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[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"The reason behind Colorado county secession vote today"
] | Many states have tensions between urban areas, which tend to be more liberal, and rural areas, which tend to be more conservative. In Colorado, which in recent years has trended liberal, legalized pot, banned high-capacity magazines, etc, the rural conservatives are particularly distraught. Of course, it's rather superficial. To secede from a state you need approval of that state and the federal government, and that is not going to happen. Basically they are just having a pointless ballot referendum on how annoyed they are at being on the losing side of various elections. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How do tape recorders adjust for the differences in spool sizes?"
] | The speed of the tape isn't controlled by the speed that the reels turn, it's the other way around. Part of the tape path, usually just after the heads, is a cylindrical drive called the [capstan](_URL_0_), and a pinch roller to hold the tape against the capstan. The capstan turns at a constant speed and *that* is what determines how fast the tape moves. The feed reel and the take-up reel turn at whatever speed it takes to feed/take up the tape at the speed determined by the capstan. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How substances like gasoline are able to store so much energy"
] | Hydrocarbon chains (like gasoline) are made of carbon and hydrogen. When these substances undergo combustion, the carbon atoms bond with external oxygen to form CO2, and the hydrogen atoms bond with external oxygen to form H2O. Every time a complex molecule (hydrocarbon chain) becomes a simpler molecule, energy is released -- the CO2 and H2O molecules are at a lower energy state. Petroleum is only able to form under considerable heat and pressure. So, in a sense, burning gasoline is kind of like releasing all that pent up heat and pressure that the petroleum underwent while it was below ground. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"If teachers have to spend so much money out of pocket on school supplies for class why don't they just stop?"
] | Teachers are kind of strange in that they care about the children under their charge and also care about their jobs. Kind of crazy I know |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do I have two bars of WiFi signal when I lie on my left side, but when I lie flat on my back I loose my Wifi altogether? Surely a few centimetres shouldn't make a difference?"
] | Wifi signal can act like waves in a pool. Up and down all over the place, but sometimes there is a dead spot where the waves bouncing off the walls cancel each other out. Try moving the router, or even just changing the angle of the antenna. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"why are YouTube videos not available to My country (u.s)"
] | Copyright issues. One company might have copyright laws registered in the US, but not in, say, Russia. So Youtube might block that video in the US because the company can sue them for hosting the video in the US, but won't in other countries. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why don't more satellites get damaged from space debris?"
] | While there is a lot of trash around, space is huuuuuge. And the chances of something beeing hit are pretty small. This map shows you all the sattelites in earth orbit _URL_0_ and just look at how much space there is inbetween them. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why don't humans (and other organisms) evolve into perfect beings?"
] | All evolution does is adapt you to survive and reproduce in your surroundings. If thats the end goal, humans pretty much are perfect |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"If the minimum wage is increased, won't employers, corporations, the 1%, etc... just increase prices to give themselves the same financial advantages they have now, thereby wiping out the gains for the minimum wage earner?"
] | You know what won't go up? That $6000 debt on your credit card. The $13000 you have left on your car loan. The $200,000 you have on your mortgage. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Are Brooklyn, Staten Island, Queens, Bronx and Manhattan considered different cities? And what considers them boroughs?"
] | They're all part of New York City, though they were once separate and individual cities. As for what considers them “boroughs,” that's the colloquial name for the counties which now bear those names. Queens and the Bronx are the same in both cases, but Manhattan is New York county, Staten Island is Richmond county, and Brooklyn is Kings county. I refer you to Wikipedia for more. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do animals like deer, kangaroos and such seem to vaporize when hit by a fast moving car?"
] | Vaporize? They don't. You can clearly see the bodies after contact. However, the blood is expelled as a loosely compacted liquid which, as liquids do at high velocity, disperses as a mist. Some of the internal organs would go with that, too, as they are very squishy, and squishy things hit by something large and moving fast tend to break into small bits -- especially when compressed quickly by the collapsing bone structure. As for being sent flying... In the first video, the animal falls under either the front or the wheel of the vehicle. In the second, it definitely goes flying. Compare that to [this video of a deer](_URL_0_) -- hoping it's the one I remember because I can't see videos at work. Should be a deer sent flying as it is hit by the front of the vehicle. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why does it feel colder when you get wet?"
] | when water evaporates off your skin, the water takes some energy from its surroundings (meaning you) in order to change from a liquid to a gas. This is also why sweating makes you cooler. The evaporation of any water, sweat or otherwise, cools you down. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How do swype keyboard work and how are they so accurate?"
] | You start on one letter. The computer takes a list of words that start with that letter. You swype to the next letter -the computer eliminates all words that don't have that letter next. You swype to the third letter and it eliminates more words and so on until you have only the word you swyped in. However, your input gets 'fuzzed' a little by fat fingers usually, so the computer is actually taking the group of letters around where your fingers are and creating several concurrent lists using the fuzzy inputs of each position your finger travels to. When you are done swyping it will present to the user the word that most closely matches the positions your finger traveled across, with other options shown that are either similar to the word you swyped in (essentially doing the same as a spell-checker) or presenting words that you could have typed if your fingers were a little bit inaccurate in their movements. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"the meaning behind this quote: \"Karachi is like Gotham City.. except we have no Batman.. and our Joker lives in London\""
] | Karachi (largest city in Pakistan) is currently experiencing some large problems; both in crime, and politically. This is in part due to [Altaf Hussain](_URL_0_) who is the founder and leader of the [Muttahida Quami Movement](_URL_1_) - a political party in pakistan based in the city of Karachi. The problems surrounding the party are complicated, but politics in Pakistan is often dangerous business involving murder and corruption. A large part of the Muttahida Quami Movement and the leader himself (Altaf Hussain) live in the UK due to fear of personal safety. **TL;DR**: Karachi is politically and criminally chaotic much like Gotham, except there is no one to help (someone like Batman) and the leader of the group of people causing these problems (the Joker) lives in London. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why is it that Russians are never (or barely ever) referred to as Asians, even though Russia is technically part of the continent Asia?"
] | Most Russians live in what is considered by most maps to be Europe. However, far more importantly than that, most Russians are ethnic Slavs and are far, far more culturally connected to Europe than any Asian culture. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What would happen if a civilian took the laws in their own hands (Catching criminals, helping the police etc.). Are there any legal restricitions against doing this, like Batman does?"
] | There are two main legal restrictions. First, much of what the police do is illegal for a regular citizen. Police can detain people on reasonable suspicion, while more citizen's arrest laws usually require you to witness a crime. So a what would be to the police a routine stop, for you would be false imprisonment, or even kidnapping, and if you used force, assault. Second, police have what is called *qualified immunity* when performing their duties. That means if they make a mistake and something bad happens, they are not personally liable. Ordinary citizens do not. If you tried to effect a citizens arrest, and accidently injured a bystander, you could be financially responsible, even if the arrest was justified. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What is tenure, how do professors get it, and why can't it be taken away when they abuse their power over students?"
] | This may help: _URL_0_ A professor certainly can be fired for cause. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What is the \"life expectancy\" of the human civilisation?"
] | Honestly, there are thousands of predictions for this. You have millions of variables that could alter the timeline hugely. Read this Wikipedia entry: _URL_0_ |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"My sister and I are the youngest of seven, four years separating her and I. She and I have five distinct birthmarks all in the same places and similar shapes, however none of our other siblings have these birthmarks. Why is this?"
] | its about DNA...you have some common genes with other siblings that you just don't notice. the birthmarks are just more noticable, especially if they are in nearly the same places. the other siblings probably got those genes as recessive genes means those birthmarks didn't show up for them |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do airlines ask you to turn off/airplane mode your phone during a flight when? Does it actually affect the flight?"
] | I'm a pilot. While usually cell phones don't affect our instrumentation (anymore, this wasn't always the case), I can definitely tell if someone in first class (or in the cockpit haha) has their phone on because as soon as we get low enough for them to have service, I will hear a bunch of clicks in my headset if they get a message or something. It's mildly distracting but nothing else. I know that doesn't really answer your question |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"where do birthmarks come from?"
] | There are two types of birthmarks. Pigmented birthmarks result from when there is an excess of skin pigment cells, the cells that give your skin colour, in one place. Examples of these would include moles, café au lait spots, and Mongolian spots. Vascular birthmarks are from an increased amount of blood vessels in a given location. These are red, such as salmon patches and port-wine stains. It is still unknown why birthmarks form. Here are a few examples of birthmarks, I'm sure there are many more types, but these are some of the more common ones. [Café au lait spot](_URL_2_) NSFW?[Mongolian spot](_URL_3_) [Salmon patch](_URL_0_) [Port-wine stain](_URL_1_) (Prominent patch on his head) _URL_4_ Edit; nsfw Edit: redux; more info |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do modern TVs seem to increase the framerate of video, even when to footage is decades old?"
] | Modern televisions have a setting that is usually turned on by default that causes this effect. The way it does it is by looking at two frames in the image, seeing what the differences are, and "guessing" what another frame between the two would look like if it was there when the show was recorded. The TV then creates this extra frame, and gives the appearance of the TV show or film being recorded at 48-60 FPS. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Short Film Industry. How do short films make money? How much do the directors/producers/actors earn on average?"
] | They generally don't unless you win an award. They're usually funded by art grants or private investors as a proof of concept for the director and/or crew's talents. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"I read somewhere it's impossible to overdose on melatonin. But, what would happen if I consumed an entire bottle at one time?"
] | I was laying in bed sleeping when I woke up adrenaline pumping fully alert. I couldn't move, I was paralyzed. My body didn't do the "feels like I have a million pound weight" deal, just didn't do crap. Standing over me was a demon dressed in a white dress. I've heard stories of the white light, etc. I thought this was the end. I must have died in my sleep. It seemed like 30 seconds. I was scared shitless. Reality was it was 2 seconds. I had sleep paralysis. The huge dosage of melatonin I took made it where I still had the chemical that paralyzes you so you don't act out dreams in me when I woke up. Melatonin is a hormone, not a drug, so overdosing is different. But I'll be damned if I ever take too much ever again. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do I see the same length of my body in the mirror no matter how far I am from the mirror?"
] | What do you mean by "length of my body"? Do you mean you see yourself as the same height? You see yourself as the same height because you are still the same height. looking in a mirror is like looking at a person on the other side of a piece of glass, standing as far from the glass as you. Since they're still the same height, they'll still appear to be the same height. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What are the differences between mechanical keyboard switches?"
] | Mechanical switches differ not only in actuation force, but also in the profile of that force. A switch might be designed to require a high force to begin moving, but then it lightens up. Or it can be made to get heavier as you push it. They can also differ in how much force it takes to keep them depressed, and with how much force they come up with. The design of the actuation in that article effects all of these. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"the speed of light through different materials."
] | That's an error a lot of people make. Light itself doesn't slow down, it only appear to slow down. Light isn't bouncing around inside the material, because it that would be the case, then light would be scarttered in all direction when exiting the material and there would be a randomness in the apparent speed of light depending on how many time each photon bounced. And it isn't being slow down like a person through deep mud because atoms are mostly empty space, so most photon woudn't be affected by the material. The answer is that when light enter a material it will lose energy to the atoms. Those atoms will absorb some of that energy and will remit light themself. All those smaller wave will create a sort of interference with the initial wave and the net total of all those wave will create a wave travelling slowler than the speed of light, even if all the individual wave travel at the speed of light. It's a bit like adding a bunch of vectors together. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why are we circumcised?"
] | From what I understand, it was a religious reason to Jewish folks, but it became more mainstream when John Kellogg(as in the cereal company) recommended it to prevent masturbation. I may be wrong, but that's what I understand of the subject. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What is the difference between techno and electronic?"
] | Techno originates from the 80s in Detroit. It sounds dark, industrial, and sometimes depressing. A good example is Prodigy - Breathe: _URL_1_ Electronic is a catch-all term for all music that uses electronic instruments. "Electronica" is not a genre. It is a marketing buzzword from the 90s when electronic music became more mainstream. You can find more information here: _URL_0_ |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why are so many universities selective with admissions if more students means more revenue?"
] | Imagine you have a movie theater that seats 200 people. There's a popular movie coming out. Would you sell 800 tickets to the show? I mean, that'e more revenue, right? Well, yeah, but you can't handle that many people. So, capacity and infrastructure are part of it. Another part is that limiting the number of students helps them maintain the cachet as an in-demand school. You can be pickier, take the most promising students, and keep a reputation for being a quality institution. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"If residential solar is such a good investment, how come 95% percent of homes don't have it yet?"
] | Probably because it takes 10 - 20 years until you have your costs cut and start to make profits since solar panels aren't cheap at all. Here in germany the goverment was support solar panel companies but have since cut those supports. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do so many airline pilots have alcohol problems?"
] | Poor pay, irregular hours, spending time away from family, stressful environment and lack of rest to name a few. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why did some animals become mainstream pets?"
] | They were the easiest to tame and domesticate. Also, some had actual uses beyond "companion". |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why is it so incredibly difficult to hold in a bowel movement?"
] | The anus is an involuntary scphincter. When you try to hold in your poops you are controlling muscles around the anus but not the anus itself. Once there is enough internal pressure the anus will relax and there is nothing you can do about it. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why (or how) do certain mobile apps and programs make phones heat up and drain battery so quickly? And how does fixing a certain string of code fix that?"
] | Most of the time, most parts of your phone aren't being used, or aren't being used fully. - The GPS chip is switched off when you're not using location services - The cellular data chip goes into a lower power mode when you're not sending/receiving data - Even the processor isn't used very much when the app is just waiting for user input, and can be slowed down However, all of these rely on the app telling the operating system (correctly, of course) what services they're using, and when they've finished with them. So a bug can result in the operating system leaving some hardware switched on, or in a higher power mode, even when it's not needed, because the app hasn't told the operating system it's not using that piece of hardware any more. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How does ADHD affect the brain?"
] | You know the story of the ant and the grasshopper? The ant works hard, plans for the future, prepares and stores food for winter. Grasshopper fucks around all summer, procrastinates, does whatever he wants and when winter comes he's caught off guard and underprepared. Well, in the brain of an ADHD person, the ant is having a nap and the grasshopper is running the show. They have difficulty with executive function (future planning, seeing how decisions will impact them later, foreseeing consequences, benefits of delayed gratification and things of this nature.) Basically the part of the brain that tells you "that's a bad idea" or "you shouldn't do that" or "you should be doing..." is under active. This is why stimulants are used to treat ADHD. They give the ant part of the brain a jolt and help him rein in the grasshopper. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why are almonds cheaper in milk form?"
] | > Doesn't it take way more almonds to make a half gallon of milk then 6oz of raw almonds? Not "way more", no. Depending on the recipe, I've seen something like 6oz - 8oz of almonds for half a gallon of almond milk. And keep in mind that you don't need almonds in great condition. If you're buying almonds to eat, you probably want them to be whole and unbroken, and that's going to command a slightly higher price. But for almond milk, the appearance doesn't matter, since they're going to be ground up anyway. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"When I pee, am I peeing out the water I drank recently, or the water I drank yesterday to make room for the new water?"
] | When you drink water, it eventually becomes part of your blood. Your kidney regulates your blood pressure by drawing out water from the blood, which gets excreted as urine. So it's not really possible to differentiate water you drank now from water you drank earlier or even water your body produced. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Human babies are a luxury?"
] | Our large brains mean we have to be expelled from the body before we grow too large to fit through the birth canal, so as a result we have to do a lot of our growing outside the body. Our brains are also the reason why we have and can use weapons to prevent being eaten by a lion. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Seeing all of these Harambe & Deez Nuts votes in the presidental elections, What would happen if one of them actually got the majority of the votes?"
] | If the person behind the name *was* eligible, then he or she could get the job. In the last election in the UK, Lord Buckethead stood against Prime Minister Theresa May in her constituency: if he had one, she would have lost the PM job (since the PM has to be a MP), and he would have become an MP. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How can movies shot in the 1980s and 1990s be released on HD platforms such as Bluray?"
] | Yes, the original 35 mm film had much higher resolution than Blu-ray. Remember, they were meant to be shown on a huge cinema size screen... if you put up a Blu-ray movie on a 20 meter wide screen it wouldn't look nice. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Before electronic currency, how did central banks, e.g the Fed, pay for the production of legal tender (bills/coins)?"
] | Electronic bookkeeping was not the first time balances were written down rather than represented with physical objects. Did you think that when I deposited $50 in a bank in 1950, that exact $50 bill was kept in the vault until I asked for it back? No, they took the bill, added it to their stash, and added 50 to the number next to my name. Did you think that, to give my son money for college in 1970, I would have to literally drive across the country with $1000 in a suitcase and hand it to the Bursar? You do know that checks predate electronics, right? All the Fed had to do back in the day was take the materials that were to be used to print the money, and pay for them with a debit on their account, and a credit on their supplier's account. Same with the laborers. Tim Berners-Lee did a lot of great things, but he didn't invent writing down numbers. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How do planes land safely on seemingly not safe days?"
] | Airplanes are much heavier than cars, so they slip less. It's the same reason a heavier car won't slide off the highway as easily as a smaller car. Plus, the runways are very long and very straight, so they're designed to have lots of room for stopping (and the engines usually will reverse thrust to slow down the plane anyway; cars don't typically go into reverse suddenly when they are driving along a highway and want to stop! Cars just brake normally, which is why they keep skidding when the wheels stop turning but still slide.) |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"If I go back a couple of hundred generations I would have more direct ancestors than there were people alive on the planet: How is this possible?"
] | Incest \o/ edit: to clarify: At some point multiple of these positions in your tree of origin are occupied by the same person. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do toe nails typically have fungus while fingernails usually don't?"
] | Toenails often are confined in a dark, warm, moist environment — inside your shoes — where fungi can thrive. Toes usually have less blood flow than do fingers, making it harder for your body's immune system to detect and stop infection. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How are tyres attached to wheels?"
] | In car tires, there's a steel wire that's on the edge of the rubber tire. This wire is forced over the lip of the car wheel when mounting the tire. Then tension of the wire combined with friction of the rubber and air pressure seals(mostly) the tire to the wheel. In some off-road wheels, a securing ring of bolts is used called a beadlock. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"why do you always get a distinct feeling/smell/ thing when you get struck in the nose or face?"
] | I don't think the exact cause is known, but shocks to the brain - which could come through a blow to your face - can produce these odd (metallic?) taste sensations. They're common in concussions. Presumably a taste center in the brain is being knocked and playing up. You should get any potential concussion checked out in case there's a serious injury. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"If insects use the moon to navigate at night, how do they navigate when it is a new moon, or any other phase in which the moon is only out for a short time at night?"
] | The main theory is that they just use the moon as a landmark to help them fly in straight lines... But that there are other cues they use to navigate. Apparently this is too short for ELI5... It's like if you were using the morning sun to help you walk in a straight line. Even if the day becomes cloudy, there are other things you can use to try to move straight. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do Americans use 'mom' and not mum also change other words?"
] | For the same reason you don't use Ye Old English like you read in Shakespeare's plays, or even the most obscure English from way before that. Language change, and that's fleek, it's lit, it's groovy, and it's far out, man. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do I sometimes 'hear' my heart beat through my ear when I lay my ear on a pillow?"
] | You are hearing your pulse as it travels through your ear. The pillow blocks out most external sound, and you laying at rest causes you to focus on certain things. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why when I press on my skin it leaves a white spot for a couple of seconds?"
] | You have tiny blood vessels near the surface of your skin (capillaries). When you push on your skin you force blood out of them. When you release it takes a fraction of a second for the blood to return. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do big companies fear their workers unionizing?"
] | Lets say you work for a company and you feel like you deserve a raise. You walk into your boss's office and you say, "Pay me more or I quit". Your boss can let you quit - it is easy to replace a single worker after all. Now, lets say that you get _everyone_ in the company to walk into your boss's office and say, "Pay us more or we quit". Your boss isn't so quick to let that happen - if everyone quits, then the company can't do any of its business. They are going be much more likely to listen to why you all deserve that raise. That is the ultimate benefit of unions - a single worker has virtually no power to ask a company for anything and is easy to deny, but a _group_ of workers has much more value to the company and, as a collective, will be taken much more seriously. Now, naturally, your boss knows all of this and doesn't want you to have this kind of power. They are going to do everything in their power to keep this from happening because unions don't benefit the company, only the worker. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"If electrons and protons are oppositely charged, why aren't they attracted to each other in the nucleus of the atom?"
] | Electron degeneracy pressure and the pauli exclusion principle. The force of this is greater than the electromgnetic force. Two fermions cant occupy the same quantum state, unless gravity overcomes this as in a nuetron star. ELI5 eseentially the force attracting protons and electrons is weaker than one that is keeping them apart. Think of it like an airplane- how can it fly if gravity is attracting it. Well the force of lift is overcoming the force of gravity. No different with electrons and protons. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why does it feel like HD movies are more HD than real life?"
] | Too much detail is shown in post processing. Hence why a lot of nature photography looks much better than real life. Bringing shadows down to nearly black and making anything close to white brighter than the sun adds a lot of depth. This in fact is what the premise of HDR in photography is based on (one under exposed photo for the dark contrasts, one over exposed photo for the light contrasts, and a normal exposure photo combined for a high dynamic range) EDIT: I WAS MISTAKEN, SWAP THE LIGHT & DARK FEATURES. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How do simple traffic stops/calls escalate to deadly force for police officers/offenders so frequently?"
] | The thing is that its not frequent. They dont report the millions of traffic stops that operate smoothly. They find the one or two that escalated and report the crap out of it until people start to believe that cops are killing black people for no reason or drug dealers are gunning down cops on the regular. & nbsp; Situations escalate when either a criminal doesnt want to go to jail and he's armed, or the suspect and officer fail to communicate properly, someone gets scared and someone gets shot. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What is the source of heat for the Earths core?"
] | > What is the source of heat for the Earths core? A small portion is residual heat from the initial collapse of material into the gravity well of Earth, but the majority at this point is from radioactive decay of heavy elements in the core. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why iOS update is 75MB but requires 1.5GB to install?"
] | Because that 75 MB contains 3kb of changes to make to this 1MB file, and 2kb of changes to make to this 2MB file, etc etc. when it installs, it has to load the original file, duplicate it, apply the changes, and then return the file to its original place and delete the original. So why don't they just do this one file at a time, instead of doing them all at once? I am guessing this has to do with safety. If you do it one file at a time and the process gets interrupted, you can end up with a half-applied update and completely bricked phone. OTOH, if you store all the modified files until the last second, there is a much smaller chance of the process being interrupted at a crucial point, and he phone can more easily fall back to its previous functional state. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why does the combination of a fedora/trilby, graphic tee, and shorts make my skin crawl?"
] | You've probably gotten such a negative/weird view of these people from Reddit so when you finally saw one you had a pre-determined opinion. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Muscular tone. Why do muscles get harder? How? Why do they get 'soft' faster than they get hard. What's the difference with muscular mass?"
] | The fibers aren't really getting "tougher" they are getting larger. Muscle fibers are composed of smaller structures called myofilaments (primarily actin and myosin). It is the creation of more myofilaments which causes muscle growth or what we in science call hypertrophy. When you exercise, you damage the protein in the muscle. This sends signals for your body rebuild. If given the right materials, you're body will repair itself and then add a little more...growing larger than before. When you lose what you refer to as muscle tone. It is really just the muscle fibers getting smaller. We call this atrophy. Essentially, you lose what you don't use. This is where the phrase "use it or lose it" holds true. It is much, much more complex than this. However, this is my ELI5 version. If you have any other questions ask away. source: master's student in kinesiology: emphasis in exercise physiology |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How does head lice start?"
] | You'd have to go back to the beginning of humans to find how the first one was formed. Likely a hair brush with hair clogged in it was shared or kids being kids their heads touched together. They don't just magically appear, someone was contaminated. They can transfer from clothing, but that is very uncommon. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"In regards to colleges/universities, how does \"tenure\" protect someone from being fired?"
] | I'm far from an expert, but I believe it's essentially an employment term that acknowledges an advanced academic skill set and offers permanent employment to retain access to those skills even if they're not currently required or aren't meeting any desired output criteria. I think it effectively protects you against being made redundant and adds a lot of red tape, rather than actually making it so that you literally *cannot* be fired. I'm sure if a tenured professor committed some act of gross misconduct or breached their employment terms in some significant way they'd end up just as fired as anyone else, right? |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Will the number of atheists increase as time goes on? How would a society where atheists are the largest group behave?"
] | > How would a society where atheists are the largest group behave? Like Norway. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"how do you make a Haiku?"
] | A Haiku is a poem written in a 3 line format. It doesn't need to rhyme, or have rhythm or anything like that. It literally only needs to follow the pattern of syllables per line 5 7 5. This is a haiku. This line has more syllables. Than the first and last. ...is a Haiku. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"why do some countries (such as the U.K.) drive on the opposite side of the road as the U.S.? When the car was invented, why was no standard created?"
] | Driving on the side of the road was decided way before the invention of the car. If I remember correctly the UK drives on the left because when everybody had swords and road around in horse and carriages they would ride on the left so they could joust with their favoured right hand should they need too. Over time this just became the norm and it stuck. No reason to change it. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"ELI(foreign)5: Why is Boy Scouts of America such a big deal?"
] | The Boy Scouts is like an after-school club that kids can join. A lot of boys are in the Boy Scouts - it's very popular. They do fun things, like learn how to light fires, and tie knots, and navigate. They work on projects which, when they finish them, they get a [badge](_URL_0_), which they can sew to the vest of their Boy Scout uniform. When they get old enough, they can do a very big, difficult project to become an [Eagle Scout](_URL_2_), which can help them get into college easier. Currently, the Boy Scouts are in the news for [denying gays membership](_URL_1_). Edit: Wording. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Morning wood, and if a similar phenomenon occurs in women"
] | There are a few theories about why this happens but scientists aren't exactly sure the cause of morning wood. Women will also get clitoral erections in the morning but they're not as noticeable. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"The USPS suffered a $5.3 billion loss in the most recent quarter of this year, is there a possibility that the Postal Service could go out of business? What happens then?"
] | If the USPS gets in too bad of a financial situation, the US government will have to reabsorb it; there are way too many things the government needs it for to just let it go out of business. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why can't the UN's blue helmets intervene with force when the situation calls for it?"
] | This is actually my debate topic for this month! Technically, they can, it just has to follow the 3 principles of peacekeeping. They must [1] have the consent of the host country (the country where they will have troops on the ground) [2] Impartiality in their dealings (not in execution), to protect the civilians without furthering the conflict and [3] Non-Use of Force Except in Self Defense or Defense of the Mandate, So they can only use force if they are being threatened, the civilians are directly being threatened currently, or the U.N. Security Council authorizes offensive actions (which had only happened in the democratic republic of Congo, but lead to the M23 rebel group being disarmed in 18 months, whereas the peacekeepers had been on the ground for many years before that with out the authorization of offensive action) |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do toddlers like to see their own reflections so much?"
] | "It looks like me, but I'm right here, it moves the same as me too, I must observe the specimen." |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What will happen if a skinny guy lifts lots of weights without eating a ton?"
] | He'll get leaner and stronger, but not much bigger and not as much stronger as he would were he to eat more. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"why is the speed limit set at a speed that most people will surpass by 5-10 mph and not get pulled over? Is there a reason they don't set the limit 5-10 mph faster and actually enforce it strictly?"
] | I think the practice exists because that 5-10 mph helps compensate for normal fluctuations in speed (up/down hills) and precision in instrumentation (worn tires, viewing angle of the speedometer, variations in the radar gun) and the police generally don't want to issue contestable tickets. That's not really a reason why people shouldn't manage their speed to not exceed the limit by building that buffer in to their cruising speed. But since it's ultimately the officers decision if they will issue the ticket, it's technically their decision to grant that buffer. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Tor vs VPN vs Zenmate, and can/should we use all of them at the same time?"
] | Think of the Internet as a mail service... Tor would be like putting your mail in a very strong safe, sending it to a random guy, which takes off the "from" address and replaces it with his own, then securing the rest of the address information (e.g your (figurative) fingerprints) and gives it to another random guy, and so on until it gets sent to the recipient. VPNs, however, would be more like sending your mail to a super-secure mailing system, then arriving at the system's HQ, before sending the information to the recipient. Zenmate is a VPN. Combining both of them is a BAD idea, unless you want to step off legal boundaries... [Source](_URL_0_) |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why is it that during the weekday, I have a hard time waking up at 6am and want to sleep forever, when on weekends, I am naturally up at 6am and ready to start the day?"
] | because it's your own choice to get up on weekends, not a forced one. you can either sleep longer or get up, and you enjoy that possibility of choice, therefore you feel okay with your decision. during the work week, you have no nice choice: either you go to work or you might have problems. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Please tell me the difference between effects and affect? I searched on Google but that isn't helping. Please give examples"
] | A lot of people have told you that effect is a noun and affect is a verb. Unfortunately it's not that simple. Both words can be used as both nouns and verbs. Affect as a noun is pretty rare nowadays, and it's fine in an ELI5 answer to basically ignore it, but effect as a verb is somewhat common. **Effect as a noun:** Asking her for a kiss didn't have the effect I wanted. *An effect is a result* **Affect as a verb:** You affect the bees when you destroy the flowers. *To affect something is to cause an effect on that thing* **Effect as a verb:** The candidate says that he wants to effect change in Washington. *To effect something is to cause that thing to result* **Affect as a noun:** Juliet's affects towards Romeo were generally positive. *An affect towards (or for) something is a feeling brought about by that thing* |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why are we told to ice injuries?"
] | I can't be 100% sure without my resources in front of me, but I believe it is to help reduce blood flow, which would be carrying proteins that stimulate inflammation (a part of healing). Also, overloading nerves with sensations of cold help lower the amount of pain recognised by the brain. That being said, I have heard/read that ice does not penetrate as deep as once thought, and therefore outside of superficial changes, it does little to help reduce inflammation and pain in joints and muscles. *please feel free to correct any of my mistakes! |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"homelessness and Skid Row in LA"
] | Mental illness. Persistently homeless people tend to have mental illnesses and there aren't enough places to treat them, so they end up congregating together on the streets. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do photographs sell for millions of dollars when the photographer could just release a duplicate at any time?"
] | When artists sell pieces for this much, part of the sale includes a guarantee about how many copies of the work they will reproduce. If the artist were to go on and make more, presumably the first purchaser could take the artist to court and null the sale, forcing them to return the money. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why is the range from boiling to \"absolute hot\" much, much longer than the range from freezing to absolute cold?"
] | The real question you should be asking is, "why do temperatures that we as humans frequently interact with (such as those from the freezing to boiling point of water) fall so much closer to the low end of observable temperatures in the universe?". The answer to this question is that, in order for solid matter to exist, the system can't be too hot. As more heat is added to a system the molecules gain more kinetic energy and intermolecular bonds break, which doesn't allow for solid matter to exist. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"the value of USD vs the euro. If the dollar is worth more than the euro, does that mean I have more money if I go over to Europe?"
] | I have lived all over the world while still getting paid in dollars so I think I can answer this. In short yes, if you convert your dollars to the local currency you will have more than you would in dollars. The longer answer is that even if you have more Euro doesn't mean that you could buy the same amount of stuff as you could with the relatively smaller amount of dollars. There is something called purchasing power parity, and it is used to describe the "worth" of a currency in what can be bought with it. There is something called the "big mac index" and it basically illustrates how many hours you would have to work in a day to purchase a big mac. So if I have 3 dollars, got to Europe and exchange that for 5 euro. but a big mac is 3 dollars in the US and 5 Euro in Germany, then my 3 dollars are "worth" the same as the 5 euros. This is a massive oversimplification but this is ELI5 and I think it illustrates the point fairly well, if not at exactly a 5 year old level. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"how do trees know when to grow leaves?"
] | Generally it has to do with the change in daylight, not with the change in temperature...although that may have some small effect in some species. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Suicide Squad movie. Is is some kind of alternate universe? Who are they?"
] | The suicide squad are a group of villains who have been held by the government an are given the option to fight for there country. They mainly do it so they can get reduced prison time or to get some freedom. The reason there called the suicide squad is because the missions are suicide missions a lot of the time and they have bombs implanted in there body incase they try to escape. Hope that helps. I don't read the comics so that's what I know |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why does Zalgo text seem to display everywhere regardless of localization?"
] | Zalgo text takes advantage of tricks built into unicode. Unicode is a standard for how text in all the world's major languages should be handled. It includes support not just for the latin alphabet but quite a few writing systems, including ones where text goes in other directions than left-to-right. On modern computers and technology, supporting unicode is pretty much required if you want your device to be usable globally. Unicode has some characters built into it that aren't "real" letters, but indicate "this next symbol goes above/below the previous one" or "this next stretch of text is vertical, not horizontal." It's intended for languages where that happens... but if you cram a bunch of those characters together you can get weird effects like the zalgo text. Because unicode just changes how characters are arranged, it can't really be used for glitches or code exploits, so nobody loses sleep over "if I try really hard I can make this messaging app look weird." |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do some people get dizzy/feel uneasy while reading or using an electronic device while in a car"
] | My LI5 explanation - You work out where you are and how you are moving from both your eyes, and the motion detection organs in your ears. When you are in a car, your eyes see the device in front of you, and it does not appear to be moving. But your ears pick up all the movement of the car. So your eyes are saying 'You are still', your ears are telling you 'You are moving,', and your brain looks at your eyes, and looks at your ears, and says, "You're sick!". And so you are. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why has Botswana done so well compared to the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa?"
] | Tiny country with giant diamond reserves and made a deal with DeBeers early on where Botswana gets 70% of the money and DeBeers runs the diamond mines for them. A lot of African countries kicked all the whites out after independence and that hurt their economies. That wasn't likely to happen in Botswana as their first leader was married to a white woman. The Tswana tribe that dominates the country is known for having their act together. Most Tswana live in South Africa and their Homelands were the most successful ones during Apartheid. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What happens when the breath gets knocked out of you?"
] | This happens when you are punched in the center of your belly, around the navel area. Two things happen: 1: Your diaphragm gets forcibly compressed (assuming you don't have absurdly powerful abs to protect it from the impact), forcing air out of your lungs. The diaphragm is a large muscle in your belly used to breathe, so striking it forces air out of the lungs, such as in the Heimlich maneuver. 2: You are also being struck in what's called your solar plexus, a large collection of nerves centered in your belly. The shock causes a tremor of energy to pass through your entire nervous system. Similar to taking a blow to the spine (such as falling on your ass and hitting your coccyx - your tailbone), this causes a short period of minor paralysis as your nervous system is temporarily overloaded, causing you to not be able to breathe in again to replace the breathe that was forced out when your diaphragm was struck. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why does your throat hurt when you chug down carbonated drinks repetitively?"
] | Our bodies have sensory receptors that allow us to feel and respond to things like pressure, changes in temperature, light, and pain. "Nociceptor" is the specific type of sensory receptor that allows us to experience pain. Carbonated drinks have a high content of carbon dioxide (CO2) that our body isn't used to. Nociceptors perceive that CO2 as an excess of stimuli (just like how thermoreceptors in your body react to excess heat, when you burn yourself on the stove), and transmit the feeling as pain to your brain. (I learned this from my Human Anatomy and Physiology textbook by Elaine Marieb and Katja Hoehn). This article might help: _URL_0_ |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How is Grand Theft Auto allowed to use cars that are almost exactly like real cars?"
] | because they aren't selling cars. There is nothing proprietary about an image of a car. Just the car itself and the name. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How do we know the visible universe is 4% and not more or less?"
] | The visible universe and the observable universe are two different things. The thing that is 4% is the collective mass of things in the observable universe comprised of ordinary (visible) matter. The other 96% is dark matter and dark energy, which are invisible but whose presence can be roughly detected via gravitational effects. From these gravitational effects, we have determined roughly how much dark matter and dark energy there are in the observable universe, and there's a lot. Specifically, dark matter impacts rotational velocities of galaxies, and dark matter impacts the rate of expansion of space. Measuring those allowed us to learn how much there is. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why does music trigger vivid memories?"
] | The hippocampus and the frontal cortex are two large ares in the brain associated with memory and the take in a great deal of imformation every minute. Retrieving it is not always easy. It doesn't simply come when you ask it to. Music helps because it provides a rhythm and rhyme and sometimes alliteration which helps to unlock that information with cues. It is the structure of the song that helps us to remember it, as well as the melody and the image the words provoke. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What is the purpose of the \"rough\" pavement outside of grocery stores?"
] | I know that this type of thing is used in other places (like on a subway, they have rough paving like that so it can be felt) as a way of warning blind people that they are near a street or something else dangerous. I'm not sure if that is the purpose at grocery stores, though. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do some people have permanent small red veins in their eyes?"
] | > I'm assuming that that's normal. How is this called and what's this all about? Yes, they are normal. Our eyes are flesh and need blood, they are called "blood vessels" or "capillaries" and they get the blood to keep our cells alive to and from where it needs to be. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What does \"senpai\" mean and what does it mean for Anime fans?"
] | Senpai roughly translates to "upperclassman." Basically, a senpai is an older student, possibly a mentor, and a "kohai" would be the yonger student, or mentee. The senpai is expected to guide the younger student, while the kohai is expected to do menial tasks for the senpai. It's sort of like a traditional English boarding school hirearchy. The m/n thing I think is just a translation issue. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"why do we picture the earth as the northern hemisphere facing upwards rather than downwards?"
] | Generally, the most powerful nations in the world have been in the northern hemisphere. They made the maps so they put themselves at the top. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How come alcoholism is considered a disease but being addicted to smokes or other substances isn't?"
] | Technically they are diseases... But if you're talking about public perception, it's probably because of how much it affects the person - a chronic smoker can still go about their day-to-day life with fairly little impact. They may take an extra break here and there, and spend lots of cash on cigarettes, but other than that they're fairly normal. Nicotine gives you a buzz, but it doesn't completely shut you down... But a chronic drunk? They can't go about their normal day to day life while drunk off their ass, so it has a more immediate impact on them. If they're always drinking, they're likely to lose their job, and from there things spiral downwards. Yes, there are functioning drunks, but even those are still noticeable if you actually interact with them. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"If cats are lactose-intolerant, how did we come to the belief that giving cats milk = good? Or asked differently; how is it that cats (seemingly) enjoy - to the level of demanding it - milk?"
] | I work at a local pet food store and the best thing for cats is unpasteurized goats milk. It does have lactose in it, but also lactase, which breaks down lactose. Here is a link for more information: _URL_0_ |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How would the internet work on an interstellar scale?"
] | That is correct. No information can travel faster than the speed of light, and so any "universal internet" would only update that fast. In other news, aliens on the planet Kepler 9b just updated space-Reddit to find that Jesus has just been crucified. Edit: Due to the amount of people responding to this with "quantum entanglement", let me just remind you that, as far as we can tell, quantum entanglement does not allow for communication of information. Please see "No-Communication Theorem" for more information. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Apple has deep pockets and is shoving huge amounts of money to artists to make music temporarily exclusive to their service.Smaller Services like Spotify, who don't have a trillion dollars to throw at people can't do this. Is this Anti-Competitive?"
] | It is certainly an attempt to beat the competition. But since they are only booking a small percentage of the available musicians, it is not making it hard for the competition to do business. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why does a propane fire have that last \"blow\" when the gas supply is turned off?"
] | The proper ratio of air and propane causes it to burn nicely, like when you are cooking on your bbq. But when close off the gas supply you decrease the propane to air ratio and it makes a less stable. This causes a more volatile ratio of the two gasses and it explodes. Research stoichiometric ratios and upper and lower explosive limits. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do microwaves make my fish sticks mushy?"
] | Microwaves heat food mostly by exciting the water molecules in it. Water can only be heated to 100C before it becomes water vapor. So, microwaves generally don't heat your food beyond that temperature. But, ovens get much hotter and so can really create a crisp texture by evaporating the water out of the food. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Ok, so im still confused about stocks. Explain Li5"
] | You buy a stock at $5 and then a year later when the company is doing better, the price of the stock increases to $8 and then you sell it! so you make $3! |
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