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34gcaw
|
do blind people still feel a heaviness in their eyes when they get tired?
|
Often when i start to feel tired its because my eyes are worn out, but since blind people are using them the same way do they ever feel tired without being physically exhausted?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/34gcaw/eli5_do_blind_people_still_feel_a_heaviness_in/
|
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"I am not blind, but I've noticed that my eyes get tired in three different ways. Sometimes, my eyes are dry and red from having them open all day. Other times my eye muscles ache because they're moving all of the time. \nThe third kind of tired is when my brain is ready for bed and starts telling my eyelids to get heavy.\n\nSome blind people don't have eyes, others do. Some may have eyelids that stay closed. Many have eyelids that open, close, and blink. I believe you will find different answers for your question based on how each individual person uses their eyelids and eye muscles."
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2n9tv8
|
what do computer components do?
|
I wanna build a PC soon but i know nothing about what the components do. I sort of know how they fit with each other and how programs work but i don't know what most computer components do.
I know what a memory is for, but i don't know what a CPU does.
What i mainly wannna know, what does a:
CPU do?
Motherboard do?
SSD do?
Storage do?
Videocard do?
RAM do?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2n9tv8/eli5what_do_computer_components_do/
|
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"**CPU** The cpu is the central processing unit of your computer. It is the brain. It performs the computations needed to do.. well.. just about anything your computer needs to do. Faster more expensive CPUs will result in faster executing programs.\n\n**Video Card** The video card (Also called a GPU for Graphics Processing Unit) is like a second brain specially designed for managing graphics. 3D computations are different from the more traditional computations that the CPU handles. The GPU is better at handling these. Think of your CPU as a jack of all trades, while your GPU is a master craftsman. Better GPUs will let you run higher graphic detail on games at higher resolution.\n\n**Motherboard** If the CPU is the brain, the motherboard is the nervous system. It connects the brain to everything else in your system. You'll hear the terms \"Northbridge\" and \"Southbridge\". The Northbridge is the part of the Mobo that connects the CPU to the graphics processor and memory. It needs to send information between these components VERY fast. The \"South Bridge\" handles IO connections (Ie: Data from hard drives and your DVD drive). It can go slower because these components don't provide data as fast as a CPU does. \n\n**SSD and Storage** SSD means \"Solid State Drive\" It's a type of hard drive. Hard drives are storage. When you install a program it takes up storage space. The hard drive provides this space.\n\n**RAM** means Random Access Memory. When you run a program that program needs to be loaded into memory from Storage. This way the CPU can work with the data in the program very quickly. Hard Drives (Even SSDs) are VERY slow compared to RAM. Things your program will need often are loaded into RAM so the computer can work with them at high speed.\n\nA bit of warning: If you don't even know what things like RAM are, you are going to want to be very careful when you build your own PC. I suggest getting a vet to help you pick out parts. You can't mix and match parts; each CPU has a 'socket size' so you better get the right motherboard that matches. That motherboard will only support certain kinds of RAM, so you better get the right stuff. Be careful so you don't waste your money.",
"* CPU - This is like the \"brain\" of the computer. It's does calculations and logic operations. It's what actually runs programs.\n\n* RAM - It's like short term memory. It stores data that programs are currently using or will needs to be able to quickly access. It gets wiped when you turn the computer off.\n\n* Storage - Long term memory/permanent storage. When you save a file, this is where it is stored. It doesn't need to be powered on to remember data.\n\n* SSD - A type of storage device. Unlike a traditional hard disk, it has no moving parts. It's faster than a traditional hard disk, but much more expensive per GB.\n\n* Video card - This is a bit like a mini-computer inside your computer, but one that's specialised for processing graphics. It has it's own processor (the GPU) and it's own RAM. You want a decent one to play games.\n\n* Motherboard - This connects all the pieces together. It has various circuits and chips that allow the different parts to communicate with each other.",
"So, imagine this little man. He can do all sorts of math calculations incredibly fast in his head, but he doesn't have the ability to remember anything. He forgets whatever he was thinking about as soon as he's done thinking about it. Because of this, he can't deal with a complicated problem involving multiple math calculations by himself.\n\nTo fix this, on his wall he has a giant whiteboard he can write on. He can lay out all the different parts of the problem and the answers he's found so far, and he doesn't need to remember any of it because he now has it all written in front of him. Any information he no longer needs, he can erase.\n\nAdjacent to the man's work area is a library full of books and documents he's written. Some of these documents contain answers he's previously worked out, while others contain problems that are yet to be solved. The library can hold a LOT more information than the whiteboard, but it takes longer to go find the right book and to read/write in it.\n\nEvery day the man comes in and goes to the library to find out what stuff needs to be done, and copies that information to the whiteboard before starting to work on it. When the man goes home for the day, he has to put all his important information in the library, because a janitor comes at night and wipes the whiteboard clean, so only the library can store anything permanently.\n\nThe man is the **CPU**. He's the one who actually does all the thinking.\n\nThe whiteboard is the **RAM**. Having more RAM (meaning a larger whiteboard) means your computer can \"think\" about more and bigger stuff at the same time, but it can't hold onto any information when it's powered off.\n\nThe library is the **storage**. Storage in computers today can be SSD (solid state) or HDD (hard disc). SSD and HDD both do the same thing, but SSD's can transfer data much faster and are more expensive.\n\nTo a computer, basically everything is a \"math problem\" to be solved, whether it's loading a website, displaying a movie, or playing a game. All of those functions are handled by the little man and a whiteboard.\n\nAs for the **video card**, it's basically an entire system (with its own CPU and RAM) dedicated to drawing the picture on your screen. The CPU on the video card is called a GPU and is designed specifically for making graphics.",
"This is the way I learned it when I was a youngster:\n\nCPU: Chef\n\nHard Drive memory: Fridge\n\nRam: Cutting Board\n\nMotherboard: It's basically a board that connects all of the components so that they can interact with each other. \n\nSSD: Is a type of hard drive memory. Usually faster than a mechanical hard drive. It does not have moving parts.\n\nVideocard: Acts like a second brain to process images and graphics. \n\nSo if data is food, the chef will get food from the fridge, put it on the cutting board temporarily and process the food. It's a gross oversimplification but it helped me understand what the components did in a computer. ",
"The best analogy I've come across is that of a kitchen. The CPU is the cook, the faster the CPU, the faster it does the job. The RAM is like the counter space, it's quick to work on, but has limited space as compared to the cupboards which are the storage (hard drive or SSD) in our analogy. These are slower than the counterspace RAM, it takes a moment to get stuff out, but they hold a lot more. \n\nNow that we've got the basics down, let's look at some finer distinctions: \n\nVideo cards are a specialized chef with a specialized counter. They have their own GPU (the graphics equivalent of a CPU) and their own video RAM, but can only be used for a small set of commands primarily related to video processing. \n\nHow about the difference between storage types? Hard drives vs SSDs. Hard drives are cheaper and bigger, but they take more power to use and are slower when they're reading data that's not all lined up properly, while SSDs are the opposite of that. This means SSDs are more expensive per unit of storage, but they're lower power use and they don't care where data is stored on the drive it's all delivered at around the best case speed from a hard drive. Essentially SSDs are high quality cupboards which are more costly but better, while hard drives are cheap large and otherwise worse knock-offs. (I know, the analogy gets a bit strained there as hard drives are the old tech not a knock-off)\n\nThe component I've avoided so far is the motherboard because it doesn't work well for this analogy, suffice it to say it connects everything else in the machine and that can moderate how fast all of the components work together.",
"[Check out this link](_URL_0_). It's a full system build by Tom's Hardware (get to know the site well, it's one of the best sources for what you're doing.)\n\nThis way, you can get your mind wrapped around a complete system, and start to figure out each component's unique function. ",
"**CPU** - The CPU consists of a large number of logical \"gates\" arranged in different configuration. A gate takes input from two electrical sources, and produces one; if enough current is flowing across a source, it evaluates to \"One\" or \"True\", while no or low current reads \"Zero\" or \"False\". The three common gates are \"AND,\" \"OR,\" and \"NOT.\" AND gates will output \"True\" only if *both* of their inputs give \"True\"; \"OR\" gates will output \"True\" if *either* of their inputs are \"True\", while \"NOT\" gates will reverse their input (So they will output \"True\" only if their input is \"False.\") These gates can be arranged to perform numerous functions, such as adding or multiplying binary numbers or performing logical/memory operations. When you run a program on your computer, it's instructions are fed into this mass of logical gates, which will then parse the instruction and perform the specified action. Your CPU also contains a miniscule amount of internal memory, in the form of registers. For example: An instruction might look like \"add register1 register2\". When this is fed into the CPU, it will take the values in registers 1 and 2 and feed them into the Arithmatic Logic Unit with an instruction to add them, and then put the result into register 2. \n\n**Motherboard** - the Motherboard houses and connects the different components, probiding both electrical power and lines for information to flow between the memory, CPU, hard drive and input/output devices. It needs to be \"correct\" for the related components - not all CPUs or RAM types will work with all motherboards. I believe that the BIOS also lives on the motherboard - this is the first, most basic code that starts up your computer and and tells it where to look for instructions on how to boot the rest of the way.\n\n**RAM** - the CPU has a truly tiny amount of space on it, in the form of registers (and possibly caches, but those are more complicated.) Accessing this memory is blazingly fast (you can perform hundreds or thousands of operations on information stored in registers in the time it takes you to load a single value from memory); however, as there are very few registers (like, about enough to store eight numbers on an x86 processor), you have to frequently retrieve stuff from other locations. This is where RAM comes in; it provides a lot of space (on the order of billions of times more than you could fit in the registers), but access is much slower, though still faster than the hard drive. RAM does not store informaton when the power is off, so when you shut down your computer, everything in RAM has to be either stored or is lost.\n\n**Hard Drive (non-SSD)** - while RAM is pretty quick to access, it's expensive on a byte-for-byte basis, and you lose it if you lose power. Hard drives provide you with a place to store larger amounts of data for longer periods of time - accessing it is *much* slower, but hard drive space is incredibly cheap. (A good modern computer probably has ~8 Gigs of RAM, and ~1000 Gigs of hard drive space.) Hard drives generally involve moving a physical disk beneath a pin to read information - as such, they're much, much slower.\n\n**SSD** - SSD, or Solid State Disk, can be viewed as either a more advanced version of a regular hard drive, or as being somewhere between regular hard drives and RAM. You can think of SSD memory as being like somewhat slower RAM that isn't lost when your computer shuts down. As its accessed purely electrically (no moving parts), access is quite fast compared to your hard drive, and it's also less likely to be damaged by sudden jerks or impacts, like when you drop your laptop. SSD memory is very expensive; expect to pay hundreds of dollars more for signifiantly less space.\n\n**Video Card** Your CPU is built to do a wide range of general operations very quickly. As it turns out, the algorithms needed to run graphics are both very difficult (they'd take a lot of memory access and processor cycles), but also very similar (fewer sorts of operations need to be run), and often involve performing the same operation over and over (calculating line intersections for thousands of points at the same time.) As such, we've started making specialized processors that aren't as flexible or robust as primary CPUs, but are capable of performing this limited selection of operations very quickly, and without drawing from the CPU's primary functions. (Fun aside: Video games get a lot more funding than scientific research, so in many cases, the most powerful processors out there are video cards. As such, a wide chunk of academic research today is concerned with adapting scientific models and simulations so that they can take advantage of video cards intended for gaming.)\n\nSo, putting it all together:\n\nYour Videocard and CPU perform the actual computations performed by your computer; you can think of each of them as being supported by a pyrammid of data, where the top of th pyramid (registers) are very fast but very small, while the bottom (hard drive) is very large but very slow and far away, with RAM in the middle, and maybe an SSD either above the bottom layer or replacing it. Your motherboard acts as the roadways that tie all of these components together, as well as connecting them to things like your wifi card, keyboard, mouse, etc.\n\n",
"Pretend you want to make a clay sculpture. \n\nThe CPU is you doing the building. You assemble it, plan it, and do all the real work in the design.\n\nThe motherboard is the room you're in. The room might have cool features that make your job easier. Maybe ventilation or heating/cooling. You can do your work in most rooms, but the shape of the room and extra features can make doing your work easier or harder.\n\nSSD and storage are the same thing really. They are the shelves in the room with all the things you need. All the tools, extra clay, and drawings. SSD is sort of like having shelves, and regular storage is like having drawers. It's faster to grab stuff off a shelf than open a drawer, but they both do the job. \n\nThe video card is your friend that is really good at smoothing the sculpture and making it look nice. Your friend is really only there to do that one thing. Your friend is really good at it, but doesn't understand anything else really. You do the bulk of the work, but your friend makes it look great at the end.\n\nRAM is the table you're working on. You need a big enough table to hold all the things you'll need for the project. If the table is too small, you'll constantly have to get things off the shelves and put things away. You can still do it, but it'll be a slower process.\n\nHope that helps.",
"You can use Techquickie from Linus to answer all of that. Though it might be confusing since he briefly goes over each one.\n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_/videos)",
"Excellent ELI5, just one note:\n\n > Faster more expensive CPUs will result in faster executing programs.\n\nNot necessarily. CPU performance is measured by execution time, NOT speed. It's a common misconception that I see all too often. Your super fast but poorly optimized CPU will be no better than a slow CPU that is highly optimized. Source: 3rd year CS student. "
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2mw25h
|
why don't counterfeiters just print smaller bills?
|
Like, I know it takes more time, but stores don't check the authenticity of anything lower than a $20 bill. Why do counterfeiters risk it all by printing 50s and 100s instead of 1s, 5s, and 10s?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mw25h/eli5_why_dont_counterfeiters_just_print_smaller/
|
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"Creating counterfit bills is not inexpensive. You need to pay for the plates/ink/paper you are using. Printing $1 bills won't get you very far. \n\nPlus, people are greedy. If they're smart, they'll use the larger denomination bills in places that don't check. But that's really limiting on a large scale, so if they get *really* greedy, they'll eventually get caught.",
"A few reasons:\n\n- Economies of scale. It takes time, money and risk to counterfeit bills that are going to pass both casual inspection and further interrogation. Why take the same risk with $500 in tens, when you have essentially the same risk with $5,000 in Franklins?\n\n- For small-scale counterfeiting operations, the objective is not to print your own money ad infinitum, it's to get your hands on legitimate currency (breaking notes and getting change, or laundering it). Again, same risk exists, just with different payoffs.\n\n- Every bill you pass off increases your risk of getting caught, whether it's immediately with a pen, or later down the line through bank or treasury investigation. Again, same risk, why not shoot for the moon?",
"It's risk vs reward. It is just as hard to counterfeit a $20 as it is to fake a $5 -- but you'll need to work four times harder to make a much money with the fiver.",
"What can you do with $100000 of $5 bills?",
"Had a fake 5 roll through work a few months ago. It's rare but it does happen.",
"Often they do. All the fake bills I have found at work are 10s or 5s. Never even a 20. ",
"One of the main reasons is the way counterfeiting is done now. A lot of counterfeit bills aren't printed from scratch. Counterfeiters take small denomination bills ( usually 5s since they have the security strip), wash them in chemicals, then print on that so the paper is authentic and will pass the pen test...because of this, it's just plain uneconomical to print the small bills.",
"they do, in the uk there are more fake £5 notes then £50",
"I sat here for 5 minuets wondering why they would want to print monopoly sized money. Then I realized you were talking about the value of the bills. I am an idiot."
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5oq4p9
|
in the united states, the federal legal system sometimes requires criminals to pay restitution in the amount of millions. how does a criminal pay when they cannot afford it?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5oq4p9/eli5_in_the_united_states_the_federal_legal/
|
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"If they don't have money, they don't pay. It's like a court sentencing you to 200 years: just because a court orders that sentence, doesn't mean you can physically serve it before dying. What the massive restitution really means is that if you *do* happen to make money, a chunk goes to restitution, and this state of affairs will likely last the rest of your life. "
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2l25zr
|
what does it feel like to be influenced by various drugs?
|
Besides coffee and alcohol, I have never (and never plan to) try any drugs - and yet I'm very curious as to what it feels like to be under the influence of them. I'm sure it would be very difficult to explain in words, but do the best you can for those you have tried!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2l25zr/eli5_what_does_it_feel_like_to_be_influenced_by/
|
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"Weed: I'm not even gonna bother, others have covered it well and it can vary so much based on strain.\n\nEcstasy: Everyone and everything is amazing. LOVE to dance, gotta be moving somehow. The sense of empathy felt for others is unreal, tends to bring you closer to those that you're with.\n\nCocaine: (Obviously) Can't sleep. Very focused and hyper. Thinking at 100 miles an hour. *Slight* body high sometimes, if it was really good coke.\n\nSpeed/Amphetamines: Like coke, with no \"high\" at all. And it lasts much longer. Coke was a short, sharp feeling, typically around 30 min before you went and did more (if you were). I'd take a couple pills and be set for ~10 hours, much more constant and controlled.\n\nMushrooms/Acid: You'll have to google for this. Just because experiences vary sooo much. I personally have never had a bad trip, but I know others who have right in front of me too. One thing I will say is that after Acid especially, one tends to view the world in a whole new light. It's a POWERFUL substance, can totally rock your world if you're not ready/prepared. Mushrooms the whole trip can last up to ~8 hours, Acid will be up to a full day, but usually ~12 hours.\n\nMeth (eaten, not injected. This was an accident, be wary of bad drugs ppl!): Just like speed, but even more intense. And physical high too, I got these insane waves throughout my body for hours. I could see how one would like it, but mine were too much. I thought that I had bought some Ecstasy, so I ate more meth than I should have. I wasn't in danger at all, just still new to the whole drug scene.\n\nHmm...what else? I haven't done heroin, I know that. I had a few years where I experimented a lot, but I haven't touched any \"drug\" in almost 2 years now. I was in a REALLY bad accident and just have no desire to ever try them again. I had fun, but that part of my life is over now.",
"Someone who has only ever taken coffee and alcohol will have a very difficult time understanding the profound cognitive and physical effects of most other psychoactive drugs. This is simply because you lack a perceptual oversight of the other mental states available to humans through various compounds.\n\nIt is as difficult to describe the Northern Lights or Mona Lisa to a blind person, or the works of Mozart and Beethoven to a deaf, as it is for a 'sober person' to comprehend the internal cognitive shifts that something like MDMA or LSD can induce.\n\nTaking any drug for the first time is a profound experience for everyone, because suddenly everything you thought you knew about thinking and feeling (which up to this point has honestly been barely anything) is exploded into new relief by the novel thoughts and emotions.\n\nIt is analogous to eating a diet of only white bread and cornflakes, every day of your life for decades; only knowing the minor trivial variations in flavour and texture. Some days you might have a little jam, other days perhaps some sugar on the cereal. You don't know any better - that's just how food is to you. Then one evening suddenly you eat sushi, lasagna, steak, lobster, chocolate cake and ice cream one after the other. Your world is changed; oh the flavours! Who knew this was possible? \n\nAnd forever after you are able to appreciate the bread and cereal not just for what they are, but where they stand on a continuum of flavour amongst a vast, varied and wonderful gourmet of possibilities. \n\nEveryone, literally everyone, should experience MDMA, LSD and Marijuana just once in their life for comparative and discovery purposes. Without those reference points to see where your daily mind-state stands in relation to other modes of thinking, one spends their entire life shackled into a horrifyingly narrow and tedious prison of mediocre cognition. ",
"I'll tell you about my first LSD trip...\n\nI used to live in this meth apartment, everyone was strung out. I used to let my dealer use my car all the time, he'd give me bags in return.\n\nOne night he said he needed to use my car, but he was taking the last girl I dated (we were over at that time) and some other fat chick, and her little sister. He said he was going to vegas to get acid.\n\nI was methed to the gills (as I was in those days) and I didn't quite believe him. He says, \"here take this\" and gives me two tabs on paper.\n\nI put them away... and at the last minute I jump in and go, \"if you're taking my car to vegas I'm going with (we lived in socal so it wasn't so far).\"\n\nI was pretty sure he wanted to fuck the last girl I dated. Although I wasn't with her I didn't want her fucking my drug dealer, she was to young, i felt kinda protective.\n\nso we headed to vegas. on I-15 i took one of the tabs... didn't feel shit. I opened the sunroof in my car (i was in the passenger seat)....\n\nI started to notice the stars moving around in circles, on different planes... like on a mobile above a baby carriage... it was weird.\n\nhe pulls over at a gas station in the middle of nowhere, he tells me \"something's wrong with your car\"\n\nat the time i'm thinking, \"bullshit, this guy is so full of shit\" but i didn't realize then that was the acid talking to me.\n\n\"your radiator hose is blown. we can go to my friends trailer\"... his friend had a trailer next to this lockheed air force base, top secret... there was a guard tower and a fence all around it \"trespassers will be shot with military force\"...\n\ni've been to that trailer and met his friends there before so i said ok, in my mind, i thought he was making all this shit up so he can fuck my ex. whatever i thought, at this point.\n\nso we go down there... and the trailer is completely abandoned. his friends had left some time ago. but they left their dog there, a big outdoor dog, short hair. but it was still alive running around the property.\n\nwe went inside, and it's freezing cold. it's the middle of winter, and in the high desert that means super cold. the electricity was still on in the trailer, but there were no heaters, so we sat around the oven and turned it on (electric oven) for heat.\n\nit was so miserable i said \"FUCK IT\" and took the second tab.\n\nshortly thereafter the first thing i didn't notice is he snuck away my ex into some bedroom, but i didn't care. because the mirrors on the wall were waving, like a gentle breeze was blowing behind them.\n\ni was like, \"holy fuck do you see this\".. no of course not, nobody could. i was the only one on acid..\n\nthe mirrors were billowing... the light in the room seemed to softly go from dim to brighter...\n\nthe two girls i was with, their faces seemed to melt as i talked to them, like they were aging in fast foward. like indiana jones in the last crusade.\n\ni talked to my dealer, he looked like evil, a liar, the devil... i could see his lies. when he talked to me i couldn't help but to chuckle and dismiss him, like don't even talk to me dude. you're filth. you're a liar.\n\nsomeone let the dog in at some point, and we became friends. to me it looked like pills were dropping out of it's ass. i felt so bad for the dog, i told him, 'don't worry, i'll come back for you, i'll never let you stay here' (i never came back).\n\nwhen the sun came up, i went outside. i noticed the trees and their branches looked perfectly symmetrical. it blew my mind. the sunrise was coming up and the world looked like an amazing cartoon, so beautiful, more real than real could ever be.\n\nin fact there was a pattern on EVERYTHING. it looks like... those holograms on magazine covers from the 90's, that weird color changing silvery effect... but perfectly symmetrical. like snowflake wallpaper laid on top of EVERYTHING, or kinda like a spider web.... so like stucco on a wall or the dots on your ceiling just line up perfectly.\n\nthen the triple a guy showed up. turns out my radiator hose really did blow.\n\nwe headed back to town after that...\n\nbut that's a whole different story.",
"Five year olds don't need to know about this shit.\n",
"Check out the [Erowid experience vaults](_URL_0_), people post their experiences with various drugs, including if they mixed anything with them.",
"Well, if you're interested, take a look at [Erowid](_URL_0_). It's a database of an enormouse amount of substances and each one has details and even expiriences of people who have used them.\n\nEveryone considering trying a drug, or wondering what it is like should take a look at this website."
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|
1ni86k
|
why is youtube allowed to display borderline nsfw ads when many of their viewers are under the age of 18?
|
Ads like **NSFW** [these](_URL_0_) **NSFW** keep popping up beside Youtube videos. I'm wondering how they're allowed to display them, when a significant portion of their viewers are too young to view sexually explicit material.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ni86k/eli5_why_is_youtube_allowed_to_display_borderline/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ccitrik"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"Google tailors ads to whatever you search/view on Google. I'f you watch gaming videos on YouTube, and you're a male, you will get gaming-related advertisements. YouTube also states that you have to be 18 years old to create an account.\n\nIf it's too much of a problem, consider turning [safety mode](_URL_0_) on."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://www.google.com/search?q=wartune+ad&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=gLtKUpHFCoK28wTP34HIBg&safe=active&surl=1"
] |
[
[
"https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/174084?hl=en"
]
] |
|
1egps8
|
why is downloading copyrighted files illegal but streaming the same movies and music files online is not?
|
I could watch pretty much any show I want on ProjectFreeTV, but downloading the same shows is illegal. Same thing with listening to music on youtube through my phone is fine, but it's illegal to download the same songs. Why is this a thing? I've always wondered.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1egps8/eli5_why_is_downloading_copyrighted_files_illegal/
|
{
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"text": [
"It is illegal to stream the same movies and music files, except from places where the copyright holder has explicitly said you can. ProjectFreeTV is illegal; most artists choose to make their music available on Youtube, but if they don't that's also illegal.",
"Because everything you're saying is \"fine\" is actually also illegal.",
"It's also worth mentioning that streaming IS downloading. When you stream, you're downloading the show into your temporary Internet files. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
78cz79
|
if fluoride is good for your teeth, why don’t we use it to strengthen our bones?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/78cz79/elif_if_fluoride_is_good_for_your_teeth_why_dont/
|
{
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"dosvzfl",
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7
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"text": [
"For one, your bones aren't covered in enamel. And if they were, you'd have to apply it to the surface of your bones. If you're not Wolverine, then that's not gonna work out.",
"Because Teeth aren't technically bones. They are almost entirely calcium, as opposed to bones more carbon based structure. \n\nFluoride in water specifically targets your enamel, and helps strengthen it, which is great. It is in low enough quantities to not come near any of the health effects listed in that other guys study in municipal water anywhere.\n\nBones don't really have enamel, so it wouldn't strengthen them, and as the other guy did correctly point out, its pretty bad for you in large quantities (like what you would need for bones if it did work)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
1rb3ax
|
why are breasts often considered sexually attractive and private?
|
Just a drunk thought...
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rb3ax/eli5_why_are_breasts_often_considered_sexually/
|
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"text": [
"They're only considered sexually attractive and private in some cultures - which happen to currently be the dominant ones in the world. Wikipedia's got a few paragraphs on it (NSFW, article has boob pics)\n\n_URL_0_",
"Breasts are a sexual characteristic of human females. Other mammals only have breasts when breast feeding, otherwise they are small and look the same as the male breast of the species. \n\nScientists are still trying to work out the specifics, but the attraction is thought to lay in something about youth (old people=less fertile=worse looking breasts), nutrition (need fat reserves to make nice ones) or simple weird sexual selection (think peacock's tail, not very useful but the ladies like them).\n\nUnlike what many people say, breasts are sexualized across cultures, but the topless ethnic women we see have a different culture on what is considered \"nude,\" not what is considered sexual. ",
"I don't know why. I've always been an ass man myself, and honestly I like a certain type of voice. I think I will be ok with my life if I go blind. Yeah they are nice, and sucking on them is amazing, but meh. Most likely it has something to do with fertility and everyone's natural drive to procreate. So when we see big breasts our mind goes into the gutter, and I guess that is why people want them to be private? I've always had a powerful imagination so I don't get what the big deal is. Maybe modern porn has desensitized me. I figured someone who is also drunk at the time should chime in. Just my opinion though.",
"Well, for one, if you touch them just right the woman feels REALLY happy. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breast#Sexual_characteristic"
],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
21bzbx
|
if developers can put things into their games that mess with people who illegally download them (alan wake has an eye patch if you pirate it), why can't they just make the games not work?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21bzbx/eli5_if_developers_can_put_things_into_their/
|
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"text": [
"Some developers do try to make the games not work, but it's a constant game of cat-and-mouse between developers implementing these systems and crackers finding work-arounds for them. This is part of the reason for the recent trend towards free-to-play/micro-transaction game models, as the game itself isn't where the money is made, thus there's no reason to invest resources into trying to prevent illegal downloading.",
"Because there are always ways around it. Sure you can make it more difficult for them but you'll only be doing two things; one, delaying the invetitable, and two inconveniencing your paying customers.",
"Developers take a risk every time they do that - people who pirate games aren't sitting alone in a cave somewhere, they still talk to people. If I release a game that crashes on startup if it detects a pirated installation, then pirates will post complaints across the internet, failing to mention whether or not their copy is legal.\n\nAlso, there is always the chance of a false positive. Developers have to make games playable on a enormous variety of possible combinations of hardware and software, and any one of those pieces could interact with another in a way that causes a false positive. If your idea of messing with pirates is changing a texture or piece of dialogue then it doesn't matter too much, but if the game doesn't work, then the customer will probably not have a solution for his game crashing except to reformat or try it on a different system.",
"They can, and do, but hackers can pretty much always find a way around it.\n\nThe Alan Wake thing was a joke added by the developers in a patch, *after* the crack had already been released. Since they knew how the game had been cracked, they could look for signs it had been cracked and put on the eye patch; they could just have easily patched it to look for the crack, then lock out the player and call their parents (or something), they just chose the passive-aggressive route because fighting piracy is an inherently losing battle.\n\nThe important thing to remember here is that the anti-piracy stuff was added as a *patch* to an already cracked game. The developers didn't know how the game would be cracked beforehand; it's not like they inserted code that would be tripped once the game was cracked. They had to wait for the crackers to crack the game because detecting whether a game is cracked requires that you know *how* the game was cracked.\n\nIn general, cracking software is like any computer \"hacking\": in order to do it you must find some weakness in the system and figure out how to exploit it. If the developers were aware of the weakness before the game was released, they would just have tightened up that weakness rather than inserting booby traps.\n\nHowever, there will *always* be weaknesses in any sufficiently complex piece of software. You can obfuscate your code (making it really hard for the cracker to figure out how it works), you can encrypt your code (making it extra hard for the cracker to figure out how it works), you can require the presence of something (a code, a dongle, an internet connection) before the code will even run, but eventually your code has to be interpreted by the computer and coherent enough to make the game actually playable, which means that, in theory, somebody can always replicate the environment that your game needs to run and manipulate it to get free games. Always. (In theory; requiring an internet connection can allow more complex DRM that makes it much more difficult, but anything else is actually fairly easy to crack-- however, there is no such thing as uncrackable software in theory, and any piece of code, no matter how brilliantly written, can be cracked).\n\nThus, many designers are beginning to see the futility of combating the crackers in the conventional way, and realizing that crackers are *players*, too. Personally, I've played cracked games when I couldn't afford to buy them, then ponied up the cash once I could out of respect (and to get access to online goodies I didn't have before), and I have to imagine a lot of other players feel the same way. This sort of \"try before you buy\" strategy may not be technically *legal*, but it works to sell more copies: In general, [pirates of all media buy more copies than the average person](_URL_0_).\n\nGiven how pissed off the average player gets about draconian DRM (like the ones used in Spore, or Sim City), and given how futile the attempt to clamp down on all piracy is, and given that pirates actually seem to be pretty good consumers, game developers don't really have the motivation to be more than passive aggressive with their pirates. Humorously suggesting that a pirate pay for their copy of a game is more likely to convince them to actually do it than shutting them out and pissing them off is.",
"They may be trying to convert the pirate players to paying players. One way to think of pirated copies is as 'free' demos."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://torrentfreak.com/file-sharers-buy-more-movies-121018/"
],
[]
] |
||
4praay
|
why do mammals such as raccoons, squirrels, foxes, and deer, all have such varied fight/flight responses to fast approaching automobiles?
|
Foxes and raccoons seem to look at the impending threat and scurry/waddle away quite decisively.
Squirrels seem to have a seizure and can't figure out if they want to commit suicide or not.
Outside of mating season, deer are relatively predictable and either freeze or continue grazing. They also seem to respond quite well to a car horn (they get the hell out of the way), as opposed to a squirrel, which just goes more epileptic when you honk the horn.
Edit: Grammar.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4praay/eli5_why_do_mammals_such_as_raccoons_squirrels/
|
{
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"text": [
"Animals didn't evolve to deal with modern technology like automobiles. Fight or flight is incomplete. In actuality the three responses are freeze, flight or fight. Freeze being by far the most common response. It's a lot easier to see an object in motion than it is to see a still object. When an animal spots a potential threat, the safest response is actually freeze, fight or flight doesn't become relevant until it's confirmed the danger actually spotted you.\n\nEven human beings do it. Have you ever been with your family in the living room late at night when the doorbell unexpectedly rings? Odds are people freeze for a second simply because it's so unexpected and outside the safe parameters to have an unexpected visitor late at night.\n\nSo back to the animals. Cars move fast, way faster than most living things. As a result animals have a very difficult time predicting how a car moves and when a collision would occur between a car and themselves. A lot of animals hold the freeze response too long or fail to make enough haste to get out of the way simply because they can't predict how fast a car will close the distance and hit them."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
4nrlyv
|
what is the difference between "kids shampoo" and regular shampoo?
|
I don't understand what makes it a kid shampoo other than the bottle says it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4nrlyv/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_kids_shampoo/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d46by7z"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Often they have weaker fragrances and detergents, and less/no silicones. Sometimes they are pH-balanced with the eye, so that it won't hurt as much if a little bit runs into a child's eyes."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
8ela0d
|
why do restaurants conceal prices?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ela0d/eli5_why_do_restaurants_conceal_prices/
|
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"I'm not 100% sure, but a lot of things have a very common price across restaurants. If I order a bottle of water, it's usually $8-15 at any restaurant despite it not being on the menu. If I want coffee after dinner, it's usually $4. I think some of the things are _standard fare_. \n\nMy thought is that if you're eating at an upscale restaurant, you should be at a financial state where you're not too worried about how much you spend on that night. You're already spending hundreds at the restaurant, there might be no reason to have the menu items and associated cost there. \n\nThe ones I've been to generally do list the price though, and to me I feel like it's more common to have them than not. I'm also Australian, so no idea if there's a disparity. ",
"I think, since expensive and nice restaurants do that, it's supposed to be like, ppl eating there don't care what the price is. ",
"Theres two reasons I have seen for lack of prices at high end restaurants. \n\nOne is sending the message \"If you are worried about the prices, you shouldn't be eating here\". Partially to make their clientele feel superior. \n\nThe other is a kinda sexist tradition of having a \"women's\" menu that doesn't list prices and a \"men's\" menu that has prices. The latter seems to be more prevalent in Europe from what I understand.",
"\"If you have to ask, you can't afford it.\"\n\nIt is a prestige thing, saying this is a restaurant for people wealthy enough not to worry about an $8 potato. It also enhances the dining experience, there is something liberating about just sitting down and ordering what you like without trying to figure out if the sauteed mushrooms you are adding to your steak are *really* worth $4.\n\nFinally, it is assuming that as an elite diner, you already know what comes with what and about how much you will be charged for it.",
"Nicer restaurants usually switch up suppliers as different ingredients become more or less available throughout the year. This creates the need to be able to adjust their prices regularly to account for these changes\n\nSometimes seafood and certain vegetables are in season and readily available, so they can charge less. Sometimes they're out of season so they need to charge more. And nicer restaurants usually have lower quantity purchases of higher end ingredients, so these price fluctuations can sometimes be fairly extreme ",
"I guess I'm confused. Are you talking about the representative menu online without prices, or the actual menus when you are at the restaurant?\n\nI eat fine dining for work fairly often, I can't think of a single restaurant that didn't have prices on the menu at the table. The reason is that entrees can have huge price disparities, like wagyu or kobe beef. The only exceptions are extremely upscale restaurants that are basically prix fixe or degustations, where you pay one price for a set menu. They will tell you the total price, but not the individual prices if you ask to eat ala carte. I just assume it is that they want to discourage ala carte eating and want you to enjoy multiple courses to get the full experience.",
"Many high end Chefs will purchase fresh ingredients on a daily basis and costs fluctuate based on availability. ",
"I've eaten at some extremely fancy restaurants (Le Bernardin in New York, Commander's Palace in New Orleans, places like that) and have never seen this aside from the \"market price\" thing on certain dishes. And even then, that's more likely at a mid-range restaurant which offers one or two extremely high-dollar menu items like lobster. At a truly upscale place, they know how much the lobster costs.\n\nI have noticed two things that might be confused for this, though. One is prices listed in a less intuitive way. For example there being a set three course menu, and there's one price for the whole menu and it's listed at the top of the page in a subtle way. The idea here is that you're looking at the menu to decide what to get, not to decide how much you're willing to pay for a given menu item. Especially since it's not a la carte and there's no real decision to be made there, you're either eating food or not. The other thing is that, yes, there won't be a section on a menu like this for things like non-alcoholic beverages, an extra dessert, a side of rice, etc. Those are either items that, as others have said, have a nominal price compared to the cost of the meal itself/what the average patron is going to spend there, or they're things you're just not expected to order because, again, it's a set menu and this isn't Denny's. If you ask for something off-menu, they'll charge you some amount of money, and that's fine.",
"Restaurant owner here. One of mine is rather high end. \n\nI think there are a few things at play here: \n\n* For a lot of people, talking about money is tacky. \"I know that this dinner will cost a few hundred bucks, I'm looking forward to it, and I really don't care.\"\n* There is a \"guest\" menu (formerly called a lady's menu), which is meant for hosts to order when they take out guests. The host should know how much things cost, but the guests shouldn't need to think about it. \n* An air of mystery/salesy BS - this is really common across industries, where you find a wood chipper you like but the dealership doesn't list prices, forcing you to call. Then they still won't give you a price in the hopes you'll go to the dealership and look at various models. Restaurants probably play a similar game sometimes. \n* Yes, some restaurants hope to make an extra dime whenever they can. \n\nI'm not sure what specific example you're talking about, but this will be most of it. ",
"I've eaten at Michelin starred restaurants all over the world. I've never been to a restaurant that didn't show prices on their menu at the restaurant. \n\nNow, some restaurants will not show a price on their website's menu. This is likely because the price changes frequently as the price of the restaurant's supply may change too with time. For example, a restaurant may buy microgreens from one or more farms in the area - at certain times of the year the price may be lower (higher supply) or higher (lower supply) depending on supply. In order for a restaurant to make money, they have to adjust the menu price to account for these supply price differences. This phenomenon is more likely to been seen in high-end (and expensive) restaurants - as your typical diner (or chain restaurant) typically relies on supply chains that are modernized (think Sysco, etc) and whose prices are stable over long periods of time throughout the year. \n\nAdditionally, some items (think lobster) will also vary greatly according to daily supply - these items will likely not be listed on a website menu (or even a printed menu) and are usually listed as \"market price\" to account for day-to-day (or week-to-week) differences in supply pricing. \n\nThe prestige thing \"if you have to ask you can't eat here\" is limited to very few restaurants in very large cities (like NYC). These restaurants - and they are very rare (and most are NOT Michelin starred restaurants) - employ such tactics to maintain an exclusive cliental - billionaires and the very rich - who want to feel special, are willing to pay $100 for a plate of pasta, and like the fact that they aren't surrounded by commoners. Again, there are very few restaurants like this, and in my opinion, anyone who favors/patronizes these places is a douche. \n\nExample (if you go to their webpage, you'll notice they don't even list a menu): \n_URL_0_\n",
"Everyone's right about the \"expensive restaurants tend to do this\" part, but it's not all pretentious.\n\nAll prices in the world fluctuate. When you try to buy 10 tons of beef for a restaurant, it will cost different amounts depending on the day you make your offer. This is the root of the problem: printing menus is expensive and takes time, so if the price changes frequently it's a waste to print the price.\n\nMany restaurants buy frozen food, or at least refrigerated food in bulk. Since they make very large orders, they get bulk discounts. If they're dealing in frozen foods they probably aren't making high quality promises. Also, since frozen food keeps well for a long time, they can buy large amounts of food when prices are low and \"wait out\" periods when the price is high. This means they can set fairly consistent prices and insulate themselves from market fluctuations.\n\nMany expensive restaurants serve *very* fresh, high-quality food. They can't and won't freeze that food, so it has to be used the day they get it. That means agonizing over reservations and trying to calculate exactly how much to order so you don't run out and don't waste much. That also means frequent, small orders. So they don't get the benefit of bulk discounts, and if today's prices are expensive they're going to have to adjust their price.\n\nMaybe it's because I don't frequent very nice restaurants, but I've seen many list their high-end items as \"Market Price\". That's an acknowledgement that I'm ordering something very fresh and very high quality, and I'm going to pay a price that can fluctuate (and is probably more expensive than most other menu items.) For example, one seafood place I go to on special occasions has many fixed-price dishes with common fish like catfish or redfish, but the South African lobster tail is always \"market price\", which is generally in the range of $40.\n\n\"Pretentiousness\" *is* part of it, though. Obviously, they could list a price like \"around $40\" to help you estimate. Phrases like \"market price\" or the omission of prices at all indicate \"you expect to pay a lot, and don't care\". It's generally true. The seafood restaurant is expensive, I don't go there if I'm on a budget.\n\nSo in short:\n\n* Food costs different amounts of money daily. \n* The lower-quality the restaurant, the more likely they can buy in massive bulk and freeze food to avoid market fluctuations.\n* The higher-quality the restaurant, the more likely they purchase small enough amounts of food to be very vulnerable to market fluctuations.\n* Printing and reprinting menus is expensive, so having no price on the menu implies \"our food is very fresh and we have to frequently change the price to reflect that.\"\n* That *tends to mean* you're at a very expensive restaurant, because McDonald's doesn't exactly pride itself on serving \"only organic, free-range, grass-fed cattle who were read bedtime stories every night and the meat was never frozen.\""
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
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[],
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[],
[],
[],
[],
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"https://nypost.com/2013/11/09/at-bilboquet-everything-old-is-new-again/"
],
[]
] |
||
3jl5kv
|
why are there so many illegal immigrants; is it really that hard to legally become a member of the u.s.?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jl5kv/eli5_why_are_there_so_many_illegal_immigrants_is/
|
{
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"yes it is . the US made it even harder to become legal i have some friends who have put alot of money in attorneys and done everything that allows them to qualify but still nothing. even after they are accepted they still have to wait years and years. ",
"[Yes, it is really that hard](_URL_0_). It is stupid difficult to get into the United States legally. It's not supposed to be. \n\nThe US issued migrant work visas to Mexicans until the 70s, and there was almost no illegal immigration before then, but the program was cancelled. \n\nThe US has a hard limit for the number of people who are to be let in from each country, and those limits have not been updated in over 100 years. The estimate for how many Mexicans should come to America every year is based on the assumption that there are 15 million Mexicans, as in 1915. There are now 122 million Mexicans. As a result, the waiting list is decades long. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.philosophyinaction.com/blogger/images/immigration-764383.jpg"
]
] |
||
282elz
|
why is/was the federal mail service (usps) in debt and on the brink of financial failure, while independent services (ups, fedex) remain profitable?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/282elz/eli5_why_iswas_the_federal_mail_service_usps_in/
|
{
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"text": [
"Congress got it in their heads that since emails became popular and would only become more popular, the US Post would eventually have a lot of problems staying profitable. Worried that a majority of their workers would retire at the peak of people no longer using the Post Office, they said that the USPS needs to make sure to have enough money for all these people's retirement funds and pensions NOW, before the plunge happened.",
"Well, it doesn't help that congressional republicans forced the organization to prefund it's pension plan for the next [75 years](_URL_0_).",
"UPS/FedEX cut a lot of expenses that USPS does not. Most notably, USPS basically delivers anywhere but in places where UPS/FedEX find that it isn't profitable, they only deliver part way and then hand the package over to USPS to deliver it the rest of the way.",
"Part of the reason is, FedEx etc don't deliver to everywhere. They're free to say \"That's miles away from anywhere, it's not worth it for us to go all that way for just a small number of customers\". But the USPS is required to deliver to everywhere, which can cost them a lot, and they're not allowed to charge more to deliver to out-of-the-way places.",
"Probably not a good apples to apples comparison. Usps has to answer to Congress and the taxpayers, Ups only has to answer to their stockholders and customers. The result is the post office has a lot of things that ups doesn't have to worry about. ",
"What's UPS's lowest rate for 2-3 day delivery? USPS does it for for 49 cents. \n\nThey have two different missions. The USPS is part of the country's infrastructure much the same as federal highways. The idea when it was created was to provide a reliable postal network that blanketed the country for a cost that nearly anyone could afford. Postal rates aren't designed to make a profit or even break even. For 49 cents, most people can have a letter picked up from their doorstep and hand delivered to any other doorstep in the continental USA within 2-3 days. The low cost is to make this communication infrastructure accessible to everyone. \n\nThe independent services use a door-to-door business plan and you pay for that. And they charge enough to cover their cost plus a profit.\n\nIn a larger vein, these kinds of comparisons aren't very valid. Generally speaking, businesses must make a profit and can exist to provide services only if they can make a profit doing so. Not a criticism, just a realization that business can't lose money and stay in business. Most business models should, and do, include an intent to grow and gain market share by outperforming competition.\n\nGovernment-managed infrastructures shouldn't be designed to make a profit. In many instances it shouldn't, and doesn't, pay for itself. Roads, public schools, first responder services, communications... these all need to be available and easily accessible to all members of a community and that usually means free or low cost.",
"USPS delivers to every corner of the United States, the \"for profit\" mail services don't. \n\nWhat's even more interesting, is say I have a package that needs to go to a remote area in Alaska and the mail has to be taken by boat or air for the few residents there as the roads are too dysfunctional for mail trucks (or non-existent).\n\nFedex or UPS will haul the package to the end of the road where it becomes impossible for them to deliver \"on cost\" and dump the package at the post office for final delivery. Because it was technically \"mailed\" by Fedex, USPS is legally obligated to deliver it for the expensive part of the journey.\n\n**TLDR; Fedex dumps the hard stuff on USPS and USPS eats the costs**",
"It's an example of \"starving the beast,\" an economic strategy that attempts to distress a government program or agency to facilitate further budget or program cuts, or propaganda to help cut other programs.\n\nIn this case some conservatives like being able to say, \"see how much debt the Post Office has?\" What they don't tell you is that the USPS would have a very strong profit if not for a ridiculous requirement to prefund employee health and retirement *for 75 years in advance*. This is a burden that other public and private institutions do not have, basically making USPS prefund benefits for employees that aren't even born yet and may not work for them for decades.\n\ntl;dr- USPS is actually profitable. Political shenanigans give the appearance of a financial shortfall, which furthers neo-con propaganda."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.buffalonews.com/20130418/ridiculous_pension_requirement_threatens_future_of_post_office.html"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
308hvr
|
why does pressure increase in a container if i half-fill it with water, then add some dish soap, then close the lid and shake ?
|
So, i was washing a Tupperware-like container, and it was greasy. I half filled it with warm water, then added a bit of dish soap, then closed the lid and shook it for a few seconds. Before opening it, i noticed that the lid was bent upwards, and when i opened it, it made a popping sound; similar to if i had closed it then heated the contents.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/308hvr/eli5_why_does_pressure_increase_in_a_container_if/
|
{
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"text": [
"The heat from the water is transferred to the air you trapped in the tub. That air expands creating pressure.\n",
"Try it with cold water, soap and no soap................."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
8p0uhf
|
why are we good at preventing viruses but not good at treating them?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8p0uhf/eli5_why_are_we_good_at_preventing_viruses_but/
|
{
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"Viruses are not really alive, so things like antibiotics have no effect on them. The only way to treat them is to get the body to produce antibodies that will attack them ahead of time (immunization via vaccination) or giving the body things that can help the antibodies work/form faster or that can inhibit the reproduction of some kinds of viruses (antivirals). Other than that we just have to let time take its course. ",
"Some viruses incorporate its DNA into your DNA, so when your cells replicate, the virus also replicates. This also means that the virus becomes a part of you, and its really difficult to target the cells containing the viral DNA but not harm the normal cells. I believe HIV is an example of this.",
"Viruses are much tougher than bacteria. Each virus is surrounded by a unique protein shell, which makes it hard to develop cures for all of them. Bacteria usually have very similar cell structures which can be exploited with antibiotics.\n\nThe virus shell only opens once it enters the cell, releasing its DNA/RNA to hijack your protein-making ribosomes to make more of itself. Since the shell is pretty much indestructible, our main defence is to trick the virus that it is inside the cell when it is not, causing it to deploy its payload with no effect. There are many methods to do this such as drugs which pretend to be a cell membrane or some key protein which viruses like to target.\n\nOnce the virus enters the cell, you have a problem where they incubate and multiply many thousand fold. Our previous defence will no longer work since it is easily overwhelmed. You will need more extreme measures to solve the infection, if even possible."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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||
qjvdr
|
how a celebrity's cellphone can be 'hacked' and why they are always with nudes
|
Title says it all
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/qjvdr/eli5_how_a_celebritys_cellphone_can_be_hacked_and/
|
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"I am not sure that all these photos are \"hacked.\" More \"leaked\" I would assume. I could be wrong though.",
"I believe it's exactly the same as the voicemail \"hacking\" scandal in the UK at the moment. If that's true, then they're uploaded onto computers at the call provider (possibly automatically) and you need a username and password to access them. There's 2 ways to do that. Either you try the default password with every cell phone number and see which accounts let you in, or you target an individual number and try the default password, then try their name, birthday, pets names, etc.\n\nEither way, it's good to choose good passwords.",
"They don't always have nudes - you just always hear about the ones that do.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Sometimes there's nudes and sometimes there's [Taeyeon](_URL_0_).",
"I remember in a reddit thread a guy said he worked for a cell phone company and he could look at the pictures from peoples phones. All someone would need to do is search names until you find something.",
"Its probably not the phone itself that gets hacked, but rather the provider or a service that the celebrity uses.\n\nThe provider may keep copies of anything sent via text message or MMS for example. Or, somebody was able to get into their email account or into their pictures on Facebook or another photo sharing service that they use. The latter two could be hacked by finding out the persons login then guessing the password or going through a reset password option if they also have gained access to their email.\n\nFor instance, I think Paris Hilton was \"hacked\" once by somebody finding out her username and correctly guessing that her password was the name of her dog, which was publicly known.",
"A lot of times they are not...if someone gets careless with their pics, it is a lot more sympathetic to be a victim of hackers than a dumb perv who sends naked pictures to too many people.",
"REAAALLY surprised nobody has come up with the answer so far. It's possible that some photos were leaked via the service provider, but most of the time it is done via [bluetooth hacking](_URL_0_).\n\nBasically, you sit in the same restaurant as the target with a bluetooth-enabled laptop running linux. By running some commands you can detect bluetooth networks and hack into them, gaining full access to the device and any media stored on it (ie. pics on someones cell phone). This is why it's always best to turn bluetooth off if you aren't using it.",
"Various exploits similar to anything else. For example, there used to be many answerphone devices that authenticated the caller using the phone number (so that if you were calling from the cellphone, you didn't have to enter a password) - trouble is, the caller id is 100% spoofable, you can set it to whatever you like with marginal effort.\n\nSecurity on consumer-level electronic devices wasn't even remotely a concern until the last few years tbh, and even now it's not made a big enough deal of as it should be.",
"I remember some of the \"celebrity hacking\" was done becuase they are basicly dumb as brick. \n\nI remember Paris hilton had the name of her dog as the password recovery question, and basicly every tabloid following retard in america knew how her dogs name. \n\nSo basicly a guy ended up going to jail becuase Miss hilton is dumb as a brick. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias"
],
[
"http://i.imgur.com/mT4Ru.jpg"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9466"
],
[],
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] |
|
1ld0mt
|
a train travels in speed of light, when i start running in that train.. why am i not faster than the light?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ld0mt/eli5_a_train_travels_in_speed_of_light_when_i/
|
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"First of all, it's impossible for that train to travel at the speed of light. Let's assume instead that it's travelling just below the speed of light. \n\nNow we've sorted that out, speed is relative.\n\nWhat this means is that your speed relative to the train is actually not very fast at all. It will be the speed at which you run.\n\nYour speed relative to the train track, though, is more interesting. Because you are moving so fast compared to the train track, time dilation occurs. This means that time, for you, runs slower than it does for someone outside the train watching you. So as you go past this person outside the train, and they watch you, they'd see you moving in what appears, to them, to be slow motion - slow enough, in fact, that you would not appear to be going faster than the speed of light relative to them.",
"Special relativity. The faster you travel the slower time passes for your frame of reference. You also become spatially contracted and your relativistic mass increases. At the speed of light, time stops and you have infinite relativistic mass. Light can travel at this speed because photons (light particles) have zero mass.",
"A) Nothing with mass travels the speed of light.\n\nB) Speeds don't add simply when you approach the speed of light because time travels weird when you're near the speed of light.\n\nC) Relativity is an especially *shitty* topic for ELI5. It's highly technical, completely useless to the average person & violates every shred of common sense we have. The fastest human built object *ever* travels at less than 5% the speed of light. Relativity doesn't really make things interesting until you're going like 10x that speed.",
"You do not specify a frame of reference for the speeds that you mention; the question is therefore meaningless. \n\nThere is no way to answer a why question about relativity so that it makes sense to a five-year-old. I can explain that, if I am standing watching this hypothetical train go by:\n\n1) The train is massive and thus, to an observer standing at the station, the train cannot go the speed of light, it can go slightly slower.\n\n2) Speeds don't add up with simple arithmetic when they are near the speed of light. Instead a Lorenz contraction occurs, very simple math that 'corrects' the addition in such a way that no observer can ever observe a sum of speeds to exceed the speed of light."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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||
83jsoo
|
how is being anesthetized different from sleeping?
|
How is being anesthetized different from sleeping? Aside from the obvious administration of the required medications for general anesthesia; What is different about how the brain works in the anesthetized state compared to sleeping? Is there a part of sleep that is most similar to the anesthetized state?
Edit: Looks like this has been asked before. However if anyone has anything else to add please do.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/83jsoo/eli5_how_is_being_anesthetized_different_from/
|
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"I've searched tha seven seas fer an answer. Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained:\n\n1. [ELI5: Does being under anesthesia \"count\" as sleep to your body? ](_URL_0_) ^(_ > 500 comments_)\n1. [Is sleep under anesthesia restful? ](_URL_2_) ^(_13 comments_)\n1. [ELI5:What is the difference between sleep, being under anesthesia and being in a comatose state? ](_URL_1_) ^(_3 comments_)\n",
"is surgery there are three anesthetics: one stops you from feeling, one stops you from moving, and one makes you unconscious. it is also completely dreamless. so sleeping is like a computer in, well, sleep mode, and being anesthetized is like holding the power button until it shuts off. sorry this wasn't very scientific or educated, but that is what I understand about it.",
"From my personal point of view, it's different mostly because you don't dream, you don't drift in and out of consciousness like when you are asleep. It's like turning off a switch. When I had my open heart surgery (minithoracotomy), I remember asking the nurse why there was some blood dripping from the site where they inserted the needle and then: bam nothing, I totally lost the next few hours while I was in the operation room. I woke up at noon in a different room but it fell as if only a few seconds had passed. I had to touch myself to see if I had some kind of bandage on my chest because I wasn't sure if the surgery had been done yet. But then, the pain started and it reminded me that indeed, I was recovering from a surgery."
]
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|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2vbgpk/eli5_does_being_under_anesthesia_count_as_sleep/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6txzd3/eli5what_is_the_difference_between_sleep_being/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/3ogdc8/is_sleep_under_anesthesia_restful/"
],
[],
[]
] |
|
2nvcis
|
how come i can forget facts and skills that i haven't used in a year, but can sing along with a song i haven't heard in 15 years?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2nvcis/eli5_how_come_i_can_forget_facts_and_skills_that/
|
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"From what we understand about the human mind, up until now, organization is THE key to memory. \n\nThere are multiple factors that come into play. \n\n* Rhythm and Rhyme. Rhythm and rhyme are not the same, nor are they inter-changeable. They activate different parts of the brain, but they impose a pattern.\n\n* Organization. The key to memory is organization. The mind works to organize information in meaningful ways, but when it fails it has to find other ways to impose organization. \n\n* Pattern. A pattern is a way of imposing that organization, which is why many education systems around the world begin by teaching children to recognize patterns.\n\n* Repetition. Many songs have aspects that are repetitive over a short period of time, which helps the information remain in short term memory longer, reducing the loss of information as it transitions to long term memory. \n\n* Emotion. The Limbic system (an area of the brain that deals with memory, among other things) associates emotion with memory. (Ex. Nostalgia when unexpected stimulus triggers memories.)\n\nA pattern is orderly, and that order is predictable. The predictability allows us to anticipate what's coming, and thus encode (or \"save\") the information better. (We focus on important parts, and allow the brain to fill in the rest) This anticipation, also helps recall of information by limiting the possible solutions. \n\nA portion of the limbic system, in specific the hippocampus and amygdala, interact in subtle ways during emotional situations. Specifically the amygdala figures out how and where to \"save\" the memory in the hippocampus. This is why songs can trigger specific memories, and a sense of nostalgia.\n\nGrouping is another aspect of memory, in which rhythm helps. The background beat, and build-up, in a song helps group information together. Since our short term memory can only hold a certain amount of information before it starts eliminating detail, grouping information \"reduces\" the amount of information to remember. It plays a small role in the phrase, \"you never forget how to ride a bike.\" Regardless of how long it's been since you've last done the activity, or read the fact, chances are that once you start doing the activity, or reading the fact, you'll \"relearn\" it faster, and even seem more familiar. \n\n*Edit: Fix Formatting*"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
5q5buo
|
will the imminent arrival of mass produced lab grown meat change the vegan perspective of meat eating.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5q5buo/eli5_will_the_imminent_arrival_of_mass_produced/
|
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"As a rule, serious vegans don't eat food that was produced by animals, even if they ae (largely) unharmed - no milk or cheese, some don't wear wool, eggs are out.\n\nFor them, animal exploitation is the line they draw.\n\nSo how will that apply to lab meat? Hard to say. It does come from a cell line extracted from an animal, so some will be opposed to it. Others will consider a one-time, painless extraction to be a small price to pay for potentially tons of cruelty - free, death-free food.\n\nWe'll have to see.",
"This is such a common question over on the vegan subreddit they made it the first thing on their FAQ, and conducted a poll.\n\nThe answer is that most vegans say they wouldn't eat it, as they're already used to and happy with their meatless diets. \n\nHowever, most *vegetarians* say they'd consider eating it, and both groups consider it a very positive step in reducing animal cruelty and are big proponents of it becoming cheap and viable as a meal option.",
"Depends on the vegan. \n\nSome don't eat mean for moral reasons, some for health reasons, and some because their don't like it.\n\nYou also have psychological factors. If you spent most of your life swearing how much you love your sprouts and you don't miss meat at all, you might feel the need to stick to your guns."
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|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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||
dzoxn6
|
viruses aren't "alive" but what governs how long they stay "active" or whatever?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dzoxn6/eli5_viruses_arent_alive_but_what_governs_how/
|
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"The integrity of their genetic code, in short, the viability of their capacity to infect healthy cells and reproduce using that cellular machinery. Often the way that viruses will be inactivated (that's the word you're looking for, not \"killed\") in the wild involves exposure to UV light from the Sun, predatory microorganisms, physical trauma, dehydration, and exposure to volatile compounds in the environment. Some viruses have the capacity to remain active far longer than others outside of a host because they have protective layers, others are inactivated shortly after being shed or expelled from a host.",
"I have formal training in biology and virology, I know a lot of biologists, and I've talked about this with most of them: Viruses aren't necessarily \"not alive\". They evolve, they reproduce, and they have a life cycle. They're obligate predators and parasites. They're part of an ecosystem. They compete with each other and with their prey. Ask me, that counts as alive. A cell biologist might disagree...but there's such a thing as a scientifically-sound opinion. Whether it's alive or not isn't science, it's philosophy. \n\nAs for your question, that depends. There's a sheath of proteins around them that acts as a kind of cell membrane analog--called the capsid. That thing is made up of lots and lots of proteins. It's a shell that kind of acts like the capsule of a syringe, holding the contents before injection.\n\nIf that breaks, essential components will likely be lost because the virus doesn't have a lot of replacements for most of its payload for delivery. Their entire survival strategy is to pack light and make a *lot* of offspring, with very few exceptions. Further, exposure to DNA-degrading substances and conditions can make the virus unable to function even if its payload gets injected into a cell, and this is more likely with RNA-based viruses because RNA is inherently more unstable than DNA.",
"It's been explained to me why viruses are not alive, but I think the definition of alive should be expanded to include viruses as well. They're a critical part of the ecosystem, they reproduce (albeit parasitically), they're based on DNA (or maybe it's RNA??), and they also undergo evolution like all other living things.",
"They basically behave like radioactive particles with a half-life. So every time unit (e.g. per hour), half of them become inactive. This will happen faster when its warm, or when they are in an otherwise unpleasant environment. On the other hand, if you keep them in friendly conditions, some viruses can be kept for decades. I used to work with viruses that infect bacteria (so called phages), and I obtained some that were just kept in a little vial in a desk drawer for fourty years or so.",
"ELI5: They are like underwater mines that latch onto submarines, but instead of submarines, they attack your cells, and instead of blowing up when they touch, most blow up once they are inside the vessel and zombified your crew into bombs. /makes Kabloom sound while finger sparkly-ing with FFFUUU face.",
"For a virus to replicate, it has a DNA/RNA core. DNA/RNA is very delicate and will easily be destroyed (by heat, UV, pressure, everything) if not protected in a a safe capsule. It must also be intact and transferred to another cell (like a human cell or bacteria) in order to replicate. Surrounding the core of every virus is a protective layer called a capsid (some viruses also have an additional layer called an envelope). If this capsid (and envelope) were to be damaged, the DNA/RNA could be released and be damaged as well, leaving a \"dead\" virus behind.\n\nSide note: this is how many viral vaccines (known as killed or inactivated) work. By removing the DNA/RNA and keeping the outer layers intact, the virus is not able to replicate but the proteins on the surface of the capsid/envelope (which are specific to the virus) induce an immune response.",
"Viruses being alive or not - according to the dogma - is quite debatable and everyone doesn’t agree on it.\n\nThe question that should be ask is rather, “what is the virus”. Is the virus the viral particle or virion that carries its genome from host to host? Or could the virus be the infected cell when the virus is at it’s full potential? Replicating its RNA, highjacking the host proteins, shutting down the host defenses, producing viral particles etc... in the second case, wouldn’t you consider it “alive”?\n\nif you’re 5: What is the toy? The LEGO bricks packaged in the box or the bricks assembled into a spaceship?\n\nWhat governs how long they stay “active” is their capacity to remain infectious. There are usually two limiting factors for that. First, the genome has to maintain its integrity... which can be altered by UVs for example. DNA virus being more resilient than RNA ones. Second, the viral particle has to be able to enter its host, and this require a properly folded envelope/fusion/... protein. This can be altered by salts for example. Last, some virus have a lipid membrane, and these viruses tend to be more fragile than the ones without, as it can be altered by soaps for example. Generally dehydration is bad too. Many other factors have to be considered. Temperature is a classic one.\n\nIf you’re 5: So your lego spaceship is going to be more or less resilient through time depending whether you glued it together, you put it away on a shelf, you have a little brother, ... it’s multi factoriel and depends on the own properties of each virus.\n\nTo go back to the initial question (alive or not, particle or infected cells). If the virus is the infected cell, it’s a whole other ordeal. It can become much more resilient, as the virus can hide in a dormant cell like in the case of HIV or most herpes viruses (HSV, VZV...). At the same time, a cell can be more fragile than a single viral particle as cells have very specific requirements.",
"Veterinary student here. The main component (at least from a medical standpoint) behind virus resistance to destruction is presence or lack of an envelope. This is basically fat (lipid) that can be easily destroyed by a variety of common disinfectants (which break down that envelope), stomach acid, etc. It surrounds the important parts of a virus. It is important for medically relevant viruses to know if they are enveloped or not. Take a look at parvovirus for example, which causes bloody diarrhea, heart disease, and nervous system problems in dogs and cats. This is a non enveloped virus so is resistant to a huge amount of disinfectants and can stay in the environment for months since it isn't destroyed by many things. On the other hand, viruses in the orthomyxoviridae family (flu viruses) are enveloped, which is why washing your hands with soap destroys that virus so easily. The soap binds to the envelope and exposes the virus' insides to the world.",
"I've heard an interesting point.\n\nThe virus is not the actually what is... Well... \"The virus\", as a creature. \n\nThe actual living creature that reproduces is the infected cell. \n\nSo, the infected cell is basically a living creature that reproduces by sending out \"spores\" (viruses) to create other creatures known as \"infected cells\". \n\nIn more complex terms, the phenotype of the virus is not the virus, but rather the infected cells.",
"Most viruses are made up of just DNA/RNA and protein. You can think of this as genetic material in a protein shell. Over time, either the shell breaks down due to outside influences or the genetic material itself breaks down over time due to instability. After this kind of breakdown, the virus is no longer able to infect a cell and is essentially “dead.”",
"Check out the super germs that are thawing out due to ice caps melting. Look at that Siberian town that became sickened by anthrax... all because a reindeer defrosted in their drinking supply.",
"As I understand it based on high school biology:\n\n & #x200B;\n\nViruses are basically biological machines and run on the same biological principles as a life form does. They aren't alive because they are not capable of independent reproduction but otherwise they follow their genetic instructions just like other bioforms.",
"There are two things here:\n\n**Viability** \\- How long can a virus live outside a host?\n\nCan a virus live for hours on a bathroom doorknob?\n\n**Infectability** \\- what does it take to transfer infection to a new host?\n\nSome virii can be transmitted by breathing the same air, some require direct blood transfer. This is impacted by the protein strings that surround the virus.",
"If you programmed a code into a tiny robot and the code said 'walk' the tiny robot would walk forever. Things that might make it stop walking is if it ran out of batteries. Or if it fell off a table and was damaged. The code for a virus is its genetic material - it will forever mindlessly infect and replicate as long as it has the resources to.",
"They're basically nanoscale USB thumb drives made of organic molecules. Their only purpose is to upload the data stored on themselves to the 3D printer inside cellular factories, overwriting the existing program, to instead, make more of themselves. And of course, more copies of the data they carry. So, they \"die\" when they can no longer do that. Essentially, when they're mechanically broken, or when their stored data becomes corrupted and when copied, wouldn't produce anything viable.",
"I don’t know, but I have conspiracy theory that viruses are tiny robots from futuristic society.",
"A lot of viruses are actually really fragile. Retroviruses (e.g. HIV) are particularly sensitive to pretty much everything. If you leave a tube of them on your counter overnight it’s going lose a lot of it’s efficiency by tomorrow morning. Even being in the human body at 37C is pretty harmful to them so they have to work pretty fast to infect a cell. \n\nThis is due to RNA (or DNA for other viruses) breaking down and proteins denaturing.\n\nSource: work with adenoviruses"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2bmdyr
|
why is my poop so weird after a night of drinking?
|
There's no other way to describe it. It's not weird in the same way, different weird every time.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bmdyr/eli5_why_is_my_poop_so_weird_after_a_night_of/
|
{
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"cj6r0oa",
"cj6rqwt",
"cj6s0tm",
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],
"score": [
7,
5,
6,
3
],
"text": [
"How much did you drink? My poop once spoke to me and then turned into white snakes",
"Alcohol prevents the absorption of water through the lining of the large intestine, so for a couple of days after a night of heavy drinking, things are... well, just awful back there.",
"Agreed. Shit gets weird.",
"I have chronic constipation but always end up going to the bathroom after a night of heavy drinking. I can only assume that the body wants to get rid of the alcohol quickly, so that's why it is different than normal poops."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
cd20ff
|
what dictates the power of passports?
|
Do governments decide what countries could visit their country visa-free or is there a process on deciding the strength of passports? Is it based on the power of a country’s currency and economy?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cd20ff/eli5_what_dictates_the_power_of_passports/
|
{
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"text": [
"Governments decide based on mutual agreements. IE, 2 countries have good relations, trade is good, people are happy. They decide to have a visa free travel for both sides to encourage growth and lessen burdens on your everyday travellers. Hope this helps.",
"Each individual nation decides what the requirements will be for each other nation. Often they negotiate with each other. Many factors are taken into account, but it's also highly political. For example, sometimes, if one country starts requiring visa for residents of another country, the other country will punitively respond by imposing a visa requirement of its own. Groups of nations such as the EU will make visa free zones to facilitate trade and relations. Wealth of the country is taken into account; residents of a wealthy country have less motivation to illegally immigrate, so it's considered less in need of travel restrictions. Things like crime rates and terrorism may also be taken into account.",
"Each country decides who can get in without a visa. It's often based on a reciprocal agreement - we'll let your people in if you let our people in. \n\nOr based on economic reasons. If you're trying to develop a tourist economy or attract foreign business investors, you will generally want it to be easier for people to get into your country. \n\nOr alternatively, they may want to restrict people from certain countries for economic reasons because they don't want people from poor countries easily getting in looking for work. \n\nSo, in general, the countries with the most \"powerful\" passports will be fairly wealthy with stable governments that are on good terms with the rest of the international community - Singapore, Japan, South Korea, USA, Western Europe.",
"Tossing this in, the modern concept of visas and passports is a relatively new concept. Started after WWI.\n\nPassports have existed in many forms prior to WWI. There use became less in Europe as train networks expanded. Vast numbers of travelers began crossing borders with little ability for countries to enforce them.\n\nAfter WWI, more formal passport/visas systems started to develop to what we see today.\n\nAs others have noted here, the use of visas and requirements for entry became based on relationships between countries with various factors.\n\nAsymmetry is common. For example, I'm in the US. For me to travel to Turkey as a visitor, I pay about $20 online or at the point of entry for a visa that is valid for 4 months with stays no longer than 90 days (as of 2015 for my last trip there). For Turkish residents to come into the US, it's a little more effort to get the visa, but the US would grant it for a period of 10 years (again, as of 2015).",
"Imagine that a passport is just a piece of paper that says \"I, (country), certify that this person is (personal info)\"\n\nOther countries then decide how much to trust that letter. In most cases, it's based on an agreement that they will treat the other people a certain way. \n\nIf the trust is high, then other governments will just wave them through, like Canada and the US. Both countries are wealthy enough that passports can be issued with caution, and passports are generally hard to fake. There's also the fact that border agents see a TON of passports from the other country, and can quickly assess whether it's real or not. \n\nKyrgystan and Colombia, on the other hand, have far less basis for trust with each other - both are relatively poor countries with lots of corruption, so getting a real passport for a fake person is easier than it might be elsewhere. There are also probably very few of these seen in the other country, so a border agent in Colombia would have no easy way to figure out a fake passport. \n\nThis means that people from lesser known, poorer, or more corrupt countries would have to apply for a visa to travel, which is basically the other country having time to verify personal details before letting them in. \n\nA big part of it is power, as well. America is able to coerce just about any other country to make American passports acceptable, because you don't want to annoy the world's wealthiest country, and accepting their passports is relatively low risk."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
7wppih
|
up to how much speed can the human eye see and why?
|
For example, a bullet moves at about 370 m/s and we can't see it. How slow would it have to move for us to able to see it? Does the object's size matter?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7wppih/eli5_up_to_how_much_speed_can_the_human_eye_see/
|
{
"a_id": [
"du275la"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"How do you mean \"see it\"?\n\nKnow that it passed? Know it was a bullet? Have a clear image of that bullet?\n\nIf you fire a tracer round you can see it even though it moves significantly faster than the speed of sound because it is bright and leaves a strong image on your retina\n\nSeeing a bullet is hard because it is small. You'd have to be relatively close to one to see it even if it wasn't moving, once it is moving and is blurred it becomes even harder to pick out. Something larger like a bright colored missile would be much easier to see from much further away, despite traveling significantly faster\n\nIn the end though, it doesn't matter how fast an object is moving in m/s, it matters how fast it is crossing your field of view in radians/second."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
6szzug
|
why do people mostly eat hens, and not roosters?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6szzug/eli5why_do_people_mostly_eat_hens_and_not_roosters/
|
{
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2,
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"text": [
"Where are you getting this idea, I'm not aware of hens being more likely used as food?\n\nFor laying hens roosters may be killed as soon as their gender can be determined, but the hens too old to lay are probably not butchered for food. They may be used in pet food or similar, but they are a different variety and would be tougher than chickens for eating.\n\nChickens raised to be eaten can be either gender, but are typically butchered as soon as they reach full size.",
"When raising large numbers of birds, the makes tend to be violent and didn't each other. You grow females because they're more docile and less likely to killer the other birds.",
"Hens have larger breasts and many times a bit more meat. The meat will also have a bit more fat.\n\nIn chickens I think it's less of a deal but when it comes to picking out a good turkey stay away from the Toms if you're feeding a large crowd. \n\nAlso, chickens can only lay eggs for a few years. Due to industry your are going to have many female birds leftover (not sure if they make it to the meat market). The males are killed as chicks from what I understand, unless they can now sex fertilized eggs. ",
"I'm combining other people's answers, but there are several reasons. \n\n1. Roosters are much more aggressive than hens, and they will attack each other, so when breeding chickens to eat, it's best to purge the males as soon as they're sexed and only keep the hens.\n\n2. Roosters are much louder than hens. If you're raising chickens in an environment where you've got neighbors nearby (or if you simply don't want your farm to be loud), hens are the best bet.\n\n3. Hens lay eggs, so they're more productive. If you're going to put the time and effort and money into raising a bird to eat, you might as well get a few years of eggs out of them first.\n\n4. While hens aren't *larger*, they are considerably more plump. More meat.\n\n[to answer a question you didn't ask]: On the topic of purging the males, there's another reason to do this. Hens will lay unfertilized eggs without a rooster present. If a rooster *is* present, the eggs will be fertilized. While you *can* eat fertilized chicken eggs (if you eat them shortly after they are laid), it's not recommended. Unfertilized chicken eggs will stay fresh for up to two months. A fertilized egg is, of course, growing a chicken inside and will hatch after about 21 days. That means that once they're laid, at any given point there's a chicken in there. By day 3, its heart is beating. By day 4, you can see its eye. By day 6, it has a beak. You don't want to crack open an egg for breakfast and find a beak.\n\nIf a rooster is present, that will also sometimes make your hens become \"broody.\" If they're just laying unfertilized eggs, they'll usually lay them then abandon them so you can collect them. If they think there's a baby chicken in there, they'll become \"broody,\" which means they'll sit on the egg expecting it to hatch. When hens do this, sometimes they won't even abandon their egg to eat or drink and they die of dehydration. Also, when hens become broody, they stop laying, usually for a month or two, so you go from getting one egg per day to zero."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
3sckav
|
what needs to happen in order for the canadian dollar (cad) to be on par or higher in value than the american dollar (usd)?
|
I just heard on the radio that it costs almost 1.33 CAD just to buy ONE USD. I remember about some odd years ago when it cost more to buy Canadian. What gives?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3sckav/eli5_what_needs_to_happen_in_order_for_the/
|
{
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],
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"text": [
"At this point it will need a miracle. Barring that oil prices need to start going up again. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
8tr2mk
|
why are expat turks allowed to vote for the turkish administration?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8tr2mk/eli5_why_are_expat_turks_allowed_to_vote_for_the/
|
{
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"e19in8m",
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2
],
"text": [
"That’s not that strange. American citizens living abroad are allowed to vote in American elections too, even if they’ve lived there for a long time (they’re considered residents of the last state they lived in).\n\nAs far as I know, most democracies work the same way.",
" > 74% of all Belgian Turks voted for Erdogan compared to some 50%-ish in Turkey IIRC\n\nThere's your answer right there.\n\nThe decision on who is eligible to vote in any election is that of the country holding the election and nobody else. The reason expat Turks are allowed to vote for the Turkish administration is because Turkish law says they are allowed. And since, as you correctly noted, these communities are more likely to vote for Erdoğan, it's not in Erdoğan's interest to change it.\n\nBut this can cut both ways. As a Brit who has been living in Germany for more than 15 years (in fact, very nearly 25 years), I am ineligible to vote in the UK. Which was fine by me, until the Brexit referendum came along. Suddenly, here was a vote on something that will directly affect me -- arguably more than it will most Brits living in the UK, since it raises the possibility of me losing my British citizenship (Germany does not allow non-EU citizens to hold dual citizenship and it's likely my German citizenship won't come through before the deadline) and having to apply for visas to visit my own family -- and I had no say in it."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
9p8w54
|
why beautiful songs/voices (or anything considered “beautiful”) can create such strong emotional response in some and can actually move one to tears
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9p8w54/eli5_why_beautiful_songsvoices_or_anything/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e801iht"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Beauty is subconciously related with good health in our subconcious and our DNA only cares about survival and reproduction, that's why we feel attracted to anything that's beautiful for us, because we are hardwired to have an emotional response toward that"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3x8ka8
|
why does lack of sound cause hallucinations?
|
I just read about Orfield Laboratory's anechoic chamber where about 99.99% of all sounds are blocked. After 45 minutes of being there a person will start to hallucinate. How does the lack of sound cause the brain to start hallucinating?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3x8ka8/eli5_why_does_lack_of_sound_cause_hallucinations/
|
{
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"cy2erm0",
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],
"text": [
"There are many theories, but generally the idea is that sensory deprivation results in a sort of feedback loop. Your brain needs/wants to do something with the centers that hear/smell/see and that if you take away the \"real\" stimuli you start having hallucinations associated with the random activities of your brain. In this regard, it's like your background thoughts get center stage.",
"It doesn't happen to everyone. Lots of people have spent times in these chambers and been fine.\n\nHowever, there are special sensory deprivation exercises one can do -- check out the ping pong balls on eyes + white noise + dark room + comfy bed experiment.\n\nBasically ,your brain is expecting constant input from these sources. When you stop getting input for long periods of time, your brain gets confused and starts become oversensitive and starting search for input... often times causing weird brain effects."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
1ob66x
|
how is kfc getting away with not revealing their secret herbs and spices? what if someone is deadly allergic to something they don't want to reveal?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ob66x/eli5_how_is_kfc_getting_away_with_not_revealing/
|
{
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"text": [
"Arguably someone with an allergy that severe would not be eating foods where all ingredients cannot be divulged or there is otherwise a chance that it contains something they can't have.",
"Maybe they reveal it to the FDA or something?",
"TIL a method of determining the KFC recipe by shotgunning letters asking if X is an ingredient as 'I have a deathly allergy'.\n\nEdit:\n\nTIL a horrific human experiment, replacing letters with people with the specific allergies in the above method.",
"Have you heard of anyone having an allergic reaction to KFC chicken, besides maybe to the gluten?\n\nIf they were using something that is documented to cause allergic reactions, then maybe you'd have an argument to force them to divulge, but just because the general public doesn't know doesn't mean the USDA/FDA haven't screened it. \n\nHow often do you go to a restaurant that publishes a full ingredients list for each of their dishes? The only reason you're noticing this is because KFC advertises it. ",
"I believe foods with known allergens must contain warnings as part of the nutritional information facts.",
"The bag they come in has 7 listed, and \"spices\" as the catch all for the remainder. You could probably get a more detailed list if you tried calling headquarters, it's the exact proportions that are the big secret.",
"I used to be a manager at a store in Australia, and can confirm that if your a customer asking for information for allergies sake we can either provide you with an allergens fact sheet which are available at the front counter (not sure if this is all stores though) or give you a number to contact a hotline that tells you whether that particular ingredient is used. \n\nFurther info: _URL_0_\n\nAlso before you ask I don't know the secret herbs and spices but there are some pretty good knock-offs on the interwebs that I've made at home. Not just limited to the original recipe either. ",
"That \"secret blend\" of spices isn't as much of a secret as it is a marketing term.",
"They're called \"Trade Secrets\" They're usually taken in the place of patents when disclosing a company's formula, recipe, process, etc can have detrimental effects on the company. Ie. the formula for KFC or Coca-Cola"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.kfc.com.au/nutrition/index.asp"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
5hqdwo
|
why a quick drink of cold water can trigger an urgent need for a toilet as if it is digested instantly?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5hqdwo/eli5_why_a_quick_drink_of_cold_water_can_trigger/
|
{
"a_id": [
"db27bbj"
],
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],
"text": [
"Water has a long way to the bladder. It gets absorbed in the intestines into the blood stream where it makes its way to the kidneys to be filtered and from there it goes to the bladder. By this Time it's nice and warm so there doesn't seem to be an actual physiological reason. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
9xaovo
|
how does wire gauge effect voltage, resistance, and flow of electricity in general?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9xaovo/eli5_how_does_wire_gauge_effect_voltage/
|
{
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"text": [
"In general? Thicker wire has lower resistance and lower voltage drop over a given distance.",
"The larger the wire gauge, the smaller the resistance.\n\nThe resistance of a piece of wire is equal to ρL/A, where ρ is the material's resistivity, L is the length of the wire, and A is its cross-sectional area. Wire gauge is a way of describing cross-sectional area, so as the gauge increases, the resistance decreases.\n\nOhm's law is V = IR, where V is voltage, I is current, and R is resistance. So if you have a fixed-voltage supply (which is common), increasing resistance will decrease current and vice versa. If you had a fixed-current supply, instead increasing resistance would increase voltage and vice versa.",
"Think of it like a water hose. \n\nVoltage is water pressure\nResistance is the diameter of the pipe\nWattage is total flow. \n\nAs wire diameter increases, the resistance decreases so flow increases for a given voltage. High resistance will reduce voltage over a circuit. \n\nIn the water hose analogy, a smaller hose provides more resistance and moves less water at a given pressure. Increase hose diameter, increase total flow. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1kx1wg
|
what are the advantages of a company owning many competing and similar businesses?
|
I got thinking about this reading this thread: _URL_0_
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kx1wg/eli5_what_are_the_advantages_of_a_company_owning/
|
{
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"text": [
"It allows them to crowd a market, which gives them greater exposure, which is all that matters in web advertising. Different names let them past different filters; if one site dies, they can always rebrand it and advertise it on the others to recapture the user base; each site may cater to different viewer types who generally don't like to overlap.\n\nMany reasons. In web properties, it is also easy to make a second site; in reality, you might do this to set up a sense of false competition.\n\nEdit:\n\nImportantly, they aren't competing with each other. As long as at least one of them has the user, they all won the game.",
"Create the illusion that there's choice and competition in the market, when there's not. The best example of this is lexsoitca (spelt wrong) and how they own pearl vision and lens crafters as well as manufacture most of the frames and own the insurance company that most people turn to for vision insurance. Google 60 minutes eye glasses. ",
"I haven't read many of the comments yet, but I think this is an important fact to think about:\n\nAs someone who deals with companies who do what you are asking we do it for a number of reasons, but the main two are:\n\n1. Exposure and more niches to market to. (You'd be surprised how much people will choose something over something else just because of the name)\n\n2. Tricking people into thinking they have power by giving them \"choices.\"\n\nIn all honesty I love to work with the companies that buy out their competitors rather than work with companies that create their competitors."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1kw9z4/til_that_brazzers_reality_kings_youporn_pornhub/"
] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
41qq59
|
how does road salt impact the local wildlife and plants?
|
I see tons and tons of rock salt being dumped on roads. Does that not change the PH of the soil and impact the growth of trees/plants, thus leading to poor development of wildlife?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/41qq59/eli5how_does_road_salt_impact_the_local_wildlife/
|
{
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"text": [
"It is extremely localized and specific for the environment, meaning it only affects plants in that road side ditch, and the animals that might frequent that area. It is extrememly common to see trees with stunted growth in areas where road salt is applied. \n\nThe thing about trees is that they usually produce X amount of bark per year, this is a defense/self preservation strategy, against animals and disease. The amount of wood they produce is highly dependent on the resources given to it by the environment. If there are no limiting factors, aka enough sunlight, nutrients, water, oxygen in the soil, the tree will put on the maximum amount of circumference growth possible that year. \n\n\nIf there is a limiting factor, the tree will generally still put on the same amount of bark but without circumference growth. Salt stresses the trees and is not a limiting a factor but acts the same way. So it is common to see trees on the side of the road that have the bark of a very old tree but the circumference of a much younger tree. \n\n\nI've tried to simplify this as much as possible, if you have any more questions I could elaborate, but that's that short version. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1kpiwn
|
how do services like pandora make money?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kpiwn/eli5_how_do_services_like_pandora_make_money/
|
{
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"text": [
"Advertising and subscriptions.",
"at first Pandora relied on donations, as it had no means of directly earning money from playing songs. they operated under the premise of being a sort of scientific endeavor, and the service was threatened many times with copyright policy shutdowns. today, they are still a \"music discovery service\", but play ads for free listeners, and there is also a subscription model. They pay a pretty small amount per song play, and the money collected from ads/subscriptions probably more than covers it.",
"The easiest way to understand this is to remember that you, the listener, are not the consumer, and the music itself is not the product Pandora sells to make money. The music is there to lure you in, and then *you* become the product that attracts advertisers, who in turn become the real consumers. So basically, Pandora baits you in with the music and then sells your pageviews to advertisers. The more people they draw in, the more advertisers will pay to make their advertisement shown. The subscription service is there to offset the money Pandora would lose if there were no advertisers. So no matter who's listening, premium or no premium, somebody is paying to play the music for you, whether it be you yourself or the advertisers. ",
"Today, they make money based off of advertising and subscriptions, as mentioned and as most radio stations do. But they didn't start off like that, also as mentioned..(donations, etc). \n\nPandora, specifically, is successful (earns money) because of HOW it delivers music, not because it baits and lures consumers in to make more money though. It is based off the Music Genome Project. A classification system to help people be able to easily listen to the music they love and find NEW music that is similar. \n\nPandora makes money today because it start with a great idea and people putting in hard work to make their concept a reality. \n\n*edit missing words",
"Whenever you're online and start wondering: \"How does this website make money?\" The answer is usually one of two things:\n\n1) Advertisements\n2) Subscriptions\n\nPandora has both features. I would go so far as to guess that \"free\" consumers most likely make the website more money than the ones who subscribe. I know, personally, I am a subscriber and I abuse the shit out of the service. I listen to it at work, at home, in the car, everywhere. Definitely more than what they're making off me.\n\nHowever, subscriptions offer **consistent** income, which is something that businesses like a lot. A guarantee of $4 a month is so much better than hoping that you can sell ad-space for, as an example, $25 a month, or hoping that enough people utilize your service that the advertisement space would still attract clients. \n\nThis is why almost 90% of websites will offer a \"premium\" service. It's a reward for loyal customers, plus it makes the books a little easier to manage and when it comes time to pay the bills, you can breathe a lot easier.\n\n--NOW--\n\nIf you're on a website and you don't see ads or subscription services, odds are the website is owned by an individual or corporation who can absorb the losses of maintaining the website. This usually happens if a service is relatively cheap to operate. Reddit is a prime example of a website that doesn't earn much money but is owned by a wealthy corporation who can absorb the losses more easily. These types of websites usually function as a public service or, even better, scientific purposes. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
3r4ya2
|
today's science's view of the shape of the universe.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3r4ya2/eli5_todays_sciences_view_of_the_shape_of_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cwl7x2y"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"If you're referring to the \"observable universe\", it is the distance from Earth we've been able to observe. It's a sphere because earth is a sphere. That is not the whole universe"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
9pwg84
|
how have the odds to win mega millions gotten worse?
|
I've read two articles saying the odds have gotten worse as part of a strategic move to drive sales, but no one has explained how that's possible. They didn't add more numbers to pick from and as far as I know that's the only way to make odds worse. Unless, the winning numbers aren't randomly generated and they're based off of numbers already picked or something. I can't wrap my head around it.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9pwg84/eli5_how_have_the_odds_to_win_mega_millions/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e851956",
"e854tdi"
],
"score": [
14,
7
],
"text": [
"They did add more numbers. On Oct. 31st 2017 the Mega Millions went from 70 numbers to 75 numbers for the white ball and the red mega ball number went from 15 numbers to 25 numbers.",
"They added more numbers so that it would be hit less frequently, thus generating higher jackpots.\n\nLottery sales skyrocket when jackpots get very high, so they've attempted to make this happen as frequently as possible. Because the draws are random, the only way to get the larger jackpots is to expand the matrix."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
1o0ery
|
why is there no way to access the internet without a provider if the internet itself is free? how, if at all, could this be circumvented?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1o0ery/eli5_why_is_there_no_way_to_access_the_internet/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ccnpkve",
"ccnpsto",
"ccnqo6t",
"ccnrdcq",
"ccnrj7p",
"ccns4n6",
"ccnv3x2",
"ccnwnlt",
"ccnxui6",
"ccnzmir",
"cco059n",
"cco0rn0"
],
"score": [
92,
36,
14,
5,
19,
98,
2,
2,
6,
10,
3,
4
],
"text": [
"the internet is free - digging up pavements and streets and establishing other pieces of infrastructure and maintaining that infrastructure however, is not. ",
"The provider provides the fiber optic cable which enables you to communicate with other computers across the planet. This is a massive oversimplification, but this is ELI5.\n\nThe company puts the money down to bury the lines or put up the telephone poles, purchase and manage all the network infrastructure so in order to get their investment back, they charge a subscription fee.\n\nThis could be circumvented by creating a network of your own using mesh networking or running your own cables. However, this would not be \"free\" as you would have to pay for the equipment needed to run a wide area network.",
"The internet is \"free\" in the sense that you can put most anything you want up there. It's not free as in it doesn't cost anything. If you don't want to pay an ISP, you can pay to build a fiber line from your house to a nearby hub, pay for the installation of your line to the hub, and negotiate peering agreements with one of the major telecom companies. It will probably cost a *lot* of money. Your ISP does this so you don't have to.",
"The internet is not \"free\" in the way that I think you are using the word. It is just decentralized and has no formal ownership (well, except for the NSA ^love ^you ^guys).\n\nAnyone who wants to put anything on the internet, transfer anything over the internet, or consume any content on the internet, pays something. Either a company pays for servers and hosting, or a telecommunications company pays to run cable (and repair cable), or individual consumers pay to use the telecommunications company's infrastructure.",
"Think of the internet as an island. Companies built bridges to it then charge a toll.",
"Well, let's start with what 'the internet' is. Internet is short for Inter-Network as in it is the interconnections of other networks. For example the LAN in your house is a network, and the LAN that Reddit's servers live on is a different network, the inter-network is what connects one to the other and allows data to route back and fourth between them.\n\nIn order for this to be possible, major providers maintain a table of routes to all the networks \"on the internet\" and the various paths to get there. There are standard protocols operating so that a provider anywhere in the world can advertise their networks out to everybody else using this inter-network. It will update routes automatically as conditions on the various networks across the globe change in order to provide continued access to resources. This capability is why it was created in the first place, the military wanted a communication protocol that was fault tolerant. \n\nThe other half of what providers do is maintain physical infrastructure. These are the copper and fiber optic cables, radio waves, or satellite connections that transport data from you local network, to the internet backbone or vice versa.\n\nNow, none of that is actually free. I'm not sure where you got the impression that the internet was free, it isn't. It cost money to operate these elements of the inter-network and it's not likely anyone would do much of it without profiting.\n\nOn to the other part of your question: \"how, if at all, could this be circumvented?\". Well, you could become your own provider. That would require you setting up a router to maintain an entire routing table of the internet, not that difficult, but also establishing and maintaining physical connectivity to the other providers in the world. Or at the very least, leasing access to the other provider's networks to get there. Why? Because the network resources which you probably think of as being \"on the internet\" are actually on the networks of various providers. Those providers are providing physical links as well as logical routing information to reach them from anywhere else on the internet, but they actually reside on the provider's network. In order to be \"on the internet\" you have to play ball, unless you're prepared to run copper from where you are to every other machine in the world you may want to communicate with.",
"The internet is just a bunch of computers sending information around. You need to hook into one of those computers. The cheapest way to do that is to join an ISP, which connects to all of them. The other way is to convince someone already on the internet to run a cable to your house, but then you need lots of hardware and it will be a lot more expensive.",
"Netzero used to provide internet access for free. The catch was they would stream ad's at you while you were online. I remember a time maybe 10 years ago or so when I used Netzero to access the net for free. ",
"\"The Internet\" is not necessarily free -- or a fee-based service -- it's a bit more complicated. \n\nAs stated in other comments, \"Internet\" is short for \"Internetwork\" and it is best thought of as a set of different networks that are connected together speaking the same language (called the Internet Protocol -- IP). IP is actually free to read and implement, but the computers that speak it -- and the cables that transmit the data -- are not.\n\nAn analogy is helpful here: think of the postal service. If you live in the US, you can send mail through the USPS to other folks in the States. But you can also send mail to folks in Canada, even though they use a different postal service there; they can do that because the USPS and Canada Post have an agreement to share mail. But in their own domains, USPS and Canada Post are sovereign.\n\nNetworks work the same way. AT & T's computer network and Comcast's computer network have agreements to connect; money may or may not change hands (it depends). When you buy Internet service, you are paying to join, say, Comcast's network, which happens to be connected to other networks. All these networks together form the \"Internet.\" \n\nIt's not just any random assortment of computers cobbled together as a network that are allowed to connect to the Internet on their own. A network must be designated an Autonomous System (AS) for it to connect to the Internet as it's own network. For example, when you buy internet service, your home network becomes part of Comcast's network, as far as Internet routing is concerned. Almost all ISPs, many businesses (like Google, Microsoft, etc.), and most universities are all ASs.\n\nAside: Routing makes it possible for networks that aren't directly connected to send and receive data. Back to our postal analogy, if the US and France don't have direct postal arrangements, a letter to Paris could go through Canada.",
"You can access the internet without a provider, its just that our current internet infrastructure doesn't happen to make that particularly easy. In its most simplified form, the internet is a connection between two or more computers. as more and more computers were added from the first two, engineers eventually built routers to determine how the traffic should best reach the destination. The providers are the people who pay a lot of money to buy the biggest, most reliable, fastest routers in the world (usually, from their service I would bet Comcast runs basic wireless access points and calls it a *service*), over the decades they have made all of the connections to the rest of the state, country, and world run through their routers. Since they own it, they can legally charge you to *borrow* it for a fraction of a second to send information through to reach the computer in China you are trying to reach. \n\nIf you were to set up a LAN (for this the purpose of ELI5 think of it as a very tiny internet with 4 computers in your house at most) then you could access any and all computers on *your internet* for free because you do not have to use the provider's routers. \n\nAs a side note, this is where projects like Meshnet and Darknet are coming into play. They are trying to build a global web of access nodes to circumvent the providers and provide true free service. However, these are much slower than the provider usually for a variety of reasons (unless that provider is Time Warner or Comcast)\n\n**I know this is a late reply, but please upvote it so that people see it. I think it is the most simplified explanation for this comment.",
"the idea is being worked on, a \"free internet\" per say\n[meshnet] (_URL_1_) and [darknet] (_URL_0_) are two subs you should check out",
"The intenet is magic, but to use magic you have to buy your wand, Harry. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/darknetplan",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/meshnet"
],
[]
] |
||
ciktqg
|
how does advil/ibuprofen affect your body after a night of drinking?
|
I've heard both sides of the story. 1) it helps lessen your headache in the morning, 2) it's a bad idea since it's a blood thinner. Maybe both are true? What is actually happening within your body?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ciktqg/eli5_how_does_advilibuprofen_affect_your_body/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ev6ujyx",
"ev7tqqp"
],
"score": [
9,
3
],
"text": [
"This isn't a \"story.\" It is a well-documented interaction. The drug reduces inflammation in the body but has a common side effect which is increased risk of ulcers in the stomach because it prevents the formation of mucus (which protects the stomach from the acids in it).\n\nPair this with alcohol, which thins the blood, and you have a situation where you have higher risk for developing bleeding ulcers in the stomach and blood which clots less readily. Upper GI bleeds are no joke.",
"There isn’t “sides to the story” as you say. It does work as a painkiller to get rid of your headache but also increases risk of stomach ulcers. \n\nOther painkillers like paracetamol would be better"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
2bfbmx
|
what's in poo that forms a bond so strong with my porcelain toilet that even a strong stream of piss can't remove it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bfbmx/eli5_whats_in_poo_that_forms_a_bond_so_strong/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cj4rri5",
"cj4sxtj"
],
"score": [
3,
5
],
"text": [
"did you ever consider maybe your piss steam is not strong enough? My thin little needle dick rockets that piss out so i can blast shit stains away all day....so maybe you're just soft",
"Fat. It's oil."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
5pon6l
|
what is the transpacific partnership?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5pon6l/eli5_what_is_the_transpacific_partnership/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dcsrfpy"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"agreement between 12 countries in north america and asia pacific to reduce tariff of trading between each other, as well as increasing standard of labour, environment, and intellectual property of those countries to be on same level (e.g. the other 11 countries have to follow US' copyright law, Vietnam and other countries with lower standard of labour than USA and Canada have to improve their standard, etc). \nthis agreement was initiated by US in order to curb China's trade influence by increasing US' access to countries that would be China's prime partners: their neighbours."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
5wsiz2
|
why do americans clap so much?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5wsiz2/eli5_why_do_americans_clap_so_much/
|
{
"a_id": [
"decnh17",
"decnkdg",
"deco1so"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"It's an American politician thing. The president is the leader of his political party, so members of that party in congress tend to give him a standing ovation every couple of minutes. The other party just kind of sits there [like this](_URL_0_).",
"That's common for Congressional addresses. The party of the President will clap at everything. The opposing party will politely clap softly at valid things and not clap at things they disagree with.\n\nCongressional addresses and the State of the Union speech are mostly a lot of empty rhetoric. You have to take them with a grain of salt; they don't really represent anything except the President and his/her party doing some grandstanding.",
"Clap! \nClap! \nClap! Clap! Clap! \nClap! Clap! Clap! Clap! \nClap Show! \n\n'Merican here! \nIt ain't just congress, friendo. We *all* clap like that. Every chance we get! Yay!"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1589652/images/o-BOEHNER-facebook.jpg"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
10xp7e
|
the debates last night, what happened?
|
Just trying to wrap my mind around a few things,
- Why did Obama seem so out of it?
- What kind of impacts will this have going forward on the presidential race?
Thanks for the help!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/10xp7e/the_debates_last_night_what_happened/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c6hit6z",
"c6hjah7",
"c6hk85x"
],
"score": [
8,
5,
4
],
"text": [
"It's a lot easier to say you will fix everything than to defend your reasoning for hardly fixing anything.",
"The moderator completely lost control and the two just kept responding to each other, then saying something the other had to respond to. It was one long circlejerk that accomplished nothing.",
"In response to your questions:\n\nObama hasn't debated in four years while Romney had 10-11 \"warm-up\" debates during the Republican Primary. Furthermore, Obama is the President, so the past couple of months he has had to run the country, whereas Romney could focus much more on his campaign.Futhermore, I think Obama and his advisors were expecting a Romney who would adheer to a more right wing platform, instead of what Romney did with seeming very moderate.\n\nPersonally, I don't think that this will do anything. We still have 2 more Presidential debates and 1 VP debate before the election. Sure, Romney has shown that he isn't going to go down without a fight. But I don't think that the debate really swayed undecided voter one way or another, just proved that Obama still has real work to do."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
5mz1f1
|
how does microwave "crispy" cardboard work?
|
You know, that silver-colored cardboard you put around your hotpocket that makes it crispy.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5mz1f1/eli5_how_does_microwave_crispy_cardboard_work/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dc7ki2b"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"The little piece of cardboard is lined with a metallic material called a \"susceptor\". Normally, microwave ovens shoot the food with microwave radiation, exciting the molecules in the food and making it hot.\n\nWhat a susceptor does is absorb some of the microwave radiation and convert it to direct heat. This makes the small pocket of air between the susceptor and the food very hot, and browns the food in much the same fashion as putting it under a broiler."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1f26tl
|
celsius and fahrenheit
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1f26tl/eli5celsius_and_fahrenheit/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ca62cwi"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"celsius is measured by water. at 0°C it's frozen, at 100°C it's vapor.\n\nfahrenheit was invented when this one dude tried to make the coldest temperature back in the 1700's, and called that 0 (-17°C) or something like that. it doesn't really make sense but people are used to it so we keep it around because why not?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3kq9m5
|
how are businesses held accountable to make up the difference towards minimum wage for tipped employees in the us?
|
I understand that the law states companies must ensure their tipped employees are making minimum wage since their hourly base pay is only a few dollars, but I'm unclear how this is done. For example, is the employee figuring out the average every day and reporting any difference? Is it on payroll to figure out every pay period? Does it become more complicated when you work somewhere which requires tips to be shared with other employees?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3kq9m5/eli5how_are_businesses_held_accountable_to_make/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cuzjz64"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"You are usually supposed to report your tips to your employer anyway so they can withhold the proper amount of taxes. The employer already knows your hours, so they can calculate the average themselves."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
6s1pm3
|
why do some some toilets go whoosh, while others take longer and go whooooooooooossssshhhhhhhhh?
|
What causes toilets to flush at different speeds and the power behind certain ones?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6s1pm3/eli5_why_do_some_some_toilets_go_whoosh_while/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dl9cuyt"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Most older toilets are gravity fed (the tank drains into the bowl). Newer toilets are pressure fed. They use less water, under pressure, to work. \n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3rmy5p
|
why does a call center keep making me repeat the same information every time i get transferred?
|
I call: give phone, name, secret password... transferred, first thing I have to do is give phone, name, secret password... rinse, repeat. Don't that have a computer/system that will save me the frustration?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rmy5p/eli5_why_does_a_call_center_keep_making_me_repeat/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cwpg07y",
"cwpp25n",
"cwpp9le",
"cwpr7my",
"cwpuc7i",
"cwpw1ep"
],
"score": [
26,
3,
7,
3,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"They have to verify that you are who you are in order to give you access or information about your account. Who knows where you're actually getting transferred to. Could be down the hall or across the country. It's safer to verify your information every time than to just assume and possibly give out personal information to a random person.",
"Call center employee at a credit union here.\nWe always have to verify security information to make sure information being provided is given to the correct person, sometimes we cannot do a warm transfer and simply tell the next agent due to time constraints that this person is verified so sometimes they have to have their information re-verified, this is particularly true when transferring to completely different departments, fraud > loans > general customer service, etc.",
"Also when you call your creditcard company, they make you enter your credit card number. Then when you get connected to a person they ask for your creditcard number. ",
"Phone rep performance is usually measured via Average Handling Time (AHT) and some sort of quality score. At the credit card call center I managed reps were expected to have a AHT of 180 seconds. \n\nSo giving information to the next department while transferring just slows them down. ",
"I used to work in tech support for Apple.\n\nTheir system would usually try and pull info from the phone number you called with or if you set up a callback online and provided that info. Even if it came up, we had to verify it per company policy. Sometimes I'd get a call from say Mississippi, but it would pull up a Chinese-registered computer. I mean like name, address, etc pulled up in Chinese characters. I'd estimate about 50% of my calls had no info or incorrect info when they came in.\n\nIf we had to transfer you, the same system was responsible for maintaining that info. But again, it often did not work as designed so the next person would has maybe 70% chance of getting good info. If we did a \"warm\" transfer (kept you on hold, came back, introduced you to next person, etc.) the system was a bit more reliable and next person wouldn't usually have to verify. I don't know why there was a difference, but those almost always had good info.\n\nSometimes the system would go down entirely and we were flying completely blind. No idea even what product the customer had. That can be tough when you have an old lady insisting she has an \"iBook Plus\". So yeah, had to verify there too.\n\nThis was the system used by one of the largest and richest companies in the world and it had apparently improved a lot by the time I started working there. Apple regularly wins awards for the quality of their customer service. Here in the US, the employees are paid relatively well and get good benefits. Even part timers. They're all trained for 6 weeks before even touching the phone. From what I've heard, some of the best tech support available in other words. \n\nAlso, while I was employed there, a tech blogger got nearly ALL of his e-accounts hacked because an AppleCare employee didn't verify his identity correctly. Bad guy got access to blogger's Apple ID then used that to verify/access Gmail, Amazon, etc. Obviously Apple was blasted in the media and our ID policy tightened down even more.\n\nTL;DR - There is a very good chance the people legitimately DO need to verify ID because there is nothing else to go on. Also, is a potentially HUGE security risk.",
"To increase the odds of you hanging up. Call centres are a *cost*. Dealing with you is a *cost*. The company wants your money. Once it's got your money, it doesn't ever want to hear from you again. (Or if it's a government department, it doesn't ever want to hear from you at all.) This is why call centres are designed with long hold times, cryptic queue options, employ staff in low-wage countries with poor English, tell those staff to *never deviate from the script ever*, force you to answer a whole bunch of stupid questions to \"verify\" things (as if it would be of any interest or benefit to anyone else), and force you to tell your entire story all over again every time they transfer you to some other minimally-English-speaking third-worlder.\n\nTL;DR - they hate you and want you to go away."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
75yyyj
|
does gas quality really differ from gas station to gas station? if so, how is that allowable and how is it done?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/75yyyj/eli5_does_gas_quality_really_differ_from_gas/
|
{
"a_id": [
"do9zp4k"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Gasoline is not a pure substance. There are many chemicals mixed together. Different stations might offer different blends, or different blends at different times of year. That's why there is winter gas and summer gas. There are rules, but most of them are about signage. If you put more than 10-15% ethanol, then you need a sign with 1 inch letters, because some cars don't like too much ethanol in their gas."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
anx76o
|
how do we balance on 2 legs when other animals use 4 or tails?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/anx76o/eli5_how_do_we_balance_on_2_legs_when_other/
|
{
"a_id": [
"efwo6wc",
"efwq99f"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"I believe a lot of it is with how our skeleton differs from other animals, such as our spine is developed in a way that allows for upright standing due to the added curve which stabilized our balance.",
"Our butts. They are large deposits of fat that offset the rest of our body weight and help us stand upright. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
8u92iq
|
how the two atom models (plum pudding and atomic) vary in how they were discovered and what they were used for
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8u92iq/eli5_how_the_two_atom_models_plum_pudding_and/
|
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"The plum pudding model was neutral and had electrons and protons randomly spread out inside, which were all charged + or -. It was an early model.\n\nThe atomic model had a positively charged nucleus, which has the most mass. The atom is mostly (99%) empty space. Electrons orbit the nucleus in shells which can hold up to *2(n2)* electrons. It was discovered from the gold foil experiment - you can look that up on Google it's simple. Basically it gave evidence of an nucleus as not all alpha particles went straight through the middle of the atom.\n\n",
"Here's a very basic historical explanation. \n\nBy the late 19th century, scientists knew that there were many different kinds of elements. But what is an element? The idea of an \"atom\" is that this is the smallest, indivisible unit of an element. But nobody really had any kind of atomic model in mind.\n\nJ.J. Thomson was a physicist in England who was doing work on cathode ray tubes. In these tubes, a vacuum is created and an electrical charge is run through it. This produces invisible but detectable rays coming out of the tube. Thomson did a series of experiments that showed that these rays were tiny particles (they had mass) with a strong negative electrical charge. He called these _corpuscles_ but other people tended to prefer a name already circulating for a hypothetical negatively-charged particle called an _electron_. \n\nThomson didn't just hypothesize the particle, though, but he tried to make sense of where it fit in the world as they knew it. He made an argument that these electrons were subatomic particles, the only subatomic particles that existed. In other words, he argued that if you broke down atoms, you'd get nothing but electrons, and that the number of electrons in an atom told you what kind of element it was. (The idea that there were particles smaller than atoms was not a new one, but Thomson was the first one to try and identify a particular particle as subatomic.) \n\nSo how would this work? Thomson imagined the electrons in an atom were locked in complex, whirling geometric arrangements that would balance out their charges. However he knew that negatively-charged particles would repel each other. So he posited that some kind of diffuse positively-charged force held them together. \n\nThis is the model that was often derided as the plum-pudding model. It is not as stupid or haphazard as it is often claimed. It gained some moderate scientific interest but it had a lot of issues with it (each atom would have to have thousands of electrons to be the right mass, for example, and it wasn't easy to see how they would all stay together).\n\nThe nuclear model (not atomic) was the later displacer of the Thomson model. This came from work by Ernest Rutherford, also in England. Rutherford and his colleagues did an experiment (the Gold Foil Experiment) in which they shot a type of radioactive particle (the alpha particle, something that had been discovered since Thomson's work) at a very thin layer of gold foil. Most of the particles, as predicted by Thomson's model, went straight through the foil. But a large number of them were reflected by the foil. This could not work in Thomson's model. Instead Rutherford suggested this showed that there were a strong concentration of mass at the center of the atom. He hypothesized (and he was not the first to have this idea, but the first to give good evidence for it) that the positive charge was collected in a small, massive, central nucleus (hence the name \"nuclear model\"), and the electrons whirred around it like planets around a sun. He further hypothesized that the positive mass was itself made up of subatomic particles, which were called protons. The advantage to Rutherford's model, aside from fitting better with that particular experiment, is that it made a clearer case for how the mass in an atom was distributed: the protons provide the atomic number, and they are matched by the charges on the electrons, which determine the chemistry of the element. \n\nThere is more to the development of atomic models (Rutherford's model has problems, too: it doesn't explain electron behavior coherently and it is missing neutrons, among other things) than this, but it gives you an overview of what these models were and how they were imagined by the people who argued for their existence.\n\nThe plum pudding model gets routinely misrepresented in physics textbooks, as an aside. I am not sure why that is (Thomson's original work is not hard to track down and pretty easy to read). But for whatever reason there is this need to make it look stupider than it was, perhaps as a way of showing the triumph of Rutherford, which I think is unnecessary (Rutherford's work can stand on its own without denigrating the ideas of Thomson)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
7monko
|
the differences between the many types of municipalities--towns, cities, villages, townships, borough, incorporated v unincorporated, etc.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7monko/eli5_the_differences_between_the_many_types_of/
|
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"definitions are up to each regional government to define. there is no hard definition of each. but typically they're some government organization of area with resident population. villages are typically smaller than towns which are smaller than townships which are smaller than cities. \n\n",
"There is not hard/fast rule and every country/state/region uses different definitions but it is generally based on size. Villages are smaller than towns, which are smaller than Townships (if that is used, normally it is an archaic form of town) which is smaller than city, which is smaller than metroplex. \n\nA borough is kind of unique. It is normally not used for a stand alone town, but rather a town or city that has been absorbed into a larger city or metroplex. For example all of the New York City Boroughs were once full cities. It is also used as a subdivision similar to a county or parish. ",
"The US is divided into states. The states are divided into counties. Certain areas inside those counties may be incorporated into a city/town/etc of some sort and have their own local government; unincorporated areas are those that have no local government so they are run by the county.\n\nAFAIK, there's no real difference between *types* of cities/towns in the US. They just carry the connotation of different scales of size and some of the smaller ones might actually be *unofficial* place designations for small clusters of unincorporated development. For example [Government Camp, OR](_URL_0_) calls itself a \"village\" but it's just a small cluster of vacation homes and stores at the base of mountain where everyone goes to ski - there's no formal government.\n\nThe big exception is New York City. NYC used to be a dense conglomeration of separate towns & unincorporated areas spread across several counties. When the city was formed, it took over *all* the land of those towns and took over administration of the counties (which were renamed burroughs). Now, the City is the primary government and the burroughs are subdivisions of the city - an inversion of how it works everywhere else in the US."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Camp,_Oregon"
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||
19o0sk
|
explain significant figures to me like i'm 5.000000 years old.
|
Not an actual question, but I felt this would look nice here: _URL_0_
Edit: Ha, thanks guys. I have a fairly significant science background, so I understand "sig figs" and their importance and how and why and whatnot. I just thought this was fun.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/19o0sk/explain_significant_figures_to_me_like_im_5000000/
|
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"All none zero digits are significant:\n\n22 = 2 s.f\n\n25.3 = 3 s.f\n\n\nZeros placed before other digits are not significant\n\nZeros placed between other digits are significant\n\nZeros placed after other digits but are behind a decimal point are significant\n\nZeros placed at the end of a number infront of the decimal point you can't tell\n\n\n0.046 = 2 s.f\n\n4009 = 4 s.f\n\n7.90 = 3 s.f\n\n5.000000 = 7 s.f\n\n8200 = ?? s.f\n\n\nAlso note that all digits in scientific notation are always significant.",
"Significant digits are just used as a means to explain uncertainty. That's the short answer. You could stop reading here if you want.\n\nI'm going to presume we're talking about *why* significant figures exist, not how we use them, because that's pretty simple anyway. Consider it this way: I look into a room and estimate that there's about 100 people there. That's an estimation. There's one significant figure there and that's the one. So it's closer to 100 than to 200 or 0. There might actually be 90 people in the room. Or maybe 110. It's just an estimate. If I actually took the time to count out the people, then there might have been *exactly* 100 people. I'll have to represent the number differently to show that it's exactly 100. I can do this by putting bars over the zeros or by writing it as 1.00 * 10^2. The actual notation isn't important, the important thing is that I recognize there's exactly 100 people instead of taking an estimate.\n\nWhy is that? Let's say I measure something and find that it's 21.3 cm long. How much is half of that distance? 21.3 / 2 = 10.65. But we only have three significant figures in the first measurement. That means we measured something that has a scale in millimetres. It's closer to 21.3 than to 21.2 or 21.4. But a millimetre scale can't measure something at half a millimetre. It's just too inaccurate. Therefore, our answer of 10.65 shows a scale that we couldn't accurately measure. So we'll round it up to the appropriate significant digits, which gives us the answer of 10.6.\n\nSome side notes:\n\n* Why are trailing zeroes insignificant? Largely because numbers ending in zero are often used in estimation. Saying that there's 100 people makes me question if there really was such a perfect number or if you just guessed it. When there is exactly 100 people, we just have to write it differently so that they know there's exactly 100.\n* Leading zeroes are significant. So 0.046 has two significant digits. Why? Because if I multiply this by ten, I don't gain significance. With two significant digits, 0.046 * 10 = 0.46. But if the zero was significant, I'd get 0.460. That seems right at first, as there's the same number of digits, but it's actually assuming that 0.046 is EXACT. What if it's actually 0.0461, but the tool I used to measure it can only measure up to three decimal places?\n* And what's with the trailing zeroes being significant? Why 5.00000 instead of just 5? For the most part, the numbers mean the same. I can multiply 5.00000 and 5 by 2 on a calculator and I still get 10. But they actually mean very different things. 5.00000 means a very precise five. We're closer to 5.00000 than we are to 5.00001 or 4.99999. On the other hand, just \"5\" doesn't tell us much. We're closer to 5 than we are to 4 or 6. That's a big difference! We actually might have measured something 4.7 cm long with a centimetre scale. But since we don't know the millimetres, we rounded up to 5 cm.\n* Some numbers are *exact* and can be thought of as having \"infinite\" significant digits. If I ask you for half of 21.3, I want the value divided by *exactly* two. So I'm basically dividing by 2.0000 (with infinite zeros). Another example would be saying that there's 12 inches in a foot. So if I wanted you to find the number of inches in 2.65 feet, I'd divide that 2.65 feet by 12, but use the significant digits in 2.65 (3 significant figures). After all, the 12 basically has infinite significant digits.\n* The biggest mind stumble people seem to have with significant digits is that they don't understand why 5.2 is more \"right\" than 5.17. It's more accurate, right? But the issue is that we don't know it's really more accurate. Significant digits limit us by our measurements. If we don't have a way to measure to scales of 0.01, how do we know that the numbers we used are really correct? Therefore, in summation, significant digits explain uncertainty. There's more exact ways to do it, but significant figures are much easier to use.\n\nHopefully that all makes sense. Feel free to ask any further questions.\n\n**TL;DR: Significant digits show uncertainty (generally in measurements)**"
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://www.lefthandedtoons.com/1396/"
] |
[
[],
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|
35il1y
|
what makes it legal that the u.s. can go into a different country and kill a particular individual? ex. osama bin laden
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35il1y/eli5_what_makes_it_legal_that_the_us_can_go_into/
|
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"The fact that US has bigger military. There is no such thin as legal when it comes to dealing with international matters. All the conventions and councils are really worth shit and have to be observed only by smaller countries that don't have military and economic power to go against eventual retribution.\n\n\nUS May not have economic power to survive other counties cutting it ties with them but it has enough military presence to 'convince' those counties not to.",
"Laws require someone in a position of authority to enforce them. If I say that everyone who wears a red shirt must go to jail, no one would take me seriously. If the US government says that, then it matters a lot.\n\nInternational law works the same way, except there is no higher power than any given country to tell them what is legal or not. The UN only functions because member states work together. If a country like the US decides to invade another country, then they can get away with it if the other country doesn't have the power to stop it.\n\nIn the Osama Bin Laden case, the US said it was legal because they were at war with terrorism. Pakistan said that it was an act of war because the US invaded Pakistan. Most countries sided with the US, and Pakistan isn't powerful enough to push back against the US (and relies on US military support in fighting terrorism.) That's why it was legal.\n\nTl;dr: Because they can get away with it.",
"\"Legal\" doesn't really apply to international actions. \n\nThe US decided eliminating a wanted terrorists was more important than Pakistan's sovereignty, so they up and did it. Had the mission gone wrong and US soldiers wound up getting captured, Pakistan would have likely tried to prosecute them.",
"Legal? Who said anything about it being legal?\n\nAccording to every single International Agreement and/or Law of concern in the matter it is strictly illegal, but the U.S. killed Osama Bin Laden it anyway. International law is only taken into consideration by the U.S. when it suits them. \n\nNot saying that's always a bad thing, but it is a thing.",
"It isn't legal, and a lot of countries are pretty pissed about it.\n\nImagine what would happen if China sent a drone into the US to kill \"enemies of the state\" who were taking refuge in the US. At a *minimum,* that would be a diplomatic shitstorm of epic proportions, and would more likely be treated as an act of war, a CLEAR violation of our sovereignty.\n\nThe US gets away with it because we are the 600 pound gorilla of the planet. We go where we want, do what we want, kill who we want. What's Somalia gonna do, lodge an angry protest with the UN? Yeah, good luck with THAT. Not only do we have the bombs, but we also pull economic strings all over the world. Some country gets pissy about our JSOC death squads roaming their streets? Yeah, how do they feel about that $500 million in foreign aid we send them every year?\n\nIn the end, it will backfire horribly, of course. Bullies always get taken down eventually. Indeed, our international death squads already HAVE backfired horribly, they are one of the leading contributors to increased Islamic radicalization around the world, and helping to create the reality of an actual world war with all (or most) of Islam.\n\n\n"
]
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||
1zjdi7
|
how do they know which eggs don't have baby chicks in them, when they take eggs to sell??
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zjdi7/how_do_they_know_which_eggs_dont_have_baby_chicks/
|
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"None of them do, because the hens are not allowed access to roosters, so they don't mate, and none of the eggs are fertilized.",
"Also, eggs--even if they are fertilized--are retrieved from the nest very quickly. If the hen does not sit on the egg, keeping it warm consistently over a period of time, even a fertilized egg will never develop a chick inside it.\n\nMost hens no longer have an impulse to nest, so a hen choosing to sit on a clutch of eggs is rare. That's why most chicks are incubated in incubators by people, rather than hatched by the chickens themselves.\n\nOn incubating chicken eggs:\n\n > First things first - eggs should hatch in 21 days, though some may hatch a day or 2 early and some a day or 2 late, after the incubation period began. A \"day\" is counted as a full 24 hours, so Day 1 would be the first 24 after setting the egg, Day 2 the next 24 hours etc. If you set eggs on a Monday, it's usually a safe bet that they will hatch on a Monday, 3 weeks later.\n \n > Select clean, even shaped, undamaged eggs for incubating. If possible, do not store them too long pre-incubation. Ideally eggs should be set within a week after being laid and after 10 days the hatchability of the eggs drops significantly.\n\nExcerpt from _URL_1_\n\nAn egg can apparently be hatched even if it has been stored without being incubated for as many as 10 days, but if you open that egg at any time during that period, it will look just like an egg from the supermarket. No development happens until the incubation period begins (which starts when heat is applied, and takes 21 days).\n\nMore info: _URL_0_",
"What they used to do back in the day was to [candle](_URL_0_) the eggs. People (usually women and children) would sit in a dim room and hold each egg up in front of a bright candle or light bulb. If an egg had an embryo forming in it, it would cast a shadow that could be seen. (They didn't necessarily segregate breeding hens from egg hens back then, or at least, not well.)\n \nMy mother worked for a time candling eggs. ",
"Farmer here! All of our laying hens are kept away from roosters so we know that there is no possibility for any of the eggs to have been fertilized since we last picked eggs. Now say a rooster somehow got into your chicken pen, does this mean that you must play it safe and assume every egg is fertilized? There is a process called candling that this video explains wonderfully _URL_0_",
"Some pastured or cage-free layers lay eggs that are fertilized. It depends whether or not there is a rooster with them and whether he mated with the individual. Some fertilized eggs show a blood spot. It is not harmful to eat. Info below about taking the eggs quickly also applies."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2013/01/facts-and-myths-about-fertile-eggs.html",
"http://www.backyardchickens.com/a/how-to-incubate-hatch-eggs-just-21-days-from-egg-to-chicken"
],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candling"
],
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FTOQrWnJh4"
],
[]
] |
||
6z8k0o
|
why battery level of mobile or laptop increases after restarting the device?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6z8k0o/eli5_why_battery_level_of_mobile_or_laptop/
|
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"The computer reports the battery left based on what it is doing at the moment you check. If a device has been on for a while, its been doing more things and has more processes running. After restarting it much fewer processes and resources are being used, so it reports back that there's more battery.\n\nThink of the battery level not as a set, specific level, but as \"This is how much of the battery you have left, if you continue doing exactly what you're doing right now.\"",
"In addition to the first answer, I'll expand. \nWhenever you open a program, it starts using the computers resources (obviously), but when you close it by just clicking the X button, the core services for that program are still open, though they are using much less power. When you do this with several programs, it can add up and when you restart your computer, it closes all of those programs and wipes the RAM. Therefore, you are essentially starting with a clean slate. "
]
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|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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||
4gadsn
|
how is it that we need to have cellphone towers every x amount of miles for successful coverage, but we can somehow still communicate with sattelites hundreds of thousands of miles away?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4gadsn/eli5_how_is_it_that_we_need_to_have_cellphone/
|
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"The signal being from your phone to the cell tower is relatively weak--otherwise, your phone's battery would be exhausted in an hour or less.\n\nBut the signals sent to satellites are not limited by how much power is available, and the satellites have a near-constant source of power for the signals they send to the ground: they have solar panels. And since neither the ground station nor the satellite needs to fit in your pocket, they can use parabolic reflectors (those big dish shaped antenna you've seen in pictures) to concentrate the signals being sent.",
"Earth's radius.\n\nIf you place a mast on the ground and drag a line from the top of the mast to the horizon, that is roughly the maximum range the mast can sen the radio waves. (the radio waves gets absorbed by the ground).\n\nIf you instead send a satellite into orbit, you get a theoretical max of half the earth! (no ground in the way!).\n\nThere are some exceptions to this as radio waves that are going towards space sometimes bounce back to earth and you get an increased range (I got Polish radio in Sweden once!). This however is highly dependent on the ~~weather~~atmosphere!\n\n\nTLDR: Earth is in the way of the signals!",
" > we can somehow still communicate with sattelites hundreds of thousands of miles away?\n\nSatellites are, in general, not hundreds of thousands of mile away. For example, GPS satellites are about 12,000 miles away. And you don't communicate with them at all. They send a blanket signal that everyone receives, and no GPS device sends any signals back (GPS is a passive technology).\n\nThe problem comes when you need to send signals *back* to a satellite. That takes a lot of power, and would drain a handheld phone very quickly. Thus it's a lot more practical to use nearby, ground-based towers."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
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||
845b2g
|
what is reversible computing and what does it mean that it has no "energy cost?"
|
_URL_0_
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/845b2g/eli5_what_is_reversible_computing_and_what_does/
|
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"Irreversible means you can't figure out the input from the output. As a simple example, let's say I have two numbers as input, add them together, and get the output 4. Can you figure out the input? No. Could have been (2,2) or (1,3) or something else. Information about the input has been lost.\n\nWhen it comes to energy cost, it seems no one is mentioning what's at work here. There's something called [Landauer's principle](_URL_0_) which states that any irreversible computation must have a minimum energy cost. Frankly a very fascinating result that connects the fundamental laws of physics with information theory. Now, we're very far from that minimum in practice, but it means that no clever engineering could ever make a computer more efficient than that if we continue with irreversible computing. \n\nBut reversible computing circumvents that fundamental limit. There's no known physical limit to how efficient we can perform reversible computing, so, as far as we know, it has the potential of being arbitrarily efficient. Fredkin gates is one possibility. Quantum computing is interestingly also reversible (that's not the power of quantum computing, but happens to be one of its properties). "
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://youtu.be/jv2H9fp9dT8?t=5m22s"
] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle"
]
] |
|
lu8nc
|
how do .par files repair rars?
|
I read how it works awhile ago but didn't understand it. It seems like magic.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/lu8nc/eli5_how_do_par_files_repair_rars/
|
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"Par = Parity, if you have a series of data items, e.g. 1's and 0's or something more complex you perform an algorithm on this series of data and get a result out of the end. If one of those items in the data series is now corrupt / missing you still have the answer to the sum it was part of. So you can go back and fill in the blanks. Obviously you need a good amount of the rest of the data still present to do this, or the data is unrepairable.\n\na simple example:\n\n1 + 3 + 8 + 4 = 16\n\nsomehow becomes\n\n1 + monkey + 8 + 4 = 16\n\nMonkey? wtf... no no.. that clearly was meant to be a 3! etc... There are naturally different strategies and logic to be used to work out which bits of data to use with others, often it's the \"nth\" byte of a series of files, which is why par files often come in sets assigned to different parts of the whole file range, e.g. par for files 1 to 5, then par for 6 to 10 etc.",
"Mr. Rocket Surgeon did a good job, but if it helps to visualize it at all, imagine this:\n\nData | More Data | Parity \"bit\"\n\n1 + 1 = 2\n\n1 + 0 = 1\n\n1 + 1 = 2\n\n0 + 1 = 1\n\n0 + 0 = 0\n\nNow, if something bad happens to one of the drives, or some of the data, you might end up with this:\n\n1 + **X** = 2\n\n1 + **X** = 1\n\n1 + **X** = 2\n\n0 + **X** = 1\n\n0 + **X** = 0\n\nYou've lost a bunch of data now! But, you can go back and figure it out... 1 plus WHAT equals 2? Obviously another 1. 1 Plus WHAT equals 1? Why, nothing... so zero. ETC ETC. If you know anything about Binary, you know that 2 would actually roll back around to 0, and that's how a computer would read it off. \n",
"Par = Parity, if you have a series of data items, e.g. 1's and 0's or something more complex you perform an algorithm on this series of data and get a result out of the end. If one of those items in the data series is now corrupt / missing you still have the answer to the sum it was part of. So you can go back and fill in the blanks. Obviously you need a good amount of the rest of the data still present to do this, or the data is unrepairable.\n\na simple example:\n\n1 + 3 + 8 + 4 = 16\n\nsomehow becomes\n\n1 + monkey + 8 + 4 = 16\n\nMonkey? wtf... no no.. that clearly was meant to be a 3! etc... There are naturally different strategies and logic to be used to work out which bits of data to use with others, often it's the \"nth\" byte of a series of files, which is why par files often come in sets assigned to different parts of the whole file range, e.g. par for files 1 to 5, then par for 6 to 10 etc.",
"Mr. Rocket Surgeon did a good job, but if it helps to visualize it at all, imagine this:\n\nData | More Data | Parity \"bit\"\n\n1 + 1 = 2\n\n1 + 0 = 1\n\n1 + 1 = 2\n\n0 + 1 = 1\n\n0 + 0 = 0\n\nNow, if something bad happens to one of the drives, or some of the data, you might end up with this:\n\n1 + **X** = 2\n\n1 + **X** = 1\n\n1 + **X** = 2\n\n0 + **X** = 1\n\n0 + **X** = 0\n\nYou've lost a bunch of data now! But, you can go back and figure it out... 1 plus WHAT equals 2? Obviously another 1. 1 Plus WHAT equals 1? Why, nothing... so zero. ETC ETC. If you know anything about Binary, you know that 2 would actually roll back around to 0, and that's how a computer would read it off. \n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
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|
2x86d5
|
why can't we put a temporary flight ban to turkey, and surrounding countries to prevent people from joining isis?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2x86d5/eli5why_cant_we_put_a_temporary_flight_ban_to/
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"Of course we can. But then we're harming their economy and our own and disrupting perfectly normal travel just to stop a handful of kids from going there. This problem matters, but we're not going to stop the world because of it."
]
}
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[]
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30ayfv
|
what's the difference between a hung jury and double jeopardy?
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How can a guy be tried in court for a murder three times and get out on a hung jury? And is that not the same as double jeopardy - you can't be charged for the same crime twice?
I've been watching too much Dateline...
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30ayfv/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_a_hung_jury_and/
|
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"Lawyer here. Double Jeopardy is the legal doctrine that you cannot be charged with and convicted of the same crime multiple times. There are many different ways in which it applies but the two most common are trials and plea deals. \n\nIf you accept a plea then any charges that are dismissed as a part of that plea have been resolved the second that the plea is \"accepted\" by the judge. A simple example is that if you point a firearm at a group of three people, then you have committed three counts of aggravated assault, one for each victim, if the State agrees to offer a plea to only one count, then the other two counts are resolved, and you can no longer be charged for that one incident of pointing a firearm at those two other people. Contrary to popular belief, and the movie Double Jeopardy, you cannot then run out and point your gun at those people again and get away with it, that's a new crime and may be charged again. Jeopardy is said to attach when the plea is accepted, which typically occurs when the defendant enters the plea in court. \n\nIn a criminal trial situation then jeopardy \"attaches\" when a jury is seated. That means that prior to the time that the jury is seated the State may dismiss the charges, change them, recharge them, etc. however many times they like, so long as they stay within the statute of limitations (and are not dismissing the case to gain an unfair tactical advantage or to avoid other speedy trial requirements). Once the jury is seated, however, they are locked into the charges applicable to that insult. If they forgot a charge, or mischarged the crime, then too bad. \n\nThe only exception to Double Jeopardy in a trial is if the trial \"mistries.\" This occurs when a serious error prevents a fair trial. For example one side or the other admits seriously improper evidence, the jury pool is tampered with either by an outside force or by its own misconduct, or, as you pointed out, the jury hangs.\n\nA hung jury is where a jury is non-unanimous *and* cannot resolve the case with further deliberation. A jury cannot simply disagree, they have to make a concerted effort to come to a decision, no matter how long it takes, and are only excused if the judge agrees that further deliberation will not help come to a decision. If this occurs it is also a mistrial, and the State may re-try the case.\n\nI do not know the case you are referring to, but I suspect that you are correct that it was a hung jury. This does not mean the defendant \"gets out,\" they are in the same exact position that they were before trial occurred: they are still charged, they are still beholden to whatever bond or conditions of release apply, and they may still be tried. \n\nIt is unusual that the prosecutor would continue to re-try a case that mistried through a hung jury. Typically if a jury hangs it is a pretty clear sign that the case is not very strong for the prosecution. "
]
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[]
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5xkri3
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einstein's photoelectric law states that photos of a frequency equal to or greater than the work function of a metal will cause electrons to leave. how can these electrons leave?
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If the photon frequency is the exact same as the work function would the electrons not have zero kinetic energy?
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explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5xkri3/eli5_einsteins_photoelectric_law_states_that/
|
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"No, it would have enough kinetic energy to leave the material, but as it traveled farther and farther away, it would slow down, eventually reaching zero kinetic energy at an infinite distance.\n\nHere's an analogy; the Earth is a material, and a rocket is an electron. The rocket is accelerated to escape velocity, and it leaves the Earth at great speed, but since the Earth's gravitational field extends infinitely, the rocket would always be slowly accelerating towards the Earth. So the rocket would get slower and slower, and as its distance from Earth reached infinity, its speed would reach zero.\n\nJust like the electron getting knocked out of a material, it initially has a nonzero speed, but slows down to zero speed at an infinite distance away.\n\nEdit: There's also a few other differences between gravitational fields and the fields that influence electrons; force due to gravity is inversely proportional to distance^2, but the forces between an electron and an atom are not as simple. The force when an electron is near an atom is incredibly strong, but the force even a few more nano-meters away almost fully disappears, so an electron that is ejected with JUST the right amount of energy will have practically no (but still nonzero) kinetic energy as it moves away from the material it was ejected from."
]
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[
[]
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9mb2qe
|
firewalls
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What is the process of making a firewall for a website?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9mb2qe/eli5_firewalls/
|
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"A firewall controls the flow of traffic into and out of a network based off certain security policies. With regard to a website, a firewall would allow all, or most addresses from the internet into the network and route them to the computer that contains the web pages. It will only allow that traffic to communicate over a particular port, based off of the needs of the site. \n\nThink of the bouncer at a bar or night club that's 21+. You can come in if the bouncer checks your ID and you are the right age. Otherwise, they'll stop you. Also, he allows you into the club, but you aren't allowed to go into the managers office where the safe is.",
"A server is like a building with many doors. What a firewall gives you is the ability to lock any doors you don't expect to use. So, for example, on a web server, you only use port 80 (and maybe a few others, for example for https and database access and so on) , so you lock all other ports. That way, no one can sneak into a needlessly opened port.\n\nSo, you need to figure out exactly which ports you need to use, and then allow traffic on them only."
]
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|
[] |
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[],
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wpcv4
|
when banks give out a loan + interest, are they "creating imaginary money?"
|
What i'm asking is rather difficult for me to put into words, so let me explain. Cut me some slack, i'm very new to the econ realm, but i'm trying to learn.
Allow me to pose this question:
For the questions sake, let's say that there is $100 in the United States. I as a bank have all $100. One day a man asks me to borrow $50, and i agree, as long as he pays me back with a 10% interest, therefore he would be owing me $55. In the end i would be ending up with $105. Would that additional $5 be the same as debt, seeing as there aren't enough total funds to cover my ass?
I know it's about circulation of funds, and moving money in general. I just don't understand it, especially when a country is already in debt, how is it even legal? Does the federal reserve truly create enough money to make up for the amount of loans being lent out?
Please don't hate, like i said, i'm truly curious. If you would like me to elaborate more on what i'm asking, i would love to. If you understand, please, help me understand :)
**edit**- and in 4 hours i successfully learned more about the economy than i had in my previous twenty years of life. thank you guys so much. i truly appreciate it!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wpcv4/eli5_when_banks_give_out_a_loan_interest_are_they/
|
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"If I'm following your example right, The five dollars would need to be circulated by the government at some point. And if the US government has only 100 dollars then the five dollars would be owed to a foreign country in the form of debt. ",
"As is already pointed out by other answers, all money is imaginary in a sense. However, it represents something that is not, and that's what matters.\n\nActually, it represents two things that matter to an economy: production and debt.\n\nLet's imagine that the entire economy is just you and me, and I'm a baker and you're a butcher. You might pay me $10 for some bread. What you're saying here is that you're setting aside $10 in meat for me to pick up later that day. The $10 itself is not really important, what matters is that I get a fair amount of meat for the amount of bread I gave you, and that we've both agreed what that is before we do part of the transaction.\n\nNow things might change in the middle of that day after you've picked up your bread. Maybe your herd gets sick and most of the meat has to be thrown away. In normal circumstances, I would work with you on that and I'd say, hey, I know before you were going to give me so many steaks for that bread, but seeing as how times are tough for you, why don't you give me less and we'll call it even?\n\nThis is good for the economy because it's my recognition that your meat is now more valuable due to circumstances outside your control (or within your control, actually, it really doesn't matter); the economy as a whole has been affected. This is the same thing as if the price of your meat went up.\n\nIn all of the scenarios above, money is backed by a specific promise to produce something. If you start making wine in your off-time, now you are producing more. This means the total pool of money can grow because there's more production to represent. In this case, the value of each dollar is still the same, there's just more of it because there's more stuff to buy.\n\nThen there's debt. Debt is money that's created *without* a specific promise to produce something. Above, when you started making wine you created more value, and we create more dollars to represent that value to the economy. I see you doing that and I say, hey, I'm going to make beer just like you're making wine; I have the yeast already from my bread making operation. Before I get started though, we could agree that this would be worth X dollars and we could create those X dollars *in anticipation* of this new production that will get added. As long as we believe that at some point the economy will grow to include beer, these dollars we created will not change the value of the dollar.\n\nOver time, however, if I don't do anything, people might lose confidence that I'll ever do that. Suddenly, dollars start to drop in value. This is inflation, an adjustment of the value of money to recalibrate it back to total production.\n\nSo, when a bank lends you money at interest, they usually do it based on a specific promise of production on your part. You have to have a job and show that someday you'll pay it back, or it's very unlikely you'll get the loan. When you pay it back, the interest you pay signifies the value of having access to that pool of money earlier than later. The bank has provided you a service that you value, and therefore the bank has earned the interest by adding something of value to the economy.",
"The federal reserve sells bonds with a repayment timeline. These bonds are purchased by individuals, businesses, countries, etc.\n\nThe buyer gives the US government money, which the government then uses for various purposes. In effect, the buyers \"own\" the US debt, which the US then pays back.\n\nEntities can own debt from businesses, other countries, mortgages, etc. The way the system is set up, the US government will never be completely debt-free, and that's the intention. Simply printing cash would cause enormous spikes of inflation and dollar instability, which is the reason bonds are used instead.",
"Banks can 'create money' by way of debt but not by the mechanism you described.\n\nIn that case the debtor still had to go out and earn the extra 5$ he had to pay you back, so it wasn't created by the bank it is representative of some value (s)he added to the economy.\n\nHow banks can create currency is by fractional reserve banking which is related to this loans but not the same as what you are describing.\n\nHyper-simpel version incoming:\n\nLets say i have 100$, I want to keep this safe so i deposit this in a bank with the promise of some return on this (lets say 2%).\n\nNow the bank wants to make money, partially to pay me a return on my savings but also just because they are a business and that's what they do. Some countries have a mandatory minimum % of total deposits that commercial banks have to keep 'in the vaults' to pay back to customers in case they come around looking for their money, some other countries let the banks set their own policy in the regard (which has led to liquidity crisis - not having enough money to pay back against deposits but that's another thing). The real point is that the bank has to leave some of my 100$ in the vault but the rest they can try and make money with.\n\nSo lets say in this case the bank has to hold 10% in reserve, which leaves them with 90$ to try an make money with. So they loan this out to person B who wants to do a renovation on their house at 10% intrest.\n\nSo now the banker has my 102$ (my 100 + the interest) as an 'liability' but also the 10$ they held in reserve and the 99$ (the loan plus the 10% interest payment) as an asset.\n\nThis is how banks 'create' money. Since I have my 100$ which i can spend and the other guy has his 90$ loan which he can spend. therefore as long as the bank doesn't have a liquidity crisis there is effectively 90$ more in the economy then there was before.\n",
"alot of money is imaginary these days. everything banks do is in imaginary points. transferring money from one account to another is just lowering ones imaginary points and raising the others. paying for something with your debit card is the same thing. your account loses 100$ and wal marts goes up 100$ in points. these imaginary points can be converted to phycial money if one desires (which can cause problems with large amounts). it also goes the other way. you can give the bank money to increase your account imaginary points. they arent \"holding\" your physical money as you might think. almost all of monetary transactions in the modern day are with imaginary points these days. ",
"Banks can loan out 9x the amount of their cash on hand. [Fractional Reserve Banking System](_URL_2_)\n\nWhen the borrower spends that money, and it get deposited into another bank, that bank can loan 9x THAT money. \n\nSo, yes imaginary money is created, but not by repaying the interest.\n\n[These](_URL_0_) and [these](_URL_1_) videos explain it thoroughly.",
"**tl;dr** All currency is regulated by a comparative base. Such as gold standard or GDP. However you bring up more points than just the question in the post title\n\n\nIt's hard to answer this thread without answering it in parts.\n\n1) It's been stated that all money is imaginary, as that is true right now for many countries this was not always the case. It used to be that were only a certain amount of cash in circulation. This used to be (long ago) regulated by precious metals. Coins made by gold or silver were used and if your country didn't have access to more gold/silver then your currency was capped. Countries then wanted to hang onto their gold/silver so they substituted it with paper and common metals. Still the currency was capped based on gold/silver. This system however is not sustainable. As production and population increases there isn't enough currency to buy all of the products. So we dropped the \"gold standard\" and now print money, some say \"at will.\" This is where you find people saying, \"you're creating money.\" This however is not true. Money is printed to adequately cover goods and services. So you can argue we went from the \"gold standard\" to the \"GDP standard.\"\n\n2)Interest rates are used because time=money. Following your example, I have $100 and you ask me for $50 of it. I agree as long as you pay me 10% on that $50. Why do I do this? I could be using that $50 I'm giving you to generate more wealth for myself. I could buy property or materials that would help me out. Since I no longer have that $50 to help myself out I charge you $5 for that inconvenience. In that example there is no time schedule for payment. You could have the $50 for a day or a decade and you would still only pay me $5. So now we introduce the time=money situation. You've heard of inflation. Candy used to cost a nickel and now it's a buck. This occurs as you add more money into circulation. The more in currency compared to your base (GDP) the higher inflation is. With more money is circulation with the same amount of goods that drives the \"value\" of the dollar down. So prices of the products go up to counter act this. This is a \"force\" that occurs daily, however small. So back to the example before. If you paid back the $55 you owed me the next day I could spend the $5 extra freely and bought 10 loaves of bread. If you paid me back in a year I would not be able to buy as much as I could have because the cost of bread has gone up due to inflation so I only buy 9 loaves. To help me out, as the lendor, I give an \"Annual Percentage Rate\" (APR). This is the percentage that is charged upon the money borrowed every year. This is meant to counteract inflation plus give me some extra for my troubles. This way I can buy my 10 loaves of bread whether you pay me tomorrow or in a decade.\n\n3) **Last point** USA government is not in control of our currency. The FED controls the circulation in order to provide, hopefully, stable inflation. The government takes loans out from various sources, wherever there are people willing to give over their money. Key point is, wherever there are people willing to give over their money. Lets say you make $1200 a year. You ask to borrow $50 and you agree to pay me back over 5 years. I will agree to that cause you obviously have the means to pay me back (with interest) and on time. What if you asked for $5000 and say you'll pay it back in 5 years. From what I see you'll make $6000 in the next five years. And you'll already have expenses so the money you'd have to pay me is $4000. You can't even pay back the principle let alone the interest. So I decline. As with our government. Eventually people won't trust the governments ability to pay them back and they won't give them the money. When we no long get the money to pay for everything that the government pays for we're in trouble. Cause the government likes/has to spend money.",
"Let's say you have $100 in cash. You go to the bank, and put it in a checking account. The bank takes the $100 in cash you just deposited, and lends it to a guy named Bob. Now, Bob has $100 in cash in his pocket.\n\nBut you still *feel* like you have $100. Your checking account balance statement says you do have $100. But your checking account is lying - there's no real cash in there. The cash is in Bob's pocket.\n\nNonetheless, you are *so* conviced by that bank statement that says you have $100 that you just completely believe that you do.\n\nSo that's how the bank creates money - it creates checking accounts. Having a checking account is as good as having cash - so much so, that the number in the checking account might as well *be* cash.\n\nBut what if you want to spend the money? Well, you go to best buy. You buy a TV, using your debit card. Your bank \"wires\" the money to best buy's bank. But really, the only thing that moves are some numbers in some bank computers. No cash goes anywhere. So once again, the checking account is acting as if it *were* cash - but it's not cash. It's just filling that role.\n\nFrankly, if a checking account makes you *believe* you have cash, and *act* as if you have cash, and *spend* as if you have cash, then for all practical purposes, it's easier to think about the checking account as if it *were* cash.\n\nAnd that's how most of us *do* think about our checking accounts - we think of it as \"our money.\" And basically, we're right.\n\nA checking account is *debt* - the bank owes you money. But it's such reliable debt - the bank always pays - that you view it as equivalent to money. Whenever an institution creates highly reliable debt, that highly reliable debt tends to be perceived as equivalent to money.\n\n",
"There is only so much money in the Monopoly box. If we give out all of the money equally to all the players there is none left in the box right? Then I loan you 100 monopoly dollars at %10 interest, where do you get the %10 from? Either you open up another Monopoly box (cheat) or get it from another player by whatever means you can.\n\nTo expand on this when you charge interest someone somewhere has to make that money appear out of thin air, so in a sense it is imaginary money. This is why ancient people had usury law. Trying to find that %10 resulted in most people robbing Peter to pay Paul.\n\n_URL_0_",
"It might be helpful to walk through the accounting process step by step.\n\n1) You deposit $100 cash at the bank. Now the bank has two sections in its balance sheet: assets (stuff it has) and liabilities (stuff it owes to other people). The bank therefore puts $100 in an asset account called \"cold hard cash\", and $100 in a liability account called \"stuff we owe to etbeepbeep\". \n\n2) Now say I want to take out a loan for $6. Okay, how do we account for this? First the bank hands me $6 and subtracts $6 from its \"cold hard cash\" account, and it **creates a new asset account** called \"stuff Rexim owes us\". \n\nOkay, notice that two important and magical things just happened. When the bank loaned me money, *it didn't touch the numbers in your bank account*. The amount in \"stuff we owe etbeepbeep\" is still $100. The bank doesn't actually have all of its money that it owes you. It used some of it to loan to me. Banks only carry a **fraction** of the money they owe to depositors; this is called **fractional reserve banking**.\n\nNow the other important thing. Let's say someone asked you how much money you have now. You'd look at your bank account statement and say \"well it says here I have $100\". Okay, fine. Now let's say someone asks me how much money I have. I look at the greasy bills in my hand and I say, \"well, I got $6\".\n\nSo the total amount of money in society right now is $106. But we only started with $100! Where did that extra $6 come from? It didn't come from anywhere. **Banks create money out of thin air when they loan to people**\n\n3) I eventually pay that $6 back. The bank deletes its \"stuff Rexim owes us* account, and adds $6 to its cash account. \n\nNow how much money do you have? You still have your $100 in your account. How much money do I have? \"Nothin', man. I'm broke as a joke\" is my response.\n\nSo, the total amount of money in society is $100 now. Where did that $6 go? That's the third and final weird and magical thing that banks do: **money is destroyed when people pay back their loans**.\n\nThat's really all there is to it.\n"
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[],
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[],
[],
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[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyDU4X8GSmE",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bXuum3OdWA",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_reserve"
],
[],
[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usury"
],
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] |
|
4j7vua
|
what's happening in fire when it makes that familiar orange color?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4j7vua/eli5_whats_happening_in_fire_when_it_makes_that/
|
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"The color of fire come from the things its burning. Thats the real ELI5\n\nBetter answer is the gasses released by the act of combustion are glowing, it can tell us whats in the fire even. The specific orange comes from the gasses from wood haveing generally the same properties so you get the same color. ",
"The wavelength of light is proportional to the amount of energy being carried by the light. A smaller wavelength means the waves are closer together, and there's more energy. Short wavelengths are towards the blue, UV, and gamma part of the spectrum (high energy), while long wavelengths are towards the red, infrared, and radio spectrum (low energy).\n\nA fire is the rapid oxidation of a fuel source, releasing energy. Although a fire may be releasing a lot of energy, it's not being released in large packets - there are a lot of photons, but they're relatively low-energy photons. You can easily intuit this by recognizing how *warm* fire is. The light is being shifted towards the infrared part of the spectrum. Infrared, as the roots of the word suggest, is just below red. There are certainly a large number of photons being released in the visible spectrum as well, just mostly in the reds, oranges, and yellows. The hotter the flames, the shorter the wavelengths, so for instance [in this flame](_URL_0_) there's a lot of blue, too. The fuel is very energy-dense, so more energy is being released in smaller wavelengths.\n\nTypically, we don't want smaller wavelengths, though, because typically we want our fire for heat, not light, which means we really want the fuel to create infrared."
]
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[] |
[] |
[
[],
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"http://thevintagemom.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/IMG_4289.jpg"
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|
cwxqkd
|
how can we viably constuct computer chips?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cwxqkd/eli5_how_can_we_viably_constuct_computer_chips/
|
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"It would be pretty much impossible for us to mechanically make something that small. \nWhich is why we make them using light.\n\nYou know the way an old projector could take a tiny piece of film, shine light through it and fill a wall with the picture? \nImagine that in reverse. \nDraw a big human manageable picture of the circuits you want. \nShine a special light through it, then a lens, so now you’re projecting a tiny tiny version of that big picture. \n \nNow put a special material that breaks apart when that special light gets shined on it under the lens. \nThe stuff breaks apart in the exact pattern. \nThen put some acid on, so you got a tiny tiny system of trenches the exact shape of the circuits you want. \nFill it with something that conducts electricity. \nAnd you have a tiny tiny circuit you want. \n \nThis is called Photlithography",
"The transistors in computer chips aren't handled, the chips in CPUs and flash memory, etc., are all created in-situ as a single product. Semiconductor manufacture is a huge industry worth hundreds of billions and a lot of time, money, and effort is put into its development. Even so, there's often defects in the final product, which is where binning and different tiers of products come from - for example, when Intel comes out with a new range and offers i7s and i3s and so on at different speeds with different features, they're actually all produced as fully functional i7s but the lower tier models have more defects and so have those parts disabled. The design and tooling required for each new product is incredibly expensive, so it's cheaper to just make one single product and sell the ones that don't come out quite right as a cheaper version with less features.\n\nThe actual manufacturing process has a lot of steps and can be quite in depth, so [this video](_URL_0_) will hopefully explain it better than I could."
]
}
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[] |
[] |
[
[],
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWVywhzuHnQ"
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||
2gmjc2
|
what is the difference between logical and rational
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gmjc2/eli5what_is_the_difference_between_logical_and/
|
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"In common parlance, not much. But...if you wanted to get technical, something is logical if it follows from a premise. But...that premise could be irrational. \n\nRationality includes \"reason\" in most definitions, or \"sensible\". It's logical to jump out of the window if you're being chased by the devil. It's irrational to think you're being chased by the devil and then jump out of the window. ",
"Logic generally refers to a proven procedure or structure.\n\nRationality is a broader and more complex philosophical concept, generally being based on pragmatism and objective fact, but harder to explain more substantially without a specific context.",
"\nIf you say the sun will rise in the East and set in the West this day because it has always done that in the past, you are being more rational than logical. While it does not logically follow, the fact that it has happened that way many times makes it rational to assume it will continue for at least one more day. \n\n > Reason compared to logic\n\n > Main article: Logic\n\n > The terms \"logic\" or \"logical\" are sometimes used as if they were identical with the term \"reason\" or with the concept of being \"rational\", or sometimes logic is seen as the most pure or the defining form of reason. For example in modern economics, rational choice is assumed to equate to logically consistent choice.\n\n > Reason and logic can however be thought of as distinct, although logic is one important aspect of reason. Author Douglas Hofstadter, in Gödel, Escher, Bach, characterizes the distinction in this way. Logic is done inside a system while reason is done outside the system by such methods as skipping steps, working backward, drawing diagrams, looking at examples, or seeing what happens if you change the rules of the system.[33]\n\n > Reason is a type of thought, and the word \"logic\" involves the attempt to describe rules or norms by which reasoning operates, so that orderly reasoning can be taught. The oldest surviving writing to explicitly consider the rules by which reason operates are the works of the Greek philosopher Aristotle, especially Prior Analysis and Posterior Analysis.[34] Although the Ancient Greeks had no separate word for logic as distinct from language and reason, Aristotle's newly coined word \"syllogism\" (syllogismos) identified logic clearly for the first time as a distinct field of study. When Aristotle referred to \"the logical\" (hē logikē), he was referring more broadly to rational thought.[35]\n\n_URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason#Reason_compared_to_logic"
]
] |
||
3gxsng
|
why will some wifi hot spots let you connect and indicate a full connection, but then not actually work?
|
Not referring to password protected hot spots or connections requiring a sign in.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3gxsng/eli5_why_will_some_wifi_hot_spots_let_you_connect/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cu2gske",
"cu2gtfl"
],
"score": [
4,
2
],
"text": [
"I imagine you're referring to a case in which you get successfully connected to a hotspot, but can't actually get access to the public internet.\n\nThe reason is that everything did work technically. You managed to get connected to the router, it gave you an IP address and you and the router can communicate. Technically that's all connecting to WiFi is meant to be.\n\nGenerally you only connect to WiFi hoping to get proper internet access, but that's not what the standards are concerned with; as long as you can communicate with the router that's mission accomplished.\n\nWhy is it that way? Well because many people would want to connect to a router that doesn't have access to the general internet. Some wireless networks are only for internal use by an organization; it might only be a way of sharing data between some office computers and the printer or something.\n\nGetting access to the public internet is completely optional by the standards of WiFi.\n\nMany devices today attempt to check if you have public internet access after connecting to a router and might show a warning symbol if it thinks there isn't public internet access. Windows, for example, shows a little yellow exclamation mark and calls the connection 'limited'. Basically how that works is that, after you connect, Windows tries to connect to some stuff on the public internet it is quite certain will be present and available. If it can get a response the router is providing access to the public internet; if not then it probably isn't. (But not necessarily.)",
"Some are protected by MAC ID. Which is to say that the wifi router has a list of wifi adapters that it will allow to connect to it. If your MAC address isn't on the list, you can't connect.\n\nThere may be other reasons, in fact, I'm sure there are, but that's one reason it could happen."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
2kr0vi
|
why do stars twinkle if the light we're seeing is from thousands of years ago and most things aren't big enough to block its light?
|
Noticed a star twinkling when I took my dog outside and couldn't understand why it was.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2kr0vi/eli5why_do_stars_twinkle_if_the_light_were_seeing/
|
{
"a_id": [
"clnwkjk",
"clnwlf7",
"clnxiue"
],
"score": [
10,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Stars twinkle due to atmospheric interference. If you've ever seen \"heat waves\" shimmering above a road, you're seeing a similar principle at work. Gasses can cause interference with light passing through them. In the case of a twinkling star, you're seeing the atmosphere scattering the light as it passes through.",
"Atmospheric interference. Dust particles, layers of air with different temperatures, clouds.\n\nIt's not the star that's twinkling, it's our wibbly wobbly atmosphere.",
"Just like you can use your thumb to block out any skyscraper, the light from a giant star can actually be blocked by small things, such as dust particles or asteroids. Seeing how stars are far away, there's a long line through which things can fly. However, this isn't the main source of the twinkling.\n\nTwinkling is largely caused by our atmosphere. Light bends when it moves through something. That something can be anyting: solid (like a drinking glass), liquid (like water), or a gas (the air in our atmosphere)\n\nBending doesn't make it twinkle though. If you look through a window, light is also bend, but because its always bend in the same fashion, you can't even notice it.\n\nTwinkling comes in when the bending is happening randomly. Like the air above your head. Patches of air are randomly cold, and warm, and moved about by the wind. This has a tiny effect on the bending of the light, and thus the star appears to twinkle"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
4yd35f
|
how el nino is affecting the temperature of 2016 and how it is associated with climate change
|
I see a lot of articles stating that 2016 is the hottest on record, every month has been the hottest on record, etc but in the comments seeing people mentioning El Nino. Can someone please explain to me how that affects the temperature?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4yd35f/eli5_how_el_nino_is_affecting_the_temperature_of/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d6mri2u"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"El Nino and La Nina are natural cycles controlled by the temperature of the Pacific Ocean, and tend to operate in irregular cycles lasting around 3-6 years. They're not inherently connected to global warming, *but* global warming is making the fluctuation between those two even more extreme. In addition, because El Nino occurs in the Pacific Ocean, it's immediate effects are primarily felt in the Americas, with some effects in Africa, India, and Asia. Europe is generally thought of being sort of removed from El Nino."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3irsei
|
can chinese writing be "sounded out?" how would someone read a word that they've never seen before.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3irsei/eli5_can_chinese_writing_be_sounded_out_how_would/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cuj27nc",
"cuj28u3",
"cuj2oan",
"cuj2p1a"
],
"score": [
18,
2,
11,
2
],
"text": [
"No, mandarin and cantonese are not phonetic. If you can't figure out the word, you have to look it up or use context.",
"[Pinyin](_URL_1_)\n\n_URL_0_\n\nIt is possible to transcribe the sounds of Chinese characters in a way that those familiar with the Latin Alphabet can make sense of. However, as others have correctly pointed out, there is no way to \"sound out\" an unknown character. ",
"They're logograms (sort of), like hieroglyphs. But yeah, there's often much, much less phonetic information \"given\" in a character than you'd get with an English or Korean word. Some words you can guess at their pronunciation, like 羊 (sheep) is pronounced yáng, and 洋 (ocean) and 氧 (oxygen) are pronounced yáng and yǎng respectively. The incorporation of the 羊 is supposed to be a \"hint\" as to how the pronunciation goes, but it doesn't indicate tone.\n\nBut mostly, characters are learned through the system I just showed you: pinyin. That's also how most people type in Chinese, btw. It's a romanized alphabet, using a lot of the letters we use in English, and a couple we don't like ü. Then, you indicate the tone of the word with one of four accent markers, which goes over a specific vowel. ",
"If you are talking about standard written chinese, simplified and traditional, no because the characters represent ideas as opposed to sounds, however you can transcribe the sounds of the various languages and dialects using pīnyīn or other romanisation systems.\n\nAlso the Chinese characters are ideographic. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.christusrex.org/www1/pater/ermanov/chinese-1.jpg",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
42a1n5
|
why sometimes, cats seem to be singing a duet with each other while having intense eye contact.
|
Are they making a musical? Is it a form of asserting dominance? What's happening?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/42a1n5/eli5_why_sometimes_cats_seem_to_be_singing_a_duet/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cz8s1fc",
"cz8stoe",
"cz8t9hs"
],
"score": [
8,
4,
2
],
"text": [
"I don't believe I've ever witnessed the thing you are attempting to explain, could you link an example of a \"Cat Duet?\"\n\nEdit: Oh, you mean when they're growling at each other? That's usually* to tell one another that they are in each others territory and trying to scare the other off.",
"It's a territorial dispute. Essentially, one of the cats has encroached on another's territory, and now they're having a stand-off. The sound they're making is probably a kind of howl or wail, often low in pitch, and made with the mouth closed.",
"My male cat does this sometimes, but my female cat doesnt respond. Kind of a longer meow but quieter. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
8a9ga8
|
what is cryogenic, not cryonic
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8a9ga8/eli5_what_is_cryogenic_not_cryonic/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dwwxjgd",
"dwx96dk"
],
"score": [
4,
2
],
"text": [
"Something that is cryogenic actively produces a cold state by pumping heat away. Something that is cryonic is merely in a cold state.",
"Cryogenics means the use or making of extreme cold. For example, if you need to preserve something biological for a long time, you might use cryogenic storage.\n\nA cryogenic liquid is one which is extremely cold (for example liquid nitrogen). "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
2uutkj
|
the difference between cellular data and wifi.
|
So that my Dad will understand. He doesn't fully understand why the gps on his wifi-only tablet won't work in the car. I've run out of ways to explain it.
EDIT: thanks everyone. Just to clarify - I know that GPS is it's own thing. I didn't say it gracefully, but when I say that the gps won't work in the car I mean to say that the Map app he's looking at in the living room stops working when he leaves wifi service. Which obviously makes sense, but that's what I've been trying to explain to him.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2uutkj/eli5_the_difference_between_cellular_data_and_wifi/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cobvg3b"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"It's what they're connected, and connecting to. They both use radio waves (albeit completely different frequencies), which is why some tablets can use 4G, because its radio can tune to the proper frequency. Say you had a tablet that could do so, it would still need to be able to identify itself to the cellular network as an authorized user. \n\nSo his tablet won't work because 1. it's not on the right frequency and 2. even if it were it would need a SIM card (aka identification card) for the cell network to allow access. When the tablet uses wifi it still needs to identify itself and somehow be granted access, which also explains why just because you can connect to a wifi network you can't necessarily use it. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
4tu59b
|
why do spark plugs in cars last 50,000 - 100,000 miles, but my push mower needs a new spark plug every year?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4tu59b/eli5why_do_spark_plugs_in_cars_last_50000_100000/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d5kdc5q"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"There are two basic reasons why spark plugs need to be replaced. They can get fouled, or wear out. Fouling happens when foreign substances deposit on the spark plug electrode. These can be non-conductive, and stop the current before it creates a spark, or conductive, and eventually give the current an easy path to ground, basically shorting out the spark plug. These deposits usually come from either too much fuel being introduced into the engine, or oil being burned in the engine (oil and gasoline really aren't that different chemically). A lawn mower will use a cheap, simple carburetor to mix the fuel and air. This carburetor does not have the kind of accurate control over the fuel/air ratio as the complex fuel injection system in a car. The result is that most of the time, there will be a little too much fuel being burned. Lawn mower engines are also not built as accurately as car engines, so they burn more oil, also fouling the spark plug. \n\nThe other reason is simple wear. This is dependent on many factors, but one of the main ones is the material that the spark plug electrode is made of. Every time the spark plug fires, some of the material falls off. If the electrode is made of some materials, like copper, for example, a relatively large amount of it will fall off every time. If other materials are used, like platinum or iridium, much less of it falls off every time. Lawn mowers use very cheap copper spark plugs, while cars that can use the same spark plugs for 100k miles almost always use iridium spark plugs."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
8ivbjw
|
how do native animals know not to eat introduced species that may be poisonous (e.g. how do australian birds know not to eat avocados)?
|
I guess asking how animals know not to eat these things generally may answer the question, but I'm curious about introduced things particularly.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ivbjw/eli5_how_do_native_animals_know_not_to_eat/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dyv46dl"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"It's pretty simple. They don't \"know\" in the sense of \"ooh, poison, better not\", but the ones that do, die. The ones that don't, for any number of reasons, live to breed. It might smell wrong, like steak to a vegan, or taste wrong, like old milk, or be too difficult to eat easily, so the ones that put in the effort exhaust themselves and are easy prey. So, dead."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
2cbxxv
|
how many kwh do i need to electrolyte a liter of water?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cbxxv/eli5_how_many_kwh_do_i_need_to_electrolyte_a/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cjdx1qn"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Well according to [this](_URL_0_), one mole of water needs about 237 kJ of energy for complete electrolysis. One mole of water is 18.02 grams I believe, and 1 liter is 1000 grams, so in one liter of water there is 55.5 moles of water.\n\nSo we need a total energy of 237 X 55.5 =13153.5 kJ, or 13153500 Joules. Since by definition, 1 kWh equals 3600000 J, you need a grand total of **3.65375 kWh**.\n\nMost of those numbers are estimates, so maybe someone can check?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/electrol.html"
]
] |
||
6dzoxk
|
how would you connect to the internet if a government severed all connections similar to what happened in egypt during the arab spring
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6dzoxk/eli5_how_would_you_connect_to_the_internet_if_a/
|
{
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"di6jts5",
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"di6siah",
"di6vppa"
],
"score": [
3,
6,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"This is not unique to Egypt during the Arab spring. Almost all countries involved in the Arab spring tried to shut down the protests by cutting Internet services. And a lot of other countries are doing the same. Some are helped by American companies like Cisco to make firewalls to filter out traffic.\n\nIf there is a filter in place then you might be able to circumvent it using TOR. The public relays is usually blocked but the TOR project is distributing information on hidden relays to affected areas. If Internet is completely cut off then there is a chance that the phone networks is still working in which case you can use old fashioned modems to call international lines and connect to the Internet. There is a number of modem centrals that is still operating free of charge to anyone who connect. Another option is to use satellite based Internet solutions. Satellites cover a larger area then a single country and can be used in neighboring countries with little problems. For example the satellites covering Italy is very popular in Libya. When it becomes very hard to connect to the Internet then people also set up hand to hand messaging services. We see these types of services in almost every country with a limit on Internet access. You can use a computer very effectively using thumb drives and removable hard drives to carry the communication although real time services is out of the question.",
"Presuming we're part of the secret resistance trapped in a tyrannical dictatorship, I'd recommend the following:\n\n1. Satellite phone. These are essentially cellphones that you can attach to portable antennas for direction communications with satellites. They're expensive compared to standard cellphones and your bandwidth will be limited. But they're portable and relatively easy to conceal.\n\n2. Shortwave radio. This uses terrestrial radio signals that can stretch beyond the boundaries of any nation. It's not very portable, but it's relatively concealable: the antenna needs to be (somewhat) exposed but it's relatively low-profile. You can also communicate while sitting in your secret underground bunker (unlike a satellite phone). However, the nefarious secret police can also track your signal if they're so inclined. To get around this, you could mount the radio in a vehicle but you'd quickly run into serious signal processing issues as shortwave isn't the best medium for digital data signals in the first place.\n\n3. Two-way satellite. The consumer satellite service you're thinking of actually uses ground stations (which have been seized by the government). What you need is the big (meters in diameter) satellite dishes used for direct communication with the satellites. These are *very* noticeable, since they're fixed emplacements that require line-of-sight to the sky. So the government probably has a good idea where to send their soldiers to shut down communications.\n\n\nHowever, the most likely path is simple human frailty: *someone* has access to those telecommunications links and that someone is susceptible to bribery/coercion.",
"Mesh networking software is also an alternative way of getting communications to others around you.",
"As I recall, what happened was that sympathetic people in the West set up a system where people could call from pay phones and leave voice mails on a server. Volunteers transcribed the messages and tweeted them out. Might not be exactly what you were asking about, but does make the point that unless you shut down the internet all over the world you can still access it through a combo of \"human engineering\" and legacy communication systems"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
elf864
|
why do some medecines still have a pill version when there is a powder or an effervescent version that is a lot easier to swallow?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/elf864/eli5_why_do_some_medecines_still_have_a_pill/
|
{
"a_id": [
"fdhf09e",
"fdhf4ot"
],
"score": [
12,
6
],
"text": [
"Portability: pills/capsules are easier to bring on various trips\n\nDistinction: easier to identify based on color/shape\n\nMeasurements: pre-determined portions that make taking too much or too little (powder needs a scoop or scale or measuring cup) easier",
"Taste, convenience, and release method. Most meds can be dissolved in solution and work the same but a lot of them taste awful so it’s preferable to just take a pill. It’s also a lot easier and more efficient to transport pills than it is a bunch of liquid. Some meds are made to release over time and crushing or dissolving that med would mess up the time release and it wouldn’t work properly"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
1d6cjm
|
how can temperature/weather vary so much at different points on the earth that are the same distance from the equator?
|
Obviously altitude is a factor for mountain areas and things like that, but for example, how can southern California have "perfect" weather most of the year and other parts in the US that are on the same latitudinal line not have the same perfect weather?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1d6cjm/eli5_how_can_temperatureweather_vary_so_much_at/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c9nbgnr",
"c9nbk1h"
],
"score": [
4,
2
],
"text": [
"Climate (the relatively constant patterns of weather and temperature over millennia) is controlled by wind and ocean currents. Water carries a lot of energy in its temperature, so a current coming from the equator to the north or south will create a much warmer climate than a current coming from the north or south pole toward the equator. Wind currents behave in the same way, but ocean currents have a much larger effect. This is why places near water have such different climates than places that are more inland. Essentially, water and air coming from other parts of the globe will determine the climate in a place.",
"The climate is affected by more than just the distance from the sun. \n\n\nThere are wind and water currents that will carry temperatures from one region to another. These currents are cyclical and work through Convection.\n\n_URL_2_\n\n_URL_3_\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_4_\n\nYou also have weather phenomenon where mountains cause all the rain to stay on one side and then it can be very dry on the other (ie Vancouver, BC). IIRC this is due to the clouds coming off the ocean, filled with evaporated water, but as they hit the mountains they are pushed higher and higher until they can't hold the water anymore (rain), and then the weather is consistently dry on the other side.\n\n_URL_5_\n\nOr the Lake effect (ie Toronto/Buffalo). Where it snows on one side of the lake but not the other. This due to dry air on one side traveling across the lake picking up the moisture from the lake and when the air gets to the other side of the lake its humid and ready to precipitate.\n\n_URL_1_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_wind_patterns",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_effect",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_circulation",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Convection_Currents",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convection_currents",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_shadow"
]
] |
|
9hi9o7
|
from where do podcast apps get their content? is there a common directory of content providers or do the devs have to keep updating their apps with new content?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9hi9o7/eli5_from_where_do_podcast_apps_get_their_content/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e6c4s82"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"No, its more like the podcast creators choose a service that meets their need. Do they need comments/feedback/chat? Are they willing to pay for hosting or do they want it free? Do they require retail services so they can charge for their content?\nThe podcast producers want to get onto different platforms to expand their audience (so they can charge more to THEIR advertisers). The podcast platform/app people want more content so are usually willing to cough up free hosting fees and provide all the other services. Maybe they take a % of merch sales etc. \n\nSome of the more popular podcasts... that are big enough to have a producer and/or an engineer, thats part of the job of cutting a new episode. Have to upload the episode in 2-3 different formats to half a dozen different sites. \n\nIt might be a neat idea to provide a podcast distribution service - upload once and IT will submit to iTunes, to spotify, soundcloud, whatever. I doubt any podcast creator would go for it tho. You want to mention in your promotion \"come download latest episodes at < platform > .com/ < podcast name > \", can't do that if you don't know what/all platforms your listeners might be reaching you via. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
1o82e6
|
my glasses perscription
|
I have had glasses for a couple of years now and I have a slight idea of what my prescription means, but what I don't know is how severe my eyesight is diminished.
OD SPH -0.25
OD CYL -2.00
OD AXIS 178
OS SPH -1.25
OS CYL -1.50
OS AXIS 165
When I take my glasses off I almost feel a slight pressure in my eyes, but if I squint a bit most things come into focus.
Does this mean astigmatism is more a cause of my eyesight issues? What's the normal prescription? Am I that bad compared to others?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1o82e6/eli5_my_glasses_perscription/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ccptng5"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"The first number on its own for each eye, sphere, is a general near-sighted (negative) or far-sightedness.\n\nThe second number can be blank, meaning you just have trouble focusing at certain distances.\n\nSince you have a cylinder number, you have an astigmatism. More like trying to focus light though a weirdly placed clear football than a clear marble. So your total prescription needs more than one indicator to describe the shape.\n\nThe axis number is used to combine the previous two numbers, so your eyeglass lens+actual eye work together as if they were a single properly shaped eye.\n\nThe muscles around your eye can make his correction manually if it isn't too strong a prescription by making your eye the correct shape. In general though, they get worse at doing so as you age, and get tired if you force that all the time.\n\nYou'd have trouble seeing far away objects even without the astigmatism, but yours is moderately strong. From a practical standpoint, more astigmatism=more important to have someone well-trained help you pick, measure, and fit your glasses. The lens alignment and position are more important than if you had only a -2.5 sphere measurement, for example. So, yes, see a real professional."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
6yxwu4
|
if fire can't happen in space due to the lack of oxygen what happens if theres an explosion (what would it look like)?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6yxwu4/eli5_if_fire_cant_happen_in_space_due_to_the_lack/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dmqzyvz",
"dmr0ihz",
"dmra3a1"
],
"score": [
3,
13,
2
],
"text": [
"_URL_0_\n\nWithout oxygen, it won't be the same kind of explosion you would be used to. But things can *kind of* explode in space.",
"Fire can and does happen in space. This is how rockets get things up into orbit, by burning huge, prolonged explosions in space. What *is* true is that a lot of things that we think of as combustable don't burn because they don't have oxygen to react with in space like they do inside our atmosphere. For fires in space, we have to bring along everything required to make the fire since we won't find any parts just lying around in any sizable quantity.\n\nExplosions are largely the same in space as they are inside the atmosphere. Most explosives include their own oxidizer to speed up the reaction, so they don't need atmospheric oxygen.\n\nThe biggest differences are that the atmosphere provides part of the chemicals needed for the reaction (elemental oxygen), it is a nice medium to disperse combustable materials in to make a big fireball, and you get buoyancy effects where the heated gasses released from combustion tend to be pushed up (this is how hot air baloons work).\n\nThis buoyancy ends up being important in another way. For a slow-burning fire in an oxygen atmosphere in microgravity (like that experienced on the International Space Station), a fire will burn and expand, but since it doesn't get pushed out of the way by oxygen-containing atmosphere, the reaction quickly runs out of oxygen and stops (presuming there isn't something else disrupting things).\n\nAlso, oxygen isn't strictly required for making fire. You just need a sufficiently active heat-producing reaction that gives off gasses to make fire. It just happens that oxygen reactions very commonly do this and elemental oxygen in our atmosphere is *far* more common than other substances which might be used to make a non-oxygen fire.",
"Explosions can happen through things violently breaking apart. Fireball explosions need oxygen. But other chemicals can react in other ways, and the super-expansion of frozen water can create steam explosions. So for example if an asteroid were to hit a comet, and its just rock and ice, there would still be an 'explosion' and there would be heat and light - but from the force generated by the collision and from the steam explosion from superheating the ice and having it violently propel rocks around. \n\nSo it all comes down to: what is exploding and how? "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CebjYUufjOg"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
1il7xp
|
how do shipping containers work?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1il7xp/eli5_how_do_shipping_containers_work/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cb5j7il"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Loaded at a factory working round the clock.\n\nClosed with a seal as a tampering block.\n\nHauled with trucks and trains down to the dock.\n\nMoved onto ships, destination: retail stock.\n\nCrosses the ocean stacked 7 high with corners that lock.\n\nUnloaded quickly by longshoremen fighting the clock.\n\nDriven to distro centers, trailer wheels get a chock.\n\nSorted loads go to the store on the corner of your block."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
9uq6rx
|
what's the difference between and engagement ring and a wedding ring?
|
The lady of my life is wanting to plan a trip to the beach next summer which she has never seen before. I want to make sure she remembers it by popping the question to her but I'm a little confused between the difference of these rings and if both are necessary. For example can the ring I propose with be used as the ring I put on her finger on the wedding day or no?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9uq6rx/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_and_engagement/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e964514",
"e96469q",
"e9650yt",
"e96a3ut"
],
"score": [
3,
2,
9,
7
],
"text": [
"Engagement ring is traditionally the ring you give when you ask them to marry you. Usually has a diamond on it. Though this is beginning to change to other precious rocks as well. \n\nThe wedding ring is traditionally rings that each wear that are exchanged at the wedding and then worn forever, etc etc. \n\nTypically they are different rings, but this is in the traditional sense. \n\nYou don’t “need” any of them. But typically they are expected. You actually can do whatever you and yours want to do. ",
"Usually for engagement only the girl wears a ring and it's usually a more ornate and gemmed ring as opposed to a wedding ring which can just be a simple golden band. Just look through some pictures and see if you see anything that she might like and then try to be sneaky about getting her ring size. Good luck and don't get too nervous when you do it :)",
"There's no one \"right\" way to do it. Some people use the engagement ring as a wedding ring, removing it the day of the wedding and putting it back on during the ceremony - that's what my parents did, for example. Some people use the wedding ring as an \"upgrade\" to the engagement ring, adding some detail to the original piece or getting a whole new ring to celebrate the day. Some people get a fancier engagement ring and a plainer wedding band, and after the wedding wear both of them together. Which is what I personally did - my wife's wedding band has a curve that fits into the curve of her engagement ring, so that they fit together into a double ring, which is something we both liked. But there are no rules around what to do with rings and every couple has their preference, so don't feel pressured to do it any specific way besides the way that works best for you.\n\nI'd recommend talking about it with her, which is something I've heard a lot of guys don't do. But honestly, that's not a question you want to ask without knowing the answer, and if you're searching for a ring that your fiancee-to-be will like, you'll want to make sure it's something that fits her taste. People like to say \"You'll spoil the surprise!\" but it's honestly something that's important for couples to figure out along the way - the event itself will be a surprise no matter what, and you can go into it knowing you've got a gift she'll love and an answer to you that you'll want to hear. And she doesn't have to go as far as picking her own ring - go to a jewelry store together or look online, point out designs, stones (there's more than just diamonds!), whatever that you both like, and have a reasonable idea of where your budget is. Once you know a bit about her personal taste, you can shop on your own, pick out something that she'll love, and get planning on the rest of your life.\n\nBest of luck buddy!",
"Something to be said about engagement rings:\n\nThe diamond engagement ring *wasn't even a thing* until Queen Victoria. Neither were white wedding dresses or Wagner's \"Bridal Chorus,\" for that matter.\n\nEngagement rings really weren't a thing, and even fell in popularity from their mediocre status after WWI. De Beers, facing bankruptcy, because diamonds *aren't fucking rare*, and aren't actually valuable, commissioned \"Diamond's are a Girls Best Friend\", and coined \"Diamond's are Forever,\" which they used to advertise into the 1990s. They also gave diamond jewelry away to the rich and famous so they were seen with it, driving up demand, saving the cartel. And yes, they actually are a cartel.\n\nSo congratulations, our \"tradition\" is a marketing campaign.\n\nI recommend a few things:\n\nA) Set a budget and stick to it. Don't ever EVER tell the salesman your budget outright, because you will be sold a ring exactly that.\n\nB) The setting is the most important. A good setting will make a mediocre gem look great. A bad setting will hurt to wear, probably lose the stone, and make anything look tacky.\n\n 1) Make sure the inner edges of the ring are beveled - a sharp edge will cut into the skin.\n\n 2) Make sure the tines that hold the stone are swept - they're basically rods soldered onto the ring to hold the stone, and their flat bottoms will also dig into the skin.\n\n 3) Buy the wedding ring with the engagement ring and have the engagement ring made to sit flush against the wedding ring. No pinching, and it looks better. It also gives you the option to have the two fused together, as it's popular these days to wear them both. What good is a pretty engagement ring if it never gets worn again?\n\n 4) Make sure the tines are meaty, because it's all that's holding the stone in place.\n\n 5) Skip the upgrade packages, and probably skip the insurance.\n\nC) Talk to your insurance company about insuring the ring. See what options are out there against theft, loss, and damage. If your insurance company will cover a lost stone, you may skip buying additional insurance through the retailer.'\n\nD) Skip Jared, Kay, and De Beers. Ripoffs, all of them. Smaller, local jewelers will do you better for less.\n\nE) Talk to your lady about what she expects, what sort of cut she likes, etc. She's the one who has to wear it, so you better make fucking sure she likes it.\n\nF) There are other stones than diamond. The trend is getting more popular these days. There are synthetic diamonds which no one can tell the difference and have greater luster than diamond, and are cheaper. Going with other stones make you guys look progressive and savvy.\n\nG) Make sure you get what you pay for. I've been ripped off, sold a stone I didn't pay for, and I didn't think it would happen to me. It can happen to you. Be absolutely clear about what it is you're getting. Get it written down. Have someone else verify it once you get it.\n\nH) If you're picking out of the display case, make sure the ring you pick is the ring you get - what is on display is their very best, and they are quick to give you \"similar\" from under the display. This is actually the default when shopping, so be clear you want THAT DISPLAY RING and not a facimile.\n\nI) The size of the rock is not proportional to how much you love her. Remember, it's literally just a bit of rock, and it's only worth is what we give it. This stone and ring is symbolic, it's not an investment - and presume that the ring will only depreciate in value over time, especially because you're paying retail value for it, which comes with a markup, and resale of that ring is going to be below market value of the materials.\n\nJ) Actually, consider shopping at pawn shops. You can get a fantastic deal, and you can always then go and have the ring resized - a cheap and trivial process. If your lady isn't shopping with you, she doesn't have to know. Really, NO REALLY, give them the first pass before you go into a jewelry store; at worst, you can get some ideas of what you're looking for. You might be VERY pleasantly surprised. Just don't ever tell her because she's going to get hung up on \"other people's broken dreams\" bullshit.\n\nFinal note - engagement rings are, by law, a conditional gift. That ring is YOUR PROPERTY until that knot is fucking tied. If for whatever tragic and unfortunate reason you two didn't work out, which I don't suspect is going to be your problem, she must give you back the ring or it's theft. I tell you this mostly as a curiosity, because I don't think you're going to have to care."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
5zpl5t
|
how much damage would a one exaton nuclear bomb do?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5zpl5t/eli5_how_much_damage_would_a_one_exaton_nuclear/
|
{
"a_id": [
"df00bsg"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"That's 4.184e+28 joules. That's roughly the same energy as an asteroid 200km across impacting the Earth at 72km/s.\n\nFor reference, the asteroid that killed the Dinosaurs was about 10km across.\n\n\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
6kv9ii
|
why is it that music notes sound the same to everyone an we can agree on what is a c for example?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6kv9ii/eli5_why_is_it_that_music_notes_sound_the_same_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"djp2c4e",
"djpaqwi"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
" > Why is a C is always a C to everyone (provided they can recognize notes in the first place) when people of define smells and tastes differently and recognize colors in varying ways?\n\n\nAn A note in the US is defined as 440 Hz, or cycles per second. Anyone with the equipment can produce exactly that frequency. \n\nRed is defined as light between the range of 6470 to 7000 Angstroms, a measurement of length equal to one ten-billionth of a meter. \n\nSo any given color is actually a range of frequencies, while any musical note is exactly one frequency. ",
"As others have mentioned: yes, a note is based on a specific set of wavelengths: (set wavelength * 2^n). Our ears can hear these notes as long as they are able to hear the right wavelength at an acceptable volume range. The hairs of the cochlea in the ears help interpret the sound.\n\nColor is also based on wavelength. What's different about it is that the human eye uses cones to see color, and there are only three types: red, green, and blue. We don't have a uniform structure like the hairs of the cochlea that allows us to see color of all wavelengths of the visible spectrum, making it more complicated since all three types of cones work together to interpret the color you're seeing. If some cones don't function properly, you'll get an offset of color interpretation. I figure that you don't get such an offset in hearing since if the structure in the cochlea is damaged, you just lack hearing (volume is affected, not pitch)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
8kgzh2
|
how are tv shows on cable converted into digital files that are uploaded online?
|
I am curious as to the technical aspects that are used to convert a TV program that is from a cable box into a digital file like .mkv and .mp4 that is the format I generally find online?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8kgzh2/eli5_how_are_tv_shows_on_cable_converted_into/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dz7m1om"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Typically by using a capture card ( & playing the entire video from the cable box/etc), but sometimes people are able to get a digital copy from the source (e.g. they work for a content provider & leak the source files)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3rhlj5
|
shale gas - what is it? why is it good/bad?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rhlj5/eli5shale_gas_what_is_it_why_is_it_goodbad/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cwo323z"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Shale gas is natural gas extracted from shale deposits by a fairly new technology called fracking, fracturing the shale and injecting a mix into the well to keep the cracks open.\n\nI like to burn natural gas. It keeps me warm.\n\nFracturing shale repeatedly in many directions from the drill site seems to be doing a lot more than the traditional drilling did. The mix injected into the well has poisons in it.\n\nIt is claimed that well water and the drill hole are far apart. I say drill holes can link the two and the chemicals can eventually get up to drinking water strata. This can take a long time. Long enough for the companies involved to be gone and only poisoned wells remaining.\n\nI think poisoning water wells is a bad idea.\n\nThen there is the waste. There is a lot of waste. Some is injected into deep wells. This has been shown to cause small Earthquakes in some areas. I am not in favor of Earthquakes, even small ones.\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2rx0zw
|
why haven't our noses changed or been eliminated via evolution?
|
Here me out, I was thinking standing in formations for hours as I froze my nose off why haven't we lost it or changed via evolution? It seems like such a prominent feature to be "attacked" and something that can be easily broken or hurt.
EDIT: sorry everybody I mean by design, I understand smell and what it does is important.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rx0zw/eli5_why_havent_our_noses_changed_or_been/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cnk2cxi",
"cnk2d53"
],
"score": [
2,
3
],
"text": [
"It provides a lot of protection, you wouldn't want your nasal holes to be exposed. And as for the cold, during the last Ice Age Neanderthals actually had bigger noses to warm up the air before inhaling it. ",
"Your nose is a filter for bacteria. Bacteria is a more common threat than freezing temperatures and physical attacks. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
4zubm3
|
why does a gps tracker require a monthly fee/service to "connect," but a gps car navigator (e.g. garmin) does not?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4zubm3/eli5_why_does_a_gps_tracker_require_a_monthly/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d6ysg6e",
"d6ytfu2"
],
"score": [
21,
94
],
"text": [
"GPS is free to all, the signal from the satellites are transmit only, so there is nothing anyone can do to prevent you from listening and computing your location. (and thats not just a hack, it is explicitly stated to be a free service)\n\nYou can buy a GPS receiver for like $10 (will need more to actually do something with it though)\n\nSo, the question is, what GPS trackers are you referring to? they may have a wireless connection to communicate out to the interwebs (like if your phone knows where it is, but if you want to know where your phone is, it needs a data connection to share its location), or maybe they are charging for updated maps.",
"So GPS is a completely passive technology. A GPS receiver listens to signals broadcast by a group of satellites at known locations, and uses the timing difference between those signals to calculate its own location relative to the satellites.\n\nBut the end result is that *only the GPS receiver knows its location*. The satellites don't even know that it exists. But if you want to track someone remotely, how do you get the location off of the GPS receiver and onto your computer/phone screen? You have to have it transmit its location somehow. For instance, over the cellular phone network. And *that* is what you're paying for. Without a subscription, the tracker will still know where it is; that costs nothing. But it won't be able to remotely *tell* you where it is."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
bzsuj1
|
what chemically happens to milk when it goes sour?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bzsuj1/eli5_what_chemically_happens_to_milk_when_it_goes/
|
{
"a_id": [
"eqwclx2"
],
"score": [
50
],
"text": [
"The lactose (milk sugar) is converted to lactic acid by lactobacillus bacteria (same ones that make yoghurt and cheese). The increased acidity causes the milk proteins to denature (unfold), exposing bits of protein that are hydrophobic (want to stay away from water). These bits then stick to each other, making clumps that hide the hydrophobic bits from the water."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
1orga4
|
why is money always worth more in the past? is it possible that a dollar in 100 years to be worth more than the dollar now?
|
I know that money always fluctuates in value and that a dollar can be worth more one day, less the next, and then more again. My question is mostly relating to long stretches of time. Like whenever you read the price of something in a text book then they adjust for inflation to contextualize how much money that is for us current day. But I want to know why money is always seems to be worth more in the past? Can money go back to being worth what it was in the past? for instance, can the dollar ever return to the value it had in 1920?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1orga4/eli5_why_is_money_always_worth_more_in_the_past/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ccuu5qk",
"ccuuj1q",
"ccuula2"
],
"score": [
2,
7,
2
],
"text": [
"It's not always. There's a such thing as deflation.",
"The current system has inflation, the gradual increase in the prices of goods and services, baked into it. Almost all of the structures are based on that assumption. There is no reason that a static or deflationary system would not work - indeed, for most of the history of human civilization, money was not inflationary - it was based on precious metals whose value remained roughly constant over thousands of years. The current inflationary system was created a few hundred years ago, to allow governments more control over their countries economies, and drive investments and activity.\n\nEdit: I get the words inflation and deflation mixed up at times. It refers to the growing or shrinking of prices, not the value of money.",
"I think it could be based on the total amount of money estimated to be in the world at the time. A company gets bought in the past for $10,000, say there's only $100,000 estimated to be in the world at the time. Then in the future there's $1,000,000 estimated in the world, then if that same company was bought in the future its worth should be $100,000. At least that's the only way i can justify it"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
5zcfez
|
how come items cost so little to make, but the price is almost 1000 times the cost to make?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5zcfez/eli5_how_come_items_cost_so_little_to_make_but/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dewydva"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"if you are going to make a claim that some company is marking up their item x1000 then you should give that example. It is likely that you are just missing something. That is an insanely high mark up."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2trmj1
|
why are certain tax places offering me money to do my taxes?
|
Like some places are offering to pay me fifty dollars to do my taxes. Are they going to charge more? I don't see what they gain.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2trmj1/eli5_why_are_certain_tax_places_offering_me_money/
|
{
"a_id": [
"co1qww0",
"co1tc2z"
],
"score": [
6,
5
],
"text": [
"They're probably working on the assumption that you'll sign up for a \"refund anticipation loan\", which is basically a payday loan in nicer clothing.",
"If you're talking about Liberty Tax, the scheme is basically that they'll give you $50 (or whatever) up front, but only if you agree to have their $200 (or whatever) fee deducted from your tax return before it gets to you. Depending on your return, they may *also* try to sell you a refund anticipation loan, like elkab0ng said."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
45zytc
|
why do our emotions overcome our logic in times when we are trying the hardest to stay calm?
|
Example: Heated arguments often get worse due to emotions and we often wish, in retrospect, we had handled things differently.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/45zytc/eli5_why_do_our_emotions_overcome_our_logic_in/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d01d2a4",
"d01d2yk"
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text": [
" People in general aren't used to dealing with high stress, high emotion situations. It's a natural response to give in to our emotions and act how we feel. Only people who have experienced high stress situations and often are able to act correctly when it counts. It takes a lot of discipline to override our emotional responses and respond logically. If most people were in a heavy combat situation where they were under fire from an enemy they would cry and cower. The person who is cowering knows that isn't the smart thing to do but can't control how they are acting. That's why the military trains people to operate while they're being screamed at and shot at. You have to keep your calm and be able to think in a high stress situation. ",
"Thus is why me ex broke up with me. I always keep a cool head. When she would fly off the handle I would tell her calmly to come back when she could talk like people. It's possible to keep calm and control your emotions during any situation. She said I didn't show enough emotion. But getting worked up over trivial bullshit doesnt make matters better for anyone. Either that or I am a sociopath and disconnected from this world."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
6ohhk5
|
games (espacially back in the day) try to use as minimal space as possible for their games, so why are unused graphics etc. still in many gamefiles.
|
It kind of seems paradoxical.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ohhk5/eli5_games_espacially_back_in_the_day_try_to_use/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dkhctz3",
"dkhp60l"
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text": [
"you never know what removing something can do. say they removed unused graphics from sonic 1 for a stage they didn't intend on using anymore. for all they know, removing that code could cause a huge glitch or crash elsewhere and it would be even more of a headache to fix that at that point. so sometimes it's safer and easier to just leave the unused stuff in, untouched. ",
"Old graphics generally used things called Sprites. These were very large sheets of graphics that could be divided into X by X square cells. The graphics processor on the old console would load an entire sheet into memory and then could reference a specific gridpoint on that sheet to pull up an image.\n\nThis means you would find certain sprites with each other regularly. For instance, you might put all the stage-specific enemies for one stage of Megaman on the same sheet. What this ends up meaning is that, if for some reason you don't fill up the entire sheet, you'll have some lost 'theoretical' space -- the space on the disk is still consumed, just with no value added from it.\n\nIf you had a sprite that you were using for something that was eventually taken out, you might not necessarily want to take the work to remove it from the sprite sheet. You don't gain anything by doing that work, and can potentially cause other problems."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
3t4b3k
|
why are some dogs 'camera shy'?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3t4b3k/eli5_why_are_some_dogs_camera_shy/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cx30umr"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"The same reason some people are shy. Some dogs just don't like the direct attention and some also feel stressed because owners will say their name more sternly in an attempt to have the dog look at them and the camera."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
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