r/explainlikeimfive • • 19h ago

Technology Eli5 how do hardware issues affect software

2 Upvotes

I understand how hardware determines limits on what software can run, but how can it also affect software security?


r/explainlikeimfive • • 4h ago

Biology ELI5: Why with all our great advances in technology, material science etc. are breasts implants still so obviously not of the same feeling, weight, movement as natural breasts?

109 Upvotes

It baffles me how we can create so many synthetic replacements that are indistinguishable from the real thing e.g synthetic oil, synthetic leather yet we can't do the same with breast implants.


r/explainlikeimfive • • 10h ago

Planetary Science Eli5 how a celestial's body's moon can provide a measurement of both objects’ total mass?

3 Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive • • 4h ago

Other ELI5: How does daylight saving time actually work?

0 Upvotes

I've never really understood how daylight saving works. I know that in some countries, people move their clocks forward or backward by an hour at certain times of the year, but I don't understand what that actually achieves.

Like, I get that it changes what time the clock shows, but how does that help people make better use of daylight? The sun still rises and sets when it does, right? So what exactly changes, and why do countries do this instead of just keeping the same time throughout the year?


r/explainlikeimfive • • 5h ago

Other ELI5: How do influencers use bots in their posts, what are bots?

0 Upvotes

I don't really understand what they call bots

Are they robots or are they people?

And how do you notice that they are bots?


r/explainlikeimfive • • 17h ago

Biology ELI5 does water diffuse through a cell membrane only by passing through aquaporins?

2 Upvotes

Studying osmosis stuff for an exam, I thought water was able to slip through gaps in cell membranes, but a quiz question my professor posted said to cross the cell membrane water must pass through aquaporins.


r/explainlikeimfive • • 17h ago

Economics ELI5: Why do stock prices sometimes drop when a company announces record profits?

24 Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive • • 16m ago

Other ELI5 what living in the present moment/being mindful actually looks like in day to day life

• Upvotes

​

Apologies for the extremely long post. I am in a very helpless situation, my whole life is ruined and all of it can be traced down to me not being present moment as a solution. And idk how to shorten this any further, i would really appreciate it if someone can take the time to read it and answer all my questions.

Negative thoughts are easy to recognise and drop/let them pass by. but

I would like to know about the "neutral"seeming thoughts that occupy my brain all day. I could give a few examples. I was doing dishes, but I was thinking about a park that I might want to go to that day, what I would find there, why I should or shouldn't go, whom I should go with, etc. and my mind wasn't paying attention to anything in the kitchen while doing those dishes.

I was showering, and all I was thinking about was how to get "meditation" right, what kind of questions I should post to get the answers I am looking for, and analyzing what I had already read so far about it. but the whole shower went by as a blur. I didn't pay any mind to anything on my body or in the washroom. If I accidentally get cut somewhere without knowing, I wouldn't know for many, many days.

In this way, I keep replaying old conversations with people and re-experiencing those emotions, planning every future conversation, etc,etc. And I never, ever pay attention to what's actually in front of me in real life.

I could go from point A to point B and return. My roommate would ask if I had noticed whether the vegetable stall..which was on the way...was open today. Now, it's a standalone shop and somewhat isolated, so it's actually quite prominent to the eye. But no, I wouldn't have noticed it even while passing right by it because I was thinking about something in my head. Even if I actively try to pay attention to what's in real life by telling myself to focus on the real world, the thoughts stop flowing for 10 to 15 seconds, but I just don't "take in" the information. It's like listening to a foreign language that I don't know, but with images. I look at things, I look at that vegetable stall....but I won't "take in" the information about it. It's as if the information stopped right outside of me and never entered my brain... so this experience feels pretty terrible. It's like looking at a room filled with letters from a foreign language everywhere, just slightly prettier than what that sounds.

So, how to approach this? Am i getting this whole "being in the present" right.

To be honest, I don't know what to focus on in real life. There are so many things at once in my field of vision. Everything is mundane because I see it every day. Some things are displaced from their usual position, but that displacement doesn't really register in my brain unless it's drastic. So, I pretty much have nothing that catches my eye most of the time, and I end up overwhelmed by everything, not knowing what to focus on,so I just don't focus on (or absorb information from) anything.

what runs through your brain as someone who lives in the present while doing mundane, regular tasks that don't require active thinking? Like brushing your teeth or walking from your room to the kitchen...what do you observe? What makes you observe that specific thing? Is it a thought that prompts you to check whether the vegetable stall is open or not when you are near it? Like, what makes you remember to take in that information?

When doing a task you have already done a few times, or a few thousand times, what exactly do you feel present about in that moment? You might have brushed your teeth thousands of times before.......do you still focus on how the bristles are moving every time and how much pressure they are exerting? What exactly does being present look like during an activity you have grown used to? On a path you have already walked more than 100 times, what do you observe?

I could watch a pretty bird on the way to the grocery store and it just doesn't register in my brain most of the time that I did. so i wouldn't double down on it and observe it any further. but i wanna get there. i want my brain to catch things and focus on them instead of looking at it like a foreign language.

Also, I deal with severe sleep issues: anything can wake me up, and I can't fall back asleep. Every time I have meditated more on my tactile or auditory senses for a while, those senses became heightened, and I found it even more difficult to fall asleep. So, I wouldn't want to focus much on those. I want to stick to vision. At any given moment, there are a limited number of smells you can smell, tastes you can taste, things you can touch, temperatures, etc.; but there are hundreds, if not thousands, of things to focus on visually. How do you know which one to choose? How do you train your mind to actually pick something valuable instead of picking nothing at all? I am very spacey in real life, and nothing I see registers in my brain. I would really like some advice on this specifically.


r/explainlikeimfive • • 8h ago

Technology ELI5: How customizable can content recommendation algorithms be?

0 Upvotes

What determines how much control users can have over their recommendations? Are there technical limitations to how customizable these algorithms can be?

For example, on YouTube, I’ll sometimes go down a rabbit hole and suddenly get flooded with videos on that topic. That makes sense and then using “Not interested” helps, but my overall recommendations eventually start feeling stale and repetitive. Then I’ll switch to an older account and find all kinds of interesting videos about things I’d forgotten I was interested in.

It makes me wonder how much more control users could technically have beyond simply asking for more or less of something. Could we adjust things like variety, randomness, older interests or how much recent activity influences recommendations?

Or is the underlying technology too complex for that level of customization?


r/explainlikeimfive • • 8h ago

Biology ELI5: phantom kicks after pregnancy

35 Upvotes

What are phantom kicks after pregnancy caused by? For me, it’s been years since I was pregnant and I still get phantom kicks. I can sometimes see them and feel them from the outside too?? It’s been happening consistently since delivery so I’m really curious.


r/explainlikeimfive • • 19h ago

Biology ELI5: Why do humans have birthmarks?

73 Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive • • 15h ago

Other ELI5: What does it mean to play advantage in rugby union?

33 Upvotes

I’m relatively new to playing rugby and learning a lot. One thing I have not wrapped my head around yet at all is playing advantage. Whether it’s called in one of my club matches or watching the pros play, I am not grasping the concept yet. What does it mean? When is it granted? When is it deemed over?

TIA!


r/explainlikeimfive • • 10h ago

Other ELI5: What is a freemason and how is it different from a fraternity?

226 Upvotes

Someone told me their partner is a freemason and belong to a lodge. Looking it up, it sounds very similar to a fraternity but got confused after reading about strange rituals, terminology and titles, and got an overall very secretive and elitist vibe. What is a freemason and why would someone want to be one?


r/explainlikeimfive • • 26m ago

Technology ELI5: How are MCP and APIs different from each other?

• Upvotes

i work in marketing and im writing landing page content for a product that has an api and mcp, so i want to understand the basics without the jargon

i searched here before posting and read a post about a similar question. i get roughly what an api is, but the explanations of mcp in the comments were too technical for me. could someone explain what mcp does and how its different from an api, in plain terms? also, where do tools like n8n and make fit in


r/explainlikeimfive • • 17h ago

Technology ELI5: Exponential Time Hypothesis (ETH)

104 Upvotes

Hopefully this is properly flaired. People have been talking about ETH and AI lately and I don't understand what ETH really is.

Bonus for ELI5: How did AI supposedly disprove ETH—But I'm mostly interested in knowing what ETH is on its own.


r/explainlikeimfive • • 14h ago

Other ELI5 airline finances.

133 Upvotes

Why does it feel like airlines have a really difficult time being consistently profitable. With JetBlues financial issues and it feels like almost every other major airline has either filed chapter 11 or merged etc at some point. With all of the analytics, constant ticket prices changes I feel like they should be better at making a profit.


r/explainlikeimfive • • 16h ago

Biology ELI5: If muscle is so essential to human health and longevity, why is it so difficult to gain and maintain?

1.6k Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive • • 20h ago

Technology ELI5: If a fiber optic cable or something of the sort gets damaged underground, how do people know where along the line its broken and how do they fix it?

514 Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive • • 13h ago

Other ELI5: What is the difference between a Sherrif department and a Police department.

615 Upvotes

So basically the title, I live in Belgium and its a foreign concept to me, but I keep getting confronted with these terms when I consume American media. As a kid when I thought of Sherrif I thought about Cowboys. As Im older I know that not how that works.


r/explainlikeimfive • • 10m ago

Biology ELI5 Why do we not lose weight when our bodies are forced to exercise?

• Upvotes

Hello everyone. Why do we not have exercise machines which ‘force’ our bodies to exercise and therefore lose weight? For example, an exercise bicycle where the pedals are electronically turned moving the legs for you. Surely we are burning ATP and associated stores by the muscles moving? Thanks!


r/explainlikeimfive • • 19h ago

Biology ELI5: How do some insects reproduce incestually for multiple generations without complete genetic degradation?

603 Upvotes

As an example, a cockroach might lay an egg somewhere that hatches hundreds of cockroaches which are all siblings, but then dozens of those siblings will mate with each other, and then their children will mate with each other, and some with their aunts/uncles potentially, and this will just go on and on with seemingly no issues. How is this possible?