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36fnb7
|
why medical establishments can charge outrageously high prices for their services, when the identical procedure can be done somewhere else for a fraction of the price? on the same note, how is it even legal for them to hide the price until they give you the bill?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36fnb7/eli5_why_medical_establishments_can_charge/
|
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" > Can someone please explain to me what in the hell is going on here?\n\nWhat is going on is that the American healthcare system is a sad joke.",
"* Let me first say that I'm a nursing student who plans to go to med school or get a DNP someday, I love helping people and I think I want to run my own practice. I pay my bills with a reception job (above minimum wage) at a privately owned emergency clinic and I scribe for my dad's private practice (a specialist surgeon) as well as handle some of his billing and claims. I’m replying to this post based on my personal experiences- the fact that I explain this stuff on the regular to patients also helps. Please be ready for a lengthy explanation, as medical policy in the U.S. is very complicated and convoluted thanks to capitalism.\n\n* Here is the low down dirty, dirty secret of medicine in the U.S. (if this applies to you). Just like any other business, you need to make a profit in order to survive. This includes everyone involved- the clinic AND the health insurance company. The cost of running a medical practice in the U.S. is ridiculous- purchasing and running medical equipment, disposable sanitary tools, autoclaving, insurance, utilities, licensure, employee training, billing software, lab expenses, medications etc. Additionally, none of these employees are making minimum wage, and all the billing specialists, managers, techs, nurses and docs have degrees and certifications which will warrant higher pay than other professions. Keeping all that in mind, the owner still has to save up some income at the end of the day in order to be a financially stable person in general. The insurance companies in my \"professional\" perspective of working with them, is that their job is to hand out as little money as possible so they can also turn a profit and remain a viable company. \n\n* My training (albeit only in private practice) dictates that you have to over bill the insurance companies in order to cover the cost of your procedures. Both places that I work come up with their own cost of procedure, which is standard practice. At my dad's office where I work with billing and claims, we bill the insurance companies four times the cost of the procedure and hope that they pay enough to cover the actual cost of running equipment, medical supplies used, hourly pay for employees and a little extra so my dad can have emergency savings for the company or buy new equipment as needed. Most of the time, we get the bare minimum back. I have also been told by my dad's manager that he doesn't charge enough, but we live in a low income area and most of his patients are disabled, living off of social security and use Medicare. \n\n* At the emergency clinic, we do have a self-pay policy, which is in fact reduced. Let's say for instance, someone comes in for a heavy duty albuterol breathing treatment (for severe asthma or a terrible chest infection). Total cost of procedure is around $150 which is paying for the medications, disposable sanitary equipment used, etc. We would generally charge the insurance company around $400, whereas the self-pay charge will come out to about $160- a profit of only $10. This is because we understand that a person’s medical treatment is necessary and that if they don't have health insurance they probably aren't making a ludicrous amount of money from their day job. We really do want to help people get better, truly. So, we only charge someone the bare minimum hoping to get paid enough to cover the costs and make a little profit. If we charge a self-pay $400 they will likely never pay their bill and we eat up $150 that will come out the total profit of the company. Now, if we were to charge the insurance company $160 we would never get enough back from them to cover the cost of procedure, and we would close pretty quickly. I'm guessing this is because the insurance companies are already assuming we are over charging, and really hoping it's not because they are stingy assholes who don't care about people’s health or well-being. \n\n* In general, most places do not give their payment rates to the public, as a protective company policy. This falls under a policy which you can look up called \"Usual and Customary and Reasonable Charges\". This policy basically says that nobody can regulate the cost of procedures on a broad scale because someone in a low income area (like where I live) cannot pay the same amount in a medical bill as someone living in a big city making six figures annually. This policy is in place to protect low income people and allow fair medical treatment for people of all income classes, therefore clinics are not required to release their charges to protect people with low incomes. This way they are allowed to set their own rates and do an adjusted self-pay or income based sliding scale payment. This also falls under the HIPAA act (which you can also look up), where clinics don't release other people's medical information to the public-- including billing information. There are lots of places in my town where they have a sliding scale payment plan, and one of these places is the university clinic. \n\n* The reason that you are charged higher than a person with no insurance lies in your contract with your insurance company. They agree to cover a certain amount of what is billed based on your premium, and you agree to cover additional charges. For many people, this is a good thing. You can go get a wellness check, get a sports physical for your kids, have your conditions monitored or get some antibiotics for less than the cost of procedure (your copayment). You can show up in a private clinic and pretend you don’t have insurance, pay the adjusted self-pay rate and try to get away with it, however many insurance companies consider this fraud and will find you in breach of your contract then drop you from your plan. If you don’t have insurance, you end up paying $100 for a standard visit for medication refill from a provider instead of a $30 office visit charge, or even worse you get hit by a car and have a $10,000 hospital bill.\n\n* Now in your situation, it seems like the insurance company was charged about six times the \"private\" cost of $450. This seems pretty accurate according to how I learned medical billing. Imaging equipment is really expensive, and imaging certifications tend to bring in the same income as a registered nurse henceforth the high cost of imaging everywhere, no matter what. It is also considerable that compared to the private clinic, the university clinic that you went to probably has nicer, newer, more accurate equipment (they are a university, after all), their utility bills are substantially higher, they have more staff, higher insurance rates, etc. Therefore their cost of procedure is probably higher than that of the private clinic and they need to bill more. \n\n* My advice to you is to go to a different clinic next time, take up your issues with your insurance company to get better rates, or simply find a new plan with a new company (if that is possible). The university clinic is not the problem here.\n\n* edits were made to make this giant post easier to read \n"
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4ba3zo
|
why do womens clits get bigger when they take roids, while no analogous growth happens in men?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ba3zo/eli5_why_do_womens_clits_get_bigger_when_they/
|
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"There is a theory of how fetuses become male or female, which you can talk about by using the words \"defeminization and masculinization.\" I'm not sure if it has a more particular name.\n\nSource: Wikipedia. I am not an expert on this topic. [link](_URL_0_)\n\nBasically, this theory claims that things that turn a fetus physically male seem to involve more active intervention, and stopping these processes, you end up with a female-typical person. I would assume that steroids are activating the \"masculinization\" process to make the clitoris grow toward being more like a penis.\n\nA full grown man's penis is already a penis, and I assume the body is not programmed to \"make it more penis-ey\" when you take steroids. That would just be logical deduction on my part, not a proven fact.\n\nI do know for a fact that the clitoris and the penis are derived from the same initial body part you would find on a developing fetus. One path of development leads this part to become a clitoris, while the other path leads this part to become a penis. So admittedly while this is not something I'm 100% confident on the reasoning, I think that's the most obvious answer. And no-one else has answered yet.",
" > while not analogous growth happens to men\n\nThat's actually not true. If some men take too many steroids or HGH, they can develop a hormonal imbalance and estrogen will become the prevalent hormone and they will actually develop small breasts. Called gynecomastia (or the slang term is \"bitch tits\").\n\n\n\n\n\n",
"When talking about \"roids,\" typically we are talking about injected Testosterone, which acts increase muscle mass, but also has a lot of other reproductive functions in both men and women. \n\nWithout going into too much detail outside the scope of the question asked, the easiest way I could put it is that the reproductive functions of Testosterone are growth/differentiation of external genitalia. \n\nIn women, you have enlargement of the clitoris because testosterone basically thinks it's supposed to turn the clitoris into a penis. In men, your balls shrink up because of lack of hormone interaction. Again, without trying to go into too much detail regarding complex hormone interactions the easiest way to put it is that there is a negative feedback mechanism that ends up being expressed in men where too much testosterone circulating in your blood signals the brain to stop making sex hormones to try and bring your shit back in balance. So it's not that roids make your balls smaller directly, they just make your brain stop supporting the growth of your balls, resulting in atrophy. \n\ntldr; testosterone tells women to try and sprout a penis while telling men to sacrifice their balls for the good of the body. \n\n\n\n"
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2xjnj5
|
what if there were no federal reserve?
|
Would it collapse the entire US economy, or just those business that don't practice long or short liquidity savings?
Would a non-existent federal reserve increase, or curb inflation since there is no regulation of interest rates?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xjnj5/eli5what_if_there_were_no_federal_reserve/
|
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"It's a contentious question, lots of counter factuals on either side.\n\nBut, we can look to a time when there was no federal reserve or other \"central bank.\"\n\nCurrency (notes) and credit (ledger accounts) would be less fungible (interchangeable). Banks would have to be more contentious of who they credit, and how to resolve account differences between banks.\n\nInflation is generally a product of how much money (or currency or credit) is created, circulated, and where it is introduced. So it depends on what the federal reserve is replaced with. Free banking can be inflationary, but can also be stable. Commoditized banks often tends toward stability, but has periods of rampant inflation as well.\n\nHowever, the federal reserve is often guided by avoiding deflation. So by adding periodic deflation into the mix, the current inflation experienced would likely be higher than in the absence of the federal reserve. So it should result in less inflation."
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422c2i
|
what is responsible for the feeling of sadness or loss when a loved one dies, or, to a lesser extent, two people break up?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/422c2i/eli5_what_is_responsible_for_the_feeling_of/
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"the same thing that is responsible for everything you feel, different chemical reactions and combinations that occur in your brain",
"Your brain makes attachment through memories. Memories are just old thoughts with serotonin and dopamine levels attached. The more you like someone the more is released and linked to that thought creating a memory. These basically get burned into your brain when you are around someone you feel strongly about. The memory or someone can cause your nerves to feel sensations as if they were touching you and so on. That feeling can be physical for some. \n\nYou can create memories aswell. Like being high or drunk can alter your judgement and give you an altered feeling of a memory. You could also link memories by having another strong thought after a already strong memory. ",
"This is hard to put in ELI5 terms. But I'll try anyway.\n\nSo our moods and emotions are largely determined by the prescence, or lack, of many types of neurotransmitters (or NT, so I don't have to type that whole word again). Our brains respond to certain stimuli by releasing certain NTs. Seeing and hearing a tiger lunge at you would trigger a release of the NT norepinephrine. It would \"arouse\" your body by expanding blood vessels, increasing heart rate, etc to better your chances at survival. So to review: stimulus activates NTs, which make you feel a certain way to help you survive.\n\nHumans that evolved with the release of norepinephrine didn't end up dying by tiger, while those who didn't evolve that function did. So you can see how the appropriate response to events can decide your survivability. Now to your answer:\n\nAlthough I do not know of the specific NT that makes you feel sad, I can explain it's function. It is to ensure that humans care for one another. If we didn't feel loss or sadness at the death of our loved ones, the term \"loved one\" wouldn't exist and humans probably wouldn't have survived this long. It's makes us band together, and increases our chances of mating and successfully raising a child to adulthood. Much like the emotion of love, it is a social function to increase our chances of survival, which usually translates to an increased chance of successful procreation, and vice versa.\n\nThink of NTs as nature controlling our minds to lead us toward the continuation of our species. Accomplishment triggers the release of feel good NTs like dopamine. Seratonin helps us relax so we can fall asleep, without which our brains would break down. There are many more examples. Just know that if you're feeling an emotion, it is there to help you past something.\n\nWhat's interesting to consider is all the lost lines of humans that lacked certain NTs, or had ones we don't, and how that would effect their behavior in comparison to our own. There is probably a reason why they died out. It would be cool to know what kind of behavior leads to eventual destruction.\n\nEven more interesting to consider is how some of our NTs no longer benefit us, because we aren't in the same environment that we were when we developed these functions. Remember norepinephrine? It's release ceases only when the stimulus that activated it has been resolved, i.e, the tiger is killed or you ran away. The norepinephrine helped you escape, and is pulled from your brain and replaced by dopamine to calm your body and reward you for surviving. However, most people nowadays don't need to worry about tigers. They worry about more abstract things like work, career, bills, conflict with other people, etc. These types of stimulus activates norepinephrine as if they were all tigers, except there is no resolution to them. You cannot escape your bills, there are always more coming. You cannot stop worrying about your career. So norepinephrine is constantly in our heads, and we are always on edge. It's called stress, and it's the biggest killer around. What used to save us from death now leads us to it, in the forms of heart disease, and the things we do to alleviate the stress, like alcohol and drugs or other unhealthy habits. Even though ancient humans had it rough, they were largely happier because their lives were simple. Their stresses had conclusion, and they were allowed to move on and be happy they were still alive.\n\nSorry, that was a bit of a rant, but I think it's all relevant to your question. I hope this helped."
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4gjbcm
|
how is the new voter id law in nc discriminatory towards minorities?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4gjbcm/eli5_how_is_the_new_voter_id_law_in_nc/
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"I'm not saying I agree with this, but the main argument is that minorities are less likely to have an ID, less likely to have the documents needed to get an ID, and less likely to have the money to get the documents needed for an ID. ",
"I haven't seen the NC particulars, but Voter ID laws are discriminatory against the poor, which tend to be minorities and the law wasn't put in place for the reasons that the politicians state.\n\nGenerally, poor/minorities vote democrat. Also, the incidence of voter fraud is unbelievably exaggerated by voter ID proponents (it's nearly nonexistent).\n\nSo if you pass a law that prevents 50 fraudulent votes, but keeps 20,000 legitimate voters from voting, is the voter ID law doing what it's supposed to be doing? They pass it because they don't want those 20,000 people voting, not because of the 50 fraudulent votes.",
"Not everybody drives. Not everyone even gets out of their home too often. Historically, you did not need to provide any sort of identification to vote. You only needed to register in your voting area, show up to the proper polling place and give them your name.\n\nVoter ID laws are a solution to a problem that never existed. Conservatives like to say that voter ID laws protect from voter fraud, but there has never been a case of voter fraud that was outside the margin of error.\n\nConservatives also know that blacks, hispanics and other minorities generally vote for liberals... so they move to enact voter ID laws under the pretense of eliminating voter fraud.\n\nMost blacks and minorities who do not have IDs (driver or state) probably do not have a way to procure them, and there is even more nefarious things going on in those districts-- like the place where you would go to get a state ID is only open on Monday and Friday from 1 to 3 PM. This makes it EXTRAORDINARILY difficult for those people to get IDs so that they may vote.\n\nSo now, when these people get to the polls, they are turned away for not having an ID, resulting in lower democrat / liberal turnout, which even leads to disenfranchisement of people who DO vote, causing them to believe that the system is rigged anyway, so why vote?",
"Also, lets add to the discussion. [Should districts be based on number of people living there, OR on voting citizens living there.](_URL_0_)\n\nIE, would a district based on total people unfairly weight those citizens votes that do live in that district vs a district with more voting citizens in it?"
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41kll6
|
why does elon musk want to land a rocket on a ship instead of land? he says it's not about saving fuel but for high velocity missions.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/41kll6/eli5_why_does_elon_musk_want_to_land_a_rocket_on/
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"A high velocity mission gets the booster engine going too fast away from land in order to be able to turn it back around. So thus it has to land on the barge because it doesnt have the gas to get back.\n\nHes right in that its not about saving fuel, its just all the fuel in the booster basically gets used for high velocity missions.\n\nAlso being capable of landing on the water gives them more flexibility with launch sites."
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5k0csf
|
why are junebugs so damn stupid
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5k0csf/eli5_why_are_junebugs_so_damn_stupid/
|
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"bugs are dumb in general to the point where they only have the most basic level of self awareness anything could have. They don't think so much as just act in preset ways to patterns. common patters are\n\n- fly towards the light\n- fly towards food\n- fly when something comes close\n- fly after a not doing anything for a while\n\netc.\n\nWhen they fly into your hair they are just probably just randomly flying."
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7yhyz0
|
why is rice so readily available and cheap?
|
I've traveled around Southeastern Asia a bit and seen rice paddies first hand, as well as have read a bit about how difficult life is for rice farmers. It seems to be incredibly labor intensive and somewhat low yielding, so I don't get why 1) there seems to be so much of it really available, and 2) it is such a cheap crop. Can someone ELI5?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7yhyz0/eli5_why_is_rice_so_readily_available_and_cheap/
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"People we're cultivating rice as early as 3000 BC. It grows well in those climates and can be harvested multiple times per year so it was the ideal crop for East Asian farmers.",
" > It seems to be incredibly labor intensive and somewhat low yielding\n\nWhen you have cheap labor & cheap land, this isn't a huge deal. When you have industrialized processes for harvesting and refining it, this cuts the costs down. When your processed product doesn't spoil or require complex refrigerated storage/shipping, this keeps costs down and you don't need to worry about spoilage.",
"I am going to look at this from a smallholder/ traditional farmer point of view\nIt does appear to be incredibly labour intensive, but rice comes with one incredible advantage, you can flood the fields and plant the rice plants in the mud, and the rice will grow for the first few weeks of its life in the water, so while planting and harvesting looks backbreaking, apart from that you have 3 months or more where you just need to control the water flow.\nThis means no plowing, no digging, and more importantly no constant weeding or bug patrol for the farmers, it also means that they don't need tractors or teams of oxen, or to spend money on weedkillers and pesticides.",
"Rice, Wheat, Potatoes, Corn are pretty much the major staples on this planet. They are relatively calorie dense, and can be easily and cheaply grown.\n\nThat being said. It really comes down to industrialized harvesting. This has caused these staples all to be relatively cheap. \n\nAs far as your observations for SEA countries. They are relatively poor countries with little industrialization. The land is cheap and so is labor.",
"-Rice is grown partly in flooded fields. This reduces the need for pest control as most weeds can't grow underwater. \n\n-Because of this rice is only hard to grow when first planting; afterwards controlling the flow of the water is all that is really needed.\n\n-Rice is harvested multiple times per year. \n\n-Rice is very easy to store. \n\n-Land and labor are cheap. ",
"Taking into consideration that rice grows in flooded fields and cheap land and labour:\n\nIn India, a lot of rice farmers own their lands but have loans with very high interest with loan sharks. They can take years to pay off only the interests just 500USD (~INR 33000) which is really not a large sum if you compare it to the basic salary of an office employee in a city like Mumbai or New Dehli, or even to the harvest revenue. For this reason, there are a lot of cases where the loan sharks \"temporarily\" take illegal ownership of the lands and harvest until \"the loan is paid\". That means that the actual land owners do not get any revenue from their own harvest. Instead, they get a very low wage to the point that they need to take out more loans from the same loan sharks to be able to survive. In some cases, they are not even allowed to consume their own high quality rice but instead have to buy low quality with food stamps. Therefore, the loan sharks take 100% profits without even having to spend 1% on the whole cultivation process. Considering that harvests take place several times a years, this is the reason why rice is so cheap and in high supply. They only have to worry about droughts and insects that are easily dealt with.\n\nNote that many in rural areas are mostly illiterate and don't know their rights. They also don't have access to good lawyers. The police system mostly works on a corruption system. ",
"Agricultural Engineering student here. \n\nRice needs no after harvest inputs, so it doesn't need to be refined or made into something else (wheat into bread and such)\n\nOnce you harvest it you can eat it, also it isn't that labour intensive one man can grow enough for his family easily. \n\nIn south East Asia they can get 4 rice crops every year becuase it is fast growing and has an exceptional turnover times. \n\nOther than that, it's cheap to buy seeds for it and has a decent market value due to demand.\n\nEdit: apparently by English is Incoherent so I made some corrections\n\nEdit II: I am Scottish so I should be pretty good at English, although it technically is my second language after Gaidhlig.",
"asia is known to be very populous. china, india and indonesia is among the top 4 most populous countries in the world. so cheap labor isn't a problem. \n\nrice is just like wheat. and with an established irrigational system rice can be produced very cheap.",
"Advancements in agricultural technology and methods have also increased yields and have made the work easier. For example, this [rice planting machine](_URL_0_).",
"Rice keeps very well, with very little spoilage. this is perhaps the most important thing in food, because it means it can easily be transported from regions where it is easy to grow to regions where it is not, and stored all year long, so that it can be grown once a year and then consumed all year long. This makes it low risk for both the farmer and consumer, because the farmer is sure they can always sell it, and the consumer doesn't have to worry about it spoiling before they can eat it. Consequently, lots of people everywhere try to farm it, because it is a relatively safe crop to farm if your area can tolerate farming it.",
"I feel people in this thread are ignoring the fact that rice commercially grown here in the United States, specifically Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and California. We use modern farm equipment to harvest rice in fields of giant mono-cultures, just like corn or soy beans.\n\nHere is a handy video about how rice is grown in Louisiana: _URL_0_",
"Rice is not low yielding at all. It is one of the most productive crops in the world, able to support high populations like in India, China, and Japan. Also the rice that you buy in America is likely mechanically harvested via machines...",
"Rice is labor intensive to be farmed by hand. But a lot of rice is mass farmed in the USA. It can be mass harvested by machine. And as far as a crop goes. It grows fast has a larger than average yield. It is also moderately resistant to insects and weather. It can also be stored long term. Making it an efficient crop to grow in a lot of areas of the world. ",
"It only is labour intensive for small holders. Large rice fields are entirely mechanized. From sowing to planting the saplings it's all done with machines by the wealthier farmers. One man can plant 3 paddies in a day with a hand drawn planter. They could do a dozen with a heavy duty tractor with a rice planter attachment.\n\nHarvesting is much in the same way completely mechanized for the richer farmers. \n\nJust google mecjhanized rice harvesting. Rice planter and rice harvester.\n\nEDIT: Some places in Vietnam have doubled their rice production after mechanizing the production.",
"Also in countries like India, rice is a major staple for people so government controls the prices very closely. While the real inflation in the country is around 12% (ignore the government published inflation of 8% of less which is BS), rice prices never went beyond 5 or 6 % YoY, specifically because of government price control. (Joke is, government calls this \"Support price\" but this price is an indicator of the market prices. Higher the support price, higher the market price and lower the support price, lower the market price. ",
"That's also farming in developing countries. Australia exports rice to Asia as far as I know (sun rice company). It's grown in the Riverina region. I would imagine we use much more efficient means, but with costly machinery outlay. ",
"It's a staple food, so people will continue farming it. High demand and high supply.\n\nAbout rice farmers in SEA, farming in Southeastern Asia is not fully industrialized and some are still practicing unsustainable agriculture. My country produces a lot of rice yet still have to import. Some farmers still use harmful chemicals as pesticides even if they are illegal, while black bugs keep getting pesticide resistant. It's not like all rice farmers are having difficult life. Farmers I know that are having difficulties is because of one or combination of these: Bad agricultural practices, bad business practices, or bad financial decisions. Like certain someone who keeps getting loan for the latest fads (which I blame more on my country's culture).",
"Rice is one of the only crops you can grow in water. The Chinese rice patties, the images everyone recognizes? You don't have to flood anything to grow it. But if it flood the area, the rice is the ONLY thing that will grow.\n\nSo you flood an area, and now you just cut your labor costs down by about 3/4, because you no longer have to weed or worry about pests. You can spend your time planting more rice.",
"I live in Madagascar, we have the highest per capita consumption of rice in the world. I teach Agriculture, including rice farming. I also have a degree in economics.\n\nThe fast answer is supply and demand. Rice is cheap because so many people farm it. For example, everyone in my country is a rice farmer (98% of the population farm rice or have land that a tenet farms rice on). If a seller tried to demand a high price for their rice, the buyer would just laugh at them and say they can grow their own or buy from the guy right next to them who is also selling rice. Products can’t demand high prices unless they are rare. \n\nSo why is the supply of rice so high if it is so hard to grow? Well all agriculture requires hard work, but it isn’t a constant job. There are two rice planting seasons in a year here which are each about a month’s worth of work, then there is harvesting and processing which is another month each. So in a year you’re looking at four months of hard work, four months of light work tending the fields, and four months of no work when it’s the dry season.\n\nAgriculture also requires no formal education and is very easy to learn. It takes me an hour to teach the most advanced technique for planting rice. This means that poor rural villagers who cannot afford to go to school can still become rice farmers.\n\nFood is cheap because either a poor rural farmer (which there a billions of in the world) grew it, or because a machine that can do the work of hundreds of people did. This means that the supply for all subsistence crops (including rice) is very high, which means the price is very low. \n\nCrops only become expensive when they are rare. These are called cash crops because they generate a lot of income. Cash crops are rare, and thus valuable, usually because they require complex processes, a lot of labor or time, and/or special climate conditions. Examples of cash crops in Madagascar include vanilla, cacao, and cloves. It would take significantly longer to teach someone how to grow and process these crops.",
"Just want to add if this was not brought up. There are a lot of rice varieties. Some are not that cheap and readily available.",
"Small holders are still able to operate, but in Malaysia with modern farming technology they've reduced labour massively and increased yields substantially. There's a nice article on modern rice farming in Africa here: _URL_0_ \n\n",
"We can't forget to credit Nobel Peace prize winner Norman Bourolg for why rice is so ubiquitous and affordable. He and his team of researchers developed the first truly viable strains of high protein wheat and rice. His research led to the plants we call 'golden\" rice and wheat today. They are called golden because they are naturally higher in protein and grow with high yeild in diverse environments. Meaning you have a plant that can grow where it couldn't before and every seed head has more calories in it. These plant varieties have saved millions of lives across the world. Critixally these plant varieties were developed to feed people, not for profits. Thus Norman is the only Nobel Peace Prize recipient who was an Agricultualist. Learn more about him be reading the book, \" The Man Who Fed the World\" by Leon Hessler. There are similar Documentaries under the same name. Brief you tube summary found here, _URL_0_. ",
"Besides all have been mentioned. People invented so-called Hybrid Rice in 60 and 70s, these rice drastically increase (can be double) the unit yield meanwhile highly resistance to insects etc and can be cultivated in salty soil."
]
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"http://www.thecitizen.co.tz/News/Business/How-modern-farming-practices-helped-triple-production-of-rice/1840414-4307252-gj4pw0z/index.html"
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|
24s1yd
|
why does putting https in front of www. get around most internet filters?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24s1yd/eli5_why_does_putting_https_in_front_of_www_get/
|
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"http is the protocol used to get data from the web server(s) and onto your browser. By standard, its all clear text which means anyone and everyone can see what your upto.\n\nhttps is the same thing, only the s means it is secured. This means that no one can see what your doing (NSA / Heatbleed etc issues aside).\n\nWhen you connect via http, the filter can easily see the content of what your looking at and block it accordingly. When you connect via https, it can no longer do this. However, whatever filter you are using is piss poor, as a decent filter should still be blocking the URLs etc even via https.",
"In addition to what everyone else has said, I feel I have to add, it wouldn't do you any good to arbitrarily put \"https\" in front of a web page's URL. It has to actually be a secure socket site and earn the \"https\" designator."
]
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[] |
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||
g0c9qr
|
why is it so easy for us to concentrate for hours on movies, video games, etc but so hard to maintain our attention span for minutes on academic activities?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/g0c9qr/eli5_why_is_it_so_easy_for_us_to_concentrate_for/
|
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"We pick the video games and movies we pay attention to. As for studies, even if it’s something we enjoy, if it’s taught in a way that is uninteresting, or not how you learn. It’s a wash.",
"Concentration is always easier when you are interested in the topic. It's scientifically proven that you will read faster when you are interested in the subject that you are reading about compared to something you're not.",
"Movies, games etc provide an instant dopomine release, which encourages you to continue (instant gratification). When studying you dont get the dopamine release until a lot longer, when you ace a test or feel proud of yourself for studying all day.",
"Because it's voluntary (genuine) interest vs forced interest. You can pursue an educational interest with just as much fervor if it's something that genuinely interests you. Something you're truly curious about.\n\nBut also because movies/video games/books are often specifically designed to engross us, where as normal activities in life are not.",
"Because of the dopamine nowadays. We make so much dopamine with videogames, social media etc. That the ‘harder’ tasks become even harder, because of the lack of dopamine. \n\nIf you want to improve, I would say look up ‘dopamine detox’ and it could be something for you.",
"We have deadlines, forced timelines, stress, lack of choice, and more very unflexible factors going into this.",
"I once went to a lecture on studying where the lecturer said that if we do things that our brain doesn't like it will activate the flight response. The brain will keep throwing random thoughts around until it finds something that distracts you and you \"flee\" the thing you were doing.",
"It’s because the neural pathways are already there. It’s a completely different process (and experience) to learn something new and have to carve new pathways, versus trying to follow existing pathways further. Even if a movie is new to you, your a priori perceptual structures about culture, media, and humanity are necessary to follow it with emotional interest.",
"I argue that if you were required to pay as close attention to movies as we do on schoolwork far fewer people would enjoy them. Same with video games, save a few hyper-realistic simulators; they \\[most video games\\] don't actually require a ton of focus. The trick is to get you focused enough you ignore other distractions (sex, family relations, other healthy activities) but not focused hard enough that you become seriously fatigued. Play GT4 without any assistance from the computer at all and see what I mean. Or, MS (the new one is awesome) Flight Simulator with all the settings on realistic.\n\nSo the ELI5 is you aren't actually concentrating hard in video games, true concentration is hard for the human mind regardless of what we are concentrating on. You may be more motivated to concentrate on one thing (a movie) but the act of concentration is substantially similar.",
"Why can I waste hours looking for something to do online, but 10 minutes at work feels like an eternity?"
]
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1ee3uy
|
why are drugs that are not addictive, not high-inducing, and seemingly perfectly safe only available by prescription?
|
I searched and saw a similar question asking about antibiotics being prescription only, and I get the dangers and the reasoning with those. However, I take a prescription allergy medication, for example, and I was given no special instructions beyond what's on the box (same as OTC drugs), there are no apparent, serious side effects, and I just call the doctors office when I'm out of refills and they call in some more for me, no appointment needed. What would be the harm in just letting me buy it whenever I needed to?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ee3uy/eli5why_are_drugs_that_are_not_addictive_not/
|
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"It's impossible to a decent answer for why a drug is prescription only without knowing what the drug is.",
"One big reason some drugs exist by medication only is that some people might self diagnose if the medications are available. There needs to be a doctor that stands between you and your diagnosis for many reasons. If you were to have access to any medications (non habit forming of course) over the counter, you might have people taking medications to help them sleep, to numb their pain, to get rid of a rash, etc, that are in fact just symptoms of a larger disorder. If people could treat every symptom they have with no repercussions, there would be no point in doctors and pharmacists. However, if you have a really itchy rash, a bad pain in your leg, or that consistent trouble sleeping and the drugs are not available without prescription, you have to see a doctor to get your problem checked out.\n\n\nThere is also a chance that the specific medication you are taking for allergies has some side effects that are life threatening, or overly hazardous to be sold over the counter. Your doctor has checked you out and believes your benefits outweigh the risks (which are likely very low in this case). \n\n\nAlso, your drug could have fallen in a higher schedule than OTC drugs (schedule I being the highest) which would make a prescription necessary because of potential for abuse (but very unlikely that this is the case with your med). _URL_1_\n\nEdit: I should also ask, does your med also contain a decongestant like pseudoephedrine? That would make this a very simple answer. _URL_0_",
" > ...there are no apparent, serious side effects...\n\nMany things can be not apparently to the laymen but still be very dangerous.\n\nIn addition, some regulations on prescription aren't made on the basis of safety, but rather other legal concerns.",
"Two words - Drug compatibility\n\nJust because two compounds are relatively safe by themselves does not mean they are safe together."
]
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[] |
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[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoephedrine#Use_to_make_Methamphetamine",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_Substances_Act#Schedule_I_controlled_substances"
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|
47o457
|
if you got to build a machine that can throw coins the same way everytime, from the same height, in a controlled space, with no wind and with milimetric precission, would the coin always land the same face?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/47o457/eli5_if_you_got_to_build_a_machine_that_can_throw/
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"Yes it should.\n\nAt the classical level, physical events are pretty deterministic. \n\nIts theoretically possible that it wont due to quantum events, but its still something that is very very very unlikely to ever happen.",
"If you built it to land on heads, with the right precision in manufacturing the coin, with a good well constructed coin pitcher, the answer is yes.\n\nIf you took the same pitcher and set of coins, set them to land on edge with a spin, probably the coin would fall randomly. But there could be a considerable bias towards one side.\n\nYour question is, \"Can machines be built to be reliable, producing the same result each time? The answer is, Yes.\n\nThe other side of the question is, \"Is there random fluctuation in the results sometimes even when conditions are well controlled. That answer is, Yes there can be.",
"If it's the same coin each time then yes. For a while. Over time the coin will change, constantly hitting when it lands will eventually reshape the coin slightly which might have an effect on how it lands on future tosses.",
"A team at Stanford did exactly that while investigating how random a coin toss is, building a machine that tossed coins so that they always landed the way they started. Put the coin in the machine heads-up and it would land as heads 100% of the time (or at least in 100% of their tests).\n\nThey also concluded that a normal coin toss by a human isn't quite fair, and will land the way it started 51% of the time."
]
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||
1n0qon
|
how can just a few cables under the ocean carry the entire internet traffic and phone conversations of multiple continents at once?
|
I've always been curious as to how a single cable running under the ocean, has the capacity to transmit all of the internet data and telephone calls back and forth between millions of people all at once?
Edit: As a result of some of the great answers on here and the resulting 2 hour Wikipedia and You Tube trail I've just been on, I would like to formally announce, that I am as of now, the cleverest man in the world.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1n0qon/eli5_how_can_just_a_few_cables_under_the_ocean/
|
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"A) there's more than 'a single cable' and B) they are high capacity fibre optic cables capable of 100Gbit/sec. ",
"All of these uses are turned into computer information, or data, and that data is broken up into packets, small bits of information with data such as what it is and where it should go. All these packets are then put into a router at one end of the cable, and are received by a router at the other end. They are then sent on to the computers that turn them back into telephone calls or web pages again.",
"What's the total bandwidth of one of these cables?",
"I'm short on time but the answer is DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing)\n\nA simple explanation of the technology would be using different colors of light down one fiber for different signals. This allows you to multiply the usefulness of a single fiber by the number of colors being used. ",
"As someone who's spent most of the last 36 hours dealing with the consequences of a cut fiber optic cable somewhere under the English Channel, I'm inclined to answer \"not as reliably as I'd like\". It would be great if ships would stop dragging their anchors across our cables, thanks.\n",
"My question is more like - if so much of the ocean is undiscovered, are there just cables in these undiscovered parts of the ocean that we just chucked down there and let it sink until we felt it hit the bottom?",
"To see the way your data takes through those cables, you can just open up a command line window (type \"Terminal\" into your Spotlight on a Mac) and enter\n\ntraceroute _URL_1_\n\nand you will get something like _URL_0_\n\nSince I am in Germany, my request has to cross the ocean. Using a tool like _URL_2_ you can locate the routers and identify the point in the list where the signal went through a sea cable.",
"[Here's another map](_URL_0_) detailing the cable landings in the US.",
"[This article] (_URL_0_) by Neal Stephenson explains in very simple terms how cable is laid, how it carries data, and how they are repaired. Excellent read for anybody who wants to know more about our technological infrastructure. ",
"In much the same way your TV can get multiple channels over the same antenna. Plus each channel uses multiplexing. Think of it (sort of) this way. 4 people are reading something on TV at the same time, but in 4 different languages. Listeners (each only understanding 1 language) would pretty much only hear the message in their language. So you have transmitted 4x the information. For all cables you can further separate by wiggling the data in different ways, sending it at different times. For Optical cables, you have different colors. Plus optical cables can carry more information. \n\nOthers have done a MUCH better job of giving a technical explanation, but I thought I would give the non-technical one. ",
"Fiber optic cables are what you are specifically asking about in the question: these cables are currently the most efficient means of transporting data (information) however they are costly to produce due to the material and labor costs. Fiber optic cables work by sending packets of light (known as photons) through the fiber optic material, which is essentially glass or plastic covered in an insulator, and these light packets carry the information in the form of light through the glass/plastic material from point a to b, at the speed of light. The light is then received and decoded into electrical information at the other end. The reason these cables are so much more efficient than the traditional copper wires is that copper/metal wires send data through electrical currents, and these currents quickly use the capacity of the wire while fiber optics use the light packet technology as previously stated. Fiber optics have an incredible capacity and for this reason, a huge amount of information is able to be sent along a single cable in comparison to older technology.",
"To be fair, there is more than one cable. And each cable carries multiple fibers. Then throw in all the DWDM on top of each.",
"There are a lot of good answers here, and I'm very late to the party. But the answer to your question is something called \"multiplexing\".\n\nFor a little background: waves in nature are generally analog (i.e. they are physical in origin). Sound, light, electricity, water waves, all tend to act this way. Whenever you speak, the sound waves that come out are analog because they are a result of your vocal chords compressing and decompressing air. Our brains are great at interpreting analog signals. However, analog signals are not so great for long distance travel in a wire or cable, as they degrade, become weaker, and lose information the further they go. Think of trying to hear someone yell to you from a mile away.\n\nDigital signals overcome these obstacles, but our brains are terrible at interpreting them. Luckily for us, there is a way to turn analog to digital and then back to analog without losing any information. The process of going from analog to digital is called \"modulation\", and the reverse is called \"demodulation\". This is the exactly what your modem does.\n\nInteresting fact: Modem stands for \"(mo)dulate (dem)odulate\".\n\nA person talking, like I said before is an analog signal. Your telephone captures this in the microphone area and sends it to your phone company. Every modern long-distance phone system will take your voice, and modulate it into a digital signal to be sent over long distances. This signal is sent to the person on the other end, where the message is then demodulated, and becomes a sound (voice) that the person on the other end will recognize as yours.\n\nNow that the nitty gritty detail is out of the way: this is the info more relevant to your question.\n\nThink about how a [prism](_URL_1_) spreads light into multiple different wavelengths (as the image shows). This process can also be reversed: you can take multiple wavelengths of light, and divert it all into one beam.\n\nMultiplexing uses hardware that specializes in a form of this process. Multiple input signals are converted to different wavelengths of light, converted into one beam, and sent over a fiber optic cable. For instance, your phone conversation would be one of the inputs, that would then be converted to light.\n\nAt the other end of the line, the hardware takes the light and separates it back into multiple wavelengths. Your conversation would be one of them. The information encoded into these wavelengths can then be demodulated, and sent to your conversation-partner where he hears your voice.\n\nTL;DR: [Magic](_URL_0_)",
"my favorite undersea cable is the \"See Me Wee\" \n\n([SEA-ME-WE](_URL_0_))\n\nI had to deal with re-routing my company's traffic from London to New Delhi when they had a break on this one in the Mediterranean about 3 years ago. Ended up sending everything \"the long way\", over both major oceans and making stops on 4 continents. Latency was around 1100ms, but it was SO cool.",
"Because those large cables consist of multiple connections, usually fiber-optics. Furthermore, each of the fibers can be used to send multiple individual streams of data.\n\nAn ELI5 analogy could be a highway. There is a single highway, but because there are multiple lanes, an awful lot of traffic can go through. For the multiple data-streams, imagine that somehow there are cars that can drive upside down, and all lanes have a roof. Now you can fit twice as many cars in a single lane, basically doubling the capacity of the highway (cable).",
"There are hundreds of underwater cables in which each cable carrys several individual fiber strands then onto each strand there are 32-96 lambdas \"frequency\". Each frequency is basically a private separate point to point connection from land to land, mostly large teleco isp. Depending the the sonet cards you use use One lamba can equal oc-192 which is 10gb, THE OC NUMBER is much larger by meow, i havnt worked on sonet in a while. I'm no cable expert so I don't know how many strands u can stuff in one oscean cable but there is a limit. The limit comes from battery powered light regeneration nodes built into the underwater cable every 50-80km depending. Thereis a Japanese firm (I forget name) specializing in designing next gen underwater fiber optics light regen have built nodes that last 20-30 years underwater. Also minimized photonic regen latency which overall lowers latency on end to end cable. Light is not traveling the full speed of light while in a fiber strand, its like 2/3 or something. Also there are very long ships that travel the fiber path and pick up the cable so it doesn't get burried and they make repairs like replacing regen nodes, batteries, cable damage. It takes over 8 hours to dissect an ocean cable.",
"Wait there is a cable under the ocean? is my life all a lie?",
"First of all, IT people are lazy. The thing we do best is make computers pretend to do something, while using the least resources to do so. If you request a webpage from Australia and we have a copy of it laying around in the US, we're just going to give you that copy and not go to Australia. If we have that set up that is. Most of the \"big\" downloads don't actually come across those lines more than once, making 95%+ of traffic vaporize instantly.\n\nThen there are those where you do need to actually transfer the data. Say, you're the first person in your part of the world to want something or there is no server nearby that you can use instead. For those, we have incredibly fast connections (100Gbit/s and up) that are shared between users. This may sound like a limit, but remember that a voice connection is barely 128kbit/s, so you can fit a million (!) good-quality voice connections on that at the same time. On that one cable.\n\nAnd of course, remember that most people don't actually use that transcontinental cable all the time. Most of the time, your data comes from really close by.",
"your conversations are shallow, and the cables are deep.",
"Damn you OP and interesting posters. My 30 minute lunch break just finished. \n3 hours later.",
"First of all, it's not a couple cables. It's many many cables, see here:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nSecond of all, each cable contains many many individual fiber optic cables inside it. Each one of those carries multiple wavelengths of light via dense wave division multiplexing. Each wavelength on each fiber in each cable is capable of carrying man gigabit. So we're talking about (as many as, in theory) hundreds of individual multi-gigabit streams per cable. ",
"The channels on the radio and on your TV are all different wavelengths of light. Light is a wave and a wave has a wavelength (length of the part that repeats) and a frequency (number of wavelengths per second). Different wavelengths behave differently and are destinguishable, since light doesn't take up any actual space as long as the different information being destinguished you can send pretty much as much as you like down a cable. So you have light at a billion different frequencies bouncing down the cable at the same time and you can hold data on each little wave of light. the data itself is then stored in the amplitude of the light wave, which is basically the strength or height of the wave, like how a sound has a frequency and a loudness.",
"Somebody correct me if I'm wrong but I think they use big motherfucking cables",
"Why doesn't some terrorist group ever fuck with the giant internet cables? The mass panic and confusion that would cause is pretty outstanding.",
"One thing to remember is that a \"Single Cable\" running under the ocean is made up of HUNDREDS of fibers. Today, for instance, myself and my crew were running a 144 count fiber optic cable in Kansas City for Google Fiber. This cable is no bigger than your thumb, actually a little smaller. According to Google, Trans-Ocean Fiber optic cables are just shy of 3\" in Diameter or just about 9\" around. That is an ENORMOUS fiber optic cable. Also remember that there is not just one cable lying on the ocean floor there are a whole bunch of them. That is how the internet and telephone is transmitted, through multiple Fiber Optic cables, with, of course, as was laid out by Samyaz and others, multiple simultaneous transmissions per fiber, of which I have not found exactly how many fibers are in these massive trans-ocean cables but if you figure a 144 count cable is about 3/4\" wide, then one that is just shy of 3\" may have 2000 individual fibers in it? This is oversimplified because I cannot find stats on these cables other than weight per meter or something like that. They are not the same as land based aerial or underground cables like we use so I can't just do a quick calculation to figure out how many fibers are in there. They have extra layers for waterproofing and crush resistance. ",
"Keep in mind that a single fiber strand has a lot of capacity (say 10Gigabits per second) and a phone call requires only 64Kbps (to keep the math simple, let's say 100Kbps). That means one strand can carry 10,000,000,000 / 100,000 = 100,000 calls. That's a lot of calls. Plus, there are multiple strands in a cable bundle.\n\nData eats up a lot of bandwidth, but popular websites have local data centers and there are web caches to speed things up. Email between continents probably isn't that fast.",
"Here is a slightly technical overview of fiberoptic communications:\n\nFiber optic communications are incrediby powerful for several reasons. \n\nFirst, fiber optics are just about the lowest loss transmission medium in existance. Very good fiber has a loss of about 0.2 dB per kilometer. That's 20 dB per 100 km - you get 1% of what you put in after passing through 100 km of fiber. Copper cabling is something like 0.2 dB per meter, 1000x more lossy. \n\nSecond, fibers have an incredibly wide bandwidth. The ITU DWDM C band has 100 channels on 50 GHz spacing for 5 THz of bandwidth. The bandwidth of a fiber is far wider than this, but the C band is usually used for long haul communications because it can be amplified with fiber amplifiers. The ITU C band is centered around 1550 nm (infrared). DWDM stands for dense wavelength division multiplexing. Multiple transmitters operating on different DWDM channels can be multiplexed onto a single fiber with an optical filter, prism, waveguide grating, etc. for more efficient transmission. Each channel can carry a very significant amount of data. If each channel is 10 gigabit ethernet, a single fiber with 100 DWDM channels can cary 1 terabit per second. However, higher order modulation formats can increase the capacity of each channel. For a rate of 100 gigabits per second per channel, a single fiber can carry 10 Tbps. \n\nThird, it is possible to build a fully optical amplifier. A fiber amplifier uses a length of special fiber that has been doped with a very small amount of a material that turns it into a gain medium. A fiber amp made with Erbium doped fiber is called an EDFA (erbium doped fiber amplifier). Inside a fiber amplifier, the input and output fibers are connected to the erbium doped fiber with optical filters. A high power pump laser (980 or 1480 nm for an EDFA) is coupled into the doped fiber by one of the filters. The pump laser energy is absorbed by the erbium atoms, exciting them. When photons in the 1550 nm band pass through the fiber, the erbium atoms will lase at the same wavelenth and phase, amplifying the signal. This works for the ENTIRE C band. > 5 THz of optical bandwidth can be amplified in one shot without having to demultiplex all 100+ channels in each fiber. In an undersea cable, EDFA modules are inserted every few km. I think it's about every 100 to 200 km, depending on gain and noise figure. The amplifiers are powered by applying a constant current down the line at a very high voltage - 10 kV or more - to reliably power the amplifiers without loosing too much to thousands of km worth of resistive losses. ",
"Today I learned:\nThere are cables under the ocean...\nI feel stupid for thinking satellites sent all the messages around the world. "
]
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"http://cryptome.org/eyeball/cable/cable-eyeball.htm"
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"http://www.wired.com/wired/archive//4.12/ffglass.html?person=neal_stephenson&topic_set=wiredpeople"
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"http://www.submarinecablemap.com/"
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|
3debcq
|
why does getting back into bed feel so much better when you're not supposed to, rather than when you have the time to get back in bed and sleep a little longer?
|
I just don't understand. I want getting back in bed to feel the same every time (that feeling of "oh I know I shouldn't but maybe just 5 minutes more"Zzz)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3debcq/eli5_why_does_getting_back_into_bed_feel_so_much/
|
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"Simple human feelings. Lets say you have to get to work, and you need to get up in 3 minutes. Only then it feels to good to drag it and sleep more. When you have the day of you know that you can sleep.. Causing you be more awake and boring. There is no logical explaination to it other to what i just explained. ",
"Because satisfaction is a function of expectations. Positive expectancy violations result in happiness. \n\nIf you're expecting a package in 3 days and it comes in 2, that's awesome. If you're expecting a package in 1 day and it comes in 2, that sucks. \n"
]
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[] |
[] |
[
[],
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|
2rwsb5
|
the fcc is apparently thinking about reclassifying the internet as a utility. what would happen to comcast, verizon, and other isps? are there any historical comparisons?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rwsb5/eli5_the_fcc_is_apparently_thinking_about/
|
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"If anything, the rural electrification and telephonication of the early 20th century.",
"To the best of my knowledge, there is no historical comparison. Maybe roads, or cell phones, but I really don't think either of those are anything like the internet. Part of the reason that Internet-related cases are so complicated is how recent the Internet is, and a lack of relevant precedent.\n\nThat being said, big ISPs (e.g. Comcast, AT & T, etc.) would be forced to not discriminate between different sources of Internet traffic (e.g. Comcast can't throttle Netflix in favor of its own services) and submit to broader FCC authority. They would also become subject to [common carrier](_URL_0_) rules, which also has the effect of granting other ISPs (e.g. Google) benefits like poles.\n",
"It's not just the FCC suddenly thinking about it like it was some random idea, every informed user of the internet is fucking demanding it. \n\nThey would be the same as the telephone company and power company. The FCC regulations are why a farmer can afford to have power and a phone line. You need to run miles of cable just to connect 1 farm house while in a city a mile of cable connects you to dozens of apartment buildings and thousands of customers, yet the farmer and city people all can get the same calling plan for the same price.\n\nWhy is this fair? Isn't the city people subsidizing the country people? To a degree, yes but it takes massive infrastructure to connect an entire country. It is impractical to run 5 networks and only use the one from the company you signed up for and impossible for new companies to enter the market. So you have 1 network which gives a company a monopoly but must follow regulations such as provided service to everyone and limited price increases. \n\nISP's have the monopoly with out the regulations so what you get is cities with high density of customers getting quality upgrades due to competition and rural customers barely get any service at all with zero competition. Price has gone way up and what you get has gone way down. Years ago you could get a 10Mb connection for about $35, now you get a 10Mb connection for $50 and a 100Gb data cap.\n\nWhat would happen to the ISP's is that they would make slightly less money and that is it. Consumers would get more uniform service levels and bring more people online.",
"What about railroads? They were the bogeyman of the 19th century the way Comcast has become the bogeyman of the 21st century. They were regulated, not under the FCC but by the Interstate commerce commission. A tool which closed some of the unfair railroad practices by broadening them out to cover more places, eliminating the unfair advantages where they were cheap, making everything as expensive as the rigged short haul fares. \n\nThen when trucking became available the ICC became a thing the railroad companies could use to bludgeon trucking companies with and artificially extend their grip longer than the market would have held. \n\nAlso Sprint and Tmobile both offer unlimited internet at similar speeds to what my cable company offers. It seems to me to be a pretty viable form of replacement that's only going to get more viable as computers become less and less the only center of using the internet. ",
"Hopefully what will be done is the removal of the content provider segment of these companies from the internet connection portion of the company. Those are rival segments of the company and they have conflicting business goals which leads to bad situations like what we have now. Comcast will split into Comcast Entertainment, selling packages of network content per a subscription fee a la netflix, and Comcast Internet, who you hopefully call once to set up when you move to a new place like power and water. ",
"The companies would have to split themselves into Common Carriers, who maintain and operate the physical lines (now charging all parties the same for usage). And into an ISP, that would have to pay for access to the line itself, competing for our business.\n\nThe closest historical perspective is electricity lines, but instead of Internet service it was electricity and power lines. The companies that owned power plants also owned the lines and would charge others differently for access to their lines, it's a fairly close comparison if you think of it like that. Now the distributors charge everyone the same to use the lines, and electric companies compete for our business. \n\nWhat does it mean to you? It means that cable line in your house that can only get TWC internet would be accessible for Comcast to offer you a service. Or anyone. (You'd probably find Comcast cable proper was also available to you now.)\n\nIt means, that companies don't get to create 'slow lanes' for Internet sites that don't pay we regulate the traffic. "
]
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|
[] |
[] |
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[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier"
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||
5n4tul
|
why are the french famous for surrendering?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5n4tul/eli5_why_are_the_french_famous_for_surrendering/
|
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"I think it's largely because of WW2. But I find the whole thing a little silly. They lose a lot of their conflicts, but surrender isn't the word I would use. Even in WW2 the French resistance kept fighting long after France itself fell. And during the Napoleonic era, they ultimately lost, but they still pretty much fought to the bitter end. Like I seriously wouldn't fuck with the French military.",
"It's undeserved, really, as they certainly put in the effort with Napoleon etc, had a sizeable empire (still do TBH), and were simply overwhelmed in WW2. Britain and France have a long fraternal history of fighting, we make jokes at the expense of the other, but under it all there's a long, strong history of respect. ",
"France as a country suffered greatly during ww1 near the earlier parts of ww2 Germany attempted a hold and risky tank manuver and succeed arriving behind defenses at an unprotected Paris. Super surprised and remembering ww1 the French surrendered.\n\nThe surrender thing goes back to this and anti French people perpetuating the meme. The French have surrendered at other times but historically they usually have had a powerful army that won many wars.",
"they aren't, just a few words in the right places in popular culture(such as the Simpsons)has created a popular myth.",
"Honestly it comes down to historical ignorance. Many people in America only know very recent history. In World War 2 France was overwhelmed by the German onslaught and surrendered very quickly. Allied troops then had to invade Europe and liberate France so it be became sort of a joke that the French were weak militarily. Fast forward to 2003 when the French refused to back the US invasion of Iraq and this joke became even deeply more rooted as people viewed the French as weak or not willing to help the US like the US helped the French.\n\nAll of this ignores the facts that France has an illustrious military history and that the United States wouldn't exist without French help. The French fought tenaciously and suffered immensely during World War 1. Their casualty numbers are staggering. Anyone who makes fun of French military history basically doesn't know history. ",
"The French were also defeated in Vietnam, whereas the United States, won a glorious unconditional victory there.",
"Same reason everyone says Napoleon was short when he was actually above average height in his time. It's just shit talking from the enemy, the french were actually bad ass mother fuckers if you take the time to google it.",
"The majority of people tend to know only recent history: so nearly everyone knows how france surrendered in 2 weeks during WW2 (even if they ignore the fact that, in reality, the french army during WW2 wasn't weak, but generals still had a WW1 kind of warfare in mind, in fact they tought that the ardennes would be a nearly impenetrable defence and vastly understimated tanks and motorized infantry). But they tend to forgot how french history is full of military successes (from charlemagne till napoleon III, france was one of the most successful country military wise), because those victories are \"remote\" and they feel like they are disconnected from modern france",
"In chronological order: \n\n* At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the French surrendered twice: First in 1814, after which Napoleon was sent into exile at Elba. Then again after he came back in early 1815 and was defeated at Waterloo. \n* During the Franco-Prussian War, the entire French Army was surrounded by the Germans at Sedan and surrendered. This defeat was catastrophic and cost them the war. \n* During World War I, the French Army mutinied and refused to attack anymore. (They still fought defensively) They decided to wait over a year until tanks and American soldiers arrived before they would go on the offense again. In perhaps the greatest intelligence failure of all time, the Germans failed to learn of the strike. \n* During World War II, the French surrendered after the German blitzkrieg had overrun the Allied armies in Belgium. \n* During the First Indo-China War, the French (who fought the entire war with a succession of terrible commanders, little political commitment, and no long-term planning) decided to try to sever the Vietminh supply lines using an airbase situated in the middle of a bunch of hills at Dien Bein Phu. Instead, the Vietminh surrounded them and shelled them for weeks until they gave up. The defeat was catastrophic and cost them the war. \n* EDIT: I'll also add that in 1759 the French were defeated at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham (just outside of Quebec) and surrendered. This defeat was catastrophic and cost them the French and Indian War (that's the 7 Years War to you Europeans) \n\nFun fact: During Vietnam, American commadner William Westmooreland was asked if they could learn anything from the french experience. His reply was (paraphrasing) \"Why would we try to learn anything from the French? They haven't won a battle since the age of Napoleon.\" - which is both historically inaccurate (they won both battles of the Marne and Verdun during World War I, just to name two very important counter-examples) and indicative of Westmooreland's incompetency. ",
"Look up Phony War. After winning ww1 and surviving all of its horrors, France was not prepared or willing to as a nation to fight another world war.",
"The French surrendered to the Germans after a very short campaign in the Second World War, because the German attack was very quick and effective. As a result, there is a stereotype that the French are cowards who will surrender at the first opportunity, which is very incorrect. In fact, the French have a history of incredibly successful military campaigns.",
"A large part of it comes down to them surrendering early in WW2 (1940)...then De Gaulle proceeding to piss off the entire Allied forces by taking credit for the liberation of Paris later in the war.\n\nBasically, when France Surrendered, Charles De Gaulle, the French President 'retreated' to England. \n\nParis was liberated in 1944 by a combined force of American, British and Canadian forces with help from the French resistance and what was left of the 2nd French Armored. De Gaulle, however, insisted on representing it as a French victory. Insisting french forces lead the victory parade and delivering the following speech (excerpt):\n\n\"Paris! Paris outraged! Paris broken! Paris martyred! But Paris liberated! Liberated by itself, liberated by its people with the help of the French armies, with the support and the help of all France, of the France that fights, of the only France, of the real France, of the eternal France!\"\n\nSo, put yourself in the shoes of a British, American or Canadian soldier. France surrenders in 1940, contributing little to the overall war effort. You've just fought a hard-won campaign, watched your friends die to liberate France...and then the French president not only doesn't thank you, but takes all the credit and represents the whole thing as a purely French victory.\n\nHence: Cheese-eating surrender monkeys.\n\n",
"Because they surrendered in WWII, mostly. Made everyone bail their asses out. Also English speakers generally don't like the French because the French don't like anyone. So on top of them being entitled surrender monkeys they also have a stereotype of being assholes.\n\nTo be fair I'm an American so my stereotype is \"being fake nice\" which in my opinion is worse than being an outright jerk. This is only compounded by the fact I'm a Southerner- which means I am both racist and compulsively friendly and welcoming.",
"Lots of good answers, but they have not had much luck in war. In fact, not many countries do, including the countries who \"win\". They got destroyed in a war against Prussia, their leader actually getting captured by the Germans. They performed magnificently in WW1 but the cost was absurd. By the time WW2 came around and it was clear the Nazis had broken them, they didn't want to repeat the horrors. Then they militarily fought against losing their colonies in the 1950's which was a strategic mistake. Vietnam ended in unexpected humiliation at Dien Bien Fu, and the war in Algeria was terrible and they still withdrew. \n\nThrow in Napoleon's defeat and it's been a rough 200 years. That being said, they are fantastic fighters, they simply suffered from being world power losing possessions when the world outgrew them. ",
"Vichy France in WW2 is probably the biggest reason.\n\nThe German *blitzkrieg* created a decisive military victory in France, but when the French Premier signed their armistice with Germany, France became a puppet state of Nazi Germany. Two million of her soldiers were held prisoner laboring for the Third Reich as hostages to keep the southern region of France in line.\n\nThen Germany occupied the southern region anyway, and this forced France to scuttle her navy.",
"I remember seeing a great analysis of all known western world battles a couple years ago, probably on Reddit. I think it was based on Wikipedia battles pages. \n\nThe conclusion was pretty clear, France from Gaul to modern day Republic was the most victorious \"nation\" of all time.\n\nSo I guess you can say that this \"Why are the French famous for surrendering\" concept is a pretty biased idea of Anglo-Saxon origin.",
"I wanted to add one more WWII tidbit I didn't see. Not only did France surrender (as opposed to, say, Poland and Norway which never surrendered but continued to fight in exile) but it actively engaged Allied units. Admittedly the Americans and English they shot at were either attempting to \"invade\" French territory (North Africa) or were demanding the surrender of the French fleet (Mers-el-Kebir) but... still. This did not engender good relations. ",
"They overwhelmingly outnumbered the German forces in WWII, but blundered it by using WWI Trench Warfare tactics, and not fortifying Belgium at all. Their forces were so severely crippled and the morale was so low they surrendered, leaving the UK as the lone major member of the allied forces until Hitler decided to invade the USSR. There were some pockets of guerrilla resistance, but in the long run, many just accepted Nazi occupation and put up very little resistance. \n\nFurthermore, their military successes were minimal after Napoleon.\nIn WWI the army went on strike. \nFor the past few hundred years, ( with the exception of Napoleon) France had been gradually falling behind the UK in military influence. They supported the colonies in the revolutionary war as a form of revenge for the loss of the french-indian/7 years war. \n\n\nAlso...\n [Because captain america says so... ](_URL_0_)",
"Because during WWII, after the French were flanked over the Maginot line, Paris didn't have any actual defenses, so they simply gave it up to protect their army, and to make sure their City wasn't destroyed.",
"Not like those proud & brave Americans that rushed into WW2... 2+ years after it started, all the while selling goods & supplies to the Allies & having private enterprise support the Axis. ",
"They explained to you the \"basis\" or the \"arguments\" to why they call the french pussies or quitters.\n\nThe actual reason behind this new insult comes from the wars Bush initiated. France was the only one saying \" wtf are you doing, it's a nonsense\", and the USA got pissed, calling them pussies. The term, not being something you can easily argument ( France wasn't and hasn't been a little country over all ), derived to quitters, and then to famous for surrendering, since there are \"proofs\" for it ( even if, when you think a little, what country haven't surrendered in all the history of humanity...)\n",
"When Charles DeGaulle escaped to London in WW2, Churchill advised to turn Paris into a war zone and defend from there. DeGaulle said, \"and lose Paris?\" So they surrendered instead.\n\nWho can blame them? War is horrible, war is ugly. Why lose something irreplaceable like the city of Paris when there might be another way.\n\nThe French love good living. War is the opposite of all that.",
"I'm just going to leave this video here in response to all the people listing French defeats.\n\n['French Military Victories: some perspective and swearing'](_URL_0_)\n\nBasically the main reason is, like every other European nation, they were unprepared for blitzkreig. It's worth noting that we Brits also weren't prepared and were only saved from invasion by our superior navy and the channel. The USSR was the second most powerful nation on earth with vastly more territory, men and resources and they were also unprepared and suffered terribly.\n\nThe second big one is the first Vietnam war. Again nothing in this war shows the French having a remarkably poor military, they (like the US after them) just couldn't handle fighting against an entire country that wanted them out.\n\nHistorically the French have always been a great military power since Charlemagne and have a great military record. Losing to the blitzkreig so quickly is basically the only real reason for this record. There are other defeats but no more than you would expect from a country so involved in war. Amusingly many Brits mock the French military despite the fact our military is smaller and less well equipped.",
"The French kind of got a bum rap. It mainly due to WW2 after the German Occupied France, also they had a little issue in Vietnam that went real bad for them, I mean real bad. \n\nHuge part of it is the rivaly with England and France, Napoleonic wars and 100 year war kept that rivalry up. Also note during the Imperial Age British by the start of WW1 they controlled 25% of the world population and so it not a surprise they would use propaganda to make themselves look better. That little culture war is it own story, so I will stick with military.\n\nIn reality France army is no laughing joke. Heavy Calvary during medieval times where unmatched, and feared. WW! they held their own for a long time, long before us Yank go in the fight. Just look up Verdun, which was the benchmark for crazy until Stalingrad. During WW2 they actually had more tanks which where more advance then the German Panzers at the time. The issue was they where spread them out across Maginot Line. Which kept them from spear attack of the German Bliz. This did not just catch the French off guard but also the British allies. Look up Battle of Dunkirk. Even though the French government surrendered, The military and French people kept fighting a lot of time out gunned with no reinforcements for years, they don't sound like quitters to me.\n\nThen the Indochina wars or when as we Americans join in the Vietnam war, well that was clusterfuck nobody did well in that. \n\nAlso us silly Americans would not of won our little spat with England over our Independence. They recognized us as a Nation, supplied us with guns, tanning, and at a critical moment their Navy. Yeah the French cock block the British and we knew it. It why good old 100 dollar Benny when to France to have a talk. Now I just list some of really big stuff that effect the whole world but the smaller engagements are really show their strength. The French commanders are brilliant and most of time they actually show it. Which is why you heard of Napoleon. The issue with that brilliants is when it all go wrong, it like a giant spot light pointing at the mistake, and history only remember the failures more often then the success.",
"This doesn't relate to the history aspect but modern aspect but I feel like I need to share my experience with being in a base where we had both French and English soldiers. \n(I actually had no idea about the history, this was an interesting stumble read) \n\nI was in training two years ago in a French based city for my bmq and the difference between French officers and English ones were astounding. Just the way they commanded their students was so...authority. \nYou do one tiny fuck up? In the English course? You get a strike, get 15's and maybe a nickname for the rest of the time you're there. You're in the French course? Well, you're in...for a rough time. \nI don't really know if it's a stereotype outside of Quebec but here it's very true. English was definitely more lenient on the recruits then French were. Thinking on it now maybe it's because of the historical aspect of the French military stereotype, but it sure made me happy I picked English course let me tell you. ",
"As many have said here, I think much of this misconception can be traced to World War II. After the French carried much of the brunt of fighting in WWI (the US contributed little by comparison, and entered near the end of the war), Germany's quick defeat of France in WWII was shocking to the world and also to Germany, in fact. These days, many people poke fun at France's \"surrender\" in that war, which looks embarrassing compared to Great Britain's stiff resistance and, of course, the role of the United States in the liberation of Europe.\n\nThe reason this is an ignorant reading of history is that there is nothing in the French character about the surrender to Germany in WWII. France is right nextdoor to Germany, and practically EVERY country that shared a land border with Germany was quickly defeated... Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark. Germany nearly even defeated the USSR. What sets Great Britain apart here? The English Channel. Britain has water to thank for their survival in the opening years of the war. Don't get me wrong, the Brits fought bravely and smartly, and they sacrificed greatly, but for all that sacrifice and blood, they would have likely gone the way of France if they shared a land border with Germany. The US, of course, benefited even more from the vast ocean separating us from Germany.\n\nAgain, this is not to disparage the fighting and sacrifices of people who, in my view, saved civilization by defeating Nazi Germany. But, with the vast differences in geography that played a major role in the war, it is unfair to point to the French as sissies among the world powers.\n\nFrance, by the way, had one of the most active, effective, and brave resistance movements of Europe during the German occupation in WWII.",
"World War 2 is arguably the most recent big-time event to fall back upon and France unfortunately had no chance against the Nazis. (It took seven freaking months for the Germans to occupy France.)\n\nBut, I wish people realize and understand that the French have the winningest (also arguable) military tradition in the known world.",
"The short answer is this: \n\nThe French, who are among the most militarily successful people in Europe over about the past 1,500 years, refused to support an American administration which wished to start a couple of wars, an administration which included one of the most effective PR teams ever known.\n\nConsequently in the US they quickly became known as \"surrender monkeys\" and most Americans now think the French flag is solid white.\n\nAround the rest of the world people aren't as easily deceived.",
"To put it short, because they realized that the 2003 war in Iraq was a bad idea and said it out loud. The Americans got pissy, tried to rename french fries, whined about the French being cowards and then proved them right by failing in Iraq.",
"Most people don't know about the French rearguard at Dunkirk, who allowed the British and some Frenchmen to escape. I hope the upcoming movie does them justice.\n\n*to actually answer your question (with something I havent seen yet in previous answers) the Vichy French collaboration with the Germans also hurt the French reputation greatly, especially as little England held out against the Germans. ",
"cuz they got RIGGITY WRECKED in WWII. Total fuckin badasses up to that point though. and during if you count the French resistance which is still the stuff of legend",
"Primary reason is because the France was where the last 2 major wars were fought. Because of how horrendous the first one was, many French people didn't want to have to lose another entire generation of men to the second. The resistance to the second war (while still a valiant and noble effort) was nowhere near that of the first. \n\n\nAny student of history knows that the French are not to be fucked with. ",
"The French cowardice trope attend back to ww2, they were invaded by the Germans and they surrendered just like any country would under the circumstances.\n\n However, in 2002/3 the French PM suggested that before declaring war on Iraq we should wait until the weapon inspectors finish their job as going in prematurity will increase extremism and international terrorism, the US media machine went mental, French Fries became freedom fries, there were boycotts of Genghis products called for and the French were generally verbally hung, drawn and quartered. \n\nSo it's a combination of factors but considering the French were traditionally a strong ally of the US (we, the British, surrendered to does not American ones during the war of independence) then It was really fucking stupid to not listen to them.",
"DIEU PROTEGE LA FRANCE\nBroadcast\n21st October 1940 by Winston Churchill\n\nFrenchmen! For more than 30 years in peace and war I have marched with you.\n\nI am marching still along the same road. Tonight I speak to you at your firesides, wherever you may be, or whatever your fortunes are: I repeat the prayer that upon the louis d'or, \"Dieu protege la France\"\n\nHere at home in England, under the the fire of the Bosche we do not forget the ties and links that unite us to France . . .\n\nHere in London, which Her Hitler says he will reduce to ashes, and which his aeroplanes are now bombarding, our people are bearing up unflinchingly. Our Air Force has more than held its own. We are waiting for the long promised invasion. So are the fishes . . .\n\nFrenchmen - rearm your spirits before it is too late. Remember how Napoleon said before one of his battles:î These same Prussians who are so boastful today were three to one at Jena, and six to one at Montmirailî\n\nNever will I believe that the soul of France is dead! Never will I believe that her place amongst the greatest nations of the world has been lost forever.\n\nRemember that we shall never stop, never weary, and never give in . . . We seek to beat the life and soul out of Hitler and Hitlerism. That alone - that all the time - that to the end. Those French who are in the French Empire, and those who are in the so-called unoccupied France, may see their way from time to time to useful action, I will not go into details . . hostile ears are listening . . .\n\nGood night then: Sleep to gather strength for the morning. For the morning will come. brightly it will shine on the brave and true, kindly upon all who suffer for the cause, glorious upon the tombs of heroes. Thus will shine the dawn.\n\nVIVE LA FRANCE!\nLong live also the forward march of the common people in all lands towards their just and true inheritance, and towards the broader and fuller age.\n\nBroadcast\nLondon\n21st October 1940.",
"because during the cold war american schools taught propaganda instead of history, especially in regards to wars.\n\nchildren were taught that ww2 was won single handedly by the united states (lol) and in order to do so they had to downplay the involvement of the major players.\n\nEngland was depicted as one big bombsite\nFrance was only ever described as surrendering without a fight (the french resistance caused more damage than you would believe)\nCanadian accomplishments were simply claimed as american ones or not ever mentioned\n\n\nfrance was tactically important so the nazis took it with overwhelming force, they pretended to surrender to save lives and continued to fight the war in the shadows to avoid civillian casualties.\n\nAmerican news then depicted that as cowardice in order to make themselves seem like the hero",
"There's an old joke that an American says that if American's didn't help the french during world war I & II that they would be speaking German.\nThen the Frenchmen replies that if they didn't help us in the Revolutionary war America would not have been a country. The American promptly replies that if we lost they still would speak English. \n\nThere's another one of an old man visiting France and a customs lady gives him a hard time about not having his passport out, she says he should know to have his passport out, he replies that last time he came to France in 1944 he couldn't find any Frenchmen to give it to.\n\nLong story short in America we relish our victories and don't pay mind to European history, not many people know that France was an extremely powerful and wealthy country. We study the world wars much more than wars that were fought before we were a sovereign state. We know that the German blitzkrieg quickly forced the French to capitulate. It is widely believed that without the English or the Americans that Germany would have won World War I. \n\nTlDR two bad jokes and stating that Americans love our victories and don't really care about European history except for recent history",
"Because the British don't like them, they never have, and America has become very friendly with the British, and France surrendered once. It's the easy target and bullies likes to hit hard on weak spots, so there it is. It's become a thing because during world war 2 the relations between the 'Anglo-Saxons,' as he put it, were very frosty toward France's Charles de Gaulle. Personality and differences of opinion probably played a major portion of it, but in the end, de Gaulle came to power in France and America didn't like his dirigisme so making fun of them for surrendering came very naturally. \n\nAnytime America doesn't like something they do, it comes back up. It has less to do with actual historical record and more to do with childish middle school behavior. ",
"Because in the English speaking world we tend to see European history after the middle ages from a British perspective. All the French victories are looked past, and the wars we focus on are the ones Britain gets in on after France had grown too powerful and basically every nation in Europe teams up to cut them down to size.\n\nThe two most famous defeats, the Seven Years War and War of the Sixth Coalition, were only after France steamrolling it's neighbors for decades at a time.\n\nThe *Sixth* coalition. It took 6 of those fuckers to finally crack the big blue blob.\n\nAnd of course there was World War 2, the highest profile war of all time that the French had the misfortune of losing early on.",
"They aren't really. \nA look at French military history shows that they have won as many or more wars as they have lost.\nAdditionally for much of history they were the defining military power.\n\nIt all essentially comes down to WW2 and one can hardly blame them given that the British army had already fled the field.",
"For all the people who are saying that France is not a war powerhouse in human history:\n\n\n\n\n\nFrom 5th century| Battle Status| Number| Percentage\n---|---|----|----\n-| Win | 118 | 63%\n-| Loss | 57 | 30%\n-| Undecisive | 12 | 6%\n\nFrom 14th century| Battle Status| Number| Percentage\n---|---|----|----\n-| Win | 106 | 62%\n-| Loss | 53 | 31%\n-| Undecisive | 12 | 7%\n\nFrom 17th century| Battle Status| Number| Percentage\n---|---|----|----\n-| Win | 86 | 66%\n-| Loss | 33 | 25%\n-| Undecisive | 12 | 9%\n\nFrom 19th century| Battle Status| Number| Percentage\n---|---|----|----\n-| Win | 52 | 59%\n-| Loss | 24 | 27%\n-| Undecisive | 12 | 14%\n\nFrom 20th century| Battle Status| Number| Percentage\n---|---|----|----\n-| Win | 24| 63%\n-| Loss | 8 | 21%\n-| Undecisive | 6 | 16%\nA two-third overall rate of victory in battles is pretty insane.\n\n[Source](_URL_0_) ",
"Because of american propaganda. \n\nWhen USA beat an ennemy, he is always depicted as a glorious fighter : Nazi germany his always show as a great military force, beating all the way down in Europe, having great tanks, soldiers, and so on. \nBy doing this american put them logically as superior from their beated ennemy : the stronger is the ennemy you defeat, the stronger you are. \n\nAs the opposite, when USA loose a war, the ennemy is a unfair, don't fight loyaly, have weak soldier and weak strategy.. Look at the Vietnam : you officialy didn't loose because you were beaten in the war, right ? \n\nSo, as Germany beat France in 1940 : USA > Germany > France\n\nBut in fact as so much people said in this thread, France as one of the best military history of the world. We are in the middle of Europa, with no strategical deepth or chanel / ocean to protect us. But we still here after 1500 years of intense war, kicked so many ass, loose some war, but after all we have a great, great military tradition. And still today our army is one of the best in the world.\n\n",
"I think mostly it is because for a long time England and France were in competition for domination in Europe, and England (as every country does) tend to focus on their victory (french defeats) and not on their own defeats (unknown french victories). \n\n(they even went as far as considering the 100 year war as not a french victory, considering the long bow is better than french artillery even though it sent them back to England).\n\nThe US taking a lot of cultural background from England (even tough the french army fought for them in the war of independence), I think as an English country speaking they continued spreading this stereotype every time France did not do as they like."
]
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|
7erh9l
|
is thinking about thoughts an abstraction?
|
So here's what I mean: When you draw a picture of a chair, it would be called an abstraction, because it's not actually a chair, just a representation. So, if you think about a chair, that also an abstraction, because there is not actually a chair inside your head, just a representation. So, if you think about thoughts, is that an abstraction or not? Because there is an actual thought inside your head if you think about thoughts.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7erh9l/eli5_is_thinking_about_thoughts_an_abstraction/
|
{
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"text": [
"Sure, same way there is an actual drawing when you draw a chair. The medium of the abstraction is not the abstraction."
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[] |
[] |
[
[]
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|
fmaoou
|
why is loss of appetite a symptom of illness, if you need energy to recover?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fmaoou/eli5_why_is_loss_of_appetite_a_symptom_of_illness/
|
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"In addition to the other good answers, if you get a cold, it often involves loss of olfactory senses and that means food will taste bland, because much of its taste is actually in its smell.",
"Digestion requires a lot of energy. In fact, if you eat a big meal you might notice that you feel sleepy afterwards. When fighting an illness, the body wants to focus all of its energy on the problem at hand, not waste some of it on digestion. While digestion will be needed to take more energy in eventually, the body still has a lot of energy stored already so it doesn't really need to waste that effort on new food while it is getting rid of the urgent issue of the illness. \n\nFor the short term, this is fine. However for longer illnesses, like cancer, it can lead to dangerous weight loss.",
"Digestion used energy and is not an \"essential\" function. You need food obviously but digestion can shut down for weeks and you'd still survive. It's not essential like circulation, respiration, immune response etc. \n\nIn fact, you could in theory get most of your food intravenously and not need these organs. The body would rather divert all focus into fighting invaders than digesting food, especially if said food could introduce more pathogens. If you've been well fed and of good health, you likely have large enough energy reserves to fight most invaders",
"Is it? I always get very hungry when I am sick.",
"Others have answered very well, but to add to it: your immune response is VERY callous. It will straight up kill you. It can starve you, like you said, it can raise your body temperature high enough to kill you, it can swell your throat so much you cant breath. Most of the symptoms you associate with having a disease are things your immune response is doing to you, to try and cure you.",
"A lot of illnesses of the gi tract - poisoning/infection cause nausea and lack of appetite to convince your body to get rid of whatever the problem is. \n\nMany other illnesses can trigger this same pathway despite having nothing to do with the digestive system. Common example - motion sickness is your vestibular (inner ear) system mismatching your vision - telling your brain that something is out of whack - and that *something* would likely only happen if you were poisoned. Your body convinces your digestion to want to vomit because of the inner ear. Lots of other illnesses can trigger this or a similar response."
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4z0h1s
|
as its full name indicates, anorexia nervosa is a psychiatric disorder even though it has severe physiological consequences. what makes it a mental illness?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4z0h1s/eli5_as_its_full_name_indicates_anorexia_nervosa/
|
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"Mental illnesses often have physiological consequences. However, these consequences are merely *symptoms* of a mental illness.\n\n\nAnorexia is a mental illness that makes it hard for a person to eat, and as a consequence they lose weight in an unhealthy way. A different disease like MS has physiological consequences as well, but also a physiological cause.\n\n\n\nSo when we classify an illness as a \"mental illness\", it's because the \"mind\" is responsible for the symptoms.\n\n\nWhere this question gets interesting is when you consider something like ~~Autism~~ Down's Syndrome: it's hallmark symptom is impaired mental skills (broadly, there's much more nuance to its symptoms that I'm not going into here), but like MS it's caused by a genetic defect. In a way it makes more sense to describe it as a chromosomal disorder, even though at a glance it would appear to share several traits with other mental illnesses.\n\nTo my knowledge though, Down's Syndrome and Anorexia are not caused in a similar way."
]
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|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
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||
48pged
|
why did blowing into a nintento cartridge fix the game sometimes? why would it screw up launching sometimes?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/48pged/eli5_why_did_blowing_into_a_nintento_cartridge/
|
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"It doesn't help. What helped was re-inserting the cart.\n\nThe problem was the edge connector inside the NES was garbage and would get dirty easily. Cleaning your carts only helped because it would bring dirt off the NES not hte cart."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2i0ei0
|
why does breast cancer awareness receive more marketing/funding/awareness than prostate cancer? 1 in 2 men will develop prostate cancer during his lifetime.
|
Only 12% of women (~1 in 8) will develop invasive breast cancer.
Compare that to men (65+ years): 6 in 10 will develop prostate cancer (60%). This is actually higher than I originally figured.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2i0ei0/eli5_why_does_breast_cancer_awareness_receive/
|
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"And for 99% of men 65+ years it will be just inconvenience, not life threatening disease. \n\nBut for 99% of women breast cancer is life threatening. \n\nFor downvoters:\n\n > More than 80% of men will develop prostate cancer by the age of 80.[159] However, in the majority of cases, it will be slow-growing and harmless. In such men, diagnosing prostate cancer is overdiagnosis—the needless identification of a technically aberrant condition that will never harm the patient—and treatment in such men exposes them to all of the adverse effects, with no possibility of extending their lives.",
"I remember reading a best of comment like a year ago, but I can't find it. Basically boobs are marketable and balls and the dude g spot are not. Protip: the answer is ALWAYS going to be somewhere along the lines of \"because money.\" ",
"A guy i work whith got diagnosed prostate cancer. He lost about a week of work and now he is fine... its all about finding it early enough and before it spreads to other areas. We make jokes at work about that if you get a decease that \"targets\" white rich men you are going to be fine. And sadly that seems to be more true for each year.",
"I wish I had an answer for you, but I did want to mention that there are some successful awareness programs for prostate cancer. I just took part in [The Distinguished Gentlemen's Ride](_URL_0_) for instance.",
"Where did you get those prostace cancer figures? That's too high. \n\n[\"Lifetime Risk of Developing Cancer: Approximately 15.0 percent of men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer at some point during their lifetime, based on 2009-2011 data.\" ](_URL_0_)\n\nFor those 60 years old the 10, 20, 30 year risks are 6.29, 12.34, 14.57 respectively.",
"Probably because boobs are easier to market/brand than prostates",
"Because the Susan G Komen foundation is *really* good at branding.",
"Prostate cancer as far as I know has a very high survivability rate and shorter treatment. Essentially it's cheaper overall to treat prostate cancer.",
"On the question of prostate cancer prevalence, this feed is confusing prostate cancer diagnosis with autopsy prostate cancer identification. Depending on what you are interested in the numbers range between the extremes posted here.\nWith respect to the severity of the disease, Brest Cancer is more disturbing at least in part because it can strike quite young and because there is no easy tumor marker for screening. There is something horrible about a young person stricken with cancer that captivates the imagination and wallet. \nI tend to agree with the feminism, victim identity, taboo of the male body arguments as well.....but that's a seperate matter.",
"Prostrate cancer is generally something that you die with, not something you die from.\n\nEDIT: Yeah, I mis-spelled it, it should be \"prostate.\" Bad spellers of the world untie!",
"I've got Waldenstrom's Macroglobulanemia (RARE bone cancer). There is not enough people that get it for my doctors to even know what to do... funding research? Non-existent... unfortunately, this is the case for many cancers that aren't as \"prevalent\" or retaining as much \"popular support\" as things like breast cancer. Oh well... if you don't get the right cancer, you're screwed.",
"Because they found a way to make it a marketable product. only a percentage goes to actual research",
"Because someone saw an opportunity, took it, and turned it into a business. ",
"Prostate cancer kills you so slowly that by the time you're dead of it you're already dead of something else. Breast cancer cuts you down in your prime.",
"Breast cancer tends to be something that kills women (and men who get it). Prostate cancer tends to be something that a lot of men live with, but do not directly die of. I believe the cancer most men die of is lung cancer. \n\nSo treat what kills you first, then move down the list dealing with the next most serious issue. \n\nObvious generalisations are obviously general in this case, and do not account for all cases (especially not your mother/father/aunt/uncle/etc.)\n\nAlso it clearly has complications relating to society and their views on disease, and probably a few others that I can't think of at the moment.\n\nAt the end of the day cancer is cancer, so who cares what gets more attention as long as the treatments and preventions get better.",
"Women are much more interested in doing volunteer work than men. They also have larger social circles than men. Women have boobies. Their friends have boobies. Women will be aware of this cancer more than they will of men-only cancers.\n\nIf men want to increase \"awareness\" (I quote it because we all know about it and I have a few things to say about the usefulness of \"being aware\" versus \"finding the cure\" versus \"finding the cause\"), they need to volunteer. It's as simple as that.\n\nStep up, volunteer. If there are no organizations to join, start one.",
"According to the [American Cancer Society](_URL_0_):\n\nWhen including all stages of prostate cancer:\n\n* The relative 5-year survival rate is almost 100%\n* The relative 10-year survival rate is 99%\n* The 15-year relative survival rate is 94%\n\nIn contrast, the [5-year survival rate for breast cancer](_URL_1_) ranges from 100%-22% depending on the stage at the time of diagnosis.\n\nIn short, more men *may* be affected by prostate cancer, but breast cancer can have a higher mortality rate. It has nothing to do with gender biases or \"marketability\" of cancer.\n\n",
"Isn't that why Movember exists?",
"It has a lot to do with the relative survival rates of each cancer.\nIt's true that many men will develop prostate cancer, but for most it will occur in later stages of life (as /u/wsmith27 said). \nThe relative survival rate for prostate cancer as stated by the [American Cancer Society](_URL_1_) is as follows:\n\n5 years: almost 100%\n\n10 years: 99%\n\n15 years: 94%\n\n(note: these are averages incorporating each stage that the cancer can be detected)\n\nThis means that on average, 94% of men are still alive 15 years after their prostate cancer is discovered.\nBreast cancer is far more deadly. The rate changes dramatically in the first five years alone. Once again, according to the [American Cancer Society](_URL_0_) the survival rate for the **first five years** of breast cancer depending on the stage it is discovered is:\n\nstage 0-1: 100%\n\nstage 2: 93%\n\nstage 3: 72%\n\nstage 4: 22%\n\nAs you can see, prostate cancer is very unlikely to be fatal even within the first fifteen years. Since most men are at an advanced age when they develop the cancer, they usually die of other causes long before the cancer becomes a problem. By contrast, breast cancer surivival rates can drop below 50% within the first five years. These numbers are based on women treated several years ago, and the rates are improving with better detection and treatment. Nonetheless, the difference in survival rates between the two cancers is dramatic, and also probably the reason that breast cancer receives so much more awareness than prostate cancer. \n\ntl;dr: Even if you have prostate cancer you're far more likely to die of other causes before it becomes a problem, whereas breast cancer is likely to result in death within the first five years after detection, depending on the stage.\n\nedit: mixed up my data for stage and years regarding breast cancer. /u/HowToBeCivil's post had the right info\n\nedit 2: The prostate cancer numbers are averages based on every stage the cancer is detected. ",
"Because pink ribbons are easier to sell than the brown ones.",
"Men are more likely to die with prostate cancer than of prostate cancer. It's bad, but there are worse diseases.",
"In terms of funding per death, I believe they receive comparable funding, if not awareness. I can't remember the exact statistic right now, it might have been funding per death per diagnosis. \n\nHowever, in terms of this metric, the two cancers are vastly overfunded above all other cancers. My father died from brain cancer (GBM), a cancer that has something like 10% 5-year and 3% 10-year survival rate. If you get brain cancer, you will die from it. Similar numbers for stuff like pancreatic cancer. Such rare, but deadly cancers are vastly underfunded and under-researched compared to vanilla cancers like breast cancer which has 95% long-term survival.",
"Because prostate cancer gritted very slowly and it is imminently treatable. It's mortality is so low in fact that there are a lot of good arguments for not treating it as aggressively as we do (due to side effects of treatment which can have more lifestyle impact than the cancer itself in younger men).",
"Prostate cancer is one of the slowest breeding cancers. Most people who get it are already old and will most likely die of natural causes before their prostate cancer actually has any real negative effects.",
"Prostate cancer is slightly more common but breast cancer is more deadly. Also I'm pretty sure those stats you listed aren't true: _URL_0_",
"The biggest medical issues with prostate cancer at this point are whether it's even worth testing and treatment. \nIt's (usually) a slow-developing, non-spreading cancer that will kill you in 20 years. Maybe. \nMost men who get diagnosed are in their 60's. \nProstate cancer will likely kill them when they are in their 80's. So, it's not a high priority. \nSecondly, the expectation is that almost ALL men who live long enough will develop prostate cancer. \nThird, the diagnosis often leads people to freak out, despite the fact that it is slow growing, and will not kill you for a long time.\nLastly, the treatment options are painful, have side effects, and can do more damage than the cancer itself, both to the body and the psyche of the patient. Side effects may include incontinence and impotence. So, you're not going to die (25 years from now) from your cancer, but you''ll have to wear a diaper the rest of your life, and you'll never have sex again, either. \n\n",
"In the 1990s, women's health issues got significantly less attention than men's. Some advocates looked at how Gay Men's Health Crisis brought AIDS/HIV to public awareness, and adopted similar techniques to raise awareness about breast cancer.\n\n[Here's an old article from the NY Times on the issue.](_URL_0_)",
"Funny story:\nIn my high school we started this week called \"Bro week\" which was right after breast cancer awareness week. It was for testicular cancer awareness started by all male students. We all got busted for being sexist. Still don't know why to this day. ",
"Because the company responsible for the awareness spends most of their money on advertising for themselves and suing people who use pink ribbons on their own instead of research.\n\nFrigging Komen.",
"Because most of the awareness is coming from businesses such as the NFL who do a \"breast cancer awareness month\" selling things with that ribbon it. IN all truthfulness its because the percentage of female audience captured for things like the NFL is severely less than the percentage of men audience captured. SO in order to get more women to spend money they choose Breast cancer over Prostate Cancer. Same in MLB ",
"Purely IMO, but marketing. Easier to market and pander to the female crowd. The NFL is a perfect example...an entire month dedicated to breast cancer awareness. Creates another channel for potential revenue and audience growth. This can be extended to other organizations and facets of life and business.",
"A lot of people are saying \"because boobs\" without any research or thought whatsoever. The actual reason is because breast cancer is far more deadly, whereas prostate cancer usually spreads slowly and only shows up after the age of 65 and doesn't have enough time to become life-threatening. The five-year survival rate for prostate cancer is nearly 100%. The same rate for breast cancer goes as low as 22% if caught at a late time.",
"There is a lot of crap in this thread but...\n\nProstate cancer is very prevalent in old men, most old men get it and, due to their old age, there is no point treating it particularly aggressively as there are other health concerns.\n\n1 in 8 and 1 in 4 in black men. This does include a higher prevalence in older men. However, many illnesses adversely effect older men, osteoparosis is another.\n\nThe figures for breast cancer show that 11,000 women die a year which is similar as to that from prostate cancer. So whilst the rates are similar, breast cancer tends to effect younger people more than old, so it is more urgent to treat it.\n\nProbably rambled a bit.\n\nSource, father and grandfathers had it, i need to know my enemy.",
"As my dad put it \"Prostate cancer is something you die with, not of.\"",
"Because that little pink ribbon sells product.\n\nSusan G Komen is not a charity, it's a brand. Slapping that brand on a product sells that product. People think \"Ooh, buying this granola bar supports BC research! I like boobies, so I'll do that!\" Little do they know, the $10,000 donation limit was reached within two days of the donation being set up.",
"Prostate cancer survivor here. Here are several reasons:\n\n1. Prostate cancer is generally only in older men (I was kind of off the end of most charts at the age of 40), whereas breast cancer strikes women at earlier ages on average, often when they still have young families at home.\n\n2. Prostate cancer is a slow killer. Most men who have prostate cancer do not die of prostate cancer. That is not so for breast cancer.\n\n3. Men do not like talking about having prostate cancer, principally because even the treatment options attack masculinity. There is a high chance that the treatment will leave you impotent or incontinent or both. Since they don't talk about it, they don't engage as much in support groups or awareness movements, compared to women with breast cancer.\n\n**Edit:** Wow, my inbox is a smoking ruin. And **thank you** kind benefactor for the gold.\n",
"Because Susan G Komen is more of a business than a charity.",
"it is worth noting that many people think that prostate cancer shouldn't be screened for at all, so raising awareness is not a goal.\n\nthe change in survival rate in treating it is negligible (as the survival rate is pretty high even untreated), but the treatment causes a significant impact to one's quality of life.",
"Because if all men live long enough we will all get prostate cancer. It's a doomed to fail type of thing. Like with all cancer treatments, treatment has gotten better over the years however. The only thing they've proved helps ward off cancer is regular ejaculation. Lycopene doesn't sadly. Source: grandfather had prostate cancer early, was a doctor, took risky treatment to go on having kids, cancer came back later and won (when he was in his 90s). I just finished a job as a healthcare analytics developer doing largely surgical analytics for a large healthcare provider. Don't do that job. Anyways I've paid attention and read a lot of articles and talked to many doctors due to risk factor of grandfather. And plus who doesn't like using it regularly even if it's a solo match.",
"The ELI5 version from my perspective has two parts: \n1: The Komen organization is highly sophisticated and exceptionally powerful at creating its own brand awareness and at fundraising. They have created a huge lift in awareness of breast cancer (the degree to which they have helped large numbers of women is debatable and off topic)\n2: Everybody loves boobs. Breasts are sexy; breasts are life-giving, breasts are also visible. Nobody really loves prostates (especially wrinkly old-man prostates) in the same way. You have to stick your finger up his fundament just to tickle the damned thing, and it's kind of... taboo down there anyway.\n",
"_URL_0_\n\nBecause boobs, but prostate cancer also receives a bigger percentage of the fundraising pie in comparison to death rates. Essentially, make something a gender issue and it will be more marketable. Heart Disease, COPD, and diabetes kill way more than either, and yet there hasn't been nearly as much raised for them. Almost as many people die from suicide as breast cancer, and it's literally the least fundraised thing on this list.",
"You see, Timmy .... people like boobies .... \n\nI mean, there's all those other great reasons, too, but I'd donate to breast cancer research for that reason alone. ",
"I didn't see anyone else saying this so I will. It's largely because Breast Cancer Awareness is a business, and a highly profitable one at that. I watched a documentary that talked about how most of the companies that participate with pink products only donate a very small percentage to the cause. \n\nFor example, the NFL uses it as an excuse to sell pink clothing and grow its female fan base. They have an entire month dedicated to it. Nike is similar.\n\nAnother question would be: Why do we put so much more funding towards breast cancer awareness than we do towards heart disease, the leading cause of death?",
"Even though prostate cancer is more common, breast cancer strikes earlier and kills more frequently resulting in more years-of-life lost. I also think that breast cancer advocates have a better PR department, and the body parts themselves make that easy. People don't mind thinking about the boobies they're saving when they donate money, but people are less interested in thinking about old men's prostates. ",
"Breasts are very close to the satellite nodes under the armpit, the cancer cells can easily spread and metastasize. On the other hand, the prostate is surrounded by a thick outter membrane which makes it harder to spread and metastasize, thus prostate cancer kills a lot less than breast cancer.\n\nSource: med student\n\nAlso an alternative explanation, the exam for breast cancer is feeling on a boob, by comparison, the exam for prostate cancer is a finger up the butt, much less glamourous.\n\n\nTL;DR: breast cancer kills a lot more than prostate cancer and people would rather touch a boob than get a finger in the butt.",
"Actually on Dr. Drew podcast he recently talks with a prostate oncologist/urologist and he basically says the probability (regardless of genes or external factors) basically goes up 10% every 10 years after the age of about 30. \n\nSo every man who lives to the age of 100 has a 100% chance of getting it.\n\n/r/drdrew recently went through a whole prostate cancer thing and is doing a lot this month (prostate awareness month) and you should check out his podcasts.\n_URL_0_",
"breast cancer is more lethal. Ironically though, lung cancer is still the #1 leading cause of cancer deaths. Let's not turn this into a battle of the sexes. 1:2 men in the US will get any form of cancer in their lifetime, for women it is about 1:3. Cancer is slated to overtake heart disease as the #1 leading cause of death within the next 15-20 years as well. Fighting cancer is more than arguing over which type gets more funding than another type. Everyone has a common goal. \n\n\nUnderstanding some of the basic biology of cancer, whether it is breast, prostate, colon, etc. may help treat other forms of cancer regardless of what gets funded. \n",
"eli5 : how do i write the most sensationalist title possible for my post? i mean i'm not actually looking for an explanation at all, i'm just being a shill",
"Not only are titties more marketable than prostates but breast cancer is more deadly and affects a wider age range than prostate cancer (which is *generally* a > 65 disease)",
"The simplest way I've heard it explained: Many people die from breast cancer and many people die with prostate cancer.\n\n\nI.E. Breast cancer occurs in younger people on average and has a higher fatality rate, while prostate cancer occurs in older people on average and can be treated well enough that patients regularly die of other natural causes before dying from prostate cancer. That's not to say there aren't outliers to this example but it occurs enough to have a measurable effect.",
"I don't know where you pulled statistics from but this seem to indicate a different data. So its 1/14 for over 60 but that is the age where most of the cancers develop rather than 6/10 men; which would be ridiculous:\n\n > \"Age: The older you are, the more likely you are to be diagnosed with prostate cancer. Although only 1 in 10,000 men under age 40 will be diagnosed, the rate shoots up to 1 in 38 for ages 40 to 59, and 1 in 14 for ages 60 to 69.\n\n > In fact, more than 65% of all prostate cancers are diagnosed in men over the age of 65. The average age at diagnosis of prostate cancer in the United States is 69 years. After that age, the chance of developing prostate cancer becomes more common than any other cancer in men or women\"\n\n_URL_0_",
"The thing is \"awareness\". Always kills me when people throw money at something to raise awareness. Hey, cool, you're paying to fund more ribbons and t-shirts. HOw about donating money to cancer RESEARCH? FUCK hOw many people are unaware that breast cancer is a thing? Watch where your donations are going. Google and check it out.",
"I'm not joking here: beyond the other excellent reasons given here, there's an extent to which it's because \"Save the Ta-ta's\" is a lot more catchy than \"Save the A-holes\".",
"So you ask a question, but you use false reasons for doing so.",
"First, the US Government recommends AGAINST routine screening:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThe false positive rate is too high.\nConsequences of a false positive have a dramatic impact on men's lives.\nAsymptomatic detection did not increase survival rates.\n\nSo increasing awareness is fine, but there is no recommendation to do anything unless you have symptoms.\n\nSecond, for breast cancer, women above a certain age should get tested as early detection does increase survival rates.\n\nThird, no one likes Michael Milken.",
"In short, breast cancer is much, much more lethal than prostrate cancer.",
"Because of the giant feminist gay commie nazi cabal that secretly runs the world media and wants all men to be neutered or sent to work camps.",
"Why is it that idiots play this like a gender battle? For the record, men can get breast cancer, too. I think the real question is why does breast cancer get all this funding VS *all* other cancers?",
"One reason could be that prostate cancer is rarely fatal. You are more likely to die from something else long before the prostate cancer gets you.",
"It isn't a competition between men and women.\n\nThese are unique awareness initiatives led by different groups of people. Those people will have different marketing strategies. \n ",
"'ELI5: Loaded Questions' seems to be the flavour of the month here",
"One other thing about prostate cancer is that it is a very slow growing cancer, so slow in fact that if your are over a certain (go with 60 since that seems to be the favorite age) you are more likely to die from something else than the cancer",
"Unfortunately Lung cancer doesn't get much publicity comparatively... And it kills more than breast, prostate and colon cancer COMBINED!\n\nAnd 15-20% of lung cancers are found in non-smokers. ",
"Where the hell are you getting your 60% from? According to the [National Cancer Institute](_URL_1_) \"Approximately 15.0 percent of men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer at some point during their lifetime, based on 2009-2011 data.\"\n\n[For breast cancer](_URL_0_): \"Approximately 12.3 percent of women will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point during their lifetime, based on 2009-2011 data.\"\n\nThe 5 year survival rate NCI gives for prostate cancer is 98.9%, and 89.2% for breast cancer. About 22 deaths per 100,000 people of the relevant gender per year for each.",
"That's because prostate cancer usually progresses very slowly, especially in older men, and the treatment can have worse effects than the symptoms of cancer. \n\nMany people get prostate cancer, but very few will die because of it. The five year survival rate in the US is 99%. So, especially for older men, the best treatment is often just monitoring and palliative care to minimize the symptoms.",
"Partly because prostate cancer is cured in 99% of cases in the US. ",
"I always remind everyone that promotes breast cancer awareness (with mainly women in mind) that men can also get breast cancer.\n\n",
"Who is unaware of breast or prostate cancer at this point? \"Awareness\" campaigns are blatant frauds. The tiniest fraction of donations won't go to executive salaries. Susan Komen is spinning in her grave as her sister dances over it.",
"It has probably been said already but men don't seek medical attention as much as they should. They also don't talk about their health, men have wrongly and tragically been conditioned to 'walk it off'. Also, men can get breast cancer.",
"I like tits what can I say?",
"One in two men? Damn, my buddy is fucked.",
"did you really need this explained you mra cunt? ",
"I know I am late to this, and while I don't disagree at all that breasts are easier to market/advertise - I've read that prostate cancer has a higher survival rate and tons of resources in terms of sex health and personal coping. For breast cancer though, such resources aren't available yet. \n\nEDIT: Grammar\n\n",
"1 in 2?? That stat is wayyyy off. According to the American Cancer Society it's 1 in 7.\n",
"Because nobody has taken the initiative to create a \"not for profit\" company about it and pay himself hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and hire a slick marketing director who can merchandise, and commoditize the movement, while giving only a tiny fraction to actual charity.",
"Because boobs > butts.",
"Marketing and boobs. If you have a successful marketing plan, you can get money for anything (pet rock, anyone?). Susan G komen happens to have an amazing marketing team because someone cared enough to put that together. Plus they exploit people's love of boobs. They do an amazing job with getting partnerships and creating swag/branded wearables to promote and raise funds. With slogans like \"save the tatas\" or \"I love boobies\" and donations for motor boats, these are things some people would pay for regardless of charity. Men have been paying strippers for less for years. Teabagging for donations would be far less popular and no woman wants to wear a shirt that says \"I love balls\" or \"save the taint\". Boobs are far easier to sell and they sell them well, although they have been criticized for focusing on saving breasts instead of saving people. ",
"1 in 2 lmao no way that's true",
"_URL_0_ says 1 in 7",
"Because diseases that affect men will get funded without all this silly hooplah",
"Breast cancer is the #1 killer of women. Its just more deadly than prostate cancer.",
"I don't know, but I bet it has much more to do with money than anything else. Breast cancer must be more profitable. I doubt any single company really \"cares\".",
"Assuming your \"65+ years\" qualification is right, you're playing with statistics to make prostate cancer sound worse than it is.\n\nAccording to the ACS, in 2014:\n\n- [about](_URL_1_) 232,570 new cases of invasive breast cancer, and 40,000 deaths\n- [about](_URL_0_) 233,000 new cases of prostate cancer, and 29,480 deaths\n\nThey say very clearly on that same page:\n\n > One man in 7 will get prostate cancer during his lifetime.\n\nThat's a long way from \"6 in 10\". Maybe if you qualify it as \"65+ years\" the numbers are different, but you don't say what the numbers on breast cancer are for people > 65 years old, so there's no way to tell from what you've said if it's actually worse.",
"Lots of good answers in this thread, but they're not entirely correct. \n\n > Tits are more marketable than ass holes. \n\nIt seems trite and uncaring, but when big money is involved all of that doesn't matter. ",
"Breast cancer often has poorer quality of life and worse outcomes than prostate cancer. I had a professor once who would say something to the tune of, \"guys, if you live long enough, you're going to get prostate cancer\". Yeah, the number is high, but the disease isn't as aggressive. Just make sure your doctor gives you the finger eventually. ",
"I was always curious why they raise awareness for certain cancers rather than just cancer generally. ",
"That pink ribbon crap is a huge scam. Watch Pink inc. On Netflix",
"You've got $10, Chicks tits or An old dudes butthole. What cup did you drop your money in?",
"Medical Student here, breast cancer kills fast! prostate cancer doesn't!\n\nsome new studies even show that screening tests for prostate cancer are irrelevant because it doesn't change it's natural course(it will take ages to kill you)",
"The real question should be why the fuck are we doing all this for \"awareness\"? Pretty sure everyone in the states is aware that breast cancer is a thing. Can we maybe take all the money spent on pink NFL uniforms and maybe spend it on, oh you know, research for actually finding a cure? I know it's career suicide for the people who profit off of cancer but come on guys, switch gears and get into solar or something. It's what the oil guys are doing.\n\nOh and fuck your pink yogurt lids.",
"In all fairness, like my doctor told me, \"most men die WITH prostate cancer, not OF it\".",
"It's a hell of a lot easier to market boobs then it is assholes. ",
"What a fucking loaded question. How did the mods not delete this? The question is phrased specifically to point out the gender inequality here. There's no ELI5 needed, OP just wants to read \"because the situation is unfair to men\".",
"It's because you can market breast cancer by having it be correlated with sex. For example the save the tatas or I < 3 boobs bracelets. You would be hard pressed to market male ass cancer in the same way, regardless of whether or not it is a bigger threat to public health. ",
"\"Save the bungholes\", isn't quite as catchy as \"Save the boobies\".",
"Very different health outcomes. Breast cancer is fatal more often than prostate cancer, which has a very high survival rate. [Studies have even shown that there is significant risk in being too aggressive in screening for prostate cancer in that you may treat (and harm in the process) someone who doesn't actually have it.](_URL_0_) As such \"prostate cancer awareness\" could potentially do more harm than good.",
"I do not believe without further evidence that 60% of men get prostate cancer. That is rediculously high.",
"Because the average age a man gets prostate cancer is 69. It's not because it's a man's disease, it's because it's an elderly man's disease.",
"Woah woah.. A lot of fact checking needs to be done here.. Prostate cancer does NOT have a 50% rate in men.",
"As a person that researches prostate and breast cancer: It Doesn't.\n\nFunding for research is actually easier to get for prostate cancer. What you see in October is only an excellent campaign to try to get more funding for breast cancer research. It doesn't represent the actual amount of monies spent on research.\n\nMost of prostate research funding comes from the government through NIH grants. This is basically regulated by Congress which is mostly comprised old men who are in the primary risk zone for prostate cancer, sooo they fund the crap out of it silently because they can help their prognosis if they every get prostate cancer.",
"[This infographic](_URL_0_) was on the front page recently IIRC. It highlights the disproportionate funding vs mortality rates of different diseases.",
"Because you wouldn't have something to bitch about. If you're so upset then print signs, make a website, etc..",
"Breast Cancer Awareness turned into a marketing machine that diverted more money into the pockets of the administrators than it did actual research.",
"One in 7 get prostate cancer. Source. _URL_0_\n\nYour statistic that you have gotten wrong is that 6 in 10 prostate cancer cases are in men 65+, this is much different from men 65+ will 6/10 times get prostate cancer.\n\nIt would be insane if more men were getting prostate cancer than not. Please be realistic with statistics as not to be misleading.",
"why are boobs getting more media than guy butts? Idk. ",
"Because boobs are way more marketable than men's anuses.",
"Prostate cancer hardly ever kills anyone at all. It is so low on the danger scale that the official guidelines are to not even screen for it anymore. THe overwhelming majority of people die without ever even knowing they had prostate cancer. It is more or less a harmless cancer honestly.\n\nSource: medical student who just finished writing massive reports on why prostate cancer is not recommended to be screened for anymore.",
"Also, prostate cancer typically happens on old age and it is a very slow growing cancer that in most cases doesn't spread elsewhere in the body. So chances are you will get diagnosed with prostrate cancer in your late 60s at the earliest and you'll die of old age before the cancer kills you. \n\nBut it WILL screw up your sex drive and bladder/urine pressure pretty quickly.\n\nSource: It runs in the family, I get my tail light inspected every year and it's the most talked about topic at family gatherings. ",
"Most men don't even know what the prostate is. Not a single person on Earth doesn't know what a boob is.",
"I don't know where you access your information but claiming that 60% of males over 65 will develop prostate cancer is not true by any stretch of the imagination.\n\nReference this article from REVUE CANADIENNE DE SANTÉ PUBLIQUE:\n\n_URL_0_\n\ntl;dr\nabout 4% for the (65) age group develop ... \ngradually ranges to 9-10% at (85+)",
"1 in 2 men, surely that not a correct figure. I can believe the percentage is high but not 50% of all males, there is no way.",
"\"Feel your prostate\" isn't something that sounds nice as boobies. ",
"The statistic you used is flawed. 6 in 10 cases of prostate cancer occur over the age of 65. Not 6/10 men over that age get prostate cancer. That would be absolutely ridiculous and if this were the case there WOULD DEFINITELY be more awareness on the issue.",
"People prefer to wear a bracelet inscribed \"BOOBIES\" instead of \"BUTT GLANDS\"",
"This isnt a snide reply but basically bottom line is\n\nwomen have boobs and men like boobs\n\nwe can make bumper stickers that say \"save the ta tas\"\n\nsomething about the prostrate that's not marketable\n\nI do agree that all cancer research needs to be funded",
"I hate to be that asshole, but marketability of charity organizations has a lot to do with it (I'm sure someone has summed this up much more succinctly here, already). When you give $1.00 to the pink ribbon people, only a fraction of that goes directly to research/treatment programs; a cut goes to the marketing company that set up the avenue by which you ended up donating (bumper stickers, walks, fundraisers, etc.) - in fact, it's a bigger cut than many argue should be given, in many cases. For breast cancer, this industry is booming. The cutthroat businesspeople who run these companies are out to maximize profit, and will pick the most profitable causes and avenues for championing those causes.\n\nNote: By no means am I saying that all charitable contributions toward breast cancer-causes end up this way; obviously there are a lot of charities out there doing great work. ",
"Breast cancer awareness has become big business. \n\nSusan G. Komen sues other charities for daring to use the word \"cure\" or the color pink. They also refuse to \" acknowledge the link between the chemical BPA and cancer even in the face of piles of science establishing a link, presumably because several of their large donors just so happen to manufacture products that rely on BPA.\"\n\nMoney has become more important than the cure. In fact, a cure might put them out of business.",
"Because it is not socially acceptable (read: shameful) for a man to seek charity, or to seek attention of any kind for any ailment or struggle, no matter how serious; no matter how far outside of his control. It's not just that people don't want to start charities to help men fighting prostate cancer. It's that men do not meet in support groups; do not reach out for assistance; do not even seek medical attention when things are causing them pain. It is taken as a sign of weakness among men, not as a sign of strength to seek the aid of others. Every man wants to be able to solve his own problems, regardless of how ridiculous that concept is in context.",
"Hi guys, neurologist here. I'm not an oncologist, but there are some things about cancers that everyone learns in med school. \n\n* Prostate cancer isn't really something you die of. Rather, it's something you die *with*. Most people with prostate cancer are over the age of 65, and many live with it for at least 10 years, maybe causing bladder or anal discomfort. It very rarely metastasises, and it's not particularly deadly since it's not in an organ critical for life.\n\n* Breast cancer affects women mostly over the age of 40, and metastasises much more readily. It also doesn't need to metastasise very much in order to reach many of our most essential organs. Essentially, breast cancer is much more aggressive and far more likely to kill you.",
"Prostate cancer has a 99.9% survival rate in all stages, while breast cancer has a much lower survival rate. ",
"Titties beat anus glands",
"because its all an evil anti-male feminist plot. didn't you know? *feminists are out to get us*",
"The answer is in the question.\nThe Breast Cancer people have the best marketers.",
"My father died a year ago on October 3, 2013 of prostate/bone cancer. Many women in my family have had breast cancer. I do not believe breast cancer should be fund raised as a special cause even though I will most likely contract it. Every cancer is horrific. They all need to be recognized as a whole.",
"I put the little ribbon thing on my truck. I guess I just like boobies more then balls.",
"Although prostate cancer is more common it is also comparatively treatable. \n\nMore women die of breast cancer than men die of prostate cancer.\n\nSo it leads to a situation where a lot of people know women who have died of breast cancer. \n\nLung cancer is more common and has more deaths than both. ",
"One thing I haven't seen mentioned here is that breast cancer research can benefit other cancer patients. There is a type of cancer that is treated with something called her2positive (not sure on spelling) and that is involved with breast cancer and can be found in other cancers too. Because of all the research invested in treating this particular strand of cancer, many types of other cancer patients benefit from the huge progress that's been made against just that one strand.\n\nSource: my dad has stage 4 cancer of the stomach and has this gene and has benefitted from it in a huge way without having breast cancer.",
"You need to look at the mortality rates. Breast cancer is invasive, malignant, and often fatal. It can happen early in a woman's life, and is the 2nd most common cancer in women. Early detection through aggressive screening has been the single most effective thing we've done to mitigate death rates from breast cancer. (Hence why only 12% will develop *invasive* breast cancer). This alone is cause to raise awareness.\n\nBut wait, theres more!\n\nWe have highly effective targeted therapies for specific genes that cause or promote wide subset of cancers. Drugs that inhibit mutated HER2 and HER3 (cancerous genes) have been highly successful in stemming even Stage IV (bad) cancers! Screens for mutations in BRCA1/2 (tumor suppressing genes) are so predictive of cancer, that people have tried to patent the test itself!\n\nIn contrast, with prostate cancer, we actually have a problem with too much (PSA) screening. We used to encourage older men (65+) to do so, and sometimes would find low-grade cancers in the biopsies. However these patients would be very frequently asymptomatic--they would never display any cancer symptoms at all in their lifetime! Furthermore, no single test / genetic marker can 100% confirm the presence of cancer. The PSA screen in particular, not very sensitive (~70%) nor specific (~85%). This leads to the question of 'what do we do?' in the case of a positive test. Too frequently, aggressive PSA screening has led to unnecessary biopsies and surgeries, particularly if theres a good chance the patient will die of something else within the therapeutic window afforded by the treatment. This is why they're now recommending that we reduce our level of testing.\n\ntl, dr; breast cancer receives more funding/awareness because (1) it affects more people in an (arguably) more significant way, and (2) we have the tools to do much more about it.\n\nSource: I am a medical student with Internet access.",
"Can I just throw in here that it's boobs vs butt holes. Boobs are gonna win every time.",
"Because breasts are way more sexualized than prostates. Sex sells.",
"Untreated or delayed diagnosed breast cancer kills. Invariably, quickly, and young.\n\nProstate cancer is slow, and mainly presents in elderly men. For most men that are diagnosed with prostate cancer, the leading medical plan is to do absolutely nothing. Surgery is problematic, and the patient is more likely to die of other causes (including other cancers) than of complications related to his diagnosis. ",
"It's not a gendered issue. For various reasons, fundraising for diseases rarely matches the need/mortality rates. Stomach, pancreatic, and liver cancers all have higher mortality rates than both breast and prostate cancer. However, they can occur less often. Does a disease deserve more funding and attention because it occurs more frequently but kills a much smaller percentage of people? In reality the needs versus actions to combat disease just won't pan out evenly, especially since deciding what's worth what is extremely complicated and debatable.\n\n Although if I'm not mistaken, breast cancer is both more frequently occurring and has a higher mortality rate than prostate cancer. Not sure where the 60% figure was taken from. \n\nThis list shows mortality rates, but not frequency of diagnosis. \n_URL_0_",
"Medically speaking, the burden of breast cancer is probably higher. You don't usually die from prostate cancer, you die with it. Screening for both is much improved, but treatment for breast cancer and the seriousness if the diseases within that group are generally worse prognostic ally than prostate cancer. Prostate cancer is also more a disease of the elderly than breast cancer, though breast cancer does also crop up more in older women. \n\nFor the record, plenty of men also get breast cancer. ",
"ESTIMATED NUMBERS FOR 2014 (from ACS)\n\nDEATHS FROM BREAST CANCER: 40,000 females, 430 males\nDEATHS FROM PROSTATE CANCER: 29,480 males\n\nINCIDENCE OF BREAST CANCER: 232,670 females, 2,360 males\nINCIDENCE OF PROSTATE CANCER: 233,000 males",
"Breast cancer and prostate cancer both receive funding [disproportionate to their prevalence](_URL_0_).\n\nThe real question should be \"why don't people research need before donating to charity\" but there's no ELI5 answer for that one.",
"I think your statistics are wrong. If you are quoting _URL_1_ then you misread their statement.\n\n\"Prostate cancer occurs mainly in older men. About 6 cases in 10 are diagnosed in men aged 65 or older, and it is rare before age 40. The average age at the time of diagnosis is about 66.\"\n\n[Source](_URL_0_)",
"Who do you think is driving the force behind the breast cancer movement? Do you think it's men? No, it's women saying this is happening to our sex and it's bad. \n\nJust like when women finally got the vote, it wasn't men fighting for that cause, it was women. Just like when African Americans finally got the vote, it wasn't white society saying 'yeah, let's give them rights now', it was African Americans fighting for it.\n\nOn a side note, males are less likely to get medical checkups and admit that something might be wrong (because manliness), there is a reason females have a longer life expectancy than males (even though more males are actually born, females make up the majority of the older population). ",
"Bit controversial, but breast cancer gets talked about a lot because it's very treatable these days so there are a ton of survivors who do a lot of fundraising and are very vocal.\n\nElderly men tend to die with (not of) their prostate cancer so it doesn't get the same kind of \"struggle\" or \"battle\" narrative that breast cancer does.",
"The majority of prostate cancers are in much older males. Women seem to get diagnoses at a much earlier age. That's my guess. And well, you know, old people. ",
"Because it contributes to [1/10th the number of deaths])_URL_0_) as Breast cancer. Also, I could not find anything that says 50% of men develop Prostate cancer. The closest I could find was 18%.\n\nWhere are you getting 50%?",
"The simple answer, EVERYONE LIKES BOOBS",
"Breast cancer in women often leads to mastectomies which can be vastly disfiguring and, therefore, very noticeable. Those who opt for wearing prostheses or reconstruction are subjected to prolonged, painful procedures. The recovery from surgery and chemo is complicated and often leave lasting negative consequences due to lymph node excision.",
"Lifetime Risk of Developing Cancer: Approximately 15.0 percent of men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer at some point during their lifetime, based on 2009-2011 data.",
"50% chance I'm getting this shit when I'm 60 years or older? Haha, I don't believe you! ",
"It's not a competition. ",
"Because people die OF breast cancer and die WITH prostate cancer.",
"everyone likes boobs way more than they do dude's assholes.",
"Diabetes kills more than breast cancer and AIDS combined.",
"Breast cancer is a bigger health problem. World wide - the burden of disease from breast cancer (deaths plus disability) is roughly three times that of prostate cancer. [source - xls](_URL_0_)",
"Drawing this comparison is pointed. You're suggesting there is a relationship between the attention given to each cancer, as though these two diseases are associated, as though by comparing two random diseases You can draw a conclusion about the relationship between them. In fact, you are simply creating the association by comparing them. I can pick any two diseases and make a general statement, it does not mean they are related. The fact is, breast cancer awareness exists as an organized effort. Prostate cancer does too, as do all kinds of cancers (and other diseases for that matter.) the levels of awareness for each disease has nothing to do with the awareness levels of other diseases. If you think you are making a statement, you are. It's just that the statement you're making is about your own personal perception, and nothing else. \"Why does my friend Billy have a new bike and I have an old bike?\" The fact is, prostrate cancer awareness level is based only on one thing: the work and resource put into prostate cancer awareness. It's not like there's some guy with all the campaign money, and every year he says \"fuck those guys with prostate cancer, I'm giving all the money to breast cancer again\" suggesting this as some kind of \"feminist conspiracy\" is actually pathetic. Seriously.",
"Men stereotype themselves in ways that make them more manly. We tend not to seek help to keep our masculinity.",
"Because it's more popular to talk about women's boobies than men's booty holes. Hey, you said to explain like you're five.",
"Because breasts are sexualized in our society and prostates are not. ",
"1. Women have busted their butts raising awareness and raising money for breast cancer. Men have not done the same for prostate cancer. This isn't some kind of gender war or evidence that women's troubles are more important than men's--you want your illness to get more awareness, sympathy, and funding? Then WORK for it, as women have done with breast cancer for decades. \n\n2. Prostate cancer comes later in life than breast cancer. Women who die of breast cancer are ripped away from their families while their children still need them. Men who die of prostate cancer usually have grown children. \n\n3. Prostate cancer is less fatal than breast cancer, sorta. Men who get it are often so old that they die WITH prostate cancer rather than FROM prostate cancer. ",
"Two reasons: boobs",
"I really don't understand it either. And most \"awareness\" campaigns don't do much of anything to teach women about some of the ways that they can try to avoid breast cancer. One example is breastfeeding your babies, there's a lot of data showing that women who nurse their babies for X amount of months or longer have significantly reduced breast cancer risk. You never hear the Susan G Komen people talk about stuff like that, at least I never have.\n\nBreast cancer is a relatively curable cancer, there are many cancers far more lethal that aren't getting the deserved attention and resources (like prostate cancer, or cancers that affect both genders).\n\nI think in some way it's a cultural thing as women tend to be more willing to talk about their health problems than men. But I suspect that money is at the root. Susan G Komen and other such ilk have questionable finances, associations, and motives. There are more pressing matters in the realm of women's health, why is a very treatable cancer getting all the attention? Money, imo. Money.\n",
"Because most sports leagues don't need more male fans. ",
"Because prostates are up your ass. People don't like to talk about things that are up your ass. But they love breasts.",
"At least get some comparative stats: 1 in 7 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer (American Cancer Society). \n\nSee link for more: _URL_0_",
"All these answers ignore the REAL answer.\n\nBecause boobs.",
"Because men generally don't proactively fund raise and awareness raise. Be the one to make the change, go out there and do something about it :)",
"I think more publicity of research should be put onto other forms of cancer too besides just prostate and breast cancer, for example, like leukemia, skin cancer, stomach cancer, ect. \n\nHere is a list of different cancer types: _URL_0_ ",
"Because breast cancer currently has the bigger marketing machine. It's all about money in the end: millions are spent on awareness campaigns while there hasn't been any real progress in drastically reducing breast cancer cases or deaths. \n\nThink of the recent ice bucket challenge for ALS - it's an extremely rare disease but that campaign raked in many millions. ",
"Because you can see tits you can't see a prostate that's the exact reason.",
"Showing a picture of a man's anus on a t-shirt doesn't generate the same kind of positive buzz as a woman's breasts. ",
"I don't know if someone has mentioned this yet or not, but just like October is breast cancer awareness month, November is Men's Health Month or Movember. This is where the No Shave November thing kind of sprouted from as a group of people started \"Movember\" as a month promote Men's health particularly prostate and testicular cancer. If you want more info you can go to _URL_0_ ",
"Because breast cancer was largely ignored *because* it only affected women. The original movement for breast cancer awareness was more of a revolt against a medical community that was doing very little. Today, the campaign is something of a joke and a way for corporations to sell shit with pink crap on it.",
"I'm over here imagining a whole line of sweatpants with 'B R O W N' written across the ass.",
"As a 27 year old man, what exactly *is* a prostate and why do I need it?",
"The annual [Movember](_URL_0_) event is all about raising mainstream awareness and support of prostate cancer research and making it a more marketable cause. ",
"Because boobs are much more marketable than a gland up an old man's ass.",
"Men can get breast cancer. Women can't get prostate cancer. ",
"People like looking at breasts more then prostates? Ever try flashing your prostate at a concert? It doesn't get the good reaction you'd think it would.",
"By the time most men develop prostrate cancer they are likely to die of other causes before being significantly impaired by their prostate cancer. Treating the dancer would only serve to lessen their enjoyment of their final years.\n\nBreast cancer kills people long before they should die.",
"You are comparing lifetime risk of breast cancer with prostate cancer incidence in men over 65, which isn't really a fair comparison. Although the stats are quite close, Breast Cancer still affects more people (15% of cancer cases are due to Breast Cancer, compared to 13% due to Prostate Cancer), and the big reason it gets more marketing/funding/awareness is that it affects a younger population, and can be picked up earlier with regular self examination.\n\n\n**Prostate Cancer**\n\n* In 2011, there were 41,736 new cases of prostate cancer in males in the UK\n\n* Crude Incidence Rate: 134 new prostate cancer cases for every 100,000 males in the UK.\n\n* In the UK between 2010 and 2012, an average of 74% of prostate cancer deaths were in men aged 75 years and over, and more than 99% were in those aged 55 years and over\n\n* Age-specific mortality rates rise sharply from around around age 55-59, with the highest rates in the 85+ age group\n\n\n**Invasive Breast Cancer**\n\n* In 2011, there were 50,285 new cases of breast cancer in the UK \n\n* Crude Incidence Rate: 155 new breast cancer cases for every 100,000 females in the UK, and 1 for every 100,000 males.\n\n* Around a third (34%) of female breast cancer deaths occur in those aged 50-69\n\n* Although few breast cancer deaths occur in women in their teens or 20s, breast cancer is the most common cause of cancer death in women aged 15-49, with around 1,200 women in this age group dying of breast cancer each year. \n\nNot saying that I don't think Prostate Cancer awareness should be pushed, just saying your original statement is misleading.\n\n[Source](_URL_0_)",
"Look let's be honest... tits over balls period.\n\nNot saying it's fair, not saying it's just but the marketability of boobs is just much higher than that of balls...\n\nI tried to make a deal with my girl... I check yours, you check mine but she didn't fall for it :(",
"All this pink ribbon breast cancer awareness/walks/etc originated with grassroots groups of women to raise awareness because women are MUCH more likely to talk about illness and to each other about it. A lot of men would rather die than have a doctor stick their finger up their ass, or tell their friends (or family even!) that they have prostate cancer. Society tells men not to be \"weak\" or discuss weakness and men are much less likely to seek medical help or reach out to others for support. \n\nBreast cancer awareness is great and everything and great job to the ladies who started it, but it really has gone off track. If there are still women who can afford or have access to free mammograms and can't afford treatment for cancer then \"awareness\" really does jack shit for these women. ",
"Because the Susan G Komen Foundation is a money making machine, that at this point seems more concerned with making money than fighting cancer.",
"Pts tend to die with prostate cancer, not from it. Whereas breast cancer is a true killer. \n\n",
"Because more \"charities\" found ways to make breast cancer awareness marketable and therefore profitable. ",
"The main reason is that prostate cancer is a very slow killer and typically only affects older men(65+). Most men die from other causes before prostate cancer gets the better of you.\n\nAlso, women have become more vocal in raising awareness with big names such as Oprah and Jolie talking about it. But this isn't based on any facts just my opinion. Men are typically more introverted about their problems and concerns, whereas women are the opposite. Again this is just my opinion."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.gentlemansride.com"
],
[
"http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/prost.html"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://m.cancer.org/cancer/prostatecancer/detailedguide/prostate-cancer-survival-rates",
"http://m.cancer.org/cancer/breastcancer/overviewguide/breast-cancer-overview-survival-rates"
],
[],
[
"http://www.cancer.org/cancer/breastcancer/overviewguide/breast-cancer-overview-survival-rates",
"http://www.cancer.org/cancer/prostatecancer/detailedguide/prostate-cancer-survival-rates"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/dcpc/data/types.htm"
],
[],
[
"http://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/07/us/turning-disease-into-political-cause-first-aids-and-now-breast-cancer.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar%2C%7B%221%22%3A%22RI%3A5%22%7D"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/infographic-shows-differences-between-diseases-we-donate-and-diseases-kill-us"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://podcastone.com/Dr-Drew-Show"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.pcf.org/site/c.leJRIROrEpH/b.5802027/k.D271/Prostate_Cancer_Risk_Factors.htm"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/prostatecancerscreening.htm"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/breast.html",
"http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/prost.html"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"cancer.org"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.cancer.org/cancer/prostatecancer/overviewguide/prostate-cancer-overview-key-statistics",
"http://www.cancer.org/cancer/breastcancer/overviewguide/breast-cancer-overview-key-statistics"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/treatment/prostate/HealthProfessional/page1/AllPages#Section_2090"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/infographic-shows-differences-between-diseases-we-donate-and-diseases-kill-us"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.cancer.org/cancer/prostatecancer/overviewguide/prostate-cancer-overview-key-statistics"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"journal.cpha.ca/index.php/cjph/article/download/801/801"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cancer_mortality_rates"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/IOTwWHRM6c6ooHhwMWoJNAvnn3s=/1550x0/filters:no_upscale(\\)/cdn1.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/676096/fundrasing4disease.0.jpg"
],
[
"http://www.cancer.org/cancer/prostatecancer/detailedguide/prostate-cancer-key-statistics",
"cancer.org"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cancer_mortality_rates_"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.who.int/entity/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/GHE_DALY_Global_2000_2012.xls?ua=1"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.cancer.org/cancer/prostatecancer/detailedguide/prostate-cancer-key-statistics"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.cancer.org/cancer/showallcancertypes/index"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"us.movember.com"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movember"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
4ndjt3
|
why are formulas that explain complicated things so simple? what's so special about multiplication, division, etc. e.g. e = mc^2
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ndjt3/eli5why_are_formulas_that_explain_complicated/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d430400",
"d432byb",
"d436d5q"
],
"score": [
4,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Just as a side note, E = mc^2 is not as simple as you think. That's just a degenerate form of the equation where momentum is set to zero. The full equation is:\n\nE^(2) = (mc^(2))^(2) + (pc)^(2)",
"If it could be explained by a simple formula then it wasn't complicated in the first place. Real phenomena generally involve some very hard maths, but for that reason most people would just never learn that explanation. On a side note, a complicated formula also \"explains\" very little, since it is hard to analyze. Basically to say that we explained something we must further reduce our complicated equations to something simple and immidiately visualizable, like a simple product.\n\nThere is also an issue of dimension: a formula can only involve dimensional values (length, time, speed, mass etc) in a form of their dimensionless combinations. This means that if for example you know that your formula can only involve mass and energy of a single particle, then it can only be a function of their dimensionless combination E/mc^2. For several particles your formula can also involve relations of energies and masses E_i/E_j, m_i/m_j. The formula itself can be arbitrarily complicated, but often a simple proportinality explains the phenomena reasonably well.",
"I think there are a few reasons for this\n\nOne is a bit of selection bias. E=mc^(2) or e^(i pi) + 1 = 0 is punchy and easy to remember, so they get talked about more. The Braginskii equations are noticeably less simple, and sure enough they don't get talked about much outside of plasma physics.\n\nAnother is that for very important concept, new notation is developed to let them be represented simply. Maxwell's equations are an excellent example of this. You've probably seen them written compactly with that fancy upside-down triangle. What you might not know is that that upside-down triangle stands for something pretty complicated. It also didn't exist when Maxwell compiled the equations, meaning he wrote them out in a considerably more complicated form (See the leftmost column of equations on [page two of this document](_URL_0_).) Because of the importance of these vector operators, a compact way of writing them was created.\n\nThe third reason is that math is just really good at describing scientific concepts. For example, the vector notation seen in Maxwell's equations is widely applicable in other parts of physics--it's all over fluid dynamics. See [here](_URL_1_) for a longer discussion of this."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"http://www.zpenergy.com/downloads/Orig_maxwell_equations.pdf",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreasonable_Effectiveness_of_Mathematics_in_the_Natural_Sciences"
]
] |
||
38rted
|
why the 16:10 aspect ratio isn't expressed as 8:5
|
They're both divisible by 2, why wouldn't they be expressed in the lowest possible number?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38rted/eli5_why_the_1610_aspect_ratio_isnt_expressed_as/
|
{
"a_id": [
"crxc96d",
"crxgick"
],
"score": [
3,
4
],
"text": [
"16:10 is also sometimes listed as 8:5, but 16:10 is more in line with the actual resolution of 1680×1050.",
"Because 16:9 was very popular and it is very easy to understand what 16:10 looks like when you know 16:9."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
1ef0wo
|
what is the diagnostic difference between an illness that is hereditary and an illness that has a greater likelihood of appearing if you're related to someone who has it?
|
Example. The wikipedia entry for Multiple Sclerosis states the following: *"MS is not considered a hereditary disease. However, a number of genetic variations have been shown to increase the risk of developing the disease.
The risk of acquiring MS is higher in relatives of a person with the disease than in the general population, especially in the case of siblings, parents, and children. The disease has an overall familial recurrence rate of 20%. In the case of monozygotic twins, concordance occurs only in about 35% of cases, while it goes down to around 5% in the case of siblings and even lower in half-siblings. This indicates susceptibility is partly polygenically driven. It seems to be more common in some ethnic groups than others."*
Essentially, what is the difference between a hereditary illness and an illness whose recurrence rate is increased genetically?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ef0wo/eli5_what_is_the_diagnostic_difference_between_an/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c9zkxdl"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"A hereditary disease is purely genetic. If I have a mutation in a gene so that I can't express a particular enzyme, it is a hereditary disease - the gene was passed down from my parents.\n\nWhen they say a disease is not hereditary, it means the gene alone isn't what's responsible. However, as with basically everything else, genes can make someone predisposed for a particular disease."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
78zftu
|
what makes a rocket go?
|
I was wondering about how a rocket takes off, is it a controlled explosion? What is it? And how does it work?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/78zftu/eli5_what_makes_a_rocket_go/
|
{
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"doxw5kl",
"doxwb5y",
"doxwbei"
],
"score": [
5,
6,
3
],
"text": [
"It is the rapid expansion of hot gases, and it works the same way that the recoil from a gun works when you fire a bullet. Think of it as a controlled firing of many bullets, causing a persistent force in the opposite direction, which moves the rocket.",
"You may have heard Newton's third law, \"for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.\" In this case, the rocket is shooting out a whole bunch of particles one way with a lot of force, thus providing thrust and moving the rocket the opposite way.",
"A rocket is powered by a very energetic chemical reaction causing a whole lot of gases to forced out of a nozzle on the bottom of the rocket. Newton's 3rd Law states that for every action there is an equal an opposite reaction. So a whole lot of mass being pushed out the bottom of the rocket at high speed produces an equal and opposite force that pushes the rocket forward.\n\nA controlled explosion isn't a bad way to think about how rockets work."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
5jnd52
|
why does bread taste bad when you're drunk?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5jnd52/eli5_why_does_bread_taste_bad_when_youre_drunk/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dbhi2qi"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"bread tastes amazing when you're drunk! Maybe you need better bread. I suggest cheese-bread, sourdough bread, NOT white bread, or perhaps garlic bread"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3o2f5t
|
receiving gold for a post or comment. does it actually mean anything other than giving me a huge ego?
|
I posted a picture earlier today of a failed slide into second base and it blew up all over the Internet. I received "gold" from two different people, but have absolutely no idea what that means...
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3o2f5t/eli5_receiving_gold_for_a_post_or_comment_does_it/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cvtf43q",
"cvtfda7"
],
"score": [
2,
3
],
"text": [
"Check out this if you havent already: _URL_0_\n\nIts basically a way for reddit users to donate to the site in the form of a gift to other users. You can also buy it for yourself. Looks like you get a few bonus features that make the site a tad more user friendly, some special deals from the gold partners, and maybe a few fun things like creating your own reddit alien avatar.",
"When you get gold you get a PM in your inbox that explains what it is and does, including links to the benefits. Try reading it."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/gold/about"
],
[]
] |
|
7ovvvz
|
how we measure somethings brightness
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7ovvvz/eli5_how_we_measure_somethings_brightness/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dscorc3"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"There are electronic devices that give off an electric current proportional to how much light hits them. These are used to build brightness meters.\n\nAlso, we can take a photo of something and compare to photos of other objects of known brightness."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
5ly8oj
|
why does nicotine enhance the realism of dreams? what are some other things that may have this effect?
|
If I dip right before I go to bed I have much more intense dreams. Likewise, there are instances all over the Internet of people falling asleep with nicotine patches on and having intense or easily remembered dreams. What causes this, and are there any other chemicals that would have the same effect? I would wager that nicotine somehow increases brain activity and focus and keeps a portion of your brain active as you sleep, because I remember a nutritional supplement I used to take in order to help me focus had a similar effect.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ly8oj/eli5_why_does_nicotine_enhance_the_realism_of/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dbzeug6"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Vitamin B6 [certainly does](_URL_0_) (I take it daily). I also happen to be wearing a nicotine patch to quit smoking and also take B12. Wow. This combination has added a realism to my dreams like none other. As to why nicotine aids in this, I can only find anecdotal reports in dream-related forums (like Reddit's) that because it has been shown to increase focus in the brain, nicotine somehow pivots to where the brain activity happens to be most active at the moment (i.e., REM sleep) and enhances focus there."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11883552"
]
] |
|
b0i0w0
|
how do game developers know that the skills and damage of their created characters are balanced?
|
Say for example, character X has 457 HP, 923 ATK, and 103 SPD. Then its first skill deals 230+15% of base ATK. I mean, where does 457 HP come from and how do they come up with that stats? And why does it end in random numbers, not in terms of 0s and 5s to be uniform?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b0i0w0/eli5_how_do_game_developers_know_that_the_skills/
|
{
"a_id": [
"eietzak",
"eieu2ki"
],
"score": [
6,
6
],
"text": [
"Balance is an art form. And like all art, it's mostly trial and error.\n\nNot completely random trial and error, of course. The people who design the system typically know the system very well, and have an idea of what they want. Sometimes the players find something they didn't anticipate, however, and that's where the fun begins.\n\nAs for why \"random\" numbers? Mathematical formulas. Computers are REALLY good at arithmetic. There's very little reason to hard-code numbers in an RPG, for that reason. That's something you generally only do in Tabletop RPGs, because in TTRPGs YOU have to do the math yourself, and you want it as simple as possible. In a video game, however, you can throw a whole bunch of numbers at the wall and the computer will just deal with it.",
"They guess, then tweak values until it seems like everyone is winning or complaining the same amount. Usually the exact number doesn't matter so much as the number of hits or amount of time it takes to kill something. \n\nAs for why the weird numbers, the balance tweaks are part of it, but another part of it is that sometimes you move content around in terms of game design, so you scale up the difficulty of an area to make it suitable for a different level, and you probably set a stat multiplier somewhat arbitrarily, then tweak it until it feels right. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
6oahtz
|
why is it instinctual for people to move their legs like they're running when falling from heights?
|
It seems to pretty universal.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6oahtz/eli5_why_is_it_instinctual_for_people_to_move/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dkfuydc",
"dkg0d04",
"dkg9c8h"
],
"score": [
11,
5,
2
],
"text": [
"Pretty universal? You've seen lots of people falling from heights?\n\nWhat you're describing is a person flailing around to try and orient themselves in the air. As humans we're not very good at it.",
"It's just a way of adjusting yourself mid-air.\n\nThink of how cat's use their tails almost like rudders while they are falling so that they always land on their feet.\n\nAs Humans, when we are falling, our natural instinct is to flail our arms and legs to orient ourselves to have our feet facing down so we can land properly.",
"Actually it's not moving your legs like you're running. The reason of this phenomenon is because your foot are trying to feel, like they usually do, a rigid floor. By moving them in this way, your body expects to meet safety, some kind of ground"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1wt2zu
|
isn't it risky for vegas to offer some of these goofy super bowl bets? many of them can be intentionally decided by one person.
|
I believe you can bet on whether Michael Crabtree will tweet about Richard Sherman during the game. What's to keep him or his friends from throwing down millions on a bet when he can easily decide the outcome? Or Manning shouting Omaha 40 consecutive times before the final kneel down?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wt2zu/isnt_it_risky_for_vegas_to_offer_some_of_these/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cf54qkf",
"cf564t5"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Read this as vegans at first :S. To answer the question they won't take a bet large enough to hurt them and the novelty of the bets taken draws enough attention to justify any losses incurred.",
"The weirder the bet, the smaller the amount of action they will take. You could probably bet $50,000 or more on who wins the game, or the over/under, but you probably can't bet more than $500 on something like how many times Manning shouts \"Omaha\"."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
6s42hq
|
why does going to sleep get rid of most 'simple' ailments (headache, sickness etc)
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6s42hq/eli5_why_does_going_to_sleep_get_rid_of_most/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dl9w5z5",
"dl9w9vz"
],
"score": [
31,
7
],
"text": [
"Aside from the part where sleeping is when our bodies really hunker down and focus on healing/resting, most of these ailments are simply healed over a small period of time. \"Time travelling\" 8 hours into the future just gets the time over with. Your headache is only going to last a few hours, and sleeping gets those few hours over with pretty quickly.",
"The simple answer is, it doesn't by itself. Sleep does promote some healing by allowing the body to move resources (like blood and nutrients) from areas that are less needed during sleep to areas where it can more readily used those to fight off infections or fix a deficiency somewhere (i.e. rehydrating your head in the case of say a headache from a hangover, etc). Sleep mostly gives your body time to make these fixes without all the other things of life it usually has to deal with...And without you having to be conscious throughout the whole miserable ordeal. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
4soncd
|
why is it "good" for humans sleep on their backs, yet most animals don't do this
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4soncd/eli5_why_is_it_good_for_humans_sleep_on_their/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d5axgja"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"...because humans are bipedal and our appendages lie flat when we're on our back instead of jutting out unsupported at awkward angles."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
1948x6
|
the difference between all of my ip addresses.
|
I have a 192.168.1.1 address, then a 192.168.1.6 and then when I check google for my IP I get something completely different.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1948x6/the_difference_between_all_of_my_ip_addresses/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c8kmy2n",
"c8knd92"
],
"score": [
9,
3
],
"text": [
"Imagine an office building, there is a main number 1-800-CORP-NUM, and then every office or person in that building has an extension number your desk could be 345 and your neighbor is 346. The receptionist allocates new extensions to any people who join your team. People on the outside dial the main 800 number and ask the receptionist for your extension to reach you. From within the office you can dial an extension directly though.\n\nThe building is your home network\nThe receptionist is your router ( can be reached at extension 192.168.1.1)\nYour office is your computer or other network device ( extension 192.168.1.6)\n\nThe main 800 number is your external IP address. When you reach someone on the outside that is the number they see on their caller display. Then they can call you back and go through the puppet routing to reach you. ",
"An IP address is the network location of a device. Think of it like a house address for someone to find your computer.\n\nInitially, each device on the internet had their own IP address that never changed. Somewhere along the line they realized that there were a limited amount of addresses to go around, and since this internet thing was exploding, something needed to change.\n\nSo to solve this problem, they created *External* and *Internal* IP addresses. A device on the internet would use your external IP address, which is tied into your network. This is the IP address you get when you go to a site like _URL_3_. This IP is controlled by your internet service provider and cannot be changed without contacting them.\n\nNow, you may have several devices connected to your network. You have your computer, your playstation 3, your phone, and your laptop. Instead of them all having their unique own IP address, each device is assigned it's own internal IP address. This is the _URL_0_ number. So your computer would be 192.168.1.2, your PS3 would be 192.168.1.3, etc. \n\nIf we're going with the house analogy, think of it this way. Your network is an apartment complex with an address of 123 Fake St (external IP address). Inside there are many different apartments (devices) with their own address like Apt 101, Apt 102, Apt 103, etc (internal IP address), etc. If you go next door to another apartment complex, 124 Fake St, each apartment will still be Apt 101, Apt 102, Apt 103, etc. \n\nWith me so far? This diagram may help.\n_URL_1_\n\nSo a signal from the internet is coming in. It knows where to go based on the external IP address of your network it was given. How does it know which device/Internal IP address to go to? Hell, how are internal IP addresses assigned in the first place? And why haven't I mentioned 192.168.1.1 yet?\n\nThere's a part of any network called a router. It does just that, route the signal to the place where it's supposed to go. When you connect your phone via wifi to the network it detects that there's a new device on the network and automatically assigns it an IP address. Now, the router is a device itself and it also needs an internal IP address to work. Almost always this IP is 192.168.1.1.\n\nSo, refresher to answer your questions.\n192.168.1.1 refers to your router's internal IP address.\n192.168.1.6 refers to your computer's internal IP address\nThe IP address you get from google refers to your network's external IP address.\n\nNow, let's get deeper.\n\nYou can't change your external IP without calling your internet provider, but you can manually set the internal IP address of your computer, PS3, phone, printer, or other device. What happens when you set two devices to the same internal IP address? Connections won't get through, basically, since the router doesn't know which one to send data to.\n\nA *Static* IP is an IP address that never changes. A *Dynamic* IP address is an IP address that changes if there's a conflict on the network. Say, your printer is 192.168.1.2, but you connect a phone that's static set to 192.168.1.2. If the printer is a dynamic IP, no problem! It'll just change over to 192.168.1.3 (or any other number). Some programs may be confused that the address changed, but it's better than having that conflict on the network.\n\nNow let me show you something really cool.\n\nI want to make a web site. So I buy a computer (called a web server) and put the web site software on there. Then I configure the router so that anyone trying to access my site gets directed to the web server. If you type in the external IP address of the network the web server is connected to, you'll get the web site. Of course, it'd be a pain in the butt to memorize all those numbers for our favorite sites, so we use something called a domain name to mask those number. I buy a domain name from a provider like GoDaddy or Network Solutions, they update their records so whenever someone types in the name I want it gets directed to the external IP address of our network.\n\nClick this link.\n_URL_2_\nBam. That's one of google's external IP addresses. Of course they're a tech giant and have many networks with many external IP addresses. But still, pretty cool, huh?\n\nQuestions?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"192.168.1.XXX",
"http://files.maartenbaert.be/game-maker-dlls/http-dll-2-lan-diagram.png",
"http://74.125.224.72/",
"www.whatismyip.com"
]
] |
|
7gxiuc
|
what is crypto currency? how is it used and where does the money actually go??
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7gxiuc/eli5_what_is_crypto_currency_how_is_it_used_and/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dqmkzbx",
"dqmpryq"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Basically, instead of having a server that says, Person X has $52, person Z has $3000, they work by giving everyone a copy of the data. The data from the past in included in future transaction logs (called Blocks generally) in such a way that confirms that the new transactions are valid.\n\nI'm not gonna get into mining, since it differs between crypto variants, in terms both of what needs to be solved and how new coins are distributed.\n\nI assume you are asking because the price of Bitcoin is skyrocketing. The way that they are valued is based on trading. Someone says I want to buy 0.25 bitcoins for $X, and if someone else has said they want to sell for $X, than a transaction occurs. So anyone getting money *out* of the system comes from someone else putting money *into* the system.\n\nThere are many websites that exist to do this process, and they work off of the main transaction archive (not on the Blockchain). This is because it is both much, much quicker and cheaper to do so. You send X bitcoins and $Y to an exchange, and now they track that on your account. So we're back to where we were with normal currency systems, as opposed to distributed.\n\nThere are a lot of things that go into why the price is rising, why prices tend to be pretty equal across multiple exchanges, but this already getting a bit long.",
"Crypto currency gets into the heart of what is money? Its a bunch of people getting together and collectively aggreeing that they'll transfer some paper bills or shiny metal for stuff they want.\n\nIn traditional money, a government or bank, prints out some papers and records in their log books how much money everyone has. You can't just \"say\" you have more money, because the government will arrest you for counterfeiting and fraud.\n\nI'll talk Bitcoin as it's the most famous. A bunch of people have agreed that their computers will run a common set of rules and use that to generate the Bitcoin supply. It's goal is to decentralize the money supply.\n\nBitcoin only has value because people are willing to accept it. Someone was willing to hand over a Bigmac or a stack of US dollars for a few digital bits. Enough people have decided it's a good idea and now Bitcoin has real value.\n\nIn traditional money, you hand someone some bills. Or you write a check and your bank updates your record.\n\nIn crypto currency, you have 2 numbers. You have a \"bank account\" number and a matching signature number. To take money out of the \"bank account\" you must use your signature number to bless the transaction. You MUST keep the signature number secret.\n\nAnyone who knows the signature number can do ANYTHING to the money in the \"bank account\". So you control your wealth by keeping your signatures safe and hidden. If they're compromised, you generate a new bank and signature pair, and move all of your money into the new bank.\n\nWhen you bless a transaction with your signature, you broadcast a public message to everyone that \"Move xxxxx bitcoins to yyyyyy account from zzzzzzz account\".\n\nEvery transaction is publicly recorded. This public record is called a block chain. Computers are the internet share this record and update it through some networking code. So as long as ONE of these computers is still around, the full transaction history can be recovered.\n\nPeople agree to run these servers, because as long as you're running the server, the algorithm pays you some small amount of Bitcoin.\n\nThe details are more complicated, but are methods already used in public key encryption with digital signatures. You read the original Satoshi Nakamoto paper on _URL_0_ and all the code is open source."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"Bitcoin.org"
]
] |
||
4rmula
|
how do the common green firework fuses, i think they're called visco fuses, still burn when you throw them under water?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4rmula/eli5_how_do_the_common_green_firework_fuses_i/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d52gf07"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"the outside layer is a (low-nitrate) nitrocellulose that holds the inner string and powder together, and is also water resistant. further, the intense heat from burning powder exceeds the cooling effect of water, allowing combustion to continue. \n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
5x63p3
|
how does hashing work for single value like the letter "a"?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5x63p3/eli5_how_does_hashing_work_for_single_value_like/
|
{
"a_id": [
"defjbzv",
"defjxcn"
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text": [
"You didn't specify what hashing algorithm, but in general, if the input wasn't long enough you would pad it by adding \"zero bits\" to it. Technically, even long strings often need padding as well. This is because to be able to work with the bit string properly it needs to be a certain length (or divisible by a certain length). Each algorithm has its own rules for such things.\n\nSort of like if you had a number 42, but you actually needed a 10-digit number you would change it to 0000000042, but instead of using digits, you would use bits.",
"It depends on the specific algorithm. Generally some type of padding is added to bring the input to a proper length. Here's how the MD5 algorithm applies padding.\n\n > MD5 processes a variable-length message into a fixed-length output of 128 bits. The input message is broken up into chunks of 512-bit blocks (sixteen 32-bit words); the message is padded so that its length is divisible by 512. The padding works as follows: first a single bit, 1, is appended to the end of the message. This is followed by as many zeros as are required to bring the length of the message up to 64 bits fewer than a multiple of 512. The remaining bits are filled up with 64 bits representing the length of the original message, modulo 264."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
1ymqrj
|
since all classical music pieces are played from same notes and (at the top level) using the similar instruments. what makes some performances/performers better than others?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ymqrj/eli5since_all_classical_music_pieces_are_played/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cflvg3a",
"cflw119",
"cflw7c8",
"cfm070v"
],
"score": [
3,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Intangibles such as feel, timbre, emotional presence, etc.",
"As Pockets2000 said, once you get to the highest levels no-one really has a clue what it is that makes someone so good particularly; it's a kind of 'aura'.\n\nTechnique definitely has a place. Obviously a performer with a greater mastery of technique (using the instrument, producing the right sounds, being fluid in playing, etc) is going to be better with someone less well-versed in the instrument. \n\nWhen it comes to classical music, it's all down to interpretation and creativity. It's surprising how much room there is, even within the most rigid pieces of classical music, for performers to express themselves and tell a story. At this level, you get into those 'intangibles' - a performance stops being a music recital and becomes a kind of shared emotional event. ",
"Some performers are better than others at translating/interpreting the emotions in a piece of music; they do this through subtle variations of the notes (increasing/decreasing volumes and attack, modifying the notes with vibrato speed and intensity, etc.).\n\nIt's a bit similar to reading poetry aloud; the words are there, but the performer puts their own take on things. [The notes and phrases, like words, are given different emphasis and coloration (feeling). The best performers communicate the author's intent (subject to taste and interpretation).]\n\nIt helps if the listener has familiarity with the piece, or hears several different performances. Variations then become more apparent.\n\nninjaedit:[]",
"As many others have said, interpretation is huge. The music is just a guide, it doesn't fully specify how the piece is to be played.\n\nAside from that though, I think you're underestimating the variation between musicians on identical instruments. Not sure if you're a sports fan, but consider the different abilities and playing styles of athletes in say, baseball. They're all very good, and they all use basically identical equipment, but some are still significantly better than others and they all have different styles. No two batters have an identical batting stance and no two pitchers have identical arm motions. It's the same in music.\n\nAnyway, this is more of an answer to \"How can individual performances be different from each other, given that the music and instruments are the same\", which I think is partially answering your question. You might also be asking \"Why are specific performances deemed \"better\" than others? What makes a performance \"good\" or \"bad\" assuming it was technically proficient?\" And that's an extremely difficult question to answer because human preference for art, the history of music, the time and place of a performance, etc. all factor into that answer."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
12hsiv
|
this subreddit has become like /r/askscience in many ways, besides its focus on simple, easy to read questions. should this subreddit start using the "no medical advice" rule that /r/askscience is all about?
|
/r/AskScience is known for having expert answers to science questions, where /r/explainlikeimfive has been about having informed people (who might not be experts) answer questions about anything, in simple words. But /r/AskScience is also known for its strict "No Medical Advice" rule, because doing so actually violates Reddit's ToS. Should /r/explainlikeimfive start enforcing this rule (which would stop people from asking "Why is [x] happening to *me*" questions)?
Edit to fix grammer
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/12hsiv/this_subreddit_has_become_like_raskscience_in/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c6v4v7x",
"c6v4w6q"
],
"score": [
3,
4
],
"text": [
"I'd say a more common inappropriate question is \"I have this homework assignment, please explain it for me.\"",
"except /r/askiscience usually has accurate answers and this sub is often filled with broscience and guesswork. Also it has become a replacement for /r/askreddit since /r/askreddit has become /r/makeupstories. \n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
z2yr7
|
how do we determine light years? what does it mean, for example to be 600 light years away from earth?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/z2yr7/how_do_we_determine_light_years_what_does_it_mean/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c60znpy",
"c60zom0",
"c60zzvz"
],
"score": [
13,
2,
9
],
"text": [
"A light year is how far light will travel in one year.\n\nIf something is 600 light years away from earth, it will take light 600 years to travel from that object back to us. ",
"A light year is a measure of distance, not time.\n\nLight travels at about 300,000 km/s...you could call that distance a light second. Multiply it by 60, and you get a light minute. The sun is about 8 light minutes from earth.\n\nA few more multiplications, and you get a light year. The nearest star to the sun is about 4 light years away. \n",
"A 'light-year' is the amount of distance that light can travel in a year's time (in a vacuum). It's a cool measurement because the speed of light in a vacuum doesn't change at all. It is *constant*. \n\nLight travels really fast. [Light from the sun](_URL_3_) reaches us in something like eight minutes and twenty seconds. Light from the next nearest star, [Proxima Centauri](_URL_2_), takes 4.24 years to get here from there. There's a planet which we think is quite a bit like Earth and it orbits a star called [Gliese 581](_URL_0_) which is 22 light-years away from here. This means that even if you could fly as fast as light, it would take you 22 years to get there. \n\n[As a comparison](_URL_1_); light travels ten thousand times faster than Earth travels through space, three hundred and six thousand times faster than the fastest jet through the air and thirty million times faster than Usain Bolt. \n\nTo give you an idea how far 600 light-years is... well, I don't think I can. It's just mind-bogglingly far. There is a point beyond which we stop being able to relate to numbers and our brain just uses the 'really big' concept to label things. This is even bigger than that. If an alien was 600 light-years out in space and pointed an impossibly good telescope at Earth, they'd be able to *watch Joan of Ark being born*. That's how far away it is. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliese_581",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed#Examples_of_different_speeds",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxima_Centauri",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunlight"
]
] |
||
2cx8ez
|
"not for individual resale" or "not to be sold separately" - how do manufacturers legally impose this on retailers?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cx8ez/eli5_not_for_individual_resale_or_not_to_be_sold/
|
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"The problem is that generally those types of products are sold in a bundle, and the bundle has its own packaging and labeling that meets the legal requirements for what needs to be on the packaging. The individual items within the bundle may not be properly labeled individually, and therefore would be illegal to sell individually.",
"It's not an issue that the manufacturer deals with, but that the FDA does.\n\nThe FDA has certain product labeling guidelines that must be followed by the retailer (for example each an ingredients list on the package). If the manufacturer packages a box containing small packages of candy and labels each package as Not For Individual Resale, then likely those individual packages don't meet the FDA requirements. The larger box in which the candies are packaged will (The big box has the ingredients list, not the small packages inside). Thus, the whole box has to be sold as a single unit to meet FDA requirements.\n\nIf you break that box up into the smaller components, and resell individual candies that don't meet the FDA requirements, you're breaking a federal law.",
"They may not have to legally impose it. If they catch a retailer doing they may simply not do business with that retailer.",
"Hi! I am an investigator. I take a look at corporate retail management and accounting practices. I do this privately (I don't work for the government) for the corporations themselves. A lot of big companies do this to self-police. I created a throwaway account for this because I am a chicken. \nThis label is a legal cover-your-ass safeguard for many reasons. I will try to explain one simple one. \nSay I'm Gillette. I decide for the holiday season I'm making a shaving gift-set and I'm going to sell it for X dollars. The entire price of the set is lower than if you were to buy each item individually, so it's a great deal. Say I sell a ton of the gift sets to a retailer. The store manager hides all the gift sets in a locked room somewhere. He doesn't sell any of them. Just before inventory time (when everything in his store gets counted and they determine how well of a job he's done managing his inventory), he breaks up all the gift sets into individual items and puts them on the shelf, they all get counted. \nNow... say there are 5 items in the gift set. That means that every one (actual) item is getting counted as 5 items. That looks good on his part! It looks like he's great at managing his inventory and there's not a lot of theft. Not only that, but he increased his counted inventory dollar level because remember before I said that the gift set had a lower price than buying each item individually. He created money out of thin air! \nThe store manager cheated! He made the inventory of his shaving department look much better than it actually was. Now... say this method of cheating were to become a common practice. At the end of the year it causes the retail company put inaccurate sales, profit, and loss into shareholder reports and also into tax forms. For a big company that is HUGE. The government WILL get involved and it will be a shitstorm. Huge scandal and PR nightmare. Luckily, Gillette covered their ass. In fact, they clearly labeled each item inside the gift set as part of a gift set and not for individual sale, in order to discourage this sort of thing on both their end, and the retailers they sell to. \nThere's lots of other examples but I'm not going to go into them. I've already said too much. I don't need anymore job security.\n\nEdit: Grammar."
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34s24v
|
why doesn't boxing have tournaments or playoffs like other sports to determine "champions"?
|
For example, why do certain over-hyped boxers grt to keep calling themselves champions when they refuse to fight a challenger until said challenger has AARP membership?
Do they just not want us to watch the sport or...
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/34s24v/eli5_why_doesnt_boxing_have_tournaments_or/
|
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"There are four different main different boxing organizations; WBA, WBC , IBF, WBO each with their own belts for every weight division \n\nThink of it like wrestlings old WWF Vs WCW, each are in same type of thing but both have their own champions \n\nThere are so many organizations because there is more money to be made instead of having just one belt defended only 2 times a year\n\nFor amateur boxing tho, there are those tournaments , for professional boxing there is just too much politics to be one champion "
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1qflpr
|
what the great nascar/other racecar drivers do to be better than their competition?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qflpr/eli5what_the_great_nascarother_racecar_drivers_do/
|
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"The cars are all the same, but how they are set up and how the driver reacts to the set-up can take a driver from first to last place. There are some things a driver can do to make faster laps. Things like holding down on the gas pedal for just a tenth of a second longer when going into a turn can shave half a second on a lap time. Look at the qualifying times in some of the races, and you will see a half second difference can mean a gain of ten starting positions. \n\nAnother thing a driver can do is find a line around the track that allows him (or her, can't forget Danica, Jennifer Jo Cobb, or Johanna Long) to drive faster into the turns. Some drivers can drive faster on the higher lanes, some prefer to drive on the lower lanes. \n\nSome drivers can take a car that doesn't handle exactly like they like it (front end or rear end slides into the turn called \"push\" and \"loose\") and still try to drive the problems out of the car (the track will sometimes make a loose racecar tighter as the race goes on or make a car looser if the car is tight) and just wait until the car \"comes to the driver.\" Others will slow down and not risk crashing. \n\nAnother way some teams are better than others (because it isn't just the driver who wins races) is because of \"pit strategy.\" The crew chief (like a coach or manager in other sports) may tell a driver to save fuel to avoid having to make as many stops for fuel as another team. Some crew chiefs may suggest only changing two tires when other teams are changing four or not changing any tires to allow the driver to run up in the front following a restart in the race. Getting to the front through whatever means may make a huge difference in finishing position. \n\nI don't know if you saw yesterday's race, but Carl Edwards went from about 20th position, and due to pit strategy, ran up in first. Trouble is his crew chief's strategy didn't pay off and Edwards ran out of gas with about 1 1/2 laps to go. With enough fuel he would have won. That is one of the things that makes a driver a winner. "
]
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58apo8
|
how is tupac nominated for the rock and roll hof?
|
I love Rock and Roll and i love Tupac and rap and hip hop music but how is Tupac or any other other genre musical artist eligible to be entered into the Rock HoF?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/58apo8/eli5how_is_tupac_nominated_for_the_rock_and_roll/
|
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"The term rock and roll is used very loosely. I took a history of rock and roll class in college and my professor explained it much more eloquently, but rock and roll is all encompassing for everything from the 1950's forward. A better term would probably the the Popular Music Hall of Fame.",
"In the words of Ice Cube:\n\n\"Rock & roll is not an instrument; rock & roll is not even a style of music. Rock & roll is a spirit. … It's been going since the blues, jazz, bebop, soul, R & B, rock & roll, heavy metal, punk rock and, yes, hip-hop. And what connects us all is that spirit. …Rock & roll is not conforming to the people who came before you, but creating your own path in music and in life.\"\n\nIn other words:\n\nIt's probably worth mentioning what \"rock and roll\" actually is. There are two definitions of \"rock and roll\".\n\nThe first definition is a genre popular of music that originated in the early to mid 1950s and ended in 1959, because of the following events:\n\n- The drafting of Elvis into the army (1958)\n- Little Richard retiring to become a preacher (1959)\n- The arrest of Chuck Berry (1959)\n- The scandal of Jerry Lee Lewis marrying his underage cousin (1958)\n- The death of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper in a plane crash (1959)\n- The payola scandal that rocked (no pun intended) the music industry, taking down a number of well-known rock and roll DJs, including Alan Freed, with it (1959)\n\nUnder this definition, \"rock music\" is a genre of music that began with \"rock and roll\" and branched out in a number of different ways. This definition also implies that the vast majority of the artists in the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame shouldn't be in there, because they're not, strictly speaking, \"rock and roll\". They're a different rock sub-genre, like metal or grunge or surf rock or punk.\n\nThe second definition has the same start date, but essentially doesn't end, and instead somehow becomes the same as the all-encompassing genre of \"rock\", spawning all the sub-genres. It should be noted that early 1960s rock sounds fairly different than the rock and roll that ended under the assumptions of the first definition, as surf rock, and soul, the two biggest subgenres to originate around that time.\n\nWith the two different definitions of rock and roll established, there are certainly other acts that aren't \"rock and roll\" or \"rock\" that are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.\n\nBlues\n\n- Albert King\n- Bobby \"Blue\" Bland\n- Jimmy Reed\n- John Lee Hooker\n- Muddy Waters\n\nReggae\n\n- Bob Marley\n- Jimmy Cliff\n\nJazz\n\n- Charlie Christian\n- Miles Davis\n\nDisco\n\n- Bee Gees (they were soft rock in the early 70s, but it's safe to say their disco stuff got them in)\n- Donna Summer\n\nPop\n\n- Abba\n- Madonna\n- Michael Jackson\n\nAnd then there's the question of other genres, like Soul, Funk, Rhythm and blues, etc. Are these \"rock and roll\"? What about soft/folk rock, like Crosby, Stills, & Nash or The Byrds or James Taylor? Are they \"rock and roll\"?\n\nWhat makes these artists and genres \"rock and roll\" but rap not? I don't think anything does, really. I think the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is really more about popular music than \"rock and roll\" or \"rock\", per se; it just started with the 1950s rock and roll era and moved forward.\n\nBut we can also look toward the Rock Hall for more information. First, you have their article entitled \"Planet Rock: Hip Hop is Rock and Roll\". As further evidence, look towards the eligibility requirements for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:\n\n > To be eligible for induction as an artist (as a performer, composer, or musician) into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the artist must have released a record, in the generally accepted sense of that phrase, at least 25 years prior to the year of induction; and have demonstrated unquestionable musical excellence.\n\n > We shall consider factors such as an artist's musical influence on other artists, length and depth of career and the body of work, innovation and superiority in style and technique, but musical excellence shall be the essential qualification of induction.\n\nNote that there is no stipulation of genre. All influential artists who have demonstrated unquestionable musical excellence are considered. Also, looking at that page, you'll see\n\n > Ballots are then sent to an international voting body of more than 600 artists, historians and members of the music industry.\n\nI think this is the most important insight. 600 people decide what \"rock and roll\" within the scope of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is. They have opened it up to fans to vote, but the top 5 artists by fan vote count for one ballot each. So, essentially, fan votes don't count, and 600 people choose what \"music excellence\" is and how \"influential\" and \"innovative\" an artist was."
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3lxzb8
|
how do people who colorize photos know what color to make things?
|
For example, if someone in a colorized photo is wearing a green shirt, was that person actually wearing a green shirt? Is there a way to tell which color something was from a black and white photo? Or does the person colorizing the photo just pick a color and go with it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3lxzb8/eli5_how_do_people_who_colorize_photos_know_what/
|
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"Depends on the source photo. For example old photos with advertisement or firetrucks or uniforms, it can be deduced from modern colors what their original color was. Otherwise the colors are just chosen arbitrarily so that they seem realistic and suitable for the given time the photo was taken.",
"They dont.\n\nThey can look at historical photographs or texts and try to deduce from that. Theres no real way to tell since a b/w photo only tells you how dark/light an object was.\n\n\n\n"
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6cp76p
|
have humans gotten more attractive than they were 5000 years ago, because "uglier" people tend to not be as desirable for sex?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6cp76p/eli5_have_humans_gotten_more_attractive_than_they/
|
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"You are missing the fact that the vast majority of people, attractive or not, have children. There is nothing preventing less attractive people from passing on their genes.\n\nAlso, \"attractive\" is a different thing from place-to-place and generation-to-generation."
]
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1yp20a
|
why is marriage such a huge issue? why do people remarry?
|
My parents have Been together for 25 years and are still very clearly in love, while I look at a lot of people who are married and it SEEMS that marriage is the end of the line and then that's it, game over. I don't understand
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1yp20a/eli5_why_is_marriage_such_a_huge_issue_why_do/
|
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"It's about the symbolism. The ultimate way to \"show\" society your commitment to some one. Marriage is a beautiful thing but it's not neccessary. The only thing that matters is that the two people are in love",
"All depends on the person, just like religion or politics or ... well, anything for that matter. \n\nFor myself, marriage is one of the few sources of real magic in the world. I mean that as literally as possible. Along with reading and writing, it is (for me) a magical experience that I value as a far, far stronger bond than bf/gf or cohabitating. Marriage is where failure isn't an option. \n\nAgain, from my perspective: When you get married, it creates a kind of third entity -- there's you, her (or him), and 'us' ... and the us is the most important person in the relationship. You in effect have said to your spouse, \"Of every single person I've ever known, you are the person I most want to spend my time alive with\". I know marriage is deprecated these days, but in my mind it's the ultimate commitment -- you're going to spend 70-80 years on this world, and you've decided to spend the vast majority of them with one specific person. That's a huge commitment and should be treated with all due respect and seriousness. You'll almost surely outlive your parents. You'll see your siblings and relatives a couple times a year. You and your spouse will be together almost daily for, god willing, 40-50 years.\n\nThey are the most important person in your life, full stop. If you don't feel that way about them, there's absolutely no reason to marry them. Shack up and have good times until you get tired of each other. But if you make that kind of commitment, be prepared to follow through.",
"There are two parts to it, legal benefits and symbolism.\n\nLegally, a married couple have dozens of special privileges unmarried ones don't. They can file their taxes jointly, for instance, which saves them a little money. They can have power of attorney over one another if it becomes necessary. If one is in a committed relationship that one expects will last, it is logical to get married to take advantage of these benefits.\n\nSymbolically, marriage is a promise to always be there for one another, and to display the profundity of the couple's love for one another inview of their friends and families. For most people who are in love, that kind of thing can feel very important. Of course sometimes it doesn't work out and they divorce, but that doesn't mean they have to give up on the idea of pledging their eternal love to someone, hoping that next time around it'll stick.",
"It's a cultural and historical thing. Nowadays it's just sort of normal to be married and it will have some societal value. Also it is to show commitment to another and ultimately it's economically beneficial. ",
"Why live life to the end alone if you can find another person you mutually enjoy enough to spend the rest of your life with, even if they were not the one you originally planned on. I have a grandpa who re-married at 81 after my grandmother passed and it has given him something to keep living for 10 years later",
"Some people have no friends and need a SO to make themselves feel \"whole\". I don't need the headache of trying to make someone else happy all the time. I have a hard enough time keeping myself motivated. "
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2pmry2
|
why does cooking jalapeno poppers in a fryer at 350 for 3 minutes cook them the same as baking them at 450 degrees for 10 minutes?
|
Wouldn't the higher temperature and extra time cook them more?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pmry2/eli5_why_does_cooking_jalapeno_poppers_in_a_fryer/
|
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"When baking, the heat comes from the air surrounding the food, and air is an extremely poor conductor of heat compared with oil, so it takes longer to heat things up. This can be easily seen by how you can hold your hand inside a hot oven relatively comfortably for a few seconds, but dipping your hand into a fryer would cause instant agony (please don't try this at home).",
"Oil is much, much better at conveying heat energy than hot air and infrared radiation.\n\nIt doesn't really hurt to stick your hand in a 450 degree oven (unless you touch metal). Don't do the same thing with 350 degree oil.\n\nThis is mostly because oil is a thousand times denser than air.\n"
]
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1rbmab
|
dr. who. basic premise / history / popularity and where to begin if one has never watched it.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rbmab/eli5_dr_who_basic_premise_history_popularity_and/
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"[Doctor Who: 47 Years in 6 Minutes\n](_URL_0_)",
"The basic premise is that the Doctor is an alien (species: Time Lord) who travels around in a spaceship/time-machine called the \"TARDIS.\" The TARDIS is bigger on the inside and has a camouflage circuit that's been jammed to \"London Police Box, 1950s\" since the first episode. He tends to be accompanied by \"companions,\" people who travel with the Doctor on his adventures. \n\nThe show began in 1963 and, thus far, 12 men have played the Doctor. This is explained in-universe by Time Lords growing a new body when they die. The show went off the air in 1989. There was an attempt to revive it in 1996 with an American-made television movie, but that didn't get the green-light for a full series. It was successfully revived in 2005 with the Ninth Doctor, played by Christopher Eccleston. \n\nIt was a cult show in Britain for many years, aimed mostly at younger audiences but having a strong following among science fiction fans, but the revival has brought it a more mainstream popularity. \n\nI'd recommend getting started with Eccleston's episodes--Series 1, which aired in 2005. Watch the modern series, then go back to the older stuff. There's no need to slog through every episode (which is impossible anyway, given that a good many were destroyed in the old days of non-ubiquitous recording), just pick up a story or two (stories are several episodes long, though) from each Doctor. And give the TV movie a look--it's not perfect, but the 8th Doctor's acting is very good. Eric Roberts as \"The Master\"...your mileage may vary. ",
"[ForHumanPeoples did a fantastic job summing it up in this video](_URL_0_) Its a little fast, but it is a vastly complicated show and its hard to sum it up in a couple minutes. \n\nI would recommend that you watch \"blink\" it is not the first episode (maybe in the third season?) but you don't need much background before you watch it (that video before this should do) and it doesn't give much away. If you like that I would recommend that you start with Eccleston (First season from reboot) and move on from there. I consider myself a huge fan and I have not seen all the classic who episodes. \n\n*warning:* The first season is super cheesy; especially if you don't watch any sci-fi shows. The first couple of episodes are rough, try and solider through them. I promise you it gets much better towards the end of that season and it is much better when Tennant takes over (its pretty obvious that the first season had a small budget). I would highly recommend the show to anyone, give it a shot. I hope you like it!",
"This is a very short version. \n\n The Doctor (the primary character) is a timelord, an ancient species of alien which live for thousands of years through a biotech process called regeneration. This allows The Doctor to survive otherwise fatal events, but the process causes physical changes.\n\n The series is oriented around The Doctors adventures in time and space usually using his stolen time ship which is a TARDIS (time and relative dimension in space). You see the Doctor is a bit of a misfit. In addition to his rebel streak it's important to note that Timelords choose their title, so The Doctor views himself as a healer of sorts.\n\n Accordingly the show is a bit quirky / odd, and has a magic \"go anywhere, do anything\" mechanic in the TARDIS. So The Doctor may be in Ancient Rome or future London, some alien ship or planet. He often picks up interesting partners in crime to travel with him as he goes. So the entire show has a rotating cast essentially, with overarching themes and arcs spanning multiple seasons.\n\n In recent seasons The Doctor has had some very dark moments, but is overall a light hearted show. I generally advise anyone who likes scifi to check it out, it's hard to summarize the mythology on my phone :-)",
"/u/LIPCSB explained the show very well, so I will give you my opinion on where to start.\n\nThere are three episodes, one from each of the three Doctors that have appeared since the reincarnation of the show, that I use when showing someone the show for the first time.\n\nSeason 1, Episode 9 \"The Empty Child\" (This is a 2-part arch. Episode 10 is named \"The Doctor Dances\") \nSeason 3, Episode 10 \"Blink\" \nSeason 5, Episode 10 \"Vincent and the Doctor\"\n\nThey won't get you too much into the history of the show, but they'll give you a good idea of what the show is about and give you a preview of how each of the modern Doctor's acts. You can decide then which Doctor you'd like to start with. Some people are turned off by the ninth Doctor. He's only the doctor for the first modern series, and it's definitely a bit dated now.",
"Here are a few good episodes to watch to see if you like the show, because there is so much to watch and slogging through \"New Who\" can take a while. Its all timey wimey anyways so it will be ok to watch some out of order. The following episodes are what I tell people to watch. A quick classification is that Old Who is Seasons, while New Who is Series.\n\nBlink S3E10\n\nVincent and the Doctor S5E10\n\nGirl in the Fireplace S2E04\n\nThe Empty Child S1E9-10\n\nThere are many more quality episodes but they can involve overarching story *\"Spoilers!\"* so I left them out.",
"The main character is \"The Doctor\" a super-genius alien who can solve pretty much any problem.\n\nHe has access to a time machine which can essentially teleport anywhere in time and space and uses this time machine to go on grand adventures.\n\nHe takes along a companion which a vast majority of the time is a young attractive female. Most of the time the premise is him showing off cool things to the companion.\n\nIt is really more fantasy than hard science fiction. Pretty much every rule can be broken and stuff is only loosely explained at times. It is ultimately an excuse to go on adventures, have crazy villains, and fantastic stuff happening.\n\nI would just start at the beginning of the 2005 series. Quality will go up and down between episodes because they feature a variety of writers and each episode can be a one off premise. Some episode you will feel are brilliant and others you will think are rubbish. Still you will probably keep watching because something new is always happening.",
"The show started in 1963 and continued through to 1989 when it was canceled. This is dubbed \"Classic Who.\" In 1996, there was an ill-fated TV movie that failed to revive the series. Then, it was finally remade in 2005, it proved a big hit, and that is the show we see today. The series from 2005 to present is dubbed \"New Who\" by some fans.\n\nThe synopsis: \"The Doctor\" is an alien called a \"time-lord\" who travels through space and time in a blue box that's \"bigger on the inside.\" Along the way, he makes friends (usually female and human, but not always,) solves complex problems, saves planets and galaxies from destruction, but he never gets the girl in the end. This time-lord has many enemies, but he has many friends to help him. Finally, he doesn't die. As a time-lord, he regenerates into another physical form. He looks different and has a different personality, but he retains the memories of his past regenerations.\n\nThe show is about how creativity, resourcefulness, friendship, intellect, passion, and a strong belief in oneself can overcome practically any obstacle. The Doctor almost never uses a weapon against an enemy. If he does, it's usually used indirectly, such as using a gun to shoot a machine to stop a plot instead of shooting the evil mastermind behind the plot. His chief tool is a sonic screwdriver which can open locks and scan bio-organisms and computer systems.\n\nThe show is very British, and sometimes it helps to have an interest in British culture and history, but it's not crucial. \n\nTo start watching, try \"Blink\" from Series Three (2007) of the rebooted series. It's widely considered the best episode ever made in the show's entire history. It requires no prior knowledge of the show. If you don't like that episode, chances are the show is not for you.\n\nIf you like \"Blink,\" then you can binge-watch starting with Series One, with Christopher Eccleston as The Doctor, then to Series Two thru Four with David Tennant in the role, and finally with Matt Smith in the role from Series Five to Seven. Along the way, check out episodes of the Classic show as it suits you. Many fans have different opinions about every Doctor, so look around the Internet for \"Best Of\" lists to see what would be a good episode to watch in Classic Who.\n\nIn order to watch the 50th Anniversary Special, \"Day of the Doctor,\" you'd have to watch Matt Smith's run to understand it. If you only watch Matt Smith's run, you won't understand some of the references made about David Tennant's Doctor in that episode.\n\nGood luck, and happy watching.",
"Everyone says to watch \"blink\" first but the Doctor is barely in that one! It's a great episode yes, but it's hardly a good representation of the show as a whole. I'd say silence in the library/forest of the dead from season 4 would be a better representation of what makes the show great. Then watch blink. Then watch the rest of the rebooted series.\n\nThen RUN!",
"The answers here are good but I am old school. I recommend that you find and watch the classic Doctors as well. William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, and Tom Baker, etc. To me, those will always be the real Doctors.\n\nThe main thing to remember is classic Doctor Who had tiny budgets and incredibly cheesy special effects. That can be a turn off to todays CGI spoiled kids but to us old timers, it's all part of the charm.\n\nWhichever you get innto, just enjoy the ride and have fun learning the lore.",
"Start with the Fourth Doctor, Tom Baker, then go for the modern stuff",
"The basic premise is the Doctor (a Time Lord from the planet of Gallifrey) has a machine that can travel anywhere in space and time. The machine is called the TARDIS* which looks like an old London Police Box. \n\nThe Doctor ran away from his home planet and travels around the universe to explore. He picks up companions (the first of which he kidnapped, back in '63) and travels around with them until they decide (or are forced) to leave. In his travels, he just so happens to help out other races so he can save himself and his companions.** The show is a chronicle of his travels.\n\nBecause he is a Time Lord,*** he can regenerate. This means he gets a new body and a different personality. His memories are the same, but otherwise he's a completely different person. This is why there are multiple Doctors. The \"classic\" series contains the First through Seventh Doctors (1963 to 1989 iirc). There was an American TV movie in '96 which featured the Eighth Doctor. The 2005 reboot of the series, dubbed \"New Who\" began with the Nineth Doctor.\n\nAs for where to begin: I stared with the episode \"The Eleventh Hour\" which is the Eleventh Doctor's first episode. Another good starter, as others have mentioned is the first episode of the 2005 reboot with the Nineth Doctor. However, since every Doctor is different (different actor, different writers, etc), I would encourage giving at least two or three of them a try. The good thing about Dr. Who is that you can jump in pretty much anywhere as stories are generally stand-alone and don't rely on knowledge of stuff that happened before.\n\n*Stands for T.ime A.nd R.elative D.imensions I.n S.pace. The TARDIS is bigger on the inside, and we generally see the console room. \n\n**The motivation behind helping other races depends on which Doctor you're dealing with. Their MO also changes. Some are very peaceful and avoid violence, some may have committed genocide.\n\n*** Not all Gallifreyans are necessarily Time Lords. Time Lords are 'male' Gallifreyans who attended the Academy. The 'female' counterpart would be Time Lady.",
"It's hard to describe the Doctor simply. The main character has committed genocide on not one but (at least) two races, including his own. His closest friends frequently die or meet even worse fates. Despite these two facts, everyday he wakes up and tries to make the universe a better place. The Doctor is a character so complex in his history, created from so many poignant but small moments buried in the genre fiction of his show, that simple descriptions of him can't help but make him sound unbelievable. But he is brilliant. That god and the devil could be the same person? Absolutely brilliant. That's why the writing of the show is fucking fantastic. That they can believably pull off that character.\n\nI still get chills every time I see his speech when he confronted the Atraxi.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nBut, I'll try to do him justice here.\n\nBasic Premise:\n\nThe Doctor is an alien that has a time-traveling phone booth. He frequently takes \"companions\" with him on his travels. Companions are just people he meets up with and travels with. They're like his friends.\n\nHe is a devout pacifist (though he has his bad days), and generally thinks of very clever ways to get out of problems. He spends his time saving the universe. Literally.\n\nHere are the Doctor's \"powers:\"\n\n1) He has a \"sonic screwdriver.\" It is the ultimate MacGuffin. It works when the story needs it to, and doesn't when the story needs it to not work.\n\n_URL_1_\n\n2) When he speaks, others listen. He is frequently cornered by enemies with superior weapons, but then he starts talking at them. By the time he's done talking, he's outsmarted them.\n\n3) He's wicked smart. He thinks of \"technobabble\" solutions to problems sometimes, but the best stories are when he thinks of creative solutions that you could have thought up.\n\n4) He's a master of Venusian aikido (space martial arts). No shit. You'll probably never see this though. It was really only used by the Third Doctor.\n\n_URL_3_\n\n5) He can \"regenerate.\" Thought up as a way to continue the show when William Hartnell (the First Doctor) wanted to retire, it has now become a staple of the show. When Time Lords (the \"race\" of the Doctor) are killed, they can undergo a complete cellular regenerate that brings them back to life. However, they end up looking different (i.e. being played by another actor). This change is more than just skin deep though. They can change skin colors or even genders. Also, their memories become a bit muddled, and other significant changes can occur, such as no longer liking a favorite kind of food.\n\nIn the fandom, whenever the Doctor undergoes a regeneration, it's a HUGE DEAL!\n\nCurrently, the Doctor is in his 11th incarnation (sort of). That's why Matt Smith (the actor currently playing the Doctor) is generally referred to as the Eleventh Doctor.\n\nAbout the Show:\n\nThe British refer to what American's call a \"season\" as a \"series,\" so that can get pretty confusing. I'll use the American version for this write up, so when I say a \"season,\" I'm taking about a single string of episodes aired typically during a single calendar year.\n\nThere are basically three different \"eras\" that make up Doctor Who. Most people in America refer to these as the different \"series\" of the show.\n\n\"Original Series\" - Aired from 1963 to 1989 and had a \"movie\" that aired in 1996. The original series was mainly characterized by by \"serials.\" Two to five episodes that made up a single \"story arch.\"\n\n\"2005 Series\" - Aired from 2005 to 2010. This is when the show relaunched after being canceled 15 years earlier. The budget for the show was still very small (comparatively), and is often considered cheesy or unwatchable by younger audiences.\n\n\"Steven Moffat Series\" - Started in 2010 and running up to today. Named after the current \"show runner\" or \"head writer\" for the show. Marked by a noticeable increase in budget. All episodes are now broadcast in high definition. Still using the same actor, Matt Smith, as the Doctor.\n\nWhere to Start:\n\nYou're going to get lots of different answers for this. I'm just going to give you the \"easiest\" place to start for what is probably \"the average viewer.\"\n\nStart with the episode, \"The Eleventh Hour.\" It's generally considered \"Season 5\" (or \"Series 5\" if you're British) of the 2005 series (though fans often make a distinction and think of it as the first episode of the Steven Moffat Series). Calling it the 2005 series distinguishes it from the original 1963 to 1989 run (and the movie made in 1996).\n\n_URL_2_\n\nEach season of the 2005 Doctor Who is comprised of \"episodic\" episodes as well as \"serial\" episodes. Episodic episodes are stand-alone pieces. Like one-off shows that don't much connect to any of the other shows. Serial episodes are ones that have interconnected stories (though they may not have occurred \"in order\"). Usually, the first and last episodes of each season are connected, and sometimes one or two other episodes in the middle of the season. These form the \"seasonal story arch.\"\n\nIf you enjoy the first few episodes of Season 5 and want to watch the older stuff, jump back to \"Season 1\" with Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor. Again, this is Season 1 of the 2005 Series.\n\nIf you have a hard time watching that, but just want to see \"the best episodes\" so you can keep up with Doctor Who talk, then I'd recommend these:\n\n\"The Empty Child\"\n\"The Doctor Dances\"\n\"Human Nature\"\n\"The Family of Blood\"\n\"Blink\"\n\"Silence in the Library\"\n\"Forest of the Dead\"\n\nThose are pretty much the best ones from 2005 to 2010.\n\nEverything from 2010 on should be pretty \"easy to enjoy\" for modern audiences.\n\nUnfortunately, there are a lot of people that love Doctor Who so much that they want everyone to love it. I certainly love it. However, it's not really \"for everyone.\" Lots of people don't like the more childish or cheesy parts of the show, and that's fine. If you don't like it, don't try to force yourself to like it.\n\nHowever, if you can get into it, it is certainly one of the best shows ever made.\n\nGood luck. I hope you enjoy it.",
"Well, let's see.\n\nThe Doctor is, as others have stated, an alien from a race that has learned how to manipulate time but, in the main, just watch the passing parade. The Doctor thought they should be doing more, and stole one of the time-space ships to change things. \n\nWhen he is old or seriously injured (irradiated, shot, etc), he has \"this trick\" as he puts it, which allows his body to regenerate on a cellular level. He retains his memories, but is in effect a completely new person, who goes swaggering off to new adventures.\n\nHis human companions often keep him grounded and are 'way in' characters for us. In some ways they have healed him from his past actions.\n\nBest starting points are, I actually think, 'Rose' and 'Dalek' In those eps, you find out why companions are important, and why Daleks are actually shit-scary and pretty iconic.\n\nIf you've watched old TV shows from the 60s on, you should at least sample some of the earlier Doctors, each have strong points. If you haven't watched old shows, well, Who was always about the characters and the story, not the effects.\n\nThe one they are showing this weekend is pretty amazing, but you'll need some background first. Also, webisodes.\n\nHeaps more info at Wikipedia.\n\n",
"Time travelling James Bond.",
"I tried watching Dr. Who, but I felt really silly after the first episode had him fighting mannequins in a mall. Subsequent episodes had him opposing a giant piece of skin.\n\nI don't get it.",
"If you get into it don't become a \"whovian.\". I love the show but good lord some of the fans annoy me to no end and make me slightly ashamed to be a fan",
"The Fourth Doctor is really where Classic Doctor Who hit its stride, so if you want to really *understand* the culture of the show it's a great place to start. The classic format had shorter weekly episodes (about 25 minutes each) but longer story arcs (usually four episodes per arc), so each classic serial lasts roughly 100 minutes, or the length of an average movie. However, since this is a serial format, each episode has a basic three act structure and most episodes end with a cliffhanger. The action and plot are therefore more fast-paced and often a bit more goofy than modern Who. Prepare to suspend your disbelief!\n\nI now present a breakdown of the best serials (opinion alert!) for each season of the Fourth Doctor:\n\nS12 - \"Genesis of the Daleks\" On planet Skaro, two human-like races are caught in the middle of a planetary war. A scientist for the Kaled race has developed a terrible technology that will transform his people into mindless exterminating Daleks, and the Doctor has been ordered to eliminate them before they ever exist.\n\nS13 - \"Pyramids of Mars\" In a Victorian Gothic mansion, strange things are afoot. The master of the house, away in Egypt, has been replaced by a sinister Egyptian. Cloth-wrapped Mummies roam the grounds, killing people. Beneath a pyramid, the last of the Osirians — Sutekh the Destroyer — waits to be freed, to at long last bring his gift of death to all who live.\n\nS14 - \"The Face of Evil\" The Doctor arrives on a planet where two tribes, the savage Sevateem and the technically brilliant Tesh, are at war. He meets Leela, an exile from the Sevateem, and discovers that their god of evil is apparently himself.\n\nS15 - \"The Invasion of Time\" The Doctor, showing signs of erratic behavior, travels to his home planet of Gallifrey and proclaims himself President due to a legal technicality. His strange behavior continues as he tries to access the Matrix, the heart of all Time Lord knowledge. Meanwhile Gallifrey comes under attack from not one but two enemy forces.\n\nS16 - \"The Key to Time\" If you've made it this far, you should watch the entire 16th season. It's one massive story told through an episodic Hero's Quest structure.\n\nS17 - \"Destiny of the Daleks\" The Doctor and a newly-regenerated Romana arrive on Skaro to find that the Daleks are using explosive charges and a group of humanoid slave workers to mine the planet in search of their creator, Davros.\n\nS18 - \"Logopolis\" The Doctor goes to Logopolis to repair the TARDIS's chameleon circuit, not knowing that a shadowy watcher is spying on him. His old enemy the Master has plans of his own for the planet of mathematicians, Logopolis, and a plan that could spell doom for the entire universe.\n\nNote: Episode synopses for \"Pyramids of Mars\", \"Face of Evil\", \"Destiny of the Daleks\", & \"Logopolis\" are taken verbatim from _URL_0_, all other descriptions are my own.",
"When watching, a few things to remember before you get frustrated at the apparent cop-out with difficult stories\n\n**body**\n\n > race; time lord\n\n > special traits; regenerates when body is weakend (not immortal), 2 hearts, hightened senses, greater immunity to poisins and toxins, very old (over 900 years now), pretty damn smart\n\n**philosophy**\n\n > save all humans\n\n > don't mess with fixed point of time (we ae not going back to kill hitler, it's like removing a heart to fix a heart attack) \n\n > don't kill, noone, dead is bad, we use brains\n\n > falls in love with his assistants (the pretty ones) but never has a relationship. The assistants always love him but it's akin to us dating our pet monkeys. \n\n**tools**\n\n > sonic screwdriver; his weapon of choice. Can work as a regular screwdriver, but for nearly anything. Wave it at a computer to fix, wave it in the air to detect things, wave it at a monkey-machine (like a car) to turn it on, give the writers some freedom with it\n\n > psychic paper; show ti to a simple-minded being and they'll see whatever it is they need ot see to let you do what you want. Anything from Queen's powel plumper to Federal Boobie Inspector \n\n > Tardis; Time machine, bigger on the inside, can fly but very tempermental, has pretty much anything you need inside \n\n > bow ties; apparently cool, hopefully the next Dr will put a stop to this\n\n**Known enemies**\n\n > The master; only other time lord, crazy and enjoys the idea of destruction\n\n > Daleks; they kill, and that's it. Never reason with them and always fear them\n\n > Cybermen; emotionless humans, not as touch as daleks but can reproduce like bacteria when around a supply of humans. \n\n > weeping angels; were creepy as hell but are getting more dull with every apperence. They turn ot stone when you look at them and will either kill you or feed off your time",
"Start with Dr Who 2005 (the Ninth Doctor) played by Christopher Eccleston",
"Start with the new series that began in 2005, that is what I did. Christopher Eccleston plays the doctor, followed by my personal favorite, David Tennant, then Matt Smith. All were excellent Doctors.",
"Start with the series with Christopher Eccleston that began in 2005, it was a revival of the show and thus designed to appeal to everyone, so there's no prior knowledge necessary.",
"“No, look, there's a blue box. It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. It can go anywhere in time and space and sometimes even where it's meant to go. And when it turns up, there's a bloke in it called The Doctor and there will be stuff wrong and he will do his best to sort it out and he will probably succeed 'cause he's awesome. Now sit down, shut up, and watch 'Blink'.”\n\n― Neil Gaiman",
"Please don't listen to people whom are telling you to start with Blink or to skip the 9th doctor. BLINK is the WORST episode to start with if you want to get into the entire series. (The doctor isn't in it that much and it is nothing like a typical episode- that is one of the reasons it is so loved.) It's like skipping right to the orgasm with no foreplay. Skipping the 9th doctor is like starting the Star Wars franchise with Empire.\n\nStart with the episode Rose. Fall in love with the series. Suffer through some of the weaker episodes. Cry, laugh, and mourn like the rest of us. \n\n",
"DO NOT START WITH BLINK! \n\nIt has very little context and is just a brilliant stand alone episode of a very good show. You will learn nothing, think that's what the show is like and be disappointed when you pick up the other episodes because it will be totally different.\n\nBlink is by far the best episode of the return of the show and to skip straight to it without getting any emotional attachment to the show would be criminal.\n\nStart from the beginning.",
"Quite simply, Dr. Who is a series about being bigger on the inside.",
"There once was a madman with a box that could travel to anywhere in time and space. And that's what he did. ",
"I doubt anyone is gonna see this, but based on many of the comments here, this needs to be clarified:\n\nTHE DOCTOR'S SPECIES IS NOT TIME LORD.\n\nI REPEAT: TIME LORD IS NOT A SPECIES.\n\nTime Lord is a TITLE, and it refers to a Galifreyan (someone from the planet Galifrey, AKS the Doctor's home planet) who has completed training at the Time Lord Academy on Galifrey, and thus has earned the Title/Rank of Time Lord.\n\nIf you made a comment that incorrectly states that Time lord is his species, please edit your comment so that the correct information is reflected. Thank you. :)",
"As a recent Doctor noob myself, I'll repeat the advice I was given when I was getting into the show:\n\nStart with Series 5 from 2010, get caught up, the go watch the older stuff. ",
"Everyone else is doing a bang up job explaining things, I'll just add...\n\nWho is split in two - Classic Who (1963-1989) and Modern Who (1996, 2005-Present).\n\nModern Who has a more cinematic look, feel and sound to it. Classic Who more like a Saturday morning TV show.\n\nBest intro to each?\n\nClassic Who - The Key To Time arc. Tom Baker, Doctor #4. Classic Who doesn't get any better than that. I think it's also referred to as \"Season 16\".\n\nTrailer: _URL_0_\n\nModern Who: 2005 reboot with Christopher Eccleston. Stand out episodes are The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances.",
"I have been watching Doctor Who for six years and am quite a dedicated fan, thus a bit evangelical. Sorry for this being a long comment, but there's quite a bit to get across!\n\nThe Doctor is a lone alien. His culture (the Time Lords) spent their lives watching the universe from afar, and the Doctor decided to escape in a faulty time machine (a TARDIS), to see the universe. It's meant to change shape, but since 1963 has been stuck [in the shape of an old British police box] (_URL_1_) which has become synonymous with the show and an icon of British TV. He goes around, exploring different places, with his (usually female and attractive) companion. He's also (almost always) a strong pacifist (hence why he chose the name 'Doctor'), so episodes are resolved in interesting ways, as opposed to just blowing things up.\n\nThe Doctor has the ability of 'regenerating', which he has done eleven (for simplicity's sake - don't get me started on [that one](_URL_2_), or [that one](_URL_0_)) times. During this, the character dies and changes his face and a lot of his personality. Each Doctor (they generally last three-five years, the longest being seven) is a completely different era for the show.\n\nPart of the appeal is due to this - different Doctors, and different writers completely change up the show every few years - no era is really the same. The current writer likes complicated plots, and fan-pleasing moments, whilst the previous liked bringing 'soap opera' type things into it. It's had a horror phase, and a camp phase, and an educational phase, every few years it's different.\n\nI started watching with the start of new Series Three (2007) and to my mind that's still one of the best series. There's a new companion (who is also very good) at the beginning, so it's explained quite well. Don't worry about effects - one, it's 2007, not 1872, and two, it is and always has been about creativity, rather than showing off.\n\nHowever, the series has always been written as a 'dip-in' type series, so really you can start anywhere you like (though probably not a finale, they resolve all the plots of recent and can leave you feeling a bit confused.). \n\nLast night's episode was a continuity-laden festival, but it was also half-written for the cinemas (it's an anniversary!) so there were quite a few crowd-pleasing moments, and a bit of explanation. You might as well dive in there, as I feel the show is less about understanding everything and more just loving it.\n\nIf you watch last night's spectacular and don't love it, IMO you have no soul.\n\nBearing in mind what I said about watching what you want, when you want, here's a list of some of the best IMO, in no particular order. (Most are new series, just because I'm not old enough to have seen many of the classics.)\n\n* Dalek (2005)\n* Blink (2007)\n* Human Nature/The Family of Blood (2007)\n* Voyage of the Damned (2007)\n* Genesis of the Daleks (1975)\n* Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead (2008)\n* The Waters of Mars (2009) -*My favourite, but probably not the best to start with*\n* The Next Doctor (2009)\n* The Eleventh Hour (2010)\n* The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang (2010)\n* The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon (2011)\n* A Good Man Goes To War (2011)\n* Asylum of the Daleks (2012)\n* The Angels Take Manhatten (2012)\n* Cold War (2013) -*I like this one, it got mixed reviews though*\n* The Day of the Doctor (2013)\n* The Five Doctors (1983)\n* Remembrance of the Daleks (1987)\n* The Time Warrior (1973)\n\nTL;DR: Man flies about universe righting wrongs, watch what you like, it's a monster-of-the-week show.\n\nGood luck!\n\nEDIT: Added episode suggestions",
"Time Lords come from a planet called Gallifrey. They discovered time travel. They'd stepped back and prefer to observe. The Doctor (whose name is never revealed) is one of these Time Lords. He chose a life of adventure. So he stole this ship called a TARDIS and too off to explore and participate.\n\nTime-space has fixed points. so he is unable to change all things. He can only change what has happened.\n\nTime Lords have differet anatomy. For instance, they have two hearts and longevity. Some Time Lords (like The Doctor) can regenerate into a new person 12 times. It's a way to change actor and give him a new personality\n\nThe Doctor almost always has a companion. He's partial to earth and earthlings. The companion asks those questions the audeience would ask. they also get captured and such.\n\nStart with 2005. My wife started with the 5th season (Matt Smith's first) and he was into it right away.\n\nThere is a one-off episode called Blink. It requires no knowledge and is one of the best sci-fi TV episodes ever made. \n",
"I've literally been watching doctor who all my life (well since I was like 5 or something, a good few years before the revived show at least) and I honestly can't think of a way to explain the show without it sounding dumb and goofy, well it is dumb and goofy, that's part of it's charm.\n\nIt seems I got to this thread a bit too late to bother going into too much detail as many have already described the show already.\n\nBut one thing that doesn't seem to well explained in the thread is what does he do and why?\nWell, in the early series, all that was know about him was that he's on the run from his own people, and we later learn, it's because he stole a Tardis.\n\nHe stole the Tardis too see the universe, but the tardis was faulty and he would often end up somewhere he didn't intend to, the early series revolved around him getting his two companions back home (whom he practically kidnapped to stop them from talking about what they had seen)\n\nThe basic plot of the classic episodes was the tardis would land, the doctor and his companions would go looking around and get separated from the Tardis and they would have to get back to the Tardis, in fact most the time, he wouldn't even consider saving the day unless it meant them getting out of their.\n\nBy the end of the first Doctors run, he had become a bit more like what we have today, he would save the day, even if he was able to get back in the Tardis.\nOne thing I should note is that continuity in the early series isn't exactly solid.\nFor example one episode the doctor is over 700 the next he's only 500 or so, it's more down to the production team really.\n(the modern series keeps up with continuity a lot better)\n\nAs for where to start, the beginning, Unearthly Child, it sets up the show quite well, though the three episodes after it are a bit dull, the story after that makes up for it (the introduction of the Daleks) the first 3 storeys are available on dvd with the beginning box set (btw in the classic series each story has around 4 episodes sometimes 6)\nKeep in mind that it was made 50 years ago, and the budget was terrible, even in 1963 and enjoy\nAnyway, a lot of the early episodes have gone missing (BBC wiping the tapes to save money) but from 1970 onwards, you'll be able to watch every episode, or just pick a few from each doctor that appeal to you, the continuity in the old series isn't that great anyway, so you can jump into just about any episode and understand what's happening.\n\n(Did I say I was't going to go into too much detail? uhhh sorry, that happens) \n \n",
"Don't let the super devoted fans fool you: Doctor Who is just a silly little show about a time traveling alien.\n\nI think people get scared off because the super devoted fans give an impression that show is much more serious and detail oriented than it really is. This is not Lost. You don't have to go back over episodes and poor over details. In fact, you can pretty much watch any episode and catch on pretty quickly. Some of the companion related side plot plot might be lost, but the show is mainly episodic and focuses on one particular problem and plot each episode.\n\nDoctor Who is a beloved british tv show that follows the antics of a time lord (a type of alien species that looks similar to humans) traveling through space and time with various companions.\n\nThink of it kind of like a sci-fi version of Scooby Doo. Every week there's some new mystery or problem and it's up to the doctor and his loyal companion at the time to solve it. He sort of acts as an intergalactic police officer running around and keeping everything from hitting the fan. But instead of the mystery mobile, the Doctor has the TARDIS.\n\nThe TARDIS is basically a super high tech spaceship that also acts as a time machine. It helps with the adventures by doing nifty things like allowing the Doctor and his companion to understand whatever alien language is being spoken where they are (which addresses the issue that so bothered fans of District 9 who didn't understand how the heck people and aliens were communicating with each other in completely different languages). It also has a camouflage function which got stuck on an old phone booth. Nifty disguise back when the show first aired that was kept because it was part of tradition, but now is pretty funny when you see an old phone booth just appear in a modern London street.\n\nThe show started and did pretty well and then ran into the same problem that a lot of shows run into: an actor didn't want to do the show anymore. Think about Three's Company when Chrissy left or the Office when they had to right Michael off. Except this was THE main guy. They couldn't just write in a new character and take off with that plot line. He was the LAST timelord. There was no one they could write about without changing the entire premise of the show (look how well that turned out when Scrubs tried it)\n\nThey wanted to continue the show, so they had to think of a way to keep the character of the Doctor going but have a new actor. They could do like That 70s show did with Laurie or Bewitched did with Darren and simply get a new actor and not address it. But they had something those shows didn't: the doctor was an alien! So they just wrote into the show that sometimes a doctor regenerates. Which basically involves them taking a new human form.\n\nAnd that's how the show has had a string of actors that have been able to play the same part throughout the show. \n\nDoctor Who can pretty much be split into two sections: the original run and the modern revival.\n\nThe original run was more of a Saturday morning type kids show that was aimed at the kind of kids who thought sci-fi was awesome. The modern series tried to expand the appeal to a wider audience (and did so quite successfully) with an expanded budget and better special effects.\n\nIf you're just getting into the show, start with the modern series. You can start with Eccleston which was the first series in the modern run. David Tennant is widely considered to be the most popular and loved Doctor, so if you start with Eccleston and aren't a huge fan I'd recommend switching to Tennant before you write off the whole show.\n\nThe show is hugely popular now and popular with a wider audience. This can be seen as both good and bad. You'll see that in the modern series, especially with Matt Smith, the show suddenly starts going to America a lot which is largely because the show now has a large American following. There's also some negative views of Doctor Who 'fan girls' who think that the doctor is 'like super dreamy and cute'. Some fans think that show show shifted somewhat to appeal to those type of fans by including a lot of opportunities to make the Doctor look like a hunk despite it not really being in vein with the original show.\n\nIf you're someone who's a bit skeptical about all this alien crap, I'd recommend watching the episode \"Blink\". It's completely different than all the other episodes and barely even features the Doctor. But it really highlights the clever writing of the show and can be a good way to ease people who aren't usually fans of science fiction into it. It's a lot less cheesy than some episodes (at first, the cheesiness seems bad. But once you've grown to love the Doctor, you eat that cheese right up).\n\n\n",
"I feel like the only person on this planet that cringes at this show..."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://youtu.be/szHO-wEmvio"
],
[],
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j7fouE4f_k&feature=share&list=UULMLTE5R-LR26VKfnaDQtEA"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FxKcLId-Ys",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Doctor_Who_serials#Series_5_.282010.29",
"http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/The_Doctor"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"tardis.wikia.com"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6JxMNzBNME"
],
[
"http://brianofmorbius.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/doctor-who-084-4k-the-brain-of-morbius-4-of-4_0-19-03-29.jpg",
"http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-38irUCKTBtg/UEp_jm46MjI/AAAAAAAAFEw/3l4YcO-0Mgk/s1600/new-tardis-look-s51.jpg",
"http://static.hypable.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/john-hurt-doctor-who.jpg"
],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
e5zv7j
|
how does a number get traced?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e5zv7j/eli5_how_does_a_number_get_traced/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f9mvt4s"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"You call the phone company and ask them. Generally it helps if you have a warrant. But all modern phone calls are handled digitally and the phone company has records of when Number A calls Number B, how long, etc. That's how they bill people and make money. There are outliers that make it more complicated (VOIP, calls from within PBX networks, etc) but the old days of \"stay on the line for 3 minutes so we can trace it\" are long gone."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
amzyod
|
does sleep, or the lack thereof, interfere with how our bodies metabolizes energy stores?
|
I read somewhere that sleeping helps you lose weight. I’ve always thought that sleep slows down almost all body processes, lowering the amount of energy we need to function during the slumber period. Therefore if a person sleeps very little or maybe not at all, they need to conjure up more sources for energy, which will result in dipping into fat stores.
Now, I realize that what might be their actual claim is that when you’re sleeping, you’re not eating. The article never went into full detail so that could be very well what they meant.
Also, I’m not trying to draw up an argument that forcing yourself to stay awake is a good way to burn more calories in a day. I have a pretty bad sleep schedule though and sometimes I’ll go a day or two with no sleep so I’ve just naturally considered if having a fully running body for 24 hours + might require more caloric input.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/amzyod/eli5_does_sleep_or_the_lack_thereof_interfere/
|
{
"a_id": [
"efrsi0w"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Being awake simply burns more calories than sleeping does.\n\nThe mechanisms for storing energy otherwise, basically remain the same.\n\nWhen sleeping you are, comparatively, in a much lower energy state as your brain, for example, doesn't need to: 1) Process light well, 2) Process sound well, 3) Generate speech patterns well, 4) Process balance well, 5) Process tastes or smells well.\n\nYour environment also tends to be much more controlled and constant so responses to, say, changing temperatures aren't needed as much either. Approximately 60% of the sugar that we burn goes to generating heat - only \\~40% of it actually goes to and makes it to the formation of ATP (the primary chemical energy that our body uses). With temperatures generally staying mostly the same while we sleep, turning on/off the \"furnace\" (so to speak) is not as often needed (we also tend to sleep underneath blankets, which helps keep our temperature closer to our bodies desired internal temperature).\n\nOur brains normally account for approximately 20% of the calories we burn on a given day - we don't realize the sheer, insane amount of complexity in the things that it processes and figures out. Things that are so natural and easy for us, actually requires an incredible amount of processing power. And just like computer processors - the more powerful the processor, the more power (and in-turn, fuel), it requires.\n\nNonetheless, we **need** sleep. Staying awake for the sake of simply burning more calories is nonsensical. Sleep provides many critical functions, primarily recovery and re-sensitization of molecular processes. These are very important."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
cbiy3c
|
when 2 animals fight/play, why do they both pause at certain points and then continue fighting/playing after a few seconds?
|
I’ve noticed this behavior in animals like Rams who butt heads but then both pause for a second before continuing to fight.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cbiy3c/eli5_when_2_animals_fightplay_why_do_they_both/
|
{
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"etfs9u9",
"etfsl5r",
"etftlpj",
"etfv70v"
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"score": [
13,
3,
5,
3
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"text": [
"Because fights in nature are not designed to kill/injure but to determine who is the most dominant, a pause in a playfight simulates them looking for various cues that will let them know who is the most powerful, in nature the weaker will usually give up and allow the stronger competitor to have the food/mate/resource.",
"Looking for cues, examining each other's social status as well as body language to see if they should keep playfighting etc. - if someone is being more aggressive than they should be, you need to find out quickly, otherwise you'll get hurt.",
"In addition to other explenations. Look at fighters. MMA, boxing, anything. There are times when, in a fight or just sparring, that they aren't actively fighting. They are looking for openings, waiting to defend, evaluating the situation.",
"They pause to take in the situation. When they are play fighting either with another animal or with a human, you will notice they wouldn't wanna go all in esp when they get too involved. They pause to see if the other person is doing ok- these are more or less training phases for them. When it's a real fight, it's to see if the opponent is dead or if they need to be more dominating/or switch to a submissive stance, or to see if the other would submit. Mostly animals don't wanna kill during a play fight and they dont wanna keep attacking something that's dead/dying."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
g3pbuf
|
how come when you can feel your heartbeat in your body it feels like it’s going really fast but when you actually check it it’s either normal or a bit under?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/g3pbuf/eli5_how_come_when_you_can_feel_your_heartbeat_in/
|
{
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"fnsma8u",
"fntcqdc",
"fntctgw",
"fnto9hf"
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"score": [
9,
3,
8,
2
],
"text": [
"would actually love to know this too\n\nI have bad medical anxiety and sometimes I go through weeks where I constantly check my pulse because I'm terrified of a heart attack\n\nI can feel my pulse anywhere in my body but when I actually check it by my neck it feels normal",
"hyper awareness of heartbeat .. i have the same im calm n feel heart beating in chat n its actually normal scary i know trust me its the worse .",
"Your blood pressure is most likely low, which triggers a response from your adrenal gland, which sends adrenaline through your system. Thus causing the drumming feeling you’re experiencing.",
"These are called heart palpitations and they are common in cases of anxiety, stress, too much caffeine, anaemia, dehydration"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2d6ru7
|
why does a skinny person develop a large hard abdomen, or "beer belly" from boozing? will it ever go away?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2d6ru7/eli5_why_does_a_skinny_person_develop_a_large/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cjmn0r6",
"cjmnbxz",
"cjmnlyn",
"cjmp05y",
"cjmwcga",
"cjmy26n"
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"score": [
2,
13,
3,
6,
2,
5
],
"text": [
"yes if they change their diet and excuse. Id advise less carbs too ",
"A number of skinny people [put on body fat inside the abdomen](_URL_0_) rather than outside of the muscle. this can contribute to a hard abdomen. This fat goes away with changes in diet and exercise (in many cases faster than external fat).\n\n",
"What is \"boozing\"?",
"Beer belly can also sometimes be ascites or fluid in the abdomen related to cirrhosis of the liver. Often the abdomen is tapped to draw off the fluid, but it will generally come back.",
"My uncle and grandpa... Neither are skinny but neither are fat.\nBut it has always amazed me at how rock hard their stomachs were. Then I went to college, and felt my gut getting harder.\nI don't drink beer as often and don't eat fast food much anymore and it's softening up. Which I now need to just lose the stomach pooch..\n\nMaybe it has to do with years of beers that your dad is having trouble losing that beer gut. ",
"Horrible answers here all around. There is nothing special about beer that gives you the \"Beer belly\". Beer has a LOT of calories. The average can has 154 calories. Now make that 4 or 5 per day and you can see where the problem lies.\n\nAnyone who consumes more calories than he needs will gain weight. Also known as fat. The place where your body stores fat (the preferred/initial area) is typically around the abdominal region but differs from person to person.\n\nA \"skinny person who has a belly\" is only a slightly overweight person who has not ideal but not terrible excess fat on his abdominal region.\n\nAnd yes, fat does go away. Eat less than your caloric needs and your body will begin to get rid of the excess fat stored from overeating. There's no such thing as a belly that \"won't go away\". It all depends how hard you try.\n\nI have personally gone from a (huge) belly to a four-pack in about two years because I believe in science, and also math.\n\nBonus: Calculate how many caloreis you need: _URL_0_\n\nTL;DR If your entire diet is beer, but you don't consume more calories than you need, you won't get a beer belly."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOFI"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://iifym.com/tdee-calculator/"
]
] |
||
1cj867
|
if i was the one who twisted the bottle cap on, why is it too tight for me to twist off again later?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1cj867/eli5_if_i_was_the_one_who_twisted_the_bottle_cap/
|
{
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"c9h0gu6",
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"score": [
2,
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"text": [
"A lot of things, the plastic could expand slightly depending on the temperature (it's normally twisted on outside of a fridge, where it sits for a while). Some liquid that once existed between the cap and the bottle could have hardened. There is also a build up of pressure (with soda) which might have some impact here.",
"Is this for a bottle of soda? If so, after you twist on the cap, carbon dioxide will slowly come out of solution, increasing the pressure in the bottle until it reaches equilibrium. This added pressure makes the cap harder to remove.",
"Static friction homie! You done spun that shit against kinetic friction, but them surfaces be like \"shit son, i like that particle on da other side. That honky who put me here gonna have to put the same force he done before, and even more to unstick my lazy ass!\" it just like walking on ice. You cool, you cool, you upright, then BAM! That static friction be lost, and suddenly, yo foot moving like crazy! "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
krj8a
|
can i get sick if i do a poo in a public toilet and splash goes straight up into my open date?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/krj8a/eli5_can_i_get_sick_if_i_do_a_poo_in_a_public/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c2mmkgb",
"c2mmzr5",
"c2mmkgb",
"c2mmzr5"
],
"score": [
10,
10,
10,
10
],
"text": [
"ELI5:tackling the complex issues of the day.",
"Your bumhole doesn't open up completely. Poo gets squeezed out, it doesnt fall out. If some water does splash up it doesn't go into your bumhole, it stays on the outside. \n\nI'm going to do some experiments and I'll let you know exactly what happens. ",
"ELI5:tackling the complex issues of the day.",
"Your bumhole doesn't open up completely. Poo gets squeezed out, it doesnt fall out. If some water does splash up it doesn't go into your bumhole, it stays on the outside. \n\nI'm going to do some experiments and I'll let you know exactly what happens. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1vak1l
|
what is a carbohydrate and why do people go on no carb diets?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vak1l/eli5what_is_a_carbohydrate_and_why_do_people_go/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ceqby1r",
"ceqc4i6"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Carbohydrates are sugars, some more complex than others. The more complex, the more effort they take to break down and digest, but the general rule is that they break down into simple sugars that the body can use for fuel very easily.\n\nCarbs are a necessary part of the diet, as they are the sole food that can be used by parts of the brain. This represents a very small amount of the overall human diet, however. Humans can exist on very few carbs, and more fats quite easily.\n\nPeople go on \"no carb\" diets because of the disproportional amount of carbs in the average N.A. diet. We've moved toward getting the gross majority of our calories from carbohydrates, and increasingly simple versions of those carbs--like high fructose corn syrup. This disproportionate diet results in insulin resistance--which is a complicated way of saying that the body starts to produce more insulin and hence store more carbs as fat. Dropping carbs for a while allows the body to decrease insulin resistance to normal levels and begin using fats more efficiently as fuel.",
"Carbohydrates, very simply, is an energy source for your body. It's one of the four main macromolecules that constitute life, along with proteins (amino acids), lipids (fats), and nucleic acids (DNA and RNA). As far as carbs go, they're really just an energy source that your body uses to produce ATP. They are not inherently good or bad. In terms of energy alone, carbohydrates are not exactly necessary, but they are remarkably efficient at providing a steady flux of energy. \n\nPeople tend to think they're bad because things like sugars and starches are also carbs and can be associated with weight gain. Excess carbohydrates, meaning you've consumed more than your body requires, will be eventually converted into fat via lipogenesis and stored in that form until you need it (side note: fat is not the only way to store energy. but it is the most efficient one). Most people in our society these days consume carbs in gratuitous excess and thus can be correlated to weight gain. \n\nAlso what is important is not just the amount of carbs you intake, but what kinds you consume. Simple carbs, like glucose and fructose, are broken down far quicker and far more easily, whereas complex carbs (lactose and maltose) are broken down more slowly, allowing for a steadier flux of energy; if it's broken down too quickly, your body cannot use it all right away, so it store it away for later. \n\nCarbs are not inherently bad for you. Simply put, people who avoid them are not the most educated in metabolomics and don't have a good understanding of what carbs actually are. I've simplified a lot of the information here, but the subject matter can get vastly more complicated. The general gist of it is here. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
d9txqn
|
why didn’t clinton get in trouble for the steele dossier.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d9txqn/eli5_why_didnt_clinton_get_in_trouble_for_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f1ldts0"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"She had enough people at the justice dept in cahoots to yeet away, although justice may not fully be in the wind. Grand jury proceedings have been quitely underway hearing evidence Attorney General Barr and Inspector General Horowitz reviewed and referred to prosecutors after the while OIG report thingy came out. It didn't confirm the russiagate hoax, so it's not national media news, but the justice department is indeed investigating evidence of criminal wrongdoing - whomever the culprit. Trump finally squashed all the leaking that had been going on, so there haven't been any bombshells to interfere with the ongoing investigations. I'm skeptical of publicized criminal prosecutions, as opposed to what it seems they're doing - which is cleaning house of corruption by giving the culprits a chance to quietly leave. If they dig in their heels and fight against justice, then the hammer comes down without mercy (i.e. Comey, Strzok, Ohr, etc.). The smart ones quietly cash thier chips and fade into obscurity instead of going up in flames, and since there aren't leaks nor showboating for political points happening, it's not well known."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
1wh4z1
|
why can't the south drive with even a little snow?
|
I have a 2 wheel drive Volkswagen Passat Diesel without even snow tires on it. We've had the worst snow accumulation in history and I have never lost control or been in an accident because of the ice or snow with a 30 min commute to work.
Yet I see all these photos of huge trucks and SUVs with 4 wheel drive off the road an in accidents from a light dusting in Atlanta. Why do they shut down with snow we laugh at?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wh4z1/eli5why_cant_the_south_drive_with_even_a_little/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cf1w4pe",
"cf1we30",
"cf1wftd",
"cf1wx6u",
"cf1wxme",
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"cf29be7"
],
"score": [
7,
5,
4,
3,
3,
2,
3,
2
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"text": [
"Because when it only snows once every five years you don't learn how to drive in it. Imagine if you lived in a place where it only rained once every five years - you would probably have of accidents when even a light rain shower occurred because people would drive too fast, not have their lights on, not use their wipers, etc.\n\n",
"A lot of places in the south get snow very rarely. Therefore, people have very little experience driving in it. Do you really expect people to be good at something when they have zero experience?\n\nAlso, some cities/states don't invest much in snow plows or salt trucks. Why would they? Economically it's easier to just shut everything down in the rare event that they get some snow than it is to maintain a bunch of heavy-duty trucks year-round. So, with no plows and no salt on the streets, it makes things a lot trickier. On the same note individuals are less likely to have snow tires or even tires with decent tread.\n\nI'm kind of over-generalizing here. Sometimes it's not as simple as it seems, for example right now parts of Alabama just got like an inch of pure ice. Road crews are not prepared for that, but certain people (doctors etc) have to at least *try* to get to work. Not fun for even experienced Northerners.",
"I was born and raised in Atlanta and now I live in Boston. First off, there is almost no infrastructure to support snow and ice removal on the roads. Most times, the roads are too warm for the snow to stick and the ice to form. Second, just because someone has 4-wheel drive does not mean they are going to stick to the road. I have friends back home w/ 4WD trucks and they think they're invincible in any weather. They're not.\n\nAs for this last storm, the mayor of Atlanta should have canceled work and schools for the whole day. Once the snow started he instructed everyone home. Imagine an area of almost 5 million people, each with their own car, moving in different directions all at once. All is takes is 1 or 2 bad drivers to cause an accident and stop an entire highway. I had friends in cars for 7+ hrs in the traffic. \n\nOn a side note, Atlanta drivers piss themselves in any precipitation...",
"Most of these people have answered your question, but I'd like to emphasize one point: Salt.\n\nI live in Wisconsin and have driven in snow for year, but if there's no salt on the ground, you'd better be prepared to drive SLOW. I took a turn in my car going 4 mph a few weeks ago before the salt trucks were out, and I fish tailed and ended up perpendicular to the road.",
"Go to Houston and see how many people invested in snow tires and see how m y salt trucks they invested in",
"They aren't used to it, but more importantly, their roads aren't designed for it.\n\nThe first time I drove in San Francisco, I freaked out a little, because the hills would be way too steep to navigate safely in the snow. Then I realized it doesn't know there.\n\nSame deal with the south. You see these roads with huge crowns and big ditches on either side. They are great for channeling rain, but in snow, they channel cars instead.",
"Because after the Civil War one of Lincoln's terms of surrender stated that from now on every time it snows southerners are not allowed to drive on the road. It's the reason John Wilkes Booth shot him, the *Booth* stemmed from the fact he was a toll booth operator and hated the reduced traffic during winter because it meant less profit.",
"In the most recent storm that hit (which is the first snow or ice to hit atlanta in three years) everyone and I mean everyone hit the roads at the same time yesterday afternoon when it started snowing. This clogged the roads, preventing salt/sand trucks from treating the roads.\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
40iah9
|
what is about music that has such a dramatic effect on my mood?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/40iah9/eli5_what_is_about_music_that_has_such_a_dramatic/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cyucdwa"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Questions about msuic affecting emotion [are asked on a very frequent basis](_URL_0_). The search function is your friend, citizen! "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/search?q=music+emotion&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all"
]
] |
|
8wwc0v
|
what happens to the germs and bacteria covering our hand skin when it's hard pressed against something or when we hit anything hard enough?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8wwc0v/eli5_what_happens_to_the_germs_and_bacteria/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e1yyz7j"
],
"score": [
8
],
"text": [
"Some might die. Some won't. Some will stick to whatever you hit. Some won't.\n\n\n\nYour hand is not flat, it has millions of tiny crevices for tiny organisms to hide or get squished into. The scale that we're talking about is so small that two objects that we might perceive to be \"flush\" with each other still have quite a bit of room between. Take for example, a microscope slide and it's glass cover. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
mudtw
|
what is scraping api?
|
For that matter, what is API?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mudtw/what_is_scraping_api/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c33xin8",
"c33xin8"
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text": [
"What is an API? Imagine for a second, you don't speak English. Blammo, this text doesn't make any sense. Suddenly you realize you're hungry. You walk to a fast food place, enticed by the pictures on the windows, and you want a burger. Inside, the people who work the register only speak English. What do you do?\n\nYou would do things that people would understand. You would point at menu items, nod for acknowledgement and confirmation, and shake your head in saying \"that's wrong\". The cashier will eventually get the message, because pointing, nodding and shaking are universally understood from one party to another. You would hand the cashier a lump of money (because for the sake of this example, you are carrying exactly the amount required) and you receive your burger.\n\nAn API is like that concept of one person understanding a message being sent from another, because there is a universal agreement on what points, nods, and shakes mean. These \"points, nods, and shakes\" are used in programs to allow one program to talk to another. An API can get more complicated, but that's the basis of one.\n\nNow, what is the scraping API? We know what an API does, it's a way for a program to understand another through an agreed way of communication. Say you're on a hamster database registry website, that has information on every hamster that exists on the planet, from their name, size, weight, gender, and fur color. This website has pages that are all similar to each other, and shows their information in a pattern that changes little beyond the hamster's information (hamster picture, name, size, weight, gender, fur color).\n\nSo, for example, you want to know the answer to the question, \"How many hamsters are there named 'Hammy'\"? Well, you could go from hamster page #1, to hamster page #42,931,126 and look for each hamster with that name. That would be a lot of work for you!\n\nWell, we know there's a pattern on how the pages are presented. Every page has a picture of the hamster, followed by their name, followed by their size, then weight, gender, and finally fur color. Well, what if we wrote an agreed message to a program (WOAH LOOK IT'S AN API HERE) to \"find the text right after the picture of the hamster but before the size of the hamster, and check if its equal to 'Hammy'\"? It would save us a lot of trouble!\n\nAnd so that's what people do. Here's an example of someone scraping the movie review site, Rotten Tomatoes:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThis person allows anyone to send messages to a script (program) to allow anyone to find out the Year, Title, the movie poster, etc of a particular movie title. This is because the user has previously scraped contents of the site and stored it somewhere for anyone to sift through. And that, is a scraping API. \n\n(For the real computer scientists, I apologize if my message came out butchered)",
"What is an API? Imagine for a second, you don't speak English. Blammo, this text doesn't make any sense. Suddenly you realize you're hungry. You walk to a fast food place, enticed by the pictures on the windows, and you want a burger. Inside, the people who work the register only speak English. What do you do?\n\nYou would do things that people would understand. You would point at menu items, nod for acknowledgement and confirmation, and shake your head in saying \"that's wrong\". The cashier will eventually get the message, because pointing, nodding and shaking are universally understood from one party to another. You would hand the cashier a lump of money (because for the sake of this example, you are carrying exactly the amount required) and you receive your burger.\n\nAn API is like that concept of one person understanding a message being sent from another, because there is a universal agreement on what points, nods, and shakes mean. These \"points, nods, and shakes\" are used in programs to allow one program to talk to another. An API can get more complicated, but that's the basis of one.\n\nNow, what is the scraping API? We know what an API does, it's a way for a program to understand another through an agreed way of communication. Say you're on a hamster database registry website, that has information on every hamster that exists on the planet, from their name, size, weight, gender, and fur color. This website has pages that are all similar to each other, and shows their information in a pattern that changes little beyond the hamster's information (hamster picture, name, size, weight, gender, fur color).\n\nSo, for example, you want to know the answer to the question, \"How many hamsters are there named 'Hammy'\"? Well, you could go from hamster page #1, to hamster page #42,931,126 and look for each hamster with that name. That would be a lot of work for you!\n\nWell, we know there's a pattern on how the pages are presented. Every page has a picture of the hamster, followed by their name, followed by their size, then weight, gender, and finally fur color. Well, what if we wrote an agreed message to a program (WOAH LOOK IT'S AN API HERE) to \"find the text right after the picture of the hamster but before the size of the hamster, and check if its equal to 'Hammy'\"? It would save us a lot of trouble!\n\nAnd so that's what people do. Here's an example of someone scraping the movie review site, Rotten Tomatoes:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThis person allows anyone to send messages to a script (program) to allow anyone to find out the Year, Title, the movie poster, etc of a particular movie title. This is because the user has previously scraped contents of the site and stored it somewhere for anyone to sift through. And that, is a scraping API. \n\n(For the real computer scientists, I apologize if my message came out butchered)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://web3o.blogspot.com/2011/01/free-php-rotten-tomatoes-scraping-api.html"
],
[
"http://web3o.blogspot.com/2011/01/free-php-rotten-tomatoes-scraping-api.html"
]
] |
|
113rg7
|
how is income from music sales usually divided between artist, label, producer and perhaps even remixer.
|
I think this one's very tough with things such as region restrictions, different taxes and many (possible) different parties involved. Anyone?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/113rg7/eli5_how_is_income_from_music_sales_usually/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c6j463g"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Hi, full-time musician/composer here (graduated with a degree in Music Industry). The image linked to in the first reply (_URL_0_) is accurate only for very traditional, old-school record deals with larger labels. 99.9% of musicians don't have deals like this. \n\n* The vast majority of musicians record, publish and distribute their own music. Most of this is given away for free.\n\n* Of those indie musicians who DO sell their music, most will use a platform like Bandcamp or iTunes. Anyone can get their music in sites or stores like these. For every $1 of music sold, the musician will usually keep 65-75 cents. Apple takes more like 35 cents per sale, while Bandcamp takes as little as 10 cents.\n\n* For musicians selling physical CDs, sites like _URL_1_ are useful. They usually take a few dollars per sale (~$4) but the musician doesn't need to worry about mailing CDs themselves.\n\n* Some musicians are signing deals with relatively small labels or distributors. For example, a label might get an artist's dance music on Beatport and JunoDownload. In exchange, they'll split money from sales 50/50 (so musician get 50 cents of each $1 sold).\n\n* Many musicians don't have lawyers, producers or managers in this day and age, and just do everything themselves. The chart is pretty accurate, assuming they do have a producer, manager, etc. But lawyers are usually paid per hour, not a % of music sales.\n\nBasically, the industry today isn't anywhere near as bad as people would have you believe. It's easier than ever to record your own album, distribute it, and keep the majority of the money for each sale. Now, the major challenges are making stuff that SOUNDS really good (this requires good equipment and excellent skills), and then promoting it!\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://imgur.com/pukQU",
"CDBaby.com"
]
] |
|
4bvbxu
|
why do animals sometimes break up fights between other animals?
|
I've seen a few videos, such as dogs breaking up a cat fight or a couple of chickens breaking up a rabbit fight. Why?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4bvbxu/eli5_why_do_animals_sometimes_break_up_fights/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d1cy94o",
"d1dk3rj"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"It's probably coincidental? The dog wants to chase the cats - who happen to be fighting and the interruption of the dog breaks it up. We might just be anthropomorphising (giving animals human emotions and intentions) when there's something else entirely going on within their heads.\n\nSaying that, in many mammal and bird species, political and other social motivations do come into play. Lots of animal groups have complex hierarchies, with many alliances and in-fighting. Baboons are a great example. Outbreaks of violence in lower ranking individuals are often broken up by higher ranking members 'to sort them out' and maintain social cohesion. It certainly happens!\n\nPerhaps, as a dog is a social animal with an innate behaviour towards 'group life', then in breaking up the cat fight it's simply misplacing it's instinct to form pack order onto other animals which it may or may not believe to be part of it's own group? Altruism in and of itself is difficult to back-up, but something along those lines might be plausible. Dog thinks cat is part of his pack and goes to help? Who knows.\n\nIn short: We'll never know what goes on in the minds of other animals, and we can't prescribe intention without fear of just giving them human thoughts which aren't there. In some of the 'higher' social animals, things do get more political though and if you were an individual observing a scrap, you might want to help your friends or otherwise maintain peace - for the benefit of your group, and ultimately yourself. ",
"Some animals are social animals. It's meant to keep them in packs or herds or whatever for defense or better hunting or whatever. Part of this social stuff is protecting those members of the group who can't protect themselves, like the young or the injured. This is meant to protect the group if an outsider comes in and attacks someone, but some animals extend this to include protecting members of the group from other members of the group.\n\nNow, here's where it gets weird. Thanks to humans domesticating various animals and raising them together, said animals sometimes think of animals from other species as members of their own group. Dogs raised with cats think the cats are just particularly ugly dogs or think of themselves as particularly clumsy cats. Regardless, the dog thinks of the cats as part of his pack. Two cats fight and the dog feels he has to protect one from the other or just break things up because members of the pack shouldn't hurt each other.\n\nOur dog Hank (who has since gone on to that big farm in the country in the sky) could not stand to see humans fight. Hank would get between family members having an argument. He'd bark at barroom brawls on TV. He'd go bonkers if you pretended to hit our mother and she said \"Ow!\""
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
492a07
|
why do we start flailing out arms and legs almost uncontrollably when we're free falling?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/492a07/eli5_why_do_we_start_flailing_out_arms_and_legs/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d0ogk8q",
"d0oh630",
"d0otbx2"
],
"score": [
19,
102,
7
],
"text": [
"It's already been explained on this sub, but basically it's your bodies way of correcting itself by throwing force in the opposite way you're falling you actually slow your fall to a point you might be able to get a good footing from and recover",
"This could be due to the moro reflex. The moro reflex, also known as the startle reflex, is an instinctive human trait seen in infants. When they feel like they are falling or not being held tightly they flail their arms out to grasp and hold. It is believed to be an evolutionary trait, in that babies who grab and hold when falling survived at greater rates than those who didn't. There is some speculation that the moro reflex is a holdover trait from prehuman ancestors who lived in trees. Flailing and grasping are a good way to survive a fall when among the branches of a tree.",
"I used to be a skydiving instructor and we called this \"swimming\" Not everyone does it, though. It was around 50/50."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
smo0z
|
why is it legal for private companies to tow cars away from private property?
|
Are there any other situations where Person A can pay Person B to confiscate Person C's property for doing something Person A doesn't like?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/smo0z/why_is_it_legal_for_private_companies_to_tow_cars/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c4f91pa"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Same reason if someone is in my house and I don't want them to be, I can call the cops to have them taken away. It's trespassing. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
81a57i
|
why is it better to get some diseases when you’re a child (chicken pox for instance) because they are less severe in childhood than adulthood? especially when you consider that children have weaker immune systems than adults.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/81a57i/eli5_why_is_it_better_to_get_some_diseases_when/
|
{
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"dv1ose9",
"dv1y0tz",
"dv1yecy",
"dv22qvs"
],
"score": [
64,
4,
14,
2
],
"text": [
"it is because adult chicken pox tends to cause complications like pneumonia and encephalitis while childhood chicken pox does not. Adults’ immune systems are stronger and employ more antibodies (rather than white blood cells) than children’s immune systems do, which is what triggers the immune response and the subsequent symptoms. \nSome strains of the flu are like this, too, such as the 1918 pandemic. The Spanish Flu killed young adults instead of the usual flu victims (old people and kids) because that strain triggered a severe immune reaction called a cytokine storm which basically shut down the bodies of infected people. A stronger immune system=stronger immune reaction=worse symptoms. ",
"Has to do with the differing immune response in adults and the potential for complications. Here is a good explanation [link](_URL_0_) ",
"In a lot of infections, the it’s not the disease agent that does the most damage to the body, it’s your overzealous immune system. Some parts of your immune system aren’t developed yet when you are a child so the immune response is less coordinated and more inefficient in a way. In some infections this is bad because the infection will get worse, but in some cases like chickenpox it’s a good thing. This because the child’s immune system is still able to fight off the infection in its less coordinated state that is unable to go into the hyper-efficient scorched earth mode that causes chicken pox to be fatal to adults. Hope this was helpful!",
"The adult immune system tries too hard. While it tries too hard it causes problems like swelling in lymph nodes and extra fluid in the lungs, which can easily turn into other nasty diseases."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://curiosity.com/topics/why-are-the-chickenpox-so-much-worse-for-adults-curiosity/"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
70svss
|
at what point does the egg lose the ability to become a chicken?
|
Our chicken eggs obviously don't hatch if we don't eat them for a few months, so at what point is the fate of the unborn chicken decided? Is it the lack of warmth? When does the foetus actually die?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/70svss/eli5_at_what_point_does_the_egg_lose_the_ability/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dn5op84",
"dn5w3mr"
],
"score": [
10,
6
],
"text": [
"Eggs for consumption aren't fertilized. That's it. It never would become a chicken. It's an unfertilized egg. ",
" > at what point does the egg lose the ability to become a chicken?\n\nWay, way, way before they are laid. Roosters go for hens, not eggs. The fertilisation happens when the eggs are microscopic and without a shell, just as for humans."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
6kvxga
|
why is it that when the loading bar goes further to the end it takes longer to load?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6kvxga/eli5_why_is_it_that_when_the_loading_bar_goes/
|
{
"a_id": [
"djp7ukb"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Maybe because the ending operation takes the longest amount of time. The loading bar is usually a graphic that's split into prices and updated as things get processed by the program. If the last few operations (i.e. writing a large file to disc) take the longest then that part of the bar would progress the slowest. Additional (depending on how the developer programmed the loading graphic) the first part of the bar may be a constant animation that progresses regardless of real progress, but the last part is programmed to complete only when the real task is complete. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
39nuyk
|
how is mers spread, why should we be worried about it, and how can we prevent ourselves from contacting it?
|
I'm in Korea. People here seem split 50-50 in worrying about contacting MERS or disregarding the outbreak. We're not getting that much information and people wearing masks are everywhere, but will that really prevent anything?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39nuyk/eli5_how_is_mers_spread_why_should_we_be_worried/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cs4xkna"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"I'm coming bback to Korea in August and i've been hearing about the MERS thing. Made me a wee bit nervous"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
38a0yr
|
now that the freedom act has passed, what does it mean for us?
|
I've been reading as much as I can, but I can't seem to find any information on what this actually means for citizens.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38a0yr/eli5_now_that_the_freedom_act_has_passed_what/
|
{
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"text": [
"On Sunday night at 12, three key provisions of the controversial Patriot Act were expired:\n\n1. Bulk collection of phone data (allowed the NSA to listen in on all of your phone calls / text messages / picture messages whenever they felt necessary).\n2. Roving wiretaps (used to track possible terror suspects).\n3. Lone Wolf program (which was used to track suspects outside of terror networks).\n\nThe Freedom act restored those three expired sections BUT with one major provision to the NSA's mass phone data collection program - Now the NSA will have to obtain permission from a federal court in order to use a phone company's data. \n\nIn my personal opinion, this is awesome! It shows that comprehensive reform is actually possible! Who would have* thought?!",
"Oh my goodness, I thought you were asking after it had passed (as in succeeded in a secret session). You are instead asking after the attempt to pass the Freedom Act has *expired*. Just clarifying the question itself.\n\n**EDIT**: Oh. •̩̩̩̩＿•̩̩̩̩",
"All this \"freedom\" act really does is change where data is stored, protects telecoms from liability and makes it less open to FOIA requests.",
"I read through portions of the actual bill and posted some snippets before. The negatives: \n\n1) Companies are immune to lawsuits for providing information to the government \n2) IPs are considered valid forms of identification. I would assume that you they would just go to the extreme end and start logging all IPs that would allow for collection and then just permanently monitor it. So if for example 123.123.123.123 would be eligible for spying on at Jan 5th 2015 then they would still monitor it years later. Totally an assumption though.\n\n\nUpsides: \n1) Companies are allowed to report in thosuands (ex: 0-999, 1000-1999, 2000-2999) on the: number of national security letters, customers targeted, orders of directives, orders, and similar. This would be semiannual. There's also sections reducing it to bands of 500, 250, 99. \n2) It appears that tracking of a U.S. citizen will have their data deleted after 72 hours unless the AG approves it due to threat of death or serious harm.\n\n\n---\n\nThat was from ~1 month ago when I read it. If it's still the same then we also have this negative: Patriot act and terrorism protection act is renewed until 2019. Actual ramifications would be you can *technically* be considered a potential terrorist by having a trojan on your computer which allows a third party to use the IP you were assigned at the time.",
"I can see from here a day where the federal government tries to break the internet by passing laws where it has to conform to ridiculous standards to bring it more in line with this. These old bastards wouldn't understand an ELI5 about the simplest network tech. It's just gonna create a situation where everyone is a criminal. Which is perfect for people trying to coerce testimony from anyone they choose.",
"It really doesn't affect any of us at home (currently)\n\nAre you an international drug trafficker, a terrorist, or a whistleblower like Snowden?\n\nIf you aren't, then you basically just oppose these laws in principle (which is a PERFECTLY good reason to oppose them. These laws should be opposed). However, they really don't affect anyone unless you're committing some heavy crimes.\n\nI think we should fight these laws on principle. They go against the ideas America was founded upon. \n\nThe fact is, these laws as they currently exist will never affect 99.99% of people. If we let them keep going and expanding them, then yeah, it will expand until eventually the local police might be able to access your phone records on a traffic stop. We need to stop that.\n\nBut at the moment, lets not be extreme and pretend like there's a guy at the NSA listening to every individual phone call and flying a drone over everyone's house for not picking up their dog poop or something.\n\n",
"The government can't publicly collect your phone records and web history, but will continue doing so in secret. ",
"Its like the patriot act except the NSA doesn't store data on its computers in order to access it later with a warrant It gets a warrant first then gets the data from the telecom companies which are now required to buy computers to store the data in case the NSA needs it.",
"The thing that is important to remember is that, despite any laws of any kind, the NSA is gonna pretty much do what they want. This stuff isn't exactly being enforced, and who's gonna stop them?",
"The freedom act was basically, as I understand, a relabeling of the patriot act with watered down reforms.",
"For those who say \"you're too paranoid,\" it's not about my personal security. I'm not that goddamn selfish. It's about the fact that the federal government continues to slap the constitution around like a whore who's holding out on her pimp. It's about the fact that this sort of shit should not even be POSSIBLE, and is highly unconstitutional. Having some FEDERAL judge sign off on FEDERAL agencies UNMITIGATED spying on it's own PEOPLE is an outrage on every level. I hate to go there, but the Nazis and Soviets both would have done this if they could. That in itself is enough reason to kill it. It's not about \"muh freedums.\" It's about the sheaves of parchment our forefathers scrawled their names across in defiance of such behavior.",
"Can we ban the use of distracting names for bills? Patriot Act, Freedom Act, these contrived names have nothing to do with their functions and purposely distract people from being able to easily understand their intentions. They should all be Bill XYZ and leave it at that. Ban these stupid cryptic names.",
"You can always tell what something really means by changing the buzz words to their negative meaning. \"[Yield Your] Freedom Act\" is more spot on. If we passed a law expanding capital punishment, it would be called the \"preservation of life act\".",
"It means the longer that Congress is in session, the more you will get fucked over. \n\n[With each decision and bill, further down we go](_URL_0_). \n\nI fully expect the next act in the theater to be the \"Liberty & Justice For All Act\" which is another phrase for equality in domestic spying. Which will incorrectly use equality so that all surveillance should be equal so we have to spy on everyone -- for freedom, \"freedoms\" new definition is \"surveillance\". \n\nThey have already ran the 'patriot' and 'freedom' brand into the ground so we'll just keep going through the Constitution & pledge of allegiance until all the words mean the opposite.\n\nI can't wait for the \"Preserve the Bill of Rights Act\".",
"I honestly don't understand this debate. The citizen has already lost. Long time ago. It is a clear invasion of privacy, under the mask of protection, no? Don't do illegal shit, don't get arrested for espionage or terrorism. They're watching/listening/reading anyway, nothing will ever change that. They already have the power. We can shove shit up the government's ass until our fingers are tired, and we will still feel violated. We shit this bed. Sleep the best you can, and pray to whatever deity we don't collapse upon ourselves. Nobody wins, it's far too late. You can't fight the open airwaves of information. Just don't be an idiot. Anybody on reddit can destroy your life for fun with just a few bits of information. The grey hairs just think they can control it. We should be outside barbequeing and playing golf & rugby. Whoever wants to read my shitty e-mails and log my porn preferences, know my financials and personal info can get fucked. I have a life to live. ",
"Why am I learning this from an eli5 post? Reddit should be more worried about this than that stupid fifa official resigning. ",
"Doesn't matter. \n\nWhen government agencies break the law they are not held to account. As there is no punishment, the laws (old and new) have no weight. ",
"Jesus christ. The \"Freedom\" Act. What next, the \"Give Everyone Some Money!\" act which actually raises taxes?",
"Seems like the pressure should be shifting to the telecoms now. Ask them why *they* are storing our metadata, and for how long.",
"Hey America. Rest of the world here. How are you? Just a quick heads up, if you are going to keep letting the government market legislation to you as things like 'The Patriot Act' and 'The Freedom Act' please don't whine the next time you get fucked over for swallowing bleach instead of soda pop.\n\nApparently it is a backronym for \n\n*Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet-collection and Online Monitoring Act*\n\nThat is high level propaganda if ever I saw it. You should think about who designed it this way and why. It's dangerous and you shouldn't stand for it.",
"Out of curiosity as a non-American: How was the media coverage on the expiration of the Patriot Act and the passing of the Freedom Act?",
"It means Rand Paul is the only politician who gives a shit about us. He tried his best to filibuster this monstrosity",
"To those insisting that if you aren't a criminal, you have nothing to worry about, consider this: American blogger Glenn Greenwald is living in Brazil, hiding from the U.S. Government for the \"crime\" of journalism. So yes, it can affect ordinary people in terrible ways.",
"govt is about taking away freedoms and once they take them\nthey NEVER give them back..Every country every time\nUSA is no different ",
"It's ungood. \n\nThe portions that expired as of Sunday night were double plus ungood. Progress?",
"“ELI5: Now that the Freedom Act has passed, what does it mean for us? “\nWhat’s in a name? Would it be any less egregious to democracy (real or elusory), if it were called the Faux-Freedom Act? Since in a real democracy, it would have to have been mandated into existence by the will of a majority of the people. Not the will of a minority of a minority of the people. Humanity’s problem is that we are not asking our ‘leaders’ the right questions. For example: If total surveillance works to protect us. How come drug emperors have not been summarily rounded up, and their ill-gotten gains redirected to the assistance of the addicted? Similarly why are we not using simple questioning, to dismantle the delusion of religious extremism? Is it because this might also initiate an open season, on a Western nonsense that is more like some ideological demockracy than it is real democracy. Some ask, “ Why would anyone object to state surveillance, if they were not doing anything wrong”. But consider this: If a political party is in power, then in their minds it could stand to reason that they must be right. Ergo other political parties driven by the idea of promoting a different narrative, must be doing wrong. A sure and certain justification, for using that (in)‘security’ mechanism to subvert and disrupt those (constitutionally authorised) activities. \n",
"I saw this on yahoo. \"you notice these Gov programs with names like freedom and affordable are actually the opposite of that?\".",
"it means they will just do it illegally. like they do everything else we collectively want them to not do. the small percentage of the time they get caught, they pull their apology/scapegoat/spin doctor nonsense they always do and there's no real repercussions.\n\nit's s nice public concession they've made. the only hope is that the congress and the power elite operating in this country still clearly believe we \"might\" be able to remove them if we get angry enough. \n\nthe fed and the 1% need to be starved out financially. the money is all they really care about. take enough of it away and they'll calm down/go away",
"Dear America,\n\nThe Second Amendment was left for you just in case the government ever became tyrannical or exceeded the constraints it is limited by it in the Constitution.\n\nTime to reclaim your birthright and revolt against this government.\n\nSincerely,\nThe Founding Fathers.",
"It means they used a different, but still pretty euphemism. In totalitarianism, every citizen must spied on.",
"It means absolutely nothing, except they have shifted the way they collect information, (the same info) as before with newer improved technology. You are not gonna get them ever to play straight....For all the \"wizards\" out there in tech land ...you guys are sure ignorant.",
"It means nothing to the citizens. Everyone will still be monitored just like before, but now through the magic of PR/propaganda, most Americans think they're not being monitored anymore!",
"I'm sorry it means absolutely nothing. Organisations like the NSA will still do as they have always been (whatever they want whether it is legal or not). This media fanfare is probably just to give people the illusion something is being done about this, its not.\n\n > Surveillance organisations will continue their work no matter what senate says, the end.\n\nGo ahead and downvote though and call me crazy.",
"We're on the highway to George Orwell's hell.\n\nOr get ready to be spied on more and I'm sure they gave themselves rights to do more things that should be illegal for them in the name of our safety, but because Franklin warned us about this it's our \"freedom\" they'll protect",
"Considering that they still have carte-blanche access to pretty much anything that anyone does on the internet - both public and private - functionally it means nothing. Business as usual. This bill was cosmetic, and democracy is still a frog in a pot being brought to a slow boil.",
"Just the fact that there is ANOTHER bill... Doesn't it imply that they are going to continue in some form or another?\n\nThe PATRIOT Act had a sunset clause, so if they really were going to stop, wouldn't they just have let it lapse and not passed anything else?",
"It means absolutely nothing. If you think this is going to stop them, then you are as dumb as they think you are. They literally already have backdoors in everything. They have vehicles and planes acting as cell towers collecting everything. They didn't wake up today and say \"Ok everyone, turn everything off, we can't do this anymore\". Fuck no, business as usual. Not to mention, courts that aren't secret don't mean shit. I'm sure the secret court waited for this ruling and then was like, yea, ok, don't listen to this....",
"As a non American, I find it completely insulting how all the reforms mention that American citizens' information will no longer be subject to such stringent spying.\n\nIs everyone who lives outside a threat and that gives your government the right to spy on us without limitations, like we were some low caste citizens?\n\nI'm not sure if I'm either missing some info and this new regulations protects everyone from abuse, but if not, who the hell they think they are? ",
"If this was a bill that kept everyone in the government.happy..the you know very well it still isn't very good. Sooner or later...someone will blow the whistle.",
"You know what I see happening in this country? I see a ruling class stealing everything from their people. I see them establishing the powers necessary to protect themselves from those people. I see them using their power to brutalize and intimidate their people. All completely free from the fear of repercussion. I see a ruling class searching for the best manner to enslave its population all the while convincing that same population that it is not enslaved - that it is free.",
"Means the fascist oligarch assholes that infest our government will keep doing what they have been for years now.",
"Nothing really changed. This was a show for the people. A pointless \"win\" designed to placate the masses. Everything that was happening a week ago will continue to happen. The \"court approval\" part is meaningless since the courts are secret and will just rubber stamp virtually every request.",
"Exactly nothing has changed. The politicians just made some empty gestures in an attempt to appear to have some influence on the law-making process.",
"So far as I can tell it says departments like the FBI have to submit more paper work to the illegal secret court (FISA) before they can illegally spy on -- or mass collect data on -- Americans. So really it means little to nothing. It was a pretend amendment to placate people who don't know the difference which sadly is too many of us. ",
"Nothing good for us. The US Government is just trying to cleverly re-adjust its strangle-hold on the united states and make the new police-state easier for the American public to swallow. The only difference? The USA Patriot Act is Bush and The USA Freedom Act is Obama. That pretty much sums it up. This country is sooo fucked. ",
"One of the most significant changes I haven't seen anyone above mention yet is [this](_URL_0_):\n\n > The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, for the first time, will be required to declassify some of its most significant decisions, and outside voices will be allowed to argue for privacy rights before the court in certain cases.\n\nFor the first time, the public will be able to see how the FISA court makes these decisions, and sometimes will be able to actually challenge those decisions in court. Even though the rest of the law doesn't go far enough, this is a part we should be very happy about.",
"I've seen a lot of banter in this thread about, \"What would the founding fathers do?\" Well, the truth is that the founding fathers had their own similar crisis and made similar mistakes. \n\nJust a few years after the adoption of the bill of rights, the federalists led by none other than John Adams passed the Sedition Act of 1798. It effectively outlawed any scandalous or malicious writings that targeted the government, and the federalists were the ones who decided who and what fell under its harsh treatment. The people who suffered at the hands of this over reach of power were as varied as a drunken loudmouth who dared to criticize John Adams as he passed through town in a carriage, to a firebrand politician who was a revolutionary war hero, to Benjamin Franklin's own grandson who published a paper in Philadelphia.\n\nUltimately of course, those who opposed the Federalists (the then Republicans lead largely by Jefferson) prevailed, but it's a mistake to somehow think our founding fathers were some kind of omniscient beings who never made a mistake. They were in truth only human and made all the same mistakes that we make today. The truth is that the liberty and freedom we enjoy today is more a happy accident of history and politics rather than some divine outcome that was guided by providence.\n",
"How'd this get passed? I thought there was enough opposition to kill this monstrosity.",
"If only they had called it the \"American Eagle Super Patriots of Freedom Act\", then I wouldn't feel so much like they were trying to polish a turd.",
"It is certainly not perfect, but it does impose a requirement that the government get a warrant, I think on the probable cause standard. Local cops can pull records with one of those, too.\n\nStill not ideal and subject to abuse, but it's a lot better than the previous standard, which was \"breathing.\"",
"Not shit. The state will always introduce new crimes into its legitimizing region. Always declare democracy as their divine right to do so, will call the crimes fun names like freedom/patriot act and free trade agreements. Public safety will be the all-encompassing reason. And the people will cheer, \"smaller cages, shorter chains\". But minority groups will not, and they'll be coerced by threat of jail or guns into participating. Anarchy does not mean chaos. There are better ways for order in a region or society than legitimizing a monopoly of force violence and coercion",
"Is it wrong to think \"not much.\" I mean, I have hope for the future of America and her government, zero faith.",
"Do you think Obama will come back here for an AMA? We have some follow up questions. ",
"Before: I am a manager of a business, and I want to view my employee's file. I open my desk drawer and pull out the employee file. I don't get much out of it, unless I need to fire or promote the employee.\n\nNow: I am a manager of a business, and I want to view my employee's file. I walk over to the IT shop, ask the IT guy to open up the locker where the employee files are stored. He hands me the file. I don't get much out of it, unless I need to fire or promote the employee."
]
}
|
[] |
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"http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/03/us/politics/senate-surveillance-bill-passes-hurdle-but-showdown-looms.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0"
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] |
|
20l71b
|
since we only have one satellite that has left our solar system, how come there are pictures of our galaxy despite it being on such a large scale?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20l71b/eli5_since_we_only_have_one_satellite_that_has/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cg4bqbh"
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"text": [
"We don't have any pictures of our galaxy from the outside. All such pictures that you see are artists renditions based on what we can see from inside the galaxy, combined with what other, similar galaxies look like."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
8wgyth
|
space explosions
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8wgyth/eli5_space_explosions/
|
{
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"e1vh5i7"
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"text": [
"The movie [Gravity](_URL_0_) does it pretty well.\n\nThe Lunar Module [blast-off](_URL_1_) is also very close to an explosion.\n\nBasically, debris flying in all directions, no sound, and no fireballs (fire needs oxygen)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDeZyRtPJvI",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Obd_jTO66-0"
]
] |
|
9eo6s7
|
the atom and its structure and how it builds up everything around us.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9eo6s7/eli5_the_atom_and_its_structure_and_how_it_builds/
|
{
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"Very simplistic version of how atoms make stuff up. \n\nAtoms are made of electrons, protons and neutrons. Protons and neutrons sit in the center of the atom. They are surrounded by a cloud of electrons. Since protons are positive and electrons are negative this means there is a positively charged center and cloud of negativity around it. Neutrons have no charge and act as a space block between positively charged protons so two positive charges never have to be in contact. \n\nNow, depending on how this electron cloud behaves, sometimes atoms like hangin out with other atoms. They do this by forming bonds with other atoms. There are many types of bonds and they form for many different reasons. I won’t talk about that. But if you get enough of these atoms to hangout together suddenly you start making macro material all because some positive and some negative particles are good at hanging out together. Now, in most of these macro materials, the ordering of these atoms is very specific. A likes being with B and C likes being with B, but C and A hate each other. This creates orderly patterns in most materials. \n\nAgain remember that fundamentally atoms are a positive center and negative surroundings, so when you have a macro material you end up with a negatively charged “layer” on the exterior of all surfaces. (Not exactly true, but let’s pretend for now) this means when you take two surface and put them together (like putting a glass on the table) the electron cloud on the bottom of the glass and the electron cloud on the top of the table repel each other (opposites attract, alike repel) But this repulsion force is not big enough to make your glass fly off the table, but it is big enough to mean your glass and table don’t start to mix. And this is how we as macro systems interact with each other; through negative repulsion. ",
"Alright, this is pretty much a crash course in how an atom works.\n\nFirst of all, we need to know what exactly an atom is made out of. Well, we know Atoms are made out of three different types of particles: Protons, Neutrons, and Electrons.\n\nLets focus on Protons and Neutrons. Protons and Neutrons are what make up the Nucleus (the center of the atom). Protons and Neutrons, are, in turn, made out of even smaller particles called Quarks. These Quarks come in different \"flavors\" - there are 6 of them, but only 2 are stable - the \"Up\" quark and the \"Down\" quark. Protons have a positive charge and are made up of three quarks (two \"Up\" quarks and one \"Down\" quark), while Neutrons have a neutral (0) charge and are made up of three quarks as well (two \"Down\" quarks and one \"Up\" quark). \n\nAll of these protons and neutrons are held together in, as already stated, the nucleus (i.e. the center) of the atom. They are held there by something called the \"Strong Nuclear Force\". How exactly this force works is a story for another time - it is very complicated to explain and involves other particles called \"Gluons\" (they \"Glue\" the protons and neutrons together, hence the name). All you need to know is that the center of the atom has Protons and Neutrons. \n\nOf course, you also need a negative charge in an atom. This is from another particle that moves around the nucleus, called an \"electron\", which has a negative charge. Unlike protons and neutrons, the electron is not made up of quarks - instead, it's a single particle known as a \"Lepton\". The electron moves around the nucleus, but not in a circular orbit, like it is shown in diagrams like [this](_URL_0_). It is important to know that **atoms do not look like this** - while this is a great and simple way to draw an atom, it is important to know that the electron(s) of an atom can actually be **anywhere in the universe**. However, the chance of an electron of an atom being this far away from the nucleus is slim. To keep things simpler, this awesome guy called Erwin Schrödinger (you might know him from Schrödinger's cat) used maths to find out a 3d graph where the electron has a 90% chance of being at any given time. These graphs vary between things known as orbitals. (Which are too difficult to explain in a post like this).\n\nNow let us talk about elements. Now, I am sure you have heard of and seen the periodic table before, but what does it actually show? Well, basically, it shows a list of all elements that have been discovered so far in a very neatly organized table. What is an element? Well, an element is a group of atoms with the exact same amount of protons in their nucleus. For example, if an atom has one proton, it is always Element #1 (Hydrogen). If it has two, it is always Element #2 (Helium), if it has three, then it is #3 (Lithium), and so on until #118 (Oganesson). So, we know that a specific kind of element can only have a unique number of protons. This number of protons is always equal to its atomic number - a number which can be used to identify elements on the periodic table. So, if I were to tell you to find element 58 on the periodic table (Cerium), you would immediately know that Cerium has 58 protons.\n\nWhat about neutrons? Well, the thing is that elements can actually have different amounts of neutrons but the same amount of protons. For example, Hydrogen has only one proton and no neutrons. But hydrogen-2, also known as Deuterium, has one proton and one neutron. The way we identify these different types of atoms is by calling the element its usual name, but then adding the sum of all of its protons and neutrons as a number at the end. For example, in the case of Deuterium, it has one proton and one neutron, and since 1+1 = 2, we can also call it Hydrogen-2. In the case of Cerium, lets assume that we are referring to a type of Cerium with 58 protons and 84 neutrons. Thus, we have 58 + 84 = 142 protons and neutrons, and thus we call this specific type of atom \"Cerium-142\". \nThese different types of atoms are called \"Isotopes\". Isotopes can have a variety of different physical properties - for example, water with deuterium (Hydrogen-2) in it instead of hydrogen is called \"Heavy water\" and is much denser than water - when it freezes, its ice, instead of floating on regular water, sinks.\nOf course, you cant just stick as many neutrons as you want on an atom - eventually, the atom will have too many neutrons or too little neutrons, and it becomes unstable, and thus it has to get rid of some of its particles to become more stable. This is when an atom becomes radioactive. Of course, the more protons and neutrons you stick to an atom, the more unstable the atom gets, and so heavier elements will get rid of their particles as well. This is why it becomes harder to create elements with more and more particles in it - element 118 is so radioactive that it gets rid of a lot of its protons and neutrons in just a few seconds. \n\nNow, let us bring electrons into this. In general, the electron number is equal to the atomic number of an element, and thus equal to the number of protons to an element. \n\nHOWEVER, this is not always the case. You see, the thing is that noble gases have a full set of electrons. Atoms really, really, _really_ want to have a full set of electrons - they want to have the same amount of electrons as noble gases (Helium, Neon, Krypton, etc.) do. This means that atoms may gain electrons or lose electrons, depending on how many electrons they have. For example, Sodium (Na), if it loses one electron, will have the same number of electrons as a noble gas. Chlorine (Cl), on the other hand, only needs to gain one electron to have the same amount of electrons as a noble gas. So, hey! You have sodium, willing to give away one electron, and Chlorine, willing to receive an electron! Mix the two together, and you get Sodium Chloride (NaCl) - otherwise known as, you guessed it - salt.\nThis is known as ionic bonding. It works with every single element. Lets look at Beryllium (Be) - it has two electrons which it is willing to give away in order to have the same amount of electrons as noble gases do. But what happens if you mix Beryllium with Chlorine (Cl)? Well, since Chlorine only needs one electron, that means that two Chlorines can take the electrons from Beryllium, and everyone is happy at the end. Thus, you get Beryllium Chloride (BeCl2). \n\nThis is one of multiple different kinds of bonding - the other being covalent bonding (which involves sharing electrons, which is what water is made out of). And thus, you managed to create chemical compounds. These chemical compounds form everything - from our DNA to our food and water. \n\nOf course, there is a lot more that can be said, but not in a reddit post. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2422/3631728569_6728acd4ed.jpg"
]
] |
||
b6rd4o
|
why is it that people who smoke and drink their whole lives sometimes live longer than people who don't smoke and drink?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b6rd4o/eli5_why_is_it_that_people_who_smoke_and_drink/
|
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"text": [
"Genetics. Some people can tolerate or even thrive with abuse. As some folks live clean and sober lives are still very sensitive and can die early due to health problems. \nStress. Stress can be as harmful as drugs and alcohol and some people can handle it better than others. ",
"Genetics. Some people have family histories of certain problems/diseases that get passed on. ",
"Life expectancy and illness rates are based on probability. I'm going to make a bit of a morbid analogy. Let's say you die based on a lottery drawing. Each year, you have more and more tickets in (as you get older you're more likely to die). Now, if you smoke or drink heavily, more tickets are put in for you. However, this doesn't guarantee that your ticket will be drawn and you therefore die. It just means that you have a higher chance of it, and the lifespan on average is lower.",
"Because life expectancy is a bell curve. Not a lot of people die young, lots of people die in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, and then fewer people make it to 90s or 100s.\n\nSmoking, drinking, or other things that kill you over a long period of time basically shift your curve over a bit. Take a look at this pic.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThe red curve is smokers, the blue curve is non-smokers. The arrows represent the average dude. The average non-smoker lives longer than the average smoker. However, if you look at the overlap, filled in with shitty grey lines, you will see that there are lots of smokers that live just as long or longer than non-smokers."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://i.imgur.com/NvyKRZd.png"
]
] |
||
cwnnfx
|
why does eating chocolate make your mouth feel dry?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cwnnfx/eli5_why_does_eating_chocolate_make_your_mouth/
|
{
"a_id": [
"eyd95sz"
],
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"text": [
"Chocolate contains tannins, a type of astringent chemical. Tannins bind to proteins in your saliva, making the saliva more \"rough\" and dry feeling than its usual slippery self."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3dixa5
|
if tuition were free for public universities in the u.s., wouldn't that just make those degrees more worthless?
|
I'm sure I'm wrong on this, but would someone explain how this wouldn't flood the market with degrees thus driving wages down?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3dixa5/eli5_if_tuition_were_free_for_public_universities/
|
{
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"text": [
"Not really. The issue here is that universities still cap entrance based on whether or not you are qualified. It just means that poor kids who are really good students would then be able to apply for slots at a university alongside richer kids who may not be as good a student.",
"Well, degrees do more than signal that you should be paid more, they represent real, valuable skills firms are willing to pay more for. Broadening access to degrees does reduce their marketability due to making the skills they represent less exclusive, but those skills still have value.",
"Taxpayer subsidized education would allow Universities to select students based solely on Academic Requirements, as opposed to ability to pay. Degrees from public universities then become an indicator for actual performance.\n\nThe bad news is that college might be free, but it will, by necessity, require the student to work harder to qualify. This means that a University-level degree might actually be less accessible than it is now. \n\nThe good news is that students won't be shackled into $75k in debt before they qualify for a job in their chosen field, and there will be fewer degree holders to compete with in the job market, making those degrees more valuable."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3x1orn
|
which feels more colder in the long term; air conditioner and fan both on or, only air conditioner on, and why?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3x1orn/eli5_which_feels_more_colder_in_the_long_term_air/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cy0rxwl"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"AC. Because it actually cools the air. \n\nA fan does not cool the air. All it does is move the air and it will actually slightly heat it with the heat put off by its motor. \n\nAdding a fan to an AC will help the air to mix faster and so will make the AC more efficient and so it is the best of the 3 options you turned your question into although you originally set it up to be a choice between 2. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
fc57fc
|
how is led different from an incandescent?
|
And why did it take us so long to come up with it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fc57fc/eli5_how_is_led_different_from_an_incandescent/
|
{
"a_id": [
"fj8n6uf",
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],
"score": [
8,
2
],
"text": [
"Incandescent bulbs heat a filament, or wire. That wire creates light from the heat. Think of a heater or stove glowing when it gets hot. The same thing is at play here, which is why incandescents get very hot. LEDs run power through diode, or a place where electrons like to play. The power excites these electrons in the diode and when they play, they make light. Not a whole lot of heat in this process and is much more efficient.",
"Funny thing, verge science did a video a couple months ago about this very topic: _URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://youtu.be/kYZGqEewIHE"
]
] |
|
1t01js
|
if a pulsar rotates, would there not be a point where the magnetic waves break the speed of light? what stops it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1t01js/eli5if_a_pulsar_rotates_would_there_not_be_a/
|
{
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"ce2yn7w",
"ce2z6ay"
],
"score": [
4,
2
],
"text": [
"It is correct that pulsars rotate really fast (up to 700 times/second). However, the rotation of the magnetic poles of the pulsar is proportional to the rotation of the pulsar itself. And that can never exceed the speed of light. (The pulsar would also be torn appart ~~long~~ before reaching the speed of light.)\n",
"Somewhat related:\n\nI believe I read a while ago it is theorized that once the density of a neutron star has inceased so that the speed of sound (the speed of a wave propagating through a medium, the medium being the star) is equal to the speed of light in a neutron star, the star will collapse to a black hole\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
3t0dmd
|
on desktop screen (windows), when we right-click and press 'refresh', what does it actually do? and why isn't it in ubuntu ?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3t0dmd/eli5_on_desktop_screen_windows_when_we_rightclick/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cx1ywtn",
"cx1yx7m"
],
"score": [
11,
3
],
"text": [
"The desktop is just another folder on your hard drive - specifically, it's C:\\Users\\ < your username > \\Desktop. Sometimes when there is a change in this folder (for example a file is added or removed, or a file's icon is changed) your display isn't properly updated with these changes. Clicking refresh tells the OS to looks at the folder again and update the display accordingly.",
"In Windows, the Desktop is simply an explorer folder. Clicking the Refresh option synchronizes the contents to show everything that may have been added in the meantime. Note: when everything is working as it should, the Desktop folder should automatically refresh.\nLinux has the ability to refresh the desktop folder as well, by clicking F5 after clicking anywhere on the desktop (this is the same as pressing F5 in any folder)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
8avndj
|
how do we perceive "shadows moving"
|
So I was recently at the Waverly Hills Sanatorium for a ghost tour. I'm pretty skeptical, but one part that was particularly interesting was on the 4th floor. We were instructed to stand and watch the end of the hallway. The hallway was pitch black except for a door at the end leaking in some yellow light, and the sides of the hallway had a lot of entrances that let in moonlight. Apparently, we were supposed to see shadows moving, and a lot of people on the tour claimed they were seeing it. I tried very hard to keep scanning and blinking to see what they were seeing, but couldnt really make anything out.
Ghosts being real or not, can you actually detect shadows moving in pitch-black darkness? Or was this a trick of the light at the edges of the darkness? Or maybe just a case of "I really want to see it, so I'm able to see it?"
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8avndj/eli5_how_do_we_perceive_shadows_moving/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dx1y84j"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"I recall seeing a documentary once about a supposed miracle where a statue of Mary was observed to move. The investigators concluded that it was an optical illusion. It was caused by looking intently at an object for a long time, and the tiny motions your head makes—which you generally don’t notice—cause the image to bounce slightly around your field of vision, which the brain tries to resolve as the object making small movements. I could see a similar thing happening with this hallway, in which case your blinking and scanning might have prevented you from seeing it. Or, as you say, it might just be that people wanted to see it. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3elylb
|
if humans don't naturally drink milk as adults, and neither does any other adult animal that i know of, why is it important that we have dairy in our diets?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3elylb/eli5_if_humans_dont_naturally_drink_milk_as/
|
{
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"score": [
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2
],
"text": [
"It isn't essential. It's just a good source of certain nutrients, which can be gotten from other foods (but they may be foods you don't enjoy eating at much).\n\nAs for how humans got to this point - we've been domesticating animals for long enough to have some evolutionary effect. Europeans, who have eaten a dairy-heavy diet for a while, are much more likely to be lactose-tolerant than are other racial groups; that effect is the result of only a few thousand years' divide.",
"Milk had nutrients just like any other food. But is it essential? Not really. You can get those same nutrients from a bunch of other foods.\n\nThere is a lot of things we need to learn about nutrition. You could go to several different \"professionals\" on the subject, and they would all give you different advice. I guarantee if you quit milk for a year, you would survive.",
"It's important that you have dairy in an *American* diet, because there are important nutrients in it that other foods Americans eat don't provide. In China, for instance, [the guideline is to eat dairy or soy products](_URL_0_).",
"No other mammal continues to drink milk past childhood, it's actually a rather recent development for humans too (a couple thousand years, or around when we started the domestication of animals). \n\nBut to answer your question, milk is not something you absolutely need to have. You can get the nutrients in milk from other places, for example there's actually quite a lot of calcium in broccoli, without all the sugar. Lactose is a type of sugar and sugar isn't good in large doses.",
"It isn't. A reason dairy is suggested as a key food is because it makes it far easier to meet requirements for calcium and other nutrients. It's also more cost efficient to get most of you calcium from a glass of milk than to do so by eating huge amounts of green vegetables, which may be somewhat expensive depending on where you live."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"http://www.fao.org/nutrition/education/food-based-dietary-guidelines/regions/countries/china/en/"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
bhg3k0
|
why is learned ambidexterity believed to have negative side effects on the brain? what should you look out for, and are there any significant studies on this?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bhg3k0/eli5_why_is_learned_ambidexterity_believed_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"elsmn22",
"elso5m3"
],
"score": [
12,
8
],
"text": [
"Could you explain why you think that being ambidextrous might have an issue? Did someone tell you this, did you read it somewhere? Any chance you can link us?",
"Your sources sound questionable at best. High level athletes train to be ambidextrous at certain skills (dribbling a basket ball, punching and kicking, etc.) without negative side effects. Heck, average people learn ambidexterity when they injure their hand or take up hobbies that require it to some degree. All without any harm."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
e2dyuu
|
what would happen if you injected too much fluid into someone through an iv?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e2dyuu/eli5_what_would_happen_if_you_injected_too_much/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f8uxdl5"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"No one has done this - I hope - but here’s a guess. \n\nIf you give someone too much fluid through an IV a couple of things happen. \n\nFirst you start peeing more. Your kidneys can make a lot of pee and it would take a serious amount of fluid to overwhelm a healthy person’s kidneys. \n\nI reckon before that happened they’d run into trouble with their blood chemistry - the kidneys might not be able to pee out exactly the same mix of chemicals and water that was put in, so your body might lose some chemicals, and that can cause other problems (like bad heart rhythms). \n\nAnother thing that can happen is the fluid “seeps out”. It often seeps out into the lungs - doctors see it in some kinds of heart failure. That can kill you pretty damn quick. \n\nI’ve also seen fluid seep out through the skin - usually the skin of your calves and shins, because they’re dangling down and have slightly higher pressure in them.\n\nI’m a doctor working in a hospital, if that’s helps."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
foxs6k
|
why does the same video buffer so much on other sites?
|
I've noticed some videos buffer a lot. E.g. I play the same video(same resolution) on another site and it buffers a lot, and when I play it on another site it runs smoothly. Is it a video player thing? I'm pretty sure it's not an internet problem
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/foxs6k/eli5_why_does_the_same_video_buffer_so_much_on/
|
{
"a_id": [
"flht0yr"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Different sites have different servers.\n\nNot all servers are made equally.\n\nSome have a lot of traffic, some have little traffic.\n\nSome are junk regardless of the amount of traffic.\n\nCombination of server \"quality\" and amount of people accessing it at the same time determine how well the video is accessed, and therefore played."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
34w81j
|
why does the usa use china for manufacturing and not mexico?
|
It seems like that would ease our immigration issues. The shipping costs would be less. The US has a better relationship with Mexico.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/34w81j/eli5_why_does_the_usa_use_china_for_manufacturing/
|
{
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"cqynuqp",
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"text": [
"Mexico's high rate of crime and corruption, poor infrastructe, and lack of a skilled workforce make it an unstable and unappealing place to do business.",
"The U.S does manufacture a lot in Mexico, especially since NAFTA reduced many of the artificial barriers like tariffs and quotas. It tends to be larger items where shipping makes more of a difference in cost, like TVs, appliances, and cars. Or food products, like processing gulf shrimp or Texas cattle.\n\nPart of the reason so much remains in China is the network of suppliers in the region, making the various components that go into manufactured goods. It's easier to keep lean inventories of metal, plastic, screws, LCD panels, memory chips, wiring, etc. when it's coming from close-by in China, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, etc. instead of half a world away. And also, that way if there's a defect, improvement, update, it's quicker to change on the fly.",
"The US gets massive amounts of shit from Mexico. What makes you think we don't?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1k98js
|
how did usb get to be universal?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1k98js/how_did_usb_get_to_be_universal/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cbmmume"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"There were too many of older connectors, so a few big companies decided to build something that everyone could use together. Since they had a larger market share and took the lead, others followed and everyone in the industry adopted the standard."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
4sjbc7
|
how many more satellites can we launch into space before we run out of room and are there any viable methods for clearing out space to fit more?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4sjbc7/eli5_how_many_more_satellites_can_we_launch_into/
|
{
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"text": [
"If I'm not mistaken, it's kind of a self-correcting problem. Satellites are in a very low orbit, so they tend to fall out and burn up in the atmosphere after their useful life is over. In fact, i think it's part of the design ",
"Others here are right, space is infinite.\n\nExcept that there's only one geostationary orbit, and there's only room for ~3600 active satellites there (the current closest two satellites there are 1/10th of a degree apart), otherwise their radios might interfere with each other. ",
"One complication the answers so far have missed: The Kessler Syndrome.\n\nAs we launch more and more satellites into Low Earth Orbit, we also launch more and more misc debris with those satellites.\n\nThis debris is mostly all tracked, and results in a panicky maneuver on the ISS every few months to avoid a collision.\n\nHowever, at some point there will be too much debris to avoid, and hyper velocity impacts with satellites will start occurring with some frequency. Those impacts, in turn, produce even more debris, etc, etc, etc.\n\n_URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome"
]
] |
||
4fofvr
|
why harriet tubman is replacing andrew jackson on the twenty dollar bill
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4fofvr/eli5_why_harriet_tubman_is_replacing_andrew/
|
{
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"text": [
"In a campaign called \"Women on 20s\", selected voters were asked to choose 3 of 15 female candidates to have a photo on the $20 bill. The goal was to have a woman on the $20 bill by 2020, the centennial of the 19th Amendment which gave women the right to vote.[14] As of April 8, 2015, the four leading candidates were Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman and Wilma Mankiller.[15][16][17] On May 12, 2015, Tubman was announced as the winning candidate.[18] On June 17, 2015, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced that a woman's portrait would instead be featured on a redesigned ten dollar bill by 2020, although soon after he appeared to retract the statement.[19]\n\nDue to outcry following the popularity of the hit Broadway musical Hamilton, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced on April 20, 2016 that Alexander Hamilton would remain on the $10 bill, while Andrew Jackson would be replaced by Harriet Tubman. According to the report in Politico, there would also \"be changes to the $5 bill to depict civil rights era leaders.\"[20]",
"Alexander Hamilton was the first Secretary of the Treasury. He set up the financial system that kept the country afloat in its early decades and which the modern Federal Reserve system is descended from. It makes sense that he be commemorated by appearing on modern money.",
"Jackson for about a century has been a pretty commonly bashed president for better or worse, making him very divisive and less popular. Notably his successes and failures with regards to relations with Native Americans make him especially divisive on the racial front which there is some debate over how much it is deserved.\n\nHarriet Tubman then is almost the opposite and a pretty universally praised personage when it comes to racial minorities in the US, even if she may not be the woman in American history with the largest impact(hell probably not even top 5). \n\nHamilton then while for decades panned and of less high profile than his peers(and never being President) has in the past 2ish decades had a bit of a revival. Helped too by the now very successful contemporary musical on his life which earned the writer and star both a Grammy and a Pulitzer. \n\nAs for who is in charge theoretically both Congress or the President could direct a change, or prevent one. But mostly it is under the control of the Treasury Department, and thus Secretary of the treasury Jack Lew, and in general we can also say previous secretaries have been hesitant to take off the man who gave the position its power and direction in Hamilton. ",
"Andrew Jackson is looked upon negatively these days for his involvement in The Indian Removal Act and Worcester v. Georgia. People have been advocating that Jackson be removed for quite some time, well before the campaign to get a woman on the bill was.",
"Andrew Jackson's reputation has degraded very heavily over the last century, largely for his role championing programs now often considered to be genocide and ethnic cleansing. Members of the races he sought to drive out or exterminate have been calling for his replacement for almost a century. When the time came to propose replacements, the popular suggestion became to replace Jackson -- a fierce pro-slavery advocate who owned hundreds of his own and made money breeding and selling them -- with Tubman, a legendary anti-slavery activist and former slave."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
tqmt6
|
what happens at the ending of mass effect 3 that makes everybody hate it?
|
I have no intention of playing the game (strictly due to time reasons), but would like to understand why everybody hates that game, even though everyone agrees it's a pretty good game. . . like HOW bad could the ending possibly be?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/tqmt6/eli5_what_happens_at_the_ending_of_mass_effect_3/
|
{
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"text": [
"The fact that everyone can tell you the ending is *exactly* the problem. No matter what you do during the game, no matter what decisions you make, no matter what path you choose to walk you get the same ending as everyone else. What you do does not matter. Makes the ending totally irrelevant to your game play. ",
"Imagine you were making choices every day. Choices that had meaningful impact on the world around you.\n\nNow imagine that your entire life of choices is culminating in a grand and emotionally trying way.\n\nYou know that you have only a few choices left in your life and the situation you are in tells you that these next few choices are going to change the course of the entire universe.\n\nAnd then Space Jesus appears in front of you, pulls out his penis and then slaps you in the face with it. Laughing at you, as a small trail of semen runs into your eyes, Space Jesus gets on his magical unicorn and rides away while murdering everyone in the universe.\n\nThis is what finishing Mass Effect 3 is like.",
"There are three things that really piss people off. I'll go in order of descending objctivity.\n\nThe first most obvious one is that the ending contains major logical plot holes. Characters appear and disappear from places with no indication of how they arrived or left or even why they do so. There are other issues that people claim to be plot holes related to the antagonist reaper's and character motivations for actions that seem nonsensical, but those are less concrete.\n\nSecond, the ending only adresses the conclusion of the reaper threat, and not the saving of the galaxy. These seem similar, but are in fact two very different things. Players built a strong connection with the characters and civilization in the mass effect universe. The ending truncates almost immediately after the reaper threat is neutralized. In the process of solving the reaper threat, all the mass relays, devices that facilitate FTL travel and connect the galactic civilization, are destroyed, stranding the massed galactic fleet in sol. In addition it's been shown prior that mass relays when destroyed release energy equivalent to a supernova. So not only does the ending not address the saving of the galaxy it at the very last minute throws it entirely into question. This is particularly frustrating because your decisions in the 3 ME games drastically shape and are informed by how a post-reaper galaxy would look. In essence the ending fails to address the true conflict of the series entirely.\n\nFinally, the ending dishonors the themes of the mass effect series. Throughout the games, the writers have addressed ideas such as strength through unity, natural against written law, trust, and even the nature of life. The treatment of synthetic life in the series is beautiful as the once malicious robotic geth are slowly revealed to be sensitive, benevolent automotons. In contrast the ending presents the reaper's motivations: synthetic life cannot coexist with organic life, therefor, advanced organic civilizations must be eliminated before they desroy themselves. The reaper's position is simplistically luddite compared to the characterization and redemption of the geth. If the player was capable of objecting to it, that would be okay if a little strange. Instead the ending forces shepard and by extension the player to accept the reaper's premise against everything that has been established thus far. This to me is the most heartbreaking part of the ending because mass effect had done such a great treatment of classical sci-fi themes to that point, only to throw them in the bin at the very last minute. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2lca4l
|
why is there existence? why is there anything at all?
|
Deep thoughts....
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2lca4l/eli5why_is_there_existence_why_is_there_anything/
|
{
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"text": [
"Because, if there was nothing, there would be no one to ask that question.",
"Lawrence Krauss wrote a book about it, [A Universe from Nothing](_URL_0_).\n\nIt doesn't actually answer the question since no one has yet found an answer. But if the question is really bugging you it is an interesting read.",
"The greatest philosophical question. The answer is: *why not?*",
"Because in nothingness are no rules prohibiting existence, and that which is not forbidden, is mandatory.",
"You know that thing about the tree falling in the forest where no one can hear it, which is basically an argument that if no conscious being observed it \"didn't really happen\" in the first place?\n\nWe're the first species in the history of the planet to be able to \"hear\" or critically observe anything existing at all. So from that perspective, there was nothing else until there was us."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.amazon.com/Universe-Nothing-There-Something-Rather/dp/1451624468"
],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2f7mau
|
what's an ordinary differential equations? what's its purpose? could i use it for what?
|
Edit: Thanks everyone for the answers!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2f7mau/eli5_whats_an_ordinary_differential_equations/
|
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"text": [
"An ODE is an equation that's a function of one variable and its derivatives. Let's take a simple example:\n\nA variable: position\n\nThe rate of change of position: speed (the *first derivative*)\n\nThe rate of change of speed: acceleration (the *second derivative*)\n\nSo why is this useful? Let's take a practical example - you're firing a shell out of a cannon, and you want to know where it will land. Well, Newton's Laws will tell you that the final position of the cannonball is a function of its initial velocity and its acceleration due to gravity. The same goes with launching a spacecraft into orbit, or throwing a baseball, or any other projectile - the behavior of motion is governed by an ordinary differential equation.\n\nIt turns out these ODEs exist all over the place in nature. The behavior of a mass attached to a spring is an ODE. Many of the properties of electrical circuits are governed by ODEs. There are examples from physics, engineering, chemistry, biology - from virtually every field of science.",
"A differential equation is an equation that relates a function and its derivatives. If you don't know what a derivative is, the rest of this is probably going to be over your head, so I'll presume you know for this explanation.\n\nDifferential equations have a number of ways to categorize them. The one we're worried about is ordinary vs. partial. Partial differential equations relate a multiple-variable function with its partial derivatives, and a partial derivative is basically what you get when you take a derivative of a function with several variables, but only with respect to one variable. You treat the others as constant. So the partial derivative of (x^2 )y^2 + 2y with respect to Y is (x^2 )2y + 2, since all you're worried about is the y parts.\n\nI defined partial DE because basically an ordinary DE is a DE that's not partial. So, in the simplest terms, an ordinary DE is an equation that only involves one independent variable and its derivatives. I say simplest, but you'll note that's still pretty complicated, and guess what? It is. Diff eq is pretty hard. \n\nBut it turns out, it's very useful, especially for modeling things in real life. Lots of things depend on some variable and also the way those variables change. Problems in dynamics and kinematics, mechanics of materials and structural behavior, fluid mechanics, electricity, ecology and evolution, quantum mechanics, economics... one I can think of off the top of my head, because I just took a circuits class this summer, is that a circuit involving resistors, capacitors, and inductors can either be solved more easily, or only solved at all, by using ordinary differential equations.\n\nRadioactive decay, population growth, heat transfer, and damped systems (like a spring-mass damper) can all be modeled with ordinary differential equations.\n\nBut perhaps the thing ODEs are most useful for is giving some of the tools for solving partial differential equations. Way, way more phenomena can be modeled with PDEs. Most of what people consider revolutionary equations - Maxwell's Equations for electromagnetism, the Navier-Stokes Equations for fluid mechanics, the Schrodinger Equation for quantum mechanics, the Einstein Field Equations for general relativity, the Black-Scholes model for financial markets with derivatives, all are PDEs which absolutely changed the world.",
"As game programmer, I use it to do game physics. This is one of the nice things about computer simulation, you just plug in the formula/model and voila you're replicating/simulating real life physics, at least your brain sees it as \"realistic\".\n\nOf course, there are other things you need to take care of to achieve stable simulation, such as number precision, integration drift, etc. but for the most part, the formula/model is as it is described in math/physics book.",
"The solution of an ordinary differential equation is a function of the one variable that the ODE involves. Functions are nice because they tell you behaviors rather than just a number. For example, a falling exponential function is extremely well understood and has lots of things you can say about it right away.\n\nOK, so the ODE is usually used to describe a physical system, and you derive it by knowing some basic laws that control the system. So once you know the equation, then you know the solution, and then you know the behavior of the system."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1jke6e
|
clock speed on a gaming pc or console.
|
More specifically, what would be the difference when clock speed is increased from 800 MHz to 853?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jke6e/eli5_clock_speed_on_a_gaming_pc_or_console/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cbfism9"
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2
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"text": [
"[What is clock speed?](_URL_0_)\n\nAs for going from 800 to 853Mhz, by itself might not make a noticeable difference, but if the processor architecture or capabilities itself changed, it might make a difference in performance or framerates.\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/pu6y4/eli5_overclocking/c3s9j39?context=3"
]
] |
|
37cmfq
|
why is uber considered illegal in some countries/cities when politicians ,celebrities and the rich in general can have chauffers and private drivers for their service?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37cmfq/eli5_why_is_uber_considered_illegal_in_some/
|
{
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"text": [
"As you've indicated, it's different everywhere, but by in large chauffers and private drivers, like taxi drivers, have special commercial drivers licenses that often require special driving tests, insurance, and other regulations. Because Uber markets itself as a \"ride sharing\" service, they're saying they don't need to fulfill those regulations because it's not any different than throwing your buddy some gas money for giving you a ride. Part of the reason people are opposed to services like Uber is that they feel Uber doesn't guarantee the same safety guarantees to its customers, and taxi drivers, chaffeurs, etc. say it's unfair that uber drivers don't have to pay the same fees. ",
"Uber abandons drivers and denies all responsibility. chauffeurs are employed and insured.\n\nthe biggest problem with uber is the commercial/private border. It's not absurd to argue that driving for uber is a commercial service. your car insurance covers the private usage of your car and your way to work, but the moment your car becomes a production system of a business, you usually need a special insurance. in most countries, driving without insurance is forbidden.",
"A taxi service has a special liability, as you can crash and kill the passengers and as they carry a high number of passengers the risk is elevated. This is why they have special licenses, requirements and insurance types. \n\nA chauffeur is different as they have a work contract with the passenger, so it's another type of legal situation. ",
"Why is Uber such a strange phenomena?\n\nBecause; to have a Taxi you, legally speaking, need to fulfill some standard rules. The vehicle needs to meet certain standards (depending on local laws), it has to be insured, you know; all those things that if done correctly should be designed to assure that you, the customer, have a safe and enjoyable experience. The driver also has to fulfill some basic minimum requirements; some sort of insurance must exist, training, must be experienced as a driver, etc.\n\nWith Uber, (almost) nothing like this applies, you just act taxi as a private person in your own car.\n\nSo let's put this in another perspective. Imagine that if there was a \"Uber\" for doctors: You could simply start caring for people that pay you a set fee, and not have to stand by any of the standards of safety, or meet any of the legal requirements of a doctor. You have the equipment, and you signed up with doctor-Uber, you're good to go.\n\nToo extreme? Ok, let's say a restaurant: With lunch-Uber I can now start serving food to strangers through the app-network. You don't have to meet any health laws, take care of the food in any particular way, I can pretty much use the same soiled cutting board all day with my day-old bread, and filthy bacteria laden tools. I don't have to follow any of the rules, this is Lunch-Uber.\n\nApply this to basically any job or establishment, and suddenly you start to see a picture merging. Uber is cool because it's cheaper, and 90%+ of the times you get a great ride. However, how long will this last? How long before someone gets hurt, gets robbed, raped or murdered, are in a crash, find themselves in an accident without insurance on the cars owners side (which in the laws eyes is just a private car), what if you get a dirty smelly car offered to you, the list goes on.\n\nRight now Uber works mostly fine, but soon enough the reason why legal Taxis has to be and do as per the law states will become apparent enough. It's just not sustainable long term.\n\nTo answer your question: A private chauffeur is a person employed to drive the employer or someone the company employing them designates. This is in fact way more expensive than taking a taxi (cutting costs being one of the main reasons for Uber), and is not really related to each other as one is a car for hire to anyone on the street and the other is one person hired to drive one other person permanently all the time. There is simply no way Uber could relate in to that situation, as no one would ever want to Uber a private driver over the governmental paid for, private and probably top notch service they are receiving. I think in most cases they probably aren't even allowed to let private random app-based people drive governmental owned vehicles or be alone with politicians in cars on freeways.",
"Taxi Medallions: \n\nIt is illegal to drive a taxi in most cities without one, but buying one can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Buying a Taxi Medallion is a major investment, moreso comparable to your house than your actual taxi. Upon purchase, you expect to be able to get work, and be able to resell it at a profit (again kinda like a house). Now imagine Uber (or anyone else) comes along and argues that they can run Taxis in your city without a Taxi Medallion. Now your hundred-thousand dollar investment is a worthless piece of paper. What do you do? You call your congressman, you call your policeman, and you start trying to get Uber run out of town. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
5em4ht
|
how were the stones transported to the stonehenge?
|
How were the people a hundred of years ago able to transport such big stones to this mysterious place?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5em4ht/eli5_how_were_the_stones_transported_to_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dadi46l",
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],
"score": [
2,
4
],
"text": [
"Most likely with log rollers and lots of manpower. Levers and logs can get a lot of work done. Here's a video _URL_0_\n\nWe'll never know for SURE, but there's lots of slightly different ways to move such stones with the tools of the time.",
"A hundred years ago? Do you mean 5,000 years ago?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-J_6Jct_X8"
],
[]
] |
|
1va7zg
|
why is delaware the shape it is?
|
So I was looking at a map of Delaware today with some friends and we were unsure of the reason for the boundaries of the shape. We've been doing some research, and I think we understand the original twelve mile circle around New-Castle, the inclusion of the Mason Dixon Line between Maryland and Pennsylvania, and the Transpenninsular line, but what is the historical reason for Delaware's western border to not include the entire peninsula the state is on?
Thanks!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1va7zg/eli5_why_is_delaware_the_shape_it_is/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ceq9915"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"_URL_0_\n\nNegotiations between various land owners."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_did_Delaware_get_its_shape?#slide=2"
]
] |
|
7qjb55
|
if plants can make oxygen, why cant we make oxygen with technology (invent something that makes oxygen)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7qjb55/eli5_if_plants_can_make_oxygen_why_cant_we_make/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dspk70w",
"dspkdbd"
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text": [
"We can, using electrolysis, it is a method of separating elements by pushing an electric current through a compound. It is used in various industrial applications such as removing copper from its ore. It is also used to separate hydrogen and oxygen from water. Electrolysis isn't the most efficient way to obtain hydrogen, but it is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to \"homebrew\" hydrogen. ",
"The thing is, plants don't make oxygen. You can't make oxygen. In fact, you can't make any of the basic elements. The basic elements simply exist, either by themselves, or in combination with other elements. So plants consume carbon dioxide (CO2), they retain the carbon and release the oxygen. From that point on, it's as /u/LonesomeCaesar said, and we can extract oxygen as well from other compounds (in his case, from water through electrolysis)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
fol3u0
|
what kind of effect would a $6 trillion dollar stimulus package have on the us economy? where does the money come from?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fol3u0/eli5_what_kind_of_effect_would_a_6_trillion/
|
{
"a_id": [
"flftqne",
"flfukvq",
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],
"score": [
3,
4,
4
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"text": [
"It's suppose to keep the economy afloat while people lose income and stop spending money. They give that money to people who they think WILL spend it, so at least some businesses can keep moving. It helps prevent a recession.",
"The money comes from the same place all our deficit spending comes from: the future efforts of Americans. But don’t worry about it, it’ll just be our kids or grandkids that have to dig out from crushing inflation while solving the problem of living in a less hospitable climate.\n\nEdit: I apologize for the snark. I’m trying to be more positive.",
"(First question second, etc.)\n\nThere's actually a bunch of different ways various governments get money.\n\nThe most commonly understood ways that governments get money are:\n\n* Taxes, of course\n* Fees (for services like when you register your car or apply for immigration)\n* Civil and/or criminal forfeiture (like fines or money collected related to the commission of a crime)\n* Selling bonds (\\[Selling a bond is government's way of borrowing money from the public\\] this one's kinda cheating though since the government has to pay the money back, but... if they store the funds in an account with a higher interest rate than the bond's rate, they could keep the difference, in theory)\n* Government funding appropriations (like a state government receiving federal funding, like the federal highway fund which is paid to states)\n\nThere is another way governments get money: The way I'd like to discuss here is minting the funds. Any sovereign government can print their own money. The US is no different (though, states don't have that right, only the US Treasury Department is allowed to print money in the US).\n\n'Printing Money' is now kind of a misnomer. Years ago, it literally meant printing paper money and minting metal coins. But now, it just means increasing a bank account balance without decreasing another bank account balance.\n\nThe US Treasury can literally cut a cheque for any amount and expect that, upon deposit in a bank account, it will clear and will not bounce. (Sure, some banks might take issue if you walk into a branch and try to deposit a $300t cheque drawn on the US Treasury but that's not my point here.)\n\nYou've probably heard of the US budget deficit. This is the difference between how much money is brought in from items on the list above (and not including printing money, to be clear), and how much money is expected to be spent. If more money is spent than collected from the list above, the governments don't just sit there all like \"oh well, I guess we're out of money now, time to declare bankruptcy\". No, they just keep writing checks that never bounce. This is called deficit-spending and leads to an increase in supply of money.\n\nIncreasing the supply of money leads to inflation (over time, never immediately). Inflation basically lowers the value of the dollar, which is to say that prices of everything go up. This is widely considered a sign of a good economy, if minimal, but only to a point. High inflation makes it harder to buy things like food.\n\nSo, to counteract inflation, the US Federal Reserve (the organization which funds most large loans through banks) collects interest on the loans. This interest is only used for three things a) to fund more loans, b) to fund operations of the US Federal Reserve (like salary, supplies, etc) and c) nothing... as in it's written off to remove the money from the economy altogether.\n\nMost likely, the $6t stimulus will simply be spent without regard for where it came from since it doesn't really matter where it came from. A few months (optimistically) to a few years (realistically) from now, the US Federal Reserve will raise the benchmark interest rate to slow inflation a bit and, over time, this $6t will be removed from the economy.\n\nAs far as what the effect would be on the economy? Any high school econ class will tell you that the measure of how good the economy is determined by how much money is moving before ending up in a savings account. Lots of spending = good economy. Lots of saving = bad economy.\n\nLet me ask you, what would you do if you randomly received a check for $1500? Probably buy groceries, pay rent, pay your car payment, cell phone bill. Maybe buy a steak at a nice restaurant (once restaurants are a thing again). In short, you'll probably spend it. So, second part of this question, what do you think EVERYONE who'd receive a random $1500 check would do with it?\n\nProbably fix the economy."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
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