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22z7oa
|
why do people think video games are bad for you?
|
I would like to know, why is it that a lot of people still seem to think that playing video games are bad for you? I know a lot of people will claim or say a lot of negative things about video games and how they are bad. But none makes those same claims about movies. If someone were to make a claim that movies are bad for people a lot of people will think he is ridiculous. But why is it the same with video games?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22z7oa/eli5_why_do_people_think_video_games_are_bad_for/
|
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"The people that oppose video games are the same that oppose films. \n\nI suppose in a game you are given the option to morally choose to do bad things as opposed to in films where you are watching someone else do bad things.\n\nAs someone who loves games. I do see them as having an overall massive and negative impact on society. Because many kids miss out on life while being plugged in. I fully recognize we live in a hyper evolving world where electrionic media is a core skill and at the forefront of our lives.\n\nI played video games growing up. Probably more than I should have.\n\nIn the end, I now work for a AAA video game studio making the games that frequent /r/gaming.\n\nBut my most fond childhood memories are not of super bouncing to the top of the zanzibar wheel and head shoting noobs. It's definitely not about how many balloons my kart had left or whether or not that green shell was mine from 1m ago.\n\nIt was of some hikes I wen't on with family or friends. Getting my first Beege at 14 and letting my xbox collect dust for like 2 years where I tried to reach a new kind of high score.\n\nThe problem as far as I'm concerned is a generation of screen addicts who blister in the sun. Go be a fucking kid, ride your bike over something you really shouldn't. Hang out at the beech and shit. Live life. Because no mater how great games are, they just don't hold a flame what's on the other side of your door.\n\nThere is plenty of time for both. I'm 25 and I'm probably gonna play some diablo after i stop writing this. I never grew up, but I did at least live in both worlds.",
"People want to blame something else rather than blaming themselves... Sure thats a very simplistic answer but its also true. People blamed tv before, they blamed music, and they even blamed books. They will blame something besides video games when we come up with something newer than video games."
]
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[] |
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5ytvop
|
why do pigeons' necks shine?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ytvop/eli5_why_do_pigeons_necks_shine/
|
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"Bird feathers are made of protein, and the shiny feathers have a very special structure. The protein arranges itself into very thin layers that act like tiny mirrors, reflecting light. The color of light that gets reflected out depends on how far apart these tiny protein mirrors are. Light with a wavelength that matches the mirror spacing gets reflected, while other wavelengths (colors) do not."
]
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1pp8sg
|
how do japanese keyboards work? i mean, if they have a symbol for every word as opposed to letters that make up words, doesn't that make a keyboard very difficult?
|
In addition to this, how do they have books? I mean, obviously it's not going to be difficult for them to have books, but does that mean their books are much smaller than ours? A book of 100,000 words means they don't have, say, 500,000 little squiggles - doesn't it mean they have around 100,000?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pp8sg/eli5_how_do_japanese_keyboards_work_i_mean_if/
|
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"text": [
"japanese language is a mix of an alphabet system (hiragana and katakana) and a idiogram (kanji) system. some words are written in idiogram, others in alphabet. all the words that are written in idiogram can be written in alphabet.\n\nwhen u type, u type in the alphabet system. software converts to kanji when appropriate. kind of how you can type :) into a chat program and it converts it to a yellow smiley face, even though a yellow smiley face isn't on your keyboard.",
"[Try looking at this older post about the pinyin system.] (_URL_0_)",
"There are two 'alphabets' in japanese - Hiragana, which is used in normal speech and make up the 'Kanji' or those symbols you reference, and Katakana, which is usually used for non-Japanese words (e.g. romanized words).\n\nThe japanese keyboards I've seen have both Hiragana and Katakana on the keyboard - at a keypress it swaps between them.\n\nIf you just type out the Hiragana based on the sounds, (at least with Windows) the software automatically assembles the proper Kanji for it, and you can go through a list of kanji if the wrong one is selected.\n\nYou can do this even without a japanese keyboard: e.g. if I have Japanese IMEI keyboard selected in Windows, and I type 'Watashi' the software picks that up, breaks it into 'Wa Ta Shi' and replaces them with the proper hiragana, and then finds the proper Kanji for it if it exists.\n\nChinese uses a similar format if I'm not mistaken.\n\nAs far as writing, it is not 1-to-1 as far as an english sentence to Japanese.\n\n'My Name is lumpy' in japanese is 'Watashi no namae wa Lumpy' (my japanese is horribly rusty) - in Kanji, 'watashi' and namae become kanji letters, 'no' and 'wa' become hiragana, 'lumpy' is spelled in katakana - this will look longer on paper, like so: 私の名前わルムピ\n\nThat is really simple - Japanese also has various tenses and grammar structures for various degrees of politeness that can make something as simple as 'My name is XYZ' into something more complicated.\n\nSo for a book of 100,000 English words, there may very well be 500,000 characters in Japanese, between Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana, in order to provide the same level of 'feeling,' if that makes sense.\n\n",
"The Japanese Hiragana and Katakana alphabets work like a mathematic multiplication table. Vowels on the X axis, and consonants on the Y.\n\nThis gives you stuff like\n\na e u i o\n\nka ke ku ki ko\n\nma me mu mi mo\n\nra re ru ri ro\n\n\netc...\n\nType this on a keyboard is as simple as typing those letters above. If I had my keyboard switched to Japanese, I would type it exactly as I did just above.\n\nNow, to get the special Kanji characters, just imagine a much more elaborate autocorrect. When you finish a word, the computer offers your a short list of what it thinks you are trying to use. Typically the more common words are on top.",
"To answer your second question: there isn't a single symbol for every word in Japanese-- many words are written with multiple characters. \n\nEven so, you are correct that a sentence written in Japanese characters often uses fewer 'squiggles' and therefore takes up less space on a page than its equivalent in the Roman alphabet or English; this means that Japanese books can be made to be smaller. \n\nA popular format in which to publish novels in Japan is the bunkobon, which is smaller and thinner than a standard English language paperback, and designed to be portable. Here is a photo for comparison: _URL_0_\n\nMany books are published in larger sizes (as in, the same size as our books), and when this happens the book can be made to be thicker by using a larger typeface, increasing the space between lines, etc. This is similar to how different book sizes work in English speaking countries-- the same book is usually bigger and/or thicker in its hardback edition than its paperback, despite containing all the same words."
]
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"http://imgur.com/VCElZ7k"
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|
1ydo3y
|
my parents filed for bankruptcy,what does the entail, and how does it effect me as a college student relying on them for finacial assistance?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ydo3y/eli5_my_parents_filed_for_bankruptcywhat_does_the/
|
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"Personal bankruptcy commonly has 2 methods: Chapter 7, and Chapter 13.\n\nChapter 7 is what you call a \"liquidation\" bankruptcy -- basically, everything that they can't immediately pay off or exempt is sold, and that money is handed out to the people they owe money to. Exemptions cover a lot of things, like most personal property, cars, homes, etc. Unless there's someone who owns a lien against these (and a lien is basically a right to take the item if you fail to repay a loan) then you keep them. If there's a lien, they're given the option to take possession of the item. Anyway, once the bankruptcy estate (that is, all your non-exempt assets) has been liquidated (sold and the money distributed), your debts are discharged -- even if the liquidation only paid $100 out of a $10,000 loan, the creditor can no longer attempt to collect it from you.\n\nChapter 13 is a \"reorganization\" bankruptcy. You put together a plan based on your current income, and basically pay every penny of disposable income towards the Chapter 13 plan for several years. That money is distributed to your creditors. At the end of the plan, any debts that haven't been fully repaid are discharged. Chapter 13 is better for some people because you can \"redeem\" items that have liens -- that is, pay them off 100% or bring them current in the plan, and keep the item.\n\nThere's a lot of other stuff, but that's the absolute bare-bones basics. Now, as to relying on them for financial assistance, I've got no idea. They'll likely not be able to get a PLUS loan with their poor credit, though.",
"You may now be eligible for Pell Grants."
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32tm4q
|
if the triangle is supposed to be the strongest shape, then why isn't the triangle screw/screwdriver the most commonly used?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32tm4q/eli5if_the_triangle_is_supposed_to_be_the/
|
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"Has been tried but didnt catch on. Torx is better since its five triangles combined. Next to Ikea head.",
"The triangle isn't the strongest shape, the circle is.\n\nWhat's true for the triangle is that once you've decided the lengths of the three sides, the angles are also fixed. This isn't true for a square or other polygons, you can stretch a square by making one pair of opposite angles wider and the other pair narrower. (Bring back Erector Sets!)\n\nNeither of these properties for the circle or triangle help with regard to screw heads. "
]
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32qn79
|
if companies like market america are widely known to be pyramid schemes, why do so many people still "work" for them?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32qn79/eli5_if_companies_like_market_america_are_widely/
|
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"A lot of people I know in that shit are\n-recently unemployed\n-recent grads who are unemployed\n\nThey promise you easy money, you come in, you don't make the money they tell you you need ambition and put in work and every goddamn college students thinks they're super ambitious and hard working because they aced that one final.",
"Because most people like to believe they're special. They think the reason other people fail isn't because they're set up to fail, it's because they aren't motivated, or hardworking, or whatever. It's like people who go to Las Vegas with a \"system.\" \n\nAlso, not everyone in a pyramid scheme loses money. Just most people.",
"I don't know Market America, but multi-level marketing methods are often mistaken for pyramid schemes. The difference is that pyramid schemes get money (primarily) from recruiting new members, which is not sustainable. When there's an actual product involved and members get most of their money from directly selling the product, it's likely not a pyramid scheme.",
"Think of all the people you know that are of average intelligence. Now understand that half the population are dumber than them.",
"Companies that sell you a bulk sales product to resell are not TECHNICALLY a pyramid scheme, but they are damn close. A Pyramid, or Franchise Scheme requires the primary source of money for you to be selling franchises or territories. I'm not super familiar with Market America, but a quick look at their [wiki page](_URL_0_) makes me think they sell goods not the right to sell goods.\n\nTo make an example: If I sign you up to join my new company, Dimaryp, and tell you to go recruit people so we can use their initiation fees to pay me and you that's a pyramid scheme. If I tell you that you can be a third party to sell for me these goods but you have to buy a large amount that's not necessarily a pyramid scheme.\n\nThe best way to think about it is if you give money to work. If you pay me, your employer, to get a job that is basically to recruit others to do the same, it's a pyramid scheme. If I pay you, or set you up as a distributor, then it's probably not a pyramid scheme.\n\n**TL:DR**: Jobs pay you to work, Cons work you to pay."
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8uv9sa
|
what is the phenomena where it seems like at the top of a hill while driving, sections of the road have this reflective-like black substance over it, that go away as you get closer, and why does it happen? it literally looks like the road is rendering in late in a video game.
|
Does it have something to do with the horizon, or shadows, or am I just seeing things?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8uv9sa/eli5_what_is_the_phenomena_where_it_seems_like_at/
|
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"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure those are heat waves from the pavement getting hot.",
"They are called a \"mirage\" and they come from the heat from the ground causing the air to expand and become less dense. This changes its index of refraction which bends light passing through it, resulting in the shimmering you see."
]
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31kh7l
|
if i lay in a bathtub full of alcohol will i get drunk? what other effects would happen to my body?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/31kh7l/eli5if_i_lay_in_a_bathtub_full_of_alcohol_will_i/
|
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"Yes, and it is actually pretty dangerous. In 2004 a Taiwanese woman died of alcohol poisoning after soaking herself in a bathtub full of alcohol. Her BAC was a 1.35. \n\n_URL_0_",
"I was wondering the same thing several months ago. There's actually quite a bit of research on this because health care workers may use large amounts of alchohol based hand sanitizers over their shifts. \n\nOne study found that a sanitizer solution containing 55% alcohol, when applied to the hands 20 times for 30 seconds each over the course of 30 minutes (total exposure time 10 minutes) produced blood alcohol levels of 0.007%. \n\nWhile that's less than a tenth of the 0.08% BAC level associated with a DUI, I think it's pretty likely you can get drunk if you sit in a bathtub full of alcohol. You'd be exposed to the alcohol 100% of the time (rather than a 33% of the time), and the alcohol would be contacting a much much larger surface area than the skin of your hands.\n\nSource:\n_URL_1_\n\nFurther reading:\n_URL_0_\n_URL_2_"
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"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2596158/",
"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2334/7/117",
"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1803104/"
]
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||
3suzug
|
regarding gaming consoles, why do xbox consoles always have a large power brick on their cords while playstation consoles just use a simple cord?
|
From what I remember, all 3 Xbox consoles have the giant power brick on their power supply cords, but PS3 and PS4 only need a simple cord that plugs the console to an outlet. Nintendo consoles also have a power brick, but they're much smaller than their Xbox counterparts. Why is there such a discrepancy?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3suzug/eli5regarding_gaming_consoles_why_do_xbox/
|
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"The PSU is integrated in to the PS3/4 wherein Nintendo and Microsoft have theirs externally. That's all there really is to it. It's a design choice. Sony have the upper-hand for designing hardware as this was their primary business venture before the console. Nintendo's system is smaller and therefore the PSU would make it bulkier. ",
"The power brick acts as a power supply that converts AC power into DC power for your console. the only reason that on the Xbox it is in the chord is because they decided not to fit it into the actual case. this is also the reason why laptops have bricks in their cord. "
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1mwx9q
|
what resources has the us gotten from iraq since the war?
|
I always hear that the US went into Iraq to secure oil. The US government blew 4 trillion dollars on the war. There's no way that the war would be a smart economic investment for the US, even if there are 112 billion barrels of oil in the country (estimated). Is it really a valid argument that the US had economic interests in going into Iraq?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mwx9q/eli5_what_resources_has_the_us_gotten_from_iraq/
|
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"The Iraq War was never been meant to be a strict economic investment. Regardless of your feelings about the justification for the invasion of Iraq, part of the Bush Doctrine was that democracy could be spread to other countries. The war was ideological, not economic. \n\nEconomically, any advantages for the U.S. would've (at least hypothetically) come from eliminating external costs: stabilizing the region, adding to global oil production, reducing global terrorism, etc. ",
"It wasn't about securing the physical oil. Oil is traded with US dollars worldwide, and the price of oil is tied to the dollar. Therefore countries borrow dollars to pay for oil and the trades themselves create revenue for the US, whether they're involved in the sale or not. Iraq in 2000 started trading oil in Euro, other countries in the region were going to do the same. After the invasion in 2003, trades reverted back to USD. The invasion of Iraq secured contracts for US firms to sell oil, ensuring all future trades would remain in USDollars.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n\nHope that clears up the misconception you had about the phrase 'War for Oil'. Most people don't know what it means.",
"It has nothing to do with the United States as a country. George Bush was following the agenda of Dick Cheney. Halliburton oil, Boeing Airplanes, and several privatized security/military and tech companies have made literally billions from the war in Iraq. Google the numbers to see which privatized companies have benefited the most from the war in Iraq and that will give you your answer. "
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cazm2h
|
how do you justify space programs? a lot of times i hear people argue that "space mission a coasts x amount of money, while people here on earth are poor and starving". i'm all for space exploration, i just don't know how to argue my point.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cazm2h/eli5_how_do_you_justify_space_programs_a_lot_of/
|
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"It isn't the actual mechanics of exploration that you should focus on. It is the science and the discoveries made during the research to make that mission go.\n\nA quick net search will give you huge numbers of advances that originated from the space program that, today, are helping improve the lives of every human being on the planet. Those inventions have a good probability of never having existed with the space program.",
"Discovery.\n\nBut also one day we have to leave this planet to survive. It won't be here forever. Plus we need to be ready to handle discovery of intelligent life out there, or threats hurling toward us. If we sit and do nothing, it's a pretty big risk.",
"Just do a quick comparison with the militari exchange and realize it's a very little percentage of what the government spend, and it's definetely not the problem. We spend waaaay much more money on gambling for examples. Also, people that argue about poverty and starvation usually have never done a damn thing in their life about those topics, except for complaining, of course.\n\nSorry i don't have any data on me right now,i'm kinda in a hurry, but it should be rather quick to find it online",
"Space programs are extremely cost effective as they often cause brilliant enthusiasts to work far longer hours than they're paid for. \n\nSpecifically with regards to starving, far more people would be starving if we didn't have weather satellites to help predict draughts or satellite navigation to help food find it's way there - not so much in trucks, those have roads to follow, as in ships which *did not know where they were* with anywhere *near* the accuracy provided by GPS before GPS became a thing. \n\nAlso solar panels and teflon frying pans are really quite useful and well worth the $69/year the average American spends on NASA.",
"It’s kind of a strange comparison, since it isn’t like we are shooting all that money into space. Besides the nominal cost of the spacecraft’s raw materials, the vast majority of the money is going to salaries, contractors, labor, etc. The money is creating jobs and being recycled back into the economy.",
"Literally everything to do with satellites. Could you imagine todays world where we didn't use machines bouncing around information in space?\n\nYou wouldn't even have an internet to ask this question. Space programs helped create a world, where there is more information readily available, than one is physically capable of learning in a lifetime. And it's evolving, only getting better. Colonisation of other planets aren't simple pipe dreams of the 80s anymore. It's a real project people are currently working on.",
"We would have gotten nowhere as a species if that’s how we approached these problems. If you look at the enormous size of the global GDP, a space program is *cheap*. Solving all of humanities problems would bankrupt all of us almost immediately. The Earth, as a whole, is almost insolvent (per head). A $trillion for a space program? That’s nothing in the scheme of things. It will cost many, many, many times that to end poverty and starvation. Eventually, we end up with poverty again, but at a higher population level that is ever-more-difficult to feed. Ending starvation and poverty is about using condoms, not mothballing space programs.\n\nPeople that argue differently should quietly do some research into the matter with what I assume is abundant idle time.\n\nEdit: And also there are the scientific advances that came from the space programs."
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2onc85
|
why we still need sim cards?
|
Why couldn't we move to an account/network based system, potentially allowing for an increase in phone "slimness"? Or do those parts not make a large difference to phone size? I would imagine that any part you could take out gives room for potential improvements?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2onc85/eli5_why_we_still_need_sim_cards/
|
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"Because they're required as part of the GSM standard and are a fundamental part of the network architecture in terms of identification, encryption and authentication on the network (in terms of proving to the network that you are a legitimate user, and making sure people can't spoof user IDs to make calls/use data for free on someone else's account).\n\nThat isn't to say new standards in the future couldn't dispense with them, and various vendors are indeed working towards \"virtual SIMs\" to allow them to dispense with a physical SIM, whilst still presenting the functionality of a SIM to the network. In the meantime, vendors have also cut down the physical size of their SIM cards - Apple use nano-SIMs for instance, to make it as easy as possible to squeeze them in without compromising other components of the device.",
"First of all, we don't need SIM cards. GSM networks (most of Europe, and T-Mobile and AT & T in the US) require SIM cards, but CDMA phones (many parts of Asia, and Verizon and Sprint in the US) haven't used SIM cards until very recently. With the CDMA vendors, you had to visit the carrier's stores to switch phones.\n\nPersonally, I prefer SIM cards. With a SIM card, I can decide what phone I'm going to use in a given situation. I can bring a good smartphone to work, then swap the card into an old feature phone when I'm going to be in a bad neighborhood or if I'm doing yard work or other physical work where I might damage my phone.\n\nA few years ago, I ended up utterly destroying my phone in a strange city in the middle of the night. Despite the extensive damage, the SIM card was okay. Because I had a SIM card, I was able to find an open store, buy a prepaid phone from the same carrier, and swap the SIM card into the new phone. No calling the carrier or proving my identity required.\n",
"For portability between networks so as to avoid being locked into a network with CDMA. The SIM card contains a cryptographic processor necessary for registering in a network if the phone isn't hardcoded to a specific one, which is completely ruinous for customer choice.",
"Trust me, you really *want* to have a SIM card in your phone. That is what makes it difficult to impossible for your carrier to demand a ransom every time you change your phone.\n\nSprint, for instance, charges $35 to change a phone, and while it used to be possible to get them to waive that fee, they have been unmovable on it for a few years now.\n",
"Your SIM card is your 'key'. The phone does have a unique MAC, but that's like a frame number. Your SIM is your registration, which identifies that phone as *your* phone, so that only you can control what happens with it (to the extent that you take reasonable security and common sense precautions otherwise). Take out the SIM, it's just another phone, and no one can use it. Move the SIM to another phone, that new phone now becomes *your* phone. You can also store information on the SIM that you don't want to be stored on the phone, so that if you remove the SIM, that information goes with it, instead of staying behind. This is a useful precaution in case a phone becomes inoperable and its functions and memory inaccessible without the right tools that most people don't have (but many criminals do).\n\nThe SIM is in any case only a very small part of the phone's volume and mass. The phone must be big enough for you to hold and operate it, and at this point, removing the SIM won' make any noticeable difference in that respect.\n",
"TLDR; Your proposition is basically the direction the industry is moving. Apple SIM is an example of such a move.\n\n > Why couldn't we move to an account/network based system?\n\nThat's basically what SIMs do. They're also a Carrier and Device independent standard for authentication and authorization, and they're a solution to the historical problem of provisioning a device on a carrier network.\n\nDevice manufacturers don't want to make proprietary devices for every carrier out there, they'd much rather adhere to a standard. That's what GSM SIM Cards are.\n\nCarriers don't want to entrust Device Manufacturers with provisioning devices intended for their networks but at the same time they can't be troubled with figuring out how to provision a myriad of different devices themselves. GSM Sims are a solution to that problem as well because they extract the part of a device that needs provisioning and put it on a card. The cards, being all the same size and shape are much easier to automate provisioning of in a factory setting.\n\nUp until recently, devices weren't powerful or smart enough to provide a simple *and* secure way for Carriers to remotely provision them. That's changed with smartphones and Apple has since introduced the Apple SIM. The GSM Standards body has been working on something similar to Apple SIM since 2010 but being that it's a standard they need to get consensus from all members of their group thus they aren't able to move as fast as Apple has. Fast being a relative term because Apple has been trying to kill SIM since they introduced the iPhone."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1oif1y
|
just saw that n. korea is now a "monarchy". what is the difference between a monarch and dictator?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1oif1y/eli5_just_saw_that_n_korea_is_now_a_monarchy_what/
|
{
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"score": [
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"text": [
"A monarch is a hereditary head of state.\n\nA dictator is someone who rules without democracy, usually with total, or near total, say in how the government is run.\n\nIn this way an Absolute Monarch, one who doesn't have laws constraining how they rule, could be said to be a dictator. \n\n",
"A lot of people will say that 'monarchies are hereditary', but that's just not true at all - there's plenty of monarchies throughout history which were elected positions (such as the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire), and to this day Cambodia arguably such an 'elected monarchy' where the king is chosen by the Royal Council of the Throne, and the title is not at all hereditary.\nI think arguably the key difference is one of class - monarchs are spawned of the power struggles of the upper classes, often backed by a long and established dynasty, while dictators are spawned of the military or the lower classes, and seize power outside of the traditional process, such as through coup d'état. With North Korea I can see the argument that while originally a dictatorship (rise to power of one man from the military, backed by a Stalin-esque cult of personality), the now apparently-hereditary position and budding dynasty combined with a far more powerful 'upper class' of Generals and elites does bear more resemblance to a monarchy.",
"The thing you need explained is that before N. Korea became a Monarchy, they didn't consider themselves a dictatorship! Before Jong-Un changed the Constitution, N. Korea was the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. That is how Kim Il Sung created the country; as a republic (on paper only, of course). \n\nSo the change in their minds was from a Republic to a Monarchy. A monarch can be a dictator or rule under the rubric of a constitution or at the direction of a legislative body. There is a wide spectrum of what a monarchy can be like whereas a dictator could refer to a president who has taken over the other functions of government (legislative and judicial). \n\nIn short, then, a dictator doesn't refer to a specific method of picking the chief executive whereas a monarch refers to an un-elected chief executive. \n\n**TL;DR In N. Korea, they did not believe they were under a dictator; they believe they made the transition from a Republic (the DPRK) to a Monarchy.** ",
"The difference between them in North Korea's case is that they want to be seen as a peace loving nation so that the U.N. and the world community will stay out of it's business. If you didn't know, it's called the \"Democratic People's Republic of Korea\"... and it is neither Democratic or a Republic... Just a bunch of bullshit",
"Thousands of years ago, the main form of government that the world knew was a monarchy. It was the expected way of governing a civilization - you always had a \"king\" of some sort. Egypt had Pharaoh, Greece had kinds, Persia had kings, romans had an emperor (Rome was a bit complicated with a senate, it wasn't really a \"monarchy\" but the people still saw the emperor as king)\n\nThere were exceptions, and details that I am leaving out, but as a general rule, an empire, or a civilization, had a king. This is what we would now call a \"Monarchy\"\n\nA strange trend started happening during the Renaissance period about 500 years ago. Kings and monarchies became extremely unpopular. The case study that is given in most western civilization classes is the French Revolution. There are probably multiple reasons for why this happened, and people do disagree. One reason is probably that people started to learn to read. Before this period of time, most people couldn't read or write - only the rich and elite could. Literacy, along with a printing press meant that people could suddenly have opinions contrary to their King. It meant his actions could be publicly criticized by the common people.\n\nThis trend swept over europe. It led to France beheading their king. Charles I of england was beheaded. It was a bad time to be a king... Unless you were in Russia in which the king managed to remain in power\n\nThen, newer more democratic types of governments emerged. The united states of America was essentially a huge experiment with this type of government. This trend swept over europe as well.\n\nA \"Dictator\" is a term that reflects the massive unpopularity that people still have with a single person ruling over a country with absolute power, and often by force. Today's \"Dictators\" would have simply been \"kings\" at one time in history.\n\nSo that's basically the difference: One has a negative connotation, and the other one not so much. Perhaps dictatorships are often more force driven than monarchies were, but when you try to nail down a single difference, it is difficult to.",
"I love all things North Korea, and find the hermit nation so fascinating. I hate to be the one to do this but do you have a source for their declaration of being a monarchy?",
"well a monarchy is not by default a single ruler. there is quite a few european countries that are still labeled as monarchies (spelling?) yet they have a democratic government.",
"From what I understand in this case, Kim Jong Un did this with the intent of keeping N.Korea under the control of his family only. Since monarchy is run by family rule and passed from father to son, he seems to have some ulterior motive of keeping N.Korea away from any other potential ruler. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1bvjci
|
what's going on when, after drinking some soda, my teeth feel softer?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1bvjci/whats_going_on_when_after_drinking_some_soda_my/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c9ai5gk"
],
"score": [
11
],
"text": [
"There are two things in soda that can make your teeth feel softer: acids and sugar. I suspect it's the acid that you're speaking of.\n\nAcids affects the outermost layer of your tooth, called the enamel, leaving it feeling soft. The enamel is made of calcium, which is a white substance easily dissolved by acids. Regular consumption of acidic food or drinks can cause permanent enamel damage.\n\nThe fluoride in toothpaste helps re-harden softened enamel. (Fun fact: Did you know you're not supposed to rinse your mouth out after brushing your teeth?) But don't brush your teeth immediately after eating! When your enamel is soft, it can literally be scraped away by the toothbrush. Wait 15 minutes or so, until your mouth has gone back to a neutral pH.\n\nSugar can also make your teeth feel soft, but it's a different thing. The feeling of softness is a coating of bacteria that blooms on the sugars you've put in their environment (your mouth). These bacteria eat and poop in your mouth and cause plaque, gingivitis (which is inflammation of your gums) and tooth decay. Yay!\n\nSource: my mom is a dental hygienist. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3uol5s
|
why does it get really windy as soon as i walk through a subway station entrance?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3uol5s/eli5why_does_it_get_really_windy_as_soon_as_i/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cxgj5ip"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Wind is cause by pressure differentials, and temperature is directly related to pressure (higher temperatures mean higher pressures, lower temperatures means lower pressures). The temperature between the outside and inside of a subway station are different, so a pressure differential is created and you get wind.\n\nIf you can pinpoint the direction of the wind, you can tell which area is warmer. Wind always moves from high pressure (high temperature) to low pressure."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
32alp4
|
the difference between one 800mg prescription ibuprofen pill and four 200mg over-the-counter ibuprofen pills
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32alp4/eli5the_difference_between_one_800mg_prescription/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cq9gds3"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"The difference would be how long it takes your body to break them down in your stomach. Four of the smaller pills will break down faster due to more surface area and be absorbed faster into the bloodstream. therefore causing it to be metabolized faster by your body making it not last as long as 1 800 milligram tablets. Chemically the exact same though."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
8zaelo
|
does water need to be at 100 degrees to steam and therefore kill bacteria?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8zaelo/eli5_does_water_need_to_be_at_100_degrees_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e2h7aeg",
"e2h7k26",
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],
"score": [
3,
3,
5
],
"text": [
"Domestic dishwashers do not get hot enough to sterilise baby bottles. Note that when cooking, say, chicken, it is recommended to bring the internal temperature of the meat up to 75°C - few dishwashers will get even that warm.\n\nSteam is an invisible gas: observe how a boiling kettle has a small gap between the spout and the visible 'steam', which is just water vapour condensing in the cooler air. That's all your seeing when you open a hot dishwasher - water vapour.\n\nTLDR: use a dedicated steriliser for your baby's bottles.",
"Steam is always above 100°C. But steam is also invisible, and if you can see it, it has condensed back to water droplets, and it isn't steam and is below 100°C. Water also evaporates at lower temperatures, as more energetic molecules break free from the surface. If the water is warm - like a hot bath - this vapor comes off fairly warm, rises into the much cooler air, and condenses back into water droplets - fog - which you can see.\n\n70°C is pretty hot, and will kill almost anything. All that could remain is a few bacteria that form very hardy spores, but these spores are few in number and are rarely a problem. But it is not steam, and if you really need to sterilise something, you need to treat it with boiling water. Boil the water and you will get rid of even the spores.",
"No it's not enough dish washers use hot water below boiling and chemical detergents. To get something truly sterilized you need to use a special device called and Autoclave it uses pressure and temperatures (121+°C) to completely sterilize (medical metal) things.\n\n\nHowever sterilization is the old way of thinking and most the methods actually can grow bacteria (like boiling the bottle in hot water).\n\nAll that you really need to do is wash and scrub the bottle and nipple with an antibacterial soap then force some of the soapy water through the nipple. At that point you can wash it in the dishwasher. Doing anything more is overkill."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
ag2ujv
|
how are they earning a profit if an equal $ amount is donated to charity?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ag2ujv/eli5_how_are_they_earning_a_profit_if_an_equal/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ee36fwj",
"ee36h2m"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Sounds like an error by the sign writer. Ask them what it is they really donate. Mistakes happen.",
"They could have another branch not participating in that promotion.\n\nOr they might not be donating the full amount."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
4uzuo4
|
why does ioc and commonwealth games committee choose to host games in under-developed countries?
|
Commonwealth games being hosted in India was a disaster and now the Olympic games in Rio. Surely they would know how corrupt and crime ridden it is. Games haven't even started yet and athletes and family members are being kidnapped. Not to mention the facilities.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4uzuo4/eli5_why_does_ioc_and_commonwealth_games/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d5u8vr2"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"For starters, most developed nations have figured out the Olympics or any international sports event are giant money sinks. the IOC wants brand new state of the art facilities for every sport. That's billions spent on building facilities that are realistically used once then never again. \n\nThe old argument was it was worth it because they could be re-purposed after the games, plus the tourist revenue and international attention would benefit the nation for years to come. That's been proven not to be the case, and most bids from developed nations fail due to lack of public support or are low frills bids that are less extravagant but make more economic sense. \n\nUnderdeveloped countries either think the expense will help jump-start their economy, or ruled by a dictator/king who can do what he wants regardless of the thoughts of his people. And of course, the dictator or corrupt political group is much more willing to bribe IOC officials to get the bid. The IOC doesn't care. They got their money and their dog and pony show."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1fvtrs
|
how the game industry profits off insane sales such as summer steam sale or playstation plus sales
|
Some of the stuff offered is literally free for PlayStation plus, and dirt cheap for Steam.
Can someone explain why developers allow this in how this could anyway be profitable for them?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1fvtrs/eli5_how_the_game_industry_profits_off_insane/
|
{
"a_id": [
"caead68",
"caeb1ln"
],
"score": [
7,
2
],
"text": [
"For digital sales like those, there are no variable costs. The downloads are hosted by Steam/Sony, and there are no physical media which need to be produced. This means that there is basically no minimum price that needs to be met for a digital download, as the cost of producing that individual digital download is 0.\n\nTaking this into account, it means that as long as `reduced price * sales resulting from sale` is greater than what `normal price * sales without sale`, it makes sense for the developers to put their game on sale.\n\nRemember, once a game company sells a physical copy of their game to a shop, that's as far as it goes for the company, if the physical shop decides to have a sale, the game company already has its money from them anyway.",
"Game sales generally peak right at release, and then tend to decrease steadily as the game becomes obsolete/forgotten/etc. This happens pretty quickly for most games. Hardly anybody is going to by a three year old game for $60, or even for $30. \n\nBut at $5, you're getting into impulse buy territory. Add that fact to a little bit of gamer media attention due to the BIG SUMMER SALE, and you just might move a few thousand units at that price. 10,000 sales at $5 a piece isn't a mind-blowing amount of money, but it's a heck of a lot better than 20 sales at $30 a piece."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
4tpvsj
|
how many years could a nuclear winter plausibly last for?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4tpvsj/eli5_how_many_years_could_a_nuclear_winter/
|
{
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"text": [
"Okay, so first of all, everthing I mention here is (thankfully) completely hypothetical, it may be in line with current scientific models, though it's really hard to tell what'll happen as climate is a very chaotic system that depends on a huge amout of factors.\n\n#What causes a nuclear winter?\n\nNuclear Winters as well as volcanic and impact winters are caused by ground material being shot high into the air, darkening our atmosphere and blocking the suns energy from getting to us in the process. \n\nThe initial blast from the explosion launches a huge amount of stuff into the air, couple that with the smoke emitted by the inevitably following fires all over and you'll see where we're going with this. That being said though, just one or two bombs wouldn't cause a (severe) nuclear winter. A nuclear strike big enough to erase a country's major cities and military however probably would, we're basically speaking of World War 3 here.\n\nFor example, scientists calculated that deploying bombs with a combined explosion power of ~5000 Megatons of TNT (80-100 Tsar Bombs) would definitely darken the earths atmosphere and cause a nuclear winter.\n\n#How long does a nuclear winter last?\n\nAgain, it's really hard to tell how long such a winter would last. It largely depends on how high the sun-blocking particles are being launched into the air. The higher they are, the longer they need to settle down again, the longer they block the suns energy from getting to us. How far up they are carried depends on the explosion force of course, but also factors such as the material itself and the local climate influence how long they stay up there. Generally, they'll stay there for at least a couple of weeks, causing a temperature drop of about 15-20 °C (~27-36 °F). The long term consequences are hard to determine though, but it is entirely possible that things stay up there even longer (or sometimes shorter).\n\n__EDIT__: Yes, as many of you pointed out a couple of weeks seems like a very short timespan, in fact, most particles can stay up there for years if they get launched into the stratosphere (Not thousands of years though, as some have mentioned). I was speaking about a smaller event induced by only a couple of bombs and should have made that clearer in the post.\n\n#Causes for humanity\n\nWell, needless to say, your life would get flipped upside down. Not only did a World War 3 (which I mentioned above) destroy the infrastructure that you rely on, but the nuclear winter also screwed up your and everybody elses food supply. There's ~75% less rainfall, plants starve from the lack of sunlight, herbivores starve from the lack of plants, carnivores starve from the lack of herbivores and I'm not even mentioning the consequences of nuclear fallout. We basically created a mass extinction á la [Chicxulub-Event](_URL_0_). It's hard to tell whether humans as a species would survive that. I don't doubt that there would be a couple of groups that would survive the winter, if that is enough for us as a species is questionable.\n\nLong story short, it's a bad idea, don't do it.",
"Nuclear winters are caused by the fumes and dust released from a burning city or forest. [If 100 small nuclear bombs were dropped, it would take around 20 years until a reconstruction period could begin.](_URL_0_)Most of the population would have died from famine, war, nuclear and UV radiation. There is likely to also be a pandemic as a result of lost sanitation infrastructure. [However, with the right planning, you'd only need 80 people to maintain enough genetic diversity to repopulate.](_URL_1_) During the nuclear holocaust, individuals could be screened for genetic diversity and be permitted in a fallout shelter. The shelter would have to either have enough stored food to last 20 years. Once it is safe enough to exit, it would take roughly 1000 years if all abled person were forced to have kids every 20 years to repopulate to our world's present population. \n\n\n\n\n\nHowever, this is under the assumption that the society could create enough food to sustain that population. The survivors would not have machines like tractors and harvesters to aid them. Nor would they have fertilizer of abundant access to seeds. They might be able to take scrap metal from the surrounding ruins to make shovels, but honestly, they would not have much to work with. Without proper technology, most corn plants only produce corn once a year. 1 acre of corn plants, without the aid of modern agriculture techniques, produces enough calories to keep an adult male well fed for 180 days. For the initial 80 people, they'd need 160 acres of corn fields to keep them alive. If they are in a place with arid land, it will take them a lot longer to rebuild and repopulate. Because of the struggle for food, and the loss of agriculture technology, I would think that it would take several thousand years before humanity is restored to its former glory.",
"Be weary of input on this topic. There's a lot of hysteria and pseudo-science being pushed. If people aren't talking about the likelihood of counterforce vs countervalue strategies, groundburst vs airburst, current building codes vs 1945 Hiroshima, current stockpiles vs in the 1980s, etc, don't listen to them.\n\nThe answer is that nuclear winter is possible, the severity ranges from nothing to deep shit, and the most severe cases could last decades. The problem is that for these severe cases to be possible, we'd basically have to conspire with Russia to intentionally create them. ",
"Nuclear winters are caused by particulate material (think dust) in the atmosphere, which reduces the amount of sunlight that reaches the lower atmosphere and the surface of our planet.\n\nThe severity and duration of such an event depends, in part, on the size (in megatons) of the nuclear weapons used. All other things being equal, the larger the weapon, the higher the height of the resulting mushroom dust cloud. If the top of the mushroom cloud remains in the troposphere, the layer of the atmosphere that we live in, most of the dust the nuclear weapon stirs up will settle out within days to weeks, much of it by rainfall. \n\nLarger weapons, however, can deposit material into the stratosphere, which is the next layer of the atmosphere. Because the stratosphere has different properties than the troposphere, any material that reaches it tends to be stuck there for an extended period of time - months to a couple of years or so. \n\nWe see the same phenomenon with very large volcanic eruptions. Most eruptions aren't strong enough to deposit significant material in the stratosphere, and therefore don't have any significant effect on the global climate. Every once in a while, however, a volcano erupts with so much energy that material reaches the stratosphere, resulting in temporary cooling on a global scale. This most recently happened in the early 1990s when Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines.\n\nThis means that a number of very large nuclear weapons would need to be detonated within months of each other to cause significant global cooling lasting an extended period of time. Alternatively, more frequent smaller eruptions (detonated within days to weeks of each other) could maintain enough dust in the troposphere to also cause pronounced cooling."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater#Chicxulub_and_mass_extinction"
],
[
"http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2699854/Life-nuclear-war-revealed-Computer-models-reveal-Earth-suffer-20-year-long-winter-worldwide-famine.html",
"https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1936-magic-number-for-space-pioneers-calculated/"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
7zo9de
|
how come people sometimes need to learn how to walk again after having a head injury?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7zo9de/eli5_how_come_people_sometimes_need_to_learn_how/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dupiq76"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"It's because damage is done to the brain. I can speak more about needing to learn to talk again than walk again, so I'll use that as an example. \n\nThe brain has lots of different sections so to speak. There are two main sections for language -- Wernicke's area and Broca's area. If damage is done to one of those areas because of a TBI then a person may need speech therapy to \"relearn how to talk\" while that area of the brain heals. \n\nSo, it all depends on where the damage is and how bad it is. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
6q3vq4
|
when someone successfully sues a government institution (like the fcc), where does the payout money come from? taxpayers?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6q3vq4/eli5_when_someone_successfully_sues_a_government/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dkub5x7",
"dkubv10"
],
"score": [
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2
],
"text": [
"This is probably going to be deleted because it's too short, but...\n\nYes. Where else would a government institution get its money from? Sure, you have some like the Bureau of Land Management that gets a fair amount of money from selling timber/mining rights, but in general all government institutions get their money from taxes.\n\nWow, that was a long-winded way to say, \"Yes\".",
"Generally speaking, the goal of these types of lawsuits is not to receive damages, but to compel the institution in question to do or not do something. In this case, the FCC is being sued for withholding documents it's legally required to release under the Freedom of Information Act. If the plaintiffs win, the Judge will force the FCC to comply with the FOIA laws.\n\nThat said, when damages or attorney's fees are awarded, that money ultimately comes from the taxpayers."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
3d8yoz
|
a pentaquark and why the recent lcs discover is important.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3d8yoz/eli5_a_pentaquark_and_why_the_recent_lcs_discover/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ct352e5"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"Everything of substance is made of atoms (smallest division of a chemical element). These atoms are made of particles called protons, neutrons and electrons (subatomic particles). Protons and neutrons that are in the center of an atom are made of much smaller particles, called quarks. Quarks have six different types (flavors): up, down, bottom, top, strange, and charm. \"Up\" and \"down\" are the lowest mass and most stable and the ones found in protons and neutrons\" . Other flavors quickly decay into \"ups\" and \"downs\". These other quarks are relatively short-lived and only found in high energy collisions (such as those involving cosmic rays and in particle accelerators). Quarks clump together in different combinations usually in pairs or triplets. Pentaquarks are one of these combinations that was theorized but now there is evidence for It consists of five (penta) particles, (four quarks and one antiquark). The pentaquark is a new way that the fundamental constituents matter are able to arrange and studying it may help us to understand how these subatomic particles interact. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2v6z8u
|
why do car dealerships put a sticker or badge with their name on the back of cars they sell?
|
If I paid for the vehicle, it should not be a free rolling advertisement for the specific dealership.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2v6z8u/eli5why_do_car_dealerships_put_a_sticker_or_badge/
|
{
"a_id": [
"coez4ww",
"coezdb6"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"I was given the option when i purchased my used car. I think it is primarily for advertising but most places should give you the option to have it or not",
"Not my car. I've always told them when I pick up my next car that they can put the plate frame on if they make the lease payment - a bargain for that kind of advertising exposure. Otherwise the automaker's badge will be fine."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
1fo77t
|
why is it that my phone can load and play high def videos with no problem, but can't handle gifs that are even remotely large?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1fo77t/eli5_why_is_it_that_my_phone_can_load_and_play/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cac5o3u"
],
"score": [
15
],
"text": [
"Gifs are actually larger (in terms of file size) than the equivalent video. This is because a gif is just a sequence of images.\n\nBut wait, aren't videos a sequence of images, too? Well, no, not exactly. Videos use the concept of keyframes and deltas. Just as a simple example, the first image in a video will actually be a full image (a keyframe). But the next frame won't be the full second image of the series. Instead, it'll be a list of all the pixels that have changed between the two frames (a delta), which is usually substantially smaller than a full image. So the video player will get a series of many deltas in a row, but after some time, or if the scene changes drastically, you'll get another keyframe to \"reset\" the video.\n\nIf you look at highly-compressed videos, you may notice a kind of \"blocky\" appearance. This is (partially) because high compression is done by making the deltas smaller, and you can make the deltas smaller by creating larger regions that don't change between frames.\n\nThis also explains the weird \"glitch\" you occasionally see in garbled videos, where you'll see a bunch of stuff moving, but none of it makes much sense. For instance, you'll see the outline of a person's face during a closeup, but it'll look it it's created out of a morphed version of the previous scene. This happens when you miss a keyframe and keep applying deltas to the wrong image, and it usually fixes itself when the video renders the next keyframe.\n\n**Edit:** Also, it's not uncommon for phones to contain specialized computer chips that are custom-designed for playing back certain video formats."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
5rkeya
|
what caused the "dust bowl" of the 1930s? what stopped it? could it happen again?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5rkeya/eli5_what_caused_the_dust_bowl_of_the_1930s_what/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dd7yd7f"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Cause: Excessive farming. The area that the Dust Bowl took place in had spent centuries/millenia/etc. with grass holding down its dirt against winds in the area. Settlers went west and plowed everything up, and the wind started picking up the dirt.\n\nStop: Mostly people realizing that over-farming was bad, as well as the government stepping in. DC really got involved when some of the dust storms reached far enough to effect the major eastern population areas.\n\nCould it happen again? Theoretically yes, but we're (hopefully) smart enough to not let it happen."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
4228z3
|
if the stock market crashes, what does that truly mean for our economy?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4228z3/eli5_if_the_stock_market_crashes_what_does_that/
|
{
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"text": [
"As I see it...\n\nThe stock market is essentially how people value companies. Lots of people thinking \"I would like to own a little bit of this company or that company\", and are willing to pay slightly more than the current owners for the privilege of owning a little bit of that company.\n\nMany people's pension funds are invested in lots and lots of companies, because over the long term its more valuable than having the pension in a savings account.\n\nWhen the stock market crashes, people suddenly don't want to own little bits of companies, and neither does anyone else, so the value of those companies falls.\n\nThis also means that people's pension funds fall in value. So if they retire, they get a lot less money back than they had been expecting or planning for.\n\nSo lots of pensioners have a lot less money to spend on rent, food, bills, etc.",
"It depends on why the stock market crashes, and how you define \"crash.\" \n\nIf there is a bubble or a fundamental issue with some aspect of the economy, there could be a restructuring of the businesses in that industry. Sometimes this can be caused by, or leads to, a disruptive force that completely changes the landscape of that industry. \n\nIf the above scenario is serious enough that people start pulling money out of the market and out of banks, you could see a collapse of the financial industry. Bank accounts are FDIC insured up to a certain amount, and the Gov could print more money to meet these demands, but the economy would grind to a halt that could take many years to recover from. You would see more resources spent on food production and less on technological development, for example.\n\nLacking a real fundamental problem with an aspect of the economy, you will see periodic pullbacks due to changing valuations based on speculation of future earnings and normal supply & demand pressures. This is part of the normal market cycle and should not be a cause for real concern long-term.\n\nI suspect you are talking about the market activity we have seen to open the year. In my opinion, and in the opinion of many experts I read, speak to, and hold in high regard, this pullback falls into the last category mentioned above. Current debt and cash ratios are in the best shape in about 30 years for both companies and individuals, so we should be able to recover quickly from recessionary pressures. Also, though energy prices have fallen sharply, it seems to be related to normal supply & demand pressure, not a bubble or serious fundamental problem.\n\nCheck out [this piece from Bloomberg](_URL_0_) with some nice data points included. Credit to /u/1wheel",
"Basically it's all down to confidence\n\nIf stock brokers lose confidence because of a few bad trades and think they will lose more money, stock levels drop and because of this they sell more creating excess demand. The excess demand lowers stock levels further, and lower confidence. This low confidence can filter to banks who will stop lending so much cash out/investing for fear of losing it. This in turn means small/medium businesses and potential homeowners have applications rejected causing slower growth of housing markets and construction also. \n\nThis repeats in a downward spiral, until some stimulus, namely governments,step in and help kick start the economy (e.g grants for businesses and tax cuts) which tries to restore confidence.\n\nSo really people are gambling and when the big boys start to lose (e.g Lehman bros and banks) everyone has to pay! In the UK several banks had to be backed up by the government and the public footed the bill. ",
"The stock market basically allows people to buy bits of companies to own, mostly because people think the company is doing well and will be worth more later on, usually meaning they'll make more money. \n\nA stock market crash happens when because of reasons (and there can be a lot), people think companies won't be making as much money; they think the company will be worth less, and so they try to sell their bits of the company. If I try to sell something at $10 and no one buys, but I really want to sell it, I'll try selling it at $9, then $8, etc, until someone does buy it. That's how share prices fall.\n\nIf *that* happens - people will suddenly have less 'money', or think they have less money. It's as if I had a rare collectible that's worth a lot of money because it's rare, and the maker suddenly makes a million more. I still have the collectible, but it's worth much much less now and I will be a lot poorer.\n\nSo when the stock market falls - everyone who had shares in companies on the stock market will suddenly feel poorer. So individual people, banks who owned shares, the companies themselves.\n\nAnd when people are or feel poorer, they spend less. So everyone affected will spend less money, hire less workers (even fire some to try and save money), buy less materials, etc. That means the people they do business with will make less money, their employees will have less money to spend, etc, and then *everyone* becomes poorer.\n\nAnd if you see everyone else becoming poorer because of 'the economy', even people who aren't affected at first will start spending less, being more careful with money, etc. \n",
"There is a lot of debate on whether the stock market is a LEADING or LAGGING indicator of economic strength. What this means is that there are good arguments on both sides that say that the stock market crashes BECAUSE of a collapsing fundamental economy (think unemployment or lower than expected GDP growth) or if a stock market crashes BEFORE the economic collapse (think of investors who study these companies and the macro-economic environment every day and are generally well-paid to do so). \n\nThe effects of a stock market crash ON the economy are that people have less assets and less wealth since most people today have exposure to equity markets whether that's through personal accounts, mutual funds etc. In a crash, this can lead to falling real estate prices, less travel / discretionary purchases etc. \n\nThe effects of a collapsing economy ON the stock market are that the projected cash flows of companies over time will decrease (in today dollar terms) which decreases the value you are willing to pay for a share of stock in that company. In a crash, this is exacerbated by people wanting to take risk off the table (i.e. sell stocks) because they see the value of their assets (i.e. portfolio) fall every day. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-another-recession/"
],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3z8sqq
|
why do talk shows stop for commercial breaks?
|
For the ones that aren't live, the shows stops for a few minutes and then resumes. The audience just sits there or gets some alternate entertainment. Why not just have a 5 second pause and edit a longer pause in later?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3z8sqq/eli5_why_do_talk_shows_stop_for_commercial_breaks/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cyk4vvb"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"The hosts have to pee, get a drink, fix their hair, prep the next guest, etc. There's more to do than just sit there idly. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1wz353
|
is it possible for the united states to have a 3 major party political system?
|
I often hear people they are tired of the 2 party system and want a third candidate in the mix. Is it practical/likely?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wz353/eli5_is_it_possible_for_the_united_states_to_have/
|
{
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"text": [
"It's possible but the way our voting works it won't last. We have a 'first past the goal post' voting system, whoever gets the most votes wins it all. Other countries with many different parties tend to have proportional voting systems - that is, they vote for the party they want and the parties end up with that many seats so a party that only draws 10% of the votes will still end up with 10% of the seats in their congress.",
"No, not practically, without a radical changing of the electoral system. The issue with having more than two parties under the US electoral system is that two parties with similar interests will divide their base.\n\nConsider this example.\n\n- 60% of people are opposed to nuclear weapons.\n- Party A runs with \"Let's throw all of our nuclear weapons away.\"\n- Party B runs with \"Let's increase our nuclear weapons budget.\"\n- Party C runs with \"Let's scale back our nuclear weapons, but not throw everything away.\"\n- Of the 60% of people opposed to nuclear weapons, half vote for Party A's more extreme platform, and half vote for Party C's more reserved platform. The remaining 40% of people vote for Party B because they like nuclear weapons.\n- Election result: 40-30-30, with Party B winning the largest share of vote, and thus the election... even though a large majority of the country is opposed to their policy.\n\nIt resulted in the country pursuing a policy most people were opposed to. So in 4 years, at the next election, what wil happen? Parties A and C will sit down and talk, and will eventually say \"We don't want Party B to win again, so let's just compromise: we'll merge together into one big party, and then all 60% of those nuke-opposers will vote for us.\" And they'll win, by restoring a 2-party system.\n\nThis is already said to have happened -- Bush beat out Gore in an extremely narrow election back in 2000, when a lot of people who normally voted Democrat voted for third party candidate Ralph Nader instead. If Ralph hadn't participated, Gore would have won.\n\nOther countries have different voting systems that make multiple parties more practical. In Australia, you don't just cast your vote for a single person or party -- you rank candidates in the order of your preference. So you can vote for a small-fry candidate in your #1 slot, and if they don't secure more than half the votes, the #1 slot is eliminated and now it's your #2 vote that counts. And if they don't secure more than half the votes, it's your #3 slot that counts. Under this alternative system, third parties are possible because you're not throwing votes away if you don't vote for a major contender."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
ey5ikk
|
docker and kubernetes
|
What software Engineering Concepts and Skills are required to deeply understand Docker and Kubernetes Technologies ?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ey5ikk/eli5docker_and_kubernetes/
|
{
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"fgfakn5",
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2
],
"text": [
"Some basic form is linux is required to start understanding docker. The order should be: linux = > docker = > kubernetes.",
"If you want to _use_ Kubernetes, then you won't need to know too much beyond what Pods, Deployments, Volumes, Services, ConfigMaps and Secrets are.\n\nIf you want to *operate* Kubernetes then a basic understanding of the kubernetes object model, authorization and authentication mechanisms, RBAC and networking/CNI would be a good start.\n\nIf you want to _contribute_ to the Kubernetes software ecosystem then you'll want to select the part of the stack that interests you (e.g. networking or controllers) and then, with a good understanding of Go (Golang), the controller pattern and the innerworkings of Kubernetes APIs, you can start submitting PRs to the project."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
4kpz31
|
why haven't personal helicopters become a widespread thing?
|
Is something keeping the price of helicopters prohibitive? Or is learning to pilot a flying air craft very difficult? Why not automated helicopters that work with a GPS fed autopilot? At the least, why has helicopter transport not become a more feasible alternative to buses for medium length trips?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4kpz31/eli5_why_havent_personal_helicopters_become_a/
|
{
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12,
2,
3,
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"text": [
"Efficiency, cost, support and regulations. Helicopters as apposed to buses are alot more expensive to make, to train/hire pilots, to fuel, maintain and have proper facilities to support. Also helicopters cant carry as many as a bus, cant necessarily go as many places as a bus and are slower for small trips.",
"It probably mostly comes down to cost. Even the cheapest helicopters are very expensive. A quick google research shows that even the cheapest helicopters go for over 100.000$. Also, fuel costs.",
"In addition to what everyone else said, helicopters are also very loud. Buses are obnoxious enough already, imagine having dozens of helicopters landing daily in an urban area, it would be an absolute nightmare. Realistically the helicopters would have to be stationed at an airport some distance away, which means you'd have to take a bus to get to them anyway. Between ferrying to the airport, getting through the airport, embarking, pre-flight checks, disembarking, getting through another airport, and ferrying again from the airport to your actual destination, the whole thing would be a hugely expensive and time-consuming hassle, just like regular air travel using jet airliners. Except those you use to travel long enough distances that it's worth it, for medium length trips you wouldn't save any time anyway.",
"Based on what my pilot friend says, \"planes are for any enthusiast and are a miracle of science, helicopters are for the batshit insane and is science on crack\"\n\n",
"1) Helicopters are expensive.\n\n2) Helicopters need a landing pad. You have to find a place to put all of these.\n\n3) Helicopters are bigger than cars. You have to find a place to put them all.\n\n4) Helicopters require additional training and licenses.\n\n5) We don't have consumer level automated cars that function in a 2D environment. Consumer level automated helicopters what function in a 3d environment will probably be much more difficult.\n\n6) Price. A 90 passenger Mil Mi-26 helicopter will cost [between 15 and 18 million dollars](_URL_0_). That's not counting maintenance and repairs. New cars will cost between $18,000 and $50,000 usually. I can buy a 42 passenger bus for [about $100,000](_URL_1_). So to transport about 90 people, you can buy 1 $15,000,000 helicopter or spend $200,000 on two buses. \n\n7) Fuel Efficiency. The Mil Mi-26 gets about 0.4 miles to the gallon. A Greyhound bus gets between 4-5 mpg. Buses are more fuel efficient. ",
"Humans aren't even able to drive ground vehicles safely. Helicopters require even more skill and willingness to obey the rules."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.aircraftcompare.com/helicopter-airplane/MIL-Mi-26/284",
"http://tescobus.com/bus-sales/over-27-passenger/inventorydetail.aspx?stocknumber=07039C&nu=U"
],
[]
] |
|
7h6bth
|
why does listening to music you dislike feel so offensive?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7h6bth/eli5_why_does_listening_to_music_you_dislike_feel/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dqoh7xb"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Same reason why certain food can taste nasty. It’s just not your taste. You’ve adapted to your own style. Nothing wrong with that, imo. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
5s1pvm
|
is it possible for someone to never learn to walk?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5s1pvm/eli5_is_it_possible_for_someone_to_never_learn_to/
|
{
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"ddbrtra",
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"text": [
"Yes, someone could be disabled at birth in a way that makes the person unable to walk (due to an individual birth defect or injury). There have even been inheritable disorders that result in an inability to walk in families, although this is rare. _URL_0_",
"Barring a disability, I don't think it's possible unless the person was actively discouraged from walking. It's not something that has to be taught. \n\nETA: I shouldn't say *impossible*. Very little is literally impossible. ",
"As disability: yes. A mutation in the DNA can trigger it. See the [Ulas family](_URL_0_)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://io9.gizmodo.com/5012174/a-genetic-mutation-that-causes-humans-to-walk-on-all-fours"
],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulas_family"
]
] |
||
tcp3r
|
road bicycle racing
|
I've been sports fan since when I can remember, but I fail to grasp road bicycle racing.
I watched several stages of various competitions, including Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a Espana, and couldn't quite understand tactics: why are some racers breaking away from the peloton, what does it mean to "work for another racer", how teams cooperate or fight against each other, why most of the crowd rides in the peloton all the time and doesn't seem to be eager to make the race more than some kind of a country ride, and so forth... I've read [Wikipedia entry on that subject](_URL_0_) but would love to know more. Thank you.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/tcp3r/eli5_road_bicycle_racing/
|
{
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"text": [
"1) In cycling your teammates will help push the air out of the way for you. This is called drafting. Usually the entire peleton is acting as one big \"pack\" where people all are taking turns at the front pushing the air out of the way for everyone else, however when somebody needs to catch up the the peleton or to break away from the peleton it is useful to have a teammate that will let you draft them in order for you to save your energy for the end of the race.\n\n2) Your teammates in cycling also function to help control the other riders in the peleton. If your teammates are riding in the front of the peleton, they are the ones who control the speed of the peleton. They can also physically block other riders during sprints, or try to hang on to another team's breakaway in order to try to slow their breakaway down later for you to catch up.\n\n3) Your teammates also perform other functions that seem more mundane. They might bring you water bottles or food from the cars, or just ride near you to help set a pace. \n\nCheck out this [video](_URL_0_) of Jens, the ultimate teammate.",
"I'l see if I can explain a little bit about the peloton and break aways. \n\nMost of the time it's easy for the peloton to chase down the break. A decently coordinated peloton can, on an ordinary flat stage, make up very roughly 1 minute per 10 km on break aways. \n\nSo why don't they always chase them down at once when it happens? One thing is that it's less work to catch up with them later if you first let them ride, say, 40 km on their own and let them become much more tired since they don't have the advantage of the big pack. The main thing the peloton needs to worry about is not to let the time gap get too large.\n\nA break away also triggers a bit of a chesslike situation in the peloton where they're trying to work out who's going to do the most work in front when trying to catch up with them. Teams with riders in the break will obviously not be doing anything to help. Other teams might have different objectives, like winning mountain stages and their main goal is to get their top rider to the mountains in good condition, not to win flat stages. And sometimes the rest watches eachother to see who buckles first and starts making up time.\n\nWell, that's a bit of it any way.",
"Road bike racing, just like baseball and basketball is a team sport. The guy who gets across the finish line first gets all the credit, but it took a whole team to put him there.\n\nWhen the race is long and flat, you'll usually see a very large group of riders all riding together, sometimes not very fast. This is because of air resistance. Have you ever tried riding your bike into the wind? It's much harder than riding with no wind. In bike racing, the riders at the front push the wind out of the way for all the riders. This means that the riders at the front have to work much harder than the other riders. If there is nobody in front of the big group, there isn't much reason for them to ride very fast, is there?\n\nWhy isn't there anyone in front of the big group? In order for somebody to get in front of the big group, they have to get really far ahead very quickly. Otherwise, the rest of the group can just follow behind in the slipstream. If one or two guys get out in front of the big group, they usually don't last very long because they are working so hard to push the wind out of the way. The guys in the big group can take turns pushing the wind out of the way and catch up to these guys quickly.\n\nIn long flat races, the real race often doesn't start until the last few kilometers when the racers who are really good at sprinting start jockeying for position. Even though the big group all crosses the line within a matter of seconds, the sprinter who crosses the line first still wins.\n\nWhen races are hilly, or finish at the top of a mountain, things change. In this case, wind resistance is not as important so the racers who are stronger and lighter have the best advantage.",
"Although I'm not a road biker in any sense of the word, I have been following racing for a few years and had the opportunity of talking to quite a few racers, who also commentated a few races for me, showing me interesting aspects of the race you wouldn't normally notice.\n\nWhat everybody else said is true, but there's missing, to me, the most impressive part.\n\nAt the end of the race, a few kilometers out, teams attempt to set up for the final push. Basically, they line up from weakest to strongest. They start sprinting (remember the whole drafting concept). When the first has maintained top speed for a few seconds, he literally peels off the line to let the second person go even faster. This goes on until the last guy, usually the team leader and/or best sprinter bursts through at top speed until they cross the finish line.\n\nHowever, there's still strategy. Other teams are going to try to break up those lines or get their line in better position, or try to prevent guys from breaking off... So much strategy, but also an incredible amount of practice and preparation, as a team.",
"For a deeper understanding about road racing I would highly suggest reading the book, The Rider.\n\nRoad Racing is extremely complex and there are very different strategies depending on the race, so ELI5 might not work here. I'll do my best though to describe a generic UCI ProTour race. Know though that, in American racing, it's really quite different in terms of what tactics work and which don't.\n\nImagine you have 10 teams of 7 riders and on each team you have 1 rider whose team would like to win the race. However, it would mean just as much to have any rider from the team winning the race. Let's say the teams are generic: Teams A-J. You would like a rider from Team C to win the race, and more specifically, you would really like John Smith, a field sprinter, from Team C to win the race.\n\nThis race will be 200km and feature generally rolling terrain with 2 Category 3 climbs in the last 80 km and a 10km flat, straight finish. At the start of the race, the entire peloton will be neutralized for 5km as the race \"parades\" out of the city. This means that everyone will be pacing very slow off the race lead car and there can be no attacks or aggression.\n\nAs soon as the lead car signals the neutralization is over and the race as started, the attacks begin. In fact, it's utter chaos as riders are attacking to get a break, but everyone is still fresh enough that the break keeps getting pulled back and more attacks go. After this has gone on long enough, eventually one of the breaks will stay away because everyone is too tired and/or not-threatened to chase it down.\n\nNow we have the breakaway of 7 riders with 190km to go in the race with a 5 minute gap on the field. Teams A, C, E, F, G, and H all have one rider in the breakaway with team E having 2. If the break stays away, the overall race has gone from 70 riders contesting the win, down to 7, with Team E having the advantage of having teammates in the break (ask if you want this explained further).\n\nMeanwhile back in the peloton, every team that has a rider in the breakaway gets to sit back and chill. John Smith on Team C especially has to do zero work because if the break stays away, his teammate has a good shot at winning from it. However, Teams B, D, I, J have no one in the break and if the break stays away, they have 0% chance of winning the race. So it's up to either one or a few of them to chase the break up the road if they would like it to come back together. So let's say that Team J is threatened by the shuffle that made the break and puts their working riders (domestiques) on the front to pull the break back.\n\nThe break comes back at 100km to go and the instant that the riders are caught, there's a hard attack from the field (counter-attack) and 5 riders get away clean for the new break. This time, Teams B, D, F, H, and J have riders in the break and they're 4 minutes clear of the field about to start the first climb of the day. Team J, after chasing the break and pulling it back, got their star rider into the break who is capable of long, hard efforts, and has a very likely chance of winning if the break stays away.\n\nOn the climbs, because the road is steep and long enough, the effects of drafting are essentially negligible. Every rider, no matter if he is in the break or in the peloton is having to ride hard to get over the climb. So whereas the riders in the peloton have the advantage of getting to sit back and enjoy the \"free ride\" on the flats, now they have to work just as hard as the breakaway up the road, so in essence, the break will not lose much time here to the peloton.\n\nAt this point, it's very likely that there would be an attack in the peloton to establish a chase break, but that'll get too complex for what I'm going for here, so ask if you're curious and I'll explain that aspect.\n\nOkay, 40km left to go in the race with no more climbs and the break is still away from the field at 3 minutes. Team C is now on the front of the peloton doing the work to bring in the break because they are trying to get John Smith a win. \n\nAt 10km to go, the break is at 1 min, Team C is really working hard to bring them back, but Team J's strong man is driving the break really hard and determined to stay away. Team C has to catch the break at the very last second, or there could be another counter attack that might be able to stay away to win.\n\nAt 2km to go, the break is right on the verge of getting caught as Team C has the pace extremely high, it looks like Team J's rider is going to get swallowed up. Perhaps, had the finish be more twisty and technical, Team J's rider could have stayed away because you can go much faster yourself/in small groups, than you can get a mass group of 60 riders.\n\nAt 1km to go, the break is caught and the sprint is about to go, 800m to go and they're at the races, John Smith was positioned just right enough that his is able to come around right at the end and win by half a bike length.\n\nLet me know if you want anymore explanation.",
"If you happen to be interested in getting into following pro cycling and the \"Grand Tours\" like the Giro, Vuelta and Tour de France you should jump over to [/r/Peloton](_URL_0_). The guys there would more than happily teach you the smaller aspects of the sports, and there are almost always news articles and race threads going on to discuss the sport :)."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_bicycle_racing#Tactics"
] |
[
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zreFKnBLDjg"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/peloton/"
]
] |
|
1wzrzd
|
renormalization to treat infinity
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wzrzd/eli5_renormalization_to_treat_infinity/
|
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" > There are all sorts of games we can play now. The simplest, oldest game is this. We can measure the physical coupling constants at some momentum scale p, and then figure out which bare coupling constants would give these physical values — assuming some cutoff D. Then we can try to take a limit as D → 0, adjusting the bare coupling constants as we take the limit, in order to keep the predicted physical coupling constants at their experimentally determined values. This \"continuum limit\", if it exists, will be a theory without any shortest distance scale in it. That's very important if you think spacetime is a continuum!\n\n-Quote from a [good low-level explanation](_URL_0_) I found. Low level is relative though, you still need a fair bit of undergraduate level math to grasp what they're talking about. \n\nIn the broadest terms possible, renormalization techniques modify equations in an \"acceptable\" way (the definition of this varies a bit depending on application) such that it gives a result which can be interpreted as a real answer instead of some form of infinity. \n\nSomeone with more direct experience in renormalization and regularization might be able to come up with a good analogy, but to me it seems like one of those things that's difficult to fully grasp if you don't have a fair amount of background because it's such a technical procedure."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/renormalization.html"
]
] |
||
38ezne
|
why can't we compress a file infinitely until it reaches 1 bit?
|
I know it's impossible to compress to 1 bit, but what is keeping us from compressing the compression several times?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38ezne/eli5_why_cant_we_compress_a_file_infinitely_until/
|
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"text": [
"How would you expand 1 bit to more than 1 bit? 1 bit, by definition, can only store 1 bit of information. \n\n5kb can only store 5kb, sure, but the reason compression algorithms can work is that sometimes 5kb worth of information is stored as 6kb of information.\n\nTake a simple example here:\n\n 1000000000000000\n\nHow can we compress that? simple\n\n 10e15\n\nusing scientific notation we can easily describe how there are 15 zeros after the 1 without writing out all 15. We can easily expand that because we know that 10e15 = 10 * 10^15 = 1 followed by 15 zeroes.\n\nIf you compress 10e15 again, what happens? There's no smaller way to write it; the compression is impossible without losing data you want not to lose.\n\n",
"So lets use a very basic illustration. If you have 4 two bit files all four with different values (00, 01, 10, and 11), and you compress all four to 1 bit, so the resulting files have values of 0, 0, 1, 1 how will you know which of the two files (with value 0 and 0) is the correct starting file (say 00 and 01)?",
"You remind me of a programming joke:\n\nYou can be fairly certain than any computer program contains at least one bug. You can also be fairly certain that any computer program can be shortened by one instruction. Follow this to the end, and you end up with a program that contains only one instruction - the bug.",
"If you only have on bit, you only have two possible values. If you want to define a compression scheme that can compress arbitrary data it should be pretty clear that only two possibilities isn't enough.\n\nNow, you could define a compression scheme that says 0 means \"this specific sequence of bytes\" and 1 means the subsequent data is uncompressed. Now you can compress that specific sequence of bytes to 1 bit, but you've made everything else 1 bit longer.\n\nA lossless compression scheme can never reduce the size of every input - at least some inputs must always be made longer. The aim is to design a compression scheme that works well for the statistically common input.\n\nThis is formalized with the concept of [entropy](_URL_0_). The entropy is a measure of how unpredictable a stream of data is, and it provides a theoretical lower bound for the efficiency of a compression scheme in the general case - that is, you can't design a compression scheme that, on average, reduces the size of the input data to less that the entropy of that data stream. \n\nAnother way of thinking about this is that you cannot compress random data (by definition, for a completely random data stream the entropy is equal to the amount of data) - and the less \"random\" the data is the more it can be compressed.",
"All lossless compression algorithms will increase the data size for some input files if it decreases the data size for at least some input files.\n\nThis seems weird and arbitrary, but it is actually a provable mathematical property of lossless data compression.\n\nA mathematician-programmer friend of mine spent hours explaining it to me one day before I became convinced. Here's a (heavily simplified) proof by contradiction.\n\nSuppose that I had a compressor C which could take any file of size N (measured in bits) (call this input Fs) and produce an output file of size N-1 or smaller (call this output Fc). \n\nSuppose that the decompressor !C exists, which can take as input any Fc output by C, and produce from it the corresponding Fs.\n\nFor any file size N, there are 2^N unique possible input files. (That is, there are 4 possible 2-bit files -- 00, 01, 10, and 11; there are 8 possible 3 bit files, etc.)\n\nFor any file size N, there are 2^N - 1 unique possible output files of size N-1 or smaller (that is, there are 3 possible files smaller than 2-bits ('0', '1', and '' -- the empty file), there are 7 possible files smaller than 3 bits ('', '0', '1', '00', '01', '10', '11')\n\nTherefore, since for every input file Fs of size N, and output file Fc of size N-1 or smaller is produced, and since there are fewer possible output files (2^N - 1) than input files (2^N), there are at least 2 input files which produce the same output file.\n\nHowever, in order to be lossless, the decompressor !C must be able to produce the original Fs for any Fc.\n\nWith 2 different Fs producing the same Fc, it is impossible to construct !C.\n\nTherefore, any compressor which always produces a smaller file size will be lossy for some inputs.\n\n[EDIT: fix inconsistent use of !C/C!]\n",
"Infinitely compressing a file is easy, but retaining the original message data is another thing: **Infinite compression means infinite data loss.**\n\nLet's use something that can be put across nicely, we'll use sheet music and sentences to depict both lossy and lossless compression. Lossless compression is compression that does not compromise the original meaning, whereas lossless compression alters the original message\n\n**Let's start with lossless compression.**\n\n MI MI FA SO SO LA MI RE DO DO RE MI MI RE RE\n\nThose are the opening notes to ode to joy, how can we compress that?\n\n 2MI FA 2SO LA MI RE 2DO RE 2MI 2RE\n\nWe've compressed it now, and from what we have there, we can easily recover the original sentence because we can just store a single algorithim to repeat a note by the number in front of it.\n\nCan we compress it more? Probably, but you can already tell that we're never going to hit infinite compression, nowhere near it.\n\n**Lossy Compression**\n\nNow, lossy compression is a whole new bucket of fish, we can compress things much more, but it comes at the cost of meaning. \n\nLet's say I want to send a telegram to my grandma to tell her that Clofford the big red cat ate some dude at the gym; unfortunately, telegrams cost money per word, and we want to save money because we're a cheapskate.\n\n THE BIG RED BOB CAT BIT AND ATE THE SLY GYM RAT\n\nNow, let's compress that, we can see that if the cat ate the rat, then biting is probably involved, let's get rid of those, and let's remove the \"the\"s too. \n \n BIG RED BOB CAT ATE SLY GYM RAT\n\nDid you catch the meaning of the sentence? Yes, of course you did, but could you tell me what the exact original sentence was? Nope, we've already lost some meaning, did we mean *A* big red bob cat ate *A* sly gym rat? If you were smart, you'd see that I had used words three letters long and could *probably* recover the original sentence, but you can't be quite sure, computers do intelligently guess at the exact meaning of the word, but ultimately, we're not certain, but for all intents and purposes, we know the meaning of the sentence, and that's \"good enough\".\n\n**Computers guessing at the empty parts of compressed files is one of the biggest ways that lossy compression works, especially with high definition files, of course, the more compressed a file is, the harder it is to guess.** Just like telegrams.\n\nLet's compress it more.\n\n RED BOB CAT ATE SLY RAT\n\nThe message is now 60% the size of the original message, but we've lost more information, who knows? Maybe the word big wasn't important, maybe it was critical to the sentence, but we've still got the meaning, maybe you'd be able to guess that the cat had to be big.\n\n BOB CAT ATE RAT\n\nWas the rat sly? Was the cat some color? We've lost more meaning, and I doubt you'd be able to guess that the cat was red or that the rat was sly.\n\n CAT ATE RAT\n\nThree words now, this is absolute bare-bones\n\n CAT ATE\n\nTwo words, maybe a smart person interpreting this sentence would be able to guess that it was a rat, no more, no less.\n\n CAT\n\nWell done, we've achieved infinite compression, we're down to the bare minimum, we've come all this way to compress our original sentence and achieved absolutely nothing, we've lost all meaning, and all purpose of the sentence. I hope you're happy, because you're a terrible person now that grandma will never know the good news of her cat achieving alpha male status at Globogym 2000.\n\nSo, back to the original question: What's keeping us from repeating the compression several times? Data loss.\n\nWe COULD compress a file down to one bit, but that goes back to the original statement I made: **Infinite compression means infinite data loss**"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_%28information_theory%29"
],
[],
[]
] |
|
1p5l3y
|
was "racist" a word (or even a concept) when slavery was popular?
|
EDIT I wasn't very specific. I'm mainly wondering about America's early years when Africans were enslaved.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1p5l3y/eli5_was_racist_a_word_or_even_a_concept_when/
|
{
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"ccz0860",
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10
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"text": [
"Depends on what you mean by \"when slavery was popular.\" For most of human history, slaves were not of a given race, they were just unlucky people who couldn't pay their debts, were captured enemy soldiers, etc. Race didn't really have anything to do with it. If/when the slaves were freed, they could go about their lives and were treated like normal citizens.\n\nWith respect to the enslaving of the African peoples, that led into racism over time, in part because the Africans were less advanced and easier to enslave. In addition, this racism was noticed, and so yes, racism was a concept, if not one that was brought up very often.",
"\"1932 as a noun, 1938 as an adjective, from race (n.2); racism is first attested 1936 (from Fr. racisme, 1935), originally in the context of Nazi theories. But they replaced earlier words, racialism (1907) and racialist (1917), both often used at first in a British or South African context.\" \n\nFrom _URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"Dictionary.com"
]
] |
|
dmumw7
|
cold plasma, how it works?
|
I recently heard about Cold plasma.
Upto this point I was only aware that plasma's are hot, eg. welding torch, electric arc's, fire, the sun etc.
The explanation they give regarding cold plasma is that the electrons are at a very high temperature but the ions and the gas is at a low temperature some where between 50 to 100 deg. C.
This seemed counter-intuitive, how would you maintain ions of the same gas at low temperature while the electrons are still at a very high temperature?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dmumw7/eli5_cold_plasma_how_it_works/
|
{
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"f54x20d"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Physics student here, currently studying plasma 101.\nThe generation of plasma also depends on pressure and distance between the Anode and Cathode. With the right set of parameters, you can generate said cold plasma.\nThis is my understanding of it/hunch and I welcome any correction."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3qd779
|
how does purchasing a carbon offset help alleviate global warming? aren't purchasers still polluting? where does the money go to?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qd779/eli5_how_does_purchasing_a_carbon_offset_help/
|
{
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"cwe5q0s",
"cweup5g"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"It puts a price on emissions. Economist believe in incentives. The more something costs, the less incentive to emit. Ergo, emissions begin to come down. ",
"Offsets are usually things that \"sequester\", or put away, carbon. Some examples include growing trees, filtering CO2 out of the air and storing it somewhere, etc. \n\nBy doing this, some companies end up \"carbon negative\"; or removing carbon from the air; and then sell \"offsets\" to other companies, which allows that other company to count as if *it* had removed the carbon from the air."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
xxhm0
|
how debit cards work
|
I know this sounds extremely simple but I'm a teen(16) and when I brought it up to my mom and she was instantly against it, she told me that you had to have a minimum amount of $100 and that if it went below you were charged, but I have some friends who suggested it, I told them what my mom told me and they gave me a crazy look and said they usually have a couple cents in their account and have never been charged.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/xxhm0/eli5_how_debit_cards_work/
|
{
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"text": [
"Some banks require a minimum balance, others don't. Ask your friends what banks they have and suggest it to your mom.\n\nI have Wells Fargo and I've never been charged. You can also look into the PayPal Student card.",
"debit cards are tied to checking accounts. checking accounts can have rules about fees. talk to a bank to see if you like the rules they are offering.",
"I don't know what country you live in, but here's how it usually works in Europe:\n\nYou have a bank account which contains your money. This is generally a positive number, and your salary will usually be automatically deposited into it. When you pay with the attached debit card, the amount of money in the account will lower. There are usually no charges for you if you do this, but you'll have to pay around €40 / year for the account itself, regardless of usage. Now, when your balance drops below €0, the interesting stuff starts. \nSome accounts have a hard limit, which means you can't withdraw any more money, so you can't accidentally overspend. Other accounts allow you to overdraft them, which means you can have a negative amount of money in them, but this is usually quite expensive, the usual yearly interest rates are 9% - 14%. They are therefore not intended to be used as a loan, but instead to allow you to stuff buy food when your pay check comes in tomorrow. It's mainly useful for poor students. :)\n\nThe main benefit over credit cards is that you don't have to pay them off; there is no risk of accidentally incurring massive fees. The \"downside\" is that you can't pay solely by using the numbers on your credit card, so debit cards are useless for internet shopping (We have [iDEAL](_URL_0_) for that.) \nI've heard that the American banks haven't managed to create an interlinking money system yet, so debit cards may or may not work with certain banks. In Europe, this is not the case. If you have a debit card, any debit card, it will usually be accepted by 99% of the merchants in your country, and, depending on the type of card you have, international merchants too. \n\n**TLDR: They're cards intended for your convenience, not for the bank's profit through massive fees.**"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDEAL"
]
] |
|
f2i1a1
|
so needles are cylindrical in shape, when they are stuck into skin where does the small part of skin which was in the centre of the needle go?
|
When piercing, skin that is removed for the jewelry is trapped inside the needle and removed to make way for said jewelry.(to my understanding) So when using a medical needle for injecting where does the skin go that was in the centre of the needle? Is it injected inside of the body?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f2i1a1/eli5_so_needles_are_cylindrical_in_shape_when/
|
{
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"text": [
"There is no small part of skin, theres a point on one side of the cylinder that goes in first which creates the initial incision, it doesnt cut a circle of skin out. Its basically a small incision and the cylinder shape follows that hole",
"The tip of a needle used in medical applications isn't the same as those for sewing. It actually looks more like a wedge than a point, slicing into the skin without punching out a hole.",
"No. the tip of the needle is basically a knife and it cuts the skin open before it pierces it. By the time you get to the center opening, the hole has already been opened and is just pushed aside.",
"No skin is removed. Take a piece of fabric, and stick a knife into it. Where does the missing fabric go? Nowhere--the knife severs the connections between some strands of fabric, and the knife's material pushes into the gap between them. The knife is so thin and the fabric is very yielding, so having that extra material inserted for a moment doesn't do any additional damage. Then the tiny puncture quickly heals up as the skin knits back together.",
"The needle doesn't make a \"core\" of the skin, it just splits it. If you look at a [closeup image](_URL_0_) of the tip of the needle, it's actually pointed and not just a cylinder.",
"I thought this was a stupid question until I read the answers and realized OP ment a hypodermic needle. Like the others said; the needle cuts a half moon line making a little flap of skin"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://cw.ua.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/5332_blood_lowvacmode_27o-900x673.jpg"
],
[]
] |
|
5f8h1m
|
why is our solar system more like a 2d circle instead of a 3d sphere?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5f8h1m/eli5_why_is_our_solar_system_more_like_a_2d/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dai9ouo"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"[MinutePhysics did a good video on this](_URL_0_)\n\nBasically a cloud of stuff tends to flatten out due to collisions between the particles.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmNXKqeUtJM"
]
] |
||
3qj3os
|
us senators and representatives often represent millions of people each - does writing or calling my congressman actually deliver any message?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qj3os/eli5_us_senators_and_representatives_often/
|
{
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"text": [
"Yes. While the staff won't report every single letter from everybody (for obvious reasons), they do keep track of constituent input. If you call, you may even get to talk to the staffer responsible for the issue in question (who has quite a lot of influence on the Member's decision on that topic).\n\nThis becomes more significant if a bunch people are calling or writing. The more people, the greater the effect. But offices do pay attention to all input; they don't just politely respond and totally ignore it. *Someone* will pay attention to the letter or call.\n\nTip: Writing a letter has a lot of lag time (security, especially post-anthrax, takes weeks). Calls are faster.",
"Most Congressional Districts have a population of around 700,000 - 750,000 people, with the at-large districts in Wyoming, Vermont, and North Dakota being smaller becaus there aren't that many people in the state. A few small states have larger at-large districts, because they have more than 700,000 residents but not enough to justify two Congressional districts. According to Wikipedia, MT-AL is the only Congressional district with a million people. Rhode Island, with only about 50,000 more residents than Montana, has two. \n\nYou're right about the Senate, of course -- 36 states have more than two million residents, and California has 40 million. \n\nThat said, calling your legislators, especially your House reps., is known to be effective, because politicians understand that anyone who calls represents many constituents who are silent but likely agree. It's especially helpful on those issues where a caucus (that is, a party) is divided. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
34b4ig
|
why is there not a single athlete's foot/fungus medication that has all 3 "active ingredient's" in it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/34b4ig/eli5_why_is_there_not_a_single_athletes/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cqt3lb4"
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"text": [
"There is only one class of active ingredient in a pure athletes foot/ringworm/jockitch medicine:\nAn antifungal.\nThese are most commonly azole-ring dermatophytic agents (clotrimazole, ketoconazole, miconazole).\nMulti-symptom formulas exist that include antipruritics (itch relievers) like diphenhydramine, analgesics (pain relievers) like lidocaine and anti-inflammatories (swelling relievers) like hydrocortisone.\nIn these cases you could have several active ingredients, but only one is actually treating the fungus."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
1zqfdl
|
what happens when we breath steam in a steam room for instance? why don't we drown? don't we in fact breath water?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zqfdl/eli5_what_happens_when_we_breath_steam_in_a_steam/
|
{
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"text": [
"Your longs are able to handle a certain amount of water in the air. But it isn't as easy. This is one reason why most people don't enjoy humid weather, it's more water in the air. A steam room is just a really humid room.",
"You don't drown because of water, you drown because you have no oxygen. There is still oxygen in a steam room",
"Yes, we do in fact breath in water all the time. A steam room just has more water in the air than normal.\n\nWater drowns you because it blocks the alveoli in your lungs from absorbing water. In some cases, breathing too much hot, humid are *can* lead lot water accumulating in your lungs, and make it difficult for you to breath. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
299ul2
|
why is it hard to find love when everyone wants to be loved
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/299ul2/eli5why_is_it_hard_to_find_love_when_everyone/
|
{
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"ciiuan9"
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],
"text": [
"Because people are all different.\n\nI understand where you're coming from, so I'm going to try to elaborate with a minimum amount of snark. That said, snark is a natural state of being for me, so I apologize in advance if some comes through, I assure you it is unintentional.\n\nIf our only criteria for love was \"another human of my preferred gender\" then things would be easy. But, well... love isn't universal. It also is fickle; you could fall out of love as quick as you fall in love, if you're the right kind of person.\n\nHere is my experience, for some metrics: I spent the first 17 years of my life never having a girlfriend. Then I got a girlfriend, whose main attributes were \"is female\" and \"said yes when I asked her out\"; as it turned out we had enough in common that we enjoyed each other's company. She was my first fiancee, and the relationship lasted 4* years. The asterisk is to say that by year 2, we were rampantly cheating on each other, the emotional bond was gone, and we were really just using each other as someone to fuck when we couldn't pull anyone else. There was also probably some fear of being lonely.\n\nSo after we broke up, I had some flings because I was mad, and I decided I just wanted some hookups. I had a couple, then realized that I wanted a partner. Someone who I could actually relate to. At the time I was way into WoW, so I found a girl who played with me, and we dated for a time. Problem there was that she was crazy. So the next girl had to have shared interests and not be crazy...\n\nSo, you see, we build up criteria over time for what we look for, but even then, someone who is perfect \"on paper\" might just not have that spark you're looking for...\n\nI'm sad to say that this is about as deep into the subject as I understand, and that I think if anyone could *actually* explain this LY5 then they'd be rolling in dough."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
29g59i
|
how is the "trip" on opium, and what makes it so deadly?
|
Is it more deadly or addictive than heroin? I'm so curious :(
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29g59i/eli5how_is_the_trip_on_opium_and_what_makes_it_so/
|
{
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"It is amazing the first few times you use it. It smells like rosewater and is very enjoyable to smoke. From there you get the giggles, and you laugh and laugh for what feels like hours. After the first few times of using it the giggles wear off and you just get strung out stoned. The craving for more is so powerful that within 24th without it you are more irritable than you have ever been in your life, your nose is running, and you are miserable. Time for another hit?",
"Heroin is a derivative of opium. It is a concentrated form.\n\nIt has been described as a \"warm hug\". There are a few risks: Overdose is the most serious risk. Toxic cutting agents, so that dealers can sell more of it without charging any more. \n\nAs long as you have a steady supply the addiction will not kill you. It is a monkey on your back, but still. My friends grandfather had been a constant but moderate user and he functioned fine for his whole life. He'd have a seed pod (doda) on in his tea in the morning."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
4pj6gq
|
why do we make simple noises / repetitions automatically when talking to babies or small animals, such as cooing/saying hello?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4pj6gq/eli5_why_do_we_make_simple_noises_repetitions/
|
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"My only qualifications for answering this is as a mom. But, hey!\n\nI think it is because babies respond to things that they can mimic. Those \"oo, oo, oo's and oh, oh, oh's are the building blocks for language. Making those noises at the appropriate time helps your child learn. Plus it's a crack up watching them try to move their little tongues to get the sound right.",
"It's like we're speaking to them but don't know their language, so find some other way to communicate. \n\nYou wouldn't speak straight English to someone from Asia that never learned any, because there wouldn't be any point. But you can kind of mime stuff at them in a way that they'll seem like they understand a little bit and they can mine back. \n\n\n\nOr we just go full retard at cute stuff. People meow at cats. We don't just make Chinese noises at Chinese people though. I wonder if cats think we're big dumb racists. ",
"From my observation as a Mother of one toddler and as a someone who is not a professional dog trainer or psychologist but cares for 2 of my own dogs . I believe we coo at animals and babies to elicit positive responses and to encourage bonding and growth, in the sense of some sort of responsive reaction. I.e. my toddler squeals, claps, laughs, and talks back in response; My dogs give me play bows, jump on me with their tails going full peacock, and bring me toys.",
"I agree with the points about bonding, but there is also an element of instinctual language teaching. Parents naturally use simple words and sounds and repeat them often, which facilitates learning. The more the child understands, the more complex the words and syntax become.",
"Baby talk is easier for a baby to understand because it is slow, exaggerated, and uses high tones. Even before the infant can actually understand words, baby talk can teach things like turn-taking in conversation, rhythm and tones in sentences (like how your voice raises in pitch when you're asking a question), and the sounds used in your language. Slightly older babies will also notice that adults don't use baby talk with each other or older children, so they can use those sounds as a cue that you're talking to them.\n\nWe do this to pets because we tend to cognitively interpret pets as babies or small children.\n\nBaby talk exists in the majority of human cultures, but not all of them, so there's a learned component to it. However, because it has many characteristics that appeal to infants, infants respond to it more strongly than normal speech, so it's strongly reinforced."
]
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|
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[],
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||
doyj6y
|
why is there dew/frost when the sky is clear, but not when it's cloudy?
|
I really feel like it should be the opposite? Like that moisture would come from the clouds, but it just comes out of the sky?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/doyj6y/eli5_why_is_there_dewfrost_when_the_sky_is_clear/
|
{
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"f5rfuub"
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"text": [
"Dew is created by a change in temperature, heavy cloud cover reduces the temperature change over the night time period. Warm air can hold more water vapor than colder air, as the air cools down the excess water vapor has to go somewhere so it condenses onto nearby surfaces like the blades of grass leaving dew on the grass."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1wnr6q
|
why cars engines with more cylinders work better?
|
I drive a car which has an engine with 4 cylinders. How it works diffrently from an wngine with 3 cylinders? Why 3 cylinders are used?
EDIT: thank you for your answers, SUperhereaux is my winner.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wnr6q/eli5_why_cars_engines_with_more_cylinders_work/
|
{
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"cf3rn2n"
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"The more cylinders, the smoother the engine. \n\nA 12cyl engine will be smoother when accelerating due to more power strokes per revolution. The drawback is cost and complexity. \n\nMaking a large displacement 3 or 4 cylinder will call for a heavy rotating assembly (the stuff in the engine that spins) due to much larger parts. Large parts equal slow rotation, that equals a less responsive engine. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1ei436
|
how is beer made?
|
Hey guys!
How is beer made? And what are all these different types that are out there, what with the ales and lagers and whatnot?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ei436/eli5_how_is_beer_made/
|
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"in essences, beer is just:\n\n1) Water - well, most of your beer is water.\n\n2) Yeast - the thing that turns sugar in malts into alcohol during fermentation. there's also various types of yeast for ales/lagers that give them different flavors and smell.\n\n3) Malt - nowadays, there's malt extracts, basically, a sugar syrup. however, you can always soak different grains for their sugar. again, different malt different flavors and smell.\n\n4) Hops - they add flavors and preserves the beer. again, different hops different flavors and smell.\n\nps. /r/homebrewing. you can start brewing your own beer (5gallons or ~50bottles) < $100.",
"Ok firstly, head over to /r/homebrewing to see it in action!\n\nSecondly, here's a quick run through of the general process:\n\n1. The Wort is produced by mixing a starch source (most often malted and crushed grains/barley a.k.a malts) with hot water, this step is known as Mashing. This process takes a few hours, and causes the starches to break down into sugars.\n\n2. The Wort is drained from the malts, and the malts rinsed to remove as much of the sweet wort as possible. The sweet Wort and associated washings are trasnfered into a kettle (known as a copper), and boiled for a few hours. This boils off some of the water, and produces a more concentrated Wort, allowing for a more efficient fermentation later on. The boiling also kills off any remaining enzymes/bacteria in the Wort, effectively sterylizing it. During the boil, hops are pitched into the Wort to add a bitter flavour. The longer the hops are boiled, the more bitter the final brew will be, but the less light-hoppy aroma you get on the palate. Careful selection of hop variety, as well as knowing when to pitch the hops is essential in producing the champion brews!\n\n3. After the Wort is boiled, it's cooled ready for the yeast. If the wort stays too hot it'll kill the yeast, and you won't get any beer. Some breweries may hop the wort at this late stage, to give a powerfully hoppy aroma to the final brew. The hopped and cooled Wort is transfered to the fermenter, where the yeast is then pitched. During fermentation, the yeast digests the sugars in the Wort, producing ethanol (alcohol - gets you drunk) and carbon dioxide (makes it gassy/fizzy). The fermentation step can take anywhere from days to months, depending on the brew.. but this long period allows any particulate matter to settle out to the bottom of the fermenter, resulting in a clear beer.\n\n4. Once the fermentation has finished, the final beer product is bottled/canned/casked. Then either stored on racks to mature, or sold and enjoyed straight away!\n\nThe different types of beers are usually achieved by the types of grains/hops used, as well as the stage in which the hops are pitched, how many hoppings are carried out etc.. sometimes the beer undergoes a few fermentations too.. \n\nWith beer being up to 11,000+ years old, we've had a long long time to perfect our methods and develop lots of different types!",
"Bert can be split into Two categories, Ale (top fermented) and lager (bottom fermented) all otger types are sub-types. Currently about 95% off all beertypes are ales but 95% of all beer consumed are lagers, i can go into more details if you want but thats the basics in beer categories. (Types this on my phone with swedish autocorrect so sorry för the shitty spelling and so on..)",
"[BOOM INFOGRAM IN YO FACE](_URL_0_)",
"Hi son, so you want to learn how beer's made? It's actually alot easier than you think and there's alot of really cool things that happen during the process, which goes a little bit like this:\n\n* First, you start of with a bunch of grains, just like the oatmeal your mom makes for breakfast, and throw them all into a big bucket or bathtub (Don't tell your mom) \n\n* Next, you add some hot water into your bath tub full of grains and let it hang out for a little while while you watch a few cartoons on TV. While you're watching your cartoons, the hot water is giving the grains a bath and washing these sweet little things called sugars off of the grains and into the water. This is called mashing\n\n* Once the mashing is done, we're going to separate the grains from the bathwater, and throw all the grains out, keeping only the bathwater. At this point, the water will most likely be brown, a little sticky and also sweet thanks to all the sugars we've rinsed off. At this point, the brown, sticky bathwater is called wort\n\n* Next, we're going to take all the wort out of the tub and put it into a big pot that can hold it all and heat it up until it boils. This is to get rid of the yucky bacteria and other germs which may be hiding in the wort. Once we get the wort nice and boiling, we add these little flowers called hops into the wort. The hops are what gives it the bitter taste, which you'll appreciate more once you're a little older son. \n\n* After the wort finishes boiling for about an hour or so, or even longer for certain types, we cool it down and add this thing called yeast into the cooled down wort. You can think of yeasts as these little things whose only job is to eat all the sugar we ended up rinsing off the grains earlier. Once the yeast get nice and full eating the sugars, they poop out this little thing us adults love called alcohol. This takes a little bit of time though, and this whole process is called fermentation, and can take between a few weeks to a few months or even longer!\n\n* Now that your little yeast buddies have finished eating the sugars and pooping out alcohol, we now have beer! :) Too bad you'll have to wait another 16 years to drink it here in the states buddy\n\nDISCLAIMER: Super simplified, and I left out some of the more complicated steps, but this is a quick overview for any five year olds out there looking for a good time\n\nEDIT: Fixed the formatting so it doesn't look like a wall of text"
]
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[] |
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[],
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1xv64h
|
why are there so many different kinds of cheese made from cow's milk, but cheese made from goat's milk is just "goat cheese".
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xv64h/eli5_why_are_there_so_many_different_kinds_of/
|
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"It isn't just \"goat cheese\", it's just that your average American doesn't have enough experiences with goat cheeses to name any particular one.\n\nFeta, Kunik, Castelo Branco, and Clochette are all (at least partially) goat cheese that I've eaten personally. I'd think that pretty much everyone in the US has some experience with feta at a minimum.",
"It's not. Really not. For example, there are about 46 \"official\" (Appelation d'Origine Controlee) different type of cheese in France.\n\n29 are made with cow milk\n\n14 with goat milk\n\n3 with sheep milk.\n\nThat's just France. Italy, Spain, Greece make quite a few goat cheese too."
]
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[] |
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[],
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||
40gdjv
|
how do authors co-write books?
|
I recently finished reading the long earth by Baxter and Pratchett. This got me wondering. How do people co-author books? Do they sit in a room and discuss every line? Or is it more that one author is the ideas person and the other puts the words to it? Or is it simply a case of a main author and the other author is essentially very hands on editor?
Thanks in advance.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/40gdjv/eli5_how_do_authors_cowrite_books/
|
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"I don't know how Baxter and Pratchett did it but Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle wrote several books together.\n\nLarry Niven wrote in a collection of essays and short stories that they worked together by writing chapter about. \n\nOne would write the first chapter, the other the second and so on.\n\nI presume they worked out a basic plan of the story first",
"There's a wide range. Some are true co-authors who collaborate on the story, draft separate early on and then collaborate more as they get closer. Some involve one writing the \"story\" and the other adding the details. Sadly some (I'm looking at you James Patterson) don't really touch it much at all, they just add their name to help sales.",
"I wondered this as well after reading Saturn Run by Jhn Sandford and Ctein. It is a long, well-plotted, and complicated book.",
"I'm not sure which versions have it but at the end of Good Omens, there is a section kind of about this with Gaiman talking about Pratchett and vice-versa. ",
"A young writer writes a book similar to a story a famous writer, and the publisher sends a pile of cash to the famous wroter if he'll put his name on the cover as well. ",
"Not a book, but I co-wrote a screenplay with a buddy of mine. We had bi-weekly meetings. First we agreed on the story. Next we built an outline and character sketches. Then we built a spreadsheet in Google Docs with each scene titled, described, and assigned to one of us to write. We would write our assigned scenes in shared Google documents then go over them in bi-weekly meetings to make sure the \"voice\" of each scene was consistent (since we both had slightly different styles) and merge the approved scenes into the master screenplay document in Final Draft.",
"We're nowhere on the level as the big authors, but I've had a writing partner for seven years. We've written seven screenplays together and one book. Our process has evolved over time but now tends to work like this:\n\n[Also, this is a lot about our process of building the writing, but it shows how we break down the duties.]\n\n1. Work in the same room, coming up with the idea. We usually will work out the characters at this stage.\n2. Hash idea into a basic act outline of what happens in the story.\n3. Build the outline up to flesh out as many of the story beats as possible.\n4. If it’s a screenplay, we tend to work in the same room, with my partner on the keyboard and me pacing back and forth working out the action of a scene.\n5. With the book, we work separately and one of us starts writing, beginning at page one. Sometimes this will go until the person stalls out, but sometimes the other person will pick up where the other person left off last.\n6. On the technical side, we used to use Google Docs but have switched to a shared Word Doc file on Dropbox so that we have a little less work on the back-end (we self-published our first book).\n7. The other person follows behind, reading and rewriting what the other one has put down. I always imagine that one of us going through the jungle, cutting a swath through the undergrowth, while the other one follows behind cleaning it up and making it a proper path.\n8. If we have a story problem that we disagree on, we stop and work it out. This often means picking your battles. Most of the time we know when to trust each other’s choices. Sometimes we’re stubborn and it might take a lot more discussion until we’ve come up with the solution, but we try and listen to each other’s concerns.\n9. The longer the writing time, the more our writing processes vary. My writing partner tends to reread a lot before writing forward. I like to plow ahead and finish it before I revisit the whole thing.\n10. Once we are done, we’ll read through together and make notes and fixes. \n11. If there are any major problems, I'll go back and work on it until we feel it's right.\n12. We’ll reread again and tighten it.\n13. Send it out to first readers, get responses, notes, edits. We discuss what needs fixes and what we’ll ignore.\n14. Fix it all again.\n15. Send it to editor. We’ll each review everything but I’ll clean up all our mistakes.\n16. Send it to second reader.\n17. I correct mistakes.\n18. Release.\n\nIf you are interested in more, we often talk about our process on our blog: [_URL_0_](http://_URL_0_).",
"Im helping my uncle co-write a book hes written it with pen and paper. I just type up and edit. I also help make the sentences make sense as hes illiterate.. the story isnt mine but he wants me as co-author as he says he wouldnt be able to get it published without my help. ",
"No books, but I coauthor research papers fairly regularly. The process is pretty straightforward. We just decide a general outline of the work to be done and the sections to be written, and then we allocate them between us. Then you stay in contact to report interesting findings, ask each other questions, etc. Often email alone is sufficient for the whole thing; I didn't meet my first coauthor in person until we had already submitted our paper to a journal! But for some papers it's good to get together for some whiteboard time.\n\n Ideally you are working with someone diligent and communicative, or else it can get annoying. I had a friend in grad school who basically wrote a whole paper by himself because the guy who was supposed to coauthor it was \"busy\" (but not really), and then the guy tried to guilt him into putting his name on the paper when it was finished. My friend only refused after a bunch of us told him not give in to the guy, who then had a bit of a meltdown, but eventually got over it. You hear stories like this (or worse) from time to time, but for the most part it's pretty painless.",
"I've ghosted autobiographies for a number of people, including Ray Mears, and the process usually goes as follows.\n\nI'll do some background research as far as I can using publicly-available information. This will give me a rough idea of some initial questions. With Ray, I spent four days with him, probing, guiding him through some of the points I wanted to cover, getting names, dates, places. Each answer would elicit more questions, but the idea is to get a feel for the subjects voice so I can write in it, think myself into the places, situations and emotions they describe.\n\nWhile we talk, I'll record everything on a digital tape, ending up with 30-40 hours of interview. When I get home, I'll transcribe everything, which will give me a very rough skeleton for the final manuscript. \n\nOnce I have that, I'll rewrite it, adding in colour, anecdotes, and dialogue. During this time I'll interview friends, family and acquaintaces of the subject for different anecdotes, perspectives on shared experiences etc. Then I'll go to external sources - the National Archives, universities, libraries etc to verify dates, locations, detail.\n\nOnce I have everything, I'll edit the manuscript, reordering text, adding in new dialogue and changing elements based on what I've learned, feedback etc. When I'm happy, it's back to the subject for a final readtgrough and to get their approval and sign off on the manuscript. Once it's done, I submit it to the publisher and the machine leading to publication starts up. The subject's name goes on the cover, I get paid, and bow out. \n\n"
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dut4u0
|
how does a vacuum cleaner work and how is it able to suck like that?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dut4u0/eli5_how_does_a_vacuum_cleaner_work_and_how_is_it/
|
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"The extraction fan in a vacuum cleaner reduces the pressure inside the canister. Atmospheric air, which is at an absolute pressure of about 14.7 psi, is driven by that pressure up the hose towards the evacuated canister, and carries with it all of the debris you are trying to clean up. As atmospheric pressure is near constant, you can never get more pressure differential than that, so what makes one vacuum cleaner more powerful than another is simply how much air it can move. Powerful vacuums can maintain that pressure differential even with large bore hoses.",
"A vacuum cleaner basically has a powerful fan in it that blows air out of the cleaner. Now, when there's more air on the outside, there has to be less on the inside, which is the case. We will need this again later.\n\nAir is not weightless. The more you stack, the more weight pushes down on the part that's all at the bottom. This is for example why the air is thinner on mountains where there's just less air pushing down and creating pressure. This pressure is called atmospheric pressure and at sea level 1 Bar.\n\nNow back to the vacuum cleaner. There's now air \"missing\" inside the machine, but the atmospheric pressure that exists even in your house is still trying to compress the air below it. The air below it doesn't want to be compressed and looks for places to go, which happens to be your vacuum cleaner. This flow of air, also called wind, now blows dust into the vacuum cleaner where it's collected in a bag.",
"Sucking doesn't really exist, outside of < insert witty sports reference here > .\n\nA fan on the vacuum blows the air inside the vacuum out the back. As a result, there's less air inside. The air on the outside then rushes in the nozzle to fill the space, and pushes in dust and stuff with it.\n\nSince the fan keeps pulling out the 'filling' air, more air keeps flowing in the nozzle. Imagine if you put a jar under water, it fills up with water. If you put a hose in it and suck out the water, more water flows in, right? Same thing.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nSo really what you are seeing, is the atmosphere pushing in to fill a container, that you are continually emptying. The atmosphere just happens to conveniently carry along junk with it, which you leave in the container."
]
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[],
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q0c30
|
a "parsec."
|
I know that it's a distance, but the wikipedia page is a little too complicated for me to grasp (arcsecond and parallax and whatnot).
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/q0c30/eli5_a_parsec/
|
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"Imagine you are walking around your house and just as you come to the front yard you look at your neighbor sitting in a chair across the street. As you stand looking directly across the street she is in front of you but a small angle to your left. You don't like her so you walk around the back of your house again and come around the other side. You see your neighbor across the street again still sitting in the same chair. This time as you stand looking directly across the street she is in front of you and a small angle to your right. How far away she is determins how small those angles are. If she were sitting right in front of your house she would be all the way to your left and then all the way to your right. If she were really far away then the angle would look pretty much the same from one side of your house and the other. You can figure out how far away she is if you know how much the angle she is from you changes between two points (in this case the two points are opposite ends of the house) and how far apart those two poins are (in this case the width of your house).\n\nWhat does that have to do with a parsec?\n\nIf you replace the two sides of your house with the earth on opposite sides of it's orbit, like where it is in June vs December, then a parsec is the distance away that would make the difference in angle exactly 1 arcsecond (1/3600 of a degree).\n\nit is about the same size as a light year (about 3x bigger) so you might ask why we have the parsec as a unit when it seems so complicated. A light year might sound like it makes more sense but when light arrives from a distant star it doesn't come with a stopwatch telling us how many years it took to get to us. We have to measure distances using parallax, the process I discribed above using the difference in angles. We usually use the earth on opposite sides of the orbit as our two positions for parallax so when it comes to measuring distances in astronomy the parsec is very normal. ",
"Well, let's say there was a star exactly one parsec away, and it had a planet orbitting it at a distance that's exactly the same distance as the Earth is from the Sun. If you looked through a telescope, you would see that the star and the planet are separated by a (very very tiny) distance in the sky, an angle equal to something called an \"arcsecond\". \n\nAn arcsecond is extremely tiny. It's defined as a 60th of a 60th of a 360th of a full circle. Or in other words, you'd have to line up 324,000 of these tiny tiny angles in order to get a line that extends from directly overhead to the horizon.",
"Here's another way to think about it:\n\nImagine you are looking down from above at a man, who is standing at the center of a circle. \n\nNow imagine he is holding at arm's length a stick that is one meter long, and he's holding it so it is sideways. Looking down from above, trace a line from each end of the stick to the center of the circle, where he is standing — these lines define a wedge in the circle. We can ask \"how much of the circle does that wedge occupy?\" and measure that in degrees. In this example, let's say it's about 80 degrees.\n\nThen we could say that a one meter stick, _at that distance from his eye_, covers an arc of 80 degrees.\n\nNow move the stick farther away — say all the way down a football field, and trace the lines again to make a new wedge. This is a much narrower wedge, because it is so far away, even though the stick is the same size. Maybe now the stick only covers an arc of 1 or 2 degrees.\n\nWhen we get into measuring small angles, for historical reasons we divide each degree into 60 minutes, and each minute of angle into seconds (as you can guess, a single second of angle is a very tiny piece of the circle, less than one millionth). Anyway let's just say the stick is covering an arc of 1degree, 30min, 20sec.\n\nNow, what if we were interested in having the stick cover a specific arc, like just 30min (which is half a degree)? How far away from the man would the stick be?\n\nWe could walk the stick away from the person until the wedge was only 30min of angle across. When you got to that distance, you might say that distance is \"one 30 minute - meter\" from where the man is standing; it's the distance at which one meter covers an arc of 30 minutes.\n\nNow, astronomers have to measure some really long distances. So they said \"Take a stick that is as long as the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Now walk faaaaaaaar away until that huge stick only covers one tiny second of arc from where I am standing. How far away are you?\" That is a parsec.\n\nBy the way, they call the distance from the Earth to the Sun an \"Astronomical Unit\", or \"AU\".\n\nSo to review: a parsec is the distance at which 1 AU covers an arc of 1 sec.\n\n--------\n\nThis all came about, by the way, because as the Earth revolves around the sun, it moves 1 AU to either side of it. That is, the Earth in June is 2 AU away from where it will be in December. This means if you use a telescope to look at an object in the sky, you can take an observation twice — once in June, once in December — and you should be pointing your telescope at a slightly different angle each time, because you have basically changed where you are standing (well the Earth changed where _it_ was standing, really). Because it is based on an AU, the parsec is a really convenient way to convert that difference in telescope angle to the distance to the object you are looking at. Neat, huh?",
"Let's start with something easier.\n\nYou are a photographer, and you like to take pictures of houses. You just bought a spiffy new telephoto lens, and you know when you look through it, the field of view is 1^o .\n\nMost of the house you photograph are about 25m wide. So you ask yourself, how far way do I have to be so that house will fill my 1^o field of view? You do some math, and come up with 1432m. That might be a handy number to keep around for your photos, so you dub it a house-degree, and start using it.\n\nAstronomers did the same thing with the parsec, but instead of a house, they used the distance between the earth and sun (called an astronomical unit or AU). And instead of a degree, they used a second, which is 1/3600 of a degree.\n\nParsecs are particularly useful when measuring the distance of stars using a method called parallax. The angle between the earth, a nearby star and distant stars will change slightly as the earth moves along its orbit. Specifically, if the earth moves 1 AU, a star at 1 parsec's position will change by 1 second."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
7aceea
|
why do white lego bricks turn yellow-ish over time?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7aceea/eli5_why_do_white_lego_bricks_turn_yellowish_over/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dp8tzpc",
"dp8ua7f"
],
"score": [
71,
17
],
"text": [
"Some plastics are not UV stable (ultraviolet light damages or degrades the material), look at stuff that sits in display windows hit by sunlight for extreme and obvious examples.\n\nThis causes discoloration over time (and/or cracking), either fading of the color or whites yellowing.",
"Plastic often has additives to give it better properties for its function. For example a form of Bromine is often added to make plastic more flame retardant. These additives are not 100% stable within the plastic and over time can react and change to form other substances, causing discolouration. This is most obvious with white plastic and I would guess is the reason why white Lego bricks become yellow-ish."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
7j05xu
|
the tommy john surgery and how it makes baseball pitchers throw better
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7j05xu/eli5_the_tommy_john_surgery_and_how_it_makes/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dr2oyp8"
],
"score": [
12
],
"text": [
"Throwing baseballs at 80+ MPH for years is really hard on your arm. This includes the joints, tendons, and ligaments all the way from your wrist to your shoulder.\n\nOne of the most affected areas is the elbow, specifically the UCL or \"ulnar collateral ligament.\" Tommy John surgery is basically a tissue graft where they replace or reinforce the damaged UCL with ligament tissue taken elsewhere from your body, or from a cadaver.\n\nIt doesn't necessarily make pitchers \"throw better,\" unless you're considering that those with a severely damaged UCL can't throw a ball at all anymore."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
zb031
|
what's the origins for the naval terms of direction?(aft, port, bow, starboard)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/zb031/eli5_whats_the_origins_for_the_naval_terms_of/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c631ppq"
],
"score": [
22
],
"text": [
"Bow isn't just a direction, it's literally the name of front part of the ship, so that one explains itself. \n\nAft comes from the word \"after\" which makes sense since it means toward the back of the ship.\n\nStarboard is the neat one. A long time ago, before ships had rudders, they would steer themselves using a special steering oar near the back of the ship [as seen here](_URL_0_). The steering oar was always placed on the right side because more sailors are right-handed. The right side was then called \"steerboard\" aka \"the steering side\", which has turned into \"starboard\".\n\nPort got its name because ships would always dock on their left side, to avoid damaging the steering oar."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://apacolypso.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/phoenecian-ships.jpg"
]
] |
||
3imx2b
|
how do the numbers get allocated for houses / buildings in the united states?
|
I always see random numbers for houses, but I'm pretty certain there aren't usually 10000 houses on one road...
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3imx2b/eli5_how_do_the_numbers_get_allocated_for_houses/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cuhtgs7",
"cuhthuk"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"They aren't random. The local government assigns the numbers. If you're seeing five digit numbers on a house, it's quite likely that it's on a system where every block past a baseline is in increments of 100, so that 101 will be on one block, 201 will be on the next. So, an address of 12345 E. Main might be 123 blocks east of the baseline road.",
"In most places, it's counted in city blocks. So if an address is \"8526 X Street\", then that place is on the 8500 block of X Street, which is the equivalent of 85 city blocks from wherever the city's zero point is. This is actually pretty useful for getting a rough idea of where something is - for example, in my city, if some location has an address in the 8500-9000 range, I know it's at roughly the same latitude that I am.\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
3mpjur
|
why doesn't everyone hate the printing of new money, shouldn't we all hate the theft through inflation?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mpjur/eli5_why_doesnt_everyone_hate_the_printing_of_new/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cvgyaf7"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"A small amount of inflation is usually considered economically beneficial because it encourages investment. If you have too much inflation, it's bad because people don't trust in money since it loses its value too easily. \n\nNo inflation/deflation is bad since it encourages people to hoard money. If your money is getting more valuable the longer you hold on to it, why spend it or invest it?\n\nA small amount of inflation is good because money keeps its value for a decent amount of time, but it will eventually lose its value so you have to do something to keep up. That something is usually investment.\n\nAn individual with a lot of cash might might be slightly hurt by inflation over stagnation/deflation, but probably not very much and the economic stimulation provided by low inflation will likely make that person better off overall.\n\nAlso, someone is going to get that new money and the person who does isn't going to be upset."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
ac2l8k
|
why does more seeds = faster download speeds?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ac2l8k/eli5_why_does_more_seeds_faster_download_speeds/
|
{
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"ed4snxf",
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"text": [
"The total upload speed among all users is limited by the sum of the upload speeds of everyone who has a part of the torrent that people want. \n\nThus, if there more copies of a file available and fewer people trying to obtain it, speeds will be nice for the user because there are few users competing for the available parts.",
"For many (most?) people, their internet connection tends to have faster download speeds than upload. There might also be limits on how much of a users connection can be used to upload content to avoid killing their connection for other uses and discouraging seeding. This means what they can provide individually is much less than what you can potentially take. The more of those relatively slow connections you get though, the closer their combined total is to your max download speed.",
"Let’s pretend your friend is literally distributing a DVD copy of a movie by hand. He burns a copy for each person who comes through his line. Everyone lines up to get this DVD. Now all those people have the option of copying that DVD to distribute to others (seeding) or just taking it for themselves (leeching). Now that so many people have copies of this DVD, it’s a lot easier for them to share it with more people. However with torrenting, bits and pieces of that DVD could be shared with you by different people, making the process even faster. It really just comes down to numbers...the more people seeding, the more connections to download from...therefore a faster process. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
810xdi
|
why do auto-flush toilets flush 4 times while i’m peeing?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/810xdi/eli5_why_do_autoflush_toilets_flush_4_times_while/
|
{
"a_id": [
"duznaj4",
"duzoymi"
],
"score": [
4,
2
],
"text": [
"They detect your presence using some sort of sensor, probably a reflective infrared sensor. When it detects that you’re no longer present it assumes you stood up and it triggers the flush. If the toilet flushes while you’re still sitting there it’s because the sensor isn’t “seeing” you anymore. It could be that the fabric of your shirt is a poor reflector or that you’ve leaned forward too far, or that the sensor lens is dirty. ",
"If you lean forward, it will detect the fact that you \"aren't there\" anymore and flush. You should sit straight and not lean, then you'll likely reduce the autoflushes"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
3rnrwo
|
if a brain, right before death, was extracted and then constantly stimulated with nutrients, oxygen and glucose, would consciousness continue?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rnrwo/eli5if_a_brain_right_before_death_was_extracted/
|
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"text": [
"We don't understand consciousness, we don't know what it is and what makes us have it, we just know we do, so couldn't really say. We can't test for consciousness if we can't ask the brain if it is conscious.",
"In theory, yes I guess. There is nothing to say it wouldn't survive or lose consciousness. What I think you mean is that how would consciousness work without senses. Well maybe they just dream, or something similar to a coma. But we don't know enough, and I doubt anyone wants to try...",
"Depends. There is an eel brain in a gel that was made to be photophilic. They set it in a contraption and turned on a light. The contraption began moving to the light. The brain was still active, but we do not know if it still was having \"eel thoughts\"",
"Real answer: we don't know.\n\n\nWhat I think: probably. \n\n\nProfessor Mussa-Ivaldi from Northwestern University was already able to keep a lamprey's brain alive just like you say 14 years ago (2001), and [they used that brain to control a robot](_URL_1_).\n\nNow, we don't know that the lamprey was conscious, because we don't even understand what consciousness is. **However**, assuming the live brain without sensory input is in a vegetative state (which is a big assumption), there's already been people that were able to [communicate with them using fMRI](_URL_2_) so maybe that would mean they're conscious. Other people have also used [EEG to try to measure consciousness in different states of coma.](_URL_0_)",
"A lot of brain research does something similar with mouse models already. As quickly as possible after decapitating a mouse, the brain is extracted and put in an artificial cerebral spinal fluid containing appropriate sugar and ions and aerated with oxygen. I doubt it maintains consciousness if it were even measurable in a mouse, but the neurons survive and can fire action potentials for up to/more than an hour with no problem. An issue with a human brain would be diffusion of the nutrients unless you also infused the artificial CSF through the cerebral and vertebral arteries while basking the brain in it.",
"I remember reading something a while back that may be related. It was an article on sensory depravation. In this article the researchers had apparently IV'd all the correct nutrients into an animal and then put it in a neutral sensory state (I can't remember if this was done by directly tinkering with the CNS or if they just put them in a warm, dark water-bath), and then measured brain function.\n\nThe result was a parabolic decrease in brain activity over time, with the end result being no activity. So lots of activity at the start which eventually tapered off to nothing. They felt this suggested that consciousness requires external stimuli to occur - that is, your consciousness is as much a part of your environment as it is something which occurs in your head.",
"Short answer is yes and by right before death you mean that the whole process took less than 3 minutes \nBecause after 3 minutes of lack oxygen supply the neurons in the brain starts to die compare that to muscles tissue which takes 30 minute or so and I remember the Russians did experiments with same concept on dogs in the 1940 here is a video \n\nThis is graphical and nsfw \n\n_URL_0_",
"Conciousness also consists of our 5 senses and our awareness of our bodies. It's hard to imagine what a \"conciousness\" with no sound, sight, touch, breath, nerves etc would be like. ",
"Biologically implausible. Nutrients, oxygen and glucose alone will not necessarily stimulate anything, the blood-brain barrier would still need to be intact, and mechanisms would still have to be in place to regulate each of those three factors. Each neuron is receiving a distinct and unique supply of nutrients, oxygen and glucose, and that supply dictates a neuron's behavior among other thing. Also your brain's functions are heavily intertwined with your body's functions, including blood pressure, oxygen saturation, hormone production, glucose production, vagus nerve signaling, para and sympathetic signaling, etc and your neuronal activities including those responsible for consciousness, are intertwined with all these other factors.\n\nFor example your dopaminergic neurals networks are receiving a very specific, distinct stream of nutrients, hormones, oxygen and glucose from the peripheral system. They are specifically built for each other and have evolved together, and by extracting a brain from its peripheral system, the neurons are in an environment they were no longer built for and will likely undergo apoptosis or if kept alive, will no longer function at all like the way they did before. \n\nThis questions stems from the common misconception that the central nervous system, especially cognitive and executive functions are somehow separate from your peripheral system. ",
"There's a terrific [short story by Roald Dahl](_URL_0_) that mentions this a bit.",
"I think a better way to approach this is how much can you remove and retain consciousness. I mean if you remove a brain from body and perfectly replicate every input, of course it will function the same",
"We don't fully understand what consciousness is exactly , at best we have some promising theories but nothing concrete.\n\nSo the only answer I can give with 100% confidence is , I don't know.\n\nBut based on current theories that are backed up with some experimental evidence the most likely answer is that a brain that is correctly supplied with nutrients would probably retain some form of consciousness in the circumstances you described. ",
"I'd like to think that we're more than the sum of our parts. No one's 'conscious state' is better than anyone else, but we sure have acted like it over the years. Interestingly enough, the more we've developed our societies, the more civilized we've acted towards one another. I wonder what that means for the future?",
"Could you imagine Being able to see feel hear then \"dying\" then all of a sudden(this keeping the brain alive process) you \"awaken\" but are only alive in your own mind? That seems extremely claustrophobic yet infinitely freeing at the same time. \"Surviving\" totally off of your memory. Fuckin crazy ",
"Former Neuroscientist here:\n\nIf you could perfuse the brain with a blood substitute that would provide all of the necessary things to the brain that a brain needs (O2, glucose, electrolytes, etc), then you would expect the brain to retain the ability to function normally.\n\nThe brain, however, wouldn't have any of the sensory input that a functioning brain would have in situ. The lack of normal sensory input would, eventually, have a profound effect on normal brain functioning. \n\nWe know, for example, that lesions of the reticular formation and/or the thalamus result in a loss of consciousness - and that sensory input to these parts of the brain are required to maintain consciousness and to awake the brain from sleep.\n\nThe key question is whether or not depriving the brain of all of its normal sensory input (by separating the brain from the spinal cord and all cranial nerves) would result in the immediate loss of consciousness. \n\nI believe the accurate answer is that we don't know. I suspect that the answer could be that a brain without any sensory input is a brain that is so dysfunctional that consciousness is not possible. I think the correct answer may be that without sensory input, the brain would, at some point after being removed from the head and having its sensory inputs severed, revert to a brain that either: 1) does not have sufficient sensory input to maintain consciousness, and/or 2) would not have enough sensory input to awaken itself after entering a state of sleep.\n\n\n\n",
"If I were to remain conscious, I'm pretty sure I would go insane as my brain tries to regulate all the autonomic functions like breathing, body temperature, and blinking without a body.",
"yup, though I don't know if our science is there yet. Closest thing I can think of are these experiments (though its an entire head).\n_URL_0_\n\nFOund this, folow the links. It has interesting info both scientific and philosophical. _URL_1_",
"This is how we can imprison people in then future when they commit terrible crimes, let them waddle in their filth and go insane with no exit. ",
"Search Russian dog experiment on YouTube. They cut a dogs head off and kept it alive with a external pump keeping oxygenated blood flowing though it's brain. \n\nIs the dog still aware? Who knows but you can see it reacting to external stimulation "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.livescience.com/48317-hidden-awareness-in-coma-vegetative-state.html",
"http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/apr/18/highereducation.physicalsciences",
"http://www.nature.com/news/neuroscience-the-mind-reader-1.10816"
],
[],
[],
[
"https://youtu.be/VtDQc-4wGvM"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.ceng.metu.edu.tr/~ucoluk/yazin/William_and_Mary.html"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_J._White",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolated_brain"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
bmvfxc
|
why do you no longer understand a word and doubt in it’s meaning if you think about it for too long/too many times?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bmvfxc/eli5_why_do_you_no_longer_understand_a_word_and/
|
{
"a_id": [
"en00yol",
"en0jt08"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"It's called semantic satiation. I'm sorry I can't break it down any further for you but the wiki will do it for you. _URL_0_",
"It is a phenomenon called semantic satiation.\n\nWhen you hear a word over and over, you start perceiving it as its component sounds. Since those sounds have nothing to do with what the word means, this creates a disconnect in the largely arbitrary relationship between sound and meaning."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation"
],
[]
] |
|
5kp6vi
|
how is math used in programming?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5kp6vi/eli5_how_is_math_used_in_programming/
|
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"text": [
"It depends on what you're trying to achieve. Programing does everything on your computer and a lot of things can be done with it so you'd have to be a bit more specific. \n\n\nIf for example you're drawing an object onto the screen then you'll need geometry to map the object. If you want to then rotate/scale/flip/transpose the object you'll need to do a matrix transformation calculation(using trigonometry) to get the new location without distorting the object.\n\nDoes it then get hit by another object with a different mass? Well you'll have to calculate the vectors forces and then more matrix transformations for the new positions. When you start adding in physics things get even more complex which is why computer game programing courses cover maths and physics along with coding.",
"In many different ways.\n\nDeep down all programming is just applied math, but higher level programming language obscure the underlying stuff enough that you may not always be aware of it.\n\nYou get the simple arithmetic that you learned in school where you must understand that 1+1=2.\n\nYou use the stuff you learned in algebra to understand how you work with variables and functions, which is a huge part of any programming.\n\nYou have to understand simple logic as it is understood in mathematics as opposed by normal people.\n\nIf a mathematician or programmer sees a sign that says \"It is forbidden to jump on and off the trolley\" they will figure that it is okay to just jump on the trolley as long as you don't also jump of it.\n\nGeometry is important if you are doing anything graphical obviously also most programmers won't reinvent the wheel and simply rely on the works others already did for them in that regard.\n\nBeing able to understand how binary and hexadecimal numbers work is important for programming too.\n\nIf you learn how to program in a more formal environment you will be introduced to such concepts as O-Notations that describe how fast a program works. If you try to learn everything yourself you will just have to realize that certain ways of solving a problem are faster than others without knowing the math behind it.\n\nAt some point everything devolves to math.\n\nYou can try writing some code without understanding the math behind it and I have seen plenty code that was obviously the result of someone not understanding what they were doing, but if you want to write good code you need to know the math behind it.",
"Well, for gaming it's what moves your character sling the x, y, and z axii. Old games generally used hard coded speeds (x+=5), whereas new games use physics and more variables (x+=mass•leg_stride+(speed•endurance).. or some random stuff that also involves velocities that the character is already subjected to).\n\nI don't delve too deep when I program, but I love using polynomial equations for things like curves, XP, damage, etc. For instance, let's say I have a max of 999,999xp, which gives me 50 levels. I want my max health to start from 100 and end perfectly at 9999 at level 50. Do I increase by x every level, or maybe use a curve to make the higher levels that much more powerful?",
"Math is used anywhere from a little to a lot, depending on the specifics.\n\n* Game programming can require a lots of math, specifically 2D/3D geometry, linear algebra, computer graphics.\n* A lot of greenfield projects will always be things like accounting/economics-related software. Adding money up, interest rates, depreciation etc counts as maths I guess.\n* Simulations/modelling is often based on math, whether it's simulating electronics or physics or music or anything really.\n* A lot of features displayed on a web page involve math too. The number and percentage of upvotes on every Reddit post, the weighting of how many upvotes you get vs how it affects your karma (the contribution decays with time or something), any time-related calculations, polls.\n\nYou can't avoid math in programming, but you can avoid hard math."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1tq8dr
|
why can i drink 5+ beers in a sitting, but drinking the same amount of anything else is hard?
|
Can anyone explain why it's easy to drink a bunch of beer (maybe wine), but drinking more than 3 sodas is difficult?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tq8dr/eli5_why_can_i_drink_5_beers_in_a_sitting_but/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ceae4uf",
"ceae64s",
"ceagymt",
"ceaiyjb"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Sodas are very carbonated and continue to release gas out of suspension in your stomach which takes up space and stretches your stomach. ",
"Carbonation and Density. If you drank flat soda, you would still drink a tad less then beer, because sugar is denser than alcohol (ethyl). The lack of gaseous expansion of released CO2 from carbonated soda would allow you to pack more water and sugar in, and less expansive gases.",
"I believe most alcohol inhibits the release of the hormone responsible for the absorption of water in the body (anti-diuretic hormone, or 'vasopressin'), so when you drink alcohol as opposed to something non alcoholic, your body absorbs less and pisses out more - keeping you less hydrated and more capable of drinking increasing amounts of liquid.",
"Because you are an alcoholic."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
6qabuh
|
how do we track launched missiles yet lose passenger planes?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6qabuh/eli5_how_do_we_track_launched_missiles_yet_lose/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dkvriq3",
"dkvrlo8",
"dkvt9a1",
"dkw2p4s"
],
"score": [
11,
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"When a missile is launched there is lots of attention on it but with thousands of planes in the air at any given time you can't have multiple satellite pointed at all of them all the time.\n\nIf you had a dedicated satellite array that focuses on one plane you wouldn't lose it either.",
"I assume you mean intercontinental ballistic missiles. They go into space which means that you can spot them on radars very far away. But even then the radar coverage is not complete and only on exposed areas. So if Australia or South Africa were to launch a missile at the US it would likely go unnoticed until right before it hit. However that is a calculated risk.\n\nPassenger planes usually fly much lower then intercontinental missiles so the range of the radars is much smaller as the airplanes further away will be bellow the curvature of the Earth. Even then we are pretty good at tracking aircrafts. Lots of aircrafts fly every day which we are able to track and even those that suddenly disappear is found within a few days. There are very few aircrafts we do not know the whereabouts and in all cases it is very likely that the pilot did not want the aircraft to be found. It is possible that some militaries have been able to track some of these aircrafts but is not willing to disclose these capabilities.",
"The simple answer is resources.\n\nGovernments commit tremendous amounts of resources to track missiles. Not many missiles are launched and the resources can all be focused on one or a few missiles. \n\nWhen compared to a passenger plane there are literally a thousand of them in the air at any given moment and they are constantly taking off and landing. \n\nThe resources to track a plane are spread very thin and those used to track missiles are extremely focused. \n\nTo further complicate things these passenger planes are supposed to do part of the work by tracking themselves. When they fail to track themselves properly then a very small pool of resources is focused on tracking them and it ends up not being terribly accurate depending on the specific area it fails. Over land there are more resources to track planes and over the sea there aren't as many resources. ",
"To add to what other have said, we also use infrared cameras on satellites to spot launches. ICBMs use rocket engines to reach orbit so they are easy to spot with IR. Once we know they are going up then additional tracking resources can be brought to bear on their position to continue tracking. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2buqrt
|
why are computer science degrees so in demand right now?
|
I know people (non-engineering) that are struggling so hard to get a job, and even some engineering friends. But all my computer tech friends are getting countless amounts of job offers.
It doesn't really make sense for me, since the dot com boom was like a decade ago. It seems like a new boom is emerging
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2buqrt/eli5_why_are_computer_science_degrees_so_in/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cj930ml",
"cj93mve"
],
"score": [
3,
4
],
"text": [
"dot com was the internet. That \"industry\" obviously peaked quickly\n\nHowever, computers do a lot more than just run the internet. \n\nI personally happen to be in the \"Big data\" industry, specifically enterprise level NAS and cloud storaqge. the data storage industry is still booming as we figure out new was to store and efficiently protect and access large data projects (such as cgi, human genome mapping, geographic and geologic mapping, streaming entertainment, etc)",
"Because a lot of industries out there need people that can write code and there's no real end of job availability in sight.\n\nCS majors go on to write code for:\n\n* Websites\n\n* Phone apps\n\n* Desktop programs\n\n* Video games\n\n* Proprietary software -- e.g. Point of sale software used in retail stores.\n\nAnd so much more. And the above are really broad categories. For example, websites can range from reddit to bank websites to business homepages and more. Phone apps can be silly amusing things like fart apps or games or more recently, social media apps. Each one of those categories have near-endless subgenres. \n\nThere is so much demand simply because of the sheer amount and variety of work that people want done. \n\n "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
ukzn7
|
why this simple equation is wrong
|
I am beginning to see myself as a retard for not understanding what I do wrong. I have this simple equation, 'a' is a unknown variable:
(a+1)/a=1
Then I multiply with 'a' on both sides:
(a+1)=a
then subtract a. And left is 1=0. Which is completely obscure! Such a simple equation! I must be doing something wrong not even a five year old would do.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ukzn7/eli5_why_this_simple_equation_is_wrong/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c4wa6mp",
"c4waqtu",
"c4waxnh",
"c4wddv4",
"c4wgzfa",
"c4whhio"
],
"score": [
10,
2,
4,
3,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"If you ever reach a point where the equation ends up wrong it means there is no solution that works for the equations. There is no 'a' that fits in the equation (a+1)/a=1",
"It's undefined..there is no number that equals itself after adding one to it.",
"It's an equation that has no solutions, there is no number *a* that satisfies (*a*+1)/*a* = 1. The fact that an equation can be written does not guarantee that it will have solutions, a very obvious example is the equation 0·*a* = 7, there is no number *a* that multiplied with zero yields seven.",
"To start, (a+1)/a does not equal 1. This is a common algebraic fallacy in beginners. \n\nThis would be correct:\n(a+1)/a = 1+(1/a)\n\nnot 1, It's a rule of addition/subtraction. you can't just divide the a away when the numerator is being added like that.",
" > a+1 = a\n\nYou're already screwed at this point. There is no number \"x\" such that x + 1 = x.",
"Let me try.\n\nThe equation doesn't have a solution, which means there is no value that can make the two sides of it equal.\n\nBut anyway you wrote the equation and applied logic rules (algebric properties/arguments) to it, getting a new equation (conclusion). But if you started with a relation/premise that can't be true/satistied, the new equation/relation/conclusion can't be either.\n\nThat's more or less like if you wrote \"all men are immortal and Socrates is a man\", then using logic rules (syllogism, in this case), you said \"oh, hence, Socrates is immortal\". Is that odd? No, your equation/premise just could not be true AT ALL in first place (because men are mortal)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
4evgc0
|
what is mind mapping software and what are its uses?
|
I came across a Chrome App called [MindSky](_URL_0_) and it seems interesting, but I can't figure it out for the life of me. Please ELI5! Thank you!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4evgc0/eli5_what_is_mind_mapping_software_and_what_are/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d23pulc"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Mind mapping software is a tool used to visually represent and organize information or data. A mind map is created starting from a central idea to which other supporting or reinforcing data are added and branched. It is hierarchal in that main ideas are connected to the central concept and smaller ideas branch out from those."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mindsky/papngdkchffiibikcambipaainahiaag"
] |
[
[]
] |
|
1p7uhf
|
if modern medicine can keep people with life threatening and hereditary diseases (bad genes) alive, will their genes, which are able to continue, make a large amount of the population in the future dependant on medicine in order to survive and live?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1p7uhf/eli5_if_modern_medicine_can_keep_people_with_life/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cczm7bh"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"If someone has a defect in their genes that would normally give them less of a chance to reproduce and modern medicine is able to keep them alive and give them more of a chance to reproduce, then yes, they will potentially be adding that defective gene back into the gene pool.\n\nAs far as your second statement goes, the amount of this impact can't be known. All you can really say is that there is a greater chance that defective genes will be in the gene pool as time goes on, given modern medicine is giving those people a greater chance to contribute."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3zqwyi
|
why are there no set/standard prices for basic medical procedures and supplies like diagnostic imaging and drugs?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zqwyi/eli5_why_are_there_no_setstandard_prices_for/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cyo9ena",
"cyobsun"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Different providers (e.g. hospitals for procedures, manufacturers for supplies) have different costs for their businesses. So they need to price things accordingly so they can be profitable. As well, each has characteristics/qualities that differentiate them from their competitors usually, be it doctor experience/skill, technical advantages of one device over another, etc. Since no two procedures or products are exactly the same, they can be priced differently.",
"Thank you to you both. My suspicions are confirmed. The underlying question was why is there no \"menu-like\" list of prices/procedures for each hospital/unit for each machine/drug/doctor. Insurance! "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
ezbbhj
|
why does video quality go down when copied multiple times? it’s a copy, so shouldn’t it be the exact same?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ezbbhj/eli5_why_does_video_quality_go_down_when_copied/
|
{
"a_id": [
"fgm3hic",
"fgm3ih7",
"fgm3xro"
],
"score": [
41,
2,
8
],
"text": [
"If the source file is copied, then you won't see any video degradation. However, what usually happens is that a video is uploaded and then compressed by the video hosting site. The downloaded video is then re-uploaded and _re-compressed_ by the video hosting site again, and the process repeats every time it is uploaded.\n\nEvery time a video is compressed, it loses a little bit of information. Do this enough times and the quality seriously degrades.",
"1080p takes a lot of bytes to store and share over the Internet. Youtube and other sites often recode the video to a lower resolution so that it plays without those annoying \"buffering\" delays on your smartphone. If it was a true digital copy, it would be the same.",
"So there's that guy on yt who uploaded and downloaded and reuploaded the same file 1000 times back in the 2010s, and a few weeks ago, anoter high end channel redid the thing.\n\nBasically, when you upload a file, to make it easier to broadcast, it will be scanned frame by frame to find differences, which will be run through a compression algorithm. If there is no movement, like in a room with a wall behind, the compiler will not even bother to assign extra bits from the total bitrate to the non-moving things, just copying that part of the frame as much as possible.\n\nBasically, the more you uploaded the same file, the more will the computer try to even pixels put and reduce video complexity to save spacr and load on the server."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
5170wb
|
why is dried egg yolk so difficult to remove from most surfaces?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5170wb/eli5_why_is_dried_egg_yolk_so_difficult_to_remove/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d79yzuj",
"d7a2ic5"
],
"score": [
13,
14
],
"text": [
"i cant give you the science but the paint known as tempera is actually pigments mixed in egg yolk as binder, so, yes, it is pretty sticky and pretty permanent.",
"The protein in the yolk acts as an adhesive once the water evaporates from it. Many commercially available \"glues\" are protein based for this exact reason."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
1xu8e7
|
how are jars vacuum-sealed?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xu8e7/eli5_how_are_jars_vacuumsealed/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cfevnc4"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"The contents are heated as they are packed, at very least to pasteurize them. Lids are applied hot, and as the content cools, it creates a partial vacuum."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2cjp22
|
what does blood do exactly?
|
Could you potentially keep someone alive with machines if they had no blood?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cjp22/eli5_what_does_blood_do_exactly/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cjg50qf",
"cjg5ino"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Blood is the fluid of a pipe-like system that transports oxygen and nutrients to your tissues, and transports wastes away from the tissues to be disposed of by various organs like the kidneys, the liver and the lungs (in the case of carbon dioxide). You cannot live without blood, because you would have no way to supply your tissues with vital nutrients (specifically oxygen).",
"Blood does quite a few things for us.\n\n- Transports oxygen to your brain and body. If blood flow is blocked to your brain, even for a few seconds, you can lose consciousness. This is why carotid chokes are so effective.\n\n- Transports food and nutrients to all of the cells of the body. If you don't get food to the cells, they will starve to death.\n\n- Helps us heat and cool ourselves. This is why your skin gets flushed when you're hot; blood is flowing to the surface and trying to carry heat out of your body.\n\n- Helps carry chemical signals around the body. Hormones, for example.\n\n- Serves as a highway for immune cells to travel along so they can get to sites of infection and inflammation.\n\n- Clots, which helps keep damaged areas covered and prevents further blood loss and infection (to some extent).\n\nBecause blood has such a complex mix of chemical factors, engineering a synthetic version of it to be used for keeping people a live would be a lot more complicated and expensive than just using blood from blood donors. The short answer is, to my knowledge, we don't currently have the technology for a synthetic blood equivalent, at least not at any remotely reasonable cost, which is why blood drives still happen."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
a6ptd2
|
why does the moon have grayish black basins?
|
for reference here is an image of the moon:
_URL_0_
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a6ptd2/eli5_why_does_the_moon_have_grayish_black_basins/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ebwx3ju",
"ebwx6ml"
],
"score": [
12,
2
],
"text": [
"These are the lowlands or Lunar Maria, so called because early astronomers thought they were actual seas. They are essentially impact basins from large impacts fairly early on in the history of the Solar System (when there were still big chunks of rock flying around all over the place). \n\nThe dark colour is due to basaltic lava flows which have flowed into these basins and covered the surface. Basalt is one of the most common igneous rock types on Earth too, and although there are some subtle chemical differences that some geologists can make a whole career out of, the basalt of the Lunar Maria are very similar to the basalts of our own ocean floors. \n\n\nThe Lunar Highlands (or Terrae) are part of the original crust of the Moon, which formed when the original magma ocean cooled after the debris of the Thea-Earth collision coalesced to form the Moon. Because it cooled in space it did so slowly, heavier minerals sank into the Moon and form its mantle and base of the crust. The top of the crust was formed by certain light minerals floating to the top, almost entirely anorthite. \n\n\nThe high percentage of anorthite in the rocks of the Lunar Highlands ( > 90%) leads to this rock imaginatively being called anorthosite. This rock is not just light by mass, but light in colour. The Sun is a super bright fucker as you know, so when it is lighting up the Moon, the highlands are going to reflect a lot more of this light than the lowlands. \n\n\nThe fact that the highlands are older than the lavas covering the lowlands also means that we can see lots more cratering in them than in the dark bits. \n\nEdit: a word. ",
"We generally refer to them as \"seas\" or \"mares\"(which is Latin for seas). They were formed by ancient volcanic activity on the moon a few billion years ago. The lighter starburst patterns are the result of impacts through the ages"
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://m.imgur.com/gallery/EN9yLk8"
] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
1vyf12
|
what happens when celebrities go to jail?
|
Do they get special treatment? Are they treated like other inmates?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vyf12/eli5_what_happens_when_celebrities_go_to_jail/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cewyl3g",
"cewym80",
"cewyqd3"
],
"score": [
2,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"they go to jail",
"They got to pick up the soap like everyone else.",
"There is no official difference obviously. But their notoriety may get them some special treatment if a guard likes them, or worse if a guard resents them. They may get protective custody like anyone else if they face threats. But just as in the real world, money talks - a celebrity can afford to pay other inmates for protection."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
4oz7dl
|
why do sport fans riot after their team wins?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4oz7dl/eli5_why_do_sport_fans_riot_after_their_team_wins/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d4gq1xi"
],
"score": [
19
],
"text": [
"Mob mentality really. Having been to a few sporting celebrations that turned ugly quickly, you have a large group of elated and usually intoxicated people who are having an anxiety release/ celebration.\n\nWhen this happens, people are highly suggestible to act according to those around them. Usually what happens is one or two people nearby escalate the problem by doing something reckless. (My experience was a beer bottle being thrown at a cop on horseback trying to maintain order).\n\nOnce this happens, all hell brakes loose. People are not thinking, but rather acting irrationally on impulse because everyone around them is as well."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
bk960d
|
why does it seem like some athletes with relatively low vertical jumps have more "hangtime" in mid-air?
|
[An example of incredible hangtime can be seen in this clip of Kobe Bryant (former US basketball player)](_URL_1_)
[Same year, playoffs vs Nash's Suns](_URL_2_)
[A MUCH older Kobe after yet more knee surgeries](_URL_0_)
Now obviously Kobe Bryant *was* one of the most athletic players in his sport, but in that clip he was 29 years old and by all accounts had lost much of his athleticism from his physical prime at age 23 or 24. He also had 2-3 knee surgeries & amp;amp; various other surgeries in that span.
However, at *no point* in his career was he the most athletic player in the NBA, and at any given time a dozen or 3 other NBA players had higher vertical jumps than Kobe did. FWIW, Kobe's vertical jump peaked at 38", and many players routinely record in the 40-45" range.
Nonetheless, even though I can name at least 2 dozen players over the years who jumped higher than Kobe, none of them matched his hangtime.
As a matter of pure physics (from what I remember of high-school physics), I would've thought that \[time in mid-air\] is a function of \[distance from the ground\] and \[the gravitational acceleration constant\]. Because of the \[distance from the ground\] variable, I would've thought that someone who can jump half a foot more than Kobe would have correspondingly more hangtime, but that doesn't appear to be the case.
Is it just an aesthetic visual experience; am I to believe my lying eyes?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bk960d/eli5_why_does_it_seem_like_some_athletes_with/
|
{
"a_id": [
"emf177m"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Why I believe physics does indeed support the theory \"higher = longer\", there are some details here worth pointing out.\n\nFirst, the vectors apply to the center of the mass. Once it stops going up, you start falling down - yet you may move while in air, choosing what body part you wish to land on. This might make the way down significantly longer than way up, if you decide to land on your butt for example :)\n\nSecond, in pro sports you ride the edge of everything. You are free to throw the ball right until you touch the ground, but it's safest to start making a throw as you are preparing to jump, because that's the easiest way. It takes a pro to take a jump, change position, feint throwing once, start throwing again, stop action, remember to widen leg stance because your center of mass is already lower than it usually is when you're running and finally throw a ball, just before touching the ground with legs bent. The fact you keep usually your eyes on ball draws away the attention from his landing stance.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nAlso, making a throw from such a late phase of jump potentially increases the risk of being blocked, as you start pretty low. Why try to \"wait out\" the defender if you can just throw while at the apogee of the curve? If you have the high ground due to your jump range, it is safer to avoid tactical tricks and just net it the straightest way. Those who have such an advantage on the field do not need to resort to finesse such as plays as demonstrated in the link.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nMy opinion is therefore you're deceived, but not because of the actual time he spends in air, but the number of things he manages to squeeze into the hangtime - and the fact he succeeds reinforces the impression he wasn't just a few microseconds away from getting called out on traveling."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KOOvaNtGIU",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuo51bWJx6Y&amp;amp;t=4m36s",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E52PKujNGU"
] |
[
[]
] |
|
6wuino
|
online quiz/test websites that require facebook login. why do they require that, what information do they get and what do they do with it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6wuino/eli5_online_quiztest_websites_that_require/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dmausai",
"dmav6aw"
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text": [
"They get to profile you. Facebook ties your login with a nameless identity. That has interests, dislike, political opinions. And the most importantly interests = shopping potential = monetization for advertisers",
"A lot of information is shared in both ways, mostly interests. Also, it means the site can hold logins of users without being responsible for password security and stuff. All security of user data and such is on Facebook's hands. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
36w66b
|
how can people make parodies of songs with the exact same beat and not be some sort of copyright infringement?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36w66b/eli5_how_can_people_make_parodies_of_songs_with/
|
{
"a_id": [
"crhkltj",
"crhknjc",
"crhlkl0"
],
"score": [
4,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Parody is \"fair use\" - it's an exception to copyright. There are other kinds of fair use: for example, court filings. ",
"parodies fall under fair use, doing parodys is not a copyright protected how ever its still a nice gesture to inform the original creator.",
"In addition to the fair use point, it should be pointed out that under the terms of mechanical royalties, anybody can cover a song (and even change part of it) simply by paying the songwriter royalties."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
145t90
|
what is the problem with the us deficit?
|
I've been doing some research on the debt and the deficit, and I've learned that the debt is not a problem, (because it is most of our currency in the world) but the deficit is. Could someone please explain what the deficit is and why it is a potential problem in America?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/145t90/what_is_the_problem_with_the_us_deficit/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c7a5xyo"
],
"score": [
8
],
"text": [
"rahul55 gave a pretty standard version of the popular conservative viewpoint on the federal debt and deficit. The problem is, that viewpoint is wholly ignorant of macroeconomics or what \"money\" really is - at least modern fiat currencies like the dollar. It assumes that Federal debt works just like microscopic (e.g. family) debt, which it doesn't.\n\nThe total supply of dollars in the world is very important - if it is matched to the amount of trade that happens in the extended U.S. economy, then everything works well. If there are too many dollars, there will be inflation. If there are too few, there will be *deflation*, a dynamically unstable condition that encourages hoarding of currency. If enough people hoard currency then the economy collapses. The authorities (I use that term to lump together \"the Federal reserve\" and \"the U.S. Government\", which are distinct but which cooperate) control the supply of U.S. dollars primarily through regulation and government deficit spending. By increasing the required reserve fraction that banks must hold, it is possible to decrease the amount of dollars in the world - but this is rarely needed (except to combat too-intense inflation). By increasing government deficit spending, it is possible to increase the number of dollars in the world to match economic growth (which historically averages around 3% per annum). \n\nMajor deficit spending would be a major problem in good or okay economic times, because it would cause major inflation by injecting dollars into the economy without a matching amount of goodies. But there is a circumstance in which major deficit spending by the government is desirable. That circumstance is one in which the money supply is collapsing, which is exactly what happened in 2008. In the years leading up to 2008, there was a huge real estate bubble driven by the banks. The various banks figured out that, by combining traditional loan-based banking with investment banking, they could reduce their effective reserve ratio. That meant they could lend out (and create!) more money. The supply of newly created money drove housing prices through the roof, until the bubble collapsed -- and a good fraction of all the dollars in the world vanished rapidly. \n\nThe way to recover from a popped bubble like that is to inject more dollars into the economy immediately, usually *through increased government deficit spending*. That causes more Treasury notes to be printed - and those treasury notes serve as reserves against which the banks can create more dollars. That process replaces the lost dollars from the popped bubble, and keeps the economy from collapsing due to deflation.\n\nDeficit spending of that magnitude is scary, because if the government did it in normal times, the money supply would increase rapidly and cause tremendous inflation. But if the money supply is already contracting, an equally large (and opposite) stimulus is needed to maintain roughly constant levels.\n\nDespite the grousing, the deficit spending 2008-2011 was (and remains) a major *triumph* of modern economic theory in avoiding a depression that could/would have been larger than the Great Depression. The people at the top of both parties understand that, which is why the pattern of domestic deficit spending ramped way up under G.W. Bush's last budget year (2008-2009), even above the huge deficits he ran up to pay for his wars. \n\nBut, as the economy recovers, large deficits are not sustainable in the long term, because they would cause massive inflation in normal economic times. That is a big part of why Obama's administration has been working so hard to ratchet the deficit down gradually as the economy recovers (the U.S. government deficit this year is projected to be about 2/3 what it was in Bush's last budget year).\n\nRegardless, even if deficit spending did cause inflation (it generally does, but has not been in the current post-2008 economy), as long as the federal debt is denominated in dollars it merely constitutes a sort of \"use tax\" on currency. One can argue whether that is a good or a bad thing, but it simply means that the number of dollars required to do *anything* increase gradually over time, so that holding currency (instead of investing it) incurs a cost. Current economic consensus is that a small amount of steady inflation is a *good* thing because it encourages investment. That is why the long-term inflation rate remains at about 3% in the U.S. That is a *goal* of monetary policy, not a side effect of someone siphoning funds.\n\ntl;dr: your loss."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3x58j4
|
why are past chemo patients not allowed to donate organs?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3x58j4/eli5_why_are_past_chemo_patients_not_allowed_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cy1mw52"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"Cancer is a very tricky thing to detect. All it really takes is one cell in the organ to not be detected by the body, and be allowed to replicate.\n\nAlso, the radiation of chemo therapy does horrible things to your body, it's used because it kills the cancerous cells much faster."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
1l7h4b
|
what legal authority does president obama and the us military have to carry out military operations in syria without an authorization for the use of military force from congress?
|
I saw something mentioning the War Powers Resolution of 1973 but when I looked it up it looked like that law was used more to bring troops back from places like Somalia and Libya than to send them and the entire point of the law was to prevent the executive branch of unilaterally going into conflicts without congressional approval.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1l7h4b/eli5_what_legal_authority_does_president_obama/
|
{
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"text": [
"Does the 2011 AUMF against terrorists come into play here?",
"[Here is the official Syria thread](_URL_0_). Ask there instead. ",
"Under the War Powers Resolution of 1973 the President must explain to Congress a military action within 48 hours. Congress then has 60 days to either declare war, pass a resolution allowing continued military action, or demand withdrawal. At the end of that 60 day period, the President has 30 days to withdraw forces.\n\nThe legality, practicality, and enforcability of the war powers resolution has been debated for 40 years."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1l6qzo/eli5_the_united_states_involvement_with_syria_and/"
],
[]
] |
|
2ci121
|
why don't we ride zebras?
|
Aren't they just like other horses?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ci121/eli5_why_dont_we_ride_zebras/
|
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"text": [
"Theres a video SERIES explaining this, Episode 1:\n_URL_0_\n\nTL;DW: Zebras are impossible to train, theyre too nervous and unresponsive to training. I.E assholes.",
"_URL_0_\n\nLook up zonkey and zorse, they are more tameable but still possible ",
"My understanding beyond the training issues mentioned is that they also have a weaker back than horses, so they're prone to injury when carrying extra weight. Our guide on a safari in Kenya told me this.",
"According to Hayden Panettiere we can ride AND race zebras ",
"Temperment. They're super mean and stubborn. It's been tried by rulers in the past. The zebras are untrainable and just kill people. Jared Diamond discusses it in Guns, Germs, and Steel.",
"Guns, Germs, and Steel says they're [too wild to domesticate](_URL_0_) because they evolved in Africa, where herbivores need to be tough as nails to survive.",
"Back in the 1800's, Sweden tried to create a moose cavalry unit. But their backs were too weak to carry a rider. Would have been awesome in combat though.",
"Zebras can be ridden. They are wild, and need much more socializing with humans to train. They also are more nervous.\n\nAside from the cool stripes, they are on the small size for riding.\n\nYou can also breed them with horses and get a zorse, or a hobra depending on how the result looks.\n\nThey look really cool.",
"[This guy has a Zebra-drawn carriage](_URL_0_)\n\nIIRC, he's the original owner of the [Tring Museum](_URL_1_), the [stuffed animal department of the Natural History Museum](_URL_2_). Used to go there as a kid, knew it as \"the dead zoo\" then. \n\nOf course people were more badass back then, not at all like us modern wimps.",
"Zebras are like tigers in the fact that they will kill you. But they are more wasteful than tigers because a tiger will eat you. A zebra will only eat your face though, not all of you. ",
"1) Because they live too far away\n\n\n2) They would cause confusion when navigating roads in the UK. After all if a young child was told to use the zebra crossing it could cause a nasty accident.\n\n\n3) They are easily lost as they have a tendency to blend in with their surroundings.",
"There and horses, donkeys, and zebras. Horses and donkeys (even \"wild\" [mustangs](_URL_0_)) are all domesticated over thousands of years. \n\n\n([Prezwalski's Wild Horses](_URL_1_) are the **only** exception)\n\n\n\nZebras, on the other hand, as as wild as the proverbial lions, tigers, and bears. Being prey animals as well, they are notoriously stubborn and fearful. They also have chromosomal differences to horses, and while they can be bred with horses and donkeys, the offspring are like mules--they are sterile and cannot themselves breed.\n\n\n\nAnecdotally, I've met a few zebras in rich-people-horse-barns. They are more skittish than the most nervous of horses, and are essentially expensive lawn ornaments. They are problems for the poor stable hands who have to lead them around, as the ones I have met were very poorly trained and socialized.",
"Why can't YOU make a wolf sit on command?\n\nA zebra is in a completely wild state. If you try and ride one, it will get mega pissed-off and probably kick your arse. This might be related to their dislike of lions riding on their back. Horses 'forgot' most of this long ago, due to the influence of our selective breeding towards calmer and more ride-able animals.\n\nTruly wild animals are like a 'default' setting for evolution. Almost all domesticated animals - when returned to the wild - will evolve *back* towards their wild counterparts over successive generations. That is, dogs become more like wolves, horses become *more zebra-like* (i.e. paranoid assholes).\n\nGenerally speaking, animals that allow us to ride on them are heavily domesticated, and come from a long line of domesticated back-riders. There are some exceptions to this, almost universally related to animals who are intelligent and calm enough (i.e. non-prey animals) to perceive a win-win situation (elephants, dolphins etc). Zebras are outside of this category.\n",
"Zebras are under attack by lions and such all the time making them nervous wrecks, they are hard to tame",
"Jared Diamond's masterpiece, [Guns, Germs, and Steel](_URL_0_) had a chapter on this.\n\nZebras get nasty as they get older and don't stay tamed.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhSZeS5PoN8"
],
[
"http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1190753/Racehorse-trainer-rides-pet-ZEBRA-pub.html"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/variables/zebra.html"
],
[],
[],
[
"https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-F-Q0pRTzLf0/UJ813HbqBRI/AAAAAAAAaRc/17mgpvenrkQ/s640/Walter+14.jpg",
"https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=tring+museum&espv=2&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=mHXeU-f2DsvY7Abes4DACg&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAg&biw=1525&bih=891&dpr=0.9",
"http://www.nhm.ac.uk/tring/"
],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.blm.gov/adoptahorse/onlinegallery.php",
"http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/przewalskis-horse/"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393317552"
]
] |
|
7d64tb
|
how does this picture disappear?
|
[Here’s the post with the picture](_URL_0_)
Stare at a specific point for a couple seconds and you will see it disappears. Why?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7d64tb/eli5_how_does_this_picture_disappear/
|
{
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Your brain stops telling you that it is there. Basically, your brain is concerned about *changes* to your environment. New or changing stimuli. Things that never change are - simply put - unimportant. It's the reason you never \"see\" your nose or \"feel\" your tongue in your mouth (unless you consciously concentrate on it). It's unimportant stimuli that doesn't ever change.\n\nSo, when your brain is receiving a constant signal from some constant source, it eventually tunes it out. It's why you eventually stop smelling a bad smell (olfactory fatigue) and aren't constantly feeling the clothes touching your body (again, unless you focus on it).\n\nBut, this is actually bad for sight. Vision is pretty important and purely motion-based sight would be a serious flaw. To compensate, your eyes are constantly moving. Since your eyes are constantly moving (very slightly) your brain sees the images coming in as being slightly different each time which is interpreted as movement, so you are always (mostly) aware of everything you are looking at.\n\nI say mostly because it's possible for large blotches of the same color to not register as moving even with the natural movement of your eyes. This is what is going on with this picture. Your brain really doesn't see it as moving, sees it as unimportant stimuli, so stops processing it."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/7cyowb/stare_at_this_image_for_a_few_seconds_and_it/?st=JA1DXK5M&sh=6dd022de"
] |
[
[]
] |
|
1q3tpg
|
why the redheaded gene is expected to disappear by the end if the century.
|
I would also appreciate an answer to the same question with other recessive traits.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1q3tpg/eli5_why_the_redheaded_gene_is_expected_to/
|
{
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"cd8vcji",
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"text": [
"Recessive traits do well in environments where they are cut off from a gene pool with the more dominant trait. But now with the globalization of the world, nowhere can be \"cut off\" from anywhere else. The gene pool gets more and more mixed, meaning it is less likely that two people with a recessive trait will get together.\n\nI *highly* doubt it will go as fast as a century, but over a number of generations of breeding it may happen that recessive traits disappear.",
"It is not expected to disappear, the idea that recessive traits tend to disappear just because they are recessive is a misconception that results from the confusion of the concepts of [dominance](_URL_1_) and [inheritance](_URL_0_).\n\nA trait (for example, a particular hair color) being recessive just means that it will only manifest itself if the individual has the same variant on both copies of the genetic location that defines that trait (one copy from the father, one from the mother). Imagine two slots in your genetic code for a gene that determines hair color, one to be filled by each parent. If R is the variant that causes red color (recessive) and N is for the 'normal' color (dominant), you will only actually be redheaded if you have a RR combination. Since N is the dominant variant, its effects will mask the existence of R (if it's present), so being NR or NN results in you having a normal hair color.\n\nThis mecanism is independent from the way those two slots are filled when your genetic code is made up by the combination of your parents'. Since each of them has two copies of the gene that determines hair color and you just need one pair, one copy from each of your parents will be chosen randomly. Continuing with the N and R nomenclature, the possible cases are:\n\n(parent1) x (parent2) = > (offspring (you))\n\nNN x NN = > NN (there is no R to choose from)\n\nNN x NR = > NN or NR (depending if N or R gets picked by chance from parent2)\n\nNN x RR = > NR (you will always get an N from one and an R from the other)\n\nRR x RN = > RR or NR (depending if N or R gets picked from parent2)\n\nRR x RR = > RR (no N to chose from)\n\nThe fact that in this example N is dominant over R has absolutely no effect on the chances of which variant gets chosen when your genetic code was mashed together. The same holds for when you parents were conceived, and their parents, and so on... You can easily see that if these parings are equally frequent in a population, the frequency of the R and N variants remains constant over time. Without any selective pressure on either variant (e.g. one giving a substancial advantage/disadvantage or being more or less desirable) there is no reason for R disappearing just because it is a recessive trait. Now, given the dominance explained above, there will be 2 times more non redheads but that is just the superficial manifestation of the trait, the underlying genetic variants are still there: half of the total population (or two thirds of the non redheads) will be NR and so still carry the red hair variant."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendelian_inheritance",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominance_%28genetics%29"
]
] |
|
3q5gim
|
why do companies release stuff as 1.1,1.2,1.3 etc? why not just 1,2,3?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3q5gim/eli5_why_do_companies_release_stuff_as_111213_etc/
|
{
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"text": [
"because in the 1.1 the first \"1\" means the version and second \"1\" means patch hence it means version 1 patch 1, however some company does things differently.",
"The first number is the *major* version number, while the second is the *minor* version number. The idea is that some versions are major and introduce big changes (so the version number would change from something like 1.5 to 2.0), while others only introduce minor changes (so the number would change from 1.5 to 1.6). Some companies use additional numbers like 1.5.1, 1.5.2 etc. for even smaller changes.\n\n_URL_0_",
"There is a psychological element to this. For instance, Microsoft released versions 1, 2 and 6 of its Word for Windows software. Why the jump from 2 to 6? \n\nWell, WordPerfect released their Windows word processor and they versioned it in-line with their DOS product. The first version of WordPerfect for Windows was 5.2. Despite the fact that Microsoft Word had been around for over a year (and was to be fair, the better product), it looked to the casual user like WordPerfect was the mature, established product and Word was the newcomer. So Microsoft changed the versioning scheme purely to get 'version parity' with their nearest rival. Some say this was one of the reasons that led to Microsoft adopting the year as version system for Windows and Office."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_versioning"
],
[]
] |
||
mu6bj
|
streaming vs. downloading
|
We have a 250gb/month cap on our internet. I normally stream the tv shows I follow but am wondering if it uses up the same amount of gigs as downloading. From what I understand, viewing videos on YouTube is pretty much the same as downloading but I'm unsure about other sites. I should add, I also use Grooveshark a lot to stream music, so I'm wondering about that too. I should know this!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mu6bj/eli5_streaming_vs_downloading/
|
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"There is no fundamental difference between the two. The point is that, when you are streaming, the file is being played simultaneous with the download. Everything you see online is somehow downloaded and later discarded, but when you tell the browser to indeed \"download\", it will give you a file to deal with. When you are streaming through a player in a page, the browser is downloading content just how it would do with any page, but playing to you as it does that.",
"With video, it's going to be about the same, unless you are looking at widely different qualities of video. With music, OTOH, you're probably better off downloading once.\n\nWhen you stream content, it's downloaded to your computer temporarily and discarded. With a YouTube video that you only watch once, this isn't a big deal. With music, where you're likely to listen to the same song a dozen times in a month, having to transfer all the data every time you listen to it can add up.",
"The main difference between the two is when you can watch them. If you are streaming something you can watch it while it is downloading because the information is coming into your computer in order from the first minute of the show to the last.\n\nWhen you torrent something you're getting bits of information here and there to complete the file. If you use utorrent, you can look and see how the files are loading. You'll see that you're getting a minute here, five minutes there, and so on until the file is complete. \n\n",
"Semi-relevant: If you're using Comcast (they have the 250gb/month cap) there is a usage meter on the Users tab of your online account management page. I was worried about streaming/downloading all the time since I haven't signed up for television service and haven't really come close to the cap yet. ",
"There is no fundamental difference between the two. The point is that, when you are streaming, the file is being played simultaneous with the download. Everything you see online is somehow downloaded and later discarded, but when you tell the browser to indeed \"download\", it will give you a file to deal with. When you are streaming through a player in a page, the browser is downloading content just how it would do with any page, but playing to you as it does that.",
"With video, it's going to be about the same, unless you are looking at widely different qualities of video. With music, OTOH, you're probably better off downloading once.\n\nWhen you stream content, it's downloaded to your computer temporarily and discarded. With a YouTube video that you only watch once, this isn't a big deal. With music, where you're likely to listen to the same song a dozen times in a month, having to transfer all the data every time you listen to it can add up.",
"The main difference between the two is when you can watch them. If you are streaming something you can watch it while it is downloading because the information is coming into your computer in order from the first minute of the show to the last.\n\nWhen you torrent something you're getting bits of information here and there to complete the file. If you use utorrent, you can look and see how the files are loading. You'll see that you're getting a minute here, five minutes there, and so on until the file is complete. \n\n",
"Semi-relevant: If you're using Comcast (they have the 250gb/month cap) there is a usage meter on the Users tab of your online account management page. I was worried about streaming/downloading all the time since I haven't signed up for television service and haven't really come close to the cap yet. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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|
1n5vwq
|
what is the legal basis for china owning every panda in the world?
|
The concept of owning a biological species as though it were "intellectual property" really blows my mind. Could anyone explain further exactly how and why China is able to own an entire species? And what conditions would need to exist for China to lose its ownership?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1n5vwq/what_is_the_legal_basis_for_china_owning_every/
|
{
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"Most likely this is due to pandas being native only to China. When you see a panda in a zoo outside of China that animal is on loan and any offspring of that animal belongs to the Chinese government, all of this is likely written into the contract that allows pandas to be loaned out in the first place. \n\nThe United States (or any other country) could make the same claim with any species that is contained entirely within its borders by disallowing private ownership of said animal and strictly monitoring to make sure that no specimen is illegally transported out of its territory. ",
"Every panda in the world was either born in, or born from, a panda in China. They want to see the species itself survive but they know that the only native habitat is their own. So they capture their own native species and lend them to other zoos around the world to propagate the species while still retaining ownership over something that only naturally exists in their borders."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
1lh4t0
|
why does the knock-off movie market exist? who is their audience? how do they make money? example: transformers had a knock off called transmorphers. the day the earth stood still had a knock off called the day the earth stopped.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lh4t0/eli5_why_does_the_knockoff_movie_market_exist_who/
|
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"Why? Money.\n\nWho is their target audience? People/Kids wandering through the video store (back when these were popular) and seeing a movie that looked similar to the commercial they saw on TV. They then think that the film must have just been released on video and not just released in theaters.\n\nHow? By making extremely low budget films they are able to make a profit off of people mistaking them for their big budget counterparts.",
"Grandparents and foreigners who vaguely remeber/understand the original title.",
"this company has been specializing in knockoffs for close to 20 years\n_URL_0_ most knockoffs are made by them, some are not half bad, some are crap, they often recruit older actors from the 80's and 90's, who are still known names but havent done much work in recent years.\n\nAs for market netflix has a contract with the asylum and all their stuff is in most video stores, its a cheap way from them to add to their list of titles, why because sometimes when youve seen all the good stuff, youd rather watch a B movie then re watching something youve already seen. Only cinema snobs seem to have issues with these low budget B's most people watch movies at home to killtime, as long as your entertained, even if everyso often you groan at the special effects, so what lol",
"I think they also bank on the audience who watch because they're so bad that they're good. I have several friends who pick up most Asylum flicks because they're so entertainingly terrible.",
"well me and some friends are actually really into those trash films.\nthey are often so bad that they are good in a funny way.especially the films of the asylun",
"I...actually enjoyed Transmorphers and Terminators. ",
"In some cases, parents or single parents trying to make ends meet don't have the time, energy, or money to differentiate the difference. One of my good friends from school is a single parent, she's been divorced for 2 years trying to raise 3 girls on minimum wage. She loves her girls very much, but obviously the new, brand name movies and items are not on her list of priorities-so she can't tell the difference. As ParvaDilectus mentioned, sometimes she just hears what resembles what her girls ask/beg for, sees it in stores (and since it's a knock off it's usually cheaper), sees that it is affordable, and happily buys it in the hopes of providing her daughters more than just survival. I've been to more than one birthday party or special occasion where she believes she's gotten them what they \"really really want\" only to recieve disappointed faces and remarks. It's actually quite sad :( but that's life, and eventually, even though it's not \"fair\" her girls will have to learn that their mother is doing her best, and they can't have everything; and, especially, they should be grateful. ",
"They are at least as good as the cheesy movies shown on cable channels. I mean, I doubt Transmorphers is any crappier than Sharknado and look how many people watched that.",
"Because my grandson wanted [Pirates of the Caribbean](_URL_0_) for his birthday."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Asylum"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3267072512/tt0477457?ref_=tt_ov_i"
]
] |
||
5543ey
|
why can't surgeons reconstruct someone's throat so that they can have a great singing voice?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5543ey/eli5_why_cant_surgeons_reconstruct_someones/
|
{
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"d87cjo6",
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"score": [
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2
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"text": [
"Singing is a learned skill. It takes many hours of practice to develop the fine motor control of the vocal cords needed to be an excellent singer. Surgeons can at best repair hardware, the mental aspect is the work of a lifetime.",
"Surgeons can save lives. Above at least one operating room is the translation of the original physician's oath. \"Above all, do not harm.\" Surgeons will attempt anything to preserve life. But what they do is still less than what your own cells do when constructing your body there is no comparison. Besides the many other things our species does which no other species does is the way we produce sounds with our voice box. Right out of the box our voice is better than anything a surgeon can hope to do.",
"It's not really about anything other than controlling your cords and learning how to make them make the sounds you want. You can have an ugly talking voice but a great singing voice if you know how to control your voice properly."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
6om92e
|
why, when through binoculars or a telescope 'the wrong way' do things look smaller, but you can't make the same thing happen with a magnifying glass?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6om92e/eli5_why_when_through_binoculars_or_a_telescope/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dkiga61"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"There is always more than one lens/curved mirror inside the telescope, so the result is different if you reverse the order light goes through them. When there's only one symmetric lens looking either way through it produces same result."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2xecyi
|
why do upvotes on posts change so much?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xecyi/eli5_why_do_upvotes_on_posts_change_so_much/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cozcvpx"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"There is a soft cap on scores that is part of reddit. When a thread goes about that cap reddit displays the score as lower. This means highly upvoted threads stay highly upvoted, but it prevents huge subreddits from completely overwhelming smaller subreddits with every thread having tens of thousands of upvotes.\n\nThis is an admin talking about this soft cap: _URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/29j5uh/reddit_still_artificially_introduces_downvotes_on/ciltyd7"
]
] |
||
2whj2y
|
if having to pay royalties and dealing with copyright issues was the main reason that rockstar north chose not to use real life brands in gta, then how come they use them in their other games like midnight club? especially if gta is their highest grossing series?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2whj2y/eli5_if_having_to_pay_royalties_and_dealing_with/
|
{
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"coqwe91",
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"text": [
"Are you talking specifically about cars or just any brand of any consumable product?\n\nIn either case, it falls down to getting the licensing. Either companies aren't on board with the idea with their brand being represented in a video game about violent criminals, especially if the game makes fun of them ( as was the case with lifeinvader/facebook) or it's too much of a hassle for the game developer to get the greenlight to use everything from google to apple in their game so they just make up a brand that is similar to what it's portraying but is legally distinct enough.\n\nWith something like Midnight Club that is just a racing game, it's win-win for both car companies to have their products featured and for the game company to have real cars as a selling point.",
"They started GTA when they were a relatively young company, avoiding real brands on cars, guns, food, stores, etc meant that they could avoid paying royalties for those.\n\nBy the time that Midnight Club came around, they were an established enough brand that they didn't have to worry about losing money. In fact, they could accept money from car companies for Midnight Club because those games are essentially giant car advertisements.\n\nAs for GTA, they stick with the fake brands because the entire game is a piece of satire now. Instead of KFC they have Cluckin' Bell, instead of Hummers they have Patriots, instead of Caesar's Casino they have Caligula's. By using the fake brands they can safely hide behind satire and parody instead of being faced with numerous defamation suits."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
6o98dt
|
why are commercial airplanes all sub-mach 1?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6o98dt/eli5_why_are_commercial_airplanes_all_submach_1/
|
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"Going faster than the speed of sound is not very fuel efficient, and supersonic airliners bring issues like sonic booms over towns. This is why one of only commercial supersonic airliner we've tried (Concorde) was restricted to flights that were mostly transatlantic.\n\nIn today's world, for environmental and economic reasons, fuel efficiency trumps a shorter trip.",
"The faster you go, the harder it is to push through the air - and the relationship is not linear. So, going a little bit faster needs a LOT more power which means more fuel, bigger engines, more noise, etc. etc.\n\nPut your hand out of the car window at 30mph - easy. Now try 60mph - wow, the air is a lot more forceful! Now try 120mph (OK, don't really) you can't hold your hand up, the air is like a brick wall. At 600+mph you can imagine it's not easy!\n\nIf you look at Concorde, it's a tiny cramped thing that burns massive amounts of fuel, which makes it expensive to run and you can't fit many passengers on it.\n\nAdditionally, stuff happens the faster you go - stuff heats up, shockwaves happen, the whole airplane has to be made to withstand the extra forces & strains, lifespans of components get shorter, stronger stuff is heavier and bigger, etc. etc.\n\n*Please don't put your hand out the window and then sue me because you hit something*",
"Profit. Concorde was a hugely expensive vanity project heavily subsidised by the British and French governments. Modern airliners such as the Dreamliner are much more profitable. ",
"Sonic Booms bothering people is probably the best answer. Since you can then only use them for TransOceanic flights (no one below to bother) . . . they just aren't as multi-purpose useful.\n\nAs for \"efficiency\" at least one plane (SR71) is MORE efficient as it goes faster. The engines intake nozzles draw back, and change angle, and the engine switches to a Ram Jet . . . which despite more friction, is more efficient than the lower speed configuration.",
"Cost and noise regs, \n\nCost air travel is a low cost business and fuel is expensive. faster you go the more fuel you need. \n\nnoise regs, not just at speed with the boom but the Concorde was loud af at take off due to those awesome engines.\n\n",
"Fuel costs. Airliners already go a lot slower than they're capable of, to use less fuel. This is why you sometimes hear the captain announce he's going to try to make up some time, after a ground delay, by going a little bit faster than usual. ",
"They *weren't*.\n\nConcorde famously went faster than Mach 1, as did the Tupolev Tu-144.\nNot many were built and they have all been retired from service now.\n\nThe reason why the idea hasn't caught on is economy.\n\nWhen you start traveling supersonic, air behaves in a very different way leading to shockwaves and much higher drag. The aircraft must be shaped very differently to be able to sustain those speeds with reasonable efficiency...\n\nBecause of the higher drag and turbojet engine efficiency issues leading to more fuel consumption, and the fact that the body had to be narrower for aerodynamic reasons, a Concorde uses about the same amount of fuel for a jeourney as a 747, but carries three times less passengers.\n\nIn addition to that, a Concorde is only at it's most efficient when traveling supersonic, and because of the noise issues associated with supersonic travel, it was often not allowed to go supersonic over land, which limits it to very few routes where it could be made commercially viable.\n\nBritish Airways certainly did manage to extract money out of the Concorde for luxury passengers for a time.\n\nThere is yet still hope for supersonic and even hypersonic travel.\nReaction Engines in the UK is developing fascinating engines that use hydrogen as both fuel and a coolant to cool down the incoming air which allows them to travel at Mach 5, very high, with a very light engine.\nThe concept of the pre-cooler was actually devised for getting from the ground to space with a single stage with air-breathing rocket engines. Doing that requires incredible efficiency only possible by using the high pressures possible thanks to cooling the air.\n\nUsing the same technique for a plane means you get to travel fast pretty efficiently apparently...\nOne of the problems, however, is that Mach 5 is so fast that it's too hard to make windows that won't melt but are also light enough... so the plan has to have no windows!",
"They called it the sound **barrier** for a reason.\n\nWell below the sound barrier drag increases with the square of velocity. Going from Mach 0.5 to 0.7 is mostly a matter of increasing thrust. But when you get to about Mach 0.8, this relationship starts to break down, and it takes a lot more thrust to increase speed. When the aircraft is moving close to the speed of the air at a molecular level, it starts to get a lot hard to deflect the molecules out of the way.\n\nThat winds up taking a lot of engineering and fuel. The Concorde cost about as much to operate as a 747, with a third of the passengers. It also didn't get you through security or baggage claim any faster, so while shaving 3-4 hours off a transatlanic flight was nice, you are still blowing most of a day door to door, not really worth tripling your airfare. \n\n",
"There are two main reasons. The first, and probably the biggest reason, is that it's really loud. This was the reason that the Concorde failed financally: It wasn't allowed to fly over land because sonic booms are so disruptive (and they can be destructive). If it had been able to fly over land, the fleet would have been larger and the finances more sustainable. Reducing sonic booms is actually one of the main thing that research institutes (i.e. NASA) are investigating.\n\nThe second big reason is the engineering complexity and the increased costs associated with it. Generally, engines and wings on aircraft are optimized for a specific altitude and speed, so if you want an aircraft to cruise at supersonic speeds, it will have pretty poor performance at subsonic speeds (landing, takeoff). So that automatically means that you have more costs due to fuel. Additionally, flying at supersonic speeds is a lot harder on the aircraft itself, so you need to use more expensive materials and spend more time and money on maintenance. ",
"Lots of people are responding with cost as a reason. But while fuel costs, especially per-passenger, were higher with Concorde, they were not devastatingly high by any means. Concorde used about 20% more fuel to fly about 1/4 of the passengers, compared to a 747. But considering that Concorde was 100% first class, that cost was easily eaten by the fares.",
"There's a few reasons. First of all, turbofan engines, which all jetliners use today, are most efficient at subsonic speeds. Fuel savings are very important for airlines to keep costs under control. Turbojet engines work very well at supersonic speeds, but they're pigs on fuel. Which was a problem for the Concorde. \n\nThe second issue is noise. When you pass the sound barrier, it creates a very loud, continuous, sonic boom. People aren't too keen on having their windows rattled every time a plane flies by. As such, commercial aircraft aren't allowed to fly supersonic over populated areas. This pretty much restricts them to transoceanic routes. \n\nAnother issue is heat. The faster an aircraft travels, the more its airframe heats up. At high enough speeds, you need exotic materials. The thermal stress also causes the airframe to expand and contract, which can cause metal fatigue. Another factor which caused the Concorde to be grounded. ",
"This video by r/wendoverproductions, explains exactly why: _URL_0_\n\nShort answer: there is a \"sweet spot\" right below Mach 1 where it is most cost-effective to run commercial flights, based on engine design.",
"It's cost. It costs a shitload to make a plane that can go that fast, in addition, the fuel costs would be staggering. Lastly flying that fast creates lots of friction on the surface of the aircraft meaning parts get replaced faster. \n\nAs it was with the Concord, \"normal\" people would not be able to afford a ticket. \n\nAlso there are the sonic booms. It's hard to fly out of LA heading to New York and go supersonic over some LA suburb. the sound is much louder than the jets themselves and can be heard from far away on the ground. It would drive people insane. Concord only ever did it over the ocean. Here's a video _URL_0_\n\nFor US domestic air travel the boom would happen over inhabited cities hundreds of times a day. The loudness of the boom is correlated to the size of the aircraft. So fighter jets are mostly fine but large passenger planes are loud as fuck. Most places have laws that restrict faster than sound travel for this reason. ",
"The difference in lift, air pressure and required energy means that the shape ideal for subsonic flight is different from that ideal for supersonic.\n\nAs good as supersonic flight is when you're at 35,000 feet over the ocean, commercial aircraft may spend a not-insignificant amount of a given flight above urban centers, at low speed in holding patterns.\n\n At high speeds drag sharply increases, with a great preference for low-drag limited wingspans and a need for materials capable of withstanding the high friction and heat. The lighter, cheaper aluminum alloys used in subsonic aircraft? Forget it. If you're holding above YYZ for half an hour, that Concorde's delta-wing is just no good.\n\n It's no better for engines either: Placement of the intakes needs to take the changes in airflow at different points of the aircraft. High-Bypass turbofans offer many advantages at subsonic speeds; lower noise, higher thermal (and thus fuel) efficiency, and lower weight and cost. Supersonic engines? They don't allow as much of the air to bypass the engine, and force more of it through the turbine. This allows for much greater power to weight ratios and afterburning systems (in military engines) and even better compression at supersonic speeds.\n\nIt's much more cost-effective and urban-friendly to just add a couple of hours to the delivery or flight of passengers.",
"the sonic boom causes people problems. even if they can't hear it, something like 1/5 of the population experiences an acute stress response. you can't have 1/5 of the country's doctors and heavy machine operators flinching at random. ",
"While the notso trivial aspects of fuel consumption, increased costs to design and build those aircraft, and requirements about raising flight altitudes are a concern. Everyone here seems to miss the point focusing on other technical aspects as opposed to human ears and things we build on the ground. \n\nThe main reason is sonic booms (which can be dampened) and their shock waves (which are inescapable) and lack of standards for acceptability of potentially hearing 100's or thousands of them a day along busy flight paths. \n\nMost relevant reason from [wikipedia](_URL_0_): \n\n\"In 1964, NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration began the Oklahoma City sonic boom tests, which caused eight sonic booms per day over a period of six months. Valuable data was gathered from the experiment, but 15,000 complaints were generated and ultimately entangled the government in a class action lawsuit, which it lost on appeal in 1969.\n\nSonic booms were also a nuisance in North Cornwall and North Devon as these areas were underneath the flight path of Concorde. Windows would rattle and in some cases the \"torching\" (pointing underneath roof slates) would be dislodged with the vibration.\""
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://youtu.be/n1QEj09Pe6k"
],
[
"https://youtu.be/5MCETiKCLhc?t=50s"
],
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_boom"
]
] |
||
145vs1
|
ntfs and fat32
|
I've always known about them existing but never really understood what they actually are / do. So: What are they? Why can FAT32 not deal with large file sizes but NTFS can? Why do all memory sticks come with FAT32? Thanks.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/145vs1/eli5_ntfs_and_fat32/
|
{
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"text": [
"Both of them are file systems.\n\nIf you have a disk, you want to have some system to use the space on the disk. So, over the years different vendors have come up with a wide variety of different methods which are also known as file systems. They are called \"file systems\" because they are a system to store and retrieve files. \n\nFAT32 and NTFS are just two file systems from the same vendor, Microsoft.\n\nAll file systems have various features and have various compatibility problems, and flaws. NTFS is newer than FAT32 and was designed to fix problems that FAT32 had.\n\nMicrosoft has an operating system called \"NT (aka all versions of windows beginning with Windows 2000 are based on \"NT\") and NTFS just means \"NT\" File System.\n\nOne of the features of NTFS over fat32 is dealing with very large files. One of the problems created by NTFS is compatibility with older computers.\n\nIf you are in the business of selling USB drives, you format them as FAT32 because virtually all computers can read/write FAT32 and you only care about making things easy for your customers so they don't return the product to the store. \n\nI should probably add that one reason file systems have big noticeable flaws is because the designers of the file system (such as FAT32) were creating it in the days when hard drives were measured in MegaBytes, not TeraBytes. So, a ridiculously huge file then is a reasonable size now.\n\nA lot of file systems do things like cut your disk into N blocks of equal size and then store files in those blocks. If you had a system that cut up a disk into 1024 blocks back when a 5MB hard drive was a reasonable size, that system would work okay. But if you had a 1TB hard drive, cutting it into 1024 blocks would result in very large blocks meaning you'd waste a lot of disk space when storing small files. ",
"These examples of \"filesystems\" are used to organize data on a hd/memory stick/etc.\n\nI'll try an analogy, let's say you have a spanking new warehouse and starts storing stuff you need to have some kind of organization because otherwise it will take for ages to find something \"Where's the *hemick*?\" \"Oh, it should be somewhere in there, go fish\". So at a minimum you need shelves put up in a organized way and some way to keep track of what's where, like a card register. That way you can look in the register and say \"The *hemick*, yeah, it's in isle 5, shelf B4.\"\n\nFilesystems are to storage devices what the shelf organization and the card register is to your warehouse.\n\nFAT32 is so much older than NTFS so they thought that 4 GB would be good enough for the time being.\n",
"Storage drives like HDDs, SSDs, SD cards, memory sticks etc. need a standard way for data to be formatted so that they can be used interchangeably with other standards-compliant equipment. FAT32 and NTFS (among many others, such as EXT2/3/4) are a fixed set of standard rules which determine how data is stored on a drive. Once the standard has been defined, it has to stay standardised to ensure compatibility with everything, because to do otherwise could break things.\n\nFAT32 was introduced in 1996, when the idea of someone having a 4GB hard drive was quite unlikely, much less the idea of one whole file taking up 4GB. FAT32 became the standard because at the time, it was the Windows default and as with many things around that time, what Microsoft set as a default in Windows became the standard everyone worked to. \n\nKnowing that a PC user would almost certainly be using Windows, device providers made sure that things would work by using FAT32 in their storage systems. This created a bit of a chicken-and-egg situtation, as even after Microsoft introduced NTFS with Windows NT, a lot of hardware still required FAT32-formatted storage to work properly, which led to it being continually supported rather than phased out, which meant manufacturers had little reason to move to a new file system. \n\nBecause FAT32's limits only really come into play with drives larger than 32GB, it didn't really affect memory sticks until the last year or three, when > 32GB sticks became available. > 4GB files becoming common only really happened within the last few years as well, so manufacturers will be starting to move away from FAT32 now on their high-capacity products. But for something less than 32GB, there's very little reason to move away from it as a default, especially if a savvy user can quickly reformat to something else should they need it, and if they do that then it's not the manufacturer's fault if something else did stop working because of that reformatting.",
"Imagine a restaurant with a lot of tables in it. As groups of people come in each group is seated at their own table. If there are empty chairs they go unused because a group is already seated at that table. This is fat 32.\n\nNow if you wanted to get more people in you'd assign each person a chair and not worry about whether or not they were all seated at the same table. This way all chairs get filled. This is Ntfs.\n\nWhen seated like this everybody in the group will be fairly close to each other but some might be seated at the neighboring table. The server can still find your group rather quickly.\n\nNow imagine the restaurant fills up and then 3 pairs of people leave that were not sitting near each other. Those seats are now empty until a group of 6 comes in and is seated in each of the available seats. Unfortunately the tables aren't near each other so when the server takes the order for the group it takes longer as she needs to walk across the restaurant to visit each table. This is call fragmentation. The only way to fix it is to ask people to get up and trade seats until everyone is together. This would be analogous to defraging a hard drive.\n\nThere are implications to how large the table is and how many tables can fit in the restaurant that someone more familiar can expound upon.",
"The difference between these two *filesystems* comes down to basically two things:\n\n1. NTFS was a necessary improvement over FAT32 because it allowed users to store big files (larger than 4GB).\n\n2. NTFS provides a feature called *journaling*, which is very important.\n\nI'll cover both of these points in order, but first, what is a filesystem?\n\nA filesystem is pretty much a way of organizing data on a disk. You could just start writing at the front and write sequentially until you reach the end of the disk, but this makes certain operations very complicated. Let's say you want to read a file... you'd have to start reading at the front and keep going until you find your file! File systems do all sorts of stuff to make writing data faster and safer. I'll explain that stuff below as well.\n\nBasically a file system is just a format that you use when writing data to your disk. This is why creating a new filesystem is referred to as *formatting*. A filesystem tells you where to put files and where to put information *about the files*.\n\n**Storage Capacity**\n\n***\n\nFirst, to understand why FAT32 can't store very big files, you have to sort of understand how it works. It's very simple. When you format a disk, you divide it into *clusters*, which are just portions of the disk that are *n*-bytes long. You number these portions linearly, so that cluster 0 is at the beginning of the disk and the biggest cluster number is at the end of the disk. I use the letter *n* because the number can vary, but it's usually 16 kilobytes.\n\nFAT stands for *file allocation table*, which is exactly what it sounds like. It's basically a big table that tells you where a file is located. It says \"disgusting_pornography.avi starts at cluster 1000\". Simple, right? Actually it's just *slightly* more complicated than that, because files can actually be split up into several pieces on your harddrive. Why does this happen? It's simple, actually. When you write a file, you computer starts writing the file on the first available free cluster, until it runs into another file that already exists. Then it skips ahead until it finds another free cluster and continues this process until the whole file is written. Because of this, **you pretty much have to keep track of each cluster in which your file resides.** This is important, and here's why: the `32` in FAT32 comes from the fact that the *File Allocation Table* is structured in units of 32 bits. Of these 32 bits, four of them store other information, leaving only 28 bits to contain the clusters belonging to the file.\n\nFAT32 was great in 1999, but since then we've started storing much, much bigger files.\n\n**Journaling**\n\n***\n\nThis is easier to understand. Journaling is basically a way of making it harder to lose data if you suddenly experience a power failure or some other interruption in I/O.\n\nBasically, before writing any data, NTFS will write down what it *intends* to do in a special file called the *journal*. It's kind of like a to-do list. As it manages to do things, it checks them off, and once it's checked off everything, it considers that the changes have been successfully made.\n\nConsider this example: You want to move a file from folder A to folder B. NTFS writes the following in the journal:\n\n1. Allocate storage for the file in folder B\n2. Copy the file from A to B\n3. Delete the file from folder A\n\nIt then does each of these things in turn. If you lose power while copying, NTFS will check the journal upon rebooting, and thing \"hmm... I have these pending operations that were never done!\" It then removes the file from folder B in the allocation table, erases the journal, and as a result **nothing has changed**. This makes NTFS very robust when compared to FAT32\n\n**Conclusion**\n\n***\n\nNTFS is better than FAT32, hands down. If you run a modern operating system, you should prefer NTFS over FAT16/32. The reason FAT32 is so popular is because NTFS is closed-source and it's Microsoft property, which makes it difficult to make good drivers for it. FAT32, on the other hand, is pretty much universally readable, so it's great for a USB key that might need to be read under Linux, Windows and OSX.\n\nWhat's more, operating systems can \"mount\" (meaning \"make usable\" for our purposes) harddrives and flash drives as so-called \"removable media\". This means that it can sort of fake journaling in a way. What these OSs do is that they write data *without* creating a reference to the file in the *File Allocation Table*. Then, they check that the data has been properly written, and only when it has been properly written do they mark those clusters as used (and create a reference in the FAT). If something bad happens, when you plug the disk back in, **nothing has changed**, because the file system considers those blocks to still be empty and will happily overwrite them.\n\n**Erratum:** The reason for the 4 GB limit on file size under FAT32 is not related to the cluster mapping, but instead to the fact that FAT32 stores file size as a 32-bit integer. `2^32 = 4294967296 bytes = 4 GB`."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
5vulwn
|
how do urban/regional planners make the roads looks so perfect? (ie: perfect angles, symmetrical on each side.)
|
Here's a quick example of what I'm talking about: _URL_0_
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5vulwn/eli5_how_do_urbanregional_planners_make_the_roads/
|
{
"a_id": [
"de4zq9c"
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3
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"text": [
"Short answer: math.\n\n\nBut it's far from just them. They may design it, but the actual creation of it is work that is done by engineers, land surveyors (these guys get a bad rap; they use so much sophisticated math in the office, before they go out into the field and do the physical work for the job that it'd blow your mind), excavators, and various other technical fields. Without them, there would be no infrastructure, building of anything, etc"
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://www.google.com/maps/@33.7781873,-84.2412802,18.83z"
] |
[
[]
] |
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