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c66glk
|
when working out, is it good, bad or no impact on the result, if you get lactic acid build up?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c66glk/eli5_when_working_out_is_it_good_bad_or_no_impact/
|
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"Generally bad. Lactic acid buildup causes muscle cramping. It's usually as a result of anaerobic exercise, such as weightlifting, but it can be caused by poor condition and muscles being starved of oxygen due to the lungs not working as well as they should.\n\nIt will have a direct impact on the outcome of your exercise if you cramp, because you will have to stop sooner, and you can also physically damage the muscle tissue, preventing workouts in the immediate future.",
"Lactic acid would be bad for recovery from a workout. It will still cause muscular development, but buildup of lactic acid in the body would likely cause stiffness in your joints from pain/rigidness in your muscles.\n\nEither use a foam roller or some form of pressure and stretching to help redistribute it and more effectively help your body deal with it."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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||
ap1wxx
|
how do hoas actually have any power to enforce their rules? i.e. if i bought a house in one and refused to abide by their rules what gives them the power to fine me?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ap1wxx/eli5_how_do_hoas_actually_have_any_power_to/
|
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"text": [
"You agreed by buying a house in the development. Same reason you have to pay HOA fees.\n\nJust cut your lawn.",
"Usually as part of the purchase, you would have signed an agreement to abide by the HOA. It should be a standard part of the purchase process of any property covered by an HOA.\n\n\\[should be one of the dozens of pieces of paper you signed if you bought your property in the US\\] ",
"What gives a HOA the right to make you sign the agreement when purchasing? Do they own the property you are buying?",
"You signed contracts when you bought a house in the HOA. They can probably not only fine you, but ultimately force you to move. It depends what it says in the contract you signed. ",
"The hoa is usually enforced by a deed covenant attached to the property. They are generally impossible to remove once established. Your consent is not required for the covenant to be enforced."
]
}
|
[] |
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[],
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||
6l8lji
|
how does a country -test- a long range missile
|
Do they launch an actual rocket? Do they just launch something with gps on it? Long story how does a country say we can launch anywhere? Thanks for your help
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6l8lji/eli5_how_does_a_country_test_a_long_range_missile/
|
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"They do launch a missile. They'll have a set of objectives such as range, accuracy and not exploding on launch. A missile can have longer range than tested. It's possible a test doesn't meet the maximum range of the missile, but the designers and engineers have determined that increasing the range wouldn't be an issue during an actual use scenario.",
" > Do they launch an actual rocket?\n\nYes, this is perhaps the most important part of a \"rocket test\".\n\n > Do they just launch something with gps on it?\n\nThey launch a rocket with some method of tracking it, but without a live warhead. The tracking method probably will not be GPS unless it is the US or a US ally, as the GPS system is a US military system and the ability to track very high speed objects such as missiles is a restricted capability. If your cell phone for example was accelerated to mach 3 its GPS decoding chip would shut down.\n\n > Long story how does a country say we can launch anywhere?\n\nCountries don't *need* to ask for permission to do anything, they can just launch whatever they want. However in turn other countries can get twitchy if you look like you are attacking them so most will warn that they are conducting a test (and especially if that test is intended to show what they are capable of doing)."
]
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|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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|
4z6cg7
|
- what's the difference between relative and absolute motion?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4z6cg7/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_relative_and/
|
{
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"In strictly physical terms, *all* motion is relative: there is no such thing as absolute motion. The key to understanding motion problems is to be clear about the frame of reference. \n\nYou might be standing still on the ground, with a dog sitting next to you. According to your frame of reference, the dog is stationary. However, to someone in a car driving past you, you and the dog are both going backwards. What about someone in a plane, or in orbit, or standing on the Moon? "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
7w6sou
|
why does easter change dates every year?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7w6sou/eli5_why_does_easter_change_dates_every_year/
|
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"Because it follows the moon and equinox (which aren't what our calendar is based on any more). Easter Sunday is the first Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring Equinox (which was later fixed to March 21st). Since full moons can occur on different dates every year, the following Sunday can also occur on different dates every year. \n\nTo further complicate matters, the Orthodox church uses a different calendar (that doesn't reflect a Pope's changes to better match the actual year length, so their Easter often falls on a different date (occasionally considerably after the Western church's Easter). \n",
"Easter doesn't change dates, it just uses a calendar that's different than the one we use for most other things. It's a lunisolar calendar, and at the time it was the most popular type of calendar, as the Hebrew, Hellenic, and Babylonian all work that way. In 325 the Christian church set a specific lunisolar date, to distance themselves from the Jewish Passover date. \n\nAlas, most of the world went a different direction in the calendar space. But the date's been fixed for almost 1700 years.",
"There's two widely used systems to build a calendar. Our current system, *a solar calendar*, based on the time it takes the earth to go around the sun. The other method, *lunar calendars*, are based on the the time it takes for the moon to complete a cycle.\n\nLunar calendars are much easier to work with because they don't require extensive record keeping or understanding of the sky - you just know that 28 days makes a cycle and 13 cycles is *almost* a year but, over time, these drift out of sync with the seasons.\n\nSolar calendars, OTOH, are more consistent & stay in sync with the seasons much better **but** they require more advanced understanding of the sky & record keeping to figure out in the first place.\n\nEaster is complicated because it's based on *both* types of calendars. It's the first Sunday (disconnected from both sun & moon) after the first full moon (lunar cycles) after the vernal equinox (solar cycles)."
]
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|
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ba7x73
|
how body spray cans (and other similar cans) stay cold in room temperature?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ba7x73/eli5_how_body_spray_cans_and_other_similar_cans/
|
{
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"text": [
"The temperature of spray cans will eventually become the same as the temperature of the air inside the room.\n\nThe reason they might feel cold is that we don't actually feel temperature of objects. We feel the change in our own skin temperature which is caused by the objects. Spray cans are usually made of metal and metals transfer the heat of our body very well. They kind of \"steal\" our body heat faster than many other materials."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
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|
mnfom
|
evolution and mating with ancestors.
|
Hi, I wasn't really sure how to word this because I'm a little unsure of exactly what part about this I don't understand, but I'll try my best.
Basically what I'm not sure about is, at what point is a new species unable to reproduce with it's ancestors? What would stop that from happening? Is it a sudden thing?
If something changed in a creature that made it only able to mate with something like it, wouldn't there need to be two of them like it to continue?
Please pardon my ignorance. This may be something wrong with my thought process, and if so, please help straighten me out. I'm really interested in this stuff lately!
Thanks! This subreddit is awesome!
**EDIT: Thanks a ton for clearing this up for me**
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mnfom/eli5_evolution_and_mating_with_ancestors/
|
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"You mean at what point in our evolutionary development would a human be unable to breed with a preceding species?",
"The most important thing to bear in mind when you talk about evolution is that individuals do not evolve, **groups** evolve. And the changes that do occur happen over a long period of time.\n\nThere are [various ways it happens](_URL_0_), but basically a group becomes separated to form two (or more) groups. Over time, those groups are exposed to different environments and different pressures, so natural selection occurs for different needs. Eventually, the two groups' DNA have changed enough where, if they mated, they wouldn't create viable offspring. Therefore, becoming distinct species.",
"the shortest answer to your question and the clearest way of stating it is no these things don't happen suddenly.. It seems to me your more interested in whats stopping reproduction than whats driving speciation. If so I would suggest you look at some of the barriers that stop succesfull reproduction.. _URL_1_\n\nspeciation is going to be something else of interest in clearing this up. I'd suggest you spend most of that effort on Parapatric, Sympatric, Allopatric, and Peripatric forms of speciation. These focus on populations and will be much easier to understand. \n_URL_0_\n\nThis is also an interesting way of thinking about how this happens over a period of time... _URL_2_\n\nsorry for not hyperlinking I know more about Bio than Computers",
"I too am wondering this. More than likely modern humans could procreate with Neanderthals, but how far back does that go? Could we procreate with H. erectus?",
"I'm having some trouble LY5ing it, but this might shed some light on the issue: [Ring species.](_URL_0_)",
"You mean at what point in our evolutionary development would a human be unable to breed with a preceding species?",
"The most important thing to bear in mind when you talk about evolution is that individuals do not evolve, **groups** evolve. And the changes that do occur happen over a long period of time.\n\nThere are [various ways it happens](_URL_0_), but basically a group becomes separated to form two (or more) groups. Over time, those groups are exposed to different environments and different pressures, so natural selection occurs for different needs. Eventually, the two groups' DNA have changed enough where, if they mated, they wouldn't create viable offspring. Therefore, becoming distinct species.",
"the shortest answer to your question and the clearest way of stating it is no these things don't happen suddenly.. It seems to me your more interested in whats stopping reproduction than whats driving speciation. If so I would suggest you look at some of the barriers that stop succesfull reproduction.. _URL_1_\n\nspeciation is going to be something else of interest in clearing this up. I'd suggest you spend most of that effort on Parapatric, Sympatric, Allopatric, and Peripatric forms of speciation. These focus on populations and will be much easier to understand. \n_URL_0_\n\nThis is also an interesting way of thinking about how this happens over a period of time... _URL_2_\n\nsorry for not hyperlinking I know more about Bio than Computers",
"I too am wondering this. More than likely modern humans could procreate with Neanderthals, but how far back does that go? Could we procreate with H. erectus?",
"I'm having some trouble LY5ing it, but this might shed some light on the issue: [Ring species.](_URL_0_)"
]
}
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"http://i.imgur.com/BP1k9.jpg"
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reproductive_isolation",
"http://i.imgur.com/BP1k9.jpg"
],
[],
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species"
]
] |
|
duwd6d
|
how did people begin to disprove the geocentric model?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/duwd6d/eli5_how_did_people_begin_to_disprove_the/
|
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"Early evidence: the visible planets follow bizzare paths across the sky that are difficult to explain with the Earth at the center. Mercury and Venus never leave the Sun's proximity, the others lazily wander through the sky on multi-year cycles that confounded early astronomers.\n\nEventually (1500s) telescopes got good enough to resolve details about the planets, and astronomers noted that Jupiter had objects that seemed to orbit it instead of Earth and that Venus went through distinct moon-like phases.\n\nThis suggested that Venus was orbiting the sun and not simply moving in some bizzare path ahead or behind it, and that it was possible for objects to orbit other things.\n\nTaking that observation and making a model with the Sun in the center produced a much cleaner series of nice circular orbits instead of labyrinthine explanations of retrograde motions, and it soon became the established teaching (despite some infamous early resistance from religious figures)",
"It was Copernicus who first put forward an alternative idea to the geocentric model. He was able to put his idea together because his mentor Tycho Brahe had spent a good chunk of his life making detailed measurements of the locations of the stars using the most sophisticated technology of the time. Copernicus then took the measurements and made a model of the solar system that explained the movements of the planets. His model was called heliocentric because it had the sun as the center of the universe.\n\nCopernicus did try to prove that the sun was not the center of the universe, or rather he checked to see if it was, by looking for parallax (google it) between stars. He didn't see any so he concluded that the sun was, in fact, the center of the universe. It wasn't until glass polishing got better and lenses started being used to look at the stars that the parallax shift was detected and the heliocentric model was replaced",
"[Summarized from this really good article here:](_URL_0_)\n\nThe most important discovery involved the phases of Venus by Galileo in 1610. This gave direct evidence that Venus was sometimes farther than the Sun, and at other times closer. This disproved the Ptolemaic model that had all the planets orbiting Earth. However, Tycho Brahe had a geocentric model that involved all the planets orbiting the Sun, and the Sun and Moon orbiting Earth. The important thing is that if you just consider objects within the solar system, this model is pretty much indistinguishable from a heliocentric one. The key problem with a heliocentric theory was lack of stellar parallax.\n\nKepler several years before Galileo's work had published his now famous laws of planetary motion, but for whatever reason they were largely ignored for a few decades. However, in 1687, Newton develops his theory of Gravity. This provides a theory in which the Kepler model *ought* to be true. From this point, no one really questions the heliocentric model even though they still can't find the stellar parallax.\n\nIn 1728, stellar aberration is discovered. While not exactly parallax, it does prove that Earth is moving relative to the stars.\n\nIn 1806, stellar parallax is observed.\n\nIn 1835, an illusory optical phenomena (Airy disk) was identified that causes stars to appear more disc-like in telescopes. This explains the erroneous calculations Galileo's contemporaries made that suggested stellar parallax should be significantly larger than it actually is (thus they thought that they should be able to see it when it was actually too small).",
"So it's pretty complicated and ELI5 is not really the best place to get a real explanation for it (this is really an /r/AskHistorians question). I am writing this as a professional historian of science, for whatever that is worth.\n\nThe basic thing to keep in mind is that they didn't _disprove_ it. What happened is that a _better_ model was eventually developed, over hundreds of years, and many observations accumulated that fit with that model better. And so a heliocentric model _displaced_ it. \n\nAnd along with that, they also developed the physics that was necessary for a moving Earth to even be imaginable — if you don't have a concept of inertia or reference frames, for example, it's pretty hard to imagine that the best explanation is one where the Earth is traveling at tens of thousands of miles per hour (while rotating at about 1,000 miles per hour) and somehow we don't feel it (or fly off).\n\nIf one were to track the main steps on the way to a successful heliocentric model, they would be:\n\n* Kepler's orbital dynamics, which for the first time made the Copernican model actually fit the data, and at the same time eliminated the crystalline spheres concept that was common to both the Copernican and Ptolemaic systems.\n\n* Galileo's observation of the phases of Venus, which convinced even the Catholic Church that the Ptolemaic system did not fit observational data (they replaced it with the geocentric Tychonic model instead). \n\n* The gradual development of the physics of motion and theories of gravity, which culminated in Newtonian mechanics, which basically made it entirely clear that anything other than a heliocentric system was a bizarre contrivance and not very useful, and provided all of the physics you need to explain why we don't fall off of the planet, what holds the system in place, and so on.\n\nWhich _isn't_ what your astronomy textbook will say (they'll say: Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, done). But your astronomy textbook is not a history textbook and things are more complex than astronomy textbooks tend to let on. There are a lot of observations that are typically mentioned (moons of Jupiter, observation of stellar parallax) which were not especially convincing at the time, at least not compared to the factors mentioned above. They make for a nice story but are bad history."
]
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|
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[] |
[
[],
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],
[]
] |
||
3ptgg6
|
why do dog's do that little moonwalk on grass after they pooped on it?
|
Whenever I walk my dog he does that little moonwalk dog thing on EVERYONE's lawn, regardless if he went to the bathroom on it or not.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ptgg6/eli5_why_do_dogs_do_that_little_moonwalk_on_grass/
|
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"They're using their feet to release chemicals that mark their territory. It's specifically used as a form of communication by your dog to let other dogs know that your dog 1) Was there, and 2) Took a poo. ",
"As RhinestoneTaco said, they have glands one their feet that make things they rub their feet on smell like them. Actually, the glands on their feet are simple sweat glands like we have. They're just rubbing doggy BO on the grass to mark their territory.\n\nDogs have a lot of ways to generate scents. If you ever see a dog scooting on it's butt, that's another kind of scent gland. Usually these glands get emptied when a dog poops, but not always. If they fill up, they are uncomfortable for the dog, and the dog may scoot, excessively lick itself, or chase it's tail. If you're not squeamish, you can empty them yourself. Google for instructions.\n\nIf you're not willing to do that, then just take your dog to a groomer, get their nails trimmed or whatever, and ask them to express the glands while you're there. It's a simple process, if a little gross."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
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|
257vyr
|
why is it easier to text with one eye closed when i'm drunk?
|
Can someone explain the biology behind that?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/257vyr/eli5_why_is_it_easier_to_text_with_one_eye_closed/
|
{
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"text": [
"Not a scientist here! \n\nUmmm... I guess it can be basic logic.... Well currently you are using 2 eyes to see. if you are drunk, your vision is gonna be messed up because you have light coming into both eyes and stuff... Now if you close one eye while drunk, light will enter in the eye that is not closed, thus making vision better than before closing other eye. Not sure if you guys can completely understand but it's what I know...\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
8xu9qx
|
how do you actually purchase shares?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8xu9qx/eli5_how_do_you_actually_purchase_shares/
|
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"For your typical small-change investor, you do this through a brokerage. You tell the brokerage firm what you want to buy and how much you're willing to pay their computer systems match you with a seller.\n\nI personally use E*trade, but there are many others with similar offerings.\n\nThe brokerage firms have paid for access to the stock exchanges and built massively complex networks to pair buyers and sellers. You could in theory do it yourself, but if you're not fabulously wealthy it's not worth the initial investment time and cost."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
5hbwx8
|
how does chocolate stay soft in the inside of a hard chocolate shell?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5hbwx8/eli5_how_does_chocolate_stay_soft_in_the_inside/
|
{
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"daz16l4"
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"text": [
"chocolate obviously sets hard, unless you add something to it to keep it from doing so.\n\nTypically this is done by making a ganache. You can make a simple one by melting chocolate and adding enough cream to stop it from setting hard.\n\nIt's super easy to do at home on your stove and it makes a great chocolate fondue for strawberries "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2b462v
|
what is the chemical reaction that lets white phosphorus burn underwater?
|
.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2b462v/eli5_what_is_the_chemical_reaction_that_lets/
|
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"White phosphorus glows in the dark when exposed to damp air in a process known as chemiluminescence.\n\nA safer method for demonstrating the burning of white phosphorous under water is described. This demonstration uses 3% hydrogen peroxide solution and manganese dioxide as the oxygen source, eliminating the use of potentially explosive potassium chlorate. The oxygen generation is manually controlled by means of a stopcock on the dropping funnel. The apparatus has been designed to provide a most spectacular display, especially in the dark, lasting an hour or longer if desired, and eliminates the noxious phosphorous odor."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
5tkhsq
|
why can we do some things simultaneously (e.g. talk and drive a car) but not others (drawing the number 6 while making clockwise circles with your leg)?
|
There is much negative research about multitasking, but clearly there are some amazing attributes (e.g. Piano playing). I'd love someone to explain it simply!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5tkhsq/eli5_why_can_we_do_some_things_simultaneously_eg/
|
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"text": [
"I studied brain science in university, including this exact topic.\n\nIn short, tasks that require similar kinds of mental processing interfere with each other, because the same part of your brain is trying to do both of them. Tasks that use mostly unrelated kinds of mental processing are done by different parts of your brain.\n\nMoving your hand in a specific shape, while also moving your leg in a specific shape, is a good example of two quite similar tasks. Talking while driving is a good example of two quite different tasks -- as long as your conversation topic doesn't require you to think about things similar to driving.",
"I think it has to do with practice and muscle memory. For example if you look in the mirror and brush your teeth regularly, you have no difficulty with the reversed image. But the first time you try to trace an image on a piece of paper by looking at its reflection, you have great difficulty with the reversed image. With practice, however, you can learn to train your brain. You mentioned piano playing as an example of things we can do. There are others - playing guitar, drumming, driving a manual transmission vehicle, singing while dancing, juggling on a unicyle . . . Look at Marcus Mumford: he plays a bass drum, guitar, and sings. All of these simultaneous actions are incredibly difficult but can be learned. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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|
3bw8ne
|
how does funding a politician work exactly?
|
Basically, if a company gives a politician 5 million dollars, is that public information? Are companies or individuals required to make that information available? Do the politicians have to make that information available?
Thanks.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3bw8ne/eli5_how_does_funding_a_politician_work_exactly/
|
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"text": [
"Yes, current law dictates that those receiving campaign funds (and making expenditures with the money) must periodically report that information. The Federal Election Commission is one place that they must report to, and you can see some of the reports -- current and past -- [here](_URL_2_). Looks like someone else has already touched on the specific numbers and limitations, so I'll leave that out.\n\nThere are a few great organizations out there which also keep track of this information, such as [OpenSecrets](_URL_0_).\n\nJust as a bonus, if you're interested: I recently stumbled across this website called [if.then.fund](_URL_1_), which is sort of a collection of current issues and once you select one, it asks how you would vote on each topic in question -- depending on your answer, it gives the option to donate to politicians which are in line with your selection. Even if you don't plan on donating (I don't), it's an interesting tool.",
"People can only donate so much money per year to political campaigns - $2,600 per candidate, $48,600 between many candidates, and $74,600 to political parties. PACs can donate $5,000 to any candidate and $10,000 to any party. Super PACs can donate as much as they wish. \n\nYou can see where your politician is getting their funding from - there are various organizations that keep track of and compile all records of campaign financing. Donations above a certain amount must be disclosed to the public, but some manage to sidestep this and keep their funding from certain sources secret."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.opensecrets.org/",
"https://if.then.fund/",
"http://www.fec.gov/pindex.shtml"
],
[]
] |
|
1rytpp
|
why is it bad to put non-stick pans in the dishwasher?
|
I know it is bad but I would like to know WHY it is bad. It doesn't make sense how a pan that can handle to 400+ degrees on the stovetop will be harmed by a dishwasher.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rytpp/eli5_why_is_it_bad_to_put_nonstick_pans_in_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cds9jtq",
"cdsdmz6"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Many non-stick surfaces are just fine with being hot or exposed to detergents, but are prone to scratching or chipping. They commonly warn you to use plastic or wooden utensils to protect the coating, and not to put them in the dishwasher to be blown around by the water against other dishes and damaged.",
"If you need to put your nonstick in the dishwasher, something is wrong with your pans. I can use a brush & hot water to get mine perfectly clean - I'll use a drop of soap if they're particularly greasy."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
3ka7eq
|
how did antarctic penguins evolve to travel so far for food and breeding?
|
I recently watched March of the Penguins and I can't get my mind around how they could have evolved to live in those conditions. I guess I'm asking for the Antarctic Penguin evolutionary history in relation to their environment. Thanks!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ka7eq/eli5_how_did_antarctic_penguins_evolve_to_travel/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cuvxc49"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Consider you live in a nice warm climate, eating fish, and nesting inland to avoid seabirds preying on your eggs. You can walk to and on shore and don't really need to fly, so you lose that ability, but those wings make great swimming paddles so you go with that. \n\nThen, Antarctica drifts south as a continent, slowly getting colder. Winters slowly get longer and icier, so you grow a better ability to wait it out by building up rich fat reserves from the oil-filled herring in your diet. You can still raise a family there although it's more challenging now. For example, eggs hatching too early die so incubation takes longer as a trend. And the ice pack makes your walk longer so you don't travel to shore as often, living off of fat reserve more.\n\nKeep going and soon you're locked into winter, staying and tending an egg longer and longer through the winter. And then Emperor Penguins.\n\n**TL;DR**: Evolution takes a long time and can sometimes result in very adapted creatures as circumstances slowly change."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
aa5dzt
|
do batteries really develop a “memory” from charging them when they aren’t fully dead and if so how?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aa5dzt/eli5_do_batteries_really_develop_a_memory_from/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ecp5bbq"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"NiCad (nickel cadmium) batteries had this “memory”, but lithium batteries that are used now don’t."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
5fst4s
|
if a super conductor has zero resistance is it possible to pass infinite current
|
I have a decent understanding of electricity but couldn't find a decent or simple answer.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5fst4s/eli5_if_a_super_conductor_has_zero_resistance_is/
|
{
"a_id": [
"damttp0"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"No. All superconductors have a \"critical current density,\" above which they cease to act like superconductors. This current density can be very large (several thousand amps per square millimeter), but not infinite."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
4wwni2
|
why do video game developers release games on some platforms but not others?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4wwni2/eli5_why_do_video_game_developers_release_games/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d6ag81t",
"d6agpue",
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"d6aj8xa"
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"score": [
14,
5,
50,
4,
2,
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2,
5
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"text": [
"Because it takes real work and effort to produce a game on distinct platforms. Ultimately, they decide they can make their money back or test the success of a game without the added expense of that additional platform. You have the draw the investment line somewhere, and another platform is an easy way to do it.",
"A lot of companies have their hands in both PC + 1 platform. For example Microsoft is obviously heavily involved in PC but also owns Xbox. If a developer is going to work on PC and Console the it benefits Microsoft if that developer is incentivized to release on Xbox 1 but not a competitor's platform. Sony, of course, would prefer that the game comes out on PC + Playstation but nothing else.",
"A bunch of reasons. Some apply more to indie than AAA studios. Let me try to list them:\n\n* Dev kits for consoles are expensive\n* Certification to be allowed to be played on consoles is expensive, time-consuming, and has to be done for each console\n* Testing and optimizing for multiple consoles is a time-consuming process\n* Publishers may have exclusivity deals with given consoles (ie. console developer offers money incentives to not ship on other consoles)\n* The game may not be expected to sell well on a given console (ie. \"kids games\" typically do much better on wii than xbox)\n* PCs are harder to test for and support because of hardware diversity vs consoles\n* Cheating is a bigger problem for PC games because it's an open platform\n* Multiplayer games may need to be balanced differently for PC vs console because of control differences (see Overwatch)\n\nI'm sure replies will add more to this list",
"Answered very well [here](\n_URL_0_) by u/Rhotick1 the last time something like this was asked:\n\n\"tl; dr: Games need to be programmed differently to work on different consoles. Programming takes time. Since time is money, companies analyse the costs and benefits of releasing on one or many consoles.\n\nSometimes, they decide that it would be worthwhile to release on many consoles if they believe the appeal of their game is very broad. For example, Call of Duty games are generally released on Xbox, PC, and Playstation, and I know some have been released on the Wii and even the Nintendo DS.\n\nSometimes, the company decides that the appeal of their game is not very broad. For example, if they are making a game targeted for children, they might conclude that their game will be successful on a Nintendo console, which already targets that market, but less successful on other consoles. For these companies, it would not be worthwhile to take the time to program their game to also work on other consoles.\n\nOften, a company which makes a game console will also make games. The games Nintendo makes will only appear on Nintendo consoles, for example. If they released these games on other consoles, they'd be competing against themselves.\n\nSimilarly, a console maker might occasionally pay a company that makes games to release their games only on that company's console. If the console company offers enough money, the game makers might decide that it makes up for the fact that they are closing themselves off from the other markets.\"",
"Each platform operates differently, so each game has to either be tailor-crafted to function specifically on that platform (which becomes a whole other nightmare in the realm of PC, where each individual computer varies wildly from one person to another, where each console is identical) or they can try making a port, which is the programming equivalent of forcing a square peg into a round hole. As a PC gamer, I cant tell you how many times I've bought a game only to find it's a console port to PC, and the controls are *absolutely terrible* \n\nIt's a lot of work. Lesser experienced or indie programmers may not know *how* or have the time and resources to make it work on every platform, and for some bigger companies they know it's simply not economically viable -- they simply don't have the money to gain from it.\n\nThis is ignoring biases, company restrictions, exclusives, or the possibility Xbox/Sony simply *didnt want to do work with them*\n\nEdit: Minor text fixes",
"17 years game developer. \n\n1. The studio developing the game or the IP it is based on is owned by the console platform owner (Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft) and they want to use the game to get people to buy their console.\n\n2. The game studio has been temporarily contracted by one of the console platform holders to make a game just for that console for the same reason.\n\n3. The game studio or publisher has had a proportion of its *development* expenses paid by one of the console platform holders for the same reason.\n\n4. The game studio or publisher has had a chunk of its *marketing expenses* paid by the console platform holder for the same reason. \n\n5. The console platform holder has promised a lower than normal licensing rate for the game if it is not on a rival console. (All games released on a console must pay a fee per copy sold to the platform holder).\n\n6. The developer or publisher does not think it makes financial sense to release a game on a given platform because the cost of development won't be covered by copies sold because of the type of person who owns the console.\n\n7. The developer or publisher does not want to develop for a given platform because it is technically difficult and will delay overall game development. \n\n8. The developer or publisher does not want to develop for a given platform because it is either not powerful enough to run the game or it is missing a specific hardware feature the game needs.\n\n9. In the case of indie developers, the developer simply does not want to release the game on a platform.\n\nThere are probably more.",
"There are many different reasons why games are only released on some consoles. In no particular order...\n\n1) The engine the game they are working with only works on certain platforms: Some games just have hard technical limits they can't be overcome, even if the developer wants to release it on different platforms. Undertale, for example, was created on a program called \"Gamemaker Studio\" (a program that allows the creation of games without actually having to write any code). The creator of the game has said he was approached by Nintendo about a WiiU/3DS port of the game, but had to say sorry, but Gamemaker Studio developed games only work on PC.\n\n2) One console is just not powerful enough to run the developed game in question. The Wii missed on a huge portion of triple A games last generation because it was vastly behind the PS3/Xbox 360 in terms of processing power. Often this would mean having to build a Wii version in it's own engine and with own set of models/animations/etc that could run on a much less powerful machine.\n\n3) The console didn't sell well: The WiiU is much closer to the PS4 and Xbox One in terms of power than the Wii was to it's console brothers. However, the WiiU just has been selling far, FAR less units. Without lesser hardware sales means a lower overall customer base to sell the game to. So most developers/publishers have decided a WiiU port isn't worth it.\n\n4) First party titles/Exclusive deals: Nintendo games appear on Nintendo consoles because, well, they are created by Nintendo. If Nintendo wants Mario to be only on Nintendo consoles, that is their right to do so. Third party developers often are given special deals by console developers/publishers to only put their game on one console and not the other. Rise of the Tomb Raider was a timed Xbox One exclusive. Microsoft went to Square Enix with a big bag of money, saying \"hey we will directly compensate for the cost to create this game, and pay for a large part of your advertising budget if you don't put your game on the PS4 for this certain length of time.\" So, the deal was made, and Rise of the Tomb Raider was on the Xbox One and not the PS4.\n\n5) Money: This, ultimately, is the main driving reason. Making high end video games is really expensive. Every choice a developers/publisher makes in regards to the game is going to cost a lot of money. Someone has to make sure that those expenses are actually worth it, and would help generate more sales. You cannot make a game on one console and then just easily load it up on another. At best you would have a buggy and laggy game that has a frame rate comparable to a slide show, assuming it even runs at all. Porting a game from one platform to another means compensating for all the preexisting software and the differences in hardware. This is also why so many PC ports are terrible, as while the dedicated consoles have ONE set of hardware with probably only a minor difference in the software installed, PC's have thousands of variations of hardware and software that need to be accounted for in some way or another.",
"No No Mans Sky on xbox one getting you down? Me too my friend. Me too."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2sbqk3/eli5_why_do_console_exclusive_games_exist_why/cnnzoc5"
],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
4g1y5u
|
why ants are scared of chalk? we had an ants problem and i drew a circle around the ant with chalk and it was essentially trapped and didn't cross the line? why are they scared of it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4g1y5u/eli5_why_ants_are_scared_of_chalk_we_had_an_ants/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d2dxrg7",
"d2dze18"
],
"score": [
9,
6
],
"text": [
"Ants leave a pheremone trail that can be traced/followed by other ants and by crossing the chalk the trail is diminished and they are separated from the colony",
"They aren't \"scared\" of it. Fear is too advanced of a thing for ants to experience. Most insects are little more than small biological machines.\n\nAnts don't cross chalk because it fucks with the pheromone trails that they are hard-wired to follow, so they get confused."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
6xz4uf
|
why did usa lose the drug war?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6xz4uf/eli5_why_did_usa_lose_the_drug_war/
|
{
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"score": [
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3,
24,
3,
6,
2
],
"text": [
"there is no way to win a war on inanimate objects. drugs are really really convincing . i mean, its drugs they make you feel good and then you get hooked, how is jail supposed to defeat that. lots of people would say doing drugs is very much worth the threat of jail. \n\ndrugs are a public health problem, not a legal problem, which is what the \"war on drugs\" makes it. \n\n",
"The US relies heavily on enforcement (jail for addicts etc.) that isn't very effective without improving society, people with stable jobs, good lives are less likely to become addicts. A problem with enforcement is that the more success you have the more the price of drugs go up. The more criminals you nab, the more middle men the criminal organizations add and it becomes harder to disrupt the flow of drugs. \n\nEnforcement is also undercut by foreign policy concerns. During the Vietnam War, the largest opium producing area was in the Golden Triangle in southeast Asia. The US looked the other way as their allies got rich producing opium and heroin. The largest opium producing nation today is Afghanistan. You'd think after 16 years of US presence, opium would be eradicated, but doing that would undermine warlords allied to the US and eliminate the main income source for many Afghans so it isn't done. ",
"The drug economy is all about supply & demand. The US has spent billions of dollars attacking the \"supply\" side of this equation, perhaps believing that interrupting the supply will curb the demand. But it doesn't work that way. The demand for these drugs is still there, and it's strong. As much as we might try to disrupt the supply, we can never eliminate it completely. When the demand is strong and the profits are high, there will always be someone willing to take the risks to supply it.\n\nWe should be focusing more on the \"demand\" side of the equation, and not by locking up users and buyers in prison, but by treating it as a public health problem. \n\nIt would be nice if the population could think of the DEA and the US Government as trustworthy sources of information regarding the dangers of drugs and addiction. However, the sad truth is the the government has lost credibility in this regard. \n\nThe DEA simply is not a trustworthy source of honest information. This is, after all, the same agency that classifies marijuana as a \"Schedule 1\" narcotic (with no legitimate medical purpose) while things like cocaine and heroin are on lower schedules. Trying to tell the population that marijuana is worse than cocaine or heroin is a dead giveaway that the DEA is not accurately informing people of the public health risks.\n\nSo we have a war being fought by agencies which claim to be protecting the population, whilst simultaneously misinforming them. Zero credibility there. We have spent billions on trying to eliminate the supply, which is an impossible task in a market with demand so strong people are willing to pay enormous markups just to get what they want. This war has been doomed since day 1.",
"Drugs are as essential to life as breathing is to keep us alive - human beings will always want and/or need drugs, legal or illegal, until the end of time - it was and is an absurdly arrogant idea to think that you could actually stop the flow of \"illegal\" drugs to people who want them - it's like trying to fight a war on terrorism, no matter how hard you work, how much money you spend trying to fight it, or how many laws you pass against it, you can't extinguish beliefs or ideals out of the minds of people, ideals and beliefs are personal and not subject to change easily - the same for illegal drugs, as long as there are people who want to use them, they will always be available no matter what the US does. The War on Drugs is the biggest waste of taxpayer money in the history of the country. The only thing its been effective in doing is putting thousands of people in overcrowded jails for low level drug crimes who shouldn't be there, and costing American taxpayers 100s of millions of dollars a year to incarcerate, feed, and provide healthcare for them.",
"The U.S. didn't lose the drug war.\n\n People don't understand what the drug war really is, it's a war on the American people by their government.\n\n If there were really a drug war as it is advertised we wouldn't have various American 3 letter agencies using drug proceeds to fund their illegal and unconstitutional subversive activities throughout the world.\n\n\n",
"It's not lost. It's functioning exactly as intended: as a means to feed the prison labor system.\n\nSee, the US outlawed slavery *without due process of law*. But slavery is profitable, and it's even more profitable when you can get taxpayers to foot the bill for the upkeep of your slaves. So after the US Civil War, slave patrols turned into police departments. We made it a crime for Black people to do things that white people could do with impunity. Then, instead of leaving them in prison, we put them on chain gangs.\n\nThis is still happening, but we've been forced to make laws that are at least nominally race-neutral thanks to protests and riots. To avoid making many white slaves, we've turned to racist police practices. The War on Drugs is our new way to get slaves -- and to ensure that Black and Hispanic people can't get ahead very often. It's not on the face of it racist, but police have broad authority on how they patrol and look for criminals. So if you're white and selling cocaine to white people, you're less likely to be busted than someone who's Black and selling to Black people."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
86kvzn
|
star formation
|
So stars form from clouds of dust due to gravity and the left overs become planets. But stars are mostly hydrogen, a very light element, while planets have much heavier elements. Shouldn't the heavier elements be in the center of this cloud before the star starts to form and become part of star?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/86kvzn/eli5_star_formation/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dw5sc0o"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"The mass is rotating from the original collapsed cloud. They can't simply negate this velocity in order to fall into the center of the cloud (any more than the earth can suddenly fall straight into the sun). As such, there is a distribution of elements throughout the disc.\nThere are heavier elements that become part of the sun, but the majority of all of the mass present is hydrogen, by a large amount. \n\nBeyond this, there is a theory involving what is called the frost line. Essentially, as the sun is forming, the radiation pressure from it subsequently evaporates and blows away lighter elements close to its body, clearing the inner solar system of much of its hydrogen (among others). As a result, even though heavier elements are a very small part of the overall total, they make up the majority of the planets that form there.\nConversely, beyond this frost line, light elements like hydrogen aren't pushed away as effectively, and the planets which form in that region are much more massive, and a much greater proportion of their mass is made up of lighter elements, gas giants. \n\nIn other words: There's a ton of hydrogen throughout the disc, and a little bit of heavy rocks. The sun pushes the hydrogen outwards, so you get mostly the tiny rocks leftover in the inner solar system, and huge gas giants in the outer solar system (with tiny amounts of rocks inside them).\n\nNote that the above is only theoretical, and there have been questions poised on solar system formation by observing other stars, such as very close-to-parent gas giants. \n\nEdit: Just to emphasize how tiny the 'rocks' are (even though to us the Earth seems pretty darn big), the sun accounts for 99.86% of the total mass of the system, with (mostly) Jupiter and Saturn making up almost the entire (over 90%) of the remaining .14%.\n\nAll the terrestrial planets, asteroids, comets, and moons makes up less than .002%."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
31vbvh
|
why is my cat so hell bent on showing me his butthole?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/31vbvh/eli5why_is_my_cat_so_hell_bent_on_showing_me_his/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cq5apnz"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Well, humans have this taboo about buttholes that other animals don't have. But he's probably showing you that he trusts you.\n\nCats recognise each other by small, and cats' butts have scent glands. So it's common for cats to sniff each other's butts as a friendly greeting. It's usually when they first make friends, but cats that already know each other will also sniff butts.\n\nDon't worry, you don't *have* to sniff your cat's butt if you don't want to. The butt is quite a vulnerable spot, so if your cat keeps showing you his butt, he's showing that he feels comfortable around you -- he knows you won't do anything nasty to him."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
dbod30
|
the injection of liquidity by the fed last week
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dbod30/eli5_the_injection_of_liquidity_by_the_fed_last/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f236n79",
"f23aakg"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Banks / Markets ran out of cold hard cash, which means they can't make anymore new loans, which means business that needs said loan go bankrupt, which cascades and ruins everyone's day in the end.\n\nHow do you know when a bank is getting warmer? they start jacking up the loan interest, AKA REPO, which was hitting 10% from a normal \\~2% (not a economist so ask them for precise numbers).\n\nYOU should be worried if you have any outstanding loan or big debt, because the Feds are intervening, and they dont usually intervene unless they don't want shit hitting the fan. If you don't, then I suggest actually start saving.\n\nUsually a liquidity crisis signals recession, because they over loaned and too many people are spending tomorrows money today with no way to pay it up. so the massive Inject is just a band-aid, but since the government is intervening, we still need to see if they come out with a permanent fix. \n\nIn the mean time, saving really isn't a bad choice. can't hurt.",
"Just like any business, banks have different types of assets and liabilities. Assets include things like loans they have made, securities (stocks and bonds) they have purchased, and of course, cash. The government has a lot of rules about what kinds of assets they can own, including how much cash they must have on hand at all times. (Both as a percentage of their assets and of their deposits.) The important ones here are called liquidity requirements. Holding on to extra cash is safe, but it is not profitable. So when the government tells them how much cash they must have on hand, they like to keep about that amount but not any more.\n\nAt the end of every day, some banks will have more cash than they need and others will have less. The former will make what are called overnight loans to the latter. One of the types of loans they make is called a repurchase agreement, or \"repo\" for short. When things are going smoothly, the banking system takes care of itself. Cash rich lends to cash poor and the vast majority of banks meet their liquidity requirements.\n\nWhat happened recently is that there just weren't enough cash-rich banks willing to lend to those who were cash-poor. This caused the interest rate for repo loans, called the Secured Overnight Lending Rate, to [skyrocket](_URL_0_). So in order to keep banks from failing to meet their liquidity requirements, the Fed stepped in and bought up a $75 billion of treasuries (government debt) in order to inject cash in to the system. There are several theories for why this lending crunch occurred, some of them more worrisome than others.\n\n* The Fed has placed much more restrictive liquidity requirements on banks and they did not respond well. This seems plausible--that it is just short-term mismanagement because of rapid changes in the regulatory environment--because the entire banking system has literally trillions of excess cash on hand right now.\n* In part because of the increased liquidity requirements, it is harder for banks to make a profit. In response, many have increased their portfolio of riskier assets. In other words, it's almost the same problem as above, except they misjudged how easily they would be able to cover their liquidity requirements because too many other banks were reacting the same way they were.\n* Demand for capital increased; cash-rich banks had better opportunities elsewhere. This makes some sense, but doesn't seem to explain why the rate shot up so suddenly.\n* This is just a symptom of a problem seeded 10 years ago. The Fed doesn't manage the banking system like it used to. Starting with the financial crisis, it injected a few trillion dollars (a very large sum) in to the banking system. Usually this would lead to hyperinflation, but the Fed began paying something called interest on excess reserves. In short, in order to keep all that money from pouring in to the economy and causing rapid inflation, it paid banks interest *not* to lend. The reason I bring this up is that the Fed has never managed the banking system like this before. The Fed is run by humans. Humans make mistakes, especially when trying to manage a highly complicated system under a completely new set of rules with little historical precedence.\n\nShould you be worried? Yeah, a little, but don't sell the house and put it all in to Bitcoin or gold just yet.\n\n[Here](_URL_1_) is a pretty good article on it from Fortune.\n\n*Edit: thanks for the silver!*"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SOFR",
"https://fortune.com/2019/09/26/the-feds-repo-market-bailout-is-a-sign-of-deeper-problems-that-are-getting-worse-over-time/"
]
] |
||
3d89y7
|
how is 50 cent bankrupt?
|
As I understand it, he is being sued for $5 million but he's worth like $155 million, I thought bankruptcy was when you had no money to pay debts?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3d89y7/eli5how_is_50_cent_bankrupt/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ct2ppg9"
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"text": [
"There's a few different types of bankruptcy. There's the kind when you owe people a lot more money than you have (like if you bought a car for $10,000 but now it's only worth $5000), which is probably the kind you're thinking of. This is not 50 cent's kind of bankruptcy. \n\n\n50 cent has a lot of money. Millions upon millions. But he doesn't have it all sitting under the mattress: a very large portion of it is in real estate, vehicles, art and investments. If he tried to sell any of those things on a very short-term basis, he would probably suffer a loss, because he has to sell it *now*. Imagine buying a car from someone you know needs to sell it TODAY. You probably would take advantage of that fact, and the seller would make less money than if he could try to sell the car over 6 months. This is the situation 50 cent is in. \n\n\nFiling for bankruptcy, or at least this *type* of bankruptcy, isn't a way for 50 to abandon his debts. It's permission for him to take a little extra time to pay who he owes so he can try to get a little bit more money for his car. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
c6f47k
|
how scientists counted numbers of electrons on each shell (energy level) of atom?
|
As I know, you can’t “see” every electron orbiting nucleus of atom, it’s more like electron cloud around nucleus. And I don’t understand how scientists figured maximum number of Ed electron on each energy level
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c6f47k/eli5_how_scientists_counted_numbers_of_electrons/
|
{
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"tl;dr : Electrons exist in predictable energy levels that we can measure by seeing how much energy it takes to remove each of those electrons (ionisation energies) and graphing it.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThis is a great question! and unfortunately requires a long answer in order to fully explain it, Id argue this is more of a chemistry related question, so I'll answer it as if im a chemist:\n\n & #x200B;\n\nIonisation energy is the energy required to remove one electron from one mole of gaseous atoms. The first ionisation energy is the energy required to remove the valance (last electron) in the outer shell from one mole of gaseous atoms. (here is a graph showing the first ionisation energy for each element)\\[[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\\] and from this we can already start to see a pattern.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThere are multiple factors that affect the ionisation energy\n\n1. **Size of the atom:** The bigger the atom, the further away the valence electron is, and therefore less energy is required to remove that electron\n2. **Nuclear charge:** The greater the charge of the nucleus, the more attracted the electrons are, and thus harder to remove and requires more energy\n3. **Shielding effect:** The greater number of electrons between the nucleus and the valance electron, the weaker the attraction to the valance electron and the less energy required to remove it.\n4. **Electron configuration:** This one is a little harder to explain;\n\n & #x200B;\n\nIn school we are told: The first shell holds 2 electrons, and each consecutive shell will be able to hold up to 8 electrons. Lets take a look at a single element and discuss this further.\n\n(A graph showing the complete ionisation of Neon)\\[[_URL_1_](_URL_1_)\\] Neon is a good example here, as it contains 10 electrons total and has 2 shells.\n\nUnfortunately, its not as simple as school makes it out to be. Within shells, there are also sub shells and each sub shell contains orbitals. Neon has the electron configuration of:\n\n1s^(2) 2s^(2) 2p^(6)\n\n* First number being the shell number/ Energy level\n* Electrons come in pairs in orbitals but with opposite spins. Electrons will half fill orbitals first, before pairing up.\n* S/P being the sub-shell type. ( S holds 2 electrons= one orbital, P holds 6 electrons =3 orbitals)\n* The last number being how many electrons in the overall shell\n\n & #x200B;\n\nLets go back to the first graph.\n\nFirst ionisation energy increases across a period. This is because the nuclear charge is increasing, but the electrons aren't moving further away from the nucleus, just increasing in number (until they fill up shells) This means these electrons are more attracted to the nucleus and require more energy to remove.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n**Why does lithium have a lower IE than Helium?**\n\n & #x200B;\n\nLithium config: 1s^(2) 2s^(1)\n\nHelium: 1s^(2)\n\n\\- > the valance electron in lithium is further away than the s electron in helium, so it is easier to remove.\n\n\\- > Shielding from the 1S electrons reduces the attraction of P electrons to the nucleus.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n!! **The big difference in energy between 1s and 2p is why we determine the first shell to only have 2 electrons.!!**\n\n & #x200B;\n\n**Why does nitrogen have a higher IE than Oxygen?**\n\n & #x200B;\n\nNitrogen config: 1s^(2) 2s^(2) 2p^(3)\n\nOxygen config: 1s^(2) 2s^(2) 2p^(4)\n\n & #x200B;\n\nP shells fit 6 electrons, and have 3 orbitals. Nitrogen has a full shell of half filled orbitals, this is stable compared to oxygen, which has 2 half filled orbitals and one paired orbital. This paired orbital contains two electrons which are repelling each other. This repulsive force means it's easier to remove the valance electron of oxygen over nitrogen.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nWhy does Sodium have a lower IE than Neon?\n\n & #x200B;\n\nSodium config: 1s^(2) 2s^(2) 2p^(6) 3s^(1)\n\nNeon config: 1s^(2) 2s^(2) 2p^(6)\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThe same reason as why lithium has a lower IE than helium.\n\n\\-- > 3s is further away than 3p, reduced attraction to nucleus (nuclear charge)\n\n\\-- > Increased shielding from other shells reduces attraction\n\n & #x200B;\n\n**!! The big difference in energy between (2s/2p) and 3s is why we determine the second ( and consecutive) shells to have 8 electrons. !!**\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThis pattern continues.. until you get to transition metals, that's a whole other head spin and doesn't follow these traditional rules because chemistry likes to make life difficult for us!"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://imgur.com/a/wT0ackk",
"https://imgur.com/a/qSC8WnS"
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|
3cuc28
|
why does peanut better remove gum so well?
|
It gets it out of hair, carpet and seemingly everything.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3cuc28/eli5_why_does_peanut_better_remove_gum_so_well/
|
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"It's a case of \"like dissolves like.\" Gum is a substance that repels water (hydrophobic - literally water-fearing). Peanut butter is also hydrophobic because it is mainly made of peanut oil and fats.\n\nTherefore, because they are both hydrophobic, the gum can be dissolved by the peanut butter. Other oils can also dissolve gum but peanut butter is used because it is in a semi-solid form and can easily be placed and removed.",
"If you'd like a bit more chemistry, the oil in the peanut butter can dissolve the gum because it's a non-polar solvent and the gum is also non-polar (Like dissolves like, again. Water is a polar solvent.). This also means veggie oil or baby oil will work as well as peanut butter, maybe with less mess.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
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[],
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|
1jq973
|
why it's a big deal that bacteria is becoming immune to antibiotics?
|
I mean, I get why, but we have so many different drugs. Are they getting immune to all of them? And if so, why can't they just research something new?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jq973/eli5_why_its_a_big_deal_that_bacteria_is_becoming/
|
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"Yes bacteria are getting resistant to just about every antibiotic around. Lots of drugs are not bacteria killers. \n\"They\" are working on it. It just might take years before new ones are available, proved \"safe\" and are affordable. And if people abuse them the way they have all previous antibiotics then resistance might happen fast again and we'll all be vulnerable again.",
"To elaborate on Wombat's comment, the true problem is in the politics of medicine. Taking a look at any recently published articles concerning advances in treatments, you will come across a section dedicated to the remaining time before a product can be made available to the public. This time can often reach upwards of 10 years.\n\nMany remaining or functional antibiotics nowadays are simple bacteria killers with no specific targets. Their success stems solely from the fact that while bacterial cell outer membranes are permeable to them, eukaryotic cells' are not. In other words, they are unspecific, broad killers. It is easy to imagine that after a short period of time, given the abundance of bacteria, immune strains will develop. This means we are tasked with matching their rate of evolution with our rate of advancement.\n\nHowever, because most drugs have a decade-long research and development stage, there are often already immune strands by their release, due to random genetic mutations. Because of limited funding in the industry, it is increasingly difficult for us to match the pace of evolution. While population density increases and international-travel rates multiply, bacterial mutation rates increase exponentially.",
"Think about it. \n\nAntibiotics (in short) operate by finding certain spots in bacterial genetic codes and chopping them apart. This renders the genetic codes for infecting new healthy cells incapable of doing their jobs, therefore stopping the infection. \n\nWhen you get strep throat, what do you do? You go to the doctor and you get some antibiotics to patch you up and 10 days later, you're as good as new. \n\nBut let's just say that you have some sort of crazy antibiotic resistant bacteria in your throat that is causing all kinds of infection, swelling, oozing, pain, etc. Can a doctor write you a prescription for that and send you home? Nope, sorry buddy. You go to the hospital to get fixed up, but there's nothing they can really do for you at this point, so maybe they'll try some crackpot methods because they're really grabbing at straws for this type of infection. Next thing you know, your throat is swelling shut, you can't breathe, and now your only hope is the tracheostomy that they're sticking into your neck. Uh oh, the infection is getting worse and it moves into your nasal passages and into your brain. They put you into a medically induced coma for weeks, and when you come to, you're the only one left in the hospital and the city is being overrun with zombies!!! \n\nJust kidding about the last part, but seriously - common infections that were treatable with antibiotics are now killing people. Can you imagine dying from strep throat? Or bronchitis? Or a UTI? It would be awful! We take our health and ability for treatment for granted in the modern world, but our overusage of antibiotics is really becoming an issue for everyone everywhere.\n\nWhen you get an infection, take ALL your pills as prescribed! Part of the reason why these bacteria are becoming resistant is that they're evolving to change said genetic codes (mentioned above) and the antibiotics can't do their jobs as planned. Certain drugs seek out certain types of bacteria that contain the same genetic codes, and if you don't kill all the bacteria, they mutate. When you don't take your pills as prescribed, you're potentially fostering conditions that allow for mutations. ",
"We actually don't have as many antibiotics as you'd think.\n\nWhat's concerning is that antibiotics are divided into groups that use the same mechanism to stop bacteria. Which means that exposure to one kind of antibiotic can lead to a strain of bacteria that is resistant to a wide number of antibiotics.\n\nMRSA is a good example of this. The acronym stands for \"**Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus**\".\n\n*S. aureus* is pretty common, and is right up there as one of the top three organisms isolated for causing infections. The actual mechanism behind MRSA's resistance is a protein that binds to the structure that gives methicillin it's antibiotic functions, rendering it harmless.\n\nThing is, the part of methicillin responsible for its antibiotic function is the exact same as every single other kind of penicillin. Which means that all MRSA infections need to be treated with a different class of antibiotics.\n\nCurrently, the antibiotic of choice is vancomycin. Which is not fun to take. It has many more side effects than the penicillins, and can only be administered intravenously. But it is very good at what it does, and it usually clears MRSA up pretty quickly.\n\nExcept that vancomycin resistant Staph. aureus recently popped up. And guess what? You can't treat it with any of the antibiotics related to vanomycin either. In fact, there are only a handful of antibiotics that will actually work on VRSA, all of which come with serious side effects and require hospitalization.",
"I think it's also incredibly important to note that it takes on average TEN YEARS to approve a new drug. Bacteria can completely reproduce (double their size) in typically 24 hours. If genetic mutations occur, they can be in place within 24 hours, which is difficult to combat when you're averaging 10 years to fight that mutation. I think it's important we not take multiple antibiotics, and FINISH THE DOSE. Too many people think \"I'm totally better; I don't need these anymore\", when in reality, all they've done is strengthened the bacteria for a reinfection of themselves or someone else, rather than kill it completely.\n\nHonestly, though, we should be more worried about fungal cultures. Ask me about that if you want to be really freaked out."
]
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61ybnr
|
why is the skin on our arms and legs generally clear and beautiful, while our faces and back tend to get acne and clogged pores?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/61ybnr/eli5why_is_the_skin_on_our_arms_and_legs/
|
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"The back being covered and sweating makes sense but shouldn't that also be the case for our legs and abdomen areas as well. I don't think I've ever had acne in those areas. ",
"Can you tell me legs that? Currently arse to ankle in folliculitis :(",
"You have the largest concentration of sebaceous (oil producing) glands in your face, back and chest. The sebaceous glands enlarge at puberty due to an influx of a testosterone hormone called DHEA. That over-stimulates the production of oil in these glands. Acne is an inflamed pore filled with oil, bacteria, and dead skin cells. The oil, dead skin, and bacteria get \"stuck\" in your pore and when your immune system tries to get rid of it, it causes the pus and inflammation we call acne.",
"Well first of all people can and do get spots all over the body.\n\nTo answer your question, the face has more oil in the skin than other parts of your body which can clog the pores and lead to spots.\n\nWhy faces are more oily, I don't know. ",
"Okay so this is what my dermatologist told me. The skin on your face is more sensitive and thinner than the skin on your arms or legs. It's more prone to damage or redness. Your face produces a lot of oil. This depends on many factors. Could be because of increased cleansing (cleaning your face too much leads to more oil production ), genetics, hormones, environment and a whole host of other factors. The skin on your arms and legs is a lot tougher than the skin on your face. It does have oil glands but not to the degree that your face does. Increased oil production leads to higher chance of acne. Simple as that :)\n",
"A lot of folks are mentioning the fact that the skin on our face is naturally more oily, with a greater concentration of sebaceous glands. That's definitely part of it.\n\nThe real ELI5 answer, though--you touch your face with your dirty hands (and they're always dirty, in the microbial sense) a lot more than you touch the rest of the skin on your body. That brings dirt and germs and other gross stuff into contact with that already-oily skin and acne forms as a result.",
"You touch your face more. Your hand are incredible vectors for disease. This is why you should always wash your hands before you eat. And don't pick your nose.\n\nWell, that and the skin of your arms and legs are tougher than that of your face. Your [arms and legs](_URL_0_) also serve as heat radiators for your body and sweat more than you'd expect, thus cleansing the pores more.",
"Same reason why peoples faces get really shiny while their arms and legs don't. Your face (and chest, back, shoulders) has pores. In these pores are things called sebaceous glands, which produce sebum. Sebum is the bodies natural waxy substance which lubricates the skin and keeps it healthy. Some people produce a lot of it, and their faces shine like a diamond. Some people produce little of it and get dry skin. It itself is not a bad thing. Acne comes from when the pores get clogged. \n\nMost people have the bacteria that causes acne on their skin already. But it doesn't do anything on healthy skin with healthy pores. Acne happens when these pores get clogged up. The bacteria consumes the sebum in our pores and releases its waste. Something to note is that the bacteria are anaerobic, meaning they thrive in low oxygen environments. So these bacteria are in your pores, eating your sebum, releasing waste, and your pores gets clogged. This is the start of a pimple. If the clog is deep, and the top of the pore is still open, a blackhead forms. If the clog is near the surface and a thin layer of skin forms over it, a whitehead forms.\n\nSo the face produces the most sebum and has a lot of pores, making it prime breakout territory. Your forearms and legs have much less sebum so they don't really get acne.\n\nEdit: as I am the top comment, I'm going to plug /r/skincareaddiction as a prime knowledge center with very helpful people. First things first, don't pop whiteheads if you can avoid it, and if you have to, do it gently and cleanly. Popping acne and picking at pores is how you get scarring, and you don't want facial scarring. Secondly, daily sunscreen is how you look 30 when you're 50. Sun damage causes wrinkles.",
"One thing I noticed is that these areas are also washed and rewashed aggressively more than the \"clear and beautiful\" areas. \n\nWhen I finally \"gave up\" and stopped washing my face so much my acne eventually cleared up. I would use the Acid soaps, special creams, tanning, picking, not picking, everything and anything. It wasn't until I just stopped that my face finally started healing. I won't lie, it did get worse before it got better. And it was hard.\n\nPerhaps my experience was one of reaching adult age and it just going away, I dont know. My wife swears by the Charcoal Soap. It's black, has almost only charcoal in it and does seem to create nicer skin.\n\nThere is a bit of feeding the beast that happens when one washes their face. It starts with a break out, some hard cleaning, acid pads, feeling good, then waking up to a face that looks like it slept face down in pizza grease. The facial skin is like most parts, a self organized system. It knows all the oil had been stripped off and over produces. Hence the ever increasing oily face. If that's someone's experience then just stoo washing your face. A towel pat down once a day will work. Perhaps a light water rinse once a day.\n\nThen we have the other cases where the face is infected, and each time something is popped it spreads. This requires antibiotics. And the will power to stop picking. Acne IS different then pimples. Sometimes we will get pimples with white heads that just go bloop when touched. Then there are the omg this hurts so much bumps that are swollen and red and full of crap. That's acne and it's a special kind of bacteria that shouldn't really be concentrated like that. It may require a good dermatologist. Acne needs medicine, break outs from Mensi can be dealt with by not over washing. \n\nOthers answered the scientific side so I wanted to speak about my own personal experience with it and the research I've done. ",
"[Sebaceous glands](_URL_0_) in the skin secrete _sebum_, an oily substance. They're found especially in the face and scalp. Sebum has these properties:\n\n**Pros**\n\n* Lubricates the skin.\n* Waterproofs the skin.\n* Delays dehydration by turning sweat into more of an oily sheet than easily lost sweat drops.\n* Contains antiinflammatory, antimicrobial components.\n* Can work as a vitamin E transmitter to upper skin layers.\n* \"Mechanically\" (it's an oily film) protects the body against bacteria, viruses, other contaminants. See _[acid mantle](_URL_2_)_.\n\n**Cons**\n\n* _[Sapienic acid](_URL_1_)_ is a component of it, unique to the human species (hence the name) and seems to contribute to said acne, but also potentially an important antibacterial component. Sooo...\n\nI think these established facts answer your question pretty well? Sure, no direct answer to \"why face in particular\", but it's easy enough for me to infer that helping to literally keep one's head cool (overheating can lead to heat stroke) has been evolutionary helpful, and so has some added handling of germs in your face given the closeness to how they are digested or breathed in? Hell it could even have sexual reasons given that well lubricated skin has obvious and well known properties in making it stay young (thus a huge part of the and our face is the most important body part in sexual selection.",
"The skin on your face, back, and chest have more sebaceous glands. These glands produce sebum or oil that helps keep our skin waterproof and lubricated. When bacteria mixes with this oil it causes acne. As to why there are more of these glands in some areas than others, my guess is because the skin around our face for instance is much more useful being very soft and flexible so that we can make more distinct facial expressions, communicate, etc. The skin on our palms and bottoms of our feet, which have no sebaceous glands, are much more useful if they are tough or callous, they take on much more abuse than the rest of our skin. ",
"Opposite for me. Keratosis pilaris or whatever is called which affects like 50% of humans is whilst not bad or even close to being like acne still causes bumps on my arms and red dots. You cant really notice it until you look up close mind but it's still there . I've had about 2 spots on my face in my entire 28 years, guess I had it better than most if anything.",
"Most people are kind of stating the obvious I think: your face has more/larger pores.\n\nMost of us can tell that just from looking at our arms and face. What I don't understand is why does our face have bigger pores? Is it because we need to sweat more there to keep our brain cool or something? Maybe because the sun hits our face more often, so it gets hotter? ",
"I'm guessing it also has to do with the fact that the skin on the face needs to move and stretch a lot. Imagine your arm skin doing that? Your face would need to look like loose elbow skin. You'd have resting scrotum face.",
"I can contribute here, i had a really bad case of acne for 2 years and I started going to the doctor because it was really messing me up inside and they put me on a hormone therapy that fucked me up. If you ask for the strong stuff be ready.\n\nIf you've got it bad and want it fixed, be careful what you wish for because I got a 6 month treatment that fucked up 1 and a half years of my life because I was pass-out exhausted, hungry all the time, irritable as shit one minute and all over the place the next and depressed because all i ever wanted to do was go back to sleep. \n\nOn the other hand my face cleared up and stayed clear so there's that i guess..."
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6s2qzu
|
how did salt and pepper become the chosen ones of food spices?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6s2qzu/eli5_how_did_salt_and_pepper_become_the_chosen/
|
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"Mainly because of 3 reasons.\n\n* 1) Salt and Pepper are both fairly ubiquitous, being among some of the most abundant resources known to man. Salt, makes up much of our water, and is easy to de-salinate from water and then use, or mine from vast salt mines. Pepper, in it's various forms and incarnations, is fairly robust a plant and has many varieties that make them easily grown in most climates without many issues.\n* 2) They are some of the best spices known. Salt and pepper usually take very little to alter flavors of the food they are added to. Salt is usually tastable by humans by as little as 1 part per 1 million, and pepper at the most mild of capsacin levels can be tasted at around 1 part per 10,000. Both spices can be used at relatively small quantities that provide significant effects on the food it's used on.\n\n* 3) Mainly salt on it's ability to perserve foods. Salt has been used for millenia to dry and perserve foods. Running pepper in with it helps add flavoring to an otherwise VERY salty piece of meat once it's treated and produced.",
"No it's way more interesting. \n\nSalt preserves food (by drying it) and is readily attainable (from the sea). Pepper preserves meat (piperine kills bacteria and repels maggots but is harmless to humans). \n\nOver time, cultures that embraced preservatives like this prospered and their cuisine spread. In India, they use a whole different set of spices. In China, there are even two different words for spices called La and Ma (edit see below). One is fiery like capsaicin and the other, referring to Szechuan pepper corn, is electric like a battery on your tongue. It's amazing. \n\n**Edit:** side note: people seem really curious about Szechuan peppercorn. It actually used to be illegal in the US but [as of 2005 you can now buy it](_URL_0_) \n\nThe reason salt and pepper came to grace restaurant tables with all those other spices out there is **French cooking and Louis XIV. **\n\nAt the time that formal dining came into fashion, French culture was influential throughout the western world. Louis XIV was an influential man as the king of France. He didn't like as much salt or pepper in his food but others did so he created the custom of having his chefs put it on the table rather than cooked in. The custom spread and western culture helped spread it all over the world. \n\nEdit: black pepper contains piperine not capsaicin. \nEdit 2: Chinese is hard. La (not Lada) and Ma are more nuanced and appear to refer to different things. La is the word spicy generically. And by region (Hunan vs Szechuan) Ma la refers to the numbing spice (that I described as electric feeling) see the comments below for detail. ",
"Salt is a necessity. Our bodies require a certain amount of salt. Salt in high concentrations and peppers of various sorts are great for killing bacteria, and keeping food safe for longer periods of time.",
"Two nubian priestesses traveled to Egypt's old kingdom capital of Memphis and preached at length about those particular spices.",
"Salary comes from the Latin word salarium, which also means \"salary\" and has the root sal, or \"salt.\" In ancient Rome, it specifically meant the amount of money allotted to a Roman soldier to buy salt, which was an expensive but essential commodity.",
"Salt is necessary for survival. There's a reason why we've evolved to crave the taste of salt, sugar, and fat, because not having them at all is really bad. I have no idea why pepper is so common.",
"Others have answered this question pretty well, but consider reading At Home by Bill Bryson; it's all about the modern home and goes into loads of detail about the history of apparently mundane things including why we have salt and pepper. It's also genuinely a funny read.",
"What about ketchup and mustard? I've done a lot of searching and can't find out where or why or when!",
"Piperine in large doses boosts the absorbtion rates of other vitamins(and drugs😬) aswell.\n\nI read somewhere it boosts the absorbtion rate of curcumin up to 2000% 😳",
"I'd like to add that both help you taste your food by stimulating salivation which helps your taste buds actually tell what they're tasting. source: I cook for a living ",
"I remember reading the correct answer to this about 6 months ago.\n\nHold my beer while I butcher it.\n\nSalt suppresses bitter tastes/unpleasant flavours in a lot (all?) foods. Which gives a more balanced flavour which humans like. You can add a small amount to coffee beans that are a bit old to negate the \"old and bitter\" flavour coffee gets later on.\n\nGiven the choice, we'll tolerate something that's too salty over something that's too bitter.\n\nPepper has crude antibacterial properties that humans can also tolerate/consume (there are other things that are anti bacterial but also anti-human). ",
"Becoming more open-minded towards spices... what combinations would anyone recommend, favorite spices that are amazing with certain foods?",
"Salt is one of the fundamental tastes detected by the tongue. The only recipes you'll find where you don't add salt are ones that are already salty. \nSalt is kind of the fundamental thing to add in order to bring out flavour. \n \nPepper is 'hot', but doesn't have much of an actual flavour, so it doesn't clash with as many other flavours. Thus it is more versatile than many other spices.",
"Salt is an essential electrolyte. We need to have regular intake, just like other animals that will seek out salt licks, etc. If we don't have enough salt, or replenish it at regular enough intervals, cramps and other signaling/electrolyte problems will arise. For the same reason, we have evolved taste receptors that make any food with salt in it \"taste\" better to us.\n\nPepper aids in digestion and pepperin, a component of pepper, helps the intestines uptake nutrients. So it's a co-factor in our getting better nutrients in our diet. For the same reason, it tastes good to us (much of our sense of taste has evolved around things we need).\n\nThings that we need to intake almost daily and/or with virtually every meal, are integrated into our sense of taste as seeming to complement everything rather than fundamentally altering the flavor profiles of foods. These things are known as seasonings, rather than spices.",
"To add something slightly different to most posts I want to mention our nervous system, which works using salt (sodium ions). [Your taste buds are more receptive](_URL_0_) in the presence of salt. Because of this, if you use a suitable amount of salt you can enhance the taste of almost any food. Be aware though, if you regularly use a lot of salt (but not so much to make the food taste disgusting) when you return to eating food with less salt it may appear to taste worse.\n\nAs such, this 'enhance all taste' property of salt is desirable for the dinner table.",
"Classic situation of big salt and big pepper working together to force out all the other spices in the pantry. ",
"The real question is: How did they have a child and why did it come out as Paprika?",
"Salt is special because the sodium and chlorine ions that we get from it are critical to our nervous system. If you don't eat enough chlorine and sodium you will eventually *die*; and since salt is the most plentiful (and edible) source of those elements on the planet our taste buds have evolved to crave it.\n\nPepper appears to be popular for cultural reasons. My understanding is that it's a 'clean' spice which can add heat to foods without adding all sorts of other flavours. It does have bactericidal properties, but so do almost all other herbs and spices so I doubt that has much to do with it's prevalence.",
"It is not the case everywhere. I found out in Hungary that they use paprika for just about every food. It tastes good.",
"Salt and pepper cover two primary flavors you learned of \"spicy, salty, Unami, sour, bitter.\" There aren't any easily portable sour flavors, like lemon juice, but a lot of cultures put lemon juice in everything. It's mentioned in the Bible I think. Everyone uses salt because it's a mineral with a rock texture that our body craves because it needs sodium and chlorine, and that's the only way to get it that won't poison us. Even animals like salt. If you put a salt block outside wild animals big and small will come to lick its mineral. Black pepper just stores better than any other pepper. The easy storage is why everyone in the world and in all climates have been using these spices since before we had fridges and spices took ten years to travel on horseback.",
"Mobile formatting ect\n\nAll credit to /u/Flubb\n\nReposted from [here](_URL_0_)\n\nIt got 'common' by desire for it. If you mean 'common' by quantity, that's to do with trade routes opening up.\nThe Romans started it off - the sole Roman cookbook, purported to be written by Apicius, calls for pepper in 80% of the recipes, and Pliny the Elder moans about why pepper should excite so much enthusiasm amongst his contemporaries, considering that it cost so much to bring it from the East.\nOn to the mediaeval period, pepper served a number of uses, including humoural - some foods were considered dangerous (eels for example, because they look like snakes) and so you needed to counter-balance or offset humours in food with spices - pepper being a hot, dry humour. They were also used in almost every dish concocted and therefore demand drove the spice trade.\nRelated to this, spices in general were also used as medicine - I can't find much on pepper as medicine, but it was used to stifle a cold (being hot).\nThere's also the allure of spices: spices were generally associated with Paradise - or being close to it - Prester John's land was supposed to have forests of pepper, which was only 3 days journey from paradise.\nAs for the amount of pepper, that comes through the spice trade. Because generally it came from the Far East it cost an awful lot originally, but even that was dependant on the levels of import - some years it could cost you a lot of money (163 Gold dinars in Alexandria in 1333 for 500lbs), some years it would drop precipitously (11 years later in Alexandria, it had dropped to 75 dinars per 500lbs). As trade opened up with the East, pepper imports grew - during the 15th century, Venetian merchants brought in an average of 400 tonnes of pepper from Alexandria. Once the route to India had been discovered by the Portuguese, this only increased - one estimate of 4 Venetian galleys brought in 4 million pounds of spices (not all of it pepper), and another convey the following year brought in 2 million pounds, pepper making up about 1/2 of that amount. As pepper was generally in the hands of the Portuguese (and later the Dutch), they had a habit of raising the prices - and by the 1500s, pepper was an every commodity that you couldn't do without - this is why Queen Elizabeth I was so interested to support expeditions to find pepper.",
"This has probably already been mentioned by those more eloquent than I, but we use to fight wars [over Salt as well](_URL_0_). \n\nAs already mentioned, because salt is used as a preservative, ships at the time would heavily salt all their food as they went on their months/years long trips discovering new parts of the world. Obviously with a lot of European countries basically travelling the same routes, there would be fights over the best spots to hold and restock their salt and other produce. \n\nNow, we don't have that much of an issue instead we have [Monte Kali](_URL_1_) in Germany which is a literal mountain of salt which gets added to daily. The downside being the salt has now seeped into the earth and ruined the soil underneath.\n\nQuick aside, all of this was written off the top of my head from what I remember. If people wish to correct me or add to this, please do. Never thought I'd say this, but salt is super interesting. ",
"They didn't really, only in the west and only in countries culturally close to France. The east and the americas had there own spices. That being said salt and pepper are as popular as they are for three main reasons: mild taste/availability, usefulness as a preservative and lastly it was popularized by one of the later King louie of France. Either XIV or XVI. Whichever was sun king. ",
"In my house it's hard to find the salt. It lies buried behind all the other seasonings. Our main condiments are mustards and hot sauces.",
"I read salt and pepper and immediately thought salt-n-pepa, and now I'm grooving... anyone else?",
"I remembered the /r/askhistorians [thread](_URL_1_) and did a search, finding lots of Reddit answers: _URL_0_\n\nShort ELI5 version: \n\nEverybody uses salt, because we need it to live. \n\nBlack pepper is super common in the western world because it's strong, has a punch that means you don't have to use as much of it, it doesn't go bad easily, and it travels well. It's good for flavoring meats that are maybe a few days from spoiling so that they still taste good. Non western countries had other spices for that, but we just happen to have dominated the world and they've picked up our habits. If another country had dominated, maybe we'd be using some other thing like red chili flakes, smashed dry fish, pickled garlic, or fermented bean juice.",
"That was an explanation, just not a long one. I explained why salt and pepper ended up serving the role they do. This rule serves to make the name of this thread misleadingly ironic. You don't give full, lengthy explanations to five year olds. Perhaps there need to be fewer threads instead of confounding, definitively frustrating rules. ",
"Salt has always been a recognized vital mineral. The Romans often paid their soldiers with salt. It is where the term \"salary\" came from."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://www.google.com/amp/www.seattlepi.com/lifestyle/food/amp/The-Szechuan-peppercorn-is-back-after-a-long-term-1265515.php"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK50958/"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/19mpok/i_understand_the_hostorical_importance_of_salt/"
],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_salt#Cities_and_wars",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Kali_(Heringen)"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/search?q=%22how+did+salt+and+pepper",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ebd1a/in_a_world_of_spices_and_seasonings_how_did_it/"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
3xpj3n
|
if oil is an scarce resource, why is it's price going down?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3xpj3n/eli5_if_oil_is_an_scarce_resource_why_is_its/
|
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"It is a finite resource but it is actually fairly abundant (I know that this will be corrected by someone soon). \nFor example the Ghawar field still contains around 71,000million barrels of oil. This is just one field alone; this is enough to supply the world for more than 739 days just from this field. \n\nFrom what I understand:\n\nThe dip in oil price we're seeing at the moment is kind of artificial, since the middle east is continuing to flood the market with oil to drive the price down to hit Russia's economy. \nThe price is only going down at present simply because the supply is far outstripping the consumption (demand) for it. \nIt is inevitable that the price will go back up as the resource is used and existing known supplies start to dwindle. \n\nThe existing world demand for oil stands at around 96 million barrels of oil and liquid fuels per day. Production breached 97 million barrels per day in late 2015\n(source: _URL_1_)\n\nOPEC has meetings twice a year to determine how much oil is to be produced and if production should be stifled or increased.\nIts most recent meeting determined that the world production of oil should not be restricted which has allowed countries to continue producing however much oil they wish and selling it at the going rate. \nThis article provides some interesting reading : _URL_0_",
"its a finite resource, non renewable, but not particularly scarce, atleast not yet.\n\nThere are plenty of oil wells tapped that if they all pump to their capacity, we have an abundance of supply. And that is pretty much what they are doing right now because OPEC isnt acting as a monopoly as they once did.",
"Though other comments are correct, the current price reduction is actually based on supply and demand. Since oil is traded as a commodity, the cost per barrel that you hear about is what someone is paying for a physical product. With opec not being as unified as it once was, and the active shale play in the US there is an abundance of unsold oil in the market. This allows the buyers to offer less money per barrel, and the sellers (who frequently are actually highly leveraged in the fracking world, as well as smaller producers in the traditional drilling world) need to pay the bills. So they accept less money and thus the price reduces. Saudi Arabia can produce oil at around $40/barrel and still make a modest profit. The shale oil in the us (fracking) is closer to $60-80/barrel for the best companies (around 100/barrel for russian companies). If you want to play conspiracy games, it looks like the low cost producers are flooding the market with cheap oil to bankrupt the more expensive producers to reduce competition in the long run and increase profits on the inevitable cost run up",
"Realistically, since the 70's oil prices have been manipulated by OPEC and other oil producing states. So at the base, this is really supply and demand - where supply is being manipulated for various political and financial reasons.\n\nHowever what is really interesting is the long-term shifts that are occurring that will eventually signal the end for economies based on oil.\n\nThe oligopoly that is OPEC has cyclically narrowed supply, thereby increasing their profits while preserving their (ultimately) limited supply. The price of gas increases initially causing pain to consumers. At first it is discomfort but as the price continues to rise it become outrage. \n\nThis spurs investment in alternate fuels. \"Let's cut our dependence on foreign oil!\". The automobile industry builds smaller cars. More fuel efficient cars. We are on our way!\n\nBut each time we reach a national furor over gas prices *amazingly* OPEC relaxes their production quotas and floods the market with cheap oil. Gas prices fall.\n\nAmericans have short attention spans. \"Oh look! Gas is under $2/gallon! Let's buy a big SUV!\". Lower gas prices make no longer economically viable to develop alternate fuel sources.\n\nBut what OPEC is missing (IMO) is that every time we go through one of these cycles more innovation occurs. Investment is made in alternate fuels that get better and cheaper.\n\nEventually, during one of these \"supply shortages\" OPEC is going to have a rude awakening. When they increase output and expect people to flock back to petroleum it isn't going to happen like it has for the past 4 decades. Instead, the tipping point for alternative fuels will have been reached.\n\nIn this last phase of government funded tax incentives to develop alternative fuels solar costs have dropped by 70%. With better battery storage coming online via Tesla and others I think we are within 1 to 2 more pricing cycles before petroleum will no longer have a price advantage and the energy supply will become unlimited. \n\nI'm looking forward to seeing what the Saudis do when they don't have the capital to build snow skiing resorts in the middle of the desert. ",
"There are two types of scarcity: environmental scarcity and economic scarcity. Yes, absolutely 100% oil is a finite resource and we are slowly running out of it. BUT...from an economic perspective the price is going down because it is no longer as economically scarce. Overproduction, lack of storage, and increasing availability of energy alternatives all play a role in making oil less economically scarce and as long as those continue oil may stay at or below its current price levels.",
"Oil is not scarce. We are capping more wells here in the US than ever. It's just my opinion but I think opec is manipulating the oil price to hose Venezuela and Russia since their oil takes more to process. And to keep them from flooding the market taking money from the middle east."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/20474556-9a62-11e5-9228-87e603d47bdc.html",
"http://www.iea.org/aboutus/faqs/oil/"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
8cct9g
|
why is typically considered worrisome when a baby doesn't cry/make noise after being born?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8cct9g/eli5_why_is_typically_considered_worrisome_when_a/
|
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"Because crying and/or making noise is normal, so the lack of that usually indicates some sort of medical problem (usually a respiratory problem of some sort).",
"Usually because it’s very possible for the baby to stop breathing due to a problem with the labor. Not all babies usually cry, but they do when they’re born because it’s very painful, and very common that babies usually cry right when they are born. ",
"When the baby is still in the mother it floats I'm a sack of fluid and breaths that fluid in. When they are born they need to get that fluid out so the baby can start breathing air and doesn't drown since they are no longer receiving oxygen from their mother. Crying is a sure sign of breathing so if they are not crying, the assumption is they aren't breathing "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
xk5ej
|
is there a reason we can't just boil contaminated water to make it drinkable?
|
For third world countries and the like.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/xk5ej/is_there_a_reason_we_cant_just_boil_contaminated/
|
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"Not all contaminants are alive. Boiling kills \"germs\", you still need to remove poisonous chemicals.\n\nYou could potentially take boiling a step further, though, and distill the water. Boil the water, capture the steam, allow to cool and re condense into water.",
"Chemical engineering student here. Just spent a semester studying water purification systems.\n\nThe problem with contaminated water is there's suspended solids (dirt), bacteria (living things), salt (salty water), organic compounds (chemicals that might come from farming) and heavy metals (little bits of metal... kinda). I know it's a little more complicated than that, but this is ELI5. \n\nFirst of all, boiling the water requires a lot of effort. You have to gather all the logs, start a decent fire, then get the water boiling. It takes a very long time to boil enough drinking water for just a day, and it's recommended that you boil for at least ten minutes. I don't think that third world countries would be able to do this on a regular basis. \n\nBut anyway, if they could, here's your problem. Boiling for long enough will kill all the nasty living things and removes some types of chemicals. However, it won't solve your problems of removing the dirt, the salt or the bits of metal. \n\nTo remove the dirt, you can let the water stand for an hour or two so that the dirt sinks to the bottom, then pour the cleaner water off. But again, this doesn't remove your heavy metals and you're still stuck with salty water that might still have chemicals in it. \n\nThat's about all you can remove through boiling, unless you want to set up a distilling apparatus (something that collects the steam when the water is boiling and lets it condense somewhere else) That would remove the heavy metals and the salt, leaving you with near pure water, except if there are chemicals that boil at the same time as water. I think that's a bit beyond the capabilities of third worlders though. It also requires a **lot** of energy.\n\nJust using the process of boiling won't remove heavy metals or salt, so you're probably still going to get sick, depending on how much of each are still in there. \n\n**TL;DR**: Boiling won't remove salt, heavy metals or some types of chemicals. It would also be difficult for third world countries to boil a lot of water regularly. ",
"1. Boiling water just kills the microbes. If it is contaminated with some chemical, that chemical is still there.\n2. Boiling water takes lots of energy. It is not practical to boil large portions of the water supply.",
"I was watching some weird reality tv show about a post-apocalyptic world once, and on that episode they captured rain water or found water, poured into a column of sand or something like that to filter out the particulates, then bubbled Ozone through the water - apparently this was more efficient boiling enough water to use (the ozone part). \n\nDoes this actually work? What about the metal and chemicals?",
"same reason boiling minestrone soup doesn't make it drinking water"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
ciij3i
|
how does the police obtain the position of a call without the phone having location turned on?
|
I know this is possible and is also less accurate than GPS positioning, but am not really sure how it works.
My guess would be that they get the info from the provider who calculates the position based on the caller's proximity to their antennas.
Also, why is it less accurate?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ciij3i/eli5_how_does_the_police_obtain_the_position_of_a/
|
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"They use the signal strength of your phone between multiple phone masts and that helps them narrow bit down. Its also instant you don't need to keep someone on then line",
"Every phone pings to it's nearest tower while on call, they'll select 3 towers in shape of triangle , by using mathematical formula they'll find distance between tower and caller device then they'll search in area where tower is near that's why it's not much accurate but we can find device within range of 600m nearby"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
5g72wp
|
when people say "your stomach shrinks when you don't eat" what do they really mean?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5g72wp/eli5when_people_say_your_stomach_shrinks_when_you/
|
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"There's a couple different reasons for this, some of it related to the size of your stomach (the body organ where food goes to start digestion). \n\n1. Your stomach expands quite a bit if you eat a lot. And if you often eat large amounts, your stomach 'gets better at expanding', but when it's empty, it's pretty much the same size. However, if you don't 'pig out' as often, your stomach gets 'out of practice in stretching', so you have trouble eating more.\n\n2. The side effect for this is that some people who eat a lot, have trouble noticing the difference between having enough to eat, as opposed to feeling 'full'. People who don't eat as much may require the same amount of food, but they will challenge their stomach more, and 'feel full' on less food.\n\nAnd, of course, there is actually losing weight. Almost everyone has at least a little bit of extra fat is stored under the skin, sometimes enough to be noticeable as 'flab' or 'cellulite'. But fat can also be stored *inside your abdomen*, under the stomach muscles, which causes the round 'pot belly' that is more common in men. If you've got enough extra fat that your abdomen bulges out, and you lose weight, then your 'stomach' (actually, your abdomen, but this is ELI5!) shrinks."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
bgrct8
|
why is the word 'drinking' associated with alcohol?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bgrct8/eli5_why_is_the_word_drinking_associated_with/
|
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"Well when going out \"drinking\" in social gatherings most people pretty much always drink alcoholic beverages also because alcohol changes how you behave and makes you kinda more confident where as going out drinking water or juice sounds lame and doesn't make you more interesting.\n\nIn the end it's just a cultural thing.",
"Because you don't need to clarify that you were out drinking alcohol from 8 30 til after midnight.\n\nNo one makes an occasion out of drinking any other substance."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
f44374
|
what does eating slower actually do for you?
|
When I was younger my mother would always tell me to eat slower, and I abided, but what does it actually do for you?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f44374/eli5_what_does_eating_slower_actually_do_for_you/
|
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"For people that over eat, eating slower can help you eat less. It takes a while for you to realize you are full.",
"One eating slower allows you to chew your food more, burning calories, making it safer to swallow, should reduce chances of biting cheeks/tongue as well.\n\nSecondly your brain takes over 20 minutes to realize your stomach is full and has eaten enough and so if you eat quickly you can “shove down” more food than you truly need to. This leads to stomach pain, weight gain, health issues.",
"Also it lets you masticate your food more before swallowing. This aids in digestion. And you'll fart less.",
"Allows food to reach your stomach before you end up overeating.\n\nIt takes a minute for it to travel down, and for your brain to register there's stuff in your stomach.\n\nIf you eat slower, your body/brain has time to catch up."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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] |
|
5fmt8a
|
how does bernoulli's principle work in aspirators?
|
I know the concept, but I can't for the life of me understand it conceptually. I haven't had this much trouble in physics since Newton's third law, and this is really bothering me.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5fmt8a/eli5_how_does_bernoullis_principle_work_in/
|
{
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" > but I can't for the life of me understand it conceptually.\n\nThink about the pressure of a fluid being the effect of the collision of many particles of the fluid. The bulk effect of this kinetic motion is the pressure on the vessel walls.\n\nNow if we don't change the pressure that total kinetic motion is set, right? Now if we have more of that kinetic motion directed \"that-a-way\" then there is less left to push against the walls of the container. So the pressure must drop!"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
2pni1b
|
what causes us to have a random "awkward" flashback, even though that flashback had nothing to do with what you were doing?
|
I'm talking about those flashbacks you have where you cringe just thinking about it.
EDIT: I should note; I don't mean an actual "flashback". More of a bad memory.
EDIT2: You're all awesome. Thanks for the answers.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pni1b/eli5_what_causes_us_to_have_a_random_awkward/
|
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"Maybe smell? Your olfactory bulb (smell) is basically right smack dab in the middle of your brain, right next to your thalamous, hypothalamous, pineal gland, pons, etc, so it has a lot of pull when it comes to higher brain functions. - it's been found in rats that activating the septal (medial olfactory) region of their brain creates a pleasure response, and considering that pleasure / pain is a huge part of consciousness, this isn't too far-fetched. \n\nMaybe some vague detail of said \"awkward\" memory / flashback connects to a current event in a strange way that evokes that memory.",
"Think of our brain as billions of lightbulbs. All thoughts light up places in our brain, and the brightest light is usually what we recognize. Once in a while, mostly when the brightest part is still quite dim (usually when we're doing something repetitive or boring), one of our \"background\" thoughts manage to create a brighter light than whatever is active. We switch over to that thought as \"active\", because that's the brightest.",
"Your brain is noticing things on a subconscious level that your upper mind is not paying attention to. There is *most likely* a connection.",
"While there's not a very straight-forward answer, since the cause is different for everyone, it's easily compared to Déjà vu in the sense that what you're currently thinking about or doing triggers a memory of the past, sometimes being \"awkward\", possibly due to a mild neurological aberration, resulting in a spontaneous recollection of memory. \n\nThe most notable thing is that it happens *all the time*, you just don't think about it unless it is one of these more \"awkward\" moments!",
"because neurons that fire together wire together, you basically did something or thought something or smelled something that triggered a previous connection thus strengthening it by recall.",
"I get these all the time- they used to confuse the hell out of me because they never had anything to do with what I was doing at the time. A few yeas ago I talked to a counselor (for somewhat related reasons), and she told me it was a not uncommon symptom of anxiety. Her explanation was something along the lines of:\n\n1) Your brain is really good at solving problems and running simulations of what possible things could go wrong in order to best prepare for the worst.\n\n2) Even when you have nothing you need to be preparing for or worrying about, your brain still really wants to help out. So it digs up terrible awkward things from the past, or imagines what kind of awful thing could happen RIGHT NOW AT THIS MOMENT and then tries to prepare you to deal with the situation. you know, just in case. \n\nTL;DR Scumbag brain",
"Our brains operate on association or recognition of pattern. We learn from association and store what we learn in two main categories. One is declarative memory that stores information such as an important date or address. The other is non declarative and stores information based on experience. These two different types of memory interact together. For instance, you may know a phone number very well but randomly forget it. After mimicking the movements of your finger to press the digits of that number you may remember it. Neurons are what the data we collect is stored in. Each neuron that is assigned a tidbit of information may be \"linked\" to hundreds of other tidbits of information in other neurons. These other tidbits may be more or less likely to link to that activated neuron depending on how often they are activated. When you think of the word spider you may also think of web, venom, bite, fear. These words are linked to hundreds of others as well. So when you think of the word spider you are \"priming\" or warming up the neurons that are associated with it such as web, venom, etc. It is the way in which we store and recall information that affects our stream of thought. It is the continuous string of association that brings about what may seem random memories. The same neuron that is associated with spider could be associated with something you were doing at the time you last recalled it, such as picking your nose. So the next time you pick your nose you may be priming your neurons that are associated with the word or memory of a spider. ",
"Your brain be like lol lets remember this for a bit.",
"I don't have any sort of certification in psychology that I can claim flair for, but I can tell you it has to do with that. Those awkward moments that make you cringe are still little tiny traumatic events that affect who we are and who we think we are. \nHopefully someone can come along and explain the actual science behind it, but I think it's pretty intuitive that these are implanted in our memory more. They sneak their way back to the front of our minds because they made such an impression on us, because we feel like the moments were cringeworthy.\n\nThere's probably more of a reason why when we are in a sort of neutral state of mind these thoughts tend to come up, but like I said I think it's mainly because they were so impressionable on our psyche.\n \nHope I helped!\n\n\nEdit: I don't want to make this too long but after reading other comments I just want to add, as some others have pointed out our brain is really bent on solving problems. I think that it has to do with a combination of these events leaving a lasting impression on us because we feel we acted wrongly in that situation, and our brain having a desire to solve our behavioral f*** up. ",
"Its more like a REALLY heavy deja vu for me. Like, I can almost predict what is going to happen next. Does anyone feel like a pressure when it happens? I can't explain it, but if you know what I'm talking about, you can relate. ",
"We all get this to varying degrees. It becomes a problem if you try to get rid of the thought (this just makes it worse). This is true even for more severe PTSD forms. ",
"EDIT: I had a similar question answered for me in another ELI5 a while back. I can't remember the person's username and it was on another account, but he/she gave me a brilliant answer. I was trying to think of a term ('capillary action'), and it came to me at a later time out of the blue. The process might be applicable in this particular instance:\n\n\"[NOTE: I am stepping outside of ELI5 in this bracket set. let's go ahead and skip over basic perception and short-term memory structure (STM) and jump right into long-term memory, encoding, and retrieval. it will take too long to do so.]\n\n[also, we will disregard Atkinson and Shiffrin's inferior Modal Model of Memory (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968) and consider the newer Working Memory developed by Baddeley and Hitch in 1974]\n[note: working memory - is a limited-capacity system for temporal storage and manipulation of information for complex tasks, e.g., comprehension, learning, and reasoning. unlike STM, WM is concerned with how information is manipulated through three action components: the phonological loop, the visuospatial sketch pad, and the central executive.]\n\nOk, so [we don't need to worry about STM/WM too much, since will consider you've encoded the information properly] you just experienced the tip-of-the-tongue effect? I can try to help explain it! It's been awhile since I've touched on this subject, so I might be missing some information. Considering you already know this word, as you've studied it before, the word \"capillary action\" has been encoded into your long-term memory (LTM) - the system responsible for storing information for long periods of time. What sort of information is stored in LTM? It's been generally accepted that any memory older than 30 seconds, not in WM, is considered encoded into LTM. Decay, which we can touch on later, has a great effect on the detail of information encoded. Do you remember where you were at 12:12PM, Sunday, March 17th, 2005? (not sure if this is a real date). Probably not. Which is perfectly normal!\n\nThere are two categories of LTM: Explicit (conscious) and Implicit (unconscious). Explicit memories are further broken down into: Episodic (personal events) and Semantic (facts, knowledge). Implicit memories are further broken down into Priming (two stimuli presented simultaneously), Procedural (skills, e.g., typing, walking, riding, swimming), and Conditioning (classical conditioning, e.g., Pavlov's dog). Here, we are concerned with your Semantic memory. The memory of facts you are conscious of. [there is a distinction between episodic and semantic memories and localized functioning in the brain (see DeRenzi et al., 1987; Rosenbaum et al., 2005; Squire & Zola-Morgan, 1998; Tulving & Markowitsch, 1998). i will not debate this in this post.]\n\nthe differences between episodic and semantic memories are not absolute - there are connections between the two. how we acquire knowledge can affect our semantic memory as the two types of memories occur simultaneously. when we learn facts (semantics), we are experiencing (episodic), such as sitting in a class room, eating, drinking, or with people studying their faces, voices, smells, etc. this being said, semantic memories can be enhanced if strongly associated with episodic memories! (Westmacott & Moscovitch, 2003). woot! previous knowledge can also effect semantic retrieval (Chase & Simon, 1973). experts experience a situation with greater detail than non-experts [see chunking]. let's encode some memories into your LTM: the word \"capillary action\" and its related facts. meta-fact! encoding is the process of transferring information from WM in LTM. let's retrieve capillary action, or the process of transferring information from LTM to WM. there is a strong relationship between encoding and retrieval, and how you encode can affect how you retrieve (Craik & Tulving, 1975).\n\nthere are a number of ways to get information from WM to LTM: maintenance and elaborative rehearsing, levels-of-processing, depths-of-processing, circular reasoning, paired-associative learning, self-reference effect, generation effect, retrieval cues. these are all eight factors that aid encoding I can find and safely say exist. a lot of these you have heard about from teachers giving out studying and testing advice. we can debate which method works the best! I'm open to any theories! I believe testing should also fit in there, but I can't find it referenced anywhere with the \"elite-eight\". testing and incubation have been proven to work well (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006). this phenomenon is known as the testing effect. ok, so I've hopefully explained LTM, its components, and the relationship between encoding and retrieval well enough. the best thing about encoding and studying is that encoding (by using retrieval cues technique, specifically) is more effective when the study cues are created by the person whose memory is in question. aka. pay attention and do your own homework! your encoding process is most likely to blame for your loss of capillary action, but retrieval plays a roll to.\n\nIn 1975, Godden and Baddeley demonstrated that the best recall occurred when encoding and retrieval occurred in the same location! do you study and test in the same conditions? In Gooden and Baddeley's experiment, participants did better when testing conditions matched study conditions. In 1989, Eich and Metcalfe tested the state-dependent learning theory, which states that learning is affected by internal states, or moods. Eich and Metcalfe found that participants did better on tests when their mood at retrieval matched their mood during encoding. In 1977, Morris and coworkers tested the transfer-appropriate processing phenomenon - memory performance is enhanced if the type of task at encoding matches the type of task at retrieval. Morris et al. discovered that 1) deeper processing at encoding does not always result in better recall, and 2) matching encoding and retrieval tasks results in better retrieval.\n\nbreak!\n\naside from all of this, we should explain the effect you experienced in front of your friend. this a-ha moment (also known as eureka!) is actually known as Insight. insight is an interesting phenomenon, and its research peaked around the 50's then tapered off. in the past two decades, however, research on insight has picked up dramatically.\ninsight is the feeling you get when you solve a problem, any problem. the feeling's degree of effect depends on a lot of factors and are not so much important for the sake of my discussion.\n\nthere is a very bright man named Stellan Ohlsson who has dedicated a solid majority of his research efforts studying insight and problem solving. He and numerous other researchers play with the idea of aiding insight. [i don't want to get into representational change theory or spread of activation theory even if it might help you OP, my brain is fried from finals]. the three aids are as follows: incubation (a break), overcoming function fixedness (a hint), think of FF as \"writer's block,\" and heuristics (analogous transfer using rules-of-thumbs).\n\nok, so to sum up everything we've learned, your a-ha moment is probably a mixture of factors. your encoding process could have been skewed, the relationship between encoding and retrieval could have been off - affected recall, or you stepped into a situation that provided a cue that either triggered or enhanced recall. the time between testing and seeing your friend may have provided an incubation moment during which you solved your problem, or another cue from the environment may have spawned and provided a hint.\n\nI can't provide a tl;dr.\"\n\nEven if it's not entirely on-topic, it's fascinating nonetheless. Would be great if the user could reclaim this explanation (I was able to paste it here as I saved it to my PC).\n",
"Neural connections. They link experiences that are somehow related, or that the brain thinks are related, which is a weird thing to say. That's why, whenever you eat a hot dog, you suddenly recall that time when you were a small child at a shopping mall, and a clown with a really long nose surprised you and made you cry for your mommy, and everybody pointed and laughed. Experiences with a profound emotional impact activate more of the brain than other experiences do, form more connections, and are more likely to have their memory triggered by seemingly innocuous events as a result.\n\nI used to work at a restaurant where I needed to memorize recipes. Strange as it may sound, in addition to memorizing the lists of ingredients, I'd memorize other words as made-up synonyms for each word, with existing connections (garlic was \"vampires\" and salt was \"sea\"). Then I'd memorize the list of words I'd made as comparisons for each recipe as well. Vampires in the sea? Right, I need the garlic *salt*, not the garlic *powder*. It sounds like a lot of extra work, but--for a guy with a lousy memory--I had my recipes down-pat.",
"Just the brain, reminding me what a STUPID LOUSY IDIOT I am. Gotta keep me in check, y'know?",
"Acid. You don't know the definition of awkward until it radiates through your being consuming all that you are.",
"Can someone explain to me what an awkward flashback is? It doesn't sound like Deja vu so now I'm lost.",
"According to my therapist, they tend to do with situations and the emotions behind them that we haven't dealt with. My therapist and I have been working on this, she has me relax and then think of one of these times and then we talk about what happened, how I felt then, how I feel about the situation now, what I would do in that situation now differently, and then talk through all of this. It actually has helped a lot with anxiety and knowing what I am actually feeling, instead of being an emotional wreck! \n\n\nTL;DR they are repressed feelings trying to surface that may or may not be what you're feeling. Emotions don't really go away until dealt with properly, so that is what your mind is trying to do.",
"Nature's way of reminding you to stay your lane.",
"There is an undercurrent of emotion and thought, usually referred to as \"primary process\" that exists in all of us all the time. It manifests itself at night as dreams, and during our waking hours it occasionally leaks through as a random or bizarre thought or feeling. Sometimes it is an earworm. Our social conditioning has taught us to not express or act on these awarenesses. However, when alcohol or drugs relax our social conditioning, we sometimes act out our unfiltered impulses. People with mental illness live in a world where this primary process is active and in control most of the time. While it is certainly frightening to us to watch, it is more terrifying to them to experience. Don't worry about your random rememberences and feeling, they are just burps from your unconscious. ",
"this thread made me cringe at some of my worst decisions throughout my life\n\n\nMAKE IT STOP !!!",
"Never had a flashback. I would imagine it's scary and a sign you need to see someone.\n\nI can \"remember\" past events anytime I want but it certainly isn't an all senses consuming thing.",
"Involuntary memories occur because stuff\n\nSource: _URL_0_",
"I had a friend when I was younger describe this as \"party shudders\"....where you physically shudder when you think about what an ass you were at the party the night before. ",
"I'm glad I'm not the only one who gets the twitches. I picked mine up years ago and it's never gone away. Like those intrusive thoughts come and sometimes my whole body twitches, sometimes several times a minute or even every few seconds. It makes me look lIke a total psycho but I noticed it never happens when I'm talking to somebody. So sometimes I have to mumble to myself. Either way, it's not really a winner in job interviews or dates.",
"Actually, it's called state-dependent memory. Whatever emotions you're feeling increase the chances of you recalling memories with those specific emotions (such as stress or happiness) because your emotional state is very similar to when those memories were created.",
"Chances are some environmental factor(s) triggered your subconscious to bring the memory to the forefront. It may not be directly related to what you're doing, but a smell, word, sound, mood etc. can trigger seemingly unrelated thoughts, memories, or emotions."
]
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_memory"
],
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|
dxh88a
|
whats the difference between bigot and racist and prejudice and discrimination ?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dxh88a/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_bigot_and/
|
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"A Bigot is someone who is mean to someone because of how they perceive the other person's identity. A Racist is someone who participates in systematically abusing power over groups of people because of their race. Prejudice is thinking badly of someone because they are different from you. Discrimination is acting on that prejudice.",
"\"Prejudice\" is the most general term, and refers to forming unreasonably broad ideas about people based on shallow characteristics and stereotypes.\n\n\"Discrimination\" is the act of treating people differently based on prejudices.\n\n\"Racism\" can be either prejudice based on race, or discrimination based on those prejudices.\n\nAnd a \"bigot\" is a person who has extreme prejudices and discriminatory behavior, to the point of hatred and malice.",
"A bigot is someone who is cruel or mean to another person based not on their actions, but because they belong to a specific religion, race, sexuality, or other such group. \"I hate all French people, they're all smelly and dumb and cowards.\"\n\nA racist is a bigot who is cruel or mean to someone specifically because of the specific ethnic group they belong to. It's a particular form of bigotry. \"I hate all black people.\"\n\nPrejudice is when you believe something about someone based not on their actions, but because they belong to a specific religion, race, sexuality or other such group. \"All Asian people are boring and dull.\"\n\nDiscrimination is when you treat someone differently based not on their actions, but because they belong to a specific religion, race, sexuality or other such group. \"I am rude to any elderly person I meet. I yell and scream at them.\""
]
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|
nyo8a
|
why black, magenta, and possibly white aren't colours, and are there any other non-colour colours?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nyo8a/eli5_why_black_magenta_and_possibly_white_arent/
|
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"They are colours, but they're not monochromatic colours - ones with only one wavelength of light. They're made up of a combination of monochromatic colours. \n\nIt's a bit like the difference between a musical note and chord. Magenta is a combination of red and violet light. White is a combination of all the different wavelengths of light, and black is no light.",
"You may know some/most of this, so if you do then please don't hold it against me for going through it all. \n \nThe way light works is that it is contained in small particles of light called photons. They're emitted from the Sun, and when we see something, what's actually happening is that the Sun's photons are bouncing off that object and entering our eyes. \n \nIt's beyond the scope of ELI5 to fully explain this next bit (and honestly it's pretty much beyond me anyway), but basically these little particles of light also have a characteristic whereby they act like waves (with frequencies and wavelengths). What we perceive as colour is actually just our brain's way of interpreting photons of different wavelengths as they enter our eyes. Broadly speaking, when we see that a flower is green, what's actually happening is that the flower is absorbing all the photons except the 'green' ones, so what we see bouncing back into our eyes are the 'green' photons. In addition to this, objects appear darker when they reflect fewer photons - so a dark green plant reflects green photons, but fewer of them than a bright green plant. \n \nNow, this is where black and white come in. When something appears black to us, it's because the object is absorbing most of the photons that hit it, and not absorbing any colour photon more than the others. The object thus appears both dark, and not distinctly similar to any particular photon colour. White is similar, with objects appearing bright and not distinctly any particular photon colour, because the object is reflecting almost all of the colour photons that hit it. \n \nThe reason people often say that black and white aren't colours is because what we see as black and white are instead just broad mixes of the other photon colours, but with varying levels of brightness - there are no 'black' or 'white' photons. The same is true of magenta; it can only be produced by combining red and blue photons. \n \nPersonally, I don't think that it makes sense to dismiss these as not being colours, because practically speaking *every* object in the universe has a unique appearance, reflecting photons of varying colours. It something appears to be olive green, then it's not just reflecting olive green photons; it's reflecting photons in a wide range of wavelengths that happen to peak around the colour we see as olive green. \n \nI don't see the point in picking out a few special cases and saying 'they're different from these other colours because the others technically *could* operate a different way, even though they actually don't'. \n \n--edit-- \n \nI also like MrJelly's use of the note/chord allegory. Black, white, magenta, and all greys can *only* be produced as chords, whereas most colours can technically be produced using a single note, but in actual fact they never are.",
"Black is the absence of color. But you can have black paint. The pigment in the black paint is the sort of thing that reflects light the least. Carbon is a good example. If you paint something black, it will heat up faster in the sunlight since it is absorbing more of the light and reflecting less of it. paint the same object white and it will remain cooler longer as the white reflects more of the suns rays.",
"[This](_URL_0_) explains better than I can, in less that two minutes, about pink, anyways."
]
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[],
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"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9dqJRyk0YM"
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||
2qphps
|
when someone gets a tattoo, why do antibodies trap the ink in place under the skin, instead of disposing of it?
|
It seems like tattoos "work" because antibodies surround ink droplets in the dermis layer under the epidermis. It would make more sense, biologically, to me if instead of just holding the ink in place, they treated the ink like bacteria or a virus to remove it from the body. What exactly is happening here?
for reference _URL_0_
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qphps/eli5_when_someone_gets_a_tattoo_why_do_antibodies/
|
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"I was under the impression that it was the white blood cells, through their phagocytic action, that engulf the ink and cause the permanence of the tattoo.\n\nI don't think we make antibodies to the ink.",
"The ink stays despite the immune systems response to a foreign body because when the white blood cells do respond and absorb the ink they become too stiff to move back through the entry points of the lymphatic system.",
"This does a decent job explaining what's going on: _URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://i.imgur.com/2vVmYWh.jpg"
] |
[
[],
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"http://youtu.be/D0B7F5UbTOQ"
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|
7en65q
|
how do (usually paid for) fake social media likes, favorites, and followers actually happen?
|
I often see advertisements for tools to rapidly gain likes, followers, plays (on soundcloud), or additional methods of clout on various social media sites. What methods do these programs use to make this happen?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7en65q/eli5_how_do_usually_paid_for_fake_social_media/
|
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"They have a bunch of fake accounts, controlled by a computer program. If you pay them and tell them your account name, they will use the computer program to make all of the accounts follow and \"Like\" your post.",
"It's actually generally not controlled by a computer program, but sadly but people in countries with low wages, typically like Indonesia or sometimes the Philippines. Companies hire people and pay them very little to click \"like\" or \"follow\" or whatever on thousands of people's page/groups/companies/etc. that have paid for the likes, but as this takes very little time the workers can often follow hundreds or thousands of new links a day. \n\nKeep in mind that they will have little or zero engagement in the thing they've liked, which often hurts people on Facebook more than it actually helps because of how the programming is set up. "
]
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[] |
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|
2akuwd
|
why is the f-35 so behind schedule? what's exactly wrong with it?
|
Why is this jet so expensive? I've never heard of any US defense program costing this much, what makes it so unique? Why now? Is it just sensationalist garbage or is there something more sinister going on?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2akuwd/eli5why_is_the_f35_so_behind_schedule_whats/
|
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"The perfect weapons system for the U.S. military is one that\n\n1. is assembled using parts from 435 Congressional Districts, \n\n2. has cost overruns that allow companies to exceed profit expectations\n\n3. will be in development long enough for the officers in charge to get full retirement\n\nBy those standards, the F-35 is perfect.",
"\n\nFrom a technical standpoint, the reason the F-35 is behind schedule is due the software that is supposed to integrate all sensors seamlessly. This has never before been done in any aircraft, which explains the delays.\n\nSoftware is behind schedule of everything else in the program (flight testing, weapons testing, stress testing, etc).",
"Okay. \n\n > Why is this jet so expensive?\n\nThe price tag of 1 trillion dollars is for 2400 aircraft over the entire service life of the aircraft well into the 2050s. The last one won't be built until the 2030s. Effectively you're paying for the whole jet for 40+ years and the years of R/D that went into it. \n\n > what makes it so unique?\n\nThe F-35 has several variants. You're getting what amounts to 3 different aircraft under the same name. \n\n-F-35A USAF multirole aircraft with a medium range, designed to replace the F-16 and A-10. \n\nF-35B USMC VTOL (verticle take off and landing) has a central lift fan and a rotating engine allowing it to take off from small carriers and areas without runways. Intended to replace the AV-8B and the F-18s the Marines use. \n\nF-35C USN. Larger, folding wings, longer range, improved superstructure to handle landing on a carrier. Deisgned to replace the F/A 18 A,B,C and D class of Hornets and compliment the Super Hornet. \n\nThis plane is the definition of jack of all trades, master of none. It's likely going to be an amazing aircraft. There is some hesitation among reddit and some military circles about some of the aircraft this plane will replace (notably the A-10) but I think there are reasons which people overlook especially about older aircraft. Love is blind.\n\n > Is it just sensationalist garbage or is there something more sinister going on?\n\nIt's a little bit of both. It's easy to say oh this plane costs 1 TRILLION DOLLARS AND IT'S A PIECE OF SHIT!!! Admittedly there are plenty of big flaws needing to be worked out. \n\nIt's also easy to say THIS PLANE IS NEW PLANE JESUS BOW DOWN AND REPENT as I said before it seems to me that it will do a lot of things well but excel at none of them and I think that is the point. \n\nThe answer I think is somewhere in the middle. ",
"On paper, it is supposed to replace a whole bunch of previous-gen aircraft and do many things as well or better than they did. It is supposed to perform that role as a part of a fully integrated air force, working together with and with the support of many other pieces like drones, support aircraft, and information networks. It should even be cheaper in the long run.\n\nIt is a really forward-looking concept. The problem: it requires *a lot* of assumptions, specifically that a lot of untested new systems and tactics will work as expected, and that the environment and the behavior of enemy forces will be as predicted. This reality has already started to collapse.\n\nNow pile onto that a feedback loop of cost overruns and money problems, compromises, and people losing faith in the project - these leads to money problems, compromises, and people losing faith in the project. Yet almost everyone involved wants to see it to completion, for reasons that can be boled down to money, politics, image.\n\nTo make an analogy: they designed the DNA for a perfect baby, it went wrong, the baby was malformed and stillborn and now they have inserted metal rods in its bones and they are trying to make it walk.\n\nOk, so it is not a terrible aircraft - it is capable of lots of stuff - but it is well below expectations and requirements and well above planned costs. It is debatable if in this state it has any reason to exist at all.",
"Not enough room for cup holders.",
"\"Why is the F-35 so behind schedule\"?\n\nBecause we don't actually need it, yet.\n\nIt's essentially a 100% peacetime-developed airplane. Sure, technically, we've had some wars. But not against anyone with a chance in hell of fighting back against our 20+ year old tech. We haven't had a fight with any enemy that actually needed anything better.\n\nSo we've had the time to nitpick every little last bit of the development. Some safety system threw a warning? UNACCEPTABLE RISK TO OUR PILOTS. Tons of bureaucracy with tons of oversight will find lots of flaws.\n\nIn war time, this thing would be considered well done. All the bugs not ironed out? Doesn't matter. Acceptable risks. We need planes, get 'em built. Would your pilot rather be in an F-35 with a 1% chance of falling out of the air on its own or an F-16 with a 25% greater chance of being shot down by the enemy due to lack of stealth? (figures pulled from my ass)\n\nWhether we'll ever need the F-35 is a worthy question to ask. All the anti-hype about the F-35 needs to be kept in perspective, however.",
"This has always happened for huge government projects. The scale of the mismanagement is just getting larger."
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] |
|
6ctca8
|
why does spinning increase penetration power i.e a drill
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ctca8/eli5_why_does_spinning_increase_penetration_power/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dhx8k05",
"dhx8kbw"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"A drill bit is a twisted blade. In order for it to work it needs to rub the blade across the surface to be removed. This only works of the it spins. \n\nYou could create a hole using a blade in a vertical motion, but this would concentrate the forces onto a small part of the blade. We so this with chisels but they need constant sharpening. \n\nSpinning also removes the debris from the cutting action. \n\nIf you Google a mortice bit you will see both of these techniques in action. A spinning but to create the hole and remove debris and vertical blades to square up the hole. \n\nSpinning also has some cooling advantages",
"If you look at the end of a drill bit you will see it has 2 sharp edged cut at an angle, when you spin the drill round those edges cut into the surface of the material you are trying to put a hole in and shave off a thin layer of it, they do that every time the drill goes round, making a hole not by poking one in the surface you are drilling but by gradually removing small slices of it. Other drills, such as on oil rigs, use a grinding head which grinds off small pieces rather than shaving slices, but the idea is the same, you remove lots of small pieces rather than just trying to poke a hole."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
dpb919
|
difference between standard deviation and variance.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dpb919/eli5_difference_between_standard_deviation_and/
|
{
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"f5tscpy",
"f5tt7y6",
"f5tuesq",
"f5vkcxo"
],
"score": [
9,
2,
5,
2
],
"text": [
"One important characteristic of a set of data is its dispersion-- basically, how much its values are spread out. So how do we stick a number to measure the dispersion of a set of data? Lets say that X is my set of data, and μ is my mean. Your first thought might be to calculate the average of the deviations of X from the mean. In other words, you'd calculate the mean of X-μ (if that makes sense). However, this results immediately in a problem. The negative deviations will exactly cancel the positive deviations, making this method always give you zero, no matter what the dispersion is. For the slightly more advanced math to prove it:\n\nE(X-μ)=E(X)-μ=μ-μ=0, with E(X) being the expected value of X. If you don't understand this and want me to explain, I can.\n\nSo this isn't gonna work. At this point you may think \"OK, so why don't we just make all the deviations positive?\" In other words, instead of using X-μ, why don't we use |X-μ|, or the absolute value of X-μ? This turns out to work, and sometimes people do use it, but absolute values are really annoying mathematically. First, absolute value doesn't have a simple arithmetic formula, so its always kinda clunky to express. Second, and perhaps more importantly, you can't take the derivative or the integral of an absolute value function, which are two processes that are really useful in analyzing data. These two things together make the absolute value trick less appealing. So instead, we can square the deviations, which solves all of our problems (except one, which will be shown).\n\nThus, the variance is the average of the squared deviations from the mean. In other words, it is the mean of (X-μ)2 .\n\nNow, if you've been following along, you may have noticed a problem. The units of variance are the square of the units from my original data. So if I have a set of data measuring inches, my variance, or measure of the dispersion, will awkwardly be in inches squared? This presents an obvious problem since it takes away most of the practical applications of the variance. Thus, in most of applied statistics, the solution is just to take the square root of the variance. This is the value that we call standard deviation.",
"Variance is defined as the average of squared mean deviations for a population -- e.g. for data *x_i* with mean *mu*, the difference between each *x_i* and *mu* is squared and added, and the result is then divided by the numbee of data (or that number minus one for samples).\n\nThis gives an idea of how much variation there is in the data, with the square eliminating negatives to give an idea of the variance in absolute terms.\n\nStandard Deviation is the square root of the variance. This works out to give us a measure of *about how far from the mean* we can go and still contain a certain proportion of the data based on the underlying probability distribution (the *normal* or Gaussian distribution, here). For normally-distributed data, we can expect around 64% of observations to be within one standard deviation of the mean in both directions.",
"In a nutshell, variance is the average of all differences from the mean . If you have a large sample that’s very well dispersed around the mean, the variance can be big. Taking a square root of the variance basically standardizes the differences - and tells you how the whole group varies from the mean. \n\nI think the easy way to think about this is length of snakes (my teacher used snakes because no one in the class had any idea how long an average snake is); their length is 160, 180, 300, 54 and 120 cm. Which of these snakes is “long”? The mean is 162.8. That’s not that far from 160, so does that mean 180 is a particularly long snake? Variance is 6559.4 - it just means there’s a lot of differences in the snakes’ lengths. Standard deviation is sqrt(6559.4)=80.9. So, assuming that all snakes are represented by the population above, all snakes between 81cm and 243cm (160.8+/- 80.9) are within the range of “standard” lengths, and there’s only one really long and one really short snake in your sample.",
"Since this is an ELI5 question, I'm going to spare you all of the complex formulas and whatnot.\n\nVariance, is the square of the Standard Deviation.\n\nStandard Deviation represents the distance of some observation from the average value known as the mean.\n\nMathematicians use Variance in order to eliminate negatives since as we all know, taking the square of a negative number eliminates the negative sign. This is mostly used for convenience."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1zz3iz
|
why can we imagine a painting or image perfect in our head/imagination but when it comes to painting or producing it, it comes out looking horrible
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zz3iz/eli5_why_can_we_imagine_a_painting_or_image/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cfy9rcx"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"I think it's because visual stuff happens in the occipital lobe and movement is controlled by the frontal lobe. I think it takes some serious connecting to sync them up in this (very) specific way.\n\nI've been drawing for about ten years and while I'm well above average at drawing from life I still really have focus to produce decent drawings just from imagination - especially the more realistic I want them to be. I've just done a lot more of the former."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
4sqoqq
|
why are dolls usually a possessed item in scary movies?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4sqoqq/eli5_why_are_dolls_usually_a_possessed_item_in/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d5bodme"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Possessed humanoid objects make people more uneasy. They have heads that can turn for creepy effects, they can \"stand\" like a human when it's being possessed, sit in chairs, do creepy human things.\n\nImagine a possessed lamp. Lamps already stand. They can't turn their heads when you aren't looking. Opening a door to find a lamp waiting on the other side isn't super spooky. Even if it began to fly around, it wouldn't be as creepy without dead button eyes and animated appendages like a doll would have. 10/10 would sensibly chuckle at flying lamp."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
4tk297
|
the concept behind "injury prone." is it just a label or does it hold some scientific backing?
|
My friends like to call me injury prone and can't say i blame them. Just this past year I tore my hamstring, quadriceps contusion, broken collarbone and broken wrist. Some of my friends have had 0 injury in their whole high school athletic careers.
Are some people more predisposed to injuries than someone doing the same thing? Or is it just a label meaning bad luck?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4tk297/eli5_the_concept_behind_injury_prone_is_it_just_a/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d5hxjl8",
"d5i01le",
"d5i2zq5",
"d5iah9p"
],
"score": [
13,
3,
5,
2
],
"text": [
"Everyone is born differently with traits inherited by their parents and so forth. Some are gifted genetically and some are not. It is entirely possible that your genes didn't create the strongest ligament cells as opposed to your friends who had 0 injury that created very strong ligament cells. You can extrapolate that to bones as well. Some people are just born with stronger bones while some who have brittle bones tend to break them more. For example, I have soft teeth therefore get cavaties easier than other people.\n\nNatural Selection benefits the strong and generally weeds out or kills out the weak. If you are born with a weak body, the elements should have weeded you out already however due to advancements of science most everyone is able to live and thrive despite their physical deficiencies. ",
"There's many factors involved but yes you can absolutely be predisposed to injury although accurately measuring such a thing is difficult. For one a part of it is genetics. Some people will just naturally be built stronger and put together better as a result which will of course mean less injury. Being taller or shorter or heavier or lighter may or may not be good things depending on the situation. \n\nThen there's things like whether you're male or female and your psychological state. The exact nature of the activities you are doing. Things like how hard you push yourself and how mindful you are of not getting injured when you are doing something athletic. For example, do you properly stretch before athletic activity or do you make sure to land correctly on your feet after jumping and so forth an so forth. \n\nIt would become nauseating to really keep track of it all but if you could and did you would find that some people are gonna be more likely to get hurt than others.",
"Yes, it's a thing. For most athletes, it's probably a result of their play style more than genetic musculoskeletal inferiority. Maybe you don't focus enough on your peripheral vision. Maybe you push yourself to and past your physical limits more than your teammates. Maybe your form is janky. Or maybe you're just unlucky.",
"In addition to many of the factors discussed here, it's possible to have conditions which affect coordination. A friend of mine has always been clumsy, and she ended up needed a brain scan. The scan revealed that a particular part of her brain was under developed, which affected her balance and hand eye coordination. It explains why she seems to bump into thing and knock things over more than most people. If she played a lot of sports, this would probably translate to more injuries. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1dw13a
|
what is null?
|
I am a software engineer but my boss isn't. I understand the difference between a null value and, say, an empty string but myself and the other programmers are unable to explain that in a way someone with business experience can understand.
Please help me explain like I'm five what Null is and how it differs from the empty string.
EDIT: I love the analogy. This is a good explanation.
[Answer](_URL_0_)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1dw13a/eli5_what_is_null/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c9udenj",
"c9ugtgc"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"Suppose I send you a letter and ask you a question.\n\na) If you send me back the letter with nothing written on it -- > empty string\n\nb) If you don't send anything back -- > NULL\n\n\nEDIT: To incorporate what /u/glutier said:\n\nIn scenario a, I would be able to compare your answer with others (and maybe group you with others who have no opinion on the matter).\n\nWhereas in scenario B, I cannot assume anything about your response and therefore cannot compare you to anyone.",
"Let's say he has a filing cabinet. He goes in there to find a file on \"Fred Johnson\". If he finds a folder that has nothing in it, that's an empty string. If he can't find a folder at all, that's a null."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1dw13a/eli5_what_is_null/c9udenj"
] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
3dzepd
|
if a boxer kills his or her opponent in the ring, what happens? does the boxer get any penalty or do they walk away scot-free?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3dzepd/eli5_if_a_boxer_kills_his_or_her_opponent_in_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cta1sai",
"cta2x4q"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Depends on where you are and context. If I were to get into a match, make an illegal punch and kick them in the head while they're down that's obviously not the same as a chance fracture from a legal move causing internal bleeding and eventual death.\n\nThere's a lot of situations between, and a lot of different customs in different parts of the worlds. ",
"There is an investigation. The surviving boxer is partially protected by the fact that there is a referee and doctor on hand that are supposed to stop the fight before a death can occur. \n\nIf it is a reasonable mistake/accident then the boxer does not go to jail. Same as if any worker dies on the job, there is an investigation but a lot of times it is an accident and nobody goes to jail."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
3ct4xn
|
how do scientist know anything about things that are light years away?
|
I was talking with my boyfriend about black holes the other day and things we know about them...
I'm just wondering how we know ANYTHING about stuff that is light years away that we can only observe through telescopes...I just don't understand how you would even start any sort of hypothesis.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ct4xn/eli5how_do_scientist_know_anything_about_things/
|
{
"a_id": [
"csyobur",
"csyp77h",
"csytjlj"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"Well, you can see them, to start with. This gives you ideas about what they look like and the sort of energies that escape from them. Even better than that, there's a tool called spectroscopy. Light is absorbed and released differently by different sorts of materials. You can see the light that comes from/goes through an object, and by analyzing that light, get an idea of what that material is made from. You can observe how they influence objects in their vicinity, giving clues about their mass. ",
"Mostly we look at the radiation (including light) coming from the object, and how it effect the radiation (such as light) from other objects. This can tell us: \n\n* What is it made of? Different elements have a sort of signature in the radiation they give off.\n* How big is it? For things that give off light this is easy, for things that don't it is a little harder, but it can be done.\n* How massive is it? We can look at how hard it pulls on the things around it, even how it pulls on light from other stars.\n* What temperature it is? The signatures for different elements in the radiation are shifted a bit by temperature, so we can figure that out.\n* How fast and what direction is it moving. Things moving toward us look a little bluer than they should. Things moving away look a little redder. Movement in other directions can be seen by watching its position.\n\nThis is a very simplified version, and there are many other things scientists can do, but I hope that helps!",
"I suggest you read this book. The short answer: we don't know shit about anything. Near or far. It is all just best guessing and observation. \n\n_URL_0_\n\n\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"http://www.amazon.com/A-Short-History-Nearly-Everything/dp/076790818X"
]
] |
|
53x1re
|
why can a dslr do 60fps video at 4k but can only take stills at ~8 fps?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/53x1re/eli5why_can_a_dslr_do_60fps_video_at_4k_but_can/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d7x0zv9",
"d7xjskj"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"The quality of a still shot is significantly higher than a single frame of 4k video. It isn't correct to just view all images as equivalent.",
"Taking stills means opening and closing the shutter. Shooting video means opening the shutter and leaving it open. The camera is likely mechanically limited due to the speed of the shutter. Every still the camera needa to reevulate lighting. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
a8z013
|
when baking, why do you only incorporate one egg at a time?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a8z013/eli5_when_baking_why_do_you_only_incorporate_one/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ecf4ik0",
"ecf4qjw"
],
"score": [
2,
7
],
"text": [
"Just to make sure each is fully incorporated. You could have some real textural issues if you ended up with unmixed egg.",
"So they can properly incorporate. Butter (like all fat) doesn’t like mixing with liquid so you add the eggs one at a time to help the fat gradually emulsify (basically breaking the fat down into smaller particles so it bonds better to the liquid) "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
2i2qut
|
how the military know where to attack when bombing islamic state and in other wars?
|
So it says they are bombing the command and control posts and headquarters of Islamic State with airstrikes but how do they know? I doubt Islamic State would be advertising where their very important vulnerable buildings are?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2i2qut/eli5how_the_military_know_where_to_attack_when/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cky9wi8"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"* You can have eyes on the ground or in the sky that monitor possible locations in and see the amount of traffic going in and out and how important the people are that go in and out.\n* You can have agents within the enemy's ranks, telling you where to look for headquarters.\n* You can detect radio transmissions and either get clues from the message itself or\n* triangulate where a lot of the signals are coming from.\n* Even though \"loose lips sink ships\" is well known ... there's still enough stupid people that think this certainly doesn't apply to them and their totally trusted friends."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
6udphh
|
can somebody explain what critical flicker fusion is?
|
It's required in my film course that I research it, but every source I've found doesn't make any sense to me.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6udphh/eli5_can_somebody_explain_what_critical_flicker/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dlrxxo8"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"You remember drawing those cartoons on the inside of a notebook? The ones where you'd draw on the corner of every page and then when you fanned the pages with your thumb it became a moving cartoon? That's flicker fusion. The flicker fusion threshold is how fast those images have to change, how fast you have to fan the pages for it to look like one continuous moving image.\n\nScientists can use this \"critical point\" when you stop seeing individual drawings and start seeing a single moving image to determine how fast your brain samples and processes visual information."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1ztjf4
|
"could of"
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ztjf4/eli5_could_of/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cfwt4lt",
"cfwt5ib",
"cfwt5p8",
"cfwt7rf"
],
"score": [
5,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"I'm going to remove this as not really being an eli5 question, but not before noting that this has always been a thing. People who don't do a lot of writing occasionally write as they speak, and so you get could of and would of, etc. \n\nI've been seeing this online since the mid 80s...",
"Mispronunciation of \"could have.\" A lot of people hear \"could have\" spoken very quickly, like \"could've.\" The \"uv\" sound at the end makes it sound like \"of.\" As a result, people start saying \"could of,\" as well as \"should of,\" and \"would of.\" ",
"From Oxford Dictionaries:\n\n\"The reason for the mistake is that the pronunciation of have in unstressed contexts is the same as that of of, and the two words are confused when it comes to writing them down. The error was recorded as early as 1837 and, though common, is usually considered unacceptable in standard English.\"\n\nSo no, people are not getting dumber. It's a common grammatical error since 1837.",
"“Could have” becomes contracted to “could’ve” which is ordinarily pronounced identically to “could of.” The problem arises when people hear and speak this contraction (“could’ve”) without *reading/writing* it as much—or at all. So they assume it is written as “could of.”\n\n\n\nThe problem is summarized as two-fold:\n\n 1. Inability or unwillingness to think critically about language, and\n\n\n 2. Inability or unwillingness to demonstrate skills in reading/spelling.\n\n\nIt’s also to be noted that this phenomenon is nothing new. You just seemed to noticed it recently."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
4vvf19
|
where sidebands come from during amplitude modulation
|
I was learning about basic amplitude modulation recently and learned that creating an AM signal just means varying the Carrier signals strength in a way that patterns the modulating signal.
This process, from my understanding, should only be changing the amplitude of a signal on a particular frequency. Yet, somehow, it creates new signals, at different frequencies.
I couldn't wrap my head around how changing one signals amplitude makes new signals at different frequencies, and the best explanation I was given was "It's Magic." No one had anything close to an answer.
My question is how Amplitude Modulating a signal on a specific frequency affects anything other than the amplitude on that frequency.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4vvf19/eli5_where_sidebands_come_from_during_amplitude/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d61qjnn"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Without resorting to formulas:\n\nYou can't change a sine waves's amplitude without creating a non-sinusoidal waveform. \n\nAll non-sinusoidal waves contain more than one frequency. With AM, the frequencies are above and below the carrier by the frequency of the modulating signal. \n\nExample: 1 Mhz modulated with a 1 Khz tone gives sidebands of 1.001 Mhz and 0.999 Mhz. \n\nThe more you change its amplitude, the stronger the sidebands. At 100% modulation all energy is in the sidebands. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
ffugy0
|
how do cash back apps make their money?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ffugy0/eli5_how_do_cash_back_apps_make_their_money/
|
{
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"fk0n9bk",
"fk0v9w9",
"fk0x6t8",
"fk0ym4r"
],
"score": [
47,
6,
7,
5
],
"text": [
"They get information about the purchase habits of customers. That information is more valuable to product sellers than the cash back they pay to customers. The difference in value finances their operations.",
"They make money on: \n\nInterest gained from money kept in account (keeping balance instead of transferring to bank account) \n\nExpress payments",
"Its a combination of selling your information and datamining, They make interest on the money while its in your account, and people that forget about their account or leave it with a dollar or two in it that they can keep, and that it costs them almost no money to run the company, just a few servers and some advert money.",
"affilliate links.\n\nIf you refer a customer to buy a product from sears, sears will pay you a commission.\n\ncash back apps hijack your links to make it appear everything you do is referred by them.\n\nIts counter productive to consumers. since the retailers end up inflating their prices to account for this extra selling cost, and then the cash back app pays you a portion back... Just like CC rewards."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
5semdw
|
why does software search for new updates immediately after installing the latest update?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5semdw/eli5_why_does_software_search_for_new_updates/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ddefkfu",
"ddetg6z"
],
"score": [
7,
2
],
"text": [
"Some times it is not possible to go straight from version A to version C without upgrading to version B first. For example a new firmware might have a new way to do firmware upgrades and the most recent upgrade does not have the ability to be upgraded on hardware running the old version. It could also be that there are changes to the name of the software so the last upgrade available in the old name is an update that change the name to the new name. The application might also have changed the format of its storage and needs to run a script to move the data from the old format to the new format and this have been removed for the latest upgrade to save room. So if you are at version A and request the latest version you might get version B, but then as you have upgraded and request the latest upgrade again you get version C. But version C were not available when you were at version A. To help with this it is easier to add a check for new versions as soon as you have upgraded in case there are further upgrades that can be done.",
"Most self-updating software is designed to check for updates every time you launch it (i.e. Turbotax). Also, frequently software developers will give you an installer that isn't actually the latest version, and expect you to just patch it to current. This allows them to have a single path for updates without having to then go and make a new installer every time they change something. This is especially true for multiplayer online video games (i.e. LoL or WoW). As the games progress, these updates can grow to be larger than the whole game was originally. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
7ocz68
|
why do emojis look different across platforms and why do they look especially bad in web browsers?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7ocz68/eli5_why_do_emojis_look_different_across/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ds8jlfg"
],
"score": [
13
],
"text": [
"Emojis are Unicode characters just like the letters and numbers in the text around them. Character number 65 is \"Latin capital letter A\", and number 128512 is \"Grinning face\". When I type 😀, your device just gets that number, and it's up to your device to provide a font with a symbol to represent the character."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3jzuk2
|
why are lawn mowers so loud? the engine is a third the size of a car's but makes three times as much noise?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jzuk2/eli5_why_are_lawn_mowers_so_loud_the_engine_is_a/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cutmv3g",
"cutmv5x",
"cutmv68",
"cutoo9y",
"cutqcg1",
"cutv7c1",
"cutzrhs"
],
"score": [
9,
29,
3,
2,
4,
6,
2
],
"text": [
"Your car has technology to dampen, out reduce, the sound. Lawnmowers have engines that are essentially expose on the outside. Nothing to muffle the sound.",
"Internal combustion engines are actually extremely loud. Cars have complicated exhaust systems with mufflers that absorb sound waves and dampen the sound of the engine. Lawnmower engines don't have mufflers so all the vibrations that it produces get transfered directly into your earholes.",
"Cars not only have more sound deadening around the motor they also have a much longer and more complicated exhaust system.",
"take off the exhaust system of a car and you'll find it's extremely loud. \n\nput a big muffler on a lawn mower and you'll find it barely makes a sound. ",
"The blades make a lot of noise also. You would be suprised how loud an electric mower is just because of the blades chopping air. ",
"It is cost. The few lawn mower companies have decided that customers don't care about lawn mower noise as a deciding factor for purchase. For a small increased cost, they could add improved muffler technology, but they would either have to sell it for a higher price or take a reduced profit per unit.\n\nWhen you inspect the car exhaust you see that it have thick exhaust pipes with large resonators & exhaust mufflers. Your lawn mower muffler is a tiny tube or box.\n\nI am also fed up with these small engine's noise. I have a lawn mower & a generator that are extremely noisy. I would like to learn to weld, just so I can make a quality muffler system for them! There really aren't any after market system either that improve the noise level. Frustrating.",
"The existing answers are mostly right, just to add my 5c: there's also a safety factor at play. \n\nIf a car is parked but still has the engine on, the dangerous moving parts are pretty hard to get at. \n\nIf a lawnmower is parked but still has the engine on, the blades are probably still spinning and very dangerous. So although it's irritating, I think that the benefit of being 100% sure that a lawnmower is on (and therefore dangerous) outweighs the comfort issue. It just so happens that it's also cheaper to build them without mufflers XP."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1ix2fd
|
what makes one person intelligent (iq 135) and another slow (iq 95). assume no physical brain damage, birth defects, etc.
|
Assumptions: Same/similar upbringing, social level/climate, maybe (non-identical) twin brothers.
Notes: IQ numbers are for example. I'm looking for differences in intelligence level. Smart vs. dumb. Einstein vs. (fill in your favorite Dumb & Dumber type person). All other things being equal. I guess I'm looking for physiological differences in the brain/body development.
Edit: Added even more detail.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ix2fd/eli5_what_makes_one_person_intelligent_iq_135_and/
|
{
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"cb8vgjx",
"cb8xcnp",
"cb93lhf",
"cb96qi7"
],
"score": [
26,
11,
2,
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],
"text": [
"There are so many potential factors that there is no meaningful answer to this question.",
"It's really complex. It's a huge variety of factors, which include genetics, your upbringing, your current environment, and so on. All these things affect your brain wiring in ways too complex to even understand.",
"At its most elemental, Intelligence can be quantified in terms of one's capacity for abstraction. ",
"The basis of your question is very broad and unsubstantial. IQ is a clumsy and flawed measure of \"intelligence,\" especially considering we don't have a firm understanding of what intelligence is.\n\nIt's safest to say that some minds have more of a knack for accumulating, organizing, and accessing data, heuristic problem-solving, and reasoning. People who are more capable of these things are stereotypically labeled intelligent. \n\nHowever, there are different kinds (or characteristics, depending on how you look at it) of intelligence, such as kinesthetic (body coordination,) spacial, emotional, artistic, etc. \n\nThe short answer to your question is that there are two big factors that influence the expression of intelligence; genetic inclination and accumulated experience. These factors lead to brains having significant physical differences, which are directly related to how a person might think or behave. The exact aforementioned relationships are unclear, as our processes for looking at brains are not safe or simple enough to implement on a wide scale, nor are our social frameworks capable of dealing with the issues that would stem from such a comprehensive study of human brain development."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3ok5xx
|
could a bank "create" money by applying a positive amount of money to a account while not reducing the amount of money on another? what systems are in place to prohibit this?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ok5xx/eli5could_a_bank_create_money_by_applying_a/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cvxxq0m",
"cvxxud1",
"cvxy4mm",
"cvxy6co",
"cvxykba",
"cvxzkmz",
"cvy6yo5"
],
"score": [
26,
9,
2,
8,
3,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"They could do this. The system in place to prevent this is the fact that banks are frequently audited. Some are audited weekly and if money just appears in any account it is investigated and if a crime has been committed then people will be arrested, fined, and punished. ",
"Yes, it's called \"lending\" in a fractional reserve banking system. In a fractional reserve banking system, the bank is obligated to hold only a fraction, say 20% of deposits on reserve, and is free to lend the balance. Thus, it increases the balance in the account held by the entity taking the loan without reducing the amount of money in the original depositor's account.",
"Aside from loan type accounts, a manual change in account balance is not allowed. Interestingly though, banks can increase your overdraft limit which effectively increases your account balance. However you are expected to repay that, so it's like a loan",
"The bank isn't really creating money. When it apples a credit to an account, that's creating a liability (debt), since the account holder can withdraw it on demand. If a bank has more liabilities than assets, t could go bankrupt, and then everyone who thought they had \"money\" in the bank finds out that they really didn't--just an IOU from the bank. (Of course, their deposits are insured nowadays, so they'd be compensated by the government.)\n\nImagine I write you a check for $1 million. I've made you feel richer by creating a $1 million debt to you. But I haven't created any wealth; if you try to cash the check, you'll find out I don't actually have that money available. Banks are in precarious position of trying to lend out or invest as much of their money as possible (to make a profit or earn interest), while also keeping enough money on hand to repay the debt to any account holder that asks.",
"Banks have no desire to do this. Bank accounts are a liability to the bank. If they invented $1000 in an account and tried to spend that $1000, the bank of the shop they spent it in would expect the bank to send them government created money worth $1000.\n\nBanks do create money, but it doesn't directly give them more money, it allows them to collect interest by lending that money out.",
"This number on your account is just what the bank owes you. Eventually you will want to either withdraw the money (then the bank owes it to whoever put the cash in the machine) or you will pay something (then the bank owes it to the other bank where that account is). The problem is, debt has only a value if it can be paid. Those other banks have to trust that your bank can pay these debts or they will reject transactions from your bank and your account becomes meaningless.",
"They already do this. It's called \"lending\". They are required to only have a certain percentage of the money they loan out (known as fractional reserve).\n\nWhen they loan you money the credit your account with the money but they don't take it from anywhere, they just CREATE it. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1jl1y9
|
why do i want karma so bad?
|
Why do I desire to have a lot of karma from people I don't even know?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jl1y9/eli5_why_do_i_want_karma_so_bad/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cbfprix",
"cbfpxyk"
],
"score": [
3,
10
],
"text": [
"It validates that people like your ideas, think you're funny, or generally enjoy what you say.\n",
"I know this one! This is a psychological phenomenon known commonly as the [Skinner Box](_URL_0_), which is used to explain how conditioning works. Basically, you are rewarded for performing certain actions. These rewards/punishments cause a dopamine response in the brain, making you feel good. Push the button, receive treat, repeat until death.\n\nNow here's the scary bit. The most successful reward schedules are variable ratio reinforcement schedules. This means that you are rewarded after you perform an action a certain number of times, and that number is inconsistent and determined randomly after each completion. This reward system works because you have to perform the action to get rewarded (no upvotes after x days sort of thing) and because you don't know when you'll get an upvote after however many posts you put out, you keep pumping out more content in the hopes that one of them will get you some good feedback.\n\nTL;DR **You want karma because you have been conditioned to want it.** By B.F. Skinner, no less."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber"
]
] |
|
2fmvz8
|
how to read basic phonetic symbols so i can pronounce stuff correctly from sites like _url_0_
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fmvz8/eli5_how_to_read_basic_phonetic_symbols_so_i_can/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ckaq6sl",
"ckaqzb4",
"ckat2k7",
"ckau6mp"
],
"score": [
16,
6,
4,
3
],
"text": [
"You're really asking for something that could never be condensed into an ELI5 type format, and I realize wikipedia isn't the best source, but there really is a whole lot of useful information and charts here to explain how it works and how to read the symbols:\n\n_URL_0_",
"_URL_0_\neasiest way is to have words next to each symbol.",
"[This is an IPA chart.](_URL_0_)\n\nIt has almost all of the symbols used for phonetic transcriptions. All the symbols are based on the anatomy of the mouth, so you need to learn about the anatomy of the mouth to understand them well. In the top section, you can see the name of a symbol by matching the column name and row name together. For example: velar + plosive = velar plosive (also known as velar stop). If you search velar plosive or velar stop on wikipedia, you'll find a useful page explaining how to make that sound. Look up any words you don't know. For example, velar means the back of the tongue is touching the soft palate. (The spot it touches when you pronounce a \"k\".)\n\nThis should be enough info to get you started. This is what I did, and now I'm able to pronounce every symbol in the IPA chart! *Also note that transcriptions in dictionaries often use their own systems that may be similar or completely different from IPA.*",
"First of all, not all online dictionaries use IPA. Google doesn't use the system, but _URL_0_ has an option to display it.\n\nHere's a TL;DR of the system as it applies to the English language:\n\n' - marks stress. Ignore, mostly.\n\nj - always a 'y' sound.\n\ndʒ - this is the English 'j' sound.\n\nʒ - this is a 'zh' sound like in measure. Just write a wonky 3.\n\ntʃ - 'ch' and ʃ - 'sh'. Same as the integral thing from calculus.\n\nθ - 'th' sound as in thorn or thumb. ð is the other 'th' sound like in the or they.\n\nŋ - looks like a mishmash of an n and a g, and that's exactly it- it's an 'ng' sound.\n\nVowels, you can mostly use common sense for... ə is 'uh' and ʌ is also 'uh'. A colon means the vowel is long, so ʌ: is 'uhhhh\". Here's a [full chart.](_URL_1_)\n\nHope this helps!"
]
}
|
[
"dictionary.com"
] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet"
],
[
"http://learnenglishorstarve.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/ipa-generic.png?w=594"
],
[
"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/8f/IPA_chart_%28C%292005.pdf/page1-926px-IPA_chart_%28C%292005.pdf.jpg"
],
[
"Dictionary.com",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language#Vowels"
]
] |
||
36tonz
|
why are there water tanks on the rooftops of older buildings?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36tonz/eli5_why_are_there_water_tanks_on_the_rooftops_of/
|
{
"a_id": [
"crgzch2",
"crgzo8s"
],
"score": [
6,
2
],
"text": [
"They provide water pressure. The water mains don't pump the water hard enough to, for example, run a shower on the top floor. They do, however, pump hard enough to slowly refill the tanks\n\nEdit to add: new buildings have them too. It's about height, not age. Some new buildings hide them, though.",
"Municipal water pressure might be sufficient to only pump water about 40 feet high. A 10 story building is about 120 feet high. \n\nTo offset that, they'll put a small pump in the basement which can slowly fill a tank on the roof. That will provide sufficient water flow and pressure during the high demand times (such as in the morning) \n\nThe other way is to put a very large pump in the basement, but those are very expensive to buy, operate and usually too loud for use in a apartment or office building."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
2uxass
|
why don't trains derail going through snow.
|
_URL_0_
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2uxass/eli5why_dont_trains_derail_going_through_snow/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cocipuz",
"cocirah",
"cocj25o",
"cock7un"
],
"score": [
5,
4,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Mostly because trains are really, really heavy. That train almost certainly had a snow plow attachment, much like how big trucks use snow plow attachments to clear roads.\n\nThey can go faster while doing it because they have a lot more power and weight to bull through it.\n\nThat said, depending on conditions, they occasionally use [something else.](_URL_0_)",
"It might have to do with the fact that they're around about 180 tones. That's a lot of momentum. It's going to take a lot more than a little snow. ",
"That's not even that much snow. Trains can have plows or even special snowblowers fit, depending on conditions:\n\n_URL_0_",
"If the snow was heavy enough accumulation in an area, it would be possible to derail but the rail companies have special equipment (a truck equipped with a plow and is able to ride the rails)."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a1a_1423095659"
] |
[
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AgfPXH0I2I"
],
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak-RdQeGock"
],
[]
] |
|
q34ck
|
why does caffeine make me feel happy
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/q34ck/eli5_why_does_caffeine_make_me_feel_happy/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c3ucho8"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Caffeine strengthens the signals between some of the nerve cells in your brain. This can make you feel alert, awake, quick, energetic, or happy.\n\nIt only works for a little while, and if you use it too often, your brain will adjust, reducing the effect."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
4fp4vv
|
what is hazing? why does it happen and where did this sadism come from?
|
I just do not get these stupid and sometimes violent initiations. I thought they were confined to University, but it even happens in the fire department, according to [Law & Order] (_URL_0_)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4fp4vv/eli5_what_is_hazing_why_does_it_happen_and_where/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d2asfdi"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Imagine you coordinated a social group called the I Climbed Mount Everest group. Except that anyone could join. It didn't matter if you actually climbed mount everest or not.\n\nIf everyone in the group has had a shared experience, this is something you have in common.\n\nThe hazing I went through was for the International Thespian Society in high school. It was actually pretty brutal (and funny), but schools would have so many lawsuits if those same things were recorded on a phone today."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1343624/"
] |
[
[]
] |
|
82sl79
|
might be a repost but - if heat denatures protein, why does over cooking meat make it tough and chewy
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/82sl79/eli5_might_be_a_repost_but_if_heat_denatures/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dvclkun"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Here's a question for you. Can you rip the shirt you're wearing off of you? If you're wearing a cotton t-shirt, the answer is probably yes. The reason is that the shearing force relative to the fibrous density is high. Now imagine taking that same shirt and twisting it up before you try to rip it in two. It's significantly harder because you've changed the density of its fibrous make-up.\n\nYou're right that heat denatures protein. Given enough heat, cells will rupture and leak their gooey contents into the tissue. But your tissue isn't just made up of cells. It's also made up of a fibrous scaffolding (stroma) that supports those cells and keeps them in place. As you change the ratio of plump juicy cells to stringy fibrous scaffolding, an otherwise succulent steak turns into a rubbery mess fit only for eating with ketchup in the oval office. \n\nEDIT: Words"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3d3liv
|
how to gaming companies miss big bugs and glitches even after test runs?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3d3liv/eli5_how_to_gaming_companies_miss_big_bugs_and/
|
{
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"ct1h7pf",
"ct1hl7g",
"ct1hpov",
"ct1kyco"
],
"score": [
38,
2,
61,
3
],
"text": [
"Imagine a needle in a haystack that is 10 kilometers wide, and there are only 10 people designated to finding said needle. It would take them an insanely long time. They might find a few of the needles in their allotted time frame, but likely not all of them.\n\nWhen a game is released to the public, it's the same way. Test runs can only find so much with the limited amount of people they have working on the game. Once the game has a lot more exposure, bugs are much more easily found out and exposed. Just like a needle would be be found faster with 10000 people poking around for it.",
"They usually don't. Quality Assurance is very thorough, the bugs are noted and sent to the programmers and are determined whether it's something that they'll try to fix for a day one patch or post launch. Networking issues can result from different testing environments. It's difficult to truly know how well your network code/servers will hold up with millions of people trying to access them when the game comes out. More obscure issues are usually found because you have possibly millions of people playing your game rather than a small QA department. PC game issues can arise from there being many different configurations of hardware and software, while consoles will all be running the same hardware and software.",
"The biggest part is simply scale.\n\nBlockbuster games sell tens of millions of copies -- GTA 5 has sold something like 55,000,000. Say that the average person spends 25 hours on a game (for some games, this is a high guess, but for others it's very low -- people often spend 100+ hours on COD or GTA during their ownership). That's 1.3 billion hours. Say that your testing department has 15 employees and that they work for 1 year, full-time, testing your game. For every 1 hour you spent on testing, the customers spend 43,333 hours on playing. When so much time is spent doing stuff in the game, the customers are *bound* to encounter bugs or glitches the testers didn't.\n\nThis is especially true when games are very large or complex, and have a long list of possible situations. Even in 30K hours, the testers couldn't test *every single possibility* in the game. Did they test what happens if a car explodes while upside down on a rock at night in the rain while the player is in the middle of the bike-mounting animation? Did they test what happens if you're in the middle of reloading a gun when a building collapses in mission 17 when your hand is supposed to cover your face, resulting in a weird animation glitch? Did they accelerate to mass speed while manipulating the camera with the mouse on its highest sensitivity but the aiming inverted? There are some bugs that only happen if you did one thing in one part of the game and another in a separate part 10 hours later -- if they were testing chunk by chunk (the usual situation), maybe they never saw that combination. \n\nBut even when they do catch things, they don't necessarily get fixed. Development time is finite, decisions are made about which things are important enough to spend it on. Super-glitchy games are usually games that were rushed to meet a tight deadline, or which had small budgets, meaning it just wasn't possible to spend valuable developer time fixing bugs over adding features that have more impact on sales. Then even when you do allocate time to fixing a bug, some are easier to fix than others. Some bugs exist because of tiny oversights in physics engines, and are very hard to track down. Sometimes, the bug exists in a licensed engine and the developers don't even have the ability to fix it, they have to get the engine's developer to try and fix it and that might not be done in time for the game's release.",
"I'll respond from the point of view of a programmer:\n\nProgramming code can get very complicated very quick, especially when multiple programmers are working on the same program. While good coding standards and practices sometimes help alleviate issues like spaghetti code and such, human errors can still be introduced in the code which can lead to what we know as bugs. \n\nNow, consider that most modern games, especially high-budget AAA titles are very complicated programs, which consist of hundreds of thousands lines of code, written mostly by error-prone, caffeine-deprived humans. It's inevitable that someone will make a mistake. Most of them will be caught by the compiler, but some of them will scurry undetected, waiting to be found. \n\nThe tricky thing with bugs, is that oftentimes they need VERY specific sets of circumstances for them to trigger. More often than not, if you don't encounter a bug, it is hard to know it's there to begin with. During QA, play testers try to find bugs by trying different actions (or combinations thereof), that a player might try when they're playing the game. However, bugs often get past QA and are often found by players when they meet a certain criteria. This is why during beta testing developers ask you to be very specific when reporting a bug: by knowing exactly what actions led to the bug, they can have a better idea where to find it in the code and fix it."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
e5f066
|
why is 45 degrees the optimal angle for a projectile in yearns of distance traveled?
|
I know this assumes it is under optimal conditions without air resistance, but still
I intuitively understand why this is the case, but I can’t explain the maths behind it in an easy/simple way way
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e5f066/eli5_why_is_45_degrees_the_optimal_angle_for_a/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f9jkqif",
"f9jsx17"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"if you throw a rock horizontally, it won't be in the air long because of gravity.\n\nif you throw a rock vertically, it wont go far because you threw it vertically, but it will be in the air long.\n\nif you want to throw it the farthest, but the speed is the same at any angle a 45 degree angle is best.\n\nELI18:\n\n_URL_0_",
"* If your goal is to get the rock to land as far away from you as possible, you have two forces working against you:\n * Air Resistance\n * Gravity\n* Lets take Air Resistance first:\n * As the rock moves through the air, the air pushes back, so to get the rock to move any distance through the air, you need a certain amount of power.\n * If you throw the rock straight to the side, you use all the power sending it in the \"sideways\" direction. \n * If you throw the rock straight up, you use all the power in the \"up\" direction. \n * Clearly the first option is better because the rock will land some where away from you where as if you throw it straight up it will land back where you threw it.\n* But now we have to talk about gravity. \n* It will always pull the rock down. \n* So even if you throw it straight sideways, gravity will pull it down into the ground. Now a bunch of your sideways power is wasted when the rock hits the ground.\n* But if you throw it at an angle, now you are sacrificing some of the sideways power and using it in the up direction but now it will take longer for gravity to force the rock into the ground.\n* It turns out that a 45 degree angle is the best compromise between sideways power and up power to launch something as far away sideways as you can. \n* This of course ignores things like wind currents, and the terminal velocity of the thing you're throwing."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_of_a_projectile"
],
[]
] |
|
7xe5uo
|
- why do u.s. title 1 schools always seem to remain poor despite receiving additional funding?
|
Edit: I guess what I mean is, it seems like Title 1 schools always need basic things. Like, needing more teachers, needing more resources, needing more supplies, needing building repairs etc but can never seem to "find" the money to make those things happen. A good example -- a few schools in my area have huge class sizes because they can never find the money to hire more teachers.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7xe5uo/eli5_why_do_us_title_1_schools_always_seem_to/
|
{
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"du7l32q",
"du7mb9n",
"du7scfw",
"du7tme1"
],
"score": [
16,
2,
2,
13
],
"text": [
"Because throwing money at a problem doesn’t fix the the problems when the underlying problems go beyond just needing funding. \n\nCultural issues\nHome life issues\nIncome issues\nDrive\nDesire\nHunger- hard to study even on a chrome book if one’s stomach is growling. ",
"They need more teachers because they do not get enough funding to pay teachers well, and tend to be more dangerous and difficult places to teach. They need more supplies because they have more students than they tend to be over-crowded and unlike most schools cannot expect for most of the students to provide their own supplies because said students are from poor families. \n\nTitle 1 schools receive funding, often additional funding from normal schools but it is still far less than what their need is. ",
"Because they don't have a PTO to fundraise for them usually. I've seen some that raise 50k a year for a school",
"Oh hey, another thing my degree is good for! I have a minor in secondary education.\n\nSchools get funding based primarily on the taxes collected in the county and local district. Schools do also get funding from state taxes, and states get federal funding that they can then distribute among counties and districts. Most of that money comes from property taxes, with the idea that you will be paying taxes into the district your kids will go to school in, since (theoretically) you live there.\n\nIt doesn't matter how much state and federal support a district receives when there's no property taxes to speak of [because the properties are worthless](_URL_0_). This is doubly true in states like Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, etc., that already don't have a lot of state-level money in the first place and tend to have big rural counties that don't collect a lot of property taxes, either. Moreover, title 1 schools are very *very* often associated with section 8 or otherwise low-income affordable housing projects. So it's not just that the property in that district isn't worth anything, it's likely that the state is already *paying the residents* to live there instead of the other way around. Even seeking out additional funding through other taxes like income and sales tax won't help, because if the area is full of people who can't afford a place to live they probably don't have a lot of income to tax and don't spend a lot either. All of which says nothing about the amount of time and money that families have to donate to schools, like volunteering to chaperone field trips, or donate towards new marching band equipment, etc., outside of what the government obligates families to pay through taxes. Low-income families are probably working multiple jobs and can't be available for parent-teacher conferences and they can't spare any more money to help out with after-school clubs.\n\nHopefully you won't be surprised to know that [income correlates with education](_URL_2_) - the better your education is, the more you make (on average). It should also not surprise you that the opposite is true: children from higher income families tend to achieve better test scores. So these low-income areas are stuck in two feedback loops feeding back on each other. Because there is no money in the schools, children perform poorly and receive a poor education. Their poor education and low scores make it less likely that they will earn significantly more than their parents did. They can't afford to improve their property (or even move somewhere better) so the property values stay too low for the district to get any tax money from. Because there is no tax money, the schools continue to lack the funds needed to improve the education of the next generation of students. \n\nThere's even more socioeconomic forces at work. Rich folks tend not to want their children going to school with poor children. That's *not* to say that being rich makes you an elitist, bigoted asshole. That certainly happens often enough, but just as often the argument is that the poor performance of other students can negatively impact the performance of your own children, which is true. You also run into the problem that rich people tend not to want to live near poor areas for a number of reasons - and we can't hide from the reality that sometimes that reason is racism. So you end up with de facto segregation, as rich, or even just middle class (and predominately white) families move to areas where the property values are better and invest in those properties, increasing the value and increasing the money available to the schools. On the other hand, low-income areas *lose* value as the above-average income families move out, taking their money - and often the jobs - with them. Property values go down, taxes to down, school performance goes down, and you get stuck in the loop.\n\nAgain, to emphasize, I am *not* saying rich people are racist, or accusing any particular group of people. However, **we cannot ignore the history of racism in housing and education in this country and impact they have had**. Institutional segregation was the reality for a lot of our history, and even after official segregation ended there were [**real, documented efforts** to maintain de facto segregation](_URL_1_), some of which continue today - maybe out of racism, maybe out of ignorance. I'm not pointing fingers, just pointing out the truth of the matter. As demonstrated above, whenever you mess with housing you also mess with education. Through segregation of housing, and for other historical reasons that minorities have been deprived of equal education opportunities, minorities are also associated with poorer school performance.\n\nSide note - not speaking English will also hurt your chances for performing well in school. This is another reason immigrant students tend not to perform as well as white students. As well, languages tend to clump together since people like having neighbors they can talk to, so minorities tend to group together even with no other forces acting to segregate them. As you can imagine, lower performance because of language barriers tends towards lower average income after graduation, and because they are grouped together this leads to an area with lower income, which leads to lower property values, which leads to less funding for schools... You get the picture.\n\nAgain, because I *know* that if this somehow hits the front page people will flood my inbox accusing me of making gross generalizations - **yes, these are gross generalizations**. They will not be universally true for all people in all places. These are *trends*, not laws. I'm not saying that just because you're a minority you are doomed to failure and doomed to be poor; nor am I arguing that white people are automatically successful and can't possibly fail. There are plenty of low-income rural and predominately *white* areas that face many of these problems. This is about averages and statistics, and covering *all* the reasons why title 1 schools tend to do poorly. I also want to point out that \"highly educated\" does not mean \"smart\" in this context, it means \"having formal education at higher levels like high school, college, and graduate degrees\". Being poorly educated doesn't make someone dumb, it means their education was garbage - and I'm explaining *why* it was garbage.\n\nAnyway, back to the thing. I briefly glossed over the fact that low-income families face other difficulties when it comes to education. Low-income families and low-income areas often lack many of the resources needed to achieve in school. For instance, having highly educated parents greatly increases the chances that a student will do well, which should be painfully obvious. When a student is having trouble learning, if their parents are educated they can seek help from their parents (or older siblings) to understand the concept they're missing. When you're already stuck in that low-income, poor education feedback loop, it's unlikely that a student in a title 1 school will have highly educated parents or siblings available to help them learn, which in turn means they are less likely to perform well, which means they will not be likely to be highly educated and therefore cannot provide assistance to *their* children. And that assumes their parents are available in the first place and not busy working multiple jobs, as is often the case, or aren't single-parent homes, or both. A lack of adult supervision isn't going to help any student learn.\n\nAt home, students may also struggle with lacking basic resources like internet access. Thirty years ago that didn't matter. Even twenty years ago it didn't *really* matter. Today, how many homework assignments rely on internet research? When kids don't have access to the internet, they're losing literally the biggest, most comprehensive resource for learning and education that humanity has to offer. *Perhaps* the student may have access to public computers, like those found in public libraries. However, public libraries also need funding from somewhere, and again, when you're talking about the kinds of areas where you find title 1 schools, it's likely there isn't a lot of tax money available for a nice public library with a lot of available computers. Of course, if the student has no way to get to the library because their family doesn't own a car and/or their parent(s) aren't available to take them, then having an amazing library wouldn't do them any good.\n\nThere are *so many other* factors that come into play, like food security. When students are worried about where their next meal is coming from, they're going to be distracted from their education - see [Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs](_URL_3_). When students are surrounded by crime and violence, they're going to be distracted from their education. When students are experiencing violence at home, they're going to be distracted. When their family can't afford basic education needs like pencils and paper... When the school can't afford to retain highly qualified teachers... And don't even get me started on vouchers and charter schools! Title 1 assistance doesn't cover any of those needs, it only gives schools the *most basic funding*, and usually not even that.\n\n#TL;DR: Education is intricately tied to poverty and income, housing, geography, ethnicity, and history which are all linked with each other in complicated ways that title 1 can't begin to untangle. Just throwing money at the school doesn't solve many of the problems associated with areas that don't have enough money to pay for the school in the first place."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.chronicle.com//img/photos/biz/photo_76570_landscape_650x433.jpg",
"https://www.npr.org/2017/05/17/528822128/the-color-of-law-details-how-u-s-housing-policies-created-segregation",
"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/business/economy/a-simple-equation-more-education-more-income.html",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs"
]
] |
|
43ux88
|
why is belgium's suicide rate so high?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43ux88/eli5_why_is_belgiums_suicide_rate_so_high/
|
{
"a_id": [
"czl6mjr"
],
"score": [
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],
"text": [
"Part of it could be the willingness to admit it IS suicide. Many countries report much lower suicide due to the religious and cultural stigma associated (this is even seen in some of the more conservative states of America). I'm sure there may be other factors, but this one has interested me for a while, so thought you might be too."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
8fdsue
|
on a physiological level what’s happening to the brain/mouth when we misspeak/slur our speech?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8fdsue/eli5_on_a_physiological_level_whats_happening_to/
|
{
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"dy2w66n",
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],
"text": [
"You know how we all know how to walk? \n\nSometimes, we trip. We didn't stop knowing how to walk, but we tripped anyway. \n\nPretty sure it's like that. ",
"Yay I'm a speech language pathologist. It can be a lot of different reasons. You can get \"overloaded\" and it's like a misfire (wrong signal gets communicated) or it can just be you're not concentrating and your mouth kind of assimilates a sound nearby and you just accidentally say it. Pretty much it's just your brain didn't communicate with your mouth correctly in that moment or you're not paying attention."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
bfb51u
|
what is an inner product? (linear algebra)
|
From what I keep reading it's a generalisation of the dot product, but what does this even mean? Why not just use the dot product between the vectors in the inner product?
[Here](_URL_0_) is how the lecture slides I'm studying from defines the inner product, but it doesn't really make sense to me.
Any help is appreciated. Cheers.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bfb51u/eli5_what_is_an_inner_product_linear_algebra/
|
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"text": [
"I'll try my best, but I've never successfully explained undergraduate abstract algebra to a five year old!\n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_) might be useful.\n\nYou're right to say that the idea of an inner product is a generalisation of a dot product, but when we refer to a dot product, we mean the specific operation that involves multiplying and adding components that you're probably already familiar with.\n\nThis operation happens to satisfy the following properties for any vectors, a, b and c (with the same dimension) and for any real scalar, k:\n\n* (a+b).c = a.c + b.c (distributive property)\n* (ka).b=k(a.b) (associativity with scalar multiplication)\n* a.b=b.a (commutativity)\n* a.a > 0, unless a = 0, in which case, a.a = 0 (positive-definite condition).\n\nAn inner product is *any* operation that also satisfies these conditions. You can find examples in the link above, but do let me know if they're not particularly helpful!",
"An inner product is a way of multiplying two objects. The multiplication has to obey a certain set of rules. \n\n\n1. < u + v, w > = < u, w > + < v, w > (distribution)\n2. < av, w > = a < v, w > (scalar multiplication) for any scalar a\n3. < v, w > = < w, v > (commutativity)\n4. < v, v > > = 0 for all v and < v, v > = 0 if and only if v = 0 \n\n\nQuite literally any way of putting two objects together to obey these rules is considered an inner product. For example, for two functions f(x) and g(x) on a closed interval \\[a, b\\] we can define \n\n\n < f, g > = int( f\\*g, a..b) \n\n\n(the integral of the product over the interval) . This turns out to follow the rules listed above, so it's an inner product. \n\n\nCondition (4) allows us to create a generalized notion of length. Recall that < v, v > = ||v||\\^2 for ordinary vectors. In this way, we can define length (magnitude) for other objects that might not resemble vectors. For example, \n\n\n|| f || = sqrt( int(f\\*f, a..b)) \n\n\nFor a function f. \n\n\nInner products also give us a generalized notion of angles in collections of objects that we might nor normally consider as having angles. For ordinary vectors we have \n\n\nsin(theta) = < v, w > / ( || v|| \\* ||w|| ) \n\n\nwhere theta is the angle between the two vectors. Again, we can apply that to functions using our on going example. Curiously this shows that on the interval 0..2Pi the functions sin(x) and cos(x) are orthogonal to one another because < sin(x), cos(x) > = 0 (and thus theta = 90). \n\n\nTLDR: inner products are a way to generalize the concept of length and angle to collections of objects that don't naturally seem to have lengths and angles.",
"Vectors are not necessarily a finite list of real numbers, so the dot product is not well-defined for general vector spaces. For example, you can have vector spaces where all of the vectors are functions, and there's not an obvious way of taking the dot product of the vector f(x) = x^2 with the vector g(x) = x^(3). The point of an inner product is that it is something that behaves like the dot product, with the same nice properties, even if you are dealing with vectors where the ordinary dot product isn't well-defined.",
"The dot product is to vectors in 2 or 3 or n dimensions of space what the inner product is to the more general definition of a vector. In general, vectors (as defined in linear algebra) are any mathematical object that obey certain rules of linearity. As an example of a rule: the sum of 2 vectors must be a vector. We say there are 10 axioms that all vector spaces (sets of vectors) must obey. Similarly, the inner product can be defined as anything as long as it obeys certain rules (an additional 5 axioms of inner products). As an example: one of the rules is that the inner product must take 2 vectors and return a number. Another rule is that a vector's inner product with itself must be a number greater or equal to 0.",
"The dot product is an operation defined for the “Euclidean spaces”, i.e. R^n for some n > 0. There is a dot product for R, for R^(2), for R^(3), and so on. These are the vector spaces we frequently encounter. I don't recall my own undergrad linear algebra class using any non-Euclidean vector spaces as examples.\n\nThere are other kinds of vector spaces out there. Some of them are very similar to Euclidean spaces and some of them are very different. None of these other spaces has a dot product, because the dot product is expressly defined for Euclidean spaces. But some of these vector spaces let us define an operation that looks very much like the dot product. What I mean by is “very much like the dot product” is that it follows a specific set of rules. Others have listed those rules in their answers. We say that any operation on a vector space that follows these rules is an “inner product”, and any vector space that lets us define such an operation is an “inner product space”.\n\nThe dot product is an example of an inner product. Therefore, any Euclidean space is an inner product space. The value of the notion of an inner product is that it tells us things about *non*-Euclidean inner product spaces. Euclidean space is intuitive; it's easy for us to understand how it works and to see its vectors in a geometric way. Other inner product spaces might not be so friendly, but we know that in some ways they work the same as our favorite Euclidean spaces because the inner product always follows many of the same rules as the familiar dot product."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://imgur.com/a/lAyK7PZ"
] |
[
[
"http://mathworld.wolfram.com/InnerProduct.html"
],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1okic7
|
why is congress and the president exempt from the aca?
|
This is not politically motivated; it's impossible to search for this online and find an answer that is not politically spun.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1okic7/eli5_why_is_congress_and_the_president_exempt/
|
{
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"text": [
"They aren't. That's a Republican talking point, but it's complete BS. Congress, unlike everyone else in the country, is *required by law* to buy into the new exchanges. \n\nThey're almost anti-exempt... ",
"They are not exempt but the top post in this thread is misrepresenting the situation.\n\nHill staff are treated the same way as other federal employees, they enroll in the FEHB program and pick which coverage they would like to use with a statutory maximum of 75% of policy cost paid for by the federal government. The FEHB could be considered like a federal employee health exchange, each employee has dozens of choices of policies with various terms (from HSA to comprehensive). Family coverage works the same as it does in the private sector.\n\nThere are four areas where there is a difference between federal healthcare and typical private healthcare; the employee contribution as % of cost is smaller then the private sector average (not hugely but sufficient that its worth mentioning), the federal government operate the largest group pool in the country so premium increases have been smaller (cumulatively relatively significantly so) then in the private sector, the federal government is not subject to the cross-state restrictions that limit pool size/inclusion in the private sector and they negotiated out all yearly and lifetime maximums pre-ACA.\n\nThe problem is that members of congress and the executive (including appointees) are not treated differently then staffers while they receive special benefits not available to others. The big ones;\n\n* They are permitted to use their hill office budget to pay their (and their office staff) employee contributions. The information regarding which proportion actually do this is not public record (HIPAA) but its unlikely that very many at all choose not to do this. In effect they exempt themselves from having to contribute towards their own health costs so its an irrelevance to them how high (or low) they are.\n* When they retire they do not switch over to the federal retiree healthcare system like every other federal employee, they remain enrolled in standard FEHB for life with 75% of their plan cost paid for by the federal government.\n* Prior to 2009 they had free access to to the [congressional physician](_URL_0_) which offers a comparable service to a well equipped PCP. Since 2009 there has been a $503 annual fee for this service. The common complaint about this service being made available (even with a fee) is that when private sector doctors have attempted to offer a physician subscription service ($20 a month, see the PCP as often as you like) they have been shut down by the federal government as they consider the subscription service to be unlicensed insurance.\n* Current members of congress receive free outpatient & emergency dental care in any Capital Region military hospital.\n\nWhen ACA came along a provision was added forcing congress & executive (as well as staff) to purchase healthcare from the federal exchange. While I am certain its inclusion was purely ideological, attempting to make ACA less attractive to congress, this actually does make a great deal of sense and its a shame there are not more areas where this is the case. Exposing congress to the realities of living as an \"average\" american gives them more information to legislate with and also makes ideological arguments either way regarding ACA more difficult, if it controls costs well then they would have no place to complain about cost under ACA and if it did not then they wouldn't be able to claim it did. The original intent of this amendment was that the 75% employer subsidy would remain, they would be exposed to 25% of the policy cost directly.\n\n9/30 OPM released their final rule (basically establishes what they will be doing) in regards to the congressional participation in the exchanges. OPM found that the ACA provision that requires employers to subsidize exchange purchased policies to the same level they would their own group policies meant that every single policy available to congress on the federal exchange would be subsidized to 100% (less coverage offered by the exchange policies so the cost is under the 75% they contribute under FEHB right now) and this overrode the provision from the Balanced Budget Act which established the 75% limit (somewhat ironically this act was the result of a prior shutdown).\n\nThere have been many bills and suggestions flying around since this crisis started but the two which are most important are;\n\n* The original offer from the house suspended the individual mandate for a year and exempted congress from receiving any employer subsidy on the exchanges exposing them to 100% of policy cost. This carved out elected and appointed members so they would be the only ones required to contribute at 100%, staff would remain in the traditional system.\n* A recent offer kept the absence of employer subsidy (but without the exception for staff), suspended the medical device tax for 2 years and created a new reinsurance tax for those who self-insure (basically every organization who have received waivers under ACA).\n\nWhile I appreciate president Obama/Senate want to resist the House there are a couple of things the house have stated they would accept to end the stand-off that are going to have to happen in the medium-term anyway so I wouldn't be surprised to see them creeping in to the final agreement;\n\n* Means-testing Social Security\n* Moving COLA away from CPI-U to another measure (C-CPI-U is proposed, there are better options though)\n* Block granting Medicare funds. ACA does include the ability to obtain waivers for almost all federal healthcare regulation and receive block grants of all federal health funds for the state (Vermont is currently the only state in this situation) but that does not kick in for another ~5 years and requires HHS to decree that the totality of the proposed healthcare system is \"better\" then the federal option rather then just the retiree portion."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attending_Physician_of_the_United_States_Congress"
]
] |
|
18lu44
|
how come these past few years, the legalization for marijuana has been getting more attention?
|
Why is that? It seems like these past 5-7 years Marijuana has been getting more media attention. More governments are legalizing it. Why didn't this happen 15-25 years ago? Why all of a sudden?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/18lu44/how_come_these_past_few_years_the_legalization/
|
{
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"text": [
"Because popular opinion on marijuana has reached a tipping point, and public opinion on the War on Drugs is pretty close.\n\n----------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nActual EL5 version:\n\nBilly at daycare is a Booger Eater. Everybody knows it. You don't care if you've seen him eat boogers. He's a Booger Eater because Katie and Sally and Jimmy told you. You can call Billy a Booger Eater on the playground and everybody will laugh at Billy since everybody knows he's a Booger Eater.\n\nJimmy at daycare isn't a Booger Eater. If you call him a Booger Eater, he'll call you a Liar Liar Pants on Fire and soon everybody will too. So you can't call him a Booger Eater. But if Jimmy's a Crybaby and Sally and Katie and Jimmy think he's a Booger Eater because he's a Crybaby, then you can call him a Booger Eater and nobody will pick on you. \n\nSo calling marijuana smokers criminals and a Danger to Society is like calling Jimmy a Booger Eater. Eventually, opinions change, and once your friends make a statement, then you join it too.\n\n----------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nBefore criminalization, marijuana use was mostly limited to niche subcultures and minorities. So, when some moralist gets up and tells you that the Reefer Heads are after your daughters, you write a letter to your Congressman.\n\nThe first crack in opinion comes in the 60's. Even if you don't smoke pot, you probably know somebody who does by now. And, your pothead cousin with a blacklight poster and Grateful Dead records hasn't raped anybody's daughter. So you realize, pot isn't the Big Danger you've been told. But, you can't really say anything against pot prohibition, because your boss, minister, Rotary club members, etc, are going to call you a Commie if you talk out of line.\n\nEventually the Reefer Madness generation is dying out, and the My Pothead Cousin's Not All That Bad generation is respectable. And each successive generation below you has an even more liberal view of the whole issue. Now, you can make a I Was a College Pothead joke and everybody laughs. You might not be able to call for fullblown legalization just yet, but semi-favorable talk about pot isn't going to cause your neighbors to shun you.\n\nThen, recently, you hit the tipping point. The Pot is Satan crowd is not just in the minority, they are the butt of the joke. Some redfaced geezer railing against the Devil Weed is downright hilarious. So, if you were on the fence, or were ashamed of your pro-legalization sentiment, you can now say it without being a social pariah.\n\nMedia outlets care more about ratings than a rational debate. So, when your audience starts leaning pro-legalization, you go with it, and the opinion reaches the people and places where public opinion was slow to sink into. Suddenly medical marijuana and Portugal style liberalization are in vogue, and you'll get laughed out of the room if you argue otherwise.\n\nEDIT: to add an actual EL5 version.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
5xm77q
|
why do we continue to make nuclear weapons, despite a seemingly global hatred for them?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5xm77q/eli5why_do_we_continue_to_make_nuclear_weapons/
|
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"Personally I'd sum it up to paranoia and human selfishness.\n\nCountry A won't disarm because Country B won't disarm, because Country A won't disarm. And then Country C looks at Countries A and B and feels threatened by them, so it builds nukes to deter possible (but imaginary) attacks from A and B.\n\nIt's a vicious cycle that will never end unless every country disarms at the exact same time, which is impossible because they'll never agree to do it. ",
"It's a rather interesting question with many different answers.\n\nThe answer is basically the risk of a threat.\n\nHypothetically let's say Switzerland was the first country to create a nuclear bomb and the only one.\n\nOther countries found out about its power and despite switzerlands reputation for being a rather peaceful country and not going to war, people wouldn't want to take the risk.\n\nSo just in case they create their own nuclear weapons.\n\nWhat this inadvertently does is that it creates an assurance for peace.\n\nBecause now every country is in a rather risky situation if they fire first, then there is no saying another country won't fire at them in return.",
"There is an acronym called m.a. d. Mutually assured destruction. While we all live in a word where we don't want nuclear weapons they are still here and because of that if one country wants to attack another country they know the other country can match there nukes. ",
"Reason for the number of nukes has to do with the nuclear triad: land-based missiles, bombers carrying nukes and ballistic missile submarines (a topic Trump knew nothing about). You want to be sure you have \"enough\" so that if one or two parts of the triad are compromised, the other part can still deliver a crippling blow to the enemy.\n\nThe numbers have actually dropped over the years. The US would often buy weapons-grade uranium from Russia for use in our nuclear power plants. Russia had a lot of nukes and needed the money.\n\nMost of the money spent now is maintaining existing stock. The components, especially the deuterium/tritium, decay over time. That needs to be replaced to ensure the nuke won't be a \"fizzzle\".\n\nRegardless of what Trump says, I don't see any large numbers of new nukes being made. We already have enough to do the job."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
7dlq6p
|
how is it possible to have unknown elements on the periodic table where the atomic number is known but not the actual element?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7dlq6p/eli5_how_is_it_possible_to_have_unknown_elements/
|
{
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"text": [
"That's the entire point of the **periodic** table. It was developed because we recognized that the elements have these recurring properties that fit predictable patterns. This allowed us to put them in a table based on those patterns and sort them. When we did, we noticed gaps where other elements should be.\n\nOver time we filled those gaps by discovering those elements. Theoretically, the periodic table could extend to infinity, but we usually don't list any elements that haven't yet been detected.\n\nAlso, *unnamed* elements shouldn't be confused for *undetected* elements.",
"Chemistry is, essentially, complicated physics. The rules that determine the properties of the elements chemically are true regardless of the element, which makes them somewhat predictable. We know that elements with such and such full electron shells will bond in this way and elements with more atomic mass will behave that way. We know how the strong and weak nuclear forces work - more or less - so we know how stable larger atomic masses should be. And we've done it before - guessing the properties of an element before it was isolated or synthesized, and then confirmed those properties when we found the element.\n\nSo we can populate the periodic table with unknown elements that we haven't yet synthesized because we know what they *should* be like. However, our guesses are not *entirely* accurate. There are still surprises. While it's not likely that a large element would be stable, exactly how unstable an element is can't be known for sure until we observe it. It might react slightly differently than we predicted. Observing where our predictions don't match reality is where we learn more about the laws of physics!\n\nAlso, by international convention, an element can't be named until it's observed. Elements are given placeholder names until then, and the person (or team) that first observes the element gets to name it.",
"We don't discover a new element, then measure its atomic number. \n An element is **defined** by its atomic number, even if it doesn't yet exist.\n\nIt is kind of like knowing there has to be a mile marker 118 on 200-mile highway, even if you've never been that far. The marker itself might be missing, but there will be place it supposed to be. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
ev5hpu
|
asthma
|
I know it has to do something with the lungs, but how exactly does it work? And why do inhalers help?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ev5hpu/eli5_asthma/
|
{
"a_id": [
"fftf2mm"
],
"score": [
14
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"text": [
"Lungs say 'oh no there's something irritating me' so they inflame and produce mucous, mucous + inflammation mean it's hard to breathe because air can't get through.\nAsthma can be triggered by things like dust/mould/anything in the air, or sometimes your lungs just decide its time to freak out for the fun of it. It's actually a type of immune disorder! \n\nThere are a couple of different types of inhaler.\n\nPreventers are generally taken daily, and reduce swelling and mucous production. Preventers are used for people with chronic asthma.\n\nRelievers are fast acting and are what people take to relieve their symptoms as they pop up. I believe they relax the muscles to help open up the lungs + also reduce mucous production. Those are the ones you see in shows and people using out and about. \n\nSymptom controllers are long acting and for people with symptoms that aren't controlled with Preventers alone. Often taken with Preventers, in the form of combination inhalers (contain both preventer and controller). \n\nThere are also steroid-based asthma medications for severe asthma, as well as bad asthma attacks. They aren't really a long term medication AFAIK. \n\nAsthma can also get bad when you're unwell or the weather is bad (dust storms, smoke, pollution, ect), which is why you'll often hear the news say things like 'stay indoors if you have asthma/respitory conditions'.\nI've also found personally that I get sicker than those around me when I do get sick, because my body is already dealing with fighting my lungs.\n\nIn people without asthma, their lungs aren't as sensitive to irritants and when they do get irritated, they're able to calm down easier. Asthma on a very basic level is the body over reacting to an irritant.\n\nThis got kind of long but I hope it helps!!"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
2eaci6
|
why do we enjoy teasing the ones we love and making them angry?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2eaci6/eli5_why_do_we_enjoy_teasing_the_ones_we_love_and/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cjxjq6q"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"The ability to reach a point where you can upset someone without really pissing them off is a sign of intimacy, just like any other kind of teasing. It's not perfect, but it shows that the person is comfortable with you doing those things to them, and are aware that it's not specifically designed to hurt (like it would if it came from someone else), but so be familial."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
o8ixo
|
assassin's creed storyline
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/o8ixo/eli5_assassins_creed_storyline/
|
{
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"c3f8zcr"
],
"score": [
52
],
"text": [
"There were these futuristic aliens that colonized the Earth thousands of years ago and created humans in their image to serve as slaves. They used magic devices that would later be known as \"Pieces of Eden\" to control the slave-humans. Eventually some aliens mated with humans and created hybrids that look like humans but have the alien immunity to the Pieces of Eden, and are also more athletic than regular humans and have a special sixth sense. These individuals would later be known as the Assassins.\n\nA war broke out between the humans (who vastly outnumbered the aliens) and the aliens. The war was interrupted by a giant solar flare that wiped out civilization. The aliens knew of the impending disaster and built underground vaults to test possible ways of saving society, but none were successful. Very few aliens and less than 10,000 humans survived. The survivors worked together to rebuild society.\n\nFast forward to the 1100s, when the Assassins have established a secret society where they try to defeat their archenemies, the Templars, who believe humanity needs to be controlled for its own good. Eventually the leader of the Assassins gets his hands on a Piece of Eden and reveals he has defected to the Templars. The Assassin Altair has to kill him and retrieves the artifact, which are the events of the first game.\n\nThen, in the 1500s, a young man named Ezio (in Assassin's Creed II) discovers his father is an Assassin after he is executed by the government. Ezio becomes an Assassin as well and goes on an adventure and eventually discovers Pope Rodrigo Borgia is a Templar leader who has a Piece of Eden that he is using to take over Europe. Ezio defeats him and discovers an ancient vault under the Vatican where he meets a recording of one of the aliens.\n\nThen a few years later Ezio has another adventure (in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood) when the Borgia family tries to take over Rome. He defeats them all over the course of several years and eventually places his Piece of Eden in a vault under the Roman Colosseum so it cannot be abused by mankind.\n\nThen, years later, as an elderly man Ezio travels to Constantinople (in Assassin's Creed: Revelations) to find ancient keys left behind by Altair to open a mysterious door. After he finds the keys and opens the door, he discovers the long-dead body of Altair and Altair's Piece of Eden, which he leaves behind. Eventually Ezio dies peacefully of a heart attack.\n\nNow, fast forwarding all the way to the year 2012, are the present day sections of the games. The concept of the series is that a seemingly normal guy named Desmond Miles is kidnapped by the mysterious corporation Abstergo Industries and forced into a machine called the Animus, which allows him to relive the memories of his ancestors. In the first game, Abstergo has him relive Altair's memories so that they can learn where other Pieces of Eden are hidden, as Abstergo is actually a front corporation for the Templars.\n\nIn the second game Desmond escapes Abstergo with the help of an Assassin named Lucy. They meet with some other Assassins and Desmond goes back into the Animus to relive the early life of Ezio in order to train himself as an Assassin. They learn through Ezio that another solar flare is going to scorch the Earth in 2012 and the recordings of the aliens in their vaults might know a way to protect civilization. At the end of the game Abstergo attacks and they are forced to flee to Europe, to Ezio's abandoned family home.\n\nIn Brotherhood, Desmond returns to the Animus to live the next part of Ezio's life, where he sees that Ezio placed his Piece of Eden under the Colosseum. They travel to Rome and enter the vault, but when Desmond touches the Piece of Eden, a recording of one of the aliens takes over his body and forces him to stab Lucy as some kind of sacrifice (it hasn't been explained yet why this happened).\n\nIn Revelations, Desmond falls into a coma out of shock and his subconscious is locked in a part of the Animus, which can no longer tell the difference between Desmond, Altair, and Ezio. Desmond is forced to live through the last part of Ezio's life, in which Ezio himself relives parts of Altair's life through the ancient keys, so that the Animus can separate each person's memories and wake Desmond up. At the end, Desmond wakes up with his father and his Assassin friends outside the main alien vault (hidden near New York City), where they will presumably find a way to save society from the impending solar flare disaster."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
6gcmla
|
why does a spanish language conversation sometimes have random english words thrown into the mix
|
A couple was speaking spanish at a glasses place yesterday, and part of their conversation had some English words in there at seemingly mid or end sentence.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6gcmla/eli5_why_does_a_spanish_language_conversation/
|
{
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"score": [
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25,
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12,
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"text": [
"My best guess is that, over the course of either learning Spanish or English, they discovered that some terms get the point across more 'efficiently' than trying to describe it in the 'other' language.\n\nSo lets say the equivalent for \"lamp\" doesn't exist in the Spanish Language [theoretically]: Would you explain it as \"the thing that sits on table and emits light\" or would you just throw the English word in there for simplicity's sake?\n\nMight not have been what you were going for, but that's all I could come up with seeing as I don't speak Spanish, only Eng+Fr.",
"This if very common for bilingual speakers. Some words or phrases are easier to say in English than your native language. Or the English word is more precise. For example, in Russian, there is no word for \"cute\". There are words similar to it but it's just easier to say \"cute\". Other times you blank out on the word to use for whatever reason but the English word is right there. \n\nSource: bilingual speaker though not Spanish. ",
"Probably for the same reason English conversations have random Spanish words in them, *compadre*. I'm an *aficionado* of language so I tend to pay attention to language even if I know *nada* about Spanish (that's not actually true, I took Spanish in high school...a decade ago...so I know *very slightly* more than nada). Maybe they're just using random English because it sounds *suave* or *macho*. Did you see them later in the *cafeteria*?\n\nAnyway, there are some English loanwords that have made it into the colloquial Spanish in America, even if English is way better at stealing words from other languages.\n\nAll that said, it's likely they were *code-switching*. Language isn't just rote memorization and rote recall of words that you know. There's an entire section of the brain dedicated to language. When you know multiple languages you're storing different symbols for the same concepts and sometimes as you speak in one language your brain reaches for one language's word and recalls the other. Often it's because the word in one language is used more or, for you, more closely associated with the concept so when you speak it's more natural and easier to grab that word first, so you do. This can even be true culturally, so that many people in the same area use the same word even though it's foreign - sometimes even the people who *aren't multilingual*, which is how loanwords get introduced into a language. The multilingual people use it so often around the people who only know the one language that it replaces the native word.\n\nWhen people make those switches, it's called code-switching. The vast majority of the time it's subconscious and they probably won't even notice unless you point it out to them.",
"To be fair, English speakers drop Spanish words into their conversations as well, whether it's a Spanish word we've adopted into English (quesadilla, mosquito, fiesta) or phrases that are common enough to be well known (\"Hasta la vista, baby!\", \"No mas!\"). \n\nThat's going to be even more common when the language you're borrowing from is the predominant language of the place you're in, which means you're exposed to it all the time.",
"Spanish speaker, usually it's transliterations, meaning it sounds English but given a Spanish flair to it because we don't have the word in Spanish. This happens a lot on non romantic ( languages that derive from Latin) language.",
"Sometimes even if you're speaking one language, a word or phrase from another one has a sort of *je ne sais quois* that makes it a better fit for your sentence.",
"If the topic discussed was gaming there will be a lot of random words from english. We usually take a word like 'farm' and make a verb out of it like 'farmear'. 'Level-up' becomes 'levelear', and some memes only work in english so we use them as is.",
"Well if you're from Snoqualmie Washington and you slipped on some snow and fell on your tuckus it might be a faux pas but you're no prima donna so c'est la vie! \n\nEnglish sentence with American Indian, French, Yiddish, and Italian loan words. \n\nLoan words are small expressions borrowed from another language and most languages have them. English itself is made up of older languages that themselves had loan words from Latin, Francish, Norse, Germanic, Saxon, and other languages. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
6qe9e3
|
blue light is suddenly an issue, hurting our sleep, but generations before us watched tv before bedtime, bathed in so much blue light. what's the difference?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6qe9e3/eli5_blue_light_is_suddenly_an_issue_hurting_our/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dkwl95d"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"The issue is we have much brighter technology and have actually studied the effects. Previous generations also had black and white televisions or much smaller screens to look at, plus no cell phones so the amount of blue light they viewed was greatly reduced. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
avk7ua
|
is there a practical reason for a car's driver to be on the side rather than the middle?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/avk7ua/eli5_is_there_a_practical_reason_for_a_cars/
|
{
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"ehfr373",
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"ehi27pc"
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50,
229,
3,
27,
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"text": [
"You can fit more people in the front row. Also it makes the seat closer to the door, and makes better use of available space.",
"Imagine having to move all the way to the middle of your car to start it and begin driving. If you have passengers in the front with you, the space would be crowded and unsafe. You ever sit in the middle seat of a car on a trip with 2 other people? Take that and now you have to use the wheel and be able to see the mirrors as well as check behind you for danger. That's why the seat is on the side of the car. To provide space to look around as well as enter and exit the car safely and quickly.",
"The main reason is so you are closer to the centre of the road, you can see the oncoming traffic easier easier. Also as other people have said, it's easier to get into a seat next to a door rather than in the middle and makes better use of space.",
"Others have mentioned the proximity to the door. The only thing their answers don't explain is why cars with front bench seats (which are rare these days, but used to be common) don't have the driver in the middle. This is because of a couple of reasons. First, the steering column. This is a relatively straight piece of metal connecting the steering wheel to the steering rack (or in older vehicles, the steering box). This box needs to be on one side, because the engine is in the middle. The other reason is that older cars were predominantly rear wheel drive, which means the transmission sits between the driver's and passenger's feet. This means that if the driver was in the middle, log room would be minimal, and there would be no room for pedals.",
"In St Thomas, USVI, steering wheels are on the left (like elsewhere in the US) but vehicles ride on the left side of the road (like in British lands). When we asked our taxi driver why, he waited until we were atop a curved precipice to open his door to show the steep drop unprotected by a guardrail. He claimed that drivers need to be as close to the edge of the cliff as possible to ensure the wheels remain in the road!",
"Visibility. If you've ever driven a left or right handed drive in a country that predominantly uses the other system, you'll learn real fast why the seat is where it is. It's annoying to see anything ahead of you safely when you're on the wrong side.",
"When you’re trying to move into the passing lane on the highway how easy is it to see around a car or truck from the passenger seat? Is it any easier in the middle? ",
"Overtaking someone is a pain if you are not seated at the same side as eveyone else. People driving a car that is build for right lane traffic ( stearing wheel on the left) in a left lane country (like driving a german car in britain) or vice versa know that problem. You can't very well edge out to check omcomming traffic. Cars with seats in the middle suffer from the same problem. To a lesser extent, but that problem exists no matter the country you drive in. Any McLaren divers here that can confirm this? ",
"Sitting on the side makes it easier to see what's going on when overtaking/merging. That's why the side the driver sits on varies depending on what side of the road though drive.\n\nSweden hade left-hand drive cars while driving on the left. Thet decide a change would increase safety, so switched to driving on the right.",
"When passing you want to have the best line of sight, being in the middle is unsafe. Don't ask me why you are allowed British cars in America tho, that's fucked"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
4fphit
|
why didn't the titanic crew simply turn around and go unload people on to the iceberg?
|
I'm, of course, assuming that hypothermia wouldn't set in nearly as quickly if you were dry on the frozen ice.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4fphit/eli5_why_didnt_the_titanic_crew_simply_turn/
|
{
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"d2auk49",
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11,
3,
6
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"text": [
"Being dry on the ice would indeed be better than being in the cold water in terms of hypothermia. It would be a much better situation to be in. \n\nBut the reality is there wasn't any good way of doing that. Icebergs aren't nice stable objects with easy slopes and places to load/unload. They're uneven random shapes, in constant motion, with significant portions of them underwater. Finding a place where you could pull up to one and safely unload would be a difficult task at best, particularly at night. \n\n",
"Generally, you can't unload people onto an iceberg. Very rarely do they even have a flat horizontal surface. More often, they look [something like this.](_URL_0_)\n\nAlso, the amount of damage was not clear at the time. They couldn't turn around either. A ship that size takes a quite a long time to turn around, it's not like it can turn on a dime.\n\n",
"[This](_URL_0_) is an image of the ice berg that is thought to have sunk the Titanic. Just looking at it makes it obvious that you aren't going to be able to safely unload people onto it due to the shape (they'd just fall off into the water which would certainly kill them). \n\nI'm sure there were other reasons as well. Weather as you said could have been an issue. And also, how would they even approach it safely to unload? The majority of any given ice berg is submerged under water. The part of the berg that struck the killing blow was below the water line where they couldn't see it. \n\nAs for using lifeboats to ferry people over, it took about an hour and a half to launch all life boats. They started leaving around 12:45 and they had all left at around 2:05. The ship sank at around 2:20. Remember that there were only enough life boats for about half the people on board. So I doubt that they would have even had enough time to do this."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.icebergwatereurope.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/iceberg2.jpg"
],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_RMS_Titanic#/media/File:Titanic_iceberg.jpg"
]
] |
|
697kin
|
why does the current century not line up with the calendar year?
|
For clarification: why do we live in the 21st century but the calendar year is 2000s, shouldn't we be in the 20th century?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/697kin/eli5_why_does_the_current_century_not_line_up/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dh4dqb3",
"dh4e9bs"
],
"score": [
6,
27
],
"text": [
"The answer given by u/Phage0070 is good.\n\nI'll also add a comparison:\nWhen you are born, you begin the first year of your life. When you turn 1, you begin your 2nd year. When you turn 2, you begin your 3rd year, and so on.\n\nSo this isn't just a feature of dates. It's just how counting works.",
"Year 1-100: The 1st century. \nYear 101-200: The 2nd century. \nYear 201-300: The 3rd century. \nYear 301-400: The 4th century. \nYear 401-500: The 5th century. \nYear 501-600: The 6th century. \nYear 601-700: The 7th century. \n..... \nYear 1801 - 1900: The 19th century. \nYear 1901 - 2000: The 20th century. \nYear 2001 - 2100: The 21st century. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
6r2xqj
|
why do people like listening to aggressive music?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6r2xqj/eli5why_do_people_like_listening_to_aggressive/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dl1wqai"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"This is more of an ask reddit question but it's because it pumps you full of energy, it's not for everyone but then again neither is classical soft piano music. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
6898ke
|
it hurts like hell to step on a pin. how did ancient humans walk barefoot through forests full of sharp twigs etc?
|
Just stood on a pin and it got me thinking that it must hurt like fuck to run through a forest with no shoes. How did ancient humans do it? Have our feet become softer over time as we use shoes?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6898ke/eli5_it_hurts_like_hell_to_step_on_a_pin_how_did/
|
{
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"text": [
"Walking barefoot makes your soles tougher so that twigs and the like aren't a huge consideration. Also, pins are entirely unnatural, jutting up at a 90° angle, supported by a small platform, very sharp and made of unyielding metal. You don't see those sort of hazards in a regular forest.",
"There are very very few pins in the forest. \n\n(serious answer: lots of kids walk barefoot in the forest now. it's not like it's covered in knives or something, you gotta be careful where you step to some degree but it's not like the ground is covered in sharp stuff nonstop. you can walk barefoot in the forest and it's fine) ",
"Pins are sharper than almost anything you'll find in nature save maybe thorns. And yes, if you make a habit of going without shoes a lot, your feet get tougher in a fairly short time and there isn't a lot on the ground that can bother you.",
"As a barefooter I can attest that twigs are no problem at all. Your feet don't need to be all that hardened for that. It's just that the feet of most people in the developed world rarely get any exposure at all. Even [broken glass](_URL_0_) is far from the danger it's made out to be. Vertical pins would be a problem for most but those aren't naturally (or even for the most part unnaturally) littered everywhere.",
"have you ever seen the fingers of a guitarist?\nThey are hardened, right. Similarly, the skin on your feet will harden to an extent that it does not hurt/ matter when you walk on twigs or rocks in the forest. Also, pins are not found in the forest. Thorns are found in the forest and they hurt like hell(evolved for this purpose, btw), even to animals. And thorns don't cover the whole forest ground."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdfQgt1--H0"
],
[]
] |
|
cozxa6
|
you know that certain way you breathe to fog up glass? why doesn’t regular breathing fog up glass?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cozxa6/eli5_you_know_that_certain_way_you_breathe_to_fog/
|
{
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"ewm9r2v",
"ewm9xf1"
],
"score": [
7,
6
],
"text": [
"When you go \"HAAAAAH\" with your mouth wide and blowing slowly the air picks up more moisture because it spends more time in your mouth and throat and then lays the moisture on the glass because it's moving slowly past the glass.",
"Regular breathing *does* fog up glass. Sit in a car in winter with the engine off for an hour breathing normally and you likely won't be able to see out the windows. \n\nHowever, as the air is moving relatively fast the fogging happens over a large area, making it difficult to notice. Breathing with a wide open mouth slows down the air, as the same volume of air is coming out a much larger hole in the same (or greater) amount of time, giving an instantly visible result."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
2ir9za
|
how if i have some software that requires a product key that you must pay for, that many people can use the same key?
|
title is kind of naff - sorry. What I mean is, people just put these codes up online, after its been redeemed once. How can people keep using it over and over? For example, a single product key for windows being used by thousands of people?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ir9za/eli5how_if_i_have_some_software_that_requires_a/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cl4oy87"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"There are two ways that a product key can be validated. The first way is that the program \"phones home\" to check that the key is valid, and is tied to your account. This type of validation means that the same key can (usually) only be used once.\n\nBut the other way that a key can be validated is if there is some algorithm that generates valid keys, and that can verify that a particular key is valid. For example, maybe keys are generated by taking your email address, appending some fixed string of letters to the end (known to the program, but not to you), and then feeding the resulting string through a hashing algorithm (which is a sort of one-way function that generates a unique-ish \"fingerprint\" of a bit of text or a file). The resulting hash is your product key. \n\nIn this case, it's super easy for the program to verify that a given email address + product key is valid, because it just takes the email, appends the secret string to it, and then hashes that to see if the resulting hash equals the product key you entered. This has the advantage of not requiring an Internet connection to activate the software, but does make it vulnerable to re-used keys. I've seen some companies that make the credit card number used to purchase the product part of this process to discourage sharing of product keys (since you'd also have to share your credit card number)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
4a9o4e
|
how can basic calculus be used in economics?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4a9o4e/eli5_how_can_basic_calculus_be_used_in_economics/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d0yiogm"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"if you take the basic supply and demand graph, the area between the demand curve and the equilibrium price is the benefit to buyers, while the area between the supply curve and equilibrium price is the benefit to sellers. so if you do something like subsidize a cost or allow/disallow imports or exports, you can use integrals to determine how much each group will be helped/hurt by that policy."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
d2ul53
|
how does your body know to grow skin where it doesn't normally have to? such as over the stump of a lost limb or the socket of a pulled tooth?
|
Had a tooth pulled recently, really curious how my body knows to grow skin over the empty socket when it doesn't normally have to grow skin there. It's not like your body tries to grow skin over your teeth.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d2ul53/eli5_how_does_your_body_know_to_grow_skin_where/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ezwydl8"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text": [
"Stumps of lost limbs are a result of closing wounds in such a way that the stump is covered by skin. The body doesn't actually generate new skin - see here for an example: _URL_0_\n\nI'll leave the tooth socket to someone else as I don't think I could explain this properly."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.medicalexhibits.com/obrasky/2008/08082_01X.jpg"
]
] |
|
w25r5
|
eili5: how does an emp (electromagnetic pulse) bomb work?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/w25r5/eili5_how_does_an_emp_electromagnetic_pulse_bomb/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c59kk3f"
],
"score": [
19
],
"text": [
"[Searched](_URL_1_)\n\nRelevant [discussion](_URL_0_)\n\nOriginal question by [nerdyshades](_URL_2_)\n\n > Why would a pulsing electro magnet fry electronics?\n\nTop comment courtesy [chunkyks](_URL_3_)\n\n > You know how you have a radio in your car? Or as a 5yo, in your parent's car?\n\n > Well, the question is how does that thing receive music? Or boring chatter like your parents probably listen to?\n\n > There's an antenna there. You see it on really old cars, it's a big metal thing that sticks out. Some cars still have them, like the mini coopers have one that sticks out from the back -middle of the roof, except it's covered in plastic but underneath it's still metal.\n\n > The antenna is a thing that picks up signals broadcast by the radio station.\n\n > Here's the trick: the antenna is just a piece of metal. any piece of metal can function as an antenna in theory, just the reason the one on your parent's car is like it is is that it turns out some metal shapes work better than others for different signals. Like, the antenna on a car works real good for your parent's radio.\n\n > An emp is like a radio transmission. Except it's super-ridiculous-powerful. Like, if your parents car radio picked it up, it would be RIDICULOUSLY LOUD.\n\n > So now you have the two things you need to know: an EMP is SUPER STRONG radio signal, and any piece of metal can work like an antenna. Your computer is full of bits of metal, so as soon as this EMP happens, thousands of bits of metal in your computer all pick up a radio signal all at once, that's so strong they just all have a REALLY LOUD signal in them, which the computer doesn't know what to do with, and eventually a bunch of bits inside your computer die horrible deaths."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/v5zg5/how_an_emp_works/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/search?q=EMP&restrict_sr=on",
"http://www.reddit.com/user/nerdyshades",
"http://www.reddit.com/user/chunkyks"
]
] |
||
n8acb
|
why are some people tone deaf?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/n8acb/eli5_why_are_some_people_tone_deaf/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c371dz5",
"c373u48",
"c371dz5",
"c373u48"
],
"score": [
9,
2,
9,
2
],
"text": [
"It is usually because of not being trained in music. When I say training, I don't mean being taught by maestro from Italy, but as in listening to music and being familiar with notes' \"place\". It's like being able to speak in an accent you are familiar with, but not being able to speak in another accent that you haven't really heard of.\n\nThere are cases where a person's brain can't understand the music and reproduce it, but that is a rare case.",
"Almost nobody is literally tone deaf. If you can hear the different pitches in a doorbell ringing, you can hear tone. I think you're talking about the musical side of things, which has already been addressed, but I just thought I throw that in there.",
"It is usually because of not being trained in music. When I say training, I don't mean being taught by maestro from Italy, but as in listening to music and being familiar with notes' \"place\". It's like being able to speak in an accent you are familiar with, but not being able to speak in another accent that you haven't really heard of.\n\nThere are cases where a person's brain can't understand the music and reproduce it, but that is a rare case.",
"Almost nobody is literally tone deaf. If you can hear the different pitches in a doorbell ringing, you can hear tone. I think you're talking about the musical side of things, which has already been addressed, but I just thought I throw that in there."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
7x72jl
|
why do soda bottles "glug" when you empty them?
|
So if you're pouring out a typical soda bottle with a neck thinner than the body, it will make a "glug" sound and the bottle will shake, and it will seem like the liquid is coming out in waves. What causes this?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7x72jl/eli5_why_do_soda_bottles_glug_when_you_empty_them/
|
{
"a_id": [
"du60rx9",
"du61hv5",
"du61lzj"
],
"score": [
7,
7,
3
],
"text": [
"The need for air to fill the space recently emptied inside your bottle. It rushes past your mouth and into the bottle creating those waves, and the glugging. \n\nThink of it this way, if the liquid is leaving the bottle, something has to be replacing it right? Otherwise the bottle becomes a vacuum. ",
" Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained:\n\n1. [ELI5: When liquid is poured from certain bottles, why does it 'glug' and not just pour smoothly? ](_URL_0_) ^(_10 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: Why does liquid \"pulse\" out of a bottle when emptying instead of just a steady stream like my faucet or a cup of liquid? ](_URL_1_) ^(_6 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: Why does a soda can empty faster when it is held sideways than when it is help upside down? ](_URL_4_) ^(_8 comments_)\n1. [ELI5:That thing when you pour out a jug of liquid and the liquid comes out in bursts ](_URL_5_) ^(_6 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: Why do cups with lids have to have two holes in the lid to work properly? ](_URL_3_) ^(_19 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: Why does liquid flow unevenly out of a bottle into another object? ](_URL_2_) ^(_13 comments_)\n",
"By the way, if you give a bottle a little swirl and create a vortex (tornado) it will empty more quickly than if you just turn a bottle upside-down. The vortex is more efficient for water-down air-up than the glug-glug method (its official name).\n\n[because SCIENCE!](_URL_0_)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3o0h34/eli5_when_liquid_is_poured_from_certain_bottles/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4rs5pc/eli5_why_does_liquid_pulse_out_of_a_bottle_when/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5v2m7f/eli5_why_does_liquid_flow_unevenly_out_of_a/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/71s5ti/eli5_why_do_cups_with_lids_have_to_have_two_holes/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4sudc5/eli5_why_does_a_soda_can_empty_faster_when_it_is/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6cp9c5/eli5that_thing_when_you_pour_out_a_jug_of_liquid/"
],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzw3DcDblIg"
]
] |
|
2258em
|
network topology
|
I'm trying to wrap my head around how topologies are actually classified and how they function with the Internet. I know about star, bus, ring, etc as far as physical topologies work, and about hybrid topologies, but I'm unclear as to how these work for connections over the Internet vs local connections.
As an example, say you have three switches that each are the center of a star. If connected in the same building they can be a bus or a ring, and are classified as a 'hybrid star-bus' or 'hybrid star-ring'. What if they're in separate buildings and connected over the Internet though? Can you still call your network a 'star-bus' if your ISP's network is a mesh? Or do you have to refer to it as a 'star-mesh' or something else? My main question is how LAN terminology deals with the Internet, but I feel like I'm not understanding the concepts as whole.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2258em/eli5_network_topology/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cgjk9m3"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"First, pick which layer of the OSI model you are referring to. After that, you can analyze it. \n\nSo a local office may have a layer 2 star topology, but at layer 3 (which is generally what we are concerned with when we talk about connecting two or more offices) it may be a ring topology. \n\n > What if they're in separate buildings and connected over the Internet though? Can you still call your network a 'star-bus' if your ISP's network is a mesh? Or do you have to refer to it as a 'star-mesh' or something else?\n\nAll this is relative to the person you are trying to explain your network to. So if Jim says:\n\n\"Hey Bob, how is our lan connected at office A?\" \nYou say: \"It's a star\"\n\nOr\n\n\"Hey Bob, how do our routers connect to the internet?\"\nYou say: \"It's a ring.\"\n\nAt any given time, most larger networks would almost always be a \"hybrid\" if you look at the over-all structure and a more specific topology the more specific you get. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
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