costs are much higher. ",
"Economies of scale. Example: A manufacturer already has an assembly line set up to build 500,000 units of a gasoline model car consistently for a year. To assemble a 10,000 units of an electric model car would require creating a whole new assembly line, re-tooling, training, different parts, etc. all for a measly 10,000 units. This is what makes building electric cars expensive at the moment.\n\nAs people buy more electric cars, the cost of parts goes down and the manufacturer gets more bang for their buck when they scale up their output.",
"The most expensive part of an electric car is the battery array. Right now, the infrastructure necessary to build these batteries on a large scale doesn't exist, making them expensive. This will change when electric cars become mainstream."
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6krb87 | why do cars allow you to keep the a/c setting on even when the heat is turned all the way up? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6krb87/eli5_why_do_cars_allow_you_to_keep_the_ac_setting/ | {
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"In the fall and winter it is advisable to have your A/C on with the heat to dry out the air in the car a prevent fogging the widows and wind shield. In fact when you turn on your defogger/defroster, your A/C automatically turns on.\n",
"The A/C can be used as a dehumidifier. This will remove moisture from the interior of your car making your windows less foggy. You can usually turn it off once you start the fan if you want. I believe it's a good idea to run your A/C regularly as it helps keep things working properly. If you never use it, you lose it!",
"Air conditioners main benefit is that they remove the water from the air. Sweating in dry air cools your body quickly instead of slowly as it would on a hot humid day.\n\nJust like you a foggy or icy window needs to defrost. The warmer and drier the air is the faster it defrosts. Warm air conditioned air is the best."
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r57o7 | how war simulations work. | How do military officials carry out war games like the one discussed this morning over the possible outcomes if Israel were to attack Iran? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/r57o7/eli5_how_war_simulations_work/ | {
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"Think of it like a sports team practicing; they split the military units involved into \"Blue\" and \"Red\" teams, with one playing the role of the opposing force.\n\nGenerally, the Red team will be set up to resemble the opposing force as closely as possible (so, for example, if you're war-gaming against Iran, the team playing the Iranians gets F-14s but they don't get stealth bombers), and its leaders are asked to try and provide a variety of creative and unexpected strategies to more thoroughly test the Blue team's readiness. \n\nThen, everybody saddles up and spends anywhere from a day to several weeks running the simulation like it's real life, only using computerized weapons rather than actually killing their teammates.\n\nThe problem is, it's easy for the exercise commanders to feel pressure to demonstrate to their bosses that they're well prepared, so sometimes you'll see the results of a war game get fudged to make the 'home' team look good. \n\nThis was notoriously seen [in an American wargame exercise called \"Millennium Challenge\"](_URL_0_) back in 2002. Basically, the commander of the Red team ditched traditional military tactics completely, used carrier pigeons and couriers instead of radio transmissions and hundreds of speedboats instead of ten destroyers, essentially the kind of thing an Al Qaeda-style insurgent movement would do, and sunk three American carriers and a dozen of their escort destroyers in less than a day.\n\nOn the second day of the exercise, the exercise commanders basically said \"Nuh-uh, that would never happen in real life\" and restarted the exercise, restricting the Red force to traditional military tactics in which their fictional Middle Eastern nation could never hope to compete. Not surprisingly, in the re-started exercise, the Blue (American) force declared overwhelming victory in a few days."
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1odfed | why we can't take plants and trees to mars or other planets to fill them with oxygen to which in theory, will make them habitable. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1odfed/eli5_why_we_cant_take_plants_and_trees_to_mars_or/ | {
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"No atmosphere to protect them from radiation, no nutrient rich soil for them to grow in, no viable water supply. All kinds of reasons. \n\nWe can't even grow trees in the deserts here on Earth. Mars is *waaaaaaay* worse than that."
]
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||
2yq3op | why do household doors in north america open by folding into the home instead of folding out? | When I lived in Asia, the doors where heavy steel and folded out, making them impossible to kick down. Here in North America, most doors are wood or have a word core and fold in. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yq3op/eli5_why_do_household_doors_in_north_america_open/ | {
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"It's fire code. Exterior doors always open inwards, because otherwise in a fire, something could fall and prevent you from opening the door, and getting to safety. When the door opens in, you don't have that problem.",
"If the door opened outward, the hinges would be on the outside for burglars to pull the pins out of. ",
"It's a lot easier for the police to kick your door in our way.",
"Screen doors usually swing outward. It would be difficult to have a second door behind the screen door if it didn't swing inwards, no?"
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3jupor | how can some states give a percentage of lottery and casino income to schools and yet the schools are still asking for and needing money? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jupor/eli5_how_can_some_states_give_a_percentage_of/ | {
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"This is very simple. The schools need more funding than they are getting. If the school system needs 1 million dollars and you give them 500 thousand from taxes and another 100 thousand from their lottery cut they still need 400 thousand to operate efficiently and so need to either get more funding from other places or they need to cut their budgets by eliminating classes and firing teachers as well as other things to save money. (note my numbers are not exact and are just to demonstrate the principle.) ",
"Actually it is a little more complicated than just \"it still isn't enough\". \n\nA lot of people are under the impression that funds from the lottery go to schools that otherwise wouldn't receive that money, this is not exactly true. \n\nOkay, to illustrate, imagine a school is set to get 1 million dollars in funding for the year from the county/state/municipal school fund. Then the lottery comes along, and the amount that the schools are supposed to get from the lottery funds generated that year equal 600k. In many cases, the schools still get the 1million and never see a penny of the extra 600k. The problem is that the fund that supplies the school is now only giving them 400k, allowing the 600k lottery to compensate and therefore \" go to the schools\", while the original taxpayer money slated for the schools goes somewhere else.\n\nTl;dr: crafty accounting ensures that you only think that the lottery is a good cause.",
"the way I understand it, as it occurred here in Florida years ago, was the promise of all this extra monies coming in from lottery would be put into schools. The fine print, however, reveals that the lottery monies do go into schools...except there is no increase in school funding. the state diverts funds which used to go to the school into other efforts, and the lottery money is used in place of the state tax dollars, which are used for other state/local government avenues. There is no increase money for schools.",
"Six simple steps:\n\n1. Everyone: \"The schools aren't getting enough money.\"\n1. Voters/Legislature: \"Let's have a lottery to find the schools!\"\n1. Lottery Commission: \"Here's your pile of money.\"\n1. Legislature: \"Well, now with all this lottery money, we don't need to put as much tax revenue into schools.\"\n1. Teachers: \"Wait, what?\"\n1. Everyone: \"The schools aren't getting enough money.\""
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chuclp | what does hertz mean in terms of music/sound? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/chuclp/eli5_what_does_hertz_mean_in_terms_of_musicsound/ | {
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"Hertz is repetitions per second. So you can imagine a sound wave repeating or in terms of your speakers, 1 repetition is the speaker going forward and back that creates the sound. 5hz is 5 back and forths second, 10,00hz is 10,000 of that per second.",
"Hertz is a measurement of frequency. Higher frequency (more Hertz), higher pitch/note. Piano keys on the right side of the board hit strings which vibrate at a higher frequency than the strings to their left.",
"You hear sound thanks to a tiny tiny sheet inside your ear, that goes back and forth when sound from the outside hits it.\n\nThis sheet is called the ear drum, since it looks a little like the top of a drum (the part you're hitting with the drum stick).\n\nA high note (right side of piano) will make the ear drum go back and forth really fast, maybe a thousand times every second. We call this a sound with high frequency.\n\nA low note (left side of piano) will make the ear drum go back and forth really slow, maybe just some tens of times every second. We call this a sound with low frequency."
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2s77h5 | since most year-end tax forms like w-2s are now automated, why does it still take companies until the deadline to get them to you? | Shouldn't they be available, like, instantly on January 1 or at least like January 15? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2s77h5/eli5_since_most_yearend_tax_forms_like_w2s_are/ | {
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"1) Congress is always mucking around with the tax code right up until the last minute, and companies have to wait to makes sure they're providing everything required by law. \n2) The printing, folding, and mailing of tens of thousands (for many companies) of all those pieces of paper still takes time. \n3) Congress sets the date on which they MUST have the forms to you, and there is no incentive to get them to you sooner.",
"I'm an accountant in Canada. Issuing tax slips at the end of the year is a BIG job and while most of them are automated there's significant penlites to getting them wrong, so most places still check and verify them by hand.\n\nThere are several aspects of an income slip that do not come directly from the accounting software. Vacation accruals might be accounted for differently by the company vs what the government requires. Making thousands of small adjustments and then checking those adjustments takes time.\n\nWhile it's an automated process it's not fully automatic. It still needs to be checked and adjusted by an actual human. Plus you don't issue any until you are ready to issue them all in case you discover a pervasive problem. \n\nHaving said all that. The year end of a company can be a VERY busy time for accountants. And the calendar year end is often the same as the fiscal year end. This means even more work to pack into that 2 month window.\n\nIn Canada we have until the end of February to get the slips out (I know the deadline is sooner than in the US). Frequently we take that long because there are other projects with a higher priority that need to get done. ",
"It's a combination of factors. \n\n* Even though they're automated, they have to be audited and reviewed to ensure accuracy.\n* It's not always a matter of adding up your paychecks. Adjustments often need to be made for things like benefits and insurance that can impact your taxes. Even when a company outsources the task to external processing firms, those firms have to stand by waiting for the relevant data.\n* Because the holidays and end-of-year occur the month prior, the departments that handle W-2s tend to be short-staffed, busy, or both until the first week of January. \n* Nobody would work ahead on W-2s anyway, because they aren't due til the end of January and there's no incentive for issuing them sooner.\n* Particularly for smaller businesses that don't hire outside firms to assist, it takes more time than you'd expect because it's an extra task on top of employees' usual responsibilities. There's no dedicated individual for processing W-2s - it's the same people who are employed year-round, finding time in their normal schedules to fit in the additional project.\n\nAlso, according to the woman in my accounting department who I asked about this last week, \"I'm getting them done as fast as I can, now leave me alone.\""
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jlmup | what exactly is an arduino and how does it work? | Also, why is it used in what seems to be 90% of home-made electronics projects? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jlmup/eli5_what_exactly_is_an_arduino_and_how_does_it/ | {
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"An Arduino is essentially an Atmel AtMega microcontroller, most commonly the AtMega328, with all the components to make it work on a single board. The AtMega328 is like a little computer, it has RAM, ROM, a CPU. It also has pins, 28 of them, which you can connect to just about anything and either get information, or put out information.\n\nThe pins are connected to little holes that you can stick wires in and connect to things. Because the holes are almost always in the same place on an Arduino, people make other boards to place on top that will allow the basic Arduino to do other things, like play music or connect to the internet.\n\nThere are a lot of things that attract people to the Arduino, one being that it's well-known and has many many tutorials created for it. Another being that it is very easy to program, there is no need for extra hardware to burn programs to the microcontroller - you simply plug it in with USB and use the Arduino development environment to send the program over. The Arduino IDE and programming language is another selling point for the Arduino. It comes with many example programs that you can view and modify to do just about anything. The programming language itself is called Wiring, which is very similar to _URL_0_, which itself has similarities to Java. And finally the price point, you can easily build your own for as little as $5, or you can buy one pre-made for about $25.\n\nArduino and arduino-like boards are a great entry to microcontroller projects.",
"An Arduino is a simple cheap computer, that has a lot of space and support to hook up electronic inputs and outputs. This provides a standardized way to use this component as an electronic brain for the rest of your electronics projects. While there are other components that can do this, an Arduino has been designed specifically for this purpose, so it makes it easy to do these things.",
"Is it pronounced *Ardweeno* or *Ardoo-y-no*?",
"its a simple computer with lots of inputs and outputs, and you can upload code to it. it can basically do whatever you need by way of modularity",
"Okay... like you're five..\n\nAn Arduino is a small device called a micro-controller that is like a very small computer that allows programs to talk to and control other devices that do things like move stuff or measure things. Examples of things it could control: Motors, Levers, Lights, Speakers. It can talk to other things too, like: sensors such as thermometers, light meters, cameras and so on. The programs that do the thinking for the Arduino are created on a personal computer, and then generally stored on memory attached to the Arduino. If you want to make a program physically move something or interact with something, chances are you want to use a micro-controller like the Arduino.\n\nYou could use an Arduino to make a small robot like a car. Or you could use it to make a spy sensor for your bedroom door. Or if you really wanted to get crazy you could make a robotic nerf gun turret to shoot your sister when she gets into your stuff.\n\nEDIT: tchebb is correct, Arduinos have onboard memory, and don't use memory cards.",
"It's a handy system that lets you wire a bunch of pieces together (e.g. LEDs, buttons, switches, etc.) and control it with software. You can change the software at any time, so without rewiring any hardware you can make it do something completely different.",
"An Arduino is essentially an Atmel AtMega microcontroller, most commonly the AtMega328, with all the components to make it work on a single board. The AtMega328 is like a little computer, it has RAM, ROM, a CPU. It also has pins, 28 of them, which you can connect to just about anything and either get information, or put out information.\n\nThe pins are connected to little holes that you can stick wires in and connect to things. Because the holes are almost always in the same place on an Arduino, people make other boards to place on top that will allow the basic Arduino to do other things, like play music or connect to the internet.\n\nThere are a lot of things that attract people to the Arduino, one being that it's well-known and has many many tutorials created for it. Another being that it is very easy to program, there is no need for extra hardware to burn programs to the microcontroller - you simply plug it in with USB and use the Arduino development environment to send the program over. The Arduino IDE and programming language is another selling point for the Arduino. It comes with many example programs that you can view and modify to do just about anything. The programming language itself is called Wiring, which is very similar to _URL_0_, which itself has similarities to Java. And finally the price point, you can easily build your own for as little as $5, or you can buy one pre-made for about $25.\n\nArduino and arduino-like boards are a great entry to microcontroller projects.",
"An Arduino is a simple cheap computer, that has a lot of space and support to hook up electronic inputs and outputs. This provides a standardized way to use this component as an electronic brain for the rest of your electronics projects. While there are other components that can do this, an Arduino has been designed specifically for this purpose, so it makes it easy to do these things.",
"Is it pronounced *Ardweeno* or *Ardoo-y-no*?",
"its a simple computer with lots of inputs and outputs, and you can upload code to it. it can basically do whatever you need by way of modularity",
"Okay... like you're five..\n\nAn Arduino is a small device called a micro-controller that is like a very small computer that allows programs to talk to and control other devices that do things like move stuff or measure things. Examples of things it could control: Motors, Levers, Lights, Speakers. It can talk to other things too, like: sensors such as thermometers, light meters, cameras and so on. The programs that do the thinking for the Arduino are created on a personal computer, and then generally stored on memory attached to the Arduino. If you want to make a program physically move something or interact with something, chances are you want to use a micro-controller like the Arduino.\n\nYou could use an Arduino to make a small robot like a car. Or you could use it to make a spy sensor for your bedroom door. Or if you really wanted to get crazy you could make a robotic nerf gun turret to shoot your sister when she gets into your stuff.\n\nEDIT: tchebb is correct, Arduinos have onboard memory, and don't use memory cards.",
"It's a handy system that lets you wire a bunch of pieces together (e.g. LEDs, buttons, switches, etc.) and control it with software. You can change the software at any time, so without rewiring any hardware you can make it do something completely different."
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chg0zj | why aren’t you supposed to cut the tags off your mattress? what happens if you do? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/chg0zj/eli5_why_arent_you_supposed_to_cut_the_tags_off/ | {
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"text": [
"That's just for the retailer. It has important fire safety notices for the consumer.\n\nI'm pretty sure it's a Federal crime to remove the tags unless you're the owner."
]
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||
4f5x6t | in court, who decides if the defendent is guilty? the jury or the judge | I was thinking about the U.S. court system and realized I never knew the answer on who decided if the defendent is guilty. If the judge decides this, then what real power does a jury have. However, if the jury decides then what real power would the judge have. Does one just give advice to the other or are they equally as powerful? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4f5x6t/eli5in_court_who_decides_if_the_defendent_is/ | {
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"Usually the jury, although under certain circumstances some people forgo a trial by jury (in civil cases) and agree to just having a judge decide.",
"In a jury trial, the jury decides guilt. The judge issues the sentence and ensures that legal procedures are followed properly (what evidence is allowed, whether an objection or a motion is valid, etc). In essence, the judge takes care of the legal minutiae while the jury decides whether the evidence is convincing enough to declare guilt. In bench trials, there is no jury and the judge decides everything. Most civil trials are bench trials, while criminal trials are almost always jury trials.",
"In Britain and America, the jury simply decides whether the defendant is guilty or not. The judge presides over the trial, explains to the jury what they must take into consideration and how they should decide on a verdict. The possible verdicts are simply \"Guilty\", \"Not guilty\" and, in Scotland only, \"Not proven\" (meaning: \"We're pretty sure the defendant is guilty, but we don't think the prosecution was able to prove it\" -- in practice, because there is a presumption of innocence until proven guilty, this is the same as a \"not guilty\" verdict). If the verdict is \"Guilty\", the judge then decides on an appropriate punishment.\n\nThe idea goes back to ancient British legal history, particularly the Magna Carta of 1215: among other things, the Magna Carta stated that defendants have the right to be tried by \"their peers\", meaning people like them. This has been interpreted to mean that the decision whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty should not be left to people who have spent their lives studying law and don't necessarily understand ordinary people's lives: the prosecution needs to convince twelve ordinary people that the defendant broke the law.\n\nThis gives rise to jury nullification, which supporters of the jury system say is one of its great strengths and opponents say is one of its greatest weaknesses. Jury nullification is when the jury returns a \"Not guilty\" verdict even though the jury is convinced the law was actually broken. On the plus side, this is one way for a democracy to ignore laws that may be unfair, absurd or outdated; on the negative side, this can be used to more sinister effects, such as an all-white jury acquitting, purely for racist reasons, a white murderer of a black victim. Prosecutors (and the legal profession generally) are very much against jury nullification, and so one way to get out of jury duty is to let slip that you know what jury nullification is.\n\nThe jury system is seen in Britain and America as an essential safeguard against the government imposing its will through the courts -- this is especially true in America, where judges are often political appointments, or are elected in much the same way politicians are (and so campaign for office). If you're horrified at the idea of electing judges on policy issues, this came about because America wanted to make the selection of judges as transparent and accountable as possible, so that bad judges could be more easily removed.\n\nThe jury system doesn't always work well, however. A couple of years ago, in one very high profile case in Britain involving a politician and his wife who had been accused of a type of fraud, the jury submitted to the judge a series of questions which demonstrated that the jury had simply not understood some of the most basic principles: one of the questions was whether the jury could take into account evidence that hadn't been presented in court (the answer to that being a very emphatic \"No, and WTF made you think you could?\"). The trial had to be abandoned and a new jury found."
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bn1dfx | do animals communicate using their voice, for example does the moo a cow makes mean anything to other cows? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bn1dfx/eli5_do_animals_communicate_using_their_voice_for/ | {
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"Honestly, it depends on the animal. Elephants, dolphins, and whales have a pretty complex “language” that they can speak to one another and some even name their children. Other animals like dogs and cats have certain noises that mean different things, but most of their communication is through body language.",
"**The direct answer to your question is yes**. Various animals *do* communicate using vocal chords, vibrating to produce a sound that can be picked up by other members of their species.\n\nBut much depends on how you define \"communicate\".\n\nIf you mean a large selection of agreed upon words that can be rearranged to communicate specific ideas and pass information on, what we would consider conversation, then we are the only animal to have achieved this. There might be others eventually when we're long dead. But we are absolutely the first.\n\nIf you mean a set number of sounds that can communicate a number of specific states of mind - for example panic - then examples are in the thousands.\n\nHerd animals especially, such as the cow, are able to alert their herd-mates to danger in order to react accordingly. Young social animals vocalise so their parents can identify them specifically and feed them. Meerkat spotters signal danger and then all clear, allowing their family members to forage in safety.\n\nCommunication in social animals is very much the norm. With voices being a frequent evolutionary trait due to how well sound carries through air.",
"Horses definitely call to one another when they are separated and will whinny to each other when there is a thunderstorm.",
"Simply- Yes. It could just be a sound so a herdmate can hear they aren't alone, but many animals use their voice as a threatening noise, or to communicate fear, or warning, so on. If a cat hears another cat hiss, it will react, it doesn't need to see the cat. Dogs bark together when they play. Rats squeal when a play fight gets too rough. Birds sing to attract mates. It's not a complex communication like language, but all of this is communicating something to the beings around them. Joy, fear, pain, anger, dominance, all of these can be made clear with sounds. That's communication!",
"Since I have cows, I'll speak to that. \n\nYup, they communicate. Not much, but they do. Momma can't find her calf? Lots of loud, stressed-out mooing ensues. Sometimes the calf answers, but usually it just walks toward mom's racket.\n\nNeighboring bull gets within eyesight of ours? They'll start bellowing at each other, snorting, kicking dust. Very simply they're telling each other they're both a couple of bad asses, and you'd best not even THINK of coming over here near my cows.\n\nOther than that, raising the alarm when a predator is spotted is about it. Sometimes it seems they simply moo to hear themselves talk."
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26u5b7 | what makes the average human being right handed vs left handed? are left handed suppose to be different in some sense? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/26u5b7/eli5_what_makes_the_average_human_being_right/ | {
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"Left handed people are sinister."
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3amymv | why is it most of the time (obviously not always but often) people with stronger regional accents are from a lower class? | Obviously this is not the case always but just curious as to how that has happened. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3amymv/eli5_why_is_it_most_of_the_time_obviously_not/ | {
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"This may in part be due to social circles. We would need to get a linguist in here to correct my major errors, but essentially any 'group' of people has its own vocabulary and tone. \n\nFor example, talking to your friends on a night out will likely involve swearing, jokes, and a certain amount of x-rated conversation.\nTalking to your co-workers in the office will be generally polite with a high probability of using technical vocabulary specific to the job.\nEvery group you belong to has its own rules that develop over time- evolution of language in miniature, if you will.\n\nThe higher your class, the more likely you are to have different groups- you go to another city for college, and likely live in a different town from where you work. Your coworkers are completely separate from your friends and your family is separate again. All of these different groups shape your vocabulary, tone, and pronunciation. You adapt what you say and how you say it as you move between each group. Developing less of an accent helps you to move between these groups more easily\n\nThe lower your class, the less likely you are to have different groups. You work locally in a low paid job surrounded by the same people you go out drinking with and the same people you went to school with. You all use the same tone and vocabulary in every situation and your pronunciation remains constant. Your accent becomes a badge that symbolises your membership.\n\nThis is obviously not a definitive explanation, but I think it is helpful in general terms. And of course, people can move on and develop as they progress through life.\n",
"Generally, it's the higher classes who define what the \"correct\" way of speaking is. The ruling classes are the ones who determined etiquette and educational standards, and over time the way they speak becomes considered the \"standard\" accent, to which the others are compared. So in a sense, it's the other way around. People from lower classes have stronger regional accents, because they weren't the ones who defined what a \"regional\" accent was."
]
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e78cm3 | glass was believed to be supercooled liquid because it would flow in a long period of time. but now it’s proved that it is solid but the term “supercooled liquid” still describes glass because glass was quickly cooled while manufacturing? i don’t get it! | Glass was believed to be supercooled liquid because it would flow in a long time making the base thicker than the upper part. But if this were true then the lens of telescope made in 1800’s would lose their focus even when a small part of the lens deformed. As these telescope have their lens focused at some point in space throughout 200 years, it is certain that glass doesn’t flow. The base of the window is thick because it was manufactured like that. As glass are cooled with centrifugal rotation, the ends were thicker and the builders placed the thicker part of the glass at the bottom to enrich stability. So Glass is a solid. I understand this part too...
But what I don’t understand is that glass is again being called supercooled liquid because it was cooled suddenly or something that I don’t understand. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e78cm3/eli5_glass_was_believed_to_be_supercooled_liquid/ | {
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"Usually when something becomes solid it first goes through a transition state where the atoms order themselves and become some form of crystalline structure. If you take silicon dioxide, the main constituent of glass, this ordered crystal state is quartz. \n\nNow in the case of glass, which is quenched, there’s not time for the atoms to arrange themselves in an ordered crystal structure. The bonds between the silicon and oxygen atoms are frozen in the state the liquid was in when it dropped below the melting point of the substance. So if you look at glass at an atomic level, it looks like a disorganized mess you find in a liquid but since it’s a solid, none of the atoms have the energy required to break the bonds they have with each other and the structure is instead fixed in place. This is why it’s referred to being a supercooled liquid."
]
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8qs0z1 | how are some physical traits able to skip through a generation? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8qs0z1/eli5_how_are_some_physical_traits_able_to_skip/ | {
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"You have two copies of each gene, one set from your father, one from your mother. Each copy is called an _allele_. Alleles can be recessive or dominant. If you have one dominant allele from one parent and one recessive from the other, the dominant allele will be expressed. Only if you have two recessive alleles will that version of the gene be expressed.\n\nSo, it's easy for some traits to skip a generation if they're recessive, since there are more ways for a dominant allele to take effect.\n\nLet's say you have the a recessive big nose gene. The dominant allele is N and the recessive one is n.\n\nMother - N, father - N = NN, a small nose\n\nMother - N, father - N = Nn, a small nose\n\nMother - n, father - N = nN, a small nose\n\nMother - n, father - n = nn, big nose\n\n"
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32v4rp | nutrition labels measurements, specifically the gram. | I just watched John Oliver's last week tonight on sugar and it made me realize I have no idea what a gram is in comparison to food (US and the metric system and all, but I know it's a measure is weight). What can I relate 5g of sugar or fiber or sodium etc to? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32v4rp/eli5_nutrition_labels_measurements_specifically/ | {
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"text": [
"If you're American and are used to ounces and pounds, 1 ounce is a little over 28 grams; I usually round up to 30 to estimate, which works fine on small scales. 1 pound is just over 450 grams.\n\n"
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qa4v2 | i literally live in the other side of the american continent, explain me briefly about what's currently happening on america's politic. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/qa4v2/eli5_i_literally_live_in_the_other_side_of_the/ | {
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"A fellow that quite a lot of people dislike is surprisingly in a position to upset a fellow that a lot of people dislike a bit less. \n\nYou know sports movies? How there's always an underdog team, full of likable kids who band together to beat the odds and defeat the team full of jerks? In this case, the jerk is both the underdog and poised to win. \n\nThis is just a primary, where the guys running are all pretty similar in how they think. In the fall the last guy standing will get to go up against the current winner, who has a slightly different mentality. \n\nBut in the end, to quote South Park, it's still a choice between a giant douche and a turd sandwich. ",
"In the United States, there are two political parties, the Republicans and Democrats. \n\nWe're in the midst of a presidential election. Obama, a Democrat, is running to win another 4 year term as president. \n\nSeveral Republicans are running in a primary election to decide which one of them will get to run against Obama in a general election to be president. \n\nThe Republican candidates- \n\nMitt Romney - Romney is a former governor and sort of a classic Republican. He's economically conservative and socially moderate. He's very wealthy, but most Republican voters aren't very passionate about him. \n\nRick Santorum - Santorum is a former senator. He's economically conservative and extremely socially conservative. \n\nNew Gingrich - He's the former Speaker of the House, he's economically conservative and socially conservative. \n\nRon Paul - He's a Congressman and identifies as a libertarian. He's economically conservative and socially both conservative and liberal, depending on the issue. \n\nSantorum and Romney are the current front runners. "
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3tfphy | how do seismographs work? can they really detect earthquakes thousands of miles away or does the news always show a local seismograph? | Do animals have some sort of internal seismograph or early alert system? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tfphy/eli5_how_do_seismographs_work_can_they_really/ | {
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" > ELI5: How do seismographs work?\n\nThe earliest seismographs were a pendulum on a string or a mass attached to a spring. Due to Newton's First Law of motion, when an earthquake occurred, the pendulum or mass would remain in place while the Earth itself moved. If you attached a \"pen\" to the end, you would see waves drawn on a paper. Modern seismographs have other methods that are similar in principle, but more accurate.\n\n > Can they really detect earthquakes thousands of miles away\n\nIt depends on a lot of factors. Sometimes yes, and sometimes no. It depends on the strength of the earthquake, how deep it occurred, the soil/rock composition around where it happened, etc. Some earthquakes have been known to change the tilt of the earth or the speed of the rotation of earth (very slightly). Obviously an earthquake of that magnitude could be measured with sensitive seismographs anywhere.\n\n > does the news always show a local seismograph?\n\nThe news probably shows stock footage of another seismograph taken before the most recent earthquake. As above, it is possible to measure earthquakes from a great distance, but it probably isn't worth the news channel's time to send someone to take video of a seismograph when it would look exactly the same as the last time they took video of it.",
"Also, when determining the epicenter of an earthquake, three or more seismographs are used to triangulate the location of the epicenter based on when the S and P waves arrive at each seismograph. The arrival interval between the S and P waves tells you how far those waves travelled through the Earth before arriving at the seismograph.",
"seismographs can and do detect earthquakes (and major explosions) on the other side of the globe if they are strong enough."
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126d3u | why do older movies / tv shows simply "look old," regardless of costumes, cgi, etc.? | I've recently been watching Star Trek: Next Generation, and it's a good example. Regardless of costumes, special effects, etc., older movies and TV shows simply look older. Everything looks a little fuzzy, colors aren't as rich, I don't really know what else makes it stand out but most people can see a show and instantly tell whether it's new or old.
What causes this? Different film? Lighting techniques? Aging copies of the show? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/126d3u/eli5_why_do_older_movies_tv_shows_simply_look_old/ | {
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"Part of the reason is they were shot to be viewed on a display with much lower resolution. You are seeing them in a way that was not planned for in production. ",
"You rarely see a first generation older film being projected. In the case of things shot on film and not video taped the quality of the print is part of the issue. If you ever see a new print which has been made from an original negative you will be amazed at the sharpness of focus and vibrancy of colors. But films get worn out through repeated projections and negatives get worn and damaged. If a new negative is made by copying a worn negative then all prints will look worn and dull. If a digital version is madeof from that worn version which is then used for broadcast on TV you see something hat looks old and very different than the original.",
"On the contrary. Watch an episode of *I Love Lucy* or the original *Star Trek*. Chances are, they'll look pretty damn good.\n\nWhy? Both shows were shot and edited *on film*. Properly handled, properly cared for, properly transferred to video, film can provide a rich, clear picture, even on modern standards like HDTV (we still have a decade or more before video standards exceed the resolution of film). Many old films can look this good, too, provided that they were handled, cared for and transferred properly.\n\nBut, *Star Trek: The Next Generation*, while shot on film, was *edited* in video. And here's the dirty secret of video, particularly the USA's NTSC video: the standards drafted for analog color television in the *1950's* were not fully met until around the time HDTV was \"just around the corner.\" Cameras, videotape recorders, studio monitors, broadcast facilities and television sets for a long, long time were poor approximations of what the standard on paper called for. And the analog NTSC standard is still only about 95% realized.\n\nAnd that's why video (or film content transferred to video) looks so bad prior to about, say, the 1990's."
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5k4r79 | how does the human circulatory system maintain effective and efficient productivity while in space and under vastly contrasting gravity conditions relative to the astronaut's planet of origin; earth. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5k4r79/eli5_how_does_the_human_circulatory_system/ | {
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"Poorly. Typically we experience gravity pulling down on our blood, meaning the muscles of our legs act to push blood back up into our torso and there are valves which usually prevent back flow. In space people tend to have higher than normal blood pressure in their upper body and this is feared to result in issues with vision among other things (the increased fluid deforms the eyeballs).",
"The circulatory system rotates relative pressures of blood in a cycle. Gravity is a pressure that is pretty consistent over a large area, so it has little effect on local events like circulation.",
"Your body is pressurized. Blood circulation doesn't depend on gravity but on a pump, your heart.\n\nThat being said, because it *has* evolved on earth, the lack of gravity is problematic, as your body has evolved to work harder to push blood 'up' rather than down and in space this isn't effective in the same fashion.\n\nBut realize that if gravity were too significant a factor, then orientation could wreck us, which would itself represent a significant disadvantage. You don't want a body that can't handle an inconsistency in 'down.'"
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5mx81u | why do people like to read in the toilets even if it is only the labelling on the back of a shampoo bottle? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5mx81u/eli5_why_do_people_like_to_read_in_the_toilets/ | {
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"The human brain wants to be busy, be it reading a shampoo bottle or humming/having a song stuck in your head. As long as you're busy you're good."
]
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8dhhg5 | can someone explain musical interval ratio to me? | I'm a freshman at music school and I am reading about interval ratios. Like, 1:2 for an octave, 3:4 for a fourth, etc. I've never been good at math so I am having some trouble grasping this.
EDIT: if it's possible to have some sort of visual explanation that could be applied on a piano keyboard, this would be optimal. I seem to understand musical concepts much better when in front of a piano. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8dhhg5/eli5_can_someone_explain_musical_interval_ratio/ | {
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"An 88-key piano could be a visual aid for interval ratios if you didn't mind that the lowest note would have to be attached to a string 152.21851072 times as long as that attached to the highest string.\n\nWe don't like for our pianos to span *entire* concert halls, though, so we use thicker strings for them low notes. It'd just be 152.21851072 times as long if they were of the same tension and the same string width.\n\nSo, don't look at a piano. Look at a guitar. Divide the string in half and see where you end up: the twelfth fret, more or less exactly. Twelve frets, twelve half steps, is one octave.\n\nDivide the string in 3 and see where the first third is: the seventh fret (NOT exactly, but very damn close). Seven half steps is a perfect fifth.\n\nDivide the string in 4 and see where the first quarter is: the fifth fret (NOT exactly, but very damn close).\n\nBefore God whispered the world into existence he had to whisper math into existence. And he whispered that 2^(7/12) would be damn close to 1.5. We're all grateful he did, because if he hadn't made it so particularly close, literally all music would be differently constructed."
]
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64qv8v | why is it not possible to have moon sized stars? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/64qv8v/eli5_why_is_it_not_possible_to_have_moon_sized/ | {
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"Stars shine because of the energy produced in a fusion reaction. Hydrogen nuclei are similarly charged, so just like magnets they repel each other. However, if you manage to force two of them close enough, a different force —the strong nuclear force—with a much shorter range overtakes the repelling one and makes the nuclei snap into a helium nucleus which results in leftover energy. The process is analogous to carbon and oxygen snapping into carbon dioxide and producing light, which we know as conventional combustion.\n\nNow, it takes an enormous amount of force to overcome the repelling force between atoms. Just like coal doesn't burn without a spark, fusion reaction needs some input energy to start—most observed reactions do, since otherwise they would have already happened. In stars, that energy comes from gravity which crushes the particles together at great temperatures and forces them together. Something as tiny as our Moon simply can't create enough pressure for fusion to occur, and even Jupiter is far too small to become a star by several orders of magnitude."
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3qxu51 | why is smoking a cigarette after sex a thing? | It's always something I've wondered, is it a chemical thing, like it balances you out? Just curious why people would do it, not that I wouldn't. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qxu51/eli5_why_is_smoking_a_cigarette_after_sex_a_thing/ | {
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"I think it's not so much the cigarette as a matter of fact. It's more about the relaxation that comes with it.",
"in the 60's tv ads of people trying to sell cigarettes made it a thing like how the de beers diamond company made the engagment ring a thing",
"Post-coital bliss combined with scratching that smoker's itch is an extremely pleasurable feeling, I've been told. \"You never skip the after-sex cigarette.\"",
"Well if you're a regular smoker, you probably been having sex and foreplay for an hour and its time for your smoke break. Add on the double High of post orgasm and smoking and it stays a thing.",
"As they weren't able to show the act of sex in the media, they would instead imply it by showing two people smoking after the fact.",
"They smoke if they're stimulated. Angry, excited, scared, bored, full, hungry. It's not just sex, its everything and sex happens to be stimulating. Seems when they're not, they forget the urge. They are at the relaxed state they smoke to get and wouldn't smoke more since they don't need it. "
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12vv35 | why do websites like pandora radio have a limited number of skips? | I would believe that if they owned the rights to the songs they should be able to have an unlimited number of skips | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/12vv35/eli5_why_do_websites_like_pandora_radio_have_a/ | {
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"They pay a royalty for each song played. Allowing you to skip a lot means that you don't listen to the song (lower chance of buying something) and more loss for them. \n\nOn the other hand, not allowing you to skip at all would be annoying for you, so they 'take the hit' in the hopes that their algorithm will suggest a good song for you and you will buy something."
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1ripv8 | how can america that's only been a nation for under 250 years be more advanced than nearly every single country? | With great forces like England and France that have been nations for much longer than the United States has while America's land was barely discovered 400 years ago it just doesn't make sense how America could be the military, economic, and technology giant it is today. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ripv8/eli5_how_can_america_thats_only_been_a_nation_for/ | {
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"We stand on the shoulders of giants.\n\nWe didn't start at square one, we started at square 56 along with England and France. ",
" > With great forces like England and France that have been nations for much longer than the United States has \n\nBut that's in part why this nation is a giant force. We were a blank canvas; During the great depression, we had a huge underutilized and unallocated labor force and resources. When the war broke out, we were able to allocate them quickly - the process took to modernization quite well, as we had nothing there to begin with. On the contrary, established nations had an established economy; they had to retrain people, retool industry, and collapse parts of their economies they depended on for revenue in order to reistablish themselves. They were already invested and couldn't move or change quickly.",
"I wouldn't consider America more advanced. We have the biggest military, but I think that's about it. We're behind in technology (I'd say Japan's the best). We still have lots of social issues. Gay marriage isn't completely legal yet, no guaranteed vacations or maternal leave, etc. ",
"Having lived in many countries around the world and now the US I honestly think that US is not the most developed country in any area other than cash generation. \n\nThe us is however certainly in the top 10 of almost every conceivable metric of development however, but not more so than say Europe, France, Australia, Germany, Japan etc etc.",
"A lot of land and resources to work with combined with large oceans cutting us off from most European conflicts. So with our plentiful resources, cheap labor, and relative safety we got to sell our goods to everyone while they were busy fighting. This was particularly key during WWI and WWII where entire countries were devastated(setting them back and moving the US economy forward).\n\nAlso it isn't as if America has been in some kind of isolated bubble and advanced on its own all this time. Ideas moved from country to country through books, papers, and PEOPLE(aka immigration). Not to mention for as much grief as people give China for stealing other's ideas/inventions, the US did its fair share while developing(Samuel Slater for example).\n\ntl;dr=Right place, right time, with the right resources."
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e5ispv | why does menstruation come with cramps and all kinds of terrible side effects? | Shouldn’t the menstrual cycle be something that prepares the body for pregnancy, and not a torture event for some ladies? I get that having painful side effects are not normal, but why do periods come with cramps? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e5ispv/eli5_why_does_menstruation_come_with_cramps_and/ | {
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"Answer: cramps are just the uterus trying to shed the lining. It's painful because most muscles contractions hurt. In addition, menstruation comes with hormonal changes, which can also have an effect on your mood and overall feeling. \n\nNot all persons experience \"terrible side effects\", so you should check in with your doctor in case you have a condition that makes menstruation more painful.",
"FYI: for most of human evolutionary history, a woman ovulated and menstruated perhaps 50 times in her lifetime, the rest of the months having no menses due to pregnancy or lactational amenorrhea (_URL_0_ period during breastfeeding, normal back then, not as common today), plus later age of puberty and younger age of menopause. So having painful periods wasn’t as dysfunctional then as it is now. Now women menstruate perhaps 450 times in her life (every month age 12-51, minus ~2 years for pregnancy) and it’s much more a problem if she has painful periods."
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rlgkq | how is queen elizabeth the queen of england? why isn't there a king right now? | The British Royalty has always been confusing to me. Specifically, why is Queen Elizabeth the Queen, and why isn't there a King? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/rlgkq/elif_how_is_queen_elizabeth_the_queen_of_england/ | {
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"Her dad died, he had no sons, she was the eldest daughter so she is Queen.\n\nHer eldest son, Charles, will be King when she dies.\n\nCharles son, William is ~~third~~ second in line.\n\n_URL_0_\ntbh it's really quite simple\n\nEDIT: doh second",
"There are two kinds of Queens:\n\n* Queen consort - the wife of a King\n* Queen regent - the ruler of a country\n\nA Queen consort is just who the King happened to marry, and has no real power. When the King dies, she becomes the Queen mother and fades into the background.\n\nA Queen regent inherits the crown, when no male heirs are available. Elizabeth did when her father King George VI died without any sons, and enjoys full ruling powers, such as they are.\n\nSince the assumption is that the King is the ruler, it would be confusing for the Queen's consort to be called a King. So instead he gets the lesser title of Prince Consort, to make it clear the Queen, and not he, is the ruler."
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4amydm | how does a seemingly unknown director get chosen for a huge hollywood film? (ex: dan trachtenberg for 10 cloverfield lane | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4amydm/eli5_how_does_a_seemingly_unknown_director_get/ | {
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"It wasn't that big of a movie. It has some famous people starring in it, and JJ Abrams is connected but the movie had a pretty small budget ($15 million) for a Hollywood movie. It's not like this guy was directing Spectre of the new Avengers movie, both of which cost more than $200 million.",
"They're unknown to the public... but Hollywood is a fairly small industry, people know and notice each other. The director may be fairly unknown to the public, but have been noticed by an influential producer, for example.\n\nIt's also not **that** big of a movie. It's big enough for a relatively inexperienced guy to be promoted to it, but it's not a super-blockbuster with hundreds of millions riding on it",
"He knew somebody important, and there wasn't a whole lot of risk because it wasn't a huge movie",
"A director's work is usually much larger than what's listed on his/her IMDB page. You'll likely see a listing if he was the director or assistant director, but a large production will also have some of the following: 1st Assistant Director, 2nd Assistant Director, Assistant to the Director, Assistant to the Assistant Director (I'm not kidding) and so on. Those are all opportunities to impress someone higher up the chain. ",
"The problem with this example is that 10 Cloverfield Lane was not originally a Cloverfield film with JJ Abrams attached. It was originally a script called The Cellar, with a super low budget, and then it became Valencia, and Dan Trachtenberg was attached to direct that film. However, it was during filmmaking/production that they thought, this film has some sort of similarity to Cloverfield, now that we're making it, let's change it a little to make it a 'sequel' of sorts. So, Dan Trachtenberg, first-time director, was attached to make a small, low-budget film, not the big one it is now.\n\nI think a better example of what you're trying to describe is someone like Josh Trank or Colin Trevorrow. Trank directed Chronicle, a low budget film, with no big names, that opened big and got a lot of critical praise. Then, based on that, he was hired to direct Fantastic Four and Star Wars (eventually dropping out).\n\nTrevorrow was hired to do Jurassic World on the basis of his film Safety Not Guaranteed, an indie film. Based on his success with JW, he's now doing Star Wars."
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1xipjf | why does constipation exist? if you feel like you really need to poop, why doesn't your body make itself poop? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xipjf/eli5_why_does_constipation_exist_if_you_feel_like/ | {
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"Constipation is a problem, and problem's aren't normal. Just like how if you have a cold your body can't make it go away instantly, if you've got some issues in your digestive system and bowels your body can't just make it go away.\n\nThere are many causes of constipation, some of which may be lack of fibre, lack of water, or another sickness.",
"Your bowels secrete mucus (like snot) to keep feces moving and from sticking to the bowels. Your body needs an adequate amount of water to produce mucus. This is why you drink extra fluids when you're sick with a cold to thin the mucus and get the germs out by blowing your nose. Constipation can happen from medications like morphine which slow the GI system (they're depressants), from lack of hydration, from lack of fiber in the diet (fiber gives stool bulk and helps scrub the intestinal wall clean as it moves down), or from lack of mobility (walking stimulates the bowels). So the body senses that you have stool you need to pass but it the feces is hard and compacted and there's not enough lubricant (mucus and water content in the poop) to move it through the intestines without great effort or intervention."
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8gvdfn | was there a time when greeks worshipped the titans instead of the gods? or did the entire narrative come about after worship of the pantheon of gods was already established? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8gvdfn/eli5_was_there_a_time_when_greeks_worshipped_the/ | {
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"In a word, no.\n\nWhile certain gods came and went, and some were considered newer even when they were actually quite ancient, for the most part the gods that the Greeks worshiped remained, as far as this question is concerned, the same. Essentially their pantheon was inherited from the proto-indoeuropean roots much like their language. The gods that we are familiar with, Zeus and the like, have their roots in gods which, as far as we can tell, functioned very similarly based on PIE linguistics. Zeus and Jupiter (Roman equivalent) are both etymologically related to a reconstructed deity [Dyeus Phter](_URL_0_) which just means \"sky daddy\". This makes sense because they are both fatherly figures of the sky.\n\nSo where did all the titan stories come from? Well, a few places. For most of human history cultural information was passed down from generation to generation in the form of stories. It helps to have a compelling story to tell and, at times, certain embellishments can be made. Over the course of hundreds of generations and even more embellishments you will eventually wind up with a full fledged mythology. However, that does not mean that all of these stories are embellishments, strictly speaking. One of the interesting facets of Greek ritual observance is their willingness to adopt gods and appropriate their stories and fold them into their own mythologies. This is essentially what is happening at the beginning of Plato's Republic; it opens with a Greek festival to a foreign goddess. Over time, it becomes quite difficult to separate native stories from original stories from adopted ones.\n\nSo, were the titans worshiped before the gods? Perhaps, but not by the Greeks. However, it is also important to remember that some of the titans were worshiped with much the same vigor and veneration as the gods, they all had their ritual roles to play in the overarching mythology.\n\nAddendum: It is also worth noting that some mythologies, such as some of the Roman origin stories, have ancient peoples that founders encounter worshiping deities such as Saturn. Instances such as this could really go either way, as a religion that got subsumed or as literary embellishment. However, most material evidence points to the extreme antiquity of much of the core pantheon.",
"I rather like the idea that the tale of Medusa is supposed to show how a prior Female-centric religion was ousted in favor of the more traditional Greek religion.",
"Not Greek but the jotunn or ice giants from Norse mythology were likely personifications of the glaciers they encountered in Scandinavia, especially embellished by a cultural memory of surviving the last ice age. In lots of mythological traditions there are representatives of wild destructive elements of nature contrasted against the benign and beneficial elements that serve man. The Titans and the Greek gods, the jotunn and the vanir of Norse mythology, the fomorians and the Tuatha de Danann of Irish mythology. Even demons and angels from the Abrahamic faiths ",
"Nah, the Titans represent the chaos on a planet in the time before. The Gods born from that chaos tamed nature and made the planet livable for humans.\n\nIt is the Greek Genesis, aka creation myth, to explain where everything came from.",
"It depends on exactly what you mean by the \"Greeks\", that word is applied to a number of related civilization that existed in the region over about 3000 years.\n\nThe Minoans were the earliest, dating to about 2600 BC. We don't know much about their gods, partly because their language remains undeciphered. But it does appear to be centered around a sun goddess figure and bulls, and bears little relation to Classical Greek gods. Part of their tradition may live on through the legend of King Minos and the Minotaur.\n\nThe Mycenaeans came about around a thousand years later, after the Bronze Age collapse. Their gods are precursors to the well known Greek gods, but with many differences. Poseidon appeared to be the most central figure and was the god of the depths of the earth, not of the sea. Zeus existed, but was not the chief god, but merely the god of the sky. Many gods of the Greek pantheon were missing, and others in the Mycenaean pantheon have no Greek equivalent.\n\nThe Archaic Greek period started about 800 BC, with the familiar pantheon. Some speculate the Titans represent earlier shamanistic religions, in much the same way Easter, Halloween, and Yule are remnants of extinct European pagan religions. ",
"Holy shit, it looked like a simple question at first, but soon turned to one of the best ELI5 to me (i am a historian/history teacher). So many interesting answers and things to search later, thanks OP and everyone sharing knowledge.",
"While I cannot speak for the matter of worship it is known that they at least held reverence towards some of them early on. Among the older Greek shrines you will find ones for some titans and primordials. So they were at the very least a part of the established pantheon. However it is worth note that the titans and primordials are VERY similar to deities mankind worshiped previously in earlier ages. The night itself was once a god to man, and so was the sun, and the moon, and the planet. So while beforehand they might not have worshiped someone exactly the same, they did worship similar deities. \n\n",
"one quick comment here: I've just finished reading Mythos by Stephen Fry. A better eli5 introduction does not exist imo. highly recommended for an answer to this question and almost everything else you wanted to know about the stories of the ancient Greek gods.",
"My personal theory is that titans and/or giants show up in mythologies around the world for the same reason dragons do. Ancient people found fossils and invented explanations for their existence. Dragons came from dinosaur fossils and titans came from extinct giant mammal fossils. ",
"So glad with this question. I'm reading Iliad now and a sentence came up where Zeus tells that he buried Titans. Question popped up, who are the Titans now? \n\nObviously not at all good at Greek mythology."
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3zg9bu | why are people and businesses given tax refunds that are larger that the amount they actually paid? | I don't understand why companies that don't pay anything in taxes are still getting refunds. I have seen the same thing with friends who get checks for hundreds or thousands more than they ever paid. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zg9bu/eli5_why_are_people_and_businesses_given_tax/ | {
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"Assuming you're talking about U.S. taxes, that's just our tax policy (particularly when it comes to individuals). It's just the way we've chosen to write the laws.\n\nPeople talk about redistribution of wealth as though it doesn't exist in America, but it kind of totally does (to a degree). Due to tax measures like the Earned Income Tax Credit, many \"taxpayers\" (40%+) either pay no net taxes or come out ahead after tax season. In a very real sense, the IRS shifts a lot of tax revenue from higher earners to lower earners. So it's my guess that the checks you are seeing are for lower earners who are taking advantage of the EITC and other tax provisions.\n\nAs for companies, this isn't really a thing. But it's not uncommon for a business to receive a refund that's greater than its tax liability for *a given year.* That said, corporate and partnership tax are exceedingly complex areas. Notably, businesses can carry gains and losses (for tax purposes) forward and back a number of years. If a company sees an outsized tax return this year, it's probably because they \"overpayed\" in a previous year, or because they're choosing to incur a greater tax liability in a later year. There are, of course, a number of other tricks a company can use to minimize its tax liability. The Internal Revenue Code is a vast, complicated beast, after all.",
"Well, let's take the individual taxpayer example.\n\nLet's say someone makes $20,000/year, and has one child. Their taxable income to begin with is $2,750 (AGI - two personal exemptions and standard deduction for head of household), meaning they pay a total tax of $275 (10% of taxable income in that bracket).\n\nThe Earned Income Tax Credit is a credit of $3,359.\n\nHere's the big difference: a *deduction* reduces taxable income (like the standard deduction above) and thus cannot go lower than $0. A *credit* reduces total tax payment and *can* go below $0.\n\nSo, claiming only baseline exemptions and deduction, and the EITC, our person gets back a refund of $3,084."
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awgewt | how does file encryption work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/awgewt/eli5_how_does_file_encryption_work/ | {
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"Encryption takes place in \"realtime\".\n\nBasically veracrypt creates a virtual harddrive, which is the one you can use with the explorer. As soon as you write date to this virtual harddrive veracrypt encrypts this data on the fly and writes the encrypted data to the drive.\n\nYou are not encrypting single files but a complete block device (hard disk).\n\nYou would have been able to skip the whole encryption/formatting process of veracrypt making the initialization quicker. But that might lead to information about the disk which an attacker might be able to use against you.\n\nSimple file encryption works by using a normal disk and instead of writing the file to the unencrypted disk you would use a tool that encrypts the file and stores an encrypted file on the unencrypted disk.",
"The initial encryption takes a while because it rewrites the data on your hard drive by converting the data with an encryption algorithm.\n\nThen after that is done, any new data is encrypted as it is written to the hard drive.\n\nThink of encryption like mixing a drink, it’s virtually impossible to unmix. Any malicious attackers would not be able to decrypt your data to make sense of it.\n\nThe encryption algorithm also works in reverse, by unscrambling the data (un-mixing the drink) when you read the data. Only your computer has the key to unlock the data.\n\nOne main standard algorithm for encrypting hard drives is AES _URL_0_"
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83lz7g | altitude training | So I get the purpose of altitude training, you get more red blood cells so you can transport more oxygen.
But I don't understand how this works.
If I imagine the oxygen as a pile of sand and my blood as train wagons, how does it make sense to make more wagons when you have less sand? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/83lz7g/eli5_altitude_training/ | {
"a_id": [
"dviu4ot"
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"text": [
"The wagons only get a small amount of time to load the sand and with a low supply they don't get much.\n\nWith the small supply the body makes more wagons and they get better at picking up sand."
]
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[]
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|
44p42f | how does turning off my faucet in ohio help kids in africa get clean water? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/44p42f/eli5_how_does_turning_off_my_faucet_in_ohio_help/ | {
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"text": [
"It doesn't, the ad was intended to make you associate Colgate with feeling virtuous and then want to buy Colgate the next time you're at the store. "
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2ynoq7 | why do velodrome bicycle sprinters come to a complete stop during the middle of the race? | Why wouldn't they just sprint from the beginning? If it's about drafting then isn't that mitigated by going slow at the beginning? Sprinting first seems to initiate a racing sequence in which the leader is in control. Furthermore, why wouldn't it be optimized for someone who sprinted hard for 3 laps rather than just one?
_URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ynoq7/eli5why_do_velodrome_bicycle_sprinters_come_to_a/ | {
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"It is about draft, which in this sort of cycling, is a huge factor. \n\nTo take a step back, when you're riding a bike, you're hitting the air in front of you, which slows you down and takes a lot of effort to pedal through. If you are following a moving object, that still air is broken for you and the effects are greatly reduced. \n\nTherefore, if one cyclist pedalled with all his might all the way around the track for three laps, the second cyclist could follow him closely and only pedal with half as much effort to keep up. \n\nIn this situation, by the end of the race the lead cyclist would have used up all of his energy and already being going as fast as he can. The cyclist in second position would only be half as tired and would have the potential to pedal even faster, travel even faster, overtake the first guy and cross the finish line first. \n\nSo really, being in first position in track cycling is actually a disadvantage before you get to the end. \n\nThe draft effect is noticeable in motorsports, on highways and motorways and in road cycling, too. However, in road cycling it often makes more sense to take turns at \"going first\", even with your fiercest competitor. ",
"If they did a dead sprint from the go, the trailing racer would win every time, since they can draft the whole way and would have the energy to pass while the leader is exhausted.\n\nIt's all a tactical game. Do you stay in front and try to open up a big enough lead that they can't draft you? Or do you slow down, try to stop, force them to pass you, then draft them? If you draft, you don't have to work as hard, so at the last second you'll have the extra burst to pass them, but will it be enough?\n\nCheck out the wikipedia on [Sprint Cycling](_URL_0_). It's got a good explanation of the tactics."
]
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3m7x0b | how do animals survive the night from nocturnal predators while they sleep? it seems hard enough to survive their waking hours. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3m7x0b/eli5how_do_animals_survive_the_night_from/ | {
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"It depends.\n\nSome sleep in burrows where most predators can't find them. Others make nests in trees where the big predators can't get at them. With some herd animals, they'll take turns staying awake and standing guard. \n\n",
"There's almost as many different methods as there are creatures!\n\nSloths, for example, sleep at the end of small branches so their heavy predators can't get to them. \n\nLizards are very skinny and can tuck themselves under rocks that birds or other predators couldn't get to.\n\nMany animals like to burrow underground to hide. \n\nSome animals emit foul-tasting/smelling odors, or just taste so terrible predators would spit them out or barf. \n\n"
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5it86o | does the president have to be granted a security clearance? does his appointees/cabinet? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5it86o/eli5_does_the_president_have_to_be_granted_a/ | {
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"The president has no requirement for a security clearance. As the head of the executive branch, all security clearances are basically extensions of his authority.\n\nJust like there's no requirements other than age & citizenship for the presidency, he doesn't need a background check. The idea is that the voters, parties & media are supposed to vet him before he gets elected."
]
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||
4600l1 | why is it that in almost every picture of the milky way someone takes from earth it looks like there is either a sideways galaxy or a slice down the middle in space? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4600l1/eli5_why_is_it_that_in_almost_every_picture_of/ | {
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"Haha... Almost every picture?\n\nDude, we aren't going to be getting any other pictures of the milky way from another perspective. We're inside of the Milky Way, and the Milky Way is an flattish spiral, which is why we see a band of stars whenever it's photographed or seen from an area with low light pollution.\n\nWe will never see a picture of the Milky Way from the outside looking in."
]
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93o0o6 | why do they say you look different while looking at yourself in a mirror then from another human eye? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/93o0o6/eli5_why_do_they_say_you_look_different_while/ | {
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"text": [
"The eye sees you as how you are, the mirror shows you a reflection, i.e for a mirror your right is its left for an eye your right it it's right."
]
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||
1tie7a | what happens after you die according to the the jewish religion? do they have an afterlife? a heaven or hell? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tie7a/eli5_what_happens_after_you_die_according_to_the/ | {
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"There is minimal discussion of what happens directly after death. The only post-death idea I know of within Judaism is the idea that once the messiah comes, the dead will supposedly be resurrected and everyone will be happy. However, the religion doesn't focus much on what happens after death. ",
"You go to Sheol. What you do on earth has no bearing on this, everybody goes."
]
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43qt30 | why do my allergies act up the most when the weather changes from hot to cold or cold to hot? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43qt30/eli5_why_do_my_allergies_act_up_the_most_when_the/ | {
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"Typically what your body is reacting to is the change in humidity, not the change in temperature. Colder air is typically drier air and your sinuses are mucous membranes that need to adjust their mucous output as the humidity changes. While the mucous flow is interrupted, it's easier for pollen spores, animal dander and other allergens to bypass this protective mucous and cause an allergic reaction. \n\nYour body also reacts to large temperature differences and while it's getting it's internal processes back in balance, your immune system is also compromised, allowing an allergic reaction to appear larger than it would normally, but the biggest culprit is the humidity."
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fdwmqc | how does hypnosis work? what is it capable of? | How is it that people can describe something or someone in great detail when hypnotized which they wouldn't have been able to remember otherwise?
What goes on in the brain during Hypnosis? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fdwmqc/eli5_how_does_hypnosis_work_what_is_it_capable_of/ | {
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"It really depends on your definition of \"works.\" Real hypnotists just put you in a very calm relaxed state. It's easier to communicate and think when you're calm. But you probably won't remember things youve forgotten or repressed.",
"If you watch a movie and someone dies you feel sad eventhough it’s a movie and everyone involved is a an actor. You blend the facts out & accept what you are seeing as your reality for the moment. \n\nWith hypnosis you do the same: If I tell you you are a chicken, you let this command surpass your little “reality check” and therefor it goes directly into your subconscious, where it triggers emotions, etc. \n\nThis only works if you are fine with the fact of being a chicken for a moment & have trust in the person hypnotizing you.",
"Hypnosis (psychologically speaking) is just generally being in a state of extreme suggestiveness. It's not mind control or anything. It usually feels like you're in a very calm situation, but not sth out of your control. However as part of being put in a state of suggestability, you need a level of suspension of disbelief. For instance, esp in cases of therapy for trauma or sth (don't quote me I'm not a psychologist), when the prompter says sth like \"imagine all your stresses into a ball, etc etc, then throw it into the air and let it go like a balloon\", you must sort of believe that it's true. It's a bit weird but that's the gist. \n\nIt's usually done as some form of therapy or treatment, but there are other activities that mimic this as well. Usually any form of deep meditation where there's a speaker suggesting things to you (like perhaps in prayer or yoga).",
"Hypnosis for therapy purposes is mainly a strict breathing and calming exercise.\n\nIf you have ever day dreamed or completely zoned out... this is essentially the goal. Get you into a state of relaxation where you are able to take your mind off of the 'now' while talking through tough issues that may normally trigger stress and anxiety.\n\nThe whole 'waving a clock back and forth' idea stems from a breathing exercise to get you to control your breath, slow your heart rate, and essentially rest. This is just one example.\n\nWhile there is no such thing as true 'mind control' hypnosis, there is such thing as extreme relaxation/calming to the point of getting into a 'trance' like state.\n\nThoughts and realizations when in this condition can do incredible things to the brain and how you perceive current situations. It can also, scientifically, do pretty incredible physical things.\n\nAs a side note - this isn't all just a hypnosis for therapy idea. There are other professions out there which rely on the same practices for other purposes. It's essentially the same idea as meditation.\n\nHigh level athletes such as free divers, hockey players, pro bike racers and more seek this type of treatment and training to help themselves in various situations within their sport.\n\n'Magicians' who do stunts requiring long duration breath holding or controlling heart rates to help control body temperatures also rely on this type of conditioning.\n\nJust as an edit/note: I'm not a medical professional or hypnotist. So I don't have answers to questions. All my 'knowledge' on this comes from a college paper and a childhood friends father who was a therapist and also cognitive hypnotist. I begged the man for years to hypnotise me as a kid and make me do crazy things so we could film it... only to be told time and time again that \"it's not what you think it is\". He's actually the reason i wrote the paper.",
" > How is it that people can describe something or someone in great detail when hypnotized which they wouldn't have been able to remember otherwise? \n\nThe short answer to this one is that they don't! This is a funny topic because it's an article of faith among some people (including, apparently, a number of hypnotists) that hypnosis is great for refreshing one's memory---but this is a question that's entirely testable, and studies have shown that hypnosis doesn't make someone's memory more accurate. But the process of hypnosis (including suggestions to the subject that they will be able to remember something with increased detail/accuracy/what have you) does have an effect: it creates a response bias. People who are given these sorts of suggestions are more willing to offer up answers and details than the control group. Their accuracy isn't any better than the control group, but if all you're doing is counting right answers the hypnotized group may be scored better since they give more answers and detail overall.\n\nThere are a number of studies indicating the above, but one interesting read for you might be this in depth review and discussion of \"Hypnotically Refreshed Testimony\" published in 1985:\n\n [_URL_0_](_URL_0_)",
"It essentially works on people's ability to filter out external stimuli.\n\nBy placing them in a relaxed state and distracting them with a sound, motion, tapping or whatnot, you can induce suggestions almost subconsciously, without the conscious brain noticing because they are distracted by a primary stimulus.",
"What is this, the 1850s? I'm really surprised by how many people are accusing hypnotists of fraud. James Braid used to perform surgeries with patients hypnotized rather than under anesthesia.\n\nFrom what I understand, when you are hypnotized you enter a kind of dissociative state. Conscious processes are reduced in this state and what is left is access to the subconscious and even (collective) unconscious mind.\n\nTo answer your question about memory, the number of things we actually \"forget\" is far lower than people realize. Unless there was an issue of recording the memory, the memory is intact just potentially inaccessible. In this model of mind, consciousness can be thought of as a screaming infant whose shriek obliterates any train of thought. A hypnotist simply puts that child to sleep.",
"So much misinformation in this thread. It's a modified state of consciousness, in which your attention is narrowed down (focused) very much, to a point where you might lose track of time, your surroundings, your bodily sensations (pain, for one), and other people. Once achieved, this focused attention makes you calmer, more relaxed, and way more susceptible to suggestions from the focus of attention, ie. your hypnotist. \n\nObject of focus: helps you concentrate on just one thing, hence the dangling pocketwatch image.\nHeightened suggestibility: hence the \"you're a chicken\" commands, which are exaggerations.\n\nIt requires a moderate amount of base suggestibility, and a belief that hypnosis might work. Nobody can hypnotize you against your wishes or beliefs, you can't do real hypnosis while in front of a big crowd, and obviously there are limits to its effectiveness. But for example, I've seen people give birth\nwithout making a peep, just from being hypnotized.\n\nAnother fun thing is active-alert hypnosis. You can take away someone getting muscle fatigue from prolonged cardio work (bicycle) while using it. It's quite a new topic, and very interesting, look it up.\n\nSource: am a psychologist, had one of the world's foremost experts on hypnosis as my teacher.",
"It seems the general consensus is that psychological hypnosis is more about deep relaxation techniques, and stage hypnosis is all fake, and participants are both plants and/or just went along with the crowd. So here's my sub-question:\n\nI've met a few people who have participated in a stage hypnosis gag. These are generally wonderful people who aren't prone to lying and deceiving. Yet, the vehemently insist, almost to the point of tears, that they truly were \"hypnotized.\" Assuming that these people really believe what they're saying, what might the psychological mechanism be that is preventing these people from accepting reality? Might they really believe they were hypnotized or is this an extreme case of denial?",
"besides the relaxation effect, I think it was never a revolutionary concept, more like another empty promise about dramatically changing human psyche. \n\nDon't get me wrong, any mental suggestion can affect your self image but to reach that it has to become a daily habit. We have thousands of thoughts everyday. If you can monitor the way you talk to yourself you are better off hypnosis. No \"One shot\" hypnotic session can magically make you someone else.",
"I'm a researcher: there are two competing perspectives in research about hypnosis. Some (a majority) say hypnosis is three things: 1. Relaxation 2. Focused Attention 3. Decreased peripheral awareness. The \"other side\" say that hypnosis is a state of consciousness, called \"trance\" which can be induced in some people and not in others, for reasons we don't fully understand.",
"You know when you were a kid, someone could tell you there's a purple dragon in the other room with candy for you and you would believe them!\n\nAs we age we develop a critical faculty that filters things like this to being realistic.\n\nWhen in an induced hypnotic state the critical faculty doesn't work and commands from the hypnotist slips straight through and is picked up by the unconscious mind and is held as their reality for that time, this is how a hypnotist can so easily get you to forget your name or have your feet stuck to the floor.\n\nThe actual hypnotic induction is done through a focus of attention (where the stereotype of the pocket watch swinging comes from) the brain can process about 7 things consciously at any given time and if you can fill those 7 things with all the focus directed where the hypnotist chooses they can command straight to the unconscious mind to achieve the hypnotic state\n\nThere's obviously a whole lot more to it, if you're curious about learning more I'd suggest the \"Brain Software with Mike Mandel\" podcast, every episode is on YouTube and their website, I think only from episode 80 is on Spotify",
"It doesn't. Some people go through a guided meditation that they label hypnosis. But it doesn't work like that. It can't make you change or anything you don't want to, it can't recover lost memories any that \"recovered\" are just fake memories generated by your brain, which can be very dangerous if you think they are real.",
"Hypnosis is kind of a convoluted catch-all term. Let's divide it in two. First, stage hypnosis, which tends to rely on peer pressure and theatrics, is mostly used by charlatans who purely want to entertain. Second, hypnotherapy, which is the the use of hypnosis for therapeutic means across diverse contexts. It is important to know that not everyone can be hypnotized and you cannot be hypnotized if you don't want to be. Regarding your questions, hypnosis is a state of extreme relaxation without unconsciousness. Many of the brain waves emitted in hypnosis are identical to those in regular sleep, however there is still often a conscious element in hypnosis not found in sleep (Hypnos was the Greek god of sleep, from which hypnosis gets its name). The issue of memory is complicated, especially from a research perspective, but one theory is that the majority of our memories are subconscious and hypnosis tends to meld the subconscious and conscious parts of the mind together so that memories flow much more easily. Another thought is that the blood in the brain during periods of extreme relaxation flows away from the brain stem and to the prefrontal cortex. Basically, the back of your brain governs extreme fight or flight stuff while the front part is higher thinking, creativity, and personality, which tend to be also closer to your memory. Thus, without any of the stresses of day to day life, it's easier to remember things. If you were at the absolute peak of comfort then it makes sense that you would be at your best in terms of remembering things. It is important to note, though, that memories are subject to human imagination as much as anything else. We are interpreters not recorders.",
"Most things you \"know\" about hypnosis is probably wrong. But that's not so odd since most people get their info from movies and TV-series.. often the same series that write cars to explode if you look at them wrong.\n\nHere's what I tell my clients. \nYou're always in control. \nI can't make you remember stuff you couldn't remember before, But I can create new memories really easy and therefore we won't mess with that. \nYou will be completely aware all the time, but you might have troubles remember some parts or keeping track of stuff. \nIt works by putting you in a really really relaxed state, your brain is working at a lower \"power mode\" than even in sleep and therefore some parts won't function as well, you won't be as shy and some things come easier. When your mind doesn't have enough power to do all the unnecessary things like \"what will my friends think\" you'll probably answer or act without thinking about that. You already know that your mind can affect you quite a lot, people who thinks there is an extra step can attest to their bodies acting like they're about to die, so when the mind is in this low power mode we can convince the mind to believe certain things. \n\nFor those curious I mainly do therapeutical hypnosis and a tiny bit of stage hypnosis during parties and stuff (I've been a magician).",
"Hi everyone. I am a clinical hypnotherapist, having studied the subject for around 40 years. Put simply, hypnosis is the state in which the **unconscious mind** is able to express itself and be communicated with directly, without the intervention of the conscious mind. I use **hypnotic regression therapy** to locate and depotentiate memories that might be traumatic in nature and still affecting the person in their daily life, such as with a phobia. I always explain to my clients the phenomenon known as **false memory syndrome**, in which a careless or untrained hypnotist or therapist can cause a person to generate memories of something that never actually happened. Memories recovered under hypnosis are rarely admissible in a courtroom because of this. Nevertheless, I have used regression often to locate past memories from as early as 3 years old which have been verified by a 3rd party as being correct. This does not mean, however, that one carries a perfect recording of their life around inside their head",
"My martial arts teacher is a hypnotherapist. The way he has described hypnosis to me is very different from those \"stage shows\" where people do random things their told to do. Basically it's just a method to force you into a meditative, receptive state. Our minds have a habit of defending themselves, so by shutting down the analytical part of us, it's easier to have a therapeutic conversation.\n\nHe told me this can be done in two ways: direct and indirect. Direct is the classical one: \"focus your eyes on this pocket watch swinging in front of you\". The problem with this method is that the mind can still object to the process. Indirect requires a lot of presence and skill from the therapist, and is very Buddhist in nature: directing the client's focus on different details in the environment for so long, that the analytical mind can't keep up. Eventually a meditative state is reached, whether the client was receptive to it or not.",
"There is no one clear answer about hypnosis. It is like asking people about dreams. There are some guiding principles, but individual experiences will vary dramatically from one person to the next. I have been trained as a hypnotherapist, and I have been trained to teach hypnotherapy. I have been given detailed descriptions by the people I have hypnotised, but I have not experienced deep hypnosis myself, as I am not a good subject. On the other hand I have experienced strong visual hallucinations and had other strange experiences while hypnotising people. As to the accuracy of memories under hypnosis, I think the jury is out on that one. And that goes for memories in general. I have a friend who remembers very vividly what happened to her one birthday as a teenager. And then at the age of 40 something she checked her diary that she wrote at the time and was very surprised that it tells a different story. How much we adjust and distort the memories over time is an interesting subject, and I suspect that will vary dramatically from person to person too.",
"There is a brain state where there is an very specific pattern of theta waves. That brain state is associated with deep relaxation or \"zoning out\". What is most interesting is that when you are in that state, you (oversimplifying) have a more direct connection between input and autonomic reaction. In other words, given a stimulus you respond automatically without thought.\n\nThere are a few different ways to invoke the theta state:\n\n* Hypnosis\n* Mediation/Prayer\n* This idea of [\"Flow\"](_URL_0_)\n* The idea of \"presence\" in gaming/VR/etc. This is when you are making movements, etc. without thinking. This was actually my area of research.\n\nIn the context of hypnosis, there is some thought that being in a theta state may lower your normal defensiveness by creating a stimulus/response loop outside of conscious thought. Thus people lose their inhibitions and do what's suggested. But reaching this state is unlikely during a stage hypnosis show.",
"Certified Hypnotherapist here.\n\nHypnosis AKA \"trance\" is a natural state our brains go into many times per day.\n\nIt's like a really deep state of daydreaming but instead of your mind wandering it is guided by the practitioner to completely visualize and feel whatever benefit and change you want.\n\nFor example completely convincing yourself that you are a non-smoker.\n\nIf this is done with enough emotional intensity or repetition with lower emotional intensity it will create lasting changes.\n\nSo simply put, hypnosis is like opening a window into the subconscious part of your mind that usually runs on autopilot.\n\nSo if you install new upgraded programs into the subconscious while the window is open... things will improve.\n\nBut \"opening the window\" doesn't do anything in by itself other than make you feel relaxed.",
"I can only speak to my own experience as someone who has somewhat recently (within the past few years) learned to hypnotize people.\n\nBeing hypnotized means allowing yourself to be put into a trance state. A trance state is a mindset in which you are extremely focused on one thing, which tunes out (or at least turns down) everything else around you. Nearly everybody has, at some point in their life, been in a trance state. **Have you ever started your drive home, started thinking about something, and suddenly found yourself in your driveway with no memory of the journey? That's a form of trance.** You were so focused on whatever you were thinking about that everything else just went away. If an emergency situation had arisen (a car suddenly braking in front of you, your check engine light turning on, etc), you would have shifted your focus to the task at hand. But since you feel safe driving that familiar route, your mind allowed you to enter autopilot (so to speak) and you operated heavy machinery while obeying the traffic laws and routing yourself home. \n\nHypnotism is similar. Your hypnotist, whom you trust, puts you into a state of specific, targeted focus (I actually have the most success when overwhelming the senses of my subject then allowing them to focus on only one thing) then guides you when you're tranced out. If they tell you to do something that you don't want to do, you won't do it. If they tell you to ignore something that you're comfortable ignoring, you'll ignore it. It's sort of like entering virtual reality--somewhere in your mind you know that you're safe in your living room, but you allow yourself to be told that you're fighting zombies on the moon or whatever and your body's reactions will be tuned to that situation. Normally I discuss ahead of time with my subjects what it is they want, both to confirm consent and to start them on their way of accepting what's going to happen. Things like increasing or decreasing sensitivity to touch, commands that elicit specific responses, or inhibiting movement. I also have debrief sessions afterward and the general response goes something like this: **\"I knew that I could move my arm if I wanted to, but you told me that I couldn't so I no longer wanted to. And I wanted to be sure, so I struggled to move it and the part that didn't want to move it won, which made it that much more 'real.'\"** It's kind of like being inebriated (though drunk people make awful subjects since they can't focus well) in that you're just more likely to go with the flow of a thing. Lowered inhibitions and all that.\n\nJust as hypnotists can become better at hypnotizing, so can subjects become better at becoming hypnotized. Even someone who wants to be hypnotized might take a few sessions before they trust their hypnotist. As others have said, **you can't hypnotize a person who doesn't want to be hypnotized and sometimes you can't easily hypnotize someone who wants to be.** People often say as an immediate reaction to the concept of hypnotism \"Oh I can't be hypnotized\" because they think that only simpletons can have their will bent that way. But anybody who wants to be hypnotized and can trust a hypnotist can be hypnotized. They just have to be willing to share control for a bit (which is really what most people struggle with). \n\nGive it a try some time. See if there are hypno groups near you (warning: obviously they're all going to be weirdos). Hang out a bit. Read up on it (warning 2: many of the forums you find devoted to hypnotism will be specifically focused on erotic hypnotism. Not a bad thing, just something you should know before you start searching). \n\nAs for hypnosis for memory or therapy, I can't say.\n\nGreat question, though. It's fascinating stuff.",
"i may be wrong, and probably am, but you cant really hypnotize anyone to go against their own nature, you are always in full control and like many here have explained, the most you really get is a relaxed trance state. \"again you are in full control, however you might be highly suggestable.\n\nessentially what i see hypnosis as, is a guided meditation, they calm the body and mind, bring up suggestions for you to ponder in a calm mind.\ni really have a hard time imagioning somone hypnotise anyone against their will.",
"It's a state of focused imagination, utilising suggetsibility, the placebo effect and demand characteristics for therapeutic effect. Its not a therapy in and of its self, it's combined with a therapeutic model, such as CBT.\n\nThe client does NOT need to be relaxed, just in a highly focused mindset.\n\nSource: I have a clinical qualification in the subject.",
"Hypnotist here. The way that I explain hypnosis to my clients or anyone that asks is that it is like daydreaming. It's focused attention with a suspension of disbelief. You're fully aware of everything around you but in a deep state if relaxation. \nThe trance state is similar to times when you're driving home from work, you zone out and next minute you're pulling into your driveway. Subconsciously (with some conscious effort) you got yourself home. We go into trance states naturally all the time. \n\nI'm currently at work and would like to give a detailed answer but for now I've found this. \n\n\"EEGs have shown that the brains of hypnotized subjects showed a boost in lower frequency waves associated with the dream state of sleep.\nThe brain has four different brain wave states: beta, alpha, theta, and delta. The beta state is the normal waking state, which is measured at a frequency of 14-28 cycles per second. The alpha state is a relaxed state which is inductive to visualization and creativity. The alpha wave pattern occurs during a brainwave frequency from 9 to 14 cycles per second. Theta occurs during REM Sleep. The theta state is a deeper state of relaxation that also occurs during hypnosis and meditation. The brain shows a theta wave pattern from 4 to 8 cycles per second.\n\nScientists found that the alpha and theta brain wave frequencies relieve stress; facilitate deep physical relaxation and mental clarity; increase verbal ability and performance IQ; synchronize the two hemispheres of the brain; recall mental images and creative thinking and can reduce pain, promote euphoria and stimulate the release of endorphins.\"\n\nSource:\n_URL_0_\n\nSorry for the formatting. I'm on mobile. \n\nThere is a LOT of misconceptions about hypnosis (therapy and stage hypnosis) out there and on this thread. Feel free to comment and I'll do my best to clear up anything and answer questions. I have experience in both the therapy side of things as well as the performance.",
"TL;DR: Hypnosis doesn't work on people who \"don't believe in it\" or unless they want it to work. \n\nIt's basically a form of assisted meditation, where someone helps calm you down into a relaxed state. \n\nIt should also be mentioned that over 10% of people who can be hypnotized, believe in false memories suggested by the administrator.",
"On the real aspect side of hypnosis: It’s putting the mind and body into a relaxed state that is more susceptible to suggestions.\n\nThe concept: a hypnotist will continually tell you what will happen, what is happening, and what just happened - at the same time, the hypnotist is relaxing your body and mind.... so the hypnotist will say something like “ what I’m about to do now is count down from 5 and each time I say a number you get more relaxed”. Every number they tell you you will become more relaxed, you are relaxing, you have relaxed. At some point they will do this again and say something like “deep sleep”. This entire time they still have been telling you what will happen. You will go into a trance like state. You will be open to suggestions. You will be relaxed.\n\nAfter about 20 minutes the person is in a state where they’re simply open and willing to accept the suggestions. The body and mind aren’t resisting anymore.\n\nThink about it like the movie Inception. They want to implant a small nudge of an idea into someone’s subconscious. That’s what hypnotism is, except the person hypnotized is conscious. \n\nIn relation to a stage show: are the people hypnotized and will do anything? Yes and no. The show environment and the relaxed state make the participants willing to do the suggestions. There’s no force. No participant would do something they don’t want to do.\n\n(True story: I was trained to hypnotize for about a year. Then I worked at a summer camp one year. I hypnotized a bus of rowdy kids. They all went from completely insane to silent and pulverized. So does hypnotism work? Yes. Because it made 20 loud kids silent)",
"I was hypnotized once at a retreat for college activities clubs where we got to experience various performers. This is coming from my personal experience. \n\nHypnosis doesn’t work if you don’t believe it does. It sounds dumb but there’s no magic to hypnosis. If you believe it and allow the performers suggestions to become something you want to do you will do it. That’s the whole key to it. They suggest something and you feel like you want to do it. \n\nThe one thing I can take away from it that I can’t explain is how I felt like I was floating for hours after. I felt so relaxed and I don’t know what effect the hypnosis had to cause that to happen.",
"It doesn't. Hypnosis is pseudoscience. All there exists is suggestibility and placebo. You get roughly the same results if you believe in \"alternative medicine\" and therapy",
"Hypnotism is essentially telling a story in such a convincing way that the person being told the story believes it so utterly that they can have physical and mental reactions.\n\nPeople that have been put into a trance state describe sensations of feeling calm, deeply relaxed, unaware of their immediate environment and quite frequently the sensation of feeling like their brain is in a warm bath.\n\nHypnotism is capable of many things. Helping people remember something they wouldn't otherwise remember is the one that we tend to see on TV shows and movies but people can be hypnotized to say or do certain things, have genuine hand free orgasms, or be told things like \"once you come out of trance you will be wide awake and energized as if you just had a cup of coffee\"\n\nIt is 100% real and effective for some people. It is important to note you can only hypnotize people to do something they already wanted to do. If someone wants to be relaxed or energetic or have an orgasm, all the hypnotist does is simply give them permission to do that thing.",
"While stage hypnosis is BS, hypnotherapy is legitimate and can be used to treat physical pain. It's a form of hyper-focus. Hypnosis to search for so-called repressed memories has been largely abandoned due to the likelihood that the subject can be lead by the therapist into believing the suggested \"false\" memories.",
"Hypnosis is used for example to treat traumatic experiences and to stop smoking. My wife is a psychologist in a large hospital and uses it on a daily basis to help cancer patients for example. She and some colleagues of her use it to help people stop smoking and it absolutely works. \nFrom what she told me, it a combination of relaxation and meditation with specific tone and respiratory methods. \nDon’t pay attention to the shows on TV, it is really a medical tool and not something to show off some bullshit experiments.",
"It's just suggestion, and more accurately, autosuggestion.\n\nThe hypnotist suggests a certain behavior, and you accept the suggestion and take it as your own.\n\nYou're never out of control as far as I'm aware.\n\nThe most effective use of autosuggestion, and what I've paid professional hypnotists for, is influencing how I see myself as a person.\n\nIdentity is, in my opinion, the most powerful psychological tool in your disposal to influence behavioral change. It's why transgender identification is such a waste. Limiting your identity to your genitals or sexual preference is like using a super computer to do 1st grade math. \n\nYou see yourself as a fat person, you're going to behave as a fat person does. Rich person, skinny person, ugly person, person who gives a lot to the community... Whatever.\n\nYou see yourself behaving that way, you're going to behave that way (eventually).\n\nI had a big business deal I was really worried about screwing up. I just didn't see myself as a 'big business deal' type of person.\n\nI paid a hypnotist to help me identify as a successful business person, and I began seeing myself as successful. Ever so slight a difference.\n\nIt helps if you're paying, because you leverage your own confirmation bias.",
"OK, apologies for the really long post, but it is a big question. \n\nI'm a qualified Hypnotherapist. So can can explain my understanding of what it's capable of (or better, not capable of) . As a disclaimer I will say that I've never pushed the boundaries to their fullest extent and my explanation of how it works is tailored to ELI5?\n\nIt works by putting you in a state somewhere between awake and asleep. There is a gradual scale between these two states and as a general rule hypnosis gets more effective (depending on what you want to achieve) the further down the scale you go up to about 2/3rds of the way, when it's too close to sleep to be reliable. You can also think of these states as being a sliding scale between operating on your daytime conscious awareness and your dreamlike subconscious. Everyone experiences these states quite regularly. For example, when you're engrossed in a good book or that experience of arriving somewhere after a familiar journey and having no recollection of actually making the journey itself. \n\nOnce in this state, it is easier to bypass the conscious mind and directly influence the subconscious by making suggestions. These are often in the form of visualisations or stories, as the subconscious works better with mental pictures than words. \n\nIt's best to start with what it isn't rather than is capable of.\n\n You can't make anyone do anything that's against there personal values, any attempt is immediately rejected and once the (subconscious) lack of trust has occurred any future attempts at suggestion won't work. \n\nYou can't program someone or make them forget something in any long term or useful (or malicious) way. Sleeper cells are pure fiction. \n\nYou can't just make someone do something they don't subconsciously want to. This is why hypnotherapy to quit smoking often fails, as people don't expect it to still require willpower and just want a \"magic bullet\". It can be effective with the right approach and expectations. \n\nWhat it can do. \nA huge amount much of which probably hasn't been realised yet. From helping anxiety, panic attacks, weight loss, phobias, etc. to being a very effective anesthetic. It's been used in dentistry for over a century and is quite incredible to experience. One of the people I trained with is an army medic who uses it in the field when anesthetic is unavailable apparently with remarkable results. \n\nAs far as other uses go, I'm not a stage hypnotist but believe that whilst not a complete sham by any means, a lot is based on the participants wanting an excuse to be on stage and fulfil expectations (alcohol helping a lot). \n\nThe other area it's famous for is past life regression. I have done it as part of my training and while I don't personally believe in past lives, it does reliability cause people to experience and express being a different person. It maybe a combination of the person's desire, expectations and most obviously that it's being directly suggested that they should be experiencing something. \n\nTLDR: \nIt puts you in a relaxed state that means suggestions can be made directly to your subconscious mind. \n\nLoads and more impressively than most people realise. Slthough most of the sci-fi or conspiracy theory stuff is nonsense.",
"I got certified as a hypnotist, never practiced outside the class but I was curious and it seemed worth the time and money investment at the time.\n\nThe very simplified way (Not all inclusive or medical) it was explained to me. There's 2 parts of our brains, the decision part that is more conscious and the subconscious. People go into hypnotic states multiple times a day, mainly while doing the routine like driving the same route we don't actively think about it, we're aware of what were doing but it seems like no thought goes into it. The feeling of being under hypnosis is similar, we know we're doing it but we aren't thinking about it. So yeah if a stage hypnotist has you quacking in front of a large group of strangers and you're playing along, you're 'not thinking about it' and are under hypnosis. To get someone into hypnosis the first part of the brain has to be hacked/short wired. 2 ways I was trained to do this a) bore it, talk for long while relaxing the person (kinda like meditation tapes, with 'the' voice) b) overwhelm it with using +3 censes at the same time. This effectively by passes the decision making part of the brain and the hypnotist has access to the subconscious. There are different levels of hypnosis if I remember correctly 5, each one going deeper or said differently less consciously caring of what one is doing. Overall though a person would never do anything that they wouldn't do in their dreams, this is also a fail safe because the person is aware of what they are doing and if they actually cared would no longer consent to 'playing along' and wake themselves up. Very important to realize, there has no be consent or the person will 'wake' themselves up which can always be done at anytime or stage of hypnosis.\n\nTo answer the second part of your question. Our subconscious brains are amazing and remember everything, kind of like a filing system. The hypnotist directs one to access that file and when the 'noise' of the conscious is shut off, the brain can easily retrieve the file."
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5lpvwx | what are the actual requirements for the police to make an lawful arrest and detentions? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5lpvwx/eli5_what_are_the_actual_requirements_for_the/ | {
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"If they observe a law being broken they are allowed to make an arrest. If they have a warrant for someone's arrest they can make an arrest. They can temporarily detain someone with probable cause to assess the situation and determine whether a law has been broken, or civil infraction has occured.",
"Probable cause: \n\na set of facts or circumstances that would lead a reasonably prudent person to believe a crime is being committed, has been committed, or is about to be committed."
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20h23v | what does it mean that we've never "directly observed" a black hole? | I guess the title says it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20h23v/eli5_what_does_it_mean_that_weve_never_directly/ | {
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"Black holes don't emit light. So by definition there is no way to see them directly. We observe them indirectly by seeing how the gravity of the black hole affects the objects around it that do emit light.",
"Red Dwarf have a fairly nice description of why...\n\n_URL_0_",
"Directly observed means we have seen light from the black hole with our own instruments. Indirectly means we see the light from something other than the blackhole being altered by the blackhole and make an educated guess that a blackhole is responsible.\n\nAn analogy for real life would be to imagine a boulder sitting in a field in front of a busy highway. You walk past the boulder with your eyes closed, listening. You hear nothing directly from the boulder as boulders produce no sound on their own, but as you walk past it you hear the sounds of the highway change and grow muffled. You know that the boulder is now between you and the highway because of the change in highway sound even though you haven't heard anything directly from the boulder.",
"Everything we observe is something that emits light (like a star, or our sun), or something that is reflecting light (like the moon, or a pizza, or my cat).\n\nBlack holes have gravity so immense that light can't escape. That means that it reflects no light, and so it can't be observed. ",
"can i add a question that is bothering me for quite some time?\nis a black hole a flat circular disk or is it more like a round ball? or what shape does a black hole have?"
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4uebzj | why does adding 2 even numbers give an even, 2 odds gives an even, and 1 of each give an odd? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4uebzj/eli5_why_does_adding_2_even_numbers_give_an_even/ | {
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"On mobile so yeah. \n\nEvery even number can be written in the form of 2n where n is a natural number e.g. 1, 2, 3... Every odd number can be written in the form of 2n+1. So even plus odd is 2n+2n+1 or 4n+1 or 2(2n)+1 so it's odd. Even plus even is 2n+2n=4n=2(2n) so it's even and odd plus odd is 2n+1+2n+1=4n+2=2(n+1) so even. Hope this is simple enough never posted in eli5 before. ",
"An odd number is basically an even number + 1 , an even number is any number divisible by 2. \n\nTherefore if you add 2 odd numbers you will have 2 even numbers +2 which is divisible by 2 and thus an even number. If you add 2 evens you get a number divisble by 2 which means it is an even number. \n\nNow when you add an even and an odd you get 2 even numbers +1 , if you recall 2 even numbers is an even number and therefore you end up with an even number +1 , which is by definition an odd number.\n\n",
"Imagine you have a bunch of socks. There's an even number of socks if you can pair the socks up properly, and an odd number of socks if you can't. In the latter case, that means one sock remains unpaired at the end (if it was three, say, you could take two of those and form a pair, leaving just one left). Now, we can think of adding numbers as merging two piles of (unpaired) socks. The three cases are:\n\n**Merging two piles both with an even number of socks**: Since each pile has an even number of socks, you can pair the socks up in each pile separately before you merge the piles (of now paired socks). After the merge, it is then obvious that the new pile must have an even number of socks, since it's a pile of paired socks.\n\n**Merging two piles both with an odd number of socks**: If both piles have an odd number of socks, it's not possible to completely pair the socks up in each pile before merging the piles. What you can do, however, is to just take the first pile, and form as many pairs as possible, and then take just the second pile, and again form as many pairs as possible. This leaves you with one unpaired sock in the first pile, and one unpaired sock in the second pile. You can pair these two socks that were left out and then merge the two piles. Again, you only have pairs, so the new pile must have an even number of socks.\n\n**Merging a pile with an odd number of socks with a pile with an even number of socks**: In the first pile, there's an odd number of socks, which again means that we can't pair up all socks in that pile, but the closest we can get is have one single sock left unpaired, while the rest are paired. In the second pile, there's an even number of socks, which means that you actually can pair up all the socks in that pile. Now, if you merge the piles, you combine one pile containing a single unpaired sock with a pile that has no unpaired socks. This means that you end up with a pile where a single sock is still unpaired. This means that the pile has an odd number of socks. There's just no way to form a pair with that last sock."
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ylgo3 | sepsis | I've found the wikipedia page to not be terribly helpful. I'm interviewing with a researcher who primarily does work on sepsis and it would be really cool if I had a little idea what i was talking about with him. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ylgo3/eli5_sepsis/ | {
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"It's basically when the body's immune response goes haywire. Instead of fighting an infection in a specific place, suddenly all immune responses fire at once, all over the body. This can rapidly lead to organ failure and death.",
"On a somewhat related note: Are there any long term health risks for people who've recovered from sepsis?"
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c5xe5y | besides looking ridiculous, why is it that cars with a lot of horsepower can't tow while trucks with less horsepower can? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c5xe5y/eli5_besides_looking_ridiculous_why_is_it_that/ | {
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"Two things: 1) torque and horsepower are different things and 2) the frames of trucks are built to allow you to tow more. BTW that ugly Honda 'truck' isn't...",
"It's mostly the ability to control the mass once you have it moving. \n\nHigh horsepower cars are usually built fairly light. They don't have the frame strength to control or hold back the mass of a heavy trailer. \n\nTrucks are built with towing in mind and therefore aren't built light. Most have steel frames that go from the front to the back where the trailer is attached. This let's them control the mass of the trailer with much less chance of breaking things.",
"All the responses so far miss perhaps the most important thing: brakes. With the right gear ratio, even a weak vehicle can get a heavy load rolling, but trucks that are designed to tow have braking capacity that greatly exceeds that of the vehicle alone. A Corvette has big vented brakes to produce impressive stopping specs from high speed, but it’s not going to stop safely with four times its own weight.\n\nThe Society for Automotive Engineers (SAE) has a standard for this. SAE J2807 is defined as “Performance requirements for determining tow-vehicle gross combination weight rating and trailer weight rating,” the standard measures a vehicle’s ability to safely tow by measuring braking distances, acceleration times, passing ability, grade-climbing ability, and physical load-carrying capability.",
"In addition to what others pointed out (torque & structural rigidity) i'll also point out that vehicles designed for towing lots of weight tend to have more granular gearing control. While your average car might have 5-8 gears, a semi truck can have as many as 18 speeds. Even if you don't have a lot of horsepower or torque, you can still pull extremely heavy loads if you have the right transmission. It may take a long time to acquire some speed (it's part of why semi trucks are so slow) but at least they will eventually get the job done, whereas your Maserati will still be right where it started. Regular pickup trucks, even though they have the same number of gears, those lower gears are often geared differently, allowing for better towing at the expense of acceleration.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThis is a more minor thing, though. What others pointed out (torque and structural rigidity) are certainly the larger factors. But this is the third major thing that comes to mind.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nAlso, to offer more explanation on torque vs horsepower, understand the following:\n\n1. Say you have a 1ft (or 0.30 meter) wrench on a bolt. Torque is decided by how much weight (or force) you can put on the end of that lever. If you're pulling 1500lbs, you're going to need a lot of weight on that lever.\n2. Horsepower, like other types of power, has to do with how *quickly* you can do something. A watt, for example, is equal to 1 joule (a unit of work which is something moved 1 meter with 1 newton of force) per second. Depending on the country you may see cars measured by their *watts*. Horsepower is just the imperial version of watts; it's equal to 550 foot-pounds per second. It has to do with rate, not really with force. But as you can tell from the definition of horsepower, it is related to torque. But it is different. To generate more horsepower, an engine needs to have either more torque or have a higher redline (maximum RPM aka maximum speed of the engine). Consequently, you can have an engine with very little torque and just a high RPM and still have a lot of horsepower. But that is not what is needed to turn the aforementioned lever to pull that heavy load.\n\nThis is just my understanding of this-- really wasn't great in physics class lol! I double checked my information and I think it's correct, but if anyone sees any errors, let me know and i'll make an edit!",
"PEAK horsepower is a number that figures in high rpm. it typically occurs with high end of the engine's RPM band. it also means it's very taxing on the engine. \n\n\nPEAK torque is what moves you at low RPM's. that's what you need to get a heavy load going.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nas far as engine goes, that's about it. you could certainly tow a heavy load with a high hp car, but it would be high strung and wear pretty quick.\n\n & #x200B;\n\ntrucks are also made with heavy strong frames that can take the abuse of towing an extra 5000-10000 pounds. your camry can't load much more than a few hundred pounds in addition to the passengers. alot goes into towing. not just the power to get the load going, but beefy suspension, big brakes, and frame leverage to keep the front wheels that steer and brake on the ground. when your car is towing, it's a lever. the rear wheels are the fulcrum and the trailer tongue is pressing down on the hitch to lever your front wheels off the ground. you can't brake or steer if your front wheels are in the air."
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2e0pn7 | the relation between metabolism, eating, sleep & exercise. | I understand metabolism to be the concept of sustaining an organism through various means -- but I never quite understood the relation between all these elements. For example, eating gives us energy, but it also seems to take energy to digest. Exercise strengthens, but is using up energy by definition. And sleep gains energy, but the user is totally unconscious therefore susceptible.
Apologies for my poor wordage, or if this seems obvious. It's hard to put into words my thoughts on this. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2e0pn7/eli5_the_relation_between_metabolism_eating_sleep/ | {
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"Generally, eating, sleeping, and exercising more will increase your metabolism. Eating overall increases the availability of energy to you, exercise increases your ability to use energy effectively, and sleep gets your body on the right track.",
"Metabolism is better understood as the sum of all the chemical reactions that take place inside of an organism. It is composed of anabolism, which are constructive reactions generating a net gain of chemical potential energy, and catabolism which are destructive reactions and generate a net loss of chemical potential energy.\n\nIn order to understand the relationship between the factors you named, you need to first realize that each actually involves a set of reactions, some of which are anabolic and some of which are catabolic. Eating is (usually) a net anabolic process that involves the anabolic processes of making storage molecules such as glycogen or proteins as well as catabolic processes such as digesting large molecules into small pieces. Sleep is catabolic because you continue to use energy while you do it without replacement but it is LESS catabolic than, say, running a marathon, because you consume resources slower. Exercise is a net catabolic activity because it consumes energy storage molecules without replacement, even though you also produce some molecules while you're at it."
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d7mawf | how is it that all people have more or less the same internal body temperature but externally be such different temperatures? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d7mawf/eli5_how_is_it_that_all_people_have_more_or_less/ | {
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"Your entire physiology depends on the concept of homeostasis which is maintain bodily parameters close to a given setpoint. Your body has many sensors of temperature, direct and indirect, and it uses this information (both via brain processing and reflexively) to increase or decrease heat production (such as metabolism, circulation, etc) as well as heat loss (redistributing to areas with more surface area to facilitate cooling rate, sweating to evaporate water and cool, etc). If you so happen to have high heat production due to what you ate or how much brown fat you have or specific hormones or genetics, or you have low heat loss in one or more mechanisms (you don't sweat much for example) your body will have to release more heat. So from the outside one person could have very warm skin and breath than another simply because they're producing more heat at that moment or chronically"
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3yenc0 | why are pills not affected by stomach acid? how do the chemicals get broken down, and survive to affect only the correct part of the body? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3yenc0/eli5_why_are_pills_not_affected_by_stomach_acid/ | {
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"Pills often have an [enteric coating](_URL_0_) if it's necessary for them to pass through the stomach to somewhere further down. The coating is stable in the acid of the stomach, but breaks down in the more neutral or alkaline lower regions.",
"Pharmacy Student here:\n\nYou're thinking of this in the wrong way, but it's an important point.\n\nSome medications will be broken down by the stomach acid, which these would usually be given an enteric coating to pass the stomach or these would be given IV/IM/etc. Many other medications are perfectly fine passing through stomach acid. In fact, passing stomach acid isn't a huge problem with drug design; if it gets destroyed use a coating, if it doesn't then no worries. Bigger problems are absorption in the intestines, digestion by the liver, and removal by the kidneys. Some drugs will hardly be absorbed (so you'll need to take a huge dose for a small effect), some can be digested by the liver (sometimes what the liver coverts the drug to can be toxic, sometimes they'll give you a useless drug and the liver will convert it to an active drug (see: prodrug)).\n\nAbout the medication getting to where it's needed: this is the wrong way to think about this. Anytime you take a medication it's going to go through your entire body (generally). This is why if you're in the hospital taking an antibiotic for a skin infection (or other infection) your pharmacist has to monitor it for toxicity. Even if you're taking the antibiotic for your skin, if you've got too much in your body it might kill your ears/kidneys (most common with strong antibiotics). Also consider Benadryl, allergy medication that you take for your nose and sinuses. It causes drowsiness because it gets into the brain (whereas newer meds don't).\n\nTL;DR: not all meds are sensitive to stomach acid, and your medication doesn't only go where it's needed, it goes almost everywhere.",
"The drug molecule is pretty small, its not like the large, complex, proteins and carbohydrates and such that make up most food. The small, relatively simple drug molecule can make usually it's way through the stomach without damage. Then, it's absorbed by the small intestine.\n\nThe key to the drug getting to the correct target is that the drug is designed to bind to only certain specific proteins - in fact that is how essentially all drugs work. \n\nIf you really want to understand, you have to understand a protein. I'll give it a go. Proteins are long, linked chains of amino acids. You've probably heard of some of them: tryptophan, aspartic acid, lysine, etc. There are twenty-one of them. These are linked together, usually something like 100-1000 of them, in a long strand. Each protein has a specific sequence, an exact order, of amino acids that make it up. These strands of amino acids FOLD UP. They fold into a specific shape, because some amino acids attract one another, some repel, etc. It's something like if you had a string with a bunch of little magnets on it - it would fold into a certain shape. Its an absolutely fundamental concept for understanding biology at the molecular level. \n\nEach protein folds into a specific shape and does a specific function. It's almost like legos, or tetris. The proteins fit with each other, forming small, biomolecular machines that do the things the cell needs done. One of the important things about these folded proteins is that they can leave little grooves or imprints where smaller molecules can fit into.\n\nDrug chemicals are designed to fit into the \"grooves\" on certain proteins. That is how they target the correct part of the body. Yes, even though they are carried all over by the blood, they only bind tightly to their protein targets. For example, say you have a protein in the brain that binds serotonin and cleaves it (in this case the protein is called an enzyme because it aids in a chemical reaction) then you could design a drug that mimics serotonin, but cannot be cleaved - so it would simply sit in the enzyme and \"jam it up\" so it couldn't carry out it's normal function. In this way you could increase serotonin levels in the brain. This system doesn't work perfectly though, often times proteins can be similar, and you can get side effects when the drug binds to multiple targets. For example the serotonin mimic could bind other, similar proteins in the body and cause unwanted side effects.\n\nI hope you get the main idea of how drugs work. They bind to specific proteins by fitting into grooves or indentations on the proteins and in turn affecting their function. \n\nHope that helps. "
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2s4njn | what is "safer"- shrooms or acid? | I completely understand that neither are completely "safe" but as someone who is looking into this type of drug I was wondering what might be a better choice for a first timer. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2s4njn/eli5_what_is_safer_shrooms_or_acid/ | {
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"The general consensus seems to be if you can get LSD it is safer than shrooms. But your probably end up getting LSA or some other similar chemical. ",
"I'll side with everyone else. I'll say Mushrooms, but may I make the suggestion of peyote. The active ingredient is mescaline. Peyote butons are illegal in most countries, but there are a couple other cactus that are actually legal to buy. San Pedro is my choice. I would search for prep instructions and follow them to the tee. Stainless steel pot! I used an aluminium one my first time and it rusted, because mescaline is an alkaline. Not cool. AWCO1988 on _URL_0_ sells high quality stuff. Tell him Jesse sent ya.\n\nEdit: I feel peyote this way is the safest. You are the only one that will be poisoning yourself. If you can't trust yourself, who can you?",
"Mushrooms for beginners is what I would suggest acid varies depending on supplier. If you want to really experience a nice clean trip with good visuals, I recommend mescaline.. If you can find it. Favorite recreational activity but its typically scarce. Good luck and have a safe trip OP",
"Scientifically, you'd be hard pressed to find an answer. There are few, if any, completely scientific inquiries into the subject.\n\nIn terms of flat safety, aka preventing death, LSD has an extremely high threshold until the \"fatal dose\" so you would be good going with that. \n\nHowever, much of what is sold as LSD is not true LSD. So it may be safer to go for mushrooms. \n\nBut then again, the issue is that there hasn't been long term study of brain effects and the biochemistry involved, so we don't have a clue as to what problems can appear. Both LSD and Mushrooms can cause psychosis in people that are predisposed to it. \n\nHowever, I will have to side with TheRealFatJesus and say that preparing it yourself, through careful obedience to instructions, with a legal cactus, is probably the safest bet.\n\nPlease, please make sure you are 100% in the right state of mind, and do not have a history of mental health issues, or direct family members that do, as this could mean a predisposition to mental illness, which could be made worse by psychadelic drug use. ",
"Unless you end up mistaking crystal lsd for cocaine neither are going to do any physiologic harm. Phycologicly speaking, well that a different story. Know yourself, know your family history, and know what you can handle."
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5orljl | ideal gas equation questions | 1. Why does the equation have that constant "R"? When we were to derive the equation somehow, why would have to include that constant "R" somewhere?
2. What is that "ideal gas"? And if the gas we were talking about wasn't an "ideal" one, would the equation not work?
Thanks in advance everyone | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5orljl/eli5_ideal_gas_equation_questions/ | {
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"An ideal gas is considered ideal due to individual molecules having no volume. This means that the gas is infinitely compressible, something not possible with a \"real\" gas. Eventually a real gas will become a liquid or solid, which an ideal gas won't. \n\nAdditionally, ideal gasses don't have molecular interactions. That isn't to say reactions don't take place, but rather there isn't a repulsive or attractive force between the molecules. At atmospheric pressure, this is a great approximation... The molecules are all far apart so there are minimal forces. But increase the pressure, and ideality breaks down. Usually in school the first time this is introduced is with the van Der waals equations, which give a rough approximation. Further studies can bring you far more complicated equations such as peng-robinson or more, which include values of how non-spherical the molecule is (acentric factor). \n\nR is a unit conversion. It starts off as Boltzmann's constant and is multiplied by Avogadro's number. Boltzmann's constant is the amount of energy per unit of temperature. ",
"The Ideal Gas Law says that\n\nP\\*V = n\\*T\\*R\n\nwhere P is pressure (usually in Pascals), V is volume (usually in liters), n is the amount of gas (usually in moles), T is temperature (Kelvin), and R is a constant (with, in SI, units pascal-liter per kelvin-mole, which is somewhat confusing).\n\nWe can rearrange that equation to\n\nP\\*V / n\\*T = R\n\nwhich is easier to read out in words: **if you multiply the pressure times the volume, then divide by the temperature and the quantity of the gas, you always get the same result. What is that result? We call it R**, and it's about 8.3 joules per kelvin-mole. Don't think too hard about those units, they're only there to balance the equation."
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8wa5zw | why do leds have to be diodes? also: are there any components analogous to leds that can operate with any current direction? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8wa5zw/eli5_why_do_leds_have_to_be_diodes_also_are_there/ | {
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"Here I’m just answering the second question.\nWell we have light emitting capacitors, which are known as Electroluminescent wire, which require AC and light emitting resistors (though we call them incandescent light bulbs) \n",
"Well, LED stands for Light Emitting Diode :)\n\nBut it's actually pretty easy to turn an LED into a device that allows current to go in either direction.\n\nAttach two regular diodes to either end of the LED, with all the directions lined up. Now you have 1 LED and 4 regular diodes and you've essentially turned it into a bigger LED with two inputs and two outputs. Current can now go into either of the input diodes and out of either of the output diodes but it cant go out of the input diodes or into the output diodes. ie you've forced current to go across the LED rather than skipping it and going across the input or output diodes.\n\nNow attach each input to one of the outputs. Now you have two leads coming off your Franken-LED. Each one has one diode going into the LED input and one coming from the LED output.\n\nSo now if you put that device in-line with a circuit you can light up your LED by sending current through in either direction.",
"An LED is made up of two different semiconductors, hence the name Diode. Semiconductors can have very different properties depending on their purity, and more importantly just what \"impurities\" they contain. The process of intentionally adding small amounts of other materials to a semiconductor is called doping.\n\nIn an LED one semiconductor is doped so that it has an excess of electrons, which like in a metal can be moved about by an applied voltage. They can amount to a current of electrons; pretty unremarkable stuff.\n\nThe other semiconductor is doped in such a way that rather than electrons, it is rich in places in the crystal that *could* have an electron but it doesn't. These spaces are called \"holes.\" \"Hole currents\" are a demonstrated fact of semiconductors.\n\nElectrons are negatively charged, holes are positively charged, they will flow in opposite directions when a voltage is applied. In an LED the two semiconductors are arranged such that the electrons and holes flow toward the interface between the two semiconductors. When an electron and a hole meet the electron falls into the hole and in doing so drops to a lower energy level and gives up it's lost energy as a photon. The Diode Emits Light.\n\nThe color emitted by an LED is determined by the different energy levels between the electron while it freely flows as current and the energy level to which it drops when falling into a hole, the deeper the drop, the higher the energy level of the photon.",
"Diodes work by having a junction that causes an electron to change energy levels like falling off a cliff. It can fall off the cliff easily but can't climb back up\n\nLEDs work by sizing this cliff so when the electron falls and loses energy it'll emit a photon of visible light\n \nThe nature of this cliff keeps current from flowing both ways. There are other ways to generate light with electricity but they aren't quite as efficient and generally require energizing a gas and getting it to emit light\n\nTo make a bi-directional LED you can just take two LEDs and face them in opposite directions (antiparallel) this way current alternates which one it is flowing through. Super cheap LED bulbs will often do this"
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1e5ab6 | hydrogen fuel cells | I'm a racing fan and I have to do an assignment on a type of technology that is new and appeals to us. I decided to do a project on the Green GT H2 (_URL_0_) but i'm still a bit fuzzy on how exactly a hydrogen fuel cell works. halp?
edit: this is the first time posting to explain it like i'm five, and... umm... is it the topic thats too complicated? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1e5ab6/eli5_hydrogen_fuel_cells/ | {
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"A fuel cell is actually much like a battery. In a battery, chemicals react to produce a flow of electrons. Once the chemicals have all finished reacting, the battery needs to be discarded or recharged--electricity is forced into the battery in the opposite direction, making the original chemical reaction run in reverse, *storing* electrons.\n\nIn a fuel cell, the reaction is not between an acid solution and a lead plate (such as occurs in a car battery). Instead, the reaction is between a fuel such as Hydrogen and Oxygen. As before, the reaction causes electrons to flow. But a fuel cell can run continuously as long as the fuel and Oxygen supplies last. In a Hydrogen fuel cell, the only waste product is water. Hydrogen fuel cells supplied much of the drinking and cooling water aboard the Apollo missions."
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220f07 | why, when i touch my face i break out, but when i hold my forearm or rest my hand on my thigh, there is seemingly no effect? | One of my early morning thoughts | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/220f07/eli5_why_when_i_touch_my_face_i_break_out_but/ | {
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"A lot of it has to do with your face's sensitivity. The skin of your face is different from skin in other parts of your body, has more pores, etc., so it is more liable to break out with small irritations.\n\nAt least that's my understanding."
]
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b24du4 | how do whatsapp keep being online? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b24du4/eli5_how_do_whatsapp_keep_being_online/ | {
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"One of the most important rules to realise on the internet: if it's free they're (probably) selling your Data",
"WhatsApp is owned by Facebook since 2014, so technically they don't need any revenue to stay afloat.\n\nHowever they are making money by getting data, which they can sell and/or use for advertising. Supposedly WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption which means that while the company can't see the contents of your conversations, it does know who you are talking to and when.",
"Facebook owns Whatsapp and uses some of WhatsApp’s data. If you talk to someone on WhatsApp, they are suggested as a Friend on Facebook.",
"They collect and sell your data. You can try it out, talk about a specific item then go to facebook and you will likely see advertisements about that item."
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e912up | how is cellphone data made and distributed? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e912up/eli5_how_is_cellphone_data_made_and_distributed/ | {
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"What do you mean by cellphone data? The programs on phones? Text messages? I'd be happy to answer your question if I knew specifically what you're asking.",
"If you're referring to the thing that cell service providers call \"data\" with regards to data plans it isn't made at all. Rather data in this case simple refers to how much information (in megabytes or gigabytes) you phone has requested that the cell towers send to your device (over a monthly period or something). Specifically data is information that does not use the channels for sending voice or text messages and usually is data requests for information from the internet.\n\nThere is no finite resource pool of data that might run out. Its an artificial limitation on usage to prevent users taking up too much bandwidth, which is a true finite resource at any given moment. Cell towers can only talk to so many devices at a single time, and each user talking or requesting data takes up a piece of bandwidth while their voice is being transmitted or data sent/received. Once they are done, their \"spot\" in the tower communication queue is released, ready for someone else to use. All major upgrades 2G - > 3G - > 4G - > 4G LTE - > 5G etc have been more and more creative ways to manage bandwidth as more and more users try to request more and more data simultaneously through the network."
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4a9dv9 | why does turning my phones brightness up when i'm in the sun make it easier to see the screen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4a9dv9/eli5_why_does_turning_my_phones_brightness_up/ | {
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"Your phone's screen is reflective. The more ambient light (brightness surrounding you), the brighter the reflections are. Increasing the brightness of the pixels/backlight means that you are making it so the light coming from the phone is brighter than the light being reflected. ",
"The sun is illuminating the components of your screen (that is to say, the panel itself rather than the image it's displaying), which reduces the contrast of the displayed image.\n\nThe display is, for the most part, black plastic with a very dim light shining through it. The dim light is competing with the sun and losing. "
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8fwia2 | why do shirts have tags? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8fwia2/eli5_why_do_shirts_have_tags/ | {
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"So you can read the instructions for washing them. \n\nAlso different countries have different laws about what information has to be shown on clothes. For instance where the clothes were made or what they are made from. As different countries have different labelling requirements and languages it is easier for the manufacturer to use a different label for different markets. \n",
"Clothing tags are contracts between a manufacturer and consumer letting them know how to properly launder it and the contents. \n\nFun fact: if you follow the care instructions and the garment doesn't hold up you can contact the company for them to compensate you usually. I learned this while taking fashion classes. \n\nPrinting the info directly on to the garment is an option of course but probably is more expensive than your traditional tag. "
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68lijt | what is the difference between a bush and a tree, and where is the line between them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/68lijt/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_a_bush_and_a/ | {
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"The growth of the 2. Trees usually have 1 large central trunk which has branches stemming from it while bushes have many branches connected more towards a base and grows more outward than upwards ",
"Google answers this quite nicely and easily. The generally acknowledged definition of a tree, according to USU, is a \"woody plant having one erect perennial stem (trunk) at least three inches in diameter at a point 4-1/2 feet above the ground, a definitely formed crown of foliage, and a mature height of at least 13 feet.\" A bush would have multiple stems low to the ground. There are exceptions as some trees can have multiple trunks and someone could trim away the excess stems of a bush. "
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7qg83w | how does a train travel without tipping over on those thin little tracks? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7qg83w/eli5_how_does_a_train_travel_without_tipping_over/ | {
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"The tracks are wide apart so it's not tippy, and the train never goes fast around curves unless the tracks are tilted to compensate for the curve.",
"The wheels also have a flange that helps to keep the train aligned with the track. The train is not simply riding on top"
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1w1gwv | chemtrail conspiracy theory | Can somebody explain to me why chemtrail theorists believe we are being poisoned by aircraft? Do they have any evidence to support this, or do they simply see the contrails and jump to that conclusion? Do they dispute the conventional explanation for contrails? That is to say, do they believe even if we weren't being poisoned at the assert, that contrails would still naturally form behind aircraft? By whom do they believe we are being poisoned, and why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1w1gwv/eli5_chemtrail_conspiracy_theory/ | {
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"It is a conspiracy theory. If there were any evidence, it would cease to be a conspiracy theory.\n\nContrails are produced from water coming out of solution with the air due to the low pressure zone behind the aircraft.\n\nWhether or not they believe that this mechanism would occur even without the poisoning is disputable. I'm sure some of them are on either side.\n\nThey believe the US government is poisoning them. Can't manage to run the post service, but poisoning everyone in America with the chemical trails on aircrafts? Yeah, that's a realistic expectation.",
"Some people believe that the contrails are poisonous because they claim to actually have symptoms and illnesses after a plane with contrails flies overhead. \n\nI remember seeing a guys website (sorry can't remember the link) that was completely devoted to studying the contrails coming from airplanes that fly overhead. If I remember correctly, he lived next to a military base up in the northeast where they would do flight testing and training as part of their military exercises. Due to the planes they used and the altitude they flew at, almost all of the planes would have contrails. He would record their flight schedules and they would fly over his farm every 2 weeks or so. \n\nHe claims that after the flyovers, he will get very ill with flu like symptoms and his cows would start to go crazy and group up all together in the corner of his field trying to break through the fence to get away from the poisonous chemicals. Conveniently enough, his illness would go away a few days after the flyovers and the chemtrails couldn't be seen in the sky anymore. He would take rainfall recordings and measure PH levels or something and there was very large differences in his samples that he took with and without the flyovers. He claimed from his testing that he had unidentified elements in his rainwater and he said that it couldn't be identified because it was a new chemical developed by the government. He also had some cattle die and rust and rot on his \"newly constructed\" barns and other farm equipment. So he chalked all of this up to that it had to be something in the chemtrails and his little farm community was the subject of a government experiment with chemical weapons.\n\nIMO, some guys like this are hypochondriacs, and he could have easily been making himself sick from the anxiety of seeing the chemtrails from the planes and convincing himself that it was poisonous. Other obvious factors could play into all the other weird occurrences but he was too tunnel visioned to even consider any other reasons why weird stuff was happening. \n\nSo that's how certain people can believe it, and then these people make websites and other conspiracy theorists read his accounts and believe them and now you have a bunch of people who believe it without ever experiencing anything to do with chemtrails before. \n\nHope that answers your questions. Sorry it wasn't really ELI5. ",
"[](/dashbook \"pegasus farts\")\n\nThere are 3 major flavors of chemtrail conspiracy theory that I know of. \n\n1. Geoengineering\n\n2. Intentional poisoning to depopulate.\n\n3. Nanotech experiments\n\nKeep these in mind, but I'll focus on the \"Geoengineering\" Flavor mostly.\n\nPollution is generally bad for you. Some people take it as far as intentional poisoning to depopulate, but there is nothing out there suggesting that being the intent.\n\nAlso keep in mind contrails are not *just* water vapor as some people always seem to suggest in these types of threads. Some jets burn dirty just like any other modern fossil fuel burning vehicle, there is soot and other compounds that do affect climate and the environment.\n[Aviation and the Global Atmosphere](_URL_0_) \n\nEdit: The link above is dead, thankfully the [Internet Wayback Machine took snapshots](https://web.archive.org/web/20111125065246/_URL_0_)\n\nHere is more on the atmospheric Sulfur cycle. Volcanic SO2 is relevant because one of the suggested schemes to combat climate change happens to be called 'artificial volcanoes'. Taking advantage of a natural process and influencing that process by injecting sulfur compounds in the stratosphere.\n\n[The Atmospheric Sulphur Cycle and the role of Volcanic SO2 ...](_URL_9_)\n\n[Volcanic Sulfur Aerosols Affect Climate and the Earth's Ozone Layer](_URL_4_)\n\nPeople see that testing is being done, policy papers being written and patents being filed, and understandably are asking more questions, even if wearing a tinfoil hat while doing so. Some examples.\n\n[U.K. Researchers to Test \"Artificial Volcano\" for Geoengineering the Climate](_URL_11_)\n\n[Albedo Enhancement By Stratospheric Sulfur. Injections: A Contribution To Resolve A Policy. Dilemma?](_URL_12_)\n\n[Stratospheric Injection of Reflective Aerosols or Particles by means of Aviation Fuel Additives](_URL_1_)\n\nSome people believe this is already occurring, because of recent phenomena like, [Global dimming](_URL_17_) (I find the data obtained around 9/11 interesting, because it shows that jet contrails do have a significant impact on climate.)\n\nBBC doc on [global dimming](_URL_3_) for your consideration.\n\nAnd curious articles about more anomalous particulates and how great it is having extra particulates in the atmosphere to protect us from global warming.\n\n[NOAA article regarding an anomalous doubling in high stratospheric particles in the last decade](_URL_5_)\n\n[Aerosols: Tiny Particles, Big Impact](_URL_16_)\n\n[Particles in upper atmosphere slow down global warming](_URL_10_)\n\n[](/derpquite)\nThere is also a history of the Us military's interest in weather modification, starting at least since Vietnam with things like [Operation Popeye](_URL_2_) And presently The US Airforce having an interest in [Owning the Weather by 2025](_URL_14_)\n\nThere are other projects that don't necessarily involve climate change, and do have some purpose regarding military strategy and experiments.\nFrom u/going2shambhala\n\nThis project has multiple components: the dispersion of aluminum oxide particles in the nano scale to increase \"cloud\" reflectivity, thus dimming the earth below and secondly, the release of metallic ionizing salts (commonly of Ba and Sr) acting as an electrical medium for [military radar systems] (_URL_8_). Some researchers of this false cloud phenomenon have concluded that part of what we are witnessing may be the byproduct of an antistatic agent, [Stadis 450](_URL_6_) used in military fuel. Released high in the atmosphere, all of these fine aerosols (specifically metallic ionizing salts) can stay aloft for long periods of time and be manipulated by ELF antenna for steering high pressure systems.\n\nGeoengineering/weather/environmental modification is an activity militaries, particularly our Air Force, have identified as a power play in satellite mapping (VRPE) and to influence storm tracking and shifting pressure systems. A LARGE number of these flights are not civilian; moreover modern aircraft engines are much more efficient than these massive plumes of aerosols would indicate.\nEven assuming absolute humidity conditions, these extensive and persistent trails are not the product of condensation alone.\nPatents abound on mechanisms for dispersion of salts (ie Welsbach).\n\nThe health implications are severe---From a [2004 NCBI article hypothesizing on the origin of MS](_URL_7_): \"The use of Ba as an atmospheric aerosol spray for enhancing/refracting the signalling of radio/radar waves along military jet flight paths...\" [source](_URL_13_)\n\nSo there you have it, I hope what I have presented here will help you understand why some people are worried about what happens above their heads, even if the concern is sometimes framed poorly in a conspiratorial context, the concern is justified and does not necessarily require maligned shadowy powers and evil plots to destroy humanity.",
"Because they don't think, or don't know how to think. Instead of logically thinking thru what they are seeing, they jump to the conclusion that the government is up to something, during the day, when everyone can see. As opposed to doing it in the middle of the night when everyone is asleep. \n\nAll air contains some measure of water. The atmosphere is comprised of multiple layers of air of varying density, temperature, and humidity. A jet engine works by taking in said air, compressing it at a ratio of 30-40:1, mixing fuel, super heating it via combustion, and finally expelling the exhaust back into the atmosphere. Depending on the engine and the altitude different results likely occur. If it's above freezing and the conditions are right, I expect you'd get something akin to a cloud, fluffy and wet. At altitude (35000 ft) the outside air temperature is -60, or colder. A superheated, highly compressed gas being expelled into less than 1 atmosphere of pressure at sub zero temperatures is likely going to instantly form microscopic ice crystals, still technically a cloud I suppose. The amount of time any of these clouds last or if they are even produced are related to the weather conditions, just like regular clouds. \n\nThat's just my educated guess. Who knows tho, maybe the airline industry is in cahoots with the Illuminati, hell bent to destroy us all. Or maybe it's aliens. ",
"that is conspiracy theory that has no bases in real facts at all. it is a theory put out there by people who have no understanding of science. too stupid to figure things out for themselves...",
"The say that the chemicals are supposed to make people apathetic. But I don't really care."
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"http://www.climatescience.gov/workshop2005/posters/P-GC1.13_Maurice.pdf",
"http://www.naturaljointmobility.info/agu.htm",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Popeye",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/Documentaries/comments/yijv5/global_dimming_bbc_horizon_documentary_global/",
"http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/s02aerosols.php",
"http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20110721_particles.html",
"http://chemtrails.cc/docs/chemtrails.cc_the_not_so_secret_ingredient_02-2009.pdf",
"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15082100",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/niush/chemtrails_and_vtrpe/",
"http://xweb.geos.ed.ac.uk/~dstevens/Presentations/Papers/stevenson_gssp03.pdf",
"http://climate.nasa.gov/news/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=556",
"http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=uk-researchers-to-test-artificial-volcano-for-geoengineering-the-climate",
"http://www.cogci.dk/news/Crutzen_albedo%20enhancement_sulfur%20injections.pdf",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1a22be/public_law_10585_allows_chemtrails_and_biological/c8tlwi3",
"http://www.fas.org/spp/military/docops/usaf/2025/v3c15/v3c15-1.htm",
"https://web.archive.org/web/20111125065246/http://www.climatescience.gov/workshop2005/posters/P-GC1.13_Maurice.pdf",
"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Aerosols/page1.php",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming"
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3g2q17 | why didn't we evolve to rest while staying awake? | Please don't give me examples of *why* we sleep. I understand the benefits of sleeping.
I never got why we completely shut down. From an evolutionary outlook, it seems like a suicidal practice: to fall unconscious for 8 hours and leave yourself completely vulnerable to predators.
Why did not one creature on Earth evolve to simply rejuvenate while in an almost meditative state? Not expending energy and resting, but not completely shutting down, either?
I.E., what is it about closing our eyes and becoming unaware of our surroundings that helps us recharge? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3g2q17/eli5_why_didnt_we_evolve_to_rest_while_staying/ | {
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"We evolved as a tribal species so there was no selection pressure to change it, someone was always awake and on the lookout for dangers who would sound the alarm and wake everyone up.\n\nAnd when we sleep is when short term memories from that day are transferred to long term memory.\n\n"
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30vviv | short film industry. how do short films make money? how much do the directors/producers/actors earn on average? | It seems to me that short films generally don't get large-scale screening like feature length films do. Without this major source of income, how do they make money? How much do they usually make? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30vviv/eli5_short_film_industry_how_do_short_films_make/ | {
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"They generally don't unless you win an award.\n\nThey're usually funded by art grants or private investors as a proof of concept for the director and/or crew's talents."
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2m266l | when i'm walking to the throne room for a bowel movement, why does the urge suddenly increase ten fold during my walk there and when i'm trying to get my pants down? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2m266l/eli5_when_im_walking_to_the_throne_room_for_a/ | {
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"I'm not an expert my any means but I'm pretty sure its because you brain is trained to associate a toilet with going to the bathroom. So when you see the toilet, your brain tells you that its time to go.",
"ahh the good old proximity effect. \nI've nearly been caught out a few times. \n"
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32jlrz | what causes my wifi stop working on its own causing me to have to reset the router? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32jlrz/eli5_what_causes_my_wifi_stop_working_on_its_own/ | {
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"If this happens regularly there is either a hardware problem with your router, or maybe more likely there is a software problem casing a memory leak or some other reason making it crash.\n\nBecause a router should not need to be restarted with any kind of frequency.",
"It's amazing to me that with all the advances in technology we've made over the years, the good ole turn it on-off trick still seems to be the top fix we have.",
"Often the connection drops for reasons that are related to the line and nothing to do with the router. The connection comes back on when the router is fully reset because 30 seconds later the line fault has been resolved.",
"Trying to be helpful here.\n\nDo a search with: \"subreddit:explainlikeimfive router problems\"\n\nThere are lots of good answers here already. Most recently (some nine days ago, I think) some great explanations were given [here](_URL_0_). Check it out and see if these responses get you where you want to be. \n\nHey, how come I can't do a search on \"explainlikeimfive\" from within \"explainlikeimfive\" ? I had to go to the front page to do my search..."
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2g80at | why do people criticize christianity for being "homophobic," but leave islam alone? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2g80at/eli5_why_do_people_criticize_christianity_for/ | {
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"In the US, there are many more Christians than Muslims, and the homophobia most Americans will come into contact with is based in Christian thought.",
"People criticize Islam for being homophobic as well, in countries where large groups of people oppose homophobia.\n\nMany of those countries (USA and Britain, among many others) have comparatively small Islamic populations and much larger Christian populations. Especially when it comes to our lawmakers, Christians are a more vocal and powerful group.\n\nIn the USA, for example, 85% of our Senators identify as Christian, and many of them (not all, by any means) use this as a defense for bias against homosexuals. 0% of our Senators are Muslims. They just aren't as big a group, and have much less political power.",
"Likely because Christians are significantly less likely than Muslims to slaughter you for speaking out against their beliefs.",
"It's the same reason that people criticize whites for owning slaves in the US in the past, even though there are millions more slaves owned by blacks in Africa today. \n\nWestern people feel that they may criticize their own past, and since their past is mainly Christian, they may criticize it. However, modern African slave owners or homophobic Muslims are not their own people, so they would feel uncomfortable laying judgement on them.\n",
"Islam receives constant criticism for homophobia, treatment of women, and numerous other perceived and/or existing things people dislike. I certainly don't think it is left alone.\n\nHowever, in most western countries, Christianity has far more power and ability to shape social policy, so it tends to be more relevant to people from those countries with regards to shaping their social environment. ",
"We appear to be \"leaving Islam alone\" with air strikes.",
"Because in regions where Islam is the dominant religion, there isn't enough support for gay right for there to be a discussion about it.",
"Simple answer? Political Correctness\n\nI know. Its weird."
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bv9d67 | how do game designers program the characters to behave in different levels of difficulty? | e.g. A soldier shooting you faster on Veteran level but taking a bit to shoot you in Amateur. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bv9d67/eli5_how_do_game_designers_program_the_characters/ | {
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"In simple terms, they manipulate variables within the code to produce desired outcomes. It's all just numbers, so everything from physics, to reaction times, to anything else you can think of can be changed. The difficulty levels are essentially just presets with those variables preconfigured to specific numbers.",
"As an example, in Bioshock the splicers, when they spot you for the first time, always miss their first shot by design. That way the player gets a moment to recognize and react to the threat before they actually take damage. Scaling up the difficulty for the game might involve removing that feature or other intentional AI behavioral handicaps. If the developer is lazy (Bioware and Anthem or Bethesda and Skyrim) they'll just tack a modifier onto the health and damage calculations for an enemy. A Giant in Skyrim on Normal mode might have 150 x [1 x player level] x 1 health and do 30 x [.5 x player level] x 1 damage, but in hard mode he has 150 x [1 x player level] x 1.75 health and does 30 x [.5 x player level] x 3 damage.\n\nEDIT:: Markup, please ;_;",
"Former game developer,\n\n & #x200B;\n\nWe program a slop variable into their every action. Either they can't do all the actions we've programmed for them - so their strategies are simplistic, or they're slow, or they're inaccurate, or some combination of these."
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2onbo5 | how can there be so many pedestrians killed by trains? how can people not see, feel or hear an oncoming train? | Read this article and I cant believe the amount of pedestrian/ train fatalities:
_URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2onbo5/eli5_how_can_there_be_so_many_pedestrians_killed/ | {
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"Simple answer: Suicide.\n\nIt's more definite to end your life via bring crushed by a train compared to being hit by a car.",
"Some of those people were under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Some of them were suicides. Some were listening to music or watching a video on their phone. Trains can be very loud, but they can also be surprising quiet at other times.",
"I suppose some of it might be simply not appreciating how fast trains are. people seeing a train coming, but falsely thinking that they have plenty of time to get out of the way.",
"In regards to people trying to beat a train at a railroad crossing or jumping across tracks, there is also a perception issue with how fast a large object is moving. Think about watching a car going 100 mph. Now think about commercial airliner on take off, about 150-180 mph. Yet, looking at it, it doesn't seem like the plane is moving all that fast. This is due to the amount of time the airplane take to travel the distance of its own length. Now think about a basebal going 100 mph. Looks to travel incredibly fast. At the other end of the spectrum, a really long train going 50 mph doesn't look like it's moving all that fast. \"Hey, I can beat that!\"",
"Another way is forgetting there are multiple tracks. There was a gif on /r/wtf (I think) last month where three kids were throwing rocks or something at a passing train when another train came barreling down the tracks they were standing on. One got out of the way in time, trying to pull his friend with him, but not quick enough, and the third was right in the path. ",
"Besides the suicides, it us ineptitude. You are in a bad mood and stop caring about your surroundings. A few months ago I was taking a surface light train to work, lady who just got off waits for our departing train to pass before immediately crossing behind it. She didn't bother looking if there was another train coming the other way. A squirrelly Asian kid reached out, scruffed her and kept her from getting pancaked.\n\nFunny, I just rode over this crosswalk as I typed that last sentence.",
"* headphones\n* a lot of people jaywalk and figure slow moving cars will slowdown and stop for them...those same habits don't work will with trains\n* suicide",
"Its difficult to judge the speed of an incoming train. Especially the electric ones.I got surprised by speed of the train i was trying to cross.Made note to never take the distance and speed of a vehical for granted.Have never crossed a rail track again",
"Buddy of mine is a train conductor, he has hit and killed two people while on the job. The first had gotten his dirt bike (maybe motorcycle) stuck on the tracks and kept trying to get it dislodged but was unsuccessful. The second was a kid walking on the tracks with head phones on, who apparently couldn't hear the whistle blows. There was nothing he could do in either situation, as slamming on the brakes doesn't work the way it does in movies for trains. ",
"i know of two people where i live who have been out jogging with headphones in and have been hit buy trains. not head on but realising last minute stepping back and getting hit buy a wide carriage ",
"My brother was killed by a train\n\nIn city limits, the tracks are stabilized more so they don't disturb residents with loud rattling. Also, the horns are angled outward, so a train coming at you head on is a lot more quiet than you'd expect. If you have music on full blast and your back is turned to the train... Thud",
"There have been a few recently where a group of college kids were walking down tressels and couldn't get away in time. I'm not sure if they thought they were abandoned, or were just being dumb. ",
"While I can't answer to how people can't see or 'feel' the train, there is one issue - depending on location - for why folks can't hear:\n\nIn the past several years some communities started petitioning FRA for exemptions on train horns. As a result some crossings are now posted with signs saying \"No Train Horn\". In some cases an electronic 'horn' has been installed on the crossing gates so you hear that horn instead of the horn on the train. And the ones I've heard are lower volume. I've also heard lower volume horns on light rail trains. You'd think they could still be heard. But as others have already posted, some folks have their ears 'plugged' and may not be able to hear the horn."
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3b8z64 | how does revenue sharing work for a song like "uptown funk" where it is written by like four people, sung by someone else yet supposedly "belongs" to a dj like mark ronson? | Liner notes says the song was written by Nicholaus Williams, Devon Gallaspy, Jeff Bhasker, Mark Ronson, Phillip Lawrence, Bruno Mars.
Mark Ronson wouldn't perform this song in any meaningful way, so I wouldn't imagine there is much ticket revenue. Am I missing something? What is the business model here?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3b8z64/eli5_how_does_revenue_sharing_work_for_a_song/ | {
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"There are two copyrights which are related but distinct and both have revenue consequences.\n\nThe first is the copyright in the music itself - the \"mechanical rights\". Those rights come into existence as the shared property of everyone who wrote the song and the music. However, it is possible (likely) that the work was either done under contract, or the rights were assigned to a third party as a part of the deal to turn the music into a commercial product. The former is called a \"work for hire\", and the copyright is automatically held by the party that commissioned the work. The latter is called a \"copyright assignment\" and depending on where the deal was done and who was involved, those can be either very clean or very messy.\n\n(Sidebar: Europe but not the United States recognizes rights that creators have in their works which are inalienable (you can't sign them away even if you want to) and those rights can conflict with the kinds of things that a person might want to do with a copyright. These \"moral rights\" are one of the big differences between US and European intellectual property law.)\n\nThe song also has a second copyright, the copyright on the performance itself. In other words, the actual recording made of the song when it was produced. That work may actually be a large body of copyrights all bundled together especially in the case of a work that uses samples or beats that are provided by many different parties.\n\nThis is a really, really muddled part of copyright law right now. The law provides for the concept of \"fair use\" which means that you can use someone else's copyright without permission under certain circumstances but those circumstances are very unclear and subject to a lot of litigation. The entire concept of \"sampling\" overlaps with the concept of fair use in ways the courts are still settling (and often settling in ways that make \"sampling\" effectively a copyright infringement). These days it's pretty common for a producer or record company to get a copyright license from whomever made whatever samples they want to use, if they can, to try and reduce the concern of litigation.\n\nOk, so how does the revenue work?\n\nIn the United States there are groups which have been granted the right to assess copyright royalties and collect those monies by most of the recording business. Similar arrangements exist in most other countries. Those groups are the conduit through which money flows back to the copyright holders. They work with radio stations, event venues, Muzak providers, etc. to assess the royalties.\n\nWhen a song is played on the radio, for example, the radio station pays a royalty, which is split into two parts - one part for the \"mechanical\" right and one part for the \"performance\" right.\n\nYou can immediately see where this is going, can't you? If you hold the \"mechanical\" rights to a piece of music, you get paid *no matter what recording of it is played*. So when a band does a \"cover version\" of a song, some of the money that song generates goes back to whomever holds the mechanical copyright. The band only gets part of the royalty - the part that goes to the performance of the music.\n\nThese royalties are supposed to be collected whenever the music is performed (or in the case of sheet music, sold). That means when the local bar has an AC/DC cover band in, they're supposed to pay a royalty on the music performed and theoretically some of that money ends up in Angus' pocket.\n\nIn this particular case, there's probably a very lengthy contract that describes how the mechanical and performance royalties are to be split between all the people involved in making the song. Some of those people might get nothing. Some might get an ongoing slice of the royalty. Whatever the deal was when the song was created will exist effectively forever. The producer in this case likely gets a pretty hefty cut of that money."
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fdz20i | why does some of the sound seem to "stay in" the headphones if you turn them off while the sound is playing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fdz20i/eli5_why_does_some_of_the_sound_seem_to_stay_in/ | {
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"this is model/user specific phenomenon, a product of your specific model or some type of damage/defect to your specific headset.\n\nsince you turn them on, i'm assuming they're wireless or battery powered. turning them off doesn't seem to be a \"true off\", meaning theres no power running at all. turning them on is closer to brining a vcr/tv that still is on just enough to listen to the remote for the on command.\n\nthere's memory being used to buffer the sound to help with the wireless connection or to enhance the sound. your model isn't flushing that buffer nor cutting the power to the memory when you power off the unit. from there, at powering it back on, it empties the buffer by playing the sound in the buffer."
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47bxic | why is there such a strong correlation between creativity and mental illness? | Jimi Hendrix, Van Gogh, Ian Curtis, Syd Barret, Poe, Michaelangelo, Robert Frost, all these people suffered from pretty severe forms of depression, bipolar disorder, OCD and the like. I myself am a musician and a writer suffering from BPD, OCD, anxiety and depression, and I'm very much curious on the correlation between mental illness and creative expression. Why is it so common for people with mental illnesses to express their emotions through creative means such as music, painting, writing and such? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/47bxic/eli5_why_is_there_such_a_strong_correlation/ | {
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"Well it's not common for only just people with mental illnesses to express their emotions through art. This is actually a healthy form of releasing emotion. But it's true that creative/smart people are linked with higher rates of mental illness such as schizo and bipolar.\n\nPeople with intelligent minds always have an active brain with neurons firing rapidly. This can be a strong tool when trying to accomplish something challenging (paper,final exam, painting,etc). But when they aren't doing anything and not being mindful, their brains are still trained to overthink, which causes anxiety and depression over a conflicting situation.\n\nThis is why it's so common that you hear stories of valedictorians turning into heroin addicts, or a Harvard graduate living on the streets of D.C. At some point in time, they were at the top, but if they get affected by a life altering traumatic event, all their brain power is focused on that one event in time and they get 'stuck'",
"It could have to relate to ones disorder having an impact on their perception and thus giving a different perspective in their 'creative expression'. Those with a mental disorder or illness can have an 'abstract' view of some of these topics such as painting or sculptures. \n\nI could use science as an example and the relation to the 'fine line between genius and madness'. Many things thought of by the scientific community were thought to be rantings of madmen, until science proved them correct. \n\nThat being said, it takes a certain degree of 'out of the norm' thoughts to come up with things that become brilliant or masterpieces. ",
"There is no correlation between mental illness and creativity. A list of seven examples of people who were creative and suffered some form of mental illness isn't proof of correlation. There are thousands of other perfectly well adjusted creative people not on your list. \n\nThe romantic idea of a tortured genius may be a popular one but finding a few examples doesn't make it true. \n\nTake the first name on your list, Jimi Hendrix. How many other famous musicians of his generation, despite all the temptations of the rock'n'Roll lifestyle, are still with us and lived relatively normal, happy lives? \n\nOf the painters of Van Gogh's generation how many lived quiet, long lives? And on and on.",
"How does one measure creativity?\n\nIn order to find a correlation between creativity and ______ one must be able to quantifiably measure creativity. Is that even possible? Wouldn't 'creativity' be a subjective trait?\n\nBeing an 'artist' does not mean one is creative, and having a profession outside of the fine arts certainly doesn't mean one *is not* creative. ",
"There are no *real* statistics in the correlation between Mental Illness and Creativity that I would regard as true. But, say it were scientific fact? People with mental disorders are, literally, forced to find ways to do things that would work for them that other people don't need to do. Essentially, people with disorders HAVE to think outside of the box in order to get by. I see \"thinking outside the box\" as a contributor to creativity.\n\nThere is an overwhelming following for the connection. A staggering amount of people believe that mental state affects creativity. It's just like all those people that believe that \"Left-Handers are more creative than Right-handers.\"",
"I'm not aware that any such correlation has been made. I think we tend to remember those who fit the description, but how many musicians, artists, authors etc from those people's own timeline, how many just as successful ones, were not mentally ill? Most of them. \n\nThe actual issue is that there are a lot of people with mental illnesses. If someone is writing about their mental inllness, or painting about it or expressing it artistically, then you'll know about it. If they're sat crunching numbers in an office, you won't. say 5% of people are mentally ill enough to warrant being classed as such in the example, well 5% of all artists are going to give you 100% of the exposure you have to people being mentally ill. ",
"This might not help, but I once heard that mental illnesses that are found in people with a common trait of perfectionism (eating disorders, OCD, etc) are more likely to be better artists - but this is a correlation at best because the perfectionistic trait is the common variable here.\n\nAlso, this was told to me by my psychologist so I don't have anything to back this up with.",
"Jimi Hendrix - mentally ill?",
"There are a bazillion studies that link mental illness to increased creativity/genius. I don't know why so many people are questioning this on this thread. Here's a study from 2012 that looked at 1.2 million people and their relatives and found a link: _URL_0_\nAlso, if you check the wiki page, you can find numerous other studies confirming the link: _URL_1_\n\nNow that that is established, we can address why. I'm not sure if a definitive reason has been discovered, but I can tell you about my personal experience. First, I am *infinitely* better at painting while I am majorly depressed. We're talking about to commit suicide depressed. In this state, my depression is overwhelming, and I almost crave to paint and express myself. This is an extreme state that normal people do not experience (or rarely experience). As such, I can provide insight into human emotion that is elusive for most people. I can express a degree of emotion that most people do not even know exists. How can a happy/normal person accurately portray such an extreme emotion as major depression? They can't. So when people experience the art of someone who accurately depicts emotions so poignantly, it's very moving. Hey, now you've become a great artist. As pertains to bipolar disorder, these individuals are incredibly creative while in both a manic or depressed state. While manic, ideas flood your head at an enormous rate, and at the same time, you feel like you can conquer the world. These people will often be more successful than normal people simply because they have more ideas and the motivation (a god-like belief) to see them through. Mental illness pertains to the extremes of human thought and emotion, and so it is linked to creativity, thinking outside of the norm, and changes to how the world can be seen. ",
"\"You will scarcely find an intelligent man who is happy.\" Hemingway. (That's not a perfect quote. I did that from memory.)",
"Clinical psychologist here. No one knows.\n\nI have a hypothesis, though. When we create things, it's kind of an evolutionary-like process of trial and error. What happens is that a person will come up with an idea in their mind and then evaluate it. If the idea is good, it's kept. If the idea is bad, it's thrown out. \n\nLike evolution, it's the non-random selection of random... thoughts and/or ideas. Those who suffer from mental illness have a greater variety of thoughts and/or ideas to select from. As a result, their process of weaning through them yields more creative products.\n\nEdit: Oops, I realized that I didn't answer the question. The question was why do those with mental illness express their emotions through art. I gave a potential answer for why the are more creative.",
"I actually just wrote a paper on this subject. Michael Thalbourne identified a personality trait called Transliminality in 1994 after testing what makes people believe in the paranormal. Basically highly creative people are more likely to possess a higher degree of Transliminality. These people will have a more permeable threshold between their conscious and unconscious as well as a greater propensity for mental illness. \n\nHere's some more information on the subject of Transliminality. \n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_",
"Reviewing most of the peer-reviewed research in this area it seems that this correlation is heavily debated, with different studies showing vastly different results. Personally I would think the ratio between creativity and mental patients would be the same compared to non-mental patients, especially considering the limitations of mental illness diagnosis. Another possibilities might be that mental patients are not always employed in the regular trades or jobs, giving them more incentive and spare time to develop their creative skills. ",
"Creative = Making something new and unique\n\nMental illness = Your brain is in a and unique state. \n\n",
"I actually think it makes perfect sense. Mental illness means that someone's brain operates outside of normal parameters. That same sentence pretty much defines the creative process.",
"Because in essence they are the same thing -- A difference in the way a person perceives the world. Lots of other factors determine if someone is described as a \"genius\" or a \"lunatic\" by the masses. ",
"As one aspect of your phenotype goes to either end of the bell curve it's likely that other aspects do also. And men have more [variance](_URL_0_) than women.",
"I'm happy to say I'm a musician at a high level, and I have exactly zero mental illness. Not even ADD.\n\nI think it's because creativity comes from being able to think differently than most people, and you're more likely to think differently if you've got a weird brain. Weird brain is gonna give you a high likelihood of mental illness of some sort.",
"All I know that when people say \"you have to suffer for your art\", it's deeply, deeply true. My creative impulses peaked with my depression and are basically non-existent now that things are going smoothly. ",
"Artists can still have careers while being open about mental illness and, in some cases, may even benefit from being open about it. Professionals in most other fields don't have that luxury. (Just imagine a surgeon who admits to schizophrenia trying to keep his practice open.) Until that disparity is resolved, the question of whether there's a correlation between mental illness and creativity is unanswerable because there's a powerful incentive for reporting bias and there's no way to control for it.",
"I guess you can look at it this way. Creative people doesn't have mental illness. There are few of them. Theyed rather invest their time in something creative, then they are called anti-social. They try to solve problems, then their friends hate them for being smart, an insult to them, then they get depressed. I dont think Creative people are mentally ill. Society makes them look like they are mentally ill"
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qwn8m | eil5: how come obama/bush can go to war without congressional approval? | First off, I should note that I'm not an American. I like Ron Paul's viewpoints, and he frequently brings up the point that America is going to war without congressional approval, and as such these wars America is currently in are illegal.
A couple of high-ranking officials in [this](_URL_0_!) video pretty much say they don't need congressional approval to go to war.
However, from what I've heard Ron Paul say: You need congressional approval to go to war.
**If** that's the case, how come Obama (and Bush) can go to war and get away with it? Why isn't anything being done about this? Surely you could sue/impeach the president (and the former president)?
Explain like I'm five, keeping in mind I'm not an American and my knowledge of the constitution is limited at best! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/qwn8m/eil5_how_come_obamabush_can_go_to_war_without/ | {
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"Only congress can **declare** war but that does not stop the commander an chief from deploying troops. News outlets can use whatever labels they see fit - it does not make it congressional official.\n\nIn 1973, following the withdrawal from Vietnam, congress passed the \"War Powers Resolution of 1973.\" The intent was to add a check/balance to the commander and chief's ability to deploy military forces. It basically requires congressional approval if military forces are engaged for a specific amount of time and requires congress be notified.\n\nIf congress declares war - the president no longer needs congressional approval to move forces."
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crxx5x | how is world population calculated? and how accurate is the number? is it possible that the number can be entirely wrong? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/crxx5x/eli5_how_is_world_population_calculated_and_how/ | {
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"In general, information about the world population is aggregated from information about each country's population. From there, each country usually either conducts regular censuses or has some form of national registration to track people (or both) as it's a very important part of running a government.\n\nThese estimates are only updated so often though (IE, the US conduct it's census only every 10 years), so there is a little math done to the number to get the current estimate. There are three big factors that matter when creating that current estimate: Mortality rate, Birth rate, and Migration. The first obviously creates downward pressure on the number, the second upward, and the third can be either depending on if the new flow is out of or into the nation.\n\nHow accurate is it? Well, the UN is one of the better sources, and they estimate their margin of error to within 1% or so for the entire world. It varies HIGHLY depending on the country though, with less developed nations and especially wartorn nations being incredibly difficult to estimate due to difficulties in conducting censuses, and highly developed nations being very accurate. Broadly speaking, you can trust the numbers though and there is very little to no chance that the number can be entirely wrong, unless you are getting a number from a shady source.",
"How reliable would numbers from countries like China or North Korea? Do we actually get a number from NK?",
"I always wonder how they count animal populations, especially small ones like ants. There's no census, and who's out there counting?",
"The truth is, we actually don't know how accurate the estimate is because we'd have to know the near exact number in a sufficiently large representative area to compare it with the estimate. My guess is it can be several percentage points off, though certain undercounts (mentioned by others) can potentially be compensated by the folks with multiple citizenships that presumably are reported by each home country.",
"Well we have a formula/regression to calculate world population and every country has a set of statistics (the data for which is collected via national census) regarding population, mortality rate, birth rate, child mortality rate etc. These statistics are compiled and plugged into said formula and we get a world population number including the number of deaths and births per year. Although this number is fairly accurate in representing the statistical significance, when it comes to running a regression, there is room for error which is captured via an error term, this allows for a certain degree of variance shift. It's a fairly accurate estimate. But, there are probably more people who slip out of the census then are a part of it so, there are probably more people then we estimate there are, not less.",
"Regarding accuracy, population numbers are often at least as accurate as they need to be. For a family of 5 getting a non-exact value is a significant error, however, for a population of 1 million then getting an estimate wrong by 100 will most likely not change the decisions made based on said population estimate.",
"Normally on these things what you are after is a trend. A certain number is not that relevant, just to have a ballpark will give enough information so humans can take decisions based on it. I hardly doub0t it is completely wrong, but trying to be more exact won't provide much more relevant information for humans to make better decisions.",
"One thing not mentioned is that a lot of developing countries have a huge incentive to over-report their populations because the foreign aid they receive from more wealthy countries is linked to population. And, frankly, I’m not sure I trust the UN to do more than repeat what their member states say. So it depends on the source for the number. If it comes from the UN, you have this problem. If it comes from somewhere using formulas like the logistic differential equation mentioned here, it’s based on a guess of fertility rates that we don’t know is right. They all mostly agree, but their only source of ground truth is each other, so they could be agreeing with each other but not agreeing with reality. The estimates are probably mostly right, but probably off by more than their reported margins of error would have you believe.",
"Population estimates are \"guesses\" with error factored in. Let's say you had to estimate how many hairs were on your body. This is a seemingly impossible task...if you would like to be exact. Hairs are being added and removed by the second so to approach this problem we guess really a range of numbers.\n\nTo calculate that range you might pick a fixed unit (e.g. hairs per square inch of your body). You wake up one morning and you count the hairs on randomly selected square inches of your body. You do this several times under different conditions (e.g. time of day or area if your body). \n\nYou may find that some of the factors greatly impact the density of hair. These factors need to be collected too (e.g. proximity to your head). The factors can be used to weight you're overall calculation and predict counts that are missing or you're less sure about. \n\nYou can calculate how much your guesses vary under similar conditions. Let's say one day you count 75 hairs/square-inch then another day 120 hairs/square-inch. You assume this is due to randomnesses. Now you can calculate an overall average and a range around that average (based on how much your sample estimates varied).\n\nNow given you have an average estimate for your unit of analysis (hairs/square-inch), you meticulously calculate the number of square inches on your body (also an estimate with error). These are aggregated to determine the total number of hairs. However, this isn't a single number, it's a range based on how much your numbers varied when you collected data. We tend to communicate it as a single number because it's easier to interpret.\n\nInitial data collection is really important because if you aren't identifying the factors that affect your estimates (let's say you didn't take different parts of the body into account) or aren't appropriately sampling in a way that is representative of the population (if you only took measurements for your head as opposed to the different areas of the body)- your overall estimate will be flawed. \n\nI've worked with census data (ACS data) and the measurement accuracy is questionable. The amount of personnel, expertise, and money needed is substantial, yet it's clear the government doesn't invest as they should. \n\nThis is extremely important because: 1) informs political polls and predictions (which have been subpar in terms of prediction); 2) Prediction of crime or domestic terrorism; 3) pretty much any prediction made about people on a macro-level. \n\nI challenge all of the young-bloodz about to head of to college to look into measurement and statistics. We need more passionate minds in the field.",
"My understanding is there's a roll-call every four years where everyone says their name and a guy with a clipboard writes it down. If a child is born, the parents call out \"girl\" or \"boy\" and if someone dies a relative calls out \"dead one!\"",
"During the First Margrave War, a near complete count of Nuremberg was made, and the result was a population of 20,000. This is about 4 times higher than 50 years earlier. 300 years later, a census showed there were only 30,000 people.\n\nGo back to 1857 in Minnesota. They were doing a census prior to joining the union. Lawmakers made up fake towns and filled out fake census forms, in order to ensure their party got more seats. They were rigging elections. \n\nAncient population estimates just make no sense. Even if you take the lowest population estimates, and factor in a fraction of a percent growth each year, you end up with a population that is larger than today. In the past couple hundred years, when we've had the deadliest wars known to man, huge population losses under folks like Mao and Stalin, the one child policy in the largest country on earth, and yet we've had record population growth. \n\nWe've long been told that population growth in the past was low due to disease, child mortality rates, and low life expectancy. Yet during this period of rapid population growth, we are seeing lower and lower birth rates in the first world, where low child mortality and high life expectancy are the norm. The world population growth has literally been fueled by the countries with high disease, high child mortality, and low life expectancy. And those are also the war torn countries.\n\nNorth Korea, with its crazy famines, high disease, malnourished, and under sanctions, has had a faster growth rate than South Korea. \n\nSome have estimated that there were more than 100 million people living in the pre-Columbia Americas. If you just look at population estimates and growth rates for that era, it would mean that *at least* 25% of the world migrated to the Americas 15,500 years ago. The lower estimates are around 8 milllion, which would be about 2% of the world's population migrating to the Americas 15,500 years ago.",
"A census, as mentioned by others, is an attempt at counting everyone resident in a country. Different countries use different definitions - in New Zealand, for example, they count everyone who is physically in the country in Census Day, whereas in the UK they're only interested in people staying, or intending to stay, in the UK for 6 months or more.\n\nSome people are counted more than once, such as children with parents who live apart. Others are not counted at all, for example people who refuse to respond, or who didn't get out ask for a form, or who were on holiday at the time.\n\nPeople called enumerators are hired to chase up non-responding households and encourage them to respond. Advertising plays a huge part. In many countries, it's a legal requirement to fill in and return your census form.\n\nTo work out how many didn't respond, a second, small-scale survey is done about a couple of months after Census Day. This is part of a method called \"capture-recapture\", mentioned by u/marisbluesky - you match the results by name, address, sex, DOB (this is one of the main reasons for asking your name) and work out who you counted in one survey but not the other, who was counted in both, and from that work out who was missed in both. Then you extrapolate to the entire country's population, which gives you your population estimate. Done well, the counted population in a census is about 95% of the estimated population.",
"As others have said, a census counts the number of residents in a country. However, there are a few issues:\n\n1) Who counts as a resident?\n\nNew Zealand counts everyone in the country on Census Day, regardless of how long they are staying for. The UK counts everyone who has stayed, or intends to stay, for at least 6 months.\n\n2) What about non-response?\n\nUsually there are big advertising campaigns so that everyone is aware that there is a census, and why it's important. There are people called enumerators who visit non-responding households to encourage them to return their form.\n\nThe number of responses is the *counted population*. However, some people don't respond. They may refuse, they may forget, they may be on holiday. So a second small-scale survey is done, a few months later. This is part of the \"capture-recapture\" method mentioned by u/marisbluesky which is also used for animal population estimates. Identifying information (name, DoB, sex, address) is used to work out who responded in one survey and not the other, who responded in both, and hence estimate how many were missed in the census. This is used to produce the *population estimate* for the whole country.\n\nIf the census is done well, the counted population will be at least 95% of the estimated population."
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111j4q | how the bcs works, and why college football doesn't use a playoffs system like most sports in north america. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/111j4q/eli5_how_the_bcs_works_and_why_college_football/ | {
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"Schools & TV networks make money from bowl games, so they created a million billion bowl games to increase profits. If you have 16 teams, and do a *playoff*, you only get **one winner**. If you take those 16 teams, and split them into *eight different bowl games*, you get **eight winners.** Fucking ignorant from a competitive perspective, but genius from a cash-making perspective.\n\nThe national rankings are determined by coach polls, strength-of-schedule, and a seriously retarded amount of computer-calculation nonsense. It's stupid and inaccurate.\n\nRemember that year when there **two** national champions, and instead of having them play one epic game to determine the true, lone champion, they just gave them both nation champion trophies?\n\n**FUCK THE BCS, YOUR SYSTEM FUCKING SUCKS**",
"Starting in 2014, the national champion will be decided by a 4 team tournament. There will still be bowl games on the side, but the tournament is the big enchilada. ",
"Because, it's the only way non-SEC teams get to take home a trophy.",
"The people who have responded in this thread are what's wrong with college football. I promise you they are NFL fans, who wish that college was more like the NFL. The bowl system is what makes college football unique and special. \n\nSince you ask what the BCS is, let me explain that first. To get more context, let me explain what happened before the BCS. \n\nBefore the late 90's, every college team would play their slate of games, and there were four 'big' bowl games at the end of the year - the Sugar, Rose, Orange, and Fiesta Bowl (the Cotton Bowl used to be one, as well). Conference champions for the major conferences would get automatic spots in games- for example, the Rose Bowl is traditionally between the winners of the Big 10 and Pac 12 conferences. There would also be a handful of at large teams (teams that didn't win their conference) selected by voters to fill the remaining 8 spots. The top two teams often did not meet up, and there was no notion of a National Championship game. After all of the bowls (they would all be played on the same day) the last polls would be released and whoever was voted #1 was the National Champion. In my opinion, it was a beautiful system. \n\nBut then your NFL fanboys came along and demanded a single game to determine the National Champion. The top two teams would play in a bowl, but the problem was that with multiple polls, there wasn't always a clear cut top two teams. So, the solution college football gave us was the BCS- have a computer system, which is heavily weighted on the human polls, but also computes it's own poll based on margin of victory, strength of schedule, etc. to determine the top two teams to play. This caused more controversy than the original bowl system did.\n\nNow that I have explained the BCS, let me explain why I believe the original bowl system to be superior to a playoff (and the current BCS system). I'll do this by responding to a couple of points I generally hear from pro-playoffers:\n\n1. A playoff system is more fair. \n\nI flat out don't agree with this. Playoffs are not good indicators of who the best team is. Let's look at other sports, specifically baseball, last year. The Cardinals were not the best team in baseball last year. I think most would agree that the Phillies were. Yet, the Cards beat the Phillies in the playoffs and were crowned champions, despite maybe only being the 5th best team. This is because PLAYOFFS ARE HIGHLY VULNERABLE TO VARIANCE. Now, this is a little trickier with a 12 game college football season, but let me get back to that. \n\n2. A playoff system is more exciting. \n\nWhile playoffs are/would be a fun time, I fully disagree with this, too. The more teams allowed in the playoffs, the less exciting and less important the regular season becomes. This is one of the beautiful things about college football- every game matters so much. Your national championship hopes can be crushed week 1. Again, think of how exciting other sports' regular seasons are. Basketball and hockey are pretty meh, because 16 teams make the playoffs. The NFL is kind of fun, but you can still lose every fourth week and easily make the playoffs. Baseball is downright devastatingly boring until the post season. None of them come close to the magic that is college football's regular season. As a huge college football fan- I get nauseas my team is undefeated, because I know just one slip up will crush my hopes and dreams for the season. Every game has the intensity of a playoff game. No other sport in the country will give you that kind of raw passion for every game, and a playoff would weaken that. \n\n3. More teams deserve a shot at the championship at the end of the year. \n\nAnother fallacy. We have two teams play for the championship now, and when a third team thinks that they deserved a shot, they get upset (and sometimes rightfully so). So then everyone's knee jerk reaction is to say 'we need FOUR teams in the playoffs instead of two! That will solve our problems!'. But then what happens when there's not much difference between the 4th and 5th team? The team left out will be pissed, and everyone will say 'Eight teams. Eight teams will be enough to include everyone deserving!'. But then there will be a ninth team that maybe deserved to be in the top 8. When will it stop? IT WILL NEVER STOP. Case in point- look at the NCAA college basketball tournament. They have 68 teams currently fighting for the national championship. 68! But that's not enough, because good bubble teams get left out! So now they're looking at expanding to a 96 team tournament (surely, that will be enough!)\n\nThis bring me to my final point about why the original bowl system is better than everything else. Every single year, different things happen. Sometimes three teams may be deserving of a shot at the championship. Sometimes 2. Sometimes 5, even. The fact is, WE'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO CREATE A PLAYOFF SYSTEM THAT WORKS WELL FOR EVERY YEAR. So, why try? The most flexible, dynamic system we have is the original bowl system. Its determined by voters, the people. If three teams are undefeated and deserving at the end of the year, they will go in to January 1st knowing they have a shot, and every other team will know they won't. They'll all play a tough game, potentially against each other, and when the dust settles at the end of New Years Day, we can pick a champion. \n\nThe bowl system is the fairest playoff system that we have in the country. It's also the most exciting. "
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21esdh | who is buying information from facebook? | And why is that information worth billions? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21esdh/eli5_who_is_buying_information_from_facebook/ | {
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"Facebook doesn't really 'sell' information AFAIK. Instead, people pay Facebook for advertisements on their site. Since Facebook collects lots and lots of data about you they'll be able to show you advertisements related to your interests, which is good for advertisers because they know that the people who read the ads are more prone to click on them and buy their products.",
"People aren't really \"buying information\" (although it's possible that's happening) what they're doing is they're paying for advertisement on Facebook. Due to how facebook encourages users to share information about themselves and their interests on the site, they the ability to **target ads** in very very specific ways. \n\nLet's say you are a company selling used Math textbooks. You might pay some money to reddit to put up your ads on the sidebar in a math subreddit. And that's great, and probably a smart move, but how many users of /r/math actually want to buy textbooks? Probably not that many. But if you go to facebook you can get ads put up for users who are about to go into college or users who are in college and have expressed an interest in math. This is MUCH more useful to you, so facebook can charge more money for fewer ad displays. this means that they can sell ads to FAR more groups for far more money without having to plaster the site with ads."
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2m4fgc | who was the buddha and what events in his life lead to the formation of buddhism? | Was he a prophet or a noble? Or just a normal person?
Was he sent by God (i.e. Jesus) or was he just a very wise man whos teachings influenced millions of people? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2m4fgc/eli5who_was_the_buddha_and_what_events_in_his/ | {
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"His name was Siddharta Guatama and was the son of a very wealthy & noble royal family. His parents were actually hardcore helicopter parents who did everything they could to shield him about all negative aspects of human, especially death & suffering.\n\nSo one day, their precious little snowflake of a baby boy (at the age of 29), leaves the palace to meet some subjects in town. While travelling with his royal posse through the seedy parts of town he sees all sorts of shit-covered beggars and old people with eyes missing and he's like \"the fuck is this? lol\", the people he was with had to explain to him that everyone grows old, suffers and dies eventually (or they just suffer and die and skip the growing old part).\n\nHaving then spent the entirety of his life doing the 5th century BCE equivalent of playing XBox in his parents' basement, and suddenly seeing the harsh reality of life in the streets he decided to throw everything away and live like the people he saw in the streets.\n\n\nHe tried doing that for a while, to the point of nearly starving & dying, and also thought that was a load of shit. That was his first major breakthrough. Part of the key to happiness is to neither live a decadent sheltered life of material opulence but also to neither live a shitty life of deprivation and self-mortification. His first major breakthrough was realising that one has to walk a fine line between the two and simply live a balanced life. This is one of the major tenants of Buddhism and known as the [Middle Path](_URL_0_)\n\nHe then chilled out and sat under a tree for 49 days and that's when he reached Enlightenment and, along with the Middle Path, said that people can walk the same path to enlightenment by living by [The Four Noble Truths](_URL_1_)\n\nHe then spent the rest of his life travelling around Asia & teaching his knowledge until he was 80 and was like \"guys I'm going to die, but not really because I'm enlightened and going to transcend existence\" and then he died, but not really. \n\nNo golden chariots or resurrection or winged horses or fireworks or anything for him though. He was just a human that reached Enlightenment."
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1nxzo5 | why do people buy gift cards? | I was just introduced to this concept and don't understand it. Why pay money you can spend on anything for something that limits spending to only one place? Is there any benefit? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nxzo5/eli5_why_do_people_buy_gift_cards/ | {
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"If it's actually being used as a gift, than it's at least a bit more personal than just plain cash. If nothing else, it says \"I might not know what you want, but I know where you'd buy it from!\". It's all in the gesture.\n\nAs for the gift cards themselves? Eh; it's quick. You don't have to deal with change, or worry if you have to break any bills. If it's someplace you go a lot and you can have more money put onto it (think of a coffee place), than it can be pretty convenient and a bit of a time saver.",
"Gift cards are a good way to show someone you care about that you know what their interests are but you don't know anything about that interest yourself. I'm a musician and my family knows that I love to play guitar, but they don't know what to buy a guitar player that doesn't involve just buying a new guitar. A gift card to guitar center is a good way to say \"hey I recognize and support your interests but I don't want to get you something you don't want or already have.\"",
"Gift cards somewhat force the recipient to get a gift vs cash which could be used to pay bills.\n\n\n\nAlso as other have stated it is a good bet if you know nothing about a persons hobby / interest but want them to get something based around it.",
"FORCED PLEASURE SPENDING! If I give you $20, you might spend that 20 bucks on something like paying your electric bill, which you need, but which also doesn't bring you warm fuzzies. However, if I give you $20 for Geek Gadget Warehouse or Bed Bath and Beyond or whatever, you still get to pick what to spend it on, but you are more or less forced to buy something that you WANT rather than something that you need. Thus, you end up getting warm fuzzies. \n\nSome people purchase things like Walmart gift cards for their friends. Those people are just bad gift-givers.",
"As a straight financial transaction, there is no benefit.\n\nBut, as the name implies, the idea is to give them as a gift.\n\nGiving someone money is considered tacky, as part of giving a gift is to show you know the person's interests well enough to take the time to pick out something they like.\n\nBut if you aren't quite sure, if the person has specialized interests you don't completely understand, or if you want to help them buy something you can't afford on your own, you can give them a gift card.",
"Because they don't have any good ideas for a present, but can't give you cash or you look like an asshole. ",
"Simplicity. My wife knows I might want \"woodworking stuff\", but has no idea exactly what that might mean. Even if she knows I need a new saw, she goes to the store and sees about a thousand different saws in a thousand different sizes with a thousand different uses.\n\nSo she just buys me a gift card instead and lets me pick out the saw I want. "
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48pxfg | the sudden preponderance of putting punctuation outside of quotation marks | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/48pxfg/eli5_the_sudden_preponderance_of_putting/ | {
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" > Don't post just to express an opinion or argue a point of view.\n\nThis post has been removed."
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