q_id
stringlengths 5
6
| title
stringlengths 3
296
| selftext
stringlengths 0
34k
| document
stringclasses 1
value | subreddit
stringclasses 1
value | url
stringlengths 4
110
| answers
dict | title_urls
list | selftext_urls
list | answers_urls
list |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
afk39z
|
how come, let’s say, your neck isn’t sore after you do 50 curl ups, but it is sore the next morning?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/afk39z/eli5_how_come_lets_say_your_neck_isnt_sore_after/
|
{
"a_id": [
"edz7jmj",
"edzatrr"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"Soreness often isn’t directly caused by exertion, but rather by your body’s process of repairing your muscles. So for some muscle groups this can be delayed quite a bit (like in your example). ",
"when you cause any injury the initial pain from that injury will hurt more as your body tries to repair it and this is what hurts more."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
3rxi1r
|
why did our ancestors migrate out of africa when it was the best place to live (warm weather, lots of food, etc.)?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rxi1r/eli5_why_did_our_ancestors_migrate_out_of_africa/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cws5eow",
"cws86bv"
],
"score": [
6,
10
],
"text": [
"Because it wasnt. Back then it was an ice age. It was great while the earth was cooler but then the climate began to change. With this change in climate (it got a lot warmer) the plantlife began to change and therefore the wildlife. Humans started to migrate in search of better climates and hunting grounds.",
"Competition with other human populations. When a situation is fruitful for human life, the population grows and creates pressures and hostilities between different human groups competing for the same resources. So humans left in search of areas that had less competition. People didn't in one lifetime necessarily go from Africa to Scandinavia. They might just move 10 miles further North in any generation, but eventually, they spread out. Though since Africa is attached to the rest of the land by only one small area in the Levant, passing that barrier was a huge deal. \n\nAt that time, humans were hunter-gatherers. That meant that they moved around all the time, following game and edible plants. So as temperature changed, plant and animal habitats changed, too, and humans moved to follow plants and animals. We see that today with global warming, where migratory birds, for example, have changed their locations pretty dramatically. In other words, we're seeing today migratory bird species X flying south for the winter from their homes, and then when they fly north again, they're not necessarily flying back to their exact previous territory; they're flying 100 miles north of their old territory, because they're finding that 100 miles north is now at a suitable temperature for them, and there's a lot less competition for resources from the birds they used to compete with on their old territory, so they're flourishing in their new territory. Though then the birds that were previously making a home there, species Y, now has to compete with the invading species X, and species Y might not be able to compete. So in some cases the new species (X) is out-competing the old species (Y)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
9sl3pc
|
how do our cells know what to do and if there's something that tell the cells what to do, how does that something know what to tell the cells and so on?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9sl3pc/eli5_how_do_our_cells_know_what_to_do_and_if/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e8plwp2",
"e8plz3m",
"e8pn63r"
],
"score": [
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Simply, the DNA contains the instructions for all cellular responses, everything from replication to repairing damage to converting air/water/food into useable proteins. \n\nI’m not a scientist, but I have taken a couple of biology courses over the years. ",
"I don't remember the names in english and this is huge simplification but basically inside the cells there are little \"organs\" that reacts to different environmental catalyst(mainly interactions with proteins), those catalyst can make the \"organs\" start working, stop, accelerate or decelerate, depending the structure of the \"organ\" and/or the catalyst, it's important to clarify that the organs only do simple ractionary things, and in the end those organs are mostly the responsible of everything your cell do",
"The DNA in your cells are instructions on what to do. Every cell has parts of their DNA turned off/on depending on the surrounding environment. For example, a cell in the stomach will detect it is in the stomach and produce enzymes to digest food.\n\nThe complex “instructions” behind the DNA is evolved over millions of years. There is (probably) no intelligence which wrote the DNA instructions “if you are a pancreas cell, produce insulin”. These instructions arose naturally by completely random evolution. Mutations that were beneficial survived while failures died off."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
nannl
|
the political structure in orwell's 1984.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nannl/eli5_the_political_structure_in_orwells_1984/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c37m2f7",
"c37m2f7"
],
"score": [
12,
12
],
"text": [
"The world is divided into three powers, Eastasia, Eurasia and Oceania.\n\nWe do not learn much about Eastasia or Eurasia, only Oceania which comprises Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, Polynesia, southern Africa, and the Americas. The island of Great Britain is called Airstrip One. Oceania is ruled by The Party, which practices *English Socialism,* abbreviated to *IngSoc.* \n\nThe Party is divided into the Inner Party and the Outer Party. Inner Party members wear black overalls. They hold senior positions in the four Ministries (Ministry of Love, Ministry of Peace, Ministry of Plenty and Ministry of Truth) and presumably the higher levels of government.\n\nMembers of the Outer Party wear blue overalls and hold lower-level jobs in the Ministries. Common people (proles) do not wear Party overalls and hold jobs which do not require political reliability.\n\nThere is no mention of representation by Congressmen or Members of Parliament, and although there appears to be no taxation there is strong pressure from the Party to donate to officially endorsed charities, which consume about one quarter of a Party member's wage.\n\nEdit: changed from: There is no representation by Congressmen or Members of Parliament, and although there is no taxation there is strong pressure from the Party to donate to officially endorsed charities, which consume about one quarter of a Party member's wage.\n\nThe Wikipedia article on the novel *1984* is very thorough: _URL_0_\n\n",
"The world is divided into three powers, Eastasia, Eurasia and Oceania.\n\nWe do not learn much about Eastasia or Eurasia, only Oceania which comprises Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, Polynesia, southern Africa, and the Americas. The island of Great Britain is called Airstrip One. Oceania is ruled by The Party, which practices *English Socialism,* abbreviated to *IngSoc.* \n\nThe Party is divided into the Inner Party and the Outer Party. Inner Party members wear black overalls. They hold senior positions in the four Ministries (Ministry of Love, Ministry of Peace, Ministry of Plenty and Ministry of Truth) and presumably the higher levels of government.\n\nMembers of the Outer Party wear blue overalls and hold lower-level jobs in the Ministries. Common people (proles) do not wear Party overalls and hold jobs which do not require political reliability.\n\nThere is no mention of representation by Congressmen or Members of Parliament, and although there appears to be no taxation there is strong pressure from the Party to donate to officially endorsed charities, which consume about one quarter of a Party member's wage.\n\nEdit: changed from: There is no representation by Congressmen or Members of Parliament, and although there is no taxation there is strong pressure from the Party to donate to officially endorsed charities, which consume about one quarter of a Party member's wage.\n\nThe Wikipedia article on the novel *1984* is very thorough: _URL_0_\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four"
]
] |
||
7b7ir3
|
when getting anesthetized. what exactly does the drug to me?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7b7ir3/eli5_when_getting_anesthetized_what_exactly_does/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dpftw89"
],
"score": [
24
],
"text": [
"I'm answering this from the perspective of proper, \"operating room\" surgery with general anesthesia, though the first two steps are the same if you're only getting an IV (e.g. oral surgery) rather than IV + intubation (e.g. having your insides cut open). Intubation is when they cram a tube down to your lungs to control your breathing, but they will also give you a steady stream of anesthetic gas through it. There are also a variety of drugs that can be used in some steps, but I will give one of the most common examples.\n\n**The process goes something like this:**\n\nEdit for the sake of completeness: Before they do any of this, they'll give you a mask with 100% oxygen. This fact surprises a lot of people, but you can go 5x longer without breathing if you've been filling the lungs with 100% oxygen, compared to room air which is only about 20% oxygen. Important for the steps that follow.\n\n1. The anesthesiologist will start by pushing lidocaine through your IV. This numbs up the nerves around the inside of your blood vessels, which is important for step #2.\n\n2. We will administer propofol. We'll usually let the patient know that this feels a lot like getting an entire 6-pack of beer into your system at once. In fact it works in a way very similar to alcohol. It will burn in the blood vessels, but fortunately we've given you lidocaine first. Propofol can get you anywhere from \"a little loopy\" to completely \"blacked out.\" A normal dose is intended to knock you out, because you don't want to be awake for step #3. This is when the anesthesiologist may tell you to start counting down. Propofol is what killed Michael Jackson, but don't worry it's (probably) not going to kill you.\n\n3. Once you're out, we'll push a drug like succinylcholine (or 'the sux', heh). This paralyzes the muscles in your body. We do this because it makes it possible to ram a tube down your throat without you choking on it. The downside is that you're gonna stop breathing on your own for a bit, so there's now a timer on getting that tube in. It's important that we knocked you out momentarily with propofol because it's absolutely terrifying to be awake and completely paralyzed.\n\n4. After the 'breathing tube' is secured, we'll give you an inhaled drug like sevoflurane. The anesthesiologist has these gasses set up with a spinning dial, which he will crank up and monitor the concentration of on the machine. This is what you're probably imagining as \"anesthesia.\" You've read a long way through this post only to be disappointed, but we still aren't 100% certain how these gasses work, but they do. Generally speaking they depress your central nervous system, enough so that there isn't much brain activity going on. At low doses you may breathe on your own (after the sux wears off), but at high doses you'll need the machine to breathe for you. Inhaled anesthetics like sevoflurane actually have a tiny therapeutic window, which means there's not much leeway between \"just enough\" and \"your brain is shutting down and you're dying.\" Sounds scary, but the machine closely monitors all of this and we can be very precise.\n\nI hope this helps, and I'm happy to answer any questions you have."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
cj8wer
|
how snorted substances affect the brain without properly being ingested or injected
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cj8wer/eli5_how_snorted_substances_affect_the_brain/
|
{
"a_id": [
"evbswo0",
"evbuve9"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
" Chemicals dissolve in the mucus which coats most of the surface in the nose/back of throat. It can diffuse through the cells and enter your bloodstream directly. Same thing when you put something under your tongue, like lsd.",
"Substances pass across mucous membranes lining all our insides. Crushed aspirin under the tongue is recommended for heart attack first aid. Lots of medicines can be taken as suppositories in the rectal cavity. It's also how swallowed medicines in the stomach get into the blood stream so quickly after all, you don't need to wait hours for digestion for a painkiller to take effect.\n\nLots can even travel through the skin. Ibuprofen cream for sore joints and nicotine patches for example. We are not as impermeable as you might imagine!"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
1t20wh
|
why blonde and red hair are so attractive to men.
|
I understand that what someone is attracted to is subjective (for example I love black hair) but why is the love of blonde and red hair so popular? Is there an evolutionary reason?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1t20wh/eli5_why_blonde_and_red_hair_are_so_attractive_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ce3ij84",
"ce3in6p"
],
"score": [
8,
2
],
"text": [
"I believe it is because it's more rare. Just like with the blue and green eyes. If brunettes were scarce, it would be the other way around. But I could be wrong. ",
"I'd imagine both rarity and vibrance, brown and black vs red and yellow. Blonde and Redheads in particular are also associated with lighter skin and striking eyes.\nYou could argue these things strike us as 'healthier' or something"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
9s3i2k
|
how do pacemakers know the heart rate needs to increase or decrease to keep the right pace, instead of just being a constant rate?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9s3i2k/eli5_how_do_pacemakers_know_the_heart_rate_needs/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e8lygwu",
"e8lzhbo",
"e8lzn9w",
"e8lzpc7",
"e8m06cw",
"e8mfkwz",
"e8ml59q",
"e8mq3yt"
],
"score": [
314,
5,
35,
3,
4,
2,
111,
4
],
"text": [
"Asked a pacemaker rep this just a few weeks ago. A lot of the older models didn’t change their rate, so patients had to make sure they didn’t exert themselves too much. Sucks, but beats dying. Some people’s hearts still have a natural pacemaker that works, it’s just that the signal isn’t getting to where it needs to go. So the pacemaker picks up that signal, and copies it with implanted wires to where it needs to go. Some people have no working natural pacemaker. So the newer ones can sense increased activity. The rep said it kind of works on the same idea as a Fitbit. When it detects increased activity, it ups the pace. ",
"Some pacemakers detect other factors that are associated with an increase or decrease in heart rate. For instance, if you're physically active (or even angry), your blood pressure increases, and if your heart is working correctly your heart rate also increases. Blood pressure is controlled via smooth muscle surrounding blood vessels and certain modern pacemakers can sense the associated electrical signals telling that muscle to contact and increase heart rate accordingly.\n\nSo not only do they respond to increased physical activity, but they also respond to emotional states.",
"Most pacers are demand pacemakers. Basically they are set at a static rate of 70, and if the heart rate drops below that then they’ll take over and keep the rate steady. However if the heart rate is faster than 70 the pacer doesn’t fire and allows the heart’s natural pacemaker to operate. Most pacers don’t increase their rate with activity, so over exerting can be potentially dangerous. Unless the heart is healthy enough to respond to the body’s chemical triggers and increase to an accelerated rate that takes over for the pacer.",
"Something I can answer!! My Medtronic pacemaker has an accelerometer built in so if running it senses this and can increase the heart rate, unfortunately tapping on it can do the same thing which was unsettling. Luckily for me old Pablo the pacemaker is only actually pacing 0.5% of the time so we just turned off the feature. ",
"Most people with artificial pacemakers still have some native function, meaning the artificial pacemakers is set at 60 bpm, and their own body can go faster with increased activity. The artificial PM is there to prevent syncope or death when the native PM fails. An example of this is Sick Sinus Syndrome. So if they start running, the heart rate will ramp up.\n\nAlternatively, some patients have no native function, either due to their own disease, or because their heart would occasionally beat so fast that the only treatment is to scar up the native pacemaker and put in an artificial one. These people have a pre-set heart rate, usually 70-80 bpm. They can be changed by the device rep when needed. If these people try to run, they have a risk of passing out, since the heart rate won't increase. There may be a bit more stroke volume from increased venous blood return, and perhaps some minor increase in contractility from endogenous adrenalin, but often the big increase in cardiac output is from heart rate.\n\nAlmost every pacemaker I've seen is simply a set rate, or one that senses atrial rate and makes the ventricle contract in response. I have not seen any pacemakers that do auto adjustment based on effort. I have no idea how the device would be able to determine that, since the leads are solely located in the heart.\nSome ventricular pacemakers will sense the atrial rate, and respond to that, but that isn't really what the other poster was implying.",
"I had a friend with a pacemaker. He used to eat molly at festivals pretty regularly back in the day. Probably wasnt his best idea but he seems to be doing really good these days still.",
"Lots of wrongish answers here, so I’ll do my best to answer (I’m a cardiologist so hopefully my opinion is worth something)\n\nThe vast majority of pacemakers are programmed in what we call a demand mode - we set a base rate, and the pacemaker only triggers to make sure you don’t drop below that rate. \n\n\nMost devices these days have an option called rate responsiveness - these use a variety of strategies to get a sense of when you are exercising and need a higher heart rate, when it meets a specific criteria it will increase the base rate. There are two main methods - some companies use accelerometers (I think that’s Medtronic), similar to one in your phone, if it sense you are moving around it triggers a higher rate. Other companies measure “thoracic impedance” - changes in that reflect how hard/fast you are breathing and use that as a marker to up the heart rate.\n\n",
"I have a cardioverter/defibrillator. Mine will pace at 47bpm (my normal resting heart rate is around 56-60). It will also cardiovert (aka shock - think the paddles, but directly attached to my heart) when I get an irregular heart rhythm (most common for me) or when it's going too fast (have walked into the hospital at > 300bpm (360, but who's counting)). It will basically shock me to stop my heart, then shock me to start it up again, and then force pace. It's weird to sit in a chair at the heart function clinic and have a nurse speed up and slow down your heart.\n\nHere's my device\n\nDefib _URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://imgur.com/a/m2MgtFV"
]
] |
||
cl26ed
|
how did the space bar on a keyboard come to exist as such a long key? why haven't newer designs made it any smaller?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cl26ed/eli5_how_did_the_space_bar_on_a_keyboard_come_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"evscmk0",
"evscngg",
"evscxtx"
],
"score": [
2,
14,
9
],
"text": [
"Well, it's probably the key that we hit more than any other, so it's size is to allow us quick access to it from either side of the keyboard. If it was smaller then we'd be more likely to get repetitive strain syndrome as our finger would be constantly returning to the same spot, whereas - as is - there's a certain flexibility of placement.",
"You need to be able to hit it with both thumbs. Plus significant changes in keyboard design are not very likely to happen as a lot of people spend countless hours to learn this layout efficiently.",
"Place your hands on the '[start position](_URL_0_)' to type blind. Both thumbs now touch the space bar on each side, good chance the space bar is just wide enough to fit both thumbs.\n\nAnd that is the second part of the answer: The space bar in fact IS smaller than on earlier keyboard designs. Just look for photos of old typing machines / 80's keyboards / new keyboards and you can see the space bar is now much smaller than a couple of decades ago.\n\nIt just can't get any smaller, it would be a really uncomfortable position for your thumbs. Only option would be two separate space bars with some keys in between. But those keys would be out of a comfortable reach."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"https://www.tckpublishing.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/keyboard-finger-placement.jpg"
]
] |
||
39ueuh
|
why is it when i wear 3d glasses on top of my glasses, it works. but, when i wear my glasses on top of the 3d glasses, it doesn't?
|
Glasses is spelled weird.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39ueuh/eli5_why_is_it_when_i_wear_3d_glasses_on_top_of/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cs6j7lf"
],
"score": [
41
],
"text": [
"3d glasses work using polarized light.\nThe projector shoots light a the screen with two pictures, one using lines that go up and down and the other with lines that go from side to side. The 3d glasses sort the lines, so that your left eye sees only lines that are side to side and your right eye sees only lines that go up and down. That means each eye gets a slightly different picture, the way they would if you were looking at an actual 3d object. That's what fools your brain into thinking the flat screen is 3d. \nYour glasses then bend the light so that it hits your eye with correct focus. To do that well, they have to be the correct distance from your eye. \nPutting your normal glasses outside the 3d glasses likely messes with the distance. Some glasses also have coatings that affect the polarization (the up/down and side-to-side) of light. \nSo you could be looking at 1) a picture that is improperly focused and fails to fool your brain, or 2) a picture where the polarizing effects of your normal glasses ruins the sorting function of the 3d glasses. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1s3ec3
|
what are ham radio operators and are they the same as short wave radio stations?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1s3ec3/eli5_what_are_ham_radio_operators_and_are_they/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cdtifmm"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"HAM = Handheld Amateur Radio (strictly speaking, however, lots of HAM radio equipment is not \"hand-held\").\n\nA HAM radio operator is a licensed amateur radio operator that uses equipment and frequency ranges designated for that purpose.\n\nShortwave refers to radio with a frequency in the range of 1800 to 30000 kHz. HAM radio is allocated to bands of frequencies within this space. The distinction is that a HAM radio is generally a transceiver (sends and receives) while a short-wave radio is strictly a receiver.\n\nHAM radio is mostly a hobby. It includes not only voice transmission, but packet data, weather satellite, and amateur television broadcasting within the allocated spectrum."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3tqb8s
|
hoe does it actually feel to be deaf and what do you see when you are blind?
|
I really wonder about it...
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tqb8s/eli5_hoe_does_it_actually_feel_to_be_deaf_and/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cx8a3qp",
"cx8brio"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"I'm not sure about deafness. Apparently, because they have never experienced the sense of sight, someone who was born blind has eyesight akin to looking out of your armpit.",
"You don't see anything when you are blind, if you could you wouldn't be blind. It's impossible to picture not having a sense, because you have always had it. If sharks were as intelligent as humans it would seem unimaginable that humans can't sense blood in the water, and humans can't sense blood at all. It works the same way with being blind, or deaf. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
95pdoz
|
why is disneyland paris (aka eurodisney) considered a failure by many?
|
I remember enjoying my stay back in 2008 or so, and the park is apparently one of the most popular sites to visit in Europe. Why do people call the place a failure?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/95pdoz/eli5_why_is_disneyland_paris_aka_eurodisney/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e3ueptz",
"e3uig7c",
"e3uyttu"
],
"score": [
6,
13,
3
],
"text": [
"Probably because it’s nowhere near as big as the Florida park and doesn’t really have any big rides. At least not from what I remember but that was nearly 20 years ago now. ",
"With the risk of being rude, but the French are not the best in hospitalty. Many Europeans comment on the lack of courtesy of park staff. Combine this with the American-style over-commercialization (10 of the same stores in a 200m stretch of road), seriously overpriced hotels, rides and food/beverage. \n\nAnother thing is the location: Paris. \nThis means it is at least a 4-5hr drive from the big European population centers like the Ruhr-area, the Dutch Randstad and the UK. I've been there 3 times now for the kids and hardly ever saw French visitors. Kids are grown-ups now and even they do not feel any urge to go back there.\n\nAnd indeed, 1 day is enough to see the whole park twice.",
"[here](_URL_0_) is a good but long video that explains what happened. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"https://youtu.be/SFE8RlKlLCE"
]
] |
|
2ptvn3
|
why does baby food taste so bad?
|
Is it because they can't complain so the manufacturers don't care about the flavour or is it because of specific dietary requirements?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ptvn3/eli5_why_does_baby_food_taste_so_bad/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cmzzhsd",
"cn02ads"
],
"score": [
12,
5
],
"text": [
"\"Taste\" is not a dietary requirement, but baby's still have preferences. They tend to prefer bland tastes...like breast milk.\n\nTaste evolves throughout childhood, which partially explains why children have an insatiable appetite for sugar while their bones are growing and only later tend to fully develop an appetite for vegetables.\n\nNote that some of this is contested and poorly-researched.",
"To some extent baby food may taste bad to you because it has low levels of salt, which means it's quite bland. This is because salt poisoning is a serious risk for infants."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
o1znz
|
why life feels the need to replicate?
|
Why is life pushed to reproduce? What causes all life to want to reproduce, even viruses, which many think aren't even alive?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/o1znz/eli5_why_life_feels_the_need_to_replicate/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c3dr03q",
"c3drlfm",
"c3dsk9c",
"c3dtcgp",
"c3dwdee"
],
"score": [
10,
2,
9,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"The genes for \"really wanting to reproduce and pass on this genes\" would've been passed on a lot quite early on. Genes for not wanting to reproduce don't have much of a chance.",
"You're looking at this question from an anthropocentric point of view, assuming that everything has desires. It's really a philosophical question that cannot be answered in an intrinsically \"correct\" way. Personally I just take it for granted as a perceived phenomenon. It's kinda like asking why the goal of chess is to capture the opponent's king, that's just how the game is played.",
"Because all the life that *didn't* replicate, isn't around any more. So if there is any tiny little variation that makes some life replicate more (for instance, \"wanting to\", as we feel it) then that variation would get more and more replicated.",
"You need to look at this from nature's perspective and not the life's perspective. \nWhen we see reproduction from life's point of view it seems like we reproduce because we want and need to. \nIf we look from nature's point of view it looks like life reproduces because that is how it works. \nSo we do not reproduce because we want to and need to. We want and need to because we reproduce. \n\nEDIT: This [TED talk](_URL_0_) explains not only why we think something is sexy, but also explains why we think some food is sweet, why babies are cute and why jokes are funny.",
"The living things that had a strong desire to reproduce, reproduced more than the living things that didn't have a strong desire to reproduce, thus, that mutation became a default behavior in all living things. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_cute_sexy_sweet_funny.html"
],
[]
] |
|
529av7
|
why do our eyes have a blind spot?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/529av7/eli5_why_do_our_eyes_have_a_blind_spot/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d7ie7se",
"d7immey"
],
"score": [
4,
2
],
"text": [
"As someone else mentioned it is because there is a bundle of nerve fibers at the back of the eye which is required for the eyes to transmit information to the brain. Since there are no 'rods' or 'cones' (the cells responsible for collecting visual information) at this junction there is a blind spot. \n\nHowever the interesting thing about this I think is not the fact that there is a blind spot, but that it's very difficult to notice. You don't notice the blind spot normally unless you go looking for it because the brain automatically fills in the empty space with what it expects to see.\n\nFor example, if you stare at an orange wall, you don't see a black spot on the wall corresponding to the blind spot (or you shouldn't if you are healthy). That spot will be filled with orange to match the rest of the wall because that's what the brain expects to see. So in order to find the blind spot you actually have to go looking for it because the brain actively conceals it. Neat! :)",
"In the back if your eye where all if your photoreceptors are (rods and cones) there is an empty spot in which there are no rods or cones. This is due to the optical nerve which takes the information collected by your photoreceptors and transmits it to your brain. People have said that its hard to see as your brain fills in the lack of data with what it thinks would belong there which is complete bologna. Each of your eyes can see and gather the information the other misses in the blind spot. If you hold your finger in front of one eye it becomes almost transparent as your other eye can still see and gather the information. This is why you cant see it without actively trying to. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
39jd42
|
how come when i cook things like pizza rolls in the microwave, some come out cold and some hot?
|
What causes this exactly?
To give a better example, I cooked 15 for 1:40 and half of them came out cold while others came out hot enough to make me wanna drop it (definitely not Luke warm)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39jd42/eli5_how_come_when_i_cook_things_like_pizza_rolls/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cs3vo2p"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"does your microwave have a rotating tray? If you didnt use it, you will get cold spots. (microwaves have a comparitively large wavelenth, the grid on the door is completely opaque to them).\n\nIf you did use the rotating tray, then your microwave has cold spots larger than it should. Try cleaning it out first to see if stuff on the sides is affecting the reflections of the microwaves. If not, then you microwave may just be getting old.\n\nAlso, keep things away from the center of rotation, as close to the center, it will experiance those conditions for the whole time, while things on the outside (assuming the microwave is properly functioning) will get a more averaged out exposure."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
244sqt
|
if the united states in so much debt, why do we get involved in foreign affairs?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/244sqt/eli5_if_the_united_states_in_so_much_debt_why_do/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ch3kyin",
"ch3l01e",
"ch3lc5x"
],
"score": [
4,
5,
2
],
"text": [
"The world has a cycle of debt.\nDebt is an illusion.\nWorld affairs are delicate, and take participation from everyone.",
"Surprisingly, we're not as in debt as you might think. The biggest holder of U.S. debt is actually U.S. citizens and corporations. And for every dollar of our debt that is held by a foreign interest, we hold about 89 cents of foreign debt. So, it really isn't as big an issue as you might think. And becoming isolationist would have massive implications; we would have to produce more or less everything in-country (pretty much no coffee, no chocolate, a lot less oil, etc.). I'm not saying it can't be done, or shouldn't, I'm just saying that it's a lot more complex than \"Just pay off our foreign debt and be done with it\".",
"Debt is inevitable. The US has a lot of debt because it is a large nation. If you compare external debt per capita the US isn't too bad compared to other Western powers (UK, Germany, France are all higher (UK has treble the US)). If the US took an isolationist policy it would probably be bad for their economy, and their ideology that they have spent decades protecting/promoting would be greatly threatened by the likes of Russia and China. Plus lobbyists for the US government pressure the government to get involved in foreign affairs because they have corporate interests abroad. The world is more interconnected and inter reliant than ever and it is inevitable that a large nation like the US will get involved in foreign affairs."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1wb1sz
|
the superbowl and "the big game"
|
In certain circumstances, one cannot say, "Superbowl" and must substitute "Big Game," I'm guessing for licensing reasons. When did this start? Does it really matter if a bar has a superbowl party or big game party? In the end it's all the same. Will I not be able to say, "World Series," or "Daytona 500" in the near future?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wb1sz/eli5the_superbowl_and_the_big_game/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cf0ajjt"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"You, as a noncommercial entity, can say whatever you want.\n\nYour business, as a commercial entity, has to pay a licensing fee to the NFL to use their trademarked term in promotional material. They do this to protect the sponsors, who pay millions of dollars for the privilege of being able to use the term."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1s0mr7
|
where is the catch in the "free one-day delivery with amazon prime"?
|
Can you actually get 1 day deliveries for 30 days without paying anything just setting up for the trial? How does this work out for amazon? Is there some details that I'm not seeing on this thing?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1s0mr7/eli5_where_is_the_catch_in_the_free_oneday/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cdsqtnq",
"cdss3an",
"cdssc8y"
],
"score": [
7,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"It was a temporary sale, used to get people interested. It doesn't actually work out for Amazon.\n\nNow, the *two* day shipping that Amazon Prime normally offers just isn't all that expensive for Amazon to do.",
"The catch is that you will most likely end up buying things you probably wouldn't have bought if you had to pay for shipping.",
"The other sort-of-catch is that Amazon uses third party shipping companies for Prime deliveries. Some are excellent and basically deliver with the same speed and efficiency as FedEx or UPS. Others are TERRIBLE. There are a couple of especially unscrupulous delivery companies in my area (southern Arizona) that will outright lie about making deliveries, take up to a week or more for a 2-day delivery, break packages, deliver them to the wrong house, etc. All of the above have happened to me. Amazon is super apologetic about it, and you can find a ton of threads on their help forums about various delivery companies. At the same time, it must be in their financial best interest to remain contracted to these companies, because they never seem to change their policies. I love Prime in principal, but this shipping problem has been a major turn-off for me."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
nwvbp
|
why incandescent lightbulbs are bad. and cfl bulbs are good.
|
Somebody just showed me this video: _URL_0_ and I'm very skeptical of it. I thought compact fluorescent light bulbs were good to save money on energy. Are they still subsidized *that* much today?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nwvbp/eli5_why_incandescent_lightbulbs_are_bad_and_cfl/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c3ckt9p",
"c3cn9h7",
"c3co0d3",
"c3ckt9p",
"c3cn9h7",
"c3co0d3"
],
"score": [
5,
3,
2,
5,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"I can't find anything showing how much CFLs are still subsidized (if at all) by the government. Everything recent-ish that references CFL subsidies talk about the power companies themselves subsidizing them.\n\nAlso, the video is misleading about at least one thing: incandescent bulbs are not being completely banned. There are many categories of incandescent bulbs that aren't affected at all, and the ones that are are only banned by wattage. So, if a company comes up with a more efficient incandescent bulb (and companies are doing exactly that), they are free to sell them. \n\nThe video's assertion that incandescent bulbs are being banned is akin to saying that cars are being banned because the government mandates better MPG ratings.",
"You ever seen an Easy Bake Oven? That uses a 100W bulb to cook little cakes. This is great if you want to cook cakes but all that heat is a big waste if you just want to light a room. You can't cook cakes with a CFL bulb.",
"Interesting thing about CLF vs Incandescent though is that CFL bulbs don't like to be turned off and on a lot. As a result, it can actually be more efficient to use incandescent bulbs in things like public bathrooms where the lights get turned off and on a lot. ",
"I can't find anything showing how much CFLs are still subsidized (if at all) by the government. Everything recent-ish that references CFL subsidies talk about the power companies themselves subsidizing them.\n\nAlso, the video is misleading about at least one thing: incandescent bulbs are not being completely banned. There are many categories of incandescent bulbs that aren't affected at all, and the ones that are are only banned by wattage. So, if a company comes up with a more efficient incandescent bulb (and companies are doing exactly that), they are free to sell them. \n\nThe video's assertion that incandescent bulbs are being banned is akin to saying that cars are being banned because the government mandates better MPG ratings.",
"You ever seen an Easy Bake Oven? That uses a 100W bulb to cook little cakes. This is great if you want to cook cakes but all that heat is a big waste if you just want to light a room. You can't cook cakes with a CFL bulb.",
"Interesting thing about CLF vs Incandescent though is that CFL bulbs don't like to be turned off and on a lot. As a result, it can actually be more efficient to use incandescent bulbs in things like public bathrooms where the lights get turned off and on a lot. "
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://youtu.be/ta2ozf_uJJ8"
] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
lesvq
|
the kansas-nebraska act of 1854
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/lesvq/eli5_the_kansasnebraska_act_of_1854/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c2s3xip",
"c2s3xip"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"This sounds suspiciously like homework, and there's a great and very readable wikipedia article on this subject. \n\n_URL_0_",
"This sounds suspiciously like homework, and there's a great and very readable wikipedia article on this subject. \n\n_URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas-Nebraska_Act"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas-Nebraska_Act"
]
] |
||
1s0psj
|
if digital things are coded in binary, is it possible to code in binary to create something?
|
so I was thinking today when you save a picture it is saved in binary, 0 and 1. A picture with all its unique features is written in 0 and 1's. Does that mean that only getting the code can I type it out line by line on a seperate computer and get the same picture?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1s0psj/eli5_if_digital_things_are_coded_in_binary_is_it/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cdsrfad",
"cdsrfbe",
"cdsrgso"
],
"score": [
3,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"You can, but it's extremely difficult and time consuming. One wrong bit and the whole thing is screwed-up. ",
"Certainly. it is just incredibly tedious.",
"Theoretically yes. You couldn't just type it into notepad or some plain text editor, though, because then when you saved it you would be saving an ASCII text file. In other words, each 0 would actually be saved as 00110000 (the ASCII encoding of the character 0) and each 1 would be 00110001. You would need a program that would save the 0s and 1s you type in that binary format. Such a program may exist, but that's not something anyone would normally need to do, so maybe not. The closest thing I know of would be something like a hex editor program."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
5khjub
|
if you dip the tip of a napkin in water, why does water slowly travel up the napkin ?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5khjub/eli5_if_you_dip_the_tip_of_a_napkin_in_water_why/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dbo00it",
"dbo68ef"
],
"score": [
2,
5
],
"text": [
"It occurs because of intermolecular attractive forces between the liquid and solid surrounding surfaces. If the diameter of the tube is sufficiently small, then the combination of surface tension (which is caused by cohesion within the liquid) and adhesive forces between the liquid and the container act to lift the liquid.\n\nSource: Boundless. “Surface Tension and Capillary Action.” Boundless Physics Boundless, 26 May. 2016. Retrieved 27 Dec. 2016 from _URL_0_",
"it's the capillary effect. \nThink of your napkin as a series of tube, tunnel at the microscopic level. Because of the interaction between the liquid and the tunnel material(I will come back with this later), the water will slowly follow the the tunnel to the other end.\nOk, so now it's about the interaction I have mentioned above. There's one force called \"Surface tension\" in ALL kind of liquid. This force tends to minimize the area of the liquid exposed to other material. Imagine a molecule of water in the center of the pool, it has equal force all around it, so the net force is zero (by other water molecule). But in the surface, especially at the edge where it touches the solid and air, the total force is no longer equal to zero, the molecule will 'react' by 'calling' more molecule to fill in the space. That's why you see the edge of the water surface is a little bit higher.\nIn case of liquid like mercury, it's the reverse case. The liquid level will be lowered in the capillary, because the intermolecular force works in different way with them.\nIt's notable that the phenomenom with the napkin is precisely the same(but not all the way) how trees deliver water. The highest level of water can reach is equal to the atmosphere pressure."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.boundless.com/physics/textbooks/boundless-physics-textbook/fluids-10/cohesion-and-adhesion-94/surface-tension-and-capillary-action-347-6310/"
],
[]
] |
||
d7z133
|
how did the louis slotin criticality accident actually cause radiation release?
|
I read a bit on radiation and criticality, so I have some familiarity with that. I was reading about the details of the criticality accident. From what I understand, he was trying to place a neutron reflector on top of the demon core, and kept it apart only with a screwdriver wedged between the two reflector halves. The screwdriver slipped, the reflector made contact with the core, and radiation was released.
My question is, was it the physical contact of the reflector that caused the radiation to be released? How? From what I understand, reflectors speed up fission kind of how a potato cooks faster when wrapped in foil. Is it really all that it takes to cause nuclear fission, and not some elaborate bomb or reactor mechanism?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d7z133/eli5_how_did_the_louis_slotin_criticality/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f161jbn",
"f16irsh"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
" > My question is, was it the physical contact of the reflector that caused the radiation to be released?\n\nNo, it was the geometry of the reflectors. With the two half-sphere reflectors slightly separated the core was sub-critical, because too many neutrons escaped for a chain reaction to take place. When the two reflectors completely encased the core they reflected enough neutrons back to cause the core to become a critical mass, and a brief but intense power excursion resulted.\n\nAfter a few seconds the heating of the core caused it to expand enough to drop below the criticality threshold again. That's why it wasn't a bomb. To get a nuclear detonation you have to force a supercritical mass by violently compressing fissile material.",
"Nuclear fission is caused by neutrons breaking apart uranium and/or plutonium atoms — creating atoms of lighter elements and generating a couple more neutrons in the process.\n\nThe key to a nuclear chain reaction is convincing those two neutrons to break apart another atom each, which release another two neutrons, and on it goes.\n\nWhen this happens, the mass has gone ‘critical.’ \n\nWhen you have a ball of subcritical plutonium, most of the neutrons just end up flying out into space. When you introduce a neutron reflector, those neutrons bounce back into the mass to cause more fission.\n\nIn a nuclear reactor fission is managed by retractable neutron-absorbing control rods that keep the reaction from racing out of control.\n\nWhen Slotin’s reflector slipped and fell on the plutonium pit, the reaction raced out of control and showered the surrounding area with neutrons. If the reflector hadn’t been removed, the pit probably would have heated to the point of melting. \n\nAn atomic bomb is little more than a bunch of high explosives that crush a subcritical mass into a supercritical mass — the plutonium (or uranium) atoms are shoved so close together the nuclear chain reaction builds exponentially to the point where the energy is explosively released in a matter of microseconds. \n\nThe amazing thing about such short timescales is that weapons designers add things like heavy metal tampers designed to contain the exploding reaction for just a few millionths of a second — long enough to get one or two extra neutron generations in and amplify the explosion by several orders of magnitude."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
5uk55i
|
how do people know whether it is safe or unsafe to microwave the plastic containers that are used with frozen food products (i.e. lean cuisine
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5uk55i/eli5_how_do_people_know_whether_it_is_safe_or/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ddun8rb"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Read the packaging. If it has instructions for microwaving, follow them. If it doesn't, don't microwave the package.\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
273n0n
|
rare earth elements. their importance and use in electronics.
|
What are they used for in electronics? What unique properties do they have? Are they really rare?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/273n0n/eli5_rare_earth_elements_their_importance_and_use/
|
{
"a_id": [
"chx6jh4"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"I did some research on this and how they are used specifically in the new iPhone 5/5S. Apple gets most of its earth metals from Inner Mongolia, where the rare metals are easily accessible and abundant. The **color and outer shell** of newer iPhone’s comes from a combination of rare elements found mostly in Inner Mongolia, such as yttrium, lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, and dysprosium, all metallic and malleable, perfect for producing the iPhone’s outer shell; the **glass polishing**, which has elements lanthanum, cerium, and praseodymium; the **speakers**, which are made with elements terbium, praseodymium, neodymium, and gadolinium; the **vibrating unit** contains neodymium and terbium; and iPhone’s **circuitry** requires lanthanum, praseodymium, neodymium, gadolinium, and dysprosium. The reason for these being built in Inner Mongolia, while also cheaper and faster labor than most other places, is that Inner Mongolia and China have 90% of rare-earth minerals, while the rest of the world has the other 10%."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
2a3ycs
|
how come plants can grow in the wild just fine, but take fertilizer and regular watering to thrive in the garden?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2a3ycs/eli5_how_come_plants_can_grow_in_the_wild_just/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cir9izk",
"ciray8u"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"The plants in our garden are 'asked' to grow in a specific spot, in old used soil with few sources of enrichment. \n\nIn 'the wild' if the growth starts at all, it fails early on poor soil. We don't see all the failures in nature, just success. The failures join with dead bugs, animal excrement and other wild things to become fertilizer. \n\nWater also tends to find equilibrium in the wild. Either nothing grows at all, so the soil erodes and all we see is rocks or sand...or nature balances the soil with water-conserving plants, a few layers of dead plant material (aka 'mulch'), and plants that are efficient for that environment grow there. \nAgain, we don't see the failures much. \n\nIn our gardens, we could use more natural methods to produce plants native to our area, or we have to water the plants we want to unnaturally grow. ",
"All the places that don't have your house plants thriving in the universe? Those are places where the plants don't survive. The places where they do survive? That's the places they thrive. You're trying to artificially create a new thriving place rather than just relying on the natural selection."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
76izjy
|
why is any (even bad) publicity considered good?
|
I understand that having your brand, product or name in the media is beneficial and obviously good publicity helps a lot. But I’ve heard a few people saying “any publicity is good publicity”. With that logic, the publicity could be bad and appear detrimental to a company or person and yet some people still consider that as a good thing as the company/person is staying present in the media.
Sorry if this sounds a bit convoluted, just trying to get my head around it.
Thanks for any clarification on the subject.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/76izjy/eli5_why_is_any_even_bad_publicity_considered_good/
|
{
"a_id": [
"doeb4k7",
"doed226",
"doennjz",
"doeqt4w",
"dofaoa7"
],
"score": [
3,
7,
4,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Best real world application I can think of is youtube drama. See how they lose subs for a while but in the end, end up with more total subs than before? They've gotten more exposure. More people know of them now.\n\nIt's the same as those deals that operate at a loss in stores/fast food joints.",
"Going off what /u/seeasea has already stated, people are dumb. [We have a tendency to be able to recall a name](_URL_1_) but not, necessarily, contextualize it. However, it's been proven that this only works when [the object/person/ect being publicized](_URL_0_) was not previously known. \n\nIn other words, if a company like petco or another major pet food retailer had a huge issue with poisonous dog food, their market share would go way down. However, if some mom and pop store did, then their market share - or sales- would go up because although people could recall the name, they wouldn't be able to associate it, necessarily, with the poisonous dog food. (My apologies to petco! I'm just staring at my animals while I typed this so it was the first thing that came to my mind!)\n\nBasically, if you aren't a household name already, then yes, any publicity is good publicity. However, if you are a household name already, then an opinion of you has probably already been formed and any publicity will affect that opinion. ",
"If someone doesn't know you exist, they will never be a customer. \n\nIf someone learns of your existence via bad publicity and they decide to dislike you, nothing changes, they were never a customer to begin with.\n\nIf a customer decides to no longer be a customer because of bad publicity, that is a negative.\n\nIf someone doesn't care for whatever the publicity is, and becomes a customer after learning about you, that is a positive. \n\nDepending on the nature of the publicity, and the amount of people who didn't know you existed, the increased knowledge of your existence can get you significantly more positives than negatives. ",
"Besides what's already been said, I've seen some people claim that it's not like it's inherently good but that any publicity is an opportunity to do some good publicity mainly with how you respond to the bad publicity, something like \"We know product X was terrible and to apologize everyone who returns it will get twice it's value in shop credit.\" or just using the increased scrutiny to market something.",
"Ask Harvey Weinstein. \n\nBut the Weinstein Company will announce a name change soon. So of course there's bad publicity. All of Weinsteins movies are now toxic. The Weinstein brand is dead. \n\nCompanies like people can stage a comeback. Jack in the Box killed people with taibted beef in the 90s. The company recovered by not killing anymore people or toting its safety measures. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/mksc.1090.0557",
"http://www.journalofadvertisingresearch.com/content/46/2/171"
],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
ax9y0z
|
why do things travel in waves?
|
Sound, electricity etc all travel in waves. What is special About waves?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ax9y0z/eli5_why_do_things_travel_in_waves/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ehs5z7o",
"ehs6dyx",
"ehsn11p"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"im no physicist but i hope this makes sense, imagine the way a snake travels through sand and picture the trail she leaves. it is something similar to how waves transport themselves through space. when you look forward you might see an open space until you see a solid object, however there is matter all around yourself and that is where the waves move around (keep in mind that waves can also move through solid objects). another example, imagine that the space is like sea, just that it doesnt contains water, it contains gases. gases that you might be able or not to see. now, waves move around this \"sea\" carrying energy to another point in space. i think the way a fish swims in the water depics a clear image of how waves move through space imo. however, i might be wrong so dont believe at a 100% what im saying.\n\nedit: to add on this, the reason why everything moves in waves is because waves are the primordial way in which energy is transported, and energy is a vital thing in the way our knowloedge of physics works the way we think it works. ",
"The wave is a simple explanation of a combination of multiple laws/theories in physics. Lemmy see if I can summarize:\n\n1. Energy is never created or destroyed, only transferred. So if a an atom gets extra energy it needs to do something with it. Via transfer it might be expressed as heat, light, or in some cases transferred to other atoms. \n\n2. This newton fellow has a few laws governing physics and objections in/not-in motion. \n\nThe end result is that the physical world tends to naturally have energy transferred from one atom to others via motion, which results in waves. ",
"Things don't only travel in waves. For example, heat dissipation does not look wave-like, but heat still travels through a substance.\n\nWaves are things that travel subject to certain restrictions (like energy being either conserved or damped through predictable friction forces, being continuous in space, and a few others). Everything that is subject to these restrictions ends up having a similar mathematical form (some variant of the [wave equation](_URL_0_)), and because of this they end up being able to support similar wave shapes (the familiar sine wave)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_equation"
]
] |
|
2sv9u8
|
how is drowning not painful?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2sv9u8/eli5_how_is_drowning_not_painful/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cnt5nad",
"cnt5qd0",
"cnt5wfu",
"cnt5x9c",
"cntb2o0",
"cnte74a",
"cnteuw1"
],
"score": [
12,
5,
8,
21,
2,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"How'd you hear that death by drowning is peaceful? Did you get the stories from dead people?",
"drowning is extreamly painful, one of the worst ways to go.",
"As someone who has nearly drown, it was one of the worst feelings i've ever had. I didn't inhale water but broke the surface literally as my body made me open my mouth. It was awful.",
"I've heard quite the opposite, and from experiences where I've had issues coming up for air, I can tell you it is terrifying. Your body will struggle like nobody's business. Your adrenaline will pump. I've been spinning out of control in a car at 60 mph and had way more composure then coming up for air and being blocked. ",
"The only person who drowned peacefully was Jack. Titanic - style.",
"Although somewhat misleading, there is \"no pain\" associated with drowning because you don't die from drowning, you die from a lack of oxygen. Think of carbon monoxide poisoning or fighter pilots at high altitudes that lose pressurization (and thus, oxygen) -- they will gradually pass out in these cases and then die from the resultant lack of oxygen, but in both cases, passing out doesn't hurt. Feeling pain requires consciousness, but when you pass out, you have no consciousness. \n\nHowever, the anxiety and terror that happens in the water as you realize you're about to drown is very real. Drowning is simply a form of suffocation, and that is a bad way to go. \n\nInteresting side note: you generally don't breathe in water to your lungs when you drown. The body reflexively closes the esophagus as a response to the water. ",
"As a grownup who almost drowned as a child, I concur with the stereotype. The first breath of water was and is something I would never wish on another person. After that, though? It was so damned peaceful. Looking up at the shimmering water, with sunlight dancing up on it, remains one of my most powerful memories. The human body has ways of silencing the struggle when it determines that the fight is lost. \n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
ep5ez6
|
why is it common for sports teams to regularly fired their coaches/managers in a very public way? and then these same people get hired elsewhere? i don’t understand the public revolving door.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ep5ez6/eli5_why_is_it_common_for_sports_teams_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"feh6jca",
"feh6sod",
"fehaqm1",
"feheirm"
],
"score": [
6,
3,
7,
2
],
"text": [
"Fans don't like losing. When they say \"What are you going to do about losing?\" the team leadership likes to say \"We fired the coach, and that's going to make it better\".\n\nAt the same time, insiders realize that the coach isn't why teams win or lose, and to find a new coach it's very helpful to have direct experience in the job, so other teams hire the fired coach.",
"Just because a coach is performing poorly at one team or in a certain league does not mean they will perform poorly elsewhere. And vice versa. So a coach fired from one team for poor performance may go elsewhere and win them the title. There are also other reasons like a coach's attitude and approach. Especially for someone like Mourinho from the different football leagues. He has coached teams in different leagues and tends to get good results but he has been known to have attitude issues and causes friction in the team. Thus he doesn't have a long shelf life at most of the teams he has been with. However he is well sought after for the results he can provide. \n\nMost of the time the public firings are done to appease fans as a way of the team management showing that changes are being made. Or a way of publicly having someone take the blame for the poor performance. Many other factors go into a teams performance and the coach is a key factor and also one of the most public factors.",
"* A coach is a high profile position. Even if a coach were fired privately (whatever that means), you'd have a million reports speculating and badgering the team for answers, better to answer all the questions once and move on.\n* Coaching at the professional level is a pretty rare talent, not many people can do it at all, much less well, so anyone who shows basic competency will have opportunities.\n* Different coaches have different abilities, some excel at taking a bad team and making them good, others get the most out of a good team and win championships. Teams in different situations need different kinds of coaches.\n* Good coaches avoid messed up teams. If you have a meddling owner or a cheap owner, many coaches will pass, giving opportunities to the retreads. \n* Once owners, players, and fans lose faith in a coach, it becomes difficult for them to make the sort of changes required to reestablish it. GMs and players starting thinking about their own jobs as much as the coach's, and a good coach can find themselves in a bad situation with no way out.\n* Coaches have to work with GMs and owners and often have disagreements about how to go forward. If ownership believes in a star player but the coach does not, it is probably in everyone's best interest to find a new coach.\n* For owners, making money is more important than winning. If a team is doing badly, fans lose interest if it doesn't look like changes are being made, a new coach reassures them.",
"Depending on the rules of the league, players are contracted for a certain number of years with a certain amount of money guaranteed. If your star player isn't performing well, you still may need to pay him $15 million per year for the next few years unless you can arrange a trade. If you bench him, he still gets paid.\n\nSometimes, the problem isn't with the players themselves but how they're being used. This falls on the coaching staff. Other times, firing the coach can give the players a bit of a shake up and make them realize that they need to perform better.\n\nLike others have said, coaching a high level sports team is a pretty rare job. Only a handful of people have the knowledge and experience to do well in the job and there are only a handful of employers at that level. This means that there's bound to be coaches who get fired from one team, and wind up on a rival team in the same league."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1eo31y
|
why is the word 'paki' considered racist?
|
British - Brits
Scottish - Scots
Australians - Aussies
All fine, all considered acceptable.
Why is paki different?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1eo31y/eli5_why_is_the_word_paki_considered_racist/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ca23f1b",
"ca23hp4",
"ca23lp7",
"ca24j74",
"ca258dk"
],
"score": [
6,
3,
11,
6,
2
],
"text": [
"The most important thing to consider when you're addressing someone is whether or not the person you're addressing considers your address offensive or disrespectful. \n\nI wouldn't come up to you and say \"Whats up cocksocket\" because it's pretty likely you would view that to be a negative way, even if I meant it in a friendly way. \n\nIf one is going to bother with communicating, it 'sin all parties' best interest to have a certain respect. One assumes that the whole purpose of speaking or writing with someone is to express a point or to share something or otherwise engage with that person. You can't accomplish those things if you're going to show that person you're inconsiderate from the get-go by calling them something they'd rather not be called.\n\nEdit: Also, the examples you listed are all considered to be of a fair-skinned variety. Having nicknames for brown folk seems to be generally frowned upon.",
"It's about connotation and context. When you call someone a Brit or an Aussie, you're not saying it in a derogatory way - or at least society hasn't deemed those words to be offensive.\n\n When you call someone a \"Paki\" it's almost always used in a derogatory way. This may sound circular - it's offensive because it's used offensively - but thats just how it is. All words get their meaning from their use.\n\n",
"emancipat3 is absolutely right that what matters is how the person being called it thinks. That cannot be over stated.\n\nI think there are other things going on too.\n\nPaki is racist because it was used in the past in a racist way. \n\nI am from the US so if someone wanted to they could call me an Ameri. I wouldn't care because I haven't ever heard that before. It wouldn't be racist. \n\nBut lets say I go to Gonivia (not a real place) and everyone there hates people from the US. Gonivia calls everyone from the US Ameris. They call everyone who looks like they might be from the US Ameris. They use it to let me know that I am not as good as them. When they see a new person from the US they make assumptions and think, 'Oh. He is just and Ameri. He must be stupid.' They don't wait to talk to the new person and find out if he is smart or nice. They just assume. \n\nIn this case Ameri wasn't a racist word until some people used it to show their racism. Once that happens it is like emancipat3 says, someone thinks it is disrespectful.\n\nPaki is the same way. It was used to put down people who are from (or look like they are from) the Indian subcontinent (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and so on). Now that they did that many feel like it is used to disrespect those people. There is no good reason to keep using it unless you mean disrespect so when you use the word Paki it looks like you are choosing to disrespect those people. ",
"Unlike many of the other -stans, Pakistan is a made up word. Uzbekistan means the land of the Uzbeki people. But Pakistan was simply the part of India with a Muslim majority. It didn't have a single dominant ethnicity. There was no single people to name the country after.\n\nIt was made up of:\n\n**P** unjabs\n\n**A** fganis\n\n**K** ashmiris\n\n**I** ranians\n\n**S** indhs\n\n**T** ukharis\n\n**B** alochistan\n\nDrop the B and the names formed an acronym. This was first coined by British activists in the 1930s. The fact the Pak means spiritual, pure or clean in several local languages probably didn't hurt adoption of the new name. Calling your country the land of the spiritual, clean, and pure sounds nice.\n\nMove forward a few decades. The UK had a liberal immigration policy for commonwealth countries. And as South Asia had several wars over the decades, a good number of Pakistanis and Indians migrated to the UK... where they were not particularity appreciated by the UK \"rednecks.\" Think of how Mexicans are thought of in the US. \"Paki\" was a word used by the Brits like an American might use \"Beaner\" or \"Wetback.\" It was used for anyone with brownish skin (but not blacks). It was intended as an insult and a put down and was understood as such. Clearly racist.\n\nIn the US however it was not considered a racist epithet. Interestingly enough it also isn't considered racist in Pakistan. And one can still find it as part of a lot of business names and the like.\n\nNow that we have the internet however, a lot of people who encountered it in the UK are seeing/hearing it online, frequently by people who had no idea it was considered racist. They then call it out. And slowly but surely it is starting to become a racist term in all English speaking countries.",
"People use \"paki\" to mean anyone middle eastern, not just people from Pakistan. That would make it a racial term and not a national one. At least, that's how people use it in Canada. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
4b9gi6
|
why is it that on youtube that someone can get their video taken down for using small clips from a song but others can upload the song in their entirety and the video doesn't get taken down?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4b9gi6/eli5_why_is_it_that_on_youtube_that_someone_can/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d1757it",
"d177d0w",
"d17a1bq",
"d17big2",
"d17juk4"
],
"score": [
24,
22,
6,
12,
2
],
"text": [
"If the video is monetized, the funds are shared with the artist of the song and the creator of the video with the full song. If it isn't monetized, youtube mutes the video. ",
"Because : YouTube \n\nIt's like an episode of Who's Line Is It Anyway.... The rules and made up and no one follows them anyway. ",
"As i understand it, If you are affiliated with a youtube multi-channel network it exempts you from the usual automatic copyrighted content system youtube uses. An example of one of these is [Machinima](_URL_0_)",
"Youtube detects the songs used in videos gives song artists control over what happens. They can allow the video to remain up and receive a portion of the revenue, optionally display ads, etc. They also have the ability to take down videos that use their music. \n\nMore info here:\n_URL_0_",
"People with Youtube uploading experience know how to get around the automated Youtube copyrighted works detection. Either they speed it up slightly, slow it down, cut the ends, or something.\n\nAlso, Youtube has partnered with a lot of labels to automatically scan uploads, but they haven't partnered with everybody, so even if you were to upload an entire raw rip from a CD from a non-affiliated band, it would go through, whereas including 10 seconds of a Sony BMG song would get pulled immediately."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"http://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/carianneking/2015-06-08/youtubes-advertising-sucks-how-machinima-gamers-network-improving"
],
[
"http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/08/youtube-now-tells-you-how-copyrighted-music-will-affect-your-video-before-you-upload-it/"
],
[]
] |
||
5bc97p
|
do android app updates replace or add on, to the existing apk?
|
My apps are always updating with large downloads. Are all these 15-30mb downloads taking up more and more of my memory or do they replace the existing app data space?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5bc97p/eli5_do_android_app_updates_replace_or_add_on_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d9ny8nt"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"For any random app you've installed, yes, it's replaced.\n\nAndroid also bundles some apps on the system partition; this partition is read-only for security reasons and thus it can't remove the old version when installing an update to a bundled app, and it will use some space on your data partition to store the updated app (the update will itself be able to be replaced if another update is downloaded).\n\nHowever as /u/Dumfing previously mentioned google does have a method to send you only the differences between your currently installed version and the new one to reduce download sizes. I'm not too familiar with the exact method they use, but I suspect it's limited to changed files in the apk (apk files are actually zip files containing an uncompressed manifest and java class- and other resource files the app uses, like images)\n\nEdit: accreditation"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
2x6ozg
|
(us) why do i lose 28% of my income to taxes, when i only make a median amount (~50k gross) and am not married and have no dependants?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2x6ozg/eli5_us_why_do_i_lose_28_of_my_income_to_taxes/
|
{
"a_id": [
"coxe0ih",
"coxe2by",
"coxeilf",
"coxgmec",
"coxgyab"
],
"score": [
5,
5,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"You don't lose 28% of your income if you're unmarried, only wages and salaries between $89k and 186k is taxed that high. The first $89k you make is taxed at a different rate.",
"because the government has to pay for stuff like roads, water pipes, defence, education subsidies, welfare payments, parks and all the other things you use every day. that money has to come from somewhere.",
"Looking at the IRS taxtables you will pay $ 8,363 in federal tax on 50K . That's 16%, but you also have social security, local and state and others that will increase it. Maybe that's what you're looking at.",
" > Don't post just to express an opinion or argue a point of view.\n\nThis post has been removed. ELI5 is also not a place to ask for input on your personal financial situation. Try /r/changemyview or /r/personalfinance.",
"How are you being punished? You'd be in a bigger hole if you were married with kids and bringing in that much, financially speaking. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1zztfr
|
why do candy companies include unpopular flavors? [yellow starbursts]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zztfr/eli5_why_do_candy_companies_include_unpopular/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cfygicr",
"cfygqdi",
"cfygxm4",
"cfygzoj"
],
"score": [
13,
4,
19,
7
],
"text": [
"I think people would throw a fit if they got rid of the lemon starburst, surely there are those who like it. Are you seriously going to stop buying starburst because you don't like one flavour in the pack? ",
"Because somebody, somewhere is buying it, assuming the product has been around for a long time, and it's not just a test product that is bound to fail.",
".. Yellow is unpopular? Wow, it's actually my favorite. I would stop buying them if they didn't include it. I can do without orange though.",
"Yellow starbursts are the best, and a lot of people agree. Now, the two worst flavors (of literally *anything*) are Cherry and Grape. Those also seem to be the two most common, so I think your question still works. And I have no idea as to the why of it. Other than if somebody has a package of candy and only likes a few of the contents, they're probably more likely to buy a new package sooner?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
du2lqj
|
why does an increase in entropy decrease the total energy able to do work in a system?
|
So I understand that entropy is a "measure of disorder", and that low entropy means an unlikely state and high entropy means a likely state, but what does all this have to do with thermodynamics and the heat death of the universe?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/du2lqj/eli5_why_does_an_increase_in_entropy_decrease_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f719wbb",
"f71awtg",
"f71azrc",
"f71bqqn"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
2,
7
],
"text": [
"All known methods for using energy within a closed system to do work increases the entropy of that system. \n\nUnless we find a method that doesn't increase entropy or a way to decrease entropy without using energy for work, both of which are things we're almost certain don't exist, entropy and available energy will be inversely proportional.",
"imagine you have a compressed air tank in a sealed chamber. this system is very ordered and has low entropy. in order to do work, you need to release the air. \n\nreleasing the air decreases the pressure in the tank and increases the pressure in the chamber. it also increases entropy. at some point, the room and the tank will have the same pressure and so there is no longer a way to do work in the chamber. \n\nthis is the heat death of the universe. stars eventually spend all their fuel and go dark, black holes evaporate (it's complicated), and so on. at the end of the universe, everything everywhere will be the same, so no work can be done.",
"Here's an example: You've got a closed system, let's say a big box full of gas. The gas molecules are all in one half of the room. You can use the movement of those gas molecules over into the empty side of the box to do work. But as they do so, the total entropy of the box increases. Once there is a roughly equal number of molecules on both sides, you can't get any more work out of the system.",
"All matter wants to be in the lowest possible energy state it can be. This is achieved by giving off energy to its less energetic surroundings until an equilibrium is reached. This is called an increase in entropy.\n\nFor example: a pot of boiling water left in a room will cool down until it has the same energy (as in temperature) as everything around it. This is the maximum entropy for this system (the room with the pot).\n\nNow anywhere where work is done energy is released from a high energy source until some equilibrium is reached. For example: a hydroelectric power plant produces energy by letting water flow from high up (high potential energy) down past a turbine until no more water is high up (an equilibrium is reached).\n\nThe same principles apply to everything from car engines to batteries.\n\n\nThe heat death of the universe is a theory that speculates that at some point entropy will reach its maximum and so no more work can be done. This means generating heat and moving stuff as well as everything else that requires energy (chemical processes for example). \n\nLiterally, nothing will happen anymore.\n\n\nEdit: I thought about an analogy:\n\nImagine you had a tub of sand. The individual grains represent atoms and the tub they are in is our universe. Now you bury a bunch of firecrackers and light them. They are going to pop and release heat/energy and make the grains bounce around. But at some point, all the bouncing grains will have come to rest and there will be no more energy input. So the individual grains are still there, there is just nothing happening anymore."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
6lwa95
|
why are customs duties so high when you ship a package across borders even though the two countries have a free trade agreement.
|
Is there a different rate when shipping single items compared to if you import stuff in bulk for a business?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6lwa95/eli5_why_are_customs_duties_so_high_when_you_ship/
|
{
"a_id": [
"djx370j",
"djxcjuj"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"What countries do you have in mind?\nTypically, if there is a free trade agreement, no custom duties will be levied.\nThis is the case, for example, in the EU.\n",
"\"Free trade\" agreements usually aren't. In practical terms, free trade is a spectrum. These agreements make trade *freer* than it would be without the agreement, but there generally still restrictions, and some goods will avoid tariffs and customs duties and other restrictions, while others won't."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
22kf45
|
how come youtube can't/won't update the view count of a video as i'm on the page?
|
Why do I need to refresh to see the most current amount of people who have watched the video? In other words a real-time view counter.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22kf45/eli5_how_come_youtube_cantwont_update_the_view/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cgnokf6"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"It is possible to do something like that, but much more technically complicated.\n\n**How the current system works**\n\nWhen you submit a GET request to the page, the code running on the web server queries the database to find out how many views the video has. This is then added to the HTML code and returned to you. The query occurs once when the GET request is sent and processed by the web server.\n\n**How a live update system would work**\n\nThe web server would need to establish a publish/subscribe pattern with the JavaScript on the client side. The JavaScript client side would \"subscribe\" to updates on the view count from the web server. Basically, any time an update is \"published\" from the server, the JavaScript would automatically update the view count on the page. \n\nOn the web server side, it would run a query to find the current view count on an interval (every few seconds probably), and \"publish\" that new view count. Any clients subscribed to that would receive that update and update the HTML on the page (Using JQuery or something).\n\n--\n\nBasically, YouTube has opted to go the easy route and use a traditional query-on-GET system."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
63jbio
|
why is it so hard to defrost car windows in the morning, and what's the best and most efficient way to get by this problem?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/63jbio/eli5_why_is_it_so_hard_to_defrost_car_windows_in/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dful7an"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"It's not hard, it just takes time to heat the windshield enough to melt the ice. You can prevent this by putting a large sheet of cardboard over your windshield when you park in the evening, this will prevent frost from even developing during the night"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2hmv0z
|
what made baseball caps so popular around the world?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hmv0z/eli5what_made_baseball_caps_so_popular_around_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cku4oza"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"I'd assume because they are relatively cheap to make, provide good shade, but also western and middle class."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
6sdf0w
|
please explain the difference between getting my oil changed and buying oil and adding it in?
|
So for example I have to check if my oil is low in my car, and add oil if it is. So since that oil is new, why would I have to get my oil changed?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6sdf0w/eli5_please_explain_the_difference_between/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dlbu2p8",
"dlbu6mc",
"dlbucau"
],
"score": [
5,
3,
23
],
"text": [
"Oil isnt consumned like gasoline it will lose its ability to lubricate well and get all sticky and sludgy... Adding more fresh oil will help lubricate the system but you still have all of that gunk that needs to be removed",
"Oil loses it's viscosity after exposure to heat and pressure due to combustion. Eventually, oil will become thin and not lubricate sufficiently. The oil filter also needs to be replaced at regular intervals to insure particles suspended in oil are removed and don't collect. ",
" > So since that oil is new, why would I have to get my oil changed?\n\nOil can be burned off but it also wears out. Old oil with bits of metal dust, burt oil leavings, etc. can build up within the oil still within your car. That needs to be cleaned out and the way to do that is drain out all the old oil then add new stuff in.\n\nImagine if you took a bath every day, but only ever replaced the water you lost every time you got in and out. That water would get really nasty fairly quickly wouldn't it?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1crpoa
|
courtroom illustrators
|
Why do we still need them? Why where they there in the first place? Is it just a formality now? Aren't they obsolete?
Thanks!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1crpoa/eli5_courtroom_illustrators/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c9jbq0u",
"c9jbww9"
],
"score": [
4,
9
],
"text": [
"In some cases, cameras and video cameras are not allowed. This is simply why the courtoom illustrators are there.",
"The rationale behind the prohibition on audio/video recordings and photography of courtroom proceedings is that it may encourage some parties to \"play to the cameras\" instead of focusing on the case. There is also a concern that such recordings and photographs would be edited and republished by the media, and that this could affect the outcome of the trial and/or undermine faith in the judicial system."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
eo1ngq
|
how exactly can something be considered "self-aware"?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eo1ngq/eli5_how_exactly_can_something_be_considered/
|
{
"a_id": [
"fe6ylkq"
],
"score": [
10
],
"text": [
"Without getting super philosophical - the ability to determine one's self. Easiest test is a mirror. If the subject realizes they are in the mirror then they are self aware"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
5yfzm3
|
if wikileaks is a threat to corruption/collusion in developed countries, how is it still up or not constantly attacked?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5yfzm3/eli5_if_wikileaks_is_a_threat_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"depp5my",
"depr090",
"deprwys",
"depudno",
"depvmxu",
"depw7uf"
],
"score": [
40,
25,
7,
3,
3,
3
],
"text": [
"A DDOS attack works by bombarding a website with so many commands that it has to shut itself down. It's effective if you have enough computers to do it, but the bigger the site, the more computers it takes to shut it down. It's also illegal to do a DDOS.\n\nIt would be difficult for a government to do that without getting caught(especially when fighting a website who's entire shtick is revealing government secrets), and if the people found out that they were attacking a site like that, it would be seen as a sign of tyranny, which is bad for any government that calls itself a free country.\n\nTL;DR, DDOS attacks are hard for governments to organize, and a more efficient solution would be to just find the guy leaking information and fire him.",
"Wikileaks has faced a great deal of strident opposition in its past. I very much suggest reading on what happened to Assange and Wikileaks after the release of the Collateral Murder video and the Afghan and Iraq War Logs during the Bush administration.\n\nAll the major credit card companies blacklisted them for donations, the US targeted Assange for prosecution even though he's not a US citizen, and Wikileaks' website came under attack for a time, resulting in hundreds of people setting up Wikileaks mirrors to keep the content they shared online. \n\nThat's why Assange is hasn't been able to leave the Ecuadorian embassy for 5 years, because of a contrived and completely fake criminal complaint intended to get him ultimately extradited to the US\n\nOf course, this was back when the left liked Wikileaks because the evil being done by a Republican administration was being exposed, and rightly so.\n\nPolitical partisanship is one hell of a drug that causes people not to care about what was done, but by whom. ",
"It's highly probable that wikileaks is a part of what traditionally was called[\"COINTELPRO\"](_URL_0_).\n\nSince the latest release showed us that the CIA could get into ANYTHING since 2003, then clearly this is being allowed to happen. ",
"It would be pointless, since the information is already out there. If WikiLeaks is somehow taken down, there are mirror websites that host the same info.",
"Wiki is a decentralized Org. They use Encryption VPNs and Proxies making it difficult for authorities to track. A DDOS attack is not going to take a website down permanently and Wiki has many avenues to distribute information. ",
"Wikileaks also has a \"dead man's switch\" in the form of a large encrypted file that anyone can download. If something bad happens to Julian Assange, the dead man's switch is triggered and the password to decrypt the file is released allowing everyone with the file to read whatever damning secrets it holds. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO"
],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1rst1u
|
when i added sugar to microwave-boiled milk, it sort of exploded! what just happened?
|
I boiled some milk in a mug in my microwave. It was perfectly alright when I took it out, some bubbling and it was piping hot. I poured a teaspoon of sugar in it, and it sort of exploded. Well, not really an explosion, but a milder version of the Mentos in Coke experiment. About 3/4 of the milk poured out of the mug.
What just happened?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rst1u/eli5when_i_added_sugar_to_microwaveboiled_milk_it/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cdqiabv"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Mythbusters covered almost exactly this phenomena: _URL_0_\n\nTL;DR: water heats to boiling, but does not have time to bubble until bumped, at which point it explodes(more or less)\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_OXM4mr_i0"
]
] |
|
3c36at
|
what is the purpose of an .io website? why do a lot of them host neat games such as _url_0_ or _url_1_?
|
Also, recommend me some other cool .io multiplayer games, they're all really interesting to me.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3c36at/eli5_what_is_the_purpose_of_an_io_website_why_do/
|
{
"a_id": [
"csrtqzr"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Wikipedia says\n\n > .io is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the British Indian Ocean Territory.\n\nHowever the reason .io is popular among quirky games and programming software (e.g. _URL_0_) is because the io is being taken to represent input/output.\n\nSo .io is nothing more than the domain for an obscure region, but the initials have been taken to mean something else. This is more common than you'd think; for example, .tv is the country domain for Tuvalu, and .me represents Montenegro."
]
}
|
[
"cursors.io",
"agar.io"
] |
[] |
[
[
"github.io"
]
] |
|
1r60wu
|
what happens to cruise ships in hurricanes?
|
I guess I'm just curious... can they just chill in port while the storm surges around them and be fine? Are they too big to capsize? Do they move then if a hurricane is coming?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1r60wu/what_happens_to_cruise_ships_in_hurricanes/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cdjxrul",
"cdjxw52",
"cdjz9sq",
"cdk0rfn",
"cdk470p"
],
"score": [
16,
9,
11,
36,
10
],
"text": [
"The ships will more often than not just go somewhere else when they know a hurricane is coming.",
"Hurricanes are never a surprise. A ship will NOT try to weather the storm. People can be killed if they venture to go on deck to see the storm. Or too many passengers will get sick or slam against a wall in a hurricane. The ship will move to a safer area.",
"[This is what happens](_URL_0_)",
"I went through the eye of a hurricane on a US aircraft carrier just south-east of Florida. It was docked in Mayport and I believe they thought the storm was gong to miss us and we ended up staying in port too long. ( more dangerous in port for a big ship). Once they knew it might hit us we set sail. At one point we headed south to go under it, but we ended up in its path. We had a frigate following us (for breakwater) for awhile until the waves where putting the bridge under water. At some point the captain decided to sail into the eye of the storm where the seas where calm. We sailed in the eye of the hurricane for hours which was very surreal. If you looked up you could see a perfectly round hole in the sky and sun shinning down on us. The water was like glass and there was no waves; very weird. \n\nTowards the edge of the storm, the waves where over 65' and 600-1000' long. It was like we where sailing uphill. It did a ton of damage to the ship (com systems, life boats, acom ladders, etc) and it is the only time you will see the flight deck on a carrier touch the water. \n\nAircraft carriers are some of the largest vessels in the world and they don't fair well in a hurricane. Ships will not stay in port, but instead go out to sea to avoid them. You don't want a ship that large being slammed by 30'-40' waves into the pier. ",
"If a ship is in the ocean, and finds herself in the path of a hurricane/typhoon/cyclone, there is a general procedure to maneuver out of it. \n\nFirst of all, let me explain a bit about the formation and path of the hurricane. Hurricanes form in the Northern Hemisphere in the Atlantic and head west/northwest towards North America. Once hurricanes get to about 20 degrees of latitude, they turn around and head towards Europe. Hurricanes only form north of about 5 degrees of latitude. Anything closer to the equator does not have enough Coriolis force (deflection force cause by the rotation of the Earth) to sustain the hurricane. Winds in the hurricane rotate in an anti-clockwise direction. The speed of the hurricane crossing the ocean increases and decreases the total wind speed of the hurricane. If the winds of the hurricane go in the same direction as its path, the wind speed is higher. It's like if you stick your hand out the car window while driving; the existing wind is amplified by the speed of the car.\n\nA hurricane is split into two hemispheres: the dangerous semi-circle and the navigable semi-circle. In the dangerous semi-circle, the wind goes in the same direction as the path of the hurricane. The dangerous semi-circle is the right side of the hurricane. The navigable semi-circle is where the wind direction and the path counter each other (resulting in less wind). The navigable semi circle is the left side.\n\nIf a ship discovers that she is in the path of the hurricane, there are certain maneuvers that she does. If the ship finds herself in the dangerous semi-circle, she steers with the wind on her starboard bow and steams as fast as she can until she comes clear. If the ship finds herself in the navigable semi-circle, she steam with the wind her stern until she clears. If the ship is in the direct path, then she steams towards the navigable semi-circle. The is the recommended way to sail out of a hurricane. Naturally, the ship will do whatever she can to avoid the hurricane before she gets close, such as sail towards the equator, where the hurricane cannot go."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jup-5Xu1OOU"
],
[],
[]
] |
|
awj2ap
|
how does lowering your heart rate make you heal faster and raising it do the opposite? i.e. sleep
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/awj2ap/eli5_how_does_lowering_your_heart_rate_make_you/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ehn4fru"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Low heartbeat rate won't mean much, unless it's a side-effect of a drug/disease.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nOn a normal day, a low BPM only means that your Ventricles are stronger than the average human's. Although being calm and relaxed, maintaining that BPM will indeed cause healing processes to speed up, but only due to the fact that the body is not trying to compensate for other processes, as in muscle contraction, adrenergic releases, and other reactions, and will only be focusing on healing the wound, or infection, or whatever it is.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nHowever, as stated in previous comments, many athletes and sports-people do have low BPM, but that isn't always healthy. Sometimes, having such a low number might cause cardiac arrest during sleep, requiring reanimation and such.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThat's not an excuse to procrastinate and not exercise, after all, having those extra fibers on your ventricular muscles, specially the left ventricle, will help a lot in other situations, such as stressful scenarios, anxiety moments and overall, when your heart is pounding fast.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nExplanation goes like: By every minute that passes, you will cycle 5 liters of blood through your body using your heart. If your heart is weak, it will beat faster whilst trying to keep up, but it won't really fill that much with blood by every beat, meaning your get less and less oxygen to your body by every second that passes; BUT, when your heart is stronger, it won't need to beat faster since the fibers are longer, meaning extra time until contraction, meaning it can fill better, meaning more blood will be pumped, meaning more oxygen to your head and limbs.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nSo do exercise gents, it's good for y'all"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3mv8g2
|
why hasn't the national guard been called into major cities like chicago after all these years of shootings?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mv8g2/eli5why_hasnt_the_national_guard_been_called_into/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cvie0l2",
"cvie5zt",
"cviek0n"
],
"score": [
8,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Called in to do what exactly? Like, occupy the city?\n\nIt's not like there's a riot going on in the city every day. Violence happens all over the place and is very diffuse. Unless you wanted to put the city under a pseudo-military occupation, the national guard can't do much that police can't do already.",
"Because the National Guard are not police and those doing the shooting are not an invading army.\n\nIt's a pretty serious invasion of a states rights to send in the national guard and is only done in the most extreme situations and usually (maybe always) at the request of the state themselves.\n\nBut more than that the national guard is not equipped to deal with the core problem. A possible alternative to local law enforcement might be state or federal law enforcement but definitely not an army.",
"The National Guard is called if riots go on for a long time and the local police cannot handle it. They are not called for individual shootings. There is no point in that. \n\nThe National Guard is a unit division of the military, they are not police. They are designed to only be used during an emergency situation and having them occupy a US city is a last resort scenario. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
vk507
|
why do oil-exporting countries sell so much oil while knowing that they will run out in ~50 years? what happens when they do?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/vk507/eli5_why_do_oilexporting_countries_sell_so_much/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c55761u",
"c55c5ff",
"c55dfz5",
"c55gr8n"
],
"score": [
6,
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"How do you know they will run out of oil in 50 years?",
"If you have a bunch of oil in the ground, you have to decide how to sell it. A few things matter in making your plans.\n\n1. To extract the oil, you have to invest in developing the fields and distribution equipment. The faster you want to sell the oil, the more development you need. That costs alot, and speeds up the time when you run out.\n\n2. There is a trade-off with prices. The more oil you put on the market at any one time, the lower the prices go.\n\n3. There is a decision to be made over time. If you pump lots now, because you are impatient, the less you have to sell later. Still worse, the way extraction works, the faster you pump the oil, the less total oil you will get because you screw up the underground pressure by pumping fast.\n\n4. If you pump slow, the price will go up. That's good for you, but it also encourages other people to pump and/or develop new fields. If you hold on too tight, everyone else will make the money from it, not you.\n\n5. If the price gets too high (though at first look, that would be good for you) that encourages people to take steps to conserve and/or find alternatives. The arab oil embargo of '73 created the demand for efficient foreign cars in the US and the 55-mph speed limit. Notice that the speed limit didn't go up for twenty-some years and only when gas got cheap. By some analysis, the oil embargo (done as a political move about Israel) hurt oil producers much more than the intended victim.\n\n6. Nobody really runs out of oil, they run out of oil that is easy enough to get at given current technology and oil prices. Pennsylvania is still producing oil some 140 years after it started. \n\n7. Political risk. If you get to be the one to make a decision about how much oil to sell, that says you are in power. How long you are going to be in power is always a question. Even if it would be best to produce slowly, you may not be there to reap the benefits. Depending on the political situation, you may want to sell all the oil you can before you get kicked out / toppled / assassinated.\n\n8. It is actually harder to talk oil producers in to slowing down production rather than speeding it up. OPEC exists as a club for producers to talk each other into lowering production, because if everyone was free to produce what they wanted, they would flood the market and lower prices, mostly because of the stuff above.",
"Countries are run by people. If you make your family rich enough now, it won't matter what happens to the country you were running. You'll be rich enough to go to whatever country you want. ",
"Another point to consider is that with the drive for developing renewable, clean energy sources, the age of oil is dwindling. So they can sell everything now when there is still a definite market, or hold back and run the risk that 50 years from now crude will be worthless."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
qakin
|
how can incumbent politicians (e.g. ron paul, barack obama) be able to campaign full time for political office, while still fulfilling the duties of their current office?
|
To effectively campaign for political office, it has to be 100% full time job. How can a politician who is an incumbent for an existing office be able to spend so much time campaigning, while still fulfilling the duties of his current office?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/qakin/eli5_how_can_incumbent_politicians_eg_ron_paul/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c3w3kih",
"c3w4lsh",
"c3w4w80"
],
"score": [
11,
2,
6
],
"text": [
"This is one of the biggest problems with our system. There's been a shift away from the idea of a statesman, someone who would go to Washington and try to accomplish a given goal on enact a certain policy, but would return home when they felt their job was done. Career politicians dominate now, people whose entire job revolves around staying in office, creating this dilemma. \n\nEssentially, modern politicians can't do all of these jobs. Most Congressman work incredibly hard contrary to popular belief; a freshman member of the House sometime serves on as many as three of four committees simultaneously. But, as they only serve two year terms, House members must spend significant time in their districts campaigning for reelection. It's become such an vital part of the system that the second meeting freshman House members attend is a party-run seminar on how to stay in office. \n\nMore and more, Representatives become tied down trying to pander to their constituents instead of focusing on actually leading the country like they're supposed to. This, combined with a whole host of lobbies, special interest groups, and other advocacy organizations vying for their votes, leads to the policy gridlock that has come to characterize Washington as we know it today. ",
"For a congressman, senator, or governor, they don't really do their job while campaigning.\n\nFor a president, any president and not just Obama, the job moves with them. They already spend so much time traveling that their whole staff is experienced at working on the move.",
" > To effectively campaign for political office, it has to be 100% full time job.\n\nNope. Incumbents enjoy a huge advantage. An incumbent can generally campaign part-time and half-heartedly, and get re-elected anyway.\n\nThis isn't always true. If the incumbent did something bad and it got splashed all over the media, or if there's a strong challenger than a very large number of people truly like better than the incumbent... then the incumbent has a fight on their hands. And will have to actually put in a lot of effort to win.\n\nBut most of the time - as it is with Obama in this election - only a tiny lunatic fringe likes the other candidates more. The incumbent has little or no chance of being unseated. And hardly has to exert any effort to get re-elected. Just showing up is enough.\n\nObama himself put it rather well, back in November:\n\n > \"I don't think [our campaign] requires us to go negative in the sense of us running a bunch of ads that are false, or character assassinations,\" Obama said, as reported by Univision.\"It will be based on facts.\"\n > \n > \"We may just run clips of the Republican debates verbatim,\" he added. \"We won't even comment on them, we'll just run those in a loop on Univision and Telemundo, and people can make up their own minds.\"\n\n- _URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/11/obama-well-use-gop-debates-against-them/1"
]
] |
|
8k7a9l
|
why are most medicines prescribed to be taken daily?
|
Whenever I go to the Doctor, any medication prescribed is generally to be taken once daily... My experience is limited, but in general why is this? In the grand scheme of things it just seems totally arbitrary. Is there any physiological reason for this, or is it pure convenience? Why are there some drugs that must be taken several times a day? Why not just up the dose?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8k7a9l/eli5_why_are_most_medicines_prescribed_to_be/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dz5dp0p",
"dz5dqdu",
"dz5dslc",
"dz5dwxq",
"dz5gbkh"
],
"score": [
11,
3,
3,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"That is the amount of time that it takes for your body to process that chemical out. Some medications are taken 2 or even 4 times a day due to how rapidly the body processes them, and some are taken every few days to once a week. Some allergy medications are taken once a month. \n\nHigher doses alone do not mean it will take longer (or much longer) for the body to process the chemical out. And since most medications are small doses of poisons and toxins taking a larger dose can be lethal or at least have very negative effects. ",
"\"Upping the dose\" can lead to problems all on its own. For example if you are prescribed a heavy painkiller upping the dose could essentially overdose you.\n\nAdditionally there's some drugs that say, pass quickly through your body. In cases like that upping the dosage will just result in more of the drug getting dumped out in your waste, not an increased duration.\n\nAlways take the right amount of any prescription at the appropriate times for the entire duration (even if you feel better).",
"Your body processes stuff you put into your body to try to return it to equilibrium. You excrete stuff, generally piss/sweat it out, and your body uses it throughout the day (and overnight).\n\nMedicines typically work by maintaining a certain concentration (amount over your mass) to be effective. That amount is highest when you first consume it and steadily drops. \n\nFor prescription medicine that initial dose is pretty high, so a daily top up will keep you above the amount that doesn’t do anything anymore.\n\nThats why weaker over the counter drugs normally tell you to take one every couple of hours (usually 4 or 6) because they are weaker to start with.",
"\nDifferent substances are removed at different speeds from the body. This is why you need to take a dose every x hours/days, so that you have enough of a substance in your body to have a physiological effect.\n\nDifferent substances have different therapeutic margins; if the dose is too high, you get undesirable side effects, if the dose is too low, they have no effect at all. This is why you can't just up the dose.\n\nSo theoretically, there's a perfect time between doses. Patient compliance is highest when it's not much of an inconvenience, so usually you'll be told to take one dose daily, just because it's then most likely that you will adhere to the therapy.\n\n",
"All drugs have a half life which is the time for half of the drug to leave your body. They also have a therapeutic range which is how much of the drug needs to be in your system for it to be effective.\n\nThe dose and frequency of a drug is calculated based on it's halflife (how quickly it leaves your system) and it's therapeutic range to keep the drug within the therapeutic range for the desired amount of time."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
20ldgm
|
relative space travel
|
I recently read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. In it, Ender travels to a planet that's 33 years away, but when he gets there he's only aged 2 years. Also, he partakes in events (the xenocide of the buggers) that happened 3,000 years ago, yet he's only 36. How does traveling in space change how we age? Is this even a real thing? How soon can I do this?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20ldgm/eli5_relative_space_travel/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cg4l6sj"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Good answers, but not exactly something a 5 year old can comprehend. \n\nthe faster you move, the slower you experience time. This includes the effects of aging. From Ender's perspective, it HAS only been some 20 years since he wiped out the formics. From the point of view of people who haven't been traveling at relativistic (very very very very^10 fast) velocities, it has been three millenia."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
9m0tu5
|
how significant is the temperature of the water you put into your kettle? will it effect how fast it boils?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9m0tu5/eli5_how_significant_is_the_temperature_of_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e7az3gp"
],
"score": [
14
],
"text": [
"First law of thermodynamics: energy cannot be created or destroyed. Heat is energy. Water is storing that energy. If you already have half of the energy to reach boiling, you will only need the other half to finish the trip. \n\nMaybe your teacher meant the rate at which the water heats? Cold water will increase in rate of temperature faster, but it is still starting at a lower point and will thus take longer to reach boiling. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
1y76vw
|
how can one be charged with crimes against humanity?
|
A lot of talk about North Korea human rights violations with the possibility of Kim Jong-Un being tried for crimes against humanity. What does this charge mean exactly and how does the legal process work?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1y76vw/eli5_how_can_one_be_charged_with_crimes_against/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cfhygkh",
"cfhyqdi"
],
"score": [
2,
3
],
"text": [
"_URL_0_\n\n > Crimes against humanity, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum, \"are **particularly odious offenses in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of human beings**.\" [...] **are part either of a government policy** [...] **or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated** [...] **by a government or a de facto authority.**\n\nTL;DR: Serious, systematic infringements on human rights and dignity constitute \"crimes against humanity.\" Criminal Tribunals are convened to try the defendant, usually *in absentia* (he's not there) because the defendant is hiding or doesn't want to leave his country/power base.",
"There is a court, the International Criminal Court, established by international treaty called the Rome Statute. They only have jurisdiction to prosecute four crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. They also may only prosecute in cases where the state(s) involved do not do so themselves.\n\nThe treaty has a list of things that are defined as crimes against humanity when part of a systematic, widespread, or government-sanctioned or -committed practice, including murder, torture, rape, imprisonment in violation of international law (say, the \"three generations of punishment\" used in North Korea), enslavement, persecution, and enforced disappearances. There is a lot of evidence of many of these in North Korea.\n\nThey however only have jurisdiction by a few mechanisms: if the state is a party to the Rome Statute (North Korea is not), if the alleged crime took place in the territory of a state party to the treaty (which, since most accusations took place in North Korea, doesn't work), if a situation is referred to them by the UN Security Council, or if the non-party state accepts the jurisdiction of the court (which I doubt North Korea would).\n\nSo that leaves the UNSC, and that may not be likely, because China is a permanent member of the UNSC, which gives them power to veto any substantive resolution, and China for reasons answered recently on this subreddit is somewhat supportive of North Korea.\n\nFurthermore, if charged, the ICC has no means to ensure appearance of the defendant. Generally, either they are captured by somebody else, voluntarily appear, or are fugitive. As the head of a nation with a large military which has a few nuclear weapons and a LOT of artillery pointed at Seoul, you can bet that nobody is going to capture Kim Jong-Un, and I doubt he'd voluntarily appear. And he wouldn't have to run anywhere, because he's inside his own country."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimes_against_humanity"
],
[]
] |
|
1y0gkb
|
when looking for a partner why is the height of the man so important to women but not the other way around?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1y0gkb/eli5_when_looking_for_a_partner_why_is_the_height/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cfg8eid",
"cfg8hyu",
"cfg8toi",
"cfg8uuv",
"cfgftf2",
"cfhzay8"
],
"score": [
4,
3,
2,
4,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"it's not. not to me at least. ",
"Women think a guy's height is important the same way men think a gal's rack is important. That's all there is too it. Women prefer tall, men prefer big, but neither is deal breaker obviously.",
"You know what they say about tall guys.",
"I'm assuming this question comes from [that silly study](_URL_0_) that's been popping up recently on several subreddits. The article presents several theories that answer your question, mostly pertaining to social expectations and gender stereotypes. Then the article tries to prove these theories are true based on Yahoo! personal ads. \n\nI'm a tall woman (6'0\") who frequents r/tall and r/short. From personal experience and from those forums, I can say that height is frequently an important factor to men as well as women. And to some people of either gender, it's not important at all. ",
"We are taught that tall women and short men are strange. Men are more likely to be taller than women so anything considered \"different from what you are used to\" may be considered bad.",
"don't you think a good chunk of men would feel 'weird' dating woman who was taller than them?\n\nI personally have never had a height preference"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/height-matters--but-only-to-women-say-scientists-9123277.html"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
9mk1x6
|
how come when we touch something hot, it takes a few seconds to realize its full hotness?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9mk1x6/eli5_how_come_when_we_touch_something_hot_it/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e7f6utf",
"e7felcx",
"e7fh225",
"e7ficyk",
"e7girfv"
],
"score": [
43,
25,
10,
2,
4
],
"text": [
"Heat is energy transfer from one object to another. Since it's not instant it takes some time for the energy to transfer. So you can grab something hot and your skin takes a moment to get enough energy or heat for your nerves to start going \"TOO HOT\" ",
"Pretty much all of the skin on your body is dead, what you feel is the living tissue under the dead. If you touched it with the exposed skin from an exposed blister, you'd feel it in an instant.\n\nThis becomes a serious problem as a professional cook, because between callouses and your nerves being deadened by hot ovens, pans, and water, it can take quite a few seconds to feel a burn, by which pain you've done serious damage. \n\nI once grabbed a baking pan to wash it, not realizing a coworker had just pulled it out of a 550 degree oven to cook bacon, by the time I realized I'd lost the fingerprints from several fingers and had second degree burns. ",
"1. Signals from the nerves in your hand take time to get to your brain, be processed, then the signal from your brain to move your hand takes time. You have reflexes, which are automatic controls built into your nerves, which cause your hands to jerk back quicker when you feel pain than if the signal went all the way to your brain first. Even the reflex signals take a fraction of a second. \n\n2. You will only start to feel pain once enough heat has been transferred from the hot object into your hand. Some objects are good conductors of heat (metal, water), so touching them while hot will burn quickly. Other objects are poor conductors of heat (air, ceramic) so you can touch them for longer before it becomes painful. The ceramic that was used to insulate the space shuttle was such a poor heat conductor that you could heat it up to red hot, then hold it with your bare hands without pain, since very little heat was being transferred out of it into your skin. ",
"The way i've seen it explained is lets say you touch a cold ice cube. The nerves in the hand send the signal down your arm to the spine, up to the brain. The brain processes the information and tells you that its cold and you should move your hand, so the brain sends a signal back down through the spine to your hand.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nWhen you touch something hot, when the signal gets to the spine, the spine will actually send a signal back to the hand to move it out of the way, without waiting for your brain to process, so you move your hand quickly before your brain registers that its hot.",
"Human skin has both cold receptors and warm receptors. [Warm receptors are unmyelinated and have an extremely slow response time](_URL_0_) compared to most nerves. Therefore, the sensation of warmth is somewhat delayed, and you can easily burn yourself on hot objects."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Thermal_touch"
]
] |
||
3d8nch
|
voat looks exactly like reddit, why doesn't reddit sue them?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3d8nch/eli5voat_looks_exactly_like_reddit_why_doesnt/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ct2s45g"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"_URL_0_\n\n > Reddit (the software the runs the site, not the site itself) has been open source since 2008. Anyone is free to use, copy and modify it as they wish.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3d8kkz/eli5why_is_voatco_not_being_sued_by_reddit_for/"
]
] |
||
43i1de
|
why is the aud traded so frequently?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43i1de/eli5why_is_the_aud_traded_so_frequently/
|
{
"a_id": [
"czidw5t",
"czikqiv",
"cziqzwv"
],
"score": [
5,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"If I understand your question then all currencies are traded every day whether it is AUD, USD, CAD, or JPY. These are traded on the Foreign Exchange market, aka Forex, and you can trade much like the stock market. Basically when you change currency when you travel it is going through this exchange so, if you are in Australia, you will hear the news talk about the AUD is trading for .71 USD or .65 Euro while in the US we would hear that the USD is trading at 1.41 AUD or .92 Euro ",
"The AUD is the he 5th most traded currency in the world (behind the USD, EURO, YEN & GBP). This is quite impressive given the relative size of the Australian economy. \n\nAustralia has a wealth of natural resources such as oil, gold, iron ore, nickel, coal etc. Australia's close proximity to the fast growing Asian economies (who have huge demand for our natural resources) increases the exchange of AUD's. Many investors will also purchase AUD's as a way to gain exposure to these Asian economies and increasing commodity prices. This is why the AUD is often nicknamed the \"commodity currency\". \n\nAustralia's relative lack of central bank intervention as well as the general stability of the Australian economy and government are other reasons for the popularity of AUD's amongst currency traders. \n\nIn other words, Australia would be fucked without the mining boom. ",
"Imagine that there are only three countries:\n\n1.\tAustralia\n2.\tJapan\n3.\tScotland \n\n•\tAustralia only produces flour and eggs\n•\tJapan only produces milk \n•\tScotland only produces golf balls \n\nJapan wishes to produce cakes in the future, but to do so, needs flour and eggs (it already has milk). Because Japan only produces one of these ingredients, it needs to buy flour and eggs from Australia (who happen to produce a lot of flour and eggs). \n\nTo buy flour and eggs, Japan needs to exchange its Japanese Dollars for Australian Dollars. \n\nJapans has now been making cakes for a while, and its population has started to grow, meaning more demand for cakes. This means that Japan has to continue converting its Japanese Dollars into Australian Dollars, so it can continue buying ingredients from Australia (lots more). \n\nJapan has started making so many cakes that Australia can’t produce flour and eggs quick enough. This means that Australia has made the decision to increase the price of flour and eggs.\n\nMeanwhile, Scotland has been trying to sell its golf balls to Australia and Japan, but they don’t want any, so Scotland has to think of another way to make money. Scotland knows that Japan has to buy its ingredients from Australia in AUD’S so Scotland decides to buy lots of AUD’s. Scotland is hoping that by holding AUD’s now, it can sell them to Japan later, when its population grows, the demand for cakes increases, and the price of flour and eggs rises. \n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
6tlrmo
|
how does a elevator algorithm work?
|
Considering there are multiple elevators going to the same floors.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6tlrmo/eli5_how_does_a_elevator_algorithm_work/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dllroq7",
"dlltrx3",
"dllzbj9",
"dllzutz",
"dlm3n05",
"dlmutsj"
],
"score": [
25,
27,
3,
10,
13,
4
],
"text": [
"The elevator algorithm is actually pretty important in computer science. It is pretty simple to understand though. When called, the elevator will prioritize the calls that are in his way, then it goes the other way. If the elevator is going up, it will continue to go up until there's no one left calling it in the up direction or until it reaches maximum floor. Then it goes down with the same logic.",
"The elevator algorithm is simple:\n\n1. If there is a called floor in the direction the elevator is going, go there\n\n2. Otherwise, if there is a called floor in the opposite direction, change directions and go there\n\n3. Otherwise, go nowhere (or sometimes go back to a specific floor)\n\nGenerally with multiple elevators there is no coordination beyond not servicing a floor that another elevator is already headed to.\n\nThere *are* more advanced algorithms. The Marriot Marquis in NYC was known for having wait times of up to 30 minutes, and about a decade ago installed a [destination dispatch](_URL_0_) elevator system. Users punch in their desired floor in advance, and the system tells them which shaft to use. This allows a computer to optimize the elevator use more efficiently.",
"They aren't standardized.\n\nso... any algorithm you can come up with that makes sense is and is relatively simple is probably being used by an elevator somewhere.",
"A little bit offtopic, but if you know a little bit of programming [this](_URL_0_) game may be interesting. You control a bunch of elevators to move people in the most optimal way.",
"The real answer is: It is *very* complex. \n\nIn the most simple approach you click a button and a software determines which elevator goes there and then blocks all others from answering that call.\n\nIn reality... it is vastly, vastly complex and engineers and computer scientists work on it. For example, modern algorithms try to base where which elevator does what based on the time of the day, for example: \n\n* in the morning a lot of people want to go from the \"bottom\" to all kinds of floors further up with a massive peak demand\n* during the day most people want to drive around in the house but the demand is spread more evenly, the algorithm might attempt to reserve elevators for certain parts of the house, one might jump a request if it already has many buttons pressed from the inside, and another is scheduled for that outside-request\n* unless it is around noon, when all kinds of people want to go down for lunch\n* and in the evening a lot of people might want to go down to the bottom again.\n* many, many, many more cases depening on time, the type of house (only offices in there? A mix of office and businesses? Entertainment venues (a club on the roof? A gym in the middle? Shopping center? What if there is also residence in it?). \n\nAll that said: There are probably entire careers in CS/engineering for \"elevator optimisation\" and every manufacturer has his own, probably very well guarded algorithms with custom ones for special houses (you can bet that the Burj Khalifa does not steer its elevators with Siemens-Standard-Algorithm#2 they might roll out for some 5-story residence). \n\n**tl;dr There is no general answer and the issue is vastly complex.**",
"Omg omg omg!! Ive been waiting for this to be a question for soooo long! Now I'm too excited to remember what I wanted to ask about!! I feel like a kid who meets their favorite celebrity and can't muster a word!!\n\n\nI have considered elevator algorithms for far more time than I want to admit. Now I can't even get it out.\n\n\nOk so.. in a medium apartment complex, 10 floors, say.. and two elevators. Which one comes first? A or B? Probably A because of programming. If elevator A is on the 10th floor and opening while someone on the 8th floor calls I find that elevator B will come up. But wouldn't it make more sense for the algorithm to be 'pause', 8 is calling. I know that if I call the elevator *after* A on 10 is closed it will come to 8, but not if 10 is still open and it's next stop is undefined.\n\n\nI guess it's all about programming, but can a 50yr old system be reprogrammed that way?\n\n\nAlso, what gets elevators stuck between floors? Like, why does that happen?\n\n\nIf elevator A is on floor 5 and elevator B is on ground floor, who gets the call for floor 3? More complexly, if elevator A is on floor 10, and B is on 3 and both are programmed to return to 1, which goes to 5 going down if someone on 6 wants to go up at the exact same time?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://elevation.wikia.com/wiki/Destination_dispatch"
],
[],
[
"http://play.elevatorsaga.com"
],
[],
[]
] |
|
2hir22
|
what is the terrorism going on in australia at the moment?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hir22/eli5_what_is_the_terrorism_going_on_in_australia/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ckt0z8o",
"ckt18xl",
"ckt1mti",
"ckt26jg"
],
"score": [
2,
3,
2,
7
],
"text": [
"There's fuck all going on. Mostly just scaremongering. ",
"So to actually answer this, our prime minister seems to be hyping up something that either doesn't exist or is miniscule, and is doing so to try and gain more power.\n\nThis is just the latest in a depressingly short but dense time frame of his grossly out of touch and anti-citizen actions.",
"Fear of Islamic terrorism is being used for the purposes of a power grab by the current Prime Minister. Australians communications will now be monitored by the central government, penalties have been increased, travel restrictions implemented on certain areas of the world, etc. \n\n",
"Circlejerk about our government aside:\n\nWhen America started bombing ISIS, government analysts theorised a likely increase in terror attack in the country in retaliation. As such, the government agencies set the terror threat level to its highest mark. Basically, this means more stringent security at airports, more training for anti-terrorism in businesses and so on.\n\nMedia outlets in Australia, seeing this quick focus on terrorism, started to report on more and more \"Terror\" related stories so as to draw viewers. This creates a small feed-back loop where people watch the news, see reports about terror attacks, and then want to see *more* news about terror attacks, slowly building the terror scare to a higher pitch.\n\nAnd yes, there have been a few, isolated, cases of terrorism since the terror threat level increased, meaning that all of these claims are not unsubstantiated.\n\nHowever, as far as the vast vast majority of Australia is concerned, it is a matter of \"Keep Calm, Carry on\". Remember, the likelyhood of a terror attack happening to you in your daily life is miniscule at best, and if we do shut down everything in fear of an attack, the terrorists win in the end.\n\nSources:\n\n_URL_2_\n\n[Really bloody long URL](_URL_3_)\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_\n\nEDIT:\n\nI forgot to mention the fact that the AFL grand finals are on, and leading up to the event, many news outlets and talk shows had segments on whether or not security was high enough.\n\nEssentially, if that sort of thing was happening on Reddit, it would be called circle-jerk."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australian-defence-force-personnel-advised-to-wear-civvies-due-to-terror-threats-20140920-10jqse.html",
"http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/terror-risk-high-tony-abbott-announces-increase-in-national-terrorism-public-alert-system-20140912-10g1mz.html",
"http://www.news.com.au/national/australian-terror-raids-afp-asio-move-on-suspected-terrorists/story-fncynjr2-1227062204389",
"http://www.news.com.au/national/jihadi-john-unmasked-terrorists-target-subways-and-attacks-on-muslim/story-fncynjr2-1227071054137#itm=newscomau%7Cnews%7Cnca-news-plmnt-trending%7C1%7Csection-news-national%7Cstory%7CCell%26%238217%3Bs%20public%20execution%20plans&itmt=1411737734458#itm=newscomau%7Cnews%7Cright-now-in-%7C2%7CJihadi%20John%20unmasked%2C%20terrorists%20target%20subways%20and%20attacks%20...%7Cstory%7CCell%26%238217%3Bs%20public%20execution%20plans&itmt=1411737734459"
]
] |
||
41of4x
|
how does 'coolness' work and what is its function within society?
|
As far as I can see, 'coolness' appears to be a kind of special status that can be gained by convincing people that your behavior is of value. The status of coolness can then be used to get preferential treatment. The weird thing to me is that unlike say 'bravery' or 'wisdom', the behaviors which lead to 'coolness' generally have no inherent value for society.
So how and why does this work?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/41of4x/eli5_how_does_coolness_work_and_what_is_its/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cz3uvnt",
"cz3zkbj"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Now, there are four states of being\n in the cannabis, or marijuana,\n society: Cool, Groovy, Hip, and\n Square. The square is seldom if\n ever cool. He is not \"with it,\"\n that is, he doesn't know \"what's\n happening.\" But if he manages to\n figure it out, he moves up a notch\n to \"hip.\"\n\n\n \n And if he can bring himself to\n approve of what is happening, he\n becomes \"groovy.\" After that, with\n much luck and perseverance, he can\n rise to the rank of \"cool.\" A cool\n guy... cool guy... cool guy...\n\f",
"Yes, you've basically gotten it. \"Cool\" originally was a term of praise referring to a specific sort of attitude: lack of affect, indifference, especially indifference to other people's attitudes and expectations, staying completely calm in stressful situations, generally acting as though you have very high self-confidence. Over time \"cool\" has come to be an extremely generic term; it still has a slight implication that a \"cool\" person is popular or fashionable, but it can also be used as praise in all sorts of other ways, and is even used as a simple affirmation like \"Okay,\" \"That's good,\" \"I understand.\"\n\nOh: and to answer your second question. In it's original sense, I think it's fairly clear what kinds of situations staying cool would be useful in, and how a large population of cool people might benefit society. In the intermediate sense (popular/fashionable), the quality is sort of a second-order virtue, like being rich. Obviously the mere fact that someone is rich doesn't necessarily benefit society, but the process by which he *becomes* rich might benefit society, and more importantly his riches can be used to benefit friends and allies. Likewise with popularity. Fashion, meanwhile, is a sort of signaling mechanism relating to social status, in the same way that people who want to be known as brave or wise have their own signaling mechanisms."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
3apu56
|
why do fancy people touch shoulders when they shake hands?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3apu56/eli5_why_do_fancy_people_touch_shoulders_when/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cset4n9",
"csettsv"
],
"score": [
7,
69
],
"text": [
"Usually they don't, but when they do it's a greater sign of endearment. Like if a handshake says \"I respect you\" then a handshake with a shoulder touch says \"I *really* respect you\"",
"There's a lot at play psychologically. Crusco and Wetzel (1984) found that a touch on the hand or shoulder significantly increased patrons' tipping. The effect was particularly strong when the touch was relatively unobtrusive. This was dubbed \"the Midas Touch\". The influential aspects of touch also include getting things for free. Researchers have demonstrated that bus drivers are more likely to give a passenger a free ride, if they touch the driver while making the request (Gueguen & Fischer-Lokou, 2003). Touch is very persuasive. \n\nPlacing a hand on one's shoulder, or cupping one's hand in both of yours during a hand shake, are subconscious alpha signals which show superiority. People who try to shake hands with their hand coming from a high position down to your position, with the hand pointing down, are also asserting superiority. Think \"Big Hoss\" on Pawn Stars. He is subconsciously but physically showing that he is an aggressor personality, prone to egotism and likely to crave control. Body language speaks volumes whether we know it or not! It's a good practice to return the gesture when someone touches your shoulder with a handshake, otherwise you physically assert that they are dominant in that situation. Likewise, take the hand of the \"Big Hoss\" handshake and turn it directly parallel with your own hand. Mimic a hand on your bicep or hand on your shoulder handshake in the same way, it levels the playing field whether you know it or not. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
ydcpw
|
what makes neon colors so bright and annoying, compared to "normal" colors.
|
It's 5:16am, I just woke up, and that's the first question on my mind.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ydcpw/eli5_what_makes_neon_colors_so_bright_and/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c5um9q2"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"I guess it's just that we group all those bright and annoying colours together and call them \"neon colours\"."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
56nhin
|
why does every single zipper say ykk?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/56nhin/eli5_why_does_every_single_zipper_say_ykk/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d8kq23e"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"YKK is a zipper manufacturer. It is often more cost efficient for clothing manufactures to buy zippers made by YKK than it is to manufacture their own. Not every zipper says YKK, just a very large portion of them. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
431obt
|
why aren't there competitions to see who can program the best chess or go bots, and the bots play each other?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/431obt/eli5_why_arent_there_competitions_to_see_who_can/
|
{
"a_id": [
"czes7wg"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"There are. See examples for [Go](_URL_0_) and [chess](_URL_1_). There are also online tournaments for a chess variant called [Advanced Chess](_URL_2_), where human players use computer software to assist them."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Go#Competitions_among_computer_Go_programs",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_engine#Tournaments",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Chess"
]
] |
||
5pokog
|
how did ms-dos make microsoft an os power house?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5pokog/eli5how_did_msdos_make_microsoft_an_os_power_house/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dcsmurj",
"dcsnkf4",
"dcspm0e",
"dcsrnf4"
],
"score": [
5,
11,
2,
9
],
"text": [
"The *very* short version is something along the lines of IBM, the computer manufacturer, was releasing a new thing called a 'Personal Computer' to businesses, and needed an O/S, so they scouted around and Bill Gates saw an opportunity, bought in an existing O/S called Q-DOS, modified the source code to the Intel architecture to run on the x86 chipset and called it MS-DOS.\n",
"I'll have to leave most of your questions to others, but here's the answer to your first one:\n\nMicrosoft's deal with IBM (to create/supply the operating system for the brand new IBM PC) allowed Microsoft to license the operating system to other computer manufacturers. When the makers of IBM compatible computers started selling their products, they could offer MS-DOS, which helped their computers run the same application programs as the IBM PCs, making the compatible computers more attractive to the market. Microsoft earned license fees from the computers that IBM sold, and also from the ones sold by the other manufacturers. The market for PC computers grew very large. IBM's revenue came from only a part of the market (computers sold by IBM), but Microsoft's revenue came from the entire market (computers sold by all the manufacturers). That was the start of Microsoft becoming a powerhouse.",
"Back in the day, before DOS, when you bought a computer it came with an operating system that was used only for that computer. Each program (app) needed to be written specifically for that computer and that computer alone.\n\nOwning a computer at that time was not the \"finished product\" experience that it is today. It normally involved some complex programming in order to get the computer to run programs. It's not like you could walk into a store and purchase a word processor that would \"just work\" not like that at all. \n\nComputers were often purchased as kits and were intended for hobbyist use. Sometimes all you would get is the circuit board and you'd have to build a custom box to put it in. The hobbies would need to do some assembling (often needing to solder parts together) and load the software, again sometimes involving programming. \n\nEventually the giant mega computer corporation of the day, IBM, decided they wanted to get into this personal computer game. IBM made mainframe computers (slimier to the servers of today) and sold them to large institutions like Universities or the Government. They noticed this personal computer trend and decided to get in on that game.\n\nBut they did not want to have to do all the work themselves. So they decided that they would just buy parts of the computers that they were going to make, rather than do all of the design and manufacturing themselves. Wherever possible they used \"off the shelf\" components and simply assembled them together themselves. IBM got chips from a third party supplier, memory from a third party supplier, mother boards from a third party and the operating system from a third party. IBM had 1 thing that they made themselves, the BIOS. \n\nThe BIOS is the core software of every computer. It resides directly on the motherboard and tells all of the hardware how to talk to each other. It lives \"under\" the operating system an it's what allows the OS to talk to the hardware. IBM used all off the shelf hardware, and tied it together with a custom BIOS. Anyone could buy the hardware, and anyone could buy the OS (DOS) but in order to get them to work together you needed an IBM BIOS. Only the BIOS was protected by patterns and other intellectual property rights. \n\nIBM did this because they actually did not believe in the personal computer market very much. This was considered the cheep and easy way to enter the market and make some quick cash before the whole thing came toppling down. IBM was the 1000 pound gorilla of the computer world and so it's personal computer became the most popular even though the company itself did not really believe in it or care all that much. \n\nOther computer manufacturers of the day, such as Apple, had all that shit on lock down. Apple owned the entire system from front to back and had patents on it all. They made much of their own hardware AND software. All of it was owned by apple and it was impossible for someone other than apple to make an Apple compatible computer. \n\nSo when Microsoft was approached by IBM to use their OS, IBM was keen to do the deal as cheaply as possible. Remember, this OS was going to be installed on only IBM computers and only IBM computers were going to be able to run it (because of the BIOS). Microsoft structured this sale in a unique way. Rather than sell all the intellectual property for the OS to IBM, as would have been the industry norm at the time, they instead simply sold copies of the OS to IBM. IBM was keen to do this as they considered it a cheaper overall option (just buying what they need rather than the whole thing). Microsoft liked the deal because they would be able to sell the OS to other people if they wanted.\n\nSince IBM was such a dominant company, lots of software makers (app makers) decided to make software for this new IBM PC. It was, by a mile, the most popular kind of PC on the market and it had the best third party software options available. But the computers themselves were fairly expensive since you had to get them from IBM. \n\nEnter Compaq Computer. They had an idea, they could get all of the parts for an IBM computer from the same suppliers that IBM was using. The only thing missing was the BIOS.\n\nThe BIOS remember acted as a translator between the hardware and the operating system. The thing IBM failed to see is that a translator can be remade without being copied. See, the way the hardware talked was a known quantity, the hardware companies could tell you that. And the way the OS talked was a known quantity, Microsoft could tell them that. \n\nSo without copying IBM's BIOS, Compaq could create their own software that did the exact same thing. They got a bunch of engineers who had never seen IBM's BIOS up close, gave them the details of the hardware requirements and the OS requirements and said \"make me something so these 2 things can talk to each other\" and the engineers did. \n\nSo the Compaq BIOS was considered \"IBM compatible\". There was no patent infringement because the IBM BIOS code was not actually copied. It was an independent invention that just happened to do the exact same tasks. And so the PC world exploded.\n\nAll of a sudden, anyone could make an IBM compatible computer. All of that software that IBM thought needed an IBM computer to run, actually only needed a DOS based computer to run. As it turned out, the keys to the IBM personal computer were actually owned by Microsoft!! Any old idiot can make the hardware, but it's the OS that allows it to run the programs people actually wanted. \n\nAnd so Microsoft became the powerhouse that we know today. ",
" > How did MS-DOS make Microsoft an OS power house.\n\nBill Gates became the middle-man between IBM and another company. He bought the rights to DOS from a small computer company, renamed it, and then sold a license to IBM.\n \nIBM could have went to that same small computer company, and cut Bill Gates (and this Microsoft out of the picture). Instead, they went through Microsoft - which got a wad of cash from each computer IBM sold - and that is how they came to existence.\n\n > Also how did MS-DOS lead to DOS based Windows and eventually Windows NT.\n\nSlowly but surely. First you need to realize that DOS-based Windows and Windows NT are two separate beasts. Think of DOS-based Windows as a gasoline car, and Windows NT as diesel car. They both get you from A to B, but the engine is different.\n\nWith *that* out of the way, imagine DOS as being a small little gasoline powered scooter. With every new version of DOS, they added more stuff to this scooter - flags, a honky horn, and chrome rims. *Eventually*, someone got an idea that this scooter could do more - let's add a basket and another seat.\n\n**BOOM.** Dos-based Windows was born. It's still a scooter at this point, but with an upgraded frame - it's a pretty bad-ass scooter.\n\nNow, Microsoft keeps refining and adding stuff to this scooter. Eventually, they realize that this scooter is horribly underpowered and is prone to crashing. There's not a whole lot that can be done about *that*, because the fundamental flaws with the scooter (small wheels, lack of shocks, etc) are based off of being a scooter in and of itself. You can mitigate some of the problems, but *cannot fix them*.\n\nSo, with a perfectly functioning scooter to use as a reference plate, they start developing *a motorcycle*, using brand-new technologies and tools, using the scooter as a reference point. By starting over from scratch, they can gut a lot of bad design choices made during the development from the scooter.\n\nHowever, by making smart design choices on the motorcycle, some accessories from the scooter to be used on the motorcycle. Not all will work, not all will fit, but the accessories (the honky horn) that properly followed the specs for the scooter, will work perfectly on the motorcycle. Cheap junk that barely worked on the scooter will not work on the motorcycle at all.\n\nSo now, we got DOS-based Windows scooter, and a Windows NT-based motorcycle. They keep both products in the storeroom floor, as some existing accessories will only work for the scooter. Eventually, accessory makers start making products for *both* the scooter and the motorcycle. Eventually, people start buying the motorcycle more because it's flashier - more accessories work on it - it's more stable - that the demand for the scooter dries up, leaving the motorcycle to be the last product remaining.\n\n > Finally, how was Microsoft BASIC (for 8 bit computers) effected by MS-DOS?\n\nBASIC at that point in the computer history, was an interpreted language. So, think of an \"interpreted\" language this way - you're in a foreign country with a friend, and you ask a local a question. You don't know the language, but your friend does. So you ask your friend the question, who then asks the local, who then responds back to your friend, who then gives you the answer.\n\nSo with DOS in particular, what's going on is that the change in architecture (8-bit to 16-bit to 32-bit to 64-bit) is in ELI5 form, you going to different countries with different friends."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
4emtqn
|
why does standing and tugging my bike's handlebars side to side make me go faster than simply pedaling sitting down?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4emtqn/eli5why_does_standing_and_tugging_my_bikes/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d21gdan",
"d21h3cb"
],
"score": [
5,
3
],
"text": [
"There are two reasons:\n\n1. You're using gravity and your weight to peddle harder.\n2. You're assisting your legs with your arms and torso muscles.",
"Up a hill yes. Because you are using more of your weight to create the torque needed to travel up faster.\n\nOn flats you will not go faster unless you are slow. Standing up creates wind resistance which dramatically starts to increase in the low 20 mph range. This is why racing bikes have drop bars so you can get less air resistance. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
2wnunh
|
why do public universities need so much government money to operate? with the cost of tuition, why can't they be self sustaining?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2wnunh/eli5_why_do_public_universities_need_so_much/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cosivvj",
"cosiy95"
],
"score": [
2,
3
],
"text": [
"The point of having state/public universities was to help subsidize the cost of education, thus requiring less tuition and allowing more people to get a college education. ",
"I don't know which universities you have in mind, but in the case of some I know - an institution like University of Texas or Texas A & M can provide a high level of facilities, research, and faculty that far exceed what tuition could cover. Tuition there is inexpensive compared to what it costs the university to provide. When I went to school at Texas tuition was super cheap, but it rose quickly and is definitely not cheap anymore. But it's a top institution that competes with private universities that have far higher tuition. The state's money is part of what makes that happen. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
c7b82h
|
how come fair skinned people have harder time getting a tan? can they even get a tan?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c7b82h/eli5_how_come_fair_skinned_people_have_harder/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ese8i4j",
"ese8pkf"
],
"score": [
2,
6
],
"text": [
"I'm fair skinned and I tan with difficulty. When I was a kid it would take forever to tan, but it was a beautiful color, also my hair color would get lighter. But then within two weeks of going back to school it would vanish completely.\n\nI'm a redhair and now I'm being more careful because of all the health scares they link fair people with sun. It still takes regular exposure to sun (without sun block to get any color). \n\nFor the majority of people there are products to keep that tan extended. You have to have an olive like skin or darker in order to keep it longer. \n\nI don't do all that so I guess it doesn't stay long. \nIn the olden days people would be exposed daily to the sun, even fair people, while they were working in the fields. Staying white was a sign of being wealthy (not working outside yourself). \n\nBtw, my tan is really nice, it doesn't look fake at all especially since even the hair color changes with it. It's an overall summer look.",
"A tan is basicaly the skin's response to damage done by the sun, by increasing melanin. Since lighter skinned people naturaly have less melanin, it is harder for them to produce more. They can get a tan, but that tan will be lighter than a naturaly darker person's tan. It is also not a good idea to try and \"force\" a tan, since the chances of getting sunburnt (and possibly worse) are high"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
zizy1
|
what's going on between canada and iran
|
I'm confused. I've read the articles but I really just want to know what's happening and why. A play by play would be nice.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/zizy1/eli5_whats_going_on_between_canada_and_iran/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c650fe9",
"c657mqr"
],
"score": [
12,
4
],
"text": [
"Canada voted in a Conservative leader named Stephen Harper who is very pro corporation, pro big oil, and very pro Israel.\n\nIran, which isn't pro Israel or big oil is under sanctions, presumably over Iran's nuclear program, but mostly because they aren't pro big oil, or pro Israel.\n\nIran is a signatory of the contracts that says they are allowed to make nuclear energy, for the purpose of having clean energy, isotopes for cancer cures, etc.\n\nUnfortunately, Iran's leader made a speech which got 'mistranslated' to sound like a threat against the country of Israel, when really, they were talking about Israel's leadership and the plight of the Palestinians.\n\nThe Palestinians are a regional group that controlled the Palestinian state until Israeli settlers moved in and forced them off their land and treats them poorly. Many people are against Israel's policy towards the Palestinians and considers it a form of apartheid and collective punishment.\n\nIsrael claims they're entitled to the lands because God willed it to them.\n\nIsrael doesn't like Iran because what their leaders said about Israel's leaders and vice versa. At this point, there's no good guys, just a lot of loudmouths talking smack to each other, until the recent decision of Canada to close it's embassy in Iran and basically telling them that negotiations are off the table.\n\nThis is an undiplomatic move by Canada's 'leaders' who seem to be taking marching orders from Israel's lobbyists in Canada and abroad to instigate even poorer relations, and possibly start a war.",
"In the spirit of ELI5, a simplified explanation of diplomacy.\n\nLet's say for example that there are three countries to think about.\n\n**Meanland** is doing something naughty.\n\n**Upsettica** doesn't like what Meanland is doing.\n\n**Mehlia** might be concerned, but isn't directly offended.\n\nNormally, Meanland, Upsettica, and Mehlia all have embassies in each others' countries. An embassy is a place in a foreign country where diplomats can represent the interests of the country they work for.\n\nBut today, Meanland has pushed Upsettica too far, and is now cutting off diplomatic relations! Upsettica has left Meanland in a huff, closing its embassy in Meanland. It has also ordered all of Meanland's diplomats to leave Upsettica. The embassies close, and the ambassadors return to their home countries.\n\nMost of the time, Meanland and Upsettica pretend to be mad for a while before things go back to normal. Meanland will try to send a new ambassador, and Upsettica will very likely let Meanland reopen its embassy. It's better than not talking, right? Upsettica will send a new ambassador to Meanland, and things go back to normal.\n\nBut sometimes they don't. Maybe Upsettica is so mad, it refuses to accept a new ambassador from Meanland. Is Meanland kicked out of Upsettica forever?\n\nActually, no! Before too long, Mehlia gets involved. It puts a sign over the old Meanland embassy in Upsettica. It is now re-opened as the *Meanland Interests Section* of the Mehlia Embassy in Upsettica. Meanland sends its diplomats to staff the Interests Section -- but they're technically \"Mehlian\" diplomats instead of being from the hated Meanland. \n\nSo even when two countries pretend they are not talking to each other, it's very rare that they actually stop talking to each other. Usually that only happens in a war, or if one of the countries has become too poor or disorganized to send new diplomats."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
3lo5w5
|
why the government gets $900m from gm and the victims only get $500m
|
Why does the government get twice as much from GM compared to the people that were actually hurt by the faulty ignition switches?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3lo5w5/eli5why_the_government_gets_900m_from_gm_and_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cv80ube",
"cv83uh1"
],
"score": [
7,
2
],
"text": [
"Victims get money intended as *compensation.* If there is additional money taken as *punishment,* the government has a lot of freedom regarding who gets it. If I were the regulatory agency, I would suggest that the money be given to the regulatory agency to hire more workers, to prevent such problems in the future.",
"Don't forget that the government represents the victims. The government is us, and we are the victims. We were all hurt by the faulty ignition switches, some more than others. Mistakes this grave should be treated in kind. We work together to have this home and nation, and if GM wants to operate here and take advantage of our society and resources, they must respect us. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
e5l6r9
|
where does the earth get and retain its momentum that creates seasons? is energy consumed by the rotation?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e5l6r9/eli5_where_does_the_earth_get_and_retain_its/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f9kdi19",
"f9kdj3r",
"f9ktd2y"
],
"score": [
4,
8,
2
],
"text": [
"The change in seasons is a matter of the tilt of the earth. That tilt remains constant relative to the earth's position along the plane of orbit.\n\nSo when the earth is in one half of its orbit around the sun the northern hemisphere is tilted toward the sun, and therefore it's summer in the Northern Hemisphere, because it gets more sunlight per day.\n\nWhen the earth is in the other half of its orbit around the sun, the northern hemisphere is tilted away from the sun, and thus gets less sunlight per day, and it's winter. This is also why the seasons are flipped in the southern hemisphere (summer when it's winter in the north, and vice versa). Were the earth's axis parallel to the plane of its orbit around the sun there would be no seasons, and the weather would be much more static throughout the year at any given point on the earth.\n\nSee this illustration I just mocked up in MS Paint (note: not to scale and possibly the wrong direction of rotations, but the concept is the same)\n\n_URL_0_",
"Seasons are created by the earth's tilt, which doesn't require momentum. The Earth is always pointed in a particular direction, so for one part of the year the axis is pointing \"over\" the sun and another part it's pointing away from it. That affects how much sunlight a particular latitude gets over the course of a day, which is responsible for seasons.",
"Eli5 orbits: an orbit around any object (earth or sun) is just falling toward it but moving so fast relative to it that that fall places you somewhere it isn't. You effectively Miss falling into it because your motion is too high. (highly recommend Kerbal Space program. )\n\nEarth seasons: earth spins like a top tilted over slightly each spin is a day but the top of the spinning top stays pointed in the same direction no matter our orientation to the sun.\n\n2 things are working on earth but nether are affecting our stellar momentum.\n\nSolar wind and the tides. Solar winds press against us from the sun but are inconsequential and our magnetic field even interacts with the charged components of that directing them down the poles instead of direct pushing us.\n\nTides on the other hand cause the ocean to try to stay aligned with the sun and moon which are slower than the \"ground speed\" of the earth. Since the earth is about 600ish mph faster spinning relative to the moon the water of the oceans is always a bit behind where it wants to bulge out and that does slow us down. But fear not the sun will swell and incenerate the earth before it could become a serious issue."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://puu.sh/ELpEv/13743d581b.png"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
615h5d
|
why do concerts sound kind of bad when you're there, but better at videos?
|
I was just at a concert, front row if that matters, and I felt like all I could hear was the drums. The vocals were almost nonexistent from my perspective. But when I checked a video I took from that concert, the sound is amazing -- so clean. Is there a reason for that?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/615h5d/eli5_why_do_concerts_sound_kind_of_bad_when_youre/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dfbus3u",
"dfbva48"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"You were probably too close to hear anything but the drums, as vocals and instruments (including drums) are fed to the PA's, you probably just heard the unmic'd drums since you were so close (the sound went around/over you, but the drums didn't due to just their nature, so to speak). The audio from the video was either picked up on a real high quality mic on the camera, or pulled right off the mixer. Most videos I've seen recorded in a venue are horrible though as the mic can't handle the volume.... Unless it's pulled off the mixer.",
"Multiple mixes....typ one mixes monitors on stage for the performers to hear, one for the house system and a separate mix for recording....probably cause ur listening to a crappy system, the space has poor acoustics, or the sound guy sucks. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
ecxgaq
|
why can't we catapult rockets?
|
Well, I've always asked myself why can't we use some kind of train or catapult to help the rockets to save fuel or to go further. Can anyone explain me why?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ecxgaq/eli5_why_cant_we_catapult_rockets/
|
{
"a_id": [
"fbe9xwj",
"fbea7yv",
"fbeand0",
"fbebmjl",
"fbef34u",
"fbep4jb",
"fbesoen",
"fbewbke"
],
"score": [
12,
2,
2,
8,
2,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"They need to get up to 28,000km/hr to get into orbit.\n\nStarting at 0km/hr or 40km/hr or even 400km/hr is practically insignificant (especially when the Earth's own rotation adds more than that) and only adds complexity and failure points.\n\nWhen your plan is to accelerate hundreds of tons of rocket fuel in a literal missile to 28,000km/hr, minimizing failure - especially on the ground with people around - is important.",
"The mechanism would have to be absolutely massive and at best it would only save a little bit of fuel. Some sort of mechanism the size of the tallest skyscraper would probably only be able to accelerate the thing up to a hundred miles an hour or so without subjecting the rocket to too much inertial stress, and rockets get to that sort of speed after only a few seconds.",
"There are plans out there for things like this, but they are extreme, even for modern engineering. \n\nIn order to understand the problem, it might help you to understand what a normal rocket has to do in order to get into orbit around the earth. A basic rocket launch has two stages. The first stage is to launch up and out of the Earth's atmosphere. It uses up a ton of fuel, and puts a sustained 5-10 times as much stress on the rocket compared to sitting on the ground. (The rocket, and its payload experience 5-10 g's of force.)\n\nThe second stage of the launch involves turning sideways as you exit the atmosphere, and accelerating to crazy high speeds, so that you are moving so fast you \"miss\" the earth as you fall. If you want to stay in space, you have to get going this fast outside of the atmosphere. This is called orbiting the earth.\n\nNow, a catapult or launch rail system can only do step one. The payload launched up out of the atmosphere has to complete step two on its own. That means delicate rocket engines, fuel tanks, and control systems have to survive the catapult launch. \n\nThis is the big problem. Unlike a normal launch, where the rockets main engine can accelerate you out of the atmosphere at 5-10 g's for a few minutes, a catapult has to do it all at once. That means subjecting the payload to 20-30 g's of force immediately. This would likely kill a human passenger, and probably damage anything aboard the rocket, like those engines and fuel tanks.\n\nNone of this is to say its impossible, only that to do it with modern tech would be way harder than just launching a rocket, and probably way way more expensive.",
"There are actual ideas along those lines, but they are still theoretical because they would need to be extremely huge beyond anything we can easily build today.\n\nThe important thing is that it is not so much about getting into space (which is only a 100 km up) but getting into orbit which means going several dozen times the speed of sound on earth.\n\nRockets are difficult because you need to carry fuel to carry more fuel around, so that your typical rocket that goes into space is mostly fuel and very little actual payload.\n\nThis had let many to think of how we can do this easier, better and cheaper.\n\nThe most famous idea for an alternate orbital insertion system is the space elevator, basically climbing a rope up into space high enough that you reach the point where orbital velocity which you need to stay up is the same speed that you are already going thanks to the rotation of the planet.\n\nEveryone agrees that such a space elevator would be wonderful and cheap and easy and generally much better than rockets with just the minor problem that we don't have any materials strong enough to build one.\n\nOther famous ideas include shooting up your spaceship in a giant gun. This is an idea that actually predates modern rocketry and another thing that would work in theory.\n\nOne problem is that chemical explosion based guns accelerate their projectile really really hard, so that would not work for anything fragile like humans. Magnet based rail guns could work with a much lower acceleration though.\n\nThe bigger problem is that any space gun would need to be enormous. It is another thing that would work in theory but that we don't have the right tech for yet to actually build it. The last guy to actually spend serious money on building anything like that was Saddam Hussein and he was more concerned with reaching some place more down to earth rather than the stars. (Things didn't work out well for him.)\n\nAnother thing that might be come close to a catapult would be a space bola or rotating space tether. It is basically a cut down version of a space elevator that rotates in orbit and has its ends reach down into the atmosphere where a fast flying plane could attack a payload to be catapulted up into higher orbit by the spinning death strand. It is close technology wise to what we might actually be able to build with current tech, but would still be a major undertaking.\n\nIn any case, anything that shoots or catapults stuff into space could save some rocket fuel but you would always need some rockets to make an actual orbit out of it.\n\nThe point is that people have thought along the lines you suggested, come up with ways that would work, but ended up not being able to built the things they came up with because we don't have the materials or the money for that yet.",
"The amount of acceleration need to get to orbital velocity requires that the acceleration be accomplished in a reasonably smooth fashion.\nThere have experiments with artillery launches to orbit but the short violent acceleration just destroys the projectile. A catapult launch to orbit would face the same problem. There’s more.\n\nWe are all familiar will dead satellites, or manned spacecraft, burning up on re entry into the atmosphere. The only way to prevent the payload from burning up in the atmosphere *on the way up* would be to build your catapult taller than the atmosphere. Not practical at all.",
"Getting into orbit requires 3000 G.kms. If you want to accelerate at 3Gs then your catapult needs to be 1000km long. Even if you can tolerate 10Gs that’s still a 300km catapult.\n\nI understand that you’re talking about catapulting a rocket, so the catapult doesn’t do all the work. Even doing just 10% of the work results in needing a huge catapult, like 100km long. And the penalty for adding the rocket is that your catapult now has to handle 10 times more weight.",
"Same reason that we don't build launch sites on mountaintops. The energy it takes to achieve *altitude* is a rounding error compared to the energy it takes to achieve the necessary *speed*.\n\nConsider the projectile that comes out of a 16-inch battleship gun: make it go *ten times* as fast, and you can put it into orbit. Try that with a catapult.",
"it's difficult to justify building an entire other mechanism to launch the rocket when you can just make the fuel tank a bit bigger. compounded by the fact that rockets are actually remarkably efficient on their own."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
kkrh1
|
flouride
|
Can someone explain what it does, why it's in our water, and why a lot of people say it's dangerous?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/kkrh1/eli5_flouride/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c2l1rqt",
"c2l1rqt"
],
"score": [
5,
5
],
"text": [
"It's in water for the same reason it's in toothpaste. It helps your teeth maintain high calcium levels and prevents tooth decay and cavities. (If you want to know the chemistry behind that, just ask and I'll respond with it). \n\nArguments for it are straightforward: it prevents tooth decay and increases oral health. \n\nArguments against it usually include personal freedom (\"It's my right to have rotting teeth, and the government shouldn't be controlling it\") or conspiracy theories (\"The government is using fluoride to control my body\") \n\nA buddy just told me that too much fluoride for baby teeth can actually be harmful (staining) but that fluoride is beneficial for permanent teeth. ",
"It's in water for the same reason it's in toothpaste. It helps your teeth maintain high calcium levels and prevents tooth decay and cavities. (If you want to know the chemistry behind that, just ask and I'll respond with it). \n\nArguments for it are straightforward: it prevents tooth decay and increases oral health. \n\nArguments against it usually include personal freedom (\"It's my right to have rotting teeth, and the government shouldn't be controlling it\") or conspiracy theories (\"The government is using fluoride to control my body\") \n\nA buddy just told me that too much fluoride for baby teeth can actually be harmful (staining) but that fluoride is beneficial for permanent teeth. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
3mehsc
|
how do so many hundreds of people get killed in stampedes at mecca?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mehsc/eli5_how_do_so_many_hundreds_of_people_get_killed/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cvebuwx",
"cvedxz2"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Actually, if you asked a devout Muslim where/when he would want to die, he might say Mecca and he might want to die on the most spiritually fulfilling day of his life. \n\nRegardless, people weren't trampled because nobody cared or trampled anyone on purpose. People were trampled because there were MILLIONS of people in the same enclosed area.",
"My dad went to Mecca several years ago. He told me that the princes allow milk and water trucks to crowd the streets at angles, creating pressure points. Of course they sell them at exuberant prices so very few can afford them. The princes are all only interested in money so they get a share of the profits.\n\nSaudi Arabia had a European company come in and organize Mecca for them. All they had to do was assign each person a colored wristband by country, and they would be paired up with people who speak the same language. They messed up the system and now people get lost everywhere. My father told me that he bought several bottles of water for his trip, but gave them all out because there was elderly people walking around, literally dying of thirst. \n\nHe got caught in one of these stampedes where 1-2 people died, and had to climb a fence to avoid injury."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
78hwr4
|
how do certain celebrities grow old and still function and look (reasonably) good after so many years of extreme drug abuse? i.e mick jagger, bowie, ozzy.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/78hwr4/eli5_how_do_certain_celebrities_grow_old_and/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dotxx30",
"dotzqyo"
],
"score": [
9,
2
],
"text": [
"A lot of makeup, professionally applied and/or cosmetic surgery. In some cases, genes help. But for the most part, they're not naturally as good looking as they appear in public.",
"The bar set pretty low, especially for Ozzy...\n\nSome people are active well into their 80's and 90's. Others become senile at 70. It all depends.\n\nLook at Christopher Lee. The dood was 80 years old and was still acting in movies. Dick Van Dyke is 90 and still active. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
5j1l8f
|
how did humans in ancient times come up with the idea to cook/grill their meat in order to reduce the risk of disease/infection?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5j1l8f/eli5_how_did_humans_in_ancient_times_come_up_with/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dbcl5n0",
"dbclj7f",
"dbclmk3"
],
"score": [
3,
6,
4
],
"text": [
"As with much of what humans discovered it was likely an accident. They probably had meat and were eating it near a fire to keep away predators/provide heat to keep warm and some fell into the fire or was kept too close. It cooked and they liked the taste so they kept doing it. Benefiting form killing pathogens was a happy side benefit. ",
"Couldn't eat frozen meat after a winter kill. Dropped on fire. Was delicious. Big brain.",
"I agree with the above by-product comment, but more likely it was discovered because cooking generally tenderises meat and makes it easier to consume. The useful bacteria-killing factor was probably noticed much much later."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
bez81l
|
how can i hike for hours without stopping but be out of breath after climbing a flight of stairs?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bez81l/eli5_how_can_i_hike_for_hours_without_stopping/
|
{
"a_id": [
"el9l4yg",
"el9odxm",
"el9t747",
"elaa1vt"
],
"score": [
4,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"You're using different muscle fibers. Long and slow (hiking) is different than short and explosive (stairs).",
"Also, when you’re going up stairs, you’re using the muscles at a different length at which they’re not used to, so that require more effort. And walking has a lot to do wirh locomotion, so once you’re going, you’re going , whereas whenever you’re going up stairs, gravity is imposing its will downwards so it requires more effort.",
"Gravity means it requires much more energy to climb stairs than you might realize.\n\nYour muscles are not perfectly efficient and it takes energy each time you move them. But “theoretically” it takes no energy to keep your body moving forwards on a flat surface once it’s already moving. The only force resisting your *continued* motion once you’ve started are inefficiencies in your body itself and air resistance.\n\nOn the other hand, when you climb stairs you’re trying to produce and maintain *upward* motion. Gravity opposes this every step of the way. \n\nIn fact there’s an easy equation to find the minimum energy required just to overcome the force of gravity— U=mgh. Mass times height times the force of gravity. Then you multiply that by whatever inefficiencies are involved with your body actually producing that energy...\n\nThere is no similar equation for walking on flat ground. You’re just dealing with the inefficiency of your own body. So it could be *way* less if you have good walking form.",
"To add... (this is not an answer hope it doesn't get deleted), why can I sometimes run up a flight of stairs like its nothing at all, but other times I only walk up half the same flight and my legs feel like they are on fire and i need to pause a few moments?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2cwa6z
|
when i sit in my car why does warm air from the a/c feel stuffy and heavy while cold air feels sharp and crisp?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cwa6z/eli5_when_i_sit_in_my_car_why_does_warm_air_from/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cjjnxgs"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"Like it's been said already, it has a lot to do with the density of the air and the humidity content. Cooler air is more dense but has more oxygen in it so you breathe easier. Plus, the AC is dehumidifying the air, taking the moisture out. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
1jxqjn
|
why are 100s (longer cigarettes), the same price as regular length cigarettes?
|
why are 100s (longer cigarettes), the same price as regular length cigarettes?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jxqjn/why_are_100s_longer_cigarettes_the_same_price_as/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cbjbp8t",
"cbjcljm",
"cbjcxnc",
"cbjd8i7",
"cbjdja5",
"cbje0ob",
"cbjec28",
"cbjee9c",
"cbjfc2k",
"cbjfi6g",
"cbjh6rb"
],
"score": [
4,
9,
136,
69,
3,
2,
2,
2,
3,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Standard cigarettes used to be referred to as 90's, with the 100's being slightly longer, and Virginia Slims being called 110's. As mentioned earlier, these numbers refer to the approximate length in millimeters of the cigarette.\n\nEach of the above has a similar amount of tobacco in them.\n",
"Most of the price is from taxes, not in cost of production.\n\nWelcome to sin tax.",
"One factor that may be at play here (not knowing enough about cigarettes in particular to say for sure), is that the breakdown of costs is different than you've envisioned in your head.\n\nOne of the most prominent places this comes into play is clothing. The reason a small shirt generally costs the same as an XL is that only a very small portion of the price represents the physical cloth used. The vast majority of the cost comes elsewhere in the process. It costs the same amount of money to design a large shirt as a small one, the same amount to market it, and the cashier doesn't get paid any more or less depending on the size of the clothes people buy that day.\n\nI'd imagine that cigarettes might fit a similar pattern, with the majority of the costs coming from sources beyond raw materials/manufacture.\n\n",
"The filters are longer in the 100s.",
"Not sure where you get your cigarettes. In Texas, 100s have always been more expensive by a small margin in my experience b/c they are longer than normal aka have more tobacco.",
"My guess is that they would take the loss on that tiny bit of tobacco to have someone be that much more addicted to cigarettes",
"They have a different diameter and the filter is a different length. Likewise, cigarettes in boxes are shorter than the same thing in soft pack… but I'm not sure if they make soft packs anymore. ",
"One of the few U.S. items that is measured using the Metric system. ",
"Ive asked this question before myself, and with no clear answer on the internet it was time to bust out the scale. I opened up and weighed the amount of tobacco in newport 100s and shorts to find that the amount of tobacco in both was identical, the difference it seems between shorts and 100s is the length of the filter and the density of factory packing (the 100s tobacco is much less packed so it takes a bit more space).",
"I've weighed cigarettes in a lab back in college. Both regular and 100's have one gram of tobacco. ",
"Actually there is not a difference. King size cigarettes have a larger circumfrence. 100s are longer. The difference is subtle but both have the same amount of tobacco."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
a1f1on
|
how/why does someone claim for bankruptcy if they are actually very wealthy with no bills, or debt? (just heard warren sapp, football legend, briefly talk about this in an interview).
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a1f1on/eli5_howwhy_does_someone_claim_for_bankruptcy_if/
|
{
"a_id": [
"eaplmoj"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"What makes you think wealthy people have no bills/debt? Football players are notoriously bad with money and many of them rack up significant debts despite making large salaries\n\nFor your Warren Sapp example, in 2010 he owed PNC bank $988K, the IRS around $900k, and was $876k behind on alimony and child support. When the bankruptcy went through he had $6.4M in assets but $6.7M in debts\n\nMost wealthy people also have significant quantities of debt, that's how you leverage your money into more money"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3qu116
|
why would apple have so much of their assets in cash?
|
According to [this] (_URL_0_) article Apple has $205bn in cash. Is it normal to keep so much cash on hand? Don't firms generally want to minimize the amount of cash they have in favor of interest bearing investments or at least some other form of capital? Please explain.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qu116/eli5_why_would_apple_have_so_much_of_their_assets/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cwiaka9",
"cwib879",
"cwib9qv",
"cwik14t",
"cwikfo2",
"cwiogje"
],
"score": [
80,
12,
227,
6,
2,
7
],
"text": [
"It is not normal... Apple has way more cash than they'd like to have sitting around...\n\nProblem is... they don't have anywhere to spend it. Normally a company with that much cash would be buying other companies... but there is nobody Apple wants to buy. ",
"Apple is owned by investors, and its purpose is to generate profit for investors. There are three main ways you get profit from investing in a company:\n\n* Buying debt from the company, sometimes called \"corporate bonds\". As an example, you give the company $1000, and a year later, it gives you back $1100. Regardless of how much money it's made or lost in the meantime. You no longer own any part of the company, but you've made $100 profit.\n\n* Buying equity (shares) from the company, and the company giving you dividends. A dividend is where the company dishes out some money, out of its profits, to everyone who owns shares. You buy $1000 worth of shares, and the company gives out a dividend of $100. You still own the shares.\n\n* Buying equity (shares) of the company, and the company increases in value. You buy $1000 worth of shares, and then the company's share price increases because the company is (or is seen as being) more valuable. Maybe it's got more assets (cash, real estate, whatever), maybe it's expected to make more money in the future. Whatever the reason, your shares are now worth $1100. You can hold onto them, or sell them and keep the $100 profit.\n\nThe thing is, methods 1 and 2 are treated as regular income, so you pay income tax on that $100 at your regular rate. Method 3 is usually treated as \"capital gains\", so you pay a lower rate of income tax on it. That makes you happy, as an investor, so you're going to encourage the company to hold onto its assets rather than dishing out dividends.\n\nThis leads to companies keeping huge sums of money just sitting around (\"dead money\" is one term used to describe this), and it's become a [big problem](_URL_0_). Some have suggested that a way to fix this would be to eliminate the tax advantages for capital gains, and treat it as regular income, so there's no longer any advantage to the investor to have the company hoard money.",
"Well, understand it's not *cash*. That would be crazy. It's invested, and making money. \n\nThis would be fine for you and me, but isn't good for a company. They need to be investing in themselves, building out facilities, putting money into R & D, acquiring new properties...Unfortunately, they have so *much* money, that they're hitting a point where they can't productively spend any more on those things. It's not a bad place to be, but it's not *efficient*.",
"Really, Steve Jobs started this nest egg for Apple after he returned in the 90s, because of how Apple was *always* very close to financial ruin for the bulk of its existence. He created the culture where they needed to sack away as much money as possible, for as long as possible, in the event that they ended up in tough times again.\n\nHowever, it was less based on sound financial reasoning - i.e. saving up for future investments, and more on emotional reasoning - saving up in the event of \"something bad happening\". There really was no long-term plan to deliberately save up THIS MUCH money.\n\nAnd while folks say it's currently invested, that's not really true. This money is reported as \"liquid\" assets - cash reserves, NOT investments. Assets tied up in the stock market are not necessarily considered liquid. This is actual cash in the bank, probably earning interest, but otherwise sitting rather passively as a hedge.\n\nApple isn't the only company these days with liquid assets sitting more-or-less passively; since hte great recession, a lot of companies have beefed up their cash reserves so that they have easily liquid funds available at a moment's notice. It could be argued that our recovery has been slowed *because* of these assets. Much like how the Great Depression was worsened with the loss of faith in banks and people holding onto money outside of the banking system, deliberately holding onto large sums of money without putting it back into the active money supply hinders economic growth. When you talk about 200 BILLION DOLLARS not doing much, and add onto the even more companies globally with liquid assets, that's a significant brake on the economy.\n\n",
"The word cash really means \"cash and cash equivalents\" so it counts all highly liquid assets, not just a checking account. ",
"These answers so far are incorrect. These companies would give the cash back to shareholders through dividends or stock buybacks if they could without paying tax.\n\nThe reason a lot of multinational companies like Apple (or Pfizer in the pharmaceutical space) have huge cash balances is because the money is trapped overseas. What this means is that if they bring the cash back to the US, or give it to shareholders, they need to pay the 35% corporate tax on it. Technically, this tax rate would be less whatever they paid in the jurisdiction where they made the money, but let's not worry about that here.\n\nSo then you might say, you're gonna have to pay the tax eventually, why not just bring it back and pay the tax and use it for some productive purpose? The reason why they don't do that is sometimes the government gives corporations a \"repatriation holiday\" where people can bring their cash back without paying taxes. They did this in 2004, I believe, because they wanted companies to spend on R & D and create jobs, but all they did with the money is buy back stock and pay dividends, which pissed politicians off. Pfizer did this.\n\nThe other reason they leave the money overseas is because they may do something called a \"tax inversion\" where they essentially become a foreign company buy buying another foreign company. Politicians hate that shit. Pfizer is trying to buy a foreign company called Allergan right now to do this tax inversion thing.\n\nTLDR: Companies made the money overseas, and if they bring the cash back from overseas they have to pay US taxes on it. You're allowed to invest the money you made overseas overseas, but most of these companies don't have enough overseas opportunities for the cash they generate, like Apple."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/27/apple-2015-revenue-iphone-sales"
] |
[
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_saving_glut"
],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3t1ahi
|
what happens to government officials who don't get re-elected - do they have to revert to a normal career or are they downgraded to a lower government role?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3t1ahi/eli5_what_happens_to_government_officials_who/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cx26iul",
"cx26lhb",
"cx26win"
],
"score": [
5,
2,
4
],
"text": [
"'Government officials' normally means civil servants. These people may be political appointees (if their boss loses their job, they lose theirs), or they may be politically neutral government employees (long-term career, there for decades).\n\nElected post-holders who have to run for re-election, and lose their bids for re-election have no job anymore, and need to find a new one. To take some examples from a recent UK general election, Julian Huppert was in Parliament on long leave from his lectureship at Cambridge University, and went back to it when he lost his seat, many other former MPs are still unemployed six months on.",
"generally they revert to some other career. Really notable politicians (think US president etc) often make a living by writing or going on speaking tours.\n\nFor a funny example, Patrick Brazeau. He's a Canadian senator who's currently suspended from the house (so he's not actually lost his position (yet), but he can't do anything with and isn't collecting a salary from it). Right now he's working as the day shift manager in a strip club. \n",
"In the United States, it usually means they land much higher paying jobs in the private sector from companies their policies were friendly to... ie. GOP landing jobs with defense contractors or oil companies, or they become lobbyists or rainmakers for groups they're connected to.\n\nMany times, U.S. gov't officials will leave gov't, go make their millions in private sector, and then return to gov't. For example, Rahm Emanuel was a Clinton staffer, then joined an investment bank for a few years where he made a fortune, before serving in Congress for a time, and then becoming Obama's chief of staff."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
4my084
|
why are paedophiles, paedophiles? is it a mental illness, that cant be helped, or is it a choice?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4my084/eli5_why_are_paedophiles_paedophiles_is_it_a/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d3z7r0v",
"d3z8hh7",
"d3z8vwr"
],
"score": [
19,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Many believe it's a matter of sexual fixation.\n\nBasically the logic is that when you hit puberty, you look for sexual partners around your age. For many, this is during teenage years - for others this can happen considerably earlier (some as low as age 9).\n\nSo following the logic, if you hit puberty very early, you can have your sexual preference \"set\" towards those who, at the time of puberty, were your age group.\n\nThis is a leading belief as to why the \"kinky school girl\" outfit the most popular dress-up items in adult stores - since most people hit puberty during school.\n\nAs for choice? No. Like everything else on the sexual spectrum, there is no \"choice\" - only ever the choice to *act* upon those desires.",
"Your sexual preferences develop through your early years and then are pretty damn set at the end of it. Factors influencing these preferences in these years are... *uncomfortably* many: it's been postulated that a toddler feeling her father's beard could some day develop a fixation on facial hair.\n\nIn any case, it is NEVER acceptable to abuse children, but you do have to realize that a person with a fixation on children is pretty much stuck for life on that, and they're probably in a really shitty position for it. In the event that they manifest as decent human beings who don't act out on their desires, you do have to feel a little bad for them.",
"To the best of current psychological knowledge, true pedophilia (where someone is primairily or only aroused sexually by children), is something that people cannot choose and which cannot be cured; the best that can be done for such people is to provide support and training so that they learn to live and deal with the frustration of never satisfying their urges, and avoid fooling themselves into believing that there are children who *want* to have sex with them.\n\nHowever, a large percentage of sexual child abuse is committed by people who are not actually pedophiles, but who do it because they want to feel powerful and in control, and cannot achieve that with an adult. Most of these offenders suffered themselves from various forms of child abuse when they were children.\n\nIn any case, it should be noted that classifying these as mental illnesses has absolutely nothing to do with \"justifying\" the crimes or saying that the offenders are not responsible for their own behaviour - but understanding them better is important because it can help preventing such people from committing these crimes in the first place, which punishments really don't achieve very well."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
31k0s3
|
why is there glare in the afternoons but not in the mornings?
|
Say I'm driving around at 10 am facing east. I don't get any glare. However, if i'm driving in the afternoon facing west, there's glare.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/31k0s3/eli5_why_is_there_glare_in_the_afternoons_but_not/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cq2aigx"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Has a lot to do with the time of year and how early the sun is rising/setting. But at 10am this time of year, the sun has been up above the horizon for a few hours and is generally out of direct view while driving. But in the later afternoon, say 4-5pm, it's starting to set and will be directly in your line of vision. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
b8dnrd
|
why is solitary confinement not considered cruel and unusual punishment?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b8dnrd/eli5_why_is_solitary_confinement_not_considered/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ejxcgui",
"ejxdc2o"
],
"score": [
7,
5
],
"text": [
"[In some places it is. ](_URL_0_) \n\nAs with most situations in prisons, some people believe that prisons *should* be cruel and unusual punishment. Most people don’t really think about it. The people who do care have a hard time being heard, because others tell them to worry about more important things or to stop being “bleeding hearts”.",
"Essentially, \"cruel and unusual punishment\" is a term that is subject to immense controversy. Few can agree on what exactly constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. The US Constitution prohibits it, but it doesn't mention at all what counts as cruel and unusual punishment.\n\nThis is my cynical explanation: whatever happens to outrage the public is what is considered cruel and unusual punishment. \n\nPeople are generally apathetic to what goes on in our prisons, and many people are outright sadists who want criminals to be subjected to pain, misery, and humiliation. Sometimes conscience breaks through, and people will come to be outraged by certain abuses. If our prisons were like *whipping* prisoners, for example, that would probably outrage the public. But for the most part, people don't care, and since the prison guards insist they need to use solitary confinement for maintaining order and discipline, the courts are hesitant to rule that it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-solitary-confinement-for-more-than-15-days-constitutes-cruel-and/"
],
[]
] |
||
3ei4jy
|
parental advisory labels on cds
|
What determines what records get the PA rating? One cd I own has the PA label and another doesnt. They both have the same amount of language so why does one have it and the other not?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ei4jy/eli5_parental_advisory_labels_on_cds/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ctf5swq",
"ctf61dr"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"One might have snuck through the censors, or maybe that artist doesn't have a reputation yet. Thank Tipper Gore for those labels. ",
"The parental advisory label isn't mandatory. It's voluntary.\n\nThe RIAA puts out guidelines and each record label can decide for each record if it wants to put that label on or not. Theres no incentive to do it or not to do it."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
27vro9
|
why do i remember the lyrics to a song that i haven't heard since 1994, but i can't remember what i did a few days ago?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27vro9/eli5_why_do_i_remember_the_lyrics_to_a_song_that/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ci4u3el",
"ci4ur5n",
"ci4v0gw"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"What you did five days ago didn't have a good beat, nor could you dance to it. ",
"It's about long and short term memory. The song has been stored in your long term memory, so you have less trouble remembering it. What you did yesterday is most likely not stored in your long term memory, rather your short term memory, which is wiped every now and then.",
"I think it's all about triggers.\n\nIf I start singing a song from 20 years ago, you'll probably be able to figure out how it goes because you heard it a thousand times. Not true with obscure things - like your high school locker combination or that one awful song your friend played that one time in middle school.\n\nI imagine if you had a trigger for what you did yesterday, you could probably fill in the rest.\n\nI usually hear a phrase that was from a song or a movie and my brain just keeps going. I think it's the same with a number of things - conversations, games, TV shows, memes, popular quotes etc.\n\nBut then again, I know nothing..."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
4vvacw
|
why is the "gold standard" based on gold in today's world? wouldn't a mineral more widely used in manufacturing make more sense?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4vvacw/eli5_why_is_the_gold_standard_based_on_gold_in/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d61ohru",
"d61oju3"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"The \"gold standard\" is based on gold because it has \"gold\" in the name. The gold standard isn't used in most modern day economies.",
"I don't know why so many currencies have historically been backed by gold, but it's worth mentioning that few countries actually use the gold standard anymore because it hampers the ability of central banks to use monetary policy to fight recessions."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
577u7r
|
how am i stronger than people who appear very muscular?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/577u7r/eli5_how_am_i_stronger_than_people_who_appear/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d8ppcbw",
"d8pph2e",
"d8pqprx",
"d8pyd91",
"d8q14kz",
"d8q1lsk",
"d8q46eh"
],
"score": [
8,
20,
8,
2,
5,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Can you elaborate on the physical tests? because my ex-philosophy teacher was a profession arm wrestler and he said it is mainly technique, not strength",
"One possibility is the neuromuscular connection. A big part of strength is actually having the neurological ability to activate your muscles to high degree. A lot of beginner's strength gains are actually just the development of the neurological coordination needed to contract their muscles more.\n\nThis is also why mentally disabled people and persons in an intense situation can be stronger than an average person the same size. You may just have better control over your muscles than your friends.\n\nAnother thing I've seen, but am not as sure about, is that larger muscles can be due to increase in muscle fiber size or possibly actual numbers of muscle fibers - scientists aren't sure if the number of fibers increase with exercise yet. You may just be lucky to have more muscular tissue than your friends while their size is due to cell enlargement from organelle proliferation or something along those lines. Maybe I'm mistaken but I believe that more muscle fibers > larger muscle fibers when it comes to strength of the muscle.",
"Muscle size is an awful indicator of strength and it often comes down to the type of muscle fibers the person has, how much torque those muscle fibers can generate and the neurological ability of that person to combine those muscles to apply force. \n\nSome of it is genetic ability but often it comes down to specificity in training to develop the correct type of fibers for the task, whatever that may be. ",
"Arm wrestling and rough housing is all pretty meaningless test of strength. It could just be that you have better technique or your friend isn't giving his all. Go do a squat or deadlift competition, then you'll know who's truly stronger. ",
"I'm not a scientist but when I first went to the Gym the trainer asked me I waited to train on strength or on having muscles. I said strength obviously isn't that the same. he explained that it isn't. People with big heavy bloated muscles don't focus on lifting the most they do exercises that make the muscle look bigger and not necessarily make it lift more or make you stronger. Although I imagine most have a decent strength, just not as much as you'd think.",
"Odds are you're a manlet. Shorter appendages=better leverage from anchor points. My buddy is 5'3\" with shorter arms and cannot lose in arm wrestling to any of us who workout",
"Have been bodybuilding for 5 years now and i have gathered this: Like stated before by someone,there is two ways of muscle building. One is that you lift heavy things/weights and you get stronger but you do not get much results in adding muscle mass,so in your case you might have a job/have done alot of chores as a kid so you are used to lifting,carryng things that weigh much. And the other thing is pumping, it is done by light weights and many reps,so if they have been hitting the gym etc. then they just have been adding muscle mass for the looks and not doing the proper strenght exercises. (Sorry for any english mistakes,it isent my first language)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3hpkq8
|
why do actors such as johnny depp and brad pitt (both in their 50's) look so much better/younger than most regular men in their 50's?
|
How do I save myself from the same fate as the common man and look like that when i'm in my 50's?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3hpkq8/eli5_why_do_actors_such_as_johnny_depp_and_brad/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cu9dsm4",
"cu9dt24",
"cu9e35u",
"cu9e689",
"cu9ebvy",
"cu9fquv",
"cu9s66l"
],
"score": [
29,
10,
3,
3,
4,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"If you saw them rolling out of bed, you would not be asking this question.\n\nCelebrities prepare for public showings as if they were in a car show. They work out, have someone make their food, and get make up done.\n\nGoing to Starbucks? You'll notice they wear hats and sunglasses.",
"A professional level of effort and incredible resources put towards making sure they stay looking good. It's literally their job.",
"The secret to looking good when you're 50? Be ridiculously hot when you're 25. Also, they get paid millions of dollars for it. This shit IS their job. ",
"You don't. They were chosen for films and stuff *because* they are unusually good looking, which generally includes looking youthful.\n\nYou can not-ruin yourself with sun tans or obesity, and you can dress well and stay in shape and get hair cuts, maybe plastic surgery.\n\nBut if there was a tested and proven way to look young and beautiful ... wouldn't everyone do it? Wouldn't everyone know it?",
"A few different ways. Plastic surgery, always wearing makeup, being pnotoshopped in everything. Hollywood likes to keep up the image of an actor. ",
"Staying in shape helps tremendously. Much of what ages people is being fat and out of shape- faces get bloated, shoulders get slumpy, and bellies protrude. Go look at progress pics- when someone loses a bunch of weight they almost always look 10-20 years younger. \n\nNearly every older person I see and think \"Boy they look great for their age\" is in good physical condition.",
"A lot of it is lucky genetics. If money and being an a list celebrity were all it took then val Kilmer wouldn't look like he does"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2817m6
|
can someone eli5 how tesla opening up their patents is going to help new auto company startups?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2817m6/eli5_can_someone_eli5_how_tesla_opening_up_their/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cj5rtf6",
"ci6e7z8",
"ci6f9op"
],
"score": [
2,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"It's like teaching someone how to play chess before playing them. You give em the blueprint and teach em the rules and then may the best man win. \n\nWithout the blueprint, the newb chess player doesn't stand a chance.",
"Less research = less money to spend in the creation of the entreprise = faster beginning + more profit",
"If Coke puts out their formula, everyone can make it, and maybe improve on it, instead of trying to recreate Coke from scratch to then start changing it.\nAnd ultimately it puts more of the thing out there (in this case electric cars) which will hopefully push the thing and lead to improvements they just couldn't have made I their own.\nNo matter how smart you are, someone else will have an idea you will simply have never had.\n\nTLDR: it saves other companies some effort to help the overall market and not just themselves, good guy tesla."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
5kwmq1
|
how exactly do llc's protect your assets? would love responses from actual lawyers.
|
A buddy of mine has decided he wants to open a business. He plans to take out half a million in loans in order to do so in order to open on a big scale. I mentioned this is a lot of liability if things fail and maybe he should start smaller. He said it's not a big deal at all because he will put all the business assets in an LLC. If things fail, the creditors can only come after whatever is in the LLC and not him personally. He is in no danger of bankruptcy if the business fails as they can only go after the LLC and not him. Is this really how an LLC works?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5kwmq1/eli5how_exactly_do_llcs_protect_your_assets_would/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dbr56t5",
"dbr56xb",
"dbr5cdg",
"dbr8y7a"
],
"score": [
4,
15,
9,
2
],
"text": [
"Well, yes. That's the purpose of the LLC idea - to entice entrepeneurs to take such risks and start such businesses. \n\nOf course, lenders also know this, and will consider the credit-worthiness of the entity or entities trying to borrow from them - including things like the amount of assets available as collateral. \nFor a new business they may not want to make a deal unless there are one or more co-signers as well as the borrowing LLC. Those co-signers have then agreed that the creditor can pursue their personal assets to cover the LLC's debts in a default. ",
"Sort of. \n\nAn LLC is an invention of the 1980s. Before LLCs became common place, you were either a partnership or a corporation, basically. In a partnership, you can essentially shake hands and into business together, bearing the loss equally, being taxed as individuals because the partnership is not a legal entity separate from its members, and sharing profits equally. Of course, loss sharing can be altered by contract. Corporations on the other hand issue stock, have various business filings, ect ect. Corporations are also taxed twice, once on their own income, and again when profits are distributed. Corporations are considered a legal individual seperate from its shareholders. \n\nLLCs came about because several large partnerships, mostly law firms, were sued in the 80s. An attorney in New York who was a partner in a California firm could be sued as a partner even if he had no involvement in the lawsuit. In most cases, you have to sue all the partners in a partnership anyway. That's what the law requires. \n\nAnyway, LLCs make its members only liable for their investment in the company. If I invest $100,000 in an LLC, and it get sued, I'm only liable for my own investment. Also, LLC can choose to be taxed as partnership or as a corporation while retaining the limited liability that comes with being an LLC. \n\nStarting an LLC doesn't automatically make you immune. There's a legal theory called \"piercing the corporate veil.\" Sometimes individuals like to hide behind corporations or LLCs. For instance, a homebuilder might start an LLC by buy groceries, pay bills, and draw money for personal use from the LLC's account. Also, this homebuilder might have no individual identity separate from his LLC. He might not hold board meetings and keep minutes. In this case, a court can ignore the fact that homebuilder has an LLC because except for the name ____ LLC he isn't functioning as an LLC. \n\nSo, basically, if you want an LLC to protect your assets you have to keep it completely separate from your own personal finances in every way, otherwise the corporate veil can be pierced. ",
"Not a lawyer, but an MBA. Yes, in general an LLC will protect someone's personal assets during corporate bankruptcy. This is because the LLC is legally a separate entity from the owner.\n\nHowever, there is a concept called \"piercing the corporate veil,\" where a court will rule that the owner is personally liable for the corporation's debts. There are a number of times this can happen, depending on jurisdiction, but the big universal ones are when the owner commits fraud or some other illegal act using the corporation, and when the owner doesn't run the LLC as a corporation (no Board minutes documenting major ddcisions, no written policies, etc) but rather as a sole proprietorship - in this case, the court is likely to rule the LLC is a sham and strip the corporate protections. Paperwork can't shield you if you don't run it the way it's supposed to be.\n\nIf your friend is serious, I highly recommend *paying* a lawyer to help him make sure he's doing things right. Free advice is worth exactly what you pay for it.",
"Any loan he gets he will have to personally sign for. No bank in its right mind is going to loan money to an LLC with no history or assets. He will have to personally guarantee the loan somehow.\n\nDepending on the nature of his business his suppliers might also require him to sign some sort of personal guarantee of payment."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
20fzdc
|
what are dll files and why do they cause ninety nine percent of my computer issues?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20fzdc/eli5_what_are_dll_files_and_why_do_they_cause/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cg2v6uk"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"A dll is a \"Dynamic Link Library\" and is basically a library of common routines that may be used by many different programs.\n\nFor example, the code needed to present something like an onscreen menu would be in a dll so that the code doesn't need to be repeated in every program. The idea is to save space (memory).\n\nThe reason dll's are often part of a problem is because they are common to many programs - not just one.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
60nwvt
|
how did the acceptance and promotion of drug and alcohol use (e.g., marijuana, percocet, codeine, xanax, hennessy, molly) become so common in pop culture, notably the music industry?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60nwvt/eli5_how_did_the_acceptance_and_promotion_of_drug/
|
{
"a_id": [
"df7uj60",
"df7ujj4",
"df7utee"
],
"score": [
13,
2,
7
],
"text": [
"It always has been, pretty much. Different eras had different addictions, of course, and alcohol is the most common in older times.\n\nRemoving the alcohol, since that's legal, you still get references to drug use as early as the 1930s, with artists like Herb Morland and Cab Calloway. In the 70s, there was a growth of hard drug references in songs, like \"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds\" (LSD).",
"Follow up question: is it the other way around ie: the music industry caters to popular trends and develops lyrics around them?",
"Drugs and drug use has always been a bit of the \"underground\" culture in society. Lots of listeners and musicians were experimenting with drugs and enhancing their own experiences with music through drug use. Music during the mid 60s was diving into extreme physcadellics and going against the \"man.\" I think that rebellion and disestablishmentarianism has further cultivated the popularity of drug use in the world of music. When the government bans things that people take pleasure in, and a musician who has a huge following speaks out against that ban, it can have a tremendous effect on culture. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
7dmt0a
|
how do planes crash into each other?
|
I dunno, seems like there's an awful lot of sky to use. How do such things happen?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7dmt0a/eli5_how_do_planes_crash_into_each_other/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dpywbat",
"dpyy26h"
],
"score": [
4,
2
],
"text": [
"It is pretty uncommon, because yes the sky is quite big. It is more common around airports because the plane concentration is much higher there of course. Also, planes of particular types tend to use very similar routes and altitudes because they are the most efficient. Finally, air traffic controllers use holding patterns that are fairly consistent to avoid the mistakes that can come from complexity. These factors make a small increase in the probability of a collision, but I would imagine the overall safety gains more than off that risk. \n\nAlso I’m sure there is some selection bias when you hear/think about aircraft collisions. They’re quite rare but extremely memorable. ",
"Although the sky is huge, most of it is not used by planes. To help keep track of the traffic, most commercial planes are routed through fairly narrow imaginary lanes in the sky.\n\nCheck out [this NASA map](_URL_0_) showing air traffic lines in the USA for example.\n\nThe density gets *much* higher near an airport, where planes must line up quite precisely to land."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/sherlockclt.png"
]
] |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.